«Everyone stand back, don't go near him and don't listen to his words».
Xie Lian himself backed away, moving in tandem with the crowd, while the mud face continued to chuckle and ramble about how he was still human and wouldn't hurt them. It was horrifying, to say the least. Despite the warning, however, one of the merchants snuck back towards the field, perhaps thinking he must still bring back some herbs for the wounded. He bent down to pick of the scattered ferns he had dropped in a fright earlier, but the distraction provided by everyone backing up wasn't enough for the face not to notice him.
«Don't pick that up! Come back!», Xie Lian yelled, rushing towards the man, but it was too late. The mud face opened his mouth and a long, blood-red thing slithered out. It was a tongue, a freakishly long and fast tongue!
The Crown Prince grabbed the merchant by his collar and yanked him back, but the tongue was quicker, and it barged right into the man's ear. The body convulsed violently, limbs writhing nonstop, and the man let out an agonizing scream before falling lifeless to the ground. That long tongue dug out a large chunk of something bloody from his ear and brought it back to the face's mouth, chewing and cackling so loudly and disturbingly the sound froze everyone's blood.
Disgusted, Xie Lian jumped back, sad for the innocent life lost but unwilling to stay near that inhuman tongue. He wanted to have Hua Cheng kill the thing, so they could move on without drawing unwanted attention on them, but the face started shouting as soon as it was done chewing. Voice sharp and shrill, eyeballs bulging and bloodshot, it was a horrid and obnoxious sight.
That man, buried for over fifty years into the ground of an evil-filled kingdom, had already been molded into its soil and became something unspeakable.
Xie Lian was about to change his mind and attack the repulsive monster when the mud face screamed again, calling for a general.
A deafening cry, more savage than that of a beast, echoed in the distance. Xie Lian, against his best judgment, cursed under his breath and felt RuoYe tighten more around his forearm.
A dark shadow dropped from the sky and landed heavily in front of Xie Lian. The entire palace grounds quaked in its landing, the crowd jailed in its enormous shadow when it slowly stood up. It was a gigantic man.
His face was as grim as steel, his expression ferocious like an untamed beast, at least nine feet of feral man. Behind him, more and more similar forms appeared, men jumping off the roofs to surround the crowd. They all carried sharp tooth-filled maces on their shoulders, so easily they seemed weightless. When they encircled around the intrudes in the garden, merchants scared out of their wits and non-human entities assessing the situation – it was as if a large and unbreakable cage had fallen upon them.
They were, without a doubt, soldiers of BanYue. No longer alive, emanating a black aura, ghosts trapped in a kingdom that was nothing but ruins.
Xie Lian was tense, with RuoYe ready to attack, and he dared to spare a glance at Hua Cheng; the Ghost King was observing the figures with relative calm on his face, but his hand was ready to reach for E-Ming and strike.
Xie Lian hoped he would wait, to see what would happen. The BanYue soldiers didn't rush in to kill, instead roaring in crazed laughter and howling in a foreign language. The sound of their words were ghastly, guttural and tongue-rolling, but Xie Lian was able to discern most of it. The words were loud, simple and vulgar, not at all difficult to understand, but he didn't give them the opportunity to realize there was someone who spoke the language among their prisoners.
The soldiers, in fact, wanted to take them away somewhere, the order of avoiding to kill them for the time being one of the most relieving things Xie Lian could hear, but he didn't relax. If they wanted to take them away, then there was a reason, and the reason was definitely not good.
But, for the sake of everyone else, he lowered his voice and spoke to the crowd: «Don't panic. They won't kill us for now, it seems they want to take us somewhere else», he said, trying to be as reassuring as possible. «Don't do anything rash, and we'll find a way to figure this out as we go».
Those soldiers would be hard to fight, each of them thicker then the next and armed with terrifying weapons. Even with RuoYe, suffocating one would probably take a lot out of him, nevermind ten. Not only that, with mortals in the way, Xie Lian couldn't do anything bold as to avoid endangering their lives. And even if he wanted to risk so much and finally use his spiritual powers to fight, there was the mystery of A-Zhao.
Xie Lian now had somewhat of a clearer hypothesis on what A-Zhao could be, especially judging by his lack of reactions when the BanYue soldiers appeared, but he needed to talk with Hua Cheng about it before doing anything, as he wasn't sure yet. But, if A-Zhao was what he thought, then using his spiritual powers would be the worst possible move.
The same was for Hua Cheng. He had already risked too much by letting him see E-Ming, and it was enough to have only one of the discovered, even if partially.
Xie Lian knew it was A-Zhao the person referred to by the face, as neither him or Hua Cheng ever visited the Kingdom of BanYue in two hundred years. But everything else was still a blur.
Just to be sure, he reached out to grab Hua Cheng's wrist and imperceptibly shook his head. His husband got the message, lowered his arm, and the entire crowd nodded tearfully at the Crown Prince.
Next to them, the face screamed again. It was hysterical, screaming and crying nonsensical words, even mixing in some BanYue expressions, and even the General seemed to have found the squirming face deeply disgusting. Without hesitation, he swung his mace towards him and smashed the face into a bloody mess, the teeth of the weapon piercing his brains. When he pulled up the mace again, the entire body under the face was pulled out with it.
