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His saber flashes, the full strength of the martial god Xuan Zhen enhancing the blade into a whirlwind. The room around them scrapes and screams under the onslaught. He hasn't used such strength in battle since the day Jun Wu turned on the heavens.
Before him, Xie Lian's eyes widen. Mu Qing frits his teeth and swings, full force, and—
His blade meets the ground rather than flesh, carving deep into the earth.
"Good!" Xie Lian cries, from far behind him.
"I know! " Mu Qing spits in return.
Ruoye flits forward, and Mu Qing is forced to switch onto the defensive. Or he would be, if the stupid ribbon would do its job!
"Ruoye…" scolds Xie Lian, slipping out of stance and putting his face in his hand.
Mu Qing sighs, staring down at the ribbon as it wiggles around on the floor before him like a puppy begging for belly rubs. He slowly lifts his unimpressed stare to pin it on Xie Lian, and waits for him to dig the sheepish grin he'll no doubt wear out of his own palm.
"I told you to borrow one of that bastard's swords." he scolds the moment Xie Lian is grinning sheepishly at him rather than at the sky or the ground.
"I really prefer not to use swords," Xie Lian replies with a shrug, nevermind that not ten minutes ago he was sparring against Hua Cheng with a vicious red-toned blade that had hungered so obviously for blood it had given Feng Xin a migraine and he'd had to leave to punch a tree or something until he felt better.
"And they're his swords," Hua Cheng calls, lounging against the railing of the second story.
Mu Qing is very aware that this arena was built with the sole purpose of allowing Hua Cheng to salivate over his prince. It's disgusting, or sweet, or both. He goes back and forth.
(He saw those statues in his garden. Saw what they were doing. Saw how Hua Cheng's statues had worshipfully licked tears of blood off the stone Xie Lian's cheeks—how Xie Lian hand turned into the touch as if it were air to a drowning man. He tries not to think of it, he tries, he tries.)
"Stop that," Mu Qing scolds Ruoye, sheathing his enormous saber with a sharp, practiced twirl. It stings that Xie Lian doesn't look. Of course it does. Once upon a time he'd gotten very, very used to that sting. "You'll get yourself filthy, Ruoye."
"I don't mind," Xie Lian sighs fondly. "It does a very good job of cleaning itself up. Ah, San Lang, don't hit E-Ming! It's just jealous!"
"I mind," Mu Qing notes, and the silk immediately zips off the dirty floor to wrap itself around his shoulders. He sighs out a breath, resigned to its unruly behavior as it coils in tighter, squeezing gently around his throat like it had while he'd stitched it back together.
A blink, and Xie Lian is there, his expression wild and fierce. A heartbeat, and his hand is on Mu Qing's throat. A gasp of breath, and Ruoye is whipped away, the martial god holding the silk crushingly tight in both hands.
Mu Qing is frozen, standing stock-still in place. His hands are half-lifted, but to do what not even he could say. To stop Xie Lian? To help him? He doesn't even know what—
"Gege," Hua Cheng appears just as swiftly between them.
"What, I'm not good enough to touch your silk when I'm not mending it?" spits Mu Qing, leaning around Hua Cheng to see Xie Lian.
"Ha ha ha," Xie Lian's eyes squint into a smile as he laughs. His death grip on Ruoye doesn't loosen. "No, that is, you see, I—I should have—Meant to, um…"
Hua Cheng steps forward, his long fingers lifting to the corners of Xie Lian's smile. He touches, and Xie LIan's expression crumples as if he'd built it out of sand, leaving him pale and haunted, suddenly seeming stripped of the hundreds of years. Before them, before Mu Qing is the hollow-eyed face of the young prince and abandoned.
"You're okay," Hua Cheng says, ignoring Mu Qing completely to bend and press a soft kiss to Xie Lian's lips.
When Xie Lian loosens his grip, Ruoye goes limp in his palms, inert as dead silk.
