Work Text:
The turning of the seasons is a friend.
With each coming of summer, Xie Lian counts another year lived. With each coming of spring, Xie Lian remembers those who have gone before him. The cycle is a familiar spinning wheel, thrown out of its equilibrium ages ago, measuring the coming and going of days. After more than eight hundred years, those sometimes blur together, impossible to tell apart—but the birth and death of seasons always stays the same, no matter how much the face of the world has changed in the meantime.
The kind of work Xie Lian does, living alone atop Mount Taicang, comes and goes with the seasons, too. It’s good, honest work, the kind of work that leaves his hands dirty with soil and pours sweat down his back.
It’s amusing, Xie Lian thinks, to remember that once upon a time, he lived atop Mount Taicang dressed in finery and attended to by servants, and now that he has returned, he is on his knees, simple white robes getting stained as he tends to his garden.
Xie Lian doesn’t mind it, though. If he wanted, he could return to the newly rebuilt Heavenly Capital, and there would be a place for him there, a palace if he so desired. But he has no wish to once again entangle himself in Heaven’s politics and petty squabbles, not when there is something else to occupy his mind. So he stays instead, and builds something with his own hands: the cottage that once nearly collapsed in on itself before Xie Lian tore it down and put it back together again; the paths that lead up the mountain; a life.
There is a singular pleasure in nurturing something into existence with one’s own hands, and knowing that they are capable of more than just holding the sword—of bringing bloodshed and suffering, and grief. In the evening, when Xie Lian is scrubbing the dirt from under his fingernails, it feels like a job well done.
Eventually, it gets easier to stay in one place after so many lifetimes of transience, but it also gets harder. Back then, even at his most lonesome, Xie Lian didn’t feel lonely. The permanence of death and abandonment was a cruel thing, but it was a certain thing, with no way to turn back the flow of water in the water clock. Now that he’s waiting, with no clear end to his solitude but also the echo of a promise whispered on the wind, the days grow longer, dragging shichen after shichen into a languorous ennui. The nights grow longer, too, as autumn slowly drips into winter, leaving Xie Lian with more and more time for idle thoughts.
He spends most evenings on simple things. He mends clothes by the light of the oil lamp and writes down recipes he remembers enjoying, thinking up names for the dishes in anticipation of Hua Cheng’s return. He bathes, submerged all the way up to his collarbones, having hauled the water from the well earlier in the afternoon. He does calligraphy, if only just to remember the fleeting verses he’s picked up in his travels, poetry traditions spanning centuries. Sometimes, when he’s very bored and the inclement weather prevents him from going outside, he plays games of xiangqi with himself in his head. He has neither the board nor the pieces here, but he’s played it enough in his youth to imagine it clearly. Most of the time, it ends in a stalemate.
Other times, when he lies in bed late at night, Xie Lian remembers the touch of Hua Cheng’s lips against his own, a ghost of a caress in the darkness of the room.
His face grows hot each time he brings a hand to his mouth, wanting to chase the sensation, grasp it between his fingers and keep it close. His body, once immaculate, stirs from its slumber.
Sleep does not come easily on those nights, chased away by the heat in Xie Lian’s face and his abdomen, the tight pressure that demands to be released. Sometimes Xie Lian wakes up compromised, aching where his body is pressed into the bedding. He has grown curious, too; as if Hua Cheng’s touch has awoken something in him that, once roused, cannot be put to sleep again. But there is no one around to lend him spiritual energy should his cultivation fail in the face of his wanting, so he does nothing.
The days grow shorter still, sleepy under the cover of snow that gathers at the top of the mountain. During the day, Xie Lian tends to the ox that sleeps in the makeshift shed, cooks and cleans and meditates, and in the evenings he curls up in bed with only Ruoye for company, nestled safely in the crook of his neck, sloping against the dip of his collarbones.
There is no cursed shackle there to hide anymore, but the familiarity of that touch has accompanied him for so long that Xie Lian feels almost exposed without it. Ruoye must understand, too, because it curls around Xie Lian’s body as it always has without protest.
People visit him occasionally—Feng Xin and Mu Qing, and even Shi Qingxuan from time to time. In one memorable instance, a delegation of ghosts arrives from Ghost City to pay respects and leaves him with more jewels and expensive fabrics than he knows what to do with. Most of those, he gives away the next time he goes down the mountain to answer prayers, but he keeps an emerald and two small rubies in his qiankun pouch just in case.
Sometimes he wakes in the middle of the night, thinking there was a knock on the door. Each time, his heart is a butterfly in his chest, fluttering against his ribs. But then the quiet settles in once more, with no sound to follow, and Xie Lian understands it was his own wishing that made it appear so. It is not yet time, then.
Time is the one thing he has in abundance. He has seen the same cycle repeat over and over—the coming and going of the years; the coming and going of dynasties and kingdoms and peoples. He will see many, many more before his time comes to fade from existence, if that ever comes to pass. Hua Cheng’s devotion had sustained him for centuries before Xie Lian’s believers returned to pray to His Highness the Crown Prince of Xianle. It was a cup of water for a man dying of thirst—just enough to keep him alive while they were both biding their time. As long as some part of Hua Cheng lives, then, Xie Lian will live as well.
As if on instinct, his hand closes around the ring that hangs from his neck on a silver chain. There, right beside his heart, rests the proof of his beloved’s imminent return. That’s enough for Xie Lian to keep his hope—no, certainty—that Hua Cheng will come back.
Slowly, slowly, winter begins to give way to the first stirrings of spring. The new year approaches, and with it the Shangyuan Festival, but Xie Lian won’t be spending it feasting in the Upper Court, watching the contest of Blessing Lanterns illuminate the sky. Instead, he goes about his day as usual, trudging down the mountain to collect scraps. It’s an old, comforting habit, a pattern in his routine that gives him something honest to occupy his days. He was a scrap-collecting god for such a long time, he barely knows how to be anything else. The echo of his days as the proud Crown Prince of Xianle is just that—an echo.
The path that leads up the mountain is a well-trodden one, wide enough for the cart to pass through, the wheels clack-clack-clacking as Xie Lian leads the ox back home. There is only the faint light of a small lantern illuminating the darkness around him, a bubble of light that disperses the shadows. And then—
And then Xie Lian sees it, the burst of light like a sudden daybreak, thousands upon thousands of Blessing Lanterns rising up from the mountain’s peak. It cannot be, Xie Lian thinks, it cannot be, but it is—oh, it is, and when Xie Lian reaches the mountaintop at last, his heart a butterfly in his chest, there he stands, with hair black as onyx and skin white as snow. The cloak, redder than maple, billows in the wind.
