Lost in the Tide

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/39539274.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandoms: 天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 |
Heaven Official's Blessing (Cartoon)
Relationship: Hua Cheng/Xie Lian (Tian Guan Ci Fu)
Characters: Xie Lian (Tian Guan Ci Fu), Hua Cheng (Tian Guan Ci Fu), Ban Yue
(Tian Guan Ci Fu), Shi Qingxuan, He Xuan (Tian Guan Ci Fu), Lang
Qianqiu, Pei Su (Tian Guan Ci Fu), Yin Yu (Tian Guan Ci Fu), Mu Qing,
Feng Xin (Tian Guan Ci Fu)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Urban Fantasy, Angst,
Canon-Typical Violence, Romance, Hua Cheng and Xie Lian Invented
Love, Mutual Pining, First Time, ridiculous amounts of pining, Dubious
Consent, think chapter 127, Plot, Eventual Happy Ending, Oblivious Xie
Lian (Tian Guan Ci Fu), dog!E'ming, Beefleaf is a thing, Yin Yu
Deserves a Raise (Tian Guan Ci Fu)
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2022-06-09 Completed: 2024-01-28 Words: 144,604
Chapters: 15/15
 Lost in the Tide
by kianspo

Summary

Once-upon-a-time an aspiring surgeon and now a down-on-his-luck vet Xie Lian is

struggling to keep his little clinic open. He's not doing very well until one night a handsome
stranger bursts in, begging him to save his dog.

Notes

Re: setting. I'm so sorry, I don't know enough about modern China to comfortably set a fic
there. So instead you have this unspecified modern country somewhere on this planet where
all things work as described. I really am sorry, but it was either this or not writing anything at
all.

Thank you, secret_chord25 for the beta! ♥

 Chapter 1

--

“Oh,” Xie Lian exhales staring at the notice. “Oh, no.”

His luck really is the absolute worst.

--

His morning starts the same as always.

He opens the clinic early to give himself time to tidy up a bit—he was too tired last night, and
the fact that it keeps happening is a bit disconcerting. He needs to take better care of himself
if he’s to be of any use to his patients, but lately, it feels like he doesn’t have the time to so
much as sit quietly for a minute, let alone take a nap or meditate.

He frowns slightly as he washes the floors and disinfects the surfaces a second time. He rubs
his fingers together, and the spark is still there, thank goodness, but even his energy feels
tired—sluggish and slow.

He shakes himself forcibly and smiles, greeting the new day. He’ll do better. He’ll make the
time… somehow.

Stowing the cleaning supplies away, he puts on the light green coat he always wears—not
white, never white—and goes to check on his overnight patients. There are only two, and
both of them seem to be doing fine.

Mr. Whiskers, a dignified elderly gentleman whose owner takes the unfortunate route of
expressing his love with copious amounts of non-cat-specific food, lifts his fluffy white tail
as Xie Lian enters, but doesn’t swish it in displeasure. Xie Lian clucks his tongue softly as he
checks the IV drip. Mr. Whiskers has attempted to bite through, judging by the marks, but the
needle remains secure in the holder on his paw.

Xie Lian scratches his ears with a chiding smile. “I told you you needed to be patient, didn’t
I? If you’d displaced it, we’d have had to start over, and you couldn’t have gone home for
another day. Where’s the fun in that?”

Amber eyes that have half-closed in pleasure open fully again to give Xie Lian a pitiful look.

Xie Lian laughs. “None of that, Mister; I’ve got your number. Let me check your bloodwork
and I’ll give you a treat, okay?”

As he checks the latest sample, he hums in satisfaction at the obvious improvement. When
his eyes fall on his stock or reagents, however, he can’t help a small sigh. He’s running low
again. Running his own labs definitely has its disadvantages, but the people who come here
do it because they can’t afford a better-equipped clinic.
Banyue, he remembers, was bewildered when she learned he wasn’t charging people for the
tests. But this wasn’t a wealthy part of the city, and tests were expensive, and most animals
needed so many.

“Some of them can afford it,” Banyue had said.

Yes, but he couldn’t charge some and not the others. That wouldn’t be fair. Even those who
couldn’t pay would be offended. And the thought of turning people away made him feel
nauseated.

Still, with what he’s made so far this month, he won’t be able to afford to replace the
reagents. Perhaps, painful though it is, it’s time to dig out the donations box again.

He pets Mr. Whiskers approvingly, praising him for his progress, then moves to check on
Beast, whose full name is Ferocious Black Beast Who Eats the Night and who is decidedly
the least ferocious dog Xie Lian has ever seen. The little black schnauzer is feeling rather
grouchy, recovering from a displaced hip—an unfortunately frequent ailment—but licks Xie
Lian’s hand, friendly enough, when Xie Lian checks his bandages. They’re still holding tight,
preventing the overexcitable creature from harming himself again. He could have gone home
yesterday, but the owner begged Xie Lian to keep him overnight, something about her
allergic nephews staying over. Xie Lian didn’t mind.

Having fed both animals, he washes his hands and moves to the reception area, switching the
sign on the door to ‘Open.’

--

The day is busy as usual. Before noon, Xie Lian has already seen what feels like an infinite
number of cats, dogs, hamsters, and bunnies suffering from anything as simple as food
poisoning—and honestly, when will people learn not to feed their pets people food?—to
broken bones and suspicious hormonal imbalances. Fortunately, none of it is complicated
enough to require him to use his less than conventional healing methods, but he still feels a
little dizzy by midday, wishing he’d eaten something for breakfast. He didn’t have the time to
do any grocery shopping this week, though… maybe not last week, either.

He frowns slightly, trying to remember, before an owl with a sprained wing demands his
attention.

It's funny—Xie Lian doesn’t remember the clinic ever being so busy when Mei Nianqing ran
the place. Xie Lian had worked as his apprentice for two years, absorbing knowledge on the
job while simultaneously completing his formal training remotely at the cheapest school he
could find. It was usually quiet and slow enough for Mei Nianqing to be able to teach Xie
Lian at his own pace—demanding, but skipping nothing.

Treating animals was not ‘exactly as treating people, just simpler,’ as Xie Lian’s former peers
had once scoffed. Xie Lian himself may not have been as rude when talking about
veterinarians, but, if someone had floated the idea of becoming one as he’d been studying in
med school, he would have considered such a career to be drastically inferior—a misuse of
his talents.
Life, he’s discovered, has an uncanny means of curing one of pride.

It was true, though. The humble clinic at the outskirts of the city had never been so busy
before Mei Nianqing had retired and left it to Xie Lian. Back then, they had seen maybe a
dozen patients a day—time enough for Xie Lian to study theory as well as practice. But
starting two years ago, after Mei Nianqing had suddenly decided he wanted to see more of
the world before he died and left the dealing with hurt animals to Xie Lian, the situation had
begun to change in a most illogical way.

Xie Lian may have had enough natural talent to pick up the practice itself without a hitch, but
he definitely had no particular knack for running the business side of things. Even knowing
that the clinic had to sustain itself if he was to keep working and being useful, and taking the
best actions he knew how in that regard, things kept inexplicably getting worse.

The building itself was showing signs of wear, from the leaky roof to the overstrained
electrical grid. Equipment maintenance, including that of the aging X-ray machine, was
eating most of the profits, and any leftovers were consumed by keeping up the stock of
medicine and animal food. And, all the while, people kept coming—more clients than Mei
Nianqing ever had to deal with—yet somehow the clinic was now making less money than
before.

Banyue, who’d started helping out around that time, had asked Xie Lian to show her the
budgeting file Mei Nianqing had left. She’d only been fourteen at the time but had such a
clear affinity for mathematics and finance, and such an earnest air about her, that Xie Lian
had no objections.

‘It’s because the clinic is in debt,’ she’d said with a frown, her fingers flying over the
keyboard as she’d flicked through table after table. ‘See those bills here? That’s what you pay
first every month, before anything else, right?’

Xie Lian had nodded, trying to keep up. ‘Laoshi told me to pay those no matter what.’

Banyue’d nodded. ‘Those are the mortgage payments. If you miss one, you’ll be fined the
next time. If you miss two, the bank can take the building.’

Xie Lian had blinked. ‘Mortgage? But I thought… I thought Mei Ninaqing owned the
building. He said—’

‘He did.’ Banyue’d nodded. ‘He mortgaged it himself six months ago. I don’t know why, but
—maybe he needed the money for his travels?’

Xie Lian had just stared. Uneducated in finances he may have been, as well as generally
unspoiled in many ways of life, but he wasn’t naïve, not anymore. His laoshi had needed the
money, certainly, but it hadn’t been for his travels. Mei Nianqing had a... problem.

Ever since he’d taken Xie Lian in, Xie Lian had been acutely aware that his master rarely
spent fewer than three nights a week in some kind of gambling den. Xie Lian had even had to
go and fetch him once, when Mei Nianqing had had too much to drink and was liable to start
trouble. Xie Lian still shudders, remembering the trip to the giant Ghost City center,
infamous throughout the country and beyond for skirting the lines of legality. That Xie Lian
had even managed to find his teacher in that dazzling anthill of gold and silver, scant
clothing, and barely concealed weaponry was a minor miracle. He still wasn’t clear on
exactly how they’d managed to escape unscathed—something about the owner arriving at the
exact same moment, and the staff being distracted.

In retrospect, it was all too clear. Mei Nianqing must have acquired a significant gambling
debt, mortgaged the clinic, and, since he’d transferred the ownership to Xie Lian, must have
either paid off his debt or used the money to run from creditors. Considering how sudden his
departure had been, Xie Lian had suspected it was the second option.

He’d frowned, deeply concerned for his master. The kind of people who went to gamble in
Ghost City were either incalculably dangerous or desperate, and, whichever it was, owing
them money was certainly life-threatening. He had tried to reach Mei Nianqing around that
time, just to make sure that his master was all right, but he couldn’t find him—the email
address he’d left Xie Lian with had bounced, and there was no other means of contact. Xie
Lian soon acquired a habit of reading through the criminal life section in the paper every
morning, exhaling a quiet sigh of relief every time no one matching Mei Nianqing’s
description was reported murdered.

He now had a problem, however. Xie Lian had been trained as a surgeon, dedicating his life
exclusively to that career, however much it was now permanently in shambles, from the age
of fifteen. From graduating school early, then pre-med at seventeen, immediately going to
med school, then joining the most prestigious surgeon training program at the biggest
hospital in the capital, Xie Lian had always been the youngest doctor on staff. Despite his
reputation of being a genius who’d never mucked up a procedure, many people had been
skeptical about him, and he’d had no other goal besides proving himself. His case of tunnel
vision, living and breathing surgery, had meant he never allowed himself the slightest
distraction, never made the time for anything else.

And when all of that had abruptly ended—when the only career he’d ever dreamed of was
permanently out of reach—he’d realized he had no other talents or conceivable options. He’d
never bothered to learn anything else.

What did he know about making a place profitable?

--

He’d struggled but managed, with Banyue’s help, at least for a while. The girl really was
talented, and Xie Lian’s notoriously bad luck must have taken a day off when he’d stumbled
over her being bullied by some kids in the street. He’d scared them off, which had barely
required him to use any residual knowledge of kung fu he’d learned while still living in his
parents’ house, then took her to the clinic to see to her injuries.

For some reason, Banyue had stuck around. She’d started dropping by every day after school,
and at first had mostly sat quietly, only rarely asking a question. She’d watched Xie Lian with
unwavering attention before starting to help out where she thought she could—cleaning,
tidying up the cabinets, distracting the pets while Xie Lian worked on them.
He had tried, at first, to protest. A bright young girl like her shouldn’t have been spending all
her free time in a dusty old clinic with a down-on-his-luck doctor-turned-vet.

‘You really don’t want me here?’ Banyue had asked, tears in her eyes, when Xie Lian had
tentatively broached the subject once again.

What was he to say to that? Of course he wanted her there, but it was selfish. Just because he
felt lonely sometimes and missed the days when he was surrounded by friends…

And she’d been lonely, too, he’d realized with a start. Her classmates had made fun of her,
since she wasn’t from the area. She had no friends, her parents were gone, and the aunt and
uncle taking care of her were never home.

‘I really, really do,’ Xie Lian had said, and opened his arms.

Banyue had run to him, clinging for dear life. Xie Lian had never felt like more of a heel than
at that moment.

--

Banyue had stayed, though Xie Lian made sure she did her schoolwork before so much as
thinking of helping. She pouted but eventually realized that doing homework at the clinic was
not without its advantages. She could question Xie Lian endlessly on biology and chemistry,
he had excellent recall for history, and literature had been something of a hobby, back when
he’d still had time for hobbies. Satisfied that she was at least somewhat benefitting from his
company, Xie Lian had relented and allowed her to help.

Banyue had tidied up his accounts, made sure he’d cut unnecessary spending, and taken care
of his paperwork—though she’d made a point of going through it with him and finding every
possible deal when buying supplies to save. When she’d broached the subject of charging
market rates, however, she’d heard a firm ‘no.’

Xie Lian was perfectly aware that people who lived in his neighborhood couldn’t afford that.
Besides, his credentials, while legitimate, had come from a school most people had never
heard of. Who was he to ask for that kind of money? He let them pay what they could, and he
never turned people away if they couldn’t pay at all.

Banyue had given him a despairing look. ‘You’re going to go bankrupt, A-Lian.’

Xie Lian had smiled. ‘I’ll just see more patients.’

It had worked. Sort of. For a year and half—through what miracle, Xie Lian didn’t altogether
know.

Now, it seemed, the streak had ended.

--

The door chimes tinkle softly, making Xie Lian look up from disinfecting the exam table
again. He smiles.
“Banyue.”

“Have you eaten?” she asks instead of a greeting.

“Um…”

“Right, what am I asking,” she grumbles, grabbing his arm and shoving him into the back
room. Once there, she pushes a paper bag at him. “You can’t work through lunch every day,
A-Lian.”

Xie Lian, having been blissfully unaware of his hunger until smelling the fresh buns inside,
smiles sheepishly. “But lunch is when most people can come.” He takes a bun out and
inhales, feeling his mouth water. “It’s not like a lot of bosses let them take time off for their
pets.”

“Then eat before the lunch hour! Or later. A fat lot of good you’ll do them if you simply
collapse.”

“I meant to,” Xie Lian defends, attention on the heavenly taste of the bun he’s just bitten into.
“But then there were people—that owl—”

Banyue frowns, watching him eat. “Slow down; no one will die if you chew your food.
You’re worse than a child sometimes, honestly.”

Xie Lian frowns slightly, having finished the bun and resisting the urge to dive into a second
one. He’s not too starved to mind his manners. “What happened to being polite to your
elders?” he tries for a reproachful tone. “I remember when you were shy. Such a sweet,
humble little girl. What happened?”

Banyue grins at him. “I began spending time with someone who kept telling me I’m bright
and brilliant and should have more faith in myself. And I listened.”

Xie Lian ducks his head, swallowing a grin of his own. “That person may have slightly
miscalculated.”

Banuye, almost of a height with him now, reaches up to plant a kiss on his forehead. “Too
late to take it back.”

Xie Lian blushes, the way he always does when someone shows him the slightest bit of
affection, and freezes awkwardly—not wanting to scare her off but not wanting to show just
how badly he wants a hug either.

Whether they didn’t dare or didn’t want to, people hadn’t really touched him much, even
when he was the rising star of the surgical world. It used to puzzle him, when he’d had the
time to dwell on it. He remembered the sheer amount of pretend roughhousing between Feng
Xin and Mu Qing, the ease of physical contact between his other classmates—arms around
shoulders and waists, snuggling together after a grueling 24-hour shift, congratulatory hugs
after a successful procedure or exam…
Somehow, Xie Lian had always been exempt. People hadn’t actively avoided him, exactly,—
it was more like it had never even occurred to anyone to include him. He’d never understood
that. Sure, he’d always been younger than everyone else, but had he really seemed so
unapproachable, off-putting? Mu Qing and Feng Xin were the only ones who’d ever touched
him at all, but that had always felt different than the way they were with each other, or any of
the others. It had been stiffer, awkward—like a chore.

After a time, subconsciously, Xie Lian had begun to take himself out of reach at any moment
they may have felt obligated to touch him. He’d only realized he’d been doing it in
retrospect, but by then, it was too late.

Well. There was one other exception.

Jun Wu had touched him frequently when Xie Lian came to work under him at the hospital. It
hadn’t been anything inappropriate, just the kind of casual affection Xie Lian’s father had
stopped giving him since Xie Lian turned six and was deemed too old for such attentions. An
arm over his shoulders as they made the rounds and Jun Wu answered questions; smile,
heavy with focus, as Xie Lian made a diagnosis; a firm clasp on his arm in approval of his
treatment proposal.

Xie Lian had tried not to show it, but he’d lived for every moment of such praise. Many
people had praised him—his mother, most of his teachers, sometimes his classmates.
Somehow, it had never felt real, not like that.

And look where it had gotten him…

Before, he’d never been comfortable with physical affection because he was unused to it.
Now, he’s uncomfortable still, because he doesn’t believe he deserves it. And with Banyue,
he always feels torn between wanting to protect her from himself and wanting to allow
himself the warmth of her affection.

He pulls back, having caught the selfish impulse. It’s an awkward movement, and not for the
first time Xie Lian asks himself how he can have hands so steady in a lab or OR, yet be so
awkward that he might as well be a visitor in his own body at moments like this.

Just then, the door chime sound again, sharply, and a panicked voice cuts through the quiet:

“Xie-xiansheng! Xie-xiansheng! Sati’s coughing up blood—come quick!”

Xie Lian shoves the paper bag back at Banyue and runs out.

--

A thought lingers even as he directs the anxious owner to set her cat on the exam table. He’d
asked them to stop calling him doctor time and again, but they don’t listen. They’re
technically correct, but he can’t stand the sound of the title next to his name anymore. He
doesn’t deserve it after what he’d done. These people might not know it, but…
Sati ends up needing dialysis, and Xie Lian wishes with all his heart but can’t guarantee
anything. Kidneys are a weak spot for aging cats—one of many.

The day resumes and, somehow, more people come in the evening than during lunch. Xie
Lian gets a little dizzy between all the cats and dogs demanding his attention. He doesn’t
really notice as it gets dark outside and only blinks in surprise as Banyue switches the sign on
the door to ‘Closed.’

“Oh.” He stares, realizing he’s holding on to the exam table more than simply resting his
hands on it. “Is it the time already?”

“Yes,” Banyue sighs in exasperation, spraying disinfectant over both the surface and his
hands. It stings—cracked skin, too many washings, and it’s been ages since he could afford to
buy beeswax. “And I need to run. I promised my neighbors I’d babysit for them tonight.”

“Of course.” Xie Lian nods, remembering, instantly remorseful. He had encouraged her
forming that new connection; it’s important to her. “Have I kept you? I’m so sorry, Banyue,
you should have said something—”

“It’s fine; I still have time.” She shakes her head, gathering her bag, her motions rushed
despite her words. “You should go home. Get some sleep, eat something.”

“Of course,” Xie Lian says again, giving her a reassuring smile as he forces himself to stand
straight. “I’ll just finish running those labs and then I’ll go, too.”

She gives him an exasperated look, then catches sight of the clock above his head and whines
softly.

“I’ve got to run. Please go home, A-Lian! Please?”

“Go, don’t worry about me.” He waves her off, smiling. “And thank you for your help today,
as always!”

She mutters something that sounds suspiciously like a swearword under her breath as she
runs out the door, but Xie Lian dismisses the idea. He really must be tired if he’s hearing
things like that.

--

The labs take longer than expected, but it does give him time to clean up a bit more
thoroughly than he usually has the time in the evening. Maybe he can sleep in tomorrow, get
an extra half hour…

Except no—tomorrow is restocking day, and he can’t skip it. He’s running low on the
cleaning supplies, too, so he can’t postpone the trip. There should still be enough money left,
before he’ll have to think of something…

He frowns, trying to run a mental tally. His sleepiness is gone as he realizes he might not
have the cash. Glancing to make sure that the centrifuge is still running, he walks reluctantly
toward the desk that serves as his office and pulls up the budgeting program on his laptop.
Thank goodness for Banyue keeping his records in such order. Now he needs to gather
enough courage to look and—

A sharp screech of tires breaks the quiet hum of the late hour. Xie Lian jumps, startled, his
heart pounding in his chest before he can even take a breath. Old reactions… God, he’d
thought he was past that.

Adrenaline flooding his system, he rises to his feet even before he hears the sound of
footsteps and an urgent banging comes on his door.

“Please, is anyone in there? I need help!”

Xie Lian throws the door open and stares.

There’s a man holding a dog in front of him—a German shepherd, pitch black, breathing hard
and emitting a pitiful whine. The dog is by no means small—it must be some kind of hybrid
to be this size—but the man is holding him in his arms as if he weighs nothing.

“Please, I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” the man says, his voice calm but urgent.
“He’s been sick for a few days, and they gave us a pill for that at the last place, but it didn’t
help this time. He’s worse, he’s too hot, there’s blood in his urine, and—”

“All right, all right,” Xie Lian interrupts, his hand already on the giant dog’s head, taking a
measure of his qi before he knows it. “Bring him to the table over there,” he orders, and
hurries to over to show the way.

Confident footfalls follow him down the narrow steps. Xie Lian switches the lamp over the
exam table back on, flinching momentarily from the too-bright light, but his reactions
sharpen automatically. His pulse steadies, as do his hands do.

The man deposits the dog on the table with infinite care, not at all like someone who’s
relieved to stop holding incredible weight. The dog whines softly anyway, his breathing
harsh, huge black eyes staring at his owner in quiet despair.

“Shh, it’s all right,” Xie Lian says in a voice that’s soothing, confident, signaling to the dog
that he’s taking over as Mei Nianqing’s lessons echo in his head.

‘You can’t talk to the dog like he’s a human—he won’t understand most of your words, only
your tone. If you sound too gentle, he’ll think he’s the alpha, that he needs to protect or
attack. You need to show him you’re the alpha, that he doesn’t need to take care of you—
you’ll take care of him. You need to sound confident, like you’re taking responsibility. Then
he’ll relax and let you treat him.’

Xie Lian has that part down to an art form now, and the dog remains tense but doesn’t fight
back as Xie Lian runs his hands through the thick fur of his head and neck, eyes half-closed
as he listens to the disturbed meridian hum.

“What’s his name?” he asks, his attention fully on the magnificent, troubled beast in front of
him.
The owner’s voice is quiet. “E’ming.”

“Hi there, E’ming,” Xie Lian greets him respectfully, steadying him as he touches his belly.

The dog emits a loud whine and twists his head toward Xie Lian’s hand, though he doesn’t
try to bite him.

“Yes, I know, I know,” Xie Lian soothes, still listening through his fingers. “Hurts here,
doesn’t it? I know, my friend. Got yourself into a bit of trouble, didn’t you.” He doesn’t look
up, but redirects the question to the shadow outside the bright circle of light. “He’s around
twelve, isn’t he?”

The shadow shifts, teasing Xie Lian’s peripheral vision with a flash of crimson.

“Next month,” the same deep voice answers him. “How did you know?”

Xie Lian smiles softly. “He told me.”

He’s finished his examination by now and is simply running his fingers through the thick fur
soothingly, soaking away a bit of pain. E’ming closes his eyes and sighs as he relaxes.

“What’s wrong with him? I took him to the clinic on Main Street the other week, and they
said it wasn’t cancer, but—”

“It’s not cancer,” Xie Lian confirms, resting a calming hand on E’ming’s neck. For the first
time, he looks up—or tries to, at any rate—to get a glimpse of the owner.

He can’t see that clearly, blinded by the harsh light above him, but E’ming’s master seems to
be a rather tall man, dressed more extravagantly than Xie Lian is used to. His gaze falls to the
floor, taking in the expensive boots before the expensive, if tasteful, watch on the man’s
wrist. Behind him, through the still open door, Xie Lian can see a flashy red sports car that
probably costs more than this entire city block. A most unusual person to have stumbled into
his clinic.

“It’s a bit of everything, I’m afraid.” Xie Lian blinks, his attention returning back to his
patient. “Mostly, it’s old age—E’ming’s internal organs are shutting down. I can guess what
kind of pill they gave you. It did help him with the pain, but it negatively impacted his liver
and kidneys.” His fingers run over the dog’s side and belly again, rechecking. Alas, he’s not
wrong.

It occurs to him suddenly just what he’s doing, and he goes cold.

He hasn’t run any tests. He hasn’t even attempted to take a blood sample. He doesn’t have an
MRI machine, obviously, but he could have x-rayed the stomach cavity, at least, before
presenting his diagnosis. He must seem like a complete charlatan, spouting nonsense to a
man who clearly wields a lot of money and influence… It’s a wonder Xie Lian hasn’t been
shot yet.

“I’m sorry, I…” he mumbles, suddenly losing all his confidence. “My diagnostic methods
are… unconventional. I’m not presuming to be right. If you take him to the clinic on Main,
I’m sure they can run all the tests and—”

“I came here specifically, because you come highly recommended,” the man interrupts, and
while he makes no threatening moves, or any moves at all, Xie Lian feels a shiver run down
his spine. “The doctors on Main can’t help him. But I’ve heard… people say you can perform
miracles.” He exhales. “I need one now.”

Xie Lian takes a step back before he knows it, shuddering at the words. No. No, no, no, not
again…

“I’m sorry.” He tries to steady his breathing, fails. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you heard,
but…”

“Oh God, no, I apologize.” The stranger does move then, walking around the table until he
sees Xie Lian flinch further away. “I’m sorry, Doctor, I didn’t mean to imply—” He stills,
lifting his hands up, trying to appear non-threatening. “I just—I’ve heard of you, that’s all.
E’ming is old, I know that. There’s probably nothing anyone can do, really. I just thought I’d
try something before… I’m not a threat to you, I swear! If you can’t help us, that’s fine, we’ll
go, it’s not a—”

“No,” Xie Lian cuts in, ashamed. “I’m sorry, it’s just—the last time someone said that…” He
straightens up. “Never mind; I apologize. I’ll try to help. I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

The stranger seems to shrink back slightly, his silhouette conveying his relief.

“You can call me San Lang.”

Xie Lian nods, not surprised at being offered a nickname. A man like this probably has plenty
of reasons for concealing his identity.

“San Lang,” he says. “My name is Xie Lian. Before I do anything, I need you to consider
your options carefully." He exhales.

“E’ming needs surgery. However, at his age, the risks far outweigh potential rewards. He
might not wake up from the anesthesia. His heart might give when he’s on the table; I cannot
emphasize enough how high a risk that is. Even if none of those things happen, the chances
are high that the surgery will have an extremely limited effect. He’s nearing the natural end of
his life, no matter what. It might be more… compassionate to make him comfortable, and let
him go.”

The stranger—San Lang—is silent for a long moment. On the table, E’ming sleeps, soothed
by Xie Lian’s touch.

Unexpectedly, San Lang steps forward, letting the light illuminate him for the first time. Xie
Lian only just stops himself from gasping.

The man is beautiful.

No other words that would describe him, and even that one seems to fall short of the mark.
His features are sharp and powerful, making a dramatic statement—high cheekbones, full
lips, and flawless skin so pale that it would outshine the snow. One of his eyes is covered by a
black eye patch; the other is deepest brown, almost black in the harsh light. His eyebrows are
a strong, determined set, and his hair is a wild black mess, broken only by a single braid on
the right side, interwoven with a bright red string. He’s a head taller than Xie Lian, clearly
athletic, but slender, wearing an elaborate red shirt he probably snatched before it even hit the
stores. He looks young and yet not, and the sheer aura of power emanating from him is more
overwhelming than anything Xie Lian has ever felt from a living person.

He feels his mouth go dry, his pulse picking up again, unbidden.

San Lang’s gaze, however, is focused on the laboriously breathing dog.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits quietly. “E’ming has been with me since… been my
friend, my only friend, for so long. I know it might be better for him if I… if I let him go,
but… I don’t know if I can do that.” A self-deprecating, unkind smile twists his lips. “I’m a
very selfish person, Doctor.”

The quiet vulnerability in his voice breaks Xie Lian’s heart. In that moment, he no longer
sees anything about the man that isn’t his soul, hurt—suffering, and on full display in front of
him. He steps closer before he knows it, laying a hand on San Lang’s arm. San Lang looks up
at the touch, as if startled, and for the first time, their eyes meet.

“I can’t advise you,” Xie Lian says softly. “I can’t even tell you what I’d choose myself,
because… I don’t know. I’ve never had to make a decision like that.” He takes a deep breath.
“If you opt for surgery, I can’t promise you anything. Only that I’d do my best, but…” He
trails off and looks away, unable to say the next part while holding that intense gaze. “I might
fail. I—I fail a lot. I’m actually… I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m actually known
for that.”

Maybe not around here—after all, he’s done much better with animals than he ever had with
humans. Well. One human. But isn’t one enough?

“No,” San Lang says suddenly, stepping closer. Xie Lian’s eyes widen, but he stays put,
allowing the other man to stare straight at him point blank. “Don’t—never talk about yourself
like that. I don’t care what people say. They’re stupid. They’re wrong.”

He glances down at E’ming. “Do the surgery.”

Xie Lian opens his mouth to speak, but San Lang looks back at him, cutting him off as he
grabs Xie Lian’s wrist and squeezes, soft but firm.

“I know the risks. I know he might not even wake up. But I also know”—he leans over,
lifting Xie Lian’s hand to his chest—“that, on this entire planet, I will never find a man who
will fight for his life harder than you.”

Xie Lian can only stare up at him numbly, heart beating rabbit-fast in his chest. Words like
that could sound like a threat—probably would, had anyone else been saying them. But he
feels no threat coming from San Lang, only—
Faith.

Waves and waves of faith so powerful, so complete, Xie Lian can barely stand it. He has no
idea where it’s coming from. He can’t even begin to guess, but he can’t deny it, can’t ignore
its existence.

He swallows hard, his gaze steady as he pulls back.

“Then I will need you to help me move him.”

--

After San Lang helps him move E’ming to the operating room, Xie Lian banishes him to wait
in the reception area. The man tries to protest, offering his assistance, but Xie Lian has been
down that road before, and it’s a lesson he’ll never repeat. The very sight of their beloved pet
immobilized on the table is too much for most owners—watching them being cut open is out
of the question.

Once he gets started, he wishes, for a moment, that Banyue was still here to assist him. She
does occasionally, and, while Xie Lian doesn’t see her as a future vet (God, he hopes not),
she is remarkably steady under pressure, completely unfazed by blood and gore. Sometimes,
Xie Lian wonders why that is and hopes she will tell him one day.

When he opens E’ming up, it’s even worse than he fears. His heart, thankfully, beats steady,
but the damage to his internal organs is severe. The chemical trauma from taking strong
painkillers is the worst of it, stealing months of E’ming’s life. Xie Lian knows what he’s
looking at and, deep down, he knew it had been headed this way all along. What mechanical
repairs he can make won’t do much. If he is to try and help E’ming, it won’t be about
conventional medicine.

But you knew that already.

Still, he goes through every possible step to prepare the organs—cleaning what he can,
carefully restoring alignment. Then he puts the scalpel away and closes his eyes.

--

Xie Lian couldn’t always do this.

The time when Mu Qing had caught him had actually been his first time. Mu Qing didn’t
believe him, accusing Xie Lian of cheating his way through med school, of getting to where
he was not because of his knowledge, skill, and hard work, but because of a freaky, unnatural
ability that had no place in the sterile, brightly lit, and entirely non-mystical medical
profession.

Xie Lian, who at the time had been in shock at what he’d done and how, couldn’t come up
with a defense. He couldn’t give Mu Qing any explanations; he’d badly needed some
himself! Mu Qing had called him an abomination then and left him there, on the side of the
road. To this day, Xie Lian has no memory of how he’d made it back home that night.
The fox they’d run over had been dying when they’d stumbled out of the car. It had been
dying…

And then it wasn’t.

Xie Lian shakes the memory away and focuses on the living being in front of him. The usual
euphoric state comes easier to him than normal; he begins to feel lightheaded, floaty.

Not enough grounding. He hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in weeks. Hasn’t meditated or
stretched in a while. He should have at least eaten the buns Banyue brought him.

No matter. He can power through. It won’t be the first time.

Before his closed eyes, E’ming’s body becomes illuminated from within. The glowing green
energy where his heart is—strong, a little tired, but healthy. The root glows red, weak. Xie
Lian concentrates and pushes some of his own energy in, clearing the stuck energy center.

The stomach, however, is the biggest problem. Here, the normal amber glow is all but
swallowed by something foreign, dark and slimy. It clings to the liver and kidneys like a
malevolent spirit, sucking the energy dry. Xie Lian waits until he sees all of it as clearly as he
can. Then, he plunges in.

He never knows if he takes any physical action during these moments. No one has witnessed
him do this since Mu Qing, and Mu Qing hadn’t been in the mood to answer questions.
Banyue knows he occasionally does something outside of normal medical practice, but she’s
never been in the room with him when he does it. Mei Nianqing might have suspected
something, but Xie Lian hadn’t really figured out how to control this strange gift himself, so
he’s been actively avoiding letting it loose. His master had warned him about ‘unnatural
practices’ often enough as it was.

So—Xie Lian doesn’t know. For him, it plays out like a battle in a whole other realm. He
knows his enemy, and he knows by some sort of instinct what to do. He knows, too, that it
draws on his own energy; he feels depleted for a while after these kinds of healing sessions.
The first time he’d done it consciously, he could barely do more than sleep and eat for a week
to follow. He’d learned to control it better since, to not go all out every time. He can’t exactly
afford a week of bedrest.

The dark miasma fights him back. It’s not sentient, not even organic, but it’s nasty, clinging
to its host with everything it has. It hides when Xie Lian busts it—changing directions,
shapes, attacking various organs at will. He gets a good grip on it at last and pulls, pulls,
pulls, and there is nowhere else to put it but inside himself—

So he does.

He’s not stupid, so he creates a cage from whatever spare energy he has left, keeping the
thing away from his own qi.

When the last tendril of it leaves E’ming’s body, Xie Lian nearly staggers under the weight,
grasping at the table as he’s rudely thrown back into his physical body. The thing fights him
from within himself now, and it’s ruthless, desperate. It can’t harm Xie Lian even if it does
get loose, but it will latch back onto E’ming immediately if he lets it.

Burn, Xie Lian thinks, visualizing fire, feeling its heat as he pushes it into the energy sack he
has created. Burn, burn, burn—

The heat gets too much, scorching him, and he lets out a likely-audible gasp, but he doesn’t
let go, screams inside his own head as he sinks into the flames…

And then it’s over.

Xie Lian’s eyes snap wide open, and he finds himself leaning heavily across the operating
table, E’ming’s belly still open in front of him, the pulse monitor still beating steady. With a
shuddering sigh, Xie Lian gets to work.

The organs look worn but healthy, the artificial poison and its damage gone. He closes the cut
carefully, making sure the stitches are tight and even. By the time he’s done, he feels himself
swaying on his feet. He has to grip the table again, waiting as the dark circles before his eyes
dissipate.

E’ming’s qi feels better than before—lively, almost vibrant. Xie Lian smiles tiredly, thanking
whatever deities have been watching over him. He can’t prolong the dog’s life, but he can at
least do this much.

He pulls his mask and hat off. The surgical scrubs take a few tries, their ties suddenly tricky,
but he rids himself of those, too, and walks toward the door before stopping. He retreats a
few steps, finds a wide medical collar, and fastens it around E’ming’s neck to make it
impossible for him to reach his stitches. Satisfied at last, Xie Lian goes to fetch the dog’s no
doubt-anxious master.

San Lang rises to his feet, his face a picture of almost inhuman calm as he meets Xie Lian
halfway. Xie Lian can’t help a wide smile.

“He’s doing fine,” he says. “It went well.”

For a moment, it feels as if San Lang hasn’t heard him. Then, suddenly, his eerily gorgeous
features transform into the most beautiful smile Xie Lian has ever seen. His heart plummets
in his chest, and he thinks numbly, No, no, I can’t afford it, but he knows it’s far too late.

San Lang moves forward as if to hug him, and Xie Lian quickly steps back, lifting a hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “It went well, but you still won’t have much time left with him.
Maybe a year. I’m sorry. I gave you all the time I could, but I can’t fight nature.”

Confusion seeps through the clear elation on San Lang’s face. He looks puzzled. It’s...
adorable.

“I understand that,” he says slowly. “I never thought… Whatever time you gave us, I will
treasure.”
He draws closer still, all of his attention on Xie Lian, his single eye seeing way too much.
Xie Lian steps out of the way quickly.

“He’s through there,” he says, realizing a second later how dumb that sounds. “Haha, I mean,
obviously. He’ll be a little funny when he wakes up from the anesthesia, so it’s best if you
take him home. The environment, the scents that he knows—it’ll be better. The collar is just
so he doesn’t pull the stitches out…”

He follows San Lang into the room and delivers the usual instructions on post-op care,
handing him a list of supplies he might need and apologizing for not having any on hand. It’ll
be better, Xie Lian explains, if E’ming could be moved home before he wakes up. San Lang
didn’t bring him in a carrier—as though any carrier could hold a dog this big—so Xie Lian
helps him secure E’ming on a pallet, and they both take him outside to San Lang’s car.

“Oh dear, that might be a problem,” Xie Lian murmurs unconsciously, looking at the vehicle.
It seems fitting for a Formula 1 track, or possibly outer space, but how to get the pallet
through the door is…

It opens, upward.

Xie Lian stares. When he finds the wherewithal to glance at San Lang, the man is grinning.

“Not what you expected?”

Xie Lian shakes his head. “Guess I... Well. Um, you go first, then.”

Together, after some careful maneuvering, they manage to load E’ming, still sleeping, into
the backseat and secure him. Xie Lian takes one last look before nodding and straightening
up.

“I probably don’t need to tell you to drive carefully?” he says with a smile.

San Lang grins back. With a start, Xie Lian realizes that it’s near dawn, and San Lang’s
features look softer in the emerging light. Or maybe it’s just his expression—no less intense,
but gentler somehow.

“Indeed, you don’t,” he says, “but thank you anyway.” He steps closer, his smile slowly
fading, the expression in his eye one Xie Lian is afraid to decipher. In a quieter, more
intimate tone, he says, “Thank you, Doctor. Truly.”

“Don’t.” Xie Lian winces and looks away. “Please don’t call me that.”

He doesn’t know what expression San Lang is wearing now, but suddenly, Xie Lian’s hand is
caught between his own.

“All right, then. Thank you, Gege. Better?”

Xie Lian snorts despite himself, feeling a blush sweeping over his cheeks. Too familiar from
a stranger who does not, in fact, feel younger than himself, which—that alone is unusual.
Normally, Xie Lian feels himself ancient compared to everyone else, no matter their actual
age.

It’s probably ironic then, mischievous, but it doesn’t feel ill-intentioned, so he only shakes his
head with a smile.

“If you will.”

Having received this permission, the look on San Lang’s face becomes troubling, and Xie
Lian steps back hurriedly.

“You should go. Now. Before E’ming wakes up. You’ll need help transferring him from the
car, too. I assume you have people for that? Right, of course. Silly me. Of course you have.
Drive safely. No—no sharp turns. Just. Yes. Go.”

San Lang is smirking at him. Xie Lian wants to hide his face in his hands.

“Thank you again,” San Lang says at last, looking amused, but also slightly torn. At last, he
rounds his car to get to the driver’s seat with a barely-there sigh. “I assume gege also has
people to take care of him? I only ask because he looks very tired.”

“What? Oh! Yes, of course! Er, many people.” Xie Lian gives up and slaps a hand over his
eyes. “Please go,” he all but begs. “E’ming—”

San Lang gives him a narrow-eyed look, but, seeming to have no choice, nods and disappears
into his car without another word.

Xie Lian watches him go, the previously obnoxious roar of the engine sounding almost timid
at such a careful pace. Xie Lian shakes his head in utter disbelief.

How, after all those years of being perfectly fine on his own, did he manage to fall so
pathetically and completely for a man who not only is light years out of his league but also
one he’s never going to see again? Xie Lian had called himself pathetic upon occasion and
meant it every time, but he had no idea, did he? God.

Now that the adrenaline rush is over, he realizes abruptly he can barely keep standing. He
feels like a horrible person, skipping work, but there’s no way he’ll be fit to help anyone in
just a couple of hours.

He writes a hasty note of apology for the clinic being open only after lunch the next day and
drags himself home, feeling immensely guilty. If he managed himself better, he wouldn’t be
so drained by emergencies. He clearly has much yet to master.

He doesn’t live far, thank God, but even so, he doesn’t quite remember his track home. When
he finally makes it there, having nearly fallen asleep on the stairs, he zombie-walks to his bed
and passes out without taking his clothes off.

--

The next morning…

Xie Lian misses the next morning

He’d have missed the afternoon, too, if not for his ever-persistent alarm clock. He’d been so
out of it, he didn’t hear it for the first few hours, but at some point, closer to noon, he couldn’t
ignore it any longer.

Without opening his eyes, he reaches out, grabs it, and sends it flying across the room. It
smashes into a wall with a satisfying clang, and then, blissfully, there’s silence.

A moment later, Xie Lian sits up in bed, horrified at his actions. Damn—he’ll have to get a
new alarm clock on top of everything else now. There is an alarm in his phone, of course, but
he tends not to hear it.

He drags himself out of bed and into the shower, feeling like death warmed over, then almost
falls asleep under the spray again. The water is too cold, thankfully, to let him stay there for
long. His entire body hurts, as though he’s been lifting weights or hurling sacks of sand. He
frowns as he contemplates his condition. He always feels tired after a healing, true, but not
like this. Did he overextend himself last night? E’ming’s condition had been bad, true, but…

Xie Lian freezes suddenly, having caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

There’s a streak of white at his right temple, a thin strand of hair that has lost all color. He
stares at it, blinking; curiously touches it with his fingers. It feels exactly the same, just…
white. Huh.

He studies his face, but it’s the same as always. Perhaps a little too pale, too drawn, but the
same youthful look he’s been blessed with. The strand looks like a fashion accessory.

