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Hua Cheng is there the first time it happens: His Highness is sorting through his finds for the day when he picks up a half-torn piece of high-quality paper, sighs, and runs his finger along the torn section.
It mends itself.
He jerks back, then looks at Hua Cheng. "Did that—?"
"You mended it, Gege." Hua Cheng takes the piece of paper out of his hands and turns it over. It's the right thickness for painting. "May I have this?"
His god nods shakily.
A day later, they have a new portrait in the household shrine. He knows His Highness thinks it's excessive to have a shrine to himself in his own house, but when he brings it up, Hua Cheng teases him about his other home being his own shrine. He doesn't want to admit that—having been cut off from His Highness too many times—it comforts him to be able to offer a prayer at any time and know his beloved god is hearing it.
A few days later, His Highness unbreaks a snapped broom handle. He blinks at it, then offers it back to the housewife who had initially given it to him.
She gives him a hard stare, tests it, and then drops into a bow. Hua Cheng smiles from where he's leaning against a gate down the road, while His Highness stammers and pulls her upright. It's good to see someone recognizes His Highness's divinity, even if His Highness doesn't.
It's small things. A broom handle, a piece of paper, a little girl's kite. Then the day comes when His Highness finds a kitten that got hit by a cart.
"San Lang," he says mournfully, holding the tiny scrap of a thing.
Hua Cheng is powerful, but all his powers are bound up in death. "I can make it quick," he offers, and feels helpless as he watches His Highness's eyes fill.
"It's alright. I'll stay with it until … well. It shouldn't be alone." His Highness runs his fingers carefully along the tiny spine, then down the destroyed back leg.
It sinks its teeth into him. Hua Cheng snarls out of reflex, but His Highness only laughs and touches its ears. "So feisty," he whispers. "You remind me of someone I love." He strokes it again, his hand almost covering the tiny thing. "I'm sorry, little one. I couldn't save him either."
"Gege, don't lie to it," Hua Cheng complains. "I'm right here."
"Will you be a fierce ghost too?" His Highness asks the kitten. "Will you bite my enemies for me?"
It meows at him.
He laughs, strokes it a third time, and then starts when it struggles. "Ah, little one, I don't think—"
It jumps out of his hand.
He makes an instinctive grab for it, and then supports it with visibly-shaking hands as it claws its way up his robes to his shoulder, where it begins washing its very much not crushed leg. "Er. San Lang. Did you do that?"
"No, Gege." He reaches out; the kitten bites him, then sniffs cautiously, and finally headbutts his finger. "I think that was you."
Yin Yu is bemused to be sent to buy cat supplies, but His Highness refuses to leave Little Flower behind—and how can Hua Cheng say no?
They figure out the limitations slowly. His Highness can fix a chopstick Hua Cheng has accidentally broken, but not one deliberately snapped. He finds a street child, about the age Hong Hong'er had been when his father had cast him out, and heals their broken wrist just by setting it.
A family brings their daughter to him when she breaks her leg, though, and he struggles to do more than speed the healing enough that there's no infection.
"It's the unwanted I can fix," he says when they leave, praises mingling with the lingering scent of disappointment. "I could feel it. She's loved, and that means she's not … really in my domain."
Hua Cheng hmmms and rests his chin on His Highness's shoulder. "You did enough."
"I disappointed them. They'd hoped for more."
"Their problem." He shrugs. "They can hire a doctor. She would have been fine without you."
His Highness huffs at him, but lets it drop as the cat informs them—loudly—that it's time for her to be fed.
Ghosts, he can heal without a problem. Shrines begin springing up all over Ghost City. His Highness blushes every time he sees one.
It's cruel, in a way: if someone cares about having a thing fixed, His Highness can't help. It's one more way that fate has spit on Hua Cheng's god, and his resentment of the universe grows a little more for it.
(At this point, he could probably survive on the resentment alone, if having to do so didn't mean His Highness was gone. Still, it's comforting to know that he won't have trouble keeping his promise to avenge His Highness should something happen.)
When he voices this opinion to His Highness, though, his god laughs. "Ah, San Lang, you're thinking about it backwards."
"Am I?"
