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In a last-ditch effort to survive—Wei Ying didn’t know he still had the will in him—he smears his blood-stained fingers against the ground, and traces out an array he barely remembers from the back of his head. He desperately fights against the numerous vicious ghosts still clamouring all over him, clenching down on his jaw as he draws out every stroke with his last fighting breath. Once it’s done, he drags his half-limp body across the floor of the Demon-Slaughtering cave until he’s pressed up against the middle of the array.

He mutters a silent incantation under his breath, and the bloodied array comes to life.

He slaps his hand down onto the floor, and it activates successfully. A slit opens in the ground—open only to him—and he falls right through, disappearing from the world for good.

On that day, Yiling Patriarch purportedly succumbs to his death—as a result of his own madness.

“Great news, Wei Wuxian has died!”

“I must say, good riddance!”

Wei Ying gasps to life.

His body is sprawled on the ground, still wearing the same blood-soaked robes he had on just moments before in his cave. The ghosts had their claws in it, torn at it, and much of it is now in shreds. Across his bare chest are red gashes and marks, evidence of the brawl and havoc he’d gotten himself in earlier. Of the lack of control—of his failure.

He knows it deep in his gut.

Everyone must be dead by now.

He pulls himself to his feet, dropping slow tears as he does so, with what little strength he has left. He could continue lying here, continue wallowing in self-pity about all the people he could have saved but didn’t—but something in his head yells at him to live on. Funnily enough, he didn’t think he still had it in him. He didn’t think he even wanted to; there was nothing left for him anymore. Shijie, Jin Zixuan, Wen Ning, Wen Qing, the Wens, all gone. Jiang Cheng, who had personally led the siege against him. A-Ling, who will never know his parents, nor his uncle.

And Lan Zhan… Wei Ying’s hand flies to his chest, pressing down against the stabbing ache in his heart he feels whenever he thinks about the boy. Lan Zhan. He probably detests me too, thinks I’m better off dead…

The valley Wei Ying finds himself in is void of life and people, but the burst of red light that emits from deep within seems to call to him. He doesn’t know where the array had pulled him to, but somehow the red light feels like a source of comfort. As Wei Ying follows its trail and gets closer, the bustling sounds of a night market reach his ears. Familiar, chaotic shouts of the noisy crowds combine with the energetic music of the common folk.

He soon reaches the entrance of a city.

Oh, he suddenly realises, gazing upon the long street ahead of him. I must be in Hell.

He needs only to take one look at the faces of the apparitions before him to know they are not human. He has spent far too much time with ghosts to not know one when he sees one—much less an entire crowd. He takes his first step into the city, and holds his breath as he walks through the throngs of people eagerly pushing past him. Stalls with bright neon signs and giant red lanterns line both sides of the street, each manned by ghosts or animals that don masks of laughing, crying, angry faces.

Wei Ying is still human at his core, but the overwhelming yin energy inside of him easily misleads the passing ghosts. Covered in blood, and skinny and pale from his starvation, Wei Ying shares more similarities with the dead than the living. He stumbles his way through the jostling crowds, allowing himself to be pushed and pulled into multiple directions.

He is aimless. Wei Ying knows he is not dead, he can still feel the pulsating of his heart in his veins—no matter how soft, how slow it’s become.

Breathing is very easy here, when there is no one to fight with you for air. The breaths he takes are light and airy, and they sustain him for several beats before he requires to take a second breath.

He’s distracted by the sight of a buff, burly fire-breathing man barbecuing a small ghost in what seems to be a busking performance up ahead when claw-like hands reach out and dig into his shoulder.

He is pulled out from the crowd, and pressed against a woman ghost. He quickly flinches in self-induced fear—the last time he had similar hands on him, it had been in rabid attempts to tear him from limb to limb, in a manic need to bring him to his death.

“I know we’re all dead here, gege, but you really could use some colour.”

Wei Ying would pry away from her hands if he had the strength. Instead, he dazedly lets the woman ghost do what she wants. She does look more human than most, with her rotting facial features piled on with heavy layers of make-up. Perhaps she’d been bored out of her mind and needed a project to work on for today; perhaps she saw his self-defeated stance and took pity on him.

She opens her powder box and some rouge, and dabs them onto his face and lips, giggling to herself with every new dash of colour she adds to his face.

“There you go! Looking so sweet and handsome! You’re so lucky you met me, hehe, fortune favours you today! You’re all ready to meet him now!”

She spins him around by the shoulders when she’s done, pushing him back into the crowd. When Wei Ying turns his head around to catch another glimpse of her, she’s already gone.

Him?

Who?

Wei Ying’s head is starting to ache. When his hands touch his face, he realises the heavy foundation has covered up his tear-streaked cheeks. Unbeknownst to him, he’d stopped crying, sometime back when the lady ghost first started painting her first layer of rogue.

Somehow or another, Wei Ying finds himself entering a gambling den.

He stands quietly amongst the crowd that led him here—he’d been pushed and shoved and strung along right into this very building—and after watching three live rounds of gambling, he thinks he gets the hang of it. Bet something of value: a limb, a child, even your own life, in exchange for the very possibility of one of your wildest dreams coming true. All you have to do is shake a gambling cup, and if the numbers are in your favour, then you stand to win a renewed chance at life.

It’s so evidently preying on the weak, or the impoverished, and in particular the humans. No wonder none had batted an eyelid at him wandering in their midst—it seemed like it was common for humans, out of desperation, to enter this ghost city for the sole purpose of patronising this gambling den.

Wei Ying should be disgusted at the sight, but after fighting almost his entire life away in a valiant but futile attempt to keep the Wens safe, Wei Ying can no longer bring himself to care about the morally wrong or right. If he is already in the underworld, there are no rules at play.

He is not here to be a martyr. Not for the second time.

“Who’s next?” the attendant standing at the front yells out, when the third game Wei Ying’s been watching comes to an end. It ends in a violent loss, with the man losing both his eyes. He’d been a painter, the poor man. Losing his sight meant he’d never be able to paint or appreciate art ever again. “Our lord is here to play today, a rare opportunity. Don’t miss this chance!”

Wei Ying is struck with the sudden, harrowing reminder of shijie and Jin Zixuan’s deaths. Before he can even think it through, the words are already leaving his mouth.

“Me,” Wei Ying raises his hand. “I’ll play.”

He steps up to the long table, just as the croupier standing there slides a gambling cup over to him.

Before the long table lies red silk curtains where a dark silhouette—the aforementioned lord—sits.

“What do you bet,” the croupier questions.

Wei Ying hadn’t thought that far. Really, he hadn’t thought much at all since coming here.

“My life,” he says. He is already withering away.

At this, the voice behind the curtains speaks up.

“No,” the lord says. His voice, deep, vibrating with power and command. “Something else.”

Wei Ying blinks. His life is not valuable enough for him? But he has nothing left to offer. For a moment, his mind is in a disarray.

He blurts out the first thing he can think of, “My first time, then.”

He hadn’t meant for it to be funny, but the onlooking crowd instantly bursts into laughter. Both humans and ghosts jeer and boo at him for the audacity of even suggesting such a thing.

“That’s our lord you’re speaking to!”

“Our lord, our lord!”

“Who would be so shameless? He’s the ghost king himself, the owner of this very city! Why would he want a mere mortal’s first time?”

Wei Ying was never easily flustered, but their taunting actually does instill feelings of shame in him for a hot second. He parts open his mouth, ready to take it back and offer something else up, when the silhouette speaks again.

“Very well,” he says. There is laughter in his voice. It seems Wei Ying’s arrogance has brought him some form of amusement. “What do you want?”

Oh—it worked?

“To bring my martial sister and her husband back to life,” Wei Ying says.

He’s not sure how powerful this being is, but the people before him had made outlandish wishes, and the lord had agreed to every one of them.

The lord snorts, “I cannot do that.”

Perhaps bringing the dead back to life is still beyond even supernatural abilities…

“...then, to meet them again,” Wei Ying whispers. “Maybe they are in this city… maybe you can help me find them.”

“Hm,” the lord says. “Alright. Roll your dice.”

“Even will be a loss, odds will be a win. Once the cup is open, there will be no going back,” the croupier announces.

Wei Ying steadies his breath, picks up the black gambling cup in his hands, and holds it close to his chest. He shakes it with all his might, squeezing his eyes shut. He’d never gambled back in Yunmeng; Madam Yu made sure to ban improper activities of any sort. He didn’t know if gambling needed much technique or luck, but at the end of it all he really had nothing worthy to lose.

My first time, Wei Ying thinks to himself, sadly. I always thought it’d be with…

He places the cup down, and lifts the lid when he’s ready.

Two fours.

“Ah,” a sinking feeling in his chest. “I’ve lost.”

The crowd is ridiculing loudly again, “Is the lord really going to take his first time? Is this mortal even worthy?”

The consequences of losing are finally dawning unto him. Wei Ying swallows hard, and reaches for the gambling cup again.

“Can I get another try?”

“No,” the lord answers, firmly. He finally stands from behind the curtains, revealing his tall silhouette.

Disheartened, Wei Ying places the gambling cup down. When he looks back up, the attendant by the side is declaring the lord’s departure.

“This will be the lord’s last game for today. However, we will still be running the game. Please step up if you’d like to continue playing.”

Wei Ying quickly finds himself at a loss, wondering if he is meant to pay up his bet now. The previous three had had their limbs immediately severed, or eyes immediately gouged.

Wei Ying had bet his first time. Is he to be stripped of his virginity, right now? Did he even get a say in giving to whom? If this truly is Hell, he doubted anyone would extend him such generosity. Perhaps he’d have to serve the most grotesque of monsters, one-eyed with tongue lolling and tummy bulging.

Well, Wei Ying thinks. What have I got to lose.

He doesn’t have to wonder for long. A man soon clutches at his arm, guiding him off the centre stage.

Wei Ying lifts his head up, and meets the woeful-looking face—of a mask.

“The lord wishes to see you,” the man says. He is clad in black robes, so black in colour he almost blends into the darkness of this gambling den. Unlike the other attendants, his voice is not gruff or snide in nature, and his touch is respectful and gentle. He is debonair in a way the others are not.

Wei Ying spies a curious looking puzzle-like tattoo around his wrist, and wonders if that might be the mark of the lord, and if he is a personal attendant of sorts.

He gulps. “Is this to claim the prize.”

The man does not answer it head-on. “The lord is waiting for you at his manor. Come with me.”

Wei Ying starts to feel faint, in a way that's very much different from before.

The words ‘Paradise Manor’ hang high above the very residence. It is an impressive building towering many stories, covered in shadows of red and black hues. Wei Ying steps in, and his eyes divert to the floor when he feels his feet rub against soft fur. The thick rug he steps on is snow white in colour, looking freshly torn off the back of a beast.

A place definitely fit for a lord to live.

