Chapter 2 - Reincarnation

Mo Village, 13 years later: Reincarnation

"Wei WuXian received a kick just as he opened his eyes. A voice thundered beside his ear, "Stop playing dead!" The kick threw him backwards, headfirst onto the ground. Fighting the urge to vomit, a thought formed in his head— that's quite a lot of courage you have to kick me, the Patriarch."

The juniors made 'oooh!' sounds.

"Is this just after you were reincarnated, Senior Wei? Ouch- that kick must've hurt. Who do they think they are?!"

However, Wei Wuxian was more alarmed about something else.

"Hey! How can it know my thoughts?? Why is it letting everyone know what I'm thinking!"

The moving pictures were strange - but this! It was unheard of! What god-like power can the ability to pluck thoughts from someone's head and play them out so that half the cultivation world could hear them? Surely this was a bit too rude??

Lan Zhan patted Wei Wuxian's hand sympathetically. Many people privately were thinking, "This is going to be interesting..."

"Whose land do you think you're living on? Whose rice are you eating? Whose money are you spending? What's wrong with taking a few of your belongings? Everything you own should be mine, anyways!"

Aside from this adolescent, duck-like voice, there were the clunks of ransacking chests and smashing objects as well.

Most of the cultivators looked at the fat, rat-faced Mo Ziyuan in distaste.

"Who is that unpleasant boy..."

"Treating others like that!"

"Deserves a good old beating!"

While the Lan disciples who had been there at Mo Village knew Mo Ziyuan's unfortunate fate, they still couldn't make themselves feel too sorry for him.

"Hey!" Jingyi turned to Sizhui. "Do you think we'll turn up on this thing too?"

It was a highly interesting prospect, to be able to re-watch the events of the night from an outsider's perspective. Sizhui wondered if he would see something he didn't notice before. It would certainly be entertaining now that he knew the 'lunatic' was actually Senior Wei.

As Wei Wuxian's eyes gradually cleared up, a dimly-lit ceiling appeared in his sight, followed by a slant-browed person with a sickly composition, drenching him with spittle, "How dare you tell Father and Mother? Did you really think that anybody in this house is going to listen to you? You actually thought I was scared of you!"

A few servant-like hunks shifted over, "Young Master, everything is smashed!"

The young master seemed to be quite pleased, poking Wei WuXian forcefully on the nose, "You dared to tell on me, and look at you now, playing dead on the ground! For whom? Wei WuXian thought wearily. I'm not pretending to be dead at all, since I've actually been dead for a couple of years. Who is this? Where am I? When did I do something as immoral as stealing another's body?

Most of the other cultivators were wondering why Wei Wuxian's thoughts didn't seem to be so vicious and bloodthirsty. And he didn't steal another's body because he thought it was immoral? That was new.

Jingyi was seriously resisting the urge to jump up and throw something at Mo Ziyuan's enlarged face. He had to remind himself several times that we would probably soon be able to see Mo Ziyuan die painfully to calm himself down.

Mostly though, the juniors found it amusing how confused Wei Wuxian was, compared to his normally very confident self.

A bronze mirror rested on the side, probably thrown onto the ground. Wei WuXian grabbed it and looked into the mirror, only to see a ghastly pale face, with two asymmetrical piles of red on each side of his cheek. Add a blood-red tongue onto the features, and he would look like a hanged ghost. He tossed the mirror to the side and wiped his face, finding his hand covered with white powder.

Fortunately, the body wasn't born this way—it was only one of the owner's penchants. He was no-doubt a man, yet he was covered with makeup (not to mention, badly applied makeup). Ugh, how unbearable!

Jingyi snorted. "Of course, that's what you're worried about. The badly applied makeup."

"I wasn't used to looking stupid..." Wei Wuxian muttered.

