Chapter Text
The silken sheets of the bed swished and shifted under his body when he tried to right himself up, the crimson fabric delightful and slippery. The ghost standing at the foot of the bed, the lord of Ghost City, looked him up and down with a pensive frown and Xie Lian did his best to respond to the stare in kind. "What should I do with you?" Hua Cheng asked with a hint of a grin. "I don't even know why I took you back here." His tone was falsely accusing as he smile widened.
Although his situation didn’t alllow him to Xie Lian was struggling to find a way to express his gratitude to the Ghost King who had taken him under his wing. In the couple of hours since their meeting - to be exact since the moment Xie Lian had swiveled under the ghost's throne in the Gambler's Den - Hua Cheng had defended him from the enraged vendors running after him for, accidentally, destroying their stalls, stuffed him full of delicious food and bathed him in an aromatic, milky water that Xie Lian was sure he was going to dream of. Although it had been a little startling at first to be washed by someone else's hands after centuries of hastily bathing in the freezing waters of mountain creeks or worse.
Hua Cheng took a step towards the bed and leaned closer, his inky eyes studying him closely. After a moment he sighed and flopped on the bed next to him, a hand lazily reaching up to Xie Lian's head and scratching it gently. "Who am I kidding, we both know I'm going to keep you. I don't even get why...there's just something about you that won't let me throw you out the door." Unable to say anything Xie Lian tilted his head slightly and watched as the corner of the ghost's thin lips arched a little. It was such an endearing look.
"Never had a pet," Hua Cheng commented as two fingers kept rubbing softly between Xie Lian's ears. Never had an owner, Xie Lian thought and then backtracked as fast as he could because the idea was terrifyingly improper. Hua Cheng couldn't notice his struggle and went on. "Don't get comfortable, understood? I'm not a tender little heart that will spoil you rotten. You should be afraid to be here."
Xie Lian unconsciously let out a small chirp. Such a liar.
"That's more like it. You won't have an easy life here. I'm barely letting you inside, don't expect cuddles and pampering." Xie Lian was incredibly amused. He had lived more like a prince in a day as the man's pet than he had in the past five centuries and yet he was firmly insisting that he would not be treated well at all. Hua Cheng probably came to the same conclusions because he let his hand fall from the delicious spot on Xie Lian’s neck and let out a shallow sigh. His eyes kept boring into him and the corner of his smiling lips curved slightly downwards. Without another word he stood from the bed and walked to the other end of the room, opening a door that likely led to a washroom. Hand hovering at the decorated pommel he turned to look at him once more before he disappeared in the next room shaking his head and muttering to himself. "Talking to a ferret"
When Hua Cheng came back his aspect had changed completely. His form was not too dissimilar from the previous one apart from a heightened sharpness to his traits and a slight asymmetry in his face, nonehteless his appearance was drastically different. The luxurious red fabric of his robes was nowhere to be seen, replaced by simple, white inner garments, tied loosely on his hips and chest. His dark hair, still long and luscious, held a new wildness to it and flowed freely, falling over his shoulders and face as he moved. His face was paler and bore traces of his mortal life in small scars and marks. It was still unearthly beautiful. Of the two twinkling eyes that had studied him keenly only one remained, black and vibrant, while the other was covered under an equally dark eyepatch.
It felt intimate. Xie Lian was certain that not many people must have witnessed such a sight, the Ghost King of the undead city soft and unguarded, barely covered by his sleeping robes, rubbing his visible eye and parting his lips in a yawn. Maybe even his lovers didn't have the chance to see him in such a state, Xie Lian mused, even the nakedness of passion sometimes covered more than artless clothes and a candid demeanor.
Hua Cheng glanced at him and walked to the wide bed, sitting down on the left side but keeping his legs down and his body partially turned from Xie Lian. Without thinking the god took a short leap towards him and stopped right beside his thighs, studying his movements curiously. Hua Cheng let out a short chuckle.
