There was a ghost here with him.

Not that there wasn’t one normally, given Xie Lian’s history with the undead, but it was important to take note of. Keeping track of which spirits and creatures were in his vicinity. Xie Lian had grown accustomed to sacrificial plays—such as losing his own arm in exchange for suppressing a ghost’s resentment before it could grow into uncontrollable rage.

But tonight was different. As a matter of fact, it was very different.

(Breathe, breathe, breathe.)

Xie Lian was buried alive—as he often was—and was currently still in the dirt. He was buried maybe six or seven feet down. He wasn’t sharing this grave with any other unlucky immortals, thankfully, or corpses of a general nature. Instead, he was blinking dirt off his face and struggling to get the weight of the earth off his shoulders long enough to try and dig through the walls and walls of burial ash. Because the coffin he had been placed within had rotted, things were moving rather fast. He hadn’t been buried for long, but the wood had been weak from the start.

Let me out, he thought, to the worms.

Let me out, he thought, to the worms.

Let me out, he thought, to the worms.

Let me out, he thought, to the worms.

Let me out, he thought, to the worms, and each of them wiggled away.

The dirt was cold, too. Xie Lian hadn’t been in the ground for long, but tonight—well, he could just tell. Tonight was too long. And anger had him restless, and being buried was different than being in a three-layered coffin, and being buried was different than being stabbed in a temple.

(You remember when no one else does. How does it feel?)

Xie Lian didn’t think it felt good.

There was a ghost above, on the surface, and Xie Lian didn’t know who it was. It could be anyone, he mused, because what were the chances of running into someone from his pastnlife—lives, at this point, really. What were the chances? His luck was absolutely abysmal, and no one would stick around unmarked graves if they could help it. Not with the amount of resentment that clung to the area, yes. But the ghost above was… the aura was quite strong, you see, and Xie Lian was not a fool to the ways of power, or the undead.

His mouth was dry from the lack of water, spit, and the lack of comfort found in an absence of knowledge. He scraped his hands at the burial world around him, anyway.

Let me out, he thought, to the worms, because the silence was unholy and he was bound to his own resentment winding around his throat like a noose—caging him like the cursed shackle that had made a home in his meridians, in his esophagus. Let me out, he thought, I’ll kill you if you don’t.

Like a blessing, he felt the wood break—softening, and he cracked through the first layer of rot.

Dirt choked him out. It wasn’t heavy enough to suffocate him. But it smeared, and held, and he was buried alive—dead at the time, living now—and there was a memory where there shouldn’t be any. A dark cavern, a locked tomb, a shaken hand, and a broken sword. He lost Fang Xin to the boy. It wasn’t the boy’s fault. (No names, don’t say a name, don’t.) But the beetles cursed him, and Xie Lian wasn’t a mentor or a god—he was an immortal, seething, and every lost cause was originally something he would have died for.

Did die for, often enough.

The dirt let him open up; just pieces, and it was enough.

He scratched at the gravel, chunks of stone. Most of it was dry. Most of it was cold. There were parts that were damp, and he found fistfuls of roots—grass or weeds or flowers—he would burn the entire world down, up above, once he was out.

Ruoye was tight around his throat, like it could protect him. (It couldn’t.)

It was not an official grave.

The place he was in, really, was a small ravine north of some village that had been cursed in his presence—absence, maybe—but very likely it was his mere shadow that did the people in. Heavy resentment and unluckiness. Bowing his head to the village chief, and then mysteriously being poisoned—yes, poison; no, there wasn’t any real source—and then they had boxed him up, placed him north, and likely held some kind of funeral rites for the strange cultivator who came from the east to stay with them, only for a little while. Ban Yue was a struggling place, and Xie Lian hadn’t found time to settle himself there—too much work, not enough time.

(But all he had was time. He was an immortal. All that immortals had was time.)

I want, thought the seventeen year old prisoner, I want.

