Song Lan stood in the coffin house staring at the corpse of Xiao Xingchen. The last thing he had told Wei Wuxian was that he would incinerate Xiao Xingchen's body. He would take care of his soul alongside A-Qing's, roam around the world and extinguish evil, and hopefully, Xiao Xingchen's soul would one day be whole. Xiao Xingchen would be able to turn into a ghost, and Song Lan would finally be able to tell him, that it wasn't his fault, and that Song Lan was sorry.
He would burn the body. That's what he had told Wei Wuxian before he, Lan Wangji, and the young cultivators had left. That had been a while ago. Instead, he was entranced by Xiao Xingchen. He didn't look dead at all, but instead he looked so peaceful, his face relaxed as if he didn't have a care in the world. If it wasn't for the wound across his neck, it would look as if he were just sleeping and would wake up any moment.
He looked ethereal in the white robes and the white bandage over his eyes. It was almost as if he was glowing in the dark.
He was so beautiful.
Song Lan wanted to cry, but that wasn't possible for a fierce corpse.
Over the past seven years in Xue Yang's enthrallment, Song Lan had often wondered whether it was possible for him to shed a tear, but his complete bodily enslavement had prevented him from weeping. Mourning.
Now he that he was free he had discovered the answer. It was not possible. The inability made the pain that much worse.
He so wanted to weep for his friend and for the brave, young girl who had been with him. He was still able to mourn of course, but without tears it just didn't seem real somehow. Song Lan didn't feel the release of emotions that he craved for. Instead, he just felt numb down to his very core.
Xiao Xingchen's body should be burned. His body had been disrespected long enough. But Song Lan was just not ready yet to say his final goodbyes and accept that he would never look upon Xiao Xingchen ever again. He decided to wait. Xiao Xingchen had been waiting for seven years, he could wait a few more days, or weeks if needed.
A part of him waited for Xiao Xingchen to wake up, but Song Lan knew it was foolish. During the years he had not been allowed to look at his friend. Now that he was able to, he couldn't stop staring. He was nowhere near ready to say his final goodbyes.
It had been so long since he had seen Xiao Xingchen's gentle smile. His grace when fighting yao and other demons. His compassion when listening to small-folk in need. And all the little things when they had been on the road, listening to the song of birds, working together to build fires, cooking together, eating together, sleeping together. He sorely missed all of it.
He had been able to block out all of those memories when he had been bound to Xue Yang and not being permitted to see his friend, but now that he looked at his face, all those bitter memories came rushing back to him.
Song Lan's heart ached with longing.
It should never have been this way.
He had been angry at Xiao Xingchen. Song Lan had accepted that he would have been blind for the rest of his life, he wasn't happy of course, but he begrudgingly accepted it. But while he was injured and delirious, Xiao Xingchen had taken it upon himself to take him to Baoshan Sanren's mountain, and given him his eyes.
When Song Lan had woken up in confusion it took him moments to realize that he could see again, and that's when he saw Xiao Xingchen sitting by the bedside. With a white, linen strip across his eyes. Song Lan had known immediately what Xiao Xingchen had done.
Bafflement, confusion, anger, and shame. It all rolled over him in thick, overwhelming waves. How could Xiao Xingchen do this? Song Lan had never asked for this. Song Lan had never wanted anyone to mutilate themselves like this for him.
Selfish. Selfish-selfish-selfish. Selfish self-sacrifice, Song Lan had thought.
"I never want to see you ever again!" Song Lan cringed inwardly at the words he had spewed in Xiao Xingchen's face. He still remembered clear as day the hurt on Xiao Xingchen's face and the resignation when he stood up and walked away, head hung low.
It didn't even take a day before Song Lan came to his senses and regretted the words that he had said in a weak moment of anger. But by then it was too late. Xiao Xingchen was gone, and it would be years before he would see him again.
And now he was dead.
Song Lan felt the urge to cry again with tears that would never come.
He desperately needed to clear his head. With great reluctance he tore his gaze away from Xiao Xingchen's face and walked out of the coffin house.
Some time had passed, and Song Lan had decided to explore Yi City and its surroundings. He was of course familiar with all the streets, all the living corpses inhabiting the houses, and the forests and cliffs, but they all seemed different now that he had gained his bodily autonomy back. Xue Yang had commanded him to patrol all of the streets, forests, and cliffs to ward off intruders, and Song Lan found himself walking the same paths and routes that he had walked for years. It felt familiar to him.
