Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Xie Lian’s legs hang over the edge of the garden bridge, his bare toes skimming the placid surface of the stream beneath. A few ghost fires hover above the water like fireflies. Paradise Manor, all around him, expansive, is quiet. Not even the ruckus of Ghost City penetrates the serenity.

The sky is a deep grey that Xie Lian has learned to read as late evening. Here in the Ghost Realm, the sun never rises, but with a keen eye, one can tell the time. Content, he hums and carefully selects another piece of broken pottery from the pile next to him on the bridge to fit it like a puzzle piece into the shattered, half-reconstructed pot in his lap. Of course, there are a thousand intact pots in Paradise Manor, all of immeasurably better quality, but it’s habit, picking things up from the trash and fixing them. Meditative. Rewarding when it all comes together. Things are so easily discarded when they outlast their usefulness. It’s nice to give them new life.

Idly, he wonders when his husband, elsewhere on the manor grounds, might return to him. Today, they went on a small excursion through a countryside in the north with the goal of visiting a field of a million dancing flower spirits Hua Cheng was excited to show off to him. Along the way, Xie Lian picked up a few pieces of junk. A pair of old shoes. A dented hairpiece. This pot.

The last thing was a bloody wedding robe, which had been sealed away in a cave they passed along their journey. Despite being suppressed by a dozen talismans, the cave leaked malevolent energy, something Xie Lian couldn’t ignore. There was a plaque outside that warned all to stay away, claiming that the object inside belonged to a girl sold by her father to a man who murdered his previous wife, a girl who met the same fate on her wedding night—but such a tale encouraged daring passersby to nose around.

Hua Cheng refused to let Xie Lian enter the cave to collect the robe. He fetched it himself and tucked it away with the rest of Xie Lian’s things, which he insisted on carrying home. As soon as they returned to Ghost City, Hua Cheng plucked the offending wedding robe from Xie Lian’s rucksack and disappeared into the manor to take care of it. It won’t take any time at all, gege, he promised.

Alright. San Lang knows what he’s doing, Xie Lian agreed, too used to his husband whisking things away he might touch without a second thought: a random skull on the side of the road, a boiling pot, or even a bowl of a water scooped from a brook oozing ghost qi and infested with spirits. He winces at the last one. In his defense, it was a hot day! He just wanted a drink! It’s not like he hasn’t swallowed the occasional ghost here and there over the centuries. It’s harmless. Mostly! It’s not like it could kill him anyway, hahaha.

…, Xie Lian thinks. I probably shouldn’t say that to San Lang. If he did, his husband’s face would turn as dark as a wok.

While such an intense sight might scare anyone else, Xie Lian knows his husband isn’t angry at him; he’s angry on his behalf. Hua Cheng expends so much energy teaching Xie Lian to value himself again, so Xie Lian bats his thoughts on the head with an imaginary fan like they’re unruly children. Bad! Shoo, shoo!

Satisfied, he returns to repairing the pot, thrilled when the image of a pair of cranes in flight begin to take shape. Their outstretched wings carry them through the wisps and whorls of clouds. His feet swing back and forth across the stream below, rippling the dark water. He thinks he could spend the entire night working on this pot without tiring, but it’s while forming this thought that he’s interrupted:

“Gege,” Hua Cheng says into his communication array.

Xie Lian smiles at the sound of his husband’s voice. “Yes, San Lang?”

“I miscalculated.”

“Are you okay?” Xie Lian responds easily, tickled. The theatrics he expects from his husband following that statement never come. “San Lang? Are you there?”

No answer.

He sits up as straight as a bamboo stalk, concerned now. “San Lang, don’t go quiet like this. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Nothing.

“San Lang, answer me.”

Nothing.

His array is empty but for him.

With a thick face, Xie Lian recites the password to Hua Cheng’s communication array instead, but the array is sealed. Three more times, he recites the password, but the array doesn’t budge. Alarm bells go off: the sun would sooner fall from the sky than his husband ignore him. He sets his broken pot to the side without a care, causing it to tip over, roll, and plummet into the stream below with a plop. What’s a pot compared to Hua Cheng? Xie Lian stands, his feet leaving behind wet footprints as he charges into Paradise Manor looking for his husband. Ruoye rustles around his wrist, sensing his distress.

“San Lang!” he calls out, and dashes into a long hallway. His steps become light and quick, and soon, he’s flying through rooms and down corridors. When he whips around a corner, wholly focused on finding San Lang, it’s reflexes alone that keep him from colliding with an attendant.

Like all of their attendants, the woman is beautiful and gracious. She doesn’t acknowledge that she was almost knocked flat to the ground, instead bowing deeply with a friendly smile.

“Your Highness,” she greets, her voice as sweet as the fragrance of a blossom. She remains in her bow, eyes lowered, smile unwavering.

“Have you seen San Lang?” Xie Lian asks.

“Chengzhu retired to your chambers for the night. Should I bring a message to him?”

“No, thank you,” Xie Lian answers politely.

There are so many halls to Paradise Manor. It’s a frivolous, sprawling estate with a dozen courtyards and more space than Xie Lian knows what to do with. Sometimes he thinks about Hua Cheng’s insistence that the manor was nothing but a residence, and when he considers the vastness—how much more vast it must have seemed without anyone to share it with—he wonders how Hua Cheng stayed here without losing himself to madness. He doesn’t like to think about Hua Cheng surrounded by opulence and revelry, utterly alone amidst it. Alone for eight hundred years. An ocean of years. His only buoy was his love for Xie Lian.

You’re stronger than me, Xie Lian thinks. Without his cursed shackle, he would have faded from the world’s memory long ago. Sunken below that deep dark ocean.

He twists through the wild architecture of Paradise Manor until he crosses a final courtyard into a rear hall—their hall. A section of the estate Xie Lian has worked hard to turn into a warm, inviting home. He bypasses various rooms and corridors until he reaches the door to his and Hua Cheng’s bedroom, carved with a relief of butterflies and blossoms. It glides open soundlessly. His bare feet are just as soundless as he steps inside, wary, scanning for danger.

He doesn’t find it.

He doesn’t find Hua Cheng, either.

Or, more accurately, he doesn’t find a current version of his husband.

Standing in the middle of the room, back to Xie Lian, is a toddler.

Excitement replaces Xie Lian’s worry in an instant. Does he get to see Hua Cheng as a little baby? Finally? Gosh—Hua Cheng must be so cute at this age! Xie Lian’s grin stretches ear to ear. He’s never been able to convince Hua Cheng to transform into a child again. His request is always met with Hua Cheng changing the subject.

“You’re so small!” Xie Lian blurts, only for Hua Cheng to jump. He whirls around and slaps a hand over the right side of his face. “Hahaha! There’s no need to be shy, San Lang! You know I…”

He trails off, noticing the large bruise on Hua Cheng’s left cheek. “Oh. Are you hurt? What happened? Where’s the cursed object?” Xie Lian looks around, finding nothing. “San Lang, did the curse rebound on you? Let me see.”

The boy doesn’t answer and doesn’t move. He might as well be nailed to the floor.

“San Lang?” Xie Lian prompts, growing suspicious. In the boy’s round, dark eye, there isn’t a single hint of recognition. “Did you lose your memories, too?”

He steps forward, but the boy takes a step back, his face stricken with fright. Well, Xie Lian thinks, this isn’t ideal… But it’s not like they haven’t dealt with amnesia before. Xie Lian lost his memories to a demon once, and Hua Cheng lost them in the Butterfly Dream. The second experience isn’t useful at the moment, seeing as Hua Cheng isn’t a young lord capable of managing himself, but the first instance seems applicable. After all, Xie Lian woke up, injured and in an unfamiliar place. The first thing he sought out was help, and what he needed was to feel safe.

“Hello,” Xie Lian says, changing tactics. He takes a small step toward Hua Cheng, but the boy backs away again. Refusing to be disheartened, Xie Lian takes another step forward, like he’s approaching a scared puppy, but again, the boy retreats. They repeat this series of movements several times until the boy has walked himself into a corner. Xie Lian stops there, not wanting to scare him further. He sinks to his knees several feet away and gives his sweetest, most non-threatening smile. “You’re safe here. This is my home. Can you tell me what your name is?”

The boy trembles. His left eye, as dark as obsidian, is glassy with unshed tears. “…Hong,” he says, like the admission might get him in trouble.

“Can I call you Hong-er?” Xie Lian asks brightly. The boy says nothing. “You can call me gege,” he offers next. More silence.

This isn’t going very well…

He scratches his cheek.

He didn’t grow up with siblings or around young children. Really, the only time he’s interacted with children is the few times he wound up a makeshift guardian over the centuries, and none of those children were this small. He extends a hand to Hong-er, but the boy flinches, tucking himself as tightly as he can into the corner.

