Chapter 19 - Contentment

Wei WuXian lay on his stomach for the whole night. The first half of the night was spent thinking about what in the world had happened to Lan WangJi during these years, and he only drifted off during the second half.

"Oh!" Jingyi exclaimed in disappointment. "Is the story about Senior Wei and Hanguang Jun and Sect Leader Jiang when they were teenagers over already?"

Wei Wuxian shrugged. "Well, that's not that bad of a thing. Things only go pretty steeply downhill from there..."

Jingyi pouted. That was precisely why he had wanted to keep watching and learning about their past lives! To see the fighting and action!

"I suppose it was good enough we got to see what the seniors were like when they were studying here as teens." Sizhui said with a soft smile. Jingyi snorted as he remembered the pornography book incident in the Library Pavilion. He'd never be able to look at the place the same again.

Disgruntled mumbles around the room indicated a lot of cultivators shared Jingyi's sentiments.

"So we aren't going to get to see the Sunshot Campaign and the massacre at Nightless City?" huffed one cultivator.

"I really wanted to see how Wei Wuxian made the Stygian Tiger Amulet." another cultivator sighed dramatically.

Guo Wanxin rolled his eyes. "I'm sure there will be more flashbacks of the past, relax! This exhibition is obviously centred around Wei Wuxian, they wouldn't just ignore such major parts of his life! Or rather, his lives. "

When he opened his eyes the next morning, Lan WangJi had already disappeared into nowhere. On the other hand, he lay on the bed properly, with his arms placed on the sides of his body in a position that made him seem well-behaved. Wei WuXian immediately took off the blanket that covered him. He dug the fingers of his right hand into his hair. The unexplainable feeling of absurdity and fright still couldn't be erased from his mind.

The audience could now all understand why Wei Wuxian was so shocked at Lan Wangji's behaviour. And of course he was scared that he was no longer able to make Lan Wangji flustered or angry - even after literally climbing into his bed. After all, getting under people's skin - particularly cold and stuffy people like Lan Wangji - was a prized talent of his.

At this time, two knocks came from the jingshi's wooden door. Lan SiZhui's voice came from outside, "Young Master Mo? Have you waken?"

Wei WuXian, "Why are you calling me so early in the morning?!"

Lan SiZhui, "E-early? ... But, it is already nine."

Everyone of the Lan Sect rose at five and slept at nine in a very systematic manner. Wei WuXian, on the other hand, rose at nine and slept at one in a similarly systematic manner, precisely four hours later than those the Lan Sect.

"It's the same amount of sleep. Except better because you can stay up late drinking, and when you wake up, the sun is high and shining." Wei Wuxian declared. Suddenly many people were  reconsidering their sleeping schedules.

"Wait," Zizhen suddenly asked, "Since you sleep with Hanguang Jun now, does he get up later or do you get up earlier?"

"Neither." Wei Wuxian replied. "Hanguang Jun is an excellent role model, of course, so he always gets up at 5 to do some work. Even though we generally fall asleep at the same time after we have our nightly-"

"Oh, ok! Thanks!" Zizhen squeaked, cutting Wei Wuxian off before he went too far.

Because he lay on his front for half of the night, his waist and back were both aching. He spoke in an honest tone, "I can't get up."

Lan SiZhui, "Uhm, what is wrong, this time?"

Wei WuXian, "What is wrong? I got done by your sect's HanGuangJun."

Lan JingYi's angry voice also appeared, "If you continue to speak nonsense like this, you will pay for it. Come out!"

Several older Lan disciples shuddered conspicuously. How did Wei Wuxian have the audacity and the face to say such outrageous things about the venerated Hanguang Jun of all people??

Wei Wuxian grinned. "At least I can still get under Jingyi's skin!"

Wei WuXian spoke as if he had been wronged, "Really! He did me for the whole night! I can't go out. I don't have the face to see anyone." A few juniors stared at each other dumbfoundedly outside the door. People couldn't go into HanGuang-Jun's place without permission, so they couldn't just go inside and drag him out. Lan JingYi raged, "You have no shame at all! HanGuang-Jun is not a cut sleeve. He did you?! I would be more than grateful if you tell me that you did not do him. Get up! Take away that donkey of yours and train it properly. It makes so much noise!"

Jingyi covered his face his with hands. "Oh nooo... It's back to me looking like an idiot because I don't know anything..."

Hearing his method of transportation being mentioned, Wei WuXian quickly climbed up, "What did you do to my Lil' Apple?! Don't touch it. It's gonna kick you."

