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It hurt. Ascending and becoming a Martial God didn’t keep things from hurting, but it had allowed Mu Qing to build up a tolerance to pain high enough that barely anything hurt anymore. What had made him shiver and sob as a mortal held no threat to him, and what had made him scream was now no more than a mere scratch. Yet, in spite of that high tolerance, carefully built off of a solid foundation of blood and sweat and unshed tears, the Cursed Shackle that was settled at the base of Mu Qing’s throat hurt like a bitch.
The bronze mirror that Mu Qing was staring into reflected his own scowling face, some scrapes and bruises still in the process of healing scattered across his face. His Highness (Gods, Mu Qing hated calling him that) had been… less than satisfied at Mu Qing’s refusal and had voiced his complaints rather forcefully. And violently. It was nothing that he couldn’t handle– he’d been the subject of worse beat-downs when he was mortal– but every nerve in his body seemed to be ringing with the same pain that was radiating from his neck.
Mu Qing ignored it, opting to turn his head every this way and that to survey its location and look on his pale skin. Everyone thought he was a prissy, vain thing of a Martial God– who was he to prove them wrong? He rubbed absentmindedly at his neck as he did so, his touch dancing just at the edge of the still-throbbing, dark mark on his neck. He was angry, rage simmering beneath his skin at the sheer audacity of Jun Wu to do this– to mark this dark reminder of his disobedience onto his skin as if he had committed a great sin. Heh, was it a sin to refuse to hurt those you care about? Was it such a sin to refuse an outrageous demand from someone who held a higher rank over you– something he’d wanted to do for a good amount of his mortal life?
Mu Qing’s bronze reflection warped a little, bending where his hand was tightly grasping the metal. This was supposed to be different. He was a God, a Heavenly Official. He should not be ordered around like he had been when he was mortal, just a mere servant, like he was a fucking dog. He felt sick– he could still feel Jun Wu’s hand around his neck, the burning sensation as the Cursed Shackle sank into his skin, the sickening smile that Jun Wu had given him as he walked off. Mu Qing had the urge to go out and kill something, one specific someone, but choked it down. All of the Heavenly Officials, both in the Upper and Middle courts, would eat him alive if they saw this. He needed to hide it, he needed to get rid of it, he needed to-
Mu Qing paused, a thought coming to the front of his mind. His free hand came up to rest on his throat, his cold, pale fingers rubbing at the fire-burning skin. The contact made the pain flare up and he hissed, clenching his teeth– he thought he heard a tooth crack, or maybe it was the mirror finally giving way to his strength. Either way, he didn’t care all too much. He could mend a broken tooth and he could buy a new fucking mirror.
Mu Qing traced his fingertips around his neck, always in contact with the accursed shackle, even when he had to twist his arm as he passed it over his head. Shocks of pain blazed up and down his neck and spine like lightning, but he stubbornly ignored it. Soon, he ended up where he had started, but he at least knew for a fact where it was situated on his neck. Fucking Jun Wu, collaring him like he was a fucking beast.
Mu Qing’s temper flared and he growled. A sharp, metallic crack rang throughout his quarters. The mirror was broken for sure now.
His fingertips flashed to a part of his neck that was safe to start with– no major arteries and away from any other important things– and he paused for a second, allowing himself to steel both his body and mind for what was to come. Then he pressed his nails into his skin, applied pressure, and clawed.
Immediately, pain flared up like a raging inferno and Mu Qing had to muffle a shout, swallowing it viciously as his hand began to tremble. Fuck, this hurt a fucking lot. Regardless, Mu Qing began ripping his neck open like he was an animal, his hand working fiercely to shred the skin showcasing his shame, his pride, his punishment from his neck. He would not bear this as a mark of shame, of perverted discipline. Mu Qing was a God; he was not Jun Wu’s deputy to punish and beat when he saw fit.
He dug his fingers in deeper, fiercer, tearing at the flesh and making a bloody mess of the collar of his robes and the sweat-beaded, pallid skin of his chest. He didn’t stop, couldn’t stop now- he dropped the broken mirror and used his now-free hand to aid the other tearing at his neck, avoiding his arteries carefully. He wouldn’t be able to tear the skin off there; he would have to burn the skin off instead.
Mu Qing did not stop the pained tears from flowing from his eyes and nor did he keep himself standing, allowing himself to crumple to the ground as he continued his maiming, but he did not scream. He did not sob and he did not whimper and he did not beg for the pain to stop. He continued to tear his neck open in complete silence, the only sound being his heavy, shaky breaths and the disgustingly slick sounds of flesh being torn open.
