Chapter 35 - Grasses

He couldn't help but loosen his hand, yet Wei WuXian saved the oil lamp just as it was about to hit the ground. Calmly brushing it against the burning fire talisman on the other hand, he lit it up and set it onto the table, "Did you make these yourself, Manager? They're quite well-made." The rest finally realized that the people who stood in the room were not real humans, but actually paper mannequins.

"...just.. just paper mannequins..."

"Damn, that one got me!" sulked a junior.

"Hahaha, don't worry! We all screamed as well!" Zizhen cheerfully reassured his shivering Ouyang disciple friends

"Speak for yourself, I didn't scream." snapped Jin Ling, crossing his arms haughtily.

"Yeah, you did, we can all see you on screen right now, you're literally still screaming-" Jingyi's snickers were cut off by Jin Ling's yell of anger.

Sizhui pulled Jingyi out of the fight, shaking his head with amusement. "Shh, Senior Wei's explaining the mannequins!"

The mannequins' heads and bodies were delicately crafted, the same size as those of real people. There were men, women, and even children. All of the men were "Nether Brawlers", crafted with tall, sturdy bodies and angered expressions. All of the women were fair-featured beauties, with hair in either single or double buns. On each mannequin's cheeks, there were two smears of blush in pretense for a living person's rosy complexion. However, none of their pupils had been added yet—the eyes were entirely white.

"Ew... they look like fierce corpses!"

"Don't be stupid, they're made of paper! Even if they came to life, what's the worst they could do to you, give you a papercut? Hahahaha!"

The juniors glanced at each other and smirked. The rest of the cultivators were about to get a big surprise.

The bolder the blush was, the gloomier they looked. There was another table in the room. On the table, there were a few candlesticks, each a different length than the others. Wei WuXian lit them up one by one, and the yellow light illuminated most corners of the house. Aside from the paper mannequins, there were also two wreaths placed on both sides of the room. Paper gold, ghost money, and pagodas were heaped up beside the walls. Jin Ling already had his sword slightly unsheathed. Seeing that it was only a shop that sold burial goods, he sighed with discreet relief and sheathed his sword again.

"Hah, I bet you thought no one saw that!" Jingyi teased. "Jin Ling, you're actually a bit of a softie-"

Sizhui sighed and tried to focus on Senior Wei's words over the sounds of his shrieking friends. Where those two got the stamina and energy to be fighting every minute of the day (and night), he had no idea.

In the cultivational world, even if a cultivator passed away, nobody employed the eerie, chaotic obsequies of the common folk. Since they hadn't seen such things before, after the initial scare, curiosity sprouted from within their hearts. With skin covered in goosebumps, they felt that it was even more exciting than night-hunting ordinary beasts.

"These kids are sort of cute," commented a cultivator who had grown up as a commoner. "They might have had sheltered lives, but at least they're brave and curious in the face of unknown frights."

"And they're not snobby or rude, like some other older cultivators." added his friend, sending a side glance at the Jin sect.

No matter how dense the fog was, it couldn't seep into houses. Ever since they entered Yi City, this was the only point in time were they could easily see one another's faces, which set their minds at rest. Wei WuXian saw that they'd relaxed, and asked the old woman again, "Would it be possible for us to borrow your kitchen?"

The juniors grinned at being able to see their faces clearly on the screen again.

"This is so funny, look at all of us!" Zizhen exclaimed happily. "Jingyi and Sizhui look so serious, and Jin Ling keeps looking around like - wait, did he just say kitchen?!"

The other cultivators didn't quite understand why the kids had suddenly gone silent and pale, but they were glad for some silence nonetheless. Anyway, why did Wei Wuxian suddenly seem interested in cooking, at a time like this?

The old woman almost glowered at the lamp, as if she disliked the presence of any light, "The kitchen is in the back. Use it as you please." After her words, she dodged into another room as though she was avoiding the plague. She slammed the door so loud that a few even shivered.

Jin Ling exclaimed, "There's definitely something wrong with the hag! You..."

"I agree with Jin Ling here... why's she running from the kids like she's scared of them, but also being so rude about it?"

"Suspicious..."

"No it's not. She was probably just afraid of Jingyi's ugly face." Jin Ling said flippantly.

"You dare say that when your face looks like-"

Sizhui groaned, his head falling into his hands. "Please, guys! No more fighting! Just for 5 minutes!" Many sympathetic glances were directed his way.

Wei WuXian responded, "Okay. Hush. I need somebody to help me. Any volunteers?"

Lan SiZhui hurried, "I can come."

"Sizhui is such a good kid. Always so eager to help!" praised many cultivators.

Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen all felt pride and fondness blossom in their chests.

"Yes, our Sizhui is such a filial boy, he will surely grow up as the finest and most well-mannered cultivator." Wei Wuxian said proudly, causing Sizhui's face to flush a bashful red.

Lan JingYi was still standing as straight as a stick, "Then what do I do?"

