Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts, as all good things in his life do, with Xie Lian.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian calls, holding an old box in his hands. “Look what I found in the old storeroom!”

Hua Cheng gladly abandons polishing E-Ming to go to him. The scimitar rattles on the bench where he dropped it, frustration flaring like pain in his right eye socket. He pays it no mind.

“Did gege re-find one of his treasures?” Hua Cheng stops just before Xie Lian, and smiles when the god closes the distance himself, pressing closer until he is well sheltered in Hua Cheng’s arms.

“Yes,” he laughs, easy and bright. “San Lang, you’ll love this. Remember when we first met?”

“Clearly,” Hua Cheng purrs, hiding his hungry expression in Xie Lian’s soft hair. “Is it on gege’s mind? Would he like to pretend again? The sly young noble and the innocent daozhang-gege?”

“San Lang!” Xie Lian objects, flushing so immediately that Hua Cheng can feel the heat against his scalp.

“Oh, no? Then the innocent young noble and the seductive daozhang this time?”

“D-don’t sound so excited about such a thing!” Xie Lian stutters, shoving Hua Cheng’s chest as if he wasn’t the one who’d tucked up against it. “That’s not what this one meant at all!”

“Oh? Forgive this one’s impertinence, your highness.” Hua Cheng forces himself to back up with the shove, though Xie LIan didn’t use any strength at all in it. “Won’t he enlighten this foolish servant?”

“San Lang is just trying to rile this one up.” Xie Lian mutters, as he shoves the box into Hua Cheng’s hands. “Ah, did you drop poor E-Ming again?”

He slides past Hua Cheng, already cooing. Hua Cheng rolls his eye in annoyance as the scimitar rattles. His right eye aches when E-Ming tears up. Ruoye glides over to wrap around Hua Cheng’s throat, sulking as Xie Lian’s indulgent praise and apologies fill the armory.

Hua Cheng watches him scoop the scimitar up as if it were something precious, stroking the hilt and laughing when E-Ming shivers and grows in his hands.

Ruoye quivers with jealousy. It taps one end of silk against Hua Cheng’s cheek in annoyance, fumbling around until it finds his lips and then presses there over and over, demanding kisses for itself.

“Stop,” Hua Cheng grumbles, pinching the silk between two fingers until it goes limp as dull fabric.

Still, with a glance at Xie Lian to ensure he’s not looking, he grants the spiritual device a brief kiss. It may have taken a couple decades, but he’s warmed up to the thing.

Slightly.

He returns his attention to the box, opening it slowly. He barks a laugh so loud it surprises him, and his wide eye flies up to Xie Lian. He finds him already grinning, a wicked glint in his kind eyes that never fails to make Hua Cheng’s dead heart pulse with delight and desire.

He knows he put that look there. He gave his highness the safety to smile like that. And to think he’d once considered dying to be the best way he could serve his god…

“So San Lang remembers,” Xie Lian saunters closer, E-Ming cradled easily in one arm, and his fingers toying down the flat of the blade.

“How could this one forget?” Hua Cheng purrs, letting Ruoye play idly with his earrings. “Gege turned such an adorable color when he was offered child-bearing pills, and he tried so hard not to be rude about it.”

“It was kindly intended,” Xie Lian laughs, his cheeks flushed with life and his eyes sparkling.

“Gege has always been too indulgent of that trash.”

Xie Lian tutts his displeasure at Hua Cheng’s choice of words towards his citizens, but he doesn’t bother starting up the old bickering. He just slides his free hand over Hua Cheng’s, mirroring his grip on the box. In his other arm, E-Ming’s eye is rolled back in bliss, squinted into such a happy crescent that it looks like it must hurt.

Hua Cheng knows it doesn’t. He can feel the smile in the distant echo of himself that E-Ming holds.

He looks at their joined hands on the box, and feels Ruoye squeeze around his throat before drifting idly down, lengthening itself to twine around him and Xie Lian both.

In Xie Lian’s eyes, there’s something warm and hungry. Hua Cheng has taken care to feed that hunger at any chance. Anything his gege craves, he exists to give it to him. But the intensity of this look in particular… It leaves him breathless. He swallows around a suddenly dry throat, and steps in closer, bending so their temples nearly touch.

“Did gege bring this one the pills only to reminisce?” He asks, voice low and rough.

“That depends on what San Lang wants,” Xie Lian replies, gazing up at him with such powerful affection that Hua Cheng always thinks it will end him. Surely one day the joy will be too much for his always-weak soul to handle. At the very least, it should bring him to his knees. His god’s pleasure makes him so weak.

“Gege should know,” Hua Cheng bends closer, gripping Xie Lian’s elbow and feeling Ruoye tug them tighter together, responding to its master’s desires. “Anything he wishes, this servant will provide.”

“Ah, perhaps— perhaps we should— ah!—” the sound lifts from Xie Lian at the slightest of touches— Just Hua Cheng’s fingers skirting up his arm to slide over his neck, brushing over the chain he wears. “—T-talk it through more carefully?”

Hua Cheng bends to whisper directly into his ear, unsurprised when Ruoye wraps behind his neck to drag him in closer. “Gege often worries so much instead of taking what makes him happy.”

E-Ming rattles between them, excited rather than annoyed. Xie Lian must be squeezing it.

“San Lang is sure—”

“Gege,” Hua Cheng’s fangs find the red pearl Xie Lian wears through this ear, and he nibbles at the piercing, letting his sharp teeth graze the hole. “This one would be most pleased to serve his god in such a way.”

Xie Lian sucks in a breath, tilting his head to bare his throat. Hua Cheng could never resist such an invitation. He kisses his way down his god’s jawline, over the taught tendons and soft skin. He lavishes attention there, feeling Ruoye quiver around them both. He knows why. It makes him cautious. It makes him eager. Only pleasure for his god. Only pleasure where there had been despair. Only pleasure where once had been pain.

“Then…” Xie Lian swallows, and Hua Cheng hums at the feel of it under his lips.

Xie Lian takes a step back, and it takes a considerable amount of self control for Hua Cheng not to follow him. E-Ming is thrust into his chest, and Hua Cheng fumbles to catch it, even as Ruoye abandons him to coil around its master once more, dancing white in the dazzling red armory. Xie Lian’s expression is bright with determination, alive with power, and he—

Oh....

He snatches a pill out of the box, and swallows it down without a moment of hesitation.

“Crimson Rain Sought Flower, if you would!” he cries, face beet red and his posture open with challenge.

Hua Cheng scoops him up in his arms at once, dropping E-Ming to rattle forlornly on the floor once more in favor of tangling his tongue with Xie Lian’s, chasing the already distant, acerbic taste of the child-bearing pill.

“So? Does gege feel any different?” he asks after, draped over the red and white tangle of fabric they’ve made of their bed in Paradise Manor.

Xie Lian laughs, chest shaking under Hua Cheng’s cheek with his delight.

“San Lang, there hasn’t even been time for half an incense stick to burn! I think no one has ever felt different in so short a time!”

“Hm… But if there is any doubt, shouldn’t this one ensure that the pill has every chance to work?”

Xie Lian’s arms squeeze around him, holding him closer as he takes a deep breath. There is no feeling Hua Cheng loves more than that squeeze; being lovingly crushed by his god’s breathing.

“Well,” Xie Lian says slowly, “San Lang has a point. After all, there is so much working against us! Indeed, this one thinks San Lang may need to— to!”

“So close, gege, you can do it.” Hua Cheng encourages, grinning wickedly against Xie Lian’s chest, the flat of his teeth pressed over his dusky nipple without yet biting. “Tell this San Lang what he should do.”

“He— He should—” Hua Cheng presses greedily closer. Xie Lian’s whole body heats up when he’s embarrassed, and he is burning right now. “San Lang should— San Lang should fill this one until he can’t hold any more! Until it brims over and spills!”

Hua Cheng bursts out laughing in delight, swarming up out of Xie Lian’s tight embrace to kiss him breathless.

“Gege is so wise!” he praises, as if Xie Lian didn’t always want to be filled like a dumpling. “This humble believer will do his best to fulfill your desire!”

Hua Cheng lazes in bed for a long time in the morning. He always does. Xie Lian encourages the laziness in him as he has since Hua Cheng returned to his side all those years ago. Perhaps it’s a habit more than anything, but he’s glad for it in moments like this. Watching Xie Lian turn before the mirror, bare, inspecting the marks Hua Cheng left on him the night before is a priceless gift.

“Really, San Lang!” he scolds without heat, twisting to observe the bitten peach of his behind. “This one has spoiled you too much.”

“En, gege has created a monster.” Hua Cheng agrees, draped on their bed and letting his hungry eyes delight in the marks of his touch on Xie Lian’s heavenly body.

“Ah well,” Xie Lian sighs, as if he weren’t prodding at the toothmark bruises and biting his lip in pleasure. “It’s far too late to change it now, this one will just have to keep spoiling his San Lang.”

“Did gege enjoy?” Hua Cheng asks, not overtly jerking off at the sight of him, but palming his half-hard cock.

Xie Lian’s eyes are bright when he looks at him directly. The mirror behind him displays the bite on his ass, and the love-bites and bruises Hua Cheng left scattered over his chest and throat are put on display facing him directly.

“Did this gege somehow leave room for doubt?” Xie Lian asks with a wry tone that doesn’t match the sparkling delight in his eyes.

“This spoiled ghost king craves reassurance,” Hua Cheng says with his very best pout.

He knows the pout he's wearing looks better on the carefully-sculpted, youthful face he first presented to his highness, but Xie Lian always responds even more warmly to it on the sharp, angular lines of his true form.

He doesn’t disappoint now, cooing and sweeping over in an elegant motion that’s highlighted by his nakedness. He sits on the bedside, and bends down to press half a dozen kisses butterfly-light over Hua Cheng’s face. He breathes out a laugh as Hua Cheng tries to tilt into every single touch.

“This gege loved it,” he assures him. “San Lang is always so good to him.”

“Mm. And gege isn’t having any second-thoughts? Or any ill effects from the pill?”

“No ill effects. My heart felt like it was beating even faster than usual last night, but it’s normal today.”

Hua Cheng hums his agreement, and finally uncoils from the bed, draping himself over Xie Lian instead and nuzzling at the marks he left on him.

He calculates internally how lucky the day will be by how long Xie Lian lets him stay glued there before remembering how much important business they both have to attend to.

He closes his eyes in bliss as the count passes into ‘very, very lucky’ territory, and Xie Lian traces idle patterns against his shoulder, half-asleep.

Neither of them admit aloud that they’re waiting, but Hua Cheng is. With bated breath, and carefully-veiled unease, he waits. There is no one who knows Xie Lian better than him, after all. If there is a change, he will see it, and then he will know.

Then… Then he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He tries not to think about it, and yet…

Every morning, before Xie Lian awakens, Hua Cheng slides his hand down his soft stomach and sends gentle tendrils of spiritual power through his singing meridians. It always makes Xie Lian sigh in his sleep, arching unconsciously into the touch. It makes Hua Cheng’s chest ache— The bone-deep, unconscious trust Xie Lian puts in him.

Every morning, he senses only his beloved. The stomach under his hand is softer than it was the first night they lay together, when Xie Lian had been nothing but muscle and bone. Hua Cheng can’t help the pride that fills him at the clear, obvious, physical benefits that their life together has granted Xie Lian. It is still not as much as he deserves, but it is a start.

When Xie Lian awakens, Hua Cheng watches him stretch smoothly as he unwinds from whichever bed they shared that night. He watches him place a hand over his own stomach. He watches his face carefully for any reaction, but there’s only ever mild interest there. No disappointment; no devastation.

Two months and many enthusiastic nights together later, Xie Lian broaches the subject with all the bravery and grace Hua Cheng has come to expect from him.

“This one suspects the child bearing pills are anecdotal more than anything,” he says lightly. “An aphrodisiac by another name.”

“Is gege disappointed?” Hua Cheng asks, gazing at him through the excessive amounts of steam pouring off the stew Xie Lian is so kindly preparing for their dinner.

“No,” Xie Lian laughs lightly, shaking his head. “There is nothing missing from this one’s life with San Lang.”

Hua Cheng breathes in so deeply his chest aches with his joy. He can’t hold back from throwing his arms around his beloved, kissing his shoulder over and over, watching his elegant hands add a truly unusual assortment of spices to their dinner. Star anise dots the stew’s surface like a reflection of the night sky in quantity. It would kill a lesser man.

Joy settles deep under Hua Cheng’s breastbone, where only longing dwelled for so, so long. He closes his eyes and prays, hugging Xie Lian from behind, breathing against his shoulder though he doesn’t have to.

‘My god, may this follower please you always.’ He feels Xie Lian shiver in his arms, when the prayer reaches him. Then he smiles against his shoulder, remembering Xie Lian’s admonition that Hua Cheng should make requests in his prayers. ‘And may he grant this follower a taste of his work.’

Xie Lian laughs, and Hua Cheng worships his happiness in the altar of his heart.

His prayer is answered. There should be nothing to taste but the overwhelming dark licorice spice of the star anise, but somehow he can barely taste it past the crowding flavors vying for his attention.

“Incredible,” Hua Cheng says honestly, nestling back into place on Xie Lian’s shoulder. “Gege must tell me this dish’s name.”

“It is called ‘A Kinder Night Sky,’” Xie Lian informs him, pride and happiness and comfort in every line of him. Any hint of disappointment he may be feeling is invisible even to Hua Cheng, which means with all likelihood it does not exist at all.

Hua Cheng sighs against his love’s shoulder, and thanks the lucky stars his beloved has prepared for him, since he will never thank those in the heavens.

Days move one into the other in a dizzying rush of happiness. Xie Lian only mentions children in passing teasing. Hua Cheng once offered other methods of procurement, but Xie Lian only said seriously “with poor Yin Yu still living at home? Shouldn’t we see him happily married first?”

‘Poor Yin Yu’ had been standing well within earshot, though Xie Lian hadn’t noticed that. It didn’t stop Hua Cheng from dissolving into screaming laughter. He’d ended up draped over his black jade divan, howling with amusement while Xie Lian beamed in pride at having caused such a reaction, arms crossed and observing the hysterics.

It’s well over a season later that he finds the box again, a single pill missing. He considers it deeply, turning it back and forth in his hand in consideration. There is certainly no need for an aphrodisiac in their bedroom, but…

He thinks for a long time. He weighs the possible responses; the potential for Xie Lian taking it as an insult (slim, but terrifying); the likelihood of him being laughed off (likely, but welcome); the potential of being fucked so full of his highness’s seed that he can’t remember his own name.

“Would gege be interested in something unusual tonight?” he asks abruptly making his decision.

“What did San Lang have in mind?” Xie Lian sets his brush down, his elegant handwriting currently in the process of being wasted on correspondence with Feng Xin.

Hua Cheng meets his warm, curious eyes, glowing with the warm light of the candles and the soft shine of silver butterflies above them. He holds eye contact as he plucks a pill from the box and extends his tongue. He places the pill on it, curling the tip of his tongue to keep it in place before swallowing it down.

Xie Lian follows every motion with open-mouthed shock. He moved on long ago from the blushing insecurity of their first nights together, but sometimes, Hua Cheng is delighted to find, he can still be left speechless. Xie Lian stands up so fast he braces the motion against the wet ink of his letter, smearing it in his eagerness to reach Hua Cheng.

“San Lang wants this one to— To—”

“En, this one wants to be filled with the seed of his beloved, until even this male body is helpless but to become pregnant.” Hua Cheng informs him around a wicked grin.

Xie Lian gives a strained, wheezing laugh, fluttering hand patting Hua Cheng’s cheeks, and shoulders, and chest, unable to settle in his immediately overwhelmed state.

“But— but San Lang knows those pills only—”

“Ah, gege will just have to try his best,” Hua Cheng beams in delighted mischief, recognizing what lies beneath Xie Lian’s fluttering uncertainty. His beautiful brown eyes are burning with want. What an interesting thing to learn! Truly his god is full of surprises.

Xie Lian doesn’t reply with words. He drags Hua Cheng down into a kiss by his shoulders, devouring his lips with incredible enthusiasm. He bites at him, and presses his tongue between his willing teeth, moaning into the wet hollow of his mouth.

“This one will give his very best,” Xie Lian gasps when he pulls back, eagerly pulling at Hua Cheng’s robes. “I will breed San Lang so thoroughly!”

Hua Cheng’s eye widens, and his lips tilt into a delirious, delighted grin as he’s pushed back onto the bed, rumpled robes pulled down over his shoulders, but left tied at his waist. Xie Lian doesn’t waste time with the belts, only parting the red robes and attacking the ties of his pants.

“Eager,” Hua Cheng praises, gripping the bedsheets and holding on as tight as he can.

Xie Lian drags his pants off with a cry of triumph. He is so strong, and so beautiful, and so hungry for Hua Cheng’s angular, whipcord body that it wipes all thoughts of ugliness from his mind. Xie Lian presses kiss after kiss to his inner thighs, so turned on it’s made him forget his shyness.

Hua Cheng’s heart throbs, and he gasps in a breath at the sensation. And then his heart beats a second time, then a third. Whether it’s the aphrodisiac, or Xie Lian’s teeth grazing over the inside of his too-pale knee, or the shocking picture they must make— the crown prince half-disrobing and claiming the so-called ghost-king—

Hua Cheng groans, one leg hooked over Xie Lian’s shoulders where he looms over him, arching his hips up into nothing at the thought.

“Gege, yes, fill this body!” he calls out, helpless because he chooses to be; surrendering to rough hands that he knows will be gentle.

Xie Lian’s hands run all over his body, bunching his robes. The bleeding red silk is parted so thoroughly now that it nearly binds his biceps against his sides while Xie Lian’s thumbs drag over his nipples.

“San Lang is so forward!” Xie Lian gasps, as if he hadn’t pressed his beloved down on the bed and half-stripped him to have his way. “This one has spoiled him for sure!”

“Spoil me,” Hua Cheng begs, writhing on the bed beneath him, even as Xie Lian fumbles for the oil they keep at their bedside in copious quantities. “Break me, use me, breed me, gege, give me everything!”

“Ah!” Xie Lian’s still-clothed hips jerk against Hua Cheng’s thigh, rutting lewdly against him. “San Lang, be— Be patient!”

“I can’t be, I can’t be,” Hua Cheng cries, only halfway playing. His heart is pumping, and he can’t quiet it. It sets the body he’s grown accustomed to completely controlling on fire. It thrums through him like a storm, awakening every nerve without the need for his attention— his shoulders ache from the position, and the muscles in his thighs and hips strain as Xie Lian leans over him, pushing his lean legs nearly into a split as he retrieves the oil.

Hua Cheng gasps at the sensation of Xie Lian’s robe brushing over his swollen length. Xie Lian hesitates, staring down at him. Then he presses his hand over Hua Cheng’s chest, and a grin blossoms on his unbearably-beautiful face.

“San Lang,” he whispers.

“The pill,” Hua Cheng moans. “For gege, his heart beat faster, so for this one’s heart—”

“Does it feel good?” Xie Lian asks, rough fingertips stroking up and down Hua Cheng’s chest, pinching and rolling a nipple that Hua Cheng can see tightening and flushing with his suddenly-moving blood.

“Gege always feels good,” he gasps. “Please, gege, give this one your everything! Let this unworthy follower satisfy your every want!”

“Isn’t this one’s most devoted believer also being satisfied?” Xie Lian teases, bending closer to tangle their lips in a slow, smooth kiss. The shock of cold oil against Hua Cheng’s hole makes him gasp— Usually the temperature is meaningless to his always-cold body. Now he shivers, and arches into the touch, even as his body tightens against the intrusion.

Xie Lian gasps in reply, their breath mingling along with their kiss.

“San Lang, you’re warm,” he gasps. “You’re so warm! Is it too cold for you?”

“Don’t stop!” Hua Cheng begs, already dizzy with sensation.

He rolls his hips down into the freezing oil on Xie Lian’s finger, and feels his god tense above him, moaning in approval. The bedsheets tangle in Hua Cheng’s fingers, threatening to tear as he struggles against the violent need in himself— always present, but never so out of his control before.

He glances towards the box with a briefly furrowed brow. What on earth is in those things to unwind him so completely? Then Xie Lian’s tongue leaves his mouth to latch onto his throat, and Hua Cheng is lost . He writhes under Xie Lian, gasping in breaths that leave his lungs aching. His tendons strain under the lips and teeth marking his throat in a way that would be clearly visible above even his most modest robes.

“More,” he begs, revelling in how the word moves his throat under Xie Lian’s bruising teeth.

“So demanding!” Xie Lian teases.

There’s a sharp stretch; another finger inside him, warm now from contact with his burning body. It’s not enough; he wants Xie Lian’s cock buried deep in him; he wants his highness’s powerful body straining into him, thrust after thrust; he wants bruises in the shape of his hands, and the slap of their bodies connecting.

If he is patient, Xie Lian will give him all that and more. But if he is impatient he will get it faster.

“Gege,” he whines, digging the heel of his captured leg into Xie Lian’s back to fuck himself on his god’s fingers. “Gege, please!”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Xie Lian scolds around a laugh, forcing a third finger inside him.

It’s too tight, and Hua Cheng moans at the burning discomfort, throwing his whole body into driving his hips against those fingers. The pain; the pleasure; the presence of his god’s indulgent smile and burning eyes, pupils blown wide with arousal at the shameless display Hua Cheng is making of himself.

“I want you to,” Hua Cheng blinks back stars as Xie Lian’s fingers brush— “Gege, dianxia, please—”

His free leg shifts, bracing on Xie Lian’s thigh where he kneels before him, the other still hooked over his shoulder, and Hua Cheng uses the position to force those fingers in, and in, and in , roughly using Xie Lian’s fingers to send spikes of pleasure from his prostate shooting through his trembling body.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian gasps, clinging more tightly to his thigh and meeting his every thrust with martial precision, forcing his fingers deep, deep inside. “San Lang, let me— let me—”

“Yes,” Hua Cheng agrees without knowing what Xie Lian wants. Whatever it is, he wants it too. Whatever he can get, he wants. Whatever Xie Lian will give him, whatever he deserves, whatever he’s allowed to have!

