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Hua Cheng prided himself in being able to make tough choices. He was born unwanted and died more or less the same; everything between point A and point B was a tragedy of errors that barely amounted enough to make a joke. As a small, wandering ghost, he remembered mostly the hopelessness of watching the person he loved sinking lower and lower without anyone to help; the graveyard, and then those heavenly officials, the prelude for the true hell that they had not yet encountered, but already waved cheerily in the distance.
It was, of course, the hundred stab wounds.
Hua Cheng is still shocked that he survived the sheer panic, desperation and terror that was that hour; sometimes, he wondered if maybe wasn’t he mistaken? Surely something like that couldn’t happen in this world to someone as pure, kind and shiny like his highness? If so, how could it be a place worth living in? Better burn everything to the ground and start again.
It’s true that Xie Lian probably blamed White No-Face for what happened, and he wasn’t wrong. But Hua Cheng was more immediate, placed blame more squarely, and everyone on that mountain had to pay — he only made sure that they did, that’s all, what is there to be conflicted about?
In the end, that experience changed both of them. Hua Cheng wasn’t that small, lost ghost anymore, and Xie Lian looked like he was tired of crawling away. To Hua Cheng, it made no difference; if his highness didn’t want to dirt his hands, then Hua Cheng would do it for him; if he wanted revenge, then Hua Cheng would hold the enemy down while they struggled without batting a single eyelash. He wanted to kill? That’s fine. He wanted someone else to kill for him? Even better.
He wanted to change his mind at the end and save those pathetic insects that did not deserve mercy?
Hua Cheng could do that too.