Work Text:
Mu Qing had no special expectations for that day. Hua Cheng had told him just a few hours earlier that he had come into possession of a chessboard dating back to the Xianle era, which seemed to have belonged to the royal family itself but that he could not be certain. Mu Qing remembered well what it looked like and had joined him as soon as he could, excited at the very idea.
Xie Lian would have loved such a gift! It had been several years since they were officially together and as just as many since he, Xie Lian and Hua Cheng were united in marriage and things were… good. Really, really good, Mu Qing had everything he could want, more than he had ever imagined when he was a poor mortal, a servant. He even had sex, alone with Hua Cheng and together with Xie Lian. It wasn’t frequently, but neither the ghost or the prince had never tried to pressure him into sex, and that allowed him to be able to approach that side of their relationship at his own pace. He wasn’t really interested in the physical approch but sometimes he longed for some tyoes of contact.
And there he was, outside the chamber he divided with Hua Cheng when they wanted to be alone and he wasn’t expecting much, nothing epic or exceptional, no adventure, just a little relax and maybe some cuddling. He certainly did not expect the punch that hit him directly in the face, so hard that it rolled him back into the hallway, his nose broken, blood everywhere.
Mu Qing instinctively stood up on his legs, one hand pressed to his nose, his eyes misted with tears from the pain. He wobbled on his feet for a moment, trying to focus his gaze.
"You have courage, Xuan Zhen," growled Hua Cheng's voice, dangerously close to his ear, "Not only in my city, even in my fucking residence."
Mu Qing framed a blurry red figure less than two steps away from him.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he hissed, "Your brain has gone moldy and..."
Mu Qing was hit once more in the face, on the cheek this time, the blow even harder than the previous one causing him to slam against the door of the room. Mu Qing slid to the floor one more time, his gaze clouded, the room spinning.
Fuck.
He had almost forgotten how strong Hua Cheng was, even simply in his sheer physical strength.
Mu Qing felt himself grabbed by the hair and lifted abruptly to his feet. The god bit his lip in order not to make a sound, now only the toes of his feet barely touching the ground, the pain starting from the skin of his head, virtually the entire weight of his body supported by Hua Cheng's grip on his ponytail.
"Now Xuan Zhen," murmured the ghost with a sadistic grin that made his skin crawl, "You will tell me exactly what you are doing here and how you got here."
*
Mu Qing had never experienced torture in the true sense of the word, but he did not have to have direct experience to know that Hua Cheng would hurt.
In the course of his own sexual exploration Mu Qing had found that pain aroused him, but definitely, not that kind of pain.
What's more, being chained to the wall with restrictive chains that deprived him of his spiritual energy, his feet dipped up to his calves in a basin with demonic leeches, and the fucking Ghost King whipping him with an electric whip made it even less fun.
I mean, had it been tuned beforehand, maybe it could have been. Maybe if the whippings weren't so fucking violent that they split his skin until his bones showed, maybe he could have gotten turned on. Or if the demonic leeches hadn't already slaughtered his feet and ankles, slowly depriving him of all the blood he had, he might have gotten turned on.
Or if Hua Cheng's fucking aura wasn’t so terrifying that it paralyzed him where he stood. Or if he did not exude such murderous intent that he seriously feared, for the first time, for his own life.
They had known each other, literally, for centuries, and excluding a couple of critical moments at the beginning of their acquaintance, just after Hua Cheng had emerged from Mount Tonglu, Hua Cheng's aura had always been very calm in his presence. He had never feared for himself, and Mu Qing had discovered early on that lowering his guards and walls with Hua Cheng had been easier and more unexpected and spontaneous than expected. He could say with absolute certainty that no one knew him as well as Hua Cheng.
And if there was a time when Hua Cheng used to run a hand through his hair, now they were tightened so violently that they tore strands from his skin. Mu Qing gasped heavily. Hua Cheng's cold fingers slipped away, loosening his grip. Unsupported, Mu Qing's head fell back heavily toward his chest but before it could happen the ghost's hand grabbed him by the neck, holding him against the wall.
"So. Shall we try again?"
The general growled. He was terrified, he was exhausted, it hurt everywhere and he simply wanted to pass out somewhere to recover but the fuck he would have allowed that bastard to have his way, no matter what dark shit had reduced his husband to that.
"We can talk about it all you fucking want," he spat, "But my answer remains the same as the hours pass. You, me, and Xie Lian are together, and I'm seriously starting to regret it right now."
Hua Cheng's face grew even more terrified and Mu Qing swallowed noisily, his toes instinctively rolling in on themselves. In doing so he touched the leeches, which, animated by his movement, moved faster, biting him more and more. Mu Qing closed his eyes in pain for a moment.
"Don't you dare speak his name," hissed Hua Cheng, tightly clasping his fingers on his neck, "How can I contact him if he has been missing for centuries? You are shameless. You are the turncoat I always thought you were Xuan Zhen."
Mu Qing gasped a stifled groan, his face already red. He would have liked to say something, anything but Hua Cheng obviously did not give him even another second and immediately the ghost's low, chanting voice reached his ears. At another time he would have smiled because Hua Cheng had already sung to him a couple of times in his mother's language but at that moment panic petrified him on the spot.
He knew that Hua Cheng could cast powerful and terrifying spells and he knew what would happen from there shortly. He tightened his eyes, trying to prepare himself for the pain to come. But nothing could have prepared him for that level of pain. The pain of a thousand bones breaking and reassembling at the same time made him gasp so hard that he did not even have a chance to groan.
"If you don't want to cooperate Xuan Zhen, then that means I will simply enjoy watching you suffer. By the way, thank you for sacrificing yourself for my enjoyment, you truly are the kind god your prayers says you are."
The pain was repeated and repeated and repeated to the point where Mu Qing did not even bother to hold back screams or sobs or tears as he repeated nonstop in an indistinct jumble 'I'm your husband, I'm your husband, I love you and you love me, please, please stop, you're my husband, I swear, you love me, please stop!'
The pain was so deep, so severe, so excruciating that at one point his body was shaken by spasms but nothing came out of his throat. His brain could no longer even register such a high degree of pain. It had simply shut down, leaving him hanging on the wall like a stringless puppet, drooling and bleeding, almost motionless.
Mu Qing heard the door to the cell corridor open, then quick footsteps and some heavy ones. Footsteps he knew, footsteps he knew by heart and could never forget again.
He heard familiar voices and Mu Qing could see a white spot. Something inside him instinctively recognized Xie Lian, heard Pei Ming's voice, and perhaps He Xuan as well? He could not have said, but his body sagged, abandoned to a tiny handhold of hope. The pain stopped coming in closer and closer and more frequent waves, and he did not know exactly how long after that but he found himself in Xie Lian's arms, held close to him. He felt as if he were being carried somewhere else, but Mu Qing was so weak that he could barely keep his eyes open.
"Mu Qing! Everything will be all right. Trust me."
Xie Lian's voice was not quite still and steady. It was focused, his posture and stride told him that he was determined and efficient and present but a note of panic shone through his voice.
"Lian..." he mumbled.
"It's all right Qing'er. Everything will be all right. Talk to me. Tell me anything."
"I ... love you and Hua ... Cheng ... is he okay ...?"
He heard Xie Lian exhale a choked cry, as if he was struggling to control himself. His steps grew faster, starting to run.
