[[~Hua Cheng's Pov~]]:
Moonlight filtered through the forbidden forest in the human world, and I held Hua Yaó's sleepy, small form in my arms while I continued walking. She was so light, a mere wisp of a thing against the eternal weight of my existence.
Shijie stirred.
She woke slowly, stretching her small limbs and letting out a tiny yawn that seemed to emphasize her profound vulnerability. Her emerald eyes, still heavy with sleep, blinked open and focused on me.
"Gege?" she murmured, her voice thick with dreams. "Are we... home?"
The word 'home' was a dagger.
This forest, this mortal realm, was not her home. I was not in her home. Not anymore. The plan, cold and logical in the silence of Paradise Manor, now felt like a monumental failure.
"We are where you need to be, A-Yáo," I said, my voice carefully neutral as I set her down on her feet. The night air was chill, and she instinctively shuffled closer, her small arms wrapping around my leg in a gesture that was both trusting and heartbreaking.
The innocent warmth of her embrace radiated upwards, a pure and trusting affection that melted away some of the harshness of the world around us. I found myself unable to resist the impulse to reciprocate.
Bending down, I enveloped her in a hug of my own, wanting to reassure her, and perhaps myself, that everything would be alright. Even through my clothes, I could feel the lingering heat of her small body, a comforting and fragile presence that I desperately wanted to shield from harm.
"Bye-bye..." she whispered, her voice small against my chest.
We pulled apart.
We waved and hesitantly walked away from each other, a pathetic pantomime of a normal farewell.
She stopped, and I stopped.
Both our backs facing each other, we both knew the truth the pinky promise could never erase. The Wraths would be after her as a priceless possession. Especially the Heaven Officials, if it ever got out that a human child held power that mirrored a Ghost King's and held his favor.
The very attention I drew was the greatest danger to her.
Hua Yaó and I, bound by a pinky promise to never meet again, turned and embraced one last time, our shared sorrow palpable.
"Gege, I don't want to leave you." She whimpered, her small body trembling.
I hugged her tighter than I have ever hugged anyone in my long, long life. "I wish I could give you a place in my home," I murmured, the truth a bitter taste in my mouth, "but hiding from the shadows is safer, okay? You must be a secret."
Her face crumbled at my words, but I immediately motioned with my head for her to go.
She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a soft, quick kiss to my cheek before she turned and departed. I swear, every time I let her go, it's like all the warmth and genuine love in the world disappeared with her.
Slowly getting up from the ground, I turned around to walk away, my composure a fragile shell. But then I heard her voice, clear and determined, cutting through the night.
"I love you, Gege. I will call you if I'm in danger."
I nodded in agreement, forcing a smile onto my face—a practiced, charming smirk that felt like the greatest lie I had ever told. I waved, a final, dismissive gesture meant to encourage her to keep walking.
It was so hard to keep my composure, to hide the storm of agony that threatened to shatter me. I turned and walked away, my steps measured until I was sure she could no longer see me. Then, I melted into the deepest shadows of the trees, my form blending with the darkness.
I watched her from afar. A-Yáo took one more, long glance at the spot where I had vanished.
She let out a deep, soul-weary sigh that was far too old for her small frame. Then, with a resilience that astounded me, she squared her little shoulders and skipped her way down the path, the red of her hanfu a fading beacon in the gloom.
I followed, a silent wraith in the canopy, ensuring her safety to the very threshold. Once she arrived at her destination, I fell into a state of pure, unadulterated shock.
The place was a hovel.
A dilapidated shack leaning precariously against a larger, slightly less dilapidated building, which I presumed was the bandits' main den. Garbage was strewn about, and the air carried the faint, sour scent of unwashed bodies and cheap ale.
I sweatdropped, the sheer absurdity of the situation cutting through my grief.
'These people were stupid.' Criminally, monumentally stupid, to have a child with a soul as pure and a spirit as bright as A-Yáo, and to house her in... this. They had no concept of the treasure they carelessly possessed.
They were ignorant, coarse, and utterly unworthy.
I watched as she pushed the creaky door open and slipped inside. A part of me, the part that was Hua Cheng, the Ghost King, wanted to burn the entire place to the ground and simply take her back.
But the smarter part, the part that truly cared for her, knew this was the only way.
Here, in this filth, she was hidden.
No god or ghost would think to look for a precious jewel in a dung heap.
*flashback* Earlier in the morning~
It was already morning and the last time I saw my Innocent flower, A-Yaó. My loyal servant & I knew this was for the best for her protection. While my trusted servant, Yin Yu, packed her some books to read so she could be a strong girl in the future, A-Yaó in awe at the small garden since it was in front of her bedroom window.
