Work Text:
There’s been a cursed forest ghost roaming around the woods near Puqi Shrine and terrorizing the local villagers.
Feng Xin and Mu Qing had descended to accompany Xie Lian in finding and killing it and all was well until those two had started fighting and somehow or the other, Mu Qing had accidentally fallen into the river. When he had climbed out, he had been filled with rage and soaked to the bone.
At first, Mu Qing had wanted to go back to the New Heavenly Capital, but then Feng Xin said “Fine, then! Go!” and suddenly, Mu Qing felt no desire to leave and stubbornly stayed behind to hunt for the forest ghost with Xie Lian and Feng Xin; his clothes dripping with every step he took.
Unable to watch him wet and miserable any longer and with the mission more or less completely derailed for the day, Xie Lian had set down and made a fire and coaxed Mu Qing out of his outer robes to dry them by the fire.
Mu Qing had always been rather thin-skinned (both literally and figuratively) and pale, so naturally marks stood out easily, and with sharp contrast, against his skin. The moment he had taken off his outer robes Xie Lian had noticed some very suspicious clusters of bruises gathered along the edges of his neck and collarbone.
Now, Mu Qing was seated and staring at him coolly from across the fire, back straight and gaze steady, “Your Highness, is something wrong?”
These days, Mu Qing rarely called him by his title and Xie Lian felt clouds of dark trepidation increase around him. Next to him, Feng Xin was also seated, eye-twitching; his gaze darting between Xie Lian and Mu Qing, horrified and alarmed.
“Wrong? No, of course nothing is wrong!” Xie Lian laughs a little shakily, “Oh, hm, it’s just that…”
They followed the same cultivation path and while Mu Qing’s spiritual powers were undoubtably intact and did not need the same boosts as Xie Lian did, surely there would be some consequences for his actions.
But the bigger issue was that Xie Lian could never imagine, not in 800 or 1,000 or even 10,000 years, Mu Qing doing such things as those bruises implied. And with a woman who was audacious enough to leave such evidence! Truly incomprehensible.
“Mu Qing—Mu Qing, is there something you wish to address?” Xie Lian smiles at him weakly.
“Your Highness? No? Is there something you wish to ask?” Mu Qing responds coolly.
Everything in Xie Lian is telling him to leave this alone, that this was none of his business and surely whatever Mu Qing did in his free time was his own concern, but Xie Lian just can’t help it! The implications were just too improbable! Surely, surely, surely there must be another explanation.
“Those—those bruises around your neck. Was this—what was the cause for them?” Xie Lian asks unsteadily.
“I got in a fight,” Mu Qing says blandly.
A heaviness descended over the three of them.
“…I see.”
Even, Feng Xin with all his bluster and loudness was silent now, too shaken for words at the realization, and Xie Lian looked to him for support and confirmation during this impossible situation.
Feng Xin was paler than Xie Lian had ever seen him before. His skin, normally sun-kissed, was a strange mottled color. Quite frankly, it looked like he was going to be sick and Xie Lian tried to smile at him consolingly but Feng Xin wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Xie Lian blinks.
Feng Xin…wouldn’t meet his eyes…
Wouldn’t meet…his eyes…
A few things suddenly fall into place:
Feng Xin had not seemed particularly surprised to see the suspiciously-shaped bruises around Mu Qing’s collar and had been quiet all this time, looking from between Xie Lian and Mu Qing, facial expression panicked.
Xie Lian on the other hand, so overtaken with shock, had not been able to take his eyes off Mu Qing at all, and had been reevaluating almost everything he thought about him. But Feng Xin had been mostly looking at Xie Lian.
Feng Xin’s thoughts, which he usually broadcast for all to hear, had been noticeably suppressed and he hadn’t uttered a word at Mu Qing’s apparent shamelessness.
And the location and harshness of those brazen marks, so violent and dark, seemed rather unlikely and out of place from some dainty, beautiful woman…But if not a woman, then…
Xie Lian choked and leapt to his feet, “You! You two? You two—!” he points back and forth between then, shaking “You two! Just what is going on!?”
“Your Highness?” Mu Qing blinks at him innocently, “I’m sure you can be more clear. I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”
But at the same time, Feng Xin had also jumped to his feet, “Your Highness! It’s not what you think!”
