Consider this, you die and like the Scum Villain’s Self Saving System reincarnate as none other than Xue Yang!
-First of all, fuck Wen Rohan. You are not about that life.
-You just gonna steal the Yin Iron pieces and run away.
-Go full Baoshan Sanren, find yourself a mountain and adopt all the orphans you can find. Go full on Pied Piper and whisk them away in the night.
- You call them your chaotic minions, because now you are in a mountain with a bunch of children. You really didn’t think this through. Who put you in charge?
- Of course, people are going to talk about the demonic cultivator sacrificing innocent orphans high up in the mountain in his quest for power.
-Someone overheard you once calling some of the older children minions when you went down the mountain and Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations! You are now building an army. Apparently, you get points for this??
- Wen Rouhan is pissed and tries to attack you. Jokes on him. You’ve got the power of plot devices and the Yin Iron on your side.
- You teach your minions how to cultivate. What else are you going to do? They need to be able to defend themselves. You also teach them how to blend in when they go to town to sell talismans and buy food. Safety first, safety second and coolness third! “Shiiiiizuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnn”
- They go to different towns, avoiding areas close to the sects. They end up hearing all kinds of gossip. Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations! You now have spies. Except your minions are trolls and keep coming up with the most ridiculous stories about you to tell the villagers. Suddenly, there is a competition to see which minion can make the most outlandish rumors and have people believe it enough to spread it.
- The sunshot campaign starts. Let’s face it, the Wens aren’t going to stop it just because they don’t have the Yin Iron. They are too arrogant for that. Turns out Wen Rohan got the one from Cloud Recesses, ops! RIP, Lan An.
- You have decided to not get involved. Until the newly minted Jiang sect leader decides to come to you.
“You must be desperate to come to me for help“ You pull off your best impression of Loki as you stare down Jiang Cheng. He is, his sect burned down, his brother is still missing. He heard you and Sect leader Wen have been fighting for a while. It’s a clear case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. You feel sorry for the angry grape, you truly do, but you don’t want to die.
- You’re not going to get involved. Wuxian will show up eventually and save the day. Death by Lan Wangji does not suit you. Except you have a mission now and goddamnit!
- You lock down your mountain (you’ve got children to protect) and follow what’s left of the Jiang Sect into battle in your pink robes.
Listen all the other colors were taken, ok! Besides, pink makes you look less threatening. You’re not making Meng Yao’s job easier for him. You have no doubt that at the end of the war you’ll be just as much of a target as Wei Wuxian.
- With that in mind you set out to be the nicest, friendliest person to ever exist. It’s all sunshine and rainbows!! You don’t care if they look down on you as long as you are alive. And look down they will, well, mostly Jin Guangshan, but it’s not like you care about his opinion anyways. You just smile innocently while plotting his ‘unfortunate accident’.
- The other sect leaders seem angrier than you expected but since they are not angry with you, you ignore it. Nie MingJue looks like he wants to kill Sect leader Jin but what else is new? Sect leader Lan tries to console you, but you just wave him away. You’ve got some zombies to raise, that needs a lot more concentration that you imagined. You can’t really be bothered if he gives you a sad smile before leaving you to raise the dead.
- By now, the Jiang sect (what little is left of it) trusts you not to kill them. You’ve had crossed a few Wen groups on your way to the meeting point and had collected enough corpses to cause some damage. They were surprisingly ok with you, even if you are a demonic cultivator, they also protected you from any cultivator that wasn’t. You blame it on the pink robes.
- You and the Jiang Sect are sent to track down Wen Chao but you keep arriving when everyone is already dead. “Ah, a challenger appears!” You mutter to yourself. Wuxian is back in the game. Unfortunately, you are surrounded by cultivators who are perfectly able to hear whispers from a distance. They take it far too seriously and Jiang Cheng won’t let you out of his sight. Not even when you pout, he just looks away frowning. Why so angry, bro? Your face is literally turning red. That can’t be good for your blood pressure.
- Lan Wangji arrives and you nearly gets stabbed. Rude, just so rude. This wasn’t even your kill, you know? You take the corpses anyway. The more the merrier. You also decided early on not to use the bodies of cultivators on your side. It takes more effort to move a battalion from one place to another but you think not using their friends will gain you brownie points in the long run.
- Lan Wangji keeps giving you looks. You don’t speak Lan Wangji so you have no idea what he’s trying to convey. Just in case, you make a point to be near Jiang Cheng at all times. The Sect leader doesn’t seem to mind.
