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“Nightmare?”
“Yeah… ahaha… Sorry. Did I wake you up?”
He Xuan gave a noncommittal grunt in response. He turned over in their shared bed to face his lover who had startled awake in the middle of the night wailing a terrible noise He Xuan wished didn’t sound so familiar.
It wasn’t unusual for this sort of thing to happen. Both of them were regularly plagued by nightmares and it had become custom for them to deal with the aftermath together.
“The same one?”
Shi Qingxuan shook his head and wiped a bead of sweat falling from his perfect brow.
Oh, that’s surprising.
He Xuan raised an eyebrow and asked, “Different?”
Shi Qingxuan nodded.
“Do… Do you wish to talk about it?”
He Xuan shimmied up so that he was leaning up on his elbow on the bed opposite his lover. Shi Qingxuan just stared blankly in front of him, not uttering a single word.
“Qingxuan?”
He Xuan furrowed his brows and held out a hand to touch his shoulder gently. He accidentally startled the man beside him enough to feel the deep shudder in his shoulders.
“Oh, sorry. Ahaha, what did you say?”
“Talk to me, Qingxuan. You are safe here,” he said softly. He flicked a hand out and the candles in the room lit themselves, coating the darkness in a warm glow. “I will never let anything, living or dead, touch a single hair on your pretty head.”
A ghost of a smile appeared on Shi Qingxuan’s face and he looked to He Xuan with a pathetic expression. “You think I’m pretty?”
He Xuan groaned and rolled his eyes. He made the motions to start to turn around to go back to sleep, but Shi Qingxuan caught his shoulder and laughed.
“Ahaha, I’m just messing with you,” he said lightly. “I know I am safe with you. Always.”
“Good.”
“I wasn’t dreaming about that,” he continued. “I was dreaming about you.”
He Xuan’s eyes twitched. A surge of guilt swelled in his gut.
“How is that different?” he parsed out delicately.
“It wasn’t about ge. It was about you,” Shi Qingxuan clarified, but it still didn’t make sense to He Xuan who only stared back at him. “Scholar He. The Bloody Fire Social. How you… you died…”
He Xuan shrunk back in on himself at the mention of the Fire Social. Why was he constantly reminded of the worst period of his afterlife, where he made so many stupid mistakes and hurt the person he cared for the most?
“Why are you dreaming of such things?” he demanded, not exactly angry but sharp enough to make Qingxuan shift uncomfortably at his intonation.
Shi Qingxuan let out a nervous laugh and replied dryly, “I’m not sure myself.”
He Xuan watched as the man he loved slowly broke apart before him. His shoulders shuddered and he doubled over on himself, as if he’d been punched in the gut by an invisible force. He Xuan bolted up in alarm and grabbed his shoulders. Shi Qingxuan slowly lifted his head to reveal a weeping face.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“You… You must’ve been so lonely and so sad, He-xiong…!” he cried, immediately wrapping his arms around his unsuspecting lover. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-”
His voice cut out with a gross sob and he continued to weep directly into He Xuan’s shoulder, clutching on for dear life.
“I took them away from you, I-”
“Shh, you did no such thing.”
“But I did! If our fates-”
He Xuan pulled away and stopped him with a finger to his lover’s mouth. He took a deep breath.
“It’s no use blaming ourselves or indulging in what if’s. The past is the past,” he said firmly. “We choose our future together.”
Shi Qingxuan had a complicated look on his face as he stared back into his lover’s stern but comforting gaze.
How could he still be so lucky even amongst all the misfortune after he gave up his spiritual power, godhood, and became mortal again? Did he deserve this luxury of love? How could they have actually reconciled despite everything and agreed to be together till the end of his time on this plane?
He Xuan had even presented and gifted Shi Qingxuan his ashes, which were currently tucked away beside him on the nightstand beside their shared bed. They were in the shape of an intricately detailed hair comb that looked to be carved out of a whale bone and he never let it out of his sight.
When he was the Wind Master, he had many precious jewels and expensive, one-of-a-kind treasures, but this delicate comb was the one thing he cherished most in his life. Well, besides the ghost king that gave it to him, that is.
“Can… can you tell me about them?” he said, wiping away the tears streaks from his cheeks.
“What?”
“I don’t know anything about them other than what happened to them,” he admitted. “And you know what my ge was like… What was your family like?”
He Xuan didn’t reply for a long moment and he couldn’t look Shi Qingxuan in the eyes.
“Are you asking out of pity?”
“What? No, of course not! I genuinely want to know about them. They were important to you. And I want to know everything about you, He-xiong. That includes your family. You never talk about them, but they’re your reason for being here for so long.”
“You are my reason,” he clarified immediately, squeezing Qingxuan’s hand in his.
Shi Qingxuan couldn’t help the smile that appeared on his face at the words. “Yes, but before. When you were in Mt. Tonglu. It was them that kept you company.”
“It wasn’t them.”
