-Four Days Earlier-
"Forgive me, your highness..."
At first everything is a haze of panic and fear. Xie Lian clutches Wu Ming's body to him as though any moment some new threat will loom up out of the snow and try to steal him away again.
Never again, Xie Lian swears, never again.
...Not unless he sends me away.
There's a pang in Xie Lian's chest at the thought but he pushes it quickly aside. Later, he'll deal with that later, once Wu Ming is safe and well. Right now they have bigger problems. Wu Ming is bleeding badly, his gouged out eye a terrible sight and his whole body already scored with other injuries from before he did... What did he do? Some sort of ritual?
Xie Lian glances at the scimitar still held tight in the ghost's hand but he doesn't have time to study it now, not when the other problem is beginning to swarm all around them. The people, the humans Wu Ming was protecting.
"What happened to him?"
"Will he survive?"
"Should you be holding him like that?"
"He's a ghost right, doesn't that mean he'll be alright?"
"Gods! His eye!"
"Daozhang, what's happening?"
"Here let me have a look!"
Xie Lian's head is spinning, with fear for Wu Ming, yes, but also with panic of another kind. It's been about 11 years since Xianle fell. 11 years, that's how long it's been since he's been surrounded by a group of people looking to him as a leader, begging him to do something, to help. The sensation brings back all sorts of memories, snatches of the war, of his final days in the palace.
For a moment he's overwhelmed. 'Don't look to me for help! Don't expect me to have the answers!' He wants to shout. 'Look how it turned out last time! I'm not a prince or a god anymore! I haven't been able to save anyone! Not even my last believer! Don't come near me or my bad luck will just kill you too!'
For a moment he wants to give up but even as he lowers his head he looks down at the body in his arms and if that first panicked voice in his head sounds like the frightened prince he once was the voice he hears now is more like the calamity he became.
'So what?' It asks him scathingly. 'Are you going to give up just like that? You came all this way for what? To find Wu Ming? To repay him? And after all that talk you're just going to fail him again?'
Xie Lian stares down at the unconscious ghost in his arms and takes a deep breath.
He has to do this.
He can do this.
For Wu Ming, he can do anything.
Xie Lian rises to his feet, the ghost still in his arms. He holds Wu Ming tightly to his chest, protectively even, as though he won't allow even the other humans to touch him.
He won't let anyone touch him.
"Daozhang?"
"Daozhang, what is it?"
"Daozhang, What's wrong with him?"
"Let me have a look."
Xie Lian clears his throat and when he speaks it's no longer in the quiet self-deprecating voice of the scrap collector he's become, it's the voice of the prince, the voice of the god.
"Everyone stay back. You must give him space."
The group of humans freeze almost as one, momentarily stunned by the change in his voice.
"Daozhang?" One of them asks uncertainly. It's the woman who welcomed him on his first day with the group.
"He performed a blood ritual to create a weapon with which to defend you all." His eyes return briefly to Wu Ming, too the bloody mess that is all that's left of his right eye. "He seems to have used his own body as the price. I don't know so much about ghost injuries but he appears to be bleeding real blood. Since that's the case I have to assume he may suffer from his wounds not being cared for just as a human would. I need time to care for his injuries before we continue."
There's murmuring in the crowd then one voice speaks up louder than all the others. "Keep going? How are we supposed to keep going? Without the guardian spirit we'll all die before we reach the exit."
"Nonsense." Xie Lian speaks quickly before panic can catch hold of the crowd. "We're only half a day from the exit now. I will take you."
"You?" This new voice sounds plainly skeptical. "Daozhang, not to doubt you but..."
Xie Lian smiles thinly. "Then don't doubt me. I'm better trained than I appear. I can protect you."
"Then why haven't you been?" Someone else asks. "Why did you let the guardian spirit fight alone all this time?"
Once upon a time those sorts of words would have thrown Xie Lian off. They would have had him stumbling and protesting and too flustered to answer properly but he's been through far too much in the last several years to be bothered by such things anymore, and so he answers honestly.
"I wasn't sure if he would want to see me."
A woman near the front of the crowd frowns. "Why wouldn't he want to see you?"
"I told you all that I came to Mount Tonglu searching for a friend." Xie Lian glances down at the ghost in his arms and a sad smile plays around his lips. "This is him."
He squares his shoulders and raises his head, continuing. "We did not part well. It was my fault completely and I followed him because I wanted to make it up to him. I didn't know if he would want to see me or if I would only be a distraction to him but I wanted to be nearby in case he needed help."
Another round of murmurs flow through the crowd. If they turn on him he'll have to flee and the running will be harder with Wu Ming in his arms but what else can he do? He /won't/ hurt these people and he /won't/ leave Wu Ming.
"What's his name?" It's an older woman who asks the question and the look she's giving Xie Lian isn't unfriendly. "Daozhang, as his friend you must know it, and for all we owe him we haven't even known what to call him."
Xie Lian gives the woman a small smile. "He doesn't properly have one but I have known him as Wu Ming."
"Wu Ming?" A man nearby frowns. "Nameless? What sort of name is that?"
Xie Lian's smile grows sad. "A cruel one. A very cruel and ungrateful person gave him that name but if he has another one I don't know it."
There's more murmuring after that but when, after a few moments, no one in the crowd has addressed Xie Lian the god clears his throat.
"If we're all agreed then I need to see to his injuries now and then we can go on."
Xie Lian is painfully aware of how long this conversation has taken already even as the blood leaks from Wu Ming's ruined eye. Xie Lian knows from bitter experience during the war that he can't just act as he sees fit and ignore the crowd, knows exactly how important settling them is, and yet even he is reaching the end of his ability to talk with them when every moment that passes could be increasing Wu Ming's pain and risk. The ghost can't die from this, Xie Lian knows that. It's not so easy to kill what is already dead. Yet even so...
A scream rips through Xie Lian's memory, soul shattering and heart breaking.
Xie Lian grits his teeth and promises himself that if he has it his own way Wu Ming will never suffer pain again.
Fortunately most of the crowd seem to agree with him, glad perhaps to have a plan and someone to lead them, but just as Xie Lian thinks the trouble has passed a man sticks out his chin belligerently.
"What exactly do you plan to do once we're at the exit to this place?"
Xie Lian forces a calmness to his voice that he does not feel.
"I'll take Wu Ming back up the mountain so that when he recovers he can continue his journey."
"Now hold on just a moment!" The man glares at Xie Lian. "We owe the guardian spirit a lot and now you show up claiming that you're powerful enough to protect him but didn't and that you're his friend but also that he wouldn't want to see you! What makes you think we're going to trust you with him!?"
It's a reasonable question, Xie Lian knows it's a reasonable question, more than that even, he's glad that these people feel their debt to Wu Ming and won't turn him over to someone they don't trust. He knows all that and yet....
And Yet.
And yet Wu Ming is bleeding in his arms and every moment he spends soothing these people is another moment that he isn't tending to him. Maybe it's the echo of the foolish prince, used to being obeyed, maybe it's the last remnants of the calamity, only a decade gone and still not completely banished, or maybe it's the sort of fury that is the prevue only of the gods, whatever the case, at that moment something snaps in Xie Lian. His arms tighten around Wu Ming, clutching the ghost to his chest as though to protect him from anyone who would dare try to separate them again and when he replies Xie Lian's voice holds all the power and majesty of the Flower Crowned Martial God.
"I know you want to protect him but every moment you waist on conversation is one that I am not spending treating his wounds. I will say this just once so listen well. I won't let anything happen to him. No matter what I will protect him. He is all that I have left in this world and I will die one hundred times before I let Wu Ming be hurt again!"