Chapter Text
The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre
Come on baby, light my fire
Months had already passed since the fateful events in Mount Tonglu had shaken the heavens and left it in utter chaos.
Only slowly did the upper court manage to get over it and start to rebuild the heavenly capital.
It was also months since Mu Qing did something no one expected.
The evidence of his attempted self sacrifice was still burned deeply into his flesh.
The lava of Mount Tonglu wasn’t ordinary. It was full of resentful energy burning through his skin and flesh like it was burning through paper.
Mu Qing expected the wounds to heal slowly.
Though as time passed he began to wonder if they’d ever heal. Not only did the wounds refuse to heal, but also it felt like they slowly burned deeper. Through his skin, his muscles, his bones. A burning ache that seeped deep into his very being.
Mu Qing wasn’t used to asking for help. He was used to hiding what pained him, pretending to be alright . And so he did. He attended the heavenly meetings and got to work again. Biting his teeth, he fulfilled his duty and endured the pain.
Day to day it felt more like rotting inside than burning.
Only Feng Xin was wary of Mu Qing’s condition.
After the other god had saved him from falling down the lava cascade and dragged him out something had changed between them.
They still fought and bickered, though without real resentment.
Feng Xin brought him medicine and ointments to treat his wounds and they started to actually spend time together just talking.
They talked about Xie Lian and what they could possibly do to help their friend to get over his loss.
They also talked about their past and XianLe from time to time. Mu Qing found it interesting that they spent their last 800 years fighting and misunderstanding each other, when everything they just had to do was talk and listen.
Mu Qing always had a struggle to express what he really meant, though he figured that if he really wanted to be friends with Xie Lian and Feng Xin he had to learn to communicate not in riddles and sarcastic comments.
And it seemed his efforts were appreciated by Feng Xin. They could actually relax in each other's presence by now. It felt nice.
That’s why it wasn’t a surprise that with their new found closeness Feng Xin realized very fast that something was wrong.
Mu Qing was a strong martial god, maybe even stronger than him, even if Feng Xin didn’t like to admit to this fact. True, the cursed shackle which Jun Wu had put on him had drained his energy and even caused a lack of it after the shackle had been destroyed. Nonetheless Mu Qing’s wounds should have healed after all these months.
And though Mu Qing tried really hard not to show it, Feng Xin knew he was not okay.
“Mu Qing. We should really look into this. Your wounds should have healed weeks ago. Something is wrong.”
Mu Qing rolled his eyes. “I’m okay, Feng Xin. Please stop acting like a mother hen.”
“I’m not acting like a mother hen, you asshole. I just… Fuck never mind. Then deal with your shit yourself…” Feng Xin crossed his arms in front of his chest eyebrows drawn together in his trademark frown.
Mu Qing sighed. Xie Lian said friendship also means letting your friends care for you.
"Alright. What should I do, General Nan Yang?”
Feng Xin raised an eyebrow at him and waited a moment to make sure that no sarcastic comments would follow.
“Well, the usual treatment doesn’t seem to work. We should do research about… I don’t know, special spiritual wounds or curses or something? Maybe Ling Wen has something in her library that could be useful.”
It wasn’t as if Mu Qing hadn’t already done any research. He had tried to find a way to heal the wounds and to find out what was happening to him.
All in vain.
But Feng Xin seemed so determined in helping him and acted almost … concerned. It felt strange for Mu Qing that someone actually seemed to care about him - and Feng Xin of all people. Though it also felt nice so he agreed to do the research.
Then Mu Qing collapsed.
It happened at one of the meetings of the upper court. As he was trying to get up to take his leave earlier, since the ongoing discussion seemed to go nowhere, he unceremoniously fainted.
Feng Xin was seated at his side. The archer caught him right before Mu Qing hit the ground. And then everything went black.
Mu Qing woke through the sound of two people that were obviously debating something . One of them was unmistakably the heated voice of Feng Xin.
“What do you fucking mean you don’t know what to do?! There should be a fucking way to heal him!”
“I’m very sorry General Nan Yang,” Ling Wen's customer service voice rang through the room, “but we had our best medical gods look him over and I personally checked the scrolls over the last two days. It’s… nothing we’ve ever seen before.”
“It’s still his injuries from that lava, isn’t it? They should be healed by now. Why the fuck didn’t he say something about his condition being that severe. We could have…”
Mu Qing’s groan made Feng Xin stop mid sentence, his head snapping into the direction from where the sound came.
“Could you, by any chance, lower your voice, you imbecile.”
“Mu Qing! What the fuck?!”
“Poetic as always, General.” Mu Qing’s voice sounded weaker than intended though his eye roll held the usual spite.
“Mu Qing stop it. You just fainted and went unconscious for three fucking days, apparently your spiritual energy ran completely out, not to speak of…”
Mu Qing tried to shake off the sudden grip on his wrist but it was futile.
“…THIS!”
