Chapter Text
Wuming had returned to Xie Lian! He even wanted to stay- for now, at least. It was wonderful.
However, that didn’t mean it was smooth sailing from here. Xie Lian was used to his ghost’s company, yes, but as a silent, flickering little ghost flame. Not as a conscious, bodied ghost, capable of walking and talking and- being a person. It was a little nerve-wracking. Xie Lian quickly realized that he wasn’t used to company anymore. After all, everyone else had left, so...
Anyway.
After Wuming’s reconstitution, they’d been fortunate enough to find some decent shelter in short order- an old hunting lodge a few hours away from the nearest town. It had seen better days, but it put a roof over their heads, so Xie Lian was happy.
However, finding shelter gave both of them new issues to focus on.
The first: Wuming was not well.
Xie Lian didn’t think much of it. Wuming's soul had been ripped to shreds, nearly dissipated, in an act that would have destroyed anyone else. Even if he never recovered past his current state, Xie Lian couldn’t see him as anything but the strongest man he’d ever known. But it was true that he was infirm: though he had regained his mental facilities quickly, his body lagged behind. He tired easily, and would sleep for long stretches of time, usually during the day. Even when he could pretend to be diurnal, he managed best indoors, away from the sun. Pallid already, the sun turned him ghastly pale and sucked away all his energy.
Xie Lian didn’t mind, but it was a different story for Wuming. The ghost carried ever-present traces of frustration- a tight eye, clenched fists, a thin mouth. No amount of reassurance changed this. He quickly learned his limits, but he also never stopped pushing them, even when his body shook and his eyes couldn’t hold themselves open. It hurt Xie Lian’s heart, but he couldn’t bring himself to blame him. He knew very well how painful it was to be powerful one day, and powerless the next.
But all of this was only compounded by the second issue: Wuming was a ghost, who needed nothing but willpower to survive. Xie Lian, on the other hand, was a living man confined to the demands of mortal life. After a few days becoming familiar with the area around the lodge, it became clear he needed to go into town.
Alone.
Xie Lian couldn’t smuggle Wuming in his sleeve anymore, after all. And while the fine details of the ghost's form were impressive, considering his circumstances, they weren’t good enough to pass him off as living to anyone with keen enough eyes. Not like before. And if they came across a cultivator at the wrong time...
He would protect Wuming however he had to. But he didn’t want it to get to that point in the first place. So while Xie Lian secured a veil along the line of his cheekbones to take the trek to go into town, find some work, earn some coin, get something to eat that wasn’t strangled wildlife-
Wuming, very reluctantly, stayed behind.
The reluctance cheered Xie Lian, who also didn’t like it. He was afraid of leaving and returning to an empty house- that something might happen while he was away, or that Wuming himself would simply leave. The former was reasonably rational, given his luck. The latter, not so much. The fear sat in him all the same.
He was so fixated on the worst-case scenarios, in fact, that he hadn’t once considered something like this happening instead.
“Well?”
The prostitute smiled coyly, her eyes half-lidded and her cleavage outrageously exposed. Xie Lian averted his eyes and leaned away as best he could, crowded against the wall as he was.
He’d thought himself lucky having found work for the day, but... maybe he should have been a little more discerning with his choices. He had nothing against prostitutes, of course; they just had an unfortunate predilection for propositioning him. But the brothel had a couple women injured, and Xie Lian may have helped remove the offender when he’d passed by, early in the morning, and the madam had offered to pay for him taking over some of the chores those women usually did, and...
...Why were people so obsessed with sex?
“I’m very flattered,” Xie Lian said. “I need to get going, though. Thank you. Goodbye.”
He sidestepped, but this woman was skilled herself- Xie Lian was free for a heartbeat before she was right back in front of him, leaving even less space between them than before.
Please stop.
Also, do you need to wear so much perfume...? I can smell you through my veil.
“Come on, what’s the rush?” she said, eyeing him up with clear hunger. “What, do you have a wife waiting on you at home or something?”
Eventually, Xie Lian would learn the best way to handle situations like this. He would take the burden of shame on himself so everyone could walk away unbothered- but most importantly, walk away.
However, he hadn’t had that lesson beaten into his head yet.
“No, I’m just not interested,” he stated frankly.
