第3章

Chapter 3. Spite: Part II.

Wei Wuxian wanted to wash his face to get a good look at this person who had kindly sacrificed themselves for him. However, there was no water in the room for either washing or drinking. 

The only basin-shaped thing in the room was a chamber pot, which was hardly appropriate for cleansing one’s face. 

He pushed at the door only to discover that it had been bolted shut from the outside. He supposed they didn’t want him to get out and start running around. 

It seemed like the whole world was conspiring to deny him any joy of reincarnation! 

Since there was nothing better to do, he sat down and crossed his legs to meditate and get used to this new body. Time passed quickly in meditation. When he opened his eyes, rays of sunlight were leaking in through the gaps around the door and the windows. Although Wei Wuxian had regained enough strength to get up and walk around, he still felt dazed and disoriented. Bewildered, he thought to himself: ‘Mo Xuanyu’s spiritual powers are low enough to be completely negligible, so steering his body shouldn’t be this hard. Why can’t I get it under control?’ 

Only when he heard a strange noise from his stomach did he realise that this had nothing to do with spiritual powers. This body was simply not used to abstaining from food, so it was incapacitated by hunger. Unless he’d manage to get out and forage for some food, he might just become the first demonic spirit in history to be reborn into a sacrificial vessel only to immediately die of starvation. 

Wei Wuxian was just about to try thrusting through the door when he suddenly heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Someone kicked the door and barked: ‘Here’s your food!’ 

Despite shouting this, the person made no move to actually open the door. Wei Wuxian looked down to see a smaller door-within-a-door opening up. A set of small bowls had been set down on the other side. 

The house-servant shouted: ‘Get a move on! Stop dawdling, eat up so I can take the bowls back!’ 

The inner door was a bit smaller than a dog flap - there was no way it would fit a person, but it could be used to deliver meals. He’d been given rice with two side dishes, all of which looked unpalatable. 

Wei Wuxian stirred the chopsticks that had been stuck into the rice, allowing a wave of sentimentality to wash over him. 

The Yiling Laozu had returned to the human realm only to be trampled on and chewed out. For his welcome banquet, he was served some cold and indelible leftovers. Yet he was supposed to bring on some reign of blood and terror, to ruthlessly massacre the whole clan without sparing a single hen? What a joke. He was like a tiger bullied by dogs after leaving his mountain, like a dragon deceived by a shrimp in shallow water, like a phoenix robbed of his feathers and turned into an ordinary rooster. 

Outside the door, the house servant spoke again. This time, he sounded like an entirely different person, his voice softened by a smile: ‘A-Ding! Come here.’ 

From the distance, a girl’s bright and delicate voice asked: ‘A-Tong, are you on meal delivery duty again?’ 

‘Why else would I be hanging around this cursed place’, A-Tong scoffed. 

A-Ding approached the door as she spoke: ‘All you have to do is to bring him one meal a day. You have plenty of opportunities to slack off without getting scolded for it. How can you complain it’s “cursed” while enjoying such a leisurely life! All the while I’m here slaving away all day long. I never have the time to go out to play.’

‘It’s not like delivering meals is my only job! And nobody is going out to play these days, with so many walking corpses around. Everyone is keeping their doors tightly locked and hiding inside’, A-Tong grumbled. 

Wei Wuxian was crouching against the door, listening in while trying to eat with the mismatched chopsticks he’d been given. 

It seemed that things had been getting pretty turbulent around the Mo manor recently. Walking corpses, as their name suggested, were dead people who had been re-animated. As far as transmuted corpses went, they were relatively weak and commonplace. They hardly posed a threat to the living, moving sluggishly and staring with lifeless eyes. Yet their mere presence was enough to terrify common people, not least because they emanated a nauseating stench of putrefaction. 

Wei Wuxian, however, considered them his most loyal servants and obeisant puppets. The mere mention of them made him feel warm inside. 

‘If you want to go out and play, all you have to do is to take me with you, and I’ll protect you’, A-Tong teased. 

‘Really? You’ll protect me? Stop bragging. Am I supposed to believe that you could really beat back all those things outside?’ A-Ding said. 

‘If I can’t beat them back, nobody can!’ A-Tong retorted angrily. 

‘How can you be so sure that nobody can do it? Let me tell you something. I heard that the cultivators who arrived today are from an extremely illustrious clan! Madam is welcoming them in the reception hall now, and everyone from town is dying to get a look at them. Listen - can you hear how noisy it is out there? I don’t have time to bicker with you, I might be called in to help any moment now’. 

Wei Wuxian listened with rapt attention. Sure enough, he could hear a din of loud voices drifting in from the east side of the house. After considering his options for a while, he got up and kicked the door hard. The latch snapped open with a satisfying clank.  

The two servants, who had been busy making eyes and giggling at each other, screamed as the door suddenly flew open on them. Wei Wuxian threw out the bowl and the chopsticks he’d been holding and walked away without looking back. The sunlight was surprisingly bright, piercing his eyes and stabbing at his skin. He raised a hand over his face, shutting his eyes for a moment.  

A-Tong, who had just shrieked in a voice even shriller than A-Ding’s, pulled himself together only to realise he’d let himself be frightened by the lunatic everyone felt entitled to bully. Emboldened, he decided this was an opportunity to regain the face he’d just lost. Leaping in front of Wei Wuxian, he shouted while waving wildly with his hands - as if scolding a dog - ‘Get back in! Get back in! Back where you came from! What do you think you’re doing, showing your face outside!’ 

This was worse than the treatment one would expect for a beggar or a fly. It seemed that this was how the servants of the Mo family normally treated Mo Xuanyu. He probably wouldn’t have put up any resistance, effectively allowing himself to be bullied without restraint. Wei Wuxian knocked A-Tong to the ground with a light kick and said with a smile: ‘Who do you think you are trying to humiliate here?’ 

With that, he walked off, following the din of lively voices. There was quite a crowd of people gathered in and around the eastern courtyard and the East Hall. As Wei Wuxian stepped into the courtyard, he could hear a woman’s voice ringing louder than the others: ‘There is a junior disciple in our family, too, with deep ties to the cultivation world….’ 

That must have been Madam Mo, trying to pull all the strings she possibly could to build bridges back to the cultivation clan. Wei Wuxian didn’t wait for her to finish speaking. Squeezing through the crowd of people to get inside the hall, he waved enthusiastically and said: ‘Coming, coming, here I am!’ 

