Chapter Text
Chongyun woke up to an exorcist job in his mailbox.
Naturally as soon as he arrived the ghost fled, not that the family was aware of that. He sat in the sitting room next to the small ancestral altar for around ten minutes, just to be sure the ghost was really gone, before going back and announcing his success to the family. Unfortunately, the grandfather didn't believe him claiming that he still felt an evil presence within the house. Chongyun had no idea what this evil presence could be, as no ghost or demon could last long in his presence, however it could have been the draft from the window on the south side of the house whose frame had broken, most likely slammed closed too hard.
The family didn't like this conclusion, promptly kicking him out, refusing to pay, and talking about how they'll get a real exorcist to come in and truly fix the problem and how he was incredibly highly rated for a scammer. Chongyun didn't bother to correct them, praying to the gods that they would let him leave soon. Eventually, he was able to escape.
While on his way back to his clan's base — he usually took the long way around Mt. Tianhung as the city could be a bit much for him — he was kidnapped by a certain rich blue haired prankster who dragged him into the city to grab lunch with him at Wanmin's.
Now, meeting up with Xingqiu in of itself wasn't necessarily bad, quite the opposite actually as Chongyun liked spending time with his best friend, it was what happened afterwards that continued the downward spiral that was this day.
First, Xiangling made up a plate of cold noodles that were an unnatural shade of red. After Xingqiu's taste testing (he said it wasn't spicy, but you could only trust Xingqiu about 30% of the time about this sort of thing) Chongyun tried the noodles. To his complete surprise they were not spicy at all and had a very mild flavor. Unfortunately, when he went back to take another bite, he accidentally flipped over the entire plate of noodles into his lap, staining the bright white of his clothing a vibrant red.
When Xingqiu, behind barely concealed laughter, asked him if he needed a female sanitary product, Chongyun decided that he really only needed to go home.
Xingqiu fortunately decided to grant him mercy this time and let him go without any further teasing (to his face). The walk through the city gained him many unwanted stares and he wanted nothing more than to lock himself in his room and meditate the slowly burning embarrassment that was taking over his body away.
Right before the bridge that would take him out of the city and to his clan's base, however, he was confronted by a very drunk sailor who very loudly proclaimed his desire to to have sex with him convinced that he was actually someone named Yating.
After a very quick one-sided conversation attempt on Chongyun's end, he never was good with words, the man unexpectedly grabbed him and ended up giving him a very sloppy, very uncomfortable kiss on the side of his cheek. While Chongyun was fortunately able to push the man away, he certainly was not able to divert the stares of what felt like the whole city looking at him.
Chongyun generally considered himself pretty good at controlling his excess yang energy and avoiding situations where he knew it could spike. Unfortunately, surprise public kisses from someone you didn't know while you were covered in vibrant red sauce wasn't exactly something Chongyun knew how to plan around. And, of all the emotions he had learned to guard himself against, embarrassment was always the one he was the worst at.
And as he felt the heat creep into every crevasse of his body, he could only hope that he wouldn't do anything really embarrassing or he might just die on the spot.
He woke up exactly three hours later in his bed, still in stained clothes, and Xingqiu reading a book in the chair by the door. After noticing he was awake, he stood up and stormed out the door causing a looming terror to come over Chongyun as he wondered desperately what had happened while he was out.
Which brings Chongyun to where he is now, sitting on the floor in his training clothes trying desperately to meditate the feelings away and focus on anything else other than reliving the situation over and over again in his brain.
Finally after a little while he was able to purge those thoughts from his mind. A quick look at the clock revealed it was 4pm. He briefly debated whether or not he wanted to find Xingqiu and interrogate him about the events earlier in the day, but quickly decided against it. He didn't want to know.
Unless…
Xingqiu had seemed pretty mad at him earlier when he stormed out, not even saying a word. If anyone was familiar with his yang episodes, it would be him, and Xingqiu's never been mad at him after one of his episodes before. What happened?
Did he really want to know?
No, no he was thinking about it again, he was supposed to stop thinking about it! He took another deep breath…
But what if he had irreversibly harmed their friendship?
He needed to know.
With a heavy sigh he stood up and walked over to the closet to get a change of clothes. Unfortunately, he didn't have another white hoodie, so he had to contend with just a black shirt.
After getting changed, he threw a few more popsicles from the freezer into his bag and headed out. Just as he left his house, however, he noticed his grandmother watering the flowers at the gate of their family compound.
“Good afternoon, Waipo.” He gave a small bow as he approached. She looked up at him with a smile.
“Ahh, Chongyun. Good to see you're awake now, almost gave me a heart attack when I saw Xingqiu carrying you in.”
“Aa! You saw that?” Chongyun forced his immediate embarrassment down. “Actually, I wanted to ask, did Xingqiu seem mad at me when you saw him?”
His grandmother frowned in confusion.
“Not that I could tell. Did you do something to upset him?”