Wei WuXian, "Remain standing. Don't move if I don't tell you to."

Lan SiZhui followed Wei WuXian to the kitchen in the back. As soon as they went in, they were overwhelmed by a foul stench. Lan SiZhui had never smelled such a terrible scent before. Although his head spun, he managed to stop himself from rushing back out. Jin Ling followed as well, but leapt outside again immediately after he entered.

He fanned the air as fast as he could, "What in the world is this?!! What are you doing here instead of thinking up cures?!"

There was a ripple of laughter at the contorted expression on the young Jin's face. He had a point though - had Wei Wuxian forgotten about curing the kids from corpse poisoning?

After witnessing Wei Wuxian's thoughts and playful but generally heroic actions, there weren't many cultivators who still fully believed that Wei Wuxian was evil and plotting world domination. It was hard nevertheless to get rid of the suspicions that had been rooted so deeply into their minds. Was Wei Wuxian plotting something?

Wei WuXian, "Hmm? Perfect timing. How did you know that I was going to call you over? Lend me a hand."

Jin Ling, "I'm not here to help! Urgh! Did somebody kill someone but forget to bury them?!"

Wei WuXian, "Young Mistress Jin, are you coming or not? If you're coming, then come in and help; if you're not coming, then go back and tell someone else to come over."

Jin Ling raged, "Who are you calling Young Mistress Jin? Be careful what you say!"

The tension was again broken as the audience burst into laughter.

"Every time Jin Ling and Wei Wuxian talk, it's pure comedy."

Jingyi really, really wanted to say "Young Mistress Jin~" but he didn't want to upset Sizhui again, so he just stuck his tongue out at Jin Ling.

He pinched his nose for a while, debating with himself whether or not to stay or to leave, and finally humphed, "Well I want to see what on Earth you're trying to do."

With this, he stormed inside. Yet, he didn't expect that, with a bang, Wei WuXian opened a chest on the ground, which was where the stench came from. Within the chest, there were ham and chicken. Blotches of green dotted among the red meat, while white, coiling maggots dotted among the green.

Half the audience gagged, the other half covered their eyes.

Amidst the groans, a cultivator from the Nie sect rolled her eyes. "You're all cultivators, we exorcise corpse spirits, how scary can some rotten meat be? Don't be weak."

She had a fair point, and most of the cultivators meekly settled down.

Jin Ling was forced to exit the room again. Wei WuXian picked up the chest and passed it to him, "Throw it away. Anywhere works, as long as we don't smell it."

With a churning stomach and a head full of doubt, Jin Ling threw it out as he was told. He fiercely rubbed his fingers with a handkerchief, then threw it out as well.

"Jin Ling keeps running out of the kitchen, but he always comes back. He's kinda cute~" cooed some female cultivators.

"I think he just wants to impress Wei Wuxian, hahaha!"

Wei Wuxian and Jin Ling pretended not to have heard that last statement, Jin Ling flushing dark red and Wei Wuxian smirking.

After he returned to the kitchen, Wei WuXian and Lan SiZhui fetched two buckets of water from the well in the backyard, and were currently cleaning the kitchen.

Jin Ling demanded, "What are you doing?"

Lan SiZhui wiped around in diligence, "As you can see, we are cleaning the kitchen hearth."

Jin Ling, "What's the use of cleaning the hearth? We're not making food or anything."

Wei WuXian, "Who told you so? We are making food. You can sweep the dust. Get rid of all the cobwebs up there."

His words sounded so natural, so assured that, with a broom stuck into his hands, Jin Ling somehow obeyed.

At this, everyone in the room was laughing. Jin Ling's expression, a helpless mix of bafflement and anger, while he actually used the broom to sweep the kitchen like a housemaid, was currently a highlight of the show.

"Wei Wuxian's teacher voice is really quite powerful, isn't it? Even Jin Ling can't help but listen to him, hahahaha!" one of Jin Ling's aunts laughed.

"Stop laughing at me!!!!" screeched Jin Ling at his friends - even Sizhui was giggling behind his hands. He was beginning to wonder why he was brought into this world... just to suffer? This magic board had been trying to humiliate him non-stop!

Jiang Cheng didn't want to imply any praise towards Wei Wuxian or anything, but he was grudgingly  impressed that he had actually gotten that prissy little mistress to do some housework. Maybe Wei Wuxian would be able to convince Jin Ling to clean his room at Lotus Pier.

The three worked quickly. After a short while, the kitchen looked completely different. The house finally seemed a bit more lively, no longer haunted and long-abandoned. In a corner, there were some already-chopped firewood. They piled them into the hearth and set them alight using a fire talisman. They rested a large pot that they had already washed on the hearth and began to boil water. Wei WuXian poured some glutinous rice out of the second chest, washed all of it, and put it into the pot.

"...rice? That can't be a cure, why's he cooking food?"

Most of the cultivators from the big sects looked extremely confused.

