Archive of Our Own

Enjoy! <3

Tales of the Gods and ghosts were as plentiful and as theatrical as there were mortal tongues to spin them. 

Stories of divine lovers enduring lifetimes of hardship to find each other? Most certainly. Stories of celestial armies, long standing feuds, blood-debts and slaughter of divine beasts? Naturally. Stories of a certain Heavenly Official folding his beloved’s underrobes while said beloved napped face-down with his hair raffled and one boot still dangling from the bed?

…Not so much. There was less appetite, it seemed, for legends about laundry.

In the centuries that followed his third ascension, Xie Lian had grown very accustomed to waking up to strange things. While roughing it out in the wild, being awoken by animals nibbling at his rations or tuckered up in his robes had been a common occurrence. Once, a pair of doves had made a nest of his hair while he dozed. Another time, a young cultivator had mistaken his white, sleeping form for a beggar ghost and feebishly attempted to exorcize him. 

Today, like a rooster bellowing its good mornings from a fencepost, a voice beckoned Xie Lian awake.

Your Highness. 

Your Highness.

Xie Lian stirred with a soft groan. The sky outside was still ink-dark, stars blinking sleepily in their silver sockets. Not even the sun was awake at this hour. 

“San Lang…?” he murmured sleepily. Few others ever addressed him with this title while Xie Lian lay in bed. 

“Your Highness. Apologies for the early hour. A matter has come to light that you may wish to attend to personally. “

Ah. Ling Wen.

From beside him, Hua Cheng lay sound asleep, yet to rise. An audacious sight to many, no doubt—a Ghost King so contently vulnerable. Xie Lian smiled. He never tired of it. How absurd and lucky, to love and be loved by this man. Carefully, so as not to wake the sleeping Ghost King, Xie Lian sat carefully and untangled himself from the cloying limbs. He raised a hand to answer the call from within his Spiritual Communication Array, pressing two fingers to his temples.

“No trouble, Ling Wen, I’m awake. What seems to be the matter?”

There was the sound of a rustling scroll on the other end. Ling Wen’s voice resumed.

“Some unruly ghosts have recently disturbed an excavation site in the northern ruins of Yuejing. A weapon was unearthed and stolen from there, not of any recent make. The tomb's inscriptions indicated it is indeed very old, predating the Kingdom of Xianle. Very ancient. The stolen sword has been confirmed as the legendary Yi Hen Zhi Ren—the ‘Blade that Heals All Wounds.”

“That’s certainly an auspicious title,” Xie Lian said lightly. “If it heals all wounds, what makes it dangerous?”

“ The name is a misnomer,” Ling Wen informed, ”Rather than healing, it forces one to confront the source of their wounds. A person struck by the blade will remain eternally wounded until they confess their deepest, most repressed truth. The ‘wound’ remains until the heart is made honest. Its original purpose was likely torture. Ideal for coaxing confessions.”

Xie Lian frowned. “That does sound troublesome.”

“It is.” Ling Wen affirmed, “Which is why it is of utmost importance that Heaven sees it secured. I hate to trouble His Highness with such tasks, but Generals Xuan Zhen and Nan Yang are currently preoccupied with a dispute between their followers. I could explain, but I assure you it is very stupid. Pei Ming, Lang Qianqiu, and Quan Yizhen are all similarly occupied.”

Xie Lian hummed quietly to himself.  While certainly troublesome, he had previously dealt with plenty of cases like this throughout his years as a Heavenly Official. Many Martial Gods considered tasks such as this a bitter chore. In fact, Xie Lian had little doubt many of his fellow officials had opted out of this job for that very reason. Fetch-quests were hardly novel tasks, but Xie Lian cared not for matters of pride. 

“No trouble,”  he thusly replied. “If it’s all the same, I’ll handle this personally. Do we know who took it? Or where the blade might be located?”

“For all we know, it’s in the hands of one of the trouble-stirring Ghosts,” Ling Wen sighed lowly, ”But if His Highness is available, I will send you the location.”

“It’s no trouble, Ling Wen. I’ll see to the matter.”

“Very well, Your Highness. Take care.”

The connection ended with a faint snap of spiritual energy. Xie Lian exhaled slowly, rubbing his temples. He turned slightly, glancing back at Hua Cheng. While he never minded accompanying him on his ventures, Xie Lian didn’t think there any reason to stir Hua Cheng from such contented sleep. After having his Cursed Shackles shattered and Spiritual energy rejuvenated, some rowdy grave-probing Ghosts would hardly prove troublesome. No reason to disturb the lord of Ghost City as well, then. 

Hua Cheng shifted in his sleep, one arm now loosely hugging the spot Xie Lian had vacated, brows furrowed in dreamy protest. That sight alone nearly undid his resolve.

Still, Xie Lian smiled and whispered, “Sleep a little longer, San Lang.” And then he rose to dress himself and departed swiftly. 

The road to Yuejing was long, but nothing like the treacherous paths he’d once walked alone. Compared to the many tumultuous trails Xie Lian had trekked barefoot and bloodied, a simple climb past a jagged mountaintop hardly qualified as tribulation. 

His spiritual energy was no longer sealed or stifled and carried him easily across the skies. Still, out of habit—or perhaps sentiment—he traveled low and on foot for the final leg of the journey.

Centuries ago, this path would without a doubt have been flooded with pilgrims, festival banners, and loud lantern markets bustling with light. Lanterns would’ve bobbed in the twilight, festival drums echoing between hills. Children would have skipped barefoot through rows of prayer booths, and pious elders would’ve lined the temple roads chanting blessings with cracked voices. 

Yuejing had once been a prosperous city, rich in culture and renowned for its exquisite pottery. Now it lay in an almost reverent stillness. Nature had swallowed back up the land. Xie Lian felt a slight sense of pity at this—truly, the feng shui in the area was excellent, but terribly depressive with its civilisation so desolate.

The excavation team had set up not far from the yawning mouth of the disturbed tomb. What once had been an orderly camp was now in total disarray. Crates were overturned, tools left to rust mid-dig. And the blood—ah, there was a great deal of blood.

Several men lay strewn across the rubble, groaning softly or staring glass-eyed toward the open sky, their robes painted red from their leaking innards. A few still clutched their sides in desperation. Others lay very, very still.

A ghastly shudder coarsed Xie Lian’s entire body. Rarely did he startle so at the sights of gore. Without a doubt, this could be the handiwork of none other than the ‘Blade That Heals All Wounds!” 

Xie Lian rushed to the nearest excavator, feeling for a pulse, breath catching in his throat. “What’s happened here?”

Pale from bloodloss, the weakened man blinked deliriously at him. “D-dao…daozhang? Thank the Heavens… thank you, thank you, our prayers were not unheard…”

Xie Lian hurried to assure the dying man, speaking gently. “Yes, yes, that’s right. Heaven’s not abandoned you—but you must tell me what’s happened here. Were you stabbed by the sword buried in this tomb?”

 “T-that’s right, that’s right. All of us here were searching for some historical Yuejing pottery shards, we never would have known— Daozhang, we didn’t mean to disturb that tomb, I promise! Please, make the pain stop, treat my wounds, this regretful one will never once again step foot on these—” Cough, “These grounds—”

Blood gushed from an open cut straight to the man’s stomach. Wailing in pain, he clutched at Xie Lian’s white sleeves, smearing them, but Xie Lian cared little for soiled robes. He simply propped the man into a better position. Rouye curled to help bind the wound, but the gesture really only placated. There was no bandaging these stab wounds until the bleeding had been seized.

“That’s all very well, but I’m afraid it’s not a matter as simple as having disturbed an angry spirit. Listen to me, good sir, the wound left by that sword won’t heal before you confess.” Xie Lian explained.

Befuddled, the man blinked up at him. “C-confess?”

“Yes,” Xie Lian urged. “You must lay your heart bare. Speak what ails it.” 

The man gasped for breath, clutching Xie Lian’s sleeve with bloodied fingers. He spoke coarsely through the agony.  “I cheated at dice once!” he cried suddenly, teeth chattering. “Lied to my brother-in-law! I—I took extra rice during rationing, I swear I didn’t know it would come to this—!”

Hopefully, Xie Lian glanced at the man’s open wound. Though he had listened well and confessed, there didn’t appear to be any notable change. His brow furrowed. So a confession of this degree is insufficient? he pondered. 

Xie Lian pressed his palm to put pressure on the wound. “That isn’t enough. Think—what have you never told a soul? I won’t admonish you.”

Truly, he wouldn’t. Xie Lian had heard it all— sins and secrets both. Gods as old as him had shouldered many prayers. Adultery, theft, cowardice. Hatred. Despair. Regret so sharp it could slice mountains in half. And Xie Lian had no stones to throw. His own heart had once been heavier than any sword.

Paling, the man paused for a gasping breath. Held tongue, even as his breaths ran shallow. 

What a vicious weapon, Xie Lian couldn’t help but remark, The Blade that Heals All Wounds. Forcing a heart-wrenching truth out lest man risk it be their last words ever spoken. What a cruel way to bring a person to speak their uttermost woes. 

Grimacing, but seeing no other way out of his miserable predicament, the man confessed at last: “I… I once told my wife I’d quit drinking, but—cough—but I didn’t…! I— I stole money from our shared funds and went to indulge with it all at a bar!”

The wound pulsed. Spat out more blood. No change.

Xie Lian grit his teeth. It still wasn’t enough! 

“Your confession still lacks sincerity,” he urged, ”I know you value your pride, but you’ve lost too much blood already. You will not be punished no matter the transgression, I promise you. Please, you simply must confess. Just tell me—”

The excavator grit his teeth, exasperated. “I am telling you! What more do you want?!” the man shrieked. “Daozhang, you’re bullshitting me, aren’t you!? All of this while I’m—” Cough, spatter, “B-bleeding out, you can’t even let a man die in peace. You mock the heavens, you piece of shit, you must have no shame— n-no shame at all— you’re mocking this pain. I’d like to see you— how you fare with a sword pierced through the c-chest. Wouldn’t be so cocky then, you piece of… of…”

And with that, the excavator’s hands went limp. His last words had been a bitter curse spat toward the one trying to save him. Xie Lian exhaled, then shut the man’s eyes gently. 

He could not fault him for not knowing how to confess his soul’s truths in a moment of panic and agony. Most people didn’t even know what weighed them down until it was far too late. Even Xie Lian himself had regrets and secrets never spoken aloud, not even to the caring, ghostly eyes having stood sentinel in times of plight. 

