A few hours before the festival was due to start, the contestants and their style advisors arrived at the offering chambers at the back of the temple, now a work room. Each deity had what Shi Qingxuan called work stations; dressing tables with big mirrors surrounded by spiritual light, separated from each other by glittery colourful screens to give the contestants privacy but most of all to avoid them eyeing each other's outfits.
Xie Lian's table had several bunches of pure white flowers, sent earlier by Hua Cheng just to wish him good luck. He was touched by his San Lang's thoughtfulness and sighed happily, making Feng Xin and Mu Qing roll their eyes together once again.
The first part of a drag dressing up was what was called "tucking", and according to Shi Qingxuan it was an absolutely necessary first step into dragging; even Xie Lian started to wonder why the former Wind Master was inflicting such cruel and sophisticated form of torture on them, this "tucking" being what Mu Qing described as indignity itself. Feng Xin described it in less classy words.
It was nothing else than tying up their manhood tightly and expertly as to appear they had nothing. They were baffled; it wasn't like they were going to wear anything this revealing anyway.
"Not that it's much of a trouble for you", was Mu Qing's comment to Feng Xin.
"Yeah? Do you want to see it?"
Xie Lian felt a headache coming. "Hum, is this really necessary?" he intervened, and sighed.
After some time, they started to paint a terrifying picture; male martial gods with padding on their hips and fake breasts, heavy makeup and heels, wearing voluminous and colourful wigs and other assorted hair accessories, their presentation dance outfits also made of conspicuously giant golden sequins.
They heard the crowd cheering outside and some of them started to get nervous.
"Uff uff uff I'm so nervous I cannot breathe!", said Ke Mo.
Xie Lian didn't know whether to laugh or cry. How could a ghost possibly be unable to breathe? Ke Mo, in his distress, resorted to his native Banyuenese language, so Xie Lian stepped in to calm him down, and some respiratory exercises from his cultivation years came in handy in this situation.
They had to come to the temple hours before, as they had to dress up and do their makeup without any use of spiritual powers; spiritual powers were only allowed during their pageantry, each contestant keeping its content and nature highly secretive from one another.
The reason for this restriction was, if they could use spiritual energy on their outfits, first it'd be too easy, second, they'd be redoing their spiritual outfits again and again in order to outdo each other; martial gods and drag queens apparently being equally competitive.
So at the appointed time all deities lined up at the exit to the main stage, ready for their presentation dance routine, and as one, including the unbreathing ghosts, took in a long, deep breath.
I'm breathing in too! 😍
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