"If something is wanted even when it's broken, it isn't really broken, is it?"
Hua Cheng squints at him.
"Like me," His Highness continues; Hua Cheng shifts into a form that has both eyes so he can squint at him harder. "Compared to who I was when we met, I'm fairly broken."
"But—"
"But you love me like this." He turns to check on the rice. "You don't see it as broken, because you love me even though I'm … less."
"You're not a plate, Gege."
"But if a broken plate is still wanted, then it's not …." He sighs. "It might not be a plate anymore, but it's still something valued."
Hua Cheng picks the cat up before she can snatch the chicken His Highness was chopping. She bites him, then starts purring. "Do you think the same goes for ghosts? Could you heal that asshole's kid?"
"I don't know." He starts the chicken cooking, and absently offers a piece to Little Flower, who takes it down under the table to eat. "I think I could. I … think I'm getting a feel for it, sort of. I can feel … broken and discarded things have a sense to them, now. And ghosts. Maybe ghosts are just an exception."
"Hm." He doesn't want to ask how he feels.
His Highness must guess, though, because— "It has to be. You're very much loved, and it feels like it would still work on you."
"Maybe you don't count, Gege."
"Maybe." He sounds skeptical; Hua Cheng squints at him again. "Or maybe ghosts just count as part of my domain anyway? This is the home of my main temple."
Hua Cheng likes that better. "They adore you." As they should.
His Highness laughs. "They just want to please you, Hua Chengzhu."
"No, they don't." He's seen the looks they give his god, even when Hua Cheng is in disguise, even when he's not there and it's just one hidden butterfly watching. He's jealous, but he's also pleased.
"If you say so," His Highness murmurs, and drops the subject.
A few months later, Cuo Cuo accidentally gets in the way of his father's bow practice.
The wound closes in seconds under His Highness's hands, even with proof of caring in the form of the asshole cradling the lumpy sack of a body.
The asshole sneaks down to one of His Highness's backwater shrines, and makes an offering several times larger than it would otherwise see in a whole year. Hua Cheng manages most of his god's temples; Hua Cheng was expecting this; Hua Cheng arranges to be standing there when the asshole turns to leave.
"Fuck!" The asshole draws his bow.
Hua Cheng doesn't move. This is His Highness's temple; he's far more powerful than the asshole here, and the asshole knows it. "If you're hoping he won't notice, you need better pseudonyms," he says casually.
"I don't …." The asshole lets go of the bow string and rubs the back of his head. "Look, I just don't want it to be awkward."
"He healed your mutant radish of a son. You could thank him in public."
The asshole sighs. "I tried."
Hua Cheng pauses. That … does sound like his god.
"Look, he won't let me give him merits, he keeps interrupting me when I try to thank him—if you have any better ideas, tell me. Fuck if I know how you handle him."
With both hands and sometimes my mouth. He'd say it if His Highness were here, but it's no fun if it doesn't make his god's ears turn red. "He's stubborn."
"Fucking hell. Yes. Stubborn is one word for it. Head like a fucking rock is another." He pauses. "You aren't going to get mad at me?"
"For once, we agree on something." Hua Cheng shrugs. "Listen. He can't heal most people—just ghosts. It hurts him when he fails. If you spread this around too much the wrong way—"
"He can't heal people?" The asshole blinks. "I thought—he mentioned he'd healed a kid."
"He can heal beggars, orphans, anyone who isn't wanted. And ghosts."
The asshole rubs his face. "Of course. Of course he can."
"Just … be careful." Hua Cheng tries to put a little bit of bite into it, but it mostly comes out as worry. "Don't hurt him more than you already have."
"Yes. Fine. Fuck, whatever." The asshole eyes him. "You going to let me leave now?"
Hua Cheng steps aside.
When the shrine is mostly empty again, he looks around, and then sets a flower on the altar. God of the broken, the unwanted, and ghosts ….
He can't think of anything to pray for. He already has everything he spent eight hundred years dreaming of having.
Pet the cat for me, he prays finally. I'll be home soon.
The next winter, a deadly wave of influenza washes through several of the large cities. Most of the gods concentrate on those who make large offerings, but even they can't do much about the ones who succumb to the fever, only help with food and other necessities.
