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“Hua Chengzhu,” says a voice in the crowd.
Hua Cheng stills behind his curtain. That voice…
“Hua Chengzhu,” calls the voice again, louder this time.
Hua Cheng’s shadows shift uneasily, preparing to slither into existence and whisk this troublemaker out of the Den. The man behind the curtain shakes his head minutely, silently urging them to step down. They do.
Gege , Hua Cheng speaks in his and Xie Lian’s private communication array. He is here.
There is no need to specify who this he is, for there is but one man they have been worrying about for the past decade.
Trusting Xie Lian to know who he means and where to go, he closes the communication array and focuses all his attention on his new patron.
He shifts in his seat, swirling the dark liquid in his cup just to have something to do with his hands. He regards his patron through the curtain. Casts a glance over his black robes and the mask concealing half of his face. He swallows. He knows what he’ll have to do, what’s about to happen. It’s a role he’s played countless times before, has perfected into a part of himself. But for the first time in his humble 800 years of doing this, he’s dreading it.
“Young Master Wei,” says Hua Cheng, setting his conflicting feelings aside and slipping into the role of Hua Chengzhu, “or should I call you YiLing Patriarch, Wei WuXian?”
Wei WuXian doesn’t answer—Hua Cheng didn’t expect him to.
“What is it that you come here for?” Hua Cheng asks, fearing the answer, but, really what else could it be but a gamble ? What else would anyone visit his Gambler’s Den for but to take a chance at a game of dice?
“I came to play a game of dice with you, Hua Chengzhu.”
The title falls from his lips too easily. Replacing the affectionate Hua-ge too easily .
Hua Cheng closes his eyes as he says, “I don’t play against just anyone .” He breathes in deeply, setting all his personal sentiment aside as he follows this statement up with the fatal question, “You’d have to tempt me with a bargain.”
In his heart he thinks, I would do anything for you. Tell me you desire the moon and I’ll walk up there and take her myself.
All he can do is wish for his god to come save them.
“If I win,” says Wei WuXian, voice low as his forced cheerfulness falls flat, “I want a soul.”
“A soul,” Hua Cheng repeats, wrecking his brain trying to think of whose . The Lan kid hadn’t passed through his regions—he would’ve recognized him from a mile away. “I don’t give souls away easily, you should know.”
Wei WuXian bows, revealing the top of his head to the Ghost King sitting behind his curtained dais. “I am aware of the gravity of my request, Hua Chengzhu.” And it’s wrong . Everything about this is wrong . It eats away at Hua Cheng but he’s unable to do anything but sit and watch this trainwreck happen. “Therefore I offer you anything you might want. Name your price and it shall be yours… should I lose.”
And gods. Gods . This was the last thing he wanted to hear. Because now the faith—no, the misery of his little one rests in his hands. He gets to decide what his A-Xian will lose.
“But,” he’s stalling, he knows he’s stalling. Hua Chengzhu doesn’t stall—would rather get these meaningless games of dice over with than waste his precious time on them—but Hua Cheng, the man who has cleaned Wei WuXian’s scraped knees needs his Xie Lian by his side. “What is it you could give me that could ever be of interest to me?”
Before Wei WuXian can answer, the doors to the Gambler’s Den swing open and in swoops the white figure of his beloved. The crowd of ghosts and ghouls parts as he walks up to the dais in the center of the room. He seems the picture of grace and sophistication, with his long hair and the ends of his white robes fluttering behind him—every bit the Crown Prince he always has been.
Hua Cheng sees through this facade immediately. The set of his beloved’s jaw and the tension in his shoulders speaking louder than words.
The Crown Prince ignores the bowing man in front of his husband’s dais and slips behind the heavy red curtain like he belongs there—which, of course, he does.
“San Lang,” he breathes, cupping his husband’s face in his hands and stroking his pale cheeks with trembling hands. “What is he doing here?”
Hua Cheng swallows. “He wants to play against me.” He opens his eye and looks into those of his beloved—the man with whom he raised the child now bowing in front of them. “He came to win a soul.”
The same question Hua Cheng had earlier now slips past Xie Lian’s lips. “Whose?”
Hua Cheng can only shrug.
Xie Lian bends and kisses his husband’s forehead, then turns and addresses the patron. “Wei WuXian,” he says, the name falling from his lips rather awkwardly. “Please, reconsider going through with the bargain.”