A man stands at the far end of the hall, decked out in maple-red robes and silver vambraces on his arms. Perched on his hand is a silver butterfly, animated and flighty in movement. When he notices his guest, he swats lightly at the butterfly. Instead of flying away, the butterfly evaporates into the thin air.

He turns around, and reveals his face in its entirety. Demonic energy radiates off his very being. Wei Ying’s heart flutters when he casts his eyes over him for the first time.

He already knows who he is.

What a handsome man, Wei Ying thinks, absent-mindedly. Skin white as snow, hair black as ink. And even with that eyepatch. What a devilishly handsome lord—a ghost?—maybe even a demon, to rule this city.

The lord appears to pay Wei Ying the same amount of scrutiny. His lips pull apart, with the same amusement Wei Ying’s heard previously in his voice.

“Welcome to Ghost City,” he says, sweeping a look over Wei Ying’s face.

He beckons, and Wei Ying mindlessly follows. He takes two steps nearer, half-limping in his step.

He quickly shakes his head out of the spell he’s under, and wonders if it’s because of his pure exhaustion, or if it’d been the inviting smile on his host’s face.

“You know,” Wei Ying’s throat is dry. “You know I’m not from here.”

“I know everything that happens in this city,” he says. “And I’ve been curious about you ever since you stepped in here. How are your wounds? Feeling better?”

Wei Ying clutches at his ribs, unconsciously, in a protective stance. The place where Jiang Cheng stabbed him hasn’t healed.

The spot where he’d had his core sliced out of him, forever feeling so empty and hollow.

“You don’t have to patronise me,” Wei Ying says. His tone, venomous and biting. “Kind sir.”

The lord laughs. Wei Ying knows given the circumstance, Wei Ying can afford to be a little kinder. The man is in a position of power, and clearly holds powers far beyond his comprehension. But if this is the way Wei Ying is to go, then at least he is to do so with dignity.

“So, why have you come here?” the lord asks again, curiously. Whenever he parts his lips into those wide smiles of his, the canines at the side of his mouth show. “How did you come here?”

Wei Ying tightens his grip on his clothing, “A teleportation array.”

It’d been a spell from one of the forbidden books; Wei Ying hadn’t realised it would work.

“One that transcends worlds?” he seems to already know everything. “It’s the first I’ve seen of it. Was it deliberate?”

“No,” Wei Ying answers, sucking air in through his teeth. “I did it with my dying breath. I had nowhere else to go.”

“Oh,” he says. A kind of—understanding?—seeps into his eyes. He nods, “I see. Are you a soldier? No, with your level of cultivation—an imperial preceptor?”

Wei Ying frowns. He’s unfamiliar with such titles. “I am,” he says. “Or, was. A brother. A friend.”

Wei Ying doesn’t… realise his eyes have started brimming with tears as he utters those words. He’d pushed the unwanted thoughts—shijie, Jin Zixuan, Wen Ning, Wen Qing, the rest of the Wens, Jiang Cheng, Lan Zhan—out of his head for long enough that when it came back, it came back flooding with pain that were twofold.

“Who were you fighting against?” the lord asks, curiously.

“Everyone else,” Wei Ying gasps out, with red-rimmed eyes. There is resentment in his voice—resentment for everything that’s happened, everything that went out of his control.

“Everyone who did me wrong. My loved ones, wrong. Everyone who—”

The bright red eye on the hilt of the silver scimitar that hangs on the lord’s waist snaps open, and it’s only then that Wei Ying realises he is spinning out of control. His hands have unconsciously curled into fists, and have begun violently shaking at his sides. Despite chenqing being absent from his possession, he can feel his resentful energy start to show.

“Everyone who caused the deaths of shijie, Jin Zixuan, their poor A-Ling… everyone who didn’t understand.”

Even the lord seems to have noticed the malevolent energy that’s suddenly descended into the room. Ever since Wei Ying started speaking, the man’s scimitar hasn’t stopped vibrating, recognising in Wei Ying… a kindred spirit, of sorts.

Huh, the lord thinks, his interest piqued. An equal. A… partner?

When Wei Ying brings a hand to his pale, gaunt cheeks, he feels up the tears that have drenched through the powder on his face.

“Is this Hell?” Wei Ying asks, head and heart throbbing.

The lord’s gaze softens at the sight, “No. This is a haven.”

Wei Ying blinks away his tears. He calms down for a bit, only so he can finally ask, “Are you going to collect your debt now?”

Might as well get it done and over with.

“...No,” the lord says. “Do you have a name?”

Wei Ying noticeably stiffens. He thinks of Wei Wuxian, Yiling Patriarch, and decides he’d rather be called by something else.

“Wei Ying,” he says. He remembers the last time he’d been called this, by a voice so sweet and tender; by a voice so stricken and heartbroken.

“Wei Ying,” the lord echoes. “Would you like a place to stay?”

Wei Ying startles. He raises his gaze, and wonders why he would be so kind.

“You said you had nowhere else to go,” the lord hums. “Or do you? Do you have a place to be?”

Wei Ying’s vision is blurry. He thinks of the desecrated Yiling, then Yunmeng, then… Gusu.

Like anyone would ever accept him with open arms again.

“No, I don’t.”

“So you will stay, then,” the lord decides for him, with a satisfied smile.

He waves a hand, and the man clad in black appears by his side again. Wei Ying was sure he’d left the minute he led Wei Ying into the manor.

“Prepare us some food,” the lord says.

This is starting to feel like it will be a long night.

Wei Ying has not eaten for so long, so when confronted with a feast as big as this, he only knows to take the nearest plate of fruits and slowly nibble.

The lord does not eat. He simply sits opposite him at the dining table, the smile never leaving his face.

“You should be eating more,” he says. “You must be starving.”

Wei Ying wonders if this is just a sick game the lord is playing, fattening up his prey before devouring him later.

Regardless, he’s too tired to fight.

“I don’t have a large appetite,” Wei Ying says. It’s true, he’d somehow trained himself into surviving on the smallest of bites, or even nothing at all, during his days with the Wens. Letting the old and the young have their fill was way more important.

“If you want to heal, you must eat,” he says. “As much as your will to live is strong, you cannot survive purely on will.”

Wei Ying thinks about the very moment he’d scribbled out the array in that cave. “I… I didn’t even know I still wanted to live.”

“I think everyone does,” the lord says. His smile does taper off a bit at his words, though. “Innately.”

“Well, I have nothing left to live for,” Wei Ying says. His eyes are burning again. “My arrogance has always been my downfall.”

The lord’s brow furrows.

“...I like it,” the lord says softly. His voice travels across the table; floats into Wei Ying’s ears in a light hum. “I like you.”

Oh.

Wei Ying looks up from his plate, frowning.

“You like men on the brink of death?”

“I think it takes someone of a certain character to offer up their first time, that’s all,” the lord answers, with a smile. “Even if on the brink of death, your charm does show.”

“Charm,” Wei Ying repeats, dazedly. “That really doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things.”

“I know,” he says. His one hand supports his jaw, cupping it as he tilts his head to the side while speaking. He gazes to Wei Ying curiously.

“And yet I can’t seem to leave you alone.”

Wei Ying spits out the fruit he had been nibbling on in his mouth—right back down onto the plate.

It appears this lord is fond of playing games.

“My lord,” Wei Ying gathers the strength to call out, irately. He forces a sweet smile on, though, out of mandatory politeness. “What is your name?”

The man’s left eye twinkles happily, like he has been waiting for the question ever since Wei Ying stepped in here.

“Since you asked so nicely… Hua Cheng.”

“Hua Cheng,” Wei Ying swallows. “Do you… particularly enjoy making a mockery out of others when they’re already beaten down and downtrodden?”

“No,” Hua Cheng laughs. “I only do it for… beautiful men who drop out of another universe and walk into my home with their robes loose and open, looking extraordinarily… unaware of how dangerous doing so is.”

Wei Ying freezes up. His hands instinctively reach down for the front of his robes, pulling them tighter around him. It’s no use. The ghosts from before were determined to rip it into shreds, and so the cheap cloth on him still hangs loose. His nipples are barely covered, and the claw marks across his fair skin is obvious.

“I was in a scuffle,” Wei Ying bites his tongue, explaining. “This was not on purpose.”

“Is it,” Hua Cheng is keen to tease. “After all, you did offer up your first time to me. And is that rouge on your lips?”

Wei Ying’s hands fly to his mouth, this time. He’d completely forgotten about the ghost lady’s antics. “I was forced into it.”

“It suits you,” Hua Cheng compliments.

“What does?”

“The colour red.”

Wei Ying’s face flushes. Hua Cheng is covered in red, from head to toe.

Wei Ying is suddenly all too aware of the red ribbon in his hair, the red on his lips, and the red of his inner robes.

“It seems we match,” Wei Ying says, reluctantly.

“It seems we do,” Hua Cheng smiles.

He must surely not talking about the colour anymore.

After dinner, Wei Ying is led by the man in black to a bathroom. He is passed new sets of clothing—red robes, Wei Ying registers with unease—plus a bunch of ointment and bandages to use, afterwards.

“What’s your name?” Wei Ying gathers the courage to ask. If he is to seek refuge in this manor, then he hopes to get to know the people in this household, at least.

The man looks at him and says quietly, “Not important.”

“Are you Hua Cheng’s personal servant?”

“...Of sorts.”

“Is he kind? Why did he offer me a place to stay?”

The man in black bows his head. “He is kind.”

He leaves it at that, and turns away to leave right after.

It’s a hopeless endeavour speaking with him. Wei Ying decides he won’t get anywhere with the attendant, and resigns himself to enjoying his bath instead.

He peels his robes off of him, sinks into the bathtub with readied hot water, and slips into a daze.

It’s been so long since he had a proper bath, but he can’t even bask fully in the pleasure of doing so. He only feels numb. He feels pain, to the core.

I wonder how the cultivation world is doing back home, he thinks, sinking further down into the tub. I wonder if they are relieved I am gone. Perceived dead. Disappeared from the world, forever. I wonder about everyone, I wonder about shidi, but most of all I wonder about him. I wonder if he will mourn for me. I wonder if he will miss me.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, long hair floating on the waters around him, knees pulled up to his chest, tears streaking down his cheeks.

“Wei Ying,” he is suddenly being called.

Wei Ying jumps. He thought it had surely been—

“Hua Cheng?” Wei Ying comes to his senses.

“Are you alright?” Hua Cheng’s voice looms from outside the door. “It’s been a while.”

Wei Ying looks down at his hands, and finds that his skin has all wrinkled up.

“Just finishing,” he says.

He steps out of the wooden tub, hurriedly dries himself with towels, clothes himself in the red robes designated for him, and takes the ointment and bandages with him.

He comes out of the bathroom, with his long wet hair around his shoulders. He pulls them to the side of his neck, squeezing them dry.

Hua Cheng pauses at the sight. For a good second, he does not speak, with his lips parted in awe.

Then he closes them, just so he can say, “I will show you to bed.”

“Oh,” Wei Ying says.