- Your group finally catches up with the protagonist and you may or may not be fangirling a bit. Both Jiang Cheng and Wangji disapprove of it but you are too excited to care. Besides, once Wangji sees Wuxian, he will be too occupied pinning to stare at you. Also, holy shit, Wuxian is savage. The resentful energy is so concentrated you can’t see anything. You decide to guide JC and LW, trying to open a path in the dense energy, it’s hard work but you make it to the building without any attacks.
- “First of all, I’m a big fan of your work! Like, the talismans that attract evil instead of repelling? A thing of beauty! I’m a bit jealous, I didn’t think of it first, not gonna lie.” Maybe you should’ve introduced yourself like a normal person but at least you got him to laugh!
“I’m Wei Ying, curtesy name Wei Wuxian!” You can feel Lan Wangji’s stare burning into your soul. You’re not trying to steal his man, Lan Wangji needs to chill. You’re just trying to befriend the protagonist in hopes of living longer and because you’re a fan.
“Xue Chengmei, courtesy Xue Yang” You bow and smile.
“The demonic cultivator?“ You nod happily and Jiang Cheng interrupts the conversation bringing the attention back to Wen Chao. Wei Wuxian has heard of you, holy shit. The Yiling Patriarch knows your name.
-You wait outside while they deal with Wen Chao, there aren’t any usable corpses nearby so you go check on the Jiang cultivators. Your undead army will catch up with you. They don’t really need rest so they are not that far behind you when you fly ahead with the living.
They have their family reunion and soon head to the battlefield to join the other troops. You want to talk strategy with WW, having two demonic cultivators working on the same battle will be tricky. They might end up giving conflicting orders or end up fighting each other for control of the corpses (not on purpose, obviously).
You decide it's best to do it away from the other cultivators, LW might try to stab you for bringing his precious WW to the dark side. You've been working really hard to get as many people to like you in order to increase your chances of survival.
-War sucks, being around this many strangers is getting to you. The stress of dying and pretending to be from this world on top of the constant use of resentful energy is taking its toll.
“Yes, I know resentful energy ruins you but the other option is all of your disciples dying a slow and painful death at the hands of Wen Rohan so stop whining about your supposed righteousness!” You finally explode during one of the meetings.
“Your righteousness won’t shield them from arrows and swords, my corpses will. So unless you have a better plan to keep these cultivators alive, shut up and let me do my job.” It would’ve been more impressive if you hadn’t stormed off afterwards.
Later Lan Xichen offered to play Clarity for you every night. You wanted to refuse but the resentful energy was already messing up with your plan to be nice to everyone and make them like you or at least less likely to ask for your death in the future.
-The final battle was approaching. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian went wherever they were needed most. You remained with the Jiang Sect and therefore, was forced into all sect leader meetings. There were less painful forms of torture. Smaller sects were just as annoying as Jin Guangshan but a lot less bold once the Nie, Lan and Jiang sect leaders glared at them for their backhanded comments. You're starting to empathize with the original Xue Yang when he went on a mass murdering spree. That was your queue to find a place away from people and ensure that you didn't lose what little was left of your sanity.
-You still had no way of getting rid of Meng Yao and he definitely needed to die. The problem was that you also needed Jin Guangshan dead. Unfortunately, you couldn't afford to wait for Meng Yao to kill him. You needed to kill them both without having the sects turn on you for it. In other words, you were screwed.
-"Let's go fight Wen Rohan, they said. It will be fun, they said. I should never have left my mountain." You sat down by the small river to wash your face. "Once this is over I'm not leaving the mountain for at least a century, maybe two." And because you once again didn't check to see if anyone was listening. Now, the entire camp was hearing rumors about you being an immortal master.
-Lately all your missions consisted of 'Keep an x number of disciples alive by the end of the battle', 'help this sect leader to victory' and much to your horror 'get Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli to have a civil conversation'. The last one, you failed quite horribly but since you had gained a lot of points during battles you were still alive somehow. You were really bad at this romance thing and Jin Zixuan was an idiot. Maybe he should settle for letters and have someone read them over before he sent them. Never talk to her again.
-Jiang Cheng was a lot less grumpy, or maybe you just got used to his grumpiness. You really wished therapy was a thing in this world. His parents really did a number on him, the guy couldn't even take a compliment without storming off.
