Unbridled, Part Two

Wei Wuxian's first thought: had the boys messed up the flag formation?

He made these things, and any careless use could cause disaster—that's why he'd specifically gone to check whether the Soul-Calling Banner drawings were wrong. So when a few big hands grabbed him and dragged him outside, Wei Wuxian went limp and let them haul him. Saved him the walk. They dragged him to Eastern Hall, and it was a real scene—more people than had gathered at Mo Family Village during the day. Every servant and relative was out, some still in their nightclothes, hair uncombed, all of them looking terrified. Mo Lady was slumped in her seat, like she'd just woken from fainting, tear tracks still on her cheeks, eyes still wet. But the moment Wei Wuxian was dragged in, her tears turned to a cold, venomous glare.

Something human-shaped lay on the ground, body covered in white cloth, only the head showing. Lan Sizhui and the boys looked grave, crouched over it, talking low. Wei Wuxian caught fragments:

'...less than one incense stick's time since discovery?'

'We just subdued the walking corpse, were heading from West Courtyard to East Courtyard, and the body was on the corridor.'

This human-shaped thing was Mo Ziyuan. Wei Wuxian glanced once, then couldn't help glancing twice.

The corpse looked like Mo Ziyuan, but also didn't. The face and features were clearly his cheap cousin's, but the cheeks were deeply hollowed, the eye sockets and eyeballs bulging, and the skin all wrinkled. Compared to the original young Mo Ziyuan, he looked like he'd aged twenty years. Like his flesh and blood had been drained dry, leaving a skeleton covered in the thinnest layer of skin. If Mo Ziyuan had just been ugly before, his corpse now was ugly and ancient.

Wei Wuxian was examining it closely when Mo Lady suddenly rushed over. A cold glint flashed in her hand—she was holding a dagger. Lan Sizhui was quick-eyed and quick-handed, knocked it away. Before he could speak, Mo Lady shrieked at him: 'My son died horribly! I want revenge! Why are you stopping me?'

Wei Wuxian ducked behind Lan Sizhui again, crouching, and said: 'Your son died horribly. What does that have to do with me?'

Lan Sizhui had watched Wei Wuxian's daytime antics in Eastern Hall earlier, and had heard plenty of exaggerated gossip about this illegitimate son since. He felt real sympathy for the sick man and couldn't help speaking up: 'Mo Lady, look at your son's body. His flesh and vital essence have been completely drained—clearly killed by some evil. It probably wasn't him.'

Mo Lady's chest heaved: 'What do you know! This madman's father was a cultivator, so he must've learned plenty of evil arts too!'

Lan Sizhui glanced back at Wei Wuxian, who was playing dumb, and said: 'But, Madam, there's no evidence, and—'

'The evidence is on my son's body!' Mo Lady pointed at the corpse on the ground. 'Look for yourselves! Ayuan's corpse has already told me who killed him!'

Without waiting for anyone else, Wei Wuxian jumped in and flipped the white cloth from head to toe. Mo Ziyuan's corpse was missing something.

His left arm, from the shoulder down, was gone.

Mo Lady said: 'See? You all heard it here today, right? What this madman said. He said if Ayuan touched his stuff again, he'd chop Ayuan's arm off!'

After her outburst, she covered her face and sobbed: '...My poor Ayuan never even touched any of this madman's things. Not only was he framed, he was murdered by a lunatic...'

Lunatic!

It had been years since he'd heard that kind of assessment applied to himself. How nostalgic. Wei Wuxian pointed at himself, at a loss for words. He wasn't sure whether he was the crazy one or Mo Lady was. Back in his youth, he'd thrown around plenty of vicious threats—wiping out clans, leaving a million corpses, rivers of blood—but most of the time, that's all they were: talk. If saying it meant he could do it, he'd have dominated every sect long ago. Mo Lady didn't really want to avenge her son; she just needed someone to vent her Malevolent Qi on.

Wei Wuxian didn't want to tangle with her. After a quick think, he reached into Mo Ziyuan's clothes, rummaged around, and pulled something out. Unfolded it—a Soul-Calling Banner.

In an instant, everything clicked. He thought: you brought this on yourself.

Lan Sizhui and the others saw what Wei Wuxian pulled from Mo Ziyuan's clothes and understood what had happened. Connecting it to the daytime drama, the cause and effect weren't hard to guess: Mo Ziyuan had been publicly humiliated by Mo Xuan Yu that afternoon, hated him for it, and wanted payback. But Mo Xuan Yu had wandered off outside, gone for hours. Mo Ziyuan figured he'd catch him when he came back at night and teach him a lesson.

But when night fell, he sneaked out and passed by the West Courtyard, only to see the Soul-Calling Banner stuck in the eaves. Despite being warned repeatedly not to go out at midnight, not to go to the West Courtyard, and especially not to touch those black flags, Mo Ziyuan thought they were just trying to scare people into not stealing their rare treasures. He had no idea how ominous the Soul-Calling Banner's effects were—once you tucked it in your robes, you became a living target. His hands had always been sticky; he'd gotten addicted to stealing his crazy cousin's Exorcism Talismans and magical tools, and when he saw such a strange object, his fingers itched. He had to have it. So while the flags' owners were inside the West Courtyard subduing the walking corpses, he quietly plucked one off.

The formation used six Soul-Calling Banners total. Five were set up in West Courtyard, with the Lan boys as bait, but they carried countless protective cultivation tools on them. Mo Ziyuan had only stolen one banner, and he had zero protective gear on him. The evil would naturally go for the soft target. If it had just been walking corpses, it wouldn't have been so bad—even a few bites wouldn't kill him right away, he could still be saved. But unluckily, this Soul-Calling Banner had accidentally summoned something far worse than walking corpses. It was this unknown evil that killed Mo Ziyuan and took his arm.