He attempted the same tactics with the remaining surviving men, but none confessed the woes of the heart. Not a single one. They opted all to cuss Xie Lian out and declare him a fraud, spitting at his feet. By the time the last groan fell to silence, the Crown Prince of Xianle stood surrounded by corpses once more. 

Xie Lian remained still for a long moment. His head lay bowed—not out of shame or defeat, but reverence for the lives that had slipped through his fingers. The dead were dead, after all. 

Despite their bitter last words, Xie Lian did not falter. He’d long since made peace with being blamed and misunderstood. If they needed someone to despise in order to die with dignity, he would wear the role without complaint. It would not be the first time. 

And so after finishing up his prayers, Xie Lian stepped carefully over the bodies and arrived at the entrance of a tomb.

The protective seal carved into the threshold had been elegantly done, advanced even by the current Heavenly Court’s standards. Xie Lian crouched and ran his fingers along the grooves. Cracked, yes—and clearly breached. How peculiar. A handful of low-level ghosts couldn’t have broken this kind of seal with brute force alone. That would be like a sparrow breaking into a fortress by flapping its wings.

San Lang… Xie Lian thought, peering to the darkness within the tomb,  forgive me. I may be a little late for breakfast.

With a glow of spiritual energy, Xie Lian summoned a palm of fire to guide him, and then ventured down the rickety, moss-laden steps. The walls were lined with stone carvings— pictographs, ancient script, and reliefs chiseled into faded brick. Much of it had crumbled beyond recognition, left to rot beneath the earth for what was surely over 1000 years. Lichen and dust clung to the deep grooves, and entire slabs had fractured and slumped from old age. But here and there, Xie Lian could make out scraps of the tale.

It went as such: 

Many, many years ago—so long ago that not even the oldest immortals could remember the name of the country it once belonged to—a grand monastery stood nestled high on a mountain said to brush the edge of Heaven. The monks who lived there were not renowned, and their sect was not one sung of in ballads. They took no disciples, and they accepted no offerings.

According to the weathered script beneath Xie Lian’s fingers, this order believed that true clarity was not reached by denial of the self—but through confrontation with it. Every joy, every fury, every guilt was to be examined under a spiritual lens. The deepest shadows of the heart were not to be fled from, but faced.

Within this order, one monk spent years meditating in silence, cultivating his heart to a fully unburdened, unwavering state. In the tenth year, his enlightenment took form in the shape of a spiritual blade. They called it Yi Hen Zhi Ren—the Blade That Heals All Wounds.

For many years, the monks used the sword in rituals of penance and healing. Sinners and outcasts climbed the mountain seeking absolution. Some left healed, some left weeping, some did not leave at all, but the sword had ultimately been utilized in an act of goodwill. 

Xie Lian read further. 

One day, a mortal king heard tale of the sword. This king ruled with fear, and eventually, he turned upon his own court. And so naturally, when hearing word of this wondrous spiritual weapon, he sent a platoon of soldiers to the monastery's steps to seize it for himself. 

Predictably, the pacifist monks stood little chance against armed soldiers, and so The Blade That Heals All Wounds was promptly seized.

Where it had once drawn out confession through gentle revelation, this king used it for blood-soaked interrogation. Under the light of the moon, in secret stone chambers beneath his palace, he drove the blade into his ministers, his generals, his wives, his children — anyone who dared whisper out of turn.

He reigned tyrannically for many years, and in the end, his usurper was none other than his youngest son.

Xie Lian exhaled slowly.

He reached the final carving in the series. It showed the Blade That Heals All Wounds, now blackened from the blood it had absorbed, wedged into a stone altar. Around it, a ring of monks bowed with solemn expressions. Beneath them, the runes glowed faintly, even now. A seal that had held fast for a thousand years—until someone, or something, had broken it.

So that’s the truth of it, Xie Lian thought. A blade meant to liberate the troubles of the heart, twisted into a tool for cruelty. A gift made into a curse by the hand that wielded it. 

A most tragic tale, to be certain. But there were plenty of similar stories for plenty of other similarly forged spiritual weapons. “Such is the way of the world,” Xie murmured to himself. “Even the most merciful truths can be used to wound.” 

Still, the most pressing question remained unanswered: Who had broached the tomb, the monks’ seal? Or perhaps that was better phrased: how had the sword left the tomb?

The sigils carved into the walls were not so much ones forming an outside barrier as they were keeping a lock from the inside out. Xie Lian pondered this momentarily before deciding to investigate further in. After a bit more wandering, he eventually reached the final, low-vaulted chamber of the tomb. On the far wall, he found the empty pedestal where the sword had been.

So the sword truly was missing. Strange. Hua Cheng was not here to guarantee Xie Lian had interpreted all of the ancient script correctly, but from his own readings, this tomb was one meant to collapse on itself if the sword was ever detected to exit the threshold. So how was it still standing?

Frowning, Xie Lian turned, ready to retrace his steps and examine the corridor once more—only to pause at a faint noise behind him.

Drip, drip, drip. 

Running water? Here? Xie Lian’s brow furrowed. He turned slightly, angling the flame higher, expecting perhaps some groundwater leaking in from the ceiling. It piqued him. The air was much too dry for condensation. 

Drip, drip. 

There it was again. Xie Lian couldn’t quite place where the sound originated—until he felt a burst of warmth erupting across his chest. Subsequently, he glanced down.

A sword-hilt had skewered clean through the center of Xie Lian’s chest.

The dripping sound was not water hitting the ground, but his own blood!

Ah, so that’s it, he thought distantly. The blade really hadn’t left the tomb. 

Pain followed a heartbeat later—hot, searing, but not entirely unfamiliar. Xie Lian staggered back a step, the flame in his palm flickering wildly, then dying. Darkness swallowed the corridor. For one single breath, the tomb walls fell away and the present collapsed into the past. Suddenly he was on his knees again, and following the stab of the first blade, ninety-nine more would soon follow. From the shadowed corners of the room, a half-crying-half-smiling mask observed the spectacle gleefully. Restrained by the calamity’s hand, hung a frenzied, crying little ghost-fire. 

Xie Lian saw all of it displayed before him once more, but only for a brief second. Staggering, his knees met the stone. But— but!— he did not fall. 

It’s only one sword, Xie Lian told himself calmly. Just one. You’ve endured a hundred.

“Alright,” he said aloud, voice steady despite the blade protruding from his chest. “That was very unkind.” 

At the calm admonishment, the Blade That Heals All Wounds visibly bristled. As suspected, then. Spiritual weapons used for anguish-induced bloodshed when laying claims to many, many lives sometimes gained sentience. The more viciously a blade had been utilized, the more pressing its bloodlust.

Realizing all of this, Xie Lian’s hand reached calmly up and seized the hilt. The sword throbbed in his hand, terribly disappointed at Xie Lian’s half-hearted reaction to its viscous stabbing, it seemed. So full of malicious energy— no wonder the sword had been buried deep underground and left to corrode. 

Now this is a sword worth scolding, Xie Lian couldn’t help but remark. Thanks to Hua Cheng’s diligent schooling efforts, E-Ming was very cordial when it came to showing its bloodlust around others. Few alive today would be able to handle such a misbehaving sword as the The Blade That Heals All Wounds. No wonder the intruding ghosts hadn’t managed to make off with it. The Blade That Heals All Wounds had most definitely pricked them like pincushions, leaving the graverobbers full of holes!

Though its blade had stabbed clean through him, Xie Lian didn’t flinch, and calmly tugged at the hilt to dislodge the sword from his stomach. Like a tantruming child, The Blade That Heals All Wounds huffed and tugged and puffed in protest. 

Xie Lian slapped a talisman on the blade after extracting it fully, stilling the rebelling sword. Though that had been taken care of now, this entire case had now left him with more new issues than solved ones. 

Truly, of all the unforeseen inconveniences in Xie Lian’s life—and there had been many—one of the most persistent remained the simple fact that he only ever wore white. It had once been a matter of princely decorum, then later a sort of uniformed dignity. Eventually it became a habit. And now, even as a married man with no obligations to please or perform for anyone, Xie Lian still couldn’t seem to pull himself out of his plain, pale robes. But the red seeped steadily through the white, and he knew thusly that this was not an injury he could hide. The truth was this: 

The wound hurt. A great deal.

“Aiyah.” Sighing—and not for the first time—Xie Lian sat himself down gingerly against the mossy wall of the tomb, legs crossed, hands calmly pressing gauze to his wound as if it were no more than a bruised knee. 

Truthfully spoken, being impaled by a cursed sword was—in the long history of Xie Lian’s suffering—not even in the top ten. Xie Lian had, this time around, at least been stabbed with a bit more dignity than previous times. At least there was not a temple full of civilians conducting the stabbing. No distressed little ghost-fire being made to watch him be hacked to mush. 

Xie Lian’s gaze drifted toward the crumbling ceiling of the tomb.

He had no illusions about keeping this hidden. Even if he somehow cleaned the blood and straightened his robes and walked home smiling, Hua Cheng would know the instant he stepped through the door. He always knew. He always knew. Some sixth sense—some infernal blood-bound, marital radar—would have him materializing the moment Xie Lian spilled so much as a drop of blood.

Hesitating for a moment, Xie Lian raised two fingers and then recited the password to Hua Cheng’s spiritual communication array.

“Gege?”

The voice was low, warm, and the answer so immediate it was almost like Hua Cheng had been waiting for the call. Xie Lian hadn’t even needed to initiate conversation. 

“San Lang,” Xie Lian began gently, “Don’t be alarmed, but—”

“You’re hurt.”

Xie Lian blinked. “You didn’t even let me finish.”

“Your voice sounds wrong.” Hua Cheng’s tone was deceptively calm, but underneath, there was a sharpness that belied the edge of a blade being drawn. “Where is it? How did you get injured?”

Xie Lian winced. “The chest. But it’s only a flesh wound! It’s not life-threatening.”

A beat of silence. Xie Lian could picture Hua Cheng perfectly—standing stock still, one eye narrowed, fingers flexing like he was already halfway to drawing E-Ming and slicing apart whichever poor soul might cross his path next. Xie Lian informing him it was only minor was confession enough. Why—if Xie Lian’s wounds were actually minor, he never bothered to tell Hua Cheng outright! Much less go to the trouble of reaching out through his Spiritual Communication array. Xie Lian wanted to slap himself as he realized— hadn’t he basically just screamed to Hua Cheng’s ear to inform him: HEY! I AM DYING!

“San Lang—”

“Toss the dice.”

