Of Monsters and Flowers: a Jun Wu x Xie Lian x Hua Cheng

Human Face Disease

Xie Lian just stared up at the night sky, not hearing a sound as he lay in the pit he had been in all day long, long since numb from the feeling of Fangxin impaled in his belly.

Laughter began above him, the familiar voice asking, "What are you doing?"

When the owner of said voice failed to get a reaction he seemed disappointed, walking down to Xie Lian and bending down above him, "What are you waiting for?"

The former prince looked annoyed, "Get the hell out of here, you are blocking my view of the sky."

White No-Face did not seem to be bothered by the outburst, straightening up and laughing again, "What is so good about the sky?"

"It is prettier than you!" Xie Lian snapped

"Why the temper?" White No-Face asked, "It was not me who stabbed you this time, and it was not me who left you here. You did this all yourself. Even if you have not gotten the results you were hoping for, you still cannot blame me."

Again, Xie Lian did not reply.

Bai Wuxiang sighed, "You have wasted an entire day here. What exactly are you trying to prove? Or are you trying to convince yourself of something?"

"It is none of your shitty business!" Xie Lian snapped again

The masked man chuckled sympathetically, "Silly child, did you think someone would help you pull out that sword?"

Xie Lian was about to shout at him again, to tell him it was none of his business, but no words managed to spill from his mouth when White No-Face did something he did not expect.

He wrapped his fingers around the sword's hilt and pulled it out, before tossing it down beside Xie Lian, his voice soft with pity, "It is alright, they will not help you, but I will."

"No one else is coming to save you. The people would never come give you a cup of water or help you pull out the sword." Bai Wuxiang stated, "Remember, tomorrow at sunset, if you still have not unleashed the plague of Human Face Disease, the curse will fall upon you."

Xie Lian said nothing, his golden eyes wide as he looked back up at the sky as he processed what had just happened.

All day long the people of Yong'an had just gawked at him, looked at him in pain and ignored it, mocked him, or just did not even spare him a glance.

But Bai Wuxiang, the person who had ruined his life, who had orchestrated his being stabbed a hundred times, had harassed him for so long now, had also been the one to give his parents a proper royal burial and in such a way he would be able to visit them whenever he was ready without worrying about decay and now had been the only one he had seen today who helped him.

"Admit it. What he said is true." Xie Lian thought, "There is no one, no one, no one! There is not a single person who will help me!"

The brunet felt something wet touch him and assumed it was raining, but when he reached up to wipe it off his face, he realized he was crying.

He was then overtaken by a sudden wave of sobs, Xie Lian laying there and just sobbing and he just could not seem to stop.

White No-Face just cooed at him, kneeling on the ground beside him like a parent coddling their child who scraped their knee, making Xie Lian sit up.

The masked man said nothing initially, just hugging him and letting him cry, before saying, "That was what you wanted, was it not? The common people are not worth such devotion, have they not shown it enough yet? You have given them everything you had to offer and yet they demand more and more until you are naught but ash and yet they still trample that in their want for more. You threw your godhood away for them, you tried to defy fate for them, you warred for them, you tried to heal them, and yet they could not be bothered to give you even the littlest bit of help and abandoned you the second you had nothing left to give."