"Call him over right this instant!" Xie Lian said.
Feng Xin pressed the index and middle fingers of his right hand against his temple, connecting with Mu Qing in the spiritual communication array. Out in the temple yard, Qi Rong clicked his tongue.
"Yong'an? So you crawled out of that middle-of-nowhere dump? Barren lands really do produce unruly fruit. Think you can rob the gods just because you're poor?"
"Then I won't steal," Lang Ying said. "I will pay my respects and worship this god of yours right now. I will kneel and kowtow and beg him to give me money to save the lives of the people of my hometown. But will he give it to me?"
Qi Rong was momentarily stumped. He grumbled inwardly, If I say yes, is this guy gonna run away with all that money with full conviction? Thus, he replied, "His Highness the Crown Prince is a god now, and gods are busy as hell! Who has the time to mind unruly people like you?"
Lang Ying nodded slowly at this. "I didn't think he'd care either. It's not like we never prayed or begged, but it didn't work at all. Those who are meant to die still die."
Xie Lian was shaken.
"You! So disrespectful in the halls of a god—aren't you afraid of his condemnation?!" a cultivator shouted.
"It doesn't matter anymore," Lang Ying replied. "He can condemn me if he likes. I'm no longer afraid of his neglect, so why should I be afraid of his condemnation?"
Qi Rong gave a wave. A number of guards waiting on the side rushed forward, surrounded that young man, and started beating him down. Feng Xin was still hard at work, softening their attacks where he could so it only appeared that Lang Ying was being pulverized. But the man himself just looked confused—he didn't dodge nor evade, and only occasionally raised his hands to protect the satchel on his back.
Meanwhile, Qi Rong had grabbed a handful of melon seeds and munched as he jiggled his leg.
"Beat him! Beat him hard in the name of this prince!"
Truly, the very image of a villain.
At hearing him call his own title, Lang Ying's head shot up.
"You're a prince? Prince of what? Do you live in the palace? Can you meet with the king?"
"I'm your granddaddy!" Qi Rong spat. "You still think you can see the king, don't you? His Majesty's got a million things on his plate—he ain't got time for you!"
Lang Ying craned his neck up. "Why hasn't he got time for me? The gods don't have time, and neither does His Majesty, so who has time to hear me? Just who should I go to?" he demanded stubbornly. "Does the king know how many people have died in Yong'an? Do the people of the imperial capital know? If they know, why would they rather throw money in the water than give it to us?"
"It's our money, and we'll spend it as we will," Qi Rong scoffed. "Even if we skip it over the water like stones it's nobody's damn business. Why do we have to give it to you? What, you're entitled to it just because you're poor?"
There was some logic in what he said, but it was incredibly inappropriate for the time and place. Xie Lian was about to find a way to seal Qi Rong's mouth shut when a black-clad youth rushed over from behind the palace.
"Your Highness sent for me?"
Xie Lian waved him over. "Mu Qing, come quickly. In all the prayers you've reviewed recently, have you heard anything about a drought in Yong'an?"
Mu Qing was taken aback. "No, I haven't."
As he continued to manage his own task, Feng Xin snapped, "How couldn't you? Refugees have already fled here!"
It was said in a tone so sharp that Mu Qing's face stiffened. He replied in a hard voice, "I told the truth; there really wasn't anything. Are you trying to say that I'm purposely withholding information? Well, did you hear anything yourself? I'm on duty at the Temple of the Crown Prince during odd months, and you're on duty for even months. If there really were people from Yong'an praying for the end of a drought, there's no reason the drought-related prayers would only come in during odd months, while you heard nothing."
Feng Xin paused and realized that was certainly true. "I didn't say you did it on purpose. You always overthink these things."
It seemed they were ready to start quarreling again. Xie Lian gestured for them to pause, feeling his head throb.
"All right, Feng Xin didn't mean anything by it. Both of you, stop this instant."
The two immediately stopped arguing. Incidentally, it was just then that Qi Rong finally grew tired of watching his subordinates beat up on Lang Ying. He grabbed for a small pouch to dump all the melon seed shells into as he gave an order to the guards.
"Drag that thieving crook to prison and lock him up."
The guards acknowledged the command with a "Yessir!" and several of them picked up Lang Ying.
"Let's deal with the problem at hand," Xie Lian said. "We'll save this man first, and I'll ask him about Yong'an properly later."
