Chapter Text
Hua Cheng was in limbo.
This, in favor of tossing aside the convoluted elegance of poetic suffering, was the easiest way to describe the state of nonbeing he was trapped within.
He had felt it keenly when his soul finally split. Not quite the shattering sensation of being broken apart, like a fragile piece of porcelain in the consequences of his second death as Wu Ming — but still decidedly jarring.
To be tugged in two separate directions, his heart tethered to earth, wrapped around his highness’ neck as his physical form blurred and faded without his permission, insisting he follow its guiding pull — it filled him with a violent desperation that made him cling stubbornly to the last vestiges of his life, knowing there was nothing that could be done to reverse this choice. A choice he wouldn't change for anything.
His highness’ shackles were gone — split apart, disintegrated into nothing. No longer would he be weighed down by that burden he had grown so used to bearing with a humble smile and the lie that he was deserving of its consequences. The flood of spiritual power flowed through his meridians like mighty ocean waves returning to the waiting shore, as they were always meant to.
Hua Cheng had sensed it, in those instances of sharing energy — as his own plentiful bounty eagerly raced forth, longing to be utilized in his beloved's efforts, bracing against the veritable wall that were his cursed bindings. The steady vibration of his highness’ eight hundred years old cultivation, tired and weary yet unyielding — it was there, just inaccessible.
In the end, there would only be one path for the calamity who happily threw himself onto the sword. As a nameless ghost, or the misplaced youth in the Xianle imperial army, proudly wearing his padded armor and dying with only one regret; that he had been too weak to keep going.
He still was. So humiliatingly incapable. He should have known, should have done more, should have suspected, spent more time tracking down White-No-Face's whereabouts the instant he began harboring suspicions about his too easy defeat. A ghost with such an all consuming wrath for the mortal world, for Xie Lian, would have returned to settle the score whether he had been defeated by the emperor or not.
Regardless, he was not so weak that he couldn't do this simple thing for his god. His freedom, his reigning glory in the battle he would undoubtedly win when he cut the cancer off at the source — at the insignificant cost of Hua Cheng's life? To miss another opportunity to be of use to the person that was his reason for existing at all…
It would be blasphemous. Truly laughable.
He had come back from the dead twice; a third wasn't so much a calculated risk as it was a guarantee. A smooth throw of a pair of dice, landing on sixes.
The final variable was ‘how long.’
How long would he be separated from his highness?
How long would it take for him to return to his side, to hear him talk again? To eat meals with him? To see him smile, share in his joy, his grief, his anger —
The guilt was eating away at him. The longing was suffocating, oppressive and persistent in its vice grip.
He knew that the rest would do him well. That in his current state, he was even more useless than that pitiful little ghost fire had been to provide some inkling of warmth. He couldn't protect Xie Lian this way.
He was floating, nowhere and everywhere all at once. Lost in the tide of memories that lapped at his consciousness that was often neither here nor there, just stubbornly clinging, attempting to prove a point.
To who? There was no one here but him.
Who was he?
He had to remind himself frequently. Repetitively.
To resist that at times tempting lull of slumber, a sleep he knew he would not come back from. It coaxed him with softness, echoes of warm laughter and priceless smiles, growing frustratingly more distant when he tried to reach out for it, grasp it in his palms.
'No’, it seemed to say. ‘You come here.’
He turned his head away from that fixed, fading point of loveliness promising solace and comfort. The price of heeding its call was too great. Nostalgia for eternity would never compare to making more of it.
There was far too much to want for.
So Hua Cheng dreamed. Dreamed for so long that, when he felt his eyes open to discordant color, struggling to orient himself in a vast landscape of his most earnest desires, he could only assume that he had found his way in another. Walked quietly from one realm to the next, holding onto the hope that eventually, he would turn up somewhere of substance.
Somewhere his highness was.
With his senses undependable as they were, waterlogged with warped unreality like a tired, rain heavy flower head, it became impossible to keep track of how long he had spent in that lonely abyss.
Had it been a mere few days? Weeks? Months?
Time passed so differently here, in this shapeless realm of life sandwiched between death — neither a threat of an end nor a promise of the rebirth he sought.
Whenever this possibility occurred to him, flares of panic grasped at him like rough hands over raw skin, fingernails scraping, scratching, clawing — digging so deep they left indents and fresh bruises blossoming in tender reds, purples and blues. He curled up in a solitary corner of the quiet nothingness, pleading, begging, for it to release him. It was tearing him asunder, threatening to destroy all that which he had remade in the hours of complete isolation.
