E. Hyde's Archives

“This is obscene.” “This is obscene.”

Jin Zixuan was inclined to agree. Pristine golden robes couldn't hide the dark veins lining his skin; the freshly-painted vermillion dot on his forehead the only color in his face. He knew that standing before his father as his heir, he made a mockery of all his sect stood for.

“Now, now,” Jin Guangyao chided the small-sect cultivator who had spoken up. “After all, brother hardly asked Wei Wuxian to bring him back as a fierce corpse.”

And yet, he hadn’t asked to die, either! “Regardless of the cause,” he spoke, still unused to the heaviness of his tongue, “I am still here. I’m not a monster, Father, I’m still your son, exactly the same as—”

“Exactly the same?” someone questioned. “He’s one of Wei Wuxian’s corpse soldiers, just like the Ghost General!”

Alive, it would have been unthinkable for anyone to interrupt him here, in the heart of Koi Tower. But news traveled fast in the cultivation world. He hadn’t had a chance to speak to his father privately, hadn’t even seen Jiang Yanli and their son at all, and he was already on trial in front of cultivators from all the nearby sects, defending his right to even exist.

“If Wei Wuxian commanded him, wouldn’t he obey?”

His father, face still pale, snapped up his head. “Answer,” he ordered.

“Yes,” Jin Zixuan forced himself to admit. “But father! That’s not why Wei Wuxian—” His words were cut off by dozens of voices rising all around him.

“Does he mean to make puppets of every sect leader?”

“He always clashed with the Lanling Jin sect—is this Wei Wuxian’s revenge?”

“This is obscene…”

Jin Guangshan rose to his feet, and silence fell. “Zixuan, you understand, I can’t…” He bowed his head. “My son is dead. Perhaps, if Wei Wuxian were to hand over the Stygian Tiger Seal, then I could trust—”

“Father! ” Jin Guangshan had wanted Wei Wuxian’s tiger seal for years. Was that all his son was to him now?

“Zixuan.” He could still hear love in his father’s voice, but tempered with pain and—what hurt most of all—caution. “Perhaps it would be best if you weren’t here while we discussed...what’s to be done with you.”

Jin Zixuan was very aware of the fact he didn’t have to comply with anything they asked of him. After all, the hole gaping in his chest told him, told everyone, exactly what a fierce corpse could do. But after all, this was still his father, this was still his family. They would come around, Father would see that he was still the same son he’d always loved. He could wait—for all but one thing. “At least let me see A-Li! Let me see our son!”

“Brother, think,” said Jin Guangyao. “Jiang Yanli has already mourned.”

Jin Zixuan bowed his head. His brother was right, of course. His wife would never want to see him like this.

Father still trusted him enough to allow him his own rooms, unguarded. Maybe Jin Zixuan should have been thankful for that, but Jiang Yanli wasn’t here. He told himself he should be thankful for that, too.

This wasn’t his first time coming back here—he had returned as soon as he found himself awake in his coffin, to leave behind his burial clothing and make himself as presentable as he could—but he was still struck by the way nothing had changed. All his earthly possessions seemed to call out to him, asking to step right back into his life, but—this bed, what was he supposed to do with that? He couldn’t sleep. Volumes of poetry lay stacked on the table and the thought of reading any of them, with a voice like this, was honestly horrifying. And Suihua was nothing more than a piece of metal to him now. All those people who said he had no place here, weren’t they right?

A shadow darkened his window, stepped inside, and became the man who both killed him and brought him back. “Wei Wuxian,” says Jin Zixuan. This was his first time seeing him since he revived, and the Yiling Patriarch looked like he’d hardly slept at all since Qiongqi Path. How long had it been?

Wei Wuxian bypassed the greeting. “Why haven't you gone to her?” he asked. “I gave you a second chance, and all you do is try to appease your snake of a father? Do you think I brought you back for him? ”

“Bold of you to call it my second chance,” Jin Zixuan threw back at him. “Given the way I died.” He expected Wei Wuxian to flare up in anger, as has always happened when the two of them clash. The last thing he expected was for Wei Wuxian to retreat from his words like a punch in the gut.

“ Please, just—just go to her!” Wei Wuxian begged. “I never, never wanted to hurt her, I'm just trying to make things right, and I can't—I can't—”

Jin Zixuan could feel the raw desperation in Wei Wuxian's words, really feel it.”I’ll go!” he hastily assured the other man, then froze. Doing what Wei Wuxian asked of him felt right , in a way that made him decidedly uncomfortable. “But you know she won’t want to see me like this.”

“Who told you that?” Wei Wuxian asked. “Who told you that? You still don’t even know, do you? How much she loved you? How much she still does?”

“I…” No one told him that. It was only his own assumption—and a perfectly natural one, he thought! But he did want to see Yanli, desperately he did. “You truly believe that.”

“You're here. ”

Right. “Leaving them alone would have been my greatest regret,” he admitted.

“Good,” said Wei Wuxian, apparently satisfied. He made to leave.

“Wait!” Jin Zixuan called. “How am I supposed—” How am I supposed to live like this? he almost asked, but that was wrong, he wasn't living.

“As long as Shijie has you, then everything will be alright,” said Wei Wuxian. The words weren’t for him.

When he stopped to think, he realized he knew exactly where Yanli would be. She’d moved into Madam Jin’s rooms after Jin Ling was born, to make it easier for Madam Jin to care for her while sitting the month. And then he’d died. Of course she hadn’t come back to the home they shared.

