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Mu Qing isn’t quite sure how this all started. Ordinarily, he’d put even money on it being Feng Xin’s fault or that asshole Crimson Rain’s fault, but right now he’s pretty sure it’s the latter. Even Feng Xin has enough sense not to encourage dianxia to try cooking, much less to keep trying.
But the topic of festival food came up, and food on skewers, and Feng Xin mentioned the spicy ones he got once when he was a teenager, when he’d run away during a festival. He hadn’t known the name for them. Mu Qing had been about to make fun of him for that, for being a rich palace kid, when he’d realized with a stomach-dropping jolt that he’d also forgotten what they’d been called.
It’s been eight hundred years: you’d think by now he’d have gotten used to forgetting things about his home. But every time, it’s a shock, the loss hitting all over again. It’s absurd that he wants to cry because he can’t remember the name of a festival food: it’s spiced meat on a stick. It’s not special! But it’s another small detail, and it’s not the kind of thing anyone wrote down. If they don’t remember, it’s gone forever.
And maybe Xie Lian had seen it on his face, because he’d tucked his hand into Hua Cheng’s elbow, and asked questions about how they tasted, about what they looked like, and gotten more and more determined, and before either Mu Qing or Feng Xin could stop him (and really, who is he kidding, neither of them have ever been able to stop dianxia when he’s put his mind to something, no matter how impossible) they were shopping, loaded up with bags and baskets like pack mules while Crimson Rain haggled with vendors like he wasn’t wealthy enough to rebuild the heavens on a whim.
So now here they are, in Ghost City, in a kitchen nicer than any Mu Qing has seen since his mother worked in the palace herself. Well, it had been nicer, before the Ghost King set Xie Lian loose on it: now it’s absolutely trashed. Mu Qing isn’t sure how dianxia got such large scorch marks on the ceiling: it’s at least three meters above their heads! And the less said about the state of the arms-width, formerly-pristine grilling racks, the better. Mu Qing didn’t know you could get meat or charcoal or even chil oil grilled quite that thoroughly onto metal, and he’s cooked with soldiers for centuries.
Worse still, there’s a plate of skewers sitting in front of him, and Mu Qing is running out of excuses. These ones are dripping red with spice, somehow half-burned, and half-raw. Honestly, they’re the best ones yet. If they weren’t burned, they might almost look halfway to recognizable. They don’t smell totally wrong.
Mu Qing meets Feng Xin’s eyes where he’s seated diagonally across the raised counter. He sees there the trust, the faith, the absolute, unswerving loyalty that has held them together despite all their arguments over the last eight centuries. This might not be a ghost or a monster or a curse: they’ll still face it together.
“Thank you, dianxia,” they chorus, and, at the same time, they each take the smallest possible bite.
For all that it smelled kind of close, it’s absolutely dreadful. Of course. Mu Qing will be feeling it for a week, and he’ll only get off so lightly because he’s quite a powerful martial god.
And it’s worth it for how widely Xie Lian smiles when they tell him he’s nearly got it right, that it tastes like home.