Chapter 27 - Malice

Only then did Lan WangJi turn to the front again, gaze still slightly off to the side. Seeing this, Wei WuXian blinked his eyes, wanting to make fun of him for some reason.

" 'For some reason ' " commented Jin Ling incredulously. "As if you ever need a reason!"

"Yeah, you don't even know why he's embarrassed, but you know that it's something you can make fun of him for." added Zizhen, laughing.

The members of the audience, although feeling sorry for Lan Wangji having to put up with such tormenting all the time, couldn't help but laugh as well. A flustered Lan Wangji was a rare sight, and naturally Wei Wuxian was going to take advantage of that.

Just as he was about to tease Lan WangJi, a shattering sound suddenly came from by the desk. They both stood up to look.

Jingyi jumped at the sudden noise, then scowled when his friends burst into laughter.

The cultivators meanwhile felt slightly disappointed that the moment between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji had been broken, then confused as to why they were disappointed. When had they gotten so interested in those two?

The teacups and teapot broke to pieces on the ground. A Qiankun Pouch lay amid the white shards of porcelain and the tea that spilled out. The surface of the bag went up and down, as if something was trapped inside, eager to come out.

Almost all of the Lan disciples winced. They were all uncomfortable, to varying extents, with any sort of mess. The rest of the audience watched the pulsating pouch in horrified fascination. It looked like it was alive!

"What's the Qiankun Pouch for, again?" Zizhen asked Sizhui in a whisper.

"It's got the left arm from Mo Manor suppressed inside." Sizhui whispered back. "But it doesn't look like it's suppressed right now."

Zizhen gasped in horror. "How is that thin pouch able to contain such an evil thing ? Isn't it going to break? Sizhui-xiong, this is too scary!" He hid behind Sizhui's sleeve.

Jin Ling rolled his eyes, not bothering to hide his contempt. "Why are you so scared of a picture? And it's just a dumb arm!"

Wei Wuxian interrupted with a cough. "Jin Ling, it's best not to insult the arm...you'll feel foolish later."

"...what?" Everyone in the vicinity was burning with curiosity now about who the arm belonged to, but Wei Wuxian clearly wasn't going to say anything else. Meanwhile, the narration was explaining more about the Qiankun Pouch.

Although the Qiankun Pouch was only the size of a fist, it was specially made to store things. Complex incantations were also sewn on both the inside and the outside, adding a few more sealing layers.

"Zizhen, did that answer your question?" Sizhui asked, amused.

Zizhen nodded, eyes wide. "That's so useful!! You could fit anything inside!"

Lan WangJi originally sealed the arm inside the pouch and put it under a teacup on the table. Now, seeing its agitation, they finally remembered that it was time to perform Rest. If not for the short nightly duets they perform to calm it, no matter how strong the Qiankun Pouch's power of suppression was, it couldn't trap the ghost hand alone.

"You both were playing duets every night to calm it? So romantic! How come we didn't get to hear them?" pouted Zizhen

"The pictures can't retell everything  Senior Wei ever did. We'd be here for decades!" Jingyi replied.

"It'd be an interesting an interested few decades, though." sighed Zizhen.

"I doubt you want to watch me floating around in an abyss for 13 years." muttered Wei Wuxian. The juniors all went silent. "Sorry." Wei Wuxian quickly added.

Wei WuXian felt for the bamboo flute that had been by his waist, but he found nothing. Turning around, he saw that Lan WangJi already had the flute in his hands.

The cultivators' gasps of fear turned into gasps of surprise. Was Lan Wangji going to play Wei Wuxian's flute?

"...What are they doing? Just calm the arm down first! Why are they swapping instruments?" yelped Zizhen.

Lan WangJi's head tilted slightly downward. He only handed the flute back after carving on it for a while, in a dedicated manner.

"Carving?? He's carving??? Hanguang Jun, the arm has nearly escaped the pouch!" wailed Zizhen.

Taking the flute back, Wei WuXian noticed that, after it had been adjusted, even rough details such as the finger holes were much finer.