“Eh?”

“The dice. The ones I gave you. Right now. I’ll come get you, Your Highness.”

Those dice were, of course, the very same Hua Cheng had once gifted him upon Xie Lian’s very first visit to Ghost City years ago. The moment Xie Lian tossed them and let them land, Hua Cheng could open a gate from anywhere—no matter how far—and appear at his side.

“Toss the dice,” Hua Cheng commanded when Xie Lian still hadn’t after a few seconds. 

And so Xie Lian tossed the dice. 

A black tear sliced through the tomb the moment they stilled on the ground— glistening. Silver wraith butterflies spilled out, and one very troubled Ghost King stepped through the array moments later.

Hua Cheng was, Xie Lian noted with a soft flutter of guilt, disheveled. His long black hair had clearly only been hastily finger-combed, and robes were loosely tied. It looked as though Hua Cheng had dropped everything the moment the call reached him. His crimson eye swept the chamber once before landing on Xie Lian—pale, bloody, swaying slightly, one hand still clutched near his chest.

Hua Cheng immediately dropped to his knees before him. Without hesitation, he reached out  and gently parted the bloodied fabric of Xie Lian’s robe, inspecting the wound. Immediately, he stilled. 

Even now, after all this time, after three ascensions of pain, love, and loyalty, it still undid Xie Lian to see Hua Cheng like this—angry not out of blame, but fear. Frightened not for himself, but for him.

The Ghost King’s hands still hadn’t moved. “Why isn’t it closing?”

Xie Lian opened his mouth, intending to soothe. What came out instead was a soft, shaking breath. “...I’m sorry, San Lang.”

“Don’t apologize,” Hua Cheng snapped, concern mounting. “Tell me how to fix it. Whatever it is, tell me. I’ll do it. Anything. Anything for His Highness."

Xie Lian exhaled heavily. He really hadn’t meant to drag Hua Cheng into anything when departing from their bed this very morning. Somehow, he’d gotten him roped up in his business without intending to yet again. 

“The wound doesn’t close unless… unless the heart is made honest,” Xie Lian admitted. ”That’s what Ling Wen said. That’s what the tomb’s carvings implied too. A wound left by The Blade That Heals All Wounds can only be healed if the bearer confesses what weighs most heavily upon their heart.”

Hua Cheng’s hands clenched. “Then tell me. Whatever it is—whatever you’re holding in, just tell me, gege. You can tell me anything.” He spoke with no hesitation.

“I know I can,” Xie Lian said quietly. “There’s nothing in my heart I haven't told you, San Lang. There’s nothing I regret when it comes to you. Nothing.”

Xie Lian meant it. Every word. There was nothing he would ever hide from Hua Cheng. After all, Xie Lian had already exposed the most unsightly parts of himself— mucked with dirt and snot and tears and anger viscous enough to condemn an entire nation to death. Hua Cheng had seen him, unrobed and naked, stripped to his ugly innards, had heard his voice snap down the middle as agony broke its bone in two. He knew the Crown Prince of Xianle, he knew the Laughingstock of the Three Realms, he knew the God who had nearly taken up the mantle of a Calamity, and to each of them he had said I love you, I love you, and I love you. There were no masks left between them.

Hua Cheng’s voice trembled. “Then… are there any other secrets left unsaid? From anyone else? Anyone his Highness remembers?”

Xie Lian turned his face away, shoulders sagging. Of course his only remaining grievances lay unabsolved with other people. Of all the pain Xie Lian had ever felt, only one in particular had never been given the absolution it needed to scab over and heal. It was the grief of having once looked someone in the eye and called them brother—and then watching them walk away.

“…It’s Mu Qing,” Xie Lian relented, pain wearing his voice thin, “And Feng Xin.”

At that, Hua Cheng went very, very still. Truly, there were few things in all three realms that could shake the great Crimson Rain Sought Flower—not death, not battle, not gods, nor ghosts, nor the threat of pain. Watching Xie Lian ache and being unable to act upon it? Hua Cheng himself had admitted it once; that was his one true weakness, the thing he fretted and despised most in the entire world. 

“Trash like that is keeping Gege wounded like this?”

“Please don’t say that,” Xie Lian said softly. 

Hua Cheng’s gaze flicked up, and his single visible eye narrowed, “Do you mean to defend them?” 

“No.” Xie Lian let out a long, slow breath, lowering his eyes. “It’s not that.”

Hua Cheng waited for him to elaborate, silent and patient with him, even in his anger. 

Xie Lian’s fingers curled slightly in his lap, unconsciously brushing over the blood-soaked gauze still pressed to his chest. The pain hadn’t lessened— in fact the ache in his chest had only gotten worse. 

Though Feng Xin and Mu Qing had been there for many of those difficult years in Xie Lian’s life, they had not been there for all of them. That was to say, they had not been there for the worst of them. 

It wasn’t that Xie Lian couldn’t speak it—it was that once it was spoken, once it was known  to the two of them what their departure had caused—it would exist between them forever. They would know that the prince they’d abandoned had once knelt in the dark and wrapped the same noose around his neck from which the bodies of his parents hung. They would know he had once worn the mask that smiled upon Xianle as it fell. 

“San Lang… I can’t,” Xie Lian protested weakly, “They’ll think they were at fault.”

“Weren’t they?” Hua Cheng’s voice cracked through the silence like a whip. His eye flicked upward now, and for a moment, the full force of his gaze locked Xie Lian in place. He was angry. But not at him. “Your Highness, they left you, didn’t they?”

Xie Lian reached up, the motion slow, and brushed a thumb across Hua Cheng’s cheek. “San Lang knows me better than anyone,” he said. “You’ve seen it all. And I’m not angry anymore. Feng Xin and Mu Qing shouldn’t bear needless weight now because of something that happened 800 years ago.”

Hua Cheng looked like he sincerely disagreed with that sentiment. After all, he had kept every grudge that Xie Lian did not, and spited any who had ever wronged him very publicly. He had even gone so far as to nitpick the thirty three Heavenly Officials that had once soiled Xie Lian’s reputation in court, and given him trouble while cultivating. Each of them had been thoroughly humiliated, and had their temples thoroughly decimated. On Hua Cheng’s list of unforgivable garbage, Feng Xin and Mu Qing ranked rather highly. 

“Gege,” he said finally, voice low. “You’re allowed to be angry.”

Xie Lian fell silent at that. “...Nothing good ever comes of anger.”

“His Highness is the one bleeding,” Hua Cheng shot, quiet and seething. “You are the one wounded. And still—still you kneel here in the dark, mourning how your pain might make others feel. Forgive me, but I don’t care if it makes them weep. Let them weep. Let them drown in it. You speak like you’re the one at fault here. But who wronged who all those years ago, Your Highness?”

Xie Lian’s lips parted to protest—but at that moment, a harsh spasm gripped his chest. He doubled forward, hand pressed tight to the wound. Truthfully, he had hoped the worst had passed—that he could bear this just a little longer, until his body grew used to the blade’s grudge and let him walk it off like one of the many other awkward, persistent ailments he had suffered throughout the years. But the pressure failed to contain the hot bloom of blood that surged through his fingers. A soft, startled sound escaped Xie Lian’s throat. It was scarcely a breath— hardly enough of a proclamation of pain for most people to notice.

Hua Cheng noticed. His one eye darted to the blood beginning to pool anew. “Gege’s hurting. That’s enough.” 

“I—just need to catch—my breath—” Xie Lian managed, though the corners of his vision were beginning to dim. Even immortals could not bleed endlessly without consequence. He would not die, but bleeding out was most certainly not a pleasant endeavor. This, Xie Lian knew well. 

Hua Cheng was having none of it. Having seen all that needed to be seen and deduced all that needed to be deduced, he gingerly bent to latch one arm behind Xie Lian’s back, another beneath his legs. Hua Cheng was gentle, cautious not to aggravate the wound needlessly. Rising to hold him in a proper bridal-carry, the world blurred before Xie Lian’s eyes. 

“Hold tight, Your Highness. We need to treat your wound. “ Hua Cheng said, striding toward the tear in space his array had carved open moments earlier. Treating an injury inflicted by the Blade That Heals All Wounds of course meant one had to lay bare the deepest grievances of it—which meant Hua Cheng was intending to bring him to the Heavenly Capital.

Though Xie Lian was no stranger to humiliation, he truly was not in the mood to be paraded before the entire court like this. No, that wasn’t it—there were really only two people whose eyes he cared for making aware of his current predicament. 

“San Lang—” Xie Lian attempted weakly. Winced. Blood spilled anew, and another crimson flower bloomed against white.

“Gege.” Hua Cheng cut him off. He shot a look so severe Xie Lian might as well have been E-ming, “You shouldn’t be hurting like this.”

And that was that. Hua Cheng would hear nothing more of it, and Xie Lian could protest no further. And so after swiftly connecting the proper destination to the teleportation array, wraith butterflies flocked them, and Hua Cheng swiftly swept Xie Lian away. 

The Heavenly Capital had not known peace for long. It had, perhaps, known calm. A dull quietude. The kind that settled in after a storm, when one picked through the wreckage and said, “Well. At least nothing is currently on fire.”

Unfortunately, that calm was about to be unceremoniously shattered, as had it previously, by Crimson Rain Sought Flower intruding into the Heavens. There was no warning, only the sudden, searing shiiing of spiritual energy slicing through the sky.

One moment, the outer plaza was placid—sunlight gleaming off jade balustrades, Upper and Middle Court officials fluttering by. The next, a black tear split the heavens above the temple gates, silver wraith butterflies burst from the rift in a great cascade, and two figures donned in crimson leapt onto the divine promenade.

It was not entirely unusual, of course, for Hua Cheng to appear unannounced. Nowadays, it was something of a rare season when he didn’t. But what made this entrance remarkable was not the Ghost King’s dramatic arrival, nor even the way E-Ming vibrated with bloodthirst at his hip. No—it was the figure he so reverently held. 

A bloodied His Highness the Crown Prince of Xianle. 

The officials gathered in the square blinked, stilled, and then scattered like startled pigeons. A bell rang somewhere in the distance. A few Heavenly Officials poked their heads out from behind pillars, whispering among themselves, scandalized. 

“Is that Crimson Rain Sought Flower?”

“Carrying the High Highness the Crown Prince? Wait—what’s happened?”

“Was he attacked?!”

“Who would dare—”

Ever the nosy littler gossipers, Hua Cheng paid the loitering Officials no mind. His focus lay solely on the matter of Xie Lian’s wellbeing. Only Ling Wen, appearing a few steps behind her startled scribe, had the sense to remain calm. 

