#during the like what 8 years give or take between everything and then yi city arc just reuniting

[deathfavor]

my indulgent version 2 for @yeonban

Xue Yang grimace as he grips the edge of the sink, hunched over as he closes his eyes. Great. The word is bitter and angry in his mind. This self-appointed mission had been practically pointless and to top it all off, it seemed like Jin Guangyao was passing through the city. So the whole place is the human equivalent of someone kicking a massive hornet's nest. Frankly, Xue Yang can't be blamed for not knowing about the other's traveling plans for some clan event even if they were announced - he never kept up with the cultivators when he was a guest disciple, let alone now that he's supposed to be DEAD. But as he likes to say, he's going to make Death fight tooth and nail to drag him to hell. He was supposed to be dead for years now. Xue Yang IS dead as far as the world is concerned. Most of the world hadn't ever known he existed in the first place.

MAYBE he'd taken a distant peak at the heart of the city just for a glimpse. Xue Yang hadn't gone close ; he'd observed from the safety of the shadows far away. Now that he reflects on it, maybe that could have attracted attention from an eagle-eyed observer. Most other people has surged to the street for a glimpse while he'd stayed away. It's the only reason Xue Yang can think of for suddenly having someone try to follow him later. It was a LAUGHABLE attempt, but it had been rather NICE to slaughter and mangle the unfortunate fool. The dogs on the street were having a nice feast tonight.

It doesn't matter. Xue Yang will leave before the sun rises and this place on the outskirts of town doesn't ask for names or information. Xue Yang shoves off his outer robes and shirt, eyeing the ugly bruises and scars - blood from his earlier slaughter staining his collarbones while a fresh, recovering injury on his lower back has seeped through the messy, sloppy bandaging. More than that, though Xue Yang watches when the door. Age and time has only sharpened his already uncanny ability to sense danger. The door silently opens but he's already waiting with a skull piercing nail in hand. He throws it when a hooded figure steps in and watches it embed itself deep into the wood while the figure doesn't flinch.

Xue Yang hates that it means nothing. Nothing, because Xue Yang knows who that is. Nothing, because they both know if Xue Yang really meant it, he wouldn't have missed.

" Oh? Is this one worth a visit from an old friend? " Xue Yang flashes his teeth in a dangerous grin, and nearly wants to bark with laughter at the insanity of this situation. Jun Guangyao's too smart for his own good. Suddenly the fool earlier seems like a greeting - or a test to see if Death would appear in monstrous violence, a telltale sign of Xue Yang. Damn. Well played. He licks his teeth, head cocked to the side with a smirk.

XUE YANG. He hasn't heard his own name from someone else in YEARS. His smirk freezes, eyes focused intently on the man in front of him. His jaw clenches, unclenches, and clenches again. He's not mad though, or else violence would have already revealed itself. He doesn't know what he feels. He ALMOST wants to plead to hear his name again, and isn't that pathetic? It digs up the ugliness in his chest - the wrathful resentment that even temporary happiness hadn't been able to crush. Xue Yang didn't exist in Yi City until he was synonymous with death and disaster descending. It wasn't XUE YANG that was happy, just a nameless stranger. Now Xue Yang is alive, brought back on gilded tongue.

He couldn't care less about the blood or injuries that the other can see in the mirror or on him. There's no way he'd actually be here. It's probably just an illusion or talisman or something. Meng Yao is probably very comfortably lounging in some overly extravagant bed in one of the fancy buildings and whatever else clan leaders do. Xue Yang never has and never will care. Maybe he should be envious, but he'd never taken well to formalities even when he'd been with the Jin clan. A wild animal is still wild even in a sanctuary. So when Meng Yao says something about tending to wounds that Xue Yang waves off, ( some things never change ) , Xue Yang merely rolls his eyes. An illusion or projection can't do anything other than lecture.

Except Meng Yao can touch him and illusions can't do that. The warmth of fingers on his skin almost feels like FIRE. Xue Yang's head snaps towards the other and stares dumbfounded when the stained, messy bandages are yanked away and cold fabric washes away the blood at the injury he can't reach himself. ( Another eventual scar most likely given Xue Yang's lack of care to it. ) His mouth is suddenly dry. He's not afraid even though this is a DANGEROUS spot to be in. Part of him wants to shove Meng Yao away, to grab his few things and flee. Part of him just finds RELIEF that someone knows him. He wants to talk. He wants to run. He's suspicious. He's.....tired. In the end, Xue Yang finds himself just standing there and letting Meng Yao do as he pleases with a sharp eye following his every move.

" Ow- Ow! Hey! " Xue Yang is all skin and bones and raw power packed into muscles. His lower back muscles twitch under the cleaning and it fucking hurts. Yet even he knows better than to reject this help. ( Because who willingly helps Xue Yang? No one. And who does Xue Yang allow to help him? No one. Except, evidently, one lone soul who is the answer to both. ) " This is MY room you know. Showing up here and immediately in my stuff. " He scoffs and glares at Meng Yao in the mirror but he doesn't stop him or make any move to hurt him. He clicks his tongue. " You shouldn't be here you know. " Pot calling the kettle black, really. Neither of them should be here. It abruptly brings back a much earlier memory of them slinking around Jin Guangshan's hidden rooms where they shouldn't be, plotting a demise. He shakes his head slightly, knuckles white as he grips the counter. Fine, maybe it's a bit worse than he'd care to admit. " Guess this is rather fitting a reunion though, huh? " He grins, sharp again. He can't exactly imagine a TYPICAL reunion. Not for them. Xue Yang wouldn't ever change that.

