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He Xuan expects his debt to be cleared completely when Crimson Rain returns. Really, after the work He Xuan has done keeping things in check at Ghost City, plus the absolute havoc wreaked in the South Sea, Hua Cheng should owe him money, for once. If Hua Cheng doesn’t decide to disperse him on his return.
Perhaps he could get Crimson Rain to fund a renovation of Nether Water Manor. It could use it- He Xuan grimaces slightly at the overgrowth of algae in his lake, the craters in the walls of his residence left by the meddling heavenly officials. He Xuan has been avoiding this place recently, but Ghost City was tiring and noisy, and here he is assured he will not be disturbed.
Except, it would appear, he actually isn’t. As He Xuan turns around the corner of the main walkway, he sees an all too familiar figure standing outside the gate, white robes near blinding against the murkiness of Black Water Island.
He Xuan’s own dark clothing does not provide such contrast, and he is far enough away that he has not yet been noticed. He could leave now with no one the wiser. He could dive into the water and sleep a few years at the bottom of the sea. Perhaps when he woke he’d be prepared for this interaction. Probably not.
Regardless, He Xuan does not jump into the sea. He tells himself that Hua Cheng definitely owes him money now, and calls out to the figure in front of him. “Are you- lost?”
The Crown Prince of Xianle looks lost, certainly. He startles slightly at He Xuan’s voice, and turns quickly to face him with wide eyes and rigid posture.
“Ah. No, Lord Earth- Water- Hei Shui Chen- er. Scholar He? I don’t know what you prefer.”
He Xuan is not sure that he has ever once been asked what he prefers to be called. When they first met, Crimson Rain had greeted him as “Lord Black Water,” and He Xuan had flinched against it.
“My name is He Xuan,” he’d said.
“No one will use it.” Hua Cheng had known, even then. “I can, if you want. But there are stories already, and you are Hei Shui Chen Zhou to anyone who hears them.”
For centuries, He Xuan has not been addressed in name by anyone other than Hua Cheng. Perhaps, in light of that, he can be granted this indulgence.
“I prefer He Xuan, if you can believe it,” he tells Xie Lian, lowering his voice to normal now that he’s crossed the rest of the entry path.
“Oh, I can. He Xuan, then.” Hua Cheng’s prince kicks at the ground. One of the pebbles he displaces makes it to the lake with a small splash, and a drop of water lands on the hem of his robe.
He Xuan wonders if it will stain. “Can this He Xuan help you, Your Highness?”
“Xie Lian,” he says immediately. “If you don’t mind. I prefer Xie Lian.” His smile is wry.
Evidence would suggest he prefers gege. “Can I help you, Xie Lian?” As he hears the words leave his lips, He Xuan half expects Crimson Rain to be summoned back for the sole purpose of scolding He Xuan’s familiarity.
“I hope so.” He looks so earnest. “I just wanted to ask you about San Lang.”
He Xuan wants to sneer a little, at how much they deserve each other. But something old and long still in his chest twinges, and he evens his expression.
Once upon a time, Cai Fang used to laugh at him for being soft-hearted. She would chide him after hearing he had once again given away his lovingly prepared lunch to the first street urchin he saw. You can be a little selfish, she would say. Have a few bites first, at least. His meimei would laugh with Cai Fang, stating how easy it was to trick He Xuan into chores with a slightly pouty face.
By the time he became Hei Shui Chen Zhou, he had no heart left, soft or otherwise, but. Well. Xie Lian had appealed to He Xuan, after all. He can try.
“He’ll be back,” He Xuan says, quiet but firm.
“I know he will- he promised.” Xie Lian reaches up to fiddle with Hua Cheng’s ring on the chain around his neck.
Hua Cheng often fidgeted with the prince’s red pearl on his braid in the same way. He Xuan wishes he had such a trinket from his loved ones. He has an altar, four urns, and a hole in his chest.