Because he ascended young, died young, failed young, stayed young, and Xie Lian knew all things worth effort cost blood—that no paths would open up, so you had to carve your own; that no truths would be uttered, so you had to make your own; that nothing would wait for you, so you had to race to them; that life moved on, so you had to, too. I want, and if he bled enough he would make the rivers red. I want, so he pressed the dagger into the fawn’s neck, took flesh, took what was needed—starvation after six hundred years, gnawing on his own wrist when the coffin allowed him to—no air, no life, just a silk demon and the sickly coil of misuse. I want, and he walked the dark path, kept away from the lanterns, made an example of every grave robber to steal from his resting spots.

(I’ll kill you, because kindness was lost on him, lost on them—)

There would be no sunlight.

Similar to mercy, it hid behind the moon when the sky was dark.

(—not the mortals, just the thieves, just the dead.)

His lungs were full of soil. He could become a garden. He could grow flowers, maybe, if he rotted long enough. His body could be damaged. He could bring famine. Even then—truly—he was famine. He would be fatigued and then he would be dead.

Let me out, he told the soil furiously, blood and acid seeping past his lips as the grave dirt weighed him down. I want you dead, I want you dead.

A hat placed over his eyes, a gift—but a gift came late, and Xie Lian was rendered useless against the tide, and fate had its plans for him, and he had his plans for it; take me down, then, I’ll go willingly, you know I will, because worship was heavy in his mouth, like sand, and no desert was hot enough to strip him of his diplomacy, because he said his piece and when no one saw reason, he stopped minding when he pushed them into the dirt and said it’ll be colder, under because all things were cold, if you were alone—and if you were dead to match. Xie Lian lost his kingdom, his people, his life. And then, soon after, he lost the only one left.

(The pathway had closed, and Xie Lian stood at the gates and snarled at its empty slate.)

His anger left him… hollow.

And restless.

And prone to being buried, and unburied, and robbed, and wronged. He wasn’t as nice as he could be. Sweeter to children, quiet to the young—but his lines weren’t to be crossed and he wasn’t scared of a stranger, he wasn’t scared of the sun or the Heavens or the ghosts and their long pipes. Smoke may come; let it.

Let me out, he thought, to the worms.

Let me out, he thought, to the worms, and none replied.

His wrist was laden, broken and placed awkwardly through the soil. He combed and clawed, tried to escape—a grand exit, his stomach empty, his heart heavy.

The grave that had swallowed Xie Lian whole wasn’t even a special grave. The soil was dry. The wooden coffin had rotted. The worms had abandoned his flesh in search of something actually dead. The dust filled his lungs the same way everything did. And through the mental fog, a delayed reaction where his nails tore open wounds in the dirt, Xie Lian scraped against something silver—and the soil fell away, rumbling with spiritual energy. A red-draped ghost knelt above the ravine of nails, looking down at him with one singular eye,wider than the moon itself, or the grave that Xie Lian had been forced into roughly three months before. Ah. What a stranger.

The moonlight spread out like a halo.

Xie Lian wasn’t sure why, but it felt oddly symbolic. Similarly, the light fanned and glinted—caught on the vambraces the ghost was wearing, kinging at his skin where ash and metal dust had singed into makeshift flesh.

Let me out, he thought, and the sky answered him. You’re out.

The dirt swathed Xie Lian up to his shoulders. Only his arms and head were free. The dirt kept crumbling though, and his fingers had been torn from how hard he had been digging. And, just like that, the air hit him hard. Xie Lian breathed fresh air for the first time in three months, choking, choking, choking. His hands were cold and dirty.

But the ghost was currently holding onto his palms, keeping him steady.

They looked at each other.

“Hello,” the god rasped, dryly. “What a surprise.”

Because Xie Lian had been alive for six centuries, thus far, and he hadn’t ever met another ghost so willing to involve themself in his life. (Not after the first two.) But everyone else that was undead that had been part of Xie Lian’s perception had been a fleeting moment.

A fleeting thought, really. Something simple. All things, like that, turned simple. Xie Lian didn’t need riches, or blood, or gold, or heavenly dues, or dews off the blades of grass, or hate—but he held onto hatred, anyway, because it was the easiest thing to obtain and was entirely self-fulfilling. He felt like a prophecy child, fallen from grace, alone in the mud. But everyone else around him wasn’t any better than him. They stole from altars, too. They ate the rotten fruit. They didn’t want to be trapped in a coffin in a tomb in an abandoned city, out in the blistering heat of the desert. Everyone else was just as useless as him, in that sense. They weren’t so different. He was covered in dirt and so were they. None knew him, none stayed with him, and so none of them meant more than a single thought—one blink, one smile. Many somethings he hadn’t thought twice about.

