《𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗿》

𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆.

𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘛𝘰𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘢 "𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘥" 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘵-𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵.

𝘐 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶.

𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐲: 𝘔𝘰 𝘟𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘟𝘪𝘯

𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫: 𝘒 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘹𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘙𝘦𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴

《𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲》

《𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀》

𝗪𝗲𝗶 𝗬𝗶𝗻𝗴: (named Mo XuanYu after transmigration) ▪︎𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞: WuXian (fourth on the list of young masters) ▪︎𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: YiLing Patriarch ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Wei—contains the character for "ghost"; Ying— "infant"; WuXian— "no envies"; YiLing—the place Yiling, where Luanzang Hill is ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 186 cm (180 cm after transmigration) ▪︎𝐒𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝: Suibian (the Chinese characters "Sui Bian", meaning "whatever", are engraved on the sword) ▪︎𝐓𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬: Stygian Tiger Seal (of which half was destroyed prior to the siege at Luanzang Hill), Compass of Evil, Spirit-attraction flag

𝗟𝗮𝗻 𝗭𝗵𝗮𝗻: ▪︎𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞: WangJi (second on the list of young masters) ▪︎𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: HanGuang-Jun ("Two Jades of Lan" with his brother Lan XiChen) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Lan— "blue"; Zhan—an adjective often used to describe an azure shade of blue; WangJi—a Daoist phrase, meaning "to not seek fame or wealth, forget about worldly matters, and be at peace with the world"; HanGuang— "to hold light" ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 188 cm ▪︎𝐒𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝: Bichen (meaning "to avoid dust/worldly matters") ▪︎𝐆𝐮𝐪𝐢𝐧: Wangji

𝗬𝘂𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗝𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁: ▪︎𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨: to attempt the impossible ▪︎𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: Lotus Pier, Yunmeng ▪︎𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟: the nine-petal lotus

𝗝𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗴: ▪︎𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞: WanYin (fifth on the list of young masters) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Jiang— "river"; Cheng— "clear", "transparent"; WanYin— Wan means "night", while Yin means "to chant" ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 185 cm ▪︎𝐒𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝: Sandu (a Buddhist phrase that refers to the root of all turmoil-greed, anger, and ignorance) ▪︎𝐑𝐢𝐧𝐠: Zidian ("purple lightning"); it can turn into a whip that emits purple lightning, able to separate the soul and body of a person who had seized someone else's body

𝗝𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗙𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗠𝗶𝗮𝗻: (Jiang Cheng's father and past sect leader; he was old friends with Wei WuXian's parents) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: FengMian— Feng means "maple", while Mian means "to sleep"

𝗬𝘂 𝗭𝗶𝗬𝘂𝗮𝗻: (Jiang Cheng's mother) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Yu— "to worry"; ZiYuan— "purple kite-bird"

𝗝𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗟𝗶: (Jiang Cheng's older sister, Wei WuXian's shijie) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: YanLi— "to dislike separation"

𝗚𝘂𝘀𝘂𝗟𝗮𝗻 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁: ▪︎𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨: be righteous ▪︎𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫: Lan An (born in a temple; became a musician afterward) ▪︎𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: The Cloud Recesses, Gusu ▪︎𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟: flowing clouds

𝗟𝗮𝗻 𝗛𝘂𝗮𝗻: ▪︎𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞: XiChen (first on the list of young masters) ▪︎𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: Zewu-Jun ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Huan— "to dissipate"; XiChen— "A chancellor of the morning sun" ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 188 cm ▪︎𝐒𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝: Shuoyue ("new moon") ▪︎𝐗𝐢𝐚𝐨: Liebing ("fractured ice")

𝗟𝗮𝗻 𝗦𝗶𝘇𝗵𝘂𝗶: (mature disciple with polite manners) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: : SiZhui— "to recollect and long for" ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 172 cm

