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Chapter Text

The first time He Xuan sees him after… well, after that, Shi Qingxuan is limping around and shouting at the other beggars, determination etched deep into his features as he coordinates mortals and gods alike to uphold that bizarre human array. He is filthy and disheveled and yet his smile is so radiant that He Xuan finds himself having to look away before it blinds him. Even now, even like this, Shi Qingxuan is bursting with the energy of a thousand suns, his very presence reassuring like a raft in stormy waters.

He Xuan himself is dressed in red, an eyepatch slung tightly over his right eye, silver vambraces tied securely over his forearms. He has his own role to fulfil, yet another act for the Heavens, and he’s not planning to disappoint. The ghosts trying to break through the array leave him no time to think about the former god yelling instructions on the other side of the enormous circle, leave him no space to contemplate the delicate fan that pushes against his chest between the lapels of his red robes.

A blast here, another there, an arrogant smirk to the pitch black sky. Compared to all those heavenly officials, impersonating Hua Cheng is a piece of cake. The real kicker comes when those two rock giants appear above the capital and it begins raining boulders.

“Black Water, get your fucking ass in gear,” Hua Cheng’s voice comes over the spiritual array, sounding just as calm and laid back as usual. “I know for a fact you fixed that fan.”

He Xuan has half a mind to snap back at him, but those boulders are starting to get a little too close for comfort and he’d really rather not find out how it would feel to get crushed by them. Before he knows it, he’s already crossed over to the other side of the array, gaze set on the gaunt face of a man who could once see no flaws in him. The slap he lands on Shi Qingxuan is imbued with more spiritual energy than Shi Qingxuan would have used in a week, a split-second decision that He Xuan will most certainly find himself mulling over for the next month or so.

“Why did you have to hit me?” the former Wind Master asks, eyes shooting full of confusion from the fan to Hua Cheng’s fake face before him and then back again.

Because I hate you, He Xuan wants to yell, but his teeth grind down hard on the lie before it can escape.

Because I’m hurt, he wants to sob, but the pathetic excuse dies out on his tongue in bitter ash.

Because you should be scared of me, he almost whispers, but his mind catches on too fast and strangles those words before they reach his throat.

“Deal with it yourself,” is He Xuan’s only farewell before he slips away and out of sight of those awfully familiar brown eyes before the raging turmoil of emotions that he doesn’t understand can surface.

After that day, he doesn’t see Shi Qingxuan again for another year. He doesn’t look for him, he doesn’t ask about him, he certainly tries not to think about him.

It cannot be helped sometimes. When someone has been such an unshakeable part of your life for so long, it’s hard to simply put them away and file them under “no longer important”. He Xuan, of all people, should know this. He sits in front of the urn that holds his sister’s ashes sometimes and wishes he could talk to her. He cradles his fiancée’s remnants like one would a fragile newborn and wishes he could hold her once more. He lays limply on the ground between his parents and wishes they could sing him to sleep the way they would when he was a child.

He wastes away his days in aching silence. Without his clones spying on the Heavens and without Hua Cheng’s annoying jabs about being the ghost equivalent of a hermit crab, the only company he has are his thoughts and his skeletal fish. After the destruction left behind in his lair by that heavenly fight has been cleaned up somewhat, He Xuan loses track of time, loses count of the number of times his ruined stomach has refused meals, and eventually falls into a deep and restless slumber.

The second time he sees Shi Qingxuan after He Xuan walked him straight into his trap, it’s at Xie Lian’s little Puqi Shrine, surrounded by laughter and warmth and good company. He Xuan doesn’t want to think about it very much. He came because Hua Cheng startled him awake and blackmailed him into dropping by.

“Back so soon?” He Xuan asks when Hua Cheng finds him hiding in the woods later that evening. “I thought you’d stay dead a little longer.”

“Hm? Hoping you’d get rid of your debt if I die, Black Water? I’m afraid even then you’d still have my subordinates on your broke tail,” Hua Cheng says, an easy smile on his lips, his black eyes sparkling with a happiness far beyond He Xuan’s comprehension. “I’ll have you know, I’ve already added that soup you stole just now to the list.”

He Xuan merely grunts in response, focusing on the steamed bun in his hand rather than the annoying red menace sitting in the grass next to him. He hasn’t eaten in months and his stomach hasn’t stopped scolding him for it ever since he woke up.

“Congrats on the marriage,” he says, eventually, after they have sat in silence for a while. It’s been like this for a long time, neither willing to admit that the other’s silent presence is comfortably grounding in the bizarre chaos that are their afterlives. “You are un-living proof that if you pray hard enough, you can fuck god.”

The light sound of Hua Cheng’s laughter is not unwelcome. He Xuan feels the corners of his own mouth tugging up as he watches that handsome teenager giggle himself stupid.

“Well, given eight hundred years, anything is possible,” Hua Cheng replies after he’s caught his breath. He stares up at the stars with the most disgustingly love-struck look on his face and He Xuan’s heart involuntarily clenches. Many, many centuries ago, he wore that expression, too.

They talk a little longer, He Xuan about his ruined lair, Hua Cheng about his perfect husband, until said husband is strolling up to them from the direction of Puqi Shrine. In his hands, he holds a small wicker basket that smells of good food, and on his face, he bears a warm little smile.

“We had some rice dumplings left, I thought they might be good on the way home,” Xie Lian explains once he’s reached the two ghost kings. He holds out the basket in He Xuan’s direction and if there’s any strain in his kindness then he doesn’t let it show. “Don’t worry, I didn’t make them.”

He Xuan feels a little dazed as he thanks the Crown Prince and accepts the dumplings. He tries to shoot Hua Cheng a look, but that red bastard has eyes only for his god. He Xuan takes that as his sign to leave, quickly now, before anyone else has a chance to see him.

It is not until half a year later that He Xuan finds himself once more under Heaven’s scrutiny. It turns out that even though he was pretending all those centuries, he didn’t do too shabby of a job as the Earth Master, and the Palace of Ling Wen, which was almost exclusively in charge of rebuilding, could use some of his input. Of course, had they sent him such a request for help directly, he would simply have snorted and ignored it. Either it was a trap, or the Heavens were getting even more arrogant than ever before.

Unfortunately for him, Ling Wen is good friends with Xie Lian, who is much more than good friends with Hua Cheng, who could get poor He Xuan to do just about anything if he exerted enough pressure. And so, He Xuan finds himself sitting at the pier of the closest harbour to wait for his escort to Heaven. He is certainly not sulking about it.

Another unfortunately great insight of Ling Wen’s concerns who precisely this escort should be. He Xuan is just about ready to start spitting curses the moment the god arrives, when he notices the dainty figure of a woman approaching him, a bamboo hat on her head and a black ox in tow.

Well, darn it. He could never insult Yushi Huang.

He Xuan sits up straight and decides to at least glare in her general direction to make a statement, but his resolve dissolves into thin air when she offers him a kind smile. The two of them rarely talked during the time he spent in the heavenly court as Ming Yi, but there was always a tacit understanding that they could be friends if they wanted to. Yushi Huang had invited him to dinner in her farmlands a couple times, and he had helped with several irrigation systems in return. The few times they had talked, there was little they disagreed on, and He Xuan generally had immense respect for the woman.

Of course, all of those times, he had been accompanied by Shi Qingxuan.

“Your Highness,” He Xuan greets, standing up quickly and inclining his head at the former queen. “It’s rare to see you outside of Yushi’s countryside. I wasn’t… I was not expecting you to come.”

Yushi Huang’s lips move in a strained manner, as if she’s desperately trying not to laugh at the sight of a most revered ghost king being so flustered to see her. Really, had Ling Wen sent anybody else, He Xuan would probably either have pounced on them immediately or hissed and slithered back into the water. He can almost hear Hua Cheng laughing at him.

“Well, Ling Wen asked me very kindly and I remember us getting along quite well just two years ago, so I couldn’t possibly refuse,” the Rain Master responds lightly. There is nothing in her eyes but kindness and her tone is that of a good friend. She takes but a moment to look him up and down and then asks, “How should I address you now? I suppose that ‘Earth Master Yi’ is no longer appropriate.”

The ghost kind stares at her for a couple seconds, uncharacteristically slow with processing her words before he blinks a little forcefully and answers, “Just He Xuan is fine.”

Yushi Huang nods, seemingly pleased. She says nothing else before turning around to hop easily onto her heavenly steed, waving her hand in a quick gesture for He Xuan to follow. He stares at the animal’s black hide in fright — oxen are nothing like bone dragons — and then up at the Rain Master in desperation. This finally prompts out the laugh she’s been holding in, and she holds out a calloused hand to help him up, which He Xuan gratefully accepts.

Not a moment after he’s settled in behind her, the ox breaks out into a sprint and soars upwards into the sky, unconcerned by how the ghost king’s cold hands and knees are digging into its back just a little harder than would be strictly necessary. They arrive in Heaven faster than He Xuan can calculate how long it will take him to recover if the ox moves wrong and slingshots him off its back. Luckily, he never gets the chance to find out whether his first estimate for it is right.

Yushi Huang slides off the ox first and then looks up at him, snorting when she spots the constipated expression on his face.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she remarks, looking awfully pleased with herself as she holds out a hand to help He Xuan off. He does certainly not pout as he follows her along the main avenue of the new Heavenly Capital.

“It’s way too bright up here…” he grumbles under his breath, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the offending sunlight. All the time he has recently spent in his blissfully dim abyss has made him forget how much he hates the heavenly lighting conditions. It’s an inherent detriment to being a ghost, this aversion to brightness. He used to love bathing in the sun’s soft rays, back before…

Well, before.

The Rain Master comes to a stop in front of an exact replica of the old Palace of Ling Wen. The pillars and ornaments are all identical to the original, the walls not even a single shade off from the original colour. The only real difference is the fact that this new Palace of Ling Wen hasn’t quite had the time to get flooded with scrolls all the way to the brim, threatening to topple over onto unsuspecting junior administrative officials. He Xuan shudders inwardly, remembering how it felt when one of his clones got buried in one of those paper disasters. If anyone were to ask him, he’d flag the whole building as a hazardous work environment.

Waiting for them at the entrance is Ling Wen herself, eyes rimmed with sleepless violet but looking upon the Rain Master with the same light that Hua Cheng’s eyes spark up with when he talks about his beloved Crown Prince. Right about now, He Xuan starts wishing that he still had the Earth Master’s shovel on him so he could dig himself into the ground.

“Ship-Sinking Black Water,” Ling Wen greets, her tone devoid of any emotion. She takes in his appearance for a couple seconds (it’s not too different from his Earth Master getup, he just looks decidedly more dead now), then promptly turns on her heel and leads the way into her palace, not saying another word until the three of them have reached her desk.

Just as well. He Xuan isn’t here for small talk; he’s here because Hua Cheng won’t get off his back if he doesn’t at least listen to what the red bastard’s husband’s friend wants from him. At least Ling Wen looks about as disgruntled over this arrangement as he feels.

“As you can imagine, the burning of the old Heavenly Capital destroyed all records previously kept by myself and my attendants,” the goddess explains, taking a seat at a table that is being overrun with scrolls of all sorts. He Xuan cringes a little at the messy handwriting and ink stains peeking out of one of the open scrolls. Experience tells him that it probably belongs to General Nan Yang. Ling Wen pushes it aside and opens up a blank scroll.

Dipping a worn brush into the ink, she continues, “Most of the heavenly officials kept some scrolls in outside residences or remembered enough about their own finances for me to figure out the rest on my own. Unfortunately, some officials never returned after the fall of the old capital and it’s left open a couple blindspots in the new administrative records.”

“I thought Ling Wen Zhenjun had a perfect memory,” He Xuan remarks, matching the heavenly official’s monotone voice.

“If I did, I wouldn’t have any need for written records. And yet…” She moves one hand in a gesture that seems to encompass the entirety of her palace, an incredible fire hazard with all its paper stuffing. Her sharp eyes lock onto the ghost king before her, comfortably straightforward and pragmatic. “There are no remaining records whatsoever from the Earth Master Palace. I’d need just a couple numbers and the rest I can figure out on my own.”

He Xuan holds her gaze for a couple seconds like a shark staring at another, then hums and nods lightly.

“The duplicates I kept of administrative records were destroyed during your heavenly fight in my old territory, but I should be able to give you an account of the Earth Master’s finances over the past two or three decades,” he tells her, bending down to pick up a couple blank scroll from next to her desk. “You’re missing records on the Wind and Water Palace, too, aren’t you? I think I could sum up their last five years at least, maybe more if you give me some time. Anyone else you’re missing data on?”

When he stands back up again, he finds that Ling Wen’s eyes are nearly popping out of their sockets in surprise. A little ways behind He Xuan, Yushi Huang has taken to (very poorly) stifling a laugh.

Ling Wen puts down her brush and stares down at the white paper before her, mumbling, “So I don’t need to figure out another one from scratch?” An almost hopeful look is angled up at him. “I don’t need to build up decades worth of finances from a couple vague scraps alone?”

He Xuan snorts at that, his lips pulling up into a boyish smile that he hasn’t worn in a long time.

“I think Ling Wen Zhenjun could bear to have a little more faith in me,” he says, stealing a spare brush and some ink from under the heavenly official’s nose. “I’m the best spy to ever infiltrate the Heavens, after all. You’ll have the records by sundown.”

He turns around and starts stalking off, arms full of scrolls and a full on grin forcing his facial muscles out of their usual paralysis. He pauses mid-step, spins back around to face a still shell-shocked Ling Wen, and asks:

“Where is the shadiest spot in your palace?”

It would probably be an understatement to say Ling Wen is impressed by He Xuan’s documents. After having at least one clone work under her for several centuries, it would be stupid of him not to know how the top civil heavenly official likes things done.

Still, He Xuan has always been tidy and organised, his brushstrokes so clean as if they were stamped onto the paper and the structure in his sentences easy to follow. He was a scholar after all.

Ling Wen looks close to tears when he comes back after barely a shichen has passed and offers to help out with some more documents. Sitting by her side, the Rain Master gives a soft laugh and sneaks a tender little kiss onto the civil official’s throbbing temple.