In moments of certainty, where he was not dreary and dragging but on high alert, he didn't even have the pleasure of an easel and paint. During his years on Mount Tonglu, the solitary confinement in the caves could be made bearable as he poured his passion and pent up energy into chiseling a stone rendition of his highness. Silent or not, his gently smiling face made a far better conversation partner than his self-destructive thoughts.
If he could not have closure, if he could not make this process move any faster, then he wanted, if nothing else, the beautiful company of another dream; a distraction from this secluded hell where he was rarely more than half aware of anything.
Right as that hopelessness began to properly set in, a slow acting poison that had crept through the cracks of his being and tainted the weary marrow of his slowly regenerating bones, he heard it.
A voice.
Muffled and mumbled at first, Hua Cheng thought he must have finally carved himself into two to have someone else to speak with. Or, the siren's call had returned to make its presence known, tempting him with its allure while he was at his most vulnerable.
But, while the sound grew more and more distinct, he found that it was not coming from a single direction, but all around, pulsing warmly in his mind like the steady beating of a heart. Then, a delicate chime of a bell — a noise he had once been so accustomed to hearing that he had learned to tune out and filter anything of unimportance; the sound of a prayer being made.
Hua Cheng took a short step back as a vivid scene sprang forth in the hollow black of his surroundings, taking over it completely. As the projected image became clearer, filling in blank areas and introducing slow bursts of color he had convinced himself no longer existed beyond fleeting, pleasant visions, the distorted figure with their hands pressed closely together turned everything else to foggy background noise.
'So, ah…’
’Where to start? Hm…’
’Something easy. Yes. I'll…explain why I'm here. Trying such a strange method. Is it? Strange, I mean. You never minded that I'm a little unconventional. I don't mind, either. Can gods even pray to ghosts?’
‘When you come back, you can tell me for sure.’
’I feel that it's been a long time since I've prayed to anyone. Or wished for anything, really.’
’It's much harder than I thought it would be. After all, talking to you was always so…easy. You listened, and…spoke back. Can I ask you to listen now, too? You don't have to say anything this time.’
’I'm used to one-sided conversations, or not having them at all — I can do this. Speak into my own head, hoping it reaches you, somehow.’
A pause. Long. Pulsing, in the silence. Hua Cheng thrummed with energy, a conduit, a beacon.
'No, no…I can't do this — not right now. I'm sorry, San Lang. This was…ah, haha, not smart of me.’
’I think I'll…end it here. Maybe write my thoughts down instead. I don't imagine it will be any more of a comfort. How can I possibly put this feeling into words?’
’If I keep rambling to you, I'll keep rambling forever, even if you want me to stop, and — if this is getting to you, how can I know if it's not a bother? Have I disturbed your rest?’
'No,’ Hua Cheng wanted to say, taking several hasty steps forward. His trembling fingers lifted to ghost the outline of Xie Lian’s figure, bowing over a stick of incense — his eyes were shut tight, hands pressed quietly together. ‘Please, don't go. Gege—’
Xie Lian appeared to sigh wearily to himself, holding himself in place for a moment longer in thought.
Then, he slowly withdrew, bringing Hua Cheng's still heart along with him. He would die. He would die here, again, if he lost sight of his god —
'Goodbye for now, San Lang. If you're there, thank you for listening to me.’
“No,” he rasped, this time summoning the words to his mouth. They were raw and bitter on his tongue. “Don't thank me. I'll always listen to your highness. Just—”
Stay. Please.
But Xie Lian couldn't hear him, and Hua Cheng could only watch, helpless, as that beautiful vision of varnished gold faded before him. He tried, with all of his might, to grasp it in his despairing palms.
Like grains of sand, that glimpse of the world evaded him, impossible to keep a firm hold of. He sank down onto his knees in the nothing, in the dark, alone again.
He did not die there. Did not reply to the looming void capitalizing on his weakness, calling with its sweet song in the shape of his highness’ voice. He persisted, purely because denial existed in abundance within his core, and he had decided long ago to deny death itself the right to his soul. Hua Cheng's soul already had a home.
His existence wound ‘round his beloved's neck — it would tether him, for as long as it took to follow the red string of fate back to where he belonged.
To his pleasant surprise, it was not as permanent of a goodbye from Xie Lian as he had told himself to expect.
While he couldn't say for certain how much time had really passed in between the prayers — were they prayers? They must be, if they somehow made it even here — he was able to gather a sense based on Xie Lian's phrasing.
