--There's a flashback in this, as always marked with <><><>. Please, be mindful of it, as there's child verbal abuse and physical punishment. If you're triggered by these things, please skip it. It's completely safe to avoid reading it.
It helps the story, but it's not necessary to understand it.--
«I think I need a drink».
Face buried in his husband's chest – Xie Lian would never admit out loud how comfortable it was to press himself in between the firm muscles of that chest – the god whined, exhausted from the mess that everything had been.
From start to finish, day and night had been utterly draining, both for his body and his mind. Xie Lian was tired, aching all over and wanting nothing more than to sleep in his ghost's embrace while surrounded by quietness.
He was serious about the drink, though.
Fortunately, Hua Cheng caught the hint and called his servants to have some liquor brought to them in one of their favorite rooms.
It was a place Xie Lian fell in love as soon as he set foot into it, even more beautiful than his private garden. It was probably because Hua Cheng built that room to be reminiscent of the luxurious halls of the royal palace of XianLe.
It reminded Xie Lian of home in more ways than one.
Everything was a profusion of gold, pale red, and powdery blues and greens, a color palette Xie Lian was more than familiar with thanks to his memories. The furniture was made of the most expensive, most refined wood, carved with intricate designs of times long lost, the curtains were heavy and embroidered. On the table in front of the stupidly comfortable divan, Xie Lian's favorite spot to lounge around, a Golden Foil Palace was in the process of being built.
Xie Lian had cheated the game and asked his husband to have it sit still and unchanging until he could work on it again, to avoid the delicate gold foils to be blown away in a breeze.
He really liked that room.
Not as much as the armory, because nothing could be compared to the absolute beauty that was stored in there, but he could spend hours and hours laying on the divan without growing tired of it. He even loved it more than the garden he could pass days in.
Especially when Hua Cheng was with him, strong arms wrapped in red enveloping him in the softest hug one could ever imagine.
«This has been an awful day», Xie Lian commented, ready to die of tiredness. «And an awful night, too».
For him to complain in a manner that was so outright, it surely had been. Humming in understanding, Hua Cheng draped an arm around his back and pulled him close, so much so that Xie Lian could enjoy even more the fact he was using the ghost's chest as a pillow.
It was nice, and the god sighed in happiness.
Happiness that flared up even more when one of the servants came to their room bringing a tray with a jar of liquor and two cups to drink it from. The ghost placed the tray on the table, bowed deeply to both Hua Cheng and Xie Lian, and then left as silently as he arrived.
The ghost didn't waste time in sitting up and pouring both of them some of the liquor, Xie Lian accepting the cup with a gentle smile; he took a sniff and oh-ed, recognizing the fragrant and mellow taste of it even before taking a sip. They came across the liquor during one of their many trips together, found it in a quaint inn of a town built on the shores of a lake, and Xie Lian couldn't help but love the taste of it.
He didn't drink often, even if his broken vow now allowed him a lot more freedom to dance around the rules, but he did enjoy a cup or two every once in a while.
Mostly to act as a drinking buddy when his husband or his friends looked like they wanted some company, and more often than not when he was incredibly stressed. Moreover, Xie Lian enjoyed the taste of liquor and wine, and wasn't some sort of fuddy-duddy like many people still wanted to believe.
Even Shi QingXuan, bless the poor soul, almost fell from his chair when Xie Lian accepted his invite for a night out drinking without a second thought.
He just preferred avoiding to compromise his cultivation path more than he was already doing, and gave himself some limits.
«What was this called, again? I forgot», Xie Lian said, after the first sip. It tasted heavenly, irony included. Not even the wine he tasted in the Heavenly Court during that infamous game was comparable. Not that the god could ever say that to an official, of course, unless he wanted the business that produced it whisked away to the clouds.
Hua Cheng let the liquor linger on his tongue to truly appreciate the flavor before answering: «Gege, you must really be tired if you forgot the name of your favorite», he teased. His beloved pouted, looking at him with big, golden eyes, stealing a sweet laugh from the ghost.
So cute...!
He couldn't resist and placed a kiss on the crown of his head: «I believe it's called Tianzi Xiao», the Ghost King finally answered, leaning back on the divan.
What a breathtaking place, that town had been. A bit cold, maybe, but Xie Lian had walked around with awe lighting up his face, and he looked stunning with that white fur coat over his shoulders. They didn't stay for too long, a week and they were gone from that town, but every second of their stay had been worth it. If only for the happiness that brightened His Highness' mood for the remainder of the trip.
«We could go back there, one of these days», Hua Cheng suggested, reaching over to grab the jar and pour himself and Xie Lian another cup. Some time before, the god's cheeks would have already flushed pink, the alcohol affecting him far more quickly than one could think, but he had long since grown used to it. Now it took more time for him to get tipsy, a fact in which Hua Cheng delighted; it was fun, drinking together and getting drunk together, those rare nights it happened.
The ghost curved his lips in a smirk: «We could rent a room, get drunk on Tianzi Xiao, and make love from sunset to sunrise», he said, a low and rumbling whisper.
«And traumatize the other guests», Xie Lian laughed, shaking his head. The idea had its appeal, but thinking about those innocent ears that would be sleeping in the same inn... no, it was too embarrassing and way too mean. «Talking of traumatizing, what about Qi Rong?».
Because of the mess with Lan Chang committing arson and subsequently taking the fetus spirit, the answer he wanted to receive about his cousin never saw the light. They weren't supposed to be gone for that long, and surely they weren't supposed to relocate themselves to Ghost City while him and GuZi stayed at PuQi Shrine on their own.
Xie Lian was worried, though he was also hoping that staying away from Hua Cheng could only help in calming Qi Rong down, for the child's sake.
«No need to worry, gege», the Ghost King lazily replied, sipping on his liquor. «He's been acting surprisingly well for being him».
