Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown,
The poet's pen turns them to shape,
and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.
-A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Wu Ming… the name is an aching hum in Xie Lian’s mind, a memory he can’t let go, a bleeding wound he can’t staunch.

Wu Ming… Not a name at all really, but then that’s just one more thing for him to regret.

He should have given the ghost a real name, should have given him kindness and thanks and so many other things…

…But it’s far too late for that now.

It’s been too late for nearly a decade.

But no matter how much time passes Xie Lian still can’t let him go.

No, it’s more than that, Xie Lian refuses to let him, just the same way he refused to return to heaven and refused to be unshackled.

He owes Wu Ming everything. The least he can do is make sure he’s not forgotten.

It’s 9 years after the death of his last believer that Xie Lian finally hits on an idea for how to repay Wu Ming.

‘My beloved sustained grave injuries in this war, suffering a fate worse than death. I could only watch with open eyes as they suffered this torment, struggling in agony.’

This ‘beloved,’ this person, if Wu Ming became a vengeful spirit for their sake then he needs to find them and help them. It won’t be enough to repay all that the ghost did and sacrificed for him, but its something at least, better than nothing.

Not for the first time Xie Lian curses himself for not talking more to the ghost, getting to know him. He should have. Wu Ming was his follower and his companion after all. But had he? No all he’d ever done was shout and say cruel things, push the ghost away, treat him as nothing.

The tears come again, as they always come when he thinks about Wu Ming, and Xie Lian lets them fall, a small tribute to the one he has most wronged.

Once the tears pass, Xie Lian tries to think, to come up with a plan. Whoever Wu Ming’s beloved is or was there’s only three real options for what they may be now. Either they still live or they have died and moved on to their next life or they have died and still remain, lingering in this world just like the ghost who so loved them.

The thought twists Xie Lian’s heart. What if Wu Ming’s beloved is lingering because they are searching for him? What if they can’t let go of this life till they find him? Will they search the world forever, wandering through centuries of pain and loneliness?

Tears sting Xie Lian’s eyes again and he shakes his head fiercely to dislodge them. No, he can’t allow that. If there’s nothing else he can do for Wu Ming now, then at the least he will not allow that.

And so he comes up with a simple plan.

If they are living, he will offer them closure and whatever he can.

If they are dead he will offer them closure and help them pass on to the next life in peace.

If they have already passed on then he will find their reincarnation and grant them from afar, whatever help and wealth a god of scraps and misfortune can.

He never gave himself the chance to get to know Wu Ming well but somehow he thinks the ghost would approve of his plan. The thought makes Xie Lian smile a little, though his heart still aches.

But then when doesn’t it ache?

Pain is always a part of him now.

The only problem is /how/ to find this person, “the beloved” as he will think of them. They were a citizen of Xianle but that’s all he knows. He has long since traveled far from the ruins Xianle but even if he went back he doubts he would find even a trace. There would be no place to even begin to look. And so he begins searching for something else instead.

The particular cultivation sect he’s looking for should not be difficult to find …so naturally it takes him a little over a year.

By the time he finds the old woman he’s been robbed four times, drowned twice, and starved once. His cloths are patched faded, and dirty, and other than Fang Xie and his hat he has not a thing to his name, and he hasn’t eaten in three days, but he found her and that’s all that really matters right?

The elder takes one look at him and with a huff of breath she asks, “Do you expect me to believe you can pay?”

“No.” Xie Lian says with perfect truth. “But I can work for you if you like. I can chop firewood and do your washing and sweep your floors.”

The elder eyes him a little skeptically over the tops of fingers made thin and gnarled by age, but in the end all she says is “payment first.”

And Xie Lian agrees because it’s a fair request, after all, how else can she be sure he won’t just run off once he has the information he seeks. So for three full weeks Xie Lian cleans and dusts and washes and chops, doing all the things that once, long ago, his own servants did for him. If the gods of heaven could see him now they would laugh and mock at how far the great god pleasing prince has fallen, but Xie Lian doesn’t care. He’s gotten used to shame and to the mockery of heaven and at least now he has a dry place to sleep and a bit of food to eat each night.

And even if he didn’t, for Wu Ming it would be worth it.

For Wu Ming everything is worth it.

At the end of the third week the elder calls him to her and she settles at her table and gestures for him to sit opposite her and so he does.

“Well?” The elder asks. “Who do you want me to find?”

“I do not know their name,” Xie Lian tells her, “but they are the beloved of a dear friend of mine.”

The elder doesn’t question him, just extends her hand, palm up, to him. “Item?”

Xie Lian has thought long about this. He doesn’t have anything that belonged to Wu Ming’s beloved, let alone anything that was dear enough to their heart for their life energy to cling to it, and that is what the elder needs. Her branch of cultivation involves understanding and differentiating the flowing life energy of all living things. Guoshi told Xie Lian of it but never taught him anything of how it’s done, which is why he is hear and hoping that this elder can give him at least something of a direction.

Xie Lian might not have anything of the beloved’s but he does have one thing and so he pulls Fang Xin from its sheath and holds it out to the elder, explaining as he does so, “This is the sword that destroyed my friend’s soul. He was a ghost who lingered in this world only for the sake of his beloved. I’ve been hoping that some of his life energy still lingers around his beloved and that you can use this to find it. I know it’s not as good as having something that belongs to the person I’m seeking but it’s the best I have.

The elder arches one eyebrow at him. “For this you cleaned my house for almost a month?”

Xie Lian shrugs lightly and says again, “it is the best I have.” He knows this plan has little chance of working, especially with his luck, but he hasn’t been able to come up with any other so he wants to at least try.

“You know I can’t give you exact directions right?” The elder continues, a slight frown on her lips. “Even if this works, which it probably won’t, all I can tell you is what direction the life energy you’re looking for is in, not how many days or weeks away they are.”

Xie Lian nods. “I understand.”

The elder eyes him for another moment then she shrugs. “Very well.”

She takes Fang Xin and lays it on her table, running her fingers over the blade, her eyes fixed on the dark metal. As she does Xie Lian senses the faint brush of spiritual power and he knows that, even if the woman is old, her ability is very real.

After about half an incents time the elder looks up and the frown is back on her lips. I can sense only two strong sources of life energy clinging to the blade. One of them is yours.”

Xie Lian winces slightly. He should have expected that. After all, if Rouya was brought to life by the energy left behind from his blood and suffering, then it only makes sense that Fang Xin, the blade that inflicted the suffering, should be tainted as well.

“The other?”

“Is of another who suffered on this blade, a ghost I guess, considering they left behind spiritual power without any life energy. If I listen closely I can hear terrible screaming, and there is pain too, like a soul being torn apart.”

This time Xie Lian doesn’t wince, just bows his head, grief and regret and self-loathing all tangling within him.

“That’s him, my friend.” He says it quietly.

“I thought you said your friend’s soul was destroyed.”

“It was.”

“Then why can I still sense it?” The elder asks and Xie Lian’s head snaps up, his eyes widening as everything in the world seems to stop, time itself suspending as Xie Lian reels.

“W-What?” He asks, too shocked to come out with anything more articulate.

“I can still sense it.” The elder repeats. “It’s strong too. Whoever your ghost friend is, he’s still around.”

Wu Ming

Wu Ming

Wu Ming

Xie Lian’s heart beats with the echoes of the name that isn’t a name. His blood thunders in his vanes, his fingers beginning to shake.

Wu Ming…

Wu Ming is still, well not alive, but in the world, somewhere, somewhere, somewhere for Xie Lian to find, to make immense to, to protect and help and apologize to. If he can only find him again, he’ll do anything, go down on his knees, serve, beg, give up whatever he still has, allow the ghost to run him through, anything Wu Ming wants, anything, he’ll do anything and everything for him …If he can only find him.

And just like that Xie Lian is on his feet, even as the tears begin to form in his eyes.

“Which way is he?”

“Northwest from here.” The elder purses her lips. “But you shouldn’t go that way.”

“What? Why not?” Xie Lian is already sliding Fang Xin back into its scabbard, and he knows that no matter what the elder says he’s going to go.

“Because no one who goes that way right now survives to return.”

That makes Xie Lian pause but only for a moment. His own death is the least of what he owes Wu Ming.

“What’s out there?”

“A place no human should ever go. We in the villages call it the cursed mountain and the demon home but its proper name is Mount Tonglu.”

Chapter Text

Finding Mount Tonglu is easier than Xie Lian expects. Usually his bad luck would mean that, no matter how obvious the rout, he should still have spent at least a few months completely lost before finding his destination, but not this time, this time finding the mountain is only a matter of a handful of weeks.

Maybe it’s the fact that the mountain is so obvious that even with his luck it’s hard to miss an entire mountain ….Or maybe it’s just that mount Tonglu is such a horrifically deadly place that finding it is actually the worse luck.

Whichever the case Xie Lian sees the peak looming in the distance and he feels the oppressive aura of evil surrounding him and he knows that he has arrived.

He’s been there not even half an incents time before the first ghost attacks him and then the second and then a group of five and so on. By the evening of the first day he’s exhausted and there are small cuts all over his body, and he’s limping a bit from where he twisted his ancle on a rock while fighting, but Fang Xin is still in his hand and the bodies of ghosts are a trail of destruction behind him.

Honestly he doesn’t want to kill any of them and his heart hurts for it. He would rather comfort them and give them a peaceful passage into their next lives, but they give him little choice. Right now it truly is kill or be killed, and while it’s true that death would not stick with him Xie Lian still refuses to lie down and die before he sees Wu Ming again.

A week into his time within the lands surrounding Mount Tonglu the numbers of ghosts he encounters seems to grow less. Perhaps, he thinks, they’ve all gone farther in, closer to the kiln. The kiln, he knows about it now and the reason the ghosts have gathered. He’s managed to figure it out listening to the words of the ghosts he’s fought and killed. And so their absence seems natural.

