Chapter Text
The Puqi village market was always bustling with activity. It smelled of everything at once: freshly baked pancakes, fish fried in old oil, dust, and… something that Xie Lian felt was a mixture of smoke, sweat, and burnt rice.
Normally, he would have found this an absolutely fascinating sociological experience. Today, however, he frowned, wandering between the stalls, as if searching for a solution to a problem that shouldn't exist.
Because he didn't.
"This is ridiculous..." he muttered to himself, stopping at a sunflower seed stand. The saleswoman, an elderly woman with her hair tied in a bun, smiled at him suspiciously.
"What, sir, are seeds ridiculous?"
"Oh no, no, seeds are... seeds are very sensible," he replied, quickly waving his hands in front of his face before disappearing into the crowd, blushing to the bone.
The problem was the name. Or rather, two names. "San Lang," he sighed sadly, walking along the stalls.
For weeks, Xie Lian had tried to pretend that nothing had changed since the events at the Temple. That his heart beating at inappropriate times, the strange knots in his stomach whenever Hua Cheng even looked at him, or that absolutely outrageous urge to grab his hand and never let go—these were all normal, perfectly normal reactions. To the weather, for example. Or to the wrong spices in the soup.
But alas, no storm or burnt ginger could explain the fact that… he had fallen in love.
"He already has a sweetheart..." he moaned quietly to himself.
The woman passing him grew suspicious and quickened her pace.
Xie Lian stopped at another stall. Dozens of clay jugs and handfuls of wine gleamed on a wooden shelf. The vendor patted his stomach and shouted so loudly that his voice could be heard throughout the market.
"The best wine in the area! Good for sorrows, good for joy, good for forgetting, good for ordinary things!"
"For forgetting"—the words struck him like an arrow.
“Forget it… or at least gather your courage,” he muttered to himself.
Before he could stop himself, he was standing in front of the stall.
“One jug, please.”
The vendor smiled and handed him a clay jug, as if he’d just sold him the cure for all the world’s ills. Xie Lian paid and walked away toward a side street, clutching the wine in his hands like a forbidden artifact.
He sat down on a low wall and stared into the jug.
“Will I really do this…?” he asked the void.
The void didn’t respond, so he twisted the cork and took his first sip.
The wine was strong, sharp, smelled too strongly of fermentation, and definitely burned his throat. Xie Lian coughed, taking his breath away.
"Oh no... that's a mistake..." he gasped, but after a moment, he took another sip.
Next.
Next.
A few minutes later, his cheeks flushed, and his thoughts sped up even more. The crowd around him seemed funnier than usual. The salesman arguing with the customer suddenly seemed like a truly amusing character on stage.
"Okay, Xie Lian..." he said to himself, raising the jug like a goblet. "You have a problem. This problem has a name. And this problem also has... beautiful hair, a beautiful smile, and... ah, that doesn't help."
He nodded, sighing deeply.
"How will I look into his eyes...? How will I look into San Lang's eyes, knowing that... that I love him so much, and he already has someone..."
Tears began to gather in the corners of his eyes, but he quickly chuckled to himself.
"Oh no, I won't cry in the market. That would be a scandal! Me, the god of scrap, the heir to the throne... crying over a jug of wine. Absolutely not."
He tilted his head back, took another sip, and then looked up at the sky.
"But if I don't look into his eyes... what am I supposed to do? Pretend for another eight hundred years?"
At that moment, he felt his legs give out, though the rest of his body didn't quite agree. He nodded one way, then the other, and then said,
"Yes! I know what I'll do! I'll go to him! To San Lang!"
He glanced around, pointing his finger shakily in a random direction.
"To Ghost City! To… my San Lang!"
With a flourish, he set off, and passersby parted with a mixture of pity and amusement.