Ah, so it wasn’t that anyone deliberately took her away from him!

Still, some sense of caution prompted him to enter unseen. Twilight shadows make it easy to hide, and by instinct he clawed his way up the outer wall. It wasn’t till he reached the base of the window that he stopped. What was he doing? His fingers dug deep into the stone and he hadn’t even questioned it. Was he a monster after all? Surely Yanli would be disgusted—disgusted or terrified—at the sight of him coming to her like this. Even the wards on the windows, though he could tell they were too weak to keep him out, confirmed he wasn’t wanted here.

The window opened. Yanli leaned out above him, gazing upwards at the clouded sky. Her hair hung loose and unkempt, and the tip of it brushed against his skin. Dull, he could barely sense the touch, but he could sense her. He waited for her to look down, to see him—why couldn't he move?—but she only sighed and retreated inside. Then she started to pull the shutters closed and—smart decision or no—Zixuan launched himself up and through the window. He crashed to the floor and rose to his feet to find Jiang Yanli staring at him, eyes wide, jaw slack, a hand raised to cover her shock. “Zi...Zixuan?” Afraid to speak, he nodded. “Zixuan!” She wrapped her arms around him, buried her face in his chest. This isn't right, thought Jin Zixuan. She saw him, she could feel him now, didn't she realize? “Zixuan, I knew it wasn't true! I knew you would come back to me!”

Before he could start to figure out how to answer that, the door cracked open. “Young Madam Jin? I heard noise—are you well?” Then her eyes latched on to the scene before her. She screamed—and drew her sword. “Young Madam Jin, get away from that—”

Jin Zixuan leapt across the room and ripped the sword from her hand, then grabbed her by the shoulder to keep her from fleeing. “I’m not—” he said, “I’m not going to hurt her.” The maid shook, horribly fragile in his grip. This woman, he recalled, had served Jiang Yanli since before they were married—so she knew how much he cherished her, didn’t she? But just like everyone else, all she could see was the monster. He covered her mouth to keep her silent and felt her shrink away from the touch of his dead hand. He loosened his grip—he didn't want to hurt the woman, but if she drew attention here, he could lose Jiang Yanli for good. “You came with A-Li from Lotus Pier,” he said. “Wei Wuxian made me what I am. If you can't trust me, at least trust that he would never do anything to hurt her.”

Still trembling, the maid finally nodded. Another time, Jin Zixuan might resent the fact that a man who cavorted with the dead—and who really did kill him, he might add!—had earned more trust than him, Jiang Yanli's husband. But not now. “Keep this secret,” he begged. She gave another frantic, frightened nod, and backed out the door when he let her go. Then he turned back to Jiang Yanli.

“This—” Her voice trembled and she stood motionless. “This isn’t a dream.” He rushed back to her side, held her. “Every night I dreamt you came back to me, that everything before had been a nightmare. I knew this was a dream and I was ready for it, I didn’t care, but—but she saw you too.” She looked up, into his eyes. “You’re really here. You’re alive.”

“A-Li.” Her eyes blinked back tears. Jin Zixuan felt like he should be crying too, but maybe that wasn’t possible anymore. Seeing his wife like this, so broken she couldn’t tell truth from dreams, when she had always been so strong and grounded—he wiped the tears from her eyes and she, too, flinched away from his touch, and he hated it but at least—at least she could tell what was real. “A-Li, look at me. I’m not alive. But I’m here.”

Outside the window, evening deepened to night while Jin Zixuan did his best to explain what happened. He hesitated before confirming that yes, Wei Wuxian really was responsible for his death.

“But he brought you back,” she said.

“For you,” Jin Zixuan agreed. “A-Li, let's not talk about Wei Wuxian right now.”

She reached out, hesitantly, to trace soft fingers along the lines on his skin. “Can you still feel?”

“It’s different,” he said. “Touch is duller, but I can sense other things, like—” How to explain the way her living energy thrilled him, sent almost-warmth shivering through him at the slightest brush? “A-Li, you’re so alive!” he exclaimed, then clamped his mouth shut. That was definitely weird. Jiang Yanli pulled her hand away and—laughed? “A-Li, is...is this too much for you?” Nothing here was funny. She wouldn't be laughing unless she had started going mad, and if that was the case, he really couldn't blame her.

But to his surprise, her smile only deepened. “You can't blush anymore, can you, Zixuan?”

“Ah—”

“There, you really can't!”

“It seems like it doesn't matter whether or not I can,” he muttered.

“Oh, Zixuan, don't ever change.”

So he stood there and let her explore his new reality, hands against his dead skin, then lips, miraculously, kissing his breathless mouth. No more than a dainty touch of hers to his, and then she drew back, visibly shaken. “This will take some getting used to,” she murmured.

“No, don’t—you don’t have to touch me at all, A-Li, the fact that you’re even willing to look at me is more than I had any cause to hope for.”

“Oh, Zixuan, you silly thing, you idiot .” She wrapped her arms around him, pressed her lips against his once more. “You were dead! I thought I’d lost you! Of course I want you, however I can have you.”

A tentative knock sounded at the door, echoed by a baby's cries. Jin Zixuan started forward. Jin Ling! His son! “Y-young Madam Jin,” said the same nursemaid as before, “A-Ling is hungry. Do you want him now, or…?” Her eyes flickered to Jin Zixuan, still apprehensive.