The cultivators were surprised by this strangely caring action from Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian meanwhile glowed with affection and kissed his husband on the cheek. It always made him so happy knowing that Lan Zhan accepted and supported him as he was - flute playing and all - Especially because he used to think that Lan Zhan had hated him for his improper cultivation methods.

Lan WangJi, "Play it properly."

Remembering the horrible duet they played in the Mingshi that angered Lan QiRen to the point of waking up from a coma and fainting again, Wei WuXian laughed so hard that he almost fell on the ground, thinking to himself, It must have been tough for him these few days, tolerating this for so long.

The audience laughed too at the memory - Lan Qiren rousing from a coma to tell Wei Wuxian to shut up his playing was going to become a folk tale by the end of all this.

He stopped himself from fooling around any longer and, with a serious expression, raised the flute to his lips.

Everyone stared in amazement. So Wei Wuxian was actually  capable of stopping himself from fooling around? No way!

Jiang Cheng snorted. "So you can refrain from mucking around, you just choose not to."

It was a constant shock for the juniors every time they saw Senior Wei with his serious face - it was a sure indicator that something important was going on.

However, having only played a few notes, the Qiankun Pouch suddenly multiplied in size and stood upright on the ground! A note cracked with a "tut".

Several cultivators screamed, other made terrified squeaking noises. They couldn't really be blamed - one moment they were basking in the, for once, harmonious guqin and flute duet, the next moment the Qiankun Pouch was standing upright, its pointing index finger visible through the fabric.

Wei WuXian commented, "Has it gotten too used to the bad playing? I'm playing properly for once, and it doesn't even like it."

As if replying him, the Qiankun Pouch flung itself at Wei WuXian.

The juniors gasped, including  an entirely caugh-by-surprise Jin Ling, but other cultivators found the Qiankun Pouch's human-like reaction to Wei Wuxian's jokes very funny.

Lan WangJi's melody took a sharp turn. With one smooth gesture, the seven strings vibrated at once, emitting a noise so strong that it almost seemed like an avalanche.

Everyone slapped their hands over their ears at the monstrous noise. Lan Xichen glanced down at his uncle, and saw with slightly-guilty relief that he was still passed out.

"What an overreaction... Sure, his crush got attacked by a pouch, but he didn't have to kill all our ears to defend him." muttered a cultivator in grey clothes.

After the sound, the Qiankun Pouch fell backward to the ground again. As if nothing had happened, Wei WuXian continued playing. Lan WangJi's wrist softened. Following the tune of Rest, the guqin's melody became calm once more, and gradually blended with the flute's. The song finished, and the Qiankun Pouch finally shrunk to the size it had been, remaining motionless.

Even though the song was just a replay, and it wasn't directed at them, the audience felt the effects of the beautiful duet wash over them. They felt a sudden urge to sink into their seats and never move again. Anyone from the Lan sect, or had an understanding of music knew that these effects were due to the high skill level of both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, but most of the other cultivators were just shocked by how powerful music could be - particularly the cultivators who only used martial weapons like swords, knives, batons, etc.

Wei WuXian stuck the flute back by his waist, "In these few days, it's never looked as impatient as this before. It seems as if it was provoked by something."

Lan WangJi nodded and turned to him, "And, it was something on you."

Many cultivators blinked in surprise. Was Lan Wangji really saying that Wei Wuxian was so annoying that the ghost arm got provoked by him? They honestly couldn't blame the ghost arm, in that case.

Wei WuXian immediately looked downward at himself. Today, there was only one thing on him that was different—the Curse Mark that had been transferred to him from Jin Ling. Jin Ling's Curse Mark was left on him when he was at the stone castles of the Xinglu Ridge.

"Ohhh." That was what Lan Wangji meant by 'something on him' !

Jin Ling felt another rush of guilt. That Curse Mark was so strong, it agitated the the ghost arms from inside the Qiankun Pouch? Why had Senior Wei bothered transferring it from his annoying nephew to himself...

Seeing how strongly the ghost hand reacted to the Curse Mark, did it mean that... Wei WuXian, "Do you mean that another part of his body might be within the walls of the Nie Sect's Saber Hall?"