The woman flushed red, then white. “Oh, come on,” she said, annoyance slipping into her tone. “I’ve seen you looking! Don’t act like you’re not into me.”
“I’m really not!” You just dress in a very eye-catching manner! It’s a little hard not to notice!
“You are, let me show-”
The prostitute reached down, looking to prove her point by more physical means. She only got halfway there before Xie Lian caught her wrist in an iron grip. She gasped. When she pulled, Xie Lian let go- he didn’t want to hurt her. He just wanted her to stop. Thankfully, once free she backed away, leaving plenty of space between them. She looked at him with wide eyes, clutching her wrist close.
It wouldn’t bruise. Xie Lian had made sure not to hold so tight. But he felt very tired, looking at her, and he knew it showed in his eyes.
“...Fine!” the woman shouted, once she realized how dead of an end this was. “Whatever! What are you, a cutsleeve?! No wonder the madam let you work in the house! I bet you’re ugly anyway!”
Down the hall, an eavesdropping coworker laughed and stuck her head out her door. “Please, xiao-mei, that’s not the problem! If you want a man to stay, you have to give him what he wants! And that’s not you. He’s got taste!”
The woman turned to shout at the interloper, but Xie Lian didn’t care to listen. He was finally free from this pushy woman’s grasp, so he did what he’d been yearning to do for ages now- he left.
It was only once he was down the street that he realized the prostitute had taken his pay off of him.
Wonderful.
The house they found outside the city was well over a shichen away on foot. Xie Lian had left the town as evening fell and the women were getting ready for their work, and by the time he returned to the old lodge he’d left Wuming in, the sun had set, his feet ached, and he was ready to do nothing but sleep.
Of course, he couldn’t, because he had dinner to make and a ghost to see. There was still more to do before he slept... and then wake up early again, to make the trek back to town, and try to make more money, and probably lose that pay too, and... it was fine. He’d be fine. He’d done this plenty. He was just a bit spoiled still, that was all.
It was these cheery thoughts that occupied Xie Lian’s brain and kept him from processing the smell of smoke and cooking meat before he opened the door.
“Oh,” he said, once his eyes focused and he realized Wuming was bent over the cooking pot in the middle of the room. His heart beat in double-time and his stomach flipped, although he couldn’t explain why. He was just suddenly deeply anxious, certain the idyllic picture before him was about to crack like a mirror.
But it didn’t. Wuming glanced towards the door and immediately lit up to see him.
“Your Highness! Welcome back.” He sounded so earnest that Xie Lian had to smile, casting aside his strange unease without another thought.
“Thank you, Wuming.” He stepped in and closed the door behind him, tugging his veil off as he walked further into the room. He spied the remains of a rabbit at the ghost’s side and frowned. “Did you go hunting?”
“Mn. I thought Your Highness might like a meal waiting for him when he returned. It’s not much.”
“It’s great! I appreciate it,” Xie Lian reassured him. No matter the quality, it’ll be better than what I’ve been eating, anyway. “But how are you feeling? Do you feel strong enough to be going out during the day like this?”
Displeasure flickered across Wuming’s face, there and gone in a moment. He turned back to the pot, stirring what was inside for a few turns.
“I’m fine. I wasn’t out for long. It was cloudy today, anyway, so it wasn’t too difficult.”
“...Alright,” Xie Lian said softly. “Thank you.”
He wasn’t so thick-faced to complain about someone putting in the effort to care for him. Besides, so long as he wasn’t overextending himself, it was probably too much to expect Wuming to just sit around doing nothing.
With a silent sigh, Xie Lian made to join Wuming at the fire. Yet after only a couple of steps, his leg suddenly buckled. He’d forgotten that he’d slammed his knee against a cabinet earlier in the day and imparted an annoying, lingering weakness in the joint.
But before he came anywhere near the floor, Wuming was there, catching Xie Lian against his body with a small grunt. Xie Lian blinked, by the sudden contact. For a moment, face pressed to a broad chest, he was reminded of the prostitute and how she’d tried to sidle up against Xie Lian much like his current position.
Wuming is definitely more comfortable than I could ever be, though.
What?
Xie Lian inhaled sharply. Above him, he heard the quiet sound of Wuming taking his own breath- noteworthy, for its rarity. The unusual noise shocked him back into function, and he put his feet back under him.