“Can I see the bruise on your face?” Xie Lian asks, searching for a way to put Hong-er at ease. The injury on his left cheek is red and purple and spans from under his eye to his jaw. Xie Lian recognizes it as a fresh bruise, having been the recipient of his fair share of bruises and more. Hong-er must be in a great deal of pain, if not wracked with a headache.

Xie Lian reaches out again, but he might as well be brandishing a knife the way Hong-er hyperventilates. The boy’s gaze flits to the side, scanning for an exit.

“I can make it feel better,” Xie Lian promises.

“No,” Hong-er argues.

“I’ll be gentle.”

Hong-er shakes his head.

“Please?” Xie Lian asks.

“No!” Hong-er screams. He makes a break for the door, but on reflex, Xie Lian catches him. He regrets it immediately: Hong-er screams and wriggles in his hold like an animal caught in a snare. Xie Lian tries to sit Hong-er down, but in the struggle, Hong-er slams his head forward—right into Xie Lian’s nose. Xie Lian jerks backward, and Hong-er slips out of his grip like a fish, tumbling to the ground.

“Ouch,” Xie Lian says, because he’s been practicing learning to say the word with Hua Cheng. It is, unfortunately, the exact wrong thing to say in this situation. Of course the one time he remembers to voice his pain is the one time he shouldn’t.

Hong-er blanches. “Oh no,” he says, his voice so small. “Oh no.” He clamps his eye shut and shakes his head back and forth. “Oh no,” he says, a tear cutting down his bruised cheek. “No, no, no.”

“I’m not hurt,” Xie Lian says. “It was an accident. I scared you. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Really! It’s okay.”

“Mama,” Hong-er cries. “I want Mama.” He chokes on his tears, coughing and gasping.

“Hong-er.”

“Mama!” This time it’s a shriek at the top of the boy’s lungs. Deathly afraid. “Mama!”

“You’re safe,” Xie Lian tries, but it only makes Hong-er cry harder.

“I want Mama!” he screams tearfully, collapsing in on himself, a tense, trembling ball. Each wail is so loud and violent Xie Lian is worried Hong-er might pass out from lack of oxygen.

He places a hand on Hong-er’s heaving back, inspiring yet another flinch. Out of his depth, he decides to risk scaring the boy and smooths his hand up and down Hong-er’s back, the way his mother used to comfort him when he was upset. He remembers the clack of her jade bracelets, the sweet incense infused into her robes, the curve of her painted smile. He never felt safer than with her.

Silly child, what’s wrong? Come here.

Replicating his mother’s comforting tone, he murmurs, “Don’t be afraid, baobao. Don’t be afraid. It’s okay. It’s really okay. I promise.”

From the boy’s nape to the small of his back, Xie Lian sweeps his hand. With each pass, Hong-er calms a little bit more until, finally, he peeks through the fingers of his left hand, his eye flooded with tears. In a gamble, Xie Lian opens his arms and is rewarded when Hong-er climbs into his lap and grabs at his robes with tiny, desperate hands. He hauls himself close to Xie Lian, tucking himself into his neck. There, with a resurgence of energy, he sobs his heart out.

Xie Lian rubs his back and whispers that it’s safe, he’s okay, everything is okay. His words feel less clumsy with each repetition, and the litany becomes as steady as the flow of a stream.

It’s nearly an hour before Hong-er calms down, out of sheer exhaustion. His sobs are replaced with heavy gulps of air, like he’s an animal fallen down after a lengthy chase, no more fight left in him. He slumps into Xie Lian, his head on his shoulder. It barely weighs anything.

Xie Lian maneuvers the boy from his shoulder to sit in his lap. Hong-er’s right hand flashes up to cover his eye. He looks like he might fall asleep at any moment: his blinks are slow, and his head dips and jerks back up several times. He gives no protest when Xie Lian cups his face, palm cradling the fevered skin of his bruised left cheek. His tired, dark eye tracks Xie Lian’s face, then closes, Hong-er slipping off into sleep for a couple seconds before he’s awake again.

“This hurts,” Xie Lian says, indicating the bruise. “Can this gege fix it for you?”

Hong-er falls asleep once more, which Xie Lian chooses to take as permission.

After so many centuries cut off from his spiritual energy and also working as an herbalist here and there, he’s well acquainted with healing a variety of ailments, but medicinal cures take time. A liniment to reduce inflammation and promote blood circulation would be his suggestion to any other patient, but the effects wouldn’t be immediate. The only way to remove Hong-er’s bruise expeditiously is with spiritual energy, but Xie Lian is out of practice with that method. Still, he does his best, sending a small trickle of energy into Hong-er. When he does, the true state of Hua Cheng’s ghostly qi is revealed. It’s weak and agitated, obvious signs of a curse, which must be moderate: enough to latch onto a ghost king but not enough to do any real damage. Xie Lian can feel Hua Cheng’s energy repairing itself already. Likely, the curse will be burnt off before nightfall tomorrow.

Xie Lian decides to trust in Hua Cheng’s strength and let the curse run its course, focusing instead on healing his younger self’s injuries, which he assumes are manifestations of the curse and not something Hua Cheng sustained while disposing of the bloody wedding robes. He follows the pathways of little Hong-er’s meridians and seeks out the tender skin of his cheek, then promotes healing by breaking up a dam of stagnant energy there. When the pathway clears, he circulates Hua Cheng’s spiritual energy through the area. The skin under his palm cools.

“Better?” he asks.

Hong-er snaps awake. He looks at Xie Lian sluggishly. “Mmph?”

“Does it hurt anywhere else?” Xie Lian asks.

He anticipates Hong-er will indicate his right eye, but he’s surprised when the boy, once the fog of sleep sloughs off, points to his side. Another bruise? Xie Lian lays his hand to the boy’s ribcage, his hand spanning most of it. Against his thumb, Hong-er’s heart thuds steadily.

He presses more spiritual energy into Hong-er. When he does, he quickly discovers a tangle as wild and dense as a patch of brambles. It can only mean one of two things: internal bleeding or a broken bone. He focuses on the injury and unclogs its blockage, moving Hong-er’s untrained spiritual energy with his own, again and again and again.

“How does your side feel now?” Xie Lian asks, and squeezes Hong-er’s ribs. “Is it okay?”

Hong-er gives a tiny nod.

“Can I heal the rest of your face?”

As soon as he says it, Hong-er ducks his head and covers his face with both hands, shaking his head. “Ugly,” he says. “Ugly. Ugly.” It’s clear he’s quoting someone. 

He trembles, and no matter what comforting words or touches Xie Lian offers, he won’t remove his hands. In a last ditch effort, entirely out of his depth, Xie Lian offers, “My husband has eyes that are two different colors.”

Hong-er goes deathly still.

He lowers his left hand, dark eye full of tentative interest. Xie Lian takes it as a promising sign and continues.

“One is black, just like this one,” he says, and taps the skin just below Hong-er’s left eye, puffy from crying. Next, he touches the back of Hong-er’s right hand, which he’s using as a makeshift eyepatch. “This one is bright red.”

Hong-er forgets to breathe.

Then, quietly, he repeats, “…Red?”

“Mm,” Xie Lian confirms. Though he’s never seen his husband with that eye, he’s observed Eming often enough that he can imagine what Hua Cheng would look like with it. So, with complete honesty, he says: “My husband is the most handsome man I’ve ever met. Eye and all.”

As Hong-er absorbs that information, Xie Lian lays his praise on as thickly as he can: “I bet if you had an eye like that, you’d be very handsome! Maybe even more handsome than my husband!”

His words and his smile must disarm Hong-er because the boy finally drops his hand. The sight that greets Xie Lian breaks his heart: Hong-er’s right eye is swollen completely shut, the skin around it bruised. A goose egg bulges his eyebrow.

“Oh no,” Xie Lian says, trying to keep the mood light. “What happened here?”

Hong-er pokes his own swollen eye and hisses, so Xie Lian pulls his finger away. “Baba, ouch,” the boy says, trying to reclaim his finger.

“I’m gege, not baba,” Xie Lian clarifies, inspecting the little hand in his. Ouch? Did he grab Hong-er the wrong way or press down on another injury without meaning to? “Where’s ouch?”

Hong-er touches his swollen eye with his other hand. “Ouch.”

“Yes, your eye is ouch.”

“Baba, ouch.”

“I’m not—” he begins, only for a horrifying alternative to dawn on him.

At once, he pieces together that Hua Cheng isn’t shrunken down and missing memories; he’s a replica of himself on a specific day of his past. It’s easy, from there, to draw conclusions about what a set of robes—worn by a girl during the most terrified moments of her life—might do to someone who touched it, particularly while destroying it.