[lifeofatrash]

what i say: i’m fine

what i mean: you ever think about how xiao xingchen and song lan were best friends and were ready to start a sect together based not on blood but on common values, but then xiao xingchen gave song lan both of his eyes out of guilt because xue yang blinded song lan in order to get revenge on xiao xingchen and so he felt responsible for song lans blindness, and xiao xingchen, when song lan in a moment of grief rejected him, respected song lan’s wishes and left to live on his own, then one day while living in yi city willingly let a-qing take what little money he had in his wallet then let her live with him because she was just a child with no family and he thought she was blind and so he felt her struggle, and on the way to his home rescued some random injured man off the side of the road, who by complete coincidence turned out to be xue yang, carried him to where they lived and treated his injuries all while being completely blind, allowed him to stay as long as he wished, and xue yang still wanted to get revenge on him and so tricked him into killing a bunch of innocent people but after a few months grew to genuinely care about xiao xingchen even though he wouldn’t admit it to himself and stopped his revenge, just lived domestically with him for 3 years, defended him against people who took advantage of his blindness, screwed with him and made him laugh, and xiao xingchen never asked him for his name or how he ended up injured so badly, not in the 3 years they lived together, because "i also have things i'd rather not be asked about," but they still became close enough that they told each other their worst memories, for xue yang his traumatic childhood spent on the streets with no family, and for xiao xingchen being rejected by song lan, but then song lan finally tracks down xiao xingchen after 3 years of searching for him to tell him that he didn’t mean to reject him, that it wasn’t his fault, and finds xue yang and xiao xingchen living together and knows that xue yang has been lying to him, tries to kill xue yang but ends up getting his tongue cut out and turned into a walking corpse so that xiao xingchen mistakenly kills him, and as song lan is dying he raises his sword trying to let xiao xingchen feel his name on the blade and let xiao xingchen know that it's him, but at the last minute drops his sword because he can't bear to let xiao xingchen know, but then xiao xingchen finds out xue yang's identity and stabs him, but it’s only a shallow wound because he can’t bring himself to actually kill xue yang, and he tells xue yang that he’s too disgusting, but xue yang just fires back and tells him about all the innocent people he’s tricked xiao xingchen into killing, including song lan, who xue yang is now controlling like wen ning, even though he cares about xiao xingchen, even though the 3 years they spent together were the best years of his life, even though he deeply wishes for someone to care about him and understand him, because it's too late and his deeds are just too bad, because he's never been treated with kindness by anyone but xiao xingchen, and that kindness was built upon a lie, because he never got to learn that he can earn kindness by just being kind, thinks that the only thing he can do is bring people down to his level, and so he tells xiao xingchen that he can’t leave him because he’s killed innocent people so he’s not in a position to judge him, but then xiao xingchen kills himself, and song lan, completely under xue yang's control, still reacts to xiao xingchen's anguished scream, and xue yang loses the only light in his life, and when he can’t resurrect xiao xingchen because his soul has shattered from all the pain he was in, screams and cries in agony, then puts the fragments of xiao xingchen's soul in a spirit trapping pouch and spends the next 8 years searching for a way to bring him back, and when he finds out that wei wuxian has been resurrected, begs him to bring xiao xingchen back even as wei wuxian tells him that he can’t do anything about it, screams at him to give the pouch back when wei wuxian takes it from him, tells wei wuxian that he only wants to bring xiao xingchen back to mess with him more even as wei wuxian points out the overwhelming evidence that xue yang actually does care about him, and a-qing, who lived with xue yang and xiao xingchen during those 3 years and saw everything that happened between them, who got blinded for real and had her tongue cut out by xue yang after witnessing xiao xingchen’s death, who stayed in yi city for the 8 years after that, does everything she can to tell wei wuxian what happened, risks her life helping wei wuxian and lan wangji kill xue yang because she wants justice for xiao xingchen, gets stabbed by xue yang right as xue yang is stabbed, dies just a teenager who never got to have a childhood, and xue yang, as he lies on the ground in the last moments of his life, reminisces about xiao xingchen leaving candy next to his bed every morning as dies with a smile on his face, holding in his hand the last piece of candy xiao xingchen gave him 8 years ago which by now has long rotted away, and song lan, who xue yang was controlling and forced to commit many misdeeds against his will, is freed by wei wuxian and deals the finishing blow on xue yang, but now has nothing to live for because xiao xingchen is gone and he never got to say the words he wanted to say, and when wei wuxian gives him shuanghua, and the pouch with xiao xingchen's soul, which he takes with trembling hands, declares that he’s going to "roam the world with shuanghua and exorcise evil beings alongside xingchen," and walks off alone, while wei wuxian and lan wangji remember watching xiao xingchen and song lan walk off together over 16 years ago and realize that they are so lucky to have gotten a second chance together where they can clear all their misunderstandings and live happily, a second chance that xiao xingchen and song lan never get

