Work Text:
Xie Lian rests at the Paradise Manor when the words come to him through the Spiritual Communication Array.
Body tired and mind at rest, everything hits him with such an urgency that he’s startled awake.
Your Highness! Something has happened! Pei Ming’s voice rings loud with an underlying energy of fretting.
Xie Lian’s blood freezes as he thinks for a split second about all the bad, bad things that might’ve happened. What would be bad enough for Pei Ming to act as he does?
Xie Lian tries not to delay on his reply. What happened? Is someone hurt or endangered?
Pei Ming clearly sighs, General Nan Yang and General Fu Yao… apparently have lost their memories.
Oh no, not again.
Mu Qing wakes up with a groan. His head hurts so much. It bangs and bangs and bangs, and Mu Qing rolls around in bed.
He sighs. His voice sounds a bit rougher than usual.
What the fuck did he even do last night?
He thinks it’s not worth the hassle.
Mu Qing turns to the side and falls asleep again.
Feng Xin stares at the wall.
It’s a very beautiful wall.
He doesn’t know that wall.
At all.
There’s drawings in it, made of gold and silver, delicate lines going around and dancing around each other and creating intricate designs.
He frowns.
When was the last time the Royal Palace had been under renovations?
Last thing he knew was that the country was at war with Rong An. Why, how, and… why , would the King and the Queen make renovations in the middle of such a crisis?
Especially in a room where Feng Xin is making himself very cozy, laying in the bed, nonetheless.
A very weird wall indeed.
Mu Qing wakes up again with the doors slamming open. It bounces against the wall with a hard boom, startling him awake. Rage grows bitter at the pit of his stomach.
His head still hurts, less than before but the annoying sensation is still there.
He tries to ignore the sense of wrongness.
The bed is much cozier than he remembers it being.
So much that he can tell that this isn’t his bedroom.
“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing??” He snarls and his voice still comes off as weird.
Mu Qing has to fight down the dizziness when he sits up, but he still sways a little. He closes his eyes, frowning, and there are hurried footsteps coming to the bed.
The voice who rises above the sound of walking is sweet, gentle. It makes his blood burn and freeze simultaneously and the dark feeling stops.
“Mu Qing! Are you okay?” Warm and calloused hands cover Mu Qing’s own hands on his head.
Mu Qing entire being reels.
“General Pei, should you have hit him so hard on the head?!” His Highness frets.
How improper, His Highness the Crown Prince worrying over someone beneath him, a servant, like this and even touching him so worried and filled with familiarity. Even Guoshi would think this is a strange behavior for him and the Crown Prince.
Where did the familiarity even come from, anyway?
Mu Qing tries not to jump — but he does.
“I’m alright, Your Highness.” Mu Qing hisses and forcibly removes Xie Lian’s hands from him.
Not that it requires much strength. His Highness Xie Lian, just let him do as he pleases.
(He always does, anyway.)
“Your Highness should not worry, I didn’t hit him too hard.” Speaks a second person, a man most likely. It’s such a laidback voice tone that Mu Qing can’t avoid the rage.
Mu Qing assumes that the one who spoke is ‘General Pei’.
“So it was you who hit me? Why did you even do that?” He growls.
In front of him, the His Highness clicks his tongue.
Mu Qing opens his eyes to stare at him and…
Wrong.
It all looks wrong.
Is he even the Crown Prince of Xian Le?
Mu Qing is almost terrified.
He can’t tell.
Xie Lian is so different from how he usually looks, from how he must look. What even happened? Where are the jewels, the refined gold and red from rubies, the sparkles from well refined stones? His Highness looks… wrong. Plain. His clothes are white and simple, cleaner than a beggar’s but not much fancier than that. They are well fit, white from head to toe. His hair is half tied in a bun while the rest disturbs and starks with the white fabric of his clothes. The only piece of royalty Mu Qing can find in him is the red pearl in his earring, and there is only one.
Did His Highness lose the other during the parade?
