This was a question to which Xie Lian already vaguely knew the answer, but Hua Cheng's reaction was not what he expected.
After a brief silence, Hua Cheng blurted out, "I'm sorry."
Xie Lian was puzzled. "What?"
His first assumption was that, if "Thousand Lights Temple" wasn't some kind of a joke, the individual most directly tied to the incident could only be Hua Cheng. But no matter how off the mark he might have been with this guess, there was no reason for Hua Cheng to apologize.
Hua Cheng didn't respond, just gestured Xie Lian to keep walking with him, so Xie Lian followed his lead. They walked for a while, and after making a turn, the sight before him opened to a broad horizon.
Before Xie Lian's eyes rose a temple that glowed with quiet transcendence. In an instant, his breath hitched.
All around them, the colors of the Ghost Realm crisscrossed, smoky grays and vivid scarlets. Surrounded by such a backdrop stood that temple —majestic and splendid, its thousands of lights resplendent, as though this were paradise itself.
A temple founded on such radiance and brilliance was out of place sitting within the rowdy, chaotic pandemonium of Ghost City, but it inspired awe all the same. The second that one laid eyes upon it, it left a deep, enduring impression.
It took a long time before Xie Lian found his voice. "This is…"
The pair stood before the temple, gazing at the structure with admiration.
Hua Cheng raised his head slightly and explained.
"It was the Mid-Autumn Festival a few days ago, and I figured gege would probably join that rabble in their frivolous games. So I set this place up to provide gege with some amusement while attending the banquet—to make things interesting and relieve your boredom."
"…"
Hua Cheng's approach to "relieving boredom" was much too sensational. For the sake of Xie Lian's "amusement," he had built a temple and raised three thousand Blessings Lanterns of Everlasting Light!
Hua Cheng lowered his head, fixing his cuffs as he continued, "I didn't want you to know, because I arranged all this without permission. Pray gege isn't offended that I built gege's temple in such an unruly place."
Xie Lian immediately shook his head. It seemed Hua Cheng hadn't wanted to tell Xie Lian of it because he thought he was causing Xie Lian trouble. He really didn't know what to say—at this point, giving thanks again would fall flat. Thus Xie Lian steadied himself, drew in a deep breath, and proceeded to admire this Thousand Lights Temple with renewed care.
A brief moment later, he tilted his head and asked, "This temple is a singularly beautiful work of architecture, and massive as well. The artistry and craftsmanship of its edifice is divine. It couldn't have been constructed in mere days. San Lang, you didn't build this only recently, did you?"
Hua Cheng smiled. "Of course not. Gege has a good eye—this was built a long time ago. I never found a use for it, so I had it hidden away; no one has ever been allowed inside. I'll have to thank gege for finally giving it purpose and allowing it to see the light of day."
Xie Lian was surprisingly relieved to hear this.
If it had been built a long time ago for some other reason but never properly settled into a use, then it had only been adopted for convenience's sake. If Hua Cheng really had constructed a temple just for Xie Lian, he would feel even more uneasy. Of course, with Hua Cheng's personality, it could very well have been built solely to amuse himself. Although Xie Lian was quite curious as to why Hua Cheng would construct a building that so vastly differed from the rest of Ghost City, he contained the impulse to ask. It wasn't a good habit to pry, lest one accidentally ask what one shouldn't.
"Want to go in and take a look?" Hua Cheng asked.
"Of course," Xie Lian answered cheerfully.
Side by side, they entered the temple, leisurely strolling down the jade-stone path. The interior of the temple was spacious and bright, but it didn't have a divine statue, nor any cushions for worshippers to kneel upon.
"This was built in a hurry, so there are many careless and thoughtless elements," Hua Cheng explained. "Pray gege forgives me."
Xie Lian grinned. "Not at all. I think this is very nice. Very, very nice. It's good that there isn't an idol or cushions, and best if there won't ever be. But how come there's no establishment plaque?"
