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Chapter Text

Mo Xuanyu has a plan. 

He cannot live like this anymore – of that much, he is certain. The torment of this household, the abuse of his family, the forbidden knowledge he’s burdened himself with, all of it weighs heavy on his strained mind like a stone held by the surface tension of the water. He isn’t meant to hold that much – he isn’t meant to last much longer. It’s a miracle he’s lasted this long already without that thin layer bursting into oblivion. 

But he knows how he’s going to fix it. He’s been researching, planning, preparing, for the perfect solution. Mo Xuanyu cannot live like this, but nor can he let his family go on living as they have. They’re shrouded in luxury and ego, while he stays locked in some forgotten room out of their sight and minds. 

No, he cannot allow them to continue living like this either. Mo Xuanyu needs to get away from this, and the Mo Clan needs to pay for their sins. For what they’ve done to him.  

(His mind wasn’t always this taut, this fragile. 

His body wasn’t always this scarred. 

This scared. ) 

And thus, his plan. Mo Xuanyu cannot take his own revenge – this, he knows well. He lacks the strength, and he could not take the aftermath. Mo Xuanyu has never had the physical or mental fortitude needed to take his family down himself, and he’s well aware of that. 

What he does have, however, is resentment (a lot of it), and a rather uncommon skill. After all, demonic cultivation isn’t something one comes across every day. 

Mo Xuanyu can’t take his own revenge, but he can facilitate it. He can wake up a sleeping dragon, something – someone – big and powerful enough to take that revenge for him. He can bind it to his will, point it at his target and let it fly like a loosed arrow, and simply… watch the carnage unfold. All of his desires can come true with the completion of this one simple task. 

He’s going to raise the Yiling Laozu. 

Is it wise? Of course not. But Mo Xuanyu doesn’t need wise , he needs effective , and the Yiling Laozu is nothing if not effective. The necessary necromancy will suit his purposes for this one lofty task. 

The ritual isn’t exactly a difficult one, but it’s time-consuming and complex, and Mo Xuanyu slowly finds that his every waking moment is becoming consumed by this goal. If he’s not being tormented by the main household, he’s sequestered away in the storage room they call his quarters, working feverishly to the point of collapse on his project. It doesn’t matter what it takes from him in the process, as long as it still succeeds in the end. As long as he gets what he wants. 

(It doesn’t matter what happens to him, as long as he drags his enemies down in his wake.) 

And after weeks of planning, of sleepless nights and mealless days, finally – finally, he’s ready. Finally, he can put his plan into action. 

The talismans are strung all over the room and the circle of blood is drawn on the dusty floor. Mo Xuanyu sits in the middle with the blade in his hand, ready to begin the incisions. Four of them, running along the length of his left arm, will mark his targets for the monster he intends to loose upon them. The scars won’t heal until their final breath is drawn, if he does this right. 

If this works. 

It will. It has to. And if it doesn’t, he’ll try again, and again, and again, until it does work. Despite the cruelty of his world, Mo Xuanyu has never been one to give up, especially not when he’s come so far already. 

The resentful energy billows out around him in a dissolving cloak of wrath and pain and fear, and he can feel the concentration burning up along his arms as he struggles to keep it under control. He needs this to last just a little longer. Just long enough for him to complete the ritual, and then… and then, he can finally let go. 

(He wishes there were another way, but he knows there isn’t. This is the only option if Mo Xuanyu ever wants to be free.) 

oOoOo

A-Qing is dead. 

This, she knows well. She distinctly remembers the feeling of her eyes and tongue being ripped from her head as the life left her body, ensuring that even in death, she would never be able to spill Xue Yang’s secrets. She’s familiar with the feeling of being a soul untethered, wandering hazily around Yi City and chasing away any weary travellers, lest they become the next objects of that awful man’s tricks. 

She saw what he did to Xiao Xingchen (to A-Die, a small part of her whispers), not to mention that stranger who showed up looking for him – Song Lan. She remembers cruelty beyond any she’s ever seen before. 

She remembers the way Xiao Xingchen’s blade shone as it sliced through the flesh of his throat and his body crumpled to the ground a moment later. 

So, yes, A-Qing is dead. It’s fine, though – she’s not upset about it, although she’s sure that anyone else in her position would be. For A-Qing, however, anyone else she might have loved is dead as well, even if Xiao Xingchen’s soul is prevented from moving on thanks to that stupid soul-capture pouch. Maybe that will change when she finally finds someone who can take down the monster behind it all. 