Meanwhile, the less-sheltered cultivators who knew about the common folk remedy were looking approvingly at Wei Wuxian. The folk remedy was less fancy and expensive than those bottles of corpse-poisoning cure, but it was effective and easier to find in sticky situations like this. It was nice to see a resourceful protagonist who acknowledged things outside of the big 5 clans, for once!

Jin Ling, "You're making congee?"

Wei WuXian, "Uh-huh."

Jin Ling hurled the cleaning rag onto the ground.

Wei WuXian commented, "You see how you get mad after working for just a bit? Look at SiZhui. He worked the hardest and didn't even say anything yet. What's wrong with congee?"

"I guess that Sizhui's role is just to be the model student for the others to be compared to..."

"There always has to be a perfect kid for the parents to use to bully their kids, I guess." grouched a junior, whose mother promptly smacked him.

Wei Wuxian did not feel bad at all, and promptly replied. "Well, obviously it's because everyone should be more like Sizhui. Imagine how perfect the world would be!"

Jin Ling, "What's not wrong with congee? It's so watery and tasteless! Wait... I'm not mad because there's something wrong with congee!"

Wei WuXian, "It's not for you anyways."

Jin Ling was even more angered, "What did you say? I worked for so long, and I don't even get any?!"

Half the room started laughing again at Jin Ling's antics, while the other realised that Wei Wuxian actually was making some sort of cure, if it wasn't for Jin Ling.

Lan SiZhui, "Young Master Mo, is it that congee can cure corpse poisoning?"

Wei WuXian smiled, "Yes, but it's not the congee that can cure corpse poisoning—it's the rice. This is folk medicine. Normally, you apply the glutinous rice to the scratched or bitten wound. In the future, if you ever find yourselves in such a situation again, you can try this. Although it'll hurt a lot, it definitely works efficiently. But, since they swallowed corpse poisoning powder instead of being scratched or bitten, we can only make some rice congee for them to eat up."

The cultivators from the major sects were shocked. There was such a simple cure?

Lan Xichen, who had never heard of this (possibly because he had spent most of his life shut in the Cloud Recesses handling sect business or in seculsion), greatly admired Wei Wuxian's wide knowledge on all sorts of practical, field-based things. The juniors who had him as their instructor were certainly lucky, and would grow up to be resourceful cultivators.

Lan SiZhui came to realization, "So that was why you intended to enter a house with someone inside. Only a house with someone living inside could have a kitchen. Only a kitchen could have glutinous rice."

There were sounds of sudden understanding across the room.

"Oh, everything makes sense now!"

"So Wei Wuxian was planning ahead all along... I thought he was just trying to spite Jin Ling, haha."

"Of course,  he's always two steps ahead..."

Jin Ling, "Who knows how long the rice has been here for? Can you still eat it? This kitchen hasn't been used in at least a year. There's dust everywhere and the meat's even rotten. Don't tell me that the hag hasn't eaten for an entire year. It's impossible that she has practiced inedia. How did she survive?"

"...that's a very interesting point, actually."

Jin Ling snorted. "Of course, all the points I bring up are interesting!" Jingyi rolled his eyes.

Wei WuXian, "It's either that nobody has been living here and that she really isn't the shopkeeper at all, or that she simply doesn't need to eat."

Lan SiZhui lowered his voice, "If she does not need to eat, then she would be dead. But the old woman clearly breathes."

"Oh!" a young junior from the Guo clan suddenly remembered the strange fierce corpse that had breathed corpse poisoning powder on the kids. "There are breathing corpses?!"

Her father whacked her lightly. "Quiet down, A-Huang! There's no such thing!"

"She's actually nearly right." Wei Wuxian praised. "Good job, A-Huang!"

Using a spatula, Wei WuXian nonchalantly stirred the pot of congee, mixing in ingredients from various bottles and jars, "Right. You haven't finished explaining. Why did you come to Yi City together? It wasn't just by chance that you ran into each other and then us, was it?"

No one was paying attention to his words, however. All the eyes in the room were fixed on Wei Wuxian's hands, adding handful after handful of various spices - all varying shades of red - into the pot.

The juniors who had been forced to drink the congee felt their eyes twitch. "P-please stop adding ... noooooo...."

Lan Xichen's eyes were as round as saucers, but Jiang Cheng was suppressing his laughter. Those poor suckers were going to have the scare of their lives drinking that stuff.

The boys' expressions immediately grew serious.

Jin Ling replied, "I, the Lan Sect's people, and the ones from other sects were all chasing after something. I came from the Qinghe area."

Lan SiZhui also replied, "We came from Langya."

Wei WuXian, "What was it?"

Lan SiZhui shook his head, "We do not know. It never showed its face. We don't even know what or who... or which organization it was, exactly."

Ever since a few days ago, after Jin Ling lied to his uncle and let Wei WuXian go, he had been worried that this time Jiang Cheng would really break his legs, so he decided to sneak out and disappear for a few days, not appearing in front of Jiang Cheng until his anger subsided. He ran away immediately after he passed Zidian to one of Jiang Cheng's trusted subordinates.