"Huh?" That deduction took everyone a while to think about, before they reached the same conclusion as Wei Wuxian - that the ghost arm reacted badly to the Curse Mark because the Curse Mark was related to its former body. And because Jin Ling had caught the Curse Mark in the Saber Hall in Xinglu Ridge...

"He really is very quick, isn't he?" whispered a younger disciple to her friend. "I wouldn't even have thought of that within a few weeks!"

"He's literally the Yiling Patriarch." her friend said, rolling his eyes, "And you're just a Jiang disciple. You don't need to compare yourself to him!"

"He was a Jiang disciple too..." she muttered. Her friend ignored her.

On the next morning, the two departed again, heading back to the Xinglu Ridge.

Yesterday, Nie HuaiSang had been caught and confessed everything. Over the night, he called for all of the sect's reliable disciples to clean up the mess that the intruders created.

The scene was back in the misty forest, at the creepy stone bunkers. But now that they all knew the truth about Xinglu Ridge, and they knew there wasn't actually a Man-Eating Beast, they didn't find the bunkers nearly as scary as before.

When Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi walked over, the piece of wall that Wei WuXian dug Jin Ling out of had just been filled and a new corpse was already put inside.

"That was quick..." murmured Sizhui.

"They're quick at covering stuff up, clearly." Jingyi added, his mouth full of the strange food in the baskets given to them.

Watching the white bricks stack up neatly, he wiped some sweat off his brows. However, as he turned around, his legs almost gave out. He pulled a cringing smile onto his face, "HanGuang-Jun...and you..."

Lan Xichen cracked a smile, as the audience around him laughed too. Huaisang had looked so relieved that the ordeal was over, and his face when he saw Wangji and Wei-gongzi again was beyond hilarious. The false smile he squeezed on just made his face all the more funnier - particularly because his smile kept flickering between and a grimace - rather like Wei Wuxian's face in Jin Ling's vision when asked about Jin Zixuan.

Wei WuXian waved his hands as he grinned, "Sect Leader Nie, you're building the walls?" Nie HuaiSang wiped sweat away with his handkerchief, rubbing so many times that he almost took a layer of skin away, "Yes, yes..."

The juniors giggled. Senior Wei was grinning so suspiciously widely, they weren't surprised that Sect Leader Nie seemed extremely stressed to see him.

Wei WuXian said in a voice filled with much empathy and a dash of timidity, "My apologies. I'm really sorry for the inconvenience, but you might need to build the wall again afterwards."

Nie HuaiSang, "Yes, yes... What?! Wait!"

The room was ringing with laughter - Nie Huaisang sat in the middle of it all. Why was he always the practical joke of the room?

Wei Wuxian's people-soothing skilled definitely had to be commended - he sounded so genuinely empathetic and hesitant that  he'd almost convinced Nie Huaisang to be calm.

Before he could finish his sentence, Bichen unsheathed. Nie HuaiSang gaped as he watched the brick wall, which he repaired mere moment ago, crack open again.

Destruction was always easier than restoration. Wei WuXian's speed at taking bricks down was countless times faster than their speed at stacking bricks. Nie HuaiSang trembled as he tightly gripped his fan, feeling so wronged that he was on the verge of bursting into tears. Yet, since HanGuang-Jun stood on the side and commented nothing, he didn't dare to say anything either.

While laughing uproariously, the cultivators couldn't help but feel bad for Nie Huaisang, who looked like an overgrown, tearful toddler.

After Lan WangJi explained the situation to him in a concise manner, he immediately swore to the Heavens and Earth, "Nonsense! That's utter nonsense! The corpses that our Saber Hall uses are all complete with each limb attached. It's impossible for there to be some armless male corpse. If you don't believe me, I'll take apart the wall with you and prove my innocence. But afterwards you must put them back as soon as possible, without any delay. After all, this is our ancestral burial ground..."

"Sect Leader Nie is so funny!" choked Jingyi, clutching his stomach from the stitches he got from laughing and eating. "It's like half of him wants to be as crazy as Wei Wuxian, and the other half wants to be a good descendant of the Nie sect;"

A few disciples of the Nie Sect also joined them. Now that there were other people doing the work, Wei WuXian backed off and stood on the side, waiting for results. After an hour, the stone bricks on the wall that Jin Ling had been buried in were mostly taken off. Some disciples put on face masks while others swallowed special red-colored pills, so that the breathing and human energy didn't cause corpse transformations.

