Chapter Text
Chapter One
Laughter was echoing from the inn, an odd sound amidst the gloom of the night. This village had not known laughter in quite a while, if one believed the stories.
“Sizhui, when you are yawning like this you could fit a whole chicken leg in your mouth!”
“Are you jealous because you can’t?”
“Shut up!”
“Seriously, your bedtime rules are so impractical. It’s past nine and suddenly you all get so tired? How do you even night-hunt properly like this?”
“Jin Ling, leave them, they just had a month of lectures at Cloud Recesses without being allowed on night-hunts. They are no longer used to staying up.”
“You’re only saying this because you’re tired too. After just a few weeks of lectures you already took up all the Lan’s habits, Zizhen!”
Wei Wuxian grinned at the boys’ banter. They were all excited for this night-hunt, the first one in quite a while.
“What is it?” Lan Wangji asked.
“Jin Ling sounds exactly like me when I was his age.”
“Is there a possibility that he learned these things from you?”
“Hanguang-Jun!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed with a shocked expression. “How could you say such a thing?”
“With the utmost honesty.”
Wei Wuxian huffed in feigned indignation, bumping his forehead against Lan Wangji’s shoulder.
Sizhui yawned again, unable to suppress it despite the mockery from the others. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done about it; this indeed was a night-hunt. The spirits that were harassing the village only appeared at night, and during the day, there was no trace of anything out of the ordinary.
The innkeepers, two women in their fifties, had once been cultivation partners. They had retired a few years ago after one of them was gravely injured and could not night-hunt anymore. However, their knowledge was still vast and they had known early on that the village needed help by cultivators, and upon their request towards the Lan Sect, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji had taken out the juniors once more.
They all had been cooped up at Cloud Recesses for several weeks now due to the lectures that didn’t allow them to go out on night-hunts. Jin Ling was the only one of them not currently residing there. He was, after all, the leader of the Jin Sect, and Jiang Cheng wouldn’t take care of another sect just for Jin Ling to go to Cloud Recesses. But of course, he had heard of this night-hunt from the other boys and apparently snuck out to accompany them, like he usually did.
“It is now almost ten,” Madam Liu said, bringing fresh tea to Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian. She walked with a limp and her left arm appeared to be much weaker than her right one. While it didn’t hinder her much while working at the inn, her night-hunting days were clearly over. “It won’t be long before they come out. You can’t miss it.”
She and her wife, Madam Gao, were serving tea to the juniors with patient smiles on their faces. They liked how lively their inn was. “It will help you stay alert,” Madam Gao told Sizhui as she filled his cup.
He blushed. “I-it’s okay. I can handle it.” Still, he took the tea and instantly downed it, ignoring Jin Ling, who was currently fighting over a bowl of peanuts with Jingyi and had no time to keep snickering at him anyways.
Ouyang Zizhen, who had taken up the opportunity to come along with delight, was watching the bowl, as if waiting for Jingyi and Jin Ling to break it.
Unsurprisingly, as Jingyi took it from under Jin Ling’s hand, holding it over his head and Jin Ling reaching out to snatch it from him, after a short wrestle they lost balance and it started raining peanuts down on them.
“That was your fault!” Jingyi yelled, answered by Jin Ling furiously flinging himself at him. Both of them soon were rolling on the floor, sending peanuts flying throughout the room so that even Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji in the corner got their share.
“Enough.” Lan Wangji didn’t even raise his voice, but the two boys instantly froze and sat up, blushing. Jin Ling’s hair pin had a peanut stuck in it, and Jingyi hastily straightened his forehead ribbon.
Lan Wangji however was less concerned about their behavior than about what was going on outside. He and Wei Wuxian looked at each other, nodding.
“I sense something!” Zizhen exclaimed shortly after, turning towards the back window.
He was the first of the juniors to notice the rise of dark energy, slowly creeping through the night. Sizhui, on the verge of falling asleep at the table despite the ruckus the others made, perked up, eyes wide. “Me too!”
Madam Gao and Madam Liu looked at each other, then turned to Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian. “Hanguang-Jun, Master Wei, please take care. We are sorry to not be of more help.” They had tried to find out about the nature of the hauntings, but hadn’t been able to do so without potentially endangering themselves.
Lan Wangji nodded and stood up, quickly followed by the juniors. Jingyi’s headband was still crooked as he grabbed his sword. All four of them were looking excited by now; Jin Ling seemed to be on the verge of unsheathing his sword already. He was obviously to be yearning for some action. Wei Wuxian couldn’t blame him; he would have died of boredom already, dealing with sect politics and petty infighting.
Standing next to Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian closed his eyes, focusing on the spiritual energy around them, and the darkness approaching the village. “Something’s strange,” he remarked.
