Crimson and Clover

The Ghost Holds a Wedding - Part 6

Sometimes, Xie Lian sees fire in his dreams.

It licks at the hem of his robes and burns them away to the smell of old blood. It crawls up his limbs and into his veins, into his mind and heart, into his lungs that draw no breath. In a world that's nothing but pain, the fire cleanses it away and leaves only the scorched ground he builds himself up from anew.

In his dreams, Xie Lian burns.

He falls apart as the flames consume him, as they sweep away the grime of earthly existence and the immeasurable suffering of countless days. He flows up to the sky on fiery wings and goes down just as quickly in the sparks and specks of ash burning into nothingness. In the end, nothing of him remains, not even a bone or a strip of clothing; and he's a shadow and a ghost and a fleeting memory of himself he can't even begin to put together again, and then he's looking down at what's left of him and thinks, Ah, so that's why, even though he doesn't even know what question that answers.

In his dreams, Xie Lian has burnt to nothingness and sometimes, he isn't sure that they're only dreams.

Awareness comes back to him gradually in waves of warmth and confusion.

The world is quiet, awash with the soft light of faraway lanterns. His body hurts and so does his mind as it revolves around the blazing essence still burning within him. It's quiet now, dormant and gentle, settled just like it was a lifetime and aeons ago. He forgot what it felt like, voluntarily, because it was better that way. It's not that different now from it's been for all these centuries – after all, it's been only San Lang who fuelled his godhood with unwavering devotion and the strength of his faith and it still is only San Lang on whom it feeds now. The only difference is that Xie Lian can feel it fully now as it resonates in every fibre of his being and invokes the overwhelming feeling of certainty that no matter what happens, it's the only thing in the world he's not going to lose.

For the first time in a long time, Xie Lian feels whole.

The shadow of loss is no more, the hole in his mind has disappeared, and the frantic call urging him to keep going regardless of circumstances disappeared as if it was never there to begin with. Even the memory of it has already started fading. If Xie Lian were to describe what it felt lie, words would have failed him.

In his hands is the warmth he's gone on without, and the missing part of his soul he'd lost and didn't even notice, and the innocence that was taken from him when the common people slit his throat and plunged a sword into him over and over again.

In his hands lies a red pouch with a crudely embroidered silver flower.

"Your Highness?"

San Lang is kneeling at his bedside, hair in disarray and hands clenched around the fistfuls of bedding. Xie Lian smiles at him – it's so easy to do that, so satisfying to finally have someone to smile at again – and reaches out to smooth the wild strands around his face.

His hand meets nothing and falls back down onto the bed when San Lang recoils away from him. It hurts; more than the swords, more than letting Feng Xin go, more than seeing a silk band gain consciousness and have it slither close to him like a newborn babe seeking the comfort of their mother.

"San Lang, what..."

Words fail him as they often do. In the past, he had spoken carelessly and thrown them to the wind only for them to become a tornado that uprooted his entire life. He's learnt to mark his words since then, but the solitude rendered even that skill useless. There was no need to speak much when only RuoYe was there to listen to him.

And now that he has to speak, his mind is as empty as his heart has been for an eternity.

"Did I... did I hurt you?"