All to say, Hong-er’s injuries aren’t a byproduct of an angry curse snapping back at Hua Cheng. They happened eight hundred years ago.

Xie Lian thinks back that far, recalling a pack of kids who attacked Hong-er the day he visited Xie Lian’s shrine wanting to die but asking for any reason not to. There were bruises on him then—from his peers, Xie Lian assumed, not wanting to grapple with another possibility. He can’t deny it now. The boy in front of him is hardly more than an infant. No one his age did this to him.

Xie Lian points to Hong-er’s eye, reluctant to ask but needing to confirm: “Your baba did this?”

“Baba, ouch,” he says, and lightly smacks his own head with an open palm.

Xie Lian’s anger is thick, like a gauze. It’s hard to breathe through, hard to think.

Hong-er is a third of his size, and he’s not the spitfire he was when Xie Lian met him: kicking Feng Xin, screaming at the state preceptor, launching himself at other kids and throwing punches. He’s a frightened little boy who cries for his mother. How could anyone…

Staggered, Xie Lian plasters on a fake smile for Hong-er’s benefit and flattens a palm to the right side of the boy’s face. When he probes it with spiritual energy, nothing seems broken, but it does take half an incense time to heal. When he removes his hand, he’s greeted by a blood-red eye that peers at him curiously. Hong-er is caught somewhere between shyness and fear, but he doesn’t hide, both eyes bravely watching Xie Lian for any signs of how he might react. Xie Lian reassures him the only way he can think to: leaning forward to peck the boy’s forehead. Hong-er whimpers just slightly, so Xie Lian takes his face in his hands, stroking his chubby cheeks with his thumbs, and kisses his forehead again.

“No one can hurt you here,” he promises, and kisses Hong-er’s forehead a third time. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you. This gege will always protect you.”

________

Hong-er lets Xie Lian carry him into the bathing chamber connected to the bedroom. It’s humid inside, steam from the deep pool of water misting the air. It makes the leaves of the potted plants placed throughout the room glisten, makes Xie Lian’s bare feet stick just slightly to the red tile floor as he nears the bath.

Hong-er is happy to undress himself, like he’s just recently learned how to do it and enjoys the independence. Xie Lian himself strips down to just his pants, then lowers his body into the pool and opens his arms for Hong-er, who lets himself be transferred into the water and sat in Xie Lian’s lap. As soon as the boy is seated, his eyes widen and he reaches out. In a flash, little fingers meet Xie Lian’s chest and scoop up the crystal ring there.

He doesn’t do anything but stare at it, transfixed, so Xie Lian doesn’t bother to take it away. It’s not like he’s a danger to it anyway. The most he can do is tug on the ring or put it in his mouth, and the chain on it keeps it safe, so Xie Lian lets him play, capitalizing on his distraction to bathe him. Hong-er is obedient as Xie Lian tips his head back, wets his hair, and scrubs it clean. He clears away the dried tears on Hong-er’s cheeks with a rag and swipes at his nose, mouth, and behind his ears. The only thing that breaks the boy’s focus on the ring is when Xie Lian cleans underneath his arms, inciting a flinch and a small laugh. Ticklish.

Xie Lian smiles, endeared, and Hong-er happily returns his attention to what he has no idea is his tether to this world. To him, the ring is nothing but an interesting toy. He slips his tiny fingers through it and holds it up to the light and sticks it in his mouth and gives it—wet—to Xie Lian, only to immediately take it back. He does this several times.

Xie Lian takes the opportunity while bathing him to inspect him for further injury, finding a handful of small purple bruises, which he heals. His distraction results in Hong-er poking him in the cheek more than once with the ring, prompting, “Gege.” Twice, he tries to shove the ring in Xie Lian’s mouth after putting it in his own.

Eventually, he’s clean and injury-free, too focused on the ring to care when Xie Lian lifts them from the bath. He wraps Hong-er in a towel, then immediately realizes he doesn’t have another set of clothes to change Hong-er into. An oversight.

Sheepishly, he reaches out into Yin Yu’s communication array. “Your Highness Yin Yu, could I ask you for a favor?”

“Your Highness, it makes me uncomfortable when you call me ‘Your Highness.’”

“Hahaha. Right. Um. Could you perhaps run into Ghost City and purchase a set of child’s robes?”

“Approximately what size should they be?”

Xie Lian looks at Hong-er. “…Small?”

“…”

“…”

“…I’ll bring options.”

“Thank you.”

“Will the child with you require accommodations at the manor?” Yin Yu asks. 

“No need, no need! Just the clothes!”

He leaves Yin Yu’s communication array. Without an adequate amount of hands, he can’t retrieve a towel for himself, so he traipses back to the bedroom wet and unclothed. At least it’s a warm summer night. Water drips down his spine. Hong-er, unconcerned, inspects his necklace. His hair is ruffled from being toweled off and sticks up all over the place. The bath seems to have woken him up a bit, but there’s still a tiredness to his eyes, a lethargy to his movements. As soon as Xie Lian gets him dressed, he’ll put them both down for bed.

When he gets back to the bedroom, he runs into the same conundrum: no free hands. How’s he supposed to dress himself? How do mothers do this? He bundles Hong-er in the crook of one arm and navigates into the walk-in closet connected to the bedroom, stuffed to the brim with clothes for Hua Cheng and Xie Lian, a frankly stunning amount of clothes yet only a fraction of the robes his husband owns and has amassed for Xie Lian. Hua Cheng’s outfits are diverse, fashionable, daring. Xie Lian’s are a compromise between his humble aesthetic and the luxury his husband insists he deserves: endless racks of white cultivator robes, but cut from the highest quality cloth, often with silky inner layers, a colorful belt, and bits of embroidery here and there. It’s nice, actually, to be going about his day with little white butterflies stitched along the edges of his sleeves, invisible unless you’re standing extremely close. They’re for Xie Lian. Only Xie Lian. Tiny reminders he isn’t alone.

He plucks a set of soft inner robes at random and carries them with him into the bedroom, dropping Hong-er onto the silk bedding wrapped up in his towel. He flops backward, staring at Xie Lian with mismatched eyes. Xie Lian can’t help but muss his wild, half-dried hair. He’s just so cute.

With a smile, he dresses himself in a perfunctory manner, giving up on his hair. Though going to sleep with it wet and unbrushed will leave him with a disaster in the morning, that’s a problem for tomorrow. He lies down on the bed next to Hong-er and lightly tickles the boy’s belly while they wait for Yin Yu to return. A testament to his competence as an attendant, he neither enters the bedroom nor knocks, simply informing Xie Lian in his array that he’s left twenty sets of clothing outside the bedroom door and that, if Xie Lian needs anything else, he shouldn’t hesitate to ask.

“Stay put?” he asks Hong-er, rising from the bed to collect the folded piles of clothing from outside. He brings it all in and drops it on a desk. Most of the clothing is too big, for children ages six to ten, but two sets should fit Hong-er just fine. The quality of them is nice, but they’re nothing fancy. One set is a rich, dark blue, and the other set is red.

I probably should have specified the clothing was for a boy, Xie Lian thinks, looking at all the useless robes. It would have saved Yin Yu a lot of trouble.

Hong-er watches him like a hawk from the bed. It’s clear he’s staying awake through sheer stubborn force of will. He rolls over on the bed and sits up, the towel pooling around him. “Gege,” he says. He points at the clothes in Xie Lian’s hands.

“Do you want to choose one?” Xie Lian asks, carrying over both sets of robes. He perches on the edge of the bed and presents both. “Which would Hong-er like to wear? This one?” He offers the red one, his husband’s signature color, but Hong-er makes a face and shoves it as far away from him as it can get. Xie Lian drops the robes onto the floor and offers the blue set instead. “How about this, then? Can you get dressed by yourself? Is Hong-er big enough for that? I bet you are. You did a very good job at getting undressed.”

He has to assist, of course. There’s no way Hong-er wouldn’t fumble putting on pants or getting his arms tucked in the correct holes. The most difficult part is getting his robes tied because Hong-er insists on helping, his little fingers in the way. As soon as Xie Lian manages to get them tied, Hong-er pulls the tie loose and attempts to replicate Xie Lian’s movements to no success.

“Gege, fix this,” he says, frustrated.

Xie Lian redoes his work. “Better?” he asks with a smile. He pushes the soggy towel into the floor and curls up in the center of the bed with Hong-er. Any other night, he or his husband would extinguish the lantern in the room with a burst of spiritual energy, but Xie Lian distinctly remembers his fear of the dark was one of the reasons he insisted on sleeping with his mother as a child. The other reason was simply that he wanted to be close to her because she was his favorite person.