Xie Lian grabs both his thighs, just under his knees, and pushes them— bends him nearly in half while Hua Cheng laughs in delight. Then Xie Lian’s cock plunges into his burning, roughly-stretched hole, and his laugh breaks into a ragged moan.

“Oh,” Xie Lian breathes, hips straining into him and gripping his thighs too tight. He trembles in pleasure, crouched looming over Hua Cheng. His head falls forward, long hair framing them behind a curtain all their own.

“So… So tight,” he gasps, a sheen of sweat on his flushed cheeks and his eyelashes fluttering in pleasure.

Before Hua Cheng can catch his breath to whine, Xie Lian starts moving; slow at first. He grinds his hips against him, bottoming out, then draws back in a slow, smooth roll of his hips that leaves Hua Cheng gasping for air.  The shining ring of ashes dangles above him, safe around Xie Lian’s neck. He never removes it.

The next thrust is sharper. Harder. Hua Cheng chokes on a moan, refusing to close his eye in pleasure— he will not look away from the way Xie Lian bites his lip— the way his brows furrow in concentration— the way his hands flex and squeeze on Hua Cheng’s legs as he pins him effortlessly in place.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng breathes, “So strong, feels so good—”

“San Lang must— Ahhh— must tell this— hnn— this god if it’s too much.’

Every slow throat is greeted with a low moan, tearing out of Xie Lian’s throat thoughtlessly. Hua Cheng answers each one with a moan of his own. He grips the blankets beneath him, unable to cling to his god in this position. He can’t move at all except to clench his fingers and curl his toes as Xie Lian fucks him slowly. Hua Cheng’s cock jumps and swings with every thrust, painting his chest and chin with strings of precum.

“Ah, San Lang, sorry,” Xie Lian pants, thrusting between each word, the slow pace building into a near-violent rhythm. “You’re— you're getting so messy.”

“Gege, more,” Hua Cheng croaks, his heart hammering, his body aching. His breaths come strained from the pose, his heart thunders, and he wants more . More of that suffocating feeling, more of that too-much fullness, more of Xie Lian.

“Just— Just a little,” Xie Lian leans further forward, standing on their bed in a deep lunge, thrusting down into Hua Cheng over and over, harder and harder. “Just a little, don’t— don’t want to break you!”

“Break me!” Hua Cheng pleads in return, before throwing his head back and wailing as Xie Lian fucks him, harder and harder. The rhythmic slap of their bodies fills the room, met by Xie Lian’s low moans, and the punched-out sounds of pleasure and desire tearing free of Hua Cheng with every thrust.

“Never,” Xie Lian gasps, fucking him so hard that it feels like the whole world is shaking. “Never—” hard thrust, sweat dripping, “this one—” hips rolling together, fighting his body to be deeper, “will keep—” hands squeezing his thighs, Xie Lian’s head twisting to nip at soft flesh, “you safe—” even harder, his cock heavy in Hua Cheng’s guts, overwhelming “always!”

Hua Cheng cums screaming his god’s name. His body strains in the pleasure, legs kicking out, and body tightening around Xie Lian as he keeps going, harder, harder, harder, then—

“San Lang,” he sobs, pressing down so hard into him that they’re face-to-face, Hua Cheng’s burning body bent double, and Xie Lian’s lips and teeth on his mouth, devouring his desperate panting.

Hua Cheng hasn’t genuinely felt suffocated in decades. Now, bent and fucked and smothered beneath Xie Lian’s kiss, his lungs burn, and he chokes on delight; wheezes in breath after breath as Xie Lian kisses him through it, biting his lips and pulsing his hips into him, soft cock still buried deep in his ass.

“Gege,” he breathes, shocked to find his throat thick and his eye burning.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian answers, shifting his body slowly as if it weighed nothing at all. “Are you okay?”

“En,” he assures at once, though he’s trembling head to toe. He tangles his hands in Xie Lian’s robes, both of them still half-dressed in their rush to fuck each other. “Gege, so good…”

“Hmm,” Xie Lian slides out, and Hua Cheng hisses in discomfort despite himself. The cum splattered over his chest and face is already drying. Xie Lian gently lays his legs down, and gasps. Hua Cheng jolts halfway up, worried, only to find Xie Lian’s trembling hand pressing over a dark handprint on his thigh.

“San Lang, I—” he starts, alarmed and trembling.

Hua Cheng stares, then snorts loudly. He breaks into wild laughter that sends his breathless body back onto the bed at once. He grabs for Xie Lian, patting his hand over and over in comfort.

“Gege, it’s ink, it’s ink!” He assures through his gales of laughter. “Danxia dirtied his hand in his haste! Ah, but what a nice new tattoo idea…”

“San Lang, no!” Xie Lian cries, though he’s laughing too— more in relief than delight. He likes marking Hua Cheng in small ways, but never unintentionally.

Hua Cheng will take great care to heal away the bruises he did leave before he can get upset by them.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng whines. “Don’t laugh. This poor ghost needs cuddles to recover himself.”

Xie Lian hums, endlessly indulgent, and slides closer— not laying down beside him, but leaning over him and tracing his face with a reverent fingertip.

“This one took it too fast,” he murmurs remorsefully. “Is San Lang alright?”

“So alright.” Hua Cheng sighs gustily, and finds he has to draw a breath in afterward. Usually he just sighs out and rests until he has to speak again. Now he breathes, and it feels strange. It’s a little annoying. How hard had he worked as San Lang to pretend he was alive? Now it seems he could have just taken a pill and been done with it, depending on how long it lasts.

“This one feels so good,” he sighs, and it’s the truth. His body is singing in the wake of Xie Lian’s rough treatment. The rough-calloused hand cradling his cheek is so gentle it makes his throat tight with unspoken tenderness. “Gege is so good to this one.”

Xie Lian smiles down at him, amused and pleased, and it warms the very core of Hua Cheng’s dead body. It always has. That approval is his favorite thing in any realm; so warm and trustworthy.

“This one thinks it’s San Lang who is good.” Xie Lian informs him, bending closer to kiss him. 

Like this, with Hua Cheng flat on his back, still trembling, and Xie Lian leaning casually over him, it feels new again. His god is happy with him, and the knowledge fills him with joy he’d once thought long dead. He is so much happier as a corpse than he ever was as a human.

“This one wonders, though,” Hua Cheng breathes when Xie Lian’s bitten lips part gently from his own, giving him room to breathe once again.

“Hm?” Xie Lian hums pleasantly, tilting his head and studying his face. He picks a spot and bends to press a kiss there— Somewhere in the hollow beneath Hua Cheng’s sharp cheekbone. Xie Lian nuzzles against the spot after his kiss.

“Shouldn’t gege be thorough?” Hua Cheng purrs, twining his arms up and around Xie Lian’s shoulders, trapping him close. “This one put in so much effort to fill gege before, after all.”

Xie Lian chokes against the cheek he’s kissing, then chokes again when he realizes he spit on Hua Cheng’s face in his surprise. Hua Cheng breaks into wild laughter, squeezing Xie Lian in his arms, dragging him down into a tight hug, their robes already beyond ruined by sweat and cum. He’ll mend them tomorrow. For now he wants to be taken apart, piece by piece. He doesn’t want to waste this strange feeling. He doesn’t like it particularly— he won’t be taking a second pill, no matter how precious Xie Lian’s arousal at the very idea was— but it would be a shame to waste it.

It has been taken. His heart is beating, and his lungs ache. He can fear it, or he can give it to his god’s tender hands; he can panic, or he can let Xie Lian fuck the fear out of him.

The choice is clear.

“So shameless!” Xie Lian is complaining, pressing kisses over and over to Hua Cheng’s cheek. “So shameless, San Lang!”

“Gege, won’t you indulge this pathetic follower?” Hua Cheng begs. “He only wants his god’s holy essence brimming from his every hole, is it too much to ask?”

The sound Xie Lian makes can only be described as a shriek, and his hands scramble to cover Hua Cheng’s mouth. They do nothing to muffle his laughter, and Xie Lian scolds him past a face gone completely pink from embarrassment, and a body that is clearly already aroused again.

Hua Cheng isn’t concerned. He has prayed to this god his whole life, and there is only one thing that happens when his god hears his prayers.

Xie Lian has always granted him every kindness he requests and more.

When at last Hua Cheng falls asleep, he can almost forget his throbbing heart over the ache of the tender and loving ruination of a martial god with a mission. He can’t taste fear anymore over the thick scent of cum and sweat and Xie Lian that fills his senses. He hums to himself, low and pleased as Xie Lian tenderly cleans the flaking, drying cum off of him, and sinks into an exhausted rest with a permanent smile etched on his lips.

He wakes up with a steady heartbeat, and a sick, horrifying gnawing low in his gut. He trembles, staring up at the canopy of butterflies that keep the bedroom lit even on the darkest nights.

No matter how much time passed, he never forgot the feeling of hunger. Now it chews at him like a wild animal, caged for centuries and suddenly set loose once more. He blinks, swallowing around a sudden terror. It isn’t real, is it? It isn’t real. He’s had another fever dream, tucked in the ruins of a temple, mourning what he’ll never have while he races between starving to death and being cut down on the battlefield, and Xie Lian is—

“San Lang? San Lang, it’s okay. It’s just a dream.”

The arms already curled around him squeeze tighter. A face presses into his bare neck, nuzzling there. He can feel the worried furrow of brows against his throat. He chokes in a breath, then another. He hadn’t even realized he was panicking. Something pounds in his chest, harder and harder, like it’s trying to flee him.

“San Lang,” soothes Xie Lian. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

“Gege,” Hua Cheng gasps, scrambling and wrapping himself around his beloved. “Gege, gege, gege—”

Xie Lian never scolds him for clinging in moments like this. The scolding is a game; this is real. Xie Lian holds him tighter and tighter the more Hua Cheng scrambles. He kisses his disheveled hair and strokes his fingers over the knobs of his spine.

“Only a dream,” he rocks them slowly, Hua Cheng held securely in his warm, strong arms. “Everything’s okay, San Lang.”

Hua Cheng knows, on a distant level, that she should tell him. That he should beg for his help. It isn’t a dream. His body chews on itself in a hunger only death freed him from. It feels petty to speak it aloud; shallow and cruel. Didn’t Xie Lian confess quietly, after months of trying to open himself about what he’s been through, to treating starvation as an old friend through the centuries? What a pathetic creature Hua Cheng is, to panic from a single stirring of hunger when Xie Lian has borne such suffering. How selfish to want comfort and concern for such a small worry.

The reminder of Xie Lian’s hunger makes him shudder and cling tighter to him. His body is soft and smooth, muscles bunching as he holds Hua Cheng, but no longer stark and sharp. Hua Cheng’s dead body will never smooth out from the constant hunger except when he forces it to. Xie Lian’s is different; living and breathing and changing.

Hua Cheng takes a deep breath, and pushes aside discomfort. His chest aches around the forced heartbeat. The gnawing hunger refuses to subside, but it is only discomfort. Pushing it aside is like greeting an old friend.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng whispers. “Let this one make you breakfast?”

“Was San Lang dreaming of bad things again?” Xie Lian asks, a hand cupping the back of Hua Cheng’s head, still rocking with him. “This one is sorry for burdening him with so many worries.”

“It wasn’t—” Hua Cheng frowns, and pulls away from Xie Lian’s hug, feeling abruptly in control again. This, at least, he understands. “First, gege’s pain is not his fault.” He instructs, narrowing his eye at his beloved. “Say it.”

“This one’s pain was not my fault.” Xie Lian mutters, eyes flicking away. “But San Lang—”

“Second,” Hua Cheng hurries, tapping his finger lightly three times against Xie Lian’s lips, “this one’s dreams were not of those things last night. Gege doesn’t have to worry. This one only feels better when he spoils his beloved, no matter the reason.”

Xie Lian lets out a breath, his shoulders loosening again. He smiles, soft and warm, and cups Hua Cheng’s cheeks.

“So kind.” he praises, guiding Hua Cheng down into a kiss. “How could this one decline if it makes his San Lang feel better?”

Hua Cheng is grateful for the clatter he can make in the kitchen. He’s grateful for Xie Lian’s easy chatter. It covers the low growling of his stomach and the deafening thunder of a heartbeat still pounding against his ears from the inside. He’s grateful that he’s always shared meals with Xie Lian, despite not needing to eat. Food is a relief.

It shouldn’t be. He is only a dead man.

He’s never had a hard time focusing on Xie Lian’s voice before. It’s that more than anything that gets under his skin. Xie Lian has asked nothing of him but his attention, and now Hua Cheng falters even in that. His hand shakes with every pulse, no longer used to compensating for the movement of blood through his fingers.

Genuinely, he thinks, holding his pleasant smile in place through sheer force of will, what was in those pills?

There’s nothing for it but to wait. He is a patient man. He’s had no choice but to become a patient man. Xie Lian is still talking, and his voice is so pleasant. It is warm, tilted with affection over the smallest things; things Hua Cheng never would have thought to observe with anything but disdain. He watches him talk with his hands; how his eyes light up; how his tone rises and falls easily with energy.

Even three years ago, Xie Lian would have already stopped himself, folded his hands neatly in his lap, and given him that gentle beggar’s smile that was an apology in and of itself.

Sorry, he used to say. This gege got carried away again, San Lang .

No gentle reminders had worked to break him of the habit. But after so long trying, three years ago Hua Cheng had put his foot down in the only way he could: Every time Xie Lian stopped himself from talking, Hua Cheng had moaned as if he’d been struck dead and slumped to the ground in dismay— no matter where they were.

This worthless follower has failed to show enough interest, and now he is deprived of gege’s wisdom! He would cry while Xie Lian burned red and tried to pry him off the floor of the Taicang Mountain house, or the streets of Ghost City, or once (and particularly entertaining) off the grand martial avenue in heaven.

Now he tells himself calm down . He tells himself you’ll scare him . He tells himself he’ll be worried; he’ll think he’s done something wrong; you’re missing one of his stories.

None of it helps. He fights his own mind so viciously that he can’t remember a word of Xie Lian’s story, thanking all his luck that he must have hummed and laughed in the right places to keep his god from being afraid.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay home?” Xie Lian asks later, fiddling with his much-beloved hat and watching Hua Cheng in concern. “It really seemed to be an awful nightmare, San Lang.”

“Ah, this king can handle worse than nightmares, gege.” Hua Cheng chuckles. “Though this one will be sure to pay his respects at Qiandeng temple in gratitude for his god saving him once more.”

“S- San— San Lang! This one didn’t do anything!”

Hua Cheng only tisks and shakes his head. “So humble. Truly an inspiration.”

In his chest, his aching heart thrums over and over. The confession of his fear burns in the back of Hua Cheng’s throat. He chokes it back and smiles brighter, kissing his god farewell.

“You’re still warm.” Xie Lian notes softly.

“Remnants from last night,” Hua Cheng murmurs— not a lie, but a gentler truth. “Gege, if you  offered because you want to stay, this one would be glad to be your excuse. That heavenly trash doesn’t deserve your time or attention.”

Xie Lian huffs a laugh and pats Hua Cheng’s cheeks indulgently.

“It won’t take long.” he promises. “This one will come home soon.”

Hua Cheng smiles through their farewells. He smiles, watching Xie Lian’s every motion as Xie Lian steps through the distance array into the glaring light of heaven. He doesn’t let the expression fall until Paradise Manor is an empty residence again. A weight below his guts drags at him, throbbing with his heartbeat, and he realizes with a sickening distaste that he has to relieve himself. Unacceptable. Un believable.

How long will it last? How long will he be stuck like this? How long until the heartbeat fades? Until he can ignore the shell he inhabits once more?

He glances down at E-Ming at his side and wonders. A quick stab might take care of it. Silence the heartbeat. But…

He bites his lip. It stings, still sensitive from Xie Lian’s merciless loving the night before. He can feel right now. He cannot stop feeling. Killing himself again would likely solve the problem, but he would have to keep it a secret from Xie Lian if he did.

Unacceptable, he decides at last, and heads to Qiandeng Temple. His steps chime merrily, and he smiles his way through his city. The citizens take one look and dive for cover as he passes. It will be gone by tonight, he tells himself. One day of putting up with the infuriating necessity of breathing and a beating heart; the indignity of eating and all that comes with it; the subtle edge of weariness that he’d all but forgotten during his long, long years of death.

It is a small price to pay, he decides, for the feel of Xie Lian’s cock filling his burning body over and over.

He lights incense and stands, head bowed, smiling to himself as he prays.

This follower thanks dianxia for saving him from distress, for his unending kindness and affection, and for fucking this unworthy follower completely senseless.

He grins to himself, and stifles a wicked laugh thinking of his highness receiving such a prayer.

Three days.

Three. Days.

The heartbeat thrums. The body hungers. He has to frequent the bathroom, and thanks his lucky stars that he built Paradise Manor with Xie Lian in mind. Otherwise he would not have bothered to include the room at all.

“San Lang, you still—” Xie Lian had said the first night, between kissing Hua Cheng breathless in playful vengeance for his dirty prayer.

“Don’t worry, gege,” Hua Cheng had breathed, diving back into the kiss until his traitor lungs burned.

He hides his hunger. He returns to old habits. He steals bites to eat where he can, where no one can see him; where they will not yell or scream or throw things. Not that they would. It is all his to take. He knows that in theory. He steals his own food and curls in quiet places to eat.

“Is everything alright?” Xie Lian had asked on the second evening, stroking his hand up and down the long column of Hua Cheng’s throat, no doubt feeling the pulse.

“Don’t worry, gege.” Hua Cheng replied. 

Hua Cheng’s body only lived once, and he remembers it more vividly with every passing day. Hunger gnaws at him. Sleep eludes him in the face of stress, and rather than shaking it off as nothing, he re-learns exhaustion. His heart beats, and his lungs have stopped aching with use as the muscles re-accustom themselves to working. If he stays in one position too long, his limbs tingle. The smallest soreness or injury aches at him until he has no choice but to heal it.

He has to wonder if Xie Lian experienced this after swallowing the pill as well— this humiliating level of humanity. He thinks that even for Xie Lian’s living body it would have been an indignity. But then, his beloved is always hiding his indignities and pains.

Hua Cheng’s discomfort makes him impatient now, sitting upon his jade divan and watching his subjects bow before him and make their cases, claims, and complaints. They are used to his mercurial nature. To them it is a quality worthy of praise in the ruler of Ghost City. If he is a more impatient Chengzhu than they are used to, no one of his subjects dares mention it. Even his harshest judgements are met with bowing, scraping, and praise.

It’s annoying, but not as annoying as the low thrum of a heartbeat still muffling the world, or the way the jade aches against a body suddenly craving softness, or the faint, faint drain he suddenly notices on his spiritual powers. It must be keeping the spell in motion. He takes a deep breath, focused on that tiny fragment of a clue.

Like a swirling drain just over his lowest dantian, his spiritual energy is being pulled away in a trickle. It is less energy than it takes to maintain the smallest part of a disguise; less energy than a single butterfly consumes.

But it isn’t intentional . He never lets his emotions show clearly on his face, but his smile widens into wolfish fury at the betrayal of his own powers. He cannot cut off the flow, no matter how he tries. He’ll stab himself after, he promises himself. That should finish it quickly. Before him, a ghost with lamb ears and a face made of teeth is stuttering apologies, taking the smile to be in response to their complaint.

“I will simply move! I will move my living space! It will be a good change! TRULY CHENGZHU IS WISE!”

“Please don’t do that,” a kind voice advises the stuttering ghost from the line behind them. “Come back tomorrow. We’ll speak with you then.”

“GRANDUNCLE!” the ghost sobs. Their tears are also teeth, but when they drop to cling to the hem of Xie Lian’s robes in thanks, the god only pats their head gently and helps them to their feet.

Hua Cheng’s smile isn’t vicious anymore. He watches his beloved stand below the jade divan’s platform, and gestures to Yin Yu to close the doors. No more requests for the day. The ghosts outside have already forgotten they were lining up, peering to try to catch another glimpse of the god and his ghost king within. The tooth-faced lamb is staring down at their hands, in awe at having been touched by Xie Lian. Appropriate, Hua Cheng thinks as the doors close between them, and decides to be useful for them tomorrow.

“Gege, you didn’t wait in line, did you?” Hua Cheng asks playfully, letting the handsome skin he wore for his subjects melt away into the awkward truth of himself.

“Of course,” Xie Lian replies, giving Hua Cheng a formal bow. “This humble one had a question for the great Hua Chengzhu, after all.”

“I’m leaving.” Yin Yu informs Hua Cheng in the mental array, slipping towards the back door.

He doesn’t escape Xie Lian’s little wave, and has to stop and bow to him before escaping.

“Oh?” Hua Cheng purrs, leaning forward and placing his feet back on the floor rather than lounging where he sits anymore. “And what could the Flower Crowned Martial God Xie Lian have to ask this simple ghost king? Did another Heavenly Official need saving from this one’s gambler’s den?”

Xie Lian’s cheeks round under his sweet smile, and Hua Cheng loves their games, but he also wants to grab that precious face and kiss Xie Lian senseless immediately.

“This one has a personal problem he would beg the ghost king’s advice on.” Xie Lian says, giving another short bow. He’s careful with them. Hua Cheng won’t allow him to really bow to him, but this is a game, so he permits the shallow mockery Xie Lian offers.

“Then speak,” Hua Cheng commands, gesturing, trying to play his part. “This king will hear your plea.”

“This one’s beloved will not stop smiling.” Xie Lian says, lifting a suddenly frank and direct look to fix on Hua Cheng. “No matter how I approach him, he insists there is nothing wrong.”

The traitorously pounding heart in Hua Cheng’s chest clenches in sudden overwhelming feeling. He stares down at his beloved, the smile draining off his face, leaving him confused.

“Does your highness disapprove of smiling?” he asks slowly, trying to gauge if they are still playing.

“When this humble one’s beloved really smiles, there is nothing more beautiful in this world,” Xie Lian says with an easy air of truth that nearly knocks Hua Cheng off the divan. “But this one’s beloved has not really been smiling.”

