A/N: This was inspired by an ask on WangxianFicFinder tumblr. I hadn't heard of the story they wanted existing, so decided to write one?
...
A curious thing about the creation of something, is that once you let go of it, and release it into the world, it ceases to become solely that of the author. Every person who comes upon it, will impose their own recollections. Their thoughts, feelings, and associations. The author's perspective on their creation ceasing to be the only view of it. Parts may be added or subtracted, combined with information from other works to create new interpretations or altogether new or different designs.
That is the nature of research. Of art. Of written and spoken words. Passing it from hand to hand. The lines of the work rewritten with a slightly different brush each time.
So, it comes as no surprise that Wei Wuxian could have not, would have not, and indeed did not, notice an alteration made to his own designs when he woke lying on a dirt floor in a rickety shack, finding himself at the center of a sanguine array, covered in a stranger's drying blood. With his panic filled thrashings (and pained flinching at discovering the transmigrated cuts on his arm) further muddling the details of the gory markings. Obfuscating any changes that may have been made, which could have been discovered when later peered at when in a better frame of mind. If there had been time. Which there had not.
Even if some changes, later, did become apparent.
The fact that at least one change in function had occurred (and likely at least a portion of rewriting, rather than say a single alteration to a sole character, which could be explained away by a novice rewriting, even if those too could have strange and unexpected effects) was made evident by the fact that Wei Wuxian had returned with his original face.
When the unaltered array's cost would have ended the summoner's life by giving their body over to the summoned whilst the destruction of their own soul sacrificed to create the necessary vacancy, leaving the body itself unharmed and open for the enforced taking. The backlash of resentful energy generated by that destruction used to fuel and cast the controlling curse marks to enforce the original host's dying wish. So, Wei Wuxian still looking like Wei Wuxian, bore questions. At least to those few (or one) who are learned on such subjects.
But to any extent, Wei Wuxian was dead. Until he woke up. And Mo Xuanyu was gone, with not even an echo remaining.
And then Mo-furen, her husband, and Mo Ziyuan were dead along with their servant. And Jin Guangyao was not long to follow.
It was not even a month after Mo Xuanyu's demise that the Yiling Lazou was revealed to be a hero placed by others in a misbegotten villainous disguise. The slander, libel, and abuse against him, Mo Xuanyu, and many other unfortunates was also brought to light. With the culprits' once shining names brought low to live in infamy forevermore.
And none of it could have been done if Wei Wuxian hadn't been brought back to life.
The orphaned, penniless, disgraced, and imprisoned Mo Xuanyu had orchestrated the destruction of all those who had ever wronged him in a single act. Bringing low some of the most powerful people in the cultivation world from a position of weakness in almost ever respect. Daring to use a forbidden array meant to set lose a demon and corral the most vengeful of evil spirits to one's will. Where other's had only thrown leading objects and signs into others' paths, their manipulations only overlapping and chasing at the footheels of his definitive action. He had gone right for the source. And he had succeeded.
When, the curse marks faded. The terms of that dark array finally satisfied. The true characters of those brought low had been revealed, alongside their crimes. And the great hero Wei Wuxian's name was lauded as it was cleared – and the venerated Yueliang Gong was born, taking his place right by his equally venerated light-bearer once more. And with it, Mo Xuanyu's name was elevated as well- for every secret comes out eventually. (And as every Lan knows, the dead do tell tales. They can actually be quite terrible gossips. So, things get around.) And the story of the bastard Jin who orchestrated the gouging of corruption from the Golden Sect, who returned Yueliang Gong to the cultivation world, and the moon to the people's Hanguang-jun's eye, was born.
And that knowledge brought attention, and with it, emotion. People became inspired. They thought, if such a person, the infamous madman, could get their vengeance why couldn't they? Such thoughts rippled through the cultivation world, so righteous, and so recently proved wrong, still in varying states of upheaval with the ousting of a third corrupt Chief in as many decades. The story rippling out into even the mundane world beyond. Effecting both the high and low, the wicked and the innocent. And with it came another thought- as others feared what would become of them, should their sins catch up with them too.
Powerful things: Hope and Fear.
Because though Yueliang Gong was now loved, there were also those who took note that at the time of his summoning, Wei Wuxian was known as the great evil of the world. With the Yiling Lazuo seen as the darkest thing to have ever existed. Which called into question, what sort of man would dare call on that, and to have succeeded where all others had failed? Who had found what others never could? And what sort of vengeance, would such a being have intended to have wrought, if he had caught the dark purported Lazuo instead?
And when an object or an idea gets infused with emotion, when it lives in thoughts and hearts and minds, it gains power. When exposed to wishes, fear, and prayer, it gains even more.
