Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Feng Xin, we have to talk.”

Mu Qing is curled in the obnoxiously expensive knitted hammock seat that they brought back from their honeymoon. If a year hadn’t passed since their wedding, and their relationship wasn't a decade old by now, his use of the full name, tone, words, and the way he's sneering at his phone would send Feng Xin on a panicked rampage. Well acquainted with his husband’s quirks and mood by now, though, he just imitates one of the man’s trademark eye-rolls.

“Hello, Qing’er,” he says, kicking his shoes off without dropping the grocery bags he's carrying. “I missed you too. How was your day?”

“Leave that, quick.” Mu Qing gestures at the grocery bags. “And you better sit down.”

“Alright, alright.”

Feng Xin intends to empty the bags to put everything orderly away, but Mu Qing is burning holes in his back with a glare of legends. He can't begin to imagine what got him in this state. Deciding that only taking care of the stuff that goes into the freezer is a good compromise, he does so, grabs a beer on the way and goes to sit in front of his bristled husband.

“Okay,” he says and opens the beer can. “I'm listening.”

Mu Qing looks down at the can, then at him. “Cheers,” he says, in a tone that means ‘you should've brought me one’, with a side of ‘hope you choke and die’ that he doesn't really mean.

Feng Xin can't help a smirk. Holding his husband's gaze, he takes a long sip. Mu Qing waits patiently, and as soon as he notices his Adam's apple moving to swallow, he drops the bomb:

“Xie Lian is getting married.”

Maybe he actually did wish for Feng Xin to choke and die, because WHAT THE FUCK? Coughing and sputtering in a desperate attempt to clear his windpipe, he sees his life flash before his eyes, tinted in red out of pure rage, which only aggravates him more. He didn't really think too deeply about colours before, but he's developed a level of contempt for red because it seems to be Hua Cheng's entire personality. Red and ‘gege this, gege that, gege, gege, gege.’

That guy has given them the creeps ever since they first learned about him. Coming back from their honeymoon to the story of how Xie Lian spent a week in airport hell without saying a single word was already a lot to process, but if Feng Xin must be honest, it wasn’t a surprise. After all, Xie Lian is the kind of person who would rather cut his leg off than ‘be an inconvenience’. However, that the sketchy millionaire he met on the last flight wrapped him in a relationship not two days later was both unbelievable and unacceptable.

Was he tricked? Coerced? Drugged? Bewitched? How was that how Xie Lian got the first kiss of his life, as he told them, all starry-eyed and blushing? They were determined to interrogating him until they got to the bottom of it, but before they could get too far, Hua Cheng’s ugly mug appeared on the screen. Ever since, it has been virtually impossible to talk to Xie Lian without his fucking boyfriend —fucking fiancé ?!— making a nuisance of himself. He holds a massive grudge against both Feng Xin and Mu Qing for literally no reason, and while it can't be said that he actively prevents Xie Lian from speaking with them, he always makes sure of appearing at some point to mark territory by means of pissing them off.

It's really fucking unlucky that he’s from mainland China, and not from a place that at least allowed them to keep him behind the language barrier.

“Why?!” he manages to croak at some point.

“Beats me,” Mu Qing replies, gripping his phone with such force that it’s a miracle it doesn’t crack. “And that’s not the worst part.”

Feng Xin leaves his can of beer aside to brace himself. What can possibly be worse?

“Xie Lian, fucking…” Mu Qing gesticulates wildly in an attempt to convey his multiple negative emotions. There’s contempt, there’s frustration, there’s disbelief and some other things that, were they in  any other situation, would have Feng Xin snapping at him for being disrespectful. “He was the one who proposed.”

“No!”

“Look!”

Feng Xin blinks stupidly when Mu Qing shows him his screen, which displays his private conversation with Xie Lian.

“Read out loud, or I won’t know what you’re reacting to,” Mu Qing instructs with a tilt of his perfectly groomed eyebrows that makes Feng Xin squint.

“Do you want to torture me?”

“In the face of catastrophe, a man needs comic relief.”

Brat! Whenever he gets like this, Feng Xin gets the urge to bite him. He’d happily indulge instead of reading whatever train wreck is waiting for him in that inbox, but he needs to know. Resigned, he takes the phone from his husband.

Xie Lian
I started planning it a while ago
Perhaps too long ago, ah
Do you want the whole story? I don’t want to bore you

Me
…

Xie Lian
…

Me
¬_¬

Xie Lian
Hahaha
Ok, ok
It started during our two months anniversary celebration

Me
TWO MONTHS?