“Promises are nothing.” Judging by the small furrow in his brow, Xie Lian seems to want to protest this, which is fair. A promise from the Crimson Rain Sought Flower to his Flower Crowned Martial God is not nothing.
“Promises aren’t much to go on,” He Xuan qualifies, because he can indulge this man for Hua Cheng, but he can also give something better. Something tangible. “I can still feel him. He’ll be back. He isn’t gone.”
Xie Lian blinks up at him in wonder, and He Xuan supposes that if you absolutely had to sculpt ten thousand likenesses of a face, this wasn’t a bad one to choose. “You feel him?” Xie Lian echoes.
Language is so confining. Feeling. Does one feel the growth of their own fingernails? Does one feel the bones in their body, or the thoughts in their head? Would it be possible for someone not to notice their absence?
He Xuan has no hope of explaining the sensation and knowledge that comes with being a child of Tonglu. He settles instead for the imprecise verbiage of heavenly officials and cultivators who have spent their existence trying to describe the motion of the sea through their observations about a single cup of water.
“His- aura, is still in the Ghost Realm. I just came back from Ghost City- it’s stronger there.” Hua Cheng is Ghost City, he does not say. “We can- or at least, I can, sense major shifts in the balance of power. And it hasn’t happened.”
“Crimson still rules the land, and black masters the sea?”
He Xuan almost smiles. “As you say. He’ll be back. I don’t expect you to be waiting too long, in the scheme of things. But it will still take time.”
“Thank you, He Xuan. That is very- reassuring to hear. But that’s not what I came to ask you about.” Xie Lian’s words come slowly, tentative in a way He Xuan has not seen before. “I will wait for San Lang until he is back, no matter how long it is. In the meantime, I hoped you could just- tell me more about him? What he’s like. What he’s been doing all these years.”
The dreary outskirts of Black Water Island seem suddenly inappropriate for this conversation, for this person. Inside the manor might be worse, considering the last time the Crown Prince of Xianle was here.
His silence seems to disarm Xie Lian, who is now worrying at his necklace with enough force to break an ordinary chain. He Xuan’s chest twinges again.
“Would you like to sit down?” He Xuan asks. “I have a- place.”
Xie Lian nods quickly. “Please.”
He Xuan extends an arm, and they make their way over to the small pond He Xuan keeps some of the younger bonefish in. It’s the closest thing he has to a garden, which is to say, not particularly close, but there’s a bench and some wildflowers He Xuan suspects Hua Cheng had been tending. Before everything.
“Forgive me, I don’t entertain much.” He Xuan says, and gestures at the bench.
“No, this is lovely,” Xie Lian shakes his head, a bright smile on his face. “Are these babies?” He asks, gesturing at the pond. “I didn’t realize you kept such small ones.”
“These are the youngest. They’ll grow,” He Xuan confirms. “But they won’t be like the dragons.” He reaches into his sleeve and pulls out the package of dried meats he’s taken to carrying. A few of the fish begin hopping out, noticing him already, and he throws a handful of small pieces to the pond.
Xie Lian claps his hands, laughing as one of them catches the food midair.
He Xuan’s throat feels dry. “Here,” he says, and holds the packet out to Xie Lian as he sits down beside him on the bench.
Xie Lian looks surprised, but he takes it happily enough and tosses another few pieces towards the pond.
He Xuan watches him for a few moments, thinking very deliberately of no one at all.
When the fish begin to settle, Xie Lian sighs. “They’re very charming, He Xuan.”
“You’d be the first to think so.”
Xie Lian ducks his head, and his hair spills over his shoulder to pool on the bench.
He Xuan places his hands in his lap to make sure he doesn’t touch it accidentally.
“I was just hoping we could talk,” Xie Lian says abruptly. “And maybe you could tell me more about San Lang. Since you’re friends?”
The confinement of language, again.
Friends.
The thing is.
The thing is, Hua Cheng would protest that. He Xuan himself has protested it before.
The thing is, it feels wrong to contradict Xie Lian when he is looking at He Xuan with such vulnerable brightness and expectancy.