But, instead of a human body, the thing that got pulled out was actually a chilling skeleton, bones as white and deprived of flesh as they could be, nothing left thanks to years of decaying and feeding nutrients to the shanyue.
The merchants – bless their souls – screamed in fright once again, and the bloody mud face showed a rather similar expression of terror and disbelief. His voice, loud in denial, quavered as he cried out, but Xie Lian only thought him tragic and terrifying. He shook his head and turned away, fed up with that sight.
Next to him, Hua Cheng laughed mockingly: «Only now you're not used to your body? You didn't that thing that came out of your mouth earlier was odd?».
«It was just a tongue a bit longer than average!».
«Yeah, sure. Just that much longer», Hua Cheng laughed again, voice full of ridicule. He was done with that face, and only wanted to make it explode in bits of dead flesh and blood, but didn't do anything. A worse fate was to leave the monster there, barely surviving but able to cry his misfortunes. It was what a disgusting thing such as that deserved.
Perhaps he was indeed still human when he was first buried, and did his best to survive by swallowing insects with his tongue, but even the most dense of people could understand that being used as fertilizer for plants normally didn't end with a life still intact.
The face kept trying to assure an unlistening audience, and Hua Cheng laughed again, a certain cruelty making the sound chillingly colder.
The mud face screamed and tried to move his boney limbs all at once, as if trying to crawl away, but the BanYue General seemed to finally have enough of the monster's shrill cried and threw him on the other side of the palace grounds. The pile of bones attached to the lump of flesh that was his head violently slammed against a wall, finally killing his "I'm human!" cries. He wasn't dead – well, deader than it already was – but at least the monster stopped whining.
After that, the General roared more orders and the soldiers raised their maces, herding Xie Lian's group out of the palace.
Xie Lian walked up front, with Hua Cheng following close behind, his step light and casual but his expression hard as steel. The god had been meaning to find opportunities to talk to him, but even with the BanYue soldiers conversing amongst themselves and being unable to understand them, A-Zhao was still too close for comfort. So, instead of raising the bigger issue, Xie Lian simply asked his husband if he knew who the General was.
Hua Cheng nodded: «When the Kingdom of BanYue fell, there was only one general. His name is Ke Mo». What he learned about him wasn't much, as Hua Cheng was still taking care of his beloved back when the old kingdom fell, but it was enough to give him a good answer.
According to what he heard, General Ke Mo was awfully weak when he was young, often bullied, so he built his strength by training with large stone mortar plates. His name came from that, and his reputation was that of the strongest warrior in the history of BanYue. He was also a loyal supporter of the Guoshi.
That last bit of information was worrying. If General Ke Mo was loyal to the Guoshi, then it could spell enormous trouble. It was obvious that the second Wrath was him, his presence was imposing in more ways than one. Facing off against two ghosts of Wrath rank wouldn't be a problem for Hua Cheng, if their movement choices weren't hindered by A-Zhao. Not only that, Feng Xin was still nowhere to be seen, and the same could be said for the Wind Master and He Xuan. He wondered about that predicament, and then shook his head; whatever they were doing, he was sure they were fine. Shi QingXuan wasn't a martial god, but she was powerful enough not to have been wounded by Feng Xin, and even if that wasn't the case... He Xuan would never allow her to get injured.
There had to be a reason for their delay.
Xie Lian was far more worried for the merchants they left in the desert, waiting for the shanyue fern to be brought back, but once again he removed his thoughts from that particular direction and put them back on the issue at hand.
An issue that, as of now, required them to adapt to any situation that arose.
Xie Lian walked and milled, noticing with a shiver that their destination was the Sinner's Pit. Seeing it this close, his heart started pounding. What were their intentions, to throw them in and leave them prey to the scorpion-snakes?
However, the reason why his heart pounded madly against his chest wasn't that the Sinner's Pit was a place of torture and cruelty, and it wasn't his worry over everyone getting pushed in. The reason was a very powerful array at work, that he could feel while climbing the unsafe stairs coiling around the walls.
It was drawn around the entire Sinner's Pit and it only had one purpose: to prevent the fallen from ever surfacing.
Even if a rope or a ladder was set down into the pit, whoever tried to climb up from the bottom would get cut off halfway through and get thrown right back in. Xie Lian used the wall as if he was supporting himself to climb up the stairs, but he was feeling up the make of it. The stone was stronger than mud or concrete, probably reinforced with a layer of magic. Maybe Hua Cheng could break through it, but it would require an unsafe amount of spiritual energy to do so.
He didn't quite felt panic rising in his chest, but agitation started flowing through his body. They were prisoners of resentful ghosts, unable to communicate with one another thanks to the evil energy interfering with Xie Lian's ability to do so, and there wasn't a trace of their allies. He stayed calm because Hua Cheng was there, but nothing could make him relax, as they also needed to be wary of a possible bigger problem walking not too far from them.