“Nangong Jie, I think your former junior official has missed working for you,” Yushi Huang says, her voice so even that it almost hides the mocking tone of her words. Almost. “You shouldn’t turn down a helping hand. Besides, who better to fill in the blanks than the sneakiest spy in the world?”

An incense time later, He Xuan returns to the shady little palace corner he has claimed as his own with an armful of new scrolls and an invitation to join the two goddesses for dinner. He would never admit that he likes this better than the prospects of returning to his cold and lonely abyss.

He Xuan doesn’t quite know how it happens. Logically speaking, it’s a ludicrous proposal, a top-ranking heavenly official asking for a ghost’s help. And with accounting, of all things. The wary glares he garners whenever he leaves the cozy comfort of his desk are proof enough of how decidedly unwelcome he is up here in the Heavens. It gnaws at an uncomfortable part of his subconscious, one that insists he has more right to be here than a good chunk of these half-assed “gods”, that his ascension should have happened even with all the misfortune in the world pitted against him, that he deserves to be here, that—

They’re selfish thoughts, he knows, and useless too. What’s done is done, his fate is sealed. There is nothing that Heaven can offer him which he cannot get on his own.

And yet, when Ling Wen asks him to help out for a few more days, he can’t find it in himself to say no.

She doesn’t need his help, of course. If there’s anyone who can handle those ominous mountains of scrolls, it’s Ling Wen. He has no obligation whatsoever to help her, all Hua Cheng blackmailed him into doing has already been taken care of, after all. There’s nothing keeping him here, nothing to gain from doing divine finances.

But he’d be lying to himself if he said he doesn’t want to stay.

Maybe it’s the company, he thinks to himself as he excuses himself after dinner on the fourth night staying in the Heavenly Capital. Ling Wen has her face buried in the crook of the Rain Master’s shoulder, her cheeks flushed pink with alcohol and her nose pitched right beneath the scar on the former queen’s throat, and He Xuan takes that as his signal to leave.

“Seven o’clock tomorrow morning…” Ling Wen mumbles only half-coherently into richly tanned skin. “Pei Ming… balances…”

“I’ll be there,” He Xuan assures. He politely pretends not to see the ridiculously tender look with which Yushi Huang looks down at the tired goddess in her arms.

“Goodnight,” the Rain Master tells him as he leaves the warmly lit dining room. She spares him a quick glance, open and friendly, something completely devoid of the daggers and cold reproachfulness he’s grown so used to over the years, and it makes him go a little weak in the knees.

A few moments later, his knees really do give out and he bends over to throw up in an unsuspecting flower pot. So much for appreciating the Rain Master’s cooking.

He Xuan swears quietly and wipes the bile off his mouth with his sleeve. With one look, he sweeps the inner courtyard he was crossing to get to the guest room Ling Wen assigned him and finds more flower pots just within range, all made of carefully painted ceramic and filled with black soil. The ghost king mumbles a quick apology to Yushi Huang (the old Palace of Ling Wen was far less botanically inclined) and makes quick work of redistributing some of that soil to cover up his tracks.

He doesn’t know how good stomach acid is for plant growth, but by the time anyone has the chance to find out, he should be long gone and hiding deep under the sea.

That night, he stays awake staring at the ceiling until the sun comes up, rudely burning his eyes. He hisses at the offending light source and buries his head in the blankets. It’s not like he needs to sleep the way he did when he was human, but it would have been a nice distraction from the usual pace at which his thoughts race.

The next few days pass quietly, with He Xuan and Ling Wen falling into a comfortable rhythm writing and sorting scrolls, and Yushi Huang doing her best not to look concerned when he refuses to eat anything all day.

“Don’t worry,” He Xuan says one time in response to a very pointed look at his untouched chopsticks, “there’s nothing wrong with your food. It’s just, my stomach… isn’t exactly the best.”

It’s the best explanation he can manage without wincing and feeling sorry for himself. Just like sleep, food isn’t exactly a necessity for him either, but neither should it make him feel as sick as it does during periods like these. He’s well aware that the problem isn’t physical.

“Then drink with us at least,” Ling Wen says, pushing a shallow bowl of wine towards him with a comically stern look on her face. “And don’t you dare show up to sort scrolls at the asscrack of dawn again. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

The ghost king accepts the wine and toasts with the two goddesses, the vague hint of a smile playing at the corners of his lips.

On the eight day since Hua Cheng’s pestering resulted in He Xuan’s return to Heaven, Ling Wen asks him to run an errand for her in the Royal Capital. That is the third time He Xuan sees the former Wind Master after he caused the latter’s fall.

“Get out here and fight me, you corrupt jackass!” he hears that unmistakeable voice yelling down the street, clear and loud and theatrically confident.

He Xuan lets out an involuntary sigh and picks up the pace.

Standing valiantly in the middle of the road and pointing his fan proudly at a lavishly dressed merchant is Shi Qingxuan himself in all his dishevelled glory. The sight of him sends a pang of guilt straight through the ghost king’s sternum. The former god looks only marginally better than he did when He Xuan snuck a few glances at him in Xie Lian’s Puqi Shrine just over half a year ago.

He shakes his head as if to drive the thoughts out. Better not to think of that right now.

“What are you talking about?” shouts someone from within the crowd that has formed around Shi Qingxuan and the merchant. It sounds like a woman’s voice, but He Xuan is too short in this form to make out their face within the sea of bystanders. “Master Wu is a cultured and upstanding man! He has no use for stealing small change!”

“Small change?!” Shi Qingxuan exclaims, his voice going shrill with frustration. “He’s been padding his pockets with tax money so long, he could probably build a city of his own! What about that screams small change to you?!”

Elbows raised at his sides, He Xuan pushes aside one last pedestrian and finally reaches that small open space that the crowd has left gaping at its centre. To his right is Shi Qingxuan with his raised fan trembling almost imperceptibly in his hand, to his left is the merchant clutching some loose papers tightly to his chest.

He Xuan senses the demonic aura around the man before he even sees him.

“Halt!” he yells, voice coming out high and sweet, befitting of the young woman he is disguised as.

Dozens of eyes flit over to stare at him and he fights the urge to shrink under that pressure and run away. What kind of mighty ghost king would he be if he were defeated by a little stage fright?

“That man is possessed,” He Xuan continues steadily, gaze levelled onto the merchant. He takes a few steps forward and grabs the man by the collar, lifting him up with ease and shaking him around a little just to see those gold-rimmed shoes dangle pathetically in the air. “He has been for months now and he’s stolen quite a number of very important documents.”

A vicious smile pulls at the ghost king’s lips, cold and unrelenting. The man in his grip squirms around uncomfortably, stuttering miserably, “M- m- my lady, let me go! This is a misunderst- standing! I have no idea what documents you’re talking about! I just—“

He Xuan rolls his eyes and throws the man to the ground. Some large, bejewelled necklace falls to the ground, glimmering brightly in the lazy afternoon sun. Dozens of eyes hungrily chase the expensive shine.

“Drop the act,” the ghost king says, crouching down next to that cheap demon and placing a hand dangerously over the merchant’s nape. “The scrolls stolen from the Palace of Ling Wen, where are they?”

The man flounders around some more and begs for mercy but provides no answer. He Xuan rolls his eyes. This would be a lot easier if he could just show his true form.

“I’m going to ask you again,” he says, bending so far down that his lips are brushing the shell of that merchant’s ear, curly brown hair just a breath away from touching the street’s dirty cobblestone. “Where. Are. The—“

A sharp gust of wind flies right over his head and interrupts him before he can finish the question. He Xuan’s face snaps up to glare daggers into Shi Qingxuan. The former Wind Master has his fan opened and stretched out, pointing at something behind He Xuan and shooting the latter an apologetic look.

Suddenly, He Xuan feels the hair at the back of his neck stand up and a shiver runs down his spine. Instinct takes over, honed through centuries of experience, a thousand souls screaming inside him as his arm shoots backwards behind him and grabs hold of something soft, cold and slimy.

The little beast doesn’t even have a chance to run away before it’s slammed down violently, leaving a deep, vaguely humanoid imprint in the street. It hisses viciously, then whimpers as burning amber eyes fix onto its spindly shape.

He Xuan is running through a mental list of ways that he could pit this creature and the pathetic merchant against each other when he hears Shi Qingxuan yell, “Watch out, there’s more of them!”

In the time it’s taken for He Xuan to incapacitate the two he’s got his hands on, three more of those strange creatures have appeared seemingly out of nowhere. They’re pesky little things, the size of young teenagers and dripping from every one of their pores with a dark green substance as they screech loudly and throw themself at the surrounding crowd.

“Move!” Shi Qingxuan shouts at the stupefied onlookers, aiming another swing of his fan at the creatures. There’s something regal in the way he commands those gusts of wind, unbridled confidence evident in his every elegant movement. 

Until one of the creatures throws itself at him, breaking his stance.

A sluggish step backwards and his right leg crumples beneath him. Shi Qingxuan grunts as he falls hard against the cobblestone, the slimy creature pressed right up against his chest and driving his breath out of his lungs. It lets out a cackle that sounds only half human and lunges straight for his jugular, claws dripping green all over as they fall towards him in a wide arch—

The slimy hand stops just a palm’s width away from Shi Qingxuan’s throat. Then, the body on top of him is torn away with a piercing screech. It hangs for just a moment in the air above him, the disgusting wet figure bathed in the warm rays of the soon-to-set sun. One last cry escapes it, remarkably reminiscent of a dying rat, before a dagger runs through its chest and the creature’s body explodes into ashes.

Sharp golden eyes sweep Shi Qingxuan in a swift once-over, then turn away just as quickly. Within the time it takes him to sit up, all the green creatures are disposed of and the merchant has been bound tightly and pulled to his feet.

Shi Qingxuan allows himself a couple moments to catch his breath and marvel at his saviour, much like the crowd of bystanders which had no time to disperse during the sudden attack. The young woman stands quietly at the very centre of attention, the knocked out merchant held up loosely in one hand by the collar of his expensive robes. Based on her hair alone, Shi Qingxuan would suspect a relation to Quan Yizhen, but the rest of her features are entirely unfamiliar.

What is familiar is the crest engraved on the handle of the dagger she is currently sheathing.

“You’re from the Palace of Ling Wen?” Shi Qingxuan asks, pushing himself to stand up so that he can look her in the eye. It doesn’t really go as planned, since he ends up towering over her by a whole head.

The woman gives him a complicated look, dagger disappearing within her black robes. She speaks curtly, just on the edge of sounding impolite, when she answers, “I am. How would you know?”

Shi Qingxuan lets out a laugh and unfolds his fan with the ‘Wind’ character on full display. “Aha! This old man has some tricks up left up his sleeves, don’t you worry about that. Haha, so what did Ling Wen send you here for?”

Ignoring his question, the junior heavenly official turns away from him towards the merchant’s store. Shi Qingxuan thinks he sees her roll her eyes at him.

“Go home. Mortals should not get involved in this kind of business.”

Her tone is cold, unemotional, utterly pragmatic. She must be one of Ling Wen’s favourites.

Shi Qingxuan is not that easily deterred, insisting, “Aw, come on, I already helped you out a little bit. The least you could do is tell me what it is that warrants the Heaven’s attention down here. You said this Master Wu has been… possessed? And that he’s stolen important documents, no?”

The junior official shoots him a glare that would murder any thinner skinned person on the spot. She turns away with a dismissive huff and stalks over towards the store entrance, Shi Qingxuan right on her heel like some particularly hard to remove piece of dirt.

“I’m Shi Qingxuan, by the way. I don’t know if you know me; I used to be the Wind Master but I don’t remember ever seeing you around, so we probably just missed each other by a year,” he babbles, following Ling Wen’s deputy past the beautifully lacquered door into a building that seems to be part shop and part workspace. He doesn’t quite understand the logic of it and he doesn’t particularly care to figure it out either. “You know, I used to see Ling Wen around a lot, although she was usually too busy to talk, of course. I’ve heard it’s gotten even worse now, what with the old Heavenly Capital burning down and such. I’d be surprised to hear that she gets more than an hour’s rest at a time. By the way, what’s your name?”

In front of him, the junior official pauses. A second later, she turns around to face him and gives a shallow bow as if noticing for the first time that she’s in the presence of a senior and should at least try to act courteously with her company.

“Hei Ming,” she answers, completely stone faced. It gives Shi Qingxuan some pause, but she overlooks the confused expression he’s wearing in favour of dropping the merchant in the chair behind what is presumably his desk. Her footsteps ring clearly through the air as she goes to inspect a shelf stacked brim full with books on the far wall of the room.

Shi Qingxuan nods to himself, mumbling a quiet, “Alright then…”

Still, Hei Ming pays him no mind, so he seizes the opportunity to sit down with his back leaning against the opposite wall, clothes sticky with green slime and limbs weighed down by exhaustion. The pounding in his head has gotten worse since it first set in during the morning, ringing hollowly against his temples and the space behind his eyes. It’s as if through a thick layer of cotton that he hears Hei Ming muttering to herself as she rifles through the contents of the bookshelves.

Before he knows it, he’s already fallen asleep.

He Xuan searches every corner of that damned store thrice over before he slaps the possessed merchant awake and starts questioning the pesky little ghost. His eyes flash dangerously and his aura grows heavy with barely restrained fury, the aura of his power hanging thick in the air.

The merchant trembles as he looks up at him, the golden rings on his fingers clicking together obnoxiously as he waves his hands around at the same time he opens his mouth to speak. Before a single word can escape him, though He Xuan raises his foot in a brutal kick against the wall next to the merchant’s head. The wood cracks immediately, splintering under the sole of his boot.

Perfect, wonderful silence succeeds his move.

“I’m only going to ask this once,” the ghost king says, slipping a sickly sweet smile onto his face that goes oh so well with the menace in that gentle feminine voice. “You’re clearly too weak and too stupid to have stolen and hidden those scrolls all by yourself. So, who do you work for?”

