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Chapter Text

The day Guoshi was first invited into the palace to read Xie Lian’s fortune, was also the day his soulmark first bloomed.

The Guoshi had been asking him a series of questions, and with every answer Xie Lian gave earned him Guoshi’s praise and his parent’s beaming smiles of pride, up until the Two People and a Cup of Water question.

“Two walked the desert,” the Guoshi began, “About to die from thirst, and there was only one cup of water. The one who drinks lives, the one who doesn’t, dies. If you were a god, who would you give that cup of water to?”

Xie Lian answered immediately, without so much as a pause of hesitation, “Give another cup.”

Hearing this, the Guoshi paused, staring long and hard at Xie Lian before him, the silence long enough for his parents to notice, the easy smiles once upon their face wavering ever so slightly.

“Guoshi,” the king said, “Is there something the matter?”

The Guoshi raised his hand and pointed at Xie Lian.

"What is that on your neck?" the Guoshi asked instead.

Xie Lian brought his hand to touch his neck, puzzled. He hadn’t so much as adorned a necklace today, and nothing felt out of place either.

The Guoshi drew closer, "It's got the dark shade of a soulmark."

A soulmark! Both his parents stood up at that and hurried over to their son. Not everyone was fortunate enough to blessed with a soulmark, and it was even rarer for a soulmark to form so late. Usually, most soulmarks bloom shortly around the time the person was born, and Xie Lian was already six years old.

Xie Lian wanted so badly to see his soulmark with his own eyes. "Mother, Father, what does it say?!" Xie Lian asked.

His parents fell as silent as Guoshi had been moments ago. Xie Lian frowned and rubbed at his neck. If only he could grab a mirror and see for himself…

The Guoshi at last spoke, "Crown Prince, to be perfectly honest… If that truly is a soulmark, the writing is a hideous mess, who can honestly tell what it means?"

His mother chimed in at that, “Perhaps it’s not a soulmark after all. Or perhaps it's written in a foreign language?”

“To have such terrible calligraphy, what kind of uneducated person could it be, no good at all…” the king muttered.

That very night, when Xie Lian had a moment to himself, he grabbed a copper mirror to take a look. Indeed, the soulmark on his neck truly was indecipherable. The word, if it could be called that, started from the skin just below his left earlobe, strange marks that trailed off halfway down the left side of his neck, a series of mad swirls all blurred and intertwined together like raw tangled silk threads.

“Hello,” Xie Lian whispered with a smile, tracing the illegible swirls with his finger. He may not be able to decipher the first words his soulmate was intended to say to him, but this was proof that he had a soulmate out there, possibly born on this very day, and that in itself felt like a blessing.

—

Xie Lian was fourteen when he finally managed to convince his parents to let him go to Mount Taicang to train with Guoshi.

“I understand you want to cultivate,” his mother had said, “But what is the rush? You can always cultivate here at home and train with Feng Xin, and go to Guoshi when you turn twenty. Do you really need to go to Mount Taicang right now?”

Xie Lian stayed kneeling before his parents and Guoshi, with his bodyguard and friend Feng Xin kneeling as well right behind him. His mother was not wrong, he could very well cultivate here within the palace grounds, it wasn’t a requirement of cultivation to go to Mount Taicang.

“Yes, I can cultivate here, at home,” Xie Lian replied in a quiet and steady voice, “But under Guoshi’s training in Mount Taicang, I would progress much faster. Guoshi had said I was ready for more training. Please, mother, father, consider my wishes.”

Beyond making more progress in Mount Taicang, there were other reasons why Xie Lian was pushing to move to Mount Taicang, away from home, reasons he kept close to his heart.