Even in life, the few tricks she picked up from watching Xue Yang were never enough to combat him. Never enough to fix what was broken – what he himself had broken. No matter how hard she tried, how much blood and time she poured into it, her best efforts were never enough. 

Even alive, she was never enough. 

Given that she’s dead now, though, it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine her surprise at waking up in a flesh and blood body, with breathing lungs and a beating heart. With sighted eyes and an intact tongue. 

A-Qing doesn’t have to imagine that surprise, since she’s already feeling it. 

It’s odd to feel a body around her that doesn’t quite fit the shape of her soul. It’s even odder to see the shaky hands in front of her as she slowly raises them, turning them over to inspect their shape. She hasn’t seen a thing in years. 

These hands are bigger than her own, and rougher too. A-Qing’s own hands had been calloused and bruised for a long time due to her life on the streets, but she’d always had long, thin fingers, and the little cuts and smudges had disappeared after she and Xiao Xingchen had settled in Yi City. Even without his sight, he had always seemed to know when she’d nicked a finger or gotten dirt all over herself, and he had always helped her clean up – slowly, meticulously, with planned motions that spoke to his carefulness. She’d always thought privately that he would probably still be that careful and meticulous with or without sight. 

Given the difference in shape and size, it’s obvious that these hands are not A-Qing’s own, although the blood coating the fingers brings a familiar feeling to mind. Her own hands had been bloodied often before her death, and they’d been permanently stained red when she’d died with her own blood spattered all over her fingers. 

If they’re not A-Qing’s hands, though, then that begs the question: whose are they? 

A-Qing draws in a long, slow breath (and what a novel thing it is to be able to breathe again), and then lets it out again. There is resentment in this body, and she can’t tell if it’s her own or someone else’s. Probably a mix of both, if she’s being honest. 

After a few moments, she deems herself settled enough to attempt movement. It’s a struggle with the way this whole body shakes and shudders around her, but she eventually manages to get a grip on a nearby table and haul herself to her feet. This body’s clothes are ragged and bloodstained, made of a coarse tan canvas that speaks to an obvious lack of care. The room she’s in seems to be a back shed of some sort, and it’s clear that it was built well, but hasn’t really been maintained. 

This seems like the kind of place where someone would put something to forget about it. Given the state of this body, she can assume that someone did exactly that. 

So, an unknown person (who seems to be a teenaged boy a few years older than herself, judging by the height and build) was left in this shed, and the talismans and blood spatters surrounding her suggest… what? Demonic cultivation, obviously, but what was he trying to accomplish? 

A-Qing slowly staggers over to the nearest talisman, which lays crumpled beside the circle of blood she’d woken up in, and picks it up, smoothing it out on the table she’s been using to lean against. The body’s legs are weak and shaky, but that could be more of a result of expending too much energy than lacking the strength to stand in the first place. 

The talisman isn’t one she explicitly recognises, but its intention is clear. It looks like some mix of a binding talisman and one of those lure flags she sometimes saw cultivators carry to their night hunts. 

A talisman to summon and bind a spirit. A soul? And the specifications for resentful energy in spades… the boy who drew this wasn’t just trying to summon any spirit. He was looking for something strong. A-Qing hadn’t assumed she would fit that bill, but apparently Xue Yang’s brief influence was more than enough. 

Did he summon her soul and then… bind her to his own body?  

But then, where did his soul go? It couldn’t have just disappeared – was it bound to someone or something else? Was it banished? Was it– was it consumed by the ritual? 

God, she hopes it wasn’t consumed by the ritual. 

A-Qing slowly descends to the floor again, sliding down the wall and running an absentminded hand through this body’s loose hair. It’s long and spiky, but rather unkempt – another tally to suggest that this boy had basically been tossed in the woodshed to be forgotten about. 

Red spatters on the walls. Talismans littering the floor. A circle to summon a soul drawn in blood under her feet. A body left emaciated and forgotten, filled by the very spirit it summoned. 

“What about your soul?” A-Qing whispers, a raspy voice leaving her throat and disappearing quickly in the frightening silence of the shed. “Where did it go?” 