"I love you too, but I will not accept a dying declaration, I warn you. If you die now, we will no longer be friends, I promise. And San Lang… we'll think about that in a little while. Please Qing'er, stay awake."
Mu Qing could sense the panic, if not the terror of Xie Lian. It was something he had never sensed so intensely, not even when they were both literally broken on the floor during his first exile. Sensing Xie Lian's fear terrified him in turn. He was going to die. This time for real. And there was so much he wanted to live still, so much to do and say and experience.
He was running out of time.
He was going to die.
The only consolation, in feeling Xie Lian's arms wrapped around his body and his heart beating fast, was that he would not die alone.
And that was something.
His eyes suddenly became very heavy and he lost consciousness in his arms.
*
Mu Qing opened his eyes again. The room was in semi-darkness, but rays of sunlight were penetrating through the curtain. The window beyond the curtain was open, for he could hear the noisy chatter of the maids in his residence.
He took a long moment to recognize the jade-striped white marble ceiling of his divine residence.
It took him another moment to realize that nothing hurt. Another still to realize that the disheveled mass holding his head near his hand was Pei Ming. The sweet smell of his hair was so intense and penetrating that he could have recognized it anywhere.
He moved his fingers because he could not move anything else. He felt exhausted as if he had slept for a very long time but had not really slept. In addition he was completely bendaged he noticed, from his neck up to his feet, all the way down his torso and legs. For a moment he wondered with some panic how much more pain he would feel when whatever drugs or painkillers they had given him lost their effect.
The slightest movement seemed to be enough to wake Pei Ming and ward off such thoughts, because his friend (boyfriend? It was still a very open subject, despite the long time they were together) looked at him as well as he would look at a ghost.
"Mu Qing! By the gods..."
Pei Ming snapped to his feet and then took another deep breath and then sat back down next to him, taking one of his hands and clasping it in his own.
"How do you feel Mu Qing?"
"...as if a sand demon had tried to dismember me," muttered the deity in response with a dry mouth, eyes barely open “I’m thirsty.”
Pei Ming immediately poured some water into a cup and helped him take small sips. Mu Qing coughed, his throat ached, and Pei Ming sat down by his bed again.
"We were worried Mu Qing. You were asleep for weeks, recovering."
Mu Qing barely nodded, not quite in a condition to understand all that was going on, and just breathed in silence for a few minutes. Pei Ming lay down next to him and held him tightly against him. Mu Qing found himself thinking that it was reassuring to be in his presence, his aura permeating the room, his breathing now regular.
"I thought you were going to die."
Pei Ming's voice suddenly reached him although it was barely a whisper and Mu Qing could not move, but his heart tightened into a painful grip that almost took the breath out of his lungs.
"...What happened?"
"Don't you remember anything?"
Mu Qing strained to barely open his eyes and shook his head with effort.
"I have flashes, I think… Hua Cheng tortured me," he murmured in response, "Where is Xie Lian?"
"He is working, but he will come right away as soon as I let him know that you have woken up. Now try to get some more sleep."
Mu Qing managed to order his own hand to tighten its fingers around Pei Ming's.
"Are you staying here?"
"Of course Mu Qing. I will stay here for as long as you wish."
Mu Qing nodded and closed his eyes again. He collapsed asleep a moment later.
*
His sleeping and waking phase was discontinuous and debilitating. Sleeping was not really sleeping and being awake was just continuous physical suffering, sometimes the pain was so severe that it forced him to fall asleep again.
He had once tried to get in touch with Hua Cheng, but found that their mental channel was not only blocked, but severed completely. To no avail had been his feeble attempts to establish a new one; Hua Cheng kept blocking him. He had tried asking Xie Lian if he could explain to him what had happened, but the only thing he and Pei Ming had told him was that Hua Cheng had tortured him for hours, had almost succeeded in killing him, and that he should now focus on his own healing and not on Hua Cheng.
The first month was long and absolutely nothing happened beside the feeling the pain, always so intense. He could do nothing. His wounds were too deep, too open, too bleeding. His core was too unstable, too devastated, too weak.
He could not stand and he could not lie down. He could not leave the Divine City. He couldn't even leave his fucking residence, finding himself segregated most of the time in his bed, in the grip of terrible nightmares (the clinking of Hua Cheng's boots, his voice coiling around his name like poison, his fingers poking into open wounds, pain, pain, endless pain) that seemed to trigger an ache inside his body that made him scream so unbearable it was the pain.
The next few months were more or less the same, the only difference being that from his room he could now reach the patio that led directly into the garden.
The nightmares and pain came suddenly, he only had to think of Hua Cheng and those hours to feel himself on fire, and he only wished he could pass out or lock himself in some beautiful memory in his mind where all that pain did not exist. Often Mu Qing would stand still and stare at something, for hours or days.
Summer had started a few weeks ago and was particularly hot. Sweat made his skin itch, and resisting the temptation to scratch was difficult and painful.
"General?"
"Hmm?"
"Time to dress the wounds."
Mu Qing grimaced. It always hurt to disinfect open gashes, to run a salve over burned or jagged edges. It hurt to untie bandages soaked in dried blood, and it hurt to bandage them again. He didn't want to. And he knew it was childish of him.
Wu Xin was a mortal who had been personally appointed by Pei Ming as his personal physician. According to what his fiancé had told him, Wu Xin was one of the best doctors among his faithful, specializing in alternative natural remedies and engaged in the study of new and innovative medicines. Mu Qing knew that he should not make Wu Xin's life even more complicated but....
But Mu Qing was tired of the constant physical pain. He was tired of feeling the skin pulling, he was tired of feeling the blood sliding down his ribs, he was tired of feeling how deep the wounds were, how some still smelled like burned skin again and again.
"Not now, please."
"General, I must insist. Some bandages are already soaked with blood. If we take care of them now, before the blood dries, it will be less painful. Come, I will help you stand up, you have bent your legs in a strange way again."
If there was one thing Mu Qing hated, it was feeling vulnerable and being totally dependent on someone as he was at that moment. Wu Xin helped him with everything and was always there. His tasks ranged from helping him out of bed and taking him somewhere, to medicating him, feeding him, bathing him, taking care of dressing him and everything else.
Mu Qing forced himself to repeat to himself in his own mind that Wu Xin was right and it would be the best thing to do what he said because he could spare himself at least an ounce of pain. But he only had to think about the pain to instinctively think about the wounds. And when the wounds stood out in his head then he would think back to what had caused them. And the whips and burns and leeches would come back to his mind.
But most of all he was reminded of how Hua Cheng had looked at him, how he rejoiced in his pain, how he wanted to kill him. He still dreamed of his eyes and.
"...General, it's okay, you are safe!"
Mu Qing gasped and found himself clasping his hands on Wu Xin's arms, his breathing broken. He could not look up, still fixed on the fabric now on his own legs. He felt sweat dripping down his temples, his teeth clenched tightly, and he was trembling.
"It's all right. It's all right. Let's go inside, I'll help you lie on the bed."
Mu Qing nodded frantically, trying to breathe, now with his eyes clenched shut. He felt himself being picked up and moaned in pain between tight lips, and a few steps later he felt himself lying in bed with a damp cloth on his forehead.
"You are safe, I promise."
Mu Qing turned on his side with a higher groan, his face hidden in the pillow, beginning to control his breathing, muttering the Sutras to himself. He felt Wu Xin's hand on the back of his head.
