Chapter Text
The first sign that something was amiss in the Cloud Recesses was that Hanguang-jun did not arrive to class on time.
The second sign was that the classroom doors slammed open with enough force to rattle the windows.
A cold gust of wind swept through the room.
Every junior sat bolt upright.
In the doorway stood the Yiling Patriarch.
Black robes. Loose hair. The black flute Chenqing hanging from his waist, red tassel billowing. A grin sharp as a spiritual blade.
Wei Wuxian looked over the sea of terrified faces and spread his arms dramatically.
“Good morning, children.”
Half the class looked ready to ascend from fear.
Lan Jingyi immediately shot to his feet.
“Why are you here?!”
Wei Wuxian placed a hand over his heart.
“Aiya, what a greeting. What would Lan Qiren say?”
“Where is Hanguang-jun?” another disciple asked weakly.
“Oh, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian waved a hand dismissively as he sauntered into the room. “Sect leader duties.”
A confused silence followed.
Lan Wangji handling sect matters while Lan Xichen remained in seclusion was understandable.
Lan Wangji leaving Wei Wuxian unattended with an entire classroom full of impressionable juniors was not.
Lan Sizhui, however, looked delighted.
“Wei Qianbei is teaching today?”
“Correct!” Wei Wuxian declared proudly. “Today’s lecture is spiritual devices.”
A relieved murmur spread through the room. That sounded reasonable. Safe.
Wei Wuxian climbed onto the teacher’s platform and looked down at the neat rows of students.
“Now then. Please take out your Compass of Ill Winds.”
The classroom was filled with echoing click clacks as the familiar devices were placed on desks across the room.
Wei Wuxian stared at them.
Then he burst out laughing.
The students looked stunned.
Wei Wuxian wiped tears from his eyes.
“You’re still using these?”
The room was silent.
“These,” Wei Wuxian said, picking one up and tossing it casually into the air, “are antiquated.”
A junior whispered, “Antiquated?”
“I made this version in a cave before half of you were even born with a broken compass, three nails, and some resentful energy.”
The class collectively froze.
Jingyi narrowed his eyes.
“You’re lying.”
Wei Wuxian grinned.
“Would I lie to children?”
“Yes,” the entire room answered.
“Fair.”
He tossed the compass back onto the desk and rummaged through his sleeves dramatically.
The juniors leaned forward despite themselves.
Finally, Wei Wuxian slammed something onto the table.
It looked like ordinary talisman paper.
“Observe,” he said grandly, “the next generation.”
The juniors blinked.
“It’s paper.”
“It is innovative paper.”
Wei Wuxian spread the talisman paper flat across the desk and tapped it twice.
Colorful lines began to spread over the talisman paper all on their own.
Gasps erupted around the room.
An entire map unfolded in glowing ink—mountains, rivers, villages, forests.
Small marks flickered across the surface.
Red for yao.
Blue for mo.
Black for gui.
Green for guai.
Wei Wuxian walked around the room with the map.
The orientation shifted smoothly with him.
“It tracks movement in real time?” Sizhui breathed.
Wei Wuxian looked unbearably smug.
“Naturally.”
One of the juniors stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“Impossible?” Wei Wuxian laughed. “I once invented a tally that raised ten thousand corpses. Raise your standards for what counts as impossible.”
That silenced the juniors. This was the Yiling Patriarch after all.
Wei Wuxian tapped one of the glowing marks.
“Tell me. What does a Compass of Ill Winds detect?”
“Resentful energy,” Sizhui answered immediately.
“Correct. And what is resentful energy?”
Silence.
Several disciples looked thoughtful.
Wei Wuxian leaned against the desk.
“Every living thing has a spiritual signature. Non-living things can have one too, if enough energy accumulates. Resentful energy is just another form of energy present in all things in differing amounts. Yao, mo, gui, guai—they all leave traces.”
He pointed to the different colored marks.
“The old compass detects those traces. Crude, but effective. The problem is that it doesn’t understand what it’s seeing. It just points toward the strongest concentration and hopes for the best.”
Lan Jingyi frowned.
“So it can’t tell the difference?”
“Exactly.”
Wei Wuxian spun one of the compasses on his finger.
“This thing is like a very enthusiastic hunting dog.” He shuddered at his own choice of analogy.
“It runs toward the scent but it can’t tell you if it’s leading you to a rabbit or a bear”
Wei Wuxian tapped the map again.
“This, on the other hand, identifies the signature itself. Different creatures resonate differently. Once you can distinguish the signatures, improving the detection range is just a matter of refinement.”
His grin widened.
“And if you can accurately detect something from far enough away, there’s no reason you can’t track it in real time.”
The room went silent.
Several disciples slowly looked back down at the map. Not impossible. Just clever.
More disciples crowded around the map.
A black mark suddenly appeared and streaked across the map at alarming speed.
Straight toward the Cloud Recesses. The room froze.
The mark moved closer.
And closer.
One disciple whispered,
“Senior Wei…”
“Hm?”
“Something’s coming.”
Wei Wuxian squinted at the map.
Another disciple swallowed.
“Should we alert someone?”
The black mark reached the edge of the Cloud Recesses, paused, and passed through the protected walls without a hitch.
Some juniors were visibly panicking. More than one drew his sword.
The doors EXPLODED open.
Half the classroom screamed.