Being drowned by a river ghoul, for example. Then drown me, he had thought.

Being caught and held down by a volcanic spirit, chasing vengeance too close to the lava’s rim. Then burn me, he had thought.

Being trapped in the soil, stuck with the maggots, rotting with the old bones of mortals who said the wrong thing, too—not so rare. Then stay with me, he had thought, only to lose most of that company because even the bugs weren’t willing to stick around that long. Go figure. Looking back on it now, it made him laugh.

(Want it differently? Climb higher.)

Then take me and make me and break me, Xie Lian had thought, still did, and it rang true even centuries later.

“Your Highness,” said the ghost clad in red. “This is…”

You know me, thought a dead thing, and his spine straightened, and the worm-cloth of death did not hide how his interest shifted, how the stomach-stone of hate had started rolling again.

(Do you want me?)

“A grave,” Xie Lian said, unabashed. “And?”

The ghost glanced down, blinking once. Ah. His hands were cold—both pairs intertwining, holding steady. They were both cold, actually, and the dirt crumbled away at his knees. The night was very young, too. The sun wouldn’t return for at least another eight hours, yes?

“It’s yours,” said the ghost. “It’s—”

“Yes,” Xie Lian said, easily, because he could hold onto hatred for as long as any ghost could. This one, too, might be outdone by a dead god’s personal grievances. “It’s mine. But I’m not dead.” He didn’t smile, but something in him almost did. “They were wrong to bury me.”

“Taizi Dianxia,” the ghost croaked. “Taizi Dianxia…”

And there was something terribly wrong with his voice, then, as he knelt forwards and dragged Xie Lian out of the half-hole with an abrupt force. The ground crumbled, opened like a mouth; jaws unhinging, wood splintering and the tree line shaking. Xie Lian’s eyes widened, and the ghost pulled him out of his grave—I’ll dig myself out and put you in it—but the ghost was swathed in red and silver and black. His skin was so pale, his face mirroring Xie Lian’s own—wide, surprised, but the ghost’s was raw. Familiarity took a shape along his jaw, stiff, locked.

“Oh, my,” said Xie Lian, and he stared wide-eyed at the ghost who now shook violently. Tremors, really, like he was young and not quite aware of his own strengths. “It’s not something to get worked up about,” Xie Lian shared, quickly—mouth slack. “Really, what has you so spooked? You know what a grave is, don’t you?” He looked the ghost up and down, stiff. “You’re also dead, yes?”

“Taizi Dianxia shouldn’t ever—be dead,” said the ghost, with vehemence, and his hands shook as they climbed up Xie Lian’s forearms, settled at the crease of his elbows, unrelenting. “Death should never even touch you.”

“What a kind sentiment,” Xie Lian said.

“Please,” came the wobbly reply, “Ah—this one—Your Highness, you… this one…”

How odd. What a stranger, unlike the white-robed creatures unlike the mortals who stabbed and took what they shouldn’t have—had to, whispered his mind—damn them, said Xie Lian’s pride, his hate, and he cleared his throat. “I’m Xie Lian,” he offered, next, “Your god is long dead, so, you see, it’s only… this body, in front of you. I’m Xie Lian. What should I call you?”

In the brief silence, Xie Lian finally got a better look at the ghost. Yes, draped in red. The clothes looked both durable and decorative—the kind that someone would wear to show their status, while also maintaining utilitarian values. The ghost’s hair was a deep black, with a wine-silver shimmer to it—sleek like ink, falling down his shoulders and over the hunch of his back. He didn’t seem much taller than Xie Lian, but it was clear that with how much energy he had—that height would soon grow—no ghost’s skin stayed the same for long, not when they had enough energy to change it into something suitable. The hair fell over half their face, but even so—there was a long black cloth tied across the half that was covered—paired with the hair, perhaps they had a terrible scar, or a wound that never healed. The undead weren’t free from injury, after all. Even the powerful could be maimed, Xie Lian knew. But this ghost… the reds were the main point, but black boots and under robes showed through. Hints of silver, too, butterfly motifs, cusps at his arms and his ears—silver, something shimmering in the moonlight. All of it was fine, albeit a bit plain—for a ghost with this power, Xie Lian would expect glory and hate—something fiery, not something that trembled in the earth and remembered Xie Lian from before Xianle’s slaughter and historical departure.

