Crimson and Clover

The Ghost Holds a Wedding - Part 1

Xie Lian still dreams about it sometimes.

Silence rules over the world in his memory, and it's that of death holding its breath. Contorted shapes are swirling in the sky, drawing in light itself and forming a vortex that threatens to tear the firmament in two. Wu Ming is at the centre of it, his face hidden behind that smiling mask Xie Lian so desperately wants to take off his face. Distance infinite stretches between them; it's made of regrets and unbroken, unspoken promises. Even time doesn't matter anymore, worn thin and frayed, insignificant. Then the souls roar, Wu Ming screams and Xie Lian screams with him, and that scream rips the world apart and shatters Xie Lian's heart into a million pieces, and he's lost, lost, lost.

The first time it happens in Paradise Manor, he snaps out of it to San Lang shaking him awake. Gone is the crimson tunic and the eyepatch; instead, there's madness in his eye and worry on his face. It steals Xie Lian's breath away, because San Lang is there, safe, and for a moment he forgets that San Lang died for him centuries ago.

And when Xie Lian holds him in his arms in a desperate embrace, when San Lang goes rigid for a very long moment only to finally, finally, put his hands on Xie Lian's back—his touch is feather-light, a ghost just like him—Xie Lian almost doesn't hear the screams anymore.

The world has already been broken, after all, and it's not up to him to stitch it back together. But this one soul – oh, this precious, determined, beautiful soul is something he won't ever let go of. So he holds San Lang like a treasure long lost, and in each other's arms they're both found anew.

The first time Xie Lian ventures alone into Ghost City, a small ghost latches herself onto his leg and doesn't let go.

"Daozhang," she says in a voice that sounds like a myriad of bells jingling. "Daozhang! You're from the mortal realm, right?"

He smiles and picks her up to put her on his shoulder. She fits perfectly there and nuzzles into his neck as he walks. She's a tiny little thing, only a little more than a memory.

"Yes," he tells her. He mingles seamlessly with the crowds as if Ghost City is the place where he belongs. And maybe it is, because for the first time in ages no sense of urgency drives him on and on until he no longer remembers where he's going to. "I am. You must be too. Every ghost comes from there."

Her fidgeting ceases for a moment. "I only remember Ghost City," she says quietly. Xie Lian pats her gently, this minuscule fragment of a soul lost so much that it still clings to sentience even though being hardly more than nothing. "Is it true that the sky is blue there?"

"During the day, yes." He looks up at the ever-turning vortex of light and stars that illuminates the dark sky above Ghost City. He wonders what stars are those; he's never seen them before in the mortal realm. "And when there are no clouds in the sky."

She perks up at that; too quickly, it seems, because she yelps and immediately grabs fistfuls of his hair to steady herself. "Daozhang," she says breathlessly, "will you show me the mortal realm? Please, please, Daozhang, take me up to the mortal realm!"

RuoYe slithers up his arm to rest on his shoulder as well. It doesn't coil around the ghost but it's a near thing. Xie Lian can feel its interest. It's been restless recently, bereft of their usual routine.

"Well," he says slowly, glancing back at Paradise Manor looming in the distance behind them. He wonders if he should tell San Lang he's leaving for a while, but in the end decides against bothering him. San Lang is a busy man after all, and it's not like Xie Lian has to inform him about his every move. He's a guest, not a prisoner. "I don't see why not. Do you want to go now?"

"Yes!"

Xie Lian laughs. Enthusiasm is something he's forgotten a long time ago and only now begun to rediscover. It's quieter now than it used to be, and has the shape of San Lang's smile and the soft contentment of their shared breakfasts.