Crown Prince and Ghost King

Chapter 34

Days and nights were quick to pass, in Ghost City, merging together in a flurry of red and black. So quick, in fact, that when Xie Lian received a call from the Wind Master asking if he and Hua Cheng wanted to spend some time together in Nether Water Manor, the god didn't even realize it almost two weeks had gone by.

It was exactly like the life he lived before the third ascension, with no one contacting him from the mortal or heavenly realm save from Shi QingXuan.

He would have thought it depressing, just some time before. That no one was willing to talk to him, that his fellow officials preferred to cast him aside like the laughingstock he was in their eyes... it would have hurt him.

Now, he thought the exact opposite.

Xie Lian didn't want the company of those who talked behind his back. He didn't want someone to talk to him just because they were scared, of because they thought they owed him some sort of respect thanks to what transpired in those past months. The Crown Prince didn't think it possible to grow so much in such a small amount of time, but it was either that or continuing to dwell on his own sadness. 

He realized that being sad over getting ignored wasn't right, because those who were ignoring him or talking over him knew no respect. They didn't know who he was, yet they talked and laughed and mocked. They didn't know his story, yet they thought their knowledge was infinite.

Having Hua Cheng come into the picture brought him a respect born by fear, and it was exactly what Xie Lian needed to understand that wasting his emotions on terrible people wasn't worth it.

The day he dragged Lan Chang up in the heavens and asked for everyone's presence without even trying to be kind and polite was proof of how much his opinion changed, and it was fine.

Ruining his already wrecked mental health over something so bland wasn't worth it. Xie Lian now knew who respected him, and who was willing to listen. Ling Wen, Quan YiZhen, even Pei Ming. Maybe they didn't contact him, but the god had had eight hundred years to discern between people. He knew he could call them friends.

And that, for the time being, was enough.

«We're going, San Lang?», he asked his husband. The god's hands were buried in a waterfall of inky locks, doing their best to braid some of them. In front of them, he could see the beautiful face of the ghost in the mirror, a reflection that did absolutely nothing to convey how truly stunning the real man was.

The chiseled angles sculpting his face, as if a skilled artist had carved it from a block of flawless stone, the glimmering black eye with a pupil rimmed in glowing red and framed by long lashes, the tiny fang that stubbornly peeked out from his lips. But, honestly, Xie Lian loved his Hua Cheng no matter his appearance. Throughout the years he had seen him with countless skins, one more beautiful than the other, changing back and forth in his inability to decide which one was better. Now he favored the young-looking one he wore when visiting PuQi, but the god remembered all of them with tremendous accuracy.

The one dressed in black and red, hair so fluffy Xie Lian could literally play with them for hours on end. The one clad in sleek, beautiful black, hair up in a ponytail and a fringe that tickled his forehead. The one with a braid filled with silver butterflies and dressed like a prince showered in pale red and black. The one with unruly hair and deep black eyes, wearing gray and white and covered in jewels.

They all had similarities, Hua Cheng never strayed too far from the original form he favored, but they were still so unique that Xie Lian could fill an entire book with beautiful paintings of them.

As far as he knew, Hua Cheng used to wear different skins in his city as well, and the first time he showed Ghost City his true form was when Xie Lian set foot in it. Now, his domain could only have eyes for that form, as the ghost refused to change into a fake skin while being there.