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You never know when you’d need your deadly scimitar in the middle of the night. So that’s why Hua Cheng keeps his E’Ming by his bedside. Besides, having his famed weapon by his and his gege’s bedside makes them look slightly more threatening to anyone who dares disrupt their sleep.
But when Hua Cheng awoke the next morning, E’Ming was gone but Hua Cheng wasn’t the most worried about that. What he was most worried about was that there was no trace of Xie Lian at all!
There was a distinctive warmth remaining on the spot where Xie Lian lay the previous night, indicating it hasn’t been that long since he got up. Usually, if Xie Lian has to get up to go somewhere, before Hua Cheng wakes up, he always leaves a note so Hua Cheng wouldn’t worry; this time there was no note.
Hua Cheng swings his legs off of the bed, he doesn’t bother to put on his outer robe or fix up his hair before marching to the armoury.
What if someone kidnapped Xie Lian and Hua Cheng somehow slept through it? Hua Cheng would never be able to forgive himself! And well the aforementioned kidnapper will really be forced to regret every single life choice that led up to kidnapping the Ghost King’s husband. Even without his scimitar, he can definitely brutally kill anyone who dares hurt his beloved.
He steps into his boots with the silver chairs adorning them. It looks a little silly in just his inner robes with messy strands of hair sticking up all over the place, but Hua Cheng has better things to do than worry about his appearance at the moment.
Bursting out his and Xie Lian’s bedroom door, he marches down the halls of paradise manor headed straight for his armoury to grab another scimitar or perhaps a sword to save hism gege.
Yin Yu stops right in his tracks upon seeing the city lord marching down the hallway looking like he just rolled out of bed.
“Hua’chengzhu, you-”
“Gege is missing.” Hua Cheng cuts Yin Yu off, continuing to march down the halls.
Yin Yu seems to immediately get the sheer urgency of the situation and scurries off to call a search party for Xie lian.
Hua Cheng flung the double doors to his armoury open, not questioning why the light is on, perhaps he forgot to turn it off the last time he was here. Hua Cheng is prepared to grab the best looking sword he sees when he looks up towards his chair in the back and sees-
“Gege?”
On the chair, Xie Lian sat dressed in also only his inner robe and strands of hair brushing past his face. His gaze is cast downwards, looking at something on his lap. He looks up once he sees Hua Cheng.
Xie Lian has a fluffy haired toddler, dressed in red robes very similar to that of Hua Cheng. The child had a crimson coloured eye with their bangs covering their other one. Once the kid sees Hua Cheng, they turn around to bury their face into Xie Lian’s chest as Xie Lian gently pats their head. Hua Cheng feels his lips curl into a pout at the sight.
Clinging to Xie Lian’s legs, there’s a second child. This Child is slightly older than the one on his lap. The child had snow white eyes, silky white flowing hair and they were dressed fully in white. Unlike the first child, this one was staring curiously at Hua Cheng as if they were questioning whether they should run right up to the ghost king to say hi.
“San Lang.” Xie Lian greets, still patting the head of the child on his lap. “I have a suspicion on what happened to our E’ming and Rouye.”
Hua Cheng lets out a huff, “They’re those children, aren’t they?”
You’d have to be an idiot to not put two and two together and Hua Cheng is definitely no idiot.
Xie Lian nods in confirmation to Hua Cheng’s previous statement.
But what would Hua Cheng and Xie Lian do with their weapon-children. Obviously they’d have to turn them back from babies to their pure white silk ribbon and deadly scimitar. Hua Cheng isn’t sure what he’d do with a child anyway. They’d definitely be scared of him outside of his San Lang form. He means as a kid he’d be just terrified of a one hundred and ninety centimetre man with an eye patch.
Out of respect for the weapon-babies, Hua Cheng quickly switched to his San Lang form. Slightly less tall, no eye patch. This form would surely be less scary. Xie Lian blinks in surprise at the sudden change of forms.
“Do you remember how we fought that ghost in the temple of General Nan Yang last night?” Xie Lian begins. Well…It wasn’t technically a temple to Nan Yang…It was so ancient that the plaques still read Ju Yang.
“Does Gege think that something happened to our weapons there?”
Xie Lian nods, “Most likely, it was some sort of curse left by that ghost due to…the plaques.”
Of course it happened in a temple devoted to that damned Feng Xin! Only the power of a ghost posing as Ju Yang would even attempt to give Hua Cheng and Xie Lian children!
If Feng Xin’s wretched temple caused this, then Feng Xin will help fix it.
Hua Cheng lets out a grumble, “Feng Xin must have a solution then.”
“San Lang, please wait.” Xie Lian calls, getting off the throne in the armoury with Rouye trotting after him and E’Ming still clinging to his chest. Hua Cheng immediately stops in his tracks.
“I don’t think A’Xin has anything to do with this.” Xie Lian reasons. “It wouldn’t be like him to do something like this.”
Xie Lian definitely knows what that blasted Feng Xin better than Hua Cheng does. But if that blasted Feng Xin was so easily willing to abandon Xie Lian back then, Hua Cheng wouldn’t trust him to not fuck up so badly that he accidentally curses their weapons with some contraption of sorts. He still definitely does not like Feng Xin but he’ll listen to Xie Lian’s voice of reason.
