#tgcftarot

[pengiesama]

Five of Coins, Reversed (Fic, TGCF, HC/XL)

Title: Five of Coins, Reversed Series: Heavenly Official’s Blessing (Tian Guan Ci Fu) Pairing: Hua Cheng/Xie Lian

Summary:

It gets better, but first, it’s going to get a whole lot worse.

Written for the the TGCF Tarot Zine project: Third Path. @tgcftarot

Link: AO3

Read on Tumblr!

If thoughts were coins, he wouldn’t have to busk on street corners and sleep in alleyways.

Xie Lian was rich in time to himself, if nothing else. And that left him with a surplus of resources to contemplate his life. He hoped no one would begrudge an old man his wistful daydreams.

(Ah, if only there was anyone left who cared enough to begrudge him.)

Xie Lian heaved a breath, wiped his forehead, and surveyed his work. It’d taken him months, but the field was finally cleared and ready to be used for next year’s planting season.

It had originally been nothing but an abandoned waste, filled with accumulated trash, and a haunting ground for a collection of monsters. The monsters were simple enough to clear out – once Xie Lian had the largest one in several pieces, the rest lost their ferocity and nerve in short order. The trash and scrap were next to go, and any money Xie Lian got from them unfortunately had to be funneled into fixing the soil quality with various fertilizer concoctions. But now the soil was healthy, the land was cleared. Xie Lian hoped the nearby villages would be able to share in its use – eking out a life in these rough mountain lands wasn’t easy.

Today was an especially nostalgic day – perhaps it was something in the waning warmth of summer, the shortening of the days, the leaves on the trees showing the first hints of their autumn blush, that brought out these feelings. It made one’s thoughts turn inward, and backward. And for Xie Lian, there was quite a lot of “backward”…

He had eight hundred years’ worth of life to reflect on. Eight hundred years’ worth of rises, falls, stumbles, tumbles, freefalls down sheer cliffsides into pits of even further misfortune. All as literal as they were metaphorical. Still, even with this huge catalog, Xie Lian always found himself wandering to the memories of his early days.

He recalled the dim memories of his mother, his father. He recalled those carefree days at the temple, in the company of Feng Xin and Mu Qing, under the protection of his teacher. He recalled the cheering crowds, the adoring worshippers, the blooming gardens and scent of incense; the desperate grip of small hands at the collar of his robes in the midst of a freefall, the fathomlessly dark eye staring up at him. He recalled how he failed them all, through ignorance, and arrogance, and cruelty. He recalled how he nearly brought about the ruin of another kingdom on top of that – as if one wasn’t enough – and was only stopped by the timely intervention of a hat and a sacrifice to bring about the chance of a salvation that he hardly deserved. And what would have become of all of them if Jun Wu had not descended to clean up the lingering mess? Xie Lian couldn’t accomplish anything, in the end. He talked a big game about saving the common people, then dooming them, but he wasn’t skilled enough to follow through in either instance.

(More the better, anyway. Xie Lian was already embarrassed enough when he remembered his time willingly spent wearing that pretentious mask; he couldn’t imagine having to live with it still being associated with him. He was, if nothing else, spared that indignity.)

Xie Lian wiped at his forehead and squinted at the sky, allowing himself to pause for breath before setting back to work with his plow. It’d circled back to this, again…he thought about that nameless ghost so often, lately. Perhaps this too was simply part of his dotage.

It wasn’t as though he would ever allow himself to forget – if Xie Lian didn’t remember him, who would? There was simply no one else left, certainly by now. It was enough to make Xie Lian thankful for this immortal, deathless body of his. He’d always be here, through the years, to keep his memory alive.

But even back then…did that nameless ghost have anyone to mourn him, to remember him? What kind of life, what kind of death, could he have possibly endured to have made him swear to help Xie Lian bring pestilence and ruin upon the world? Ghosts remained tethered to the world by lingering sentiment, by emotion felt too keenly and terribly to cease with the beating of their heart. Hatred, love, despair, fury. The chains of one or more of these had tied that nameless ghost to this world, had made him pledge his loyalty to Xie Lian’s horrible cause. And yet he threw it all away without a word of complaint, in the end.

Xie Lian had been too preoccupied with himself to bother trying to understand the ghost’s actions back then. Had been too preoccupied with his own pain, had repaid the ghost’s loyalty with cruelty. And now, well. That ship had long since sailed.

He could not ever hope to measure up to such altruism, such selflessness, such compassion for someone so undeserving. Xie Lian knew by now that he was simply not someone worth that kind of trouble. So, this is the least he could do: he would never allow himself to forget the sight of that masked ghost, ever smiling, being consumed by the rage and sorrow of a million resentful spirits in Xie Lian’s place.

And while he’d never be able to accomplish such a selfless feat – knowing himself to be selfish – nor could he make himself useful as a teacher – or a general – or a day laborer – he’d found himself a niche in scrap collecting. It kept him busy, and kept him fed on good days. And it came with a certain sense of accomplishment in itself, sometimes.

“This is…”

“…impossible…this land…”

A group of villagers huddled at the edge of the field Xie Lian had made, staring at it in shock. Finally, they spotted the white speck that was Xie Lian, toiling away, tied to the plow with Ruoye like one would an ox.

“S-sir! Daozhang! W-were you, perhaps, the one to…clear this cursed place of the beasts that plagued our poor village for so many decades?”

Xie Lian waved to them, nodding in the affirmative. “Yes! The soil, though, the soil was the problem! You’ll need to make sure to rotate your crops, you see, because—”

The villagers all dropped to their hands and knees, kowtowing to Xie Lian and crying out their thanks.

“Daozhang, honored cultivator, please, tell us your name, and our village will write it in our songs, will keep it on our lips for centuries and more!”

And then, there came the sound of bells, rudely interrupting the villagers’ kind words. It was a heavy, gonging sound, rippling through the clouds from one end of the sky to the other. It was a sound that Xie Lian had heard twice before.

Congratulations! Congratulations! Congratulations! You have felled the fearsome Mountain-Shattering Beastly Fist and his Beastly Fist Boys, a vile monster gang of much renown! For your accomplishment, The Heavens™ send their most heartfelt regards to you, and welcome you to join their ranks! Please input your name on the screen in front of you!

Once while asleep, once after thoroughly failing at everything, and now, for having cleared a field of trash. Xie Lian had truly experienced the full range of humiliating ways to ascend, but…

Xie Lian sighed and poked his name in on that strange glowing screen.

…it wasn’t like he had anything else to do, these days.

Welcome, Xie Lian! Your merit score is currently: ZERO. Collect heavenly merits to exchange them at the in-game store for unlockable outfits and furniture items for your palace!

“What?” Xie Lian asked. They’d changed this thing a lot since he’d last interacted with it – he’d previously just signed with a brush like a civilized person, instead of pecking with his finger like a bird with seed.

Please keep your arms and legs inside the heavenly array at all times while we depart.

As Xie Lian was propelled at blinding speed onward and upward, he reasoned that this would at least be a good change of pace.