He hums thoughtfully and tucks it behind his ear before pulling his hair in its usual messy
bun, and goes to get dressed.

He had wondered, on occasion, if his healing was taking years of his own life. The thought
never really bothered him and had even seemed… hopeful. Perhaps, with this strange gift, he
can give back what he’d taken. A life for a life, delivered in small packages over time. Which
means he really is guilty, whether he remembers that night or not.

He puts on the first clean T-shirt he can find and one of his three pairs of jeans. He’d given up
on looking like a respectable healthcare practitioner a long time ago, but he really needs to
find the time to do laundry. The last thing Xie Lian needs is to be picked up for vagrancy. He
adds one of his two warmer cardigans to his ensemble, since he’ll likely be going home late
and it tends to get chilly at night, and leaves.

--
 Chapter 2

--

Xie Lian isn’t surprised to find a line of people—not too long, thankfully—in front of the
clinic when he arrives. He greets them all with an apologetic smile and promises to open
quickly, just as soon as he cleans up a bit.

He unlocks the door and stops still.

“Oh, hello,” Banyue says from where she’s sitting on the floor, surrounded by boxes. “I
thought you were out restocking this morning, but it looks like you had this stuff delivered?
A-Lian, I didn’t think we could afford delivery? And there’s so much…”

Xie Lian stares around him a little blankly. Banyue is right. Around them are boxes of
medicine, equipment, reagents for the labs, office supplies, and cleaning agents—all in
quantities that would probably last him a year. He resists the urge to rub his eyes, giving in
after a moment. The boxes are still sitting there, mocking him.

“What…” he starts and promptly trips over a box filled with… single-use syringes. Various
calibers, he notes a little hysterically. What the—

“You didn’t order this?” Banyue intuits from his stupefied expression. “I just thought… you
still had the requisitions file open when I came in. I thought maybe you went on a shopping
spree last night.”

Xie Lian blinks, and then remembers. He was checking what he could afford versus what he
needed for next month last night when—when San Lang and E’ming came in. He must have
forgotten about it.

From there, it’s an easy deduction. San Lang’s—or whatever his actual name was—entire
appearance had screamed money. He’d stayed right here, in reception/Xie Lian’s office for
hours while Xie Lian had been operating on E’ming. San Lang was probably grateful for Xie
Lian saving his dog.

For some reason, the last thought makes him droop a little.

“Is there a—a card with all of this or anything?” he asks, not particularly hopeful. “Or a
note?”

“No.” Banyue shakes her head, watching him with concern. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Xie Lian says, aware that he sounds miserable. He tries to get himself together
and affects a more cheerful tone. “Well, since the stuff is here, let’s put it away for now. Or
we won’t be able to see anyone today at all!”
Banyue clearly doesn’t consider the matter dropped, but the line outside is getting louder, so
she rises to her feet, and they get to work.

Xie Lian is grateful for the silence, interrupted only by short, to-the-point exchanges on
where to store what so it could be easily found later. There is no point for him to feel so
disappointed. Rich people do that, after all—they throw money at you so that they don’t have
to deal with you. Xie Lian had been the son of a very rich person, once upon a time. He’d
know.

And honestly, he should be grateful. This incredible—incredibly thoughtful—gift saves him a

huge headache for a few months at least. He’d thought that San Lang was smart, a part of him
noted with miserable satisfaction. He didn’t know exactly how he’d known that, but he’s
being proven right, now.

Had San Lang tried to pay him, Xie Lian would have turned him down. He never charged for
emergency care. It even said so on the door. So San Lang had simply spent the money
himself, and not on Xie Lian directly, but on the clinic instead.

Smart. Thoughtful. Considerate. Somewhat sneaky, but in a charming way.

Xie Lian sighs.

“Gege?” Banyue asks. “Is everything all right? Why are you so sad?”

Xie Lian forces a smile. “I’m not! I’m perfectly fine! How can I not be when we suddenly
have so much?”

Banyue’s eyes are narrowed as she studies him. “What’s this?” She points with barely-
pardonable indelicacy to his temple.

“Oh!” Xie Lian’s hand flies up to cover the white strand. “Nothing! I, uh… I was bored! I
was bored last night, and decided to dye my hair, but then changed my mind and only ended
up dyeing one strand! Funny, right? Do you like it?”

Banyue is watching him with more concern than earlier, but before she can respond, there’s a
knock on the door.

“Hello, Xie-xiansheng? Will you be much longer? I’m sorry, it’s just that I need to catch the
two o’clock train—”

“Right, sorry!” Xie Lian calls out and hurries to open the door.

--

With the clinic having been closed for half the day, the afternoon is even busier than usual.
It’s manageable at first, the surprise of the sudden delivery giving him a boost of energy, but
by six, Xie Lian can’t deny he could use more rest. Banyue keeps shooting him worried
looks, and Xie Lian becomes slightly annoyed, since he doesn’t want the clients to notice. He
sighs quietly with relief when she runs off to babysit again, then immediately feels the guilt
seep in.
He powers through until closing on his own, sending grateful prayers for the lack of hard
cases today. It’s honestly been quite routine, but by the time he closes shop, he feels dead on
his feet again, as well as incredibly hungry. Banyue had given him a couple of sweets from
her bag earlier, but he’s craving real food at an alarming rate.

Getting takeout might be a bit much for him at the moment, both in terms of money and
distance, but there’s a 24-hour shop around the corner. Instant noodles, even though they taste
like paper, sound almost appetizing. Decision made, he starts for the door before realizing
he’s forgotten his wallet.

Xie Lian stands still for a moment, amazed at his own ineptitude, then laughs. He’s just
ridiculous, any way you look at him. And what’s the point of being so if he can’t at least be
his own entertainment?

He gets a glass of water, still laughing softly, then contemplates the properties of dog food.
He gets the good kind, and if it’s good for dogs, it can’t be that bad for humans, right? On the
other hand, he might puke if he tries it. Despite having been thrown out of the lap of luxury
years ago, Xie Lian’s constitution is still regrettably attuned to good things. He’s always been
a picky eater. His mother had found it endearing. Feng Xin wordlessly let him swap whatever
food he liked with him, while Mu Qing called him a spoiled princess.

A sharp shot of nostalgia slices through him at the thought of his friends. Former friends…
Whatever. Xie Lian stops himself before his thoughts can stray further down memory lane.

All right, he’ll go home. He’ll act like the adult he pretends to be and get up earlier to get
himself some breakfast. And if not, he will—he will text Banyue and ask her to pick up some
actual lunch for him. He never asks her to run errands for him, but maybe just this once. It’ll
be… responsible of him.

A soft knock on the door interrupts his sudden ascent to a fully-functional human being.

“It’s open,” he calls out.

“Oh, good. I was hoping you’d still be here.”

Xie Lian whips his head toward the door.

Sure enough, it’s his guest from last night, smiling softly at the sight of him, and looking
somehow even more devastating in a neat dark suit. The top two buttons of his black shirt are
undone, and Xie Lian’s gaze is drawn to his collarbones before he catches himself and snaps
his eyes up, blushing.

“San Lang!” he exclaims, uncoiling from where he’s been leaning against the wall. “What are
you doing here? Is it E’ming? Is he worse? He shouldn’t be, I—”

“No, no, he’s fine,” San Lang replies, laughing softly as he comes fully inside. “He’s pretty
energetic, actually; still a bit loopy.”

“He shouldn’t be left alone,” Xie Lian frets. “Didn’t I tell you last night? He—”
“Gege, don’t worry.” San Lang shuts him up effectively by resting his hands on Xie Lian’s
shoulders. “Someone’s watching him.”

“Oh,” Xie Lian breathes out, his attention struggling to hold onto the words. San Lang’s
hands are incredibly warm.

Someone. Right. Of course someone like San Lang wouldn’t be living alone. There’s
probably a wife or a girlfriend or—

San Lang smiles. “He’s fine, I swear.”

“Um. Good.” Xie Lian squints up. “Then why are you here?”

San Lang laughs again, and honestly, that’s unfair. Xie Lian is becoming addicted to the
sound.

“I’ve come to say thank you, again. And to see if I could persuade you to let me thank you
properly, over dinner.”

Xie Lian blinks. “But you’ve already... I mean, I assume all those boxes are from you?”

San Lang follows his gaze disinterestedly. “Yes, but those were just—”

“That was very generous of you,” Xie Lian says. “I admit it made me feel uncomfortable at
first, but… they’re for the clinic…”

San Lang is looking at him again, his expression unreadable. “I didn’t think you’d take the
money,” he says softly. “I’ve heard of your rule.”

“Ah. Yes. Well.”

“It’s not really fair to you, though, is it? You provide the service. You should be compensated
for it.”

“Certain types of services that should be free of charge.”

San Lang blinks, then a small smile curves over his lips. Xie Lian feels himself drawing
closer—until he stops himself, horrified, and pulls back sharply from San Lang’s hold.

God, what is it with him? Sure, the man is… unfairly attractive, and it’s been a very long
time since Xie Lian has been with anyone like that, but that still doesn’t explain his reaction!
He’s a fully grown man in control of himself. For goodness’s sake, he has to get a grip!

“I hate to break it to you, Gege, but in a capitalist society, nothing is ever free of charge,” San
Lang says, the words carrying an undercurrent of dark humor. “You’ll go broke if you keep
this up.”

Xie Lian shakes his head. “I thought you’d come here to thank me, not lecture me.”
He meant it to be light and teasing, but the moment the words are out of his mouth, he
realizes how snappish they sound. He turns toward San Lang, mortified, apologies already
brimming on his lips, but he’s met with a kind smile instead.

“My apologies. Gege is quite correct. See, now I have to take you to dinner. To thank you
and to apologize for my presumption.”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian almost whines. “Please. I—”

“All right, all right.” Seeing him flustered seems to put San Lang back in a good mood. “I
can tell gege is tired and not quite himself. Please allow me this small indulgence? Pick any
place you like, and I’ll take you there.”

Xie Lian suddenly laughs. San Lang is… unbelievably over the top, but somehow, instead of
being irritating, it’s charming. He seems so sincere about being perfectly insincere. It’s…
enchanting.

“Thank you, that’s very kind, though unnecessary,” Xie Lian says. “But I’m afraid, in my
current state, I might fall asleep in the middle of dinner.”

For some reason, San Lang takes that as an invitation to draw closer again, one hand landing
on Xie Lian’s arm, thumb drawing a gentle circle.

“Then how about this? Let’s get takeout, and then I’ll drive you home. That way, you can fall
asleep any time you like, and the food will still be there.”

Xie Lian huffs in exasperation. “I honestly don’t know what gave you the idea that I can’t
take care of myself.”

“I don’t doubt you can for a second,” San Lang says with perfect earnestness, not at all like
someone who’d looked through Xie Lian’s books the other night. “Incidentally, Gege, people
might want to have dinner with you for reasons other than doubting your abilities to feed
yourself.”

“Can’t imagine what reasons those would be,” Xie Lian mutters.

He’ll give in, and he knows it. He’ll probably regret it later, too. Whatever this is for San
Lang, he can’t possibly be feeling the same. He has a ‘someone’…

San Lang grins at him. “I’ll tell you on the way?”

Xie Lian can’t help but smile back. “Oh, all right. But I can’t promise you good company or
witty conversation. Nothing like what you’re probably used to.”

“Gege is right about that. It’ll be a most uncommon treat.”

Xie Lian gives up. The man is ridiculous, and Xie Lian should definitely find him less
charming, and it’s a certainty that this, whatever this is, will end in tears. But he can’t resist it
right now. He’s met San Lang yesterday, doesn’t know anything about him, not even his
name, but—he feels alive as himself for the first time in a very, very long time. He’s helpless
before this particular temptation.

--

San Lang waits as Xie Lian locks up, then guides him to the same flashy sports car he saw
yesterday, with a gentle hand at the small of his back. Xie Lian hopes his shiver can be
explained away by the cold night air.

The door swishes upward, and no, that hasn’t stopped being impressive yet, and then he
realizes just how low the seat is. How is he supposed to get himself in there without looking
like an idiot?

Suddenly, there’s a hand on his elbow, and then Xie Lian is gently seated in the car before he
can even get over the unexpected touch. He looks up, startled, to find San Lang smirking at
him from way up. The door slides closed.

Xie Lian takes a moment to ponder the revelation that he is, apparently, perfectly fine with
getting into the car with a someone who’s basically a stranger. Feng Xin would have had a fit.

San Lang slides into the driver’s seat, easy as breathing, and turns toward Xie Lian, smiling
mischievously.

“Comfortable?”

“Mhm,” Xie Lian replies, slightly dazed.

He’s half-lying in the seat, he realizes. He’s never been in a car like this.

Suddenly, his breath hitches as San Lang leans over him, close enough to feel his body heat.

“Wha—?” Xie Lian half-gasps, freezing.

San Lang’s smile looks positively wicked, scant centimeters away from his own face.

“Seatbelt,” he explains, clearly amused.

Xie Lian blushes scarlet. “Of course! I’m sorry, I didn’t think!” He reaches awkwardly over
his own shoulder, but only ends up grabbing San Lang’s hand. He pulls back as if burned.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”

“Gege, it’s all right,” San Lang laughs quietly, dropping his head for a moment, his hair
brushing across Xie Lian’s chest. “Just relax and rest. Don’t worry about a thing.”

He pulls back finally, and in a second, Xie Lian hears the neat clasp of the seatbelt. What is it
with him, he wonders, embarrassed beyond anything he can remember. He’s flustered like a
sixteen-year-old around his first crush.

Come to think of it, he wasn’t like this around his first crush, either—just extremely timid
and unable to utter a word. Inconvenient, since the boy had been Xie Lian’s tutor and had
very nearly decided him hopeless as a result… Thankfully, he’d started going out with
someone a month later, and Xie Lian had ben heartbroken, but it meant he could give his
studies his full attention. He’d imagined he’d managed to conceal his feelings well, until he
ran into Pei Ming and his new lover some weeks later, albeit unseen, and overheard their
conversation.

‘I told you, you shouldn’t have been so kind with that boy,’ Xuan Ji was complaining. ‘He
took your encouragement as interest. Must you have told him he looks pretty?’

Pei Ming sounds vaguely irritated. ‘I only wanted to cheer him up, and besides, what of it?
He does! And he’s very talented! I only wanted to get him to come out of his shell a bit. Surely
he must have known I have no interest in men.’

‘Pfft, as if it matters!’ Xuan Ji sounds even more irritated. ‘You’re such a shameless flirt, how
are people to know you’re not going to follow through? If anything, that’s cruel.’

‘Oh, don’t be like that, love. I was very clearly joking with him. I’m sure he didn’t take it
seriously.’

Xie Lian hadn’t… he’d thought. Until that moment, he’d never realized he actually might
have done, unconsciously. Not that he’d had any serious hopes. He’d been seven years Pei
Ming’s junior, still only a school kid. Pei Ming had already been a medical student, the star of
his class, headed to become an outstanding surgeon by the unanimous prediction of his
teachers and peers. On top of that, he’d been a star athlete, incredibly handsome, had a
booming laugh, and glowed with the kind of magnanimous, big-hearted personality that
attracted people to him left and right.

He was a perfect, almost natural object for a first crush, but even so, Xie Lian never would
have dared. More accurately, he’d admired Pei Ming greatly, but his thoughts had never
turned romantic until Pei Ming had begun jokingly flirting with him. In retrospect, he must
have only done it to get Xie Lian to relax a little around him, but at fifteen, Xie Lian had
hardly been well equipped to tell the difference.

He’d been stunned at first, having been unaware of the possibility. No one had ever directed
that kind of attention at him before. Pei Ming had had a reputation of burning through lovers
like lumps of coal on a cold night, but he had always been so patient with Xie Lian, so
gentle…

Xie Lian had been raised to be humble, but at the time, he’d had yet to encounter anything he
couldn’t reach if he wanted it. He had tentatively begun to smile back and couldn’t help but
blush at some of Pei Ming’s more pointed comments, even more when Pei Ming had reached
to tuck a strand of his hair behind his ear. Xie Lian had attempted to discipline his mind, but
certain thoughts had started sneaking in, and once there, they’d been very hard to get rid of.

The news that Pei Ming had asked out Xuan Ji had left Xie Lian speechless when he’d heard
about it. He had already felt utterly humiliated, but, until overhearing that conversation, he’d
thought he could at least save himself some face. To learn that his mortification was public
knowledge had been a harder pill to swallow than the crushing of his barely-there hopes.
He had pulled himself together back then and become a model student, unerringly polite and
diligent, until his three months under Pei Ming’s tutelage had ended. He had thanked him for
the lessons most sincerely. They had been most valuable.

In the years to come, Xie Lian had seen the same pattern over and over—people flirting with
him, bathing him in compliments. It was his turn to be the star pupil with a bright future. Xie
Lian had never paid much mind to his appearance, but he knew he was considered good-
looking, in that conventional, symmetrical way. Enhanced by the glow of youth, it had
attracted him quite a bit of attention, but he’d never taken it seriously. The more people
flirted with him, the less he trusted their sincerity. He’d learned to deflect it with a smile and
a joke—what was it if not that, after all? And then, he had become much too busy to pay any
attention at all, and people had left him alone, since he was ‘much too boring and serious’ to
even engage with for fun.

Then, he’d graduated from med school, and his stardom-turned-disaster had come, and Xie
Lian had been much too devastated to think of anything else.

These days, when he looks in the mirror, he sees someone entirely average. Not unattractive
per se, not in any scary way, but hardly anyone who’d stand out in a crowd. Combined with
seemingly eternal dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, and skin far too pallid to
look healthy, he really is entirely forgettable. Certainly not someone whom people like San
Lang would invite for dinner for reasons other than basic gratitude.

Xie Lian knows this, is fine with it, has stopped caring a long time ago, if he ever had. He
just doesn’t know why he’s reacting like this to this... specific presence. He should know
better. He should definitely know better. The idea that San Lang might have ulterior motives
toward him is ludicrous. He must simply be an incredibly well-mannered and decent human
being—somewhat old-fashioned, despite appearances, in a charming way.

Xie Lian turns his head to smile at San Lang, vaguely aware that he has asked him
something. Frowning slightly, he tries to concentrate to make out the words but can’t grasp
them. The purr of the engine is so confidently strong, the slight vibration of movement
incredibly smooth and lulling. Xie Lian blinks, takes too long to open his eyes again, and
drifts off into sleep instead.

--

Xie Lian wakes up at the feeling of cool air over his face and then the sensation of cozy
warmth wrapping around him like a blanket. A scent envelops him, too, something cool and
fresh yet dark, tangy sweet—like the first days of autumn, when the leaves just begin to turn,
and the air is crisp, sharp like crystal, yet the sun is so gentle and warm…

Blearily, he blinks his eyes open, taking in his surroundings slowly in his sleep-glazed state.
He’s still in the car, the door on his side open and the night sky above clear enough for once
for him to see the stars. San Lang is standing next to him, hovering over as he bends over to
—to undo his seatbelt.

“Oh!” Xie Lian starts, jerking in his seat, his heart going into overdrive. “Oh my God, I’m so
sorry! I fell asleep, didn’t I? That was so incredibly rude of me, I can’t believe I—San Lang?
I’m so—what—what are you doing?!”

San Lang has gently put an arm under his back and another under his knees, and then he lifts
Xie Lian out of the car like it’s nothing.

Xie Lian squeals. “San Lang!”

“Shh, Gege, you’ll wake your neighbors,” San Lang says, mirth clear in his voice. “I
promised to drive you home, didn’t I? Well, you’re home.”

“I—what?”

Only then does Xie Lian look around. He can hardly be blamed, he thinks. He’s never been
held in anyone’s arms like that, not since he was a small child, and it’s definitely not the
same. Around him is indeed the street he lives on, and San Lang’s car is parked in front of his
building, sticking out like a sore thumb.

“I—oh.” He blinks. “Er, thank you?”

San Lang smiles at him. “You’re very welcome.”

Xie Lian clears his throat. “Um, San Lang?”

“Yes?”

“Could you… put me down, please?”

“Hm.” San Lang looks like he’s considering refusing. At long last, he sighs. “Well, all right.”

He takes his time, emanating reluctance, but eventually, gently, sets Xie Lian down on the
ground. Xie Lian shivers as a gust of cold wind rushes past.

“Should have stayed where you were; would have been warmer,” San Lang says, reaching
back into the car to get a takeout bag.

“Don’t be silly,” Xie Lian replies, turning away to hide his blush—seriously, who does things
like that? Carrying someone they’ve only just met… He pulls his cardigan tighter around
himself, trying to suppress his shivers. “You couldn’t have carried me all the way.”

“Oh?” San Lang looks at him as the car door slides shut with a soft click. “I couldn’t?”

Xie Lian stares at him, grateful for the darkness concealing the color rising in his cheeks. The
situation is so absurd, he doesn’t know where to begin, and ends up blurting out, “I—I’m
heavy!”

San Lang lifts an eyebrow, then takes his elbow gently and starts leading him toward the
building. “You’re about as heavy as E’ming.”

“What?” Xie Lian starts, his feet following San Lang off their own will. “That’s—ridiculous!
E’ming is a dog! A big one, sure, but still, he’s… I should weigh a great deal more than
him!”

San Lang opens the door for him and guides him inside. “You should, yes.”

“I—well, that’s just—”

The utter absurdity of the accusation leaves him speechless for a moment, and Xie Lian
pushes past San Lang toward the stairs, climbing them almost angrily. He feels ten kinds of
jostled and can make sense of none of them.

A thought occurs as the movement clears his head a bit. How did San Lang know to bring
him here? Xie Lian had agreed to come home, yes, but he’d never given San Lang his
address. Could San Lang have found it in Xie Lian’s laptop at the clinic? He racks his brain,
trying to remember if it’s anywhere on file.

There’s another thing that keeps nagging at him at the back of his mind. The situation is…
bizarre, and should make him feel all kinds of uncomfortable. Yet, for some reason, for all the
confused emotions currently coursing through him, one should not only be present but
domineering. Still, he can’t find a trace of it in himself.

Fear. The entire affair, put plain on paper, is nothing but threatening, yet Xie Lian feels…

…as if he’s never been safer.

He shakes his head at himself, trying to reassert his rational thinking, then suddenly turns on
the stairs, blocking San Lang’s way. He intends to ask him how San Lang knew to come here,
yet what he blurts out instead is:

“San Lang, have we met before?”

The man standing just below him shows no outward reaction, not that much can be seen in
the murky glow of a single lightbulb two flights down.

“Not that I could possibly have forgotten someone like you,” Xie Lian mutters, searching the
unreadable face before him. “But I just feel like… like… I know you.”

San Lang shifts slightly. His voice is calm as he replies, “Gege, this San Lang would never
have forgotten meeting you.”

Xie Lian blinks, then his eyes narrow. What exactly does that—

San Lang tilts his head slightly and grins. “I probably just have one of those faces. One in
every crowd.”

“You—” Xie Lian gapes at him, then helplessly breaks out laughing. “Yes, yours is definitely
one of those…”

Shaking his head, he turns back around and starts going up again, still laughing. Ultimately, it
doesn’t matter. San Lang is entitled to his secrets. Maybe they have met before, or maybe it’s
just Xie Lian’s mind playing tricks on him. His strange healing ability comes with a number
of side effects, one of them being a strangely sharpened perception of people.

The aura of power around San Lang is stronger than any Xie Lian has ever felt—save
perhaps Jun Wu, though in a different way—yet there is no threat coming from him.
Whatever his... deal is, he bears no ill intentions. Shouldn’t that be enough?

He pauses at his door, and as San Lang catches up, he frowns.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What?” Xie Lian blinks, feeling guilty for some reason.

“Gege…” San Lang pauses then pushes the door open. “You don’t have a lock on your door.”

His voice is… strangely restrained.

“What? Don’t be silly, of course I have a lock!” Xie Lian steps inside and gestures quickly.
“See? It’s right here.”

San Lang’s frown intensifies. “That’s a deadbolt.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“It’s a deadbolt on the inside of your door.”

“Yes, well, you see—”

“A deadbolt anyone with a toothpick can open from the outside.”

San Lang seems to be… glowering at him. Xie Lian hurriedly pushes the door closed, then
examines the rattled wooden doorframe. The gap between it and the door has indeed become
somewhat… significant.

“Look, it’s not a big deal,” Xie Lian says quickly and turns toward the area of his one-room
studio-attic designated to be a kitchen. “It’s the only apartment on this floor; no one ever
comes here. I can lock it well enough when I’m here, and when I’m not, what’s the point? I
mean”—he gestures around himself with a hint of chagrin—“I don’t have anything worth
stealing. If someone wants something here badly enough to break in, they—well, they might
as well have it. They’d have to be really desperate, right?”

He laughs, pleased with his own joke, but San Lang is frowning as he gazes around the room,
clearly not amused.

Xie Lian sighs. He keeps his living space meticulously clean, a habit drilled into him since
childhood. That was the part he’d adjusted to the fastest, when there were no longer people to
do that for him. As for the general shabbiness of his home and possessions, he’s long stopped
feeling embarrassed about it.
“Let’s just eat,” he says, toeing his shoes off before pulling the bag out of San Lang’s hand
and setting it on the table. “Unless…” He pauses. San Lang, judging by the air of him, has
never been in a place as rundown as this, let alone eaten food there. “Unless you’re not
comfortable staying—”

San Lang shrugs out of his jacket and hangs it over the back of the chair, a smile overtaking
his earlier seriousness.

“Where do you keep your plates, Gege?”

Xie Lian shows him. He does, improbably, have a full set—some of it even matches. The
light in his apartment is fairly dim, so he digs out a couple of chubby candles he uses when
there’s a power outage (frequent, alas), and lights them, barely finding a spot for them on the
overladen table.

San Lang, as it turns out, has bought enough food to feed at least five extremely hungry
people. Xie Lian takes it in a little blankly.

“Um…”

San Lang grins. “I figured this way, I was bound to get your favorite.”

He did. In fact, Xie Lian would be hard pressed to find a single dish he doesn’t like in front
of him, which is a small feat in itself.

“You don’t do anything by half, do you?” he mutters, hesitantly pulling a carton towards
himself.

San Lang’s grin becomes wider. “Never. What’s the point?”

The fried vegetables and tofu Xie Lian selects to start smell heavenly, and he remembers just
how hungry he really is. His instincts are screaming at him to inhale the whole thing, but his
manners win out, and he forces himself to eat slowly.

“This is a feast, San Lang,” he says in between bites, looking at his unlikely companion.
“Thank you. You really didn’t have to, but I appreciate it.”

San Lang seems genuinely pleased for a moment, before dismissing it carelessly, “It’s
nothing. What you did for E’ming was a true miracle. It hardly compares.”

Xie Lian glances away, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of tofu. He has a feeling that, if he
lets it, they could be at this a while, complimenting each other while the other refutes. It’s the
same politeness game Xie Lian’s father played so often with his business partners. Xie Lian
had always found it insincere to the extreme, a rather tedious custom, and although that
doesn’t seem to be the case here, he has no taste for it, all the same. There are so many things
he’d rather do, so many questions he’d rather ask. His apartment had never been never big,
but it seems tiny with San Lang here, his presence eating up space, though never imposing…

“Comparisons such as that are often flawed to begin with,” Xie Lian remarks softly and
changes the topic, not allowing the other to object. “San Lang, may I ask… Um, sorry, this is
terribly invasive, but—”

“Gege can ask me anything he wants. I don’t mind.” San Lang is watching him, utterly
relaxed and playing with his chopsticks.

“Sorry,” Xie Lian can’t help sneaking in another apology. “Forgive me my curiosity, but what
is it you do when you’re not taking care of sick dogs or—or feeding tired veterinarians?”

San Lang flashes another grin at him. “Please, don’t apologize. I understand you’re curious. I
know what you do, after all. It’s only fair you’d ask.” He spins one chopstick between his
long fingers with casual ease, as if warming up for a magic trick. “I’m afraid my occupation
is nothing impressive; certainly not as impressive as gege’s. I dabble in a few things.”

“Oh?” Xie Lian restrains his curiosity in case his guest genuinely doesn’t want to talk about
himself. He’ll admit to his interest, but won’t press.

San Lang smiles. “I paint. Before you ask, no, I’m not any good, though I quite like it. I am
pretty good at security, so I consult every once in a while. The rest of the time I do whatever
pleases me.” That last line is delivered with a smirk.

“Oh.” Xie Lian blinks. So, his new friend is one of the city’s golden boys? No clear
occupation, lots of money, flamboyant style… He fits the type, at least on paper. And who’s
Xie Lian to judge? He cares for his dog; isn’t that enough to make him a good person? “Uh,
that sounds… interesting.”

San Lang looks at him a moment longer, then laughs. “You’re sorry you know me, aren’t
you?”

“No!” Xie Lian exclaims, panicking. “Of course, not! I just—uh, it surprised me! I thought
—”

San Lang’s grin becomes predatory as he leans forward, propping his cheek with his hand,
elbow on the table. “You thought—?”

Xie Lian blushes looking away. “It’s silly. Just, I thought for some reason you—”

“I?”

“That you were running a night club or something,” he blurts out miserably. “A very, very
cool one! I didn’t mean a bad one, or—or even an average one, I—”

San Lang laughs out loud. “Gege, you’re too precious,” he says, shaking his head. “In point
of fact, I do sometimes manage an… entertainment center. There’s a night club there, too;
would gege like to come visit some day?”

“No! I mean—” Xie Lian drops his chopsticks and hides his face in his hands. “I’d love to
see your work, I’m sure it’s—wonderful! Just, I don’t really… er, I don’t really go to clubs.”

Anymore, he doesn’t add. It was disastrous enough the last time. A part of his life he’d love
never to remember—not that he remembers that much of it anyway.
San Lang is still watching him, like Xie Lian is someone endlessly fascinating. “Maybe I can
change your mind one day,” he muses. “But I certainly won’t force you.” He frowns. “Gege,
you’re barely eating. Is something wrong with the food?”

“No, no, the food’s great!” Xie Lian hastens to reassure him. “I just—”

He doesn’t actually know what the issue is. Normally, he can manage way more. Everything
around him still looks incredibly appetizing, but, having eaten a few bits of tofu and
vegetables, he feels full, almost uncomfortably so. He stares at the table in bewilderment. He
still wants… pretty much everything on display before him, but at the same time, it feels that
if he were to eat so much as another bite, it’d come right back up.

San Lang seems to divine his problem somehow and pushes a bowl toward him. “Drink some
broth, at least.”

The moment he pulls the lid off, Xie Lian’s mouth waters. The broth is wonderful—thick, but
not too much, fragrant with herbs and still steaming, salty and full of flavor as it touches his
lips. He drinks it slowly, relieved when his stomach doesn’t protest.

“San Lang, this is amazing,” he murmurs when he’s done. “You’re really…” He trails off, at
a loss for words.

San Lang feels like… someone completely improbable, someone who shouldn’t exist, as he
just sits there across the table, one hand propping his cheek as he watches Xie Lian with a
smile.

Why, he wants to ask, why are you so kind to me?

“Gege, it’s honestly nothing,” San Lang dismisses, his expression growing strangely absent
as his gaze zeroes in at Xie Lian’s temple.

At first, Xie Lian can’t figure out what he’s staring at—and then it hits him. The white strand
of hair had been almost unnoticeable while his hair was pulled back. After an entire day at
work, not to mention an unplanned nap in the car, his messy bun had become messier, and it
must have slipped out.

Xie Lian nervously tucks it behind his ear and turns his head in a futile attempt at
concealment. He doesn’t understand what the big deal is, except San Lang’s expression is
frozen, detached, as if covered with a thin layer of ice. It makes Xie Lian nervous.

“That… wasn’t there yesterday, was it?” San Lang asks, his tone equally unnatural in its
perfect lack of emotion.

“What? Oh, that…” Xie Lian’s hand repeats the tucking motion involuntarily as he forces a
laugh. “I—I don’t really know. These things just happen with age, right? Hahaha; I guess I’m
just getting on with the years.”

“You’re thirty-one,” San Lang says quietly. “Isn’t that a little premature?”
“Then—then it must be genetics,” Xie Lian dismisses with another insincere laugh, though
the words nearly make him choke.

His father’s hair had been barely greying at the temples by the time he’d been murdered in
prison. His mother’s hair had also been also black as night, right until that last morning when
Xie Lian had found her.

He forcibly shakes the thoughts off. He can’t afford to have an episode now.

“I think it’s cool,” he hears himself say in a cheerful tone he can’t really recognize as his
own. “It’ll make me look wiser. Most people who come to the clinic keep calling me ‘boy’ or
‘young man.’ Maybe they’ll stop now, and I can finally impart some wisdom on the best cat
treats.”

He actually quite likes this idea, now that he’s thought about it, and his smile turns more
genuine by the end of his little speech. San Lang, however, is only frowning deeper, and Xie
Lian can’t really fight the impulse to spread his good mood around a bit.

“Why—don’t you like the way I look like this, San Lang?” he asks teasingly.

San Lang starts at the sound of his name.

“I think you look—” He pauses, glances away, taking a moment before he speaks again. “I
think you look like someone who deserves respect, no matter your hair.”

Xie Lian bites his lip. “Oh.”

Not exactly the glowing endorsement he’d been unwittingly hoping for. Yet, honestly, what
had he expected—that San Lang would tell him he’s beautiful, the way so many people had
when Xie Lian was seventeen? Most of them had just said that because Xie Lian came from a
rich and influential family, and any actual basis for their words had long been gone, swept
away by the turbulent years that had followed.

Besides, candles on the table or not, this isn’t a date. San Lang is here out of courtesy. Xie
Lian should be grateful for what he has and stop overthinking.

He smiles. “Well, that’s a good thing, then. Thank you, San Lang.”

For some reason, his words make San Lang flinch. The next thing Xie Lian knows, San Lang
is on his feet, tugging his jacket back on.

“I have to go. Early meeting,” he says, a little abruptly, not meeting Xie Lian’s eyes. “Pray
gege won’t hold it against me.”

“No, no, of course not, I—”

“You need your rest, anyway.” San Lang clearly isn’t listening, hunting down his boots. “I’m
keeping you from it, I apologize. I’ll go.”

“No, you don’t have to—it’s fine—”

But his apartment door is already closed behind San Lang, leaving Xie Lian halfway out of
his seat, blinking at it in bewildered silence.

A few moments later, there’s a now-familiar noise of a very powerful engine revving to life.
Xie Lian rushes to the window just in time to see the bright red car pull away with a screech
of tires and disappear into the night.

“What did I say?” Xie Lian manages dejectedly.

Had it been his clumsy flirting? Goodness, how many times has he told himself not to—

He puts away the leftovers with slightly trembling hands, then walks toward his closet and
starts undressing. Halfway through, he remembers something and hops toward the front door
to throw the deadbolt over. He’s never been concerned about safety before, yet now, he
wishes ardently that he had a better lock on his door.

Shivering, he walks into the tiny bathroom and turns the light on.

Is it really that bad? He turns his head this way and that, looking in the mirror. It’s just a
strand of white, not particularly thick—barely noticeable, really. It’s not like his whole head
has turned white. Was it really so disgusting a sight?

Xie Lian forces himself into the tepid shower, the water smelling heavily of iron, and it’s like
bathing in blood, but he’s used to it. Only the water on his face is hot, and it’d probably taste
salty. He ignores it.

By the time he makes it to bed, he’s too enervated to think of anything, and he falls asleep
immediately. His dreams are plagued at first with the rumbling of the engine, the scent of
maple leaves, and a brilliant smile on an exceedingly gorgeous face, but his mind soon
succumbs fully to exhaustion, and he dreams of nothing at all.
 Chapter 3
Chapter Notes

Guys I wanted to thank you all for your comments and feedback! My mental state is all
over the place these days, forgive me for not always answering, but please know that
every thought you share is treasured. ♥

--

Considering the upheaval of last night, Xie Lian fully expects to feel like hell in the morning,
but that’s not at all the case. He hasn’t replaced his alarm clock yet, but he wakes up on time
anyway, and he feels… rested. So well-rested, in fact, as if he’d slept for twelve hours. He
blinks in bewilderment as he sits up in bed. Just what was in that soup?

The thought makes him laugh, and he rolls up to his feet in an exceedingly good mood.
Mornings have always been his favorite part of the day, with everything feeling fresh and
new adventures awaiting. It’s been a while, though, since he’s had the luxury of time to do his
stretching routine and have a full breakfast, so his mood gets even brighter. His stomach
doesn’t protest being filled as much as it had the night before, but Xie Lian is still careful not
to overdo it. He needs a clear head for work, after all.

He almost glides down the stairs, humming something upbeat under his breath, when he runs
into Mama Ji and his day hits the first snag.

As landladies go, Mama Ji is not the worst. Apart from a generally unfriendly and suspicious
disposition, as well as making everyone call her ‘Mama’ despite never having been anyone’s
mother, she’s not one to actively interfere in her tenants’ affairs unless someone was late with
rent. Xie Lian is never that person—it's the first bill he pays after taking care of the clinic, no
matter what kind of month he’s having. Mama Ji's poor attitude notwithstanding, he doesn’t
think he’s done anything to actively upset her.

It's all the more surprising, then, to find her ambushing him just outside the building door,
narrowing her eyes and advancing as if Xie Lian is personally responsible for the deaths of
her non-existent grandchildren.

“What did I tell you, huh? What did I say?!” She hits him with a fan, not letting him utter a
word. “I run a respectable household, not one of those places! Despicable! Shameless! Never
having a lady friend over, think I don’t know what you are?”

Xie Lian blinks, blushing. “I—”

“And I didn’t say anything! Thought you had enough shame not to turn tricks under my nose,
but—”

“What?!”

“—now he has men over! Coming and going, coming and going! What did you run out of—
of—of your things? Like I don’t know what you do up there with him! And that horrible car,
coming and going, coming and going, how am I supposed to get any damn sleep?!”

“I—wait!” Xie Lian lifts his hands, as she keeps hitting him. “Mama Ji, it’s all a
misunderstanding!”

She glares. “Misunderstanding?!”

“Yes! Mama Ji, please! Yes, I did have a friend over last night—just a friend, I promise—”

“Ha! A likely tale! Do you take me for a fool?”

“—and then he left, and yes, I apologize, his car is rather loud, but that was it! He drove
away, he wasn’t coming and going!”

“That was it?! How could that have been when, not half an hour later, he was back?!” She
lunges at him again, and Xie Lian takes a hurried step back, bumping into a flowerbed.

He blinks, fighting through his confusion. “But he wasn’t? San Lang left and he didn’t come
back, I promise you.”

For some reason, the words of absolute truth meant to placate her have the opposite effect. If
anything, she seems even angrier.

“Do you think I’m lying, boy?! Do you think I imagined the same demon car coming back
just as I was trying to get some sleep?! I didn’t—it was right here!” She gestures at the spot
where San Lang had, indeed, parked his car the night before. “I was too tired to deal with
him, but this morning—oh, this morning! Not even six, and that damn car starting again,
taking off!”

“I—Mama Ji, you’re mistaken. It couldn’t have been his car; it must have been some other
—”

“Do you think I can’t recognize the same demon car when it starts its hellish noise right
outside my window?! It was the same one!”

“I—”

Xie Lian has no idea how to convince her. He knows for a fact San Lang didn’t come back. It
must have been an unfortunate coincidence that owners of two loud sports cars had business
in their quiet backwater street last night, but there’s no convincing this woman of it. He takes
another step back as she raises her fan menacingly again.
“I hope he’s paying you well, because if he shows up here again, I’m kicking you out, you,
you, you—despicable, shameless tramp!”

Despite occasional appearances, Xie Lian does know how to read a room, so, seeing that
she’s not nearly done blowing off steam, he turns tail and runs. Obviously, now is not the
time to clear up this misunderstanding. He sends panicked smiles left and right to the
neighbors who’d stepped out or opened the windows, attracted by the free show.

“See, I told you he was a fag,” someone shares.

“What’s it to you? Afraid of a little competition?”

“Shut your mouth, you!”

Xie Lian dashes through the street, only slowing down a little as he turns the corner. His
cheeks are a flaming red, and he must look a mess. Goodness, what a complete
embarrassment! And all over, what—a bit of human kindness? Thank God San Lang hadn’t
seen such a display!

Not that it matters, Xie Lian reminds himself, walking in a slightly more sedate manner. If
Mama Ji had let him get a word in edgewise, he’d have assured her that neither San Lang nor
his ‘devil car’ will be making another appearance in their neighborhood. Last night, he
couldn’t have gotten out fast enough—clearly, whatever business he thought he had to settle
with Xie Lian was over and done with.

Having gotten some proper sleep and food has done wonders for Xie Lian’s mental
discipline, and he pushes the thoughts away before they can make themselves at home in his
head and ruin his day. He’ll allow himself to think of San Lang some more at some point and
analyze what mistake he must have made when he has the capacity for it. Right now, it’s time
to focus on work.

--

His mental discipline is not the only thing to have benefited from rest.

Xie Lian’s hands are brimming with energy, and he can’t stop himself from sharing a spark
here and there with his fluffy patients. Though none of them are critical, it’s a joy to see them
perk up and glow a little brighter. A normally grouchy black-and-white cat, pregnant and
huge, even refuses to leave his arms as he attempts to return her to her owner, and Xie Lian
laughs, giving in to the urge to pet her some more.

It's not as busy a day as the last few have been, and he has some time—at last!—to organize
his space, even check on an online training course he’d applied for. The next seminar hasn’t
yet become available, and he’s reviewing the previous class materials to make sure he got it
all in correctly when he hears the door chimes tinkle.

“I’ll be with you in just a moment,” he calls out, marking his place.

An amused voice responds. “Take your time.”

Xie Lian’s head snaps up. “San Lang!”

It is indeed the man himself, though… Xie Lian has to do a double take. Dressed down in
jeans and a t-shirt, with his hair pulled back into a low, unassuming ponytail, San Lang looks
years younger, like an art student on the outs with his family. The smirk curving his lips is
cocky, but there’s something hesitant about it, almost nervous, which makes him appear
younger still.