“Crimson Rain Sought Flower,” she said as she approached, dipping her head with practiced neutrality. “It’s rare that you descend upon the Heavenly Capital in such an abrupt manner.”

“I was not invited,” Hua Cheng simply said, voice flat. “So forgive me for being punctual.”

Ling Wen’s eyes flicked to the figure in his arms. Her mouth, usually a thin line of indifference, twitched.

“His Highness is injured.”

“Deeply,” Hua Cheng scoffed, stating the obvious, “And unnecessarily.”

Xie Lian made a slight noise. So much fuss over me, he thought, is it really necessary?

The crowd of officials, sensing something very interesting and very dangerous was about to happen, began to slink back into corridors and pillars at a safe distance. No one wanted to be near enough to become collateral damage, but no one wanted to miss the show either.

Ling Wen was unshaken. “Shall I summon a physician?”

“There’s nothing to treat,” Hua Cheng replied. “He was struck by The Blade that Heals All Wounds.”

The murmuring began in earnest then. The Blade that Heals All Wounds was an ancient, long buried weapon—no heavenly officials present today were old enough to even have heard rumors from the time it was brandished. 

“The Blade that Heals All Wounds?”

“His Highness was stabbed by a spiritual weapon?”

“Not even Crimson Rain Sought Flower can mend the wound on his own?”

Ling Wen straightened, understanding the severity. She had been the one to dispatch Xie Lian on the mission, after all, and therefore bore partial blame for the current predicament. Muddying the waters between herself and a Ghost King was certainly not anything Ling Wen desired. “Then… the wound will not close unless—”

“Have generals Xuan Zhen and Nan Yang summoned,” Hua Cheng ordered. “At once.”

Murmur murmur murmur. Like cicadas in a wheatfield, voices buzzed from all around them. 

“Generals Xuan Zhen and Nan Yang? What does this matter concern them?”

“Where they the ones to harm His Highness?”

“There is history between the lot of them—perhaps someone was finally angered enough…”

From within the folds of Hua Cheng’s robe, Xie Lian shifted slightly. He hadn’t yet spoken a word since their arrival, gaze half-lidded and breath light, but awake enough to place a feeble hand against Hua Cheng’s shoulder. 

“San Lang… You really needn’t trouble them,” Xie Lian begged weakly.

“No, I really do,” Hua Cheng said curtly, and that was that.

Resigned, Xie Lian let himself rest fully against Hua Cheng’s shoulder. He really had never been able to bring himself to argue, especially not with Hua Cheng. There was no wavering his resolve when he got like this. Not when matters concerned Xie Lian’s wellbeing. With no doubt, for the sake of aiding his crown prince, there was no mountain Hua Cheng would not see crossed, no beast not defeated, no ocean he could not part, no God he could not best. There was no amount of years he would not wait, no distance he would not cross. Indeed; even if Xie Lian were to wind up on the opposite end of the world, he held no doubt Hua Cheng would find him again. 

Ling Wen, to her credit, did not admonish either party. She simply gave a slight incline of her head and gestured. “Both generals are currently occupied in a meeting at the palace of Xuan Zhen. His Highness and Crimson Rain Sought Flower can find them there.”

Hua Cheng nodded, sparing no other courtesies, departing swiftly with the winded Xie Lian held in his arms. The prying deities parted like a tide, giving way to the Ghost King with only one thought in their minds: Who in their right mind had managed to injure His Highness the Crown Prince so severely?

And more importantly: were they still alive?

Feng Xin and Mu Qing were indeed in the palace of Xuan Zhen, attempting a very reluctant reconciliation over a mismanaged mortal worship site that both of them claimed jurisdiction over. Feng Xin had a temple rooster stolen, and Mu Qing’s statue was being used as a coat rack. Neither was handling it gracefully.

They argued, even as Hua Cheng burst through the front doors. 

“—And if your followers wouldn’t keep tossing their garbage into my censer—!”

“Me?! You’re one to talk! Your followers raised a Free Rice banner atop my temple, and now my courtyard is flooded with beggars!”

“Maybe if your statue didn’t have that face, people wouldn’t think it was public property—”

“WHAT ABOUT MY FACE?!”

Had any younger officials been present, they might have wisely fled. Unfortunately, the only people present were several attendants of Xuan Zhen Palace, who had spent many years cultivating the art of standing very still while their general said cutting things. One of them had even perfected the expression of a man who had heard nothing, seen nothing, and would later remember nothing under questioning. 

The doors thundered open. The boom was so loud it shook the tiles of the mural above, nearly toppling the palace’s divine bell. A ripple of spiritual energy cracked through the rafters, sending a neat puff of scrolls toppling from a nearby desk. 

Alarmed, both Mu Qing and Feng Xin leapt to their his feet and drew their weapons. It didn’t take the trained instinct of a martial God to pick up on the heavy, malicious aura suddenly flooding through the palace gates. Mu Qing grit his teeth. “Who dares—!?”

Of course, there was only one man who would dare. 

Both generals turned to statues the moment they recognized the crimson form. How could they not—for he had shown them nothing but animosity ever since snatching up their Crown Prince all for himself! Had played all manner of cruel tricks to see them humiliated and undignified, had intended to corrupt Xie Lian’s purist path of cultivation! In all of their attempts to thwart him, they had been swatted off like flies. And Crimson Rain Sought Flower had smiled all the while, shedding not so much as a bead of sweat.

Hua Cheng paraded the Palace of Xuan Zhen’s halls as casually as had he owned them. After all, no door, wall or blockade could hope to stop the wrath of a Ghost King intending to pass it. 

“Crimson Rain Sought Flower!?” Both Mu Qing and Feng Xin’s voices echoed, aghast. Both generals’ attendants scattered to the winds like a frightened flock of pheasants. 

Looking well ready to launch a proper attack, their eyes eventually fell to the crumpled figure cradled so lovingly in Hua Cheng’s arms. Xie Lian’s white robes were soaked red, his lashes dark and clumped, cheek pressed gently against Hua Cheng’s shoulder. He didn’t appear unconscious—but far too still for a Heavenly Official of Xie Lian’s might. 

“Your Highness?!”  Both Mu Qing and Feng Xin’s voices echoed, again.

“What happened?!” Feng Xin thundered, rushing forward.

“Stay back.” Hua Cheng commanded. Though his expression hardly shifted, the temperature of the room dropped ten degrees. Inexplicably, Feng Xin suddenly felt as though the malicious weight of ten thousand dead were pressing against him from all sides. He dared not move a muscle.  

“You—” Mu Qing snapped, eyes ablaze, flitting from Xie Lian to Hua Cheng, darting back and fourth and back and fourth. “You brought him here like this, and now you want us to stand back?! What did you do to him?!”

“I didn’t stab His Highness,” Hua Cheng said coldly, as if the mere notion of possibly harming Xie Lian was too repulsive to entertain. “I would sooner die a thousand deaths and have my ashes scattered in a pigsty, than raise a hand against him.”

San Lang, must you… always declare your undying devotion in such… vivid metaphors… Xie Lian groaned lowly. At such times…. 

Xie Lian, sensing very well that if this continued, the Palace of Xuan Zhen might soon become the Former Palace of Xuan Zhen, lifted his head slightly. “… Feng Xin, Mu Qing. Don’t misunderstand.  San Lang is overreacting a little. The two of you…. you’re not at fault for any of this—”

Another sharp wave of pain overcame Xie Lian suddenly, body jerking in Hua Cheng’s grasp. His spine arched; his breath caught like it had been wrenched from his chest. Xie Lian clenched his teeth, breath shivering, fists balled into the silk of Hua Cheng’s sleeve—but he bit his tongue and stomached the pain. Blood poured from his stab wound. 

“Gege,” Hua Cheng called, worried. He pressed a supporting hand to his back. 

Feng Xin stepped forward again, visibly paling at Xie Lian’s worsening condition. “Your Highness—what do you mean us? We haven’t—what the hell is going on? Why are you injured? What did we do?!”

“Oh?” Hua Cheng snapped. Xie Lian had never once heard him sound so cruel. “Now you reach out your hands? Now that you live in palaces and hold titles and sip tea with Heaven’s finest, and the man you once called your prince is bleeding out in my arms, now you flinch at his suffering? Now you care?”

Mu Qing bristled at the shameless provocation. Pride was his spine and sword both. Xie Lian had admonished him for it, once— always one to bite the hand that feeds, always one to jump at a provocation, to spit in a cup but not poison it. “What’s that supposed to mean!? Did you come here just to flaunt his injuries and toss accusations around? Is that it, Ghost King?!”

“I came here to beat you senseless,” Hua Cheng answered coldly. Both generals leapt back 

like startled cats. Xie Lian could only hope he wasn’t serious. 

“His Highness is suffering right now because of you,” Hua Cheng said, ”This lingering pain in His Highness’ heart—even after eight hundred years— is because of you.”

Stop it, Xie Lian wished to plead but couldn’t properly. It was as though his tongue had turned to stone, lying dead and dormant at the back of his throat. All things considered, the wound he’d suffered really wasn’t all that severe. Why was speaking causing him such trouble? Xie Lian’s limbs were so heavy, he could scarcely move. 

Feng Xin shared a glance with an equally befuddled Mu Qing. “Wait, wait—hold on, our fault? We didn’t do anything!”

“You must be out of your mind if you think we’d ever lay a hand on him,” Mu Qing said sharply, tone outraged. “If His Highness is hurt, we need to treat it. Not stand here listening to your deranged theatrics.”

“His Highness was stabbed by a spiritual weapon,” Hua Cheng explained, coldly. “Yi Hen Zhi Ren. The Blade That Heals All Wounds.”

Mu Qing’s brow furrowed. The name of an ancient sword meant nothing to him. 

Patience thinning, Hua Cheng elaborated: “When cut by this sword, the only way to mend the wound is to lay bare the deepest part of the heart.” 

Both generals stared, still struggling to piece together where they fit into this strange predicament. The deepest part of His Highness's heart? Surely, that can be none but Crimson Rain Sought Flower! None dared voice the obvious. 

“So?” Mu Qing huffed instead, ”Why hasn't he already? Surely barging into my palace for a confessional is unnecessary—”

“Because,” Hua Cheng interrupted. Xie Lian whined a meek protest in his arms, “The wound on His Higness’s heart is your fault. 

Mu Qing, for once, went silent. Feng Xin equally so. 