Mu QIng doesn't know what the fuck he's watching. He turns away, glaring at the gash his sword left on the floor. He could potentially mend it with some spiritual energy if they were sparring in the heavenly realm, but they're in stupid Paradise Manor again. There's nothing he can do to repair the ghostly energies Hua Cheng put into this room to let it survive Xie Lian's rough and tumble sparring sessions.
"What did he do?" Hua Cheng is murmuring, his voice a low, horrifyingly intimate rumble. "Do you want him gone?"
"No, nothing," Xie Lian whispers back, sounding suddenly drained, though their fight hadn't even begun to wind him. "Not his fault. Oh, not yours either, Ruoye, I'm sorry. There there…"
"Oh, ugh," Feng Xin says from nearby, walking up to Mu Qing with a grimace on his face. "How bad did your fight go if they're being all lovey dovey about it?"
"Shut up," Mu Qing lashes out, a short, sharp punch to Feng Xin's shoulder. "Something's wrong."
He never wanted to see it again, is the thing. That face that he'd chased down the mountain, only to have mud slung at his face. The face he'd returned to only to have rice sacks thrown at him and his very presence cursed. The face he'd betrayed in trying to make a better life for himself.
It curls and curdles inside him, the bitterness from back then. He hated Xie Lian there. He'd hated him. Him and Feng Xin both, and the stupid king and queen too, so sanctimonious in their exile. Brought so low that he could finally see the life that he'd been born to was torture for them. Stupid, privileged, holier-than-thou—
Ruoye slinks closer, peeking in at the edge of his vision. Mu Qing turns his back on it swiftly before it's torn from him again.
"I'll take my leave," he spits before he says something he'll regret again. They're on a good run of Hua Cheng not trying to kill him or Feng Xin, and if he's the one to ruin it it will only confirm what they all already think of him.
"Wait," Xie Lian calls. "Ah, please. For a moment. If you would?"
Mu Qing freezes in place, glaring down.
"That was my fault," Xie Lian says, sounding so strained that Mu Qing risks a look back.
Xie Lian still looks shaken, but his eyes are his own again. He's rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, while the other is clinging onto Hua Cheng's hand as if he were an anchor in the ocean.
"It scared me," Xie Lian admits with a sheepish little laugh. It does nothing to hide the death grip he has on his husband, clinging on tightly. Ruoye is drooping over his shoulder, pathetic and scolded. "I thought it might hurt you."
"Isn't the whole problem that it wouldn't even pretend to try?" Mu Qing huffs, turning back to face the man who used to be his prince.
He's still not sure what, exactly, Xie Lian is to him now. He knows what he wants him to be. That's not the same as what he is.
"Yes," Xie LIan agrees. "It wasn't sensible of me."
"Your highness," Feng Xin shifts in his stance, clearing his throat. His eyes are still a little reddened from the killing intent of the last sword, and when he glances at Ruoye it's with suspicious eyes. "How exactly did you end up with something like Ruoye?"
"Does it feel familiar to you?" Xie Lian asks, his voice back to calm and pleasant, as if he weren't still clutching Hua Cheng's hand while the ghost king stands silent and attentive at his side. "I've always wondered."
"What? No." Feng Xin scoffs.
"Somewhat," Mu Qing contradicts, taking a half-step back. Some part of him is starving for this. Tell me, tell me, tell me , that part is begging Xie Lian. Some secret, some sign of confidence in him, some tangible showing of what Mu Qing is supposed to be to him now. "It feels somewhat like you."
"Somewhat," Xie Lian agrees. "Ah, it's not pleasant, but… Well, Ruoye was—is—haha, actually, let's not dwell on foolish things! Feng Xin, didn't you want to spar with San Lang?"
Nothing , Mu Qing's mind supplies. Nothing to him at all.
"I'm heading back," he says with a small wave. "Try not to die, Ju Yang."
"Hey, fuck you!" Feng Xin yells at his back, predictably.