The array was filled with warped scribbles of incantations, which were somewhat smudged by his body, but came across as gruesome nonetheless. After all, Wei WuXian was known as the Supreme Leader and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, so he was most certainly accustomed to vile-looking arrays such as this one. It turned out that, in fact, he did not seize the body of another—he was offered one. It was an ancient, forbidden technique. Compared to an array, it resembled a curse more. The caster of the array injures themselves by creating incisions on their body, and draws the array and writes the incantations using their own blood, finishing by sitting in the center of the array. They can then summon an extremely villainous ghoul and ask for it to complete their wish. The price to pay was to offer their body to the evil spirit, with their own soul returning back to Earth. This was the forbidden technique opposite to stealing another's body— offering one's body. Because of the grave sacrifices, only few people were brave enough to put it into effect. After all, there were hardly any wishes strong enough for a living person to willingly sacrifice everything that they own. Over thousands of years, only three or four examples have been proven to be true and recorded by history. Without exception, the three or four people's wishes were the same—to take revenge.

"I must say, Wei Wuxian's thoughts are certainly quite helpful for us to understand the background... "

"He certainly knows a lot about this topic, huh?"

"Of course, he is the founder of demonic cultivation, after all. Creepy."

The juniors were resisting the urge to take notes. They snuck glances at Sect leader Lan Xichen and Master Lan Qiren, sitting nearby - they didn't dare take notes about demonic cultivation while their elders could see them.

Wei WuXian refused to accept this. Why would he be put into the category of "extremely villainous ghouls?" Although his reputation wasn't great and he had died in a horrifying way, he neither haunts the living nor seeks vengeance. He could swear that one can't find another wandering ghost as harmless as him.

"Haha! 'Wasn't great' is an understatement."

The other cultivators, against their will, were starting to find Wei Wuxian's commentary funny. He really didn't seem to think he was evil.

"Wait, so the reason why his soul didn't come back to aggrieve us is because he didn't want to?"

"Well... I guess that was good of him?"

"Hmph. He's probably just doing it out of guilt, then."

The juniors were smirking. Wei Wuxian's thoughts were precisely how they imagined them to be.

The difficult part was that, as soon as the evil spirit has taken over the body of the caster, the contract is sealed by default. The evil spirit must grant their wish, or else the curse will cause a backlash. The spirit in possession of the body will be completely annihilated, never to be born again! Wei WuXian raised his hands to find that, unsurprisingly, both of his wrists were crisscrossed with multiple cuts. He proceeded to take off his belt. Under the black clothes, his chest and stomach areas were also covered with what seemed to be lacerations from a sharp tool. Although the bleeding had stopped, Wei WuXian knew that these weren't normal wounds. If he didn't fulfill the wish of the body's owner, the wounds would not be able to heal. It would worsen as the time goes on, and if the time limit was passed, both his soul and this body would be ripped apart.

Lan Zhan stiffened. The thought of Wei Ying's soul just being destroyed - forever - evoked a feeling of terror unparalled to any previous fear he had. He clutched Wei Wuxian's hand tighter, even more determined to protect him in his new life.

From reading scrap pieces of paper lying around, Wei Wuxian started to piece together the life story of the body who he was now inhabiting, whose name appeared to be Mo Xuanyu. The annoying boy who had just come and yelled at him was his cousin, Mo Ziyuan. It was a very messed up life story. Supposedly, to use the forbidden technique, the caster would chant their wish silently. As the evil spirit being summoned, Wei WuXian should have been able to hear his specific requirements. However, it was likely that Mo XuanYu copied fragmented excerpts of the technique somewhere, and skipped this step. Although Wei Wuxian guessed that he wanted to take revenge on the Mo family, but how should he do it? To what extent? To retrieve the items that were taken from him? Or to beat up everyone of the Mo family? Or... To wipe out the whole family?

In all likelihood, it was probably to wipe out the whole family. After all, was there anyone else more "villainous" than him? If Mo XuanYu had dared to summon him specifically, the wish was most likely not an easily fulfilled one. Wei WuXian couldn't help but to say, "You've got the wrong person..."

"Aha!" Sect Leader Yao said triumphantly. "So this is why you killed all of the members of the Mo clan! Because you wanted to save yourself! So selfish!"

However, most of the cultivators secretly felt a bit for Wei Wuxian. In his situation, they would have probably done the same. Such bad luck he had, for Mo Xuanyu to be so clumsy as to forget such an important step!