“Lunch?” He makes it a question, and only then does Xie Lian notice that he has a big white
takeout bag in his hands.

“Oh!” Xie Lian jumps to his feet at last. “Right. Sorry! Uh, I guess we could just…”

Hastily, he clears some space on his desk, pushing papers and notes haphazardly to the side,
feeling his cheeks heat as San Lang comes closer and starts carefully unloading his bag.

“Sorry, I, uh… I wasn’t expecting you,” Xie Lian stammers out.

“If I’m disturbing you, I can leave—”

“No! No. Um. Just, uh… The patients—I might, uh… I don’t really have a lunch hour,” he
explains, feeling vaguely apologetic. “If anyone comes in, I’ll have to leave you.”

“I’ll take that chance.” San Lang flashes him a grin that seems a little relieved. “I hope you
like mantous.”

“I do! Oh—”

Xie Lian blinks. His desk seems to have disappeared under what looks like at least ten
different kinds of steamed buns.

“Uh… San Lang, you didn’t have to—”

San Lang glances up at him from where he’s settled himself comfortably in the visitors’ chair.

“I wanted to apologize for last night,” he says, quiet. “I shouldn’t have left like that. It was
terribly rude of me, and I pray gege can forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive!” Xie Lian waves his hands at him, dismissing, as he sits back down as
well. “I was only afraid I may have offended you somehow—”

San Lang’s hand shoots out to grab him by the wrist—perhaps a reflexive reaction, because
he pulls his hand back the next moment, glancing down.

“Sorry. But no, Gege, please. It was nothing you did. I just… remembered an urgent matter I
have completely forgotten about, and I was scared I was late, so I, uh. But that’s not an
excuse. I really am sorry.”

“It’s nothing,” Xie Lian repeats, then jumps to his feet again. “I’ll make us tea!”
It’s cooler water and instant tea in plastic cups, but San Lang doesn’t seem to mind.

“How’s E’ming?” Xie Lian asks as he picks up a mantou off a paper plate and hoping the
conversation has turned away from apologies for good. “Not worse, I hope?”

As it turns out, E’ming is doing great, energetic enough to be openly dissatisfied with his
medical collar. Xie Lan advises that it’s better to leave it on until the time comes to remove
the stitches, and they fall into an easy conversation. Some of the tales San Lang regales him
with about his and E’ming’s adventures make Xie Lian cry from laughter, and he gets the
feeling that the dog is every bit as mischievous as his master.

An easy and very pleasant half an hour passes by quickly as Xie Lian trades back the stories
of some of his patients’ escapades in the clinic. To his surprise, no one comes in the whole
time. He can’t remember the last time that’s happened. It doesn’t distract from him keeping
an eye out for Banyue, though.

“Gege?” San Lang asks, helping him clean up his desk. “Is something wrong? You keep
glancing at the door.”

Xie Lian takes a stack of plates and napkins from him and puts it in the trash. “Uh, well, I
have a—that is, a friend of mine usually comes in at this time. A little earlier, even,” he adds,
glancing at the clock with a frown. He explains further—about Banyue, how she insists on
coming in to help every day except the weekends. Her school isn’t far, and she should be here
by now.

“She hasn’t texted me,” Xie Lian says, checking his phone again, and bites his lip. “It’s
probably nothing, but I’m a little worried.”

Just then, the door chimes signal a visitor, and a heavyset, middle-aged man comes in, a huge
carrier in his arms with something meowling murder inside it.

“Xiansheng? May we—”

“Of course!” Xie Lian rushes over to hold the door open. “Please come in—on the table, I’ll
be with you in a moment. Uh, San Lang—”

He turns around to apologize only to come face-to-face with the man himself.

“Gege—do you want me to go out and look for her?” San Lang asks, face set as though he’s
already decided.

Xie Lian almost sways toward him, hopeful, then realizes what he’s doing and pulls back.
“Sorry! I mean, would you? You probably don’t have the time, and I—”

A hand on his arm stops him. “Gege, it’s fine. I have the time. Just tell me which way the
school is.”

--
The entire time he’s gone, Xie Lian struggles to keep focused. Part of him knows it’s
probably nothing major, and there’s no real cause for concern. Maybe Banyue met up with a
friend or—or her aunt and uncle needed her home early. Both unlikely possibilities, but still,
there’s no need to overreact when he doesn’t really know anything.

Meanwhile, his flow of patients resumes in full force. The anxiety-prone cat is followed by a
ferret who’s suddenly lost his appetite, then a rabbit who can’t get pregnant. The mystery is
solved rather easily, though it causes both Xie Lian and the owner some red faces as the latter
comes to understand his other (also male) rabbit’s ardent physical interest.

By the time that’s resolved, a dog with a suspected broken paw is waiting for him, and Xie
Lian is beginning to worry in earnest. He takes the dog into the back room to do an x-ray, and
as he emerges, a couple of clean shots in his hands, the clinic door opens again, this time
admitting the very people he wants to see most.

Xie Lian breathes a quiet sigh of relief and steals glances at Banyue as he puts a bandage on
the paw. The owner thanks him profusely, leaving a stack of bills on the exam table as he
leaves, but Xie Lian barely notices.

“Banyue, are you all right?” he asks, grateful for another perfectly-timed lull in visitors.
“What happened?”

She looks none the worse for wear, except—the knuckles of her right hand appear bruised,
and the strap of her school bag is torn.

“Oh,” Xie Lian sighs, understanding dawning. “It was those boys again, wasn’t it?” He grabs
her wrist and pulls her over, ignoring the tight, stubborn press of her lips. “Are you hurt
anywhere?”

“Gege,” San Lang drawls leisurely from where he’s leaning against the wall, arms over his
chest, “before you worry yourself sick, this is the perfect time to say, ‘You should see the
other guy.’ Or guys, as it were. Your girl has some serious fighting skills.”

Xie Lian takes Banyue in again and, by the mulish look on her face and the way she wouldn’t
meet his eyes, gets the picture.

“Banyue,” he sighs.

“They started it!” She pulls her hand free and finally looks up at him, glaring. “They called
me… a—a bad word!”

There’s something ironic, Xie Lian thinks fatalistically, in the fact that she won’t repeat a
swearword in front of him.

“And you—you taught me how to fight yourself, so I made them shut up!”

“Banyue,” he groans, rubbing at his forehead. “I taught you so that you could defend
yourself, not start fights! How many of them were there this time—four, five? And what if
San Lang hadn’t come to get you?”
“Oh, no, no.” San Lang lifts his hands up, smirking. A peculiar-looking tattoo curls up his
right forearm, drawing Xie Lian's eye. “This little spitfire was doing fine on her own. I barely
had to do anything.”

Banyue sends him a baleful look over her shoulder, but as she turns back to Xie Lian, her
face falls.

“Oh, don’t be mad at me, A-Lian, please? I know you said violence isn’t a solution, but—but
I think sometimes it is!”

“Uh?” San Lang lifts his hand again. “So do I? Often, in fact?”

Xie Lian narrows his eyes at him over Banyue’s head as he draws her closer. San Lang only
smirks, unrepentant.

“I’m not mad at you,” Xie Lian sighs, hugging the girl, who instantly wraps her arms around
his waist. “I just don’t want you to get hurt over a few petty insults.”

“But you don’t know what they said!”

“What could it have been, that it’d be worth broken bones? Or getting in trouble with your
aunt and uncle? Remember what happened last time?”

“En,” Banyue exhales reluctantly, burying her face in his shoulder. “A-Lian, I’m sorry.”

Xie Lian presses a kiss to her hair. “Don’t. Just be more careful, all right? Let them find their
own punishment. Trust me, they won’t miss it.” Neither of them is entirely convinced by the
other, he knows, but has to let it go.

“Okay.”

He pulls back. “Are you hungry? We have some food left—”

“We do?” She stares at him incredulously. “Where did it come from? I was bringing you
lunch when they…” She trails off, distracted. “How do we have food?”

“Uh,” Xie Lian says, pausing. Some parental figure he is. “Well…”

--

While he deals with the next stream of visitors, Banyue and San Lang retreat back toward his
desk. Xie Lian is too busy to watch or listen in, but it seems that, after finishing her food,
Banyue and San Lang become entirely engrossed in something on Xie Lian’s laptop, then
their phones. He gets the impression of a lively discussion, occasionally interrupted by
Banyue’s laughter, and has to smile to himself in gratitude. Banyue isn’t a gregarious girl by
any means; to see her open up like that is wonderful.

Hours trickle by unnoticed, and, by the time there’s another lull in patients, the sky outside
has darkened and the closing hour has passed. Banyue had gone home some time ago, but
San Lang is still there—Xie Lian only notices when he reaches for the cleaning supplies and
finds them gone. San Lang only grins at him from where he’s disinfecting the exam table and
other work surfaces.

“You don’t have to—” Xie Lian starts, but is interrupted with another smile.

“I don’t mind. I sat still all day; it feels good to move around a bit.”

Xie Lian bites his lip, not knowing how to say that San Lang doesn’t have to help out or stay
and wait for him. It’ll sound like he hates the company.

“It’s really not necessary—”

“You let Banyue help, right?”

“Yes, but, uh… she’s a friend.”

San Lang flashes him a grin. “Aren’t I?”

Xie Lian glances away. “Yes. But—”

San Lang’s grin morphs into a smirk. “But?”

“Nothing!” Xie Lian grabs a cloth hurriedly and disappears into another room. “It’s—it’s fine
if you want to!”

He can hear San Lang chuckling behind him.

--

Together, they finish a lot faster than Xie Lian would have on his own.

“San Lang, thank you for your help today,” Xie Lian says sincerely, as he reaches to turn the
lights off. “Truly, I—”

“It was nothing, Gege.” San Lang shakes his head. “I should be thanking gege for allowing
me to hang out here today; best day I’ve had in months. Walk you home?”

Xie Lian blinks. “Don’t you need to get home, too?”

“Not for a while, and besides, I parked my car a few blocks down your way. Unless you’re
tired of my company—?”

“No, of course not!”

San Lang grins.

The night isn’t any warmer yet, but Xie Lian finds the cold doesn’t bother him much.
Normally, he walks home at as brisk a pace as he can manage, trying to forestall the moment
when his teeth start chattering. Tonight, it feels pleasant enough to enjoy a slower pace.
The conversation flows easily. Xie Lian can’t remember the last time he’d felt so alive just
talking to someone. Despite his seeming youth, San Lang appears to be a bottomless well of
knowledge, from obscure ancient gods he’d researched for his art to the latest trends in
literature and theatre. He describes books and plays with sharpness and wit few professional
critics can muster. To Xie Lian, it’s like a window into a world he’s all but forgotten, and he
listens avidly, asking questions about the response received by the latest play of such-and-
such and what new philosophy it was claiming to introduce to the public.

In response, San Lang pours out even more details, analyzing the playwright’s style and
cutting his ambitions down to size with a dose of pointed comments that Xie Lian can’t help
laughing at. He wishes desperately he could have seen the show and make his own
observations, but, listening to San Lang, he almost feels like he’d been there.

He realizes they’re barely walking at some point but doesn’t bring it up. Even so, it’s a
surprise when they reach his building.

“San Lang!” Xie Lian exclaims, spotting a familiar car next to the entrance. “Your car! You
said—”

“Ah, I must have forgotten it was further than a few blocks down,” San Lang says easily. “No
harm.”

Suddenly, Xie Lian remembers the scene from this morning, and his face falls.

“Um, San Lang, maybe you shouldn’t park your car here. This… uh, this neighborhood isn’t
very safe for—for cars like yours.” He’s amazed no one has defaced it yet.

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe,” San Lang dismisses. “And your neighbors are
wonderful. Very easy to deal with, not at all like mine.”

Xie Lian blinks, bemused. “What—why—”

“Gege.” San Lang reaches out to gently touch his wrist. “You’re tired; I shouldn’t keep you
any longer. But I wanted to ask you—can I hang out at the clinic again sometime? I promise
not to be a bother.”

Xie Lian stares at him. “Isn’t that… boring?” For someone like you, he doesn’t add. He can’t
imagine someone so glamorous enjoying being around his clinic, with all the sick animals
and no actual entertainment.

San Lang hums softly. “To tell you the truth, today has been… incredibly peaceful. I rarely
get those kinds of moments anymore.” His face turns soft, his voice quieter. “I wasn’t teasing
earlier when I said I haven’t had a day like that in months.”

And in that moment, he’s not the young, carefree person he’s been all day, but someone much
older—more stressed with the weight of responsibility heavy on his shoulders. Xie Lian feels
a sharp pang of sympathy.

“You can come visit any time,” he says, smiling gently as he tries to catch San Lang’s gaze.
San Lang looks up immediately. “You mean it? You should be careful with words like that,
Gege. I can make myself quite a nuisance.”

“Nonsense.” Xie Lian laughs. “San Lang has been nothing but incredibly helpful.”

“Then I’ll see you soon.” San Lang smiles. “Oh, Gege, hold on a second. I got something for
you.”

He hands Xie Lian a small rectangular box before Xie Lian can object.

“San Lang, there was no need to—”

San Lang closes Xie Lian’s fingers around it.

“Just open it when you get home,” he says, walking around his car to get to the driver’s seat.
“And Gege—sleep well.”

Xie Lian doesn’t understand what he means at first, but as he climbs the stairs to his attic of
an apartment, he stills. For a moment, he almost panics, thinking he must have somehow
gotten the wrong building. Then, he slowly opens the box and sees—

Two identical brand-new keys inside.

The keys for his very new door.

Not only that, but the doorframe has been replaced as well. Instead of rotting, splintering
wood, he’s staring at something infinitely more durable, carved precisely to size, and, more
than that, beautiful. The lock is gleaming in the murky light, its metal polished to a fine
shine, well-oiled and almost like a guard dog.

Xie Lian has zero thoughts in his head as he takes it all in. Maybe he’s so tired he’s
hallucinating?

But the key fits, the lock opens with a soft click, and as he steps over the threshold, he smiles
—amused, and incredulous, and something else.

He’s still smiling when his head hits the pillow.

--

The next day, San Lang shows up at the clinic mid-morning, and Xie Lian smiles widely in
welcome, though the patients keep him too busy to really talk for a while. San Lang makes
himself useful, performing small tasks for Xie Lian without being asked—cleaning, putting
things in order, fixing a light. He seems easily competent in just about anything he touches,
understanding what Xie Lian needs before Xie Lian can even say it. Xie Lian finds himself
slightly dazed by the experience.

When Banyue shows up, she seems delighted to see San Lang there. They spend a couple of
hours hunched over Xie Lian’s aging laptop, probably planning world domination by how
excited they both look.
That evening, Xie Lian has to leave before closing to make a house call. The owner has asked
him to come release their beloved pet from the burden of age and sickness in the comfort of
her own home, surrounded by people who love her—a somber occasion. Xie Lian has
performed plenty of them in the past, but it’s never easy, seeing the grief of losing a loved
one.

Pets are not people, his father had used to say in a stern tone. Maybe not, but sometimes they
become even more than people. Sometimes, they are the only companions a person has,
whose love and loyalty are unconditionally given and always there… until they’re not. The
pain isn’t any less for that love having existed in a non-human form.

When it’s over, he accepts the money with a numb hand, bows, and leaves. Being paid for
this also doesn’t feel right, but he knows not to refuse it. It’s part of the last rites, another way
for the owner to honor the departed.

He doesn’t get far from the house before the owner’s daughter runs after him, handing him a
big plastic bag. Xie Lian looks inside—packs of cat food, brand-new toys, and some
unopened medicine.

“We don’t need those anymore,” the girl explains, lips trembling, and rushes off, before Xie
Lian can thank her.

Halfway between the house and the clinic, there’s a small hole-in-the-wall Guanyin shrine.
Once upon a time, it was part of a much larger and more magnificent structure, but few things
of that nature have survived through time. A few people from the neighborhood have taken it
upon themselves to maintain the shrine, and Xie Lian, too, stops here sometimes. He’s not
particularly religious, but the place feels as if it’s emanating peace.

Xie Lian doesn’t have flowers or sweets on him, so he ends up leaving some of the money as
offering, muttering a prayer for the little cat’s soul and all the people who loved her. The
goddess of compassion gazes at him benevolently from her altar, and Xie Lian feels the dark
cloud around him dissipate a bit.

--

When he steps through the door of the clinic, shivering slightly, a cup of hot tea is
immediately pressed into his hand. Xie Lian blinks slowly, trying to process that it’s an
actual, non-plastic cup, and while he’s distracted, someone takes away the bag he’s been
carrying. It takes him a moment to look around.

“Banyue, what are you still doing here?” he asks, frowning in concern at the sight of the girl
sitting comfortably behind his desk. “Your aunt and uncle—”

“They’re out of town,” Banyue replies dismissively. “Come here, A-Lian, we have pizza.”

“Vegetarian is fine, right?” San Lang asks, appearing next to him after having stowed away
what Xie Lian brought. “Come have a slice; you look frozen solid.”
It’s actually relatively warm outside, but Xie Lian always seems to be cold lately. Without
waiting for him to respond, San Lang wraps an arm around his shoulders and guides him over
to a visitor’s chair, pressing him gently into it.

“You didn’t have to wait up,” Xie Lian objects feebly as Banyue hands him a slice of pizza.
It’s still warm. “Both of you.”

“Gege was teaching me business theory,” Banyue says, sounding entirely enraptured. “I never
realized it was so easy!”

Hence ‘theory’, Xie Lian thinks, but only smiles at her. He shoots a look at San Lang. “Is that
so? I didn’t realize you were an expert.”

San Lang grins. “I dabble, remember?”

Neither of them asks him how the house call had gone, and Xie Lian relaxes slowly, letting
the tide of their easy conversation wash over as they push him into finishing another slice.
San Lang brings him more tea.

Eventually, the hour gets too late to be reasonable, and San Lang drives them both home.
They drop off Banyue first, and after that, the car is pleasantly silent—a companionable kind
of silence—and Xie Lian relaxes into it. He’s tired but feels almost buoyant with warmth.

He doesn’t know if he’s relaxed too much or if some kind of impulse has taken a hold of him
without him noticing, but as they stop in front of his building, he turns toward San Lang and
asks:

“Would you like to come up for a bit?”

The moment the words are out of his mouth, he freezes. He didn’t mean to say them! He
doesn’t even know if he means… what he means.

San Lang stills for a moment also, then turns toward him, a gentle look in his eye.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Gege,” he says, his tone unbearably soft. “Under different
circumstances, I’d love to, but—” He bites his lip and glances away briefly, clearly
uncomfortable. Xie Lian feels about ready to die. Then, San Lang actually makes it worse by
saying, “Besides, I really have to go. E’ming is pretty self-sufficient, but if he doesn’t see me
all day, he gets grouchy.”

“Oh my God!” Xie Lian jolts in his seat, his hands flying up to cover his face. “I completely
forgot, San Lang, of course, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean—I just—oh my God—”

“Gege, Gege, it’s all right. It’s fine,” San Lang coaxes, pulling at Xie Lian’s wrist gently to
get him to lower his hands. “You’ve had a long day, it’s all right.”

Xie Lian only shakes his head mutely, mortified beyond his ability to process.

San Lang gets out of the car then, and in a moment, Xie Lian’s door opens, and he’s guided
out with much more care than he deserves. His hand remains on Xie Lian’s elbow, squeezing
gently.

“I’m sorry, I’ve monopolized your time as it is,” Xie Lian says, looking at the pavement. “I
don’t know what I was thinking—”

In fact, he does—he’s just been too slow on the uptake. Someone died at his hand today. No
matter how necessary or compassionate that was, Xie Lian always feels wrong taking a life.
The cozy little dinner at the clinic had helped him a bit with that, and he didn’t want the
warmth he felt to go away, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

“Gege, that’s nonsense,” San Lang says softly, tilting Xie Lian’s chin up with two fingers,
exerting no pressure, barely touching. A smile curves his lips. “Believe me, if I had my way,
you’d never be rid of me.”

Xie Lian lifts his eyes reluctantly, slowly, focusing first on the necklace on San Lang’s neck,
the tiny silver butterfly resting between his collarbones. Something about the sight gives him
the courage to look up, and he finally smiles.

“You’re so insincere.”

San Lang’s smile widens into a mischievous grin. “I promise you, I’m the most sincere
person you’ll ever meet.” With that, he pushes Xie Lian gently toward the door. “Go on; I’ll
wait until I see the light in your window.”

Xie Lian wants to protest, but doesn’t want to delay him any further, so he simply nods.

--

The next morning, when Xie Lian arrives at the clinic, he doesn’t go in at once, instead
staring at the building in some kind of stupor. He even squeezes his eyes tightly shut before
opening them again, in case he’s not awake yet.

The building has never been anything special. It’s small, rather cramped, and definitely not a
looker, even when it was new. Xie Lian has occasionally heard people complain that it’s hard
to find, because even the ‘Vet Clinic’ sign has almost faded away under the elements and he’s
never gotten around to repainting it.

Well, it’s been repainted now. Along with the entire façade.

A fresh coat of white is covering the entire surface, almost shimmering in the morning sun.
The effect is enhanced with silvery butterflies painted here and there, floating over the
colorful flowers painted below. The words ‘Vet Clinic’ have been painted on top of the old
ones, now in deep green, framed in gold.

The real stunner, though, is the door. All kinds of animals are painted across and around it,
their physicalities masterfully executed and almost life-like. A kitten chasing a ball of yarn;
two bunnies munching on the same stem of grass; a dog leaping through the air after a stick;
parrots, owls, and other birds; rather fat-looking hamster lounging in a wheel instead of
running; two ferrets and a racoon engaged in some kind of scrap battle.
It's breathtaking artistry, painted in a style that’s as cheeky as it is confident, every stroke
certain and unapologetic. The hand behind it is one that has clearly never required correction.

Xie Lian is not the only one staring—people hurrying to work all around him stop to take a
look, and a couple of school kids are taking pictures. Xie Lian begins to sense their curiosity
shifting toward himself—after all, he’s not exactly a stranger—but he doesn’t have any
answers for them. If it wasn’t for the scent of fresh paint still in the air, he’d have thought it
was done by magic.

He slips inside before anyone can start asking questions, relieved to find everything in its
place.

--

The morning is busy, and Xie Lian gets bombarded with questions. He doesn’t really know
what to say, so he deflects and dodges every way he knows how. Banyue comes at lunch,
looking a little shell-shocked, but the man Xie Lian considers to be his only suspect doesn’t
show up until an hour later.

“Hey, Gege, sorry I’m so late!” San Lang breezes in, looking every bit the art student he
probably isn’t. Ripped jeans today, dark shirt, a bangle of bracelets, wind-swept hair, and…
yes, a thin, miniscule streak of white paint across his throat, right above the usual silver
necklace.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian says the moment he gets a break between patients. “Did you paint my
door and—and the rest of it?”

San Lang lowers his eye to the floor, like he’s actually shy. “I... Yes, I did. Does gege like it?”

Xie Lian grabs his arm, pulling him away from the opening door, and whispers. “Of course I
like it—it’s gorgeous. But San Lang, there’s no way I could have commissioned something
like this! Even the cost of the materials, let alone the workmanship—I can’t even begin to
calculate how—”

At the mention of money, San Lang forgets his shyness and grabs onto him in turn, his gaze
intense.

“Gege, no—I’m the one who presumed, painted your wall without even asking. I should be
the one paying you—it’s not every day that a humble artist like myself can have such a huge
canvas to work with!”

“San Lang, please, don’t try to twist it—”

“I’m not! Don’t worry about paints; I’ve had those for ages, they’re leftovers from my other
projects. And as for my work—well, it’s not work for me at all, and it’s my pleasure to give
it. Don’t you like it?”

“I love it,” Xie Lian admits helplessly.

San Lang beams. “Which part do you like best?”

Something about him gives Xie Lian the distinct impression that if he says anything at all
right now—say, the kitten—the entire back wall will be covered with kittens chasing yarn by
tomorrow.

“I loved all of it,” he says, which is the truth. “Although I do hope the bear won’t give
anyone ideas.”

“You want me to paint over him? I could—”

“No!” Xie Lian shakes his head hastily. “Leave him. He’s... cute. They’re all cute.”

San Lang grins, lifts an eyebrow. “Just like the artist?”

Xie Lian laughs, pushing him away. “So that’s what you’re doing? Trying to get me to
compliment you? You’re very cute, San Lang, how’s that? I’m sure all the girls are after
you.”

San Lang seems to only be marginally placated by this offering, but just at that moment, a
dog with a pronounced limp calls for Xie Lian’s attention.

--

San Lang becomes indispensable. He takes to showing up around midmorning and makes
himself useful around the clinic—cleaning, fixing things, doing whatever small tasks he can
find. At some point, he puts a note at the front door—in truly atrocious handwriting, to the
point where Xie Lan can barely lie politely about it—saying ‘If you can’t pay, bring food.’

Xie Lian tries to reprimand him, to no avail, and worse, the note actually works. By the
second day, San Lang has to clear a small table specifically for edible donations, and now it’s
never empty of cookies, power bars, steamed buns, fried rice, and, bizarrely, frequently
flowers. It’s reminiscent of an ancient temple’s altar, flush with offerings, and Xie Lian has
no idea how to feel about it beyond absolutely ridiculous.

“What?” San Lang is unrepentant. “If they can’t pay and you won’t turn them away, that
means they’re exploiting you. The least they can do is feed you.”

Xie Lian can’t decide if that’s more funny or sad, but the arrangement becomes surprisingly
popular. People who don’t pay grab at the chance to express their gratitude even in this small
way, and the price of a bowl of rice is nothing compared to what a blood test costs. They are
so sincere and relieved about it that it’s impossible to say no. Still feeling vaguely ashamed
about it all, Xie Lian lets it be.

A day later, San Lang slips out not long after he arrives. Xie Lian finds him on the roof,
fixing the holes. His heart plummets as he realizes San Lang isn’t using any kind of
protective rigging at all.

“San Lang,” he calls in a calm tone, not wanting to startle him. “Please come down, it’s not
safe!”

San Lang only laughs him off with his usual, “Don’t worry, Gege.”
The roof is fixed by the end of the day, at which point San Lang walks him home as usual.

The next day, as the door opens to admit San Lang, there’s a loud barking behind him, and
then he’s shoved to the side as a black silhouette leaps through the air towards Xie Lian. It
would have been frightening, except the monstrous black dog does nothing more than land at
Xie Lian’s feet, frantically wagging its tail and trying to lick his hands.

“E’ming!” Xie Lian laughs, crouching down to greet it. “Yes, yes, I’m excited to see you too,
hahaha!”

He pets the dog that keeps twirling around him as though having discovered a long-lost
friend. He’s still wearing the restrictive medical collar.

“Will you be a good boy and not pull at your stitches if I take this off?” Xie Lian asks sternly.

E’ming instantly plops down on the floor in front of him, paws perfectly together, eyes wide
and innocent and every bit the picture of obedience.

Xie Lian laughs. “You do remind me of someone, you know. He’s just as mischievous.”

But, after the first bout of excitement, E’ming seems a lot more prone to behave than his
master. He stays out of the way, only following Xie Lian with his eyes and sizing up anyone
who interacts with him before relaxing. When Xie Lian has the time to pet him, he turns into
an over-eager puppy, forgetting his highly respectable age.

Xie Lian doesn’t think much about it. Animals he shares his spark with get like that around
him sometimes, though not often to the same extent.

San Lang takes E’ming out for a walk shortly after lunch and coaxes Xie Lian to spare half
an hour and join them. Xie Lian agrees eventually, though he does feel slightly wicked, like a
kid skipping classes. When they walk around the block like that, just the two of them and
E’ming, talking about everything and nothing, sharing cookies, it feels so sweetly domestic
that something in Xie Lian aches. He’s never known companionship like this, and it’s making
his head spin. He’s afraid to miss a single moment.

The clinic looks different, feels different, and Xie Lian is not the only one who notices. A
couple days into it, he finds himself surrounded by his long-term clients, besieged by
curiosity.

“Who’s the lad, Xiansheng? Is he a relation?”

“Handy with his tools, isn’t he? Does he have formal training?”

“Never mind that, is he married yet? Do you think he’ll like my daughter?”

“Pfft, your daughter is too old for him, she’s almost thirty! Now, my niece, on the other hand
—”

Xie Lian doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so he ends up shaking his head with a
desperate smile. “I, ah… San Lang is… a relation, yes. A distant cousin. I don’t—”
He stops short, realizing what a mistake he’s made. If he claims the man as a relation, he
can’t answer to any of the other questions with an ‘I don’t know.’ Surely even a distant
cousin would know if he was married?

Fortunately, at that precise moment, San Lang himself steps into the room, wiping his hands
with a cloth after having fixed the sink in the back room. He bumps his shoulder gently
against Xie Lian’s, his smirk indicating he’s fully aware of his predicament.

“I don’t have formal training, I just dabble in a few things for fun,” San Lang tells the small
crowd easily. “As for the rest, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m already married.”

Xie Lian feels his heart stop in his chest at that and he can’t help but look at San Lang, who’s
smiling at the visitors.

“You are? Aren’t you a little young for that?”

“Didn’t you just say marrying young is the wisest choice?” Another voice interrupts him.
“Now, quick, tell us. She must be really something, lad, to have snagged someone like you?”

Their momentary disappointment has been quickly replaced with intense curiosity. Xie Lian
flails a bit, trying to figure out a way out of this impromptu interrogation.

“The person I belong to is very special indeed,” San Lang replies easily. “They are incredibly
kind and gracious, and so strong and brave that I feel completely undeserving of them.”

“Wow; you’re so sweet talking of your wife like that! You must be very much in love?”

San Lang smiles. “Very much. Completely hopeless.”

“Must be a looker then, is she? To make someone like you fall so hard?”

San Lang’s expression evens out for a moment, becoming more genuine. “My spouse is
gorgeous. Takes my breath away every time I look at them. The first time I saw them, I
thought no one could be this beautiful, not on this earth. I thought I’d get used to it in time,
but—” He shrugs, almost bashful.

“Oh, you’re a goner, kid,” someone laughs.

“Yeah, wait till you get older,” someone else says with a chuckle. “See if you still feel that
way when she’s grey and wrinkled and yelling at you to go get milk!”

San Lang only grins again. “I’ll always feel this way,” he says quietly. “There’ll only ever be
one person for me. Once I fall in love, it’s forever.”

Everyone laughs then, telling him he’s young and naïve and he’ll change his mind at some
point, but it’s not unkind, mostly good-natured, and San Lang bears it with good grace.

--
Later that night as they clean the clinic after closing, Xie Lian asks him, unable to let it go,
“Was that true? You’re married? Or did you just say that to get them off your back?”

San Lang glances up at him briefly from where he’s wringing the mop. “I’m not married,
Gege; I was just saying that.”

Xie Lian conceals his sigh of relief as best he can, but just then, San Lang adds, “I wasn’t
lying about being committed to someone, though. It’s just that, my special person—I haven’t
won them over yet.”

“Oh.”

Xie Lian feels something inside him die at the words, and pushes the reaction down
vehemently. This is neither the time nor the place to deal with his incredible stupidity.

“How come?” he asks instead, and adds, help with less honesty, “I can’t imagine anyone
turning you down.”

San Lang, however, seems uncharacteristically serious. He takes a moment before

responding.

“You’ve only known me for a few days, Gege, and you’ve only seen this side of me. I can be
like this, sure. But I can also be…” He frowns, setting the mop to work. “Difficult.
Different.” Another pause. “Dark.”

Xie Lian watches him, swallowed whole by empathy, his own selfish feelings taking a back
seat.

“San Lang, that’s… So what? Everyone can be difficult. Everyone has darkness in them, that
isn’t even—”

“Not like mine,” San Lang interrupts quietly. Head bowed, he repeats himself. “Not like
mine.”

“Oh?” Xie Lian crosses over the room and reaches for the mop to still its movements. His
hand lands on top of San Lang’s; he leaves it there. “And what’s so different about yours?” he
asks gently.

It takes a few moments for San Lang to respond. He looks up first at their hands, blinks;
glances at Xie Lian, then flits his gaze around the cramped exam room before returning to
Xie Lian—back to their hands. His lips begin to curve in a smirk that has nothing to do with
humor, and he pulls away from the touch.

“Gege, I… I don’t think you should be subjected to this.”

“Is that so?” Xie Lian pulls back, his tone taking on a cold, almost icy tint. “Why not? You
think you’d ruin me with a confession? You think I can still be ruined?” He laughs, and it’s
an ugly, brittle sound.

San Lang looks up at him, startled, and stares, freezing in place.

Xie Lian shakes his head. “Fooled you, didn’t I? Not that I meant to, but…”

He gestures around them. “You see all this, you see my life, and you think that I’m some sort
of incredibly good person?” He lets out another laugh. The irony. “San Lang, you’re possibly
the most intelligent man I’ve ever met; so observant. I don’t think it’s a revelation to you that
I don’t always treat my patients with conventional means.”

San Lang is still staring at him as if he’s seen a ghost.

“No,” he says. “When conventional medicine fails, you treat your patients by sharing your
own living essence with them, like the healers of old. That’s how you healed E’ming.
That’s”—his eye flickers to the streak of white in Xie Lian’s hair—“how you got that.”

Xie Lian tucks the strand back behind his ear, his self-consciousness somehow surviving
even this. He nods, “And do you know how I came by this wonderous ability?”

San Lang is silent.

Xie Lian’s lips twist. “I killed someone.”

Dead silence is his response.

Xie Lian sighs. “I thought, at first, that this was the way for me to give back what I had
taken; to atone for what I’d done. But then I discovered…” He can’t help another laugh
escaping. “That’s not it at all. If I eat well, and sleep well, and meditate regularly, then—then
this type of healing won’t affect me at all, and I can carry on indefinitely.” He closes his eyes.
“I can never really make up for what I did.”

In the continuing silence, he turns away, wipes his face. He hadn’t realized he’d started
crying.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his back to San Lang still. “I didn’t mean to make this all about me. I
only wanted to show you that, if you can still be my friend, knowing this about me, then
surely your special person can… San Lang?”

But the room behind him is empty, the door only just soundlessly swinging closed.

“Oh,” Xie Lian breathes out and abruptly finds himself sitting on the floor, his tailbone
flaring in pain. “Oh.”

He hugs his knees, his entire body shaking. Tears are falling freely now that there’s no reason
to stop them, and Xie Lian is crying—sobbing, really, the way he never has in his entire life,
not even on that night many years ago, not even when Mu Qing had kicked him out and left
him there.

There’s an indistinct noise coming from outside, as if something’s being destroyed or

smashed, but Xie Lian can’t pay attention to it, lost in his own world. His mind is already
glazing over everything, unaffected—a detached analysis of every mistake he’s made, a
soothing voice promising he’ll get over this, too, so let it all out, stop fighting…
Then—

There are suddenly arms around him, someone sitting on the floor next to him, pulling him
close. The scent of maple and smoke hits him, and it’s the last straw. With a broken cry, Xie
Lian falls to pieces, shattering completely.

San Lang catches him, pulls him into his body, cradles him against his chest and rocking
them gently. His arms are two bands of steel, holding on tightly enough to be painful, but—

Within their circle, Xie Lian can finally give up control and shake apart, and not be afraid
anymore.

--

It goes on for the longest time, before Xie Lian becomes aware again. One of the arms is still
holding him tightly, another hand rubbing in soothing strokes along his back. His head is
tucked under San Lang’s chin, San Lang’s lips pressing every so often to his hair.

“I’m sorry, Gege,” he murmurs, barely audible. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to take off like
that, I just had to… You can kill a thousand people for all I care. I’d still be here…”

Xie Lian hiccups softly, his tears finally subsiding. His eyes catch on something that doesn’t
make sense to him at first.

San Lang’s knuckles are split, caked with dried blood. Tentatively, he reaches out to touch,
like a child who doesn’t understand what’s in front of them. San Lang winces, but doesn’t
pull back.

“What…”

“Nothing.” San Lang pulls him closer still. “Don’t worry about it.”

Xie Lian shudders, coming back to his body. He feels broken, like he’s been beaten raw and
left to die. It’s a familiar feeling, telling him he’s very much alive.

He wipes his face with his sleeve. He can’t breathe through his nose, but that can wait.

“San Lang?” he says softly.

“I’m here, Gege.”

“Your special person… If they… If they’re half as good as you made them out to be… the
only thing they will ever care about is you.”

San Lang takes a deep breath. “Gege, it’s…”

Xie Lian glances up when the pause stretches. “Hm?”

San Lang looks down at his undoubtedly-messy face, his expression complicated. Eventually,
he sighs.
“Not important. It’s not important right now,” San Lang says, pressing a kiss to Xie Lian’s
forehead. “How about I drive you home, hm?”

It’s a good idea. It’s suddenly very difficult for Xie Lian to keep his eyes open.

--

San Lang helps him to his feet, and then to the bathroom, so that he can clean himself up a
bit. Under different circumstances, it would have been humiliating, but at the moment, Xie
Lian feels floaty and compliant, not concerned with things like dignity at all.

San Lang doesn’t let him go for an instant, a hand around his waist supporting him as he
takes the keys from Xie Lian and locks up, then guides him gently to the car. Something
penetrates through the haze, extraordinary enough to catch Xie Lian’s attention.

The hood of San Lang’s slick, beautiful car is dented. It looks like it’s been hit with
overwhelming force, like a small meteor has crashed into it.

Or… two meteors.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian mutters, confused, glancing down at the arm holding him up, the hand
on his waist, the bruised knuckles.

The hold tightens, urging him to move.

“Not important,” San Lang repeats. “Forget about it.”

Xie Lian frowns slightly, not understanding all of it yet, but the part of him that is a healer
breaks through his confusion. “Let me take a proper look.”

“Gege, I’m fine.” San Lang nearly lifts him off his feet to get him to the car, away from the
idea. “I’ll deal with it later.”

Xie Lian bites his lip but complies.

The same strange, floaty disassociation cradles him as he obediently gets in, allowing San
Lang to, once again, fasten his seatbelt for him as if he were a child. The ride is short and
smooth and Xie Lian drifts with it, barely knowing he has a body at all.

At some point, he realizes he’s inside his own apartment, stretched out on the bed while San
Lang putters about in his kitchen. He’s lit a candle Xie Lian had left out, the glow incredibly
soft.

“Here,” San Lang says some time later, one knee on the bed, as he hands Xie Lian a cup.
“Drink this.”

Xie Lian drinks, focused on the sensation of warmth tingling through his body. Tea. Not too
hot. Flavorful. Soothing.
San Lang eventually takes the cup away and pulls the covers up, then lies next to him, quiet,
as Xie Lian slowly settles back into himself. His body feels heavy, but his mind clears.

“San Lang?” He turns his head slightly, but San Lang had blown the candle out, and all Xie
Lian can see in the darkness is his profile.

“Hm?”

He exhales. “I’m sorry. Some friend I turned out to be. All I wanted was to cheer you up, and
instead I just… I’m sorry you had to see that.”

There’s a rustling of sheets, and then—

Xie Lian feels San Lang take his hand, drawing it over the covers, twining their fingers.

“You’ve been carrying this for a long time, Gege,” he says softly, his words melting into the
fabric of the night. “There is nothing to apologize for. Not to me; not to anyone. I… I’m just
happy I was there when you needed me.”

Xie Lian squeezes his hand in gratitude. San Lang squeezes back.

“San Lang?”

“Hm?”

“Your special someone…”

The darkness chuckles. “You just can’t let it go, can you?”

“I know, I know, I’m a pest.” Xie Lian smiles, eyes drifting closed. “I just hope they know
how lucky they are, that’s all.”

If San Lang replies, Xie Lian doesn’t know, having finally surrendered to the dreamless sleep
of the emotionally exhausted.

--

Xie Lian wakes up alone.

He’s... slightly disappointed, though not surprised. He’s taken enough of San Lang’s time,
surely.

Thinking about the night before, Xie Lian can’t help but feel massively embarrassed. He
knows enough about grief to see how that moment was inevitable; he’d never really dealt
with the events of those few fateful days, let alone that night. Back then, he had just sat there,
no longer drunk but stunned solid. Everything that followed had gone down in some sleep-
walking state, and afterwards, he had been too busy surviving to process anything.

So yes, that moment has been a long time coming. But did it have to happen in front of San
Lang? Xie Lian’s luck has certainly been horrible ever since that night, but this is surely too
much?

And San Lang had been so gracious, so kind to him…

With a sigh, Xie Lian gets up.

He... overcharges? Almost leaps off the bed, anyway. Huh. He feels… lighter. Literally,
physically. For a moment, he has a half-terrifying, half-exhilarating feeling that, if he pushes
off hard enough, he’d float upward, like a man walking on the moon. He grins, shaking his
head at himself, but it does feel wonderful.

He doesn’t get to the kitchen until after he’s showered and gotten dressed, so it’s only then
that he sees the note waiting for him. His heart skips a beat as he picks it up. The atrocious—
ah, full-of-style—handwriting is familiar.

Gege,
I have to leave for a while. Thank you for your hospitality. This week has been a wish I didn’t
dare make coming true. Please take care of yourself. And, if I could press you for one more
favor —please take care of this for me, too.
Yours always,
SL

Xie Lian blinks and glances at the table. Only then does he notice a thin silver chain lying
there with a pendant looped through it. Xie Lian lifts it up to take a closer look.

It’s a ring made of some kind of mineral or crystal, by the feel of it—milky-white and half-
translucent, no bigger than two centimeters. San Lang wore jewelry often, usually silver,
sometimes mixed with leather, and usually with a butterfly motif, all of it high-end and
immaculately stylish. The ring—the necklace—seems almost too simple in comparison, and
Xie Lian has never seen San Lang wearing it.

Slowly, he becomes aware that, as he holds the pendant in his hand, something is happening.
Following an impulse, he puts the necklace on, the pendant resting comfortably against his
solar plexus. The unusual sensation intensifies, and with a start, Xie Lian realizes—

This is what it feels like when his qi becomes optimally balanced, after hours of proper
stretching and meditation. To experiment, he takes the necklace off; the sensation goes away.
He puts it back on, and he feeling comes back—stronger than before, as if the first contact
had served as some kind of initialization.

