Chapter Text
Hong-er hated them all. He hated the children in the street making fun of him. He hated his father who kept beating him and yelling at him as if he was responsible for all his misfortunes. He hated the old baker who never wanted to feed him but instead was feeding the pigs with the rest of the bread at the end of the day. But more than anything he hated the gods. These gods that everyone admired, to the point of going to pray in their temples in the hope that they would keep their promises. Poor stupid and naive humans. Already as a child, Hong-er had understood that the world was selfish and that the gods were the worst of all.
Hong-er had never received answers to his prayers.
At first he had been curious, the people who went to the market never stopped talking and praising these humans who had the ability and the power necessary to ascend. So Hong-er had done like the crowd of naive people and had prayed too. He had prayed for his mother, the only person he had ever loved, he prayed to stay alive, to be lucky at least once in his life. He knew it, his father told him enough times but he was born under the Star of Solitude, which made his destiny turbulent and easily influenced in one of the two extremes. In his case, he was clearly destined to be unlucky.
No god answered him when he asked why stay alive. When he asked what was the meaning of his existence.
On the day of the festival that pleased the gods, he decided to end his miserable life. He was small for a ten year old but that turned out to be an advantage since he managed to sneak up to the barrier overlooking the celebration, even if it meant taking a few insults from grumpy adults for being jostled. If he was unlucky and going through a hard time, then there was no reason why others wouldn't go through a hard time too. If he had to die, he wanted Xian Le to die with him. He wanted to have an impact. He wanted people to cry for him.
He leaned over and that's when he saw him. Xie Lian, the gods' beloved prince, his complete opposite. Even though his face was covered by a mask, there was no doubt that he had unparalleled beauty, unlike Hong-er and his red eye. He was born into a rich family, Hong-er into a poor family. He was cherished and appreciated while Hong-er was despised. They would never get along. Especially since there was no doubt that the crown prince would eventually ascend to Heavens as a martial god and then become someone indifferent and selfish just like everyone else. Maybe he was even corrupt already. Adults were vile, no one could remain as pure by their side.
It was when he saw the parade that Hong-er changed his mind about his intentions. No, he would not fall, he would not give them this pleasure. Even if everything was against him, the world would not win.
Years passed, the crown prince indeed ascended as a god shortly after the parade, which aroused a new wave of admiration in Xian Le to which Hong-er could only roll his eyes.
And then the human face disease arrived at the same time as the war between Xian Le and Yong'An.
Hong-er then regularly went to the different temples he could find, no matter which god it was destined for. Every day, he came back and asked the same questions he had already asked.
Why am I alive? What is the meaning of my existence?
As always, only the silence in the sanctuary answered him. Over time, he had become accustomed to it.
Never receiving any answer, Hong-er decided to answer his question for himself. The more time passed, the more he was certain of it, the silence he received was only a confirmation from the revelation that had gradually dawned on him. The meaning of his existence was to make people understand that the gods were nothing but trash. He would become stronger than a god. He would become something that the gods could fear.
At the military camp he was in, he heard about the former crown prince who had disobeyed the law of Heavens and the Heavenly Emperor himself to come and help them. Who did he think he was to have enough power to prevent a contagious disease, a war, and a drought? He probably really believed he was capable of it, but his arrival had only had one effect. It gave the soldiers hope, hope that would be shattered when the people realized that the gods were powerless. The prince who pleased the gods had not come to help them, but rather with the belief that if he did this, people would start worshiping him. He was doing this for power, Hong-er was certain of it.
With the war, he had therefore integrated the army of Xian Le allowing him to learn to fight. One day while he was sparring on the training ground his commander approached to tell him that a scimitar would surely suit him better than a sword and that it was a pity that someone with as much talent as him would probably die on the battlefield.
Unsurprisingly, he did die on the battlefield. It was not even a spectacular or venerable death for a cause he defended. He hated Xian Le and everything the kingdom represented and despite that he had died with the sentence that soldiers were taught on his lips.
"To die in a battle for the prince crowned with flowers is our greatest honor."
What a joke.
It seems that the world loves the irony of his life, loves to torment him.
And that is how Hong-er died from an arrow in the back at the level of his heart.
At first, all he saw was black and cold. He could feel his mind drifting away from the surface, sinking him deeper and deeper into the abyss. But his mind seemed to be clinging to something. Something that held him back and prevented him from reaching that abyss.