“Is that so?” Hua Cheng wheezes, nearly breathless with the weight of the praise and attention fixed on him.

“En, sadly yes.” Xie Lian nods, stepping forward and leaving the game behind. As he does, Hua Cheng sinks off the divan, curling at its base until Xie Lian comes to settle next to him.

Xie Lian wraps an arm around his shoulders, and Hua Cheng leans against his side.

“Won’t Chengzhu tell this lowly one how to quiet those false smiles and encourage his beloved to speak his worries?” Xie Lian tilts his head as he speaks so he can press his mouth against Hua Cheng’s temple.

“His highness doesn’t have to concern himself,” Hua Cheng mumbles in return, his whole body sinking into Xie Lian’s gentility.

“Hmm, perhaps Chengzhu doesn’t understand,” Xie Lian slides his hand up and down Hua Cheng’s arm. “My beloved is the most wonderful person in the world to me. I won’t stop worrying until I understand why he feels he needs to hide his feelings.”

“Gege…” Hua Cheng breathes.

“Talk to me.” Xie Lian urges softly. “San Lang, talk to me.”

“I’m hungry.” Hua Cheng confesses in return, the words tearing out of him.

“We can eat first if San Lang likes,” Xie Lian allows in immediate mercy.

“No, gege,” Hua Cheng takes a deep breath. His body needs it. His body settles at the depth of the breath. He hates it, he hates it, he—

“Gege, this one is dead.” he whispers. “I’m not supposed to get hungry anymore.”

Xie Lian stills. The hand that was rubbing his arm slides up to his throat, the backs of his fingers cool and gentle against Hua Cheng’s warm throat— against the thrumming pulse there. His heart beats harder at the touch, and Xie Lian’s breath stalls.

“Any other symptoms?” he asks in a low voice, his fingers staying over the pulse as if it were something precious.

“This one has to breathe.” Hua Cheng chokes, hatred and fear clogging his throat. “He has to breathe, he has to— It is like living, gege.”

“You don’t like it,” Xie Lian fills in as Hua Cheng curls closer, all but curling in his lap.

“I hate it ,” Hua Cheng corrects, the words coming out awful and thick, his eye burning with tears. “Gege, I hate it. I— This one is still strong enough to fight! Dianxia doesn’t have to worry or fear, this one would never have let it continue if it put gege at risk, but—”

“I’m not worried because I feel unprotected,” Xie Lian soothes, one hand finding Hua Cheng’s hair and stroking it slowly, his other fingers still pressed over his throat.

There’s silence for a moment. Once in this room they were so new with one another. Once, Hua Cheng carried Xie Lian here and begged him not to restrain his cries of pain. Now his own breath hitches in panic, and Xie Lian makes a soft sound of affection and worry. He pulls Hua Cheng closer; curls around his too-long body as Hua Cheng starts shaking.

“San Lang will be okay,” Xie Lian promises, drawing Hua Cheng’s head down to his shoulder. “This one has already asked Yin Yu to inspect the box of pills. San Lang should stay right here and breathe slowly. This gege will find a solution.”

“Gege—”

“Yin Yu already knew something was wrong, San Lang. This one won’t give him details. But I don’t want to leave you alone to investigate. You don’t mind this old god being a little selfish, do you?”

Hua Cheng huffs a broken laugh into Xie Lian’s shoulder, and Xie Lian answers with a laugh of his own; bright, but colored with sorrow. He sniffles after, and curls closer, nuzzling their heads together.

“Don’t hide from me again,” he scolds, his voice low and commanding for all his endless gentility. “This one didn’t know what to do.”

“Forgive this foolish follower,” Hua Cheng breathes. “He didn't want gege to regret it.”

“This one regrets nothing about San Lang,” Xie Lian’s arms tighten around him— his body feels too hot under the touch, but he only wants more. It’s hard to find that numbing fear when he is held in the safest arms he knows.

His stomach growls long before he’s had his fill of that tight hug, and it makes him so angry he almost—

Xie Lian catches his hand in a firm grip before he can claw at himself.

“Let this one make you dinner,” Xie Lian offers, firm grip bringing Hua Cheng’s knuckles to his lips before releasing his hand. “Eating is always better with company, don’t you think?”

“Only if it’s gege’s company.” Hua Cheng mutters, but he lets himself be drawn to his feet and towards the kitchen of Paradise Manor.

Xie Lian cooks with even more intensity than usual. He spoils Hua Cheng in every way he can. He lets the ghost cling to his back as he works— he feeds him bites of every ingredient that’s good raw, and a few that aren’t. Hua Cheng accepts every bite, pretending he doesn’t know that it’s Xie Lian trying to soothe his hunger before it enrages him again.

Yin Yu finds them with Hua Cheng on his second bowl of ‘Comforting Embrace Soothes Worries’ noodles. It’s good he didn’t find them sooner, when Hua Cheng had cried into the first bowl of noodles, and Xie Lian had wiped the tears away, and kissed him gently until the shame was bearable again.

“Your Highness the Crown Prince, Hua Chengzhu,” he greets, bowing to them both from the doorway.

“You really don’t have to greet me like that,” Xie Lian says, as he says every time. “Would you like to join us for dinner, Yin Yu?”

“Your highness’s kindness is immeasurable.” Yin Yu says, which is not an agreement but is unlikely to piss Hua Cheng off. He’s a damn fine politician for such a mediocre martial god.

“Just speak freely,” Hua Cheng snaps, cutting a glare towards him. “Did you find an answer or not?”

“Hua Chengzhu, the pills are functioning exactly as intended.” Yin Yu replies, straightening and staring fixedly at them both from behind the mask with a dead-eyed expression.

Hua Cheng stares back. Xie Lian’s mouth pops open with an audible sound.

“Wait,” Xie Lian whispers.

“Waning Moon,” Hua Cheng warns in a low voice.

“They are functioning as intended.” Yin Yu repeats, not as coldly this time.

“But they didn’t— Nothing happened.” Xie Lian objects, his brows furrowing in something bordering on panic.

“Your highness,” Yin Yu sounds outright kind now; outright worried. “You aren’t a ghost. The pills would not affect you. They utilize the excess Yin energy to—”

“No.” Hua Cheng says, standing abruptly from the table. The stool he was seated on clatters away. His body thrums with his heartbeat, numbness tickling down to his fingertips. His lungs ache as he gasps in breath after breath.

The drain of spiritual energy over his lowest dantian aches at his awareness.

“Chengzhu,” Yin Yu bows, but does not admit to lying.

“But it’s only been three days?” Xie Lian says, his voice high with confusion. “Even in the most anticipated conceptions, no one could now after—”

“Among humans,” Yin Yu says, voice calm. “Hua Chengzhu is not human. The pills have a series of—”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian interrupts, usually so calm and gentle that he would never interrupt unless he had to. “San Lang, here. Come sit.”

Hua Cheng hears him as if from a great distance. His body thumbs. His head rings. His lungs ache. He thinks of E-Ming. He thinks of how close he was to plunging it through his heart or his stomach without even realizing what he would have been killing in doing so.

He has not been sick in hundreds of years. He nearly is then, turning from them with a hand clenched over his mouth and a horrible sound clawing out of him in his terror. He can’t hear over the pounding in his heart. He can’t think over—

“Okay,” a gentle voice murmurs in his ear. “It’s okay. Sit down. Sit down.”

Hands guide him to the ground. Palms press gently against his head till he’s bent, head lowered, legs splayed, braced against a warm body at his side.

“Slow, intentional breaths,” that voice instructs, and Hua Cheng always obeys him. He gasps, dragging in desperate gulps of air, trying to force himself to slow down.

“That’s so good,” the voice croons, nuzzling him. 

Something snakes around his shoulder but he doesn’t mind. It wraps its way around his chest and squeezes in a steady pressure. His heart pounds. His lungs ache. The dangerous burn in the back of his throat slowly settles. He becomes aware of his shaking. Of the fact that he’s sprawled on the floor, and kneeling beside him is—

Xie Lian. Hua Cheng goes boneless against him. Drops against his sturdy, boulder-crushing chest. His whole body is shuddering so hard he fears he’ll shake himself to pieces. Him, and…

“Ah, San Lang is so strong,” Xie Lian praises, hugging Hua Cheng’s head to his chest. “Already so much calmer in only a few moments.”

“Gege,” Hua Cheng objects. It comes out an awful croaking sound. “Gege, that thing— I can’t—”

“Slowly,” Xie Lian urges. “Not right now. First, keep trying to breathe. It isn’t an emergency, San Lang. Just breathe.”

Hua Cheng breathes, and breathes, and breathes. Xie Lian holds him, matching his own breaths to Hua Cheng’s, slowly guiding him to a better pattern than desperate gasping. His heartbeat is strong and steady under Hua Cheng’s cheek. The unruly pulse racing in Hua Cheng’s veins must be his own after all, because it reaches back, trying to match the rhythm of Xie Lian’s heart.

Hua Cheng wakes with a pulse in his chest in the plush comfort of his bedroom in Paradise Manor. There are fingers in his hair, nails scraping gently over his scalp as Xie Lian finger-combs his hair. He dimly remembers half-waking to being carried in strong, safe arms, slumped against his beloved.

“Gege,” he rasps, startled by how rough his voice sounds.

“Right here,” Xie Lian’s reply is immediate, comforting and firm. “Everything’s okay, San Lang.”

“It’s not,” he rasps. “I—”

“Wait,” Xie Lian murmurs. “Can you sit up? You need to drink.”

He does. He needs to drink and he hates it, and then—

Then he remembers.

He jolts up, staring down at his body like it’s a stranger’s. Xie Lian shifts back just as quickly, saving the shallow mug of tea only thanks to his impeccable reflexes. Hua Cheng sets a hand to his own throat. Is he too thirsty? Has he done this wrong? Will he let his body die before— How long did he used to go between—

“Easy,” Xie Lian’s voice catches and cradles his panic until it settles. “Everything’s alright, San Lang. It’s not an emergency; no immediate response required.”

“En,” Hua Cheng whispers, because it seems like Xie Lian wants a response.

He’s gifted an indulgent smile, and the tender gesture of Xie Lian lifting the tea to his lips, helping him drink in spite of his trembling hands.

“What a surprise, huh?” Xie Lian offers after. “San Lang, please forgive this foolish one for not considering the possibility.”

“Gege, this one is at fault,” Hua Cheng argues, shaking his head. “He didn’t even think.”

Idiot, not to have figured that out— not to have wondered. A complete fool to have ever let gege touch the pills without learning everything about them. What if it had hurt him? What if he’d been made ill by its ghost-intended properties?

“Ah,” Xie Lian lifts his hands and places them over the corners of Hua Cheng’s mouth. He hadn’t even noticed he was curving into his usual, empty smile. He lets the expression melt under his god’s gentle touch, and feels it crack his beating heart wide open.

“There,” Xie Lian breathes once the fake smile has disappeared. “That’s better. Thank you, San Lang.”

“Don’t thank me,” Hua Cheng reaches out, gripping the corner of Xie Lian’s robes. He hasn’t changed for bed, only sitting beside Hua Cheng’s useless, sleeping body.

Xie Lian doesn’t let the pleading gesture go unanswered. He takes Hua Cheng’s hand from his robes, and covers in both of his own. His hands are so rough, and so warm— smaller than Hua Cheng’s, but so much stronger.

“We don’t have to talk right now,” Xie Lian offers, eternally kind. “San Lang has had a hard few days.”

“What is it gege wants to talk about?” Hua Cheng asks, leaning towards him, eyes fixed on Xie Lian’s hand holding his own. His skin looks wrong between Xie Lian’s palms— a sort of ruddy coloration to what should be dead; pale and perfect.

“Whether San Lang wants to undo this.” Xie Lian says, and the world grinds to a stop.

“What?” Hua Cheng lifts his head.

“I had Yin Yu prepare a list of ways the spell could be unwound with minimal discomfort for you, San Lang.”

Hua Cheng stares at him. His breath stalls in his lungs, and he forces it to start again. The draining presence inside him is still there, and—

“Where?” he asks, voice raw with desperation.

Xie Lian reaches for a scroll, releasing Hua Cheng’s hands to fetch it quickly. When he passes it over, Hua Cheng pulses spiritual energy into it. The heat of the flames is startlingly painful, but he doesn’t mind. He just tosses the burning scroll aside and drops his head into Xie Lian’s lap, scowling.

“...Oh.” Xie Lian says with a soft awe in his voice.

“Sorry, gege.” Hua Cheng mutters.

“Why are you apologizing?” Xie Lian still sounds distant, like he’s thinking of something far away.

“This one doesn’t mean to disrespect gege’s hard work.” Hua Cheng mutters. “But it… Is— Does gege know how the pills work already?”

“I do,” Xie Lian’s fingers stroke back into Hua Cheng’s hair. “It’s not like a human conception, but it’s very similar. It uses pieces of us, and changes… Um… Changes the ghost’s body to suit. And… Drains their spiritual power to grow the child?”

“En, I feel it.” Hua Cheng presses his face into Xie Lian’s thigh under the blankets.

“It… Apparently most ghosts under the spell would not so much make a child as… Sort of a spiritual combination of themself and their partner? But really, that’s a child, isn’t it? Yin Yu says usually people using such an item don’t have the power to carry the spirit until it fully develops into… Into its own being.”

Hua Cheng grits his jaw. He pushes up from the lap he loves so much, and meets Xie Lian’s eyes with his own earnest stare, refusing to back down.

“This one will not let you down,” he swears, pouring all the sincerity and devotion he can into it. “This one will use every drop of power— Will ensure gege can have the child he wants!”

“No.” Xie Lian snaps.

Hua Cheng freezes. Tenses. Surely Xie Lian doesn’t mean—

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Xie Lian whispers at once, cupping Hua Cheng’s cheeks in his hands. “I didn’t mean— I’m not angry with you, San Lang. But this one will not watch you disperse again. This one has spiritual power now too. Let this god help.”

He pulls Hua Cheng into a kiss before he can get a word in edgewise, filling him with his shining, glorious spiritual power. It tastes like the finest liquor, and Hua Cheng moans into the kiss despite himself, letting his god’s strength and care fill him like an empty vessel. Xie Lian pulls away slowly, their lips parting only breaths from touching again.

“San Lang, are you sure?” he breathes, lips brushing as he speaks.

“Gege, is it yours?” Hua Cheng asks, though it is as much a plea as it is a question. “Does the spell only split a clone from me, or is it yours?”

“It’s ours,” Xie Lian answers, leaning in until their foreheads are touching. “It’s made of both of us.”

“Then I can’t— I can’t let anything happen to it,” Hua Cheng chokes. “Not to any part of you, gege. Do you understand? It’s you. It’s yours. I’ll do anything.”

“Okay,” Xie Lian breathes. “Okay. Slow breaths, San Lang. I understand.”

“Is gege disappointed?” Hua Cheng is shameless, begging for comfort— for reassurance. “Is this an inconvenience?”

“San Lang, no!” Xie Lian’s hands on his cheeks slide back into his hair, dragging Hua Cheng’s head back to his chest. “This one just thought— San Lang seems so uncomfortable with the magic’s effect, and—”

“Does it last the same length as a human’s pregnancy?” Hua Cheng asks against his heartbeat.

“En, if the one carrying it can withstand the drain for so long.” Xie Lian answers softly.

“Then… This one will be fine, gege.” Hua Cheng insists, brows lowering in determination. “It is no time at all.”

Silently, in the array, he reaches out to Yin Yu. “I need every piece of information you have. Ghosts who have used it. The one who made it. I will not provide gege with a child that is less than perfect.”

“Yes, Hua Chengzhu. This one is working on it.” Yin Yu replies. “Forgive this one for going above what his highness requested. This humble servant suspected Chengzhu would request such a thing.”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian whispers. “I don’t want you to suffer.”

“Will gege cook for this poor ghost?” Hua Cheng begs with a playful pout. “And help him take advantage of the opportunities this provides?”

“Opportunities?” Xie Lian echoes, tilting his head.

“En,” Hua Cheng purrs. “Opportunities. How many times does each pill work, gege?”

“Ah, just once? From what I understand?” Xie Lian offers.

“Oh good,” Hua Cheng purrs, and throws himself over his beloved, worshiping Xie Lian’s tender throat in the way only he is allowed. The squeal that erupts from Xie Lian is both surprise and delight, and he tangles his hands in Hua Cheng’s hair, holding him in place.

“San Lang, San Lang wait—”

“But gege! This one will only have a living body for so long! And soon it may change with… Ah, gege really filled this one so much even this dead body couldn’t help but get pregnant with his child!”

“San— San Lang!”

“Oh, gege, this body is so warm and it wants so many things! Won’t gege help feed this poor believer’s carnal desires?”

“San Lang, so shameless!” Xie Lian cries, part in delight and part in shock. Hua Cheng laughs, and it rings true. He catches a breath, sitting up atop Xie Lian, breathless at the feel of that laugh.

“Gege,” he breathes, “it’s scary.”

Xie Lian’s hands are immediately on his hips, steadying him, holding him.

“But—” Hua Cheng continues, blinking at his beloved’s face— his warm eyes, his full brows, his noble face. “But if they are like you, this one will be so, so happy.”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian melts. His hand strokes back into Hua Cheng’s hair. When he pulls him down into a kiss, it is languid and slow. It melts them both, until their bodies are pressed together, their hips rolling, but only gently— just another way they’re together; just one in a hundred ways they feel right together.

“Wait till I call you,” Hua Cheng warns Yin Yu out of kindness, his tongue tangling with Xie Lian’s, both hot and wet. He is truly grateful for his Waning Moon Officer’s assistance, after all.

“Yes Chengzhu.” Yin Yu replies, sounding some mix of grateful and horrified.

Hua Cheng doesn’t let it bother him. He has much more important matters to attend to.

He is hungry again after. Xie Lian fetches steamed buns, tears pieces free, and feeds each bite to Hua Cheng by hand.

It is better with Xie Lian. He wakes after their long night of love-making and steamed buns, and finds Xie Lian waiting for him.

“This one is still tired,” Hua Cheng whines without thought, and Xie Lian splits into a dazzling smile.

“My poor San Lang,” he soothes, drawing him into a kiss. “Let this gege comb your hair for you, then we’ll have breakfast. If San Lang is still tired after, we can come straight back to bed.”

“Gege has to work,” Hua Cheng points out.

“I’ve told the heavens I’m taking some time away.” Xie Lian says, nuzzling against Hua Cheng’s cheek. “Feng Xin and Mu Qing agreed to lend a few of their Middle Officials to answering my followers‘ prayers for a time.”

Hua Cheng immediately envisions the ‘middle officials’ Fu Yao and Nan Fang arriving at the same time to answer prayers and spitting at one another like cats. It is a beautiful thought, and it makes him laugh. His laugh makes Xie Lian beam in pride, and kiss him all over his face.

Yin Yu brings him a stack of scrolls after they’ve eaten breakfast, and Hua Cheng sets in to read them. Xie Lian sits across from him, starting on the other side of the stack. He takes notes as he reads, elegant handwriting spelling out a new chapter of their shared life.

Hua Cheng is so touched he doesn’t panic for much longer than he would have expected. He does panic again, reading the accounts— the warnings— the restrictions. It is no trial not to drink— he already rarely does so. Why would he indulge in anything Xie Lian does not enjoy?

But not altering his form too frequently— not draining his spiritual powers— 

“What if you’re in danger?” he asks Xie Lian, looking up at him across the table.

“Hm?” Xie Lian blinks and smiles. “If there’s danger, then this one will handle it San Lang. There are none who can match my power now, after all.”

Hua Cheng’s lips twitch into a smile, and he looks down again.

Then he reads about the outcomes, and feels dread settle in again. No devastation has ever used the pills before, but those lower-level ghosts who have have… Generally the creatures created by the pills are echoes of echoes— shadows of the ghost that created them.

“What is it even going to be?” Hua Cheng asks, putting his head in his hands. “This one is only a ghost…”

“No,” Xie Lian replies, setting his scroll aside. “San Lang is a god.”

Hua Cheng jerks his head up, frowning at his beloved.

“Gege,” He pouts.

“San Lang ascended, and is worshiped by many.” Xie Lian says with a calm certainty, setting down his bush. The wet calligraphy before him appears to be a list of foods useful for maintaining spiritual energy.

“A farce of an ascension.” Hua Cheng scoffs.

“No more than mine were,” Xie Lian replies with a shrug, looking back at his work. “It does not particularly matter to this one what our child is defined as anyway. This one only has one hope.”

“Won’t gege share that hope with this unworthy follower?” Hua Cheng asks, reaching over to grip Xie Lian’s wrist.

The words are playful. The touch says ‘please. Give it to me.’

“This one hopes they will be happy.” Xie Lian replies with a soft smile.

Hua Cheng is already hopelessly in love with his god. He falls further still at the words, and lunges across the table to kiss him. Xie Lian laughs, falling back and not arguing as the poor scrolls are thrown into disarray.

“Happy,” Hua Cheng repeats against his lips, grinning against Xie Lian’s mouth until he’s laughing too, both of them breathing one another’s air.

“Like me,” Xie Lian agrees, wrapping his arms around him.

“Like us,” Hua Cheng chokes in agreement, biting at his love’s smile in adoration.

His body lives around him, and deep inside him something that was still only an idea drank in the mingling spiritual energies of a ghost king and a god, rioting together in Hua Cheng’s meridians after their long night.

Hua Cheng is so proud of himself for staying calm that it takes him by surprise when Xie Lian falters. Xie Lian, who has stood firm beside him for weeks now, making eating a pleasure rather than a chore, and playfully sharing breath any time Hua Cheng complains about breathing, and all-together holding his worthless follower together. One moment he is gathering fruit from Taicang Mountain with Hua Cheng; the next Ruoye unfurls to reach a cherry that’s too high, and Xie Lian crumples like wet paper.

Hua Cheng abandons the basket at once, putting his hand on Xie Lian’s back as he curls in on himself

“Easy,” he urges. “Easy. Are you hurt? Gege, are you—”

He falls silent, seeing the tears Xie Lian’s trying to hide behind his hands.

