Chapter Text
Ghost City was even bigger and more chaotic than Feng Xin had expected. Its wide, sprawling streets were lit by red lanterns that cast an eerie glow over everything below them, without any of the warmth of the sun or cool beauty of the moon. The gloomy buildings were scrawled with graffiti — mostly declarations that someone the scrawler disliked was an asshole or a whore. Stalls and kiosks sprang out of the ground seemingly at random, like mushrooms after a rain.
And ghosts swarmed the streets — ghosts of every shape, size, color and description. Tiny phosphorescent ghost fires floated over their heads; creatures with the heads of animals; ghastly-faced ghosts clad in funeral rags; giggling children with extra eyes or teeth the color of iron; ghosts whose clothes still dripped with the water that had drowned them; ghosts that crept across the ground or slithered up the side of the buildings.
Feng Xin immediately wanted to go home. Or rather, he wanted to go back to his temporary palace, since his own home had been knocked down. Dammit.
He glanced back at Mu Qing, who was trying to avoid a vendor who was selling dried human ears. “Any idea where we should start looking?” he said.
“Why would I?” Mu Qing said irritably. “I’ve never been here before.”
“I haven’t either,” Feng Xin said darkly. “Maybe we should have asked Pei Ming. He’s probably been down here to bed a few hundred ghosts in this place.”
“I suppose we should find out if Hua Cheng has a home.”
“How do you suggest we find out?”
Mu Qing looked like he was grinding his teeth. Feng Xin couldn’t think of any ways either — there wasn’t any non-suspicious way for them to ask where the Chengzhu of Ghost City lived and how to get to his house. If they did ask, word would probably fly to Hua Cheng, and he would know they were coming long before they actually arrived.
They waded through the crowds, dodging offers of evil-looking jewelry, cursed charms that reeked of demonic qi, pickled yao beast eyeballs and bowls of chicken soup whose production immediately killed Feng Xin’s appetite. In fact, he might never want chicken soup for as long as he lived. Strictly speaking, neither he nor Mu Qing needed to eat at all, but Feng Xin sometimes did it just for enjoyment.
It was starting to dawn on him that this entire mission had not been set up very well. Finding a single person in a whole city was a gargantuan task, especially when you didn’t have a map, an address or some way of figuring out where they might be. It was even worse when the mission was a secret, and you were undercover. Maybe they should go back to Heaven and request some more intel before—
Then Feng Xin’s mind went blank as a small, cold hand landed on his arm. “Well, hello, handsome,” a woman’s voice purred. “Are you lonely?”
Icy fear speared through Feng Xin, and every muscle in his body seemed to seize up — he couldn’t move, as if he had transformed into a statue —
The woman’s fingers flickered up his bicep, and tickled the front of his shoulder as she stepped in front of him. “Shy?” she said with a wide smile. Her deathly-pallid cheeks were rouged to make them look at least a little like those of a living woman. Her cheap silk dress exposed enough of her breasts to make Feng Xin feel like screaming.
As if she had called out to them, more prostitutes began gathering around, like sharks scenting blood. Feng Xin could feel terror bubbling up in his throat as they pressed close to him, filling the air with a perfume that smelled like dead flowers, their hands clutching at his clothes. Their voices rose around him like gusts of wind screeching over rooftops.
“Don’t look at her — she died from a sexually transmitted disease—“
“Liar! She’s jealous because she just lies there like a dead fish—“
“Don’t you want someone young and pretty, gege?”
“Look at your clothes! Someone as important and high class as you must want—“
Suddenly a strong hand grasped the back of Feng Xin’s robes, almost hoisting him off his feet. It was surprising enough that for a split second, he forgot his fear. The next thing he knew he was being dragged through the crowd at a high speed, knocking aside random ghosts who squawked, screeched and swore at the sudden rudeness.
Then he stopped, and the hand let him go. “I swear, I can’t go anywhere with you,” Mu Qing said sourly.
