angel

“Hua Cheng quietly sighed, extended his arms, and once again folded him into his embrace. "Your Highness, I've always watched you."

This was the second time he had said this, but his voice was softer than before. Xie Lian clutched the red robes at his chest, asking, his mind blank, "I know, I know. But... what should I do now?"

Hua Cheng's long and slender fingers gently combed through Xie Lian's mussed hair. "Then, Your Highness, do you know why I refuse to leave this world?"

Xie Lian couldn't understand why Hua Cheng could still be so calm at a time like this, he was panicking so hard he was trembling. But, while feeling lost, he still simple-mindedly asked, "Why?"

Hua Cheng replied quietly, "Because I have a beloved who is still in this world."

Hearing this, Xie Lian was slightly stunned. He seemed to have heard this somewhere before.

Hua Cheng continued, "My beloved is a brave, noble, and gracious special someone. He's saved my life; I've looked up to him ever since I was young. But, I wanted to catch up to him more, and become and even stronger person for him. Although he might not remember me well. We never really talked. I want to protect him."

He gazed at Xie Lian. "If your dream is to save the common people, then my dream is only you."

"..." Relying on his memory, Xie Lian asked with a trembling voice, "But... you won't... be able to rest in peace... like this...?"

Hua Cheng answered, "I pray to never rest in peace.”
― Mò Xiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 [Tiān Guān Cì Fú]

“Last time, they spent eight hundred years running towards each other. This time, it only took an instant to fall into each other's embrace.”
― Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

“Hua Cheng said quietly, "Your Highness, I understand your everything.

"Your courage, your despair; your kindness, your pain; your resentment, your hate; your intelligence, your foolishness.

"If I could, I would have you use me as your stepping stone, the bridge you take apart after crossing, the corpse bones you need to trample to climb up, the sinner who deserved the butchering of a million knives. But, I know you wouldn't allow it."

(...)

However, Hua Cheng only replied, "To die in battle for you is my greatest honour."

Those words were like a fatal blow. The tears in Xie Lian's eyes could no longer be restrained, and they came pouring out.

Like he was hanging on the thread of his life, he pleaded, "You said you would never leave me."

However, Hua Cheng replied, "There is no banquet in this world that doesn't come to an end."

Xie Lian bowed his head and buried it deep into his chest, his heart and throat in constricted agony, unable to speak.

Yet soon after, he heard Hua Cheng say above him, "But, I will never leave you."

Hearing this, Xie Lian's head shot up.

Hua Cheng said to him, "I will come back. Your Highness, believe me.”
― Mò Xiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 [Tiān Guān Cì Fú]

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles