A/N: To all my FFN readers, please keep in mind this story was crossposted from Ao3 (my username there is delirious_melon) but thanks to a busy schedule, I wasn't able to get the chapters formatted to this site until a day after the story went up on Ao3. That said, because of FFN's character limit, there may be some slight differences between the story summary here and the story summary on FFN.
Xie Lian froze again as he made eye contact with one of the strange figures in front of him. He would've dropped his wooden planks to leave his hands free, but the planks had disappeared when the darkness overtook him like everything else. He grabbed his wrist with his opposite hand, feeling the soft silk bandaging that was Ruoye. At least he had a means of defending himself if the entities wandering about him turned out to be hostile.
He tried to take in his surroundings for the sake of orienting himself, but there was nothing but the darkness and the figures with glowing white eyes and sharp teeth that seemed far too large and numerous to belong to a humanoid creature. The air was a normal temperature, strangely enough. He'd expect a desolate place like this to be freezing cold.
I don't even know where I am or how I got here. San Lang probably doesn't know where to find me. I have to get back to him. Xie Lian thought to himself, deciding that he was going to try and sneak past the mysterious entities and find a way out of this strange place.
He began to walk forward, but the moment he did, one of the creatures turned toward him and let out an animalistic, high-pitched shriek, springing toward him at such speed that he didn't even have time to draw back into a defensive stance. He had no choice but to leap out of the way, twisting around in mid-air.
"Ruoye!" he exclaimed, fully intending to restrain the creature with the silk.
But... Ruoye didn't respond.
Impossible.
Xie Lian hit the ground hard and immediately took off running. The floor produced a heavy thudding sound beneath his feet that echoed back to his ears many times as if it were reverberating off something, but there were no walls around him that could've caused such an effect. He glanced behind him just in time to see those hideous white eyes burning right into him from only a few inches away. He didn't even have time to draw out a protective rune. All he could do was pivot sharply to one side, narrowly avoiding the teeth whose jaws leered wide open, preparing to swallow him up.
Where am I? What kind of sick, twisted place is this? Xie Lian's heart was beating so rapidly it was almost as if it were trying to pound right out of his chest and his ears were ringing. How do I get out of here? Why isn't Ruoye responding to me?
He didn't have time to question his circumstance any further. As he frantically darted from side to side in an attempt to avoid the creature that was fixated on him, he didn't realize he was attracting the attention of all the others in the immediate vicinity. Many of them turned to look as he came too close. The ones that saw him let out blood-curdling shrieks of their own and immediately joined the chase.
Xie Lian was hopelessly outnumbered at this point and partially surrounded.
He turned around quickly, seeking a way around the creatures that were quickly advancing on him. But he was too slow. Just as he had begun to sprint again, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his side, unlike anything he had felt before. It was almost as if the area around the pain was laced in ice because a horrible chill overtook him that he could feel all the way down to his bones.
With a sharp cry, Xie Lian stumbled and fell, skidding along the unexpectedly slick ground. He made a move to spring to his feet, quickly pushing his hair out of his face as he felt warm blood spurting from his side, but the creatures were already upon him. He raised his arms to cover his head, and then...
…All of a sudden, everything blurred. The creatures and the surrounding darkness fell away.
Xie Lian quite suddenly found himself staring up at a sunset sky laced with fiery shades of orange, pink, and purple. He was sprawled out across the dirt road where he had been standing before the darkness came, and lying beside him were the wooden boards he'd lost track of. He immediately became aware of a familiar voice right by his ear.
"Xie Lian? Can you hear me?" Hua Cheng was right there, holding Xie Lian's limp form in his lap and trying desperately to revive his beloved by shaking his shoulders, lightly smacking his cheeks, or pinching his arm not quite hard enough to cause pain. The moment Hua Cheng realized his efforts had worked, he visibly slumped a little with relief, crushing Xie Lian in a protective hug. "Oh, thank the gods. I'm so sorry, I thought you were behind me. I didn't realize you had stopped. Are you alright? Do you feel ill?"
Xie Lian was completely overwhelmed by everything that had just happened, and his limbs felt heavy and useless as if they weighed far more than they actually did. "What... What do you mean? Where did you go?"
"I just went a little further up the road, gege. As soon as I looked behind me and saw that you weren't there, I came right back. The villagers said that you fainted or something like that." Hua Cheng quickly explained, kissing Xie Lian's forehead repeatedly as a sort of apology for nearly leaving him behind.