Not everyone carried a soulmark, and not everyone who carried a soulmark would be able to get together with their soulmates. By the looks of his soulmark, the probability of his soulmate being a commoner was very high, and like all the stories say, no matter how much they were marked for each other, a commoner was a commoner, and a Crown Prince was a Crown Prince. In Xie Lian’s case, he didn’t even have a means of recognizing his soulmate, no way of knowing what exactly would be the first words that were intended for him. But, just as Xie Lian could not accept the so-called Royal Prestige his father lived by, this too was something Xie Lian could not accept so easily,

If this life would not let him so much as identify his soulmate, let alone be together with them, then Xie Lian would choose the third path available to him. He would work hard on his cultivation, ascend to godhood, and in this way he would have the means to protect the common people and thus protect his soulmate, no matter where they were in this world. This path was the path Xie Lian had set his heart on; the idea of it felt just and fair in his heart, far more than any concept of Royal Prestige or a silent acquiescence to being granted a so-called unlucky soulmark.

“We will grant your wish,” his father said with a sigh, and Xie Lian lifted his head up, a smile breaking out.

“But,” his father added, “Before you go, we will have the Pavilion of Xianle built there in Mount Taicang first for you to stay in. You are still the Crown Prince Xie Lian, after all.”

Xie Lian nodded. His parents agreeing to letting him go to Mount Taicang was already a huge step, he didn’t mind waiting for this Pavilion to finish building before going.

At his parents’ permission, the Guoshi stepped forward, "If you embark on this cultivation path under me, the need for abstinence is absolute, do you understand?"

Xie Lian could feel Guoshi’s eyes on his soulmark, the soulmark he refused to cover up no matter what.

"Absolutely," Xie Lian said, “I understand completely.”

—

The years Xie Lian spent at Mount Taicang were happy years. Under Guoshi’s tutelage, Xie Lian’s cultivation was growing by leaps and bounds. All throughout this time, Feng Xin stood by his side training, and he even found a new friend in Mu Qing.

Now, if only Feng Xin and Mu Qing got along better, his days would have been perfect.

As such, the two of them were constantly at odds with each other, that slow burning simmer of irritation just a word away from bursting to the surface. Not even the grueling rehearsals for the ceremonial parade managed to distract the two from going through their regular barbed exchanges. Xie Lian felt more tired from listening to them than going through the sword forms for the rehearsal.

The morning before the day of the ceremonial parade, at the first opportunity he had, Xie Lian announced, “We are going to change the act for the ceremonial parade.”

Feng Xin and Mu Qing finally stopped glaring at each other, snapping their attention towards him.

“Isn’t it late to change the act?” Mu Qing asked, frowning

“What’s so hard, all we need to do is get Guoshi’s permission!” Feng Xin said.

Before Mu Qing could say anything else, Xie Lian replied, “That’s right, we just need permission. Feng Xin, can you grab a piece of paper and write down the missive for Guoshi?”

Mu Qing stepped up, “Your Highness, please let me write the missive. I can write it well.”

“What, are you trying to say something about my writing?”

“Okay, okay,” Xie Lian said, “Let’s stop fighting… Thank you, Mu Qing, for offering to write the missive. And Feng Xin, your writing is not that bad…”

Xie Lian gestured at his own soulmark with a half-smile. Rather than laughing, Feng Xin and Mu Qing both frowned instead, staring at where he pointed on his neck.

“Are you still looking at people’s writings, your Highness?” Feng Xin asked.

Over the years, Xie Lian found himself examining the calligraphy style of people’s writings he would come across. He had even looked at Mu Qing and Feng Xin’s writings at one point. But there was no writing he had ever come across that looked quite like the one from his soulmark. He had scrutinized every swirl and curve of the soulmark to the point where he could picture it completely from memory alone, but the meaning of the word behind the soulmark eluded him to this day. Xie Lian did, however, feel he was familiar enough with the look of the writing style to recognize the handwriting of his soulmate, should he ever come across it.

“Ah, never mind that. Okay it’s good that you’re going, Mu Qing. Please write this down…”

Feng Xin and Mu Qing weren’t immediate fans of simulating the celestial descent during the parade, but Xie Lian insisted, and felt that in the end, the parade was a success. The crowd was very pleased with Xie Lian’s performance, the fight Xie Lian and Mu Qing rehearsed many times was even better on the day of the parade than during the rehearsals, and he even managed to save a child before the parade was over.