“Bring him here,” said Yanli. When the maid still hesitated, Yanli walked impatiently to the door and took the swaddled baby into her arms.

“But he’s—” the maid began, eyes still on Jin Zixuan.

“He’s his father,” Jiang Yanli cut her off.

“Yes, ma’am.” She paused. “If I may say, Young Madam Jin—you seem much more like yourself.”

“Mm? Indeed,” agreed Jiang Yanli, and the maid lifted her eyebrows. Maybe, just maybe, Jin Zixuan hoped, she could accept him for Jiang Yanli’s sake if not his own.

He met Jiang Yanli halfway across the room, automatically reaching for the baby in her arms before freezing in place. “Is it alright?” he asked. “Can I hold him?”

Jiang Yanli smiled, and handed Jin Ling to him. For an instant, Jin Zixuan was terrified. The baby weighed next to nothing in his hands, so fragile, so full of new life that stirred an inhuman longing within Jin Zixuan. At the touch of cold hands pulling him away from the safety of his mother’s arms, Jin Ling began to cry again—but then he looked up and into Jin Zixuan’s eyes. “Ah~” he gurgled, immediately calm again.

“He—he remembers me. He remembers me!”

“Of course he does,” laughed Yanli. “You barely left his sight for a whole month.”

“He’s bigger. How long has it been?”

“Two weeks. He’s growing fast. Don’t worry—he won’t even remember you were gone.”

Jin Ling, started to squirm and pull away, holding his head upright all by himself. “He’s so strong!” Then the baby flopped his head forward against Jin Zixuan’s chest and started to cry.

“Here,” said Yanli, arms outstretched.

“He’ll calm down, let me just—”

“He’s hungry,” said Jiang Yanli. “That wasn’t something you could help even when you were alive.”

“Ah, right.” Once again, Jin Zixuan would have blushed if he still had living blood running through his veins. They sat side by side, Jiang Yanli reclining against his immobile body, as she brought the hungry Jin Ling to her breast. Still unsatisfied, Jin Ling flailed his little arms around, until Jin Zixuan reached out and the baby clasped his tiny hand around a single finger. “Are we really going to do this?” Zixuan asked. “Are we really going to make this work?”

“Husband,” Jiang Yanli replied, taking his other hand, “Surely you recall which sect I came from.”

For two days, the impossible seemed within reach. Jin Zixuan was kept under guard, but it was a purely symbolic act. If that helped his father, if it gave Jin Guangshan the reassurance he needed, Jin Zixuan could accept it. It was a step closer to...to what, though? He was dead. Things weren’t going to go back to the way they were before. The cultivators guarding him were too junior, too distant, for Jin Zixuan to have ever called them friends, but they had been friendly, maybe even looked up to him. Now they couldn't speak to him without hands forming a nervous grip on their swords. Those he had called friends—well, first of all, his cousin remained dead. Wei Wuxian's “second chance” extended to Jin Zixuan and Jin Zixuan alone. No one else had worked up the nerve to come see him. When he pressed his guards for any information at all, any hint of what his father was thinking, they refused to answer. Maybe they didn’t know.

In his ample time, he tried to write letters—to his father, to his mother. To Wei Wuxian. Once, to Jiang Yanli and Jin Ling as if he really had left them for good. Every time, his frustration at stiff dead hands, or his inability to find the right words, caused the papers to end up in a crumpled mess on the floor.

Jin Ling's nursemaid became Jiang Yanli's secret-keeper, letting Jin Zixuan know when it was safe to come to Jiang Yanli's rooms unseen. She was his only light in all of this.

“Zixuan, I’m worried,” Jiang Yanli told him, the second day he visited. Jin Ling lay sleeping in her arms. “Sect Leader Jin never told me a thing. If you hadn’t come to me, I’d believe you still lay in your grave.”

“He probably…” Jin Zixuan recalled his brother’s words. “He doesn’t want you to grieve twice.”

Jiang Yanli frowned. “Sect Leader Jin has always hounded A-Xian for his secrets, to hand over his tools...I just don’t like it. And ‘grieve twice?’ Zixuan, just what do you plan to do if he won’t accept you?”

“Ah, no, no, A-Li, I won’t leave you again!” In truth, he hadn’t thought that far. His father’s love, his father’s eventual acceptance, were not in question. “We’d leave here together. Go to your brother, or—or to Yiling, even.” Wei Wuxian made him like this, and though he'd shown no inclination to take responsibility so far, if Jiang Yanli's livelihood was at stake, he surely would. “But it won't happen. It's only a matter of time.”

Jiang Yanli nodded. “How...how is A-Xian?”

“I barely saw him.”

“But—is he well?”

Jin Zixuan shook his head. “He looked like he'd hardly slept or eaten.” A deep pain filled Jiang Yanli's eyes. “As soon as things are settled, you can invite him here. He still needs to meet A-Ling, after all.”

“Soon, I hope,” Jiang Yanli murmured.

The third time they met, Jiang Yanli cooked for him. Jin Zixuan had to watch his wife's devastated face as he explained that he could not eat, could barely even smell the aroma. It’s only soup, he almost tried to comfort her as she started to cry, but he caught himself in time. What a mistake that would have been! “A-Li, I can still feel its warmth,” he said, taking the jar from her, holding it in his hands. The more he thought about putting food into his mouth, the more alien the concept seemed, but this soup was what had brought them together. Well. That was how Jin Zixuan liked to remember it, at least.

