Chapter Text
Thinking back on it now Mu Qing can undeniably say that it wasn’t one of his best ideas to take on such a grueling mission. Especially one of which required him to work in such close quarters with Feng Xin.
It had been four days since his embarrassingly successful heart to heart with Xie Lian and since then he’d managed to keep himself in a positive mindset, committing himself to his cultivation research. And if he did say so himself he was making progress, even if it was small. So when he had been informed of a mission that required his attention he was rather pleased, appreciating the excuse to give his mind a break from the never ending paragraphs of information.
He’d been working through scrolls at his desk when Ling Wen had contacted him, voices reverberated through his private communication array.
“Apologies General Xuan Zhen, but I have an urgent mission that needs attending to if you have the time to spare.”
Mu Qing sighed inwardly and glanced at the pile of prayers that seemed to be growing by the minute, he hadn’t managed to get through all of them with his additional workload but he supposed he could designate some of the work to some of his junior officials. A mission would be a breath of fresh air away from the same four walls of his private office.
He leant back in his chair and answered, “I can figure it out. What’s the situation?”
Ling then made a noise of appreciation before continuing. “There have been reports of missing people. Men and Women in a range of villages on the Southeast border. I am concerned that the ghosts responsible are close to becoming wrath’s, a fact that would cause heaven an extreme amount of problems if it were to happen.”
Mu Qing listened intently, slightly surprised that these ghosts had managed to gain so much power unnoticed.
“That’s not all, one of the missing was found about two miles into the woods and when questioned described a feeling of their energy being drained as if something was draining away their life force so please be careful.”
Ling Wen paused as if waiting for him to comment and when she knew he wasn’t going to she spoke up again, “I’ve asked General Nan Yang if he can join you as well considering the problem is technically a part of both of your domains.”
Mu Qing felt his heart drop and he shot forward in his seat. “There is really no need for that, the buffoon would only get in my way anyway.”
He heard Ling Wen sigh tiredly before she answered in her usual manner, “The mission has more potential to be successful if both of you work together.”
That left him with no choice but to suck it up and accept defeat, if there was someone who could rival his own stubbornness it was Ling Wen.
“Fine, when are we supposed to depart?”
And that decision had led him to his current predicament. Squished uncomfortably into a ghost's array like some novice god. The space was only big enough for him to stand as his arms clung to the solid wall in front of him, feeling rather embarrassed that he’d managed to get himself stuck in a simple box. But nothing was worse than the other warm body pressed directly at his back. Somehow both him and Feng Xin had fallen into the wrath’s trap, a feat that he intended to blame entirely on the man behind him when he got the chance.
His personal space was sacred and right now Feng Xin was currently invading every inch of it. His front pressed along the whole line of his own body, the heat of him making Mu Qing itch like a goddamned rash. He moved to flatten himself forward but grunted when his chest was just crammed harder into the wall in front of him. He heaved out a sigh and tried to shift back but was irritatingly met by a solid, immovable resistance.
“Get off me you big idiot.”
Feng Xin growled. “I can’t, If I could don’t you think I would have done it by now?”
The words were spoken directly into his ear and he couldn’t repress the shiver that shot through him. He wasn’t even sure how they’d managed to fall for such a simple trap, but now they were well and truly fucked.
Feng Xin moved behind him and the action caused his knee to slip into the space between his legs, a gesture that had Mu Qing's cultivation roaring away in his chest.
This was bad. Extremely, inexplicably terrible.
Panic was bubbling up his throat and he bit his lips against the nausea. Something about his body language must have given him away because Feng Xin made a concerned noise against his neck.
“What’s wrong? It’s only a small array we’ll figure it out.” He was completely off with his assumption but the fact he was making an effort to comfort him had a warmth spreading across his cheeks.
“By we you mean me.” He scoffed, letting his forehead thunk against the wall in front of him as he scoured through different possibilities, “You couldn’t figure out the difference between your ass and your elbow let alone how to disable an array.”
“Fuck you, I thought you were working on being less of a prick?” Feng Xin paused but then continued, the tone of his voice already making Mu Qing dread his next words, “And beside, if I didn’t know an ass from an elbow before, I do now, you know, considering yours is currently wedged in my lap.”
