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For how heinous a crime could be, how gruesome a deed and vicious a thought nothing could ever be enough to grant a punishment like spending a night with Crimson Rain Sought Flower. If the ghost in question was also alone and separated from his beloved husband, easier, less painful ways to die could be found in the mind of a sadist.

Feng Xin eyed him from across the low table and was met with a stare so cold and irritated he could distinctly feel a freezing bead of sweat rolling down his nape.

"Why the fuck do you have to look at me that way?! It's not my fault they had to leave to disguise themselves!" The fist Feng Xin slammed on the table made the small jar of wine rattle dangerously beside their cups.

"Dianxia's not here and you are, I don't need other reasons," Hua Cheng replied calmly, bringing one of the cups to his lips as his stare didn't waver.

Feng Xin suffered the time of another sip before he couldn't take the man any longer. "He hasn't left you for good for Heaven's sake! Why is beyond me. Do you have to be like this!? You've been separated for less than a ke."

Hua Cheng moved his attention to the swirling clear liquid in his cup. "What matters is that we are separated, for how long that is it doesn't change the fact."

Feng Xin didn’t suppress the long, exasperated huff that left him. He made to speak again but was cut off by a sharp movement as Hua Cheng rudely gestured him to shut up and pressed two fingers to his own temple. A moment later a horrible grin spread on the ghost’s face. He got up in a fluid swish of red silk and didn’t bother glancing at Feng Xin once, making his way around the table and leaving the raised veranda of the teahouse without deigning him of a sliver of explanation.

“Fuck it!” Feng Xin almost yelled with a pointed slam on the table that finally managed to send Hua Cheng’s deserted cup to the floor.

As a visibly scared server approached his side and started picking up the pieces of painted ceramic, his bashful apologies were interrupted by an airy snicker. Feng Xin turned back, ready to wash Mu Qing’s face paler just by the sheer force of his yelling but the fierce “FUCK YOU!” died in his throat as he was met with the stare of two deep, dark eyes and long, batting eyelashes.

A cold, beautiful face stood in front of him, framed by a complicated crown of braids and bow-shaped buns. Small jade flowers cascaded on both sides of her up-do, swinging lighlty form their chains when the woman tilted her head and looked at him sternly, arching one of her fine brows. The red dots at the side of her mouth quirked with her lips, stretching beside a dimple as she grinned maliciously.

“Waiting for someone, general?” She teased stepping closer to him, her sinuous body shifting beneath the many thin layers of white and deep green frabric.

“The spot is taken,” he blurted out sounding more rude than he intended and undoubtedly looking more flustered than he wanted to. The blazing heat of his cheeks burned under his palms when he tried to swat it away in what he hoped was a casual gesture.

To his surprise the woman halted in her steps and for a moment she watched him with evident confusion. The frown on her thin brows lasted briefly, though, and she smoothed it out with another, even more satsified grin. Plainly ignoring his words she circuled behind him and elegantly sat down on the other side of the table.

“Here all alone?” She wondered coily, reaching out for his arm and revealing a sliver of a pale wrist under the silk of her wide sleeve. Feng Xin shrank back with a beating in his chest that was somewhere between thrilled and terrified.

“Awww, why acting so stern? Don’t you think I’m pretty like this?” The woman pouted with a smirk pulling at the side of her trembling lip.

“Guniang surely knows how…” He bravely concluded the sentence with an inaudible mumble. The sweat at the back of his neck was a hundred times worse than it had been while suffering through Hua Cheng’s tantrums. Where was a fearsome, detestable Ghost King when needed?

“Knows what?” She asked with her pearly teeth showing menacingly through her grin.

Instinctively Feng Xin made his cushion shift a little further from the table and he leaned back reflexively. He eyed her without bothering to hide the terror creeping inside him. “I’m taken!” He shouted in the end, earning a few disapproving glances from the guests at the other tables.