"Sleep now."
The general lay still for a second, then collapsed asleep.
*
Mu Qing observed the garden full of flowers and trees while sitting under the veranda, a blank stare. He was rolled up in an armchair with a blanket pulled up to his chin. It was warm but Mu Qing was shot through with icy chills that made him shiver from head to toe.
Pain is only a state of mind, he told himself in his own head. If you control the mind then you control the pain.
He just had to turn his concentration away from the emotional pain that that physical suffering was causing him, leaving only the pain in his own body, which was much more manageable.
He just had to think about something else as he looked at the flowers and trees. He locked himself away in another world where none of that would cause him any more pain. In his mind, away from everything, he could take a ride with Pei Ming. Play chess with Xie Lian, copy the Sutras with him. He could go to the land of mortals in that hot spring with Pei Ming, go back to training with him. He could have fun and love and be loved and the torture would never bother him again. Hua Cheng was there in his mind, in his memories, happy and kind and funny as always.
"It's time for your medicine, general."
Mu Qing knew Wu Xin was talking to him but still took long minutes before he managed to look away from a spot in the thin air and looked at Wu Xin.
"...Hmm? Did you say something?"
"It's time for your medicine," Wu Xin repeated, his tone calm, "But you have to eat something first."
"...medicine? But I just took them after breakfast."
"General, it's late afternoon," replied Wu Xin, in the same tone as before, as if everything was normal, as if the state of total apathy into which Mu Qing was slipping was not increasingly frequently "I have set aside lunch for you. His Highness the Crowned Prince said he will come and join you for dinner if you feel up to it, and if you want General Ming Guang can come by tomorrow, he asked if you would like to play chess together or maybe he could read your favorite book."
But Mu Qing was particularly confused. Early afternoon?
"Pei Ming and Xie Lian can come whenever they want," he replied uncertainly, "Why ask me?"
Wu Xin gently took the blanket off him, and Mu Qing realized that the chills had passed and he was sweating.
"His Highness and General Ming Guang know that you prefer to be warned. Besides, you have been very busy today, to arrive unannounced would have been incredibly disrespectful of them."
"And what was I going to do all morning?"
Wu Xin squeezed a cloth inside a basin and passed it over the god's arms, gently.
"You had looked at the garden. Slept a little. Observed the flowers again. Murmured the Sutras. Slept some more. Then you were so focused on watching some bees that you heard nothing when I brought you lunch. I styled your hair in the meantime; it calmed the tremors in your body."
Wu Xin's tone was light and disinterested, almost amused. Mu Qing appreciated his manner and made him feel a little less guilty. It was kind of him to skirt around the point and avoid saying that he would simply disconnected from the world around him for hours at a time.
"Would you like to eat a little before you take your medicine? Then you will have less stomach ache later. Ah, His Highness was really happy about tonight, looking forward to spending some time with you. When he came by earlier you were sleeping, but he read the Sutras to you for some incense, you were restless asleep."
Mu Qing nodded and made no fuss when Wu Xin helped him stretch his numb legs and when he helped him sit upright. He ate slowly and took his medicine in silence.
Wu Xin chatted almost all the time and almost all the time, filling a silence that terrified the general and weighed down his heart. Pei Ming and Xie Lian were often with him, often sleeping together, often eating together. But despite everything Mu Qing felt lonely. Lonely as he had not been in ages, and Mu Qing was still not sure how to deal with that loneliness and the feeling of being adrift again. He clung to Wu Xin's words and tried to stay present for the rest of the day.
*
"General, why do you persist in writing these letters?" sighed Wu Xin when Mu Qing handed him a letter bearing the seal of Xuan Zhen's residence.
"Why do you persist every week in asking me this question rather. Wu Xin, I don't like to be questioned," Mu Qing replied in a distracted tone.
"I am not, but it is just yet another letter you write that will be ignored. I simply think you should commit your energy to something more important than Hua Chengzhu. For example, your own healing."
"I won't heal faster if I save some incense time to write a letter, Wu Xin. Now stop irritating me. I’m not feeling good and I really want to send thus letter away.”
Writing was difficult because he could not concentrate. Xie Lian said it was an effect of the torture and the ointments and the medicine. That he had to keep healing, that he was doing well. Mu Qing did not feel well, especially when he persisted in writing stupid letters to Hua Cheng who had disappeared. Mu Qing closed his eyes for a moment, the chills from the fever he had woken up with. But he had to write, as long as he was able to do so. He was not going to allow that bastard to get away with that, for leaving him alone and excluded from his existence without even having the decency to tell him to his face.
Wu Xin's sigh pulled him back into reality.
"As you wish," Wu Xin commented, stretching out an arm as Mu Qing tightly clasped his fingers on his forearm to stand up and keep his balance "Is it okay to eat here in the garden?" he asked, passing his other arm around his waist for support, guiding him to a table not far away, already set.
Mu Qing nodded and slumped back against the comfortable, soft chair on which he used to spend much of his day. He saw Wu Xin walk back into the house and return with a wooden box.
"Lunch won't be ready until two incense," Wu Xin commented as he sat down on the floor, "In the meantime, how about a foot and leg massage? The balm that General Ming Guang brought from the land of mortals seems to be taking effect, how about that? Most of the wounds are healing very well."
Mu Qing did not respond, watching Wu Xin untie the bandages that reached his knees. He watched his own skin ravaged by the bites and venom of the demonic leeches, the thousand and one beasts that had fed on his flesh and blood while he was being tortured.
He tried to avoid comparisons with the skin he had just a few months earlier, smooth and free of scars or wounds of any kind. Mu Qing was not certain that he would ever return to his former self. That was probably why Hua Cheng did not want to see him anymore, because he had become a mass of congealed blood and scars and skin wrinkled from burns. How could he have wanted him, as before?
Wu Xin did not wait for an answer and continued chatting about what Xie Lian had told him in the morning while Mu Qing was still asleep, gently running the cream over his feet, back and soles, as he gently stroked up along his ankles and calves.
Hua Cheng had always liked his ankles and feet. He always paid special attention to them, and Mu Qing was always embarrassed when he did because he did not consider his feet something particularly aesthetic or beautiful to look at.
Of course it was that they were now really horrible to look at.
"...Eat before it gets cold."
Mu Qing shifted his gaze to Wu Xin and saw him pouring something to drink into a glass, the table in front of him already set. He looked briefly at his legs, again bandaged and smelling like almonds thanks to the balm. He did not have the courage to ask how long he had been absent this time and murmured a thank you for the food.
He kept his eyes fixed on his own meal the whole time. Wu Xin sat at a smaller table next to him, but he continued chatting about a medical treatise Xie Lian had had delivered to him, ranging then to one of his city doctor stories. Then he took his medicine.
Thinking was difficult at times, especially when he was taking medicine. Forming a sentence was difficult. He always felt gripped by the stomach by some emotion that he never really knew how to deal with because his head was constantly clouded by who knows what drug. Distinguishing reality and fiction was difficult. He often wondered if what he had said or heard had really happened, and the realization that he really had no idea how to discern the two sent him into a panic.
"General Xuan Zhen?"
Mu Qing gasped and looked up from his own fingers, watching Wu Xin stretch a calm smile.
"General Nan Yang would like to greet you, if you feel up to it."
"Feng Xin?" murmured Mu Qing almost amazed "...yes, no problem."