"Alright, then, I was doing it for you," he scolded far too mildly. "It's better this way maybe, you'd have to get used to it anyway." With that he started fumbling with the string tied at the back of his head and unceremoniously took off the eyepatch and placed it on the nightstand. "Scared now?" He asked turning to him with a dangerous grin.
The eyelid on the missing eye was slightly sunken and it was heavily scarred, as was all the skin surrounding it. Even empty and marred it didn't hide the slightly sad curve of it, if the remaining eye hadn't been enough to show the carefully restrained pain that came with the revelation. Even to such an uncomplicated creature like a little, white ferret, Xie Lian couldn't help but think.
With no hesitation he pawed at the man's arm and when he found no resistance nuzzled his head to it, reveling at the way Hua Cheng gave an airy, slightly incredulous laugh and easily started petting his little head.
"Ah, you don't have much as for preservation spirit. I'll take it." He wasn't all that wrong after all.
With some embarrassment to how easily he was adjusting to the role of house pet, but not enough to step away from the coddling, Xie Lian lazed on the bed next to the ghost for the whole evening. Hua Cheng spent it lying just as idly, holding a book in one hand and using the other to stroke behind Xie Lian's ears.
It was the most peaceful night Xie Lian had lived in decades. The soft, gentle brush of fingers moving on him was as foreign as it was pleasant. It left a bitter taste in his mouth that he would only be able to experience a loving touch in his new form, that no one had spared a caress for him as a human if they hadn’t tried to hurt altogether. He swallowed it with one of the sunflower seeds that the ghost passed him along, already opened and peeled like on the table of a doting grandmother.
When even the reddish sky of Ghost City turned completely dark Hua Cheng scooped him up and stood with him half lying on his shoulder. "Time to sleep," he said placing a pillow on top of a dresser and letting Xie Lian slip from his hold and rest on its plush surface. Wordlessly a word but with a friendly pat on his head Hua Cheng went back to his bed and with a simple swish of his palm all the lanterns in the room went off.
Without the soft hug of the covers on Hua Cheng's bed the air was cold and tingly as it always was at night. Xie Lian had learned it quite well during his first day, right after a crafty talisman had fatefully landed on his forehead and he'd found himself in a heap of threadbare cultivator robes, looking up at the other humans from the very short height of four, furry legs. The first night he'd spent it shivering from dusk to dawn, tucked away in a side alley that gave right on an eerily still pond. Althouhg the air was still chilly, the room was definitely an upgrade from his previous conditions.
He tossed and turned for a while until an almost hoarse voice chuckled from the bed. A moment later Hua Cheng was once again next to his pillow, laying something that felt like outer robes over him and tucking him in. "There," he sighed artfully exasperated.
Xie Lian didn’t have the time to nuzzle his new cover, nor to process how he should feel about snuggling in another man's robes, that Hua Cheng was getting up once more and walking to him with less than light steps. "You're practically begging," he lamented picking him up once more and taking him back to the bed.
Xie Lian was placed back on the pillow at Hua Cheng's left, covers lifted up to his tiny head and wrapped at his sides. "Don't look at me like that, you were making too much noise. It's just for one night, to get you settled." Xie Lian watched with interest how the ghost turned on the pillow next to him and stared for a moment with his eye scrunched against the crimsom sheets before closing it. He had the impression that it wouldn't, in fact, be just for one night.
Becoming Hua Cheng's pet ferret turned out to be embarrassingly pleasant. Even though the ghost was out for most of the day, evidently taking care of his kingly affairs around the city, he always came back at night, more often than not bringing along some delicacy that was too weasel-friendly to be a coincidence.
He was also more talkative than Xie Lian would have guessed. Most nights he came home, took off his outer clothes, slumped on the bed and promptly raised his head after a single moment, eyebrow cocked and expression almost indignant, looking at him expectantly. If Xie Lian wasn’t already jumping on the bed, he would immediately start patting the place next to him until he hopped up and snuggled on the sheets with his head on the ghost's chest.
