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The first time the sword plunged into former Crown Prince Xie Lian's body, Hong Hong'er wanted to die all over again.
"Hel– Help me!!!! Help–"
With every scream that tore from Xie Lian's throat, Hong'er flailed more and more frantically and violently in White No-Face's hand, fighting so, so desperately to break free and run to his side.
"Shut up! Stop screaming, dammit!!!!"
In the middle of his screams, the sword suddenly plunged into his throat and instantly silenced him.
"You're making this a lot harder for us! Do you think we want this?!"
No longer able to scream, tears silently flowed down Xie Lian's face as he continued to struggle against his bindings.
"Serves him right! What did he ever do for us anyway? Useless royals who brought nothing but death to our doors."
Hong'er started to wail as he continued to thrash in White No-Face's palm. Or maybe he had been wailing the entire time without him really realizing it. All he knew was pain, all he knew was that his most beloved was hurting, was in absolute torturous agony, and just like that time in that cave with the Land of the Tender demons, he was once again completely helpless and unable to do anything.
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, STOP, PLEASE STOP, PLEASE LET HIM GO, PLEASE DON'T HURT HIM, THAT MUST HURT, THAT MUST REALLY HURT, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS, THAT HURTS!!!!!
His hands were always tied somehow and he really, really hated it. He hated himself as much as he loved his god. He couldn't even wish to die because he was already dead.
But though the memories of that day still remained fresh within him, quite a lot of time had already passed. Gone was the disorientation he felt upon suddenly having a human body again and now he managed to maneuver it with ease, just as he had in life.
With his new body came a new name: Wu Ming. Though his name literally meant 'no name,' he did not mind one bit. After all, it was given to him by his one and only shining god. Damaged and twisted as he was, Xie Lian was still every bit as ethereal in Wu Ming's eyes.
Hollow and listless as it was, Wu Ming was sincerely enjoying this new part of his afterlife in Xie Lian's constant presence. He did not mind that Xie Lian appeared to be evil now; the world had always been unkind to him and if you asked him, the world deserved to suffer for all that it had put both him and his Crown Prince through.
He still remembered his very first wish upon getting his human form back: "I wish to be by His Highness's side and look after him. I will do anything within my power to protect him. Just please let me be by his side so I know that he's okay."
Hong'er's rage and despair in those moments were so potent that he was born anew in his former body, so to speak. He was still very much dead, but he finally had hands and arms to hold his precious god with, and that is just what he did.
Finally free from White No-Face's palm, Hong'er dropped down to his knees in front of the scorched black surface of the altar. He bent over deeply, clutching his head with both of his hands, and bellowed in immense and devastating pain.
His prince, his god, his beloved Xie Lian–
Hong'er had felt the pain of every single stab searing through Xie Lian's body as if he were the one being mutilated by the very people he so loved and willingly gave up his godhood for.
He was unconscious now, thank the heavens. He no longer had to feel any pain. He was finally free—in a sense.
Still kneeling down, Hong'er staggered as he crawled over to Xie Lian's body and he found that even in his current state, all bloody and bruised and beaten down, with tear tracks staining his face and his eyelids swollen beyond reason, with more than a hundred stab wounds all over his entire body, he was still the most beautiful being Hong'er had ever laid his eyes upon.
"Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."
Taking care not to worsen his condition, Hong'er tenderly held Xie Lian's body against his chest and tried to give him the comfort that he was unable to give him as he was being tortured.
"Don't be scared," he whispered to the unconscious Xie Lian as he continued to weep silently. "Don't be scared. You're going to be fine, Your Highness. You're going to be fine."
Nothing was fine at the moment and it was hard to imagine that things would ever be okay again. And 'don't be scared'? Really?
"Don't worry, nothing will hurt you."
Hong'er was aware that he was just repeating the exact words Xie Lian had used to comfort him when he saved him from his fall as a child. How useless he was, not even being able to come up with his own words to comfort his prince when he needed them the most.
If Hong'er were still human, he would be hyperventilating right now. As it so happened, despite the lack of physical symptoms such as hyperventilation, heart palpitations, and sweating, he was most unfortunate to discover that ghosts can still have panic attacks. He may not be sweating profusely but his newly-reformed body was now damp with Xie Lian's sweat and blood.
He so wanted to caress Xie Lian's face but he was already committing blasphemy and crimes against the crown by holding him in his arms like this. Still, he just really could not let go.
White No-Face was right, even all this would not kill Xie Lian, so now all they had to do was wait as his body repaired itself. He would eventually recover and go back to living his life again. Everything would go back to the way it was. Except it wouldn't because His Royal Highness Xie Lian had sustained significant psychological damage. He would have to live knowing that his people were ungrateful for his sacrifices and that he lost everything just for nothing. Xie Lian would go back to his normal, everyday life but he would have to go through his days with a huge hole in his heart, stabbed open by his own people, and it was all Hong'er's fault. It was his fault. It was all his fault for not helping him. It was all his fault for not saving him. It was all his fault for staying trapped and being unable to do anything at all. It was all his fault for only being able to scream in pain when his god could not even make a single sound anymore. It was his fault. It was all his fault.