The silence took too long. Xie Lian was patient, but not infinite. “Stranger,” he tilted his head, mostly empty, “What should I call you?”

And a wild eye, darker than the night—all consuming in its violence, its need—looked right at Xie Lian’s face.

“This one has no name,” he choked.

Oh.

(It makes you Wu Ming.)

And in an undesirable fashion—the night would never hide the screams, the world would never cower hard enough. Xie Lian had fought this urge for centuries. He didn’t want to become his predecessor, he didn’t ever want to—but sitting on the dirt with the half-dead grass, letting a ghost hold onto his arms like they were previous—here is to the holiness, the grave, the rain which has not yet come—but through it all, like the tide crashing against the wet sand, Xie Lian wanted to break this ghost’s neck.

Xie Lian looked at it, sharp, and slowly pulled his lips back—he was all but an animal, because godhood was lost on him, and instead he replaced it with fangs and a grating self-hate—snarling, now, “You mock him?”

The ghost looked at him, with one wide eye. “No,” it choked.

“You do,” Xie Lian seethed, next, and he flipped his arms so his own palms could press harshly into the ghost’s own—trading the energy, the cruelty. Saving a prince buried in the earth meant nothing if the savior tugged on Xie Lian’s only remaining heartstring. “You mock him. You—”

Drag him, said the anger.

Drag him, said the anger.

Drag him, said the anger.

Drag him, said the anger.

Drag him into the grave with you, said the anger.

(I will kill you for the mockery of him, because God was not alive and God was quite angry and God had lost his only believer and that meant his name wouldn’t be dragged through the mud any more than it already had been.)

Xie Lian wrenched it forwards, wrenched and seethed. All his buried resentment erupted, hot like lava, and he was so angry—he had skinned himself alive in the past, died for mortals and cowered for gods—and he pulled the carts of sin and he snarled at the dogs and killed the fish and drained the rivers and damned the people—and this was not a person but a flaw and all flaws must be crushed—this ghost taunted him, taunted, taunted, taunted, taunted, taunted—

Drag him into the grave with you, said the anger.

(And anger won.)

—but it yelped, like a wounded animal, dragged into the dirt and flipped onto its back with the power of a banished martial god, “I would never mock Taizi Dianxia!”

“Not me!” Xie Lian screamed, “Him!”

And mercy was like shadows—in the face of light, they could always be there. The Heavens may or may not keep tabs on the fallen Crown Prince of Xianle. But in this moment, Xie Lian found himself drawn between the border of slaughter and defamation. He would tear this ghost limb from limb. He would push its body into the mud and take its soul. He would show his teeth like a dog! He would become a mutt! He would fucking kill it!

Tumbling back into the grave, seething and spitting all the while. “I’ll disperse you! I’ll kill you!” The ghost made a sound, a half-aborted screech, and Xie Lian’s hands were wrapped against its throat, and he was yelling, yelling, “Just for saying such things, for dragging me out of the grave, for—”

“Your Highness!” came the cry, “To die for His Highness would be this one’s greatest honor!”

The dirt was kicked up around them.

Xie Lian swore he heard his back pop, heard his joints crush to dust with how hard they hit the ground. He flipped, twisting. His head slammed into the fresh dirt and the ghost made a terrible sound at the sight, but Xie Lian was already forcing it to turn and show its face—move, move, move, move—and he was seething. The resentment he held onto for years was I swallowed, vomited back through the sounds of his own dismay—shown to a stranger who pulled him free, who stole something out of Xie Lian’s memory.

“Then die again!” Xie Lian shrieked.