When they reached the end of the stairs, the only word to describe the sight was "awe". The entire Sinner's Pit was formed by encircling great walls, thick and tall, nothing at the very top of them. Within the enclosure was a deep abyss without a bottom in sight, the night unable to illuminate the unending blackness of the pit. A chilling, metallic scent of blood came from down below, wafting in the air and making everyone concerned.
No one but Xie Lian dared looking down whilst walking along the railingless eaves, too scared to even imagine what could wait for them at the bottom, if death or something worse no one could know. After a while the pole that stood in the center came into view, and it was now visible the corpse hanging on it; it was of a small, black-clad girl, her head bowed.
Xie Lian knew that pole was used for hanging criminals that deserved shame and humiliation, usually stripped naked; it was a cruel practice, even worse because the criminals would die of starvation or dehydration while their corpses would be left to flail in the wind, burn under the sun, and rot in the rain until they fell on their own. It was an exceedingly ugly sight, one that Xie Lian was happy to not have witnessed with his own eyes. He knew of it thanks to other people recounting their experiences, and every time he heard it, the Crown Prince wanted to let anger overflow him.
Punishment, when needed, wasn't to be stopped, but when discipline merged with torture and savagery nothing could be excused. Even the worse criminals didn't deserve to die such a horrible, slow death, only to be desecrated after a painful passing.
The corpse of the girl didn't seem to be rotten, but to do such a vulgar thing to a young girl... Xie Lian felt thoroughly disgusted, the same anger of the past trying to break through. However, he couldn't shake off the feeling that something wasn't right with the girl. She showed not a single sign of decaying, not even the very first stages of it. Maybe it was the scarcity of light, but the girl was ashen at best.
She'd been hanging on the pole since they arrived, probably for much longer than that. They would have heard scuffling and fighting while approaching the ruins, or at least they would have found more signs of activity if the girl had been found and hanged a short time before their arrival. It didn't make sense for them to find a perfectly still city, with no ghost activity, after someone had just been caught.
But, if the girl wasn't human, and was a ghost instead...
Xie Lian turned to look at Hua Cheng, and found in his eyes the same realization; what if she was the Guoshi of BanYue?
It didn't make sense, though. If General Ke Mo and the Guoshi of BanYue were close, why would the Guoshi be hanged on a pole that was normally used for criminals? No, why would the Guoshi even be hanged? She was supposed to be powerful, able to control the deadly scorpion-snakes, so wicked and evil she gained herself a place alongside the Guoshi of Yong'An.
What was the meaning of it?
Confused, Xie Lian stopped lingering on that thought for a second and looked at the rest of the group; the merchant's faces were as white as sheets, while A-Zhao seemed to have glints of guilt hiding behind his eyes, but everyone seemed scared to go forward. Ke Mo didn't bother pushing them onwards, but turned toward the pit and howled.
Soon after, from the bottom of the pit came a chorus of guttural growls, like roaring of beasts and wails of monsters, hundreds of cries exploding in the silence of the night. They were so loud, so potent, Xie Lian clearly heard the sound of rocks and debris falling within, and wanted to cover his ears. Were the souls of the dead answering Ke Mo?
Ke Mo howled again and Xie Lian paid more attention, listening to the sound. He wasn't making meaningless noises, and it wasn't curses, but encouragement. Amongst other words, the Crow Prince recognized something akin to "my brothers".
Then, he roared another command. To throw in two and detain the rest.
The other might not have understood what was being said, but the intent of those soldiers wasn't hard to guess. Everyone looked pale as ghosts, shivering and trembling in fear, not knowing what to do. To protect them, Xie Lian was willing to go forward first, and he reassured them by saying it in a whisper.
Whatever awaited him on the bottom of the pit couldn't be worse than venomous snakes or vicious beasts, after all. He couldn't die from falling, bites, poison, he couldn't die from getting it, and his body wasn't going to be damaged too horribly unless there was some sort of corpse-dissolving liquid. He'd be fine.
Moreover, with RuoYe, he could easily catch anyone else that might be thrown in, as no normal human could possibly survive such a fall.
Ke Mo wanted to detain the rest, so they wouldn't be in danger all together.
Whatever his plans were, however, he had to immediately ditch them when A-Zhao, as if deciding that a death by fighting was better than a death by falling in a pit filled with who knew what, closed his fists and charged towards Ke Mo, ready to bring him down into the bottomless abyss.
When he slammed into the General, a towering man that a normal human couldn't possibly move even with such desperation, Ke Mo got pushed back three steps. He roared in anger, grabbed the young man and instantly threw him into the void.
Everyone started screaming, the voices in the chasms roared a cheer, but Xie Lian didn't believe for a single second that A-Zhao was dead. They could hear sounds of ripping flesh and breaking of bones, but it wasn't A-Zhao getting violently killed. It couldn't be.
As he tried to untie the knots of his thoughts, Xia Lian saw that Ke Mo wanted to throw Tian Sheng in, and he stepped forward: «Hold on, General», he called him.
He had used BanYuenese to talk to him, and the language shocked Ke Mo enough that he stopped the soldiers with a wave of his hand.
«You know how to speak out tongue? Where are you from?».