Hong'er wept and rocked Xie Lian's body for hours, maybe even days, as he repeatedly apologized and recited His Highness' own words of comfort once more.
"Gods, heavens, and all that may hear me, I wish to be by His Highness's side and look after him. I will do anything within my power to protect him. Just please let me be by his side so I know that he's okay."
Wu Ming did not stay by his side after that incident, or not to Xie Lian's knowledge, anyway. He decided to stay in the shadows and silently look after him while also making sure to maintain a respectful distance. He silently watched the rest of Xie Lian's days unfold right up to the moment he finally decided to reveal himself to the now masked fallen god. Xie Lian's White No-Face mask gave Wu Ming shivers, but he would still follow him anywhere. He even designed his own mask to match.
At this moment, moonlight slipped through the cracks as Wu Ming noiselessly walked down a hall in the once magnificent and now broken down Palace of the Crown Prince. His Highness Xie Lian had once again disappeared to who-knows-where to do who-knows-what, leaving his black clad masked general free to do as he wished. Having lived his entire life with only two people ever showing him love and kindness—namely his mother, who had died way too soon that her warmth seemed more like a match than a candle, and the Crown Prince of Xianle, who temporarily took him in and even defended him despite him not deserving it—Wu Ming set out to spend his free time further worshiping his fallen god.
And he wasn't just any other fallen god, he was the Flower-Crowned Martial God; Sword in one hand, flower in the other.
Several of the Crown Prince's statues depicted him with a little statue flower in one hand, which Wu Ming had quite liked, even as a little boy who was named just Hong Hong'er. However, he couldn't exactly afford the materials needed to sculpt a little statue flower for his own badly made Xie Lian statue in his rundown makeshift temple, and neither did he have the skill. He decided, then, to settle for the next best thing: to put a real flower in statue-Lian's hand. Of course, this meant that he had to change the flower regularly, as he hated to see even the poorest depiction of his god holding a wilted flower, but it was a chore that he would gladly take on.
Wu Ming remembered how all those years ago the god Xie Lian himself had come to visit his tiny shrine for him. He even remembered admitting to the god that he was no longer finding any reasons to keep on living, and he remembered what the god had told him in response: 'If you don’t know how to live on anymore, then live for me! If you don’t know the meaning of your life, then make me that meaning and use me as your reason to live.'
Anyone else probably would have found that sort of logic ridiculous, but those words made Hong'er's eyes shine for the first time in his short and tragic life. In his head, it made perfect sense. He was a citizen of Xianle. Xie Lian was the Crown Prince of Xianle, who ascended and became their kingdom's very own martial god. And Xie Lian had shown him the light in a couple of his dark times, both as the Crown Prince and as a god. So of course, he was more than glad to spend all of his life—and now his afterlife—following him.
On another day, when Xie Lian had disappeared and left Wu Ming behind yet again, the latter had decided to pay a visit to the former's abandoned Crown Palace. In his early days as a newly formed ghost, Wu Ming had often found himself coming here in search of the ashes of his once beloved god's love for his people. In the ruins of the palace he had found a divine statue that had been burnt black. Some of the statue's limbs were missing, but it wasn't any less beautiful in Wu Ming's eyes. One of the statue's hands was miraculously intact, and it was curved in such a way that it appeared to be the perfect receptacle for a little white flower.
Wu Ming had then set out to regularly pick white flowers to place in the statue's hand. He had not faltered in this self-appointed duty, even after his damaged, fallen god had suddenly reappeared and even decided to appoint him as his general.
On this particular night, Wu Ming had plucked out the just-about-to-wilt flower from the statue's hand and headed out to pick a fresh replacement. As he bent down to pick a single white flower, a shooting star streaked across the sky above him.
In Wu Ming's previous form, he resembled a shooting star. A useless one. Or so he believed, as he wasn't even able to come to his god's aid and grant his pleas for mercy from his own people.
But you've managed to partly make up for it by keeping an eye on him since then, a small voice in his head told him.
Wu Ming knew that his time with his god would soon come to an end again. He knew of Xie Lian's nature very well at this point and he had a feeling that he would eventually end up sacrificing himself in some way to save the common folk once again.
Though Wu Ming still despised the common people, he knew how much his god loved them. And so he hoped that he would be able to find a way to save Xie Lian and sacrifice himself in his place.
He did not yet know at that moment, but he was eventually going to succeed in this plan, and though Xie Lian would not be able to hear his voice through the swirling vortex of the curse that would consume him, Wu Ming's last words in his current form were going to be, "Your Highness, I sincerely hope and wish that the next time we meet, I will finally be strong enough to protect you without any unnecessary sacrifices."