Hua Cheng watches him out of a cold, dark eye, and leans down to whisper something into Xie Lian's ear. Mu Qing doesn't bother staying to find out what new insults are being invented before his very eyes.
In his palace, he polishes the blade of his saber. Once, it was his pride and joy to have so fine a spiritual weapon. Now, he thinks back on Jun Wu gifting it to him after his ascension, how he'd smiled and said: "A wise young prince once said you were best suited to a saber, didn't he?" and how sick the words had made him feel.
They make him feel still sicker now, but the blade is his . He has defended his territory with it for centuries, has fought and bled and lived holding it. It's his, it's his, no matter who gave it to him, no matter that they would want to take it back, no matter that the same hand that had passed him this blade had pressed a cursed shackle into his wrist when he refused to turn on Xie Lian in the end.
The knock on his door is unexpected. Visitors are not common to the palace of Xuan Zhen, and his middle officials know better than to bother him at home.
When he opens it to find Xie Lian smiling there in his white beggar robes with his new straw hat hanging around his neck, he almost closes it in his face. It would be easier, probably, than facing whatever he's come to say.
Chase him away , part of him urges. Throw mud and rice in that smiling face and see how HE bears it.
He would take it with a smile, though. He would smile, and forgive him, and Mu QIng would hate him all the more for it.
He doesn't want to hate him again.
"Well, come on," he sighs, stepping aside to allow the man who could have been the new king of the heavens, if he hadn't immediately waved off the very thought and vanished back to the mortal world.
He provides tea, perfectly brewed. He sets out snacks as well. He doesn't bother putting his saber away, and he knows it was the right choice not to when Xie Lian makes a sound of pleased approval at the sight of it.
"May I?" he asks, and Mu Qing gestures approval, not yet trusting himself to speak.
Xie Lian changes his stance when he holds the saber. It had taken Mu Qing years to master just a single weapon style, but Xie Lian is a martial prodigy. Saber, spear, sword, daggers, scimitar—they all come to him as if he were born to them. He was born for so much.
Don't open your mouth , he scolds himself as Xie Lian takes a few delicate swings with his saber. Don't you dare.
"It's heavy," Xie Lian notes, genuine cheer in his voice. "You carry it so easily I thought it would be lighter! You've taken good care of it."
"Did you come here to compliment my cleaning?" Mu Qing hisses. "If you comment on the state of the floors, I will—"
"No!" Xie Lian cries, lowering the saber at once. "No, I didn't—" his eyes turn sad, his brows twisting, and Mu Qing has to look away. "You must know I didn't mean that, my friend."
My friend , he says now. He's said it before. He doesn't even stutter it like a bad joke, the way Feng Xin does. It aches in Mu Qing's chest.
"What do you want?" he sighs, closing his eyes and putting a hand to his forehead. "If you're worried about your little sparring club I won't stop coming just because things went badly one time."
After all, he still hasn't been permitted to fight Hua Cheng one-on-one. Xie Lian keeps turning them down with hasty laughter and such genuine distress that they both have to back down.
"I wanted to explain to you," Xie Lian says, softly. "But I couldn't in front of them."
"Hah," Mu Qing croaks, feeling as if his throat were lined in sand—dry and bitter. "You're going to tell me something you wouldn't tell Hua Cheng ?"
"Well… Yes."
Mu Qing's words desert him at the simplicity and sincerity of that answer. Slowly, Xie Lian sets his saber back down then sits across from him at the table. He wraps his hands around the cup of tea, no longer the delicate hands of a prince. No amount of immortality has saved him from gaining callouses, or spared his fingernails from accumulating dirt. There's a sort of sick satisfaction, that he has the hands of a working man and Mu Qing's are the delicate hands of a noble swordsman.
It's more sick than satisfying at the moment, though. It wasn't always. There was a time it had delighted him , but that was before the lava, the sword, those calloused hands holding him away from certain death.
In front of him at the kitchen table, Xie Lian spreads his hands weakly, giving a small shrug. Ruoye is there, wrapped around his forearm, hidden in his sleeve. It hasn't hidden from Mu Qing like this since the day he stitched it together. It's shameful, how it affects him to be shunned even by a scrap of cloth.
"It's upsetting," Xie Lian says. "I worry he might go crazy again. Which is okay! He comes back quickly, but it's upsetting for him! And I already told him about the coffin a month ago or so… He's still settling down after that. I'll tell him eventually! Probably. But you seemed to want to know and… I don't know. I can tell you, if you want. That's all."
"Feng Xin's the one who asked." Mu Qing notes dully, watching his perfect prince fidget awkwardly on the other side of the table, one hand lifting over and over to tug on the string of his dumb hat.
"I can't tell him," Xie Lian gives a wry smile. "He'd yell so loud San Lang would find out anyway."
Mu Qing scoffs despite himself, cupping his teacup. It warms him a little, to hear that Xie Lian thinks he'll keep his secret. How often has he been accused of spreading vicious rumors? How many times as Feng Xin accused him of looking down on others and whispering behind their backs? But now Xie Lian is here, commiserating with him about Feng Xin's big mouth. It's… It's nice.
"Tell me, then," Mu Qing says, gesturing to him. "How did you end up with a first class spiritual weapon with no cultivation, trapped in the mortal realm?"
Xie Lian smiles, brittle. His rough fingers trail down from the string of his hat to fiddle with the ring hanging around his neck. When he talks, it's in soft, calm words, as if it can't touch him. The words touch Mu Qing. They claw at his heart, and fill his stomach with ice. The words flow into him, and they sit there like stones.
"They hung themselves. Mother and father," Xie Lian says, calling the king and queen so warmly despite the sick sentence surrounding them. His voice is colder when he says "I tried to hang myself as well, but of course that wouldn't work." as if he were disappointed in the young man he'd been. It's only when he tries to explain—to justify—that he falters. He says: "You see, before that I had been… That is, right before I drove Feng Xin away, I…" and then he can't seem to speak at all. He swallows, then smiles as hard as he can, and Mu Qing aches .
He can almost picture it, how their royal bodies would have weighed on the rafters, stretching the soft, sturdy silk. How Xie Lian's blood would have soaked in and absorbed. He's seen Ruoye drink blood before, and it's never been anything but pristine afterwards.
How long had Xie Lian strangled? Had he broken his neck? His collar bones? Had he experienced even a moment of the death he'd been craving, in his desperate attempt to end it?
Would Mu Qing ever have known how he died, if he'd succeeded?
He can't speak. His fingers are shaking. So is Ruoye, so physically that Xie Lian croons and starts rubbing his own forearm to soothe it.
"It's alright," Xie Lian comforts the evil silk—the death of royals and the blood of a fallen god, poured into a simple length of fabric. "Poor thing, it wasn't your fault. Ah, anyhow… That's how Ruoye began. I was… I was unkind to it for a while after, but we eventually started to understand each other. It's always been so good to me. And of course with my bad luck it's absorbed much more of my blood now, haha!"
"Stop talking," Mu Qing rasps, staring at Xie Lian, hating the way Xie LIan averts his eyes and smiles harder, fingers tracing up and down Ruoye's length. "Stop laughing."
"It's alright," Xie Lian repeats, not looking at him, still rubbing his arm slowly.
"It's not." Mu Qing scoffs, disbelieving. "Of course it's not."
"Mn." a wry smile twists Xie Lian's lips, his brows lifting even as he keeps his gaze trained away from the table—away from Mu Qing.
There is no real ambient noise in the heavens. There are people bustling about outside, but Mu Qing likes his palace quiet. He wishes now that there were wind, or insects, or frogs to sing. That it wasn't just the silence, where he can hear himself breathing too hard—hear Xie Lian breathing softly, as if trying not to make a sound.