“Yes.” Lan Wangji turned around, robes shuffling.
“Is … it … coming closer still? I don’t think so.” Sizhui sounded confused.
“It is not.”
By now, all of them were able to sense the killing intent inhabiting whatever force was haunting the village, and while it was bad enough to scare common people, it kept whirling about in the distance without actually entering the village.
“There.” Lan Wangji pointed east, where soft hills and forests enclosed the village.
Following his lead, Wei Wuxian felt the hairs on his neck rise. “Whatever it is, it’s very angry.” At his waist, sword and flute were a comfortable weight. He had started carrying Suibian again as his cultivation advanced to a level where it could be called proper cultivation, though in a real fight he was still mostly relying on flute and talismans. It was a new experience for him, working with what little spiritual energy his body offered, building a new golden core with the help of Lan Wangji and his own experience. It was working, but very slowly.
Soon they left the village behind, entering the forest beyond.
Lan Wangji stopped. “It is very close.” He looked at the juniors, their faces illuminated by a small light sphere, held aloft by Zizhen. “We do not know what we are dealing with. Stay alert; whatever it is, it appears to be a spirit with particular malevolent intention.”
“It is acting so strange, Hanguang-Jun,” Sizhui said. “Why wait out here for us? It feels so bad now; I don’t believe it even entered the village once, otherwise everyone would have fled instantly.”
Lan Wangji gave a nod of approval. “That is why you must act with care.”
“Do you think it’s possible that thing wants to lure us out here?” Wei Wuxian asked. “So far it hasn’t hurt anyone, just scared them out of their wits.”
“Perhaps. That would make it even more dangerous since only a particularly clever entity would be able to do such a thing; as well as form a plan to specifically lure out cultivators.”
Slower than before, they continued on, leaving the main road and following a narrow path through the underwood. Wei Wuxian walked in front of the group with Lan Wangji in the rear, keeping an eye on the boys.
Sizhui was walking directly behind Wei Wuxian, stumbling over roots on the ground every now and then.
“What’s up?” Wei Wuxian asked softly. “Too tired for a night-hunt?”
“I’m fine,” was the answer. After that, Sizhui seemed to take special care where he placed his feet.
The sound of ripping silk and cracking twigs came from behind, followed by Jin Ling’s cursing. “I hate trees!” he complained.
Wei Wuxian narrowed his eyes and stopped, one arm raised. “Here it is.”
Before them, the path opened up into a clearing, moonlight illuminating a wooden shack, half-rotted away, clearly no longer used for whatever purpose it had once been built for. Fog was rising from the ground.
“Why is it foggy? It didn’t rain the past days,” Zizhen whispered.
Jingyi made a small whimpering noise.
“Stand down.” Lan Wangji’s voice was calm as ever, but his commanding tone was serious enough to even make Wei Wuxian pause. With a single sound of his guqin, a wave of spiritual energy swept past everyone’s heads and over the clearing, disrupting the fog.
Seconds later, the loose wisps of fog took form, appearing as dozens of milky-grey spheres, floating mid-air.
They all attacked at once.
Wei Wuxian whipped out talismans, slowing some of them. Bichen’s sword glare followed, sending back the rest. After this, they hovered at a distance, as if waiting for an opening.
“W-what are these?” Jingyi asked, standing one step behind Sizhui and Jin Ling, the latter of whom had by now taken out his sword, ready to charge.
Wei Wuxian held Chenqing up, playing a few notes. The spheres immediately reacted, giving off an eerie glow and shivering, as if trying to shake off his playing.
“Lan Zhan. These are full of resentful energy. As if they’re … consisting of it.” He looked down at his flute.
“Can you control them?”
He played again, trying. Again the sphered shivered, shying back for a moment, and then pressing against him with more force.
“I can’t. Someone … or something else is already controlling them, and they’re having a strong grip. I can’t take over.”
“T-the shack is glowing,” Jingyi pointed out. Indeed, from inside the shack came a soft reddish light, almost purple. It was pulsing slightly, emanating waves of resentful energy, almost strong enough to remind Wei Wuxian of Burial Mound, where he had once been stuck for months in a never-ending nightmare, surrounded by hatred and bloodlust until he almost forgot who he was.
The spheres attacked again.
“Defend yourselves!” Lan Wangji ordered. He and Wei Wuxian flanked the juniors, Wei Wuxian pressing on with Chenqing, trying to take at least partial control of the spheres, Lan Wangji wielding both sword and guqin, keeping the spheres back.
Jin Ling was sending out Suihua. His cultivation had improved a lot since Wei Wuxian had first met him. His biggest problem was his hotheadedness, still there despite new-found maturity.