Xie Lian is rooted to the spot for a heartbeat, two heartbeats before he takes off at a run, and then he’s falling right into Hua Cheng’s embrace. His eyes blur the world around him with tears, but he would recognize that scent anywhere—he would recognize that gentle touch even at the end of the world.
“San Lang,” he chokes out, hiding his face in the crook of Hua Cheng’s neck. He smells faintly like the smoke of a fire pit on an autumn day, deep and dark like the woods. Xie Lian’s body is a leaf on the wind; he feels incandescent, as if lit from within like one of the Blessing Lanterns. His body overflows with that light, that warmth; it must spill out of him, he thinks, pouring down the mountain path like molten gold. It must trail after him like a cloak, illuminating his steps.
“I’m sorry to have kept gege waiting,” Hua Cheng says at last. The rumble of it reverberates in his chest, where Xie Lian is pressed flush against him, with Hua Cheng’s arms clasped around his waist. “But I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“San Lang,” Xie Lian says again, pulling away the tiniest bit to take Hua Cheng’s face in his hands. He’s crying still, his lower lip wobbling every time he takes a breath, the world dancing in front of his eyes as more tears threaten to spill. “I didn’t dream you this time. You’re really here.”
“You did not dream me, gege,” Hua Cheng says, his lips quirking up in a smile. “But I hope you did dream of me.”
Xie Lian laughs through the happy tears, then looks at Hua Cheng, taking in his handsome form, and his body sings in response. In that moment, it’s the string of a qin, plucked in anticipation, the air rippling around a familiar tune. All it would take is one touch, one expert flick of fingers for Xie Lian to fall apart.
This is the end to his years of solitude, his years of wandering in search of something he could not quite name until he saw it right before his eyes. They both have walked so many li to finally meet in this place, with all the rivers and streams in between. Now, standing under the canopy of red that stretches over them like a bride’s veil, Xie Lian wants to wait no longer.
He reaches out, pulling Hua Cheng towards him by the neck and slotting their lips together. They kiss, right there, under the open sky still illuminated by the lanterns, with no pretense or excuse. Their bodies mold themselves around each other, moving to the same rhythm as their lips part, wet and hot, slick where their tongues meet to brush against each other.
All breath leaves Xie Lian’s lungs; it makes him lightheaded, buoyant, a feather drifting in the air, but he doesn’t let go, doesn’t pull away. He kisses with his entire body, clumsy as he must be in his rush to mark the presence of his San Lang onto each cun of his skin. His hands roam the broad planes of Hua Cheng’s back, clutch at his waist with more hunger than Xie Lian has ever felt in his entire life.
“Gege, gege, wait,” Hua Cheng says at last in between kisses. His lips are brushing against Xie Lian’s, warm breath tickling his cheek. “You must be cold. Let’s go inside.”
Xie Lian’s body is hot like a furnace, but he still goes, afraid that the spell of that moment under the maple trees would fly away like dandelion fluff in the wind. The moment the cottage door closes behind them, though, Hua Cheng draws Xie Lian into another embrace, his mouth seeking Xie Lian’s lips. There is as much reverence as there is heat to the way Hua Cheng kisses, never straying to Xie Lian’s neck or the curve of his jaw, never taking more than he has been given.
But Xie Lian wants—he wants so many things that he cannot even begin to give name to, except for the way his entire being burns with need like the wick of a candle in the night.
It’s so fast, though, so sudden, and Xie Lian can barely breathe as they clutch at each other, desperate after the months of parting.
“San Lang, San Lang, wait,” he whispers, breathless, his chest heaving. “You’ve barely even returned, and I— Are you hungry? There is still some congee from earlier, so I can—”
He laughs nervously, hands twisting together between them. He shouldn’t have stopped, Xie Lian thinks. He shouldn’t have stopped, because now that he has, he doesn’t quite know how to tell Hua Cheng about all the things he wants to do, all the things he’s dreamed of these past months. He was hoping to show Hua Cheng instead, yet here he is, shy and fretting all of a sudden.
“Gege,” Hua Cheng says, tangling his fingers in Xie Lian’s hair, stroking the long strands in a tender caress. “There is no rush. Whatever you want, that’s what we can do.”
Xie Lian licks his lips. “I want this,” he says with conviction, because it’s true. He knows exactly what his desires are, even if he has trouble voicing them out loud. “I want my San Lang to…to love me like this, in all the possible ways. But maybe you had other—”
“Gege,” Hua Cheng takes Xie Lian’s face into his hands, coaxing Xie Lian gently to look up at him, “I already said. Whatever gege wants, that’s what he will get. The congee can wait. If gege allows it, I will show him just how much I missed him.”
Xie Lian swallows. “All right, then,” he says. “And I will show you how much I missed my San Lang in return.”
Hua Cheng reaches for him once again the moment the words are out of Xie Lian’s mouth, pulling him flush against his chest. Hua Cheng’s hand comes to caress the side of Xie Lian’s cheek, thumb brushing against the cheekbone.
“Is gege hungry?” he whispers, leaning in to press his lips to the stretch of skin that hides behind Xie Lian’s ear, sensitive to the touch. Xie Lian’s mouth opens around a gasp, his eyes falling shut. “I brought something just for gege.”
When Xie Lian opens his eyes again, there is a handful of mangosteens in Hua Cheng’s outstretched palm. The rind is a deep, rich purple that looks almost black in the low light of the oil lamp—perfectly ripe despite being out of season.
“Oh,” Xie Lian gasps, part-delight and part-surprise, reaching out to grab one and turn it around in his fingers. The fruit is flawless, just as he thought, not a single bruise marring its skin, but it gives a little under the touch, just enough to know it’s good to eat.
“Gege, allow me,” Hua Cheng says, and leads him to take a seat at the low table that stands in the corner of the room, then procures a knife from his belt.
Just like with many other things he has committed to his memory, Xie Lian cannot quite remember last time he had a mangosteen. Just before the fall of Xianle, most likely, in that gilded-cursed life of his past. There are centuries separating then and now, but Xie Lian must still remember the taste, somewhere at the back of his mind, because his mouth waters as soon as Hua Cheng takes a knife to the dark outer skin. As it peels back to reveal the glossy white flesh, the faintly sweet scent reaches Xie Lian.
“Here, gege,” Hua Cheng says, lifting one segment to Xie Lian’s mouth, pressing it between his parted lips.
Sweetness erupts on Xie Lian’s tongue, better than anything else he has ever tasted. There is tacky juice running down his lips, his chin, ready to spill down his neck before Hua Cheng leans in and laps at the wetness, then captures Xie Lian’s mouth in a sugary, sticky kiss.
