Chapter Text
Wen Chao threw Wei Wuxian into the Burial Mounds, and he wasn't seen again. His family and Lan Wangji searched for him for months, until they just couldn't spare the resources and had to focus on Sunshot, but to no avail.
Mysteriously, though, a few months later Wen Chao's mutilated corpse was found near the base of the Burial Mounds. Wen Xu followed soon after. Wen Ruohan was outraged, but given that the Wen themselves controlled Yiling, he had no way to solidly pin it on any other sect.
Soon after, the whispers start. Of a powerful immortal on the Burial Mounds, a cultivator who must have been there for centuries but kept to himself until the Wen provoked his ire. The gossip mills are undecided whether he simply disapproves of one sect trying to subjugate the others, or if Wen Ruohan did something to personally offend him. Nobody has ever seen the Yiling Laozu, but many have seen his fierce corpses. Some have even heard his ghost flute and lived to tell the tale—its wrath is only ever directed at the Wen, leaving bystanders untouched.
As the allied sects take the fight further into Qishan, the Yiling Laozu's reach expands, as well. Eventually he himself must leave the Burial Mounds—he's still never seen, as he stays shrouded in resentful energy well away from the battlefield, usually on a nearby hillside or cliff overlooking the action. The few times someone has gone up to try to get a better look at him, he's disappeared long before they arrived.
He seems to protect the Jiang the most viciously, leading to rumors that he might have once belonged to the sect, centuries ago. Some have noticed that he sometimes also seems to favor the Lan, but not always. Nobody has figured out the pattern as to when he pays special attention to the Lan and when he doesn't.
(Even he doesn't really realize he's doing it, tbh. He knows that when he catches sight of Lan Wangji on the battlefield it's distracting. He doesn't consciously try to give him extra protection. He just can't get him out of his head, and the resentful energy responds to that. It knows Wei Wuxian's feelings better than he does, and it wants to please its master.)
Once the war is won, the Yiling Laozu seems to retreat back onto Burial Mounds. But now that the sects know he's there, he makes them nervous. (Well, he makes Jin Guangshan nervous.) Most immortals don't really bother anyone, but he's already shown that he's willing to get involved in mortal sect affairs if you piss him off enough. The sect leaders start talking about paying tribute to make sure they stay in his favor.
The Jiang are well aware of the Yiling Laozu's preferential treatment toward them, and Jiang Cheng knows full well that a) they can't afford to piss off this guy and b) it'll make them look stronger (particularly to the Jin) if they establish a strong relationship with him early, so they're the first to actually send an envoy to the Burial Mounds.
They're not offering people—partially because they can't spare any but mostly because Jiang Cheng doesn't, y'know, see people as playthings to be bartered with so it wouldn't even occur to him—instead offering what few resources they have in abundance: fish, lotus, lumber.
They bring a sampling of each, ready to tell the Yiling Laozu that they will gladly bring more as often as he requests. They're not surprised that he refuses to come near enough for them to see through his shroud of resentful energy. They are surprised when he berates them for bringing him these things when they should be using them to rebuild their own sect.
"What use do I have for lumber?" he scoffs. "I live in a cave! And if I need wood, I've got dead trees all over the place! Tell Jiang Ch—zongzhu to keep his lumber to rebuild all those houses the Wen destroyed." He hesitates, hand hovering over the fish (his pale hand is all they can see, sticking out of the cloud of black smoke). "I guess I might as well eat these, since they'll go bad by the time you get back to Lotus Pier. I'll admit fresh meat is hard to come by here. So thanks for that, I guess—but you don't need to bring more! There are plenty of people in Yunmeng who need it more than I do." He picks up a lotus root and turns it carefully. They can't see him, but he seems to be considering it. "I'll keep these too," he murmurs eventually. "I don't want you to bring more regularly, but maybe—can you bring me some seeds? Just once? I'd like to grow them for myself."
The Jiang cultivators fall over themselves promising to bring back lotus seeds. After they've watched the black miasma scoop up the fish and lotus roots and head back up the mountain, they gather the lumber to haul it back home.
Jiang Cheng, of course, is relieved to find out that Yiling Laozu doesn't actually want anything from them except lotus seeds good for planting. He tells the other sect leaders that the Yiling Laozu seems to be a practical sort of guy; they should certainly offer him things out of gratitude, but he probably won't want the kinds of silks and jade the Jin, for example, were thinking of sending him.