Xie Lian turned his head weakly, as though to speak, but the simple motion caused enormous strain. His hand twitched against Hua Cheng’s sleeve, fingers tightening until the knuckles showed white. What could Xie Lian do now but take the situation lying down? The cause of his wound had been revealed. It ached painfully, but the weight on his lips and limbs began to lessen. Hua Cheng lifted a hand off of Xie Lian’s back. 

“Your Highness,” Mu Qing said, and his voice was quieter than before, “if speaking will close the wound, then speak.” 

Xie Lian’s smile was faint. “It isn’t so simple.” 

“Why not?” Mu Qing demanded. “If it’s about us, then say it to us. Curse us if you have to. Scold us. Hit us. Whatever it is, say it.” 

“Your Highness… does this have to do with…” Feng Xin trailed off. He still didn’t quite know how to properly speak of the matter. “Back then…”

‘Back then to anyone else, could have meant anything. But everyone present knew exactly what it alluded to— back then, during the fall of Xianle, during Xie Lian’s first banishment, during his most difficult, most ridiculing years as a God cast out of Heaven. 

Xie Lian seemed, for all Mu Qing and Feng Xin had known, perfectly content with things as they now were. After living his 800 years in banishment and ascending for the third time, he had not once admonished or showed a hint of bitterness towards either of his former generals. Feng Xin and Mu Qing had never brought the matter up. Xie Lian had never told. And so naturally, they had assumed the past was behind them. Naturally, they had assumed wrong.

Who could have ever guessed Xie Lian’s heart was still weighed so heavily by the things that happened back then? That Feng Xin and Mu Qing’s actions in Xie Lian’s most desperate times had left a wound that refused to close even centuries after the events had transpired? 

“It’s not your fault—” Xie Lian attempted once more, having gotten the strength back to speak, but a wicked cough wracked him then, spewing blood from his mouth. Hua Cheng’s expression turned increasingly severe— the pain and the wound was only worsening the more Xie Lian denied himself of its ache. 

“Your Highness!” Mu Qing cried sharply. He couldn’t bear the sight of Xie Lian’s pathetic, whimpering form any longer. “Why are you like this?! You’ve always been like this! Even now, when you're like this—you still won’t speak! Quit the stubborn mood! Do you want to die?! What could be worth enduring this kind of pain for, you absolute fool?!”

“General Xuan Zhen.” Hua Cheng didn’t so much as flinch, but the fury simmering behind his eye made it very clear he’d take offense at anyone calling Xie Lian a fool—regardless of context, regardless of history. Not even Xie Lian was allowed to call Xie Lian a fool. “Shut up.”

Mu Qing promptly shut himself up. 

“Your Highness…” Feng Xin was next to attempt to coax it out of him. He’d always been the softer-spoken of the two of them. “Your Highness, you’re killing yourself like this. Tell us what weighs upon your heart. You cannot continue like this.”

Xie Lian shook his head like a scolded child being told to swallow bitter medicine. Ah. Right. Feng Xin did tend that task, once, Xie Lian reminisced quietly to himself. Amongst all the physicians, attendants and parents that had once seen to him, Feng Xin had always shown the greatest success in getting the young crown prince to stomach the bitter herbs. 

Wriggling and writhing about in Hua Cheng’s arms, the ache in Xie Lian’s chest grew heavier and heavier. It was as though The Blade That Heals All Wounds still pierced him, twisting and digging itself further in for every breath he took, every attempt he made to swallow his words. 

“Gege,” Hua Cheng pleaded helplessly once more. 

Sweat beading on his forehead, with trembling hands and squinted eyes, vision white from pain, a single sentence was eventually forced from Xie Lian’s lips.

“I never robbed… that merchant.”

The effect was immediate, and the aching stopped. At least for an incense time. Long enough to allow Xie Lian to gasp for air like a drowned man. 

Feng Xin startled. Mu Qing’s mouth twitched, but didn’t open to voice anything. Of all the things they had expected from Xie Lian— scoldings or admonishments for having left him, comments of insubordination, this was not one of them. A lot had happened back then, and there was no telling which parts of it still weighed heavily on Xie Lian.

Hua Cheng squeezed Xie Lian’s hand, gently spurring him to go on. And so, even though the words were unwillingly coerced out of him, Xie Lian eventually laid everything bare. 

“Back during my first… banishment,” Xie Lian stuttered, “I did try to rob someone. I laid in wait for an entire day on that road. I remember… there were birds in the trees, and the dust was so dry it clung to my sleeves. Every traveler that passed, I let go. Their children, their luggage, their laughter—I couldn’t bring myself to rob them. But then he came—this one man, traveling alone. He looked well-fed. Well-dressed. And I thought, ‘surely, this one is safe. Surely, just once, I can do this and go home with something to offer.”

It was very very hard to not be very very aware of the three sets of eyes on him, taking in every word. Still, Xie Lian grit his teeth and spurred on. 

“The man I cornered screamed, and I panicked. I-I never actually robbed him of anything. He ran. I chased him—not to hurt him, I swear it—just to make him stop shouting, because I thought… I thought someone might see…”

Feng Xin dropped his head, the weight of it bowing his shoulders. Mu Qing stood frozen in place. No explanation needed to be pried out for the next part of the story—everyone knew it well. Someone did see—a very large group of gossiping someones had seen, and it mattered little what Xie Lian had or hadn’t done. He was forever shamed, and the robbery incident would see him disgracefully branded for the rest of his divine life. Mu Qing had bit unquestioningly into the rumors. Eventually, Feng Xin had as well. 

That was one of the first real nails in Xie Lian’s eventual coffin.

Hua Cheng vigilantly watched Xie Lian’s wound as he spoke. “Gege. The confession worked. The bleeding’s stopping a little.”

Xie Lian panted, dazed eyes glancing hopefully up. “...Then—”

“No.” Hua Cheng shot. His entire face was wracked with pain as well. “Keep talking, gege. It won’t heal entirely otherwise.”

Xie Lian’s face fell, but he knew Hua Cheng spoke the truth. His chest still burned. And so Xie Lian’s head bowed low once more, and he continued the story. 

“That night, I wandered far from our lodgings. I didn’t want to face anyone— I was so ashamed of what I’d attempted to do. It was so cold. I found myself in a graveyard, and there was wine placed by the tomb. I drank. Enough that I couldn’t stand straight. A ghost fire appeared, flickering near me. I thought it must have been the spirit buried there, and so I tried to leave, but I tripped and fell into an undug grave. I scarcely remember anything, but…”

Hua Cheng squeezed his hand once more. 

“I cried,” Xie Lian whispered. “Like a fool, I cried. I couldn’t climb out. My head spun. I curled up in that grave and waited to freeze to death. The little ghost fire came close. It couldn’t warm me, but it tried. It said, Please… just a little more time.”

Deigning his head to glance up, Xie Lian’s eyes found the slumping form of Feng Xin. He looked at a war with himself. “Feng Xin, you found me two days later. In the alleyway.”

“That was…” Feng Xin’s voice rang astonishingly quiet, sounding almost ashamed of itself. “your Highness. That’s what…? What…” 

“Afterwards, you and my parents encouraged me to cultivate again,” Xie Lian hurried to continue talking. The less he paused, the less he had to hear and see Mu Qing and Feng Xin being wounded by his words. ”I truly didn’t have the heart for it, I really didn’t, but I couldn’t stand the thought of letting you down. And so I ventured off to a nearby mountain amply suited for cultivating in isolation, rich with spiritual energy. But then…” Xie Lian trailed off once more. This time, it was Mu Qing’s turn to pale. 

“Your…” The voice came out like one expecting punishment. “Your Highness…” 

“It’s alright,”  Xie Lian hurriedly assured. ”The events on the spiritual mountain put all of us in a tight spot.” 

Mu Qing’s jaw fell, astounded. How could Xie Lian possibly justify the situation when Mu Qing had been too busy trying to save face to realize that the people he was defending were vultures gorging themselves on what they already had in abundance while the crown prince of Xianle ate wild roots from the dirt? 

The 33 Heavenly officials could have easily scoured for another mountain. So easily. Any other mountain. But they had insisted on that one, and they had seen Xie Lian chased away from his only opportunity to properly cultivate for miles and miles. 

And still, Xie Lian smiled tenderly. “The ghost fire followed me again, to the top of that mountain. It flung itself at the other Heavenly Officials, again and again. It fought so diligently, but they laughed at it just as much as me.”

Feng Xin suddenly burst out, voice cracking, “Your Highness, I know Mu Qing was being a total—”

“Don’t,” Xie Lian interrupted, shaking his head. “Don’t fight.”

“But why didn’t you speak to me about any of this?” Feng Xin’s voice wasn’t angered so much as wounded, ”I wouldn’t have admonished you, your Highness. Had you not told me to leave, I would have stayed no matter how dire things got.”

“I couldn’t,” Xie Lian honestly admitted. ”How could I come home and admit I tried to beat down a horde of middle court officials with a tree branch and got humiliated for it? How could I tell you I threw mud at someone I once called a dear friend, that I could not cultivate to reascend?”

Feng Xin fell silent once more. Truly, things had been so desperate back then—he and the King and Queen of Xianle had clung solely to the belief that Xie Lian would surely, without fault, reascend the heavens and return to them their lost glory. He had shone so brightly once already, stood so high in heaven’s court. To hope for that was perhaps naive, but what else had they had?

 If Feng Xin himself had been made to carry such expectations on his shoulders, would he have had the courage to speak of his failure? Mulling the matter over very briefly, Feng Xin concluded he no longer had the right to speak his frustrations of Xie Lian aloud. 

From where he stood, Mu Qing bit his lower lip. His fists were clenched so hard he shook. Of all of them, Mu Qing was by far the most concerned with saving face. His personality made him inherently distrustful of other people, expecting the worst of them. Whatever excuse he had given himself all those years ago to justify leaving Xie Lian, to kicking him off that mountain, clearly did not hold. In attempting to save himself when Xie Lian had refused to listen to him, Mu Qing really had ended up looking like a pretentious, self-centered, powerhogging turncoat. 

“After descending the mountain, I tried to stay calm,” Xie Lian explained, “I told myself I could still do good. That one day I would make it up to everyone. But White No-Face had returned by then. He haunted me wherever I went. I tried to warn you, Feng Xin, tried to warn my parents. But you didn’t believe me.”

Feng Xin flinched again, as if struck. A true blow across the cheek would have hurt less. Still, Xie Lian did not admonish him.