Mu Qing's expression relaxed, and he asked cautiously, "Your Highness, how do you plan on doing that? You can't show yourself so easily."
Since his ascension, that was one of the rules Xie Lian just couldn't understand. The heavenly officials all talked about helping the common people, and yet they also put on airs, positioned themselves above mortals, and barred themselves from appearing before them at will. Xie Lian was restricted at every turn, which caused him endless frustration. Thankfully, he also had ways to get around this problem.
Without a thought and without looking back, he reached out and pushed. The people standing before them noticed the shadow on the ground vaguely shaking and turned around in confusion.
The next moment, Qi Rong yelled in horror, "COUSIN CROWN PRINCE—" Xie Lian had pushed his own divine statue over!
That kind, beautiful, sword- and flower-holding golden statue swayed back and forth, then slowly listed to the side. Qi Rong looked as though he'd just seen his own mother kick out the stool while hanging herself, aghast to the extreme. He lost all care for Lang Ying as he rushed desperately to cling onto the leg of that statue, stubbornly trying to keep it upright and screaming heartrendingly as he did.
"What are you useless pieces of trash waiting for?! Help me hold him up! Don't let Cousin Crown Prince fall! HE CAN'T FALL!"
While he was terrified to distraction, Xie Lian calmly and casually passed by him and stepped out of the hall. Feng Xin and Mu Qing's expressions were positively dumbfounded.
It took a moment before Feng Xin finally cried, "Your Highness! That was your own divine statue!"
A toppled statue was a bad omen, so doing the toppling was more or less taboo. A heavenly official who'd push over his own statue like that was unheard of—a rarity in all the Three Realms.
"It's only a big hunk of gold," Xie Lian said. "If I didn't do that, I wouldn't have caught their attention. You two go and hold the golden statue down, keep them in place. I'm going to go meet with that man."
Feng Xin and Mu Qing were still speechless and could do nothing but obey. They stood next to that divine statue and each used just one finger to press down on it—that small bit of power was all they needed. The ones holding it up on the other side had to use every ounce of their strength, and they could still only keep the half-toppled status quo, their teeth clenched hard.
"As expected of true, solid gold…such weight!"
As for Lang Ying, he'd long since fallen on his bottom, and he now noticed that the guards were no longer concerned with him. He stared at the golden shine of the divine statue for a long while before he rose to his feet, dusted himself off, and hurried away carrying his satchel. Xie Lian followed behind, watching. Lang Ying ran for a fair distance and entered a lush and heavy forest, then looked around before sitting down under a tree to rest. Xie Lian hid behind that tree, then cast a spell with a casual hand seal to transform himself into the form of a young, white-clad cultivator.
After the transformation, he looked himself up and down to ensure there was nothing amiss. He was fiddling with his whisk, thinking about how to approach without appearing too abruptly, when he noticed that Lang Ying was squatting next to a puddle by the tree and busying himself with digging a hole in the ground.
"…"
The young man's hands were large, and one swipe was enough to create a wide, deep gouge. Dirt flew as he dug, and he looked much like a very lean, black wolfdog. Xie Lian was just wondering why the man had suddenly started digging when he saw Lang Ying wipe the mud off on his pants, scoop a handful of water with both hands, and bring it to his lips.
At the sight of this, Xie Lian couldn't hide anymore and rushed out. He stopped the man's hands and passed him a water bottle he retrieved from his qiankun sleeves.
Lang Ying's cheeks were already round with a mouthful of puddle water, and he swallowed it down. He gazed at this little cultivator who had appeared so suddenly, but he didn't question it, nor did he reject the offer. He took the water bottle and gulped down its entire contents in one go.
Only after he finished did he utter, "Thanks."
Since he had already appeared so abruptly, Xie Lian stopped caring about having a natural opening line. He tried his best to swing his whisk transcendentally, like someone worthy of trust. "My friend, where did you come from and where are you going?"
"We came from the Bay of Lang-Er in the city of Yong'an. I was going to head to the imperial palace, but I've changed my mind. I'm not going anymore."
Xie Lian was taken aback. "We?"
Lang Ying nodded. "We. Me…and my son."
Xie Lian was growing even more confused, but his heart was sinking. He watched as Lang Ying removed the satchel from his back and opened it.
"My son."
Inside that satchel he'd been carrying on his back was the dead body of a small child.