The crowd starts murmuring. Granduncle is of course renowned for his gentle conduct and forgiving nature, but rarely would he stand in the way of Hua Chengzhu’s business. Wei WuXian is unaware of this fact, and doesn’t straighten from his bow.
“Please,” says Xie Lian softly. “Get up, A-Xi—Wei WuXian.”
The man straightens, the mask hides his expression but Hua Cheng doesn’t need to see his face to know the frown that must be marring it.
“Have you reconsidered? Surely there must be another way,” his beloved’s tone of voice betrays his hope. Hua Cheng fears the worst.
“I have reconsidered, Dianxia. But my mind is set; I want to gamble.”
Xie Lian takes in a shuddering breath only Hua Cheng can hear. “Very well, then,” he says. “If that is the case, I will not stop you.”
He turns and meets Hua Cheng’s eye and sinks into the soft seat beside him. Please, his eyes tell him. Don’t hurt our A-Xian . But they both know their little one has grown up, too fast and out of their control. They raised a sensible boy who turned into a sensible man, and sensible men have to make their own choices.
“It’s his choice,” Xie Lian says under his breath. Back straight and hands folded in his lap like a ruler looking down at his subject. Tears glimmer in his eyes, but only Hua Cheng can see those.
“Wei WuXian,” Hua Chengzhu calls, voice unwavering despite his trembling hands. “Should you win, you will receive the soul you desire.” Now, the hard part. “A soul is a high price. As I am protective of every one traveling my domain, I don’t give them away freely.”
Normally, a price like this would ask for a person’s soul, or a golden core at the least. But here Hua Chengzhu’s heart interferes. With his beloved at his side and his son in front of him he could impossibly demand a life in exchange for some (in comparison) insignificant soul. Seeing as his A-Xian has already given up his golden core for a loved one, not much remains that Hua Cheng could demand of him that weighs up to a soul .
“I could ask for your shadow,” Hua Cheng throws a glance at the shadows he has won—the loyal ushers. Considers having Wei WuXian’s join them, leaving his little one feeling so awfully light without it.
In his heart, he thinks the punishment too cruel—this is his A-Xian they’re talking about, whose sticky fingers have left many fatal grease stains in his robes.
But his heart doesn’t rule here, in the Gambler’s Den, where one either eats or gets eaten.
“But a shadow doesn’t really compare to a soul, does it?” The question is rhetorical, yet, he aches for someone to interrupt and tell him, actually, Chengzhu, a shadow seems like a perfect bargain. As it is, no one dares interrupt, and a shadow is not an equal bargain. “So, I will take your Killing Intent.”
The crowd starts murmuring again. This is a currency that’s never been exchanged with before.
Robbing a man—especially a cultivator like the YiLing Patriarch—of his Killing Intent would make him a far too easy target. It would make it so he would be unaware of others’ killing intent, practically blinding him in dangerous situations.
Xie Lian’s soft hand finds his and he squeezes softly; he doesn’t like this either.
Hua Cheng hopes that with a lack of golden core his A-Xian will have become used to finding alternate methods to get things done in the cultivation world. He hopes he isn’t signing his A-Xian’s death.
“Do you, Wei WuXian, accept these terms?”
As if the kid has a choice.
Wei WuXian bows his head slightly. “I accept.” His voice rings clear through the room and immediately the ghost crowd starts muttering excitedly—they haven’t encountered such an interesting gamble in a long time.
“Very well,” Hua Cheng rises, trembling hand slipping from his husband’s hold. “Then, do you have a pair of dice? Or would you care to lend a pair?”
“I have my own.” Wei WuXian reaches into his sleeves and retrieves a battered pair of dice. Shiny black with shimmering red eyes.
Hua Cheng knows this pair all too well, having gifted them to the kid when he’d barely reached his waist. He’d told him never to play against people he couldn’t win from, never to gamble something of real value, and here Wei WuXian was, about to take on Hua Chengzhu in a game of dice to win a soul.
Before Hua Cheng can push back the curtain and walk up to the low table where the games are played, Xie Lian’s soft hand on his arm stops him. The God of Misfortune looks up at his husband with concern in his eyes.
