Chapter Text
There is a feeling of comfort that Hua Cheng falsely identified as boredom after so many years of their marriage. Their honeymoon phase lasted several years but it finally seems to be dying down. Hua Cheng doesn’t immediately reach for Xie Lian after waking up anymore. They both have their own responsibilities, and his husband is often out before Hua Cheng wakes up anyway. Xie Lian stopped waking him up for a morning kiss some time ago.
Xie Lian is quietly talking to himself as usual, preparing dinner and walking himself through every step in the recipe while Hua Cheng waits. He’s reading a book and he wishes Xie Lian would stop talking. He barely finishes the thought before he’s on his knees in front of Xie Lian, apologizing for his despicable thoughts. The second time it happens he doesn’t bother Xie Lian, instead reprimanding himself severely. The third time he doesn’t even try to stop it.
Hua Cheng gets sick one day. He tries to blame it on the weather but he knows very well that Xie Lian’s cooking doesn’t taste the same as it did before. He can’t stand the sight of it anymore, the healing soup Xie Lian prepared for him looks like poison for the first time in his life and Hua Cheng can’t prevent the disgust from showing on his face. Something like “Finally…” falls from Xie Lian’s lips but Hua Cheng can’t be sure he heard right.
He’s sitting in the Cave of Ten Thousand Gods and thinks. He looks at the statues and sees nothing that reminds him of Xie Lian, none of the mannerisms and his little quirks Hua Cheng got tired of. He smashes one of the statues and feels nothing. From the corner of his eye he notices his skin slowly turning more and more translucent and wills it back to normal. Not yet, he thinks.
One day Xie Lian wakes up in the middle of the night next to a corpse. It takes him longer than usual to notice nothing out of the ordinary as Hua Cheng is sleeping next to him, unbreathing and cold. Xie Lian berates himself silently and blames it on nightmares.
Xie Lian hoped that after few years he’ll be able to improve, that Hua Cheng will finally show him how to cook, spar with him even for a little while so his skills won’t get rusty but he never does. “Everything gege does is perfect.” He says. “There is no need to practice.” Xie Lian doesn’t have to lift a finger because Hua Cheng will do everything for him. Xie Lian married a servant and he is getting bored.
There’s an idealized version of Xie Lian in Hua Cheng’s head he can’t compete with. The luxuries are making him sick, the expensive robes make him uncomfortable and he wants to rip them off himself when they make him remember the past. Every “Your Highness” that leaves Hua Cheng’s lips is another knife to his heart but he won’t listen. It’s what Xie Lian deserves, after all.
He wants to leave. He wants to be free and only worry about his survival. The comfort of the Paradise Manor brings only nightmares every night because he’s not tired enough, he’s not worried enough, not anymore. Now he can let his thoughts run free and they’re ruining him, he wakes up every night with a scream and blames Hua Cheng. He soon realizes that he truly means it.
It turns out to be just a brief adventure in their long lives. A phase they’ll remember fondly or remember nothing at all. A scrap god is once again only that, wandering the land as he used to before, treated as he was always meant to be treated. Somewhere far behind him the ghost city is left without its master and the heavens rejoice.