Body in Flames; Home in Paradise (TGCF HuaLian)

Chapter 3

If Xie Lian hadn't been watching Hua Cheng carefully he might've missed his reaction, missed the way his shoulders tighten and his whole body stiffens, missed the way he catches himself and relaxes again, but Xie Lian is watching carefully. All of his attention is on Hua Cheng, and so he can't fail to notice every part of his reaction.

He doesn't understand it

But he notices.

"No name? That's an unusual name for a technique."

Hua Cheng's tone hasn't changed, still light and interested, so normal that Xie Lian almost thinks that he's imagined that first strange reaction, but he knows that he hasn't. If the topic of conversation was something else Xie Lian might have considered that particular reaction more closely, but as it is, it's hard to think clearly and analyze when his own mind suddenly fills with a haze of painful memory.

Poor Wu Ming.

"It's not exactly no-name... I mean it is but..."

Xie Lian sighs softly and looks down at his hands, flexing his fingers lightly. Is he really going to tell this story? He has never told anyone, not once, has kept Wu Ming to himself like a secret pressed against his heart. Part of him wants it to stay that way forever but another part of him wonders if it was only his own shame that makes him feel that way. He chose his second shackle and his third banishment all to atone for what he did to his last believer, because he couldn't bear the thought of treating Wu Ming in death as Xie Lian treated him ... Well not exactly in life but... As a tool to be used and discarded and forgotten.

He doesn't want Wu Ming to be forgotten.

He's never told anyone but he finds that, somehow, he's comfortable with the idea of telling Hua Cheng, Hua Cheng who is hundreds of years old and who is one of the most powerful ghosts to have ever existed, Hua Cheng who will be able to remember Wu Ming long after Xie Lian himself has been forgotten.

"There was a ghost who followed me once." He begins slowly. "He had no name and so, because I was being cruel, I just called him Wu Ming. There was ...a lot happening at the time. In the end I did something that I should not have done, something awful. I tried to make it right but Wu Ming stopped me. He took the consequences of my actions on his own shoulders and sacrificed himself in my place."

Xie Lian pauses for a moment, just closing his eyes and breathing deeply, trying to speak past the agonized scream that echoes through his memory.

"A sword technique that means putting your body between a person and the consequences of their own actions and taking injuries meant for them on to yourself, to me it could only ever be 'Wu Ming.'"

The room is quiet when Xie Lian finishes and he is so lost in his thoughts and regrets that it takes him several moments to realize that all through his story Hua Cheng has neither moved nor spoken. Xie Lian glances over at Hua Cheng and finds that the Ghost King is staring fixedly at his newly healed hand. At least, that's what Xie Lian thinks Hua Cheng is doing. Every muscle of his back and shoulders radiate tension but his head is lowered and his hair once again covers his face, obscuring his expression completely.

"San Lang?" Xie Lian asks the question tentatively, not sure what has so distressed the ghost King or what mistake he made this time. Perhaps it was being reminded of how Xie Lian was hurt? Or perhaps... The way he seems to be staring at his hand, perhaps that's it? Perhaps Xie Lian's story reminded him of something in his own past or present, something to do with the reason he felt the need to hurt himself.

"You weren't cruel." Hua Cheng blurts the words out suddenly, his voice raw and shaking in a way Xie Lian has only ever heard it once before, in the armory, when he begged Xie Lian never to kneel before him.