He wasn't calling Hua Cheng on a fault, it was just that even the jade stones paving the temple paths were meticulously engraved with "Thousand Lights Temple," but the establishment plaque above the entrance was missing. Naturally it couldn't have been a simple oversight, hence Xie Lian's curiosity.
Hua Cheng chuckled. "It can't be helped. There isn't really anyone around here who can write. Just think of that crowd earlier; it'd be impressive if they could even recognize letters. Does gege like any particular calligraphy masters? I'll invite them over to help compose the plaque. Although, in my opinion, the best solution would be for gege himself to draw up a sign and hang it over Thousand Lights Temple. That would be more than splendid."
As he spoke, he pointed to the altar in the great hall. This jade altar table was exceedingly long and wide, and various offerings and an incense burner were neatly placed upon it. There were even brushes, inkstones, and paper, providing an air of scholastic elegance.
The pair approached the table, and Xie Lian asked, "Why doesn't San Lang compose one for me?"
Hua Cheng's eye slightly widened at the suggestion, like the thought was unexpected. "Me?"
"Yeah," Xie Lian replied.
Hua Cheng pointed at himself. "You really want me to write?"
Xie Lian noticed his discomfort and asked, "Will it trouble San Lang?"
Hua Cheng cocked an eyebrow and replied, "No, it's just…"
Seeing that Xie Lian was waiting for him to answer, he clasped his hands behind his back and continued, somewhat helplessly, "All right. It's just…I don't write well."
Now this was something new. Xie Lian truly couldn't imagine there was anything Hua Cheng couldn't do well. He smiled.
"Oh? Really? Will you write something and show me?"
"Are you sure?" Hua Cheng asked once more.
Xie Lian took out a few sheets of blank paper, laid them neatly upon the jade altar table, and attentively flattened them. He then picked a fine-looking zihao brush made of brown rabbit fur and placed it in Hua Cheng's hand. "Come."
As Xie Lian had prepared everything, Hua Cheng relented.
"Fine. But don't laugh."
Xie Lian nodded. "Of course."
Thus, Hua Cheng took the brush and started writing, assuming a serious air. Xie Lian stood next to him and watched, but the more he watched, the more unreadable his face grew.
Xie Lian genuinely wanted to hold it in, but he failed. As Hua Cheng wreaked mad havoc on that paper, he chided Xie Lian half in warning and half in jest, "Gege."
Xie Lian immediately schooled his expression. "My bad."
He didn't want to laugh, but what could he do? Hua Cheng's writing was just too funny!
Of all the crazed brushwork Xie Lian had ever witnessed, none could measure even halfway to Hua Cheng's wild script, a wildness that carried a wicked whirlwind of malevolence. If any calligraphy teachers saw it, their eyes would roll back and they'd perish on the spot. After a long time, and with immense difficulty, Xie Lian managed to make out "sea," "water," "peak," "clouds," and other such words through the scrawl. He guessed Hua Cheng must be writing:
"After seeing the vast sea, no water can compare;
Scattered from the peak of Mount Wu, there are no other clouds…"
Hua Cheng was master of the Ghost Realm and feared by all of heaven and hell; to think he was finally showing such a vulnerable side of himself because of something like writing! The thought alone was going to make Xie Lian's gut burst from holding in his laughter. Hua Cheng completed the piece with a wave of his hand, and Xie Lian forcibly feigned calm as he picked up the end product using both of his own.
"Good. It's got such personality, an essence all its own. It's got style."
Hua Cheng put down the brush, looking like he had the posture wholly perfected, and smiled with his eye in a crescent. "Madness, you mean."
Xie Lian pretended not to hear and began to offer commentary with a straight face. "In fact, writing well is not difficult; what's difficult is writing with a unique style. If one's calligraphy only looks good in the same way that thousands of other works look good, then it's nothing more than common. San Lang has a good foundation, the flair of a master, a daring spirit that conquers the world…"
There were two other idioms that followed: "broken land, armies in turmoil." It couldn't be helped; fabricating praise was hard work. Hua Cheng stood there, and the more he listened, the higher his brows raised.
"Really?" he asked doubtfully.