Xie Lian still wasn't sure how to judge his own behavior. Every time he leaned his little head on the soft fabric of Hua Cheng's inner robes the conviction that he would not act the same way if he were still human frayed a little more. It was just so nice to cuddle up and listen to the man's smooth voice while a delicate hand played with his ears or stroked his back. Hua Cheng seemed to genuinely love to talk to him. Or probably talk to someone in general as Xie Lian had the feeling he didn't get to do it often.
He was smart, funny, more than a little petty and exceptionally amusing. He loved to rant about the patrons of his Gambler's Den the most and every tale was more horrid and addictive than the previous one. The bets were horrendous and creatively heartless, although in Hua Cheng's words they were interesting or insufficient or pathetic, and Xie Lian was growing concerned about how he found all of those definitions funny and a little cute, especially as most of them described acts that were barely even human.
As Xie Lian had predicted he never once spent the night out of the wide bed, although he sometimes used the pillow on the dresser for afternoon naps, a luxury he hadn't known in centuries and maybe not even as a prince.
In the day hours, when Hua Cheng was out, another man was tasked with the job of bringing him food. The first time he stepped inside the chambers the man studied Xie Lian with two dark eyes, his plain face and black clothes making him look so different from Hua Cheng's vibrant person that there was no doubt their relationship was purely business-like. The second time he came the man dared a tiny pet on Xie Lian's head and a fleeting scratch under his chin. On the third day Xie Lian was picked up altogether and brought to another room to laze on a desk covered in stacks of scrolls and booklets that towered dangerously high.
Since then their routine built quite easily. Every day Xie Lian blearily woke up in the morning to a tender pat on his head and a flurry of red leaving the bedroom. He spent his time idly strolling through the private garden of Hua Cheng's chambers and waited until noon when the man in dark robes brought him some food and stole him away to his study. Every now and then the man went on terribly respectful rants about the insensible amount of work that the ghost pushed on him. Even though each complaint started by stating how much he was grateful for Hua Cheng's help and for his more than generous salary, he was clearly enjoying having a pair of furry ears that could listen to his struggles. Yin Yu - how the man was called according to his low pitched impersonations of Hua Cheng giving him orders - seemed to be particularly frustrated with the impossible task of finding someone who couldn't really be found.
Between Hua Cheng's spoiling and Yin Yu's exhausted chatter it was easy to feel at home even after a few days. It felt definitive a couple of weeks later, when Hua Cheng decided to took matters into his hands. The ghost came back home with a mischievous grin on his face that Xie Lian had quickly learned to fear. The god didn't have the time to even think about retreating that a huge hand with well manicured black nails was pinning him to a low table and taking a small brush out of nowhere. When a bowl of ink, already ground and liquid, popped out of thin air as well Hua Cheng started tracing complicated signs on his back, laughing every time Xie Lian wriggled and squirmed at the ticklish strokes of the brush.
"Stay put!" Hua Cheng admonished in between chuckles. "It's for your own good! This way you can go around and I'll know where you are. Otherwise what would I do if you get lost, uh? Then I'd have to look for you too." The last sentence seemed to quiet the mirth in his tone and when the ticklish brush finally paused, Xie Lian turned to find Hua Cheng with a heavy look in his eye, lost in thought with a sad curve to his lips. He smiled thinly when he caught Xie Lian's eyes fixed on him and then scooped him up to place him on the bed. Hua Cheng slept a little closer to his side that night and Xie Lian kept one of his tiny paws on the ghost's head the whole time.
After Hua Cheng placed the tracking spell on him a new chapter in Xie Lian's stay was opened. Hua Cheng started showing him around the manor, taking the little ferret with him in his study and sometimes even out in the streets. One day Xie Lian fell asleep on the ghost's neck during a night at the Gambler's Den and the clamoring citizens praised their Chengzhu’s new fur endlessly. Hua Cheng had laughed so hard that Xie Lian had started pretending to fall asleep on many of their outings, enjoying the denizens' praises and Hua Cheng's snickers at his talented performance. "You're a sneaky one," he said on those occasions, low enough that only Xie Lian could hear. "Quite a dramatic character you are."