And then– 

It’s small. So small that if she wasn’t looking, she wouldn’t see it, but she is looking. Despite her white eyes, A-Qing is always watching, especially when people think that she isn’t, and so she sees that little spark of soul out of the corner of her eye, flickering in response to her words. Whether it’s an answer or a call for help, she doesn’t know, but it’s something, and that’s more than she had a moment ago. 

A-Qing hesitates, but quickly steels her nerve and reaches out with one shaky hand to touch the edges of the soul fragment. Its energy is a red so dark it’s almost black, tainted with untold throes of resentment, but it’s still intact enough to connect with her touch. 

‘This wasn’t meant to happen,’ murmurs the soul fragment, sounding so lost and so confused, and A-Qing can’t help but agree. ‘It wasn’t supposed to go this way. I’ve done something wrong. What did I do wrong?’

“Did you summon me here?” She asks before she can stop herself, voice barely more than a breath in this empty chamber. 

The fragment spikes, and it seems to be growing larger, more substantial, as it reaches back for the fingers brushing against it. ‘I summoned a soul. I wanted someone strong enough to take revenge. I asked for a demonic cultivator.’

Ah. 

A-Qing now understands where this went wrong. 

“You reached for a demonic cultivator,” she says. “Did you know… who were you reaching for? And who are you?” 

‘I wanted the Yiling Laozu. I reached for the closest demonic cultivator, because it could not be anyone other than him. I am Mo Xuanyu.’  

“...Ah,” A-Qing says. “I am… not the Yiling Laozu.” 

The fragment is beginning to take shape now, tendrils of black forming into a nearly tangible shape that she recognises instantly. The loose hair, the calloused hands, the tattered clothing – this is the soul of the body she now inhabits. This is the soul who summoned her here by accident in his quest for a spirit to take his vengeance for him, and who then got displaced from his own body for his troubles. 

‘Not the Yiling Laozu,’ he murmurs. There’s a hopeless look on his face as he shakes his head. ‘It was… for nothing. I was going to dissipate in that ritual, you know. I thought that… that even if I failed, it wouldn’t matter, because I wouldn’t be around to see it.’  

“But now you are.” 

‘But now I am, and I can’t even do anything to fix it. I can’t fix it. I failed and it’s stuck this way forever.’

At that, however, A-Qing pauses. “Not… necessarily.” 

Mo Xuanyu’s head jerks up from where he had buried it in his hands, and he fixes her with a desperately confused look. ‘What do you mean? What does that mean?’  

“You wanted to summon the Yiling Laozu. Right?” 

‘Yes.’  

“For your revenge.” 

‘Yes. He was going to kill my family. They were– I needed them gone, and I couldn’t do it myself. The Yiling Laozu would be bound to do it for me.’  

He wanted his family dead. A-Qing should be worried about that, but she thinks of too-thin hands and tattered clothes, of a blood-covered shed where someone was left to be forgotten about, and she finds that she doesn’t actually mind Mo Xuanyu’s vengeance as much as she probably should. In fact, she really doesn’t mind it one bit. 

A-Qing thinks for a moment, musing before she speaks. “You see… I was still around as a resentful spirit because there was somebody I wanted to get rid of, too. You want the Yiling Laozu to kill your family, and I need someone to kill the man who brought about my father’s death.” 

(Because in all the ways that mattered, Xiao Xingchen had been A-Qing’s father, and it was absolutely Xue Yang’s fault that he had died. Of that, she is utterly certain.) 

“I think,” A-Qing says quietly, “that there may be a way for both of us to get what we want.” 

oOoOo

In the three days it takes to reset the array and prepare for a second attempt at raising the Yiling Laozu from the dead, Mo Xuanyu’s body does not leave the shed once, nor does a single person come to check on him. It seems that A-Qing’s initial assumption was correct – the Mo household had most certainly left one of their children locked up here to forget about. 

The small stashes of food and water hidden under a loose floorboard are what keeps the body going, and A-Qing is grateful for the older boy’s foresight. He mentions, in passing, that there is a well in a courtyard nearby that he would sneak to when he needed to refill his supply of water, but that if he were to be seen there, the main house would make sure he regretted it. He tells her that they rarely like to remember him, and only come to check once a week or so to make sure that his corpse isn’t lying there rotting. He tells her of their hatred of his mother that extended to him, bone-deep and debilitating even in his earliest memories, only growing worse after his mother’s untimely death. 

