Chapter Text
Yiling Night Hunt Analysis Page 1
Official Report
File Date: 24 May, 2000
Distribution: Senior leadership
Archival Copy: Filed in General Access, Nighthunt Reports, Other Incidents
Report Compiler: Lan Zhan, Courtesy Wangji, 1st Disciple
Introduction: What follows is my transcription and description of the events portrayed in the video which went “viral” on 11 May 2000. Attempt has been made to transcribe words exactly and provide enough visual description to allow the reader to fully understand what was portrayed.
Enclosures: Transcript and description of events.
Appendix 1: Gusu Lan Personnel list and Night Hunt schedule covering the week of 10 May - 16 May, 2000
Appendix 2: Personal statements from Gusu Lan personnel not actively assigned
Appendix 3: Press release dated 13 May 2000 issued by Yunmeng Jiang
Title of Video: Unscheduled stream
Affiliation: Yunmeng Jiang
Camera ID: 01658723
Location: 30°59'51"N 111°15'30"E
Duration: 173 minutes 16 seconds
Equipment: Unconfirmed, but appears to be a standard issue chest mounted body camera. Further investigation led to the likely conclusion that it was worn by Wei Ying, Courtesy Wuxian - who at time of filming was 1st disciple of Yunmeng Jiang.
Relevant Background: Based on the statement released by Yu Ziyuan, in her role as acting sect leader, a group of disciples were dispatched to an undisclosed location in Yiling to retrieve the remains of former sect leader Jiang Fengmian, who had fallen in a night hunt the day before. That same night hunt resulted in the injury of the sect heir, Jiang Cheng, Courtesy Wanyin.
(Report compiler’s note: It is inexplicable that a small force of only five juniors and one senior disciple were sent to the site of a yao infestation powerful enough to kill an accomplished sect leader and injure his heir. None of the reports issued by Yunmeng Jiang thus far have offered suitable justification for this decision.)
11 May, Yiling
Wei Wuxian called a halt, and the five juniors with him collapsed in a heap, some reaching into qiankun bags to retrieve water, others just staring ahead, glassy eyed..
Off in the distance, screeching howls reverberated through the trees.
He had thrown down hastily scribbled talismans in hopes of scrambling their scent and throwing off pursuit, but it was only a matter of time before they were discovered and hunted down.
Fleeing the cave where Jiang Shushu had lost his life had taken all of his skill and the majority of his spiritual energy. The array he put down to enable their escape had only been possible because whoever had once occupied this forest had set down some inscriptions in the stone that he was able to access and draw upon, channeling the energy of the Burial Mounds itself into a golden net that held back the yao long enough for them to grab the body and run.
The nest of yao,twisted so much by the resentful energy their original forms were no longer recognizable, were too numerous and powerful to be held by it forever, though.
“There should be no resistance, just retrieve the body and return so I can lay my husband to rest properly.”
Wei Wuxian turned his gaze to the tightly shrouded body of his mentor, the father figure who had been the one constant in his life. Who had reached out his hand to him, when Wei Wuxian was begging for scraps on the street after his parents never came home.
He reached his own hand down and turned on the body camera all senior disciples were issued. Most of the disciples he knew didn’t ever turn them on unless ordered to, because no one wanted to have to remember to watch their tongue the entire time, in case Madame Yu decided to review the footage.
But he needed what he was about to do recorded, so none of it could come back on his shidis. Plus, he thought he heard someone say the cameras recorded GPS data, and that would be helpful when they came back to finish this mission. Because they would. He would come back, maybe even with Jiang Cheng once he was recovered.
“Okay, listen up,” he said.
Five tired sets of eyes turned to him, trust and hope reflected back.
It hurt, to see that faith in him and know there was a decent chance he was going to let them down. But it did make what he had to say next a little easier. Jiang Shushu would understand.
“We’re leaving the body here.”
All five of his shidis vehemently shook their heads. “Da-Shixiong, no! It’s what we were sent to do!”
Wei Wuxian ignored them and looked at Sixth Shidi, who was the youngest one with them. “What is the first rule of night hunting?”
Sixth Shidi’s eyes went wide, and he glanced guiltily at the shrouded body before answering: “Come back alive.”
“And who taught you that?” Wei Wuxian asked him.
“You did.”
