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Hua Cheng stares down in disbelief.
He can feel the emptiness, his power wrenched away, whatever trap this is from whatever piece of overambitious trash - but all that's distant.
Faded.
Because he knows these hands. He knows them far, far better than his own.
The hands that caught him, held him, as he dirtied those white silks with grime and tears. That clutched a sword hilt as a wretched boy fought to tear his eyes away, that hold a flower, gently, in every statue that he's carved, every hope he's hewn from rock. He has seen them bloodied, and shaking, and limp.
These hands. This stolen body, that he now -
"Dianxia?" he calls, into the empty air. It's a strange mixture of their voices, hoarse from a parched throat. There is no answer.
Right. He clenches Dianxia's fists, feeling pain tug at one of his shoulders. He fell, then, into... well. Hua Cheng recognizes a tomb when he's in one, even one as ancient and picked-dry as this one. He looks at the shadowed floor beneath him, at the marks in the ash and dirt.
Xie Lian had hit the ground hard.
Hua Cheng runs a hand, soft as butterfly wings, across Dianxia's face, the healing swell of a black eye. If this is a body-swap curse, at least Xie Lian won't be in pain. Hua Cheng has no particular love for his body, in any form, but he built the softest, most lavish bed in the three realms entirely in the hopes that one day his god would rest upon it.
Hua Cheng guarding the door, or Hua Cheng... Well. He's come to terms with the raw, physical want inside him, but that's not something to think about right now. He jerks his hands away from Dianxia's face, eyes the distance to the tomb opening above him, and sets to work climbing his way out.
-
Outside, it's mid-morning, sun shining down brightly between rustling trees. Hua Cheng looks up and down the path, and sets off through the forest, following the faded traces of Dianxia's footprints.
He’s crouched down by one, trying to determine if he sees hints of a limp, when he hears rustling in the bushes – and, more importantly, can feel its demonic aura even through Xie Lian’s shackle-dampened senses.
Whatever it is, it’s little. Cowardly. But it’s also following him.
He leaps up onto a tree branch, and spots a shiver of white beneath him. Mourning white. Could this have come from the tomb? Or, as old and terrible memories flood him, is it just –
The white ribbon strikes, quick as a snake, and just as quick is gone again.
Hua Cheng holds up his borrowed hands. “It’s me, little demon. No, not Taizi Dianxia – just me.”
He cannot shapeshift in this form. And even as he’s tried on womanly forms, demonic ones, even a fox spirit once – he has never attempted to return to Wu Ming’s miserable shape. He had served his purpose. He had died for Taizi Dianxia, and he was best left under the dirt with Hong Hong’er if Hua Cheng ever wished to stand at Xie Lian’s side again.
The white silk shivers, and darts back beneath the bushes.
Hua Cheng sighs. So much for that. At least some of the whispered stories were true, and Dianxia had a spiritual weapon with him.
Shoulders squared, he sets back down the path. He doesn’t have time for this.
He needs to know where he is. He needs to find a way, with neither spiritual nor ghostly power, to contact Yin Yu, confirm that this is a body-switching curse, and make sure Dianxia is comfortable. Then he needs to –
"Daozhang! You're back!" A figure peels itself away from the shadow of one of the trees.
Hua Cheng whirls on him, glaring. He's a skinny man in a dirty tunic, short, with the wide nervous grin of someone about to bet their own legs - and he has his filthy hands on Dianxia's sleeve.
The newcomer removes his hand at the glare, but not his presence. "Did it work? Did you fix it?" His throat bobs as he swallows. "I don't - I know you said to stop messing with the mark, but look at it!"
He sticks out one shriveled foot. Hua Cheng, in pursuit of answers if nothing else, grabs him by the arm and deposits him, spluttering, on a stump for a better view.
The faded remnants of a curse mark decorate the sole. This idiot must have stepped on something he shouldn't have - and then procured Dianxia's help like many an ungrateful soul before him. Hua Cheng doesn't recognize the mark right off the bat, which could be a good sign or a bad one.