Xie Lian has never come across anything like this. He smiles softly—it seems he’s not the
only one with unusual secrets.

He tucks the pendant under his shirt so it’s out of sight, and a pleasant shiver runs through
him as the stone touches his skin.

He glances at the note again and feels a pang of sadness. Is the necklace a parting memento,
then? It feels like it. And Xie Lian should really be grateful for everything San Lang has done
for him, and he is, it’s just… His heart whines in his chest pitifully at the thought of not
seeing him again.

Suddenly, the entire week since they’ve met flashes before his eyes. San Lang panicking over
E’ming; San Lang teasing him; San Lang lifting him easily into his arms; San Lang handing
him the box with his new keys; San Lang sitting on the roof without protection, movements
confident, wind playing with his hair; San Lang admitting he’d painted the façade of the
clinic; San Lang and Banyue discussing something on the laptop in front of them, heads bent
close together.

San Lang saying ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea, Gege.’

But also—

‘If I had my way, you’d never be rid of me.’

San Lang’s a flirt. Xie Lian knows this. The first one had been sincere; he’ll never forget how
serious San Lang had looked at that moment. The second one had been a courtesy, something
to make him feel better as they’d both glazed over the awkwardness of the moment.

Xie Lian has never before experienced being let down easy; never had a chance, since he’s
never really fell in love with someone. Passing interest, moments of intrigue, but nothing—
no one who would have made him put his heart on the line. And to think he had the gall to
advise his friends without really knowing what they were going through…

Xie Lian shakes his head at himself. Arrogance, indeed.

A week? That was all it had taken? It feels like a lifetime.

He touches the pendant through his shirt, fabric concealing the white stone perfectly. Then,
he folds the note, places it between the pages of one of the few non-textbook titles that he
keeps, and goes to work.

--
 Chapter 4

--

The first few days are… a little rough.

Xie Lian doesn’t really get sad often—he’s usually too busy or tired—but in this case, he
does get a little melancholier. San Lang is gone, but the meteor-like presence in his life is
inescapable. Everywhere Xie Lian turns, there are traces of it, from the beautiful artwork on
the clinic’s façade, to his own front door, to the rain no longer leaking thanks to the fixed
roof. San Lang has left, but it’s like he’s made sure to be unforgettable.

Banyue is sad to hear San Lang won’t be coming around anymore, but she’s surprisingly
mature about it. If only she’d stop sending Xie Lian worried looks, like she’s afraid he’s
heartbroken or something, things would be perfect.

Xie Lian is not heartbroken. Xie Lian has simply… never had a friend like that, that’s all. But
he knows only too well about people needing to go their separate ways. He knows from
experience that clinging only makes it hurt worse.

Work is, thankfully, distracting enough, and it intensifies as if on cue or in payback for all the
hours Xie Lian had taken for himself last week. He munches on a homemade cookie someone
left on the donations table as he walks home, and desperately tries not to think.

--

A week passes; another one starts.

On Friday, Xie Lian finds himself in jail.

More precisely, he’s in lockup, awaiting processing, but he has, unfortunately, some
experience with this, so he knows it might take a while and there may not be an ostensible
difference in the meantime.

It’s not an overly large cell, with some twenty or thirty people milling about and none of
them looking friendly. Some glance at Xie Lian as he’s pushed inside, but most ignore him.
The reason for that, as he discovers within a few minutes, is that they already have a victim.

A boy of eighteen, perhaps nineteen, is cornered against the far wall. Xie Lian knows
instantly what the issue is and almost groans. The boy is beautiful, more than usually so, with
delicate features enhanced by skillfully applied makeup. He’s dressed well, if provocatively.
In this city, it would be hard to argue about his occupation or what he’s in for.

As Xie Lian watches, one inmate presses him against the wall, a hand over his mouth, while
another delivers a vicious punch to his abdomen. The boy’s yelp is muffled; the guard outside
acts blind and deaf.
Xie Lian moves before he knows it and intercepts the next blow with ease. He smiles at the
two men, shifting to shield the boy behind him.

“Hello there. If you want to spar that badly, why don’t you pick someone who can fight back,
hm?”

The burly man who was holding the boy restrained glares at him and spits. “What’s it to you?
Get lost!”

The second one cracks his knuckles. “What, do you like him? Is he your lover?”

“Ah, no,” Xie Lian says, and it’s as far as he gets before they attack and he—

Well, the next moment, both of his assailants are on the floor, groaning loudly and cursing.
Xie Lian observes them somewhat ruefully. There are certain reflexes one never loses, and
somewhere out there, his erstwhile martial arts master is smiling.

The rest of the cell regards Xie Lian appraisingly. Most of them look to be street fighters with
a lifetime of experience; the difference in fighting class must be apparent. Sadly, Xie Lian
knows how this one will go down, too—they’ll wait until he’s asleep—vulnerable—and will
come for him then.

The guards, of course, choose that moment to start paying attention, and the next thing Xie
Lian knows, he’s slammed face-first into the wall while they work him over with pacifying
sticks. They miss his head, thankfully, and the rest isn’t too bad. After that, Xie Lian finally
gets a respite.

He sits on the floor by the far wall, as far away from the others as he can. He doesn’t need to
ask for space; it’s created around him as if by magic. Gradually, the level of noise in the cell
goes back to what it was before, and Xie Lian is ostensibly dropped from their attention.

--

Almost.

“Thank you.” The young man slides to the floor next to him, makeup smeared but eyes
bright.

Xie Lian glances over. “Are you seriously hurt?”

The boy shrugs. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

This makes Xie Lian frown and reach for his wrist. The boy stiffens in surprise, but allows it.
Xie Lian listens carefully for a while, eyes half-closed.

“You’re fine,” he says after a while, letting go. “Those contusions will be painful, though.”
Only then does he realize that the boy has gone quiet next to him, staring at Xie Lian with his
jaw slack.

“Master, who are you?”

Xie Lian blinks, then lets out a soft laugh. “I’m not a master; you don’t have to call me that.”

“You went all… like you were glowing. And you were moving so fast!”

“Nonsense; I’m just a vet. My name is Xie Lian. It’s nice to meet you—?”

“I’m Lang Qianqiu. And I’m not…” He turns scarlet suddenly. “I’m not actually a... a
rentboy.”

Xie Lian wants to tell him that he wouldn’t have minded either way—it’s not up to him to
judge other people’s choices—but Lang Qianqiu doesn’t let him get a word in, launching
instead into a stammering explanation.

Lang Qianqiu is a college kid whose mates had set him up. They’d dared him to dress up as
an escort and knock on a professor’s door. The professor in question was a stick-in-the-mud,
apparently, and in dire need of a good fright, but his vengeful students had underestimated the
degree of his stodginess. He’d ended up calling the police, and then grabbed onto Lang
Qianqiu, whom he didn’t recognize under all the makeup. They’d still been fighting when the
police had arrived. Lang Qianqiu had panicked, given them a false name, and been hauled
away. He’s now waiting for one of his buddies to realize he’s missing and come fish him out.

“How will they know where to find you if you gave the police a false name?” Xie Lian asks.

Lang Qianqiu blinks. “Um. Well... I didn’t think of that.”

Xie Lian sighs. Apparently, he won’t be sleeping tonight at all.

“Why are you here, Mas—Mr. Xie?” Lang Qianqiu asks, still staring at him.

Xie Lian presses his palms against his face. “It’s a long story.”

To be fair, it’s only slightly less idiotic than Lang Qianqiu’s.

Three days ago, Xie Lian had realized he’d been inundated with patients with a very specific
problem. Suddenly, every other animal brought into the clinic had had complaints about their
digestive tracts, varying from mild irritation to severe poisoning and ulcers. As it turned out,
the people bringing them weren’t feeling that great, either.

Xie Lian had run some tests, realized the source of the poisoning was some highly toxic
chemicals, and set off to investigate. He’d tracked the chemicals to his patients’ water supply
and, from there, to a hastily organized ‘business’ manufacturing counterfeit printer cartridges.
Armed with the evidence, Xie Lian had gone to the district manager’s office. There, he’d
been given the runaround, and waited and waited until understanding the official had no
desire to talk to him.

The situation was dire. Xie Lian had decided to simply wait for the end of business hours and
accost the district manager in the garage as he went home. Although Xie Lian doesn’t think
he’d made any threatening moves, the district manager, evidently unprepared for his sudden
appearance, had jumped about a meter up in the air and screamed ‘Assault!’ at the top of his
lungs. Xie Lian’s second mistake of that night had been staying around and trying to reason
with him. Within an hour, he’d been apprehended and thrown into lockup.

“He was probably bribed,” Lang Qianqiu says grimly. “The bastards probably paid him off
and threatened him to turn a blind eye. No wonder he was jumpy.”

“Huh.” Xie Lian hasn’t considered such a possibility.

Lang Qianqiu shrugs. “My father is a city commissioner; I’ve heard about schemes like that a
lot.”

Ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter. Xie Lian has no way of talking to anyone outside until
he’s been processed, and therefore no means of warning people not to drink their water. Who
knows how much damage will be done by the time he can get the word out?

“It will be all right, Mr. Xie,” Lang Qianqiu tells him earnestly, taking Xie Lian by the hand
without a second thought—like it’s something people do—and squeezes it between his own.
“I’m sure someone will figure it out. And if not, I’ll be out of here soon, and I’ll tell them.
You don’t have to worry.”

Xie Lian finds himself rendered speechless and can only stare at Lang Qianqiu, unable to
decide which part of it to address first, let alone how. The moment is crudely broken,
however, when someone yells:

“Oh my God, they’re holding hands!”

“Disgusting!”

“You two want a minute alone?”

“Mind giving us a show?”

Xie Lian sighs, pulling his hand free. He doesn’t have it in him to reprimand the kid.

--

He doesn’t get to sleep that night, nor the night after that.

--

It’s two days before Xie Lian is finally released. He doesn’t know at first how it comes to be
until they bring him to a room with an actual inspector, who enlightens him between
questions.

Xie Lian had told Banyue where he was going. When he hadn’t returned, she’d gone to the
district manager’s office and found out, from the general commotion, that Xie Lian had been
arrested. After that, Banyue—shy and introverted to all but him, it had seemed—had grabbed
everything relevant she could find on Xie Lian’s computer, cornered the editor of her school
paper, and somehow made him transform the story into an article.
No one cared about what kids put in the school paper as long as it wasn’t anything subversive
—no one, that is, except for their parents. They’d first stormed the school until the harassed
administration had redirected their ire at the district manager, at which point they’d
descended on his office. Being great in numbers, loud, and with a few semi-prominent figures
among them, they’d been a lot more difficult to ignore than Xie Lian. Then, someone had
made a call to a journalist acquaintance from a major city paper, and things had begun
happening very fast.

The police had been forced to investigate. The shady ‘businessman’ was long in the wind, so
they’d had no better option than to arrest the district manager. Public safety inspectors hit the
ground. It was a major scandal, though fortunately with no fatalities.

A day later, someone had remembered Xie Lian, which was the kind of luck he never really
had. After he’d joyfully agree to hand over everything his investigation had uncovered and
not take any credit, the detective’s face had cleared, and he’d ordered his release with no
further delay.

It had been just in time to run into Lang Qianqiu, whose buddies had realized their screwup
and finally gotten the courage to call his father. His father, as Land Qianqiu had implied,
‘knew people,’ and his son had emerged from the ordeal unscathed.

They step outside together. Lang Qianqiu spots the ominously black town car waiting for him
and turns pale under the early morning sun. After three days in lockup with no access to
showers, he looks—and smells—a little worse for wear. Xie Lian suspects he doesn’t look
much better, though he at least doesn’t have three-day-old makeup smudged over his face.

Lan Qianqiu whirls on him and grabs his arm suddenly.

“Mr. Xie—Xie Lian, my father is going to lock me in the basement for about a million years
now, but he’ll have to let me out eventually. When he does, can I call you?”

Xie Lian, whose dearest ambition at the moment is to crawl into his bed and finally sleep,
blinks at him owlishly.

“Of course,” he intones, utterly confused. “Why couldn’t you call me..?”

“Great!” Lang Qianqiu beams at him with enough energy to have spent the last three days at
a spa somewhere. Before Xie Lian can respond to any of it, Lang Qianqiu grabs his phone
from where Xie Lian has stuffed it into his jeans pocket upon getting it back, puts in his
number, and texts himself, all faster than Xie Lian would have finished a single thought.

Lan Qianqiu hands him the phone back, and Xie Lian chuckles after looking over the screen.
He’s put himself in as ‘Cute Boy From Lockup (Not Really A Rentboy).’

Seeing his reaction, Lang Qianqiu grins widely at him, then runs his fingers nervously over
the inside of Xie Lian’s wrist—yet again, as if that’s something people do—and runs toward
the car.

Xie Lian only shakes his head. Goodness, he’s tired.

--

Banyue takes Xie Lian’s latest escapade—her word, not his—as a good enough excuse to
reveal her heretofore-unknown rebellious phase.

Namely, she acquires a boyfriend.

Strictly speaking, of course, Pei Su—no relation, just a coincidence—is a friend, but his
desire to be more is painfully obvious. He’s a year older, tall and classically good-looking, if
somewhat prone to melancholy. Apparently, he was instrumental in helping Banyue get the
article about Xie Lian’s investigation out. From stray words of their conversation, Xie Lian
gets the impression that Pei Su has known who Banyue is for a while now and had been
looking for a chance to connect. He remains a perfect gentleman, but his pining is both clear
and touching.

Banyue remains completely oblivious. Xie Lian wonders at this, since Banyue is generally
very perceptive and it’s odd that her observational skills would suddenly fail in this one area.
But perhaps there is another possibility. Perhaps Banyue simply isn’t interested in romance.

Pei Su starts hanging around the clinic, ostensibly to keep Banyue company. Xie Lian
observes them long enough to see that Pei Su would rather die than harm her and soon
relaxes.

“You guys don’t have to come by every day,” Xie Lian tells them. “I’m sure there are plenty
of things young people such as yourselves could be doing out there.”

Pei Su’s face registers protest, and Banyue frowns outright.

“Please stop talking like you’re our grandfather,” she tells him, eyes unyielding. “You’re
thirty-one, A-Lian. I’m sure you can afford to take at least one day off every once in a while,
and explore that world out there you keep talking about.”

Xie Lian glances away, his smile faltering. Banyue has been cross with him ever since he got
arrested, and her anger hasn’t thawed enough yet. Worse still, she seems to also be unwilling
to let him out of her sight.

Pei Su, in an admirable show of diplomacy, takes it upon himself to distract her by inviting
her out for ice cream. They’re back some forty minutes later, though, and Xie Lian gets a
half-melted chocolate cone shoved at him with clear exasperation. It isn’t much progress, but
it’s a start.

Within a week, life settles back into its predictable, familiar routine, and Xie Lian relaxes
slightly, finally attempting to take a fuller breath.

That’s when he gets the notice.

--

Banyue leaves the envelope on his desk after sorting through their mail, but the morning is so
busy that Xie Lian almost forgets. He finally gets to it after the lunch rush is over and only
because he’s left his phone on his desk—a lit-up message draws his attention.

Xie Lian looks over it with a confused smile. Lang Qianqiu is still under house arrest, and,
for some reason, he seems to prefer to spend his days texting Xie Lian anything he finds on
the internet and deems funny. Xie Lian doesn’t understand most of it, but asking him to stop
would be unkind. It’s all pretty harmless, and the boy’s father has probably forbidden him to
contact his friends. At the very least, Xie Lian admires Lang Qianqiu’s honesty, and so he lets
it be.

With a pang of some unclear emotion, he muses that he and San Lang had never exchanged
numbers. For the best, probably, or else Xie Lian might have done something embarrassing,
like call him or send him a video of a kitten climbing into a jar. Xie Lian shakes his head at
himself with a smile.

It slips, though, as he remembers the envelope.

--

His heart starts behaving oddly as he takes in the very official look of it, the somber red ink.
He opens it.

It’s a notice informing him that his bank has sold his debt to a third party.

Xie Lian stares at the notice blankly, then rereads it five times in a row, but it doesn’t reveal
any additional information. There is nothing about an increase of interest, or a change in the
payments schedule, or… anything else, really. Just that the new owner of the building—until
Xie Lian pays off his debt, presumably—is some entity called Crimson Rain Corp. Xie Lian
has never heard of them, but then, he’d made a conscious effort to stay far away from
business news ever since his father had died.

Lost in his anxious musings, he doesn’t register when Banyue and Pei Su come in. Banyue
takes the notice from his hand and quickly scans it, Pei Su reading over her shoulder.

“Huh,” she says, eyebrows furrowed. “We got one, too, then.”

Xie Lian blinks; anything to deal with finances is guaranteed to put him in a semi-comatose
pre-panic-attack state.

“What do you mean, ‘too’?”

“People all over the block have been getting them,” Banyue explains, giving the notice back.
“They’ve been talking about it. Every store owner… even Madam Liu’s laundry service and
the incense shop at the corner.”

“Everyone got them?” Xie Lian lifts his eyebrows. “And they’re all from this… Crimson
Rain Corp.?”

“Yeah.” Banuye nods. “I don’t know who they are, though.”

“I do,” Pei Su pipes up. “They covered it in our business class. It’s a huge corporation—only
established a few years ago, but it basically took over half the market in one go.”

“What do they do?” Xie Lian asks, stomach sinking.

“Bit of everything, I think.” Pei Su frowns. “Finance, investment, development… something

else. I only remember that they’re really diversified, and it’s considered bad, since normally
that would get them to overstretch and fail, but they haven’t yet. That’s why we studied them;
it’s a really interesting case. They beat every model made for them.”

A company like that is coming for them all?

Xie Lian experiences a sense of vertigo, sitting right there in his chair. He looks around a
little desperately, as if expecting to see the walls of the clinic—the only real home he’s
known for years—to dissipate in front of his eyes.

Abruptly, he remembers Mr. Whiskers, back for another IV drip, and rushes to the back room
to check on him, as though he might already be gone. Mr. Whiskers only turns his head
toward Xie Lian lazily, blinks, and then angles his neck, demanding cuddles.

Xie Lian pets him absentmindedly, his thoughts jumping to the beautiful artwork on the
clinic’s façade. Will he have to lose that, too?

He returns to the outer room, ashamed. The responsibility is his; this is no way to act.

Banyue watches him with concern, then tugs at his sleeve.

“I heard the others are gathering at Mr. Mo’s noodle shop later today to talk about it. Maybe
they know more?”

Xie Lian blinks and straightens, newly energized. “Right, of course!”

That’s a reasonable thing to do—talk to the others. After all, Mei Nianqing was the only
person who actually owned the building he worked from, until he’d mortgaged it to the bank.
Everyone else had rental contracts. They have to be just as unsettled as Xie Lian, and they
might know more. There’s no need to panic just yet. Perhaps… perhaps it’ll all work out?

--

He closes an hour early, his anxiety spiked so high he doesn’t even feel bad about it.

Mr. Mo doesn’t particularly like Xie Lian, and, while the offense is old, the man’s displeasure
has seemed to linger. Back when Xie Lian had first wandered through the neighborhood, and
before Mei Nianqing took him in, he’d been desperate for any kind of job and begged Mr.
Mo to hire him as a server. He’d still been recovering from his injuries and surgery and got
dizzy at the smell of food sometimes, the sensation of nausea intense enough to make him
stumble and trip. Not ideal for a server—he'd only lasted four days, getting thrown out after a
hand had grabbed his thigh during his walk over and he’d spilled everything rather
spectacularly, breaking the table he'd fallen onto in the process. Later, when Xie Lian was
already working at the clinic, he’d tried to make amends and pay back for everything he’d
destroyed, but despite taking the money, Mr. Mo had refused to accept his apology and
forbade him from ever entering his shop again.

His need for information is far greater than his lingering embarrassment, though. He can
always apologize and leave if Mr. Mo gets angry.

Right now, though, it seems like neither Mr. Mo nor anyone else cares at all. The shop is
indeed full of people, and Xie Lian recognizes his neighbors easily—all of their faces are
creased in concern. Xie Lian slips through the doors and stays in the back, listening.

“I won’t stand for it!” Bo Duyi, the owner of a guest house from across the street, proclaims
loudly. “He can’t do that! It’s—it’s unlawful!”

“Since when does Hua Cheng care about the law?” someone cuts in scathingly. “Be grateful
he’s giving you a week’s notice!”

“Grateful?!” Bo Duyi roars. “You want me to be grateful to that scum of the earth for kicking
me out of my own home?!”

Xie Lian feels his jaw slacken. What? Can things really be so much worse than he’d thought?

“Don’t know what you’re so mad about—your place has been a safety hazard for years!”
Zhao Shu, a confident-looking middle-aged woman who runs a bookstore down the street,
interrupts. “Now, I run a respectable business. Clearly, Hua Cheng can see that, since he
offered to buy me out.”

This seems to incense Bo Duyi further, and the noodle shop submerges into the perfect storm
of his rage for a while.

“Who’s Hua Cheng?” Xie Lian whispers to the person standing next to him—a young lady
whose name he can’t remember but who has a handmade accessories stall a little further
down.

“You don’t know?” She seems surprised. “What kind of rock have you been living under?”

She explains as the others continue their heated discussion, and Xie Lian pieces it all together
slowly, unnerved by every new bit of information.

--

Hua Cheng, it turns out, is the head of Crimson Rain Corp. His past is shrouded in mystery,
but most people seem to agree that he used to be part of a gang.

Xie Lian turns cold as he hears that—not again. For a moment, he’s thrown back to the
image of terrified dark eyes, hazy with pain, pale hand covered in blood grasping his wrist in
a desperate grip, Wu Ming’s breaking voice whispering, ‘Leave me, leave me. Run!’

He barely manages to force himself to listen further.

The rumor is that Hua Cheng, under a different name, used to belong to the Hu Gang as a
child. Even as vicious as it was, they had clearly underestimated how vicious Hua Cheng
would grow up to be. He’d still been a teenager, apparently, when he had seemingly gone
mad, staged a coup, had somehow succeeded, and ended up with the ‘family’ wealth. He had
disappeared for a while after that and could not be unearthed, despite considerable effort. It
was widely rumored that he had died.

Then, just as suddenly as he’d vanished, he’d reappeared, no longer a feral, blood-covered
thing but a confident young master. He spoke like had been educated in the world’s best
schools and behaved like he had the backing of the most powerful clan, though neither was
the case. He had, apparently, made some kind of deal with the government, or possibly the
devil. Either way, he’d emerged as an upstanding citizen with a squeaky-clean record, taken
the name Hua Cheng, established Crimson Rain Corp., and proceeded to terrorize whatever
new market drew his eye.

As a legally operating entrepreneur, he had a reputation of being ruthless and brazen, yet
somehow never losing, and having truly supernatural foresight. The moment he’d amassed
some capital, he’d gone after a number of long-established companies and corporations.
What had followed was a series of hostile takeovers of fifteen companies, some of them with
histories spanning over a decade. It seemed that Hua Cheng had been set to self-destruct
going after so many at the same time, but within a year, he’d taken over all of them, then split
them apart and sold them off piece by piece.

Xie Lian, to his shock, recognizes the names of most of the companies mentioned—old
business partners of his father, before they had set him up for embezzlement. Much as he had
tried to erase their names from his memory, he’d never really been able to. Many of them had
chosen to end their own lives after Hua Cheng had finished with them.

Xie Lian shudders. What grudge had this Hua Cheng had against them? Had Xie Lian’s
father still been alive, would Hua Cheng have gone after him as well? Should Xie Lian worry
about his remaining distant family?

Having ruined fifteen major companies, Hua Cheng had acquired enough wealth to be able to
buy half the country. He’d then proceeded to invest his earnings and is considered a unique
phenomenon in the business world, since none of his ventures have ever failed.

At the moment, he owned a highly successful chain of restaurants, three luxury hotels, a
cutting-edge telecom company, a delivery service, a law firm, an advertising agency, and
many smaller enterprises. One of his most notable creations was Ghost City—and it really
was a city within a city, with luxury apartments, world-class entertainment center, a casino, a
nightclub, and a spa park. It was rumored that the authorities did not venture in there, and all
kinds of deals went down within its borders. All before turning twenty-five and without any
kind of notable, track-down-able credentials! It seemed that Hua Cheng had more power than
God.

Still, he was rumored to be temperamental, impulsive, and capricious. His moods changed
unpredictably, and no one could ever know what to expect from him. The business elite still
scoff at him behind his back, calling him a child and a nobody, though none would repeat it
to his face.
And now, it seems, this incredibly powerful and, frankly, terrifying man is interested in their
little part of the city.

Xie Lian listens with growing trepidation that only becomes deeper as he realizes something
else—Hua Cheng has apparently decided to buy this entire block, renovate and redesign it as
he sees fit. Some business owners, therefore, received an offer to buy them out. Xie Lian has
no idea what prices are fair for something like that, but, from what he overhears, it seems that
Hua Cheng is being pretty generous. If they don’t want to sell, they have an option of being
compensated for the time they won’t be operational and then of renting the space again—
from Hua Cheng this time—at a rate similar to present. Xie Lian is no businessman, but, to
his ears, that sounds unusually kind.

Not everyone has received an offer like that, however. The guest house owner, Bo Duyi, was
informed in no uncertain terms that he had to vacate the premises at the end of the week. If he
wanted to come back after the renovations were complete, the rent for him would be three
times the amount he’s paying now. That would put him out of business, and he is
understandably upset about it.

Something stirs in Xie Lian’s memory at the mention of upping the rent. When he’d first
come to the neighborhood, he’d rented a room from Bo Duyi. It wasn’t much even back then,
but he couldn’t afford better, and his last money had gone to pay the deposit. He was relieved
he’d had just enough for it at the time. Roach-infested and cold it might have been, and Xie
Lian had very nearly thrown up the first time he saw the yellowish, torn bedding, but it had
put a roof over his head, giving him a semblance of safety.

Unfortunately, Bo Duyi had had some kind of feud with Mei Nianqing, and at the time Xie
Lian had already been Mei Nianqing’s apprentice. After the two fought, Bo Duyi had stormed
into Xie Lian’s room late into the night and demanded Xie Lian pay him three times the
amount they’d agreed upon or get lost immediately. Xie Lian hadn’t had the money, so he’d
left. He’d slept in the clinic’s basement for a while, as Bo Duyi claimed Xie Lian had
damaged the furniture and kept his deposit, and Xie Lian had tripped over a chair once,
coming home late and exhausted and not having learned the lay of the room yet, so that was
fair.

He's not so arrogant as to believe that this is some kind of karmic justice. He doesn’t care
about Bo Duyi and his old grievance against Xie Lian’s master. Xie Lian has a place to stay,
and he hasn’t thought about any of it in years.

Mr. Mo is another person who has gotten a less than savory offer. In fact, his letter informed
him he owed money to Crimson Rain Corp., so not only does he have to vacate, he is now in
debt! A couple more people complain of a similar treatment, and, although none of them
would so much as nod at Xie Lian on the street for various reasons, he still feels freaked out
about it. Even the people who have gotten good offers don’t look too thrilled.

“Who knows if we can trust this Hua Cheng?” Zhao Shu is saying with a deep frown. “He’s
fickle, like an undisciplined child. What if he changes his mind again tomorrow?”

Xie Lian’s problem, however, is even worse than that.

He hasn’t received any offers, or demands, at all.

--

Xie Lian slips from the noodle shop quietly, his head buzzing.

All right, so maybe no offer was understandable. He still owes money to the bank, after all—
or, to Hua Cheng now, as it were.

But why, then, was he not asked to leave?

The clinic, for all that it seemed cramped most days, takes up a lot of space. There is no way
Xie Lian can afford to rent even a quarter of it, never mind the whole building. The only
reason he hasn’t failed to make the bank payments this month is because of the generous
donations made by concerned parents after the whole poisoned water supply debacle.

What is he to do now?

Pei Su and Banyue are still hanging out at the clinic when he comes back, doing homework
and keeping an eye on Mr. Whiskers. Xie Lian doesn’t have it in him to shoo them away, and
the moment his gaze falls on Pei Su, the boy jumps to his feet.

“I’ll walk her home, sir! Don’t worry.”

Xie Lian rubs at his temples. “Please, don’t call me ‘sir’. I’ll walk you both home in a
minute; just…”

Banyue presses a cup of tea into his hand. Xie Lian drinks automatically, then stares at the
cup blankly.

San Lang got him the cups. Xie Lian can’t remember when; they were just... there at some
point.

He feels a sharp pang of longing, wishing desperately he could talk to his friend right now.
Somehow, San Lang’s presence made every trouble seem… less dire.

Banyue and Pei Su drag it all out of him as he walks them home. The three of them walk in
appreciative silence as Xie Lian stops speaking.

“Maybe we just haven’t gotten it yet?” Banyue ventures after a while. “You know, maybe it’s
still coming? It seems we did get the notice later than everyone else.”

“Oh.” Xie Lian hasn’t thought of that. “Yes. Maybe.”

So now he gets to live in fear of when the other shoe will drop. What is he to do? Does he tell
his clients? Do they need to be looking for another vet? Some of the animals they bring
depend on getting regular treatment…

Xie Lian’s head hurts.

--

They drop Banyue off first, naturally. Pei Su turns toward him then, eyes haunted.

“You don’t have to walk with me, Laoshi. I’ll be fine from here. Or maybe… maybe I should
walk you home instead.”

Xie Lian blinks, then smiles. “I don’t look that bad, surely?”

“No!” Pei Su hastens to reply. “No, it’s not—it’s just… You, ah… seem distracted.”

Xie Lian nods, pats his shoulder. “I have a lot on my mind. Come on.”

He gets the kid home safely, but his own horrible luck holds steady, which means he’s
jumped the moment he turns the corner. Xie Lian is more exasperated than anything.

“I honestly don’t have anything valuable on me,” he tells the trio in front of him.

“He’s right,” one of them spits, looking at Xie Lian’s battered phone peeking out from his
jeans pocket. “I wouldn’t be caught dead with that thing.”

“Shut up, we can still sell it,” another one says, pushing his partner slightly. “That and the
pretty chain on his neck. Hand them over, Mister, and be on your way.”

“Ah,” Xie Lian says, hand closing over the crystal ring under his shirt protectively. That was
his biggest fear when he’d been arrested, that it’d be taken away. For some reason, the cops
had ignored it as if they couldn’t see it. “No. We won’t be doing that. I can give you my
phone if you want, just let me get the sim-card, but that’s all—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” the third man says, sounding older than his two companions. “Just get
it.”

Xie Lian intends to be gentle up until the moment they pull out knives. After that, he’s just
too tired to be responsible.

--

He comes home with his possessions intact but minus one t-shirt. The cut on his abdomen
isn’t deep enough to need stitches; Xie Lian cleans and dresses it, barely glancing at the
cobweb of old scars all over his stomach. There’s another cut across his cheekbone, but that
one has already stopped bleeding and won’t even need dressing, just a thorough go with
disinfectant.

The t-shirt is a goner, though. Blood could possibly have been washed out, but the cut is right
across the front, and Xie Lian has never been good at mending clothes.

His assailants will take longer to heal, he muses with no particular emotion. Broken bones
take time, though he’d been gentle in the end; nothing he did will be permanent. He now has
three more knives to add to his collection of confiscated weaponry. He’d sell them online, if
not for the thought that they’d just end up right back where he’d found them.
Then again, he thinks as he readies himself for sleep, if he loses the clinic, he’ll have no
means or reason to stay around any longer. Maybe he should treasure these moments for
future bouts of nostalgia.

--

Neither the next day nor the one after that produces any more official letters.

Xie Lian is at the end of his rope. After yet another person asks him if the clinic will still be
open next week, he realizes this can’t go on.

“I have to go there,” he says, staring at the address at the bottom of the notice page. “I have to
go there and—and talk to… to someone. Whoever’s responsible for this part of the business.”

“How will you know who that is?” Banyue asks.

“I won’t,” Xie Lian sighs. “And I doubt they’d tell me if I’m just a random voice on the
phone. But if I go there and prove my identity, maybe they’ll let me make an appointment.”

Banyue blinks, looking slightly scared and then suddenly thoughtful.

“Well,” she says, “you can’t go dressed like that.”

Xie Lian knows this. His father would have probably died again, if he saw his son attending
any sort of business meeting wearing jeans. ‘You have to show people you respect them and
that you respect yourself’ still rings in Xie Lian’s ears.

That poses a problem, however. Whatever high-end wardrobe he possessed once upon a time,
he had either lost or pawned a long time ago. He did intend to save at least one suit to go to
possible interviews, but...

After ransacking his apartment, he finds it—after a fashion. The jacket is simply gone
without a trace, as if it has been sucked into a different dimension. The grey pants are still
there, thankfully, though in dire need of pressing and cleaning. The jacket had never looked
right on him anyway.

After some more digging, he unearths not the button-down he had hoped for, but a long-
sleeved tunic that had once been a shinier, pearlier white, now more washed out. Still, better
than a t-shirt.

He runs over to Madam Liu’s and has the clothes cleaned and pressed, paying extra for rush
service. He has no problem cutting his food budget in view of the emergency, and people still
bring some to the clinic, so it’s not like he’ll starve.

His wardrobe, however, proves problematic to the end. The tunic still fits his shoulders well,
though it falls a lot more loosely around him than he remembers things like that should fit.
The pants, though, are a real headache. They slip off his waist, as if having grown two sizes
just to spite him. Xie Lian lowkey panics until Madam Liu takes pity on him.
“Here,” she says, handing him a belt. “People forget these all the time. Just bring it back, will
you?”

Xie Lian thanks her profusely and puts it on. He still looks like a kid wearing his older
brother’s clothes, but at least he’s not in danger of indecent exposure.

With that, there are no more excuses, and he goes to catch a train to the center.

--

Xie Lian hasn’t ventured into the more populated, better developed, and wealthier parts of the
city in quite some time. Everything seems even bigger and brighter now, more loud, more
expensive, modern, just more. He almost can’t believe he used to feel at home in places like
this—the remote little neighborhood he’s settled in looks shabbier in comparison by the
minute, and, being submerged in it, Xie Lian has stopped noticing. The contrast is
devastating, and for all that he grew up in the even more opulent surroundings of the capital,
he feels like a fish out of water.

Crimson Rain Corp. occupies an entire skyscraper, and the closer he gets, the more nervous
Xie Lian feels. All around him are confident, sharply dressed men and women using gadgets
that look like they could launch the entire neighborhood into space. To say that Xie Lian feels
so underdressed that he’s embarrassed just being close to the building would be akin to
saying that the rain was a little on the wet side when it hit the ground.

Biting his lip, Xie Lian tries to remember the last time he’d gotten a professional haircut.
He’d brushed his hair and left it loose, apart from his usual messy bun that kept it away from
his face. What made him think that would be all right? It’s too late to do anything now, but
he’s never felt more like a country hick than he does in the middle of this slick, polished
crowd.

He can’t help touching the hidden crystal ring over his shirt, though he refrains from
grabbing it and wrinkling the fabric. That, at least, gives him some reassurance. He squares
his shoulders and keeps going.

Having crossed a small, intricately designed park with impressive fountains, he finally faces
the entrance, taking a deep breath. He’s been kicked out of many other places over the years
and survived, so what’s the worst that could happen here? He needs to know what will
become of him; that’s the important part.

--

Xie Lian doesn’t know what he’s been expecting, but, despite the sinister name of the
company, the inside of the lobby-reception area doesn’t look too threatening. There are
tasteful touches of the namesake color here and there, but nothing garish. There are even
some puffy seats and bean bag chairs by the tall windows, evidently an area where visitors
can relax. For a moment, Xie Lian is thoroughly tempted to just go there and pretend he’s
here for the free wifi, but he perseveres.
“Good afternoon, sir. How may I help you?” one of the—seventeen—receptionists asks him
with a smile.

“Um…” Xie Lian says, blushing furiously and feeling utterly at sea. All his carefully
rehearsed words have flown out the window. “Uh—hello, hi. Um, sorry. So the thing is, I
received this—” He hands the young woman the notice, somewhat wrinkled now. “And—and
I was wondering if I could talk to the person who’s—who’s overseeing this project? I don’t
have an appointment!” he hastens to add. “But if I could make one, that would be—that is, I
would really appreciate it.”

God, if only he could self-immolate, he would do so gladly on the spot! He must sound like a
complete idiot.

The receptionist, however, hasn’t interrupted him, and she isn’t laughing. There’s a crease of
concentration between her perfectly shaped eyebrows as she scans the notice quickly.

“One moment please, Doctor Xie,” she says, and Xie Lian almost jumps in surprise, until he
remembers that his name and the clinic’s address is printed on the notice. “I need to make an
inquiry, then I can direct you. If you would—oh, Mr. Yin, sir!”

Xie Lian does start then, as the young woman’s eyes suddenly widen, fixed on something
behind his shoulder. Xie Lian turns around and nearly jumps again. He never noticed
someone was standing beside him, let alone so close!

The man standing next to him is slightly taller than Xie Lian—though honestly, who isn’t—is
dressed entirely in black, the polished cut of his suit unquestionably tailor-made. His hair is
also longer, gathered in an impeccable ponytail. His features are… Xie Lian blinks. The man
has a face that is utterly unmemorable and flees any attempt to describe it.

The way he’s looking at Xie Lian, though, is anything but unnoticeable. He’s taking Xie Lian
in with an intense focus, as if cataloging him from the points of his battered shoes to the top
of his head.

Xie Lian freezes like a deer in the headlights. The man has an understated but clearly lethal
aura around him. Is he the head of security who’d just happened to wander by? Xie Lian
hasn’t done anything wrong, but…

“Your name is Xie Lian?” the man asks in a voice as bland as his face. “Doctor Xie of the—”
he rattles off the address of Xie Lian’s clinic.

Xie Lian tries to swallow, but his throat is dry. Why would a man like that know him on
sight?

“Yes,” he says.

The man’s expression remains tense, though his tone is unwaveringly polite. “Doctor, why
are you here?”
“I—” Xie Lian turns back toward the receptionist on instinct. He doesn’t feel he can do better
the second time explaining, as words get stuck in his throat. He feels his cheeks begin to
burn. “Uh…”

“He came in with this,” the young woman jumps in, rising from her seat behind the counter
and handing Mr. Yin the notice. She then gives Xie Lian a reassuring smile. “Doctor Xie
wanted to speak to whoever is in charge of this project.”

Mr. Yin takes the sheet of paper from her, scans it in a blink, and looks back at Xie Lian. “I
see.”

Xie Lian lifts his hands up. “I only wanted to ask—” he starts, then flails. “Only, ah… my
neighbors all got some kind of, ah… instructions, whereas I—I didn’t, and I only wanted to
ask how—how long I can stay, the clinic can stay open, that is, and if I owe money, then how
much and—and—”

“Oh, goddamn it, heads will roll,” Mr. Yin mutters, and the receptionist utters a squealing
noise, looking stricken.

“You mean—” she squeaks, before clapping a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

“What else could I mean?” Mr. Yin grumbles, a dark frown over his face. His expression
changes as he looks at Xie Lian. “Doctor Xie, when did you receive this?”

Xie Lian blinks. “Two—no wait, three days ago.”

Mr. Yin’s face freezes.

Xie Lian hastens to explain. “I wouldn’t have bothered any—anyone, but—but people kept
asking me if… if, ah, their pets can still get treatment next week and so on, and I didn’t know
what to say or—or who to contact.”

Mr. Yin stares at him a moment longer. Xie Lian has the distinct impression he’s calculating
the many ways in which he can kill Xie Lian and get rid of the body.

“All right, we’re all dead, let’s move on,” Mr. Yin declares in a flat tone and nods at the
receptionist. “Round up every single person whose fault this is. I want to at least have the
pleasure of wringing their necks before the boss wrings mine.”

“Yes, sir!” She falls back into her chair and begins typing furiously.

“Um,” Xie Lian says, looking between them. “I seem to have created some kind of trouble.
I’m sorry.”

Mr. Yin shakes his head, folding the paper and tucking it into an inner pocket of his jacket.
“Doctor Xie, unless you actually want to see my head on a pike, please don’t apologize. A fu
—mix up happened. It’s not your fault. Please come with me; I will take you to the person
you need to see.”
“Really?” Xie Lian smiles in relief, unable to believe that it was so easy. “Oh, thank you!
And thank you for your help!” he addresses the receptionist.

The young woman blinks in surprise, then smiles tentatively at him. “My pleasure, Doctor
Xie.”

“This way, Doctor Xie.” Mr. Yin steps aside almost deferentially to show him the way.

--

Xie Lian is startled at the attitude and is beginning to suspect there’s been some kind of
misunderstanding.

“I won’t take up much time,” he says. “I know I’m here without an appointment.”

“Doctor Xie, please—please stop saying things like that. We owe you an apology. You were
not supposed to get that notice.”

Xie Lian blinks. “I wasn’t? But—but didn’t Crimson Rain Corp. buy my debt from the
bank?”

“Yes, it did,” Mr. Yin sighs. “I’ll let the boss explain.”

Xie Lian’s eyebrows rise. “You’re taking me to see your boss?”

“Yes.”

“And your boss is—?”

“My name is Yin Yu, Doctor Xie. I am the chief operations officer of Crimson Rain Corp.”

Huh. So not security, then.

“The only boss I have is the man himself—Hua Cheng.”

Xie Lian stops dead. Yin Yu stops with him, looking at him calmly.

“Hua Cheng?” Xie Lian asks feebly, on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Yes.”

“You’re taking me to see Hua Cheng?!”

“Yes.”

“But—but I don’t need to see him!” Xie Lian flails. “I only need to talk to whoever—to—”

“To the man responsible for what will happen to your clinic, yes,” Yin Yu says with
seemingly infinite patience. “That is Hua Cheng. Furthermore, Doctor Xie, if he finds out
you’ve been here and I didn’t take you to see him, he will fire me. And by ‘fire,’ I mean cut
off my head and use it for a fruit bowl.”
“But why?” Xie Lian manages. “I don’t understand what I’ve done to... for this! Have I
offended him somehow? I’ve never even met the man!”

