Crown Prince and Ghost King

Chapter 55

He couldn't bear to see Xie Lian bleed again. To let him suffer again. It hurt, it hurt too much, it more than his own death, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, IT HURT!.

And then... then, it started.

Xie Lian was accused of bringing the plague to XianLe, breaking everyone's patience. The crown closed in on Xie Lian, surrounding him like vultures around their prey, the one closest pulled out the black sword from the ground.

Xie Lian stopped breathing.

Hua Cheng knew what was coming, and screamed even louder.

Feng Xin and Mu Qing, locked out and away, didn't know.

There were so many people. If every single one of them were to stab him, something in Xie Lian's heart would break, never to return to its original state. Hua Cheng saw it happen, once. He saw Xie Lian spiral into a sort of madness one couldn't heal from on their own. He saw Xie Lian lose hope in the common people, he followed his order to burn the people of Yong'An's royal palace alive, he witnessed his guilt and his doubts.

He was there, at night, when Xie Lian talked to himself in order to find a sliver of sanity in the jumbled mess that his mind had become. He was there to hold him, when he would fall prey of his own nightmares, even if he was always pushed away with far more force than necessary.

«Don't let it happen again!», Hua Cheng cried, an ugly crying, the kind that left other people baffled and hesitant. «Don't do it, please! Please, please don't do it! He doesn't deserve it, he did nothing to you! I was the one who killed you, don't murder him again!».

Irreparably broken, desperate to the point of madness, Hua Cheng raised both hands to his head and pulled his own hair, the soaked through eye-patch coming undone: «Kill me instead! Kill me, crush that fucking ring around his neck, but don't touch him! Shatter my ashes, not his body!».

He would prefer that. Death was a welcome destination, compared to the agony of watching his beloved being killed and bleed over and over again.

He didn't even care than those two bastards outside heard him. If they wanted to finally barge in and shatter his ashes themselves, Hua Cheng would let them if it could save Xie Lian.

It wasn't just that, though. It wasn't just the desire of dying in his place, of being stabbed over and over in his place, just to spare him the suffering.

Hua Cheng didn't want those two to witness Xie Lian's mind break down again. Xie Lian didn't deserve to be seen at his lowest by those who left him, just as Mu Qing and Feng Xin didn't deserve to hold Xie Lian up and guide him through the darkness.

He wanted to save him in all the ways he could, all at once.

But his heart had to break all over again.

It was Xie Lian's breaking point. The moment he cried out, calling for help, and the moment those people started stabbing him one after the other.

The moment a long, painful scream tore through Xie Lian's body, so piercing and nightmarish it scared away many people, it caused the crowd to muffle his mouth and restrain his hands and feet.

That time, Hua Cheng screamed too, so loud he coughed up blood, so desperate that he tried to crawl forward but could only claw at the border of the altar. There was already blood washing the stone in red. There was already blood under Hua Cheng's clawed hands, as he uselessly tried to pull himself up.

He knew there would be even more.

He couldn't stop it.

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