"Is - is it safe yet?" The man tries to jerk his foot away, and then lets out a squeak of pain. Hua Cheng ignores him. "Daozhang! Daozhang, hey - nothing in there got you, did it? I told you not to touch any coffins, nothing good ever's come out of -"
Coffins. Hua Cheng finally releases the man's foot, then wipes Dianxia's fingers on the stump and looks him up and down. Tomb robber.
This piece of trash sent Dianxia down into a cursed tomb because he didn't have the guts to solve his own problems. A curse powerful enough to affect a Ghost King - anything could have happened down there. Hua Cheng could have lost him, lost him without ever having found him, could have -
"Dao- daozhang? You alright?"
He wants to slice this man's head off. Wants to skin him alive and hang the twitching bits of him atop the Gambler's Den.
But Xie Lian had gone down after the curse of his own accord. He'd wanted to help this bit of scum, this bit of scum that still thinks he's talking to a harmless wandering cultivator. That thinks he's talking to Dianxia, whose choices Hua Cheng will respect and whose hands he will not stain with blood.
"The curse is gone," he announces.
The tomb robber's face splits into a smile, yellowed teeth in browning gums. "Daozhang! Thank you, thank you - I don't know how I can ever repay you -"
"Don't thank me." Hua Cheng stares him in the eyes. "Thank Taizi Dianxia, His Highness the Crown Prince of Xianle."
The tomb robber bobs in a salute. "Of course, of course - um, who is he?"
Hua Cheng clenches a fist behind his back. "The god of my temple."
"Right!" And then, before his eyes, the tomb robber drops his filthy body into a full-on kowtow, head slamming into the dirt. "Dianxia! Crown Prince! This Zhou Bao owes you his life - and I promise not to go grave robbing again, not unless there's no other option, or may lightning and thunder strike me down!"
Something in Hua Cheng's heart unclenches.
Zhou Bao pushes himself up to his feet, brushing off his robes. "C'mon, though, daozhang –" he reaches out to pat Hua Cheng's arm clearly before thinking better of it – "-let me take you into town and buy you lunch, at least!"
-
He follows, though only for lack of better options. Dianxia's power is sealed by the shackles; he's vulnerable, and though Hua Cheng is confident in his own ability to get out of trouble no matter what body he's in, Dianxia, as always, gives him pause. He needs to know what caused this curse before he goes and picks a fight with it.
He can feel the cursed shackles like iron bars, a third presence in their body.
The nausea might be from that, or it might be the hunger. As a ghost, Hua Cheng hungers for spiritual things – vengeance, pride, Dianxia. He'd forgotten the embarrassing bodily ache of it the way he'd tried to forget everything else about Hong Hong'er's worthless life. He'd met Dianxia. He'd died for Dianxia. Running from dogs, from bigger kids, his father's heavy hand and even his mother's lullabies – it was all better left in the garbage heap where it belonged.
But Xie Lian's body hungers, in the dull distant way of one well used to going without. It fills Hua Cheng with the kind of righteous, poisonous fury he can usually only soothe by going and beating up some heavenly trash - as it is, all he can do is seethe, and try to leave Dianxia's belly fuller than he found it.
Zhou Bao, to his utter and complete lack of shock, has no money. He haggles with the stall owner for a bit before returning with two buns all the same, passing one to Hua Cheng with a gap-toothed grin.
"I told you not to worry about it, daozhang! Ol' Zhou still know what he's doing!"
Hua Cheng nods.
He’s eying the broken walls and shadowed places in this miserable little town. Plotting his next moves.
Xie Lian awakens in a bed.
It's been two years or so since he could last make that claim – the innkeeper had offered to let him stay on longer, but letting his calamitous luck catch her inn on fire would have been poor payment for her generosity.
No, this appears to be an illusion. The curse in the tomb must have been more powerful than he'd thought.
And then he sits up, and his heart jumps into his throat.
A heart, anyway.
Because this – this isn't his body.
The shape is different, the cursed shackles are gone, the power running through him of a different sort than he has ever channeled before. His hands, when he holds them out, are slim and long-fingered, a red string tied around one like a lover's knot.
They're also corpse-pale. He suspects he's breathing only out of habit.
