Chapter Text
Hua Cheng was in no mood to entertain heavenly official trash on his best days, and an interruption of his strategy session to rain fresh wrath on an upstart ring of heavenly officials put him in a towering state of rage indeed.
If there was any time to test his temper, that wasn’t it!
“It’s Ling Wen Zhenjun,” Yin Yu said, worry palpable even through the fixed smile of the mask he wore as Half-Moon Officer. “In male form at the moment, and he won’t go away without speaking to Hua Cheng himself.”
“She thinks she’s safe?” Hua Cheng’s lip curled as he pushed away from his desk with controlled violence. “If she thinks she can ask for leniency on behalf of a gang of stripling gods for mocking what they think is a Scrap God…”
Yin Yu bowed his head in answer.
Hua Cheng gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Being that useless emperor’s right hand has inflated her notions of what is possible. Well, then, I’ll make equally outrageous demands to set her straight.”
“I’ll show her to the Rhododendron Room, then,” Yin Yu murmured.
Hua Cheng gave him a smile sharp as a knife’s edge. There were many rooms in the manor, and the Rhododendron Room was not for welcome guests. “We will not be providing tea.”
“Understood, sir.” He withdrew on soundless feet.
Hua Cheng watched him go, already sending a couple of silver-winged butterflies in advance to the designated meeting space. He had no intention to make an appearance before the civil god had been waiting for at least a half-shichen, but the concealed butterflies on the scene could give him an advance look at Ling Wen’s demeanor.
It was an unprecedented level of boldness for any heavenly official to approach Hua Cheng without some kind of subterfuge. None had done so during the entire time he’d ruled Ghost City, though many had decided they weren’t above carousing at the Gambler’s Den in disguise. Ling Wen’s presence was a solid indicator that the heavenly court recognized that Hua Cheng could, and would, destroy any number of the gods that he marked for such a fate. The fact a civil god had been dispatched to approach him meant they recognized threatening him was useless.
He took to his private study to view the different perspectives that his butterflies could offer. Ling Wen was in male form as Yin Yu had relayed, no doubt in an attempt to avoid any sign of weakness, not realizing that to Hua Cheng it made no difference. He didn’t discriminate when it came to an enemy, though he had not yet decided whether Ling Wen rated as such. She was on his radar as someone to watch, based on Hua Cheng’s intelligence.
The civil god was modestly attired in simple dark robes, hair pulled back in a functional tail. Ling Wen looked around the Rhododendron Room with a curious frown, but sat on the nearest divan without inspecting anything up close like one might expect.
From all that Hua Cheng had heard, Ling Wen was a sharp one, and doubtless suspected there was surveillance of some kind.
Hua Cheng kept watch on Ling Wen for a very boring stretch of time, noting that the god stirred for subtle fidgeting but nothing more. There was tension on Ling Wen’s face, as one might expect of a heavenly official in the manor of a calamity-level ghost king, but no impatience.
At last, Hua Cheng decided enough time had passed and he was ready to meet face to face and be entertained by how Ling Wen would present Jun Wu’s demands.
The chime of the silver charms on rigid black boots preceded him as usual. By the time Hua Cheng opened the door to the Rhododendron Room, a thin fake smile on his face, Ling Wen had risen from the divan.
“No need to bow,” Hua Cheng said airily. The flash of Ling Wen’s eyes amused him. Doubtless no bow had been forthcoming, but he’d positioned himself in the superior role with such a greeting.
“Hua Chengzhu,” Ling Wen replied, tone stiff. After a frosty pause, he continued. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
“I must admit, I was intrigued by the novelty of a heavenly official being bold enough to apply at the front door, for once,” Hua Cheng said. He gestured to the divan where Ling Wen had waited and seated himself across from him. Hua Cheng’s smirk broadened.
Ling Wen’s cheeks colored at the oblique reference to the spies that Jun Wu had attempted to seed through the ranks of Ghost City. There had been varying degrees of subtlety but they’d all been rooted out and sent packing, and Hua Cheng hadn’t even needed to intervene in most cases.
