Chapter Text
E-ming is crying. Fat droplets well up in its eye and streak down its hilt, wobbling on the edge of its blade as it trembles in a stranger’s grasp. Hua Cheng stands across from it, empty-handed and wide-eyed. This is not, Xie Lian is sure, the first time E-ming has disobeyed him. It is, he is equally sure, the first time E-ming has wanted to obey and been unable to do so.
“E-ming,” Hua Cheng says, more forcefully, his hand open and waiting. “Come here.”
E-ming squeezes its eye shut and shakes harder and does not move an inch towards its master.
“Well, would you look at that,” the stranger says, her mouth curling into a wide and wicked smile. She has too many teeth. “My spell wasn’t quite as worthless as you thought, eh, Hua Chengzhu?”
Hua Cheng snarls, wordless and feral and flashing fangs.
“Give E-ming back,” Xie Lian commands, stepping forward with Fangxin. He’d prefer to solve this bloodlessly, but he doesn’t think that’s going to be an option if she pushes his husband any further. Hua Cheng is not known for his even temper. “Now, please.”
The stranger adjusts her grip on E-ming, holding it out so its blade flashes in the watery light of Ghost City’s dawn. She presses her thumb to its eye, forcing it closed, before humming thoughtfully. “No,” she says. “No, I don’t think so. There’s something else I want to try, first.”
Xie Lian feels her spiritual energy flare and crackle before E-ming’s eye springs open again, its pupil contracting to a sharp slit within the ruby fragments of its iris. It goes suddenly, abruptly still. Its energy curls up to meet its wielder’s, dark and resentful and overwhelming in its force. E-ming is only a small part of Hua Cheng—but even that small part has power enough to shake cities. Xie Lian would ordinarily feel awed by it.
Now, he feels nothing but terror.
E-ming’s curse strikes, and the smell of blood floods the air. The stranger was clever enough to activate E-ming’s abilities, but not clever enough to aim them: the curse bursts out in a ring, echoing through the walls of Paradise Manor and into the city streets. A chorus of pained howls rings outside as every old wound E-ming bestowed reopens. Xie Lian’s own arm bursts into sparks of pain as the gash along his elbow—the injury he received when he put himself in E-ming’s way for the first time, all those years ago—begins to bleed again.
Xie Lian expected this, as unfortunate as it is—E-ming’s curse is nothing if not effective. What he does not expect is Hua Cheng’s hitching gasp, and the multitude of raw, gaping wounds that suddenly split open along his husband’s skin.
“San Lang!” he cries, lurching to Hua Cheng’s side. Blood wells up quickly and drips from his face, his arms, his throat. Xie Lian tries, uselessly, to staunch the injuries with his own sleeves. “Oh, no, no, San Lang!”
“I’m fine, gege,” Hua Cheng rasps. He is nothing of the sort. He wavers on his feet, hugging his own stomach tightly. He isn’t breathing. “Don’t look away from her.”
Xie Lian whips back around to face the stranger, fury burning his chest and contorting his face. How dare she hurt Hua Cheng. How fucking dare she. He draws Fangxin: it is not the first time he has killed for his husband, and it will not be the last. He does feel bad about the strikes he lands against E-ming, however; he hopes the little scimitar will forgive him the trespass. As soon as it clatters to the ground, loosed from the stranger’s dead hands, Xie Lian scoops it up.
“E-ming, E-ming, please,” he begs, as his husband’s blood drips from his sleeves. “Stop the curse now. Stop the curse!”
E-ming does not respond; it does not even blink.
“Gege, that trash can’t do anything now,” Hua Cheng says. He stands unsteadily, his head low and his eye hazy.
Xie Lian rushes back to his side, pressing E-ming into his hand before gripping one of his elbows to support him. He can see more blood creeping through the white fabric of Hua Cheng’s inner robes. “Can you control it? San Lang, can you stop it?”
Hua Cheng grasps its hilt, smearing blood stickily around the silver. After a moment, he shakes his head. “It isn’t responding to me.” He lists to the side, leaning heavily against Xie Lian. “Forgive this one the inconvenience, but he may not be conscious much longer.”
Xie Lian quickly lowers them both to the ground and presses Hua Cheng’s head towards his knees. “Stop your heartbeat,” he orders. “Stop the bleeding.”
“Would that I could always follow Dianxia’s command,” Hua Cheng murmurs, “but the curse won’t allow it.”