His butterflies didn't gather any dangerous behavior, which was bewildering. Qi Rong, that trash, wasn't normally someone to act so responsible. Hus Cheng kicked his ass so many times he lost count over the years, and wanted to slam him on the floor in a choke-hold more often than not when listening to his mouth spouting insults and nonsense, but that time he actually controlled himself.
Xie Lian let out a relieved sigh, closing his eyes for a bit: «I think it's GuZi», he said, in a gentle tone. «That nuisance is growing attached to the kid».
He didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Qi Rong definitely wasn't the best role model for a child, and his cannibalistic habits weren't fit for a human kid to witness, but at the same time... GuZi often talked about how much better his new "dad" was, compared to the real one. Xie Lian's heart broke every time a bit more when hearing such a sweet child talk like that, in a dejected voice that cracked with hopeful happiness.
«Maybe I shouldn't find a way to get Qi Rong out of that man», Xie Lian whispered, he didn't know if to himself or to Hua Cheng. It was a good threat, so the god wasn't sure he should let Qi Rong in on his intentions, but he grew more convinced of that decision by the day.
The ghost was going to reform, eventually, but if the extent of the damage his body had received was as big as Xie Lian thought, it would take a couple years – unless he somehow managed to become a Devastation before that time. Enough for GuZi to grow a bit more, able to decide with a clearer mind who he wanted his family to be.
There was the possibility that the young man whose body was stolen wouldn't survive that many years under a ghost possession, but... Xie Lian really didn't want GuZi to suffer in an abusive household.
«I'm really playing the ghost's advocate here, aren't I?».
«You don't have to agree with something to acknowledge that it's the best choice», Hua Cheng replied, solemn. «You have a merciful soul, A-Lian, but sometimes even the merciful needs to be merciless».
The ghost never really thought of kids and the like. One day he'll probably want to have his family grow bigger, alongside with Xie Lian, but their pasts was still too haunting to think about something like that. A child needed attention, care, and affection. Needed parents that could be there body and mind, able to protect from nightmares and dangers.
Xie Lian and Hua Cheng were still too ruined to be able to take care of a child. They still dealt with nightmares of their own, with dangers of their own.
But that didn't mean that Hua Cheng couldn't understand what was better, for a kid, and he surely knew that being abused right in the place one should call home was no way to live a life. He understood the struggle more than he wanted to.
«GuZi doesn't want his real father back», he gravely said, rotating the cup in his fingers. «When your family treats you like shit, you don't want it anymore».
As a response, Xie Lian put down his cup and hugged him. He knew Hua Cheng talked out of experience, and felt sorry for bringing up such as issue.
«You don't need to talk about it», he said, pressing their bodies close, love and affection bleeding through his gestures. «I shouldn't... I didn't want to dampen your mood».
Hua Cheng's lips curved upwards in a bittersweet smile, as he leaned his head to the side to lay it on top of Xie Lian's: «I want to talk about it, if you want to listen», he said. It was about time, after all.
The god hummed in acceptance, so his husband took some time to collect some good words to use.
He didn't talk about his childhood to anyone, not in such detail. Xie Lian knew the basics of it, but not the intricate details of how awful it had really been. There were many things they still didn't share with each other, memories too painful to bring up. It was time to lighten the burden a bit.
<><><><><><>
«You good-for-nothing freak! Can't even steal fucking food!».
Flinching in fear, Hong'Er suppressed the urge to take a step back, trying to endure the deafening screaming of the woman he didn't want to call "mother". He was supposed to go out and steal some food from the market, she sent him out because he was the youngest and smallest of the family, but got caught before being able to make a run for it.
The owner of the stall he tried to steal some mantous from, just a couple, beat him up before the kid could get away. He didn't need to receive another punishment from that woman as well, it already hurt to breathe.
So, he stood there and took it, every single insult and denigration, shaking as he waited for a hit to come anyway.
He even tried to beg for some food, huddled himself in a street corner and looking as pitiful as a kid could possibly appear, but no one spared him anything. Everyone simply walked by in a hurry, and those who looked at him had their faces scrunched up in disgust.
Some, Hong'Er recalled, even seemed scared.
The bandages did nothing to hide his freakish eye, too ripped up to be useful. He should steal some more, at some point, if he survived coming back to the crumbling building he needed to call home.
«Won't you even defend yourself? Fucking disgrace! I should have fed you to the fucking dogs when I had the chance!».
«Then why didn't you?!», Hong'Er impulsively replied, screaming so loudly his throat burned in pain. «Why the fuck didn't you?!».
He knew he shouldn't have talked back, but he was so tired of that, tired of being the black sheep of the house. He hated it.
The slap that came soon after he opened his mouth sent him on the ground, ears ringing from the force of it. His cheek burned, and the fall made him hit it head, but Hong'Er didn't dare raise a hand to his face to try end ease the pain. The last time he tried to move, after getting hit like that, his mother kicked him in the ribs .
Tears welled up in his eyes, the bandages unraveling themselves even more, and that only made the woman's anger flare up. She screamed again, cursing the day she gave birth to a useless demon, but luckily decided against kicking him.
She probably wanted him in one piece, so he could go beg some more and come back beaten up again.
After a while of her looking down and breathing heavily, she stomped away, grumbling about teaching him a lesson in humility.
More often than not, she would just yell at him about how easily she could have taken him out of that world, of how grateful he should be that she gave birth to him, and Hong'Er hated every second of it. He didn't ask to be born, and he didn't ask to be born so poor and hopeless, yet it was somehow his fault.
It was his fault they couldn't scrape enough food to feed everyone, his fault that no one showed pity, his fault for being born with a curse.
That one red eye... Hua Cheng hated it with a passion, wanted to yank it out of his skull and stomp on it until it became nothing but a bloody mess.
It was the source of his misfortunes, the reason why people looked at him sideways when he didn't have his bandages on, the reason why everyone was disgusted by him when he had them on.
He hated his dirty clothes that he only washed when rain poured from the sky, hated the grumbling stomach he couldn't fill with something that wasn't spoiled or rotten food, hated how he needed to steal and hurt someone else in order to survive.