He watched his god scratch nervously at his chin, a remorseful smile crowning his mouth. It didn't belong there.
‘San Lang. I'm sorry. I…thought about it some more, and…I realized I might have been foolish. How can I know for certain that these will or won't reach you? If they do, you may just not hear them, and that's okay.’
Hua Cheng grimaced. He couldn't stand hearing his highness apologize — didn't he know that his reaching out was the greatest blessing he could receive? Never would he have dared, even in his wildest imaginings, to place Xie Lian in the position of worship he himself so willingly occupied day and night, without relent.
He knew that this was not the case, that Xie Lian was only trying his luck (very cleverly, he had to note) in efforts to seek his spirit where it resonated strongest.
And, when push came to shove, an ascended god was an ascended god. He might have jumped down and made a name for himself elsewhere, but the fates were never so keen to turn a blind eye on his potential.
The existing link between himself and the heavens was a thread of near-invisible silk, spun so thin it could only be perceived when hit by direct rays of sunlight.
It was a credit to the literature gods that there was any record of his ascension at all.
“It works, gege. Please, keep talking to me.” Hua Cheng smiled, willing Xie Lian to hear, to understand. Xie Lian slouched where he stood — that wasn't at all what he wanted to see. Huddled in on himself, he looked small and weary, worn down by the world. His calloused hands, the marks of a strong swordsman more capable than anyone gave him his due credit for, shook.
'I miss you.’ Xie Lian professed, to whom he must think, was an empty hollow. Hua Cheng stilled. ‘I miss you, that's why I — why I'm back so soon. I hope you'll deal with this for just a little while longer. I hope you'll still speak with me when you return. I hope you — I hope you'll want to.’
Hua Cheng ached. How could Xie Lian say these things? How could he say them, when Hua Cheng had no way of correcting him? He wanted nothing but to be with him, even as a polite spectator on the sidelines, a surveillant shadow basking in the afterglow of his radiance, never directly touching. It was all he yearned for, day after day after day, in this empty hell.
“I miss you. Your highness.” He swallowed hard around the throbbing mass of pain trying to crawl up his throat. It hurt to speak. It hurt to do anything.
He didn't care. There was no worse agony than being the cause of his god's, and he would never claim to be any good at idly standing by when presented with it.
He had torn himself apart for lesser reasons, and the mere fact of its debilitating pangs, leaving him tender and raw, were proof of his healing — his physical form was in its earliest stages of rejuvenation, like a fragile chrysalis in a cocoon. The only thing between himself and rebirth was time. A bit more. Just a little longer.
Regrowing limbs of flesh was a devastatingly slow affair, even for an undead deity of the kiln's design.
'I was going to ask you to send me some kind of sign, if you wanted me to continue. Selfishly, I wondered if asking for your silence as acceptance was too obvious — you don't exactly have a choice in that matter. But I have no idea what shape you've taken on. How would I know what a sign might look like? Are you somewhere just out of reach? Can you see? Can you hear? I have so many questions I want to ask you. Maybe, you can't do much right now. That would make sense. You've been through a lot, San Lang. I'll keep looking.’
“Yes,” Hua Cheng nodded, never taking his eye off of Xie Lian. “I can see you. I can hear you. I want—”
'It's been a long month,’ Xie Lian began again. Hua Cheng watched the petal-soft lines of his anciently beautiful features fall into something resigned and tired. 'I've spent most of this week finishing up a project on Mount Taicang. It's good work. I'm trying to keep myself occupied. Later, I think I'll tidy up the old paths for you. So you can find your way easier. Will you come?’
“As soon as I can.” He murmured. “Your highness, please wait a bit more. I'll always return to you.”
Xie Lian was quiet for almost a whole minute. The stick of incense burned low, tendrils of sweet smoke plumes curling up into the air, saturating the inside of the shrine. Windows open, thin yellow curtains billowing, letting in vibrant afternoon light.
Its burnt orange shade slanted across the repurposed floorboards, unpolished and rough, shifting unhurriedly.
More and more shadows filled the room's interior, casting his god's divine glow in the final offerings of the sun, soaking his tanned skin.
Somewhere out of sight, there was the faintest sound — a soft, distant chime of bells.
Xie Lian looked up immediately, tensing where he stood in front of the offerings table.
“San Lang?”
Hua Cheng beamed at the sound of the familiar call, no longer a displaced voice spoken into the void, but there, really there — a bright, burning warmth invaded his vacant chest cavity, filling it to the brim, where it threatened to spill over.
