Chapter Text
Do you know who that ghost was?
The follower of a failure.
"XianLe."
A god like you is both sad and laughable. And he’s even more sad and laughable to have believed in you.
He was cursed on your behalf.
He died in battle for you, turned into a wrath ghost because of you, and now his soul has been obliterated because of you.
"XianLe?"
In life, he was a soldier under your command; in death, his soul followed you.
He was your very last believer in the world.
Your very last believer in the world.
Your very last believer.
"XianLe!"
Xie Lian blinks.
He is not immediately able to place where he is --- cannot immediately rationalise the devastation surrounding him and the way his breath rattles in short, sharp bursts of echoed panic --- does not immediately recognise the face before him. It smiles his way, placid and unflappable even with smeared blood standing stark against the skin and injuries peppering it further, and yet Xie Lian cannot for the life of him process it. Feels his eyes darting back and forth for too long, just trying to grasp onto reality as it reforms around him. Tries not to imagine half of that smile warping downwards and turning cold, porcelain, menacing. "Yes?"
"There you are." The smile shifts, still calm but... softer, now. Xie Lian recognises it, dimly, as relief, and yet he cannot connect it with any feeling that can rightly be termed real when he can't even find the boundaries of himself. He feels all too similar to the bay around him --- a catastrophic scene of scorched earth and splintered scenery, half-destroyed but technically functional --- and a numb kind off acceptance has taken root within him. "Welcome back to the ranks."
Xie Lian blinks again. His thoughts are still running slow, tripping over themselves with a jerky sort of roughness he can't control, can barely follow and yet he's sure that the comment doesn't make sense. "The ranks?" His hand comes up, fingers skating against his neck, feeling for the shackle, stuttering when he can't find it anywhere. "I don't--" He tries again. Fails again. The shackle is simply... gone.
"As expected." It sounds genuine, though Xie Lian thinks there's something tense about it. Not quite uneasy, but preoccupied perhaps. Or maybe uneasy. "You have returned quickly. I was mistaken in only one regard: it has taken you even less time than anticipated." His smile is strained.
It makes Xie Lian nervous.
Perhaps it is this unease which brings Xie Lian even further back to himself --- the familiarity of dread, of looming calamity and incoming disaster --- or perhaps it is merely the waning of his shock. Either way, a bitter smile comes easy to his lips, and his response easier still. "My Lord, I must beg something of you."
Jun Wu --- silly of Xie Lian not to have processed his arrival immediately, and sillier still for him to have carried on so as result --- hasn't stopped smiling, but it does... shift, somehow. Perhaps he can sense some of what Xie Lian is about to confess. Perhaps he is contending with a looming dread of his own. Either way, while he opens his mouth to respond almost immediately, he swallows whatever his immediate response would have been and merely asks, "And what might that be, XianLe?"
Xie Lian stands, though his legs shake under him as he does. He aches from head to toe --- yet nowhere so keenly as his heart, which has found itself as battered as a crumpled white flower and a fallen sword --- but he holds himself firm. Resolute. As steady as possible, anyway. Pours every ounce of resolve he's got into asking --- pleading --- "Pray My Lord banish me to the Mortal Realm once more.”
Jun Wu falters. "XianLe--" It is rare to see him without his imperturbable calm, and yet the smile that he so regularly bears has slipped slightly, and concern waits behind its remnants. "Whyever for?"
“I’ve done wrong,” Xie Lian says, and it is the truth for all it cannot capture the reality. How can he describe what has happened --- what he's caused to happen --- what he's done? How can he explain how far astray he has managed to go? (How can he explain about a smiling mask and a black-clad figure, a flower and sacrifice and a sword, faith in the faithless?) "I was the one who unleashed the second plague of Human Face Disease. The consequences weren't as severe as the first but I--" The memory of Wu Ming --- ponytail whipping in the wind, smile drawn-on and concealing what lay beneath, sword in hand and damnation ready to fall down on his head --- saps Xie Lian's breath again, and the words with it. "I--"
Jun Wu interrupts, gentle even in this, when he should be harsh. Xie Lian should not have ascended again in the first place --- should not be standing here before the Heavenly Emperor --- should not be walking around with freedom for which Wu Ming had paid the price, and yet Jun Wu sets a gentle hand on his shoulder and a calm serenity in his voice. "If you knew what was wrong, then you are already in the right."
Xie Lian swallows harshly. Shakes his head fervently around his denial. "Just knowing is not enough. I made a mistake, and I should be punished. Another bore that punishment; I must account for that as well." He trails off --- lets his fingers play against the soft, feathery petals of the flower Wu Ming had left behind, even as he can't remember picking it up --- but steels himself. "I seek punishment. I pray My Lord will reinstate my banishment."
For all that a non-smiling Jun Wu is a rare sight, a frowning one is even rarer; even so, the fact remains that he stands before Xie Lian all the same. He is thinking, clearly --- concerned and unhappy, but considering --- and then he straightens. "I cannot grant your request at this time."
"My Lord--"
Jun Wu lifts a hand, silencing and placating at the same time. "It is under consideration. However, urgent business has arisen in Heaven that requires my oversight. I must return immediately. Please accompany me, and I will attend to your request as soon as the opportunity arises."
Xie Lian's instinct is, undeniably, to protest, and yet he can't bring himself to follow through. As viscerally wrong as his re-ascension feels --- as vehemently as his own guilt and repentance and grief roils in his very core --- he cannot bring himself to demand that Jun Wu address it immediately. Doesn't have it in him to inconvenience the Emperor --- or Heaven itself --- solely for his own personal failings. (He has already harmed enough innocents today.) "I thank you for your consideration and await your judgement."
"No thanks are needed, XianLe." His expression shifts into something halfway between sad and indulgent, and he adds, "I do hope you will take this time to reconsider."
Xie Lian does not immediately rebut the idea --- he will not be changing his mind --- yet he does not agree either. He simply changes course and asks, "Is something the matter in Heaven? I hope your urgent business is nothing too concerning?"
The look on Jun Wu's face makes it abundantly clear that he is not at all fooled by the diversion, but, in this as in so many things, he allows Xie Lian his idiosyncrasy. "No, nothing of the sort. It is a rather remarkable coincidence, actually."
Xie Lian tilts his head, curiosity getting the better of his self-contempt for the time being. "Oh?"
"Indeed." Jun Wu turns, leading the way. "You are not the only god to ascend today."