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As Xie Lian drank some water, in the afternoon in a sunny field, he thought of what the villagers had asked, and what Hua Cheng had responded with. A beloved. Virtuous. Beautiful, a wife at home.
After trying to hold it in for a while, he still couldn’t help but ask, “...is that true?”
Hua Cheng took the bamboo bottle and drank a swallow himself, his Adam’s apple rolling up and down once, before he lowered his head. He looks up with an unreadable expression in his eyes. "No," he says, quietly.
For an old ghost like Hua Cheng, he really must have someone important to him that has made him stay, dead or alive. His home was empty, unlike other ghosts who made it about themselves. Hua Cheng had no passion for staying in the living world for his own sake, Xie Lian realized. For the second time in the day, he couldn't help but blurt out a question he would normally never ask: "Why are you wandering?"
Hua Cheng had paused from where he was squatting against the row of dirt marking the water-troughs, prodding a weak seedling he himself had planted not an hour ago. He looked up flashed a weak smile.
"A friend. A dear friend that I have lost, and one that I seek to find," Hua Cheng said, wiping sweat off his face as he straightened up from where he was bothering the seedling, "That's why I'm wandering."
"Oh," Xie Lian said, and schooled his face into a facade of calmness as he asked, "Have you found them?"
Hua Cheng looks at him, albeit a bit wildly, and smirks. Xie Lian smacks his arm and crows, "San Lang, don't tease!"
"Oh, gege," Hua Cheng cries and pretends to swoon, "Mayhaps you be my long-lost friend."
Meanwhile, Xie Lian was torn between immense jealousy for the person who San Lang must have chased the ends of the world for, and a desperate hope that Hua Cheng would choose Xie Lian as a friend over anyone else.
As Xie Lian looks at the unbreathing corpse of Hua Cheng lying in the sand, he puts all his misgivings aside and pushes his lips onto Hua Cheng’s. When Hua Cheng tells him not to do it this way for anyone else, he laughs and says,
“Of course, San Lang, you’re the only one who is my good friend like this. Other people would misunderstand, but I will never misunderstand you.”
Hua Cheng stares at the sand.
As he is kissed into the altar, Xie Lian wonders what he will tell Hua Cheng when he comes to. Nothing, hopefully. Xie Lian would never misunderstand Hua Cheng's intentions. As he moans into the mouth pushing him down, he thinks of why it shouldn't be this way.
“A friend! An old friend, he says!” Mu Qing spits from where he is standing in the hallway of the cave, looking disbelievingly at Xie Lian.
“If you’re only going to be difficult, then you should leave,” Xie Lian says, and the silks binding Mu Qing and Feng Xin reared backward, dragging them through unknown corridors and caverns.
In the silence of the revelations that had been made and surrounded by a thousand statues and one form of the same person, Hua Cheng said, “Gege.”
“San Lang, a lot of things have happened, don’t you agree?”
Hua Cheng nods stiffly, and closes his eye with a swallow.
“I want to ask you a question. I hope you will answer me honestly.”
Xie Lian’s hands were brushing the sides of Hua Cheng’s arms, holding him in place.
“The one you are looking for, is it me?”
Hua Cheng opens his eye, staring intensely as he says, “Yes”.
He suddenly finds his arms full with a body a head shorter than him. As he hugs back, he hears Xie Lian say, “I’m glad it is me.”
On the statue of the God Pleasing Crown Prince, Hua Cheng grips Xie Lian’s hand and Xie Lian feels a flux of spiritual energy, pulling the statue upright from where it had started leaning sideways.
Xie Lian smiles at his nice Ghost King, who had followed him to the ends of the earth. His reason for living. Maybe, once all this is over, he can have a happy ending
As Jun Wu laughs behind Xie Lian, Hua Cheng pulls him close and puts a hand on his chest.
“Gege,” he says, as the sheer amount of spiritual energy he channels into Xie Lian’s form blows his hair back, his eye shining and wonderful, “I believe in you.”
A few months after the fateful day of Hua Cheng’s return, where both of them had cuddled and hugged like good friends are wont to, Xie Lian was put in deep thought due to strange questions. He was working in the fields in the village again while Hua Cheng was woefully cutting wood for the shrine. Hua Cheng didn’t want to be parted so soon, but Xie Lian was so full of energy that Hua Cheng had given him that he didn’t want to sit in one place. A year was more than enough. And so, Hua Cheng had been ordered to chop wood while Xie Lian squatted in the fields and picked out the upper edges of the shin-length crops.
“DaoZhang!,” The old woman who was also working in the fields today called out, “Where is your xiao-Hua?”
“He is at the shrine, chopping wood,” Xie Lian said, tipping his bamboo hat, “I apologise for depriving you from his good company.”
“No, no! Who you are depriving from his company is his beloved wife, who must be missing him. He works for you night and day, how will he keep his wife happy and give her children?”
At the mention a non-existent woman being “given” children, Xie Lian hid his flushed face beneath his hat. He had no response to that, so the old lady went back to the part of the field she was tending to.
Xie Lian kept his head pleasantly blank from all thoughts as he worked, and yet what the woman said kept nudging the back of his mind. Until:
He passed a pair of young lovers kissing under a tree, seemingly unaware of their presence in the line of sight of the road that led to the shrine. They were kissing passionately; Xie Lian was reminded of Hua Cheng that night, in Qiandeng temple. He was reminded of the kiss beneath the water, and the kiss on the beach, and the many times Xie Lian had taken kisses from Hua Cheng that he should be saving for a loved one, but wasn’t, because he had dedicated his whole life to Xie Lian.