The thing is, ghosts, and certainly Ghost Kings, are very ill suited to friends, but He Xuan has not in centuries found a word that is much better for what he and Hua Cheng are.
Acquaintances, the heavenly officials usually assumed. Hei Shui Chen Zhou is a loner, they had whispered amongst themselves. He would keep only to his realm, surely. Xue Yu Tan Hua is far too mercurial to tolerate anyone else even nearby. There must have been some early understanding when he emerged from the Kiln that they would not involve themselves with each other’s affairs. Nothing more than acquaintances, certainly. He Xuan supposed this was comforting for them to believe- two Ghost Kings allied against them was certainly too frightening to even consider.
Inconceivable, that Hua Cheng might have decided to help He Xuan construct Nether Water Manor on a whim, or that Hei Shui Chen Zhou would dedicate himself to learning the history of Xianle to aid Xue Yu Tan Hua's search.
Business partners, Hua Cheng sometimes joked. Coworkers. He Xuan’s only previous business partners had seen it fit first to sell him out to a debtor’s prison and later to watch idly as he struggled to lay his family to rest.
Hua Cheng had far more cause to leave He Xuan to rot in debt than anyone He Sheng had known in life; whatever valued intel Hua Cheng gained from He Xuan’s machinations, he wasn’t getting it any longer, and he was capable enough of procuring information on his own. Yet freely Hei Shui Chen Zhou roamed. They were more than business partners, surely.
Companions, Yin Yu had called them once, on an uncharacteristically bold whim of his. He Xuan had been having a particularly taxing season in the Heavenly Court- a uniquely rainy summer had made the Water Tyrant’s offerings nearly double in hopes of finding safe passage despite storms, and Shi Wudu had been sickeningly smug with power. He Xuan’s rage was near paralyzing over it, and when not in Heaven, he’d taken to secluding himself in Nether Water Manor, screaming and pouring spiritual energy into bone dragons to grow their teeth, their ferocity, their hunger.
After weeks of this, Yin Yu had arrived unannounced at the manor, dice in hand, and asked very calmly if Chengzhu’s companion might take respite in Ghost City for a while to soothe Hua Chengzhu, who Yin Yu described as unstable when idle. Off guard, He Xuan had agreed and was alarmed to find himself entering Hua Cheng’s realm with eagerness as the honey thick blanket of his spiritual energy settled over him, familiar and warm when it should have been stifling.
Even more alarming was entering Paradise Manor to find Hua Cheng hacking at a four-foot hole in the wall, not with an axe, but with E-Ming. “Yin Yu, I told you I’m busy renovating,” Hua Cheng had called over his shoulder as He Xuan stepped inside.
“Clearly,” He Xuan had said with a wry smile, and laughed as Hua Cheng’s shoulders tensed like a child who’d been caught with their hand in a cookie jar.
“He Xuan.” He tucked E-ming away swiftly, but He Xuan caught a glimpse of the scimitar’s eye looking over at him, scrunched into a pleased crescent. “I’m. Renovating.”
“You said that.” The sound of his own voice had been concerningly soft. He should have been able to control it- he’d learned to control every aspect of his appearance and demeanor, this kind of lapse was unconscionable. And yet. “You want to take a break and feed me?”
Hua Cheng had smiled and led him to the kitchens, and as He Xuan’s feet trod the familiar path, he knew he’d gotten far too comfortable in this place, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Brothers, Butcher Zhu had suggested once, and He Xuan had wanted to recoil in distaste from both the idea and the counter laden with human feet. Never mind that he’d called Hua Cheng He Xuan’s xiongzhang. The difference in their ages at death and the time since their death was a source of near constant bickering in the early days of their acquaintance. Whatever his seniority as a Ghost King, Hua Cheng had been a third son in life and died a teenager. He Xuan was raised an eldest son, and lived long enough, disgraced as he may have been, to be called a man.
