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There have been many terrible days in Xue Yang’s life.
For as long as he could remember he has lived on the street left alone in the biting cold with bottomless hunger making him weak and sick. He recalled living off rotten bread and vegetables for months at a time just to survive and how the pain from having his hand crushed as a child kept him awake every night with tears rolling down his face. He survived all of that and grew up to be strong, ruthless and ambitious. Striving for power and recognition, he made his way to powerful men, serving them and learning cultivation only to find the abuse still wouldn’t end. He was beaten and imprisoned, loathed, abused and starved. He was used in every way imaginable, betrayed and left to die by the side of the road.
Yes, Xue Yang has had many terrible days.
The day Xiao Xingchen died was the worst of all of them.
As his Daozhang’s body fell to the ground in a mockingly graceful arch, blood spreading across his robes like a blooming flower, Xue Yang screamed. Dropping to his knees, he pressed his hands into the bleeding gap on Xiao Xingchen’s neck, trying to stop the blood that kept pulsing up between his fingers. Tears started rolling down his face as he wiped at the blood as if that could push the life back into Xingchen’s body.
By the time it stopped coming, both their robes were a deep red, a matching stain connecting them. Xue Yang collapsed onto Xingchen’s chest, sobbing. He curled his hands into his Daozhang’s robes and cried until there were no more tears left in him and his sobs turned into empty heaving. Finally, he sat up, smoothed his hands over Xingchen’s chest and with a hoarse voice whispered to him
“I’m going to bring you back. I promise.”
The first thing Xue Yang did was find that damned girl. If she had any brains at all she would have run out of the city and put as much distance between them as possible, he thought. But she was only a kid, probably terrified and hiding somewhere she felt safe.
He was right.
It only took him minutes to find her and for a moment he bathed in the terror on her face before he got out his knife and turned her eerie white eyes blind for real. She screamed so shrilly that it hurt his ears, so he took her tongue as well. And then her life, for good measure.
The next thing Xue Yang did was bring Xingchen inside. He picked him up gently, cradling his lifeless head and laid his limp body down on the table. Under no circumstances would he put his Daozhang in a coffin now. Tenderly, he brushed his fingers across Xingchen’s cheeks. He’d do everything to bring him back.
Xue Yang knew about demonic cultivation, about how to bring the dead back to life and how to make them serve you. In the Jinlin Tai, there had been an abundance of books and scripts on this and no shortage of material for practice. So far, however, he had never been successful at creating a sentient fierce corpse. More practice was needed.
Xue Yang went out in the yard again where Song Lan's corpse was still lying, dried blood clinging to his face and neck from where his tongue had been cut out. Xue Yang kicked his face. Then he picked him up, much less gentle than he had done with Xingchen before, carried him inside and placed him in one of the coffins.
Before he could work on bringing them back, there were preparations to do. The bodies would need to be preserved to withstand the course of nature as not to rot away.
With Xingchen, Xue Yang took the utmost care. Oh so gently, he took off his stained robes and tenderly cleaned the blood off his body. He salvaged a thread from Xingchen’s old robes and stitched the hole in his throat closed so carefully that only a thin row of thread marks was visible when he put the needle down. After that, he dressed his Daozhang in his spare under-robes, built him a bed near the fireplace and laid him out with his hands folded on his chest.
Song Lan got no such treatment, he was left lying on the floor and staring at Xue Yang with his cold dead eyes. Disgusted, Xue Yang threw the bloodied robes over his face. There.
It took him an entire day to draw up the talismans for the bodies and Xue Yang didn’t allow himself to rest. Finally, he had an array set up around each of them that would buy him the time he needed to work on bringing them back.
Sourcing the materials for his demonic cultivation in the cities nearby wasn’t too difficult and soon he could begin the actual work.
After a month of experimenting, Song Lan opened his eyes.
They were unfocused and dead, but Xue Yang knew he had been successful. From all the research he had done and all the experiments in the dungeons of the Jinlin Tai he knew what to do now. Song Lan's body might be back, but his sentience wasn’t yet and he had to suppress his mind before the cultivator would regain his sense of self. In the past, Xue Yang had failed at that but this time, he had a new invention that he trusted. He ordered Song Lan to sit up and took out two long dark nails, intricate spells carved into them.
Then he drove them into Song Lan’s head. He probably would have screamed at that but his tongueless mouth only stretched open silently as his back arched and arms twisted in pain. Suddenly, he slumped back and Xue Yang knew he had him right where he wanted him to be.
Over the years, Song Lan proved to be useful. He worked the little garden Xingchen and A-Qing had set up, hunted deer and rabbits at night and watched over Xingchen whenever Xue Yang had to leave.
Because Xue Yang hadn't succeeded at bringing Xingchen back, even after years of trying. No matter what he did, Xue Yang could not work it out.
He let his mind reach out for his Daozhang’s soul only to feel a mere shadow of his former spirit, his soul crushed and broken into pieces. They were scattered across the universe like the stars in the night sky and Xue Yang had no idea how to put them back together. He was at his wit’s end.
Hadn’t he tried everything the scripts suggested? Hadn’t he carried out various experiments in his own desperation? Hadn’t he tried it all?
The sense of failure and the grievance which came with it were hard to take. Anger and frustration made him even more violent and he turned to Song Lan in his fury. In an attempt to release the building tension in him he beat him with his bare hands until his knuckles were bleeding. When this didn’t help he let Song Lan have a go at him. Even though he was suppressed, he must have had a spark of conscience left in him because when he hit Xue Yang, he did so with all of his brutal strength. Xue Yang let himself be punched until he blacked out, hoping the pain in his body would ease the pain in his heart.