What was it again? He knew there was one more thing he wanted to do before he truly died. What was it called? He didn't remember, everything was a blur of shades of gray and black. Suddenly in the middle of this vision, new colors joined the gray and black. At first it was just a small patch of red but it grew until all he saw was red. The red reminded him of the blood of battle.
Ah! It was starting to come back to him: he was a soldier and he was dead. How? He doesn't remember but it doesn't matter. What matters is that he is no longer alive.
He returned to the color red.
Red, red, red. Blood and anger.
YES! He clung to this idea, he didn't know how or why but he felt that anger was something essential in his previous existence.
Anger at what?
"At everything," whispered the little conscience he had.
Anger at the world, at the people who despised him, at the gods.
That was it! He had just found what he was looking for. His goal was to become stronger than the gods, for people to understand who the gods they worshiped really were.
His conscience continued to cling to this idea as hard as it could.
And then he emerged, almost as if he had to hold his breath underwater for a long time and he was coming back to the surface. He was numb but at least he was alive.
He wanted to lower his head to see what his body looked like but couldn't. He had just forgotten that he was dead.
Realization hit him hard.
After crossing the threshold between life and death, he had transformed into a ghost fire. A deep frustration took hold of him. He would never be able to achieve what he wanted if he was a ghost fire.
When life had left his body, a feeling of intense cold had taken hold of him. It was not the cold that penetrated the flesh, but rather a feeling of deep coolness that seemed to emanate from his being.
And then, there was fire. A fire of a new kind, a fire that did not burn, but that froze. The flames that danced in his essence were a cold and luminous blue, creating a spectral glow that contrasted with the surrounding darkness. This icy fire was both soothing and mysterious, a presence that reminded him of his new nature.
In this new state, he felt both detached from the world of the living and tied to the realm of the dead.
He was something in the middle.
As a ghost fire he couldn't interact with the material world, he couldn't touch or pick up objects. He also had to get used to not having a heartbeat. It was strange at first.
When you're human, you don't realize the noise and the space your heart takes up when it beats. It's only once you're dead that you realize the fullness you used to have.
In fact, it's when you lose the things you've gotten used to that you notice how essential or present they were in your life.
As for food, he was used to eating nothing or very little so it didn't change him that much. It was one less thing to worry about, just like sleep.
He would need patience before he regained his strength. So he decided to wander, floating through the forest. It lasted a few weeks. Probably. In reality he couldn't have said it, he had no idea, just as he didn't know how long he had been dead before he regained the consciousness necessary to become a ghost fire. He still hadn't found his name but he knew it would come back to him eventually.
He finally arrived at a temple that was apparently abandoned. He floated to the door and backed away in horror to hide in a place where he could observe the scene without being seen.
A person was hanging on the altar. He couldn't determine his identity because of the completely white mask that covered his face. His robes were soaked red due to too much blood loss. Behind him another person with a half-smiling, half-crying mask was holding him.
He understood that the plain white mask was there to prevent the other people present from seeing the emotions of the one attached to the altar. People approached and one by one plunged the sword into vital points.
Why were they doing this? Where did all this hatred come from?
The blows continued and he even had to look away from the scene. Unfortunately that didn't stop him from hearing the sound the sword made when it was pulled out of the man's flesh.
Rage burned inside the ghost fire and this fury contrasted with the coldness emanating from its blue flames. He could not bear this bloody spectacle. No sane person could do that.
Tortured by the sight of this innocent suffering his whole life in pain and being too helpless to do anything, he felt resentment rise in him.
Unable to bear this nightmarish vision any longer, his blue fire spread everywhere in the temple. He only realized it once he had reopened his eyes. He was no longer at ground level but therefore had a human form. He was now a much more powerful ghost with a tangible form. The last humans still present in the temple had burned because of his fury and the other man with the mask had disappeared.
He approached the body, shivering, took care to untie his arms and put him lying on the altar. It was difficult to define a human form so much had he suffered. It was a waste of flesh that couldn't even be called human. It was a hard vision to maintain. He turned on his heels and went to retrieve a bouquet of flowers from what he could find around the temple. He didn't take white flowers but colored flowers, as if that would bring some comfort to the now lifeless person. He came back and went to place the flowers where the man's chest should have been. If he had had more courage, he would have removed the mask from his face but he was too afraid of the expression he might find underneath. It would surely not be a face of peace but rather a face evoking torture and he wasn't sure he could live with that image in his head.