«I'm from the Midlands».
He wouldn't have liked to lie and say he was a citizen of BanYue, but his fluency was rusty and he wasn't going to be able to keep the lie up and running if he conversed too much. Besides, his looks were obviously the ones of a Midlander, there was no fooling Ke Mo with that. He knew his question sprouted from simple confusion.
And, as Xie Lian vaguely remembered, the people of BanYue detested liars. Lying was only going to make things worse, if he was found out.
«Midlands? Descendants of Yong'An?».
Xie Lian shook his head: «The Kingdom of Yong'An has long since fallen. There's no more Yong'An now».
But, even saying that, Xie Lian knew for those of BanYue the Midlander were pretty much all the same. They were relatives of the descendants of Yong'An, and Yong'An annihilated BanYue.
The moment he heard that reply, Ke Mo's face flashed with rage, and many of the BanYue soldiers started cursing vulgarly at him. Xie Lian couldn't care less.
«Our kingdom disappeared for over two hundred years. You are not of our people, why do you know our tongue? Who are you?».
The Crown Prince couldn't help but steal a glance at Hua Cheng behind him, ready to shamelessly ask him to save his husband if his plan was to fall apart later, but deeply regretted it. His face, although it had been calm up to that moment, was dark and terrible, closer to his true form than to the youth he was disguised as.
Afraid that things could spiral downhill much faster than he anticipated, Xie Lian cleared his throat and was ready to start gabbering nonsense when another series of enraged growls sounded from below. Whatever was down in the pit was still hungry, thirsty for fresh blood.
Ke Mo waved his hand again, ready to have Tian Sheng thrown over, and Xie Lian tried to step in again, tried to convince the General to spare the innocents. Nothing worked. The grudge of the people of BanYue didn't fare with the changing of times, and Ke Mo found Xie Lian too suspicious to throw him down.
With everything else failed, the god was more than ready to straight up jump into the pit himself, but before he could even think about it, Hua Cheng walked over the chasm and leaped into the darkness.
Instinctively, the moment he jumped RuoYe shot out from his wrist, a stream of white flash trying to grab hold of his husband, and obviously came back with nothing.
Xie Lian didn't fail to notice not a single noise followed Hua Cheng's fall. Whatever was down here, it wasn't alive anymore.
Next to him, many soldiers started yelling, all dumbfounded and bewildered, and Xie Lian took it as an opportunity to take a leap off the wall himself. But, body still in midair, General Ke Mo stretched out his arm and nabbed him by the collar, preventing his fall.
Not wanting to deal with that annoyance, Xie Lian ordered RuoYe to shot out once more: «If you want to join me, that's fine!», he said. The spiritual weapon wrapped itself up the arm of Ke Mo, then roped his body whole, and Xie Lian was ready to used his spiritual energy to make them both fall down when the corpse hanged on the pole moved.
The band of BanYue soldiers started yelling again, swinging their maces to attack the corpse, but the black-clad girl untied herself and hopped off, speeding towards them. She was like a black wind blowing through the eaves, fast and wicked, sweeping soldiers into the Sinner's Pit one by one as she ran along the walls. Furious, Ke Mo screamed all sorts of vulgarities to her, but the swearing ceased when Xie Lian pulled RuoYe, and made them both fall.
He could deal with the girl later. If he was lucky, Shi QingXuan would be back with He Xuan and Feng Xin, and they would take care of her in his place. Reaching Hua Cheng was more important.
During the fall, Ke Mo roared with such violent that Xie Lian had to call back RuoYe and kick him away to protect his eardrums, before urging the silk band upwards to grab hold of something. Unsurprisingly, his spiritual weapon didn't find anything, as the Sinner's Pit was not built to save and there was still a powerful array at work.
A moment after, there was a flash of silver, and a pair of hands lightly caught him. With a hand across his back to grasp his shoulders and another under his knees to support his weight, the dreadful gravity of the fall was dissolved to nothing. Dazed and confounded from falling, Xie Lian held on tight to his husband's shoulders, patting him just to make sure his mind wasn't playing tricks.
Soon enough, he found the familiar feel of silver jewelry and rich fabric, and reached up to stroke his face: «San Lang, you caught me», he smiled.
Of course he caught him! Hua Cheng grinned and leaned down just enough to place a kiss on his lips, then firmly refused to put his husband down. He was holding him tightly, without any intention to let go, and Xie Lian didn't try to push himself away.
The floor was completely dirtied with ghost corpses and freshly spilled blood, covering almost every inch of ground surface, tainting the air with a strong, metallic scent. There was no sweetly disgusting scent of rot, so their nostrils were mostly safe, but anything else was too repulsive for Hua Cheng to let Xie Lian come in contact with it.
E-Ming, thirst for blood not yet fully quenched, vibrated at his hip, waiting to shot out again.
«Have you seen A-Zhao?».
Hua Cheng made a show of shaking his head, but lowered his head to whisper into His Highness' ear, words only for him to hear: «He's still here, gege. I won't make a move for now, but he's here and alive».