Wei Wuxian shook his head. “No. I mean, yes, but where do you think I learned it?”
All five juniors turned now to look at the body of their former sect leader.
“But…Madame Yu told us —”
“I don’t care what Madame Yu said,” Wei Wuxian broke in, keenly aware the camera was capturing his words.. “She’s not here. I am. Jiang Zongzhu would tell you that if he were here. He would tell you to listen to me, and to get back alive.”
He tapped his chest. “I turned the camera on. If anyone ever questions, they’ll hear that I told you. That I ordered you.”
“Da Shixiong, we can’t.”
A howl interrupted, sounding much closer than the previous cacophony had. They were running out of time.
“This camera records coordinates, we will know exactly where to come back.”
Without waiting for their agreement, he began covering the body with branches. The shroud was treated with stasis spells, so the body would stay preserved until they could come back again. It was the best they could do.
“Maybe that Lan cultivator went to find help for us, maybe if we stay he’ll be back with reinforcements?” one of the juniors said to another of his companions.
Wei Wuxian was not above lying to his juniors to keep them safe, but he was not going to deal in false hope.
“Fuck the Lan,” he called out. All the juniors looked at him, eyes wide and mouths agape.
“That guy isn’t helping us. He ran, as soon as he knew what we were dealing with. He left us here to die, and he better hope I do.”
The evident fear on the face of his shidis made him realize he had perhaps gone a bit too far.
But who could blame him when that smarmy stuck up asshole looked him up and down and told him a Yunmeng Jiang nighthunt was “none of his concern” before flying off with that ridiculous guqin strapped to his back?
Fucking Lan.
“We’re on our own,” he said, voice gentling. “And we are not dying on this mountain. Let’s go.”
They descended for another two hours, and the yao closed the distance. They had flown to Yiling on their swords, but the forest here had some sort of resentful aura that made maneuvering the sword safely above the trees impossible. Once they broke the treeline, they would be able to mount their swords and get away. They had perhaps another half hour of pushing through the woods until they were at the base. ,
But as the day turned into night, Wei Wuxian knew they weren’t going to make it.
He felt hollow, scooped out. Connecting with the array inscribed in the rock had done something to him. His core was cold, sluggish. He needed to meditate, to circulate qi through his meridians, but none of that would happen if they didn’t get off this mountain.
These five young juniors were his to protect. Never mind that Madame Yu had ordered them here, as the senior, as the first disciple, their safety was his responsibility. He could not let the five of them die on his watch.
“Hold up here,” he said.
Then he took out more blank talismans and began scribing glyphs of confusion on them.
He handed out five of them, one to each.
“Go spread these out, it’ll buy us some time.” The juniors scattered.
It wouldn’t work. The yao had their scent and even if one of the talismans threw them off briefly, it would be moments only before they reestablished their trail.
But he needed them out of the way so he could do something without them seeing.
From his qiankun bag he pulled out a small, tightly wrapped pouch. When he unrolled it, it looked for all the world like something you would find in a doctor’s clinic. Gauze, alcohol prep, tourniquet, and a syringe, filled with blood.
Unrolling it had broken its stasis spell, so it had to be used once exposed to air. He tied the tourniquet around his upper arm and softly tapped his arm to ready the vein which popped out on his forearm.
He didn’t bother with the alcohol. What was the point?
His shidis would be returning soon, so he quickly slid the needle home and depressed the plunger.
This was a design of his, something he had put together in consultation with one of the Jiang doctors.
His own blood, drawn after three days of intense cultivation and circulating his qi through his blood, concentrating it so that the sample contained as much spiritual energy as possible.
An experiment.
A foolish hope.
A chance.
He injected it now, and felt a rush of heat and power – his own spiritual energy surging through his meridians, giving him some boost.
“Even if it works, Wei Qianbei, you will burn through it quickly and it will leave you even more exhausted than before. It may give you a burst of energy, but likely at a high cost. I would not use it unless you absolutely had to.”
Wei Wuxian had named it Last Resort.
The energy surged, burned through him like the hit of oxygen you got when you surfaced after a particularly deep dive.
He tried to keep his metaphorical breaths shallow, cognizant that he shouldn’t waste it. When his shidis came running back screaming his name, closely pursued by the yao, he stood and unsheathed Suibian.
“Get behind me,” he said.