Speaking of villagers... there was a small crowd of concerned-looking people surrounding the two on the ground. The moment Xie Lian realized they were there, he immediately hid his face in Hua Cheng's shirt, utterly embarrassed. He could feel the same sharp pain from before pulsating throughout his side, but he didn't know how to put two words together at the moment and explain to his lover what had happened.
Fortunately, Hua Cheng figured it out pretty quickly. He was in the process of checking the other's head for any sort of injury when his free hand brushed against Xie Lian's side and came away glistening with fresh blood. Xie Lian made a small pained noise at the slight contact. Hua Cheng realized with a start that there was a rather large crimson stain blooming across Xie Lian's white Taoist robes.
"You're bleeding. Who did this to you?" Hua Cheng glanced up at the villagers. "Did anyone see who did this?"
The villagers exchanged fearful glances and, one by one, they all shook their heads no.
Suddenly furious, Hua Cheng rose to his feet, scooping Xie Lian up into his arms with ease. "A well-known priest gets badly injured in broad daylight and none of you saw what happened? That's a whole lot of perfectly functional eyes doing absolutely nothing."
"We only saw him collapse a few seconds before you came running over." one of the young women of the village piped up. "No one came anywhere near him that I know of, much less touched him or caused him to bleed like that."
Hua Cheng didn't bother responding to her. He pushed through the crowd and hurried down the path as fast as he possibly could, taking great care not to jostle Xie Lian, who was drifting in and out of consciousness and completely oblivious to what was happening.
It looked like a stab wound, from what I could see. But that's impossible if no one saw anything come close to him. Hua Cheng's thoughts were racing almost as fast as he was running. He had no idea what could've happened during the brief moment he was away from his beloved. From what I've seen, the villagers are all very fond of Xie Lian. They have no reason to cover up anything bad that happened to him in front of them. Someone would've spoken up about the culprit.
"You need to stay awake, gege. Do you remember what happened at all?" Hua Cheng asked, tightening his grip on the limp form in his arms.
"It was... dark." Xie Lian mumbled, his words slurring slightly as he fought off another wave of icy-cold agony from the wound in his side. "There were things with sharp teeth. Lots of them."
Things with sharp teeth? Hua Cheng wondered if Xie Lian had encountered some kind of deformed ghost, or perhaps many deformed ghosts. It wasn't entirely unlikely, but lesser ghosts were generally wary of populated areas when the sun was still up.
"Okay. How did you get hurt? Do you remember?" he asked gently.
The next words out of Xie Lian's mouth caused Hua Cheng even more unease than before. "They chased me. I don't know what they did, but when they caught up to me, it hurt."
"You were in the same spot where I lost sight of you, qinaide. If you were being chased, you didn't get very far. Did you try telling any of the villagers what was going on? I'm sure they would've helped you." Hua Cheng suggested, trying to make sense of the situation.
"Villagers?" Xie Lian sounded puzzled. "There were no villagers. Or at least none that I could see."
"Okay, okay. We'll talk about that part when you're in your right mind." Hua Cheng decided that pain and blood loss were making Xie Lian delusional. He probably wasn't telling the story correctly because he couldn't focus. "Do you know what you were stabbed with? A dagger, a sword, or was it something else?"
"I don't know. I didn't see what they did."
Hua Cheng thought it best to change the subject and asked more minor questions, like how Xie Lian was feeling and if he remembered what he'd been doing before he was chased and hurt. He seemed perfectly capable of answering those questions, dispelling Hua Cheng's delusion theory. A delusional person would provide ridiculous answers to very basic, simple questions.
When he reached the shrine, Hua Cheng kicked open the door rather than bothering with unlocking it. The first thing he did was set Xie Lian down on the makeshift bed they shared.
"Do me a favor and call for some sort of backup." Hua Cheng said, taking off his cloak and spreading it over Xie Lian like a blanket.
"Why?"
"Once I figure out the size, depth, and cause of your injury, I'm going to go out looking for herbs that will help you feel better. I need someone here to keep an eye on you while I'm gone though. It's dangerous to leave injured people alone."
"I'm fine, San Lang. It doesn't even hurt that much."
"Please, gege. I don't want to leave you by yourself while you're like this. It would make me feel better knowing someone's here watching you."
"Fine, fine." Xie Lian touched one hand to his ear and began speaking in a hushed, trembling voice with Ling Wen, the Civil God who both created and owned the Upper Court's communication array. Within moments, after having a full conversation with the woman that Hua Cheng could only hear one side of, Xie Lian dropped his hand with a heavy sigh. "Ling Wen's sending Fu Yao and Nan Feng like she usually does. She also told me to tell you not to complain about it because she refuses to send anyone else."
