The second Wei Wu Xian opened his eyes, he was kicked by someone.
"Why are you playing dead?!" A voice thundered by his ear.
Being kicked in the chest, Wei Wu Xian nearly spat out blood. His head laid against the ground and his face turned towards the sky. He thought dazedly, 'To dare kick this ancestor, you sure have guts.'
He doesn't know how many years it's been since he's heard a live voice talk, what's more, it's such a loud ringing scolding, that his head spins and his eyes haze over, a buzzing noise sounds by his ear, echoing a voice, "Why don't you think about whose family land you're residing in now, whose rice you eat, and whose money you spend! So what if I take these few things? It's all rightfully mine anyways!"
Aside from the young voice of this male duck, his surroundings are filled by the sounds of chests and cupboards crashing. His eyes gradually clear up.
Within his line of vision, a dusky roof drifts into view, and a face with upturned eyebrows and eyes filled with green is currently spewing spittle above him, "You still dared to complain! Do you think I'm actually scared of you tattling? Do you honestly think anyone in this household will support you?"
Two strong men who appear to be servants circle up and report, "Lord, everything has been smashed!"
"So fast?"
"In this rundown house, there were originally not many belongings."
The lord is filled with satisfaction and can't resist sticking his nose up, "You have the guts to complain, who are you playing dead for now? Who would covet your type of junk, I've graciously helped you clean the house, let's see how you report with no evidence! Do you think you're so impressive about spending a few years in the cultivation world? In the end, you're just like a stray dog being chased away!"
Wei Wu Xian ponders, in a half-dead daze:
I have been dead for many years, it's honestly not an act.
Who's this?
Where is this?
When did he ever force his way into someone else's house?
Having kicked him and smashed his room, the lord has vented enough and brings along the two servants as he swaggers out of the door. Banging the door shut, loud voice commands, "Watch this prison, don't him out this month lest he disgrace us!"
Only after the group has gone far enough and silence has settled in does Wei Wu Xian think to sit up.
However his limbs don't respond to his control, and he lies back down again. He simply rolls his body over to take in this unfamiliar place and the mess all around, head spinning.
On his side, there is a bronze mirror that has been thrown to the floor and Wei Wu Xian smoothly picks it up to take a look. A face so white it's unusual appears in the mirror, two uneven, asymmetrical crimson circles decorate his cheeks. He only needs to stick out a long, blood-red tongue and he would be a perfect image of a hanged man's ghost. Wei Wu Xian throws the mirror aside and touches his face and finds that his hand comes away covered in white powder.
Fortunately, this body does not have a naturally weird appearance, it just that the original owner had a very unique taste. A grown man actually covering his whole face with rouge-like a prostitute, what's more, it's done so uglily, Yi, how can one stand it!
This shock shocked back some of his energy and Wei Wu Xian finally sits up and realizes that under his body is a circular curse array.
The array is a bright scarlet and the ring shape isn't very circular, it is as if blood was used as a medium and it was drawn by hand. The array is still wet and exuding a fishy smell. In the center of it a wild distorted incantation is painted and some of the words have been rubbed off by his body. The drawing and words both reveal an evil aura.
In any case, Wei Wu Xian has spent so many years being called some variation of devil practitioner or patriarch of evil that with one glance he is naturally able to tell that this formation isn't for anything good.
It turns out he didn't snatch anyone's home — he was "offered" one!
This is a type of ancient forbidden technique, that is not so much an attacking array, as it is a curse. The user weaponizes self-mutilation and carves wounds on their own body, then, after using their blood to draw out the array and incantation, one will sit in the center of the ring. Next is the summoning of a heinous, demonic deity and to pray that the summoned evil spirit will fulfill their wish. The price is that one must pay is dedicating their body to the spirit, and returning their own soul back to the earth.
This is the forbidden technique of "offering a home", the opposite of a "forceful possession".
Due to its high cost and heavy imbalance in what is traded, there have been few who have dared to try this. After all, there are few in the world who possess a strong enough desire to willingly give their all. Past examples recorded in history show reliable evidence that in these past thousands of years, only three or four people have attempted the technique. Among them, aside from a single exception, all their motives were revenge and the evil spirit summoned always perfectly carried out their wish in a cruel and bloody manner.
Wei Wu Xian is annoyed.