This could still be an illusion. But it's looking more as though he has been flung into another's body - perhaps the tomb ghost? And he doesn't even want to think of the poor soul shunted into his.
Still, ghostly lair or not, it's a beautiful bed. Gauzy curtains hide the rest of the room, but Xie Lian can make out the shapes of tables and a weapon stand, a pillowed daybed and the dark shape of a doorframe behind it.
Perhaps a ghost. Perhaps a demon. Potentially an innocent all the same - or at least innocent in this.
And then the stand rattles.
A flash of silver cuts through the curtains, and Xie Lian barely has time to jump – in this borrowed body, he nearly collides with the ceiling – before something flings itself into his hand with all the evil aura of Ruoye and all the enthusiasm of a neglected kitten.
It feels like a saber hilt, though strangely warm towards the cross guard and shaking so fiercely that only its own determination to weld itself into his palm is keeping it between his fingers. Carefully, Xie Lian raises it to his borrowed eye.
A saber indeed – a spiritual weapon, with a long, curved blade and a twisted hilt. A red eye opens, stares at him, and then closes in glee once more.
"Hello there," says Xie Lian. The trembling strengthens. "I think you may have mistaken me –" and then he stops, because a spiritual weapon of this power shouldn't have. If it belongs to the owner of this body, it's bound to his soul, and ought to be as confused and distressed as he suspects Ruoye is.
The eye opens again. The gleam is uncannily familiar, and Xie Lian strokes its blade with his free hand before he can think better of it. If the weapon had a throat, it would purr.
"I don't suppose you know how I ended up here?"
The eye rolls apologetically, hilt vibrating beneath his fingers.
-
Saber in hand – saber, in fact, refusing to leave his hand – he cautiously begins his exploration.
One door leads into an antechamber, silk robes and silver jewelry strewn carelessly about. There's a mirror, black petals around a face of silver rather than bronze, and he peers into it to see a face completely unfamiliar staring back.
He doesn't know this man, then, with his angled cheekbones and swooping brows. The eyepatch is starkly black against his pale skin. Xie Lian squints at the piles of jewelry, but he's feeling cautious of curses at the moment, and settles for tightening a spare sash around his borrowed waist and running his fingers through the long dark hair until it's in some semblance of order.
The strands are as fine and smooth as silk, cool against his fingers. He hasn't seen a ghost this powerful in... longer than he cares to remember. The dead man's heart lurches again at the thought.
It's possible that this was who was buried in the tomb – he's bound to be ancient enough. It's also possible that he's one more bystander drawn into Xie Lian's terrible luck. Regardless, he ought to try to leave this form in as good a shape as he found it. He picks up a red ribbon from beneath a pile of pendants, and pulls its hair into as neat a ponytail as he can.
The other door leads into a stone-paved hallway, lamps and torches burning with a crimson light. It feels more like a fortress than a mansion, empty and silent. A few times he thinks he sees shadows ahead of him, but each time they vanish at his next step.
A mortal here would have servants. He'd be surprised if a ghost this powerful didn't at least have followers – but in this borrowed body, he might be better off not making their acquaintance. They're not likely to be as friendly as the saber at his side.
Eventually, an archway leads him into a misty garden. White flowers cluster along the edges of a pavilion, petals dancing along the stones. One lands, softly, against Xie Lian's cheek, and he closes his eye.
After a moment, though, he shakes his head, drawing the saber once more. The eye gleams up at him, questioning.
"I suppose that's enough wandering for now." He tests the heft of it, tossing it into the air. "Perhaps a reward for your patience?"
-
He dances across the stone.
His saber forms come back to him as though they'd never left, and he pushes the spark of pain and memory away with the sheer joy of movement - or perhaps simply the infectious joy of the spirit in his hand. Each new leap carries them further, until his feet barely touch the ground between each lunge and slash.
It's borrowed power. It's demonic power. Xie Lian lets himself enjoy it, all the same.
Laughter spills from his throat, luck finally catching up with him as he stumbles on the hem of the red robe, barely managing to save the saber's edge from skidding across the ground. He only laughs harder, pulling himself back up, slashing through the rain of petals.