But above everything, he hated his family.
He hated his father, who abandoned him out of disgust and left the rest of them to deal with their pitiful lives on their own; he hated his brothers, because they would let him starve and push him out in the rain while telling him that he was better off dead than a curse for their broken family; he hated his mother, unable to love him, a mother that gave him a chance at living only to have someone else to use in order to beg in the streets. Even the name she gave him was a constant reminder of his birth defect, of the curse that made one of his eyes red and the other black.
He hated looking at himself, ran away from puddles of water and broken mirrors.
HongHong'Er didn't want to hate. He wasn't even ten years old, and already life was too much for him to endure. Every time, on the streets, he would look from far away, watch as kids his age played and ran around, giggling and smiling. He longed for that happiness, wished to have a warm meal in his stomach before going to sleep, but nothing of that ever came his way.
He didn't know why, but his life was filled with misfortune. It affected him, those around him, there was no cure for it.
The kid went to sleep with an empty stomach, his head throbbing in pain where he hit it in his fall, curled up in a ball far away from his family.
What woke him up was the stinging pain of someone kicking him in his ribs and shouting in his ears. Not at all ready to being yet another day of being berated and yelled at, HongHong'Er forced his eyes open and had just enough time to drink a sip of murky water before someone kicked him out. The order, this time, was to go lay down in a corner and look dejected enough for someone to thrown a coin his way.
Biting down a retaliation, the kid fixed his bandages as best as he could and ran off in a random direction.
Things kept repeating in a loop for a week. At the end of it, death clawed at their family with long, slender fingers. One day, as HongHong'Er and his brothers waited for their mother to come home, they waited for nothing.
As the kid thought about running off to find her, or maybe keep running until hid feet bled just to get away for a while, a shrill scream pierced the evening air, reverberating between broken walls and dusty rubble. It was the scream of a child, of another lost soul that didn't have clean clothes and good food. Without thinking twice about it, HongHong'Er bolded outside, in the direction where the voice came from, and froze in his tracks.
The child was still there, pale in the face and crying, but the reason of such a reaction was what made HongHong'Er's heart stop in his chest.
Lying on the ground, with a knife stuck where her heart was, there was his mother. Her features were twisted in anger and fear, eyes wide open in death, a pool of blood was rapidly expanding beneath her body.
Shaking, HongHong'Er wobbled close and fell to his knees beside the corpse, uncaring of the blood seeping into his tattered robes.
He didn't care about her. So many times he wished her death to come, to wrench her away from the kid she constantly abused and mistreated. But his brothers didn't hate her. His brothers were going to kill him, as soon as they found out.
His brothers would put the blame on his shoulders, would kick him and hit him until he begged for mercy, shouting at him that it was his fault, his curse, his fucking existence.
HongHong'Er didn't have to think twice before standing up and running away as fast as he could.
A family like that was better off dead.
<><><><><>
«Some people should never have children», Hua Cheng concluded, voice only a bit broken. He did shed some tears, as he recalled, unable to help himself, but Xie Lian wiped them away with so much gentleness they soon turned into drops of salty joy. «If you make the decision of creating a new life, you should never treat that new life like trash».
Hua Cheng now knew he was actually cursed in a way, knew that he was born under the Star of Solitude, but he never forgave his parents for what they did. He was just a child, he didn't know anything. He even tried to run away, time and time again, but he couldn't even do that.
Somehow, he would always find a way back to his damned family, back to the abuse, unable to leave.
He was tired of inflicting misfortune and death to all who came in contact with him, tired of being ridiculed for his red eye, tired of a life he didn't think was worth living, and he still couldn't leave. Guilt always brought him back, even if he didn't want to go back, tiny and tired feet moving on their own.
Only after the death of his mother, of a parent Hua Cheng deeply despised for her selfish decision of giving birth to him, he finally managed to escape the clutched of his guilt.
And then he was ten years old, and the God-Pleasing Festival came around.
«GuZi has lived a better life than me, but nothing can heal the wounds left by a hateful parent». The words came out as a bitter statement, one he was very familiar with. Hua Cheng sighed, relishing in the comforting presence that was his beloved: «It's unbelievable, how difficult it is to step away from an abusive family as a kid. I can't blame you for deciding that Qi Rong deserves that body more the its owner».
Not that he would have blamed him anyway.
Whatever Xie Lian decided to do, Hua Cheng would simply follow and accept. It didn't matter how gentle and kind, or how fucked up and evil. He went through it once, he would do it again.
Not knowing what to say, Xie Lian didn't say anything in response, and merely comforted his husband with his closeness. Words were difficult to find, when one couldn't understand such a difficult, traumatizing struggle, so the god did what he could do best; he hugged the ghost close, petting his hair, and let him know that he was loved and accepted in more ways that he could even imagine.
«Let's go to bed», he suggested, after a while. «We can go back tomorrow».
The morning after, bathed and dressed in fresh robes, they used a pair of dice to teleport back to the town. With the fetus spirit subdued there was nothing to worry about, but if Xie Lian took his time that wealthy merchant could probably start grousing. It wasn't good to stay away for too long when it came to mortals being struck with ghost issues, so both him and his husband made a beeline for the house Xie Lian visited the day before.
When the merchant saw him, he immediately clutched his hands and cried excitedly, almost refraining from jumping up and down.
«Daozhang, venerable! You slept in my mistress' chambers last night and the doors were locked, yet this morning I couldn't believe my eyes! You'd disappeared into thin air! So?! Did you catch the monster?!».
That much excitement couldn't be good for a grown man's heart.
«It's caught, don't worry», Xie Lian reassured him, trying to take his hands away without appearing impolite. He could feel Hua Cheng glaring daggers at the man who dared touch him unprompted, there wasn't need for a murder to happen.
The merchant cried joyously, as if he'd just received absolution: «Daozhang, where's your Qiandeng Temple? I'm gonna go donate and return my gratitude! From today onwards, I will hang my title as one of the worshippers in your temple!».
