Crown Prince and Ghost King

Chapter 61

After going back to his quiet, empty palace, Xie Lian sat at a table and stared at the void for a significant amount of time. He wasn't even thinking about anything, the god just wanted some silence to surround him for a bit, to allow his spirit to settle.

Then, as night started to fall, Xie Lian propped his elbow on the table and frowned. There were three things he had to tell Feng Xin and Mu Qing, the next day.

He had to explain WuMing's existence, confess what he did in his days as a Calamity, and he had to give them some insight on why Bai WuXiang targeted him so fiercely.

WuMing... no one actually knew about him. Xie Lian couldn't remember if Yin Yu did, but even if that was the case, he would be the only one save for the Crown Prince and Hua Cheng himself. He Xuan had been left in the dark, too. He only had information up to Hua Cheng gaining corporeal form in the temple, and then from him reaching Mount Tong'lu onwards. All the time in the middle was unexplored waters.

He hoped that Feng Xin and Mu Qing didn't take it the wrong way. As far as he had been told, they already believed Xie Lian moved to Bai WuXiang's side when he went crazy; not that he blamed them for the mistake, but it was a pretty dangerous one.

Any other similar assumptions might be a problem to deal with, if they accidentally got out.

«Ah, what a disaster», he commented, voice loud in the emptiness of his palace. They all hesitated so much to talk that it was now an intricate mess of too many threads to unravel.

What really messed with his mind was mostly the fact that, if he wanted to be honest and open with Mu Qing and Feng Xin – and not only he wanted to, but he needed to, after all that happened – he had to confess just how much he came to despise the common folk, back then. To someone who never believed Xie Lian to feel anything but love and forgiveness for the people he gave his blood to protect.

Misunderstandings and gratuitous ignorance still hurt Xie Lian, no matter how much he told the opposite. It was enough to see how harshly he lashed out at the heavens during his third ascension, one time after the other, fed up with them being unjust and offensive towards him and his relationships.

He even got angry at the Emperor himself, to the point of straight up intimidating him.

If Feng Xin and Mu Qing still would end up understand one thing for another, even after a thorough explanation of what happened and why it happened, Xie Lian didn't know if he could handle it. He drew the line of his emotional endurance between his two friends and the rest of the world; if they crossed it to get to the wrong shore, Xie Lian was sure he would end up drowning.

An exasperated sigh later, the Crown Prince raised two fingers to his temple and opened the communication array he had with Hua Cheng, the silence now incredibly unbearable. The ghost was a bit alarmed at first, not expecting Xie Lian to call so unexpectedly late, but soon the two fell into a comfortable and nonsensical conversation, just to pass the time.

It was nice, to have the voice of the one he loved in his head, rather than a messy silence littered with bad thoughts.

"QianQiu has descended to go visit Yong'An", he let his husband know after a while, turning the conversation in a more serious direction. "I don't know how long he plans to stay, but I was wondering if we should go too".

Xie Lian still didn't fully trust Lang QianQiu's judgment, not with GuZi involved. He trusted him not to attack Qi Rong, but the last thing the god wanted was to see Lang QianQiu and Qi Rong arguing and fighting; he still vividly remembered how GuZi felt, when it happened between Hua Cheng and Qi Rong.

A repeat of that was the last thing on Xie Lian's wish list.

"I can send a butterfly or two in the meantime, if you want. Keep an eye on their behavior".