Chapter 4 - Aggression

Wei WuXian's first thought was that something went wrong with the flag formation that the boys set up.

His inventions needed to be used extremely carefully, or else disasters could happen. This was also why he went to check if there was anything wrong with the motifs that were drawn.

The Lan disciples from that night looked at each other, then up at Wei Wuxian in adoration.

Another cultivator who still harboured a grudge against Wei Wuxian gave a snort, an infuriatingly righteous and superior look on his face, "Don't get too close to that demon, you foolish children. You'll see soon enough what he does-"

Wei Wuxian twisted his head around, "Yeah, and what did I do to you?"

The cultivator gave an exclamation of rage. "You-you broke my leg! How dare you, you think you can play stupid? Don't tell me you've forgotten me! I was there that night at Nightless city-"

"Hmm? Yeah, I've definitely forgotten you then. " Wei Wuxian talked over the cultivator's splutters. "However. You better hope I don't break your other leg, because if you keep talking to my kids like that, I certainly will."

The cultivator quailed under his for once, dead serious glare, and wisely shut his mouth.

As a few pairs of big hands came to drag him outside, Wei WuXian straightened his body and allowed them to do so without difficulty, so that he wouldn't have to walk by himself.

"Uhh.. they just said they wanted to beat you to death and make you pay for it with your life?? And you're not trying to run??"

JingYi said incredulously. Lan Zhan agreed for once with his most unruly disciple.

"Ahh, well I was going to go over by myself anyway to see what was going on, but of course if they're willing to carry me there, I'm not going to complain." We Wuxian gave a roguish grin. "Besides, you can't actually think I was worried those dimwitted blockheads could actually do something to me?"

"Shameless! Such arrogance." muttered Sect Leader Yao.

"Hey! It's true, no one can beat up Senior Wei!" Jingyi retorted. The juniors all chorused in agreement.

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. The memory of Wei Wuxian kneeling on the floor of Lotus Pier as Madam Yu struck him with Zidian as punishment flashed through his eyes. He quickly blinked the memory away before his thoughts could progress much further than that.

A human-shaped object lay on the ground, with its body covered by a white cloth and only the head being revealed. Lan SiZhui and the other boys wore heavy expressions, bending down to check the situation and talking in soft voices.

Jingyi looked at his vividly realistic 'painting' (could it be called a painting? the pictures on the board seemed too lifelike to be called a painting) and self-consciously squinted at his side profile.

"Huh... do I really look like that from the side?" Jingyi suddenly remembered the Lan principles 'Do not dwell on appearances'  and 'Do not be self-centred '. With a meek look behind him at Hanguang Jun, he snapped his mouth shut.

"... Less than three minutes have passed since the body was discovered?"

"After subduing the walking corpse, we hurried from the West Courtyard to the East Courtyard, and found the corpse by the hallway."

The human-shaped thing was, apparently, Mo ZiYuan. Although the features were clearly that of his petty cousin's, the cheekbones were deeply sunken, eyes bulging, and skin wrinkled. Compared to the youthful Mo ZiYuan before this, it was as if he aged twenty years. It also seemed like his blood and flesh were sucked out of him, turning him into a skeleton with only a thin layer of skin on the outside. If, before this, Mo ZiYuan was just ugly, now, his corpse was both old and ugly.

The juniors all laughed, having already despised Mo Ziyuan for his cruel and rude nature, thoroughly entertained by Senior Wei's internal dialogue.

"How can you say such flippant things about this boy, who's clearly just died?" A certain sect leader (Wei Wuxian was pretty sure it was Sect Leader Shan? Or was it Suan?), who was trying to remind himself of the situation in case he got too used to the seemingly buoyant and carefree way Wei Wuxian viewed the world.

A fair-minded cultivator among the rows spoke up. "Ah... it's not that flippant, Sect Leader Shan. It's interesting how the body has withered like that, Mo Ziyuan was so fat before and now he's skin and bones! Not many cases of demonic possession create corpses like that!"

Wei Wuxian privately gave himself a mental high-five for guessing Sect Leader Shan's name first try.

