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Jiang Cheng is used to Yiling Laozu copycats by now. It's never the truly dangerous demonic cultivators who try it, after all.
He follows every lead anyway, just in case--just in case. But it's always someone over-the-top, doing nothing more than playing dress-up; they're hardly worth more than irritation. If anything, these days he finds himself imagining a presence by his side, a ghost of a memory to roll his eyes toward, a voice answering his, "Pathetic, right?" with, "It's like they aren't even trying to be me."
He still rages about them, because it's the only way he knows how to express frustration and repressed grief. And it's habit by now, if he's honest. But he believes himself a fair and just leader and doesn't actually kill them all on the spot, in spite of the reputation he cultivates as surely as his sword.
This time it's different. This copycat is trying. This one is too accurate and it hurts, oh, it hurts. For the first time it feels like the sin of sacrilege instead of the sin of idolizing a necromancer and something in Jiang Cheng's chest cracks open in a way it hasn't for over a decade.
The robes are clean enough but they're travel-worn and simple, not the gaudy constructions he's used to, of silk and lace with broad shoulders and sweeping layers almost worthy of Jin ceremonial garb.
The hairstyle is softer than anyone now believes the Yiling Laozu could be, the bare minimum of hair tied back low with a simple ribbon. The ribbon is red, of course, but it's not trying to be something. Jiang Cheng can't describe it but it's just a ribbon. Just picked up from some box of scrap ribbons, red out of habit and preference. There are no airs being put on here.
This copycat is not wearing a costume; he's just wearing clothes that happen to be these clothes. He's not playing up the image of the dreaded lord of death making a comeback, and he's not even announcing himself. He's just existing. It's horrible.
By the time Jiang Cheng arrives on the scene the man already has Jin Ling pinned to the ground, disarmed, proving his effortless strength. But he's not actually hurting him. And he chose a talisman--a ridiculous talisman, a painfully-accurate paperman--instead of using demonic cultivation. As if he doesn't need demonic cultivation to solve his problems. As if he doesn't care about demonic cultivation at all if it's not the right tool for the job.
He'd even helped down the people A-Ling was bullying--with Suihua--as if what he does care about are people. And doing random acts of chaotic good. With an ironic twist.
How--how dare he? How dare he embody these sides of Wei Wuxian that nobody else remembers? The little things. The sarcasm. The benevolent arrogance. The lazy posture.
This isn't a Yiling Laozu copycat. This is a Wei Ying copycat.
All Jiang Cheng knows for a minute is pain. It hurts enough that he loses himself to the cold rage flooding his veins like ice and goads on his hot-tempered nephew.
If the copycat is so skilled, it's possible he was never in danger, but the fact that Jiang Cheng has Hanguang-Jun, of all people, to thank for keeping A-Ling from outright murdering someone for a minor offense on his watch just grinds salt into reopened wounds. He knows he fucked up. It just makes him angrier.
And the worst part--the worst part is, for the first time in years, Jiang Cheng doesn't hear the ghost of his brother laughing in his ear as he walks away.
Somehow it feels like losing him all over again.