Mu Qing tries to recall seeing it falling off, but he can’t remember. All he can think of is the parade, the heavy zanbato straining his wrists, the loud cheers for His Highness and then…
BLANK.
It’s all blank.
Mu Qing fights and slams his conscience into a wall of pure nothing, but it doesn’t yield. He can’t remember anything, be it from the blow he received on the head or something else.
He decides to not think about it.
Mu Qing frowns. “What are you wearing? Are you waiting for your robes to get dry?”
Xie Lian’s eyes widen for a split second before he visibly schools himself into a proper, collected prince.
He hums in denial and chuckles shyly, “No, these are my robes.”
Strangely enough, Mu Qing has never seen these robes before.
The distress, the panic, comes in waves.
It comes and goes, shied away with confusion.
Until it’s no more.
Where is he??
Feng Xin can’t understand he—
He’s.
Empty.
Somewhere.
He can’t tell where this place is.
They were FINE.
The three of them fell asleep in a temple. They do that often, during these war times.
Feng Xin can’t breathe as he walks through the palace he doesn’t know.
He should know where he is. There’s this lingering feeling in the walls, a sensation that he has already walked the grounds on which he stands several times before.
His mind can’t possibly recollect but his body does.
Since an early age, Feng Xin has been taught to trust his body and let it guide him when his mind cannot.
But—
He can’t breathe.
The panic comes in waves until it turns into a tsunami.
He shouldn’t feel like this. He’s a warrior. He’s alone in this place, at least inside the palace.
Feng Xin looks in the mirror to realize that he has aged, since the last time he saw himself.
(The last time he saw himself was at the bath, some moments before falling asleep.)
The hallways are long. Haunted. He can see shadows where there aren’t any, and the shadows are of himself. He’s terrified.
He sprints through the longest hallway he has found. It’s a maze-like place but Feng Xin can tell that the room he’s going to is important. It’s the only door in this long, long hallway, after all.
Feng Xin halts. He opens the door.
There’s a man in there.
Clad in red, covered in silver. His hair is long enough to reach his waist, luxuriously so.
He looks at Feng Xin and he only has one eye.
“Dianxia told me to pick you up.”
Mu Qing sits next to Feng Xin, in front of Xie Lian and a strange man dressed in red who reeks of wicked energy.
Feng Xin looks at the man with narrowed eyes and Mu Qing does the same. Xie Lian appears to be completely at ease next to the man, which is the worst part of it all because the red man clearly isn’t someone to be tampered with. His smile has been so fake condescending since the moment he stepped into the room with a disheveled Feng Xin in tow. Mu Qing’s frown is so hard that it could be engraved in his skull.
“Who are you?” Feng Xin asks, crossing his arms, painting the image of someone who has the upper hand.
He does not.
Neither of them do.
They’re strays with no memory of where they came from.
The man in red smiles widens and he closes his eyes, pleased.
“I’m Jun Wu.”
‘Jun Wu’ smiles like a flower. A this flower that has been rolled in dirt, though.
Mu Qing chokes on spit.
“Liar. The Heavenly Emperor would never have such evil energy around him!” Feng Xin replies and turns to Xie Lian. “Hey, why are you with him?” He throws the question at His Highness, who only blushes in reply.
What’s with that reaction?!
His Highness Xie Lian laughs meekly and pushes a strand of hair behind his ear. He clicks his tongue, looking at the self pronounced Jun Wu and hits his arm lightly.
“Don’t torture them, San Lang.”
Mu Qing wants to fight this man, very badly.
Xie Lian continues talking, now looking at Feng Xin and Mu Qing. “This is San Lang. He’s a… friend.”
Suddenly, San Lang’s smug demeanor changes and he looks at Xie Lian, eyebrows raised. They communicate silently for quite some time, San Lang making something that’s incredibly close to a pout.
It clearly works, because Xie Lian’s expression softens as they staaaare.
It’s like watching something really intimate unfold.
Mu Qing wants to slap them out of it. He clearly can’t, because it’s His Highness . But he sure as hell wants to.