Standing right before Hua Cheng like this, the man sure does tower over him just slightly. Wei Ying feels the difference so keenly. He follows after Hua Cheng in silence, the only noises being made by the silver chains on his boots.

Hua Cheng leads him to a luxurious bedchamber, the entrance of which is sealed by a beaded curtain. As Hua Cheng steps close, the curtain parts automatically, remaining open until Wei Ying has stepped in himself. Behind Wei Ying, the beaded curtain lets itself down, clacking crisply as it does so.

A large futon lies before them, made of black jade. Hua Cheng gestures towards it, imploring Wei Ying to take a seat. Wei Ying apprehensively takes a step forward, then turns back to Hua Cheng, eyeing him distrustfully. His hands are still tugging at his hair, wringing them dry as he speaks.

“Is this where I’m supposed to sleep?”

Hua Cheng answers, “Yes.”

Wei Ying lowers a hand down, and briefly caresses the black jade below him. The room is extravagant—too extravagant for a mere guest like him.

“These are your chambers,” Wei Ying says. He’s not really asking. He already knows.

Hua Cheng smiles. “Yes.”

Wei Ying snaps his eyes back up to him. “I am to share your bed?”

Hua Cheng’s grin only gets wider. “Apologies. My manor has a lack of rooms.”

Wei Ying isn’t a fool. He scoffs, “Do you host all your guests this way?”

“I don’t have many guests,” Hua Cheng says, as a matter-of-factly. “You’re the first.”

Wei Ying has a hard time believing that. A man of his position—and looks? A man like him probably has women hanging off his arm every other hour of the day.

“Is this,” Wei Ying asks, hesitantly. “Is this part of my debt?”

Hua Cheng shrugs. “Is it your first time sharing a bed with another man?”

Wei Ying splutters out, “O...Of course not.”

“Then it’s not a first time,” Hua Cheng says, cheekily. “That I can take.”

So sly. Wei Ying huffs, and seats himself down onto the black jade. Hua Cheng does the same, on the other side of the futon.

“Well,” Wei Ying starts. He lays his head down onto the hard jade. “Good night.”

He curls up, and tightens the red robes around his chest. They’re much warmer, silkier, and comfortable to wear. The cheap cotton he’d worn for the bulk of his time at Yiling always made him so much more prone to catching a cold with the harsh frigid winds back there.

He’s so tired, he’s dozing off almost immediately the minute he lays his head down. Right before his eyes come to a permanent close, he hazily registers the feeling of a heavy blanket being laid over him.

When he awakes, sunlight is filtering in through windows that he hadn’t noticed before.

A silver butterfly sits perched on the windowsill, staring down at him.

Wei Ying gasps awake, his heart beating fast.

“Wen Qing, Wen Ning,” he calls aloud, until he remembers they’re no longer here, and he’s not in Yiling.

His hands move up to clutch at his hair. It’s freshly clean and neatly brushed, a complete change from the way it was when he still lived back in the Demon-Slaughtering cave.

Oh, he remembers to himself. I am in Hell.

It is surely not morning anymore, but Wei Ying lacks the will for anything else. Wei Ying feels for his bedside—it’s empty, and void of Hua Cheng’s presence. Perhaps he has gone to tend to affairs of his own; judging by the glare of the sun, it must be mid-day, by now.

Wei Ying lays his head back down onto the futon. Suddenly everything is aching again, and his head is hurting. He closes his eyes, and wills himself to not feel.

The silver butterfly rises from the windowsill, and flutters down onto the top of his shoulder. It tingles against his skin.

Wei Ying squeezes his eyes shut.

He lies there on the jade, until night falls.

Silver chains chime in the distance, halting just before the beaded curtains, and then trudging along again once they open. They stop right by Wei Ying’s side of the bed.

“The food outside is cold.”

Wei Ying pulls his eyes open. He hadn’t slept a wink. The silver butterfly is gone—now replaced by its very owner, himself. Hua Cheng stares down at him, his tall and heavy stature suddenly overly oppressive and stifling.

“Not hungry,” Wei Ying murmurs, weakly. He curls up harder, wrapping his arms around his stomach.

Hua Cheng frowns, gazing down at his guest. His condition looks worse than before; at least yesterday, there was still some fire in him.

“Even if you are mourning,” Hua Cheng says. “You still have to eat.”

Wei Ying hides his face further down. “I’ve survived on less.”

“Stubborn,” Hua Cheng mutters.

In the next second, he’s bending over, and scooping Wei Ying’s frail body into his arms.

Wei Ying immediately goes on the offensive once he realises what’s happening.

“What the hell—” Wei Ying’s glare travels upwards. He thrashes and kicks and attempts to tumble out of his grasp, but the man’s as solid as a rock. “Put me down. Hua Cheng! I said, put me down!”

The experience is humiliating.

“So stubborn,” Hua Cheng’s angry gaze slices back down. He may be all smiles and laughter usually, but he knows how to be stern and forbidding when he needs to be.

He carries Wei Ying out of the room, down the hallways and out to the dining room. He seats Wei Ying down at the table, ignoring the glowering looks thrown at him. He takes his seat opposite Wei Ying, just like the night before, and eyes Wei Ying expectantly.

“Be good,” he says. “Eat.”

Wei Ying only feels the hunger once his eyes rest on the feast laid out before him. Still rather indignant about being forced to eat, Wei Ying stuffs a cold pork bun into his mouth, and chews with much disdain. He slams his eyes shut, and gulps the pain down with every bite.

He’s famished.

He swallows and chews, rather noisily in complete silence. Hua Cheng only begins to smile again when he sees that Wei Ying has stopped protesting. Only when he is done, does Hua Cheng speak.

“Do you plan to waste your days away like this?”

Wei Ying’s back to his usual crude, insulted stare. “That’s none of your business.”

“I’m not going to let you waste away like this,” Hua Cheng says. “Even the dead out there have more spirit than you.”

“I might as well be dead.”

“But you are not,” Hua Cheng snaps. “And I’m not letting you rot away your cultivation like this.”

“I,” Wei Ying makes a bold proclamation, on the spur of the moment. “I don’t want to cultivate anymore.”

He winces almost immediately after. He’d thought about making such a decision for a while now, but actually vocalising it hurt so much more.

Hua Cheng’s eyes narrow to him. His voice, however, comes out gentler. “You don’t?”

“No,” Wei Ying says, holding his head. He feels a headache coming on again. “No, I’ll lose control.”

Hua Cheng pauses. “You’re afraid.”

“I caused deaths,” Wei Ying admits, eyes quickly hot with tears. It seems he is constantly on edge, these days. After—after so many deaths. “Unnecessary ones. Too many. So, no. Thank you, but no. I don’t think I’ll cultivate ever again.”

Hua Cheng frowns. He takes a moment to deliberate over his words, and takes care to be kinder in his approach. “You have great potential. Your demonic cultivation—your mastery—for a human is beyond impressive.”

“It’s also evil,” Wei Ying whispers, utterly broken. “I have been exiled and vilified for it, do you know that? Can you even comprehend—maybe in your world, it’s different—but can you even comprehend the things I have gone through… lived through. I never want to feel that way again.”

Hua Cheng’s face tightens, his teeth clenching. He’s been there.

“I know.”

A beat of silence.

“But I promise you, you will never have to feel that way again,” Hua Cheng says, firmly. “Not here. Not in this ghost city. Not in a world that belongs to me. You will never hurt another soul again. Are you still so insistent on not cultivating?”

Wei Ying averts his gaze. He’s still not fully convinced, even if the man did make some concrete points—he could never hurt a soul here. Not with the undead…

“Wei Ying,” Hua Cheng calls, resolutely, getting up from his seat. “I want to show you something.”

Of all things Wei Ying was expecting, he did not expect to be led to a weapon armoury.

“This is,” Wei Ying’s eyes are bulging at all manner of scimitars, swords, spears, shields, whips, even axes being hung on all four walls around them. “All yours?”

“I like to collect things,” Hua Cheng hums, never taking his eyes off Wei Ying. “Pretty things.”

“These are,” Wei Ying draws in a breath. He almost doesn’t dare reach out and touch any of the pieces before him, even if he has become mildly tingly with excitement. “Magnificent.”

Wei Ying is well-trained in the art of sword-fighting; he’s very well-capable of appreciating a great weapon armoury.

“You can touch if you want,” Hua Cheng says, with a tinge of amusement. “I want you to pick one. The best one. If you’re a cultivator, you need a good weapon.”

Wei Ying swung a surprised look up to him. “You want to gift me a weapon?”

Hua Cheng smiles. “Can I not?”

Wei Ying gets the goosebumps. He lowers his head, biting away at his lip.

“With the caveat,” Hua Cheng makes sure to mention. “That you continue your cultivation.”

Wei Ying purses his lip. “You are rather insistent.”

“And you are stubborn,” Hua Cheng smiles. “I think we’re well-matched.”

Wei Ying folds his arms. Then, somewhat imprudently, he flat-out states, “I prefer flutes.”

Hua Cheng laughs. He reaches behind him, and fashions a black bamboo flute—of the highest grade—out of thin air.

“For you,” Hua Cheng grins. He hands it over to Wei Ying, who takes it with disbelieving eyes. At the end of the flute is a red tassel, with a jade token. “Do you like it?”

Wei Ying barely hides his stutter. “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“What chenqing looked like.”

Hua Cheng smiles. “I didn’t. Is that the name of your spiritual weapon from before?”

Wei Ying thinks about it being lost to the war. “It should be dust by now.”

“Well, you can name this new one Hua Hua,” Hua Cheng teases.

Wei Ying’s cheeks actually turn scarlet at the implication of doing so. “After?”

“Your benefactor, of course,” Hua Cheng says, cheekily. “As repayment.”

“I didn’t realise you sought repayment for your kindness,” Wei Ying blabbers on. He’s too embarrassed by Hua Cheng’s kindness, he dare not meet his eyes so readily like before.

“Oh, I always seek repayment. And this isn’t the full extent of it all,” Hua Cheng grins, then says in a low voice. “Not yet.”

Wei Ying clutches Hua Hua close to his chest, and feels his battered heart begin to take flight again.

Hua Cheng is often out during the day, it seems. The next time Wei Ying is left alone to his devices—although the servant in black always magically appears whenever Wei Ying needs him, so he’s sure the man is keeping watch… from somewhere—Wei Ying takes a step out of Paradise Manor for the first time since entering it, and seats himself on the wide steps just outside the large doors.

The vicinity is empty. Paradise Manor is located a good distance away from the heart of the city, most likely due to Hua Cheng’s need for privacy. Wei Ying does like it better this way, it feels like he has the entire space to himself without anyone around.

He takes out Hua Hua from his sleeves—he’s stuck with the name, he has grown fond of it, and besides, naming it chenqing would be doing the actual flute a disservice anyway—and presses it to his lips.

I’m not cultivating, Wei Ying convinces himself, his hands trembling. I’m just playing a song.