Still sitting on the ground, Mu Qing scowls at them both.
Feng Xin continues to babble, “We never meant to hide anything from you—,”
Mu Qing soundlessly mouths, “‘We’?”
“—but this situation is a misunderstanding, we really did get in a fight!”
“A-A fight?” What kind of nonsense—! What kind of “fight” could possibly lead to this outcome?
“Yes!” Feng Xin’s eyes flash intensely, “A fight!”
Mu Qing crosses his arms and rolls his eyes.
“I-I-I see!” Xie Lian swallows.
Was this how they felt? Xie Lian wonders. Was this how Feng Xin and Mu Qing had felt when he and San Lang had first gotten together? This roaring shock and scandalization, slight betrayal and confusion, as if the foundations of his world had been yanked out from underneath him? Xie Lian has never been so shaken in his life!
His! His friends! Mu Qing? Feng Xin? Mu Qing and Feng Xin? They were—? They were—?
“Then—Then could you explain to me how this fight occurred?” Xie Lian asks, almost desperately.
“YES! Of course, yes! We, we were— we were—,” Feng Xin stutters and looks to Mu Qing.
“Hmph,” Mu Qing stands up and brushes himself off, “Aren’t you useless?” he takes his outer robes from where they’d been drying and puts them back on, covering the bruises. He fixes Xie Lian with a haughty stare, “Draw your own conclusions.”
At his cold reply, Xie Lian was startled out of his shock.
Right… this was none of his business. This had absolutely nothing to do with him. Feng Xin and Mu Qing clearly had their own affairs and it was none of Xie Lian’s concern. It was better to put this whole thing out of his memory all together.
A fight they had said? Well, that was fine! They fought all the time!
All.
The.
Time.
…
“Just how long as this been going on?” Xie Lian asks incredulously.
Mu Qing adjusts the sleeves of his outer robes casually, “I’m afraid that question is also too vague, Your Highness. You can’t possibly expect me to answer that.”
Xie Lian coughs lightly and struggles to find the words, “This—uh, this fight?”
“Shouldn’t you know, Your Highness?” Mu Qing asks decorously, “We’ve been fighting since we met.”
“Wait, hang on. Don’t say such misleading things!” Feng Xin interjects.
Mu Qing scoffs at him, “Finally deciding to be useful?”
“Your Highness,” Feng Xin says, his wits returned, “There is nothing improper going on between the two of us.”
“…”
“We were sharing spiritual powers,” Feng Xin says matter-of-factly.
Xie Lian felt as though his head had been knocked by a wok. How— How ridiculous, he thinks faintly.
Mu Qing rolls his eyes so hard, Xie Lian thinks this might actually be the time his eyes roll out his head, “Was it a fight or were we sharing spiritual powers?” Mu Qing asks mockingly, "Make up your mind."
Still scoffing, Mu Qing says, “Since, both of you are so good at forgetting things, surely this is one such matter?” Mu Qing turns away, “Isn’t there a ghost we’re supposed to be looking for?” he walks deeper into the forest, but after a few more paces he stops.
“You know,” Mu Qing says slowly, he turns to face them, and presses a finger against his bottom lip with an expression of mock-thoughtfulness, “If only someone hadn’t pushed me into the river…”
Xie Lian felt a suspicious dread creep up his spine.
Feng Xin’s hand started to shake ever-so-slightly and he clenched it into a tight fist.
“…Then, perhaps, we could have avoided this entire misunderstanding,” Mu Qing smiles at them blithely and turns away once again.
Xie Lian feels a chill go through him. Next to him Feng Xin’s face drained out of any blood that might have been left in it. His face was now completely ghastly and he looked much more like a ghost than a god.
What a terrifyingly spiteful and petty person, Xie Lian thought. To go so far and even expose himself just so Feng Xin would lose a little face.
Next to him, Feng Xin had come to the same conclusion and had drawn his bow and fired an arrow towards Mu Qing’s backside. It was a testament to both Mu Qing’s martial ability and how well he knew Feng Xin that he dodged the arrow and unsheathed his saber in one swift movement and they began to fight.
Normally, Xie Lian would try to stop them, at least, for the sake of the assignment. But knowing what he knew now, he couldn’t bear to watch them fight any longer and instead left them to brawl in the middle of the forest.
The ghost could be captured or killed another day.