“Thank you, Wuming. I-I guess I’m a little tired, haha...”
He smiled sheepishly up at the man, trying to shove away the urge to stay where he was.
Xie Lian expected Wuming to let him go, but he didn’t: instead, he held Xie Lian in place, a faint tension filling his frame. He took another breath and only grew stiffer.
“...Your Highness, where were you today?” Wuming asked. There was an odd note to his voice that Xie Lian couldn’t place. It distracted him enough that he spoke the truth without a thought towards its wisdom.
“A brothel?” Wait. “Not! I mean! Not for- for work! I was working!” Wait! “Chores! I did chores! Housework! Laundry! Cleaning! That’s it!!”
Face on fire, Xie Lian squirmed free of Wuming and backpedaled, arms swinging wildly in the air before him. His face burned like the coals in their firepit.
“Oh,” Wuming said. He relaxed after a moment, but a small frown lingered on his face long enough to give Xie Lian anxiety.
Did it bother him that Xie Lian had gone to such a place?
“...It’s not always easy to find work,” Xie Lian explained, averting his eyes. “They were just asking that I help out around the place. I wasn’t going to turn it down.”
He straightened out his robes to further occupy his hands. As he did, he realized what had caught Wuming’s attention- a faint floral fragrance clung to his robes. That prostitute’s perfume must have rubbed off on him.
“I understand, Your Highness,” he said, although he wasn’t looking at Xie Lian either, his face twisting in an echo of frustration. “I’d do the same. If it pays, it pays.”
Right.
“Right.”
Wuming’s eye sharpened like a blade.
“They didn’t pay you?” he asked, expression turning dark. Xie Lian rushed to reassure him.
“No, the madam did!” he said. “But, ah... one of the workers there was rather... well, she thought I could become a customer. By the time I was able to escape she had, um.” Embarrassment painted his face red. “She picked my pockets,” he admitted quietly. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Your Highness,” Wuming said, though his face had only grown darker. “If you let me come with you next time, I’ll-”
“Wuming,” Xie Lian sighed, and the young ghost immediately snapped his mouth shut. “You know you can’t do that. It’s not safe.” Besides, you can’t even stay awake for longer than six hours at a time right now!
Wuming opened his mouth, then paused. His expression grew frustrated, complicated. Then, with a loud sigh, he shut his mouth and turned his head away.
“As you wish.”
Guilt roiled in Xie Lian’s stomach. This was his fault. First, he lost all the money he’d earned that day, coming back with empty hands, and then he had to tell Wuming the truth- that he’d been too naive and complacent to keep hold of it. Why hadn’t he just lied and said he’d found no work?
No, he didn’t want to lie, he just... couldn’t he do anything right? Now Wuming was disappointed with him too...
“...I’m sorry,” he said quietly, eyes downcast. “I’ll be more careful in the future. You don’t need to worry.”
“I always will, Your Highness.”
Xie Lian closed his eyes, sucking in a sharp breath. “Ah, that’s fair,” he admitted, smiling through the pain. My luck is really quite bad, huh?
This was pathetic. Less than half a year and Xie Lian had forgotten what it meant to have company. It meant letting people down. Look at him! Fumbling about, proving he couldn’t do things on his own, acting like a fool in front of Wuming-
Suddenly, Xie Lian was struck by a vivid vision- the sight of Wuming’s back as he walked out the door, never to return. Unwilling to stay, just like everyone else.
He wouldn’t, Xie Lian thought, though he had a hard time finding his confidence. He smiled at his ghost while battling with his sudden doubt furiously, angry he’d even think of such a thing. He did not die for me twice to be doubted like this!
And yet...
That night, he dreamt of an empty home.
He was so painfully lonely he thought he would die. All he wanted to do was walk out the door and find the people he missed, but he couldn’t move an inch. He couldn’t do anything but sit and wait, praying someone would come back soon.
He sat and stared at the door for a long, long time.
Nobody came.
When Xie Lian woke up the next day, he felt strung out, like he’d had no sleep at all. His heart beat a little harder than usual, still riding out the aftershocks of his dream.
He probably should’ve taken the night prior as a sign of what was to come, but he didn’t. He’d always been stubborn like that. Instead he bundled his sleep-smeared memory of the dream up and put it neatly aside in a corner of his mind to be forgotten. Yawning quietly, he propped himself up on their mat and blinked the room into focus. He carefully draped his sleep-warmed blanket on top of Wuming, deep in slumber beside him, before crawling from the mat.