Jiang Yanli wiped her tears away. “Can I see it?” she asked. “Can I see how you died?”

“You want to—” He lifted a hand to his chest, to where that gaping hole had blossomed red beneath the white sparks-amidst-snow. “Are you sure?”

She shook her head. “I need to,” she said.

Jin Zixuan paused, then nodded. His stiff fingers began to fumble at the ties of his round-collar robe, until, ever so gently, Jiang Yanli began to help him. Then the white robes underneath, and then—Jiang Yanli turned away. She was shaking, sobbing. “A-Li, I’m—I’m sorry!” Jin Zixuan cried. “You didn’t need to see this.”

At that, she turned back to him. “I asked , Zixuan. And I did. I did need to see it.” She lost her words to another sob. “Oh, Zixuan, your heart!”

“If it helps, it doesn’t hurt?” Hesitantly, ever so lightly, Jiang Yanli placed a hand on his chest, exploring gently, still pained with tears but still willing to be here with him, wanting to know the body he was now, and oh god, he was about to say something incredibly stupid. “Besides, you stole my heart a long time ago.”

Jiang Yanli withdrew her hand. Straightened her expression. “Zixuan,” she said. “Zixuan, you can’t—” Whatever she had been planning to say was overtaken by a bout of near-hysterical laughter. Zixuan didn’t know if he should pull her close but she answered that for him, finally resting her head against his chest with no regard at all for his mortal wound. “Zixuan, your jokes are terrible,” she said. “But please, please, please, keep making them.”

On the third day, his brother came to call. “Has our father reached a decision?” Jin Zixuan asked.

Jin Guangyao sighed. “It seems he can’t accept the thought of losing you.” He gave Jin Zixuan a self-deprecating half smile. “But you know it’s more complicated than that.”

“I don’t have any illusions about coming back as sect heir. I know I’m dead.”

“Yes,” said Jin Guangyao, reminding Jin Zixuan that the position would fall to him next. But Jin Zixuan didn’t have any problem with that; even if he had missed his chance to get to know his brother as a man, he was well aware of his accomplishments. Everyone was. “But you've found yourself in an unusual position, to say the least.” There was something odd about the way his brother spoke, but he couldn't quite place it. “Tell me, where do you see yourself going from here?”

Amidst the trappings of a life that couldn’t be his anymore, the conclusion had been obvious. “I just want to be with my family.”

“Ah, who knew the dead had such honorable sentiments?”

“Dying puts things in perspective, I suppose.”

“I suppose the rest of us have gained a little perspective as well,” said Jin Guangyao. “Our father...does not want to lose you,” he repeated, and that was it, that was what was strange about his speech. No one else, not even his father, not even Yanli at first, had looked at him without at least a hint of fear. But if Jin Guangyao had any fear, he hid it well. Jin Zixuan appreciated that. “You’re as strong as the Ghost General. You may no longer be sect heir, but when the world thinks of the strength of Lanling Jin, you will be at the forefront of their minds.”

Jin Zixuan frowned. “You don’t really think the world would allow a corpse such a place of honor, do you?”

“Our father doesn't seem to have a problem with it.”

“And you?”

“The problem,” said Jin Guangyao, bypassing the question, “is Wei Wuxian.”

Ah, yes. Of course.

“I don’t really need to tell you what happens when he loses control.”

“No, you don’t,” agreed Jin Zixuan. As much as he wanted to protest that he was more than some mindless creature bound to the whims of the one who’d raised him, he remembered how he’d felt with Wei Wuxian close at hand. The man’s emotions bled through—and his emotions were both volatile, and far too often in opposition to Jin Zixuan’s own mind.

“Father fears Wei Wuxian would use you as a weapon to control in his own home. But even with no ill will, Jin Guangshan and Wei Wuxian have clashed before. If it came to that, do you know how you’d respond?” Jin Zixuan was forced to admit he did not, and Jin Guangyao sighed. “If Wei Wuxian had no hold over you, Father wouldn’t hesitate to welcome you back with open arms.”

“And the only one with the knowledge to fix this is Wei Wuxian himself,” Jin Zixuan concluded.

Jin Guangyao paused. “Actually,” he said, “that may not be true. Do you know our guest disciple Xue Yang?”

This Xue Yang, it seemed, was the next best thing to Wei Wuxian. Father and Jin Guangyao had been supporting his research into demonic cultivation, and according to Jin Guangyao, he was very good. He greeted Jin Zixuan with a sharp-toothed smile; no fear but a hungry look in his eyes, and glanced down at Jin Guangyao to speak. “Hey, after this is over, can I have some fun with this one?”

“Now now, watch your words, Chengmei,” said Jin Guangyao. “This isn’t one of your usual experiments; this corpse is still Sect Leader’s son, after all. Play nice.”

“Experiments?” asked Jin Zixuan. “I thought you said he knew what he was doing.”

Xue Yang grinned. “Oh, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Jin Guangyao sighed. “He does, for all his attitude. But you know Wei Wuxian—I begin to think demonic cultivation requires a certain disrespect for the natural order of things.”

“That’s good, that’s too good,” laughed Xue Yang. “But, dead young master, I hear you don’t like Wei Wuxian?”

“Can you negate his influence or can’t you?” Jin Zixuan was beginning to get impatient.