“Mother,” Xie Lian chokes, “father…”

Hua Cheng’s mouth drops open in surprise. He covers it quickly, drawing in a breath and sliding his hand up and down Xie Lian’s curved back. He has never spoken of them. Never in all their years together. Ruoye shivers in the air, then slides down the back of Hua Cheng’s robes, hiding against his shoulder blades. E-Ming shivers in distress at his hip.

“Gege, gege,” he soothes, pressing against his hunched body. “What are you always telling me? Slow, deliberate breaths, gege.”

Xie Lian chokes a laugh despite himself. It sounds like it hurts. He fights to straighten himself. Hua Cheng frowns, and touches the corners of Xie Lian’s fake smile until it slides away. He is humbled by the similarity to himself he sees in his precious god.

“Sorry, San Lang.” Xie Lian breathes, lips moving under his fingers. “This one just thought—”

He cuts himself off, shaking his head.

“Gege can take his time.” Hua Cheng says. “If he wants to speak of it—”

“What if our child hates us?” Xie Lian whispers.

Hua Cheng blinks. Stares. He narrows his eyes in confusion, lifting his fingers to Xie Lian’s jaw.

“Gege,” he whispers, “were your parents cruel to you?”

Xie Lian blinks, then splits into an agonized grin. Tears shine in his eyes. “No,” he chokes. “No, San Lang. They loved this unworthy son so much. And this one... He tried over and over to leave them behind. Until…”

Hua Cheng waits. Strokes the tears away gently when they fall, and lets Xie Lian breath through the tears— lets his smile fall into a grimace.

“After the temple,” he breathes, and Hua Cheng’s blood turns to boiling ice. “They couldn’t stand what this one had become. They left. They died.”

Ruoye shivers against his back. Hua Cheng swallows back sorrow.

“My whole life I’d tried to leave them behind,” Xie Lian whispers. “Then they left me , and…”

Hua Cheng means to comfort him. He means to soothe him. Xie Lian is the best person in this filthy world. He will be the best father as well. There is no doubt. Instead he says:

“That trash.” with fury in his voice.

It’s wildly inappropriate. Xie Lian is clearly mourning. Clearly struggling with this. He needs to support him. All he can think of is—

Rage makes his body hot; makes his eyes blur and his pulse race, his absent right eye pulsing with every heartbeat.

“San Lang!” Xie Lian calls, sounding quietly alarmed.

“After the temple?” Hua Cheng chokes, his brows twisting and catching his beloved’s hands.

“They didn’t know.” Xie Lian whispers. “What will our child go through that we don't understand?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Hua Cheng snaps, absolute certainty in every line of him. He clenches Xie LIan’s hands between both of his own. Stares at his worried face, and refuses to let memories of him screaming crowd in. “Gege, it doesn’t matter. You would never leave them like that.”

“There’s no way to know that.” Xie Lian shakes his head delicately, a sad smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“I know.” Hua Cheng says firmly. “Gege has never backed down from a challenge. Gege has never given up. Gege’s child will never feel alone in this world.”

“San Lang—” Xie Lian looks breathless at the sincerity.

“They will whine,” Hua Cheng clings to him, a silent plea for Xie Lian to believe him. “They will say ‘my wonderful, perfect, beautiful, gentle father never lets me suffer a single thing alone,’ and that will be their worst complaint, gege!”

Xie Lian stares at him from wide eyes, dark irises ringed in white. His bitten lips part around a soft gasp. When a smile finds his lips again, it is a blinding glee.

“San Lang thinks so?” he whispers.

“This San Lang knows.” Hua Cheng insists, nodding firmly. “No one knows your highness better than this believer.”

“That’s certainly true,” Xie Lian laughs. He bends his head, resting his forehead against Hua Cheng’s knuckles.

Then he takes a deep breath and asks “Though this one doubts he will be our daughter’s favorite father.”

Hua Cheng shakes his head immediately. Then he blinks, catching up to Xie Lian’s words. He frowns softly, watching as Xie Lian kisses each of his fingers, one after another.

“Our daughter’s?” he repeats quietly.

Xie Lian’s lips twitch up into a grin.

“Wishful thinking.” he admits, and Hua Cheng is swept away envisioning a tiny child bearing his god’s soft, sweet face.

Hua Cheng is supposed to be practicing calligraphy. He kneels delicately in Qiandeng temple. His knees are starting to ache from the pose. The past months have started changing his body. According to the doctor he’d selected, he need not fear lacking access to his female form. The child will find a way out when it is time.

On a body less awkwardly skinny than his true form, the swell in his lowest dantian would be invisible. On him, it is striking. Xie Lian has praised it every night since they noticed it. He cuddles the slight swell, lavishing it with love until Hua Cheng can feel nothing but affection for it. The being inside feels more like a being and less like a drain on his power. It is not fully formed yet— still barely more than nothing.

The ghosts in his reading who lasted only this long had birthed wisps of spirits, loosely connected and barely in existence. Fleeting, brief things.

The thought of it dispersing fills Hua Cheng with terror.

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and fights off the physical reactions to the panic with a newly honed precision. He has learned to treat his body correctly. Not kindly — only Xie Lian bothers treating his body kindly— but with the same precise attention to its needs that he would grant to any weapon or tool.

“San Lang has gotten distracted.” Xie Lian accuses, returning with a bowl of lychee, already peeled and pitted.

“Gege is spoiling this one so rotten.” Hua Cheng whines, pouting and tossing his head back to gaze balefully at his god. “It has even affected this one’s calligraphy practice.”

Xie LIan knows him too well for that, it seems. He leans over Hua Cheng’s shoulder, peering intently at his hellish writing. Hua Cheng fights the urge to cover his eyes and spare him. Shame and hilarity war inside him as he watches Xie Lian struggle to comprehend his scrawlings.

“Caution, gege, you’ll get a headache.” He warns, tilting to kiss Xie Lian’s cheek.

“Dates.” Xie Lian says at last. “Is San Lang calculating when our child will be born?”

Hua Cheng’s cheeks heat. Every time Xie Lian says ‘our child’ something in him blossoms brighter.

“En,” he says, masking the gnawing horror that’s been devouring him with mild surprise. “Gege worked it out! Maybe this one’s calligraphy really is improving.”

“San Lang.”

Damn. Hua Cheng glances to the worry in his eyes, then shrugs.

“This one doesn’t know much about divination.” He admits. “We’ll have to consult that old guoshi of his highness’s.”

“Hm.” Xe Lian says. “Will San Lang forgive this gege a rude reaction?”

Hua Cheng blinks, then grins. “This one loves when Gege is rude!”

Xie Lian nods, then lifts the scroll Hua Cheng was writing on and sets it on fire.

Hua Cheng watches it burn with lips parted in shock.

“If Guoshi ever tries to read our child’s fortune this one will shake him senseless and lock him under the mountain with Jun Wu.” Xie Lian says with furious determination.

Hua Cheng can’t find words to answer. He gapes up at him, lips parted, gazing at his god and awed by him as if it was the first time again— as if he’d just been caught away from doom in his strong, warm arms.

“But gege,” he whispers, and hates himself for it at once. Don’t argue, don’t argue!

But it’s too late. Xie Lian has made him feel safe, and now he will question, and argue, and—

“What if she inherits this one’s curse?” he rasps.

Xie Lian stares down at him with an expression of such sick shock that Hua Cheng immediately regrets voicing the concern. Clearly Xie Lian had not considered— had not realized—

“San Lang,” he says, “do you still believe what Guoshi said back then?”

It’s Hua Cheng’s turn for his face to twist in confusion. He studies Xie Lian’s expression, and gives up on holding his proper posture, slumping to sit on his rear and rest his aching knees.

“Gege, it was true?” He says, tilting his head. “The solitary star, this one’s cursed eye, the misfortune that befell—”

Xie Lian is already shaking his head. He holds a hand to Hua Cheng’s lips, and Hua Cheng stops speaking. Slows to a stop with the gentle fingers hushing him.

“San Lang was a child.” Xie Lian kneels before him. “A child who needed help.”

Hua Cheng snorts. ‘Help’ doesn’t even begin to cover what that trash had needed…

“If there was a curse on Hong Hong-er, it was that he was deprived of the help he deserved for selfish, foolish reasons by the adults around him.”

Hua Cheng fixes his eyes on the floor. On the ash from the scroll.

“Guoshi was wrong all the time,” Xie Lian adds in a low voice. “He was so focused on keeping this one out of trouble that he neglected much else. At that time, at that moment, he should never have spoken so cruelly in front of you.”

“Dianxia…”

“If bad things happen, they happen.” Xie Lian insists. “I will never blame our daughter, or you, or even myself for them happening. I will no longer accept that anyone’s life is cursed. After all, isn’t San Lang here now? So handsome and strong? Didn’t this one’s gold-lined path to the heavens nearly end in ruin? I will not permit our daughter’s fortune to be read.”

“What if…” Hua Cheng trails off. He grips E-Ming’s hilt. The hated eye rolls there, distressed.

Xie Lian follows his motion, then lets out a soft, sad sigh.

“Oh, San Lang,” he whispers. “If our daughter inherits your eyes, she will be so lucky to have been gifted with such beauty.”

Hua Cheng chokes on a startled laugh. It doesn't stay a laugh. It twists in his mouth; through his body, so insistently emotional. It curls and degrades until he’s sobbing, clenching E-Ming with one hand, and pressing his face into Xie Lian’s shoulder.

Xie Lian calls you our daughter , he whispers to the thing inside him. Please, please, please, be everything he hopes you will be. Please don’t let me ruin you…

“Um,” Feng Xin shifts awkwardly. He’s staring at Hua Cheng, possibly because the killing intent he’s leveling towards the useless god has yet to fade. “Your highness was very kind to invite us to tea, but—”

“What do you want.” Mu Qing cuts in, arms crossed and glaring at Xie Lian, not even bothering to pretend at politeness.

Feng Xin is gifted with a relaxation in the killing intent fixed on him as Hua Cheng refocuses all of it on the sour beast seated across from Xie Lian.

“Alright, alright,” Xie Lian laughs awkwardly, flapping his hands between them all. “San Lang, please be nice?”

“Sorry, dianxia,” he says lightly, dragging the killing intent back and smothering it. He doesn’t like this, but he’s already made his choices. This one is Xie Lian’s to make.

“I know this is awkward,” Xie Lian allows, smiling at the men who betrayed him. “I want you both to be part of this, but I’ll understand if it’s too much. San Lang and I are going to have a child.”

They’re going to have a child. It’s still a shocking thought, even after five months of panic, and confusion; of drinking, eating, and breathing… The swell of Hua Cheng’s stomach is undeniable now, though it’s hard to tell seated at the table as they are. There is no more hiding it. Xie Lian has made his list of who to tell first and how to share the news. He has a scroll filled with names of people he wants to be part of his child’s life.

His daughter’s life, he thinks to the thing inside him, trying to encourage it to be just what his love desires.

The drain on Hua Cheng’s power is more by the day; not enough to put any strain at all on him, but despite that Xie Lian passes him energy through the day. He certainly won’t turn it down. Even if it weren’t one of his favorite feelings in this shitty world, their child needs every drop of Xie Lian’s influence she can get, growing somewhere as twisted as within Hua Cheng.

(Xie Lian would frown if he heard him say such a thing. Hua Cheng keeps it firmly to himself.)

“WHAT!?”

Ah, Hua Cheng splits into a grin as Feng Xin finally reacts. Actually, this might be a little fun…

“Explain.” Mu Qing is saying, dark eyes fixed on Xie Lian.

Feng Xin has no such restraint. He grabs Mu Qing by his shoulder and shakes him roughly. The sweeping general turns a disgusted, horrified look on him, trying to pry his hand off his shoulder.

“WHEN?” Feng Xin is screaming. “HOW?!”

“The usual way.” Xie Lian replies, clearly enjoying himself.

Both Feng Xin and Mu Qing recoil at the words. Hua Cheng splits into an unrepentant grin. If only they knew how many times they’d gone since then. Xie Lian insists that Hua Cheng’s true form has always and will always be his favorite, cold and dead though it is, but he has been thoroughly indulging himself in this particular half-living flavor of his most devoted believer.

“Not funny.” Mu Qing spits.

“Not joking.” Xie Lian says in return. “San Lang is carrying our child, and has been for five months.”

“That’s why we’ve been answering your prayers?” Feng Xin gasps, wavering between horrified and amazed.

“I thought you were just assigning a couple junior officials now and then when they were free?” Xie Lian replies, playing thoroughly innocent.

“Is this some weird game you’re playing?” Mu Qing accuses, glaring directly at Hua Cheng, his cold eyes burning just as they did when he was a grubby child of whom the prince’s fancy servant clearly disapproved.

“Is it really your place,” Hua Cheng replies, his smile halfway a snarl, “to accuse this one of playing with his highness’s heart?”

“Enough, enough!” Xie Lian scolds them both, though Hua Cheng gets his hand stroking down his back in comfort, and Mu Qing just gets the scolding. “It is not a game. We genuinely are having a child. I’m sure you have many questions. I’ll answer as many of them as I can. But first, the reason I asked you here was to ask— If we think only of blood relations, our child’s family will be only us two. You were both once like brothers to me, so I wondered if you might permit me to introduce you both as her uncles when she is born?”

Silence falls. Mu Qing’s suspicious scowl falls away into an almost youthful, tender surprise. Feng Xin’s serious brows have twisted up into a difficult expression. Hua Cheng is fully aware of his contentious relationship with his son. Cuo Cuo still barely tolerates his presence after decades of effort. No doubt he expects something similar to that fetus spirit to emerge from Hua Cheng.

We’ll surprise him, though, won’t we? He thinks to the daughter inside him. I’ll give you all you need and more to surpass what anyone expects of you. Just like your father, the flower-crowned martial god.

“Your highness,” Feng Xin chokes.

“You can think about it,” Xie Lian offers with an awkward laugh. “I know it’s a lot to ask! I only—”

“Yes,” Mu Qing answers, abrupt and sharp. “When are they due? Have you prepared all they’ll need? A wetnurse? Clothing?”

“Wards and protection?” Feng Xin agrees at once, jumping in at once. “Of course the palace of Nan Yang will provide anything my niece or nephew needs!”

“No need,” scoffs Mu Qing. “The palace of Xuan Zhen will have already provided it.”

Xie Lian laughs, loud and delighted. He’s beaming like he’s just been given the most beautiful gift he could imagine. Hua Cheng doesn’t snap at them for assuming he hasn’t already considered everything his child will need, but only because Xie Lian looks so happy he might burst at the clear and easy agreement from two people who have been so, so complicated for him over the years.

“Waning Moon,” Hua Cheng calls, sauntering up to Yin Yu hard at work at his desk.

“Chengzhu?” Yin Yu goes to stand, and Hua Cheng waves him down, dropping with a puff of breath to sit before him.

“His highness has chosen two uncles for our child.” Hua Cheng says.

“The generals of the South, I heard.” Yin Yu admits. “Apparently they have been crowing with pride in the heavens, and fighting over who will be the favorite. Congratulations to them.”

“Useless trash.” Hua Cheng says, and he’s sure he doesn’t imagine the flicker of satisfaction on Yin Yu’s face. “Gege suggested that I pick someone as well.”

“Would you like this one to draft a letter for you, Chengzhu?” Yin Yu offers.

“No.” Hua Cheng says.

Then he sits, and waits for Yin Yu to figure it out. The moment when the penny drops, Yin Yu’s eyes shoot wide with shock and delight, Hua Cheng smiles, satisfied by his pick. Xie Lian’s friends will force themselves to accept their child in spite of Hua Cheng’s involvement in their creation.

Yin Yu will accept all of her.

His Waning Moon Officer agrees at once, with a low, stately bow. His wrist still looks naked where a cursed shackle once bound him. Hua Cheng’s smile twitches up at the corner, enjoying the respect of a former god he once dragged out of the dirt on a whim.

“Will you ask Black Water Sinking Ships too?” Xie Lian guesses when Hua Cheng returns to their room.

Hua Cheng scoffs, stepping into place behind his beloved and plucking the comb from his fingers to take over the glorious task of brushing his hair.

“Not Black Water.” he shakes his head, parting Xie Lian’s hair into sections. “This one does have one more person in mind, but only if gege approves.”

“If I approve?” Xie Lian glances back, tugging his hair from Hua Cheng’s hands, mussing the just-started braid. “San Lang, you let me ask Feng Xin and Mu Qing even though you didn’t approve.”

“I approve of everything gege does,” Hua Cheng starts over, guiding Xie Lian’s beautiful face to look away from him once more. “If gege wants the pathetic traitor fools of Heaven to have a second chance serving one of the royal line, this one will support him.”

“The only royal line she’ll be part of is yours.” Xie Lian sighs, stepping once more into a well-worn argument.

Hua Cheng only hums, sliding the comb across Xie Lian’s scalp in long, worshipful strokes. Xie Lian is silent a long moment, his head tilting into the motions as always. When he speaks it is with loving insistance.

“Hua.”

“Xie.” Hua Cheng insists, even as he bends to press a kiss to the crown of Xie Lian’s head. “She deserves a real name.”

“She deserves a name that carries prestige and power.” A parry from heaven’s strongest martial god. “Which Hua does.”

Hua Cheng scoffs and tugs Xie Lian’s hair lightly on the braid he’s crafting. Xie Lian sighs at his refusal to argue, clearly knowing better than to take his silence for acceptance. Hua Cheng wants to explain the weight of it. He wants to tell Xie Lian all that it means to him when he says ‘a real name’. He plucks up a ribbon from the table instead, winding it into the braid and draping his work over Xie Lian’s shoulder.

Xie Lian lifts his hands, touching his work with reverent fingers. He always treats the smallest things Hua Cheng makes with such delicacy— from the simplest braid to his grandest statues.

“We have time to choose her name.” Xie Lian says at last as Hua Cheng idly summons silver butterflies to settle across his highness’s head like a shining crown. “Tell this one your pick for our daughter’s family.”

“Shi Qingxuan.” Hua Cheng answers him.

Xie Lian blinks, staring at the table before him. Hua Cheng observes his reaction carefully for any hidden feelings about the suggestion. It is likely that he will agree to whatever Hua Cheng suggests aloud, but his true reactions and thoughts may be more carefully hidden.

The former wind god has not aged; has not withered; has not faded. No one knows why except two ghosts— one of whom once kept an outcast god alive with only his own worship for eight hundred years, the other of whom has only learned the faintest taste of devotion over the past decades.

Black Water keeps his childish, beginner’s sculptures of Shi Qingxuan separate from the shrine to his family’s death. No one aside from Hua Cheng has ever seen them.

“Really?” Xie Lian asks, twisting to look at him so abruptly that the butterflies take flight. “Is that alright?”

“Gege loves them,” Hua Cheng smiles, fingers brushing flyaway hairs from Xie Lian’s temple. “Why wouldn’t it be alright?”

“They… Wind Master no longer has much to offer.”

“Hm.” Hua Cheng steps forward, bending to rest his cheek on Xie Lian’s scalp. The swell of his belly presses lightly against his arm in their awkward position. “She will already have everything she wants. She needs at least one relative who does not work for either of us, doesn’t gege think?”

“Feng Xin and Mu Qing don’t work for me,” Xie Lian laughs.

“Mm, disagree.” Hua Cheng murmurs against his hair, even as Xie Lian twists under him to wrap his arms around his waist.

“I would love that,” Xie Lian admits, pressing his face against Hua Cheng’s red robes. “But isn’t that San Lang choosing someone else for this one’s sake?”

“No,” Hua Cheng says. “They get it. I wouldn’t mind them being here.”

“Being here?” Xie Lian asks.

“While she grows,” Hua Cheng averts his eye, straightening and fiddling with the tassel on E-Ming’s hilt. “After all, doesn’t Shi Qingxuan need to move every now and then so their immortality isn’t noticed? Gege’s mentioned it once or twice.”

Xie Lian stares at him. He stands slowly, lifting his hands to cup Hua Cheng’s cheeks.

“Won’t it bother you?” Xie Lian asks, thumbs brushing Hua Cheng’s sharp cheekbones. “San Lang is so good about sharing this one, but—”

“Gege is not a toy to share.” Hua Cheng interrupts. “This one wants him to have everything he desires, and as much as he likes of those things. Friends, happiness, food, safety, joy… Children.”

“Just one is fine,” Xie Lian hurries to say, resting his hand on Hua Cheng’s swelling belly, and the swirling spiritual presence within him, slowly growing. “This one won’t ask San Lang to do such a thing again. Just one is more than enough.”

Hua Cheng lets out a breath despite himself. He is so, so tired of breathing.

“Does gege want to make the offer to that one, then?” He asks, tilting his head into Xie Lian’s gentle hold.

Xie Lian splits into a grin, then drags Hua Cheng down into a delighted, vicious, biting kiss. He flees without further convincing, full of delight, only pausing to grab his hat off the wall where it hangs. Butterflies flutter in his wake, dislodged from his hair by the speed of his enthusiasm.

Hua Cheng watches him go, then sinks to sit on the side of their bed. He holds a hand over Xie Lian’s daughter’s presence, trying to sense if she lacks anything. The drain on his spiritual powers stays steady, unchanging and unhurried. He forces himself to his feet again after a moment, going to eat and drink. The hunger is near-constant recently, and the thirst as well. His habits from living have him ignoring them more than he should.

He listens now. She is strong, and he will not fail her in his part of this.

“Little beast!” the voice that he’d called ‘father’ spits in his memory “How can such a worthless thing eat so much?”

Hua Cheng takes a slow breath. He steals three meat buns from his own kitchen and vanishes down the hallway. He shoves himself into the dark corner of Xie Lian’s armory, tucking himself into the corner. Hidden among the swords with his swelling stomach and his broken mind, he scarfs the food as quickly as he can stand swallowing it.

He stays there curled long after the buns are gone, and tries to imagine himself a father without imagining himself screaming.