[wherever-the-chaos-is]

HanGuang-Jun's Heroism (part 3)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

In the present timeline, 13 years after all of the past events, Lan Wangji continues to be called Hanguang-jun and to be “wherever the chaos is”. In fact, the first time he appears in the novel, he is doing just that: appearing where he is needed. With one signal from the Lan disciples, he arrives at Mo Village to subdue the arm, which he later on takes back to the Cloud Recesses to be examined. At Dafan mountain, he destroys 400 deity-binding nets — all set up just for Jin Ling to capture a prey — allowing other less-privileged cultivators to participate in the nighthunt. Note that Lan WangJi starts to protect Wei Wuxian when he still thought he was Mo Xuanyu, as he defends him from Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling’s attacks. Not too long after, when he had already discovered Wei Wuxian’s true identity, he also helps him escape Jiang Cheng’s attempt to drag him back to Lotus Pier, given Jiang Cheng’s reputation of torturing demonic cultivators. Flash forward Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi's investigation, at the Chang clan residence, Lan WangJi immediately acts upon seeing the grave robber, which makes him retreat. When the mysterious man appears again in Yi City, Lan WangJi fights him off once more — allowing Wei WuXian and the juniors to find a place to hide and to heal those who were poisoned — and retrieves one of the missing body parts. He also defeats more than three hundred corpses on his own, and goes to fight Xue Yang while still fighting off more corpses. Lan WangJi succeeds in defeating Xue Yang, despite his disadvantageous situation, with A-Qing’s help.

Mo Village

Watching as the Mo family grew closer to defeat, Wei WuXian prepared to blow the whistle that he suppressed under his tongue. At the same time, the echoes of two strums on a stringed instrument came from far away.

The sound seemed to have been played by a human. The timbre was ethereal and clear, carrying the bleak chills of windswept pines. The creatures battling in the courtyard all stiffened as they heard the sound.

Instantaneously, the boys from the GusuLan clan started beaming, as if they were born again. Lan SiZhui wiped the blood off his face and raised his head, happily exclaiming, “HanGuang-Jun!”

As soon as he heard the two faraway strums of the zither, Wei WuXian turned around and began to leave.

The sound of another strum came. This time, the pitch was higher, piercing through the sky with a few degrees of bitterness. The three cruel corpses backed off and covered one ear with their right hands. However, it was impossible to block out the Eradication Tone of the GusuLan clan by means such as this. They had just retreated a few steps, and slight bursting sounds came from within their skulls.

Because the arm had just endured a tough fight, after hearing the sound of the strings again, it instantly fell onto the ground. Although the fingers were still flinching, the arm was unable to move. (Chapter 5)

Destroying 400 deity binding nets, allowing other cultivators, less privileged ones, to participate in the night-hunt

To go up the mountain, one had to hike up trail that started in the town. Wei WuXian sat on his donkey and rode up the hill slowly. After a while, a few people walked down with ominous expressions on their faces.

Some of them had scars on their faces, and they were talking all at once. With the darkening sky, they all jumped as they saw a person who looked like a hanged ghost approaching them. After cursing, they walked around him quickly. Wei WuXian turned his head around and thought, maybe they were frustrated because it was a strong prey? He didn’t think too much about it and slapped the donkey’s buttocks, making it jog faster up the mountain.

Coincidentally, he missed the group’s whining, which happened shortly afterward.

“I haven’t seen anyone like this!”

“Would the leader of a big clan like that need to fight over a soul-consuming spirit with us? He probably killed tons of them when he was young.”

“What can we do? He’s a sect leader. No matter which clan you choose to offend, you shouldn’t offend the Jiang clan, and no matter which person you choose to offend, you shouldn’t offend Jiang Cheng. Let’s just pack up, leave, and feel sorry for ourselves!” (Chapter 6)

The young master already had an arrow on his bow and was preparing to shoot it, when he realized that the deity-binding nets only caught humans. After an initial moment of disappointment, he quickly became annoyed, “I find you idiots every single time. There are more than four hundred deity-binding nets in the mountain, but you guys have already broken ten or so, and I haven’t even seen the prey yet!”

(...) Wasting deity-binding webs like this and not caring about what they caught shouldn’t be considered night-hunting at all. In fact, it was almost as if they were chasing people away, not allowing others the chance of contributing to the process. It seemed that the cultivators who retreated earlier didn’t do it because the prey was difficult, but rather because this sect was one that shouldn’t be angered.

(...)

Lan WangJi seemed as if he didn’t want to engage in conversation, throwing Lan SiZhui a look. The latter understood and told the juniors to speak among themselves. Afterward, he spoke to Jin Ling, “Young Master Jin, night-hunts have always been fair competitions amongst the different clans and sects. However, to set up nets all over Dafan Mountain is clearly hindering the cultivators, causing them to fall into the traps. Is this or is this not against the rules of night-hunting?”

