Hua Cheng knew that Xie Lian was approaching.

Of course he knew. He was a ghost king, a supreme, so knowing these kinds of things were second nature to him.

Not to even mention how his entire being had been calibrated to focus on Xie Lian for hundreds and hundreds of years, not always knowing where exactly he was but always being incredibly aware of his presence in the world.

But despite being a ghost king, a supreme, the moment he knew Xie Lian had finally arrived in Ghost City, he became nervous.

Hua Cheng didn't like being nervous. Not because the sensation was uncomfortable per se, but because he wasn't used to the feeling. He was used to always being in control, not only of his surroundings but also of his own emotions.

Now, he had no control of neither.

The reason he was nervous was simple. He loved Xie Lian, and he had promised to greet him with his true appearance the next time they met. Now seemed to be that next time, and he was already in his true appearance, although nobody in Ghost City knew that. Xie Lian would know, and Hua Cheng was afraid he wouldn't like it. 

Hua Cheng leaned back, crossing one leg over the other with his arms on the armrests of his chair, and let the presence of the heavenly official that he had loved for so long wash over him. What would he do if gege didn't like his true face? What would he do if gege thought it looked too harsh? What would he do if gege was disgusted by the fact that Hua Cheng only had one eye?

And then, Hua Cheng heard his voice... His soft, sing-song voice, right outside the curtains that surrounded his chair. He became dead still, and so did the rest of the gambling den, noticing that their Chengzhu was stirring.

"Hehh..."

He couldn't help but smirk, despite himself, when he realised how desperately gege was working to save his friend. And he saw it as a perfect opportunity to feel gege up a bit.

"Invite him over", he commanded one of his many subordinates, one that was lucky enough to be allowed to stand right outside his curtains. "I'm in a good mood today."

He would be in a good mood any day gege came to visit.

Hua Cheng was trembling in anticipations as he heard his love approach. Soon, he saw his shadow loom outside the curtains, and he wondered if Xie Lian felt all of the things that he was feeling himself in that moment.

He took a deep breath, something he did sometimes despite not needing air, the slow rising and falling of his chest feeling good anyway. Then, he opened the curtains...

Seeing gege's face made his heart jolt. He had missed him terribly, even if it had only been days since they had last seen one another. He had been without gege for so long, but now he had actually openly met him, only a few days away from him made Hua Cheng body ache in longing. 

Gege was beautiful, of course, with his long, nut-brown hair, his sweet face, his thin lips contrasted by his big eyes.

"Gege..."

"San Lang", he said.

Hua Cheng shivered as gege used the nickname. Never in a million years would he let anyone else use that name. It was for the two of them only.

And the best part was, Xie Lian didn't at all seem repulsed by his face. He gaped a little looking at it, and it was as if he was drinking his entire appearance in. 

They stood so, quietly for a while, just taking each other in. Hua Cheng could hear suspicious murmurs in the gambling den, but he didn't care. He only had eyes for gege. 

It was the ghost king who finally broke the silence. 

"Let me show you..." Hua Cheng said. 

And he took Xie Lian's hands.

He knew that Xie Lian knew, at least somewhere deep down because he could be cutely clueless at times, that he had no interest in showing him how to roll dice. He just wanted to feel up his hands. And he wanted Xie Lian to feel up his.

Hua Cheng had expected Xie Lian's hands to be feminine and soft, but despite their elongated thinness, he found them surprisingly rough. Probably not at all strange for someone who had been collecting scraps for hundreds and hundreds of years. He found that he rather like this surprising sensation of his worn, slender hands beneath his own much larger ones.

But Hua Cheng didn't look down on their touching hands once. Hua Cheng's eyes were on Xie Lian's face, his porcelain skin, the rosy glow that contrasted his own bloodlessness nicely, and, most of all, his big, searching eyes. God, to kiss that face... To cup his chin with his hand and pull gege's lips towards his own. To pin him up softly against a wall using his hips only...

Hua Cheng had known for a long time exactly how much Xie Lian meant to him. Hua Cheng would gladly exchange his own life if it meant Xie Lian would take just one more breath. But in that moment, Hua Cheng also knew that what he wanted more than anything was for Xie Lian to feel the same way about him, that he, Hua Cheng, felt for Xie Lian. 

Hua Cheng found it hard to put his mind to rest as he showed Xie Lian around Paradise Manor. He felt that he was being selfish, that the thing he desired the most was not Xie Lian's health, but something as selfish as Xie Lian having reciprocated feelings.

Well, he was a ghost king. Wasn't he supposed to be selfish? Didn't that come with being dangerous? Unselfish people, and unselfish ghosts, would not be dangerous at all. 

He was a bit distracted by his thoughts as he lead gege to the weaponry, but he soon came back to reality as Xie Lian's giddiness became apparent. He knew Xie Lian would love the weaponry, because he knew who Xie Lian truly was, but his eagerness as he touched each and every one of the swords made him chuckle.

He offered the swords as gifts to Xie Lian. When Xie Lian refused, the final factor being that he would never dare to bid Hua Cheng to do chores for him as he was a supreme ghost king, he couldn't help but feel slightly saddened. He suspected Xie Lian thought his gift was clueless and insincere, that it was a spur-of-the-moment thing Hua Cheng had decided upon when seeing how much Xie Lian loved the swords.

But that couldn't have been further from the truth. Truth was, very time Hua Cheng had come across a powerful sword, he had thought of Xie Lian, wondered if he would have liked this particular one, and fought, sometimes even seriously, to obtain it to his collection so that he could one day, when they met, gift it to Xie Lian.

But the sadness he felt when Xie Lian refused his gift immediately evaporated when the heavenly official took hold of Hua Cheng's hands in his excitement, an echo of when Hua Cheng had grabbed his back in the gambling den.

At first, Xie Lian didn't seem to notice that Hua Cheng stood frozen in place. He kept holding his hands, turned towards the ghost king, while chatting happily about the swords.

But soon, the silence caught up to the heavenly official. Hua Cheng couldn't help but find it funny that a silence he himself would have noticed in a heartbeat passed gege by for so long before he noticed it.

But when he did, he looked up at Hua Cheng, eyes big, lips slightly parted and glistening.

"San Lang..."

He said his name with so much love, it broke Hua Cheng's unbeating heart.

And before Xie Lian let go of Hua Cheng's hands, the ghost king noticed that the heavenly official caressed his dead skin with his warm thumbs, for just the fraction of a second, before he let go and turned around with what Hua Cheng believed was a blush.