Xie Lian told them things. About how they lost their memories by touching one of the Heavenly Emperor’s old swords. Apparently he has a great armory that got lost during a war before his passing, something like that.
Mu Qing is too busy trying to grasp the concept of everything to focus on the details. It’s harder to recall what the sword actually does when you’re munching on the fact that you lost around 800 years of memories.
He breathes deeply, getting Xie Lian and San Lang’s attention.
Aren’t the two of them strangely close to each other?
Physically speaking?
“What do we do now?”
Xie Lian puts a hand on his cheek, immersed in thoughts for a moment. For those who are not familiar with him, he easily passes as someone aloof. He has a soft, easy-going smile. He’s way too gentle and his eyes always carry that glint of someone who wanders in ideas for too long.
Mu Qing snorts at all of those who underestimate Xie Lian. Fools, all of them.
Xie Lian speaks, moving his eyes between Feng Xin and Mu Qing, “We’ll wait for the memories to come back.”
“And when will that be?!” Feng Xin startles, eyes wide open and voice loud.
San Lang and Xie Lian look at each other for a moment.
The one who answers Feng Xin is surprisingly San Lang.
“Hopefully, soon. I don’t want to have you two hanging around me and gege for so long, you might ruin our marriage.”
“ San Lang! ”
“You!”
Mu Qing freezes.
He’s joking about the marriage part, right?
Being memory-less is… something else. Everything feels different and Mu Qing can’t quite tackle the sensation. It feels like the ground they walk on isn’t the same, as if it’s drained of all the energy it used to have.
Their bodies have less weight now, but their flesh feels tired. That’s how they believe easily when Xie Lian tells them that eight hundred years have passed.
They’re warriors, taught to trust their bodies. When it says something, when it wants to move, they obey.
When Mu Qing’s body feels exhausted even though he sleeps regularly, he listens.
Eight hundred years definitely takes a toll on someone’s flesh.
When they ask about Xian Le, all His Highness tells them is “Eight hundred years have passed; a lot has changed,” and Mu Qing doesn’t chase for more answers.
Feng Xin, on the other hand, insistently nags Xie Lian (and by effect San Lang) about more. He mentions something about a war and Mu Qing’s heart aches at the thought. He rages, too. His mother, the children he used to see running on the streets, the stalls of food they visited often. He wonders if it all burned during the war.
(He wonders but he does not ask.)
Feng Xin and Mu Qing are secluded at a mountain, Xie Lian calls it Puji Shrine. Xie Lian’s presence comes and goes, and San Lang always follows him like a shadow.
This Xie Lian is different. He doesn’t indulge himself easily. He’s humble and human, as if ascending made his spirit descend. He doesn’t tend to speak highly of himself, and that makes Mu Qing’s blood boil.
He has a hard time finding the Crown Prince of Xian Le in this simple, white dressed person.
What gets Mu Qing the most is his relationship with said San Lang, though.
The name is fake, clearly fake . It’s such a silly name that it can’t be the real deal.
Plus, he has had such a wicked aura around him, since they first met. All dressed in red, and an eye patch hiding one eye while the other has a smart glint. He’s the definition of how someone bad must look like.
It reminds Mu Qing of the boys that lived in the streets of Xian Le.
He’s always clinging to Xie Lian, too.
Always finding an excuse to touch him, to rest his chin on His Highness head, to have his hand held by Xie Lian. All the Crown Prince does is blush and comply.
Does he hold something over Xie Lian?!
This bastard. He better not.
There’s this strange spiritual device in front of Mu Qing. He stares at it and Mu Qing can swear that it’s staring back.
The white fabric… snake… ?
It moves when he moves, so Mu Qing keeps turning his head to the sides to watch it repeat the motion.
In the corner, Xie Lian and San Lang sit in front of a table in the middle of a calligraphy lesson. Mu Qing keeps watching the white snake.
From his spot, Xie Lian looks at them and snorts. “That is Ruoye! It won’t harm you, it’s just curious. You’re a friend and it’s known you for a long time, it is curious about why you’re acting so different.”