The very air in the room seems to lose its transparency, swirling in an oppressive black mist around them. It takes little more than that for the possessing ghost to spill everything he knows about his master’s identity and location, then promptly abandon the merchant’s body.

Pfft. Coward.

He Xuan sighs and the air returns to normal. The merchant sits passed out in the chair by the desk, probably set to sleep like a log until well into the next day. It gives the ghost king enough time to rifle through the faulty accounts left behind on the desk; turns out the man was corrupt even before his possession, the ghost just had less tact about padding his pockets. Shi Qingxuan must have taken notice of it and decided to confront him personally about the faulty transactions, seemingly no thought spared to his own credibility and safety during the execution of this plan.

Speaking of whom, its not like Shi Qingxuan to stay quiet so long. He Xuan looks up from the papers to find the former Wind Master leaning against a wall and dozing away in what looks like an exceedingly uncomfortable position.

“That’s bad for your neck…” He Xuan finds himself sighing before he can think any better of it.

Before he can stop himself to remember that he shouldn’t care.

In theory, he could just leave Shi Qingxuan here to doze against the wall. Or he could drag him out to the street so that he doesn’t have to deal with that merchant when he wakes up. Or to the slums where someone might recognise him and make sure he’s well. Or…

He Xuan crouches down beside him and slips one arm behind his back, another under the crook of his knees. A pang of worry rings through the ghost king’s quiet chest when he picks up that fallen god with far too little effort, that body far too light for its height. He pushes the feeling down quickly, only to have it immediately be replaced with guilt.

Might as well make sure he’s alright, He Xuan thinks, half to himself and half, perhaps, to the world itself.

He finds a decent-looking inn a few streets away and rents a room on the second floor, paying no mind to the curious glances aimed his way. They must make quite the pair, indeed, an elegantly dressed young female cultivator carrying a knocked out, dirty beggar into an inn without apparent explanation. He Xuan ignores the attention and makes his way up the stairs.

The room is comfortably spacious and tastefully decorated, albeit designed with only one tenant in mind. He gingerly lays Shi Qingxuan down on the bed and rids him of his sullied outer robes. The inner robes are much better off, only spotted here and there by the green slime — those can stay.

There’s a clothing store across the street. He Xuan slips inside and purchases two cheap but clean new sets of clothes, the outer robes embellished with thin teal flowers. He contemplates for a moment, then adds a hair ribbon to the pile, its colour matching the robes.

The eyes of the other customers seems to grow exponentially when they see He Xuan — “That pretty lady cultivator!” one person whispers far too loudly — return to the inn with that stack of clothes in hand and asking the inn keeper for a portion of dumplings to take upstairs. Soon after, the ghost king very quietly creeps back into the room, placing the food on the table and the clothes on a chair by the bed, then seats himself in the corner and begins to meditate.

Shi Qingxuan does not wake for another two hours. He Xuan tells himself that this does not worry him. He checked him for wounds earlier and found nothing more threatening than a couple scratches and bruises; the former Wind Master is probably just passed out from exhaustion. Once he wakes up, He Xuan will tell him to stop messing around with greedy merchants and he himself will return to the Heavens to report his findings to Ling Wen so she can find someone better suited to retrieve her scrolls.

(And cash in the money she promised him, of course. Hua Cheng would never let him live it down if it turned out he did all of this for free.)

Time trickles through the gaps in the wooden ceiling like honey off a silver spoon, sluggish and unwilling, falling in heavy droplets onto He Xuan’s festering anxieties. His posture remains rigid, unperturbed by the racing thoughts crashing against the walls of his skull or by the gnawing emptiness in his stomach. He lets out a breath he doesn’t need and does not take it back until much, much later, when he can hear the person in the bed stirring awake.

Shi Qingxuan is unusually quiet for several minutes, staring blankly up at a small crack in the ceiling. He blinks slowly, sleep-blurred vision narrowing in on that spot for a while as the rest of his senses wake as well.

It’s the smell of food that ultimately shakes him out of his stupor and has him sitting up on the bed to face that unfamiliar heavenly official.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Hei Ming greets. Her eyes are still closed serenely though her tone is not unkind, words lulling in her sweet voice.

Shi Qingxuan stares at her, for once at a loss for what to say.

The plate of dumplings, which has long gone cold, is placed with such ridiculous precision at the centre of the table as if its intended location was measured. There’s a chair to the side stacked with clean clothes which are folded without a single fault. The heavenly official sits facing the bed with an expression that is carefully devoid of emotion, her back as straight as a ruler.

In the stifling silence that Shi Qingxuan has failed to fill, Hei Ming opens her eyes, bright amber laid into ivory skin. Her face is young and beautiful, that of a twenty-year-old at most, but in her gaze lies something ancient, fossilised like the twisted remains of a long-lost species.

No matter how he thinks of it, those are not the eyes of a young woman.

“You should eat and get dressed,” the junior heavenly official says, unfolding her legs and standing up. Shi Qingxuan sees now that she’s not as tall as he had first thought; her aura must have impressed a little too much. “There might be a slow acting poison in that slime, so you should bathe and make sure to scrub yourself clean lest you end up with a fever a few days from now. You can take your time, the room is paid for until tomorrow afternoon.”

Then she turns on her heel and begins walking proudly towards the exit. Shi Qingxuan remembers he has a mouth just as her hand touches the door.

“Wait wait wait!” he shouts, scrambling off the bed and promptly tripping over his feet. He gets back up just as quickly and faces her a little frantically, his entire bearing frazzled. “Wait just a second! Where are you going?”

Hei Ming gives him an odd look, grip frozen on the door as she answers, “Back to the Heavenly Court to report back to Ling Wen Zhenjun, of course. The matter in the Capital City has been resolved, so there is no reason for me to remain here any longer.”

She moves to open the door but Shi Qingxuan stops her once more, placing a hand lightly over her wrist, skin cold under his touch.

“Don’t go yet.”

The words fall out of Shi Qingxuan’s mouth like a waterfall that he does not care to contain. It has been too long since he last participated in the thrill of heavenly missions, he’ll be damned if he lets this opportunity slip him by.

“You’ll waste precious time going back up to the Heavenly Court — by the time you’re back, the thief will long have changed course and hidden away somewhere else. You can’t just let them escape like that!” He’s babbling now, spouting sentence after sentence in hopes that something will stick. He pays no mind to the wide-eyed glare with which Hei Ming looks between Shi Qingxuan and their touching hands. “You should give chase right away! Inform Ling Wen telepathically and go after that thief as soon as possible. I’ll help! You saw me help when those gross monsters showed up on the street, right? Well, you actually did most of the work… But I can be useful! Just take me along and I—“

“Senior,” Hei Ming interrupts him, looking awfully pained as she forces the title out through gritted teeth. Her eyes finally settle on the spot where Shi Qingxuan’s tanned skin touches her own deathly pale wrist. “I mean no offence, but mortals should not get involved in such dangerous affairs. This is neither your business nor something worth risking your life over. I will return to Ling Wen Palace to report and request backup, and then I will give chase. You should just return to your own problems and forget about this encounter.”

“Forget about it?!”

Shi Qingxuan can feel an ounce of anger licking at him, though it’s dim in the waves of desperation that crash into him. He drops his hold on Hei Ming’s wrist in favour of clinging to her wide sleeve with both hands instead.

“I can be your backup!” he says fervently, eyes wide with hope and pleas. “I still have my old Wind Master fan and I’ve been cultivating diligently, my spiritual powers aren’t too bad. Take me with you, I can help! Please, just… I want to be useful, I know I can help…”

Like most times when Shi Qingxuan opens his mouth, the words spill out without a second thought, tongue unbridled, heart fully on display. He’d feel embarrassed if he wasn’t so busy pitying his boring life. He can deal with living on the streets and surviving off scraps, he deserves that much; but he hates the feeling of being useless, unwanted, unneeded. He hasn’t felt useful since protecting the Human Array two years ago.

“Please,” Shi Qingxuan whispers, not caring how pitiful he looks and sounds. His eyes are locked onto the golden expanse of the eyes staring uncertainly up at him.

Eyes that look like the resin dripping from a thick tree trunk to trap an ancient insect in it. Eyes that have seen far too much of history.

A long pause passes between the two of them, neither daring to speak or move. He Xuan’s right hand is still on the rough wood of the door, his left held down by Shi Qingxuan’s grip on his sleeve. He could pull away if he wanted to, tug his sleeve out of that weak hold, glare at the former Wind Master and tell him to fuck off.

What Shi Qingxuan said about wasting time and giving chase is bullshit; all He Xuan needs to do is draw a transportation array and he’ll already be right in front of Ling Wen, telling her that she had best dispatch a martial god or two with one of her actual attendants to help recognise the scrolls. He Xuan himself could just return to his quiet lair, put himself to sleep for a good few months, resurface when his stomach and his powers stabilise. All he needs to do is look up into those big, bright eyes and say no.

No.

“Alright,” He Xuan sighs, letting his right hand drop from the door and turning to fully face that achingly familiar face. “You and I will hunt down this thief together. But you must listen to me, whatever I say. I’ll go ask the innkeeper to run a bath for you. We leave at dawn tomorrow.”

Finally victorious, Shi Qingxuan cheers loudly, face lighting up in a child-like smile and feet shuffling awkwardly in a foolish dance. He Xuan turns away and heads downstairs before the little upward tilt of his lips can be noticed.

He Xuan waits downstairs in the inn’s dining room for Shi Qingxuan to finish bathing. In front of him are spread out two maps and a sheet of paper scribbled full of notes gathered from what the ghost possessing that merchant told him.

Ling Wen’s voice rings out through the telepathic array, “Based on what you’ve told me, it sounds like we’re dealing with at least a Wrath level ghost, possibly with a good following of minions. I’d suspect Green Ghost Qi Rong if I didn’t know what a good hold General Taihua has on him.”

“Ugh, that green little bastard, why bring him back in the first place?” He Xuan can’t help but snarl. His brush hovers over a line reading pronouncing the ghost as a Wrath. “Either way, there’s enough idiots just like him, if only a little weaker. The ghost I interrogated called this thief of yours the ‘Deadly Blue Mountain Shade’, which is exactly the kind of shit name a Qi Rong copy would choose for themself.”

“Oh yeah? Is that your professional opinion, Ship-Sinking Black Water?” Ling Wen’s voice is audibly laced with the smile she’s holding back. Still, the tone of her mockery is not unfriendly. “Well, at least we know what we’re dealing with then. What are you planning to do now? Since you haven’t returned yet, should I send you backup to deal with this Deadly Blue Mountain Shade?”

He Xuan sets down his brush and exchanges it for the cup of tea, frowning when he find that it’s already long gone cold from how long its been sitting untouched in front of him.

“No, I’ll deal with it myself,” he answers, downing the cold tea like a shot of liquor, then gingerly placing it back on the table. “Might as well squash out this pest before they start getting any ideas and interfering with mine or Crimson Rain’s territory. If you keep anyone on standby for backup, then just make sure it’s not His Highness Xie Lian — I don’t need his husband finding out any more than necessary about about this.”

“Sure, sure.” Ling Wen lets out a rare chuckle at his tone on the other end. “I’m beginning to doubt that this mission could even make a dent in your debt, Black Water.”

A flush rises up the neck of He Xuan’s treacherously life-like disguise and he shoots back, “Hey, wait! How the hell do you know about that?”

Ling Wen lets out a full, real laugh at that, spilling with schadenfreude as she says, “To think this mighty ghost king would be so shy about his transactions with—“

At that moment, a tall and dainty figure clad in teal robes steps into the dining room and He Xuan doesn’t hear the end of her sentence. He doesn’t hear the next sentence, either, for that matter, nor the next two. His mind short-circuits for a good three seconds before Ling Wen’s “Black Water? He Xuan, are you still there?” pulls him back long enough to excuse himself quickly and close the telepathic connection.

On the other side of the large hall, Shi Qingxuan spots him and gives a quick wave, lips splitting into a wide grin as he makes his way to the table He Xuan has monopolised. There’s a light limp in his gait, an old injury that never healed quite right, and the sight of it sparks a pang of guilt inside the ghost king’s still, cold chest.

He Xuan can’t help but feel like he’s getting awfully familiar with this particular flavour of guilt.

“Hei Ming!” Shi Qingxuan greets happily, sitting down opposite of He Xuan. His face is shining painfully brightly, marred by a yellowed bruise on his left cheekbone but no longer caked in dirt. He’s pulled his hair up into a wet bun, kept securely in place with that thin hair ribbon, his bangs framing his face prettily. “You’re here! I was almost expecting you to ditch me and run off on your own, hahaha.”

He laughs his usual nervous laugh and He Xuan forgets for a moment that he needs to keep breathing for his disguise to remain believable.

Shi Qingxuan is a gentle breeze and warm summer rain, spring’s laughter and poetry yelled into flowering plum trees. There’s a big part of He Xuan that seems unwilling to forget that he spent the better part of his unending afterlife ruminating the weird feelings that the phrase “Ming-xiong, you’re my best friend!” pours down his throat. The memory of that smile alone has been enough to elicit a pitiful pump from his long-dead heart, let alone the real thing right before him.

“You didn’t dry your hair properly,” he remarks in favour of trying to make sense of his feelings. “You’ll catch a cold.”

“Haha, I hope not,” Shi Qingxuan replies, raising his right hand to scratch at the back of his neck a little awkwardly. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning to leave it like this. I just got frustrated trying to brush it out properly and gave up for the time being.”

He Xuan hums, hand playing with the empty cup of tea midway between the two of them. His gaze lingers on that bun for a bit, then trails down to the maps on the table, finally settling back onto the former Wind Master.

“Should I help you with it then?” he asks and he instantly suspects that Shi Qingxuan’s runny mouth must be contagious because he was certainly not planning to say that out loud.

Shi Qingxuan’s eyes widen, bright and surprised, though not disturbed by the suggestion. His left hand tightens around the handle of the Wind Master fan he’s been keeping half-hidden in his sleeve, then loosens just as his face turns notably brighter.