“Worthless!” Hua Cheng snarls, clenching his hands in the collars of a tiny Xie Lian’s robes. The face staring up at him is bruised, and thin, and cursed , and he—

—jolts awake. He gasps for breath. Xie Lian calls for him, but his voice doesn’t calm him today. Hua Cheng scrambles in a desperate flurry of limbs out of the bed. He presses himself back into the corner and crumples there. His thighs press against the swell of Xie Lian’s precious child inside him.

Another nightmare, another nightmare, what if they twist her, what if she can sense them, what if he ruins her, what if—

“San Lang.” there’s an order in that tone. “Are you hurt?”

Hua Cheng jerks his head in the negative. He claws his hands on his own knees, trying to force himself smaller without hurting her— without crushing her.

Bare feet enter his vision, and Hua Cheng clenches his eye shut. His face is bare, displaying the ugly scars over his missing eye, left by vicious claws scrambling for a blood sacrifice.

“Bad dream?” Xie Lian asks softly. “Or something else, San Lang?”

“Else,” Hua Cheng admits despite himself, the word tearing free of him.

Inside, he’s calculating. Yin Yu, Mu Qing, Feng Xin, Shi Qingxuan— if he can’t be a father— if he hurts her, will Xie Lian be okay with them? Will he be safe? Will he be supported? Who else can he trust? Yushi Huang maybe.

Definitely not Pei Ming.

“Will San Lang share his worries with this gege?” Xie Lian’s voice is painfully soothing— so much kinder than Hua Cheng deserves.

Hua Cheng forces his eye up to stare at him over his own arms. Xie Lian is kneeling neatly before him, a vision in his white sleeping robes with his hair falling in wild disarray about him. His whole body is tilted towards Hua Cheng— his full attention resting on him, not out of impatience but eagerness.

“I’m going to hurt her,” Hua Cheng confesses, helpless before the love of his god.

Xie Lian blinks, then takes a slow, slow breath.

“I’m already hurting her,” Hua Cheng closes his eye again and lowers his head. “She deserves better. Gege deserves—”

“Shh,” Xie Lian shuffles closer, still kneeling before him. His hands rest gently on Hua Cheng’s shins, his palms against his bony legs. “She wouldn’t exist without you, and in truth neither would I, San Lang. You know that. What could have convinced you otherwise?”

“What if I’m just like him?” Hua Cheng whispers. “Gege— Dianxia, forgive this unworthy follower, when you said— when you told me what your parents did— I was so jealous! I know it’s an awful thing to think, dianxia, I only—”

“Easy,” Xie Lian breathes. “San Lang, easy. One thing at a time, alright? San Lang has been thinking about his past?”

Hua Cheng’s ears are ringing. He forces a nod. He’s never spoken of it. He never wants to. He doesn’t want Xie Lian to know how quick others were to throw away the trash he now calls ‘beloved’.

Xie LIan squeezes Hua Cheng’s shins, his palms warm even through Hua Cheng’s robes. A brief spike of fear, but— No. His heart is still beating. Xie Lian is just so, so warm…

“Were you truly so alone?” his god asks in an almost guilty whisper, as if it shames him to pry. “Was there no one there for you, San Lang?”

“My mother,” Hua Cheng admits, the words tearing free of him. He only remembers moments. Impressions. “My mother was… She was good, but this worthless—” Xie Lian squeezes his shins again, and Hua Cheng’s shoulders slump, trailing off at the silent reminder. He is not supposed to be ‘worthless’.

“I killed her being born.” he forces himself to say, as simple as he can. “She never recovered.”

He hesitates in the wake of the words. The room seems so quiet in comparison to the screaming of his nightmares and the ringing of his ears.

“She was the first to love me,” Hua Cheng unclaws one hand from his knee, reaching out to brush his fingertips against Xie Lian’s wrist. He wants comfort. He isn’t sure he deserves it. “Your highness is the second.”

Xie Lian lets out a small, wounded sound. He shuffles closer, sliding between Hua Cheng’s knees to press their bodies together.

Hua Cheng welcomes him to the cramped, embarrassing posture in the corner, and clings like the weak animal he is. He has to pee, and he hates it. He needs to eat, and he hates it. He takes up so much space like this. He is so annoying like this, whether Xie Lian says it or not. He clenches his eyes shut and clings tighter to his love.

“I’m just like him,” Hua Cheng whispers into Xie Lian’s hair. “I took her from him. If someone took you from me, I would hate them forever. I would tear them apart.”

“You didn’t take your mother from anyone,” Xie Lian’s hand finds the braid and the red pearl that Hua Cheng always wears, wrapping his hand lovingly around it. “You didn’t take anything. You weren’t at fault.”

“You never think I am,” Hua Cheng objects, choking back a wretched laugh.

“And if your god says it’s so, then his believer should accept!”

Hua Cheng freezes. Xie Lian drags in a breath, sounding surprised at himself. He sits back at once, hands coming up to cup Hua Cheng’s cheeks. He barely feels it.

“Gege is right,” Hua Cheng says quickly, smiling. “Forgive this follower, Dianxia, it’s just as—”

Xie Lian grimaces in pain, and bends to kiss him to silence.

“Forgive me, forgive me,” he whispers. “This one didn’t mean to snap, San Lang.”

“It’s okay,” Hua Cheng says quickly. “Gege, it’s okay. This one knows it’s annoying. Five months of this fool whining about everything and—”

“San Lang isn’t annoying,” Xie Lian’s thumbs swipe over his cheeks. “If anything, he should complain more. He should tell this one everything he wants and needs so this one can spoil him while he works so hard carrying our child.”

Hua Cheng swallows hard. Shakes his head.

“Gege is here,” he whispers. “That’s all this one needs.”

His voice chokes up on him despite himself. Something deep inside him lurches, and he gives a hollow gasp. Shock drags him out of his misery, and he stares down at himself.

“San Lang?” Xie Lian’s hands flutter. “What’s wrong, what’s— Please, won’t you just let me in? Won’t you let me help? Whatever’s wrong, we can—”

Hua Cheng doesn’t have words. He grabs Xie Lian’s wrist. Drags his hand down to the startling swell of a stomach on his whip-thin body. Xie Lian’s fingers twitch as Hua Cheng shoves his hand under his robes, pressing it against—

He feels the lurch again, and watches Xie Lian’s eyes pop open wide. The hand twitching over his stomach spreads flat, feeling for—

“She’s there.” Hua Cheng breathes, shocked dumb by it.

“She’s strong.” Xie Lian looks hollowed out with surprise.

Hua Cheng swallows hard. Inside him, a greedy creature drains his spiritual power, and he gives it all it asks for and more. He tugs Xie Lian closer, and kisses away his power as well— freely offered and flowing between them.

“Our hungry girl,” Xie Lian chokes in delight when they part. “Is she being too hard on you, San Lang?”

“No,” Hua Cheng rasps.

She isn’t. She’s only hungry. He wants to give her everything. He wants to give her everything . He can’t imagine having food in his kitchen and not piling it before this little creature he and Xie Lian have made— this creature that he would have killed without thought, and that Xie Lian unknowingly saved— this creature he’s cultivated more carefully than he’s ever cared for anything but his god.

He bows his head and shudders at the aching certainty that floods him. She isn’t a theoretical. She is Xie Lian’s child. Even if she has cursed eyes, she might have Xie Lian’s face, or his hair, or if she’s the luckiest creature ever born she might even wear his smile , and— 

He chokes on his love for a thing that doesn’t exist. He cannot imagine hating her, even with the eyes he hates. He can’t imagine it, with the taste of Xie Lian’s spiritual power in his mouth, and his god’s hand over the swell of her in his stomach.

He chokes on it over and over, until he’s sobbing into Xie Lian’s shoulder like a child, his living body forcing burning tears out of his eye to accompany the emotion.

“I’m so tired,” Hua Cheng confesses in a sob. “Gege, I’m so tired, and I’m hungry, and if I don’t piss I’m going to explode.”

Xie Lian’s laugh is wet and loving. He squeezes Hua Cheng close instead of casting him aside or frowning at his neediness.

“So good, San Lang!” he praises. “Tell this one everything you want!”

“Mooncakes!” wails Hua Cheng. “Mooncakes, and sugar figures, and gege’s pickles!”

“Everything you want,” Xie Lian promises. “Everything you need.”

From the way Yin Yu sprints into their breakfast only a little later, bows to Xie Lian, deposits a dozen delicate moon cakes and then sprints out again, it seems Xie Lian means it.

“I’m scared too,” Xie Lian admits the next evening, his skilled hands digging into the arch of Hua Cheng’s unworthy too-long feet in a firm massage.

“Gege is?” Hua Cheng asks, sheepishly taking another persimmon slice from the tray by the bedside table.

He’d confessed about the constant hunger, and now wherever he goes there are things to eat— as easy as that. He keeps waiting for Xie Lian to scold him. He keeps waiting for anyone to scold him. He almost laughs at himself. As if anyone would dare…

“En,” Xie Lian agrees. “With Lang Qianqiu and Ban Yue… This one tried to be a responsible adult to those children, but both times I ended up hurting them. And that’s not to mention poor Lang Ying…”

Hua Cheng gently tugs his foot away from the blissful massage. He shifts to cup Xie Lian’s jaw and tilts his head up gently.

“Let this Wu Ming take the blame for what became of Lang Ying.” he whispers.

“Never.” Xie Lian stubbornly insists.

“This one’s answer is the same.” Hua Cheng whispers, pressing a kiss to his lips. “I will never let you take the blame.”

Xie Lian sighs into the kiss, his brows twisting. Then he fiddles with the sheets beneath them, gearing up to say something. His fingertips catch and tug at the silk anxiously.

“I haven’t told Ban Yue yet,” he admits at last. “I failed her. I’m scared of what she’ll say, to see me in charge of yet another young person who needs me.”

“Gege saved that one’s life, and gave her a chance to live it to the best of her ability.” Hua Cheng soothes, stroking Xie Lian’s long dark hair, already hopelessly snarled though he’d only combed it minutes ago.

“I left her alone.” Xie Lian sounds so small, inching forward until Hua Cheng can bury him in a hug. “However good my intentions were, I left her alone.”

“Gege, don’t worry,” Hua Cheng breathes, hugging him closer. “I’ll tie your daughter a string too, okay? So she can always find us. So we can always find her. She won’t be alone.”

Xie Lian sniffles; a small, tentative sound. He’s still trying to quiet himself.

“She might not even be a girl,” his voice sounds heavy and wet as a hot summer rain. “I always get so carried away, and set myself up for failure…”

“But gege, you try.” Hua Cheng tries to hold him tight enough to push the words into him— to make him understand. “You always try. Ask me how many people tried before you; how many tried after. Ask Ban Yue. Ask Lang Ying.”

“I killed him,” Xie Lian leans back out of his hug, his expression dull despite the tears. “I turned him into a ghost. He hated me so much he let Bai Wuxiang—”

Hua Cheng is already shaking his head.

“First,” he says quietly, “I killed him. Gege, don’t argue yet, let me talk.”

Xie Lian snaps his mouth closed again, but he’s frowning.

“You weren’t yourself.” Hua Cheng lifts his hands to cup Xie Lian’s cheeks. “If I were beside you as I am today, I would have stopped you. I could have stopped you, even then. I should have. Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” Xie Lian breathes, voice dull and aching.

“I killed Lang Ying,” Hua Cheng repeats. “You can say I did it for you, but I didn’t. I wanted you to notice me. I wanted you to love me. I didn’t care who had to die to make that happen. To Wu Ming, everyone in Yong’an— everyone in the world — was expendable.”

Xie Lian is watching him. It isn’t horror on his face. Hua Cheng knew it wouldn’t be. He wouldn’t have been able to stand it if it had been horror… 

“Now tell me, gege,” Hua Cheng forces himself to continue, brushing away his god’s tears. “Do you really want someone like this around your daughter?”

“I want you around our daughter.” Xie Lian answers at once, gripping Hua Cheng’s wrists to hold his hands in place.

“En, because gege is hardest on himself, and easiest on his humble follower.” Hua Cheng teases, though he keeps his tone as gentle as he can. “This one is sorry for Lang Ying’s fate, gege. If he had spoken to you instead of falling for Bai Wuxiang’s hatred, he would still be here. This one has no doubt.”

Xie Lian shivers once more, then slowly crawls up to curl at Hua Cheng’s side. Hua Cheng plucks a piece of persimmon from the plate. He ate only one piece of the best and ripest of them. Now he feeds the rest of it to his beloved, piece by piece, watching him melt under the affection.

“Tell her,” he urges only after Xie Lian has eaten all but one piece of a perfectly ripe persimmon and let out an enormous sigh.

“What if—” Xie Lian starts.

“Tell her.” Hua Cheng repeats. “This one will even let her touch his stomach if gege likes. That fallen official of hers can come too. This one won’t even threaten him for making that snake bite gege.”

“Oh! General Hua, she moved!”

“Strong, right?” Xie Lian asks, preening.

“No fair, no fair!” Shi Qingxuan whines. “Hua Chengzhu, didn’t you ask me to be an uncle to this little sprout? Don’t I get to greet her too?”

“No.” Hua Cheng replies before looking down to the little pickle-pot Wrath spirit touching his belly. “She’ll kick again soon. Just wait for her.”

Xie Lian leans in closer to his side and whispers:

“Hua. Even I used that name once, it runs in our family.”

“Xie,” Hua Cheng replies, tilting his head against his lover’s, “She should be named for the god I prayed to when she was conceived.”

Pei Xiu tries very very hard to observe the swords Xie Lian has decorated their bedroom with and not look at any of them.

“Chengzhu, Chengzhu, if I officially cast my vote for ‘Xie’ can I greet her?” Shi Qingxuan offers.

Hua Cheng considers, then nods.

“Gege, look, another uncle thinks ‘Xie’ is most appropriate,” He preens, letting Ban Yue take the ex-windmaster’s good hand and settle it over the swell of his stomach where Xie Lian’s daughter has been exercising her will.

“That makes three of four!” Shi Qingxuan chirps, cheeks dimpling with their smile.

“San Lang is a shameless bribe-giver.” Xie Lian accuses, but his eyes are too soft for it to be a complaint.

Shi Qingxuan squeals in delight at the press of a foot from within, and Xie Lian laughs with a prideful glee that suits him so well. The child moves in Hua Cheng decisively now, kicking and stretching. He sends a pulse of spiritual energy to her— he will never let her be hungry enough to have to take what he doesn’t offer. She presses harder, foot or head against Shi Qingxuan’s hand and the rest of her pressing back and up until Hua Cheng can hardly breathe. He smiles past the discomfort, treasuring the proof of her.

“So you haven’t even picked her family name yet?” Ban Yue asks, blinking up at Hua Cheng with her guileless, dark eyes.

Hua Cheng thinks of how Xie Lian had relaxed out of his anxious spiral with her enthusiastic support, and cannot bring himself to scold her for addressing him. Just another member of the extended family, he supposes. What an inconvenience…

She Qingxuan is still touching him, waiting for the baby’s next kick. Hua Cheng considers slapping their hand away when a fun game occurs to him. He smirks to himself and sends a quick message through the array.

“There’s time before she needs naming,” Xie Lian says warmly when Hua Cheng refuses to answer. “A few more months before she even enters the world.”

“She seems to think she’s ready now,” Shi Qingxuan notes, glancing up to Hua Cheng as if to include him in the conversation.

Hua Cheng smiles at them, but not an entirely kind smile. If Shi Qingxuan were a little more cautious around him, they wouldn’t have been caught off guard.

The doorway opens with the glow of an array, and He Xuen walks through, boiling black robes whipping around his bony frame, and promptly freezes. His eyes flick from Shi Qingxuan (staring at the door) to their hand (pressed firmly against Hua Cheng’s pregnant belly) to Hua Cheng (smirking unrepentantly) to Xie Lian (startled, but already waving hello) to Ban Yue (jumping before Pei Xiu and lifting her claws) then finally back to Hua Cheng. The poor exiled Pei Xiu goes completely ignored. Hua Cheng bites back laughter.

“I hate you.” Black Water Sinking Ships says, turning his burning yellow gaze on Hua Cheng.

“What a way to greet the new empress of Ghost City,” Hua Cheng snipes back, gesturing to himself.

“San Lang,” scolds Xie Lian, coming up to wrap an arm around the admittedly-quite-frightened Shi Qingxuan.

But instead of scolding him for that, Xie Lian just says “you hadn’t told Black Water yet?” 

“Gege, this one was so busy, and pregnancy has made him so forgetful,” Hua Cheng pouts.

“Congratulations.” Black Water Sinking Ships says to Xie Lian. “If you need to get away from him, feel free to call.”

“That will never happen.” Xie Lian says with calm assurance. “Come back for a proper visit soon, please!”

Black Water Sinking Ships grunts, casts once more glance to Shi Qingxuan, then whirls back through the array he came in from, slamming the door behind him.

“Fun,” Hua Cheng comments.

“San Lang, so naughty!” Xie Lian scolds, rubbing Shi Qingxuan’s arm up and down.

“Haha… It’s, ah… in Hua Chengzhu’s nature after all, your highness,” Shi Qingxuan says haltingly. “With Black Water how he is, surely he’d want to inform him in a way where he was fully in control and the conversation wouldn’t last too long.”

“You get it.” Hua Cheng says with approval, patting his chosen aunt on their shoulder.

Shi Qingxuan should jump or startle, but they just turn with a wobbly grin and eyes full of misplaced trust. Hua Cheng restrains a sigh. Damn it, now he’s responsible for this one too…

Xie Lian’s daughter kicks while her father tries to laugh off the startling development. Hua Cheng breathes slowly, making sure the breath reaches her. He’s tired again. It seems like he’s always tired. He checks his spiritual power, but it’s still overflowing— still bountiful on its own, and supplemented by Xie Lian’s lingering strength.

Not long , he soothes his daughter inside his mind. Patience. You aren’t done yet .

It’s still a fear in the back of his mind. What will she be?

“Think she’ll end up a god too?” Shi Qingxuan wonders aloud, staring at Hua Cheng’s belly again.

“No!” Xie Lian and Hua Cheng bark at the same time, before looking at each other and breaking into smiles.

“Oh, and here they go,” Shi Qingxuan murmurs as Xie Lian launches himself into Hua Cheng’s arms to kiss him breathless at the unanimous feeling.

To be a god is to be a hero. To be a hero to Xie Lian and Hua Cheng means only sacrifice and pain. If they can spare their daughter that, they will. Without a doubt.

Hua Cheng makes room in Paradise Manor. He started building the day he found out, and he has not stopped since. He works with E-Ming as he always has, swiftly cutting the wood he needs, building, carving, and painting. He doesn’t do well with idleness. He never has. Paradise Manor has a whole new wing to fit the little one’s chosen family, and the family of the wetnurse Yin Yu and Xie Lian have contracted.

He takes off his outer robes to work, and laughs at the picture he makes.

“Gege, would you still cover the eyes of your friends seeing this?” he asks, gesturing to his sweat-drenched form with the startling bulge of his pregnancy— utterly unavoidable now.

Xie Lian looks up, with his sleeves bound up and his hammer still raised. He beams at Hua Cheng, his eyes alight with unavoidable adoration.

“San Lang is the most handsome!” he insists. “Like this he is a vision. Truly this god is blessed!”

Hua Cheng scoffs loudly, shaking his head and going back to his work. The child’s room is long done— there is only the art to finish inside. This room will be for Ban Yue. Not always, but when she visits. She is special to gege, so she will have better than the normal guest rooms. He’s already considering the incorporation of scorpion-snake motifs into the furniture he’ll build for her.

First, though, he wants to finish the paintings for their daughter. He has turned her room into a meadow in all ways but reality. He has etched butterflies in silver and set them all around the walls, as if she will not have her own fleet of them to follow her. He has painted cranes in flight, and every symbol for luck, longevity, and happiness he can think of.

It is dizzyingly bright and lively, but he still feels it isn’t enough. How could it ever be enough for so precious a creature as Dianxia’s daughter?

He’s opening his mouth to reply when his head swims. He wavers, E-Ming swings away from his body of its own accord, guarding him from its blade. It quivers. Or he quivers? There is quivering.

Xie Lian catches him before he can hit the ground. Xie Lian is so good at catching him. Hua Cheng wants to tell him so, dizzy and wet with sweat, and— oh, he should apologize for the sweat too, but—

Xie Lian’s lips meet his and he sighs in pleasure, sinking into the kiss; into the taste of his spiritual energy. It pours down through him, awakening limbs shaky with exhaustion. Hua Cheng blinks once. Twice. He closes his eyes, brows furrowing as he swallows down the spiritual power he’s being offered.

When at last Xie Lian releases him, he’s stopped quivering like a blade of grass in the wind.

“Sorry, gege,” he breathes. “This one didn’t notice.”

“Are you hurt?” Xie Lian asks, one hand looped around Hua Cheng’s back and the other resting over his pounding heartbeat.

“She’s fine,” Hua Cheng assures at once. “I’ve been making sure she’s fine. Don’t worry, gege.”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian says in his ‘scolding’ voice. “Are you hurt?”

Hua Cheng swallows. He shakes his head.

“Only a little dizzy. Nothing to worry about, gege.”

Xie Lian seems to disagree. Hua Cheng can see it in the way his precious eyebrows furrow, and his lips press together. His eyes tighten at the corners, and Hua Cheng can’t help but smile at the touching picture of his beloved god’s concern. 

His smile drops into surprise as he’s abruptly scooped up into those strong arms he loves so dearly. His head swims at the motion, and he fumbles into a grip on Xie Lian’s robes, pressing closer to him. He can feel his pulse all through his body, but he’s gotten so used to ignoring it as hard as he can that it barely registers.

He presses his face into Xie Lian’s sweaty shoulder, dragging in the smell of him. He should object to being carried around— it’s definitely too much trouble for gege to go through— but he has always loved being held in Xie Lian’s arms. He clutches at the robes under his hands as if he were still a filthy child, and fills his senses with Xie Lian.

He even ventures to nip at his neck, enjoying the flavor of him. Xie Lian makes a very undignified sound, but only holds him tighter.

“Water first,” he scolds, though the scolding is so mild it almost sounds like a comfort. “Then this one is calling for the doctor.”