Wu Xin disappeared out of his bedroom and a blink of an eye later Feng Xin took his place. Feng Xin seemed to be uncomfortable and uncertain, his posture was stiff and his eyebrows were furrowed almost to his hairline.
"It took you long enough," Mu Qing murmured, hinting at a weak smile, "I've only been locked up in here for months."
"Xie Lian entrusted me with your territory and your attendants," replied Feng Xin trying to smile in turn "You have a form for every bullshit, which I stay up late every day to fill out."
Mu Qing extended a hand toward him.
"Help me sit on the sofa," he explained when he saw that Feng Xin was looking at him as if he had gone crazy "My legs hurt, I can't walk by myself."
Feng Xin made an awkward forward momentum that almost made Mu Qing laugh. He probably would have if he had not still felt so much pain, but at the same time he was amazed at the extreme gentleness with which Feng Xin was holding and helping him, a gentleness that clashed terribly with his appearance, with what he knew of him, with their past.
Mu Qing said nothing and leaned against the backrest with a sigh, pulling the blanket up to his shoulders, his body suddenly freezing cold.
"How do you feel?"
Mu Qing shook his shoulders. He did not want to talk about it with Feng Xin. He didn't want to talk about it with anyone to be honest.
"...Tell me something," he finally replied, "My days are boring."
Feng Xin seemed to understand and nodded. Feng Xin's voice was deep but it was full of genuine amusement as he told about that mission, that form he couldn't find, that attendant who had almost caused a war by mistake, and those silly prayers begging him for a son. Mu Qing was in pain but Feng Xin was trying hard to give him some relief, at least mentally.
"...Hey Feng Xin?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you know what happened with Hua Cheng?"
"Hua Cheng?" replied the other in another rush of indignant outburst "Mu Qing, that asshole tortured you almost to death and disappeared from the face of the earth, mortal and otherwise. Forget about him. He is a bastard who should never have been born and-"
"Stop it!" exclaimed Mu Qing, horrified.
"Mu Qing, you stop it!" exclaimed Feng Xin, now angrily "If he had cared anything about you he would have shown up! He was looking for a way to get rid of you, and look where you are! You're suffering terribly every day, you have a half-eternity-long convalescence, your divine core is in danger of being destroyed every day, and..."
Mu Qing felt a twinge in his heart and something tinkled in his ears It was Hua Cheng's boots, the typical tinkling of his decorations, the foreign tongue that used to sing songs to him to calm him down when he was agitated.
But now that singing voice wasn't reassuring him, wasn't telling him that everything would be all right. It was telling him that he was disgusting, that he was a traitor, that they had never seen each other before, that he would suffer, until his last breath.
Mu Qing found himself on the ground in pain and tears, his body on fire and burning, and the lashings were opening his skin and blood was everywhere. He looked around and he was back inside the torture cells and Hua Cheng was there, terrible and frightening with his eye shining with genuine amusement at seeing him suffer.
No, no please, not again, stop, stop, I can't take it anymore.
Mu Qing screamed and screamed and screamed as he wriggled furiously in Feng Xin's arms, as he sobbed, as each movement hurt even more, but anything was better than those tortures, stop, stop, stop!
Kill me please, stop, stop, why don't you believe me, why don't you believe me, I'm your husband, please! Please believe me! Kill me, kill me, kill me!
Mu Qing collapsed unconscious without even realizing it.
*
Mu Qing was particularly focused that day, for as much as pain allowed him to do so. He was busy writing yet another letter to the Ghost City and had told himself that he would not stop until he received a reply.
Wu Xin was sitting at the table next to him, intent on some correspondence Pei Ming had entrusted to him about Xuan Zhen's residence.
Mi Qing felt so bitter when he thought about Hua Cheng. He was aware that something must have happened to Hua Cheng to make him forget six centuries of personal interactions and an affair and a husband. He knew that Hua Cheng was the kind of person who would be choked with guilt once he came to his senses, but to disappear like that?
He had never gone up to the Divine City, never contacted him, never answered any of his letters, and...
"General, may I ask why you persist when you already know that you will be disappointed?"
Mu Qing looked away from the letter, observed the clouded sky for a moment. He was tired of feeling his eyes filled with tears every time he thought of that jerk. He was tired of doubting every time what he had had with Hua Cheng. But having reached that point, wasn't it now more than obvious that there was nothing left between them to doubt? Was it not clear, so obvious as to be embarrassing?
It was.
But he could not throw away centuries and ignore them as if they had never existed. He could not believe that Hua Cheng had left him, not like that, that was not like him. Hua Cheng would have looked him in the eye, respected him at least that far, dumped him in person.
"I'm not ready to give up, Wu Xin," he muttered with shining eyes, "I know him, like no one else. I know his feelings are sincere. I know he meant and wanted to marry me. I know it. I can’t… I will not give up on him so easily.”
Mu Qing felt a vise of pain hit him in the stomach and was forced to bend over on his stomach, a crush pressed against his tight lips. It was only a very intense twinge, but it was enough to leave him breathless. Wu Xin was immediately next to him, busy helping Mu Qing lie on his side.
Wu Xin's hands barely trembled as he covered him with a light blanket, but Mu Qing took no notice. The twinge of pain was easing and he managed to barely relax his body.
"...I'm not ready," he murmured as he closed his eyes, "I'm not ready to let him go, I don't care what others say."
"Now rest general," whispered Wu Xin passing a hand through his hair "You are exhausted."
Mu Qing had the absurd impression that Wu Xin had spoken to him in a foreign but familiar language. But he had no chance to think about it again that he immediately collapsed asleep.
*
Mu Qing suddenly awoke, pale and trembling, almost unable to move.
"Qing'er?" asked a voice near him.
Mu Qing tried to focus and after a couple of seconds saw Pei Ming sitting in a chair next to him.
"Pei Ming," he exhaled pulling his hair away from his face, "I didn't...I didn't hear...I didn't remember...Wu Xin didn't..."
"Relax," the other interrupted him with a half smile, "Wu Xin has to go prepare some medicine, he needs a couple of days in the land of mortals."
Mu Qing tried to respond to the man's smile, but he was not sure he was able to move his mouth, still shaken by the nightmare he had just had. He struggled to pull himself up to sit up, and Pei Ming helped him stretch his legs.
"His Highness must work, you are stuck with me for a while. At your eternal service, my beloved princess."
Mu Qing smiled a little more openly.
"I missed you," he found himself saying.
Pei Ming looked at him in amazement and then sat down by his side, a sincere smile on his lips.
"I have some gossip from the land of mortals," he exclaimed with an amused grimace, "Do you want to hear them?"
Mu Qing rolled his eyes, but turned on his side to observe him better. Pei Ming began to speak, and Mu Qing felt a little better. A little bit of everydayness, a little bit of familiarity, a little bit of the past to alleviate that terrible present where he seemed to be living without a piece of his soul.
Mu Qing tried to enjoy that feeling as long as possible.
*
Mu Qing knew many things. He knew that it would take him months to recover from torture. He knew that his life had been completely devastated by whatever nonsense had happened at Paradise Manor that day. He knew that his relationship with Hua Cheng was over.
Yet that day, when his personal attendant, Shi Xu, showed up in his room saying he had a letter from Hua Chengzhu, Mu Qing felt as if he knew nothing more.
