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Unlike Xie Lian, Hua Cheng usually dressed using his spiritual energy, so there was no need for the hassle of removing any layers manually while changing. Because of this, it wasn’t very often Xie Lian saw his husband without his clothes on, and even when he did he didn’t tend to be looking at his back.
That had really been his mistake.
Working up a sweat helping on one of the villager’s farm, Hua Cheng had decided to strip his upper layers, which Xie Lian was quite sure was something he chose to do to show off since ghosts didn’t really sweat as far as he knew.
Still, Xie Lian wasn’t unappreciative of the view. His San Lang was very handsome after all.
And then he saw it.
What’s worse, he knew the aunties and uncles they were helping saw it too, snickering as they planted their rows.
Xie Lian felt his face heat as he hurried over to redress his husband.
“Gege, it’s hot out,” Hua Cheng pouted.
“San Lang can’t just— what are those still—“ Xie Lian was just barely resisting the urge to just start wandering off in random directions to hide from his embarrassment.
Understanding flashed across Hua Cheng’s face, followed by a look that could only be described as mischievous. “Gege hasn’t noticed them before?”
“I— HAHAHA,” the laughter felt shrill and unnatural, clearly drawing the attention of the women who were shooting them knowing looks. “I left my hat at the shrine, I have to go get it!” Xie Lian announced before going in the completely opposite direction from their shrine.
Hua Cheng followed after him. “Gege, I’m wearing your hat, you gave it to me.”
“HAHAHA, right, yes, of course.” He continued his aimless march, farming abandoned at this point.
“Gege, did you really not notice them before?”
Xie Lian finally stopped, covering his face with his hands. “Have they really been there the whole time?”
“Since the first night gege gave them to me,” Hua Cheng grinned.
A month then. Xie Lian could remember scratching up Hua Cheng’s back the first night they consummated their relationship and doing it again in the handful of times they’d made love since, but those sorts of ‘injuries’ should be so small! Not even enough to register as pain to his husband!
“San Lang,” he groaned. “Why didn’t you heal them? Did I really scratch you so hard you couldn’t fix them?” A horrible thought crashed through his embarrassment and had him dropping his hands away as he looked over with concern. “Is it because of my spiritual energy? Did I actually hurt you?” Xie Lian tugged down his husband’s robes to look again.
“Gege,” Hua Cheng took his hands to calm him down. “It’s okay. I kept them for the same reason I keep my tattoo.” Kissing Xie Lian’s hands, he let them go so he could shrug off the top of his robes again and let Xie Lian see his back.
Angry red welts were scratched into his back, made more pronounced by the fact that Xie Lian had gone over the same path several times.
“Why would you keep something like this?” Xie Lian could feel his embarrassment returning, but at least it felt manageable now.
“Am I not allowed to keep the gifts my god blesses me with?” Hua Cheng replied cheekily.
Flustered, Xie Lian redressed him with a hurried air. “It’s not proper.”
Hua Cheng seemed to find the whole situation very funny, as if he weren’t giving his poor god a heart attack. “Gege keeps my marks.”
“That—“ That was true but— “that’s different.”
“Oh is it?” Hua Cheng grinned.
“Yes.”
“How so? Won’t gege enlighten his San Lang?”
“It— Well, it’s different because San Lang’s are injuries.”
“Is that right?”
“It is.”
“Gege could injure this husband more,” he purred, clearly barely containing himself from laughing at Xie Lian.
And so Xie Lian did the only sensible thing for a person on the verge of combusting from embarrassment to do: he started walking off again.
“Where is gege going this time?” Hua Cheng followed.
“Well we have to finish helping with the farm work.”
“The farm is that way gege.”
Xie Lian stopped, reorienting himself in the direction they had come.
“You know, there’s something gege could give his San Lang that he wants even more. If gege marked me in such a way I wouldn’t have need for the scratches at all.”
“Really?” Xie Lian asked, knowing his husband enough to be suspicious.
“En. Just a bit of writing. Like my tattoo, but in gege’s handwriting.”
Xie Lian’s defenses lowered. “San Lang wants me to paint my name on his other arm?”