Moreover, she came to see me and asked a question out of the blue. At the same time, I watched the cherry blossoms flying softly away from the tree branches as my servant continued packing more expensive fabric clothing for her to wear when she returned to the bandits' house and tried them on.
Yin Yu was captivated by her cuteness. As her protective older half-brother, I glared at him, already feeling possessive of Hua Yao. The thought of men in the human realm wanting to marry her filled me with anxiety about her well-being, until I heard A-Yao's voice:
"~Gege, can I pinky promise with you?"
"Of course, what's your little promise to me, A-Yao?"
I kneeled before little Shijie, who stared into my soul with innocent emerald eyes. As she took out the silver butterfly necklace that I had given her yesterday, wrapped a red thread around my pinky along with hers, mumbled some power into it, and gently told me:
"Promise me that we will always tell each other the truth and protect each other's backs until we die."
Widen my eyes at this, I remembered that I'm an immortal Ghost King, who is forevermore a ghost, and she's not, because she is half-human and half-demon; Meaning that whatever she mumbled under her breath, along with her promise, is a spell of protection:
"Gege? Why are you crying? Did I say something bad?" Suddenly, I realized that something was falling from the side of my cheek, which was a tear. I hadn't cried since I was last time human; it felt great to cry.
Immediately, I hugged her tightly like no one was around, and she returned it, "It's not that, A-Yaó. Just that...yes, I pinky promise." With that answer done, we both played before she got her things and was ready to go once I escorted her out.
*end flashback*
Chuckling at the thought of Hua Yáo's pinky promise with me from four nights ago was the only thing I would keep in my heart no matter what; however, the memory of Qi Rong's taunt echoed in the silence, a venomous promise that coiled around my heart.
' "One day, we will kill her without you knowing where she can be, without you watching or protecting her" '
They thought they could take her from me. They thought their shadows were longer than mine.
They were wrong.
I would make sure of it.
With my sad and painful expression written all over my face, I turned my heels away from the wretched hovel, the downpour beginning to soak the world. The rain was a blessing; it mirrored the storm within me and washed away any trace of my presence.
As the first drops fell, I lifted a hand, my spiritual power coalescing to form a small, ornate pot. Inside, nestled in dark soil, was the single, small white flower A-Yáo had planted for me just yesterday in the garden of Paradise Manor.
Her small, dirt-smudged fingers had patted the earth around it with such solemn care.
" 'So you'll have a piece of our garden with you always, Gege,' "
She had once said.
Now, in the cold, human rain, I stared down at it. My fingers, which could summon storms of silver butterflies and wield a blade that made calamities tremble, reached out with a tenderness I reserved only for two things in all the realms.
I brushed a single, trembling fingertip against a closed bud.
The bud shuddered at my touch, infused with a wisp of my power and the memory of her smile. Slowly, impossibly, it unfurled, petals white as moonlight and fragile as hope opening to the weeping sky.
It was blooming. Here, in this place of filth and ignorance, her innocent gift bloomed for me.
A single, bloody tear traced a path through the rain on my cheek.
This was the truth no one would understand—not the lofty Heaven Officials, nor the petty Calamities. They saw only a Ghost King, a creature of resentment and power, and a weakness to exploit in a human child.
They did not see the bond. They did not see that in protecting her, I protected the last pure part of a soul I thought long turned to ash. She was not a vulnerability, but my anchor. My reason to be more than the Scourge of Heaven.
My reason to ensure the heavens themselves would never again crush something beautiful and kind.
Fully open, the flower was a stark, beautiful contrast against the gloom. Rain fell as I cradled the pot, my face etched with sadness, and gazed at the small white flower Little Shijie had planted for me.
Beneath my fingertips, I felt it slowly bloom to life.
'Let them come,' I thought, 'Let all the officials and all the ghosts come.'
My domain was not just the Ghost City or Paradise Manor. My domain was wherever she was. I would be the shadow in every corner, the whisper on the wind, the unbreakable vow she had sealed with a pinky promise and a red string.
I was simply becoming a different kind of protector. A secret guardian. A legend in the shadows, dedicated to a single, sacred purpose: to ensure that Hua Yáo, my innocent flower, would live, would grow, and would never, ever be found.
"Until then..." I whispered to no one but the darkness of the rain, "Grow strong, my little flower. Endure this. I will tear the heavens apart and reshape the earth itself. And when the shadows are no longer a threat, I will come for you. I will bring you home until the time is right."
With that final, silent promise hanging in the air, I turned and vanished, leaving the mortal world behind, but taking the memory of her warmth with me, a lone ember in the vast, cold darkness of my eternity.
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=))) HUA CHENG, YOU'RE AMAZING~