"How did you figure out it was demonic possession?" Wei Wuxian asked, mildly impressed.

"Well, it must have been something evil, to have such a dire effect, and what else feeds on live humans? Besides... if you, the Yiling Laozu, were there, it wasn't a hard leap to make." the cultivator said with a smile. Despite her basically calling Wei Wuxian's path of cultivation 'evil', the cultivator didn't seem to be criticising him, just stating the facts. Wei Wuxian took an immediate liking to her.

Wei Wuxian asked her, "Nice! And what's your name, miss?"

"Guo Wanxin, from the Lianghu Guo clan." she immediately replied, inclining her head respectfully. Other cultivators in similar leaf green robes sitting in her row shook their heads urgently at her, to which she took no notice.

Jiang Cheng snorted. "You're literally married to Lan Wangji, why do you still flirt with girls?"

"Jiang Cheng! You-" Wei Wuxian was outraged, but Guo Wanxin beat him to it.

"With all due respect, Sect Leader Jiang, I believe your brother was just being friendly. Besides, I have already met my partner for life, my beloved wife beside me." The woman beside her, also in green robes of a lighter shade, blushed when Guo Wanxin took her hand.

"B-brother? Who says he's my brother!" Jiang Cheng gave a huff and turned back to the screen, his face almost the same colour as Guo Wanxin's wife.

As Wei WuXian was scrutinizing the corpse, Madam Mo suddenly rushed towards him, with a gleaming dagger in her hand.

Many of the cultivators present jolted. Madam Mo had certainly taken a violent turn!

Being light on his feet, Lan SiZhui quickly knocked the dagger off. Before he had a chance to talk, Madam Mo shrieked at him, "My son died a tragic death, so I am only avenging him! What are you stopping me for?"

Wei WuXian hid behind Lan SiZhui's back again, and spoke while squatting, "How does your son's tragic death concern me?"

During the day, Lan SiZhui saw Wei WuXian make a scene in the East Hall, and, afterwards, he also heard a lot of exaggerated rumours from other people. He felt extremely sympathetic to the invalid, and couldn't help but to take his side, "Madam Mo, seeing from your son's condition, his flesh and essence have been drawn out of him, which means that he was killed by evil beings, not him."

"Of course you couldn't help but take my side, A-yuan! It must've been your filial instincts again, hahaha!" Wei Wuxian's heart felt warm again with fondness for his adopted son.

Sizhui felt a bit ridiculous now, hearing himself sympathising with Senior Wei. Being the Yiling Laozu, he had probably endured exaggerated rumours a hundred times worse and more poisonous, but he'd had no one to stick up for him back then.

Madam Mo's chest heaved, "You know nothing! The lunatic's father was a cultivator. He must have learned a lot of demonic spells from him!" Lan SiZhui turned around to look at the seemingly dull-witted Wei WuXian, and spoke again, "Uhm, Madam, there is a lack of evidence, so..."

Sizhui covered his face in embarrassment. "Senior Wei, I'm sorry!!! I didn't know!!!"

Wei Wuxian was laughing too hard to respond. He couldn't blame Sizhui, of course.

"The evidence is on my son!" Madam Mo pointed at the corpse on the ground, "Look for yourselves! A-Yuan's remains already told me who murdered him!"

Not needing other people to do it, Wei WuXian lifted the white cloth by himself, from the head down to the feet. There was something missing on Mo ZiYuan's dead body. His left arm, severed from below his shoulder, had disappeared! Madam Mo spoke, "Do you see this? Everyone who were here heard what the lunatic said, right? He said that, if A-Yuan touched his belongings again, he would cut off his hand!"

Wei Wuxian stopped laughing finally.  "She's calling that beastly boy A-Yuan too? Hah! Our A-Yuan is so much better!"

The cultivators were whispering among themselves, "Where did his arm go?"

"It must have been the Yiling Laozu...wait-"

There was an awkward silence. Guo Wanxin sighed dramatically "We've been watching Wei Wuxian this whole time, he doesn't seem to be the one responsible this time. Come on, everyone, we can't just blame every bad thing ever on the Yiling Laozu, it's been 13 years..."