“When I ran off on that day, I chased White-No-Face into a temple. I thought he’d kill me, and maybe it’d be worth it if I took him down with me. But instead, he lured… lured innocents in with me, trapped them behind a cursed mist. A hundred of them, as well as a little ghost fire that had trailed me all the way there. And then White-No-Face unleashed a mad crowd inflicted with human-face disease to bar us in.”

Feng Xin was visibly startled by this information, as was Mu Qing. The words ‘Human Face Disease’  had scared so deeply on each of their souls that a simple mention of it was enough for cold dread to flood their bodies. White-No-Face, too, had haunted all of them— but really, showing such frightening cruelty towards Xie Lian…. 

Mu Qing had been long gone by this point in time and was perhaps coming to realize just how hopeless the situation he had left them to had really been. Regardless, it seemed his usual proud tongue had been severed.

Only Feng Xin spoke. “Your Highness, how have I never heard of this? I must have still been in your servitude during this point in time…”

Xie Lian smiled weakly. His eyes had gone cloudy and his heart had gone heavy, as it always did when forced to speak about this particular incident. “I never told you,” he admitted, “...White-No-Face revealed the cure to human face disease to the imprisoned humans. Told them to murder. And as hysteria sat in, he pointed a hand to me, told the crowd I could not die, even if stabbed straight through the heart, and then tossed a sword into the fray.”

Feng Xin and Mu Qing flashed ghost pale. 

Hua Cheng sat silently as well, fists clenched bone white. 

“...They stabbed me,” Xie Lian spoke, painfully. The wound in his chest ached. Or perhaps it was one of the many, many that had long since been inflicted and never quite faded.  

“Over and over and over again. More than a hundred times. B-but their hands were untrained, and each sword had to pierce a vital spot— and so they carved around my insides until they were mush. A-and I begged, and I cried for them to stop, but then I lost my vocal chords, and I could do nothing but simply lie down and take it. I felt every last blade pierce me, b-but I could not die!”

Feng Xin staggered a half-step forward and then froze, as if some invisible force had shoved him back again. He looked as if he might be sick. Mu Qing looked only slightly better. A faint tremor had stolen into his posture, betraying the ironclad facade he so often wore. The color had drained from both their faces so thoroughly that even Hua Cheng’s complexion looked vibrant next to them. 

Xie Lian could not fault them. When he had been splayed upon that altar, Xie Lian had thought it the worst nightmare he would ever live to endure. 

They hadn’t known where to strike, those terrified villagers. With trembling hands and clumsy hands, the more they had stabbed, the worse the blade dulled. And so they had carved and carved and carved, seeking vital organs, slicing deeper when one wound failed to satisfy. Xie Lian’s insides had been minced until they sloshed—he could feel them sloshing still, on certain nights. Still heard his own voice, gone hoarse, pleading—please, please, please, stop—until even that small mercy was lost to him, his vocal cords shredded to pulp.

In that moment, Xie Lian had cursed his immortal body—again and again and again—cursed the divine mercy that had once lifted him to the heavens, cursed the name “Flower Crowned Crown Prince” cursed even the little boy he had once saved for being the first thread that began his undoing. If this was the fate of a savior, then what use was it to save? With subjects so cruel, what use was it to save the common people?

Only in having lived through that nightmare did Xie Lian later come to learn that there were in fact worse ways to suffer than physical pain. 

Xie Lian had yet to experience worse of an ache than having Hua Cheng disappear. No sword hurt worse than parting with the one he loved.

 And so that was why, after being impaled by the Blade That Heals All Wounds, Xie Lian had been so adamant to bide his tongue. Pain, after all, he could well endure. Had endured. Would endure again, if he must. He would shoulder any stab wound over the potential thought of Mu Qing and Feng Xin leaving him once again. 

“White No-Face observed the whole ordeal,” Xie Lian continued, “He kept the little ghost fire that had tailed me captive all the while. I was so thoroughly gutted… I believe it was days before I properly came to again. At my side lay Fangxin— the very sword that had been used to stab me. White No-Face left it to me as a gift. I stumbled, disorientated, back to our lodgings.” A pause. He turned to one particular individual. 

“Feng Xin, that’s why… I’m sorry, I acted so…” Xie Lian turned, slowly, as if the movement hurt. It did, but only just slightly. The stab wound had shrunk considerably now. “That’s why. I’m sorry. I acted so—so terribly. I chased you off.”

“Your Highness…” Feng Xin’s voice was a whisper. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

Taking a deep breath, Xie Lian fell into the longest silence yet before continuing. “The day after you left… my parents hung themselves with a silken sheet.”

Mu Qing’s head snapped upward.

“I—” Xie Lian’s voice caught. “I tried to follow. I tied the same cloth around my neck. But I couldn’t die. I just hung there until the silk gave way and I tumbled back down onto the ground.”

As if summoned, Rouye uncurled itself from Xie Lian’s wrist, rubbing comforting circles down his back. A mother’s hand across a fevered brow. Xie Lian smiled faintly and reached up to pet the silken band. 

“That’s how Ruoye was forged,” he said. “From that moment.”

Feng Xin and Mu Qing, who had thought their hearts could sink no lower, felt their hearts sinking lower. They had not known. They had both left him them, so they could not have known. And now that the truth was laid bare before them, and it was worse than they could ever have imagined.

And still, Xie Lian was not finished. 

“Yong’an was celebrating its establishment and prosperity as a nation, then.”  Xie Lian said, eyes unfocused. ”I was… I was filled to the brim with hate. Hate for the Yong’an people, hate towards the both of you for having left, hate for myself for having promised I would help everybody and receiving nothing for it in turn. And so I gave into White No-Face’s enticements, and I picked up his mantle, donning his mask.”

Feng Xin and Mu Qing snapped to attention at that, hearts in their throats. 

“I summoned the dead, my fallen Xianle soldiers. I promised them revenge. I walked into the palace of Yong’an— I intended t-to slaughter the royal family. B-but the Emperor had infected himself with human face disease in the hopes of keeping his family alive, and he died before I could even say a word. So I killed the child who would succeed him, a-and I burned the palace of Yong’an. The hateful souls of the fallen dead, I was… I planned to release them upon Yong’an, and release another wave of Human Face Disease.”

Mu Qing stared at the floor, utterly stricken.

“But just before then, I lay down in the middle of Lang-er Bay and drove Fang Xin through my own stomach,” Xie Lian said. “Collapsed there. I waited to see if anyone would help me. I said I would give humanity one last chance. Three days. If someone helped me, I’d stop. If they didn’t, I’d unleash the plague.”

Xie Lian exhaled and closed his eyes. It almost felt like being back there again. The exception being that the ground had been hard and cold, while Hua Cheng’s body cushioned him softly. “For three days I lay there, getting spat at and admonished by the people who passed. No one dared probe the God of Misfortunes playing dead in their streets. And so I laid there as person after person turned their back to me. I was right, I thought to myself then, no one will come.”  

Xie Lian felt the grip around him tighten. Even Hua Cheng had, it appeared, not been aware that he had fallen to this extent. Xie Lian reached up to caress his cheek. The throbbing in his chest had stilled to a bearable hum. A rapid beating of the heart. It was not entirely unlike how it usually felt, laying against Hua Cheng to admire him like this.

“By the third day, it was raining very heavily. An older man passed by the crater I had formed to cuss me out. But he was not the first, and I had already made up my mind to unleash plague of Human Face Disease, so I could not be bothered. But he returned again later, and upon finding that I was still just laying there, jumped in to admonish me further. Said it was no good to lie around there. That I should hurry home. And then he took off his bamboo hat and handed it to me. It shielded the rain. I sat there, utterly astonished, and I could only think someone really did come.” 

Xie Lian exhaled. It was like the same immense relief that had once been granted to him back then by ways of a simple bamboo hat suddenly returned. 

“I opposed White No-Face, and refused to release the plague. The rest of the story, you well know.” Xie Lian Lian said, and with that, he had finally finished laying every stained, soiled part of his past out for the two who had once promised to stay for it. 

And that was that. Xie Lian’s heart laid bare.

Hua Cheng held Xie Lian close, much as he often did after exhausting him of all his energy. One hand gently shielding the back of Xie Lian’s head, the other curled protectively over the place where the wound had been. The skin had healed over. The bleeding had stopped. 

“Gege, your wound’s closed now,” Hua Cheng uttered softly, brushing sweat-sticky bangs from Xie Lian’s forehead. 

“Mn.”

Xie Lian exhaled deeply. Never had he tired so thoroughly from simply speaking. It was as though his body had relived all of the events as they were told, going through 800 years of torment in the matter of a single hour. 

“San Lang…” Xie Lian murmured, exhausted. His eyes fell to Hua Cheng’s, and he saw himself reflected. Hua Cheng’s crimson eye brimmed brightly with all the love and care of a man who had held his most beloved’s hand through pain suffered not just once, but twice now. Once again, through all of Xie Lian’s despair, Hua Cheng had sat attentively and caressed him with a loving hand. He grimaced not at any atrocity Xie Lian had ever committed or falls he had ever taken—only at the ones Hua Cheng had, once upon a time, lacked the strength to prevent. 

How did someone like me, who suffered such a cursed fate… Xie Lian pondered, dazedly, end up so blessed?

“Do you feel better, your Highness?” Hua Cheng asked soothingly. The concern had not yet left him. “Gege looks exhausted. You’ve been through so much.” 

“Mhn. I’m very lucky I had San Lang then… and now…” Xie Lian whispered softly, melting against Hua Cheng’s familiar form. With the pain finally gone, he was so comfortable he thought he might sleep for the next three days and nights uninterrupted. A gentle kiss landed on the top of Xie Lian’s head.  

Mu Qing and Feng Xin, for once, did not bristle at the blatant display of affection. The two of them had otherwise been so brazenly outspoken about their distaste and distrust for Hua Cheng. Creep, stalker, a danger, a lecherous, corrupted, unspeakable abomination. All such comments had flown easily from their lips. So quick they had been to assume the worst of his intentions, to slander him. 

And yet there could be no doubt—of course the little ghostfire that had trailed Xie Lian through all of his trials and tribulations was none other than Hua Cheng! 

It was little wonder he always nicked on Mu Qing and Feng Xin in particular. Of the three who had once sworn loyalty to the Crown Prince of Xianle, only one had never, not once, turned his back on him.

