Chapter 1 - Prologue

The moon glowed bright and round over the trees. A full moon, perhaps an auspicious sign that the juniors' secret night hunt with Senior Wei would remain unnoticed by Master Lan. Even if they got caught, Sizhui pondered, it would have been worth it. Today's night hunt had been especially exciting - they'd encountered a huge huodou (fire-breathing black dog from Chinese mythology). Senior Wei had nearly fainted from terror, but Sizhui and his group eventually defeated it without him, much to their delight. It took about 2 sticks of incense worth of time for them to coax Senior Wei from his hiding place in a tree hollow (Jin Ling's snickering hadn't helped).

In short, their spirits were high as they stealthily dropped one by one over the wall of the Cloud Recesses, Senior Wei in the front. Jin Ling came with them, wanting to see them off.

"Wei Ying." Lan Wangji's voice, though calm, sent terror rippling through each of their spines. Each of them ducked back behind the corner of a building. However, Wei Wuxian hurried forwards, a beaming smile on his face as he looped his arm through Lan Zhan's.

"Lan Zhan! Were you waiting for me? Wei Ying is sorry for making you wait, come, let's go back to the jingshi and I'll tell you about where I went..." He dragged Lan Zhan away, clearly giving the juniors an escape route.

Just as they were about to scamper away, thanking the heavens for Senior Wei's great ability to distract Lan Wangji, another, much more aggressive, voice came from behind them.

'Jin Ling! Where do you think you're going! Don't you try to hide!" Evidently, Jiang Cheng was also waiting with Lan Wangji for Jin Ling to eventually turn up.

"Uncle! I- I was -"

"Don't you call me 'Uncle' like that! How many times have I told you-"

At this precise moment, however, midnight struck, and a peculiar sensation swept through them all. A split second later, they found themselves in a completely different place to where they were before.

'- you aren't allowed to...go out.....without..." Jiang Cheng's sentence trailed off as looked around in confusion.

Jin Ling was confused by this sudden turn of events, albeit relieved towards whatever was happening that was sparing him from another of his uncle's lectures.

They were currently in a very large, very odd room, illuminated by strange, tiny little lights. The room was full of strange, red contraptions that were actually very comfortable - like a bed, but bent in half and with platforms on the side so that one could sit on it and rest their arms on them. In each of these red contraptions, there was a person sitting. Jin Ling appreciatively rubbed his hand the fabric of the red contraption - it was unlike any fabric he knew - rougher than silk, but soft nonetheless?

"What happened? How did we just go from the Cloud Recesses to here?"

Jin Ling looked to his right and sure enough, Lan Jingyi was sitting in the contraption beside him. On his other side was Lan Sizhui, and Ouyang Zizhen was one further down. His uncle, Jiang Cheng was in the row in front of them, who currently still seemed lost for words, thankfully.

~

Wei Wuxian flicked his nose. Whoever had done this must have been extremely powerful, he thought. Transporting such a large number (half the cultivation world had to be in this huge room at this point!) of people in one go, so quickly, with such neatness, was more than unheard of - it should have simply been impossible. Then again, clearly, it was not impossible, and he, Wei Wuxian, had never been one to be held back by feeble words like 'impossible'.

He tried to stand up, but found he couldn't move his lower body. Alarmed, he looked around for Lan Zhan. Thankfully, he was just beside him, in another red contraption.

"Lan Zhan! I can't move my legs! Are we trapped here??"

"Mn. I can not move my legs either." But then he reached out and grasped Wei Wuxian's hand, twisting their fingers together. "Do not worry. We will figure this out."

Wei Wuxian's heart rate slowed down.

Suddenly, white words appeared, floating seemingly in mid-air, at the front of the room. After more careful scrutiny, they appeared to actually be glowing words on a huge, black board.

The words read:

Welcome! Please settle back in your seats, and enjoy the film. Refreshments can be requested by pressing the blue button for drinks and the green button for popcorn.

Whispers of many variations of 'Huh?', 'What is popcorn?' and 'What do they mean 'pressing the blue button?' instantly filled the room.

Wei Wuxian looked to his right, where two little orbs glowed, one green and one blue. Interested, he prodded the blue one. It sank down at his touch, making a really satisfying clicking noise. Seconds later, he felt something whiz by his feet. Before he could closely scrutinise whatever it was, it deposited a strange cup that seemed to be made of paper on the platform, next to his hand. The cup was filled to the brim of a mysterious, clear liquid.

"Don't-" Lan Zhan started, but it was too late.

It looked too much like alcohol for Wei Wuxian to resist it. He took a cautious sip and gasped in delight. It was a bit like alcohol, in that it burned his throat when he swallowed it, but it tasted terrifically sweet and fruity.

"It's great! Lan Zhan, try some!"

Suddenly, moving pictures filled the board at the front of the room, and soft music, the source of which Wei Wuxian had no idea, filled the room.

The pictures depicted delicate ink drawings of a guqin, which quickly changed to bamboo and then to a flute.