Jin Ling’s grim expression was exactly the same as his uncle’s, “What can I do? It was their own fault for stepping into the traps. I’ll solve everything after I finish capturing the prey.”

Lan WangJi frowned. Jin Ling was about to speak again, but he suddenly realized that, shockingly, he could neither open his mouth nor make any sounds.

(...)

Before Jiang Cheng opened his mouth to speak, a purple-clothed man in the Jiang Sect’s uniform ran toward them from within the forest. He shouted, “Sect Leader!”

However, after seeing Lan WangJi’s presence, he hesitated. Jiang Cheng spoke satirically, “Talk. Is there more bad news?”

The man spoke in a low voice, “Not long ago, a blue sword flew over and destroyed the deity-binding nets that you had set up.”

Jiang Cheng glanced at Lan WangJi harshly, his displease plastered all over his face, “How many were broken?”

The man replied carefully, “… All of them…”

That’s more than four hundred! (Chapter 7)

Lan SiZhui spoke, “Sect Leader Jiang, the GusuLan Sect will return the exact number of spirit-binding nets that had been destroyed.”

(...) After the four-hundred-or-so spirit-binding nets were destroyed by Lan WangJi’s sword, the hesitant cultivators in Buddha’s Feet all rushed up again.

(...)

“Speaking of it, today, if it wasn’t for HanGuang-Jun…” (Chapter 8)

Saving “MXY” from Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng 

With someone backing him up, Jin Ling’s attacks became more aggressive. Wei WuXian slid two fingers into the spirit-locking bag, about to take something out, when suddenly, the blue glare of a sword slashed out like lightning. It collided with Jin Ling’s sword, breaking the powerful sword’s golden rays in an instant.

It wasn’t because of the quality of the swords, but rather the great disparity in the strengths of the persons using the swords. Wei WuXian had originally calculated the timing, but his movements were suddenly interrupted by the sword’s glare, causing him to trip. He fell toward the ground, right on top of a pair of snow-white boots. After pausing for a moment, he slowly lifted his head. (Chapter 7)

Protecting Wei WuXian from Jiang Cheng dragging him back to Lotus Pier to be tortured and disappearing

Before Wei WuXian moved, Lan WangJi had already placed his zither in front of him. With an assured stroke, it was as if a rock had created thousands of waves in water. The sound of the zither had created countless ripples in the air, colliding with Zidian. The latter waned, and the former waxed.

(...)

A moment ago, Jiang Cheng was certain that this person was Wei WuXian, and all of the blood in his body started to boil. Yet, now, Zidian was clearly telling him that he wasn’t. Zidian definitely wouldn’t deceive him or make a mistake, so he quickly calmed himself and thought, this doesn’t mean anything. I should first find an excuse to take him back and use every possible method to get information out of him. It’s impossible for him to not confess anything or give himself away. I’ve done things like this in the past anyways. After thinking it through, he made a gesture. The disciples understood his intention and came over.

(...)

Wei WuXian spoke (to Jiang Cheng), “Thank you for being so enthusiastic. However, your thoughts are quite off. Even if I am attracted to men, I don’t like just any type of man, much less follow anyone who waves at me. For example, I’m not interested in ones like you. 

(...) "Well, I am very much attracted to people like HanGuang-Jun.”

Lan WangJi could not tolerate this sort of frivolous and foolish joke at all. If he felt disgusted, he would definitely draw a line between them and keep his distance. Disgusting two people at once—this was killing two birds with one stone!

However, as Lan WangJi heard this, he turned around.

His face was emotionless, “Mark your words.”

Wei WuXian, “Hmm?”

Lan WangJi turned back, speaking in a mannerly yet resolute way, “I will take this person back to the Lan Sect.” (Chapter 10)

Lan SiZhui tried to reason with him, “Young Master Mo, it was for your sake that HanGuang-Jun brought you here. If you do not follow us, Sect Leader Jiang will not be willing to let the matter go. During these years, there were countless people whom he caught and took back to Lotus Pier, and none of those people were ever let out.”

Lan JingYi spoke, “That is right. You have seen Sect Leader Jiang’s methods, have you not? They are quite cruel…” (Chapter 11)

Chang Clan’s Residence; Vs. Grave Robber

When both Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi noticed the gravedigger and were spotted by him, Lan WangJi reacted fast.

Lan WangJi had already unsheathed Bichen, darted into the cemetery, and started the fight. 

(...)

Lan WangJi said nothing. Bichen’s attacks were deeper and deeper, attacking with tremendous force. The gravedigger fell back a few times. As if he knew that, with a dead person on his back, he wouldn’t be able to win against Lan WangJi and, if they continued to fight, he’d be captured alive, he suddenly fished out a dark-blue talisman from his waist. 

(...)

Wei WuXian laughed uncontrollably as he smacked the tombstone, while Lan WangJi caught the flaccid corpse with one hand and attacked with Bichen using the other. Seeing that what he had just dug out had been snatched away, that he couldn’t even win solo against Lan WangJi, let alone the mischief of another person, he didn’t dare to stay any longer. (Chapter 30)

Yi City Vs. Su She

Wei WuXian thought to himself, So he really is someone with a high level of cultivation. He immediately shouted, “HanGuang-Jun, the gravedigger’s here!”