“Oh,” said Xue Yang, “oh, I can.” He pulled two long, engraved metal needles out from his sleeve. “Don’t worry. This won’t hurt a bit.”

The instant metal touched his skin Jin Zixuan knew something was wrong, wanted to call out to warn his brother, but all that came out was a roar.

—until a warbling melody darted in and out of where he was buried, a thin strand of music to cling to, binding, anchoring, calling. Jin Zixuan! Come here!

He came. Something wanted to hold him but someone stronger was calling. Men, too, tried to hold him but they were even weaker than these chains, but the music asked him to come quickly so he pushed past them, ran, until he found the caller, found the one who released him, found—

“What the hell did they do to you?” As his mind came back into focus Jin Zixuan found himself facing Wei Wuxian. His master held Chenqing in one hand and those two needles in the other. They stood in the shadows of a narrow alley, still, he thought, in Lanling City but far from Koi Tower. Chains still dangled from his wrists and ankles; his clothes clothes were torn and covered in days-old blood. “ Who did this? ” Wei Wuxian demanded.

“A boy named Xue Yang,” Jin Zixuan answered, then, “No, that’s wrong.”

“Wrong?” Wei Wuxian pressed into Jin Zixuan’s silence.

Xue Yang was as much a tool as those needles were. “My brother did this,” he said. “My brother, Jin Guangyao.” Wei Wuxian closed his eyes. Any human watching him might have thought him calm, but Jin Zixuan could feel the rage swelling inside him, threatening to overflow. He pushed back. He’d known too much rage these past days, it was all he’d known, he wanted no more. “Now tell me,” said Jin Zixuan. “Just what was it that he did?”

Wei Wuxian took a deep breath and brushed his anger aside, burying it beneath a thin veneer of calm. “What do you remember?”

Nothing, he was about to retort, but that wasn't right. “I was in chains, no one told me why.” Had he asked? No, he remembered with a surge of horror, he hadn't had the words to speak, or comprehend. “I—I wasn't myself.”

Wei Wuxian nodded. “When you came to me just now, you were like any other fierce corpse.” He lifted the two needles, looked down at them. “That's what these did. Whoever made them...very clever. Very dangerous.” He pinned his gaze on Jin Zixuan again. “I thought you were at least smart enough not to let some stranger drive nails into your skull.”

“...they were supposed to keep you out,” muttered Jin Zixuan.

“Be glad they didn't.”

Wordlessly, Jin Zixuan nodded. What would have happened if he'd never heard Chenqing's call? Would he have been reduced to a mindless fierce corpse for the rest of his days? As a cultivator he'd fought numerous corpses, and the thought of him , reduced to that — He shuddered as more memories came back. All of that. Tearing, ripping, gnawing flesh and the most horrifying thing was how the visceral memory didn't quite fill him with disgust. “Who did I hurt?” Sudden panic. “A-Li, A-Ling, are they—?”

“If they were dead, do you really think you’d be here now?” asked Wei Wuxian. “The rumors say you killed anywhere from five to fifty cultivators from your own sect, that you were stopped just short of killing your own father.”

The blood on his clothes, on his hands… “Their names?” Jin Zixuan asked numbly. Those once-friendly young guards outside his rooms, were they dead by his hands?

“I don’t even know the right number, how can I know their names?” asked Wei Wuxian. Jin Zixuan didn’t respond. “Don’t blame yourself. Someone made you their weapon.”

But knowing that didn’t erase the memories that were rapidly growing clearer and clearer. “What will A-Li think of me?”

“So we have to make sure she knows the whole truth.”

“ We don’t know the whole truth. Why would Jin Guangyao do this? I already told him, I was happy to accept him as sect heir. He didn’t need to get rid of me!” But Xue Yang had already prepared those needles. Jin Guangyao had meant to do this to him from the start, no matter what he’d said.

“It wasn’t only about you,” said Wei Wuxian. “After all, the rumors don’t blame you .”

“...they blame you,” Jin Zixuan realized. Two birds with one stone. Jin Guangyao could turn the whole world against a powerful enemy of his sect...and get rid of someone he feared would always outshine him even when dead. Was that it, was that really it? He’d risked their father almost dying for that?

“Jin Guangshan issued a proclamation. He says if I hand over the Wen siblings, this can all be over. As if they even had anything to do with this anymore!” He was speaking to only one of the dozens of men Wen Ning had killed, and the only one he’d brought back, but Jin Zixuan didn't push it. “Wen Qing wouldn't listen when I told them not to turn themselves in, but if we hurry it won't be too late.”

“You're going after them?”

“I'm not losing anyone else!”

“Do you have any idea how bad it will look if we arrive at Koi Tower together?”

Wei Wuxian reached for Chenqing again. “You’re coming with me whether you want to or not.”

Was he serious, was he really being serious right now? “I didn't mean I shouldn't go back, I meant you! If I'm going to tell Father what really happened, I need you as far away as possible. The last thing I need is for him to take my words as yours.” He wanted to fix things between himself and his father, not make them irreparably worse. “I'm sure, as soon as he understands you didn't attack him, he'll let the Wens go.”

“You really believe that.” Wei Wuxian shook his head. “But you’re not stopping me.” Darkness started to rise up around him. “I won’t lose Wen Ning and Wen Qing for crimes that aren’t theirs.”