Hua Cheng almost expects him to say something like Good luck , but of course, luck is the last thing he needs right now.
“Have mercy,” whispers Xie lian, before he gently squeezes Hua Cheng’s arm and lets him go.
Hua Cheng nods, then steels his face and forces his hands to stop trembling.
With a dramatic swing of the curtains, Hua Chengzhu walks into the room, his stride slow and confident. Behind him, his god sits safely behind the curtain. In front of him, the man with the mask.
“I trust you know the rules?” Hua Chengzhu drawls lazily as he slips his own pair of golden dice from his sleeves.
The man nods. Hua Cheng slides his eyes over him in a way that could easily pass for predatory.
He’s not nervous , he notes. He is about to gamble away his Killing Intent and he is not nervous.
The realization is hardly enough to make him stop what is about to happen.
What he said earlier is true; he is awfully protective of the souls that come to pass through his territory, treating them like esteemed guests rather than the scum mortals often make them out to be. And even his A-Xian doesn’t get to just point at one and take it with him—they both know it.
“Then,” Hua Cheng says as he reaches for one of the black cups on the table in between them, “why don’t we start?”
no Wei WuXian picks up his own cup, drops the dice with a soft clack and looks at the owner of the Den to wait for the starting sign.
They both start shaking their cups, unlike what he had told Xie Lian the first time the man visited his gambling den, there is no technique to it. His wrists flick in a practiced manner while his heart chants, don’t win don’t win don’t win.
At the same time, the men turn around their cups and let their dice fall onto the surface of the table.
Wei WuXian: one and six.
Hua Cheng: hard six.
The crowd erupts into cheers. Their Hua Chengzhu has won! They’re about to watch the extraction of this poor man’s Killing Intent!
Hua Cheng’s eye widens and a shot of fear goes through his body. It has been a long time since he’s felt so powerless . Who would have thought that he would ever come to loathe the luck that had undoubtedly kept him alive for all those years (until he died and somehow still didn’t rid the world of his presence)?
Xie Lian sits up straight behind the curtain, alarmed by the tension in his husband’s back that the crowd is unaware of.
What happened? He sounds worried even through their communication array.
Hua Cheng is too cowardly to answer.
He looks into the eyes of his patron—the one he raised—the one he just doomed.
Wei WuXian looks back into his eye, awfully calm in the face of his loss. “It’s okay,” he says, voice low. “It’s all part of the game.”
If hurting the ones I love is part of the game then I don’t ever want to play no more, Hua Cheng thinks.
He stays silent.
A deal is a deal. A game is a game. And two sixes are worth more than a one and a six.
Wei WuXian lost his bet; the soul would stay here and he would be ripped of his Killing Intent.
“Hua Chengzhu,” Wei WuXian says. “Your price, take it.”
Hua Cheng takes one lingering look at the four dice on the table in between them—just to be sure. Then, clenches his fists and with a raised voice calls, “Wei WuXian, YiLing Patriarch. You have lost this game of luck. And so,” he pauses, to build suspense—to prepare himself—the crowd eats it up and goes wild. “And so I will take my price; your Killing Intent.”
The crowd goes from noisy to rowdy in a matter of seconds. Hua Cheng doesn’t smile like he normally would, can only look into the eyes of his patron while his heart screams, let it be a dream, A-Xian, gege, tell me it’s a dream.
As it is, his shadows remove the table between them and Wei WuXian sinks to his knees in front of Hua Cheng.
“My lord,” says Wei WuXian. “I have lost, take your price.”
“Kid! Don’t just accept this!”
“Yeah! C’mon, act out!”
“We want to see a spectacle!”
“Give us a spectacle!”
“Aren’t you the YiLing Patriarch? Give us a damn show!”
“Silence!” Hua Chengzu’s voice fills the room and the crowd of ghosts and monsters goes silent at once. One thing he knows about his A-Xian is the thick face he inherited from his Xie-ge. He does not want to see him act out here for the sake of the crowd.
At the moment he could not care less about his reputation as the merciless ruler of Ghost City; this particular patron comes first.
“Very well,” says Hua Chengzhu, holding his hands behind his back. “A bet is a bet.” He saunters closer to Wei WuXian. “A loss is a loss.” He stops right in front of the kneeling man so that his eyes fall onto the silver chains around his boots. “And a price is a price.”