The ghosts in his domain were very loyal, and none too fond of most gods.
“Ah. Yes. Surely you can understand the concerns.” Ling Wen’s mouth was taut.
“Why don’t you spell them out for me, to ensure we’re speaking of the same thing?” Hua Cheng invited.
Ling Wen shifted a little on the divan and shot him a look that wasn’t a glare, but might have been if the air of Paradise Manor weren’t oppressive with Hua Cheng’s power. “It’s come to my attention, through various sources, that you may be intending a campaign against forty heavenly officials of lesser ranking.”
“Is that how many there are?” Hua Cheng wondered aloud, rubbing at his chin. “I was merely compiling a list of debts to collect.”
It was a thin cover story, but it held up. Hua Cheng had heard of the offenses of each of the scum officials because they’d been to Ghost City in recent times.
“I’ve come to ask on behalf of the heavens that you lay aside your grievances against these lowly officials, and the heavens will impose punishment on them for an appropriate length of time.”
Hua Cheng’s smirk fell away, and he gave the civil god a cold look. That only reminded him of the punishment that Xie Lian had been given, and a length of six hundred years and counting could not be considered appropriate by anyone’s measure. Whether it had been at the emperor’s hand or some other, Hua Cheng couldn’t forgive it, and so the heavens were his enemy.
“And what boon will you confer upon me in exchange for staying my grievance against their lives?” Hua Cheng drawled.
Ling Wen dropped the resolute attitude and stared at him. “Boon?”
“Yes, what are you offering? You’ve shown up unannounced at my door without even a gift for a first time meeting.” Hua Cheng’s lips twitched in a thin semblance of a smile. “Now you ask me to stay my hand from intended vengeance. By what incentive should I grant this request?”
Ling Wen straightened, chin lifting. “The heavens will punish them severely.”
“What do I care for that?” Hua Cheng mused, setting his chin on his knuckles. “That’s simply depriving me of the satisfaction of punishing them myself.”
Ling Wen blinked, lips moving without sound for a moment. After visibly regrouping, Ling Wen bowed his head and spoke through gritted teeth. “Then, what would Hua Chengzhu accept in order to drop this issue?”
“Hmm,” Hua Cheng drew out the thoughtful hum with relish. “Many have said it’s impossible to stay my wrath once I’ve set my mind to destruction.”
It was an unsubtle reminder of his capabilities. Ling Wen was pale, but his eyes remained fixed on Hua Cheng.
“And so I want something impossible in exchange,” Hua Cheng concluded. He gave the civil god a pleasant but toothy grin. “The hand of Prince Xie Lian in marriage, with heaven’s blessings.”
Ling Wen sat back on the divan, eyes wide. “That’s…”
“Impossible,” Hua Cheng filled in the blank, surveying each shift in facial expression with glee. Shock, horror, calculation, the shrewdness that Ling Wen was known for, and a trace of weary resignation before emotions were shuttered behind an impassive stare.
“I cannot answer for the heavens on this,” Ling Wen said slowly.
“Oh, by all means.” Hua Cheng waved a hand. “Return, confer with the necessary parties, and provide your answer within a month’s time. I suppose I can stay the impending doom for that long.”
“Then I will take my leave, so as to convey your request promptly.” Ling Wen stood up from the divan.
Hua Cheng rose in a movement so quick and fluid, he was on his feet before Ling Wen finished straightening. “See that you do.” He said it in magnanimous tones, laughing inside all the while.
Yin Yu appeared beside him after Ling Wen had been shown out. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Hua Cheng chuckled. The sound was short and unamused. “Consider it from this perspective: bare minimum, they’ll go to some effort to locate his whereabouts, and if they track him down, I’ll finally know his location.”
Yin Yu paused. “And if they deliver His Highness to you in marriage?”
