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Bai Wuxiang, despite being dressed in pure white on the grimy, blood-filled battlefield, moves like a shadow. Unseen, hidden behind people’s steps. Xie Lian catches sight of the specter on the edges of battle, soon after that first chilling time he spotted Bai Wuxiang.
Bai Wuxiang’s robes flutter in the calamitous whirlwind of swords clashing, men falling, and blood spilling. Yet those robes stay pure white. Some soldiers notice his presence, some don’t, but they’re focused on killing the enemy army. A few try to strike at the ghost, but Bai Wuxiang effortlessly deflects the blows with a swipe of his hand.
Xie Lian can tell Bai Wuxiang is a sword fighter. The way he holds himself and the cadence of his moves are from someone who uses a sword- similar to Xie Lian’s own movements. They have similar statures as well.
Like a shadow, Bai Wuxiang seems to appear and flutter, disappearing to pop up on the opposite side of the valley. Joss paper drops from his hands, falling next to the fallen bodies of soldiers and turning white to red.
Xie Lian would never admit it, but if he were ever in the ludicrous situation- he’d love to spar against someone so clearly a master of his art form. Just like how he used to spar with Jun Wu, where he was clearly outclassed, it was entertaining to practice moves together and learn from the experience.
Xie Lian hasn’t sparred like that since the war started. The moment the battle is over he drops off his sword for Mu Qing to clean and collapses into bed, exhausted. What once brought him joy tires him endlessly. Swords look so different from being polished on pedestals to being plunged into someone's chest.
Amidst his exhaustion, alone and heading to his tent, the specter appears.
Of course he has a spare knife he swipes at Bai Wuxiang, but like a shadow he easily dodges getting hit.
Their recent meeting is still fresh in Xie Lian’s mind- if not mostly because of the embarrassment of being stuck in a cave while poisoned, alongside one of his soldiers. It makes him flush with indignation.
“You dare enter the Xianle encampment to attack the crown prince-”
“Things aren’t looking good for you, dianxia,” he says, interrupting Xie Lian. It makes his indignation grow- the nerves of this monster!
Xie Lian scoffs, “Xianle is winning. Because of me!”
He startles as Bai Wuxiang lunges, quicker than even his trained eyes can keep up with, and knocks XIe Lian over, pinning the hand holding the knife to the ground. Xie Lian struggles against his hold, knocking Bai Wuxiang away but losing grip on his weapon in the process.
“We're alike, you and I. Mirror images.”
That is simply baffling. How were an ugly monster and a beautiful prince similar at all? “You may have worn my face before, but we’re nothing alike.”
“I see it now- while the sun shines on you, people flock to your hands like birds, but how long do you think that’s last?”
“If you’re trying to scare me, it isn’t working,” Xie Lian says, annoyed, standing up and dusting dirt off his robes.
Bai Wuxiang says with a sweep of his arms, “Many such lies you tell yourself for faux comfort. This is a war- do you think your soldiers remember love when they run out there? The whole world loves you, but it is shallow. Meaningless.”
Xie Lian thinks of the day at the Shangyuan festival, where he saved the falling boy and disrupted the procession but the people had picked him up and cheered his name. “It’s not that shallow. I love my country and my country loves me.”
“You say you love them, but I know, you don’t know a thing about what love is. No one has ever truly loved you- just the idea of you, the prince bathed in glory.”
“As if you really know anything about love,” Xie Lian snaps.
“Certainly more than you. You say you love your people now… and what will you do if they all come to one day revile and despise you?”
“It will not ever happen,” Xie Lian says confidently, as he has not yet fallen from the highest heights. “Your questions are dumb and I’m going to stop listening to you now.”
“Remember it then, dianxia. Remember how you said you loved them.”
And then Bai Wuxiang is gone.
Good. Good.
-
Xie Lian is noble, he does gracious things. As a child he learned about how the good guys always won the fight while evil was punished.
And yet- everything goes so horribly wrong.
The illness, the turn of the tides in the war, and eventually… the loss.