Lan JingYi asked, "What is Lil'Apple?" Wei WuXian, "My donkey!"

Exiting the jingshi, he shooed the juniors to take him to his mount.

Donkey?? Everyone was scrambling to remember the chain of events that had happened before the flashback to Wei Wuxian's past. Ah right, the scary demon arm at Mo Manor, and the dancing goddess that ate souls at Rice- no Dafan Mountain,  the Ghost General, Wei Wuxian mucking around with Lan Wangji...

Eventually recalling the grumpy but loveable donkey, there were some "ahh"s of recognition.

"...He just instantly gets up and leaves the jingshi like that? After complaining so much, at one mention of his donkey he gets up?" a cultivator said laughing. Who knew the Yiling Patriarch was so fond of animals?

He was led to a field of grass. The donkey was there, crying nonstop and making a lot of noise. The cries were because it wanted to eat grass, but a few dozens of round, white pompons gathered on the field, making it so that it couldn't eat.

"Wow!! Rabbits!! Awww, they're so cute!!" squealed Zizhen.

Wei WuXian was delighted, "So many rabbits! Here, here, let's put them on a stick and start roasting!"

Zizhen froze in horror with his mouth hanging open. "W-what?? Senior Wei!"

Lan Wangji turned to look at Wei Wuxian with the tiniest frown.

"Ahh, don't look at me like that! I didn't know they were yours! And I didn't roast any, I was just joking!" Wei Wuxian said quickly. "Though you should consider adding more variety to the cooking otherwise it's hard not to be tempted..." he muttered as an afterthought.

Lan JingYi fumed with anger, "Killing is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses! Make it shut up, right now. The disciples doing early readings have already come to ask a few times! If this keeps up, we will be scolded to death!"

Lan Wangji deliberated. Jingyi's heart was in the right place, even if his manner was aggressive and impolite by the Lan sect standards. Jingyi's manner just wouldn't change (and he had been defending his rabbits) so Lan Wangji decided he didn't need any punishment.

Wei WuXian fed it the apple that was given to him for breakfast. As he expected, the donkey stopped making noise as it chewed on the apple, crunching its teeth together. Wei WuXian stroked the back of its neck as he thought about the passage tokens on these juniors and pointed at the round rabbits all over the ground, "I really can't roast them? If I roast them, would I be chased off the mountain?"

There were gasps of terror. Though to be fair, roasting a few rabbits was not an altogether terrible crime to commit if it could buy freedom from the Cloud Recesses, especially for the infamous Yiling Patriarch.

Appearing as if he faced an imminent threat, Lan JingYi hastened to block in front of Wei WuXian with his arms stretched wide, "These are HanGuang-Jun's. We just occasionally help him look after them. You cannot dare to roast them!"

As Wei WuXian heard this, he laughed so hard that he almost fell on the ground.

"...what's so funny?"

"He isn't planning some sort of prank or something, is he?"

After seeing Wei Wuxian's antics as a teenager, they were wary (rightfully so) of that sunny laugh of his. On the other hand, Lan Wangji soaked the laughter in. He'd once taken it for granted and later thought he'd never hear it again. It was so characteristic of Wei Wuxian that after being reborn, he had reverted straight back to his normal, exuberant self - as if all the horrific disasters he'd had to experience in his past life hadn't even happened.

He thought, What an interesting person Lan Zhan is! In the past, he didn't even accept them when I gave them out for free, but now, he secretly raised a whole bunch. And he said he didn't want them. Who was he kidding? Oh please, I bet he actually likes this sort of white, fuzzy things. HanGuang-Jun, holding a rabbit while keeping up a straight face. My gosh, I'm gonna die... However, as he thought of the situation of him lying on top of Lan WangJi last night, his laughter stopped abruptly.

Wei Wuxian's mental image of a completely serious-faced Lan Wangji holding a round, fluffy rabbit made the audience crack up too. And then when the mental image suddenly morphed into the scene from last night, there was an embarrassed hush. It seems that that situation had greatly disturbed Wei Wuxian, for him to be still fretting about it.

'He probably was upset that Hanguang Jun had beat him at being shameless for once.' Jingyi thought to himself.

Meanwhile Suzhou was thinking knowingly, 'Poor Senior Wei! He's so confused, because he hasn't admitted to himself that he loves Hanguang Jun!"

Suddenly, rings of the bell came from the the western side of the Cloud Recesses. These rings were completely different from the ones that told the time. They were hurried and violent, as if a madman was striking it.