“Ready for bed?” Xie Lian asks Hong-er.

“No,” Hong-er says. Suddenly, he no longer wants to be in the bed. He rolls over and tries to climb out, grumbling and whining and squirming when Xie Lian catches him and drags him back. “No! No! No!”

“Hong-er’s tired. It’s time to go to sleep.”

The boy fights like a little beast, working himself into hysterics, and it becomes clear this is a losing battle, at least for the moment. New tactic. Xie Lian sighs and hauls Hong-er out of bed, carrying him out of the bedroom. Feeling like he’s won, Hong-er is once again obedient and docile. He lays his head on Xie Lian’s shoulder—step one of Xie Lian’s plan. Step two is taking him to stand outside under a curved eave so that he can overlook the personal garden beside the hall, overflowing with little white flowers no matter the season. Ruoye, soggy, slips from Xie Lian’s wrist to make a lap around the estate to dry off like it usually does after a bath. Meanwhile, Xie Lian explains everything in the garden in the driest way possible, utilizing a mixture of the droning voice he used as Fangxin to recite the Dao De Jing for Lang Qianqiu and the lecturer’s tone he whips out during calligraphy lessons with his husband when he starts acting out. It works like a charm: Hong-er’s breathing slows down.

Xie Lian continues like that for an incense time, even going on a tangent about soil types. By the time he finishes up a story about trying to grow soybeans on a patch of haunted land, Hong-er is out like a light. Victorious, Xie Lian takes the boy back inside to the bedroom and eases them into bed. He decides to keep Hong-er on his chest to avoid waking him up by transferring him to the mattress, but Hong-er wakes anyway.

His displeasure is immediate: he sniffles and grinds his forehead into Xie Lian’s collarbone, too tired to fight but still upset to be going to bed. Xie Lian pats his rump.

It’s not often that he has trouble sleeping, but when he does, Hua Cheng sings to him. Always the same song. Something my mother used to sing, gege. A beautiful song in a foreign dialect. Though Xie Lian may not understand it, it doesn’t take away from his enjoyment. The melody, carried by Hua Cheng’s silken voice, never fails to put him to sleep, so he sings the song for Hong-er, knowing he’s butchering pronunciations and making up entire words—but at least he follows the tune!

Unfortunately, his singing achieves the opposite effect. Hong-er doesn’t fall asleep; instead, he lifts his heavy head and peers at Xie Lian, brow furrowed. He grabs Xie Lian’s chin, his little fingernails digging in on accident, and pulls at him. Xie Lian tilts his head down, and Hong-er exchanges his grip on Xie Lian’s chin for a handful of his lips.

“Hm?” Xie Lian hums at Hong-er.

“Mama,” Hong-er says. Both of his hands come up to Xie Lian’s mouth, squishing it and pulling his lips apart like he might find his mother inside.

“Where did your mama go?” Xie Lian asks as best he can with his mouth held hostage. He has a guess about what must have happened to Hong-er on this day in the past, but Hong-er’s response still hurts his heart. The boy looks up at him, utterly lost, and mutters:

“Bye-bye.”

Right after he says it, his lips wobble and his tears pour over. The cry that follows is a low, close-mouthed keen. Xie Lian thumbs the tears off his cheeks as rapidly as they fall, but the gesture doesn’t soothe Hong-er. His whine continues until he’s out of air, his forehead red by the end of it. He gasps for breath, and with full lungs, he sobs out, “I want Mama!”

Xie Lian’s eyes mist with sympathetic tears. He cards his fingers through Hong-er’s baby-soft hair. “Come here,” he urges, and folds Hong-er into his arms. The boy’s face finds a home nestled into his neck once more.

Who held Hong-er after his mother passed? Did he curl up in some lonely corner, bruised and broken, and hug himself until he fell asleep? That night eight hundred years ago was nothing like this one: freshly bathed and healed and snuggled into someone’s arms. With ferocity, Xie Lian wishes he could venture back in time and cuddle that little boy, but this is the best he can do.

“You can stay with me,” Xie Lian swears, one hand scratching through the boy’s hair and the other patting his back. His movements slow down after Hong-er drifts off, but they don’t stop. Not once.

Chapter Text

Hong-er drools in his sleep, something Xie Lian can’t help but find adorable. They each lie on their stomachs in bed, Xie Lian’s hand on the boy’s back, rising and falling with every breath he takes. It isn’t until late morning that Hong-er’s mismatched eyes crack open and he pushes himself up from the sheets with a massive yawn.

His hair is complete chaos, sticking up all over the place. He looks a bit like a puffed up chicken, and Xie Lian takes a moment to enjoy it. It’s rare that he wakes up before Hua Cheng because Hua Cheng prefers to pretty himself up before being seen—sometimes going so far as to put on makeup and pretend he just woke up. Xie Lian likes the mornings that Hua Cheng sleeps in, when Xie Lian wakes to his husband’s face soft with sleep, his cheek creased from the pillow and his eyepatch removed.

As Hong-er rubs his eyes, Xie Lian half-heartedly smooths his hair down to no avail. The boy, in turn, smooths down Xie Lian’s hair, making Xie Lian chuckle. At last, Xie Lian sits up from bed. Hong-er, as quick as a snake, slides off the side of the bed  on his stomach and inspects the room.

After Xie Lian orders breakfast through Yin Yu’s communication array, he works hard to corral Hong-er, who wants nothing more than to run around the bedroom and get into everything now that he’s bursting with energy. It’s difficult to get him to stand still long enough for Xie Lian to fetch some water, dampen his hair, and arrange it into something less crazy.

Xie Lian writes his own hair off as a loss, simply combing it with his fingers and tossing it into a loose bun at the nape of his neck. In the time it takes him to do that, Hong-er pushes a chair halfway across the room, stands on it, and steals a dagger off a bookshelf. He doesn’t throw a fit when Xie Lian confiscates it, but the second his plans are waylaid, he leaves to cause more mischief. Down the chair he goes. Then he’s racing across the room to yank at a privacy screen. Afraid he might topple it, Xie Lian redirects his attention. Undeterred, Hong-er zips off for the chair next to the bookshelf once more, but this time, he uses it to stand and pull scrolls into the floor. They roll across the hardwood.

“Uh-oh,” Hong-er says, like he didn’t just make the mess.

Xie Lian shakes his head with a little smile. 

It’s a relief when Yin Yu informs him by communication array that the breakfast he requested is waiting for them in the dining room.

“You’re gone? The staff, too?” Xie Lian confirms. He hasn’t explained the situation to Yin Yu, but the man is intelligent. It’s likely he’s pieced together what happened between Hua Cheng’s obvious absence and Xie Lian’s acquisition of a mystery child. That or he’s decided it’s none of his business, which is just as likely.

“I’ve instructed everyone to give you privacy today. You don’t have to worry about any interruptions.”

Invigorated, Xie Lian claps once, drawing Hong-er’s attention. “Are you hungry?”

The boy nods, abandoning his makeshift toys.

When Xie Lian opens the bedroom door and heads into the hall, Hong-er follows him like a duckling, his bare feet smacking the ground as he runs to keep pace, all the way into the dining room. The dining room is an airy space with panels of lattice windows that stretch floor to ceiling and open like a massive vent to a koi pond, which Hong-er beelines for. Xie Lian snags each of the boy’s hands and marches him to the table. Obediently, Hong-er lets his course be corrected.

On the table are two bowls of congee, two spoons, two wooden bowls, and a pitcher of water. It isn’t necessary for Hong-er to eat, Xie Lian knows. The boy might have a beating heart and functioning lungs, but they’re artifices. No curse will ever change the fact that Hua Cheng is dead.

“Sit with me,” Xie Lian says, and kneels on one of the cushions on the floor. He pats the one beside him, which Hong-er dutifully plops down onto with far less coordination than Xie Lian. It’s a fall more than anything. “Thirsty?”

Hong-er nods, so Xie Lian fills up one of the wooden bowls and brings it to the boy’s mouth. Inside of drinking it, Hong-er snatches away the bowl to do it himself, but he pours half of the water down the front of his clothes. Wet, he gets upset, a whine building up in intensity toward a full-blown sob. Xie Lian hushes him and takes the bowl back. With one hand, he cups the base of Hong-er’s head, and with the other, he offers the bowl again. This time, Hong-er takes a small slurp.

“Good?”

Hong-er says nothing, just takes another sip and one more after that before he pushes the bowl away and looks at his congee like it’s a puzzle he can’t solve.

“It’s good,” Xie Lian says, and picks up Hong-er’s spoon. He scoops up a small bite of congee and lifts it to Hong-er’s lips, which press together firmly. “Please? One bite.”

