"Now… where is your bed? I'm sleepy," Shen Yi demanded, already shrugging off his blood-soaked outer robe. He tossed it carelessly onto the floor, scanning the sparse room with a critical eye. "I'm a guest here. Welcome me properly, at least."
Chi Yan sighed, setting down his brush. He looked at the prince—really looked at him. His blue gaze, usually pale and distant, sharpened with a painfully familiar, stupid flicker of hope. Could it be… him? Reborn? The thought was a reflex, a ghost he could never exorcise. He crushed it instantly. No. Never. He was never like this—this arrogant, this… vexing. I just want to be free of this human.
Shen Yi blinked, caught off guard by the intensity of the stare. His own eyes, against his will, did a quick, involuntary sweep over Chi Yan's slender form before he shook his head as if to clear it. "What's wrong?" he asked, forcing his tone into its usual brashness. "Is there something on my handsome face?"
"No. Even insects would think twice before landing on it," Chi Yan mumbled flatly. He pointed a languid finger towards the far corner. "That is the bed."
Shen Yi's gaze followed. His expression shifted from confusion to dawning horror. "…This is the bed?" His eye twitched, a spasm of profound disappointment in himself for hoping for anything better.
Chi Yan could understand the reaction. The "bed" was a threadbare winter blanket spread directly on the wooden floor, accompanied by a sad, lumpy pillow. The quilt folded beside it looked thinner than the robe Shen Yi had just discarded.
"Seriously?!" Shen Yi's voice climbed with disbelief. "Don't make my blood boil any more, Red-Head Matchmaker. I see no difference between this and the cold floor itself! How can this be your bed when you're a divine being?"
"Hm. A low-rank one," Chi Yan corrected dryly. He hadn't meant to say more, but a bitter taste rose in his throat, pushing the words out—a desperate attempt to shove his own anxious thoughts away.
"One who is born and dies with no memory of the past every two hundred years. Not quite immortal. Just… doing what I'm told. Like an invisible clerk for the Heaven Officials." The hint of bitterness stained his words, revealing the hollow core of an existence with no real meaning.
He instantly regretted it. It had been too long since he'd spoken to anyone who talked back with arguments instead of "may this one" and "kumsun."
Shen Yi tilted his head, one eyebrow arched high. He looked utterly baffled, as if the concept had bounced right off his princely skull. "You… what?" His next words came out sharper than intended, blunt and careless. "Well, you're lucky they still keep you in the job. You can barely keep things right—you're like a walking 'unlucky charm' instead of a lucky one. Why do they keep you?"
Chi Yan felt something twist, sharp and deep, behind his ribs. He refused to name it. The crude truth of the statement was its own kind of violence.
'Why do they keep me when I'm a walking disaster?'
Things could end at once or twice in a life…
He lowered his head, his eyes going unfocused on the unfinished report before him. A strand of red hair slid over his shoulder. He didn't want to admit how profoundly lonely this cycle was. Human lives, for all their brevity, seemed so much simpler. Pure souls got rebirth and peace. Cursed souls got punishment.
Which one was he?
He'd wondered a thousand times. The answer was always just a rush of empty wind.
Silence filled the temple, thick and uncomfortable.
"Enough discussion about my existence," Chi Yan said, his voice fading at the edges, regaining its carefully polite chill. "You may use the other room. It has a slightly better bed than this one. But the… window… is broken from the storm." He gestured to the second door, his tone cool and detached once more.
Shen Yi wasn't the type to notice he might have struck a nerve. He simply peered where Chi Yan pointed, and his face fell into an expression of even deeper exhaustion.
Chi Yan knew why. That room looked more like a haunted annex than a bedchamber. The whistling wind through the broken pane was sharp and eerie, and the loose shutter thumped a irregular, ghostly rhythm against the wall. It was objectively more terrifying than the sad floor mat.
"No," Shen Yi said quickly, eyes shut in dramatic resignation. "I'm… fine here. This… bed… can work. At least." He cracked one eye open, his voice dropping to a lower, almost hesitant mumble. "Just… make sure there is a… hugging pillow or something…"
The childish demand and his sudden, cowardly change of heart almost made Chi Yan smirk. Almost. He'd learned to wear 'fine' like a mask even when his insides felt like crumbling temple stones. "No hugging pillow. I've never needed one. That's why."