Now Hua Cheng threw his head back and laughed. He bent over and slapped his knee before straightening abruptly.
“Yin Yu, I didn’t think you had a sense of humor.”
Hua Cheng flicked his fingers in dismissal. There was much to attend to, and a list of heavenly officials whose demise was still in order.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
Xie Lian had run or been chased out of many cities in his six-hundred-some years, but he had to have used up at least a hundred years’ worth of bad luck to be driven from Kai’ong to end up somehow in the streets of Yong’an.
Every other decade or so, he was overcome with the temptation to linger, to test his luck and settle in relative comfort, then along came a fresh crisis that would remind him of the weight of the shackle around his ankle. There was no escaping it.
Someone bumped into him hard where Xie Lian had stood idle for a moment, taking in the changed street of Yong-an that led, wide and bustling, into the heart of the city. He knew the street in front of him, and yet he didn’t. He started and gave a small cry as he watched, forlorn, while the steamed bun he’d rescued from a nearby discard pile tumbled into the street.
It had been a real find. Someone had thrown the bun out before even taking a bite, declaring themselves too full.
With a sigh, Xie Lian squatted to retrieve the bun. He could brush off most of the dirt. And if he ended up eating a little, what did it matter?
Before he could reach it, someone stooped beside him and plucked the bun from just past the tips of his fingers.
“Ho,” an unimpressed voice resounded beside him.
Xie Lian got to his feet, squinting at the tall, broad-shouldered man who had stolen his lunch.
“What’s this?” the man continued. “A former martial god, picking up bread from the dirt?”
Xie Lian scoffed, scratching at his cheek. “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” he said, giving a slight bow and beginning to back away. “Still, there’s nothing shameful about dirt.”
He ought to know. He’d had his face rubbed in it enough times over the centuries.
Before he could make good on his escape, the man reached out and seized Xie Lian’s upper arm.
Xie Lian stared up at him in astonishment. “You—” he began, but before he could lift his hand to grasp that hold and throw him off, the man snorted and began to shimmer with heavenly aura. “Oh, you’re…” Xie Lian trailed off, because although it was clear the man was a god, Xie Lian had no idea which one.
The man gave a scornful-sounding chuckle. “General Ming Guang of the North,” he supplied. “I would not have expected you to recognize this guise, your highness.”
Xie Lian held in a laugh of his own. From that chuckle, it seemed the general’s expectations had been rather the opposite. “Pei Ming, isn’t it?” Xie Lian had sheltered under the roof of a temple of the north’s martial god often enough in his travels. It was true that he looked nothing like the handsomely carved statues that were stationed as the central feature of northern temples. Then again, which god could claim their statues were close to the real thing?
“En,” Pei Ming said.
“We are somewhat far from your lands,” Xie Lian observed.
Pei Ming shrugged. “I’ve been sent to fetch you, your highness.”
“Oh,” Xie Lian said. He looked around, scratching absently beneath his ear. “But, whatever for?” He was lower than the lowest middle court official; he had no standing, and his cultivation and luck had been sealed for centuries. In fact, he hadn’t even kept tabs on the heavens for longer than he could recall. He had no connections of any kind.
“Your presence is requested for an audience,” was Pei Ming’s cryptic reply.
Xie Lian lowered his gaze. When it was said like that, there could be only one who would request an audience for him; someone with the authority to compel the martial god of the north to look for him no less. Pei Ming was an older god with plenty of stature. He had over nine hundred temples, which Xie Lian only knew about because he’d ended up busking or begging outside a good half of them. People were more inclined to be charitable outside a prominent temple.
“Then, we should go,” Xie Lian said. He was helpless to respond any other way. He gave one last forlorn look to the discarded bun in the street as Pei Ming steered him to the outskirts of the city.
“I don’t have a temple here,” Pei Ming said like an explanation, though Xie Lian hadn’t asked. “This is General Tai Hua’s territory. But, we can’t be seen.”