"Honestly? Fair enough."

"Completely understandable." another cultivator added, nodding solemnly.

"That poor kid was probably fearing for his life."

Jiang Cheng made sure to glare at everyone talking, including his rascal of a nephew, as threateningly as he could. "As he should."

Having arrived at a city on the border of the Qinghe area, his journey paused. In search for the location for his next night-hunt, he took a short rest at a large inn. At night, when he was memorizing spells in his room, Fairy, who lay by his side, suddenly started barking at the door. It was already deep into the night. Despite this, nothing had happened. There were only some strange sounds, as if water was dripping down. On the second morning, a scream came from outside the door. Jin Ling kicked the door open only to step into a pool of blood. Something fell from above the door. Darting backward, Jin Ling barely managed to prevent it from hitting him. It was a black cat! Someone, not long ago, nailed the corpse of a dead cat on top of his door. The strange dripping sounds he heard throughout the night were from the cat's blood dripping down.

Strangled noises of horror now rippled through the room.

"Noooo!!!!" wailed one junior. "The poor cat!!!! Who did that?? Only a sick psychopath would do such a horrible thing!"

Nie Huaisang felt cold shivers run down his spine under the cold side-eye of both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. He might need to go into hiding after this show finished...

Jin Ling, "It was the same after switching to a few different inns, so I went on the offensive. If I heard that a cat's corpse happened to appear anywhere, I would go and see, since I just had to find out who was messing around."

Wei WuXian turned to Lan SiZhui, "You guys as well?"

Lan SiZhui nodded, "Yes. A few days ago, a few of us were nighthunting at Langya. During dinner one day, we suddenly fished out the unskinned head of a cat from inside the soup... In the beginning, we did not know that it was directed at us, but on that night, when we switched to another inn, we found the corpse of a cat in one of the bedsheets. It was the same for a few continuous days. We chased after it, arrived at Yueyang, and ran into Young Master Jin. We found out that we were searching for the same thing, so we decided to work together, and only arrived at this area today. We asked a hunter in the village in front of a stone tablet, and we were shown the path to Yi City."

As suspicious mutters echoed through the room, Nie Huaisang amended his earlier thought. He was definitely going to have to go into hiding after this.

"Why would that hunter point the kids towards such a cursed, haunted place?"

"No one with good intentions would do such a thing..."

The juniors from Yi City all glared towards the screen, silently cursing that hunter for making them go through such a traumatic experience.

Although, it hadn't been such a bad experience in hindsight... no one had gotten hurt, and they'd gained a lot of friends and a super powerful mentor. So maybe, the mysterious hunter had done them a favour.

Wei WuXian thought to himself, A hunter? The juniors should've passed the village in front the road fork after Lan WangJi and he did. However, they didn't see any hunters at the time. There were only a few timid village women feeding chicken, who said that the men were out shipping goods and wouldn't be back for a long while. The more Wei WuXian thought about it, the more solemn his expression grew.

Shivers ran through the audience. Wei Wuxian with any expression that didn't involve smiling or pouting gave them such strong sense of foreboding that they instinctually knew something was seriously wrong.

"That hunter had better watch out... look at Wei Wuxian's face, he's definitely going to wipe that man from existence...." whispered some cultivators to each other.

Nie Huaisang sweated profusely on the sidelines.

From the narration, their opposition did nothing other than killing cats and dumping the corpses. Although it both sounded and looked scary, they weren't actually harmed. In fact, these events stirred up their curiosity to get to the root of the matter. Also, these juniors met one another in Yueyang. Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi also came to Shudong from Yueyang. It almost seemed as if somebody was purposely leading the muddleheaded juniors to meet up with the two of them. To lead a few confused juniors to a dangerous place for them to face the violent limb of a fierce corpse—wasn't this the exact same routine as the occurrence at Mo Village?

Wei Wuxian's train of logic was getting a bit too complicated for most of the audience, but for those who could follow it, the mystery seemed to just be getting bigger. So the people behind the ghost arm at Mo Village were the same as the people leading the kids to Yi City? What on earth were these people trying to achieve?

And, this wasn't the most complicated part of it. Right now, what Wei WuXian feared the most was that... the Stygian Tiger Seal might be within Yi City at this very moment. Although Wei WuXian didn't really want to accept this possibility, it was nonetheless the most reasonable explanation. After all, someone who could restore half of the Tiger Seal had even existed. Despite the talk that he had been dealt with, who knew where the seal that he had restored went?

"...Xue Yang... !!!" hissed half the room at the same time.

"Considering this is the man who created the Stygian Tiger Seal in the first place, Wei Wuxian sounds kind of afraid of it." commented one cultivator.

"You'd be afraid of that damned thing too if you knew more about it." muttered Wei Wuxian sourly. "It's precisely because I made it in the first place that I'm scared of it. Why so many of you guys are so intent on claiming it for yourselves is honestly beyond me."

