The King's Mate - Part 2: Yaoshi

Chapter 14

After his visit to the tavern, Hua Cheng walked around the city.

By now it had gotten truly late and therefore dark outside. Which was precisely what he'd been waiting for. After all, he had come here for one specific purpose; his discovery by the roadside had merely been an unwelcome distraction, albeit an important one.

The streets seemed to be rather quiet, as expected, since the night watch had been improved during his stay here to finally work properly . So Hua Cheng eventually made his way to the red light district.

It was certainly much more lively there; the people living in the neighbouring district certainly had a hard time trying to sleep. Which was something Hua Cheng knew for a fact; he could hear complaints coming out of those houses, though he was sure he had to thank his newly improved senses for that.

Hua Cheng didn't care too much about the roughhousing that was still a nightly occurrence in the red-light district; it had already gotten increasingly better since he'd taken control of it. He decided to simply stick to the back alleys for now and just wait for something to happen.

On second thought however, Hua Cheng decided to head to the gambler's den instead. It hadn't been too long since he'd been there, so he didn't think it had changed much during his absence. The only issue was that he couldn't go there as himself, since it would leave the people questioning why the king hadn't actually left with his entourage.

Hua Cheng absolutely didn't feel like explaining that issue to some random, immoral drunks, and thus shifted into a different skin. He made sure to keep some of his features unaffected by these changes though, to make himself more believable when he'd tell them he was the king's brother.

The only issue was that he needed to come up with a name. As far as fake names went, Hua Cheng figured he should choose a moniker that was rather extravagant, and easily recognisable as such. After all, if he tried to come up with a real, proper name for his nonexistent brother, sooner or later the guards that were already guarding the royal properties in this city would start to feel suspicious from never having heard of him, or even his name mentioned before.

But if he chose to go by a moniker, and claimed to have been assigned the role of managing the gambler's den, it would be all too understandable that he wouldn't want his real name, and therefore the king himself to be associated with such a seedy place. Of course, Hua Cheng couldn't care less about such things under normal circumstances, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Thus, he thought for a few long moments of an appropriate moniker.

Hua Cheng could tell the guards he was there to make sure the gambler's den turned into some semblance of a proper establishment, and to clean out the trash that was polluting it. Which was arguably the same job the rain did whenever it decided to fall; washing away the dirt on the marble floor, walls and statues Hua Cheng liked to plaster his palace with.

Of course, Hua Cheng's own version of 'cleaning practices' involved quite a lot more blood, so it wouldn't be a false choice to call himself blood* rain, which was too on the nose for his liking though. Hua Cheng played around with several descriptives in his head, and eventually settled on Crimson Rain.

Crimson Rain by itself didn't seem quite right either. After all, Hua Cheng always felt more... complete, for lack of a better word, when his gege was with him. And if he couldn't be with his husband in body, then he could at least honour him by adding him to his moniker in some way.

Thinking of Xie Lian, the first things coming to Hua Cheng's mind were kindness, grace, intelligence, compassion, virtuousness, elegance, purity, innocence, beauty; everything that was warm and bright. If he had to choose a symbol that could encompass most of these words, it would be a white camellia. Of course it also helped that he knew for a fact that his gege loved those flowers, as well as the colour white in general.