And a song he plays. A light, mellow shrill begins to fill the air, telling a sorrowful and poetic tale of what-had-beens and bygones of the past. Wei Ying flutters his eyes shut, and pictures the last time he’d seen the smiling face of shijie…

Oh, he thinks, as he begins to feel familiar qi flood through his veins. He feels whole again.

He only realises he has company a moment later when a sharp nail traces against his cheek, and wipes at the tears that have begun overflowing.

He opens his eyes, and sees three dainty little female ghosts staring right back at him. Their feet barely touch the ground; in fact the ends of their thighs are indiscernible, and taper off into black smoke.

He feels movement on his shoulder, and realises the same silver butterfly from yesterday has returned to watch over him again.

“Gege,” one of the ghosts sings out, gazing down towards him. Her face is long and covered with white foundation, badly hiding a myriad of purple and black bruises underneath. “Why so sad? Do you need us meimeis to keep you company?”

Wei Ying halts in his flute-playing momentarily. When did they get here? “Did I accidentally call for you?”

“We heard your flute-playing and came, gege,” another one giggles. Her hair is in two pigtails. She floats to Wei Ying’s side, and leans her arms against Wei Ying’s shoulder. She plays with Wei Ying’s long locks of hair and says, “You play so well, it’ll naturally attract a horde of female ghosts.”

Wei Ying places the flute back down onto his lap, “I didn’t mean to.”

“Well, you look like you could still use some company,” the third one laughs, this time floating down to rest by his legs. “Playing such a melancholy tune, does our ghost king not satisfy you? Everyone has heard about him taking you in by now! They say he has taken a strange liking to a particular human who offered up his… first time.”

Wei Ying wills down the blush that creeps into his cheeks, “He is merely offering me a place to stay.”

“Did our lord say that?” the first ghost quips, in laughter. “Perhaps our lord is shy! You are the first guest he’s ever kept overnight at his place! If that doesn’t mean something…”

“Oh, please, our lord is not shy,” the second ghost interrupts. “Our lord is so dashing and so bold, perhaps he is just being a gentleman,” she extends a red nail to tip at the end of Wei Ying’s jaw, tilting it up to face her as she gauges his face with an approving look in her eyes. “Our gege here looks so gentle and mild, perhaps our lord is afraid of scaring him off.”

“You would do so well with more white and red on your face, gege,” the third ghost coos. She pulls out powder from her sleeve, just as the first one begins to whimsically braid away at Wei Ying’s hair. “Perhaps you need our help in impressing our lord? If he sees you all made up for him, maybe he will become bolder!”

“Stop,” Wei Ying pushes at their hands, fighting them as they twist into his hair and powder unevenly at his gaunt cheeks. “I’m not here to impress him. I don’t want to impress him. Also, I refuse to be gentle and mild. I am only here because I need to be.”

“Oh, not interested in our lord? What a pity,” one of the girls sighs out. “Our poor ghost king has been so lonely, for many millennia…”

Their hairs abruptly stand. They detect the arrival of their ghost king from a mile away even before Wei Ying is conscious of it himself, and scurry off into the distance with fleeting goodbyes.

“We’ll come back for you, gege,” one of them says, blowing him a hurried kiss. “Play us a song some other time!”

Wei Ying hardly has time to understand what has just happened—when Hua Cheng descends onto the steps himself.

“Wei Ying.”

He turns to his left, and there Hua Cheng stands in all of his glory: a lock of hair braided down his shoulder, an eyepatch over his eye. He shuffles closer to Wei Ying, his black boots making that all too familiar chime.

For some reason, Wei Ying’s… taken an odd liking to the noise. It always signifies that Hua Cheng is near.

“Made a few new friends in my absence?” Hua Cheng asks, with a smile.

Wei Ying looks up to him, with his half-braided hair. “I was just playing Hua—my flute,” Wei Ying corrects himself, hoping the ghost king hadn’t noticed his blunder. Hua Cheng’s smile only widens.

“Is it any good?” He asks, taking a seat on the steps right next to Wei Ying.

Wei Ying scoots over.

Hua Cheng leans closer.

Wei Ying gives up.

“I like it,” Wei Ying says, picking Hua Hua up with his hands. He twirls it carelessly, feeling the bamboo underneath his fingertips. “It sounds just like chenqing too.”

“Good,” Hua Cheng says, satisfied. Then, he teases, “Perhaps even better?”

Wei Ying snorts, “Nothing could be better than chenqing. I crafted it myself back in Burial Mounds—” And then he realises he’s divulging too much, more than he’d like. “Chenqing was there when no one else was.”

“What a pity,” Hua Cheng says. “Not even him? He wasn’t there, too?”

Wei Ying ceases his breath.

“What him,” he asks. His heart has fallen to the pits. He suddenly feels so sick to the stomach.

“The one you can’t stop thinking about,” Hua Cheng says. His tone has become so serious. “The one that broke your heart.”

A vortex of anger swirls inside of Wei Ying. Irritation flares up in his eyes as he spits out, “There is no him.”

Hua Cheng raises a brow, “And yet you jump every time I call you Wei Ying, like you’re seeing the ghost of someone that isn’t there.”

Wei Ying hides his hands into his sleeves. Had he been that obvious? Fine, he’ll bite.

“He was a friend,” Wei Ying utters out, quietly. “Not what you think.”

“But still his rejection was enough to send you traversing across worlds.”

Wei Ying glares up at him, “I didn’t leave because of him. I left because of—of everything else.”

“Hm,” Hua Cheng says. “I see.”

They sit in silence on the steps outside the manor. Hua Cheng plays with a twig on the ground.

Wei Ying hugs his arms closer to himself. The winds get colder at night here, too. He pipes up a second later, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“How did you know.”

“Know what?”

“About him.”

Hua Cheng smiles faintly. “You’re always sad.”

Wei Ying parts his lips, then closes it again.

“You’re too great, to be sad. And beautiful, too.”

Wei Ying turns to him with wide eyes, at what he’s just heard. Hua Cheng is simply looking at him, ever-smiling.

Ah, Wei Ying thinks, with a knowing pang to his heart. This man will be my downfall.

“Not beautiful,” Wei Ying corrects. Hugging himself like this, he can feel how thin he really is. He knows very well how ghastly, how haggard he’s become. A well-fitting look for the place he resides in, now. His hands unconsciously move to caress at his ribs, feeling up battle scars and an emptiness that has taken permanent root in him.

“Not beautiful at all.” When I’m so empty.

“Mm,” Hua Cheng says, begging to differ. “Beautiful and extraordinary.”

Wei Ying snaps his head to him. “Surely you say this to every person you court,” he says, dryly, with narrowed eyes.

Hua Cheng laughs. “I don’t court.”

Wei Ying frowns. Then, perhaps in the most presumptuous move he’s made, he says, “You’re courting me.”

Hua Cheng smirks. “Am I?”

Wei Ying’s played right into his game. Fuck.

Wei Ying whips his head back to face front. “If it is as you say, then I suppose you will not be seeking to claim your debt. After all, a man of your stature would not be interested in something so… unworthy.”

Hua Cheng folds his arms, this time. “I haven't claimed my debt not because I lack the interest. I haven't claimed it because,” and his long lashes lower to glance at Wei Ying, “I don’t fancy taking things that aren’t willingly given to me.”

Wei Ying stills in his movement. “I am not a fair maiden. It wouldn’t be taking advantage.”

“You were saving it for him.”

“No,” Wei Ying grits his teeth, appalled at the sheer accusation. “I wasn’t. I’ll prove it. Take it! Right now!”

Hua Cheng squints. It’s clear that Wei Ying is simply being… defiant.

Then, very thoughtfully, he says, “I’m a fair bit older than you.”

Wei Ying looks at him. “You look only a couple years older at most.”

Hua Cheng laughs, then responds affectionately with, “Wei Ying. Do you really want to know how long I’ve lived for?”

“No,” Wei Ying says, nose wrinkling up. “I don’t care.”

Hua Cheng laughs harder.

He lets his words ruminate for a bit, and counts down on three.

Three… two…

“Say I did care,” Wei Ying mumbles out, turning his head away. “How old are you?”

“Mm,” Hua Cheng smiles. “I have lived for eight hundred years.”

Wei Ying suddenly remembers he’s speaking to a ghost. He is also reminded, painfully, that he is only twenty-one years of age, in comparison.

Twenty-one years old, and yet the weight of his experiences have aged him a hundred years…

“At what age did you die?”

Hua Cheng answers, without so much as flinching. “A child.”

Perhaps enough time has passed that it no longer affects him.

“Was it painful,” Wei Ying asks, swallowing.

Hua Cheng shrugs. “I can’t remember.”

And they just leave it at that.

It does make Wei Ying’s heart sting to hear that, though. Somehow, he’s not so sure he believes him. So he extends a hand of his, and places it on Hua Cheng’s lap.

In case he needs it. If he even needs it.

And when Hua Cheng finally covers it with his own hand, Wei Ying has this indescribable feeling that maybe, just maybe, he’ll never be alone again.

“What’s this red string on your finger,” Wei Ying asks, when he notices the red string wrapped on one of them. “Is it the red string of fate?”

Hua Cheng laughs. “Why do you ask. Do you wish to be bound to me?”

Wei Ying huffs, “I guess not, then.”

Hua Cheng smiles to him so sweetly, and finally answers, “It’s a spiritual device. But,” and he unties it, so he can demonstrate. “If I tie it onto you, it’ll allow me to always find you, wherever you are.”

Wei Ying gazes at it with childlike curiousity. “Oh, I wasn’t so far off then.”

“No,” Hua Cheng says, tying the last of it onto Wei Ying’s pinky. “No, you weren’t far off at all.”

Wei Ying wakes up the next morning to an empty bedside, as always. They spend their evenings and nights together, but Hua Cheng is always off doing something during the day. Wei Ying’s never questioned what. He’s sure being a ghost king comes with its own set of priorities and responsibilities.

His bedside today, however—looks a tad less empty than usual.

A piece of paper is peeking out from underneath the edge of his pillow. When he pulls it out, he finds… an extremely intricate drawing. Even Wei Ying—a self-proclaimed artist of his own—is in complete awe of the level of detail and sophistication he sees in the artwork.

美, the character is hastily scribbled, at the bottom of the paper.

Beautiful, Wei Ying reads to himself.

His eyes flicker back up to digest the drawing in its whole.

“Is this… me,” Wei Ying asks, aloud. His fingers trace the charcoal on the paper—tracing every soft outline, every facial feature.

Hua Cheng had sneakily drawn a portrait of him asleep, his long wavy hair splayed out underneath him, wearing nothing but a soft smile on his face.

Wei Ying looks blissful, far more blissful than he thought he could ever look. Hua Cheng had been so honest with his drawing, drawing out pale cheeks and prominent collarbones that have made Wei Ying feel—not as good about himself as he used to be.

But somehow, laying him out so bare and honest to the world has made him all the more beautiful—and raw.

After everything I’ve gone through, Wei Ying thinks, his heart wrenching. I’ve become this.