He reached the back of his neck and paused, thinking. He could easily lose coordination while working on the back of his neck and stray, leaving a part unremoved– he needed to be less lenient, keep whatever precision he could. He needed to destroy a larger swath of skin and flesh if he wanted to be sure that it all was gone.
Mu Qing tugged his bloodstained collar apart further and slid his shirt halfway off of his shoulders, yanking open his inner robes and giving them a similar treatment to give him better access to the back of his neck before he proceeded. The pain he received from tearing open the back of his neck was nothing special– his body and head were ringing and throbbing with so much pain that it all seemed the same. It all was the same overwhelming, soul-burning, tear-inducing pain that made him want to scream.
Blood ran down his back and into his already ruined robes as he tore apart his neck, his movements frenzied and vicious. If someone were to look into his eyes, they would not see the cool, dignified gaze of General Xuan Zhen, Martial God of the Southwest. They would see the enraged, desperate look of Mu Qing, a god who was desperate to be more than what others could make use of. They would see a young man who was terrified of being nothing more than a servant, furious that he was always tossed back into such a role.
His hands came to where his jugular was and he stopped, his hands hovering over the unmaimed skin. As much as Mu Qing wanted to tear into the flesh, he stood a serious chance of causing fatal, irreparable damage, regardless of his godly status. He pulled his fingers back and took a deep breath, trying to steady himself enough to summon fire. A small ball of heat appeared in his hand, growing hotter and bigger until it sparked and a flame flickered into existence, dancing in his blood soaked palm.
His head was somewhat fuzzy with pain, dizzy like he had walked into one of the dizziness spell traps that Pei Ming considered a fun prank, but he soldiered on. He had been living with pain for centuries at this point, what was a little more? He pressed the fire to his neck and couldn’t help but let out a gasp as the flames eagerly lapped at his neck, curving around his unmarred flesh and attacking it like a ravenous wolf consuming its prey. Mu Qing gritted his teeth and endured, even when it felt as if the flames were burning though his blood, wrapping around his throat and constricting and burning his brain to ashes and suffocating his lungs. The flames ate the flesh of his throat away eagerly, burning bloody and whole skin alike in its delight.
After what had felt like centuries upon centuries or just mere minutes, he finally pulled his hand away and tumbled back onto his ass, steadying himself on bloody hands. He sat on the floor of his chambers, quiet, the silence ringing out with each breath he took, each one steadier than the next. He gradually became aware of the blood running down his chest, back, and shoulders and the disgusting way his gore-soaked robes clung to his skin. The stinging pain of the open wound that was wound around his throat seemed less of a sharp knife and more of a dull pain, distant and blunt like the faint beating of a drum. Mu Qing suddenly felt like a little kid after having been beaten, his toys stolen and his clothes dirtied.
However, he had not had any real toys as a child. His clothes had always been dirty and his skin had always carried some sort of bruise or scrape. His playthings were oddly-shaped rocks or big leaves that he had found drifting in the streets– things that were easily found and just as easily lost. He had felt determined back then, so determined to survive and help his mother, but now he felt small and alone.
After some time, the feeling of blood drying on his body and clothes became unbearable. By this time the bleeding had stopped and his wounds had clotted, still stinging but no longer making Mu Qing look like a bloody corpse.
It was no small feat to haul himself off of the floor and over to the cabinet where he kept his extra bandages, for when he inevitably had to rebandage something after a fight or something. Wiping the blood off of his skin with a wet rag, peeling his sticky robes off as he went, felt so familiar and natural that Mu Qing felt like laughing for a few seconds. He wrapped thick, pale bandages around his throat, making sure to secure the bottom layer of gauze before wrapping another layer overtop it. It stung. He ignored it.
He felt tired, dirty. He would probably bathe soon, scrub away the rest of the gore that he hadn’t gotten off and sweep the iron-thick scent of blood away with faintly perfumed soaps. He would return to Heavenly society and retain his title and status; Xuan Zhen, the Martial God of the Southwest, the Pretty Boy of the Gods with a temper to match. He would leave this, leave his shackle, in this chamber among the blood and small chunks of flesh that still lay on the floor. He would really have to clean that up soon.
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Mu Qing frowned, directing his scowl at nothing in particular as Ling Wen droned on and on about whatever the fuck the meeting was about. He was surrounded by Martial Gods both popular and obscure, all of them equally bored as he was– Pei Ming seemed to be either sleeping or concentrating on wooing someone via Private Communication Array. Ling Wen was still rambling about something– damage control, maybe? Some more things about destruction rates and a blast radius and some other things; it wasn’t important or relevant to the Martial God– he and Feng Xin always kept their squabbles small, at most demolishing a hall of a Golden Palace every other blue moon.
