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Mo Dao Zu Shi ("Untamed")

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Chapter_ Two

The Intractable

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WEI WUXIAN had only just opened his eyes when someone kicked him.

A voice thundered in his ears: “PLAYING DEAD?”

He almost coughed up blood from the kick. His head hit the ground, and with

his face turned up, he thought hazily,

'You’ve got nerve, daring to kick me, the

patriarch.'

Wei Wuxian had already lost count of the number of years it’d been since he

last heard a live person speak, never mind such awful caterwauling.

He was dizzy, and the cracked voice of a young man was rattling between his ears.

“Think for a moment whose land you’re living on, whose rice you’re eating,

and whose money you’re spending! So what if I took a few things of yours?

They should’ve been mine in the first place!”

Soon after, there was the clamoring noise of chests and cabinets alike being

ransacked. It was a good moment before Wei Wuxian’s eyes could focus. A dim

ceiling came into view, as did an unfortunate-looking face with a greedy glare.

That face was spraying spittle all over him.

“And you dare go tattle on me!! You think I’m actually afraid of you tattling?!

Do you actually think anyone in this house would take your side?!”

Two large men who looked like servants came over.

“Young master, everything’s smashed!”

“So fast?” The quacking youth questioned.

“There wasn’t much stuff in this broken shack anyway,”

The servant replied.

The quacking youth was extremely pleased. He turned to Wei Wuxian, pointing so hard at the man that he was practically jabbing his finger up his nose and into his brain.

“Go and tell on me, I dare you. Who are you playing dead for? As if anyone

would actually give a crap about all this junk and wastepaper. I’ve smashed everything, let’s see what else you’ve got to go tattle on me with!. Think you’re

all that just because you went to a cultivation sect for a few years?

Well, didn’t you get kicked out like a stray dog anyway?!”

Presently half dead, Wei Wuxian thought to himself, It’s not pretend.

I’ve actually been dead for many years.

Who was this?

Where was this??

When had he ever done something like forcibly possess the body of

another???

After having kicked the man, ransacked the house, and spent all his temper,

the quacking youth strutted out the door along with his two servants, slamming

the door behind him.

He ordered in a loud voice, “Keep proper watch, don’t let him come out to

embarrass people!”

The servants outside the door all heeded. Once the man had gone, silence

settled both inside and out of the house.

Wei Wuxian wanted to sit up, but his

limbs would not obey him, so he lay back down and flipped over. His head

continued to spin as he looked at his strange surroundings and the mess on the

floor.

Next to him was a copper mirror that had been tossed onto the ground, and

Wei Wuxian snatched it up. A dreadfully pale face appeared in the mirror. Two

large blots of red were smeared unevenly on each cheek; if he were to stick out

a long and vividly red tongue, then he’d be the very picture of a hanged ghost.

Wei Wuxian tossed the mirror aside, a little disgusted. He wiped his face and found his hand smeared with white powder.

Fortunately, it wasn’t that this body had been born strange, but rather, the

penchant of the previous owner. A full-grown man with a face heavily caked in

makeup, and sloppily applied at that…

This shocked some energy back into Wei Wuxian, who was finally able to sit

up.

Only then did he notice the circle of a spell array beneath him......

The arraywas scarlet and crooked, seemingly hand-drawn using blood as the medium. It was still damp, emitting a metallic stench. There were warped and crazed spells drawn within the array that had been somewhat smudged by his body, but the remaining shapes and characters were gruesome in their evil intent.

Wei Wuxian had been called by titles such as the Supreme Evil Lord, the

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, and whatnot for years, so naturally, he

was very familiar with obviously devious arrays such as these.

It wasn’t that he had robbed anyone of their body—he had been offered one!

The nature of this “sacrificial ritual” was a type of curse.

The caster was to harm themselves with a weapon, making cuts on their body and using their own blood to draw the array and write the spells within. They would then sit in the center of the circle and give up their mortal body to evil spirits, using the

annihilation of their soul as the price to summon a nefarious, malicious ghost.

This was all done in order to request the fulfillment of a wish. Thus, it was the

opposite of “possession.!!”

While both were forbidden magics of ill repute, the difference was that the

former was much less popular than the latter. After all, few wishes were so

strongly desired as to make someone willingly sacrifice everything they had.

This was why the technique had been nearly lost after centuries of disuse.

The examples recorded in ancient books had only a handful of cases that were

backed by reliable evidence, and every single one of them had been for

revenge.

Every malicious ghost summoned by the ritual had fulfilled the caster’s

wishes perfectly, in cruel and bloody ways.

Wei Wuxian refused to accept this.

Since when was he categorized as a “nefarious, malicious ghost”?

While he’d had a fairly poor reputation and died an extremely tragic death, he

didn’t haunt the living, for one, and he’d never sought vengeance, for two. He

could swear there was not a single wandering ghost in this world who was more

decent and honest than hem But the tough thing was, the Sacrificial Ritual followed the will of the caster first and foremost.

So it didn’t matter how much he objected… He was already

inside this body, which was a silent acknowledgement that both parties had

formed a contract. He had to fulfill the wish of the caster, or the curse would

rebound, destroying the possessor’s primordial spirit and extinguishing it forever.

Wei Wuxian yanked his sash loose and raised his arms to inspect them. Sure

enough, both of his wrists had been slashed with a sharp tool, leaving them

covered in crisscrossing lacerations. The bleeding had already stopped, but Wei

Wuxian knew these were not normal injuries.

If he didn’t fulfill the caster’s

wish, then these wounds would be unable to heal, and they would worsen the

longer this dragged on. If the deadline for fulfillment was missed, then he who

had accepted this vessel would be ripped apart in both body and soul alike.

He triple-checked that there was no mistake and cried This is ridiculous!

mentally ten times before finally rising to his feet with difficulty, supporting

himself against the wall.

This house certainly was big, but it was empty and shabby. The bedding was

emitting a sour smell—who knew how many days had gone by since it was lastchanged. There was a bamboo basket for trash in the corner that had been

kicked over earlier, and both trash and wastepaper were strewn across the

floor.

Wei Wuxian noticed there seemed to be ink marks on the crumpled

papers, so he picked one up in passing. He opened it to take a look, and sure enough, it was covered in words. He quickly went around to collect all the balls of paper.

These were probably written by the owner of this body to vent his

frustrations. Some of the sentences were incoherent and disordered, but the

anxiety and nervousness were abundantly clear. Wei Wuxian patiently

examined each sheet, and the more he looked, the more he felt something was

amiss.

Through some guesswork, he figured out a few things. First, the owner of this

body was named Mo Xuanyu, and this place was called the Mo Estate.

Mo Xuanyu’s grandfather on his mother’s side was from a rich family in this

area. The family wasn’t large, and the man was not fated for a son. After years

of trying, he still only had two daughters. The name of the second daughter

wasn’t mentioned, but either way, the eldest daughter was born of the lawful

wife. Thus, they were looking for a husband to marry into their family name.

Although the second daughter was exceptional in appearance, she was born of

a servant, which was why the Mo family had originally planned to marry her out

without giving much thought to the groom.

Who would’ve thought she was fated for a fortuitous encounter?

When she was sixteen, the head of a prominent clan was passing by and fell in

love with her at first sight. The two made the Mo Manor the site of their

rendezvous, and a year later, the second daughter gave birth to a son. This was Mo Xuanyu.

The inhabitants of the Mo Estate would normally have held such an event in

contempt, but people at the time worshiped cultivators. In the eyes of the

mundane folk, cultivation clans that pursued immortality were loved by the

heavens, mysterious and noble. Furthermore, that prominent clan leader would financially support this new outer family branch of his every so often.

So naturally, these circumstances were special. Not only did the Mo family

consider this an honor, but others were extremely envious too.

However, the good days did not last. That wandering clan leader was only

hungry for the novelty of fresh meat, and he was over it after two years, coming

to visit less and less frequently. After Mo Xuanyu turned four, the man never

appeared again.

In those passing years, the Mo Estate’s opinion changed again. The contempt

and mockery returned, now with added disdain and pity. Second Lady Mo

refused to accept this, believing firmly that the prominent clan leader would not

turn a blind eye to his own son. And sure enough, when Mo Xuanyu turned

fourteen, that clan leader sent over a grand party to officially take him back.

