Wei Wuxian · Conversa

Wei Wuxian had barely opened his eyes when someone kicked him hard. A voice thundered right by his ear: "Playing dead, are you?!" The kick square to his chest nearly made him vomit blood. His head hit the floor hard, leaving him staring straight up at the ceiling. In a haze, he thought: *Kicking this Patriarch? You've got quite some nerve.* Wei Wuxian had not heard a living person speak in who knew how many years, let alone such ear-splitting curses. Dizzy and disoriented, a harsh, squawking young voice rang through the buzzing in his ears: "Have you forgotten whose land you're living on, whose rice you're eating, and whose money you're spending?! What's wrong with taking a few of your things? They should've been mine in the first place!" Immediately after came the clattering din of rummaging through chests, overturning cabinets, and smashing everything in sight. Only after a long moment did Wei Wuxian's vision begin to clear. A dim ceiling came into focus, along with a face with slanted brows and venomous eyes hovering over him, spitting as he ranted: "You still dare to go snitch! You think I'm actually afraid of you tattle-telling? You think anyone in this household would ever stand up for you?!" Two burly servants stepped up beside him and said, "Young Master, we've smashed everything!" The raspy-voiced youth demanded, "How was it that fast?" The servant replied, "In this broken shack, there wasn't much to begin with." The young master looked thoroughly pleased. He jabbed an index finger so aggressively it seemed he wanted to shove Wei Wuxian's nose straight into his skull: "Bold enough to snitch, and now you're playing dead for whom? As if anyone actually gave a damn about your scrap metal and waste paper! I've smashed every last bit of it—let's see what you use to tattle next time! So what if you spent a few years at a cultivation clan? You were still driven out and tossed back here like a stray dog!" Wei Wuxian pondered half-deadly: *I have been deceased for years; I am genuinely not faking it.* *Who is this?* *Where is this?* *And since when did I ever resort to snatching someone else's body?* Having kicked the man and trashed the room, the young master had vented enough spleen. He swaggered out the door with his two servants, slammed it shut with a bang, and barked an order: "Keep a close eye on him! Don't let him out to make a fool of himself this month!" Once they were far away, silence settled over the room. Wei Wuxian tried to sit up, but his limbs refused to obey, and he fell back down. He could only roll over onto his side, gazing at the unfamiliar surroundings and the wreckage strewn across the floor, his head still spinning. Nearby lay a bronze mirror thrown onto the ground. Wei Wuxian reached out, picked it up, and looked. A shockingly white face appeared in the reflection, with two uneven, asymmetrical patches of bright rouge plastered on either cheek. Stick out a long red tongue, and he would look exactly like a hanged ghost. Unable to stomach it, Wei Wuxian tossed the mirror aside and wiped his face, coming away with a palm coated in white powder. Fortunately, this body wasn't born looking bizarre—it just had bizarre tastes. A grown man caked in rouge and powder, and applied so hideously at that... Ugh, utterly unbearable! Jolted by the shock, he recovered some strength and finally managed to sit up. Only then did he notice a circular ritual array beneath him. Crimson and irregular, it appeared to have been hand-drawn with blood as the medium; still damp, it gave off a faint metallic stench. Warped, frenzied incantations were inscribed within, partially smeared where his body had pressed against them. The strokes and glyphs reeked of sinister malice. After all, Wei Wuxian had been hailed for years by titles like Supreme Fiend and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation; an array so blatantly ominous was naturally second nature to him. He hadn't seized someone else's body—someone had offered their body to him through a sacrificial ritual! This was an ancient forbidden art. The caster mutilated themselves with a bladed weapon, using their own blood to draw the array and runes. Sitting at the center of the circle, they offered their physical body to a malevolent spirit and consigned their own soul to the earth, summoning a heinous, wicked ghost or demonic entity to possess them and carry out their desires. It was the exact opposite of body snatching. Wei Wuxian yanked open his sash and raised his hands to inspect them. Crisscrossing scars ran across both wrists, and slash marks from a sharp blade covered his chest and abdomen. Though the bleeding had stopped, he knew that if he failed to fulfill the body's previous owner's desires, these wounds would never heal. The longer he delayed, the more violent the backlash would grow, until his body and soul were torn apart alive. Lying in this dilapidated shack at the Mo Village, staring at the beams of light filtering down through the roof rafters, he silently cursed "outrageous" dozens of times over. Sixteen years. To think that after all this time, a lunatic named Mo Xuanyu had dragged him back from the scattered soul-fragments of the Burial Mounds using this forbidden sacrificial ritual.