Chapter Text
Living with Wuming is different than it was with Mu Qing, Feng Xin, or his parents.
It's safe to say that Wuming is a strange ghost.
He acts like a palace servant without the attitude of one: he draws water for Xie Lian's baths (but he disappears when it comes to helping him getting undressed), goes out to get medicine, to get food (he never tells Xie Lian where he's going, how he gets the ingredients and won't let him join), and builds him a bed to sleep (yet he, himself doesn't need either — a fact Xie Lian hates). He prepares and fixes other things around the house, too (yet he doesn't seem to care about anything he creates when they leave the next day on Xie Lian's whim).
But most importantly, he never takes off his mask.
Xie Lian thinks he began to tolerate him over these past weeks? Months? Even though a little voice in his heart whispers that it's more like he, inadvertently, has grown attached. It's something he hates as well.
Sometimes, he wonders when Wuming will announce that he's going to the market, and then never comes back. Xie Lian swears he won't blame him, but he will.
White No Face keeps visiting those times. No matter where they move to, there's no escape. His favourite is when Xie Lian and Wuming stay at some delipidated temple and shrine that used to belong to the God-Pleasing Crown Prince—White No Face comes like a shadow and whispers like one: he spews tales of a beloved Crown Prince who used to be the center of the world until he has fallen from grace, remaining broken and battered by the unworthy common people as they finally saw the real him: a failure.
And Xie Lian... he listens to these unbearable stories. White No Face seems to be satisfied with him, calling him his friend, which makes Xie Lian's skin prickle. He sometimes throws up after their encounters—and lies to Wuming about it, telling him it's because of the splitting headache.
Lately, Wuming stopped asking.
All in all, the most Xie Lian feels is distant numbness towards everyone and everything.
"Ah. Ruoye."
With a blank expression, Xie Lian keeps untangling the dead knot the white silkband had pulled himself into. Again.
"Did Your Highness say something?" Wuming asks. He sits close but never too close, scraping off the outer coating of a brench, littering smithereens to the ground. He recently took up woodwork, and it's something he often indulges in. He's very secretive of the things he makes, and only shares some insignificant things like chopsticks.
"I said Ruoye." Xie Lian replies absentmindedly. "It's name."
There is a pause. Xie Lian hesitates. He doesn’t want to speak more. He knows Wuming won't push, out of a respect Xie Lian doesn't understand nor deserve. They don't talk a lot, just share a few words here and there, and Wuming makes sure Xie Lian's needs are met.
But something, a rare driving force he hasn't felt in a long time, keeps pestering Xie Lian. He raises his head.
"Have you heard about the famous tale of The Dragon Who Turned Into A Sword?"
Wuming turns his masked face towards him and shakes his head.
Xie Lian doesn't want to talk. There's no point in casual chit-chat.
He begins anyway.
"It's the Moye sword. The 'ye' is the same as Ruoye's. It's an old myth."
Wuming puts down the tool in his hand and leans toward Xie Lian's direction with his whole body. He speaks very softly, courting Xie Lian as if afraid to scare him away."Can Your Highness tell me?"
Talking about legendary weapons was Xie Lian's speciality. In a past that seems lifetimes away, he could go on and on for hours as if he'd breathing through skin instead of lungs.
I guess, I can. Xie Lian thinks. He gulps down the bitter feelings in his throat and begins.
"They were lovers. Moye and Gan Jiang. Wife and husband."
At the last part, Wuming stiffens next to him. He doesn't speak, so Xie Lian continues.
"Blacksmiths, the both of them, renowned for their craftsmanship. According to the tales, once a king who had tasked Gan Jiang to forge a pair of unparalleled swords for him. Gan Jiang and Mo Ye agreed. But the king grew greedy and set up an impossible feat: he demanded that they must be completed within three months. Days bled into weeks and the couple of blacksmiths faced a problem: the furnace refused to melt the metal and gold, no matter how hard they tried. The process lacked paramount human qi. Despite their efforts, even throwing in hair and nails, they couldn't produce enough. When Mo Ye learned about this, she said, 'My dear husband, one day we'll see each other again and reunite,' and out of the love and devotion she felt for her husband, she threw herself into the fire."
The silence that stretches between them is heavy. Xie Lian fixes his gaze on the tangled silk in his lap. Had he not made sacrifices, too? Had he not thrown himself into the fires of his own ambition, only to be burned and broken? The roaring sounds of hundreds of ghosts is hard to ignore yet he somehow got used to it—a constant reminder of what he did and what he has become.
