AsterBella

Jiang Cheng already looked incredibly upset to hear this, but Jin Guangshan shook his head and continued.

-Chapter 16, The unruly: part l, 7s

This quote is one that had initially puzzled me a bit and made me think about certain aspects of Wei wuxian's and Jiang cheng's relationship. The thing is that while Jin Guangshan was obviously lying about Wei wuxian not respecting jc and going around boasting, he might have not been entirely wrong about his accomplishments during the sun shot campaign; it isn't difficult to imagine wwx being the biggest contributor to the Yunmeng Jiang sect's achievements in the war and the one who brought back the biggest loot. After all the sect had been almost completely decimated just before the war started; we saw that jc was capable of recruiting some new cultivators in the meantime, but he could have never gathered enough people in such a short time to pose any real threat in battle. Wei wuxian on the other hand could take on entire armies of wen soldiers with his newfound ghost cultivation powers. So what completely baffled me when I read this was to realize just how deeply rotten jc was as a person for him to feel envious even over such a thing. That instead of acknowledging and being grateful for Wei wuxian's protection during the war and his contribution to the Wens' defeat he was jealous of it.

Mo dao messes with the cycle of reincarnation, which is why the Yiling Patriarch becomes so reviled. The term mo dao is actually used only ONCE in the novel - when Wei Wuxian notes that people called him “the grandmaster of demonic cultivation”

It uses living humans, extracts qi out of them, and involves the destruction of golden cores, brainwashing, and effectively vampiring living beings for the sake of power. It doesn’t use ambient resentment, it creates it by harming others.

The reason we’re continuously told (by people who know nothing of Wei Wuxian’s path) that he’s at risk of going insane is because that’s what mo dao does. It warps the mind and body because the source of resentment is within the user

Wei Wuxian calls his cultivation “the ghostly path” or “ghost cultivation” (gui dao). Hell, the only other person shown to match his expertise on the subject - Xue Yang - also calls it gui dao. Xue Yang !! He’d be delighted to call his actions demonic !! If he’s insisting on calling it “ghostly”, then that tells us that the difference matters

So what is gui dao ? First of all, we know that it doesn’t mind-control people as a baseline - that’s why Wei Wuxian ended up dying the first go around. We know that it utilises pre-existing resentful energy in the world to direct the dead

We know, also, that it requires a certain level of understanding of the dead. One of the spells Wei Wuxian creates is literally named Empathy.

We know that the power source is usually external (the Burial Mounds, the Stygian Tiger Seal), and that it, most importantly, doesn’t create demons. It creates ghosts and fierce corpses. And because of this, it likely doesn’t prevent reincarnation.

Why is the distinction important ? Because the former is what mo dao does. It creates mo.

We’re told the difference - very intentionally - in one of the earliest parts of the story, when Lan Qiren asks Wei Wuxian the difference between gui (ghosts) and mo (demons) and yao, and gets the correct answer

New Release: Narcissus [-Victoria-] Gothic Ouji Lolita Black Cape

Wip 🚧

Inspo: