Who were the ghosts that attacked Wen Chao and Wang LingJiao?
The torture and murder of WC and WLJ are some of the most gruesome scenes in MDZS. To me, they are particularly harrowing. Not only because of the implied violence and gore, but the heartbreaking revelation of WWXs mental state after escaping the Burial Mounds.
The contrast between WWX's sudden paled appearance and cold demeanor, against the vivacious and warm WWX we all know and love, always makes me incredibly emotional. Obviously this is because he has been through an extremely distressful experience and is tremendously traumatised. It's quite obvious his thirst for revenge is one of the things that kept him going during his time in the Burial Mounds. Which is why, when he finally emerges from the awful hellhole he was trapped in, his attacks are particularly brutal. I'm currently working on a post about WWX's trauma, which is taking me some time, as it's quite an emotional ride - so we won't go into that too much here. Instead, I want to take a look at something that stood out to me on my first read and even more so on a re-read.
When reading the scenes mentioned above, I noticed a few things with regards to the ghosts WWX used to torture and kill WC and WLJ. Personally, I think MXTX hints that the female and child ghosts used to attack WC and WLJ, have some form of connection to the two in some way.
Wen Chao cried sharply in pain. It sounded especially jarring in the empty courier station. Jiang Cheng asked, “Why is his voice so sharp?” Wei WuXian, “Of course it’d be with a certain thing gone.” Jiang Cheng was disgusted, “You’re the one who did it?” Wei WuXian, “It’s nasty if you think about it that way. Of course, I wasn’t the one who cut it off. It was bitten off when his woman went mad.”
When I first read the above scene, I had a sudden realisation that WLJ couldn't possibly be the "woman" that WWX was referring to. Prior to WC being attacked, WLJ stuffed a broken stool leg down her throat, while under the influence of an unseen ghost - perhaps even possessed at that moment in time.
On the ground, Wang LingJiao had already picked up one leg of the stool, frantically stuffing it into her mouth, laughing as she did, “Fine, fine, I’ll eat it, I’ll eat it! Haha, I’ll eat it!” An entire chunk of the leg had been stuffed down by her!
Not long after the above scene, JC and LWJ find her in the same horrific position with the stool leg firmly in her mouth.
The doors to Wen Chao’s room were wide open. Only one female corpse remained in the room. The corpse wore light clothes. Half of the leg of a stool had been stuffed down her throat. She had killed herself by forcing herself to swallow the stool leg into her stomach.
With this in mind, it couldn't have been WLJ who attacked WC. She was already dead or dying while choking on the stool leg. You could argue that she might have taken it out of her mouth, after she had turned into a corpse that WWX could control to attack WC, swallowing the stool leg again once she had finished. But that doesn't really make much sense. MXTX purposefully drew attention to the fact the stool leg was still in her mouth when JC and LWJ found her. There is even a rather grotesque point where JC attempts to shove the stool leg into her mouth further, when he is kneeling by her corpse. This scene is used not only to emphasise JCs hatred and character, but to draw further attention to the stool leg still being in WLJs mouth. If this scene was purely to show JC's hunger for revenge, MXTX could have had JC slap her corpse - just as JC overheard WLJ state she wanted to slap Madam Yu's corpse after the massacre at Lotus Pier.
I have seen some people in the fandom claim that because of the above contradictions, WWX must be lying. As WLJ, "his woman" was already dead. As such, people insinuate WWX must have bitten off WCs private part himself! Which is ludicrous! He might not be acting himself at this moment in time due to the mass amount of trauma he's endured, but he's not going to do that! Especially if he has others under his control, that are so eager to attack WC in his place.
When WWX said "his woman", I think he was referring to the ghost woman in the room with them at that moment in time. Not WJL as some people assume, but the one who was currently there to torment and kill WC. To me, WWXs words pretty much confirm that he is using one of WCs dead mistresses to torture him to death.