-When the sect leaders managed to converge in one place Lan Xichen manages to track you down to listen to Calming. You appreciated the effort but that didn't change the fact that you hated instrumental songs. Really, what's the point of a song if you can't sing along? Anyways, you did your best not to fall asleep on him. That would've been rude. Over time Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng started joining. You encouraged the two to join you for your daily torture sessions. If you had to suffer so should they, besides it might do them good.
-"Resentful energy fucks you up, just listen to the stupid song, Wei Wuxian!" "If I have to get my hands on some immortal cables and tie you up I will. So sit down and listen to the boring song." "If I have to suffer through it so will you!" You should probably not have had a yelling match with him in the middle of the cultivator's camp for all to hear but Wuxian was having a temper tantrum and in desperate need of some tough love.
"What's an immortal cable?" "Not the point!" Would it even work on him? Resentful energy comes from the ambient not his core. You should probably try to figure out how to make one now that you mentioned it out loud. It's probably similar to the nets the Jin likes to use. You decided to consult the system later. It was not good for people to see you making faces at empty space.
Gusu Lan Sect didn't like you very much after that. Mingjue thought you were hilarious, that's right, you're in the first name basis now. On the bright side, Wuxian stopped being a little bitch about letting Lan Wangji help him. Jiang Chen actually smiled just to prove that miracles do happen. You resisted the urge of teasing him. Wuxian did not.
-It was the final battle and the best plan you could come up with was to make it to palace before Xichen and kill both Wen Rohan and Meng Yao before Xichen could admit that Meng Yao had been spying for them. You still weren't sure that killing the evil twink was a good idea. If he died now, you would completely deviate from cannon and have no way of planning ahead. If you didn't, it would be near impossible to kill him once he became Jin Guangyao.
Having to deal with Wen Rohan again was bad enough. None of the others knew the original goods had been working with him before. If he was exposed, which the evil twink would certainly do at his earliest convenience, it would be game over. Not just for him, his fall from grace would likely affect Wuxian as well and cost you enough points for an instant kill. You had no doubts that Meng Yao had at least heard of you.
"I'm a horrible person" By now the others had noticed your nervousness. You had left most of the corpses to Wuxian's control. Lan Wangji glared at you extra hard. At least that's what you assumed was happening. A lot of lives were depending on your ability to kill the evil twink before he started spewing secrets. Hopefully, he hadn't said anything to Mingjue, death by saber did not sound pleasant.
How the hell were you going to kill Wen Rohan without announcing to the whole cultivation world that you are too powerful and therefore, a threat? Can you even sneak close to him without him noticing? He is probably expecting you to make an appearance. Can you even keep him from taking the Yin Metal from you? System, how much stronger than you is he?
You are going to die. The children will be left alone in the mountain to fend for themselves. Until the Jins decide to attack them. "I really don't want to be back here" You didn't notice the looks you were getting, you were still trying to keep yourself together if only for morale's sake. These people were trusting you to watch their backs. You still needed to seize control of the corpses under Wen Rohan or destroy them before you could make your way to your death. Did you even have enough points to survive that kind of failure?
One step at the time, first the corpses, second, Mr. Sun himself then Meng Yao.
You kept forcing your way towards the Wen cultivators, this time you didn't wait for the corpses to clear the way nor did you advance with the protection of the Jiang sect. You had a timer, that was torture. You didn't want to die again. You ignored the shouting of your name. The thick cloud of resentful energy forming a tornado around you and you ran and hoped for the best.
Wen cultivators were being picked up by the resentful wind along with arrows and swords, you hoped that no one on your side got pulled in. All your control was being used to keep the speed of the resentful energy around you. You bulldozed your way towards the palace making the tornado as big as you could menage.
You could feel it, Wen Rohan trying to wrangle the control off of you and resisted. You were too far for him to pose a threat. More and more cultivators were being pulled in. You guided the tornado towards the concentrations of Wen cultivators staying in the center where nothing could reach you. It was exhausting but you didn't have time to fight them with just fierce corpses. This was the best you could do for them.
-You almost didn't make it to the palace where Mingjue was being kept. The exhaustion along with the ridiculous amount of blood you had lost making you dizzy. You were too close to faint now. From the bottom of the stairs, you saw Mingjue be tossed out of the palace. There was no disguising your presence, the resentful energy was burning you from inside out.
Meng Yao was next out followed by Rohan. Where Yao moved towards Mingjue, Rohan had his eyes on you. "The thief returns" You didn't bother with a reply, saving your energy, you continued making your way up the stairs. The thought that this would look impressive on screen rushed through your mind.