A middle-aged lady was sitting in the hall, wearing extravagant clothes and giving off an air of carefully maintained gracefulness; there was no doubt that this was Madam Mo. She was seated next to her husband, and opposite her sat a group of boys who wore white robes and carried double-edged swords on their backs. A sudden spell of silence descended on the crowd at the appearance of an eccentric stranger with a messily painted face. Wei Wuxian pretended not to realise he was stealing the scene. ‘Who called me? I heard someone talking about a person with deep ties to the cultivation world. Surely that can only refer to myself!’ he said brazenly.  

There was too much powder on Wei Wuxian’s face, and whenever he cracked a smile, some of it sprinkled off. One of the white-robed boys was clearly amused, and a small exhale of almost-laughter escaped his lips. The boy seated next to him, seemingly the leader of the group, didn’t find it funny. He gave the laughing boy a judgemental look, making him flinch and go quiet at once. 

Following the noise, Wei Wuxian’s eyes scanned over the group, and he was startled by what he saw. He had assumed that the servant girl from before had just been exaggerating, but it turned out that these guests truly were from an ‘extremely illustrious’ sect. 

The boys were wearing flowing, light-coloured robes with graceful sleeves and sashes. They were beautiful and possessed a cold aura of spiritual power. Just one glance at their uniforms was enough to know that they were disciples of the Gusu Lan sect. Not only that, they must have been connected to the Lan clan by blood, because they all wore white forehead ribbons embellished with cirrus cloud patterns. 

The Lan clan’s motto was ‘righteousness and rectification’, and the implicit meaning of these forehead ribbons was ‘self-regulation’. The cirrus cloud was the Lan family crest, and wearing it was forbidden from those outside the clan. Visiting scholars and disciples from other families would wear a forehead ribbon without the crest. Seeing the Lan uniform gave Wei Wuxian a toothache. In his past life, he had often mocked this uniform for its resemblance to mourning clothes. There was no way he would mistake it. 

Madam Mo hadn’t seen her nephew for quite a while, and it took her a long time to recover from her shock. After finally realising who this garish person coated in greasepaint was, she felt a flash of anger. Beside herself with fury, she whispered to her husband in a low voice: ‘Who let him out? Put him back immediately!’ 

Madam Mo’s husband forced himself to flash her an apologetic smile, but as he stood up, his face immediately darkened in anger. He was just about to grab the intruder and drag him out, when Wei Wuxian suddenly threw himself to the floor, making his limbs heavy on the ground. He became completely still, and even though servants were called in to push and pull at him, nobody could make him move. If only there hadn’t been guests around, they would probably have trampled him to death. Madam Mo’s husband glanced at her face, which was becoming increasingly twisted with anger, and started sweating profusely. He shouted: ‘You damned madman! If you don’t get out of here at once, I’ll teach you a lesson!’ 

Even though everyone at the Mo manor was well aware that there was a lunatic in the family, Mo Xuanyu had secluded himself in his gloomy room for years, too afraid to see anyone. Seeing him suddenly emerge from the shadows, looking like a wicked ghost in his heavy make-up, raised furious whispers all around him; people were expecting some kind of a spectacle. 

Wei Wuxian said: ‘Fine, I can go.’ Pointing his finger at Mo Ziyuan, he continued: ‘Just tell him to return the things he stole from me before’. 

Mo Ziyuan was stunned by the nerve of this lunatic. He’d been taught a lesson only yesterday, yet he had the gall to barge in here today. His face grew pale and then red. ‘You’re talking rubbish! When exactly have I stolen your things? What use would I even have for your things?’ 

‘Right, right, right! You didn’t steal them, you pilfered them!’ said Wei Wuxian.

Madam Mo had a moment of realisation. Mo Xuanyu had clearly come prepared for a fight, his mind completely lucid. He was trying to humiliate them on purpose. Suddenly overwhelmed by anger, she shouted: ‘You came here on purpose just to make a scene, didn’t you?’

‘He’s stolen and pilfered my things, I just came to get them back. Can that really be called making a scene?’

Madam Mo didn’t have a response at the ready, but Mo Ziyuan was quicker, lifting his leg to stomp on Mo Xuanyu. At that moment, one of the white-robed boys with a sword on his back made a tiny gesture with his finger. Mo Ziyuan lost his balance, his leg suddenly stumbling at nothing, and he fell down on himself. Regardless, Wei Wuxian rolled over on the ground, pretending as if he’d really been trampled on. He pulled the front of his robe open, showing everyone the footprint on his chest that had really been inflicted by Mo Ziyuan the previous day. 

The onlookers were enthusiastically following the drama. There was simply no way Mo Xuanyu could have kicked himself on the chest. Yet he was one of their own blood! How could this family be so ruthless? It was clear that his insanity hadn’t been this severe when he’d first returned. The more his family mistreated him, the more deranged he had become. In any case, it was a good show. In fact, it was even more entertaining than the visiting cultivators!

With so many pairs of eyes fixed on them, Madam Mo could neither hit Mo Xuanyu or shove him out. She could only swallow her indignation and attempt to force a bland compromise: ‘You talk of stealing and pilfering? Such vulgar words. When it’s between family members, couldn’t you just look at it as borrowing? A-Yuan is your little brother, can’t you let him take a few of your things? As an older brother, how can you be so petty? You’re making a fool of yourself, throwing a childish tantrum over a trifle like this. It’s not as if he wouldn’t return your things to you later.’ 

The white-robed boys looked at each other at a loss. One of them, who had just been drinking tea, almost choked on it. Growing up in the Gusu Lan sect, these boys had grown used to austere elegance. They had probably never witnessed a farce like this before, nor heard such insightful argumentation. This was probably an important life experience for them. Laughing hysterically in his mind, Wei Wuxian reached out his hand and said: ‘Give them back, then.’ 

Of course there was nothing for Mo Ziyuan to return, because he’d either discarded or destroyed everything. Not that it made a difference, because he would have been too prideful to return them in any case. With an ashen face, he shrieked: ‘Mother!’ and glared daggers at her, as if to accuse: ‘Are you really just letting him humiliate me like this?’ 

Madam Mo glowered at her son in return, trying to prevent him from making the scene worse than it already was. Not giving up so easily, Wei Wuxian spoke again: ‘That reminds me.. He shouldn’t have stolen my things at all, but he especially shouldn’t have stolen them in the middle of the night. Considering the fact that everyone here knows I like men - he has no shame, forcing me into a suspicious situation like that.’ 

Madam Mo gasped and shouted: ‘How dare you say that in front of everyone! You’re the one who has no shame. A-Yuan is your cousin!’  