The more Xie Lian stayed at Hua Cheng's side the more he found out that his new body's inability to laugh and smile was a frustrating challenge he hadn't been expecting.
He was used to centuries of strained grins and half-hearted smiles with Ruoye but in Ghost City, with Hua Cheng as an unknowing companion, every day was soft and exciting. The ghost's humor was sharp, his manners cold and commanding in public, sweet and at times childish behind the doors of his room. He didn't eat his vegetables and would pout when Xie Lian pushed the unfinished plate towards him with his little paws. He kept his hair wet after washing them and wouldn't dry them until Xie Lian dragged a towel from the washroom and placed it directly on his face. He lay on the bed in all sorts of unkempt and improper poses but still managed to look like a king on his throne, so much so that Xie Lian often had to avert his eyes when the ghost lay in the bed with his legs carelessly spread and an arm crossed behind his head. He was thoughtful in a disarming way and Xie Lian found that more often than not he probably wasn't aware of it himself. Listening to him talk about his day was the most fun Xie Lian had had since his days in Xianle and every night he fell asleep with a warm sensation spreading in his chest like melting butter.
About a week after their first trips in Ghost City Hua Cheng started working from his personal study more often than he was out and consequently started bringing Xie Lian along almost all day long. The ghost studied scrolls and maps relentlessly but he never seemed to find what he was looking for. When he wasn't pouring over dusty records or shut inside the library with Yin Yu he took his time to stroll around the house with Xie Lian perched on his shoulder. That was when he started talking about him.
One day the ghost was lazily walking through one of the many gardens when he pointed to a swing hanging from the branch of a blooming plum tree.
"I think he'll love that," he said with a smile on his lips. "He loved swings when he was young. I used to sneak in the training grounds just to steal a glance at him playing and laughing. They beat me all the way back to the city every time they caught me," he finished with a laugh that made Xie Lian immediately upset. He swatted at Hua Cheng's cheek with one of his paws but only managed to make Hua Cheng chuckle more.
"Oh you're going to beat me too? And here I was thinking you'd be on my side." He clicked his tongue leaving the god stunned for a moment before he started pressing his little nose to the back of Hua Cheng's ear, shaking his head and nuzzling him fretfully until the ghost laughed more. "Alright, alright. I get it, you're on my side."
Another time Hua Cheng showed Xie Lian to a secluded orchard and fed him a couple of round and plump grapes, so sweet and ripe they almost tasted like tanghulu. Xie Lian ate them avidly and Hua Cheng looked at him with a satisfied grin. "Are these manners? You will eat them all at this pace. I'm growing these for him, you know? What will I do if I find him tomorrow and have no more to offer, uh?" As he spoke his expression clouded over, his smirk barely twitched but his eye didn't shine quite as much as before. It wasn’t long before he was taking them back to the study, his gaze calm but heavy.
Hua Chenge never talked about the person he missed but Xie Lian didn't need much more hints to piece together the many sad smiles and countless hours spent researching in his study. It wasn't hard to realize that what Yin Yu was so tirelessly looking for had to be someone dear to the ghost, someone Hua Cheng devoted so much of his existence to. With every day that passed Xie Lian learned a bit more about Hua Cheng’s lost gaze when he studied for too long or about his random sighs when he saw a particular flower or a nice silk band.
In those occasions Xie Lian couldn’t help but watch closely at the sad curve of his lips and wonder what it must be like to be loved so fiercely without even knowing. Sometimes at night, in the fuzzy moments before sleep, Xie Lian imagined he was the person Hua Cheng longed for, guessing what it would feel like to be so dearly missed and desired. Other times he pictured how Hua Cheng would act upon seeing him for the first time, how his face would light up and his smile brighten looking at him from afar. Xie Lian always fell asleep with warmth in his chest and woke up to a pang in his heart. He always opened his eyes to see Hua Cheng’s sleeping face or his figure leaving through the door and a sour taste coated his mouth at the thought of the faceless person whom the ghost yearned for. In the end he couldn’t help but dislike Hua Cheng’s beloved, for causing his gentle host so much despair.