As he spoke, the blue-faced woman crawled toward him using both her arms and her legs. When she had been fighting, her face was almost hideous, but now, with her dark face against Wei WuXian’s lap, she somehow seemed to be a charming concubine, obediently pleasing her master.
The ghost is even described as a seemingly charming concubine, which could be a hint to her past relationship with WC. Given WCs character, and the fact we know he is a huge unscrupulous lech who treats women as objects - it's not much of a jump to assume this ghost was one of his many mistresses or a "sexual conquest" from the past.
Wen ZhuLiu grabbed the child’s head with his left hand, as though to put so much force on the small, cold head that it exploded. The blue-faced woman threw the bloodstained bandages on the ground and, like a four-limbed creature, she crawled to Wen ZhuLiu’s side almost instantly. A swing of her arm and there were ten lines of blood. The two dark beings, one large and one small, wrangled with him incessantly.
Of course, there is also the ghost child. The two appear to be working together and the ghost woman seems protective of the child - as we can see from the above. I think this is insinuating that the child might be the ghost woman's offspring and possibly even WCs illegitimate child. It would make more sense then WWX having summoned a random ghost child. If the ghosts already had strong resentment towards the WC and WLJ, (especially if they caused their death in some way) it would also help strengthen WWXs attacks on them both.
A long-haired woman in red clothes, her face blue, fell heavily onto him. The dark face, bright red clothes, and black hair created a chilling contrast. Her fingers wrapped around the bandages around Wen Chao’s head and tore!
The two scenes above are even somewhat reminiscent to the chapter where the corpses of the Mo family were working together to attack the ghost hand that killed them at the start of the novel. I think the parallels between this scene and the scene at Mo Village are quite deliberate and are intended to help suggest that something very similar is happening with the two unknown ghosts in the scenes in question.
Aside from being unable to defy Wei WuXian’s command, the family also loathed the creature that killed them, and let out their anger on the ghost hand.
The three corpses and the hand were in the middle of a tough battle, when Mo ZiYuan
abruptly moved out of the way. His abdomen area was attacked by the hand, causing a few chunks of his intestines to spill out. As Madame Mo saw this, she screamed incessantly and shielded her son behind herself.
Not only do we see a mother protecting her child, but we see WWX use the resentment they have towards the hand that killed them, in order to attack it. Which could be exactly what is happening in the chapters with the ghost woman and child.
Wei WuXian took his hand away after patting on the white ghoul child’s sparse-haired head. Holding what he had fed it in its mouth, it turned around and sat down. Hugging his leg, it chewed fiercely as it glowered at Wen ZhuLiu with cold, glistening eyes. What he was chewing were two human fingers. Needless to say—they must be Wen Chao’s fingers!
Chewing on WCs fingers has a particularly gruesome, yet disturbingly poetic irony to it all if the theory of the ghost being his illegitimate child is true. The ghost child is literally biting the hand that (possibly) should have fed him!
There are a number of hints that could support the theory that WC and WLJ know the ghosts who are attacking them and that they might have had a hand in their demise. If we piece together the little hints that have been left for us, there seems to be an undercurrent of something more sinister being alluded to within the subtext.
She had been following Wen Chao for almost half a year. Half a year was the most time that Wen Chao could spend on a woman, from loving her to becoming tired of her. She had thought that she was different, that she was the one who could stay until the end. However, Wen Chao’s growing irritation during the past few days had told her already. She was no different from the other women.
The above confirms that WC tires of his mistresses quite easily, usually within six months. From earlier chapters, the reader is already aware WC was married, but still openly flaunted his mistresses and promiscuity. Obviously I'm sure he usually just casts them aside rather than murdering them! Otherwise, there would be a pretty big body count from the sounds of it! But if we consider the fact WC usually tires of his latest conquest within six months, we can assume he dumped this particular mistress way before she'd given birth to the child, more than likely way before she even knew she was pregnant. Perhaps after giving birth she thought presenting him with his child would help her situation, similar to JGY and MXYs mothers holding out hope on JGS taking an interest in his illegitimate children. WC is a cold-hearted, self-centred, greasy, vain psychopath who doesn't care for anyone but himself. It certainly wouldn't be out of character for him to decide to get rid of a mistress and his illegitimate child, because it was an inconvenience to him.