Mu Qing opened the letter with his fingers trembling and snapped his eyes along every ideogram, every word written. And if he could not believe that Hua Cheng had simply decided to ignore him after torturing him, he also could not believe the confirmation of what everyone had been telling him up to that moment.
He found himself teary-eyed and shaking and breathing hard because ... because ... because ... because ...
"General, sit down for a moment, don't..."
"Leave," whispered Mu Qing.
"General, don't..."
Mu Qing took a deep breath with difficulty and pushed his hands over his face.
"I said...leave!" he exclaimed loudly, trying to control the mass of feelings he was feeling.
Mu Qing was tired, tired, tired. He wanted his former life back. He was exhausted and hurt and in pain and his fucking husband had ended it with him by disappearing overnight after torturing him besides, was it only his fault that he was in that situation, that he was sick, that he was broken and he even dared to disappear into thin air?
"Leave me the fuck alone, everyone," he exploded with so much anger and pain that a wave of spiritual energy surged out of his body, flooding the two attendants.
Shi Xu grabbed Wu Xin by the robe and dragged him away. Mu Qing heard the door close and burst into tears, unable to control himself but he was almost sure he had stopped at some point because he had felt a shiver of pain run through his brain and heard a tinkling sound piercing through the air, Hua Cheng's boots thudding in the silence and pain and...
Mu Qing really had no idea how much time had passed, but he awoke on the couch on the patio, rolled up under the covers and struggling to get up to sit up.
Wu Xin was immediately at his side and passed an arm around his shoulders, helping him, and it was at that moment that Mu Qing noticed the skin on his fingertips wrinkled a bit.
"...What happened?" he muttered, "How long has it been?"
Wu Xin looked at him with an uncertain grimace, then took a chair and sat down in front of him, stopping to look at him.
"General," he exclaimed, "It has been days since you received Hua Chengzhu's letter."
Mu Qing had the unpleasant feeling of being on the verge of vomiting.
"...days? And-and… my fingers?" he asked still appalled.
"When I came back I saw you in front of the fireplace, you lit the fire with a spell and vomited blood everywhere from exertion, the wounds had all opened. You burned the letter but ... you didn't realize you were too close to the flames and burned your fingers. You were very sick, general."
Mu Qing bowed his gaze and ran his hands over his face in disbelief, desperately trying to find a foothold in his mind, and not finding it terrified him, causing him to exhale a verse of distress.
"By the gods, I am one step away from madness," he whispered, "Hua Cheng has already left me because I am crazy and broken, I wonder when Xie Lian and Pei Ming will do the same. Maybe I need to lock myself up in some remote residence. Maybe I can ask Pei Ming to lend me one, it shouldn't take me long to die anyway, right?"
Mu Qing felt his mouth was dry and his brain could not really formulate anything more complex than simple disconnected sentences that must have really sounded like the ramblings of a madman. Wu Xin was pale in the face and had the expression of someone facing a ghost.
"Please believe me, General Ming Guang and His Highness have no intention of leaving you and you are not crazy, you are just sick. But you will recover, I promise you. And Hua Cheng never deserved your feelings and your appreciation General."
“I begged him to contact me and ended up with one miserable letter after the thousand I sent him," exclaimed Mu Qing with bated breath "I trusted him even though I knew I wasn't enough. I never was. Xie Lian is the only one he ever cared about, I was just a plaything, a toy to pass the time with, he lied to me for centuries and..."
Mu Qing barely shook his head but did not have the energy to continue arguing. His head was spinning and he felt weak.
Wu Xin stood up. His hands were barely shaking and he seemed on the verge of a fit, but Mu Qing did not realize it, only the words of Hua Cheng's letter in his head, the feeling of being a nobody still permeating in his bones.
"I'll go get something ready for you to eat General. I'll be right back."
*
Mu Qing remained lying on his side, his breath broken with pain, his eyes misted with tears. He wanted to sleep, but he could not clear his mind enough to find a foothold of peace among the waves of pain.
"General," Wu Xin's voice murmured, "I'll change your water rag, it will be a little better."
Mu Qing did not reply and squinted his eyes for a moment. The rag was replaced with a fresh one and Mu Qing exhaled a cry of relief but continued not to move.
"General, would you like some medicine for the pain?"
"...no...it doesn't go away...what...can I do?"
Mu Qing suddenly lost all his rigidity and found himself sunk into the mattress, a verse of suffering that made his face contort into a grimace. Wu Xin rested his hand against his stomach and radiated a light, steady stream of spiritual energy directly into his core. Mu Qing became less in pain than before and exhaled a half breath, clasping his hands on the sheets.
"Tell me something good," Wu Xin continued, "Tell me... Tell me about your relationship with General Ming Guang. You seem very close."
Mu Qing exhaled another breath and his eyebrows rose just slightly upward, as if he had begun to remember.
And Mu Qing spoke, the words often cut off by moans of distress, but he spoke and spoke and spoke. Thinking about Pei Ming made him feel a little better, as if everything was just a little more bearable.
And he went on and on.
*
The autumn and much of the winter were for Mu Qing an undefined mixture of alternating sun and moon. His condition suddenly worsened, and the pain became more and more severe as his body tried to detoxify from whatever poison Hua Cheng had used during torture. There were days where only huge amounts of medicine could relieve some of the pain, and not even always.
He spent a good part of each day lying in bed, drenched in sweat as he stifled moans into a pillow. His mind was clouded by pain and medicine, leaving him exhausted between the sheets, unable to move or speak.
Wu Xin used to radiate some spiritual energy into him to help him endure the pain; he did it slowly and cautiously because his spiritual core had recently begun to stabilize. But it was enough for Mu Qing to collapse asleep, which was always better than sitting in his chair like a lifeless corpse while his mind wandered who knows where.
The days when he was lucid enough (and realizing how few there were landed him every time) to sustain a conversation were just as distressing as those where he was disconnected from reality.
He wished he could confide in Pei Ming when the man asked him how he was feeling, but Mu Qing could not open up enough for him to see the chaos within his own soul, the words were stuck in his throat, and he remained in the arms of the general who reassured him and told him that everything would be back to the way it was. He wished he could confide in Xie Lian on nights where he did not close his eyes but the only thing he could do was to stay close to him, his head on his chest, feeling his fingers in his hair.
He was quite lucid that day, and Pei Ming and Xie Lian were both with him, and Wu Xin was explaining in terms too technical for Mu Qing's medicine-fogged mind how far along his recovery was.
Probably another year and everything would work out as if nothing had happened. Mu Qing wished again to let himself go into some thought more pleasant than that but unfortunately for once his mind remained stuck in the present.
Spring was more bearable, the pain was still there but less excruciating than normal. Sleep was barely more comfortable but day and night really had no meaning for him.
But Xie Lian was often at his place and often Mu Qing felt really present, as he did that day. The afternoon had been fun and light and he had even managed to laugh a little at something his fiancé had said about the last Council meeting and had even managed to play several games of chess without estranging himself from the world even once.
Xie Lian sat by his side, the evening wind was still fresh, and snuggled under the blanket next to Mu Qing.
"How do you feel Qing'er?"
Mu Qing shook his shoulders.
"Quite well. It could be better, but I think it's okay for now."
"You are making incredible progress Qing'er. You just need to have in another moment of patience."
