The King's Mate - Part 1: Banyue

Chapter 7

Notes:

!!!!! PLEASE READ !!!!!

Okay so... I know I said I wasn't gonna upload these chapters for long time yet, but heck if so many people's opinion differ I'll listen.
I'm not brave enough to against such a majority.
But! I just don't think it's fair to people who really have to deal with the war much more personally than most, so I'll do it like this:

I'll post the whole chapter the way I wrote it last year and I'm not making any changes to the original version.
However, after the chapter is done, there will be 2! lines, and under those lines I'll put the summary version of the chapter which has already been here for the previous months.
So, if you don't want to read anything too closely related to war, you can skip the chapter, and just read the summary version at the end in order to keep up with what's happening at least a little bit, despite the overarching content.

I'll also put this explanation in all the notes for chapter 7 to 11, and I won't add anything else so you can just skip those notes if you're here for the whole thing.

Personally, I still think it's too soon but I hope this way works for everyone, somehow x.x

Chapter Text

After Xie Lian's victory, Hua Cheng rose from his seat, and announced him as the official winner of the tournament. The cheers that followed were hesitant, and a bit confused, but when Hua Cheng started clapping, the onlookers must've figured that it was okay to cheer for him, despite Xie Lian being a foreign omega.

Once the cheering died down, Hua Cheng told him to follow him to his private quarters if he wanted to choose a weapon for himself from the armoury, which had Xie Lian grinning. As if he wouldn't follow him there anyway, he thought to himself and couldn't help but chuckle.

They barely made it past the entrance gate before Hua Cheng turned around and hugged the air out Xie Lian, literally, to the point where he had to hit his alpha's arm in order for him to loosen the hug, just so he could breathe. Xie Lian gulped in a few big breaths of air, before he hit his alpha on the chest for good measure.

"Gege, don't hit me. Can't I express how proud I am of you? I always knew gege was a superior swordsman, but you still managed to impress me anew", Hua Cheng grinned, and went back to cuddling Xie Lian, this time even kissing all parts of his face that he could reach.

"San Lang", Xie Lian giggled, giddy with not only the euphoria of winning, but also his alpha's over the top coddling.

"Hm? My gege is the best, so why can't I show him how happy I am about his victory?", Hua Cheng grinned, before he put one last big, wet, and sloppy kiss on his cheek. Xie Lian could only smile and shake his head at his silly antics.

"So, gege. Do you already know which weapon you want for yourself or do you want to go and take another look?", his alpha finally turned serious.

"I want to keep this one", Xie Lian said, raising the black blade that brought him victory today.

"Good choice. Now let's go to bed", Hua Cheng smirked, grabbed his wrist, and pulled a stunned Xie Lian along with him.

Go to bed? But the sun hadn't even set yet!?, Xie Lian thought to himself in utter confusion.

He only realised what his alpha had meant when they were already a pile on the mattress.

A few days after the tournament, Xie Lian was summoned into the war room by Feng Xin, who had appeared inside the Guoshi's quarters during his dance practice. Feeling incredibly confused as to why he was summoned to the war room of all places, the Guoshi allowed him to leave practice early, without even making a fuss.