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He Xuan is a simple ghost: he unwillingly strolls around Heaven, plotting a gruesome revenge and mindlessly devouring a bowl of noodles he bought from some human vendor. It's a normal, average, uneventful day.
It gets a little less blissful when he finds the main street brimming with officials that disturbingly try to strike a conversation with him. It's funny how for some people even an immortal life isn't enough to learn how to read others. He grunts a couple of replies with a foolish, undying hope that someday they'll understand he doesn't want to be bothered.
It gets worse when the first tremors travel up his feet and the earth shakes as if it's being split open. Which would be an inconvenience, really, because in such an occasion they'd surely turn to him for advice and he would have to craft some bullshit about stabilizing things and other Earth Mastery solutions.
Then, he sees him, a luminous, slender figure, bathed in rays of warm sunshine, white, unfitted robes flapping madly in the gusts of wind that whip the whole street. He looks like a simple man, probably a cultivator, long legs, elegant hands. He Xuan feels his whole body freeze.
Above a bandaged neck an unforgettable face is surrounded by the blinding, unyielding light of his ascension. That's a face that belongs in myths and statues of long gone heroes. Or maybe it's just that He Xuan has seen that face carved in far, far more sculptures one would want to encounter in a lifetime.
He Xuan has slept under the creepily loving gaze of those eyes for years, inside a suffocating kiln with only the immense scrutiny of that face for company.
He Xuan has seen those features countless times, heard stories about that man far more often than he would have liked, for four hundred, ninety-nine years and 364 days longer than one he would have hoped for, to be exact. Maybe He Xuan should think of a way to celebrate five hundred years from his rise as a calamity but in that moment there's only one thought in his blank, stupefied mind. Fuck.
Wooden chopsticks come to a halt next to his open lips, the greasy, slippery taste of wheat and sesame clinging to the walls of his mouth and turning into an acrid paste that cements his throat. He messily shoves the chopsticks back into the nest of noodles and raises a frantic hand to his temple.
Hua Cheng is gonna be…Hell, what is Hua Cheng gonna be? He can’t picture that. Relieved? Ecstatic? So mad with joy he actually goes insane?
He Xuan knows well how Hua Cheng gets when he has a lead, how worse he gets when he has hope, when he thinks the information he got actually makes sense, that it might be the time he actually finds him.
He gets all jumpy and tense, restless, he paces the rooms and hallways of Paradise Manor without pause, the floors of the Gambler’s Den get more blodied than ever and he snaps at everything that distracts him from his frenzied research. Until the day comes when he actually finds a place to search.
He Xuan has seen the exact moment Hua Cheng gets the clear indication of a city or a village where someone remotely similar to the banished god has been sighted. His mouth does that disgusting thing, it curves against his will, sickening and sweet, like a child who’s been just promised the best present. He’s pretty convinced the ghost doesn’t even realize how he can’t contain that stupid, hopeful smile that in more than one occasion has made his denizens fear for their long-extinguished lives.
Then he leaves. And then, inesorably, he comes back, hollowed out and defeated. No one sees him for months, the Gambler’s Den stays empty and forgotten and he haunts his manor like a wistful spirit, barely even talking to the unfortunate souls that have to approach him.
But how he would react to actually finding him is a mystery. Surely Hua Cheng never expected to just be presented with his god like that, on a literal golden platter.
Standing frozen still in the middle of the gilded street He Xuan is barely even believing it himself. For some reasons, he’d come to associate that youthful, placid face with something that doesn’t actually exist in the real world. Hua Cheng’s god for him is little more than an idea, after centuries spent going after empty air and walking endless paths he’s come to think of him as some sort of abstract concept, a topic he can use to pacify the Ghost King when his debt gets too frighteningly high or one he has to suffer through when Hua Cheng is feeling strangely talkative and, probably, a little lonely.
For a brief moment He Xuan fixes his eyes directly in that molten-gold stare, unable to make sense of the way this terribly life-like statue is managing to breathe and stand and smile meekly at the crowd that looks down from the border of the street, observing as he awkwardly dusts off his tattered robes right in the middle of a huge crater. It’s the not-even-remotely concealed exclamations of “not him again” that finally make the ghost snap out of his theophany-induced daze.
With a long breath he presses two fingers to his right temple and recites Hua Cheng’s obscene excuse for a password.
"What?" Comes Hua Cheng's drawling voice after not even a second.
He Xuan takes a deep breath, for once a clearly needed one, and steels himself. "I found him," he says quickly. "He ascended again and is here in the Heavens. I'm looking at him right now."
The pause on Hua Cheng's end is long, uncharacteristically so, when it finally breaks the ghost's voice is clipped and strained. "Is this a joke?"
"No."
He Xuan hears a long breath.
"His Highness the Crown Prince of Xianle is there. You're seeing him." It's not a question but it sounds like one and, if He Xuan wasn’t so shocked himself, he would roll his eyes at the unnecessary specifications. "He's here," he simply states.