Xie Lian knew, and was immensely grateful, that Hua Cheng had committed his life and death-span to him, but as he looked at the young lovers kissing in the shade of the tree, he couldn’t help but ask himself: what if Xie Lian wasn’t enough?
Will Hua Cheng take on a lover?
It is a thought that has been running through Xie Lian’s head since that fateful day; he sees young couples holding hands in the market, or leading a child between them, and thinks of what it’d be like to be in love like that. Hua Cheng is not restricted like Xie Lian is. Xie Lian respects Hua Cheng enough to not question his desire to remain unwed, but surely he must know that Xie Lian would not stop him from getting a wife? Xie Lian thinks of this as he stirs the pot and looks at San Lang sitting at the table a few feet away, with his sword on the opposite side of the room and his guard down. Xie Lian feels a pit in his stomach from questioning Hua Cheng’s inclinations and devotion like this, for he knows that Hua Cheng remains in this world only out of faith for Xie Lian. At the same time, there is a strange excitement in him at the prospect of Hua Cheng acquiring a beloved, leaving Xie Lian’s stomach roiling and chest aching, likely from the immense joy he feels at the idea. A family, a life and love are very important, but Xie Lian must also not insist on it, for he does not wish for Hua Cheng to feel incomplete for not wanting those things. Pondering how to bring up this delicate and sensitive topic, Xie Lian stirs the congealed mass of vegetables in the pot, and adds a cup full of oil to the black tar to make it wetter.
Xie Lian wonders how to ask Hua Cheng about this. He might not even want a lover, Xie Lian thinks, and the excitement he was feeling previously suddenly calms down at this thought, immediately sinking into an almost meditative peace.
Lost in thought and used to being honest, Xie Lian blurts out, “San Lang, do you want children?”
Hua Cheng is so surprised his spoon drops back into the soup with a plop; he never thought His Highness would be so forward! They hadn’t even done the things you do before having children together, and yet His Highness was thinking forward into the years! Truly a visionary.
As Xie Lian watches, Hua Cheng’s face turns beet-red. Looking down as to hide his face in his hair, Hua Cheng pulls his trembling hand back to rest his chin on it. Xie Lian thinks Hua Cheng looks very funny trying to suavely lean on his elbows while his face is still red enough to fry eggs on.
“G-Gege,” Hua Cheng says, stutteringly, “I would do anything for you.” His eyes shine with a strange sort of fervor.
“San Lang, I am asking you what you want,” Xie Lian chides, “Don’t be silly; whatever you want, I will make happen.” Xie Lian had granted enough fertility wishes to be confident in the area.
“Gege, I--” Hua Cheng pauses, takes a deep breath, leans forward, and continues, “Yes. Anything.”
Xie Lian is a bit taken aback at how fervently Hua Cheng wants this; he was right in bringing this up when he did. He says cheerfully to Hua Cheng, “You just wait,” and runs out the door to find the villager with the pretty, young daughter.
Hua Cheng stares at the door for quite a while afterwards.
Xie Lian bustled about the shrine, cleaning it, setting up the chairs, as he told Hua Cheng about the girl who had agreed to come to the shrine with the family. It was tricky, telling the villagers that Hua Cheng had lied before, but they were quite understanding when Xie Lian told them he was shy. “She’s coming with the older brother and mother, ” Xie Lian said, “The father passed away a few years ago, so don’t ask about him,” he continued as he ran a cloth on the table.
This was when he noticed that Hua Cheng was busy carving a hole into the wall randomly.
“They will be here soon, San Lang, what are you doing?!” he reprimanded as he wrenched the knife out of Hua Cheng’s grasp. He waved the knife menacingly and said, “Behave.”
Hua Cheng sat quietly after that. Xie Lian got back to vigorously cleaning the table. After a few minutes of silence, Xie Lian thought something was wrong; Hua Cheng never took any reprimands to heart, and he was sitting on the chair curled into himself, unresponsive to the world.
“San Lang, why are you so forlorn about this?” No response. “I can find someone else, just let me--”
“Gege, I do have a beloved,” Hua Cheng says looking up, a strange seriousness in his eyes.
Xie Lian felt bad. “Why did you not tell me? You know that I would’ve never asked you to stay with me if I didn’t think you wanted to.”
“Gege,” Hua Cheng says plaintively, “Of course I want to be here.”
Xie Lian looks at the hands in his lap. They’re softer now, because of the spiritual energy that Hua Cheng had given him. “Then why?” asks Xie Lian quietly.
“To be honest, gege, I didn’t have the face to tell you,” Hua Cheng said, and a niggling suspicion attached itself to Xie Lian’s mind. “I didn’t want you to be scared of me,” and the suspicion in Xie Lian’s mind flared.
“Why would I be scared of you?” Xie Lian leaned forward as he said this, carefully looking at the lovelorn expression Hua Cheng was making, truly listening to what Hua Cheng wasn’t saying, for once.
Hua Cheng sat quietly, and the silence stretched on. “San Lang,” Xie Lian took his hand in his as he asked softly, “who is it you love?”
Hua Cheng put their combined hands to Xie Lian’s cheek, and reached for his lips with his own.
Xie Lian kissed him back, and felt the world crack open at the seams, bursting into colour.