“Gege, noooo,” Hua Cheng whines, going boneless in Xie Lian’s arms in protest.

The strong arms wrapped around him don’t even falter, despite suddenly carrying dead weight.

“So cruel,” Hua Cheng moans, draped like a body in his god’s arms. “This poor concubine of the crown prince of Xianle is so heavily pregnant by his seed, and so cruelly treated.”

“San Lang, not in public!” Xie Lian hisses. “Have you forgotten we don’t live alone anymore?”

Hua Cheng straightens in his arms, grinning wickedly. “This one hasn’t forgotten, and they shouldn’t forget whose home it is.”

“This one’s so-called ‘poor concubine’ certainly does have a lovely home.” Xie Lian says in a voice as dry as half-moon pass.

Hua Cheng wants to play more. He desperately does. But the child inside him twists, and the dizziness returns. He doesn’t know what she’s pressing on to do that, but part of him wants to lash out and scold her. She’s connected to his spiritual power, after all. He could make her stop.

He grips Xie Lian’s robe tighter, and clenches his teeth against the impulse. Xie Lian says nothing, but Hua Cheng feels him speed up. He doesn’t stop until he’s got Hua Cheng in bed, in clean robes, and the doctor on his way once more.

“Not the doctor,” Hua Cheng mutters, though his objection is weak. “This one hates it, gege.”

“I know,” Xie Lian soothes. “San Lang doesn’t like anyone but this one touching him.”

“En.” Hua Cheng agrees.

“I wish I knew all the doctor does, so I could do that for you,” Xie Lian offers him, even as he gently lifts a shallow cup of water to Hua Cheng’s lips.

“Gege, I can drink.” Hua Cheng objects, lifting his own hands to second his god’s hold.

“San Lang is so mistreated by the cruel crown prince,” Xie Lian coos, half-playful. “Won’t he let this one spoil him a little?”

Well, Hua Cheng thinks as he obediently drops his hands back to his sides, there’s only one answer to that .

He has to admit, water tastes immeasurably better when poured gently through his lips by his beloved god.

“Gege, no.” Hua Cheng breathes, staring up at him. “No, tell that hack no, get another doctor, or—”

“Bed rest.” Xie Lian repeats, immovable as the stars. “Until you’ve built up enough blood again. Possibly until the pregnancy is over.”

“But gege, that’s three months!” Hua Cheng objects, sitting forward on the bed in his distress. “This one can’t— This one has a city to run! I’ve already left the Gambler’s Den too long, and the additions aren’t finished, and—”

“And San Lang is anemic, draining his spiritual energy at high levels by the day, and working himself into the ground to provide for his daughter.” Xie Lian interrupts, placing his hands on his shoulders and pushing gently. “Lie down.”

“No,” Hua Cheng replies, defiant. “That idiot doesn’t know anything. He only poked and prodded! He wouldn’t even speak to me directly, but made gege carry the news!”

“He thought you might kill him for telling you his advice.” Xie Lian says with a small smile heavily implying that he knows full well the doctor was right.

“Bring him back.” Hua Cheng says dangerously, and E-Ming rattles in agreement.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian leans over him on the bed, bracing one hand on his far side. His half-bound hair slips over his shoulders to pool on Hua Cheng’s chest, and oh… Oh, he already knows he’s lost this fight.

“Please?” Xie Lian whispers, and even E-Ming seems to droop at the tender request.

Hua Cheng’s face immediately slides towards his empty smile, but he pushes it back with a force of will. He takes a slow breath. It’s harder to breathe recently. It’s frustrating that he has to breathe at all. Even after so many months, he still can’t wait to simply be dead again…

“Gege knows this one can’t deny him.” Hua Cheng mutters, trying to hide his genuine distress under playfulness. “But in bed? Gege I’ll go crazy.”

“Compromise,” Xie Lian says softly, bending to touch their foreheads together. “Room rest. This one will bring things to keep San Lang’s hands busy, and San Lang can move about as he likes. But for the city and the construction—”

Hua Cheng sighs dramatically to hide his genuine frown. Frustration wells dark and dangerous in him, and for a moment he fears it will infect the precious creature he carries inside himself. He clenches his jaw, trying to regain control. It doesn’t go unnoticed.

Xie Lian is always needlessly tender with him; endlessly gentle. His fingertips brush over the bunched muscles at the corner of Hua Cheng’s jaw, then slide back to cup his head, resting his thumbs on the tense joints and circling them there.

“You know,” Xie Lian says casually, “this old god has found having someone listen to his worries has lightened all his burdens tremendously.”

Hua Cheng’s lips twitch up despite himself. He lets his eye fall closed. There’s a constant pressure where Xie Lian’s daughter grows inside him. There is a weight and a reality to her, where once she was nothing more than a swirl of energy. She feels real , and it should be wonderful. The inescapable truth of her terrifies him.

He forces his jaw to relax, and takes a deep breath.

“Gege, if she isn’t what you hope,” he whispers. “If I’ve failed in this… This one is trying his best, truly, he doesn’t mean to let gege or his child down, and—”

“Our child.” Xie Lian interrupts. “San Lang. Our child.”

“Our child.” Hua Cheng submits at once. “But gege, if she isn’t—”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian whispers. “Can it be possible this one hasn’t made it clear how in awe of you he has been through this entire situation?”

Hua Cheng scoffs, softening into a smile as he sees that Xie Lian means to play. Then the scoff and smile fade slowly away, leaving him only confused as Xie Lian stares at him with his most sincere expression. He would never say it aloud, but he knows the expression Xie Lian is wearing. It once told him ‘if you have no reason to live, then live for me.’ It once told him ‘you, and not the state of you.’

He holds his breath to hear the words coming, and calls a butterfly to save it for him forever.

“There has never been doubt of your bravery and poise in battle,” Xie Lian says, stating it as a truth of the universe, “but ghosts are as human as gods are, and fear is universal. Now this one has had the good fortune to see you in adversity as well as in your element. This one has watched his believer face his uncertainty with steadfast determination and unfaltering passion.”

He bends to kiss Hua Cheng’s parted lips, then sits back.

“You could never disappoint me,” he says, shining down on his pathetic follower, “especially not in this. Never think I have not seen how hard you are trying, my San Lang. This one is so proud.”

“Again,” breathes San Lang.

“Eh?” Xie Lian tilts his head, expression smoothing back into his normal ‘daozhang’ expression.

“Tell this one gege is proud again,” Hua Cheng demands.

“Will San Lang follow the doctor’s advice?” Xie Lian offers, a blush already creeping up his neck.

“En,” Hua Cheng allows, eye flicking away to scowl at the wall. “For gege’s daughter.”

“Our daughter.” Xie Lian breathes, bending to kiss him once more.

He lingers this time. He tangles their warm tongues, teeth only barely scraping against Hua Cheng’s lips— not demanding, but not shy.

“This gege is so proud of his San Lang,” he whispers against his lips when he pulls away to breathe. “This god is so proud of his beloved.”

“One more time?” Hua Cheng whines, shameless, throwing his arms and legs around his love and pulling him down.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian laughs, but he complies anyway; wraps his arms around him in return and presses their cheeks together so hard that it squishes both their faces. “I’m so proud of you. I love you so much.”

“Love you,” gasps Hua Cheng, breathless as ever— though now he can at least blame part of it on the constant weight within him, shoving whatever she needs to out of her way as she grows.

The doctor left a menu with Yin Yu— foods that will strengthen the blood in Hua Cheng’s unruly body. Xie Lian insists they have the actual cooks prepare them, denying him even the joy of his god’s enthusiastic cooking.

“If this form needed such pampering, it’s no wonder I died young.” Hua Cheng mutters around a mouthful of liver that would have been much more interesting if Xie Lian had made it.

“Did Hong Hong-er get dizzy often?” Xie Lian asks, genuine curiosity masquerading as idle curiosity.

Hua Cheng opens his mouth to accept another bite from Xie Lian’s chopsticks, smirking to himself as his beloved feeds him.

“Eh, only when this one trained hard or went too long without eating,” he answers with a casual shrug.

Xie Lian observes him closely, then quirks an eyebrow.

“So very often?” he clarifies.

“Constantly.” Hua Cheng admits, and relishes the disapproval on Xie Lian’s face. He knows it’s not directed towards him.

“Never for her.” Xie Lian says with the air of a solemn promise. “She’ll never go hungry.”

Hua Cheng accepts another bite from his beloved thoughtfully, meeting Xie Lian’s serious, expressive face. Not that long ago he was so closed off, only smiling mildly and waiting to be hurt. Hua Cheng reaches out and touches his wrist, stalling him from lifting another bite for him.

“She’ll never be abandoned.” Hua Cheng promises his god in return.

Xie Lian’s breath catches. He sets aside the shallow bowl of liver and rice as their words take a turn. He rests his hand on Hua Cheng’s thigh.

“She’ll never feel powerless,” Xie Lian breathes, and the shadow of a temple aches in the back of Hua Cheng’s mind.

“She’ll never feel unloved,” Hua Cheng vows in return.

“She’ll never question her safety at home.” Xie Lian slides his hand up to rest over Hua Cheng’s stomach.

“She’ll never suffer alone.” Hua Cheng takes Xie Lian’s wrist and guides his palm to the tight skin of his side, where he can feel her skull pressing against him. His body has changed so abruptly he has stripes of even paler skin like scars there.

“That can’t be comfortable,” Xie Lian laughs past teary eyes, feeling her shove against Hua Cheng’s stomach to get closer to his touch.

“She’s okay.” Hua Cheng objects, though it isn’t comfortable. She likes to stretch out recently. “She needs more blood than this old ghost can provide her. Gege’s tender care will surely help to rescue his poor daughter from this one’s weak body.”

“Nothing about San Lang is weak.” Xie Lian murmurs, bending to kiss his stomach firmly.

Hua Cheng rests his hand in Xie Lian’s hair, brushing it back so he can watch his beloved’s face.

“Hello little flower,” Xie Lian whispers into the swell of her. “Grow gently, won’t you? Your A-Die is fighting so hard for you.”

“A-Die,” Hua Cheng repeats through numb lips.

“Unless you prefer Baba?” Xie Lian offers, glancing up at him. “This one thought she might call each of us one.”

Hua Cheng stares down at the picture he makes, cheek pillowed on his belly, one hand beneath his robes to feel their daughter move, eyes practically glowing in the candlelight.

“Gege must be her baba.” he agrees softly. “It suits him so well.”

Silently, he tries to envision a child looking at him with Xie Lian’s deep eyes and calling him A-Die. He cannot imagine her voice, but he can almost see her. Xie Lian’s smle, Xie Lian’s eyes, and…

...And his own posture. His own confidence, but without the lies that he built it out of. She will have the surety of a ghost king wrapped in a little girl so kind that the world will weep in gratitude, and so fierce that none will dare stand against her.

Xie Lian brings his carving supplies, and Hua Cheng settles on a near-literal mountain of cushions to work. His fingers, already itching for something to do, find the most familiar figure he knows first. He doesn’t fight the impulse. If he cannot travel to the temple or the cave of ten thousand gods, he will have to make his own place of worship. He blows dust free from the carving, and smiles down at the elegant image of his god.

Xie Lian puts his head in his hands the moment he returns to the room and sees it. Hua Cheng fights to hide a smirk.

“Well, now he’s lonely,” Xie Lian sighs once he’s recovered himself. “San Lang will have to carve him a ghost king soon.”

“This one will carve him a ghost king now.” Hua Cheng agrees, grinning in delight as Xie Lian lifts the statue of himself, turning it back and forth with his cheeks flushed a perfect pink.

He can’t help himself. He sends up a prayer in thanks for the view.

Xie Lian hums to himself for a moment, then blinks twice and chokes on a laugh, looking at his husband with sparkling eyes.

“Feng Xin says to make you stop praying.” He teases.

“Feng Xin himself?” Hua Cheng puts on his very best shocked face, putting a hand to his chest. “Surely he could have sent a lower official! Someone useless, like Nan Feng.”

“Terrible,” Xie Lian accuses, kneeling behind his beloved. “Did you remember to stop for food and water?”

“Gege, there’s no choice but to stop,” Hua Cheng moans, falling dramatically back against his beloved’s chest. “This child of gege’s is too powerful, and has all sorts of demands, and practices her sword stances on this one’s poor bladder.”

Xie Lian snorts inelegantly, and Hua Cheng beams in triumph. Then Xie Lian’s arms snake around Hua Cheng’s chest, resting atop the swell of his stomach.

“Little flower, be kind,” he scolds softly. “Besides, you’ll never learn proper sword fighting form in such a way. Wait for your Baba to teach you.”

Hua Cheng lets out a startled breath and beams in delight at the ceiling of their room, braced on Xie Lian’s chest. He can already imagine it: her chubby cheeks and her tiny hands wrapped around a sword, and Xie Lian’s endless patience guiding her…

“Baba gets to teach her swordwork?” He asks with a playful pout.

“If she’s better suited to the saber, she’s all yours.” Xie Lian soothes, kissing him behind his ear.

“This one will teach her calligraphy, then.” Hua Cheng declares, and Xie Lian almost screams with his laughter following the statement. It is incredibly rude.

Hua Cheng loves it when Xie Lian is rude. He turns on him and tackles him to the ground, kissing away his laughter in vengeance.

Once they’ve kissed each other breathless, Xie Lian settles in to read near him— one of the many scrolls sent by the spirit of a midwife Yin Yu found in ghost city and hired. Hua Cheng has read them all twice, memorized the information in them, and succinctly banished it to a piece of his mind where he has chosen not to think about it.

While his beloved reads, Hua Cheng’s hands fly through carving his god a ghost king. He’s never as careful with the Hua Chengs he carves— never as affectionate. He has no reason to be. But he hesitates as he carves this time. He glances at Xie Lian, gauging his attention. It seems he’s completely immersed in his scroll, a fine line drawn between his brows with his concentration and his throat working occasionally as he swallows down nerves.

Hua Cheng itches with the desire to paint him. He turns back to his work instead and takes a slow, steady breath.

He carves his stomach swollen. His posture shifted by his daughter’s weight. He carves himself as he is; as he has never done before. He lets his cheeks be as sharp as they are. He drapes his robes around the swell of an impossible pregnancy made real and lovingly maintained.

Bravely, Xie Lian had implied. Bravely maintained.

He carves himself without his eyepatch— with his eyelid delicate over an empty socket. He focuses on the truth of it; on Xie Lian’s lips touching it; on how he coos when it flutters in sympathetic blinking.

It’s often sore now, with blood flowing in his body once more. It’s delicate as it hasn’t been since he tore E-Ming from it. He carves it as gently as he can, because that is how Xie Lian has treated it.

When he is finished, his statue fits shoulder-to-shoulder with Xie Lian’s— stooped slightly to put them more of a height with each other than usual. His hand on his stomach mirrors Xie Lian’s statue with a plum blossom held before his stomach.

The soft sound of breath catching draws his eyes up. He looks to Xie Lian, seeking approval. He finds eyes bright with tears, staring at the picture he’s made of them. Then he finds joy brimming over the heavy emotions, and Xie Lian’s brilliant, beautiful, glorious smile fixed on him.

The midwife’s scroll is thrown to the side in favor of a wild, passionate kiss.

Hua Cheng paints. He carves. He reads. He stays in the room.

“Please forgive me for asking this of you,” Xie Lian whispers into his hair, holding him as Hua Cheng fights against himself to stay still.

“Nothing to forgive, gege.” Hua Cheng assures, even as frustration boils under his skin. No improvement, but he hasn’t gotten worse the doctor said. He has to stay.

He eats. He drinks. He rests. He stays in the room.

“San Lang? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, gege.” he says automatically, then winces as he realizes he has to tell him. “This one… The scrolls say it’s normal. To be sick when waking.”

“Ah, how unpleasant… My poor San Lang.”

His heart beats. He breathes. He aches. He stays in the room.

“Gege, don’t stay here just because this one has to.”

“San Lang, I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“Won’t you please do this one the favor of assisting Yin Yu with ghost city, at least on occasion? This one would feel much better knowing the crown prince is watching over his troublesome citizens.”

Xie Lian stays as often as he can. Hua Cheng loves him for wanting to, but he sees his beloved too clearly to let him undertake that on his account. Too long cooped up and Xie Lian starts getting anxious— chewing the skin around his fingernails, losing focus, glancing to the door… Hua Cheng thinks of Fangxin guoshi and chases him out of the room as often and as gently as he can.

“Let this one check your pulse, San Lang?”

“Is gege going to miss it when it’s gone?” Hua Cheng asks, and startles to find his chest tight with fear that the answer will be ‘yes’.

“No,” Xie Lian laughs— a weak parry. “This one knows how much San Lang dislikes it.”

“Gege,” Hua Cheng lifts his hands to catch his elbows, “this one didn’t ask what San Lang likes.”

Xie Lian bites his lip, his fingers resting over Hua Cheng’s pulse. His silence is answer.

“This one will never stop wishing that he could have protected Hong Hong-er,” he admits at last, “but San Lang is here now. He chooses to be here. This one can never put in words how much that means.”

He doesn’t have to.

Yin Yu himself often brings notes, scrolls, and news. He treats Hua Cheng no differently than ever, no matter how round he becomes. His dead-eyed stare is always waiting behind the mask, his dry sarcasm rising to any occasion.

“It might amuse you to know that when his highness the crown prince informed Nan Yang and Xuan Zhen of the artist behind the work in the child’s room, they both fell silent for at least as long as it takes an incense to burn.” Yin Yu comments as Hua Cheng works through the paradise manor budgets with lightning fast math and unbearable calligraphy.

“Silent? Them? What a gift.” Hua Cheng grins. “Did you see their faces?”

“As slack as dead fish, Chengzhu.” Yin Yu informs him blandly, and stands silent but clearly pleased with himself as Hua Cheng has to stop working to laugh.

Hua Cheng is surprised to find Shi Qingxuan and Ban Yue frequent companions in his isolation. His first impulse was to chase them away, of course. Then he realized who must have sent them. Truly, his beloved gets the most interesting ideas… Still, they always bring him a bowl of Xie Lian’s pickles, so he always relents and lets them stay.

At first he’s certain they’re angling just for another chance to feel Xie Lian’s child move within him, but they don’t ask for anything. They just sit. Shi Qingxuan chatters for hours on end, and Ban Yue watches them talk as if she were watching a great swordsman at work. It’s not that Hua Cheng likes them, but… It’s nice. That they try to fill in for his highness. It makes him feel better about his daughter’s future companions.

“I do have to ask—” Shi Qingxuan says once, just before they leave.

“You’re not supposed to.” Ban Yue says with a firm warning in her voice.

“I’m not an invalid to be protected,” Hua Cheng says, though it is a blatant lie. “Ask.”

“How often does Black Water Sinking Ships come here?” Shi Qingxuan asks, some combination of bravery and vulnerability in their voice. Hua Cheng recognizes it better now than he would have before. There is bravery in admitting vulnerability.

“Rarely.” he admits. “Less so now than ever before, I would assume.”

He watches Shi Qingxuan’s face carefully for it. There is only one person whose emotions he cares for, but people are always interesting. Shi Qingxuan’s shoulder’s drop, and his expression clears. And yet— There, he thinks, and smothers a wicked smile. Just for a moment, without a doubt, he saw a flicker of disappointment.

Hua Cheng makes Xie Lian’s unborn daughter toys. He carves her wooden boats, and bamboo horses. He weaves her straw butterflies, and paints her kites that she’ll be too young to fly for years and years. He makes a tiny bamboo hat in the image of Xie Lian’s, and has to cover his face for solid minutes at the very thought.

“This one is very cute!” Xie Lian compliments, lifting the brightly-painted tiger from Hua Cheng’s workspace. “Oh! Sorry, San Lang, the paint is still—”

“No worries, gege. It’s better with your handprint there.”

“Ahaha… I doubt that… Ah, there is something about it, though…”

“Gege noticed! It’s only a little trick.”

“...San Lang, did you perhaps enchant a tiger with your daruma spell?”

“Not at all, gege!”

“Ah, I see—”

“It was a tiger spirit , and this one was sure to tame it first. It will be very loyal.”

In Mount Tonglu, when he was entirely alone for a decade, he prayed aloud to a fallen, lost god.

Here in his home, in the stretches of time where he is alone, he speaks aloud to a child who barely exists.

“You will have to learn how to read him,” he says quietly— idly— as he paints his favorite subject once more, surrounded by flowers and smiling a wicked, knowing smile. “His smiles are not the same, and not all of them are true. But there will also be things you will learn to trust in him. He will always love you, even at his worst. There is no doubting that.”

He lapses into silence, only to huff a laugh when she starts kicking, almost as if indignantly.

“Gege, the medicine only makes this one feel sick, and it tastes terrible .”

“I’m sorry, my San Lang.” he genuinely seems to be, and Hua Cheng feels bad for putting the weight on him. “Is there anything this one can do?”

Hua Cheng swallows back his disgust and swallows the medicine down. It clings in his mouth, making his eye sting with the bitterness. He shakes his head twice and summons a smile.

“This one doesn’t want to ask for a kiss until the taste calms.”

Xie Lian bends closer and tangles their lips without hesitation. He doesn’t flinch away from the bitter taste, only sighing between their teeth.

“I can do so little for you,” Xie Lian says when at last they part, “but this one can, at least, handle a slightly unpleasant taste. Really, San Lang, it’s no worse than my cooking...”

“Not true. Gege’s cooking is the best.”

“I don’t know what to do with you,” Hua Cheng admits to the child within him later when he’s alone again. He sits by the window, cradling blessedly-non-medicinal tea in both hands and looking out over the lake.

“I can’t remember caring about anything but your father.” he continues when the silence presses in once more. “You don’t have to worry too much. Even if I end up disliking you, I’m a very good actor. I’ve put up with far worse people than you will be. If you have any part of him in you, it will be fine. Even if it’s just his nose, I will find a way to tolerate you.”

But then, he thinks with a frown, Qi Rong has a great many features similar to his highness… But that’s through no fault of his highness’s. Inside him, Xie Lian’s daughter kicks as if in rebuke of his silence. He refuses to let himself think of it as personality.

