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Mo Xuanyu's fits ceased with a vicious, intense finale on the day of Nie Mingjue's death.
Not that he realized the connection until afterwards.
He had suffered from them since he was a child, sudden bursts of pain and later madness that descended upon him with seemingly no cause. When he first asked his mother about the confusing hurts, she told him they were the sign of a great gift.
"When you feel pain for no reason," she said, with an intense kind of excitement that made Mo Xuanyu's heart flutter, "a hurt that doesn't come from a bumped head or a scraped knee of your own, it means you are feeling your soulmate alive somewhere in this world." A soulmate, his mother explained, was a special person your fate was connected to. This person could take many forms once Mo Xuanyu found them — a future wife, or a sworn brother, or maybe even a teacher — and their partnership would be strengthened by sharing each other's hardship since before they ever met.
"Who is your soulmate, a-Niang?" Mo Xuanyu had asked, with all the innocent curiosity of a child. "Is it Fuqin, who comes visit us?"
His mother smiled, but her eyes were sad, and Mo Xuanyu knew he had said something wrong. "Not everybody is so blessed as to share a lifetime with their soulmate," she answered. "Be happy that you may someday find yours."
It soon became obvious that his soulmate, whoever they were, lived a complicated life. There were the normal things at first — stubbed toes, little cuts to the hands, muscle aches from long hours of training that Mo Xuanyu had certainly not done — until one day, a few years after his father had stopped visiting them, a roaring black flood of outrage mingled with grief crashed into Mo Xuanyu and did not ease for weeks.
He sobbed into his mother's lap, asking why the gods would be so cruel. Without even knowing the reason, Mo Xuanyu felt crushed by his soulmate's pain. How much worse must it be for them? How could anyone endure feeling like this? What was the point of feeling it when he couldn't do anything to help?
This time, his mother did not call it a blessing, only pet his hair as he wept.
After that, the pain never fully left. It would come upon Mo Xuanyu unexpectedly, bowl him over with a wave of that maddening despair, and leave him gasping. He had no context for this kind of suffering, nothing to hold onto to make sense of it. Physical pain was almost a relief — at least those hurts he could understand. Once the cultivators' war broke out, Mo Xuanyu learned what it felt like to be stabbed and sliced, to feel the weariness of long hours on his feet, fighting for his life. To be bound and beaten.
He was not yet twelve when the war finally ended.
Life in Mo Village became harder. When Mo Xuanyu had been small — when his father still visited — things had seemed wonderful. But now Mo Xuanyu noticed the whispers and sneers of the villagers when he and his mother passed by. Even his aunt, who used to indulge him, letting him sit on the floor of her room and watch her put her make up on in the morning, had no patience for him once her baby was born, shooing Mo Xuanyu out of any room she found him in to go find some way to make himself useful to the family that so graciously housed and fed a bastard like him. The hurts and black fits from his soulmate, which had once earned him sympathy when they came upon him, now seemed just another reason for everyone's distaste.
All except for his mother, of course, who would hold him and whisper promises that one day, his father would surely return to take him as a disciple of the mighty Lanling Jin.
Mo Xuanyu hoped that as a cultivator, he would be able to find his soulmate and fix whatever it was that kept them in so much pain. He began to dream of them in those years. They were clearly a fighter, given what he'd felt during the war. Perhaps they would be a senior disciple in the Jin Sect, someone who could train Mo Xuanyu in the sword path. Someone tall, and strong, with a powerful body and the refined air of an immortal, who would correct Mo Xuanyu's stance with a stern expression and big, warm hands that—
Mo Xuanyu would awake from these dreams with sticky pants and a burning face and the shameful awareness that not once did he dream of a future wife.
In his fourteenth year, Jin Guangshan returned to claim Mo Xuanyu as his son after all. His mother did not cry when he left home. She was certain, she told him — and everyone who'd gathered to gawk at his father's fine golden carriage — that he would quickly become an immortal sword master. Mo Xuanyu was determined to make her proud.
