Crown Prince and Ghost King

Chapter 45

The meeting was called around a week after the seal around Mount Tong'lu opened, at the very first lights of the morning.

When the clear voice of Ling Wen resounded in his communication array, Xie Lian was still half-asleep in bed, one of Hua Cheng's arms draped over his chest, legs intertwined in sweet, tender cuddles. Pure bliss that, in the span of a few seconds, got shadowed by gloomy expectations.

Well, to be honest, Xie Lian had been in a foul mood that entire week.

After coming back from PuQi Shrine, both he and his – now fully recovered – husband had to deal with the aftermath of Mount Tong'lu reopening. Ghost City was in complete disarray, many streets were invaded with trash and debris, half the place had been pillaged by crazed ghosts, those who resided in the city either came back and found everything destroyed or came back to find someone else taking over their stuff.

Even the Gambling Den had been ransacked, every single thing was turned upside down, tables were broken, dice spilled everywhere.

On top of that, Ghost City was now invaded by ghosts and monsters that ran all the way there from Mount Tong'lu, new faces popping up around every corner, causing trouble left and right.

The only places that had been spared by the chaos were Paradise Manor and Qiandeng Temple, because no one dared even come close to those buildings. The outsiders who tried were promptly yanked back by those who lived in the city, more out of instinct than anything else, and for good reasons; during that week, Hua Cheng grew so annoyed at the utter chaos that he raised barriers around the two places, instantly dissipating anyone who tried to trespass without being allowed to.

Yin Yu was swarmed with tasks as well, and it was so bad that Hua Cheng actually bit the sword and offered to remove his cursed shackle just for the ease of things. Yin Yu was a cultivator, and a rather powerful one to boot, so immortality was already at his fingertips; no need to keep the thing on just for a trivial reason such as that.

Part of the reason he finally decided to do it was the fact that the cursed shackle around Yin Yu's wrist was considerably less obnoxious than those worn by Xie Lian, so to break them the ghost needed a lot less spiritual energy. An easy feat, really. At the end of the day, a cursed shackle needed to seal in the power of a god, and Yin Yu wasn't a fearsome official when it came to raw power. It came by itself that his shackle was weaker.

In any case, Hua Cheng convinced Yin Yu to accept the loss, and both ghost and martial god took a sigh of relief when the former official regained a full hold on his spiritual powers, thus helping them better with the situation in Ghost City.

It didn't mean that they had it a lot easier. In fact, with Yin Yu able to fight at the top of his abilities, many ghosts that weren't residents of Ghost City tried to challenge him to fights, and the result of those fights was normally collapsed houses and cracked streets, no matter how swiftly and efficiently Yin Yu acted. Not fighting like a heavenly official anymore and relying on many "unfair" tricks, however, at least managed to contain the damage to an extent.

Of that, both Xie Lian and Hua Cheng were extremely glad.

So, when that voice told him that he was needed up in the Heavenly Court, the martial god had absolutely no intention of being nice. To anyone.

He got out of bed, mumbling an explanation to his clingy husband, and moved to the small wash-basin they had in the corner of the room; not that he really needed it, they had taken a bath the night before after all, but Xie Lian was so tired and his eyes felt so droopy that cold water to the face seemed an amazing idea to wake up.

And it was.

Droplets of freezing cold water ran down from his face to his neck and chest, trailing wetness all over naked skin, which only aided in brushing off the drowsiness of an early morning. Xie Lian gratefully accepted the towel being handed to him by Hua Cheng, body just as bare as his own but seemingly uncaring of that, and sighed: «You don't need to help me, just rest», he said. «An entire week of using spiritual energy almost non-stop is bothersome even for you».