“I don’t remember any lullabies anymore,” XIe Lian admits weakly. “But I used to sing a little when I was busking!”

“Gege never told this one so before!” Hua Cheng brightens immediately, a new piece of his god’s life blooming before his eyes. “Gege must sing for this one now!”

“Ah, San Lang, there is a reason I didn’t do it often, I really am very—”

“Gege, this one feels so tired and sad.” Hua Cheng pouts, flopping back into bed with all the melodrama he can muster. “This humble follower prays hsi god will—”

“Don’t pray, don’t pray!” Xie Lian laughs, hands covering Hua Cheng’s mouth quickly before his prayers can reach the sour Southern generals. “Alright! This one will sing. But San Lang has to promise not to laugh.”

Xie Lian’s singing is as inventive as his cooking. Hua Cheng hangs on every note, already helplessly in love and only falling deeper.

Still days later, tucked in bed by an eager Xie Lian who’d rushed off after to handle some fire or another, Hua Cheng grimaces as she refuses to settle down inside him. He wonders what he’ll do once she’s born. When she can scream, and wail— when her yelling will keep his god up as well as him. Xie Lian will never let himself complain, but…

“How does anyone do this?” he asks the silence, staring up at the red fabric draping from the ceiling. “Lesser people do this. How did…”

He trails off. He swallows. Then he closes his eyes. She is barely there— a long-dead memory, only barely held together by desperate, childish hands.

He doesn’t remember the words. He doesn’t even remember most of the song. He remembers broken phrases of music, and he patches them together into something nearly usable. Xie Lian has taught him so much about rescuing scraps.

The song soothes the child in his stomach. Hua Cheng aches for something he has no name for, and covers his face with his sleeves so he can pretend it doesn’t hurt him.

When Xie Lian finds him still fighting tears, he doesn’t scold or yell. He sinks quietly down beside him, drapes their bodies together, and holds him until they both sleep.

Sweat pouring, body burning, a pain he’s never felt before rips through him again. He refuses to scream— He bites back the sound between clenched teeth and claws his hands in his own ruined sleeves.

“It’s coming.” The midwife says the moment she takes a look at him. “I’ll need water and rags. The father should leave.”

“No,” Xie Lian says calmly, sitting at Hua Cheng’s side and delicately holding his clinging, clawed hand. Then he looks to Hua Cheng. “I’ll be here the whole time.”

“She’s early,” Hua Cheng whispers, his whole body strung-out and wild.

“Only a week or two,” Xie Lian soothes in reply. “She’s strong. She’s ours. Have faith.”

Hua Cheng has only ever obeyed his god.

“Alright,” the midwife says hours later as he trembles in an open robe, leaving him uncomfortably exposed with liquid rolling down his inner thighs and a horrifying inability to control what’s happening within himself. “This is the hard part.”

“Oh, good, gege, this is the hard part.” Hua Cheng grouses, rolling his eyes.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian scolds with a light laugh, though his hand squeezes tight around Hua Cheng’s own. Their red threads blend together in their shared grip.

“You’re going to push when I tell you, you’re going to breathe when I say, and you are not going to let your body die again until I say so.” The midwife instructs. “So far as anyone can tell, this child is actually alive. She needs you breathing until she can do it herself. Understand?”

“I lived for nine fucking months.” Hua Cheng spits. “What’s a few hours more?”

It hurts.

“San Lang, so good, try to breathe again.”

“Gege, sorry, I—”

“It’s okay. Don’t hold back. Cry out if it hurts.”

He has been. He has to. It hurts, and he has to breathe. He’s supposed to breathe. He gasps in another breath, and his whole body shivers. He’s on his feet, leaning against the wall and held up by Xie Lian. The Midwife drove him to do whatever felt ‘right,’ as if any part of this felt in any way right!  

If not for Xie Lian holding his hand, he’d have killed the damn woman by now.

If he’d killed the damn woman, it might have killed Xie Lian’s child.

Pain tears through him again, and he screams. He can’t not scream. He’s used to a ghost’s body, where he can just turn it off again. This— This feels like being torn apart by the vengeful souls of Xianle, except from inside him . And it won’t— it won’t end .

“How long?” he begs when the pain recedes with the red at the edge of his vision.

“Nearly there.” Xie Lian promises. “Nearly there.”

“Hurts,” Hua Cheng gasps, because he promised Xie Lian to be honest at the beginning of this, didn’t he? “Gege, it hurts.”

Xie Lian presses forward. Kisses his open, gasping mouth. Pours spiritual energy into him as if he were an endless well. It is cool, and fresh, and comforting. It is also followed by yet more water, poured between his unresisting lips. He swallows it down, but compared to Xie Lian’s kiss it is a pathetic shadow of relief.

“There’s so much blood,” Xie Lian looks at the woman. “Is this normal?”

“No,” the midwife replies. “But it was never going to be easy like this. He won’t disperse, and if worst comes to worst we’ll cut the child out.”

“Just cut it out now!” Hua Cheng growls. “Cut it out hours ago!”

“Safer this way,” the midwife says, as if she were not crouching and looking up his robes with all the disaffected interest of a child observing a sleeping cat.

“I’m dead!” Hua Cheng objects loudly.

“Safer for the child this way,” the woman corrects herself.

Hua Cheng can do nothing but moan. Can do nothing but collapse against Xie Lian’s strong chest, trying desperately to keep breathing. His hair is plastered to his face. Blood is plastered to his thighs. He’s shaking, head to toe. He’s too weak, surely. He’s too weak to do this right; he’s too weak to bring her into the world safely.

“Gege,” he gasps, desperate for comfort. “Gege, gege, forgive me, forgive—”

“Nothing to forgive,” Xie Lian breathes, holding him up. “He’s tired, can’t he rest?”

“If he rests now, he loses progress he worked for.” The midwife replies. “Hold him up if you have to. Tell him to push. Crouching with him is best.”

“If I’m not strong enough, forgive me, my god.” Hua Cheng prays fervently into Xie Lian’s shoulder. “Forgive my weakness, I beg you, please—”

“Don’t pray for forgiveness,” Xie Lian encourages, wrapping him in his strong arms. They’re usually so warm, but they feel so cold now against his fever-hot flesh and his sweat-drenched robes. “Pray for something else, San Lang. Pray for strength.”

“Help me,” Hua Cheng begs shamelessly. “Love me, stay with me, god, please, pelase—”

“Always,” Xie Lian breathes. “Always.”

The pain again, and the woman’s voice screaming ‘push!’ sounding more distant by the minute. Xie Lian’s voice is clearer, soft and cold against his burning skin.

“You’re strong enough, San Lang. I’m right here. I’m not leaving you. Push.”

Hua Cheng wakes up in a silent body— still, cold, and entirely his own. It aches, but in dull, distant pangs. There is no hunger.

Terror spikes through him and he jolts upright, fumbling for— his stomach, too flat, too still, too—

“You’re awake,” breathes a voice, and warm arms close around him at once, squeezing tightly. “San Lang—”

Somewhere close, the wailing, bewildering sound resolves itself with a hiccupping cry into a voice.

“Gege—” he chokes. He can’t. He can’t hope, he can’t, “is it—”

“A girl,” the midwife’s voice says, too close. He twitches towards her. “Healthy in every way I can tell.”

He doesn’t see the midwife at all. She has a bundle of blankets in her arms. The bundle has a red face, and its little mouth open, screaming defiance to the world.

“I’ll fetch the wetnurse,” the midwife offers, and Xie Lian releases Hua Cheng’s shoulders to lift the bundle from her arms and into his own.

Hua Cheng can’t move. He can’t hear Xie Lian’s thanks— his blessed words. He can only hear the infant crying, and see her face, all scrunched up in distress. His body is dead— his body is his own. It shakes anyway, so hard he thinks it may tear him to pieces.

“San Lang?” Xie Lian calls to him.

“Her eyes.” Hua Cheng breathes. “Gege, her eyes. What color are her eyes?”

He grips his god’s sleeve, staring at the child’s scrunched-up, miserable face. He doesn’t see the expression Xie Lian makes. He hears him draw a deep breath. Then he’s shifting, settling in, sitting at Hua Cheng’s side, and gently pressing the tiny, warm bundle into his arms.

“Don’t I’m too cold for her.” Hua Cheng mumbles, even as he struggles to make his numb body respond and hold her.

“You’re her father.” Xie Lian says. “She’ll be fine. Say hello properly, San Lang.”

Hua Cheng swallows hard. It isn’t an answer. Maybe she hasn’t opened her eyes yet. Maybe Xie Lian doesn’t know either. Maybe the curse is there. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe she’s safe. Maybe he’s ruined her.

He bends over her— so much smaller in his arms than she seemed inside him— and clenches his eye shut against the fear.

“Hello,” he rasps, tilting his head until his nose rests against her cheek.

She smells like blood, but more than that. There’s something just under the blood, waiting for him to find it.

“Hello,” he chokes again, as she fights her blanket wrap and howls straight into his ear in unending distress.

Xie Lian’s hand strokes through his hair in comfort, and he curls around both of them— Hua Cheng in his arms, their daughter in his. 

“She doesn’t like me. Gege should hold her.” Hua Cheng whispers in a voice that shakes.

“So silly,” Xie Lian scoffs. “She’s a baby. She hates everything.”

“She’s gege’s.” Hua Cheng objects quietly. “She must love everything, even if it hurts her.”

“Rude,” Xie Lian accuses, and kisses Hua Cheng’s temple gently. “How do you feel?”

“Me?” Hua Cheng blinks his eye open. The child fights an arm free of the hasty bundle of cloth to slap it against his face. “Fine, I—”

“San Lang.” Xie Lian interrupts. “Just because she’s out of you, don’t fall into bad habits.”

Hua Cheng stills. Curls around Xie Lian’s child. Tilts his head down quietly.

“This one is exhausted, gege,” he whispers. “This one is scared.”

“Still?” Xie Lian asks softly. “She’s here. She’s safe. San Lang did so well. Let this gege do the worrying now.”

Hua Cheng can’t say it aloud. He knows Xie Lian refuses to be afraid for her. He will be for both of them. Open your eyes, he wants to beg her. Let me see what I’ve done to you.

She howls in sorrow— huge, powerful sounds for such a small thing. Xie Lian smiles proudly when at last he releases his tight hug, and strokes one hand over Hua Cheng’s cheek, and one over their child’s head. His hand is warm and rough against Hua Cheng’s cold skin, and he leans into the touch on pure instinct, his eye still glued to his child.

Xie Lian already knows the wetnurse personally, because of course he does. He knows her by name, and asks after her children by name too, and all of it flies right over Hua Cheng’s head. He’s only staring at his child, trying to coax his own arms into letting her go to eat. He knows this woman is safe. He knows she’s lived in his manor for a week already, waiting for the birth. He knows she will be staying, and he will have to surrender his child over and over, because he is not enough for her anymore. He is not even alive anymore.

“Zhou-guniang, have you met my beloved officially?” Xie Lian asks, warm and gentle.

“Hua Chengzhu,” the woman bows— not particularly low— then straightens. She’s human, he notes. She must be quite a human, to come to ghost city. Or maybe she just really needs the money. “This one is Zhou Min. If you will entrust your daughter to me, it may help her settle.”

He doesn’t want to. He watches her suspiciously, with a dangerous smile twitching at his lips. Then Xie Lian touches him again, sliding a hand through his hair, and Hua Cheng relents. He trusts Xie Lian. He trusts his judgement in choosing this woman over any other. After all, it is his child.

He releases the tiny, squirming warmth, and drops back onto the bed. There’s no further reason to sit up, and he feels wrung out and squeezed as a filthy rag. He watches through a cloudy eye as the woman doesn’t bother pulling a modesty screen or even turning away, but simply continues chatting with Xie Lian, both of them easy and carefree as Zhou Min coaxes their child into eating.

Hua Cheng feels himself drifting. His part is done, and Xie Lian is busy ensuring his child gets the very best care. Who wouldn’t be loyal to him after a single conversation, after all? Even if the money isn’t enough for Zhou Min— and he’s made certain it will be— Xie Lian’s kindness breeds loyalty anywhere it doesn’t breed jealous hatred.

He sucks in a breath as a warm hand rests on his cheek. His lungs burn at the sharp inhale.

“Come,” Xie Lian is murmuring to him. “Zhou-guniang has her. Come let me clean you up, San Lang.”

“You should stay,” Hua Cheng rasps, blinking heavily at his beloved. “This one can make himself less offensive, gege.”

“My San Lang isn’t offensive,” Xie Lian soothes, his thumb brushing back and forth over his cheekbone. “My poor beloved worked so hard, and hurt so much. Won’t he let this one take care of him?”

Hua Cheng glances at Xie Lian’s daughter again. The woman has a good hold on her, and is smiling down at the child so hard her dimples are showing. He senses no ill intent— no danger. If anything he should worry about her trying to steal the precious child of his god away to raise as her own.

He’s nearly too tired to summon a butterfly, but he manages it. He watches it greet Xie Lian with a prideful flutter of silver wings before lifting to rest on the wall. If Xie Lian disapproves of his suspicion, he says nothing. He only says:

“Let me carry you.”

The bath is filled with water so cold that it chills the whole room. Hua Cheng blinks down at his blood-stained legs as Xie Lian carries him. His eyelid feels impossibly heavy.

“She’ll need a milk name.” Hua Cheng says, trying to sound calm and relaxed— trying to sound like the ghost king Xie Lian loves.

“She’ll have one.” Xie Lian says, his voice is as steady as he is.

Xie Lian kneels with Hua Cheng still in his arms, setting him gently on a stool with his back against a wall to support him. Hua Cheng’s hand tangles in the sleeve of Xie Lian’s robe, anchoring himself to that certainty.

“It has to be a good one. Something to drive evil off.”

“Nothing evil will touch her either way.” Xie Lian’s hands lift a washcloth. “This one is going to wash his San Lang now, alright?”

Hua Cheng blinks. Frowns. His legs are stained red— the blood wiped away but not yet cleaned. He shakes his head, reaching down with fingers that refuse to stay still.

“It’s dirty.” He mumbles— a common enough reason between them for Hua Cheng to take on a task.

Usually Xie Lian relents. 

Usually.

Now he bends his head and presses a kiss to Hua Cheng’s bloody inner thigh, and looks up at him from beneath his eyelashes with unbearable warmth.

“Rest,” he commands, starting to gently wash him. “Let this god serve his believer for once.”

“Gege,” he objects, resting his hand over Xie Lian’s fingers, stalling his motion with the washcloth.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian replies, lifting his gaze once more. Gone is the teasing. Gone is the play. Now he only stares up at him with a raw, aching expression. “You were suffering. At least let me do this.”

He wants to wave it off. He wants to scoff. What does it matter if he was suffering? Hasn’t Xie Lian suffered a hundred times worse?

...Hadn’t he daydreamed for decades about cleaning the blood from his broken body and seeing him smile again?

He relents all at once, letting his hand drop limply in his lap and his head fall back against the wall. Xie Lian hums his approval, sliding up to press a soft kiss to his lips before kneeling again and setting to work cleaning his trembling thighs.

The pain is a distant hum in the back of his mind. His nerves still sing from the too-close memory of a living body, but they’ve settled and quieted. Curiosity compels Hua Cheng to poke at them, and he hisses out a breath at the radiating feel of torn and brutalized flesh.

“Is this one being too rough?” Xie Lian asks in worry, head popping up from below Hua Cheng’s still-swollen stomach. It won’t return to normal all at once. He considers altering it now. He can change skins again. He doesn’t have to keep his heart beating. He doesn’t have to feed spiritual energy to something moving deep inside him.

He puts a hand to Xie Lian’s hair and strokes slowly.

“Gege is being so gentle,” he praises. “This one is only a little sore.”

“Hm.” Xie Lian settles back to his work, and this time Hua Cheng watches him. His eye is bleary, but he can see well enough. He can watch the cloth slide over his too-long legs, lifting away sweat and blood and filth. He sighs heavily as Xie Lian washes his feet, digging in like he did on all those many massages over the past months.

“This one feels better now, though,” he mumbles as Xie Lian works the cloth up the backs of his thighs, the cold water nice, and the warm touch behind it far nicer. “If gege wants to be with his daughter.”

“Our daughter,” Xie Lian comments without looking up from his work. Then he pauses, before resting his head on Hua Cheng’s knee. He lets out a heaving, shaking sigh, and turns his face into the chilled skin there.

“San Lang,” his voice is muffled by his leg. “This one watched his beloved die in childbirth today. Please let him comfort himself in your presence now?”

Hua Cheng’s breath catches. He hadn’t even realized he’d been breathing. It’s become such a routine. He stares up at the ceiling. He can’t bear to see Xie LIan’s face.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Was gege scared?”

“Of course I was scared,” Xie Lian’s breath is hot against his skin, but goosebumps rise where his lips brush. “San Lang, I’ve been so scared for so long.”

“Gege…” 

Hua Cheng forces his numb body to shift. His trembling legs splay out to either side as he slides down to join Xie Lian on the floor. He doesn’t care. He wraps his arms around his trembling beloved, and Xie Lian clings to him in return.

“It was so hard on you,” Xie Lian chokes. “I could only watch.”

“That’s not true,” Hua Cheng tucks his chin over Xie Lian’s head as Xie Lian presses his face to his chest. “Gege did so much. This one will never thank him enough. Without you she wouldn’t have lived. This one couldn’t have done it alone.”

“San Lang is capable of anything.” Xie Lian insists stubbornly.

“So long as his god is beside him,” Hua Cheng corrects, eyes falling closed.

There’s a puff of laughter against his throat at his stubbornness, then a slow, wet, open-mouthed kiss.

“I’m gross,” Hua Cheng reminds him, eye unfocused and body swaying slightly.

“This must hurt,” Xie Lian murmurs, ignoring him and only shifting his hands down to Hua Cheng’s admittedly aching hips. “Let’s get San Lang soaking. The bath is medicated, so it should help.”

“This one would foul the water as he is now.” Hua Cheng mutters. “Then there would be no point.”

“Then San Lang had better hold still properly and stop arguing while this gege cleans him up.” Xie Lian’s teeth graze his throat as he speaks, and Hua Cheng’s body shudders.

“Gege, so cruel,” he whines, “teasing this one while he’s incapacitated.”

“This one promises to make it up to his San Lang over and over once he’s healed.” Xie Lian’s arms cradle Hua Cheng’s back, shifting him so he’s leaning against the wall rather than putting him up on the stool again.

His fingers tremble as he wipes the dried sweat from Hua Cheng’s face. Hua Cheng watches him— the intent care in his expression, the tender twist of his brow, the way he keeps glancing down to his eye, as if making sure he’s still there in his body.

Hua Cheng clings to Xie Lian’s sleeve with one hand as his god worshipfully washes his throat. He tries to remember what it is that’s bothering Xie Lian so deeply. There was pain— so much it hadn’t stayed localized, burning all the way through him. There was the ugly, thick sound of blood, and his feet sliding from under him. It hadn’t much mattered, Xie Lian had already been holding him up. It came to him in blurry flashes. Xie Lian’s panicked voice, and his own body gasping for breath, straining to hold onto life just a little longer, pushing, when told, desperate to be worthy of what had been entrusted to him.

He remembers fear on his god’s face. He tries to wipe it away now, far too late. He tugs insistently on the sleeve he’s holding until Xie Lian lifts his brows and meets his gaze. His lips immediately lift into a smile at the pout ready and waiting on Hua Cheng’s expression.

“Gege, are you sure you aren’t just putting it off?” he whines, as loudly as he can manage. His throat is sore from screaming, but he refuses to acknowledge that. “I was warned that gege would never see this poor San Lang the same way after labor, and now it has come to pass! This one will waste away without his gege’s love.”

Xie Lian’s smile splits into an inelegant, snorting laugh. He abandons his cleaning to pepper kisses all over Hua Cheng’s face.

“My San Lang is the most insincere ghost in any realm!” he scolds, his voice bright with delight. “This one was so worried, but here he is already acting so shameless again!”

“Then,” Hua Cheng affects a deep sniffle. Throws a trembling arm around Xie Lian’s shoulders where he hovers over him. “Gege doesn’t find this one disgusting?”

Shit, he thinks to himself. Shit… It came out a little too sincere. It truly must have been awful to behold, he shouldn’t put Xie Lian on the spot…

But Xie Lian is still laughing, pressing their cheeks together.

“Nothing about San Lang is disgusting. It was very interesting in theory! But this one was too worried to appreciate it with any academic interest.”

Hua Cheng snorts so loudly that his whole body twitches and bucks against the discomfort he causes himself. His bewildering, wonderful, insatiable, weird gege…

“As for the rest,” Xie Lian noses against his cheek. “Of course this one will see his San Lang differently after that.”

Fuck .

“This one has never seen someone fight so hard,” Xie Lian continues, and something unlocks deep in Hua Cheng’s chest. “San Lang was so strong, and so brave. Not just then, but for all that time. This one has never seen such strength and defiance in the face of pain. San Lang is an inspiration. Truly, his love and devotion know no limits.”

“Gege,” Hua Cheng breathes, his voice breaking past his lips sounding thick and wavering. “Gege can’t just say such things, this one is still so—”

“San Lang can cry,” Xie Lian urges. “It’s over now. San Lang doesn’t have to be strong.”

He breaks. He shouldn’t. Xie Lian deserves him only at his best. He should always be the best and the strongest for his beloved. But, well… Xie Lian already thinks he is, and Hua Cheng trusts his judgement. He clings and chokes back sobs as Xie Lian holds him. He shivers and sniffles as his beloved washes the rest of his grime away and carries him down into the medicinal bath. He curls in his arms, soaking in the cold water, his sodden hair clinging to Xie Lian as surely as his shaking arms do.

But the time he has cried himself dry, he is aching in a new, different way. The water has numbed his torn flesh and strained muscles, but his heart…

“I don’t like leaving her this long.” He rasps against Xie Lian’s chest, feeling broken beyond repair, and lovingly mended.