“You won’t die, will you?” Panic beats a fluttery tempo in Xie Lian’s chest, his stomach, his throat. His hands wipe uselessly across Hua Cheng’s injuries. “San Lang, you can’t die!”
“I won’t die. The wounds will heal on their own. Just...get that trash to listen to me, gege…”
“San Lang!” Xie Lian grasps desperately at Hua Cheng’s shoulders as he slumps forward. He bundles his husband into his arms before standing, quickly scanning through a mental map of Paradise Manor so he can find the nearest physician. Before he can take off, however, Yin Yu bursts into the courtyard in front of him.
“Dianxia, Hua Chengzhu! What’s wrong? Why is E-ming—oh, fuck. ” He runs to Xie Lian’s side, his eyes wide behind his mask. “What happened?”
“Someone activated E-ming’s curse. Please, Yin Yu, figure out a way to stop it. I have to take care of San Lang before he—” Xie Lian swallows hard, his chest squeezing painfully. Hua Cheng said he wouldn’t die. He said.
“Go,” Yin Yu says, gesturing towards the manor. “Hurry. I’ll send Tong Wei to your rooms right away. Just leave E-ming to me.”
Xie Lian slides E-ming from Hua Cheng’s slack fingers and into Yin Yu’s grip—then he takes off, racing to their bedroom. He sets Hua Cheng down on their bed and strips him of his robes: they’re soaked through and sopping with blood. Cuts lace across his chest, his stomach, his hips and his thighs. Some are thin and shallow. Others are massive, deep enough to expose the white pulse of fat below. They all bleed sluggishly and inexorably.
There is a pattern to these wounds that Xie Lian dares not think about for too long—not here, not yet.
Frantically, Xie Lian presses their bedsheets against the deepest of the cuts in an attempt to stop the bleeding. His heart beats rabbit-fast below his ribs, and his hands shake. Hua Cheng seldom gets hurt this badly. In fact, he hasn’t been hurt like this since—since—
There's no banquet in this world that doesn't come to an end.
“San Lang,” he begs, “San Lang, please wake up.”
“Dianxia!” Tong Wei skids to a stop beside him, her tail lashing anxiously. She immediately takes over, yanking out her suturing kit and beginning to knit Hua Cheng back together. “Gods, he looks awful. E-ming did this to him?”
“Not on purpose.”
“It doesn’t matter if it was purposeful or not. These wounds won’t heal until the curse breaks,” Tong Wei says, deftly moving Xie Lian’s hands to a thick wad of gauze. He presses it over the first sutured wound, holding firmly. “That’s how E-ming works. Nasty thing.”
“How do we break the curse?”
“That’s your speciality, not mine.”
“Yin Yu is working on it.” Xie Lian squeezes his eyes shut, breathing shakily. “What can we do for him until then?”
“I’ll suture the deepest wounds. It won’t stop the bleeding, but it should slow it, at least. I have tinctures to dull the pain and keep him unconscious.”
“He won’t—these wounds won’t kill him?”
“No. For a ghost, they’re merely very unpleasant.” Tong Wei grimaces, then shifts Xie Lian’s hands to put pressure on another wound.
Two hours into the grueling ordeal of suturing Hua Cheng back together, Xie Lian feels something change . There’s a lift of energy in the manor, and for a moment he can breathe clearly again. He dares to hope that the curse has been broken. Seconds later, another burst of resentful energy slams into him, and—
GEGE! E-ming wails. GEGE GEGE GEGE!
Xie Lian’s eyes fly wide. According to Hua Cheng, E-ming can only communicate verbally with the person it’s bound to, which must mean— E-ming, you picked the wrong person!
DIDN’T! DIDN’T PICK! E-ming says, its voice wretched. MASTER WILL NOT HAVE ME.
There’s...a lot to unpack, there, but Xie Lian is too busy holding his husband together to even begin. Yin Yu enters the room before he can respond to E-ming, clutching the scimitar tightly. It’s vibrating madly in his hands. As soon as it sees Xie Lian, it tears itself away from Yin Yu and attaches itself to his side.
“Yin Yu,” Xie Lian says, stepping back and wiping the blood from his hands. “Take over here.”
Yin Yu steps to Tong Wei’s side, murmuring quietly to her as he bends over Hua Cheng’s body. Xie Lian takes E-ming into his arms, petting its blade in slow strokes until it begins to settle and its hysterical babbling trails off.
“I was able to separate E-ming’s bond from that woman,” Yin Yu explains. “I supposed it would return to Chengzhu as soon as it could. When he wakes up, he can—”
“It didn’t bond to San Lang.”