Leaping, once more – and landing nearly at the feet of a shadow in black.
"Chengzhu," it says, after a long, silent moment.
Xie Lian rallies. City lord. That means something – hardly a common title for a ghost – and so too does the figure in black, who wears well-cut but unobtrusive clothes and a ghostly mask, but whose aura is so faint as to be unnoticeable.
"Yes?" He tries to call the spoiled prince of eight centuries ago into his tone.
The man says nothing. Xie Lian can't see his eyes, but from the angle of his chin, he'd bet they're locked on the saber.
"If there's nothing you need," says Xie Lian into the silence, "then begone with you."
He shoots a silent apology to the masked man, the rightful inhabitant of this body, and any possibly friendship between them; hopefully outbursts of temper aren't too out -of-character.
"...At once," says the masked man, bowing shallowly. "...Chengzhu."
Xie Lian waits two minutes after he's gone before heading back to the bedchamber at speed.
"...fail the Capital Exam..." murmurs the shape. "...You can't hide it forever – urk!"
Hua Cheng, crouched behind it, dirtying Dianxia’s robes in this dusty ally, closes fingers around what passes for its neck. He's expecting biting.
He's not expecting a shriek of recognition.
"Daozhang!" The jinx monster flails about with its spindly fingers. "I wasn't expecting – this one deserves it, though, I promise! He really did cheat on the provincial exam!"
It takes advantage of Hua Cheng's surprise to wriggle away, and makes it nearly a foot before he seizes it again, this time pinning it beneath one arm like a struggling goose.
"You sucked all the joy out of it! I've had to go and turn over a new leaf –"
And then the babbling freezes.
It's caught something, maybe in the fate of Hua Cheng's soul but more likely in the energy he's started to gather around himself.
"What even – my lord, sir, this one is but a humble monster and more likely than not to stick between your teeth –" and then, quietly, as though it somehow thinks he can't hear, "Daozhang, c'mon, don't tell me you ignored me for a year and then went and got yourself eaten."
Hua Cheng pauses in the sigil he's tracing on the thing's body. "You know him," he says, and if he were in his own form that voice would send every "humble monster" within a hundred li of here cowering to the ground.
"No, I don't!"
Hua Cheng shrugs. With the slice of a fingernail – apologies, Dianxia, apologies! – into the thing's filthy flesh, he finishes the sigil. Yin energy pours out from the jinx monster and around the finger in question, and Hua Cheng presses it up to one temple, spitting out a password as he does.
"Chengzhu!"
"Waning Moon Officer." He gives Yin Yu a moment to collect himself. "Where's my body?"
Yin Yu doesn't take the moment to splutter in confusion, or the potential leverage to discuss his salary. "Headed back to your bedroom, Chengzhu," he says. "It was practicing with E'ming in the garden courtyard; I placed it under surveillance."
Hua Cheng fights down a surge of vicious jealousy towards his own saber. "Good," he says.
"Are you..." Yin Yu trails off, clearly not wanting to imply Hua Cheng might not have this situation under control.
"Give him anything he asks for. Do not let him into Ghost City - if he wants to leave, direct him to the armory." He thinks of the pit in his stomach, and adds, "Make sure he eats."
"...Sir –"
"And drinks. No alcohol. If he is harmed - if he is inconvenienced in any way - I will tear you into eight thousand pieces and leave each and every one at a Qi Ying temple. Do I make myself clear?"
"...Yes, Chengzhu." There's a hint of a question behind the words; Hua Cheng doesn't have time for it.
"Good," he spits, and ends the connection. The jinx monster is shaking in his grasp; he hefts it up to get a better view. "You."
"Your undying servant!"
"I don't care." He shakes it. "You don't survive by flattering me. You survive by telling me where you met this body – and where he's been."
-
It burbles out a rather rambling story – Hua Cheng, who has been a step behind Dianxia for centuries, reduced to praying at his half-a-dozen graves, can now trace his movements for over a year.
