For Better or Worse

For Better or Worse (1/3)

Chapter Five

Part One

Content Warning

Mpreg can make some people uncomfortable.

Read at your own discretion.

Xie Lian had just begrudgingly made his way to the Heavenly Capital. He would rather stay at home with Hua Cheng or sleep if his love was busy, anything as long as he wasn't doing work... Xie Lian was simply tired. He slept enough, but his body refused to be satisfied by any of the rest he'd gotten. But even if he had to do work, why, oh, why did he have to come all the way up to heaven to report his every move?

The first thing Xie Lian noticed when he got to the Heavenly Capital was the smell. It may sound odd, but heaven has always had some sort of fragrance wafting through the air. During his first ascension, it subtly smelled like he was standing in a pleasant field of flowers. When he'd been held captive, he'd smelled an overpowering, artificial-like sugary scent that'd made his head dizzy, even then. And now, Xie Lian choaked on the honeyed air like Jun Wu himself was forcing molasses into his lungs. That feeling coated his throat, and he gagged upon his first breath.

The second thing Xie Lian had noticed was that he'd barely had time to grimace at the smell when he heard Feng Xin and Mu Qing arguing.

The two rather contentious men were having some kind of altercation every single time Xie Lian saw them together! Usually, he would walk over to soothe the situation to the best of his abilities, but today he needed to take care of that mountain of prayers calling his name so he could go home as soon as possible.

But, as luck would have it, they approached him themselves. "Your highness! Tell him that I'm right!"

Feng Xin pushed Mu Qing and called out, "no, your highness, please tell him that I'm right!" Xie Lian sighed as the two men fought their way over. It hadn't even been a single minute, and he had a migraine!

"What is this about?" Xie Lian interrupted their squabbling. Apparently, there was a border conflict, and they were fighting over whose jurisdiction it fell under. He was given more details, but a nausea spell left him unable to fully concentrate on the conversation.

While the smell of heaven was the cause this time, this has been happening to him for the past couple of weeks. Most people would have gone to a doctor by now, but Xie Lian didn't think it was necessary. His body was durable. He could take it. Whatever it was, it would pass. There was no need for a doctor or stressing Hua Cheng with such trifles.

However, he would have to trouble the martial gods to leave him be while he puked.

"—so it should be his problem, right?" Feng Xin finally looked at Xie Lian after finishing his gesticulations. "Are you alright? You look pale."

Xie Lian pressed a hand to his forehead to keep himself grounded. "I'm...fine... I just need to—" He had tried to walk away, but his knees buckled, and he fell over. "I'm fine! I'm fine!" Xie Lian had barely picked himself off the ground when all of that motion caught up with him. His head buzzed, his stomach churned, and his nose itched. He'd held it back as long as he could, but he still ended up spilling his guts on the streets of the Heavenly Capital.

As one does when they're fine.

"Your highness!" Feng Xin ran over and held his hair back. "What happened?! Are you alright?!"

Mu Qing walked into view with a complicated expression. "Are you still eating food off the floor? Is that what this is?"

Couldn't they at least wait until he finished before interrogating him?

As much as he tried, Xie Lian was unable to answer either of them without gagging and spitting up the lovely breakfast Hua Cheng had prepared for him earlier. There was little more curious than the sight of the Crown Prince of Xianle and martial god, Xie Lian, heaving in the middle of the street, so there were about a dozen or so heavenly officials who had happened to be walking by crowding around them.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," Xie Lian said and raised a hand to steady himself as he shakily stood and attempted to walk away once more.

Mu Qing crossed his arms and furrowed his brow. "You don't look fine." That was the last thing Xie Lian heard before he blinked, and the ground was right in front of his face. He hadn't hit the pavement, someone had caught him before that, but that didn't stop his vision from darkening until he felt nothing.

The heavens panicked. A martial god had thrown up and passed out for no apparent reason! Not to mention that Xie Lian was widely known as the strongest martial god since he'd defeated Jun Wu. Why wouldn't they panic if the most powerful of them suddenly dropped in the street?

And with panic comes unsettling rumors. Some believed that Crimson Rain Sought Flower had been biding his time and finally did something to Xie Lian, some believed that somebody was targeting the most powerful gods, and because it's heaven (where gossiping is more habitual than drinking water), no one knew that almost all the rumors were bupkis.

When Xie Lian awoke, he found himself inside his palace. He was carefully laid out on a large bed with a clear view of five figures hunched over a parchment, all standing with their backs to him at the foot of the bed. Feng Xin and Mu Qing were two of them, Ling Wen in her male form was another, and there were also two other women that Xie Lian didn't recognize. Feng Xin and Mu Qing were probably the ones that brought him, so he expected them to be there, but he couldn't figure out why the other three gods were there.