Speaking of Feng Qin, the motherfucker had set his golden eyes on Mu Qing– or rather, Mu Qing’s neck – at the beginning of the meeting and had not moved them an inch. At first Mu Qing had thought that he was angry, like Feng Xin thought that someone else had gotten to slit his throat before he got to, but now he was just plain unnerved. He was so intent on staring at Mu Qing that he had yet to be unsettled by Ling Wen’s female form, something that Mu Qing would have teased him about later. Having Feng Xin’s full attention was almost never a good thing– take all the times that they had fought and destroyed various structures (roads, bridges, palaces) as an example.
Mu Qing had come into this meeting just not wanting to be there– now he just plain wanted to get out. His wound was itching and he desperately wanted to scratch it, but that would probably just reopen it, so he had to steel himself against that, and Feng Xin’s gaze itched just as much. Every second that Feng Xin stared at him unblinkingly while his neck burned with uncomfortable tingling was another second that he wanted to sprint out of the meeting hall and back to the safety of his own chambers.
Finally, Ling Wen made her way back to her seat and sat down. “Thank you all for coming, I appreciate it. Please try to not destroy anything on your way out,” she said, her voice professional but still so tired.
Pei Ming was first to stand up, beating Mu Qing by a split second. He flashed Ling Wen a grin and started to saunter his way towards the door, but Mu Qing’s speed walking abilities were unparalleled and he was out of the room before Pei Ming had gotten even halfway to the door.
Emerging from whichever hall they had been summoned to didn’t make Mu Qing any happier– in fact, it made him even more frustrated. The sun had decided to be extremely bright today and it hurt his eyes, his neck still fucking itched like hundreds of fire ants had taken up arms on his healing skin, and there was also the fact that Feng Xin could not pull him aside like a normal person and had opted to yell “MU QING!!!” at the top of his fucking lungs while running behind him .
The sound of Feng Xin’s loud and, quite frankly, annoying voice made Mu Qing cringe and stop, turning around to face the Martial God, his face his usual mask of indifference and annoyance. “Can’t you talk like a normal person? Or do you like annoying everyone by screaming loud enough that they can hear you down in the mortal realm?” He snapped, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow.
Feng Xin scowled but didn’t stray from his path, which so sadly happened to be in Mu Qing’s direction. His eyes flashed from Mu Qing’s disgruntled face back to his bandaged neck and Mu Qing felt a small bolt of fear in his chest. Did he know, somehow? Does he hate me for it– does he hate me even more for it? Wait, why the fuck do I care? I don’t care.
“What happened with that? Did your last battle not go according to plan?” Feng Xin asked, his tone a mix of arrogant and something else that Mu Qing couldn’t identify.
Mu Qing repressed his urge to flatten Feng Xin’s face against the road beneath their feet and buried his urge to run away beneath decades of shame and pride. Fuck, Feng Xin just had to go and look for trouble with him today. What, did he not hit him hard enough when they last fought?
“No, I just thought I’d try out Diaxiana’s accessories. I thought if I looked like him a little bit, then your bull-brain would get confused and you’d leave me alone,” Mu Qing sneered, rolling his eyes. He didn’t like talking bad about Xie Lian like this– he was a good man despite his rather terrible luck– but he had no patience for Feng Xin today. He just wanted to be left alone.
Feng Xin’s eyes blazed with rage at his words and his scowl deepened. Mu Qing turned around and started to walk away, his desire to leave reasserting itself in the front of his mind. Alas, fate had decided to curse him today, as Feng Xin barked, “Hey! Don’t even think about walking away from me like that, you fucker!” and grabbed Mu Qing’s shoulder, roughly dragging him back.
The sudden movement combined with the force Feng Xin grabbed him with was enough to tear open the healing skin on the right side of Mu Qing’s neck. He didn’t scream– General Xuan Zhen didn’t scream– but he did wrench himself out of Feng Xin’s grip rather forcefully, tearing his skin open a little bit more. A hiss escaped his mouth before he could stop himself, his hand flying to his neck to check if the bandaging had been damaged. His fingertips came away with little spots of red on them from where the newly-opened wound was starting to bleed through, a cheerful red that seemed to smile at him despite the sharp pain that it had come from. Fucking hell.
Mu Qing looked up, probably to curse out Feng Xin’s face that was undoubtedly smiling, only to freeze. Feng Xin… didn’t look happy. He didn’t even look proud at the fact that Mu Qing had been hurt. Instead, the look on his face was more like… terror. Like he was horrified that he had been the one to further aggravate this wound of his, almost looking like he was terrified that he had inflicted it himself.