For a moment the silence on the other side is sharp and thick with tension. When he replies Hua Cheng's voice takes a timbre He Xuan has never heard on him before. His voice is serious, incredulous, dripping in such hope it makes it hesitant. "Really?" He asks so lowly the final sounds are shaky.
"Yes."
His reply has merely been spoken that his mind echoes with a sound never in his long life he would have thought to hear from Hua Cheng. A sound so pitiful and impossible he immediately wills himself to forget it.
That couldn't be right. He didn't just hear another calamity sob, right? In the middle of the heavenly crowd He Xuan uncomfortably shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
"What should I do?" He asks briskly, trying to dispel the thought of whatever is going on on the other end of the array.
"Don't lose him!" The reply is so rushed He Xuan almost startles in the middle of the busy street.
"So have my clones follow around to see what they tell him?"
"Yes."
"Alright." He's about to cut the connection when he feels something like a tiny prickle in his mind, a persistent little hitch that he's definitely surprised to find in himself. Curiosity. If Qingxuan knew what was going on they would lose their mind on such a succulent, juicy, finely aged gossip. His lips quirk in the faintest of smiles as he keeps his fingers still lightly pressed on his temple and asks. "What are you going to do?"
It's not a common occurrence to find the mighty Ghost King without a ready answer. It's even more uncommon to find him without an answer to something he's thoroughly prepared for, and this is undoubtedly the one thing Hua Cheng has prepared for the most. Still, there is no answer for a long stretch.
"I suppose I will have to wait until he descends on some mission and...improvise," he replies at last, voice steady but clearly thoughtful.
"And what if he doesn't descend for a long time, say months?"
"Then the palace of the Earth Master will suddenly be in dire need of a new deputy!" Hua Cheng almost screams in the array.
Various officials turn to look at him with wide eyes when a low snicker leaves his lips. Qingxuan would really go crazy on this, he can vividly picture them breezing through the empty halls of Paradise Manor to discuss outfits and dos and don'ts of a first date.
"I will have him sent on a mission then, seeing you every decade is already too much for my sore eyes."
"It goes both ways."
He Xuan looks down in the crater, surveying the way Xie Lian is bashfully rubbing his forehead red while Ling Wen explains to him something the ghost can't hear.
"I will keep you updated," he finally mumbles in the array. He receives a grunt in reply.
"Hua Cheng," he calls seriously before ending the conversation. "Congratulations."
He lets his hand fall from his temple and the connection is cut. His eyes drift back to the figure climbing up on the street and following Ling Wen through the crowd of curious onlookers. The clone in the palace of Ling Wen will have to work extra hours, apparently.
***
Sitting on one of the stools in Paradise Manor's wardrobe He Xuan sourly asks himself how he's ended up there. He has dutifully updated his, now bordering on deranged, fellow calamity, reporting - and repeating several times - what Ling Wen has told His Highness and what His Highness has replied her in turn. Xie Lian is about to leave for the mortal realm and He Xuan wishes he could say the same for himself. Instead he stays sitting and eating a fair share of jiaozi as he observes the scene unfolding before his eyes.
Hua Cheng is pacing up and down the polished floor, occasionally stopping next to one of the robes that are orderly hanged in every corner of the room.
"Didn't you have a meticulous plan for the moment you found your god?" He Xuan finally says when the last dumpling slides down his throat.
"Of course I do," Hua Cheng replies without averting his eye from the maniacal route he's following.
"Then didn't it involve your outfit too?" He asks with a hopefulness he knows well is misplaced.
"Obviously," is the only distracted answer he gets.
"Then why am I even here? Use the fucking outfit you've decided a thousand years ago and let me go."
His observation seems to finally get Hua Cheng's attention. The ghost turns slowly on his heels from where he was inspecting a flowy crimson drape and looks him up and down with an expression so grave He Xuan is sure he hasn't witnessed such a look even when they were fighting demons that made one fretfully hope their ashes were very safely hidden.
"Where do you think we are?" Hua Cheng asks coldly.
He Xuan has to forcefully suppress an eyeroll. "In your fucking wardrobe."
"No. Do you think this is my wardrobe? These are merely thirty seven robes!"
He Xuan dares a glance around the room. Why would he know exactly how many robes are stored in a specific room, even for him it's a bit extreme. Unless. A shiver runs down his spine, colder than the feeling of still water trickling down clothes and dampening them in freezing patches.
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Of course."
"Tell me that these aren't all outfits you picked for when you found your god."
Hua Cheng smirks and ominously turns back to assess one long swat of red, gauzy fabric. "For a scholar you're slower than I expected," he says without bothering to look at him.
For a fleeting moment He Xuan finds himself thinking that if Qingxuan called him in that exact moment offering a mission to jump on he might consider not acting out his revenge after all.
The next moment he's miserably calling Yin Yu in his private array to ask for more food and hopefully a fellow companion in this abominable form of torture.