"When have I ever lied to San Lang?" Xie Lian asked.
Hua Cheng calmly and languidly added a few incense blocks to the small golden vessel on the side, and in the midst of that fresh faint fragrance, he continued with an air of nonchalance.
"I do want to write well, but there's no one to teach me, and I don't know if there are any tricks to the art."
He had certainly asked the right person. Xie Lian hummed and replied, "There's really no trick to it, just…"
Xie Lian considered it, but in the end he felt he couldn't explain everything he wanted to with words alone. So he shuffled closer to pick up the brush himself and wrote the last two verses of the poem Hua Cheng had started. It was done in one breath, and after staring at it for a moment, he sighed a rueful chuckle.
"How shameful. I haven't had much chance to write in many years, so I'm not as good anymore."
Hua Cheng stared at the four verses that looked as vastly different as heaven and hell, the style of the characters foreign to each other, especially the last two verses that Xie Lian had added to finish the poem:
"Many times I've passed through the flowers, yet I spare them no glance;
For half my fate is in cultivation, and the other half, in you."
He connected the verses together and read them a few times, his eye twinkling and unmoving from the page. It was a while before he looked up.
"Teach me?"
"Well, I dare not lecture," Xie Lian said.
Thus, he began to give Hua Cheng a detailed introduction to calligraphy without holding back, providing insights and all that he'd learned from practice in his younger years. They were surrounded by subtly perfumed air and brilliant lights. Within the great hall, their chatter was low, light, and leisurely; Xie Lian lectured earnestly, and Hua Cheng listened intently. It painted a soft picture.
After a while, Xie Lian prompted him, "Why don't you try again?"
Hua Cheng agreed obediently and took the brush from his hand to write another few characters, his expression serious. Xie Lian crossed his arms as he watched, tilting his head.
"Interesting. But…"
He still felt there was something off about the way Hua Cheng put his brush to paper. He observed with a frown and suddenly realized where exactly it was going wrong—Hua Cheng wasn't holding the brush correctly to begin with!
If even the way he held the brush was all over the place, of course it would come out strange!
Xie Lian didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and stood closer, reaching out to correct him without thinking. "You're holding it wrong, it's like this…"
Only after he reached out did he suddenly realize his actions might be inappropriate. He wasn't an elderly teacher tutoring a young disciple, so to instruct Hua Cheng by guiding his hand might be overly familiar. However, since the hand was already out, there was no reason to pull back rashly; he'd only appear overly self-conscious. So, after some hesitation, Xie Lian didn't remove his hand. He remembered the Gambler's Den; hadn't Hua Cheng taught him how to roll dice like this, hand on hand? Although Xie Lian felt he had learned absolutely nothing then, and even had a sneaking suspicion he'd been somehow deceived, here and now he was sincere in his desire to teach Hua Cheng.
Thus, Xie Lian's warm palm relaxed as it pressed close against Hua Cheng's cold hand. With a gentle hold, he led Hua Cheng's hand to guide the brush across the paper, whispering, "Like this…"
He sensed Hua Cheng's brush growing wilder under his hand, so he pressed down a little more firmly to control and correct its path. It didn't take long before it veered further off course, resisting the control, so Xie Lian had to grasp tighter. The characters drawn through their power combined were crooked and twisted, unseemly and ugly, and the more Xie Lian guided, the more he felt something was off. Finally, he couldn't help but gape at the results.
"What…"
The ink on the paper had run tyrannically askew. As if this were a successful silly prank, Hua Cheng snickered softly, leaving Xie Lian exasperated.
"San Lang…don't be like this. Learn properly. Write properly."
"Okay," Hua Cheng obediently acquiesced.
It was blatantly obvious that he was only pretending to be serious. Xie Lian shook his head, feeling ridiculous.
Hua Cheng's hand might have been cold, but for some reason, it felt like a lump of hot coal in his grasp. Xie Lian didn't dare hold him any tighter. His eyes wandered to the edge of the altar, and he stopped.
At the corner of the jade altar table sat a tiny, lonesome flower.