He tells her of his one chance at escape, at his attempts at getting legitimised as one of Jin Guangshan’s children – or even at earning a place as a low-ranking disciple if it would just get him out of here – only for his hopes to be dashed when he was kicked out. They had accused him of being a cutsleeve, which was true, and of making advances toward their sect leader, which was not true. Not only did Mo Xuanyu have no interest in him whatsoever, but the man was also his half-brother, by blood if not legality. There was no way he would ever make advances on someone in his own family. 

But the accusations had been made anyways, and Mo Xuanyu had been sent away from the sect in disgrace, having nowhere to return to but the very household he was trying to escape in the first place. They hadn’t really let him out of the shed since. 

All in all, A-Qing can’t really find it in herself to be opposed to his plans of vengeance. These people had hurt him badly – it isn’t her place to deny him his retribution, nor would she try to even if it was. 

She can understand, in a way, the desire to get rid of those who hurt you. It isn’t that far off from what she wants to do to Xue Yang. The revenge aspect is one part of it, sure, but there’s also the reassurance that now, those evils can never hurt you again. Mo Xuanyu cannot be harmed by his family if they’re all dead. Xue Yang cannot torment Xiao Xingchen and his loved ones if he is dead. 

And thus, their plan. The Yiling Laozu will be bound to destroy their enemies – five people in total, four tallies on the left arm and one on the right. The Mo Clan, their head servant, and Xue Yang. If the two teens can get the summoning right this time, those who harmed them will never be able to do so again. 

A-Qing sits in Mo Xuanyu’s body in the centre of the circle, surrounded by blood and talismans as the older boy’s soul sits across from her in a mirrored position. His intangible hands are resting atop her own in an ineffective gesture of comfort, one she appreciates nonetheless. She’s told him about her own past, her own plans of revenge, and he has been nothing but sympathetic. Who could understand her story better than one who has been hurt himself? 

‘It will work,’ he assures her. ‘It has to.’  

“I hope you’re right,” A-Qing murmurs in response, and activates the array. 

With a snap of the thread between life and death, Wei Ying draws breath once again. 

Chapter Text

Wei Ying is having a really weird day. 

For one thing, he’s alive again. Mostly alive. Well, his soul is in a living body, at least, even if it’s not his own, so that basically counts, doesn’t it? 

For another thing, though, he’s currently sitting on a blood-covered floor and being observed by two ghostly… teenagers? One of them is certainly in her early teens, but the other could be anywhere from 18 to 23 – the hollowed cheeks and malnourished form make it hard to tell. The girl is in somewhat better shape, though she still has some residual boniness from what Wei Ying can only assume was a portion of childhood spent hungry. He, of all people, knows how that never truly goes away. 

The thing is, he doesn’t know who either of these people are. He doesn’t know where he is, or how he got there, or why he’s been brought there in the first place, and the presence of the onlooking spirits is really only making things more confusing. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, nearly coughing out the word through a throat too dry to speak. “Hey, can you tell me what’s going on?” 

The girl grimaces. Wei Ying is pretty sure he can see phantom trails of blood around her eyes and mouth, but they’re gone before he can blink. ‘So, um. You are the Yiling Laozu, right?’

“...Yes? Why?” Oh, fuck, don’t tell him these two got sacrificed to summon him. Or… did one of them sacrifice the other? But if that’s the case, why are there two ghosts and only one body? God, this whole situation is so confusing. 

‘At least we got it right this time,’ the male ghost says to his… friend, presumably, given how familiar they seem with each other. She could be a sister, he supposes, but they don’t quite look similar enough for that. Maybe if they were dressed in the same clothes, he could see it, but the slight resemblance is more like distant cousins than siblings. ‘I don’t think we’re still supposed to be here, though.’  

‘Oh, definitely not,’ the ghost girl agrees. 

…Huh. Was this some kind of murder-suicide pact between the two? Did they plan to die and let their souls dissipate in order to… what, reanimate him? But that can’t be right, because this isn’t his body. He’s been revived, it seems, but he wouldn’t call it reanimation. 

Wei Ying looks down at his hands and confirms that, just as he’d thought, they’re definitely not the hands he died with, nor is the rest of his body. It actually looks closer to the ghost guy over there than anything else. 

“I have a question,” he says, not bothering to look up as he inspects the open wounds running up his arms. Four on the left, one on the right, which is an odd pattern for what he assumes to be curse marks. “Did you two both get killed to bring me here?” 