Truly, his time at Mount Taicang was a happy, carefree time. Everything seemed to fall into place; his ascension felt close at hand, and his promise to himself to save the common people and protect his soulmate was being kept. The world to him then had seemed to be only full of open possibilities.

—

Looking back, it felt as if everything had started falling apart shortly after he had ascended.

The start of his godhood felt full of promises. Xie Lian had endless temples built under his name and endless worshippers coming in with prayers, with Feng Xin and Mu Qing by his side at every step of the way. At the height of his self-confidence, he was even able to say to a struggling young worshipper, “If you don’t know the meaning of your life, then take me as the meaning of your life.”

His self-confidence was the reason why Xie Lian was able to say to Jun Wu without any hesitation to let him go down to the mortal realm. It was an easy decision to make. After all, Xie Lian could not stand by while his kingdom fell. What good was his godhood if he couldn’t even save the common people?

But when he came down to the mortal realm, nothing worked out the way he imagined. It had seemed, no matter how much effort he poured in, it was never enough. In the face of the Human Face disease, the ravages of civil war, and what the White-Cloth Calamity has done to his beloved kingdom, he couldn't shake the feeling that his attempts at saving the common people were a complete failure.

At a certain point, Xie Lian even started keeping a copper mirror by his side again, just to look and trace over the intimately familiar soulmark that kept its place on the left of his neck. He hadn’t looked at his soulmark much since he left home for Mount Taicang, but the sight of the soulmark now calmed and centered him, as if his soulmate was reassuring him from afar. Xie Lian may be going about this whole affair with Yong’an completely wrong, but every day he made his attempts, his soulmate still remained alive, somewhere, out there among the common people, and that has to count for something; his actions couldn’t possibly all be in vain.

—

When Xie Lian was first banished, he went through many shocks and experienced many things he had never gone through either as human nor as a god. He had never had to go hungry before, never had to worry about pawning off whatever material possessions he had just to get by, never had to worry about hiding from angry mobs, never had to worry about finding work, making ends meet.

In spite of all this, Xie Lian gave his banishment his best shot. Every setback, he justified to himself, was just a lesson to learn to sympathize with his people. He would learn from this, become stronger, make his way back to godhood. He simply had to. With every shock of every new experience, he took it all in with a stride.

He did not, however, prepare for the shock of his soulmark vanishing.

Xie Lian had come out that morning at Feng Xin and Mu Qing’s call for breakfast, to find his friends staring oddly at him, quiet.

“What’s the matter?” Xie Lian asked, “Something on my face?”

“Your soulmark…” Feng Xin said.

Xie Lian’s heart raced.

“It’s gone, your Highness,” Mu Qing said, voice soft.

“No,” Xie Lian whispered, his voice going hoarse and rasp. It couldn’t be. He brought his hand to the left of his neck, his fingers started tracing out the familiar pattern of his soulmark, only to stop short at the raised bumps on his neck, the mark of that newly cursed shackle marring his skin.

Without another word or glance, Xie Lian took off. They had no mirrors left with them, all of it pawned off ages ago along with the other material goods that were worth anything, but he had to see with his own eyes, he wouldn’t believe it otherwise.

At the river’s edge, Xie Lian leaned over to look at his reflection, and sure enough, his soulmark was gone, as if it had never existed. Slowly, he brought his hand up and ran his fingers over the side of his neck, bare but for the cursed shackle that remained. Over the years he had not been able to make more sense of the incomprehensible swirls that didn’t seem to follow any sort of stroke order, but he knew the shape of it as intimately as the sight of his own hand, years of tracing his finger over the soulmark, first simply in an attempt to understand, then a habit, then a ritual in comfort.

Xie Lian covered his face, palms pressing into his eyes as the tears wouldn’t stop welling up.

It didn’t matter that he had his soulmark memorized, he was never, ever going to meet his soulmate now.

