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When he opened his eyes the first thing Xie Lian noticed was that he wasn’t in Puji shrine, much less in Paradise Manor. The place where he found himself seemed old, abandoned, and not at all like the places he knew.
His first thought was that someone could have kidnapped him while he was sleeping, but that was unlikely. Hua Cheng wouldn’t allow something like that to happen. The other possibility was that he himself could have gone to this place, but in that case, how could he have forgotten it? Xie Lian lifted one of his hands to his face, hoping he could use the communication array, but he was surprised to feel a solid structure covering his face.
A mask.
But not just any mask. Xie Lian was familiar with the one he was now wearing. The mask that smiled and wept at the same time. It made him tense up to feel it against his skin again. Why was he here? What had happened? His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door opening.
The figure that entered the room was dressed in black, his face covered with a smiling mask.
“Your highness.”
Barely entering, the ghost kneeled before him, his head bowed toward the ground. That was the last thing Xie Lian needed in order to understand what was happening.
He didn’t think it was a dream, but what was it then? He was visiting the past? Or, perhaps, all his life until this moment had been a dream? Hua Cheng, his second ascension, Shi Qingxuan, the identity of the White Calamity…was it possible that it all had been the dream of a disgraced god?
“Wu Ming?” he called uncertainly, as if his mouth was not used to that name.
The ghost slowly rose, seeming prepared to fulfill any kind of request.
“Yes, your highness?” He had barely spoken when it seemed that the ghost had realized something, returning to his kneeling posture. “I’m sorry, my lord, was there something you wanted to know?”
That the title he called him had changed made Xie Lian feel guilty. He remembered. Maybe not with much clarity, but he knew well enough where they were.
“Where are we? How long was I asleep?”
The questions seemed to take Wu Ming by surprise as much as the lack of authority in his voice.
“Just yesterday we went to Yong’an. Your highness wanted to come to Lang-er bay, where we are now. You said that you wanted to do something, but that you wanted to rest first. The sun went down and I came to wake you as you instructed me, my lord.”
Xie Lian was almost tempted to ask him to get up and stop addressing him this way. To take off the mask and forget everything. There was no way those eight hundred years had been only the product of a dream, and maybe the universe was just giving him an opportunity to redeem himself, to correct one of the guiltiest moments of his life.
He had treated Hua Cheng so badly at that time in his life, when he’d felt so lost.
He’d never imagined that the time would come back for him to relive it all. An opportunity to change what had been for what could have been.
“Wu Ming...take off your mask.”
The ghost shook at his request.
“My face is not pleasant--” he tried to explain. “Or is it an order?”
That question only made Xie Lian feel more guilty for his past actions.
He had been so frustrated, he had only used “Wu Ming” as a tool to increase his energy, and when he sacrificed himself to stop what Xie Lian himself had started he felt so guilty...his second cursed shackle had been formed as penance.
Now he could correct that error.
“Yes. It is. It is an order.”
After he said it the ghost did not hesitate to remove the mask from his face, but he was still staring at the ground. There was a red pupil where Hua Cheng put his eyepatch. (Or was it more appropriate to say where he would have put it?)
Imitating the other’s movement, Xie Lian pulled the mask off his face and carelessly threw it behind him. He didn’t want to go back and see that thing. He sat down on the bed again and motioned the ghost to get up. Now without the masks the atmosphere felt much different than with them. Less uncomfortable, more suitable.
“Isn’t it better like this?” he laughed.
But he stopped when he saw the serious and profound expression that framed Wu Ming’s face.
Without a doubt, the sudden change in personality must have been something strange for him. Ruoye as well, wrapping around his hand, seemed surprised and unused to the gentle motions and calm expressions of Xie Lian. Already there was no resentment or hatred, nor the fierce desire to become a calamity and drag another kingdom into eternal despair.
There were only eight hundred years of memories that seemed as if they had never existed. Eight hundred years in which he had suffered, but also found happiness, and now the person who had made him begin to forgive himself was kneeling before him.
“San--Wu Ming--” he corrected, “You can be at ease around me, and you can call me what you like. I don’t want to take revenge on Yong’an anymore, but thank you for being willing to help me.”
“Your highness…”
“I should have insisted before,” he reasoned from the ghost’s confusion, “Your name as a mortal--do you think I could guess it?”
It was clear that the ghost did not know how to respond, but upon seeing the smile on the other’s face, a relaxed expression very different from that of the mask, he agreed.
“Hong-er.”
When the name left his lips Wu Ming’s expression changed from confusion to surprise, and Xie Lian thought there was fear reflected in his face. A clear question in his mind that did not need to be spoken for Xie Lian to understand it.
“You were the soldier that accompanied me that time, right? With the demon flowers,” he remembered. An uncomfortable smile flicked across his face as he remembered that time. “You were also the little boy I saved from falling...how many years have passed since then? Five? Six?” It didn’t seem like much in comparison to the eight hundred years he remembered. “You were also that ghost fire that tried to help me.”
The other seemed not to follow what he was saying, as if he were in a dream. Something funny considering it was Xie Lian who had awakened from one. To calm him, Xie Lian decided to place his hand on the other’s cheek. He passed his thumb over the skin under that red eye, feeling nervous as he trembled.
“Your highness?” he asked, not capable of moving in his condition.
“I always liked your face. You told me the first time I saw you that you were ugly.” He moved closer to see him better. “But to me it seems beautiful.”
Hua Cheng almost seemed to be at the point of collapsing as he heard those words.
To see that aspect of him almost made Xie Lian smile. He was still only a teenager. He also had changed a lot in those eight hundred years, beyond that he hadn’t returned to life. Now he wasn’t so temerous, he wasn’t a calamity, just a ghost who had loyally followed the only person he believed in.
“I had a really weird dream, you know? I dreamed that I was a god again and you were a calamity. My only and most loyal follower.” Xie Lian smiled again. “We were together, but a lot of things happened before that.”
Hong-er did not seem to understand.
As he now was not a calamity, there was no point in using the name he’d used all those years. “Wu Ming” was also not an option, and perhaps it was too soon to use “San Lang”.
Many years. Many names. And even so, it had always been the same person.
“Hong-er, I thought that I wanted revenge, but then I discovered that I was wrong,” he began to explain, though it seemed like he was just speaking about his dream. “It seemed like it was too late to change my ways, but you did it, San Lang. After that, I wandered around the world for eight hundred years. A lot of things happened before my third ascension. Would you like to hear them?”
Hong-er was about to nod, but then a memory stopped him.
“But in three days you said that… Yong’an and…”
Xie Lian shook his head.
“That’s not important anymore.”
As if that phrase was the only thing he needed, Hong-er’s shoulders relaxed a little. The trace of a smile reflected in his face as this time he nodded with determination.
“I would like to hear his highness’s dream.”