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From a certain point, everything He Xuan does becomes kind of… pointless.
Every day, he maintains a routine. Or well: every day that he wakes up, that is. When he doesn’t hibernate, curled up in the depth and the moist darkness of his lair, growing over with algae, he spends the day wandering around the territory, and sometimes outside of it, searching for something to eat. His pets are always swimming around, never straying too far, the slow swings of their tails and bodies a comforting sight on the edge of his vision. They are staring at him with their big hollow eyes that are incapable of blinking, their mouths gaping, and bubbles of air somehow forming around them even though none of them can breathe. They are hungry, too; always very, very hungry. There is never any urgency in their silent requests, though: their instinct is always to protect the Lord first, no matter their own desires. If the Lord is grieving, they swim on silently.
He Xuan gathers food for them too; that has fully become his responsibility after Crimson Rain-Sought Flower decided to go off and die for a God.
Without the other Ghost King to pester him, He Xuan doesn’t talk to anyone at all. Sometimes, the voices of prayers to the Earth Master still reach him, somehow, despite the solitude of the Black Water Lair and the circumstances of his sudden retirement. Heavenly rumors spread around the mortal realm painfully slowly.
He doesn’t answer any of those.
When Hua Cheng inevitably comes back (because of course he does, of course he has to return from the knife’s edge of the afterlife like the perfect Ghost King he is, reuniting with all of his minions and his first and only love to make He Xuan’s own days insufferable until the end of the times), they do not talk all that much either. He Xuan kind of feels like he’s forgotten how to speak at all, because he cannot even insult Hua Cheng properly, and he cannot tell him off for showing up after allegedly dying either. The judging look in Crimson Rain’s one eye doesn’t make it any easier on him, although he never does ask the unspoken question. He Xuan pretends he doesn’t see and feel any question coming from him at all. He doesn’t think it’s weird for him to still be around and not on the next stage, he doesn’t think it’s suspicious that he has to pointlessly spend his mundane days planting fear into the fishermen even though he doesn’t care about any of them at all. No.
He Xuan pretends ghosts are supposed to live forever.
Hua Cheng doesn’t ask him. He drops it that he and his husband (the word rolls casually off his tongue, but it stings He Xuan like a whip over his shoulders) (he really wishes he hated Hua Cheng more than he’s actually able to) (he wishes he could hate a lot more people than just one that is already dead) are hosting a banquet at the Puqi Shrine, to finally fulfill a promise that was made to their common acquaintance a little over a year ago. He doesn’t invite him; he just lets him know.
When Hua Cheng leaves, for some reason He Xuan’s eyes and feet carry him to a little table in the corner of the room. Various tools are scattered over it, covered in dust but still patiently waiting to be used again, to be tended to eventually, just like the bonefish do. He Xuan runs his fingers over one of them, brushing the dust off easily, although he doesn’t plan to craft anything yet. The sight and the feeling of the table, though, do bring him a numb memory: the tools are scattered around the table just the way he left them there a year ago, after fixing up a little fan.
He has no reason to come to the banquet. When he does, it’s as pointless as everything he has done lately is. No plans leading to it. No ulterior motives. He Xuan doesn’t have those anymore, after all.
He sees them sooner than he could ever possibly prepare.
“Phew!” Shi Qingxuan flops on the bench right next to him, so close, bumping into him, that He Xuan freezes and doesn’t move, chopsticks also frozen in the air with noodles slipping down back into the bowl. Shi Qingxuan pays him no regard, despite approaching him just like this again, unknowingly, the widest smile painting their lips and eyes bright with hospitality, as though they own the whole place and are the one in charge of giving everyone else a warm welcome. They do not move to give him any more space on the bench either, and so their thighs are pressed together through the layers, although He Xuan is the only one paying that any mind. Someone else flops onto the bench on the other side of Shi Qingxuan, pressing just as close. “The host has run off on us just like this, can you believe this?!” They shake their head in an exaggerated manner, trying to play it off judgmentally and failing with how much fun they seem to be having. “I’ve been trying to find His Highness all over, but he and Hua Chengzhu really seem to have left early… Ah well, all the more to us! We’ll make sure the party keeps going til sunrise, right?!”
Cheers erupt all around the yard and particularly around the table. The only quiet one is He Xuan, which, of course, immediately draws attention.
Shi Qingxuan turns towards him, forcing him to actually look in their face instead of acknowledging their presence in his peripheral vision. There’s a smile on their face, voice loud when they speak:
“Hey! Where are you from?”
He’s done a good job disguising himself, of course, as much as he could. He’s shorter than he would normally be, in an attempt not to draw much attention to himself in the first place, and the features of his face are all rougher, nose longer, voice deeper. He even made an effort to grow a bit of a stubble on his chin and cheeks. Shi Qingxuan looks almost the same as he remembers seeing them last, which is already a wrong image. He still feels like he’s supposed to remember them in their godly attire, shining hue surrounding them, hair softer than feathers. Instead, the sight of a shabby beggar in ragged clothes doesn’t surprise him at all. Since Shi Qingxuan keeps smiling, he notices they are missing a couple of teeth.
He grunts, pointing: “I work in the fields over there. Master,” he points back towards the shrine too, implying Xie Lian, “mentioned there will be free food for his friends. So I came too.”
Shi Qingxuan nods enthusiastically. “Then we’re friends for tonight too! Very good, very good!” They reach over to pat his back and shoulders, and He Xuan can’t allow himself to shy or move away from that gesture either. Instead, he sort of leans into the touch, welcoming Shi Qingxuan as well. The touch is agonizing. As soon as Shi Qingxuan retreats, He Xuan tries to focus all of his attention on eating.
The chatter around him never stops. Someone is always talking, making requests, shouting out, or otherwise is making noise, so much of it that He Xuan really can barely hear his own thoughts. That is good. He Xuan doesn’t want to know what he would be thinking if he could.
Shi Qingxuan doesn’t stare at him all the time. They are also chatting with everyone who opens their mouth, throwing around everyone’s names like their faces aren’t a blur in a motion.
But at some point, they do start to stare.
“Hey, the local guy knows how to eat well!” one of the beggars laughs, tearing off a piece of bread on his own.
He Xuan responds nonchalantly:
“Don’t get so much free food every day.” And then, he dares throw Shi Qingxuan a glance back.
He refuses to read their expression.
“What?” He asks, in a rather blunt manner, but despite the choice of language, nobody seems to find him overly rude around here.
Shi Qingxuan shakes their head, letting out a chuckle. “No-no, you just reminded me of someone I knew, that’s all.”
Another one of their friends bumps into them with a jar of wine, spilling some of it in the process and shoving the rest into Shi Qingxuan’s hands.
“Come on, come on, drink up!”
Shi Qingxuan laughs again. In all of the noise of the night, that laugh is somehow the only separate sound that He Xuan is going to remember.
“You will get me alcohol poisoning, but you know, I wouldn’t even be upset to die on a night like this!”
The comment is greeted in a light-hearted manner, but someone does scold them jokingly:
“Don’t be stupid! Old Feng is going to live forever!”
He Xuan drinks to that, too.