The woman only snickered in reply. “Oh. I’m taken too, no need to be afraid. But what is it that this one surely knows? It couldn’t be that the general is married, so…”

Drying some sweat from his forehead and uselessly running a hand over his tied hair Feng Xin took a long, stuttering inhale. “Guniang surely knows how attractive she is. Now, if you could excuse me I am actually very busy and waiting for someone!” He said in one breath, pointing at the cushion where she was comfortably sitting.

“Your Highness!” Feng Xin called desperately through their communication array. “W-where are you?!”

The prince’s voice echoed in his head immediately. “Oh, ehm sorry, Feng Xin. We’re in front of the teahouse right now, we’ll be with you in a moment!” He replied quickly, sounding a little winded himself.

“Left all alone?” The stranger guessed, making her smirk turn mellow. “It seems you’re waiting for someone important,” she commented picking up the cup in front of her and studying the liquid with bored eyes.

“Yes,” he replied distractedly, turning his head left and right to see if reinforcements were coming. “My husband.”

“Oh.” The woman sounded surprised. “So you’re looking for him, not…someone else?”

Feng Xin stopped his desperate research to give her a perplexed look. “Who else would I be looking for? I’m not looking for company. I said it before…”

“Yeah, yeah,” the woman cut him off with an annoyance that felt almost familiar. “That’s not what I meant. Good to know.”

Increasingly confused and with his cheeks threatening to reach the temperature of ten suns Feng Xin decided to give up all propriety and completely turn his back to the stranger and check the rest of the room.

A group of women laughing behind their fluttering fans, a couple of man somberly drinking from a jar of wine without exhanging a word, a loud crowd that took more than five tables and was eagerly devouring two whole chickens. Tables, servers, cups, bottles, some spilled wine and then Feng Xin’s blood froze in his veins.

Tucked in a far corner of the room was a familiar face, one that he’d been waiting for alongside Mu Qing’s, dark hair and fine features, all washed down by those white cultivator robes he insisted on wearing. Xie Lian was almost exactly where Feng Xin had been waiting to see him except for the fact that he was being backed up against a wall where an eager young woman kept him pinned by his waist and he kissed her back just as hungrily.

As more fear flooded his system Feng Xin got up and strode to the shameless couple with fast, heavy steps. “Your Highness!” He whisper-shouted when he reached them, pushing the woman away as his eyes bore into the prince’s flushed face. The lady, dressed in fabrics so light and thin that the full contours on her body were barely shadowed by her robes, was staring at him with something that looked more like shock than outrage.

“Your Highness!” He called again when Xie Lian kept looking at him with a  confused expression despite his bright red cheeks. “What are you doing!? You- you… I thought…” He took a deep breath and finally let out. “I-if you have to do things…like this!” He gestured not too subtly disapprovingly to the scantily clad woman. “At least not when he’s around the corner! What if Crimson Rain Sought Flower saw you right now? He might lose it, it’s too dangerous! Look if you…”

His words were brusquely interrupted by a full, lilting laughter coming from the lady beside him. Xie Lian looked at him with wide eyes for a moment and immediately followed suit. “F-feng Xin…” he breathed in between laughs. “You really! You couldn’t…who do you think she is!?”

With her shoulders still shaking the woman stepped in front of him, black, sharp eyes watching him with mocking mirth. She was slightly shorter than the prince, wearing indecently light white robes and an open red one on top that did nothing to cover the milky skin of her arms. The half moons drawn next to her eyes were peculiarly mismatched, one red and one onyx black. If that hadn’t been enough the cocky smirk that showed a tiny, pointed fang finally gave away her identity.

“It’s him?!” Feng Xin almost yelled in Xie Lian’s face, once again making the many patrons of the teahouse turn to him.

“Of course it’s him!” The prince replied equally indignant. “How can you think I would do…those things with someone else!”

Hua Cheng, from her unusually shorter height and scandalous figure, chuckled again. “Oh I’m getting ideas here…” she observed laguidly, making both Feng Xin and Xie Lian snap their heads at her, one horrified and the other flushed to the point of his ears.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” Came an irritated voice from behind them.