Distantly he was aware that he should feel angry and hatred towards Xue Yang, but all these feelings were dulled and were pushed down by the feeling of nothingness.
He walked the streets that were now clear of the dense fog that Xue Yang had produced, and all of the living corpses were now visible again. Around seven years ago the city had been as lively as any other in the province.
Not long after Xiao Xingchen's death, Xue Yang had slowly but steadily been practicing his demonic cultivation on the citizens and one after one they had all become the living dead, not realizing that they had become corpses long ago. The not quite alive people were now sluggishly going about their day, walking up and down the street as they would have done when they were alive, all with a vacant look in their eyes.
Song Lan had been horrified and disgusted when he witnessed the atrocities performed by Xue Yang, and he felt himself being trapped in a waking nightmare to see what the people were being reduced to. Back then, he had wished that he had the ability to retch, but even the ability to pull a disgusted expression had been robbed from him.
It had been several years since then, and the living corpses had long become a normal part of the day. Song Lan's normal.
Song Lan knew that he should feel just as horrified now as he did then, but the company of these corpses had become eerily comfortable to him. Seeing the men and women shuffling around was vastly better than seeing the city completely void and empty. Song Lan shuddered involuntarily at the thought.
A woman who appeared to have been in her late twenties when she had died nodded at Song Lan the way she always done whenever Song Lan was on guard.
He didn't know whether it was a reflex on her part from when she was alive or whether she did it consciously. He had discovered that albeit their deadness, they still retained some cognitive functions, no matter how sluggish. They were able to hold conversations, albeit slow and simple, they were able to cook and craft paper money, coffins, and other funeral goods, as this had been their specialty years ago, and more.
Through the years, Song Lan had never been able to nod back or otherwise acknowledge the woman as Xue Yang had never expressed that he was allowed to do so. But today he was able to give her a curt, polite nod. She didn't seem to notice, but a tiny part of Song Lan felt gratitude of this small freedom.
It felt… odd, that he was now free. That he was now able to do exactly as he wished. During the years he had yearned for freedom, to be able to kill Xue Yang and pay his respects to Xiao Xingchen and then roam the world fighting evil, as he had always wanted to. But now that he was finally free, it just felt so overwhelming. It had been mental torture at first, being trapped in his own body, but after years it had become his normal.
Underneath the surface, Song Lan had gone from being set ablaze with fury, powerlessness, and humiliation to simply accept his existence. He had resigned himself to somehow distance his inner world from his physical body and as if he was an onlooker looking into the outer world to simply see what each new day would bring. At first, he had tried to fight this acceptance, but after some time he realized that if he didn't, he would probably become insane.
He thought back of his enslavement. He had spent seven years as Xue Yang's puppet. He had thought that Xue Yang would use him to commit several crimes and atrocities, but surprisingly, as he thought back, most of what he had done was so mundane. Sure, there had been the odd traveler and cultivator that Song Lan was forced to take care of. Mostly it was to just observe what the cultivators would do, and if they came too close, he would scare them off. However, most of the time was spent doing ordinary things such as surveying the area, fetching water for Xue Yang, gathering food, scavenging for tools and supplies in Yi City.
Simply by being forced to stay and observe, Song Lan had become intimately and uncomfortably familiar with Xue Yang.
At first Song Lan had thought that Xue Yang did it as a way to torment him, to stay present with Xue Yang as much as possible, even being ordered to watch him sleep at times. Some bizarre punishment that only the mind of Xue Yang could concoct. But after some time had passed Song Lan became more and more aware of the fact that Xue Yang didn't regard him as a person anymore. It just didn't occur for Xue Yang to recognize Song Lan as someone with thoughts, feelings, and opinions. To Xue Yang, Song Lan was just a tool to be used, a puppet that he could command.
Song Lan had no idea how to feel about this. On one hand it meant that it just wouldn't occur to Xue Yang to mentally and spiritually torment Song Lan, but on the other it meant that he had been forgotten. He was little more than a hammer in a tool shed. Should he feel bitter or relieved?
