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The Ghost City was a place that never slept.
Its streets glowed with red lanterns and spirit light; laughter echoed faintly from shadowed alleys where demons and ghosts mingled under the dim glow of ghost fire. Above that sea of noise and flickering light stood the Crimson Palace - majestic, vast, and eerily beautiful.
At its heart, through corridors carved with motifs of flowers and silver butterflies, behind doors veiled in red silk, was the private residence of the Crimson Rain Sought Flower and his beloved god.
Inside that hall, the scent of incense drifted lazily through the air, curling around shelves lined with scrolls and calligraphy brushes, the faint hum of protective wards echoing like a heartbeat.
Xie Lian sat at his desk, surrounded by a halo of morning light filtering through carved windows. His white robes glowed faintly, silver-threaded sleeves brushing over parchment as he sorted through offerings and temple reports. It was an ordinary, peaceful morning, one of those rare moments where even Heaven and Hell seemed to hold their breath.
A soft flutter broke the silence.
Xie Lian looked up. A single silver butterfly danced through the open window, its wings shimmering with crimson at the edges. He smiled instantly.
“San Lang?” he murmured fondly.
The butterfly alighted gracefully upon his desk, wings quivering. Then, with a delicate pulse of light, it dissolved into a small folded envelope sealed in red wax - Hua Cheng’s mark, the faint pattern of a ghost butterfly embossed upon it.
Xie Lian’s heart warmed.
It had been only two days since Hua Cheng had left for the southern district to deal with some ghost realm matter, but the palace felt emptier without his laughter echoing through the halls, without the hand that always found his, without that deep, teasing voice that called Gege as if the word itself were sacred.
He reached eagerly for the envelope. The paper was thick, expensive, scented faintly with sandalwood, the same scent clinging to Hua Cheng’s clothes.His heart softened.
Inside was a single sheet, carefully folded. Xie Lian’s pulse quickened with a tender, foolish excitement he didn’t bother to hide.
He unfolded the letter, already smiling in foolish affection.
Then he froze.
His smile faltered.
He leaned forward.
And slowly, painfully, the full horror dawned.
He stared at the first line. Tilted his head. Squinted.
Was that a “Gege”? Or was it… "unmarried daughter"?
He leaned closer.
No, surely not “unmarried daughter"..... He blinked, tracing the strokes with one finger.
The next word wasn’t much better. It might have been “beloved,” but could just as easily have been “creditor” or “boiled.” The third word resembled “I,” or perhaps “fire,” or possibly a demonic curse.
Xie Lian froze.
He turned the paper sideways, then upside-down. It didn’t help.
“What… what is this?” he whispered weakly.
His heart hurt. His eyes hurt. The longer he stared, the more his vision swam - not from tears of emotion but from genuine optical pain.
Ugly? Ugly was too gentle a word. This wasn’t calligraphy. This was a new spiritual calamity..
“…San Lang?” he whispered to the empty room, as if the paper itself could hear him.
Xie Lian could almost hear the shrieks of his old tutors from centuries past. Master Wen, who once lectured for three days on proper brush angles, would have fainted dead on the spot. Scholar Ju, who could judge a person’s virtue by their strokes, would have taken one look and slit his own throat to preserve his honor.
Xie Lian covered his face with both hands.
He was taught calligraphy by the finest scholars in Xianle! He could write poems, royal decrees, charms that glowed with divine energy. He could transcribe scripture perfectly in both mortal and celestial dialects!
And yet here he was, utterly defeated by his husband’s handwriting.
Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.
“Why,” he whispered to the letter, “why are there curves where there should be straight strokes? Why does this word have twelve tails?"
A third looked makde it seems as though the brush had simply given up halfway through and attempted self-destruction.
He sat back, expression of one betrayed by Heaven itself. “Caligraphy was the pride of my youth,” he murmured, trembling between laughter and despair. “And now… my beloved ghost king has written something that could kill a scholar through sight alone.”
He pressed a hand dramatically to his chest. “Heaven, forgive me, I truly love him, but what the hell is this.”
He remembered, vividly, the hours he’d spent guiding Hua Cheng’s hand with his own, correcting his brush angles, tracing graceful loops on rice paper together. Hua Cheng had always smiled so sweetly, so earnestly, and now Xie Lian realized that smile had likely hidden deep confusion.
Were all those lessons for nothing?
A sound of despair escaped him, halfway between a laugh and a sob.
---
Meanwhile, hundred's of li's away, deep in the southern ghost marshes, the Crimson Rain Sought Flower stood with his sword planted in the earth, a dozen lesser ghosts scurrying around him. His cloak fluttered like a banner, but Hua Cheng’s attention was elsewhere. His visible eye had glazed over with the faint shimmer of silver, for through the vision of a single butterfly still in the palace, he saw everything.
It showed the scene of his shrine room, he saw his Gege sitting at the desk, unfolding the letter. Saw him stare, motionless, for five full minutes. Saw the faint shimmer of tears in those bright eyes.
Hua Cheng’s heart soared.
He pressed a hand to his chest. “Ah,” he whispered, grinning helplessly, “he’s speechless…he must be touched.”
A few ghosts glanced at one another, sensing the shift in their lord’s aura from lethal to positively lovestruck. None dared interrupt.
Hua Cheng, continued to misinterpret Xie Lian’s growing tears, sighing wistfully and thinking to himself - My Gege is crying… he must have found the letter so moving he can’t bear it.