"It's just..." Mu Qing struggled a bit to find the words to express what he wanted to say, what he felt "It's just that I question whatever happens or is said. It's better, the last few days," he admitted then "But it's always tiring."
"You are a warrior, Mu Qing. And what you endured and the way you dealt with it made you even stronger. I am so proud of you and even a little envious, your fortitude is extraordinary."
Mu Qing did not reply, but sketched a smile, evidently pleased with his husband’s opinion. He leaned against him, letting him surround him in an embrace as the prince stroked his hair and let spiritual energy flow into his body. Mu Qing felt as if caressed by soft, placid waves, his spiritual core immediately stable and calm.
"Do you want to get some sleep Qing'er?" whispered Xie Lian in his ear.
The other shook his head but remained with his eyes closed.
"No, I want to enjoy this evening with you," he then replied, "Do you feel like telling me another adventure from your exile? The last one with the ghost temple was really exciting!"
Xie Lian nodded and made a thoughtful grimace, then emitted a cry of excitement.
"Ah! I have one and it happened in the north, after my time in the desert. It involves a beggar, a ghost child and two manfu. How about that?"
"It already sounds completely absurd from the premise."
"And that's why it's funny!" chuckled Xie Lian.
They slept together again that night, and Mu Qing actually managed to sleep while Xie Lian murmured sweet words in his ear.
*
When the first day of summer arrived, Mu Qing was awakened by Wu Xin. The general looked at him puzzled because it was the first time his attendant had not waited for him to wake up.
"...What's going on?" yawned Mu Qing.
"Today is a good day. Breakfast will be served in two incense and it's time for you to have a nice bath."
"At this hour?" replied the god, throwing himself among the pillows again "The sun has just come up!" he complained, pulling the blanket up over his head.
The blanket was again pulled away and Mu Qing looked crookedly at his attendant who sported an amused grin.
"General Xuan Zhen, have you become lazy? I heard that you used to wake up an hour before dawn to meditate and then start organizing your day's tasks! And now you want to stay in bed? Ah, wait until General Ming Guang hears about this!"
Mu Qing puffed up his red cheeks in a childish pout but did not reply, merely raising both arms toward him. Wu Xin snorted in amusement but grabbed him by the wrists anyway, pulling him to his seat. He helped him undress his night clothes, untied the bandages and looked carefully at each gash, scrutinizing each one very closely. The more superficial wounds had almost completely healed, but the deeper ones were still healing, the burned and black edges beginning to become hard scabs that would sooner or later fall off on their own, the wounds on his feet and calves no longer purple and black but beginning to turn a normal, barely pinkish hue.
The pain was present, especially when he walked but more bearable than in previous months. Wu Xin picked him up anyway and laid him down in the bathtub.
"The wounds ware healing wonderfully general. But I woke you up so early because, if you feel up to it, this morning I thought we could have done some exercise for your body."
Mu Qing nodded, dropping his head to one side with an almost disinterested snort.
"The medicines and drugs you have been taking for the past two years are very strong overall, and because of the pain you have not been eating properly. The time has come for you to get well, you are on the right road to recovery, I assure you."
Mu Qing grimaced again, then sighed heavily.
"All right, all right," he grumbled, waving the fingers of one hand, "But first, we eat. Right?"
"Of course general. You must get in shape, you have lost a lot of pounds in the last few months," commented Wu Xin eyeing the protruding ribs and bony shoulders, even the pelvic bones were covered only by a thin layer of skin and flesh.
Mu Qing did not reply. He suddenly looked away and let himself be washed without adding anything else.
*
The sun was high in the sky, summer was now almost over, and Wu Xin bent his head to one side as he gently slipped a boot onto Mu Qing's foot, trying to make the thick skin rub as little as possible.
"General, do you feel like going down to the land of mortals?"
Mu Qing raised an eyebrow and looked at him puzzled.
"Into the land of mortals? Do I have permission?"
"Your core are stable enough to bear the difference. And I think you could use a change of scenery after all these difficult months. You seem particularly down in the last few days."
Mu Qing grimaced impatiently and shook his shoulders, throwing his head back.
"I don't particularly feel like getting off. Do I have to?"
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to. But as your doctor, I encourage you to go back to taking care of your body. And getting used to the land of mortals again is a good passive exercise for your spiritual core."
Mu Qing struggled a little out of bed and cast a glance toward the mirror. His body was practically skin and bones. His ribs protruded, his shoulders and hips were pointed, and his legs were dry and full of scars. His face was similarly gaunt and dry, his cheeks hollowed out from the little food he could swallow, his purple dark circles visible from miles away. His body was horrible, horrible to see, horrible to touch, horrible to feel as his own.
Mu Qing grimaced, but said nothing and simply turned his back on his own reflection. Wu Xin was behind him, patiently waiting for any kind of order. There was something about the doctor's posture that Mu Qing failed to frame and he just bent his head to one side, thoughtful.
"General? What do you need?"
"...nothing," Mu Qing murmured, "You seemed incredibly...familiar."
Wu Xin raised his eyebrows, amazed. He stood still for a moment before softening his posture into a more relaxed one.
"It pleases me," he replied, "Your presence is just as pleasant, if I may be honest. Rather," he continued, barely clasping his hands on his shoulders and gently guiding him to the terrace, "Breakfast has already been prepared and the day is long, we must take advantage of every available moment."
Mu Qing made to help himself to the set table, taken aback. He did not know exactly how to react to the feeling he had experienced or even to Wu Xin's response. It had been strange and a little painful, and there was something in Wu Xin's voice that had left him interjected.
He ate in silence.
*
Mu Qing kept his eyes fixed on Wu Xin. He watched as the patio was arranged, as his clothes were folded, as he talked to Feng Xin, as he talked to Xie Lian. He watched how he walked, how he moved his arms, the movements of his hands as he arranged his tail or combed his hair.
He had spent days carefully scrutinizing him, and the more he observed him, the more he did not know what to think.
Mu Qing watched Wu Xin read a letter and begin to write something, a reply probably. His hand glided lightly over the paper, his fingertips tight on the brush, his gaze focused. Mu Qing thought back to the conversation he had a few days earlier with Xie Lian, where the man had confessed to him that things with Hua Cheng were really not going very well.
Everything that had happened with Mu Qing had created a rift in their relationship. He did not see him often, he had told him. He often stayed alone at Paradise Manor, longing for a solitude he had avoided for eight centuries. Mu Qing did not like to think that until three years earlier they shared a bond that no ine could have topped or broken.
It hurt, but he loved Xie Lian with all his strength and energy. He couldn't get back what he had with Hua Cheng, but he wasn't going to allow what little of the marriage that was left to shatter without him doing everything he could to save it, so he was going to eliminate the root of the problem and deal with it as always face to face.
Mu Qing slowly got up from the chair. His legs and feet still hurt, rehabilitation would be long and painful, but it was a process he could deal with on his own at that point.
"Do you want to explain why you staged all this Hua Cheng?"
Wu Xin laughed.
"General, I can understand your feelings for Hua Chengzhu but not-"
"Don't treat me like an idiot. I would recognize you anywhere, once I was sane enough to stay in my mind," Mu Qing interrupted him by looking away, "The way you move, fix your hair, how you hold your brush while writing, how you eat, the differences between how you act with Xie Lian and Pei Ming. I'm good at observing, you know once I healed I would notice."
"General, don't..."