“If you don’t mind, I would really appreciate the help,” he answers, smile so blinding that He Xuan has to look away.

Pushing down the weird heat that wells up around the fake heart beating in his chest (probably a mistake with his disguise), He Xuan calls over a waiter and orders another pot of tea with some food for Shi Qingxuan to have while he finishes going over his notes. The papers are pushed aside just enough to make space for the plates, and then the brush is back in He Xuan’s hand, flying elegantly between precise strokes.

Shi Qingxuan scans the notes curiously, fingers gingerly curling around his teacup as He Xuan gives him a brief summary of the information he’s gathered from Ling Wen and the possessed merchant.

“I think our best bet is heading northeast and searching the mountain range for clues,” he says, tapping the landmark on one of the maps. “There are a bunch of caves in that area, perfect for hiding a ghost lair without moving too far away from the city. We can reach the forest at the foot of the mountain in two days; we’ll rest a bit, then go hunt for more clues at night. Who knows, we might even find some of this Blue Shade’s underlings on their way to terrorise local towns.”

“Hm, sounds like a plan,” Shi Qingxuan hums, eyes following the dance those pale fingers trace across the map. He hesitates for a moment, then asks, “Are you planning to go on foot?”

The waiter returns before He Xuan can respond, placing a bowl of steaming noodles and a couple of plates with side dishes on the emptier half of the table in front of the former Wind Master. Shi Qingxuan thanks the waiter and then moves to push the plate of mouth-watering marinated pork ribs towards the disguised ghost king only to be stopped by a cool hand on top of his own.

“I already ate,” He Xuan lies, a gentle push of his hand shifting the plate back towards Shi Qingxuan. The latter gives him a look that practically reads ‘I don’t believe you!’, which He Xuan pointedly ignores. He continues neutrally, “We can try to hitch some rides on the way, but if we go by distance-shortening array, we might miss more clues on the way or even attract the ghost’s attention. Why? Is there a problem with going on foot?”

He Xuan asks only to keep up appearances. He’d be stupid if he hadn’t noticed the way the former god limps around. It’s less prominent now than it was back at the Human Array, but likely not because the injury has properly healed — most likely, he’s just learned to hide it better.

Shi Qingxuan looks at him apologetically, chopsticks hovering uncertainly in the air, and says, “Hitching some rides would be great. My right leg is… not the best. I’m afraid I’d slow us down if we tried walking all the way there.”

He Xuan acknowledges the statement with a nod and doesn’t try to poke around the topic any more than that. Selfishly so, really, because he’s certain that talking about it would make him feel even worse than he already does.

He deserves it, says a part of him that the ghost king no longer really believes.

It’s your fault, responds a louder voice, an iron nail in his flimsy denial, resounding accusatorially down into his long-rotten marrow. You could have just let him go at that point, given how long you postponed taking your—

Like pouring cold water over his head, He Xuan pictures Hua Cheng’s mocking face telling him to get his shit together and his nerves settle back down enough for him to return to the here and now before his mind can spiral out of control.

Works every time.

As he returns to the papers sprawled out before him, Shi Qingxuan polishes off the noodles and pauses once more to glance at the “heavenly official” sitting across from him. A second passes in contemplation before he snatches up a spring roll and holds it up proudly in front of his heavenly acquaintance, the skin letting out a crisp crunch between his chopsticks.

“Hei Miiiing,” he whines, delighting in the wide-eyed look that elicits. It’s easy to fall back into this teasing persona, to let his natural friendliness dictate his every action. “Eating alone is so sad and lonely. Would you do me a favour, please, and join me? Even if it’s just one spring roll… please?”

The junior official seems so entirely shocked by this blatant display of childishness that the greasy crumbs dropping lazily over her terrifyingly neat notes go completely unnoticed. Her mouth pulls into a couple acrobatic stunts in its indecision between frowning, laughing, or just going utterly slack-jawed, and Shi Qingxuan can’t help the giggle that escapes him at that sight.

“Come on now, don’t leave me hanging here. I’m a social creature! I can’t bear to eat alone,” he continues to tease, moving his chopstick close enough for the roll to brush against her thin lips.

That seems to snap her out of her stupor.

“I’m good! I already ate,” she says brusquely, sticking out her right hand to push away the food. In her hurry, she forgets that she’s currently holding her brush in said hand and promptly paints a thick line of ink onto Shi Qingxuan’s palm.

Her expression freezes into one of shock, brush hovering uselessly in the air, and Shi Qingxuan finally puts down that spring roll in favour of bending over with laughter.

“Oh! Oh god, your face!” he gasps amidst his own loud, rambunctious laughter. He can’t help it — that oh-so-serious Ling Wen’s oh-so-serious deputy staring at him stupidly like a fish out of water. It’s a once-in-a-century sight to behold.

Shi Qingxuan keeps laughing for a while, catching his breath occasionally just to sneak a look at Hei Ming’s indiscernible expression — somewhere between anger, frustration, disbelief, and resignation — and then promptly fall into another bout of giggles. By the time he finally quiets down, there are tears at the corners of his eyes and his abdomen hurts.

Hei Ming levels him with a deadly glare and asks, “Are you done?”

Shi Qingxuan thinks he could laugh some more at that alone but he’s not yet tired of living so he pushes down the urge.

“I’m good, I’m good,” he says, still a little winded, smile splitting his face from ear to ear. He picks up the spring roll once more and lets it hover between the two of them, less pushy this time around. “The offer still stands, by the way. I think you should have at least one, they’re really good.”

Hei Ming stares at him for a moment, a vulnerable look of sincere confusion spreading across her face before she remembers to school her features. She’s silent as she turns to study the food before her, then finally gives in with a resigned sigh and a nod.

She scans the table for another set of chopsticks when, in a momentary lapse of judgement, Shi Qingxuan opts to forego polite manners and simply guides the spring roll back towards her lips.

“Open up,” he coaxes gently. He beams when (out of shock, mind you) Hei Ming’s jaw falls open and he drops off the roll to hang halfway out of her mouth.

The indignant noise which the heavenly official lets out, paired with the furious flush rushing up her neck, is enough to have Shi Qingxuan biting down on his tongue to keep from grinning.

The rest of the meal passes without any more incidents. Shi Qingxuan finishes the rest of the food alone, and Hei Ming packs up her papers and places them carefully into a palm-sized qiankun pouch. She asks the innkeeper for another room (“There’s only a small one left on the second floor.” — “That’ll do, thank you.”), then leads the way back upstairs.

She hesitates once she stops in front of the door. Shi Qingxuan offers her a little smile and pulls her inside by the sleeve, seating himself on the bed and holding out the plain comb he found next to the small bathtub.

“You can still change your mind,” he says when he sees her standing rooted to the floor just a couple steps away.

Hei Ming’s face, for all its impassive sternness, is surprisingly easy to read. The way her eyebrows pull together slightly and her lips press into a narrow line is awfully reminiscent of a certain someone whom Shi Qingxuan spent a good part of his time with over the past few centuries. Reading her suppressed expressions is like second nature to him.

That thought stings. He files it away for later and forces his smile to stay on as he looks at Hei Ming before him.

Off in the corner, a stick of incense burns quietly, filling the laden air between them with its sweetly scented fumes. The surface of the comb is rough against Shi Qingxuan’s palm, clearly cheap but certainly functional. It trembles slightly in the air as if it were a little bird taking a shaky breath as it holds on tight to a branch in the face of torrential winds.

He should’ve used his right hand to hold it.

Finally, something in Hei Ming’s tense stance seems to melt. She nods slightly, probably more to herself than to Shi Qingxuan, and joins him on the bed. Her hands brush past his as she takes the comb, cold and delicate. She settles in behind him, legs crossed, pulls his hair out of the bun, and starts working out the knots, using the comb as much as her fingers.

Slowly, the tension bleeding hesitantly from his shoulders, Shi Qingxuan allows himself to relax.

It’s a long time past now since the former Wind Master last had somebody else comb his hair for him. It used to be his mother first, back when he was little and wore colourful dresses everyday, back when he had to tell everyone that he was a girl no matter how he really felt.

(Sometimes, it was spot on. Other times, it couldn’t have been farther from the truth.)

Later on, when his brother took him away after their parents’ death, it was Shi Wudu who would occasionally help him out. It wasn’t a frequent occurrence given how busy his brother was with his cultivation, but Shi Qingxuan would manage to coax him into it at least once a fortnight. They would sit by the fire in that small house at the foot of the mountain and chat about their days, Shi Qingxuan without care or pause, Shi Wudu a little more reserved and preferring to tease the younger as much as he could.

Shi Qingxuan sighs, heart heavy with those ancient memories, throbbing dully against his ribcage.

Finally, in the Heavens, the siblings rarely had time left to spend such intimate nights together. Over the span of centuries, one meeting every few weeks or months still adds up to an impressive number — but Shi Qingxuan cannot help but wish it could have been more.

“Am I hurting you?” the person behind him asks now, gently nudging him out of his aching thoughts.

Hei Ming’s finger are nothing if not gentle, carefully tugging the tangles apart. Every so often, after a particularly trying knot, she moves her hands to massage Shi Qingxuan’s scalp, almost as if she were apologising for the pain she might have inflicted.

“You’re not, it’s perfect,” he answers her question, turning his head just slightly to shoot her a smile over his shoulder. His eyelids have started drooping at this point, threatening to fall shut soon if she continues her ministrations. He forces a laugh and adds, “I wasn’t expecting you to be so thoughtful haha! I thought you’d just help me get through the worst of the mess and be done with it, but you’re actually almost as good as an old friend of mine.”

Shi Qingxuan is so busy praising the heavenly official’s work that he nearly misses the way Hei Ming startles at his words.

It’s a small thing, really — her eyes widen and her hands freeze in his hair. Then she looks away, face snapping to the side fast enough to give a normal person whiplash. The expression on her face is one that Shi Qingxuan does not understand; there’s confusion, for sure, surprise, and…

Hurt?

No, that can’t be right. Hei Ming is a relatively new heavenly official, someone who arrived after Shi Qingxuan became a mortal again. She couldn’t possibly know about… about…

About my Ming-xiong, his mind unhelpfully supplies.

Must have been a trick of the eye then. Shi Qingxuan laughs again because, forced as it may be, it’s still the thing he knows how to do best. He turns back to face the window, his back towards Hei Ming, and says, “Thanks again for helping me out. If it were up to me, I’d probably just keep it in a bun for the rest of my life.”

The room is silent for a couple beats, only his and the heavenly official’s slow breaths filling it up as the sounds of the city outside softly bounce against the window. Shi Qingxuan listens amusedly to a couple merchants arguing outside, not really caring for the contents of their conversation.

Several long moments pass before Hei Ming finally replies, “We can’t have that. I’ll finish this up and then you should sleep. We have to leave early tomorrow morning.”

Her fingers press lightly against Shi Qingxuan’s scalp, drawing circles along it that make him feel like he’s soaking in the hot springs he used to frequent in the Heavenly Capital. Of course, back then, he used to have a certain someone in tow — an irritable and whiny best friend who would pretend not to care for “earthly spoils” up until the moment when Shi Qingxuan pulled his hair out of its crown and pushed the Earth Master into the water.

Well, fake Earth Master might be more fitting in light of certain developments. Although Shi Qingxuan can hardly imagine someone being more dedicated to the job than the man he used to know.

He mulls quietly over thoughts of inky black hair floating in warm waters like a halo surrounding a pale face, golden eyes staring unyieldingly up at him, plush lips tugging down into a frown at yet another bad joke.

The scene wavers, the steam that hangs over the hot springs flickers uncertainly. Cold walls replace the open pools, waves as tall as ten men crash against Shi Qingxuan’s eardrums. His brother sits upright and lifeless before him, blood red hot where it’s splattered onto his face.

“You’ve called the wrong person,” echoes a deep voice that he could never mistake even in a million years. “Wrong person. What good is your apology? Wrong person, wrong person—”

Shi Qingxuan pinches his thigh and forces out a slow and shuddering breath. Behind him, Hei Ming slows her movements in a way that seems almost inquisitive but says nothing. When Shi Qingxuan remains silent, she resumes her work and finishes up quickly from there on. She hands back the comb, wishes the former Wind Master a good night, and then practically flees the room, one hand cupped over her mouth. Shi Qingxuan finds himself smirking at the door she’s hastily shut.

“Flustered much?” he mumbles under his breath as he puts the comb away. He was actually planning to grill her about how working under Ling Wen is these days, but that can wait for now.

That night, Shi Qingxuan goes to sleep in a proper bed, feeling cleaner and more pampered than he has in a very long time. His fingers run nostalgically through luscious hair. The darkness of the night accepts him readily in her comforting arms.

He Xuan’s sleep is restless. He wakes long before the sun does and stares quietly at the brightening skies until the pinks give way to yellows and the clamouring outside his inn room assures him that he will not be the first person stepping foot inside the dining hall.

He exits light-footed as a cat into the corridor, fixing his appearance quickly with a spell (he’s long since learned that he is useless at caring properly for curly hair). There are the telltale sounds of an awake Shi Qingxuan coming from the room on the other side of the hallway — hopping around on one leg, kicking over a chair, muffling a couple curses. He Xuan stops to listen to that painfully familiar morning cacophony for a couple seconds before he finally raises a hand to the door and gives it a couple light rasps.

“Coming!” Shi Qingxuan yells and just a moment later, He Xuan finds himself face to face with the former Wind Master, out of breath and offering an embarrassed smile.

The first thing He Xuan notices is that Shi Qingxuan is a woman. He doesn’t know when exactly he started noticing the way her gender fluctuates, much less how he can tell on which one it’s settled. All he knows is that after so many centuries by the Wind Master’s side, it eventually started coming to him like second nature and that even if he tried to unlearn it, he probably couldn’t.

The second thing he notices is that Shi Qingxuan is towering over him. He forgot overnight just how much shorter this fake skin is than his true form and he swallows down a sound of surprise at the life-size reminder.

“Are you ready?” He Xuan asks evenly, in lieu of turning on his heel and locking himself back into the inn room.