‘Not… exactly,’ the girl mutters evasively. 

The other ghost shakes his head. ‘I… she was already dead. I summoned her on accident, when– when I tried this the first time. We only got you here because we agreed to work together.’  

“Uh-huh. And why did you want to summon me? I see the curse marks, but that doesn’t really tell me much.” 

Both ghosts open their mouths to respond, but before either one can get a word out, there’s a banging on the door to the shed that startles all three of them. The male ghost goes stark white and his eyes widen, and the girl’s gaze flicks between him and the door for a split second before it caves inward and a whole host of people rushes into the dingy room. 

Wei Ying mostly ignores what the man leading the crowd is saying, focussed more on the abject terror he can see on the face of the spirit whose body he’s in. It’s not just fear, it’s recognition – this must not be the first time such a thing has happened. The talismans around the room are stomped on and ripped up, the blood on the walls and floor ignored except for the smudges left by the boots, and Wei Ying himself gets treated to a front-row seat of how this new body of his handles being kicked by a bunch of grown men. 

It’s not the worst hting he’s ever felt, but it’s still not pleasant, and the pain of the forming bruises is only worsened by the fact that he hasn’t felt anything in about thirteen years now. The fact that the body they’re kicking belongs to a traumatized young man who looks utterly terrified of them really isn’t helping, either. 

Finally, the men leave, and Wei Ying feels like he can breathe again. Some of that abject panic is starting to leave the male ghost’s face as well, and the girl has pressed herself up against his side in a semi-effective attempt to help him calm down quicker. Wei Ying didn’t hear a word of whatever those people were saying, and he doubts the ghosts did either, but he’s also pretty sure it was nothing more than insults and drivel. 

“Who were they?” He finally asks, keeping his voice low and level. If he’s quiet, he’s less likely to get overheard, and he’s also less likely to startle the spooked ghost further. 

The male ghosts shakes his head, but after a moment’s hesitation, his friend answers for him. ‘His… not really family members, because they suck and we hate them, but they’re his blood. They’re also the ones who locked him in here to be forgotten about, because they fucking suck. The guy leading them, that’s one of the people we want gone. The one who was kicking you.’  

There had been a couple people kicking him, but only one had been going for the head, so Wei Ying is pretty sure he knows which one the ghost girl means. “Right. So… you summoned me here, the Yiling Laozu, to kill his… brother?” 

‘Cousin. Among others.’  

“Mhm. Okay. Why, exactly, did you decide that this was what you needed to do? And also, how? This doesn’t really seem like beginner stuff, you know.” 

‘I did my research,’ the male ghost pipes up. ‘There are… rituals. And things. If you know where to look. I meant to get you here days ago, but like I said, the first attempt… did not exactly do what i wanted it to.’  

‘Eh, trial and error,’ says the girl, which is… an upsettingly blasé approach to necromancy. Maybe she’s simply being casual about this because she was the one getting necromanced. ‘And anyways, we got him here eventually. You seem reasonable, Yiling Laozu-gongzi, so I don’t mind sharing my story. Yu-ge?’  

‘...Fine. He can know mine, too. But… could you tell both?’  

The girl nods, and turns to Wei Ying. When she fixes her gaze on him, he realises that her eyes are pure white – they’d been hidden behind her spiky bangs earlier, but now that her face is towards him, it’s clear as day. Is she blind, or was she simply born with an unusual feature? 

‘So,’ the spirit girl begins. ‘First of all, I’m A-Qing and he’s Mo Xuanyu, but don’t call him Mo-anything, because that’s his clan’s name and his clan can go fuck themselves. Actually, I’ll probably lead with his story so I can give you more context. Yu-ge, do you mind that?’  

‘No, go ahead.’

Wei Ying raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t interrupt as A-Qing clearly settles herself in for Storytime. She’s surprisingly imperious about it, considering how her clothes and build suggest a rather rough background. 

‘I ended up here about three days ago, as you know, and we have been locked in this shed the entire time. From what I understand, the Mo Clan didn’t like Yu-ge’s mother and they super don’t like him, so they decided to stick him somewhere to forget about, and make up a story about him being crazy so no one would ask where he went. They’re terrible and mean and they only come in here to beat him up or insult him, and he would’ve already died by now if he weren’t so clever.’  