Second Lady Mo’s head was held high again.

Although she could not go with them, this event swept away all the grievances she had. Feeling proud and elevated, she proclaimed proudly to everyone she saw that her son would definitely become a leader of cultivation sects in the future—rise to the top and bring glory to the ancestors. Thus, the people of the Mo Estate changed their opinion for the third time.

However, Mo Xuanyu was driven out before he managed to cultivate acclaim

and succeed his father. And driven out in the most shameful way: Mo Xuanyu

was a cut-sleeve, a male homosexual, and he was so audacious as to harass his

fellow peers. With this scandal exposed, and the fact that he possessed only

average talent and no real achievements in cultivation, the sect had no reason

to keep him.

Adding frost to snow, something had upset Mo Xuanyu. When he returned

home, it was as a madman. His mental state had been upended, as if he had

been scared silly.

Having read to this point, Wei Wuxian’s brow twitched a couple times.

The cut-sleeve matter aside, the man was a lunatic too. No wonder he had

smeared enough powder on his face to look like a hanged ghost. No wonder no

one thought it strange that there was such a large, bloody spell array on the

ground. Mo Xuanyu could probably smear blood all over this house, from the

floor tiles up the walls and to the ceiling, and no one would think it weird.

Because everyone knew he was crazy!

After Mo Xuanyu returned to his old home, he was bombarded with ridicule.This time, it seemed, the situation was unsalvageable. Unable to take this blow,

Second Lady Mo was choked to death by her own unappeasable outrage.

At this time, Mo Xuanyu’s grandfather had already passed, and the one

managing the household was First Lady Mo. This Madam Mo had never been

able to stand her little sister, and she scorned that sister’s bastard son. She had

a single son herself by the name of Mo Ziyuan—the one who had just ransacked

Mo Xuanyu’s house.

When Mo Xuanyu first left with such impressive fanfare,

First Lady Mo had felt they now possessed something of a family tie to that

prominent cultivation sect and had hoped the cultivator envoys would bring Mo

Ziyuan along with them too. Of course, she had been rejected, or rather,

ignored.

Duh!, This wasn’t like selling cabbage in the markets: buy one, get one free!

Who knew where this family got its confidence? But they all possessed a

bizarre idea: they firmly believed that Mo Ziyuan had potential, that he had

talent, and that if he were the one who had gone with the cultivators, then he

would have been recognized for his worth for sure, unlike his failure of a cousin.

Although Mo Ziyuan had been young when Mo Xuanyu left, he had been

repeatedly indoctrinated to believe this nonsense without a single doubt. Thus,

he caught Mo Xuanyu every other day to humiliate him, cursing him for having

robbed him of his path to cultivation. Yet he remained enamored with the

talismans, the pills, and the little spiritual devices that had been brought back

from the cultivation sect and would take them all for himself, breaking them as

he willed.

While Mo Xuanyu was often in the throes of madness, he knew when

he was being humiliated. He tried his best to endure it, time and time again, but

Mo Ziyuan’s behavior only worsened, practically emptying the entire house. At

last, Mo Xuanyu had enough. He finally stammered a complaint to his uncle and

aunt, which was why Mo Ziyuan had come knocking today, looking for trouble.

The words on the paper were tiny and cramped.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes were sore

from reading all this, and he thought to himself, What kind of hellish life was he

fucking living?

No wonder Mo Xuanyu had preferred to end it, offering his body to summon malicious ghosts to avenge himself.

After his eyeballs started feeling better, it became his head’s turn to ache.

Technically, the caster of the array had to mentally recite their wish. As the evilspirit summoned, Wei Wuxian should have been able to hear the details of his request. However, this forbidden magic had probably been secretly copied off a book with missing pages; it was incomplete, and Mo Xuanyu had missed that step.

Although Wei Wuxian could guess that he most likely sought vengeance against the Mo family, how exactly did he want it done? To what extent? Take back what was taken? Beat up the family?

Or…wipe them out entirely?

It was most likely wiping out the family, eh! After all, anyone who had been in

the cultivation world would know the words most often used to describe Wei

Wuxian: treacherous, mad.

Was there anyone who better fit the description of “fiendish”? Since the man had dared to summon him by name, his wish was definitely not something easily granted.

Wei Wuxian said helplessly, “But you’ve got the wrong person…”

At first, he wanted to wash his face and gaze with reverence upon the dead

countenance that had once belonged to its former owner. However, there was

no water inside this house, not even drinking water. What’s more, Wei Wuxian

figured the only container around was for lavatory purposes and not for washing up.

He tried pushing the door, but it was barred from the outside, probably to

prevent him from running amok. There was not a single thing that could allow

him the slightest bit of joy in being reincarnated!

He might as well meditate for a while and get used to the new body.

An entire day passed this way. When he opened his eyes once more, there

was sunlight seeping into the house through the cracks of the window.

Although he could get up and walk, his head was still spinning, and it didn’t

appear to be getting better. Wei Wuxian was puzzled.

This Mo Xuanyu’s cultivated spiritual power is so minuscule, it might be

completely overlooked. There’s no reason why I can’t manipulate this body. So

why is it so difficult to use?

It wasn’t until a strange noise sounded from his stomach that he realized it

had nothing to do with spiritual power; it was simply that this body, not trainedfor fasting, was hungry. If he delayed seeking food any longer, he might just become the first malicious ghost in history to die of hunger immediately after being summoned.

Wei Wuxian took a deep breath and raised his foot. But just as he was about

to kick the door open, there was suddenly the sound of footfalls on the other

side, drawing near. Someone gave the door a kick, which was followed by an

annoyed call:

“Meal time!”

While those were the words, it didn’t appear the door was going to open at

all. Wei Wuxian looked down just in time to see a small bowl be heavily set

down before a small slat at the bottom of the door.

The servant outside then added, “Hurry up! What’s the holdup? Put the bowl

out when you’re done!”

The slat was smaller than a dog flap, not large enough to allow people to go in

and out, but bowls could be passed through. There were two dishes and one

bowl of rice that looked awfully disgusting. Wei Wuxian bitterly stirred the chopsticks that were stabbed into the rice.

The Yiling Patriarch had returned to life—only to be kicked down and yelled

at. The first meal to welcome him back was cold leftovers. Who would believe

him if he told them? What had happened to his bloody reign? His absolute

massacres? His unadulterated annihilation of the sects? Truly, out of the

mountains a tiger can be bullied by a dog, in shallow waters a dragon can be

mocked by a shrimp, and a plucked phoenix is lower than a chicken. Stripped of

their privileges, the strong will be belittled by the weak.

Just then, the voice of the servant outside the door was heard once more. But

this time, it was a laugh that sounded as if it came from a completely different

person.

“A-Ding! Come over here.”

A delicate and frail feminine voice answered from a distance, “A-Tong, did

you come to deliver food for that person in there again?”

A-Tong clicked his tongue. “Why else would I come to this miserablecourtyard?!”

A-Ding’s voice was at the door, much closer now. “You only make deliveries

once a day, and no one scolds you even if you slack off every now and then, so

why are you frowning at being so free? Look at me, so busy with errands that I

can’t even go out to play.”

A-Tong complained, “It’s not like delivering meals is the only thing I do! And

you still dare go out right now? There are so many walking corpses roaming

about that every household has their doors firmly shut.”

Wei Wuxian was crouched down by the door, pushing around the contents of

the bowl in his hand with two chopsticks of different lengths, listening as he

ate.

Seemed like things hadn’t been peaceful here at the Mo Estate. Walking corpses, as per their name, were the walking dead: reanimated corpses that were low-level and commonplace. Their eyes were usually glazed, their movements sluggish. They were fairly harmless. Nonetheless, that was enough to terrify average folks, and their putrid smell alone was enough to make one fill a pot with puke.

However, to Wei Wuxian, they were the easiest to manipulate and the most

obedient of puppets. In fact, it even felt somewhat endearing to suddenly hear

about them.

A-Tong appeared to have winked. “You have to take me along if you want to

go out, so I can protect you…”

A-Ding cut him off dismissively. “You? Protect me? Please. Can you actually

fight those creatures off?”