Mu Qing’s brain tingles at the word friend.
“Friend, huh?” Mu Qing can’t help but mutter in a loud, mildly annoyed tone.
He dislikes the feeling this word gives him. It’s too vulnerable.
Xie Lian has his eyes turned to San Lang’s writing but he keeps talking to Mu Qing. “Uhum, friend. You even helped me and mended it for me, once.”
Mu Qing studies Ruoye, looking for any clear stitches and he finds very precise ones - surely a work of his own. He had a lot of practice as a servant, after all.
The sound of Feng Xin chopping wood outside makes Mu Qing wonder if he should leave Xie Lian and San Lang alone. He quickly gives up, because San Lang is far from the safest-looking person for Xie Lian to be alone with. Not that Xie Lian doesn’t know how to defend himself: quite the contrary.
It’s Mu Qing’s piqued interest in the man dressed in red that keeps him in place.
“Gege, look.” San Lang pipes in, bumping Xie Lian with his elbow lightly. “This San Lang did a very good job, he deserves a reward.”
Xie Lian studies the hard, far from delicate black ink laid out in paper. His feedback is softer than it should be, in Mu Qing’s opinion.
He points one thing and another, but what Mu Qing really focuses on is the wandering hands on Xie Lian’s arm.
San Lang skims his fingers around Xie Lian’s forearms like it’s nothing and Mu Qing’s annoyance reaches the ceiling! Seriously! What the fuck he’s doing!
“Hey, jerk. Have some respect will you?” Mu Qings clicks his tongue. “Don’t touch Your Highness like this.”
Both look at Mu Qing with completely different expressions. San Lang has the audacity to look annoyed, while Xie Lian looks like when Mu Qing caught him polishing swords at ass o’clock when he was supposed to be sleeping.
Ruoye keeps focusing on Mu Qing, the damn weird thing.
“Are you jealous?” San Lang teases.
He! He—!
Mu Qing is one breath away from punching him, gods help him.
It doesn’t matter that his face is burning, he just wants to punch.
“Shut up! You have no respect and you decide to throw this shitty behavior of yours at me.” He fires back instead, and it’s not because words are easier to mend than broken skin and blood drops.
It’s not.
Xie Lian widens his eyes. “Don’t be like this, you two.”
San Lang’s eyes are so sharp and dangerous that Mu Qing can’t look at him without fuming, without losing his breath entirely.
He says. “No gege, don’t worry. We all know children don’t know how to act properly, and now I can tell that grown men can’t do it either.”
Mu Qing punches him.
(Feng Xin comes in and punches the two of them.)
Feng Xin can tell a lot of things have changed. People are a little bit less gentle than they used to be, their edges are sharper than he recalls them being. Feng Xin can’t find some fruits he likes, Xie Lian says they don’t exist anymore.
The songs are different the time they go to town to do some shopping.
The fabrics aren’t as refined as they were before, but maybe that’s because the village they’re at is poor compared to Xian Le.
The way some of the villagers speak sounds weird.
San Lang and Xie Lian are way too attached.
The Crown Prince is a gentle, friendly person. He’s powerful enough to bend the heavens, yes, but he’s caring and loving. He carries the weight of everyone’s pain if he’s able to.
(This Xie Lian is a little bit smarter, though.
He doesn’t sink himself for others.
Feng Xin likes this version of him.)
So, it’s no surprise that he’s close to San Lang.
But… that close??
They sleep in the same bed, for god’s sake! What the fuck!
In all the years Feng Xin knows him, he never heard of anything similar happening! Not even when he was little and had nightmares.
They do chores together. They know each other’s likes and dislikes. Xie Lian lets San Lang touch him at any given time.
The Crown Prince of Xian Le is untouchable.
Why? How? What is going on?
He blushes but allows San Lang to hold his hand. He even looks happy because they’re holding hands!
What is this pining?!
Xie Lian, pure white snow flower, having emotions for someone that… dreadful?