“Then who did it—?”
“Me.”
Yin Yu swears under his breath.
“It says Hua Cheng won’t bond with it right now,” Xie Lian says, frowning. “Could it be because he’s unconscious?”
“Maybe,” Tong Wei says, leaning back and flicking blood from her claws. “Or it could be because he’s furious with the little bastard. I would be, if it did something like this to me.”
“San Lang knows better. He wouldn’t reject E-ming because of this.”
“Well, we can ask him once he wakes up,” Yin Yu says, stepping back when Tong Wei does. Hua Cheng is far from healed, but at least the bleeding has slowed. “In the meantime, I need to borrow Tong Wei. There are hundreds of ghosts outside who’ve been on E-ming’s sharp end before. We need all the physicians we can get.”
Tong Wei leaves Xie Lian with more gauze, and several painkilling tinctures, and a pill she promises will knock out even the strongest ghost—should he deem it necessary to use. Once she leaves, Xie Lian strips their bed of its bloodied sheets and wraps Hua Cheng in a clean blanket. He sits next to him, stroking his hair and waiting for the bandages to bleed through. He changes them, when they do.
GEGE? E-ming asks, softly.
Yes, E-ming?
E-MING IS SORRY. E-MING IS THE MOST SORRY.
It wasn’t your fault. I know you didn’t mean to. But is there no way you can stop the curse on your own?
NEED MASTER, E-ming says miserably. NEED MASTER’S POWER.
I’ll tell him as soon as he wakes up.
Xie Lian soaks a washcloth through with cool water, then wipes the blood and sweat from Hua Cheng’s temples. Hua Cheng lays still before him—unbearably still. He looks like a corpse. When Xie Lian has finished rubbing him down, he takes another cloth and wipes E-ming’s blade until it gleams. E-ming, who ordinarily shivers with joy at his faintest touch, remains quiet.
E-ming, Xie Lian says, and E-ming’s eye peeks up at him. These cuts...where did they come from?
It is an unnecessary question. The cuts are straight and orderly. They are only on Hua Cheng’s front. They were torn open by E-ming’s curse, and thus they must have been made by E-ming itself. With all of this information, the conclusion is an easy one to reach.
He made them, didn’t he, Xie Lian says hollowly.
E-ming shudders in his grasp, squeezing its eye shut, and does not refute the statement.
ONLY WHEN MASTER WAS BAD, it says, haltingly. WHEN HE MESSED UP.
“A punishment,” Xie Lian whispers aloud, his voice cracking at the edges.
E-MING DID NOT LIKE IT. E-MING HATED IT. BUT MASTER WOULD NOT— E-ming shudders, again, its eye glassy with the threat of tears. MASTER WOULD NOT LET E-MING STOP!
“Shh. Shh, E-ming, it’s okay, it’s not your fault.” Xie Lian hugs it until it stops shaking so hard. It’s easier to cope with his own churning emotions when he has someone else to care for. It always has been. “I don’t blame you. I’ll speak with San Lang and make sure he never uses you for something like that ever again.”
Once E-ming is soothed, Xie Lian sets it down and goes to stand on the balcony overlooking Ghost City. He takes a deep, shuddering breath before dropping into a crouch and wrapping his arms around his knees. Blood drips steadily from his elbow to the floor. The pain is easy to ignore, in light of what he’s just learned. He knows how little Hua Cheng thinks of himself, but for him to do this— for him to use his own spiritual weapon to split his skin open—
Xie Lian shakes with sobs.
San Lang, how dare you! How dare you!
His own chest feels carved out, his stomach shaken and twisted around itself. Does Hua Cheng really hate himself that much, even after all this time? Xie Lian’s skin crawls at the thought of his husband turning on himself in such a visceral, physical way. Why hadn’t he come to Xie Lian first, if he was feeling so awful? What was he thinking? He could have been seriously hurt! Worse, he could have—he could have—!
“Gege?”
Xie Lian straightens up so fast his head spins, swiping furiously at his sore eyes. “San Lang!” he exclaims, clearing his throat and shoving that violent froth of emotions back down into the pit of his chest. Later, he tells himself. Later, please. He strides back to the bedside, wringing his hands. “How are you feeling?”
“Gege, you were crying.” Hua Cheng struggles to sit up, distressed, but Xie Lian pushes him firmly back down. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing, nothing, I’m just—I’m just worried about San Lang, that’s all,” Xie Lian says, and it’s the truth. He is so worried right now it makes him sick.