Wei Wuxian was an expert at behaving badly. In the past, he’d had to restrain himself to protect the honour of his family, but now that he was already a verified lunatic, he didn’t have any face to worry about. Head held high, he spoke with the force of absolute conviction: ‘He’s perfectly aware that I’m his cousin, yet does nothing to avert suspicion. In the end, who is the more shameless one? Maybe it’s not a big deal to you, but please don’t ruin my innocence! I still want to find a good man!’ 

Mo Ziyuan screamed and started swinging a chair at him. Seeing him finally explode in rage, Wei Wuxian got up in one smooth movement and dodged out of the way. The chair hit the ground and was smashed to bits. The large crowd that had gathered in and around the East Hall had been delighting in the Mo family’s humiliation, but now that things had taken a more violent turn, they all fled before they could get into harm’s way. Wei Wuxian ducked towards the Lan Sect boys, who seemed dumbfounded. He yelled: ‘Did you all see that? Did you see? He’s a thief and a violent brute! An utterly heartless person to boot!’ 

Mo Ziyuan was just about to pounce on him when the leader of the Lan disciples stopped him, coaxing: ‘Young master.. If you have something to say to him, then say it.’ 

Madam Mo realised this boy was trying to protect the lunatic, and it frightened her. With a forced smile, she said: ‘This is my younger sister’s son. He’s a bit.. troubled. Everyone at the Mo manor knows that he’s insane and that his ridiculous stories should not be taken seriously. Cultivator, if I may suggest..’ 

Before she could finish her sentence, Wei Wuxian, who had been hiding behind the back of the head disciple, peeked out and said: ‘Who says the things I say shouldn’t be taken seriously? The next time someone tries to steal something from me, I will cut their hand off!’

Mo Ziyuan had been restrained by his father, but hearing these words made him furious again, and he struggled to break free. Wei Wuxian slithered out of reach like a fish swimming downstream, running out of the hall. The head disciple rushed to block the door, preventing anyone else from going after him. He then tried to switch everyone’s attention back to the actual reason they were here, speaking in a serious tone: ‘Um.. Well, we will be borrowing your West Garden this evening, Madam. You must take heed of the instructions I gave earlier. After nightfall, you must keep your doors tightly closed and remain inside. You must not approach the courtyard.’ 

Madam Mo was trembling with anger, but no matter how much she wanted to force that door open, she couldn’t go against her benefactors’ wishes. She could only say: ‘Yes, yes, thank you for your trouble..’ 

Mo Ziyuan couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Mother! That lunatic slandered me in front of so many people, and we’re just going to let him go? You said before, you said he’s just a..’

Madam Mo snapped: ‘Shut up. If you have something to say, say it after we have returned to our rooms!’ 

Mo Ziyuan had never lost his footing this way before, had never felt this humiliated and rejected even by his own mother. Seething with resentment, he snarled: ‘That madman will die tonight!’ 

After Wei Wuxian had finished his show of insanity and walked out of the hall, he took his time wandering the grounds of Mo manor, brazenly putting himself in the spotlight. He delighted in the way passers-by were shocked by his face. He was starting to gain a tangible understanding of the joy of being considered a madman. Begrudgingly, he realised that the thought of washing off the hanged-ghost makeup no longer felt so appealing either. He reasoned with himself: ‘In any case, there is no water, so how am I supposed to clean my face?’. He smoothed down his hair and glanced at his wrists. The cuts had not faded in the slightest. As expected, such a trivial degradation was far from satisfying Mo Xuanyu’s thirst for revenge. 

Would he really need to annihilate the Mo clan completely? 

….Honestly speaking, that might not be so difficult, after all.

Deep in thought, Wei Wuxian wandered back to the main buildings of the Mo manor, walking in small, springy steps. As he was passing the West Courtyard, he saw the Lan disciples standing on the roofs and eaves of the surrounding buildings, solemnly discussing something. Intrigued, Wei Wuxian retraced his steps, entering the courtyard and stretching his neck to look up at them. 

Although the Gusu Lan Sect had been one of the key participants in the siege and annihilation campaign at Luanzang Mound, these disciples were too young to have even been born at that time. They had nothing to do with it. Wei Wuxian stood still and watched them, trying to figure out what they were doing. As he watched, he was suddenly gripped by a feeling of unease. 

The fluttering black flags that the disciples had put up on the roofs and eaves looked awfully familiar. 

These flags were called ‘Yin-summoning flags’. When carried by living humans, they would attract recently departed souls, vengeful ghosts, fierce corpses and evil spirits within a certain range. Whatever was summoned, it would only attack those carrying the flags. Because the flag-carrier was essentially turned into live bait, they were also called ‘target flags’. They could be hoisted on houses, on the condition that there were living people inside. In that case, the range of the target would be fixed to include everyone in that house. They had one more nickname, ‘black wind flags’, because dark yin energy would collect in their vicinity, spiraling like ink-black gusts of wind. Since the Lan disciples had arranged all the flags in the Western Courtyard and forbidden everyone from approaching it, they were clearly planning to attract the moving corpses there and capture them in one sweep. 

As for their familiarity.. How could they not seem familiar? After all, the inventor of the Yin-summoning flags was Wei Wuxian himself! 

All the cultivation clans might have been itching to kill him, but apparently they had no qualms about using his techniques for their own ends. 

One of the disciples stationed on the roof noticed him watching them. ‘Please go back. You shouldn’t be here now.’

Although he was being shooed away, it sounded like the disciple really didn’t want him to be harmed. The tone could not have been more different to the one the Mo servants used on him.  Wei Wuxian caught him off guard, leaping up and grabbing one of the flags.  

Alarmed, the disciple jumped down to chase after him: ‘Stop meddling with it! This isn’t something you should be touching!’ 

Wei Wuxian was the perfect picture of a madman with his disheveled hair and his limbs flailing as if in some deranged dance, running away while shouting: ‘I won’t give it back! I won’t give it back! I want this! Want this!’ 

The disciple overtook him in a couple of strides, grabbing his arm and saying: ‘Will you give it back or not? If not, I will strike you!’

Wei Wuxian was holding on to the flag as if his life depended on it. The head disciple, who had been arranging the flag formation, noticed the commotion and jumped down from the eaves, light as a feather. He said: ‘Jingyi, leave it. Let’s just get it back nicely. There’s no need to get into a quarrel with him.’ 

Lan Jingyi said: ‘Sizhui, it’s not like I actually hit him! Just look at what he did - he destroyed the whole flag formation!’ 