The bed creaked as Xie Lian sat up, and everyone turned to him. The first thing Xie Lian saw was the blanched faces of everyone but Ling Wen. More unsettlingly, his eye bags had deepened, and he had that crazed look in his eye he tends to get when he finds something new to research. And something tipped Xie Lian off that he would likely be the subject of his interest.

"Umm, hi?" Xie Lian said finally. He wanted to ask them what they were doing or why they were in his palace, but he didn't want to be rude.

The two goddesses shared a quick look of uncertainty before one of them approached him by his bedside. "Hello, I'm Chao Yu. Do you know how you got here?"

"Feng Xin and Mu Qing?"

Chao Yu glanced back almost nervously. "Aha, yes... Do you know why you fainted?" Ah, she's a goddess of health.

"The Heavenly Capitial's smell just overwhelmed me a bit, I'm fine, really." Chao Yu's face twitched at that answer, and much to Xie Lian's disappointment, she continued probing.

"Have you been fainting recently before today?"

"Once a few days ago." Yin Yu found him and moved him to his bed. Yin Yu had also seen him puking a few times. However, a slight threat to invite him to eat Xie Lian's meals, and he'd kept his mouth shut despite his better judgment.

"Have you been vomiting recently as well?" With the way Chao Yu was asking these questions, it was like a knife was held at her throat, or she was pained by asking them. Wasn't she a goddess of health? Xie Lian didn't want to see one in the first place, and this wasn't changing his standing.

"Yes, a couple of weeks now."

Chao Yu brought a fist to her mouth to cough and hide her pale expression. "Uh-huh... And you've been sleeping well?"

"Less than I'd like, but it's not bad."

"Any odd dreams? No need to be specific," Chao Yu added.

Xie Lian thought about the question before answering. "Yes. Do you have a diagnosis?" He only asked because she seemed to be closing in on something and looked distressed.

Maybe the prognosis wasn't good or something.

"I... No, no, no, we haven't come to a conclusion yet..." Chao Yu heaved a shaky sigh and looked back at the other goddess once more. This time, the unnamed woman mouthed a word to Chao Yu, almost passive-aggressively. 'Heartbeat'.

Chao Yu decisively ignored her colleague. "Do...do you have any tenderness in your breasts?"

Almost always, but that's the direct cause of something else...

"...I'm not sure that's correlated." Xie Lian looked away and caught the look of realization on Feng Xin and Mu Qing's faces as they nearly retched in sync.

"Yes or no, your highness."

"...Yes..." Xie Lian mumbled with a flushed face.

"And have you had penetrative...—" Chao Yu trailed off and slapped a hand to her forehead as she changed her question. "Have you been penetrated during intercourse at all in the past few months?"

"I—I'm sorry, what...?" Chao Yu's hand had slid down to cover her eyes, and she now peeked through her fingers with a weary expression that Xie Lian couldn't ignore. "...Sometimes..." he muttered quietly, and Chao Yu slid her hand off her face and took a deep breath.

Xie Lian began to suspect medical malpractice...

"A—alright, would you let me check your pulse...?" Chao Yu held her hand out, and Xie Lian placed his wrist there. Her fingers didn't touch him for more than two seconds before she jumped back as if he'd burned her.

"What's wrong?! Is it okay?!" Feng Xin immediately asked.

"Oh, wow..." Chao Yu put a hand over her mouth. "There wasn't anything wrong, but I felt it... It really is there..."

"See! I told you!" The other goddess gestured to Xie Lian franticly.

Meanwhile, Xie Lian sat in the dark, trying to decode their vague wordings and figure out whether or not Hua Cheng would decide to burn down heaven. And at this rate, Xie Lian might not even try to stop him.

"Could someone please tell me what's going on?"

"I'm Xin Ling, a goddess of health and wellbeing. I was asked to take a look at you, but you...fell out of my expertice, so I had Chao Yu come see you," Xin Ling explained. "She is a fertility goddess..."

What?

"...Your highness, this is as difficult for me to say as it is for you to hear, but in my experience, you're eight weeks pregnant," Chao Yu added.

"What!?" Well, that at least explains why Chao Yu looks like she was being tortured by asking those questions to a man. But Xie Lian was a man; that was the problem! How could he possibly be pregnant!? Where does it even go!? "How?!"