"Why don't Hanguang Jun or Senior Wei use those?" asked Zizhen out of curiosity.

"Lan Zhan here can control his yang energy. And I obviously don't have that much yang energy." Wei Wuxian said carelessly.

Zizhen frowned, trying to understand how a living person could just control their yang energy or just not have yang energy, but decided that the seniors probably just understood a lot more than he did.

Among the black dirt, an ashen hand or a vein-laced foot sometimes poked out, in addition to the tangled, grimey hair plastered everywhere. Each and every male corpse was hastily cleaned and set row-by-row on the ground. The corpses came in all shapes and sizes—some were already skeletons, some were in the process of rotting, some were still quite fresh.

Jin Ling felt nauseous. He had literally been in the same wall as all of those half rotted corpses. Even that one, with its eyeballs hanging out and its arm somehow sticking through a hole through its ribcage. He wondered how Hanguang Jun, Senior Wei and Nie Huaisang weren't holding their noses from the stench. Maybe they were just used to the smell?

However, every single one of them had a complete body. They didn't find any male corpse that was missing a left arm. Nie HuaiSang spoke warily, "Taking apart this one wall is enough, isn't it? Does any more need to be taken down? Probably not, right?" It was indeed enough. The Curse Mark on Jin Ling's body was extremely dark in color, so the being that created it was most likely buried nearby him and the range would definitely not exceed this wall.

Jin Ling sighed internally. Why had he had such stupid luck to have been sucked in next to the evil thing related to the ghost arm? Out of all the bunkers to get sucked into?

He suddenly realised that if he hadn't gotten sucked into the bunker, and if he hadn't gotten the Curse Mark, Senior Wei and Hanguang Jun wouldn't have been able to figure out that there was something related to the ghost arm in Xinglu Ridge. So perhaps it was good that he'd been sucked in there?

Wei WuXian squatted down by a row of corpses. After pondering for a few moments, he turned to Lan WangJi, "Should we get the Qiankun Pouch?" Taking the left hand out of the Qiankun Pouch for it to identify the body on its own wouldn't be a bad idea. However, if it was too close to the other limbs of the corpse, it'd be hard not to agitate it and trigger worse situations. And, due to the abundance of dark energy in this special location, the level of danger multiplied. This was why they carefully chose to come during daytime.

Everyone winced. That sounded like it would definitely be a bad idea. The ghost arm went berserk when it sensed the Curse Mark on Wei Wuxian - which was just a trace of whatever was hidden in Xinglu Ridge, so if the ghost arm got close to the actual thing, it would definitely escape and cause a Mo Manor incident 2.0

Wei WuXian shook his head and thought to himself, This doesn't mean that the arm doesn't belong to a man, does it? No, that'd be impossible. I can tell whether a hand belongs to a man or a woman at first sight...

Several cultivators raised their eyebrows sceptically.

"How can you even tell? All hands looks different." Guo Wanxin demanded, holding her hand up next to her wife's - their hands were very different, though they were both women.

"Um.. intuition!" Wei Wuxian laughed.

"Haha, well we're gonna have to test that out more thoroughly after this..."

Then, would it mean that the owner has three arms?! Just as he was about to laugh at his own thought, Lan WangJi spoke again, "The legs."

With his reminder, Wei WuXian finally remembered. He overlooked the fact that the Curse Mark didn't spread any further than his legs.

"Oh. That's a good point!"

"How are they both so much more intelligent than everyone else?" sulked some cultivators.

"I wouldn't say that...sometimes, people don't look intelligent but they're actually geniuses. Way smarter than me." Wei Wuxian said lightly, sending a sly look at Nie Huaisang, who shook his head vigorously back at him.

He quickly called, "Take off the pants! Take off the pants!" Nie HuaiSang was shocked to death, "Why would you say such a shameless thing in front of HanGuang-Jun?"