The child was a tiny creature who looked no more than two or three years of age. His face was yellow, his cheeks sallow, and his head had a few sparse strands of thin, yellowing hair stuck to it. Rashes streaked across his skin. That little face was twisted into a strange expression, as if holding back tears and terribly miserable. His eyes were already closed but his mouth was still open, though no sound would ever come from it again.
Xie Lian's pupils shrank, his spirit shocked to the core, unable to speak. No wonder he had felt that this young man had a strange air about him. He couldn't have explained what that strangeness was, only that he was abnormal. The way he spoke, the way he behaved, it was like he didn't consider consequences at all—he was blunt and berserk and entirely reckless. But at this point, why would he need to consider consequences?
After showing him his son, Lang Ying wrapped the child anew, carefully tucking the cloth around him. Seeing how focused he was in his action made Xie Lian miserable. It was his very first time seeing the corpse of such a young child.
He asked, stammering, "How…how did your son die?"
Lang Ying adjusted the satchel on his back and replied, bemused, "How did he die…I don't know that either. Thirst, hunger, sickness. Maybe a bit of everything."
He scratched his head.
"When I first carried him out of Yong'an, he would still cough a bit, and he called for me from my back—'Dad! Dad!' Eventually there was no more of that, only coughing. And then there were no more coughs. I thought he'd fallen asleep. Later, when I found something to eat and tried to wake him up, he wouldn't."
The child had died on the road of escape.
Lang Ying shook his head. "I don't know how to take care of children. If my wife knew our son died, she'd scold me to death." After a moment of silence, he added, "I really wish my wife could still scold me."
His expression had stayed calm the entire time, like a branch snapped from a withered tree, or a pool of dead water without ripples or any trace of life. Xie Lian's throat constricted, unable to swallow.
Moments later, he suggested in a small voice, "Why…why don't you bury him?"
Lang Ying nodded. "Yeah. I wanted to pick a nice place. Here's not bad. There are trees to block the sun, and water too. I'll go back after burying him. Thanks for your water."
He coughed a few times and bent down again, continuing to dig with his hands.
Xie Lian mumbled softly, "No, don't thank me…don't thank me, don't."
Just then, Feng Xin and Mu Qing arrived, and they were greeted with the confusing sight of one person digging a hole and another watching in a daze. Xie Lian wasn't in the mood to speak and just kept muttering a few incoherent words. It was some time before Xie Lian remembered that simply giving water wasn't enough; this man was returning to Yong'an. Thus, his hand went back into his sleeve and rummaged around. Finally finding what he was looking for, he passed it over.
"Here, take this."
Lang Ying stopped and looked closely at the item in Xie Lian's hand. It was a deep red pearl no bigger than a fingernail, its luster smooth and sleek, polished and brilliant and soul-stirringly beautiful. Even if he didn't know what it was, a simple glance made it obvious this little thing was invaluable.
This was in fact the remaining red coral pearl earring that Xie Lian had worn during the Shangyuan Heavenly Ceremonial Procession three years before. That pearl had left a deep impression on Mu Qing, so the moment he saw it, his face changed.
Lang Ying didn't reject it. He took it directly, as if the proper manners and concerns of a normal person had long since left him.
"Thanks."
He carefully tucked the pearl into his belt, then he removed the satchel on his back and gently laid it into the pit he'd dug.
"Dad will come back very soon to visit you."
Finished, he solemnly pushed the earth back to cover the satchel. Xie Lian put his hand on his forehead and closed his eyes.
A moment later, the young man strode away.
Feng Xin was bewildered. "Your Highness, what did he bury here? He said 'Dad'? He buried someone?"
Mu Qing was concerned with something else. "Your Highness, I looked into what happened. Yong'an has never been a wealthy place; their temples and shrines are few in number. It seems they also have a local rule where those who don't offer donations can't pray, so those who've visited the Temple of the Crown Prince have all been wealthy. The suffering poor can't even enter…"
Xie Lian didn't respond to the report. He said in a dark voice, "You two, go to Yong'an and see what the situation is. I will go meet the state preceptor and ask him exactly what's going on."
He had never looked this upset before. His two subordinates didn't dare to be negligent; they acknowledged his command and departed an instant later. Xie Lian himself turned and raced in the direction of Mount Taicang.
It appeared that the situation in Yong'an could only be a major disaster, not a small disturbance. Even if he himself couldn't hear the voices of prayer, it hardly meant those at the imperial palace were so uninformed!