The King's Mate - Part 2: Yaoshi

Chapter 5

---- I know we've all read tgcf and know about Qi Rong's and Ghost City's food but I do feel like I should warn you about reading this chapter if you easily feel queasy. Also you probably shouldn't eat while reading this either x.x ---

I kinda thought this should be obvious by now but I noticed some people struggling with the timeline here ^-^; So let me just make it clear that HC's POV starts when he's leaving Guishi, which is before XL even receives HC's letter about coming home. So at this point in time, XL is still safely back in the palace in Banyue and doesn't even worry about HC yet because he's not even delayed yet.
So just keep in mind we went back in time since we started part 2 ^-^;

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter.

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Hua Cheng had a surprisingly decent amount of sleep, though unfortunately the events of yesterday had not been a fever dream and upon waking up, he found himself on the tiny bed in the shabby house he owned since yesterday.

Heaving a sigh, Hua Cheng threw the blanket off him and got ready for the day. He would have really liked to have his gege with him, but it couldn't be helped. He'd never risk his husband's safety for his own selfish desires.

He was about to leave the house when he realised he hadn't eaten anything at all the previous day, though strangely he didn't feel hungry at all either. The thought made him pause, but only for a moment before he decided to simply keep an eye on his bodily functions for now, and see where not eating would get him.

Hua Cheng's mission for the day was to find Ming Yi's bookstore again. It should have been easy enough in theory, however the whole magic thing that had transported him to right in front of his house hadn't left him with any sense of where that bookstore was in relation to his current location. It was rather vexing, and Hua Cheng really hated that he had to deal with such bullshit just because these damned creatures were too lazy to walk.

The only thing he could recall about the location was that it was fairly close to the edge of the city. In the end, he just started walking towards the edge, still making sure to keep a good grasp on where exactly he was at all times. Obviously, he stuck to one of the bigger streets for most of the way. After all, this city was sprawled out in the most random ways, with winding streets and too many side and back alleys. Getting lost here would be incredibly easy if he allowed himself to get distracted.

In fact, Hua Cheng knew for sure that he'd walked on the same street for the better part of the day at this point, but he felt like he'd taken so many turns that it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly where he was in the city, even if he had a map. It was stupid, and Hua Cheng despised the layout of this city from the bottom of his heart. He'd always been good with orientating himself, and could always depend on his sense of direction. But this city was much too big and chaotic, and he couldn't even use the sky for help.

After all, big, dark clouds had been covering the sky since he arrived yesterday, and while there had been some moonlight shining through that blanket of clouds, the moon itself hadn't been clearly visible, and its location had been more of a rough approximation than anything else. It was rather infuriating.

Of course, Hua Cheng did pay attention to every shop he passed on the way, and he found that on a basic level, it was very much the same as any other city in his kingdom. The biggest difference was truly the architecture and the way the city was laid out. Everything else resembled normalcy, at least from what Hua Cheng could tell so far.

Eventually, the road he was on split off in two different directions, and Hua Cheng had to make a choice. Both pathways looked similarly boring, though he felt like the road had taken more right turns than left turns, and so he chose to go down the section that split off to the left side, making a mental note to remember the apparent apothecary that caused the road to split in the first place.