Back still facing San Lang, Xie Lian said, "Crimson Rain Sought Flower?"
"Your Royal Highness the Crown Prince." San Lang replied.
Xie Lian finally turned around with a grin, "That's the first time I've heard you address me like that."
The red-clad youth sat on the mat, and adjusted his legs, also grinning, "How does it feel?"
Xie Lian gave it a thought and replied truthfully, "It feels... a little different than when others call me by that title."
"Hm? How so?" Hua Cheng asked.
Xie Lian tilted his head, his eyes squinting a little, "It's hard to say, it's just..."
When others called him 'Your Highness', it was either emotionless, and all business like Ling Wen, but most of the time, when people called him 'Your Highness', it was laced with a sense of disdain, an intentional address like calling an ugly woman a beauty, somewhat sarcastic.
Yet when Hua Cheng called him 'Your Highness', those two words were uttered with grave sincerity. So, while it was hard to describe, Xie Lian felt when Hua Cheng called him 'Your Highness', it felt different than when others called him 'Your Highness'.
He continued, "That night at Mount YuJun, the groom who took me away was you, right?" Seeing Hua Cheng's meaningful smirk, Xie Lian realized his words may have meant something else and corrected himself, "I meant, the groom in disguise who led me away was you, right?"
"I wasn't disguising as a groom," Hua Cheng replied.
Technically speaking, Hua Cheng wasn't wrong. The young man at the time never said he was the groom or anything; in fact, he didn't say a thing at all. He only stopped in front of the marriage sedan and extended his hand. It was Xie Lian who went with him willingly!
"Fine. Then, why did you appear at the time?" Xie Lian asked.
"This question only has two possible answers," Hua Cheng said, "First, I came especially for Your Royal Highness; second, I was passing by and was free. Which do you think is more believable?"
Xie Lian counted the number of days Hua Cheng had spent with him and replied earnestly, "Which is more believable I can't say, but you really do seem to have a lot of free time."
With his left arm holding his right elbow and his right hand propping his chin, Xie Lian gave Hua Cheng a once-over and nodded. "You're quite different than what the rumors say."
Hua Cheng changed his sitting position, but still with a hand propping up his cheek, watched Xie Lian and said, "Oh? And how did you find out I'm me?"
The images of that umbrella dripping with blood, that gentle clinking silver chain, and that cold silver vambrace filled Xie Lian's mind, and he thought, 'It's not like you were trying very hard at hiding yourself.' But when words dropped from his lips, they became something else. He said in a serious voice, "Even after all the probing, you gave nothing away, so you must be a 'Supreme'. You're dressed all in red like the maples, like blood, and seem knowledgeable of everything, capable of everything, and knew no fear. Such a disposition, other than that 'Crimson Rain Sought Flower' that even all in heaven fears, there doesn't seem to be any other candidates."
Hua Cheng laughed, "Shall I take those words as a compliment?"
'Can't you tell they're all compliments?' Xie Lian thought.
"Sparing so many words, how come Your Royal Highness doesn't question my motives for coming close to you?" Hua Cheng asked, his smile curbed somewhat.
"If you don't want to say anything, if I asked, would you tell? Or you might not tell me the truth." Xie Lian said.
"That's not necessarily true. Besides, you can always boot me out," Hua Cheng replied.
Xie Lian replied, "You're so powerful; if I booted you out now, if you really wanted to do something bad, wouldn't you just change skin and come back?"
The two were staring at each other, grinning, when just then, a small knocking noise broke the temporary silence in the shrine. They looked to where the sound came from, and there wasn't anyone, only that small, black clay pot rolling on the ground.
It was the same pot Ban Yue was tucked in. Xie Lian had placed it next to the mat, but somehow it had tipped itself over and rolled to the door. Blocked by the wooden door built by Hua Cheng, it started hitting the door by rolling to it repeatedly. Xie Lian was worried it might break itself, so he opened the door, and the little clay pot rolled itself to the grass field outside.
Xie Lian followed behind it and saw that once the little clay pot made it to the grass field, it stood itself up. Even if it was only a pot, it gave the sense that it was gazing at the night sky. Hua Cheng also emerged from the shrine, and Xie Lian called out to the pot, "Ban Yue, are you awake?"
Good thing when they returned from the Gobi, it was already deep into the night; otherwise, if anyone should see Xie Lian ask how a pot was doing, they would probably throw a fit.
A moment later, the sulky voice of a young girl came from the pot, "General Hua."
Xie Lian sat down next to it and soothed, "Ban Yue, have you come out to stargaze? Why don't you come out?"
Hua Cheng was leaning against a tree next to them and said, "She only just left the Ban Yue ruins. Probably best if she stays in there for a while longer."