Jin Zixuan could have argued that point but he had no interest in testing the reach of that darkness. He was no weak-willed Wen Ning, subject to his master’s every whim, but in the wake of having his mind completely erased, he had no desire to test just how far his freedom went. “I won’t stop you,” he said. “But I will get there first.”

Dark clouds rose in the sky, too, echoing the rising match of tempers between demonic cultivator and fierce corpse, and thunder crashed as Jin Zixuan tore himself away. He ran through the streets of Lanling City, ignoring the alarmed voices rising in his wake, and towards Koi Tower. Rain poured from the sky—it was early evening, but the clouds made it so dark it might as well be night.

Jin Zixuan had not had to climb the steps of Koi Tower since he was a child, running up the thousand steps on a dare as a test of strength. Now he charged up those thousand steps with no effort at all, the rain drenching his already blood-soaked clothes, the chains at his wrists and ankles clanging against the stone steps. Panicked voices sounded out as he reached the top and a few brave cultivators stepped forth to stand in his way, even though they must have heard what happened last time. This time though, Jin Zixuan was fully in control of himself. No bloodlust raged through his undead body, and he sidestepped his would-be challengers with ease rather than taking them on. He had one goal only, and that was Glamour Hall, where his father would be holding audience.

He pushed open the heavy door with a single hand, eliciting gasps and screams from those gathered inside. Mid-stride, he hesitated for just an instant, thinking, absurdly, that he should have stopped to change his clothes. Even bigger than the crowd that had gathered last time he consciously faced his father, the eyes of all four great sects were upon him now. There were the two pure-white Jades of Lan—no need to ask what their righteous sect thought of him. There were the two Wen siblings under guard—he met the eyes of the man who had killed him, and Wen Ning looked away. And there was—

Oh.

There was Jiang Yanli, sitting by her brother's side. “Zixuan!” she cried out, rising to her feet as he met her eyes, but Jiang Cheng placed a hand on her shoulder and she returned to her seat once more..

He pulled his eyes away. “Father!” he called, but Jin Guangshan did not meet his eyes.

“How did that thing get out? I thought it was secure!”

No blade could hurt him now, but his father's words cut like cold steel. Thing? But Father had wanted him back! “You knew?” he asked. “You knew where I was being held?” Why hadn’t he come, why hadn’t he heard his side of the story?

“Knew?” asked Jin Guangyao, standing by his father's side. “After your rampage, he locked you away himself.”

“You—you knew this would happen.”

“What was he supposed to do, brother? You nearly killed him.” He walked towards Jin Zixuan, lowering his voice, practically daring Jin Zixuan to accuse him. “Imagine how much it hurt him, brother. His precious son who he treasured so much he wanted to hold onto you even in this state, turning on him like that.”

“ That wasn’t me, ” Jin Zixuan gritted out, but would his accusations even make a difference now?

Murmurs in the crowd grew in volume. “I knew it, that Wei Wuxian!”

“It was not Wei Wuxian!”

The disbelief on everyone's face was plain. Even the straight-faced Lan Wangji narrowed his eyes. But before Jin Zixuan could go any further, Jin Guangshan stood up and threw out a handful of talismans. They clung to him, binding him, one even coming to rest on his lips and sealing them shut. Anyone else, he might have been able to resist, but not his own father. Only his eyes were not locked in place and they flickered around the hall, finding nothing but fear and pity. To think, all these faces seemed to say, the most promising young cultivator of his generation has been reduced to this.

His father walked across the hall. “Zixuan,” he said as he approached—and stopped, Jin Zixuan noticed, just out of reach. “Are you...yourself?” He nodded; he could do that much. “That makes this harder.” His father couldn't meet his eyes. “Zixuan, we already laid you to rest.”

So that was it? Exorcise him, destroy him, better a dead son than the creature he had become? Yet his father seemed genuinely pained—just let him speak, and he’d show him it didn’t have to be this way!

The next words his father spoke ripped all his sympathy away. “You were going to be our very own ghost general, but not…” He spoke quietly, shaking his head. “Zixuan, I know you didn't want to harm me. So you see, if you can't control yourself—we have to control you. It would have been less trouble,” he murmured, “If you’d never returned to your senses.”

For a moment Jin Zixuan didn't process what his father meant. Then he understood. His father. His own father, his own blood, would choose to have him as a mindless servant. Exposing the truth wouldn’t fix this; Jin Guangyao's betrayal didn’t even matter. It had only made clear what had simmered beneath the surface all along. An undead son was simply too complicated.

Once Jin Zixuan had been his father’s pride and joy. He wondered now if there had ever been any real love there—was this all he was to him, in the end? A tool in Jin Guangshan’s quest for power? He tried to channel all his rage, all his resentment, into breaking free from the spell that bound him, but it held strong. Voices rose up around them again. His father had spoken quietly; the crowd could only guess what he’d said to enrage him so. Then, above the whispers, one clear voice rang out. “How dare you?” Jiang Yanli demanded. “You cannot call my husband a mindless thing when you're the one who will not let him speak!”

The whispers shifted, saying mad with grief, saying to call a corpse her husband. “Sister, don't,” Jiang Wanyin cautioned, but Jiang Yanli pushed past him and ran forward. Jin Ling was cradled tight in her arms, but that didn't stop her from pushing past everyone who tried to hold her back. She ripped the talisman from Jin Zixuan's lips, tore it in two, and threw it at Jin Guangshan's feet.

