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Only after a few days of almost uninterrupted questioning following the events at Banyue was Pei Ming allowed to visit his subordinate, and Pei Xiu, patiently waiting for his appearance, was not sure that he wanted to see him right now. When the general entered the room in which he was kept, he realized that he would have given a lot for Ming Guang to not come.
The last days were chaotic, restless, exhausting to the limit and without a hint of the desired rest, and the younger man knew that it was not the most pleasant time for Pei Ming as well, but still could not help wincing from the icy look that he was given.
The general slammed the door shut, covered the distance between them in a few steps, and Pei Xiu, who raised his head, confused because of his lover's silence, for a moment thought he would get hugged as Pei Ming usually did, when for cause and without it he believed A-Xiu to be upset. Instead, he got smacked upside the head.
By the standards of heavenly officials, the smack probably wasn't too strong. But for Pei Xiu, whose hands had been shackled to prevent him from using the spiritual powers that made him stronger than a mere mortal, it was too much, and he silently hit his head on the table. He blinked at stars before his eyes and stared straight ahead, slowly wiping the nosebleed with the back of his palm.
Crappy life.
"You’re an idiot," Pei Ming said, and Xiao Pei lowered his head as he heard him going around the table and sitting down opposite of him, annoyed.
"I am very sorry," Pei Xiu repeated dully.
The older general sighed so loudly as if he were trying to put all the annoyance and anger he felt into it.
"Speak," he said, without wasting a word as he usually did.
It was even more uncomfortable than in the last days, when half-familiar heavenly officials of Middle Heaven questioned him with an undisguised disdain in their voices.
"What do You want to hear?" Pei Xiu asked nevertheless flatly, impassionately wiping blood away again, believing that he owed Pei Ming the lack of resistance and complaints even if he got a much harsher punishment than a simple smack.
And he was once dissatisfied that their relationship would remain the same forever — junior and senior generals, the one who obeys and the one to be obeyed. Now he seems to be lectured again, like an unreasonable child.
"Your point of view about what happened. There must be some loophole," Pei Ming said glumly.
"My point of view won't be different from what You have already heard," Pei Xiu said, not understanding what loophole the general was going to find in such an unambiguous situation. "I lured mortals into the kingdom and fed them to the ghosts of warriors I slayed."
There was silence, and Pei Xiu watched as his lover tapped his fingers on the table, annoyed. He did not know if he should raise his head to look at him, or it would only make things worse.
It couldn't possibly get worse.
“Pei Xiu, do you… even realize what punishment awaits you for this?” Pei Ming asked in such a calm tone that it made his deputy general feel uneasy.
“Banishment.”
“That’s right, banishment. For two hundred years,” the general informed him, and Pei Xiu, unable to overcome the astonishment that made his heart sink, widened his eyes, staring blankly as Pei Ming clenched his palm into a fist, seemingly digging his nails into it. “Do you know what that means?”
Pei Xiu nodded very slowly, still not believing his ears. This is how things could get much worse.
For some reason, Pei Xiu had hoped that when the verdict was handed down, they would take into account that he had saved hundreds of times more people than he had destroyed, but apparently no one cared. He alone had exhausted himself helping mortals to drown out the pangs of his conscience, while the other heavenly officials simply enjoyed their lofty status.
Two hundred years… His life had lasted only a little longer than that, and already it, filled with events and emotions, seemed endless to him—let alone a banishment.
In ten years, all his believers would begin to pray to another martial god; in fifty, they would forget him entirely; in a hundred, he would be lost in the crowd of mortals and vanish altogether, for without believers, there are no gods, and he was no special case enjoying the patronage of Jun Wu himself. And he’s managed to make so many enemies during his time of diligent work…
Pei Xiu knew this story by heart; in the past, he had promised himself time and time again that he would not be as careless as his predecessor, but fate had other plans.
An exiled criminal, just like his father. What an irony.
“Death…” he exhaled, offering a rough reply to the question.
“It’s good that you understand that,” Pei Ming said in a cold tone, and the younger man, swallowing hard, stared off into the distance, feverishly running in his mind through everything he’d managed to figure out over the past few days. “What are you going to do if they do banish you?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Pei Xiu replied quickly, shaking his head as he felt panic rising in his chest.
“Wrong,” the general replied, leaning back in his chair. Xiao Pei glanced at him briefly, seeing that he had folded his arms across his chest in a by no means cheerful manner. “You will go to my nearest temple and offer a prayer to me so that I can find you.”
Pei Xiu paused for a moment, his mind elsewhere, causing a sigh of exasperation, then nodded slowly, indicating that he had heard his words.
“General, You… shouldn’t let me cause any further strain in Your relationship with the Lord Wind Master. He did everything right,” Pei Xiu began, consumed by the feeling that he didn’t have much time left, and without even looking, he knew that Pei Ming had raised an eyebrow questioningly, not understanding why the guilty party had suddenly decided to start lecturing him. “Has there been… Has the number of incoming merits changed in recent days?”