The cultivators blinked as they suddenly remembered the mysterious plot with the ghost arm and the dancing goddess. Perhaps they had accidentally gotten a bit too absorbed into the romantic/comedic story between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji.

With a sudden change in their faces, Lan JingYi and Lan SiZhui both stopped joking around with him, dashing toward the bell at once. Wei WuXian knew that something was wrong and quickly followed. The sound came from a watchtower, called the "mingshi". It was the building the Lan Sect used to summon spirits.

Outside of the watchtower, more and more of the Lan Sect's disciples started to crowd around, but nobody dared to go in without careful consideration. The door of the mingshi was black and made of wood. It was tightly locked, only able to be opened from inside. It was not only difficult to violently destroy it from the outside, but it was also forbidden to do so.

The prolonged description of the doors being so definitely unable to be opened gave the audience an uneasy feeling, like it was foreshadowing Wei Wuxian somehow breaking into there.

It was extremely scary for an accident to happen during the spirit summoning ritual, since nobody would know what being it would summon or what would happen if someone broke in. And, ever since the mingshi was built, there were almost no cases where the summoning failed. This made everyone more worried.

"Wow, really? None? This is quite serious then..."

"What could this spirit be?? The Yiling Laozu?? ...wait..."

Wei Wuxian restrained his eye roll, lest he start to become a Jiang Cheng 2.0.

Seeing that Lan WangJi didn't appear, Wei WuXian had a foreboding feeling. If Lan WangJi was still in the Cloud Recesses, he would have hurried over immediately, as he heard the alarming chimes of the bell, unless...

"...he's inside!!" Zizhen finished excitedly. "So, he can open the door for Senior Wei!"

Jingyi and Sizhui looked at each other. "Uhh, that's not really what happened-"

Suddenly, the black door burst open with a bang. A whiteclothed disciple rushed outside, staggering and stumbling. As his legs weren't steady, he rolled down the stairs as soon as he came out. The door of the mingshi instantly closed again, as if someone angrily slammed it shut. After he stood up, he immediately fell down again, his face covered in tears beyond his control.

Everyone flinched at the bang and watched the Lan disciple crying in alarm. What sort of spirit could reduce the stoic Lan disciples to tears??

He held onto the people around him, "We should have... shouldn't have summoned..."

Wei WuXian grabbed his hand at once, speaking in a low voice, "Which being's spirit are you summoning? Who else is inside? Where's HanGuangJun?!"

It seemed as if the disciple had trouble breathing, "HanGuang-Jun told me to run away..." Before he finished his sentence, dark-red blood gushed out of his nose and mouth. Wei WuXian pushed him into Lan SiZhui's arms.

"Senior Wei, you really wanted to know if Hanguang Jun was inside! Were you worried about him?" giggled a junior disciple.

"Pssh, as if I need to worry about Lan Zhan! Why would I be worrying about him? " Wei Wuxian laughed it off.

With the hastily created bamboo flute still by his waist, he went up the stairs in just a few strides. He kicked the mingshi's door and commanded, "Open!"

"I don't know, you seem pretty worried to me..." muttered Jingyi.

The audience was laughing - as if kicking the door like an upset kid would make it open-

The mingshi's door opened abruptly, as if it was laughing wildly with a gaping mouth. Wei WuXian entered in a flash, and the door closed right behind him. A few disciples followed him in shock, but the door couldn't be opened again, no matter what.

"Oh. What?" a cultivator said, flabbergasted.

"He didn't even use any talisman or force, he just yelled 'Open' at it!"

Even Lan Qiren looked surprised, then irritated again that Wei Wuxian was ridiculing the ancient wards of the mingshi in front of so many people.

A guest disciple rushed at the door, shock and anger on his face, and blurted out, "Who on Earth was that person?!"

"Ah, if only you knew!" snorted Wei Wuxian.

Lan SiZhui held the earlier disciple up and spoke through clenched teeth, "... Come help me first. His qiqiao are bleeding!"

Sizhui suddenly piped up, "Senior Wei, Senior Wei! How did you get inside without a talisman?"

Wei Wuxian smiled as mysteriously as he could. "Well, Sizhui, when you're the Yiling Patriarch, shrouded in your personal demonic aura, even doors are afraid of you."

The juniors laughed. "We're not afraid of you!" giggled Zizhen.

"You should be." groused Sect Leader Ouyang, glaring at his son.