One disciple immediately dove beneath his desk.
A tall figure in black stood in the doorway holding a basket.
Wen Ning blinked at the room full of horrified teenagers.
“…Hello”
The screaming intensified.
“Fierce corpse!”
“Ghost General!”
“Protect the juniors!”
“We ARE the juniors!”
One Lan disciple had already backed himself against a wall.
Wei Wuxian looked delighted beyond reason.
“Oh good. You managed to get through the barrier.”
Wen Ning brightened immediately.
“Yes! Thank you, Wei-qianbei.”
He tossed the jade travel token across the room.
Wei Wuxian caught it one-handed.
The juniors looked scandalized.
Except for Lan Sizhui.
“Wen Ning!”
Wen Ning’s entire expression lit up.
“A-Yuan!”
Lan Jingyi waved enthusiastically.
“You actually came!”
The rest of the room looked moments away from passing out.
Wei Wuxian clapped his hands.
“Everyone, this is Wen Ning. He’ll be assisting today’s lesson.”
“ASSISTING?!” someone squeaked.
Wei Wuxian ignored him completely.
“Now then, Lan Zhan wanted me to teach you how to use spiritual devices—”
Several disciples relaxed.
“—but that sounded boring.”
Everyone tensed again.
“So today,” Wei Wuxian announced, eyes sparkling, “you’re all going to be to making your own.”
Silence.
Then:
“What?”
“How?”
“Out of what?”
“We’re not inventors!”
Wei Wuxian pointed decisively.
“Wrong attitude. Innovation only requires confidence and questionable judgment.”
With that, he instructed Wen Ning to unpack the basket.
He pulled out scraps of paper, old pots and pans, rags, and scraps of metal
The juniors looked dubious.
“Stop looking at me like that. The compass of ill winds started as a broken compass. Immortal binding nets started as fishing nets. Creating new spiritual devices just takes a little creativity. And a tolerance for some mess. And possibly a few explosions.”
The juniors looked at one another. Then at Wei Wuxian and Ghost General.
—
Two hours later, the classroom looked like a minor battlefield.
Talisman paper littered every surface.
There was soot on the walls and ceiling.
One of the tables was smoking slightly from where an experimental device exploded.
A compass spun violently in circles while screaming.
Lan Jingyi was in the middle of a furious argument with another disciple about whether explosive functionality improved or worsened a night-hunt tool.
“Improved!” Jingyi insisted.
“We’re trying to FIND ghosts, not become one!”
At the front of the room, Wei Wuxian leaned proudly against the desk while Wen Ning carefully helped a terrified disciple test whether his spiritual cloak could actually succeed in repelling a fierce corpse.
The answer appeared to be “not quite.”
Lan Sizhui held up a tiny paper frog that hopped enthusiastically toward sources of spiritual energy.
Wei Wuxian gasped dramatically.
“A-Yuan! You inherited my genius after all!”
Lan Jingyi snorted.
“Young Master Lan inherited his patience from Hanguang-jun, or he’d never survive you.”
“Tsk. Is that how you speak to your instructors?”
At that exact moment, the classroom doors slid open.
Lan Wangji stood outside. Beside him was Lan Qiren.
The entire room froze.
Lan Qiren stared.
His eyes slowly moved from the soot covered walls, to the smoking table, to a sword inexplicably stuck in the ceiling.
The screaming compass chose that exact moment to scream.
Lan Qiren looked as though every poor decision Wei Wuxian had ever made had somehow converged into this single room.
“How was class today?” Lan Wangji asked calmly.
Thirty disciples began talking at once.
“…and then Senior Wei showed us how to stabilize the spiritual devices—”
“Mine almost exploded!”
“Mine did explode!”
“The Map of Ill Winds can differentiate between yao and gui signatures—”
“Wei-qianbei says modern cultivation innovation lacks imagination—”
“Ghost General helped me fix my immortal binding net!”
Lan Qiren swayed.
Lan Wangji silently reached out and steadied him before an actual qi deviation occurred on the spot.
Wei Wuxian beamed from the center of the devastation.
“Oh, Lan Zhan! Perfect timing. The juniors are making spiritually responsive autonomous devices now.”
Lan Qiren made a strangled sound.
Wei Wuxian looked genuinely pleased with himself.
“Your lecture plans were excellent inspiration.”
Lan Qiren’s expression tightened.
For a moment, Wei Wuxian thought the old man might ascend from rage alone.
Instead, Lan Qiren looked around the room once more.
The juniors eyes were brimming with excitement. They grasped their rudimentary spiritual inventions like sacred treasure. They looked at Wei Wuxian with a mix of awe and respect.
Lan Qiren turned toward Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji.
“I expect this classroom to be restored to its proper condition by Hai time.”
“Shufu—” Wei Wuxian began.
“Perfectly restored,” Lan Qiren said.
Then he turned and strode out.
The doors shut behind him with enough force to make several loose talismans flutter off a desk.
Lan Wangji calmly said, “The lesson appears successful.”
Meanwhile, Lan Jingyi whispered loudly to Lan Sizhui, “Best class ever.”
“Agreed,” Sizhui muttered immediately.
Wei Wuxian heard them and looked unbearably smug.
Lan Wangji did not hide the softness in his expression.
And somewhere in the back of the room, Wen Ning accidentally made the screaming compass scream louder.