He cannot know that, throughout the land around Mount Tonglu a whisper is spreading, about a figure all in white, with a sword like midnight in his hand. He looks like a simple cultivator the rumors says, a human easy to end, but he moves with the speed of a martial god and to cross his path is death.

He cannot know that he is not the only rumor running through the mountains , that there is a second one, a rumor of a ghost all in black. Sometimes his face is covered in bandages. Sometimes he is masked. Sometimes he carries a weapon. Sometimes he kills with his bare hands. But always he is ruthless and feral and to cross his path is death.

He cannot know how the whispers fly about what could happen when the two finally meet, or about the secret wagers placed about which one will slaughter the other and which will emerge the stronger.

But there are things the whisperers can’t know either.

Another two weeks pass before it happens. Xie Lian is roused from an exhausted sleep by the sound of screaming.

After the first week when he was stabbed to death in his sleep after collapsing from exhaustion, Xie Lian has rested more often but only for shorter bouts and always inside a warding circle made from both Rouya and Fang Xin, and he’s trained himself to wake at the first sign of danger, so when the scream comes he leaps to his feet. Yet this isn’t the normal blood curdling scream of ghosts to which he has become accustom, no this is a sound he never expected to hear on the slopes of the cursed mountain.

The cry of human voices.

Quickly Xie Lian returns Fang Xin to its sheath and calls Rouya back to his arm and rushes off to find whatever hapless human has luck even worse than his.

It turns out that it’s not one human but a whole group of them, thirty, maybe forty, standing together in a circle, shaking and holding each other, trying to protect each other. Xie Lian sees them up a steep slope from him and as he rushes up to them, warn out and exhausted and afraid that he no longer has it in him to protect these people, he hears the sound of fighting.

Yet when he reaches the top of the slope he finds that it is not the humans who are fighting, but ghosts, ghosts who snarl and scream and throw themselves at each other in a chaos of robes and limbs and blood.

“What is happening?” He asks the first person he comes to.

“Who are you??” The man demands. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“I’m a traveling cultivator.” Xie Lian tells him. “I was looking for my friend when I ended up here.”

“Well Daozhang,” a woman near by pipes up, “You must have the worst luck.”

Xie Lian rubs his cheek and laughs awkwardly at that because, well, he does.

“Ah something like that…”

“You had better stick with us from now on then” The woman tells him and the man beside her nods. “Yes, stick with us and the guardian spirit will protect you too.

“The guardian spirit?” Xie Lian asks and the man points toward the ghosts battling before them and Xie Lian’s eyes follow the line of his finger and then the world seems to stop.

“The guardian spirit is just what we call him among ourselves.” The woman explains. “If he has a name he hasn’t told it to us. He found us too night ago. We’d all be dead if it weren’t for him. He doesn’t speak much and when he does it’s usually just orders to follow or stay back or the like. Otherwise he mostly just mutters to himself, something about a god, though none of us can really figure out which god or what it’s about…”

Xie Lian is barely listening anymore. All he can do is stare, the sounds around him drowned out by the blood pounding in his ears. His hands are shaking and all the blood has gone from his face and he’s no longer aware of the snow beneath his feet or the cuts on his body or the people all around him because there, among the fighting ghosts is a figure all in black. Splatters of blood coat his robes and his face is wrapped in bandages rather than a mask, but Xie Lian knows him, oh Xie Lian knows him.

“Wu Ming.”

“Parden?”

Xie Lian only vaguely hears the woman’s question. There are tears in Xie Lian’s eyes and he sways on his feet, as though the exhaustion of the last months is catching him all at once …or maybe it’s just the shock.

“Hey, Daozhang, are you alright?” The man asks and Xie Lian laughs because yes, he’s alright, he’s alright, more alright than he’s been in nearly two decades.

‘Wu Ming. I’ve found you.’

Fortunately the people around him take his laughter as relief not madness and they accept him among them easily and so he stays with them and travels with them for the next three days as Wu Ming guides them toward the path that leads down from the mountain. In all that time Xie Lian sticks to the middle of the crowd, doing nothing to stand out or make himself known the few times the ghost comes near the group.

Every time he thinks about saying something, about making himself known, and every time he …doesn’t. Because he’s had time to think about it now and he’s realized a few things.

Wu Ming is clearly here to become a supreme and what can Xie Lian do except weigh him down and distract him.

Wu Ming might not want to see him at all and what will Xie Lian do if the ghost decides to drive him away?

Wu Ming is better off without him.

Xie Lian has only ever brought him pain and suffering.

Xie Lian is the reason the ghost has died not once but twice.

Yes, Wu Ming is better off without him.

But Xie Lian has not come all this way just to leave him.

Not when Xie Lian owes him everything

Not when Xie Lian hasn’t even apologized yet.

Not when Xie Lian longs so desperately to be near him.

And so Xie Lian has a plan. He will stay hidden among this group of humans and do what he can from there and after they are gone he will follow Wu Ming without letting him know and do what he can to fight off the other ghosts from the shadows so that they never get near Wu Ming and then, after this is all over, after Wu Ming has broken out of the kiln as a Supreme, only then Xie Lian will make himself known and give the apologies that he so badly needs to give voice to.

It's nightfall when everything changes. They’re nearly at the edge of the mountains, following a steep twisting path that will bring the humans to safety. There’s a cliff to one side and a steep slope to the other and so of course that’s when the attack comes. There are five of them, all powerful ghosts whose evil aura chokes Xie Lian, filling his mouth and nose with its bitter stench.

Wu Ming is strong, Xie Lian knows that well, but even he can’t stand up to these five. They’re being push back to the edge of the cliff, all of them, Wu Ming, and the people who cry out and shake in terror and even if he planned to stay hidden there’s no way Xie Lian can watch the ghost face this alone.

He rushes forward, pushing the people around him out of the way, one hand already on Fang Xin’s hilt, but then from just up ahead he hears a terrible heart stopping scream.

“Wu Ming!” He cries out, not caring now who hears him, and shoves his way franticly passed the last of the people who hear him even as a flash of light and power blinds him.

When Xie Lian can see again the sight before him is enough to stop his heart in his chest.

Wu Ming is still standing but barely. His bandages have been torn aside and for the first time Xie Lian can see his face but it is a face obscured mostly by the blood, so much blood. It flows freely down his cheek and over his mouth, his nose, his chin, spattering the front of his robes, and all from where is right eye must once have been. His hand is raised and in it he holds a bloody scimitar from which drips a deadly demonic aura.

It takes Wu Ming only a few quick slashes with his new blade and the ghosts attacking him collapse to snow all traces of life gone out of them. Wu Ming jumps back from their falling bodies but he staggers as he lands, swaying on his feet. His remaining eye is wide and unseeing, his lips form soundless words, and his blood falls like rain, dying the snow around him a terrible crimson.

Xie Lian is suddenly moving again, throwing himself to his knees in the snow just in time, so that when Wu Ming falls he lands, not on the snow and frost covered ground, but in the arms of his god.

“I’ve got you. You’re safe now. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

The ghost in his arms seems unconscious but his lips move forming words he can’t quite here. Xie Lian leans closer, trying to make them out then stiffens, his eyes widening at what he hears.

“Forgive me, your highness…”

Chapter Text

The pain is everywhere, it spreads and spreads along his body until he knows nothing else, but he has to keep on his feet, to fight, not for himself, not for the humans, but for his god. Everything he does, everything he is, is for his god, his god who sees the value in human lives even when he does not, his god who wants to save people. And so, like a good servant, he follows his gods will. He saves the people, not just once but again and again as the other ghosts pursue them and he leads the humans to the way out of the mountains.

But it’s not enough.

Nothing he does ever is.

And their trapped with the cliff at their backs.

And all he can think of is his god, his god who would not give up, his god who would want him to do this, his god who once said that he was more suited to a saber than a sword.

So he does what he needs to do.

His eye, his horrible cursed loathsome eye. It’s surprisingly easy tear it from himself, to sacrifice the worst part of himself in order to do what his god needs him to do.

Then the pain comes.

It’s all consuming, blotting out the world and everything in it.

His mind has been a haze of fury and prayer since he reformed, and now under the pain it fractures still more, the whole world blurring and going hazy as his legs give out from under him.

“Your highness, forgive me…”

He’s failed his god, in being so weak, so helpless, he’s failed his god.

What a useless thing he is.

He doesn’t feel the snow beneath him, or the hard ground, strange that.

There’s a blurry white figure above him and he tries to make his remaining eye focus on it. When he finally does he lets out a breath he doesn’t need, his whole body relaxing.

“Your highness, forgive me….”

Sometimes he’s glad that things in his mind aren’t as stable as they once were. It’s better that way. He’s heard his god’s voice before, encouraging him, comforting him, chiding him, cursing him, and no matter how angry his god is it’s always welcome. Sometimes he even catches glimpses, a flicker out of the corner of his eyes, a graceful hand, the edge of a white robe, but it’s never been like this before.

Maybe it’s the pain, maybe it’s just his mind finally giving way, but whatever it is he’s glad. He’s probably lying face down in the snow or something like that but he doesn’t have it in him to care. Why would he? When what he sees and feels are the safest place in the world, the arms of his god.

“I’ve got you. You’re safe now. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

The words are distant things, so kind and warm, and he leans into them and into the warm arms that he’s imagining all around him.

“Your highness, forgive me….” For being so weak, for being so pathetic, for the way I dream of you.

He knows he should get up, should keep going, keep fighting, but…

The world falls into darkness.

The next bit of time passes in a blur. He’s vaguely aware of being lifted, of being carried, of something protecting him from the cold and the weather, maybe a cave? And is that the heat of a fire? And always always the soothing voice and touch of his god.

Is the fire real? Is the cave real? Has his mind been hallucinating in order to force his body to do what it needs in order to hide until he’s able to fight again? Or is he still laying face down in the snow with no way to protect himself from the hoards of ghosts he knows will come for him. Maybe even the figure in white, the one he’s heard so many rumors about, will come now and he’ll be destroyed.