Feng Xin barely knows him but he hates him. He probably hated him before losing his memories too, he’s sure of it. San Lang is too smug to be liked, and that’s the reason Feng Xin gives for his own dislike towards San Lang.
But… this…
This is unacceptable!
Feng Xin enters the temple to see… to see… ugh!
San Lang, the jerk, face centimeters away from Xie Lian’s face, holding Xie Lian’s chin with one hand. Feng Xin catches a glimpse of San Lang’s thumb brushing Xie Lian’s cheek tenderly.
Feng Xin doesn’t see red, but it’s a close call.
“You!” Feng Xin whispers in anger.
Xie Lian backs away so fast that his back hits the wall with a loud bang. Feng Xin would have winced but he’s too busy glaring daggers at the man in red. Feng Xin is glad that Mu Qing isn’t with him, because if he was the shrine would surely collapse on top of him.
After all, Feng Xin can give more controlled punches than Mu Qing is able to.
The Puji Shrine is too fragile to handle the full extent of Mu Qing’s temper, so Feng Xin is glad to be able to conserve the place Xie Lian so dearly calls ‘home’ intact.
Even though Feng Xin can’t understand how a prince that has been donned in gold and precious gems his whole life is able to live somewhere that what he eats is only a little bit better than scraps.
“What the fuck are you doing? Get away from him!”
San Lang, stares back with the anger of a demon and the calm of a river. Detaching himself from the wall, Xie Lian sighs.
It’s his annoyed sigh. Xie Lian’s voice is nothing more than controlled. “Feng Xin, back off please.”
Feng Xin wants to tenderly beat some sense into him.
San Lang doesn’t say anything. Instead, he backs away so Xie Lian can step forward as they exchange a look.
Xie Lian calmly circles the eating table, hands tight together. His simple clothes balance the power he has, the dominion he holds over Feng Xin’s head so, so easily.
“He’s taking advantage of you, can’t you see it?” Feng Xin fights back.
“San Lang is not—” Xie Lian cuts himself, reigning over himself before the frustration is able to overcome, “he’s not doing anything wrong.”
“What do you mean he’s not—”
Xie Lian cuts him. “Don’t you trust me? You’re my friend, right?”
That question breaks the entire chain of thoughts Feng Xin has been having. His posture changes, the tension seeps out and something ugly and silly fills him. He can feel his body growing warm.
“Friends, huh?” He asks, incredulous.
Xie Lian nods, the lines of his body easing out as well. “You might not recall, but yes, we’re friends for a couple of years now.”
Feng Xin hums noncommittally. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Xie Lian, he just has a hard time believing a lot of the words that leave His Highness lips. Like when he sat down and told them that the Heavenly Emperor was an ancient prince who fell from the heaven’s graces, got his country decimated and tried to make Xie Lian a second version of himself. The Heavenly Emperor was a Calamity.
“Trust me that San Lang means no harm. He might be a difficult person to get along with but he’s good and I care for him.”
The thing is: the way Xie Lian speaks of San Lang is so caring that Feng Xin wants to protect him from that man at the same time he trusts Xie Lian to take care of himself.
Because of this, Feng Xin backs away for now.
He wants to roll his eyes like Mu Qing does.
“If His Highness continues to speak like this, you’ll keep sounding like you have feelings for that demon.”
Xie Lian doesn’t argue about the nickname, he just smiles placatingly and lets go of the subject.
“Help me prepare for dinner, will you?”
Feng Xin winces, preparing his taste buds for the nightmare that is to come.
It doesn’t escape Feng Xin that when the conversation started, when Xie Lian stepped forward to intervene, San Lang left.
He can’t remember the door opening, though.
Mu Qing passes out and Feng Xin gets sick from eating Xie Lian’s cooking. Terribly enough, San Lang eats it with the calm and joy only a demon is worth possessing.
Three times! It’s been three times already!
Three times that Mu Qing walked into a room and found them doing… things.
Admittedly very dubious things.
And it was only Mu Qing and Feng Xin’s third day without memories.