Shi Qingxuan stared at him, raising an eyebrow in surprise at this response.
“They were just an excuse… It was the memory of losing them. The rage and hurt and brokenness that fueled me. It wasn’t them. It wasn’t love. It was revenge.”
“But you loved them so much that you wanted to avenge their wrongful deaths.”
“I… I suppose that’s not wrong.”
Shi Qingxuan smiled and said, “You’re such a softie, you know that He-xiong?”
“I am not a ‘softie,’” he growled. “I am a ghost king who has slaughtered countless and schemed for centuries to finally achieve vengeance for my family, fooling even the Heavenly Martial Emperor-”
“But you really are! You loved your family so much that you have lingered on this plane and become one of the most powerful beings currently in existence to exact justice for your loved ones!” he said. “It’s inspiring the lengths you will go for love, He-xiong.”
He Xuan narrowed his eyes, “I hurt you in pursuit of revenge and you find this… inspiring?”
“I do. You would do anything for those you love,” he said without hesitation. “And I’m lucky enough to be counted among those lucky few.”
He Xuan could only stare at him for a long moment, searching Shi Qingxuan’s expression for any hint of insincerity, but he couldn’t find any.
Shi Qingxuan laughed at him for making such a serious face. He Xuan immediately dropped his gaze, but Shi Qingxuan could catch a glimpse of the red hue blossoming on his lover’s cheeks even in the dimly lit bedroom.
“So, will you tell me about your family?”
It wasn’t like he could say no to the man opposite him; there was no use fighting Shi Qingxuan. It was easier just to indulge him.
“I… I don’t know what to say or where to begin,” He Xuan muttered, still not looking at him.
“Well, what do you remember? Anything is fine. You had a family… a wife.”
“Fiancee,” he corrected.
“Fiancee. What was she like?”
He Xuan’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment. After so many years studying his friend and lover’s many different microexpressions, Shi Qingxuan could deduce this particular furrow was not in any anger, but in contemplation.
“It’s been so long,” he started. “I haven’t recalled any fond memories in… centuries. Just the pain. It was all I needed for so long. My only driving force. The pain of losing everyone I loved. It seems I must have forgotten them along the way.”
“Surely you can remember something about her? What did she look like? Your fiancee, your sister, your parents… Anything you can remember.”
“My sister…” he thought, golden eyes glimmering after a second. “Meimei had the warmest brown eyes, like honey, and hair darker than ink. She… she never wore it up. It was always long and flowing behind her in the wind or rolling down her back like a wave.”
Shi Qingxuan cupped the side of his lover’s pale cheek, smiling brightly.
“She must have looked similar to you, then!”
He nodded, continuing, “I taught her how to read and write. She liked to hear me recite poetry and stories. I, I think she was like you in many ways— always earnest and chipper, always smiling and laughing. Her laugh sounded like the sweetest birdsong.”
A big toothy grin adorned Shi Qingxuan’s face as he listened to his lover open up about his sister. He nodded silently, bidding He Xuan to continue.
“Meimei was good friends with my fiancee. We all grew up together in Fu Gu. Our parents were close. The marriage was arranged by our families long before we grew fond of each other,” he reminisced. He choked some semblance of a laugh and added, “Sometimes I’d forget to eat, I was so enraptured with studying and they would bring me food. She and meimei would pester me while I worked. I always hated being disturbed.”
“You? Forgetting to eat?” Shi Qingxuan marveled, almost unbelieving there was a time when the man would forget such a thing.
He Xuan shot him a dark glare. “There was a time before my insatiable appetite,” he recalled coldly. “My time in prison was not kind to me or my stomach. I nearly withered away along with my organs, but I held on. I endured.” His fists clenched together at the memory. “For them.”
Shi Qingxuan bit his lip, instantly feeling guilty for his inappropriate comment. He cupped the trembling fist of his lover.
“I spoke without thinking,” he said, calmly rubbing his thumbs along the pale and cold hand. “I apologize.”
“It’s nothing,” he gruffed back, shrugging his hand out of the comforting grip.
A moment of silence filled the room before Shi Qingxuan felt compelled to break it, not realizing that it would've been better to remain quiet.
“The worst part of my dream… I watched you cut your sister down from the rafters,” he started. “The whole time I was trapped, screaming trying to grab you so you didn’t have to see what happened. No one could hear me or see me. I just wanted to help you to save you from everything and I couldn’t do anything except watch and scream.”
A pale hand reached out into the darkness of the dimly lit room, grasping out to the shadows along the wall. A tear slid down He Xuan’s cheek.
“She was only sixteen,” he whispered, voice hollow and thoroughly shattered.
Her feet were still swinging along with the light breeze in the deepest shadows of his memories. The weight of her body falling into his arms after he cut that strip of silk was still engraved into his muscles.
It was He Xuan’s turn to double over on himself. He didn’t really understand what was happening, why his face felt so damp or his lungs felt like they were on fire. He didn’t even need to breathe, so why did it feel like he was suffocating?