Vaguely, just on the edge of his awareness he can hear the clash of blade on blade and he knows that he should get up and fight, but the pain is so great and his limbs feel so heavy and the world shifts and blurs around him, and the hallucination of his god told him to rest and even if his mind knows that none of this is real his body still refuses to disobey.

“Forgive me, your highness…”

The dark rises all around him and his vision fades to nothing and unconsciousness claims Wu Ming.

Chapter Text

The first time that Wu Ming wakes fully it's a warm tingling feeling that brings him to consciousness. His eyes flicker open … No not eyes, eye… It's gone, that's right, his cursed hideous hated right eye is gone. He is about to raise his hand to feel how bad the damages when the feeling comes again, stronger and more persistent, sparking through him like lightning, and he just has time to catch a blurred glimpse of a cave and a figure in white and then everything vanishes.

The next thing he knows Wu Ming is sitting in the middle of a rocky crater which might once have been the middle of the street. He can feel waves of power running through and around him, force that rushes away from him like a storm. Maybe that's what caused the crater? It's hard to say and even harder still to guess where he could be.

He gets to his feet quickly, glancing around warily for a trap or an attack, and that's when he gets his first good look at where he is. The place is beautiful, all gorgeous palaces and stunning skies and everything glistening and shining in a way that looks unreal, ethereal … Heavenly.

The thought strikes him suddenly but it's a ridiculous one, almost enough to make him laugh.

That's when his eye falls on the people, they inch closer to the edge of the crater, looking down at him with wide eyes as they murmur to one another, none daring to get too close. Each of them is dressed immaculately and each of them radiate spiritual power.

…Maybe this is heaven after all.

But what business would an evil spirit have in heaven?

Abruptly he realizes that he doesn't have his mask and that he tore his bandages aside when he ripped out his eye. Is that why they're all staring? What a horrifically ugly sight he must make, with his sunken empty eye socket and his face still blood splattered from his injury. Instinctively he raises his hand to hide that side of his face only to be met by the surprising touch of fabric beneath his fingers. A bandage seems to have been wrapped neatly around his head and over his missing eye and when his palm brushes against his cheek Wu Ming doesn't feel any dried blood there either. Strange… Did he do that? Did he clean himself up during his hallucinations?

“Welcome.” His thoughts are interrupted by a female voice coming from his right. Wu Ming turns toward it and finds a dark-haired dark robed woman has broken away from the pack and now stands at the very edge of his crater, watching him with considering eyes. Beside her and slightly behind stands a man in armor with a high ponytail and a sword at his side. His arms are crossed and the expression he's giving Wu Ming looks as though he’s sizing up a battlefield opponent.

“Where am I?” Wu Ming already has some idea but it's ridiculous enough that he wants it confirmed.

“Congratulations, you have ascended to heaven.” The woman tells him and Wu Ming stares at her incredulously. He can't help it. He guessed that this is heaven but /ascended/? Him?

What the actual fuck?

“My name is Ling Wen,” the woman continues. “I am a civil god tasked with heavenly organization.

She pauses, as though giving him a chance to provide his own name or ask a question. He doesn't have a name and he wouldn't be interested in sharing it if he did so he asks a question.

“What's their problem?” He glances toward the gods clustering scared behind the civil god.

“They want to know if you’re a threat.” It's not Ling Wen who answers but her sword bearing companion. “Are you?”

Ling Wen shoots him an annoyed look. “General Pei.” Then, turning back to Wu Ming. “Tactless as he is, he’s essentially correct. We've never seen a ghost ascend before, at least not as far back as our records go and no one knows what to make of you.”

Well that's not his problem is it? Wu Ming is getting tired of this. His body still hums with the call of Mount Tonglu and his fingers itch for chisel and file. Between this little interlude and his need to protect those worthless humans, this is the longest he's gone without carving at least five statues of Dianxia in nearly a decade and he can feel the strain of being away from his caves and his work for so long scratching at the corners of his mind.

If he had things his way he would already be gone by now, but he stays where he is for one reason and one reason alone. By the time he reformed a thinking body he was already within the foothills of Mount Tonglu and since then this is the first time he's left it. He's had no chance to obtain knowledge of the outside world, no chance to obtain knowledge of…

“Where is his highness, the crown prince of Xianle?”

The crowd starts and startles at his sudden question, turning to each other with surprised speculative murmurs.

“Xianle? Did he say Xianle?”

“Does he mean that laughingstock?”

“What does a ghost want with a disgrace like that?”

Wu Ming’s hand goes to the hilt of his sword and it takes everything he has in him not to throw himself at these pathetic worthless excuses for gods, not one of whom are fit to lick his highness's boots.

‘Once I’m a Supreme’ he tells himself, ‘the moment I’m a Supreme and too powerful for any of you to touch, I'll come back here and destroy all of you. I'll burn every one of your temples to the ground and make you beg on your knees for my mercy and for his.’

“Where is he!?”

General Pei, who must be Pei Ming, martial god of the north, frowns down at Wu Ming, eyes narrowed.

“Why? What do you want with him?”

Before Wu Ming can snap and drive his sword through the god’s throat, Ling Wen, raises a hand to gesture to Pei Ming to wait.

“His Highness isn't here.” Ling Wen’s voice is still calm and it lacks the derision he hears in so many of the others. Wu Ming decides that she gets to live. “I'm afraid he was banished back to the mortal realm on the same day as his second dissension.”

“He what!? What happened!?” Wu Ming stares at her, shock and fury roiling inside him. His Highness ascended again? His Highness was /banished/ again?

How dare they?

How dare each and every one of them?

“Well that's the thing isn't it?” Pei Ming uncrosses his arms and taps his fingers on the hilt of his sword. “No one really knows. All anyone is sure of is that his highness had some sort of falling out with the Heavenly Emperor and attacked him.

‘What?’

‘What in the name of his god happened?’

‘What did Jun Wu /do/’

Fury mounts and mounts within Wu Ming until he feels as savagely angry as the ghost class to which he is named.

“Where is he!?”

“No one is sure.” Ling Wen tells him.

“What about Jun Wu?” Wu Ming all but spits the name.

“The /Emperor/” Pei Ming stresses the title, “is currently focusing on his cultivation and is not to be disturbed.”

That's…

… That's probably a good thing. Much as Wu Ming wants to storm into the Heavenly Martial Hall and demand an accounting, he knows it's not the time, not yet.

Once he’s finished in Mount Tonglu… Once he's dealt with those 35 pieces of trash who need removing… Then it will be time for Jun Wu.

Without another word Wu Ming jumps out of the crater and shoves his way past the crowd, gazing around himself for the exit.

“Your Highness?” The question comes from Ling Wen, and it takes him a moment to realize that she's talking to him.

“Why are you calling me that?” Wu Ming doesn't look back, continuing to scan his surroundings for a likely way out even as he hears Ling Wen and Pei Ming come up behind him.

“You have yet to introduce yourself.” Ling Wen reminds him. “Without knowledge of your actual name or titles it is the appropriate address for the Martial God of the East.”

The Martial God of the East, him?

Fury sparks across Wu Ming’s skin all over again.

How dare they?

How dare they?

There is only one Martial God in the East.

How dare they disrespect him by giving his title away just like that.

How dare they call him laughingstock and think they can replace him.

How /dare/ they.

“/Don't/ call me that again.”

Even without turning to look at them he can feel the two gods stiffening as some small part of his anger leaks into his voice.

“Then what does my lord wish to be called?” Ling Wen’s voice holds a new stiffness now and from the corner of his eye he can see Pei Ming’s hand tighten on the hilt of his sword. Wu Ming couldn't care less.

“Don't call me anything. I'm not staying.”

“What do you mean?” When Wu Ming finally turns back to face them there’s a frown on Pei Ming’s lips. “Not staying where?”

The ghost ignores him completely, his eyes fixing on Ling Wen, the civil god with the information.

“There isn't anything known about the whereabouts of his highness of Xianle?”

Her lips purse. “Nothing I'm afraid. His Highness the Heavenly Emperor has me searching but I haven't been able to discover anything. Why are you so interested in his highness? Were you one of his followers?”

“Is it a grudge?” Pei Ming asks. “Do you have a score to settle?”

Their questions aren’t worth answering so he doesn't bother.

“How do I get out of here?”

“By ‘here’ you mean…?” Now Pei Ming just looks confused.

“Heaven.”

Ling Wen studies him through eyes that seem much more intelligent than those of the sword wielding fool beside her. “What did you mean when you said you weren't staying?”

“Exactly what I said now do you keep your gods prisoner up here or will you show me the way out?”

Pei Ming taps his fingers against his pummel. “The descending gates that way but you can't just go rushing back to whatever you were in the middle of. You’re a god now and that means…”

“I am NOT a god!” Wu Ming snaps the words, his fury finally cresting the banks of his ability to hold it back. “There is only one person worthy to be a god and you’ve just told me he isn't here! Why would I want to waste my days with the likes of you when my place is on earth beside him!”

With that Wu Ming storms away in the direction Pei Ming pointed. He can hear the gods, racing after him, telling him to wait, reminding him of his new godly station. But he is no god and he has no station. He is nothing but a nameless ghost, and worthless though he might be, he’s still better than the useless trash who hide up here and allow the world to suffer, allow Dianxia to suffer.

And so, when he reaches the descending gates, he jumps without hesitation. What use has he for a heaven that denies his god?

Above him, at the edge of the gate, a martial god and a civil god stand, looking downward in disbelief as the only ghost ever achieve godhood in known history falls away beneath them. After a while Pei Ming whistles softly and turns to his companion.

“He can’t be serious about rejecting godhood. He'll be back.”

“No, I don't think he will.” Ling Wen frowns down at the place were the last speck of black vanished through the clouds. “Who knew that after everything that's happened his highness still had one last believer.”

Below, beyond the clouds, Wu Ming is falling, his mind ablaze with wrath indignation.

How dare those heavenly trash?