"Well, that was an embarrassing spectacle," Jin Guangshan said as they pulled away. "Hasn't lost her figure at least, I'll grant her that much." Mo Xuanyu had no idea how to respond to this, but luckily for him Jin Guangshan didn't seem to expect him to. "An immortal." He snorted. "Closest we've seen to that in a century was that tyrant Ruohan, and A-Yao put a sword through his heart just fine. Good to have a war hero in the family, of course, but then after all that business with Wei Ying…" Jin Guangshan trailed off, looking pensive for the first time. Then he shook himself, and fixed Mo Xuanyu with a stare. "So now I have a backstabbing whoreson as the heir to my clan, styling himself as Lianfang-zun and pretending all he wants is to please me. You'll remind him to whom he owes his good fortune."
It would be the first and last real conversation Mo Xuanyu ever shared with his father.
In the disciples' quarters in Golden Carp Tower, Mo Xuanyu soon discovered there was not much difference between being the disfavored son of the most influential family in a small town and being the disfavored son of the leader of one of the Great Sects. The other disciples his age were far ahead of him in their cultivation, and hard as Mo Xuanyu worked to catch up, it quickly became clear that despite his paternity, he was hiding no prodigious natural talent. Everyone seemed to know where he'd come from, and why, and so made sure not to get too friendly with him.
His black fits were getting worse, too. Some of the others bragged about feeling their soulmate, but here where every weakness was someone else's weapon, Mo Xuanyu told no one about his, and tried as hard as he could to disguise what he felt. The instructors and other disciples surely thought he was slacking off in his training — some of the older boys teased him about being too young to have such frequent hangovers — but it was often all Mo Xuanyu could do to plead illness and hide himself away to be sick. As the months stretched on, he would find himself nearly blinded by the pain, filled with an anguished rage he could hardly comprehend and left reeling for hours after it ebbed.
Mo Xuanyu's dreams of finding his soulmate also took a darker turn, haunting him night after night with gruesome visions of his soulmate strung up in some dungeon, subjected to horrific bloody tortures that might explain the immense pain Mo Xuanyu felt from him. And night after night, dream after dream, Mo Xuanyu was always too late to save him.
Then came the day Mo Xuanyu was certain he was going to die.
The Sect Leader, along with Jin Guangyao and most of the older disciples, were away in Qinghe for a martial arts conference. Though he was now of an age, Mo Xuanyu had been left behind with the children, far too untalented to compete at such a public event. He was taking advantage of the rare freedom to poke around in the library of cultivation texts when he felt his heart clench violently in his chest.
Burning flames raced through his body, scorching his meridians like lightning and causing him to collapse to the floor with a shout. Warm blood filled his mouth — he must have bitten his tongue — and his vision went white. Some servants ran over who must've heard him cry out, but Mo Xuanyu could not make out the questions they asked him, much less attempt to answer. He shook and writhed across the floor, certain his body was tearing itself apart, until with a sudden, final burst of agony — everything ceased.
Heartbroken, Mo Xuanyu lay on the floor and wept.
He remembered his mother's sad smile, all those years ago, and finally understood. His body still ached with the echoes of a pain that had never really been his, but Mo Xuanyu knew, with a certainty he could not possibly explain, that his soulmate was no longer in this world.
Rumors flew as swiftly as they always did, and the news arrived in Golden Carp Tower before the Jin delegation returned: Sect Leader Nie Mingjue had died of qi deviation, slashing several people with his saber in his insane rage, including his own brother!
It was possible, of course, that Mo Xuanyu's soulmate had been one of the unfortunate victims of the late Sect Leader's mindless attack, or some other poor suffering soul somewhere in the wide world, but Mo Xuanyu knew, just as he'd known the moment of his death, that what he'd felt in the library was Nie Mingjue's final qi deviation.
It was strange, to secretly mourn a man who had only ever caused Mo Xuanyu pain, but Nie Mingjue had no more chosen their connection than Mo Xuanyu had. He'd felt all of Mo Xuanyu's skinned knees and bumped heads as a child, all his training bruises and aching muscles of the last months. Mo Xuanyu wondered, not for the first time, if his small pains had even registered against the immense weight of painful grief that his soulmate bore, the grief that he now knew the source of. It felt indecent, almost, that Mo Xuanyu should have this intimacy with a man he had never met. With hindsight, Mo Xuanyu could recall the moments he'd felt his soulmate's pain and map them against the storied tale of Chifeng-zun's tumultuous short life. The loss of his father. Fighting on the front lines during the war. His capture and torture by Wen Ruohan's troops.