And the gods had done nothing to help this person. Yet, the former ghost fire suspected that he must have sent prayers and screamed in his head for someone to come and save him.
After the episode at the temple, he continued his wandering. When he found ghosts weaker than him, he fought them to gain strength. One day he came across his reflection in the water of a river. This suddenly made him realize that his right eye was still there and still red. He had ended up forgetting about it, as a ghost fire he didn't have to worry about his appearance.
He solved the problem with his eye almost immediately. He had recovered a sword from one of the many corpses he had come across and decided to use it to carve a mask out of wood. A smiling mask. As a child, he used to carve animals with a knife he had stolen from his father's kitchen while he was sleeping.
He quickly resumed his journey, crossing landscapes of desolation.
The state of the world he was currently in was sad to see. The grass was completely burnt, there were bodies everywhere. Sometimes he came across an abandoned village. The inhabitants had to choose whether to flee or die. Sometimes he came across a battlefield that he should now rather consider as a graveyard. No one had buried the bodies.
Until the day he met a white figure burning the bodies of the people who had fallen in battle against Yong'An. When the white figure turned around, what greeted him was a half-smiling, half-crying mask, the same one from the temple. Their resemblance was unsettling.
When the man in white offered to follow him, he should have said no, that he was not looking for Yong'An's revenge even if he came from Xian Le. It would have been completely crazy of him to follow this silhouette knowing that there was a high probability that this person and the one from the temple who had immobilized the man so that he would be pierced by the swords were the same.
But he was curious and had nothing better to do so he followed him.
They only spoke to each other to discuss the bare necessities.
The ghost learned that the other man's title was "Mourning Wilted Flowers" but that he could call him Hua Xie which was quite close to the meaning of his title since it meant "the flowers fade". There was a strangely poetic and sad side to this name.
When he had to give his name in turn, he hesitated. By finding a human form, he had remembered his real first name "Hong-er". But death changed a person, he was no longer Hong-er and no longer wanted to deal with his past.
He no longer had to worry about his first name since not answering, Mourning Wilted Flowers told him "Not having a name makes you Wu Ming."
The question was settled.
From what he had seen, Hua Xie seemed to be a powerful cultivator.
After several days of doing nothing and where Mourning Wilted Flowers only meditated, the latter got up and said only one word to him "come".
Wu Ming understood what he was trying to do. The black sword that the other man always carried was filled with resentment. But not just any resentment, it was the resentment of the soldiers of Xian Le who had fallen to Yong'An's troops. By doing so, Hua Xie would have to resist the sword to prevent the spirits from coming out. When they came out, it would wreak havoc on Yong'An like no other.
Hua Xie walked steadily towards Yong'An's capital. On his orders, Wu Ming discreetly eliminated the soldiers guarding the palace gates. He cleared the way until they could access the throne room.
In the throne room, they realized that Lang Ying had intentionally infected himself with the human face disease, planting the spirits of his wife and child in his chest.
Who the hell would do that? The world was truly messed up.
After a few sentences exchanged with Mourning Wilted Flowers, Lang Ying died of the disease. They didn't even have time to kill him. Wuming then cut the corpse into hundreds of pieces to silence the faces that were still crying over his body.
When the crown prince of Yon'An arrived in the throne room in turn, Hua Xie ordered him "Knock him out then burn the palace."
Wu Ming did so, responding to the other's command.
In the end, Wu Ming did not regret these actions. He had just eliminated people who deserved to burn in hell for their actions.
He joined Hua Xie at the bottom of the palace next to the stables, where they took horses before moving away from the now burning place. Wu Ming was taken aback when Hua Xie spoke to him.
"Wu Ming can I ask you a question?"
The ghost slapped the sides of his horse to make it move forward to the same level as Hua Xie's.
"Mn."
"Do you know where your ashes are?"
"My ashes?" he asked, unable to hide his surprise.
Mourning Wilted Flowers cleared his throat. "What I mean is that there is only one way to kill a ghost as powerful as you and that is by scattering his ashes. So my question is, are they safe?"
Wu Ming was taken aback by this. "If my ashes are truly my weak point, I shouldn’t tell you where I hid them." He paused before continuing. "I actually didn’t know. I would have to go and retrieve them from the place where I died."
"Very well. That will be our next destination then."