Xie Lian thought that advice was sound. After all, Ban Yue had been stuck in Ban Yue for two hundred years; to suddenly change pace might be hard to adjust to. "Then you best stay in there and heal. This is where I cultivate; you don't have to worry about anything. Don't think about those soldiers and that general anymore."
The pot shook twice as if trying to say something. After chewing on his words, Xie Lian spoke up, "Ban Yue, the incident this time actually didn't concern you. Your scorpion snakes were..."
"General Hua, I couldn't move at the time, but I heard everything," Ban Yue said gloomily.
Xie Lian stopped. Only then did he learn that Pei Su only sealed Ban Yue's movement, but not her senses. "Just as well."
Since she heard everything, then just as well. The clay pot asked, "General Hua, what will happen to General Pei Junior?"
Xie Lian crossed his arms in his sleeves, "I don't know. But, mistakes will always be punished."
Another moment of silence, and the pot shook twice, and Xie Lian finally understood that it was nodding in agreement.
"General Pei Junior is actually not a bad person," Ban Yue said.
"Is that right?"
"En," Ban Yue replied, "He's helped me before."
Somehow, Xie Lian's mind was suddenly filled with many more things.
Ban Yue often received beatings, and using the words of other YongAn children, she had the face that "asked for it." It was a long time after Xie Lian had known her before he learned of it too, since no matter how much beating Ban Yue received, she wouldn't tell anyone. Until one day, Xie Lian saw a group of children pressing her face into the mud that he learned where all those bruises on her face came from.
But after a while, when he asked her about it, she only remembered that she had to wash the handkerchief that the boy who pulled her out of the mud pit before returning it, and she recalled nothing else.
She remembered no one who beat her, but the ones who had saved her once, she remembered for a lifetime.
Ban Yue continued, "Although Ke Mo always scorned that he confounded my mind, that I was completely used, but whether if he used me or not, it was my own will to open the fortress gates."
Xie Lian didn't know what to say anymore, but somewhere in his heart, he felt it go soft.
A moment later, he patted that clay pot, "Alright, it's all in the past. Oh, by the way, Ban Yue, the name Hua Xie is fake, and I haven't been a general for a long time. You don't have to keep calling me General Hua anymore."
"Then how should I address you?" Ban Yue asked.
That was actually a good question. If Ban Yue also called him 'Your Highness' seriously, it'd feel weird. Xie Lian didn't really care about his address either; he just wanted to change the subject. "That's up to you. I suppose it's okay if you keep calling me General Hua." Only, there's another one here named Hua, so that might cause some confusion. But then he thought, 'Hua Xie' was a fake name he took from the first word of the title 'Flower Crowned Martial God', so 'Hua Cheng' may very well be a fake name too? That they both coincidentally picked the same surname was rather amusing.
"I'm sorry, General Hua," Ban Yue said again.
Xie Lian turned back to look at her and said woefully, "Ban Yue, why are you always apologizing to me?" Did he really look that sorry to people?
From within the pot, Ban Yue stated, "I want to save the world."
Xie Lian: "....."
"General Hua, you said that once." Ban Yue said.
Xie Lian: "???"
He hurriedly pressed down on the clay pot, "Wait, hold on a sec!"
"Wait for what?" Ban Yue asked.
Xie Lian took a peek at Hua Cheng, who was still leaning against the tree with his arms crossed, and said in a low voice, "Did I really say that?"
Those words were his favorite saying when he was only ten something years old. In the many hundreds of years thereafter, he shouldn't have uttered them at all; he couldn't believe it. But Ban Yue was firm, "General, those were your words."
Xie Lian still wanted to struggle, "I don't think so..."
Ban Yue told him sternly and coldly, "Oh, no, you did say them. There was once; you asked us all what we wanted to do when we're older. Everyone answered, and after you also said: 'My dream was to save the world; the common people.'"
"..."
So that was it. Xie Lian used his hand to cover his entire forehead. "Um. Ban Yue. Why would you remember so clearly something so randomly said?"
Ban Yue was confused, "Random? But General Hua, I had thought those words were said very earnestly."
Xie Lian raised his head to gaze at the night sky, feeling helpless. "Haha... really? Maybe. I don't remember whatever else I might have said."
"You also said, 'Do what you think is right!'" Ban Yue told him. "'Nothing can block your way!' 'Even if you fall into rotten mud a hundred times, you must get up with determination!' There's a lot, like this."
"Pfft."
He didn't need to look back to know that it was definitely Hua Cheng under the tree who heard and laughed.
Even smothering the pot now wouldn't help, and Xie Lian thought inwardly, '....what... nonsense! ... Why did I keep saying those kinds of things... I'm nothing like that at all... am I??'
