svsss au where yue qi doesnāt make it to cang qiong.
Instead, he runs into a rogue cultivator on the way. The man seems righteous enough, doesnāt have the restrictions of sect ties, andāmost importantlyāYue Qi spotted him scamming and pickpocketing a noble, because like knows like. Yue Qi follows him around for a while, long enough to get caught. With the manās sword at his neck, he pleads his case.
The man introduces himself as Wu Yanzi.
He gives Yue Qi a chance. He lets Yue Qi cultivate under him, takes them on a route that leads to the city where the Qius live. On the night they arrive, he gives Yue Qi a sword. He claims he hadnāt been able to bond with it, because he already had a spiritual sword, but it would be perfect for Yue Qi.
The sword is cursed, and it bonds with Yue Qiās soul. His cultivation is just strong enough that it doesnāt kill him, but it incapacitates him for days. When he wakes up, Wu Yanzi is gone, but that doesnāt matter because heās right outside the Qiu Manor.
Yue Qi sneaks into the manor. Itās the dead of night, and he runs into no-one. He searches, and searches, and searches, without knowing what heās searching for. He kicks down doors. He calls Xiao-Jiuās name. Distantly, he hears screaming. He runs into a guard-servant-slave? in the hallway and, without thinking, runs them through with his sword.
Xiao-Jiu stares at him from the end of his blade.
Yue Qi thinks heās dying. Qiu Manor burns. Wu Yanzi comes, cackling, and pulls him out of the smoke. He tells Yue Qi he had a plan, and Yue Qi messed it up, and Yue Qi killed his dear friend, and Yue Qi set the manor ablaze, and Yue Qi is stained with crime and has stained his gifted blade with him, and Yue Qi owes him.
Yue Qi becomes Wu Yanziās blade, and he kills, and he kills, and he kills. He is taught to grow stronger, and he kills stronger things. He is not alive. Wu Yanzi likes to remind him that heās a monster and a thing. He is not living. He survives in this state for years and years untilāhe is told to slaughter everyone in a nobleās carriage, and he goes to do as he is told, and there are slaves in the carriage. When Wu Yanzi comes in to see whatās taking him so long, he cuts off his head and runs. He becomes a rogue cultivator. He is known as a demonic cultivator. He is known as Wu Yanziās accomplice, seen as even more dangerous, hunted everywhere he goes, but he is never caught.
Until, one day, he wakes up bound and gagged by the Peak Lord of Qiong Ding, the leader of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, the Xiu Ya blade, Shen Qingqiu.