𝗟𝗮𝗻 𝗝𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗬𝗶: (less mature disciple with less polite manners) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: JingYi—Jing means "scenery", while Yi can mean either "appearance", "etiquette", or "gift" ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 168 cm

𝗟𝗮𝗻 𝗤𝗶𝗥𝗲𝗻: (the pedantic, stubborn, strict teacher who brings up excellent students) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: QiRen—Qi means "to open, to start", while Ren means "kindness"

𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗝𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁: ▪︎𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: Koi Tower, Lanling ▪︎𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟: the white peony Sparks Amidst Snow (Disciples of the Jin Clan have vermilion marks on their forehead)

𝗝𝗶𝗻 𝗚𝘂𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗬𝗮𝗼: (Leader of the LanlingJin Sect) ▪︎𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: LianFang-Zun ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Jin— "golden"; GuangYao— Guang means "light", while Yao means "a radiant piece of jade"; LianFang— "to hide fragrance" ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 170 cm

𝗝𝗶𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗴: (son of Jin ZiXuan and Jiang YanLi) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Ling— "to rise above" ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 172 cm

𝗝𝗶𝗻 𝗭𝗶𝘅𝘂𝗮𝗻: (Ranked third on the list of young masters) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Zi—a common character found in many names; Xuan— "a tall pavilion" ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 185 cm

𝗝𝗶𝗻 𝗚𝘂𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗻: (past sect leader, rumored to have died "in bed") ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: GuangShan—Guang means "light", while Shan means "kindness"

𝗠𝗼 𝗫𝘂𝗮𝗻𝗬𝘂: (illegitimate son of Jin GuangShan, sacrificed his body to Wei WuXian) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: XuanYu—Xuan means "mysterious", while Yu means "feathers"

𝗤𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝘂: (Wife of Jin GuangYao) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Su— "sincerity"

𝗤𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗪𝗲𝗻 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁: ▪︎𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫: Wen Mao (the first to focus on expanding the clan instead of the sect)

𝗪𝗲𝗻 𝗡𝗶𝗻𝗴: ▪︎𝐀𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞: Ghost General ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Wen— "lukewarm"; Ning— "peace" ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 183 cm

𝗪𝗲𝗻 𝗥𝘂𝗼𝗛𝗮𝗻: (Past leader of the Wen Sect) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: RuoHan—Ruo means "as though", while Han means "coldness"

𝗤𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗡𝗶𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁: ▪︎𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟: the head of a beast

𝗡𝗶𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗝𝘂𝗲: ▪︎𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: ChiFeng—Zun (eldest one of the sworn brothers) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: MingJue— "a bright, penannular jade"; ChiFeng— "a crimson blade" ▪︎𝐒𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐫: Baxia ("to be under forceful power") ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 191 cm

𝗡𝗶𝗲 𝗛𝘂𝗮𝗶𝗦𝗮𝗻𝗴: (the cowardly second young master) ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: HuaiSang—Huai means "to hold", while Sang refers to "mulberry leaves" ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 172 cm

《𝗬𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗿𝗰》

𝗫𝘂𝗲 𝗬𝗮𝗻𝗴: ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 180 cm ▪︎𝐒𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝: Jiangzai ("to bring down disasters")

𝐗𝐢𝐚𝐨 𝐗𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐧: ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Xiao— "dawn"; XingChen— "star-dust" ▪︎𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 185 cm ▪︎𝐒𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝: Shuanghua ("floral frost" or "the brilliance of frost")

𝗦𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗮𝗻: ▪︎𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞: Zichen ▪︎𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Lan— "mist"; ZiChen—Zia common character found in many names, while Chen means "a precious stone" ▪︎𝐒𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝: Fuxue ("to brush away snow")

𝗔-𝗤𝗶𝗻𝗴: 𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Qing— "bamboo"

Less than a day has passed since the siege in LuanZang Hill, and the news spreads through the cultivation world as if it sprouted wings, surpassing even the speed of warfare.

For a while, from the most prominent clans to rogue cultivators, everyone is discussing the siege that was lead by the Four Great Clans and followed by hundreds of smaller ones.

.

.

.

After Wei Wuxian's death, the period is drawn on the topic. The discussions of the people are mostly the same, with a few unconventional opinions being brought down immediately.

However, the elephant in the room stayed in the back of everyone's mind.

Nobody could summon Wei WuXian's soul, which meant that his soul had disappeared.

It might have been torn apart by the millions of ghosts that devoured him.

Or, it might have escaped.

If was the first, then all is well. Then again, nobody doubts the fact that the YiLing Patriarch has the power to move mountains and empty seas. If it was the last, his soul would eventually return to revive in his body. When the day comes, the cultivation world, or even all of mortal land, would be faced with the most insane damnation and revenge, sinking into nothing but chaos and despair.

The various clans set one hundred and twenty stone beasts on top of LuanZang Hill and initiated frequent soul-summoning rituals, followed by heightened vigilance and searches for strange occurrences from all over the world.

In the first year, nothing happened.

In the second year, nothing happened.

In the third year, nothing happened.

...

In the thirteenth year, nothing happened either.

More and more people were starting to believe that, maybe, the YiLing Patriarch actually perished.

Even if he was capable of turning the world upside down, it was finally his turn to be toppled over.

Nobody would remain at the top for all of eternity-legends are only legends.

Wei WuXian received a kick as he opened his eyes.

A voice thundered beside his ear.

The kick threw him backwards, headfirst onto the ground. Fighting the urge to vomit, a thought formed in his head—

It was his first time hearing a human voice in quite a few years, let alone such a loud, fierce shriek. His head swirled and ears buzzed with the echoes of the voice.

Aside from this adolescent, duck-like voice, there were the clunks of ransacking chests and smashing objects as well. His eyes gradually cleared up.

A dimly-lit ceiling appeared in his sight, followed by a slant-browed person with a sickly composition, drenching him with spittle.

A few servant-like hunks shifted over.

The young master asked.

A manservant replied.

The young master seemed to be quite pleased, poking Wei WuXian forcefully on the nose.

Wei WuXian thought wearily.

The young master let out enough anger by kicking the person and wrecking the house, and strutted out with his two man-servants, slamming the door with a "bang."

He shouted his orders.

As the group went away, silence fell upon the room. Wei WuXian thought about getting up.

However, his limbs failed to uphold themselves, so he lay down again. He turned on his side and stared dizzily at the strange environment and the heaps of mess on the ground.

A bronze mirror rested on the side, probably thrown onto the ground. Wei Wuxian grabbed it and looked into the mirror, only to see a ghastly pale face, with two asymmetrical piles of red on each side of his cheek. Add a blood-red tongue onto the features, and he would look like a hanged ghost. He tossed the mirror to the side and wiped his face, finding his hand covered with white powder.

Fortunately, the body wasn't born this way—it was only one of the owner's penchants. He was no-doubt a man, yet he was covered with makeup—not to mention, badly applied makeup.

Taken back by the shock, some energy came back to him, and he finally sat up, noticing the circular array* beneath him.

The array was scarlet in color and crooked in shape, appearing to be drawn by hand, using blood as the medium, still damp and emitting a strong scent. The array was filled with warped scribbles of incantations, which were somewhat smudged by his body, but came across as gruesome nonetheless.

After all, Wei WuXian was known as the Supreme Leader and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, so he was most certainly accustomed to vile-looking arrays such as this one.

It turned out that, in fact, he did not seize the body of another—he was offered one.

It was an ancient, forbidden technique. Compared to an array, it resembled a curse more. The caster of the array injures themselves by creating incisions on their body, and draws the array and writes the incantations using their own blood, finishing by sitting in the center of the array. They can then summon an extremely villainous ghoul and ask for it to complete their wish. The price to pay was to offer their body to the evil spirit, with their own soul returning back to Earth.