Without needing the reminder, Lan WangJi knew that something had happened just by listening. He stayed silent. Bichen’s swift, fierce sweep served as response.

The current situation was far from optimistic. A black mist covered the gravedigger’s sword, making it so that the sword glare didn’t come through and allowing it to hide perfectly within the white fog. On the other hand, the sword glare from Lan WangJi’s Bichen couldn’t be concealed at all. He was out in the open while the enemy was hidden in the dark. Also, the enemy was not only highly skilled in terms of cultivation, but he was also familiar with the GusuLan Sect’s sword moves. And, although both of them were fighting blindly in the fog, he could do whatever he wanted, yet Lan WangJi had to be careful so that he didn’t accidentally injure anyone on his own side. Seeing from all of this, Lan WangJi was really at a disadvantage. Having heard a few clashes of the blades, Wei WuXian’s heart suddenly tightened. He blurted out, “Lan Zhan? Are you hurt?!”

From afar, there came a muffled grunt, as if someone had received a critical injury. It clearly wasn’t Lan WangJi’s voice, though.

Lan WangJi, “Of course not.”

Wei WuXian grinned, “So it seems!”

It sounded as if the other person laughed bitterly. He attacked again. The clashing sounds of Bichen’s glare and the other sword were farther and farther away. Wei WuXian knew that Lan WangJi didn’t want to accidentally hurt them and purposely drew the battle away to deal with the gravedigger on his own. Of course, the rest was up to Wei WuXian. He turned around, “How are the ones who inhaled the powder? (Chapter 34)

Lan WangJi nodded slightly, “I gave the gravedigger three blows. As he was close to being captured, a group of walking corpses attacked and allowed him the opportunity to escape.”

(...)

Suddenly, with a light toss, Lan WangJi passed something to him.

Wei WuXian caught it perfectly, “What is it?”

Lan WangJi, “The right hand.”

He had tossed over a new Qiankun Pouch. Having finally remembered why they had came to Yi City at the first place, Wei WuXian brightened up, “The right hand of our dear friend?”

Lan WangJi, “Mnn.”

Under the obstructions of the gravedigger, the groups of walking corpses, and the thick fog, Lan WangJi still managed to successfully find the right hand of the corpse. Wei WuXian was more than pleased. He praised, “I expected no less from HanGuang-Jun! Now, we’re one step ahead of them again. What a pity that it’s not the head. I wanted to see what our dear friend looks like. Well, I guess it’d happen soon enough… (Chapter 42)

Yi City Vs. Xue Yang + hundreds of corpses

Wei WuXian had finally met someone more shameless than him. He returned the smile, “It’d be better for one to upset a hero than to upset a rogue, which is you, in this case. I’m not dealing with you any longer. Let’s have someone else.”

Xue Yang grinned, “Who else? That HanGuang-Jun? I got more than three hundred walking corpses to gang up on him. He…”

Before he finished his sentence, a white-robed figure descended from the sky. Bichen’s icy blue glare swept at him. (Chapter 37)

Surrounded by an ambience of frost and ice, Lan WangJi stood in front of Wei WuXian.

(...)

Lan WangJi,  “Step back. You are not needed here.”

(...)

Just as he left, Bichen’s sword glare brightened tenfold. With a brief slip of the hand, Shuanghua flew out of Xue Yang’s grip. Lan WangJi conveniently caught the sword. Seeing that Shuanghua was in someone else’s hands, Xue Yang had Jiangzai slash directly at the left arm that Lan WangJi used to grab the sword. As the attack was dodged, a chilling rage flashed within Xue Yang’s eyes. He demanded coldly,  “Give me the sword back.” 

Lan WangJi,  “You do not deserve this sword.”

(...)

Suddenly, the sounds of footsteps came from all around them. Shadows had already begun to emerge from the end of the street. Lan WangJi heard the sound as well. With a wave of his sleeve, he took out his guqin, Wangji.

The body of the guqin was horizontally slammed onto the table. Lan WangJi tossed Bichen to his left hand and continued to fight with Xue Yang, his attacks remaining strong. At the same time, without even turning his head, he raised his right hand and strummed across the strings. 

The chord was loud and clear. It resonated all the way to the end of the street. What came back was the strange yet familiar noises of the corpses’ heads bursting. Lan WangJi continued to fight Xue Yang with one hand and play the guqin with the other. He’d glance across the scene as if it was only a simple matter, then nonchalantly curve his fingers to strum again. Working with both of his hands, he somehow still seemed calm and unhurried. (Chapter 38)

The sword glares of Bichen and Jiangzai clashed—the fight was at a critical moment. Bichen was calm and unhurried, gaining the upper hand, while Jiangzai lashed out as though it was a rabid dog, somehow managing to keep up. However, within the dreadful white fog, Lan WangJi had difficulties with vision, yet since Xue Yang had lived so many years in the city like A-Qing, he was able to know where he was even if he closed his eyes. Thus, the fight was in a deadlock. Notes of the guqin sometimes thundered through the fog, preventing the groups of walking corpses that wanted to approach. (Chapter 41)

Lan WangJi’s sword had slashed across Xue Yang’s chest. Not only did he bleed, the Spirit-trapping Pouch that he hid in his lapels had been taken out by Bichen’s tip as well.