Yiling Night Hunt Analysis Page 42
Little can be ascertained from the footage of the battle fought, as the camera is not equipped for low light, or if it were, Wei Wuxian did not turn on the night vision feature.
The initial fight takes 3 minutes and 17 seconds, during which Wei Wuxian can be seen conclusively felling 18 yao. (Report compiler’s note - this number was derived from counting obvious kills made with the sword. Wei Wuxian frequently uses talismans as well and therefore the number of yao taken down by him could be much higher. It does not escape this one’s notice that even the 18 confirmed kills places Wei Wuxian high in the cultivator night hunt statistical rankings. Curiously, Yunmeng Jiang has never submitted any of his kills for evaluation.)
At the 2 minute 27 second mark, blood presumed to be Wei Wuxian’s obscures the camera lens.
At 3 minutes 18 seconds, Wei Wuxian calls for a retreat.
WEI WUXIAN: Fall back! Run! Run! Goddammit, Run!
The camera angle shifts here as Wei Wuxian reaches down and lifts an incapacitated junior up. While it cannot be conclusively determined, it is presumed he places him on his shoulders and carries him down. The group flees for 4 minutes 19 seconds, before Wei Wuxian collapses to the ground.
JUNIOR #3: Da-Shixiong!
JUNIOR #2: Roll him over!
JUNIOR #4: I have a signal! Sending emergency flare now!
JUNIORS: *unintelligible*
JUNIOR #5: Da Shixiong, help is coming, the Baling Ouyang are sending people and some of our shixiongs are on the way.
There is no response from Wei Wuxian, which leads to several panicked cries and attempts to wake him. At the 2:53:16 mark, the camera feed ends.
Conclusions: A thorough investigation of the Gusu Lan rosters and schedules indicates no Gusu Lan Cultivator was assigned to any night hunt in Yiling on the date of the video. Wei Wuxian and the Jiang juniors’ remarks seem to imply they encountered a single cultivator, which would be against Gusu Lan policy as all night hunts must be completed in at least pairs.
All cultivators not on active assignments have been questioned and they have asserted their whereabouts. None of them stated they were in Yiling on that date. See enclosures.
Unfortunately, without the ability to interview any of those involved, there seems to be no pathway for us to discover more information. Yunmeng Jiang denied our request to interview any of the Juniors and stated that Wei Wuxian is no longer affiliated with the Jiang. I sent a separate inquiry requesting Wei Wuxian’s contact information for a follow up interview but my request was never answered or acknowledged.
The Jiang have not requested any information on the mysterious Lan cultivator the juniors and Wei Wuxian claim to have seen. My correspondence with them shows they consider this matter closed.
As recorded in my introduction, if more information becomes available, I will add to this report.
Lan Wangji finished up the report and submitted it.
Something about the entire situation bothered him, like a frustrating buzz or hum he could not identify the source of.
He had never met Wei Wuxian in person, which was odd, considering they were both 1st disciples in one of the major clans.
At every gathering where they should have met, the only Jiang representative his age was Jiang Wanyin.
Until he was forced to research this incident, he had honestly thought Jiang Wanyin was the first disciple.
Lan Wangji could have noticed the discrepancy earlier if he checked the publicly available cultivation sect ranks and rosters, but he tried to avoid that, since seeing his own name and ranking made him uncomfortable.
Arrogance is forbidden.
His report was complete. The matter was closed. Yunmeng Jiang did not want to pursue the matter of the supposed Lan disciple the group encountered in Yiling, and his own sect’s investigation had turned up nothing. Likely they met some rogue cultivator, someone who carried the surname Lan, but was not affiliated with Gusu.
But like every other explanation Lan Wangji had come up with during this investigation, he had to immediately dismiss this idea as well. Possibly the junior disciples could have made such an assumption, but Wei Wuxian was the head disciple of a major sect. He would not call someone a Lan cultivator if they were not.
The matter was closed. Lan Wangji had spent hours at his desk, typing and formatting the report for its inclusion in the Lan Archives. He needed to stretch, move his body, meditate and quiet his mind.
But he hesitated, before shutting down his computer. The mystery of Wei Wuxian worried at him, pulling his focus.
He navigated to the official cultivator rankings, and searched his name.
There were zero hits.
That was impossible. Every sect had to register their disciples, it was required. People who could wield power of any kind had to be identified and traced.
