Irresolute, Part Fourteen 5

The wife went on, 'I only hope he knows that every wrong has its source and every debt its owner. If he means to avenge himself and wipe out his grievances, let him go find those cultivators who chase immortality and take it out on them. Just let him spare ordinary households like ours.'

Her husband said, 'Who can say for certain? When he slaughtered three thousand and more in Qishan in a single breath, I was still very small, but I remember it — back then it wasn't only those immortals who practice the mysteries, even ordinary families feared him. He was a bloodthirsty fiend who knew no kin.'

By degrees, the smile drew in from Wei Wuxian's face.

A moment before, listening to this young couple murmur on about the small business of their days, he had found it all idly amusing; yet all at once his head seemed to weigh past a thousand catties, too heavy to lift, so that he could not turn to see what showed now on Lan Wangji's face. Whatever the couple said after that, he heard not a word of it.

It was just then that, from beyond the farmhouse, there came a roar of utmost horror. The family of three in the yard, who had been laughing and chatting and reaching across the table for their food, were so startled by that sudden inhuman roar that a bowl shattered and the child began to cry. The young man snatched up a hoe and said, 'Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid!'

They were not the only ones startled — even Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian gave a slight stir. Lan Wangji made to rise. But something turned over in Wei Wuxian's heart, and he caught the cloth at Lan Wangji's chest and said, 'Don't move.'

Lan Wangji's eyes opened a fraction. That roar was, by its sound alone, some exceedingly savage evil thing; were the farmer left to face it alone, he would surely meet his end in the Yellow Springs. But Wei Wuxian said it once more: 'Don't move.'

From the yard came a shriek, and a still wilder inhuman roar, very near now, very near — the thing had come through the gate, and Lan Wangji could lie still no longer; Bichen left its sheath like lightning, only for him to hear the family of three already burst through the door and flee, crying out in terror all the way. The haystack, cleaved by Bichen, scattered every which way, and in the sky full of whirling straw a thing black as lacquer stood in the yard, hair loose and wild, still baring its teeth and snarling, with a clutter of horns sprouting from its body, a sight at once dreadful and absurd. Lan Wangji had never seen such a monster and started faintly, but Wei Wuxian had already spoken: 'Wen Ning, you haven't used your voice in years — your shout really is getting more frightening by the day.'

From the mouth of that lacquer-black monster came a human voice, saying helplessly, 'Young Master… I am, after all, a Fierce Corpse. When a Fierce Corpse shouts… it always comes out like this.'

Wei Wuxian patted his shoulder. 'Quite the imposing presence.'

Wen Ning glanced at Lan Wangji — likely recalling that the people of the Gusu Lan Clan deeply disliked anyone in disorderly dress — and uneasily smoothed his hair down. Wei Wuxian saw the heap of twigs stuck through his hair and across his body, the whole effect too ghastly to look at, and plucked one out. 'Why did you spring out all of a sudden? And got yourself up like this — were you robbed? What's that smeared on your face?'

Wen Ning said, 'I smeared dirt and mud from the ground on my face… I saw the two of you go in, and after a good long while you didn't come out…'

Wei Wuxian said, 'You've been following behind us the whole time?'

Wen Ning nodded, and Wei Wuxian understood. Wen Ning dared not be seen by anyone but him, and so, after they had come down from the Cloud Recesses, he had trailed them in secret; seeing them go into the farmhouse and stay still so long, he had crept close to listen at the wall, heard the young couple discussing him, felt the awkwardness of it, and thought to frighten them off so that he and Lan Wangji might come out. Probably reckoning his ordinary form held no power to intimidate, he had loaded his face and body with a mess of odds and ends.

Wei Wuxian was very nearly killed by laughter, while Wen Ning, his face full of shame, scrubbed furiously at the mud — when all at once Wei Wuxian noticed that both his hands were stained with blood. 'What's this about?'

Wen Ning said, 'Oh, it's nothing…'

Lan Wangji said, 'The stench of blood.'

Only then did Wei Wuxian notice that a smell of blood did indeed come off Wen Ning, and his heart gave a lurch. Seeing this, Wen Ning hurried to wave his hands. 'It isn't blood from a living thing! No, no — it is blood, but not the blood of anyone alive.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Not from the living? You fought something?'