As soon as he entered the mingshi, Wei WuXian felt a dark energy coming over him. The dark energy seemed like a combination of the energies of resentment, anger, and arrogance, almost visible to the human eye. Surrounded by it, one's chest would feel a constricted sense of pain.

The audience cringed. To mimic the thick atmosphere of resentful energy, high-pitched sounds was playing, along with muffled whispers and hisses. Jingyi went pale and covered his ears.

The inside of the mingshi was about ten meters in both length and width. By its corners, a few people lay motionless on the ground. The object of this summoning was set in the center of the array on the ground. It was nothing else but an arm—the one taken back from Mo Village! Four of its fingers were clenched into a fist, yet its index finger pointed toward the sky, as if it was angrily pointing at someone. The steady flow of dark energy that filled the mingshi was emitted by this. Everyone participating in this spirit summoning ritual had either ran away or passed out. Lan WangJi was the only one still seated properly, at the main position on the east side. A guqin lay on his side. Although his hand wasn't on the strings, they continued to vibrate on their own.

The cultivators looked at the calm figure of Lan Wangji in awe. He certainly deserved the title of Hanguang Jun. No one else could be so placid in the face of such nauseating dark energy - apart from Wei Wuxian, of course, who also didn't seem affected.

Wei Wuxian smiled proudly at Lan Wangji. He had been lying to Zizhen (he had been very worried for his Lan Zhan when he realised he was inside the mingshi with whatever horrifying spirit was being summoned), but it was always great to be reminded of how unnecessary his worry was.

He appeared to be lost in thought or listening to something, only raising his head as he sensed that someone came in. Since Lan WangJi's face was always placid, Wei WuXian had no idea what he was thinking about.

There were light snickers. It was typical of Wei Wuxian to be making joking remarks like that in such a tense situation like this. Or perhaps, mused some cultivators, Wei Wuxian felt right at home amidst all this resentful energy. After all, he probably soaked in it every night while he practiced demonic cultivation.

Lan Xichen looked at his younger brother's face. It was rather placid, but he could just detect a slight impatience, like Wangji was waiting for something- or someone.

Lan QiRen, who was originally responsible for one section of the mingshi, now lay collapsed and unconscious on the side, his qiqiao bleeding like the disciple who escaped the mingshi.

The room filled with low murmurs. Lan Qiren looked to be in a dire condition there...

The current Lan Qiren fumed silently in his seat. Why hadn't he been able to stay conscious?? Was he really getting that old??

Wei WuXian replaced into his position, turning around and stepping toward the far west, directly across of Lan WangJi. He pulled the bamboo flute from beside his waist, and lifted it to his lips.

During the night at Mo Village, Wei WuXian first used the whistling sound to distract it, then Lan WangJi attacked it from afar with notes of the zither. They only suppressed the arm while unintentionally collaborating like this. Lan WangJi met his gaze, a look of understanding on his face. As he raised his right hand, a melody poured out from the guqin. Wei WuXian quickly joined with the flute. The song that they played was named "Evocation".

The room fell silent as everyone held their breath to listen to the beautiful duet. The notes seemed to twirl around each other, dancing together in the air. Wei Wuxian certainly had a point - their combined music felt a lot more powerful than just either one alone.

The song had almost ended, but there was no spirit being summoned. The arm seemed as if it was angered, with veins twitching visibly. Wei WuXian was secretly shocked. It was almost impossible that the spirit couldn't be summoned with Lan WangJi and him playing "Evocation" together, unless... Unless the dead person's soul was cut apart alongside with his corpse! It appeared that this good fellow's death was a bit worse than his. Although his corpse was chomped into more pieces, at least his soul was complete.

Sizhui winced at Wei Wuxian's word choice. 'Chomped'?

Since "Evocation" didn't work, Lan WangJi's fingers shifted, and started playing another tune. This song had a calm melody, different than the sinister, questioning one from before. Its name was "Rest". Because both of these songs were quite well-known in the cultivation world, it wouldn't be strange for anyone to know how to play them, and Wei WuXian naturally followed him. The YiLing Patriarch's ghost flute, "Chenqing", was known far and wide.

The crowd gave an 'ahh' of understanding. Wei Wuxian was of course still hiding his real identity! However, with him playing his bamboo flute, his red ribbon and black robes, it seemed still pretty obvious who he was...