“Gege’s right, but if it happened in a site that used to be a temple to him, couldn’t he help us investigate?” Hua Cheng muses.
“True.” Xie Lian nods.
Hua Cheng offers his hand to help Xie Lian off of his throne. Once Xie Lian takes his hand, Hua Cheng takes note of just how soft his skin is and he rubs his thumb against the red thread tied onto Xie Lian’s middle finger. With Xie Lian by his side, they’ll be sure to return their weapons to their original forms.
“Look, just because I was Cuocuo’s father, does not mean I’m every fucking unidentified child’s father!” Feng Xin snaps, gesturing vaguely to the weapon children clinging to Xie Lian’s leg.
Mu Qing meanwhile is laughing his ass off in the background. Hua Cheng isn’t too sure why Mu Qing’s in Feng Xin’s palace this early in the morning but he also chooses not to question it.
Xie Lian looked almost like he didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or cry. “A’Xin, we’re asking if you know why our weapons turned into children in an abandoned Ju Yang temple, not if you’re the father.”
“There’s still a Ju Yang temple standing?” Mu Qing questions, obviously finding that fact even more hilarious from the snicker on his face .
Feng Xin on the other hand looks mortified, his face has turned red and his eyes widened.
“I’ll take a look at the temple.” Feng Xin declared marching off….he was probably going to destroy the temple. Mu Qing strided after him, he’s probably just excited about seeing a Ju Yang temple after the last one was switched into a Nan Yang temple centuries ago.
That left Xie Lian and Hua Cheng with their weapon children until Feng Xin and Mu Qing returned. Said weapon children were still terrified of Hua Cheng despite him being in his San Lang form. E’Ming especially, he buried in face even deeper into Xie Lian’s robe. Rouye on the other hand, she was curious but nonetheless stayed nearby Xie Lian.
If him and Xie Lian are going to babysit for a day…Hua Cheng supposes he may as well spoil the kids in ghost city. Maybe they’ll be a little less scared of him and he could get a sampling on what it would be like to have a family with his beloved.
“Did Hua’chengzhu and his highness use the child bearing pills?” The ghost who gave the pills to them in the first place exclulated at the sight of the two weapon-babies. “I’ll get my sister to get started on some clothing for them right away.”
Xie Lian laughed sheepishly, then he shook his head. “They’re our weapons. Long story.” He explained.
The ghost pauses as if to process what Xie Lian just said then they deflate slightly. “Oh. You two were looking to buy meat buns, correct?”
“Four of them.” Hua Cheng clarifies.
Once the steaming buns arrive, Hua Cheng places a shining golden coin onto the counter as payment.
Then, he kneels down to the two children holding a warm bun in each of his hands as a peace offering. Kids like food right?
Rouye bounds towards Hua Cheng happily grabbing at a bun and gnawing at it while holding it with two hands. “Thank you A’Die!” She smiles.
A’Die???? Hua Cheng feels as if his heart is about to bound out of his chest. It’s stupid really. He shouldn’t get attached to a child that’s only going to turn back into a weapon soon.
Xie Lian smiles at the sight. Then he gently nudges E’Ming towards Hua Cheng. “E’Ming.” Xie Lian begins softly. “A’Die isn’t going to hurt you. Baba promises.”
A’Die and Baba????
E’Ming slowly steps out from behind Xie Lian, while his singular red eye stares intently at Hua Cheng. He grabs a bun, studies it for a second before he takes a small bite out of it, decides he likes it and begins to take even bigger bites.
Hua Cheng feels a slender hand placed on his shoulder. “See San Lang? They don’t hate you.”
Xie Lian and Hua Cheng spent the rest of the day spoiling their weapon children with candies and new knick knacks from ghost city. Hua Cheng swears by the end of the day E’Ming and Rouye were one of the most decked out children he’s ever seen. Especially from the amount of free gifts the ghosts have been giving them.
Then Feng Xin comes barreling at them full speed, a black fabric pouch in hand.
“Your highness, I banished the ghost in…that fucking temple.”
Feng Xin probably forgot to mention that he burnt that temple to the ground and trampled all over the ashes based off the amount of ash on the bottom of his robe. He then hands the pouch to Xie Lian.
“That bastard has found a way to turn your weapons back before I could.” He grumbled, referring to Mu Qing. “Just sprinkle that on them and they should turn back. That’s what he said anyway. Don’t take my word for it.”
Hua Cheng and Xie Lian share a glance. On one hand, the two of them both have gotten attached to spoiling their weapons as children and it’s hard to wrap their heads around the fact that if they do it, their weapons will remain weapons forever. On the other hand however, if Xie Lian and Hua Cheng get into some sort of trouble, they may be in danger without their famed weapons.
“A’Xin do you think if we sprinkle half of it would it possible to make it so they could switch forms.”
Feng Xin shrugs. “Worth a shot I guess.”
It was indeed worth a shot. Hua Cheng will still keep the child bearing pills in the drawer but he thinks he and Xie Lian will have their hands full with weapons that sometimes turn into children then sometimes turned back into weapons.