(...)

Immediately after the split second of distraction, following A-Qing’s bone-chilling screech, Bichen pierced through his chest!

Although A-Qing’s ghost had already been destroyed by Xue Yang’s talisman and there ceased to be any noise that revealed where he was, the attack was vital. Xue Yang couldn’t continue to be as unpredictable as before! 

(...)

Bichen’s blue light split through the air. Lan WangJi cleanly severed off one of his arms. (Chapter 42)

Part 4

[nancygduarteus]

You’re Most Likely to Do Something Extreme Right Before You Turn 30

Each year, cities, regions, and other organizers around the world host around 3,000 marathons. In large races like the Los Angeles Marathon and the London Marathon, more than half the participants are running a marathon for the very first time.

This article is adapted from Pink’s upcoming book.

For Red Hong Yi, an artist based in Malaysia, “a marathon was always one of those impossible things to do,” she told me in an interview, so she decided to “give up my weekends and just go for it.” She ran the 2015 Melbourne Marathon in Australia, her first, after training for six months. Jeremy Medding, who works in the diamond business in Tel Aviv and for whom the 2005 New York City Marathon was his first, said that “there’s always a goal we promise ourselves” and that a marathon was one box he hadn’t ticked. Cindy Bishop, a lawyer in Central Florida, said she ran her first marathon in 2009 “to change my life and reinvent myself.” Andy Morozovsky, a zoologist turned biotech executive, ran the 2015 San Francisco Marathon even though he’d previously never run anywhere close to that distance. “I didn’t plan to win it. I just planned to finish it,” he told me. “I wanted to see what I could do.”

Four people in four different professions living in four different parts of the world, all united by the common quest to run 26.2 miles. But something else links these runners and legions of other first-time marathoners.

Red Hong Yi ran her first marathon when she was 29 years old. Jeremy Medding ran his when he was 39. Cindy Bishop ran her first marathon at age 49. Andy Morozovsky at age 59.

All four of them were what the social psychologists Adam Alter and Hal Hershfield call “nine-enders,” people in the last year of a life decade. They each pushed themselves to do something at ages 29, 39, 49, and 59 that they didn’t do, didn’t even consider, at ages 28, 38, 48, and 58—and didn’t do again when they turned 30, 40, 50, or 60.

Of all the axioms describing how life works, few are sturdier than this: Timing is everything. Our lives present a never-ending stream of “when” decisions—when to schedule a class, change careers, get serious about a person or a project, or train for a grueling footrace. Yet most of our choices emanate from a steamy bog of intuition and guesswork. Timing, we believe, is an art.

In fact, timing is a science. For example, researchers have shown that time of day explains about 20 percent of the variance in human performance on cognitive tasks. Anesthesia errors in hospitals are four times more likely at 3 p.m. than at 9 a.m. Schoolchildren who take standardized tests in the afternoon score considerably lower than those who take the same tests in the morning; researchers even have found that for every hour after 8 a.m. that Danish public-school students take a test, the effect on their scores is equivalent to missing two weeks of school.

Other researchers have found that we use “temporal landmarks” to wipe away previous bad behavior and make a fresh start, which is why you’re more likely to go to the gym in the month following your birthday than the month before.  

Chronological decades have little material significance. To a biologist or physician, the physiological differences between, say, 39-year-old Fred and 44-old Fred aren’t vast—probably not much different than those between Fred at 38 and Fred at 39. Nor do our circumstances diverge wildly in years that end in nine compared with those that end in zero. Our life narratives often progress from segment to segment, akin to the chapters of a book. But the actual story doesn’t abide by round numbers any more than novels do. After all, you wouldn’t assess a book by its page numbers: “The 160s were super exciting, but the 170s were a little dull.” Yet, when people near the end of the arbitrary marker of a decade, something awakens in their minds that alters their behavior.

For example, to run a marathon, participants must register with race organizers and include their age. Alter and Hershfield found that nine-enders are overrepresented among first-time marathoners by a whopping 48 percent. Across the entire lifespan, the age at which people were most likely to run their first marathon was 29. Twenty-nine-year-olds were about twice as likely to run a marathon as 28-year-olds or 30-year-olds.

Meanwhile, first-time marathon participation declines in the early 40s but spikes dramatically at age 49. Someone who’s 49 is about three times more likely to run a marathon than someone who’s just a year older.

What’s more, nearing the end of a decade seems to quicken a runner’s pace—or at least motivates them to train harder. People who had run multiple marathons posted better times at ages 29 and 39 than during the two years before or after those ages.