All throughout A-Qing’s explanation, Wei Ying is glancing periodically towards Mo Xuanyu, who seems to have calmed down from his earlier panic. He doesn’t seem distressed by A-Qing’s descriptions of his apparently shit life, which is good, but he also seems a little too unphased, as though this is all just normal day-to-day stuff for him, which is not good. 

‘But anyways,’ A-Qing finishes, ‘that’s why he wanted to summon the Yiling Laozu. He can’t take out his family by himself, so the idea was that you would do it for him. That’s what the marks on the left arm are for – his aunt and uncle, his cousin, and… another guy.’  

Makes sense, makes sense. The fact that she refused to name the fourth person is a little worrying, but he’ll get to that later. “What about you, then? I see one more mark on the right arm, too.” 

‘That one is for my father’s murderer.’  

…Okay, wow. That’s certainly a twist. 

Considering how bad this Mo Xuanyu’s family was, to find out that this girl would help summon the literal Yiling Laozu to get back at the person who took her family away? It makes perfect sense, of course, but it’s still rather unexpected given the circumstances. 

‘He didn’t strike the killing blow, but he might as well have. He caused my father’s death, his partner’s death, he practically murdered a whole town just so he could play puppeteer with the corpses. I heard him bragging about killing an entire clan at one point, too. He’s a sick bastard and I don’t want him to hurt anyone else, so he’s got to go.’

Wei Ying blinks. “You know what? That is completely understandable. What… did you say his name was again?” 

‘Xue Yang.’

Xue Yang. Xue Yang, Xue Yang… why does that name sound familiar? Where did he know that guy from? “And can you tell me who your father was?” 

‘Technically, he adopted me, so we don’t share any blood, but he still took care of me and– and treated me like I really was his kid. His name was Xiao Xingchen.’

Oooohh, fuck. Wei Ying remembers where he knows those names from now. 

(The massacre of the Chang Clan. Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan showing up one after the other, and leaving together like a matched set. Xue Yang’s convenient disappearance from existence as the war ramped up and the attention shifted away from him and his crimes.) 

(Xiao Xingchen’s reputation as Baoshan Sanren’s only living disciple after Cangse Sanren’s untimely death. In another life, he might have been like family to Wei Ying.) 

His face is apparently doing something rather interesting as he processes this information, because both of the ghosts are starting to give him a weird look. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to zone out. Something wrong?” 

‘You know A-Qing’s father,’ Mo Xuanyu points out. ‘You recognised his name.’ 

“...Yeah. I met him once in passing, years ago. He was… nice. Very honourable. I’m sorry to hear that he’s passed, A-Qing.” 

A-Qing looks sad for a brief moment at the reminder, but shakes her head only a moment later. ‘You don’t have to be sorry. You just– you just have to help me make sure that guy can’t do anything like that again. Okay?’

“Okay. All right.” Wei Ying takes a deep breath and then lets it all out again. He’s so tired of people aksing things of him, demanding his help, but… these are just kids. 

Mo Xuanyu is close in age to him, or at least he would be close to how old Wei Ying was when he died, but in many ways he’d only been a kid himself. These two are kids that were left behind so thoroughly that they thought necromancy was their best option. Judging by what they said earlier, they also didn’t expect to survive that ritual – Wei Ying still hasn’t forgotten A-Qing’s comment about how the two ghosts weren’t still supposed to be there. This was an act of desperation, not of greed. 

And besides, he can’t say that he wouldn’t have helped even if they hadn’t asked. Even without the curse marks, he wants to help these two. He wants to make their misery go away. The fact that they’re asking is honestly good for him, since it means he won’t need to convince them to let him assist. The Wen, for all their virtues, had always tried to refuse his assistance, and it made it so much harder to do anything for them. 

Wei Ying raises his head, making eye contact with each of the ghosts in turn to show his seriousness. They need to know that he’s not kidding about this. “I’ll help you both, if you can help me figure out what exactly needs to happen. Tell me what you need, and I’ll do my best to make it happen. Okay?” 

A beat of silence passes as the ghosts give each other a long look, before both of them nod and Mo Xuanyu speaks their shared response. ‘Okay. We’ll trust you, Yiling Laozu-gongzi.’  

But Wei Ying shakes his head to that, though he’s still smiling. “No, no. If I’m going to help you, there’s no need for such a formal title. Call me Wei Wuxian.” 

A-Qing is smiling at him. 

‘...Thank you, Wei-gongzi. Thank you.’