Chapter Notes
Historical/cultural notes:
Li - about half a kilometer or one-third of a mile
Cun - about the width of a thumb
Shi - a two-hour block of time
Double Seventh Festival - Also known as Qixi Festival, a major holiday in Chinese
culture. Usually takes place in August, in the Gregorian calendar.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
The war was not going well.
In fact, it was going quite badly. Each day brought fresh defeats. Their supplies dwindled and their
forces were pushed back, again and again. Lan Wangji had lost track of how many funerals he
attended in the last two years. But he kept a careful tally of the hours and days and months.
The days were growing short. He wasn't sure how their forces could survive a second winter on the
battlefield. Yet there was nothing to do but press forward.
So every morning, Lan Wangji woke early. He dressed in the white robes of his sect and he fought
in another battle. Afterward, he tended the wounded and allocated their meager supplies. Once that
was done, he joined his brother inside the meeting tents.
After two years of fighting alongside the various sect leaders, he knew them fairly well. They
knew him, too. None of them expected him to speak during the meetings. Instead, Lan Wangji had
the luxury of listening in silence. His brother marshaled a fresh set of battle plans with his fellow
sect leaders, and Lan Wangji paid close attention.
But the sect leaders had grown restless, their attention wandering during meetings.
No one dared to whisper the truth: We are losing, losing badly. But it was written upon their faces.
Even the lowliest foot-soldiers and servants could see it. There were reports of defections each
week. Peasants fled nearby villages, while servants quietly packed their bags and disappeared into
the night.
By Double Seventh Festival, the truth could no longer be denied. The Sunshot Campaign was
failing. It was only a matter of time before their forces were overrun.
Wen Ruohan's power seemed limitless. Countless puppets had been destroyed, and scores of his
soldiers slain on the battlefields. But the results of each battle were meaningless. If their forces
slaughtered dozens of Wen Ruohan's men, he simply raised them as walking corpses. They tried to
burn as many corpses as possible, but they couldn't destroy all of them. Wen Ruohan had ways of
securing more bodies whenever his supply ran low.
Victory over such a foe was impossible, and Lan Wangji knew it. But though he sought desperately
for a solution, he couldn't find one. During the meetings, the sect leaders seemed equally helpless.
Not one had prepared his people for this type of war. A decade ago, fighting a man who raised the
dead would have been unthinkable. Not a single sect leader had prepared countermeasures for such
an enemy.
Lan Wangji never knew who first spoke the Yiling Patriarch's name. But within hours, it seemed
to be everywhere. Soldiers murmured it as they burned the day's dead. Servants whispered it as
they cleared the tables after another fruitless meeting. By the next day, cultivators and sect leaders
spoke the name openly.
Shall we not ask the Yiling Patriarch for his aid? Who else could hope to defeat Wen Ruohan? If
we cannot fight his wicked tricks, should we not seek the aid of an immortal?
Lan Wangji listened with a growing sense of unease.
Little was known of the immortals who dwelt within their lands. There were not many of them.
Most, like Baoshan Sanren, had withdrawn centuries ago. They shrouded themselves on remote
mountaintops, teaching a select group of cultivators. They never meddled with politics.
The Yiling Patriarch was no different. But he was by far the youngest of the immortals. He had
cultivated to immortality—so it was said—less than a decade ago. And he could still be found by
those who sought him. He had made his home in the Burial Mounds, less than a shi's walk from
Yiling.
But few cultivators dared to approach him. Rumor had it he lived on a mountain made of corpses.
Like Wen Ruohan, he knew the vile secrets of reanimating the dead. He, too, used corpses as
servants and serfs. It was even said that the Patriarch had perfected a method of controlling
resentful energy. He didn't just raise corpses. Spirits and demons also did his bidding.
To the profound relief of the cultivation world, he seemed to prefer solitude...with a few
exceptions. Wandering cultivators claimed that he had taken a handful of disciples. And every now
and then, a score of weary peasants might beg him for succor after a hard winter. Those who
entered the Patriarch's domain disappeared behind the wards of the Burial Mounds.
They emerged later—still alive, villagers whispered—to trade in the markets on the Patriarch's
behalf. But his followers were relatively few. No matter how many souls he claimed, he never
communicated with the world outside. He never spoke to sect leaders, much less appeared at
discussion conferences.
His power was said to be great. He was an immortal, beyond any doubt, and had once been a
cultivator. No one seemed to recall his name or sect affiliation. Shuddering over rumors of his
abilities, the cultivation world had always seemed grateful for his indifference.
It is best, Uncle once muttered, not to draw the attention of such a being. Leave him to his forsaken
lands and his cursed people. Let the immortals meditate in silence and solitude.
Lan Wangji let the name—Yiling Patriarch—rest on his tongue. But he did not speak it, and he
watched his brother as the sect leaders debated.
Their forces were depleted, and Wen Ruohan was stronger every day. If they lost the war—and it
was clear now that they would—the cultivation world would be swallowed up by the Wen sect.
Every cultivator would be dead or wearing the Wen crests.
They would be fortunate to survive the winter. If they somehow managed to last till the spring
thaw, Lan Wangji knew that the cultivation world would be forced to surrender by summer. They
would have to beg Wen Ruohan for peace on any terms, and Wen Ruohan was not known for
showing mercy.
It was once unthinkable: consulting the Yiling Patriarch, begging him to use his wicked tricks on
their behalf. Now, it had become inevitable.