The people do come to revile and despise him, cursing his name. Xie Lian is already going through so much, being banished from heaven, caring for his parents, and fearing his guards and lifelong friends will tire of him. But the sharp shift from the common people loving him to hating him almost feels baffling. It hurts and it’s confusing and it strangely makes him want to giggle.
What a bunch of hypocrites. Did they not understand the sacrifices Xie Lian made for them? They’re all so- so ungrateful.
Xie Lian keeps the vitriol in his heart to himself. His family and friends still expect him to be noble and gracious, that he’ll cultivate into godhood again and fix everything.
… When Mu Qing leaves, Xie Lian realizes then, that though he has lost everything there is still more to lose. He is no longer a prince, there is no longer the kingdom of Xianle, but the people around him exist on a timer. As the grains of sand drop, there will be a point… where Feng Xin might be driven to want to leave, too. His loyal Feng Xin can only tolerate so much strife when, if he returned to heaven, could easily find a new god to become a junior official of.
While walking the streets, Xie Lian recognizes a group of noble ladies, ones from the old Xianle court. They walk alongside Yong’an men they appear to have married, betraying their home kingdom. The sight makes his blood boil, but that feeling feels foreign. He didn’t used to be so angry.
When Xie Lian spots white fluttering cloth, he speeds up his pace. But-
“Your countrymen so soon forget who they once pledged loyalty to,” Bai Wuxiang appears around a corner. No one else around them reacts to his odd presence.
“Stop following me,” Xie Lian says, keeping his eyes locked forward.
Of course, Bai Wuxiang does not listen to Xie Lian. He instead leans over Xie Lian’s shoulder and points out to the street, “Isn’t that Lady Su- the king of Xianle worked closely with her father, did he not?”
“My father tried to have us engaged.”
It happened all when he was quite young. Too early for his family to realize his training and his wish to practice cultivation were dead serious. He remembers Lady Su back then, younger than him and holding onto her mother’s hand like she was afraid.
“That necklace around her neck- I recognize it. My mother gifted it to her mother…” Xie Lian says.
“Now look at her, fawning over another man.”
“She never loved me. I never loved her,” he shrugs.
Xie Lian had been nothing but polite to the Su family and their daughter, but he knew with the cultivation methods of Mount Taicang- the very same as the emperor of heaven!- that he could never get married. So he rejected the proposal against his father’s wishes and young Lady Su cried in relief.
His mother had been so disappointed. Not in him, never in him specifically, but she talked of grandchildren. She told Xie Lian how wonderful it’d be for him to find someone to love.
Xie Lian doesn’t know what possesses him, but he asks, “Have you ever loved someone?”
Of course, ridiculous questions are met with ridicule. Bai Wuxiang cackles and doesn’t bother to answer.
But Bai Wuxiang does reach out to touch Xie Lian’s bandaged neck, right where underneath his cursed shackle lies, imprinted onto his skin by Jun Wu himself. “A gifted necklace, you say?”
Xie Lian turns swiftly around to bat away the unwanted touch, but Bai Wuxiang is suddenly gone, his exit leaving a gaping void next to him.
-
Xie Lian keeps circling around to the thought that his younger self would be so disappointed to see him now. As a child he knew he had it easier than most as the son of a king, and that knowledge made him vow he’d save the common people. But even in that luxury, his childhood was rocky. He clashed with his father all the time and the older Qi Rong got, the more troublesome he became. All he had wanted was to dedicate himself to cultivation-
-And for a moment, he had everything he had ever dreamed of. Xie Lian had ascended, the emperor of heaven loved him and showed him kindness above all the other gods, and he was beloved by all.
His younger self could never have imagined they’d end up in the mud, disgraced. Left pawning away the gifts Jun Wu gave him, pushed to trying and failing to steal, and humiliated by the gods that were once his peers. Those thirty-three gods were bullies, he could accept that- but Mu Qing. It was Mu Qing that stung. Someone he had lifted up from just a simple servant, brought alongside him into heaven, hell, he only has his position that he does now because of Xie Lian.
Xie Lian was only lovable in people's eyes as long as he had worth to them. He’s- he’s embarrassed, to what he’s become. He should be so much more than the pathetic thing he is.