Wei WuXian’s shoulders don’t tremble. Not like Hua Cheng’s hands. Xie Lian sits still behind the curtain, back straight and face tight like a merciless king—a front Hua Cheng knows he has to put up to get through this.
“Raise your face, YiLing Patriarch.”
Wei WuXian complies, showing Hua Chengzhu his masked face and honest eyes.
Hua Cheng raises his trembling hands, if Wei WuXian notices their shaking, he doesn’t show it.
He cups the sides of Wei WuXian’s face—too gently to have any intent to hurt, even if that is inevitably the outcome. His long fingers press into the patron’s temples and his thumbs caress his cheeks.
“A-Xian,” Hua Cheng whispers, too quietly for anyone but the two of them to hear, “Forgive me.”
Then, he pulls .
A scream tears out of Wei WuXian’s throat and the mask clatters to the floor, its ribbon torn with the force of Hua Cheng’s pull.
Slowly, a red whisk extracts itself from Wei WuXian’s temple. Its ends stick to Hua Chengzhu’s fingertips as it forcefully gets removed from its former body.
Wei WuXian’s voice goes hoarse and Hua Cheng’s heart breaks as he stands, cradling his little one’s Killing Intent in the palm of his hand.
“It is done,” he says, voice trembling.
Wei WuXian falls to the floor, panting as he barely manages to catch himself with his hands.
Hua Cheng aches . He aches to help his little one up, to wrap him in his arms and tend to his wounds. But he knows that is something he does not deserve. Not when he was the one to inflict all this hurt.
Gege , he begs through their communication array.
I’m here, San Lang . And a second later his beloved brushes past and reaches their son.
Hua Cheng staggers back and barely notices the confused murmuring of the crowd. He watches with an aching heart as his beloved helps their A-Xian to stand, his legs shaky and shoulders seeming impossibly slimmer in his dark robes.
Xie Lian’s soft hands card his hair back and brush his back, pouring the smallest amount of spiritual power into their little one’s mortal body. Just enough to ease the edge of the pain.
“A-Xian,” whispers Xie Lian. “Does it hurt?”
Hua Cheng can’t bear to hear this conversation. Not when he’s the instigator.
With closed eyes he doesn’t see Wei WuXian shake his head even as a trickle of blood escapes from the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t see his god using his sleeve to wipe the blood off their kid’s face, dirtying his pristine white robes in the process.
“Hua Chengzhu,” gasps Wei WuXian. “I want a second try.”
When Hua Cheng opens his eyes, Wei WuXian is shaking Xie Lian’s gentle hands off his shoulders.
“Hua Chengzhu,” Wei WuXian’s voice turns pleading. “Give me a second try.”
“I don’t give second tries ,” Hua Chengzhu spits, as if disgusted by the very idea, and turns around on his heel, ready to stalk back and disappear behind his red curtain. But Wei WuXian’s voice stops him.
“Hua Chengzhu!” he calls, and the sound of knees falling to the floor follows.
Hua Cheng presses his eyes closed. He thinks, little one, go back where you belong. Haven’t you hurt enough?
The crowd of ghosts surrounding them gasp at the kid’s bold gesture. They know their Hua Chengzhu doesn’t give second chances, why would this strange boy change that?
“Hua Chengzhu.”
Behind his back, robes rustle, and he can feel his beloved’s unease steadily building.
“Hua Chengzhu, my lord.”
Hua Cheng turns around. His body goes rigid.
Wei WuXian is kneeling on the dirty floor of the Gambler’s den. The top of his head bared, palms down on the floor in preparation.
“Hua Chengzhu,” he repeats, voice cracking. “Please, lord, let me have a second chance.”
And to Hua Cheng’s growing horror, the boy lowers his upper body, arms shaking, until his forehead touches the floor.
The crowd of ghosts goes crazy . They start howling and screaming in lieu of cheers. Liquids and limbs fly through the air as they express their glee as they witness the mighty YiLing Partriach kowtow in front of their Hua Chengzhu.
“That’s right!” they call. “Show them who is the strongest!”
“Hua Chengzhu, kick him!”
“YiLing Patriarch? Ha! I’ve never seen such a pitiful display.”
Three times does Wei WuXian’s forehead touch the floor before he straightens his back. He holds his arms out in front of him, eyes down cast.
