Chapter Text
Ghost City, about a year ago.
“I hate this place. It reeks.” Mu Qing pointedly scrunches his nose and uses one hand to wave the air in a show of diffusing the stench. It doesn't stink; Mu Qing just feels obliged to criticize.
“No, you don't. You think it’s pretty,” Xie Lian says brightly, a small smile flickering across his face. In lieu of his predictable white robes, he’s wearing a navy blue hanfu that fades to white. The sleeves, as well as the bottom part of the skirt, are patterned lightly with tintless pictures of pistache trees.
It’s ravishing. It’s so beautiful that Mu Qing wants to ask who tailored it, but he wards off the thought just as quickly as it comes.
Hua Cheng and Feng Xin are just around the corner, purchasing tanghulu and rice wine and who-knows-what. They’re wearing blue hanfus as well. The same as Xie Lian’s–yes, they're matching. Ridiculous. When Mu Qing first laid eyes on the three of them, he snorted out a laugh, perhaps only to subdue the fervid jealousy swelling inside of him.
The three of them were… courting. Xie Lian had announced it to him just days prior. He had said it with a grin and two men in his arms.
Mu Qing only stared blankly. “Congratulations?’ he said finally, when it was undeniable that Xie Lian was waiting for a response. He didn't mean to sound apathetic to the reveal, but how was he ought to acknowledge the news, anyway? All he felt was a twinge of sadness, knowing that he’d be solitary more often than not now.
He felt forsaken.
“I do not think it’s pretty,” Mu Qing lies through his teeth. How did Xie Lian savvy that? He had made sure to denigrate Ghost City every time he dropped by Paradise Manor, as fictitious as the remarks were.
“What’s not pretty?” Hua Cheng appears from behind Xie Lian, three sticks of candied cherries in his hand. He hands one to Xie Lian and Feng Xin–who stands next to Mu Qing now, clutching on to far too many paper bags–then to Mu Qing. He doesn't take one for himself.
“Nothing,” Mu Qing quickly says, accepting the tanghulu gingerly. He loves cherries, but maybe not from Hua Cheng’s hands. The ghost king is grudging enough to dip the cherries into horse piss.
“Mu Qing thinks Ghost City is pretty,” Xie Lian says just as quickly, concurrently.
Hua Cheng blinks at him before sweeping his eyes around the astir city. “Do you?”
“No!” Mu Qing’s voice is a pitch higher than it should be.
“What’s the point in denying it? Look, your face is all red.” Feng Xin laughs.
“Shut up, you baboon. You have sugar all over your lips.”
“Huh? Really?”
Xie Lian chuckles. “Come here so I can take it off, A’Xin.”
Mu Qing thinks Xie Lian is going to graciously take a paper towel to wipe it off, but no, of course not. He makes Mu Qing witness his tongue on Feng Xin’s lips. Mu Qing wants to kill himself.
“Oh, heavens…” Mu Qing mutters, horrified.
“And yet you don't look away.” He can hear the smirk in Hua Cheng’s voice.
“I’m looking away now. Watch.” Mu Qing turns on his heels and walks away from all three of them. He’d rather traverse Ghost City himself than watch three men get cozy together.
“You like pretty things?”
“Why on earth did you follow me?” Mu Qing yells over the bustling crowds.
Hua Cheng shrugs. “This is my territory. I’d rather keep my eyes on the heavenly official walking freely through the streets of it.”
“As if your butterflies haven't been.” It would be cretinous if Mu Qing hadn't taken notice of the silver butterflies that seemed to take a special predilection for parroting a tail.
“Just so you know,” Hua Cheng drawls, hands on his hips as a crimson eye lazily skims over his perimeters. “My butterflies much prefer gege’s company.”
Mu Qing rolls his eyes, resisting the overwhelming urge to pound Hua Cheng’s head with a barrel. “Then why the hell are they shadowing me?!”
“Because I told them to, you halfwit. Because gege asked me to.”
“Xie Lian—what?” Mu Qing halts his strides, and Hua Cheng stops with him, throwing an irritated glare over his shoulder. “That makes no sense. Stop watching me like a hawk. Don't you guys have better things to do?”