«And a god», Xie Lian whispered back, wishing with all of himself to be able to use their communication array. One would think that with all that evil spiritual energy Xie Lian could just give the middle finger to what was preventing him to use his powers, but apparently he wasn't the overly-powerful protagonist in a fantasy novel.
He felt Hua Cheng's smile, rather than seeing it, and didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry at that. They had been thinking the same thing all along. A-Zhao was probably the heavenly official involved with the BanYue issue, then. It made sense.
But it was still the worst possible outcome imaginable. If he didn't know the youth in Xie Lian's company was Hua Cheng – a rather impossible hope, since he laid eyes on E-Ming earlier in the day – he certainly had no doubts now. And there was nothing assuring Xie Lian the secret identity of his husband could remain a secret, now, as he doubted that an official who strayed away from his duties could save him the chaos.
Before he could start sulking, a sorrowful wail roared from the other side of the pit, words shouted in the BanYue language. It was General Ke Mo, climbed out of the human crater he blasted in the ground when he fell.
When he howled into the pit there were hundreds of voices than answered his call, but right then and there, only dead silence could be heard. There wasn't even any sound of breathing or that of a heartbeat, f one didn't count his own.
Apparently, Hua Cheng had killed every single one of Ke Mo's soldiers, and the General leaped towards them as soon as he realized it. Although danger was rapidly approaching, Hua Cheng made a small sidestep and spun around, making the first move in a dance of near-death experiences.
In the pitch black darkness all around, Xie Lian heard a series of broken clanking sounds, clear and intense. Ke Mo rushed to capture them but missed the first time, and turned around to attack again. Light on his feet, Hua Cheng avoided him again with ease, while the god climbed up his chest and held tight to his shoulders. The strong arms carrying him were steady, his hold secure, streaks of shimmering silver flashing everywhere as E-Ming inflicted wound after wound.
Xie Lian wanted to call out for RuoYe, but he had a feeling that it was better to leave all the fighting to his husband. After all, it wasn't anything difficult for Hua Cheng to handle, and E-Ming was clearly having a good time as it chased after the General.
«Are you really not going to put me down, San Lang?».
«It's dirty».
Xie Lian sighed at the stubbornness of his husband. Of course his answer would be something absurd like "it's dirty", as if blood and gore were something new in the Crown Prince's life. But far from him to complain. Xie Lian knew he wasn't in the way, and he was positively convinced that Hua Cheng quite liked to carry him in his arms even while fighting. When it came to his husband, the Ghost King was the biggest show off Xie Lian had ever seen in his life, but somehow he was always able to make everything about him. And there was also the fact that fighting against a Wrath with Xie Lian in his arms was child's play for the ghost.
E-Ming flashed in and out of sight again, keeping Ke Mo at bay, and the General shouted at them before a large boom sounded off. Immediately after, the massive man fell to the ground, no longer able to stand.
«San Lang, don't kill him», Xie Lian told him, as precaution. The ghost heeded his words and stopped, but it was quite obvious he wasn't going to kill Ke Mo anyway. Otherwise, he wouldn't have lasted that long. Powerful as he was, Hua Cheng was a mountain far too high and far too steep for him to overcome, and E-Ming was the lethal snowstorm that swept everyone away.
With Ke Mo down, dead silence returned to the Sinner's Pit, and Xie Lian chewed a bit on his words. The overpowering stench of blood was starting to bother him, as it was tainted by such an intense aura of bloodlust it reminded him of days he wanted to forget, so he scrunched up his nose. Hua Cheng's fighting abilities, especially when paired with E-Ming, were nothing short than incredible. There had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of bloodthirsty ghosts down there, yet the Ghost King completely annihilated them in a matter of minutes.
Piqued, he lightly shoved a hand against his chest: «Don't you dare jump like that again without warning me first», he scolded him. «And you have the audacity of getting worried if I forget to wake you up when I get out of bed».
«Gege...!».
Xie Lian could feel Hua Cheng pouting, even if it was too dark to see it. He had half a mind to ask him to light up the place with his butterflies, but decided against it. If Hua Cheng hadn't deemed it safe, then it was the reason why there were no butterflies fluttering around.
He cleared his throat, quietly, and raised an eyebrow: «Can you put me down, now, beloved?».
Hua Cheng seemed to falter a bit, but the chuckled and gave him a nod. He carried Xie Lian away and walked for a bit before gently letting him down on hard, flat ground. No squelching of soles stepping on blood, and no corpses nearby.
After thanking him, Xie Lian looked to the sky, a navy blue canvas with a bright and beautiful crescent moon. Such a view was certainly akin to a frog looking up from the bottom of a well, though in their case it was wet all around thanks to freshly spilled blood, rather than clean water.
Just to check, Xie Lian commanded RuoYe to try and reach for the top, but it was stopped halfway as expected and bumped into an invisible wall. Unable to go higher, RuoYe rebounded, but not before smacking a vibrating E-Ming.
«Hey, now, don't mock your friend», Xie Lian gently reprimanded the sword. Nothing like the harsh quips Hua Cheng liked to come up with, so E-Ming complied quickly and stopped its bizarre laugh without whining.