Wei Wuxian burst out laughing. "Huaisang-xiong, did you write that down? You actually said that to me! As if Hanguang Jun hasn't said a hundred times more shameless things to me!"

Wei WuXian responded, "How was it shameful? We're all men, anyways. Help me take off all of the corpses' pants. Only the male corpses! This has nothing to do with the female ones." As he spoke, he started reaching out toward the belt sashes of the corpses on the ground.

The audience's faces went pale. They weren't sure they wanted to watch this - it was not only totally gross, it would be awkward to see Hanguang Jun's reaction. The junior disciples had already turned their heads away and were staring determinedly at the ceiling.

It really was unfortunate for Nie HuaiSang. He didn't expect at all that, after confessing everything yesterday, today, he needed to take off the corpses' pants right inside the Saber Hall of his ancestors. Moreover, they were male corpses. With a face full of tears, he thought that, for sure, after he died, he would be slapped once on the face by every ancestor in the QingheNie Sect and end up injured so badly that he'd be handicapped even after he reincarnated.

As the room filled with laughter again, everyone remarked to themselves how funny Nie Huaisang really was. He was essentially single-handedly carrying the role of 'comedic relief' - as for once, Wei Wuxian was trying to act serious. Nie Huaisang's thoughts were nearly as dramatic as Wei Wuxian's - no wonder they were good friends at the Cloud Recesses.

Luckily, Wei WuXian's act was stopped by Lan WangJi. Just as Nie HuaiSang was about to praise how worthy of his title HanGuang-Jun was, he heard him speak, "I will do it."

"...wait, did he actually say..."

Everyone stared in shock at the pictures. They had to be hearing things wrong!

Wei WuXian, "You'll do it? You're really going to do such a thing?" The corners of Lan WangJi's brows seemed to be twitching slightly, as if he was holding something back. He repeated, "Do not move. I will do it."

Now that they'd accepted that Lan Wangji really did want to stoop down to doing such an embarrassing task in Wei Wuxian's place, the cultivators just had to sit back and try and keep up. What they'd seen so far - Wei Wuxian's cheerful demeanour, Lan Wangji's thick-faced behaviour, the explanation about the Nie sect, completely contradicted everything they thought they knew about these important people and clans.

Lan Xichen scrutinised his brother's face. He could see it now... Wangji was definitely volunteering to do it instead of Wei gongzi because he was jealous at the thought of Wei gongzi touching other mens' pants! He wanted to roll around in his seat laughing, but he forced himself to remember the sect rules of self-regulation.

This was the worst of all the shocks Nie HuaiSang experienced today. Of course, Lan WangJi wouldn't actually use his hands to pull on the corpses' pants. He simply used Bichen and lightly sliced open the clothing on the corpses, revealing the skin inside. This wasn't needed for some of the corpses, as the clothes were already quite ragged.

The audience breathed a sigh of relief. That was considerably less hard to watch than Lan Wangji physically pulling dead mens' pants down would have been.

A few moments later, he spoke up, "I found it." Everyone immediately looked toward the ground. On both thighs of the corpse beside Lan WangJi's white boots, there were two light, circular marks. The stitches of the flesh-colored threads were tightly sewn around. There was a faint difference between the colors of the skin above and below the stitches. Clearly, the legs and upper body of the corpse didn't belong to the same person. This pair of legs was sewn on by someone! Nie HuaiSang was already shocked speechless.

The audience gasped. Who would do such a thing? What was the point? They could entirely empathise with Nie Huaisang, who looked like he had suffered much too many shocks in one morning.

Jingyi's lips wobbled, accidentally imagining someone using a needle and thread to stitch a pair of legs to a different torso. This was precisely why he could never be a doctor - the thought of handling flesh like it was fabric made him feel sick.

Wei WuXian inquired, "Who chooses the corpses that the Nie Sect uses for the Saber Hall?" Nie HuaiSang replied with a glazed expression, "Usually, the past sect leaders chose and stored them when they were still alive. My brother passed away at an earlier age. He didn't have enough, so I also helped him choose some... I kept whichever corpses that were complete with all limbs. I don't know about anything other than this..."