"Hua Cheng I'm exhausted," Mu Qing exclaimed, interrupting him again "I'm exhausted and I don't have the energy to pull every single word out of your mouth, so have the decency to tell me the truth!"
Wu Xin ran his hands over his face, rubbing his face with a flush of frustration.
"This is not really the right time. You're not cured, you're not well yet, and all this could lead to relapses for your health, so no, we're not going to talk about it," the other concluded in a firm voice, pushing him shrewdly but determinedly toward the bedroom, "Not today. Not tomorrow or even the day after tomorrow. When you are fully healed, not a second sooner."
Mu Qing felt an anger start in his stomach and he wriggled out of his grip, with a little too much energy because he staggered backward for a moment. Wu Xin, (no, Hua Cheng) was practically in front of him to support him, but Mu Qing found enough momentum to hit him full in the face.
Mu Qing was weak and his blow was probably comparable to that of an infant to Crimson Rain, but the general still felt some satisfaction after hitting him, which was immediately smothered by a burst of fury at seeing how Hua Cheng did not flinch at all, a complete absence of emotion on his face.
"How arrogantly you even pretend to give me orders!" exclaimed Mu Qing "How condescendingly you come to tell me what you think is best for me! You were gone for years, by heaven!'
Hua Cheng, still in the guise of Wu Xin, merely looked at him in silence for a moment.
"This is not the right time. You are not cured."
"You wrote me one letter in three years telling me that you never loved me, that you only wanted to fuck me, that you preferred Xie Lian to me, that after the torture I was disgusting, that you didn't even want to see me, that it was my problem if I was sick! And all this time you were making fun of me, like a wounded animal you pity! You are absolutely the worst being I ever meet in my life and and now you tell me what’s the best for me?” he shouted, so angry, so furios “I needed you, I begged you, I longed you and you were play your little play like a fucking nurse the whole fucking time? I wanted to forgive you, I wanted to tell you that I don’t bear any resentment towards you, that we could heal together but you never showed up! You left me here, alone, with a fucking clone of yours, not deserving even the real you!”
Mu Qing felt his hands shaking and felt cold shivers run down his back and was so upset that he felt his eyes filled with tears of fury. Mu Qing felt a twinge of pain start in his legs, so sudden that he had to sit back down, his head spinning. Hua Cheng approached him, ready to help, but Mu Qing pushed him away violently, his breath short from the pain.
"Don't… don't you dare… to touch me one more time," he hissed, looking at him with even more anger, "Get lost. Go away, I never want to see you again in my whole life."
"Mu Qing, don't..."
"Go away!" the general once again exclaimed, "Go away!"
Hua Cheng had never exactly been the kind of person who used to be discouraged by any kind of event but seeing the anger and hatred with which Mu Qing looked at him was more than he could bear at that moment. Without adding anything else, he turned his back on him and left the room.
Mu Qing brought his hands to his face, clenched into such violent fists that they left his knuckles white. He was exhausted and disappointed and furious and embarrassed. Hua Cheng had seen him in a condition in which Mu Qing would never want to be seen by him, suffering, crying, vulnerable, naked. He felt as if the wounds of his abandonment that he had taken months to accept had reopened without giving him a way out.
He found himself weeping silent tears as he stood alone in his own room.
*
"Mu Qing?"
The man did not move. The night was warm and he should have been sleeping but he could not close his eyes. His eyes were red and swollen, his lips between his teeth, and he had been staring for hours at an indefinite point in the void, but unlike the last few years Mu Qing was well aware of where he was and unlike the last few years his mind wandered restlessly about everything that had happened, about torture, about Hua Cheng's letter, about Wu Xin, about Pei Ming, and even about Xie Lian. He couldn't help but analyze every memory his own mind could clamp its fingers on, every memory he had from when he was probably lucid.
"Mu Qing? Is everything all right?"
Finally Mu Qing raised his head toward Pei Ming, who looked incredibly uncomfortable.
"...You lied to me," he muttered, "You and Xie Lian lied to me."
The other remained silent for a moment, then nodded.
"Yes. For your sake Mu Qing. And it was very important for you to believe that Hua Cheng simply left."
Mu Qing looked away, returning to look at the garden lit only by moonlight. Pei Ming exhaled a sigh and sat down next to him. He tried to take his hand, but Mu Qing had never liked physical contact, much less at a time like that, where he felt confused and betrayed and alone. He pulled his hand away with an almost horrified cry but Pei Ming seemed not to mind.
"You almost died, Mu Qing," he murmured after another pause, "When we brought you here from Paradise Manor, you were not breathing. You had lost so much blood that your skin was cold and pale, you were not moving, your spiritual energy was practically nonexistent. Mu Qing, you were practically dead."
“…I want the truth. The whole truth,” he finally muttered, “I want to know why you have been lying to me all this time.”
Pei Ming sighed again and looked away, followed by another deep sigh. Mu Qing had rarely seen Pei Ming in such pain and did not really know how to react.
"Hua Cheng was very unstable after His Highness succeed to broke the spell. His Highness was torn between the two of you for weeks trying to find a solution for your recovery and to get Hua Cheng out of whatever spiral he was in. He could not remember what had happened, had confused and disconnected memories of torture, could not remember who or what had tricked him. When you first woke up and saw him… Mu Qing, you started screaming, shaking and sobbing, your wounds started leaking blood and poison, your screams were uncontrollable."
Mu Qing did not respond. He felt inexplicably angry, felt the fingers of his hands clenched into fists almost against his will, felt as if he could not control what he felt. He felt furious and sad and indignant and disappointed and betrayed.
"We had no choice Mu Qing," continued the other general, returning to stare at the ground "The poison used by Hua Cheng is typical of torture in the ghost realm. It creeps into you, connecting with the memory of the torturer. The more you persisted in remembering him or seeking contact with him, the more your body reacted to the poison, intensifying its effect. We didn't know whether you were going to die or go mad with pain."
"And that's why he turned into Wu Xin?" murmured Mu Qing, his knuckles white, his nails pressing into his skin "Is that why he wrote that letter?"
Pei Ming was silent for a long moment and then turned toward him, finally looking into his face.
"He wanted to help you with every means he could. But you have to understand Mu Qing, saving you was more important than saving your relationship. And I think he was right.”
Mu Qing did not answer and remained silent for a couple of minutes. Then he leaned back against Pei Ming and closed his eyes. He fell asleep tightly in the general's arms.
*
The next day Xie Lian joined him in the garden with an uncertain and nervous smile. He looked as if he had not slept for a long time and had probably had very little time to rest for the past three years. Mu Qing wanted to say something but did not really know what and just looked away.
"Qing'er, I know you are angry and confused," Xie Lian exclaimed, "We were trying to do the right thing to help you."
"...I want to talk to Hua Cheng," Mu Qing replied, still without looking at him.
"I don't think that's the right thing to do Qing'er. You are still on the mend and we don't know if his presence..."
"I want to talk to Hua Cheng."
"San Lang is not to blame this time Qing'er. It was not his idea to convince you that he had abandoned you. It was mine. You have every right to feel furious, but don't be furious with him."
"...I want to talk to Hua Cheng."
"Can you please think about your health?"
"No!" exploded Mu Qing furiously, "I want to. See. Hua Cheng!"
Xie Lian made a pained grimace and pulled back his hair, sighing.