Xie Lian glanced at both of his former servants. A heavy weight had settled in his chest. He had aired out every anguishing memory he had once longed for them to bear with him. And yet, which right-hearted immortal could ever wish such pain upon another person? Xie Lian’s pains where his and his alone to bear; no one else would be able to remain uncrushed by the weight of them. The tears threatened to burst anew at the thought of it. Once again, he had failed them as their crown prince. 

If the Three Realms had ever needed a god presiding over “taking blame that does not belong to oneself,” there could be no better candidate than His Highness the Crown Prince of Xianle. After all, to be Crown Prince was to stand beneath every gaze and assume oneself responsible for whatever followed. If the kingdom fell, it was his fault. If the people suffered, it was his fault. If those who loved him left, surely he had failed to become someone worth staying for.

And now Feng Xin and Mu Qing stood before him with faces so thoroughly ruined by the truth that Xie Lian’s first instinct was not relief, but shame.

Ah, he thought helplessly. Once again, I’ve caused them trouble.

Hua Cheng must have felt the small change in him, because the arm around his shoulders tightened immediately.

“Gege,” he murmured.

Xie Lian lowered his head. “San Lang, I’m alright.”

“Your Highness,” Hua Cheng said, very softly, “Don’t lie.” And Xie Lian was too tired to pretend he hadn’t.

Across from them, Feng Xin was approaching cautiously. A warnful glare from Hua Cheng kept prince and servant three paces separate. 

Had circumstances been different, Mu Qing might have sneered at him for succumbing to the bindings of a ghost. Had circumstances been different, Feng Xin might have told Hua Cheng to fuck off and tried to shove past. Had circumstances been different, Xie Lian might have laughed helplessly and attempted to mediate between them while everyone pretended not to be fond of anyone else. 

But circumstances were not different. 

“You Highness…” Feng Xin said, and Xie Lian remarked, briefly, that he hadn’t heard Feng Xin address the title with such sincerity in many years now. For the first time in centuries, he looked every part young, stumbling attendant again. Fourteen, or perhaps fifteen— when they had been happily devoted to one another.

Feng Xin bowed his head.

“I thought… I thought I was doing what you needed,” he admitted. Looked up at the two of them—at the Ghost King cradling the fallen god with more tenderness than he’d ever known a soldier to show even a blood-brother. “You told me to go, Your Highness. I thought I was no longer wanted. That I’d failed you so badly you couldn’t even stand to look at me. I waited four hours outside your door after you questioned my servitude to you. Four. But you didn’t come out. So I left. But….” 

Feng Xin trailed off momentarily, perhaps coming to realize how little that had really meant in retrospect. How could he speak of waiting while seated next to the man whose patience for Xie Lian had not dulled once, even after 800 years?

“…I wanted to return,” Feng Xin eventually said, low-spoken “Every day after I left, I thought about it. I thought, ‘I’ll go back tomorrow. I’ll find him. I’ll fix it.’ But then the days passed. And I…” 

Truthfully, after Feng Xin had also been reappointed to the Middle Court and was finally able to lead a comfortable life once more, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to turn back. Part of him had not known if he was wanted there at all. Another, selfishly, could not bring itself to abandon a roof over the head and proper clothes for a shack and rags.

“I thought you’d be okay,” Feng Xin said helplessly. “You always were. You always bounced back. You smiled. You—gods,  Your Highness—why didn’t you tell me? For 800 years, you…” Roused, quite visibly so, Feng Xin stood to pace Mu Qing’s divine halls, running a frantic hand through his hair. Xie Lian felt a little sorry— he had never meant to dig up this version of Feng Xin by bringing up the past. Less part dignified general and more part scrambling servant. 

Then, abruptly, he dropped to one knee.

The sound of his kneecap striking the polished floor echoed through Xuan Zhen Palace.

Mu Qing’s head snapped toward him.

Xie Lian startled. “Feng Xin—”

Feng Xin bowed his head. His shoulders were trembling, and whether it was from rage, grief, or a shame too old and too heavy to name, even he perhaps did not know.

“Your Highness,” he said hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”

Xie Lian went still.

Feng Xin’s fingers curled into fists against his knees. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The words came out clumsily, roughly, with none of the elegance expected of a heavenly general. Feng Xin had never been good at delicate speech. “I didn’t know,” Feng Xin said, voice cracking. “That’s not an excuse. I know it isn’t. I should have known. I should have seen it. You were—by the heavens, you were right in front of me, and I still didn’t see it.”

Xie Lian’s throat tightened. “Feng Xin, no. Back then, everyone was—”

“Don’t.” Feng Xin lifted his head at once, eyes red. “Don’t make excuses for me. Your Highness—why didn’t you scream at me?” He grunted. He sounded almost frustrated? Angry? Angry because Xie Lian had not been angry? ”Admonish me? Hit me? Hate me?”

Feng Xin looked down at his knees, shamed into silence. His shoulders trembled once. And then again. And then again. And then again. And though he did not cry aloud, his silence rang louder than any scream.

Even the attendants hiding in the distant corridors seemed to have stopped breathing. It was unclear when they had returned to eavesdrop. It was also unclear whether any of them would live long enough to gossip about it, given the way Hua Cheng’s eye briefly slid toward the shadows.

Feng Xin pressed both hands to the floor and bowed lower.

“I should have stayed,” he said. “Even if you cursed me. Even if you hit me. Even if you told me to get lost a thousand times. I should have stayed outside the door. I should have followed at a distance. I should have done something. I was your bodyguard. Your servant. Your friend. I was supposed to know when you were saying leave and meaning please don’t.”

Xie Lian’s tears fell soundlessly.

For eight hundred years, he had become very skilled at forgiveness. It had been useful. To carry resentment for so long was tiring, and Xie Lian had already been so tired. Better to let things go. Better to greet old companions in Heaven as if they were merely old acquaintances with a few awkward years between them. But forgiveness was strange. One could forgive and still hurt. One could understand and still grieve. One could say it’s alright, and the heart could still whisper all unfillialy; no, it isn’t. Xie Lian had never much liked that about hearts.

From Hua Cheng’s arms, he turned to Feng Xin at last, tired eyes soft. “I did hate you. For a little while.”

Feng Xin flinched.

“As is just,” Hua Cheng huffed. 

Xie Lian gave a weak, wavering smile. “But hating you took too much energy. I didn’t have any left by the end of things.”

This time, the man to bite back his tears was the general with his forehead to the ground. 

Opposite the room, Mu Qing exhaled deeply. His face was unreadable—neither moved nor unmoved, neither scornful nor soft. Throughout Xie Lian’s entire retelling he hadn’t spoken nor moved more than a handful of steps to the left or right. Mu Qing was usually so brazen in speaking his mind— if he commended that a pigeon be called a duck, he would call it a duck, and he would hear no protesting opinions.

For one suspended moment, Mu Qing’s expression remained unreadable. 

Then the pot boiled over.

“By the—Your Highness!” Mu Qing shouted. “Will you have at least a shred of self-preservation?! Xie Lian, are you dense?! 

The shout rang loud enough to tremble the palace walls. Several attendants made strangled noises in the distance. One fainted. No one went to pick him up. This was not due to lack of compassion, but because everyone present was reasonably certain moving at the wrong time would result in becoming a decorative smear across Xuan Zhen Palace’s expensive floor. 

Xie Lian only blinked at him, blinking as if confused by the outburst, his expression very much like a man who’d just been accused of theft for giving away his own shoes.

“…I suppose I might be,” he admitted after a pause. “It’s never been ruled out.”

“Don’t agree with me when I’m insulting you!” Mu Qing shouted, genuinely scandalized. His arms flailed briefly, then stiffened again. He moved instinctively, wanting to grab Xie Lian by the shoulders and shake some sense into him.

“General Xuan Zhen,” Hua Cheng was the lone man who dared oppose such a riled god. His expression was not a kind one. 

“No, he can wait!” Mu Qing snapped, stabbing a finger toward Hua Cheng without actually looking at him, which was perhaps the only reason that finger remained attached. “And you—don’t glare at me! I know very well you want to skin us alive and hang our bones from your gambling den! I’m speaking to him!” 

Mu Qing pointed at Xie Lian, his hand shaking. His eyes were red now too, though whether from fury or something more humiliating, he would surely deny until Heaven collapsed again. 

“I always thought,” he spat, “that maybe, deep down, you just had some kind of—of martyr complex. That you liked being the one to suffer, that it made you feel righteous somehow. But this? Do you even hear yourself? You—! You let people butcher you. You let yourself fall this low and said not a word about it!?”

Xie Lian blinked through his tears. 

Mu Qing’s voice rose higher. “Eight hundred years! Eight hundred years, and you didn’t say a word! You let us stand there like idiots, arguing about temples and scraps of incense, while you carried—while you carried all of that—” 

His voice cracked, and this blatant display of weakness seemed to enrage him further. 

“Do you think that’s noble? Do you think that’s considerate? Do you think watching you collapse from a wound you refused to acknowledge is less painful than hearing the truth?” 

Xie Lian flinched. “...I…. I did say I was going to save the common people.”

“You said a lot of things,” Mu Qing snapped. “But I didn’t think you meant you’d let yourself be stabbed into mincemeat to do it!”

“And whose fault is that?” Hua Cheng’s arm tightened again, and a cold pressure unfurled through the hall. Mu Qing felt it, of course. Even ants in the courtyard would have scuttered away in fear. It was impossible not to. The silver butterflies hovering near Hua Cheng’s shoulders flickered like knives catching light. E-Ming curved at his hip, its eye gleaming with eager, murderous intent. 

Mu Qing’s jaw clenched. His face was ashen, but he did not back down. For a moment, Xie Lian feared he really would say something unforgivable. It would not be unlike him, unlike a man with a pride larger than the life he breathed. Should he truly out of turn as Mu Qing was prone to do whilst angry, Xie Lian feared even he might be incapable of sheathing Hua Cheng’s bloodlust.

Mu Qing, then, cried out: “Do you think I wanted this for you?!” 

No one answered. 

“Do you think I wanted to know I left you like that?” he demanded. “Do you think I wanted to learn that while I was busy saving my own face, you were eating roots and being laughed off a mountain? Do you think I wanted to stand here and hear that after I left, you—” 

His voice failed.  The word did not need to be spoken, it hung pale and terrible between them. Mu Qing swallowed. His throat bobbed once. 

“I knew I was selfish,” he said harshly. “I knew that. I’ve never pretended otherwise. But I thought—” He gave a sharp, ugly laugh. “I thought I was merely doing what I had to do. I thought if I stayed, I would sink with you. I thought I had climbed so hard to stand where I stood, and if I lost it all, then everything I had swallowed, endured, suffered—everything would mean nothing.” 