No one in the cultivation world had heard of moving paintings, but this new invention seemed to them utterly engrossing. Whatever talisman could do this would certainly create a lot of profit for the inventor!

A drop of water rolled off a reed and blossomed into the words:

The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

Collectively, everyone turned to look at Wei Wuxian.

"Wei Wuxian!'

"What have you done now?"

"We know it's you, Yiling Laozu!"

Enraged shouts bounced around the room. Irritated, Wei Wuxian yelled back, "Hey! Why are you accusing me? I'm flattered you think I'm powerful enough to do this, but why would I trap myself here with all of you? I can't stand any of you anyway!"

Meanwhile, the pictures had blossomed into colour - blooming pink lotus flowers and the face of a handsome, grinning man, with messy hair and purple-grey eyes, a sword over his shoulder.

Accompanying the soft guqin music were lyrics:

I look disdainfully at the heavens as storms rage, gently holding Chenqing

Wei Wuxian paused. "Okay, hard to admit that's not me..." He sighed. "I looked so much cooler in my past life."

Most of the room was shocked into silence, seeing the (it was hard to admit) charming face of Wei Wuxian, back in the times when he still had a sword. Before they could get a proper look, though, his face was replaced by flowing rivers, crystalline blue and tall mountains, followed by a close up of Lan Wangji, his face cold but ethereal.

At the Cloud Recesses, Emperor's smile at the altar... The physical world is transient, the drunken dreams of a lone soul

"Hehe, my husband is the most beautiful ~ ", Wei Wuxian said teasingly. "Wait - did it say Emperor's Smile?!"

Mianmian, meanwhile, somewhere in the middle of the room, was starting to tear up already. She could sense an adorable love story coming up... 'drunken dreams'? 'Lone soul'? Definitely two phrases to describe Lan Wangji while he waited for his Wei Ying to come back.

I explore the ways of good and evil, fighting all alone...

There was Jiang Cheng, his face in a characteristic grimace. There was awkward silence as everyone reflected on how accurate the lyrics were so far...'alone' pretty much described Jiang Cheng's life as a sect leader.

More faces began to appear - Lan Qiren, Lan Xichen and the two Lan juniors, much to their embarrassment, and then the Jins, much to Jin Ling's delight.

The music built up to the chorus;

My love and respect remain, although we walk different paths...

The accompanying picture showed Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, drifting past each other, gazing into each others eyes.

"Eh? How does this thing know about us!" exclaimed Wei Wuxian, more flirtatiously than anything, nudging Lan Zhan in the side.

The juniors and many of the cultivators looked away, slightly embarrassed. Others however, were thinking similarly to Mianmian and were eagerly anticipating a dramatic, juicy love story.

The music died away, to reveal a scene of a dark forest. Ominous music rang through the room, crows cawed and fluttered around. In the forest were a large crowd of Wen cultivators. In front of them was a heap of bloodied corpses of more Wen cultivators.

Gasps rang out through the room.

"Wen-dogs!"

"Kill them!"

"Don't be stupid, you idiots, it's just a moving picture."

Suddenly there was the shrill sound of a flute.

What? A flute?

The Wen cultivators looked at each other in fear. The younger cultivators, including the juniors, were looking at the screen with great interest, having never seen these infamous Wens in real life (with the exception of Sizhui, who still didn't remember them much anyhow).

Wei Wuxian was starting to have a bad feeling about what was going to happen next - his memory may have been poor, but considering there were a group of Wens in a forest, with dead Wens at their feet, a flute sounding, it required no special brain power to guess who was going to show up.

Sure enough, as the music came to a dramatic climax, the pictures zoomed out to show a man in swirling black robes and a drifting red hair ribbon, on the highest branch of a tall tree, silhouetted against a full moon.

The juniors snickered to themselves. "That's Senior Wei right? Who else is that dramatic... is he seriously standing on top of a tree??"

Eerie flute music continued to play, and the dead Wen corpses were suddenly suffused with a red light. They slowly began to stand up...

The pictures moved back to Wei Wuxian's face as the Wen cultivators shrieked

The ghost flute, Chenqing! It's the Yiling Laozu, Wei Wuxian!

To further reinforce the fact that this ominous person was indeed him, the characters 'Wei Ying, courtesy name Wei Wuxian' appeared above his head, just as his eyes opened, flickered and turned red.

Mutters of fear and disgust echoed throughout the room.

"Look, how evil he looks....controlling corpses, how immoral!"

Wei Wuxian snorted. A moment ago, weren't they all eager to kill the Wens? Hypocrites, all of them. At the same time, the corpses lunged towards the Wens cultivators. Their piercing screams soon faded away...to be replaced with a new scene, a teahouse.

"Great news! Wei WuXian has died!"

"..." Wei Wuxian was temporarily affronted. "What? Shut up."

Narration continued to play out.

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 led by the Four Great Clans and followed by hundreds of smaller ones.

Lan Zhan gripped Wei Wuxian's hand. "This is..."

