Chapter Text
There were few places Nie Huaisang hated more than the Xinglu Ridge.
Oh, the mountains were lovely. Filled with majestic pines and firs, and with sharp rock edges that had the beauty of a predator’s teeth. He would love to stroll here, perhaps paint a fan or two inspired by the landscape.
If only the Stone Castles of Qinghe Nie Sect didn’t exist. They sprouted from the ground like overgrown mushrooms and had about as much grace, simple semi-spheres made of gray-white stone. Crude. Both in their construction and their function – to serve as a tomb for saber spirits, balancing resentment with resentment. It reminded Nie Huaisang about the walls of the Unclean Realm; simple and uninspiring.
But sometimes crude solutions worked just fine, and so he’d overseen the construction of another such a tomb in the past couple of weeks. It was ready now, already filled with corpses, which were easy to obtain as the war had just ended. Really, there’d been so many bodies no one seemed to know what to do with them, and Nie Huaisang’s subordinates made sure to only take ones that wouldn’t be missed by their friends or families. Often their friends and families had lain along with them, waiting for a mass burial. Well, they still got it, just in a different spot.
For now, the new Stone Castle was covered in seals suppressing the resentful energy contained inside its walls. Without them and the counterweight to balance the hatred, the corpses would quickly break out.
“Second Master, we’re ready!” Gao Yong called from the group of disciples surrounding the Stone Castle.
Nie Huaisang nodded and approached with his Qiankun bag. It was sealed in a similar manner, though the seal had to be renewed every few days to keep the contents under control. Now, no more – there was a better hiding spot prepared for it. Between all the sabers buried on this mountainside, who would notice one rusty sword?
“On my mark,” Nie Huaisang said, raising the Qiankun bag above the open tomb.
The seal was wavering already, the darkness within distorting the space around, like a living shadow seeping out from the fabric. His heart pounded, but he’d done the same process in the previous life with his brother’s saber, Baxia. Though the Castle was different – he didn’t dare to touch the one prepared for Nie Mingjue’s spirit weapon. His brother might not be meticulous at handling his paperwork, but surely he would’ve noticed that.
“One,” Nie Huaisang said loudly, if in a little high-pitched tone. “Two. Three!”
He shoved the Stygian Sword into the tomb and at the same moment, the disciples broke the formation keeping the corpses in the wall contained. Immediately he was pulled back by Gao Yong, but the precaution was unnecessary. The sword released just a bit more shadowy substance before settling down, and the corpses merely wailed a few times before falling silent. Everything was still, suspended in the perfect state of equilibrium.
Nie Huaisang let out a breath and smiled at Gao Yong. “Well, that was easier than expected. Let’s lock this place up and get out of here.”
The disciples stronger than him pulled the tombstone over the Stygian Sword, and the rest activated the maze array outside. Nie Huaisang had sketched it himself, drawing on his knowledge from the previous life; it would be better than the ones used on the neighboring Castles. Still, no spell was infallible and there was only so much energy it could hold. Cultivators of the same caliber as Lan Wangji or Wei Wuxian in his prime would’ve been able to cross it. But pretty much no one else – not without a token of passage.
“Why didn’t we take Meng Yao with us?” Gao Yong asked when the group started down the mountain. They would walk for a while before mounting their sabers, just so their ascension wouldn’t point anyone to this place. “His cultivation has really improved now that he’s had time to focus on it.”
“It’s not an issue of cultivation,” Nie Huaisang said. “It’s…”
What exactly? In this life, Meng Yao was perfectly innocent. He hadn’t even killed many Wen-dogs since he’d transferred to Nie Huaisang’s division soon after the war started. Espionage might be frowned upon by the righteous cultivators, but Nie Huaisang wasn’t a righteous cultivator, and he strived not to lie to himself. In this life, Meng Yao was more innocent than him.
I just can’t unsee the Jin Guangyao in him, he thought sullenly. Even when he’d set Meng Yao on a much different path. One in which he’d never killed his Jin superior and faced Nie Mingjue’s rage and doubt, had never gone to spy on Wen Ruohan and therefore had never tortured prisoners on his behalf, had never become one of the Venerated Triad… All he’d really done was fall down the Koi Tower’s steps, nurture Lan Xichen back to health in hiding, and helped Nie Huaisang with paperwork.
And yet, Nie Huaisang still waited for the knife to slide into his old foe’s palm.
“The war makes it feel like he’s been in our sect for long,” he said. “But when you count the days, it hasn’t even been a year. And with that memory of his, you can always put things in, but it’s impossible to take them out.”
Gao Yong smiled. “Second Master, you say it as though everybody else keeps forgetting important matters such as the sabers’ curse.”
“Right.” Nie Huaisang forced a short laughter. “I suppose they don’t. Nevertheless…”
“I understand,” Gao Yong said. “He’ll learn when it’s his time to learn. I won’t bring it up again.”
When Nie Huaisang arrived back in the Unclean Realm, he wondered how much work had already mounted waiting for him. It’d been a constant for over a year, but he’d thought the flood of duties would calm down after the war. But while there was less work than before, and the matters he had to weigh on didn’t translate to life and death nearly as often, he was still a wanted man, usually behind the desk to deal with the stacks of formalities his brother shunned.