“Zixuan,” she said, turning back to him, “I knew it wasn’t you, I knew something went wrong, but you’re here now, I’m here—” She reached towards him.

Jin Guangshan shoved her aside.

And Jin Zixuan saw red.

The remaining talismans burst into flame and he let out a roar. All the rage he’d called forth to break free still ran through his veins, multiplied a hundredfold. His own father would do this to him, his own blood! The sword glares of watching cultivators bounced off of him harmlessly, but Jiang Yanli cried out and Jin Ling began to wail. Jin Guangshan drew his own sword to defend himself, but it was too late. Fueled by all frustration and rage at the turns his life and death had taken, Jin Zixuan reached out, clawed, tore. Blood sprayed over him, over his father, there was no more sound in Glamour Hall but screaming.

Too much, some part of him said, the part of him that recognized he held his own father’s arm in his hand, the part of him that knew deep down his father was just as lost in these turns of fate as he was, but the scent of blood in the air drowned it out. Father’s blood, his blood, it all had to spill. He would tear apart anyone who tried to stop him, and so many seemed to want to. Someone had pulled his father away, but it didn’t matter, he wasn’t the only one. He grabbed Jin Guangyao and hurled him across the room, and then—still more of that shared blood, traitor’s blood, called out to be spilled. Purple lightning tried to bind him, but it was far too weak, just like that faint sound of a flute, just like the woman who turned her back to shield the child in her arms, the child that bore his blood.

She fell at his touch.

The flute that had tried to calm him turned shrill, turned into a scream, and then the crowd fell on him. Who knew how long he fought back, but eventually the tide turned. He was going to end here, but that was alright, he had already—

What had he done?

His father lay bleeding out on the floor, a woman in red and white crouched by his side working frantically to save him. His brother was nowhere in sight. And his wife, his son—Jin Zixuan's scream only drew more attackers and this time he made no attempt to resist. He had killed Jiang Yanli, he had killed Jin Ling!

Then—someone stepped in and flung all the attackers away with a single blow. This newcomer grabbed him by the arm and hefted him to his feet. No human could do that—he found himself facing Wen Ning, the man who had killed him. “They're safe,” said Wen Ning. “I got them out. At Jin Zixuan's blank stare, he repeats himself. “Jiang Yanli and Jin Ling are alive. Go to them! I'll buy you time to get away. Go quickly! They're waiting for you.”

The rational part of his mind told him to stay far, far away from his wife and son. But he had to see, had to confirm with his own eyes that they still lived. And when he saw them—someone, Wen Ning perhaps, had torn Jiang Yanli's skirts to bandage her, but she lay unconscious on the cold stone floor, Jin Ling crying at her chest. The life was slowly leaving them. Someone here would treat them, they'd be fine, they'd be far, far better off without him—

Then Jiang Yanli opened her eyes. “Zixuan? You...came back.” He didn't know what she saw in him that was different than the him who had attacked her, but she looked at him with absolutely no fear, and he couldn't turn away. He lifted his wife and son into his arms and carried them away from Koi Tower and into the night.

He took the unconscious Jiang Yanli in a filthy, back-alley inn where he could come and go with no one looking hard enough to realize he was dead, and found a back-alley doctor who would treat her without asking too many questions. While alive, Jin Zixuan had never needed to carry money. He didn't now, either—fear, it seemed, was just as effective. But if this place was hidden from the eyes of the cultivation world, it was not out of reach of its rumors.

“I hear they’re finally doing something about that Yiling Patriarch,” the doctor told him on the fourth day. Jiang Yanli was still unconscious. After all that had happened, Jin Zixuan told himself, there was nothing he could do for Wei Wuxian. He chose to stay by his wife’s side.

She woke up two days after they heard the news of the Yiling Patriarch’s death.

When Jiang Yanli was well enough to move, they went together to Lotus Pier. Jiang Wanyin met them with dark, empty eyes, but when he saw Jiang Yanli, saw Jin Ling in Jin Zixuan’s arms, he froze. “Sister,” he breathed. “You’re alive.”

“You’re not planning on doing something silly like leaving us here with my brother, are you?” Jiang Yanli asked.

No matter that his face didn’t betray a thing, she still read him so well. It was, in fact, exactly what he planned to do. Through Jiang Wanyin, they’d heard the news. By happy accident only, he hadn’t killed his father or his brother. Rumor had it that Jin Guangshan had had an arm crafted of solid gold to replace the one his son’s corpse had ripped away. And a leg. But the entire cultivation world, it seemed, could personally vouch they had seen Jin Zixuan kill his wife and son. The Ghost General Wen Ning had been caught after his rampage, he and his sister burned to ash, but that was not enough to make up for such a crime. And so, there had been only one possible answer. Wei Wuxian had to die.

Jiang Wanyin’s own part in this, he did not speak of, but it was understood.

“If you think I would even consider returning to Koi Tower,” said Jiang Yanli. “After what they did to you?”

He hadn’t told her all they did to him, all they planned to do. Not yet. “How did you know?”

“I know you could never hurt me.”

“A-Li, I did. No one was controlling me when I…” The jagged scars where he had ripped into her back would never go away; his wife would forever be marked by his rage.

“I saw everything that went on in Koi Tower that day. Blame yourself if you must; I will not.” She reached for his hand. “A-Cheng doesn’t, either.”

“Wei Wuxian did,” said Jin Zixuan, remembering Chenqing’s scream. “And he’d know best.”