Mu Qing was speechless.
This was something Feng Xin had taken to since Mount Tonglu and their newly constructed friendship. Anytime a scathing string of words left his mouth Feng Xin met them with his own borderline flirty response. Whether Mu Qing was actually annoyed at him and not above letting him know or if he was actually trying to bait him into a dirty sparring session, he was always met with the same flirtatious attitude. The first time it had happened Mu Qing had spat out the tea he was drinking and turned an embarrassing shade of pink and he had a feeling that Feng Xin had been using it to his advantage ever since.
“That’s not my fault you imbecile! If you’d kept your big head out of this mission then neither of us would be in this situation anyway.”
To his absolute horror Feng Xin only laughed. The vibration hummed against the line of his back. Mu Qing was just about to scold him for the action when the small box they appeared to be in rocked forward, jolting both of the men inside it the same way. He couldn’t help the grunt that left him as Feng Xin's full martial god weight was pressed onto him.
“What have you been eating?! Why on earth would anyone need to be this damn heavy? You don’t even need to eat for goodness sake, You're a martial god!”
”Sustinence is good for building muscle asshole. I thought you would know that considering you’re such an insufferable smartarse.”
Mu Qing opened his mouth to snap back but managed to bite his tongue before he said something so astoundingly nasty it left a poor taste in his mouth.
This situation was really starting to get on his nerves now and he doubled down on his efforts to find an escape, his hands skimming over the surface of the box, feeling for any type of ridge of dip in the armour. He checked his communication array too, but sighed when he came back from the severed connection. In all honesty even if there was a way to contact someone there was no way in any of the realms that he’d admit to being stuck in a ghost trap with his supposed rival lying on top of him.
It was only after a few quiet minutes that Mu Qing actually considered Feng Xin's silence. He hadn't even heard him so much as breath since he’d scolded him. So when he shifted to look over his shoulder he was shocked to see Feng Xin already looking down at him, the expression splashed over his face bordering on horrified.
Mu Qing felt his eyebrows scrunch in confusion and he went to turn around fully so he could figure out what the hell was wrong with his counterpart when Feng Xin finally moved. His hands gripped Mu Qing's hips. Hard. Preventing him from doing so much as shifting.
The next words from his mouth were forced out from between gritted teeth and his fingers clenched even harder at his waist.
“Gods, please stop moving.”
And in that moment Mu Qing became alarmingly aware of the undeniable feeling of hardness pressing into him from behind. Every thought in his mind seemed to skid to a halt and nothing seemed to make sense. The only thing his mind seemed to care about being fucking Ju Yang trying dig itself into the back of his hip.
“Can’t you control your tremendous masculinity ?!”
The words were meant to be scathing but they came out broken, his voice cracking under the sheer amount of panic he could feel flooding his chest.
“Of course I can! But you currently wriggling around right on top of it is making it biologically impossible!”
“You're blaming this on me now?!“
Mu Qing was baffled, so glaringly out of his depth he felt his mind conjuring images of his teenage years in Xian Le swimming to the surface when he'd been only a boy with nothing to his name but a criminal father and a snotty attitude that had people scoffing in his face. The memories only made the already raging shame in his chest burn through the rest of him like a fever and he didn’t even think before he snapped.
“You’re an animal! And the followers who are so obsessed with that thing between your legs are no better. What sort of God lets themselves be Worshipped for such an infelicitous and foul thing?”
”What the fuck does ‘infelicitous’ even mean!?”
Mu Qing went to reply, ready to throw away all his decency and berate Feng Xin for his lacking vocabulary when he realised how hot he felt. A heat so intense it had every pore on his skin prickling with perspiration, the moisture fusing his robes uncomfortably to his body like a retched second skin. His stomach dropped when he finally recognised the mortifying feeling of his arousal, its ugly head rearing low in his belly as he trembelled at the mere thought. He heard a noise then and it took a second for him to register that it was coming from his own mouth, a low choked gasp as that impending feeling of doom smashed through him.