Feng Xin turned around already knowing who to expect. “Guniang, these matters don’t involve you, please…”

The woman stared at him unimpressed with her mezmerizing gaze before stating flatly. “You idiot.”

Blood drained from Feng Xin’s face as quickly as he could breath out. “Mu Qing!?”

The snickering behind his back intensified and he quickly shot a glance back to catch Xie Lian hurriedly hiding his chuckles and Hua Cheng flaunting her even louder.

In front of him the woman laughed too. “You finally got it, general,” she answered pointedly stressing his title.

“Mu Qing, what the fuck! Why didn’t you tell me! You…you!” Chest heaving, he watched the smirk on Mu Qing’s face grow wider.

“Poor Nan Yang,” she said dotingly, voice dripping sarcasm as she raised one delicate hand to pat his arm, making him freeze on the spot.

“You…”

A timid cough interrupted him before his rant could even start. Behind Mu Qing’s slender figure a short, scrawny server cleared his throat clearly embarrassed. “I’m sorry to bother,” he stuttered out. “B-but my lords and l-ladies,” he dared a flustered glance to the corner where Hua Cheng was already half-draped on Xie Lian’s side. “My lords and ladies are being a little loud I…the owner sent me to ask you if you could resolve your quarrels outside, m-maybe.”

Mu Qing snorted. “Well done, general,” she scoffed sparing him a cold glance before turning to walk unhurriedly to the entrance. Feng Xin had already a flourishing insult ready on the tip of his tongue but the distress painted all over the server’s face made him swallow it back down while he followed behind Mu Qing with heavy steps and a deep scowl.

Once they were out the cool, crisp air of the night somehow managed to sober some of his rage, leaving in its stead a tingle of curiosity that urged him to steal a glance in Mu Qing’s direction.

When Xie Lian and Hua Cheng joined them on the empty street the four of them awkwardly stared at each other without a word, no one daring to mention their failed mission. At last Feng Xin couldn’t bear the confusion any longer. “Why aren’t you the one in disguise?” He asked looking at Xie Lian. “And why did you decide that this,” he gestured vaguely at Mu Qing’s figure, “should be the disguise at all?”

In response the prince rubbed an already reddened spot on his forehead, eyes darting to Hua Cheng who was still hanging shamelessly from his arm. “Well…ah, the robes we bought for our disguise ehm…mine turned out to be quite revealing and I didn’t really feel like wearing them but we didn’t have time to find another set so San Lang offered to be the one in disguise and…”

“He can shift his form as he likes! Why didn’t he change the clothes as well!” Feng Xin spat finally letting out some of his frustration.

Hua Cheng let out an airy giggle, running her pale fingers up and down Xie Lian’s arm. “Why waste these? Don’t I look good, gege?” She asked with an extremely pouty face, making the flush on the god’s cheeks blaze even more fiercely.

“Very good,” he murmured bashfully.

“Well it’s useless trying to get in now,” Mu Qing cut in with a sharp annoyance in her voice. “We might as well come back tomorrow and try with new disguises.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Xie Lian agreed, eyes darting to the inside of the teahouse where some servers were already starting to tidy up to close for the night.

Feng Xin agreed silently, waving off Xie Lian and Hua Cheng and watching them retreat before turning his back on them and walking in the opposite direction at Mu Qing’s side. Both generals valiantly pretended not to overhear the few sentences they could still grasp from the other couple, like can be jealous sometimes and maybe with a clone?

Suppressing a shiver Feng Xin turned to Mu Qing, briefly letting his eyes scan her body up and down only to end up caught by a satisfied gaze and a knowing smirk.

“Aren’t you going to drop this disguise now?!” He asked impatiently.

The two dots at the side of her lips sank deeper into her dimples. “Oh I’m not taking this form off.”

A shiver of tension and something akin to excitement ran down his spine. He suppressed it forcefully and turned to grab her hands just as uncerimoniously. “Then let’s go home,” he said quickening his steps.

There was a knowing snicker and the swish of fabric as Mu Qing gathered her robes to walk faster. “All right, general.”