“Two months?!” Feng Xin repeats, barely stopping himself from throwing the phone out the window. “Who starts considering marriage at the two months mark?!”

“That’s Xie Lian for you,” Mu Qing sighs.

Xie Lian
I know, I was very embarrassed, ah

Me
How do you manage to feel embarrassed and being so shameless at the same time?

Xie Lian
??

Feng Xin doesn’t want to laugh, but he can't contain a snort, much to Mu Qing’s delight.

Me
Nevermind
What happened during your two months anniversary?

Xie Lian
Right, so:
Do you remember that San Lang recognised me in the plane for the videos I make about mudlarking?
He confessed that day that the first video he watched from my channel was actually the one I made in the Love River about gay marriage in Taiwan
Which I had posted just the week before
Up to that point, I thought he’d followed me for years, but no, he binged my entire channel in the flight, while I slept next to him!
Hahaha

“What the fuck does he mean with ‘hahaha’?!” Feng Xin explodes after barely managing to read the section without having a stroke. “That snake, that… predator! It was bad enough when we thought Hua Cheng was a years-long stalker, but this?! This is insane!”

“They’re both insane,” Mu Qing laments and hooks one foot on Feng Xin’s leg to pull and make his hammock seat sway.

Feng Xin takes the chance to lightly tickle Mu Qing’s knee, which earns him the swat of a hand, but also a furtive smile.

Xie Lian
No wonder he looked so tired when we landed
I didn’t think much about it at the time because I was dead, but later on, I did wonder…
Anyway

“Anyway,” Mu Qing repeats in a mocking tone, eyes rolling.

“I discovered 33 corpses buried in the garden, but anyway.” Feng Xin joins.

“He set fire to a thousand buildings, but anyway.”

They would laugh, but all they manage is a weak snicker that devolves into a joined sigh, heavy like the entire world. 

Xie Lian
He told me he thought I was the one getting married because of a story I posted with my outfit for your wedding
Someone screen-recorded and reposted it as a video in an account called pretty jades or something, ah
One of those content scrappers, you know

“He’s always been so nonchalant about people ogling him,” Mu Qing says. “It gets on my nerves.”

“It drove his parents crazy with worry, too.”

“And yet…”

That’s an ugly story. Rolling his shoulders to release some tension, Feng Xin goes back to the texts.

Xie Lian
While talking about it, the idea of dressing up to marry him just came to my mind
As I told you, I was so embarrassed! It had only been two months!!
But it felt so natural that I just knew it would eventually happen
He was the one who asked me to be in a relationship with him, so I decided to be the one who took the next step when the time was right
I decided to leave it for after my thesis defence, but started thinking about what to do because I wanted it to be really special, and that’s hard when your boyfriend’s profession is to make things special

Feng Xin groans. No matter how many times Xie Lian enumerates the giant institutions and corporations his beloved ‘San Lang’ designs experiences for, he just cannot believe the guy’s obscene wealth comes from being a glorified party planner. If at least he had something to do with technology, as Feng Xin first thought because he mistook ‘experience designer’ for ‘UX designer’, then his mountains of money would be slightly more believable. After all, an UX designer is a sort of techbro, and techbros always have a lot of money. An experience designer, on the other hand? That’s a fake ass job. Hua Cheng has to be gambling or trading crypto or doing who knows what shady shit behind Xie Lian’s back. It’s the only reasonable explanation.

Me
What did you end up doing?
Don’t tell me you proposed with a ring you found in the mud

Xie Lian
I would’ve loved to, but the foreshore is private property, and we aren’t entitled to what we find in it

Me
Ah, ok

Xie Lian
Any object of historical or monetary value that you find while mudlarking must be surrendered to the Port of London Authority
And you need a creative permit in order to make art with materials that you find at the foreshore, too

Me
Right

Xie Lian
It’s strict, but it’s the only way to protect the foreshore from plundering

Me
I see

Xie Lian
Besides, San Lang just got his permit
I wouldn’t want to jeopardise it
Or lose mine, it would be a real bummer

Me
Xie Lian

Xie Lian
... Sorry

“You should let him ramble a little more,” Feng Xin admonishes. Mu Qing scoffs. “I know he is a motormouth, but he cares a lot about everything he talks about. Besides, you were the one who brought the mud-searching thing up.”