It was still dark out, but with Wuming’s largely nocturnal sleeping habits, they mostly slept in shifts, and so could ensure the firepit in the center of the room never truly went out. The ghost must have fed the fire before going to bed, for its flickering light cast the room into serviceable relief for Xie Lian’s eyes.
It was because of this that he noticed something new. Across the room was a low table, a little wobbly from weakened joints but still functional. On top of that table was a small bag that hadn’t been there the evening prior. The bag was nondescript, plain. Yet, even before he’d picked it up, in his heart he already knew what was inside.
After all, it still smelled faintly of flowers.
Lo and behold, inside was the exact amount he’d been paid yesterday. Xie Lian glanced back at the still form on the sleeping mat, then silently pocketed the bag.
He was grateful. Really, he was. But...
...He would have to make something nice for dinner tonight.
Xie Lian elected to avoid the red light district for his future visits to town. It wasn’t a good place for busking, anyway.
He made a decent earning, and spent most of it on a modest bag of rice and some preserved vegetables. They would last a decent while, although Xie Lian planned to use much of it that night. He wasn’t sure what he could make out of such slim pickings, but Wuming deserved it. He’d figure it out.
Or so he thought.
He returned in the late afternoon, the midwinter sun already low on the horizon. Wuming was still asleep upon the mat, although he’d moved into Xie Lian’s spot at some point. Ah, it was kind of cute.
...Anyway, Xie Lian wasn’t surprised to see him still asleep. If the ghost had gone all the way to town and back... Well, this was exactly the result Xie Lian had expected.
It shouldn’t have been the only one.
He completely ruined dinner.
In the end, Wuming awoke not to the inviting smell of a meal nearly ready, but to acrid smoke pouring out of a pot Xie Lian swore he’d put water in. And ultimately, it was Wuming who doused the smoke, dumping a bowl of water over the whole thing and drowning it. Ah, perhaps Xie Lian had forgotten the water after all...
“Your Highness, are you alright?” Wuming asked, once the whole thing had fizzled out. His concern was so genuine that Xie Lian couldn’t bear to look at him. Instead, he stared at the blackened lumps of rice and vegetables floating to the surface of the pot- the world’s saddest soup.
Xie Lian sighed. Inside of him, something deflated, punctured right through. Oh, what was he thinking...?
“Your Highness?”
“Mm?” Xie Lian blinked, roused from his thoughts. He quickly realized his distraction and recomposed himself, pasting on a brief smile to flash at his ghost. “I’m fine. I’m just a little embarrassed. I can’t believe I forgot to add enough water...”
He sighed and laughed lightly.
“You’ve been working hard. Mistakes happen. Next time, perhaps I could make something instead? Your Highness already does so much, you shouldn’t need to worry about this as well.”
But this was supposed to be for you , Xie Lian thought mournfully. He sighed once more, shaking his head. “You do plenty,” he replied. “Besides, you shouldn’t have to take care of me. You should be focusing on yourself, instead. Don’t mind my mishaps.”
Having said that, Xie Lian finally tore his gaze from his failure, casting about until he saw the bowl still in Wuming’s hands. He snagged it from the ghost’s lax hands and took up the ladle, spooning himself a large helping of this... ‘soup’.
“Your Highness, don’t eat that!” Wuming said, reaching for the bowl. “Really, I don’t mind. Let me make you something instead.”
Xie Lian shook his head. “No. I don’t want this to go to waste. Food is food.” The whole point of this was to make you something. If I can’t even do that, the least I can do is not let you make me food instead.
Wuming looked ready to protest. His face flickered with frustration, but like always, he bit his tongue at the last moment.
Over the past half a year, Xie Lian’s cooking skills had grown in strange and wild ways. This, though, was particularly bad, and all the training his stomach had endured in the past meant little in the face of tonight’s meal- burnt crumbs of rice, soggy, salty vegetables, a thin, watery broth, and deep, bitter disappointment.
It was that last one that was hardest to choke down.
The next day, Xie Lian accidentally ripped through two of his robes.
The day after that, he forgot Wuming wasn’t a drifting ghost fire anymore and began to undress in his presence, only noticing when the ghost dropped a cup to the floor in surprise.