Zizhen showed great talent with the sword and was moving with care, making up for lack in raw spiritual power, though he was far from weak.
It did not prove particularly hard to drive the spheres back, until they accumulated in the middle of the clearing, right around the shack. Some seemed to be on the verge of dissolving, especially those that had been attacked by Lan Wangji.
Yet still, they didn’t know what exactly it was they were dealing with.
Sizhui stood up, having been hit by one of the spheres. He wiped blood from his nose and seemed quite shaken, but otherwise fine.
“Sizhui. If you are not up to the fight, stand down.” Lan Wangji moved forward, placing himself in front of him and Jingyi, whose sword was shaking in his hand. He fought bravely, but the strong negative energy in the clearing seemed to worsen the fear he usually could deal with very well in a fight.
Sizhui scrunched his teeth in indignation. His movements indeed were uncharacteristically sluggish. He rarely ever allowed himself to be hit like that.
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji nodded towards each other. Lan Wangji’s eyes were shimmering in the strange light from the shack which seemed to be spreading out. They needed to detect what was inside the shack; likely, it was the source of these spheres.
Lan Wangji jumped up into the air, hovering on Bichen. Wei Wuxian had made his first attempts at riding a sword only a short time ago and there was no way he could use it effectively in a fight yet, so he remained on the ground, using Chenqing, accompanied by talismans he sent against the shack, but they just burned up before they even reached its wooden walls.
The spheres attacked again. Jin Ling jumped forward, attacking them left and right, more brazenly now that Sizhui had found out the hard way that they didn’t do too much harm.
Lan Wangji was sending waves of attack against the shack now with the guqin.
The spheres became more aggressive, almost sending Wei Wuxian stumbling back at one point. Jin Ling and Jingyi were standing back-to-back now, defending each other, while Zizhen was standing next to Sizhui who seemed to have pulled himself together enough to continue fighting.
Then a black wave of energy shot out of the shack, sending Wei Wuxian and the juniors all flying back several steps, crashing into the ground.
“Wei Ying!”
“Fine, I’m fine!” Wei Wuxian got up on his knees, searching for Chenqing in the dark, seeing Lan Wangji still in the air, wavering. The black wave clearly had hit him too.
The juniors moaned, about to get back on their feet when a second, stronger wave came at them. Wei Wuxian unsheathed Suibian by reflex, trying to at least avert the brunt of the attack. None of the juniors had their swords in hand.
Before he even had time to think whether or not he would be able to defend them, Bichen shot down in front of them, diverting the black wave almost completely. What was left flew past them without more force than a cold breeze.
Lan Wangji however was still in mid-air, slowly coming down without the sword under his feet. He summoned it back, but before it could reach him, another wave flew out, this time focusing solely on him. He was hit with full force, almost flipping over backwards before falling out of sight behind the shack. At the same time, the fog spheres vanished, retreating into the shack, increasing the dark energy radiating from it a hundredfold.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian screamed and jumped up, almost stumbling over Chenqing and picking it up mid-run.
“Hanguang-Jun!” the boys cried in unison, following Wei Wuxian. They rounded the shack to see Lan Wangji already standing up, leaning heavily on Bichen, not putting weight on his left leg. “Watch out!” he yelled at the others nearing him, and then took out something from his sleeve. It was a signal fire, shooting high up in the air and forming the Lan sect’s symbol in the sky, followed by a second, smaller signal that shot away through the night, into the direction of Cloud Recesses.
Wei Wuxian’s heart almost exploded out of his chest in fear. This was Lan Wangji’s personal emergency signal, to be used in a situation where he himself needed rescue. It had never been used before.
Seeing it, Wei Wuxian suddenly was terrified. The juniors seemed to be frozen on the spot, not even breathing.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said, voice strained, “protect the youths and stand back. I am going to try and chase it away.”
“Lan Zhan!”
Lan Wangji met his eyes, showing no fear, but something else, something that made Wei Wuxian shiver all over.
Lan Wangji sent a wave of energy at the shack, with both sword and guqin.
Something screeched.
Wei Wuxian felt as if his ears were about to start bleeding. The juniors ducked and moaned in pain. Then, a small black shape shot out from the shack, straight at Lan Wangji. He normally would have had no trouble fighting it off, but he was moving slower than usual, left leg dragging behind uselessly, and the black thing hit his chest in a flash of red light, sending him flying back. Both sword and guqin fell from his hands, and he crashed against a tree trunk before falling to the ground.
Within the blink of an eye, the dark energy and strange light vanished, leaving behind only ruins of a wooden shack, pale moonlight and five figures standing frozen in the dark.
Lan Wangji was lying motionless under the tree, once glowing white robes grey from dirt, like a light gone out.