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Blood dripped from his hands. He was lying on his side in the mushy and wet grass, blood coming from his head and his torn up body. The rain was pouring and the blood mixed with the water and the grass, sinking deeper and deeper until it began to turn into bloody mud.
The winds howled and sounded like they were wailing, grieving for the loss of someone who didn’t deserve the hand that fate dealt them. His feet were planted on the ground as he stared at the corpse of the person he once called..friend.
No, friend wouldn’t be the word for it..
His lover, the one he promised to hold close until the day he died, maybe one day they could have really had a life together, but no, fate was cruel. The rain matted his hair and made his clothes wet, but he didn’t dare move.
Chongyun had found Xingqiu in a river, strangled and blood coming from his head, murdered. Brutally murdered by someone , someone laid their grimy, disgusting hands on Xingqiu and killed him in cold blood before tossing him into the river.
At first, he assumed it was a suicide, but it wasn’t. It was a murder. Guards caught up to Chongyun and were shocked at seeing Xingqiu’s body. When asked about it, Chongyun only responded, “in the river..right there..someone..someone killed him.”
Footsteps, there were more footsteps.
“Chongyun! Chongyun, oh my goodness!” there came running Xiangling, feet pounding against the ground. She stopped when she got to him, seeing the body. More people were arriving and were covering Xingqiu’s body, ready to transport it for a funeral.
Xiangling grabbed Chongyun’s wrist, “hey..are you okay?”
Xingqiu’s family arrived. His father quietly said, “..it looks like he jumped into the river in wild despair..”
“No! Someone killed him!” Chongyun yelled, catching everyone by surprise. The father responded, “you must be in grief..it wouldn’t make sense for someone to kill him when he was able to fight, even if he was always reading books and wandering around..”
The brother was awfully quiet, only staring at the sheet covering Xingqiu. Chongyun was about to shout a counter until Xiangling pulled him to her, her hand reaching for the side of his head and pulling him in, “don’t..don’t, it’s okay, you’re upset..we all are..”
Such kindness was appreciated and it was such a little thing, yet Chongyun burst into tears. She held him as he wailed, his grief could surely be felt all over Liyue and even beyond. The body was being moved now. A funeral had to be prepared.
As the next few days passed, Chongyun didn’t feel anything. He was allowed to stay with Xiangling inside a spare room within the restaurant she worked in, and he never left it. He went into a fugue of amnesia from the grief, losing his own identity.
He lived in another land on those days, in an endless library with the one he loved besides him, reading him fairytales and love stories and stories about knights and dragons, all kinds of tales with all kinds of detail.
That was his reality.
It was his only reality.
The funeral came around. Words were inscribed for Xingqiu.
Loyal Xingqiu will be dearly missed and loved in this life and into the next.
Chongyun didn’t remember much from it. He sat in one of the chairs and watched the funeral go on, he didn’t want to be here but Xiangling made him go just so he could say goodbye and try to move on. He didn’t want to move on.
He couldn’t move on.
Xingqiu’s father tried to talk to him, placing a hand on his shoulder, “Xingqiu wasn’t happy in this life..he wasn’t murdered..he did not want to live in this world anymore - “
That made him snap. Chongyun shoved the father’s hand off of his shoulder, “he was killed. I just know it. Someone killed him! He didn’t kill himself, he died because someone strangled him and threw him into the river for someone to see! You have to believe me..”
Xiangling instantly appeared, “I’m sorry, he’s..he’s still grieving..!”
She pulled on his arm, “Chongyun, please don’t get rash, it’s not the time for that! Maybe we can go home early and you don’t have to do anything, okay?”
“Xingqiu was killed! Believe me!” he yelled as he was pulled away by Xiangling. The rain was thundering and lightning was popping off, rattling against houses and the walls of Liyue. His miserable cries were heard as he was taken away.
Chongyun absolutely refused to believe that Xingqiu wasn’t happy in his life. The times they spent together were proof of that! He wouldn’t ever forget how Xingqiu smiled and how he laughed, even if it was about something stupid.
And he could remember vividly how Xingqiu, urged on by Xiangling, handed him a love story and asked him to go out with him. His face was red, heated, though his beaming grin was something that outshined even the sun.
He refused..he refused to believe that he wasn’t ever happy or satisfied!
The winds echoed his cries, screaming for someone to hear, someone to listen, and for someone to believe.
It didn’t stop for days on end. It wasn’t ever going to stop and it was going to follow Chongyun wherever he went, his grief was so palpable, he could hold it if it were physical, and he wished it wasn’t so. The feeling of it all crushed him. It killed him.
On another night just like the last, Chongyun read the love story that Xingqiu had given him over and over again until he fell asleep, going back into the dream of that endless library and Xingqiu reading to him, besides him and smiling.
It was a dream that he would never let end. He could never let it end. He didn’t want it to end. It was his reality.
It was his only reality.