Wen Ning led them on a stretch of road and brought them to a wild wood, where there stood some twenty or thirty fresh earthen graves, and beside them a pit dug halfway, and beside the pit a heap of corpses — a heap, and not so many bodies, because these corpses had all been broken to pieces. Wei Wuxian went forward to examine them: some had severed arms whose five fingers still clenched and spread, some had skulls whose jaws still worked open and shut, grinding out a faint rasping of teeth. They had already turned.

Wei Wuxian said, 'You smashed these to bits, all right.'

Wen Ning said, 'If I hadn't smashed them this thoroughly, they'd still go biting people — there's no stopping them otherwise. It was Fierce Corpses like this the whole way…'

Wei Wuxian said, 'The whole way? You ran ahead of us the whole way and cleared these things out?'

Wen Ning gave a halting nod. His ability to sense his own kind was sharper than the living's, and its reach wider; if that was so, no wonder their way had been all calm and untroubled. Wei Wuxian had been puzzled — hadn't they said great droves of Fierce Corpses were gathering toward Yiling now? Why had they not met so much as one? It was because Wen Ning had gone ahead and swept every obstacle clear. Wei Wuxian said, 'When did you start following behind us?'

Lan Wangji said, 'Koi Tower.'

Wei Wuxian looked over at Wen Ning, and Lan Wangji said, 'That day, when the cultivators of the various clans set on us, he lent a hand.'

Wei Wuxian sighed. 'Didn't I tell you to find somewhere to hide and not concern yourself with anything for now?'

Wen Ning smiled bitterly. 'But Young Master… where would I have to hide?'

Once he had still had a place he could go back to, still had others he could follow; but now, in all this world, save for Wei Wuxian, every soul was a stranger past all measure to him.

After a silence, Wei Wuxian rose to his feet, brushed the dust from the hem of his robe, and said, 'Bury them.'

Wen Ning nodded at once and went on digging the half-dug pit. Lan Wangji drew Bichen, and as the sword-qi went forth the earth flew up and a rift was cleaved open in the ground. Wei Wuxian said, 'Hanguang-Jun, are you digging graves now too?'

Lan Wangji turned his head, about to speak, when he saw Wen Ning standing behind him, straining the stiffened corners of his mouth to force out a smile. '…Young Master Lan, would you like help? My side is done.'

Lan Wangji looked past him: rows upon rows of dark, gaping pits, and the heaped earth piled tall and trim. Maintaining his 'smile', Wen Ning added, 'I do this kind of thing often. I have experience. It's quick.'

As to who, exactly, it was that had him 'doing this kind of thing often' — that went without saying.

After a silence, Lan Wangji said, 'No need. Go help—'

The sentence went unfinished, for he suddenly noticed that Wei Wuxian had not stirred at all, but had stayed crouched off to the side, looking on. On leaving the farmhouse he had scooped up a melon in passing, and now seemed to be working out how to cut it open. Meeting Lan Wangji's scrutinizing gaze, he said, 'Hanguang-Jun, don't look at me like that — haven't I nothing in my hands and low Spiritual Power besides? Each craft has its master; that's the plain truth. At digging graves, he's fastest. We'd do better to discuss how to eat this melon. Bichen's dug grave-dirt and probably can't be used for the moment — does either of you have a spare blade or sword or some such on you?'

Wen Ning shook his head. 'I'm sorry, I didn't bring one.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Hanguang-Jun, that — is Suibian on you?'

Lan Wangji: '…'

In the end he did draw Suibian from the Qiankun Sleeve. Wei Wuxian caught the melon up in one hand and the sword in the other, spun a sword-flourish, and went swish, swish, slicing the little watermelon into eight wedges; that done, he crouched on the ground, eating melon and looking on as the two of them dug graves with diligent, dutiful care.

Over there, within the burning of one incense-stick, Wen Ning had dug a row of pits all of exactly the same size, and as he laid the corpses he had broken apart into them, he said, 'My deepest apologies to you all — I can no longer tell which of these bodies belongs to whom, and if I should bury any of you wrongly, I hope you will take no offense…'

The melon finished and the remaining corpses buried, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji set out once more.

Several days later, the two of them reached Yiling.

The Burial Mounds lay less than ten li ahead of this Small Town; and though he did not know what, precisely, awaited them there, Wei Wuxian could feel it coming — that it would be nothing good, absolutely.

