'I can hear the sound of a heartbeat before it goes out.'
Xie Lian hears the scream. It's raw, painful, loud. It's so excruciating that Xie Lian finds himself falling to the ground. The collection of souls and spirits all resentful and revengeful swarm the boy who'd stayed. That soldier who was clearly hiding things, but he stayed even when Xie lians temper was atrocious.
And now Xie Lian weakly crawls forward yelling and screaming out. "Wu ming! Wu Ming!" He chants. "Please stop this madness!" He begs. "I can't." He cries. "I can't loose you."
'Won't ever leave my memory of bloodshed all around'
Xie Lian was a god. He had temples and followers. People prayed and worshiped him. They loved him, and he would do anything for them.
So he fell for them.
He abandoned everything to help save them.
And now he finds himself tied down on the alter of his own temple crowded by at lease a hundred people. Some old some young. Some wealthy some poor. They were all different. Nothing linked them except one thing.
A greed to survive. Normally Xie Lian would praise such traits. He's always encouraged reasons for living. He even told someone to use him as their reason. But these people have been gathered by a calamity. And he didn't mean to use him like this.
To satisfy their hunger Xie Lian laid wide eyed as he was stabbed over a hundred times in the name of "saving the people".
After that all he could see was red.
'And I can see a tear on my father's face before it falls out.'
Xie Lian didn't want a lot. He'd been stabbed in the back by his followers as well as every other vital point in his body. He'd been "killed" over and over.
He didn't want a lot, but he sent his friends away. He stole a rich man's wallet. And then he wronged his father so much that one evening he came back and he was hung from the roof on full display. Of course his ever loving mother saddened and influenced by his father hug herself next to him.
'Oh, my enemy, how could I have ever let you down?'
If Xie Lian knew his speech to the heavenly emperor would create a future like this, he thinks he wouldn't have said it.
If those few words caused him all this pain. The suffering of his people. The death of his beloved. And the birth of a truly villainous calamity. He was sure he'd have held his tongue.
Then again when has Xie Lian ever changed to fit someone's ideals. And if that's all it takes to offend the capital then he guesses he has a lot more to come.
'Oh When all these trees saw us grow.'
He finds himself thinking back to before a lot. Thinking back to the time he was young. He was a troublesome child and it only grew worse the older he got into his teenage years. But even with all that, the trouble he used to cause, the past was still a nice memory he'd keep.
'Cut our teeth and make our bones right here.'
He can remember the day he'd ignored Mu Qing's advice and gone ahead to climbed the palace wall. There was a huge peach tree just outside and if Xie Lian reaches enough-
He would fall and not grab the fruit he so desired. It had been a blood bath in its own right. He had bit his tongue and lip in the fall causing blood to pool and flow from his mouth with no intention of stopping.