“If I can’t fight them off, then no one can,” A-Tong grumbled.

A-Ding laughed. “How do you know if other people can’t fight them off? Let

me tell you, delegates from a cultivation sect have already arrived at our Mo

Manor today. I hear they’re from an incredibly prominent clan! The madam is

receiving them in the main hall right this minute. Everyone in town has

gathered to watch, they’re all so curious. You hear that noise? They might order

me around again in a bit. I don’t have time to play with you.”Wei Wuxian listened intently. Sure enough, there was the faint sound of commotion. After a moment’s contemplation, he got up and kicked the bar locking the door, which broke with a crack.

The two servants flirting with each other screamed in surprise when the door

was suddenly flung open. Wei Wuxian tossed the bowl and chopsticks aside as

he stalked out, but the sunlight blinded him. The glare also caused a small,

pinching pain on his skin, so he raised his hand to his brows and closed his eyes

for a moment.

A-Tong had screamed louder than A-Ding a moment ago, but when he looked

closer, he realized it was that lunatic everyone could bully. His courage

returned. Feeling he must regain the dignity he’d just lost, he jumped over and

waved, shooing Wei Wuxian like one would a dog.

He yelled, “Get outta here! Shoo! Go back in! What’re you doing outside?!”

Not even beggars or flies could have received more unsightly treatment. This

was probably how these servants had treated Mo Xuanyu in the past, and they

grew ever more impertinent when he didn’t retaliate.

Wei Wuxian gave A-Tong a light kick, sending him tumbling, and laughed.

“Who are you trying to humiliate, huh?”

With that, he headed east, following the noise. Both the east hall and the east

courtyard were crowded with people, and just as Wei Wuxian stepped into the

yard, he heard a woman whose voice rose louder than the others.

“…We have a junior at home who also had an affinity for cultivation once…”

That must have been Madam Mo, who was trying to build connections with cultivation clans again. Wei Wuxian didn’t bother waiting for her to finish before he languidly squeezed through the crowd, entering the main hall. He waved enthusiastically.

“HERE, HERE, OVER HERE!”

In the main seat of the hall sat a middle-aged woman, well maintained and

sumptuously dressed. This was Madam Mo. The one sitting below was her husband, who had married into the family, and across from him were several white-clad youths with swords on their backs. When a disheveled, unkemptweirdo suddenly emerged from the crowd, conversation came to an abrupt stop.

However, Wei Wuxian seemed to take no notice of the frozen atmosphere.

He said unabashedly, “Who called me just now? The one with an affinity for

cultivation, isn’t that me?”

There was too much powder on his face, and it cracked when he smiled,

flaking as it fluttered off. One of the white-clad youths snorted, almost laughing

out loud, but he restrained himself when another youth who appeared to be

the leader of the bunch shot him a disapproving look.

Wei Wuxian snuck a glimpse at them and was somewhat taken aback. At first,

he had thought “an incredibly prominent clan” was but the exaggerated praise

of an unlearned servant. But the people here really were cultivation disciples

worth their name. Who would’ve thought?

Graceful-sleeved and light, airily sashed, these youths were exceptionally

pleasing to the eyes, transcendent and poised. Judging by their uniforms alone,

it was obvious they came from the Lan Clan of Gusu.

They were disciples with blood ties to the Lan family as well, since every single one of them had a two-centimeter-wide white ribbon patterned with rolling clouds tied around their foreheads.

“Elegance and Righteousness” was the motto of the Lan Clan of Gusu, and this

forehead ribbon symbolized self-restraint. The rolling clouds were the Lan

family’s insignia, and guest cultivators, or sect disciples of outside families affiliated with the prominent clan, were only allowed to wear ribbons without the pattern. Wei Wuxian always cringed every time he spotted someone from the Lan family. He’d often complained under his breath in his previous life that their uniforms looked like funeral clothes, so he knew he wasn’t mistaken now.

It had been a long time since Madam Mo had seen this nephew of hers, and it

took a while before she was able to recover from her shock. After realizing who this heavily powdered person was, she was furious.

But she couldn’t lose her

composure, so she hissed at her husband.

“Who let him out? Get him out of here!”

Her husband responded with an apologetic smile and got up with a glum look,ready to seize Wei Wuxian. All of a sudden, Wei Wuxian dropped down without

warning and latched firmly onto the ground, immovable no matter how he was

pulled or dragged. Not even the servants who were called in to help could do

anything. If not for the outsiders who were present, they would’ve started to

kick him already.

Madam Mo’s face was growing darker and darker, and the husband was

drenched in sweat as well.

He yelled, “You damn lunatic! If you don’t go back right now… Be careful or I’ll

put you in your place!”

Although everyone from the Mo Estate knew there was a young master in the

Mo family who had gone mad, Mo Xuanyu had withdrawn into that gloomy house of his for many years, afraid to see anyone. Now that they saw how both his appearance and his actions resembled those of a raging monster, they started to whisper among themselves, excited to watch this spectacle unfold.

Wei Wuxian spoke up, “I can go back if you want.” He pointed at Mo Ziyuan.

“But you have to make him return everything he stole from me first.”

Mo Ziyuan never thought this lunatic would have the gall. He’d taught the guy

a lesson just a day ago, only to have him turn around and expose him here

today.

His face changed colors as he exclaimed, “YOU’RE LYING! Since when have I

ever stolen anything of yours? Why would I need to steal any of your stuff?!”

“Right, right, right,” Wei Wuxian agreed. “You didn’t steal, you snatched!”

Madam Mo could now tell that Mo Xuanyu had obviously come prepared. His

mind was perfectly clear, and he was bent on humiliating them.

Shocked and livid, she accused him sharply. “You fully intend to wreak havoc

here today, isn’t that right?!”

Wei Wuxian looked confused. “He stole my stuff, snatched it from me, even.

Is asking for it all back considered ‘wreaking havoc’?”

Mo Ziyuan grew agitated, raising his leg to kick Wei Wuxian before Madam

Mo could answer. However, one of the sword-carrying white-clad youthsmoved his fingers slightly, and Mo Ziyuan immediately lost his balance. The kick brushed past Wei Wuxian, missing the mark,and the boy tripped over himself.

However, Wei Wuxian still tumbled and rolled as if he really had been kicked.

He even ripped open his robes, revealing on his chest the footprint left behind

by Mo Ziyuan’s kicks the day before.

The villagers of the Mo Estate were enjoying the show immensely.

Excitement filled the crowd. There was no way Mo Xuanyu could have kicked himself to create that footprint, and no matter what, he was still a member of the Mo

family. What a vicious household. The boy hadn’t been this crazy when he first returned, so it was probably the family’s doing.

Either way, it wasn’t like they

were the ones being beaten, so as long as there was a show to watch, all the

better. This spectacle was truly more interesting than the arrival of the

cultivators!

With so many eyes watching, the youth couldn’t be beaten and he couldn’t be

kicked out. Madam Mo had no choice but to forcibly smooth the whole debacle

over with fury thick in her throat.

She said impassively, “What ‘steal’? What ‘snatch’? Such ugly accusations. We

are family; it’s nothing but borrowing. A-Yuan is your younger brother, so what

if he takes a few things of yours? As an elder brother, will you be this stingy?

Throwing a childish tantrum and embarrassing everyone over such a small matter—it’s not like he wasn’t going to return your things.”

The white-clad youths stared at each other in dismay, and one of them almost

choked on his tea. The disciples who grew up with the Lan Clan of Gusu were

raised in refined elegance, so they had probably never encountered such a

farce, nor heard such brilliance. Today’s events were probably widening their

horizons.

Wei Wuxian laughed maniacally in his mind and extended his hand.

“Give them back, then.”

Of course, Mo Ziyuan couldn’t return anything. All the items were long since

tossed out or torn apart, and even if he could have returned them, he wouldn’t

have done so willingly. Red in the face, he cried out in protest.

“MOM!” He scowled at her. “Are you going to let him insult me like this?!”Madam Mo glowered at him, signaling him not to make this scene any worse

than it was. Unexpectedly, Wei Wuxian spoke up again.