"Are you…" Mu Qing hesitates. Struggles. He knows what he should say, and he knows what he needs to say, and they're different things. They're different things, and it's so new that Xie Lian doesn't hate him, he doesn't want Xie Lian to hate him again.
"You can ask," Xie Lian urges, his voice so kind it feels like sandpaper against Mu Qing's roiling emotions.
"You should tell Hua Cheng," Mu Qing stiffly drags out, his teeth clenched around the words.
"Ah, I will, I will!" Xie Lian laughs, waving a dismissive hand. "When things settle down a bit, I'm sure he'll be pouting that I came to talk to you when—"
"No," it's sharper than it should be, his interruption. Rough and rude, when all he wants is to grab Xie Lian and push him behind him—guard him from whatever nightmare this is they're suddenly living in, where his prince…His friend…
"No," he repeats, forcing his eyes onto Xie Lian's bowed head and strained smile. "You should tell him now. Right now."
"Haha," a glance of deep brown eyes. A confused twist to his lips. "Is it that you're hoping he'll go a little crazy again, or…?"
"You don't have a shackle!" barks Mu Qing, standing from the table before he shatters his good teapot and cups in frustration. He has to pace, has to move, has to do something. (But there's nothing to do, nothing at all.)
"Well, no? Thankfully neither of us do anymore, ahah…"
"So he should know!" he whirls on Xie Lian, pointing at him fiercely before yanking his hand back. He doesn't know what to do. What to say. He draws back, shaken and bewildered, even as Xie Lian finally lifts his gaze off the floor and lets that ridiculous smile fall off his face. It leaves confusion in its wake, his brows twisted and his head tilting. Even Ruoye pops out, twisting itself as it watches.
"In c-case," Mu Qing stutters, fumbling for what to say. "If something happened… If…If you felt that way again… You could… Die."
"Oh." Xie Lian says. "Oh… Mu Qing. My friend…"
No, shit, he can't take that. Can't take being called that. Not right now. Not like this! He turns away, and pretends he can't hear Xie Lian approaching. He pretends right up until a warm arm drapes over his shoulders, pulling him gently but insistently against his prince's side.
"I'm okay now," Xie Lian murmurs, bending his head to match Mu Qing's hangdog stance. "I'm better. I am."
Ruoye sneaks out of Xie Lian's sleeve, bundling itself artlessly against Mu Qing's chest, as though afraid to wrap around him. Mu Qing remembers it in a new light, now. The moment of Xie Lian wrenching the silk from around his neck. He lifts his fingertips, brushing over his own throat.
"I over reacted," Xie Lian whispers, still close to him, still holding him, still, somehow, alive. "It's been a long time since I've had a, um. A...well. People I want to—no. More like… Family?"
His voice cracks around the word, and he pulls away in mortification, burying his face in both hands with a groan at himself. He's visibly red through his fingers. Mu Qing might strangle him. Of all the things to get mortified about, after these revelations. Of all the things…
He grabs his stupid prince and stuffs him back in his arms before he can protest, squeezing tight. It feels, in part of him, like if he can just hold Xie Lian tight enough, he won't slip away again. This ridiculous, good-hearted idiot. This wonderful, stupid man. His friend.
"Tell him or I will," he threatens, the words buried in Xie Lian's hair. "Someone's got to make sure you're safe."
"Alright," Xie Lian whispers, his voice sounding suspiciously thick, even as he pats Mu Qing's back a few times. "Alright."
Ruoye wriggles between them, then settles again, coiling a loose loop around their bodies to hold them in the hug a while longer. Mu Qing's mind is already drafting a list of what comes next. Xie Lian needs to drink his fucking tea, and then Mu Qing is going to pack up a dozen of those good pork buns to send home with him—who knows what Hua Cheng feeds him. He picked some cherries recently, too. He'd meant to share them after their sparring, but he'd been too mortified by the impulse to even bring them along.
He'll send those as well. Just to make sure Xie Lian has something sweet.