And his nails went deeper, and he almost called upon Ruoye to strange the very essence out of the ghost—

(—all the colors draining out of his face, gasping on air, on nothing, ice flooding and taking him through the river, swaying in the breeze, shaking when the blade came to his gut, when life—)

—and blood appeared, fresh, and it was bright red.

It almost glowed, and the scent was so pungent. Xie Lian wanted to put his teeth onto skin, take the jugular and make it end.

(Not too quick. Mockery was the worst. Mockery of Wu Ming was the worst.)

But the ghost’s eye was so wide, and its hair fell about. “Wait, Your Highness, wait!” The sounds were inhuman, inhuman, and Xie Lian hadn’t felt kindness or the kiss of affection in centuries—gold was his origin, dirt was his destination—and the ghost was in his way—vultures seeking their next meal. One wide eye, black as the richest jade, “Your hands—”

Breaking, broken—wrists that scraped, nails that dig into imperfect yet well-made skin. A ghost with this much power should not be interested in the misfortune god, twice-banished, saddled with debts from past badlands.

“You mock my believer,” Xie Lian spat, hateful, “You dare mock my—”

“—I am your believer!” cried the ghost, and in the soil, his hair was wrapped wildly with the claw-groves, the dying roots, the broken wood hidden in the dry dirt. Kicked up dirt, dust clinging to both of their eyelashes. “It’s me,” he choked, and choked, and Xie Lian’s hands didn’t let up as he knelt on top of the ghost and showed his teeth. “It’s me, Your Highness, please, I—”

“—aren’t him,” seethed the god.

“I am,” the liar said, choking, and his hands didn’t—

(My believer is dead. My believer is dead. My believer is dead. My believer is dead. My believer is dead. My believer is dead. My believer is dead. My believer is dead. My believer is dead. My believer is dead. My believer is dead. My believer is dead.)

Xie Lian pushed down harder. Blood seeped around his hands, weeping, weeping. He would break his wrists, like this. He would go further and snarl and snare and make this ghost disappear. “You aren’t him,” Xie Lian said, and then his hands shook, and his head tipped down, and he said it again, and again, and again. “You aren’t him. You aren’t him. You aren’t him.” And his hands were shaking. The dirt was cold. The ghost’s neck was an elegant turned red slope, down below, and Xie Lian’s knees were on either side of the ghost’s waist, and he was straddling a dead man with the intention of murder. “You aren’t him,” he choked, next, and his eyes were burning. The moonlight illuminated the scene, stayed a witness.

Witness me kill it, said the dead thing. I’m not so kind.

—claw, or scratch, or try to touch.

(My believer is dead. I would know. I killed him.)

The ghost was on his back, one eye wide, and the other hidden by sleek black cloth and wild hair that had grown tangled just like Xie Lian’s. “Your Highness,” it choked, low, and its belly was concave, ice cold, but solid under Xie Lian’s hips. Its spiritual energy shifted, and shrugged, and slipped into shadowy puddles. But the onyx eye stared right at Xie Lian and didn’t look away.

The god breathed, raggedly. “What,” he said, next, and tears had begun to drop from his eyes. Unceremoniously, unaccordingly, absolutely awfully—an ugly patter, lungs weeping with his face.

“I am,” said the ghost, very weakly—and his face shifted, once, shivering into something—else.

In a flicker of power—prowess that should be used to abuse Xie Lian, push him into the soil—rather, held steady, kept hidden—the ghost seemingly transformed. Shapeshifting right then and there, and the body underneath Xie Lian’s own turned into a familiar one—the red robes melted into black, burying into the upturned ground. His hair fanned out, then scraped together. Bangs appeared, windswept, and a deep remorse shivered in the air—a moment passed and then there was a white mask sitting on the stranger’s face, solid, heavy—and it smiled, glinting in the stars’ company.

Xie Lian stared.

He hiccuped.

Wu Ming was under him, in Xie Lian’s three month old grave, and he was allowing Xie Lian to choke him into the mud.