During the two disciples’ heated conversation, Wei Wuxian was able to inspect the Yin-summoning flag in his hands. The motifs had been drawn correctly, and the incantations were complete. There were no signs of carelessness or negligence; the flag was completely fit for use. It had been drawn by an inexperienced hand, and would only attract spirits and moving corpses within a five-li radius. Nevertheless, it was good enough. 

Lan Sizhui smiled at him and said: ‘Young master Mo, it will be dark soon. We will be capturing moving corpses, so it will be dangerous at night. You should head back to your room now.’ 

Wei Wuxian eyed the boy up and down. He looked gentle and elegant in a pristine way. There were traces of laughter in the corners of his mouth. This boy had the potential to become a widely praised cultivator, Wei Wuxian thought. He had also arranged the flag formation in perfect order, revealing an impeccable education. Who could have raised a boy like this in the dreadfully old-fashioned Gusu Lan clan? 

Lan Sizhuan spoke again: ‘So, this flag…’ 

Before he had finished speaking, Wei Wuxian had already thrown the Yin-summoning flag to the ground, huffing: ‘It’s just a lousy flag, what’s the big deal! I could draw one much better than this!’ With that, he broke into a run and dashed away. His bragging made the boys listening from the roof laugh so hard they almost fell off. Even Lan Jingyi chuckled as he picked up the Yin-summoning flag and dusted it off. ‘This guy is completely crazy!’ he said. 

‘Don’t say that. Let’s rush back to help the others’, Lan Sizhui said. 

Wei Wuxian continued to loiter around the grounds until nightfall. He then returned to Mo Xuanyu’s small house tucked away in a courtyard. He ignored the broken latch and the complete mess that had been made of the room, picking a relatively clean spot on the floor to sit down and meditate. 

This time, his meditation didn’t last until daybreak. His attention was pulled back to worldly things by a loud racket outside. 

He could hear frantic footsteps and alarmed shouts approaching his room. Wei Wuxian listened to the same phrases being echoed over and over again: ‘Charge in and drag him out!’ ‘Report him to the authorities!’ ‘There’s no need to report anything, just beat him to death!’ 

As Wei Wuxian opened his eyes, several house-servants had already rushed into his room. He saw that the courtyard was brightly lit with flames. Someone was shouting: ‘Drag this insane murderer to the hall, so we can let him pay with his life!’ 

(translation notes)

chapter 3 translation notes

辟谷 pìgǔ - ‘abstaining from food’

This is a Daoist term that literally means ‘grain avoidance’. It’s not exactly synonymous with just ‘fasting’. 辟谷 is practiced as a way towards spiritual enlightenment or (especially in the xianxia genre) immortality. Depending on the context, 辟谷 can refer to just abstaining from staple grains like rice and wheat, or refusing all food (inedia). 

真是虎落平阳被犬欺，龙游浅水遭虾戏，拔了毛的凤凰不如鸡。- ‘He was like a tiger bullied by dogs after leaving his mountain, like a dragon deceived by a shrimp in shallow water, like a phoenix robbed of his feathers and turned into an ordinary rooster.’ 

These are all idioms taken from literature, referring to someone powerful becoming weak when they lose their position of advantage. 

小辈 xiǎobèi - ‘junior disciple, disciple’ 

This is a simple term that is difficult to translate without sounding awkward in many contexts. It basically just means ‘someone belonging to the younger generation’/in a junior position from the speaker’s point of view. I have often just omitted the ‘junior’ part in translation so the sense of hierarchy becomes less clear, but hopefully it sounds more natural in English. 

雅正 yǎzhèng - ‘righteousness and rectification’ 

This ‘Lan clan motto’ is a literary phrase that could be translated as just ‘righteousness’, but it has a nuance of asking for criticism as well; as in, ‘please criticise me so I can rectify myself’. 

客卿 kèqīng - ‘visiting scholar’ 

In ancient times, this term referred to government officials who would be posted to a foreign country. Because there is apparently no government in MDZS, I interpreted this to mean a highly-ranked cultivator who joins a sect they have no relation to (either permanently or temporarily). 

剑 jiàn - ‘double-edged sword’

I will probably just translate this as ‘sword’ most of the time, but I thought it’s good to establish that this word refers to a specific type of sword that was widely used in ancient China. Apparently it can be called a jian in English as well, although I don’t think this word is as widely understood as, say, ‘katana’. 

召阴旗 shàoyīnqí - ‘Yin-summoning flag’ 

I know this has been translated as ‘spirit-summoning flag’ or ‘phantom-summoning flag’, but I like the association with yin - summoning anything with a dark, hazy yin energy. On its own, 阴 doesn’t really refer to ghosts or phantoms, although it has those connotations because yin also encompasses darkness and secret things. It’s really impossible to find a translation for yin that would capture all of its nuances, so I decided to just keep it. 

阴灵 yīnlíng - ‘recently departed souls’ 

This is an uncommon word that literally means ‘yin spirit/soul’. In the past, it was apparently used to refer to souls of people that had died within the last 49 days. During that time, the soul could seek for a place to reincarnate, and would be called a 阴灵. 

第2章

Chapter 2. Spite: Part I. 

The very moment Wei Wuxian opened his eyes, someone kicked him.

Like a sudden thunderclap, a voice close to his ear roared: ‘Stop playing dead!’ 

The kick, which had been directed squarely at his chest, nearly made him cough up blood. As the back of his head hit the ground, he gazed up, mind still covered in a haze. He thought: ‘This guy has some gall, daring to kick me, the Yiling Laozu.’ 

Wei Wuxian didn’t even know how many years it had been since the last time he’d heard a living person speak, let alone such a resounding voice cursing him. While his head was still spinning and his vision was blurred, this young fellow’s duck-like croak reverbated in his ears like tinnitus: ‘Have a think - whose land is it you’re living on? Whose rice is it you’re eating? Whose money are you spending? It goes without saying that the answer to all these questions is “mine”!’. 

Immediately after that, Wei Wuxian heard sounds of frantic rummaging from all directions, as if someone was digging through chests and drawers. Judging by the clangour, it seemed that things were being thrown around and smashed on the floor. It had taken a while, but Wei Wuxian’s eyes were finally starting to clear up. A dingy ceiling emerged in his line of vision, followed by a pallid face with drooping eyebrows, standing above him and splashing spit on his face as he shouted: ‘How dare you tell on me! Did you really think that I’d be scared of your snitching? Did you really believe that there is anybody in this house who would take your side?’ 