Obviously all we can do is speculate, as there is no solid evidence in the text around the child being WCs. Though the child definitely has a mass amount of resentment towards him and seems connected to the ghost woman in some way - so it is definitely plausible. That being said, I do think we can see MXTX drawing a connection to the ghosts and the two being attacked if we look closely enough.
The chest held all of the valuables and weapons that she had managed to hoard during the half-year of staying by Wen Chao’s side. Valuables she could spend, weapons she could protect herself with. Although she didn’t want it to, the day had finally come.
So we can see WLJ had a contingency plan for if or when WC got bored of her - as it's apparently something WC does often. She already had an idea that if WC lost interest in her, she would need to leave in a hurry. What is rather interesting from the above, is that WLJ had been stashing weapons away to protect herself with as well. Now I am aware that at present, the cultivation world is at the beginning of a war, so this could be overlooked as her trying to protect herself against the enemy, if all of her current privileges and protection were taken away. But the Wen sect really didn't take the war seriously until very recently, possibly even just in the past few days - as we can see from the below.
Everyone who stood on the Wen Sect’s side took the Sunshot Campaign as a joke. However, three months later, the circumstances didn’t turn out the way they expected them to at all!
As such, I think WLJ hiding weapons is more of a means to protect herself against a more imminent threat - WC and those under his command, if he decides she is no longer of use to him. We have already witnessed how cold hearted and ruthless WC and WLJ are. They were quite ready to murder or seriously injure MianMian back in the cave of the Xuanwu of Slaughter - so killing and physically harming others isn't something out of character for either of them. I think the above scene shows the reader that WC might be accustomed to getting rid of mistresses who become troublesome, and that WJL knows this. WLJ may have even participated in such things to gain her current position by his side, after all she was particularly ruthless to poor MianMian, so she's definitely capable of such cruelty.
As we've seen, WLJ has an extremely jealous streak, which caused her to pick MianMian as the person to be hung up as bait for the Xuanwu of Slaughter. So it's not really much of a stretch to think WLJ might have had a hand in bumping off her rival and her poor child as well. It wouldn't be much of a surprise if she'd jealousy helped permanently get rid of a mistress who had given birth to WCs child and become too much trouble for him.
From a psychological point of view, looking at what happened to WLJ when she was attacked, we can see a number of things that could support the above even more so.
The woman’s features were all distorted, as though they had been smashed and then pieced together again. The two of her eyes were looking in different directions, the left upward and the right downward. Her entire face was hideously twisted. Wen Chao tried with much effort before he could finally manage to recognize her from her rather revealing robe. This was Wang LingJiao!
The fact WLJ's face is hideously disfigured is very telling. Whoever attacked her, did so in a very distinctive way. They made her look hideous, they attacked her where it hurts her the most - her beauty. We know the ghost child from later scenes made an appearance in WLJs room, so it's safe to assume that the woman is nearby as well. If the ghost woman was a former mistress who WLJ had a hand in getting rid of, it's definitely something a scorned woman would do to get revenge. Making someone's face look horrifically deformed, sounds very personal to me.
Wang LingJiao staggered before kneeling down and collapsing onto the ground, as though she was kowtowing someone, mumbling, “… I’m sorry… I’m sorry… Let me go, let me go, let me go…”
WJL is currently being controlled or manipulated by an unseen force. Earlier WJL put a talisman that unbeknownst to her, had been reversed and therefore attracted rather than repelled evil. She also admits that her cultivation is extremely low. With all of that in mind, it's possible that she was possessed by the ghost woman from later scenes, at that moment in time. WLJ is currently half mad and very frightened. She's talking to someone who only she can hear - again possibly alluding to her being possessed by the ghost woman. This makes her words very interesting. Most might assume she is saying sorry to WWX, but he's not actually made an appearance yet - he's outside watching and waiting. To me, WJL is apologising to the ghost woman. Because she's the one who is possessing her, and she is the one who WLJ might have wronged.