Hua Cheng pressed his gloved fingers to his lips, utterly enchanted. Look at him… He’s holding the letter so gently… He must be missing me too, oh gege
Inside his mind, Xie Lian’s quiet sob of agony echoed softly.
Hua Cheng mistook it for love.
“Ah,” he sighed dreamily, sheathing his sword. “Such a tender soul. I’ll have to write him another when I return.”
---
Back in the palace, Xie Lian had reached the point of near existential crisis.
He could feel Hua Cheng’s effort in each stroke, could imagine his frown of concentration - and that only made it worse.
“San Lang…” he muttered, eyes glistening, “I love you, I do. But this....”
He gently laid the letter flat and stared at it, voice trembling: “San Lang, if I die from eye strain, it will be entirely your fault.”
He laughed weakly, halfway to tears. “Even Heavenly Calamities don't hurt this much.”
The butterfly watching him fluttered its wings anxiously, and from far away Hua Cheng’s delighted voice whispered, unseen : So touched… even laughing through tears… my Gege truly loves me.
Xie Lian, completely unaware, slumped forward on the desk. “My teachers would haunt me if they saw me married to this handwriting,” he muttered.
He dropped his forehead to the desk with a quiet thud.
Finally, Xie Lian straightened with determined grace. “All right,” he told himself, dabbing at his eyes. “He worked hard. I must at least respond properly.”
He took out his finest brush and a sheet of new paper, drew a steady breath, and began to write.
Since he hadn't understood anything from San Lang's letter, and therefore logically could not write a response out of thin air. Xie lian decoded to respond to san lang with verbal appreciation, upon San Lang's return.
The caligrapthy he was currently indulging in was to rid his eyes of the catastrophe they just witnessed and to clense his soul.
---
When Hua Cheng returned the next evening, a crimson flash through the palace gates, boots tapping against black marble, he found the hall lit warmly, a pot of tea steaming on the table.
Xie Lian was waiting for him.
“San Lang,” he greeted, smiling faintly, “welcome home.”
Hua Cheng, radiantly pleased, swept him into his arms at once. “Gege! You read my letter?”
“I did,” Xie Lian said carefully, “every single word.”
“And?” Hua Cheng’s eye gleamed. “It moved you, didn’t it?”
“It did,” Xie Lian said truthfully. “Very much so.”
Hua Cheng’s grin widened. “I knew it! Gege cried?”
“…Ah. Yes,” Xie Lian admitted, tone gentle. “For several reasons.”
Hua Cheng beamed, utterly misled. “Then it reached you! Gege, you don’t know how long I worked on that. I rewrote it three times.”
Xie Lian blinked, stunned. “You rewrote it....three times?”
“Mm. I wanted it to be perfect.”
Xie Lian made a small sound of internal agony. Perfect. It was perfectly unreadable.
Hua Cheng laughed, radiant. “I spent hours perfecting every stroke!”
Hours, Xie Lian thought bleakly. What if he had spent less? Would I still have functioning eyesight?
Hua Cheng took his hands reverently. “What did you think of the part about your smile being my eternal sunrise?”
“…My… what?”
“The line near the middle,” Hua Cheng explained earnestly. “You must’ve seen it, though my brush slipped a little. I was too happy thinking about you.”
Xie Lian’s expression froze. He glanced at the desk, at the folded letter lying there. He recalled the incomprehensible looped strokes halfway down the page, the ones he’d thought resembled a trampled spider.
“That was, sunrise?” he managed faintly.
Hua Cheng nodded proudly. “Yes! Though I might have added extra flourishes.”
“Extra,” Xie Lian echoed weakly, “yes… I noticed.”
He pressed a hand to his face, half laughing, half despairing.
Hua Cheng tilted his head. “Gege?”
Xie Lian took a deep breath, then lowered his hand, smiling with heroic gentleness. “San Lang… your letter was the most heartfelt thing I’ve ever received.”
Hua Cheng brightened instantly. “Truly?”
“Yes,” Xie Lian said solemnly. “It made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me question the very foundations of written language.”
Hua Cheng blinked. “…Eh?”
Xie Lian coughed delicately. “I mean...it was beautiful, San Lang. Just… a little difficult to read.”
Hua Cheng blinked again, puzzled. “Difficult?”
“Ah.” Xie Lian smiled bravely. “Perhaps we need to increase the caligraphy practice classes for you.”
“…Oh,” he said finally, voice faint. “That bad?”
Xie Lian, ever the gentle god, smiled with almost divine composure. “San Lang, I could feel your love in every stroke. Unfortunately, I could not read it in any of them.”
For a moment, Hua Cheng simply stared. Then he burst out laughing, full-bodied, bright, completely unrestrained.
Xie Lian covered his mouth, torn between exasperation and amusement. “San Lang!”
Hua Cheng laughed harder, wiping at his eye. “Ahh, Gege, I truly tried! I practiced for hours! The words just ran away from me.”
“Ran? They fled, ” Xie Lian said, helplessly fond. “Into the next province.”
Hua Cheng caught his hand, still laughing, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “Then I’ll write you another. A better one. I’ll practice every day until you can read it.”
“That’s not necessary-”
“I insist,” Hua Cheng said, grinning. “My calligraphy will rival Heaven’s poets one day!”
Xie Lian’s lips trembled ,torn between laughter and love. “In that case, San Lang… allow me to be your teacher again.”
“Gladly,” Hua Cheng said, smiling with such warmth that even the cold marble of the hall seemed to glow.
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