Chapter Text
For whatever reason, they had finished their work at the crack of dawn that day. There was just a little bit of pink in the sky over the wall and the tops of the taller rooves of Xianle’s capital as Mu Qing stepped back out onto the deserted street. He took a deep breath of the chilly air, enjoying the rare moment of peace.
“Fuck, I’m hungry!” Feng Xin said behind him, making him jump out of his skin as he whipped around. They gave each other matching, What’s with you? looks before Feng Xin went on. “His Highness already went back to start on the next thing,” he said. “That airhead forgot us deputies still need to eat and sleep.”
Affectionate as it was, that was the closest Mu Qing had ever seen to Feng Xin criticising Xie Lian behind his back. He wasn’t sure if it was some kind of trick, where he would get in trouble for complaining if he agreed, or if it would be worse to disagree and throw Feng Xin’s admission of hunger in his face.
“I’m also a bit hungry,” he risked, realising too late that his tone of voice was rather wooden and insincere.
Thankfully, Feng Xin was too preoccupied to notice. “I guess we’d better ascend and go to the Lower Court dining hall,” he said.
The Lower Court dining hall served only the blandest food which even the most ascetic of cultivators could handle in their diets, and with whom you chose to sit and eat was highly political. Mu Qing had gathered that aside from talking to girls, going there was Feng Xin’s worst nightmare.
“We could get something from a street stall,” he suggested.
“This early in the morning?”
“In case you didn’t realise, people that start work early need breakfast too.”
Feng Xin huffed, but lured by the promise of food without any social complexities attached, he allowed Mu Qing to lead the way to a more familiar district in the city. They manifested on the mortal plane and joined the queue at the first stall they came across, which was selling pancakes.
Waiting took forever; all there was to do was avoid eye contact with each other and listen to birds chirping as the sky lightened. Eventually they reached the front and could see the man at the stall spreading batter thinner and thinner in a circle on a big griddle. It was a typical breakfast pancake, spread with a thin layer of egg, smeared with some savoury, fermented-type sauces, sprinkled with spring onion and eventually wrapped up around a filling of deep-fried crackers. The seller chopped the bundle in half with a single strike of his scraper, then wrapped the halves in a bit of paper and handed them to Mu Qing before starting on Feng Xin’s order.
Mu Qing found himself rather childishly excited: he hadn’t gotten to eat this low-brow sort of stuff since he moved into the servants’ quarters at Mount Taicang years ago. He bit in, teeth sinking through the soft outside. The layers of crispy crackers inside gave a chorus of crunches and cracks which made saliva flood under his tongue before he even tasted them.
He used to treat himself to such a pancake on the morning after every payday. Even now that he was a heavenly deputy with plenty of spending money, it still tasted of self-indulgence.
“Is it that good?” Feng Xin grumbled.
Mu Qing’s shoulders came up as he realised he’d been caught enjoying himself, but he deliberately relaxed them again. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. Rather than defend himself, he tore his paper in half and thrust the other half of the pancake towards Feng Xin.
As he’d hoped, Feng Xin’s eyebrows went up the moment he bit in. He ate the whole thing without pausing, then took his own serving from the seller and continued on that one, silently handing the second half back to Mu Qing as they walked away. Mu Qing nibbled on his own and felt smug and a bit proud.
They sat on the steps of a nearby shrine of Xie Lian’s, finishing their food while watching the city come to life. More and more people crossed back and forth over the threshold of the temple, making their morning prayers.
Feng Xin finished his second half and gave a yawn. Normally his posture was completely straight and stiff, but now he was slumping a bit.
“Tired?” Mu Qing asked.
“Of course. Aren’t you?”
“Exhausted,” Mu Qing became defensive as Feng Xin turned to look at him and quickly added, “but it’s worth it, right? To help them.” He waved towards the worshippers walking up and down the steps beside them.
“I don’t know,” Feng Xin said, straightening up a bit and lifting his chin to look at them. “What did all these people do to deserve special help? Why can’t they sort it out themselves?”
It was kind of funny to see Feng Xin’s overly suspicious mind turned on the rest of the world for once. “So you don’t want to save the common people?” Mu Qing pressed.
“I do. But that’s His Highness’ thing—that’s why I follow him. For myself I just want to… do a good job, I guess.”
Mu Qing had to admit that this was a decent way of putting it. Although in his case, he didn’t just want to do a good job, but the best; though saying so would have been arrogant of him.
He hesitated. He didn’t know why, but agreeing with Feng Xin on something felt perilous in a way that challenging him did not. Things between them were always so difficult. How could it be easy now?
“Yeah,” he said. “I get that.”
“Really now. You had to think about that one.”
“Why would I bother lying to you? I take pride in my work.”
“Okay, okay,” Feng Xin said. “Now I’ve been working with you for a while, it makes sense. You do at least make an effort.” After a moment’s consideration, he added, “I would say you’re a passable coworker.”