Now, this normally would not have had any effect in such circumstances as these, since the cost of the array at this point had become well known. The caster had gave up their body and as thus it could no longer be affected in relation to them. With the destruction of their soul as well, there was nothing left to remain. No focus to concentrate power, only a memory.
But as Wei Wuxian's own (now famous, and so handsome! How could they have got it so wrong for so long?!) face proves, an alteration had been made. This was evident. It was only later that they learned that there'd been far more than one that was made.
And really, when an oddly shaped stalactite could gain sentience and power through a few peasant prayers, whatever did they think would happen when the minds of the Jianghu and beyond focused on a single soul?
Even a shattered thing can be mended, and whose to say it had ever broke at all?
Which brings us to where we are now.
The small shed was barely more than three walls and a roof made of bundled sticks, with handfuls of decaying hay barely hanging onto its top. A tattered cloth, worn and dirtied by the elements, served as the door. The entirety of the dirt floor held barely more room than three men could stand abreast, in any direction. And it was a small dark space, the sort inclined to gloom even if it currently weren't past nightfall. The fingers of light coming through the cracks serving to barely penetrate the darkness at all.
At the back of the room stood an old work bench. Slightly lopsided and barely standing with a badly replaced leg. On it stood a scattering of old food. Small bits and pieces that looked like the leavings of a hastily consumed meal: a slice of apple from a street urchin who'd only managed to steal one fruit that day, a meatbun from a woman with five kids who'd been abandoned by her husband, a wilted flower from the bouquet of a jilted bride, a stick of incense from a fearful man who'd just received summons from the local magistrate.
The air was still and quiet.
The room seemed to ripple slightly, before a form gradually took shape. The clear still air in the poor dilapidated shrine becoming heavier and denser. The scent of stale food being replaced by an iron tang and oddly, cheap cosmetics. In the distance there was a reverberation reminiscent of thunder.
The materializing face at first looked like that of a hanged ghost. Except that the proportions were wrong, the placement of the facial colors not quite in the right spot, like a poorly executed artistic rendering. The figure also seemed more solid, its colors not so muted as such a haunting would usually be. In the shadowed darkness, the pewter gray eyes blended into the background. His hair was long and straggly, unbounded it reached his waist, like the extravagance of a young lord and paradoxically unkempt, the ends glistening strangely as if dipped in some viscous substance, yet too translucent at the tips to identify.
His robes were long and extravagant, yet made out of a rough homespun material. With a few gilt thread glinting in the weave, with others missing or loose as if they'd been torn out. The right sleeve was torn and bloody, with five silvery scars glinting underneath, whenever the cloth shifted allowing them to catch the faint light. He was also barefoot, his feet clean despite the location. His hands were also neatly groomed, though sometimes the nails seemed caked in something once wet then dried, depending on the light.
He was young, and slight of build. With a pretty face when glimpsed through his hair.
He walked towards the altar, surveying the contents with a curious air, before looking about himself with slightly widened eyes. He wasn't graceful per se, and yet his feet made no sound, as if he were walking on air.
He brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes, the passing of his hand making his face seem to flicker, one second seeming covered in powder, the next bare, and then back again.
He glanced upwards as a woman suddenly appeared in the doorway, even though the cloth covering had never moved. She had a scholarly, no-nonsense air about her. Her eyes sharp, even as they screamed boredom as they looked him over.
"It's strange to have someone ascended without shaking the heavens."
Mo Xuanyu stared at her.
"Seems this shrine is closest to where you died, which is probably why you first woke up here. It being one of the poorer ones though, there doesn't seem to be a sign." She looked at him again.
She turned back to the door with a tired gaze, gesturing with one black swathed arm.
"The Emperor will see you now."
His eyes widened.
"Yes, yes you. Yu Jianchu, god of vengeance and patron of lost souls".
She sighed, taking pity on him. "I know you've had trouble with the gentry down here and we know you started as a ghost. But the emperor's husband is a ghost king. So don't worry. You'll fit in just fine. C'mon."
Mo Xuanyu gave a tentative nod, his face relaxing slightly. He glanced around the shrine once more. Then gave a little, hesitant smile.
Then Yu Jianchu followed the civil god out the door.
...
A/N: According to the internets Yueliang Gong means "moonbow" (a rainbow that occurs at night/made by the moon instead of the sun). Yu Jianchu, where Yu can mean "rain", "to give", "feather", "dialect/language/speech" (as a reference to "Xuanyu") and Jianchu meaning "to detect/to examine and discover/to sense" - he found the unsummonable Wei Wuxian, revealed the corrupt, avenged himself, gives hope to the hopeless, etc.