“Are you — ?” Xie Lian blinked a couple times fast, then shook his head. “No, you wouldn't be. But…” he hummed to himself, thoughtful, and started puttering about the lonely shrine. Opening pots, pickle jars, checking beneath the sparse furniture. He even made a trip to the porch, sweeping the front yard with eager eyes, as if expecting to find a red-robed youth contently raking leaves out front.
There was no one.
No matter how long he searched, he couldn't seem to find the source of the noise. Eventually, he made his way back over to the stick of incense on its last legs, smiling wide.
“That was you, I'm sure of it.” He exhaled, and it was a breathless, shaky thing. “I couldn't sense anyone around. No one passed by. There are no bells.”
“I could just be hallucinating. But my mind is clear these days. I'd like to trust that I'm not imagining things. It would be awfully rude, wouldn't it?”
Hua Cheng laughed — pure, unadulterated joy. “Yes, gege. So very impolite.”
Xie Lian smiled to himself, as if sharing in his ghostly, muted cheer. “I swear, I can…almost — San Lang, are you there? Listening?”
A very eager calamity vigorously nodded his head, pressing in closer to the projection of the white-clad beauty inspecting the incense, and —
His god gasped. “There it is again! You really — ”
Xie Lian rushed over to a small bookshelf settled in the far corner of the room, lifting a stool and seamlessly carrying it back to the offerings table. Setting it in front of the incense, nothing more than an obstinate ember, Xie Lian spoke gently, “San Lang, I should have known. Not even dispersal could get in your way. If you'd like, I'll keep something lit for you. I imagine it must be lonely. I wonder what it's like, where you're at.”
Dark. Not cold, as he once would have thought it to be, but worse — numbing. He would prefer the chill to feeling nothing at all, his senses fogged and obscured.
Tentatively, they had begun to thaw. He believed sincerely that it had everything to do with Xie Lian's presence. He could feel it, flowing through his meridians like liquid gold, invigorating him with strength. Once, he had fallen into the habit of ‘exchanging spiritual power’ with his highness, though his god was more than capable without. His own depleted reserves, parched from drought, sought the willingly given taste like a cannibal deprived of blood.
Glancing off to the side, Xie Lian chuckled, “I'll have to buy more, soon. But that's no issue. I wish I could take you to the market with me. I probably could — I'm sure you miss the freedom of walking around.” As an afterthought, he added with a composure Hua Cheng recognized as practiced, not genuine, “For tonight, will you just keep me company?”
This time, the explosive power carving itself from his paper-thin skin resounded within the mountain-top shrine like a contained gale, stirring Xie Lian's hair — a breeze from no imprecise thing, coming from within, instead of out — his god squeezed his eyes shut briefly as he stood calmly in the midst of its playful tugging of his robes, reopening at the airy peel of bells, distinct and harmonious.
“...Alright. I'll take that as a yes.”
Xie Lian didn't let their connection sever — he brought a contained flame in his palm to meet the end of another stick of incense before the first could go out.
As he settled down on the bamboo mat, rolled into the space directly in front of the modest altar, watching the steady twirl of scented vapor rising, he relaxed his eight-hundred year-old muscles for the first time in over a month. Completely and utterly at ease.
Hua Cheng, too, lounged — not in any particular hurry for his mind to rest. He lay sprawled beneath the image of his god, peering up in endless fascination, endless longing — wishing he could share his warmth.
Looking was enough for now.
“Goodnight, San Lang.” Xie Lian said into the blue-gray gloom, anchored by the illuminated glow a couple feet away.
Not goodbye.
His god's arm outstretched, the tips of his fingers brushing the cool edge of the lotus-shaped burner. Hua Cheng felt a rush of heat scatter across his skin, fluttering and ticklish. It settled, smoldering somewhere deep within. A touch that didn't fade.
“Goodnight, your highness.” He whispered back.
Xie Lian smiled, tucking his face under his arm. Hair undone, dressed in plain sleeping robes — he was the singularly most beautiful being he had ever had the honor of setting his sights upon. How greedy he was, wishing to see more. Hua Cheng's eye drifted shut, matching the unnecessary rise and fall of his chest with the pattern of his god's breaths, delicate and even.
The next morning, Xie Lian roused slowly. He entered a small fit of panic when he realized he had slept past the point of salvaging his unconventional connection, and had to plaster on a smile as early-morning risers from the village came to give their greetings and tokens. He returned to empty out the ash in the burner, and, as he went to dump it somewhere it wouldn't be in the way, paused on the steps when a spot of red poked out from the weeds at him.