This was the forbidden technique opposite to stealing another's body—offering one's body.

Because of the grave sacrifices, only few people were brave enough to put it into effect. After all, there were hardly any wishes strong enough for a living person to willingly sacrifice everything that they own. Over thousands of years, only three or four examples have been proven to be true and recorded by history. Without exception, the three or four people's wishes were the same—to take revenge.

Wei WuXian refused to accept this.

Why would he be put into the category of "extremely villainous ghouls"?

Although his reputation wasn't great and he had died in a horrifying way, he neither haunts the living nor seeks vengeance. He could swear that one can't find another wandering ghost as harmless as him.

The difficult part was that, as soon as the evil spirit has taken over the body of the caster, the contract is sealed by default. The evil spirit must grant their wish, or else the curse will cause a backlash. The spirit in possession of the body will be completely annihilated, never to be born again!

Wei WuXian raised his hands to find that, unsurprisingly, both of his wrists were crisscrossed with multiple cuts. He proceeded to take off his belt. Under the black clothes, his chest and stomach areas were also covered with what seemed to be lacerations from a sharp tool. Although the bleeding had stopped, Wei WuXian knew that these weren't normal wounds. If he didn't fulfill the wish of the body's owner, the wounds would not be able to heal. It would worsen as the time goes on, and if the time limit was passed, both his soul and this body would be ripped apart.

Wei WuXian confirmed his situation several times, repeating "how can this happen to me?" in his heart even more times, and could finally stand upright, leaning against the wall.

Even though the house was large in size, it was empty and shabby, with sheets and blankets looking like they hadn't been changed in a long while. There was a bamboo basket in the corner. It was supposed to be for storing trash, but, having been kicked over earlier, the scraps all tumbled out onto the ground. Wei WuXian scanned around the room and picked up a crumpled piece of paper. He unfolded it and was surprised to see it crammed with words. He hurriedly gathered all of the paper.

The words on the paper must have been written by the owner of this body to vent when he felt stressed. Some sentences were incoherent and disordered; anxiety leaped off of the page through the distorted handwriting. Wei WuXian sat through every single piece of paper, and began to notice that something was wrong.

He took a few guesses and roughly understood the state of things.

It turned out to be that the owner of this body was named Mo XuanYu. His location was called Mo Village.

Mo XuanYu's grandfather was from a rich family of the area. His family was few in number, and, although he tried at it, he only had two daughters. Their names were not mentioned, but the elder one was the daughter of his principal wife, looking for a husband to marry into the family, while the younger one was the daughter of a servant. The Mo family originally wanted to hastily give her to someone, but an adventure awaited her. When she was sixteen, the leader of a well-known cultivation family was passing by the area, and fell in love with her at first sight.

Everyone admires cultivators. Cultivation families, in the eyes of common folk, are like people favored by God, mysterious yet noble.

In the beginning, the people of Mo Village regarded the topic with contempt, but because the Sect Leader* often helped out, the Mo family received plenty of advantages. And so, the direction of the discussions changed, and the Mo family took pride in the matter, while everyone else also envied the opportunity.

The second-lady of Mo bore one son for the leader—Mo XuanYu.

But, not for long, since the Sect Leader was only involved with her to experiment with something new, he grew tired of it in a few years. After Mo XuanYu turned four, his father never came back again.

Gradually, the opinions of the Mo Village's people changed again. The original contempt and scorn returned, alongside with disdainful pity.

The second-lady of Mo did not want to accept this; she firmly believed that the Sect Leader would not turn a deaf ear to his own son. Sure enough, when Mo XuanYu turned fourteen, the Sect Leader took him back.

The second-lady stuck her nose up in the air again, and told everyone that her son would most certainly become an Immortal* as fast as he could, and bring glory on his ancestors.

However, before Mo XuanYu achieve success in cultivation and inherit his father's position, he was driven back.