"Xue Yang, you've made a mess of yourself. Did you come beg for my forgiveness?" The oppressive nature of this cultivational power was suffocating. Your eyes didn't stray from him, didn't trust him not to take the first opening he could find to kill you.
This was it, the show down between two villains, two demonic cultivators. Two against three pieces of the Yin Metal. You didn't even have the protagonist halo to rely on, not that it had done Wuxian much good.
You had one chance to get this right. A single blow with all you had, you would die if the fight lasted longer than that. You got to the top of the stairs, as close as Wen Rohan would allow. You saw Rohan call for Meng Yao, likely to give him an order. You didn't wait to hear what it was. Resentful energy exploded out of you along with the energy of your golden core. You felt weightless for a second, then felt nothing.
-Pain, your body was on fire. Is this what the cruciatus curse feels like, like sulfuric acid coursing through every cell in your body? You wanted to scream, to cry. "Just let me die"
The next time you woke up the pain was much more bearable. And by bearable, it meant that you were struggling to breathe.
The third time you heard whispers, maybe your torturers were taking a break. Meng Yao you little shit.
You were like that for a while, in and out of consciousness. Never aware long enough to know anything except for that stupid song. You really hated this song, can't they play something else, anything else. Is this part of the torture? Every time you would try to stop the song from playing and then promptly pass out from the pain.
"I swear to god, I'm going to shove this flute so far up your ass you'll be hiccupping musical notes if you don't stop playing this shit" The song immediately stopped, followed by laughter. It wasn't until you finally gathered enough energy to open your eyes that you realized you just cussed out Lan Xichen, you know the sect LEADER, Lan Xichen.
"Xue- Gongzi is so grumpy. He's been spending too much time with Jiang Cheng" Wei Wuxian's face came into view. "I'm sure he didn't mean it, Zewu-zun"
"I hate you all, no exceptions"
"The song is meant to help you, Xue Yang. You suffered a severe Qi deviation. If Mingjue hadn't got to you when he did you would've been dead." Xichen didn't sound hurt or insulted when he approached but when did he ever sound like anything other than pleasant. "It helps stabilize your Qi while you heal. I'm afraid it's necessary to your recovery" Wuxian sniggered, the little shit.
"Then let me die, please. I'm not above begging." You close your eyes. Keeping them open is too tiring.
"No" Xichen is definitely enjoying your suffering. The asshole. Bring Wangji here, he'd put you out of your misery.
"Where is the Yin Metal?"
"Safe"
"Safe where, Wuxian? You had one job!"
"Calm down, I hid it away."
"Good"
-You were brought to Cloud Recesses for healing. Apparently, you blasted a crater where Wen Rohan was, there wasn't enough of him left other than a mist of blood. Meng Yao had been caught in the blast as he had moved towards his 'master' (to kill him and use that to gain favor with his father). Xichen made sure to tell you that it was no fault of your own as you didn't know he was a spy for our side. (Jokes on him). Two birds. One stone.
Xichen had arrived shortly after and helped stabilize you. Followed by Wuxian and Wangji. Wuxian had placed the Yin metal in a Qiankun bag, both halves of it and later hid it, Wangji helped his brother with you. Like you had warned him, Jin Guangshan had made a move for the Yin Metal. Wuxian was not having it, Mingjue, Xichen and Jiang Cheng backed him up once Wangji made it clear that you had told Wuxian that no one other than himself was to touch it.
They assumed some sort of backlash would happen; you did not correct them. Instead you told Wuxian in no uncertain terms that Jin Guangshan was going to try for his amulet next and when that failed, he would attack his reputation in an attempt to vilify you and him both. That he would have the world think we are monsters in order to attack us and retrieve at least one of them. "He saw what the amulets can do. He wants to be the next Wen Rohan, first he will make himself into Chief Cultivator"
Outside, the cultivation world is celebrating. "How do you know?" Wangji was the one to break the tense silence. "Dead people talk and I listened" You'd long settled on a believable lie for how you knew things that you had no business knowing.
"I'd like to share this information with Mingjue" You nodded, surprised that they believed you right away, or at least took your warnings seriously. "And sect leader Jiang" Xichen added. The warnings would be even more credible if it came from him rather than you.
Xichen and Jiang Cheng weren't very close. That needed to change, that lack of personal relationship would leave him isolated and make him an easy target.
-You were on bed rest for quite a while and forced to endure a myriad of Lan disciples playing Calming and Healing and other songs that didn't warrant an interesting name. Two of your older minions, came to Cloud Recesses to make sure you were not being kept against your will and update you on everything they had done while you were fighting the war.