Mu Qing was nothing less than super fucking confused. Feng Xin had done worse to him during many of their fights– he had done things that had left Mu Qing riddled with bandages and splints and all sorts of things. Now that Mu Qing had a wound that wasn’t inflicted by him, now he was looking fearful at the prospect that Mu Qing was hurt? Too little too late, in Mu Qing’s opinion. “What?” Mu Qing hissed, moving a hand to cover the area of his neck where he thought he was bleeding the most. The touch sent flickers of fiery pain raging along Mu Qing’s skin and he scowled; that area was torn open for sure.
“I… Mu Qing, what happened? Who did this? Did… did…” Feng Xin croaked, his tone surprisingly shaky and raw as his eyes locked onto Mu Qing’s neck, where red was starting to seep from between Mu Qing’s pale fingers.
“When did the source of my injuries become your business, Nan Yang Jiangjun?” Mu Qing snarled, moving his hand from his bloody neck to the hilt of his zhanmadao, smearing his blood across its silk and leather woven wrapping.
People were starting to gather, gods both armoured and not starting to circle around the two, however distantly; nobody wanted to be caught in the crossfire if the two started to fight.
Feng Xin’s frown deepened even further. Your face will stick like that if you keep that up, Mu Qing’s mother had said whenever she saw him frowning, a gentle smile on her face. Mu Qing was suddenly struck with the urge to say this to Feng Xin, maybe tease him a bit and poke his face. Like everything else, Mu Qing buried this into his bones and ignored it. “It became my problem when you turned up with a mystery-procured slit throat, Xuan Zhen,” Feng Xin said stubbornly, switching over to Mu Qing’s title now that they had amassed an audience.
“Why, do you want to go get yours done? Hope that knowing me will get you a discount?” Mu Qing sneered, his grip on his sword tightening. He just wanted to go to his palace and get away from here.
Feng Xin’s scowl deepened and he sighed, frustration emanating from every part of him. “Fuck, why do you never take me seriously? Are you allergic to not being a shit person or something?” He snapped, his hands curling into fists.
Mu Qing sniffed and turned around. He was in no shape to fight, unfortunately; if he had been, they would have started fighting about two minutes into this conversation instead of talking. “I’m not doing this with you today, Nan Yang,” he said as he started to walk off, his tone purposefully neutral– if he promised a different sparring date while sounding neither offensive nor weak, he would get his way. It had worked before, and it would work now.
Surprisingly, it didn’t work. Feng Xin followed, walking quickly to catch up. “No, Xuan Zhen, this can’t wait for another fucking day. What the fuck happened?” He hissed, getting in Mu Qing’s way and stopping him dead in his tracks.
“Nan Yang,” Mu Qing said, his voice dangerous and his grip on the hilt of his sabre so tight that his pale knuckles were actually turning white, “get out of my way.”
Feng Xin scowled. “No,” he said stubbornly.
A small twinge of misplaced affection made itself known in Mu Qing’s chest as annoyance and anger seethed within his heart. “Xuan Zhen, let me hel-” Feng Xin said, trying to offer his assistance, but was cut off by the cool press of metal at his throat.
“I said,” Mu Qing hissed, his eyes ablaze with fury and his zhanmadao pressed against Feng Xin’s throat, just below his adam’s apple, “get out of my way.”
Feng Xin looked angry as all hell, probably angry enough to throw a punch. But he didn’t. He slowly reached up and moved Mu Qing’s blade, pushing it away from his throat before he took a step to the side. Mu Qing watched him with sharp eyes, analysing him for any sudden movements that might come. None did.
Mu Qing sheathed his sabre before stalking off back to his Golden Palace to rebind his wounds. He could feel Feng Xin’s gaze on his back like the brand of a Cursed Shackle, burning holes into his spine and neck. He spent the next few hours hacking at a training dummy until it was nothing more than a pile of cloth and hay.
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Mu Qing was shocked. No, not just shocked, enraged. Not even enraged, incensed.
After a month and a half of healing, a month and a half of slipping out of fighting Feng Xin (which he really wanted to do), a month and a fucking half of having to rebind his wounds every day to make sure it didn’t get infected, it was all fucking useless. The dark, ugly brand of a Cursed Shackle was seated at the base of his throat, laying atop the fresh, pink colour of a new scar.
The new bronze mirror in Mu Qing’s hand bent and cracked. Soon, it was sent flying out of the general’s window, beaning some poor disciple in the head who had been walking around in his backyard, doing chores.
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General Xuan Zhen showed up to his next meeting with a dark collar set overtop his robes, settled snugly at the base of his throat.