Shi Qingxuan smiles brightly like she always does and moves out of the doorframe to let her travel companion enter. Her robes are only halfway fastened, her hair still loose. There’s a whisper left of that odd carelessness with which she’s always carried herself in the way she limps back into the room and seats herself in front of the mirror to put up her hair, her entire demeanour closer to that of a royal than a ragged beggar.

“I’ll be done soon!” she tells him, bright and bubbly and excited like a child who’s about to set out on a long-awaited trip. The grin she sends him over her shoulder is enough to make an iceberg melt. “You haven’t eaten yet, have you? Let’s get breakfast together then. We have a long day ahead of us, we should both eat well before we head out!”

She babbles on some more, listing all the tastiest items she saw on the menu the night before, and He Xuan finds himself unable to tune her out. He steps into the room fully and closes the door softly. Standing there, he watches Shi Qingxuan tie up her hair and talk his ear off, feeling almost like he’s in a trance. This is the person who stole his fate. This is the person whom he has spent centuries following around, the person who wears a smile that shines like a hundred suns which even centuries of trying haven’t succeeded in making him loathe.

This is the person whose brother I killed, he thinks, blank face unbetraying of his turbulent thoughts. This is the person whose life I ruined, never to be restored.

Now, unlike in the Heavens, there are no dozens of ornaments for Shi Qingxuan to decorate her hair and robes with, so she does indeed finish up quickly. She takes one last satisfied look at her reflection, then sits up and follows He Xuan out the door and down to the dining hall.

There’s only one other patron in the dining hall, seated in a far off corner and chewing on some tofu. He Xuan picks a table on the opposite site, by the window, and calls over the innkeeper. Once he’s made sure that Shi Qingxuan doesn’t hold back on his order, he fakes receiving a message from Ling Wen and makes up a hardly passable excuse about needing to check again on the merchant from the day before, then promptly leaves the inn.

He doesn’t particularly crave a replay of last night’s fight with his stomach.

Lazy steps belying the tension in his shoulders, He Xuan takes to strolling around the neighbourhood in which the inn is situated. The city has yet to properly wake, most stores sitting empty and with their doors tightly shut. It takes him a while to find an open food stand, the heavy smell of frying oil both tempting and pungent to him in his current state. He Xuan fishes out one of his numerous money pouches (keeping his assets separate protects against Hua Cheng randomly deciding to cash in a debt), but pauses when he’s just a couple steps away from the stand.

There’s a little girl there, maybe around eight or nine, looking up at the vendor with pleading eyes. Her hands are dirty, clothes ragged, her cheeks far too hollow for a child.

He Xuan feels his dead heart constrict. He thinks he might have seen this girl before, back at Xie Lian’s Puqi Shrine, giggling and hanging onto Shi Qingxuan’s robes as she asked excitedly about all the different things you can make soup from. Back then, of course, the mighty ghost king had ducked out of sight and run off to raid the kitchens, scared that the former Wind Master might see him.

“Please, mister?” he hears the little girl say and honestly, fuck this, children are too powerful.

(It doesn’t help that every little girl he sees reminds him of his sister.)

He Xuan stalks over the rest of the distance, levels the vendor with a neutral glance, and drops a couple coins in front of him.

“Good morning. Two mantous and whatever the little miss wants, please.”

The child turns her huge, glistening eyes up at him and grins so broad that her face splits in two. He Xuan feels his knees go a little weak.

“Thank you, jiejie!” the little girl exclaims happily once she’s secured several buns, all still steaming hot with their delicious smell. This, of course, is the result of her trying to pick only one and He Xuan deciding that five simply is a more auspicious number. “I’ll share them with my friends, I’m sure they’ll love them! Maybe Uncle Feng will want one too…”

“Uncle Feng?”

He Xuan cocks an eyebrow. The spot on the pavement where he and the little girl have sat down next to each other is dusty and uncomfortable at best, but his robes have seen worse days. He’s already packed away the two mantous he got for Shi Qingxuan and is watching the girl dig into her own with an expression awfully akin to fondness.

The girl nods with enough vigour to shake her head off her shoulders. Her eyes are wide with admiration as she explains, “Uncle Feng is so cool! He has a really pretty fan that commands the wind and he even saved the city with it once! Jiejie, you should meet him sometime, I think you’d get along!”

He Xuan snorts at that and raises a hand to ruffle the little girl’s hair. She grimaces in response, nose scrunching up cutely.

“Now, how would you know that?” he asks, letting a smile slip onto his face. “For all you know, your Uncle Feng and I might end up hating each other’s guts.”

“Nobody hates Uncle Feng,” the girl reasons in a tone as decisive and matter-of-factly as only scholars and children can produce. “And Uncle Feng also doesn’t hate anyone. You’re being ridiculous, jiejie.”

That garners a full-blown laugh, loud and short and certainly a sufficiently rare occurrence. Were He Xuan to think about this any more deeply than he’s allowing himself to in the child’s company, it might push him back into the bottomless pit of guilt he’s prepared for himself; but hearing the outrageously serious delivery from the little brat, he can’t help but forget about his worries for the time being.

The two of them chat some more as they sit on the roadside, watching the city gradually wake and pour more people into the streets. Mostly, it’s He Xuan asking the little girl about her friends and imparting unwelcome wisdom like the boring old man he is. The little girl, on the other hand, seems happy enough to have found “a really pretty jiejie!” whose ears she can talk off. Once she’s finished with her first bun, He Xuan asks for the wrapping paper and graciously bids her farewell.

Shi Qingxuan has finished having breakfast when He Xuan returns to the inn.

“Hei Ming!” she greets, waving at him to signal her presence — as if she could ever be missed in a crowd, much less a nearly empty dining hall. “I didn’t wait for you, since you told me not to, but I feel so bad. You went out to work without having breakfast and now we’re heading out. Don’t you want to order something? The dumplings here are really good.”

Stopping at the table where Shi Qingxuan is seated, He Xuan holds up the wrapper and says, “No, thanks. I grabbed something while I was out.”

Shi Qingxuan eyes the waxed paper in his hand, confusion crossing her eyes, although at what, He Xuan can’t say. It passes quickly enough and she looks back at him with a smile that he has learned to recognise is forced.

“Alright, if you say so,” she says, standing up and towering like a giant over He Xuan again.

I’m not gonna get used to this, He Xuan realises, turning away and leaving to find the innkeeper.

The two of them stick closely to He Xuan’s schedule their first day of travel. This, unsurprisingly, is a result of Shi Qingxuan’s silver tongue and charming demeanour; she manages to convince three separate farmers to let them hitch a ride on their ox carts throughout the day, smile never once faltering. It’s slow-going, but He Xuan is happy enough to kick back and lay in a stack of hay while Shi Qingxuan chatters with the farmer up front.

There’s an old ache spreading throughout his body, a stubborn hunger that won’t accept being fed. Normally, he’d be fast asleep at this point, holed up in his manor with his spiritual array set to give a polite “fuck off” should anyone (read: Hua Cheng) try to contact him. It’s wearing him down, this emptiness he cannot fill, and he’s not surprised when, late in the afternoon, he finally nods off in that prickly hay stack.

“A-Xuan, don’t be too sad. You would have passed if it weren’t for those bribes.”

It’s her voice he hears in his dream, his memory. The voice of the friend he held dearest during his childhood, the voice of his first love.

The voice of the fiancée he could not save.

He Xuan opens his eyes to meet hers, clear and determined, bright gaze fearsome as a tiger’s. Her hands are warm where they cradle his face, fingers gentle where they push his hair out of his eyes. Her palms are callused from manual labour, their roughness familiar to him, identical to the feel of his own hands.

“But that was our way out of here.” He Xuan hears himself speak those same words that he uttered so, so many years ago. His eyes sting, his throat constricts, and he desperately holds onto the hands on his face like they’re his lifeline. “I know you don’t care much for money, but we’re barely making ends meet. I want to give you a better life — you, meimei, and my parents. And I failed. Again. I’m so sorry.”

The rough pads of thin fingers caress his face and wipe away hot tears. Soft lips meet his, lingering comfortingly. They hold some sense of hope, kissing him softly as if to promise, falsely so, that everything will be alright.

“Silly,” he’s scolded between touches like the wings of a butterfly. “You shouldn’t apologise. There is no man kinder than you, nobody smarter or more dedicated. Fate dealt you a bad hand, but if there’s anyone who can make something of it, it’s you, A-Xuan.”

He Xuan wants to open his mouth and tell her she’s wrong. To tell her that he is not nearly as great as she thinks he is, that he could not cling onto the good fate he was destined for, that he has since met someone far kinder than himself and hurt them irreversibly. He wants to pull her close and apologise, to sob into her shoulder and ask her to return — or, at least, to take him with her.

Far away from this wicked world whose cruelty he has added to.

Right before his eyes, as if on cue, a wound opens up on her head. Blood pours out in heavy streams from where her skull has been bashed in and her hands turn cold against his skin, face pale, eyes dim.

There are no last words for him to hear. He’s standing in the lavish bedroom of that cursed mansion, dropping to his feet in front of the corpses of his fiancée and his sister.

I’m too late.

A hand grips his shoulder, to pull at him, to take him away, to throw him into a prison cell for the crime of trying to protect his family. It shakes at him, pulls, shakes, digs into his flesh, shakes hard enough to hurt his arm, drags, pulls, heaves him up, grabs, drags—

“Hei Ming, wake up.”

He Xuan shoots upright with a gasp like that of a drowning man. His head snaps around to find a familiar smile, a familiar face, a familiar person.

Shi Qingxuan’s hand sits lightly on his shoulder, a touch that is so careful it is barely there. Their grip is nothing like the one of the guards who dragged him away back then, nothing like the hands that hit him and dragged him away, leaving black bruises all over his body, marks that didn’t fade for weeks.

They touch him like one would a friend, and oddly, that hurts more.

“We’re getting off here,” Shi Qingxuan announces, dropping their hand from He Xuan’s shoulder. They turn to flash the ox cart driver a grin and offer him a sincere thank you, then carefully descend from the cart and hold out a hand to help He Xuan down.

If He Xuan had the time to spare, he’d stare at the former Wind Master’s loving hand until the sun set the next day. He’s stare and wonder to himself how hands that have known so much torture can be so warm, so gentle, never used to harm, never seeming to realise that the very source of their pain is the person they are helping.

He doesn’t have the heart to hold up the ox cart driver any longer than necessary. He quickly takes the proffered hand and jumps out of the hay.

“Thank you again, sir!” he calls out to the driver, receiving a friendly grunt in response. Then, the ox cart drives off to the right and He Xuan leads the way straight ahead.

They reach an inn just before nightfall, walking slowly as they make their way through the dirt paths of the town they’ve stopped at. It’s small, not very lively at this hour, but there are enough shops in the town centre to assume that the traffic from people heading towards the Royal Capital is not insignificant.

“Seems like it could be a pretty busy place during the day, eh?” Shi Qingxuan remarks, dragging their right leg behind them a little painfully. They look exhausted despite the sunny smile on their lips.

He Xuan shortens his pace and falls into step next to the old Wind Master.

“Probably sees a lot of travellers,” he reasons, not daring to let his eyes wander to the side, to where they might meet Shi Qingxuan’s. “The inn looks like it could fit this whole town and still have room to spare.”

“Haha, yeah, you’re right about that,” Shi Qingxuan agrees, voice bright and joyful, warm like the grin on their face and—

Oh no. He Xuan is looking.

He looks at the upwards curve of those pretty lips and at the shining eyes that look ahead. He takes in the mixture of relief and elation that appears to grow stronger with every step they near their destination. He sees the face of that same person he used to shadow, used to hate, used to wistfully dream of never parting from.

He can’t help it. Shi Qingxuan has always been hard to ignore.

The two of them settle into separate rooms at the inn. He Xuan arranges for food to be sent to Shi Qingxuan’s room, then bids them goodnight and locks himself in. It was hard enough to pass off those two mantous to them and avoid having to eat one himself, he doesn’t need them staring into his soul and trying to feed him again like the day before.

Alright, so maybe He Xuan is avoiding them for other reasons as well. Maybe he can’t look at them without remembering how they looked, completely unresponsive, after Shi Wudu’s body finally fell to the floor, aided by a spiteful kick from He Xuan himself. Maybe he can’t hear them laugh so brightly without feeling like his ribs are trying to collapse in on themselves, the pressure at the bottom of his ocean of guilt crushing him from all sides.

He Xuan has known for a long time now that Shi Qingxuan is hard to hate. He realised far too recently that they are even harder not to love.

Sleep welcomes him back with outstretched arms, waiting to swallow him whole. There is little judgement but his own in the dark waves of unconsciousness, the cold waters kind to him whenever they don’t pull him down into his own shipwrecked memories.

Night plunges down like a black sea onto him.

Shi Qingxuan’s leg finally elects to give out around noon the next day. Her foot slips from underneath her just as she’s contemplating whether it would be inappropriate to ask for another break so soon. Only Hei Ming’s unnaturally fast reflexes keep her from falling and breaking her face on the rocky road, one hand curling solidly around her elbow, just on the edge of bruising.

“Watch out!” Hei Ming exclaims, words laced with a hint of… panic? Is that right?

Maybe Shi Qingxuan’s hearing has finally gone bad. It’s a couple centuries overdue, if she’s being honest, although a little early for the body of a twenty-something-year-old.

“Haha, thanks!” she says awkwardly, placing a hand over the one Hei Ming has on her elbow and pushing herself back upright. She wants to open her mouth again to put the heavenly official at ease, but Ling Wen’s assistant is as sharp as the goddess herself and catches Shi Qingxuan shifting her weight to her left leg.

“If you’re in pain, you should have said so.”

Hei Ming’s eyes are big and incredulous, as if she couldn’t possibly fathom why Shi Qingxuan would push herself despite her aching limbs. It’s a pretty look on her, that gold-tinged worry on a face as pale as sea foam and framed by brown curls that remind her of Quan Yizhen’s.