What did they think they have to offer him anyway?

Why would he want to become one of their number, hiding away from every problem, safe on their cloud while they let the world burn?

They abandoned his god, his beloved, mocked and ridiculed and spat on him. They hurt and tormented him and pushed him into the mud and they still expect Wu Ming to want to join them?

Once he is finished on Mount Tonglu… Once he has the powers of a Supreme… Then he will take the burning to them and let all heaven learn what it is like to stand in the path of a Calamity!

Suddenly he becomes aware of the earth rushing toward him, the rocky cliffs and frost hard ground of Mount Tonglu racing to meet him. He gave no thought when he jumped to managing his landing and if it is something that comes naturally to gods, well, as he said, he is not a god. Maybe he does have a bit of divine power clinging to him now and maybe if he takes the time to sort it out he can understand it enough to use it to absorb his fall, but there is no time now and he doesn't understand it and when he hits the ground after such a long fall, even his ghosts body will probably break.

Wu Ming closes his eye and braces himself for impact.

It’s fine. It won't kill him. He's dead after all. He'll manage to survive the other murderous ghosts until his body puts itself back together. He has the scimitar now. He’ll survive, he’ll manage, he’ll…

A soft thud, an oddly muffled impact, and suddenly he's no longer falling, at least not how he was. Instead of cold wind and gusting snow there is warmth beneath him and around him and everything is like an echo of childhood, of the memory more precious than any other, warm arms to catch him, soft robes against his skin, and safety… Safety like he's never known…

Wu Ming’s eye flies open and then a strangled gasp is ripped from his lips and he knows he must be seeing things, he must, because…

White robes, dark hair, and soft golden eyes… Unlike when Wu Ming was a child there is no adornment on his robes, no jewels on his ears or ornament in his hair, but he still looks just as beautiful, just as perfect, a vision of true divinity made flesh for him, and Wu Ming would know him anywhere.

“Your highness…”

Chapter Text

At first Wu Ming can’t believe his own senses. Time seems to slow around him, flowing backward until he’s not a savage ghost already a decade dead but a living child, small from hunger and neglect, clutched safe in the arms of the only person who has ever found him worth loving. There is no way that this can be real. It’s a hallucination, an illusion, a trick or a trap or a wish or or…

How can his highness be here?

How can he have appeared to catch Wu Ming just as he did all those years ago?

How can he have saved him yet again?

There’s just no way that this can be real.

…And yet…

And yet some deep central part of him is ringing like a struck gong and it knows, oh it knows. This is his prince, his Dianxia, his god. Wu Ming would know him anywhere.

And so, head spinning in utter shock and confusion, Wu Ming lets himself be carried, lets himself sink into that warm safe memory, and for just a moment he is at peace.

Then Xie Lian lands lightly back on the snowy ground, Wu Ming in his arms, and looks down at the ghost in his arms and Wu Ming is caught by those beautiful golden eyes, eyes which hold no fear and no hatred and no disgust, only, warmth and worry and Wu Ming feels his dead heart attempting to beat again at the sight.

“Wu Ming? What’s happened? What went wrong?”

The world seems to tilt and spin at the question. His highness sounds so… So concerned about Wu Ming, so unsurprised by the ghost’s presents in Mount Tonglu, as though they parted only hours before…

“I- What?”

“Why did you fall? Did something go wrong? Did someone push you?” Something protective flickers in Dianxia’s eyes and Wu Ming feels the color rise in his cheeks. Dianxia is asking what happened to him. Dianxia is speaking as though the thought of someone pushing Wu Ming bother’s him. Dianxia is…

… Dianxia is /here/.

That’s when it really hits him. His highness is really here. This is all real. He’s found him again, no, rather, Dianxia has found him, Dianxia remembers him and he’s found him and he’s talking to him and holding him in his arms and and…

“W-would your highness put this one down?” He stumbles over his words, somehow unable to get his tongue around them any more than he can get his mind around what’s happening.

“Ah, of course. Sorry.” Wu Ming isn’t sure what shocks him more, the sudden pain in his god’s eyes or the ‘sorry’. It’s all so wrong. His highness shouldn’t be apologizing to him, not for anything, not ever!

Xie Lian lowers Wu Ming gently to the ground then makes to step back but before he can the ghost catches his god’s hand in his own, bowing over it as he sinks to his knees before his god.

“Your highness, forgive me.”

He knows he’s being presumptuous, knows that he’s underserving, but he can’t manage to resist. Just as when he was a child who clung to Xie Lian’s robes with all that he had, Wu Ming just can’t manage to let him go. He expects a sharp reprimand, for that perfect hand to be jerked from his, perhaps even a blow. What he does not expect is the soft sound of his highness’s breath catching in his throat. What he does not expect is the feeling of his god’s hand shaking in his own. What he does not expect is…

“Wu Ming, what are you doing?” There’s so much emotion in his highness’s voice, destress, and worry, and what sounds terribly like hope, and it steals the thoughts from his mind like it might steal the breath from mortal lungs.

“Your highness?” Wu Ming says it weakly, not sure what else to say.

“I…” Xie Lian starts than falters. He tugs weakly at the hand Wu Ming still holds, still bowed over, a black figure, a wreath of savage malice kneeling before a god all in white. There is an echo here, a memory, but this time the ghost kneels not on a night stained battle field but in the endless blankness of the snow and this time there are no masks between them.

Xie Lian tugs again and this is more what Wu Ming is expecting. He lets go easily only for his god’s hand to close around his own, refusing to let go. In shock Wu Ming’s head snaps up, eye searching his god’s face for any of the disgust he expects to find there but again he finds …nothing.

“Get up? There’s a cave, we can talk inside, if you.. if you want to talk. We don’t have to. I can… I can leave if you want me to, only its got to be cold in the snow and I know you’re a ghost but you’re injury is still healing and you really don’t need to do that, to kneel, anymore, so please…”

There are tears pooling in his god’s beautiful eyes now and Wu Ming is so stunned that he can’t do anything but let himself be pulled to his feet.

“Your highness…” Again his voice comes out weak and uncertain. He clears his throat and tries again. “Your highness, what’s wrong? Has someone hurt you?”

His eye roams quickly over Xie Lian, searching for injuries, only to widen as he finds them, /lots/ of them. Xie Lian is covered in half healed cuts and bruises. His robes are ragged and torn and dirt stained. Worst of all one side of his chest is crusted with dried blood as though from a far more series wound, and even though he landed lightly after catching Wu Ming the way he stands seems slightly off balance, as though favoring an injured ankle or foot. Now that Wu Ming is looking for them he also sees the deep circles under his god’s eyes and the pallor in his cheeks and he looks far too thin and…

And if it wouldn’t mean leaving his god alone again Wu Ming would go charging right back up to heaven and break the faces of every richly clothed comfortably housed fully fed piece of heavenly trash who has the audacity to sit in comfort and plenty while his god suffers hunger and pain and want.

How dare they

How DARE they.

“What? Oh no, it’s nothing. It’s nothing” Xie Lian wipes hastily at his eyes.

But it’s /not/ nothing and Wu Ming might be nothing more than a worthless ghost but he’s better than that heavenly trash at least.

/He/ won’t treat his god’s pain like it’s nothing.

He won’t ignore it.

He won’t let him face it alone.

“Your highness mentioned a cave?” He needs to get his highness somewhere safe and comfortable as quickly as he can. A random cave on the side of Mount Tonglu won’t be much but it will be better than standing out in the snow.

“Ah, yes.” Xie Lian turns quickly and, hand still holding Wu Ming’s, begins leading the ghost in the direction of a dark gap in the nearby cliff that rises above them.

For the deration of the walk there is silence between them. Wu Ming has no idea what his god might be thinking but for his own part it’s less that he’s thinking and more that he’s trying not to think, about the warm hand in his, about the sword callused palm, about those long clever fingers, about shaping and sculpting them …about what else he’s imagined them doing…

There’s pink in his cheeks again. He knows it. He tries to will it away but it doesn’t obey. This shouldn’t even be a problem for him anymore. He’s a ghost. His heart doesn’t beat. Why should he be able to blush? …Yet he bled when he ripped out his eye and that shouldn’t have happened either. Maybe subconscious memories of what his body should be like are affecting his form somehow. He’ll have to get control over that …later, once he can think about more than that perfectly formed hand, the light brush of knuckles, the…

As they step into the mouth of the cave Wu Ming freezes, his attention pulled abruptly from his god’s hand as he stares at the space in front of him. It’s a small cave, nothing special, nothing like the vast network he’s turned into a temple to his god, but its size isn’t what catches his attention, no, that honor goes to the small fire in the center of the cave and the thin blanket laying just behind it and a bit of bloody bandaging on the ground next to it and…

‘I’ve got you. You’re safe now. I won’t let anything hurt you.’

Words spoken by an illusion, warm arms around him, catching him, lifting him…. Snippets of memory, of gentle hands, bandaging his wounds, caressing his cheek, stroking his hair, of a gentle voice, comforting him and soothing his pain, of words only half remembered.

‘Forgive me, your highness…’

‘Shh, rest now, my Wu Ming. There’s nothing to forgive.”

Slowly Wu Ming turns to his god, his eye wide and staring, and when he speaks his voice is nothing more than a whispering rasp.

“It was real…?”

Xie Lian blinks at him, clearly startled by the question, and then his expression softens and he must guess what Wu Ming means because he nods.

“You were delirious. I’m not surprised you don’t really remember.”

Wu Ming feels the world shifting beneath him again, the mountain giving way, leaving him in free fall.

His highness’s fingers on his cheek, in his hair, his highness nursing and caring for him, his highness, calling him… calling him…. ‘My Wu Ming.’

The shock of the memory alone is enough to knock him back down onto his knees and if he bows his head partly to hide his blush, well, that’s only for him to know.