"Her sacrifice was not in vain; using her qi as a cathalyst, the pair of swords could be finally made. By this time, Gan Jiang already exceeded the three months—the swords were crafted for three years. Their design was intricate, they were incredibly sharp, and imbued with the couple's spirit, wearing their respective names. However, the king was enraged—not even did Gan Jiang deliver the swords late, he only gave him one, the female sword "Moye". He already expected the outcome and hid the male sword ”Ganjiang" behind a pine tree growing on a rock. In a fit of fury, the king executed Gan Jiang on the spot. Learning this, the Moye sword came alive and took the form of a beautiful and majestic dragon. The lovers reunited and vanished from sight, dissapearing together without a trace with the twin swords. It's a sentimental story."
"Why?" Wuming asks, his voice only above a whisper. "Is it wrong?"
"This kind of devotion? Waiting for love?" Xie Lian asks back, his cold eyes resting on the smooth smiling mask that perfectly hides Wuming's expression. "It's pointless."
"No." Wuming says firmly, and the intensity of the word nearly throws Xie Lian off.
"Don't you think Gan Jiang was at fault for honoring the death of his wife? He still made the sword, despite knowing his demise."
"He wasn't at fault." Wuming replies.
"Why is that?" Xie Lian argues. "Wouldn't it be more simple to go into hiding? To desert the land and remarry? Starting a new family, if he was set to fail from the start?"
After a moment of silence, Wuming gives him an answer in a horse voice. "It might be. But his heart wouldn’t move for another. Some would be waiting for one true love for even eight hundred years."
Xie Lian looks at him pointedly. Then snorts a laugh. Wuming's words burned with the intensity of the brightest flame, the meaning behind those words wasn't lost on Xie Lian—they carried a hint of "I'm just like that, I belong to them".
If what you say is true, then why are you here, serving a calamity, a failure? Xie Lian thinks, unimpressed. Then, it clicks.
"My beloved suffered grave injuries in the war."
He was never interested in those kind of relations, so he forgot—Wuming had a lover once. But he didn't wait for her.
As if, Xie Lian scoffs, but he has grown tired of this conversation, getting irritated again.
"Enough with the foolish talk." Xie Lian agrily stares into the distance, and he murmurs under his breath. "Forevers don't last..."
"It's true! Your Highness, I-"
"Enough!" Xie Lian stands up suddenly, the silkband from his lap plopping onto the ground in a tangled heap. As Xie Lian keeps shouting, it tries to slither away from the scare. "All you do is talk-talk-talk, but where is the action behind your words?!"
"Wait—"
Long fingers coil around his wrist as Wuming touches him like he never does. Despite all the things he does for Xie Lian, it's clear he's not subservient in nature—his grip is powerful, almost painful as he pins Xie Lian in place.
Xie Lian doesn't struggle to break free since Wuming immediately releases him as if touching burning iron—then, Xie Lian realizes, it's not him—it's Wuming who burns, his normally ghostly cold skin is feverish, his very much unneeded breath laboured.
"What?" The question bursts out of Xie Lian without his control, but ends in a yelp when Wuming pushes him—no, he doesn't push him; he pushes himself away, holding his head with both of his hands, crouching on the ground, and letting his shoulders travel up and down.
"You must... go. You must go." Wuming forces the words out. First each one is a struggle, then he says it fast.
Xie Lian thinks faster.
Medicine!
A long lost part in himself shouts, and he jumps, legs almost giving up from the sudden movement, like they did when he landed on them when his godly self jumped down on the piedestal and they broke, when something inside him broke, dragging the entire country and its people into their demise...
He shakes his ringing head to clear it. There's no time for this, he needs help... the ghosts inside his head scream, maybe it's Wuming who screams, or he, himself...
Wuming grabs his wrist forcefully, nearly throwing him away. The medcine bowl lands on the ground, its containment and splinterns flying to various directions.
"Your Highness... don't..." Wuming keeps heaving and muttering. "I can't... I must..."
Wuming trashes forcefully, his voice fading under the heavy press of his mask. It's almost as if he can't breathe... Do ghosts even need to breath?!
Panic is an emotion Xie Lian hadn't felt lately, it's almost new and refreshing in his dull days as he feels something forgotten starts to bloom inside his heart.
"Take off your mask!" Xie Lian grunts.
Wuming shakes his head more freely, tossing it from left to right, and he looks like he wants to claw the smiling mask off of his face.
"Ruoye!" Xie Lian cries out. The white silk somehow managed to get itself out of the dead knot—it shots out like a white bolt of lightning, wrapping around Wuming, binding him tightly.
"No..." Wuming lets out an involuntary wail. He seems unable to break free—and it upsets him greatly.
Throwing caution to the wind, Xie Lian inches closer.
"What... What's happening to you?" He asks, his fingers ghosting over the rim of his mask...
"The opening of Tonglu Mountain." Rings a calm voice that pierces through the pain in his head, coming from right behind him. "The arousal of ghosts."
It's the voice that makes Xie Lian's stomach lurch. He whips around, and sees what he fears the most—the white mourning robes and a pair of eyes, menacingly looking at him through the slits of a half-crying, half-smiling mask.