Hua Cheng frowns. “I told gege that I would be okay. This is just a minor inconvenience.”
“You’re hurt!” Xie Lian snaps, with more anger than he meant to. “It’s not a minor anything. You think I don’t care if you’re injured?”
Hua Cheng blinks at him, taken aback by the force of his words. “Ah—no, no, of course that’s not it…”
Xie Lian forces himself to take a deep, slow breath before he speaks again. “I’m sorry, San Lang, I’m just—” He shakes his head abruptly. “E-ming is here. Can you reverse the curse?”
Hua Cheng watches him hesitantly but nods, reaching for his scimitar. Xie Lian passes it to him. E-ming trembles violently in his grip, staring at its master with nothing short of terror. “What were you thinking, anyway?” Hua Cheng grumbles, and Xie Lian feels a tug at his own spiritual energy as Hua Cheng begins to untangle E-ming’s bond from it. “Letting a stranger get a hold of you like that? You stupid scum. You’re lucky I don’t shatter you right now.”
“Don’t blame it for this,” Xie Lian says, anger creeping into his voice again. He swallows desperately around it. Not now, not now.
“Dianxia is upset with me,” Hua Cheng says plainly. “Will he tell this one what for, so that he can make amends?”
Xie Lian shakes his head again, his hands curling into fists. “Not right now.”
“This humble servant does not like it when Dianxia is angry with him. He would like to—”
“If I talk about it now, I’m going to—” Xie Lian waves his hands desperately. Yell? Cry? Have an absolute mental breakdown? “Later, I promise, just—not now.”
“As Dianxia wishes,” Hua Cheng murmurs, his gaze dropping. As it does, his eye snags on Xie Lian’s arm. Instantly, his body goes rigid. “Dianxia, you’re hurt!”
Xie Lian grips his own elbow in a useless attempt to stop the bleeding there. Before he can reply, Hua Cheng is scrambling to get up—Hua Cheng, who is covered in bandages and sutures and self-inflicted wounds! Immediately, Xie Lian grabs his shoulders and presses him back to the mattress, heedless of his struggling.
“San Lang, don’t move,” he orders. “I’m serious.”
“Your wound, Dianxia!”
“It will vanish as soon as you break the curse, so do it quickly.”
Frantically, Hua Cheng scrambles to adjust his grip on E-ming. The curse does not break dramatically, but with a simple and gentle easing of the energy around them. E-ming shuts its eye and goes still, allowing Hua Cheng to slide it into his sword belt without a fuss. Almost instantly, their wounds begin to heal: Xie Lian’s is naught but smooth skin in a smattering of seconds. Hua Cheng’s wounds take longer to knit back together, and he hisses through his teeth as they do.
“Shh,” Xie Lian soothes, petting his hair. He could not comfort Hua Cheng before, when he first made these wounds, but it’s a small relief to comfort him now. “Shh, San Lang, almost over, almost done. Hold onto gege. There, now, doesn’t that feel better?”
Once Hua Cheng’s wounds have closed, Xie Lian allows him to sit up. He takes hold of Xie Lian’s arm, turning it this way and that to be sure the injury is healed, and Xie Lian allows this, too, if only to ease his husband’s mind. When he’s finished with his examination, they work together to remove the sutures from his skin. Taking them out is almost as painstaking a process as putting them in.
They wash together in the baths, and the water flows pink around their feet as blood sluices out of their hair and off of their skin. Most of it, Xie Lian knows with a sickening jolt, is Hua Cheng’s. Once they’re clean, they dress in fresh robes and change the bedsheets. Then Xie Lian directs Hua Cheng to sit, and drink a glass of water, and rest while Xie Lian goes to speak with Yin Yu. He takes E-ming, on the pretense of showing it to Yin Yu. There’s no way he’s leaving his husband alone with it after this.
(He does speak with Yin Yu, but only briefly. In reality, he needed enough time and space to have a meltdown in private. He hid himself in the library and shook to pieces there, crouched in a corner and hugging himself desperately and imagining his husband drawing a blade through his own precious skin over and over and over again.)
Xie Lian returns to find Hua Cheng staring blankly at the far wall, an empty glass in one hand. A smile lights his face as soon as he sees Xie Lian, but it’s too wide and too perfect. “How was Yin Yu?” he asks politely. “Is all well in the city?”
“It’s fine. San Lang doesn’t need to worry about such things right now.”