Hong-er takes the spoon from him and slaps it into his bowl. Seemingly satisfied with the result of this move, he slaps the spoon down again and again into the congee. The porridge splatters across the table. It’s not exactly uncommon for Hua Cheng to play with his food, but his fiddling is usually confined to shifting his meal around into silly faces.

Xie Lian goes to correct Hong-er, but before he can, the boy shovels up a bite and tucks it into his mouth. It’s obvious he isn’t eating it. Rather, he pushes the food around with his tongue to inspect it. While he does it, he slaps his congee some more. Perhaps a minute later, he swallows his bite, then feeds himself again, repeating this cycle several times. Xie Lian strokes his hair.

“Very good,” he praises.

He says nothing when Hong-er reaches over to thrust his spoon in Xie Lian’s congee, watching as Hong-er transfers food to his own bowl, then transfers food from his bowl to Xie Lian’s. He drops a lot of it on the table. In fact, by the end of their meal, more congee is on the table and down the front of Hong-er’s robes than in his belly.

“Are you done?” Xie Lian asks. 

“Done, gege,” Hong-er says, then fusses with the mess on his chest. His brow knits together. So fussy, his husband, even as a child.

Xie Lian strips him out of his shirt.

“Yin Yu, could you purchase two more sets of robes for me? The smallest ones from yesterday fit well, but if they could be any color but red, that would be best. Oh—and socks and shoes. The boy can’t be much older than two years old, if that helps.”

“I’ll see to it it’s done, Your Highness.”

Shirtless, Hong-er happily abandons the table and zips for the koi pond again. Xie Lian supervises him, making sure he doesn’t fall in when the koi gather with open mouths and the boy leans in close to inspect them with a bright smile.

“Fish,” Hong-er declares, then whips his head up to look at Xie Lian. He points at the koi. “Fish! Look, fish, gege!”

“Lots of fish.”

“Lots of fish,” Hong-er parrots. He bounces up and down, excited and unable to contain it. He gets down on his hands and knees and reaches out for the koi, Xie Lian’s hand under his chest to keep him from tipping into the water. When the boy’s fingers make contact with a fish, he shrieks in delight. He looks at Xie Lian again, this time opening and closing his mouth on repeat in imitation of the koi. With a giggle, he touches his wet hand to Xie Lian’s chin.

“Aren’t you a silly little thing,” Xie Lian says.

They continue to watch the koi until Yin Yu announces he’s placed the clothing in the bedroom, at which point Xie Lian is forced to pry Hong-er away from the pond. The boy puts up a feeble fight, then gives up, his attention latching on to every new part of his surroundings; this is probably the biggest and nicest home the boy has ever been in, and it isn’t until Xie Lian looks around that he realizes the home he’s built with Hua Cheng is a bit of a death trap for a child this young: weapons each of them have left lying around, statuettes that can be knocked over, magical items Hua Cheng has tossed on the floor out of boredom, sharp corners, sharp corners, why are there so many sharp corners…

Maybe we should play outside…

Three sets of clothes, four pairs of socks, and two pairs of shoes are waiting in the bedroom, Yin Yu going above and beyond as always. Xie Lian lets Hong-er pick out the robes he likes best and dresses him, then carries him on a hip as he selects his own outfit from the closet. As soon as Xie Lian sets the boy down to dress himself, Hong-er darts off, back to the chair next to the bookshelf. He pushes it across the room until it gets stuck on a rug, then circles the chair like he can’t quite figure out why it won’t move. Xie Lian ties his belt and slips on his boots, grabbing Hong-er’s shoes and socks before he sits in the middle of the floor and beckons the boy over. Hong-er joins him without protest.

“Tell me if it’s too tight,” Xie Lian says, because he didn’t master the art of tying his socks correctly until Mu Qing and Feng Xin left and he’d had no choice but to figure it out. He’s not confident he won’t mess up tying the laces for someone else, not after eight hundred years of only dressing himself.

When Xie Lian slides the sock onto the boy’s foot, however, Hong-er yanks it off. Xie Lian puts it back on—only for the sock to be torn off again. One more time, this time batting off Hong-er’s hands and tying the laces. Hong-er, red in the face, pulls the tie loose and rips the sock back off, tossing it to the floor angrily. Xie Lian puts it on again, continuing to ward off Hong-er’s grabbing hands, then puts on the other sock. Hong-er flops onto his back, kicking and squirming.

“Nooooooooo,” Hong-er whines. His eyes mist with tears, and he glares at the ceiling. “No!” he cries, sobbing.

Xie Lian sighs, defeated, and unlaces Hong-er’s socks, removing them. Just like that, the waterworks stop.

San Lang, have you always been so dramatic…?

Xie Lian rubs circles into the soles of Hong-er’s feet with his thumbs. “I’m going to take your shoes with us,” he says. “If your feet hurt later, tell me. Okay?”

“No.” Hong-er kicks his foot, bratty. “Don’t want it.”

“Yes, yes, I know. No socks. No shoes. But if you aren’t mindful of where you walk, I’m going to put them on you anyway. Now come here. Let me carry you.” He drops Hong-er’s feet and opens his arms, and the boy, no longer being pressured into wearing anything on his feet, rolls over, gets up, and throws himself into Xie Lian’s embrace.

________

The garden seems like the best place for Hong-er to play. It’s sequestered but large enough for the boy to run around to his heart’s content. It won’t keep him occupied for a full day, but there aren’t many other places to go once he gets bored, unfortunately. Hua Cheng doesn’t like to be seen when he isn’t at full power, which rules out the rest of Paradise Manor, Ghost City, and probably even Puqi Village because the villagers will notice Xie Lian’s sudden possession of a toddler and want to know everything about the boy. Xie Lian can already imagine a lot of questions would center around whether or not he has a wife somewhere they don’t know about.

Hong-er zips around freely as Xie Lian sits in a patch of grass. It seems like the boy’s energy will never run out. Some people might find it exhausting, but Xie Lian enjoys the vigor that children have. Over the centuries, nearly any time he ran into a game being played in the streets, he joined in—never long enough for his bad luck to catch up, but it was irresistible. Children are so cute! And playing with them is so much fun! The only reason he isn’t chasing Hong-er around is that he feels like they’re still building rapport, that he might accidentally terrify the boy after what his father did to him.

His thoughts are interrupted by Hong-er, who comes bounding up with an outstretched fist. He stops right in front of Xie Lian.

“Gege,” he says with a big smile.

“What is it? Do you have something?”

Hong-er’s hand unfurls, revealing a crushed white flower, one of thousands populating this garden. Gently, like it’s as fragile as a baby bird, the boy sets the flower in Xie Lian’s palm.

It’s indescribable, what Xie Lian feels, the weight of it. His best attempt would be that it’s as though his heart itself has expanded a thousand sizes.

He cups Hong-er’s face and plants a long kiss on his forehead. “Thank you,” he says when he pulls away. Hong-er stares at him full of wonder. “I like your flower very much. It’s beautiful.”

A smile returns to Hong-er’s face, beautiful and bright and so wide his cheeks dimple, and he peels off, returning with another blossom clutched in his fist. It joins the one in Xie Lian’s hand, then another, and another, and another until they overflow into his lap, like Hong-er won’t be satisfied until he’s plucked the entire garden and delivered it to Xie Lian. When he brings a fifteenth flower over, Xie Lian scoops him up into a hug and rocks him back and forth. Hong-er laughs.

“Would you like to go on a little trip with me? I have somewhere we can play,” he says, struck with an idea. “It’s sunny and warm there. There’s even a swing! Have you ever been on a swing before?” Hong-er watches him with interest, though he doesn’t seem to grasp the proposition. “What do you say? Do you want to come with gege?”

Hong-er clings to the front of his robes like a baby monkey, answer enough.

“I have one last favor to ask, Yin Yu. Can you prepare a simple lunch for two? We’re going to spend the day on Mount Taicang.”

________

“Hold on,” Xie Lian says, and steps through the distance-shortening array he’s drawn on a random doorway in Paradise Manor.

Light blossoms around them—greenery, the sounds of birds, the lush smell of grass. To Xie Lian, the wash of sensory information is like home. It brings back so many memories: training on Mount Taicang, building a cottage in preparation for Hua Cheng, Hua Cheng’s return. A sky full of three thousand lanterns, like a school of fish swimming toward the heavens. A bone-crushing hug. A month spent with Hua Cheng draped over him at every moment, unwilling to be separated, even if it made it more difficult for Xie Lian to complete chores.

For Hong-er, though, it’s just one more strange place he’s magically found himself. He clings to Xie Lian, scanning the area. “Gege,” he says warily.