The room fell into tense silence at his words. Jingyi eyed the elders of the major clans - particularly the Jin sect, who were currently acting like Wei Wuxian's words were utterly inconsequential to them. Those corrupt bastards who had schemed after Senior Wei's Amulet would get what they deserved soon enough, when the magic screen revealed them to the cultivation world!

Suddenly, Lan SiZhui, who had been squatting on the ground to fan the flame, raised his head, "Senior Mo, I think that the congee is ready?"

Gathering his thoughts, he stopped stirring.

He grabbed the bowl that Lan SiZhui had washed and tasted a spoonful of the congee, "It's ready. Take it out. Feed one bowl to each person who had been poisoned."

Previous tensions were immediately forgotten, as everyone watched in disbelief at Wei Wuxian casually drinking the spoon of congee like it was water, and not a bright red monstrosity made from 90% spices.

"He's... he's not human..." whispered the juniors who had tasted the congee first hand.

Wei Wuxian flapped his hand dismissively at them, laughing freely again. "You little ones are so dramatic. You've gotta fix your spice tolerance one day, kiddos!"

However, after it had been carried out, Lan JingYi only had one mouthful before spitting it out, "What is this? Poison?!"

Wei WuXian, "How is this poison? It's the cure! Glutinous rice congee."

Lan JingYi, "First of all, I don't know know why glutinous rice would be the cure, but I've never eaten such a spicy bowl of congee before!"

The rest of the boys who had taste their servings nodded in unison, all of their eyes wet with tears.

The hearts of all the people in the audience went out to those pitiful little cultivators.

"Wei Wuxian, you made them cry!" scolded a motherly looking cultivator.

"Honestly, this was the most traumatic event from the whole Yi City trip." muttered a junior, to the fervent agreement of his fellows.

Wei Wuxian didn't know if he was meant to be offended, but he chose to look on the bright side. "Well, this means I have a punishment for you little ones if you ever forget to hand in your homework!"

The juniors' faces instantly went white with sheer panic. The Lans gazed at their Hanguang Jun in desperation, hoping he would object, but Lan Wangji just nodded along to whatever his husband said. In short, the juniors were doomed.

Wei WuXian stroked his chin. He grew up in Yunmeng. People from Yunmeng were all quite spice-tolerant, but Wei WuXian's penchant for spice was beyond hardcore. Anytime he set about the kitchen, the food would be so spicy that even Jiang Cheng could only smash his bowl and curse.

More snickers sounded around the room. "Damn, Wei Wuxian's spice levels must be something beyond the grave."

Jiang Cheng felt a little bit bitter at how Wei Wuxian's thoughts had revealed to the whole cultivation world he was weaker than him at tolerating spice, but the memories were horrific enough to keep the bitterness at bay. He had missed Wei Wuxian (even if he refused to admit it), but he definitely did not miss his cooking.

Yet, for some reason, he just couldn't hold back from adding spoonful after spoonful of seasoning. It seemed that, this time, he wasn't able to control his hands either. Out of curiosity, Lan SiZhui picked up the bowl and tried a mouthful. Even as his face flushed red and his eyes teared up, he pursed his lips and refrained from spitting it out, thinking to himself, The taste... is so scary that it almost brings about a sense of deja vu.

"Hmm? I thought Lans never went near spice."

"Yeah, what does Sizhui mean by that?"

Sizhui fidgeted uncomfortably. He hadn't even told his closest friends, Jingyi, Jin Ling and Zizhen anything about his past. He hadn't figured out the right way to tell them, and didn't want to cause any strange tensions, especially between Jin Ling and himself, considering that Jin Ling hated the Wens. He knew he had to start somewhere, though.

"Yes, so... about that..." Sizhui coughed. "I'm actually adopted. I'm not Lan by birth."

"WHAT?!"

"Hanguang Jun was the one who took me in and raised me."

"WHAT???!!!!"

Even to the outsiders, this was a shock. How could the most Lan-like Lan not actually be Lan by birth?

"I guess this just proves the nurture over nature argument." commented one.

Sizhui's friends looked like they had a million other questions, so Sizhui thought quickly. "Well, my past circumstances were really complicated, even I didn't know about them. They're related to Senior Wei though, so you guys will probably hear the story through this magic board. It'll take too long to explain, anyway."

This explanation finally allowed his friends to settle down.

"This explains why Hanguang Jun always lets you pat his rabbits." Jingyi sulked finally.

Wei WuXian, "All medicine is poisonous to some degree. The spice will make you sweat so that you get better sooner."

"...He's totally making this up on the spot."

"I swear my mother tried using that same argument on me once."

Wei Wuxian pouted. "Hey! It's true! ...Probably!"

The eww-s coming from the boys revealed their disbelief. Nonetheless, with bitter faces, they ate up the congee. Within seconds, all of their faces reddened and their foreheads gleamed as they suffered from the agony.

The audience had to turn away after a few moments. They weren't sadistic enough to enjoy watching the pain of these poor children.