Then, seeing Ke Mo was still out cold and A-Zhao wasn't manifesting himself, Xie Lian told Hua Cheng how the girl hanged on the pole came alive and swept all the BanYue soldiers down into the pit.
While talking, Xie Lian stepped on something on the ground – maybe an arm – and almost tripped. He steadied himself immediately, but Hua Cheng still reached out and supported him, scolding himself for not being careful of His Highness' steps.
«I told you the ground was dirty», he chided, hooking an arm around his waist. «Don't dirty yourself by walking, gege».
«I just want to ignite a palm torch», was his reply, but before he could lit one up, Ke Mo's voice cried again, cursing them and accusing them of doing "the deeds of that bitch". Confused, but trying to understand if the "bitch" Ke Mo talked about was the black-clad girl of earlier, Xie Lian gave up on igniting a palm torch and turned towards the ghost: «General Ke Mo, who is the person you speak of?».
«Why pretend to ask?», Ke Mo responded with hatred. «That wicked witch!».
Wicked witch? Was he talking about the girl? Was that girl really the Guoshi of BanYue? It made no sense!
«Weren't you a loyal supporter of the BanYue Guoshi?», Xie Lian questioned, even more confused.
Provoked by his words, Ke Mo started yelling again, roaring hatred and anger in their ears, and confirming that no, he wasn't loyal to her anymore. Afterwards he started uttering a string of curses, inflamed and hysterical, words so rapid and incomprehensible Xie Lian had to ask his husband.
«He's cursing that woman», Hua Cheng translated, eyes reduced to slits. «He said she betrayed his country, opened the fortress gates and let in the Yong'An army. She's got the blood of her people on her hands, and of his brothers whom she pushed into the pit. He will hang her a thousand times».
The weight of those words dawned on Xie Lian so suddenly he widened his eyes. It was the BanYue Guoshi the person who had betrayed the Kingdom of BanYue?! It made no sense, why would the Guoshi open the gates? And would she go as far as throwing even the ghosts of the soldiers into the pit?
Xie Lian couldn't understand what kind of resentment was driving her, but the tangled mess of that situation became even worse.
«General Ke Mo, the BanYue Guoshi you speak of... was it the girl hanged on the pole?».
«Who else could it be!?», Ke Mo shouted at him
Xie Lian had to grab his husband's arm to avoid him from beating Ke Mo again.
The scrawny, corpse-like little girl obvious had immeasurable powers, and could easily sweep dozens of hostile BanYue soldiers off the wall, but it still didn't make sense. If she was that powerful, why was she hanged above the Sinner's Pit? Why was Ke Mo still able to run around and capture prey to throw into the pit?
As the Guoshi of BanYue, and as a Wrath, the girl should have also attacked them and given them trouble with relative ease, yet she decided to stay where she was, only coming down when Hua Cheng was busy killing the soldiers already trapped. Not only that, she didn't touch the merchants, her objective just the BanYue soldiers.
Xie Lian didn't hear terrified screaming from down there, neither he could hear sounds of struggling or of killing, so it was pretty obvious those innocent men were still alive.
«What the hell...?», he breathed out, so bewildered the – rather small – curse flew from his lips before he could stop it.
The story was getting more complex and convoluted, every new piece of the puzzle adding to the mess of a picture not yet formed. Everything they believed up until then was now discarded. The hypothesis of the Guoshi of BanYue being behind the disappearances burned like hay in a fire, because why would a malevolent ghost not take to opportunity to sweep everyone down into the pit? General Ke Mo himself couldn't be blamed as a full responsible either, because he only appeared when alarmed by the mud face, and wasn't actively searching for prey.
Xie Lian wanted to ask something, but Ke Mo wasn't having it, still enraged by the fact that they killed his soldiers, and only wanted to fight.
Hua Cheng scoffed: «I killed them, he didn't do anything», he made him notice. «Answer his questions and fight me».
«You're both taking orders from her, there is no difference!».
Well, that was a misunderstanding, if Xie Lian ever saw one. He raised his arms, trying to pacify the warrior, and shook his head: «We've traveled across the Gobi Desert to get rid of the Guoshi of BanYue, how can we be her helpers?».
Still dubious, Ke Mo fell silent for a bit, then inquired again. If they weren't helping her, then why did they kill all his soldiers? It was an easy answer, really. They didn't have much of a choice, since Ke Mo wanted to throw innocent people into the pit. They might have jumped, but if they didn't, a young man like Tian Sheng would have died for no reason.
Their fight could be endless, but they were all trapped at the bottom of the Sinner's Pit, unable to get out thanks to the array. Exasperated, Xie Lian called a truce, but the General was totally uncooperative.
However, the Crown Prince wasn't worried. Ke Mo, despite his appearance, seemed to be the type that could easily be made to spill the beans, and they still had time. As long as the night didn't turn into day, the old man back at the rocky shelter wasn't going to die.
Hua Cheng, on the other hand... he wasn't that patient.
