Times Have Changed [MDZS]

Prologue: Xi

Promo Video:

今非昔比

Jīn fēi xī bi

The present cannot be compared with the past. Times have changed.

Prologue

ℋow beautiful, this life of living towards death…

The moment he stepped on this path, Wei Wuxian knew that he would eventually have to pay, and he was in fact more than willing. He was ready to exchange his life to protect the people he loves, to exact revenge to those that had killed his family, and to win the war with lesser stake.

It didn’t matter if he had to walk on a single-plank bridge on a dark narrow river.

He could afford.

It’s indeed beautiful, living a life towards death and knowing that this would result to the peace seek by everyone. What a fair trade.

Howbeit, throwing one’s life would never be the same as throwing one’s principle. He fought against the Wens with his army of dead, but never would he harm those that are innocent.

On his way towards death, he had made sure to save the lives that were put against injustice. Saved those that were condemned by mortals with shrouded beliefs and own standard of right and wrong. 

Turning his back from his past life, detaching himself from his love ones and making sure that they wouldn’t be pulled along to the pit of pressure that fell upon him, Wei Wuxian decided to shelter those that he had saved.

Suddenly, the feeling of walking on a single-plank bridge till it’s dark didn’t feel so bad. Having the company of the Wen remnants ( Wen Qing, Wen Ning, Granny, Uncle Four, the other aunties and uncles and of course, A’Yuan) made his road towards death a little less lonely

But never…never did he put his shijie’s husband…his shijie…and Jin Ling’s future with his parents on the stake of walking this single-plank bridge. Never did he plan to save the Wen remnants just so they could accompany him to his own death.

Suddenly, it’s not a fair trade anymore. That even his death couldn’t atone the things that happened afterwards, and the lives that were paid for it.

Three months. Three months had passed since Wen Qing and Wen Ning sacrificed themselves for the false promise of the orthodox sects that caused his outrage and consequently, the death of his own shijie. In the span of three months, he had been mourning though he knew that he didn’t have the right. In the span of three months, he had been blaming himself. Many factors were odd. Many things were suspicious. But he didn’t care. He couldn’t wash his hands of all his deeds. No matter who’s behind, he was still one to be blamed.

Lying on his back against the cold stone floor of the Demon Slaughtering cave, the hems of his robe tattered and tainted with dark dried blood and fresh ones from the aggravated old wounds, Wei Wuxian exerted his remaining energy to hold the Stygian Tiger Amulet towards his heart with a bitter smile on his face.

Ah, he felt bad for the person that had saved him. After his shijie took the strike meant for him, Wei Wuxian had long since abandoned the desire to live. Sending him back to the Burial Mounds was that person's biggest mistake.

Maybe what he was going to do would be selfish. Maybe he didn’t even deserve a peaceful death. He should die from Lingchi or worse. He should be tortured, chopped into pieces and be thrown to a place where no one could recognize him. Never to enter the cycle of reincarnation.

But leaving this dangerous unholy artifact for those with evil greed would make him even guiltier. So tonight, he would make it perish together with him.

Hearing the heartbreaking cries of the Wen remnants against the eerie laughs of the oh so righteous sects, knowing that his weak body couldn’t do anything to save them, a single drop of tear slid through the feared Yiling Patriarch’s cheek. Wei Wuxian took a last look towards the inconspicuous corner where he had set an array to protect and hide A’Yuan before he closed his eyes and concentrated the little power that he was left with to destroy the artifact on his hand.

Stretching his limit this far, it would be a surprise if he didn’t receive a spiritual backlash. But hearing the cracking sound, as the Stygian Tiger Amulet was reduced into dust, was worth the pain that had struck his body and spirit. Wei Wuxian vomited a rich amount of blood, spraying all over him and the floor, flowing towards the center of the Demon Slaughtering cave, triggering something that was dormant for millennia, and awakening something that had long been hibernating.

From the slits between the uneven stone floor of the cave, where the crimson fluid seeped, suffused a deep red glow of light seemingly rising from the depths of hell. A mixture of black and red miasma engulfed the one that was lying on the floor, shedding his mortal shell into pieces, shaking the whole mountain in the process, and enraging the army of dead into attacking the one that once command them. The truth that their master’s body vanished before they could gnaw it, only these dogs would know. But the pool of blood on the floor and the chunks of flesh scattering all over the cave was enough for others to assume that the Yiling Laozu’s ghost soldiers chewed him to death. 

“Yiling Laozu, Wei Wuxian has died!”

Nobody doubts the fact that the Yiling Patriarch has the power to move the mountains and empty seas. So who could predict that Yiling Laozu, Wei Wuxian wouldn’t come back to life?

Fearing this, the various clans set one hundred and twenty stone beasts on the top of the Burial Mounds and initiated frequent soul-summoning rituals, followed by heightened vigilance and searches for strange occurrences from all over the world.

But how could they trace his soul when it already crossed the passage of space and time?

The Yiling Patriarch indeed came back to life, but in the way that no one would have expected.

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