“San Lang only needed to ask if he wanted a kiss,” Xie Lian chides, but the heat pooling in his abdomen returns to make itself known. “I would have given one willingly without a pretext. Or we could share the fruit, if that was what San Lang wanted.”
Hua Cheng only laughs. “But no fruit tastes as sweet as gege,” he says.
He feeds the remaining segments to Xie Lian then, piece by piece, juice running down his fingers and into the hollows of his palm. Once he swallows the last mouthful, in a moment of bravery, Xie Lian grabs a hold of Hua Cheng’s wrist and darts out his tongue to clean up the sticky residue.
“Gege,” Hua Cheng half-groans, half-moans, eyes falling shut and head falling forward. “You’ll be the death of me. Come,” he says, “I prepared a bath for you while you were out.”
Indeed, behind the simple modesty screen, the wooden bathtub is filled with water, the faint vapor of steam rising into the air.
“Gege worked hard today,” Hue Cheng continues as Xie Lian stares at him and the steaming bathtub in turn. “He should get a moment to relax. If there is anything gege needs, he should just ask. And remember, there is no rush.”
A bath sounds nice after a full day of work, but there is a part of Xie Lian that’s still afraid of letting Hua Cheng out of his sight, as if he would disappear the moment Xie Lian turns away for a fleeting while. Hua Cheng must sense some of that hesitation, attuned as he always is to Xie Lian’s moods and feelings.
“Does gege want to hear stories, then?” he asks. “I will be just on the other side of the screen. Gege will hear my voice the entire time.”
“Ah, San Lang, that would be lovely. Oh,” he remembers all of a sudden, now that he can think a little more clearly, “and there’s some wine Shi Qingxuan brought last time we met. You can help yourself to it if you want, it’s on the shelf by the window.”
Once he’s left alone, Xie Lian slowly begins to undress. Ruoye unwinds first from his body, letting itself drape over the modesty screen; his robes and underrobes follow, until Xie Lian is naked in the slightly chilly night air. There are embers still smoldering in the brazier, but the winter cold is difficult to chase away completely.
He can hear the quiet rustling of Hua Cheng’s robes on the other side of the modesty screen, the clink of the jug against the cup as he pours wine, the scraping of wood against wood as Hua Cheng sits down on the low stool. He speaks of his journey to Mount Taicang, of the people and things he saw along the way. He speaks nothing of his rebirth. The stories are punctuated only by the sloshing of the water in the bathtub and the faint sound of Xie Lian’s breath.
“And gege?” Hua Cheng asks at last. “Has gege been well while I was away? Has gege been happy?”
Xie Lian gives a soft laugh. “I am much happier now,” he admits. “But I’ve been well, just…impatient for your return.”
The sharp sting of separation digs into Xie Lian’s ribs, the distance between them unbearable all of a sudden, even though it’s just some bamboo and flimsy cloth that keep them apart. Xie Lian wonders how silly it would be to ask Hua Cheng to come to the other side of the screen—it’s such a childish reason, after all, so irrational. Still, his face grows hot at the thought of Hua Cheng seeing him like this, despite the promise of they’re about to do as soon as Xie Lian is done with his bathing still fresh in his mind.
“San Lang,” he says gathering his courage about him like a cloak, “would you mind coming here to wash my back? I can’t quite reach.”
“Whatever gege wishes,” Hua Cheng says from the other side of the screen. The stool scrapes against the floor again when he stands up, and then there he is, looking respectfully at Xie Lian’s face and nowhere else, standing a few steps away from the rim of the tub.
“It’s very difficult to wash someone’s back when one won’t even look anywhere below the neck, you know,” Xie Lian teases, not quite understanding where all the boldness is coming from. He must be pink in the face from the hot bath, so at least the furious flush that spreads all the way down his neck and chest won’t betray him to Hua Cheng’s searching gaze.
As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Xie Lian understands what it really means to be looked at by Hua Cheng while naked. The milky bathwater covers Xie Lian from his chest down, but the hungry scrutiny of Hua Cheng’s gaze leaves him feeling completely exposed. Hua Cheng looks at him like Xie Lian is the first sight to ever grace his eyes after a lifetime of darkness—like he’s starving for every visible sliver of Xie Lian’s skin, hands curling into fists at his sides.
There is a piece of unscented bath bean lying on the rickety table that stands within an arm’s reach of the bathtub, and Xie Lian watches as Hua Cheng reaches for it, wetting it slightly before he gently pushes Xie Lian’s hair to the side, exposing his naked back.
The last time someone did that for him, it was Mu Qing, whose hands bathed Xie Lian with the strict detachment of a servant. They were a lot more than that, of course, with all the complexities that came with everything the three of them meant to each other, back in the days of Xie Lian’s youth and naivete, but the fact remained. Xie Lian was a prince, and Mu Qing was not. His hands had not once forgotten that fact.
Hua Cheng, though, bathes Xie Lian like it’s a caress, a lover’s gentle touch. His hands linger on Xie Lian’s skin, soaping him up first before he sluices warm water down his back to rinse off the suds. He lets himself touch, fingers dipping beneath the water’s surface, where the rest of Xie Lian’s body remains hidden from view.
“Does His Highness need me to wash his hair, too?” he asks, ghosting warm air over the sensitive stretch of Xie Lian’s neck. Xie Lian shivers, imagining those lips pressing a kiss to the damp skin.
“There’s no need,” he says, his voice quivering in betrayal. “Thank you, San Lang.”
Xie Lian lingers in the bath for a moment longer, aware of Hua Cheng’s gaze on him. He never told him to go, and Hua Cheng has been equally reluctant to leave Xie Lian out of his sight again. But the bathwater cools rapidly in the open space of the cottage, and soon Xie Lian’s palms begin to go pruny, too. Gathering his courage once again, Xie Lian swallows, then pushes himself upright, emerging from the milky depths of the tub. There is nothing but his hair to cover him as he reaches for the cloth to pat himself dry with. Once he moves to step out of the bath, he finds Hua Cheng by his side, holding out a hand for Xie Lian to steady him.
“Thank you, San Lang,” Xie Lian says again with a smile. The moment both of his feet touch the ground and he puts on a sheer underrobe, he finds himself pressed back against the rim of the tub as Hua Cheng kisses him, hot and slick and hungry.
“Your Highness,” Hua Cheng says, breathless, once they part for a moment, “please, allow your humble worshipper to serve you. Gege.”
He kisses behind Xie Lian’s ear, lips warm and insistent, and a quiet whimper escapes Xie Lian, unbidden. The folds of his underrobe open, exposing his skin to the chill of the night; the shiver that runs through him is equal parts cold and anticipation.
“San Lang doesn’t need to serve me,” Xie Lian says at last, earnest. His head is swimming, thoughts rendered incoherent by Hua Cheng’s soft touch. “It’s enough that San Lang just loves me.”