He looked at Xie Lian then, and there was something almost pleading beneath the anger. 

“And you wouldn’t listen to me. You never listened. You kept throwing yourself forward with foolish promises of saving the common people— common people that would see you ridiculed! And everyone kept asking more, and more, and more of you. Your people, your parents, Feng Xin, me—” 

Feng Xin’s head lowered. 

Xie Lian’s face crumpled. “Mu Qing…”

“No. Don’t say my name like that.” Mu Qing wiped roughly at his own face, then seemed mortified to discover tears there. “Don’t comfort me. I can’t stand it. I truly can’t stand it. Even now, you’re looking at me as though you’re sorry for making me feel bad. You—” 

He seemed to search for an insult strong enough, but not so strong that Hua Cheng would immediately redecorate the room with him. 

At last, he hissed, “You are the most infuriating person in all three realms.” 

Though Mu Qing’s outburst came from a place of utter exasperation, Xie Lian couldn’t help but feel relieved. He sounded so much like the Mu Qing who, before being weighed with the guilt of his own betrayal, had bickered and criticized from a place of steadfastness more so than insecurity.  They had been young then, but they had been so very, very happy. 

Xie Lian remembered, once, in the heat of summer, climbing one of the Xianle palace’s many towers to stand braced against the wind. He had been no older than thirteen, or perhaps fourteen, Xie Lian yet a mortal, and Xianle yet prosperous. The people below had shouted his name with such joy that tears had sprung to his eyes. 

“Don’t lean too far, Your Highness,” Feng Xin had muttered, standing to Xie Lian’s right. “The people love you, but I doubt they’d love your innards splattered on the ground.”

Xie Lian had only laughed. “Wouldn’t you catch me as I fell, Feng Xin?”

“Why do you assume him to be the one to catch you? Obviously I would jump first.” Spoke Mu Qing offendedly, having stood to his left. 

“Huh? Don’t start speaking out of turn when His Highness was clearly addressing me—” And then they were off again, the two of them arguing back and forth until Xie Lian had them forcefully paused with a random idiom. 

Back then, with their young cheeks puffed and their hearts yet unstirred, Xie Lian had looked to Feng Xin, and then to Mu Qing, and thought: This will last forever. 

But then again—what child has not once mistaken “a little while” for “a lifetime”?

Back then, Xie Lian had sincerely believed—perhaps foolishly—that the three of them would never part. But so rarely was a “forever” promised in youth carried into adulthood, and so naturally, neither had Feng Xin or Mu Qing’s. Xie Lian had resented, so fiercely, what light the two of them had made of the word. A forever with someone ought to be a forever with someone. 

Sitting here now, centuries later, Xie Lian could no longer summon resentment. Actually, he could no longer tell if the resentment he had felt back then had actually been directed at Feng Xin and Mu Qing or more so at the circumstances driving them apart. Negative emotions tended to muddle with so many of them present to poison the waters. Still, after so many years, Xie Lian did not have it in him to hate any longer. There was no room for it in a heart already so full.

And so Xie Lian laughed, the sound ringing lightly throughout the room. 

It drew the eyes of all three men—Hua Cheng’s endeared, Feng Xin’s befuddled, Mu Qing’s utterly, exasperatedly, stunned. 

“You—!” Mu Qing clamped his mouth shut, clearly fighting the overwhelming urge to kick something—or perhaps someone. Preferably himself. Feng Xin sat nearby, still unmoved, but for once, he did not jump to beat him. Xie Lian had always hated when they fought. And so they didn’t. 

Mu Qing opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. He couldn’t quite settle on whether to be angry, concerned, or offended by Xie Lian’s reaction. Part of him, for the first time in centuries, appeared afraid to act out of turn. 

Hua Cheng’s gaze remained fixed on Feng Xin and Mu Qing, cold enough to frost jade. Though he had allowed this much—had allowed apology, confession, anger, grief—there was no forgiveness in his face. Not for them. Perhaps not ever. That was not Hua Cheng’s role in this story. Xie Lian could be merciful enough for all three realms, but Hua Cheng had never been merciful on his behalf. 

He had loved Xie Lian when no one remembered him. He had loved him as a child falling from the city wall, as a little ghost-fire trailing after white robes, as a nameless soldier burning through life and death for one more glimpse, as Wu Ming kneeling before a ruined god, as Hua Cheng standing at last beside the one person he had never betrayed.  He had watched these two leave. He had watched, and been too weak to stop any of it. 

Had been. 

Hua Cheng smiled faintly. “Should I applaud?” 

“San Lang,” Xie Lian said. 

Hua Cheng’s eye softened at once when it returned to him. “Gege. If it were up to me, these pieces of trash would suffer every pain His Highness endured because of them.” 

Xie Lian’s brows drew together. “San Lang.” 

“I know,” Hua Cheng said. His voice was gentle now. “I won’t. But only for gege’s sake.” 

Hua Cheng lowered his head and pressed his lips briefly against Xie Lian’s temple. The gesture was soft, reverent. Xie Lian leaned into him, exhausted beyond embarrassment.

Feng Xin remained kneeling. Slowly, he raised his head. 

“Your Highness,” he said, voice thick, “I know I don’t have the right to ask anything of you.” 

Xie Lian looked over.

Feng Xin’s eyes were bright, but steady now. “But don’t carry such woes alone anymore. Even if you hate us. Even if you don’t forgive us. Even if you only want to curse us out once every hundred years. Fine. I’ll stand there and listen. I deserve worse.”

Mu Qing gave a brittle scoff. “Once every hundred years? That’s generous.”  

“Do you have to talk?” 

Mu Qing’s lips pressed thin. “I’m saying, if His Highness wants to curse us, once every hundred years is hardly enough.” 

For some reason, this almost undid Xie Lian more than the apologies. The shape of them was so familiar. Feng Xin’s blunt loyalty, Mu Qing’s thorny concern. Once, this had been the sound of home. 

Xie Lian let out a small sound. 

All three men in the room froze.

It was laughter.

“Feng Xin. Mu Qing…” Xie Lian addressed them both when his breath had eventually settled, “Be happy as you are. You’re both commendable martial gods now. I don’t require anything from you. I think… my heart was just so burdened by the thought that… if you ever were to learn what became of me in those difficult years, you would treat me differently, or perhaps refuse to speak to me at all. Though you have forged your own paths, you are still the boys I once held dear to me. Truth be told, when I ascended again… I was very glad you still wished to speak with me.”  

The two exchanged sheepish looks with one another. Truthfully, though both of them had long since forged away from Xie Lian and become martial gods of their respective territories, neither had fully been able to abandon the role they had once held at Xie Lian’s side. 

“Your Highness…” Mu Qing began.

“We just…” Feng Xin continued. 

“No, no, none of that.” Xie Lian fussed. He stood, much to Hua Cheng’s protest, and tossed an arm around each of their shoulders. 

So tall they’ve grown, Xie Lian remarked, was I always the shortest of our bunch? 

Xie Lian pulled them both close, squeezing briefly. “I’m sorry,” he said as he embraced them. 

Three voices answered at once. 

“Don’t apologize…”

“Don’t apologize!”

“Gege.”

Xie Lian, caught beneath all three gazes, slowly closed his mouth. Then, with the faintest trace of old helpless amusement, he said, “Alright. Everything that needed to be said has been said.” 

With that, at last, the two generals’ shoulders sagged in quiet relief. Feng Xin’s face softened to an expression Xie Lian had forgotten it could make, unburdened by appearances or arguments or martial duties. Mu Qing, meanwhile, maintained a scorn. But it was not like his usual deprecatory scorn, it was simply a line that sat downpointed on his face. 

“Your Highness…” Feng Xin attempted to speak.

“Your Highness—” Mu Qing spoke over him.

Both turned to look at each other. Glared. 

“I was addressing His Highness first—”

Xie Lian heaved a weary sigh, but let it rest. All was as it should be. 

Hua Cheng—still stood behind Xie Lian, came to support him with one arm again before scooping him up into his arms anew. Both generals took severe offense to having their newly mended crown prince so suddenly stolen from them. But Hua Cheng had been patient with them for many hours now, an incredible feat of willpower, truly. And so now that the situation’s urgency no longer called for either of them, he simply turned to leave with Xie Lian in his arms, voicing gleefully: 

“And if either of you ever make His Highness bleed like that again, I’ll kill you.”

Mu Qing and Feng Xin both looked like they weren’t entirely sure whether or not he was joking. Truthfully, neither was Xie Lian.

With their matters in heaven settled, Hua Cheng took Xie Lian to Paradise manor to recover. Xie Lian had left Feng Xin and Mu Qing, feeling clearer air between them than what had been the past many, many, many years. He smiled. Perhaps a hopeful sign for a good future. 

In spite of having carried him the entire way home, Hua Cheng assured Xie Lian he wasn’t tired, and insisted on tending to him. For once, Xie Lian simply let Hua Cheng fuss to his heart's extent. And fuss he did, getting Xie Lian washed and unrobed and held and scolded and tended to in the most husband-ly manner.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Xie Lian.

“Oh. San Lang?” 

“Mn? What is it? Does gege need something?” Hua Cheng asked, voice tender. He was in the process of getting him out of the soiled, bloodstained robes. “San Lang is here to help.”

Familiar warmth tinted the tips of Xie Lian’s cheeks pink. “I was just thinking. About the Blade That Heals All Wounds. We left in such a, I must have accidentally left it at the tomb. I simply worry— that weapon truly is perilous. It could prove trouble if we don’t retrieve it.”

Smiling languidly, Hua Cheng continued about his merry task. “Don’t worry, gege. I sent someone to fetch it the moment we left for the Heavenly Capital.”

“Oh?” Xie Lian inquired. ”Where is it now?” 

“Disintigrated,” Hua Cheng hummed, “Such a foul weapon should not be allowed to exist.”

“Ah.” Xie Lian hummed lowly to himself. A fair point, he assumed. Though the sword had lived up to its title as a “Blade That Heals All Wounds,” and soothed one of Xie Lian’s long festering ones, it could certainly cause trouble in the wrong hands. Though it always saddened him to see such quality blades destroyed, Xie Lian understood the necessity. 

Though a part of Xie Lian suspected that, perhaps, Hua Cheng’s reasons for destroying the weapon had been a bit more personal. Still, at the end of the day, it did not matter.

Xie Lian’s heart was close to bursting with joy, and he would have it no other way.