Chapter Text
Xie Lian is five. Spring has set in after a long, harsh winter that kept him confined to the inside of the Royal Palace. The Royal Palace Gardens are in full bloom, and the weather has warmed up considerably, so the young Crown Prince can finally explore and leave his opulent and stifling chambers. He feels so excited that he almost trips on his robes as he hurries out to frolic freely. His mother, the Queen, laughs at his eagerness and urges him to slow down because the Gardens are not going anywhere. His mother’s gentle admonishments don’t deter him in the slightest, and he runs all the way from his room to the Gardens, smiling so brightly that the sun feels lacklustre in comparison.
No wonder everyone, from the King and the Queen to the servants, dote on their beloved Prince. He is the pride and joy of everyone’s lives he touches, however briefly he might. Xie Lian does not know, but the Royal Palace only feels like home when his tinkling laughter resounds in its gigantic halls as if breathing life into a beautiful but otherwise stone-cold statue.
Once Xie Lian arrives at the Gardens, he does not stop to catch his breath from all the running. He jumps around excitedly, his big, brown eyes shining with barely controlled glee and awe at the greenery and pretty blossoms around him. The birds are singing a simple yet charming song in their mysterious language, the air is crisp and light, and the sunlight dapples on his face in warm, golden patches. He watches in amazement as this previously dead and gloomy place takes on a stunning new look. Everyone knows just how beautiful the Royal Gardens are. Xie Lian is giddy that he gets to experience it first-hand, for the talks hardly do justice to what meets the eye.
Xie Lian stops running around when his mother finally catches up to him. He hugs her legs and points at all the beautiful things he sees with enthusiasm. The Queen smiles down at her darling son, her expression adoring. She places her hand on his head and pats it gently, soft and affectionate. Nothing brings her more joy than seeing her son happy and being next to him.
A light wind, carrying the freshness of sweet-smelling flowers, blows past the little Prince’s cheeks, making his long hair dance with it. A dainty butterfly flits past his face, and he stretches out his tiny fingers to catch it.
It is just out of his reach, and Xie Lian rushes after it, a giggle bubbling inside his throat. The butterfly, enjoying the game of tag with the little boy, flies high and low, close but just out of his reach. There is a moment when Xie Lian feels like the butterfly is just within his grasp, but then he stumbles. The next moment, he is on the ground. The butterfly is nowhere in sight. He hears his mother cry out behind him in alarm, rushing forward to help him up. Xie Lian tries to force down the tears threatening to spill out of him because he is a brave boy. He has promised Mother he won’t cry every time he falls because he is a big, brave boy, and the Crown Prince and Prince don’t cry when they fall.
So he struggles to get up on his own, his little hands desperately trying to push him off the ground. After a few unsuccessful tries, he realises, to his absolute horror, that he cannot. No matter how hard he tries, his body refuses to budge. It’s as if his body has locked up.
Someone help me, he thinks, panic rising sharply in his chest. Mother. Where are you? What’s taking you so long?
The warm sunlight starts to fade, and something digs into his back uncomfortably. Suddenly, the sweet-smelling breeze is gone, and a pungent metallic smell fills his nostrils, making him want to retch. He does, and a warm fluid slides past his tongue. He coughs, or at least tries to. The birds are not chirping anymore. He can’t hear his mother either. Instead, he can hear whispering voices. He feels so cold. He feels so scared. Where is Mother? Who is going to help him?
It hurts, he thinks. It hurts.
His vision swims in and out of focus. One moment, he is in the Royal Gardens; the next, he realises he is in the broken-down Crown Prince Temple. His body, if you can even call it that at this point, has been bound and chained to the altar. This was why he could not move. He would not be able to now, though, even if he gets unbounded.
He blinks, and a thick, warm liquid seeps out from his eyes; he can’t see anything anymore. Everything is tinged with red. His godly blood flows out from all his orifices, but from where does it not currently? Faintly, he can hear a heart-wrenching scream near him, as if crying out the sounds he can’t make anymore, and his mind sways in and out of consciousness. He is not sure he is alive. He is not sure he is dead, either. Everything is distant now. Everything feels numb.
Then he feels a razor-sharp pain in his gut, and it all comes back into focus. He is not even able to choke out a sob. His throat has been shredded into ribbons, barely sticking with the rest of his body with whatever flesh remains.
He wishes he could die. He wishes someone would take off his cursed shackle and finish everything once and for all. He wants someone to douse this body with oil and set it on fire after he dies because he would not be able to bear seeing the state it is in now. He wants nothing to do with it anymore. He does not have the strength to go on. He needs this to end. He can’t hang on anymore. Not to his sanity, not to his consciousness, not to his doomed life.
He closes his eyes again, wishing to be transported back to the dream he was having, but to no avail. He wants to feel some sense of security, warmth and comfort, even if it’s all fake. Anything would be better than the nightmare he is living in.
The attacks don’t stop. No one is showing any mercy to him. No one looks down at his broken and battered beyond-recognition body and feels any sympathy. No one thinks this is someone in pain, and perhaps we should stop. He is not human to them. They are not human to him either. They are monsters. They all want to save themselves; no one wants to save him.