It’s almost an echo of that fateful encounter, but now they’re both older and wiser, and there is nothing standing between them anymore—just the two of them in a small cottage at the top of the mountain, looking at each other and seeing their true selves.
Xie Lian startles when Hua Cheng hooks his arm behind his knees and lifts him in a flutter of white robes. He grabs onto Hua Cheng’s shoulders, holding on tightly as they make their way to the bed. It’s nothing much, and barely big enough for two people, but Hua Cheng lays Xie Lian down on the mattress and follows, settling himself at the foot of the bed.
“If gege wants, we can be in Paradise Manor in just a short while,” he says. “The bed there is a lot more comfortable, and bigger, too.”
Xie Lian considers it for a moment. “No, this is fine,” he says. “This way we can keep each other close, don’t you think?”
There will be time for that later—revisiting the Ghost City and staying at Paradise Manor, listening to prayers at Qiandeng Temple and becoming acquainted with Hua Cheng’s sizeable bed. But for now, this is more than enough: just the two of them and the shadows dancing on the walls in the warm light of the oil lamps.
From his place on the bed, Xie Lian watches as Hua Cheng undresses above him, until nothing but his trousers and a thin undershirt remain. The fabric of the shirt is so translucent that he might just as well not be wearing anything at all, and Xie Lian drinks the sight of him, the hint of the lean muscle concealed beneath the silk.
The awareness of his own nakedness jostles Xie Lian, unused to being looked at in this manner. The eyes of everyone were on him once upon a time: the Crown Prince of Xianle, His Royal Highness Who Pleased the Gods. But what they were looking at was in the end an armor, a mask. A role that Xie Lian was meant to play. A birthright and a burden. What Hua Cheng is looking at now is what remains once everything else has been stripped away.
The vulnerability of the moment knocks the wind out of Xie Lian’s chest, leaves him shivery and thrown off-balance, but he wants this—all of it—so much that he allows himself to be fully seen. In the end, to have Hua Cheng look at him this way is easier than he expected. The scrutiny burns like wildfire across Xie Lian’s skin, but it’s the good kind of burn—the kind that wakes things up to life.
“Is there anything that gege wishes for?” Hua Cheng asks, his eye never straying away even for a moment.
Xie Lian licks his lips. “I don’t know what—” he tries. “I don’t really know what there is to want, you know that I’ve never— I’ve never done anything…like that.”
Hua Cheng gives a quiet hum. “All right, then,” he says. “I will just have to give gege everything.”
He starts with kisses that awaken the hunger in Xie Lian’s body with every touch of Hua Cheng’s lips. He kisses the obvious places—Xie Lian’s mouth, his temple, his cheeks, beneath the curve of his jaw, behind his ear and down his neck—and the ones Xie Lian would never even think of. Hua Cheng presses his lips to Xie Lian’s ribs, the bend of his arm where the veins grow like vines just beneath the skin, the hollows between Xie Lian’s fingers. Gently, Hua Cheng coaxes Xie Lian’s legs open and settles between them, watching intently as the robes fall to the sides, exposing the proof of Xie Lian’s arousal that stirs in him with every passing moment.
“Gege has such beautiful legs,” Hua Cheng muses, trailing a finger up and down Xie Lian’s shin, drawing a shiver out of him, another unsteady exhale.
Xie Lian has been thinking a lot about all the possible ways it might feel to have Hua Cheng touch his naked skin, but whatever echo of desire he remembered in his year of solitude, it pales in comparison with the burning effigy that is his body under Hua Cheng’s tender caress. He’s alight, glowing and incandescent with it once again, spilling that light around him with every broken sound that escapes his lips. It should fill him with mortification to be found so wanton, spread out almost naked on the bed, hard and aching between his open legs, but the force of Xie Lian’s longing far outweighs any remaining inhibitions.
They may have been destined for each other, but falling into each other this time around was a choice they both made with their eyes wide open. The red string still stretches between their open palms, but it was Hua Cheng who tied it there, not fate.
It’s so much easier than Xie Lian expected to pull Hua Cheng over himself, clenching his hands around fistfuls of translucent silk at Hua Cheng’s back.
“Kiss me,” Xie Lian pleads, already surging up to meet him halfway.
Hua Cheng presses his mouth to Xie Lian’s lips once more, teasing them open with a swipe of his tongue. The hot, wet slide of skin against skin leaves Xie Lian breathless, chest heaving beneath Hua Cheng’s weight that pushes him further into the bedding.
It’s so easy to get lost in the sensation. Xie Lian has never felt so alive, his body thrumming with energy that cannot yet find its release from the confines of Xie Lian’s corporeal form. He trembles with the force of his need, a centuries-old dam finally breaking. Hua Cheng holds him, kisses him, presses against him, and it is the most alive Xie Lian has ever felt. He’s giddy with it, overwhelmed and overcome with the desire to give himself over whole to this barely-familiar sensation.
“San Lang,” he whispers, his voice catching on a moan when Hua Cheng dips his head to leave damp kisses down the column of Xie Lian’s neck, tongue flicking into the hollow of his collarbone. “San Lang, please…”
He doesn’t quite know what he’s pleading for, except more. Hua Cheng seems to understand, though, because his hands never stop roaming Xie Lian’s chest and sides, his mouth following their pathways. Eventually, Hua Cheng sits back on his haunches and looks down at Xie Lian, who flushes at the intensity of his gaze. Never looking away, Hua Cheng curls his fingers around Xie Lian’s ankle and lifts it, maneuvering until Xie Lian’s foot presses against Hua Cheng’s shoulder. His fingers trace the stretch of skin where Xie Lian’s cursed shackle used to sit before Hua Cheng presses his lips to the knobbly jut of the bone.
“San Lang—” Xie Lian wants to sound scandalized, but instead what comes out of his mouth is a moan.
Hua Cheng just smiles, that red, red mouth curving up, showing a hint of teeth, then kisses Xie Lian’s ankle again, tongue flicking out to wet the skin there. It’s so much more sensitive than Xie Lian would ever expect—the way his body wakes up to pleasure in the most unexpected of places leaves him with too little breath in his chest, never knowing what sensation to expect, perpetually stuck on an inhale.
With his leg propped up against Hua Cheng’s shoulder, Xie Lian feels exposed, the most intimate places of his body put on display. But then Hua Cheng says, voice low and husky, “Gege is so beautiful. I don’t know how I’ve been so lucky to have gege here with me like this.”
They both know that for once, it has nothing to do with Hua Cheng’s luck. But he sounds so earnest when he says it, so genuinely awed that Xie Lian almost can’t bear the tenderness that overflows inside him.