Hua Cheng would've ignored such a warning and complained anyway, but he knew better to mess with someone as stern as Ling Wen. "That's... better than nothing."
Xie Lian offered his lover a weak, pained smile. "They should be here soon. Don't torment them too much this time. I'm too tired to scold the lot of you."
"Okay. I'll do my best to behave." Hua Cheng found messing with the two rowdy Deputy Gods wildly amusing, but he would also do absolutely anything Xie Lian asked. "Do you mind if I take a look at your side?"
Xie Lian nodded and slipped his shoulders out of the long sleeves of his robes, baring himself from the waist up. There was a ghastly puncture wound to his side surrounded by dried blood that had caked up and clung to his porcelain skin. The edges of the wound were jagged as if whatever had stabbed him was viciously ripped out. It was a bit dizzying to look at. Xie Lian inhaled sharply as his eyes landed on the wound, even as a bit of fresh blood welled out of the torn edges of skin and trickled down his side, quickly absorbing into the mattress beneath him and forming a stain.
"It's okay, gege. Don't look." Hua Cheng quickly placed his palm over the wound, concealing it from view and trying to stop the bleeding simultaneously. "Put your hand where mine is and apply pressure. I'm gonna go get some bandages prepared so this doesn't bleed anymore."
Xie Lian nodded and complied, replacing Hua Cheng's hand with his own and wincing in pain as he pressed his palm over the wound, temporarily stanching the flow of blood. Moving quickly, Hua Cheng rose to his feet and found the roll of bandaging that was kept in one of the small drawers near the bed. He cut off several long strips before filling a clean pot with water and heating it over the stove. Every so often, he glanced behind him to make sure Xie Lian was still conscious and doing okay. After dipping the bandage strips in boiling water to sterilize them, he let them dry and cool off before returning to his beloved's side and kneeling down.
"Here. These will work for now until Fu Yao and Nan Feng get here." Hua Cheng said as he began wrapping the bandages around Xie Lian's torso, concealing the ghastly wound beneath many layers of soft white gauze. "How are you feeling right now? Any better?"
"About the same as before. And I'm really cold." Xie Lian groped around blindly until he found Hua Cheng's hand, grabbing it and squeezing it.
"Cold?" Hua Cheng felt his beloved's forehead with the back of his free hand and winced. "Makes sense, you're running a bit of a fever. Would you like some tea?"
Xie Lian shook his head no. "I don't think that's a good idea."
Hua Cheng immediately pieced together what the problem was and nodded his understanding. "I take it you're feeling nauseous. That's okay. I know of a few different herbs that'll help with that, and they're fairly easy to find."
"Okay. Thank you, San Lang."
"Please don't thank me. This is the least I could do, given the fact I failed so badly at protecting you earlier. This never should've happened in the first place." Hua Cheng raised his husband's hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to the back of it. "If anything, I owe you an apology."
"No, no, no." Xie Lian managed to sit up a little for the sole purpose of leaning against Hua Cheng's chest, draping an arm around his waist. "You don't need to apologize. It's not your fault. You were in a hurry, and I should've told you to wait for me when I stopped. You can't help that you kept going because you expected me to be right behind you."
"That may be true..." Hua Cheng ran a hand down Xie Lian's back before continuing. "...but I was pretty scared when I found you collapsed in the middle of the road. I still am a bit scared, mainly because you were delusional and kept telling me something with sharp teeth had chased you despite the fact you hadn't moved from the same spot at all."
"Several things with sharp teeth were chasing me, shagua. I wasn't delusional." Xie Lian gently corrected.
"Forgive me for being doubtful, but the villagers all said they didn't see anything attack you. According to them, you just glanced around like you were afraid of something before falling over. They never saw anything or anyone physically harm you, either." Hua Cheng didn't want to discredit Xie Lian's account of what had happened, but it seemed pretty far-fetched from a realistic perspective. "People who are being chased don't just stand in one place before collapsing."
Xie Lian's brow knit together in a frown. "But... doesn't that just make my story more credible? I've got a deep puncture wound that could've only been caused by some kind of external force, but no one saw it happen. Doesn't that strike you as odd?"
"I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for it. Perhaps there was a sharp piece of glass on the path, and you were unfortunate enough to fall on it."
"Pardon me, but I don't think pieces of glass can stand up on their own in the middle of a dirt road with nothing to support them. Even if that did happen, wouldn't the piece be embedded in my side right now? There's no way it could've just fallen out."