This thing has been clinging to him, with no idea what it was up against – both in Xie Lian's misfortune, and his stubbornness. What are a few ominous predictions against a man who Hua Cheng has seen reduced to a smear of gore, and seen stand up again, as well? Bai Wuxiang couldn't break Dianxia. This miserable little ant –
"You'll want to get out of there, boss," it says, swallowing heavily against Hua Cheng's palm. "I don't – I don't actually know what he is, but it won't do you any good."
"A little jinx monster, worried for me." It quails back at the sight of Hua Cheng's grin. "I'll take it under advisement."
"I'm not worried for –" It gulps back down the words.
Hua Cheng almost relaxes his grip.
Dianxia. This miserable little thing is more worried for Xie Lian than the ingrates he'd raised up to heaven.
"Congratulations," says Hua Cheng. "You get to live."
-
"So... Are you going to let me go?"
Hua Cheng adjusts his grip on the jinx monster, peering down into the tomb entrance. "Eventually."
The useless wretch hadn't known anything about the tomb where Hua Cheng had woken up; he and Dianxia had already "parted ways" at that point. He is, however, his current best source of resentful energy – which, with the shackles pulsing around Dianxia, is the only kind of energy this body can use.
He doesn't much like tainting his god, but leaving him cursed isn't a better option.
Gingerly, careful with his stolen feet, he leaps down into the darkness.
There's a knock at the door.
The acolyte in black bows low at the sight of him, holding out a tray of delicacies - well-sauced cuts of meat, thinly sliced fish, stacks of glistening dumplings. Xie Lian takes a step back; this is apparently interpreted as an invitation to enter.
It all smells delicious. Unfortunately for his stomach, however, his mind has no interest in either poison or human flesh. He follows the tray, all the same, as the man in black lays it down.
He's smelled any number of feasts he couldn't taste, over the centuries. He tries to let the aroma exist as a little joy of its own.
The man in black shifts slightly. "Please eat," he says.
It's an odd request to make of a ghost.
Xie Lian closes his borrowed eyes. "What's your name?" he asks.
There is no answer.
"Or should I ask mine?" He wonders if he can die, in this body, or if the immortality transferred with his soul. It's been a century or so since he wanted to, actively, but an end to the endless dragging days is not... the worst thing that could happen. He killed his last believer, after all – he has no one left to live for but himself.
But there are sunrises, and folksongs, and he does owe it to whoever this body belongs to not to let it be killed by one of the man's own subordinates.
"My name is an unimportant one. I am the Waning Moon Officer," says the man in black, voice level. "Hua Cheng's Waning Moon Officer."
"And that is..." Xie Lian presses a palm to his borrowed chest. "...Me. Or, rather, not." He brings his hands forward in salute.
"I did not mean to come here," he begins, "I assure you. It was an accident while attempting to break a curse - a man had stumbled into it, and half-a-dozen before. He'd been the first to survive. I fell unconscious in that tomb, and woke... here." He wafts an arm around at the magnificence surrounding him to see a perplexed tilt to the Waning Moon Officer's mask.
"Hua Cheng," he repeats. "Hua Cheng. Blood Rain Seeking Flower. The Crimson Devastation –"
Xie shakes the 'Crimson Devastation's head. "I'm afraid you have me at a loss." His work takes him only among the lesser ghosts.
"Then...May I ask your name, sir?" The man's mask is unmoving.
"Hua Xie," says Xie Lian, before he thinks better of it. He usually leaves an alias behind in whatever grave was or wasn't dug for it, but he'd been General Hua for longer than most.
The Waning Moon Officer, somehow, manages to go stiller.
"I see," he says, after a very long moment.
He inclines his head, and then his torso, folding down into a perfect salute, before flicking upwards, stiff-spined once more. His hands flicker in a brief panic when Xie Lian, on reflex, bows in return. The long breath he takes in is the first Xie Lian has heard him draw.
"Please eat."
With the sun setting, the tomb is pitch-black.
This isn't something that has bothered Hua Cheng in centuries, even without wraith butterflies in his wake; as it is, while Dianxia's ears will alert him if something attacks, investigation requires more help from the lump under his arm. He forges the borrowed energy into a glowing ball with the tumbling suggestion of wings, and lets it flutter around his head as he squints back around at the tomb he'd woken up in.
