Crown Prince and Ghost King

Chapter 51

Xie Lian didn't sleep well that night. And neither he did the night after. It didn't help that Hua Cheng, plagued by gloomy thoughts of his own, couldn't stay in bed, so the god tossed and turned between sheets that felt too empty.

He didn't ask his husband to lay beside him, though. Normally, Hua Cheng would think twice, thrice, before even thinking about leaving Xie Lian's side, but all those revelations had been far too much.

Sometimes, maybe because he was now the lord of Ghost City, maybe because of his exotic taste in clothing and jewelry, Xie Lian almost forgot that Hua Cheng came from his exact kingdom, his exact city, and had witnessed the same exact horrors.  He never forgot how he fought for him, how he died on the battlefield, but for some reason him being of XianLe kept fleeing his mind.

The god had grown so used to the red, hazy city he reigned over that it was difficult, sometimes, to discern between his life and his death. Between his origins and his present.

And he felt guilty for that, so much so that he often thought of going back to XianLe together, just so they could walk those ruins hand in hand.

And now... now he discovered that Bai WuXiang hurt him in more ways than one. He didn't just torture him by tormenting his beloved, he also was the reason why his life had been so cursed, why his family hated him, why he couldn't have had a normal childhood but had instead been doomed to an existence of loneliness and pain.

They were both going through a lot.

Tired of squirming under the covers, Xie Lian got up and threw a robe around his shoulders, unwilling to go out dressed only in his night clothes. The metallic smell on it told him it belonged to his husband, so he tightened it on his body, just like a comforting hug.

Barefoot, the god shuffled along the deserted and silent hallways of Paradise Manor, not a single servant in sight – though a swarm would come if called. It was eerily quiet, because Hua Cheng had given out the order that no one was to make any sound unless necessary. It was the perfect atmosphere to think without being bothered, and all the windows and doors were shut accordingly to stop the noise from outside. Yin Yu, to avoid disrupting the silence, even bowed respectfully and left the manor to go supervise the Gambler's Den.

It was a task he was entrusted with more often than not, since the day he regained his full spiritual powers.

After walking for a while, enough for his head to clear up, Xie Lian decided to head to his favorite gardens. He passed through the small living room before them, eyeing the empty jar of liquor and the – still wet – cup beside it, and headed outside. Sure enough, Hua Cheng was laying on a bench surrounded by red and white flowers, one leg bent and an arm thrown over his face.

His eye-patch rested on the ground, on a stone tile of the path, and there were also his boots and his outer robe. E-Ming, of course, was nowhere to be seen. The cursed scimitar was still in their room, keeping RuoYe company as their masters struggled with their own issues.

Hua Cheng looked so tired...

Without a word, Xie Lian walked to the bench and gently patted his husband on the head. The ghost, catching the hint, let the god sit down and offer his lap as a pillow with no complaints.

What a joke. It should have been him, the one offering his beloved some comfort. Eight hundred years, thousands of efforts, and still... still he couldn't help but put Xie Lian in a position where his well-being was shadowed by Hua Cheng's.

Xie Lian was the one that suffered most because of the white demon, the one who lost his beloved kingdom, his worshippers, his friends, his parents, and even his sanity. He was the one whose soul had been kept captive by the chains and the claws of a man without a face. And yet, he couldn't accept that his own suffering, his own miserable life, had been caused by Bai WuXiang as well.