He pulled up Yunmeng Jiang, and visually scanned through their listings. Jiang Wanyin was now listed as first disciple and heir in waiting, and Wei Wuxian’s name did not appear, not even in the “formerly affiliated” section.
Yunmeng Jiang had erased any evidence of his existence.
Lan Wangji then navigated to sites he typically avoided as much as possible. But needs must, and if all the official sites no longer contained any information on him, he would have to go to the fan sites.
Immediately he found that he was not the only one looking into it.
Yunmeng Jiang dominated the forums, with the number one thread being one titled: What the fuck happened with YMJ?
Lan Wangji settled in to read.
Wen Popo pushed the clinic door open, and stepped inside. The door should have opened for her, but the automatic door sensor was broken again. Wen Qing would need to put in a repair order for it, if the clinic could afford it.
The waiting room was full, standing room only.
She nodded at the receptionist and made her way to the back, where she found her great-great-great granddaughter looking far too tired and too stressed.
“A-Qing,” she called.
Wen Qing looked up at her, gratitude evident on her face.
“Popo. Can you take rooms 1 and 2?”
That would be the lower acuity patients, which suited her perfectly. While her medical license was current – she took the effort to complete what continuing education was necessary to keep it so – she didn’t trust herself with the patients who needed the most help. Her training, though comprehensive and wide in scope, was lacking. Medicine as a discipline moved quickly. But if she could handle the strep throats and sprained wrists and free her many times granddaughter up to see to those that really needed her, she would do so gladly.
She stepped into exam room 1 and went to work.
Several hours later, she emerged and found Wen Qing staring at a computer with a frown. The clinic was closed to walk-ins, but there would be some who were too sick to be sent home but not sick enough to justify transport to a larger hospital.
“Do you need anything else, Child?” she asked.
Wen Qing looked up at her. Her eyes were ringed with dark circles, and she looked as hopeless as one who ran an indigent medical clinic would.
“No, thank you, Popo,” she said.
Wen Popo should leave, at that. There was apparently nothing else here for her to do. But something in the way Wen Qing held herself, some instinct honed by several hundred years of raising and training young doctors made her hesitate.
“A-Qing?”
Wen Qing looked at her, and something in the young doctor crumpled.
She sagged against the counter, and then aggressively rubbed her tired eyes.
“There’s a young cultivator,” she said.
Wen Qing turned and indicated the ward, where the overnight patients were kept.
“His sect disavowed him. Told us just to do whatever we wanted, but they would not authorize anything that cost money. He’s abandoned and he’s all alone and his injuries are severe and I — I just don’t want to leave him there to die by himself.”
Wen Popo moved forward, to place her own hand on top of Wen Qing’s. Her many-times great granddaughter was still young, full of hope and idealism, and would therefore take a death watch very hard.
She, however, would not. It would not be the first time she had sat beside someone and kept them company as they left the mortal world.
“I will stay with him. You go and rest.”
The relief that passed over her face was all Wen Popo needed to see to know she had made the right choice.
She left the clinic proper and moved to the back area, where the wards were.
Yiling Clinic operated primarily as an urgent care clinic for those that could not afford to go anywhere else. Technically the clinic was not licensed for overnight care, but sometimes people needed a bit more care than could be offered in a single office visit. Someone badly dehydrated from gastroenteritis, who needed several hours of fluid and observation overnight, for example.Or an overdose victim, treated with Narcan, who needed monitoring to ensure they didn’t suffer respiratory problems.
So, the ward existed. A place for people who needed short term care and could not afford it anywhere else.
The cultivator Wen Qing mentioned was the only occupant tonight.
Wen Popo sat at his bedside, and pulled up his chart.
Wei Ying, courtesy Wuxian. Nineteen years old.
His physical injuries were myriad, but none of them alone or even in combination should be fatal to someone with a golden core.
But that was the issue. He had gone up the mountain, to the Burial Mounds, and his core had been damaged.
His reserves were gone, and notations in the chart showed that attempts to feed him energy to try and regenerate his core were unsuccessful. Some catastrophic damage to his core had occurred.
Wen Popo kept reading.
There were a few transcripts from statements made by junior disciples with him when initially brought in. He had carried one of them down the mountain, before he collapsed.