“Beautiful,” Wei Ying whispers out again, tracing the character Hua Cheng has written. “Beautiful.”

Beautiful and extraordinary, Hua Cheng had just said to him, the day before.

Wei Ying feels a ball rising to his throat.

So this is how Hua Cheng sees him.

“Thank you for the drawing,” Wei Ying says first thing, once Hua Cheng is back in the evening.

Wei Ying’s in his silky red robes, leaning against the beaded curtain entrance to their bedroom. It is their bedroom, isn’t it? They share a futon, and they lie next to each other every night.

He hadn’t left the manor today or sought out his new ghost lady friends, choosing to stay in and, well, do some thinking. A lot of thinking. Most of it hadn’t been conclusive at all; he’d just spent it in a cloudy daze of… a set of maple red robes and an omnipresent smile.

“Mm,” Hua Cheng says, stepping in. His gaze is fixated on Wei Ying’s being, immobile, as if enjoying the sight. “Did you like it?”

“You made me… beautiful,” Wei Ying responds. The artwork now lies on one of the empty walls, pinned up front for Wei Ying to see every morning. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad,” Hua Cheng says. “I felt you needed convincing.”

“I did,” Wei Ying says, nodding. “I didn’t think you could convince me, but you did.”

Hua Cheng smiles. “I’ve been told I can do impossible things.”

“Well, congratulations,” Wei Ying says, pure snark in his tone. “You’ve outdone yourself.”

Hua Cheng laughs, then steps closer. “You could afford to be a little nicer to me. After all, haven’t I been so nice to you?”

Wei Ying takes a step back, only to press himself up against the wall. In this cramped position, he has to strain his neck to gaze up at Hua Cheng. “Right, you always seek repayment.”

Hua Cheng lowers his head—lord, he’s so tall—until his breath is ghosting right above Wei Ying’s lips.

“I always do,” he breathes out.

Wei Ying’s heartbeat stalls in his chest.

“Hua Cheng,” he whispers back, silver eyes looking back up into his.

Hua Cheng smiles. He moves back, and leaves Wei Ying against the wall, wanting.

“We can always discuss it later,” Hua Cheng says, turning his back onto him.

“I,” Wei Ying sputters out. “I can draw you.”

Alongside the artwork of Wei Ying on the wall, sits a newly drawn portrait of Hua Cheng. Wei Ying’s drawing of him is less refined, and much less polished. But it’s drawn well enough that anyone who casts an eye at him can tell the work holds a level of artistry that isn’t possessed by the common man.

He’d gotten Hua Cheng to lie on the bed in the same pose for three hours as Wei Ying worked away, hoping to do him justice. He hopes he did—when he’d first shown Hua Cheng the artwork, the man’s eyes had lit up and told him it was the best drawing he’s ever received.

Wei Ying thinks he must be lying!—even if the look on his face tells him he’s not.

They lie back on the futon together, heads facing the wall right in front of them, admiring both of their portraits, placed side by side.

While Wei Ying’s portrait had been titled 美, Hua Cheng’s portrait had been very aptly titled: 俊.

“So,” Hua Cheng says, in bed. “Will you not tell me more about him?”

Wei Ying jolts to attention, “Him?”

“You know who.”

Wei Ying sighs. “Why are you obsessed with that,” he says. “Him.”

“Well, I have to compete with him, don’t I?”

Wei Ying feels red washing over his cheeks. “For what?”

He already knows the answer. Hua Cheng has not been exactly the most coy about his intentions.

Hua Cheng has his head perched on his hand, cockily answering, “You.”

Wei Ying crumbles. He begins to say, “I really don’t remember much of him…”

But then the faintest memory suddenly strikes his head, of comforting, white robes holding him close in a cave, of blood-stained lips voicing out in desperation, “I love you, Wei Ying. These are my true feelings.”

“Get lost!”

“Wei Ying?”

Wei Ying’s mind snaps right back to reality.

“Wei Ying, are you alright,” Hua Cheng asks, concerned.

Wei Ying looks up, and realises he’s been hastily pulled into Hua Cheng’s arms.

Ah, he thinks, almost shy. He’s hugging me. When ever did he get so close?

“I thought I remembered something,” Wei Ying says, clutching at his head. He tries to recall what he thought he’d just remembered, but the memory doesn’t return to him again. Had he dreamt it all up? “It’s nothing.”

“Hm,” Hua Cheng frowns. His face darkens considerably, and his grip on Wei Ying tightens. “You’re most distracted when it comes to him.”

Wei Ying’s heart stirs at the crystal clear evidence of jealousy. “Am not.”

“Hm,” Hua Cheng continues frowning.

Wei Ying sighs out, “He’s just… a friend. A friend I knew at fifteen. We… believed in the same things. Until we didn’t. Until I broke away.”

“I see,” Hua Cheng says. “Do you think he misses you?”

Wei Ying’s heart squeezes. He knows this for sure, “No.”

Hua Cheng takes a second to ponder over what he should say. “I think I’d prefer that,” he admits.

For some reason, hearing such an earnest confession makes Wei Ying laugh. “I’m sure you do,” he says.

With Hua Cheng around, thinking about the past just isn’t all that painful anymore.

“Gege, I knew you’d miss us!”

The three female ghosts swarm down upon Wei Ying the minute his song reaches their ears.

“It’s the ghost king, isn’t it? You called us back to help you with the ghost king,” they chorus, in a fit of excitement, right outside the steps of Paradise Manor. “We can smell it, love is in the air!”

“It’s not all because of him,” Wei Ying says, with a huff. But his ears are burning, as he tucks Hua Hua away into his sleeves. “He’s really not all that…”

“Gege,” one of the girls floats over to cup at his jaw. “You just have to channel the inner meimei in you that you never got to be! Just hold his face like this, and sweetly call out to him, ‘gege’! Just like we do for you! All men love to have a pretty face act so coquettish to them. They want to be in control!”

Wei Ying isn’t completely new to this—he remembers calling an older man ‘gege’, once upon a time. “The last time I did that to someone, it didn’t work out so well for me,” Wei Ying confesses. “I’m not sure…”

“Come on, listen to jiejie! Jiejie has so much experience in this, did you know back in my day many men used to court and vie for my attention?”

“I’m not going overboard,” Wei Ying folds his arms, in frustration. “I mean… I don’t even know if I like like him. In that way. He’s just… nice to me.”

“Oh, to be so cruel! When our lord likes you so much,” they sigh. “Now listen, today we are your jiejies, and we will do everything in our power to make this work!”

They descend upon Wei Ying’s face and hair again—their favourite pastime, it seems—excitedly pulling and twisting and sculpting an entirely new face onto him.

Wei Ying really shouldn’t trust them so much, but they’re all the friends he has here, and so he does.

Wei Ying enters the study room Hua Cheng is working in, where he sits at a desk filled with papers. Sometimes the man does paperwork—for what, Wei Ying will never know—and sometimes he tinkers with spiritual devices that he creates himself. Wei Ying always likes to silently watch him from afar when he does so; he’s not ready to plunge fully back into the world of cultivating just yet, but he’s always had a penchant for dabbling with the innovation of new spells and arrays, especially back in Yiling when he resided there, once upon a time.

Perhaps, one day, in the near future, when Wei Ying is finally ready to embrace every part of himself—even the loss of his golden core—he will join Hua Cheng at his desk.

They would make a good pair, Wei Ying thinks. Partners. Just like Hua Cheng said: we are well-matched.

Wei Ying has one hand on the door, another hand down the front of his robes.

“Gege,” Wei Ying calls out, softly—almost!—kittenishly.

For a good moment, everything spinning in that room comes to an abrupt halt. Even the air feels all the more thicker, in that very moment. Hua Cheng tenses up, squeezing his invention so tightly within his fist.

And that’s how Wei Ying knows he’s got him.

“Ha,” Hua Cheng wheezes out. He’s not so sure he heard Wei Ying right.

“Gege,” Wei Ying tries again, louder and braver this time. He takes slow steps towards Hua Cheng’s desk, delicate hands wrapping unsurely around his own waist. “What are you working on?”

“Haa,” Hua Cheng chokes out, again. He lifts his head, and Wei Ying cackles inwardly to himself when he sees that his usual confident smile isn’t there.

Where’s your arrogance now, ghost king, Wei Ying thinks, laughter bubbling up in his chest.

The ghost ladies have braided parts of his hair in what they argue is a softer look; pulling his hair back, leaving only gentle wavy strands to frame his small face at the front. Behind his hair is the red ribbon he’s so fond of, the red ribbon he refuses to be parted with. Except they’ve looped it bigger, making it into a much more adorable look.

The red rouge on his lips contrasts so deeply with his unblemished, fair skin.

Wei Ying feels like he’s been made up for a first date.

“Ha, hn, uh,” Hua Cheng stammers out. He’s completely lost his composure, and Wei Ying cannot hide the laughter in his eyes when he realises this.

Hua Cheng looks up to him like he’s been dazzled by the very sight, by the very sounds of Wei Ying referring to him so amorously as ‘gege’.

No one’s ever called him that before.

“Gege, are you okay?” Wei Ying hardly hides the giggle in his tone.

Hua Cheng drops the device he’s been holding back onto the desk, “Is this a ploy.”

“What ploy,” Wei Ying says, humming to himself. He’s well-satisfied with the results of his efforts—perhaps those ghost jiejies were right, after all! He pulls out Hua Hua from his sleeve, and innocently tilts his head in a question-like manner. “I was having some problems with Hua Hua. I thought you might know how to help me with it.”

“H—Hua Hua,” Hua Cheng repeats, incredulously. It seems he is in disbelief Wei Ying had actually adopted it as a name for his flute. “Problems…?”

“Gege,” Wei Ying laughs aloud, finally. “Have you forgotten how to speak?”

Hua Cheng shoots him a snide look, but his signature smile is finally returning to his lips. “So the injured fox finally decides to bite back.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wei Ying says. He raises his eyes, flittering up his long lashes. He dives straight into his problem, “It is difficult for me to channel up energy sometimes. I… do not harbour the capacity I used to have.”

It is generally difficult to continue intense cultivation without a golden core. But Wei Ying doesn’t want to have to explain that for now.

“If it is a matter of spiritual energy, the solution is very simple,” Hua Cheng says, rather brazenly.

Wei Ying widens his eyes. “Do you have an easy fix?”

“Mn,” Hua Cheng nods, growing bolder.

He raises a hand, his long, lean fingers reaching for Wei Ying’s cheek. Before Wei Ying can get a grasp of what he’s doing—the man is already lifting his own head and pulling Wei Ying down lower, ultimately claiming Wei Ying’s lips with his.

Wei Ying instantly feels a sugar rush—and absurd amounts of spiritual power flowing through him—electrifying him.

Oh, oh, oh, Wei Ying thinks, sinking his mouth deeper into the kiss. Oh, what a sly boy. He feels so soft. I like him so much.