Lan Xichen's face was tired and resigned. But when the sect leaders took a vote—shall we send a
letter to the Patriarch, asking him for aid?—the result was unanimous. The letter to the Patriarch
was drafted and dispatched within hours.
Two days later, a reply arrived in the shape of a ghostly black butterfly. It alighted on the table in
the war tent, then unfolded itself into a sealed scroll. The message was short, yet potent.
I will come in person. Every sect leader must be present. Every sect leader must be accompanied
by their heir and their first disciple.
He named a date for the conference, a fortnight away. There was no post-script, no salutations or
closing remarks.
The letter passed from hand to hand. Brief as it was, it was picked to pieces. The Patriarch had not
promised his aid, and many of the sect leaders saw that as a bad omen. His demand—the presence
of the most valued and powerful members of every sect—was equally concerning.
But it was too late to retract the message. They couldn't shy away and try to evade the Patriarch's
notice. He was coming in person, the letter said. He would speak to the sect leaders himself.
Lan Wangji listened as the sect leaders made contingency plans. They speculated wildly on the
Patriarch's response, trading the letter back and forth to support their theories.
When it was his turn to examine the letter, Lan Wangji gave it an indifferent glance. The
penmanship was remarkably poor. Whoever was responsible for the Patriarch's calligraphy lessons
had clearly done an abysmal job.
But perhaps he had never received such instruction at all. Some claimed that the Patriarch was the
son of a rogue cultivator. Others said he was not a man at all, but a demonic creature masquerading
as a cultivator. No cultivator, it seemed, had met him and returned to tell the tale. If there lived a
teacher responsible for the Patriarch's upbringing and education, he or she had never come
forward.
Lan Wangji set the letter aside and tried to put it out of his mind. His expectations for the meeting
were low. But when they spoke privately that night, his brother was cautiously optimistic.
"He has never attended any political meeting before." Lan Xichen's brow furrowed with thought. "I
hardly think he would take the trouble of coming here, only to tell us that he refuses to offer his
aid."
Lan Wangji conceded this point with a nod.
But why should the Patriarch be so evasive? Why should he refuse to discuss the matter by letter?
Why should he refuse even the smallest commitment: If we can come to a suitable agreement, I am
willing to help you?
"Perhaps he feared the letter would be intercepted." His brother's voice was doubtful.
That, Lan Wangji knew, was unlikely. It was Nie Mingjue's hand who had written the first letter.
The response had been bespelled, and no one but Nie Mingjue was able to break the scroll's seal.
How could such a missive be intercepted?
His brother had no answer for that. But the mystery of the scroll didn't bother him. He had saved
his concern for the scroll's contents.
"Of course, I understand why he wants the sect leaders present." Lan Xichen studied the table for a
moment. "But I don't know why he wants our heirs and first disciples to be there."
His brother was not alone in his worries. Half the afternoon had been wasted debating this matter.
Some sect leaders feared that the Patriarch meant to slaughter them all at once. Perhaps, they
murmured, perhaps he is on Wen Ruohan's side, after all.
Others were more hopeful. It may be, they said, that the Patriarch wishes to take our measure. He
might wish to see whether the most powerful cultivators of this age are worthy of his assistance.
A few speakers had suggested that the Patriarch might plan to take hostages or servants. But this
seemed unlikely.
After the Patriarch's existence became public knowledge, a handful of smaller sects had tried to
win his friendship. They had offered him disciples and servants. But their offers were coldly
rejected. The Patriarch absorbed some wanderers into his sect, it was true. He took a few rogue
cultivators and orphans. But he had accepted no emissaries from the sects.
Lan Xichen suggested that he might have changed his mind. Perhaps he desired a closer
relationship with the sects now. But there was no use theorizing about what an immortal might do.
They could not begin to guess what such a man wanted, or planned, or believed. Such matters were
not Lan Wangji's concern, in any event. His only duty was to keep his fellow disciples alive until
the Patriarch came.
Some days, he succeeded. Others, he failed. But their forces struggled and fought, and most
survived the following fortnight. On the appointed day, a large tent was erected to shelter the sect
leaders and their heirs. When the designated hour arrived, they were ready.
Lan Wangji sat at the head of the tent, at his brother's left. Nie Mingjue was seated to his brother's
right. Nie Huaisang and their sect's first disciple had been given chairs nearby.
Across the tent, Jin Guangshan was flanked by his son and nephew. Jiang Wanyin shifted
restively, his sister at one side and his first disciple on the other. The remaining sect leaders ranged
across the tent, ranked by precedence. Their heirs and chosen disciples clustered around them.
Nie Mingjue had much to say—in private, of course—about their sudden appearance. For months,
several sect leaders had been conspicuously absent from the war efforts. They appeared only for
discussion conferences and vanished when the fighting grew bloody. Now they had turned up for a
glimpse of the Yiling Patriarch, conveniently forgetting to take part in the day's battles.
Lan Wangji had noted this, too. He gritted his teeth.
He couldn't fault Jiang Yanli or Nie Huaisang They held a high rank, but their cultivation was
weak. It would be foolish for either of them to venture near the battlefield. There were others, too:
sect leaders who were feeble or elderly, hardly able to lift their swords. But many of the faces
inside the tent were youthful and vibrant, yet they had contributed nothing to the war efforts.
Last night, Nie Mingjue had growled over the arrival of Jin Guangshan's elaborate carriage. He
remarked that Jin Guangshan never missed a discussion conference or a party. Yet he always had
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