Hua Cheng shook his head. “I want gege to write ‘Property of the Crown Prince of Xianle’ right on my forehead.”
“San Lang!” Xie Lian huffed, absolutely mortified by the image. “Next you’ll be telling me to tie a rope around your neck like a leash and parade you around.”
He had meant this in a ‘wouldn’t such a thing be highly shameless and ridiculous’ way, but Hua Cheng simply raised his brows with a look that seemed to reply ‘you never know’.
“I am not doing that,” Xie Lian clarified. “What would the villagers think?”
“We could do it in Ghost City. No one would bat an eye.”
Xie Lian highly doubted no one would bat an eye at their mighty Lord being led around like property, but he knew saying that would only open him up to more mischief by his husband so it fell on him to be the bigger person and ignore it.
After eight hundred years he really had thought nothing could embarrass him anymore, yet Hua Cheng had a way of making him feel as though he had the thinnest face imaginable.
Some of the villagers smiled at them as they returned, which Xie Lian did his best to respond to politely before going back to his section. They seemed to accept that.
They didn’t let Hua Cheng off so easily though, practically ambushing him.
“Aiya, we worried that wife of yours was feeling neglected with how often you visit!”
“When are you going to bring her by?”
Oh dear. Xie Lian had forgotten Puqi village still believed that Hua Cheng had a beloved. Well, Xie Lian supposed he really did, but Xie Lian was no doubt far from the secret and noble beauty they were all imagining.
Hua Cheng met Xie Lian’s eyes, the picture of mischief as he shrugged, dodging their questions and doing his work until they bored and gave up.
***
“Should we announce it?” Xie Lian asked as they headed back to the shrine for the night.
“Does gege want them to know the marks are his?” Hua Cheng teased.
Xie Lian truly didn’t know the answer to that.
“I really think it would be much easier for gege to simply write it on my face.”
“Absolutely not. We couldn’t show others such a thing.”
Like a dog who had caught the scent of a treat, Hua Cheng perked up. “So if others don’t see gege’s okay with it?”
Xie Lian was silent for a moment, and his voice was very shy when he spoke up. “San Lang has to promise to wash it off afterwards.”
Hua Cheng’s smile was one of pure glee as he pulled Xie Lian into a kiss. This kind of shamelessness at least Xie Lian felt much more confident in, sinking into the affection with ease.
He didn’t fully understand why Hua Cheng would want such writing on him, but it was clear at least that the joke was not just a joke. Few of Hua Cheng’s ‘joking’ suggestions ever truly were.
“Daozhang?!?” A wide eyed child interrupted them.
Which, in spite of cutting short his kiss, seemed to amuse Hua Cheng greatly while Xie Lian hid his face in his husband’s shoulder.
“Tou’er, don’t interrupt the adults!” His mother hissed, dragging him off, though not before shooting the couple a look that confirmed she had seen too and was only held back from questioning them with nosy curiosity because she didn’t want her child around when she did it.
“That’s one way to tell them,” Hua Cheng kissed the top of his head.
“…Let’s go to the cottage for awhile,” Xie Lian suggested, wanting very much to avoid being ambushed and excitedly questioned about his marriage for now.
It would be a nice change from the way every heavenly official seemed to be questioning Xie Lian’s sanity when they witnessed them, but Ghost City was already verging on too supportive to balance it out so he didn’t need the change that badly.
“Gege’s ashamed of me,” Hua Cheng teased.
Though he knew his husband was joking, Xie Lian hugged him tighter, voice firm and sure. “Never.”
And with a single word it was like all of his husband’s teasing left him. But still, Xie Lian didn’t stop.
“Marrying San Lang is the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Hua Cheng swallowed, nuzzling into Xie Lian’s hair.
“Let’s go home, okay?”
Hua Cheng nodded, barely pulling back to roll his dice and whisk them home.
And if Hua Cheng wanted to waltz around the cottage with that shameless calligraphy boldly painted on, well, Xie Lian wasn’t quite so thin-faced around his husband that he couldn’t smile too. After all, his San Lang was happy.