Xie Lian didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but he had expanded his number of new worshippers, and that one was rich! He was feeling rather glad.
He lectured and nagged to that wealthy merchant the ways of virtue, advising him not to be so promiscuous in the future and be more devoted to his family, then told him to visit PuQi Shrine on another day. To the question about why visit a shrine different from Qiandeng Temple, the god simply responded that it was closer to the town, and that there wasn't need to travel so far just for a donation.
After that, Xie Lian bid farewell to the merchant, and left with Hua Cheng in tow.
The two returned to PuQi Village in order to grab some food for GuZi – and a mantou for Xie Lian – before going back to PuQi Shrine.
Once there, Xie Lian took the sign he planted on the entrance and placed it in a more conspicuous spot, secretly hoping that the wealthy merchant could see immediately as soon as he came, then crossed the garden and pushed the doors to enter the shrine.
However, the moment he opened the door, he sensed something different with the place.
The floors of the place had been swept, the altar table and chairs had been wiped, dust had been cleared, and even the trash in the corner had been cleaned out. It was like the Lady River Snail had paid a visit while they were gone, everything was too clean.
Even Qi Rong wasn't there!
With his disappearance, it was like the entire place was spacious and bright.
He wasn't gone, though. Otherwise, there would be a flurry of butterflies flying around.
GuZi was still asleep on the bed, understandable given the early hour, so Xie Lian gently placed the meat pies he bought from the village on the table to avoid waking him up.
He looked at his husband, still not knowing where Qi Rong ended up at, and the ghost nodded towards the door. Quietly, Xie Lian followed him to the small creek behind PuQi Shrine, where he usually did his laundry and washed rice, and almost fell right out of his shoes when he saw Qi Rong scrubbing away at a small set of robes. Even RuoYe was there, acting as a clothesline for the clothes.
«Okay, what the fuck?».
«The fuck do you want, cousin?», Qi Rong snarled at him, without missing a beat. «It was about fucking time you came back, you rotten hearts».
He wanted to shout some more expletives at them, unleash his true creativity, but the godforsaken bandage slapped him in the face before he could do so. Qi Rong scowled at it, but kept scrubbing with more soap.
«You cleaned the shrine».
«Who the fuck did you think could have done it? That fucker's butterflies?».
«And...you're doing laudry».
«Someone has to do it».
Xie Lian was bewildered. No, he was completely astounded, shocked, stunned. Qi Rong was being a responsible adult? Next thing he knew, the world would start praising hell and curse heaven.
So he did the best thing he could come up with. Asking him why.
«Do you want GuZi to live like a heap of trash? It's not like the mighty and perfect Hua Cheng cleaned the fucking place», was the reply, a spout of venom and nothing else. «Fuck off, you and your butterflies. I'm not running away».
For once in his lifetime, Xie Lian actually listened to his cousin and left his to his own devices, silently telling his husband to get rid of his butterflies. He was so shocked that he sat down at the table and stared at the void for a good five minutes straight, trying to understand what he just witnessed. Problem was, sitting down at the table gave him a full view of how clean the shrine was, which only made his shock worsen.
The only reason he didn't start freaking out was GuZi placidly sleeping behind him, unaware of how Xie Lian's world had been turned upside down in the span of three seconds flat.
"I can't believe this", he commented, talking to his husband in their communication array. "What's next, He Xuan proposing to Shi QingXuan?".
That made even Hua Cheng snort: "He'd rather stop eating for an entire month than admit he likes the Wind Master", he replied, amused by the thought.
Maybe, if he finally decided to stop beating around the bush and outright confessed, Hua Cheng might even congratulate by decreasing his debt by one percent. Two percent, if he did it in front of someone else. He was feeling generous.
Right then, Xie Lian heard sleepy sounds behind him and turned around to see GuZi stir in bed, eyes slowly blinking awake. He rubbed his eyes with a big yawn, and his face immediately lit up when he saw that Xie Lian and Hua Cheng were back.
Happy, he jumped out of bed and hurried over, his face already looking less gloomy compared to just a day before. Taking Hua Cheng away really worked wonders for the kid, Xie Lian was glad to see it.
«Hey, little one», he greeted him, messing up his hair. «Are you feeling better?».
GuZi nodded, a smile brightening his face, and sat down next to the god. He did send a wary look in Hua Cheng's direction, but... it was understandable. The reason why he felt so uncomfortable and scared in PuQi Shrine was the frequent fighting between the two ghosts, and Hua Cheng could very easily appear as someone not far from terrifying to those who didn't know him.
Even to those who knew him, admittedly.
Xie Lian, while not putting it above him, looked at his husband in surprise when he apologized to the kid.
«Sorry for making you upset», the Ghost King spoke, voice calm and low. He had a serious expression on his face, though the corners of his lips were somewhat quirked upwards to make the kid feel more at ease. «Your...dad is a handful, but I hurt you as well».
He'd been thinking about GuZi since his talk with Xie Lian, and figured he owed him a sincere apology. Kids were easily affected by the environment around them, and a sudden change of pace could seriously upset them. What Hua Cheng did, though he didn't really regret the part where he insulted Qi Rong to the moon, was taking away from the child a new sense of security he gained after growing attached to his new dad.
In hindsight, he should have at least argued with Qi Rong when GuZi wasn't listening.
«Dad is sorry as well», the kid said, looking up to the red-clad man. «But it's fine! I... I'm used to people fighting».
Unprompted, Xie Lian hugged him: «No one will fight anymore», he told him after letting go, hands smoothing out his wrinkled sleeping robes. «And if we fight, know that we don't hate each other, okay?».
There was no way Qi Rong wouldn't cause another screaming match with Xie Lian, but at least... at least it wasn't going to be as bad as him fighting day and night with Hua Cheng. That ghost was an annoyance, but he was making an actual effort to grow, after eight hundred years.
He had to give it to him.
