Noticing something was wrong, Feng Xin and Mu Qing called out from afar, “Your Highness? What happened?”
They jogged a couple of steps in his direction, but they paused halfway when they sensed that they shouldn’t interfere so carelessly right now.
In that moment, Xie Lian had stopped caring for anyone else. He wore an expression of pure terror as he gripped Hua Cheng, and his heart had almost stopped beating. “What do I do?!”
Hua Cheng sighed quietly and extended his arms, once again folding Xie Lian into his embrace. “Your Highness, I’ve always watched you.”
That was the second time he’d said it, but his voice was softer and gentler than before. Mind blank, Xie Lian clutched the red robes at his chest.
“I know, I know. But…what should I do now?”
Hua Cheng’s long, slender fingers gently combed through Xie Lian’s mussed hair. “Your Highness…do you know why I refuse to leave?”
Xie Lian couldn’t understand how Hua Cheng could still be so calm at a time like this—he, on the other hand, was panicking so hard he was trembling. Completely at a loss, he still blankly asked, “Why?”
“Because I have a beloved who is still in this world,” Hua Cheng replied quietly.
Xie Lian was slightly stunned.
He’d heard that somewhere before.
“My beloved is a brave, noble, gracious special someone,” Hua Cheng continued. “He saved my life, and I’ve looked up to him ever since I was young. But I wanted to catch up to him and become even stronger for his sake. Although he might not remember me well—we never really talked—I want to protect him.”
He gazed at Xie Lian. “If your dream is to save the common people, then my dream is only you.”
Relying on his memory, Xie Lian asked with a trembling voice, “But…you won’t…be able to rest in peace…like this…?”
“I pray to never rest in peace,” Hua Cheng replied.
In that instant, Xie Lian’s breathing completely stopped. Frozen in this moment, he could faintly hear two voices, one questioning and the other answering.
“If your beloved knew you couldn’t rest in peace because of them, they might feel troubled and guilty.”
“Then I just won’t let them know why I haven’t left.”
“If you meet too often, they’ll find out sooner or later.”
“Then I won’t let them know I’m protecting them either.”
That ball of ghost fire… The weak little ball of ghost fire he bought for a few pennies on that lantern night, long ago. The ghost fire who wanted to pull him up from the graves on a frozen winter’s eve. The ghost fire who tried to shield him from White No-Face and wouldn’t let him go near danger. The ghost fire who had screamed in torment on his behalf as a hundred swords pierced his heart!
“Your Highness, I understand your everything,” Hua Cheng said quietly. “Your courage, your despair. Your kindness, your pain. Your resentment, your hate. Your wisdom, your foolishness.
“If I could, I would have you use me as your stepping stone, the bridge you take apart after crossing, the bones you need to trample on your climb, the sinner who endures the agony of a million knives. But I know you won’t allow it.”
As he spoke, the maple red of his robes continued to fade away.
Xie Lian tried to grab hold of him with shaking hands. He never stopped trying to transfer spiritual power to him, but even that couldn’t prevent Hua Cheng from fading. His vision was going blurry, and his words staggered from his lips.
“All right…don’t say any more. I get it…but…but don’t be like this, all right? San Lang? I…I’ve borrowed so much spiritual power from you that I haven’t repaid. And I’m not done telling you all the things that I wanted to say; there’s still so much. It’s been so long since anyone listened to me talk. Won’t you stay? Don’t…don’t do this. I won’t be able to take it. Twice, it’s happened twice already—I really don’t want there to be a third time!”
Hua Cheng had already vanished from this world twice because of him!
But Hua Cheng only replied, “To die in battle for you is my greatest honor.”
Those words were like a fatal blow. Xie Lian could no longer hold back the tears in his eyes, and they began to pour. As if he were hanging on to the last thread of his life, he pleaded, “You said…you would never leave me.”
But Hua Cheng replied, “There is no banquet in this world that doesn’t come to an end.”
Agony constricted his heart and throat, and Xie Lian couldn’t speak another word. He bowed his head and buried it deep in Hua Cheng’s chest.
Yet soon after, he heard Hua Cheng say above him, “But I will never leave you.”
Xie Lian’s head shot up.
“I will come back,” Hua Cheng said. “Your Highness, believe me.”
Although his voice was firm, his pale face had also begun to fade. Xie Lian wanted to touch his cheek, but his fingertips only slid through air. Startled, he locked eyes with Hua Cheng once more.
Hua Cheng’s gaze was both gentle and blazing. His remaining eye was filled with love as it stared at him silently. He said something, but there was no sound from his lips. Refusing to give up, desperate to hear him, Xie Lian reached out with both hands to grab him and yank him deeper into his arms.
But before he could do so, the one he was holding, and the one holding him, disappeared.
In an instant, Hua Cheng shattered into thousands of silver butterflies right before Xie Lian’s eyes, transforming into a breeze of twinkling stars that he could neither embrace nor hold.
Even as his arms came up empty, he maintained that hugging position, not moving a limb. He couldn’t tell if he hadn’t come to his senses yet, or if his body simply couldn’t move anymore, but he stayed there, kneeling, amidst the dreamlike array of butterflies, his eyes wide.
As they looked on from a distance, Feng Xin and Mu Qing had never imagined that this was how things would play out. Both their faces paled as they rushed forward.
“Your Highness!”
Feng Xin was the first to arrive. “How did things go so wrong out of nowhere?! Wasn’t he fine just a few minutes ago?! Was it because of the cursed shackles?!”
Mu Qing hobbled up right behind him. He couldn’t jump, so he instead yelled at the silver butterflies, “Crimson Rain Sought Flower! Don’t mess around; if you’re not dead, then come the hell out!”
Naturally, the silver butterflies did not answer him. They fluttered erratically, flapping their wings and rising toward the sky. Feng Xin reached out to pull Xie Lian up, but he remained weighted to the ground like a stone.
Feng Xin didn’t know what to do anymore. “Is there some way we can help? Do you need spiritual power? Can he be saved? What should we do?!”
Mu Qing, however, had already figured out what had happened. “Drop it; just shut your mouth! We can’t do anything at this point.”
The air was alight with a shimmering, twinkling glow. The butterflies’ wings sparkled, just as they had during their first reunion after eight hundred years apart.
A silver butterfly drifted over and lightly brushed the back of Xie Lian’s hand, his cheek, his forehead. Its actions were full of affectionate longing, as if it were whispering its goodbyes. Xie Lian numbly extended a hand and let it rest there.
The silver butterfly fluttered its wings in delight, and sure enough, it lingered for him. But it too couldn’t last. It wasn’t long before it scattered on the wind like the rest.
However, in the spot where it had perched on Xie Lian’s third finger, there was still a bright, vivid red string.