Perhaps Xue Yang was under the illusion that Song Lan wasn't aware of what was going on around him and that consciousness had left him. If that was the case, then Xue Yang was wrong, Song Lan had been aware of and remembered everything.
During the years there had been a routine that both he and Xue Yang had fallen into. Some of his duties had been meal planning, gathering herbs for medicine, scavenging for tools in the city, and choosing his own route for surveillance. Surprisingly enough, this had been a great comfort to Song Lan. Choosing his own route for surveying the area and deciding Xue Yang's food, and all the other small things where he could make decisions had been an anchor, some of the instances of his day-to-day existence where he was allowed free will. Song Lan was aware that these small freedoms weren't a conscious mercy on Xue Yang's part, as he just wasn't interested in micromanaging Song Lan's every decision.
With Song Lan taking care of all of these daily chores it left Xue Yang a lot of free time to attempt to bring back Xiao Xingchen. Song Lan had to admit that this little cretin was dedicated. Relentless. In all of the seven years, Xue Yang had never wavered in his attempt to return Xiao Xingchen to life. Song Lan didn't know for what purpose, and it had truly baffled Song Lan at first. Xue Yang had broken Xiao Xingchen's soul, hadn't that been the goal all along? What more could there be?
Song Lan had expected Xue Yang to leave Yi City after Xiao Xingchen's death. Return to whatever hole he came from and bring Song Lan with him. Perhaps to some former employer or place of residence. But after a month had passed it became clear to Song Lan that Xue Yang had nowhere else to go and he would not leave Yi City, not ever. He was just going to continue to attempt bringing Xiao Xingchen back, and that was exactly what he did for the past seven years until the Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji put an end to it.
By now Song Lan had reached the forest. He didn't even remember leaving the city as his mind had been elsewhere and his feet just took him on the familiar patrol route. This part of the route was his favorite part as the forest would be filled with birdsong throughout the day, life that not even Xue Yang could snuff out. It was no different today. He decided to put his mind to rest and just enjoyed the sounds of nature.
It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, there was a gentle breeze ruffling through the leaves and sunlight shone through them and illuminated the forest floor in patches. At the corner of his eyes, he spied a fox that ran away the moment it saw him walk past.
Little by little some of the numbness in his mind and heart began to loosen and he began to feel lighter. He didn't need air, yet all the same Song Lan inhaled the smell of nature and earth deeply into his lungs. Simply breathing was one of the small luxuries he hadn't been afforded during the years and Xue Yang had never given him permission to do so, and Song Lan had no means to ask.
For a while Song Lan just walked his usual route with a light and clear mind. Too soon he left the forest and entered the cliff-like area instead. Song Lan remembered how two cultivators had once found the city and spotted Song Lan. It didn't take long for them to realize that he wasn't exactly alive and were going to put him down. If the cultivators weren't from any major sects Song Lan were under strict orders to kill anyone who came too close. Sometimes he would execute them with his sword, Fuxue, other times by putting a hand through their hearts.
There were times where Xue Yang were present, and he would have his fun with the cultivators. Taunting and jeering at them until he would finally use some dirty trick by perhaps employing Song Lan to make an ambush from behind or Xue Yang would distract them and cast poisons into their eyes or mouths. This would leave them defenceless for long enough that Xue Yan could cut out their tongues. Song Lan was pretty sure that Xue Yang kept the tongues and brought them home with him, but he never knew for what reason.
The lightness had gone from Song Lan's mood and were now clouded with anger and guilt. Those cultivators dead, for what. For the crime of simply approaching Yi City.
It was never necessary to kill them, Song Lan thought.The wards and the talismans would have been enough to turn the cultivators away. Yet Xue Yang would not have been satisfied.
With anger in his heart, he found that he had circled back to the coffin house containing Xiao Xingchen. He was struck with a pang of guilt, even though he knew that it wasn't logical to blame himself for killing those cultivators or being forced to observe Xue Yang having his fun with them. A part of him wanted to go in and check on Xiao Xingchen, but a louder part felt too ashamed to be near him now. It would feel like he would be defiling his friend with his presence.
To clear his head once more Song Lan decided to walk his round one more time. Soon he entered Yi City once more, but that soon proved to worsen Song Lan's mood. During his first patrol Song Lan's mind had been occupied with other things, but this time around he was a lot more observant.