Hua Cheng drops his gaze, again, eyeing the blankets that pool in his lap. Xie Lian sits beside him and takes his hand, lacing their fingers together. He runs one thumb in a gentle sweep over his husband’s knuckles. They sit in silence together. This is not wholly unusual, but the familiar comfort that tends to accompany such silences is absent. The air is thick with their disquiet.
Hua Cheng breaks first.
“Dianxia,” he says, pressing his head to Xie Lian’s shoulder in supplication. “Can we talk about it now? I don’t like this.”
It has taken years to get Hua Cheng to request things for himself, let alone to express his own discomfort. Xie Lian kisses his head, breathes in the floral smell of his hair, and steels himself. Calmly. They are going to do this calmly.
“Okay, San Lang, let’s talk,” he says, and is proud of how steady his voice stays. “Tell me about the cuts.”
“You talked to E-ming, didn’t you,” Hua Cheng says bleakly.
“It only confirmed what I already suspected.” Xie Lian closes his eyes. “San Lang—San Lang, can you tell me that those injuries aren’t from who I think they are?”
“Dianxia is so clever.” Hua Cheng looks at him, and there is a sudden exhaustion written in the lines around his eye. “I could tell you they aren’t, but...this San Lang does not like lying to his god.”
Despite his suspicions, to hear it admitted so plainly from Hua Cheng’s own mouth feels like a fist to his heart. Xie Lian takes a deep, deep, deep breath. Calmly. Calmly and clearly. He has already done his crying. He is not going to freak out right now. He is not going to yell. He is not going to yell. He is not—
“What were you thinking, Hua Cheng?!” Ah, well, seems he’s yelling. “What could have possibly made you think that was okay? You could have been seriously hurt! You could have been killed!”
Hua Cheng cringes into himself. Xie Lian never yells at him: to hear it now must really hurt him. But how often has Xie Lian said—whispered—murmured—that Hua Cheng doesn’t deserve to hurt, that he should come to Xie Lian when he feels bad, that he should care about himself? If he doesn’t hear that, maybe he’ll hear this!
“Dianxia, it isn’t like that,” Hua Cheng pleads. “I wouldn’t die. I wouldn’t leave you. I told you, didn’t I, that I will always—”
“And how do you know?” Xie Lian demands, ripping himself away from Hua Cheng and beginning to pace. He feels jittery all over. There is an energy in him he cannot get rid of. It howls that there is a threat here—not only to himself, but to his beloved husband—and that he cannot rest until it is vanquished. Easier said than done, when that threat is his husband himself. “If you had made a mistake? If you had cut too deeply?”
“I’m a ghost, Dianxia—the only thing that could kill me is the ashes around your neck. I swear I didn’t want to die. I’ve never wanted to die, not since you told me to live!”
“Then why would you do this? I’ve lost you too many times, San Lang! I can’t do it again!”
“Dianxia—”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Gege.” Hua Cheng rises and grabs his hands, halting his movement. He ducks his head to meet Xie Lian’s eyes. His own is wide and pained. “Gege, please, please believe me. I will never leave you again. That isn’t something you will ever have to worry about. This one is yours, from now until the end of time.”
“Then why did you do it?” Xie Lian asks, his vision fragmenting around tears. He blinks rapidly, furiously. “Why would you ever hurt yourself like that?”
“I was—” Hua Cheng’s mouth moves soundlessly; for once, he seems to be out of clever words and turns of phrase. “Gege, I don’t do it all the time. I haven’t even done it recently. It’s only when I mess up, I—”
“Messing up is not a good reason to hurt yourself, San Lang!” Xie Lian shouts, tearing his hands away if only so he can grab Hua Cheng’s tunic and bare teeth at him. “How dare you. How fucking dare you. What if I had done that? Would you think it was a good reason then?”
“No!” Hua Cheng recoils in horror. “No, never, gege, don’t you ever—”
“Then why would it be okay for you to do that, huh?”
“It’s—because it’s—” Hua Cheng hunches his shoulders.
“Because it’s you,” Xie Lian says, his voice tight with fury. “Right? Because it’s you, and you don’t think you’re worth anything. We’ve talked about this, San Lang. I thought you listened. I thought you were getting better. If it’s like this, then maybe we—maybe we need to do something else, something more. Tong Wei has medications, we can—”
“Gege, I am getting better, I am.” Hua Cheng looks frantically at him, grasping for his sleeves. “I don’t do it nearly as often. I haven’t done it a single time in weeks. All of those cuts were old. Most of them were from hundreds of years ago, gege, please, please, I’m doing better!”