Then again, neither have any of his neighbors.

Yin Yu presses his lips together tightly. “It will all be clear once you meet him.” Taking in
Xie Lian’s expression, he adds, “Doctor Xie, I promise, you have nothing to worry about.
Please, come with me.”

Xie Lian follows him meekly, his mind running a mile a minute. Every scary story he’s heard
about Hua Cheng in the past few days is clamoring for attention in his head. The man seems
vindictive in the most old-fashioned way. Has Xie Lian offended him? How? When? His luck
is terrible, so what if—

He purposefully focuses on his surroundings, since a panic attack will solve nothing at this
point. Yin Yu takes him to an elevator at the far side of the hall. There is no call button, just a
security scanner. Yin Yu presses some kind of medallion on a keychain to it, and only then
does the elevator allow them in. There is only one button on the panel, with no lettering
whatsoever. Yin Yu waves his medallion over it, and the elevator starts to move.

Xie Lian absorbs the sensation of being lifted to incredible heights in mere seconds. His
stomach feels like it hasn’t quite caught up by the time the doors slide open.

“This way, please,” Yin Yu says and steps aside again.

Xie Lian steps into a spacious room, stylishly decorated in shades of black and dark brown
with red and steel-grey accents. He only realizes it’s another reception area when he sees a
huge desk, domineered by an equally big computer screen and all sorts of gadgets.

Behind it sits a young man. Like everyone else Xie Lian has met today, he’s dressed well
enough to be on the cover of a fashion magazine. His short hair has been dyed into an
amazingly real shade of silver, his black eyes seem lively and attentive, and his whole
demeanor is a little too light, too youthful, for the somber surroundings. Xie Lian likes him
immediately.

The young man, who must be Hua Cheng’s personal assistant, looks up as the elevator doors
open. His eyebrows arch slightly as he sees Yin Yu. When his gaze drifts toward Xie Lian,
however, his mouth falls open slightly, and he stands up at once.

If Yin Yu finds this behavior abnormal, he doesn’t say so.

“What’s he doing?” he asks expressionlessly as they approach the desk.

The young man touches his earpiece in a reflexive gesture, then lowers his hand.

“He’s on the call with Shi Wudu’s people.” He winces. “There’s a lot of yelling.”

He’s still staring at Xie Lian in almost child-like fascination, as if Xie Lian is some kind of
magical creature. Xie Lian gives him a tentative smile. The young man’s eyes widen a
fraction further, then he returns it, as if trying it out for the first time.
Yin Yu snaps his fingers in front of his face, and the young man flinches.

“Sorry,” he mutters, sounding contrite.

“I wouldn’t let the boss catch you do that, if I were you,” Yin Yu says dryly. “Interrupt him.”

“Um, maybe—”

“Shi Wudu’s people, not Shi Wudu?” Yin Yu arches an eyebrow. “Interrupt him. I’m
surprised he took the call to begin with.”

The young assistant makes a face, pulling up something on his screen. “He was bored, I
think. Plus, Ling Wen insisted.”

“Next time, tell Ling Wen she can’t use him as her personal A-bomb whenever she runs into
a snag,” Yin Yu grumbles. “He off yet?”

The young man watches something flicker on his screen, then looks up and nods.

Yin Yu turns toward Xie Lian. “Doctor Xie, please wait here for just a moment.” With that,
he walks over toward the tall, ornate doors, and slips inside without knocking.

Xie Lian watches him go, his heart thundering in his chest. When he flicks his eyes back
toward the desk, he finds the young man watching him again.

“God, I’m sorry,” the assistant says hastily, color rising in his cheeks. “Uh, my name is Zhu
Ling, sir. It’s such an honor to meet you.” He bows.

Xie Lian stares, then, snapping out of it, bows back. “It’s an honor to meet you, too?” he
says, not quite managing to hide his bewilderment. “My name is Xie Lian.”

“Yes, I know!” Zhu Ling laughs. “I can’t believe I got to meet you. You—you look… you’re
so… I, ah—”

“Zhu Ling,” Yin Yu’s cold voice interrupts him as he reappears in the doorway. “Are you
perhaps tired of living?”

Zhu Ling drops back into his chair, all but hiding behind the screen.

“Doctor Xie, please come in,” Yin Yu says, and this time, as he steps aside, he shows no
intention to follow.

Xie Lian walks through the door that closes behind him with an audible click, engaging some
kind of lock. He looks up and freezes.

Hua Cheng’s office is huge. Xie Lian’s entire apartment could fit in here three times over
with room to spare. The décor here is, for a surprise, more traditional, though clearly
reinterpreted by someone who is both familiar with modern trends and knows how to tame
them with good taste. It creates a clear sense of power, yet isn’t uncomfortable or
unwelcoming. Xie Lian thinks, a little hysterically, that he would have quite liked this space
at any other time.

Any time other than when he has come up here to meet Hua Cheng and finds San Lang
standing in the middle of the room, looking straight at him.
 Chapter 5
Chapter Notes

Thank you so much for leaving feedback, it gives me hope I can finish this. ♥

--

A helpless “Oh” slips past Xie Lian’s lips.

Is he perhaps hallucinating? How can this be?

And then a familiar voice he’d gotten used to missing cuts through the last of his doubt.

“Gege.”

“San… San Lang?” Xie Lian stammers. “You… your name is… Hua Cheng?”

“It’s just a name, Gege. I’m not a demon. You can say it.”

He starts toward Xie Lian, and Xie Lian takes an instinctive step back before he knows it.
Hua Cheng freezes.

“Gege, please, just hear me out,” Hua Cheng pleads softly. “I never meant to deceive you. I
was going to tell you everything the next time we saw each other, but I got stuck here—
fucking red tape.” He sighs. “No matter how many people work here, there are things only I
can do, and—”

Xie Lian drops his gaze to the floor, unable to process.

“Is E’ming even your dog?” he asks quietly. “Or was it all part of a…”

Hua Cheng’s voice is suddenly a lot closer. “Of course E’ming is my dog. Do you really
think I would have brought him to you, or let you do what you did, if I hadn’t been
desperate?”

Xie Lian reels back, almost stumbling. “Oh.”

“Gege, no, not like that!” Hua Cheng steps closer to him, then stops, as if having met some
invisible barrier, and huffs in frustration. “That came out wrong. Just—just listen. Please.” He
exhales roughly.

“Yes, we’d been looking for a new investment field for a while, and we’d been scouting your
neighborhood; I even went myself once or twice. And then E’ming got sick, and when no one
here could help him, I remembered what I’d heard about you, and brought him. And then—”

Xie Lian keeps staring at his shoes, head bowed. “And then what?” he asks, hating the way
his voice shakes around the edges. “Was it fun, to—”

“No. No,” Hua Cheng interrupts fiercely. “After that first night, I—I couldn’t stay away. I
saw what you were doing, and I—respect your work so much. I wanted to help. And we…
we connected, didn’t we?” There’s another sound, like he finally found a way to move closer.

“I don’t want to sound pathetic, but I’m not spoiled for friends, Gege. I couldn’t resist getting
to know you. I was always going to tell you the truth, but there never seemed to be the right
moment, and then I had to leave. You were never supposed to get that notice in your mail—I
was going to come over in person and explain everything. I would have gone already, but…”

Xie Lian doesn’t know what his reaction to this is. His mind feels like a buzzing void.

“What’s going to happen to the clinic?” he asks.

“Nothing!” Hua Cheng makes an abortive gesture toward him, as if reaching to grab his arm
then stopping himself. “Nothing, I promise you. But your bank was robbing you blind, and I
couldn’t have someone like that operating in my territory. Those interest rates were criminal.
Your… predecessor must have been really strapped for cash if he agreed to that kind of
contract.”

Xie Lian bites his lip. “Gambling debts; he probably was.”

He sees as Hua Cheng’s hand curls into a fist, though his voice is calm when he speaks. “That
figures.”

“So,” Xie Lian says, something in him dying as his mind jumps to the next possible
conclusion. “Now I owe you money?”

“No!” Hua Cheng exclaims. “Your account has been transferred to a partner bank—their rates
are fair—and I’ve renegotiated your contract. You’ll still be making monthly payments,
nothing has changed there, and I’ll just be… uh, I’ll act as a guarantor, that’s all. I won’t
interfere.”

The corner of Xie Lian’s mouth twitches. “Forgive me, but that sounds too good to be true.”

A hand reaches for him, then drops again.

“You’re not getting special treatment,” Hua Cheng assures him. “You just won’t be subjected
to highway robbery anymore, that’s all.”

Xie Lian closes his eyes for a moment. Naïve as he is when it comes to finances, he’s not a
fool. Of course he’s getting special treatment. Who wouldn’t when the Hua Cheng negotiates
for him and acts as a guarantor? Xie Lian will owe him no matter the arrangement.

“I’m not comfortable with that,” he says, knowing full well that his preferences mean
nothing. “If I was going to fail, at least I would have failed on my own.”
There’s a pause, and then Hua Cheng says, “But I need you to not fail. I need your clinic to
stay open.”

“Why?” Xie Lian asks, suddenly tired. “The kind of people who go to your new shiny
shopping malls and business centers won’t care for it.”

“I’m not building shopping malls or business centers,” Hua Cheng says quietly. “That’s a ‘get
rich quick’ scheme, and I have enough money. I want…” He breathes in. “I want to leave
something behind. A legacy. I want to renovate, and redesign, but keep the neighborhood as
is for the people who live there, only better. That’s why I need you to stay. You’re a staple in
that community; I can’t lose you.”

Xie Lian doesn’t know what to say to any of this. How can he trust the words or the person
standing in front of him? His enhanced perception is on the fritz, his best read saying that
Hua Cheng is telling the truth, if not all of it. He’s never felt more thoroughly at sea.

“Gege?” Hua Cheng says in a small voice. “Please, won’t you look at me?”

Xie Lian turns toward him and looks up. The clear relief on Hua Cheng’s face is short-lived.

“What’s that? Gege, who did this?”

“What?” Xie Lian blinks, befuddled, before realizing that Hua Cheng is staring at the still-
healing cut over his cheekbone. Xie Lian turns away quickly. “Oh, that’s nothing. Just an
accident.”

Hua Cheng’s self-imposed respect for boundaries seems to vanish in an instant. A strong
hand grabs Xie Lian’s arm, turning him around, and two fingers press under his chin, tilting
his face up gently but firmly.

“I know a knife cut when I see it, Gege. What happened?”

Xie Lian swallows, feeling caught. A thought flitters through his head a moment too late that,
if Hua Cheng’s reputation is to be believed, he’d definitely be an expert.

“It’s honestly nothing,” Xie Lian babbles, looking anywhere but in Hua Cheng’s eye. “Just...
someone wanted to take my phone.” He lets out a giggle—even with things as they are, he
can’t help but find the incident amusing. “That ratty old thing, can you believe it? I’d have
given it up, honestly, but they also wanted—”

“What?” Hua Cheng growls. “What else did they want?”

Belatedly, Xie Lian realizes he’s talking to a murderous-looking thundercloud.

“Nothing!” he squeals, but his hand clutches the pendant through his shirt of its own volition.

Hua Cheng follows the movement, his gaze tracking the silver chain visible above Xie Lian’s
collar. Abruptly, he lets go and steps back.

“I’ve put you in danger again.”

“What?” Xie Lian jumps. “No! Of course, not! What are you talking about? That’s just the
neighborhood, it’s like that! Do you know how many times this happened to me before we
even met?”

Hua Cheng doesn’t seem to find this reassuring—he just looks at him with a mixture of anger
and misery.

“Oh, honestly, San Lang, it’s no big deal,” Xie Lian tries to placate him. “Uh… sorry. Hua
Cheng.”

“San Lang,” Hua Cheng corrects softly. “Please.”

Xie Lian nods, suddenly shy. “Yes.”

Silence falls between them. Xie Lian’s head is buzzing with questions, but he doesn’t know
where to begin. Not a moment ago, he wanted nothing more than for Hua Cheng to hold him
even closer, and now that reality has come crushing back, he doesn’t know what to think or
feel or say.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng says cautiously, as though feeling his way between sharp blades. “Would
you allow me, if you have a moment, to show you what exactly I have in mind for the
neighborhood? I would welcome your input.”

Xie Lian restrains himself from screaming ‘Yes!’ at once. He wants to, but… He looks up at
Hua Cheng hesitantly, suddenly very aware of exactly who his friend has turned out to be.

“I wouldn’t want to disrupt your day any further,” he says, biting his lip. “I’m sure San Lang
must be very busy.”

“Gege could never be a disruption.” Hua Cheng smiles, his confidence flooding back.
“Please. Won’t you come over here and sit?” He extends a hand.

Confused or not, Xie Lian can’t help an answering smile as he reaches back.

--

Half an hour later, he’s even more thoroughly overwhelmed.

He’s sitting on a huge black leather divan, soft as a cloud. The aroma of freshly brewed tea
rising from the intricate cup in his hand is soothing, and on the low glass table in front of
him, there’s a tray with a mound of tiny, exquisitely shaped desserts, courtesy of Zhu Ling.
Hua Cheng is sitting next to him, just close enough, and the far wall has been revealed as a
screen. The lights are dimmed slightly, and Yin Yu is talking them through a presentation.

Xie Lian listens attentively, barely aware that Hua Cheng is using his distraction to get him to
eat a few treats. The information is too important to get sidetracked.

Hua Cheng’s plans for the neighborhood—Puqi Village, the old name discovered by Yin Yu
in the archives—are extensive, but just as he said—renovation, some reconstruction, better
overall infrastructure, with better equipped retail areas, more communal spaces, and even a
new park. All throughout the process, he plans to employ local workers, creating more jobs.
Crime rates will most likely go down, Xie Lian muses; only natural if people are living better.
There’s a pilot program already in place, apparently, offering local kids scholarships to some
of the best schools, provided they come back to the area after graduation and take a job there
for three to five years. It all sounds… amazing.

“Won’t it be… costly?” Xie Lian asks, slightly awed by the scale of it.

“We won’t see any return on investment in the first two years,” Yin Yu says, looking at the
numbers thoughtfully. “However, our projection shows we’ll break even on year three, and
by year five, we’ll have covered the cost of the original investment at least three times over.”

“Yin Yu’s projections are never wrong,” Hua Cheng says softly into Xie Lian’s ear—he must
have moved closer while he wasn’t looking. There’s still space between them, but Xie Lian
shivers all the same.

“Right, of course.” He ducks his head, blushing. “Sorry, that was a silly question.”

“On the contrary, Doctor Xie, it was a very good one,” Yin Yu says and flicks through a few
more slides. “This is our risk assessment and evaluation of possible emergencies. As you can
see…”

He takes Xie Lian through the figures that all seem to make sense, though they blur in his
mind the moment he tries to recreate them. He’s convinced they’re accurate, though. Hua
Cheng would not have been as successful as he is if he didn’t know what he was doing.

As the presentation comes to a close, Xie Lian can’t help but steal a few glances at Hua
Cheng, who finally catches him.

“What?” he asks with a smile.

“Nothing.” Xie Lian shakes his head, but can’t help a smile of his own, even as his heart
gives a painful twinge. “I just… I think I finally understand why you’re doing this, that’s all.”

“Oh?” Hua Cheng lifts his eyebrows. “Would gege like to enlighten me?”

Xie Lian laughs. “No; I’m sure you know your own reasons better than anyone. But San
Lang, you should have just said! I would have helped you!”

Hua Cheng is suddenly very tense. “Gege… I don’t want you to have some sort of
misunderstanding of me here. This is purely a business venture. Nothing else.”

“Of course.” Xie Lian nods readily. “Business only. I understand.”

And the last time a man of similar means was motivated by a similar feeling, he had built the
Taj Mahal. Not an entirely fair comparison, considering his wife had already been dead, but
close enough.

It really is simple. Even Xie Lian, who is nobody’s business expert, can tell that the project is
being handled more carefully than usual, with precautions that would benefit no one but the
local people. There could be no two minds as to why as ruthless a businessman as Hua Cheng
is, by all accounts, would go to that much trouble at his own expense.

His special person must live in the neighborhood.

What’s more, they must be a regular at Xie Lian’s clinic. There’s no other reason why he’d be
fighting so hard to keep it afloat. His friendship with Xie Lian doesn’t hurt, but that’s only an
additional motivation, not the main one.

In retrospect, it’s obvious! Why else paint the entire façade so prettily if not to please his
special someone’s sense of aesthetics? If they come into the clinic regularly, or even every so
often, of course Hua Cheng would want them to smile as they come in.

Everything, everything fits.

Xie Lian sighs.

“Gege?”

“Oh!” Xie Lian comes back to his senses. “Sorry, just, uh… thought of something. I should
get going!” He jumps to his feet. “I have taken up so much of your time, and—and I came
without warning, I should—”

“Gege, please wait.” Hua Cheng follows him instantly.

Yin Yu seems to find some reason to stand in front of the door, blocking it.

Xie Lian realizes abruptly that he must appear frazzled and stops, color rising in his cheeks.

“San Lang?” He can’t look at him. He just wants a minute to himself—a day, maybe—just to
sit with the knowledge that Hua Cheng loves someone that much, just to get used to it, before
he can be his earnest friend again.

“Gege, you’re already here,” Hua Cheng says, his tone soft, persuasive. “Wouldn’t it be a
shame to just waste a trip? Have dinner with me tonight.”

“I—” Xie Lian stumbles. Has the man no heart in him? “San Lang, I really—”

“Remember you said you’d love to see my place of work?” Hua Cheng asks, and really, must
he sound so hesitant, so vulnerable? Unfair. “I need to make a stop at Ghost City, but my
business there will be brief, and there are sixteen restaurants to choose from. Would you let
me show you?”

Why must he be like this? This is taking courtesy too far! He really is too kind! Xie Lian bites
his lip, torn, every instinct screaming at him to run, hide, and lick his wounds.

“I’m not, uh…” Remembering his own manners, he manages, “That’s really too kind of you,
but I—I’m not dressed for a place like that, and—”

“Nonsense.” Hua Cheng’s gaze softens. “Gege looks lovely. I dare anyone to say otherwise.”
Xie Lian blushes. “San Lang—”

“Oh, I see,” Hua Cheng says. “It’s the nature of what I do, isn’t it? Perhaps gege simply
doesn’t want to be seen in an establishment such as that? Or with its owner?”

“San Lang!” Xie Lian exclaims, glancing up at him, startled. “That’s not it at all! How can
you think that?!”

Hua Cheng looks away, his expression closed off. “Gege doesn’t have to explain. It’s all
right; I understand.”

“You—”

Hua Cheng’s face is an image of noble suffering. Xie Lian is sure he’s being played, but it’s
effective. He’s one hundred percent sure. Maybe eighty percent. Maybe—

Hua Cheng sighs softly, his chin dipping down.

Xie Lian gives in, unable to watch this. “I’ll go. If you’re certain I won’t be in the way—”

Hua Cheng’s head snaps up; he beams instantly like the deceitful demon creature he is.
“Wonderful. Yin Yu—”

“I’ll call for the car to be brought up front,” Yin Yu says in a tone only slightly colored with
exasperation.

--

Xie Lian has been to Ghost City once before, but back then, he’d been too nervous and
terrified to look around much. He can’t shake off the feeling that he’s drastically out of place
this time, either.

Hua Cheng breezes past the gated entrance separating the infamous entertainment district
from the rest of the city and drives straight for the main hotel-casino complex. He makes Xie
Lian wait until he can open the passenger door himself and offers him a hand, gently pulling
him out of the car. Seeing the looming, overbearing gold-and-glass building, Xie Lian
swallows hard and clutches Hua Cheng’s hand tighter. He’d be embarrassed if he wasn’t so
intimidated.

Hua Cheng doesn’t seem to mind, switching hands easily and twining their fingers. “Gege?”
he asks softly. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, it’s… uh, it’s just really big, that’s all,” Xie Lian whispers, suddenly aware that the
bellhops are looking at him with open curiosity. “Oh, I’m sorry, San Lang.” He tries to pull
free. “I didn’t mean to—”

Hua Cheng ignores this, tightens his grip in reassurance, and leads him toward the entrance.
Once inside, Xie Lian is grateful for the anchor.
It’s the same anthill of activity he remembers, only even bigger, somehow. The lights are
dimmed to perpetual twilight with bright spots of gambling stations scattered around like a
particularly dense constellation. Everywhere Xie Lian looks, he sees splashes of vibrant red,
black, and gold. The air is filled with the sound of slot machines, voices calling bets, and soft
tinkle of bells. The wait staff, in glittering and entirely-too-revealing uniforms, are floating
between the tables with mischievous smiles and trays full of drinks. The hall is crowded,
despite it being a weekday.

“Uh,” Xie Lian says, only then realizing he’s drifted closer to Hua Cheng. “Sorry, San Lang.
You should, uh… you should go to your meeting, don’t let me keep you.”

“I still have some time. How about I show you around a bit first instead?”

Without waiting for him to answer, he tugs Xie Lian further in.

The tour starts with the first two floors that are occupied entirely by the gaming tables. It
feels like every possible version of a betting game is played here—cards, dice, roulette, even
peas in a cup—and nothing appears to be too big or too small to be represented. There’s a
burlesque club on the third floor, along with a couple of restaurants, and bars are ubiquitous.
A couple of scantily clad dancers drift over to greet Hua Cheng, shooting curious looks at
Xie Lian from beneath their heavy lashes.

The fifth floor is split between a massage parlor and a tea salon, while the sixth is a scarily
lifelike laser tag space. The floors above have rooms and suites, except for the two uppermost
floors, which contain a dozen restaurants and a well-known nightclub. Hua Cheng explains to
him quietly how the idea to build this place came to be, what his thought process was in
adding various areas, how certain ideas failed and had to be replaced, and how it seems
chaotic at first, but is actually very well organized, Xie Lian trying to keep up.

By the time they make it back down to the second floor, he still feels overwhelmed, but it’s
different now. He’s looking at the place through the eyes of someone who has to run it, and
it’s a fascinating experience.

“Will you be okay by yourself?” Hua Cheng asks as they come back into the upper gaming
room. “I don’t think I’ll be longer than half an hour, but—”

“I’ll be fine,” Xie Lian assures him with a smile. “Really, San Lang. I’ve hijacked your day
enough already; don’t let me ruin it completely. Go to your meeting, don’t worry about me.”

Hua Cheng nods. “Would you like some complimentary chips to entertain yourself in the
meantime?”

Xie Lian laughs, shaking his head. “That’s very kind, but they’d be wasted on me; my luck in
any game of chance is terrible. It’s all right, San Lang—I’ll just look around some more.”

“As you wish.” San Lang nods again. “Just don’t go near the dancers; they can’t be trusted.”

“I won’t,” Xie Lian promises, amused. The dancers seemed perfectly friendly to him, if a
little too forward with someone they’ve only just met.
“And take this.” Hua Cheng hands him a peculiar looking coin half the size of Xie Lian’s
palm. There are some markings on it that don’t appear to be words. “Show this to anyone in
uniform and they’ll get you whatever you want.”

Xie Lian blinks. “That’s really not necessary—”

“It would please me if you do,” Hua Cheng says softly. “I’ll meet you here in half an hour,
Gege. Have fun.” He winks and, finally, leaves.

--

Left to his own devices, Xie Lian feels a little lost for a moment. He no longer feels as
nervous or out of place as he was at first—now, it’s a matter of having too many options.

Gambling is out of the question—he’s never been attracted to it, and he really didn’t lie about
his luck. He could wander around some more, since everything is completely alien and his
curiosity is far from sated. He could spend a year in this place and never learn all the twists
and turns of it.

In the end, though, his day that has begun seemingly in another century catches up with him,
and Xie Lian decides to simply wait. He texts Banuye, telling her that she needn’t worry
about the clinic, it’s all settled, he will explain tomorrow, and can she lock up, please? Her
response is half a dozen emoticons he doesn’t understand, ending with a more familiar
thumbs-up. He smiles, tucking his phone away, and heads for the nearest, quietest bar.

There are only a few people inside—a couple at the back table, completely absorbed in one
another, and a solitary man sitting in a corner. As Xie Lian enters, the latter gives him a
narrow-eyed look that screams suspicion. Xie Lian pulls back his shoulders, trying to shake it
off.

He pulls up a chair at the bar and, as the bartender comes near, smiles. “Could I have
something non-alcoholic, please?”

The bartender nods. “I make a mean Shirley Temple; that work?”

Cherries, Xie Lian remembers, something flickering through his mind, something old. He
blinks a couple of times and smiles again. “That would be wonderful, thank you. Uh, hold on,
let me—”

He reaches into his pocket for his wallet, but the bartender shakes his head. “Drinks are free
on the gaming floors.”

“For those who are gambling,” Xie Lian objects. He knows that much, at least.

“For you, everywhere,” the bartender says, nodding at—

Ah. Xie Lian is still holding the coin Hua Cheng gave him in his hand. He feels awkward all
of a sudden, as if he’s taking advantage.

“Right. Ignore that, please,” he says, belatedly tucking it away.

The bartender grins at him, already halfway through making his drink. “No can do, sir. I like
my job too much.” The shaker flies in his hands, joyfully defying the laws of gravity. “You
must be pretty close to the boss if he gave you that.”

“Oh.” Xie Lian blinks. “He just said—”

“Free drinks are nothing. You can show this to the guys handling cash, get as much of it as
you want. They’ll call a car for you and take you anywhere you say. You can clean this place
out with that, and no one will say a thing.”

Xie Lian stares at him, horrified. Why would Hua Cheng give him something like this?! Why
would he give this to anyone?!

“San Lang really is too trusting,” he blurts out, stunned.

“You mean the boss?” the bartender asks, opening a cherry jar. “Not the word I’d use. Never
saw him give this to anyone before. You must be really special.” He winks, setting a glass of
neon-red liquid in front of Xie Lian. Seeing the expression on his face, the bartender laughs.
“How about I just give you an extra cherry?”

There are too many of them in his glass already, but Xie Lian nods numbly. “Thank you.”

He sips his drink—too sweet, as it turns out, but the cherries are nice—and tries to process.
His entire day feels so strange. Every part of it by itself, makes sense, but together…

A large party comes in, loudly demanding sambuca shots to celebrate their winnings. Xie
Lian watches them curiously, their obvious happiness nearly infectious. Distracted, he
doesn’t notice he’s no longer alone.

The man who’d been sitting in the corner is now only a few inches away and he’s glaring.
He’s burly, probably in his late forties, with a heavy square jaw that looks like it’s been cut
out of stone too roughly and mean black eyes.

“I know you,” the man accuses, drawing closer, and Xie Lian nearly recoils at the heavy
scent of alcohol on his breath.

“I, uh… I don’t think so?” He tries for a smile, hoping to diffuse whatever this is. He spares a
glance for the bartender, but he’s out of earshot, serving the new arrivals.

The man glowers at him. “I never forget a face. You—you helped that weasel that night.” He
sways on his feet, but straightens up almost angrily. “Helped him get away with my money!”

Xie Lian blinks. “Sir, I assure you, I don’t—”

“It was you!” the man roars. “That fucking bastard scammed me, and I was about to beat it
all back out of him, but then you showed up and helped him get away! Did you really think I
would forget, pretty boy?! Where’s my money, huh?! Where is it?!”

He grabs a hold of Xie Lian’s collar and drags him to his feet. There’s a loud sound of fabric
being ripped, and, in his panic, Xie Lian suddenly puts it together.
The man probably had seen him the night Xie Lian had come here to fetch Wei Nianqing! His
laoshi had been dragging a black plastic bag with him, smelled heavily of alcohol, and kept
muttering, ‘We need to get out! We need to get out!’ He hadn’t settled down until they’d been
all the way across the city.

His flash of insight is gratifying, if not helpful, as several things happen in rapid progression.

The man takes a swing at him. Xie Lian ducks instinctively, tearing himself free. Momentum
brings his assailant forward hard, and he crushes face-first into the bar counter. At the other
end of it, the bartender has set up two dozen sambuca shots and just lit them up. The counter
jolts under the man’s sudden weight, and the shot glasses jump up, gleefully spilling the
burning alcohol. Instantaneously, the entire counter is engulfed in bright blue flames.

Several people scream. The brawler, reactions slowed by his inebriated state, is nowhere near
fast enough to pull away in time and roars as his eyebrows and hair catch fire. He staggers
backward, swatting at himself and smashing everything in sight, and continues to emit ear-
shattering roars.

“I’LL GET ALL OF YOU FUCKERS!” he thunders, eyes searching wildly for a victim.
“ALL OF YOU!”

Terrified of the level of destruction, Xie Lian, being exceptionally brilliant, yells, “Hey! Over
here! I know where your money is!”

The bully spins around with unexpected alacrity, bloodshot eyes fixing on Xie Lian. “YOU!”

Xie Lian bolts.

--

His plan is very simple and clever: stay ahead long enough for Ghost City security to
intervene, or, if for some reason they don’t appear, lead the dangerous individual out and
away where he can’t cause as much damage.

What this brilliant scheme hadn’t taken into account, however, was that the man isn’t alone.

The moment Xie Lian and his pursuer are out in the open space, a dozen men in similar dark
suits—colleagues? cronies?—rise up from nearby gambling tables, alert to their leader’s
distress.

“GET HIM!”

They have either drunk less or are handling it a lot better—the order is followed immediately,
and Xie Lian has to duck and dodge as he races through the hall. Security personnel swoops
in, but they end up stumbling over too many targets and random patrons getting in the way.

Somehow, in all the yelling, cursing, and punching, Xie Lian’s erstwhile attacker is still hot
on his heels, compensating for his state of severe intoxication by the overwhelming rage. Xie
Lian’s luck really is the worst.
As Xie Lian swerves to avoid colliding with an elderly lady standing in complete confusion,
a heavy hand grabs at his shoulder.

“Got you, you bastard! Where’s my money, huh? WHERE? AND WHERE’S THAT
CHEATING SCUMBAG MEI MIANQING?!”

“I don’t actually know,” Xie Lian pushes out through gritted teeth. He jerks to the side,
breaking free at the cost of more ripped fabric and bruised skin, and ducks into a dark
corridor.

This is a part of the complex that Hua Cheng didn’t show him during their brief tour,
consisting of narrow utilitarian-looking corridors and grey doors. Xie Lian races through the
labyrinth, hoping beyond hope that he won’t hit a dead end. He can hear his pursuer’s
thundering footsteps close behind him.

He turns the corner, and of course, there it is—a solid wall. Xie Lian stares at it for a moment
in helpless frustration, trying to resign himself to the confrontation.

Suddenly, a door to his left opens, and a hand shoots out, wraps around his wrist, and yanks
him inside.

“Run!” his rescuer yells, pulling him toward a narrow staircase going down. “That door
doesn’t lock!”

Xie Lian doesn’t hesitate to follow, trying at the same time to take stock of who he has to
thank for sparing him a beating. It appears to be a person his own age or slightly younger,
dressed in clothes of such elaborate design, Xie Lian has never seen anything like it—shades
of jade-green, pale blue, and white. Their hair is streaked with gold, and the hand clutching
Xie Lian’s wrist is neatly manicured, nails painted a soft, milky white.

“I saw you on the gaming floor,” the person tells him as they rush down the stairs. “And I
saw Big Bao coming at you—that was scary! He’s a horrible man; I don’t know why Huahua
lets him in!”

Above their heads, a door is kicked open.

“Quick! This way!”

They push the grey double doors to open into what appears to be a laundry room. It’s
noticeably warmer, the air filled with steam and sounds of rumbling water and operating
machinery. Staff in pure white uniforms look up at the intruders with surprise, but don’t stop
them.

“I’m Shi Qingxuan, by the way,” Xie Lian’s rescuer yells in his ear to be heard over the
sound of several dozen washing machines. “What’s your name?”

“Xie Lian,” Xie Lian manages. “Where are you taking me?”

“There should be another exit here. We can—”

Behind them, there’s a loud bang—Big Bao has caught up with them.

“Shit—this way! Run!” They turn the corner and burst into another service corridor. “He sure
is persistent. What did you do to him?”

“Nothing!” Xie Lian yells back. “He thinks I have his money!”

“Ah, that’d do it. Big Bao is a perpetually loser, but won’t quit! Quick, over here!” Shi
Qingxuan pulls him into a small alcove that hosts a ventilation hatch. “This one’s always
open; faulty lock. Get in! Hurry!”

Xie Lian pulls the cover open, grabs onto the edge of the shaft, and hauls himself up, fitting
himself inside the narrow tunnel.

“Wow,” he hears from the outside, “you’re so athletic! What do you do for a living? Also,
could you give me a hand up?”

Xie Lian goes through a series of contortions until he can turn around and offers Shi
Qingxuan his hand. “I’m a vet,” he says, lifting them inside. “Careful, watch your head—”

But Shi Qingxuan is already trying to straighten their back reflexively, their head colliding
with the ceiling of the shaft with a loud bang.

“Ouch,” they hiss as Xie Lian pulls the cover back down.

They can hear Big Bao cursing a mean streak and banging on the walls just outside.

“Where to?” Xie Lian whispers.

“No idea,” Shi Qingxuan admits, the rippling of their clothes communicating their
movements in the near-darkness. “I know there’s an exit to the gaming floor somewhere; I’ve
seen the hatch from the outside. I think… I think, maybe if we go this way? What do you
think?”

“I don’t know, but it’s better than staying,” Xie Lian replies.

“Right! Follow me then.”

--

They crawl. Shi Qingxuan’s clothes make a lot of noise as they move along the narrow shaft
on their hands and knees. Their breathing becomes loud and harsh, almost shrill.

“Are you all right?” Xie Lian finally asks.

“Fine! Fine! Just a little, uh… claustrophobic, but I can handle it! I’m just not used to this.”
Shi Qingxuan laughs, sounding mildly hysterical. “I never knew a vet’s life was so exciting!
I’m just a fashion designer—well, trying to be one. My brother was going to be the sponsor
of my first collection, but—but then I found out he did something nasty. He”—they chuckle,
high-pitched— “sorry, I’m still not over that part. I always thought I’d won that scholarship
fair and square, because I’m so talented, hahaha, but it turned out, well, I didn’t win it at all—
he leaned on the commission to take it away from another candidate and give it to me. And—
and I didn’t even need it! We could have paid for it, but I was just so happy that I did
something on my own, something really meaningful, and I never questioned it, and the other
party—they couldn’t pay, and—and—and now my brother and I aren’t talking! He wanted to
lock me up in the house until I’ve ‘calmed down!’ But I broke free, and now Huahua is
letting me hide here, and he says he’ll be my sponsor, but he hates my brother, so I think he’s
only doing it to piss him off, and… Oh my God, I’m rambling, aren’t I? I’m sorry!”

“It’s all right,” Xie Lian assures them; rambling has to be better than having an outright panic
attack. He’s still reeling over the fact that Shi Qingxuan didn’t even pause before they threw
themself into confronting one of their fears for a virtual stranger. “It sounds like a
complicated situation.”

“It is!” Shi Qingxuan agrees. “And there’s also this guy who’s my best friend, and I’m maybe
slightly in love with him, but he hates me now, because it turns out the scholarship was meant
for his sister! And she was supposed to try next year, but then she got into an accident and
died, and he really hates me now, and I didn’t know anything! And—oh, uh…” They trail off;
Xie Lian can almost hear them blinking. “Do you think that could be it? I think the hatch I
saw was vertical and not horizonal, but maybe we try it anyway?”

They plaster themself against a wall as best they can, letting Xie Lian squeeze beside them to
take a look.

“Oh. This seems to need a key to unlock it.”

“Hang on,” Shi Qingxuan mutters and starts patting their clothes, searching for something.
“Oh, there it is. Huahua gave it to me, and it unlocks some doors, so maybe—”

It’s a round medallion, similar to the coin Hua Cheng had given Xie Lian. Shi Qingxuan
presses it against the lock. The hatch stays closed.

“Well, now what?” Shi Qingxuan sighs dejectedly. “It’s a dead end going forward, I can tell
by the sound. God, it’s hot in here. Uh, I guess we should—”

“Wait,” Xie Lian says, digging out the coin from his own pocket. “I don’t actually know if it
has a chip in it or something, but—”

“Oh!” Shi Qingxuan’s eyes go wide as they spot the coin. “Xie-xiong, this will open any door
in the building! How do you have it?”

“Um…”

“Never mind, let’s just get out of here, first. Here!” Shi Quinxuan grabs the coin and presses
it to the lock.

“Wait!” Xie Lian cries, but it’s too late.

The lock flashes a welcoming green immediately, and the next moment, the floor falls from
beneath them. With muffled yelps, Xie Lian and Shi Qingxuan drop from a ceiling of what
looks to be a private office.

Xie Lian has the breath knocked out of him in a brutal punch as Shi Qingxuan falls on top of
him. He sprawls on the floor, dazed and vaguely aware of Shi Qingxuan’s groans somewhere
close by. When his vision clears and he looks up, he sees two tall men, clearly struck
speechless, staring down at the sudden mess at their feet. One is a stranger, dressed entirely in
black, gaunt and grave-looking.

The other is Hua Cheng.

Xie Lian groans softly and wishes he could pass out.

--

“Oh my God!” Xie Lian rolls to his feet so sharply, his entire body gives a painful twinge, but
everything seems to be working. His heart is hammering wildly in his chest. “San Lang, I can
explain—this isn’t what it looks like!”

Hua Cheng, who’s been clearly startled by his sudden movement, takes half a step toward
him in alarm, then freezes, gaze roaming over Xie Lian’s figure. He must look a sight, Xie
Lian realizes—he’s sweaty and covered in dust, his shirt is ripped, his hair is a mess, and, if
all of that wasn’t enough, he’s burning all over with embarrassment.

“Out of curiosity,” the tall man who has yet to visually react calls in a poisonously dry voice,
“what do you imagine this looks like?”

Hua Cheng’s eye flickers to him briefly in annoyance before he comes over to Xie Lian’s
side, hands lifting, as if he intends to touch, but stopping at the last moment.

“Gege, are you hurt anywhere? Do you feel dizzy? Any pain?”

Xie Lian is still a little winded from the fall, but, as he takes stock of himself, feels mostly
fine. He starts shaking his head when a low groan interrupts him. “Qingxuan!” he exclaims,
dropping back down to support them as they start to sit up. “Are you all right?”

Shi Qingxuan coughs a bit, but a quick examination determines they aren’t seriously hurt,
either. “I’ll just sit here for a moment,” they mumble, still on the floor, back propped against
a cabinet. “Just to catch my breath.”

“That might be best.” Xie Lian nods, straightening up somewhat slower this time. Now that
the adrenaline is receding, he finds himself shivering in the air-conditioned room.

The next moment, a suit jacket falls over his shoulders, and Hua Cheng takes his arm, barely
exerting any pressure, and guides him to sit on a plush leather sofa. Xie Lian turns to him,
still flushed from combined humiliation and exertion.

“San Lang, I can explain,” he repeats quietly.

Sitting next to him, Hua Cheng regards him with a complete lack of expression.

“An explanation would be welcome, Gege,” he says, frowning, then glancing down at his
phone. “I received a security alert some minutes ago. That was you, I assume?”

Xie Lian nods in misery. “I, uh… I set one of your bars on fire.” Hua Cheng’s eyebrows
shoot up. “Then I started a brawl—accidentally! But, uh… And then—”

“Big Bao was chasing after him, when I saw him,” Shi Qingxuan says, feeling their head
with their hands cautiously. “He and his goons were on a rampage—you really should stop
letting them in, Hua-xiong. There were death threats—”

“I’ll pay for any damages!” Xie Lian leans forward. “I’ll work it off, just—”

Hua Cheng’s frown deepens. “Forget that; you can set all of my bars on fire if you want.
Gege, why was Big Bao chasing you?”

“Um…” Xie Lian blinks, stampeded by the first statement. Focusing on the second, he
glances uncertainly at the tall man hanging at the back of the room.

“Oh, that’s He Xuan,” Hua Cheng says dismissively. “He’s an asshole, but he can be trusted
to keep his mouth shut, don’t worry.”

“It takes one to know one, doesn’t it?” He Xuan says, folding his arms over his chest.

When Xie Lian still hesitates, Shi Qingxuan sighs tiredly. “Xie-xiong, you realize he’s going
to watch the security footage, right? Better just tell him.”

Xie Lian nods then, and gives an (almost) unabridged account of events. Hua Cheng’s gaze
turns darker and darker as he listens.

“Gege,” he grumbles when Xie Lian finishes, “no disrespect intended, but your former
master is… a headache that keeps on hurting.” He glares at the remnants of Xie Lian’s shirt
exposing half his chest.

Xie Lian, on pure instinct, burrows deeper into the jacket Hua Cheng has lent him. It’s too
big around the shoulders and too long to fit properly, but it smells of maple and autumn wind,
and Xie Lian doesn’t know when he managed to get conditioned to associate that scent with
safety, but he can’t help inhaling a little deeper. Having realized what he’s doing, he pretends
he hasn’t done anything at all and looks up at Hua Cheng cautiously.

Hua Cheng’s expression has melted into something softer, anger dissipating into wisps of
smoke at the edges. He shifts closer, and Xie Lian’s heart gives a sudden jolt.

“You.”

He Xuan has moved to stand directly over Shi Qingxuan and is glowering at them. “You just
couldn’t have not gotten involved, could you? You just had to barge in.”
He’s a towering, intimidating presence, easily Hua Cheng’s height, while Shi Qingxuan is
slightly shorter than Xie Lian and still on the floor, craning their neck to look upward. It’s not
a pleasant tableau to watch, and Xie Lian shifts forward involuntarily.

“I—I just wanted to help,” Shi Qingxuan says, their lips trembling, as they stare up at He
Xuan. “He-xiong, please—”

“Don’t call me that!” He Xuan snaps. “What good is your help? You’re incompetent!
Useless!”

“I’m sorry—”

“What good is your apology?”

