Art of Provocations; in the Eye of the Sculptor
it was so hard not to interrupt him while he was busy. a snarky remark was hanging on his tongue, but the focused look in hua cheng's eye stopped any sound from leaving his mouth. something about the sight of him so incredibly focused made his heart beat faster.
he remembered how this all had started, about how he sarcastically had told hua cheng that even he would fail to depict him perfectly in a statue. that conversation had been started by feng xin, as a way to poke at him. yes, he had destroyed some statues of his own that weren't to his liking, but they were absolutely horrible.
and so hua cheng had taken that as a challenge. and so now he was watching the black-haired man work on the statue. part of it was thrilling to see, as hua cheng was actually talented in his forms of art, as he was in many things, but you couldn't strangle those praises out of mu qing's mouth. but that didn't mean he couldn't praise the ghost king in his head, and that he did. he did it with the others as well, but moreso with him.
"what are you looking at? are you already unhappy with how i depict you? if so, then you should be unhappy with how you look yourself as i am being faithful to the referential material," the ghost king purred, and mu qing could just feel his face contort at the poisonous words. and yet the tone of words were so sinful, as if the ghost king was luring him out, and it worked.
mu qing gave a small cough, "it could've looked worse," he offered back, avoiding the gaze of the ghost king, to which came a chuckle. "is that a compliment from general xuan zhen? i never thought i'd exist to see the day," and mu qing's blood boiled.
"you have some nerve," mu qing hissed out, but as he looked at hua cheng, he realized that he had gotten up, and was standing behind the sculpture of him. it was still unfinished, but it seemed like he had finished his bust atleast. the ghost king lifted his hand, just to playfully caress the cheek of the statue with the pad of his thumb, cradling it's cheek in his hand.
mu qing's protest died in his throat, frozen by the sight before him. the silence felt endless, until it was broken by the soft chuckle of the man in red. mu qing felt his face heat up and he turned away, furiated with both the man, for playing him like this, and himself, for falling for his games. "leaving so soon?" came the purr from the devil behind him.
"I have more important things to take care of," mu qing bit out to him. it wasn't a complete lie, but it wasn't completely the truth either, but not that he would admit it.
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The inspiration for this story was the art i saw in this post by @fawnmisty
may get another part maybe