“Agh,” said the god, suddenly repulsed, and he let go with such shock that he felt static energy zap him. The ghost’s blood dripped, smeared, and it was—still cold, but now, it burned, and there was grief littering him, and he looked at the marks made to the ghost’s throat; torn, torn, torn. He scrambled up, white-robes turned grey and brown in the muck—but he was looking at a stranger wearing his believer’s appearance, and his heart sang a sad little song, and he was so alone, so bound, so—his lips moved without a second thought, “Wu Ming?”

Drag him, said the anger.

Keep him, said the ache.

Lose him, said the regret.

Here he is, said the ghost of a white-robed creature. Isn’t this who you wanted?

(Murder.)

Xie Lian bared his teeth, wretched, and choked again. “Wu Ming?”

The face below him was concealed in perfect memory. An exact copy, identically damaged, and the moon above made the ghost look ethereal. For just a moment, Xie Lian felt as if he hadn’t left Xianle’s battlegrounds, the footpaths made and catering to the dead soldiers.

“Dianxia,” came the fractured reply, and even the voice had changed—oh. The voice had turned somber, and much younger, and Xie Lian’s dreams were haunted by such a whisper of Your Highness, matched with a scathing silhouette of the believer that waged war on himself so Xie Lian wouldn’t have to taste the bite of Fang Xin, showing the resentment of everything—Yong’An spared by a moment’s hesitancy, regret turned fiery, hatred being kissed gently by forgiveness. “It’s—yes, I’m—yes,” and the words were garbled, chin tilted, and throat bared willingly. “I took the sword and was consumed, I left, I, it’s me.”

I killed my believer, thought the dead god, and almost killed him again.

Wu Ming would have let him.

Ah.

Such a hollow thing, to be so willing, so loyal. Xie Lian’s heart thundered, slowing down.

Whispering—

Xie Lian scrambled, then. His knees squeezed around Wu Ming’s waist, pure panic—tender turned aching—and he pressed his palms over Wu Ming’s non-existent throat. His eyes were so wide. The mask hid everything. Ah. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. “Wu Ming,” he choked, then, “Stop, don’t—stop, stop it, don’t let me, don’t—fix it, you need to fix it right now, don’t bleed like this.”

—and yet, Fang Xin was gone. It was just Ruoye and Xie Lian, traveling on the wayside, through every other wasteland. The temples swathed his memory. He often dreamed of burning each one down. He liked the idea of terrifying the Heavens, but his anger was misplaced, and he knew that. He stayed away from large cities after Yong’An, and the massacre that took place. He allowed death to guide him into supposedly early graves. A young Taoist priest, you see, bound to a silk demon, walking the long road. If death was his, then he was death; every unfortunate fortune was a gift from him to you. The people might not notice right away. Xie Lian didn’t care if they did. His skin peeled back, muscle and black blood underneath—they threw rocks at him, cursed his name. He heard the rattle of chains, the whistle of arrows, and the blissful hum of the creeks. He liked to drown amongst the animals, flash floods that wiped out entire mountainsides. Rice harvests ruined, fruits rotting on altars. Stealing from apple orchards and feeding individual seed-pits to war-won pigs—

There was blood seeping past his hands, mingling with the dirt. Shoulder the burden, shoulder it, shoulder it! Wu Ming made a sound, very quiet, and then spiritual energy frothed under Xie Lian’s wet palms.

—Fang Xin would have been good company, too, solemn in its silence, shivery in Xie Lian’s hands when he took it from its sheath and allowed it to taste his spit, his blood, his stomach; one trick, the crowd will gasp and awe, and you’re fed, and all your hatred is drained away. Because gifts like that were rare and hard to find, and Xie Lian carried more than two shackles but many, and the idea of being a god made him homesick for a timeline that would never exist—

“Your Highness,” Wu Ming rabbled, now.

But here was life, stuck in the form of a young ghost looking up at him.

(A nameless ghost, dying in the bay, dying and not coming back.)

“Ah,” he breathed, breathed, breathed. “Ah.”

Xie Lian thought about it. Who were you before your death? Just a soldier? Just a boy? But it rang loudly in his skull, and Xie Lian knew—if not you, then me; if not me, then you. I never buried you. I never burned you. I never gave you anything. You made yourself come back, because I’m the only thing you’ve ever known. And he ran his tongue over his teeth, the roof of his mouth.