“You’re safe,” Xie Lian says, and points to the cottage. “I live here sometimes. Would you like to come see?”

It’s been perhaps four months since he last stayed at the cottage on Mount Taicang with Hua Cheng. The mountain is in need of a good weeding, and there are hundreds of sticks scattered throughout the yard he needs to pile up. Not to mention—when he gets inside—he realizes the cottage is coated in a thin layer of dust and the bedding is stale. Plenty of work to keep him busy for the day while Hong-er runs around, but the boy doesn’t seem as interested in exploring and causing mayhem as he was before. His fists remain balled in Xie Lian’s robes as he inspects his surroundings. To settle some of his anxiety, Xie Lian pecks the boy’s cheek. Hong-er startles, then lets go of Xie Lian’s robes to hold his face and kiss his chin in return, wet and clumsy.

“Mwah!” he says after he’s done.

…San Lang, you’re so adorable. I’m going to die.

Hong-er laughs when Xie Lian peppers him in kisses before plopping him down on the floor. Ah—the floors could use a good sweep, too. He fetches his broom and sets to cleaning with Hong-er toddling along everywhere he goes, clutching the skirt of Xie Lian’s robes and sucking on the thumb of his other hand. He’s quiet and patient the entire time, yet the second Xie Lian leans the broom up against the wall, finished, the boy reaches both hands up with a whine, continuing to whine until Xie Lian picks him up.

“So sticky,” Xie Lian admonishes. He carries the boy on a hip as he wipes down the kitchen table, the counter, and the stove.

It takes half an incense time to tidy up the cottage and air it out, but it looks much better once he’s done. All that’s left is washing the bedding, which means hauling water up from the well, something he needs two hands for.

Xie Lian pries Hong-er from his chest and sets him on the floor, but Hong-er latches onto his right leg immediately, wrapping his arms and legs around it. All the independence he displayed this morning has vanished, which would worry Xie Lian were Hong-er not looking up at him with a mischievous grin this time. Curious what he’s up to, Xie Lian attempts to take a step with Hong-er still attached to his leg, inciting laughter.

I see, Xie Lian thinks, amused. So we’re playing a game.

“Why don’t you get a better grip?” he asks, and detaches Hong-er from himself long enough to hike the skirt of his robe up and expose his right leg. “Try now.”

Hong-er throws himself around Xie Lian’s leg again, sitting down on his foot, becoming a bit of a makeshift boot. Xie Lian tosses the skirt of his robe over the boy’s head, disappearing him from view. The response it gets is a peal of delighted laughter.

Hong-er clings to him the entire way out to the well in the front yard, like a little barnacle. Each step Xie Lian takes is punctuated by a giggle from the boy. Xie Lian smiles, making sure to walk slowly enough that Hong-er isn’t dislodged. When he arrives at the well, Hong-er stays put.

After Xie Lian hauls up a bucket of water, he’s even more careful, wanting neither to hurt Hong-er nor spill the bucket on his way to the wooden laundry tub in the front yard. He dumps the contents of the bucket into the tub, and then it’s back to the well. A dozen trips like this. If Hong-er is exhausted, he doesn’t show it, but Xie Lian doesn’t want him to overexert his muscles or hurt his hands keeping them in such tight fists bunched into his pants, so he coaxes Hong-er away from his leg and plants the boy on his shoulders instead. He’s careful to duck in and out of the doorway when he collects the bedsheets and brings them outside so that he doesn’t conk Hong-er’s head on the doorjamb.

Luckily, he doesn’t have a tender scalp, because Hong-er decides to grab fistfuls of his hair to keep himself from falling. Xie Lian feels a bit like a horse, held by the reins.

“Don’t you want to run around and play?” Xie Lian asks. “Do you want down? To explore?”

Hong-er whines, pulling Xie Lian’s hair tighter. It’s a grumpy, bratty sound. Such a sticky child. Xie Lian’s not sure why it surprises him: Hua Cheng is an equally sticky adult. They’ve started, recently, making attempts to spend time away from one another—different corners of Paradise Manor, different homesteads, different Realms—never more than a few hours at a time. They like being together every waking moment of every day, as unhealthy as others may find the behavior, but at the same time, eight centuries alone creates the occasional desire for solitude, for space. Xie Lian enjoys an afternoon here or there quietly toiling away in a field, luxuriating in the meditative motions of hard work, and Hua Cheng—though he would never admit it—does like to sculpt without an audience sometimes. They usually find themselves wandering into the other’s communication array anyway, chatting as they go about their days. Being disconnected from one another is never something they’ll truly manage, or desire. Xie Lian likes the string on his finger and the ring around his neck. He likes the dice in his sleeve that will bring his husband to him at a moment’s notice. He likes that, in many ways, they’re one person. One body with two heads, four arms, four legs, two hearts, and one shared soul.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Xie Lian assures. He dunks the sheets into the laundry tub, then splashes the water around. “You can play here? In the water?”

It must be an enticing offer because Hong-er is quiet, contemplative. After a minute, he clambers down from Xie Lian’s shoulders with help and plunges his arms into the water, soaking his sleeves. He smacks at the surface and keeps at it while Xie Lian mixes spices and soap into the water and stirs the sheets around. Side by side, they play and work. It’s only when Xie Lian lifts the dripping sheets out of water to carry them over to a flat rock for beating that Hong-er panics. He rushes to Xie Lian and throws wet arms around his leg.

“No,” Hong-er says.

“I’m not going to leave you,” Xie Lian promises. “I just need to beat the sheets. Do you want to help?”

“Want to help,” Hong-er agrees.

His help is…useless. He’s barely big enough to hold or to swing the paddle without toppling over, and there’s no power behind his blows at all when he does manage to land a stroke, but he’s overjoyed to be participating, so Xie Lian lets him participate as much as he wants. It takes about five minutes for him to tire, at which point he sits in the grass while Xie Lian finishes the work. Whack whack whack. A satisfying, rhythmic pounding. A burn in his muscles. He swipes sweat off his brow after he’s done and finds Hong-er plucking up blades of grass to make a small pile, like a miniature haystack. It reminds Xie Lian of the time his husband wove a bunch of weeds into a headdress for an ox. Gege, look, a monster. Xie Lian laughs at the memory.

He sets up the clothesline with Hong-er shadowing his steps and throws the sheets over it, turning around expecting to see Hong-er right at his heels, but the boy is gone. Not missing, though. Xie Lian hears his giggling—on the other side of the hung sheets.

“I wonder where Hong-er could be,” Xie Lian says, scratching his chin and humming like he’s trying to solve a problem, though he can’t keep a smile off his face. “That’s so strange. He was just right here.”

More giggling. Then Hong-er lifts the sheet and peeks up at him from underneath it, the bottom edge of the sheet draped over his head and shoulders like a shawl. He smiles at Xie Lian, his chubby cheeks turning his eyes into little crescents.

“Oh my! There you are!” Xie Lian says, faking surprise. “I thought I lost you!”

Hong-er laughs. He throws the sheet off his head, hiding behind it again and giggling incessantly at his own antics.

With a grin, Xie Lian sneaks around the other side of the laundry line. The second Hong-er spots him and realizes he’s been caught, he tears off through the yard with a happy shriek. His laughter floats through the air like bubbles. Then he falls, his hands slapping the ground hard. Xie Lian waits for the tears, but they don’t come. Instead, Hong-er sits on his butt, looks at his hands, and raises them toward Xie Lian. “Oh no,” he says. “Fall down.”

Xie Lian checks his hands over: no cuts, just dirt. He cleans them off with the hem of his sleeve. Meanwhile, Ruoye slithers out to investigate, prodding at Hong-er’s clean palm. Hong-er screams once, quickly, like Ruoye is a venomous snake, and yanks his hand away.

“It’s just Ruoye. Ruoye, Hong-er. Hong-er, Ruoye,” Xie Lian introduces them.

Ruoye proudly flutters out of his sleeve and dances through the air, showing itself off. With a heavy degree of wariness, Hong-er eyes the silk band. When Ruoye coils around him, he jumps, bottom lip trembling like he might cry, but he’s shocked out of any tears by Ruoye nudging him in the cheek. Like a hand, the silk band pets him. Despite its origins, it can be tender; it’s wiped away hundreds of Xie Lian’s tears and held him when he had no one. Lonely nights under the stars. Riverbanks after drowning. The coffin. All that darkness, but always a constant, comforting presence.

The band rubs up against Hong-er like an affectionate cat.

“Gege, what?” Hong-er asks, eyebrows knitted together.

“It’s a friend,” Xie Lian assures him.