He stopped in the middle of what was once the square. He took in all the living corpses. All these men and women who had once been living and breathing. All of them dead. Because of one person.
Song Lan had been there when Xue Yang had killed these people. In an insane man's rambling, Xue Yang had pleaded Xiao Xingchen to wake up and return to him, but to no avail. As punishment for Xiao Xingchen's failure to comply, Xue Yang had decided to kill the inhabitants in Yi City that Xiao Xingchen had cared so much about.
Xue Yang had decided to do in in the during the nights when the city was sleeping. He had gone from household to household, performing demonic cultivation on the unsuspecting victims as they slept. Song Lan had been made to stand guard outside the houses or simply be nearby. Sometimes Song Lan had been forced to be present when Xue Yang was performing demonic cultivation. Sometimes the men or women would wake up, and Song Lan would be forced to hold them down and put a hand over their mouths to muffle their screams. It was horrible.
The rituals usually performed on the dead to make fierce corpses were done on the living, creating living corpses. They were more nimble and agile than true fierce corpses, and they even had consciousness to some degree, still breathing and walking around as though they were still alive.
Xue Yang did it slowly across the span of a week and a half. He observed the people in the city and their reactions to the living corpses with glee and fascination, and he anticipated whether they would figure out the living corpses were dead rather than ill.
At first the people just assumed that there was an outbreak of some disease in the city as the so called 'contagion' affected entire households at a time. The infected still walked around the streets, talked to people, and did their chores as they had always done, acting as though they didn't know they were already dead. They did all of this with a certain slowness and sluggishness, which is why no one suspected a disease rather than foul play. At first at least.
Song Lan had been made to witness all of it. He had been tasked to detain any villager who tried to leave or run away from the city. Song Lan had screamed on the inside, he had desperately wanted to shout and beg the villagers to run away from the demonic cultivator. But nothing passed his lips. He may not have had a tongue, but he would still have had the ability to wail, not that it would do him any good. If Xue Yang didn't command it of him, his body just wouldn't comply.
It had been torture, seeing the lives of the villagers being murdered one after one, seeing Xue Yang turning each man, woman, and child into a living corpse and helplessly being made to watch or even participate. All the while the neighbours carried on as they always had.
Too many people had become living corpses by then, and the villagers had become more and more ill at ease. Some tried to leave the city to go look for help, find a physician or maybe a cultivator for help. But Xue Yang had ordered Song Lan to keep a close eye on anyone who left the city. He was to follow them and kill them when they were far enough away so the villagers wouldn't suspect a thing. By the time the villagers would sense that there was something amiss as no one returned it was too late.
Someone had gone investigating in the night as all the strange occurrences seemed to happen during the night. This was when he had walked in on Xue Yang performing his rituals on a sleeping victim. Xue Yang hadn't reacted quickly enough before the man had raised the alarm and woken up the rest of the village. It was a little too late, though.
Song Lan stood in the middle of what had once been the marketplace, and shut his eyes, trying to keep out the memories, but it was no good. All the memories just became more vivid, and Song Lan wished once again that he had the ability to shed tears. He remembered the horrified screams when on the last night the villagers had finally discovered what was happening around them, the desperate pleas for their lives which went unheard.
The living corpses were killing the remaining villagers with whatever tools or weapons they had lying around in their homes. The screaming and moans were filling the night air, but no help would come. By this point, Xue Yang had turned around half of the villagers into living corpses, and each corpse were now in Xue Yang's power.
Song Lan specifically remembered a young man in the middle of the chaos. Had been wearing his night robes when he was in the middle of the street, watching the rest of the villagers frantically running around. The young man made to run away, but then he heard someone calling out to him.
"Yuze? Yuze, where are you? Help me!"
The young man, Yuze, turned around by the sound of the woman's voice. Song Lan wanted to yell that it was a trick, and that Yuze should turn around and run away, but he was trapped in his own body. In the middle of the screaming and confusion, Yuze saw who had called out to him.
"Yinuo!" Yuze cried out. "Yinuo, you're alive!"
