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Heavenly Demons were a cursed race. Descended from fallen gods, they bore the incredible strength, immunity, and so many of the benefits of the divine still. Those gifts had not been taken. Instead, what had been stripped from them was the one thing they sought above all others. What was stripped from them, was their soulmate. The bond shattered in fate's hands, splintering out in pieces and fragments to curse others with the incomplete match, to curse others to never find their own soulmate and leaving the demons with an empty void so many of them clawed at anything to try and fill.
Very few in history had been successful. They may have found a fragment but without the complete bond it was doomed to never be enough. With the incredible luck of the current generation however… Perhaps the curse had started to break just as surely as the relations between demons and humans had begun to heal as well.
The current marriage was a sign of that, humans and demons alike filling the streets awash with festival colors. The Saintly Ruler himself sat above it all, lounging across his soulmate's lap, nearly purring at the attention while his other soulmate stood off to one side, rolling his eyes at the blatant display. All three wore robes fitting the occasion, though they bore their peak colors mixed within.
Cultivators. It should have seemed impossible, but there they sat. Plenty had learned not to question it, lest they earn the ire of the Saintly Ruler himself, or that of the War God that stood at his side. If one was truly unlucky, they might accidently be within earshot of the other cultivator who stood up on the platform.
Identical to Luo Binghe’s Shen Yuan save for the harsh expression and the whisper of scales that made up Shen Qingqiu’s soulmate mark. The man had his fan waving idly, making it a point that he was above the frolicing below, and found it bothersome at best. He only had eyes for the entrance gates.
So far, all of the cultivator soulmates had been found among Cang Qiong… except for this one. It had been an off chance, a lucky strike that had split open Hua Huan Palace’s robes, revealing the ghost of scales curling over the young man’s shoulder. Identical to the pattern that curled around Shen Qingqiu’s hip. Shen Yuan should know, he’d helped Shen Qingqiu hide it for years lest someone mistake either of them as part demon themselves.
Cheers went up from the main gates, brilliant bursts of color and banners rising up as another soulmate of the Saintly Ruler’s family was welcomed. Shen Qingqiu disappeared shortly after, there one moment and gone the next with perhaps only Shen Yuan actually seeing him go given the look in his eyes towards the door.
His own soulmate mumbled, drawing closer and more effectively lounging across the one he had known was his from the moment he caught sight of the sweet man that so often preferred to hide away.
Below them the procession was starting to come into view. Rather expectedly, it was lavish, glittering with gold and rich cloth. It easily passed the show that Cang Qiong had put on, traipsing over into gaudy even with the grim-faced cultivators in Huan Hua yellow surrounding the edges.
It had not exactly been an easy conversation to have, and Huan Hua had only agreed because they had been backed into a corner. The only one who had been okay with it, the only one who had been ecstatic had been the figure now stepping out of the paraquin.
Zhuzhi-Lang had requested privacy for their ceremony, just as he had last time. Gongyi Xiao disappeared into the building even amid the cheers and well wishes, the celebration easily raging into life around them.
No doubt it would continue late into the night, just as each of the other ones had. Already the banquet was being set up, Luo Binghe leading Shen Yuan with the eagerness of a puppy while Liu Qingge followed at a more sedate pace, his eyes casting to each being as they passed.
The newly sealed soulmates joined them shortly, Gongyi Xiao fairly glowing as he cast glances at not only Zhuzhi-Lang but Shen Qingqiu who made no acknowledgement of it. He didn’t tell Gongyi Xiao to stop however, and if Shen Yuan happened to catch his brother passing off little tidbits of food to his mates when he thought no one was looking then he certainly wasn’t going to say anything.
Truly, he knew better. If he brought it up… Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge would get into a competition about who could give the choicest pieces to Shen Yuan and… Shen Qingqiu might also join in because of his “older brother” air and… and Shen Yuan really didn’t want to find out if Gongyi Xiao was also going to join the tradition.
Unfortunately for Shen Yuan… it was Zhuzhi-Lang who brought it up and… Gongyi Xiao did in fact join in on the ‘game’.