After an hour or so, which GuZi spent listening to Hua Cheng telling a story and watching him using his butterflies as entertainment, Qi Rong entered the shrine and sat down in a corner, sleeves wet were he dumped them in the creek. RuoYe followed suit, tailing the ghost like a guard dog, but it immediately flew to coil itself around Xie Lian's neck as soon as its duty was finished.
The god let out a chuckle, amused by his spiritual tool's eagerness to be back with its master. Immediately after, the bandage noticed E-Ming and unwrapped itself, approaching the scimitar as if wanting to play; the eye on the hilt twirled and looked over, and sure enough both weapons were off on their own.
GuZi laughed at the two objects chase one another, a white snake whooshing left and right to catch up with a devilishly fast silver shimmer.
The shrine looked almost like a home.
Qi Rong didn't say anything, sitting by himself, and only acknowledged the presence of other people in the room when GuZi walked over and plopped down beside him. He still muttered insults under his breath, though the kid kept scowling at him when he did so, but he was much quieter than he'd ever been both before and after his death.
Xie Lian had the sneaking suspicion that he didn't want to scare GuZi again by starting a fight, but avoided bringing up the issue. If he knew Qi Rong, and he did, talking about personal business was out of the picture. There were some things he never learned about him. At the beginning he just didn't care, plain and simple. Their encounters were always brief and filled to the brim with shouting matches, until Hua Cheng inevitably kicked Qi Rong's face in for being a bother.
Xie Lian was also very much furious with him for what happened at Yong'An, back then, as he was still struggling with his own issues about it, so he saw absolutely no reason to get some more insight regarding his loud and annoying cousin.
After a while, though, the god started wondering.
Despite his general dislike for Qi Rong, he was still the last – not quite – living member of his family, and even if he certainly didn't want him around for more than five minutes at a time, he began to think. How did Qi Rong die? What happened to him after XianLe fell? What brought him where he was?
They were questions that Xie Lian never asked him, and thought he would probably never be able to.
Now, with him acting like an actual adult and not like a whiny teenager in search of undeserved recognition, they all resurfaced one by one.
There was more to Qi Rong than what met the eye. At the beginning, when Xie Lian first encountered him some decades prior, he was a straight up asshole that would kill just for the sake of it. Then, he became an asshole that would kill to prove a point. He was loud, had an undying love for screaming someone's ears out with insults, but he was also more prone to think before acting.
It was like his interactions with Xie Lian, with someone that wouldn't be scared of him or wouldn't simply beat him up without sparing a single word, helped him find a road to follow.
Xie Lian was thankful for GuZi to have waltzed into Qi Rong's life, as weird as it was.
«Gege, can you cook for me?».
Hua Cheng's voice shook him out of his reverie, and the god smiled warmly: «Of course I can!», he replied. His husband being the only person able to stomach his cooking considerably discouraged Xie Lian's attempts at cooking, but when he asked... well, there wasn't much to do, if not indulge him.
«Keep your poison away from me», Qi Rong hissed. The kid beside him frowned at that, but he simply looked at him and snorted: «Try his cooking and then scold me».
Xie Lian rolled his eyes: «You two can eat the meat pies I bought from the village», he told them, nodding towards the bag still on the table. He wasn't going to poison a child with food cooked by him, that much was a given.
He could give some to Qi Rong, but there wasn't even the excuse of him being loud anymore, so he set to work.
Picking up the knife, he chopped and sliced a bunch of vegetables, clinking and clanking the pots. He could feel Hua Cheng's eye look at him, knew the expression plastered on his face was that of pure adoration, but didn't let it distract him. Instead, he called RuoYe over – the bandage dejectedly stopped playing with E-Ming to obey – and threw out a few bundles of firewood that hadn't yet been chopped.
Like an attacking viper, the silk bandage whipped the logs, and the chunks of wood that were thick as thighs were instantly chopped into think sticks of kindling.
Having shown off his skills, RuoYe arched into an exaggerated form in front of E-Ming, as if demonstrating its strength and beauty. There was so much competition between those two when it came to showing off and affection, Xie Lian couldn't grow tired of the amusement.
The god moved again and threw over a big cabbage, but before RuoYe could strike and give another demonstration of beauty, E-Ming's eye flashed. It flew off the ground, whirling out shimmers of silver light, and leaves of cabbage landed on the place, thinly and cleanly chopped. Of course, he praised the scimitar when he saw the cabbage, and poor RuoYe pressed itself against the wall, all sad and deflated. E-Ming, on the other hand, started crazily twirling its eye, cocky and content.
Xie Lian laughed his heart out, but soon enough focused on throwing all sorts of different veggies and seasonings into the pot.
Behind him, Qi Rong finally removed himself from the corner and got dragged to the table by GuZi, who made him sit down on a wobbly stool before picking the place beside him of himself. Xie Lian turned around to saw his cousin shot a flaming glance to Hua Cheng, but nothing else happened. In fact, Qi Rong didn't say a single word to the other ghost, and instead started listening to what childish blabbering GuZi had to offer.
Although, everything changed when Xie Lian opened the cover to the pot, after two incense time. The moment he did that and the smell of the contents wafted in the building, Qi Rong started cussing deafeningly once more, screaming bloody murder.
Sensing Hua Cheng had crossed his arms and was about to kick him in the face, Xie Lian raised his hand to stop him, then turned to the other ghost: «Little cousin, shut up or I'll have you eat the entire pot», he said, voice perfectly calm.
Qi Rong was both shocked and terrified: «What? Xie Lian, I'm warning you, I've a life in my hands!». He wanted to add more, but trailed off when he saw Hua Cheng ladle himself a full bowl and take a bite, face unchanging and steady like mountains.
Shook to the core, Qi Rong reached for the meat pies and grabbed one for himself and one for GuZi, shutting up.
There were many things he would gladly and willingly do in that world, but eat his cousin's poisonous cooking was not one of them. If only because he would love that body he snatched to survive until he got his own back. Whatever the fuck Hua Cheng got going on in his guts, surely it was something only a fool in love could have.