After exchanging somewhat of a look with Xie Lian, even if the place was too dimly lit to really discern anything, the Ghost King glanced around and crossed his arms: «You better answer his questions, for the sake of your soldiers», he threatened, voice completely devoid of any kind of mercy. It was cold, sharp, cutting through like a well-honed blade. He had no patience for those who wanted to hurt His Highness, and he had even less for those who refused to acknowledge him.
E-Ming was still restless at his side, staying put thanks to Xie Lian's wish, but filled with the kind of bloodlust that could only be quenched by shutting up the disrespectful.
«You already killed them», Ke Mo said, with a snarl. «It's pointless using them to threaten me».
Hua Cheng flashed a dangerous smile, his fangs pearl white under the faint moonlight: «They are dead, yes, but their corpses are still around», he replied. «Do you want their next lives to be fortuitous, or do you want them to be reborn as pools of filthy blood?».
The people of BanYue, as barbaric as they were, took death and funerals extremely seriously. They firmly believed that, however the deceased looked at the time of their death, that was how they would be reborn. Losing a limb upon death meant they would be reborn handicapped, and it was already enough of an anguishing thought.
Losing the entire body, as Hua Cheng was more than willing to explode all of those corpses into piles of formless flesh and blood, meant they could never be reborn. A rebirth without a body couldn't happen. If anything, only a mess of body parts and fluids would be the result.
General Ke Mo was a purebred BanYue citizen, and that particular threat scared him, more than instilling rage.
Enough to make him relent.
«Don't touch their bodies, they were good soldiers», Ke Mo said, keeping on the other side of the pit. «It was already a tragedy to be trapped in the pit for so many years. I don't know if being killed is a blessing or not, but I won't have their corpses be desecrated». He paused, squinted at the barely visible figures standing far from him, and posed another question: «Are you really here to kill Ban Yue?».
Relieved that Ke Mo was finally collaborating, even if only thanks to a brute threat – Hua Cheng didn't surprise him anymore with his bits and pieces of cruelty, he'd almost done much worse anyway – and nodded: «That is no lie, but we need to know more to have a good chance of winning», he replied, warmly. «Not much is known of the Guoshi of BanYue on the outside, and we have no idea how to fight her».
What he hoped, and he voiced it very carefully, was for Ke Mo to enlighten some things for them. Since he worked under her in the past, and was her most loyal supporter, surely he had much to say about it.
Surprisingly, the General actually answered, apparently having lost the will to attack them. However, his answer was mostly dictated by resentment and anger, and he simply brought up the fact the she hated the Kingdom of BanYue.
Which, in itself, was still something rather interesting and peculiar.
«What do you mean she hated the Kingdom of BanYue?», Xie Lian asked, placing an elbow onto the palm of his hand and using his other hand as a pensive support for his chin. «Isn't BanYue Guoshi a citizen of BanYue?».
«Not entirely. She's of mixed blood, the other half is from Yong'An».
Xie Lian widened his eyes, but said nothing as the General explained.
That BanYue Guoshi was born of a BanYue woman and Yong'An man. Living on the border, surrounded by endless hatred and skirmishes, the two had an amicable divorce and went separate ways; the man moved away from the border and back to Yong'An, while the woman went back to BanYue. Despite the lack of negative feelings, she soon passed away from heartache, and left behind a child of six to seven years of age.
The child, completely alone, could do nothing else but wander the streets. No one was willing to help her, she received contempt everywhere she went, her family a disgraceful memory on the shoulders of the BanYue citizens.
Born of mixed blood, the girl appeared small and scrawny amongst the BanYue children, who saw beauty in strength and liveliness; this led her to grow up being bullied, and she ended up becoming more and more sullen. No one from BanYue would play with her, and only some Yong'An children accepted her as a playmate.
When the little girl was about ten, a violent riot broke out on the border, a battle that took many lives and saw no winner. After the fight, the little girl disappeared without leaving a trace. Without family of friends, no one even noticed she vanished, until she came back.
In those years she kept away from BanYue, the girl walked thousands of miles and reached Yong'An, where she learned wicked black magic, and the ability to control the venomous creature that instilled fear in the citizens of BanYue. Her return made many impressed, but more afraid. She was still gloomy and unsociable, and many of those who bullied her in the past were still there, and they feared revenge.
However, as Ke Mo spoke, Xie Lian felt more and more dizzy, almost swaying on his feet. He had to reach out and search for Hua Cheng's support halfway through the story, and took in a sharp intake of breath more than once.
That story was familiar. Too familiar, in fact.
A girl with no family, ostracized by everyone, scared and alone... a girl who, at ten years old, lost the only one able to help her and give her a shadow of familial love.
Xie Lian knew why the girl disappeared.
She ran away, with no one to lend her a shoulder to cry on, because she witnessed her loving friend being trampled under dozens of boots, watched as blood oozed from many wounds, unable to do anything to stop that tragedy from happening.
Dread climbing up his sternum, making its way through his lungs, Xie Lian clung to his husband and forced himself to take deep breaths. His hands were shaking, clinging at red and black fabric as if his life was on the line, and he felt like he couldn't breathe, chest tight with something he couldn't describe.
