#I sent a less refined version of this to my RP partner almost immediately and got questioned as to why I decided to hurt them like this

[sir-camelot]

This just made me think of something terribly sad. How many times does you think XL might've rolled those dice in that year HC was gone?

Maybe the first month he didn't think about it. Then one day they roll out of his sleeve and he suddenly has this intense need to just see. Would his beloved appear?

He rolls the dice...

... Nothing happens.

He doesn't think about it for a few days after that. Feeling crushed that Hua Cheng didn't show up. Obviously he doesn't blame his ghost, it was his own fault for being so impatient. If Hua Cheng were capable of being there with him right this second, he would.

It was so much harder to go back to being alone after having the company of someone who hung onto his every word. Who was always so entertaining and fun to be around. Who loved his cooking and gave honest feedback. Who knew his everything and loved him unconditionally.

Then he's making dinner and can't help but think how everything tastes so much more bland without him there. So he pulls out the dice, rubs them between his hands a few times as he considers if the potential disappointment is worth it. Then he throws caution to the wind and rolls them.

A few moments later there's a knock at the door, he runs to open it, His eyes are alight, his heart thundering against his ribs. It had to be him!

It's just Feng Xin and Mu Qing.

Xie Lian has to calm his heart and keep his face carefully constructed into a pleasant smile even as he feels absolutely devastated. Neither of his friends stick around for dinner, both seemingly called for something important.

This continued for a couple of months, though he's now always careful to do it well into the night, when he knows the only person that could possibly knock on his door is Hua Cheng. But every time that nothing happens he can't help but feel hurt, he is human after all. He admonishes himself for being impatient and busies himself with a new task instead.

Over the course of a few months he does it less and less until he stops altogether.

While he's searching for scrap during the day of the Lantern Festival he finds a pair of dice and his smile is bittersweet. He can't help but roll them, knowing it won't bring his ghost back to him, unable to stomp out that little flicker of hope regardless. When nothing happens he only tucks them away into his sleeve with the other dice and climbs up into the oxcart to head back to his residence on Mount Taicang.

The sun sets as he travels, his mind only half on the path. Seeing the lanterns in the sky, then the figure standing before his humble hut and being unable to fully believe it. That maybe this time the dice worked.

Finally his San Lang is home.

Meanwhile the entire time Hua Cheng has been piecing himself together, remembering why he's here and who he is, he feels this pull to go somewhere.

At first it's almost daily… striking within him the importance of sticking around, of working harder and faster to construct a body.

Then it tapers off to weekly… it feels somehow more urgent now that it is happening less. A fear grips him from somewhere he doesn't fully understand.

Then it dies off entirely and he's left to assemble himself in the loneliness of the void.

And when he's finally corporeal he feels that pull again after having not felt it for months and immediately knows where he needs to go and why.

He has a beloved who is still in this world.

How do y'all sleep knowing Xie Lian only knew the speech “if you want to see me, it won't matter what you roll on the dice, i'll appear” came from the only person who stood by his side in both unlucky and lucky times when that person was DISAPPEARING BEFORE HIS EYES???!