Beyond that, He Xuan had once had a meimei. He knew what it was to be someone’s brother; his capacity for it had washed away in the same water that smothered him all those years ago. If he was not He Qing’s brother anymore, he could not be anyone’s.
Perhaps Hua Cheng felt the same way, although He Xuan was still not certain the older brothers he sometimes mentioned were real. If they had been, Hua Cheng had been separated from them early, yet he did not smart with the injustice of it as He Xuan did over the loss of He Qing. Perhaps it didn’t matter. The shape of He Xuan and Hua Cheng’s relationship was regardless, not brotherly- born, sworn (what could a swear of loyalty from the lips of a devil be worth, anyway?), or otherwise.
Lovers, Shi Qingxuan had suggested once, conspiratorially. Ming Yi had frozen up slightly before realizing that no, news of He Xuan’s regular visits and extended stays to Paradise Manor had not somehow leaked; Qingxuan simply dreamed up an idea they thought was scandalous and romantic. “Crimson rules the land, and black masters the waters, Ming-Xiong! Hand in hand, do you think? Might the ghosts have a fine royal couple? I wonder if there’s ever been a Heavenly Empress. Or consort, do you think?” Asinine drivel.
Hua Cheng had laughed about it when He Xuan had told him later in hushed whispers against his neck. “Not far off,” he’d said, tangling his fingers into He Xuan’s hair. He Xuan had kissed his way up the column of Hua Cheng’s throat and along his jawline to meet his lips, until Hua Cheng had tugged him back by his hair and met his gaze with a conspiratorial glimmer in his eye. “Would you like another title, Xuanxuan? Hei Shui Chen Zhou, Demon Xuan, Earth Master, Mistress of Ghost City?”
“I have enough. You take it instead. Xue Yu Tan Hua. Hua Chengzhu. Hei Shui Furen.” He Xuan punctuated the words with short kisses.
“Hei Shui Furen,” Hua Cheng had laughed as he slid his free hand down the length of He Xuan's chest all the way down to his hip, his touch languid and slow. “Is that your bid to get someone to manage your sorry excuse for a household? Your place is barely furnished.”
“I have a bed and a dining table.”
“Nothing else planned?” The hand still tangled in He Xuan’s hair tightened as the other wandered further.
“A bigger bed. Lend me some money.” He Xuan’s words had fallen out in gasps.
“Convince me,” came Hua Cheng’s response, and He Xuan could hear the smile in his voice as he pulled He Xuan into place.
They’d stopped talking around then.
Later, He Xuan had woken in an empty bed, as he’d expected to. He had risen to find Hua Cheng in his preferred sitting room, as he’d expected to. He’d eaten the sinfully indulgent spread of food Hua Cheng had ordered him for breakfast and watched Hua Cheng paint a portrait of the Crown Prince of Xianle, as he’d expected to.
Not far off from lovers, Hua Cheng had said. And as he watched Hua Cheng tug a dark inner robe up his shoulder, a garment He Xuan recognized as his own, He Xuan had thought that he agreed. Watching further as Hua Cheng outlined the curve of his god’s smile for the ten thousandth time, He Xuan had thought, not close to lovers either. The four urns He Xuan saw every time he closed his eyes reminded him it was of no real consequence.
Bone of my bone, He Xuan had read once in an old, borrowed text. Flesh of my flesh. This was what he most often considered Hua Cheng in the privacy of his own thoughts. Born out of the ashes of Tonglu’s fire into unfathomable power, singularly bound by the very same ashes.
When He Xuan had first risen and it seemed that he was at risk of splitting apart into the million souls he had devoured and stitched together, Hua Cheng had found him. He’d sensed his presence, Hua Cheng said afterwards, when He Xuan questioned him about it. Neither of them had known then what they would be to each other, but He Xuan had known the thrum of Hua Cheng’s power, radiating off his form in waves that, when they reached He Xuan, did not knock him over, did not swell or crest or break, but went blissfully still.