He didn’t have the strength to work against the firm grip of the other god who raised his arm and exposed a fierce red wound that ran all over the underside of his arm.
It looked like raw flesh, wet and red, almost pulsating with pain and heat.
“Huh”. Was all Mu Qing managed as an answer.
“Huh? Is this all you have to say?!” Feng Xin’s voice almost sounded desperate while he dropped the wrist slightly annoyed, but yet in a gentle way to not inflict more pain to the wounds.
“What do you want me to say?”
Feng Xin’s expression shifted at that. Before he just looked like usual: angry and ready to start a fight. Now it was replaced with a troubled expression. Something akin to hurt and concern mixed in it.
This was new, Mu Qing thought to himself.
“Why… why didn’t you say something?”
Feng Xin’s voice sounded as troubled as he looked.
“I don’t need any help.” Mu Qing’s voice was still weak but nonetheless he managed the dismissive tone.
Who would care anyway? went unsaid.
Ling Wen took a step closer to the bed frame clearing her throat in a polite way to make her presence still known.
“General Xuan Zhen. It seems the injuries you gained from Mount Tonglu are not common. In fact it seems they not only spread all over your skin, but also run deep in your body, your meridians and it even attacked your core. That’s why you seem to run out of energy.”
“I see”.
Mu Qing knew.
It began with the injuries spreading like an inflammation. But they slowly crept deep into his body, like an unstoppable disease.
He felt it spread from day to day until it seemed to reach his heart and his core.
By now his body felt cold like stone, though the blood in his veins felt hot, burning him from the inside.
Of course he tried to find out what to do in the last weeks. Though he didn’t find an answer as well as Ling Wen didn’t.
“What… what does that mean?”
Mu Qing flinched at the fear in Feng Xin’s voice.
“I’m afraid, but I think General Xuan Zhen is dying.” Ling Wen said an unusual flash of sadness running through her gray eyes.
“You are fucking kidding me?!”
Mu Qing lay still. His eyes set on the ceiling, his breath calm.
He ignored Feng Xin first yelling at Ling Wen and then at him for not seeking any help sooner.
His mind wandered to Mount Tonglu. To the fight against Jun Wu. Stuttered confession, heat consuming his immortal body and strong arms circled around him. A voice whispering desperately “don’t ever do something stupid like that again.”
Never would he have thought Feng Xin would go out of his way to save him.
To jump right after him.
There were a lot of things Mu Qing had liked to find out. About them, their rivalry that turned to a friendship, about himself and his complicated feelings that seemed to have crept to the surface from deep inside when he faced his fate in Mount Tonglu.
And now it looked like he didn’t get the chance to.
He didn’t miss the irony in it. It just made him incredibly sad.
So this is how it should end?
Dying. Something Mu Qing feared more than he’d ever admit.
It happened fast.
In a few days all of his immortal life was drained of him.
Feng Xin never left his side once.
He heard his voice in a haze the few times he’d been conscious. Sometimes heated and angry, familiar.
Another time it was weak and soft, pleading.
He felt broad warm hands encircling his own cold one.
He also heard Xie Lian‘s voice once. It hurt Mu Qing to think he would cast just more pain upon His Highness who still suffered the loss of his beloved San Lang.
Then Mu Qing’s heart stopped beating.
If dying was like something suffocated the flames of his being and his soul, becoming a ghost was like lighting a campfire.
First it was like his consciousness started flickering up like a small candle.
It was just a faint feeling of being there in general.
But it didn’t take long to become more. For the small flame to become a decent glowing fire.
After conciseness crept its way out of a never ending darkness, emotions started to take root.
Fear. Anxiety. Anger. So much anger.
It served as a fuel.
If it were years or decades that went by he couldn’t tell.
But one day Mu Qing felt a power running through his still fragile being of a ghost fire. Then with an explosion he manifested.
It took him a moment to adjust his eyes. New eyes that never witnessed light before.
Even if it was just the pale light of the moon, it still hurt.
Blinking Mu Qing started to get up. His new legs tried to refuse his commands though his determination was getting the upper hand.
After a short while of settling in his new born body Mu Qing blinked down on himself.
His pale skin was clad in black and gray robes not that much different from what he wore in his former life. Maybe a bit simpler. They were born from his imagination.
He may adjust them some time.
His long hair hung open around his shoulders and down his back. He raised his right hand to grab a silky strand of hair and found it had changed color.
Gone was the inky black color and removed for silver white hair that reflected the moonlight.
The disease - or whatever you might call what had killed him in the end - hadn’t only drained him from life but apparently also drained him from all colors.
“What happened?”
Mu Qing’s deep voice sounded rough and he coughed slightly at the feeling of using it the first time.
His tongue rolled around in his mouth and dragged against small sharp fangs.
The hand that still held the strand of hair wandered to his face. It felt like before, so he figured his features might not have changed much. Then it moved further to find a pointed ear poking out of the silver-white cascade of hair flowing down his back and shoulders.
