Promise and Betrayal: A Mo Dao Zu Shi (the Untamed) Story

Chapter 24

The next months are a flurry of activity. Our makeshift town is quickly built. The fields are plowed, and despite the relatively barren soil, we manage to plant turnips and potatoes. Wei Ying, while having his own room, takes to sleeping with Wen Ning. He grows more anxious about the boy's health by the day. Wen Ning's spirit has still not returned, despite his best efforts. He barely eats and barely sleeps. Wen Qing and I worry about him, but we have duties of our own to attend to.

Wen Qing is in charge of food production. She manages the fields: what is planted, where it is planted, when it is harvested, where it goes after it is harvested. She does a fine job, and after several months, we have a sustainable—if not small—income from selling the turnips in the town. We also have the beginnings of a stockpile for next winter.

I am put in charge of training those who wish to learn martial arts. I tell my students daily that I am not a master; I am merely a humble cultivator, barely versed in the techniques of proper cultivation, but they insist that I am masterful. I admit my swordsmanship and hand-to-hand combat is far above average. Yet these people need to supplement their education with the ways of cultivation and the rituals. Occasionally I persuade my brother to conduct a class, I myself in the audience, but his appearances have become rarer. As Wen Ning's time dwindles, so does ours.

It is any day now that the clans will decide to lay siege to our town, but still, no attack comes. I live with a suspicion that no attack will come, that whatever tactic they employ to dispatch our sect will be covert and collapse us from the inside.

A few months into our stay Wei Ying disappears down the mountain. He is missing for four hours, yet he comes back up the opposite side from the town. His arm is bloodied, and he walks with a limp. Wen Qing treats his wounds, and we ask no questions. Not that he would have answered them, anyway. The next time I venture into town there is a notice posted on a signpost: Wei Wuxian has defected from the Jiang Clan. They call him the Yiling Patriarch. They picture me beside him, no title, only a name. Xiao Shelan. His brother and conspirator. I return to the village, now understanding why Wei Ying came back injured that day.

Before I know it, a year passes. No attack comes. No one visits us, not even for an hour. Our only source of news comes from the news in the town: Jiang Yuanli is getting married to Jin Zuxian, their wedding announced to be in half a year. The Jin Clan has decreed Wei Wuxian and his sect to be traitors to the gentry family. Lotus Pier has been rebuilt, and Jiang Cheng now sits on the throne. No word of the Lan Clan passes through Yiling. I grow to miss Lan Zhan's quiet company, his comforting presence that was sure to always be calm, collected, and rational no matter the situation. I miss our rooftop stargazes and listening to his zither.

I find myself unable to sleep soundly lately. These days I am prone to prowl the higher cliffs of the mountains late after midnight when everyone sleeps, sometimes meditating, sometimes flowing through forms, sometimes sitting quietly in contemplation. The stars are different here, I realize on my first night, but novelty can be a good omen in some cases. I choose to interpret the change in the stars that way; an omen that while things are good, something will change. We cannot carry on like this forever.

Despite all my nights frequenting the ledges and clearings under the stars, Wei Ying does not find me. Not once. Wen Ning has still not awakened, and he spends his days locked in his stone room making loud thumps and blowing puffs of smoke into the hallway. At night I find him sleeping soundly sitting next to Wen Ning's prone form. Other nights I cannot find him at all.

The townspeople begin to circulate rumors about the Yiling Patriarch, and his penitent for making new tools of cultivation spawns conmen to reside in the villages, claiming to be disciples of Wei Wuxian, touting flags and baubles and talismans. I listen intently for what they say about me. I come to know that they have immortalized me in a similar way: dual wielders of varying skill degrees, as well as martial artists that fight with no weapons claim to be disciples of me and my teachings. When asked to demonstrate their technique, or asked about a class, they take money and run. Despite the conmen, I also hear darker rumors spread. They call me merciless, a born killer. The Yiling Patriarch's hand, his enforcer and his hitman.