Feng Xin straightened his rumpled robes, his breath coming in gasps. “Thanks,” he said reluctantly.
There was a reason he spent most of his time in the company of martial gods and the junior officials who worked for him — they were virtually all men. There were rumors, both among Heavenly Officials and mortals, that General Nan Yang hated all women, and avoided them in all areas of life. It irked Feng Xin, because he didn’t hate women. He was just deathly afraid of them. There was a difference.
He had been this way for almost as long as he could remember. Even as Xie Lian’s bodyguard, when he was a teenager, he had been afraid of women. There were exceptions, admittedly — the queen of Xianle had always been kind and caring towards him, and Feng Xin had loved her as a kind of mother figure. But in general, women frightened him, especially ones who were revealing a lot of their bodies.
The only one who had managed to capture his heart had been Jian Lan. She had been so brave and beautiful that his feelings had overcome his fear — she had been the one bright spot in a bleak period when it seemed like he and the royal family were slowly sinking into a cold, smothering quagmire. For a short time, he had thought he might be able to buy her freedom from that brothel, and then… well, he hadn’t really been able to think of what they would do after that. But at least they would have been together.
It still hurt. Even after five hundred years, he sometimes thought about what could have been.
Feng Xin took a shaky breath, and tried to steady himself. “All right. We need to figure out where to go next.”
"We dont even really know where we are now,” Mu Qing pointed out.
They were on an even busier street than before, dominated by a large gambling hall swarming with ghosts — and others. Feng Xin was fairly sure that some of the people there were mortals and Heavenly Officials. He didn’t want to think about what kind of gambling went on in that place, because there was no way that a place like this would only allow the gambling of money. If they gambled actual money at all, which he doubted.
As if on cue, a man was dragged out of the gambling hall by two burly ghosts, the side of his robes stained with crimson. His right arm was gone — completely gone, as if someone with a sword had simply hacked it off at the shoulder.
Feng Xin wasn’t sure whether to be sorry for the man or not, because while he had obviously bet his right arm and lost… they didn’t know what the bet had been. If a person came to Ghost City to gamble, they were either completely desperate… or they wanted something dark and evil that they couldn’t get from anywhere else. Curses, or luck, or even someone’s death — they could all be obtained here, if you were willing to bet something important and lucky enough to win.
Suddenly bells rang out, loud enough to make Feng Xin look around in alarm. The ghosts swarming around them suddenly scattered like leaves swept away by a flood. Feng Xin and Mu Qing quickly glanced at one another, and then retreated to a narrow, darkened alley next to the gambling hall. In the shadows, they could observe whatever came next.
“Chengzhu! Chengzhu is coming!”
Feng Xin’s eyes widened as a step-litter appeared, carried by four skeletons that walked and spoke under their own power. The litter was one of the most ornate, expensive-looking vehicles that Feng Xin had ever seen — he hadn’t seen such a thing even in Heaven — and as it came to a halt, he could see two shapes dimly silhouettes behind its gauzy curtains. His heart began to race like a runaway horse.
The curtains parted, and Hua Cheng stepped out.
It had been a long time since Feng Xin had seen Crimson Rain Sought Flower — probably not since he had issued his challenges — and he had almost forgotten how ridiculously tall the ghost king was. In any other circumstances, Feng Xin would have probably thought that he was at least as good-looking as Pei Ming — but that face easily could shift into a malicious smirk, and his one visible eye was as piercing as a dagger. The other was hidden behind an eyepatch. Feng Xin had heard rumors about it — some said that his eye was cursed, others that he had ripped it out of his own head.
Hua Cheng stood in the street for a moment, slowly looking around with that single ink-black eye. Feng Xin felt his insides freeze, and his first panicked thought was that he would see the two Heavenly Officials lurking nearby.
But instead, he turned back to the step litter, and parted the curtains with one hand. A slender hand reached out to grasp his, and another person stepped out to join the ghost king.
It was Xie Lian.