He Xuan had just spent twelve years training himself to consume the energy of others, to take and to transform into something that matched the blaze inside him. Then suddenly there was Hua Cheng, and there was nothing to change, even if He Xuan had been capable or willing. They already echoed each other. Ah, He Xuan had thought, so there is one who is the same.
But all of this was more than Xie Lian would want to know, more than he should even be allowed to suspect. He Xuan chooses the simplest phrase he can find, because friends was still wrong.
“We are each other’s only peers.” He Xuan directs his words out to the pond, lest Xie Lian catch his gaze and wrench the rest of their story out of him. “But there must be nothing I could tell you of him you do not know. You have known Crimson Rain far longer than this one.”
Xie Lian is not deterred. “I met him earlier- I have not known him longer. And he’s- different around me, I think.”
“He’s better around you.” He smiles around you, he is lighter around you.
Xie Lian laughs, and He Xuan glances over at him, despite himself. The prince’s smile does not sit right, doesn’t reach his eyes. He Xuan has seen this smile ten thousand times. It is wrong, here, now, and he is frustrated with himself for causing it.
“San Lang is always good. But I think he might be less careful, around you.”
This is certainly true. Until seeing him with the Crown Prince in Banyue, He Xuan had not realized Hua Cheng was capable of being so careful. He Xuan inclines his head. “I suppose.”
“I know he was an unhappy child, and a soldier, and that he is an artist, and that he saved me. But I don’t- I don’t even know his favorite food.”
He Xuan wants to protest that Xie Lian knows the important things, that knowledge of the rest is just a function of time, and that he will have time, where He Xuan will not. But the Crown Prince is asking so very little, and there is a tiredness in Xie Lian’s eyes He Xuan has seen in mirrors before.
“Tangyuan,” He Xuan says softly. “His favorite is tangyuan. He likes sweet things, like a child who never got to have dessert.” He Xuan does not mention that the same applies to him. “Egg tarts. Sesame balls. He likes plum wine. Hates green beans.”
Xie Lian’s hand twitches, and He Xuan wonders if he’s wanting to take notes. Hopefully the Crown Prince does not intend to cook any of these foods. “Tangyuan. Thank you.” He throws another piece of food to the fish.
“He’s obsessed with clothes. Has a whole wing of Paradise Manor full of wardrobes and workrooms for the team of seamstresses he’s acquired.”
“A whole wing?”
“Looms, dye pots, rows and rows of closets organized by season. About half for you, actually. The rest-” He Xuan is losing the thread of conversation. “The rest for him.”
“None for you?” Xie Lian asks, and He Xuan can feel his eyes tracing the fine gilded embroidery of his outer robes.
“None for me,” He Xuan lies, but the way he smooths his hand down his sleeve undoubtedly gives him away. “He is a frivolous person. You’ll be smothered in silks if you aren’t careful.” That much is true.
“You don’t think I burned it all in the fire?” Xie Lian asks. “He never showed me.”
“Even if you had, he’d just make it all again. Probably meant it as a surprise for later. Or just didn’t want to scare you off. Sorry for spoiling it,” he adds belatedly.
Xie Lian waves him off. “Thank you for telling me.”
It is beyond mortifying to be thanked by this man, so He Xuan ignores him and begins to list more of the mundane knowledge of Hua Cheng he had not admitted to himself he was hoarding until now. “He hates archery, and he is a light sleeper. He prefers painting to sculpting, but E-ming likes sculpture. He has compiled the finest library I have ever seen. He sometimes shifts forms without noticing. He is terrible at brewing tea and never makes it to the end of a game of weiqi without throwing the board.” He Xuan knows he is showing too many cards at once, but he has grown so weary of games- they are always rigged against him anyway.
He likes to be restrained; there is almost no one in the world capable of restraining him.
He is kinder than he pretends to be, but more wicked than you think.
His ears are sensitive.
He does not own a mirror.
He is the only one who knows me.
He is yours, yours, yours.