“... I don't know.”
“Ahh, well it sounds like you might need to have a little chat with him, huh?”
“Yes, I was going to go look for him now actually.”
“A good idea. Don't want any misunderstandings now do we?” She chucked slightly. “Now, off you go then.”
“Yes, of course.” He gave another short and quick bow before leaving the compound and heading down the road to the city.
He finds Xingqiu relatively quickly curled up in a corner of Wanwen book house, unsurprisingly, nose in a book.
“Xingqiu.” He manages out, walking over to him slightly panting from the run over. Xingqiu takes a look up at him.
“What?” He frowned.
“Uhh.” Chongyun froze. Now what. Was he just going to ask directly? Could he take the embarrassment.
Did he have a choice? Xingqiu was mad at him, he had to make it up somehow.
“Why are you mad at me? What happened after I… uhh…” He trailed off slightly, remembering what had finally caused his yang energy overload.
“I'm not mad at you.” Xingqiu glared. Chongyun may be a bit dense, but he was very obviously mad at him. He wasn't even trying to hide it.
“Really? What happened after I…”
“You just passed out. That's all.” The other boy replied curtly before returning to his book.
Wait, if Chongyun had just passed out after the kiss then why was Xingqiu mad at him? Was it because he had to carry him all the way back to his family's compound? No, he's had to do that several times and much farther distances, and while he might have been annoyed he's never been downright mad before. Was it something to do with Chongyun's actions at the restaurant? Was he mad at him for leaving Xingqiu to pay the bill? Maybe, but he almost always offers to pay anyway. Perhaps if he just apologizes Xingqiu will forgive him, even if he wasn't quite sure what he was apologizing for.
“I'm sorry.” He said. Xingqiu looked up at him in confusion.
“What for?”
“... upsetting you?”
“I'm not upset.” A very cute pout on his face conveyed otherwise. Unfortunately, that still left Chongyun completely in the dark as to why Xingqiu could be mad.
After a tense awkward silence, Chongyun apologized once more and left. Hopefully Xingqiu still won't be mad at him tomorrow. Maybe, Chongyun could buy him a gift! That would be a surefire way to cheer him up!
But he had no money. Also, what would Xingqiu even want?
Lost in thought, he didn't even realize that he had returned to his family's compound until Waipo called out to him from the gate.
“Waisun! There's a new commission for you!”
“There is?” He felt hope flutter in his chest. Hopefully he could get enough money from this commission to buy Xingqiu a nice gift. Or at least the materials to make a nice gift.
“Indeed.” She smiled and handed him a manila envelope. “It's all nice and compiled in here for you.”
He quickly ripped the envelope open and started reading on the way back to his house.
Renowned Exorcist Chongyun,
Recently, mysterious dark shadows have been appearing in some ancient ruins at nighttime. While the Guild has sent out several adventures to deal with it, they have all come back wounded, speaking of some terrible evil and how these shadows must be the cursed remains of an old god.
These ruins, located in Cuijue Slope in Minlin have been recently opened and we were wondering if you could do a full exorcism of the ruins so that they may be explored safely.
We will reward you an initial compensation of 100,000 mora as well as a 5% commission on any treasures found and excavated from the ruins.
We sincerely hope that you will consider our offer,
Katherine
Adventurers Guild
This was perfect. It was a sign. While 100,000 mora was on the lower end of such high profile cases, it was more than enough to get Xingqiu a nice gift. He quickly got his emotions in check before immediately making preparations to leave.
There were still a few more hours before nighttime, which would hopefully give him enough time to scope out the area and place a few talismans. If he could figure out what he was dealing with before he dealt with it then that would be the best case scenario.
He quickly packed his bag, grabbed a few more popsicles (just in case) and headed out.
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Chongyun had never been to Cuijue Slope before, however this fortunately did not hinder his progress to find the supposed ruins. Stuck into the ground, rising several tens of meters in height were nine large stone pillars that pulsed with strong geo energy. If this wasn't the place, then Chongyun wasn't sure what it could be.
As soon as he had entered the area he could feel the shift in the air, the sky itself darkening with the presence of a powerful spell.
Chongyun pulled out a few talismans from his bag, just in case the apparitions appeared outside of nighttime, and cautiously explored the surrounding area. Built into the side of a cliff face was a massive stone door tightly shut.
Approaching the door he could see that there were scratch marks around the hinges, as well as a weak draft coming from the other side of the door indicating that it had most likely been opened recently. These must be the newly opened ruins. It was strange, however, that the guild didn't set up some adventures to guard it from treasure hoarders. Perhaps the area was much more dangerous then the letter was letting on.
He slapped some twin talismans on either side of the door to ward away evil (or keep it contained) and continued to do a sweep around the area.
After dealing with a few monsters and eating a light dinner, the sun finally started to set below the horizon.
Chongyun pulled out his claymore and a few more talismans and got ready to face the unknown.