Yet, right now, with his bamboo flute, he purposely played it with many mistakes and short breaths of air, to a point where it was heartbreaking to hear. Lan WangJi had probably never played with someone with such terrible skills before. After a while, he finally couldn't bear to continue as if nothing was wrong any longer, and raised his head to look at Wei WuXian with an expressionless face. Wei WuXian thickened his face, pretending that he didn't see anything, his tune venturing even more off.

The audience was snickering with laughter. "Well, Wei Wuxian got his wish! He can still get under Lan Wangji's skin!"

Wei Wuxian pouted. It had genuinely pained him to purposefully misplay his flute. It wasn't Chenqing, but it deserved more respect. He had also probably traumatised his poor Lan Zhan, who had probably never heard a worse sound in his life.

As he turned around to continue playing, something strange happened behind him. He turned around to look, and was shocked as he saw it. Lan QiRen, who had lost consciousness, actually sat upright again. He pointed at Wei WuXian with a trembling hand, his face covered in blood and rage, and shouted in a hoarse voice, "Stop playing! Get out! Get out now! Stop..." Before he even finished saying what to stop doing, he spat out a mouthful of blood, and fell down in the same place, sinking into the deep coma yet again.

It seemed that Wei Wuxian's flute duet had ventured so off-course that it had risen Lan Qiren out of his coma, just so he could yell at him. The cultivators found this utterly hilarious, laughing and hooting in their seats. Even Lan Wangji cracked a smile now.

Lan WangJi, "..."

Wei WuXian gaped. He knew what followed Lan QiRen's "stop"— Stop playing! Stop duetting! Stop tainting his favorite disciple WangJi's guqin notes! Yet, even so, the hand still drooped gradually, under the combined forces of the guqin and the flute. Wei WuXian thought shamelessly, Although it sounds bad, it doesn't matter as long as it works.

"Am I wrong, though?" Wei Wuxian mutters. "Okay, it wasn't the sweetest and most pleasant piece, but does that really matter??

He suddenly snorted at the parallels he could suddenly see between him and his past self. He remembered Lan Qiren's previous fear of him tainting his favourite disciple Lan Wangji with his delinquent behaviour - and now he didn't wan't him to taint Lan Wangji's beautiful guqin music. It was amazing how no one (apart from Lan Zhan and Zewu Jun, of course) had even noticed he was Wei Wuxian.

Instantly, after the last echo of the guqin, the doors of the mingshi sprang open, pouring in a flood of sunlight. It was likely that the alarms of the watchtower stopped ringing. All of the disciples who surrounded the mingshi rushed inside, their voices calling "HanGuang-Jun".

The cultivators suddenly relaxed, as a block of pressure was suddenly lifted from their minds, that the high pitched shrill noises had been going on the whole time, and the muffled whispers had been getting more and more frantic sounding. With the normal speech of juniors crying out for their Hanguang Jun (really, they seemed to be the only words they knew), the cultivators sighed in relief that that awkward part was over.

The older seniors laid the bodies of the bleeding few flat on the ground and started to treat them. A few people worried, "HanGuang-Jun, neither elixirs nor acupuncture work. What should we do?" With three fingers still set on Lan QiRen's wrist, Lan WangJi remained silent. Lan QiRen had directed at least eight hundred, if not a thousand, spirit summoning ceremonies before. Of those, a lot included fierce spirits. Seeing even he was harmed by the energy of resentment, it was clear that the amount of resentful energy within this ghost hand was unprecedentedly strong.

"Clearly." frowned some cultivators. As to who this spirit was, to have such a powerful negative and resentful aura, they had no idea. They had even felled the mighty Lan Qiren (though not Lan Wangji).

Wei WuXian stuck the bamboo flute back beside his waist. He squatted down beside the bronze bell and gently stroked the inscriptions on it. As he was thinking, he suddenly saw a downcast expression on Lan SiZhui's face, "What's wrong?"

"You act just like a dad!" a young cultivator laughed. "A nice dad."

"Of course I have to comfort Sizhui. He's basically my son, anyway." Wei Wuxian replied confidently.

Sizhui blushed. He had always considered Senior Wei and Hanguang Jun as his two fathers, not just because he barely remembered his real parents and needed two adults to be able to always turn to, but because they both played a big role in raising him up, and consequently, he was very fond of them both.

Lan SiZhui already knew that he wasn't an ordinary person. After hesitation, he spoke in a low voice, "It is just that I feel slightly guilty."

Wei WuXian asked, "Guilty for what?"

Lan SiZhui, "This hand was coming for us."

Wei WuXian smiled, "How do you know?"