“He helped me build this place,” He Xuan finishes weakly. No blood runs through He Xuan’s veins, but the burning he feels across his cheeks and at the back of his neck makes him wonder.
There is a long stretch of quiet, broken up only by the sounds of the water. Maybe it is not too late for He Xuan to dive into the sea and sleep the next few years. Both he and Xie Lian would prefer that, surely.
Eventually Xie Lian’s soft voice ends the silence. “He’ll be back.”
This is a strange thing to tell He Xuan, who already knows this, and he tells Xie Lian so.
“He’ll be back here,” Xie Lian clarifies. “You’re talking like you won’t see him again.”
“Of course I’ll see him again. We have to settle our accounts.” He Xuan speaks with a lightness he has not felt since at least before the Banyue pass, and possibly never at all.
Xie Lian lets out a noise that sounds like a scoff, and that can’t be right, so He Xuan finally faces him again to check.
The Crown Prince’s gaze is disarming- Hua Cheng has never quite captured it in his art. Crimson Rain, in his lovesickness and worship, depicted the beauty and the kindness, but not the sharpness. Perhaps it is because Xie Lian has never looked at Hua Cheng sharply.
“I really couldn’t speak to his accounts, but I can’t imagine San Lang actually cares about any money you might owe him,” Xie Lian says with unfounded confidence.
“He has a good memory,” He Xuan deflects.
“He likes playing games,” Xie Lian offers.
He Xuan could scream that that isn’t reassuring, but if there is one thing that will ensure Hua Cheng never darkens his doorstep again, it is offending the man beside him. He does not respond, but his expression must darken, because suddenly Xie Lian is shaking his head and reaching out to grab He Xuan’s wrist. His hand is scorching, even through the fabric of He Xuan’s heavy silk sleeves.
“Oh! No, I’m not saying you’re a game.” Xie Lian’s grip on He Xuan’s wrist tightens, and then abruptly he lets go, looking embarrassed, and tucks his hands into his own sleeves. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I just meant he might like having something to tease you about.”
“It’s fine,” He Xuan says dully. He has known for centuries that he is a stand-in. He had known, when he called Crimson Rain with the news from Mount Yujun, what it would mean. If he plays nice enough with Hua Cheng’s god, he might get to keep a few scraps of Hua Cheng’s attention every now and then. It will be enough. It will have to be enough. “You’re right.”
Xie Lian frowns, and He Xuan can feel his chances slipping further away. “He Xuan, you know San Lang.”
He does. “I do.”
“Almost no one does. I think that’s significant.”
He Xuan had thought that once as well. He doesn’t now.
The Crown Prince is undeterred. “I mean it. He’s had so much time, and you’re the only person who knows him now. I don’t think he’d give that up.”
I know he would.
Xie Lian’s concern is even more unconscionable than his gratitude. His earnest look is boring holes into He Xuan’s skull, and abruptly He Xuan has run out of patience.
On a better day, he could play pretend longer as the kind man he can’t quite remember being, but today He Xuan is so, so tired. “It doesn’t matter.”
Xie Lian’s concerned frown only deepens. “We’ll see,” he says simply. Blessedly, he doesn’t press any further than that. After a pause, the Crown Prince sighs, and something in his demeanor shifts, his posture going stiffer and his face more blank.
When Xie Lian speaks, his voice is very even. “I should go. Thank you for hosting me, He Xuan. I hope I wasn’t too much of an imposition.”
He Xuan rises as Xie Lian does, and he nods his head in response to Xie Lian’s completely unwarranted bow. “Safe travels,” is all he can bring himself to say. He should ask how Xie Lian got here, how he’s leaving, if he needs an escort. He Xuan does not ask. He wordlessly watches Xie Lian wave goodbye to the bonefish and retrace the overgrown path back to the shore.
“I hope I’ll see you again soon,” Xie Lian calls over his shoulder just before he turns past the gate to be out of view.
He Xuan hopes for rest.