angryhearts | January Open Post

January Open Post

WHO: Open to All

WHAT: Just a January Open Post, Lan Wangjis Birthday, Whatever you want

WHEN: Open to the Whole Month - New Years, Birthday, etc

WHERE: Anywhere in the hotel

NOTES: Warnings in threads. Just an open post to give us a little something to do i January

The New Year arrives and even if there is no way for them to really tell time, just keeping track of days and a few conversations with staff helps them pinpoint when it happens. Not that anyone can tell what the year is, but at least people can welcome the start of a new year in this place.

Care to celebrate the new year? Find a supply of noisemakers or hats in one of the shops and create your own new year traditions. Might as well celebrate the fact that the hotel hasn't tried to mess with anyone lately!

And with the new year also brings January birthdays! Lan Wangji (both of them) are born during this month and so a dining hall has been set up with streamers and decorations. As well as cakes and desserts for everyone to enjoy. A special (slightly boring) meal of fruits and vegetables has been laid out as the day's specialty.

Have another January birthday you want to celebrate? Have another reason to be out and exploring? Feel free to top level with your own ideas and let's have the characters enjoy their time together.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"A-ah...I don't think I would make a very good canvas." He reaches up to itch the side of his face with his finger as he laughs softly in embarrassment.

With a nod, "All right, I'll paint you as the god that I always see you as with so many flowers. How is that?"

He brings in a blank, fresh canvas, dips his brush, and washes off the paint, and then starts painting working on the colors.

"It will be a while as I work on the painting gege so if you like, you can lean on me or rest your head on my lap. I don't mind."

He looks around, worried that someone might see him doing such a thing and think he is being indecent in such a public place. But the staff seems busy and there aren't many others around. So he slowly shifts and adjusts his position so that he can lay comfortably.

Placing his head in San Lang's lap he looks up at the canvas so that he can watch the colors be spread across it.

He brushed his slender fingers through his bangs, looking at him with such love and devotion. Hua Cheng is a very accomplished painter and having lived as long as his beloved, he can paint everything in perfect memory.

With a paintbrush, he draws on the blank canvas. A picture is slowly forming as he works on the details of the scene and the colors from the tip of his brush as he draws flowers against a background of dark green, a picturesque garden that is his ideal and vision of paradise.

In the garden, he eventually draws Xie Lian as he is now, wearing all white robes, his scarf, and his wide brim hat taking shape under the graceful strokes of his brush.

"I always left flowers at your temple gege."

He watches the image take shape. It's relaxing to watch him paint and he wonders if they were back on their world if they would be allowed such a luxury or if their lives would be too busy. He would like to think they would get to have at least some moments like this. But he does miss being home regardless.

"I know..." The small boy who replenished the flower in his statue's hand whenever it wilted comes to his mind. That moment when he told him to live for him.

What a long journey they both have had to get to this point.

He missed home too. For now, he keeps him company to help ease his homesickness. He painted the rest of the picture, adding in details, drawing his god in the garden surveying the flowers with delicate. He's so detailed even on the clothes and his expression. Then it takes an hour to paint in the right hues of pink for the sakura blossoms and draw every last petal.

It's quiet and meditative even to paint a picture completely from a vision, from a dream. Once it's complete, he laid his paintbrush down. "The picture is complete gege."

"It's beautiful, San Lang." He smiles as he looks up at it. It really is quite lovely and watching it be revealed in front of him was wonderful to watch. He could easily watch him paint all day.

"What are you going to do next?"

There isn't much entertainment on the hotel other than reading a lot of books and the door to the garden remains closed, so it's not like they could see what the outside world looks like.

"I...honestly don't know gege. I'll happily keep you company if it's your wish." He doesn't care much if he leaves his paintings behind for the others to gaze and ponder. He offers the following suggestions, "I can read you a poem, a story from the other worlds, cook for you until you wish to retire and sleep." Everyday seems monotonous like the last and falls in that routine as he tries to think of anything to keep his gege less bored.

"I wish I can take you to ghost city. I promise you, you'll never feel bored and I'll give you my everything. My subjects can be scary, but you are my most honored guest if you ever wanted to visit my kingdom again."

"You could just tell me about Ghost City instead. Tell me stories of that place and then I can experience it again once we return home. It is such an exciting place that i'm sure you have lots of stories."

He would like to learn all about what Hua Cheng did during those years we were apart and what kind of place Ghost City is all the time.

He's pleased to hear that hearing a story excites him. "All right, I'll tell you." In the meanwhile, he lets his prince relax on his lap using him as a pillow. "Someday, I'll take gege to my kingdom where he can live with me forever."

So he told him the story. "Centuries ago, I dreamed of a place for lost souls like myself to live. It takes a lot of cultivation and spiritual energy, but it can be done. It happened after I turned into a supreme."

"They all seem to really like it there. You did well, San Lang." All the other ghosts really seem to respect him and that can be hard to achieve with such a rough bunch. Xie Lian was always very impressed by Ghost City the times he has gotten to visit it.