“I know, I know, and I paid the price,” Mu Qing grumbles. Feng Xin arches a brow in question. “Keep reading and you’ll see.”

Xie Lian
I invited San Lang to a city by the sea called Bristol. I have a friend there whose family owns a big shipping company, influential in the harbour. They helped me with permits to organise a treasure hunt. The pieces were both a physical puzzle that spelled ‘double happiness’ and a riddle that had a proposal as solution. I used a red thread and my red coral pearl earrings to propose. San Lang liked everything and he said yes

Feng Xin grimaces. What a way to turn what would've probably been a novel’s worth of heartfelt descriptions into a war telegram. Too bad they didn't get a glimpse of Hua Cheng being pathetic (he must have been A MESS!). Oh, well. He can always ask Xie Lian on his own later.

“To think that one of those earrings would end up in Hua Cheng’s hands,” he says, defeated, giving the phone back to Mu Qing.

Those earrings are the reason why Mu Qing starting talking to Xie Lian, and by extension, to Feng Xin. It was a really rough start for their relationship, back in their training days under Jun Wu’s tutelage. The drama was huge, involving accusations of robbery, threats of expulsion and hours crawling under trampolines and lockers until the stupid earring that got lost appeared inside one of Mu Qing’s shoes. If anyone had asked Feng Xin that day whether he’d become friends with the guy who almost gouged his eyes out after he made one snark comment about pickpockets, never mind marrying him, he would’ve laughed his ass off and then punched them in the face.

He punched someone in the face that day, in fact, once Xie Lian identified the fuckers who set Mu Qing up.

“So, when and where is the wedding?” he asks before he can get too far down memory lane. “And why did he tell you and not me?”

“He sent a physical letter, actually,” Mu Qing nods towards a table nearby, where Feng Xin can see an envelope. A red envelope. Red is the colour of weddings, but for fuck’s sake. “I just had to text him as soon as I opened it.”

“Instead of texting me?”

“Obviously?”

“Asshole.”

“Idiot.”

Feng Xin takes his can of beer to chug the rest of its content, pulls Mu Qing to give him a brusque, quick kiss, and stands up to reach for the letter. It’s beautifully made by hand, featuring Xie Lian’s old-fashioned calligraphy. The edges are decorated with painted crystal butterflies and white flowers that must be Hua Cheng’s doing, if what Xie Lian says about his artistry is true.

Dear Mu Qing and Feng Xin.

It is our greatest joy to announce that we are going to get married. The ceremony will take place on the day of the mid-autumn festival next year (06.10.2025) in London, aboard the yacht Thousand Lights on the River Thames. 

We extend our invitation for you to join us as Xie Lian’s groomsmen. It would be an honour should you accept, and we will spare no expense facilitating your travelling and accommodation in order to make your attendance possible.

Please get in touch to arrange the details.

Looking forward to celebrating with you,

Xie Lian and Hua Cheng

A motherfucking yacht? Hua Cheng really loves to flaunt his damn money. Feng Xin can’t really be mad at him for it, though, the same way he can’t be mad at the photos of Xie Lian and Hua Cheng kissing that the latter likes to send him before replying to any of his texts, or sometimes out of the blue, just to annoy him. Xie Lian looks happy in those photos. He lights up like the sun whenever they’re on a video call and Hua Cheng approaches. One year ago, in Taiwan, he was a shell of what he used to be, skittish and quiet, with dark circles under haunted eyes. Now, he’s glowing. He’s healthy, thriving in a new flat where there’s no black mould and the heating works (for starters, Xie Lian told Feng Xin that he used to live with black mould and shitty heating. He would’ve never admitted to such a thing before!) Additionally, he could complete his PhD with honours and then landed his dream job with the Crown State, which led to Lang Qianqiu and the other climbers at the gym calling him Dianxia, an epithet Xie Lian finds mortifying and that Hua Cheng loves.

Feng Xin sighs. Hua Cheng might be insufferable, creepy and evil, but he lives for Xie Lian and would die for him, and it shows. Thanks to him, their old friend has never been better. How could Feng Xin truly be mad? 

That said, he’ll take every chance he gets to annoy the shit out of the man. It’s only fair.

“Spare no expense, huh?” he reads out loud in a conspirational tone, turning towards Mu Qing and finding that he’s mirroring his grin. “Guess it’s our turn to try that famous first class couple pod, then.”