A tiny voice tore into the corners of his heart, as he thought to himself, he should probably forget about the soulmark now, just like the way he himself should be forgotten.

—

Xie Lian had truly felt as if the whole world had turned his back on him. He had no friends, no family, no worshippers, no godhood, even his soulmate whom he never had a chance to meet had passed on, for what reason was he trying so hard to be strong for? Why was he suffering this way, letting himself be stabbed and betrayed and hurt so pathetically?

But then, a stranger offered him a bamboo hat, and a nameless dead soldier of a ghost took on the resentful spirits for him.

In his first banishment, he had been weak, but this time around, he wanted to have the strength to carry on, even without his powers and luck. He wanted to live well this time, true to himself and his principles, live out a life his soulmate would never have, so that he could hold his head up high, and know in his heart that he walked his own third path with his own sense of fairness.

—

Centuries past, and somehow the laughing stock of the three realms, the Crown Prince of Xian Le himself, managed to ascend once more. Shortly after ascending, the Crown Prince of Xian Le would come across a youthful stranger with a mark on his left forearm, a pattern so familiar, so similar to that soulmark that once curled along the left side of the Crown Prince’s neck…

Chapter Text

The earliest memories he had were of his mother, back when she was still alive. His mother would cradle him in his arms, smoothing out his brows with a sweet smile and tell him, “Hong hong’er, don’t be afraid.”

Don’t be afraid. Those were the first words he ever learned to read, the small, neat, precise set of characters drawn down the right side of his temple, just to the right of his red eye.

He had stopped being afraid a long time ago, after his mother had passed. He hadn't felt fear when his father and step mother kicked him out of the house for the nth time, he hadn't felt fear when his so-called brothers beat him black and blue, he hadn't felt fear when the kids on the streets called him a hideous beast and threw rocks at him, he hadn't even feel fear on the day of Shuangyue festival, as he climbed up the highest point of the city walls. He was so far past fear. What was the use of those words his soulmate would supposedly tell him one day? What use was fear if he was going to jump to his own death anyhow?

But when he got to the top, someone had already jumped first, a blurred white bird in flight, to the delighted gasps of the crowd below.

The boy who jumped was not a god, but to his own eyes, he might as well have been. The boy in white moved like fluid water itself, grace unparalleled. All his life, he had never seen swordplay like the one before his very eyes, the clash of swords and movements so powerful and beautiful, as if he were witnessing a dance from the heavenly deities themselves.

He did not know how to name this feeling that bloomed in his heart. It was perhaps akin to some form of awe, or wonder, but whatever it was, he could not tear his eyes away, he could not help but lean closer, and watch.

He had come up here today to fall, but when he did fall at last, he ended up falling into the very arms of the Crown Prince himself. The Crown Prince’s golden mask fell away as he caught him, revealing a gentle, smiling face underneath, a beauty marred only by the ugly soulmark etched on the Crown Prince's neck, that handwriting so familiar, he could not mistaken it for anything other than his own.

+

Many nights after his mother had passed, on those nights where he managed to find a safe corner to rest without the risk of being found and beaten, he would rub his fingers over the side of his right temple, where he knew his soulmark laid. He had known all his life that his soulmate was most likely someone of noble birth, to have such beautiful and precise calligraphy, the kind of handwriting that could only be attained through refined education destined for the elite class. He had wondered what kind of noble it would have to be, to tell someone like him to not be afraid. Was it a hideous, scarred, rich widow perhaps, pleading with him to not fear their hideous face? That would be just his luck, to have a hideous noble for a soulmate, a match in each other’s ugliness.

Now though, he knew who exactly his soulmate was: a gracious and beautiful noble, the Crown Prince of the very kingdom itself. And it didn’t matter that they carried each other’s soulmarks, there was no possibility in this lifetime of them being together. He knew very well that he was a nobody, a hideous monster, and his soulmate, a Crown Prince. A Crown Prince who, if rumours were to be believed, wanted to save the common people, wanted to ascent to godhood himself.