“Wu Ming, what are you…”

“Your highness, this servant apologizes for requiring such care. This servant shouldn’t have burdened you…”

“What? No. Please don’t talk like that. You’re not a burden and it’s not your fault. It’s mine. If I’d gotten to the front of the crowd sooner I could have helped you fight and you wouldn’t’ have had to hurt yourself like that…”

Get to the front of the crowed? What is he talking about? What?

Wu Ming raises his head and gazes wonderingly up at his god.

“Your highness, what are you /doing/ here?”

Xie Lian blinks down at him, beautiful eyes filled with equal parts sorrow, guilt, and worry.

“I came looking for you.”

“W-what?” The question leaves Wu Ming’s mouth in a shaking whisper but he’s given little chance to process the impossibility of the words before his highness is tugging at his hand again.

“Now, Please get up. You really don’t need to do that.”

Numbly Wu Ming obeys. He can never disobey his god.

For a few moments Xie Lian just looks at him before trying to speak.

“Wu Ming I…” He trails away, shaking his head, a soft sob falling from his lips. Wu Ming starts at the sound, unsure what’s bringing the tears to his god’s eyes, but it has to stop, he has to make it stop, no matter what, he…

His thoughts come to a stuttering halt as, to his utter shock, Wu Ming feels that warm hand pulled from his only to have both of his god’s arms wrap around him as he is pulled into an embrace.

“Dianxia what…” What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Why are you holding me? Why are you even touching me? You saw my face, when you cared for my wounds, don’t I disgust you? Why would you come looking for me? Why would you even remember me? Why…

Slowly, carefully, as if acting on their own volition while his mind is distracted by chaos, Wu Ming’s arms rise to wrap tentatively around Xie Lian.

For several long moments they just stand like that, arms around each other, and Wu Ming feels his god’s warmth all around him and it’s the most wonderful thing he’s ever felt and part of him still thinks this is a dream because how can this be real? How can this possibly be real?

His gods words echo over and over again.

‘I’ve got you’ ‘I won’t let anything hurt you’ ‘My Wu Ming’

Wherever else he’s been today Wu Ming is sure that /this/ right here is heaven.

At last it is Xie Lian who speaks first, voice soft and filled with worry.

“Wu Ming, what happened? Why did you fall from heaven?”

The question is so unexpected that it startles an honest answer out of him.

“But I didn’t fall, your highness. I jumped.”

Chapter Text

-Four Days Earlier-

“Forgive me, your highness…”

At first everything is a haze of panic and fear. Xie Lian clutches Wu Ming’s body to him as though any moment some new threat will loom up out of the snow and try to steal him away again.

Never again, Xie Lian swears, never again.

…Not unless he sends me away.

There’s a pang in Xie Lian’s chest at the thought but he pushes it quickly aside. Later, he’ll deal with that later, once Wu Ming is safe and well. Right now they have bigger problems. Wu Ming is bleeding badly, his gouged out eye a terrible sight and his whole body already scored with other injuries from before he did… What did he do? Some sort of ritual?

Xie Lian glances at the scimitar still held tight in the ghost’s hand but he doesn’t have time to study it now, not when the other problem is beginning to swarm all around them. The people, the humans Wu Ming was protecting.

“What happened to him?”

“Will he survive?”

“Should you be holding him like that?”

“He’s a ghost right, doesn’t that mean he’ll be alright?”

“Gods! His eye!”

“Daozhang, what’s happening?”

“Here let me have a look!”

Xie Lian’s head is spinning, with fear for Wu Ming, yes, but also with panic of another kind. It’s been about 11 years since Xianle fell. 11 years, that’s how long it’s been since he’s been surrounded by a group of people looking to him as a leader, begging him to do something, to help. The sensation brings back all sorts of memories, snatches of the war, of his final days in the palace.

For a moment he’s overwhelmed. ‘Don’t look to me for help! Don’t expect me to have the answers!’ He wants to shout. ‘Look how it turned out last time! I’m not a prince or a god anymore! I haven’t been able to save anyone! Not even my last believer! Don’t come near me or my bad luck will just kill you too!’

For a moment he wants to give up but even as he lowers his head he looks down at the body in his arms and if that first panicked voice in his head sounds like the frightened prince he once was the voice he hears now is more like the calamity he became.

‘So what?’ It asks him scathingly. ‘Are you going to give up just like that? You came all this way for what? To find Wu Ming? To repay him? And after all that talk you’re just going to fail him again?’

Xie Lian stares down at the unconscious ghost in his arms and takes a deep breath.

He has to do this.

He can do this.

For Wu Ming, he can do anything.

Xie Lian rises to his feet, the ghost still in his arms. He holds Wu Ming tightly to his chest, protectively even, as though he won’t allow even the other humans to touch him.

He won’t let anyone touch him.

“Daozhang?”

“Daozhang, what is it?”

“Daozhang, What’s wrong with him?”

“Let me have a look.”

Xie Lian clears his throat and when he speaks it’s no longer in the quiet self-deprecating voice of the scrap collector he’s become, it’s the voice of the prince, the voice of the god.

“Everyone stay back. You must give him space.”

The group of humans freeze almost as one, momentarily stunned by the change in his voice.

“Daozhang?” One of them asks uncertainly. It’s the woman who welcomed him on his first day with the group.

“He performed a blood ritual to create a weapon with which to defend you all.” His eyes return briefly to Wu Ming, too the bloody mess that is all that’s left of his right eye. “He seems to have used his own body as the price. I don’t know so much about ghost injuries but he appears to be bleeding real blood. Since that’s the case I have to assume he may suffer from his wounds not being cared for just as a human would. I need time to care for his injuries before we continue.”

There’s murmuring in the crowd then one voice speaks up louder than all the others. “Keep going? How are we supposed to keep going? Without the guardian spirit we’ll all die before we reach the exit.”

“Nonsense.” Xie Lian speaks quickly before panic can catch hold of the crowd. “We’re only half a day from the exit now. I will take you.”

“You?” This new voice sounds plainly skeptical. “Daozhang, not to doubt you but…”

Xie Lian smiles thinly. “Then don’t doubt me. I’m better trained than I appear. I can protect you.”

“Then why haven’t you been?” Someone else asks. “Why did you let the guardian spirit fight alone all this time?”

Once upon a time those sorts of words would have thrown Xie Lian off. They would have had him stumbling and protesting and too flustered to answer properly but he’s been through far too much in the last several years to be bothered by such things anymore, and so he answers honestly.

“I wasn’t sure if he would want to see me.”

A woman near the front of the crowd frowns. “Why wouldn’t he want to see you?”

“I told you all that I came to Mount Tonglu searching for a friend.” Xie Lian glances down at the ghost in his arms and a sad smile plays around his lips. “This is him.”

He squares his shoulders and raises his head, continuing. “We did not part well. It was my fault completely and I followed him because I wanted to make it up to him. I didn’t know if he would want to see me or if I would only be a distraction to him but I wanted to be nearby in case he needed help.”

Another round of murmurs flow through the crowd. If they turn on him he’ll have to flee and the running will be harder with Wu Ming in his arms but what else can he do? He /won’t/ hurt these people and he /won’t/ leave Wu Ming.

“What’s his name?” It’s an older woman who asks the question and the look she’s giving Xie Lian isn’t unfriendly. “Daozhang, as his friend you must know it, and for all we owe him we haven’t even known what to call him.”

Xie Lian gives the woman a small smile. “He doesn’t properly have one but I have known him as Wu Ming.”

“Wu Ming?” A man nearby frowns. “Nameless? What sort of name is that?”

Xie Lian’s smile grows sad. “A cruel one. A very cruel and ungrateful person gave him that name but if he has another one I don’t know it.”

There’s more murmuring after that but when, after a few moments, no one in the crowd has addressed Xie Lian the god clears his throat.

“If we’re all agreed then I need to see to his injuries now and then we can go on.”

Xie Lian is painfully aware of how long this conversation has taken already even as the blood leaks from Wu Ming’s ruined eye. Xie Lian knows from bitter experience during the war that he can’t just act as he sees fit and ignore the crowd, knows exactly how important settling them is, and yet even he is reaching the end of his ability to talk with them when every moment that passes could be increasing Wu Ming’s pain and risk. The ghost can’t die from this, Xie Lian knows that. It’s not so easy to kill what is already dead. Yet even so…

A scream rips through Xie Lian’s memory, soul shattering and heart breaking.

Xie Lian grits his teeth and promises himself that if he has it his own way Wu Ming will never suffer pain again.

Fortunately most of the crowd seem to agree with him, glad perhaps to have a plan and someone to lead them, but just as Xie Lian thinks the trouble has passed a man sticks out his chin belligerently.

“What exactly do you plan to do once we’re at the exit to this place?”

Xie Lian forces a calmness to his voice that he does not feel.

“I’ll take Wu Ming back up the mountain so that when he recovers he can continue his journey.”

“Now hold on just a moment!” The man glares at Xie Lian. “We owe the guardian spirit a lot and now you show up claiming that you’re powerful enough to protect him but didn’t and that you’re his friend but also that he wouldn’t want to see you! What makes you think we’re going to trust you with him!?”

It’s a reasonable question, Xie Lian knows it’s a reasonable question, more than that even, he’s glad that these people feel their debt to Wu Ming and won’t turn him over to someone they don’t trust. He knows all that and yet….

And Yet.

And yet Wu Ming is bleeding in his arms and every moment he spends soothing these people is another moment that he isn’t tending to him. Maybe it’s the echo of the foolish prince, used to being obeyed, maybe it’s the last remnants of the calamity, only a decade gone and still not completely banished, or maybe it’s the sort of fury that is the prevue only of the gods, whatever the case, at that moment something snaps in Xie Lian. His arms tighten around Wu Ming, clutching the ghost to his chest as though to protect him from anyone who would dare try to separate them again and when he replies Xie Lian’s voice holds all the power and majesty of the Flower Crowned Martial God.