The juniors had been transferred to the closest cultivator’s hospital, where they would receive the best of care. Wei Wuxian’s acting sect leader had abandoned him here, just as Wen Qing had said.
She kept reading, but there was precious little more. He was physically injured, with attacks from a yao that had left his body slashed and beaten, but the true damage was to his core. With his energy fully drained, and his core too damaged to accept outside energy, his prognosis was poor.
Wen Popo pushed the chart aside and let herself look at him.
He was young, his face glowed with the promise of youth, and actual youth, not the ageless mask cultivation granted you. Wen Popo had looked young for hundreds of years, before finally letting her body age and show some of the ravages of time on her face.
This one would not live to the point where he had to choose whether to wear the weight of his years on his face or not. He would not live so long he let his own name fade into his memory, and let himself be known only as Grandfather, as she had let her name become just Popo.
She reached her hand out and took his.
His breathing was too shallow, too quick.
“A-Ying,” she said. “I’m here. You’re not alone.”
She didn’t let herself be fooled into thinking the words made a difference, that his breathing seemed quieter.
Most likely, he was too deep into a pain-wracked unconsciousness to be aware of his surroundings. If luck was truly on his side, he would have already gone, and the hand she held was just his mortal coil that hadn’t caught up to the fact his soul had already left.
But even so, even with the hardening of her heart, it seemed like he did quiet, that his breathing did seem easier, less labored.
She pushed the hair back from his face, to truly look at him once more.
Beautiful, in the way most cultivators were. Young, yes. But something in his face, something made her sit up and pay attention.
This child was not dying.
Perhaps he should be. But he wasn’t.
Centuries of death watches had tuned her in to the pallor, the sunkenness, that people took on as they marched toward death. This child was still fighting.
Wen Popo took his wrist then, and opened up her awareness, let her own consciousness sink into his meridians, to map out the pathways of his spiritual energy.
Wen Qing was an accomplished physician, trained in modern medicine with its over-reliance on imaging and diagnostic instruments.
But Wen Popo had been a physician to cultivators for centuries and sometimes the old ways were best.
This boy was strong. His pathways were wide open, no doubt spiritual energy had flowed confidently through them, powering a well developed golden core.
But the core itself was walled off, severed, and no energy could reach it.The foolish boy had tapped in to the spirt of the mountain itself, and it had granted him power, but exacted its toll. His golden core still existed, but he could no longer reach it, no longer draw upon it. The pathways to it had been shredded.
He could rebuild them, perhaps, in time. If he lived long enough. Most people with these types of injury and shredded pathways would die, within hours.
But Wei Wuxian still fought.
And energy still moved through his body.
Not the glowing warmth of spiritual energy generated by the golden core. The energy that coursed through him, surging along new meridians, new pathways his body was working hard to create, was dark and cold.
A cultivator that could circulate and cultivate resentful energy. He wasn’t dead, because it was healing him, albeit slower than his golden core would have. If he lived, and Wen Popo was more and more certain that he would, there was no telling what he would be able to do.
Certainly he could no longer cultivate as he had, not so long as his golden core remained inaccessible to him. The sword path would be closed to him. No sect would take him back, even if he were able to reach out to the one that had abandoned him.
“The Burial Mounds remade you, didn’t they? You went up the mountain a sect cultivator and came down something else entirely.” At her voice, his facial expression shifted, going from the blankness of unconsciousness to a pinched, pained face. He was aware enough now to hurt. And that was all the sign she needed to stop giving him palliative care and start treating him as if he would recover.
“You have a long road ahead of you, Child of the Mountain,” Wen Popo said aloud, as she opened the clinic’s locked drug cabinet and brought out painkillers and antibiotics. She kept talking as she moved around getting what she needed, so he would continue to hear her voice and know, at least on some level, that he wasn’t alone.
“I don’t know exactly who or what you’ll be at the end of that road.”
She reached his bedside and injected some meperidine to ease his discomfort and a broad spectrum antibiotic because some of the scratches he bore looked nasty. There might even be poison, and she had no idea how long a demonic cultivator would take to purge such poison.
“Yes,” she said, as his breathing increased, quickened and he even turned his head slightly, toward her. “I don’t know what you’re going to be capable of.”
The meperidine took hold and he sank into a deeper sleep. ‘But it will be great fun to find out.”