There was no way he could match up to that, he was no where near worthy of him, and stealing the Crown Prince's coral red earring could not bring them closer, but he wanted the memento to latch onto anyhow. He told himself that having this earring and the memory itself was good enough, that he had to be satisfied with this much. He had been granted a single, beautiful moment with his soulmate, without him knowing who he truly was, and that stolen moment was more than he deserved.

+

At the Shuangyue festival, he had ultimately ended up choosing not to die, only to now end up here instead, tossed into a bag like so much garbage. Fury raged within him, a fire laced in his belly as he held himself together with sheer willpower, his whole body shaking from being dragged around inside a filthy runny sack by that lunatic’s carriage.

If he had to die, he wanted to die on his own terms. He wanted to go with so much resentment within him that he would come back as a horrific ghost; he would torment the very fools who trapped him here for at least eight thousand years, never to rest.

Abruptly, the world stop hurtling around him, and he rolled softly to a stop. Biting his lower lip, he hugged at his knees, a ball curled into itself.

He first heard the sound of rope being cut, then the sack fell away from him. A hand ever so gently touched his neck, a touch so unexpected, he didn’t even struggle when that person picked him up off from the ground.

He only realized it was the Crown Prince himself who had saved him when he heard his voice, felt the warmth of his embrace.

“How do you feel? Do you feel pain anywhere especially?”

He shook his head, hopeless and speechless in the proximity of his soulmate's presence. Curled in the Crown Prince’s arms, he brought his hands up to cover his bandaged face, his tell-tale soulmark.

“Don’t be afraid,” the Crown Prince told him once more, just like he had on the day at the parade.

Ah, those words. He was truly not afraid of anything, not of death itself, but right now, he thought he might rather die a little than show this noble and gracious Crown Prince his hideous face, his cursed red eye.

He let the Crown Prince take him away. His Highness had even called him Hong hong’er with a smile as they climbed up Mount Taicang together. He hadn’t heard anyone call him that since his mother passed, and no one had bothered giving him a real name afterwards. That nickname Hong hong'er sounded soft and safe in his HIghness' mouth, as if by simply calling him, he could grant him safety and refuge.

He thought to himself, he really could spend an eternity watching and listening to his soulmate before him, safe under his watch.

+

He had thought he was safe this time, having followed the Crown Prince back to Mount Taicang, but he was wrong, he should have known better.

Inside the Pavilion of Xianle, the fire raged all around them, and the Crown Prince’s servants were yelling at him, asking him what in the world did he do. At the periphery of the protection array, the resentful ghosts swarmed all around them through the oppressive smoke, a black roiling tide clamouring to break through.

No, no, no, no, no, NO.

He crumpled to the floor, clutching at his head in a desperate attempt to block out the sounds of the resentful ghosts and the two servants asking him questions he couldn’t answer, This couldn’t be happening. Not now, not here, not to him. He was supposed to be safe now.

On the other side, the Crown Prince himself came in running, shouting over the spirits and roaring flames, “Let go, let go,” the Crown Prince said.

The moment the servants dropped their hands, in one felled swoop, his Highness struck out, dissipating the resentful spirits into nothingness. He fell out of the protection array with the servants, as the last of the dispersed resentful spirits got locked away.

The spirits may had dissipated, but the questioning stares had not. The stares only became worse when that horrible older man ranted on about his cursed Star fortune, puzzlement on the crowd’s faces slowly transforming into revulsion all around him.

He may not know fear, but he was intimately familiar with the feeling of despair. Despair haunted him wherever he went, a looming shadow he could no more escape from than he could escape from his own self and his own unlucky stars. It was despair that coursed through his veins, made him scream and cry out.

But it didn't matter how he screamed and shouted and cried and lashed out, there was no one who cared to listen on the other side. There was no one, no one.

There, within the storm of his despair, a single touch reached out for him.

Once more, his own soulmate had come for him, just like he had come for him at the parade. His Highness once again held him in that warm embrace, a soft voice above him telling him that he knows, it’s not his fault, don’t cry now, it’s not his fault.