He could hear Feng Xin's distorted voice in the background but nothing made sense, his senses completely overwhelmed and unwilling to cooperate with him even if every fiber in his body was screaming at him to get a grip. To pull himself together. To not let himself be so uncharacteristically vulnerable in front of Feng Xin.
However, every other thought was crushed beneath the weight of dread that enveloped him and it was the only warning he got before agony ripped through his chest. He cried out, unable to contain the sound as his cultivation splintered again and his golden core wavered against his body's betrayal.
He scrambled, trying so desperately to find some semblance of relief from the pain but his joints had locked up. So tightly woven with tension that he could feel his tendons grinding under the pressure. Feng Xin chose that moment to squeeze tightly at his waist, most likely an attempt to keep himself stable but the action only had the opposite effect and the pain at his centre peaked. His vision spiked with rays of darkness, blurring his sight as his consciousness slipped away from him.
-
When he finally started to come around the pain in his chest had disappeared, replaced with a sensitive kind of tenderness that made him wince when he sucked in a croaking breath. The softness around him must have been a bed of some kind and when he registered the voices surrounding him he wanted to crawl under the covers and never return.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, he was fine one second and then just fucking collapsed on me.”
“Maybe he’s been pushing himself too hard recently, you know Mu Qing has never been good at knowing his own limits. Even worse at taking care of himself.”
Mu Qing had never been more appreciative of his highness as he chose to skim over the truth to save him some face. However he chose not to analyse his words too deeply, not sure he was ready to confront whatever he found in them.
There was silence for a moment before Xie Lian spoke up again.
“Did anything happen while you were inside the array that could have caused it? Any mysterious objects or powders?”
He heard Feng Xin clear his throat, coughing awkwardly and felt his face heating up at the mere memory of the hot pressure pressed against his hip.
“Umm - well, nothing that should have warranted a complete blackout.” The words landed oddly and it only got worse when no one answered him.
It was a laugh to his left that had his stomach sinking, and Hua Cheng joyous voice piped up.
“Oh this is brilliant, General Ju Yang has claimed another victim.”
A garbled string of profanity fell from Feng Xin's lips but before he could pounce Mu Qing guessed Xie Lain stepped between them.
“Feng Xin, why don’t you go and report to Ling Wen? Mu Qing is safe here and the last thing he is going to need when he wakes up is a desk full of paperwork.”
Feng Xin made a noise like he wanted to argue but Xie Lian must have made that ridiculous face that no one can say no to because moments later the door opened and closed, two sets of footsteps retreating down the hallway.
Mu Qing had just begun scheming on how he could slip away without drawing any attention to himself when that voice piped up from across the room.
“You can stop pretending now you fool.”
Mu Qing opened his eyes immediately, scowling when he found Hua Cheng still reclining lazily in one of the divans to the side of the bed. Oozing this cocky type of power that made Mu Qing want to gouge his remaining eye out. His hand toyed with the small red pearl braided into his hair but his words were laced with seriousness.
“If you keep wasting Gege’s time I’ll kill you myself before your wounded cultivation even has the chance.” Mu Qing scoffed as he heaved himself to sit up in the ludicrously decorated burgundy bed, actively ignoring the undeniable fact that Hua Cheng was aware of his affliction.
“I wouldn’t even be here if that stupid animal hadn’t dragged me here unconscious, so don’t worry I’ll be out of your hair in no time.”
But when he went to swing his legs over a freezing hand shot out to grip his shoulder, pinning him in place. “Gege wants to speak to you so you won’t be going anywhere.”
Anger flared in his chest and he gripped Hu Cheng's wrist tightly, the tension in the room flaring so aggressively he thought for a second he could taste it.
“Get your icy hand off of me you undead bastard.”
Xie Lian chose that moment to walk back through the door, his eyes scanning over the two of them before a frown settled on his face and he sighed. “Mu Qing, you shouldn’t be moving so much, your cultivation took a massive hit.”
He came and sat at the end of the bed, his eyes flitting over to where Hua Cheng was gripping him before raising them to his husband's face, a message so obvious that the ghost king let go immediately, backing away from Mu Qing with an angry mumble and slumping back in his chair.
“Mu Qing, when you told me your cultivation was causing you ‘more trouble than it’s worth’ I didn’t know you meant excruciating pain that was knocking you unconscious.”