“I know you want to protect him but every moment you waist on conversation is one that I am not spending treating his wounds. I will say this just once so listen well. I won’t let anything happen to him. No matter what I will protect him. He is all that I have left in this world and I will die one hundred times before I let Wu Ming be hurt again!”

Chapter Text

The crowd quiets after that and the old woman who asked for Wu Ming’s name steps forward to offer Xie Lian her travel blanket to lay the ghost on. It’s thin and warn but the other option is the snowy ground so Xie Lian accepts it gratefully. He kicks at the snow with his boots to clear an area for her to lay the blanket on and a couple of the other people in group step forward to help. The snow is cleared away quickly and the blanket laid out and Xie Lian places Wu Ming down on it as gently as he can.

The ghost is so pale… Xie Lian knows with the rational part of his mind that it probably has nothing to do with the blood loss, that Wu Ming can’t bleed out, that the pallor is probably just Wu Ming’s natural ghostly coloring, but still, the ghost is so pale…

Xie Lian’s hands hover for a moment over the torn and bloody bandages still covering part of the ghost’s face. Tearing them away feels like a violation of his privacy somehow. Wu Ming always kept his mask on and Xie Lian never got so much as a glimpse of his face before coming to Mount Tonglu. Looking now, without the ghost’s permission, feels a bit like stealing something that he should wait to be given.

Yet Wu Ming is still bleeding.

With a swift breath Xie Lian pushes the thoughts away in favor of practicality. With quick fingers he pulls away the remainder of the bandaging on Wu Ming’s face. Just one glance tells him that the ghost is beautiful, even with his eye gouged out and his face covered in blood he is beautiful. Xie Lian doesn’t let himself pause to consider his beauty though, he needs to stop the bleeding and that means he needs clean bandages.

Without hesitation Xie Lian reaches up to his own neck and unwinds the bandage wrapped around his throat. He examens it for a moment and is relieved to find that, yes, it still looks clean. As gently as he can Xie Lian wraps the bandage around Wu Ming’s head, covering the damaged eye. Once he’s done the best he can Xie Lian sits back, considering his work and rubbing idly at his neck. After all these years its strange to feel it bare.

….Well not completely bare. The cursed shackle still sits just where it always did, his penance for what he did to the ghost in front of him. For a moment Xie Lian thinks of asking Rouya to wrap around his neck to cover the shackle again but the thought of Rouya around his neck….

Maybe he’ll just leave the shackle uncovered for now.

The next half day passes in a blur. Xie Lian leads the trapped humans down the path to the exit of Mount Tonglu that Wu Ming found, the ghost still unconscious in his arms. He hates having to drag Wu Ming along like this but he can’t leave the people to fend for themselves and he refuses to leave Wu Ming behind even for a moment. What if something happens to the ghost while Xie Lian isn’t beside him? What if he loses him again? He can’t let that happen.

At some point in the afternoon they are attacked by a group of angry ghosts who want to feed on the humans. Only then is Xie Lian forced to put Wu Ming down. He leaves him on the blanket in the care of the old woman and the couple who first invited Xie Lian to join their little group and draws Fang Xin. The fight is over in mere moments and the rest of the group look at him differently after that, more respectfully, but also as though they’re no longer sure that he’s human. Xie Lian thinks about all the dozens of ghosts he’s slaughtered to reach Wu Ming and he’s no longer quite sure if he’s human either.

When he reaches Wu Ming the old woman tells him, “He’s still unconscious but he started tossing and turning once you left and he’s been calling for someone in his sleep. Quickly Xie Lian kneels down beside Wu Ming. “Your highness…” For a moment Xie Lian stiffens and then he sees that the ghost is still unconscious, his remaining eye scrunched closed perhaps at some distressing dream. “Your highness…”

“Shh, I’m here.” Xie Lian reaches out and tucks a strand of hair gently behind the ghost’s ear. “I’m here.”

There’s a quiet gasp from behind him and he turns to see the three whose care he left Wu Ming in staring at him with wide eyes.

Xie Lian scratches his cheek awkwardly. “Is something wrong?’

“Who /are/ you?” It’s the man who asks the question.

Inwardly Xie Lian winces, already acutely aware of his mistake but outwardly he just blinks innocently. “What do you mean?”

The younger of the two women folds her arms. “You must have survived this place for weeks all on your own to reach us. You say you’ve been looking for the guardian spirit, for a ghost, because he’s your friend, and when he called out for ‘your highness’ you answered as though that really is your title. You’ve been carrying him for half a day without seeming to tire and the way you fight… I didn’t know anyone could move like that.”

“The guardian spirt doesn’t talk to us much,” the older woman chimes in, and, much to Xie Lian’s discomfort, he notices that more people than just those three are listening now. “But we’ve all heard him muttering to himself. Almost everything he says seems to be either about or addressed to a god, a god he only refers to as ‘your highness’…”

“Ah...” Xie Lian says weakly. He’s not quite sure how to get out of this one. If they hadn’t seen him fight maybe he could have talked his way out of it but as it is… Well, better to get this over with now so that they can get moving again. He takes a deep breath and looks back down at Wu Ming, a sad smile curving his lips. “If it’s what you’re asking then no, I’m not a god. I used to be one but that was a long time ago. I made some horrible mistakes and am no longer worthy of such a title. Now I’m just a simple scrap collector.”

The people draw back from him then and begin to murmur among themselves, casting furtive glances at him but he doesn’t mind them. His attention is all for Wu Ming. He wraps the ghost into the blanket and lifts him again back into his arms to continue on.

Years from now the heavens will begin to hear rumors of new shrines popping up in the villages near Mount Tonglu. These shrines have not one figure on their alters but two, a ghost all in black and a young cultivator all in white. In some shrines they stand side by side, swords drawn, or they guard each other’s backs, while in others the cultivator stands with the ghost in his arms. They are the shrines of the guardian spirit and the fallen god. There are no names attached to those titles for the guardian spirit is called simply Wu Ming “nameless” and the cultivator in white with the black shackle at his throat and the black sword in his hand is called only “His Highness.”

The rumors come to Ling Wen first for it is her job to know such things. She frowns thoughtfully when she hears the news and she remembers a certain fallen god and a ghost all in black who rejected heaven to search for him and she remembers her orders from Jun Wu but a new calamity has ascended and has set thousands of temples burning and has torn 33 gods down from their alters and it’s all Ling Wen can do to keep the heavens themselves from collapsing. Much as she wants to, she does not have time to look for a pair of stray gods.

The rumor comes to Pei Ming and it’s not to do with women or war so he pays it little attention, although once, after seeing the statue of the unconscious spirit in the god’s arms, he does remark to Ling Wen that the whole things seems “quite romantic.”

The rumor comes to the two newly ascended gods of the South and when they hear the story of the banished god dressed in cultivators robes with a cursed shackle on his neck they both go pale. They do search, separately at first, and then, begrudgingly, together, but by then the trail is cold and there is nothing to find. There are no clues for them to follow for they know nothing about a benevolent ghost in black. The only ghost they know is dressed in crimson and driven by blood and fury.

It will be still more years till Xie Lian hears anything of this. For now he escorts the human travelers to the exit of the mountain pass and then, alone except for the band on his wrist and the unconscious ghost in his arms, he begins his climb back up the mountain.

Chapter Text

--Now—

When Wu Ming ascended Xie Lian felt…

He has no words to describe what he felt. Glad? Relieved? Proud? Shocked that a ghost could ascend, jubilant that heaven had /finally/ recognized Wu Ming as the one meant to ascend…

…Or something else

Something shameful and selfish and empty that wanted to cling onto Wu Ming and never never let him go.

But he should have known better shouldn’t he? He wasn’t trying to find Wu Ming in order to ease his own loneliness. He was doing it in order to make immense. He holds no claim over Wu Ming. Wu Ming’s heart already belongs to another and it is Xie Lian’s job to reunite him with that other and no more. As a god Wu Ming would have no need of Xie Lian for that, would have no need of Xie Lian at all, and that’s how it should be.

Xie Lian only ever brings him pain.

It’s with these thoughts and others like them in his mind that Xie Lian stepped out of the cave. He planned to use the little bucket one of the travelers left with him to gather some snow to melt for water. Then he would tidy up the cave and see what he could find to build an altar.

As the place of Wu Ming’s ascension what better place for his first shrine?

What Xie Lian had not expected was the black shape streaking down from above, what he had not expected was to recognize in that figure one he thought was now beyond his reach forever.

What he had not expected was that Wu Ming would return to him yet again.

Now Xie Lian stairs at Wu Ming in utter bewilderment, his body still shaking with the shock of his emotions and his eyes still filling with silent tears and he doesn’t know what to think.

“You jumped!?”

Wu Ming nods, a little color rising into his pale cheeks. He looks baffled and stunned and a bit sheepish, and he’s here, he’s really here.

“But why?” Xie Lian’s voice shakes a little on the question and he’s honestly not sure if it’s from tears or simple shock.

“Because you weren’t there.” Wu Ming says it so earnestly that it steals all the breath from Xie Lian’s body and before he can recover the ability to speak the ghost continues. “Why would I want to stay in a place that rejects my god?”

“Wu Ming…” The name leaves his mouth in half a gasp and half a laugh and he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “You reject godhood just for that? Just for me?”

“I would do anything for your highness.” Wu Ming stairs Xie Lian in the eye, grave certainty and dedication ringing in his voice and those words crash over Xie Lian like a wave, like the tide pulling him under. He could drown in those words and never once try to find the surface.

“Wu Ming you…” Xie Lian lets out something that’s half a laugh and half a sob and then, unable to find the words for what he’s feeling, he throws himself at the ghost again, pulling him close once more, holding him as tightly as he can and burying his head in the ghost’s shoulder. It’s partly because in that moment he has the sudden desperate need to hold him …and partly to hide his blush.

…Though in the split second before he hides his face against Wu Ming’s robes, he thinks he glimpses color in the ghost’s cheeks too.

“Your highness…” The ghost’s voice sounds weakly puzzled and he stands there stiffly for a moment before slowly tightening his arms around Xie Lian again as though not sure if he’s allowed to touch the god so familiarly.