It feels like an eternity before the calamity finally settles on a crimson robe with silver jewelry that to He Xuan looks exactly like all the other thirty six he’s tried on. Fortunately, he's very good at keeping secrets and bringing them far beyond his grave.
To Hua Cheng that will be a robe that "for someone who is from Xianle but also lived in the world for all this time looks elegant, refined - possibly intriguing - but not gaudy. Never gaudy. Definitely."
For fuck's sake.
***
The peace He Xuan finally gets to enjoy when the outfit ordeal is over is all He Xuan coul have hoped for. It's not just the absence of Hua Cheng’s tasks and mindless reasearch, it’s the prospect of not having to be bothered with anything of the sorts until the day he blissfully disperses into oblivion.
He Xuan could get used to that, maybe even discard the oblivion thing altogether and just enjoy an endless existence of not having to suffer Hua Cheng's desperate ramblings about his forgotten god and all the things that need to be done to find him as soon as possible.
The ghost pops a perfectly seasoned chicken foot in his mouth, readies himself for the most delicious, chewy mouthful of life and death and promptly chokes on it when Hua Cheng's deeply unwanted voice suddenly resounds inside his head.
Isn't one allowed to rest in peace for two days in a row? Why on earth isn't he busy playing lovebirds with his odd little god, doesn't he have a nice - not gaudy - necklace to show off or lashes to flutter while looking at the moon or something along those lines?
"For fuck's sake, what do you want?"
His question is promptly disregarded.
"What do you know about His Highness' mission? How was it received? Tell me the details."
He Xuan merely has time to groan in frustration before he's prompted for information with very unsubtle threats to his rising debt. His night is obviously ruined, he thinks.
He has to reconsider not long after, his night hadn't been ruined yet by then! How naive of him to think that Hua Cheng demanding espionage was the worst he could get. He obviously hadn't realized how bad it could get until Hua Cheng had stopped asking question and stared talking instead.
He Xuan is positive he will spontaneously combust into a myriad of bony little creatures if he has to listen to one more description of how His Highness' hair captures light when the sun is just about to set. Or rise. Or whatever. Surely His Highness' hair would sparkle even in a moonless night!
It's with a long, resigned sigh and a spine as curved as the flaccid chicken foot he's holding with greasy fingers that he very unwillingly mumbles, "Alright, I'm listening."
After that his night is a long, exhausting blur of incredible, amazing, groundbreaking things His Highness has done in the last day and a half, like picking up a chestnut or similar inhuman endeavors.
***
He Xuan has lived a dreadful, painful life, filled with such horror just the strongest of minds could wish to remain sane while facing them. He Xuan would never admit it but, in the end, this makes him a hopeful man. No one soldiers through such a life, no one lingers on afterwards without hope for something to happen, even if it’s just the most excruciating revenge known to mankind.
That’s why every day since that first, god-forsaken ascension, He Xuan has hoped that every task Hua Cheng gives him will be the last, every call in his array about His Highness’ something something will be the final one. Most of all He Xuan’s hoped that Hua Cheng’s endless sermons about His Highness and whatever is up with him will finally end, resolve in some kind of closure, like Xie Lian finally turning him down or fucking him silly until the insult to architecture and nature that is his shrine collapses on them.
Everyday his hopes have been shattered.
Shattered when Hua Cheng had to give His Highness air in some god-awful lake. Shattered when he had to assist to the most excruciatingly awkward game of dice of his existence. Obliterated when mount Tonglu had opened again and he had really wished he didn’t know how to answer Hua Cheng’s doubts about the possibility that he and his god actually fought it out.
He Xuan is a hopeful man, after all, but he’s also a man of knowledge. He knows how to gather evidence and deduce a pattern. What he has deduced so far is that his hopefulness is completely pointless.
That’s why even while sitting on the top of Mount Taicang, witnessing the most carefully curated wedding of the last millennium, he knows he will wake up the next day to another rambling about how perfect every single hair on Xie Lian’s body is.
He looks at the two of them taking their bows and knows there’s no reason to hope Hua Cheng will ever stop bothering him with his lovesick obsessions and maniacal devotions. He Xuan has already been tasked with procuring such a ridiculous quantity of marble he really doesn’t want to picture what could come out of it.
He takes in the orange hue of the setting sun, observing how it plays graciously with the red robes and, well, Xie Lian’s hair actually does look quite good in that light. He sighs and prepares himself to an eternity of Hua Cheng’s dissertations about the wonders of His Highness’ mere existence.
The scenery is quite beautiful, with a slight melancholy to it but a sort of grandeur too. The little cottage Xie Lian built is still visible behind the slope of the hill, the lush foliage melts with the color of the burning sky behind the ruins of the old temple of the Flower Crowned Martial God.
Qingxuan is sitting a little to his right, a solid number of guests between them to prevent any possible inconvenience. It’s Ol’ Feng now. Sometimes they turn to look at him. They smile.
He Xuan is still, after all, a hopeful man.