Wei Wuxian held up his wrist. Sure enough, the scars on his left hand had healed. Looks like the Soul Offering pact had counted Mo Ziyuan's death as his work. After all, the Soul-Calling Banner had originally been Wei Wuxian's invention, his design. A crooked path that accidentally hit the mark.

Mo Lady knew perfectly well about some of her son's bad habits, but would never admit Mo Ziyuan's death was his own fault. Furious and embarrassed, burning up inside, she grabbed a teacup and hurled it at Wei Wuxian's head: 'If you hadn't thrown a fit and framed him in front of everyone yesterday, would he have gone out in the middle of the night? It's all your fault, you bastard!'

Wei Wuxian had been ready, dodged. Mo Lady turned and shrieked at Lan Sizhui: 'And you! You useless lot! What kind of cultivators are you, what kind of evil-exterminators? You couldn't even protect a child! Ayuan was barely seventeen!'

These young disciples were still quite young, only out on a few training missions. They hadn't detected anything unusual about this place and never imagined there could be such a vicious evil spirit. They'd originally felt they'd been negligent and were quite apologetic, but after Mo Lady chewed them out without even listening to reason, their faces turned pale. After all, they came from a prestigious clan—no one had ever dared treat them like this. The Gusu Lan Sect's discipline was extremely strict; as members of the Lan Clan, they were forbidden from laying hands on ordinary people who couldn't fight back, and even being rude was unacceptable. So despite their displeasure, they forcefully suppressed it, their faces turning an ugly shade.

Wei Wuxian couldn't watch anymore. Thought: 'After all these years, the Lan family is still the same. What's the point of that broken-ass composure? It'll kill you if you keep swallowing it. Watch this.'

He spat loudly and said: 'Who do you think you're yelling at? Treating them like your own servants? They came all this way to exorcise demons for free, and you think they owe you? How old is your precious son? Seventeen this year, right? Still a child? What kind of child can't understand plain words? Did we warn you yesterday, repeatedly, not to touch anything in the formation, not to go near West Courtyard? Your son sneaks out at midnight to steal and grope, and you blame me? Blame him?'

Lan Jingyi and the others exhaled. Their faces finally stopped looking green. Mo Lady was grief-stricken and full of hatred, every thought a single word: death. Not her own death to join her son, but everyone else's death—especially these people in front of her. She always bossed her husband around in situations like this, shoved him: 'Get people! Call everyone in!'

But her husband just stood there woodenly. Maybe the death of his only son had hit too hard. He actually pushed her back. Mo Lady wasn't expecting it, fell to the ground, stunned.

In the past, she didn't even need to push him—just raise her voice a little and he'd do it. Today he actually dared fight back!

The servants were terrified by her expression. A Ding helped her up, trembling. Mo Lady clutched her chest, voice shaking: 'You... you... get out of here too!'

Her husband acted like he didn't hear. A Ding shot A Tong several meaningful looks. A Tong quickly propped up the master and walked him out. Eastern Hall was chaos inside and out. Wei Wuxian figured the family had finally quieted down, prepared to keep examining the corpse, but barely got two looks in before another high-pitched shriek came tearing in from the courtyard.

Everyone in the hall poured out. On the ground of East Courtyard, two people were convulsing. A Tong, slumped on the ground, was alive. The other, fallen, had his flesh and blood seemingly drained and hollowed out, shriveled and dried, his left arm already gone, the wound with no blood left to flow. The state of the corpse was exactly like Mo Ziyuan's.

Mo Lady had just shaken off A Ding's support when she saw the fallen corpse. Her eyes went blank. Finally out of strength to keep going, she fainted. Wei Wuxian happened to be nearby, caught her, handed her to A Ding who rushed over, then looked at his right hand—the scars there were gone too.

Barely past the threshold of the hall, not even out of East Courtyard, and Mo Lady's husband died horribly on the spot. It happened in an instant. Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, and the others all went a little pale. Lan Sizhui recovered fastest, pressed the slumped A Tong: 'Did you see what it was?'

A Tong was terrified, his jaw locked shut, couldn't get a word out for a long while, just kept shaking his head. Lan Sizhui was frantic, had his fellow disciples take A Tong inside, turned to Lan Jingyi: 'Did you send the signal?'

Lan Jingyi said: 'Signal's sent, but if there's no one nearby who can come support us, our people won't get here for at least half a shichen. What do we do now? We don't even know what this thing is.'

They obviously couldn't leave. If a cultivator's disciple ran from evil the moment they encountered it, they'd disgrace their clan—and they'd be too ashamed to face anyone. These terrified Mo family people couldn't leave with them either, because the evil was probably mixed in among them. Running wouldn't help. Lan Sizhui gritted his teeth: 'Hold the line. Wait for reinforcements.'

The signal had been sent, so other cultivators would arrive to support them soon. To avoid trouble, Wei Wuxian should retreat. If the people who came didn't know him, fine. But if someone who'd dealt with him—or fought him—showed up, who knew what would happen.

But the curse was on him, he couldn't leave Mo Family Village right now. And the thing summoned had taken two lives in such a short time—its viciousness was extraordinary. If Wei Wuxian walked away now, by the time reinforcements arrived, maybe the whole Mo Family Village would be lined with corpses missing a left arm, including a few Gusu Lan Sect disciples and relatives.

After a moment's thought, Wei Wuxian thought: 'Quick in, quick out.'