He truly did not know where all his tears came from. It was as if a dam sealed within him had broken through, letting out an ocean’s worth of tears.

When his mother died, no one had held him, and it had been a long, long time, since his mother had passed.

He had forgotten how good it was, to be held like this, with kindness.

His soulmate had saved him from falling, saved him from despair, and later on, when his Highness ascended to be a god, he had told him to take on himself as the meaning to his own life. What else could he do but this, to swear to always protect his Highness and stay by his side?

Ever since he had first met the Crown Prince that day in the parade, not once had he felt that it was unfortunate that him and his soulmate were so ill-matched in life. His soulmate could not be anyone but the person that he was, and he couldn't imagining feeling this way about any other.

He may not be worthy of being a soulmate to his Highness, but he could be his most faithful believer. He could, at the very minimum, achieve that much.

+

When he had died in the war, he had very little memories of his soulmate to go by. The red coral earring, the memory of being held, the strand of hair from that day at the Land of Tenders, when his soulmate tied a piece of himself to him, just to keep him safe-he hoarded all of these precious few moments into his heart to revisit over and over, a miserly hoarder counting his precious hidden treasure. In life, his soulmate had saved him so many times without knowing who he truly was, and he in turn, would keep these moments within him for safe-keeping.

As it turned out, even in death, his soulmate would still manage to save him.

This time, it was during the Zhongyuan festival. He along with other spirits had been trapped in lanterns, and his beloved had set them all free.

They were by the riverside, waters alit with thousands of lanterns floating just above the currents. His soulmate had finished conducting his services, and he could feel the souls of his fellow soldiers passing on. His Highness had asked him to leave with the others, but how could he leave now, when the Crown Prince was standing right before him?

““I have a... soulmate still in this world,” he answered instead.

He looked at the Crown Prince, his neck cleared of where his soulmark originally rested, leaving behind markings of a horrible shackle instead.

He had never liked his terrible handwriting, but he hated that shackle much more.

“As long as they are still in this world,” he continued, “I will stay to protect them.”

The Crown Prince frowned at this, “If you remain forcibly, you may not be able to reincarnate to be with your soulmate in the next lifetime. You won’t be able to rest in peace.”

He looked and looked at his soulmate before him, and vowed, “I pray to never rest in peace.”

+

In life, he had not been afraid, but in death he learned what it meant, to be afraid of not being able to do anything for his beloved, so utterly helpless in the face of his own soulmate’s pain and anguish.

In the face of all that fear and despair, he made another vow, to learn how to become strong. So strong that nothing, not swords, not demons or monsters, not even hundreds of thousands of resentful spirits, could destroy him.

He held steadfast to this vow, a will he clung to with every fibre of his soul. With that will, he carved out his very own cursed red eye from his skull, carved his place into all the three realms, carved the very name of his soulmate into the left forearm of his newly forged, lifeless, soulmark-less form.

He did not need the presence of a soulmark to know who was his one and only precious person.

For his Crown Prince, he would become a Supreme Ghost King himself. He would become the strongest in all three realms, and even without a soulmark, he would find his way back to his soulmate once more.

+

Before the legend of one of the most feared Calamities, Crimson Rain Sought Flower, humans told another tale, one of a benevolent and powerful ghost who saved a group of straggling humans stranded in Mount Tonglu.

They said that this ghost saved them from a siege of monsters and demons by making an unspeakable sacrifice, and from this sacrifice he was able to lead them all towards safety.

At the end of that journey, the humans all knelt before the ghost in gratitude.

“Thank you for saving our lives!” the humans cried out, “Your weapon that saved us, what is it called?”

The ghost held up the fearsome scimitar before them, bloody from the slain monsters. “E-Ming,” he said.

“And you, what is your name?” the humans asked.

The ghost remained quiet for some time, turning his scimitar in hand, as if deliberating over what answer to give.

“My name,” the ghost said, at last, “is Hua Cheng.”