Xie Lian gave him a blank nod. The name meant nothing to him.
They had barely turned around the wall that bordered the city when Pei Ming’s hand tightened on him and they transferred to the heavens with a jarring wrench that set Xie Lian’s teeth on edge and made his ears pop.
“Ah,” he said faintly, putting a hand to his face to check for blood. Come to think of it, he had never gone back and forth from the heavens without being a god, had he? It was an unpleasant sensation.
“Sorry.” Pei Ming didn’t sound very sorry. “We are expected.”
Xie Lian frowned up at him and saw Pei Ming taking his hand away from his temple.
Right...a communication array. It had been so long since Xie Lian had the spiritual power for one, he’d all but forgotten about their existence. What was the point of thinking about something he never used?
“How did you find me?” Xie Lian asked instead. It had been nagging at his mind since General Ming Guang had revealed himself. Had he been under heavenly surveillance the whole time? If that was true, then… he suppressed a shudder.
Though he’d thought himself past any sense of embarrassment or shame, living off many kinds of dubious means and collecting scrap to sell as his most reliable means of supporting himself, there were still things that would be mortifying if they were known.
There were things… Well, if the heavens had been watching when it happened, then Xie Lian thought he might be sick.
“Those of us not on urgent business were summoned over the past day, shown an image of your highness, and dispatched to find you.”
“Ah, I see.” Xie Lian tried to nod sagely. It probably just looked like he was jolting as he tried to match his strides to the much taller Pei Ming as the martial god set a fast pace down the scintillating streets of the heavenly capital.
There were plenty of officials milling around, either engaged in conversation or walking along the avenues, and all of them craned their necks to gaze in unabashed curiosity as Pei Ming passed by with Xie Lian in tow.
Xie Lian recognized none of them, but that didn’t mean much. He had been out of it for so long, he wasn’t sure who among even his former acquaintances he might find familiar. And he himself had changed quite a bit, dressed down in his worn white cultivator’s robes smudged with dust from the roads of the earthen realm. A simple bamboo hat hung down his back, secured by a string. There was a white bandage wrapped around his neck to hide the shackle there, and he was glad enough for that because otherwise, he’d be getting lots more stares.
The Palace of Divine Might was where the upper heavenly officials held court, and for some reason Xie Lian had been expecting to be led there.
Instead, he was led down a back route into a splendid but overgrown garden. Hibiscus bloomed everywhere the eye could see in vibrant colors. It was so crowded with greenery that the atmosphere was stifling, and Xie Lian shrank into himself a little as he registered the sense of being closed in on.
“This way,” Pei Ming said, ducking beneath a tree branch into a gazebo nearly concealed by climbing vines.
Xie Lian passed through what felt like the tingle of an array and stopped short as he caught sight of Jun Wu. He began to kneel at once, stricken like he’d been smacked in the back of the head.
“Rise, Xianle,” Jun Wu said, sounding impatient, almost angry.
Xie Lian straightened his knees and back, but kept his gaze on the floor of the gazebo. “My Lord,” he said. “I apologize.”
Jun Wu’s eyes were like a searing light on him. Xie Lian bent his head further.
“And what are you apologizing for?” Jun Wu asked.
Xie Lian bit his lip and didn’t answer.
“I see,” Jun Wu said. There was an edge to his voice. “Xianle, when you were banished, I did instruct you to keep in communication.”
“My Lord,” Xie Lian said. There was a pinch beneath his breastbone at the use of the title he hadn’t heard in so many centuries. ‘Heaven’s Delight.’ How could it still be considered anything but an insult?
If Jun Wu said it, though, then it was considered the truth.
Jun Wu gave a sigh, sounding weary. Xie Lian risked a look at the emperor and found him rubbing at his temple. “Xianle, you are not my subject to command.”
“I wouldn’t say that, my lord,” Xie Lian said. His hand twitched but he didn’t reach up to touch the bandage that concealed his neck. How could he be considered anything but subject, still?