Wu Ming didn’t protest.
It took them three more days to reach the battlefield. Hua Xie gave him some space and he was grateful for that. This wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience.
The ghost didn’t know exactly where he had died. All the hills in the place looked the same. It took another two days of searching for Wu Ming to spot a familiar shape. The arrow was still there. Wu Ming plucked up his courage and removed it so he could then turn his body onto its back. His body was dried up, which was not surprising given the temperature and the severe lack of water. His skin had taken on an almost blue tint. Fortunately, his eyes were closed.
Wu Ming did not hesitate and burned his body which turned into ashes. It was only once the last rays of the sun had disappeared and the ashes were no longer burning that Hua Xie approached him and handed him a small red sachet embroidered with a fox on it.
"I bought it during one of our stops in the previous cities. Your ashes can be safely deposited there."
He did not really know what to say so he simply replied "Thank you."
As evening approached, they lit a campfire nearby to settle in for the night.
"Tomorrow you will go hide your ashes in a safe place." Mourning Wilted Flowers ordered. "I will give you four days to do so and we will meet here afterwards."
"Okay."
An awkward silence filled the air between them.
Deciding that this couldn’t last Wu Ming wanted to break the ice "Who exactly are you Hua Xie?"
It surely wasn’t smart to ask that kind of question to someone who could kill you in seconds but Wu Ming couldn’t help but be drawn to that white figure. Strangely, he no longer thought that the half-smiling, half-crying mask from the temple was the same as Hua Xie. Their aura was different.
"I’m someone you’d better forget."
Cold. As always.
"And you?"
It made sense that the question was thrown back at him.
"I’m someone who hates gods."
At least it was an honest answer.
He observed Hua Xie’s reaction and saw him tense up before relaxing.
"Why is that?"
"Because they are selfish and only think of themselves and power. They would be able to make mortals suffer if it meant that they would become stronger."
"But you forget that the gods draw their power from mortals and their prayers. If they neglect them, they lose power."
"That's true." Wu Ming agreed. "Yet out of the thousands of prayers sent, very few receive an answer. It's an unequal system where only rich people who promise to offer a lot of merit receive answers. The truth is that the gods only need these rich people to survive. They answer the prayers that are likely to bring them the most believers like a rich family. If a member of the family sees his wish granted, he will tell his peers who will in turn pray to the same god, thus offering more merit to the god in question." It was the first time he dared to speak so much while criticizing a system that had been present for millennia.
"Maybe, but answering a poor person’s prayer would still bring them an extra believer who could come to pray at the temple."
"But by offering less merit." Wu Ming finished. He knew it, he had been one of those poor people. "Poor families generally have fewer family members because it is harder for them to survive. They sure have more children but lots of them died during their childhood." And he was not even talking about miscarriage. "The gods are fueled by the faith and worship of their believers, so much so that the currency used in heaven is the number of incense sticks burned in each official’s temple. Without the faith and worship of their followers, the gods would simply disappear into non-existence while the gods with a large number of followers would become stronger. Therefore, it is based on the number of followers that the god is able to receive that he decides whether or not to answer the prayer. Unfortunately, in general, the rich are the ones who bring the most believers because they have more power and knowledge than the poor. They also have more money so they can buy more incense sticks."
"That makes sense," Hua Xie admitted. "You would make an excellent civil god." He abruptly changed the subject. "Can I do your hair?"
Wu Ming was taken aback but eventually nodded. No one had ever asked him to do their hair. However, he had not shown his face. If he did, he was sure that the other's behavior towards him would change.
Fingers ran through his black locks. He began to undo his ponytail.
"Why the mask Wu Ming?"
"I am ugly."
Hua Xie's hands stopped. "I am certain that it is false." He hesitated. "Even if it were the case, I would not reject you. You should not judge people by their appearance, the same way you would not judge a book by its cover."
Wu Ming did not want to dwell on the meaning of these words. Hua Xie was the first person he had willingly stayed with for so long.
"And you, why the mask?"
This time, the hands in his hair didn't stop.
"For anonymity. Your behavior towards me would change if you knew my identity."
Wu Ming noticed a hint of sadness in his words but didn't push, just as he had not pushed to reveal his face.
When the fingers began to massage his scalp, the ghost almost moaned. He didn't know it could feel so good. He even ended up relaxing under Hua Xie's care to the point of falling asleep.