The other sect leaders, however, hear something different. The Yiling Laozu wants... to plant seeds? He wants beautiful flowers? Ah, obviously he wants them to send their most beautiful, virtuous virgins and Sect Leader Jiang is just too young and naive to understand!
(The Jiang cultivators, who by now have dropped off the delivery of lotus seeds, are pretty adamant that no he seems very pleased with the literal seeds and actually just seems to want to grow some plants??? But they are ignored by men who hear what they want to hear.)
Jin Guangshan, of course, is the first to get onboard the Send Yiling Laozu Virgins train, thinking he's found a kindred spirit or something. He decides he needs to send someone who will bear Yiling Laozu good, strong cultivating children, so he sends his best unmarried female cultivator—Mianmian.
Mianmian is not a fan of this idea. In fact, she tries to walk out but Jin Guangshan has Jin Zixun and lackeys tie her up and take her to the Burial Mounds against her will. (He's smart enough not to tell his son about this plan until it's been carried out, because he knows she's Jin Zixuan's best friend and his weak, sentimental heir will put that above what is clearly the most important political move their sect can make post-war.)
When the Yiling Laozu appears at the edge of his wards and finds Jin Zixun there with a still-fighting Mianmian, he is, well... appalled would be a vast understatement.
"You're offering me... a person???"
"A beautiful virgin—"
"A BEAUTIFUL VIRGIN IS A PERSON!!!"
Jin Zixun, dipshit asshole that he is, doesn't get the hint.
"Of course she is! And the Jin would like to humbly offer the Yiling Laozu this beautiful virgin as a sign of our friendship and..."
Mianmian, on the other hand, has stopped struggling and is looking at the black cloud with sharp eyes. She doesn't know what's going to happen, but suddenly her odds of survival seem a lot better with the mysterious immortal than the dipshit. As Jin Zixun keeps blathering on, she manages to edge away from him, and the black cloud edges towards her, until she's close enough that she can hear when Yiling Laozu mutters, "Look, I don't know what's going on here, but do you really want to go back with this clown?"
"Not especially," she says without moving her lips.
"Gotcha." Suddenly, she's swept into the black miasma. She still can't see Yiling Laozu, but she can't see anything else, either. He hasn't done anything to her as far as she can tell, she could walk away if she wanted to, but she freezes, wanting to see what happens next. "Okay!" He interrupts Jin Zixun's monologue. "Look, uh, thanks for the, uh... disciple?"
"Well that's not exactly what we—"
"DISCIPLE! Yeah. Please go back and give the other sects a very simple message, okay? Don't send me any more women. Got it? I do not want you guys turning girls into offerings! That is not what I need or want at all!"
"Of—of course!" Jin Zixun is so confused, but he can manage this much. "No more women!"
Once he's gone, the smoke recedes back to just covering Yiling Laozu, but keeps him hidden from Mianmian.
"Look, I'm assuming you don't actually want to stick around here," he says, but Mianmian interrupts him.
"I'm happy to stay as your disciple!" she blurts out. She has no interest in being a consort or concubine or whatever, but this has to be better than being a Jin right now. "It's not like I really have anywhere else to go."
He makes an exasperated noise. "Mianmian, don't be ridiculous, living here is awful, and you don't want to be MY disciple anyhow—you know the kind of cultivation I use! You think I didn't hear everyone muttering about how dark and unorthodox it was behind my back while I saved their asses on the battlefield?"
"How did you know my—that's not even my name, how did you know my nickname?" she asks.
"Uh... that douche must have said it?"
"He definitely didn't."
"Then I... I must have heard someone call you that during the war!"
She squints at him. Or at the resentful energy swirling around him, whatever. "It's possible," she says slowly, "but not many people call me that, and I don't remember ever getting anywhere near you during the war."
She still can't see him, but that doesn't mean she can't tell when he turns in a huff. He starts retreating up the mountain, but she follows close behind.
"Don't make me sic my fierce corpses on you!" he shouts.
"You won't."
"How do you know? I'm the Yiling Laozu! Who knows what I'm capable of?"
She snorts. She's pretty sure she's getting a better idea every moment exactly what he's capable of, and she'd much rather find out more than run away.