His mind raced with centuries of repressed memories— they all felt like different daggers driving straight through his heart.
Being unfairly failed. Hearing what happened to his fiancée. Cutting his sister down. Burying them. Demanding justice. Being thrown in prison. Starving. His mother’s death. His father’s death. Emptiness. Trying to start over. Everything burning around him. Enough. Justifiable slaughter; a cakewalk compared to Mt. Tonglu. Shi Wudu standing over him. Devouring. Insatiable hunger and vengeance—
“He Xuan!”
Shi Qingxuan’s voice cut through all the miseries. He was shaking his shoulders violently back and forth, trying desperately to pull his lover out of his mind.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, sounding nothing like a scary ghost king and more like a destroyed man. He clung to Shi Qingxuan’s night robes tighter than anything he’d ever held in his life.
“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can’t leave me. I can’t lose you, too.”
“I’m not going to leave you.”
“You can’t-”
His voice broke before he could finish.
“He-xiong? Look at me?”
Two sets of teary eyes locked gazes.
“Listen to me. I promise you I’m not going anywhere, alright? I love you, He-xiong. I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“But… You’re a mortal now. You will die.”
Shi Qingxuan’s heart broke even further. “He-xiong, don’t think-”
“I will disperse myself if you die and do not return to me.”
“Ahaha! Let’s not talk like that, He-xiong!” Shi Qingxuan, waved frantically. “There is nothing in all three realms that would keep me from coming back to you, so no need to be so dramatic! And I’m still alive! Why all this talk about my death when it hasn’t even-”
He Xuan wrapped him in a bruising grip and refused to let go.
“You will come back to me, when the time comes,” he grumbled into his lover’s shoulder.
It didn’t sound like a suggestion, but Shi Qingxuan didn’t mind.
“I wouldn’t delay it for anything,” he whispered back soothingly. A hand reached out to stroke He Xuan’s inky black hair. “This is where I belong. Right here. In your arms. For eternity.”
It was not the right time to bring it up, but Shi Qingxuan wasn’t entirely sure he could become a ghost. He had ascended— whether it had been justified or not didn’t change the fact that he had been a god. And that usually meant that he would be stripped of any afterlife or chance at reincarnation, just like his ge.
But because his fate had been switched with He Xuan’s and then he stripped himself of his spiritual power, he wasn’t sure where that exactly put him in terms of hoping for an afterlife. He Xuan surely had to have thought about this, right? From his words, he seemed fairly confident that he would have a chance at an afterlife… but maybe it was just wistful thinking.
Shi Qingxuan’s mouth opened wide as a yawn overtook him with a wash of exhaustion and sleepiness.
All this talk about death and his and He Xuan’s breakdowns had left him mentally exhausted, especially after such a vivid nightmare.
“Can we finish talking about this in the morning?” he asked mid-yawn, breaking away from the embrace.
He Xuan uttered a tiny “mn” and nodded his head, still reluctant to take his hands off of him. They laid down together, He Xuan practically entombing him in his arms as they cuddled on the bed.
He Xuan laid awake long after Shi Qingxuan had fallen back asleep, eyes piercing into the back of the fragile mortal in his arms. He had vowed long ago to protect this man until his dying breath and beyond. He would do anything it took to make sure that his love would have an afterlife with him.
Anything.
When the early morning light reached his eyelids, He Xuan woke up to find himself alone in their shared bed. The comb on the bedside table was noticeably missing as well.
Panicking for a moment, he immediately started searching the manor through the eyes of his various spies, looking for any sign of his lover. He sighed in relief after catching a glimpse of him kneeling somewhere.
He Xuan pulled on a robe and immediately chased after him. As he turned the corner down the hallway he had seen his lover in, it suddenly struck him where exactly Shi Qingxuan had gone. The smell of incense wafted in the stale air of Nether Water Manor.
Approaching silently, so as not to disturb him, He Xuan peeked into the door of the altar room and saw Shi Qingxuan kneeling before four black urns. He had lit several sticks of incense.
“I hope it’s not inappropriate of me to come here and pay my respects to you,” he whispered. “It’s sort of my fault what happened to you all…
“I want to offer my sincerest apologies to you, for everything my brother and I have done. But I want you to know that your son is the most precious person to me. He is stronger than anyone I know and supremely intelligent and talented and he cares so deeply for his loved ones. And I’m sure he loved you even more than you know. You should be proud of him.
“You don’t need to worry about him being lonely ever again. I will take care of him from now on, I promise. I know that I could never replace any of you and I don’t wish to, but I just hope that I can make your son happy again. I love him with my entire essence; he’s my very best friend. Please accept my affections for your son.”
The corners of He Xuan’s lips curled up into an uncharacteristically soft smile as he gazed at the kneeling figure through the doorway. The image of his family’s faces came to mind, one by one.
I would have loved for you to meet them, he thought.