The audience felt, somehow, that they could put absolute trust in Nie Huaisang. He looked so shellshocked, and sad at the memory of his dead brother, that they couldn't imagine him having any sort of hidden role in this conspiracy.

It'd be impossible to get anything out of him as to who exactly sneaked the corpse inside. From the people who provided the corpses to the disciples of the Nie Sect, there were countless suspects. It was likely that the truth would be revealed only if they found all body parts and pieced the corpse and soul together.

The cultivators' eyes lit up, particularly the juniors'. This sounded like an adventure, or more precisely, like a quest! Journeying around the Jianghu, searching for the parts of the body and soul to solve the mystery - it was precisely the sort of heroic story they liked to hear about before bed! And how it could it get more exciting with the two main characters being the righteous Hanguang Jun and the powerful Wei Wuxian?

Finally having managed to separate the pair of legs and the other half of the male corpse, Wei WuXian put them inside a new Qiankun Pouch as he spoke to Lan WangJi, "Looks like our dear friend here was cut to pieces. And, not only that, the parts were scattered all over the place—one piece here, one piece there. Just how much hatred did the murderer hold for him? We can only hope that the pieces aren't too tiny."

That was an excellent point. If they had to hunt down pinky fingers and ears, the quest might take an eternity.

"Hanguang Jun! Did you find out who the arm belonged to, and who the murderer was in the end?" Jingyi asked eagerly.

Lan Wangji's face didn't change. "Practice patience, and see for yourself."

Although Nie HuaiSang still said "see you" when they set off, judging from his frightened face, he most likely didn't want to see them ever again for the rest of his life.

The audience chuckled, and Nie Huaisang interjected, "That's not it! I still like hanging out with you, just not when you break into my sect ancestral shrines... And it looks like I'm seeing a lot of you both right now, anyway."

"Uhh.." Wei Wuxian laughed, "Thanks, Huaisang-xiong! You should visit Gusu more, when we get back! Or we can go to Yunmeng and find Jiang Cheng, hahaha..."

Jiang Cheng made a huffing noise, but didn't contradict Wei Wuxian, so Wei Wuxian considered that as assent.

The two left the Xinglu Ridge and returned to the inn. Upon arriving at the relatively safe place, they took out the three limbs and started to examine them. As they had expected, the pair of legs were of the same color as the severed arm. And, if they were put close together, they would react strongly, vibrating nonstop as if they wanted to join together. But the efforts were useless, as there was still one part of the body between them that was missing. It was certain that they belonged to the same person.

"Hmm... So the right arm, torso and head are still missing?" asked a cultivator from the Liangshan Fu clan.

"Unless those parts have been divided into more parts..." her friend said darkly.

Aside from the fact that this was a man with a tall physique, long limbs, a muscular body, and a high level of cultivation, they knew nothing else about the mysterious corpse.

Wei Wuxian couldn't really look at the parts of the body anymore, now that he knew they belonged to Nie Mingjue. It somehow just felt rude to be looking at his dismembered, bare limbs - even though Chifeng Zun was obviously already dead.

Nie Huaisang seemed to be faring okay, with his older brother's body being displayed for the whole cultivation world to ogle. He just fanned himself impassively as usual - though his expression seemed a little too rigid to be natural.

Fortunately, the ghost hand soon pointed at where the next step would take place—the Southwest. Following its direction, Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi made their way to Yueyang.

"Yueyang? The same city where the Chang clan got slaughtered?" Guo Wanxin wondered.

"And where that Xue Yang boy was from!" another cultivator added.

The mention of Xue Yang reminded the juniors of the time they'd also been to Yueyang.

"Oh! So this is why you were travelling towards Yueyang, and how you bumped into us at Yi City!" SIzhui said brightly.

Another young disciple, who had been at Yi City as well shuddered. "Oh no, we have to watch that scary ordeal all over again?"

His friend laughed, "Hahahah! Bai Ping, I remember you got corpse poisoning, and you had to drink Senior Wei's spicy congee!"

Bai Ping's face, if possible, went even paler. Jiang Cheng raised an eyebrow after hearing that last sentence, already starting to guess what happened.