What didn't make sense, now that Mo Xuanyu knew it was a qi deviation that he had felt, was how far back his fits stretched. With hindsight, he recognized in them a series of minor qi deviations, going back years and steadily worsening over the last several months. What's more, a number of them corresponded with the dates that Jin Guangyao had traveled to Qinghe. He'd gathered from the gossip that there was tension between the Nie and the Jin since the discussion conference about that delinquent Xue Yang, but surely just seeing his sworn brother wouldn't be enough to provoke Nie Mingjue into qi deviation?
Mo Xuanyu put his questions aside, before they got him into trouble.
It was strange, living without his soulmate. Mo Xuanyu kept catching himself bracing, as the days went by, waiting for that heavy black weight to descend upon him, before remembering that it wouldn't come for him again. He made some progress in his cultivation, not enough to impress anyone, but for the first time in a long time, Mo Xuanyu felt the excitement of possibility. His instructors seemed pleased with his "improved health," and by the time Jin Guangyao's wedding feast arrived, Mo Xuanyu even celebrated along with the other disciples, eating and drinking long into the night.
To his surprise, Jin Guangyao began to take notice of him. Since his arrival, and mindful of their father's reasons for fetching him here in the first place, Mo Xuanyu had done his best to keep his head down and stay out of his brother's way. This was not very difficult when his days were filled with remedial training and hiding while riding out secondhand qi deviations, but now Jin Guangyao sought him out to ask after his progress and inquire whether he had any interest in talismans and arrays.
"I have something of a delicate project I'm overseeing," Jin Guangyao explained. "I thought, since you're family…"
The project consisted of Xue Yang, freshly exonerated, and a stack of manuscripts by the late Yiling Laozu. They were searching for notes on any weapons or dangerous techniques that he might have taught to others before his demise — "for the safety of the jianghu, of course." Mo Xuanyu was not so naive as to believe this was the only reason, but the man's notes were fascinating, once you'd deciphered the chicken scratch of his calligraphy. He'd been a genius, if a heretical one, and very broad in his areas of interest. There were the expected notes on the raising of fierce corpses and the summoning of vengeful spirits, but there were also drafts of talismans for things like cleansing depleted soil, magical binding, and one that looked like it would either cure or induce hiccups.
Mo Xuanyu was surprised to find several mentions of soulmates among the pages. There was a half-finished locating array, another for communication, and several scratched-out designs that he thought were meant to sever a soulmate connection. Mo Xuanyu had never considered that the bond might be something mere humans could manipulate. Of course, Mo Xuanyu had never considered raising the dead either, and that was apparently quite easily done, if one was willing to set aside all bounds of morality and good sense.
"Do these ever say who Yiling Laozu's soulmate actually is?" Xue Yang asked. "If we could track them down, we could resurrect him and make him decipher this shoddy excuse for calligraphy."
"No one is resurrecting Wei Wuxian with that old ritual," Jin Guangyao interjected from the table where he was working. "Or anyone else, by any other means, for that matter. This research is purely theoretical."
Xue Yang snickered. "Of course, of course."
Jin Guangshan died, and Mo Xuanyu mourned his father with precise piety but very little real grief. He knew, after all, what the real thing felt like.
He couldn't help but suspect that Jin Guangyao, too, was merely going through the motions.
Mo Xuanyu awoke in the middle of the night with a scream that stripped his throat raw. Everything hurt, and all around him was danger, threats to be eliminated. A few disciples from the adjacent rooms rushed in, and Mo Xuanyu choked out, "Nightmare. Forgive me," over the pounding rage in his head. A part of him that was not him wanted to tear them to pieces. His wrists and ankles felt wrenched apart, as though he'd been struggling against heavy manacles. He stuffed a rag between his teeth to bite down on and curled up to ride out the pain. After a while, the furious killing intent grew muffled, like it had been buried — or rather, suppressed.
Unlikely as it seemed, Mo Xuanyu could only think of one explanation: someone had raised Nie Mingjue as a fierce corpse. He had a sinking feeling he knew who.
The next day, Jin Guangyao turned him away from the study where he'd previously been working. "The research into the Yiling Laozu's methods was Fuqin's project," his brother explained. "I find I have no taste for it. You need not worry; I have locked the notes away securely. Return to your training, and let us not speak of this matter again."
