every single thing to come has turned into ashes (слэш)

Xie Lian came to sit down next to Mu Qing on the edge of the porch. “They’ll come back.”
“I keep saying that,” Mu Qing whispered. “I keep saying that, to myself, to you, to everyone, but they’re not back.”
“They will be,” Xie Lian said, his voice breaking on the ‘be’, as he curls in on himself, leaning against Mu Qing’s shoulder. “They have to be.”
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Just moments after Hua Cheng dissipates, Mu Qing and Xie Lian lose Feng Xin, too, as the qi within Fengshen sours and poisons him.