"Male gods can bear children," Ling Wen suddenly spoke up while showing off a tattered, yellowing scroll. "It hasn't happened in quite some time, but it is possible." Xie Lian stared unblinkingly at that raggedy and near-illegible piece of paper for several long moments.

Xin Ling furrowed her brow. "...You do understand how pregnancy happens, though, right?"

Is that a real question? "...Yes...?"

"Just checking. You'd be surprised how little full-grown adults know about reproduction," Xin Ling lamented.

Xie Lian shut his eyes tight and sighed through his nose as he gestured for Ling Wen to continue. "As far as I can tell, there are a few conditions that have to be met for this to happen. And interestingly enough, the god can actually control whether or not he gets pregnant; nothing can happen if he doesn't at least think about it."

Everyone turned to look at Xie Lian. "No, it's wrong. I haven't." He had. He'd even asked Hua Cheng about his thoughts on children.

"I'm not sure how credible you are, but whatever you say." Ling Wen shot him a pointed look for daring to dissent the scroll. "Anyways, these things can't come out of thin air, so sperm is required as well."

Xie Lian got plenty of that...

"And spiritual energy is directly responsible for the development of the fetus, so without a sufficient supply, a child won't be possible."

That was all Xie Lian needed to hear. If not this way, he would have crudely made use of the extensive armory in his palace. At least this way, Xie Lian didn't have to trouble Hua Cheng to fuss with a wound.

Without so much as a second thought, Xie Lian swiftly made the hand seal to put his spiritual energy in abeyance.

However, before he'd finished, Chao Yu grabbed his hand, interrupting him. "Your highness! That's your child! You can't just kill it!" she exclaimed. "I know it's unexpected, but this could be a providential opportunity for you and your partner!"

Xie Lian dropped one of his hands to clench at the sheets as he looked down. "...San Lang doesn't want children."

"Bullshit." Xie Lian nearly jumped out of his skin at Mu Qing's voice.

Both he and Feng Xin had been so uncharacteristically quiet that he'd forgotten they were there. But they hadn't left. In fact, they'd been silently devising Hua Cheng's immolation this whole time.

Mu Qing went to the other side of Xie Lian and loomed over him almost dauntingly. "Who cares what that Crimson Rain bastard thinks? If you want children then he's just going to have to suck it up." Mu Qing's lowered voice and dark eyes speaking in such a way heated the tip of Xie Lian's nose, forcing him to look down.

"That doesn't matter. I live with San Lang, and he takes care of me. He would be the one to support the child. My opinion isn't relevant here."

"You know he wouldn't mind," Mu Qing argued.

"Yes, but I don't want him to force himself for my sake. If he only doesn't mind having a child then I don't want one either... This should be something for the both of us," Xie Lian finally spoke. "He shouldn't know about this." As he said that, he looked back up and made eye contact with Feng Xin, who had two fingers on his temple.

"He has to know."

"No, he doesn't."

"Well, I'm sure he's here by now."

As Feng Xin said those words, soft boot steps sounded down the hall, and a playful silver clinking chimed with every step. Never in his life had Xie Lian ever dreaded that sound before now.

About twenty seconds earlier, Hua Cheng had been busying himself to avoid his calligraphy practice. He'd heard Feng Xin in his head informing him that something had happened with Xie Lian and that they were in his palace.

Had it been anyone else, Hua Cheng might have been suspicious and expected a trap. However, Hua Cheng was fairly confident that Feng Xin wouldn't do that. Disregarding that he's been holding himself back for Xie Lian's sake, even Feng Xin, who laughed at the corniest of jokes, could barely manage an awkward chuckle at Hua Cheng's spiritual password.

When Hua Cheng appeared in a puff of silver butterflies, the palace was quiet. He almost re-evaluated his previous thought process when he heard voices through the walls. He headed toward the voices, and they quickly stopped.

Hua Cheng reached the door to the room the voices had emanated from and opened the door to an odd sight.

Ling Wen was in her male form, there were two random people he's never seen Xie Lian interact with; one of them was touching him, Mu Qing was standing over him as well, and Xie Lian himself was sitting in bed as if he'd been injured.

Hua Cheng made a beeline for Xie Lian and pushed past two goddesses to do it. "Your highness, are you alright? What happened?" He cupped one side of Xie Lian's face and held his hand as if to wash the woman's touch away while he scanned the other's body in perusal.

Without missing a beat, Xie Lian smiled. "Ah, I'm fine, San Lang. But I think my cooking is worsening..." Xie Lian sighed and turned his head to rub his red nose. "Even I can't stomach it anymore..."