Feng Xin delivered this bare-minimum of praise with what appeared to be complete sincerity. Mu Qing stared at him, trying to figure it out, and it took him an embarrassingly long time to connect together what he saw–the staring eyes, heavy eyebrows raised a bit, mouth stretched out–into a face, which was smiling at him and which was surprisingly likable. He smiled back, then felt even more embarrassed about it and rolled his eyes instead, but the smile was stuck on him now.
“Just passable?” he said.”I’m the one who beat you in prayers this month.”
“Hey! Basically nothing happened this month! And I won last month, remember?”
It was the same kind of inane argument they’d had a hundred times before, but this time there was a tiny little bit of hope in Mu Qing’s chest as he argued—hope for what? There was no point in it anyway, in hindsight. The news about Yong’an would reach them soon and that would put an end to any improvements in their relationship.
Still, the food had been good. It was a morning worth remembering for that alone.
–
It was dusk, and little ghost fires were bobbing between paper lanterns, lighting them up one by one. The light draining out of the sky revealed Ghost City festooned in its favourite shade of bright red, and the countless blessings and advertisements written on the lanterns swayed as the streets began to bustle with activity.
On one such street, two masked figures were walking side by side. One had an intricately painted yellow mask of the sort a performer would wear at the opera, while the other’s was a plain black. Although their appearances were nondescript, if you knew they were the Martial Gods of the South, it went without saying which was which.
While not in a hurry, they weren’t strolling aimlessly either. Mu Qing led the way into the market, wrinkling his nose at the assault of sensations: hawkers hawking, neighing and snorting, clammy-skinned ghosts jostling, brightly coloured fruits, juicy meat, sizzling oil, smoking fires and wafting sewers. Most of the stalls sold things that a living person would never buy and indeed might pay to have taken off their hands.
His destination was one of the rare stalls that served human cuisine. To make up for the normality of it, the sign overhead advertised their ‘Eight Centuries Rotten Recipe’. Behind the stall was a familiar-looking woman with a fatal head injury and a big griddle.
“You’re kidding me,” said Feng Xin behind him. “No. I’ve eaten pancakes from the four fucking corners of the earth and they’re never the right ones.”
“We’ll see. Apparently some of the ghosts that were freeloading at my temples have settled down here in the city, and, well…”
“No… There’s no way.”
Thankfully, the woman didn’t recognise either of them when they ordered, although her stare was as wrathful as ever as she threw batter onto the griddle and began spreading it out.
“How did you even find this place?”
Mu Qing, still watching the pancake being made, could see from the corner of his eye that Feng Xin was staring at him. “I asked,” he admitted.
“Asked who? Crimson Rain? What kind of favour do you owe him now? Or don’t tell me you gambled!?”
“Keep your voice down!” Mu Qing hissed.
It was upsetting to think about, but he suspected Hua Cheng had gotten his payment in advance: surely there wasn’t anything that Mu Qing could provide to him of greater value than going and getting himself completely humiliated by Xie Lian. The silver butterflies had had a front-row seat to that.
“And you brought me here for free?” Feng Xin asked, now sounding wary.
“Hmm. Let’s say it’s for old times’ sake.”
As before, they split the first one. Staring at the golden brown cross-section edged with bright yellow egg and green spring onion, Mu Qing realised that he hadn’t eaten a single piece of real food in at least a century. Gods didn’t need to suffer such mundanities.
“Mmph,” Feng Xin said excitedly, trying to communicate something through a mouthful of food.
Mu Qing bit in and recognised everything–the eggy softness, the succession of crunches, the saliva under his tongue, the scent in the back of his nose and then the rich flavour smearing over his taste buds, quickly dissolving and filling his mouth. And there was more! There were sensations that hadn’t been in his memory at all: the hard work of chewing, the way the texture and flavour evolved and smoothed, the satisfaction as he swallowed and felt it travel all the way down to his stomach. He took another bite, and another.
“It was the batter!” Feng Xin was telling him. “I always thought it must have been the sauce that was different back in our day, but it’s definitely the batter. I guess it’s a different kind of flour mix, not just millet or mung bean. Sorghum maybe.”
Mu Qing was up to date on the different crop yields and trade routes of grains across his territories, but had no clue how any of them would taste in a flour mix; his mouth was full; and he didn’t care. Feng Xin summoned up all his bravery and began to ask the seller about her recipe, which she was not enthusiastic to share with him.
Mu Qing finished with his first half and found himself impatient for the second. He hadn’t been hungry in a very long time, but now he remembered that neither had he been full, and he wanted to experience it right this instant. He took the second pancake from the seller, paid and thanked her, then dragged Feng Xin away before he could cause her any more trouble. They continued eating as the crowd slowly carried them on through the market. He finished his second half while Feng Xin was still on his first, wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, and felt like the smartest man alive. His belly was full, his heart light. Food was amazing. How had everyone missed this?
He definitely had room for more. He still had Feng Xin’s other half-pancake in his hand. These two facts were not necessarily connected…
Feng Xin held out his hand for it; Mu Qing instinctively held it away from him. They stared at each other, both unsure of what was going on for a moment. Under the mask Mu Qing’s mouth twitched against his will.