Wei Wuxian scratched his neck, feeling a little bit guilty.

"Kiiiiiids~ Don't hate me, it's, uh, character-building!"

He was met with a dozen pouts.

Wei WuXian couldn't help but comment, "It's not that serious, is it? HanGuangJun is also from Gusu. He takes spice quite well, so why are you guys like this?"

Lan SiZhui answered with a hand covering his mouth, "No, Senior. HanGuang-Jun's taste is very mild. He never eats spice..."

Wei WuXian paused for a moment, "Really."

"He doesn't know this? They seem so close, though."

"Yeah, and everyone knows that the Lans can't eat spice."

"Didn't Wei Wuxian literally study at the Cloud Recesses when he was a teenager? Didn't he taste their seasoning-less food himself?"

Jiang Cheng snorted. "There's no point trying to rationalise Wei Wuxian's memory. It's selectively patchy, especially  when it comes to Lan Wangji."

But he could remember that in his past life, before he betrayed the YunmengJiang Sect, he had met with Lan WangJi in Yiling once. At the time, although Wei WuXian was widely reviled, it wasn't to the point that everyone wanted to beat him up. Thus, pulling on a thick face, he asked Lan WangJi to have dinner with him so that they could reminisce together.

Overlapping on the screen were a few, rushed images of another scene. There was Wei Wuxian, in his original body, but much taller and older-looking, dragging Lan Wangji through streets. Running after them was a tiny little boy, probably around 5 years old, holding two paper butterflies. The images were faded, and gone as quickly as they came - they must have been some fleeting memories of Wei Wuxian's - but they were imprinted in the audience's minds anyway.

"So, that was Wei Wuxian after he defected?"

"Well... he does looks better with his hair out-" a cultivator commented before getting slapped by her friend.

"Shhh! You're right, but Lan Wangji's glaring at you-"

"Who's the tiny kid that's following them?" Jingyi wondered out loud.

Sizhui decided that declaring that it was him would be a bit too sudden, so he didn't say anything. His voice felt obstructed anyway, by strange, nostalgic emotions. His own memories of that day started resurfacing, and he couldn't help but smile to himself.

All of the dishes that Lan WangJi ordered were packed with Sichuan peppers, and so he had always thought that Lan WangJi's taste for spice was pretty much the same as him. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember whether or not Lan WangJi actually picked up his chopsticks.

"...Lan Wangji was definitely ordering those dishes for you." exclaimed several of the Wangxian fans at the back of the room.

"He was so in love was him, even back then..." swooned another.

Wei Wuxian blinked rapidly, only realising it now. "Lan Zhaaaan~ Is that true? Did you order them only for me?"

Lan Wangji didn't reply, but his reddening ears were enough of an answer for Wei Wuxian to squeal and wrap his husband in a hug. Why was his Lan Zhan so cute???

Then again, he even forgot about how he said that the meal was his treat, so Lan WangJi ended up paying for them anyway. This was why it was only natural for him to forget such a detail. He didn't know why but, all of a sudden, he really, really wanted to see Lan WangJi's face.

Lan Wangji's ears only went redder. Hearing his beloved's thoughts about himself was proving an incredibly stressful experience, but it gave him so much happiness to hear that Wei Ying felt the same need to be close as he did.

Meanwhile, the squeals from the audience were not only from the fan group, but from several other cultivators who had caught on.

"... Senior, Senior Mo!"

"Hmm?" Wei WuXian finally pulled himself together.

Lan SiZhui whispered, "The old lady's door... has opened."

From somewhere came an eerie gust of wind, faintly opening the room's door. The door swayed open and closed, revealing the vague outline of a stooping shadow sitting by a table within the frightful darkness.

"Wow, way to kill the mood-"

"Why's she just sitting there creepily...in the dark?"

Wei WuXian signalled for them to stay put and walked into the room alone. The dim light of the oil lamp and candlesticks in the central chamber leaked inside. The old woman sat with her head hung low, as if she didn't notice that someone had entered. A cloth lay on her knees, tightly stretched with an embroidery frame, suggesting that she was doing needlework. Her two hands stiffly stuck to each other as they tried to guide a thread through a needle.

Wei WuXian sat down by the table as well, "Manager, why not light the lamp if you're threading a needle? Let me help."

He took over the needle and thread—the thread went through at once.

Passing it back to the old woman, he walked out of the room as if nothing had happened and closed the door behind him, "There's no need to go in."

The audience had been tensed up for the whole encounter, waiting for the old woman to reveal herself to be a monster and attack Wei Wuxian. At the anticlimactic ending, they didn't know what to think.

"That old woman definitely isn't normal or human, why is Wei Wuxian being so nice to her?"

"You said it yourself, she's an old woman. You've gotta respect your elders, so what if she's not totally alive?" Wei Wuxian responded, affronted. "I call this... aliveism! Or deadism?"

"...What the hell are you talking about, Wei Wuxian?" Jiang Cheng ground out.