They had taken in villagers whose villages had been destroyed, no new cultivators as they were weary of people who could cause them harm. The wards were still holding up, not that you were worried about that. The wards had been made with help of the System. You had used quite a lot of your points from random side missions in exchange for that knowledge. You would not have lasted a month without it.
-Jiang Cheng also visited to make sure the information he had received from Wuxian and Xichen was accurate. That led to another serious talk, this time only between the sect leader, Wuxian and you. You remembered how easily Wuxian and Jiang Chen had been pitted against each other. Sadly, you could not just blame the ghosts for it this time.
Instead, you claimed that you'd noticed their communication issue just by watching them interact with one another. You warned them that if you could see it, so could other people and not everyone would refrain from exploiting that weakness. You insisted that as a sect leader it was his responsibility to discipline his disciples and no one else's. You told him that you personally would not allow outsiders to reprehend any of your people. If they had a problem with one of them, they should bring it up with you and you would discipline them as you see fit. Anything else makes you look weak. Since Jiang Cheng was rebuilding his sect, he could not afford to let others, sect leaders or otherwise to push him around.
That seemed to get your point across. They needed to present and united front. The two of them were the more notable members of the sect and more likely to be targeted. It was vital that they agreed on things in front of others. Leave the arguments for private spaces. Decide on things ahead of time, discuss issues ahead of time. You finished with a very pointed look toward Wei Wuxian and the place where his sword should be. Wuxian seemed to get the message by the way he tensed. Then you told them to go find a private place and talk about any issues they think can be used against them so they can have a plan on how to proceed.
-This time Lan Wangji decided to torture you with silence. You didn't know if it was payback for having Jiang Cheng drag Wuxian away from him and doubted Hanguang-jun would answer it so you resigned yourself to being stared at.
"If you want something, you're going to need to use your words. I'm horrible at guessing games" You shifted on your bed, still on bedrest after over a month. You resisted the urge to ask 'What do your little elf eyes see?'. Does he even know what an elf is?
"Why?" You waited. "Why Demonic Cultivation?" A loaded question and right as his brother and uncle showed up. Why is his uncle even here? You might start a fight with this kind of questioning.
"To survive" He frowned at you when you didn't continue and a part of you thought 'roundabout is fair' "It was the only way to survive when Wen Rohan is hunting you down. Did I want to get into it? No, of course not. Do I regret it? Not even a little bit. Being able to manipulate resentful energy has saved thousands of lives. I'm not so arrogant as to believe that my ability to remain righteous is worth more than actual human lives."
"The real world is not black and white, is shades of grey. Sometimes doing a good thing causes more harm than doing something bad. Sometimes doing bad things saves lives. Good is not the same as right and bad is not the same as wrong." You purposely avoided looking at Lan Qiren. "There's nothing fair about life, it's messy and chaotic and more often than not, hopeless. We're all just doing the best we can with the time we've been given, that's all we can do and even then, sometimes our best isn't enough."
"Will you abandon this path now that the war is over?" You prepare yourself for a confrontation, maybe you'd get kicked out of Cloud Recesses. You should look for your sword.
"Probably not. By now the news of what I did has spread all over. Lots of power-hungry people will come try their luck. I'm not letting them get the Yin Metal, not when they will use it to abuse those weaker than them. I'll have to fight them. I too, have people I want to protect, I'm not risking their lives. And with every defeat more will hear and come for it. I'll just have to keep on fighting until I can't fight anymore. There is a reason why I holed myself up on a mountain. At the time only Wen Rohan knew I had half the Yin Metal. I only had to keep one person away. Now everyone knows."
"Once I'm healed, I will return to my mountain and make sure these people can't get to the Yin Metal"
"It is not your burden to carry alone. We've had a fragment under our care before, surely we can do it again"
"Splitting it only means twice as many people will be in danger. Once I reach my mountain no one will be able to remove it from there. I had the ward already set up when Jiang Cheng arrived. Wuxian will need a similar set up for his amulet. The two should not be kept together."
- Since leaving your mountain (which you are resisting the urge to name it Mordor) your affection points have been skyrocketing. Even Lan Wangji likes you a little bit. You are very satisfied with the Make-them-like-you-so-they-don’t-want-to-kill-you plan.
- You are happy to take the back seat and let Wuxian deal with the Wen Remnants and Jin Guangshan. Hopefully, the Lan, Nie and Jiang will stand by him this time.