"Gege, please. I don't mean to upset you, but there were a lot of flaws with the account you gave me when I was carrying you back here. It doesn't make any sense."
Xie Lian sighed heavily, then cringed when that small gesture aggravated the wound in his side. "If you don't believe me, that's fine."
Hua Cheng opened his mouth to protest, but the words died in his throat. He couldn't bring himself to lie to his husband. He really didn't believe a word of it. Although he could agree that the puncture wound was a disturbing enigma at best, the rest of the story just didn't add up. If Xie Lian were chased, why did it appear to those around him that he was staying in one place?
Wait.
Xie Lian felt his lover stiffen. "What is it, San Lang?"
"I just... had a strange thought. It's nothing. You should focus on resting." Hua Cheng replied quickly, kissing the top of Xie Lian's head. "I'm serious about that. No more talking until Fu Yao and Nan Feng arrive."
"Alright then." Xie Lian obediently fell silent.
Hua Cheng didn't want to entertain what seemed to be a delusion created by shock and blood loss, but he also couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something big. It appeared to the villagers that Xie Lian wasn't moving. Just because something appears a certain way doesn't mean that's what is actually happening. Maybe, just maybe, Xie Lian's recounting of events wasn't so delusional after all. But that opened up a whole plethora of possibilities that were so dark Hua Cheng wasn't sure if he wanted to explore them.
What sort of bizarre hellspawn is capable of fabricating something like this? It would take an immense amount of spiritual energy to cause a hallucination of this scale and to physically harm the person involved without actually being present to hurt them. In fact, it should be impossible. Not even I can do something like this. Hua Cheng thought to himself, slowly combing his fingers through Xie Lian's hair. But if that's the case, Xie Lian's in grave danger and so am I.
Fortunately for Hua Cheng, Fu Yao and Nan Feng knocked on the door about an hour after they had been summoned. By this time, Xie Lian was nearly asleep. He jolted awake with a start when the sharp rapping against the front door reached his ears.
"That must be our backup." after gently maneuvering Xie Lian so he was lying on the bed again, Hua Cheng stood up and hurried over to the door, pulling it open so quickly he nearly knocked it off its hinges. "Ah! I was wondering when you would show up."
"What did you do to His Highness?" Fu Yao practically growled out as he pushed past Hua Cheng and barged into the room, completely disregarding any sort of politeness. Nan Feng was right behind him, as always. "By the gods, there's blood everywhere!"
Xie Lian did his best to sit up, grimacing at the pain that flared up in his side as a result of his movement. "It's okay, Fu Yao. San Lang helped me stop the bleeding. It's not so bad anymore."
"Are you alright, Your Highness? You don't look so good." Nan Feng crouched down beside the makeshift bed, a worried expression spreading across his face.
"I'm alright for now, thank you for coming on such short notice. If I pulled you away from something important, I'm very sorry." Xie Lian offered Nan Feng a weak, half-hearted smile.
Before Nan Feng could respond, Fu Yao quite suddenly jabbed a finger at Hua Cheng's chest accusingly. "You did this, didn't you?"
Hua Cheng blinked, unsure of how to respond. "Um... I think you've got the wrong idea."
"I had a feeling you were up to no good. But even I'm a bit surprised that you did something to this scale. Just when I was beginning to think you actually cared about His Highness, you go and stab him? Really, how stupid do you think I am?" Fu Yao seemed incredibly sure of himself, but that wasn't exactly a good thing in this case. "What, did you think I would just let this slide without asking you about it?"
"But you're not exactly asking me. You're accusing me." Hua Cheng bristled, quickly losing his patience with these baseless accusations. "And you've conveniently forgotten that not even I'm sick and twisted enough to stab someone I'm married to."
"Please don't fight. San Lang didn't do anything wrong." Xie Lian quickly interjected. Arguments were one of many things that made him nervous.
Nan Feng frowned. "Fu Yao, I think you're interrogating the wrong person. Of course San Lang would deny it whether he did it or not. That's just human nature. Do you remember what happened at all, Your Highness?"
Xie Lian was sorely tempted to heave a sigh of relief as some of the tension in the room dissipated. "I remember what led up to it, but I didn't see what was actually done to me. I just felt the pain and didn't realize I was badly injured until a few moments later."
At this, Nan Feng's frown deepened considerably. "That's... awfully vague. It's okay, you can tell us if San Lang did this to you. We need an excuse to get rid of him anyways."
