With the curse broken at last, Xie Lian bade farewell to Feng Xin, Mu Qing, and Lang Qianqiu, then he slowly headed back toward Ghost City with Hua Cheng.
They walked side by side, and Xie Lian’s face stayed hot the entire way—which was Feng Xin and Mu Qing’s fault.
Before the group had gone their separate ways, Feng Xin couldn’t resist asking as he wiped away his sweat, “So why did His Highness react like that at the sight of Crimson Rain Sought Flower? What was with that blood in his heart? Did it want to mess with him on purpose?”
Xie Lian already understood what had happened, and when he heard the question, he quickly replied, “Let’s not look deeper into it!”
“Why not?” Feng Xin asked, confused. “What if it happens again? We need to get to the bottom of this, right?”
Mu Qing humphed. “You can’t even figure that out? That blood was outside of his system for too many years; it needed to reacclimate after returning. Since it didn’t have the chance to, of course it caused a stir. If his heart had been calm like still water, his mind as rippleless as an ancient well, it wouldn’t have mattered. But…”
But with a restless heart, a single stirring thought would cause the blood to roil relentlessly. He would thus be stricken with unbearable agony and endlessly relive the pain of the peachwood nail piercing his heart.
When all had been revealed, Xie Lian didn’t dare look at Hua Cheng. He was quite certain that he’d lost every ounce of dignity to his name, now and forever going forward—didn’t this mean he’d been rolling around in agony because every glance at Hua Cheng, every thought of him, made Xie Lian’s heart go wild?! Even as he considered that, it started racing once again.
Thankfully, it wouldn’t hurt anymore, no matter how fast it raced.
Hua Cheng, who had been silent for a long time, spoke abruptly. “Your Highness.”
“Yes?” Xie Lian answered immediately.
“How long did you stay in that coffin?” Hua Cheng asked.
Xie Lian blinked at the question. “I don’t remember.”
He just knew it had been a long, long time, so long that he didn’t want to count the years. There was pain, blood loss, hunger, hallucinations… At first, he didn’t even try to move a muscle, but later, he felt regret despite himself and pounded wildly at the coffin lid, desperate to break out. In the end, he allowed himself to sink into the boundless darkness once more.
It wasn’t the same kind of pain he experienced when he suffered a hundred stabs from a sword, a pain that made him sure he was doomed to eternal hell. Instead, it was a dull throb that went on and on without end.
He let out a sigh.
“What is it, Your Highness?” Hua Cheng immediately asked. “Does it still hurt?”
Xie Lian shook his head. A moment later, he mumbled, “Sorry, San Lang.”
Hua Cheng was puzzled. “Why are you apologizing to me?”
After some hesitation, Xie Lian said, “Today is your birthday. I wanted to make it a good day for you, but instead we spent the whole time stressed and trying to break that curse.”
He’d planned on bearing the pain at least until Hua Cheng’s birthday was over, but he hadn’t been able to hang on.
“Even the present I gave you had to be destroyed,” Xie Lian said.
And it was Hua Cheng himself who crushed it, no less. From beginning to end, today was a horrible ordeal. Xie Lian was extremely depressed, and it was hard to imagine how Hua Cheng must feel.
Hua Cheng stopped walking. “Your Highness,” he said, his voice gentle, “you’ve already given me a present today.”
Xie Lian blinked. “What?”
Please don’t say “you’re the best present” or something, Xie Lian thought. That’d only mortify him more.
Hua Cheng gazed at him and smiled. “Your Highness, you said that you wanted to see me even if it hurt you. That you didn’t want to part, even when it caused you so much pain.”
“…”
“That made me really happy,” Hua Cheng finished, his voice low.
Recalling what a tragic sight he’d been when he said that to Hua Cheng, Xie Lian cleared his throat softly and covered his face, desperately trying to act natural. However, Hua Cheng suddenly pulled him into his firm embrace. Startled, Xie Lian allowed himself to be pressed against his faintly beating chest.
He heard Hua Cheng say in an even lower voice, “It’s true—I’m really happy.”
“…”
Me too, Xie Lian thought. I’m really happy too.
Over the endless centuries, no matter how painful it got, Hua Cheng had never even considered giving up on him.
It was Xie Lian, who had discovered that fact, who was truly the happiest.
They embraced each other tightly.
“That being said, as happy as I am, I never want you have to bear that sort of pain ever again,” said Hua Cheng.
✦ ✦ ✦
The two of them returned to Ghost City. The ghosts had been worried all day, so at the sight of the couple’s safe return, they immediately turned their riotous chaos into boisterous celebration. As usual, Hua Cheng couldn’t be bothered to comment; he just entered Thousand Lights Temple alongside Xie Lian.
As soon as they went inside, they discovered a whole host of new items had been added to the temple’s horde.
“Who put these here?” Hua Cheng demanded.
Xie Lian picked up the items one by one. “They seem to be gift boxes? This one is from Lord Rain Master, I think. Such fresh vegetables… This one is from Qingxuan, it seems? All right, this one must be from General Pei…”
He counted the presents, growing ever more delighted as he went.
“San Lang! Congratulations. These are everyone’s birthday gifts to the Lord Ghost King,” Xie Lian said with a happy smile.
He had spent the past days like a man possessed, asking everyone he could find what he should give someone for a birthday present. Although he hadn’t specified the recipient, there probably wasn’t a single person who couldn’t guess.
Hua Cheng, however, had no interest in the gifts whatsoever.
“Stop looking at them, gege,” he said. “I’ll throw them all out later. They take up space.”
He looked as though he was seriously going to call for someone to chuck the presents, so Xie Lian hurriedly said, “Let’s not do that. At the very least, these represent everyone’s well-wishes… Wait, why is this here? Who gave you this?!”
The love potion and child-bearing pill were mixed in with the serious gifts. Shocked, he tossed them both aside like a hot potato, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Hua Cheng seemed rather interested, however, and was ready to grab them and take a peek.
“Hmm? What’s this?”
Xie Lian quickly stopped him. “Nothing good! Don’t look!”
✦ ✦ ✦
After much internal conflict, Xie Lian gave Hua Cheng the belt he had personally made at the very beginning as a replacement for the longevity lock.
When Hua Cheng saw it, he laughed so hard he almost couldn’t breathe—though ghosts didn’t need to breathe in the first place. In any case, he wrapped his arms around Xie Lian and kissed him for a long while, complimenting him nonstop—he laid it on so thick that Xie Lian was embarrassed enough to lie flat on the bed and pretend to be dead.
And Xie Lian wanted to pretend to be dead even more when, the next morning, Hua Cheng actually put the thing on—and he was fully prepared to head out wearing it, acting like all was normal. Xie Lian nearly fainted when he saw and rolled off the bed at once to tackle the ghost king. He begged and pleaded for a long time before Hua Cheng very reluctantly agreed to wear it reversed, hiding the side showing the embroidered pattern. That was how Xie Lian narrowly escaped having his handiwork publicly shamed.
As for the consequences of that fateful day… Hua Cheng had caused such a great uproar about Xie Lian’s condition that everyone from the Heavens above to the Earth below knew that Xie Lian had fainted on the ghost king’s birthday. And once the full story got out, everyone from the Heavens above to the Earth below learned that Xie Lian was truly head over heels—he was absolutely, totally in love with Crimson Rain Sought Flower.
But that was a story for another time!