“Not really. Come along, now. Gege will be displeased if I lose you.”
Mu Qing splutters, dumbfounded. “What the fuck? What am I, a kid?”
“If you don't hurry up, I’ll make you wish you were, general. At least then my strikes wouldn't be as hard. Don't make gege wait.”
“...Then go? What the hell? Need I always be under your relentless supervision?” Mu Qing retorts, reveling in the way Hua Cheng’s glare sharpens by a hair.
“Gege wanted to spend time with you, and you just plan to leave him alone? Don't be selfish.”
“Selfish–?” Mu Qing cuts himself off. He can feel his face burn like a furnace with the heat of pure fury and sanguine wrath.
Selfish was a sickening taunt thrown at Mu Qing for centuries now, and in the cold clarity of truth, it should be as meaningless as a bag of spilled rice.
But Mu Qing never got accustomed to anything; not the sudden shift from being cast aside like a forgotten stain–because what else do they serve on a copper platter to those born to poverty and servitude?–to the glorious decadence and golden indulgence of godhood, or how the thick silence that echoed the Xuan Zhen Palace transitioned into shared laughter and warmth and everything Mu Qing’s ever wanted–
“Xuan Zhen.” The sudden snap of Hua Cheng’s fingers, just inches away from his face, jerked him to the present. “Your eyes dulled.”
“Oh. No, they didn’t." He redefines his guise, correcting the tiniest misaligned muscles. "Now go back to your lovers, they need you. I’m going back.” He turns his back to Hua Cheng, his hands preparing to draw a teleportation array. Mu Qing doesn't know why, but he feels as if he's been enveloped in a sorrow so great it numbs him. He thinks it might be because he has too much of a workload sitting on his desk, waiting for his return. It's not because he's upset about Hua Cheng seeing him as inconsiderate.
That's preposterous.
“Alright, hold on now. Where are you going?”
“To my palace.”
“Leaving already, General?” He can hear the smugness that colours every syllable in Hua Cheng’s words, and the irritation grows twofold.
“Yes, this place is a pit of discarded garbage. And you piss me off.” His fingers start to outline the intricate details of the array, making sure each stroke is as perfect as the last, when fingers curl around his wrist in an iron hold.
“Did I offend you somehow?” Hua Cheng’s voice is devoid of his usual cockiness, now replaced by a lilted whisper and tender guilt.
Mu Qing can only think of the scrawny boy Hua Cheng once was, with tattered rags and eyes that have glimpsed too much into brutal reality. He recalls the way Hua Cheng clung onto Xie Lian's robes like the stars hug the sky, and how the beads in his eyes gazed up at his prince with utter devotion and admiration.
Hua Cheng was a quivering child back then, and now...
Despite himself, Mu Qing feels a smile blossom, though it’s soft and curved only slightly at the edges, like the brush of delicate silk against smooth skin.
Hua Cheng takes a step forward so he can get a look at Mu Qing’s face. His eyes widen by a fraction when he sees it. “...You’re smiling.”
“If I say you did offend me, would you fall to your knees in remorse and plead for my mercy?”
“Absolutely not." Hua Cheng's face contorts in aversion before a sly smirk takes its place. "But I might make amends in… other ways.”
“Other ways?” Mu Qing wrinkles his brow, scouring Hua Cheng’s dark eyes for answers to questions he doesn’t know of.
Hua Cheng doesn’t reply immediately. His gaze stays fixed on Mu Qing as he glides his fingers up from where they're wrapped around the god's wrist to his lips–sensually, like the drip of rich honey–and caresses the soft flesh he finds there with his thumb. “Name your price.”
Mu Qing’s breath trembles in his throat, and his lungs constrict. “W-what are you doing?” His voice is raw and brittle and it cracks–it’s abhorrent, really, how easy it is for Mu Qing to unfold his vulnerability at the slightest hint of fluster.
When he remains silent, Hua Cheng leans down until his lips graze the shell of Mu Qing’s ear. “You're prettier than all of Ghost City. Take your sweet time, Xuan Zhen.” And then he wanes into the night, leaving behind nothing but a hundred silver butterflies and the wind’s melodious whistles.
What the fuck.