Slowly, Hua Cheng makes his way up Xie Lian’s legs, marking his path with his lips. He kisses up the slope of Xie Lian’s calf, presses his mouth to the underside of his knee, where the skin is warm and soft, tender to the touch. It’s another one of those unexpected places Xie Lian seems to be discovering within himself. He gasps when Hua Cheng follows his lips with his fingers, stroking the bath-warm nooks and crannies of Xie Lian’s body. The insides of his thighs tremble when Hua Cheng kisses the stretch of smooth skin there, Xie Lian’s toes curling into the sheets.
He has been hard for a while, leaking obscenely against his stomach. There’s now a small pool of liquid that beads at the tip of his cock and drips onto his abdomen, sticky-wet on his skin. It should be mortifying to want this openly, but with Hua Cheng there, all thoughts of embarrassment disappear from Xie Lian’s head, centuries of cultivation turned to nothing with a single touch.
When Xie Lian looks at Hua Cheng across the stretch of the bed, he can see that he’s similarly affected, straining against his trousers. There is a damp spot forming close to the waistband, and Xie Lian’s mouth grows arid all at once, his throat a desert. Then, in a moment of reckless bravery, he shifts and nudges the clothed swell of Hua Cheng’s cock with his toes, rubs against it with the arched sole of his foot.
Hua Cheng groans, his head falling forward, his eyes falling shut. There’s a visible tremble that runs across his body as he says, “Gege, you’ll be the death of me.”
Panicked by his own forwardness, Xie Lian pulls away in an instant. “I’m sorry!” he says, covering his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“No.” Hua Cheng catches him by the ankle again, then leans down to nip at the jut of Xie Lian’s hip. “No, that was…good. Gege can do it again if he wants.”
Xie Lian’s face is on fire, the flush dripping down his neck and chest, but Hua Cheng doesn’t give him much time to be embarrassed. Instead, he leans over Xie Lian and kisses just below his navel, where the faint trail of hair leads to Xie Lian’s groin. Hua Cheng’s face is so close to his erection now, his cheek and jaw nearly brushing against the length of Xie Lian’s cock, and he must be able to smell him, the scent of arousal heavy in the air. It’s an excruciating, unbearable, exquisite torture, anticipation prickling Xie Lian’s skin like a thousand needles.
Settled between his spread thighs, Hua Cheng nudges against Xie Lian’s cock with his nose, then leans in to lick at the wetness pooling on his abdomen. Xie Lian watches, eyes wide, voice stuck in his throat and heart fluttering like a butterfly in his chest, as Hua Cheng circles his thumb and forefinger around the root of his cock and closes his lips around the head.
All at once, Xie Lian’s mouth opens around a moan. The sound echoes through the space, deafening to Xie Lian’s ears.
The tight, silky heat of Hua Cheng’s mouth is unlike anything he has ever felt, the furnace of it hotter than Mount Tonglu. Xie Lian can already feel himself teetering close to the edge, his hands fisted in the bed linens, his toes curling. Whatever he imagined in those dark nights of solitude, nothing can compare with the way Hua Cheng swallows around him, taking more and more of him into his mouth. He sucks around Xie Lian’s length, wet and so, so loud in the silence of the night. It’s indecent, it’s obscene, and it’s the best thing Xie Lian has ever experienced. He can feel the way Hua Cheng’s tongue curls against the underside of his cock, the way he teases around the crown with every rise of his head.
“San Lang, San Lang, please, I’m going to—” He tries to push Hua Cheng away, not ready yet for it to be over, but Hua Cheng only takes him deeper into his mouth, his throat, and lets Xie Lian spill all over his tongue only a moment later.
The climax is wrung out of him like a sob, his whole body spasming, trembling with the force of it. His eyes go blurry and his voice breaks on another moan. It’s too much, too soon, and Xie Lian feels tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. It’s silly—it’s so silly to almost regret it being over even when they have all the time in the world to bring each other to that precipice time and time again.
The sound of rustling fabric brings him back to his senses. Once Xie Lian’s gaze refocuses, he watches, enraptured, as Hua Cheng takes off his trousers, freeing his erection at last. Xie Lian’s eyes widen, his throat going dry at the sight of it, large enough to barely fit in Hua Cheng’s grip and flushed at the tip, glistening with wetness. Still at the foot of the bed, Hua Cheng strokes himself a few times, looking at Xie Lian like he is a feast spread out before him. His lips press together as he attempts to stifle a moan, a trail of clear liquid dripping down his knuckles.
Curious and still aroused now that the haze of the climax has begun to wear off, Xie Lian props himself up on his elbow and reaches out, beckoning Hua Cheng closer.
“Please, let me touch you, San Lang,” he pleads, painfully aware of his own inexperience but eager to try nonetheless. He wants to make Hua Cheng feel good, too, hoping that his clumsy attempts won’t discourage him, won’t make him feel disappointed in the experience.
“Come here, gege,” Hua Cheng says, sitting with his back against the board, and Xie Lian follows.
He straddles Hua Cheng’s lap and winds his arms around his neck, leaning in to kiss him. There is a faint, salty aftertaste to Hua Cheng’s mouth that wasn’t there before, and it takes Xie Lian a moment to realize that he’s tasting himself. It should feel dirty, but instead it makes his cock twitch, beginning to fill once more where it rests against his thigh. With one hand still wrapped around Hua Cheng’s neck, Xie Lian reaches for his cock, curling his palm around its girth. His fingers don’t quite meet, but that doesn’t seem to matter, judging by the way Hua Cheng’s head falls back, a low, growly groan punched out of him.
But I didn’t even do anything yet, Xie Lian thinks, giving Hua Cheng’s cock an experimental stroke.
“Gege,” Hua Cheng chokes out, as if overwhelmed by this simple, inexpert touch of Xie Lian’s hand. Xie Lian moves his hand again, spreading the wetness that beads at the slit down Hua Cheng’s length to ease the slide. It can’t be that good, he reasons, because he can tell that his rhythm falters all too often, unsure of his grip or the right angle.
“I’m not very good at this, I’m afraid,” Xie Lian admits, cheeks growing hot. He looks down to where his hand continues stroking Hua Cheng’s cock, but the raw moan that drags its way out of his mouth startles Xie Lian, his eyes snapping to Hua Cheng’s face.
Hua Cheng looks rapturous, eyes half-lidded and mouth open, his throat exposed. He swallows, then looks at Xie Lian with scorching intent. “Gege is very good at this,” he says. “The best.”
They go back to kissing, tongues curling around each other lazily as Xie Lian finally begins to find a rhythm. His hand speeds up, hoping to match the rhythm of their mouths moving in accord, but it feels off somehow, not quite getting there. He makes a frustrated sound into Hua Cheng’s mouth, who pulls away, eyes focusing even through the haze of apparent pleasure to look at Xie Lian with burning intensity.