A pair of burly men, apparently household servants, emerged on the young fellow’s side and said: ‘Young master, we’ve finished smashing everything to bits!’

The duck-throated youth asked: ‘How did you get it done so quickly?’

The household servants said: ‘Well, there weren’t that many things in this dirty hovel to start with’. 

Beaming with satisfaction, the duck-throated youth turned towards Wei Wuxian again. He jabbed at his nose forcefully, index finger seemingly itching to push it all the way up to his forehead, while shouting: ‘How come you were acting all uppity before, snitching on me, and now you’re cowering on the ground playing dead! Who is this act meant for? As if anyone would actually want your scrap metal and waste paper! Now that I’ve smashed it all up for you, feel free to try snitching on me to your heart’s content! You think you’re so amazing just because you spent a few years in a cultivation sect. Even though they drove you out just like a stray dog, didn’t they!’ 

Feeling barely half-alive, Wei Wuxian pondered: 

‘I’ve been dead for years. I’m really not pretending!’ 

‘Who is this guy?’ 

‘Where am I?’

‘How did I end up possessing someone else’s body?’ 

Having let out enough steam by kicking and smashing up the room, the duck-throated youth swaggered out with the two man-servants in tow, slamming the door and ordering in a shrill voice: ‘Keep a close eye on him! Do not let him come out, or he’ll just make a spectacle of himself again!’ 

On the other side of the door, the man-servants vowed to follow the order. Silence fell both inside and outside the room. Wei Wuxian tried to sit up, but his body refused to obey, so he lay back down again. There was nothing he could do but roll over on his side. Although his vision was still blurry, he took in the unfamiliar surroundings - and the complete mess that had been made of the room. 

A bronze mirror had been discarded on the floor beside him, close enough that he could easily reach out and grab it to take a look. A strange white face appeared in the mirror, with both cheeks covered in uneven and asymmetrical stripes of crimson. All that was missing was a long red tongue lolling out of his mouth, and he would have been the spitting image of a hanged ghost. 

Bewildered by the sight, Wei Wuxian threw the mirror away. He wiped at his face, only to find his hand covered in white powder. 

Fortunately, this body hadn’t been born with such an eccentric appearance; its previous owner had just had eccentric tastes. This was doubtlessly the body of a grown man, yet with rouge and powder thickly smeared all over its face. The worst part was that the make-up had been applied with appallingly poor technique. 

Being startled had had a revitalising effect. Wei Wuxian finally found the strength to sit up, and only then did he notice the curse array on the floor beneath him. The scarlet-coloured array was circular but uneven. It seemed that someone had drawn it with a shaky hand, using their own blood as paint. The pattern was still wet, and a meaty stench emanated from it. Twisted incantations had been frantically scribbled inside the array. Some of them had been wiped away by the body lying on top, but the remaining words and drawings were permeated by a demonic gloom. For however many years, people had been calling Wei Wuxian the sovereign of demons, the patriarch of demonic cultivation, and so on and so forth. Knowing such matters like the back of his hand, a quick glance was naturally enough for him to figure out that this was no good-natured array. 

So he hadn’t possessed anyone’s body, after all - rather, someone had offered their own body to him!

In its essence, a demonic consecration was a form of a curse, requiring the person casting it to mutilate themselves with a weapon. The blood flowing from the wounds that had been carved on the body would then be used to draw the array and write down the incantations. Once the array had been drawn, the caster would position themselves in its centre, thus turning their own flesh into a sacrifice for demonic spirits. For the price of returning their own soul to the earth, the caster could summon an unspeakably wicked demon or even an evil god to take over their body and fulfil their most desperate wish. 

The polar opposite of a demonic consecration was, naturally, a demonic possession. Both of them were widely reviled as forbidden arts, but the former had been far less popular in reality than the latter. After all, very few desires were strong enough to compel a person into sacrificing oneself completely. As a result, this curse had barely ever been put to practice, and over the last century, it had almost fallen to complete obscurity as a forgotten art. The ancient books recorded only three or four verified cases of demonic consecration over the millennia. Without exception, each of these people had been consumed by the same desire - revenge. The demonic spirits they summoned had perfectly satisfied this desire with ruthless bloodshed. 

Wei Wuxian felt deeply uneasy. 

How exactly had he ended up lumped together with ‘unspeakably wicked demons and evil gods’? 

Sure, he had a relatively poor reputation, and the way he’d died had been extraordinarily brutal. But he had no interest in either haunting or vengeance. He could bet that even if one searched all corners of both heaven and earth, they could never find a wandering soul as friendly and dutiful as he was! 

The thorny issue was that the whole act of demonic consecration was based on the primacy of its caster’s desire. No matter how unacceptable that desire may have been for Wei Wuxian.. Now that he had been inserted into the spell-caster’s body, a tacit contract must have already formed between them. He had no choice but to fulfil whatever had been asked of him. A failure to fulfil a contract like this would result in the curse rebounding on the possessor. His soul would be completely extinguished, unable to ever be reincarnated again.

Wei Wuxian loosened the sash on his robes and raised his arms to inspect them. As expected, both of his wrists were crisscrossed by nasty cuts from a sharp blade. Even though the wounds had already stopped bleeding, it was clear to Wei Wuxian that these were no ordinary injuries. The cuts on this body would not heal unless its original owner’s wish was completely satisfied. The longer it took to fulfil the task, the more its condition would deteriorate. If the time limit was exceeded, the soul that had been summoned to possess this body would be ripped apart along with it. 

Wei Wuxian reiterated this over and over again to make sure there was no mistake. In his heart, he repeated ten times: ‘This is absurd!’. Finally, he forced himself to stand up, leaning on the wall for support. 

The room was spacious but empty and squalid. The bedspreads and quilts looked like they hadn’t been changed for a very long time, and the air smelled musty. A bamboo basket full of rubbish had been kicked over in one corner, spilling out dirt and wastepaper. Wei Wuxian noticed traces of ink on the wads of paper and picked up one sheet to take a closer look. Sure enough, it was covered in dense writing. He rushed to collect all of the scattered pieces of paper. 

The previous owner of this body had clearly written these notes as a way to vent out his distress. Many of the passages were completely nonsensical or incoherent, and the distorted characters were steeped in anxiety. Wei Wuxian mustered up all his patience to read through page after page, and the more he read, the more uneasy he felt. 

Even if he had to make some wild guesses to patch it all together, he could roughly figure out what was going on. Most importantly, the original owner of this body was called Mo Xuanyu, and this place was the Mo family’s manor. 