“He-xiong!” Shi Qingxuan whimpers, tears streaming down their face as they reach out to
grab at He Xuan’s sleeve. “I really didn’t know! I’m so sorry!”

He Xuan shakes them off. “And if you had known, what then?”

“I would have—”

“What? Spoken up? At the risk of damaging your brother’s sterling reputation? You wouldn’t
have had the guts, and you know it. Pathetic.”

“He-xiong—”

Xie Lian has had enough. He’s put it together from snippets Shi Qingxuan let slip when they
were claustrophobic and panicking. ‘Best friend,’ ‘almost in love with,’ ‘hates me now.’ He
doesn’t know the specifics of the story, but he doesn’t care. Shi Qingxuan is someone who
didn’t hesitate to help a stranger at the risk of their own health, possibly even their life.
Someone who is trusting enough, vulnerable enough, to spill their most private emotions
while under stress, not even thinking that they could be used against them. They’re drowning
in pain and grief right now, and Xie Lian can’t take it any longer.

He slips from the sofa and onto the floor, wrapping his arms around Shi Qingxuan’s
shoulders.

“Back off,” he tells He Xuan coldly, glancing up at him. “Can’t you see they’re upset?”

“Upset?!” He Xuan gapes at him. “What do you know, you—”

“Watch it,” Hua Cheng snaps, standing up and immediately moving to shield the two people
on the floor. “He told you to back off.”

“Oh, for—” He Xuan spits out, but does pull back, hands clutched into fists. “You’re pathetic,
too, you know that? The worst kind. I suppose it was your idea, was it? To have them live
here like nothing happened. To have them continue their carefree life in luxury, like that’s
something they deserve! Since when are you the good Samaritan?”

“I’m keeping them here as a trump card against Shi Wudu. You know that.”
“Bullshit. You could have used that at least twice already—you haven’t! You’re just a regular
bleeding heart these days; don’t even try to pretend otherwise!”

“You’re insane.”

“Am I? Then kick them out.”

Hua Cheng folds his arms over his chest, his tone ice-cold when he speaks. “What gave you
the idea that you can give me orders?”

“As a favor, then. I owe you what, now—”

“More than you’d have if I squeezed you dry.”

“Then what’s the big deal, adding a little more?” He Xuan lets out a dark laugh. “I’ll owe you
for the rest of my life; how about that? But I don’t want to see them ever again. They can’t
stay here!”

“They can stay with me,” Xie Lian cuts in, his tone quiet but assertive—the one he used,
once upon a time, when he was in charge of an OR.

Shi Qingxuan has long succumbed to crying soundlessly on his shoulder. They lift their head
now, face red and distorted with tears. “Re-really?”

Xie Lian squeezes their shoulders. “It’s nothing like what you’re used to, I’m afraid, but
there’s room. And—well, I’m almost never home, so you’ll have the space to yourself. I’m a
lousy cook, but maybe we can come up with something edible together—”

Shi Qingxuan throws themself onto him with a sob, arms winding around Xie Lian’s neck.
“Thank you! Oh, thank you! I won’t be any trouble!”

“Of course not.” Xie Lian holds them. “It’s all right.”

“There; you got your wish,” Hua Cheng says coldly to He Xuan above their heads. “Now
leave. You’ve taken up too much of my time as it is.”

Xie Lian looks up in time to see He Xuan storm out the door. Shi Qingxuan shudders in his
arms.

Hua Cheng sighs, crouching down beside them. “Gege. You really have a knack for finding
trouble, don’t you?”

He’s smiling, though. Xie Lian smiles back, mouthing a quiet ‘thank you.’

--

Hua Cheng doesn’t let them leave immediately, of course—he insists on treating them both to
dinner, and Shi Qingxuan needs to pack. They order in, and Shi Qingxuan eats mechanically,
a spaced-out look on their face. Hua Cheng and Xie Lian talk quietly, Hua Cheng asking after
some of Xie Lian’s patients and Xie Lian asking about E’ming.
When it’s time to go, Hua Cheng calls for a town car and comes to see them off. Shi
Qingxuan climbs in without a word, but Xie Lian lingers, turning back to their host.

“San Lang,” he says quietly, “thank you.”

Hua Cheng shakes his head. “No need.”

Xie Lian is toasty-warm in the fluffy white sweater Shi Qingxuan had given him absently
upstairs. Even with the temperature drop outside, he feels his cheeks heat up.

“San Lang, uh… I’ve been thinking…” Xie Lian’s gaze drops to the ground. “It… it might be
useful, if—if I have your number.”

When his only answer is silence, Xie Lian’s eyes flicker upward and then immediately back
down in a panic. “Only for emergencies!” he promises. “I swear I won’t—”

—bother you dies on his tongue as Hua Cheng steps closer.

“Gege,” he murmurs, “give me your phone.”

Meekly, Xie Lian unlocks it and hands it over. He watches as Hua Cheng’s quick, certain
fingers add a contact to the list, then press call and disconnect.

“Here,” Hua Cheng says, handing the phone back. “Just promise me it won’t be only for
emergencies.”

There’s clear laughter in his voice, and Xie Lian finally dares look up. Hua Cheng looks
inordinately pleased, almost glowing. Of course, Xie Lian thinks ruefully, anything that gives
him an excuse to tease. He wonders how long he’ll be paying for his forwardness.

“Oh, and you dropped this,” Hua Cheng says, pressing something else into his hand.

Xie Lian glances down—it’s the key-coin.

“San Lang!” he exclaims, jumping slightly. “You can’t—this is—I can’t take this!”

Hua Cheng shrugs, taking one step back. “It’s yours,” he says, as if he hadn’t just handed
over the literal key to his city. “Throw it away if you don’t want it—I’d rather you didn’t,
obviously, given the security risk, but do with it as you please.”

Xie Lian stares at him, clutching the coin tightly in his hand. “You’re far too good to your
friends, San Lang.”

Hua Cheng’s answering smile is a little wry. “You’re welcome. And text me when you get
home.”

Xie Lian nods and climbs into the car before he can succumb to the impulse to kiss Hua
Cheng with everything he has. Making things awkward is hardly the best way to express his
gratitude.
--

Shi Qingxuan, physically and emotionally spent, sleeps through the entire car ride and only
comes around when they reach their destination. Xie Lian blinks a little owlishly, too—
having spent the day in the gleaming elegance of Crimson Rain offices and the splendor of
Ghost City, Puqi Town almost feels like a life-size model of streets and houses, everything a
little too small to feel real.

They get out of the car and come face-to-face with Mama Ji.

“Oh! Hi there!” Shi Qingxuan beams at her. “Nice evening, huh?”

Mama Ji takes them in for a moment, face pinched, then glances over at Xie Lian. “Another
friend?”

Xie Lian sighs, more tired than he realized. “We’ll be no trouble, Mama Ji. This one doesn’t
have a loud car.”

Her face undergoes a curious change at the reminder, beaming in the most sickeningly sweet
way.

“Oh, your friend with the car can come over any time.”

Xie Lian gapes.

“You tell him he’s always welcome, yes? I’ll get the boys to wash his car for him next time.
Tell him.”

“Um.” Xie Lian blinks. “Right. Uh, we should—there’s stuff…”

Mama Ji waves him on benevolently.

With the help of the driver, who politely insists despite Xie Lian’s attempts to assure him he
doesn’t have to trouble himself further, they bring Shi Qingxuan’s things up in two trips. Xie
Lian’s room, previously empty except for a handful of textbooks he kept from his time at vet
school, suddenly looks a lot more lived in.

“I have an air mattress!” Xie Lian exclaims, rushing over to his closet. “I never got rid of it
after I got the bed. Uh, I’ll just set it up here—”

“Lian-ge,” Shi Qingxuan interrupts him quietly. “Thank you.”

“Oh, no, it’s…” Xie Lian looks around, embarrassed. “Like I said, it’s not what you’re used
to, but—”

“It’s perfect,” Shi Qingxuan tells him, wrapping one hand around his wrist. “Thank you. Have
a drink with me?”

“Oh.” Xie Lian blinks. “I’m sorry. I don’t drink, you see, so I don’t have any alcohol in the
house.”
“Really?” Shi Qingxuan scratches their head. “Oh! I think I still have some in here
somewhere.” They rummage through a couple of boxes until emerging with a triumphant
‘Aha!’, holding a three-quarter full bottle of whiskey. “You mind if I—?”

“Not at all,” Xie Lian insists. “I’ll make some tea.”

Shi Qingxuan nods gratefully, taking a glass from him. “How come you don’t drink?”

“Oh.” Xie Lian turns away, filling the kettle. “Never had the taste for it to begin with. And
then… Well, I used to be a doctor before. A surgeon.” He exhales, interrupting the flow of
rising steam. “I was fired and lost my medical license for—practicing medicine under the
influence.”

“Oh.” Shi Qingxuan breathes out quietly. “You sure it won’t bother you if I—?”

“Quite sure.” Xie Lian smiles at them. It wasn’t alcohol specifically that had gotten him in
trouble, anyway, and besides, he’s not so easily triggered. Shi Qingxuan clearly wants to talk,
and Xie Lian won’t begrudge them whatever will make the conversation easier.

--

It all comes out easily enough, Shi Qingxuan drinking their whiskey like water. Just listening
to them, Xie Lian gets the impression that, while Shi Qingxuan is the kind of person who is
very sociable and friendly with everybody, they don’t actually have many close friends. The
central person in their life appears to be their brother, Shi Wudu, a prominent businessman
and their guardian since early age.

He Xuan, initially, had been a marine biologist. He was the first person in his family to go to
university, the pride and joy of his parents and little sister. He had been courting a childhood
friend, whom he intended to marry. Then his sister applied for the same scholarship as Shi
Qingxuan and got accepted, only to receive a call a week later, after celebrating with family
and friends, telling her there had been a mistake. Her entire family, including her brother, had
been furious on her behalf, but that was only the beginning.

He Xuan’s fiancée and sister were both in the car that day. His fiancée, a newly minted driver,
had lost control of the car on a rainy road and crashed into a tree, somehow surviving. His
sister, though, had died before the ambulance had gotten there, and an investigation showed
that it had been a true accident—there was nothing any driver could have done. He Xuan had
acknowledged that but broke off the engagement anyway, unable to marry the woman who,
however inadvertently, had killed his little sister.

Grief had been too much for his aging parents, who’d succumbed the same year, his father to
cancer, and his mother to severe depression and a subsequent overdose.

“He told me all of that himself,” Shi Qingxuan continues miserably, twirling the amber liquid
in their glass. “Back when we were friends.”

A different man, one who’d had a similarly horrible year, might have processed his grief and
moved on. He Xuan had taken it all personally and determined that the starting point to it all
was the rejection of his sister’s scholarship application. He’d investigated, abandoning
academia and his work in the process, and, realizing that some kind of tempering clearly had
occurred, had swiftly sworn to exact revenge.

His logic had been simple: if the world is ruled by the rich and powerful, he would become
rich and powerful, someone to be reckoned with. His intelligence and determination were a
strong combination—within a few years, he had managed harness his knowledge on the sea
and its creatures to build an empire on trading. It wasn’t as impressive as Hua Cheng’s,
perhaps, but it definitely opened many doors for him.

“That’s when we met,” Shi Qingxuan says. “He was already investigating my brother, so he
was trying to get close to him. My brother doesn’t like new people, but I”—their lips curl in
self-deprecation—“I like everyone. I was easy to—to get to know, to get close to. To—”
They press their hands against their face. “To get into bed that one time, so that, for certain,
I’d…”

Xie Lian rests his hand on their shoulder soothingly. “I’m sorry.”

“There were moments, you know.” Shi Qingxuan looks up, eyes brimming with tears. “I
think he wasn’t acting all of the time; there were moments when I think he forgot. He helped
me so many times, when there was no need to! I was already wrapped around his little finger!
He didn’t have to, but he did. Oh, but when it all came out, he was so mad.” Their voice falls
down to a whisper.

“He didn’t believe that you didn’t know about your brother’s actions?”

“He did, but what’s the point? He said I was spoiled, that I got so used to things being handed
to me that I didn’t even question it—didn’t ask how I, an average at best student with a
mediocre project, had managed to win against all the other candidates. He said I didn’t ask on
purpose, that I didn’t want to know! And you know what?” Shi Qingxuan sighs shakily. “I
think he was right. I had a good life. And I didn’t… I didn’t question it.”

Xie Lian hums in understanding. People born into privilege rarely question it. It doesn’t make
them bad people, but how hard would it be for someone in He Xuan’s place not to blame
them?

The irony is, if he had no feelings for Shi Qingxuan, it wouldn’t have been a problem. The
earlier scene proves that He Xuan simply can’t leave it well enough alone. His feelings
clearly ran—run—deep.

Eventually, Xie Lian makes up the bed for his new friend and all but falls onto the thankfully
inflated air mattress. It’s long past midnight, and the day has been one emotional upheaval
after another.

Without thinking, he closes his hand over the crystal ring pendant he never takes off.
Immediately, he feels a wave of soothing warmth spread throughout his body. It’s a lulling
sensation, and Xie Lian smiles as he drifts off to sleep.

--
Shi Qingxuan, much to Xie Lian’s relief, proves to be someone who doesn’t dwell on their
misfortunes. The pain is still there—how can it not be?—but it’s pushed back in favor of
focusing on the present.

“I have to get my collection ready for the Fashion Week Debuts panel!” they enthuse,
searching through the boxes of fabric that have taken over Xie Lian’s apartment. “I’m one of
twelve designers in the ‘up and coming squad’—it’s my big chance!”

Xie Lian gets used to swaths of fabric being everywhere, to the sound of Shi Qingxuan’s
sewing machine, and even to serving as their mannequin.

“Ah, Lianlian, you have the perfect figure for this,” Shi Qingxuan mutters, stabbing him with
a pin for the twelfth time. “Oh, sorry! But really, I’m so afraid it’ll prove to be a problem. I
mean, those models are just—hey!” Their face lights up. “Would you model for me?”

Xie Lian declines with a laugh. He doesn’t want to cut his hair, he doesn’t know how to hold
himself or move on the podium, and, most importantly, he doesn’t have time for it. With
rumors still flying around about the big neighborhood changes coming, people are rushing to
make last-minute appointments, and the clinic is busier than ever.

Shi Qingxuan stops by the clinic sometimes—when they need a creative break, as they say—
but they never stay long; the sight of possibly sick animals is usually too much. That said,
when Xie Lian lets a pair of bunnies stay for a few days while their owner is on a business
trip, Shi Qingxuan makes it a point to be around to pet them at least once a day.

Xie Lian is happy with the effortless friendship they’ve struck, though, he admits to himself,
he could have done without so much teasing. Shi Qingxuan needles him relentlessly, and that
would have been fine—if not for their favorite topic.

“So,” they drawl during a rare mid-afternoon lull, holding a bunny in their lap and winking at
Banyue—another easy friendship Xie Lian has been very gratified to see. “Huahua sure
spends a lot of time here, for someone as busy as he is.”

Hua Cheng does come by often, though he never stays long, and it’s not the way it’d been
when he was only known to them as San Lang and played house with them for a week. Now,
he usually stops by in the evening, bringing enough food for everyone, in spite of Xie Lian
telling him repeatedly that the effort isn’t needed. He strips out of his jacket if he happens to
be wearing a suit, rolls up his sleeves, and goes about helping with clean up and disinfecting.

He's there the night Xie Lian does a surgery a few hours before and loses the patient. The
fluffy, if reportedly mean-spirited, tabby was only seven, but the cancer had progressed too
far. There had been nothing Xie Lian could do, spark or no spark.

The owner understands without understanding at first, their relieved smile disappearing as
Xie Lian speaks. Their face rearranges itself into something more appropriate but not felt, not
yet. They make arrangements. The owner will not be taking her home, and Xie Lian advises
against getting one last look—cruel, perhaps, but he knows from experience that it’s better
this way. Animals are not like humans, and there is no way to erase the pain or indignity of
what’s been done after the heart stops beating.
The owner thanks Xie Lian, which makes him shudder, and leaves.

Hua Cheng, who has been waiting silently—observing without interfering—gets to his feet.
He takes Xie Lian by the hand, gentle as the wind. “What do you need?”

Xie Lian shakes his head, not looking at him. “No. No. In fact, you should go.”

Hua Cheng squeezes his hand. “I’ll wait.”

Xie Lian’s eyes snap up, irritation flaring. “San Lang—”

“I’ll wait.” Hua Cheng holds his gaze. “Do what you have to do.”

Xie Lian finds himself caught between frustration and gratitude. In the end, he goes back
inside the OR without another word.

The process isn’t long. His hands are respectful as he moves her. The incinerator is in the
basement, always kept clean, and it doesn’t take long. Xie Lian stays, saying prayers the
entire time. It would have surprised him, once upon a time—he’s never been particularly
religious, and his teachers in med school had frowned heavily on any sign of spirituality.
Even in vet school, they’d been taught to disengage quickly, to not allow every loss to affect
them. Xie Lian excelled at the mental exercises involved.

Mei Nianqing hadn’t had a particularly soft touch, but the way he’d observed death rituals
had been diligent and meaningful to a degree Xie Lian hadn’t been ready for. It had felt real,
heavy, and always a relief to get to the end. At that moment, he really had become a conduit,
making it easier for those both going and staying. Xie Lian couldn’t explain it, and he
doubted it could be put into words, but that was the part of his master’s art he’d wanted to
learn most of all.

He doesn’t think he’s there yet, but he’s found that saying a prayer and burning some incense
is helpful. Whether there is or isn’t anything beyond, it feels good to be there for the little
soul as it departs.

When the cycle is complete, he makes sure everything is unplugged, bows, and goes back up.
He’ll come back in the morning with a beautiful vessel, part of the collection he keeps just
for this purpose, and at some point during the day, the owner will pick it up. Xie Lian will
reassure him—he always has to—that there was no pain, and then they will be gone.

He cleans up the OR, pacing himself through the additional ritual of washing his hands.
Finally, he turns the lights off.

Hua Cheng is still there, and Xie Lian gives him a tired smile. “I thought I told you not to
wait.”

Hua Cheng shrugs, not asking him if he’s okay, or if he’s hungry. It frightens Xie Lian,
sometimes, how well Hua Cheng is able to read him, considering how short their
acquaintance has been.

--
Xie Lian locks up, and they walk in silence as the early night falls over them and around
them. The streets become brighter with vendors coming out. Xie Lian wants to hop on a train
suddenly, and Hua Cheng follows, not asking for a destination or a purpose.

Flashes of light stream by, and Xie Lian doesn’t know what he wants until he sees the lake.
They get off and walk along the shoreline. There are a few people around, not many.
Eventually, Xie Lian picks a spot and sits down.

It's chilly by the water. Hua Cheng sits close, their thighs pressed together. At another time,
Xie Lian may have flushed with embarrassment or excitement, but tonight, it’s all down to
basic sensations: comfort, warmth, the presence of another person. Xie Lian wants to lean
into him, yet doesn’t dare, though it’s not the usual inhibitions that stop him.

Hua Cheng reaches into his pocket and takes something out, the sound of a tin cap being
removed breaking the night air gently. Without asking, but slowly, he takes one of Xie Lian’s
hands between his own and starts softly massaging it, rubbing in something smooth and silky
in texture—beeswax skin softener.

Xie Lian stills for a moment, undecided—then realizes he doesn’t care about what’s
appropriate right at the moment. It feels good. He relaxes, and lets himself drift.

Hua Cheng is meticulous—working every tendon, rolling the joints between his fingers,
pressing on the pads and the palm hard enough to be painful. It’s a good pain, though; it
releases something. It’s simple, innocent, unbearably kind. Xie Lian has never realized how
good a simple touch like that could feel.

Waves of pleasure spread through his body from a single point of contact, light and sweet and
hovering on some kind of edge of something but also a thing in itself. It could be sexual,
between lovers, but it doesn’t have to be—the revelation rolls over him, stunning. A tactile
expression of affection, something most people have every day without thinking about it,
something Xie Lian has been missing for so long that it feels new.

He closes his eyes, feeling something hot brimming in them, threatening to spill.

Hua Cheng hums softly, sets Xie Lian’s hand gently on his thigh, as if unwilling to let it go
far, and picks up the other one to repeat the treatment. Xie Lian fights really hard not to melt,
but it’s beyond him. If the first touch had been gentle waves, this one is sending tiny sparks
of fireworks through him, his palm growing warm enough to be liable to emit heat and light
at any moment. He wants the torment to stop, but he also can’t help praying that it never
does, that Hua Cheng doesn’t get bored or uncomfortable or tired.

A purely selfish wish. Shame prickles at the corners of his perception, and Xie Lian nods at it,
feeling guilty, and pleads like a child, Just a little bit more, just a tiny bit, only if he’s willing,
I won’t ask.

“Gege.”

Xie Lian blinks his eyes open. He doesn’t know how long it’s been, but the darkness is
complete, the voices of other people long gone. Hua Cheng is holding both his hands
between his own, face turned slightly toward him.

“Are you all right?”

Xie Lian stares at him, so close, and warm, and perfect, and at the same time—so completely
out of reach that the unfairness of it makes him breathless.

“San Lang, why aren’t you with your special person yet?” he asks before he can stop himself.

This close, Hua Cheng can’t hide his reaction—a very slight, subtle flinch. “Why are you
asking?”

“It’s just—it’s so silly that you should be alone, that you should be with me, when you can be
with them!” Xie Lian scowls at the dark water. “They live in my neighborhood, don’t they?
That’s why you’re so invested in it? You want to make it better for them—safer, nicer, and
it’s… San Lang, it’s so noble and so kind! How can anyone not be overcome by this? Why
wouldn’t you simply tell them?”

And stop torturing me, he doesn’t add. I’m getting addicted to you, and you’re not mine to
keep.

Hua Cheng is silent for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, as he, too, gazes at the
water. “I’m not doing it to win them over—I’m simply trying to make amends. No matter
how excessive my actions may seem, I know that they will never be adequate. But it’s the
least I can do.”

Xie Lian blinks and turns to look at him. “Amends?”

Hua Cheng’s face darkens. “I wronged them. They got… they got very hurt, because of me.”

Xie Lian pulls one hand free to lay it on Hua Cheng’s shoulder, heart swelling. “Oh, San
Lang, you can’t keep punishing yourself like this. Whatever it was, I’m sure it wasn’t so—”

Hua Cheng releases him entirely, his back tensing, mouth pressing into a thin, cruel line.
“They nearly died.”

Xie Lian feels his breath punched out of him. “Oh.”

Hua Cheng’s lips twist. “And you are wrong, Gege. They are not the kind of person who can
be impressed by gifts. But they are so decent that, if they ever found out what I was doing,
they would feel beholden to me. I never want that to happen.” He bows his head. “And so
they can never know.”

Xie Lian feels his pain like a tangible thing under his fingertips, hopelessness gripping his
own heart. He slides his hand over Hua Cheng’s back, rubbing soft, soothing circles the way
his mother used to do when Xie Lian was small.

“San Lang, listen to me. You’re a good person. Don’t tell me again I don’t know you—I do.
It takes a lifetime with some people, but with you, an hour is enough. If you love this person
so much, trust them. In the end, won’t they at least respect you too much to lie about their
feelings? If they are so decent—would they ever lie about something as important as that?”

Hua Cheng says nothing, but something about him changes, as if he’s stepped out of a cold
wind into a gentler flow.

Xie Lian leans into him, playful, ignoring the churning in his gut. “They come to the clinic,
don’t they? That’s why you’re helping me keep it open, right?” He laughs at Hua Cheng’s
visible surprise. “I figured it out back at your office. You could have just said, you know? I
would have helped you. I still can! Just—think about it.”

“About you helping me get together with my special person?” Hua Cheng asks, a smile
curling in the corner of his mouth. “You would really help me with that?”

“Of course! Did you think I wouldn’t? Though, actually—” Xie Lian bites his lips. “I don’t
really have that much experience in these matters, but—but I’ll do whatever I can!”

And if he puts any more effort into his smile, his face will split.

But Hua Cheng’s mood seems lifted, and he laughs softly, his eye twinkling. “One day, Gege,
I might take you up on that. For now, though, I think it’s time we got you home. You’re
shivering.”

“Oh,” Xie Lian says, finally having an excuse to look away. “I suppose it is a bit chilly.”

Hua Cheng calls a Didi, then throws his arm around Xie Lian’s shoulders as they walk slowly
along the lake in wait. To the passersby, they must look like a couple. Xie Lian smiles and
swallows the bitter aftertaste it leaves in his mouth.

Shi Qingxuan is still awake when he comes in, their usual bedtime being somewhere in the
early hours of morning. They make Xie Lian tea and chatter about another outfit they want to
add to their collection, and Xie Lian nods and smiles until he falls asleep.
 Chapter 6
Chapter Notes

Just a reminder, the dubcon warning was for this part.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

--

Shi Qingxuan persists in their teasing, which wouldn’t be half as troubling if they didn’t
choose to tease Xie Lian exclusively about Hua Cheng. From general ‘He seems to spend a
lot of time here’ remarks that can be easily ignored to ‘My, Hua-xiong looks particularly
fetching today, no? I mean, not that he doesn’t always, I just feel like he’s been putting a little
extra into his looks lately’—with each one, Xie Lian blushes and frets.

Shi Qingxuan is right regarding Hua Cheng’s presence at least, but Xie Lian can’t exactly tell
them that—not without breaking Hua Cheng’s privacy.

From what Xie Lian can tell, Hua Cheng doesn’t share this information easily, although some
of his employees—Yin Yu most certainly—must be in the know. He hadn’t exactly told Xie
Lian, either—Xie Lian had simply guessed. He thought about broaching the subject again
after that night at the lake to see if Hua Cheng is more willing to relent, but hadn’t dared yet.
Nor had he asked him about the origins and meaning of the crystal ring Xie Lian continues to
wear as a necklace. As often as he sees Hua Cheng these days, Xie Lian is aware that he’s
been stalling on talking about any number of important things.

“I don’t think there’s any special reason why San Lang drops by,” he says as nonchalantly as
possible as he cleans the shelf that hosts the rabbits. “We’re friends, he likes it here, and
besides—” Xie Lian turns pensive for a moment, remembering. “I’ve read somewhere that
people in high-stress jobs do that—seek out simpler areas of life, without so much pressure. I
used to know a surgeon who was top of his field, and he liked to take a week every now and
then, go up north to some remote village, and work with a crew of lumberjacks. Just
chopping wood, eating stew, that kind of thing. He said it helped him clear his mind.”

Well, Xie Lian had heard Pei Ming had said that, anyway.

“Huh,” Shi Qingxuan says, petting the bunny they’re holding in their bent arm. “Makes
sense, I guess. Oh, but you can’t tell me he doesn’t look extra pretty when he comes here!”

Xie Lian manages a smile. “San Lang is very handsome,” he says. “I can’t say about the
‘extra’ part, though.”

“That’s right! You haven’t known him that long. What a remarkably close friendship you two
have, for such a short acquaintance!”
Xie Lian does blush this time and turns away to refill the water container. “You and I have an
even shorter one,” he points out. “Yet—”

“That’s right, just look at us!” Shi Qingxuan exclaims and impulsively wraps their arms
around Xie Lian, the rabbit still in hand squealing at the sudden movement. “You’re an easy
person to like, Lianlian!”

Xie Lian rescues the rabbit carefully and releases him into the newly cleaned room. “You
too,” he says, smiling. Teasing or no teasing, Shi Qingxuan’s personality is like a stray
sunbeam. It’s impossible not to like them. “Has there been any news of—”

Shi Qingxuan releases him and steps back with a sigh. “Not really. Well… He called the other
night, said some things. Then, next morning, he texted saying it was a drunk dial.” They look
up at Xie Lian. “Five times.”

Xie Lian hums. “He clearly still cares.”

Shi Qingxuan sighs again. “It’s a mess. And half the time I want to scream that it’s not even
my mess, but then I’d feel so guilty… Maybe this is fine. Maybe we shouldn’t see each other
at all for a while. He-xiong needs time to… process.”

From everything Shi Qingxuan has told him, and from Hua Cheng’s stray remarks, Xie Lian
gets the feeling He Xuan isn’t the kind of man who’s particularly good at processing. Not the
emotional kind, anyway.

At the time, Hua Cheng had shrugged. ‘I recommended a therapist. In fact, I recommended
five. I even made an appointment for him once, but he didn’t show, of course.’

And again—‘He’s still in this bidding war with Shi Wudu over that shipping company. It’s
the sixth one; he’s taken over pretty much every sea port already. If He Xuan wins, he’ll as
good as lock Shi Wudu inland, which will stuff out every ambition Shi Wudu has ever had
about expansion. Maybe then...’

Hua Cheng, as even Xie Lian can gather with his limited understanding, could have put a
stop to it all a long time ago, if he had simply stopped backing He Xuan financially. He
doesn’t, though he tries, every now and then, to convince He Xuan to drop his vendetta, and
they fight about it, but he never pulls his support.

Shi Qingxuan grins when Xie Lian shares this observation. “It’s because they’re friends,
though they would both rather eat glass than admit it. Although”—their eyes twinkle—“not
the kind of friends who give each other hand massages.”

Xie Lian throws a cleaning rag at them, rolling his eyes. He should have never shared that!
But his hands had felt so wonderful the next day, the cracked, dry skin feeling smooth and
resilient once more, that he hadn’t been able to help it. Shi Qingxuan hadn’t shut up since
then.

It’s just Xie Lian’s luck that everyone is hanging out at the clinic after hours that night, and,
when Xie Lian’s phone lights up with a message, both Shi Qingxuan and Hua Cheng happen
to see the screen.

“Why is ‘Cute Boy From Lockup (Not Really a Rentboy)’ wishing you a pleasant night,
Lianlian?” Shi Qingxuan asks, puzzled. “Is he a rentboy? Why would you think he is if he
isn’t?”

Hua Cheng’s expression is complicated but not pleasant. “Lockup?” he asks in a dangerous
tone. “When were you in lockup? Why were you in lockup?”

“It’s a joke!” Xie Lian blurts out with a laugh that sounds extremely fake to his own ears. He
grabs the phone hastily, shoving it into his jeans pocket. “Uh, this boy, Qianqiu, he, uh, he
just has a weird sense of humor, and—”

“Gege.”

“But it really wasn’t a big deal,” Xie Lian tries.

“Yes, it was,” Banyue interrupts from where she’s been sitting in the corner with Pei Su,
textbooks spread all around them.

Xie Lian stills. They’ve all been busy and distracted these last couple of weeks, but not
enough for him not to notice that she was still upset with him over that... incident. He’d
hoped she’d moved past it, but evidently, he’d been wrong.

Banyue, his sweet, introverted, quiet girl, spills everything in front of an avid audience,
ignoring Xie Lian’s attempts to interrupt or correct her. In the end, he gives up with a sigh.

Shi Qingxuan looks more excited by the minute. “Ah, I was right, Lianlian! Your life is so
exciting!”

Hua Cheng looks grim. “And this happened when?” he asks. Banyue gives him the dates. “I
see.” He looks at Xie Lian, eye narrowed. “You spent three days in there?”

“Uh… Well, technically—”

“Excuse me.” Hua Cheng pushes toward the door, fishing his own phone out of his pocket. “I
need to fire some people.”

Xie Lian watches him go, resigned, then stalks into the OR to clean, not looking at anyone.
He’s not surprised when a few minutes later the door opens and closes again behind him a
few minutes later.

“Is he really going to fire someone?” Banyue asks, her tone a lot less self-assured than it had
been a few minutes ago.

Xie Lian sprays more disinfectant and starts wiping the table. “He might.”

“But”—Banyue quickly walks around him—“aren’t you going to stop him?”

Xie Lian looks up at her. “I’m not going to tell San Lang how to run his own company,
Banyue.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, wringing her hands. “Just—he listens to you.”

“You flatter me,” Xie Lian says, deadpan. “But even if that were the case, San Lang would be
right to handle this however he sees fit.” Seeing Banyue open her mouth to say something,
Xie Lian lifts up a hand. “No, think about it. He’s invested into this neighborhood—in a way,
it’s his territory now. Poisoning of the water supply is no laughing matter, and San Lang’s
people should be monitoring the situation here closely. Either they missed it, in which case
they’re incompetent, and why shouldn’t they be fired? Or they didn’t miss it, but didn’t think
it was necessary to report it, in which case, some clarification in their duties should be
made.”

He fixes her with a look, trying to gauge if anything is sinking in, but Banyue is staring into
space over his shoulder.

Xie Lian sighs. “In any case, it’s not my place to comment. I just hope he doesn’t fire Yin Yu;
he seems like too good a right-hand man to lose.”

“I won’t.”

Xie Lian jumps a little and glances back over his shoulder. Hua Cheng is standing in the
doorway, arms over his chest. The expression on his face as he looks at Xie Lian is…
complicated.

“Um.” Xie Lian blushes slightly. It’s his own fault. Banyue was clearly trying to warn him.
“Sorry, San Lang, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, don’t apologize.” Hua Cheng smiles, and Xie Lian can’t read the mood of that smile
either. “Gege, I actually have to go. I’ll see you at Shi Qingxuan’s party?”

Xie Lian nods, ignoring a stab of disappointment. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

Hua Cheng gives him another mysterious smile, nods at Banyue, and leaves. Within a few
seconds, though, the door is pushed open again, and Hua Cheng reappears with a frown.

“So, that boy from lockup—is he really that cute?”

“San Lang!” Xie Lian laughs, surprised. “He’s nineteen—how would I know? I suppose,
objectively, when he’s not wearing three-day-old makeup—”

“I see.” Hua Cheng’s frown deepens. “Well, I forgot to tell you—I’ll be gone for the next few
days. But I’ll definitely see you at the party.”

“Looking forward to it,” Xie Lian says, and this time Hua Cheng really is gone, the door
swishing closed behind him softly. Xie Lian puts away the cleaning supplies and checks if the
labs he’s been running are ready.

“Are you ever going to tell him?” Banyue asks quietly.

“Tell him what?” Xie Lian asks, distracted by an unexpected readout.

“That you like him.”

Xie Lian straightens up, color rising in his cheeks, as he turns to look at her. It’s not a surprise
that she knows, he muses. Banyue has known him for a long time, and Xie Lian isn’t a
particularly good actor.

“He’s in love with someone, Banyue,” he replies in a soft tone.

Her eyes widen slightly. “Duh?” She blinks at him. “It’s kind of obvious?”

Xie Lian frowns. “Then how can you expect me to tell him? It would just make things
awkward between us. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”

When Banyue simply continues to stare at him incredulously, mouth slightly open, Xie Lian
says, feeling defensive, “What?”

That seems to snap her out of it. “Nothing. Just wondering what I was thinking when I asked
you to tutor me.”

Oh, so she’s intent on being childish today. Xie Lian’s frown deepens. He’s had a long week
and he can do that, too.

“And when are you going to put Pei Su out of his misery?” he responds.

Banyue’s cheekbones attain some color, but overall, her demeanor is unchanged. “He follows
me everywhere I go, including here and the library. We study. His grades are up for the first
time in a year. His father says he might rethink sending him off to military school now.” She
lifts her chin up. “So, you know. Probably not until graduation.”

Xie Lian stares at her for a moment, then laughs. “Banyue!” What can he even say to that?
“You’re—evil,” he finally manages. “How did you become evil and I didn’t know?”

“You weren’t paying attention,” she grumbles. Then, in a tone he hasn’t heard from her in a
while, she says, “A-Lian? Can we please be friends again? I’m tired of being mad at you.”

Xie Lian crosses the space between them and hugs her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I was
never mad at you at all.”

She’s grown up, he realizes. She’s grown up, and he almost missed it. All the more reasons to
stop indulging in fantasies of what can never be.

This time, he hears the door opening behind him. Shi Qingxuan pokes their head in warily,
their expression clearing as they see them. “Oh, are you done fighting? Good! Can we go
home now? Or, better yet—can we make it a group hug?”

Xie Lian laughs, beckoning them over. “Of course we can. Pei Su, you still out there?” he
calls out, as Shi Qingxuan joins them, wrapping their arms around both Banyue and Xie Lian.
“Get over here!”
Pei Su comes in cautiously, but is hesitant to join them. Xie Lian rolls his eyes and drags him
in. This would have been awkward to him once upon a time, but now he just feels at peace,
and almost entirely happy. One person is missing from the circle, but Xie Lian tries his best
not to dwell on it.

--

Xie Lian misses him.

It’s a week and a half until Shi Qingxuan’s Fashion Week mixer that they have somehow
persuaded Hua Cheng to host, and since it coincides with Shi Qingxuan’s birthday, it
promises to be the party of the year. Xie Lian pretends he believes Hua Cheng when Hua
Cheng says he’s doing it for publicity. Shi Qingxuan, for their part, is over the moon with
excitement and loses themself in preparations.

The clinic is busy, and Xie Lian has a recertification test to prepare for. Moreover, Lang
Qianqiu, released from captivity at last, shows up at the clinic one day, demanding Xie Lian
take him on as an apprentice.

“I’ve studied so much biology already, I can switch my programs with a just a few more
credits, and I can be here four times a week!”

Pei Su glowers at him. Banyue attains an unholy, gleeful look in her eye.

Xie Lian swiftly acquires a splitting headache.

“Your father will surely object.”

“No, he won’t!” Lang Qianqiu beams at him. “He said if I could stay at school without being
kicked out long enough to graduate, he doesn’t care what my field of study is.”

Xie Lian highly doubts that, but it’s not his place to interfere. “It’s hard work,” he tries to
impress upon his would-be helper. “It’s often gruesome, and frequently heartbreaking. You
shouldn’t go into this unless it’s your passion.”

Lang Qianqiu looks entirely too serious and earnest in his pressed grey slacks and pristine
white button-down. He’s even wearing a tie.

“Xie-laoshi, I understand. I really, really want to try. I think I can be of use.”

Xie Lian presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Two hours, three days a
week,” he says at last. “Evenings only, so it doesn’t interfere with your studies.”

“But—”

“If—” Xie Lian fixes him with a look. “If, by the end of the month, you still want to
continue, we’ll revisit this.”

“You won’t regret it!” Lang Qianqiu exclaims, grabbing Xie Lian’s hand and shaking it
vigorously. “Thank you, Xie-laoshi!”
Xie Lian’s regretting it already, but it seems there are unspoken rules to these things. Mei
Nianqing had been under no obligation to take him in, either.

--

Even with all the hassle, Xie Lian can’t stop feeling Hua Cheng’s absence. He starts each
morning with a smile, but somewhere around midday, it hits him—the thought that he won’t
see Hua Cheng in the evening, or the next day. It never comes on more gradually, or stings
less, and Xie Lian has never felt like this before—like there’s a part of his attention that’s
been put on hold for a specific person, and it keeps seeking him out, mindless of everything
else.

It startles him when he notices. This is bad. Really, really bad. What will he do when Hua
Cheng figures things out with his... special person? Will Xie Lian feel like this for the rest of
his life? The thought paralyzes him with anxiety.

A previously unknown masochistic streak soon surfaces, and he catches himself sizing up his
clients, trying to guess who it could be. ‘Gorgeous,’ Hua Cheng had said. ‘Takes my breath
away.’ Probably young, too, but beyond that… What kind of animal do they have? Are they a
dog person, like Hua Cheng himself? What gender are they, even? Xie Lian had seen Hua
Cheng flirt with any number of people, seemingly uncaring of that factor entirely.

His headache gets worse.

At one point, he’s so distracted, he jumps half-out of his chair when someone’s hands land on
his shoulders.

“What—” Xie Lian blurts out, catching his breath. “Qianqiu, what are you doing?”

“Laoshi, you seemed so tense,” the boy explains, eyes downcast. “I thought a massage could
help—”

“No,” Xie Lian interrupts firmly. “Thank you, but I’m fine.” His eyes narrow. “Why are you
still here? Your shift was over a while ago.”

“We’ll walk him to the train station,” Banyue volunteers suddenly, Pei Su at her shoulder.
“See that he doesn’t get lost.”

“I won’t get lost!” Lang Qianqiu snaps. “I don’t need an escort!”

“We’re just being polite; why are you being so unfriendly?” Banyue smiles at him. A second
later, Pei Su smiles, too.

Xie Lian winces.

“Please go, all of you,” he says, rubbing at his temples. “I have an appointment and I need
some peace and quiet around here. Oh, and take the food with you, please?”

He doesn’t want it to go to waste, but he has no appetite lately. It’s not as bad as his first
weeks post-op, when he could barely force a quarter cup of rice down, but still. Surely three
growing teenagers could use it more.

The week drags on, feeling more like a year. In the end, he almost begs off Shi Qingxuan’s
party. It all just begins to feel too much, crowding him in.

Shi Qingxuan, of course, won’t hear of it.

“Lianlian, I made a special outfit just for you! I need you to be there and show it off in front
of all my so-called peers! Besides—” They wrap an arm around Xie Lian’s waist, their tone
dropping to something more vulnerable. “What if He-xiong doesn’t show? Who’s going to be
my moral support, huh? I need you there, Lianlian. Please.”

Xie Lian smiles, doesn’t sigh, and gives in. He’s only being a coward, anyway.

--

The day of the party, Xie Lian ends up unintentionally running late and Shi Qingxuan takes
off without him. By the time Xie Lian completes the emergency surgery and rushes home, the
night has already fallen.

He takes a quick shower and finds the outfit Shi Qingxuan made for him waiting for him on
the hanger. Xie Lian pauses. By Shi Qingxuan’s standards—and Xie Lian has been roped into
being the first critic of their fall/winter collection—it’s downright conservative, but that’s not
saying much. The pants are all right, he thinks, apart from being pearly white and almost too
narrow to put on. The top, however—Xie Lian has no idea what to call it not to cause offense
—is a different matter. It’s sewn from different strips of fabric wrapping diagonally around
his torso, all in shades of differently textured white. A gold-dusted, shimmering light grey,
and completely sheer stripe that starts from the collarbones and stretches across the center of
the chest reveals… Well.

The sleeves billow from the forearms, like something out of a period movie, revealing a
vividly red underside and flowing halfway to the knees.