"Mm, it's a large city and kingdom, but it's full of lights and color. It can be dark and heavy sometimes, as it can be sad and happy too. The spirits there are held by memories and emotions as their anchor to exist. It's a place for the dead. It can be dreary for you to live there dianxia."

There's a sigh as he nuzzles on his hair as he rests his head on his lap. "I wouldn't mind living in gege's temple also."

"I don't mind where we go, San Lang. As long as we are together. I do like the simplicity of the temple but I couldn't ask you to never go back home."

San Lang is that place's ruler. Without him there occasionally there is no telling how things could be. So he knows that they would have to go back once in awhile. And it would be a shame not to visit that lovely temple that the man built for him.

"When we go back, I'll take you everywhere. I rule my kingdom and take you back there, but I like worshipping you in your temple also."

He smiles softly, he's sincere as soft as the prayers and sutras he spoke and chanted to his status for centuries. He prays the statues are as real as his god, and his god will hear his prayers.

He is sitting before him now. The painting needs to be alone to dry. "Is gege hungry? I can cook dinner for the both of us."

"You don't have to go to so much effort when there is food already prepared, San Lang." He doesn't want the man to have to do anything too much for him. Neither of them really have to eat much but neither of them are allowed in the kitchen either. So all food would have to be prepared in their rooms. It hardly is the easiest of places to cook.

"My food is better." He pouts. "I don't trust what the staff puts in the food. I tried some of the pastries, and it can change the person's size and the teas effects the emotions." He experienced that for himself, and while it doesn't effect him, he can feel the properties in the food.

"We could ask for the ingredients and cook for ourselves in my kitchen in paradise manor. I look at the calendar and knew it was to be the lunar new year this week of the month, so I have to cook something in your honor. It's the least I could do for you."

"If that is what you want then we can see if they will let us do that." It is worth a try. He sits up so that Hua Cheng can start to gather whatever he needs. He would prefer to eat his cooking as well, he just feels bad about making him go to so much trouble.

He never wanted him to feel guilty. It's his honor to cook for him to celebrate the lunar new year. It brings a sense of cultural identity and peace. "Mm." He's cheerful and upbeat, so they went to the dining room area to request ingredients he needed for the staff. Since they sense they wanted to help themselves, they provided the ingredients that he asked for, for his cooking, on a trolley.

"I got what we need for the cooking gege." So let's go to my room and then I can cook in the kitchen. He pushes the cart toward to the elevator that will take them to the residential floor.

He follows him towards the elevator, bowing his head slightly towards the staff that was so helpful. "I'm glad they are so willing." He knows that in some cases people aren't so willing to give up supplies but the staff has always been fairly helpful. Unless people want information...then they are a little less willing.

He leads gege to his room of paradise manor. The room looks like a mansion fit for a ghost king. But it's equipped with a small kitchenette and utilities he needed to make a meal to fit for a god.

"Relax gege, I'll make us dinner to celebrate the lunar New Year. It will be a while, so why not read a book or write something for me? I would love a poem from you."

It's going to take him about two hours to cook everything from the trolley as he rolls up his sleeves and work in the kitchenette by the counter. There are sounds of chopping with a knife, clangs of spoons on the pot, as soups boil, setting the meat, vegetables, and rice on plates, and assemble the dessert. Nothing too big, but also a grand meal to celebrate the holiday.

Xie Lian walks over and settles at the table. He picks up a brush and a piece of paper. "I'm not sure I would be able to write a very good poem right now." He wishes he could remember some of the great ones from back home but any of those were worn away by hundreds of years worth of reading.

"How about a poem made by you?" He teases as he starts working on the ingredients, chopping up meats and vegetables, and working on making a soup out of it. Eventually, the kitchen becomes warm and smells good. Even while busy working by the counter and the stove, he chats with him.

"It doesn't to be good or perfect. Even my handwriting is bad. I'll like it if gege composed it. I know I composed a lot in your honor."

"You are better at the arts then I am." Even if his hand writing is bad, Hua Cheng's talents lie in his sculpting and painting. He stares at the blank piece of paper and considers what kind of things might make a good poem.

He slowly starts to write but it is mostly jotting down thoughts.

"Yes. I preferred art because it's more visual that way, and expresses more how I feel. But literature and poetry is good as well."

He's busy with the cooking. Cooking is art for him as well. He's careful and paid attention to details. He assembled their dinner by the plates. Meat goes on one side, vegetables in the middle, bowls of soup and noodles with spoons nearby to pick up, and a plate of rice for the both of them.

He sat down, with a soft smile. "Have you written anything gege?"

"Not really much that makes sense as a poem...just words." It looks more like a list then an actual poem in his mind. He reaches up and itches his cheek in embarrassment. Hua Cheng has gone through so much effort to prepare a meal and he has barely managed anything good.

"I think I would need more time."

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