“Are you a child? Go back and get another one if you want it so bad.”
“Who said I want it? You’re always assuming these things about me. Here.”
“Okay, never mind. I’ll let you have it.”
“Mm. It’s not like I’m hungry, but I suppose I deserve a little extra for my troubles.”
“What troubles? Give it back if you’re not hungry. You’re annoying.”
“I’m annoying?”
Why were they still talking? Mu Qing aimed a vindictive kick at Feng Xin’s ankle, making him stumble. Feng Xin retaliated by grabbing his wrist, gouging his thumbnail into the pressure point there to make him drop the food. Pain shot down his arm. He held on and used his free hand to punch Feng Xin in the abdomen, surprising him enough that he could wrench free.
They couldn’t do this in the middle of a crowd. In two jumps he cleared the tops of the stalls and alighted on the roof of one of the rickety apartment buildings lining the street. He heard a yell of anger behind him and took off running, parallel to the market. His heartbeat picked up speed; he tore off his mask to feel the wind on his face.
There was a flash and planks exploded under his feet: Feng Xin had jumped to the rooves opposite and was taking spiritual energy pot shots. Luckily, he was nowhere near as good of a shot without his bow.
“You should stick to balloon popping,” Mu Qing jeered, pointing to a stall below where ghost children were throwing darts at shiny, inflated something-or-others which burst in spatters of pink and red fluids.
He was so pleased with his insult that he didn’t look ahead, hopped up onto a balcony and ran into someone’s laundry line. A bedsheet wrapped around his face and smothered him–he had to take a moment to tear it in half. Fucking laundry!
By the time he emerged onto the next building, he knew he had lost his lead and needed to take cover, but it was too late–his vision blurred and he felt a jarring pain as Feng Xin crashed directly into him, the impact cushioned by the fact that the entire roof caved in underneath them. He was trapped in the wreckage of wherever this had been, tiles and splintered beams stabbing into his back and Feng Xin’s knee in his stomach, making him breathless. Damn. They hadn’t done this in too long; he was out of practice.
“What is it with you and property destruction?” he gasped.
It was too dark to see anything but he heard Feng Xin’s contemptuous snort. “Like you’re any better!”
Before he could get out, Feng Xin threw his entire weight on top of his chest, initiating a struggle in which he twisted and somehow locked Mu Qing’s arm inside his elbow. He snatched the pancake from Mu Qing’s hand, sat up, and there was an audible crunch as he took a bite of it right there on top of him.
That was revolting. Mu Qing grabbed his arm, trying to force the pancake back down towards his face; they struggled again, rolling to one side, then the other. They came up against a wall and Mu Qing shamelessly exploded it so that he could throw Feng Xin off the edge. Feng Xin fell–it must have been three stories–and landed with an impact that rattled windows in their frames in all the buildings around.
All these crashes had attracted the attentions of the city’s populace. Mu Qing poked his head over the edge and watched as Feng Xin was swarmed by busybody ghosts who began questioning him, sniffing at him, and accusing him of being a troublemaker. With nowhere to go, he turned and began to climb straight up the side of the next building while holding the pancake in his mouth like a dog with a bone.
Mu Qing laughed to himself and jumped over to wait. As soon as Feng Xin’s face appeared over the lip of the roof, Mu Qing reached down and snatched the pancake out of his mouth. He stamped on Feng Xin’s fingers for good measure, breaking his grip and leaving him clinging to the edge by one hand. He cursed Mu Qing to hell and back, but by the time he scrambled up it was too late: Mu Qing had already eaten everything. Ah, food definitely tasted best when it was someone else’s.
“You little shit,” Feng Xin said. “Eight hundred years I’ve wanted to eat that and you didn’t let me finish it.”
He pushed into Mu Qing’s personal space, ready to continue, but paused at the sound of something behind him. A winged demonic type had flown up to see what was going on. Its nostrils flared and it announced, “They’re heavenly officials! Trespassers!”
Mu Qing threw a talisman as a warning shot, shaving off the feathers from the top of its head, but it was too late. The ghosts below broke into a clamour and people began to poke their heads out of the windows to ogle them.
“Heavenly officials in the open! Someone call Hua Chengzhu!”
Staring down at the city with all its lurid red lights and flickering fires, Mu Qing reached out and somehow found himself gripping Feng Xin’s hand. His blood was still hot with the anticipation of more fighting, and he squeezed hard.
“Do you think we can take him?” he asked.
“Take who… Hua Cheng!?“
“We haven’t fought him since he resurrected. Maybe he’s weaker and we can finally get revenge.”
“Huh, maybe… No! Bad idea. Mu Qing, you fucking nightmare,” Feng Xin said, squeezing back. “Why don’t we just leave?”
“True. I’ve wasted too much time on ghosts recently. How about somewhere in the Mortal Realm?”
“Sounds good to me.”
It was too dark to see, but he thought Feng Xin was smiling back at him.