"Living people definitely discriminate against dead people! They hate the thought and sight of corpses, they treat them like they're less human than they are, how is that fair? Everyone ends up dead at some point, they deserve more respect!"

Having never heard this argument before, most of the cultivators didn't know what to say.

"You only say that because you've been dead before.' Jin Ling muttered before he could stop himself.

Wei Wuxian stared at him, at a loss for words for a moment, before saying, "Wow, didn't know you'd go there."

"...Sorry." Jin Ling finally muttered.

Jin Ling, "When you were inside, did you see if the hag's actually alive or not?"

Wei WuXian, "Don't call her a hag. That's quite rude. The old lady is a living corpse."

The boys looked at one another. Lan SiZhui asked, "What is a living corpse?"

No one had ever heard of a living corpse before. There were walking corpses, fierce corpses - but not living  corpses, because the point of corpses was that they were meant to be dead.

"Oh, so these are the breathing corpses?" A-Huang asked excitedly.

"Yep!" Wei Wuxian cheered.

Most of the cultivators were still trying to understand if the old woman was alive or dead. Why was the world they lived in so weird, sometimes??

Wei WuXian, "From head to toe, everything seems to say that they're a corpse, but the person is actually living. That's what a living corpse is."

Jin Ling was shocked, "You're saying that she's still alive?!"

Wei WuXian, "Have you looked inside?"

"Yes."

"What did you see? What was she doing?"

"Threading a needle."

"Did it go in?"

"... No."

"Correct. She's incapable of threading a needle. Dead people's muscles are too rigid to perform complex actions such as threading needles. The marks on her face aren't age spots, but livor mortis. And she doesn't need to eat, either. It's only that she can breathe which makes her alive."

"Ohhh."

Many juniors were writing this all down in their notes. Even the older cultivators were trying to embed Wei Wuxian's words into their memory.

After all, Wei Wuxian was probably the most accurate source of information about anything corpse-related, and if there really was another type of corpse that they'd have to fight in the future, the more information they could gather, the better.

Lan Xichen made a mental note to ask Wei Wuxian if he'd maybe want to write a book on all the knowledge he'd gained throughout his years of experience. He was sure it would be of great practical use to the juniors. Best of all, Wei Wuxian would finally be able to make some money and stop complaining about how poor he was all the time.

Lan SiZhui, "B-but, the old lady is already quite elderly. A lot of old ladies have poor eyesight and cannot thread needles by themselves."

Wei WuXian, "So I helped her. Did you notice the other thing, though? From opening the door until now, she hasn't blinked even once."

The boys blinked a few times.

No one had, in fact, noticed that.

"How does he notice all these things, anyway?" a junior from the Jiang sect asked in awe.

"The more observant you are, the better chances you have at surviving. It's simple." an older Jiang cultivator replied easily. "And Wei Wuxian is the best at surviving!"

Wei WuXian continued, "Living people blink to prevent eyes from becoming sore. Dead people, on the other hand, have no need to do this. And, when I took the needle and thread over, did anyone notice how she looked at me?"

Jin Ling, "Her eyeballs didn't move... but her head did!"

Wei WuXian, "Precisely. When most people look somewhere, their eyeballs usually move, no matter how slight the movement is. However, dead people's eyes don't. This is because dead people can't carry out an action as subtle as moving their eyeballs. They can only turn their heads and necks instead."

Lan JingYi was baffled, "Should we be taking notes?"

Wei WuXian, "A good habit, but do you think you'd have time to flip through your notes when you're out night-hunting? Keep it in your minds."

Many people laughed at Jingyi's question. Wei Wuxian's tone indeed did make it seem like this whole Yi City adventure was an educational field trip. Instead of being trapped in a ghost-like city full of corpses, with Wei Wuxian around it seemed more like a demonstration and lecture about night-hunting.

Suddenly, the juniors from Yi City felt incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to be instructed by such a prominent and powerful cultivator. Sure, the adults were all convinced he was evil, but that didn't change the fact that Senior Wei was the coolest and most qualified person to teach about night-hunting and walking, fierce and living corpses.

Jin Ling spoke through clenched teeth, "Walking corpses are already weird enough. Why do things like living corpses exist?!"

Wei WuXian, "There are a lot of disadvantages to dead people: rigid muscles, slow movement, and so on. However, there are also quite a few advantages: the lack of fear towards pain, the inability to think, how easy they are to control. Somebody thought that they could amend for the disadvantages of corpses and create perfect corpse puppets. This was how living corpses came into being."

Although the boys didn't say anything, one single sentence was written all over their faces— "This person must be Wei! Wu! Xian!"

The juniors all felt their faces heat up as their thoughts were revealed to everyone. It looked even more embarrassing now because they had no idea the person talking to them at that moment actually was  Wei Wuxian. And of course, Senior Wei hadn't even created the living corpses in the first place.

The other cultivators in the audience had already started heading down the familiar anti-Wei Wuxian path, though, their grumbles getting louder and louder.