It's a single chamber, stone worn smooth by centuries of floods, the grave goods reduced to a few rusty coins and even the coffin more a suggestion than a resting place.
There's nothing sentient in here, no spirits rushing to challenge him. If whoever was buried here rose, they've long since dissipated. That means a spell - either defenses wrought by the tomb maker or a curse placed on it by another. It also hasn't yet reacted to his presence, whether because he's already been affected or because it needs something more than his entry to trigger it.
He leans down to look at the coins more closely - careful of getting filth on Dianxia's knees - but nothing about them strikes his notice. He turns his gaze to the walls, and hits paydirt.
Inscriptions.
The script is ancient – it bears more resemblance to the characters that decorate Mt. Tonglu than modern calligraphy. He wouldn't have been surprised if the tomb maker carved oracle bones in his spare time.
The Fugitive Finds No Refuge
The Hunter Seeks the Prey
What Pursues You...
He lets a hand trail over the characters, tracing the rounded shapes and feeling the power still lingering beneath them. It's twisted, faded – lonely. Long-separated from its purpose. If it were a ghost, it would have dissipated centuries ago.
But it's a curse. All it can do is lash out blindly – and this mindless, useless thing has succeeded where for centuries Hua Cheng has failed.
It's brought him to Xie Lian.
The Hunter. That sends a shiver through him. There have been signs, over the centuries. Hints and shadows. He's not the only one searching for the Crown Prince of Xianle. Whatever's dogging at his heels – well. He's not going to give it an inch. The second he breaks this curse, he's returning to this village – in his real form, in a false one, in whatever shape he can hold together. He'll kneel at Dianxia’s feet and offer up whatever he's willing to take.
He's been helpless too long. He's been useless too long – but, it occurs to him, perhaps he has also been powerful too long.
It's been a century, at least, since a curse of any kind has given him trouble, and that one had been woven by an entire coven of ghosts as old as this tomb and a great deal more put together.
Here, he has only Dianxia's near-mortal body and the twisted cleverness of his own mind. Any misstep could cost him the only thing that's ever mattered to him, and success is measured in one worn character after another.
He draws the lingering power towards him, step by step. Coalescing it is risky, but right now the curse is like a mist, vanishing beneath his fingertips. He needs to turn it solid – something more powerful, yes, but also something he can kill.
Slowly, slowly, with each pass of his fingers across the carvings, the power builds. Whispering fills the silence, the words scattering if he tries to focus on them – so he pulls his attention away, back to the words in front of him.
"I'm the hunter," he whispers. "So come find me."
With a roar, it does.
-
The curse, now an amorphous beast, with sharp claws and the head of a guardian lion – or at least a guardian lion’s shadow – leaps for him, barreling him out of the tomb and through what remains of its crumbling roof.
Hua Cheng lands, lightly enough, on his borrowed feet. “You’ll have to do better than that.” With a smirk, he holds out an arm, reaching for the ever-present rustle in the bushes. The demonic silk answers his call at last, lashing out towards the curse beast, darting in and out like a performer showing off.
Hua Cheng lets the distraction happen. He’s focused on scratching sigils in the mud with the last of the Jinx Monster’s demonic energy – though he hopes Xie Lian will be proud that he left the still-living creature hidden behind a rock.
That ought to contain it – or at least slow it down. His only other weapons are rocks and his god’s excellent arm strength, and he curses himself for not stealing at least a dagger back in town. He can win this fight – he has to win this fight – but he may harm Dianxia in the process, and that’s the one thing he’s sworn never to do again.
A salvo of rocks takes it hard in one glowing eye. The gleam darkened, and the beast rounds, right towards Hua Cheng – and right towards the demonic array. Its front paws land heavily inside, and it tenses to spring again as Hua Cheng readies another barrage of rocks.
Its shoulders tense – and then it’s reeling backwards, trying to pull its front paws free with two thirds of its body still outside the array. A gaping maw opens in a silent roar, and the shapes of long-forgotten characters play across its shadowy haunches.
The array shatters.