Xie Lian swallows.

It’s certainly dramatic. Xie Lian isn’t sure it works as club wear, but then, he’s not exactly an
expert. On the hanger, the whole thing looks more like a figure skater’s showpiece.

Xie Lian hesitates—he’s never worn anything like this in his life. His parents’ taste had been
conservative, Xie Lian himself had been far too busy for fashion, and, while Mu Qing had
tried to sort him out while they were in med school, not even his choices had been quite so
bold.

Xie Lian orders himself not to think about it and gets dressed. Shi Qingxuan will kill him if
he doesn’t wear it, if only by force of their overwhelming disappointment.

He pulls all his hair up, taking more care than usual to make sure the bun doesn’t fall apart at
the slightest movement, and looks at his reflection in the mirror.
Well. He doesn’t look like a figure skater. The club will hopefully be dark enough for his
blush not to be spotted from outer space.

He’s halfway down the stairs when he realizes that he’s probably going to make a show of
himself taking public transport. It’s not like he has much of a choice, except…

He looks outside, eyes catching on the sight below. Maybe he does.

A slick black town car is parked in front of his building, with a smiling Zhu Ling, dressed in
a very sharp suit, leaning against it.

“Good evening, Doctor Xie. You look amazing!”

Xie Lian ducks his head, cheeks burning already. “Um. Thank you. What are you doing
here?”

“Oh, the boss sent me to pick you up,” Zhu Ling says, opening the door for him. “He’s
running late, or he would have been here himself.”

“Oh.” Xie Lian blinks, half-disappointed, he realizes, and half-relieved. “San Lang needn’t
have troubled himself. Or you, for that matter.”

Zhu Ling grins. “No trouble at all. It’s a company car, so it’s not like I have to worry about
parking. And I get to go to the party!”

Xie Lian can’t help but smile back. “In that case.”

They get in, and Zhu Ling signals the driver. The car takes off smoothly enough to be floating
over the road.

Overall, it’s a pleasant trip. Zhu Ling is solicitous, but not overly so. They chat easily, and
Xie Lian can’t help but reflect on how different Zhu Ling is from Lang Qianqiu. They’re
roughly the same age, but where Lang Qianqiu is still very obviously a kid, albeit with
strange proprietary boundaries, Zhu Ling very much isn’t. Xie Lian isn’t really surprised to
learn, during the ride, that Hua Cheng had picked Zhu Ling off the streets.

“I tried to rob him; can you believe it?” the elegant young man with impeccably modulated
speech asks with a smile. “He kicked my ass without breaking a sweat, then asked me some
questions, then gave me a stack of bills, pointed me toward a school, and said that I could
either graduate and come find him or jump off a bridge to save everyone the trouble.”

Xie Lian grins despite himself. “Sounds like him.”

Zhu Ling scoffs. “He still won’t get off my ass. I’ve graduated, I’ve even finished that boring
business admin course, and he still threatens to fire me unless I get an MBA next. He doesn’t
have any, the hypocrite, but it doesn’t stop him at all. How’s that fair?”

Xie Lian hums in sympathy. “Isn’t it true that hell is other people?”

Zhu Ling wrinkles his nose. “Never liked Sartre—hey!”

Xie Lian gives him a beatific smile. “They didn’t teach that in the business administration
course, did they?”

“No,” Zhu Ling sighs, only sulking slightly.

“And this is why San Lang is pushing you.” Xie Lian grins. “It’s always gratifying to help
people move in the direction they already want to go.”

Zhu Ling looks pensive. “I would take a bullet for him, but I don’t think there should be any
misunderstanding. He’s not doing any of this out of the goodness of his heart.”

“No,” Xie Lian agrees. “Or at least, he wouldn’t think so.”

Zhu Ling gives him a long look. “You really get him, huh?”

“Oh.” Xie Lian ducks his head. “I wouldn’t presume. It’s just—”

Obvious. Except, perhaps, it’s not so obvious to many.

Zhu Ling keeps looking at him, his expression turning calculating. “Doctor Xie? You really
do look amazing tonight, but I was wondering—since it’s a fashion people party, uh… I’ve
done some fashion photography on the side—”

Xie Lian smiles. Of course he has.

“—and, if I may make a suggestion? To make your look really pop?”

Xie Lian blinks, looking down at himself. “I actually feel this is a bit much already.”

“Not compared to some of the people you’ll see there tonight.” Zhu Ling smiles at him
innocently. “Please trust me?”

Xie Lian tenses slightly, but nods. “All right.”

Zhu Ling reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulls out a tube of lip gloss. Xie Lian
stares at it. It’s the exact color of the inner lining of his sleeves.

“Uh…” he says, feeling suddenly overheated. “That’s too much, surely—”

Zhu Ling moves closer. “Trust me,” he says again. “Please.”

Xie Lian doesn’t understand, but eventually, he nods the tiniest bit again, and turns his face
upward. “Go on, then.”

Zhu Ling beams.

--

Paradise Descent is a world-famous nightclub, or at least one known by everyone who cares
about such things. Its design and interiors are unique, rumored to have been created by Hua
Cheng himself. The service is impeccable, the equipment cutting edge, the DJs carefully
selected, and the panoramic view mind-blowing. All of these things would have made Xie
Lian at least curious if he hadn’t been a nervous wreck.

When the car pulls up at Ghost City, Zhu Ling ditches him with an apologetic smile, saying
something about an errand. Xie Lian comes up alone, collecting stares as he moves through
the gaming floor and more as he waits for the elevator. He ignores his reflection in the
elevator doors—it makes him feel faint.

How did he agree to this? Why did he agree to this? Hua Cheng is going to laugh himself silly
when he sees him. Maybe Xie Lian can make it quick—just go in, find Shi Qingxuan quickly,
say hello, and then slip out? Call a Didi, his budget be damned, or even… He reaches into his
pocket and fingers the coin-key Hua Cheng had given him. Maybe he can even be bold
enough to ask the hotel staff to get him a car and then tell Hua Cheng he had a headache?
Surely he can be forgiven just this once…

As he steps through the doorway, his fantasies die a quick death.

The club is huge, Xie Lian instantly feeling himself swallowed whole. The club is like a
hollowed-out diamond, reflected colors merging together to open up like a flower. The music
is all-permeating, the beat light and airy, hitting playfully like the best champagne. And
everywhere, there are people—dancing, drinking, talking, laughing, taking selfies. Xie Lian
feels his head spin.

As he slowly moves further in, he feels a little better, realizing that Zhu Ling was definitely
right—Xie Lian is far from the only one dressed extravagantly. In fact, his outfit begins to
feel downright tame, and he guiltily takes back every annoyed thought he had about Shi
Qingxuan on the way. They could have definitely made it a lot harder on him.

A server stops next to him. “Would you like a drink, sir?”

“Thank you, no.” Xie Lian shakes his head. A thought occurs. “Do you know Shi Qingxuan?
Have you seen them?”

The server nods and points him to the wide staircase in the center of the floor. Xie Lian
thanks him and makes his way over.

Either he’s getting more used to the stares or they hit differently when in a club setting, but he
doesn’t feel nearly as uncomfortable as he wades through the crowd. He’s asked to dance by
perfect strangers five times before he reaches the stairs and once to have his picture taken, but
the attention doesn’t feel bad. He’s flattered, if anything—Shi Qingxuan clearly has a future
in fashion, if this outfit is taking the room by storm.

The floor upstairs is smaller and has a different, more intimate feel. It’s separated by gauzy
red curtains and seems to have additional entry control, but Xie Lian is let in without issue.
Some truly clever soundproofing must be in place—a different set is playing here, something
much breezier and more vibrant. The crowd is thinner, too, and Xie Lian finally spots Shi
Qingxuan standing at the far corner of the dance floor, next to a huge crystal bowl filled with
something dark red.
“Lianlian!” Shi Qingxuan shouts the moment they spot him. “You finally made it!”

“Sorry,” Xie Lian breathes out and is immediately enveloped in a hug.

“Never mind, never mind, you’re here!” Shi Qingxuan lets him go, but almost instantly grabs
him again to keep their balance. “Whoops! Ha! Drink with me! I had this punch specially
made—family recipe!”

“Thank you.” Xie Lian grabs them by the shoulders. “But I still don’t drink. I’ll go get a soda
at the bar; just give me a minute!”

“Aw, come one, just one drink?” Shi Qingxuan tugs at his sleeve, then their eyes widen. “Oh,
you’re wearing it! Come, come, stand back, let me see!”

Xie Lian spins around as directed with an indulgent smile, feeling a bit ridiculous and yet not.
Shi Qingxuan isn’t the only one watching him, and he finds himself both shy and strangely
pleased.

“Lianlian, you look gorgeous! And that lipstick—that’s inspired! Come, turn around for me,
let me take a picture!”

Eventually, Xie Lian laughs and steps back, raising his voice to be heard over the music. “I’ll
get that drink and be right back!”

Shi Qingxuan nods. “Hurry! I’ll introduce you to my models! I have so many models,
hahaha!”

The upstairs bar is made up like a block of ice with silver butterflies in it, except they aren’t
frozen—they glow and move, creating a breathtaking display. He almost forgets to order his
drink, too caught up in staring.

The young bartender gives him an understanding smile. “Damn cute, aren’t they? Boss’s own
creation and don’t ask me how he did it! What’ll it be?”

Xie Lian goes for an old-forgotten party trick his mother had once taught him—apple juice in
a wine glass. Hopefully, the appearance will placate Shi Qingxuan.

“Gotcha.” The bartender winks at him. “Coming right up!”

Drink in hand, Xie Lian turns around to observe the dance floor. His nerves from earlier have
disappeared, and he’s smiling, wondering if he can get bold enough to join in. He feels a rush
of energy running through his body, something almost daring, tempting him to be a little
reckless.

He sets his glass on the bar and dives in before he can change his mind.

--

He’s probably not the best dancer, since he’s never spent any time practicing, but somehow, it
doesn’t matter. It feels freeing to move, to let go. The music feels tangible around him, like a
living thing he can lean on, engage with, surrender to. He laughs as he moves, and he must
look strange, but he doesn’t care. It feels so good. He’s drunk without having had a drop of
alcohol. Is this why people are addicted to clubbing? He’d wondered.

He becomes aware, slowly, that there’s a circle of people orbiting him. He smiles at them;
they smile back. Understanding passes between them, a living, shared thing, and it’s
beautiful. His shirt is catching the light, his sleeves are flying, Shi Qingxuan is a fashion
genius, and Xie Lian hopes their peers-slash-competitors can see this, because even he can
tell it’s worth seeing.

He laughs again, turns around, and stutters.

Hua Cheng is standing at the bar next to Xie Lian’s abandoned glass, looking at him. Xie
Lian’s mouth feels instantly dry, heart jolting in his chest. Hua Cheng’s expression is…
intense. He isn’t smiling, isn’t blinking, isn’t… looking away. His gaze is unwavering, and
Xie Lian feels lightheaded.

“Excuse me,” he manages, and moves toward him, unseeing, as if tethered on a string. The
others part for him, though he barely notices.

“San Lang!” he says when he’s close enough to be heard. “I was just—”

“Enjoying yourself?” Hua Cheng finally smiles at him, though it’s a bit strained. “Gege,
you… You look…”

“Isn’t Shi Qingxuan amazing?” Xie Lian blurts out, feeling his cheeks heat up and reaching
for his glass quickly. He should have asked that nice bartender to add ice! “You were so right
to sponsor them! Just look at how talented they are!” He gestures down at himself. “Haha,
though they say you won’t let them dress you!”

Hua Cheng is wearing one of his incredible black suits, fitted to perfection. His gaze,
however, doesn’t move far from Xie Lian’s face, zeroing in on his lips before being forcefully
jerked back up to his eyes.

Xie Lian blushes fiercely, unable to stop babbling. “God, San Lang, I’ve missed you! Why
have you been away for so long? You—you nearly missed the party!”

“Couldn’t be helped,” Hua Cheng murmurs, his focus unwavering. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here
earlier.”

“It’s all right! You’re busy, I know! Just, you know, I’ve missed you, and—and uh… Oh! I
have an apprentice now! Well, of sorts. Don’t know if he’s going to stick with it. I mean, he’s
smart enough, sure, but… San Lang, I… Oh, uh, the lipstick…” He licks his lips, hoping to
remove at least some of it. Hua Cheng shuts his eye for a moment. “It’s uh… Zhu Ling said it
goes with the outfit. He, he helped me put it on, I couldn’t have—”

That gets a reaction.

“He did what?!” Hua Cheng roars, crowding Xie Lian against the bar. “He touched you?!”
“Not in a bad way!” Xie Lian tries to placate him, pressing his hands against Hua Cheng’s
chest. “San Lang, he’s a very good assistant—he was trying to be helpful! He just saw how
hopeless I was and—” He bites his lip. “Why are you mad?”

Hua Cheng is breathing heavily, staring down at him. Xie Lian meets his gaze, hoping to
deescalate somehow. After a long moment, Hua Cheng lowers his head, some of the tension
draining out of him.

“Gege,” he says quietly. “You need to be careful with me. You need to… God.” He groans. “I
sound like one of those assholes, don’t I? I never wanted to, but I—I have limits. You can’t
just—I can’t… Oh, damn it.”

“San Lang?” Xie Lian rubs his shoulders gently, genuinely worried now. “What are you
talking about? Are you all right?”

Hua Cheng huffs out a laugh, glancing away, though he doesn’t pull back. “Gege, one of
these days, you’ll be the death of me,” he mutters, but when he looks back, his gaze is clear,
familiar and warm.

With an incredulous shake of his head and another laugh, he steps back. Not too far, but
enough that Xie Lian’s hands slide off of him. Xie Lian tries not to show his disappointment;
Hua Cheng is watching him, as if gauging his reactions, and Xie Lian immediately smiles
brightly to compensate.

“Have you said hello to Shi Qingxuan yet?” he asks. “You should really congratulate them.
I’m pretty sure I saw one of their, uh, colleagues crying in the corner.”

Hua Cheng’s eye flickers over to where Shi Qingxuan is laughing within a circle of people,
an ornate fan flying between their fingers. It’s almost enough to distract from the way they
keep glancing at the entrance every other minute.

“Is He Xuan going to show?” Xie Lian asks.

Hua Cheng frowns. “I don’t know. He said he was… thinking about it. I’ll go say hi; excuse
me.”

Xie Lian nods, but Hua Cheng is gone already, moving swiftly through the crowd that seems
to sense his presence in advance. As Xie Lian watches, Shi Qingxuan hugs him, holding on
to him for a while as they’re saying something, their face uncharacteristically serious. Hua
Cheng nods, says something back that makes Shi Qingxuan laugh.

Xie Lian smiles, despite himself. Hua Cheng would sooner die than admit it, but he’s kind to
people. Not a lot of them, no, but for those who somehow make it into his inner circle, there
seems to be no length to which he wouldn’t go.

Then again.

Xie Lian watches him drink two cups of Shi Qingxuan’s special punch in rapid succession.
His eyebrows arch. It’s not the first time Hua Cheng has drunk something alcoholic in his
presence, but he’s never seemed quite so desperate for it. He doesn’t hurry back and doesn’t
even look in Xie Lian’s direction, talking determinedly to Shi Qingxuan and their friends
instead.

Xie Lian sighs, sets his barely-touched glass of juice down, and goes to find the bathroom.

--

The first thing he does when he locates one is try to wash the lipstick off. It doesn’t come off,
of course, being a sticky, supposed-to-last-all-day kind, which is either Xie Lian’s usual luck
or Zhu Ling’s deviousness. The only thing he succeeds at is making the lines blurry and his
mouth redder; a man walking past him wolf-whistles on his way out. Xie Lian stares at his
reflection morosely, leaning on the sink.

What is he playing at?

It had felt... good to get attention? Even better to have Hua Cheng’s, too? Yes. Oh, yes. It felt
fucking amazing. What the hell is he doing?

Is he really trying to seduce his best friend? Hua Cheng is in love with someone else, and Xie
Lian damn well knows it. What is he trying to do—provoke him, appealing to his baser
instincts? To what end? So Hua Cheng would wake up the next morning hating everything?
Hating Xie Lian for making him stray? Does Xie Lian really think their friendship can
survive that? Of all the selfish, self-centered things to do… Hua Cheng had said no to him
once already. Was Xie Lian really going to trick him into saying yes?

God. He can’t believe himself.

He washes his face in cold water, presses icy fingers to his neck. Enough of this madness.
He’ll make as graceful an exit as he can muster and leave. Tomorrow, he’s going to focus on
work—on helping his patients, his neighbors, and whipping Lang Qianqiu into shape. He’s
going to forget this night ever happened. Xie Lian is good at willfully forgetting things.

He almost succeeds, too, except there’s something very strange going on on the floor when
he emerges.

People are…

Well.

Xie Lian is under no delusion that nightclubs are pillars of chastity, but the display in front of
him is surely… a bit much? Everywhere he looks, people are wrapped around each other,
couples making out heavily and hands sneaking under clothes. There are a few people
standing still, blinking around numbly, looking utterly confused and vaguely alarmed. There
is also a brawl going on at the bar, a real fight with glasses flying and punches being thrown.
There’s no security in sight.

Xie Lian stares. Hua Cheng is nowhere to be seen, but Shi Qingxuan is still at the center of
their group, except now all of them are—
“Oh,” Xie Lian breathes out, shocked, and no, he never wanted to see that. “What the—”

“What the fuck?!” someone snaps emphatically next to him.

Xie Lian’s head whips toward the speaker. “He Xuan! Oh, thank God you’re here!”

He Xuan gives him a surly look, but other matters clearly take priority, so his glower is
redirected back at the hall quickly. “Why are they all acting like they’ve taken too much
speed?”

Xie Lian blinks, stares, and it all falls into place. “Oh my God, they are! But they were fine
just a while back, how can they all suddenly… The punch!” He grabs He Xuan’s arm. “Shi
Qingxuan’s special recipe punch—they’ve all drunk it, someone must have tampered with
it!”

He Xuan growls. “I’m going to murder them!”

He starts forward, but Xie Lian hangs on to him, holding him back. “It’s not their fault! They
would never have done something like this knowingly! He Xuan, we’ve got to help these
people!”

He Xuan glares at him, but doesn’t shake him off. “It’s not my job to—”

“Oh my God!” Xie Lian cuts him off as a wave of knee-buckling horror hits him. An image
flashes through his mind, clear as day: Hua Cheng drinking two cups of the damn punch, one
after another. “San Lang!” He turns toward He Xuan, grabbing his arms and shaking him
slightly. “Hua Cheng—have you seen him?!”

He Xuan looks about as happy at being manhandled as a deranged bear, but at Xie Lian’s
words, some of the rage leaves his eyes in favor of something more focused and purposeful.

“Saw him ten minutes ago outside. He said he was going to get something from his suite.
Don’t tell me he drank that stuff too—”

“Where’s his suite?!”

“Stop shaking me! Same floor, opposite side, there’s a staircase—asshole sure likes his view.
Now let me go!”

Xie Lian doesn’t. “He Xuan, you’ve got to help! They know you here—call security! This
needs to be contained! These people need medical attention, IV drips—something! And get
Shi Qingxuan out of here!”

He Xuan glares. “Who the fuck do you think you are, giving me orders?! Just because he’s
—”

Xie Lian hits him in the center of the chest hard enough to make him stagger back, then look
up incredulously.
“Stop wasting my time!” Xie Lian snaps. “I’m the person who’s giving you the only sane
course of action! If you value your partnership with Hua Cheng, you will do this—and if you
don’t help Shi Qingxuan, I will personally come after you, and you won’t like it! I don’t give
a flying fuck what you think of me—get moving!”

He Xuan’s glare is at least a quarter shock. With a snarl of his own, he spins on his heel and
dives into the sea of moaning and groaning people, calling Shi Qingxuan’s name.

--

Xie Lian runs—down the magnificent staircase, nearly flying off it, the stupid new shoes Shi
Qingxuan got him to go with the outfit sliding on the floor, but he doesn’t stop. He breezes
past the club entrance, the elevators, the staircase leading down to the restaurant floor, and
further into the corridor marked ‘Private Area. Do Not Enter.’ He flashes his coin-key over
the scanner—to his intense relief, the lock turns green and the doors open. There’s another
corridor with a staircase at the end of the hall, and just beside it, like he was trying to go up
but didn’t make it—

“San Lang!”

Hua Cheng has managed to get out of his jacket and is now clawing at his shirt, lacking
coordination but obviously wanting it off. Xie Lian stills his hands before he can hurt
himself, feeling his forehead.

“You’re burning up,” he mutters. “Oh, San Lang, I’m—”

With a low growl, Hua Cheng pushes him against the wall hard enough to see stars, and
before he can draw a breath, Hua Cheng’s lips are crushing his own.

Xie Lian’s mind goes blank.

Then, he panics.

He scrambles to find his footing without success, lifting his hands up with intent, but in the
end, can’t bring himself to hurt Hua Cheng and drops them uselessly on his shoulders. He
twists his face away, breaking the kiss.

“San—”

Hua Cheng’s fingers catch him by the chin without a hint of gentleness, and the next moment,
his tongue is spearing Xie Lian’s mouth open, and Xie Lian can’t breathe. His eyes slide shut
as he takes it. The way they’re pressed together, there can be no doubt whatsoever of the state
Hua Cheng is in, and it burns through him like the best kind of fantasy come to life—feeling
him like this, so close, intimately, like every single thing he’s ever wanted.

But it’s wrong, it’s all wrong. There’s no recognition, no thought, no presence. It’s terrifying
—he can’t sense Hua Cheng at all despite the violent kiss, as if Hua Cheng isn’t there. The
last time—the one and only time Xie Lian had been in such a state, he—

Pressing both palms against Hua Cheng’s chest, he pushes hard.

“San Lang!” he snaps, when Hua Cheng staggers back. “Stop!”

It shouldn’t have worked, but it does. Hua Cheng stands there, breathing hard, swaying
slightly, his glazed-over eye fixed on Xie Lian without seeing him as beads of sweat gleam
on his forehead.

“Oh, San Lang,” Xie Lian can’t help but whimper. “What did they do to you…”

The next moment, he’s gathered into an embrace so tight that his bones are creaking. Hua
Cheng’s head dips down as he buries his face in the crook of Xie Lian’s shoulder and
breathes, shuddering all over, arms crushingly strong around him.

“It’s all right,” Xie Lian murmurs. “It’s all right, San Lang. I’ve got you.” He wants to weep.
“I’ve got you. Come on; come with me. We should get you somewhere more...”

And thank God Hua Cheng had made it here, to this private area, before the drug had fully
unfurled in his bloodstream. What a spectacle he would have made for his employees.

They climb the stairs—slowly, staggeringly, but they manage. Hua Cheng’s miraculous bout
of complacency is clearly nearing expiration; his hands roam all over Xie Lian’s body as Xie
Lian directs him toward the door, and it’s the worst kind of torture. Xie Lian is only human,
and he can’t help the way his body responds. He had admitted his feelings to himself a long
time ago, but he’d never confronted how much he wants Hua Cheng until this moment.

Hua Cheng’s hand slides under his tunic, curling around his waist, grazing his navel, before
dipping lower, and Xie Lian jerks in his hold, flushing all over. If he had the slightest hope
that this isn’t the drug, a mere whisper of a hint that Hua Cheng might actually want this,
he’d have given it up right then and there, would have let Hua Cheng take him on this semi-
public staircase, hard steps digging into his back with no regard for dignity or comfort.

Hua Cheng’s teeth graze his neck, and Xie Lian shudders, desperately pawing at his pocket to
get the coin-key out, praying… Yes! The door unlocks without delay, and Xie Lian feels tears
hot against his eyelids at the implicit trust this reveals. Any door in the building, including his
private suite. God, San Lang.

He pulls Hua Cheng through the doorway…

And his grace period is over.

Hua Cheng slams him against the closed door, kissing him hard, one arm snaked around his
waist, the other at the back of his head, digging into his hair and pulling it hard from the
constraining pins. It hurts, he yells, but it never makes it out; Hua Cheng grinds against him
in retaliation, and it’s all so unbearably hot that Xie Lian is dizzy with it. He brings one knee
up, not sharply enough to really hurt, but, combined with a desperate push of his hands, it
buys him a moment of freedom.

“San Lang! You don’t want this with me! Stop! Think of your special person!”
Hua Cheng gives no indication that any of Xie Lian’s pleas make it through. After a strange,
suspended beat, he bends down and picks Xie Lian up clear off the floor, slinging him over
his shoulder.

“San Lang! Don’t—stop!”

The words have no effect, and while Xie Lian scrambles, he doesn’t want to fight Hua Cheng
for real. Before he can draw another breath, he’s dropped onto the huge leather divan in the
center of the living space, and Hua Cheng’s lips are back on his, his body pressing him down.
Xie Lian wants to give in so bad, he’s crying with it, but he can’t—he can’t. He needs to find
a way to stop this.

His knowledge of pharmacology tells him it’s all within normal parameters for what seems to
be this type of drug and its variations—lack of impulse control, fever, foggy mind, extreme
arousal, even extreme aggression—and he should be grateful it’s not that, and—

Hua Cheng’s shirt is gone—when, how, whose mind is foggy now? Don’t touch, don’t… Just
kiss him. Maybe he’ll be all right just making out, maybe it’ll be enough—

The sound of fabric ripping, shockingly loud, and oh, Shi Qingxuan will be so upset to have
their work destroyed like that, and this has surely gone too far, he has to—

Something hot shoots through both of them sharply, and Hua Cheng freezes. Xie Lian, barely
breathing, looks down.

The crystal ring he’s wearing on a silver chain is caught between them, and it’s… glowing.
Xie Lian’s perception is forcefully jerked to his qi flow, the crystal balancing it, resonating
with his energy… his and Hua Cheng’s.

It’s his. Xie Lian realizes this, staring up in wonder. It’s filled with Hua Cheng’s energy, and
it recognized him when he touched it, and it’s… it’s restoring his balance! Hua Cheng is
caught in some kind of suspended animation, but as long as the ring is touching his skin,
he’s…

Gently, carefully, meeting no resistance, Xie Lian rolls Hua Cheng onto his back, keeping the
crystal ring pressed against his solar plexus. Hua Cheng doesn’t move, his breathing evening
out, his features losing their painful tension as his eye closes slowly and his body goes soft,
sinking into the pliant leather. Xie Lian watches his face for a moment longer, then carefully
ducks his head, letting the chain roll over the back of his neck to curl on Hua Cheng’s chest.

Xie Lian sits up next to him, gazing down, his own heartbeat still racing. Slowly, not asking
himself what he’s doing, he bends down and kisses Hua Cheng’s slack mouth softly, stealing
just this one kiss for himself.

--

Eventually, Xie Lian gets up. He pulls Hua Cheng’s shoes off him, then looks around the
suite. Locating a thin woolen throw, he covers Hua Cheng with it, careful not to move him.
His eyes linger on the plethora of long-healed scars and the tantalizing swirl of the tattoo on
his arm, but it doesn't feel right to be looking at it now. Brushing Hua Cheng's hair off his
face gently, Xie Lian finally forces himself to move away.

A quick survey of the suite confirms his assumption—Hua Cheng doesn’t actually live in the
space, but he must stay here often enough. The wardrobe has some clothes, and the bathroom
some personal items.

Xie Lian takes the remnants of his shirt off and studies it morosely; it’s damaged beyond
repair. Shi Qingxuan will be upset, but Xie Lian will not tell them under any kind of torture
how it happened. Stuffing it into a garbage bag feels like sacrilege, but he doesn’t have a
choice.

He goes through the wardrobe again, discovers a stack of black t-shirts, and puts one on. It’s
rude to borrow without asking, but, under the circumstances, he doesn’t think Hua Cheng
would mind. He pulls the remaining pins out of his hair and leaves it loose, too tired to deal
with it.

The suite’s kitchen is fully stocked, although clearly never used. Xie Lian pokes at the
deceptively simple-looking coffee machine until it disgorges two shots of espresso. He hadn’t
had coffee since his last 24-hour shift at the hospital a lifetime ago, but sleeping tonight is out
of the question. He returns to the living room and curls in an armchair, watching Hua Cheng
sleep.

It gnaws at him that he can’t check on Shi Qingxuan and the others, but he can’t even think of
leaving. Hua Cheng is vulnerable right now, hurt and not himself. Just the thought of leaving
him alone like this is unbearable. This once, Xie Lian isn’t going to question if he should be
anywhere else, doing anything else. His place is here.

Searing hot rage fills his chest at the thought of Hua Cheng—powerful, poised, always in
control—being reduced to a mindless being, driven only by animal instincts, his pride and his
dignity stripped away. Xie Lian can’t stop his hands from curling into fists. Whoever’s
responsible for this has to pay.

He steadies himself with the sight of Hua Cheng’s chest rising and falling in an even,
measured rhythm, his face, pale but quiescent, his brow relaxed. Xie Lian wants to hold him
in his arms, protect him from the world, and never leave.

--

The sky is beginning to stain with color when there’s a soft knock on the door. Xie Lian
uncurls from his position, glances over to make sure Hua Cheng is still asleep, and pads
softly to open the door. He finds He Xuan on the other side of it with an utter lack of surprise.

“Is it handled, then?” he asks.

The corner of He Xuan’s mouth twists. “Yes, Your Highness. It’s all taken care of.”

Xie Lian steps away from the door, letting him in. “Keep your voice down.”
He Xuan follows him back inside and stops when he sees Hua Cheng on the divan. “Is he
—?”

“He’s sleeping,” Xie Lian says, frowning. “He’ll be fine when he wakes up.”

“Huh. How’d you manage that?”

Instead of answering, Xie Lian simply tilts his head and looks at him, waiting.

After a moment, He Xuan starts speaking, a somewhat incredulous look on his face. “I called
security and we sealed the upper floor. There are a couple of doctors on staff, so I called them
up, too. After we… pulled them off of each other, they all got a shot, then IV drips, as you
said. I called Yin Yu—he’ll handle the NDAs and compensations when people start coming
around. It’s”—his mouth twists—“contained.”

Xie Lian nods. The last thing Hua Cheng needs is his reputation taking a hit because of
someone’s underhanded tactics.

“Shi Qingxuan?” he asks.

He Xuan rolls his eyes. “In their room downstairs, tied to the bed and hooked to an IV drip. I
left the nurse with them.”

Xie Lian blinks. “In their room?”

“Yeah.” He Xuan smirks unhappily. “Mr. I-Don’t-Give-A-Fuck over there never cancelled it
for them.”

“I see.” Xie Lian nods. “You’ve handled it all very well. Thank you.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

“I am aware. I’m grateful nonetheless.”

“Hm.” He Xuan makes a face. “May I ask, as a professional courtesy, then, how you handled
that?” He nods at Hua Cheng’s prone form. “He’s one violent son-of-bitch when he’s not in
his right mind, and I notice he’s not restrained? Also—”

His eyes, cold and derisive, slide over Xie Lian from his bare feet to his loose hair to the
point on his neck where Xie Lian knows a bruise is likely already showing, though he’d
hoped his hair would cover it. He has marks around his wrists and forearms, too, though not
as deep. He can’t do anything about any of them.

That doesn’t mean he’s going to provide He Xuan with a detailed explanation. “How is that
any of your business?” he asks coldly. “However I did it won’t work on anyone else.”

He Xuan’s smirk widens. “I don’t doubt it.”

Xie Lian is in no mood. “The person who did this,” he says, “have you found out anything?”
He Xuan frowns. “No, but I’m on it. So is Yin Yu. We’ll get them, don’t worry.”

“En.” Xie Lian nods. “When you do… there’s no need to be gentle. Is there?”

He Xuan’s eyes meet his, and for the first time, there’s something like respect in them.

“No need at all,” he says, then gives Xie Lian a thoughtful look. “You know, the way he talks
about you, I thought I’d hate you on sight. But you’re not nearly as sweet and innocent as you
seem, are you? I think I’m beginning to understand what he—”

Xie Lian shakes his head tiredly, stepping back. “Would you like some coffee?”

He Xuan cuts himself off. “Is there food?”

--

He Xuan can eat a lot. Cradling another cup of coffee in his hands, Xie Lian watches him
methodically clean out the contents of the fridge a little blankly. The morbidly curious part of
him wants to ask where it all goes, since He Xuan is thin to the point of gauntness. He
refrains with some effort.

Hearing sounds of movement from the other room, he sets the cup down hastily. “Stay here,
please,” he tells He Xuan, who shows no inclination to get up anyway. “Give us a minute.”

Hua Cheng is sitting up on the divan, the throw pooled around his waist. In the soft, early
morning light, he’s breathtakingly beautiful—skin so pale he’s almost glowing, hair spilled
freely over his shoulders in inky swirls. He’s holding the crystal ring in his palm, frowning
down at it in confusion.

Xie Lian takes a deep steadying breath and plasters a wide smile on.

“San Lang, you’re awake!”

Hua Cheng’s head snaps toward him as Xie Lian quickly crosses the room and sits down on
the divan sideways.

“Gege?” He sounds so befuddled, Xie Lian aches for him.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. It’s really hard not to stare.

Hua Cheng blinks, then rubs his forehead with a grimace. “A headache, I think. I… What
happened last night? Why can’t I remember how I got here?”

“Ah. Well. There was a bit of an incident at the party, you see,” Xie Lian says, keeping his
tone purposefully light. “You remember Shi Qingxuan’s punch? Someone spiked it with
some drug—a PCP derivative, I think. Everyone who’d drunk a cup got dosed, including you.
It’s all right!” He leans forward, patting Hua Cheng’s knee soothingly when he tenses. “It’s
all taken care of. Yin Yu will give you the details, but everyone’s fine now, or getting there.
We don’t know who did it yet, but—”
“Gege,” Hua Cheng interrupts, voice hoarse. “What happened to me?”

“Oh, you were lucky!” Xie Lian assures him with a smile. “You went to get something from
your suite just before the drug hit; you were halfway there when I found you. I brought you
the rest of the way so you could sleep it off, and, well—here you are. Though, I have to tell
you, San Lang, you were very uncooperative.” He laughs. “Taking your clothes off, I can
understand—you were feverish. But did you have to pick a fight with me, too?”

Hua Cheng blinks. “We fought?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it that.” Xie Lian grins. “Ah, I’m sorry, San Lang, I shouldn’t be
making fun of you. But you were so cute when you challenged me to a duel! You could
barely keep your feet, so mostly I fought to get you up here, so you wouldn’t sleep on the
floor.”

“What else?” Hua Cheng demands, gaze sharp.

“What else?” Xie Lian stares. “Nothing? You didn’t dance on the table or anything. You just
sort of… passed out. Oh, and I guess you wanted this.” He nods at the ring Hua Cheng is still
holding. “You want it back, I take it?”

Hua Cheng shifts, his focus breaking. “No.” He shakes his head and hands it over. “It’s
yours.”

“Okay.” Xie Lian loops the chain over his head, letting the ring slide underneath his shirt. We
need to talk about this... thing, he thinks. But not now.

“I did nothing else?” Hua Cheng persists, peering into his face. “Are you sure?”

Xie Lian rolls his eyes. “Of course I’m sure, San Lang. I was awake, wasn’t I? Now, I have to
go, I need to get to work,” He says, getting to his feet. “I borrowed your shirt; I hope you
don’t mind? I didn’t feel like riding the train in what I had on.”

Hua Cheng moves to stand. “I’ll call a car for you.”

“No, no!” Xie Lian pushes him back gently. “You need to rest some more. Take a shower,
have something to eat… uh, that is, if there’s any food left, seeing as He Xuan is in your
kitchen.”

“What?” Hua Cheng snaps, his attention thankfully, finally, shifting from scrutinizing Xie
Lian’s appearance. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“Cleaning up your mess, asshole!” He Xuan calls out from the kitchen.

“San Lang, be nice,” Xie Lian admonishes. “He Xuan was the one who prevented last night
from turning into a complete disaster—he and Yin Yu, so be sure to thank them both. I have
to run, so I’ll talk to you later, all right? Be sure to rest before you do anything!”

“Yes, please, San Lang, be sure to rest,” He Xuan mocks in a faux-sweet tone, appearing in
the doorway, a half-devoured chicken leg in one hand. “Don’t worry; I’ll walk him out.”
“Get him—”

“A car, yes, I know. Go shower; you look like crap.”

Xie Lian, who had used the distraction to hunt down and put on his shoes, gives Hua Cheng
one last reassuring smile and leaves, trying not to run.

--

Once on the staircase outside, He Xuan breaks his silence. “Smooth, but I don’t think he’s
buying it. Not entirely, anyway; I know I wouldn’t.”

“Why?” Xie Lian asks, rubbing at his eyes.

He Xuan smirks. “Well, unless you punch with your mouth, you’ve got one bruise too many.”

Xie Lian, it turns out, is not too tired to blush.

“I really don’t need a car,” he mutters. He has no defense anyway; his only saving grace for
now is Hua Cheng’s still-dazed state.

“Yeah, no, give it up, Your Highness, you’re getting one. I’m not dealing with him if
someone gropes you on the train.”

Xie Lian grimaces. “You’re kind of a horrible human being, you know that?”

“En. Get my number from Shi Qingxuan; I’ll update you on our progress.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

“Xie Lian.”

Xie Lian turns to look at him as he calls for the elevator. “Yes?”

He Xuan is frowning, looking uncharacteristically hesitant. At long last, he manages, staring

at the floor, “Shi Qingxuan. I… I don’t know how…”

Xie Lian waits and, when nothing else comes out, steps closer. Part of him wants to get some
revenge for He Xuan making fun of him and say something like, ‘Oh, and you’re asking for
my advice now?’ But, with a jolt, he realizes how desperate He Xuan has to be. And who else
would he ask? His only friend—fine, close associate—is Hua Cheng, and something tells Xie
Lian that Hua Cheng isn’t the person best equipped to have this talk with.

He lays a hand on He Xuan’s arm gently. “Look, it’s complicated and honestly, it needs a
longer conversation. But… Love and forgiveness going hand in hand is a myth. It doesn’t
always work that way. You can still love someone without being able to forgive them; they
don’t cancel each other out. Forgiveness is… It’s about you. It’s about who you’re really mad
at. You need to stop being angry with yourself, before you can stop being angry with them.
I’m not saying that it’s easy. I just know it’s possible.”
 The elevator pings as the doors slide open.

Xie Lian squeezes He Xuan’s arm in reassurance. “If you need to talk about this, come find
me, anytime. No one has to know.”

He Xuan doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t lift his eyes off the floor.

Xie Lian sighs, stepping backward into the elevator, leaning against the wall the moment the
doors slide closed.

--

As it’s nearly opening time, Xie Lian initially asks the driver to take him straight to the clinic,
but, at the last moment, changes his mind.

“Actually, that little coffeeshop on the corner? Can we stop there, please?”

Five minutes later, he’s walking the remaining block on foot, hoping the cool morning air
will energize him, along with a cup with a triple shot espresso in hand. Xie Lian has no desire
to start mainlining caffeine again the way he had in med school, but he doesn’t know how to
survive today otherwise. Just this once, he promises. And he’ll finish on time, and he’ll sleep.

The air is more than cool, and the sky is frowning. The wind is picking up, and there’s a
strong sense of the upcoming storm in the air. Xie Lian is glad he’s made it back before it
hits.

Someone is waiting outside the door, studying the artwork on the clinic’s façade as Xie Lian
approaches. The man isn’t holding a carrier of any kind, nor is there any other sign of an
animal in sight. Something about the slope of his shoulders and his posture seems familiar,
but Xie Lian’s mind is slow to engage after the last twenty-four hours.

He slows down unconsciously, looking at the high ponytail of silky silvery-lilac hair, tugged
mercilessly by the progressively stronger wind, at the way the man whose back is to him tilts
his head—

And there’s a frown on his face Xie Lian knows without seeing it, knows with a certainty that
makes him grip the paper cup hard enough to risk crushing it. His mouth goes dry, but he
can’t hold the name back.

“Mu Qing.”

Mu Qing turns around slowly—he never was taken off guard. There’s a frown on his face,
creasing handsome features that seemingly haven’t aged a day.

“So,” he says. “You’re alive.”

Chapter End Notes

All thoughts are ♥
 Chapter 7
Chapter Notes

Hey guys. Long time no see. 😳🥴

I come back to this at last, and I come back with a lengthy super angsty flashback.
(Think Book 4). I have nothing to say for myself. Somehow back when I was mapping
out this story, I thought that the flashback would be like... 5 paragraphs. Oops? Well,
comfort is coming, of course, but... yeah.

TW: suicide mentioned and contemplated (yet again, think Book 4), violence, major
injuries, hospitals, drug use mentioned, ADULT THEMES. Joy, huh? Also, this is no
longer beta'ed, so all further mistakes are solely mine.

Anyway... it's back?

“Mu Qing,” Xie Lian breathes out, unable to comprehend the sight in front of him.

Mu Qing’s cold eyes slide over him, taking in every detail, in a way that is so familiar Xie
Lian shivers with recognition. A smirk curls in the corner of Mu Qing’s mouth.

“Hungover and barely in time for work, wearing yesterday’s clothes? I see you haven’t
changed much.”

Xie Lian can’t help a smile, though he suspects it’s sad. “Whereas you still communicate
through insults. Looks like you haven’t changed much, either.”

There’s a complicated expression on Mu Qing’s face. He seems to be struggling to hold on to

the habitual sarcasm and losing. At last, in a flat tone, he says, “I thought you were dead. You
let me—you let all of us think you were dead this whole time.”

Xie Lian stiffens at the accusation that cuts deep, even though he hadn’t been in his right
mind when he made the decision—in as much as it even was a decision, as opposed to him
simply having a fit of insanity and wanting to end everything. The thing is though, when he’d
more or less come around, he thought—

“I thought it would be better this way,” he sighs.

“Better,” Mu Qing spits out. “For who? You were dead and, what, you thought no one would
care?”

Xie Lian looks away and says nothing.

“You—!” Mu Qing sputters and falls silent.

Xie Lian half-closes his eyes.