How on earth did he get classified as a "heinous, demonic deity"?
It can be said that his reputation is a little bad and his death was barbaric, but firstly, he doesn't haunt people and secondly, he never sought revenge, in fact, he dares to swear to heaven and earth that you will never be able to find a more calm and virtuous wandering ghost!
The most difficult thing is that once the spirit has been invited into the host body, it is taken that a contract has been accepted between both parties. The spirit has to fulfill the summoner's wish, or risk the curse backfiring and having their soul destroyed, never to be reincarnated!
Sure enough, when he raises his hands to take a look, the two wrists are interweaved by a number of wounds. Tearing off the belt, underneath the black shirt, he sees on his chest and abdomen are more injuries made by a sharp weapon. The wounds have already stopped weeping blood, but Wei Wu Xian knows that these aren't ordinary cuts. If the possessor doesn't achieve the body's desire, the wounds will never heal. The longer he delays, the worse it will become. Over a period of time, this will result in him who received this body, both flesh, and soul, being ripped apart alive.
Wei Wu Xian triple checks to confirm, then repeatedly yells out in his heart, "What nonsense!", before he finally, reluctantly, uses the wall as a support to stand up.
While this room can be said to be big, it is empty and cold, and the cotton bedspread seems to have gone an unknown number of days unwashed. There is a basket in the corner that was used to collect trash, and when it was kicked just now crushed paper rolled out and covered the floor. Wei Wu Xian looks around and picks up one of the paper balls, opens it up, and find that it is chock full of tiny words. Hurriedly, he gathers all the paper balls on the ground.
The words on the papers should have been written by this body's owner when he was feeling depressed as a way of venting. Some words, sentences, and paragraphs are incomprehensible and jumbled up. The author's anxiety and tension through the wobbly letters blow through. Wei Wu Xian holds onto his patience and reads the pages one by one, yet as he reads on, something begins to feel off.
Making a few assumptions, he roughly sets a few things in order.
It turns out that the owner of this body was called Mo Xuan Yu, and this place is Mo Village.
Mo Xuan Yu's maternal grandfather is the rich landlord of this region. The population of the clan was thin, and he had no sons in his life, his many years of diligent farming only giving him 2 daughters. The second daughter's name is taboo and isn't mentioned. Anyways, the eldest daughter is a lawfully wedded first wife and the husband she caught was one who came to live with her family. Although the second daughter had outstanding looks she was born from a servant, and so originally, the Mo Family had planned to marry her away without consideration. Unexpectedly, she would have a fortuitous encounter. At sixteen, the master of a family that was part of the cultivation world passed by, and with a glance, began liking her.
The society then worshipped cultivators, the XuanMen family the cultivator from was in the eyes of the people blessed by the gods, and they possessed a mysterious and noble air. Originally the people of Mo Village held despise towards this sort of worship, however that clan head oftentimes helped them out financially, and the benefits the Mo Family received were undeniable. The winds changed, and under the envious gaze of everyone else, the Mo Family became proud of this attention. The Mo Family's second lady soon gave birth to a child, this was Mo Xuan Yu.
Of course, good things never last. That family head had been greedy for something fresh and went for some wild game, and after only a few short years of eating, he had grown tired of this. When Mo Xuan Yu turned four, his father never dropped by again.
Gradually, the mouths of the Mo Village changed again, the original despise and ridicule came back, this time with a greater disdain towards mercy.
Although the second lady was unhappy, she firmly believed that that clan head would not turn a blind eye towards his own son. Sure enough, when Mo Xuan Yu turned fourteen, that master sent people to fetch him back.
The second lady held her head up high again. The entire family began proudly proclaiming that her son would in the future rise to become the sect's head, achieve meteoric success and bring honor to his ancestors. For the third time, talk rose up in Mo Village and the prevailing attitudes shifted again.
However, before Mo Xuan Yu achieved any success in his cultivation, or inherited his father's position, he had already been driven out.
To add salt onto the wound, he had been chased out for an extremely ugly reason.
It was because Mo Xuan Yu was a cut sleeve, who had the guts to openly harass members of his sect. The public breaking of this scandal, paired with his lack of achievements in cultivation, led to there being no more reason for him to remain among the family clan.
