Chapter Text
“Your Highness, are you still sleeping? Wake up!”
The sudden yell and the bursting sound of knocking woke Xie Lian, who stared dazedly at the wooden door where the noises came from. In a few seconds, he woke up entirely, and looked at his surroundings, frowning. He was lying on a mat, placed on a wooden floor, in what looked like a small but cozy house. Xie Lian corrected himself, this was a shrine. A table rested in place of the altar, with some offerings and incense stick on it, and the drawing of a god rested on it.
From his position, Xie Lian could only appreciate the vivid colors of the painting, but the figure was too small from his point of view to be recognized. Not that he cared. He had stopped caring about gods since centuries, he probably wouldn’t have recognized the god of this shrine.
The same voice that had woken him up yelled again, “Your Highness, are you really asleep? Can we come in?”
Were they talking to him? That wouldn’t be possible. First of all, he didn’t recognize the voice. Second, nobody called him by that title anymore, and even if this person knew he had been the Crown Prince of Xian Le, calling him Your Highness was probably an offence to everybody else who owned that title.
Xie Lian tried to remember how he ended up in this shrine, but his past days had always had the same routine, with scrap picking and entertaining crowds during most of the time. So, he probably was missing something. What made him completely forget finding this shrine and sleeping in it? His train of thought was interrupted again.
“Xie Lian? We’re coming in!”
This time, the voice was different, but Xie Lian was more shocked by being called by his own name. Were they really talking to him??
With a kick, the door was slammed open, and two young men stormed in the shrine. When they saw Xie Lian, who was completely awake and sitting comfortably on the mat, the first boy erupted in rage, while the second one put on a cold and indignant expression.
“Xie Lian! You were awake! Why the fuck didn’t you answer when I called you??”
These people were totally talking to him, that was clear. Was he supposed to know them? They did have a familiar air in them, but he could be sure while saying that he had never seen these young men before. Well, maybe he had, but he had forgotten. Considering that he had no memories about getting in this shrine, he had probably forgot about an entire day or more. A loss of memory was not normal, and Xie Lian considered his options.
If he really had met these boys in a near-past, there was no way they would be so informal to him. Also, they had called him by his title and full name, so they knew his identity. They couldn’t be normal humans. Now then, why would he tell someone about his identity? He had kept it secret for many centuries, and never revealed it to anyone, so how could these people even know about him? Even the gods from the Upper Heaven most likely didn’t remember about him -at least he hoped so.
“Xie Lian, what are you staring at? Are you with us? We have work to do, don’t you remember?”
If this was the work of some evil spirit that fumbled with his mind, then that would explain his lack of memory and his identity being revealed. Xie Lian decided to think it was like this, at least for now. If a human happened to stumble across an accident like the one he was living, they would probably freak out, and perhaps that was the objective of the evil spirit. Xie Lian decided to pretend he wasn’t affected by the weird things happening, and cleared his throat, glaring affably at the young men.
“Sorry, I wasn’t completely awake yet. Did I make you wait?”
The boy who had kept quite snorted and rolled his eyes while crossing his arms, “Oh, sorry to interrupt your resting, Your Highness. I sure hope you are not offended by our intrusion.”
Xie Lian could tell that his tone was completely sarcastic, it’s not like he was hiding it.
Before he could say anything, the angry boy intervened, “What’s your problem, Mu... Fu Yao! Why must you always speak like that?”
“You are questioning me about how I speak, “Nan Feng”? Have you heard yourself?”
Xie Lian repeated those two names, trying to search them in his memory, unsuccessfully.
The angry boy, apparently called “Nan Feng”, was about to yell at “Fu Yao” again, but when he heard Xie Lian muttering he said, “Your Highness, please call us that for now, we are undercover. We were not subtle enough yesterday, so for now we will keep our identities hidden even when there seems to be no one around.”
Xie Lian nodded while smiling, even though he was more confused than before. These guys weren’t named like this, after all, but they were hiding their identities because they needed to be subtle. For what? What did they do yesterday?
While he was thinking, Fu Yao had started over with the argument, “Whose fault was it that we were not subtle enough? If you hadn’t started screaming around like a madman maybe it could have worked!”
“Was it my fault that those girls were acting so clingy? It was His Highness that kept charming them being so gentle and all! You were thinking the same as me!”
Fu Yao seemed to be thinking of something funny, because his aggressive frown turned into a grin. Before he could say whatever was on his mind, Xie Lian finally stood up, and the focus of the boys returned on him.
“Shall we go now?”, he asked nervously. He wanted to know what exactly was going on, so he had to test the water in some way. Luckily, his words were not considered strange to the boys, that simply nodded and walked outside the shrine. Xie Lian hastily put on a robe displayed on the floor before he followed them.
The shrine was near a small village, and some people waved at him while passing by. “Good morning great immortal!”, “’Morning Daozhang!”, “How is your friend?”.
When Xie Lian noticed they were talking to him, he simply smiled and waved back awkwardly. What was going on, again? This was really weird. Since the two boys walked straight through the people, ignoring them, Xie Lian followed their example.
They exited the village, and after following a mountain path they stopped. Before them stood a simple hut, but an array was drawn on the ground. Nan Feng kneeled to check on it, even though it seemed freshly made. Done checking, he stood up again, and entered the small hut, closing the door behind him. Without a word, Fu Yao followed him.
Xie Lian was left alone, wondering. Did he have to follow too? The array was probably A Thousand Miles In A Step, although Xie Lian wasn’t an expert and couldn’t be sure. At the end, he still entered the hut, closing the door behind him. As he had thought, there was no presence of others in the room.
Once he opened again the door, a scenery completely different from before appeared in front of him.