Hm, speaking of which, it’s been a while since Shi Qingxuan has seen that little dork. She should ask Xie Lian about him next time they meet; after all, Quan Yizhen did help her out when she was escaping with Ming—

“It’s not that bad, really,” Shi Qingxuan lies, forcing a smile in favour of continuing that thought. “I just haven’t walked this much in a while, so I got exhausted a little too quickly. I’ll be fine now, don’t worry. I won’t slow you down from now on.”

Hei Ming blinks at her, confusion written all over her face. Stupefied, she repeats, “Slow me down?”

Shi Qingxuan laughs nervously and says, “Well, yeah, you know, you’ve got your mission and all to finish. I wouldn’t want to hold you up and risk getting you in trouble with Ling Wen, after all. So don’t worry about me, I promise I’ll pick up the pace.”

Unexpectedly, the confusion on Hei Ming’s face deepens, brows drawn together in something almost akin to anger.

“Get me in trouble? Pick up the pace? What are you talking about?” she asks and if Shi Qingxuan didn’t know any better, she might think that the heavenly official sounds somewhere close to scandalised. Her grip on Shi Qingxuan’s elbow tightens. “I’m not worried about the mission, I’m worried about you. Sit down and tell me exactly what’s wrong with your leg.”

A pause, tense. Shi Qingxuan stares down into eyes the colour of the noon sun above, thoughts racing to try and make sense of those words. And then, finally, a soft addition, barely above the level of a whisper and vulnerable in a way that it shouldn’t be for somebody one had known for barely longer than two days:

“I want to help you.”

Shi Qingxuan blanks for a good few moments. As if on autopilot, she nods at Hei Ming and lets her lead her help her over to a boulder by the side of the road. The heavenly official guides her to sit, then promptly drops down to her knees and rolls up the former Wind Master’s trousers with such care and confidence as should only be shared with friends one has known for a lifetime and a half.

A sharp inhale sounds from Hei Ming when she sees the damage: The skin on Shi Qingxuan’s shin is marred by a long, twisted scar, seated right on top of a bump that should not be there. Even an idiot could figure out what the problem is.

“I, uh, broke my leg a while ago,” Shi Qingxuan says, rubbing at the side of her neck and looking anywhere but the odd expression on Hei Ming’s face. “My arm, too, for that matter. Not even in the same accident, if you’ll believe it, haha. Anyway, I didn’t exactly have someone to set the bones correctly so… yeah. You see how it is.”

Hei Ming stares at Shi Qingxuan’s badly healed leg. Then, she stares up at her face. Finally, she says, very quietly, “Idiot…”

Idiot.

Shi Qingxuan can’t help but make the comparison in her head — Hei Ming’s eyes really are far too similar to his, to her Ming-xiong’s equally golden eyes. In a moment of weakness, she pictures that it’s really him, her best friend, her Ming Yi, telling her off for being careless, for not getting her wounds checked out properly, and her heart drops all the way down to her feet.

“Hah… I guess I kind of am…” she mumbles. If her voice wavers a little on the words, neither of them mention it.

It goes unsaid that beggars on the street don’t generally have access to good doctors. Something tells Shi Qingxuan that Hei Ming’s comment isn’t meant to dispute that in the first place. Then again, that might just be her wishful thinking.

A full minute passes quietly between them as Hei Ming continues to kneel on the dirt road and examine Shi Qingxuan’s leg. It’s awkward at best; Shi Qingxuan hasn’t had anyone look at it since it was first haphazardly patched back together, usually so queasy that even she can’t look at the old injury for very long. She hates the rocky silence between them, but she decides to let it be for now, lest her companion suddenly decide to finish the mission alone and leave her behind here on the roadside.

Eventually, Hei Ming lets out a sigh and pushes herself up to her feet. She gives Shi Qingxuan a once-over, eyes calculating, sharp as a tiger’s yet cradling an odd, unspoken affection in them as well.

“Wait here, I’ll be right back,” she says before spinning on her heel and stalking off towards a couple of trees.

Shi Qingxuan, predictably, panics. She tries to follow behind the heavenly official, only to hiss when her leg protests the load of standing up. All she can do is sit back down on the boulder and call after Hei Ming, “Where are you going?!”

“To get you a walking stick!” comes the reply. It teeters right on the border between irritation and badly concealed worry, a special mix that Shi Qingxuan has only known one other person to use.

Same eyes, same tone, same mannerisms…

“Shit, pull yourself together, Qingxuan,” she scolds herself quietly under her breath. If this was really him, he wouldn’t be talking to her, much less giving her any reason to suspect his true identity. Besides, there’s no good reason for a supreme ghost king to hang around her in disguise, now, is there?

Oh heavens… Is there?

No, she reasons with herself, he has no business left with me. He would have come after me sooner if there was still a score left to settle between us.

She spars with her own thoughts some longer, hoping that she’s wrong about this and that Hei Ming really is a junior official at Ling Wen’s palace. Even so, she has her Wind Master fan and she has managed to cultivate a low but steady amount of spiritual powers. She could make a run for the nearest town if trouble comes haunting her, maybe she could even manage to contact His Highness Xie Lian to—

“Found one!” Hei Ming yells, pulling Shi Qingxuan out of the downward spiral of her thoughts.

She’s making her way back with swift, long strides, her regal posture entirely befitting of a heavenly official. In one hand, she holds a long branch; in the other, she has the silver dagger engraved with the Ling Wen Palace crest, its blade shining with deadly sharpness in the sunlight.

Hei Ming comes to a stop in front of the boulder and looks down at Shi Qingxuan expectantly.

“Stand up and see how this suits you.”

Slowly, much more carefully than before, Shi Qingxuan pushes herself up to her feet (well, mostly her left foot) and comes to stand in front of Hei Ming. The branch, roughly torn off a plum tree, is reasonably thick and reaches all the way up to Shi Qingxuan’s shoulder. She twirls it loosely in her hand a couple times, then tries leaning some of her weight on it to test the sturdiness of the wood.

Hei Ming watches her take a couple steps forward, eyes set on the lower end of the branch. She crouches down to get closer and motions with her free hand for Shi Qingxuan to keep going, gaze so intense that the former Wind Master can practically see the equations floating in the air around her.

After the third lap Shi Qingxuan has completed around the crouching heavenly official, Hei Ming finally gives a satisfied nod and stands back up again. The two of them are perhaps standing a little close to each other and so Hei Ming comes face to face with Shi Qingxuan’s chest for a brief moment.

Shi Qingxuan thinks she sees a surprised look cross over the heavenly official’s face, though it’s gone before she can confirm it.

“That should do,” Hei Ming says, offering Shi Qingxuan a rare smile as she takes half a step back, putting a more respectable distance between the two of them. “I’ll cut it down to a better length and get rid of the side branches. We can get you a proper cane when we reach the next town.”

Shi Qingxuan’s jaw drops and she tightens her hold on the branch a little uncertainly, bark digging into her palm.

“Why… why buy a cane?” she asks. “You said this is fine, right? Besides I can’t afford a cane and I couldn’t burden you with it. You’re already being a lot nicer to me than most people and making me a walking stick. Buying a cane would be a waste of money, this is already great!”

Shi Qingxuan tries to sound excited because, really, Hei Ming’s already paid for her meals, her robes, her two nights spent in a proper bed — she can’t bear the thought of having this truly absurdly kind and patient heavenly official spending even more money on a companion who, honestly, contributes plenty little to the mission. Even if that awful little intuition of hers is right about the identity of her travel companion, she won’t allow herself to impose.

She’s sick of being deadweight.

Still, she sees Hei Ming’s thin brows draw together ever so slightly, a minute change that only an expert on emotionally constipated immortals would catch, and her breath catches in her throat.

“You’re not… a burden,” Hei Ming says, eyes falling to the lapels on Shi Qingxuan’s robes and apparently looking all the way through her into the rice fields that surround them.

A moment passes, heavy, quiet. The sun bears down on the both of them from its spot in zenith, burning on the crowns of their heads, its heat almost audible amidst the distant sounds of songbirds.

Sighing, Hei Ming looks up and forces the same kind of smile that Shi Qingxuan considers her specialty. She takes the branch gently from her companion’s hand and holds it up between them like it’s a peace treaty.

“I wouldn’t mind paying for a cane, but if you want the branch then so be it,” she declares, chin raised, eyes like liquid gold in the sun. “Sit down and rest some more; I will work on this. We’ll take it easy and see how far we get today.”

“But the ghost—“

“The ghost can wait.”

Hei Ming’s tone leaves no room for protest. She pushes Shi Qingxuan gently to take a seat on the boulder again, then sits down in front of her on the dirt road, reaching into her qiankun pouch to pull out a couple meat buns that she passes over to the former Wind Master.

“Eat and rest up. There’s plenty time for us to catch that Deadly Blue Mountain Shade and pushing yourself now won’t do us any good.” A pause, filled by a meaningful look. Then, unexpectedly, what looks like a tiny but sincere upturn to those thin lips. “I need the Wind Master in top form to beat back that nasty demon, after all.”

Wind Master. No “former”, no “fallen”. Just a raw and honest “Wind Master”, as if that position was rightfully hers, as if it always was.

Shi Qingxuan spends the next shichen in uncharacteristic silence. She stares in quiet awe as Hei Ming carves away at that branch with the skill of a practiced craftsman and doesn’t even notice when her companion skips lunch.

Resounding deep inside her marrow are those words on loop:

I need the Wind Master, after all.

It takes all of He Xuan’s willpower not to collapse the moment he sets foot in their inn room. Their shared inn room. The village they’ve stopped in is small, there is only one room left, the two of them will have to share.

He Xuan pulls out the ratty blanket he bought in town, spreads it out on the floor, and promptly lies down on top of it. He’s slept in worse places — at least this blanket doesn’t seem to have any bugs in it.

Watching him awkwardly, Shi Qingxuan clears her throat and speaks up with a very intelligent, “Er…”

Ugh, fuck. He just wants to sleep.

He Xuan cracks one eye open against his better judgement and glares at Shi Qingxuan's figure in the doorframe. She’s looking hesitantly between him and the bed, walking stick clutched tightly in her fist.

There’s an ugly bump about two thirds of the way down the stick. He Xuan could have done a better job carving out the shape of it, but that would have taken longer and Shi Qingxuan already seemed to feel quite guilty for holding them up an extra shichen.

Still, he hates seeing his work looking half-assed. He should finish carving it when they’re taking a break from travelling.

“Take the bed and let me sleep,” he says gruffly, turning on his side to face the wall, offering Shi Qingxuan a perfect view of his back. “We’re heading out early tomorrow so don’t dawdle. Not to mention, you need the rest for your leg.”

Shi Qingxuan wavers, audibly, even without saying anything. And then:

“You’re not going to have dinner?”

Fuck. Right. Living humans need to eat. Regularly.

He Xuan sits up immediately, barely suppressing a frown at the shot of pain the movement sends through his lower back. He’s starting to feel embarrassingly much like the rusty old man he is.

“You go,” he says, reaching into his sleeve to fish out a money pouch and toss it at Shi Qingxuan. It’s caught deftly in her right hand, every movement a mirror image of a centuries-long dance. “I’m too tired to eat. Just get yourself whatever you want.”

Then he curls back up on the ground and blacks out before he can hear her response.

“Ming-xiong, you’re my best friend. You’re always with me, you always let me complain to you... sometimes you even give me advice! Always good advice, if I may add, even if you make fun of me half the time.”

A shift in position, just slightly to the right, and then Shi Qingxuan is seated fully on top of He Xuan’s lap in all her naked glory, incomparably warm even in the waters of the hot springs. She bats her long lashes at her, somehow alluring and comical all at once.

“I’d argue that if you really didn’t like me,” — A finger to her chin, guiding He Xuan to look up into the blinding brightness of the Wind Master’s eyes. — “you wouldn’t even talk to me. But here you are, bathing with me, and you don’t exactly act like you hate my guts.”

And that’s it, isn’t it? The pièce de résistance: The fact that Shi Qingxuan, in all her childish naivety, is right.

The waters press up against He Xuan’s skin, almost as familiar as her own cold and dark abyss deep beneath the sea. And yet, they are not as close as Shi Qingxuan’s touch. And yet, her own black waters are not nearly as far away as the carefully calculated distance she keeps between the Wind Master’s heart and her own.

The very definition of so close yet out of reach.

Stupidly, misguidedly, the ghost in heavenly skin that is He Xuan gives in to the ill-placed faith, the unearned worship, the boundless affection dangling right in front of her. Sitting in her lap. She places her head gently, so careful as if touching a glass figure, onto Shi Qingxuan’s waiting shoulder.

Closes her eyes. Breathes in. Breathes out.

“Maybe I don’t,” she says, foolish as it is. She lets her lips trail softly along Shi Qingxuan’s collarbones, feels the phantom kisses returned on the crown of her head. Her arms curl tighter around the soft curves of the Wind Master’s waist. “You’re hard to dislike.”

And yet harder to hate.

They reach the foot of the mountain range late in the afternoon the next day. Travel is significantly more bearable with the walking stick and Shi Qingxuan finds herself praising Hei Ming countless times throughout the day. Each time, the heavenly official looks away from her immediately and grunts something unintelligible that Shi Qingxuan doesn’t find nearly as interesting as the rosy blush forming on her companion’s pale face.

“Let’s stop here for today,” Hei Ming suggests when the sun is hanging low over the horizon, less than half a shichen away from dipping below it and letting darkness eat the sky. “If what those villagers said is true, we might be able to catch sight of the Blue Ghost’s cart tonight.”

They’ve reached a small grove, not too far into the forest that takes root before the mountains. The caves that probably hold the Deadly Blue Mountain Shade ghost’s hideout are mere hours away from here, hidden within the expanse of cliffs reaching pale fingers out towards the sparse, feathery clouds above.

It’s funny, really, how much smaller one feels looking up at those splendid peaks instead of glancing down at them from above.

