They returned to the same magnificent restaurant from before.
The man in red with whom Xie Lian had just become acquainted was very generous, and he ordered an entire tableful of the best dishes the restaurant had to offer. Surprisingly, the restaurant’s fare wasn’t any lower quality than imperial cuisine, and many of the dishes were novel recipes that Xie Lian had never seen or tasted before. Ravenous, he ate and ate, and it was some time before he realized San Lang had been watching him unblinking the entire time with his hand propping up one cheek. That gaze almost made Xie Lian feel like he was the dish being eaten.
“…”
His intense regard made Xie Lian jittery again, like he was sitting on needles. Once he was sure he hadn’t forgotten his manners due to hunger, he placed his chopsticks down and softly cleared his throat.
“…Excuse me.”
“Hmm? What needs to be excused? Don’t mind me,” said San Lang. “Please, continue.”
Then, he took out the steamed bun they’d fought over earlier and, without batting an eye, started eating it. Now Xie Lian only felt more embarrassed.
Shifting straighter in his seat, he glanced at the white silk band and decided it was time to discuss serious business.
“Why would this evil creature hide on my person? I’m shocked that I didn’t notice its existence. It was almost as if…”
As if he had been carrying it with him for so long that he’d gotten used to it being there.
The white silk band kept swinging its head and wagging its tail like it was trying to swim over to him. Had it not been kept firmly in place by San Lang, it probably would’ve already wrapped Xie Lian up like a zongzi. It seemed…rather enamored with him.
San Lang pinned it to the table with a chopstick, denying it any chance to tackle Xie Lian. “Seems like this evil creature has some very bad habits, hm? It needs to be trained,” he said with a smile.
“Rather than train it, let’s first figure out exactly where it came from,” Xie Lian said.
The two of them chatted about this, that, and everything. Xie Lian had grown up in the Palace of Xianle and then cultivated at the Royal Cultivation Hall. He had never met anyone so interesting and so knowledgeable. As he listened to San Lang talk, Xie Lian’s eyes were bright and a broad smile painted his face, and he could almost toss all his troubles to the back of his mind. It was a long while before he remembered that he was in the middle of a bizarre maelstrom.
He straightened his expression and said, “San Lang, can I ask you about someone?”
San Lang threw the white silk band to the ground and did something that made it too weak to jump back up. “Who?”
“It’s like this,” Xie Lian said. “I’m looking for someone named Hua Cheng.”
When he heard the name, San Lang quirked an eyebrow. “Hmm. Can I ask what you hope to achieve by finding him?”
“To be honest, I don’t know,” Xie Lian said earnestly. Judging by the man’s tone, he clearly knew who Hua Cheng was, so he added, “Maybe you think I’m lying to you, but it’s true—I don’t know what I hope to achieve by finding him. When I woke up today, I found myself in a very strange state.”
He told the whole story in one breath, leaving out the unspeakable, mortifying details.
“So this man might be a key figure in what happened,” Xie Lian finished. “San Lang, if you know who he is, would you please tell me more, if you don’t mind?”
“Ah, it’s not a matter of whether I mind,” San Lang chuckled. “Daozhang, of course I’ll help you—it already feels like we’ve known each other forever. As for Hua Cheng…”
Xie Lian listened intently, all his attention on the man before him. “Yes?”
“He’s a madman.”
“How is he mad?”
San Lang poured a cup of wine, then picked it up. “He’s a devotee.”
“Whose?”
“The Crown Prince of Xianle.”
Cough, cough, cough. Xie Lian quickly swallowed the tea in his mouth before he started sputtering. “Wait a sec, hang on. I…the Crown Prince of Xianle hasn’t even become a god yet, so how could he be a devotee?”
“He will be, though, sooner or later,” San Lang replied, nonchalant. “Besides, there’s nothing to being a god, really. If you say you’re a god, then you’re a god. If you say you aren’t, then you aren’t. He considers the crown prince a god, and that’s all there is to it.”
“That’s too random!” Xie Lian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but after a pause, he asked quietly, “…Does he really believe His Highness will become a god for certain?”
“He doesn’t believe,” San Lang said slowly, then his lips widened into a grin. “He knows.”
Xie Lian grinned back, but he thought to himself, Then I mustn’t let him down.
He crossed his arms and asked, “So where can I meet this Hua Cheng?”
“Do you really want to meet him, Daozhang?” asked San Lang.
“I do.”
San Lang didn’t seem to agree with that course of action. “But Hua Cheng is an awful person.”
Xie Lian furrowed his brows. “Awful? How so?”
He refused to believe that someone who was so sure he would become a god was a bad person.
“Well…” San Lang started.
Just then, Xie Lian noticed something. Up until now, he’d been very cautious of San Lang, so he hadn’t really looked straight at him. But now that they’d interacted for a while and gotten to know each other, he was finally relaxing a little and let his eyes wander.
One of San Lang’s arms was slung across the railing, his finger tapping on it idly. They were long, slender digits, and the third was tied with a thin red string—a bright red affinity knot.
Xie Lian immediately recalled the chaotic images that flashed through his mind when the songstress sang—two hands with fingers tightly interwoven beneath satin curtains.
Upon the top hand in that image, there was a red string just like that.