Hua Cheng is careful not to overdo it. He pulls away, and Wei Ying is left extremely disoriented and dizzy.

“Haa,” it’s Wei Ying’s turn to hiccup now, in surprise.

Hua Cheng’s breath is heavy, panting. “There you go.”

“You—” Wei Ying’s fingers move to caress at his own lips. He can still taste Hua Cheng on him. “That was… a first.”

“Your first kiss?” Hua Cheng asks, smugly.

Wei Ying thinks back upon his time at Phoenix Mountain, and shakes his head. “A fair maiden stole that one from me.”

“Hm,” Hua Cheng says, disappointment clouding his gaze. “Yet another first that I cannot take.”

Wei Ying smiles. “I do have many others.”

“Others?”

“Firsts,” Wei Ying says, gently. He takes Hua Cheng’s hand, presses it to the side of his face, and rubs against it purposefully, felinely. “That you can take.”

Hua Cheng is stunned into speechlessness again. “Is this…” Reciprocation.

“I’m suddenly feeling faint,” Wei Ying feigns. He slides into Hua Cheng’s lap, straddling him almost, and paws at his broad chest. His red robes slide down a shoulder, revealing more than Hua Cheng can take. “I think I need more spiritual energy, gege.”

Hua Cheng decides that’s all the answer he needs, and he pulls Wei Ying down, tumbling onto the floor with him as he devours him in a hungry kiss.

To no one’s surprise, the ghost king weds the Yiling Patriarch in the most extravagant ceremony ever known to Ghost City—just six months later.

“Wei Ying, my ghost bride,” Hua Cheng teases, during a wedding ceremony of their own. He slides a diamond ring onto Wei Ying’s finger, fashioned out of his very own ashes. “I have searched for a purpose my entire life, and now I’ve found you. My love, my everything. Ghost City is now yours, as it is mine.”

Even through his red wedding veil, Wei Ying can make out the sparkling tears in his husband’s eyes, “Ours, together?”

“Forever, and nothing will ever do us part,” Hua Cheng seals it with a firm kiss atop his forehead, after lifting the veil. “The red string of fate, links us both, forever.”

Red and red, Wei Ying smiles, as he tips on his toes for another kiss. The perfect match.

(Wei Ying makes for a very beautiful ghost bride.

Even Yin Yu snuck a second look on their wedding day, to which Hua Cheng had given him a stern talking to, ensuring such a mistake would never happen again.

“Yin Yu.”

“Yes.”

“...Hm.”

“Understood. Will attend to other things now.”

“Good. Don’t let it happen again.”

“...Yes.”)

Wei Ying enjoys his life in Ghost City. He has a husband he can call his own—the lord of the city he now lives in, no less—who he later learns to be one of the four extremely feared demon lords in the ghost realm. He’d even once challenged Heaven! Wei Ying can hardly fathom the idea. The problems of his world feel so far away now, and so incredibly minuscule to the chaos that happens around these parts. None of which ever implicates Wei Ying though—Hua Cheng was right; this is a safe haven, and especially for the one and only person that’s ever mattered to him in this lifetime.

Wei Ying is clothed in only the best, he eats only the best, and he is showered with endless love and attention by not only his husband, but the folks in Ghost City who have grown to enjoy his flute-playing and demonic affinity with them. They claim him as theirs, and defer to him with the same respect they afford to their ghost king. Wei Ying isn’t scorned here, nor denounced for his diabolism. No, instead, his cultivation is encouraged to flourish, particularly with his husband’s urging and enthusiasm.

Within thirteen years, his cultivation is steadily built back up, and taken to the heights of never before; even surpassing his abilities from when he still harboured his golden core.

His husband is not without his faults and insecurities, though. This was not, after all, Wei Ying’s original home to begin with.

Wei Ying does not leave Ghost City very often—when he does, it’s always accompanied with his husband and Yin Yu in tow—because there is nothing else for him beyond the boundaries of Ghost City. Wei Ying is content with this, for there is plenty of life in the city he now calls home.

But sometimes, when Hua Cheng isn’t around, he ventures out onto the streets, and toes the line that separates Ghost City from the rest of the world.

Hua Cheng always feels it in his bones.

Danger and enemies lie beyond this city, Wei Ying would hear the familiar voices of the ghost ladies begin to seep in, warning him in heavy, ominous tones in his head. Leave and you will regret it, don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave our good lord here alone…

Silver wraith butterflies illuminate brightly in the night, swarming up into a humanly apparition—and then an actual figure—of his husband.

By now, Wei Ying knows that the silver butterflies that follow him, always, are an extension of his husband. Always keeping watch, always keeping him safe…

“My love,” Hua Cheng would extend an arm out, to pull him close. “Where are you leaving to?”

“Oh,” Wei Ying smiles, playing it off. “Nowhere. Just exploring.”

“Yin Yu should be here with you,” Hua Cheng frowns. The displeasure in his tone is obvious, and Wei Ying is sure it will be clearly made known to Yin Yu later. “I was busy attending to matters. You shouldn’t be wandering too far.”

“Gege,” Wei Ying smiles, prodding at his chest. He looks up to Hua Cheng, and warmly says, “I was just exploring, really. It’s been so long since I’ve been cooped up in this city.”

A sweet smile from Wei Ying, and Hua Cheng is—almost!—won over.

“Huh,” Hua Cheng says. “Are you bored of this city?”

His hold on Wei Ying’s waist, tightening.

“No—of course not!”

“Are you bored of me?” Hua Cheng breathes out.

“Never,” Wei Ying says.

“I wouldn’t be able to stand it if you got bored of me,” Hua Cheng murmurs out, wistfully. “If you ever wanted to return…”

“Never,” Wei Ying sighs, nestling his head into his chest. “Gege, I’m tired. Let’s go back home, alright?”

“Mn,” Hua Cheng agrees.

He scoops Wei Ying into his arms, and within a snap of a finger, lands the both of them back into their quarters in Paradise Manor.

Hua Cheng asks Wei Ying several times, off-handedly, how he’d initially trespassed into this world, over the years. He never divulges why, but Wei Ying believes it stems from fears—and a need to find out how to prevent it from happening, ever again.

(Lest Wei Ying ever leaves.)

In the end, it happens in a way none of them expects.

It’s silly for Hua Cheng to fear Wei Ying will ever leave him voluntarily, because of course he wouldn’t. He would never. His husband is the best thing that has happened to him ever since... everything else, and Wei Ying does not see a future for himself anywhere else. Certainly not back home. Even if Wei Ying could so easily concoct the array again to return home, Wei Ying does not even want to try. He does not have the urge to. There is nothing for him back there.

Wei Ying loves Hua Cheng through and through, and there is nothing that can ever turn him away.

And so, Wei Ying spends his days dancing with Hua Cheng in the kitchen, clothed in red aprons, feeding him a spoonful of his favourite spicy soup fresh off the steaming hot pot on the stove. Hua Cheng swallows from the ladle being fed to him with a blissful look on his face, his arms circling down around Wei Ying’s waist. He’s gulping the soup down, and readying a kiss to Wei Ying’s lips, when he first feels it, even before it happens.

The absence of life.

Wei Ying’s spirit has been stripped away.

The body in his arms—now an empty carcass—quickly loses strength, and immediately collapses, falling over. The wooden ladle Wei Ying had been holding—dropped to the floor with a loud, deafening clang. Hua Cheng presses Wei Ying into his chest, and despairs as Wei Ying’s eyelids fall to a permanent close right before him, hiding silvery orbs that Hua Cheng has grown so fond of.

Wei Ying’s body is now nothing more than a stone cold, empty corpse.

Someone forcefully took him away.

Oh, Hua Cheng growls out loud, raw anger pouring through him. His anguished howls echo throughout Paradise Manor—even causing vibrations of hellish magnitude throughout the rest of Ghost City.

Whoever did this, they will pay.

Wei Ying wakes up on an ancient, forbidden array.

“Stop playing dead!”

A hard kick.

“How dare you tell mother and father?”

The next kick throws him backwards, head-first onto the ground.

“Now that I’ve smashed everything of yours, let’s see how you’re going to tell on me in the future!”

Wei Ying resists the urge to vomit, his head swirling and ears buzzing.

“Watch him carefully. Don’t let him outside anytime this month, or he’ll make a fool out of himself again!”

As the group of boys slowly stalked out of the shed, slamming the door behind them a loud bang, Wei Ying’s eyes gradually clear up.

Where am I, Wei Ying thinks, clutching his churning stomach. He feels… just as hollow as he did, thirteen years ago. There’s a golden core in him that he doesn’t recognise, though it’s small and very weak. He turns on his side, and takes in his strange, new environment.

What is this array?

Where is Hua Cheng?

Am I still in Ghost City?

He instinctively reaches for the bronze mirror nearest to him on the floor in a bid to confirm his worst fears. He already has an inkling of what has happened, based on the circular array he’s discovered himself to be lying on.

Just as he thought—he doesn’t see his face.

Instead, he sees a young boy, with a frighteningly pale face and two asymmetrical smudges of red sitting on each side of his cheek.

“No, no, no, no,” Wei Ying begins wailing out, in pain. “No, no, no, no… Hua Cheng… Hua Cheng!”

But he knows he can call out all he wants—his husband is located on a different realm. Someone had offered up their body and soul, by summoning Wei Ying’s one into theirs instead. While this is usually done for evil, villainous ghouls, as Wei Ying is still alive, his soul had been ripped out from his original form and transplanted into this body instead.

When only a moment ago, Wei Ying had just been making soup for his husband…

What if I never see him again, Wei Ying thinks, fear snaking around his heart in a vice grip. What if he never finds me, what if this is the end of it all, what if…

He raises his hand dazedly up to himself, and finds four deep cuts.

Wei Ying’s heart sinks with this new knowledge.

Before he can even get to finding his way back to Hua Cheng, he knows he will have to execute some revenge.

His plans are briefly halted when two faraway strums of the guqin pierce through the sky.

The three corpses that the Gusu Lan sect disciples had been fighting fall instantaneously down to the ground upon hearing the offending noise. After a long night of harsh battle at the Mo Manor, it seems everything has finally come to an end.

It’s him.

Wei Ying finds his feet rooted firmly to the ground, unable to move.

“Hanguang-Jun!”

Wei Ying cannot even find it in him to leave.

Against everything else telling him not to, he turns his head, and watches as his childhood friend descends from the sky—in what feels like a dream.

Wei Ying’s heartbeat stutters, He’s here. He’s grown so much.

He’s so much older now, so much more handsome, looking so regal in his white robes.

He must have fared so well in my absence.

Wei Ying doesn’t bother hiding the wetness of his cheeks, or the red in his eyes.

…Lan Zhan.

When Lan Zhan finally looks up, and meets his very gaze, Wei Ying knows he’s immediately recognised.

Wei Ying.

His pale nude lips, parted open in a gasp that has him momentarily paralysed. His golden eyes, widened and reinvigorated with newfound hope—that he’d lost, for thirteen years.

