Morning Dew

'Don't be so impatient, I was just getting to that. They all died — the escape I mentioned was only temporary. A few years later, that clan leader Chang Ping still died. This time, it was even more horrifying: he was killed by slow slicing with a sword! You know what slow slicing is, right? No need for me to explain — it's using a knife or a sword to slice a person's flesh, cut by cut, three thousand six hundred cuts, until the flesh is all sliced off and only a skeleton remains...'

Wei Wuxian certainly knew what slow slicing was. If someone were to write a book titled A Thousand Ways to Die Horribly, no one would be more qualified to pen it than him. He raised a hand and said, 'I understand. So, brother, do you know why the Chang family was massacred?'

'I heard they were deliberately plotted against by other cultivators. It had to be! Otherwise, a whole household of living people, cultivators at that — how could none of them escape? They must have been trapped inside by something or someone.'

The wine shop owner, afraid their conversation wasn't lively enough, even brought out two small plates of peanuts and melon seeds. Wei Wuxian nodded his thanks and, cracking seeds as he spoke, continued asking, 'Was it ever found out exactly what thing or who it was?'

The server laughed. 'Young master, aren't you joking? The affairs of those lords who fly around up in the sky — how would people like us, just scraping by for a living, be clear about them? By all rights, since you're cultivators too, you should know better than me. I only vaguely heard that it seemed they offended someone they shouldn't have! Anyway, ever since then, no one's been managing the demons and monsters around Liyang.'

Wei Wuxian mused, 'Someone they shouldn't have offended?'

'That's right, that's right.' The server ate two peanuts. 'These grudges and enmities between clans and sects are very complicated. I figure the Chang family must have been targeted by other cultivators. Killing for treasure isn't unusual — the storytellers all say that, and the legends and romances write it that way. Though I'm not clear who it was specifically, it seems to be connected to a very famous great fiend.'

Wei Wuxian smiled, bringing his wine bowl to his lips as he glanced sidelong at him. 'I guess you're about to say you don't know this great fiend's name, right?'

The server grinned. 'You're wrong. This one I do know. It seemed to be some old monster... oh, Old Patriarch, the Yiling Patriarch!'

Wei Wuxian choked, spitting a string of bubbles into his wine bowl with a glug. 'What?'

Him again?!

The server said with certainty, 'Yeah, that's right! Surname Wei, name seemed to be Wei Wuqian. When people mention him, their tone is full of hatred and fear!'

'...'

Wei Wuxian thought it over, and confirmed two points: one, he had never been to Liyang when he was alive; two, among all the people he had killed, not one had died by slow slicing. He found it absurd and turned his head to look at Lan Wangji, as if to demand an explanation. Lan Wangji had been waiting a long time for that look, and said, 'Let's go.'

Wei Wuxian immediately understood — Lan Wangji had something to say about this, and it wasn't convenient to say it in front of others at the wine shop. He stood up. 'Then we'll leave first. The bill's... already paid, right? Little brother, we'll leave these purchased jars with you for now, and come back to drink more once we've finished our business.' He half-joked, 'No trying to cheat us.'

The server had already eaten most of the plate of peanuts and exclaimed, 'How could we! This shop cheats neither old nor young. You can leave them here with peace of mind — we won't close the shop until we've waited for you to return. Hey, hey, young masters, are you headed to the Chang Residence now? Wow, truly impressive — even I, a local, have never been! Only dared to sneak a peek from far away. Are you two going inside? What do you plan to do?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'We're also just going to, from far away, sneak a peek.'

This young server was lively and very familiar, after talking a while he no longer treated them as outsiders, leaning over to put an arm around Wei Wuxian's shoulder. 'You two, is this work hard? Do you earn a lot? It must be a lot! So respectable. Let me ask, is it hard to get started? I...'

He was chattering on when suddenly he shut up, looking over there with alarm, and whispered, 'Young master, that one next to you... why's he glaring at me?'

Wei Wuxian followed his gaze and just caught Lan Wangji turning his head and standing up, walking out of the wine shop. He said, 'Oh, him. This friend of mine was raised with strict discipline since childhood — he most dislikes seeing people put arms around shoulders right in front of him. A little odd, isn't it?'

The server resentfully withdrew his hand and muttered under his breath, 'Odd. Seeing that look, someone who didn't know would think I had my arm around his wife...'

With Lan Wangji's hearing, there was absolutely no way he hadn't heard it just because the voice was lowered — who knew what he was thinking right now. Wei Wuxian was holding in his laughter to the point of internal injury and hurriedly said to the server, 'I've finished one jar.'

Server: 'Huh?'

Wei Wuxian pointed at himself. 'Standing.'

The young server then remembered his own words, 'If you can still stand after finishing it, I'll take your surname,' and hurriedly said, 'Oh, oh... ohhh! That... amazing! I'm not bragging, but this is the first time I've seen someone stand perfectly steady and still speak clearly after finishing a whole jar. Young master, what's your surname?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'I...' then thinking of the server's earlier 'Wei Wuqian,' his mouth twitched, and he smoothly continued, 'Surname Lan.'

The server was also thick-skinned, and without changing his expression loudly declared, 'That's right, from today on, I'm surnamed Lan!'

Under the bright red wine shop banner, Lan Wangji's silhouette seemed, for an instant, to stand not quite so steady. Wei Wuxian walked up with a face full of mischief, hands behind his back, and patted his shoulder. 'Thanks to Hanguang-jun for paying the bill. I had him take your surname.'