Jiang Yanli looked down. “A-Xian blamed himself.” Blamed himself for Jin Zixuan’s death, for thinking he could make things right by bringing him back, for—but that was over now. They had to move on. “Zixuan,” said Jiang Yanli. “Are you going to hurt me again?”

“No!”

“See, there you have it. And do you want A-Ling to grow up in Koi Tower?”

For his son he wanted a childhood free of want and worry, where he could grow up strong, surrounded by family and friends who would make sure he had nothing but the best. For his son he wanted the life he’d always thought he had. And so, again, he answered, “No.”

“If we stay here at Lotus Pier, the cultivation world will learn we’re alive soon enough,” said Jiang Yanli. “So it’s settled. When I’m well enough to travel, we’ll leave here together.” She really meant it. When he had, quite literally, no life to offer her, Jiang Yanli would still choose to share hers with him. “Husband, no matter what you have become, no matter what the world thinks of you, I will not mourn you again.”

CODA

The first time Jin Zixuan returned to Koi Tower, he meant only to retrieve his sword. Instead he found a boy, frightened and alone in rooms far bigger and grander than his presence could fill. “I, I, I—I’m not trying to take your place!” Mo Xuanyu cried out.

“I’m only here for Suihua,” Jin Zixuan told his newfound younger brother. “Tell no one I was here.”

Frantically, terrified, Mo Xuanyu nodded. And the half-formed idea—that he could find his father again, talk to him, find both forgiveness and justice—flew away for good.

He still kept up with the news of the cultivation world. The second time he returned to Koi Tower, it was after hearing what lengths Jin Guangshan went to, to protect the criminal Xue Yang. Xue Yang wasn’t his concern, not anymore. But if Jin Guangshan needed him alive—

“I would have come sooner,” Jin Zixuan told Wen Ning after pulling those familiar metal pins from his skull. “I heard you had been burned to ash.”

Shaking his head, Wen Ning said, “You have no reason to come for me, Young Master Jin.”

“I have two,” Jin Zixuan replied.

Then, together, they freed Wen Qing. She had saved Jin Guangshan’s life that day, and been rewarded with her own.

They lived as rogue cultivators, never staying in one place for long. Jin Zixuan and Wen Ning could defeat any prey on a night hunt, while Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing, under false names, acted as their public face. Sometimes, Wen Qing worked as a traveling doctor.

There was always some tension between Wen Ning and Jin Zixuan—even if Jin Zixuan knew Wen Ning wasn’t at fault, so much had gone wrong because of that one moment. But Wen Ning was such a good uncle to Jin Ling, it was easy to put that behind them. They were a family now—a strange family, built on circumstance rather than affection, but family nonetheless.

Jin Zixuan did not return to Koi Tower for his father’s funeral.

One day, while in a town investigating a case, Wen Qing encountered Lan Wangji. He showed no signs of recognition, and they worked together until the case was solved, but after, he confronted her. He bore her no ill will, he promised, but there was something very important he needed to tell her.

That night was the first time Jin Zixuan had ever seen the Wen siblings truly happy. Even Jin Ling, who was four years old now, noticed something was strange. Who was this other boy that Aunt Qing and Uncle Ning kept talking about? And what had he done to deserve so much attention when he wasn’t even here?

They arranged a visit. Lan Wangji warned them that A-Yuan had lost his memories, so in order not to frighten the boy, only Wen Qing would see him this first time—but Jin Ling was so curious, he had to watch. A-Yuan was shy and nervous, and once Jin Ling saw that he wasn’t the threat to his family’s affections he had feared, his curiosity got the best of him. “Aunt Qing’s the scary one,” he told the older boy. “You should meet Uncle Ning instead!”

A-Yuan had heard about fierce corpses. He knew they were supposed to be frightening, but for some reason, he wasn’t afraid.

By chance, Jin Zixuan learned that Mo Xuanyu had been expelled from Koi Tower. “You could travel with us,” he offered upon seeing the appalling conditions where Mo Xuanyu lived now.

“Mother still needs me,” Mo Xuanyu replied. “But I think I’ll be joining you soon, big brother.”

They returned often to Lotus Pier, where Jiang Wanyin filled in the gaps in Jin Ling’s education. Jin Ling was quickly growing into a young teenager with everything to prove, and—as a nobody rogue cultivator joining in night hunts with youths from powerful sects, including the one that should have been his own—he insisted on being the very best.

“I wonder if we were wrong to tell him where he came from,” said Jiang Yanli. “He dreams of returning to take his place at Koi Tower.”

“As is his right,” said Jin Zixuan, but they both knew it would probably never happen.

When they had money and time to spare, they would sometimes return to Mo Village, and Jiang Yanli cooked for Mo Xuanyu. He ate what they gave him, but each visit, the enjoyment in his eyes seemed less than the last. “Big brother, do you want to have a living body again?” he asked one night. “You're jealous of me, just for eating this soup.”

“There's no point thinking about it.”

“But there is!” He shoved a handful of papers at Jin Zixuan. “Do you want a living body? Because sometimes, I don't.”

When Jin Zixuan realized what was written there, he tore it up. “What are you thinking? This doesn't have to be your life. You don't have to stay here!”

Mo Xuanyu looked down. “I'll be joining you soon, big brother,” he said, once again.

And then, one night, across the years and the distance, Wei Wuxian's command rang out. “Wake up!”