Seeing that Qi Rong didn't escalate the situation into a fight, Xie Lian grabbed a bowl for himself and sat down next to his husband.
They painted a very bizarre scene, for sure. Two ghosts, one human kid, and one heavenly official sitting at the same table, two of them eating delicious meat pies cooked by caring hands, and the other two eating bowls of... whatever bubbling concoction Xie Lian managed to produce, though the care was there as well.
After eating, GuZi went out to play in the garden, and the three adults were left alone in the shrine.
Xie Lian looked at his cousin, who kept sending glances towards the door as if worried for GuZi, so he asked Hua Cheng to go outside and keep an eye on him. At first, Qi Rong complained and said he could do that himself, but the other ghost went outside without paying attention to him.
«Have you always been so fucking annoying, Xie Lian?».
«Not as annoying as you, that's for sure».
Some time ago, Xie Lian's confidence would have wavered when faced with the cursed attitude of his cousin, but he eventually grew used to it. Now, it was mostly balanced fights, with a lot of yelling in between and the risk of Qi Rong getting his soul slapped out of him.
The god gathered the bowls and got up to pile them in a corner, deciding to wash them later alongside the pot. Even if Hua Cheng somehow liked that hellish cooking, he didn't want to risk GuZi accidentally eating it out of curiosity.
There was a tornado of thoughts swirling into his mind, but he eventually settled on something he should have done a long time ago.
Xie Lian went back to the table, sat down right in front of Qi Rong, and looked him in the eyes: «We should talk».
Qi Rong scoffed: «You're not qualified to talk to me».
«And you're not qualified to talk to me», Xie Lian replied without missing a beat. «I think we're even, so let's have a chat».
He wasn't going to ask any of those questions that burned on the tip of his tongue, because he didn't think he could ask them without having at least a better relationship with him, but they could talk of other things.
Things that could help mend the terrible rift between them, at least a bit. It had been too long, too many years, Xie Lian was tired of fighting him. It was fine when it came to petty things, but they needed to sort some things out.
And now that Xie Lian knew how mu Qi Rong had grown... it was about time.
«I didn't think you were the type of person who could take care of a child», he said, straight to the point. «You were an insufferable brat, back in XianLe».
A brat with the habit of running people over with a carriage at neck-breaking speed. Xie Lian still had fresh memories of that day, and not only because his cousin found it amusing to put a little Hua Cheng in a sack to drag him all over the royal capital.
He used to be jealous, green with envy. It was just the perfect irony, for him to be known with the moniker of Night-Touring Green Lantern.
As if he had a choice.
The thing was, if someone was to ask him why he was still dragging that kid around with him back when he first possessed the man, he would have said that it was purely out of convenience. It was a way to be safe, to have a perfect cover. Who could even remotely believe that a young man with a kid, a kid that didn't look scared at all in his company, was in reality a ghost?
But the more time he spent with GuZi, the more attached he grew to him. He didn't want to admit it, at first he straight up refused to believe he was actually fond of the boy, but he cared for him. More than he was willing to admit even to himself.
And it hadn't even been that long.
He planted his elbows on the table and propped his head up on one hand, a frown darkening his face: «What the fuck do you want, cousin? Has your hate for this ancestor died all of a sudden?».
He really didn't want to talk about what Xie Lian wanted. Losing face was not on his bucket list, and would probably never be.
«His Highness the Crown Prince of XianLe is too perfect and generous to hate, now?».
Xie Lian almost flinched at the bitterness hidden beneath his voice, and softened his expression: «Do you really want me to hate you, Qi Rong?», he asked. «People can change. Opinions on people can change».
The heavens knew how much Xie Lian had changed, throughout the years. How many times he wore a different attitude, how long it took him to settle on who he was at that point.
After eight hundred years, there was only one person that Xie Lian truly, genuinely hated.
«I used to hate you. I wanted nothing to do with you, every single time I saw I wanted to punch you in the face. I grew up».
Growing up... Qi Rong always thought that growing up was getting old, was just some bullshit that ruined all the fun in one's life.
He refused to move on for a long, long time. Still attached to XianLe, still yearning for revenge against those who wronged him, those who made the kingdom fall, those who killed him and took everything away. At some point, he even refused to move on from his obsession with Xie Lian, something borderline insane, refusing to believe he had been abandoned to his fate by the very person he admired and praised to the heavens.
But then...
He grew up as well.
«I like GuZi, okay? Mind your business», he spat out an answer. «Now go fetch your husband and go fuck somewhere that's not here, so I don't have to look at you».
For the sake of his sanity, Xie Lian avoided replying to that and dropped the conversation. No matter how late it was, it still wasn't time to try yet, and Qi Rong only confirmed it.
So, instead of insisting, he sighed and got up: «Fine, I'll go for a walk. Don't scare anyone away, or I'll kick you into the creek».
With that said, he left the shrine and latched his arm around Hua Cheng's, standing with his back against a tree as he watched over GuZi: «Let's go have a stroll around», he nodded towards the dirt road, with a small smile. «Qi Rong got on my nerves».
«Should I beat him up on your behalf, gege?».
Xie Lian breathed out a faint laugh and shook his head, pulling his husband along: «Leave him be, he's going through a lot. You can kick his ass if he tries to make a mess out of my shrine, though», he added, after a second of thinking.
It had really been a long day for everyone, the one before. It brought many thoughts to the mind.
Halfway through their walk, Hua Cheng suggested that he could make dinner, and Xie Lian happily nodded. They still had plenty of supplies, and although a large portion of it went into Xie Lian's cursed pot, there were still some buns, veggies, and fruits left. Knowing the ghost, he could whip out a delicious meal that would be remembered for years to come.