Now it was Xie Lian's turn to get frustrated. "How could you say something like that? He would never hurt me. He's my husband, and he's been my husband for long enough that I thought you two would trust him by now."
Hua Cheng shook his head and made his way toward the front door, pushing past a clearly agitated Fu Yao. "I don't have time for the two of you right now. The most important thing is finding medicinal herbs to help Xie Lian feel better. Will you be okay by yourself with them for a few hours, gege?"
"Yes, I'll be fine." Xie Lian pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, trying to keep himself from facepalming.
As soon as Hua Cheng had disappeared outside, Fu Yao and Nan Feng immediately started asking Xie Lian for a full account of what had happened. He took several minutes to explain to them exactly what he'd told Hua Cheng. The two Deputy Gods were mostly silent except to ask small questions here and there. It was pretty obvious they just didn't know what to say because, by the time Xie Lian had finished explaining his story in its entirety, they were as quiet as a pair of human beings could get.
"That's odd." Fu Yao managed to say, dragging over a chair from the dining area so he could sit down. "What you described sounds like it could've been caused by some sort of spiritual magic."
"Did the villagers or San Lang tell you what they saw? Surely someone would've seen something suspicious if it happened in a populated area." Nan Feng piped up, tapping his chin thoughtfully.
"They all said it appeared like I was just standing still. Then I fell over, apparently. No one saw how this wound came to be." Xie Lian gestured loosely to his side. "To be fair, not even I saw exactly what was done to cause this. The culprits didn't seem to have any weapons that I could see, save for their teeth." he couldn't help shuddering a little at the thought of those horrible creatures.
Again, there was a prolonged moment of silence. Fu Yao looked like he was having a hard time believing what he was hearing, but he didn't voice his thoughts right away. Instead, he sat quietly, staring down at the floor and tracing the small gaps between the wooden planks with his eyes as if there was something immensely interesting about them.
On the other hand, Nan Feng wore an expression of worry. He did believe what he'd been told, but he was having a hard time rationalizing it. Such creatures as the ones Xie Lian described shouldn't exist. They'd never been documented before, and the fact no one else saw what happened was confusing at best.
"I'm sorry if it seems crazy. San Lang didn't believe me either." Xie Lian said, looking down at the deep red cloak his husband had given to him as a means of keeping him warm.
"You have nothing to apologize for, Your Highness. It's definitely a lot to take in, but that's not your fault at all." Fu Yao waved a hand dismissively, doing his best to smile.
"Yeah, what he said. And besides, I'm just glad San Lang didn't do this. It would be horrible and cruel of him to stab his own husband." Nan Feng jumped in, nodding his agreement.
"I wouldn't clear San Lang's name just yet, but that's just because I trust that guy about as far as I can throw him."
"Can it, Fu Yao. You're not helping."
"Alright, alright."
Xie Lian shook his head, unsure whether to be amused or irritated with the two Deputy Gods. "Please do your best to be nice to San Lang when he returns. Just take my word for it if nothing else. He didn't do this. I know several people down in the village who can attest to that. They'll all tell you that he wasn't even near me when it happened because he thought I was behind him and kept walking after I stopped."
Nan Feng hesitated before replying. "I suppose that makes sense. I'll do my best to leave him alone about it."
"I really don't like him, but I'll do my best too." Fu Yao agreed.
Hua Cheng didn't return until shortly after midnight, clutching a fistful of various herbs he'd found in and around the village. He looked worried the moment he walked in, but that worry only intensified when he saw that Xie Lian's condition had deteriorated quite a bit over the past couple of hours. He had curled himself into a little ball on the bed, shivering violently. A thin layer of sweat coated his brow, and his breathing was shallow and ragged.
Nan Feng had taken to dabbing at Xie Lian's forehead with a cold wet cloth, trying to bring down his almost dangerously high fever. Fu Yao was pacing back and forth across the front of the shrine with his arms folded across his chest, obviously worried sick.
"We checked the wound and changed the bandages maybe half an hour ago. It's not infected. I don't understand why he's got such a high fever." Nan Feng remarked, glancing up at Hua Cheng.
"An enchanted weapon might cause something like this. I already suspected such a thing and brought back a kind of herb that is known for nullifying magic residue in open wounds." Hua Cheng said, grabbing a clean bowl from the makeshift kitchen and putting the herbs he'd found in it. Fu Yao insisted on examining the various sweet-smelling leaves, stems, and roots until he was certain none of them were poisonous. "I also brought a couple that reduce fever and relieve pain."