Curious, Xie Lian came to crouch beside it. An odd sort of qi emanated from it, pulling him gently into its orbit.
He smiled wryly.
“You stick out,” Xie Lian told the tiny bloom, raising a brow. “Always red, with you. Let me dig you out of there.”
Hua Cheng woke to darkness, but did not suffer its wrath for long. When a new stick of incense permitted his welcome intrusion into the middle of the room, he found that, unlike before, he actually was in the room, instead of examining a projected image of it.
In his arms, Xie Lian held a small pot, and in that pot was a small flower. Barely in bloom, its fragile red petals curled at the ends as though shy of its new living quarters. Undeserving of the soil its roots stretched into, the water beading its crimson sepals.
Hua Cheng stared at it, scrutinizing. A little disbelieving.
Had he — ? Hm. Interesting. So his desire to be alive was so much it had manifested into a weak, puny thing.
“I found you,” came Xie Lian's simple explanation. He moved to sit in a cross-legged position on the ground and Hua Cheng, of course, joined him. He didn’t have a body, not really — it was more like his consciousness hadn't split from any one thing, and he could not so much sit as he could float, or choose to organize the microscopic particles making him up near his god.
“Right by the doorstep. There are lots of flowers around — none of them are red, like this one. I'm intrigued, San Lang. Was this intentional? There's a very peculiar energy coming from this plant, but nothing malicious.”
Hua Cheng lightly shook his head, “No, gege. It happened all on its own. I'm sure it had something to do with your highness feeding spiritual power to the incense burner.”
Xie Lian's cheek rested in his palm. He watched the vibrant bloom closely and grinned, all teeth, when its petals shifted to the side — a crude imitation of Hua Cheng's bafflement.
“I thought so.”
“In that case, I have something I'd like to try…”
Hua Cheng tilted his head. So did the flower.
Scooting closer, his highness leaned forward. His expression had become bashful, cheeks tinted pink.
Hua Cheng observed with rapt intent, the unfiltered stardust composing him going monumentally still as Xie Lian brought the pathetic excuse for a plant into his hands again — and bowed to press his lips to the center of the flower.
Energy poured into it from the point of lingering contact, trickling through its petals and down its dainty green stem.
From his place in front of his highness, Hua Cheng stared, wide-eyed, at the exchange — slowly but surely, something was happening. As the blossom stretched ardently into his caress, the potency buzzing between its veins, the invisible fabric holding his being together started to take shape, inch by inch. He felt his incorporeal form shudder with the force of it, bordering on discomfort, but more akin to growing pains. A sore, lasting bruise.
His highness had a way of making flowers bloom.
Just as he was growing too tired to keep himself upright, Xie Lian pulled away with a hopeful smile, concern pooling in the golden browns of his eyes.
Hua Cheng staggered back a step, looking between the translucent digits of his fingers, swimming with cosmic light, to the god settled nearby.
“Gege—”
“I know,” Xie Lian said, a bit remorsefully. For a moment, Hua Cheng thought he might have heard him, but he wasn't looking at him — his attention was solely on that diminutive red flower. “I tried not to give too much. We'll have to be patient with this, so our progress may be slow at first. Are you hurt at all?”
His god extended a hand, soothingly brushing the ends of the vermillion petals — in a trance, it appeared to raise its head towards the healing touch. Whatever tie was held between himself and the eager-to-grow blossom ensured he experienced the same; it was as though Xie Lian were brushing his hair off his face. He sighed aloud, reaching a trembling palm up to cover the spot of warmth gratefully settling into his skin.
“No harm was done, your highness. This one feels very strong.” Hua Cheng assured with a splitting smile. That tingling sensation, like pins and needles after sitting in one position too long, was gradually fading away. With it, came a vigor he only possessed in his memories.
Resuming his seat in front of Xie Lian, he listened with a fond grin to his god's unabashed rambling about his plans to help restore Hua Cheng. Naturally, with his ashes intact and his will to return a constant, unwavering variable, it was inevitable that he returned on his own eventually, with sufficient rest.
Xie Lian was, as he claimed, just ‘speeding along’ his healing process, with doses of spiritual energy acting as the medicine.
Hua Cheng wouldn't have a single complaint to voice, even if he possessed the ability to speak in tones his god could hear. Someday soon. Hopefully, very soon.
“I'll be in your care, gege.”