Lan Zhan pries away from the overly eager juniors, and calls after him in a heartbroken, and long overdue cry, so bittersweetly,

“Wei Ying!”

His return is kept a secret. It has to be. Wei Ying had not left this world on a good note—he even hears that Jiang Cheng has driven himself to madness hunting and torturing every demonic cultivator he comes across, in a manic attempt to find him. So, so as to not rock the political boat of the cultivation world even further, only Lan Qiren, Lan Xichen and Lan Zhan are privy to the news.

There is the pressing matter of the demonic severed hand that they have to solve first. Wei Ying’s sudden appearance can wait for now.

Under Lan Zhan’s personal request, Wei Ying is to stay in the jingshi until they have sorted out matters. It is for everyone’s safety, Lan Zhan reasons. I will be able to watch over Wei Ying, and if he has any ill-intent I will be the first to stop him.

Lan Qiren begrudgingly agrees, while Lan Xichen hides a knowing smile to himself.

Wei Ying had thought Lan Zhan would be harsher on him than most, but instead the man leads him quietly back to the jingshi, and makes his bed for him.

“You can sleep here, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says to him, with only gentleness in his voice.

It is very clearly his bed. His only bed.

“Where will you sleep,” Wei Ying asks, softly.

Lan Zhan shakes his head, indicating Wei Ying need not trouble himself with such matters.

“I have an extra futon,” Lan Zhan says. “Do not worry about me.”

Wei Ying rubs at his eyes, broken-hearted. He takes a seat on the bed he’s been so graciously offered, and silently thinks about the husband he has left behind in another realm.

Without the red string on my finger, will he ever find me, he wonders.

Lan Zhan kneels on the floor, gazing up to the boy. In Mo Xuanyu’s body, Wei Ying is smaller; much smaller than he’d been even at the same age in his original body.

“Wei Ying, have you been well?” Lan Zhan asks. There is only kindness and affection in his eyes—when Wei Ying looks over to him, he sees a shadow of the cold, withdrawn boy he once knew.

Wei Ying can’t shake the feeling off, of having done Lan Zhan some sort of wrong.

“I have been well.”

Lan Zhan’s lips twitch up, slightly. Wei Ying recognises it as a smile. “Good. I have always been worried. I could never reach you…”

Reach me? Wei Ying thinks. How? With the guqin?

“I wasn’t dead,” Wei Ying says.

Lan Zhan’s eyes dilate at the news. “Your… your body was never found.”

“It’s,” Wei Ying exhales. How do you tell the man you once loved that you crossed over worlds and built up an entirely new life with another man? “It’s a long story.”

That doesn’t deter Lan Zhan, however.

“Wei Ying, I will always,” Lan Zhan reaches out to take Wei Ying’s hand into his, apprehensively at first, but ultimately in a steadfast, determined manner. “I will always have time for you. To listen.”

I love you, Wei Ying. These are my true feelings.

Get lost!

Wei Ying feels a throbbing headache coming on.

“Lan Zhan, you… you really tried to find me? All these years?”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan says. He grows suspiciously bolder, with one hand clutching Wei Ying’s one, and the other reaching up to press at Wei Ying’s cheek. Even if Wei Ying’s face is still horribly smudged with red rouge and white powder, Lan Zhan can see nothing else but the Wei Ying he always knew. “I… I went back. To find you. Multiple times.”

He averts his gaze, like he has more to say, but remains unwilling to.

Wei Ying’s not the only one who’s been keeping secrets.

“Why?” Wei Ying asks, numbly. “You hated me.”

Lan Zhan raises his eyes, suddenly heated by such an accusation. “What?”

“You hated me,” Wei Ying repeats, wondering why Lan Zhan is so cruel for making him do so. “You hated that I stood for everything you were against. So much that you—you always wanted to bring me back here. To make me serve my comeuppance.”

Lan Zhan actually begins shaking with frustration at what he hears, “Wei Ying. You… you really thought that of me?”

“What do you mean,” Wei Ying says, mouth going dry. “You always hated me.”

Lan Zhan rises from where he is kneeling on the floor, tamping down against his anger, “I never did. Didn’t you… didn’t you hear… what I said,” his hands fall to his sides, clenching tightly at his white robes. Devastation trickles into his voice. “What I said to you, in the cave.”

Wei Ying frowns, and he asks, “What did you say?”

Come back with me to Gusu? Going on the demonic path is not good nor healthy for you?

Lan Zhan’s eyes fly open in shock. What? “You didn’t hear?”

Wei Ying’s brows knit together, “It was so long ago, Lan Zhan. The last thing I remember you telling me was to return to Gusu with you…”

“I,” Lan Zhan’s hands are trembling, in mortification. “I said… I said…”

The main doors of the jingshi suddenly slam wide open, the howling winds whistling in through the entrance with powerful passion. Wei Ying turns his head, and practically tears himself away from Lan Zhan at the very sight of his husband.

“Hua Cheng!”

He’s already here. True to his words—nothing will ever do them apart. He’d found him, far sooner than Wei Ying could have ever imagined.

Wei Ying should have trusted in him.

The man stands tall and imposing, with a pale white corpse in his arms, radiating nothing but dark fury and rage. He carries Wei Ying’s original body tenderly and with much care, supporting his head delicately against his chest so it does not roll about. It’s a completely surreal experience to watch himself be held like this in his husband’s arms. And yet the body is not a rotting corpse, and remains very much fresh and alive; even without blood in his cheeks. Hua Cheng must have cast a spell over his body as soon as his soul left it, in order to preserve it until Wei Ying could re-inhabit it again.

Is this what others see, Wei Ying wonders. Him with his long wavy tresses of hair, multiple braided locks of hair threaded with red ribbons hanging over his face, a silver butterfly choker around his neck. A diamond ring that never fails to glisten. Red pearls on his ears that match the one in Hua Cheng’s braid. Silk robes on him that match his husband’s maple red ones in colour. Wei Ying has filled out over the years alright, a far cry from the thin and gaunt Yiling Patriarch he used to be—Hua Cheng has kept him so very healthy.

Only the best for the ghost king’s partner.

Lan Zhan recognises Wei Ying in Hua Cheng’s arms faster than anyone else.

“Wei Ying!” He yells, jumping to his defense. He glances back at Wei Ying in Mo Xuanyu’s body, and wonders if he has missed something.

“Wei Ying,” Hua Cheng echoes, the minute he gazes upon Wei Ying’s new countenance before him. “I finally found you.”

“Stand back,” Lan Zhan warns, instinctively placing an arm before Wei Ying, shielding him. The demonic energy that emanates off Hua Cheng’s body is so incredibly telling. One look at him and anyone can tell he radiates immense—calamitous—power.

“Wei Ying, this man has ill-intentions.”

“He’s,” Wei Ying utters out, quietly. “He’s…”

“I have ill-intentions, alright,” Hua Cheng's voice crackles, like thunder.

He’s been on the prowl for nearly twenty-four hours now, jumping from realm to realm in order to find his Wei Ying. The things he has seen; the trials he has been through. He’d even found himself on a mountain peak, briefly interrupting what seemed like an incredibly domestic mealtime between a peak lord and his demonic disciple.

“You took Wei Ying from me,” Hua Cheng bellows. “It was you!”

Lan Zhan draws out bichen from where it hangs at his sides in that very moment, pointing it straight towards the offending man.

“Hua Cheng!” Wei Ying quickly yells out. “It wasn’t him! He’s innocent!”

Hua Cheng snaps his head to him, cracking his neck loudly as he does so. The man looks utterly fearsome, with droplets of harsh sweat sliding off his ghoulishly pale face—the amount of hours spent apart from Wei Ying must have driven him into madness.

“Wei Ying, don’t tell me… you are protecting him? He can’t be…” He has gone breathless with anger, grasping the body in his arms even closer to him, even tighter to him as he speaks. His mouth purses into a deep frown, as unbridled jealousy begins to roar through his mind.

His worst fears have finally come true.

“Lan Wangji,” the name leaves Hua Cheng’s tongue, enunciated and emphasised with every intonation—like it’s the deadliest poison. “Lan Wangji. You are Lan Wangji, aren’t you?”

It can’t be anyone else.

Lan Zhan sucks in a deep breath, as his name is called. How would this entity know of him?

“Oh, I’ve had it with you,” Hua Cheng howls, raising a hand up so silver wraith butterflies can begin gathering around him in a menacing trance. Wei Ying’s eyes widen in fear—thirteen years of living with the ghost king has made him very well-aware of his husband’s abilities. Lan Zhan would not be able to withstand the full force of it. “I’m sick and tired of you plaguing Wei Ying in ways that I know I can never. And now—you dare call him back? Through forceful measures? After he has built an entirely new life with me?”

“What are you…” Lan Zhan stutters out, perplexed. He lowers bichen for a tad bit, stunned. “An entirely new life? With Wei Ying?”

“We are married,” Hua Cheng hisses. He flashes his hand, and allows the gleam of the silver band on his finger to bounce off the moon light. “I am his husband.”

Lan Zhan does not utter a single word in response to that. He can’t bring himself to.

“Hua Cheng,” Wei Ying calls anxiously for his husband, again. “Don’t attack! This has all been a misunderstanding!”

The silver butterflies immediately dissipate.

Hua Cheng’s tone lowers, becoming much gentler, and much more respectful. Despite the hurt he feels, he is never rough in tone with the man.

“You are lying in his bed,” Hua Cheng whispers out, all distraught. It’d been the first thing he noticed, stepping in here.

Wei Ying realises how all of this must come across to him, now.

“Do you think I’d dare be unfaithful to you,” Wei Ying asks, swallowing down the huge lump in his throat. He tries using his favourite pet name for him, “Gege?”

Lan Zhan freezes.

He casts a wounded look back to Wei Ying, but Wei Ying’s too caught up in pacifying Hua Cheng to notice.

“Don’t attack,” Wei Ying says, again. “Can we talk, please? There’s a reason I’ve been summoned here. The body I’m in sacrificed its soul to invoke me back. Until I execute their revenge, I can’t return to my original body.”

Hua Cheng knows immediately what array has been used to bring this about, and lowers his guard. The realisation of what has happened finally dawns unto him.

“If you don’t grant their wish, the curse will cause a backlash and decimate your spirit.”

He’s clearly not overjoyed with this revelation.

Lan Zhan’s mouth is pressed in a tight line. It’s clear that Wei Ying and Hua Cheng possess knowledge of the demonic arts in ways that he—just doesn’t.

I am his husband, Hua Cheng had said. Perhaps there is some truth in that, that Lan Zhan simply doesn’t want to believe.

“No matter who you are,” Lan Zhan says, quietly. “We need to report your arrival to shufu.”

Hua Cheng sneers back, “You don’t get to speak to me like that.”

As a ghost king, his ego still gets the better of him sometimes. Wei Ying’s well-aware he’s quite possibly the only one that has gotten away with speaking to Hua Cheng the way he does.