“Gege?” Hua Cheng asks. “Is there anything wrong?”
Xie Lian shakes his head. “No, I just—” He laughs, self-deprecating. “I just want to make you feel good, and I don’t know how.”
“But,” Hua Cheng says, reaching up to touch Xie Lian’s face, planting his thumb against his lower lip, “gege is making me feel so good. Can you not see?”
Another bead of clear, tacky liquid wells up at the slit of Hua Cheng’s cock, then rolls down the shaft and across Xie Lian’s knuckles.
“Gege makes me so wet.” Hua Cheng’s voice is a whisper in Xie Lian’s ear. It makes him shiver. “If he keeps it up for too long, I will come too early.”
Xie Lian gives another breathy laugh and kisses the pad of Hua Cheng’s thumb. It slides past his lower lip and down his chin to rest in the hollow of his collarbone, right at the base of his throat where his other cursed shackle used to be. “I think that would only be fair, don’t you think?” Xie Lian says, equally breathless.
Hua Cheng laughs, then catches Xie Lian by the wrist, guiding his hand away from his cock. “Gege is right, of course, but there will still be time for that later.” He pauses, almost hesitant for the first time that night. “Does gege trust me?” he asks. When Xie Lian nods, he gently nudges him back, then says, “Gege should lie down on his stomach, then.”
Xie Lian wants to ask why at first, but he still goes willingly, arranging himself on the bed with his face pressed into the bedding and his back bared to the crisp night air. He’s been sweating despite that, and now that the sweat is cooling rapidly, exposed to the lingering chill in the room, a shiver runs through Xie Lian, but the way his body trembles conceals so much more than that.
He hears first, then feels Hua Cheng lean over him, the ghost of his breath that he doesn’t quite need fanning out over the slope of Xie Lian’s shoulder. Hua Cheng’s fingers push Xie Lian’s hair to the side, baring the nape of his neck. He presses a lingering kiss there, and another one. Then, his tongue swipes lazily at the protruding knob at the top of Xie Lian’s spine.
“Gege looks so beautiful like this,” he says, mouthing at the bony wing of Xie Lian’s shoulder blade. “I want to make gege feel really good, if he will allow it.”
“San Lang?” Xie Lian props himself up on his elbows and looks over his shoulder, meeting Hua Cheng’s gaze with a question in his eyes.
“It will be good, I promise, but if gege doesn’t want to—”
“No, no!” Xie Lian protests. “I do want to. I want to do…everything with San Lang.”
Seemingly satisfied with the answer, Hua Cheng resumes the wandering of his hands and lips. He brushes his palms along Xie Lian’s sides, fingers skittering over his ribs while Hua Cheng’s mouth travels down the column of Xie Lian’s spine. He expects Hua Cheng to stop when he reaches the small of his back, but instead Xie Lian gasps when Hua Cheng’s lips continue their downward journey, pressing open, slick kisses to the flesh of his buttocks.
“Can gege spread his legs a little more?” Hua Cheng asks, then pulls Xie Lian’s hips up into the air, canting them up the way he wants them.
“San Lang? What—” Xie Lian begins, looking over his shoulder just in time to see Hua Cheng grasp the firm flesh of Xie Lian’s ass and spread him open, exposing the most intimate places of his body to Hua Cheng’s hungry gaze.
Xie Lian’s face is burning, shoved back into the bedding as soon as he realizes what is happening. He trusts Hua Cheng, but this kind of vulnerability doesn’t come easy to him, and the longer Hua Cheng is just staring at him, doing nothing, the more Xie Lian’s stomach twists itself like a well-wrung piece of laundry.
The kisses return soon enough, though, pressed to the backs of Xie Lian’s thighs, the sensitive flesh of his groin. It’s almost too much; his skin feels on fire in all the places Hua Cheng touches, and then Xie Lian’s entire world tilts on its axis in a singular moment as Hua Cheng’s tongue flicks out to lick a broad stripe over the tender skin around his opening.
Xie Lian’s knees buckle under him. He almost falls forward, kept in place only by Hua Cheng’s grip on his hips, and a moan rises to the surface, breaking the roiling waters of Xie Lian’s arousal as soon as he opens his mouth. He wants to push himself backwards onto Hua Cheng’s face, and he wants to squirm away. It feels dirty and lewd, and so, so good when Hua Cheng continues to lick and suck at the sensitive skin there, spreading Xie Lian open even more.
“San Lang, I—” Xie Lian whispers, his abdomen spasming as his body fights to find release before it is ready. He’s fully hard again, and he ruts into the bunched up bed linens with no regard for the mess he’s making, chasing the friction his body so desperately needs. “Please, please, I need—”
It’s a low cry, a moan, and a sob all at once, his body of a god brought down to its knees by the pleasure of the act. Xie Lian is now an effigy in the night, an ever-burning ember as Hua Cheng drives him closer and closer to the brink. He gives a sharp cry when Hua Cheng’s tongue breaches him at last, his body clenching against the intrusion.
“Breathe, gege,” Hua Cheng says, pulling back for a moment. Xie Lian can feel his thumb rubbing circles in the mess of spit over the furl of Xie Lian’s entrance. “This feels good, right? Just let me take care of gege, he’ll get used to it soon enough.”
Xie Lian exhales, willing his body to become loose and pliant under Hua Cheng’s touch. He shifts against the mattress, pushing his knees further apart, giving himself over to the indecent pleasure of it. Hua Cheng returns to his task, licking further and further into Xie Lian with every swipe of his tongue. There is Hua Cheng’s spit running down the length of Xie Lian’s cock, dripping onto the bedding, and the sounds their bodies keep making echoes, slick and obscene, in the silence of the cottage. Xie Lian’s cheeks feel hot to the touch, burning up as if in the throes of fever. His thighs tremble where they frame Hua Cheng’s face, his abdomen tight with the tension of keeping himself up.
He doesn’t dare look over his shoulder, almost afraid to find out what they look like in this moment, with Hua Cheng on his knees, bent down as if in supplication. It feels like worship in its own right, a prayer uttered not with the voice but with the body itself, and even Xie Lian, who has been a god far longer than he had been a mortal man, finds himself struggling to contain this outpouring of devotion. Each shift of Hua Cheng’s body, each press of his lips and each touch of his palms is a silent prayer, and Xie Lian receives all of them, buoyant and incandescent with their fervor.
Soon, Xie Lian can take it no longer. He wrenches a hand from where it has been grasping the bed linens and curls his palm around the length of his cock, stroking at an awkward, halting rhythm until he cries out again, muffled by the bedding, and spills over the tight fist of his hand.