“How can I believe you? Even if you had cut yourself, you’d heal it immediately and I’d never know. How am I supposed to trust you with yourself now?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you!”
“Then how come I didn’t know about any of this? It’s been hundreds of years and I’m just now finding out?”
“But I didn’t lie—I never lied to you, I just didn’t tell you because it wasn’t—I didn’t think it mattered. I didn’t want to trouble you.”
“Of course it matters! And who’s to say you won’t just not tell me again?” Xie Lian’s jaw clenches. “San Lang, you can’t keep doing this.”
“I won’t, I won’t, whatever gege wants,” Hua Cheng says, dropping to his knees and pressing his head against Xie Lian’s leg. His shoulders are trembling. “I won’t do it anymore if gege doesn’t want me to. Forgive me. Taizi Dianxia, forgive me.”
Xie Lian forces himself to take another breath. It’s easier to do, with Hua Cheng’s easy assurance—although he’s not sure how much faith he can put into that assurance, yet. Easier, still, is the way his anger fades in the face of Hua Cheng’s frightened misery. He lowers himself to Hua Cheng’s level, pulling him into a tight hug and burying his face against his hair.
“I was so frightened,” he whispers, as Hua Cheng’s fingers tangle into his robes to keep him close. “San Lang, I never want to see you hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” Hua Cheng chokes. “Sorry, gege.”
“Shh. Shh, I know you are.” Xie Lian strokes his hair, readjusting himself so he can pull his husband into his lap. Hua Cheng goes readily, burrowing into him. “What are you sorry for?”
“For scaring gege,” Hua Cheng says, his voice muffled by Xie Lian’s robes. “For making him cry. For letting stupid E-ming do this.”
Xie Lian sighs softly. “San Lang, I appreciate that, but I’d rather be scared than not know about this. I want to help you. How am I supposed to do that if you don’t tell me things?”
“Didn’t want gege to worry.”
“I’d rather worry than let you suffer alone. That, to me, is worse than anything.”
Hua Cheng makes a low, disconsolate sound. He’s breathing too fast, and a twinge of regret jolts through Xie Lian—he really scared him, didn’t he?
“Ah, San Lang, it’s alright.” Xie Lian rocks him, slow and steady, rubbing wide circles across the tense muscles of his back. “Breathe slowly for gege. I’m right here. I’ve got you.”
“Gege’s mad at me.”
“En, he is. You know hiding things like this from me is bad.” Xie Lian cups the back of Hua Cheng’s neck, kissing the top of his head where Hua Cheng has it nestled under his chin in a desperate attempt to make himself smaller. “You had to know I would be upset if I found out, so why did you do it?”
“Deserved it,” Hua Cheng mumbles—and then, at Xie Lian’s pained noise, amends, “Felt like I deserved it.”
“It’s a punishment, then?”
“Mn.”
“Punishment for what?”
“Messing up. Being bad.”
“Can you give me an example, please?”
Hua Cheng tips his head up, pressing his cold nose to the crook of Xie Lian’s neck. “Right now,” he whispers. “This. Hurting Dianxia. This stupid servant should be punished.”
“No,” Xie Lian says firmly, tightening his grip on Hua Cheng. He yanks E-ming from his sword belt and slides it across the room, where neither of them can reach it. “Absolutely not.”
“Gege is too merciful,” Hua Cheng says, wretched.
Xie Lian shakes his head. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“Yes, gege.”
“And you’re my follower, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Dianxia.”
“Then, San Lang.” Xie Lian leans back, grasping Hua Cheng’s chin and guiding him to look up so their gazes meet. “Hua Cheng. You are not allowed to decide when you deserve punishment. You’ve always been too harsh with yourself: your judgement is too flawed here. Only I am allowed to decide when punishment is warranted from now on. Do you understand?”
Hua Cheng shudders, trying to dip his head again. Xie Lian refuses to let him. “Gege is too merciful,” he repeats. “He favors this one more than he deserves.”
“If you trust me then trust my judgement, San Lang. I’ll know when you’ve done wrong and I’ll attend to you accordingly. I won’t go easy on you, if that’s what you need—but I will not punish you for things that don’t deserve to be punished. This is not up for debate. I’ll ask once more: do you understand?”
“Yes, Dianxia,” Hua Cheng whispers, closing his eye and shuddering.