Shame flooded through his body and he couldn’t meet Xie Lian's eye when he replied. “It hasn’t ever been that bad before”
“Well it is now.” Xie Lian was looking at him with those eyes, the ones that showed exactly what he was feeling through the dark of his pupils. “You can’t keep this up Mu Qing, your golden core won't withstand another hit like that.”
The serious tone of Xie Lian’s voice had the hairs on his arms standing up. It wasn’t like he hadn’t known that he needed to figure this out sooner rather than later but the idea that one more slip up could have him teetering on the edge of a gruesome demise was unsettling.
“I’ve made progress. I just need to find the time to actually sort the logistics out.” He couldn't help but glance back to Hua Cheng who’d been eyeing him intensely like he was some kind of flight risk.
It irked Mu Qing to no end that he was right.
“That’s really good news, but I'd advise you to make this your first priority.”
Something about the words sat astray in his mind and his fist clenched around the sheets in his lap.
“This isn’t something that can be rushed. Not everyone has an endless well of spiritual energy they can borrow from with a touch of the lips or a romp in the sheets.” The words were clipped but they lacked the usual bite, the exhaustion from the day finally seeping into his bones.
“One mistake and I would lose eight hundred years of carefully crafted power and status. One stupid rushed mistake and I’m nothing more than a mortal waiting to expire.”
Xie Lian shuffled closer to him, his legs folded over each other as he leant forward to really solidify Mu Qing attention.
His words were laced with earnestness when he finally replied. “You have a plan for everything. You read reports three times over just to be certain you have all the facts. You have back up plans for your back up plans. Your mind carries an intelligence that most cultivators could only dream of.“ His gaze never wavered and they shone with such intensity that it made Mu Qing want to shy away into the bed frame but his next words had his frozen on the spot.
“You don’t make mistakes.”
The sharp spike of an unwanted memory stabbed at his heart and blurred images took him back to his youth. Back to that clearing and those thirty-three officials. Back to actions he can’t take back and the cold splatter of mud against his face. And with one look at Xie Lian's face he knew he was remembering the same thing.
He swallowed thickly and spoke slowly.
“We both know that's not true”
Xie Lian said nothing, the crease between his eyebrows deepening in thought.
“I think your scared”
The words landed heavy in the space between them and Mu Qing could feel his chest twisting with something. But to his surprise there was no anger, no bitterness, nothing that had his mind coiling over vicious words he could use to defend himself. No, the only thing he felt was seen and he wasn’t sure what was worse.
The accusation felt like a part of him had been stripped from the bone. Like Xie, Lian had reached in and siphoned through the ancient poison that had been festering inside of him for centuries and chosen to peer into the soft and vulnerable waters of his soul of which he lacked the ability to conceal behind a distant facade.
“I think you're scared of what it means and you’re afraid of your own feelings.” Xie Lian said softly, reiterating his own thoughts before he reached forward to unwind Mu Qing's fingers from the white knuckled grip on the blanket, taking his hand in his own soft ones.
“Changing your whole spiritual identity after eight hundred years is terrifying. There is no denying that, but if anyone can do it, it's you.”
Mu Qing met his eye, feeling his heart beating against his rib cage as he let himself soak in Xie Lian's words.
“I don’t like not knowing. It leaves too much possibility for things to turn out worse than they are now.”
“What if they turn out better?” Xie Lian's voice was hopeful and it settled around him like an embrace.
“What if it means that you get to live how you want, do what you want to do?” He paused, wetting his lips before continuing hoarsely, “Let’s you love who you want to love without having to abide by someone else's outdated rules?”
It wasn’t something he’d even dared to let himself think about. What he wanted hadn’t ever mattered, not when he was young and belittled by the palace mentors and not when he rose to godhood as no more than the ‘Sweeping General’. His wants had been discarded and cemented behind walls that disguised themselves as ‘holy cultivation’ to bolster his position but in reality they were like iron bars to a prison of his own creation.
But things were different now. Centuries had passed, beliefs had changed and most importantly to his utter disbelief, what he wanted did matter.
To him.
To Xie Lian.
And hopefully to Feng Xin.