“If you're ready, we can go back.” Xie Lian murmurs. “Your butterfly would have signaled if there was trouble, though.”

It would have. He peers through the magic, his simmering, weak reserve of spiritual powers straining at even that small attempt. His daughter, held by a swaying stranger.

“This one is all better now, gege.” Hua Cheng insists.

“Then let this one dry his San Lang and get him all dressed and ready.” Xie Lian coaxes, still cradling Hua Cheng in his arms as he climbs out of the sunken tub.

“Has gege decided what to call her?” his voice doesn’t seem to be working quite right. He’s mumbling, even his tongue numb from exhaustion.

“San Lang should choose,” Xie Lian insists. “He’s going to make this one pick her given name after all, isn’t he.”

“Mm.” Hua Cheng admits, nosing at his beloved’s shoulder. “Gege can do it right.”

“Hardly,” Xie Lian scoffs. “I won’t permit any fortune telling near her or my beloved, and my family’s name book burned generations ago. But this one will do his best, so San Lang must choose her milk name.”

“Something awful?” Hua Cheng mumbles, a thousand terrible things he was called falling like stones around his heart.

“No need,” Xie Lian murmurs. “We can protect her from any evil spirits.”

“Mm.”

It would be a curse from a luckless god to say so. Hua Cheng pours his luck into Xie Lian’s skin, only holding back to save some for their infant. Not a curse. No curses. No matter what her eyes look like, she will be wanted. No matter how bad her luck, he will counter-balance it. No matter what, she will be happy.

“Xixi, then.” He whispers against Xie Lian’s shoulder.

“Our Xixi-er.” Xie Lian agrees, wrapping silk around Hua Cheng’s shoulders, tying it loosely above his hips. “She’ll be laughing before we know it.”

“Once she’s done screaming.” Hua Cheng agrees, heavy eyelid dragging. It feels like someone’s filled the underside of his eyelid with sand, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. He won’t sleep when he can see Xie Lian instead. He won’t sleep until his daughter is safe.

He blinks, and he’s in bed. It was less than a heartbeat for him, but Xie Lian is pacing by the bedside in slow, steady motions. He’s singing softly under his breath— nonsense words, mostly. He seems to be making it up as he goes. Hua Cheng’s sore heart aches with adoration.

“My Xixi will be all giggles, she’ll light lanterns with her laugh.” Xie Lian sings down to the bundle in his arms.

Mine , Hua Cheng thinks, even as exhaustion drags him down again. He pries his eye open as long as he can, watching her sleeping face snuffle, and Xie Lian’s beaming, aching smile.

They’re mine .

Her eyes are dark. They match. Hua Cheng cradles her to his chest and chokes on relief when he sees them. He holds her so close, and watches her try to watch him back, a bewildered, disoriented air about her. She scrunches her nose, and her brows, and her whole face. Her cheeks are round and soft. He strokes them with one finger while he stares, and stares, and stares.

“Our Xixi will be all giggles,” he sings down to his impossibly lucky child— born without his curse, with the best man who has ever lived as her father. “She’ll light lanterns with her laugh.”

Xie Lian chokes in alarm, flushing such a bright red so quickly it must have made him dizzy. He turns wide, betrayed eyes on Hua Cheng.

“I thought you were asleep!” He gasps, mortified.

Hua Cheng only grins. Their daughter blinks at his teeth with a baffled, intense expression, and promptly poops again.

Hua Cheng hates that he’s still stuck in the bed, glued there by his own exhaustion, but he has always enjoyed watching Heavenly Officials fall.

“Call her Xixi,” he commands, even as Xie Lian carefully lays their daughter in Mu Qing’s arms. “Drop her and I’ll skin you.”

E-Ming rattles its agreement.

“I’m not going to drop her.” Mu Qing mutters. He looks like he wants to roll his eyes. He can’t seem to look away from the infant he’s holding.

“Xixi?” Feng Xin questions with a pained grimace. It’s hard to tell if he’s more wounded by the cutsie name or the fact that Mu Qing got to hold her first.

“Do you have a problem with that?” Hua Cheng asks, turning his killing intent on the less-objectionable of the two failures.

“No,” Feng Xin huffs. “It’s just what one expects from His HIghness.”

“Oh, actually, San Lang chose her name!” Xie Lian says lightly. “It represents our hopes for her to grow up happy.”

“I thought she’d be different,” Mu Qing says, so quietly it’s clear he didn’t really intend to say it at all. “Look at her. She’s just…”

“She’s a baby.” Xie Lian agrees with a nod. “The doctor and midwife have both looked her over.”

Despite Hua Cheng’s most murderous glares.

“She’s human.” Mu Qing breathes, his brows furrowed in confusion.

“Of course she is,” Xie Lian waves a hand. “Ghosts and gods are both human too, after all.”

“Stop hogging her, it’s my turn.” Feng Xin insists, trying desperately to keep his frustration quiet.

No one seems to know what to do when Mu Qing nods, and turns to tentatively lay the child in Feng Xin’s arms.

“Careful,” he murmurs, then quietly leaves the room.

Feng Xin watches him go, then smirks down at Xixi’s scrunched up face, grumpy from being passed around.

“He’s just mad because he thought he’d get to be petty about you,” Feng Xin whispers conspiratorially to her. “But you’re already proving him wrong, Xiao Xixi. We’re going to get along great.”

Xixi blinks up at him twice more, then draws in a great, hiccuping breath and starts howling with tears. Hua Cheng can’t help the mean laugh that escapes him at Feng Xin’s panicked expression, even though it makes Xie Lian sigh heavily and put his face in his hands.

“Your highness, she looks just like you,” Shi Qingxuan says, hovering close to Xie Lian.

Xie Lian offered for them to hold the child when it was their turn to visit, but they waved him down quickly, not trusting their steadiness with a crooked arm. Hua Cheng makes a mental note to do something about that. Surely a brace could be devised? After all, Xixi must have only the best, and Xie Lian had once complimented Shi Qingxuan’s hugs.

“Really? I think she favors San Lang.” Xie Lian replies thoughtfully, frowning down at his child like an old sage. “See how dark her hair is? And the very slight point to her ears? And her nose!”

“Her nose,” Shi Qingxuan agrees with a serious nod.

“What hair?” Hua Cheng scoffs. “She’s less bristled than a piglet. Besides, who would look at nose or ears when she has gege’s eyes and lips? She’ll have his smile.”

He says it decisively, and refuses to acknowledge Shi Qingxuan’s answering snort.

“What she’ll have is a whole host of people trying to decide which of you she takes after so they know whether to run or not.”

Shi Qingxuan lifts their good arm to touch Xixi’s hand— just the tip of one finger against her curled fist.

“Xixi-meimei, your fingernails are too small,” they whine, brows twisting. “How is anyone supposed to resist your little face and tiny fingernails?”

“They aren’t supposed to resist,” Hua Cheng says calmly. “They’re supposed to fall at her feet.”

“Her tiny, tiny, tiny feet.” Shi Qingxuan squeaks in agreement, their face lighting up with a smile.

“No need to release her to me, Chengzhu.” Yin Yu says, his mask set aside for once. “This servant will hold her in time.”

Hua Cheng relaxes by an inch. It’s better to have her so close. He can feel her breathing. He can feel how warm she is. He’s restarted his own circulatory system for the moment in support of that warmth, finally no longer at risk of bleeding out once more.

“The other uncles?” he asks, keeping it professional.

“Currently the Generals of the South are engaged in a silent argument. After visiting here Xuan Zhen returned to the heavens and brought her a golden drum in addition to the robes he gifted her before. When Nan Yang noticed it…”

“He also went to fetch her a second gift,” Xie Lian sighs, putting his head in his hands again. “Which I assume prompted Mu Qing to offer a third, and so on. They are incredibly predictable…”

Yin Yu doesn’t deign to comment, but it’s clear he agrees.

“The pile is getting unruly. Ths one has them delivering gifts to a treasure room rather than crowding the little one’s nursery.”

“Thank you,” Xie Lian lifts a weary grin to him. “You’re truly a gift, Yin Yu. I shudder to think what we would have done without you.”

Yin Yu has something strange in his eyes as he looks at Xie Lian. He takes a slow breath, then looks back to Xixi. he glances at Hua Cheng, and receives a small nod. He lifts two fingers, resting them over her chest as it rises and falls in soft, sweet-smelling breaths. Hua Cheng rubs his cheek against her head as she slumbers on in approval.

“There are things I regret.” Yin Yu says, his words clearly intended for Xie Lian. “But I will always be grateful for this. I can only thank you both for trusting me to be part of her life, in spite of everything.”

“Nothing to be concerned with.” Xie Lian soothes, reaching out to touch Yin Yu’s shoulder.

“En,” Hua Cheng says, though he’s mean enough to add “at least you already know this little one will surpass you.”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian shoots him a long-suffering look that is unmistakably amused.

Yin Yu’s face twitches, but it settles into a smile.

“En. This one knows, Chengzhu.”

So mean , Xie Lian writes into the bedsheets over Hua Cheng’s thigh.

“Hold out your hands,” Hua Cheng sighs. “There’s no reason that trash should hold gege’s child and you shouldn’t.”

Yin Yu almost hides his eagerness. He doesn’t hide it long. He straightens up from the bedside with the child safely in his arms. His dead-eyed look vanishes. It leaves him stripped bare— young and hopeful. He’s nearly unrecognizable as he looks down at the child.

Xie Lian leans forward and kisses Hua Cheng softly. His mouth tastes like tea and the sunlight-warmth of his spiritual energy. Hua Cheng melts under the touch, shifting as Xie Lian’s hand rubs his aching hip.

“Zhou-guniang,” Xie Lian greets when the wet nurse arrives again.

The woman smiles warmly and offers him a formal bow.

“Taizi dianxia,” she replies.

Xie Lian winces. Hua Cheng’s opinion of her increases.

“No need to be so formal, really, this one isn’t so important, hahaha...”

“Gege, you’ll make Xiao Xixi cry harder,” Hua Cheng pouts. “Poor little baobei, is your baba delaying your dinner with such foolish lies?”

To his surprise, her cries hiccup to a confused stop as she blinks up at his crooning. His heart— carefully kept beating for her comfort— kicks up to double time, and he feels the tips of his ears go pink at her attention.

“Ah, look how she loves you,” Xie Lian sighs, awkwardness forgotten in favor of a blissful smile.

Hua Cheng can’t look at him for more than a moment. He’s fixated on the little creature staring up at him out of a brand-new face. How will she look? Who will she favor? What will she be?

Happy , he prays, happy, happy, let her be happy.

“Hua Chengzhu, if I may?” Zhou Min bows to him, waiting but clearly not willing to wait forever. “This one has a child to feed as well.”

Hua Cheng blinks, then frowns.

“Then bring them as well if you like.” he says. “This one is hardly allergic to other children.”

He senses there’s some boundary here that those born wealthy see and he has missed. It’s in the way her mouth drops open. He revels in it. He revels more in the feel of Xie Lian squeezing his calf in praise and approval.

“I— Thank you, Chengzhu,” She says, sketching a bow. “Are you sure—”

“Just hurry back.” Hua Cheng says flippantly. “Gege loves babies anyway.”

She flushes, and grins. It is a wild, bright grin. He nods to himself as she slips out of the room.

“San Lang?” Xie Lian questions. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Does gege think it’s strange?” Hua Cheng asks. “This one learned it from watching his god: the way to inspire unwavering loyalty with simple kindness.”

“Oh,” Xie Lian whispers.

“Is gege disappointed that it wasn’t heartfelt?” Hua Cheng asks, glancing up quickly to him. “This one promises he will not mistreat her devotion. Gege picked her for a reason, after all.”

“This one isn’t disappointed.” Xie Lian says with a soft smile. “He’s only happy that his daughter will grow with such a thoughtful father.”

Hua Cheng scoffs and says no more.

He thinks Zhou Min’s son is quite ugly, but Xie Lian exclaims over him and even takes a turn holding him. Hua Cheng doesn’t worry about it. To him, no one in this world but Xie Lian is pretty. It stands to reason that only a child bearing his features would be precious to him. He does not miss the way Zhou Min has immediately softened at having her own child prioritized. And he definitely doesn’t miss the fact that she calls Xie Lian ‘Lao Xie’ and leaves him laughing himself breathless.

“Maybe I shouldn’t,” Ban Yue breathes, her hands curled at her chest.

“Nothing to fear,” Xie LIan soothes. “The worst that happens is she spits milk on you, and she’s already done it to San Lang and I both. It’s really not bad at all.”

Hua Cheng watches her closely. For all that Xie Lian loves her, she is still a ghost. He doesn’t mind her— he might even consider himself slightly fond after long days spent silently commiserating with her while Shi Qingxuan practiced the art of speaking to the air.

Some part of him can’t help but think of her as a threat. It’s a compliment more than anything, but he knows she and Xie Lian wouldn’t see it that way.

“I think I’d rather look?” she’s not looking at Hua Cheng, and he isn’t letting his killing intent go. This is something else. He narrows his eyes, inspecting her.

“Ban Yue,” Xie Lian says softly. “Come sit.”

She takes the chair rather than joining him at Hua Cheng’s bedside.

“I break things.” she whispers. “I hurt people.”

“So have we,” Xie Lian says. “I won’t let you hurt her, but I also won’t make you hold her. Take a slow breath.”

“But General Hua, I’m a ghost,” she whispers.

“Do what he tells you.” Hua Cheng commands, keeping his eyes on his sleeping daughter and her quick little breaths.

Ban Yue breathes. Once, then twice. By the third breath she’s crying a little, but she seems calmer. She pulls a handkerchief from her sleeves, and clings to it with both hands.

“There’s no rush,” Xie Lian tells her with all the gentle patience Hua Cheng loves in him. “When you’re ready, she’ll be here. Thank you for caring so much about her, Ban Yue.”

“Slowly,” Xie Lian warns, their daughter cuddled in his arms and his body instinctively bouncing with her.

“Gege, this one has been known to stand before,” Hua Cheng informs him dryly. “Some would even call it a habit of his.”

Xie Lian sighs, but he doesn’t stop hovering until Hua Cheng has stretched out the last kinks in his back without so much as wobbling. Then he bumps their sides together, careful not to jostle Xixi with the motion. She’s sleeping sweetly now, despite the fact that she kept Zhou Min and Xie Lian both awake most of the night.

Hua Cheng had been sent to sleep in his own bed at Xie Lian’s insistence, with a muffling spell on the door and tea charmed to help with rest and healing. He had complained bitterly every step of the way, but he has to admit now that it was very wise, and deeply needed.

“Can you take her for a moment?” Xie Lian asks, once Hua Cheng is dressed again. He forgoes his jewelry completely, save for the bells on his boots and his earrings. It would not be comfortable for her, held against a silver necklace in vambrace-covered forearms.

“En, as long as gege wants.” Hua Cheng agrees, lifting her up to his own chest and greeting her with a deep breath inhaled against her head. She smells amazing , and he has no words for why.

Xie Lian releases a breath, then says “Okay, Ruoye. You can go now. But keep your distance .”

He’s unusually firm with his words. Usually he babies his spiritual weapon as much as he’s been babying their daughter. Hua Cheng watches with interest as Ruoye drifts up, seeming to droop slightly even as it tilts back and forth, observing the child.

“Does it want to hold her?” Hua Cheng asks, guiding Xixi’s chubby hand to wrap around his finger.

“It isn’t allowed to touch.” Xie Lian says, a rare chill in his voice. Then he takes a slow breath, stroking his hand down the flat of Ruoye’s long silken form. “Though it’s been very good and patient. Maybe one day.”

“Alright.” Hua Cheng agrees, though he lifts his own hand to gently greet the silk band. It nuzzles against his fingers before sinking petulant back under Xie Lian’s robe.

“E-ming wants to meet her too,” Xie Lian says. “It fell off the wall in its eagerness.”

“And I assume woke her up screaming again.” Hua Cheng clicks his tongue, shaking his head and rubbing his thumb back and forth delicately over the tiny fingers clutching his knuckle.

“We can at least let it look later.” Xie Lian says.

“No,” Hua Cheng replies. Then, because he hates turning his beloved down, he deflects as hard as he can. “Gege, this one is hungry. Won’t his beloved cook for him? This poor ghost had such a hard few days, and he hasn’t had gege’s cooking in so long!”

He sees Xie Lian’s gaze turn worried at the mention of E-Ming. Then he looks to his own forearm where Ruoye is sulking. Hua Cheng sees him visibly make the decision not to ask, just as Hua Cheng made his own to let whatever is happening with Ruoye be a secret or not as Xie Lian likes.

“Let this one make you breakfast, then.” Xie Lian murmurs, lifting both hands to cup Hua Cheng’s face and raising onto his toes to kiss him.

Time has never been Hua Cheng’s friend. It dragged around him for 800 years while refusing to surrender that which he wanted most. Now it flies by with no regard for his readiness. He learns all he can; he clings to the moments. He swaddles his daughter, and bathes her with rags, and sings her snippets of half-remembered songs, and bawdy tunes he learned in ghost city that turn Xie Lian interesting colors.

He watches Xie Lian cradle their daughter, and kiss her tiny hands, and her tiny eyelids, and her tiny head. He watches his god clean the messes of an infant without any complaint or disgust, only chattering to her pleasantly. He watches her learn to listen, her eyes following Xie Lian’s every move.

She starts grabbing them, and holding on for dear life. She starts watching with attention, and making little sounds— no longer only crying or silent sleep. She is fierce and demanding when she has any want, and he loves her wildly for it. She is attentive and focused when she is content, and her tiny face of concentration looks so much like Xie Lian’s he could weep.

He starts thinking of her as his own without even noticing it. Xie Lian points out one night that he’s stopped having to correct Hua Cheng with ‘our daughter,’ and praises him so enthusiastically that Hua Cheng crawls under the bed to escape him.

The days race by. Her uncles take her sometimes, and Zhou Min takes her sometimes, and whenever they do Xie Lian and Hua Cheng mean to do more with each other. They always end up asleep in a tangle of exhausted limbs before anything exciting can happen.f

Hua Cheng’s true form changes around him, settling back into the state it died in. Hua Cheng wears it before Xie Lian as ever, even as he parades his other skins constantly, delighted to have access to them again.

On every one of them he adds the silver-white marks where his body stretched around his Xixi, though there is only one man who has seen them. Not all scars are shameful.

And then on one day like any other— unprecedented, messy, wonderful, and still with that lingering edge of terror — Xixi laughs.

She laughs, and it splits him in half, top to bottom. It breaks his dead heart open, and finds a raw new heart inside. He laughs in return, even though she laughed about flapping her hand while holding onto his braid and its precious red jewel. Xie Lian gapes down at her, his breath catching. When he sweeps forward, it is to catch Hua Cheng and their giggling daughter both in a hug.

“Ah, Xixi, Xixi, laughing before even a hundred days have passed,” he praises wildly. “Such a prodigy, such a shining star of brilliance!”

Xixi tugs hard on Hua Cheng’s braid, and laughs again, startling even herself into a furrowed brow and a pouting lip.

Hua Cheng loves her so much he thinks it might kill him.

If it does, he’ll pass her to Xie Lian until he can get his heartbeat working again.

“There you are,” Hua Cheng sighs, kicking the door closed lightly behind him. Xixi is swaddled against his chest, and he has a tray of snacks balanced on one hand. “Gege has been hiding away working so long this one thought he might get hungry.”

“Wait wait wait!” Xie Lian cries, hand lifting a calligraphy brush from the station he’d set up in their bedroom all those months ago. “San Lang, don’t look yet!”

“Oh?” Hua Cheng purrs. “Gege has a surprise? Or perhaps a dark secret?”

“Phbbth!” Xixi provides, blowing spit bubbles in protest to being swaddled.

Hua Cheng nods sagely to her advice and wanders closer, bells chiming with every step. Xie Lian flounders, hands waving— one still carrying an ink-wet brush and the other splayed in supplication. He looks from Hua Cheng to the table then to Hua Cheng, then—

“San Lang!” he cries, realizing his beloved doesn’t plan to stop and hurriedly adding ink to his brush and rushing a few more strokes on the page he’s been pouring over.

“Oh?” Hua Cheng purrs, leaning over Xie Lian’s pose to look down at the scroll he’s working on.

He almost drops the tray of treats. He stares. Xie Lian puffs out a breath, pouting at the perfect calligraphy as if it were anything but immaculate,  then looks up towards Hua Cheng.

Hua Cheng can’t tear his eyes away— not even to greet his god. Xixi discovers her tongue and starts chewing on it again, her barely-there brows furrowing in her sweet round face.

“So precious,” Xie Lian coos, though it’s unclear whether he means Xixi or Hua Cheng. He rises from his kneeling position smoothly and rescues the tray of snacks from Hua Cheng’s limp grip.

The name stares up, perfect because Xie Lian wrote it. Perfect in every way.

“Gege,” he breathes.

“I know you want ‘Xie’ for her,” Xie Lian says softly. “But this one wants her to bear the family name of the rich and powerful ghost king. Is this enough of a compromise? Your name with my symbol?”

Hua Cheng feels trapped. He lets out an abrupt, soft laugh, and tucks his chin. It’s no accident. Truly, his god is the most devious as well…

“Well,” he says, voice rasping, “since gege worked so hard on it.”

Xie Lian lights up by degrees, breaking into a beaming grin. Xixi hiccups and spits milk onto Hua Cheng’s red robes. He smiles down at her and rubs his thumb over her short, fuzzy hair, pretending his fingers aren’t shaking.

“Gege should say it first.” he whispers.

“I wrote it.” Xie Lian insists. “After San Lang, please.”

Xixi blinks up at him, face scrunching in concentration as she meets his stare.

“Hua Yingjian,” Hua Cheng greets her.

Of course she doesn’t understand, but she smiles anyway. Xie Lian lets out a sound like he’s been punched, and grabs Hua Cheng’s face in both hands, kissing him deeply. Hua Cheng lets his eye fall closed, losing himself in the kiss. Hua Yingjian, safe and warm and alive, whines at being ignored while her fathers lose themselves in each other, both leaning in to make space for their daughter between them.