Shi Qingxuan angles a smile at Hei Ming’s determined expression. Placing a hand comfortingly on her shoulder, she says, “Don’t worry, we’ll get those bastards. You’ll set up the trap array and then we can take shifts holding watch so we won’t miss it being set off. We’ll find the hideout tomorrow and retrieve Ling Wen’s scrolls.”

Quietly, Hei Ming nods, her gaze turned to the ground. She hasn’t looked too well all day, as if something’s weighing down on her with all the might of an ocean. Before Shi Qingxuan can gather up the courage to ask what’s wrong, Hei Ming places a hand over the one she has on her shoulder and looks up at her with eyes that say more than her words ever could.

“You should let me lend you some spiritual energy,” she says, turning to face Shi Qingxuan fully. With her free hand, she reaches towards her belt and pulls the dagger away, imposing even in its sheath. The crest denoting it as property of Ling Wen glints alluringly in the red light of the soon-to-set sun. “And take the dagger, too. You must be able to protect yourself.”

Her words leave no room to be questioned.

As Shi Qingxuan stares at her a little dumbfounded, a steady stream of spiritual energy starts flowing from Hei Ming’s hand into her own, cool and soothing like a mountain spring. For a moment, the former god forgets herself in the sensation of it, in the feeling of that raw, unfiltered power pouring into her. It’s so much more than she could ever cultivate on her own, wild even compared to the power she used to possess in her days of godhood. The feeling of it tugs at the strings of a memory, vague yet familiar. This does not feel the way her own spiritual energy used to, not like her brother’s which she would sometimes lend, nor like the candies Hua Cheng gave her in order to perform the Soul Shifting Spell while Xie Lian was stuck in the Heavenly Capital.

And yet, she is absolutely certain that she has experienced this before — this feeling like the tides are pushing all the way into her core, waves strong with their silent and undefeated rage. She didn’t pay attention to it much back then, the immediacy of the exchange and the harsh sting in her cheek distracting her, but now that she thinks of it, it’s almost like when—

“I hope that’s enough,” Hei Ming says, dropping her hand from Shi Qingxuan’s so fast as if it’s been burned. Her eyes don’t meet the old Wind Master’s when she holds out the dagger and tells her once more to take it.

Dazed, Shi Qingxuan accepts the weapon. She is not at all experienced in hand-to-hand combat, but the weight of the blade in her palm is reassuring, the crest on the handle achingly familiar.

“Thank you,” she croaks, throat closing up on her words. That ocean of energy is buzzing loudly in her ears, threatening to spill with every exhale. It’s not as much power as she had as a god, but still far more than any junior heavenly should ever be able to spare. If Shi Qingxuan’s mind weren’t overrun by a million other thoughts right now, she’d worry that her companion may have lent her too much spiritual energy, leaving herself exposed to other dangers.

Hei Ming spares her but a glance, loaded despite its brevity, and nods in silent acquiescence as she pulls that ratty blanket from the night before out of her qiankun bag and lays it out on the forest floor.

“Don’t mention it. Just rest for now, I’ll take the first watch shift.”

Sure enough, Shi Qingxuan is roused from her sleep by a hand on her shoulder, steady but careful as it shakes her awake.

Her eyes snap open and she finds herself faced with elegant black robes. Hei Ming is seated next to her, gentle in waking her up. The sky is black, the moon and stars largely hidden behind heavy clouds that cast the forest in a darkness so thick it could be cut through with a knife.

Shi Qingxuan wants to open her mouth to speak but thinks better of it when she sees Hei Ming pointing ahead. She follows her gaze and finds a soft blue glow streaming through the spaces between the trees. The next moment, she’s sat up, eyes wide as she reaches for her makeshift cane.

“Here,” Hei Ming whispers, handing her the walking stick and standing up before she extends a hand to the former Wind Master.

At the back of Shi Qingxuan’s mind, a surprised voice registers that the body of the cane feels much smoother now than it did before, though she has no time to worry about that at this moment.

“Is that them?” she asks, her own whispers notably louder than her companion’s.

Hei Ming just nods, bending down to grab the blanket and shake it out once, quickly, before stowing it away again. Her eyes seem to glow in the heavy night, liquid gold catching what little light makes it through the thick clouds that have gathered above them. Despite not saying anything, the ‘Follow me.’ is loud and clear. Her hand moves in a swift motion and Shi Qingxuan finds both of their footsteps silenced by the spell.

The heavenly official leads the way, treading carefully through the underwood and quietly turning her head to point out roots not to trip over and low-hanging branches to avoid. Like this, despite the pitch black night, it takes them little time to catch up with the blue light between the trees.

Right before they step foot on the narrow mountain path, Hei Ming raises one hand, signalling to stop. Shi Qingxuan falls in right beside her, peeking out behind a thick trunk to see the soft blue shine of a ghost fire lantern hanging down from a small cart that seems to be moving all on its own.

It’s just like the villagers said! A cart full of scrolls and wares pulled along by thin air!

Shi Qingxuan exchanges a glance with her companion. The meaning is clear: If they follow this cart, it will lead them straight to that strange Deadly Blue Mountain Shade’s hideout.

Hei Ming slips back behind the tree line, a silent shadow trailing the cart. She does not rush, however, and looks back every once in a while to make sure that Shi Qingxuan is keeping up. The two of them tiptoe beside the forest path for a while, observing their unknowing guide with bated breaths. There must be some enchantment for it to move all on its own; perhaps, the little ghost fire in the lamp is there to watch over the cart, making sure nothing goes wrong as it makes its way up the mountain.

Best to stay out of sight then.

The cart creaks like a rusty hinge as the narrow, uneven forest path jostles it around on its axle. The lantern sways lightly with the movements, ghost fire quiet and secure inside, shining its dim ocean light across the stolen goods and scrolls stacked up high and threatening to spill over the sides of the cart.

“Stay behind me,” Hei Ming whispers as they come up to a fork in the road.

The two of them are on the left side of the path. The cart takes a right turn. They’ll have to cross the road then, which means leaving the safe cover of the tree line and risking being spotted by the little ghost fire.

Not an ideal scenario. Who knows how quickly the little ghost fire will be able to alert its boss? Shi Qingxuan does not envy Hei Ming’s task to lead the way ahead while making sure the two of them stay out of sight.

They dip behind a bush together, watching closely as the cart rattles away. It’s a narrowing path up ahead that can barely fit the small vehicle and will probably run out of cover by the time they reach the next turn. Shi Qingxuan can practically hear the gears spinning next to her in Hei Ming’s head. The heavenly official’s eyes are narrowed, pupils blown so wide in the darkness that the irides glint like thin gold rings around them.

The cart is a good way’s off when she finally shoots Shi Qingxuan a look and then, quietly as a cat, steps out from behind the tree line, the former Wind Master right on her heel as she sets foot on the dirt path. She steps forward, one, two long strides, quick and light and soundless. She reaches the juncture, just a breath ahead of Shi Qingxuan, and follows down the right path, one, two, three steps, eyes peeled on the first tree they could hide behind, just left of the narrow path and looming over it—

A blue glow flashes under her feet and with a choked sound, her legs give out beneath her.

“An array,” Hei Ming gasps out in surprise as her knees hit the road with a dull thud and it takes Shi Qingxuan only a split second to realise that her voice has dropped an octave and that her hair is flickering between those lofty brown curls and an inky black waterfall. Then she hits the ground and it’s— it’s—

“No…” she whispers, if only to interrupt her own mind before it can think the wrong name again. “No, no, no. This— no.”

She wants to scream, wants to cry, wants to turn on her heel and run, but her limbs are frozen solid and a cruel voice in the back of her head points out in a mocking chant, You knew, you knew, you already knew.

At once, it all clicks into place — the cold words, the tender gestures, the furtive glances and oh so familiar gaze like warm honey poured right down her throat. It’s just right but also so wrong and nonsensical: Why come here? Why talk to her, listen to her, care for her and take her along?

Shi Qingxuan is distantly aware of the way her breaths have sped up out of her control, the way she’s probably too loud now, a beacon attracting all the attention of that ghost fire up ahead. It hits her only like a soft wave lapping at her ankles while her head is submerged entirely in the sight ahead of her, drowning, fighting, chocking on the salt water burning down her lungs.

The Black Water Demon, the very man who killed her brother before her eyes, whom she has foolishly and knowingly let near her once more, sprawled out on that beaten down dirt path. That same blue light from before, identical in shade with the ghost fire inside the lantern, pulses like a heartbeat beneath him, translucent tendrils crawling up to wrap around his body like the sea pulling him under. Whatever array he just stepped into must be eating him alive, draining him of energy trapping him inside it crafty lines.

He could die, Shi Qingxuan realises. She could leave now, turn around and forget about him, and nobody would even know. Or she could stay here, just outside the radius of the array, and make sure the subject of her nightmares is erased from existence for good.

She could just leave him here. She has no dues left to pay to the Ship-Sinking Black Water.

As Shi Qingxuan’s cane comes down in front of her, shaky steps carrying her closer to the ghost king who haunts her memories and across the boundary of the array, one of the tendrils reaches greedily into He Xuan’s chest. It pulses brightly with visible joy, its nauseating blue glow shining onto deathly pale features, and then the light explodes outward and swallows both of them whole.

When Shi Qingxuan comes back to, they find themself laid out gently on a patch of thick grass, the azure of the sky above vibrant enough to blind. The air is fresh with the scent of spring flowers, light in the breeze that kisses their skin.

It takes them a moment to blink incredulously up at the cloudless expanse above them, then pinch their thigh and note that the pain shooting up from it feels very real.

Did they faint? Where are they now?

Shi Qingxuan sits up and looks around to find themself in a field they do not recognise. The seasons don’t even align; it looks like early spring now instead of mid-summer, the rays of the sun still shaking off the hold of the cold season as they beat down onto flowering trees that still seem to be a couple of leaves short.

Then they spot something familiar. Somehow, they recognise that even less.

Standing just a couple steps away is a youth with a face they have known for centuries, a face they once found themself to love before they learned to fear it. A face which is unrecognisable under the force of the smile gently cradled in its handsome features.

Shi Qingxuan sits frozen on the soft grass as they watch a He Xuan, young and bright and happy, cross the field hand in hand with a girl who looks to be the same age as him. What’s that? Eighteen, nineteen perhaps? He does not look much younger than the Earth Master they once knew, but the difference is stark, like ink poured over white sheets.

This young and unfamiliar He Xuan steps lightly through the grass, his shoulders not weighed down by the aches of a fate much crueler than any person deserves. He smiles so painfully softly, so full of love and hope and admiration as he follows the girl to sit beneath a blossoming plum tree. She leans up and mumbles something into his ear, and the laugh that follows it is so genuine and beautiful and absolutely foreign to Shi Qingxuan’s ears.

The former Wind Master rises slowly from their spot in the grass but does not move away from it. Their right leg aches from the exertion of the past few days, only slightly aided by the cane. They shift their weight to their left leg and stare openly at the couple seated under the blossoming plum tree.

Something cruel and selfish tugs at their heart strings as they watch the way those two youths embrace each other with an intimacy that is reserved only for the most innocent of lovers. That carefree, foreign He Xuan wraps an arm around the girl and plants a kiss on the corner of her mouth, sweet and fleeting, her own lips curling up as she hums happily and nuzzles into his embrace.

Shi Qingxuan wastes a good amount of time staring silently at that younger vision of He Xuan, the one just breaths away from having the few things precious to him mercilessly ripped away and torn into bloody shreds. They ponder for a long time why they can see him like this, the way he probably only exists in his own memories anymore. An illusion, perhaps, cast by the protective array which the two of them unwittingly walked right into?

If it’s an illusion, it must be a very powerful one, they figure as they feel the wind tugging at their sleeves, its loving arms carrying the fragrance of spring. It probably can’t focus on more than one victim at a time.

But even so, keeping up such a convincing illusion should require enough spiritual energy to kill a normal person, perhaps even a minor god. That Deadly Blue Mountain Shade must be immensely powerful to be able to sustain this trap until they can personally check on the person intruding on their territory.

“A-Xuan,” calls out the girl seated next to He Xuan as she raises a hand to push a strand of hair behind his ear.

His fiancée, Shi Qingxuan reminds themself. As if compelled by the sound of their own name, they take a hesitant step forward, a step closer to this teenaged girl who says “A-Xuan” the same way their mother used to.

“Hm,” He Xuan responds, a quiet sigh as he leans into her touch. His skin looks golden in the patches of light falling through the foliage of the tree. It’s a deep tan that speaks of long days spent tending fields and studying books under the affectionate caress of the sun. It’s a warm glow on his handsome features, well-paired with the peaceful happiness in his eyes.

And there, right across the elegant bridge of his nose, where the sun has peppered more kisses than elsewhere, extends a faint spray of freckles.

Shi Qingxuan’s thoughts come to a screeching halt for much longer than they care to admit.

This is it. This is what He Xuan had. This is what was taken from him. The robes he’s wearing are clearly old and coarse, more threadbare than anything Shi Qingxuan had ever worn until a year and a half ago — but the way he carries himself, the way he looks at his fiancée with immeasurable fondness in that golden gaze, makes it seem like he owns a fortune larger than an emperor’s.

In a way, Shi Qingxuan supposes, he does.

“A-Xuan,” the girl says again, and this time there is a cheeky ring to her tone as she brushes one hand down the front of those coarse robes, pulls the lapels to the side just enough to expose a sliver of his strong collarbones. “Don’t just go back to studying tonight, alright? Don’t be killjoy, I still have some unfinished business with you.”

He Xuan responds with a thoughtful hum, the calm smile on his face unwavering although the blush crawling up his neck cannot be concealed.

“And what might that be?” he plays along, leaning in so close that his lips are nearly brushing against his fiancée’s. The tips of his ears are flushed red, but his performance is stellar. “Eager to hear me talk about the fall of the Xuli Kingdom again? Or are you more interested in the external affaires of Yong’an and—“

A sudden shout interrupts him and He Xuan jolts in his spot, embarrassment cracking through the thick mask he’s painted onto his face.