Hua Cheng wore a complicated expression on his face. On one hand, he was aware of how Xie Lian's immortal body functions and knew that he could eat just about anything. On the other hand, he'd tasted for himself and seen the effects of his husband's cooking several times. He laughed at others' misfortune before, but now he was conflicted and genuinely considering that Xie Lian might have seriously poisoned himself.

Xin Ling had crept from one side of the bed to the other to whisper in Xie Lian's ear, "is he the father?" She had been careful not to make her voice loud. Even Mu Qing standing right next to her could hardly tell what she'd said. But Hua Cheng, with his excellent senses, had heard.

Hua Cheng arched an eyebrow. "'Am I the father?'" His eye widened as if something clicked in his head. If he didn't understand before, he certainly did now.

Xie Lian shot a look at Xin Ling, the first time he's glared in nine hundred years.

"What is San Lang talking about? She asked if you were a bother," Xie Lian corrected gently. He was incredibly convincing. So much that Hua Cheng might have genuinely questioned if he'd heard wrong if he didn't know that Xie Lian would never let him know that someone said that about him.

"Your highness..." Hua Cheng suddenly looked at Xie Lian as if he were a fragile piece of glass that would break if he dared to look away. "Is there something you're not telling me...?"

Xie Lian could no longer shamelessly lie to his husband's face and lowered his head. "You know I don't like keeping things from you, San Lang... You should go home."

Hua Cheng was about to ask him something, but the wetness on his hand made him forget anything he could have said.

Xie Lian never cried. Not in the face of the worst suffering. Not when dealing with privation. Not when people died in front of him. Never. Xie Lian was almost completely inured to misfortune. He'd cried for Hua Cheng thrice, though. He'd cried during their first kiss while he was frustrated. He'd cried when he left. And He'd cried when he came back.

Now he was crying, and Hua Cheng couldn't figure out why.

"Leave us," he said with the authority of a ghost king. The two female goddesses and Ling Wen cleared out after a short farewell, but Feng Xin and Mu Qing lingered. Hua Cheng had turned to them but was unexpectedly met with glares that rivaled his own. Hua Cheng was too stunned to even return the look.

"He almost killed it for you, you know," Feng Xin said. "Watch yourself."

Mu Qing stood slightly behind him, and while he never said anything, the hostility in his eyes spoke a thousand words. Those words were merely 'don't fuck it up'.

Feng Xin's words and their gazes impinged on Hua Cheng after they left. So much so that Hua Cheng had almost forgotten to comfort Xie Lian. Hua Cheng sat on the bed next to him and held the man to his chest as he wept.

After Xie Lian had calmed down some, Hua Cheng cupped his face and attempted to ask him, "why are you crying?"

Xie Lian sniffled as more tears seemingly built up in his eyes. "...I'm sorry..."

"Sorry for what?" Hua Cheng gently thumbed away the tears as Xie Lian refused to answer. "You think I don't want it, right?"

"You don't like children..." Technically, when Hua Cheng had answered his previous inquiry about his thoughts on children, he'd called them 'execrable crotch goblins', but Xie Lian can't say that with a straight face.

"Your highness, this one was mistaken." Hua Cheng paused his speech to kiss all over Xie Lian's face. "I meant to say that about other people's children. But the situation has changed now—this would be our child." Hua Cheng lowered one of his hands and delicately caressed Xie Lian's stomach.

"You mean that...?"

"Of course. Do you think I wouldn't want a little Lianlian?" Hua Cheng smiled fondly and kissed his hair. "But the decision is yours."

Xie Lian wiped his eyes. "Huh?"

"I'm asking you if you're ready for a child."

Xie Lian's father had been pretty absent in his life, and sometimes Xie Lian had to question whether his father had wanted a son or an heir, and Hua Cheng's father definitely wasn't winning any awards. Considering this, Xie Lian decided to think carefully about the question.

He was nine hundred years old with limited childcare experience, and he doubted Hua Cheng had any. But they could learn, couldn't they? Why wouldn't they when that was the only thing stopping them? Hua Cheng could provide anything the child needed, and nothing could even begin to think about hurting it. Ghost City would adore it. And Xie Lian and Hua Cheng already love it.

After a long pause of thought, he nodded. "En." Hua Cheng grinned and tried to kiss Xie Lian. "Wait, wait, San Lang, I just threw up."

"So? I'm happy, let me kiss you." Hua Cheng closed the distance between the two of them. "We're going to be parents, gege." He touched their foreheads together, and the pair smiled at each other from an intimate distance.

"And we'll do better than our fathers did," Xie Lian affirmed.

Hua Cheng laughed and pulled Xie Lian into another embrace. "Of course."

Word Count 3502