"But, I don't know what's right anymore." Ban Yue said.
Xie Lian froze.
"I wanted to do as what General Hua said and save the people." Ban Yue said, "But in the end, I destroyed the Kingdom of Ban Yue."
Her voice was lost, "And it seemed that no matter what I'd do... the results were all horrible. General Hua, I know I didn't do things right, but can you tell me where did I go wrong? What should I do in order to do as you've said and... save the world?"
"..." Xie Lian replied, "I'm sorry, Ban Yue. How to save the world, the common people... I didn't know the answers to that question back then, and even now I still don't."
Ban Yue was silent for a moment, then said dejectedly, "General Hua, to be honest, it feels like the past two hundred years, I've no idea what I've been doing. What a failure."
Hearing her, Xie Lian became more depressed, thinking, 'Doesn't that make me more of a failure? That I've lived eight hundred years for nothing?'
Xie Lian left Ban Yue, the little ghost in the pot, to stargaze alone to calm down and went back inside PuQi shrine with Hua Cheng.
After closing the door, Xie Lian suddenly spoke up, "Ban Yue remained at the Ban Yue Pass willingly. It wasn't because she became a 'Savage' that she was trapped there."
She had always remembered that it was her who opened the fortress gates and had never used any such just excuse like she was doing it for the people. It was to help the Ban Yue soldiers to vent their resentment so they could leave this world sooner that she allowed Ke Mo to lead them to murder her over and over.
Xie Lian shook his head, "If General Pei Junior really didn't want to leave those Ban Yue soldiers behind and didn't want the heavens to find out either, he could very well send a clone to secretly descend to take care of them. Why did he have to use that method?"
"Clones don't have the same amount of power," Hua Cheng said, "You saw how Pei Su's clone A-Zhao was? He couldn't take care of so many Ban Yue soldiers, so feeding them the living was the fastest and easiest way to disperse their resentment."
"Why did it have to be so fast?" Xie Lian wondered.
"Maybe it's so your little friend Ban Yue wouldn't hang so painfully as many times," Hua Cheng replied.
Xie Lian was silent for a moment, "Then what about those mortals?"
Hua Cheng replied quietly, "They're heavenly officials. Of course, a mortal's life is nothing but ants in their eyes. Pei Su is a classic high-ranked god. As long as it wasn't discovered, killing a few hundred people was no different than stepping a few hundred insects to death."
Xie Lian glanced at him and recalled that when San Lang jumped into the Sinner's Pit, he wiped out all the Ban Yue soldiers in a flash. He turned to him and said, "Clones don't have the same amount of power? I see your clone is pretty powerful."
Hua Cheng arched his brows, "Of course. But I'm the real thing."
Xie Lian turned to look at him, surprised, "Eh? This is your true form?"
"One hundred percent authentic," Hua Cheng declared.
If anything must be blamed, it would have to be how Hua Cheng looked as if he's welcoming Xie Lian to test it out himself, and without thinking, Xie Lian raised a finger and poked Hua Cheng's face.
After poking, Xie Lian came to in shock and yelped 'oh no!' in his head.
He was only curious to see what a Supreme Ghost King's fake skin would feel like, but apparently, his body moved faster than his mind and poked him! What a disgrace!
To have someone suddenly poke him, Hua Cheng looked somewhat shocked too, but he was always calm and collected, so his expression cleared instantly. He didn't say anything, but his raised brows went even higher, as if waiting for Xie Lian to explain, and the laughter in his eyes remained.
Xie Lian couldn't explain himself; he looked at his own finger, hid it away, and casually said, "...Not bad."
Hua Cheng finally burst out laughing and crossed his arms with his head tilted, "What's not bad? Do you mean this skin?"
"It's really well made," Xie Lian said sincerely, "But..."
"But what?" Hua Cheng asked.
Xie Lian stared at his face and studied it for a moment. Then finally, "But, can I see your real face?"
This time, Hua Cheng didn't respond immediately and dropped his arms. Maybe it was all in Xie Lian's head, but Hua Cheng's eyes darkened slightly, and Xie Lian's heart tightened in spite of himself.
— ●MXTX Author Notes: In regards to whether if it's the real person or a flesh clone, you can understand it like this:
– Sun Wukong pulls out a monkey hair and blows out hundreds of monkeys. Those are all clones.
– Sun Wukong knows the seventy-two earthly transformations and turns into various forms. Similarly, when dealing with characters who possess the ability to create clones or transformations in my works, consider it as a narrative element for plot development and exploration of character dynamics. The essence lies in the storytelling, and the distinction between real and clone is a deliberate choice to craft engaging narratives.