a grain of millet drifting
by Rose Thorne
Disclaimer: I don't own anything associated with The Untamed, and make no money writing fanfiction.
Chapter One
Wei Wuxian hadn't lied to Lan Zhan after their brief confrontation with Nie Huaisang in Cloud Recesses, not exactly.
Knowing why he'd been brought back, whether somehow his old friend had chosen him specifically for his own reasons, or if that had been entirely Mo Xuanyu's call, wouldn't change anything.
And part of him didn't want confirmation of how much Nie Huaisang had meddled with along the way.
So much had been broken, so many people lost, and a part of him wanted to believe the façade that the indolent Nie Huaisang he had known during their days in the Cloud Recesses still existed.
But once he'd left Lan Zhan and set off on his travels with Little Apple, once he started getting used to being alive again, to having even the tiny wisp of a jindan, barely beyond zhuji, that Mo Xuanyu had gifted him, something he could build on, something other than the gaping hole that had ultimately consumed him, he'd had to face some truths.
He had no family, no home. He didn't know if Jiang Cheng would ever want anything to do with him, and he wouldn't blame him if he didn't. As much as he would always love Lotus Pier, he didn't know that it had ever really been his home.
In some ways, his leaving had been inevitable. Despite being head disciple, he'd never been welcome. And the fall of Lotus Pier would forever be his fault, the ghosts of his own doing. He'd never regret protecting Mianmian and Lan Zhan, but he would always regret the massacre that had followed.
Even if he'd technically been absolved of the death of Jin Zixuan and the bloodbath of Nightless City and shijie's death, his actions had still led to them.
Wei Wuxian spent long, sleepless nights under the stars and listening to Little Apple snore outrageously coming to the understanding that he'd left the Burial Mounds with his sanity shredded. The war and continued use of resentful energy without a jindan had only worsened it. He'd raised the dead, the ancestors of their enemy, defiling their bodies to win the war, and he'd earned a dark and deviant reputation in doing so.
After the war, he'd taken to drinking to dull it all, and doing so had destabilized his mind further. He was sensitive about his inability to cultivate, but couldn't explain why. Surrounded by people who wanted him to do what he could not, he had spiraled.
Really, by the time he'd saved the Dafan Wen temporarily from their fate and gone back to attempt to live in the Burial Mounds, he'd been hanging by a thread. Wen Qing had bullied him into taking care of himself, for the most part, but he'd spent more days than he could count in the Demon Slaughtering Cave capable of little more than opening his eyes, what little energy he had dedicated to keeping the Seal under control.
He remembered very little past Jiang Yanli's death and waking up in the Burial Mounds with the remnants of the Wen who knew death was coming. The seal wanted more, another Nightless City. And he'd known he could absolutely destroy the Jianghu—but that the Seal wanted it gave him enough pause that he knew he needed to destroy it and end it all.
He'd managed to find a way, but the Siege happened just as he was ready. What little sanity he had left went toward an attempt to hide A-Yuan—maybe the one good thing he had managed. And then, as the aunties and uncles and popo were massacred around him, he could only focus on destroying the seal.
Dying in the way that he had, ripped to shreds by corpses, had been agonizing, though the benefit of Jiang Cheng stabbing him had meant he'd died faster. He didn't know if his shidi had meant it to be a kindness, but ultimately it had lessened his suffering before he died. It was likely a better death than anyone else would have given him.
But Jin Guangyao had been right: even before he'd absconded with the Wen remnants, his actions during the war, his temper and frayed sanity, his rages, his desecration of the dead… All of it had painted a target on him.
No, he'd painted it on himself with blood.
Wei Wuxian had come back in a body not tainted by the resentful energy that had burrowed its way into his bones before his death, despite it being his old one free of scars and birth marks, his sanity somehow restored, and was able to see his own self-destruction and how he had made that the only path he could walk through his own trauma-fueled hubris.
Maybe those years dead had done something to heal whatever damage he had inflicted on his own soul, as well. He remembered nothing of that time, and waking up in a body had been like opening his eyes after a long sleep. He'd known he'd been dead, had known time had passed, though not how much at first. Everything that had occurred leading to his death felt so immediate, particularly shijie's death and the knowledge he'd left A-Yuan hiding but didn't know if he'd survived.
The relief he felt that he had at least saved one person couldn't be quantified.
Part of the journey was trying to find where he fit into the world now, but most of it was reflection and coming to terms with the reality that now existed.
He'd steered away from larger cities, opting to travel smaller roads to villages off the beaten path. Many, it seemed, had problems with restless spirits and the like—the occasional yao, even. He took care of what he could, and drafted letters to Lan Zhan when it was something that required more than he was currently capable of.