To make matters worse, Mo Xuan Yu seemed to have received some unknown shock. Upon his return he had become mad, there were good days and bad days as if he had been scared silly.
At a loss for words, Wei Wu Xian's eyebrows twitched twice.
Not only was he a madman, but he was also a gay madman.
No wonder the makeup all over his face was painted like some terror, no wonder the huge array dripping fresh blood did not incite any sense that something was wrong. Even if Mo Xuan Yu painted the entire room from the floor to the walls to the roof in fresh blood, he was afraid that no one would find it strange. Because as everyone knows, his brain is sick!
Crestfallen, he returned home to a barrage of ridicule, with no apparent room to salvage the situation. The Mo Family's second lady could not withstand such attacks and a mouthful of resentment lodged itself in her chest, choking her to death.
At this time Mo Xuan Yu's grandfather passed away, leaving the household in the hands of the eldest daughter. This Lady Mo probably rarely met her sister since young and even held a sort of disdain towards her sister's bastard child. She had a single scion, that is, the one who had just charged into loot the room called Mo Zi Yuan. When Mo Xuan Yu was brought away by his father, the first Mo Lady was envious. She felt that she herself could easily create familial ties with the cultivation world, and had counted on the cultivators sent over to bring Mo Zi Yuan along to join the sect.
Naturally, she was rejected, or rather, she was ignored.
This wasn't some 'Buy one get one free' wet market stand where you could bargain back and forth!
Confidence from an unidentifiable source filled the family, and they all had this strange belief that Mo Zi Yuan definitely had the caliber, the natural talent, and if it had been him who went at the start, the acknowledgment of the sect would have been easily won. Nothing like the disappointment his cousin turned out to be. After Mo Xuan Yu left, although Mo Zi Yuan was still young irrational ideas had been repeatedly imparted onto him, and he was left unquestioningly convinced in these teachings. Twice every three days, he would hound Mo Xuan Yu and make a pass at humiliating him. He scolded Mo Xuan Yu for stealing his own cultivation path, and towards those talismans, cultivation pills and small devices brought back from the sect, Mo Zi Yuan loved them so much he could not bear to put them down. He treated them all as his own belongings, what he wanted to take he took, what he wanted to break, he broke.
Although Mo Xuan Yu's mental capacities often failed him, he knew that he was being insulted, and born with it again and again. Despite this, Mo Zi Yuan's behavior intensified and all appearances cleared out his whole house. His limits reached, Mo Xuan Yu went before his aunt and uncle to lay the situation bare. Hence, today Mo Zi Yuan came knocking on his door again.
The words on the paper are small and dense, Wei Wu Xian feels his eyes hurt from looking at them. He wonders what kind of shit days this person had.
No wonder Mo Xuan Yu was willing to use this forbidden technique of offering a home and invited malicious spirits and gods to enter his body and revenge him.
Finally done abusing his eyes, Wei Wu Xian's head starts to hurt next. Logically speaking, upon using this forbidden technique, the user has to repeat in heart his wish, and as the spirit that was called, Wei Wu Xian should be able to hear the request in detail.
But this forbidden technique, he had the fear that Mo Xuan Yu brought back an extract of a fragmented book from some unknown place, and thus did not learn it in full, hence he missed that step. Although Wei Wu Xian was able to roughly guess that he wanted revenge against people from the Mo Family, exactly how did he want his revenge to be carried out? To what event did he want him to go to? To snatch back the things that were taken from him? To beat up the Mo Family?
Or is it… To wipe out their entire family?
More often than not the request is to exterminate the whole family! As long as one has mixed with the cultivation world before, you would definitely know which phrases are used most during evaluations. To forget a favor and return it with ingratitude, cruelty without reason, self-centered and indifferent to the plight of one's own family, behavior that even the Heaven's can't tolerate, all of the wonderful, brilliant and varied. Is there anyone more in line with "devils and monsters" than him to choose? Since Mo Xuan Yu dared to pick and call him by name, the wish will definitely not be easy to accomplish.
Helplessly, Wei Wu Xian says, "You came looking for the wrong guy…"
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upturned eyebrows and eyes filled with green - angry eyebrows and eyes filled with rage/envy/jealousy, all connotations of green.
cut sleeve - gay
some terror - 老吊爷 I have no idea what this means
twice every three days - practically every day