The energizing effect of the end of a decade doesn’t make logical sense to marathon-running scientist Morozovsky. “Keeping track of our age? The Earth doesn’t care. But people do, because we have short lives. We keep track to see how we’re doing,” he told me. “I wanted to accomplish this physical challenge before I hit 60. I just did.” For Yi, the artist, the sight of that chronological mile marker roused her motivation. ��As I was approaching the big three-o, I had to really achieve something in my 29th year,” she said. “I didn’t want that last year just to slip by.”

However, flipping life’s odometer to a nine doesn’t always trigger healthy behavior. Alter and Hershfield also discovered that “the suicide rate was higher among nine-enders than among people whose ages ended in any other digit.” So, apparently, was the propensity of men to cheat on their wives. On the extramarital-affair website Ashley Madison, nearly one in eight men were 29, 39, 49, or 59, about 18 percent higher than chance would predict.

“People are more apt to evaluate their lives as a chronological decade ends than they are at other times,” Alter and Hershfield explain. “Nine-enders are particularly preoccupied with aging and meaningfulness, which is linked to a rise in behaviors that suggest a search for or crisis of meaning.”

Reaching the end also stirs us to act with greater urgency in other arenas. Consider the National Football League. According to an analysis of 10 NFL seasons conducted by Stats, teams scored a total of about 3,200 points in the final minute of the games, which was higher than almost all other one-minute game segments. But it was nothing compared to the nearly 7,900 points teams scored in the final minute of the first half. During the minute the half is ending, when the team that possesses the ball has every incentive to put points on the board, teams score around double what they score during any other minute of the game.

Clark Hull, even though he was born nearly 40 years before the NFL’s founding, would not have been surprised. Hull was a prominent American psychologist of the early 20th century, one of the leading figures in behaviorism, which held that human beings behaved not much differently from rats in a maze. In the early 1930s, Hull proposed what he called the “goal-gradient hypothesis.” He built a long runway that he divided into equal sections. He placed food at every “finish line.” Then he sent rats down the runway and timed how fast they ran in each section. He found that “animals in traversing a maze will move at a progressively more rapid pace as the goal is approached.” In other words, the closer the rats got to the vittles, the faster they ran. Hull’s goal-gradient hypothesis has held up far longer than most other behaviorist insights. At the beginning of a pursuit, we’re generally more motivated by how far we’ve progressed; at the end, we’re generally more energized by trying to close the small gap that remains.

The motivating power of endings is one reason that deadlines are often, though not always, effective. For example, people with a gift certificate valid for three weeks are three times more likely to redeem it than people with the same gift certificate valid for two months. People given a hard deadline—a date and time—are more likely to sign up to be organ donors than those for whom the choice is open-ended. At one level, these differences make little sense. The people with two months to cash in the gift certificate had four times as much time to obtain something that was rightfully theirs and uniformly beneficial. The prospective organ donors with a deadline somehow signed up more often than those who had forever. But as with Clark Hull’s rats, being able to sniff the finish line—whether it offers a hunk of cheese or a slice of meaning—can invigorate us to move faster.

This post is adapted from Pink’s upcoming book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/01/the-end-is-near-time-to-run-faster/549014/?utm_source=feed

[ionecoffman]

You’re Most Likely to Do Something Extreme Right Before You Turn 30

Each year, cities, regions, and other organizers around the world host around 3,000 marathons. In large races like the Los Angeles Marathon and the London Marathon, more than half the participants are running a marathon for the very first time.

This article is adapted from Pink’s upcoming book.

For Red Hong Yi, an artist based in Malaysia, “a marathon was always one of those impossible things to do,” she told me in an interview, so she decided to “give up my weekends and just go for it.” She ran the 2015 Melbourne Marathon in Australia, her first, after training for six months. Jeremy Medding, who works in the diamond business in Tel Aviv and for whom the 2005 New York City Marathon was his first, said that “there’s always a goal we promise ourselves” and that a marathon was one box he hadn’t ticked. Cindy Bishop, a lawyer in Central Florida, said she ran her first marathon in 2009 “to change my life and reinvent myself.” Andy Morozovsky, a zoologist turned biotech executive, ran the 2015 San Francisco Marathon even though he’d previously never run anywhere close to that distance. “I didn’t plan to win it. I just planned to finish it,” he told me. “I wanted to see what I could do.”

Four people in four different professions living in four different parts of the world, all united by the common quest to run 26.2 miles. But something else links these runners and legions of other first-time marathoners.

Red Hong Yi ran her first marathon when she was 29 years old. Jeremy Medding ran his when he was 39. Cindy Bishop ran her first marathon at age 49. Andy Morozovsky at age 59.

All four of them were what the social psychologists Adam Alter and Hal Hershfield call “nine-enders,” people in the last year of a life decade. They each pushed themselves to do something at ages 29, 39, 49, and 59 that they didn’t do, didn’t even consider, at ages 28, 38, 48, and 58—and didn’t do again when they turned 30, 40, 50, or 60.

Of all the axioms describing how life works, few are sturdier than this: Timing is everything. Our lives present a never-ending stream of “when” decisions—when to schedule a class, change careers, get serious about a person or a project, or train for a grueling footrace. Yet most of our choices emanate from a steamy bog of intuition and guesswork. Timing, we believe, is an art.