After the burst of emotion, she covered her face and sobbed, "... My poor A-Yuan... Although he didn't do anything to him at all, he was not only framed, but also killed as well... The lunatic is out of his mind..."

Framed?? They had all seen Mo Ziyuan steal Mo Xuanyu's papers and talismans, how naive was this mother? Did she really not know what sort of person her son was?

Out of his mind! It had been a few years since he last heard the phrase being used to describe him, so it was quite cordial. Wei WuXian pointed at himself, but no words came to him. He didn't know if he was the ill one or if it was Madam Mo.

There were many raised eyebrows and stifled laughs. Sizhui, however, found it sad that 'out of his mind' was considered 'cordial' to Senior Wei. He knew now that Wei Wuxian was definitely quite in control of his mind, albeit a bit wild sometimes. He really didn't deserve the curses and horrible names he was slandered with constantly.

When he was younger, he talked quite a lot about exterminating entire families and clans, killing millions of people, creating rivers of blood, and other cruel actions. But, most of the time, they were empty words. If he could actually do the things that he said, he would have long been dominating the cultivation world.

Wei Wuxian rubbed his nose. He couldn't control it if he thought somewhat arrogant things sometimes!! Surprisingly though, no one commented on it. Possibly because they genuinely believed he could do all those things. He sighed internally. His reputation these days really did precede his actual abilities!

Madam Mo's true intention wasn't to avenge for him, but to find someone to let out her resentment on. Wu WuXian didn't want to be bothered with her. He thought for a moment, and stuck his hand into Mo ZiYuan's arms. He fished around for a moment and pulled something out, unfolding it in front of him. Surprisingly, it was a Phantom Attraction Flag. Instantly, he realized what was going on, and uttered under his breath, he had it coming! When Lan SiZhui and the others saw what was taken out of Mo ZiYuan's arms, they also understood the situation.

A few of the more brainy cultivators gave 'oh!'s of understanding. Contrastingly, Sect Leader Yao muttered loudly, "What do they understand? How did that flag get there?"

During the day, Mo ZiYuan lost face because of Mo XuanYu's crazy behavior and loathed him, still wanting to square up with him. When night had fallen, he secretly went outside, and was passing the West Courtyard when he saw the Phantom Attraction Flags on the walls. Although he was repeatedly told not to go outside or near the West Courtyard at night, and especially to stay away from these black flags, Mo ZiYuan thought that he was told to do so because they were scared of people stealing the valuable weapons.

The Lan disciples looked affronted. Did common people really think they were like that? Find, perhaps some of the other more disreputable clans and sects, but the Lan sect?

He had no idea about the dangerous effects of these Phantom Attraction Flags, or that if he held it, he would be turned into a living target. He got addicted to stealing his cousin's talismans and magic tools, and he would always itch to take odd items like this, not giving up until he obtained it. Therefore, when the owners of the flags were subduing walking corpses in the West Courtyard, he quietly took one.

By now, mostly everyone understood what had happened, and shook their heads in incredulity as they watched the idiot stuff a volatile piece of dark demonic cultivation equipment into his robes.

The flag formation utilized six flags, of which five were set in the West Courtyard, with the boys from the Lan family as baits. However, they were all carrying countless magic tools on them, and, although Mo ZiYuan only took a single flag, he didn't have any tools for protection on him. It was common sense to pick on the weak, so the evil beings would naturally be attracted to him. If there were only walking corpses, then it wouldn't matter too much. Even if he was bitten, he wouldn't die immediately and could still be saved. Unfortunately, the Phantom Attraction Flag accidentally attracted something worse than a walking corpse. The unknown being was what killed Mo ZiYuan and took his arm!

Many found Wei Wuxian's straight forward way of explaining, concise and engaging enough to listen to, knowledgable and precise enough to be useful, very helpful. Lan Xichen tapped his chin and began to ponder the possibility of Wei Wuxian teaching the Lan junior disciples some things. Since Wangji would most definitely go wherever his Wei Wuxian went,  it would mean Wangji would spend more time with him and his uncle! His uncle would probably disapprove greatly though, it would be a bit strange to let an infamous demonic cultivator teach junior disciples. Xichen filed away the idea in his head for future consideration.