“Good. Only I am allowed to punish you from now on, San Lang. If I find out that you’ve punished yourself, I will be very upset—and I am going to ask every day from now on. You say that you will not lie to me, and so I will ask. If you have hurt yourself, I expect to hear about it. If you feel like you want to hurt yourself, I expect to hear about it.”
“Yes—” Hua Cheng’s breath hitches. “Yes, Dianxia.”
“Good boy.”
Xie Lian nuzzles into his hair, reminding himself that Hua Cheng is here and alive and safe, before gently guiding him off of his lap. He stands, then pulls Hua Cheng up after him and leads him to the bed. Hua Cheng is shaky, still, his head bowed and his eye down. He will not meet Xie Lian’s gaze as he crawls into bed after him.
Xie Lian pushes him down, then curls up around him and pulls the blankets over both of their bodies. He rubs Hua Cheng’s arm with one hand, and Hua Cheng trembles against him. He hasn’t cried, yet, but Xie Lian suspects it’s a very near thing. It almost makes him feel bad for what he’s about to say next—almost.
“San Lang, do you have any idea how scared I was today?” he whispers. “When I saw you like—like that— it reminded me of all the other times I’ve let you be hurt. I hated it. It was really awful.”
Hua Cheng curls tighter against him. “I’m sorry.”
“I hate it when you’re hurt. I hate it even more if you’re the one hurting yourself. This gege is very upset with what you’ve done. I can forgive you many things, San Lang, but hurting my husband—” Xie Lian shakes his head abruptly. “I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven anyone for that.”
Hua Cheng makes a soft, broken sound. When Xie Lian glances down, his cheek glistens with tears and his lashes are clumped. The sight aches in his heart, but this—this is something that has to be said. It’s something Hua Cheng needs to hear very clearly.
“I will not punish you this time,” Xie Lian says, and Hua Cheng sobs. Regret? Relief? He isn’t sure. “Today has already been punishment enough. But the next time this happens, San Lang, I will punish you. I won’t like to, but I will. I can’t let anyone get away with harming you—not even you. Especially not you. You’re too cruel to yourself.”
Hua Cheng buries his face against Xie Lian’s chest, gulping in ragged breaths as tears stream down his face. Xie Lian pets him gently, soothingly, letting him cry.
“I’ll do some research,” he continues, more softly, “and we’ll figure out a way to make it easier. It won’t be like this forever. One day, you’ll see that you don’t deserve such harsh treatment—I’m going to make sure of it, husband. You won’t suffer alone anymore. This gege won’t allow it.”
Hua Cheng hooks a leg over Xie Lian’s, tangling them even more snugly together. He’s still shaking. Xie Lian rubs his back firmly, kissing his forehead and temples and listening carefully to the rate of his breathing. There is a fine line between sobbing and panicking, and the last thing he wants is for Hua Cheng to cross it without him being aware.
“Poor, sweet thing,” he murmurs. “I know it’s frightening, but we’ll figure it out together, the way we always have. Gege will be right here with you. I’ll make sure you’re okay.”
“Thank you,” Hua Cheng gasps, which is—
“So good, San Lang,” Xie Lian croons. “You’re welcome, of course you’re welcome. Thank you for letting me help you. You’re being so brave.”
“I’m really— really sorry, gege.”
“Tell me what you’re sorry for.”
“For—” Hua Cheng’s brow furrows as he thinks, still breathing choppily. “For upsetting you.”
Xie Lian hums, contemplating whether or not that’s something Hua Cheng should reasonably be sorry for. “Thank you,” he says, eventually. “I forgive you, of course. What else are you sorry for?”
“For hurting you.” Hua Cheng reaches out, brushing his fingers along the healed skin of Xie Lian’s elbow.
“That wasn’t your fault. You don’t need to be sorry for that.”
“If I had been paying more attention, E-ming wouldn’t have—”
“Everyone makes mistakes, San Lang. You don’t need to beat yourself up about it.”
Hua Cheng makes a disgruntled little noise, but its effect is stymied by his wet, red-rimmed eye and miserable pout.
“What else?” Xie Lian coaxes. “San Lang, there’s one more thing you should be sorry for.”
Hua Cheng’s gaze slants away. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do.” Xie Lian reaches out, rubbing Hua Cheng’s chin to lure his gaze back. “Who else did you hurt, sweetheart? If not today, then before?”
Hua Cheng squeezes his eye shut. “I don’t know.”
“Ah, San Lang, so stubborn.” Xie Lian kisses the tip of his nose. “Apologize for hurting yourself.”