Lan SiZhui, "Spirit-attraction flags of different levels are drawn in different ways and have different amounts of power. The spirit-attraction flags we drew at Mo Village had a range of only twenty-five hundred meters in circumference. Yet, this ghost hand has a strong killing intent, feeding on human flesh and bone. If it had been within that range in the beginning, with its level of malice, Mo Village would have been a river of blood since long ago. However, it appeared after we arrived... This means that it must have been set there purposely at that time, by someone with ill intentions."

"Wow, that's clever." remarked a member of the audience. "He really takes after Wei Wuxian, doesn't he?"

"You must have subconsciously absorbed my genius when you were a young toddler!" Wei Wuxian teased.

Wei WuXian responded, "Your academics are quite strong. That was a great analyzation."

Lan SiZhui lowered his head, "If so, for the lives lost at Mo Village, we should... we should also be responsible. And, now, we also involved Lan QiRen and the others in this matter..."

After a while of silence, Wei WuXian patted his shoulder, "The one responsible shouldn't be you guys, but the person who sent out the ghost hand. In this world, there are some things impossible for one to control."

The board suddenly zoomed into an extreme close up of Wei Wuxian's face, suddenly in a distant expression. This made it abundantly clear that he was referring to himself. What had been impossible for him to control, several people were wondering. Him being kicked out of the Cloud Recesses? His demonic cultivation ability? Him being outcast as the Yiling Patriarch?

On the other side, Lan WangJi removed his hand. The people of the Lan Sect hurried to ask, "HanGuang-Jun, how is it?" Lan WangJi replied, "Trace to its source."

Wei WuXian, "That's right. If we trace to its source, find the full corpse of this ghost hand, understand who he really is, then there'd naturally be a way to save them."

Although Lan JingYi already knew that he definitely wasn't a lunatic, he still couldn't help but to speak in a criticizing tone, "You make it sound so simple. The spirit-summoning did not work, and it became this big of a mess. How can we possibly find it?"

The audience was wriggling with excitement - finally, enough mysterious problems - the expert cultivators were finally going to go out and solve them!

Jingyi felt bad for his harsh tone, but really, was it his fault that his first impression of Wei Wuxian was so bad?

Lan WangJi stated, "The northwest." Lan SiZhui wondered, "The northwest? HanGuang-Jun, why is it the northwest?" Wei WuXian, "Hasn't it already been shown to you guys?" Lan JingYi was puzzled, "Shown to me? Who? Who showed it? HanGuang-Jun did not." Wei WuXian spoke, "It." The people suddenly realized that what he was pointing at was the ghost hand! The arm steadily pointed at one direction. As someone changed its position, it stubbornly turned back around, back to where it originally faced.

"Ohhh! That's fantastic!" enthused several cultivators.

"Is it like the compass of evil? Does it point towards the source of evil?" Guo Wanxin asked interestedly.

At nearly the same time, Jingyi asked:

"It? What... What is it pointing towards?!"

Wei WuXian replied, "What else can it be pointing towards? It's either the other parts of its corpse, or the murderer who made him this way." Hearing this, a few boys who stood in the northwestern direction quickly shuffled aside. Giving him a look, Lan WangJi slowly rose, speaking to the disciples, "Care for Uncle properly." The few nodded, "Okay! Are you going to travel down the mountain?"

Lan WangJi gave a slight nod.

The audience cheered. Jiang Cheng sighed. "Finally."

Wei WuXian had already stealthily shifted behind him, talking to himself in a loud, cheerful way, "Yes, yes, yes, we can finally get off this mountain and elope together!"

"Oh, you're finally leaving the mountain! And you didn't even need to roast any rabbits or anything!" snorted Jin Ling to Wei Wuxian.

"Yep, wasn't it convenient?" Wei Wuxian replied cheerfully.

Everyone looked as if they couldn't bear to watch the scene any longer. The expressions of the older disciples were especially scary, but a few of the boys were already used to it. Lan QiRen's face seemed to twitch again, as he lay unconscious on the ground. The disciples thought, If he spoke a few more sentences, maybe Mr. Lan would be angered awake again...

The scene faded closed with that last humorous remark, leaving the audience in a light mood. Wei Wuxian wondered to himself if he should go around to people in comas, and offer his services in being irritating to rouse them. Just for entertainment. 'I'll probably just have to threaten them with Chenqing and they'll spring awake with fear...' Wei Wuxian realised sulkily. Ah well. Being a scary demonic cultivator was fine with him too - as long as he got to elope and travel around with Lan Zhan.