Behind him, Hua Cheng fits a finger inside Xie Lian alongside his tongue. In the slippery heat left behind by his mouth, the finger slides inside easier than Xie Lian anticipated, the sensation a bit strange but not altogether unpleasant. His body still trembles with the strength of his release, and soon the touch becomes almost too much, toeing the line between pleasure and pain.
“San Lang, San Lang, wait, slow down a moment,” Xie Lian pleads, hand reaching back to grab at Hua Cheng’s fingers that rest on his hips. “It’s too much, I can’t—”
Hua Cheng withdraws, and as soon as some of the support goes with him, Xie Lian collapses to the bed, chest heaving. A moment passes, and then Hua Cheng’s gentle hands help Xie Lian roll over. His legs are still spread across the bed, slick and sticky with spit that drips down from between his buttocks. The wet spot on the mattress smears against the small of his back, but he can’t bring himself to care.
“Was it good for gege?” Hua Cheng asks, giving himself another lazy stroke. He seems to be in no rush to follow his pleasure to the inevitable conclusion, but he’s been hard and leaking the entire time. His chin glistens when the light catches it just so.
“That was—” Xie Lian tries, but his voice is struggling, trapped somewhere in his throat. “That was…I didn’t know you could do something like that.”
Hua Cheng gives him a scrutinizing look. “But gege liked it, right?”
Xie Lian swallows, attempting to push his hair away from his sweaty face. “No one could ever make me feel as good as San Lang does,” he confesses.
Hua Cheng leans over the edge of the bed, reaching for the half-finished jug of wine, and brings it to his mouth, forgoing the cup entirely. Xie Lian watches him drink, mouth open wide around the rim of the jug, some of the wine dripping down his chin in what Xie Lian isn’t entirely sure is genuine clumsiness. It has the desired effect, though, because Xie Lian can’t take his eyes off the rivulet as it travels down Hua Cheng’s neck and his chest.
“San Lang, come here,” he pleads.
The moment Hua Cheng leans over him, he kisses the sweet taste off his lips, follows the path of the spilled wine with his tongue. Above him, Hua Cheng moans, head falling forward. He’s still hard, rutting against the planes of Xie Lian’s abdomen as they keep kissing, with the aftertaste of the wine fading between their lips.
“Do you want to—ah…” Xie Lian arches on the bed when Hua Cheng dips lower to kiss down the column of his neck and further down his chest, following a familiar path. “San Lang,” he tries again, gathering all his courage to ask for what he wants, “do you want to be…inside me?”
This part, Xie Lian understands—if not the specifics, then at least the general idea. There have been books, illustrated, hidden in a dark corner of the bookseller’s store, that he took to perusing every once in a while when he came into town but never found enough courage to buy for himself. He understands enough, though, to know what he wants.
The shiver that goes through Hua Cheng’s body at the question is answer enough. He whispers, “Gege,” then closes his mouth around Xie Lian’s nipple and sucks, tongue swirling around the hardened pebble of it. Once more he pulls away, rummaging around in his discarded robes for something, then emerges with what looks like a small pot of salve. The faintly herbal scent carries through the air once he unstoppers the jar, trailing two fingers through its oily contents.
“Lie back, gege,” he instructs, pushing Xie Lian’s legs open to settle between them once more.
Xie Lian expects Hua Cheng to keep kissing him while he opens him up, but instead Hua Cheng slides down to settle himself between Xie Lian’s open legs and takes his cock—still soft, resting against his stomach—into his mouth at the same time as he pushes two fingers inside, where Xie Lian is still wet and loose from earlier.
A low hiss drags itself from Xie Lian’s mouth as Hua Cheng swallows all of him with ease while his fingers sink deeper inside him. It feels like there is too much of him within his body, barely contained by his skin. Hua Cheng’s touch overwhelms him, ignites him like a torch in the dark, and Xie Lian burns with it, mouth open and eyes closed, his neck exposed when he throws his head back.
He can feel himself grow hard with every wet slide of Hua Cheng’s mouth, but at the same time his body becomes soft and pliant in Hua Cheng’s hands. His fingers slip in and out of Xie Lian with ease now, and every once in a while, Hua Cheng brushes against a place that makes Xie Lian moan, his body jerking up like he’s been struck by lightning. After some time, a third finger fits itself beside the other two, just as Hua Cheng brings Xie Lian to full hardness once more. It should be embarrassing, how ready his body is to receive the pleasure it is given, how responsive to the caress of another person’s touch. He slings his arm across his eyes, too overcome all of a sudden to look at Hua Cheng between his thighs, and breathes through it as his body learns to accommodate the stretch.
“I think,” Hua Cheng says at last, pulling off Xie Lian’s erection and withdrawing his fingers, “gege should be on top. It will be easier this way.”
He helps Xie Lian sit upright, then rolls around until he’s lying in his back, with his head propped against the pillow. His hand, still slick with salve residue, curls around his cock and gives it a few strokes.
“Ah, San Lang I don’t know—” Xie Lian says, looking at the arrangement with a bit of trepidation. He doesn’t want to look clumsy in front of Hua Cheng, or like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but Hua Cheng only gives him a knowing smile.
“Don’t worry, gege,” he says. “I’ll help.”
It’s something Xie Lian has seen before in one of the books, at least, so he moves to straddle Hua Cheng’s lap and leans down for a kiss. It goes on for a while, with Xie Lian’s cock rubbing along the muscles of Hua Cheng’s abdomen, until Hua Cheng makes a broken sound deep in his throat and Xie Lian remembers that he hasn’t come yet even once. He scrambles, feet searching purchase against the mattress, to raise himself up on his haunches and reaches behind him to grip Hua Cheng’s cock at the base where it’s nestled in a thatch of coarse black hair.
“Here, gege, let me help,” Hua Cheng props himself up on his elbows and reaches around with one hand to steady himself, pressing the blunt head of his cock against Xie Lian’s entrance.
A choked sound punches its way out of Xie Lian’s chest when he first sinks down onto Hua Cheng’s length. He’s holding himself up in the air with his hands on Hua Cheng’s chest, thighs trembling with the effort not to let himself fall all the way down, impaling himself on Hua Cheng’s cock in one movement.
True to his words, Hua Cheng steadies him with his hands at Xie Lian’s hips, fingers digging into the flesh as he guides his movements. Slowly, slowly Xie Lian sinks down, breath pushed out of his lungs with every cun of Hua Cheng’s length he takes inside himself. It’s overwhelming, the stretch of it more than he could have expected, his body desperately trying to accommodate the intrusion. It’s so, so much—too much, almost, even before he’s fully seated.