Again there’s silence between them as Xie Lian gathers himself, and then, with his face buried against the crook of Wu Ming’s neck he asks, “Why do you still have so much faith?”

“Because your highness is my prince and my only god and I will always be your most devoted believer.” There is still so much certainty in Wu Ming’s voice as though what he’s saying is obvious, nothing more than simple facts.

“But I’m not a god or even a prince anymore. I’m…” A calamity, a disgrace, an ill omen, a wandering beggar with nothing to my name but a cursed sword and a bamboo hat. “You know what I’ve become and what I almost did so why…”

Wu Ming’s arms tighten around him and he gets the distinct impression that the ghost is trying to protect him, from the world, or maybe from himself?

“Your highness will always be your highness to me.”

Those words draw a dry sob from Xie Lian’s lips. It’s not the first time Wu Ming has said that exact thing to him but back then Xie Lian spit the words back in the ghost’s face just like he did with everything else back in those days.

“I’m sorry…” Xie Lian whispers the words into Wu Ming’s robe. “I was so awful to you…”

“Your highness has nothing to apologize for.”

“Yes I do.” Xie Lian’s voice is a little louder this time, filled with sudden fierce determination. “I do. I treated you terribly and I should apologize for it.”

“Your highness never did anything that bothered me.” The ghost replies stubbornly and Xie Lian almost has to laugh. Wu Ming has always been so incredibly stubborn, it’s one of the things Xie Lian loves about him.

The thought slips through his mind easily, naturally, as if it’s always been true, and it catches Xie Lian completely by surprise, turning him to ice and stone in Wu Ming’s arms.

Loves? What is he thinking? Have his years of loneliness and days of tending Wu Ming alone in the cave and all of his musings on Wu Ming’s beloved really effected him so much?

By all the gods all of this only started because Wu Ming has a beloved, one he’s so devoted to that he’s been willing to renounce the peace of death and bind himself to this world all for the sake of that beloved.

What is Xie Lian doing, clinging to him as though his devotion means more than that of any mortal to their god?

…But what mortal has ever gone so far for their god as Wu Ming has gone for him?

The thought only flusters and confuses him farther and in a desperate attempt to exert some control over his own mind Xie Lian hastily releases Wu Ming, stumbling backward away from the ghost’s embrace, but in his rush and agitation he’s not careful of his injured ankle and his foot comes down wrong and buckles beneath him. For a moment Xie Lian thinks that he will crash to the ground but then there’s a hand grabbing his arm and another one wrapping around his waist, catching him, supporting him, holding him up.

The way Wu Ming always has.

“Your highness, what’s wrong?” The worry is sharp in the ghost’s voice and Xie Lian hastily tries to reassure him.

“Ah, it’s nothing, it’s nothing.” He’s just being foolish. He needs to stop. He’s here to help Wu Ming. That’s all. Nothing else.

“Your highness, forgive this servant for contradicting you,” Wu Ming’s voice is gentler now, but ah, there’s that stubbornness again, “But it’s /not/ nothing. You’re hurt.”

“It’s only my ankle. Nothing to worry about.” Xie Lian tries to wave the ghost’s worry away, his cheeks burning with acute awareness of the feel of that arm around his waist.

“No, it’s not. Your highness, how badly have you been hurt?”

“Ah…” Xie Lian pauses, collecting himself, glancing down at the many small injuries that cover his body, filling the back of his mind with a constant dull haze of pain. The blush fades from his cheeks as he really takes in his own sorry state, the torn bloody robes, all the bruises, some of them stinging with the beginnings of infection from how he neglected them in favor of caring for Wu Ming.

What has he been doing? Getting so flustered? What need does he, a ruin of a former god, have for being flustered? Dwelling on such impossible things as love is childish and he has left his childhood far behind, buried in the bloody soil of a Xianle battlefield.

“I’m alright, really.” His own voice is quieter now, more certain, and yet even as he says it he sways a little on his feet, his body giving the lie to the words. Maybe it has reached the end of its endurance, or maybe it just recognizes that it’s finally safe for him to collapse.

“Your highness, when was the last time you ate? When was the last time you slept?”

“I…” Now that Wu Ming asks, Xie Lian can’t quite remember. It’s been 3 days since they parted from the travelers. Has he eaten since then? Has he slept? He’s been so afraid to let Wu Ming out of his sight, so afraid that he’ll vanish again if Xie Lian so much as blinks…

“Your highness!” There’s worry in Wu Ming’s voice and the arm around Xie Lian’s waist tightens and the god belatedly realizes that it’s because Xie Lian’s leaning more into Wu Ming now, barely managing to keep his feet.

“Don’t worry.” Xie Lian’s voice sounds muzzy and unconvincing even to his own ears. “I’m just …a bit tired.”

He expects the ghost to call him on his obvious lie but he doesn’t, he only nods. “Alright, then may I take your highness somewhere you can safely rest?”

There’s an odd trepidation, maybe even fear in Wu Ming’s voice as he asks the question, but Xie Lian’s senses have already blurred out too much for him to take any notice.

“Alright.” Xie Lian slumps weakly into Wu Ming’s body and the last words to leave his lips before darkness claims him are, “I trust you.”

Chapter Text

Xie Lian wakes to cool stone beneath his back and the intoxicating smell of food.

“Wu Ming?”

There’s no answer. Xie Lian opens his eyes and pushes himself to a sitting position, gazing around himself in confusion. He’s on a stone slab vaguely the size and shape of a bed and when he sits up something falls off of his shoulders. He looks down and finds that he’s been covered in both his thin blanket and also Wu Ming’s outer robe.

That ghost… Xie Lian can’t help the fondness in the thought or the swell of affection in his chest that follows. When was the last time he had someone who cared if he was cold or not?

…The last time he and Wu Ming were together.

The thought is painful enough to break the warm bubble of his thoughts and Xie Lian quickly distracts himself by taking in the rest of his surroundings. He’s in a cave a little larger than the one he was nursing Wu Ming in and, judging by the darkness beyond the mouth and the lack of wind, this cave is part of a larger tunnel complex. In the center of the cave is a fire and two skinny rabbits lay freshly cooked beside it. That must have been the smell that woke him. The cave is dry and relatively warm and there’s even food, and it’s an improvement in every way except the only one that matters.

No Wu Ming.

Panic twists Xie Lian’s stomach. What if something’s happened to the ghost? What if he’s trapped or hurt or left or… A movement from the side of the cave catches his eye and Xie Lian spins toward it, mind flooding first with relief and then with surprise. The movement isn’t Wu Ming, in fact it isn’t a person at all. It’s a scimitar …Wu Ming’s scimitar

As Xie Lian watches the blade lifts itself off of the ledge it was sitting on and wobbles through the air in the direction of the fire where it drops down almost to the ground before rising up again, its movements as ungainly as a toddler’s.

Utterly diverted Xie Lian can’t help but watch as the beautiful sword bobs up and down and on his arm he feels Rouye stir inquisitively. After the fourth unsteady bob Xie Lian begins seeing a pattern to its movements, the way it drifts up and a bit toward him then back down toward the rabbits.

“Are you, trying to get me to come over?”

The blade shakes in the air in a gesture Xie Lian can only interpret as a nod. Sliding off of the stone slab the god walks over to the blade and stops, looking down at it. Close as he is he can see now that blade is looking back at him, the crimson eye on its hilt, closed the whole time Wu Ming was unconscious, is open now and staring up at Xie Lian with obvious joy. Xie Lian smiles down at it.

“Hello there, aren’t you cute.” The blade bobs upward a bit and on impulse Xie Lian reaches out and gives it a few pats. From the way the eye closes in pleasure, Xie Lian guesses that it enjoys the attention.

“Did Wu Ming leave you here to look after me?”

The blade blinks at him which Xie Lian guesses is a ‘yes.’

That ghost…

“If he doesn’t have you to look after him he could be hurt. We should go find him.”

The blade bobs down toward the rabbits again.

“You won’t let me go till after I eat something?”

Another bob, this time accompanied by the growling of Xie Lian’s own stomach.

“Alright.”

Xie Lian settles onto the floor and as he does he notices something in the dust beside him. Squinting down at it he realizes that what he’s looking at seems to be some sort of writing but the characters are sharp and angled in a way that’s unfamiliar to him. Maybe a different language?

Shrugging off the thought, Xie Lian sets to work on the first rabbit, his hunger and worry for Wu Ming causing him to make quick work of it. When the blade tries to poke him toward the second rabbit Xie Lian shakes his head. “That’s Wu Ming’s. We need to find him.”

Xie Lian gets to his feet again and, sliding the adorable scimitar into his belt next to Fang Xin, the god passes out of the cave and into the hall beyond. It’s dark in that hall and before Xie Lian has gone more than a few steps he bumps into something solid blocking his path. Curious Xie Lian runs his fingers over the burrier and finds to his surprise that what lies beneath his fingers is a face made all of stone …a statue. What is a statue doing here?

Curious and not wanting to risk walking into any more statues in the dark, Xie Lian returns to the cave he woke in and pulls a half burned stick from the fire. Makeshift torch in hand the god returns to the tunnel …and freezes.

The statue …is him.

Xie Lian is dressed in princely finery, his hair pinned with combs, his makeup exquisite. He looks nothing like the fallen god in his ragged blood caked robes, and yet it’s him.

…What?

…What???

For a long time Xie Lian just stares at the statue, blinking over and over again as though if he blinks enough the form will change into one that makes more sense and yet …nothing happens. The statue remains just as he first saw it, royal and beautiful and …him.

That’s when Xie Lian notices that there’s something behind the statue. He walks toward it …and it’s another statue. This one is dressed in cultivator’s robes, a sword in his hand as though he’s training.

Xie Lian’s mind is a buzz. He doesn’t know what to think. Is this some illusion? But no, he felt the stone with his own hands. This is real.