Hours later, when their stroll was over and Hua Cheng had produced from a bunch of veggies and fresh cut of meat a stew that could make even a dead man's mouth water, they all sat around the table once again. This time, though, the tension that was only present between Hua Cheng and Qi Rong also spread to between Xie Lian and his cousin, as a result of their earlier conversation. Even GuZi, who had never wronged anyone in that room, started feeling uneasy, squirming in his seat as if sitting on a bunch of crawling bugs.
To try and ease his feelings, Xie Lian asked his husband to take care of the dishes – all scraped clean, even Qi Rong couldn't find anything bad about Hua Cheng's cooking – and then took GuZi on his lap. He had a couple books laying around, stuff he received from the villagers, with one of them being perfect to read with a kid.
It was a collection of bedtime stories, some new and some old. Xie Lian never really paid much attention to the book, despite being grateful for the gift, but he realized it was surely something that should have been sold rather than given away.
There were beautiful illustrations inside it, drawn with colored inks by a skilled hand, all the characters that formed words and sentences handwritten with such precision it was a marvel to look at.
He let a mesmerized GuZi choose a story, the kid flipping through the pages as if hypnotized by the wonderful drawings, and started reading in a soft, soothing voice the tale of an ice demon with dazzling blue eyes, a tale that recounted how the cold king lost his kingdom to another greedy demon but found happiness after discovering love.
It was one of the generally sappy stories with the cliché romantic happy ending, Xie Lian had heard his fair share of them as a child. He never really liked them that much, too similar to one another to be appreciated, but it surely captured the interest of both GuZi and BanYue. Her clay pot, in fact, started madly rattling halfway through the story, so Hua Cheng picked it up and put it on the table so the ghost could listen a bit better.
By the end of the tale, GuZi was dozing off in Xie Lian's lap, so he smiled and carefully brought him to bed after closing the book. BanYue, instead, almost rolled off the table in an attempt to go back on the altar herself and Hua Cheng had to catch the clay pot before it could fall and break.
All satisfied with how calm that late evening was – even Qi Rong didn't say a word, simply choosing to lay down beside the bed – Xie Lian and his husband unrolled the bamboo mat for themselves and placed it a fair distance away from the other ghost. Qi Rong was already fast asleep, snoring softly even, but waking up to the sound of loud expletives because he woke up the next morning and tripped on the two lovebirds was not something Xie Lian was eager to experience.
Down to their inner robes, the rest neatly folded in a pile beside the mat, Hua Cheng covered them both with a blanket and clung to the god, bodies slotting onto each other. For good measure, the ghost slipped a leg in between Xie Lian's, spooning him with his bigger frame.
«Goodnight, San Lang».
The next day, Xie Lian woke up and found himself tangled in a mess of long limbs. The blanket had slipped off somewhat, now only covering half of their bodies, and they surely made an incredibly cute show.
Hua Cheng, especially, with his face completely relaxed despite the eye-patch still being on, disheveled hair framing his face and strewn all across the mat.
If it hadn't been for Qi Rong, the god would have gladly leaned in to leave a fluttery kiss on the tip of his nose, as a way to give him a good morning.
Speaking of...
Xie Lian suddenly remembered that yes, Qi Rong was in there with them, and it was the first time they slept like that in his presence. Normally, even if on the same mat, they tried to be less clingy, if only to avoid GuZi raising inappropriate questions for his age.
The kid was surely aware of romantic relationships and the like, but education vastly differed from family to family. Xie Lian had his royal education to refer to, one where he'd not been taught enough and one that he quickly discarded in order to follow a cultivation path of total abstinence, while Hua Cheng had the rough education that came from the streets, so he learned way too much for his age.
To avoid misunderstandings, Xie Lian and Hua Cheng slept together in a somewhat inconspicuous matter, at best hugging one another with bizarre composure.
In a way, their self-control also helped with Qi Rong, toned down a lot of inappropriate quips and jokes, but they completely forgot about it.
It was bound to happen, eventually, and Xie Lian wasn't surprised when, upon turning his head around, saw his cousin looking at them with a complicated expression on his face.
«You want to keep staring?», he asked him, quirking an eyebrow. Xie Lian was expecting some sort of sarcastic answer, or an insult, but Qi Rong simply made a face – that wasn't quite disgust, the god reckoned – and turned around to face GuZi instead.
Seriously, what was up with Qi Rong all of a sudden?
Did an entire day without Hua Cheng barking back at his every word somehow turned his entire brain around?
«Stop thinking so much», Qi Rong spoke in a biting tone, keeping it low just because GuZi was still asleep. «I don't want to explain to your fucking husband that you died from overexerting your brain».
«What the hell is up with you?».
Exasperated, Xie Lian extricated himself from his husband's caging limbs and sat up, scratching Hua Cheng on his head like a cat when he stirred in his sleep.
He looked straight at Qi Rong, uncaring of how messy his appearance was after just waking up, and frowned: «If someone asked me to make sure it's really you, without knowing how much of an annoyance you've been the past days, I'd probably say that you're a different person».
Something happened, during the time they were away.
Hua Cheng didn't know, because the butterflies he left in the shrine were mostly the aggressive ones that would have acted in case of an emergency and not the kind he used to listen and see, so Xie Lian had no idea as well.
The ghost scoffed, then shook his head: «Mind you fucking business, Xie Lian».
«I'll mind my fucking business when you tell me what the hell is going on».
To hell the decision to give up of the day before. Xie Lian kept dancing around the issue, doing one thing this second, and another thing right after, and was resolving absolutely nothing.
He probably raised his voice a bit too much, though, because a pale hand came to grab his and Xie Lian turned to see his husband's eye flutter open, a dark pupil rimmed with red.
«Gege...?».
Xie Lian brushed the tips of his fingers on his face and smiled a bit: «It's fine, go back to sleep». The ghost hummed, probably recognizing in the god's voice the hidden plea of letting him deal with the problem himself, and his eyelid fell close once more.
He wasn't really asleep, at that point, but he also didn't try to complain and get up anyway. For that, Xie Lian was extremely grateful.