“Get up,” hisses Hua Cheng. “You’ll get your second chance.”
But, please, get up.
Hua Cheng is not a god. He is not something to be worshipped or revered. And least of all by his A-Xian.
Before he can doubt his decision—was it a decision or simply the fastest way to get Wei WuXian to stand up?—his shadows are returning the low table they had removed earlier. Wei WuXian gets up on shaky legs, Xie Lian twitches, reaching for him instinctually.
Gege, Hua Cheng tells him. Come here.
Xie Lian complies, silently moves to stand next to his husband without taking his eyes off their patron.
Hua Cheng draws comfort from his presence. Wants nothing more but to bury his face in his beloved’s neck and just breathe . Take a second, hopefully wake up and realize it was all a dream .
As it is—and it is—this is all real.
“If you lose,” says Hua Chengzhu— if not when — “your soul will be mine to keep.”
If it comes to that , he tells himself, I will treasure you and nurse you and keep your fire aflame, cupped in my palm.
“Do you accept these terms?”
Wei WuXian nods but Hua Cheng has averted his eyes. His heart is steeled—the faster he can get this over with the faster he can curl up in a ball of hatred and slash and hack away until he feels even slightly human again.
With his better half—his bad luck charm—silently by his side, he picks up his dice and shakes them in his cup.
Wei WuXian does the same across from him. Mask broken on the floor, eyes tired but not yet defeated.
Even the previously rowdy crowd of ghosts seem to hold their breaths as the two pairs of dice shake in the cups, then clatter onto the surface of the table.
Maybe his luck has realized that winning is the last thing he needs right now. Or maybe his God of Misfortune standing at his side gave the final call. Whatever the cause, for the first time in his 800 years of existence, Hua Cheng rolls snake eyes.
Even Wei WuXian’s own three and four are high enough to beat him.
He heaves a sigh of relief.
“You win,” he sighs, eyes falling closed as a nauseating mixture of regret and relief wash over him. “You win, you will get the soul you desire.”
Wei WuXian is panting, mouth open with drops of blood drying at the corners. He looks at Hua Cheng, then at the dice, then back to Hua Cheng. He huffs—laughs? It’s hard to tell.
“Whose soul do you desire?” Who did you risk your life for? What lowly human has captured your affection?
“Wen Ning, Lord Hua Chengzhu.”
Hua Cheng doesn’t let the title hurt—he doesn’t. Instead he waves his hand and two shadows slip out of the den to retrieve the soul. Or retrieve someone who will do that. Hua Cheng doesn’t know. He’s struggling to see straight.
Someone—maybe it’s Yin Yu, maybe not—hands him a spirit-trapping bag, the weight of it too light to promise anything good.
“This soul,” says Hua Chengzhu, weighing it in his hands. “It’s barely anything. Broken possibly beyond fixing.”
In his heart—this frozen muscle refusing to beat—he is raging. How could this excuse of a soul, this unfortunate pile of shattered human, ever be worth his A-Xian’s whole being?
Wei WuXian holds out his hand, silently waiting for Hua Chengzhu to drop the bag in his palm.
Hua Cheng does, then turns to the crowd of ghosts. “The show is over,” he says without much of his usual dramatic flare. The crowd, more accustomed to their Lord’s bad moods than they would wish, register his cold tone and immediately flee the Gambler’s Den.
Xie Lian approaches Wei WuXian. “Take care of yourself, A-Xian.” Xie Lian caresses the side of Wei WuXian’s head and his amber eyes trail over the bruised face of his little one.
“I never want to see you here again,” says Hua Cheng, meaning it from the depths of his heart.
The YiLing Patriarch stumbles out of the Gambler’s Den, face bloodied and fist curled protectively around the bag containing the broken soul of a Wen boy.
Hua Cheng feels untethered. Like the helpless ghost fire on the brink of collapse he was hundreds of years ago, or the collapsed monster of a half-formed ghost king he’d been in the Kiln. Or maybe a little bit of both, somehow. The red thread around his finger the only thing keeping him tethered to humanity.
His god gently leads him back to their room and holds him and strokes his head until he can make himself breathe again.
“Gege,” he gasps when he’s found the shredded parts of his humanity and put them back together again.
“I know,” Xie Lian whispers into his hair.