“Ge!” someone calls out. Shi Qingxuan turns around to see a girl around thirteen or fourteen years old running over. She stops in her tracks when she notices the way the two people under the tree are huddled together and rolls her eyes before spinning on her heel and waving her hand dismissively. “Never mind! I was going to call you in for dinner but I see you’re busy again. To think that dad even managed to bargain for some chicken today and you’ll miss it, tsk tsk. More for me then— ouch!”

Before Shi Qingxuan can process it, He Xuan has pulled off his shoe and thrown it with surprising accuracy at his sister’s shoulder.

“Don’t you dare eat my food!” he yells as he scrambles to his feet, the threat undercut by the laughter bubbling up around his words, bright and loud, almost bursting at the seams. “You little rascal! I’m your older brother, don’t you know how to show respect to your elders?!”

There is warmth like a hearth fire in his movements as he bends down to press a kiss against his fiancée’s lips, chaste but firm and filled with more meaning than words could grasp. There’s a quick goodbye somewhere between them, a quiet “See you later?” spoken like a promise, smiles exchanged like they’re an endless currency. A moment later, He Xuan has turned around and is bolting after his sister, one foot bare as he runs towards the weathered house he was born and raised in, brushing obliviously past Shi Qingxuan as if they were made of air.

In this illusion, it seems, they are.

Cane sinking uncomfortably into the soft earth, Shi Qingxuan tries to follow, but the illusion flickers and then they find themself in a small, dark room, walls closing in tightly on all sides and entirely useless against the winter cold seeping inside. It only takes them a brief scan of the enclosure to realise where they are:

A prison cell.

“Fuck.” A shiver runs up Shi Qingxuan’s spine. They hug their arms around their chest in an effort to conserve some warmth through their thin summer robes. They need to get out of here fast. “Where the hell is he?”

A strained cough sounds from the far side of the cell and Shi Qingxuan’s gaze falls on what appears to be a pile of clothes. A trembling, coughing pile of clothes, laid down on a thin cot that barely separates its user from the ground.

Shi Qingxuan stares in frozen shock for a few seconds. Not even a proper blanket in this cold, just some thin rags? With the moisture clinging to the walls, this setup looks like a surefire way to catch pneumonia. How long can a living mortal endure such conditions? How come the authorities even allow such treatment of the prisoners? Is He Xuan—

Bang!

They’re pulled out of their rapidly spiralling thoughts by a loud noise outside the single door of the prison cell, a dull knock of wood on metal.

“Food!” someone grunts, gruff and unfriendly. It sounds like they’re still a way’s off, down a corridor outside, perhaps, announcing the arrival of the guard in front of another prison cell.

The effect is immediate. The clothes — a dirty and moth-eaten substitute for proper cover — shift slowly to the side, revealing the youth cowering beneath them. He can’t be much older now than in the last segment of the illusion, but his skin stretches taut and sickly pale over limbs that are far too thin, cheeks sunken and eyes rid of that carefree warmth of youth.

It makes him look like a different person. It makes him look like yet another version of him that Shi Qingxuan does not recognise.

As the guard approaches their cell, He Xuan carefully pushes himself upright, wincing at the effort. His face pulls into a pained grimace that speaks of injuries beyond the dark bruise blooming on his cheek. His lips are dry and bloodied where they split, his hair hangs over his shoulders in a matted mess that likely hasn’t been tended to in many weeks. That faint spray of freckles has nearly disappeared.

Even his eyes look different, their rich gold diluted into a pale yellow.

Shi Qingxuan’s heart squeezes, stuck between their ribs where it tries to retreat backwards out of their chest. Icy tendrils seem to reach out to pull it back into place as the winter cold sinks deep into their bones.

This was never He Xuan’s fate. The thought that he did this, unwillingly, for their glory echoes sickeningly through their head.

By the time the guard reaches his prison cell, He Xuan has made his way to the door. He crawls more than walks over there, every movement of that weakened, injured body drenched in pain. He looks closer to death now than he did when Shi Qingxuan saw him in his ghastly true form. For a moment, they figure that this might be precisely because this version of him is still alive, still breathing, still filled to the bone with the desperation to cling to the threads keeping him tied down to the living world. This He Xuan is not yet that hardened ghost king, that ruthless apparition of himself that cares for nothing but revenge. This He Xuan is not the one who seeks to put himself to rest with the death of the Water Master who stole his fate.

And yet he’s still here, the former Wind Master can’t help but think. His revenge fulfilled, his soul still tethered to this world.

The bowl of rice pushed into the prison cell would not suffice to feed a sated child. Shi Qingxuan holds their breath as they see how He Xuan crumples to the floor in relief, a familiar rush taking root in his hands as he gobbles it up like a starving a man.

He is a starving man, Shi Qingxuan belatedly realises, the thought chilling them more than the winter air creeping into the cramped cell.

They can’t keep watching this any longer. Who knows what else this array might be doing to its victims? And who knows what it will show next?

Their hand trembles as they reach out to place it on He Xuan’s shoulder, hoping it might pull him into a state of lucidity just long enough to break out of the illusion. It’s boney and cold under their palm, a skeletal frame hiding under those coarse, old robes.

He Xuan stiffens under the touch, recoils the next moment as if hit upon an unhealed wound. He’s shaking all over, not just because of the cold, and he manages to turn his head just so to glance at Shi Qingxuan behind him, gaze swimming openly with fear.

Then, the illusion flickers once more and he disappears right before their eyes.

He is gone within an instant, yet Shi Qingxuan can still make out the phantom image of those pale amber eyes, the confusion in them mixing with something close to recognition. For just a moment, they must have gotten close to pulling He Xuan’s mind back to the conscious realm.

Even stuck within his memories, he knows them.

When the ripples in the illusion finally settle, the air is warmer, albeit not by much. The colours hanging from the trees around are those of autumn — a perfect match to the red of blood running through the streets.

“He Sheng has gone mad!” someone yells distantly, their voice nearly drowned out among the screams of the surrounding crowd and the sound of Shi Qingxuan’s heartbeat thundering through their ears.

Standing just a few steps away from them, the He Xuan they see is completely unrecognisable. Or, rather, this is the side of him that Shi Qingxuan does not want to recognise.

This is the same He Xuan who killed Shi Wudu.

“Please, no, stop! Stop, stop! I’m so sorry, I’m really sorry, I—“

That same He Xuan is bathed in blood and fury, wears them like an emperor wears gold, cares not for them as they cling greedily to his skinny frame. There is no reason left within him anymore. Ruthlessly, he swings the butcher’s knife in his hand down into the skull of that merchant pleading on his knees before him. It comes down with such force that it cuts all the way through the bone and cleaves the man’s head into clean halves, blood and flesh splattering onto the ground and onto the unquenched rage on He Xuan’s face.

Looking away, Shi Qingxuan swallows down the bile that rises up into their throat.

“How dare you!” A brutal kick comes down onto the corpse, the sickening crack it causes underlining the anger that rumbles in his voice. “You rape and kill my sister and my fiancée and then you have the audacity to think I’ll just move on and let you go? What good are your apologies to me?!”

Shi Qingxuan’s head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton, a leaking ship swimming in a raging sea. What good, indeed, is anyone’s apology to a man who has lost everything?

“And you.” He Xuan’s voice is chilling, a low timbre carrying a strange calm that is belied by the fires burning in his eyes. Shi Qingxuan does not turn to see whom he is talking to, can barely keep their own feet under them as their legs tremble with the force of their panic. “Don’t think I would forget your face, you filthy fucking bastard. I know what you did, I saw you—“

Shi Qingxuan can’t listen anymore. They fall to their knees on that dirt road in Fu Gu, where the blood stains deep enough to touch the waters running underneath the earth. They squeeze their eyes shut hard enough to see stars, hands pressed over their ears as they try to focus on anything other than the gut-wrenching screams coming from ahead or the jeering cheers from the surrounding crowd.

“It’s not real,” Shi Qingxuan tells themself, words muttered like a mantra to keep them sane, fingers digging into their scalp. “It’s not real, it’s not real, this isn’t happening, it’s not real…”

Except it was real, at some point. It must have been. These are He Xuan’s memories, this is everything he did to avenge the deaths of his loved ones while he was still alive. It all happened, and it did so while Shi Qingxuan was busy laughing and pouring wine barely an hour’s walk away from this massacre.

No, this bloodbath is real alright. It happened hundreds of years ago and it’s been kept alive ever since in He Xuan’s memories and his alone. If Shi Qingxuan wants to escape this horror, they have to get He Xuan to snap out of it first.

“Alright, Qingxuan, you can do this. You’ve seen worse,” they tell themself, although they’re not certain that’s true. This is certainly taking a spot somewhere in their top five worst experiences.

They drop their hands from their ears and push themself back to their feet, leaning heavily on their cane.

“Just get to him and make him notice you, yeah? Haha, that’s not so hard, it’s not hard. It worked before, right? It worked, it worked, so just try again, it will work, we’ll get out of it this time, we have to…”

They’re rambling now, focusing on their own voice as they slowly turn to face the road ahead. If they want to get out of here, they need to pull themself together. They cannot afford to get overwhelmed.

Slowly, carefully, they make their way towards He Xuan. There are dozens of people crowding around him to watch the spectacle, although all of them keep their distance even as they stare on with unbridled glee written all over their grinning faces. Shi Qingxuan pays them no mind, glues their own gaze to that gaunt figure clad entirely in black.

There’s a sluggishness to his movements, they notice now, exhaustion branded into his limbs and kept at bay only by raw, unfiltered fury. Blood drips slowly down the knife’s blade, tip tip tip, crimson stains on the road as He Xuan stumbles more than walks away from the gruesome mess he’s left behind. He’s whispering to himself, lips moving soundlessly, his eyes dim and lifeless.

He seems to have more people in mind, so Shi Qingxuan ignores the ache in their right leg and closes the distance between them before he can turn away.

“He-gongzi,” they say, voice but a weak croak trembling with the terror they have been pushing down. They hesitate for a moment, then plant their left hand on He Xuan’s shoulder once more, fighting down the urge to recoil at the touch of fabric that is sticky wet with red. “Lord Black Water, wake up.”

Golden eyes meet theirs, wide with surprise but filled with missing puzzle pieces. There’s a pale face before them marred by poor meals and long days of work, its prominent edges decked with blood.

“Qingxuan?” he asks, his voice so soft, so close to breaking, and then the butcher’s knife clatters to the ground and his legs give into the pull of exhaustion. Shi Qingxuan doesn’t pause to think before they dive forward to catch him, dropping their cane so they can hook their arms under his and hold him up.

It’s sudden and it hurts and there’s a voice at the back of Shi Qingxuan’s mind screaming at them to turn and run, to hide, to escape the monster of their worst nightmares, their worst memories.

But… there’s also a comforting familiarity in the contact, a warm and aching remembrance. Them holding onto their best friend. Them carrying their Ming-xiong.

“S- sorry, I can’t hold you up!” they apologise as they slowly lower both of them to the ground, their left arm nearly buckling despite how worryingly light He Xuan’s body feels.

Their mind is racing as they sit on the dusty, bloodied road, He Xuan’s head pillowed weakly against their shoulder. He’s warm in their arms, just like a real living, breathing person should be — but that warmth is quickly seeping out into the cool autumn air and Shi Qingxuan can feel their own heart pumping like a panicked drumbeat in their temples.

He Xuan’s eyes are closed, his breathing shallow, and all Shi Qingxuan can see at that moment is their best friend dying.

“Wake up, wake up, please wake up!”

They plead and beg as they clumsily try to shake him to awareness. There’s a distant growl like that of thunder, a storm brewing far away to clean the red off the streets and leave the world oblivious again of the massacre that took place. Shi Qingxuan pays it no mind, only watches with increasing despair as the blood on He Xuan’s robes seeps into their own.

“Come on, Ming-xiong, don’t you know this isn’t real?!” The name slips their lips before they can catch it but there are more pressing things to worry about right now. “Please, please wake up, please wake up…”

Their hand comes to rest on the side of that too-pale face, brushing frantically away at blood and sweat and dirt caked thick enough to seem almost like a second skin. He Xuan isn’t done with his massacre yet, why is he already dying? And if he recognised them, why hasn’t the illusion fallen apart yet?

An idea strikes them, desperate and unpolished, but promising enough to be worth a shot. They can only try it and hope it is not too little too late.

“Forgive me for taking so long,” Shi Qingxuan mutters hoarsely. Their hand on He Xuan’s face stills and moves to cradle his jaw, palm thrumming where they concentrate their spiritual energy into it. “You know I’ve always been a little slower on the uptake when it comes to all these complicated arrays. Heavens, I hope this works.”

They close their eyes and exhale shakily. That same spiritual energy that “Hei Ming” lent them earlier rushes out of their hand the moment they release it, like water bursting through a broken dam. It buzzes almost audibly where their skin meets He Xuan’s, powerful yet pliant as it returns in tidal waves to its rightful owner, pulse after pulse in sync with the rapid beats of their heart.

Shi Qingxuan doesn’t notice that the illusion has broken until the clap of thunder right overhead scares them out of their stupor and their eyes snap open to look up.

It’s raining. The streets of Fu Gu have disappeared, replaced instead by the dark mountain path the two of them were following earlier. He Xuan’s body is cold and still in their arms, hair unbound and falling in wet strands over a face that is deathly pale but reassuringly clean.

Shi Qingxuan sighs in relief and wraps an arm tighter around the ghost’s waist as they reach out to grab the cane from where it’s dropped to the ground next to them. The array must have kept them out of the rain until now, but staying at the heart of the storm any longer is a bad idea; they should look for shelter, preferably in one of those caves this mountain range is so rich in.

“What would you do without me?” Shi Qingxuan grunts, achingly pushing themself up to their feet, the unconscious ghost king held as tightly against them as their injured arm will allow them. Their heart is still pounding much too fast, their limbs protesting the effort, but the weight against their side is comforting, nostalgic. “Can’t even get out of a trap made by a weaker ghost on your own. One scary demon you are.”

He Xuan is quiet as a graveyard next to them, not even a breath escaping him. Their memory fills in the gaps for the snarky retort that never comes.