Chapter Text
The ghost king can’t believe he lost sight of his San Lang!
He scrambles to find his beloved, while he pushes aside his panicked and fear-ridden thoughts. He needs to find him quickly before something unfortunate happens (again). He’s quickly going against the crowd, carelessly pushing and shoving people away to get back to where he lost his companion.
As he gets closer, he spots the thing causing all this chaos, a rouge carriage with two ghosts as the cause. Xie Lian lets out a frustrated sound and draws his sword, a glamoured version of Fangxin. He hears someone gasps and scream, then the crowd begins to scramble away faster. Getting closer to the carriage, Xie Lian recognizes those two, though he never bothered to learn their names.
He recognizes them, yes, they're part of a group whom Quan Yizhen had beaten in the Ghost City arena. Now they act as a group of delinquents of sorts, in Ghost City. Not that they get very far in their schemes; the city’s residents don’t take kindly to those who disrespect their protector and disrupt what little peace they have left.
Just as he’s about to dash forward to cut down the ghost, he sees them jump out of the carriage and run. He sends out Ruoye to weave through the thinning crowd to follow and apprehend the ghost while he deals with the runaway carriage.
Being the ghost king that he is, Xie Lian manages to slice the carriage in half with one swing of his sword, stopping its wild rampage and saving the busiest market in Banyue further grief.
But try as he might, he can't spot familiar red robes anywhere.
He breathes. He cannot let the sinking feeling of dread and the panic set in. He cannot let emotions cloud his judgment, not again. Not with San Lang.
Yet despite all that talk about not allowing emotions to cloud his judgment… a familiar sickening feeling of guilt threatens to choke him.
The ghost king only snaps out of his own emotional turmoil when he feels Ruoye tug him forcefully in the direction of a nearby alley. He hears people speaking, he feels something is horribly wrong before he even reaches the entrance to the alleyway. He rushes forward, sword drawn, Ruoye ready to strike at his signal.
Now despite what the ghost king’s reputation may elude, the Crimson Veiled Guarding Flowers looks down upon senseless violence. But right at this moment, as he stares, furious and tense, at the scene before him.
His San Lang, barely conscious and struggling, being pinned and hurt, near death yet again.
Well, the ghost king is about to prove all those rumors and tall tales right.
The moment he steps foot into the alleyway, the world seems to freeze and the only thing that matters is the scene in front of him. A threatening aura radiates from Xie Lian, a threat and promise of death, that brings about a heavy sense of fear and helplessness.
Xie Lian quietly drops the entirety of his disguise, still donning white but his usual straw hat now has the addition of a striking red veil that hides his face from view if he so wishes. But he does not wish to hide from these two ghosts, so he openly glares from behind the veil.
The only thing these ghosts can do before a blur of white with a hint of blood red sets upon them is freeze in terror.
In the split second, three consecutive things happen. The ghost that dared lay a hand on his beloved’s face has that hand swiftly cut off. Both ghosts are suddenly tightly restrained by the white silk band, and his beloved is now safely nestled in his arms.
Miraculously, not a spot of dirt even got on San Lang, despite the dark sludge seems to pour from the ghost's wound. He can’t say the same for Ruoye, but he hopes the silk band won’t mind, as long as their San Lang doesn't get dirtied.
A pained scream rings out, but Xie Lian is much more concerned with the red clad youth in his arms and the fury he feels towards those two foolish ghosts. He tightens the grip he has on his San Lang and glares fiercely at the two ghosts, and the temperature seems to drop significantly as the ghost king’s cold fury passes through.
“How dare you.”
Ruoye tightens around them. The ghosts let out a strangled noise and they struggle, yet the white silk band continues to tighten further.
“Hnk!- y-y-you…!”
“R-red ve-ve- Ack-”
The two idiotic ghosts try to choke out through their terror and Ruoye’s grip.
“How dare you attempt to harm one that’s under MY protection?” the ghost king demands with a cold rage in his voice. “One would think you and your little group would know better.”
Only when San Lang makes a quiet wounded noise does Xie Lian realize that, in his anger, his hold tightens to a painful degree. He immediately loosens his grip, though this time Ruoye doesn’t follow suit, instead tightening around the ghosts to a suffocating degree, as if it were angry in its master’s stead.
The ghost king breathes an unneeded breath then he looks down at his beloved and softens. As if sensing the attention on him, the youth blearily squints open his eyes, unconsciously wincing at the sudden light.
“G-gege…?” the youth mumbles, blinking up at the red veiled ghost.
Xie Lian takes a calming breath again and inspects his beloved’s head injury… blood is caking most of his face, and the sight sends an unpleasant tremble through the ghost king.
The inspection has Xie Lian’s shoulders dropping. The wound doesn’t seem too deep, yet he can’t release the harsh weight of tension in his body. He knows how badly this could have, could still, end for the younger man. Worst of all, he can’t even use spiritual energy to accelerate the healing…
Glaring briefly at the wound and then at the ghosts, he nods to Ruoye, ordering it to disperse them.
“San Lang…” he can’t help but coo quietly, “it’s alright, they can’t hurt you anymore. I’ll make sure of it.”
The youth hums weakly and closes his beautiful dark eyes.