“Friend,” Hong-er says, and then his eyes brighten. “Oh. Friend. Hello.” Clumsily, he pats Ruoye hard enough to knock the silk out of the air. It flops dramatically to the grass, and Hong-er taps its limp form. “Hello. Friend. Hello,” he repeats like Ruoye can’t hear him, or maybe like the silk band is a child he’s teaching how to have a conversation. “Hello.”

Ruoye snaps out of his grip to twist and twirl through the air, then shoots off through the yard, in the direction of the chicken coop. In a flash, Hong-er is on his feet and chasing after Ruoye, shouting, “Friend! Friend! Fly!”

At a stroll, Xie Lian follows. He closes the distance between them when Hong-er halts dead and points ahead, at a fat brown hen pecking at the ground. “Gege, what’s that?”

“A chicken.”

“Chicken,” Hong-er repeats. Then he imitates the sound it makes, like he knows about the animal in theory but not practice, “Ge ge? Chicken?”

“Mm. Ge ge.”

Ruoye chases the hen around mischievously, inciting the bird’s ire. Hong-er takes a couple of curious steps toward the pair, then a few more after that, but the hen notices him and transfers its irritation from Ruoye to the boy, sprinting in his direction.

With a scream, Hong-er runs to Xie Lian, teary-eyed and scared, though his tears are forgotten as soon as Xie Lian scoops the boy up. They’re replaced by a grumpy little frown that Hong-er buries in Xie Lian’s shoulder.

“You don’t like the chicken?” Xie Lian asks.

“No,” Hong-er mumbles into his shoulder. He squirms inside Xie Lian’s arms until he’s hugging Xie Lian around the neck. He refuses to let go of Xie Lian for the next shichen, forcing him to complete chores around the mountain with two little arms squeezing him so tight they almost cut off his air supply.

Xie Lian wouldn’t have it any other way.

________

Hong-er is very happy to be let down when Xie Lian drops to his knees in the overgrown garden and proposes the boy help him pull up the weeds suffocating his vegetables. Even though Xie Lian tries to teach him the difference between the plants and the weeds, Hong-er still pulls up everything he sees. Xie Lian doesn’t intend to let him do it for too long, lest he blister his hands, but it turns out he doesn’t need to stop the boy. Hong-er soon abandons his task to play with a tiny snail he finds in the shade.

He plays with the snail for the better part of an hour. Every time Xie Lian glances over, Hong-er is transferring it between his fingers in fascination. It isn’t until later that Hong-er’s intent focus breaks. Little steps swish through the grass, the boy approaching in his peripheral vision, until he’s right next to Xie Lian and poking him in the shoulder. He has a fist outstretched. Expecting a flower like before, Xie Lian opens a dirt-gritty hand to receive it, struck dumb when Hong-er drops a worm into his hand instead.

“…”

Hong-er pokes it. “A worm.”

“…Yes. Thank you.”

“A worm, gege,” he says again, then points off in the direction he must have found it.

“Why don’t we put it in the dirt where it belongs?”

“Okay, gege.” He plucks up the worm and carelessly tosses it into the weeds.

“…Gently next time. Very careful.”

“Oh.” He looks at where he threw the worm, then stops caring, turning his attention to Xie Lian instead. He clings to his arm. Now that Xie Lian gets a good look at him, he’s a bit flushed. With the clean back of his hand, Xie Lian checks the temperature of the boy’s cheek. Overheated.

“Time for a break,” Xie Lian says. “Let’s go get some water and cool down. And why don’t we have lunch while we’re at it? Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“I bet you are.”

“No.”

Xie Lian is sure he can coax the boy once he’s in front of a plate of food. “Alright,” he says easily, then stops by the well to draw up a pail of water, which he uses to wash off each of their hands and Hong-er’s feet. He dumps the water in the dirt, then hauls up another bucket for them to drink for lunch.

Inside, he helps Hong-er sips down half a bowl of water, then sets the table with a plate of jiaozi stashed in his qiankun sleeve and kept warm by a heating talisman that Yin Yu thoughtfully included.

Xie Lian sits on one of the table’s benches and places Hong-er in his lap. Curious, Hong-er pokes the food. “What’s this?”

“Jiaozi.”

“Jiaozi,” the boy repeats, like always, like he’s committing the word directly to memory, and he probably is. Hua Cheng is sharp. If asked, he could recite entire conversations the two of them have shared, word for word, going back eight hundred years. Xie Lian is frequently amazed that, after reading through a scroll only once and setting it aside, Hua Cheng can excerpt it on demand. His vivid recall and ability to pick up on patterns are likely how he learned to read and how he picked up so many other languages through the years without formal instruction.

Xie Lian picks up one of the jiaozi with his chopsticks. “Would you like me to feed you?”

Hong-er snatches the jiaozi with his hand and declares, “No, gege. I do it.”

“Alright, alright,” Xie Lian agrees easily. “Be careful. It’s hot.” Heedless of his warning, Hong-er takes a big bite. “Is it good?”

“Mmmmm,” Hong-er hums performatively. He leans back in Xie Lian’s lap and lifts the jiaozi to poke Xie Lian in the mouth with it. “Gege, eat! Eat! Be good boy!”

Xie Lian laughs merrily and lets Hong-er feed him. As he chews, Hong-er takes another bite with a theatrical Mmmm!, then offers the jiaozi to Xie Lian again, chirping, “So good! So good! Good boy!”

San Lang, you’re so cute! Xie Lian thinks. His smile is broad, and he’s overwhelmed with the desire to smother Hong-er in kisses. So cute! So cute! I really can’t take it!

He expects the novelty of feeding someone to wear off or for Hong-er to decide he no longer wants to share, but for every single bite the boy takes, he makes sure to present his food to Xie Lian, unsatisfied until Xie Lian partakes. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, not really: his generosity. Hua Cheng has the biggest heart in the world. Big enough to love Xie Lian for eight hundred years expecting nothing in return. To build a city that protects persecuted spirits. Others might not recognize his bottomless well of compassion, but Xie Lian sees it in everything Hua Cheng does. No amount of hatred was enough to snuff out the gentleness in him. It was always there, outstretched like a flower, waiting for anyone who might appreciate it.

“Are you full?” Xie Lian asks when the plate is empty, rubbing Hong-er’s stomach. Hong-er rubs his stomach, too.

“Full!”

Xie Lian leaves the rest of the jiaozi on the counter with their talisman in place and washes grease off Hong-er’s face and then his own. With a full belly, the boy is likely to start getting tired, and it’s a good bet he’ll throw as much of a fit about going to sleep as he did yesterday, even if it’s just for a nap, so Xie Lian decides to trick him again, asking if he’d like to go for a walk and then using Ruoye to help fasten the boy to his back. For good measure, Xie Lian retrieves his bamboo hat from his sleeve and drapes it behind him so that it covers the back half of his head and settles over Hong-er without swallowing most of the boy’s body or obstructing his view. Then they set off up the mountain, taking a long walk to the rebuilt Temple of the Crown Prince and meandering down its pebble paths. They pass a whispering stream, but mostly the walk is a winding road under maple trees and fruit trees out of flowering season, which dapple them in early afternoon light. Birds sing. The occasional twig snaps. Brush rustles—probably a snake spooked and fleeing.

Hong-er talks a little bit, mostly jabbering to himself, some of it nonsense that Xie Lian can’t understand, but eventually, he falls silent. Xie Lian walks another hour just to make sure Hong-er is asleep, and when they return to the cottage, Ruoye helps him transfer the boy to the sheetless bed. Hong-er sprawls out on his back like a starfish, completely at peace. He’s perfect, his fingers slightly curled toward his palms, his hair fanned across his forehead, his cheek creased from passing out against Xie Lian during their walk. 

Xie Lian could watch Hong-er like this for hours. It’s a privilege to be trusted with his happiness and safety.

He sits on the edge of the mattress and lightly rubs Hong-er’s belly, studying the boy’s sleep-slack face. The man this boy becomes—it’s astonishing. He joins an army without fear. He defies all odds to remain in this world for love. He sacrifices himself to a horde of resentful spirits. He freely gives away every bit of spiritual energy he has to save Xie Lian. He’s brave and fierce and selfless and honorable. Angry and mischievous and hopeful and vicious. A king. A god. A legend. And it began here: with Hong-er. A boy who brings presents of flowers and worms, who endures the abuse of his father and goes on to endure the abuse of everyone else, all of whom try to kill his kindness, who try to kill him. Xie Lian pushes Hong-er’s hair off his forehead so that he can press a kiss between the boy’s brows, his eyes fogged with tears.

Thank you for being so resilient, my sweet boy.

Thank you for existing.

Hong-er’s mismatched eyes crack open a sliver, then shut. Air wheezes softly through his nose.