Perhaps that was something he'd learned—to rely on others and not try to fix everything himself. He could probably handle it all, but there were costs of using resentful energy too much, and in this life he didn't particularly want to pay them.
So he communicated with the odd hungry ghost, used talismans to take down roaming fierce corpses, and handled the smaller yao that he could handle with the jindan he had, using these night hunts to help develop it further, hoping one day he could retrieve Suibian from Jiang Cheng and be able to wield the blade again—assuming his once-brother would let him have the sword.
Everything beyond, that would require more spiritual energy than he had or more resentful energy than he was comfortable using, he sent to Lan Zhan so the local cultivation sect could be alerted. He dared not send them a letter himself; people still had strong feelings about the return of the Yiling Patriarch, and it was just as likely he'd be blamed for the problem as anything.
The rural route he took left him able to travel in anonymity as a rogue cultivator, offering essentially any name but his own. Thanks to the ugly Yiling Patriarch talismans, the common folk didn't know what he looked like. Most often, he went by Wei Yuandao, reminded of Mianmian's happiness at seeing him when he did, that there were people in the world who didn't hate or fear him. The villagers didn't know him, were grateful for his help, whether in setting a spirit to rest or helping with odd jobs in exchange for a meal and a place to sleep by a hearth.
Much of the time, though, he slept beneath a blanket of stars.
One night like that, he heard the sounds of a scuffle and rushed to see what was going on. He expected to need to fight off a bandit, but instead he found a man in Nie colors running through a man dressed head to toe in black, face masked.
As he stood gaping, the Nie disciple bowed to him.
"Wei-gongzi."
That confirmed a suspicion, and the logic of the situation ran through his mind at the speed of light. The courtesy, the Nie colors, what was clearly a would-be assassin's body at his feet. Finally, Wei Wuxian sighed.
"How many assassins?"
The young man smiled.
"Five in as many weeks. You are as smart as Nie-zongzhu said."
Wei Wuxian snorted at that.
"Not if I didn't realize assassins were being sent after me. I'm guessing Nie-xiong knew they'd be hired and sent you to protect me in secret?"
He'd honestly thought he was being left alone by the cultivation world, especially since he wasn't causing any trouble. How very naïve.
The man nodded curtly, then bent to rifle through the corpse's clothing, looking for clues and stripping it of valuables, every bit a Nie.
"He wanted you to be able to travel without worry."
Ah, Nie-xiong…
Perhaps Nie Huaisang was used to working from the shadows and had an agenda, or perhaps he truly just wanted Wei Wuxian to be undisturbed. Whatever his reasons for the secrecy, with this that ship had sailed.
But Wei Wuxian had no idea why Nie Huaisang would bother, not after he threatened him at the Cloud Recesses. Implied threat, but still—he'd expected that would burn a bridge. Not… this.
"I suppose I'm overdue for a visit to the Unclean Realm," he said after thinking it over. "You may as well travel with me openly, unless Nie-xiong would prefer you watch over me in secret?"
Despite the protection he'd sent, Wei Wuxian didn't know if he wanted the Nie clan officially associated with the Yiling Patriarch.
"Sect Leader was not specific about this eventuality. Traveling together openly may deter assassins, though it is easier to catch them off guard if they believe you unprotected."
Ah, so Nie Huaisang didn't care. Wei Wuxian waved off the concern. Now that he knew the threat, it was easily dealt with.
"I can set talisman traps around the campsite. Probably should have done that to begin with."
But he'd been trying to have faith in the cultivation world, he didn't say. Once again, misplaced faith and he should've known better.
"At least that way you can get real sleep as we travel to meet with Nie-zongzhu."
They were a week of travel from the Unclean Realm, and he supposed he'd get answers to questions he hadn't known he had then.
He headed back to his campsite, happy to see his Nie protector was following, and set a gourd of water near the fire to heat and pulled out some tea.
"In the meantime, we can talk about these assassins, eh? We'll bury the body in the morning."
It'd been over a decade since he'd last dug a grave, and it wasn't to bury a body, but he was sure he could manage with the Nie's help.
Zhuji is the foundation building stage of cultivation, the stage before forming the jindan/golden core. Basically, Wei Wuxian is saying Mo Xuanyu was barely into the stage of forming a golden core, so it's barely a wisp, but is still something that has the foundations built for him.
This fic was… unexpected. I wanted to write something for Nie Huaisang's birthday, kind of a reconciliation between him and Wei Wuxian, and this happened. It will likely be no more than three chapters.
The title is a reference to a translation of a Su Shi poem, "First Ode on the Red Cliffs," which was written after his first exile (he was exiled twice, both times for his poetry), while he wandered. There are several translations floating around, but I liked the wording of this one.