Xie Lian wanders the empty woods, drunk, just another disgrace to the prince he used to be.
This time, it’s him who calls out, “I know you’re there… you always are!”
It’s stupid of him, really, perhaps even dangerous. But he feels bubbly and light like he hasn’t in a long time, emboldened by his drunkenness.
Bai Wuxiang’s familiar robes pour out from the shadows.
The sight of his half-crying, half-smiling mask really pisses him off.
Hidden partially by the young trees sprouting around them, Bai Wuxiang says, "You know it's not good for your cultivation to indulge in wine."
"So what? It doesn't matter anymore. Why should I listen to you?"
"Because you're making a fool of yourself."
“Everything you say is so annoying, you know that? I wish you’d die. Die!” Xie Lian shouts, gearing up a sloppy punch.
Bai Wuxiang grabs his wrist, twisting his arm harshly and slamming Xie Lian into a nearby tree. His forehead is cut against the sharp bark and he cries out. But it also makes him laugh, “You think this is anything? You think you’re stronger than me?”
“You’re acting very unwise tonight, dianxia.”
Bai Wuxiang lets him go and he collapses onto his knees.
His shoulder aches from where it was pulled roughly and his head spins, but these physical sensations are better than- than focusing on everything else. He doesn’t even flinch as Bai Wuxang crouches down in front of him while he's defenseless.
Bai Wuxiang lifts his hand slowly, gently rubbing his thumb across the split skin on his forehead. The whiplash of sudden tenderness catches Xie Lian off guard.
“It hurts,” he cries.
“It hurts, it hurts, tell me how it hurts,” Bai Wuxiang says.
Not his face, though that hurts too. But his sorrow weighs on his heart like a physical presence.
“It feels like,” Xie Lian hiccups, “my whole chest is collapsing. No one- no one believes me anymore, they think I’ve gone mad. But you’re real, I see you right here.”
“I’m here for you, right here.”
Xie Lian nods, “I thought people were kind, and it- it hurts to know I was….”
It hurts to be proven wrong.
It feels like poison coming out of his mouth. Hadn’t he once said ‘I wish to save the common people!’ Back then he sincerely believed that while people might have flaws, overall they were inherently good.
But at every turn recently, Xie Lian has not been met with an ounce of kindness. Alongside the mockery upon his name as the flower-crowned martial god, Xie Lian struggles to find work, the pay is always abysmal, the other workers always choose to pick on him, and strangers in the street who do not know his identity still seem to instinctively know to glare at him.
He can tell Feng Xin is losing faith in him. It’s only a matter of time until he is gone, too.
The world is a dark, cold place devoid of compassion. All the warmth and light that once existed in his heart has evaporated, turned to dust. It makes him feel like his heart is shriveling up in his chest.
He used to think he was kind and good. But he’s not. He’s not, he’s really not.
Bai Wuxiang’s hand is cold against his skin, soothing as hot tears run down his cheeks. It’s sad, here, how this is the person who will comfort him when he cries. It makes him want to sob harder, it makes him want to laugh hysterically.
He continues to cry, taking comfort from a monster.
-
Love means nothing.
One by one, the people Xie Lian thought loved him walk away until he is all alone.
Mu Qing betrayed him and sided with the other officials to belittle Xie Lian. Feng Xin was disappointed that he was no longer the perfect prince he once was. And his parents-
His parents never loved him.
Xie Lian will never understand them. His father, who was flawed and unyielding. He was cruel. They never saw eye to eye. And his mother, sweet as she was, loved his father more. That’s what married couples felt, right? They had a bond unspoken that could never snap. That bond followed them into death because Xie Lian had become too unlovable to live in the same world as.
His skin still doesn’t feel like his own after being pierced a hundred times. But his mind feels displaced, too. Wrong. Ill-fitting.
He’d rather be dead with them. But he can’t. Ruoye now curling around his arm is proof of that.
Every ugly emotion, anger, pain, sadness, jealousy, everything he tried hiding in his heart feels like it’s spilling out now. Like if he tried to speak, tar would spill from his lips and his blood would draw black.