Not that anyone can save him now.
Slash.
He feels the remaining tendons in his neck snap and tear. He’s certain his head is not sticking to his body anymore. And it is still not enough for him to die.
Slash.
His stomach has separated from his body; his guts must be hanging out, skewered like a pig on the roast.
Slash.
The sword drives deep into his chest, and whatever chunks of his traitorous heart remain continue to beat and bleed against his own wish.
More Blood. More Pain.
More Blood. More Pain. More Blood. More Pain. More Blood. More Pain.
Pain, pain, pain. Brutal pain. It is as if the only thing he knows since his birth is pain, and he will die knowing nothing else. What Gardens and what butterflies? This is it. This is hell.
The scream grows louder, and the fire burning in the temple grows brighter till it reaches a monumental crescendo. One moment, Xie Lian is lying motionless in torturous agony, praying to whichever god is willing to listen to release him from his flesh; the next, he feels a sharp jerk with one final stab to his chest, and finally, finally, his soul breaks free out of his mutilated body.
Xie Lian floats over the scene of the temple burning, an all-consuming fire blazing like a terrifying inferno, and the hundred people who stabbed him get charred to death instantly. The stench of his blood is everywhere, metallic and pungent, mingling with the smell of burnt flesh. Blackened skull and bones roll on the ground, the scene more horrifying than anything he has witnessed.
He feels no sadness for the hundred or so people who died here; instead, a vicious, gratifying feeling spreads through him, which slowly turns into blinding rage. They died too easily. It was over too quick for them. They should have burned for longer. They should have felt their flesh burning and then melting and then falling off their skeletons. They should have tried to run around trying to save themselves but realised they were helpless. They should have screamed out in pain, suffered, and begged for his forgiveness so that Xie Lian could have shown them none and relished their torment all the more.
Even as he surveys the burnt temple, he dares not look at his remains atop the blackened altar as if terrified that the moment he does, his soul will split apart to pieces. As a god, he’d seen countless statues of his, the Flower Crown Martial God, with a flower in one hand, sword in the other and that ever-present serene smile. He does not want to look at himself for the last time and keep that image in his head. He would not be able to bear it.
The ghost fire that had been raging takes the shape of a young man who falls to his knees beside him, howling in unspeakable pain and rage. The young man dares not lift his head and look at him; the sight of Xie Lian is so gruesome, bloody and unbearable that it’s hard to believe the mound of flesh on the altar used to be human once. He tears out at his hair and pounds his fists on the ground as if the one who died was not Xie Lian but him. The screams tearing out from his throat don’t stop until his voice grows hoarse, and he is physically incapable of making another sound.
Xie Lian watches him, emotionless.
The ghost fire that had accompanied him in the graveyard, the one that tried to stop him from coming here, and the one that burnt each and every sinner present in this temple to death, is this young man. The only one who had felt his anguish in his final moments was this young man kneeling beside the altar. The very same altar where people had once prayed to him and then used as a sacrificial slab to butcher him up.
Xie Lian feels a sense of gratitude towards him. He wants to thank the nameless ghost for showing him more humanity than humans did but knows he cannot; he is too weak. His soul feels fractured and disjointed, as if all the pain and mental torture chipped away at his core, and he can never be whole again. It takes him great effort to try and keep himself from completely dispersing. He floats near the ghost, who is sobbing as if his undead heart has been torn to pieces, and whispers a thank you. He knows his voice does not reach him, for the ghost never stops and registers the words gifted to him. Xie Lian lingers by his side for a second longer and brushes past his cheek and up towards the ceiling again.
He hopes the ghost will understand his sentiments. He truly wants him to know how vital the ghost’s simple acts of trying to save Xie Lian’s life were. It was all meaningless in the end, but it matters to him, for he glimpsed something akin to kindness in this hell-ish temple of death.
Meanwhile, White No Face’s deranged laughter slowly dies with every passing moment, as if realising something has gone terribly wrong. “Xian Le.” He murmurs, his hand reaching out towards Xie Lian’s cold body, his fingers trembling. “You were not supposed to die. How did you die? How could you die? The shackle. The shackle! How did it break? No! No! No, no, no no, NO, NO, NO, NOOO!”
The spectre gathers Xie Lian’s remains in his arms, and the blood dyes his white funeral robes a deep crimson. White No Face holds him like a father might have his son, sounding almost crazed, as if he cannot believe being pierced by a sword a hundred times actually killed Xie Lian. As if he, too, feels pain and insurmountable grief at his horrifying death.
It is as if he is not the one who started all of this.
Xie Lian feels red-hot anger coursing through his entire form like lava; he wants the phantom nowhere near his body. He wants to scream and cry and shake him and chase him away, but he is aware of how helpless he is. So he floats over the heads of the two ghosts and then out of the temple, lest he is discovered by White No Face. His body might not have survived, but he will not let his soul fall into the cruel hands of the monster.
He will wait. He will wait till he gets stronger. And then he will hunt down and bestow the same fate to White No Face that he endured.
Till then, he will vanish.
No one will hurt him ever again.