“While we’re on the topic, not only should he not have stolen my stuff, he

shouldn’t have done so in the middle of the night. Everyone knows I like men.

Even if he has no shame, I know not to make myself suspicious.”

Madam Mo drew in a sharp breath and yelled, “What are you spewing in

front of the village folks?! How shameless! A-Yuan is your little cousin!”

When it came to outrageous behavior, Wei Wuxian was an expert. In the past,

he’d had to maintain some form of decorum so people couldn’t accuse him of

having a poor upbringing, but now he was a lunatic anyway, so what did he care

for shame? He could go wild and cut loose to his heart’s content.

He stiffened his neck and said outright: “He knew he was my little cousin, but

he still didn’t observe propriety and keep his distance, so who is the more

shameless one here?! I don’t care if you don’t care about your reputation, but I

still care about mine!! I STILL GOTTA FIND A GOOD MAN!!!”

Mo Ziyuan roared, raising a chair to hurl it Wei Wuxian’s way. Seeing that

he’d finally snapped, Wei Wuxian quickly scrambled up to go hide. That chair

broke into pieces upon impact with the ground. The spectators crowding in and

out of the east hall were waiting with unconcealed delight to watch the Mo

family be disgraced, but they all quickly dispersed once things got violent, afraid

they might be injured.

Wei Wuxian ducked toward the youths from the Lan family, who were completely dumbfounded by what was unfolding, crying as he did so.

“You see! You see!! He’s hitting me even though he stole my stuff—how heartless!”

Mo Ziyuan chased him over, ready to lunge, but the leader of the youths

stopped him. “This… Gongzi, we can talk this out.”

Seeing that the youth intended to protect the lunatic, Madam Mo grew apprehensive. She forced a smile. “This young man is my younger sister’s son.

He’s a little…unstable here. Everyone at the Mo Estate knows he’s crazy. He’s

always saying strange things, so don’t take him seriously. Esteemed cultivators,you mustn’t—”

Before she could finish, Wei Wuxian poked his head out from behind the youth. “Who said I can’t be taken seriously? From now on, if anyone tries to steal my stuff, I’m gonna chop off an arm for every time they do. Just try me!”

Mo Ziyuan was being held back by his father at first, but when he heard this,

his anger flared up again. Wei Wuxian darted out the door like a fish, taunting

him with a la-la-la as he went.

The youth quickly blocked the door right after and changed the topic,

assuming a serious face to talk business.

“Um… Then we will be borrowing your

esteemed west courtyard for tonight. Please remember exactly what I said

earlier. Lock all doors and shut all windows tight after dusk. Do not come out for

any activities, especially not near the west courtyard.”

Madam Mo was shaking with rage, but it wouldn’t have been courteous to

push the youth aside, despite him blocking her. So, she could only reply, “Yes,

yes, thank you, thank you…”

Mo Ziyuan was in a state of disbelief.

“MOM! Are you gonna let that lunatic

get away with slandering me in public?! Didn’t you say yourself that he was only

a mere—”

“Shut your mouth!” Madam Mo cut him off sharply. “Can you not wait until

we’re back inside?!”

Mo Ziyuan had never suffered such a wrong before, nor had he ever been

humiliated this way. He had especially never been scolded by his mother like

this.

He cried furiously, “That lunatic is dead!!”

After Wei Wuxian was done letting loose, he went out the main entrance of

the manor and strolled around the Mo Estate to show his face, scaring

innumerous passersby and enjoying himself while he was at it. He began to

understand the joy of being a madman and was even starting to be pleased

with the hanged ghost makeup, not wanting to wash it off.

It’s not like there’s water around anyway, so I’ll let it be.He fixed his hair and glanced at his wrist. There was no indication the cuts

were fading or healing at all, which meant the trifling revenge of venting anger

on Mo Xuanyu’s behalf was far from enough.

Did he really have to slaughter the entire Mo family?

…To be honest, that wouldn’t have been anything difficult to do.

Wei Wuxian pondered this as he sauntered back to the Mo Manor. As he snuck past the west courtyard with small, quick steps, he noticed the Lan disciples on top of the rooftops and wall eaves, gathered in somber discussion.

He snuck back again with those small, quick steps and looked up, watching them intently.

While the Lan Clan of Gusu was a major part of the coalition that had come to

besiege him in the past, those juniors hadn’t yet been born at the time, or if

they had, would’ve been only a few years old. So that event had nothing to do

with them.

Wei Wuxian stood there and observed, wanting to see how they

planned on handling the situation. As he looked on, he suddenly felt something

amiss.

Why did those black flags being flown on the rooftops and wall eaves look so

familiar?

The flag was called a spirit-attraction flag. If it was stuck on a living person,

then it would attract every dark spirit, every vengeful ghost, every fierce corpse,

and all such manner of evil to attack said person.

Since wearing a flag was akin

to becoming a live target, the flag was also called a target flag. It could also be

stuck on buildings, but said building had to have living persons within, and the

range of the target would increase to include all people within the building.

Since yin energy swirled around the area where these flags were planted like a

black whirlwind, they were also known as black wind flags.

Those youths were setting up the flag formation and had told others not to go near, so they had to intend to lure the walking corpses here to capture them all at once.

As for why the flags looked familiar…how could they not? The creator of the

spirit-attraction flag was this very Yiling Patriarch!

It appeared that, despite how the cultivation world had demanded Wei

Wuxian’s demise, they nevertheless had no qualms about making use of hisinventions.

One of the disciples on the rooftops noticed him watching and chided him.

“Go back, this is not a place you should be.”

Though he was being ordered to shoo, it was done with good intentions, and

the tone of voice employed was also greatly different from that of those Mo

servants. While the youth was off his guard, Wei Wuxian hopped up and

plucked a flag.

Greatly alarmed, that disciple jumped down the wall to chase after him.

“Don’t touch that, it’s not for you!”

Wei Wuxian hollered as he ran, looking completely like a lunatic; his hair

flying loose and disheveled, arms waving and legs skipping.

“Finders keepers! I want this! Mine!”

That disciple quickly caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “Give it back!

Or else I’ll hit you!”

Wei Wuxian clutched the flag tightly, refusing to let go. The leader of the

group that was setting up the flag formation was alerted by the commotion and also came fluttering down from the eaves.

“Jingyi, let it go. Retrieve the flag nicely; there is no need to start a dispute.”

“Sizhui, I didn’t hit him for real!” Lan Jingyi complained. “Look at him, he’s

messed up the flag formation!”

During their push and pull, Wei Wuxian had swiftly finished inspecting the

spirit-attraction flag. The drawn patterns were correct, and none of the spells

were missing either. There were no mistakes, so no mishaps would occur if the

flags were used.

The only issue was that the person who’d drawn the flag was

not very experienced, so the spell could only attract any evil and walking corpses within a two and a half radius at most. But that would be enough.

Lan Sizhui turned to him with a smile.

“Mo-gongzi, it is getting late, and we

will be starting to catch walking corpses here soon. It is dangerous at night.

You’d best hurry back to your chambers.”

Wei Wuxian sized up this youth. The boy was gentle in disposition, refinedand elegant, noble in his bearing with a light grin curving the corners of his lips.

This was a good sprout very worthy of encouragement, and Wei Wuxian mentally gave him a nod of approval. The child had set up the flag formation in a proper and orderly manner, and his upbringing really was quite commendable as well. Wei Wuxian wondered who among that terrifying group full of uptight sticks-in-the-mud known as the Lan Clan had managed to raise such a junior.

Lan Sizhui added, “This flag—”

Before he could finish, Wei Wuxian tossed the spirit-attraction flag onto the

ground and humphed. “What’s so good about this crappy flag? I can draw

better!”

He then took off right after. The juniors who were on the rooftop, watching

the show, burst out laughing at his shameless declaration so riotously that they

almost fell off the roof. Lan Jingyi also laughed in exasperation, then picked up

the flag on the ground, dusting it off.

“What a lunatic!”

“Don’t say that,” Lan Sizhui chided him.

“Let’s go back and help now.”

As for Wei Wuxian, he wandered idly about for a while. It wasn’t until after

dark that he returned to Mo Xuanyu’s little courtyard. The door latch was

snapped, without anyone to clean up the mess. He ignored it and picked a

somewhat clean spot in the room before sitting down and continuing to

meditate.