…How is this real?

Utterly lost Xie Lian continues walking down the tunnel passing statue after statue of himself until he freezes, his eyes going wide and his cheeks going hot.

The statue before him is laying on a stone bed, it’s body draped languidly over the covers, its head is propped up on one hand, its eyes half lidded, a sensual curve to its lips, love marks on its neck, its free hand beckoning the viewer closer.

The statue is naked.

The statue is him.

Xie Lian is so busy staring at the statue that he’s not aware that he’s no longer alone until he hears the soft thud of something hitting the ground.

The god spins, his cheeks heating more, flustered as though it’s somehow his fault that he’s staring at a naked statue of himself, not just naked but…

The sight that greets Xie Lian’s eyes have them widening in surprise. Wu Ming stands before him dressed in his inner robe. Beside him on the ground is a small pile of firewood and another rabbit as though he just dropped them, but Wu Ming is making no attempt to pick them up, in fact he’s making no attempt to do anything. He’s just staring at Xie Lian, his lips parted, his face impossibly pale, his eye wide and full of terror.

The sight sends worry pricking through Xie Lian and he steps hastily toward the ghost.

“Wu Ming? What’s wrong?”

The ghost’s eye flicks from the statue back to Xie Lian again but he makes no other move as though he himself has been turned to a statue and in a flash Xie Lian remembers.

Before he passed out the ghost asked to take him to a safe place.

This must be the safe place.

…Which means Wu Ming’s been here before.

…Which means Wu Ming knows the statues are here.

…Which means…

Xie Lian feels his throat go dry. Unable to resist he glances over his shoulder at the naked seductive statue of himself and then slowly he turns back to the terrified ghost before him.

“Wu Ming… Did you make these?”

“Forgive me.” The words are only a whisper on the ghost’s lips. He’s shaking now, his destress so obvious that Xie Lian is torn between his instinct to rush to him and comfort him and the need to understand, those statues …/that/ statue.

“Why would you?”

The ghost says nothing only looks at Xie Lian in mute horror as though living in his worst nightmare and even with the way his own mind is buzzing, Xie Lian so can’t bare the destress in Wu Ming’s eyes that he bends down and props the torch against the cave wall and takes a few quick steps closer to Wu Ming before freezing as a sudden thought comes to him.

The first few statues do actually make sense. Xie Lian is Wu Ming’s god and for some strange reason even after everything the ghost still believes in him, so maybe it’s not so strange that he would build statues to Xie Lian, but this statue…

Xie Lian glances back at it again, his cheeks heating at the mere sight. …Is this how Wu Ming imagines him, naked, and covered in marks and so… so… Xie Lian’s cheeks burn even brighter just at the thought.

But why would Wu Ming see him this way?

Wu Ming who has a beloved.

Wu Ming who’s love for that person runs so deep that it sustains him even after death.

Wu Ming who lingers on as a ghost for his beloved’s sake, for…

‘Why would I want to stay in a place that rejects my god?’

‘I would do anything for your highness.’

‘Your highness is my prince and my only god and I will always be your most devoted believer.’

‘Your highness will always be your highness to me.’

Xie Lian’s breath is coming too quickly. His heart is pounding. His blood rushing in his ears so loudly that he can barely hear his own shaking voice.

“Wu Ming, the beloved you spoke of, the one whose wrongs you wanted to avenge, your reason for still being, is it… is it…”

Xie Lian looks back at the ghost in time to see him turn away, his hands balling into fists that don’t fully conceal the way they’re shaking.

“If your highness already knows then why ask?”

Xie Lian sucks in a sharp breath. How long has he been jealous of ‘the beloved’? How envious has he been knowing that they have Wu Ming’s affections, Wu Ming’s heart. How angry has he been with himself for begrudging Wu Ming anything that can bring him joy? And yet… And yet… Suddenly Xie Lian wants to laugh, or maybe cry? He isn’t sure. He isn’t sure of a lot of things, not how he got so lucky or how someone as perfect as Wu Ming could love someone like him or how that love could have survived Xie Lian’s cruelty. And yet here they are, and it has, oh it has.

With quick footsteps Xie Lian crosses the cave and rests his hand lightly on the ghost’s shoulder. Wu Ming starts at the touch, his shoulder stiffening as though he expects a blow and just the thought makes Xie Lian’s heart ache.

“Wu Ming, will you look at me?”

The ghost says nothing and the tension doesn’t leave him, but slowly he does turn and the sheer terror and pain in Wu Ming’s eye makes Xie Lian feel like someone just placed a fist around his heart and squeezed. Does Wu Ming expect to be rejected? Can he truly imagine that Xie Lian won’t want him?

…But how would he know? When Xie Lian was so cruel to him, so dismissive, so...

“Wu Ming…” Xie Lian starts then trails off, the cruel name a bitter taste on his tongue. How can he say what he wants to and yet still keep using such a cruel name? “I can’t keep calling you that. Is there some other name? Something you want to be called?”

“I…” Wu Ming’s eye flicks to Xie Lian than away again, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Your highness can call me whatever you like.”

“Stubborn.” Xie Lian says it affectionately. “But I can’t keep calling you that, I really can’t. Isn’t there anything else?”

Wu Ming is silent for a few moments, then, slowly, tentatively, “I was the third son of my family. …Your highness could call me San Lang?”

“San Lang.” Xie Lian repeats the name and at the sound of it the ghost’s eye flicks toward him again, hope briefly gleaming in its depths, before it winks out as he looks away, and Xie Lian can’t allow that any more than he can allow this to continue one moment longer. He throws his arms around Wu Ming, San Lang, and drags him close, clutching him to his chest and burying his face against the ghost’s shoulder. “My San Lang…”

San Lang stiffens in surprise at the embrace, the breath he no longer needs catching in his throat. “W-What..?”

The question comes out in a voice shaky and hoarse and Xie Lian just holds him tighter.

“I’ve spent so long being jealous of your beloved, telling myself I wasn’t, and then you came back to me, abandoned heaven for me, and I couldn’t lie to myself anymore and I realized… Realized…”

A soft gasp leaves San Lang’s lips and then cool arms close around Xie Lian, holding the god every bit as tightly as the god is holding him. “Your highness…” And now there’s hope in the voice and joy and it’s everything Xie Lian wants to hear there and he vows to himself that, no matter what it takes, he’ll keep that joy there forever.

“Beloved…”

They stay like that for a long time, holding each other, two lost souls who have finally found where they belong. At last it’s San Lang who pulls back first, not all the way, just far enough that he can look down at Xie Lian, adoration burning bright as starlight in his eye.

“Did you really come to Mount Tonglu to find me?”

Xie Lian raises his head from the ghost’s shoulder and nods and his heart leaps at the look of in that beautiful eye.

“Did you really abandon heaven just for me?”

This time it’s San Lang who nods.

A shaky laugh leaves Xie Lian’s lips. “What did I do to deserve you?”

San Lang leans forward until his forehead is touching Xie Lian’s. “You existed, that’s enough.”

Xie Lian’s breath catches in his throat but before he can formulate any sort of response to those wonderful amazing impossible words, a startled gasp leaves his lips as San Lang suddenly scoops Xie Lian into his arms and begins carrying him back toward the cave he woke up in.

“San Lang!? I can walk…” The words come out half laughing and San Lang smiles but shakes his head.

“Your highness is still injured. You still need to rest.”

“What about the things you brought? The rabbit and the firewood?”

“I can go back for them.”

Xie Lian lets out a soft huff of breath, his cheeks going pink. “Stubborn…” Still he settles into Sand Lang’s arms, and it’s not a bad feeling.

As the ghost lowers him back onto the stone bed he asks, “Why did your highness ignore my note?”

“Your note?” Xie Lian blinks up at him blankly.

San Lang glances over toward the fire.

“My note, begging you not to leave the cave.”

Xie Lian’s eyes follow his and he remembers the strange scribbling he found in the dust when he went to eat and his eyes widen.

“That was… Oh! I’m sorry San Lang, I couldn’t read it.”

The ghost flushes slightly and glances away and Xie Lian reaches up quickly and rests a gentle hand on his cheek.

“It’s alright. We were at war for years. It’s no wonder you didn’t have time to practice your calligraphy. Don’t be ashamed. I can teach you.”

San Lang looks back at Xie Lian eye wide and lips parted, the color creeping higher up his cheeks. For a long moment he just stares at Xie Lian like the god is the only thing in the whole world and then, slowly, he smiles.

“I would like that.”

***

They spend another three days in that cave both resting and talking and holding each other close, healing from their wounds and from all that they’ve suffered. On the fourth day they walk through the tunnels to the place where the cave opens to the sky and to the kiln waiting below and they put their arms around each other and hold each other tight.

“Come back to me.” Xie Lian whispers.

“I will. I promise. I’ll always come back to you.”

At last it’s San Lang who breaks the embrace, pulling reluctantly from his god’s arms, but he can’t bear to part yet either so he catches one of Xie Lian’s hands in his own and presses his lips to the back of it. Xie Lian’s eyes widen, a faint flush rising to his cheeks.

“When I come back,” the ghost tells him, “I’m going to kiss you properly.”

Xie Lian’s breath catches, the blush darkening and then he’s nodding. “Yes, yes I would like that.”

And so San Lang descends into the kiln and Xie Lian waits in the cave of Ten Thousand Gods and every day he comes to the cave entrance and looks down and waits, and every night he falls asleep clutching the crystal ring which now hangs around his neck.

Like that one day passes and then two, one week passes and then two, and then, finally, in the third week, the mountain opens and far above the heaven’s tremble as the Crimson Rain Sought Flower emerges from its depths and there on the ledge of the cave, just where they last parted, he finds his god and takes him in his arms and kisses him in just the way he’s always dreamed of and Xie Lian melts into his ghost king’s arms and it’s everything both could ever want.

From Heaven to Earth, From Earth to Heaven,
where ever, whenever, it doesn’t matter,
As long as they’re together.