Chapter Text
Xie Lian’s bad luck struck right as he jumped down from Heaven. He was searching for a nice place to build a temple for himself, but of course fate had other plans today.
A powerful gust of wind caught him, making him tumble through the air and hit several clouds. He didn’t have time to tell Ruoye to grab onto something to catch him before he fell to the ground with a thud and some concerning cracking noises.
His head spun violently.
While he waited for the dizziness to clear up, something wet hit his nose. Xie Lian looked up and found the sky covered by dark clouds. More raindrops pattered against his face. The rain started lightly, but it quickly became a downpour. It only took a minute for Xie Lian to get completely drenched.
With a sigh, he picked up his bamboo hat and stood up. He winced, pain seared through his body at the movement. Ah, how annoying. He must’ve broken something when he fell.
Ignoring that, he slowly took in his surroundings. He’d landed on a dirt road, surrounded by sparse forest. That was good, at least. A road meant it was easy to choose where to go. With nothing else to do, he began walking.
The wind rustled the trees. It was really beginning to pick up, making the cold hard rain hit Xie Lian directly in the face and nearly blowing away his hat. Quickly, he tightened the knot beneath his chin so he wouldn’t lose it to the wind.
Since he’d barely gotten anywhere yet, he turned and went the other way instead. He was lost no matter what. Having the freezing rain and wind against his back, instead of directly in his face, was slightly better. Slightly.
The road went on; Xie Lian continued. Before long, the sky lit up with bright light. Soon after, thunder rolled in the distance. At this rate, he would be struck by lightning as well. Was there any chance for him to find shelter before it got worse? He didn’t hold high hopes.
Xie Lian had been caught in worse storms, and usually, he dealt with it well enough. But it’d been a long few days, with him ascending for a third time and the Mount Yujun business, and he hadn’t had any sort of break since. He didn’t like to admit it, but he was tired. Really tired. He didn’t want to do this!
Still, nothing could be done about it now, he had to deal with it. He could deal with it. He’d gotten through worse, way worse. This was practically nothing! Really, he had no right to complain. He still gave Ruoye, the white silk band curled around his wrist, a little pat, though. Whether he was comforting it, or himself was unclear.
Xie Lian searched for anything fitting to wait out the storm along the road, but found nothing suitable. He briefly considered leaving the road and looking in the forest, but in his experience, that never ended well. No, continuing to walk was a much better idea.
—
The storm persisted. Xie Lian was miserable.
After a few shichen, he still had found nothing noteworthy along the road. Truly, what a long and boring road. Perhaps he’d made a mistake by choosing to go in this direction after all. Such was his luck.
By now, he was thoroughly soaked to the bone. His robes and long hair clung to his skin. His boots felt like small ponds with how much water filled them, sloshing and splashing with each step.
How long would it take for his clothes and Ruoye to dry? Wearing wet clothes while they dried wasn’t a pleasant experience, but under current circumstances, he had no choice. As usual. But he was getting ahead of himself. The weather showed no sign of letting up anytime soon.
The curtains of heavy rain made it difficult to see anything, but suddenly a silver light that wasn’t a flash of lightning flickered past him. Xie Lian turned towards it. A silver butterfly was weaving through the rain.
He reached out towards it, and the butterfly landed on his finger, so light he barely felt it. It only tickled a little. He brought his hand closer to his face to get a closer look, his bamboo hat shielded it from the rain.
“Hello,” he whispered to the butterfly. It slowly fluttered its wings, as if waving back. It was so pretty. Why Heaven was so frightened by them made no sense to Xie Lian. The silver butterflies were such adorable little creatures.
“What are you doing here?” Xie Lian wondered aloud. Could the ghost Crimson Rain Sought Flower, Hua Cheng, be in the area? That had been the case on Mount Yujun.
Unfortunately, distracted by the silver butterfly and his thoughts, combined with his terrible luck, and the ground slippery from the rain, Xie Lian slipped and fell.
Of course, it also turned out that the road became a slope right there. He tumbled down it, getting covered in mud. Despite his attempts, he couldn’t stop until he already found himself at the bottom of the slope.