Yet unexpectedly, it hadn’t reached the morning hours when a noisy

commotion outside pulled him out of his meditative state. A clamor of

footsteps mixed with wailing and screaming was rapidly approaching, and Wei

Wuxian heard these cries repeated:

“…Break in and drag him out!”

“Report him to the authorities!”

“Who cares about the authorities, just beat him to death!”

He opened his eyes just as a number of servants charged in. The entire courtyard was lit up as bright as day, and someone was shouting:“Drag that murdering lunatic to the main hall and make him pay with his

life!!”

Wei Wuxian’s first thought was: Did something go wrong with those youths’

flag formation?

The smallest carelessness in the usage of his inventions could cause disaster,

which was why he had earlier purposely gone to verify whether the spirit-

attraction flag was properly drawn. Thus, when those large hands came to drag

him out the door, Wei Wuxian lay there limply, allowing himself to be dragged

out. It saved him the trouble anyway.

He was dragged to the east hall, where it

was as lively as could be; surprisingly, there were no fewer townspeople gathered than there had been during the day. Many of the servants and close family relations had come, some still dressed in inner robes, not having had time to coif their hair, panic painted on each of their faces. Lady Mo sat slumped in her seat as if she had only just awoken from having fainted. There were traces of tears on the sides of her cheeks, the rims of her eyes still wet.

However, the moment Wei Wuxian was dragged in, her tears instantly

transformed into a baleful glare.

On the ground, there lay something that resembled the form of a human. The

body was covered by a white sheet, and only its head was exposed. Lan Sizhui

and those youths were bent down over it, inspecting the body solemnly and

whispering to each other. Their words filtered into Wei Wuxian’s ears:

“…It hasn’t been one incense time since he was discovered?”

“Right after subduing the walking corpses, we were rushing to the east

courtyard, and the dead body was lying there in the corridor.”

This body was Mo Ziyuan. Wei Wuxian swept a glance over him, then took another look in spite of himself.

This corpse looked like Mo Ziyuan, but at the same time not. While the facial

features were clearly that of his cheap little cousin, the cheeks were deeply

sunken, the eyeballs bulging, and the skin wrinkled. It was as if he had aged

twenty years compared to the previous Mo Ziyuan, who had been in the prime of his youth. It also almost seemed as if he had been sucked dry of his blood and flesh.

He looked like a mere sack of bones dressed in an extremely thin veilof skin. If it could have been said that the Mo Ziyuan from before was simply

ugly, then his corpse now was old and ugly.

Wei Wuxian was just taking a detailed look when Madam Mo suddenly came

charging over. Something shining flashed in her hand. She was holding a dagger! Moving as fast as his eyes saw, Lan Sizhui knocked it out of her hand, but before he could say anything, Madam Mo was already screaming at him.

“My son died a tragic death—I need to avenge him!! What’re you stopping

me for?!”

Wei Wuxian once again ducked behind Lan Sizhui and shot back, “What does

your son’s tragic death have to do with me?”

Lan Sizhui had watched Wei Wuxian make a scene during the day, then later

heard plenty of exaggerated rumors about this illegitimate son from the others.

He felt great pity for this mentally ill person and couldn’t help but try and speak

up for the man.

“Madam Mo, the state of your son’s corpse is clearly the work of evil. Its

blood, flesh, and spirit have been completely sucked out. He could not be the culprit.”

Madam Mo’s chest heaved. “What do you know?! This lunatic’s father is a

cultivator, so he must’ve learned plenty of evil magic!”

Lan Sizhui looked back and took a glance at the seemingly half-witted Wei

Wuxian. “Madam, there is no evidence, so it is still best…”

“THE EVIDENCE IS ON MY SON’S BODY!” Madam Mo pointed at the corpse on

the ground. “Take a look yourselves!! A-Yuan’s dead body has already told me

who his murderer is!”

Without waiting for the others to make a move, Wei Wuxian raced to pull

back the sheet from head to toe. Mo Ziyuan’s corpse had something missing.

His left arm, from the shoulder down, had vanished as if it had sprouted

wings!

Madam Mo added, “You see that? You all heard him today, right? What this

lunatic said? That if A-Yuan touched his things again, he would chop off A-Yuan’s arm!”

After her hysterics had settled, she covered her face and sobbed.

“…My poor A-Yuan never touched anything of this lunatic’s. Not only was he

slandered, he was killed by this maniac…”

Maniac!

It was so endearing. How many years had it been since he’d heard himself

described as such? Wei Wuxian pointed at himself, but he didn’t have the

words to rebuke that particular statement. He didn’t know, either, whether he

really was mental, or if Madam Mo was the one who was ill. After all, he had

boasted about slaughtering entire sects, laying waste to millions, making blood

flow like rivers, and other such things when he was younger.

But that was all talk, most of the time. If he really could do all that, he would’ve tyrannized the world already. Madam Mo wasn’t trying to avenge her son at all. She was only looking for someone to vent her anger on.

Wei Wuxian didn’t want to bother with her. After a moment of thought, he

reached into Mo Ziyuan’s robes and searched, finally digging something out.

When he unfolded that something, it was a spirit-attraction flag.

In that instant, it dawned on him. He muttered under his breath, “Mo Ziyuan

brought this on himself!”

When Lan Sizhui and the others saw the item taken out of Mo Ziyuan’s robes,

they also understood what had happened. Thinking back to the farce that had taken place during the day, it wasn’t hard to deduce what had transpired.

Earlier, Mo Ziyuan had lost considerable face due to Mo Xuanyu’s hysterics,

filling him with hatred. He’d had a mind to settle scores, but Mo Xuanyu had gone out frolicking, nowhere to be found. So Mo Ziyuan intended to wait until nighttime to teach Mo Xuanyu an underhanded lesson.

Yet when night came and he snuck out the door, as he passed by the west courtyard, he saw the spirit-attraction flags planted atop the wall eaves. While there were strict instructions against outings at night—and that the west courtyard was forbidden and that those black flags were not to be touched under any circumstances—Mo Ziyuan thought that was the cultivators purposely scaring people off because they were afraid of others stealing theirprecious spiritual weapons. He was unaware of just how dangerous and ominous the effects of the spirit-attraction flag were, and that once held, a flag would make the bearer a living target. Mo Ziyuan’s hands had never been clean.

He’d grown addicted to stealing the talismans and spiritual tools belonging to

his crazy older cousin. When he saw the magical objects, he couldn’t help but

feel the itch to take them for himself, no matter the cost. Thus, while the

owners of the flags were subduing walking corpses in the west courtyard, he

secretly plucked one away.

The flag formation utilized six spirit-attraction flags, five of which were set up in the west courtyard using those youths from the Lan family as bait. However,

they themselves were protected by the countless spiritual tools carried on their

persons. Although Mo Ziyuan had only stolen the one flag, he didn’t have any

protective tools on him. Go after the weakest, as they say. Naturally, the evil

spirits were lured to him. If it had only been walking corpses, then it wouldn’t

have been a big deal. At most, he’d have been bitten a couple times. It wouldn’t

have resulted in his death.

There would still have been a chance to save him.

Yet it just so happened that this spirit-attraction flag had unintentionally

summoned something more terrifying than walking corpses. And it was

precisely this unknown evil spirit that had killed Mo Ziyuan and robbed him of

an arm!

Wei Wuxian raised his wrist. Sure enough, a cut on his left arm had healed. It

seemed the sacrificial ritual had acknowledged Mo Ziyuan’s death as his doing.

After all, the spirit-attraction flag was Wei Wuxian’s invention, so he’d hit the mark out of pure luck.

Madam Mo was perfectly aware of her son’s little flaws, but she would never

admit Mo Ziyuan had caused his own death. Anxious and aggravated, she picked up a teacup and hurled it at Wei Wuxian’s face.

“If you hadn’t made a scene and framed him in front of so many people

yesterday, would he have gone out in the middle of the night?! It’s all your

fault, you bastard!!”

Wei Wuxian was already prepared and sidestepped to dodge the attack.