"San Lang does not wish to see you, Qing'er. He will not even let you enter the Ghost City, believe me. He is not in the right state of mind to meet you."
"He… he's not in the state of mind to see me?" growled Mu Qing so furious that he felt his chest tighten and his breath shorten "Then you might as well tell him that if he doesn't want to see me now, he can forget I exist! And you with him!" he exploded, pointing his finger at his chest.
Mu Qing got up from his own chair in the garden and entered his own abode slamming the door behind him.
*
Mu Qing jolted awake in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, his breathing labored. He ran his hands over his face, observing the fingers that were not full of his own blood but clean and trembling.
"Take deep breaths."
Mu Qing gasped again, an icy chill running through his spine at hearing Hua Cheng's voice so suddenly, after so many years, after torture. He stared at an unspecified spot in front of him, the darkness of night enveloping the whole room, trying to catch a glimpse of Hua Cheng's figure, to no avail.
"Think about breathing, don't look for me. You won't see me."
"...Then you may as well leave," gasped Mu Qing, trying to take deeper breaths.
"Your penchant for melodrama can be really irritating. Try being reasonable for once."
"Reasonable?" exclaimed Mu Qing in a broken voice, the darkness becoming more and more suffocating "You are my husband Hua Cheng!"
The room fell silent. Mu Qing clasped his hands on the sheets and stiffened when he heard a faint breathing near his ear. The general flashed, he remembered himself chained to the wall, weak and bleeding, Hua Cheng's face almost pressed against his face, he could sense the evil smile with which he was watching him suffer.
"I'm not done having fun with you, Xuan Zhen."
Mu Qing had to summon all his energy not to return to sobbing pathetically as he had done during torture. He had to force himself not to repeat what he had shouted in that prison, disconnected "Let's be together, stop hurting me, kill me!"
But it was just a matter of meditation and willpower, Mu Qing was certain. He was reminded of when Pei Ming was so drunk that he had fallen off his horse in a pathetic attempt to impress him, many centuries earlier. The prison seemed to slowly disappear from his own mind, his breathing became steadier.
"Your mind is not cured, Qing'er. To be honest, I don't know if it will ever happen," murmured Hua Cheng after a moment of silence, "I'm sorry it ended like this."
Mu Qing could feel his heart ache, another crack inside him adding to the others of the past few years. There was only so much pain he could take from Hua Cheng, and even though he knew it was all an act, Mu Qing had suffered immensely from Hua Cheng's absence, from the torture, from everything, from everything.
"...If you leave now it's over," he murmured, "I can understand everything that has happened up to now, but I need you Hua Cheng. I need you now," he murmured, "Please don't leave."
Mu Qing stood waiting for something, anything. But Hua Cheng was no longer there. He no longer sensed his presence, his voice, the memories of torture. He no longer sensed the anger, the suffering. He perceived nothing within himself. Around him.
He was alone. Alone as he had not felt in ages.
*
A year had passed since Hua Cheng had not stayed in his room, ending their relationship for good. Mu Qing spoke little, meditated for most of his free time and rarely left his residence.
Pei Ming was the only one he spent time with, and only because the general tended to join him unannounced and usually harassed him long enough to get him to leave his study just to shut him up. Mu Qing was grateful to have Pei Ming but did not know how to say it or how to show it, and whenever he thought of telling him how much he appreciated his presence he let it go. He had never been good with words let alone expressing his feelings. Pei Ming, however, seemed to understand what was in his heart and had never pushed for loud statements.
Both were satisfied with the nonverbal pact they had come to.
Xie Lian, on the other hand, had tried to act as a glue for that relationship in the early days but after a while the prince had told him that he needed time alone, that he would leave to go back and pick up some junk here and there, try to get himself together after all that had happened. The crack between Mu Qing and Hua Cheng had left its marks inside him as well.
Mu Qing had understood. He had nodded and told him that he would be there waiting for him, with or without Hua Cheng. He would no longer surrender Xie Lian to others, as he had once done when they were mortal. He would respect his decision to take that path alone, but when he returned he would be there. Xie Lian had smiled at him, kissed him, and then left.
Mu Qing had often resisted the temptation to contact him because the prince had been very clear when he had said that he did not want any kind of contact with anyone. But it was always difficult, more and more difficult to try to pretend otherwise. Sometimes he would sit in the garden and stare at a spot in the void, basking in the warmth of memories of their relationship, their marriage.
"Qing'er?"
Mu Qing jerked his head up from his own desk, and if for a moment he had the impression that his own head had resumed mocking him, he knew that the man watching him from the threshold of his study was really Xie Lian, in the flesh. He rose to his feet and strided up to him, almost rushing against him, pulled him into a hug that would have hurt anyone else but Xie Lian merely let out a satisfied sigh and returned the embrace. They both remained silent, saying nothing to each other, Mu Qing could not have said for how long.
"...I missed you. I missed you so much," he finally murmured in a whisper.
"You too, Qing'er. Being away from you has been the hardest thing I have ever had to endure."
"If it helped you, then that's fine," commented the other in a half-voice, his face still sunk inside Xie Lian's neck.
"Do you have time for a walk? We have a lot to talk about."
Mu Qing nodded and hinted an uncertain smile.
"...You are alone, right?"
Xie Lian made his usual embarrassed expression, as if he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"To be honest...," he commented, pointing to the corridor behind him.
Mu Qing blinked and looked out into the corridor. Really, after more than four years Hua Cheng was there in front of him, leaning against the wall with a nonchalance that infuriated him, as if they had seen each other the day before and everything was in order. Mu Qing stood motionless for a moment looking at him, exactly as he remembered him from before the torture. The same look, the same grimace, the same hair style, the same clothes, the same posture.
Everything was the same as before. And Mu Qing couldn't think because he was happy, stupidly happy that Hua Cheng was there, that maybe even that relationship of theirs could go back to the way it was before.
"You are...you are absolutely..." stammered Mu Qing in an uncertain voice "You are..."
"You're right."
"And you are ... you are the worst ... the worst ..."
"I've never hidden it."
"...You've got a lot of nerve showing up after all this time, hiding behind Xie Lian's robes to boot!" exclaimed Mu Qing finally, trying to get his own head in order, trying to ignore the shock "I loathe you, do you have any idea how I've felt all this time?" retorted Mu Qing feeling on edge, his throat already full of all the things he wanted to say to him.
"Horrible and miserable, just as I felt. But we needed it Mu Qing, I needed it," replied Hua Cheng "And if you still wish, we can have what we had, all it takes is one first step, Mu Qing," the ghost continued, serious, his hand outstretched toward him "Just one step. Nothing more."
Mu Qing would have liked to continue being stubborn and angry and mean, even though he knew he had no right to do so. But he still felt hurt and vulnerable and difficult, as he always had. But Hua Cheng was still there, watching him with his hand outstretched, waiting.
"...You're so fucking selfish," Mu Qing whispered after another second, before moving closer and pushing himself against him.
Their embrace (the first in more than four years), was longer than they would have imagined.
“I didn’t have forgive you”, he muttered with choked voice.
“I know. I know you Mu Qing. But I will wait. And we will talk about what happened. Belive me.”
Mu Qing nodded, muttered another faint ‘I belive you’ and added a ‘We are fine’.
They were fine again. Everything was as it should have been. Everything was all right.
Mu Qing was cautious but happy.
And in the end, was the only thing that really mattered.
*