In fact, timing is a science. For example, researchers have shown that time of day explains about 20 percent of the variance in human performance on cognitive tasks. Anesthesia errors in hospitals are four times more likely at 3 p.m. than at 9 a.m. Schoolchildren who take standardized tests in the afternoon score considerably lower than those who take the same tests in the morning; researchers even have found that for every hour after 8 a.m. that Danish public-school students take a test, the effect on their scores is equivalent to missing two weeks of school.

Other researchers have found that we use “temporal landmarks” to wipe away previous bad behavior and make a fresh start, which is why you’re more likely to go to the gym in the month following your birthday than the month before.  

Chronological decades have little material significance. To a biologist or physician, the physiological differences between, say, 39-year-old Fred and 44-old Fred aren’t vast—probably not much different than those between Fred at 38 and Fred at 39. Nor do our circumstances diverge wildly in years that end in nine compared with those that end in zero. Our life narratives often progress from segment to segment, akin to the chapters of a book. But the actual story doesn’t abide by round numbers any more than novels do. After all, you wouldn’t assess a book by its page numbers: “The 160s were super exciting, but the 170s were a little dull.” Yet, when people near the end of the arbitrary marker of a decade, something awakens in their minds that alters their behavior.

For example, to run a marathon, participants must register with race organizers and include their age. Alter and Hershfield found that nine-enders are overrepresented among first-time marathoners by a whopping 48 percent. Across the entire lifespan, the age at which people were most likely to run their first marathon was 29. Twenty-nine-year-olds were about twice as likely to run a marathon as 28-year-olds or 30-year-olds.

Meanwhile, first-time marathon participation declines in the early 40s but spikes dramatically at age 49. Someone who’s 49 is about three times more likely to run a marathon than someone who’s just a year older.

What’s more, nearing the end of a decade seems to quicken a runner’s pace—or at least motivates them to train harder. People who had run multiple marathons posted better times at ages 29 and 39 than during the two years before or after those ages.

The energizing effect of the end of a decade doesn’t make logical sense to marathon-running scientist Morozovsky. “Keeping track of our age? The Earth doesn’t care. But people do, because we have short lives. We keep track to see how we’re doing,” he told me. “I wanted to accomplish this physical challenge before I hit 60. I just did.” For Yi, the artist, the sight of that chronological mile marker roused her motivation. “As I was approaching the big three-o, I had to really achieve something in my 29th year,” she said. “I didn’t want that last year just to slip by.”

However, flipping life’s odometer to a nine doesn’t always trigger healthy behavior. Alter and Hershfield also discovered that “the suicide rate was higher among nine-enders than among people whose ages ended in any other digit.” So, apparently, was the propensity of men to cheat on their wives. On the extramarital-affair website Ashley Madison, nearly one in eight men were 29, 39, 49, or 59, about 18 percent higher than chance would predict.

“People are more apt to evaluate their lives as a chronological decade ends than they are at other times,” Alter and Hershfield explain. “Nine-enders are particularly preoccupied with aging and meaningfulness, which is linked to a rise in behaviors that suggest a search for or crisis of meaning.”

Reaching the end also stirs us to act with greater urgency in other arenas. Consider the National Football League. According to an analysis of 10 NFL seasons conducted by Stats, teams scored a total of about 3,200 points in the final minute of the games, which was higher than almost all other one-minute game segments. But it was nothing compared to the nearly 7,900 points teams scored in the final minute of the first half. During the minute the half is ending, when the team that possesses the ball has every incentive to put points on the board, teams score around double what they score during any other minute of the game.

Clark Hull, even though he was born nearly 40 years before the NFL’s founding, would not have been surprised. Hull was a prominent American psychologist of the early 20th century, one of the leading figures in behaviorism, which held that human beings behaved not much differently from rats in a maze. In the early 1930s, Hull proposed what he called the “goal-gradient hypothesis.” He built a long runway that he divided into equal sections. He placed food at every “finish line.” Then he sent rats down the runway and timed how fast they ran in each section. He found that “animals in traversing a maze will move at a progressively more rapid pace as the goal is approached.” In other words, the closer the rats got to the vittles, the faster they ran. Hull’s goal-gradient hypothesis has held up far longer than most other behaviorist insights. At the beginning of a pursuit, we’re generally more motivated by how far we’ve progressed; at the end, we’re generally more energized by trying to close the small gap that remains.

The motivating power of endings is one reason that deadlines are often, though not always, effective. For example, people with a gift certificate valid for three weeks are three times more likely to redeem it than people with the same gift certificate valid for two months. People given a hard deadline—a date and time—are more likely to sign up to be organ donors than those for whom the choice is open-ended. At one level, these differences make little sense. The people with two months to cash in the gift certificate had four times as much time to obtain something that was rightfully theirs and uniformly beneficial. The prospective organ donors with a deadline somehow signed up more often than those who had forever. But as with Clark Hull’s rats, being able to sniff the finish line—whether it offers a hunk of cheese or a slice of meaning—can invigorate us to move faster.

This post is adapted from Pink’s upcoming book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.

Article source here:The Atlantic