Xie Lian lifts another delicacy to his mouth. It seems that, for now, his body’s true owner is determined to play the host. Finally, setting his chopsticks down, he turns again towards the Waning Moon Officer.
“What can I do to help?” Xie Lian asks.
The masked man goes still again. “I assure you, Hua Chengzhu has everything under control.”
There’s a very slight strain in his voice.
Xie Lian sits up straighter, adjusting these long legs into a proper kneel. “His Lordship is likely unaware of the true nature of the body he now resides in. I am not a cultivator – or, not an ordinary one. I am immortal, yes, but my strength is limited, and my spiritual power…” He takes a deep breath, fighting the urge to reach for Hua Cheng’s neck, collared only with silver jewelry. “…Is nonexistent. As is my luck. I…”
Even with the mask, he can see the Waning Moon Officer swallow, and slowly, with stiff hands, pull back one dark sleeve.
A cursed shackle.
“Yes,” says Xie Lian, fighting down a barrage of questions he knows the man in front of him would rather die than answer. “Yes. I have… two, actually.” He tries to smile. “I even got to pick the second one!”
There is a still moment. He finds the next words won’t come.
“Chengzhu, then…” says the Waning Moon Officer, kindly pretending Xie Lian had never spoken.
“Is there a way I can get to him? We can try to break the curse together – “
The mask lowers. “I’m not sure that’s wise.”
Xie Lian stares him down. “Your Chengzhu is in this mess because of me. I intend to aid him with whatever resources I can. Tell me how to get to him.”
“…Yes, Dianxia.”
And while Xie Lian takes a moment to boggle over that, the Waning Moon Officer slips from the room.
-
He has… some knowledge of this curse. Not enough, not nearly enough, but enough to suspect that this Hua Cheng, however powerful, won’t be able to break it on his own. None of the previous victims had died alone – even Old Zhou had been hiding from a pack of creditors when he’d stumbled, quite literally, over a helpful cultivator.
He doesn’t think it meant to switch their bodies, but then again he doesn’t know why it selected this “Crimson Devastation” to soul-swap with him in the first place, and meant is likely too strong a term. If the curse was intended to bind him with an enemy, perhaps his luck simply selected the most powerful prospect available – he cannot imagine that Hua Cheng, helpful acolytes or no, is going to be happy with this situation.
But, happy or unhappy, neither of them will be able to break the curse with access to only half of it. He needs to find a way back to the village, and he’ll deal with the consequences when he gets there.
“Taizi Dianxia?”
Xie Lian turns from where he’d been staring at the bed curtains. “Yes?”
The Waning Moon Officer bows, holding out one hand. In his palm rests a pair of dice.
Xie Lian carefully picks them up. There’s a certain aura to them, but they don’t feel like a true spiritual device.
What they do feel, strangely, is comforting in his hand, like the touch of an old friend.
“Channel power through them,” says the Waning Moon Officer, after a long moment, and Xie Lian realizes he’s been staring again.
“Of course.”
He handles the stolen power even more gingerly than the dice, feeding it out into Hua Cheng’s cold fingers. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he rolls the dice out towards the doorway…
And follows them through.
-
He lands amidst a scene of battle.
His body, white robes stained with dirt, is facing down a massive, glowing monster. Ruoye lashes out again and again while the being he can only assume is Hua Cheng, Blood Rain Seeking Flower, flings rocks interspersed with insults. His eyes widen as he spots Xie Lian, and he’s still just long enough for a massive paw to bowl him over.
Xie Lian winces. “Sorry, sorry!”
With the creature between him and his body, the only thing to do is attack. He leaps into the air, scimitar singing in his hand, and slashes downwards. The ghostly beast’s form shivers, temporarily cut in two, before reforming behind him – wounded, but still very much a threat.
This has gotten him close enough, at least, to pull his body to its feet. The ghost inside blinks at him with an expression close to awe.
“I, um, I have your sword –” which makes no effort to leave Xie Lian’s grasp and return to its master “—and I think I know how to fix this. We – ”
Claws slice inches from his back as he shoves Hua Cheng forward and out of the way.
“Dianxia!”