Shen Yi looked at him anew, his expression screaming, Are you kidding me? "Tell me, what do you have in this temple? No bed, no proper pillow, no intact window… Don't tell me the washroom is outside too."
"Ah, you're quite intelligent, Prince Shen Yi," Chi Yan said, a soft smile playing on his lips that was equal parts politeness and pure mockery. "The washroom is, indeed, outside. It's forbidden to have one within the temple walls. It's seen as disrespectful to the spirits and Gods."
Shen Yi let out a low growl, dragging a hand down his face. After a moment of silent suffering, he spoke through gritted teeth. "Fine. I'm sleeping here. But you better go to the market tomorrow and buy… things. It's also seen as disrespectful not to offer proper hospitality."
Chi Yan pressed his lips together, stood up, and brushed off his robes. "Alright then. First, let's do something about this dead body."
The corpse was dealt with, left deep in the forest where the rain would wash away the traces. The night returned to a quiet broken only by the rain's rhythm on the roof—sometimes a loud patter, sometimes a soft sigh.
Shen Yi lay on his pathetic mat, staring at the ceiling as if expecting it to cave in on him. His gaze eventually drifted to Chi Yan, who was back at his low table, scrolls spread before him, writing with steady concentration. The little replica, which had hidden during the earlier chaos, now timidly hopped out. It settled by Chi Yan's elbow, nibbling a tiny piece of leftover bun.
"What are you writing?" Shen Yi asked, his voice sleep-slurred but edged with residual annoyance. He hissed softly every time he shifted and found another stray wooden bolt or nail hidden in the mat—DIY repairs Chi Yan had likely attempted.
"Reports," Chi Yan answered without looking up. "For the fates who died before the matches I made for them could come to pass." His brow was furrowed in thought.
'How will I find the God of Love with no trail to follow? I might need to ask another matchmaker to watch this temple while I'm gone. I'll have to petition the First Sky Heaven Guardian for an audience. Best not to tell the prince who his true match is… that would only make this mess worse. I never wanted any trouble in the last leg of this boring cycle. Besides… the chances of our paths crossing in this lifetime are not guaranteed. I should just… focus on the present. I have no future. And I certainly have no past.'
A heavy, hopeless sigh escaped him.
"Why do you always sigh like that?" Shen Yi grumbled from his mat. "It's depressing. Don't remind me how depressing this place is."
Chi Yan closed the scroll he was writing on. His politely stubborn expression slipped, leaving something colder and more tired in its place.
"All you want is to undo the curse, don't you? Then stop complaining about me and sleep, before I render you unconscious with a piece of firewood myself. Besides," he added, his mind changed fast as lightning "there's no need to go to the market for things. We are going—tomorrow—to find the God of Love and finish this problem as soon as possible."
"Ah, tomorrow?" Shen Yi perked up, rolling onto his side. A flicker of hope lit his arrogant tone. "Really? Finally, I can be with a soft woman instead of a man, right?" He laced his arms behind his head with a familiar, smirking confidence.
Chi Yan glanced at him from the corner of his eye, his voice low and final. "No." The single word was a door slamming shut. "The woman I matched you with is Mi Ying Xin. If you deny her again… I don't know what other curse might accidentally slip from my lips."
Shen Yi crossed his arms with a disappointed huff, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "Fine, fine. At least she's female. Warrior or not, it's better than those palace guards who kept looking at me… weirdly." The words were casual, but they landed with a peculiar weight, hinting at a week-long nightmare within his own home.
Chi Yan gave a single, tired nod, having no energy for another round. He disliked arguments. Especially at night.
Yet, sleep felt miles away.
A strange curiosity nudged him. He shifted, moving to sit on the floor beside Shen Yi's mat, leaning back against the wall. He looked not at the prince, but out at the rain through the broken window.
"How have you been doing these past days," he asked, his voice quiet in the dim light, "that you're now clinging to me? Is it only to undo the curse… or is there something more?"
Shen Yi looked at him. In the shadowy temple light, his gaze turned both serious and deeply disturbed. "There's a whole history," he said, the bravado finally leaching away. "Enough to fill a quilted novel. And it's all because of you."
Chi Yan rolled his eyes, took a slow breath through his nose, and made himself more comfortable. The replica hopped over, settling in his lap.
"Let's hear it, then," he said, gazing at the slate-gray sky. "Your weird novel that nobody is going to read."