Wei WuXian raised his wrist. Sure enough, one of the cuts on his right hand had healed. It looked like that he had scored a lucky hit—the sacrificial contract had already deemed the death of Mo ZiYuan as his doing. Madam Mo was well aware of her son's foibles, but she wasn't willing to admit that Mo ZiYuan caused his own death. Due to impatience and rage, she grabbed a teacup and threw it in the direction of Wei WuXian's head, "If you didn't frame him in front of so many people yesterday, would he go out in the middle of the night? It's all your fault, you son of a bitch!"

Wei WuXian saw it coming, and dodged to the side.

"Tsk tsk, such a violent and unreasonable woman!"

"She knows her son caused his own death, and now she's trying to kill her nephew!"

Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes. "You think that teacup could kill me??"

Madam Mo turned to Lan SiZhui and screeched, "And you! You bunch of useless fools! You cultivate and ward off evil spirits, but you can't even protect him! A-Yuan is still a child!"

The boys were still young. They hadn't been outside much and were too inexperienced to find anything wrong with the area, which was why they felt sorry for not detecting an evil being as fierce as this one. Nonetheless, after Madam Mo's senseless scolding, they all looked blue in the face. After all, they grew up in a prominent family, so nobody dared to treat them like this.

The Lan sect was uniformly and universally respected and liked, because of their reputation of being virtuous and fair. Instantly, hearing the young junior disciples be verbally abused like this, everyone glared at the picture of Madam Mo's contorted face.

Lan Zhan's cold expression went from frosty to straight up razor sharp icicles. How dare that wretched woman upset his juniors like this?? But then Wei Wuxian rested his head against Lan Zhan's shoulder.

"Just wait, Lan Zhan, I'll tell her my mind soon, hahaha!"

Lan Zhan shifted closer to Wei Wuxian and his expression softened considerably.

The GusuLan Clan was extremely strict to its disciples, forbidding violence against the powerless every man, not even allowing disrespect. Therefore, even if they felt displeased, they had to keep everything down with dark expressions.

However, Wei WuXian couldn't stand it any longer, and thought, it has been so many years, but the Lan Clan's values are still the same. What's the use their so-called "self-restraint"? Watch me do this the right way! He spat loudly and spoke, "Who do you think you're taking out your anger on? Did you really see them as your servants? They traveled far and wide to come here and exorcise evil spirits for you without taking a penny. Do they owe you anything? How old is your son? He should be at least seventeen, and so, how is he still a 'child'? How young of a child does he have to be to not understand basic human language? Did they or did they not repeatedly instruct him to not touch anything in the formation and not approach the West Courtyard? Your son sneaked outside at night on his own. Is it my fault? Or is it his?"

"That's right!"

Many satisfied huff's could be heard.

Lan JingYi and the others let out a breath of air, faces not so dark anymore. Madam Mo was both extremely mournful and resentful, and all she could think about was the word "death." Not her own death so that she could be with her son, but the deaths of everyone in the world, especially the ones in front of her right now. She had a habit of ordering her husband to do everything, and so she knocked him, "Call everyone! Call everyone inside!" Even so, her husband was in a trance. Possibly because of the trauma from his only child passing away, he went as far as to backhandedly push her. It caught Madam Mo by surprise, and she fell onto the ground. In the past, Madam Mo didn't even need to push him. If she just raised her voice, he would comply immediately. How could he dare to strike back today? The servants were all scared out of their wits from her expression. ADing helped her up while quivering. Madam Mo clutched her chest and spoke in a trembling voice, "You... You... You, get out of here as well!" Her husband seemed like he didn't hear anything. A-Ding gave a few looks to A-Tong, and A-Tong hurriedly helped his master to walk outside. The East Hall was in chaos. As Wei WuXian saw that the family had finally silenced, he intended to examine the corpse again. However, before he took another look at it, another high-pitched scream pierced through the air. It was from the courtyard.