"So he's the one who invented living corpses? That's kind of sick...  Using already dead people as puppets might be justified, depending on what you use the puppets for, but killing people to use them as puppets is totally wrong!"

The juniors were bristling, ready to defend their favourite senior, but Wei Wuxian interrupted loudly,  "Oh my god, before you start going on your stupid righteousness rampage again, I didn't do it! Fact check yourselves before you start spreading misinformation to the younger generation, jeez..."

Wei WuXian didn't know whether to laugh or frown, thinking silently, But I really haven't done such a thing! Although, it really did sound like his way of doing things!

The cultivators paused in their gossip. Wei Wuxian was admitting that it looked like his style, but that he wasn't the one who created living corpses?

A Jin outer disciple frowned mistrustfully. "Are you sure you didn't do such a thing? I for one never trusted this crazy demonic cultivator anyway. Who else would make corpse puppets?"

Jin Ling rolled his eyes to the sky. "There are plenty of other demonic cultivators, if you don't have anything intelligent to say, don't say it! Why does the Jin sect have an idiot disciple like you- "

Jingyi raged on, "And what do you mean 'is he sure ',  obviously Senior Wei is sure, because those are his actual thoughts -"

Jingyi and Jin Ling's combined rage-power startled even themselves for a moment - it wasn't often they were on the same side - but the Jin disciple had already gotten the message loud and clear, sinking into his seat in embarrassment.

He carried on, "Ahem. Alright. Wei WuXian started it. But, he successfully made Wen Ning, or the Ghost General. To be honest, I've always wanted to ask—who exactly came up with this title? It's so dumb. Anyways, there were some other people who wanted to imitate this but weren't good enough, so they used improper means. Targeting living people instead, they developed living corpses." He concluded, "A type of failed imitations."

"It's kind of obvious that he's Wei Wuxian now that I look back on it." a junior commented.

"Yeah, the way he talks about himself so uncomfortably and changes the topic immediately."

Now that the cultivators were slowly understanding that Wei Wuxian was in fact, not the creator of living corpses, they felt slightly foolish for jumping to conclusions so quickly, and to save their face they quickly started insulting the imitators amongst themselves.

Hearing Wei WuXian's name, Jin Ling's face froze over.

He snorted, "Wei Ying himself used improper means."

Wei WuXian, "Yep. Then, the ones who developed living corpses used the most improper means of all improper means."

Jin Ling remembered how touchy and angry he had been at the slightest mention of Wei Wuxian, back then. He glanced guiltily at him now, wincing at the way his on-screen counterpart just disrespectfully called Senior Wei by his birth name. He wondered why he had spent so much of his life marinating in rage and hatred when he could've gone and found out the truth from the start.

Meanwhile, the audience of cultivators was starting to question all the things they'd believed about demonic cultivation. Before, all forms of demonic cultivation were swept under the same umbrella of 'evil', but hearing the way Wei Wuxian spoke about it, there were clearly varying levels of improperness. The whole thing was clearly not one wicked and completely morally black act - there were shades of grey in between.

The worst that Wei Wuxian could be labelled as, at this moment, was a very light grey, considering he hadn't done anything too unethical with his demonic cultivation. Whoever had developed living corpses, however, was definitely darker grey, nearing black.

Lan SiZhui, "Senior Mo, what should we do now?"

Wei WuXian, "Some living corpses may not know that they're already dead. I think that this old lady is one of the confused corpses. Let's just not disturb her for now."

Some of the cultivator looked at him strangely. Wei Wuxian's previous speech about treating dead people equally to alive people echoed in their minds again. It was true, Wei Wuxian was oddly respectful and kind to the dead - it was disconcerting.

Sizhui smiled. It was funny how so many people thought that Senior Wei was so immoral when he was actually one of the kindest people he knew.

Out of blue, a series of the crisp taps of a bamboo pole knocking on the ground suddenly sounded.

The sound came from nearby a window, which was sealed shut by strips of black, wooden boards. All of the disciples in the central chamber turned pale. Ever since they entered the city, they had been constantly pestered by the sound. They now panicked whenever they heard it. Wei WuXian gestured for them to be quiet. All of them held their breaths as they watched Wei WuXian walk to the window and look outside through a narrow slit between the boards.

Lan Xichen was so glad that Wei gongzi had found those children before something terrible happened. It was heart-warming to see the way Wei gongzi could easily calm the juniors down, just with his confidence and teacher-like presence.

Against his better judgement, he leaned a bit closer to the screen, wanting to see what Wei Wuxian would see outside.

As soon as Wei WuXian approached the slit, he could see a field of white. He thought that the fog outside was too thick for him to see anything. Suddenly, however, the whiteness rapidly shrunk backward. He saw a pair of white, hideous eyes, glowering at the slit between the boards. The field of white he saw wasn't fog, but the pair of pupil-less eyes.

For what must have been the tenth time ever since the Yi City scenes had started, the room was filled with screams of terror.