A Blade and an Arrow

Soulmates

Mu Qing ascended because he had cleaned the remaining ghosts that lurked around the robbles of the fallen structures of the Xian Le kingdom.

The kingdom which he had once called home. Where he lived most of his childhood working just so they could have decent food on the table for his mother and other street children to eat. Enduring the bullying and mockery they had thrown at him when he had worked as a servant in the palace. With words that doesn't differ with what he already feels.

'You don't belong here!'

He already knows he doesn't.

'You deserve to live in the mud!'

That's what the people in his own street had already once told him. Being told by a few more people from the palace was no different.

'Don't think so highly of yourself just because you're the Crowned Prince's servant!'

He never did and knew would have no privilege even if that was the case.

'You're just a floor-sweeping servant! Nothing else!'

When was he not nothing?

It was these words that haunted him every time his mind wasn't so busy of thinking about what to feed his mother. The small voice at the back of his head reminding him of where he came from and who he was once. It irked him, skin always tingling as though someone was watching him from afar and waiting for him to make a mistake.

It was starting to claw at his own skin so painfully and uncomfortably he had wanted to leave the face of the earth if it weren't for the only family he had.

And if it weren't for the Crowned Prince's own personal guard always following behind him, no more than ten steps away and ready to yell at who dares to touch him again as though he was obliged to protect Mu Qing as well.

Maybe it was the overprotectiveness of the guard that made the servant fall for him.

Even if that same man was the reason why he had beared so many bruises and wounds.

Because at the end of the day, it was always Feng Xin who pushed the bullying away.

That of course didn't stop the side-glancing and the glares of envy.

But atleast it stopped them from having to purposely shove him around or beat the shit out of him or double the piles of his work.

It wasn't that he was weak he couldn't fight back. He had always had this argument with Feng Xin and discussed it with Xie Lian. He was born in poverty that if he were to fight back, there would be no nobility backing him up right away. He would be punished if not banished from the palace.

He wasn't like Feng Xin who had the privilege to be immediately a personal guard of the Crowned Prince at the age of fourteen.

He wasn't like the people in the palace that was born in the palace.

He was just Mu Qing.

A silver headed man with a mother that couldn't work no more and a father he had never even met. Working his ass off night and day just to survive off scraps.

He was exhausted and ready to collapse.

Yet for some reason Feng Xin was always there.

Always there to annoy him, anger him, bicker with him, curse at him but all at the same time, to also accompany and help him whenever the Crowned Prince enters back to his training and cultivating and dismissed them.

Feng Xin of all people, never left him even when he wasn't really doing anything but follow the silverette around the palace's corner from corner trying to finish his labor of the day. He never insulted nor criticised his way of working or how much he needed to work. In fact, he would even wordlessly help the latter, carrying the things the silverette couldn't carry at once, picking cherries along and putting it in another basket for Mu Qing even when he intended to get only one basket.