It didn’t.
Night after night he pressed his face in the pillows to try and muffle his cries. He cursed Xingchen -stupid beautiful, soft Xingchen- for saving him, for gifting him the happiest time of his life with the years they spent together only to take it all away in the cruelest way. Never before had he known the feeling of having a home, of security and of love.
Xingchen’s quiet laughter and his soft voice were still ringing in his ears.
He missed watching Xingchen work, face scrunched up in concentration as his slender hands nimbly mended clothes or cut potatoes or cleaned his sword.
He missed his warm body pressed against him on cold nights, arms tightly wrapped around his waist. Xingchen loved holding Xue Yang and loved it even more when Xue Yang held him too, stroking his hair until he fell asleep and Xue Yang did it for him, time and time again.
He missed Xingchen’s sweet soft kisses, still always a little shy, even after they had kissed many many times and had done much more than that.
He missed his gentle hands on his body, soothing over his chest and stomach and arms.
He missed having Xingchen underneath him, making him feel good and full and loved.
Xue Yang had never loved anyone before.
He hadn’t known how much it hurt to miss a lover.
Xue Yang refused to let Xingchen go.
Every night, he crawled into bed next to him, wrapping his arms around him and pressing his face into his neck. Xingchen was always so cold. Xue Yang pulled him in tighter, trying to keep him warm. Maybe if he warmed Xingchen up enough, he would come back to him?
He stroked his hair just like he had always liked and pressed tiny kisses to his cool lips. If he kissed them long enough, they’d warm from the heat of his mouth.
His Daozhang had liked being clean so Xue Yang poured him warm baths. Spread flowers in the water because Xingchen was so beautiful like that in the firelight, water droplets on his skin which turned a tinge of rose from the warm water. He slipped into the bath to hold him until the water cooled down.
Xue Yang didn’t want Xingchen to be cold, so he helped him out, dried him gently and wrapped him up in clean robes, carefully, making sure the fabric was smooth and even.
With a wooden comb, he brushed out his hair, untangling it slowly and working scented oils into it while pressing soft kisses against Xingchen's neck.
Murmured soft words of love into his ear as if he could still hear them.
The robes and oils came from Lanling. In the coffin house, they never had any luxuries but Xue Yang felt like Xingchen deserved them. Over the years, Xingchen’s robes had become threadbare and unsightly and Xue Yang knew how much he would have loathed looking so messy. So he decided to go and bring back gifts for his beloved. He ordered Song Lan’s numb corpse to watch over Xingchen while he was gone and bid his Daozhang goodbye with a soft kiss on the lips.
In Lanling, he stole perfumes, oils and hair pieces. He held his knife to a tailor's throat and made him hand over the finest white robes he had to offer. From another shop, he stole silk beddings and new bandages, all for Xingchen, to make him as comfortable as he could.
When he returned, he slipped right into bed with Xingchen, holding him tight and whispering words of love, telling him how much he had missed him with tears running down his face.
Xingchen had liked to make food for them. Xue Yang had never been picky with what he ate himself, never had been able to afford that, but he tried so hard to make palatable dishes now, so he could give Xingchen a taste. He brought a spoon up to his lips, letting a sliver of soup drip into his mouth and hoped he liked the taste. Then he leaned in to kiss him, slowly licking away the stains of soup left on Xingchen's lips.
They used to talk a lot in the evenings, gathered around the fireplace. Pleasant conversations, that Xue Yang had never experienced before. So he told Xingchen about his day every night before he took him to bed. About where he had been, the people he had encountered and the rumors he had picked up. He held his hand while he did it, fingers interlaced, brushing his thumb lazily across Xingchen’s knuckles. When Xue Yang pressed his fingers hard enough into the soft skin of his wrist, he could feel the tendons reflect his own pulse.
He pretended it was Xingchen’s.
Before he laid him down to sleep, he always pressed his lips gently to Xingchen’s ruined eyes. He liked to cradle his face in his hands so it was almost like his Daozhang was looking back at him from those shadows. Clean bandages had to be wound back into place and Xue Yang left soft kisses on his cheeks when he tied the fabric behind his head.
Xingchen’s bare face was for Xue Yang’s eyes only.
*
Xue Yang laid Xingchen in the coffin, gently as if he was dreaming and Xue Yang didn’t want to wake him, just like he had done so many times before when they had been sleeping together. He carefully arranged the talismans, smoothed Xingchen’s soft hair with his fingertips so it laid in a black river over his robes. He made sure there were no creases in the fabric before he folded his hands on his chest, clasped around the hilt of Shuanghua. Xue Yang allowed himself one more taste of his beloved’s cold lips.
Then he closed the lid.
He had made a promise to bring his Xingchen back, and he did not intend to break it. But after years of seclusion and trying and failing, he needed to go out into the world again to learn more. There were rumours of an infamous demonic cultivator having come back to life and Xue Yang needed to track him down. They had met before and while it had not been a pleasant encounter, he had to find him to ask for his advice. Surely, the Yiling Laozu would be able to help him bring his Daozhang back.
Until then, he would not open the coffin again.
He made his way to the door where Song Lan was standing motionless, all their belongings packed on his back.
With a hopeful smile, Xue Yang turned back to the coffin one last time.
“My Xingchen. I’ll come back to you. Soon, we will be together again.”
He couldn’t know this, but he would never see his Daozhang’s face again.