“Ah, San Lang…!” he exclaims, worried, gently jostling the man in his arms. “Don’t sleep yet, you have a head injury!”
San Lang squints up at him again— if he weren’t injured Xie Lian would've been gushing over how adorable he looked— and nods slightly into the ghost king’s chest.
Again under different circumstances he would have found his beloved devotees’ actions adorable. But blood, San Lang’s precious blood, was spilled today and he is still furious. He trembles in it even as he looks up to see the splattered remains of those ghosts and a filthy but proud looking Ruoye.
The youth mumbles into his chest so quietly that even he strains to hear.
“Gege’s very warm ‘nd soft- mm…”
Ah, well that undeniably makes Xie Lian blush, his beloved’s always such a flatterer!
He thinks for a moment trying to figure out how to best keep his San Lang awake before defaulting to explaining the origins of Xian Le weaponry, specifically the swords and blades made during the kingdom’s existence during their walk from the alley and into a very out of place patch of white wild flowers. He carefully steps into the patch of foliage and suddenly they are back in Puqi village.
While he’s chatting up a storm, he shifts to his disguised cultivator form and keeps his attention on the man in his arms. The red clad youth, ever so attentive and sweet, is trying his best to follow along. Though it is obvious his injury took quite the toll on him, and the rough treatment after surely didn’t help.
It’s just before nightfall when they encounter a concerned elderly woman on the way back to Puqi Shrine- she thankfully doesn’t pry too much and leaves quickly once reassured by Xie Lian promising to take care of San Lang, and San Lang drowsily nodding in his arms.
She merely stares for a moment then nods at Xie Lian saying, “Oh dear, please help him get well soon, dongzhan. He’s made the village children very happy and he’s been such a big help around!”
With that Xie Lian nods and continues on his way.
Though, before they reach the shrine, he can’t help but tease, “Ah! San Lang really is the best! So good and helpful.”
Worryingly, he barely gets a response. He keeps his hopes up and tries to not let that bother him. To not let his memories over take him. Now isn’t the time to wallow.
When they reach the shrine, Xie Lian gently places San Lang down on the beat-up sleeping mat, being very mindful of his head. He presses a soft kiss to the youth’s forehead before beginning to tend to his injury.
He cleans it with a soft worn towel and wraps it securely with bandages. He begins to play with San Lang’s hair to try to soothe him further and leaves an array of butterfly kisses on the red-clad youth’s face.
He keeps a close watch on the other, worried that his injury may have been worse than it seemed. When nothing seems to be amiss after a while, he enters into a new communication array.
“Yizhen, Banyue?”
A simultaneous, “Baohuzhe?”
“Did you get my instructions?”
“En, this one is slowly closing in on the ghosts group, they’ll be in the dungeon by nightfall.”
“En, this one is bringing what Bao hu zhe requested to the shrine and keeping the chaos in Banyue under control.”
“Thank you, stay vigilant you two, I again leave the city and arena in your hands for now.”
“En Bao hu zhe, we’ll have it handled.”
The ghost king sighs heavily and the array drops allowing his two helpers to continue on with their business. As for Xie Lian, he decides to continue spending time with his San Lang, playing with his hair and pressing light pecks to every part of skin he could reach, until there’s a quiet knock on the door.
The ghost king frowns and sighs as he gets up from his sleeping San Lang’s side to open the door to welcome Banyue.
“Banyue,” he greets, with a smile and a wave.
“General!” the girl responds with a short bow.
Then she holds out a bag filled with what he and San Lang were planning on buying, along with some medical supplies and other miscellaneous items.
“Thank you, Banyue, I’m sorry to have suddenly piled so much on you two,” the ghost king says gratefully and sheepishly.
The girl nods and smiles, “It’s the least we could do. We’ll have everything handled, General Hua.”
Shortly after, the younger girl leaves to fulfill her other tasks, and Xie Lian turns around to unpack their new supplies and a few gifts he’s brought. He quickly ensures their quality and cleans what needs to be cleaned before preparing to once again cook something for his beloved.
After a while of him cooking, he sees out of the corner of his eye when San Lang begins to stir awake. Xie Lian quickly leaves the stew he was making to go check on the red-clad youth.
“San Lang, You’re awake..!” Xie Lian greets excitedly as he kneels next to him.
Though he frowns a bit as he notices a faraway look in the other’s eyes.
“San Lang…?” Xie Lian asks, concern lacing his features as he looks at the youth, waiting patiently for him to snap out of it.
“Ge-…” San Lang starts, but quickly snaps his mouth shut.
He sits up properly, with a furrowed brow and a small frown, to look the ghost king in the eye, starring with a vacant expression. Yet Xie Lian can’t help but feel those dark focused eyes are seeing right through him, staring into his very core.
A beat of tense silence.
“Ah, San Lang don’t sit up so-“ he begins to scold.
Then, something shifts in San Lang’s expression, a glimmer of something he’s thought long dead.
“Daixia…?” is quietly, reverently, whispered in the space between them.
Xie Lian stares and San Lang looks back, confused and scared.
There’s a mounting feeling in his chest and it’s begging him to remember. Yet right now, all he knows is the feeling of being torn to shreds and the relief that comes with it.