On the ground, Wang LingJiao had already picked up one leg of the stool, frantically stuffing it into her mouth, laughing as she did, “Fine, fine, I’ll eat it, I’ll eat it! Haha, I’ll eat it!” An entire chunk of the leg had been stuffed down by her!
Back to this grotesque scene again! It's quite apparent that the stool leg is suggestive of the scene we now know must follow. The above could even be seen as a metaphor for what happens to WC off page. As I've already explained above, I don't think MXTX intended for us to think WLJ attacked WC. The stool leg is very phallic and the horrendous act seems very personal once again. It's an extremely sexually violent act and not something I think WWX would be capable of thinking of himself. To me it's perhaps something a murdered or scorned mistress would do to her rival in order to exact extreme revenge. Perhaps even a previous mistress who WLJ had a hand in getting rid of, in order to appease WC.
There seems to be two viable options that I can theorise, as to how WWX acquired the two spirits we are later introduced to. One option is the talismans WWX had reversed all around the supervision office that WC and WLJ were occupying. As we know, reverse talismans attract ghosts and corpses within a certain area. So if the poor woman and child met their end nearby and were waiting around for vengeance, they would have been attracted to the area now the talismans were reversed. Or there is the slightly more sinister option that WWX actually met their ghosts along with many others, during his time in the Burial Mounds and brought them along with him when he left. I find the latter option quite interesting, because there is something that stood out to me in chapters 60 and 61, that could support this theory as well.
Wen Chao continued, “Burial Mound is right in Yiling. You Yunmeng people have probably
heard of its name as well. It’s a mountain of corpses, an old battleground. If you find a spot wherever on the mountain and dig your shovel into it, you’ll be able to dig out a corpse. Any
nameless corpses would be tossed here as well, wrapped in a mat only.”
Wen Chao immediately refuted her, “It’s impossible even if he’s dead! The people who died in Burial Mound, all of their souls would be shackled there.
WC seems to know just how convenient the Burial Mounds is if you want to get rid of someone, keeping their soul trapped there in the process. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if WC had used this place as a personal dumping ground for anyone that displeased him.
Apparently MXTX mentioned somewhere in her author's notes that certain things had to be edited or removed due to censorship issues. Perhaps she originally intended for WLJ to attack WC in the above scenes, but decided to rewrite it. Some claim this scene might have been censored and this is MXTX's attempt at working around it. But personally I think that if MXTX wanted to insinuate WLJ was "his woman" without showing such extreme sexual violence, she would have had the reader notice the stool leg was no longer in her mouth in later scenes. Allowing the reader to notice it was still in her mouth, not once but twice, seems very deliberate to me. With that in mind, I think that even if this was MXTX working around censorship, she most likely still intended for the ghost woman to be the one who committed the violent act and had to do so off page and hint as such instead. It definitely ties in with the rest of the evidence in the text and is even reminiscent of the first time we see WWX using his cultivation technique at the start of the novel. It also somewhat echoes his theorising at the Cloud Recesses, where he first talks about arousing resentful energy and using it as a weapon.
Personally I think once you accept WWX is talking about WCs "woman" being the ghost woman, there seems to be hints to an even darker subplot just under the surface. The fact WLJ has a contingency plan for if when WC tires of her and that the plan involves weapons to protect herself with, is in my opinion rather telling. The fact WWX is known for harnessing the resentful energy that an entity under his control has for others, as a way to enhance his attacks is also a compelling argument that strengthens the above theory as well. I certainly think this is a credible theory and even helps explain a part of the plot that some have found a little confusing, due to what may come across as inconsistencies in the chapters in question.
tangentwithtanner
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
vaporwave
andulkaphoto