________

It’s late evening, Hong-er has eaten a few more jiaozi from the dozens Yin Yu packed, and the boy needs something to do to wear him out for bedtime, so Xie Lian digs out some rice paper, an inkstone, and a brush, mixing up the ink and setting everything out on the floor, then inviting Hong-er over.

Xie Lian sits behind the boy, placing the brush in his hand and guiding his movements to dip the brush into the inkstone and bring it to the rice paper. When the two things make contact, ink bleeds across the blank canvas. Hong-er immediately seems to comprehend the gist of this activity because he pulls his hand out of Xie Lian’s and slaps the rice paper several times with the brush, leaving a cluster of watery ink blots. His attention is locked in—the brush splatting into the inkstone and then back onto the rice paper, over and over—so Xie Lian leaves him be and sets to making dough in the kitchen for mantou he can take with him tomorrow while he collects scraps.

Perhaps, in retrospect, it was unwise to turn his back on a toddler for half an incense time, but he can’t find it in himself to be upset when he checks in on Hong-er only to discover the rice paper on the floor is completely covered in wild brush strokes—and so is the floor, and the wall next to the dining table, and Hong-er himself. His robes are a mess, and his hands and cheeks are smeared with ink. His smile, though, is infectious. He hurries over to Xie Lian with a giant grin and slaps his inky hands to the skirt of Xie Lian’s white robes, leaving behind two black handprints. He looks inordinately proud of himself.

“Gege!” he chirps like a little bird, looking at the handprints. He laughs a bit and grins up at Xie Lian. When Xie Lian strokes his hair, accidentally coating it in flour, Hong-er laughs again. Xie Lian dusts his hands off and ruffles Hong-er’s hair to clear away the flour; all the while, Hong-er presses his chin to Xie Lian’s leg, mismatched eyes never straying from Xie Lian’s face, his smile bright.

“Did you have fun painting?” Xie Lian asks.

Hong-er nods.

“What did you paint?”

“Gege.”

“You did paint your gege,” Xie Lian says. Quite literally painted his gege. “And the house, too. Thank you. I like it.”

Xie Lian hasn’t been picky about his accommodations in centuries. His bathtub is a repurposed barrel, and he rescued most of his furniture from the trash. If anything, the doodles of smiley faces along the wall give the cottage a sense of being lived in. Of being a home.

Hong-er reaches for him, opening and closing his stained hands. “Gege, up!”

Without a care for the state of the boy’s hands and his clothes, Xie Lian lifts him. What does it matter? Xie Lian has been filthier in his life, covered in all sorts of grime, and a lot of it was much harder to wash out than ink. It’s a good thing Yin Yu bought them multiple spare sets of clothes, just in case. Always diligent.

Xie Lian carries Hong-er around the cottage property as the day cools and the sun sinks in the sky. Frogs croak, and the glow of fireflies flare and fade between the trees. Hong-er’s energy wanes as the minutes drag on, Xie Lian tending to little things here and there around the property—checking on the chickens, hauling up a fresh bucket of water, and bringing the bedding in from the clothesline. When it’s all done, he sits on the wooden swing out front, rocking the two of them back and forth. The rope creaks softly. Hong-er’s head finds Xie Lian’s shoulder. It’s peaceful.

They stay there for hours, until the light dies.

Inside, Xie Lian changes Hong-er’s clothes and washes the ink off of him, but the ink has stained his skin. The dark patches on his cheeks look like the bruises he had yesterday, but these marks are the product of a happy afternoon. They’re the only marks that should ever color Hong-er’s skin.

Xie Lian presses a kiss to one of the stains on Hong-er’s round cheek. “All clean,” he says.

“All clean,” Hong-er repeats, then presses his mouth to Xie Lian’s cheek in a reciprocal kiss.

Even though he doesn’t bear much resemblance to the half-feral ten year old who tried to attack the state preceptor or to the thirteen year old who professed a desire to murder everyone in the capital, Xie Lian still sees commonality between the boys. And sees it in Hua Cheng, too. It’s more than the shape of their noses and lips and the arch of their eyebrows.

It’s their desire to be loved.

“You’re such a good boy, Hong-er. So smart and kind and beautiful. I hope you know that,” Xie Lian praises. He knows that Hua Cheng learned to put up a fortress around his heart to hide it, but Hong-er’s heart is vulnerable and on display. So Xie Lian nurtures it. His words are as direct as possible: “I love you.”

“Love you,” Hong-er repeats with ease. Then he breathes deeply, his mouth pinching together and his eyes fogging with tears. Xie Lian knows exactly what those tears mean by now.

“You miss your mama?”

Hong-er lays his head on Xie Lian’s shoulder instead of answering, so Xie Lian strokes the boy’s back. He’s hot to the touch, even through his robes: it won’t be long before the curse wears off. Xie Lian finds he isn’t ready to say goodbye to this version of his husband, even though he misses Hua Cheng dearly.

At a loss for words, Xie Lian carries Hong-er with him to the kitchen, where he wets a rag and drapes it over the crook of his neck so Hong-er can press his forehead to it and cool down. Then he takes them to bed, dowsing the light as he goes. He lets Hong-er sprawl across his chest, like before.

“Gege sing,” Hong-er requests.

It’s as good a goodbye as any, so Xie Lian obliges. By his third repetition of the song, Hong-er is asleep, snoring softly.

Xie Lian slips off, too.

________

When he wakes, he’s in his husband’s strong arms. Dawn is just beginning to pour through the window, birds chattering in the forest.

Xie Lian yawns so hard his eyes water, then pulls his face away from Hua Cheng’s firm chest to look at his face: he’s awake. When Xie Lian smiles at him, he smiles back—fake and unreadable—and lifts a hand to fiddle with and twirl a section of Xie Lian’s hair. His fingertips brush the shell of Xie Lian’s right ear.

“Welcome back,” Xie Lian greets when it becomes apparent Hua Cheng isn’t going to speak first.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng responds easily, like Hong-er but in a much deeper register. Then his husband sighs, his aloof attitude fading, replaced by a sulk. If he had a divan, he’d be slumped over the arm of it, limp as a noodle, pouting. “Gege, give me an hour; I’ll paint a mural over that brat’s ugly handiwork.”

“I like what you painted.”

“It doesn’t even qualify as a painting.”

“Agree to disagree,” Xie Lian says, and kisses Hua Cheng’s chin. “I enjoyed painting with you. You’re so cute when you’re little, haha.” He pinches his husband’s cheek. “Your younger forms are a lot of fun!”

“…”

Xie Lian’s laughter becomes a fond chuckle. When it fades, he kisses Hua Cheng’s pouting lips. They respond immediately, returning the kiss.

When they part, Xie Lian says sincerely, “If we had a child, he’d be cutest if he looked like you.”

“I’m not going to share gege with some whiny version of myself.”

Xie Lian smiles, unbothered. “Alright, San Lang.”

Xie Lian doesn’t know if he wants children, but it’s interesting to imagine: a child like Hong-er sandwiched in between them in bed one day. Or maybe a child like both of them. Their features mixed together on one face. A physical embodiment of a love story spanning centuries. It’s something to consider. Many years from now, maybe. All Xie Lian wants for the time being is quiet mornings like this one, tucked into Hua Cheng’s arms. They could stay here all day if they wanted, nothing to pull them apart. They spent eight hundred years pulled apart. He’s not sure he wants anything between them, not yet. But someday? A little boy pattering after Xie Lian everywhere he goes, a little girl doing Hua Cheng’s makeup for him and picking out his outfits, messy murals, messy meals, clumsy kisses…

Maybe.

“I missed you,” Xie Lian says. He cups Hua Cheng’s cheek, petting it with his thumb softly. “Thank you for coming back.”

“Always, gege.”

Not ready to leave their bed yet, Xie Lian curls back into his husband’s chest, burying his nose in Hua Cheng’s clavicle and inhaling the scent of flowers. Hua Cheng embraces him like he’s something he never wants to lose.

After a while, above his head, Hua Cheng begins to sing. Rich, lilting notes vibrate through both their chests, as plastered together as they are. The rendition is skillful—better than any attempt Xie Lian might sing. After all, his voice is out of practice and his pronunciations abysmal and it’s not as though Hua Cheng has ever formally taught him the lyrics or even translated them for him. Xie Lian suspects he’s embarrassed—always watering down his affection into something palatable or easily ignored, like Xie Lian might not want it. Still, Xie Lian knows from the shape of the words in Hua Cheng’s mouth, tenderly formed, that this is a love song. It couldn’t be anything else. It’s what Hua Cheng is, boiled down to his essence:

A love song, sung across centuries.

Bellowed in defiance of fate and whispered in the embrace of unyielding marble arms. A sound seeking—sacred, scared, and strong.

Xie Lian hums along.