Chapter Text
Prologue Enough Karma
Rouye had lost its strength some time ago. How long? Hua Cheng lost count. The question didn’t matter. With his hands shaking, he managed to tie one end around Xie Lian’s frail wrist and the other around his own. The red string at his finger, his wedding band and the tether to his most precious thing, was now a faded pink. He tried to smile.
Snow chill crawled through the air, obscuring the distant twinkling lights. The heavy gray sky seemed to press down on them. It smelled clean, crisp, a hint of maple trees.
“Gege, come, we’re almost there.”
Xie Lian turned to face him, a weak smile on his face. They never aged, their skin never folded into wrinkles, their hair never shot out strands of white. And yet, Hua Cheng felt like he was turning into tatters. Xie Lian tilted his head slightly, as if he heard something very faint and far away. “Hm? San Lang? Are you there?”
Hua Cheng willed himself not to crumble. He came closer, pressed his dry lips to Xie Lian’s.
“Ah! San Lang, I thought I heard you somewhere… Did you?” The question made no sense. Hua Cheng didn’t have much time left.
“Gege, can this unworthy person carry you?” Hua Cheng asked, closer to Xie Lian’s ear. He pressed his lips to the soft cheek bone, the jade-fine skin. Xie Lian chuckled.
“I’m too heavy!”
“Hardly,” Hua Cheng forced levity into his voice. He dipped down and, with his bones threatening to splinter, lifted Xia Lian into his arms. He gave up on using Rouye as a lead to tether them together. The silk band now drifted behind them, rattling against the dry earth.
For some time, Hua Cheng walked. He felt Xie Lian’s head slump against his shoulder. The length of his hair trailed behind them as well, fluttering alongside the band that had been by Xie Lian’s side for so long. Hua Cheng knew, in his unbeating heart, that the moment Xie Lian said nothing about the spiritual artifact losing its vigor, that it was ending. They both were ending.
Up, then, into the trees. Into the curve of the mountain, into its snow bank and the great boughs bowing with the weight of heavy blankets of glittering, white snow. Hua Cheng lifted one heavy foot after the other, dragging the tumbling weight of it like he was trudging through a dream.
“Where are we going, San Lang? I think you’re upset. Did Mu Qing say something to you again? He’s terrible. I’ll have him do idioms for a few days.”
Mu Qing had faded a long time ago. Hua Cheng didn’t say this. It was better, this way, for Xie Lian to be stuck in a distant past. A past that followed years of agony for him, but burst fresh and new with love and joy. Years of happiness, of playing in the Ghost City, in Hua Cheng’s estate, in Xie Lian’s humble temples. Hua Cheng wanted to think that, for Xie Lian, they were still hearing the prayers calling out to them, together. No one had prayed in a long time.
“Ah--are you crying?” Xie Lian moved to sit up, though he struggled, blinking. His heart hammered in his chest. Hua Cheng could feel it through his fingertips. “San Lang! Where are we? Why is it so blurry? Why don’t I remember anything?” Bright, hot tears welled down Xie Lian’s own face. They dripped down his nose, down to his chin.
“Do you--” Hua Cheng said, but his voice fractured. He struggled, instead, into the spiritual array instead. It felt like shoving boulders with the strength of a human. Pathetic, weak, nails bleeding. Still, he tried. Do you remember this place?
A slow, slogging response came back after a moment. The bridal sedan.
Yes. Right here. Hua Cheng’s knees finally buckled. He twisted so he toppled back-first into the snow, gently laying Xie Lian on his chest. He held his lover firm with the last dregs of his strength. Xie Lian perked up, a little, peering around. A soft smile broke on his face, bursting like the memory of sunlight. Over his head, the sky beat down its relentless snow. Trees crowded around them. All color sapped from the world, save for the darkness of Xie Lian’s hair. And, though Hua Cheng couldn’t see it, his own black and red spread on the canvas of white like a drop of blooming blood.
“We…” Xie Lian said, the array withered to nothing now. “We had a good time. I’m sorry we waited so long. Eight-hundred years.”
“But,” Hua Cheng stammered, pushed on. Black spots danced in his vision. He held on, focusing on Xie Lian’s smooth and beautiful face. Focusing on his hand seemed to drift up, cradling and touching. His thumb rubbed over Xie Lian’s lips. “But we made it up. All of it. Again and again.”
“Yes, we did,” Xie Lian said, then dipped his head forward. He rested his head on Hua Cheng’s chest, like he had many, many times already. Not enough! Hua Cheng wanted to rip the world apart, tear back history, unwind it. Go back and back until he was in fact, angry at Mu Qing for whatever reason. He’d go back to Xianle, unloved child, just to fall from the roof again and be caught by a godly Prince. He’d do it all again if it meant more time. Just a little more time--
“San Lang?”
With effort, “Yes, gege?”
“Do we have enough karma to be reborn together?”
Hua Cheng thought about it. He never had to think so hard, so long. His mind had been electricity (he liked electricity, and most of the advents of the new age) once, before. Xie Lian had complimented his intelligence often enough. Now, it would be a joke to say something like Hua Cheng, you know everything! What did he know?
Well, he did know what he would do. Even if he had no answer to Xie Lian’s original question.
“I will spend every lifetime from the next one on getting enough karma so I could meet again with you.”
“You put me on a pedestal.”
“That’s not a surprise, gege.” More black, crowding around the edges of his vision like flocking, hungry birds. He blinked and blinked his good eye until they receded. They never did, only pushing more and more in. “I can’t see, gege.”
“Me neither.”
“This is how the others faded.” Blood dripped somewhere. The tang of iron curled in the air.
“They didn’t get to be together, like us.”
Hua Cheng lifted his hand to touch Xie Lian’s. Their fingers curled together. Warmth of palm against palm.
“We won’t waste time, next time,” Xie Lian said, trying to go back to their old topic. His voice nothing more than a thin, thready whisper. “We’ll meet again, and we’ll know it. It has to be so. Do you promise?”
“Yes,” Hua Cheng said, “I promise.”
Their dissolution faded them. The God of Misfortune and Crimson Rain Sought Flower became nothing in the same forest they had reunited, many centuries ago. In the spot they had fallen, if one looks, one could see a flash of red and black. Two lovers in an eternal clasp, the Pompeii Lovers of a different time and place.
Of course, no one would be around for long to look at that particular spot. Already, the planet had lost most of its inhabitants, fleeing to the stars for a better, more hopeful future.
Soon, not even that after-image would remain. The two spirits had recollected and been reborn. There was enough karma - as Xie Lian predicted - for two infants born on the same space station to completely different circumstances. Interestingly, both were named with very ancient names.
They would not meet for another twenty-five years.