“It’s decreased by a quarter,” the other replied in a tone as if there was nothing unusual about it, and Pei Xiu, who had hoped the consequences for his benefactor would not be so dire, pulled one leg closer in confusion, his boot scraping deafeningly against the floor.
A quarter… And this was only the beginning; things will most likely only get worse from here on out. Evidently, all the other gods, jealous of his success, appeared in the dreams of their own believers, sowing seeds of rumor that, spreading throughout the world, caused Ming Guang’s believers to lose faith in him. Before, it was possible to find out exactly who was plotting something evil against the general, but now it seemed impossible to track them all down.
This was bad.
“Especially at a time like this…” he continued, feeling his body begin to fail him under the weight of suffocating despair, and he swallowed, trying to at least speak without a tremor in his voice. “Especially at a time like this, You should be attentive to the prayers of Your believers, lest Your good name be tarnished by mine.”
“Pei Xiu,” Pei Ming raised his voice, interrupting his slightly rambling monologue, and Pei Xiu stopped, waiting for the general to say something else, but he merely frowned in silence.
“The documents regarding matters of the utmost importance that I’ve been working on are in my room; they’ll need to be sent to the Ling Wen's palace…” the younger man began again, speaking of the matters that had arisen due to his impending banishment, but fell silent as soon as Pei Ming interrupted him once more.
“A-Xiu!” he barked, slamming his palm down on the table, then stood up abruptly, pushing his chair back with a clatter, causing Pei Xiu to flinch and tense up in confusion. Any other heavenly official would have flown into a rage at his disrespectful instructions on what to do next, but Pei Ming had always listened to his words attentively and without the condescending arrogance, from the very first day. “I told you what to do if you were cast down to earth to scare you into coming to your senses, you empty-headed idiot, but you… Listen here,” the general walked around the table while Pei Xiu watched him out of the corner of his eye, without raising his head. “I don’t care what preliminary punishment they’ve handed down to you, it won’t happen. They won’t send you into banishment, I’ll see to that. I promise you that.”
Pei Ming stopped right next to him, sitting down on the table—it's pattern Pei Xiu seemed to have memorized over the past few days—and reached out a hand toward him, forcing him to freeze in anticipation of something bad. Instead of striking him, the general placed a hand on his lover’s head with a weary sigh and, grumbling as he smoothed out his rather messy hair, gently pulled him toward himself.
Pei Xiu, his temple pressed meekly against the older man’s side, looked up in confusion, meeting his gaze. After a few seconds, the general’s expression softened slightly.
“How can you be… both so clever and such an idiot at the same time, A-Xiu?” Pei Ming asked, and the younger man remained silent, knowing it wasn’t a question to be answered, feeling either very bad or very good from the way the general was gently running his fingers through his short strands of hair. “When all this is over, I’m putting you under house arrest, and don’t even think about arguing with me then.”
Pei Xiu had no objections even now and only pressed his cheek closer to him in agreement, lowering his gaze.
“You’ll stay cooped up in the palace and reflect on your behavior. The only visitors will be scrolls containing the most tedious matters, and this will go on until you howl with boredom and go out of your mind. Knowing you, I’d guess that’ll take about five years,” Pei Ming continued, wearily stroking Pei Xiu's head, unaware that this only made him feel even more ashamed and guilty, and the younger man nodded barely noticeably, closing his eyes and calming down a little. “Then you’ll descend to the mortal world and run around there nonstop, helping everyone in need, for so long that you’ll manage to forget what I look like. And when you have saved a thousand people for every single one you’ve ruined, I’ll stop being mad at you. Deal?”
“Yeah…” Pei Xiu sighed, yet for the first time in a long while, he didn’t trust his general. He didn’t believe things would be that simple.
Taking this agreement as a promise, Pei Ming leaned down and gently kissed the top of his head, and the worms of guilt gnawing at Pei Xiu's heart had grown into something much larger and much more painful.
“Why are you like this…” Ming Guang asked himself resignedly, and Pei Xiu felt his sigh on the skin. The other man straightened up. “Why didn’t you ask me for help…?”
Yes, it would have been easier with two of them. With Ming Guang at his back—even if only his clone—he wouldn’t have to fear failure, and could have destroyed Banyue warriors one by one. But only if he were certain that Ming Guang wouldn’t cast him out of the Heavenly Court after seeing with his own eyes the cruelty he had then committed, sparing neither the elderly, nor women, nor children, nor even infants.
“By the time I began to trust You, it was already too late,” Pei Xiu replied hoarsely, and Pei Ming, frozen, withdrew his hand from his hair. “I’m very…”
Pei Ming shushed him, not letting him finish, and silence fell once more.
“You won’t be banished, I’ll think of something. Just nod along or keep quiet,” he finally said after a long pause. “Everything will be all right, I promise. So tell me what happened. From beginning to end, with all the details.”
Pei Xiu hesitated briefly, then nodded.