Chapter Text
On a crowded and dingy street, tucked in a narrow shop whose sign was broken and no longer lit up, worked a young man who appeared no more than twenty years of age. His long brown hair was tied back to keep out of the way of the scope attached to his eye. A thin screwdriver twisted in his hand, and a moment later, a screw popped out of the vintage pocket radio, falling onto his workbench. It rolled over the side, his breath hitching as he reached out to snatch it. His reflexes, compared to average man, which he was not, were normally quite good, though as of late, he had grown used to sleepless nights. His hand was slow, and failing, the screw fell to the floor and rolled under the tool chest, or beneath the cabinet of bills, or perhaps fell through some spatial idiosyncrasy. Wherever it was, Xie Lian was quite certain he would not find it so easily.
Remaining awake for eighty-four hours would drive a mortal man to madness or death, but to a god, only exhaustion. It was time, then, for him to remove his eyepiece and switch off the light. Up the stairs was a meager room with a bed that could accommodate one. Its thin, white sheets scratched at Xie Lian’s skin, but he could not afford silks or fine cottons. Polyester was cheap and functional. In truth, he had slept on the thinnest tatami mats and on muddied roads and in mucky puddles for hundreds of years. This bed of the modern era was a miracle and a luxury.
None of this remedied that, for as small as the bed was, it felt too large for only him. However long he had spent alone, he lived longer with another whom he had not seen for some two or three hundred years. The terminology of this era would call their current state a separation or a pending divorce. Though when Xie Lian thought of him, the word husband had not disappeared from his lexicon. One might think this implied that the other party was at fault, but Hua Cheng, whom only he had called San Lang, would never have asked for time apart.
He remembered, then, why he had stayed awake for those consecutive days. In the mornings, he ran errands. In the afternoons, he cooked a pot of stew. In the evenings, he recited the Dao De Jing before opening his shop to accept new repair orders. But the nights, the nights were for tinkering, and in tinkering, his mind would quiet. His memory would settle. And peace, that fleeting feeling, would wash over him.
“Your Highness,” a voice whispered. It belonged to Mu Qing. A moment later, Feng Xin echoed over the communication array. “Let me talk first!”
“You should break the news gently,” Feng Xin said.
“What the hell does that mean? I can deliver news just as well as you can.” Mu Qing paused, sighing. “It was the Mid-Autumn Festival Banquet today. The numbers are mostly low, just as they always are nowadays, but–”
“Do you really want us to report these things to you?” Feng Xin cut in. “I really don’t understand why you would want to know.”
“Tell me I haven’t gotten a single lantern this year. I can handle that. Most gods are lucky to get a handful these days, and I’m not so vain,” Xie Lian said. He had not visited the Heavenly Court for the past several hundred years, and he had asked his friends to send updates on matters pertaining to him.
Mu Qing tutted. “This is why I wanted to do it. You beat around the bush.” Mu Qing paused again, as if he, too, found it difficult to speak on this matter. “It’s been three hundred years, Your Highness, since then. Don’t you think Hua Cheng should stop by now?”
“Oh, did he send one up?” Xie Lian’s voice was heavy when he intended lightness and nonchalance. His chest clenched in discomfort. “That’s a lovely thought.”
“One would have been a kind gesture,” Mu Qing scoffed.
“A hundred would have been normal by comparison,” Feng Xin added.
“The three thousand of that year after His Highness’ third ascension–that was a lot, but I mean, he’s become deranged.”
“Out with it, then.” Neither could see that Xie Lian had covered his face with his hands. Both were correct, in one way, that he would rather not have known this. If Feng Xin had been more assured of his convictions, perhaps he would have lured Mu Qing into a brawl as a distraction. He should not have asked; it was entirely in his power to dismiss them. Was he this shameless? “How many was it?”
“Nine-hundred-thousand lanterns.”
Three thousand for each year they had spent apart.