His Highness comes home one day from the city with a haunted look. That night, he whispers to Hua Cheng that all he could see was the bodies of people who had wasted away from Human Face Disease. "It's not the same," he says quietly into Hua Cheng's shoulder after the candles have been blown out. "But it … it got to me."
He bites his tongue, but his own memories force him to say, "Gege, you know stabbing won't help with the flu, right?"
"I know. You don't need to worry, San Lang."
The next day, His Highness's temple opens a clinic for the sick people who have nowhere else to go. The numbers swell as a cold snap hits, until even with Hua Cheng helping with finances, all they can do is put a talisman under the sickbeds and try to keep them comfortable. His Highness tries to sit with as many of them as he can, but if he shows up as himself he is overwhelmed by people wanting his help. If he lets Hua Cheng change him into another form, he's still overwhelmed by people needing his help.
The strange thing is, most of the people in the temple survive. A talisman slipped under the bed of a beggar, and their fever lowers, their breathing eases, and they sleep better.
Someone notices, and suddenly the talismans are in short supply. His Highness smiles and draws more; others begin copying them; and quickly there's a talisman under most of the sickbeds in the city. It only works on some of them—but soon His Highness is getting merits left and right, enough that he borrows some junior officials (real ones, this time, not Nan Feng or Fu Yao) to help him.
Hua Cheng smirks, and builds a few more temples.
The flu eases as spring comes, and His Highness goes back to his usual business of collecting scraps. He doesn't seem to notice the tiny shrines appearing in corners where beggars gather, but Hua Cheng does.
"Garbage god sounds awful!"
Hua Cheng halts outside the study. His Highness has company, it sounds like: the floor-sweeper, at least. If he's here, the asshole probably is too.
"I don't disagree," His Highness says warmly. "But I'm getting complaints that my title is misleading. That was the suggestion I was given."
"Who the hell cares? So what if it's a little outdated? There's no way to make trash sound fancy. Flower Crowned Trash Hauler?"
He was right; the asshole is here.
"That's not very dignified either," His Highness admits. "And I am still a martial god. I suppose I could ignore their complaints."
"The Unbroken God," Hua Cheng suggests, finally coming to where he's visible.
"San Lang." His Highness smiles at him.
"It's … not bad. Won't work as a main title, but it could be a good secondary one," the floor-sweeper admits grudgingly.
"It is sort of what I do," His Highness agrees. "I un-break things."
And so, the Flower Crowned Martial God temples become temples to the Flower Crowned Martial God, The Unbroken General.
"I don't know where they got General," His Highness complains.
"I didn't tell them to use it." He shrugs. "It's already spreading, Gege."
"I was never a General!"
"Neither were your asshole friends, and that doesn't stop them."
His Highness sighs.
"Besides, you're the one who has a tombstone with 'General Hua' on it," Hua Cheng points out. "You can't say you never used the title."
"I didn't! People gave it to me!"
"How do you think generals are made, Gege? And now they're giving it to you again."
His Highness sighs again. "It's not like I can stop them, I suppose."
Still, it doesn't take very much effort—a few words in the right ears, some judicious application of threats, and he becomes The Flower Crowned Martial God, The Unbroken Prince of Xianle.
"It's better," His Highness agrees when Hua Cheng arranges the conversation to go in that direction, and then moves his prayer record scroll before the cat can sit on it. "Thank you, San Lang."
"Why does Gege assume I had anything to do with it?"
His Highness looks at him.
Hua Cheng gazes back.
The cat sprawls on a different scroll, and starts playing with a brush. Absently, His Highness rescues it before it can fall and smear ink on the table.
"Alright," His Highness says finally. "The Unbroken Prince it is."
(Little Flower lives another twenty-three years, and then one afternoon she gets up from a nap and forgets to take her body with her. Hua Cheng smells death, and so is the one to find her cold and still—and then is largely unsurprised when he goes to tell His Highness only to see him petting her while making dinner. Of course the cat wouldn't leave him; no one with sense would.)
(He does make His Highness let him handle the body. It's everything to do with how it's easier without the cat helping, and nothing to do with the way His Highness's eyes are damp.)