Mo Xuanyu’s maternal grandfather had been one of the richest landlords in the area, but struggled to produce a successor. Even after diligently trying for years, he’d only had two daughters, whose names were not mentioned. His legal wife had given birth to the elder daughter, whose husband later married into the family. The second daughter’s mother, on the other hand, was actually one of the housemaids. Because of her illicit background, the Mo family had originally been intending to send the second daughter away through marriage. A chance encounter she had at sixteen upended these plans, however. At that time, the leader of an influential cultivation sect fell in love with her at first sight while passing through. As a result of their clandestine affair, the second daughter gave birth to a child - and that child was Mo Xuanyu. 

Although people at the Mo manor had initially viewed this affair with contempt, they also held a deep admiration for cultivators. In the eyes of common people, cultivation families enjoyed Heavens’ special blessings; they were noble and mysterious.  From time to time, the leader of the cultivation sect would also provide the Mo family with all kinds of favours. Eventually,  the wind started blowing in a completely different direction. Not only did the Mo family start considering this special treatment a source of glory, it also roused the envy of outsiders. 

A good thing never lasts forever. The sect leader was the type to always crave for freshly hunted meat, and it only took a couple of years for him to grow tired of the familiar taste. His visits grew more and more infrequent. After Mo Xuanyu turned four, he never visited again. 

In the years that followed, the tone of voices within the Mo manor changed once again. The old contempt and ridicule came back, this time intertwined with disdainful pity. While swallowing her bitter regret, the second Mo daughter remained convinced that the sect leader would never completely abandon a child of his own blood. Sure enough, when Mo Xuanyu was fourteen, the sect leader dispatched a large group of delegates to ceremoniously welcome him into their clan. 

At this, the second Mo daughter regained her pride. Even if she couldn’t accompany her son, her previous sullenness was swept away at once. Whenever she met somebody, she would loudly boast about her son, who was sure to become a great cultivator, achieve meteoric success in his career, and bring great honour to their ancestors. As a result, the wagging tongues at the Mo manor changed their tune for the third time. 

However, before Mo Xuanyu could establish himself as a fully-fledged cultivator and a successor to his father, he was kicked out. 

Not only that, but it was an extremely unsightly homecoming. Mo Xuanyu was a cut-sleeve, and he had been harassing his fellow disciples in audacious ways, causing a very public scandal. Moreover, it turned out that his innate talents were mediocre, and he could hardly make any great contribution as a cultivator. Because of all this, the clan had no reason to let him stay. 

To make matters even worse, these experiences had triggered something strange in Mo Xuanyu. After his return, he went completely off the rails. His moods fluctuated wildly, and he seemed perpetually terrified of something.

Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows twitched as he read these words. 

As if being a cut-sleeve wasn’t bad enough, this fellow also had to be a lunatic. 

At least that explained why his face was covered in enough make-up to get him mistaken for a hanged ghost. It also explained why nobody had seemed to give two hoots about the large blood-drenched array on the floor. It could very well be that even if Mo Xuanyu had painted the whole shack in blood, from the floor tiles all the way up to the roof, the people around him would have considered this nothing out of the ordinary. Because everyone knew he was sick in the head! 

After Mo Xuanyu’s return to the family home, nobody had bothered to hold back on their scorn, and he was mocked relentlessly. This time, it seemed clear that he’d used up all of his chances to redeem his reputation. The humiliation proved to be a fatal blow for the second Mo daughter. She couldn’t purge the resentment that settled down deep in the pit of her stomach, and it eventually suffocated her to death. 

By that time, Mo Xuanyu’s maternal grandfather had already passed away. Mo Xuanyu’s aunt, Lady Mo, had taken on the role of the family head. Ever since they had been children, Lady Mo could barely stand her little sister, and she viewed her illegitimate child with even more disdain. She only had one child of her own, the fellow who had barged in and ransacked Mo Xuanyu’s room earlier. It turned out his name was Mo Ziyuan. When Mo Xuanyu had been invited to his father’s sect, Lady Mo had concluded that she could now claim a familial tie to the cultivation clan. Whenever envoys from the cultivation clan came to visit, she would implore them to invite Mo Ziyuan to study cultivation as well. Of course, her requests were rejected, or perhaps simply ignored. 

No kidding. This was not a situation comparable to haggling over the price of cabbage, let alone getting two for the price of one! 

Where did everyone in this family get their bottomless confidence from? They all seemed to harbour very misguided notions, firmly believing that Mo Ziyuan possessed immortal bones and an innate gift for cultivation. Moreover, they believed that if only Mo Ziyuan had been the one sent to study cultivation first, the clan would definitely have recognised his immense talents. There was simply no way he would have turned out to be a disappointment like his cousin. Although Mo Ziyuan had still been a young child when Mo Xuanyu left for the cultivation sect, he had been stuffed full of such utterly baseless notions about his own superiority. Even as he grew up, he remained absolutely convinced that they were true. Barely a day went by without him grabbing Mo Xuanyu to humiliate him and accuse him of blocking his path to cultivation. Yet at the same time, he couldn’t keep his hands off the items Mo Xuanyu had brought back from the cultivation sect: the talismans, the cinnabar elixirs, the ritual instruments.. Mo Ziyuan considered them his own rightful property. If he saw something he wanted to either take for himself or destroy, he didn’t think twice. Even though Mo Xuanyu suffered from bouts of madness, he was perfectly aware that he was being humiliated. He endured it day after day, but Mo Ziyuan’s behaviour only grew worse, and eventually his room had been almost completely emptied out. At the end of his rope, Mo Xuanyu had finally confronted his uncle and his aunt to stammer out his grievances. This had been the reason for Mo Ziyuan’s fury earlier that day. 

The handwriting was so small and dense that reading it had made Wei Wuxian’s eyeballs sore, and he wondered to himself: ‘Just how fucking dark was this person’s life?’. It was no wonder that Mo Xuanyu had resorted to demonic consecration to get his revenge. 

Just as the pain in Wei Wuxian’s eyes subsided, he felt a headache coming on. When using an array like this, the spell-caster was expected to incant their wish so that the summoned evil spirit - in this case, Wei Wuxian - could hear it in detail upon entering the body. It seemed that Mo Xuanyu had been secretly copying fragments of forbidden books without studying them completely, and this crucial step had been omitted. Even if Wei Wuxian could make an educated guess that his task was to exact revenge on the Mo family, how was he supposed to know exactly how this revenge was to be served? How far would he need to go? Was he expected to seize back all the possessions that had been stolen from him? To give every member of the Mo family a good battering? 