"You sure do know a lot about medicinal plants." Fu Yao remarked, watching with genuine curiosity as Hua Cheng set about washing the herbs and crushing them into smaller pieces.
"It comes in handy every so often. These kinds of plants grow all over the place. You just need to know where to look." Hua Cheng replied, mixing the crushed herbs together and taking great care not to spill them. "If it interests you, I can show you where to find them sometime."
"That's not really my forte, but I'm sure Nan Feng would love to take you up on that." Fu Yao crossed his arms, glancing over his shoulder to make sure his unruly companion and Xie Lian were doing okay. "But good luck with that. He's a handful."
Hua Cheng chuckled. "This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think Nan Feng's the reasonable one out of the two of you."
Needless to say, Fu Yao took offense at this statement. "Did you just call me unreasonable?"
Deciding it best to avoid starting another argument, Hua Cheng took his bowl of herbs and returned to his husband's bedside. Xie Lian was only semi-conscious at this point, his long hair strewn out across the mattress behind him like a mess of spilled ink. Hua Cheng knelt down and set about unwrapping the bandages around Xie Lian's side, slowly but surely uncovering the wound beneath. The bleeding had mostly stopped and there were no signs of discoloration or abnormal bodily fluids surrounding the wound, which struck Hua Cheng as odd. He would've thought any sort of enchanted weapon would leave a telltale sign in its wake.
"I should probably let Ling Wen know what happened. An attack like this against a crown prince should be taken with utmost seriousness." Nan Feng said, wringing his hands nervously and watching as Hua Cheng began spreading herbs over Xie Lian's wound, taking great care not to hurt him in any way.
"There's another problem, Nan Feng. A rather large one, at that." Fu Yao dropped back into the chair he'd dragged over earlier. "His Highness told us what happened in explicit detail. I didn't really believe him at first, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I think there might be something out there that we don't fully understand yet. If this is the case, we'll need to get the other Heaven Officials involved."
"The Upper Court is a rather corrupt system though. You, Nan Feng, and Ling Wen are three of a very sparse few that I actually trust. I'd rather hold off on bringing this to the Heaven Officials' attention until we know for sure that we'll need their help dealing with the problem." Hua Cheng reasoned, wrapping up Xie Lian's wound again. "We can go out and investigate later, once Xie Lian is healthy enough to be left by himself. He certainly won't be up and walking around for a little while, but he can join our efforts as soon as he is able."
Before Hua Cheng could even finish talking, Nan Feng was already nodding his agreement. "I think that's a good idea. But for now, protecting the prince is our top priority. Fu Yao and I won't be leaving this shrine until we're certain His Highness is safe and beginning to recover."
"That's fine. Thank you for helping me look after Xie Lian."
At this, Fu Yao rolled his eyes. "Although your sense of gratitude is flattering, don't get the wrong idea. We're not doing this for you."
Hua Cheng gave Fu Yao a deadpan stare. "Aren't you just a bright ray of sunshine."
"Ignore him." Nan Feng scoffed and stood up for the sole purpose of marching over to Fu Yao and swatting him over the head, earning an absolutely murderous glare. "Let's get some rest for now and talk about everything some more in the morning. I'm sure the prince would like to be involved in deciding what the best course of action is."
"Agreed. Thank you again." Hua Cheng dipped his head politely before returning his full attention to Xie Lian, who had fallen into a fitful sleep while the other three were talking. His brow was still furrowed with pain even in sleep. He stirred and made a small whimpering noise, prompting Hua Cheng to bend down and kiss Xie Lian's temple. "It'll be alright, gege. You'll start feeling better soon."
Xie Lian mumbled something inaudible, instinctively leaning toward Hua Cheng's warmth. He sighed and took to lightly stroking Xie Lian's hair, carding fingers through the strands and tucking wayward locks behind his ears. Hua Cheng patiently worked out any knots he found, being careful not to pull too hard. He wasn't able to get any sleep that night because he couldn't stop thinking about the mysterious stab wound and all the horrific ways it could've come to be.
The whole situation was incredibly disturbing. If there was even a slight chance there were previously undocumented monsters roaming about, Hua Cheng might very well find himself confronting the possibility that he was no longer the most powerful being to walk the earth.
A/N: Woo! Two chapters done! I decided to write and post the first and second chapters at the same time because I wanted there to be a substantial amount of content to this fic right off the bat. My goal is to start working on the third one within the next couple of days after taking a rest and spending time with my family for Independence Day.
Thank you very much for reading! Any comments/kudos would be very much appreciated. Take care.