Madam Mo then screamed at Lan Sizhui.“AND YOU! You bunch of useless fools!! What cultivators are you, what evil

can you exorcise?! You can’t even protect a child! A-Yuan is so young!!”

Those youths were still green and only had so much experience under their

belt. They hadn’t detected anything unusual in this area, which was why they’d

never thought there’d be such a ferocious evil. At first, they’d been quite sorry

because they felt themselves lacking, but after Madam Mo’s indiscriminate

tongue-lashing, they were growing upset. After all, they came from a

distinguished clan.

No one had ever dared treat them this way. The teachings of

the Lan Clan of Gusu were extremely strict: they forbade raising a hand against

normal folk, and not even rudeness was allowed. Even though they were

irritated, they had to force it down, causing dark expressions to cloud their

faces.

Wei Wuxian couldn’t take it anymore. He thought, After so many years, the

Lan Family still acts this way. What’s the use of all that self-restraint unless

you’re looking to suffocate yourselves? Watch me!

He spat loudly. “Who do you think you’re yelling at? Do you really take them

to be your servants? They came all this way to exorcise evil for free, and now

they owe you? How old is your son again? At least seventeen, right? A ‘child’

still? How old do you have to be to understand human words? Did they not

instruct us again and again yesterday not to go near the west courtyard, not to

touch anything in the formation? Your son snuck out in the middle of the night

to dally about—is that my fault? Or is it his fault?”

Lan Jingyi and the others let out a breath, no longer looking as upset. Madam

Mo was both extremely sad and resentful, and her mind was filled with nothing

but thoughts of death. More specifically, it wasn’t thoughts of herself dying to

accompany her son, but rather thoughts of having everyone in this world die,

especially the ones currently in front of her.

Whenever something happened, she’d always order her husband around, so she shoved him. “Call everyone in! Call everyone in here!”

However, her husband was in a daze. Perhaps the shock of the death of his

only son was too great, but he shoved her back. Knocked down to the ground so

abruptly, Madam Mo was stunned.If this had been before, Madam Mo needn’t have pushed him; as long as she raised her voice a tiny bit, he’d do whatever she said. Yet today he dared fight back!

The servants were all terrified by her expression, and a trembling A-Ding

helped her stand. Madam Mo grabbed her heart, and said with a shaking voice,

“You…you…YOU GET LOST TOO!”

Her husband seemed not to have heard. A-Ding shot A-Tong a number of

looks, and A-Tong quickly dragged his master out. It was chaos within the east

hall. Seeing how the family was finally quieting down, Wei Wuxian went to

inspect the corpse further. However, he had barely glanced at it before another

high-pitched scream pierced through the door.

The crowd inside the hall poured out and were greeted with the sight of two

bodies spasming on the ground in the east courtyard. One was a slumped A-

Tong, alive. The other was collapsed on the ground, its body wrinkled and

withered as if its blood and flesh had been completely sucked dry. Its left arm

was already gone, and there was no blood flowing from the wound. The state of

this corpse was exactly the same as Mo Ziyuan’s.

Madam Mo had just shaken off A-Ding’s supporting hand, but when she saw

that corpse lying on the ground, she was stunned in place. At last exhausted of

the energy to throw more fits, she fainted. Wei Wuxian happened to be

standing near her, so he caught her and passed her to A-Ding as she came

running over. He then took a glance at his right hand. A cut there was gone as

well.

Madam Mo’s husband had only stepped out onto the threshold of the hall. He

hadn’t even entered the yard before he died tragically on the spot. Everything

had happened within an instant.

Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, and the others paled, but Lan Sizhui was the first to

compose himself. He questioned the slumped A-Tong.

“Did you see what it was?”

A-Tong was thoroughly horrified, his teeth clenched so hard that he couldn’t

utter a word for the moment, only shaking his head. Lan Sizhui, burning with

impatience, instructed his peers to bring the boy inside before he turned to LanJingyi.

“Did you fire the signal?”

“I did,” Lan Jingyi replied. “But if there are no seniors nearby who can come to

offer assistance, our people will probably take at least an hour before they can

make it here. What do we do? We don’t even know what it is right now.”

It was, of course, impossible for them to leave. If a clan’s disciples only cared

about escape when running into evil spirits, then not only would they

embarrass the clan, but they themselves would be too ashamed to go out again.

The terrified folks of the Mo household could not leave with them either. The

evil spirit was most likely among them, so it would have been useless even if

they fled.

Lan Sizhui clenched his teeth. “Stay on guard until help arrives!”

Since the distress signal was already fired, other cultivators would soon come

to their aid. In order to avoid adding to the present trouble, by all accounts, Wei

Wuxian should have retreated. Best if whoever came was no one he knew. If it

was someone he had crossed paths with before, or had fought with, then it was

hard to tell what would happen.

With the sacrificial ritual’s curse on him, he could not leave the Mo Estate yet.

Besides, if the summoned creature could take two lives within such a short span

of time, then it was abnormally ferocious. If Wei Wuxian dropped everything

and left, then by the time reinforcements arrived, the entire Mo Estate would

have its streets filled with corpses missing their left arms. And surely, some of

those corpses would include the familial disciples of the Lan Clan of Gusu.

After a moment’s deliberation, Wei Wuxian said to himself, Let’s end this

quickly.

Those youths were fledglithis each of them looking nervous. Despite that,

they still scrupulously took their places to protect the Mo Manor and stuck

talismans inside and outside of the hall. The servant A-Tong had already been

carried inside, and Lan Sizhui checked his pulse with his left hand while his right

massaged Madam Mo’s back. He couldn’t treat both at once and was in a sorry

dilemma when suddenly,

A-Tong crawled up from the ground.A-Ding exclaimed, “A-Tong, you’re awake!”

Before any delight could cross her face, A-Tong raised his left hand and seized

his own neck.

Seeing this, Lan Sizhui targeted several of A-Tong’s acupoints with a triple tap

of his hand apiece. Wei Wuxian knew that while the Lan clan appeared gentle

on the surface, their arm strength was not gentle in the least. Using that

method, anyone could be rendered thoroughly unable to move.

However, A- Tong appeared not to have felt a thing. His left hand gripped harder and harder, his face scrunching more and more with pain. Lan Jingyi went over to pull at his left hand, but it was like trying to break off a chunk of iron: immovable.

Moments later, crack. A-Tong’s head drooped down, and only then did the hand let go. But his neck was already broken.

He had actually strangled himself before the eyes of all!

Seeing this, A-Ding’s voice trembled. “…A ghost! There’s an invisible ghost

here, and it made A-Tong strangle himself!”

Her voice was shrill and sad, raising hairs on everyone’s necks.

They all believed her. Wei Wuxian determined it to be the exact opposite, however. This wasn’t a malicious ghost.

He had seen the talismans those youths had chosen, and they were the spirit-

repelling type. They had plastered the entire east hall with them, airtight. If this

really were a malicious spirit, then those talismans would have immediately burned with green flames when it entered the east hall. Things would not be as

quiet as they were now.

It wasn’t that this group of youths was slow to react; it was that the intruder

was truly ferocious in nature. The cultivation sects had strict criteria for

determining whether something was a “malicious ghost”: one was considered

such if it killed once a month for up to three months consecutively. This was a

criterion Wei Wuxian himself had set, and it was probably still in use now.

Dealing with this type was his specialty, and based on what he’d seen, killing

once every seven days would make this creature a malicious ghost that caused

particularly frequent mischief. However, this thing had just killed three times in

a row, and in a short time span too. Even accomplished cultivators would havebeen hard-pressed to come up with a counter strategy, never mind these novice juniors.

Just as he was thinking this, the firelight flashed. A blast of sinister wind

whipped by, and every lantern and every candle in the entire courtyard,

including the east hall, was extinguished.

Screams erupted the instant the lights went out. The men and women pushed

and shoved, falling and fleeing.

Lan Jingyi shouted, “Stay where you are—don’t run! We’ll arrest whoever

runs!!”

Those were not words spoken without reason—wreaking havoc in the dark

and taking advantage of confusion was the nature of evil spirits. The more the

people screamed and ran amok, the easier it would be to attract trouble

unknowingly. It was extremely dangerous to be left alone or to lose one’s head

at a time like this. And yet it could not be helped that everyone was scared out

of their wits, so how could they possibly pay attention to and heed any

instructions? It didn’t take long before the east hall fell quiet, with only the

sound of light breaths and faint sniffling. Most had probably left.