(But he was back.)

Xie Lian breathed raggedly, harshly, each breath exiting in a pant. He pulled his hands away when the spiritual energy fizzled out. So much of it, too. Meaning the entire wound. His hands shook, held up in the air, and he was still straddling Wu Ming’s waist like this—brought down into the grave, into the muck.

“Wu Ming,” He said, hollowly. “It’s you?”

“Forgive this one,” Wu Ming rasped, readily—voice only creaking slightly. “It took some time to come back, and even longer to grow strong enough to seek you, and—longer to find, longer to…”

“Come back,” Xie Lian repeated, shockingly empty. Something had scooped his insides out, twisted a knife where it shouldn’t be. “But you… came back.” Centuries after Wu Ming’s dispersal, after Xie Lian’s second banishment, including a shackle to take away all of his luck. And he Wu Ming was, dressed in red and blinking wide-eyed at a forgotten grave in the middle of a drought-brought land. Waiting and wrenching through the earth when it was clear that someone was down below, suffocating in its escape. (His Highness.) Centuries ago, it would never have occurred. But now—now, things occurred all the time, and Xie Lian was not immune to torture or death or burial plots. “You’re here,” he said, with all his teeth. “You’re here.”

“This one wouldn’t leave,” Wu Ming replied, low to the ground, “It’s… the silence I gave to Dianxia was and is shameful. Coming back took much too long.”

“Long enough,” mumbled Xie Lian. “And here I was, about to kill you again.”

Wu Ming gave the impression of breathing, sighing or exhaling or releasing a heavy burden of air. Cursed into nothingness, as ghosts didn’t need oxygen at all. “This one will accept anything you wish to give,” he murmured, “Whether death or company or hate or commands, this one will gladly do as told.”

The hate came back, dragged into reality by a brain worm and an old story.

“You mustn’t die,” Xie Lian snapped.

“Then I won’t,” Wu Ming said, easily. “As Your Highness commands.”

“You mustn’t,” Xie Lian repeated, and he leaned down in a moment of misguided judgement, teeth gritting together. Their bodies pressed close, and it was almost hilarious—sharing each other’s company in a grave, centuries after their separation. “Don’t ever,” he said, like needles and like death, “Don’t ever even think about it, Wu Ming.”

Not again, thought the misfortune immortal.

Not ever, then.

“Your Highness,” Wu Ming whispered, cautiously. “You…”

“I’m alive,” came the answer, light, not lingering on his tongue for too long. Speaking of his state in the world left him bitter, even on the best of days. “I’m alive, and here. You are dead, but also here.” And he wished to smile, wished to laugh—but his eyes were still burning, and he did not enjoy mixing the two functions. “Hello, Wu Ming.”

Wu Ming’s throat bobbed. The redness from before had practically faded, dapples of pink, if anything.

Good. Xie Lian’s eyes lingered there. There was a sharp ache in his gut, now. They were both terribly cold. The open air didn’t help them. It was autumn, and rather than it being humid or the least bit consistent, the season remained the utter opposite of delightful. Though, like a child, Xie Lian took pleasure in stepping on crunchy leaves, as well as kicking piles of dropped forestry. Scattering the oranges and browns was the most entertainment he would get.

He released a long breath. “Wu Ming.”

“Hello, Your Highness,” said Xie Lian’s one and only believer, catching on. A quick learner. Not so much a stranger.

Xie Lian looked at him. His hair was still dark. His clothes wrapped around him tightly, though, different from the red attire. There was no embroidery or silver. No butterfly emblems, either. Wushu Ming had shrunk, too, as if he had to return to the very body he wielded during Xianle’s damnation. Ah. Familiar soul, familiar boy.

Wu Ming’s mask was pristine, like this, and Xie Lian’s forehead touched it. His hair became a curtain, blocking out some of the light.

They were close like this.

In all his past lives, such comforts were considered debaucherous and nefarious and remained unknown. The motions of two people pressed together, not in bed, but simply in life—and Xie Lian had remained stoic, and mean, and angry at the universe—sometimes at people—and now he was on top of a ghost who should have died, and Xie Lian’s grave whispered gently, crumbled in their gaze.