Speaking of his brother, Nie Mingjue had gone on a night hunt two days before and hadn’t yet returned, apparently so eager to kill more monsters that he was traveling from town to town with a small retinue and sleeping at inns. And there were a lot of monsters, some which popped up because of the war and some who’d simply been ignored while cultivators fought amongst themselves.
Nie Huaisang was ashamed to feel relieved when he’d learned of his brother’s absence, but he couldn’t help it. They’d been clashing a lot lately, Nie Mingjue insisting he picked up his saber, even going as far as towing Nie Huaisang out from his office by the robes. It had never happened before, not in this life at least, and it scared him as much as it angered him. What could he do to finally get it under Nie Mingjue’s thick skull that his younger brother just wasn’t going to become a proper Nie cultivator? The two of them were different people, and Nie Huaisang was quite happy where he was now.
If only Nie Mingjue could be happy for him, too.
Soon he reached the area with his office, where his remaining subordinates, now one third of the number he’d commanded near the end of war, worked. Nie Mingjue had assigned those with highest cultivation level back to night-hunt division or as teachers for the next generation, claiming there wasn’t a need for so many of them to “be wasted in a stuffy office.”
Nie Huaisang was tempted to argue to the contrary. Now more than ever he needed spies and people to handle them. With the past changed so much, he couldn’t predict what the future held based on his memories alone. He needed information. And yet, Nie Mingjue had been particularly cross that day, and Nie Huaisang afraid of appearing as though he was creating a faction inside the sect, so he’d simply bowed and said “Yes, Brother.”
“Welcome back, Second Master Nie.” Meng Yao greeted Nie Huaisang when he entered his office. “I hope your journey was fruitful.”
“Thank you.” Nie Huaisang summoned a smile. They’d been seeing each other on a daily basis, so it wasn’t hard – though his eyes searched for the hints of his nemesis. Meng Yao’s face was easy on the eyes, but not quite as smooth and respectable as Jing Guangyao’s yet. Whether it was the difference in hairstyle and robes, the absence of the vermilion mark, age, a mix or something else entirely, Nie Huaisang couldn’t tell. “Did anything notable happen while we were away?”
He would ask Cai Yun later to see if Meng Yao didn’t hide anything. Not that he was likely to, when he’d been left along with a few trusted disciples. But Nie Huaisang felt safer making sure, just in case.
He dreaded the moment Meng Yao would ask for a transfer to the Lanling Jin Sect. Hadn’t he been there already in the previous life? Nie Huaisang had been coming up with plans to stop him, hoping that it would prevent the rise of Jin Guangyao once and for all, but if Lan Xichen pressured him to allow it… Or worse yet, if he brought the matter to Nie Mingjue…
I could just kill him, was a quiet thought at the back of his mind. Hire someone to stick a knife into his throat. Except Meng Yao was a decent cultivator already, and if Nie Huaisang failed in his attempt, he might awaken the very tiger he was trying to keep asleep. The risk was just too great.
For now, Meng Yao wasn’t showing any signs that he was discontent with his current position.
“Not much happened,” Meng Yao said. “Only one notable message arrived – the Lanling Jin Sect is inviting us for a night hunt on the Phoenix Mountain.”
Right. Nie Huaisang still remembered that affair – all the Great Sects had attended so he’d been there, too. He hadn’t hunted anything, of course, but the party had been a well of gossip, which he’d rather enjoyed. Jin Zixuan’s love to Jiang Yanli was made known then, and in a rather embarrassing but fun to talk about manner.
It was also one of the first times when the Yiling Patriarch had alienated a large number of his war-time allies. Simply by taking one third of the prey with so many sects present, he’d instantly made himself into a threat just as great as Wen Ruohan – perhaps without even realizing. Surely Wei Wuxian, or at least the Wei Wuxian from Nie Huaisang’s memories, had no great ambitions of ruling over others. He was merely a show-off.
Although the Yiling Patriarch remained a mystery to him, especially in this life. The direct causes of his downfall – the Stygian Tiger Seal and Jin Guangyao – were absent, but the trajectory remained the same. Wei Wuxian had been found in the Burial Mounds by Lan Wangji, but it wasn’t before he’d mastered demonic cultivation, and his revenge on Wen Chao was just as terrifying as in the previous life. His future lover was unable to change his mind about it, even though knowing Lan Wangji’s character, he’d surely tried. He would’ve agreed to a fair trial and punishment afterwards, but not the kind of torture Wei Wuxian had concocted.
So the Yiling Patriarch was there, a wild card Nie Huaisang wasn’t sure how to deal with. It wasn’t his primary concern, either. He would let the Siege of the Burial Mounds happen, if it meant he could keep Baxia from killing his brother. And yet… And yet, perhaps Wei Wuxian was the one person who could help with that. If traditional methods could’ve been used to avert this disaster, Qinghe Nie Sect Leaders wouldn’t have been dying prematurely for generations.
Could he simply turn to his old school friend for help?
“Will we be attending the night hunt?” One of the disciples brought Nie Huaisang back to the present. “What do you think, Second Master?”
“Brother will decide when he’s back,” Nie Huaisang said, taking the invitation from Meng Yao’s palms. The paper was so fine it felt like a crime to use it for such a simple task, a note to be discarded later, instead of a work of art. Jins and their money, and their thrice-damned ambitions. “But given that there hasn’t been such a great gathering since the war and most sects will attend… I expect we’ll be there, too.”