Or.. to completely exterminate them? 

Complete extermination was the most likely answer! After all, anyone who had connections to the cultivation world would likely evaluate Wei Wuxian using broadly similar words: an ungrateful wretch, a complete lunatic, the most fiendish monster among humans. Nobody would summon a soul like his to fulfil a light-hearted desire. 

Grudgingly, Wei Wuxian sighed: ‘You really picked the wrong person…..’

(translation notes here)

Chapter 2 translation notes

(Chapter 2 link)

泼野 pōyě - ‘Spite’

This part of the book is called 泼野 pōyě, which is quite an uncommon word. It’s an amalgamation of 泼辣 pōla (shrewish, pungent) and 粗野 cūyě (insolent, coarse). Most usage examples in literature refer to shrewish or fierce women. I decided to translate this as ‘spite’ to try and capture the nuance. 

公鸭嗓 gōng yā sǎng - ‘duck-throated’ 

This is a word commonly used to describe someone who has a low, throaty voice, almost quacking. It literally means ‘drake throat’ (a drake is a male duck). I used duck instead of drake for clarity, because I think the latter isn’t used very commonly in English (I might be wrong though). 

断袖 duàn xiù - ‘cut-sleeve’

In the past, a ‘cut-sleeve’ was an euphemism for a homosexual. I translated as it is, because there isn’t really an English word with a similar nuance. 

符篆、丹药、小法器 - talismans, cinnabar elixirs, ritual instruments 

This is just a little side note for people who may be interested in the cultural context of the xianxia genre. ‘Talismans’ here refers to paper talismans. ‘Cinnabar elixirs’ could really be translated as just ‘elixirs’ or similar, but I wanted to include the reference to cinnabar (丹) because it’s actually a very important substance in traditional Chinese alchemy. Historical Chinese alchemy was Daoist in the sense that the alchemists tried to align themselves with the dao to attain immortality. Cinnabar was one of the minerals most closely linked with immortality in their worldview. Finally, ‘ritual instruments’ refer to items used in Daoist and Buddhist religious ceremonies. All of this just shows that the MDZS fantasy world is very embedded in this Daoist folk tradition, as is the wider xianxia genre. 

第1章

1: Rebirth - Wei Wuxian has died. This calls for a celebration!

‘Wei Wuxian has died. This calls for a celebration!’ 

Barely a day had passed since the great siege of the Luanzang Mound had come to its conclusion, and the news soon gained wings. It travelled far and wide through the cultivation world, spreading even faster than the flames of war. 

For a while, the chaotic campaign of encirclement and annihilation, which had been led by an alliance of the Four Great Sects and assisted by countless other sects of lesser influence, was on everyone’s lips. 

‘Why, indeed, that calls for a celebration! Which distinguished hero was it that managed to kill the Yiling Laozu with their own two hands?’

‘Who’d you think? It was his own shidi Jiang Cheng, the young leader of the Jiang Sect, who placed righteousness before family ties and spearheaded the Jiang Sect of Yunmeng, the Jin Sect of Lanling, the Lan Sect of Gusu, and the Nie Sect of Qinghe, to attack the Yiling Laozu’s lair at Luanzang Mound and completely wipe it out.’ 

‘For the sake of justice, I must say: what a well-deserved death!’

These words immediately elicited cheerful clapping and resonant calls of agreement: ‘That’s right, a well-deserved death indeed! If it weren’t for the Jiang Sect of Yunmeng kindly taking him in as a child and raising him, that Wei Ying would have spent his life as a complete no-name charlatan, drifting around country fields and low-class haunts.. What else is there to say? Even though the former head of the Jiang clan had raised him just like a real son, he brazenly defected from the sect and made the whole cultivation world his enemy, completely humiliating the Yunmeng Jiangs. To add insult to injury, he caused the tragic near-massacre of the whole Jiang family. Has there ever been a better example of a thankless wretch kicking his benefactors in the teeth? I don’t think so!’

‘It’s surprising that Jiang Cheng let that arrogant skivvy to live as long as he did. If I’d been in his position, I wouldn’t have let that bastard Wei get away with just a little stab wound when he defected. I would have just disposed of him and his little faction right away. If only he’d been killed then and there, he wouldn’t have had the chance to commit those deranged deeds later on, either. So what if they grew up in the same cultivation clan? When you’re up against a person like that, holding on to the innocence of childhood memories is a big mistake.’ 

‘That’s not the story I heard, though. Didn’t Wei Ying die because the demonic techniques he’d been cultivating turned against him, and his Ghost General underling tore him apart and devoured him? I heard he ended up nibbled to bits.’ 

‘Hahahaha.. That’s what we call karmic retribution.  I always wanted to say that the Ghost General he raised was just like a mad dog on a loose leash - biting at any person it came across, and finally mauling its owner to death. Served him right!’ 

‘Be that as it may, had the young leader of the Jiang sect not depended on his knowledge of Yiling Laozu’s weak points when devising the plan to besiege and destroy Luanzang Mound, it’s difficult to say whether the whole thing could have succeeded at all. Surely you haven’t forgotten just what Wei Wuxian has on his hands - how he annihilated an army of over three thousand distinguished cultivators in a single night?’

‘Wasn’t it five thousand?’ 

‘Three thousand, five thousand, what’s the difference? Personally, I think five thousand sounds more likely.’ 

‘What’s for sure is that he was a frenzied lunatic..’ 

‘At least he destroyed the Yin tiger amulet before his death, accumulating a bit of yin virtue too. Had he left that ghastly thing behind to continue wreaking havoc on the human world, the burden of his sins would be even greater.’ 

As these three words - the ‘Yin tiger amulet’ - were uttered, a spell of silence suddenly fell over the gathering, and everyone seemed to be on their guard.

A moment passed, and someone sighed: ‘Ah, well.. The thing is, back in the day, Wei Wuxian was considered a noble son of one of the wealthiest and most distinguished cultivation clans - it’s not like he was never on the right track. He made his name at a young age, he was so well-regarded and free to do what he pleased. How on earth did he sink so low?’ 

The topic of conversation shifted, and one after another, voices were roused to proclaim their opinions once again.

‘This clearly shows that cultivation must, ultimately, follow the orthodox path. The demon fell astray from the path, and for a while he seemed invincible, all hubris and bravado. But hey, how did he leave the stage in the end?’ 

At that, someone bellowed: ‘He didn’t even leave an intact corpse behind!’