And yet Lan Wangji was right there at his side, his step steady, his gaze serene. Wei Wuxian, who had never had much sense of danger to begin with, found that, looking at such a man, he could not work himself into tension no matter what. Threading through the little town of Yiling, his ears full of the home dialect, he felt clear-headed and at ease, everything dear and familiar, and though he was buying nothing, he could not keep from striking up chatter with the roadside vendors in the local tongue. Only once he had talked his fill did he turn round and say, 'Hanguang-Jun, you remember this town, don't you.'

Lan Wangji gave a slight nod. 'I remember.'

Wei Wuxian laughed. 'Knew your memory had to be better than mine. It was in this very town we once crossed paths. You happened to have come to Yiling on a Night Hunt, and I said I'd treat you to a meal — you remember that too?'

Lan Wangji said, 'I remember.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Though to my shame, in the end it was still you who paid the bill — ha!'

He sat cross-legged atop the donkey, swaying along, and said, with a show of careless ease, 'Now that I think of it — Hanguang-Jun, have you any plans to retire from the world?'

Lan Wangji paused a moment, seeming to think it over, and Wei Wuxian struck while the iron was hot: 'Given any thought to what you'd do once you'd retired?'

Lan Wangji looked at him. 'I have not yet thought of it.'

Perfect that you haven't, thought Wei Wuxian; I've thought it out for you. He would find some scenic place of clear hills and bright water with few people about, and build a great house, and might as well build Lan Wangji one next door while he was at it, two dishes and a soup every day. Of course it would be best if Lan Wangji did the cooking, otherwise they'd be stuck eating his. The accounts had better be left to Lan Wangji to keep, too. There even rose before his eyes the image of Lan Wangji in coarse cloth robes, patches at the chest and knees, sitting expressionless at a hand-hewn wooden table counting coins one by one, and once they were counted, shouldering a hoe and heading out to work — while he himself would just… would just… would just do what?

Wei Wuxian gave serious thought to what he ought to do. As the saying goes, firewood, rice, oil, and salt, weaving cloth and tilling fields; the field already had someone to till it, so that left only the weaving. Picturing himself perched with one leg crossed over the other, jiggling his knee before a loom, was a chilling sight indeed — better to send that one off shouldering the hoe; setting Lan Wangji to the weaving suited rather better. By day they'd fish and farm, by night take up the sword and go out on Night Hunts, slaying demons and banishing fiends, and once they'd had their fill of it they could pretend there had never been any retiring at all and step back into the world again, which came to the same thing. But sure enough, there was still one small thing missing…

Lan Wangji said suddenly, 'One small what?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Eh?'

Only then did he realize he had, once again, spoken that last line aloud, and at once put on a sober face. 'I said — Little Apple is missing a little companion.'

Little Apple turned its head and spat hard. Wei Wuxian gave the donkey's head a slap, tugged at its two long ears, laughed a couple of times — and then, all at once, the laughter would not come.

For no other reason than this: he had remembered something else. In those years he had, in truth, kept a little one by his side. Had that child lived properly on to now, he would be a boy of a dozen years and more.

The Burial Mounds were set deep among the mountains of Yiling.

People say the Burial Mounds are a mountain of corpses, that everywhere across them you might pick any spot and drive a spade down and turn up a dead man — and this is no falsehood, for the place was an ancient battlefield to begin with, and over many years afterward people grew into the habit of casting their nameless dead here, so that the yin energy and resentment never dispersed through all the seasons, until at last it became the nightmare of everyone in the Yiling region.

As though steeped to the marrow in resentment, the woods upon this hill bore branches and leaves all lacquered black. From the foot of the mountain rose a wall above a zhang in height, its face carved over with dense, crowding curse-script meant to bar the passage of man and not-man alike. This wall of curses, ringing the whole of the Burial Mounds, had first been raised by the third-generation patriarch of the Qishan Wen Clan, who, unable to purify a place where Resentful Spirit surged like mountains overturning and seas upending, had been forced to settle for the lesser course and choose instead the method of sealing it off. This wall Wei Wuxian had once thrown down; the one standing now was a new wall, rebuilt and reinforced by the Lanling Jin Clan at the head of its assembled men.

Yet when they arrived, they found a long stretch of the high wall had, once again, been thrown down.