Mo Xuanyu bowed and murmured his assent. Jin Guangyao smiled graciously at him, but Mo Xuanyu knew then that his days in Golden Carp Tower were numbered.
Not long after, an announcement went out to the jianghu that Xue Yang had been eliminated.
Mo Xuanyu did not again feel Nie Mingjue's full fury, but neither did the pain fully abate. It seeped into the background of his consciousness, always there, but scattered, unfocused. Whatever his brother or Xue Yang had done with the corpse to suppress it, Nie Mingjue's spirit had clearly not been laid to rest. It made Mo Xuanyu distracted and jumpy, and his fellow disciples, who had begun to accept him while he enjoyed Jin Guangyao's favor, started to avoid him again. Mo Xuanyu ignored them. It was only a matter of time before his brother decided what to do with him, and Mo Xuanyu did not want to waste it. He spent time in the library, pretending to study while actually trying to recreate those arrays from Wei Wuxian's notes that had to do with soulmates. If he could only locate Nie Mingjue's body, perhaps he could grant the man the dignity of a proper reburial — and finally rid himself of his soulmate's torment.
He should've paid more attention to the rumors that began flying about him. By the time Mo Xuanyu was expelled from the Jin Sect, the "scandal" of being the kind of lunatic who would harass his fellow disciples was well established. He returned to Mo Village in disgrace, where he was met with ridicule even worse than before his father had returned for him.
This time, Mo Xuanyu was the one to hold his mother while she wept.
After she passed, he sank further into his research. Without the resources of a sect library, he was forced to rely on his memory, experimenting with talisman and array designs that called on some of the more unorthodox methods of cultivation. Not that it mattered anymore — which righteous sect would take him now?
He kept odd hours and powdered his face when he went out, leaning into his reputation as the village lunatic. He felt half-dead already; why not show everyone the face they expected? All his attempts at location arrays seemed for nought, however, pointing first one way and then the other. No matter what he tried, he could not find the place where Nie Mingjue's body was being kept.
Years passed, full of sleepless nights and fitful dreams and the constant hum of his soulmate's undying torment in the back of his mind that Mo Xuanyu feared might truly be driving him mad. He went months without attempting a location array, until his fevered brain lighted on some new idea, only to sink into a stupor of despair when it failed yet again. Mo Xuanyu's existence narrowed to the walls of his little room, and the world seemed content to let him disappear.
There was a knock on his door one day, and he snarled at whoever it was to leave him alone.
"Well, that's not very polite. Are you mad after all?" a refined voice asked. Stunned, Mo Xuanyu opened the door.
Sect Leader Nie did not quite say what had prompted him to drop in, nor how he had learned that Mo Xuanyu had studied the Yiling Laozu's work at Jin Guangyao's behest, but Mo Xuanyu quickly caught on to the direction his rambling questioning was moseying in.
"Nie zongzhu," he interrupted in the middle of a very pointed digression about summoning rituals, "if you would like Wei Wuxian back, you will have to summon him yourself."
Nie Huaisang blinked at him. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
"Speak plainly. You think Jin Guangyao murdered your brother and then stole his body," Mo Xuanyu said. "For some reason, you think Wei Wuxian can help recover it."
"Well, he was the foremost expert on fierce corpses."
"So you do know he's not at rest," Mo Xuanyu said, before he could think better of it.
The room was silent for a long moment. "How do you know that?" Nie Huaisang asked sharply, all traces of the foolish young gentleman gone.
Mo Xuanyu bared his teeth in something like a grin. "You asked if I was mad, Nie zongzhu. Tell me, you knew him well — do you think it possible that someone could share the pain of every injury, every loss, every injustice, every awful, blood-soaked moment of your brother's life and death, and not be?"
Nie Huaisang blanched, but Mo Xuanyu's mind was already racing. No, he wouldn't be summoning Wei Wuxian, but there was another summoning ritual, an older one, wasn't there? Mo Xuanyu had dismissed it for all this time because he was missing a key ingredient without Nie Mingjue's body. But Nie Huaisang shared his blood. The cost was high — half his remaining lifespan — but what life was Mo Xuanyu really living anyway? He was almost giddy with it. Perhaps this was what fate had had in store for him all along.
"Would you like your brother back, Nie zongzhu?" Mo Xuanyu asked. "I think I'd quite like to meet my soulmate."