“Then, I will ask you.” Jun Wu caught his gaze with steely intensity. “Xianle, will you be willing to do anything to preserve the order of the heavens?”
Xie Lian blinked. What an odd question. “Of course,” he replied at length, sure it had to be a test of some kind. He glanced around the gazebo to see whether Pei Ming had any idea what was going on, but the martial god of the north had disappeared.
Jun Wu sighed again, heavier than before. “I called you here because Crimson Rain Sought Flower may wipe out an entire new generation of gods if we don’t grant him a boon, and if he’s allowed to dispatch another wave of heavenly officials without opposition, it may threaten the very foundation of the heavens.”
He cast a meaningful glance at Xie Lian, who was dumbfounded.
“My Lord?” he said, and had to follow it with a direct question when no explanation was forthcoming. “Who is Crimson Rain Sought Flower?”
“You haven’t heard?” Jun Wu frowned. “I cannot ask you to do this, if you have no idea what kind of…” He trailed off, seeming troubled.
“If you explain it to me,” Xie Lian invited. His curiosity was pricked. What did Jun Wu want to ask? More to the point, what could Xie Lian do to help that Jun Wu himself couldn’t accomplish?
“Hmm...during your travels, have you heard of the Four Calamities?”
“Ah, I’m afraid to say I haven’t,” Xie Lian admitted. He rubbed at the back of his head, a sheepish gesture. When one was trying to eke out a living off scraps with the worst of luck poised to snatch even that from his grasp, when did he have the leisure to pay attention to folklore?
Jun Wu continued, undeterred. “He is a supreme level ghost – the worst of the Four Calamities. He’s known as Hua Cheng, the so-called Ghost King of Ghost City.”
“What a lovely name,” Xie Lian mused, thinking it only fitting for such a name to go with the poetic title of Crimson Rain Sought Flower.
“He has the heart and will of a demon,” Jun Wu said in a dark tone. “And I regret to say, that creature has demanded the hand of the Crown Prince of Xianle in marriage in order to forestall his assault on the hapless forty officials he’s marked for death.”
“Surely he can’t manage to take on forty heavenly officials?” Xie Lian was shocked to hear it.
Jun Wu gave him a smile that was scarcely more than a strained twitch of his lips. A chill went down Xie Lian’s spine.
“He established his reputation as a Calamity by challenging thirty-five heavenly officials,” Jun Wu said. “Thirty-three accepted, on the terms that if they prevailed, he would hand over his ashes.”
Xie Lian was nonplussed. “His ashes…”
“The last mortal remains of a ghost,” Jun Wu explained. “By which you can control or destroy that ghost, even a supreme.”
“Ah, then…” Xie Lian grimaced. “All of them failed? Really?”
The tale that Jun Wu went on to regale him with was a fascinating one, in truth. All thirty-three officials had been bested, but had failed to step down from their positions in heaven as promised. And in a single night of fire, Hua Cheng and his fearsome wraith butterflies had cut down every single temple for each of those officials, until there were no places left to worship.
And, in time, no gods either.
Xie Lian could see why such a figure was an avatar of dread to the settled, comfortable denizens of heaven. Yet he found himself fixed on the description of a slim youth clad in red, tipping an umbrella over a flower to shelter it from the blood rain he’d called down on his enemies. No doubt, Jun Wu had included that detail to have Xie Lian think of the ghost as perverse.
After pondering all that, Xie Lian’s mind doubled back on the first part of Jun Wu’s unbelievable statement.
“Wait...you said Hua Cheng demanded my hand in marriage. Why me?” Xie Lian pointed to his own face.
Jun Wu shook his head, smiling faintly. “Xianle, he never expected the boon to be fulfilled.” It was the somewhat patronizing instruction of an elder to his pupil.
“Oh. Right.” Xie Lian slouched a little. Of course, the heavens couldn’t bestow the prince’s hand in marriage; it was an impossible request, if the crown prince of Xianle was a figure of legend. So from the start, it had been requested in bad faith.