‘Not all the damage was due to demonic cultivation, either. In the final analysis, Wei Wuxian’s character was too flawed, and he brought the wrath of both God and men upon himself. What we call good and evil always get their rightful compensation in the end;  Heaven’s reward is a good reincarnation..’ 

After death, all are free to pass judgment on one’s life. By and large, the same things were being repeated over and over again, with a voice of dissent occasionally piping up only to be immediately suppressed. 

Yet a dark haze still lingered in all hearts, impossible to banish. 

Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Laozu, had definitely died at Luanzang Mound; yet after the event, no one could summon what remained of his soul. 

Perhaps his soul, too, had been devoured when the army of ghosts ate away his body - or, perhaps, it had escaped. 

The former would, naturally, be a cause of universal delight and rejoicing. However, the Yiling Laozu could overturn the heavens and wreak havoc on earth, he could move the mountains and drain the seas - at least that was how the rumours had it. If he wanted to resist his soul being summoned, surely this would be like child’s play for him. If, one day, he were able to regain control of his spirit and possess a new body by force, all the cultivation sects - as well as the entire human realm - would surely be met with even more deranged curses and retaliations, sinking into a pitch-black reign of bloody terror. 

So it was that, after placing a hundred-and-twenty stone beasts to guard the summit of Luanzang Mound, all the distinguished families began conducting frequent soul-summoning ceremonies and searching vigilantly for any signs of demonic possession, keeping track of strange phenomena occurring throughout the lands, and using all their might to remain on guard. 

In the first year, there was only silence.

In the second year, there was only silence. 

In the third year, there was only silence.

……

In the thirteenth year, the silence still remained unbroken. 

By this point, more and more people had become convinced that Wei Wuxian may not have been so extraordinary after all - maybe he really had been extinguished in both body and soul. 

Even if he had once been capable of turning the clouds upside down and covering the rains with his hands, he had become the one who was turned over, in the end. 

No one can remain on the altar of the gods for eternity; and legends are just legend, nothing more.  

(see translation notes)

chapter 1 translation notes

prologue/chapter 1 - misc notes on vocabulary and some translation decisions

why did i not translate 夷陵老祖 Yílíng Lǎozǔ? 

i know that it’s common to translate 夷陵老祖 as ‘Yiling patriarch’, and it’s not really a mistranslation, but i don’t really like the vibe of that translation. in chinese, 老祖 has a very different nuance. it means ‘the ancestral father/forefather’, while also having the connotation of a ‘holy man/ancient sage’ in daoism. i’d say it sounds more wholesome/spiritual than the english ‘patriarch’, which has a more authoritative nuance. WWX is the founder of his own ‘sect’, so calling him a patriarch makes sense in context, but that word in english has connotations that don’t exist in chinese. so i decided to just keep ‘Yiling Laozu’. if this is an unpopular take, i might change it in the future. 

师弟 - Shīdì - Fellow pupil (of the same master).

most people probably know this, but just a quick note - i didn’t translate this word because it would be really difficult to convey its meaning in english without sounding very awkward. 

阴虎符 - Yin tiger amulet (and Yin in general)

i know that the yin tiger amulet is sometimes translated as ‘stygian tiger amulet’, which also sounds pretty cool. the reason why i wanted to keep the word ‘yin’ is that it’s deeply connected with the daoist worldview/mythology that works as the basis of the whole xianxia/cultivation genre of literature. the character 阴 yin is the very same character that’s used in the yin/yang concept. i’m not going to go into much detail, because there is a huge amount of literature on this for those intrigued. but yin symbolises darkness, femininity, negativity, the moon etc. while yang, of course, symbolises the counterparts of these features. the ‘stygian’ translation is neat, because it takes the ‘darkness’ nuance and adapts it into the western context through a reference to greek mythology. but i think it’s also interesting to consider the original nuances of ‘yin’ in its chinese context, so i left it untranslated. 

in this short prologue, there are also two other instances where 阴 is used:

“他死之前毁掉了阴虎符，倒也算积了点阴德，否则留下那鬼东西继续贻害人间，更加罪孽深重喽。” ‘At least he destroyed the Yin tiger amulet before his death, accumulating a bit of virtue too. Had he left that ghastly thing behind to continue wreaking havoc on the human world, the burden of his sins would be even greater.’

there is a mention of 阴德/yin-de or ‘yin virtue’, which is an interesting concept. 阴德 refers to ‘secret virtue’, virtue that will be counted towards one’s good deeds in the next life. sometimes it also connotes ‘feminine virtue’, because yin represents the feminine. in this context, the speaker probably means to say that in case WWX’s soul were to return, he at least has this one good deed to his name.

‘只是每个人的心头都还有一缕阴霾挥之不去。’’Yet a dark haze still lingered in all hearts, impossible to banish. ‘

the word used for ‘haze’ here is ‘yinmai’, containing the character for yin, which is also why i translated it as dark haze. this might not be deliberate, but i still thought it was a nice little detail. 

厮 sī as ‘skivvy’ 

‘江澄居然就让这厮嚣张了这么久’ -->  ‘It’s surprising that Jiang Cheng let that hubristic skivvy to live as long as he did’ 

The word 厮 was difficult to translate. These days, it can be used to just mean ‘guy’, with often a derogatory tone - as in ‘damn that guy’. Historically, however, 厮 meant ‘male slave/servant’, someone who had a low social status and worked menial jobs. Since MDZS is set in (fantastical) history and the speakers here have already brought up WXX’s humble origins, I wanted to include some of that nuance. I thought that ‘slave’ or ‘servant’ were too strong words, though, for such a casual remark. I decided to translate it as ‘skivvy’, which (imo) is a pretty light-hearted word compared to ‘servant’ but has a similar connotation of low social position. The only problem with this word is that it is usually gendered as female, which is why I thought I’d add a little explanatory note in case someone is confused. I don’t think there exists a ‘male’ equivalent that would be very similar in both tone and meaning. If one exists, please let me know! In this case, I thought ‘skivvy’ is close enough. 

蚕食 cán shí 

‘受鬼将撕咬蚕食而死的吗’ ‘his Ghost General underling tore him apart and devoured him‘ 

Just a small note to say I like the word 蚕食 - it literally means ‘silkworm eating’, giving the connotation of slowly nibbling away at something. 

翻手为云覆手 ‘turning the clouds upside down and covering the rains with his hands’ 

so this is an idiom i probably should have ‘localised’ more, but i just really like the nature imagery so i kept it. this is a line from a tang-era poem by du fu, used to convey either the changeability of human nature or the tendency of humans to devise tricks that go against nature. 

that’s all for the prologue, until next time!