The day after that...
There was always something.
It was like Xie Lian’s bad luck had figured out a new, humiliating form to take. Not a day went by where he didn’t make some mistake, where he didn’t make a fool out of himself. It felt like the harder he tried, the worse it got.
When he’d been banished a second time, Xie Lian had resolved to live earnestly and accept his misfortunes as they came. But it was a lot easier to do this when the only people who saw those misfortunes were strangers!
In another life, he could have turned Wuming into the foundation of his faith, an eternal reminder that there were people who still thought he was worth something, even at his lowest. But it wasn't quite so easy to canonize someone who was still around.
It was amazing what weight the gaze of a single eye could carry.
Yes, Wuming had been here for months, but as a weak, distant flame. Xie Lian had spent months worrying over that fire, caring for it, sheltering it like a mother might her child. But now Wuming was himself again, and Xie Lian realized that he’d quite handily snuck into his heart.
And Wuming wasn’t a ghost flame anymore. He was himself again, real and present and here, and Xie Lian kept messing up.
He couldn’t understand why. He’d been fine for months! But now that someone was actually watching him, someone he cared about, someone he didn’t want to lose-
Wuming took it all with grace, seemingly unbothered, but all Xie Lian could do was wonder for just how long he’d be so patient. There had to be a limit to what he could tolerate. There had to be.
Yes, Wuming had walked through hell with him once, but could he stand to watch Xie Lian drag himself through the mud, too?
It all came to a head about a week later- a long, dreary week later.
Xie Lian had not been getting better. The opposite, in fact. He tried to hide it, but of course he failed. Wuming, keen-eyed as he was, could easily catch the way Xie Lian’s smile strained after he tripped and needed to be caught again, or how his hands shook when his attempts at repairing his robes only made the issue worse. The ghost tried to reassure him, to support him, to soothe him, but a tension would appear in his face, sometimes, that Xie Lian automatically feared the worst of.
On top of all this, he hadn’t been sleeping well. This alone didn’t mean much- his sleep was fitful for many reasons these days. Nightmares were only one factor of many. They came and went, ranging from the strange, to the horrifying, to the nearly mundane. The only thing they had in common was how tired they left him when he awoke, the past few days.
A field of corpses where every body he turned over had the face of someone he knew. An empty house he couldn’t leave- that was a recurring one. So too was the thunderstorm whose every flash of lightning preceded a painfully-familiar scream. But the worst were the altar dreams. The night before everything came crashing down, he dreamt of sitting on an altar as a towering ghost in white sewed a mask and then funeral robes directly to his skin. He couldn’t scream because his mouth had been sewn shut. All he could do was choke on the blood building behind the mask until he passed out.
It was exhausting. When he awoke the next morning, his heart was pounding, his lungs were aching, and there was blood on his tongue from where he’d bitten through his cheek. He didn’t know if he’d acted out in his sleep, but Wuming clearly knew something was wrong. He tried to ask after him, but Xie Lian refused to speak. It was hard enough knowing Wuming was witness to the nightmares. Talking about them just felt like admitting weakness. Besides, it's not like Wuming was talking about his nightmares, now was he?
...He had to be strong. He had to be strong. He had to be...
Nothing bad had happened! He was alive, whole, and not half-mad from pain and grief! His life was better than it had been in months- in some ways, years! So why was he falling apart like this?
Why now? Why, when Wuming was finally here?
Halfway to town, absorbed in his frustration, Xie Lian paused and put his head in his hands.
He was so tired. These nights of restless, piecemeal sleep had wreaked havoc on his mind. Going to town in this state was probably pointless, but doing nothing sounded even worse. Wuming was probably asleep by now, but... no, no, he couldn’t go back. When Wuming awoke, he’d ask after Xie Lian’s day, and either Xie Lian would lie to him and hate himself for it, or he would tell the truth and admit he’d spent the whole day doing nothing just because he was tired.
When he tried to imagine Wuming’s reaction to hearing that, he could only see his parents’ and Feng Xin’s drawn, disappointed faces.
There on the road, he squatted down, closed his eyes, and repeated the Ethics Sutra until he no longer felt liable to shake apart.
He’s going to leave. Just like them.
Xie Lian was so fucking tired.