Perhaps Hua Cheng had been a citizen of Xianle, in life.
“Then, will you accept this charge?”
Xie Lian considered for a long moment. Marriage to a ghost king feared by the heavens, or the deaths of forty gods to follow. He supposed he could ask instead to return to the mortal realm and leave him out of it, but it seemed like the deaths of those gods, or any who rose up to oppose the devastation, would be like blood on his hands instead.
He contemplated what would happen if he showed up and descended from the marriage sedan with a sword to issue his own challenge.
Xie Lian had to suppress a laugh, knowing Jun Wu wouldn’t find his visualization amusing.
Instead of saying anything, he bowed his head. He supposed he’d figure out his own plan along the way.
Jun Wu sighed yet again. “As I hoped, and feared. Then we shall conduct this accordingly, and you shall be dispatched with heaven’s blessings. Go with my attendant and they’ll see to the preparations.”
“My Lord?” Xie Lian was startled. A veiled attendant had materialized out of thin air at his right elbow, her head inclined at a demure angle.
“We can’t send you to him as you are.” Jun Wu gestured to him with a frown. “It would be an insult.”
Xie Lian tried not to feel a certain way about that. Then again, he wasn’t sure he’d even come to terms with the prospect of his impending nuptials.
“If Xianle is to be wed, then we must send you in wedding splendor,” Jun Wu said. His frown lingered. “Go. We’ve no time to waste.”
Xie Lian nodded again, looking down at his white robes and plucking at a sleeve. He tried to keep them clean, but the dust from the road was visible.
“Think of it as going undercover for a case, if you will,” Jun Wu said, mistaking his hesitation.
Xie Lian blinked. “But I am getting married,” he said, half a question. Unless Jun Wu had some operation planned that he wasn’t sharing, it did seem that he was being offered to the Calamity as appeasement.
Jun Wu sighed. “If we had any other option…”
“I see.” Xie Lian felt numb. Even Jun Wu saw no alternatives, and feared challenging the Calamity on his own territory. He wouldn’t have thought he’d see the day. “Then, this Xianle is prepared to serve.”
He turned and walked where the veiled attendant led him.
She brought him to a shining, opulent bathhouse. The water itself tingled with spiritual charge as Xie Lian stripped and sank into the deep-set bath where he was scrubbed, led to the shallow steps, dried off with impersonal hands, then the pampering began. Not since his days as a prince had Xie Lian been subjected to such pampering. He was laid out, hands massaging scented lotions into his skin. His hair was untangled with perfumed combs and secured half-up with a glittering golden lotus guan. He was decked out in resplendant red wedding robes embroidered with golden thread that formed the outlines of butterflies, a break from tradition that surprised him. He would have expected the usual phoenixes and dragons.
Xie Lian remembered the mention of the wraith butterflies that Hua Cheng deployed when he fought and a shiver quaked through him. Not fear; he could hardly recall what that felt like. He wasn’t sure what sparked it. Thrill of the unknown, perhaps.
None of the attendants had said a word as they prepared and dressed him. Xie Lian was beginning to wonder if they were real, or constructs. He wasn’t sure which he preferred. At least he didn’t have to speak, either way. They left him alone with his thoughts, and Xie Lian pondered the fact that a single calamitous threat had accomplished what his mother’s planning, his father’s entreaties and orders, and six hundred years of refusing offers on the basis of his cultivation had failed to accomplish.
He was getting married.
Xie Lian was binding his life to an unknown, a supreme ghost, who had brought thirty-three gods to an end and was threatening an even greater number for his own obscure reasons. Wasn’t that just the ultimate manifestation of his bad luck? He wasn’t sure if he was being sent as sacrifice, distraction, or some secret third option, but one thing was certain.
As he’d done for the past six hundred odd years of his life, Xie Lian would have to fend for himself. He was going once again where the heavens couldn’t help him.