Once San Lang had his hand this close to Xie Lian’s backside. His fucking backside, for god’s sake. What was wrong with the dude?
The second situation happened to be Xie Lian draped on San Lang’s lap, almost dozing off. San Lang had looked at Mu Qing murderously, challenging him to make any noise to disturb the peace of the god’s rest. San Lang had his hands around Xie Lian’s waist while both of them were in an unusual state of undress in bed.
The third time the four of them were at the market, Xie Lian walking at an excited pace until he realized San Lang had vanished like he always did. Seriously, the dude was always fucking vanishing and showing up in the thin air like he’s freaking entitled to. It was extremely annoying to have him popping up like a damn weed.
Anyways, San Lang vanished only to show up with a bunch of flowers in his hand. When Xie Lian spotted him he straight up blushed.
“The god who carries a sword in one hand and a flower in the other doesn’t need to carry any more swords, Your Highness should hold these flowers only.” San Lang said and gave Xie Lian the bouquet. “Let this San Lang carry the heavy things you bought, there’s no need for Your Highness to strain himself.”
Xie Lian opened his mouth and closed several times, his whole face burning so hard at the flattery (that didn’t meant much for Mu Qing but it definitely did for Xie Lian).
Mu Qing walks with heavy steps, grabs Xie Lian’s market purchases.
“I’m his servant, I’ll carry his things.”
Mu Qing doesn’t touch the cursed flowers, though.
Xie Lian warned him about the fact that he’s not a servant anymore, but it can’t be helped. Even more so when he’s seeing such a cursed display.
Mu Qing walks back to the shrine without saying a single word.
After getting scolded by Xie Lian for acting rude, he finds San Lang alone chopping wood. He was supposed to apologize, but honestly, he doesn’t want to. He’s sure San Lang doesn’t care for it either. San Lang feels like one of those street boys that Mu Qing recalls as if it was yesterday, the ones who used to live in the streets of Xian Le, begging and stealing.
It’s a bit too uncomfortable for Mu Qing.
San Lang chops one piece of wood with one swing, betraying his weak appearance. Sadly for him, Mu Qing isn’t one bit intimidated.
“Hey, you!” Mu Qing snarls and San Lang doesn’t even look at him. His hand reaches out to the sword in his waist but he calls out for the other before pulling out. “San Lang!”
There are no words to express how cursed he felt saying that name out loud. It feels so wrong that his entire mouth goes sour and he frowns in disgust.
Mu Qing thinks he’s going to get sick.
Said San Lang looks at him and Mu Qing can read the utter disgust that he feels in San Lang’s face.
They stare each other in this terrible mix of horror and revulsion.
Mu Qing foregoes what he’s going to say.
Instead, he goes back to the shrine and lays down to rest.
Feng Xin is horrified. “You let us live with you two! For four days! Enduring your married life antics!”
He complains to Xie Lian, who stands in the middle of the garden, elbows deep in dirt while he works on gardening. The so-called San Lang sits next to him, nonchalantly giving Xie Lian little sprouts so he can plant them.
Hua Cheng doesn’t intervene.
Xie Lian sighs. “We took care of you two.”
“I know, we’re not ungrateful.” Feng Xin explains, trying not to upset His Highness. “‘We are thankful. It’s just that…”
The fact that Mu Qing is nowhere to be seen already makes a point to what Feng Xin is saying. Mu Qing vanished the moment he woke up and they’re all pretty sure that he won’t show up anytime soon.
(He was too horrified after calling Hua Cheng “San Lang”.
Nearly traumatized, he can’t look at Hua Cheng without turning an angry shade of red.)
“Did you two really have to freaking lie about being married and throw the shittiest act of all history, to try and pretend you two are only friends?” Feng Xin finishes. “You can’t even fool a blind person.”
Xie Lian looks at Hua Cheng and giggles. Hua Cheng’s mouth curves in a smirk.
That’s how Feng Xin knows that the two had fun playing him and Mu Qing.
Stupid married couples.