“Gege said he wouldn’t forgive me for that,” Hua Cheng says plaintively.
“I said I’d never forgiven anyone for it before. San Lang, I—” Xie Lian wraps his arms around Hua Cheng’s shoulders, bundling him close. “I’m mad that you did it, and sad that you did it, but I’m not going to keep being mad. What would be the point in that? You’ve suffered enough. I’m not going to hold this over your head.”
“And next time?” Hua Cheng asks, gripping Xie Lian’s back.
“Next time?” Xie Lian asks, his tone darkening.
“No! No, I’m not—I’m not planning on there being a next time, but—” Hua Cheng shakes his head, his breath shivering in and out of his chest. “I fuck up all the time, gege, I know I do, and there’s so much time for me to fuck up, and I just—if it happens again, what will you do?”
“I’ll punish you,” Xie Lian says, simply, “and then I’ll forgive you again. As many times as you need—though I hope, for your sake, you won’t need that very many times.”
“Mn.” Hua Cheng sniffles. “How will gege punish me?”
Xie Lian makes a thoughtful noise, carding his fingers through Hua Cheng’s hair. “I won’t hurt you. That would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? And anyway, I don’t like hurting my San Lang unless he asks for it. I suppose I’ll take E-ming from you, so you can’t do it again.”
“I could use another sword.”
“Ah, then I guess you’ll have to go a few days without weapons of any sort, won’t you?”
Hua Cheng makes a face.
“But I’ll be with you the whole time,” Xie Lian assures him, kissing one pointed ear. “I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.”
“I want to protect gege, too.”
“Then I suppose you’d better only use your weapons on other people.”
Hua Cheng grumbles under his breath.
“And,” Xie Lian adds, “I’ll make you apologize to me, and to yourself, and then you’ll have to say three nice things about yourself.”
Hua Cheng cringes, the way Xie Lian knew he would. Really, he wishes being kind to himself weren’t such a punishment for his husband—but it is, and Xie Lian will absolutely use it while he still can. Once Hua Cheng gets used to it, perhaps he’ll have to think of something else. But, once Hua Cheng gets used to it, maybe he won’t need to be punished for such things anyway.
“Also, you’ll apologize to E-ming.”
Hua Cheng’s lip curls. “To that trash?”
“It was very upset with how you used it, you know. You shouldn’t treat it so harshly.” Xie Lian scratches behind Hua Cheng’s ear and smiles as his husband melts against him. “It cares about you, too.”
“It’s a brat.”
“Mm, like master like sword.”
Hua Cheng laughs softly, and the writhing knot of anxiety in Xie Lian’s stomach begins to ease. “San Lang?” he murmurs.
“Hm?”
“I love you—so much. You know that, right?”
“Gege never lets me forget.” Hua Cheng tips his head up, kissing Xie Lian’s throat. “This one loves you, too.”
“I want you to be happy. I want you to be safe.” Xie Lian lifts a strand of his hair, playing absently with it. “I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you are.”
Hua Cheng smiles faintly, a press of teeth against the delicate skin of his neck. “Why does gege make it sound so much like a threat?”
Xie Lian laughs lightly, rolling over so he can smother his husband—lovingly!—with the full of his body weight. Hua Cheng makes a surprised, happy noise and drops his hands to Xie Lian’s hips. “I don’t know,” Xie Lian says innocently. “If you aren’t careful, it might be.”
He lowers his head to kiss Hua Cheng, their lips moving slowly together. Hua Cheng sighs into his mouth, his eye sliding shut again as Xie Lian licks into him. He explores his husband gently, unhurriedly, waiting for him to relax into the mattress and accept the love he’s given. He does. He always does, if only Xie Lian is patient enough.
When Xie Lian draws back, Hua Cheng peeks up at him through a half-lidded eye. “Gege, why’d you stop?” he mumbles.
“You’re falling asleep,” Xie Lian laughs. “Rest, San Lang. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
“Mm.”
As Hua Cheng sleeps, Xie Lian rests his chin on his chest and thinks. He has a lot of planning to do. He knows that he alone will not be enough to break this nasty habit of his husband’s. This conversation was a good start, but there’s so much more they’ll need to do. Perhaps he really should talk to Tong Wei about medications—or, at least, about techniques to help Hua Cheng fight the urge to hurt himself when it rises. Whatever they have to do, though, Xie Lian is sure they can do it.
One day, he thinks, letting his own eyes shut, these cuts will be so old even E-ming can’t open them anymore.