In the darkness, a firelight suddenly flared. It was Lan Sizhui, who had lit an

illumination talisman.

The flames of the illumination talisman could not be extinguished by the

sinister wind that carried evil, and he used this talisman to relight the candles

anew while the rest of the youths went around to console the others. Under the

light, Wei Wuxian took a nonchalant glance at his wrists. Another cut had

healed.

It was then that he suddenly realized the number of cuts were wrong.

There had been two cuts on his left wrist and two on his right. One cut healed

after Mo Ziyuan’s death, another cut healed after the death of Mo Ziyuan’s

father, and then a third after the death of the servant A-Tong. Tallying that up,

there should have been three healed cuts, leaving only the cut with the deepest

wound and the deepest hatred.

But now there was nothing on his wrists. Not a single cut was left.Wei Wuxian trusted that Madam Mo was most definitely among those whom Mo Xuanyu wished to seek revenge upon. The longest and the deepest gash was likely for her, yet it had surprisingly vanished.

Was it Mo Xuanyu who had suddenly let it go and abandoned his hatred? That

was impossible. His soul had been sacrificed as the price for summoning Wei

Wuxian. In order for the cut to heal,

Madam Mo had to die. Unless…

He slowly moved his gaze from his wrist to Madam Mo, who had recently

roused and was surrounded by the crowd. Her face was white as a sheet.

…Unless she was already dead.

Wei Wuxian was sure something had already possessed Madam Mo. If that

thing was not a spirit, then what could it be?

Suddenly, A-Ding cried, “Hand…hand, A-Tong’s left arm!”

Lan Sizhui moved the illumination talisman over A-Tong’s corpse. Sure

enough, his left arm had also vanished.

The left arm!

In that flash of a second, everything was clear. The creature causing mischief

and the vanishing left arms formed a connection that clicked in Wei Wuxian’s

mind. He suddenly snorted and burst out laughing.

Lan Jingyi huffed. “That dummy, how can he laugh at a time like this?!” But

then he realized that, given the man was a dummy, what was the point of

bothering with him in the first place?

However, Wei Wuxian grabbed Lan Jingyi’s sleeve and shook his head. “No,

no!”

Lan Jingyi irritably tried to pull his sleeve back. “No what? Not a dummy? Stop

playing around! No one’s got time for you.”

Wei Wuxian pointed at Father Mo’s and A-Tong’s corpses on the ground.

“That’s not them.”

Lan Sizhui stopped Lan Jingyi, who was about to blow up. He asked, “You said

‘that’s not them.’ What do you mean?”Wei Wuxian replied solemnly, “This isn’t Mo Ziyuan’s dad, and that’s not A-

Tong either.”

With his face smeared in makeup, the more solemn he was, the more it felt

like he really was mentally ill. However, under the haunting candlelight, his

words were surprisingly hair-raising. Lan Sizhui was stunned for a moment, then

questioned him in spite of himself.

“Why is that?”

Wei Wuxian said smugly, “Because of the hand! They’re not left-handed, they

always beat me with their right hands. I know that much at least.”

Lan Jingyi lost his patience and spat, “What are you so smug for? Look at that

pleased face!”

Lan Sizhui, however, had broken out in a cold sweat from the shock. Thinking

back, A-Tong had strangled himself using his left hand, and when Madam Mo’s

husband pushed his wife down, he had also used his left hand.

But during the day, when Mo Xuanyu had been causing a ruckus in the east

hall, those two had been busy trying to chase him out using their habitual right

hands. Surely they couldn’t both have turned into left-handers all of a sudden

right before their deaths.

Although the cause was presently unknown, in order to investigate what was

causing mischief, they had to start with those “left arms.” Having come to this

conclusion, Lan Sizhui sent a bewildered look at Wei Wuxian. Despite himself,

he thought, For him to suddenly say something like that, really…doesn’t seem

like a coincidence.

Wei Wuxian only continued to laugh cheekily, knowing that the hint had been

too conspicuous, but there was no other way.

Thankfully, Lan Sizhui didn’t dig into it, thinking, Either way, since this Mo-

gongzi was willing to call attention to it for me, it most likely wasn’t done out of

ill intent. He moved his gaze from Wei Wuxian, swept it over A-Ding, who had

fainted from weeping, and landed his eyes on Madam Mo.

His eyes traveled down from her face to her hands. Her arms were hanging by

her sides, mostly hidden in the sleeves, revealing only the tips of her fingers.The fingers of her right hand were snow white and slim—truly the hand of a

woman who lived in privilege, without the hardship of labor.

However, the fingers of her left hand were longer and thicker than those of

the right. The knuckles were curled, filled with strength.

How was that the hand of a woman? It was clearly the hand of a man!

“Hold her down!!” Lan Sizhui shouted.

The youths had already twisted Madam Mo’s arm back in a hold. With a “Forgive me,” Lan Sizhui pulled out a talisman. He was ready to slap it down when Madam Mo’s left arm twisted at an impossible angle, aiming for his throat.

The only way for a living human to twist their arm that way would be if their

bones were broken. The hand’s movement was fast, and it would have seized

his neck had it not been for Lan Jingyi tackling Lan Sizhui with a loud “gah!” and

blocking the attack for him.

There was a flash of firelight. That hand had only just grabbed Lan Jingyi’s

shoulder when green flames flared to life at the same spot. It instantly loosened

its grip. Having escaped death, Lan Sizhui was just about to thank Lan Jingyi for

coming to his rescue when he saw that half of Lan Jingyi’s uniform had been

burned to ashes, making him look incredibly unkempt.

Flustered and enraged, Lan Jingyi stripped off the unburnt half of his uniform

as he looked back and yelled, “Why did you kick me?! Stupid lunatic, did you

want me killed?!”

Wei Wuxian scurried away, hugging his head. “It wasn’t me!”

It was most certainly he who had kicked Lan Jingyi. The outer robe of the Lan

family’s uniform was tightly embroidered with spells and incantations inside its

lining to provide protection. However, the effect would have been nullified

after one use when encountering a formidable creature such as this. Under

these dire circumstances, Wei Wuxian could only give Lan Jingyi a kick to make

him use his body to shield Lan Sizhui’s neck.

Lan Jingyi was going to yell some more, but Madam Mo collapsed to the

ground. The flesh and blood of her face had been drained so utterly that only alayer of skin pressed against her skull remained. The man’s arm that did not

belong to her fell off of her left shoulder, yet its fingers could still move as it willed. It was as if it were stretching, the pulsing of its veins clearly visible.

That thing was the evil that had been summoned by the spirit-attraction flag.

Dismemberment was a standard violent death.

It was a little more dignified than the way Wei Wuxian had died, though not by much. Unlike being crushed to ashes, the limbs of a dismembered corpse retained a part of the grudges of the deceased. One would yearn to return to its body, yearn to die a complete corpse. Thus, it would also attempt to seek out the other parts of its body. Once found, the corpse would then perhaps rest in peace and satisfaction, or perhaps wreak greater havoc. If the rest of its original body wasn’t found, however, a limb could only go for the second-best option.

What was the second-best option? Seek out the bodies of living humans and

make do, just as this left arm had demonstrated: devour the left arm of the

living, take its place, and suck out the living human’s spirit, blood, and flesh.

Then abandon the body to continue searching for the next host. This would

continue until all parts of its original corpse were found.

Once this arm attached itself to a body, it was instant death for the host,

though prior to their blood and flesh being completely eaten, the human could

still move normally under the arm’s control, as if still alive. After the arm had been summoned, the first vessel it found was Mo Ziyuan. The second vessel was Mo Ziyuan’s father. When Madam Mo had told her husband to get lost, he’d

acted out of character and pushed her. At first, Wei Wuxian had thought it was

because the man was heartbroken because of his son’s death and that he had

also had enough of his wife’s unreasonable behavior. In retrospect, that had not

been the demeanor of a father who had just lost his son. That had not been the

stupor of despair—it had been stillness. The stillness of the dead.

