Past is set in stone, only your feelings may change

Sentient Burial Mounds

When Wei Wuxian, Lan Zhan and Wen Ning made it to the Burial Mounds, they could immediately feel that the atmosphere had changed. Just as Jin Guangyao had told Lan Xichen, there were many fierce corpses haunting the premises, no wonder Wen Ning had resorted to scaring off people so they would not venture anywhere near these parts. It almost felt as bad as the first time Wei Wuxian had been here, back when he had been thrown inside by Wen Chao.

The air was thick with resentment and howling of fierce corpses was accompanying them with every step they took up the mountain. There were more and more enemies as they approached the Demon Slaughtering Cave but it seemed like for some reason, the fierce corpses were ignoring their intrusion to their territory. They made it up the mountain without being bothered too much.

Wei Wuxian was glad for that. He had tried with the very first fierce corpse which he had seen and he was taken aback, he could not control it. The corpse was not listening to him. He wondered if it was in general of it just this particular corpse was somehow exceptional. To his immense disappointment mixed with a speck of fear, none of the corpses were listening to him as they were passing by them.

Why was that? He was asking himself. Had the Burial Mounds really developed a will of their own or was there something else in play? The corpses also looked different from those he had encountered in the past. There were black veins covering every inch of uncovered skin. Those marks looked suspiciously similar to those adorning Wen Ning's neck. If Wei Wuxian was not mistaken, he would have sworn that Strygian tiger seal was at play here.

But that was not possible, or was it? He had destroyed the seal before dying and at his time, no one would have been able to restore it. And there were not so many Yin iron shards to go around for anyone to re-forge them into another weapon. Unless, and there was the point he did not want to think about but which was coming back all the time, someone managed to find the pieces of the original artefact and somehow made them work again. It was unlikely, but theoretically possible.

Not for the first time in his life, but certainly for the first time after he had learned how to cultivate resentful energy, he was afraid of the Burial Mounds. It felt foreign and evil, he could not feel the familiarity of it anymore even though he had spent several years living here with the Wen remnants. It was very unsettling.

He was wondering how he could overcome the spell and how he could make the fierce corpses obey him, how to snatch them away from whoever was controlling them. Although it was not dangerous for him and Lan Zhan right now, he was pretty sure that the corpses would attack anyone else immediately upon encountering them. He could not let them roam free, it was too dangerous.

He knew that since the rest of the cultivation world now knew about his resurrection, they would come for him sooner or later, and they would come for him here. He was already being blamed for many things, some of them which he had done, some of them not, but he did not want to be blamed for another massacre.

If the cultivation sects came to siege the Demon Slaughtering Cave now, they would inevitably have to face a whole army of sentient fierce corpses which Wei Wuxian would not be able to control and stop. That was not a very pleasing image. If he could, he wanted to avoid it; the cultivation world could blame him all it wanted, but he wished to have his own conscience clean.

His musing was interrupted by voices coming out from the Demon Slaughtering Cave. The breath hitched in Wei Wuxian's lungs. Those shouts sounded too close to comfort like they were the juniors' voices. He rushed inside to help them, completely disregarding the fact that all of this could have been just some kind of trap set up to catch him.