He half-moans, half-sobs as he finally sinks down onto the last cun of Hua Cheng’s cock, full in a way he could never even imagine. He takes deep, spasming breaths as he tries to get used to the sensation, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.
“Gege?” Hua Cheng rises from the mattress, concern painted into every line of his face. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no, San Lang.” Xie Lian releases another shuddering breath and rolls his hips a little just to try it, whimpering when the movement brushes Hua Cheng’s erection against the same spot his fingers did earlier. “No, this is good, it’s just…a lot.”
He gives himself another moment and then, at last, braced against Hua Cheng’s chest and abdomen, with his knees digging into the mattress, Xie Lian begins to move. It’s slow and halting at first, his movements awkward and jerky as he gets used to it, but Hua Cheng guides him through that, too, grinding up into Xie Lian to bury himself even deeper.
The pleasure of it is unlike anything else Xie Lian has ever felt, all-consuming and burning up his body like wildfire, spreading all the way down to his toes, seeping into the tips of his fingers. It’s liquid, molten, scorching-hot to the touch. With Hua Cheng’s length inside him, Xie Lian feels claimed and held at the same time, belonging and having a place to belong.
Despite the long centuries of slumber, his body, once awakened, knows what to do. He leans back in Hua Cheng’s lap and bears down on him faster, harder, his own cock slapping the underside of his abdomen with every move. Hua Cheng meets him thrust for thrust, breathless moans spilling from both their mouths.
“Gege, gege, you feel so good,” Hua Cheng whispers, his hands never leaving Xie Lian’s hips, holding them in a strong grip to guide them.
Xie Lian’s head falls to the side, hair spilling down his back, the ends of it brushing against Hua Cheng’s thighs as he continues to take his pleasure, alight with the need to find release.
“Please, please,” he keeps saying, not quite knowing what he’s pleading for.
In response, Hua Cheng releases one of his hips and pulls Xie Lian forward, with his fingers hooked around the silver chain that holds Hua Cheng’s ashes enchanted into the crystal ring. Xie Lian lets himself be pulled, moaning at the change in the angle, until their lips meet, open and off-center, sloppy and giddy with the joy of the moment. Xie Lian’s cock is now trapped between their bodies, leaking onto Hua Cheng’s stomach.
In the next moment, Hua Cheng seizes Xie Lian by the waist and rolls them over, until he’s once again settled between Xie Lian’s open legs, large and looming, and hungry. Still inside, he pulls Xie Lian’s legs by the calves, pressing them together as he lifts them over one shoulder and leans forward.
He’s buried so, so deep inside now that Xie Lian is slowly going mad with it, his body bent in half as Hua Cheng’s hips slam into the backs of his thighs again and again.
“Touch yourself, gege,” he instructs, but it sounds more like a plea, and Xie Lian, barely coherent with pleasure, obliges immediately.
He’s so close now, teetering on that edge once again, but it’s not until Hua Cheng’s hand joins his, stroking the slick, flushed length of his cock, that Xie Lian is able to let go. He reaches his climax with a drawn-out moan while Hua Cheng’s cock keeps brushing against the spot inside him that makes him see a thousand Blessed Lanterns beneath his eyelids. The pleasure spills out of him, hot and glowing, as he splashes his seed all over their joined hands and his own stomach.
Xie Lian might possess the body of a god, but in that moment he feels entirely, gloriously human.
Hua Cheng follows him just a moment later with a deep groan, spilling inside Xie Lian as he buries himself all the way down to the root. He stays like this for a time, breathing heavily, before he slowly pulls out. As soon as he does, a spurt of his seed leaks out of Xie Lian to slide down the curve of his thigh, and then another. It should be mortifying, it should be dirty, but instead Xie Lian’s cock twitches, a quiet sound pulled out of him at the sensation. His face is burning.
“Please, don’t look, San Lang,” he pleads, half-laughing, half-crying into his palms. This part was not in any of the books. “This is…oh, that’s so—” His words die on another moan as Hua Cheng reaches with two fingers to gather the spilled seed and pushes it back inside. Xie Lian’s body is sore all over, sensitive to even the slightest touch now, and the lazy press of Hua Cheng’s fingers that catch just on the rim of his entrance is too much for him to bear right now. He squirms away, spent and exhausted, and yet still thrumming with the echoes of his pleasure.
He must make quite the sight, he thinks, with bruises sucked into his skin by Hua Cheng’s insistent mouth and the mess of the drying seed on his stomach.
“Mmm, gege looks so good like this,” Hua Cheng says, leaning back over him to nose at the column of Xie Lian’s neck. He leaves tiny, feather-light kisses all over Xie Lian’s skin, licks at the salt of his sweat. “Was that good for gege?”
To his surprise, Xie Lian finds his eyes full of tears. He’s so, so happy—he’s brimming with it, ready to spill over like a dam in spring. His voice is stuck somewhere in his throat, so he can only nod, wiping his tears with the back of his hand, laughing at his own silliness.
“No, no, San Lang, don’t look at me like that,” he manages at last when Hua Cheng’s expression shifts to one of concern. “I’m just being silly. I’m really happy, you know—maybe too happy.”
Hua Cheng shakes his head. He presses a kiss to Xie Lian’s temple, then makes his way to the washbasin to wring out a piece of cloth and wipe the worst of the mess off Xie Lian’s body.
“There’s no such thing as too happy for gege,” he announces with utmost confidence, tossing the cloth to the ground and climbing back in beside Xie Lian. “It’s exactly what gege deserves. Everything.”
Even in those days where thousands upon thousands people worshipped and revered him, Xie Lian did not feel as loved—thoroughly, wholly, completely—as he does now, in this little cottage at the top of a mountain, lying in a too-narrow bed with the man who believed in him even when everyone else cursed his name and then forgot its existence for centuries.
“I do have everything now,” he says, turning to Hua Cheng, exhausted and sated and adored. “Everything I need, right here with me.”
In the morning, it’s Xie Lian who wakes up first to the chill of the room, the embers in the fire pit long turned to ashes. He’s naked under the covers, but warmth seeps into him like honey where Hua Cheng is pressed against his back, holding him close.
It’s curious how quickly a person can get used to being loved. They have never shared a bed before like this, with no secrets left between them, but it feels only right to Xie Lian that they should get to wake up like this for the rest of their lives. They have walked long and winding roads to finally arrive in this place, where they can just exist together without pretense.
The many li behind them stretch out in their memory, but before them, another path appears, entirely untrodden so far. Xie Lian has been waiting for so long for this solitude to end for good; from now on, they will leave two sets of footprints in the dust of that road, walking hand in hand under the sky that hangs above them like a veil, watching the slow, inexorable turning of the seasons.