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"I hate you," is the first thing Shi Wudu hears when he comes to, and he can't tell which one of them said it. He Xuan is silent and the situation doesn't get any clearer.
The ghost is sitting nearby, on the large rocks by the water, slightly hunched over, and gazing somewhere beyond the horizon like a skilfully made statue. Shi Wudu tries to get up from the ground (little round stones dig unpleasantly into his back) and fails, feeling a stab of pain in his left side.
"What the hell...?!"
He Xuan throws him a sidelong glance.
"You're too foul-mouthed for a god."
"It's none of your business."
"Thankfully."
Shi Wudu falls on his back again. He looks up at the sky, shrouded with a haze of clouds, and tries to remember what happened.
He regrets it.
Slowly, but quite obligingly, his memory restored the events of the previous night, and the more Shi Wudu remembered, the more he regretted his survival.
He remembered how unexpectedly the demons had attacked. There had been far too many of them, they'd been too fast, too chaotic. He recalled missing one single blow, after which everything went wrong. Their crooked and dull claws tore his flesh along with the fabric of his robes, and the demons screeched and charged at him all at once, burying the god's body beneath their own. Quickly, far too quickly he stopped seeing the light. And far too quickly he gave up the struggle.
But then He Xuan appeared.
He Xuan remembered a little more than that. He remembered how, in spite of everything, he really had been nearby by pure coincidence. How he had watched the battle, listened to the other's screams, and how, with a chill of horror, he had slowly come to realise they did not bring him any satisfaction.
And how he had intervened.
Not because he'd wanted to be the one to take the Water Tyrant's life.
Not because he'd wanted to humiliate him.
Just because he had suddenly understood that he couldn't stand idly by.
Couldn't leave without helping.
"Why did you do it?"
He Xuan looked down at him again, and his eyes betrayed no answer.
"You weren't fighting back."
"So what?"
"It was too pathetic."
"So you saved me just to watch me die a slightly more dignified death? You want to kill me yourself?"
He Xuan calmly turned away and returned his gaze to some point on the horizon.
"I never said I wished for your death."
This was the truth, but right then, He Xuan himself didn't fully know what he meant by it. Such ambiguity in his own thoughts frightened him; it would've been much easier to simply throw Shi Wudu to the demons, or to scare them off and finish the job himself, but for some reason, he'd taken the god away from them, like a mutilated mouse a bunch of kittens had been toying with, and then he'd spent a long time transferring his own spiritual energy until the god had opened his eyes.
Shi Wudu was staring at him furiously, and in this fury there was something else that He Xuan couldn't quite place. Some sort of unhealthy, rage-filled despair, a lack of strength to fight for his own life, as if any threat of death was entirely deserved.
But dwelling on it for too long was clearly bad for one's health.
He Xuan cast another brief glance at the god, then stood, straightening out his clothes and shaking the sand off.
Shi Wudu seemed too helpless, somehow vulnerable beneath his gaze, and it was with difficulty that He Xuan forced himself to look away.
"Soon you'll be able to go back to your little cloud in the sky." The ghost softly kicked the other's shoulder with the toe of his boot and caught a hatred-filled look. He huffed quietly and turned to leave. "Try not to die. It would be boring without you."