“Hua Cheng,” Wei Ying pleads. “We are on Gusu Lan territory.”

“Fine,” Hua Cheng mutters, giving in only for Wei Ying’s sake, even if he continues to eye Lan Zhan rather distastefully. “Lead the way. Wei Ying, my love, come here.”

Lan Zhan’s arm still remains outstretched, preventing Wei Ying from leaving his side.

“Wei Ying, stay with me until we’ve established you are no longer in danger.”

Wei Ying winces. “Lan Zhan…”

He knows Lan Zhan is just doing the right thing; anyone else would be equally wary of the sudden appearance of a malicious foe like Hua Cheng.

Still, the man remains his husband.

Miraculously, Hua Cheng erupts into sinister laughter right then and there, “So be it. I wouldn’t let Wei Ying go with a man who just showed up at my doorstep claiming to be his husband, either. Lead the way, and I’ll prove to whoever needs proving that I am who I say I am.”

“Crimson Rain Sought Flower,” Hua Cheng elaborates, standing before the likes of the Gusu Lan clan. “Is what most know me by. Perhaps in your world, you’d be more comfortable equating me to a demon lord.”

“We do not have demon lords here,” Lan Qiren says. Evidently, he’s displeased by Hua Cheng’s very presence, especially with the thick, perilous energy that radiates off of him. “You say you came from another world.”

“Yes,” Hua Cheng says. Wei Ying’s original body is still unconscious, and peacefully asleep in his arms. His heart aches whenever he glances down and realises Wei Ying will not be returning to the form he first met and fell in love with him in—not for a long while. “I came for Wei Ying.”

“That is… indeed his body that you are carrying,” Lan Xichen steps in to confirm. “Wei Wuxian. We thought him dead.”

“He sought refuge in my realm,” Hua Cheng explains, glancing across to Wei Ying, who is now standing by Lan Zhan’s side, opposite of him. How insulting it is, to be seen as dangerous to your very own husband. But Hua Cheng acknowledges the complexities of their present circumstances, and doesn’t desire to make things any more difficult for Wei Ying. “I cared for him, and took him in. Over the course of thirteen years, we fell in love and got married.”

Lan Zhan finally speaks, “You are a ghost.”

Hua Cheng scoffs, “Yes.”

“I didn’t realise they could be so sentient,” Lan Xichen says, finding pure fascination in this. “Wei Wuxian found a way to manipulate them, but I never thought—a whole ghost realm… even a king…”

“It seems Wei Ying has married a ghost king,” Hua Cheng smiles. He’s heard plenty about Wei Ying’s days as the Yiling Patriarch in the past thirteen years. “Rather apt, don’t you think?”

Lan Qiren frowns. “I cannot say I am surprised.”

Lan Zhan fists at his robes and stiffly asks, “Wei Ying. Is this true.”

Wei Ying wonders if that’s heartache he detects in his voice.

“We have been married, for twelve of those thirteen years,” Wei Ying says, softly.

Lan Zhan exhales sharply, in resignation.

“So that’s why I couldn’t find you,” Lan Zhan murmurs, barely above a whisper.

Hua Cheng bites back against his tongue, unwilling to reveal to the both of them, I built a barrier.

“How can we be sure you come bearing no malicious intentions,” Lan Xichen asks. “If you are as formidable as you say, perhaps it will be better for you to return to where you came from.”

Hua Cheng’s eyes flash to him in irritation. “I am not leaving. Not without Wei Ying.”

“I cannot leave without carrying out the wishes of Mo Xuanyu,” Wei Ying explains. “Any forceful spiritual transfer would violate the contract this body is under, and annihilate every single shred of my soul.”

“So I will have to stay, then,” Hua Cheng decides, on the spot. Nothing can change his mind about it. “Until the revenge has been fully executed.”

“It seems there is no other way, shufu,” Lan Xichen knows how to accept a defeat when it is staring at him right in the face.

“Hm,” Lan Qiren huffs.

Lan Zhan turns his head away, “If it has been decided, then we will host you both here, at Gusu Lan, until we get to the bottom of the curse.”

Wei Ying’s eyes brighten. “Lan Zhan…”

“Mn,” Hua Cheng says. “I thank you for your hospitality, then. Of course, since Wei Ying and I are married, I expect to be housed together with him.”

Trust Hua Cheng to place such emphasis on their living conditions. Wei Ying is sure seeing him in Lan Zhan’s bed at the jingshi must have set him off a bunch.

“...It will be done,” Lan Zhan says, through gritted teeth.

When he turns his back and stalks off in large strides, Wei Ying suddenly remembers Lan Zhan never got to tell him in full what he’d said, back at the cave.

“I didn’t realise doll me would look so cute,” Wei Ying gushes, raising the daruma doll Hua Cheng has turned his original body into. Unfortunately, until the curse is lifted, Wei Ying’s original body will have to be carefully preserved and kept in the convenient size of a doll, for easy safekeeping. “I always wondered how I’d look like as one of your daruma dolls.”

“It’s not perfect,” Hua Cheng smiles, with a low hum. “It doesn’t capture your beauty in your original form.”

Wei Ying rolls his eyes. “That’s how I know you’re the real Hua Cheng, my Hua Cheng, and not anyone else.”

“Like anyone would dare take on my form,” Hua Cheng says. He seats himself back down onto the bed of the quarters they’ve been allocated to—a relatively decent-sized, empty hut near the main building the disciples are housed in. It’s a good distance away from the jingshi, which Hua Cheng likes.

He’d seen plenty of how Lan Zhan had looked at Wei Ying, and knew immediately that Wei Ying had misinterpreted his feelings—from day one.

Still, Hua Cheng doesn’t see any benefit in Wei Ying knowing this, anymore. Not when they’re already so entrenched in their love and marriage; not when Wei Ying has decided to make a life with him, forever.

Wei Ying drapes himself across his lap, as he has been so acclimatised to doing now, for thirteen years, and hugs the daruma doll of himself as he gazes back up to Hua Cheng.

“Hua Cheng, I’m sorry for this.”

Hua Cheng frowns. He tucks a loose strand of hair behind Wei Ying’s ear, caressing his cheeks, “For what?”

“Me being pulled back to this world. I know it’s a mess,” Wei Ying says, apologising. “I just wanted to make us some dinner, but then…”

“Wei Ying, none of this is your fault,” Hua Cheng says, adamantly. His other hand is by the side of Wei Ying’s thigh, rubbing in soothing circles against his skin. “I promised you nothing would ever pull us apart, and not even this will.”

Wei Ying sighs and nods against his hand, feeling a heavy weight on his chest, “You frightened me back there. What with the confrontation with Lan Zhan…”

“Hm,” Hua Cheng is never impressed when Lan Zhan brought up. “He’s protective of you, that’s for sure.”

He could have gone without ever meeting him in person, knowing he covets his very husband, but the circumstances are as they are.

“Were you really going to attack him?”

“Who knows,” Hua Cheng shrugs, a frisky smile on his face. “I just might have.”

Wei Ying punches lightly at his chest. “Hua Cheng! We’re guests on other people’s territory.”

“...I wish that mattered to me,” Hua Cheng says. “Trying to prevent me from getting to you is a widely known death sentence back in the ghost realm, and it remains so here, as well.”

“He’s… always defended the weak,” Wei Ying explains, his smile faltering on his face. “He’s a big proponent of that. He’s a Lan, and you know how they are. I’ve told you. He was just… helping an old friend out, by protecting me.”

Hua Cheng knows that’s not true in the slightest, but doesn’t see a point in correcting him. He decides it’s an opportune moment to pull out a ring from behind Wei Ying’s ear, and lifts it up to Wei Ying’s line of sight.

“Your diamond ring,” Hua Cheng murmurs, reaching for Wei Ying’s left hand. “You left it behind, when you left me.”

Wei Ying smiles, and allows Hua Cheng to slip the ring back onto his finger. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Well, now it’s back on,” Hua Cheng kisses the knuckle of his ring finger, in a sickening act of devotion. “On its rightful owner.”

Wei Ying laughs, and lifts his hand up high to admire the ring. He can feel the red string tug itself back into place—Hua Cheng had long infused the spiritual device within the very ring itself. No parting, ever again.

“It must be so strange.”

“What?”

“To embrace me in this form,” Wei Ying says. “As someone else.”

“Mm,” Hua Cheng shakes his head. “No. It’s still you. It doesn’t matter what form you take.”

“You are technically embracing another man,” Wei Ying teases. “I can get a little jealous, you know.”

“Well, then we just won’t take things too far in this form,” Hua Cheng smiles, saying. “If it makes you uneasy.”

Wei Ying’s eyes widen right open, having not expected that. The tips of his ears redden. “I wasn’t even thinking about that!”

“I already was,” Hua Cheng shrugs, as he plays with the ends of Wei Ying’s hair. “I wouldn’t want to defile another person’s body, anyway.”

Wei Ying fights his blush. “It might take a while. Me returning to my original body. I know we got used to… the frequency of…”

“Doesn’t matter,” Hua Cheng plants a kiss atop his forehead. “I can resist. And then we can do it properly as ourselves.”

Wei Ying has some doubts about that. Hua Cheng has always been such a passionate lover in bed.

But he maintains his silence instead, and decides to have some fun in this new body of his. He coyly says, “I’m also without my cultivation, in this body. It has a golden core, but so extremely weak… I’ll have to rely more on you, gege.”

Hua Cheng’s ears perk up with renewed interest. His one black eye gazes over to Wei Ying, clearly humoured. “I see. One might say… you might possibly need more spiritual energy, then.”

Wei Ying nods his head fervently. “One might say that.”

“Hm,” Hua Cheng smiles rather deviously, catching on. “This will be a problem.”

“Why?” Wei Ying blinks to him, all wide-eyed.

“See, I have a wife back home,” Hua Cheng explains, putting on his best solemn face. “She’ll be expecting me to return to her, like a good husband.”

Wei Ying laughs, and cups at Hua Cheng’s lower jaw. “She doesn’t have to know.”

Hua Cheng grins. “You drive a hard bargain, beautiful stranger.”

“So bold, gege,” Wei Ying teases. “Flirting with strangers despite already being married, don’t you know any better?”

“Mn,” Hua Cheng flirts back. “Call me a harlot. I like to collect pretty things.”

Wei Ying playfully pokes at the tip of his nose, “You will be the death of me, Hua Cheng.”

“No dying,” Hua Cheng shakes his head. “Not even death can do us part.”

Wei Ying laughs, and finally extends his hand to mash their heads together—and their lips—for a long-anticipated kiss.

He may be back home, but he knows home has never been a place. It has always been with Hua Cheng, the ghost king, Crimson Rain Sought Flower, the man who pulled him out of his rut and saved him and took care of him and loved him unconditionally these thirteen years.

Without Hua Cheng, he wouldn’t be the Wei Ying he is today.

And together, he has faith; that they will defeat this curse and return to Ghost City, right where they first met—and have made their home.