He shifted his attention back on Qi Rong, and nodded towards the door: «We're going outside, right now, and we're having a talk», he said, his tone firm and assertive. «Stop beating around the bush. You're a grown ass man, so speak to me like one».
With that, without waiting for a response, Xie Lian got up from the mat and quickly threw on his outer robe, loosely tying the belt before sending an eloquent look at his cousin.
Qi Rong, despite the irritated expression twisting his features, surprisingly complied.
The sun wasn't up yet, still hidden behind the horizon. One less thing to curse at, at least.
Bare feet on grass damp with dew, Qi Rong waited for the sound of a door closing and whipped around, arms crossed: «Well, what the fuck do you want?».
Xie Lian didn't flinch at the hostility, nor at the near-yell that came to his ears at such an early hour.
Instead, he approached his cousin, forcefully made him sit down on the stairs that led up to the patio, and sat next to him.
It was admittedly weird, to have the body of a complete stranger so close, but the soul inhabiting it was so familiar to the god that he just didn't care enough about the feeling.
«What happened while San Lang and I were gone?».
Straight to the point.
He wasn't going to give Qi Rong time to find another excuse.
Seeing no way out, Qi Rong looked away and huffed: «That kid talked to me». Plain and simple. He could feel his damned cousin trying to burn a hole through his head, with how much he was staring, and barely suppressed the urge to shove him.
«GuZi talked to you».
Perplexed, and not quite understanding what GuZi had to do with Qi Rong's sudden shift in behavior, Xie Lian tried to find a way to urge his cousin on without causing his anger to flare up. He was playing with fire, quite literally, and fire was unpredictable.
So, when Qi Rong continued talking on his own, the god colored himself quite a lot surprised.
«He hates when people around him argue. Cannot stand it. He said that he likes me, but not when I yell at other people to hurt them».
There, all out.
Qi Rong knew that Xie Lian understood why those words affected him, even if he didn't want them to affect him.
They were the same words he would listen to every fucking day back in XianLe. He was a spoiled kid, arrogant because he was of the royal family, because he had enough gold to play with it instead of keeping it safe, and the pathetic excuse he had for relatives would always tell him not to scream at other people, not to argue with everyone just because he could win every argument.
Only one thing was different, something he never heard coming from anyone.
GuZi said he liked him.
No one ever did.
Not genuinely, anyway.
«I don't want him to grow up and think that family is just someone ready to throw you away», he added, with more bitterness tainting what he said.
To throw you away...?
Wait a minute.
«Qi Rong...», the god called him, tentatively. «How did you die?».
He just remembered something.
Something that made his blood boil and freeze at the same time, a shiver making his body grow cold.
After the fall of XianLe, after being kicked down from heaven, Xie Lian never learned about the fate of his cousin. Never cared about it. Not even his parents brought him up, nor did Feng Xin or Mu Qing. It was as if Qi Rong had never existed, not a single whisper came up with his name on it.
They never made an escape plan for those of royal origins, the disaster of the Human Face Disease spreading like a plague making it completely impossible.
They never cared about him.
Xie Lian only heard of him centuries after the war, when he was already a ghost. Already dead.
Somehow, that simple notion clicked in his brain exactly in that moment. Qi Rong was dead. His body, his original one, was just as young as Xie Lian's was.
Qi Rong turned around, finally looking at his cousin in the face, and for the first time in his presence dropped the façade he always wore as a mask even with himself. For the first time in years, he showed him the dejected expression of someone who was tired, someone that had been in pain for most of his undead life, walking the world with a crazed behavior only because deception and maliciousness were what he controlled best, because vulgarity and lack of empathy were better companions that respect and composure.
He still enjoyed yelling in people's faces and prided himself for the large variety of creative insults he was able to come up with, but behind all that there was still someone who died a horrible death.
Still someone who, despite all the maniacal laughter, wanted to cry at the memory of how painful it had been, to die at the hands of those who wanted him dead in the slowest way possible.
Unfortunately for him, Xie Lian had to be the one person perceptive enough to coax all that fucking pain out of him.
He didn't know if he hated him for that, or simply despised himself for not being strong enough.
Qi Rong was the reason why so many kneeling statues of Xie Lian existed, why many temples had been completely demolished, but resentment and hate were strong words after eight hundred years. After more than two centuries running into each other because of course Xie Lian had to marry the one ghost that thoroughly enjoyed beating him up.
«I was captured by some soldiers of Yong'An», he finally gave an answer out loud, much more solemn and serious than he'd ever been in every interaction with his cousin. «They locked me up, wanting to keep me as a war prisoner, but as soon as they learned I was of XianLe royalty...».
He paused, voice catching in his throat.
It didn't matter how loud he could laugh or how much blood he could drink in one night. Thinking about that was painful, more than anything else he ever experienced.
«They tried to keep me for political reasons, at first. Thought the King and the Queen could still be threatened by using me against them. They started torturing me as soon as they realized no one was going to come».
The ghost didn't even remember all of it, couldn't. His mind simply wouldn't allow those memories to come back, too haunting even for someone who was already dead. What he remembered was a cold and rough cell, no rustling of clothes on his body, wounds that never healed because new ones would be opened every new day. He remembered hands hurting him, fingers pulling at his hair, nails tearing his skin.
In the end, they grew tired of him.
Qi Rong, at some point, stopped screaming. It wasn't fun to torture him anymore if he kept silent, numb to the agony.
When Qi Rong stopped screaming, they stopped giving him food. Not long after, they stopped bringing him water.
«I don't know if I starved or died of thirst», he concluded, elbows now propped on his knees and head in his hands. «I only know that I was happy to be finally dead».
With that, Qi Rong shook his head: «You got your fucking answers. Now leave me alone, I don't want to see your face anymore. I'm not arguing with you or that snake you like to call husband while GuZi is with me».
Speechless, Xie Lian could only get up and go back inside.
At the end of the day, it was true that everyone had their demons. Despite all the annoyance his cousin liked to give him, the god sincerely hoped he could go back to his normal, crass self as soon as possible.