Ke Mo kept talking, something about how many people tried to advise the king against her, how he protected her, how she gained his trust and everyone else's by saving lives and giving proper treatment to dead soldiers, but he wasn't listening intently anymore.
It couldn't be her... she wasn't evil, she'd never been evil. Ban Yue was a scared girl without a home, helpless, unhappy. Xie Lian still remembered the desperation he saw in her eyes, when she ate the disgusting mess he concocted straight from the ground, but never he saw her tainted with such evilness.
Had it been his fault? Did his death – his fake, useless death – drive Ban Yue so far from her sweet, gentle personality that she resorted to black magic? Was he to be blamed, for all the death and destruction that followed, for all the innocent people that got lured into the ruins if BanYue and never came out?
He kept thinking, and thinking, and thinking again, until everything started screaming into his head, and he realized he was crying only when Hua Cheng's gentle fingers wiped away streaks of tears.
Concerned, the Ghost King carefully dried Xie Lian's tears with his sleeves and pulled him into a hug. He could hear his heart beating fast, faster than normal, and soothingly stroked his back with an open palm.
«It's not your fault», Hua Cheng whispered, for only him to hear, voice low and calming. «Gege, don't blame yourself».
The General was still blabbering about the Guoshi conducting a grand ceremony to pray to the heavens, so Hua Cheng kept an ear out for vital information, but he was more focused on the trembling god in his arms. He hated to see him prey to such a crisis. It wasn't the first time he witnessed such a breakdown, and he feared it wouldn't be the last, but it hurt the same every time. Every repetition of Xie Lian falling victim of his own emotions was a stab through Hua Cheng's still heart, a memento of how much he wasn't able to help him.
For that to happen in a moment so delicate and dangerous... Hua Cheng knew the reason.
If the Guoshi of BanYue was little Ban Yue, then His Highness was blaming himself for everything that happened from his fake death onwards.
With one ear, Hua Cheng absorbed the story of how the Guoshi suddenly opened the fortress gates, just as the fighting was at its height. With the other, he listened intently to the labored breathing of his husband, doing his utmost to calm him down with gentle touches. He couldn't soothe him with the repetitive thump-thump of a beating heart, so he started breathing as well, giving him a pattern to follow.
Little by little, Xie Lian found the rhythm to calm down his breathing, and Ke Mo recounted the fall of BanYue as His Highness regained his bearings.
«Better?».
Xie Lian weakly nodded, suddenly tired, and pulled away from his husband: «Let's... let's keep listening», he said, clearing his voice. He couldn't believe what he was hearing, didn't want to believe it, but there was no lie hiding in Ke Mo's voice.
Unwilling, Xie Lian listened as he told them how Ban Yue colluded with the enemy general, and agreed to let the Yong'An army in the city. Listened as he boasted his victory over the girl, hanged dead over the Sinner's Pit.
Guoshi and General became trapped within the ruins, both watching the other in mutual grudge and hate.
But one question still was unanswered.
«Why did you keep capturing people to feed your soldiers?».
«What else can we do? Have me listen to them wail down below without doing anything, as they were unable to appease their resentment and pass from this earth?».
«Did you catch the people yourselves?».
«We can't stray too far, but her snakes like to hunt and many caravans would come into the city».
It still didn't make sense. Ban Yue – sweet, little Ban Yue – wasn't helping Ke Mo or his soldiers. Why would she send her snakes to bite innocent people, so that they could feed them to those she herself trapped?
Thinking about the snakes made Xie Lian wonder even more. If the people of BanYue feared the snaked enough to be scared of them even while dead, that fear must have been even greater while they were alive. And, if the Guoshi was evil and could control a murder weapon as great as those scorpion-snakes, then why had she been easily dragged down the fortress tower to be hanged?
Everything led back to Xie Lian's belief that Ban Yue wasn't a wicked soul, but it left a hole in the plot.
If it wasn't her, than who...
«The heavenly official».
Xie Lian turned towards his husband with such speed his neck cracked in protest. His had been but a mere whisper, but every single bit of information fell immediately in place.
Ban Yue learned to control the scorpion-snakes from someone that was aware of her situation. Otherwise, why give her the perfect weapon against BanYue? It was someone who wanted the downfall of the city, but gentle enough for Ban Yue to trust him, to the point of agreeing to open the gates.
But it was also someone that knew how to control the scorpion-snakes himself, and probably didn't want the truth behind the massacre of BanYue to become general knowledge. Ban Yue would never kill innocent people on her own volition, she didn't touch the merchants even by accident, but the snakes hunted outside the ruins in order to bring prey and keep the ghosts appeased.
A girl deceived by kindness, a city destroyed, a war won, an ongoing attempt at keeping everything low and away from the gaze of the heavens. And then, suddenly, an empty shell concocted by someone more powerful than a simple ghost, luring him to the BanYue Pass right after the mess with Xuan Ji.
Xie Lian didn't take long to realize who A-Zhao really was.
Before he could say it, Hua Cheng tapped his shoulder, and Xie Lian looked up. Next to the moon, in the framed blue sky, he saw a small silhouette peering over the edge, looking down. After watching them for bit, the form jumped down, and it was none other than Ban Yue.