He looked at Wu Ming for a long time, listened to the thrum of spiritual energy. Steady. Real. Louder than the thunder above. “You are…” he swallowed. “Stronger.”

“I left Mount Tonglu,” Wu Ming confessed.

It sounded familiar enough, but Xie Lian stayed ignorant of most things dealing with the Ghost Realm, and the Heavenly Realm.

He blinked slowly, “Hm.”

His hands flexed, on either side of Wu Ming’s shoulders. No longer wrapped around his throat. No longer haunting, yes, just waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting.

Let me have him again, he thought, to the gods.

(I’ll wait forever to have him again, so give him back.)

But all gods were useless, and Xie Lian knew that the gods could not revive the dead. And yet, here Wu Ming was: brought back by his devotion, a snivel in his heart, a mouth to speak to whatever dangers laid somewhere under the name of Mount Tonglu. Did it break you? Xie Lian wondered. Did it eat you alive, the way all my lives at me? Did it kill you to be so far away from dreams?

But he didn’t ask.

His breaths evened out, finally, and he stayed where he was. Oh, Xie Lian wasn’t scandalous. But he was solid. And he gave up on all things normal some time ago.

He waited, just long enough for Wu Ming to get the hint.

Wu Ming wasn’t quiet for a moment longer. He continued, a lapse of judgment—silence, tangled in the night. “I was dragged there by some—urge. Your Highness.” Another pause. Xie Lian let him pause, let him think. Xie Lian took all the time in the world to think, because he had the time. Well, so did Wu Ming. Just for now. “I left after some time, to find you—to be weak, it would… this one refused to be anything less than someone that could give you the world.”

(A red throat, almost as red as the robes he had been wearing moments ago. Xie Lian’s palms were still wet, clinging to the soil under his weight, now moving up to the jaws of a ghost.)

Something creaking, old and ancient.

Xie Lian tilted his head, and his hands scraped at the soil, slowly made their way up from the gaps to press at the white, smiling mask. His thumbs were darkened by the earth, and he smeared the soil against the jaw of the facial covering.

You never showed me your face, he thought. You should show me it now. Not the one before, single-eyed. This one. They’re you. His heart beat once, twice. Are you going to stop me if I pull this off? I don’t wear masks anymore. It was funny, cracking open. He didn’t. Why should Wu Ming? His lips twitched, a sardonic smile.

“And?” He mumbled.

“And?” Wu Ming echoed. “Dianxia?”

“And, can you?” Xie Lian mumbled, less patient. His lungs expanded and shrank in an easy rhythm, and he did not collapse from guilt or love or hate or relief. He watched the dirt move, watched his heart become an offering inside of a self-made tunnel. “Can you give me the world?”

Wu Ming didn’t respond right away.

It was a fair question. He didn’t care if Wu Ming said yes, or no. He didn’t care if he said always, or if you want me to, Your Highness. Xie Lian was the one holding him down. Xie Lian was the God in this situation. Xie Lian was the one wearing a real smile, and Wu Ming was the one hiding his face—introducing memory, not reality—necessary, in the end—because Xie Lian was no longer thinking about ruthless murder. The words of his believer, shining through. Loyalty like no other. Ha.

But the mask was waiting, the perfect curve.

Xie Lian had dreamed of it. Weeping eyes swallowed up by a simple smile, a sweep of hair, an effortless exchange where neither of them truly left the other; where the world crumbled; where the hours passed and Xie Lian gave into the urge to haunt and cling; where hatred melted into something steadier, something less volatile; each and every layer, something to strip away and show at the end; if it could collapse—just fall apart—because that was how the dream ended, when the mask came off and Xie Lian’s eyes saw the real world, the only thing left in the world.

Xie Lian smiled, finally, and thumbed at the edges of the mask. He tugged, pushed, and he leaned further down. “Can you?”

—

This was the one path he would walk.

The one path he would unbury, travel through—and his hand was curled around a fragile wrist, and there was silver where there used to be nothing at all.

(There was a ghost with him.)