The third vessel was A-Tong, and the fourth was Madam Mo. The left arm took advantage of the chaos when the lights went out earlier to migrate to her

body. And when Madam Mo was killed, the last cut on Wei Wuxian’s wrist had

also vanished with her demise.

Seeing how the talismans were useless but their clothes were not, all the Lanyouths each stripped off their outer robes and threw them at the left arm,

covering and wrapping it in layers upon layers of robes like a thick white

cocoon. A moment later, this ball of white clothes ignited with a WHOOSH, the

wicked green flames blazing to the skies. Though it worked for the time being, it

would not last long. Once the uniforms were completely burnt, that arm would

break free from their ashes. While no one was paying attention, Wei Wuxian ran straight for the west courtyard.

Over a dozen walking corpses those youths had captured were standing

silently in the yard. A spell had been drawn upon the ground to seal them inside

its boundary, and Wei Wuxian stomped on one of the characters, destroying

the entire array. After two claps, the walking corpses jerked. Their white eyes

opened abruptly, as if they had been shocked awake by an explosion of

thunder.

“Wake up,” Wei Wuxian said. “Time to get to work!”

He never needed any complicated spells or summoning incantations to

control corpse puppets. The most straightforward command would suffice. The

walking corpses at the very front quivered as they struggled to shuffle a few

steps. Then, the moment they approached Wei Wuxian, they fell face-first to

the ground like living humans, as if their legs had grown weak from terror.

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry at this, Wei Wuxian clapped twice more,

but much softer this time. However, these walking corpses had probably been

born at the Mo Estate and had died here as well.

They’d never seen the world.

So while they instinctively obeyed the summoner’s command, they were also

terrified of the summoner for some reason, lying on the ground whimpering,

too afraid to get up.

The crueler the evil spirit, the easier it was for Wei Wuxian to manipulate it.

These walking corpses had never gone through his training, so they could not

withstand his direct control. He had no materials at his disposal to immediately

create a device that could ease their fear either, and nothing with which to

improvise. As he watched the blazing green flames from the east courtyard

gradually die down, an idea suddenly came to mind.

Why go out searching to find a cruel and vicious deceased, one steeped inextreme hatred?

The east hall already had one. More than one!

He darted back to the east courtyard. Lan Sizhui’s first plan had come to an

end, so he devised another. The youths all unsheathed their longswords, planting them in the ground to form a fence of blades. The ghost arm smashed about within the enclosure. It was taking all their energy just to hold the hilts in place and prevent them from being expelled by the force; no one had the time to pay attention to who was going in and out of the hall.

Wei Wuxian stepped into the east hall and yanked up the corpses of Madam Mo and Mo Ziyuan, one in each hand. In a low voice, he gave a command:

“Awake yet?”

At the sound of his voice, the souls returned!

An instant later, Madam Mo and Mo Ziyuan opened their white eyes and let

out a shrill shriek unique to malicious ghosts at the moment of their

resurrection.

Amidst the high and low shrieks, another corpse crawled to its feet in

trepidation, calling out feebly with a voice that could not have been any softer.

It was Madam Mo’s husband.

The cries were loud enough, the hatred plentiful. Wei Wuxian was extremely

pleased.

“Recognize that arm out there?”

He smiled.

“Tear it apart,” he ordered.

The three members of the Mo family were like three blasts of black wind,

blowing forth in an instant.

That left arm had broken a longsword. Just as it was about to break out of the

pen, three left-armless fierce corpses came lunging at it.

Even aside from the fear of disobeying Wei Wuxian’s command, these three

carried an intense hatred for the creature that had killed them, and theyunleashed all their fury upon that ghost arm. The one leading the attack was

undoubtedly Madam Mo.

Once reanimated, female corpses were often

particularly ferocious. Her hair was flying wild, her white eyes crawling with red,

and her nails had burst in length exponentially. She was foaming at the mouth,

her shrill cries practically raising the roofs, completely crazed. Mo Ziyuan

followed his mother closely, working in concert with her to both tear and bite at

the left arm while his father trailed behind them, filling in the gaps between the

other two’s attacks.

The Lan youths who had been struggling to hang on earlier were all stunned.

They had only ever heard of such fights between fierce corpses from sundry

books and hearsay. This was the first time they had witnessed such a gory

scene, and they gawked, unable to avert their eyes. They only had one thought

in their minds: This is so exciting!

The three corpses and the one arm were in the throes of battle. Suddenly, Mo

Ziyuan shrieked as he dodged; that arm had swiped at his abdomen, and several

ropes of his intestines drooped from the tear. Madam Mo snarled incessantly at

the sight of this. She pulled her son behind her to shield him while escalating

her attacks, her nails slicing through air as sharply as blades made of iron and

steel. However, Wei Wuxian could tell she was slowly losing against the arm.

Even three freshly dead fierce corpses working together could not subdue this

one arm!

Wei Wuxian watched the battle closely. He curled his tongue slightly, holding

a sharp whistle back between his lips as he hesitated to let it loose. If he

whistled, he could evoke greater hatred within the controlled fierce corpses,

and that would perhaps turn the tables. However, it would be difficult to ensure

no one noticed that he was the instigator.

In the span of a second, that hand moved as fast as lightning, ruthless and

precise as it snapped Madam Mo’s neck. Seeing how the Mo family was being

steadily beaten back, Wei Wuxian was just about to let loose the whistle he

held under his tongue when—right then—two strums from a guqin sounded in

the far distance.

The two notes were skillfully played, ethereal and clear, carrying with themthe tinkling bleakness of windswept pines. The collection of demonic evils that

were in the middle of a brawl all froze.

The youths of the Lan Clan of Gusu immediately beamed as if they had been

resurrected. Lan Sizhui raised a hand to wipe away the blood on his face and

then looked up, calling out in delight:

“Hanguang-jun!”

The moment he heard the cry of that sobriquet and the distant guqin, Wei Wuxian turned to leave.

Another strum. This time, the note was higher pitched, piercing through the

sky like the austere harshness of winter’s first approach. The three fierce

corpses shrank back while covering one ear with their right hands at the same

time.

However, it was impossible to block out the Eradication Tone of the Lan

Clan of Gusu in such a way. They only managed to back up a few steps before

there was the faint sound of cracking in their skulls.

As for that left arm, after engaging in such a ferocious fight, hearing the sound

of the strings now made it suddenly drop to the ground. Though its fingers still

twitched, the arm was already lying limp and silent.

After a short silence, the group of youths couldn’t help but erupt in loud

cheers, the sound filled with the jubilation of having survived. They had

endured a terrifying night, and now that help from the clan had finally arrived,

they couldn’t have cared less if they were harshly punished later for “disgracing

the sect with a breach of etiquette.”

While they waved toward the moon, Lan Sizhui suddenly noticed someone

missing. He tugged at Lan Jingyi.

“Where is he?”

Lan Jingyi was busy being happy and replied, “Who? He who?”

“That Mo-gongzi,” Lan Sizhui replied.

“Huh? Why are you looking for that lunatic? Who knows, maybe he was

scared of getting beaten up by me and ran off somewhere.”

“…”

Lan Sizhui knew that Lan Jingyi was unmindful and straightforward, never

thinking deeply on things or harboring suspicion. He thought to himself, I’ll just

wait until Hanguang-jun is down here, then report to him about that man and

the incident.

The Mo Estate slumbered soundly, though whether that peace was real or

fake was difficult to tell. Even though there had been a bloody corpse fight inthe Mo Manor’s east and west courtyards, no one was getting up in the middle

of the night to watch it. One had to pick and choose the right spectacle to

watch, and a spectacle with such incessant screaming was best avoided.

Wei Wuxian rapidly destroyed any remaining evidence of the sacrificial ritual

array, then ran out the door.

Of all people who could have come, it had to be the Lan family; of all people

to come, it just had to be Lan Wangji!

This was someone with whom he had once crossed paths and fought, so he

retreated in a hurry. Anxious to find a steed, as he passed by a courtyard, he

noticed a spotted donkey tied next to a large millstone, chewing something in

its mouth. It seemed a little surprised when it saw him come dashing over,

giving him a side-eye like a person would.

The instant Wei Wuxian met its eyes,