Xie Lian laid there for a moment, staring up at the dark clouds, heavy raindrops landing on his face. His body ached even more now, pain throbbing all over. Could he just stay here? Maybe take a nap?
No. No, he couldn’t allow himself to act like this. He dragged himself up again, suppressing a wince. Sure, his pain tolerance was high, but that didn’t make it any less unpleasant.
He made a half-hearted attempt to brush some mud from his robes, with no success. He only managed to spread it around more and further stain his supposedly white robes. Such a shame, this set was relatively new.
Xie Lian shivered. An aching cold joined the near-permanent exhaustion in his bones. Everything was fine, he told himself. This wasn’t worse than usual. It was fine.
By the time he stood, the butterfly had disappeared. Shame, it had been nice to have some company.
He gathered himself and looked up, not expecting his vision to flood with a sea of red light. Dense rain and fog obscured his sight, but Xie Lian was sure he could make out the shape of a city in the distance. Finally, something other than road and forest! He hurried towards it, ignoring how his ankle throbbed with each step.
There must be somewhere in the city he could escape the dreadful weather, right? Even just an alleyway would do. Perhaps he could do some scrap collecting there, too. Maybe he could get a new set of robes, or at least a set to borrow while cleaning his current ones.
He’d only taken a few steps towards the city when he suddenly found himself in the middle of a crowded street. Xie Lian was stunned. How…? Confused, he looked around. There was a gate behind him. One which he had not walked through. How strange!
Oh well. He was in the city now! He could worry later.
The street was so long that it seemed to continue indefinitely, lined with all kinds of bustling shops and stalls, advertised by a myriad of colourful signs. Countless low-hanging red lanterns bathed it all in crimson light. In the rainy haze, the city itself seemed to glow, creating an eerie, yet enchanting atmosphere.
Despite the foul weather, it was bustling with people.
Xie Lian hoped he wouldn’t draw too much attention to himself, looking like he had just rolled out of the mud. Which... well, was exactly what had happened.
Avoiding the chaotic centre, he carefully made his way along the outskirts of the street. While doing so, he got a better look at the crowd. The majority of it, he realised, was not human. It was ghosts. Many had heads or other body parts of animals, or incredibly incorrect body proportions, and most of the human-looking people wore masks to cover their faces.
A whole city brimming with ghosts. This must be Ghost City.
He nearly stumbled into one of the stalls after making the connection. He’d only heard of Ghost City in passing. How had he managed to stumble into the ghost realm so easily? Was it Zhongyuan today? Or just his bad luck acting up?
Xie Lian was unsure about what to do now. Admittedly, he didn’t know much about this place, but he suspected his original goal of establishing a temple, and scrap collecting might prove to be more difficult than normal here.
He wandered further into the city, still looking for somewhere to escape the storm. It was a small miracle lightning hadn’t struck him today. It had happened before, and as long as he was outside like this, it could still happen.
Silver suddenly filled his vision, pulling him out of his thoughts. Another silver butterfly fluttered in front of his face. Or perhaps it was the same one as before? He couldn’t know. It flew around in a small circle, almost as if it was waiting for him. He tentatively took a step forward; the butterfly flew a little further ahead. Curiosity overtook him, and he followed it.
The butterfly caused his thoughts to wander to Hua Cheng again, and his mysterious appearance on Mount Yujun. The gentle chiming when he walked, his careful yet respectful and gentle touch. Xie Lian could not figure out why Hua Cheng had been there or why he’d helped him.
Xie Lian followed the butterfly, winding through the crowd of ghosts. The butterfly moved fast, effortlessly weaving through the crowd, and he had to hurry to keep up. Surprisingly, no one bumped into him like what usually happened when he was anywhere near crowds.
The butterfly flew around a corner to a side street, and Xie Lian quickly followed, not wanting to lose sight of it again. Right as he turned the corner, something firm yet soft collided with him. The force caused him to fall backwards. A strong arm wrapped around his waist, catching him. Horrified, he realised he’d walked right into someone’s chest!