Chapter Text
In a land just like ours, there’s a legend of a immortal scrap collector. Contrary to how he’s called, he blesses the whole mortal world with peace, as he also is the strongest martial god. There’s no evil he can’t combat, no ghosts he can’t kill, but it’s said that the more you worship him, the worse your luck will be.
There is also a ghost king, fully dressed in red, who despite not being a god, has many worshipers. It’s said that he is invincible and never faced defeat, he’s got an incomparable good luck. But as a ghost, if he’s in a good mood he may help you no matter if you worship him or not, but if you end up pissing him, even offering him thousands of gold won’t stop him from taking your life.
However, worshiping both the unlucky god and the ghost king’s statues together, will create a miracle. Double the luck and invincibility.
For a long time this pair were worshiped together, and by a rich emperor’s mistake, were even portrayed as husband and wife. It was believable, given how they completed each other, and so they continued to be worshiped as such.
Thousands of years later, countless ruins of temples of the scrap collector god were found, which provoked the curiosity of many modern historians. To add up, statues of the ghost king were found in most of the temples. Afterwards, local families of different regions and countries which still worshiped them revealed the tale of the scrap god, and when the historians tried to put both statues together, they discovered that in fact, the god’s color wasn’t white, but shiny gold.
Though the miracles within their story happening, it’s still considered as a myth by many. Some still worship them for generations, others started doing so not long ago, and the rest may think it’s a tale which explained disasters and “miracles” from thousands of years ago.
And in this environment is where our story begins, by a Chinese high school, called “Heaven’s Boundary”, about a couple of months after this story blew up.
Xie Lian started to teach there as a history teacher some weeks ago, after the previous teacher got a maternal license.
It was around May, at the morning before Mr. Xie entered class 2-4. All students were expressing how sad it was that their previous teacher, Mrs. Liu, left them, and that they didn’t want a new teacher. Deep inside, contrary to their words, they hid their excitement to know who the new teacher would be.
It was about time for Xie Lian to calm himself down and get in the class. It wasn’t his first nor second or third time teaching, but the anxiety of meeting his new students for the first time would always be the same.
He then opens the door, breathes, and enters the classroom. His appearance is overwhelmingly beautiful, people would even describe him as a moving statue, with detailed and delicate facial features. He’s got a calming figure that could make every living person mesmerized. His clothes, all white, gave him a saintified look.
“Good morning class, I’ll be your professor until Mrs. Liu comes back. I’m Xie Lian, I hope we get along well.”
The class was silent, paying attention to all and every word he would say, as if some invisible force pulled their attention to him.
“I believe we should get to know each other better uhm? Would you like to ask anything?”
Everyone blinked, and as if the force had extinguished, questions started to pop out as a tsunami.
“Mr. Xie! How old are you?” A girl named King Shuang asked.
“I’ll complete 28 this year.”
The class was once again silent, but this once was by shock. That is impossible, how could it be? The new professor looked like a 17 years old. If he was in uniform, it wouldn’t be easy to say he wasn’t a 2° grade high schooler just like them. They all calculated that he would be around 24 at maximum, and that he was a genius or something similar. But no, that kid just let out of his mouth that he was 27?
Nevertheless, the silence didn’t stay for long. Teenagers are fast to absorb new information after all, no matter how insane it seems.
“What will you teach, Mr. Xie?” Ma Yuan questioned.
Xie Lian really wanted to thank him for breaking the uncomfortable silence, but just answered his question.
“History, but as your homeroom teacher, feel free to ask me anything if you don’t understand a subject.”
He then heard some girls giggling in the bottom of the class.
“Mr. Xie, do you have a lover?” A girl named Fan Jia asked.
Xie Lian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Yes, I do.” He was kind of shy to talk about his lover at their first meeting, but this happened so many times that he could bear with it.
By the moment he spoke, some saw what seemed like a red string in his middle finger, but it was almost transparent and blurred, it also disappeared as fast as it appeared, so they just kept it to themselves thinking they were seeing things.
The whole class started to get more excited about their new teacher, who seemed competent, kind and friendly. Some more rounds of questions were answered before they actually got to the main subject of the class, and so the day went by.
After break, students from other classes could be seen trying to get a peek of the new teacher from the class windows.
Their everyday life went by without any abnormalities… Except for the ones that made the rumor about the new teacher run from mouth to mouth, of course.
Once, during lunch time at school, two boys were discussing really bad, and Mr. Xie happened to be passing by the corridor. He tried to middle in and stop them both from something worse to happen, but it was in vain, and one of the students tried to hit the other. Xie Lian, who was there, gracefully stopped the punch and the replication the latter was preparing… According to a girl that witnessed everything.
What did happen was that Xie Lian was indeed in the corridor, but he was just peacefully eating a meatbun. It was by the end of lunch time and a fight was developing, both synonyms for the corridor to be crowded. As such, it’s obvious that with his luck, someone would bump into him and throw his food right in the middle of the fight. Xie Lian was able to save his meatbun, but as a teacher who was now between two students who were about to physically fight, even if he wanted to jump out of that situation, he couldn’t. Xie Lian then proceeded to talk with them to stop fighting, but failed and had to stop them both from getting hurt. All students who saw the scene were shocked at how could him stop both the students’ fists so effortlessly. ‘Ow’, Xie Lian wasn’t expecting that he would get so much attention when he was saving his meatbun from falling down.
“Haha… You see, my parents made me learn martial arts when I was younger.”
‘Well, it isn’t a lie’ he thought after giving the best excuse he could find.
“WOW! Do you still practice? Are you good at it teacher?” Some young and excited teenagers asked.
“Sometimes I do… And I wouldn’t say I’m that bad at it haha… But, sorry, I should get going with those two to see the director”
And so Mr. Xie escaped from the incoming interrogation.
Shall we now talk about the silver butterflies? The first time they had seen it was the day after the corridor incident. The 1st period was history class. As per usual, Mr. Xie was teaching them as if he was talking about his own past, as if he personally witnessed everything that happened.
It wasn’t long after the beginning of the class when a silver, shining, butterfly showed up. It seemed as if there were more of them, as someone has told, but Mr. Xie stared at them just when they were about to enter the class, and so just one continued, as if it was apologetic.
“The teacher literally stopped the class to give a death stare at the butterfly, but then he sighed and gave that look of ‘it can’t be helped’, and continued the class, as if nothing happened at all!” King Shuang, an extroverted student of 2-4, said to their other classes’ friends.
“Why didn’t you guys asked him what that butterfly was? Silver isn’t exactly a ‘butterfly color’. You sure you didn’t see wrong?”
“I swear it was silver! It looked like it was dead— I don’t know why, but it gave me the chills. And we did! Actually, you know Tao Shan right? He told me that he had asked teacher about it during the break, and he just answered ‘A… butterfly?’ When Tao Shan said this to me he was pepper red, he thought he acted dumb in front of teacher Xie.”
Days passed by, and butterflies would appear everyday after someone messed up in class or something out of ordinary happened to Mr. Xie, as if it was a warning for them. A warning that they wouldn’t come out impune if someone disrespected or hurt him. Comically, there’s no need of butterflies for it to be nearly impossible for any of them approach their teacher without him knowing, let alone anyone hurt him. Still, they hadn’t been together with Mr. Xie long enough to know that yet. Therefore, that butterfly would terrorize their dreams for the time being.