Everyone gazed, enraptured at the pictures, completely sucked into the mystery of the story. Wei Wuxian wasn't really watching too carefully, since he'd already lived through this all once, but the different perspectives were interesting to watch

. Lan Zhan, on the other hand, already knew of the story from his junior disciples previous accounts, so wasn't too interested in the plot. What he was interested in, however, was gazing at his husband's face, scrutinising his every movement and listening to each of his errant thoughts. He wasn't going to pass up this unique chance to see what really went on in that head, and he secretly really wanted to see how Wei Wuxian escaped before he turned up, and also, what Wei Wuxian used to think of him.

The people in the hall all rushed outside. On the ground of the East Courtyard, there were two twitching bodies. The first was that of A-Tong's, still alive, collapsed on the ground. The other fallen body was wrinkled and withered, as if the blood and the flesh had been emptied dry. The left arm was already gone, but no blood came out of the wound. The condition of the corpse was the same as Mo ZiYuan's. Madam Mo brushed off A-Ding's supporting hand a second ago, but as she saw the corpse on the ground, her eyes widened, and she was finally out of energy to throw another fit. As she fainted, Wei WuXian happened to be next to her, and gave her a hand, passing her to A-Ding, who came running.

Jin Ling's eyes bulged. "Stop helping that cow! Didn't you hear what she said to Sizhui and the others??"

He looked at his right hand to see that another one of the cuts was also gone. Lan SiZhui, Lan JingYi, and the others also grew pale in the face. Lan SiZhui was the first to calm down and asked A-Tong, who lay on the ground, "Did you see what it was?"

Lan Xichen nodded in approval. Very few would be able to keep calm in such a situation, at such an age. Perhaps he and Wangji, and probably Wei Wuxian, but apart from them... Sizhui would probably make an excellent Sect Leader.

A-Tong was almost scared to death, unable to open his mouth. Even after a few moments of asking, A-Tong still couldn't answer, and only shook his head repeatedly. Lan SiZhui was burning with anxiety. He asked another disciple to take him back inside, and turned to Lan JingYi, "Did you send the signal?" Lan JingYi answered, "I did, but if there are no seniors who can assist us in the area, it would take at least an hour for our people to come here. What should we do now? We don't even know what it was." Of course, it would be impossible for them to leave. If the disciples of a clan only cared about their own well-being when facing evil spirits, it would not only be bringing disgrace upon the clan, they themselves would also be ashamed to face others.

Many cultivators watched in amazement. How could these juniors, who couldn't be any more than 15 or 16 year old, be expected or able to deal with such a deadly and ferocious being?

They were all shouting in their heads,"Go!! Don't stay there, save yourselves!!!"

The frightened people of the Mo family couldn't go either, because it was likely that the evil being was among them, so nothing would be gained from going away. Lan SiZhui gritted his teeth, "Wait here, for the reinforcements!"

The cultivators in the room were in shock. What did they teach the kids in the Gusu Lan Sect to be so noble?

Now that the signal for help had been sent, other cultivators would come to aid them within a short period of time. To prevent things from getting out of hand, Wei WuXian should withdraw and keep away from the situation. If the persons who came happened to know him or fought with him before, it would be hard to say what was going to happen next. However, with the curse, he couldn't leave Mo Village anytime soon. In addition, the being that was attracted here had taken the lives of two people within such a short amount of time, which meant that it must have been extremely vicious. If Wei WuXian left now, when the helpers came, the streets of Mo Village might be packed with corpses who lost their left arms, including a few disciples of blood relations to the GusuLan Clan as well. After pondering for a moment, Wei WuXian told himself, finish it quickly.

It seemed that Wei Wuxian really did care about those junior disciples, surprising cared more about those disciples and the lives of the people in Mo village than the risk of revealing his identity. Anyone who knew Wei Wuxian (the juniors, Lan Xichen, Lan Zhan, Jiang Cheng...) wouldn't be surprised by this, but the rest of the room were more confused. So what was the purpose of being showed this film, if not the reveal all of Wei Wuxian's hidden crimes?