Outside the city, the two walked toward the direction the server had pointed out. Pedestrians grew fewer, trees more numerous. Wei Wuxian said, 'Why wouldn't you let me keep questioning just now?'

Lan Wangji said, 'I suddenly recalled that I have heard something of the Liyang Chang Sect affair. Hence there was no need to ask further.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Before you tell me, let me ask something — just help me confirm indirectly, that... the Chang family massacre wasn't done by me, right?'

Setting aside that ten years ago he was already dead, and his soul was quite well-behaved — it couldn't be that he went to their door, massacred the whole family, and didn't remember it!

Lan Wangji said, 'It wasn't.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Oh.' It was as if he had returned to those days before his death when everyone cried out for his blood, worse than a rat in the gutter — any bad deed could be counted as his doing, and shit basins were Suibian-dumped on his head. Even the neighbor old man's little grandson losing weight because he wouldn't eat could be blamed on the story of the Yiling Patriarch ordering the Ghost General to kill people, saying the boy was scared skinny by it.

Who knew, Lan Wangji added, 'Not killed by you, yet connected to you.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'What's the connection?'

Lan Wangji said, 'The connection is twofold. First, there is a person involved in this matter, and this person has considerable ties with your mother.'

Wei Wuxian stopped in his tracks.

In his heart he didn't know what he felt, on his face he didn't know what expression to wear, and he said hesitantly, '...My mother?'

Wei Wuxian was the son of Wei Changze, a retainer of the Yunmeng Jiang Clan, and the wandering cultivator Cangse Sanren. Jiang Fengmian and his wife had both been well acquainted with his parents, but Jiang Fengmian rarely reminisced to him about his old friends, and Jiang Fengmian's wife Yu Ziyuan never once spoke kindly to him — if she didn't whip him a few times and tell him to get out and kneel in the ancestral hall away from Jiang Cheng, that was already good enough. Much of what he knew about his parents had been told to him by others; he actually didn't know much more than others.

Lan Wangji also stopped, turned to face him, and said, 'Have you heard the name Xiao Xingchen?'

Wei Wuxian thought seriously and said, 'Never.'

Lan Wangji said, 'Never is correct. This person descended the mountain and made his name exactly twelve years ago. Now no one speaks of him anymore.'

Twelve years ago was exactly one year after the Siege of the Burial Mounds in Yiling — they had just missed each other. Wei Wuxian asked, 'Which mountain, and who was his master?'

Lan Wangji said, 'The mountain is unknown. He was taught by the Daoist school. Xiao Xingchen was the disciple of Baoshan Sanren.'

Only then did Wei Wuxian understand why it was said that this person had considerable ties with his mother. He said, 'In that case, this Xiao Xingchen can be counted as my martial uncle.'

Cangse Sanren also came from under Baoshan Sanren's tutelage.

This Baoshan Sanren was a reclusive cultivator beyond the world, said to have debuted as a cultivator in the same era as Wen Mao, Lan An, and others. Those prominent figures of that generation had long since perished, only Baoshan Sanren was rumored to have not yet fallen. If that were true, she must be several hundred years old, a testament to her profound cultivation. Back then, led by Wen Mao, clans rose while sects declined, cultivation forces bound by blood ties sprang up like bamboo shoots after rain. Any cultivator with even a little fame founded a clan and established a lineage. Yet this master chose to retire into the mountains, her Daoist title being Baoshan — 'Embracing the Mountain.' Which mountain she embraces, no one knows. Then again, it is precisely because no one knows that it is called reclusion. If one could still be easily found after going into seclusion, that would not be called seclusion.

This venerable elder lived in seclusion on an unknown immortal mountain, and would often quietly carry orphaned and homeless children up the mountain to take as disciples. But all disciples must take an oath: to devote their lives solely to cultivating the Dao, never to descend the mountain, never to enter the world. Otherwise, no matter the reason, they could never return from then on. They must rely on themselves, struggle in the mortal world, and have no further ties to their master's school.

People all say that Baoshan Sanren is truly a master of great attainment, for the rule she set was indeed extremely prescient. Because over several hundred years, only three of her disciples have left the mountain: Daoist Yanling, Cangse Sanren, and Xiao Xingchen. All three disciples met unfortunate ends.

The fates of the first two disciples, Wei Wuxian had been familiar with since childhood and needed no recounting. Thus, what Lan Wangji concisely told him was the story of his last martial uncle.

Xiao Xingchen was only seventeen when he descended the mountain. Though Lan Wangji had never met him in person, he had heard of his bearing from others.

At that time, the Sunshot Campaign had ended only a few years prior, and the Siege of the Burial Mounds in Yiling had even more recently passed; the great clans were rampant, recruiting talents everywhere for their own use. Xiao Xingchen descended the mountain with the intention of saving the world, with exceptional aptitude and coming from a master of great renown. On his very first Night Hunt, with a fly whisk and a longsword, he breached a mountain alone and took first place — he made a name for himself in one battle.

Seeing this young Daoist of clear and bright character and profound cultivation, the various clans were greatly impressed and sent out invitations one after another. Xiao Xingchen, however, politely declined them all, plainly stating he was unwilling to attach himself to any clan, and together with a close friend, wholeheartedly sought to establish a brand-new sect that did not place importance on blood ties.

This person was pliant as reeds yet resolute as rock, outwardly gentle but inwardly firm, and kept himself pure. At the time, whenever anyone had a thorny or difficult matter, the first person they thought of was to seek his help, and he never refused, hence his reputation was excellent.

The Massacre of the Liyang Chang Sect happened at just that time.