On top of that, he was driven back shamefully.

Mo XuanYu was homosexual, and had enough nerve to harass the other disciples. The scandal was revealed to the public and, as he had few achievements in terms of cultivation, there were no reasons for him to stay in the clan.

Like adding frost to snow, aside from the event itself, when Mo XuanYu returned, he often behaved in a crazy manner, almost as if his life was scared out of him.

The story was almost too complex to be put into words.

Wei WuXian's eyebrows twitched.

That explained why there were enough rouge and powder on his face to make him look like a hanged ghost, and also why nobody was surprised at the large, bloody array on the ground. Even if Mo XuanYu painted the whole room red with blood, from the tiles on the ground to the walls to the ceiling, the others wouldn't be overly surprised. After all, everyone knew that his head had a screw loose!

After he went back home dejectedly, he was bombarded with ridicule. The situation seemed like it was beyond redemption, and the second-lady of Mo was not able to withstand the blow, shortly choking to death because of the trauma.

At this time, Mo XuanYu's grandfather had already passed away. The first-lady of Mo was in charge of the family, but, ever since a young age, she had been unable to stand her younger sister, including her sister's son. She had an only child, Mo ZiYuan, who happened to be the person who ransacked the place earlier.

When Mo XuanYu was taken away by his father, the first-lady was jealous, and wanted to have even the slightest relationship with a cultivation Sect. She hoped that the envoy who came would take Mo ZiYuan to cultivate as well.

Of course, she was refused, or rather, ignored.

This was most certainly not a case of selling cabbage. One simply can't bargain, much less buy one and get another for free.

Strangely confident, this family all held the thought that Mo ZiYuan had potential and talent. They believed that if, back then, he was sent instead, he would have won recognition from the Sect, unlike his disappointing cousin. Although, when Mo XuanYu left, Mo ZİYuan was still young, he was repeatedly instilled with nonsense such as this, and believed in them wholeheartedly. Every two or three days, he would find Mo XuanYu and humiliate him, cursing him for snatching his road to cultivation. At the same time, he was found great interest in the talismans, elixirs, and magic tools, regarding all of them as his possessions and doing whatever he wanted with them.

Although Mo XuanYu often switched in and out of being a lunatic, he did understand that he was degraded by others. He tolerated it, but Mo ZiYuan further intensified his behavior, almost emptying his whole room. His patience had finally drained out and he complained to his aunt and uncle, causing Mo ZiYuan's commotion from this morning.

The words on the paper were small and compact, which hurt Wei Wuxian's eyes.

He thought to himself:

No wonder Mo XuanYu would rather use the forbidden technique to sacrifice his body and ask villainous ghouls to take revenge.

The pain from his eyes transferred to his head. Supposedly, to use the forbidden technique, the caster would chant their wish silently. As the evil spirit being summoned, Wei WuXian should have been able to hear his specific requirements.

However, it was likely that Mo XuanYu copied fragmented excerpts of the technique somewhere, and skipped this step. Although Wei Wuxian guessed that he wanted to take revenge on the Mo family, but how should he do it? To what extent? To retrieve the items that were taken from him? Or to beat up everyone of the Mo family?

Or... To wipe out the whole family?

In all likelihood, it was probably to wipe out the whole family. After all, anyone who touched upon the cultivation world would know what phrases were used most often to describe him—ungrateful, eccentric, not recognizing his own family, intolerable by heaven, and other spectacular terms. Was there anyone else more "villainous" than him? If Mo XuanYu had dared to summon him specifically, the wish was most likely not an easily fulfilled one.

Wei WuXian couldn't help but to say:

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《𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀》

▪︎𝐀𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐲: a magical formation drawn on the ground to cast spells and such

▪︎𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫: the leader of an organization dedicated towards the practice of cultivation

▪︎𝐈𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐥: beings who gained immortality from cultivation practices