Jiang Cheng interrupted. "This is talking about the past. After you died."

"The YiLing Patriarch has died? Who could have killed him?"

"Who other than his shidi, Jiang Cheng, putting an end to his own relative for the greater good. Jiang Cheng led the Four Clans of YunmengJiang, LanlingJin, GusuLan, and QingheNie to destroy his "den"—LuanZang Hill."

"I must say, good riddance!"

"Good riddance indeed! We finally eliminated this scourge."

Wei Wuxian sighed. "Why, after 13 years, am I still being dissed?" It seemed like the 'We hate the Yiling Laozu' party was never over. It wouldn't surprise him if this whole situation was arranged by one of his enemies who, thinking that people were getting too friendly with him in his new life, wanted to redose everyone with some anti-Wei Wuxian propaganda. 'Well', he thought to himself, 'it was good while it lasted. At least I have Lan Zhan with me, no matter what." He turned to his husband and found him already gazing at him, giving him a funny jolt in his stomach. He doubted he would ever get used to his luck of having such a beautiful, devoted husband.

He hoped that the juniors wouldn't get too influenced by whatever these moving pictures were. He caught sight of Jingyi making rude faces at the pictures, Sizhui shaking his head softly and Jin Ling sitting in a typical "Bitch, shut up" pose with his arms folded and head tilted to the side. Wei Wuxian gave a secret sigh of relief.

"If not for the YunmengJiang clan's adopting and teaching him, he would have been a hobo living on the streets, let alone causing mayhem as bold as the ones these days. The head of the Jiang clan raised him as her own child, yet he defected them and became the enemy of the cultivation world, bringing shame upon the the Jiang clan, even leading to its near extermination. He is the prime example of biting the hand that feeds him!"

"Jiang Cheng allowed this fellow to live for too long. If I were him, at the time of the defection, I wouldn't have just stabbed him. In fact, I would have thoroughly examined the disciples of the clan again, so that he doesn't do those crazy things he did later on. Who cares about the so called 'considerations' that he gave to his childhood friend."

Wei Wuxian's face was paling, whilst Jiang Cheng's face was going slowly as purple as his robes.

"That's merely hearsay. Although Jiang Cheng was one of the main forces, he did not give Wei WuXian the final blow. Because he cultivates the Demon Path, Wei WuXian's powers had backfired and he was ripped to pieces."

"Hahahaha... That's karma! The ghost soldiers that he created are like unleashed dogs, biting everyone that they come across. It serves him right to be chewed to death!"

"But, if not for Jiang Cheng making a plan that aimed at Wei WuXian's weaknesses, the siege might not have succeeded. Should I remind you folks of the item that Wei WuXian possesses? Did you forget about the day that three thousand skilled cultivators were completely annihilated?"

"I heard that it was more than three thousand, possibly five thousand."

During this narration, the screen showed disturbing images of a swarm of cultivators charging up a hill, rivers of blood, and a single person in red and black robes, flute in one hand, amulet in another, being ripped open in a burst of red light.

The juniors looked in horror. They, of course, had already known about their Senior Wei's reputation, but they tended to forget it due to his distinctly kind and goofy demeanour around them. To have died such a death...

Meanwhile, other cultivators were harrumphing in agreement.

"Indeed, so this film is going to reveal all of Wei Wuxian's dark secrets, like how we were showed Jin Guangyao's secrets."

"Ah yes, of course, of course. Huh! I wonder what he could have done that was worse than what we already know!"

There were many dark chuckles.

Lan Zhan looked down. Wei Wuxian's hand had clenched into a fist beneath his own hand. He felt the urge to pull him into an embrace, but he couldn't move.

After Wei WuXian's death, the period is drawn on the topic. 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.

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 raised his eyebrows. Were people really that afraid of him? It took them thirteen years to believe that he maybe perished. He didn't know if he should feel offended or flattered.

Other cultivators were giving dark sighs.

Sect Leader Yao spoke up, "Ah, but of course the Yiling Laozu wouldn't leave us alone. He had to come back."

Jingyi spoke up indignantly, "Hey! You say that like it's a bad thing! Senior Wei has helped a lot after coming back!"

Sect Leader Yao gave an incredulous 'pfft!'. "Don't talk about things you don't understand, child.", he said condescendingly.

Sizhui poked Jingyi into silence. "Shhh. I want to listen."

They turned back to watch. The screen showed words again:

Mo Village, 13 years later: Reincarnation

Key:

Normal text: what's happening in the present moment.

Bold text: Description of what's being shown on the screen

"Speech" - speech marks

'Thoughts' - single speech marks

DISCLAIMER!

The plot and story are of course the original work of the very talented Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. If you want to support her and her work, you can buy her books (a bit pricey but sooo worth it!! there are illustrations too 😉), buy the manhua (much cheaper!!), buy the audio drama (for even cheaper!!), watch the Untamed on YouTube or on Netflix, or watch the donghua on WeTV.