Yinuo wasn't alive. She had been one of Xue Yang's first victims, and now he used her in his sadistic game. Song Lan knew that Xue Yang lurked somewhere, controlling Yinuo to play with Yuze before killing him for the sake of amusement. Song Lan could even faintly hear Xue Yang giggling, a childish laugh. It gave Song Lan the imagery of a child tearing off the wings of a fly. It made his skin crawl.
By now Yuze had run up to Yinuo and grabbed her arms. "Yinuo, there's no time, we need to run!"
But Yinuo just laughed, shrill and hollow. Yuze just stared at her wide eyed, probably thinking she had gone insane. He slapped her hard across the face.
"Snap out of it, Yinuo! Run with me, I'll get us out of here alive, I promise-"
Those were his last words, before Yinuo grabbed at his throat and with inhuman strength, tore out pieces of flesh, leaving Yuze gurgling. He stared at her again in disbelief, as if he had not quite grasped what had happened. He moved his lips as if he wanted to say something, but no words came.
Song Lan had wanted to turn away and look the other way, but Xue Yang had ordered him to wait and watch, and so he had no other choice.
Song Lan had been made to watch as innocent people were slaughtered, he had been made to kill people for the crime of trying to run away from the carnage. He was happy that he didn't need to breathe for he was sure that the air was heavy with the scent of blood.
Song Lan opened his eyes again. Right there on the street, Yinuo was still walking with purpose in her step, as if she was simply going about her day, doing her chores. The very woman who nodded at him every time he passed her, the woman who Xue Yang had forced to kill her potential lover.
It was too much.
He let out a feral scream. A wail that was years overdue, one that he couldn't let out on the night of horror, but one he could finally do now. He fell to his knees before all of these men and women that he was meant to protect, whom he had harmed either by passively watching them get hurt or killing them with his own hands.
He kept wailing as he bowed down in a mockery of a kowtow. He wished that he could speak, that his tongue was intact so he could beg the villagers for forgiveness, but it was impossible. Another ability that Xue Yang had stolen from him.
The temple. This village. Xiao Xingchen's eyes. His soul.
Xue Yang. This was all Xue Yang's fault. So much evil.
Song Lan hated him. Hated him with every fibre of his being. He wanted to curse Xue Yang's name, but all he could do is let out another blood curdling wail.
Without realizing it he had surrounded himself with resentful energy. It danced all around him in an imitation of flames and smoke.
He didn't quite know what happened next. One moment he was on the ground and in the next he was standing up.
He looked around him. The nearest houses had been severely damaged. Many of the living corpses were strewn across the ground, now truly dead.
Song Lan looked around him as if in a daze, not quite comprehending what had occurred. He panted after air even though he didn't need to breathe anymore. Then he looked down at his hands. They were covered in blood. The blood soaked through his sleeves and were under his nails.
It was his doing.
To his horror he realized that he had succumbed to his resentful energy and gone amok. Like Wen Ning had done before him.
No.
He looked around in panic. The living corpses who had been unscathed looked at him in drowsy apprehension. They peered at him from behind corners or between the blinds from the undamaged houses.
The attention was too much. Without thinking he ran down back the street, out of the city with the living corpses still staring silently at him, all the way back to the coffin house. While he was running away, he noticed one of the corpses lying on the ground, face up. It was Yinuo. She would never nod at him ever again.
Song Lan's head swam.
How could he possibly roam the world like this? He hid his face in his hands.
He was lucky this time. He was lucky that he hadn't left Yi City yet, and the only people he had harmed were those who were already dead. But what about next time? Next time he could lose control in a town filled with regular people. Or maybe he could lose control while night-hunting, or simply trying to communicate with travellers.
I can't leave. Song Lan thought sadly. It's too risky.
Song Lan would roam the world extinguishing evil. That's what Song Lan had told Wei Wuxian, but it now occurred to him, that he had become the evil inhabiting the world.
No, no, no-no-no NO!
For a third time Song Lan wished that he could weep.
With shaky hands he withdrew the soul-catching pouch from within his robes. The one that held Xiao Xingchen's soul.
I'm sorry, Xiao Xingchen. He thought. I cannot do this after all. I can't take you with me, helping people, going on night hunts, and create our own sect as we have always wanted.
Song Lan clutched the little soul to his chest, just over the wound where Xiao Xingchen had pierced him with Shuanghua.
Looks like I'm the evil that needs to be distinguished.