Capturing My Demon King Costar

The Crown Prince's actions shock even Si Wang who recoils in amazement and drops the sword.

The Crown Prince's body crumples to the floor, a pool of blood spreading beneath him, as the light goes out of his clear eyes.

Xin Hulei is stunned silent, his eyes wide and his mouth open although no sound passes through his red lips.

Yao Shen is put in the uncomfortable position of seeing himself die. He knew this was coming, but it's still terrifying. For him to be here of course the Crown Prince had to die. 

He's him and yet not. Variations of a same soul -- a cycle repeating.

Yearning across the centuries for the person standing in silence over his quickly cooling corpse. While Xin Hulei is frozen in amber, Yao Shen is dust, of the mortal world, of the underworld -- from the stars.

He tries to meet the eyes of this Xin Hulei who is beyond seeing him, seeing anything, but it doesn't happen. 

Whatever is happening, he's far too deep into these forgotten memories. Yao Shen can't reach him here.

He wishes he could hold him, kiss his lips and whisper into his ear, "it's okay, I found my way back to you. I'm sorry you had to wait."

Yao Shen bets that half of the pain in Xin Hulei's eyes is due to the angry last words and accusations he exchanged with the Crown Prince before everything came crumbling on top of them.

That was a cruelty Si Wang couldn't wait to inflict on both of them.

Now all Xin Hulei has is his guilt, because the Crown Prince's eyes have grown dull, and dead.

"Seize him," Si Wang says, nodding towards the stunned Xin Hulei.

Xin Hulei has no reaction and lets himself be pulled up by a group of the other ghost kings. From the crowd, Tan Liansi screams and cuts her way towards the stage.

Yao Shen watches all of it happen without being able to do anything.

This is how they'll both be sealed. Yao Shen doesn't know how they weren't killed.

Tan Liansi barely makes it halfway up the stage before a swarm of ghouls surround her.

Si Wang grins at the scene in front of him. "Dig out their spirit stones."

It's then that a wizened voice rings out from among the crowd. "Haven't you put on enough of a show?" Meng Po asks.

The ghosts around her step away, giving her a wide berth. She makes her way up the stage unbothered.

Nothing in her wizened face betrays any recognition of Xin Hulei or Tan Liansi.

She looks down at the Crown Prince's corpse dispassionately. "On whose authority have you killed someone in Youdu?"

Si Wang's smirk vanishes, one of the corners of his lips curls up in disdain. "I advise you to stay out of this."

Meng Po smiles "I'm already in it. This has gone on too long, I suggest everyone go back to their lives."

Some of the ghosts below the wooden stage begin dispersing immediately. Many are far more intimidated by her than by any of the ghost kings. 

Jiu Wang protests. "These are vile demons, we can't simply let them go!"

Er Wang voices her agreement, pulling her red lips away from her pipe to say, "they are far too great a danger to Youdu for us to let them roam free."

Meng Po hums and nods, pretending to give these matters some serious consideration. Er Wang smiles triumphantly, convinced she has already won.

The old woman kneels by Xin Hulei's side, being restrained on the floor by two ghost kings.

"Son, are you ever going to return to Youdu?"

"I don't want to see this cursed city for as long as I live," he whispers, his eyes still glazed over.

Meng Po gets up to her feet with a groan. "What about you, girl, are you going to come back here and give us any trouble?"

Even at a distance, Yao Shen can see Tan Liansi's scowl. "Fuck you! And fuck everyone here, who do you think you are! We had our own city, we don't want yours, we don't want anything from you except distance!"

She's furious, heartbroken, and scared, and her fear makes her lash out. She shows her teeth like a hissing cat, trying to fight back against the ghouls retraining her. She doesn't realise Meng Po is trying to help them.

Meng Po nods again, stroking her chin. "I think there's an easy solution," she says, addressing Si Wang. "We seal them off and prevent them from ever returning here," she grins and addresses the crowd. "Sounds like a great solution, no? The demons will be forced to remain in the mortal realm, where the ghost kings can't touch them, and the ghost kings will be safe here in Youdu."

Yao Shen's eyes widen in shock. 

"You get what you want," she tells Si Wang, patting his shoulder.

Si Wang scowls, he knows she's won. Her solution is reasonable, and most of the onlookers are too scared of her, and what she can do, to go against her suggestion.

Yao Shen can tell by the look in Tan Liansi's face that she considers this just another betrayal in the long list of betrayals they have suffered.

Xin Hulei has no reaction. 

Yao Shen doesn't know if he realises she's ensuing the ghost kings will never be able to reach them directly. She's saving their lives.

He guesses that's why Si Wang came up with the plan to use him to get close to Xin Hulei. He and the other ghost kings literally had no other option to tie the loose ends Meng Po left dangling. Yao Shen's failures through his reincarnations ensured both of them survived.

Meng Po addresses some of the other ghost kings who're still watching everything play out behind the stage. "Go call Xie Bian and Fan Wujiu, let's do this today. No point in drawing it out further."

The two ghost kings exchange a look between themselves but leave to carry out her orders.

"I guess that settles it then," Meng Po says, smiling up at Si Wang amiably, her knotted hands clasped behind her back.

Just then, Xin Hulei lifts two fingers and pulls on the hem of her brown robes. "Please," he murmurs, his voice sounds dry and scratchy.

"What is it, child?"

When he looks up at her his eyes are clear for the first time since the Crown Prince's death. 

"My burdens...maybe I can't carry them any longer."

She knows what he means. With a a nod, she turns her hand in the air and makes a small vial appear in her palm. She kneels again and brings it up to Xin Hulei's lips.

"What are you doing?" Si Wang asks, immediately alarmed.

Meng Po doesn't answer him. She supports Xin Hulei's neck and helps him drink all the contents in the vial.

"There, your burdens won't trouble you anymore."

He nods, thankful, and then closes his eyes.

So Xin Hulei is the one responsible for his own memory loss.

How much pain must he have been in to decide that he couldn't go on if he remembered?

He must have put the timeline of events together from the fragments he could recall and from what Tan Liansi told him.

It was better for him to think the Crown Prince had betrayed him, so that's what his mind convinced itself of.

The memory flickers at the edges, Yao Shen can do nothing but watch as darkness closes in all around them.

---

He wakes up with a gasp in the frozen floor of the tunnel under the wall.

His heart is beating frantically, as if he's been exercising all this time.

When he looks up, he finds Xin Hulei looking down at him.

"I remember," he says, his dark eyes wide and frightened, "I remember everything."

Before he can say anything else, Yao Shen wraps his arms around him and kisses him. He kisses him as if his lips are the last water he'll ever drink in his life. He runs his hands through his hair as if it's the last thing he'll ever touch.

It's obvious Si Wang is showing them this to weaken them, to remind them of everything he has taken from them, and can take again, but in this moment, Yao Shen doesn't care.

He's just glad to have Xin Hulei with him. He's just glad that despite all the shit he's had to go through in his life, this one, and all the others possibly, at least the winding road has brought him to this man.

He makes it all worth it.

"Are you crying?" Xin Hulei asks. There's a trace of humour in his voice, he no longer sounds as wounded as when he woke up.

It's enough to make Yao Shen let out a relieved bubble of laughter.

"No, you're seeing things."

Xin Hulei returns his kisses just as fiercely, and then goes from his lips up his cheeks, kissing away the tears that Yao Shen definitely isn't shedding.

Beside them, the gravel crackles underfoot.

"Now, isn't this a moving sight."