Xie Lian once denied that he and Bai Wuxiang were anything alike. But pulling on the coarse white robes and slotting on his mask, it feels right. Perhaps Bai Wuxiang’s presence was simply a prophecy of his inevitable decline. Xie Lian was an ugly, squirming caterpillar and this is his metamorphosis.
Bai Wuxiang, his ever-present shadow, is there to witness his change.
“You make me sick to my fucking stomach,” Xie Lian says in lieu of any proper greeting.
Bai Wuxiang laughs, “And yet, you now look just like me.”
The laughter pisses him off, Xie Lian wishes he knew how to curse better, “I’ll kill you one day. I fucking swear it, you piece of shit.”
Bai Wuxiang follows in his footsteps, always a breath behind him.
“So much rage, dianxia- don’t you know I can see straight into your soul? I see your anger, but under it I know there is shame. There’s guilt there too, yes, but it’s the shame that keeps you up at night. You were supposed to be better than this, you were meant for so much more- that’s what you were promised. You keep trying to cling to the perfect prince you once were to keep people close but he’s gone, they’re all gone.”
Xie Lian feels like his soul is being bared, his insecurities laid before him.
He did deserve so much more. He ascended to godhood, used to be a martial god in a class of his own, he gave up everything to help the common people. He used to have people fawning at his feet.
Xie Lian didn’t recognize his own face anymore. It felt better to have it covered now, since whenever he saw himself he saw something unforgivably disgusting.
“Look at you,” Bai Wuxiang coos, “my mirror image.”
Bai Wuxiang steps closer, running a hand over Xie Lian’s white-clad shoulder. Xie Lian watches him from behind the safety of the mask. He watches him, both men silent. Even the cold winds pass by wordlessly.
“... Mirror image,” Xie Lian eventually repeats.
There is nothing good left inside of him. It was all carved out of him, bled out onto the floor of his own decrepit temple. Where once he would’ve naively proclaimed to love others and hold compassion even when they make mistakes, he now only knows rage. He wants to kill them all.
The dumb, kind thing he used to be didn’t understand a single thing. It used to say it loved everyone.
“... I don’t think I know what love is,” Xie Lian confesses, “is it real love if it loses meaning so easily? All the people I once trusted said they loved me.”
“I’m here.”
“But you don’t love me.”
Bai Wuxiang goes strangely still, hand pressed to Xie Lian’s shoulder still, “You don’t know what it's like for me to see you like this. A beloved prince, fallen so low. It’s sweet like rotten fruit, tender like pressing on a bruise.
“Dianxia, poor dianxia… I don’t think I know what love is, either.”
Xie Lian is startled by the sheer honesty that rends Bai Wuxiang’s voice thin and soft, like he hadn’t meant to say that last part aloud.
Bai Wuxiang used to look like a shadow to him. But here, so close the warmth from the man’s hand bleeds through the air to him, he feels like the only real thing left. Or maybe it’s Xie Lian who has become a shadow next to him.
Bai Wuxiang quickly recovers from his odd moment of melancholy, “What use is love for creatures like us? All you need is me, all I need is you. The rest of the world can perish under our heels.”
“You think there is an ‘us?’”
“Who else will love you but me, dianxia?”
He still grits his teeth and hisses out, “Fuck you.”
Bai Wuxiang pats his shoulder, hand finally lifting away, and he’s embarrassed by how he wants to lean into that warmth again. “Once you kill them all, who will ever remain by a monster’s side? Do you think your dear deputies will- I know they won’t. I know. Those who swore their lives to you will run away in horror at your ugliness.”
Xie Lian feels his throat tightening as his eyes burn.
Bai Wuxiang continues, “Imagine if I weren’t here. Then you’d truly be alone.”
There really… there really isn’t anyone left but this monster. And no one has understood his pain and rage better- even if it feels like Bai Wuxiang implanted these foreign emotions into his heart. Bai Wuxiang was a loveless monster, but now so was Xie Lian. There is no one else.
Just them. Just him.
“Just us.”