He knew he was dead. He remembered dying. It was an awful feeling and he still remembers the fear he felt the moment his heart stopped his beating forever and then darkness surrounded him and everything ended.
Gods don’t die and go to the afterlife.
Well, a god is surely able to die. Immortality has his boundaries too.
It’s possible to get killed by something powerful like a calamity or another god or even a very powerful curse. Or when they lose their followers and the world slowly forgets about them.
Though when a god's life is ended for whatever reason he just stops existing.
So why was he here? He never heard from a god becoming a ghost after his life ended.
Mu Qing was thinking. He remembered the flicker of his existence like a small weak candle.
He remembered all these feelings he always tried to suppress and hide deep inside.
Not only the fear of dying. There was regret.
Regret for the things he did in his past life, regret for not telling what he truly wanted much earlier, regret that he never admitted he… and with that another feeling fought his way to the surface. Love. A deeply buried aching love. Feelings that weren’t reciprocated. It hurt.
Mu Qing closed his eyes while he remembered the painful and embarrassing moments of his demise.
Suddenly there was something else he remembered. A voice. Faint but still prominent.
He remembered hearing it like in a dream.
Someone begged. Begged for him to not leave this world. Begged for him to stay by his side.
Mu Qing pondered if this was a memory from his deathbed. Was it his Highness? No… The voice was different.
It must have been after he already died. The time is not clear for him and doesn’t matter that much.
He closed his eyes concentrating on the voice.
“Mu Qing please. General Xuan Zhen. I beg you. Don’t leave me…”
Mu Qing’s eyes snapped open like he was bitten by something.
A Prayer! It was a prayer. Someone… no not only someone. The realization of who the voice belonged to hit him like a prick.
“Feng Xin…”
Feng Xin had prayed to him in one of his temples. He had prayed for him to not leave.
So he didn’t.
After he gathered his senses and thrust aside all of his complicated feelings Mu Qing thought about his next steps.
He started to test his abilities and gathered his spiritual energy. Mu Qing felt it building in the center of his dead body and flowing through his veins, though it felt quite different than the power of a god.
Godly spiritual energy felt light and warm, this though felt kind of heavy, thickly flowing and cold. Mu Qing needed to adjust.
He figured he shouldn’t be too weak, since he managed to have built a body that resembled his former one quite much and also to wrap it into some decent clothes.
Mu Qing remembered his spiritual weapon, his Zhanmadao and figured he should try for it too.
He sat down on the floor and started meditating to gather his spiritual energy. Mu Qing wasn’t sure if “meditating” was the thing ghosts do to fuel their energy, but figured it was worth a try.
Naturally nothing happened.
With a sigh he gave up.
Suddenly he heard something approaching.
Mu Qing got up and the moment he got to stand he was already attacked.
A high voice was laughing at him.
“Hihihi! you look like a newborn baby with your fair skin and your moonlit hair, fellow ghost boy. I’m sure you will make for a delicious meal!”
A grim looking ghost lady started to attack Mu Qing with sharp claws and they started to engage in a fight.
It took Mu Qing to adjust to the movements of his body. He hasn’t had a body for decades. Though it was clear very quickly that he was fast.
The female ghost had quite a struggle to keep up with his movements and when he hit a punch against her it sent her flying a few feet away.
Mu Qing felt anger rise in him, his fight against the other ghost getting more and more fierce.
At some point before another attack he gathered his spiritual energy and then all of a sudden a long silver bladed saber appeared in his hand.
He saw the eyes of the ghost lady widen in fear the moment he struck down with his Zhanmadao.
It cut the ghost in half and with a scream she dissolved into a cloud of resentful energy.
Without even thinking and only acting on pure instinct Mu Qing started devouring it.
He sucked the cloud in through his mouth and suddenly felt the foreign energy of the other ghost merge with his own and his power growing just slightly.
When he finished it took Mu Qing a moment to realize what he’d just done. He felt embarrassment creep up in him over the action and he closed his eyes in disgust for a moment.
After a few moments he opened them again. He looked at the shimmering saber in his hand, then at the veins at his arms which still seemed to pulsate faintly with the newly gained power.
Mu Qing wasn’t human nor was he a god anymore.
The rules of heaven and earth didn’t apply to his existence longer.
As a god he spent half his time slaying ghosts and ghouls, so basically this wasn’t much different, only that he apparently could gain more power through the action.
Before he died he feared death more than anything else.
He feared to stop existing at all.
But that wasn’t the case. He was still here, just in another shape.
So if his soul did refuse to stop existing because of whatever reason it would be just logical to get the best out of it.
To gain as much power as possible and make sure nothing can prevent him from dying again.
Mu Qing always had been stubborn and good at adapting.
He was a human once and managed to become a god.
Now he was a ghost, so what could stop him from becoming a powerful one.
A Calamity.
With this new found determination he raised his head and started walking through the woods under the moonlight.
He needed to find his ashes. That was his first goal.