He doesn’t have time to wonder how this strange ghost knows he was a prince. He seizes his hand, instead, pouring spiritual energy through it as quickly as he can – which isn’t quick enough. The beast lunges for them again, and this time Hua Cheng takes the blow, claws scoring blackened, cursed-looking marks all down his arm.
Hua Cheng slaps a glowing hand over them, face a mask of fury. It’s not an expression Xie Lian can look at for long, not when it’s his own eyes darkened, his own mouth curled in a snarl it hasn’t worn since…
Since things he doesn’t need to think about right now.
“It’s my body!” Xie Lian calls out as he dodges another blow. “Don’t worry about healing it – I know how we can switch back, but you need to save the energy I gave you!” He dances forward again, severing a paw for a moment before it shivers back into place.
Hua Cheng’s only answer is a cut-off curse. He launches himself back to Xie Lian’s side.
Inscriptions on the ground – the remnants of an array, Xie Lian realizes – glow beneath the beast’s feet. Dark power curls up within it, and Hua Cheng’s curses grow to new heights.
“Useless –”
“We need to end the curse!” Xie Lian shoves at his shoulder. “We need to end it now –”
And proximity isn’t doing the trick. There’s only one thing he can think of – and he can feel his stolen face heating at the thought.
“That is the curse!” A glow rises around Hua Cheng, tiny wings breaking free. He reaches, again, for the scimitar in Xie Lian’s hand, and this time it returns reluctantly to its master, red eye trained on Xie Lian the entire time.
“You – oh, clever!” Xie Lian steps forward. Behind him, Ruoye launches itself desperately towards the beast – the curse beast, and Hua Cheng must have drawn the array, too. Xie Lian can only imagine what he’ll be like when he has his power back.
A roar. Ruoye barely reaches Xie Lian’s arm, limp and exhausted, as the beast charges – and as Xie Lian steps forward.
“I am so sorry,” he whispers.
And kisses Hua Cheng full on the lips.
-
Spiritual power surges between them. Lights dance around them as everything goes distant and blurred; even the roars of the curse beast are lost amidst the coursing waves of power. Xie Lian digs fingers – he’s no longer certain whose – into the robes of the man in front of him, holding tight amidst, trying not to think of the liberties he’s taking.
It’s easy to forget. It’s easy, for a moment, to lose himself – to be one body, four hands, three eyes. One of them – both of them – reaches out an arm.
The scimitar slices forward, its movements a song. A wave of energy, white ribbon, silver butterflies, and the curse beast shimmers under the onslaught, falling apart into a tangle of sparks.
As the roar fades, they feel something like gratitude.
Fufillment.
Rest.
Their lips separate.
Xie Lian slips back into his own body, old aches and pains reestablishing themselves, heart pulsing warm in his chest.
This, too, feels like fading away.
Hua Cheng stares at his god.
His god, inches away, stares back with dazed brown eyes. A long moment passes.
He watches Xie Lian swallow. Commits every bit of it to memory. His lips still tingle with phantom energy, with disbelief.
“I’m so sorry!” says Taizi Dianxia, the Crown Prince of Xianle. His face is crimson. “I didn’t – I needed to break the curse quickly, and I – well –”
“It worked perfectly,” says Hua Cheng. “Absolutely perfectly.” He smiles. He can feel the shakiness in it.
Everything feels slightly unreal – like their closeness, at any moment, could fade away like the curse. Like Hua Cheng could blink, and Xie Lian would slip away, sending him back to centuries of searching with only the memory of warmth on his lips.
“I… yes.” Xie Lian looks down, straightening his robes. “I do apologize, though. I don’t even know you, and –”
“You could get to know me,” says Hua Cheng, and then, before he can think better of it, “Gege.”
There’s not even enough time to curse himself before Xie Lian laughs. It’s a beautiful, snorting sound, the lightest noise he’s ever heard Dianxia make. “You are a very odd ghost,” he says, and it doesn’t sound like an insult.
He’s smiling.
Hua Cheng smiles too, lighter than air. “I am,” he says. He reaches out a hand.
Xie Lian takes it.