The last time he’d seen Feng Xin was at his father’s funeral where Xie Lian had told him to
cut all ties with him. At the time, he hadn’t been surprised when Feng Xin had simply obeyed
the request. And later… later, he hadn’t been surprised, either. As for Mu Qing, Xie Lian
doubts either of them has forgotten how they parted. Mu Qing’s incredulity seems a little…
insulting.

A flash of pain flickers over Mu Qing’s expression before he quickly schools his face into its
usual disdaining neutrality. Xie Lian bites his lip, watching him. It hurts. It still hurts. He
wants to do so many things, ask so many questions…

How are you here? How did you find me? May I touch you to make sure you’re real? Are you
still mad at me? Have you forgiven me? Are you all right? HOW HAVE YOU BEEN?

“So you’re a vet now?” Mu Qing’s voice snaps him out of it. “God, I hate you. I hate you so
much sometimes, I don’t know what to do with it. This martyr complex of yours, this humble
act—you’re infuriating! Why can’t you just be like normal people? Why do you have to do
these things, I don’t understand! You’re a world-class surgeon—what are you doing in this—
this—”

“Careful,” Xie Lian warns him softly. “This is my home.”

“Ugh!”

His coffee cup hits the pavement as arms wrap around him, rude, too forceful, clenching so
hard it hurts. Xie Lian stiffens in shock. Mu Qing has never hugged him in his life. Mu Qing
is not a hugger, he doesn’t like touching people in general, unless it’s to cut into them, Mu
Qing is—

—shaking infinitesimally against him.

Tears prickling at his eyes, Xie Lian hugs him back. It lasts a handful of seconds before Mu
Qing predictably gets disgusted with the undignified display and jerks free, keeping his face
turned away, like a disgruntled cat.

“Do you have time to come inside?” Xie Lian asks when he can be reasonably sure his voice
won’t falter. The first heavy drops are hitting the ground, the storm is in the air all around
them. “I’ll make tea.”

Mu Qing nods, still not looking at him. “I have time.” He does lift his eyes then, and in a
different tone says quietly, “Xie Lian, I—the hospital. We need your help.”

--

It’s not summer yet, but, within minutes, it’s a downpour outside. Xie Lian turns the light on
—early morning or not, the room is dim enough to walk into furniture, the storm outside
stealing the natural daylight. He moves around as he prepares tea, asking meaningless things,
and studiously ignoring the blend of shock and disgust on Mu Qing’s face as he looks around.
The table with food offerings seems to have him speechless. Xie Lian grabs a plate off it and
offers it up.

“Cookie?”

Wordlessly, Mu Qing shakes his head.

He’s being civil at least. Once upon a time, Mu Qing would have already flooded the entire
building with the force of his disdain. Mu Qing’s ire had always been quick to erupt at the
obvious signs of poverty.

Having run out of small talk—Mu Qing had flown in last night, had found a hotel downtown,
yes, it’s nice, no, he’s still not a fan of airplane food—Xie Lian is forced to confront the real
thing. He isn’t sure he’s ready, but when did that matter?

“How did you find me?” he asks, cradling the cup in his hands. The tea smells lovely,
fragrant and refreshing, but it just doesn’t pack the punch his spilled triple espresso would
have. Xie Lian feels a headache looming.

Mu Qing uncharacteristically doesn’t start lecturing him again. Instead, he reaches into the
inner pocket of his jacket and pulls out a cutout from the local newspaper. Xie Lian squints.

WATER POISONING IN PUQI. AUTHORITIES CONCERNED

Most of the page is taken over by the picture of the counterfeit cartridge-maker’s lair, but at
the bottom, there’s a smaller one, capturing Lang Qianqiu in all his smudged-makeup glory,
arm thrown over—oh. Xie Lian blinks. He vaguely remembers a few people taking pictures
when he’d been released from lockup, but he’d been near-comatose at the time and didn’t pay
attention.

“You recognized me from that?” he can’t help but ask.

Mu Qing purses his lips. “Not I. Not at first. It’s a long story. Feng Xin’s wife is from around
here. She’d come back from visiting her parents that weekend; he saw the paper in her bag.”

Xie Lian blinks. “His wife?”

Mu Qing looks like he’s in pain. “Jian Lan.”

“They got married?!” Xie Lian grins widely.

“Five years ago. He knocked her up, so they had to.”

“They have a child?!”

“A son. An obnoxious little brat, as annoying as his father.”

“Oh, how wonderful! I’m so happy for them!” Xie Lian nearly claps his hands. “I always
thought Feng Xin would make a wonderful father!”
Mu Qing rolls his eyes. “Well, if you hadn’t faked your own death and run away, you could
have told him so and cooed over the little monster. What’s the use of it now?”

Xie Lian’s delight fades. Of course. He doesn’t exactly have the right to be happy for them.
His body remembers suddenly that he hasn’t slept in over thirty-six hours.

“You said the hospital needs my help?” he prods.

Mu Qing’s expression turns grim. “About six weeks ago, we had an incident. A surgeon
made a mistake during a routine operation. The patient died. The surgeon is young, a year out
of university. He should have been supervised, but he’s a prodigy, and that wasn’t his first
solo surgery. The hospital is liable—or rather was liable, until his drug test came back
positive. He was terminated, of course, pending trial. There’s just one thing. He swears up
and down he’s never taken drugs in his life.”

As Mu Qing spoke, Xie Lian felt as if he was suddenly falling down a long, dark tunnel.
Every word robbed him of connection to gravity, his vision darkening, as he lost all spatial
orientation. It’s a shock to feel his back press against the wall.

His throat works. He croaks something unintelligible. After what feels like an eon, he
breathes out, “Oh. Oh. You believe me.”

The light above his head flickers suddenly and goes out.

--

The power is out. For once, the building’s aging wiring system can’t be blamed for it, as Xie
Lian grabs a forgotten umbrella and quickly runs out to check. The power is out in the entire
block, possibly beyond that as well. It’s not the first time it has happened, and that’s exactly
why Xie Lian has a generator in the basement, temperamental and old, but still fully
functional. He doesn’t start it now, though. It doesn’t look like he’s getting any patients today,
never mind those who require surgery, and he’s already made tea.

He comes back, shaking the water out of his hair where it wasn’t covered by the small
umbrella. His hair is too heavy to start curling at the ends, but it’ll get fuzzy in a while. It’s
been a long time since he’d been affluent enough to buy conditioner. Maybe he should braid
it.

“I hope you drove here or your phone is fully charged to call a cab,” Xie Lian says, rubbing
his arms vigorously. Hua Cheng’s t-shirt is loose around him, the skin erupting in
goosebumps in the rapidly cooling air. He wishes he had the sweater Shi Qingxuan had lent
him once, perhaps for more than one reason. He wonders how his friend is doing and if
they’re awake yet. “You can stay here, of course, only it’ll probably last a while.”

Mu Qing is staring at the wall, not listening.

“I never said I didn’t believe you.”

Xie Lian stills, chest heavy with an unreleased sigh.

No, he never said, but it was obvious. Feng Xin had been the one to stubbornly insist that
some sort of mix-up had happened, even when the evidence was unassailable. Mu Qing had
called him an obstinate idiot then, and Xie Lian himself hadn’t known what to believe
anymore.

“I checked your bloodwork myself,” Mu Qing says angrily, defensive, even though Xie Lian
hasn’t said anything. “The next day, while you were sleeping, I drew your blood; you never
knew. I ran the test myself, there were trace elements… I threw it away, but—you had it in
your system!”

Xie Lian nods numbly. “And now, so does that young doctor.”

“His chart is clean! Every checkup—back through university and school!”

“So was mine.”

“Yes, but—you had circumstances! With him, there’s nothing, not even remotely—”

“Ah.” Xie Lian nods again, miserably enlightened. “So because of my… circumstances, you
thought it made sense for me to suddenly snap and start doing drugs, and so, eight years ago,
you didn’t believe me. But his life must be clean and happy, so you believe him?”

“I NEVER SAID I DIDN’T BELIEVE YOU!”

Xie Lian closes his eyes tiredly and shakes his head. “You can’t have it both ways, Mu Qing.
But it doesn’t matter. I’m not angry at you. It was a reasonable conclusion to draw.”

“I—your personality is like this! You’re so perfect and so prideful! You’ve never made a
mistake, not even on a test, let alone an actual procedure, you’ve always come up on top—
and then all of that started happening, your family, your parents—it made sense that you’d—
anyone would—”

“Mu Qing.” Xie Lian lifts a hand up. “Enough.” He can’t listen to this. After all this time, he
can’t subject himself to another round of Mu Qing’s verbal vivisection of his character and
life choices.

Mu Qing falls silent abruptly, breathing hard, as if only just catching himself.

Xie Lian sighs. “You said you needed my help. What can I do for you?”

Mu Qing seems to take himself under control. Then, he takes a few deep breaths, and tells
him.

--

The storm outside hasn’t let up at all, but Mu Qing still leaves for a shower and a change of
clothes. Xie Lian advises him to call for a DiDi first, but Mu Qing doesn’t listen, letting in
the rain as he slams the door behind him. Xie Lian knows what he’s really after, so only sighs
with relief. Some space would do them both good.
He contemplates the cookies Mu Qing had disdained, stale but still good. Xie Lian doesn’t
feel hungry, though. He can barely keep his eyes open, and, as it’s highly unlikely that any
patients will turn up during a storm and an electrical outage, he might as well succumb and
take a nap. His mind is overwhelmed and his body is shutting down by itself. There’s no
point resisting.

The only horizontal surface in the clinic that would fit him is the table in the operating room,
and Xie Lian lies down without hesitation. It’s a little macabre, but they’d done it all the time
back in med school, snatching naps whenever they could. Why would he suddenly care now?
It’s cold and uncomfortable, but he’s too spent to care. He curls up on his side, arm under his
head for a pillow, and closes his eyes.

His mind, however, wouldn’t settle. Images flit before his eyes, days long gone in what feels
like someone else’s life. Every memory he’d kept locked up and stored in the furthest corner
of his mind never to be looked at again is spilling freely now, as if Mu Qing’s visit had been
the wrench that smashed the lock. Xie Lian wishes desperately he could sleep.

Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, but most of all—he remembers.

--

He was born under the ominous star. Or at any rate, that’s what his mother’s friend’s
astrologist told her when Xie Lian was brought home. His mother was a sweet-tempered,
gentle woman, who never had an argument if she could help it, which meant she never argued
with anyone. She listened to her friend’s warnings about her son’s supposed propensity to
bring great misfortune and then never spoke to her again.

Xie Lian was a happy and healthy baby, friendly and endlessly curious. His father was the
manager of the biggest venture fund in the capital, and they were wealthy—gated community,
numerous servants, best schools and doctors on call. Xie Lian knew very little grief in his
first few years of existence.

There was nothing unusual about the child, except perhaps that he was exceptionally
determined and strong-willed. If he had an idea in his head, he would not let it go until he
found a way to make it happen. It frequently resulted in all kinds of situations that threatened
to give his mother grey hair, like him climbing onto the roof at night to see the constellations
closer when he was five, or jumping into a frozen river on a school tour to rescue someone’s
puppy a year later.

His mother fretted, while his father disliked that trait in his son immensely. For such a small
child, Xie Lian was unyielding. If he thought something was the right thing to do, he did it,
and never felt remorse over it, never apologized. His father found it endlessly frustrating, but
he was rarely home.

That same year, a week after Xie Lian had turned six, there was an accident in the house. The
gardener had injured himself while trying to fix a lawn mower. There was blood everywhere
as the unfortunate man rolled over the ground, clutching at his mangled hand and screaming.
Xie Lian’s mother nearly fainted, then sank into a chair, clutching a handkerchief in her hand
and whimpering. His father had stared at the scene for an inordinately long time before
finally remembering to call an ambulance and then he just stood there. Xie Lian run to the
man and bravely tried to stop the blood by pressing his little hands to the ugly wound. It
probably did more harm than good, but he was determined to do something, not to be useless.

The ambulance had arrived, and Xie Lian was pushed away, but never felt slighted. He
watched with avid eyes as the paramedic in charge took control of the scene, how efficiently
and quickly he turned the chaos of agony and helplessness into an ordered process of
rendering assistance. Within minutes, the man had stopped screaming, his injury was
stabilized, and he was loaded into the ambulance. The paramedic smiled at Xie Lian and gave
him a pat on the head. “Thanks for your help.”

Xie Lian knew he was being patronized, but he didn’t care. He stood there, hands covered in
drying blood, and watched the ambulance rush away. He glanced at his mother then, who was
kind, benevolent, and—not remotely helpful in an emergency. He looked at his father, who
had made a phone call and then checked out. For them, it was over, but Xie Lian’s heart was
still pumping with adrenaline. He gazed longingly at the now-empty driveway and wanted
more than anything to be inside that ambulance right now, and not just be there but know
what to do, how to help.

He never wanted to check out or be useless when someone was in need of assistance.

With the same type of stubbornness that his father frowned at him for, Xie Lian declared that
he wanted to become a doctor. That was not the career path envisioned for him, but it was a
respectable occupation, and his father eventually gave in. Since that moment, all of Xie
Lian’s energy had been directed toward one goal, and his life had changed entirely.

He studied hard, aided greatly by his natural talents. He thought fast, had great memory
retention, and a near-perfect eye-hand coordination. He was smart. Not genius-level, though
many flatterers had called him that, but he was definitely up there. A gifted child. A prodigy.
Not relying on those talents, he studied and practiced nearly nonstop, skipping grades and
blazing through tutors.

At fifteen, he sat for school graduation exams and ended up nationally ranked third in his
year. He picked a university with the best medical program and aimed to clear it in six years
instead of eight. He was on track, and life was wonderful.

Of course, that kind of dedication left very little time for meaningful social interactions. That
in turn had led to the fact that, when Xie Lian turned fifteen and awakened to the fact that he
was a person with interests and desires, he was even more clueless than most boys his age,
hence the whole Pei Ming debacle.

His only friend didn’t help much, not that Xie Lian had shared that particular story with him.
That would have been way too embarrassing. Feng Xin’s family lived in the same gated
community as Xie Lian’s, his father worked for Xie Lian’s father, and during any kind of
social event, they were thrown together to entertain themselves while the adults were
otherwise occupied.

Feng Xin was three years older, and should have been bored stiff, considering how keenly
children felt every month of age difference, but that wasn’t how it happened. It was
impossible to get bored with Xie Lian, whose mind was never idle, and who used every
second of unsupervised time to the maximum. Feng Xin ended up looking at him half like an
older brother, desperately trying to keep his charge out of trouble, and half like someone very
eager to follow where Xie Lian led. Xie Lian, for his part, was delighted to have a
companion.

They ended up rooming together in university—Xie Lian insisting on living in the dorms,
despite his father’s displeasure. Their second month in, they met Mu Qing, who was snarky
and perpetually displeased with everything. Unlike Feng Xin who aimed to become a
physical therapist, Mu Qing was a fellow med student, and never failed to show his disdain
for the ‘easy track.’ It didn’t help that, despite being four years older, he was in the same year
as Xie Lian and got beaten by him on every test by a large margin. Mu Qing, who was there
on a scholarship, had taken to calling him the little prince, and had frequently expanded on
how privileged and spoiled Xie Lian was, which drove Feng Xin up the wall.

Their relationship had shifted, however, once Mu Qing realized exactly how clueless Xie
Lian was in everything except medicine. It was Mu Qing who noticed that Xie Lian’s drink
was spiked at that catastrophe of a party at someone’s apartment. It was Mu Qing who
punched the upperclassman and dragged Xie Lian away; Mu Qing, who berated him
endlessly, calling him every swear word imaginable, but who still held his hair back for him
while Xie Lian was sick over the toilet, and brought him water and painkillers after.

After Mu Qing had gotten kicked out of his dorm room over some kind of misunderstanding,
Xie Lian cheerfully invited him to live with them, which was why for the rest of that year, he
lived in a room that was a constant battlefield, while he and Feng Xin were simultaneously
hiding the presence of another person during the dorm inspections.

Xie Lian genuinely considered them friends. What Feng Xin and Mu Qing considered
themselves to be remained a mystery, but the three of them stuck together all throughout
university, and they all went first to intern and then to work at the same hospital—the
prestigious and nationally-famed Capital Central. At the time, there was only one position for
a junior surgeon available, but the hospital had been so eager to hire Xie Lian that when he’d
made it a condition to create another one, the board agreed readily, and thus Mu Qing was
hired.

Xie Lian was the youngest doctor on staff and had a lot to prove, but he was finally living the
dream. He rented an apartment all on his own for once, but he was barely ever there, having
all but moved to the hospital. His new boss, the renowned surgeon Jun Wu, had taken a
special interest in him, praising his talent and trusting him with progressively more complex
procedures, to Mu Qing’s utter annoyance.

To Jun Wu, Mu Qing was just one of the cohort of promising young surgeons who may or
may not live up to their potential. Xie Lian, on the other hand, was already a shining star in
his eyes. Whenever Xie Lian had tried to pass a procedure in favor of his friend, Jun Wu
wouldn’t allow it. He did, however, capitulate under Xie Lian’s constant appeals and allowed
Mu Qing to assist in every one of Xie Lian’s surgeries. Mu Qing never seemed happy about
that, though he never refused. Xie Lian thought that eventually it would even out. Mu Qing’s
talent was too bright to be ignored for long, and soon enough Jun Wu was bound to admit it.
--

A year had passed like that. Xie Lian was constantly busy, constantly tired, and very happy.
Then, overnight, what felt like paradise had turned into a pit of hell.

His father was accused of embezzling money by fifteen of his most prominent clients. People
rushed to get their investments back before the government had frozen all accounts for the
investigation. The company collapsed, leaving nothing but multi-million debt in its shambles.
The Xie residence was besieged by reporters and creditors, to the point where Xie Lian could
barely make it in.

In truth, he didn’t know what to think. His father had always struck him as severe and distant,
but ultimately an honest man. But the relationship between them had been tense for a long
time. Xie Lian, with all the blazing fervor of youth, had insisted that he despised the family
business of ‘making the rich richer.’ His father had been incensed, calling him ungrateful, and
reminding him that the very business he’d wrinkled his principled nose at had paid for his life
of luxury and comfort and ensured he’d had the best education in the country.

Xie Lian had effectively moved out at fifteen, going from dorm to dorm—all of which his
parents had paid for—until he got a job with the hospital and rented a place. But even that
was supported by his family accounts—he was a first-year doctor at the hospital, and his
salary was nothing impressive. He’d known that, and hadn’t meant to appear disrespectful or
ungrateful, but he also couldn’t lie and say that he approved of his father’s chosen
occupation. He started visiting home less, and when he did, it was mostly to see his mother.

The news had come as a snowstorm out of a clear blue sky, and Xie Lian couldn’t think for
the shock of it at first. Then, he went to see his parents. He didn’t know what to think, and he
was still pretty out of it, but he still wished his first question hadn't been: “Father, did you do
it?”

He hadn’t even meant it as accusing; he just needed to know so that—so that he could help,
though how he was going to do that, he had no idea. He had some vague notions of
presenting a united front, of testifying to his father’s character, and for that he needed to
know, he never meant to be critical at that moment—surely, the weight of the wrong decision
is weighing on his father already…

His father turned red with fury, raised his voice as he called him an ungrateful runt, and for
the third time in his life had hit his son. Xie Lian didn’t have a clear recollection of the next
few hours, but he remembered his mother speaking to him in a soft voice, explaining how his
father had been set up to take the fall for the scheme someone else had run, someone he
considered a friend… His father had not spoken a single word to him, and the next morning
Xie Lian learnt of his arrest from the news.

--

Days became a nightmarish blur. All their property and assets had been seized. His mother
had begged her estranged sister to take her in, and went to every single court hearing to sit
there quietly, motionless and white as a mourning statue. His father was adamant about not
letting Xie Lian near, and so Xie Lian sought refuge in work, but that, too, had turned on him.
Overnight, the name Xie had become anathema. Xie Lian was under no delusion that his
family name hadn’t helped him before, and had only made peace with it, because he knew he
had the skills and talent to back it up. Now, doors that had previously been wide open began
to close in his face. People who had sought his acquaintance before began acting as if he had
a contagious disease. As the trial went on, people began showing up at the hospital to yell at
him, calling him a thief and a liar, accusing him of ruining their lives.

His colleagues had all but stopped speaking to him, apart from Feng Xin and Mu Qing, and,
surprisingly, Pei Ming, whose dalliance with Xuan Ji had long been over and who acted as if
the whole thing with Xie Lian had never happened. He even offered Xie Lian to stay at his
place should he need to, but Xie Lian suspected the proposal had strings attached to it, the
kind he wasn’t prepared to contemplate right at the moment.

Another notable exception was Jun Wu, who kept telling Xie Lian to focus on the important
things like honing his skills. “Don’t listen to the rabble,” he said, patting Xie Lian on the
shoulder. Xie Lian didn’t consider the people whose life savings had been stolen rabble, and
couldn’t shake off the guilt. His mentor had reminded him of his father so badly at that
moment that Xie Lian couldn’t help but flinch away.

The next day, he was ambushed in the hospital parking lot by a small but angry crowd, his
guilt preventing him from defending himself properly. He only started fighting back when
they tried to break his fingers so that he could never be a surgeon again. It was too late by
then—he was pinned down and helpless. It was Jun Wu who had called security on them and
rescued Xie Lian in the nick of time. Xie Lian sat in his office, bruised and shaken, unable to
hold a cup of tea in his hands without spilling it, feeling like the worst person in the world,
but Jun Wu’s deep voice washed over him, sealing his hurts shut, letting him patch up his
tattered equilibrium.

Xie Lian’s father was convicted in record time, which was a signal for the hospital board to
finally act. They had no grounds to fire Xie Lian, but he was now to disclose his name and
family connections to any patient before treating them, and if the patient refused, that was it.
In addition to humiliation, the number of procedures he was allowed to perform had thus
dwindled to a minimum, and he spent his shifts reading charts and finishing scut work left by
other doctors. Even Mu Qing, whose first reaction had been “Just think of it as compensation
for all the surgeries you got to do jumping the line,” began urging him to stand up for himself
before the board. But Xie Lian thought the punishment was just. He also believed it would be
over sooner or later.

--

His family assets seized, he was now forced to rely only on his own income, and for the first
time in his life had been confronted with how much everything cost. He couldn’t afford rent
at his apartment and was forced to move out. First, to Feng Xin’s place, but it really wasn’t
meant for two people, and besides, it was in a nice neighborhood, and even half the rent was
too much for Xie Lian’s means.

His mother frequently asked him for money to appease her sister who ‘tolerated’ her under
her roof and threatened to throw her out if she wasn’t compensated. Besides, his mother, who
had never had to think about money in her life, was struggling with the concept of cutting her
expenses and couldn’t really wrap her head around the concept of ‘not being able to afford
things.’ Xie Lian was giving her most of his income, but he had to ration it, so that she
wouldn’t spend it all at once on something that had been absolutely essential in her past life,
like a manicure.

He’d moved to a place a little shabbier and a little further, then a great deal further, until
finally he found himself renting an apartment at the outskirts of the capital, the districts so
poor and permeated with criminal activity that police never ventured there. They weren’t
quite the slums, but one might be easily confused. Xie Lian hadn’t known places like that
even existed until a few years ago, and now he was a resident. If he still had the mental
capacity to be freaked out or disgusted with how unsanitary everything was, he would have
been.

His commute was now over two hours long, but he stubbornly dragged himself back and
forth each day to face another round of humiliating refusals and empty shifts, filled with
doing other people’s paperwork, lancing boils, and only very occasionally performing
surgeries. The pattern was clear. He was only allowed into the OR when the patient was
admitted unconscious, had no significant connections, and his injuries were so severe that he
was as close as hopeless. Many surgeons would try their best to refuse to operate so as not to
ruin their personal success rate.

Xie Lian never refused. He operated despite overwhelming odds, and could sometimes pull
off a miraculous save, in which case his patients were never informed of his identity, but
more often than not he was playing a losing game with death, and didn’t stand a chance. His
personal statistics, once glowing with success, had plummeted. In those few months, he had
seen more people die under his hands than he had ever imagined seeing outside of a major
war zone. He’d begun wearing a mask on his face at all times, but whispers still followed him
around the hospital corridors, the name Doctor Death a constant refrain in his ears.

His mother visited her husband in prison, but Xie Lian was not allowed. His father was still
angry at him and refused to see him. Feng Xin and Mu Qing tried looking out for him, Feng
Xin—by trying to get him to eat a meal every once in a while, and Mu Qing by occasionally
keeping him company, peppering him with minor insults for a bit of human interaction.
Somewhere deep down, Xie Lian was grateful, but he started avoiding them all the same.

Feng Xin’s career as a physical therapist had taken off, and he was finally dating the girl he’d
been pining after for ages. Xie Lian didn’t want to pull him away from that. And Mu Qing, as
a fellow-surgeon, had indirectly benefitted from Xie Lian’s fall from grace as his talent was
finally being noticed and appreciated. Overshadowed and overlooked before—something Xie
Lian had felt deeply guilty about—Mu Qing started gaining respect among their peers and
senior colleagues, and Xie Lian wasn’t so oblivious as to not notice the glances sent his way
whenever Mu Qing was with him. It was clear that he was now regarded as ballast, as
something dragging Mu Qing’s rising star down.

Mu Qing clearly saw it, too, and tried to meet with Xie Lian when no others were around, but
that was only prolonging the agony and making it awkward for them both. Xie Lian, seeing
that his friend was too honorable to simply toss him, had started giving excuses of being busy
whenever Mu Qing texted him, and eventually Mu Qing stopped reaching out.
It came to a point where Xie Lian had run into him in a hospital corridor, and Mu Qing,
surrounded by a few fellow surgeons who were all eager to talk to him, clearly noticed him,
but pretended he didn’t. One of the doctors in Mu Qing’s entourage purposefully bumped into
Xie Lian and sent him tumbling to the floor, the stack of charts he was carrying scattering
everywhere. He hit his knee and his elbow hard, catching himself, his once-honed reflexes
failing for once.

Mu Qing looked at Xie Lian then with no expression on his face, as if he was looking at a
complete stranger. Xie Lian, who for some reason had still subconsciously been expecting if
not an apology, then at least a hand up, was frozen in place, a friendly smile still on his face
like a mask that wouldn’t come off.

Then, someone said, “Doctor Mu, we’ll be late.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go. Just careful of the trash.”

The group moved around him, not a single one of them looking back. Mu Qing didn't look
back, either.

--

That night as Xie Lian was walking home from the train station, the garish neon sign of a
nightclub caught his eye. There were a few of them in the neighborhood, and just like
everything else here, they were the type of place where anything went. Xie Lian had always
tried to skirt around them as far as possible, but that night, he didn’t. The walk to his
apartment was too long. He walked into the club instead.

He didn’t remember much. Disgust obviously. Cigarette smoke, so thick he nearly choked. It
made his eyes water. He was stared at, but not more so than anyone else, and it strangely felt
gratifying. So what if he was trash? He’d finally come to the right place to be.

Another plus, he didn’t have to spend his own money. The moment he’d come up to the bar, a
man sitting there watching him offered to buy him a drink. Xie Lian smiled at him. He drank
the shot, then another one. He didn’t care if there was anything in his drink, he didn’t care
about what might happen. He didn’t care about anything anymore. He was just a piece of
trash, and wasn’t it about time he’d come home?

The man dragged him to the bathroom, pushed him to his knees. Xie Lian went along with all
of it as if in some kind of trance. But there was nothing in his drink—he was just like that.
This was his life now, the only thing he was good for anymore was to be used and discarded.
He was twenty-two years old, he’d never been kissed, had never held anyone’s hand, but he
now had a dick in his mouth, pushing into his throat and choking him, because that was what
he deserved. At least that person wanted him.

There was a long, humiliating walk back to his apartment, his legs wobbly, wind chilling to
the bone, the effects of alcohol and adrenaline long faded. He was shivering, teeth chattering,
his mouth tasting disgusting with what he had to swallow, but the worst of it was—he’d
enjoyed it, had come from it, as if even his body was telling him to give up all pretentions
that he was anyone special.
He staggered up the stairs to his apartment—and there was Wu Ming sitting on the steps
waiting for him, as if it wasn’t the middle of the night, as if he wasn’t a fucking kid.

“What are you doing here?” Xie Lian snapped, because his night was suddenly not over, and
he just desperately wanted it all to stop.

Wu Ming sprang to his feet, expression clearly alarmed even under the ever-present black
face mask he’d taken to wearing. “Gege, it’s so late! I was worried—”

“And who told you to wait up for me?!” Xie Lian yelled, backing away from him, nearly
losing his balance.

But it was too late. Wu Ming’s eyes widened as he’d taken in his appearance, the scent of the
club undoubtedly still on him, and only now that he was out of the cold, Xie Lian could feel,
to his horror, some kind of crust on his chin, and Wu Ming was a street kid, a gang kid, of
course he’d know what he was looking at. He went still, staring, and Xie Lian couldn’t take
it. It was fine before strangers, fine even with Mu Qing, but in front of this kid, he couldn’t—
he couldn’t…

Xie Lian whirled on his heel, throwing his door open and intent on slamming it in Wu Ming’s
face, but the boy was faster, catching his arm, he’d grown strong, damn him, and he wouldn’t
let go.

“Gege, who did this? Who?! Tell me and I’ll kill them! Gege!”

Xie Lian growled in unspeakable frustration at being unable to shake him off, but he at least
managed to get inside the apartment, even if Wu Ming was dragged along with him.

“Let go.”

“Gege, tell me!”

“Dammit, let go of me!” Xie Lian snarled and finally managed to pull his arm free. “What are
you even doing here?!”

Wu Ming instantly seemed smaller. “I had no place to sleep tonight. I…”

Xie Lian felt his shoulders sag. After a bout of tense silence, he said, “You can stay. There…
there should still be some noodles in the kitchen. But don’t ask me questions.”

“Gege—”

“What did I just say?”

Wu Ming’s otherworldly, mismatched eyes were pleading. “Just tell me who, and I—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Xie Lian snapped. “No one did this to me, all right? I did this to
myself! They had my full consent—are you happy now?! Did you need to know that? Did
you need to know exactly what kind of trash I am, could you not have left it the fuck alone
when I asked you to?!”
Wu Ming’s eyes were huge with shock, he looked as if he’d hit a wall running. Xie Lian had
never wanted to die from humiliation as much as at that moment. That Wu Ming had to be
here tonight of all nights, that he had to see this…

“I’m going to shower,” Xie Lian said in a dead voice. “Help yourself to any food you can
find and go to sleep. You can have my blanket. Just—don’t talk to me, please. Not tonight.”

But when he came out of the bathroom, Wu Ming was gone, and the apartment was empty
and quiet. There was a cup of tea on the table, barely warm anymore. Nothing—no one else.

That was when for the first time since that whole horrible year began Xie Lian had started
crying.

--

Xie Lian was in his second year of med school when he had met Wu Ming for the first time.
The university and the central hospital had launched an outreach program in which a couple
of doctors and a group of students would set up a free clinic in the slums to the south of the
city, mostly to deliver vaccinations and provide urgent medical care for those who wouldn’t
have access to it. Students did the bulk of the work, mostly filling out questionnaires and
doing assessments, but sometimes assisting in minor procedures, too.

Mu Qing had grumbled endlessly of it being a waste of his time, visibly disgusted with the
way people were living there. He was by far not the only one with that attitude, but Xie Lian
suspected it ran deeper for him. Mu Qing, after all, had come from a tiny mining village up
north, where living conditions couldn’t have been much better.

Xie Lian, on the other hand, was enthusiastic about being where help was so direly needed,
able to do something about it, even if it was mostly taking down people’s data and running
errands for the actual doctors.

One evening, when he'd stepped out of the tent to get some air as things were winding down
for the night, and the doctors had already left, he noticed a tiny figure lurking between the
buildings, like an easily-spooked animal. As Xie Lian watched, pretending he wasn’t looking,
he realized that he’d seen the same small silhouette throughout the day without paying it
much attention. He frowned. Someone’s child perhaps? Too shy to approach unfamiliar
adults?

Slowly, Xie Lian made a show of stretching his tired muscles, then proclaimed loudly,
seemingly talking to himself, “Boy, that was a long day. I wonder if we come back
tomorrow.”

The little figure stilled. Xie Lian suppressed a smile, and then slowly started walking in its
direction. The child dove into an alleyway, and Xie Lian followed, hoping they didn’t just run
away.

When he turned the corner, the child was indeed waiting for him. It was a boy of around ten,
skinny even through the baggy clothes, with a mop of messy hair that was covering half his
face. He was cradling his right arm to his chest. He froze as he saw Xie Lian suddenly near.
“Please don’t run,” Xie Lian said instantly, gentling his voice and splaying his open palms.
“You’re hurt, aren’t you? I’m a medical student; I want to help. Can you show me your arm?”

The boy took a step back, shoulders going up to his ears. He mumbled something, too low to
hear.

“I’m sorry.” Xie Lian smiled encouragingly. “I didn’t get that.”

The boy was silent for a moment, then said, “I don’t want you to write me up. I won’t let
you.”

Xie Lian blinked, then it dawned on him. “You didn’t come into the tent, because you didn’t
want your data taken?”

The boy hesitated, but nodded. “En.”

“That’s all right,” Xie Lian said. “Many people don’t want to give us their names. You don’t
have to tell me anything, I just want to treat your arm. Will you let me?”

The boy still seemed wary. “You won’t go looking for my family? I won’t tell you where to
find them!”

Xie Lian did actually have to find the boy’s parents as only they could authorize any
treatment—not to mention that he technically couldn’t administer treatment unsupervised—
and if this had been his first day here, he probably would have said so and would have tried
to convince the child to bring his adults. But this was the end of his second week, and Xie
Lian understood how things worked here a little better now. If he tried to press the boy, he’d
simply vanish, injury untreated. Xie Lian couldn’t stomach that.

He smiled and said placatingly, “I won’t go looking for your family, don’t worry. But if your
arm is untreated, it can get infected and then it’ll hurt even worse. Just let me see it, I
promise, I won’t go looking for your parents.”

After some more reassurances and gentle coaxing, the boy surrendered. There was no talking
of taking him back to the tent where the light was good, so Xie Lian didn’t even start. As he
helped the boy take off his rumpled black hoodie, he realized that the kid was shaking. He
wasn’t feverish, it was only stress. Xie Lian’s heart broke a little more at that.

The injury was a ghastly cut across his forearm made by something that wasn’t sharp enough
to make it clean. The boy vehemently refused to tell Xie Lian how it happened.

Xie Lian sighed. “What’s your name?”

The boy looked at him with his one visible eye suspiciously. “Why?”

Xie Lian smiled. “Just so I have something to call you.”

The boy looked away. “I don’t have a name.”

Xie Lian tried a different tack. “To be without a name makes one Wu Ming. I can’t very well
call you that, now, can I?”

Yet unexpectedly, the boy looked excited. “I like it! Call me Wu Ming! I’m Wu Ming now!”

Xie Lian was slightly taken aback at this enthusiasm at being called ‘no one.’ Then again, the
kid was wearing all black, and, although young, perhaps he had already adopted the nihilistic
worldview that some teenagers were drawn to.

“All right, Wu Ming then,” Xie Lian said, trying not wince at the name. “Can you tell me
how old you are?”

“Thirteen next month.”

Xie Lian was stunned. He’d thought the kid was eleven at most! He was really tiny for his
age. The statistics on the effects of malnutrition began unfolding unbidden in his mind. He
forcibly stopped the rundown.

“Well, Wu Ming, my name is Xie Lian, and as I said, I’m a second-year med student. It
means I’m not a doctor yet and technically I don’t have the right to treat you. I have to ask
you this, are you sure you don’t want to come in and see a real doctor?”

The boy tensed, then shook his head adamantly. “No! I won’t go there! They’ll ask
questions… I won’t! Can’t… can’t gege do it?”

Xie Lian looked down at his arm, aggrieved. The truth of the matter was, the injury was
perfectly suited for his current qualification—he’d practiced sutures since year one whenever
he had free time, and the cut, while ugly and deep, wasn’t that difficult to handle.

“I can,” he admitted. “I just wanted you to have a better option.”

“Gege, help.” Wu Ming thrust his arm in his face. “Only gege.”

“All right,” Xie Lian said, giving in. “Let’s get you comfortable first.”

He took off the coat he was wearing and, ignoring the boy’s objections, folded it and placed
on the ground for Wu Ming to sit on, his back to the wall. He took his phone out and gave it
to Wu Ming to hold in his free hand, flashlight on. The boy stared at the phone transfixed,
sufficiently distracted.

Perhaps it was fate, but Xie Lian had accidentally come prepared. His suturing kit was still
clipped to his belt from earlier that day when he’d assisted one of the physicians, and it even
contained two shots of painkillers, which Xie Lian technically wasn’t supposed to carry.
However, the doctor assigned to the free clinic that week had considered such work beneath
him and didn’t care—in fact, encouraged Xie Lian to take on more of his own work. Who
knew that now it would come so handy?

While Wu Ming stared at the phone like he had an alien spaceship land on his palm, Xie Lian
gave him a shot, barely noticeable by the boy’s reaction. He then cleaned up the cut and
sutured it up quickly and efficiently, then bandaged it up. When he looked up, he found Wu
Ming staring not a the phone but at him.

Xie Lian smiled. “There, all done. You’ve been very brave.”

He nearly winced at how patronizing it sounded, but the boy only blinked at him. Without
thinking, Xie Lian reached to gently push his hair out of his face. Wu Ming seemed to press
into the touch, but the next moment, he suddenly froze and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Wu Ming?” Xie Lian called, alarmed by this. “Did I—does your head hurt anywhere?”

Wu Ming shook his head, but didn’t open his eyes.

“Is it… Are you afraid I’ll see your eye, is that it? I’ve already seen it. It’s all right. Come on,
look at me. It’s okay.”

Wu Ming opened his eyes slowly to have Xie Lian smile at him.

“You have a very striking appearance,” Xie Lian said.

Wu Ming stared.

His left eye that had been visible the entire time was dark brown, almost black. His right,
however, was the color of rust with vivid red streaks spreading around the pupil like the
beams of a deadly sun.

“You were born like this, correct?” Xie Lian asked gently, running his fingers through the
boy’s hair soothingly. “It’s nothing to be shy about. You have heterochromia—it’s a condition
some people have. There’s nothing dangerous about it, they just have different-colored eyes. I
think that makes them very special.”

Wu Ming had been staring at him unblinkingly the entire time, but now his mouth fell open.
“Special?” he whispered.

“Of course.” Xie Lian smiled brightly. “You’re a very handsome boy; I’m sure you’ll grow
up quite the heartbreaker! Who could forget eyes like yours? Did you know that before,
people believed that those marked for extraordinary achievements in life would have some
signs on their bodies from birth? Like an extra finger or joint or even two pupils?” He
laughed softly. “Now, biologically, most of those aren’t possible, but I think the idea is solid
—if you’re made special, that means you are special. A much better way to think of yourself,
no?” He squeezed the boy’s shoulder gently. “You probably get teased a lot because of your
eyes?”

Wu Ming nodded, looking mesmerized.

“Ah, I’m sorry about that,” Xie Lian said. “People often pick on what they don’t understand.
But just don’t pay them any mind. If you know about yourself that you’re a good and special
person, what does it matter what others think? Just do what you need to do, and they’ll sort
themselves out in time.”
Years later, when Xie Lian remembered those words, he wanted to smash his head against a
wall from shame. How arrogant and condescending he sounded, dispensing advice, when he
had never been bullied a day in his life! What had he known about being the victim of
someone else’s aggression? How could he speak with such confidence about things he had no
conception of?

But just then, he really felt he was helping. Wu Ming didn’t scoff at him, didn’t call him out
on his ignorance. He’d listened to Xie Lian as if his words were gospel. Later, Xie Lian could
never stand the memory.

He spoke to the boy a bit more, explaining to him how to care for his injury.

“Now, these sutures I used are bioabsorbable,” he explained. “That means you don’t have to
have them taken out. The clinic wraps here in two days, but I’d still like to check that you’re
healing well. How about we meet here in ten days’ time? Will Wu Ming be responsible and
show up so that I can check?”

And possibly have a go at convincing him to get registered and have a full checkout, now that
the initial trust had been established…

Wu Ming nodded seriously, then impulsively hugged Xie Lian around the waist, catching him
off guard, before dashing off into the night. Xie Lian only laughed softly, slightly winded.

He packed up quickly and headed back to the tent only to run straight into Mu Qing as he
turned the corner. His friend regarded him coolly with arms crossed over his chest.

“Practicing without a license or supervision, nevermind that painkiller shot you gave him—
do you realize how much trouble you’ll be in if you’re caught? And all for what? So you can
get your sainthood two years early?”

Xie Lian sighed, the long day suddenly catching up with him. “Well, you caught me. Are you
going to report me?”

Mu Qing glared at him. “What are you going to do about the painkiller? You know all shots
are counted.”

Xie Lian shrugged. “I’ll just say I miscounted or that I accidentally dropped it. It’s only one,
they aren’t going to get suspicious over it, if they even care.” He couldn’t quite keep the
derision out of his voice at the last part. He had already awoken to the fact that the outreach
program was more of a publicity stunt, and the doctors treated it accordingly.

Mu Qing bristled. “You’re so arrogant! You think you’re so much better than any of us—you
think you’re above the rules?”

“Mu Qing,” Xie Lian said tiredly. “I think nothing of the sort. I just wanted to help that boy,
and I did—what’s the big deal? If it was you who noticed him, wouldn’t you have done the
same?”

Mu Qing said nothing.

Xie Lian sighed. “If you’re so offended by it, by all means, report me. I won’t stop you.”

Mu Qing huffed in disgust. “You always do this,” he muttered. “You’re always—like that.”

But he did not, of course, report him. They were friends, after all. He did, however, complain
to Feng Xin when they’d come back to the dorms that night, so that Feng Xin could lecture
Xie Lian, too.

--

Going back to the slums ten days later was a wholly different experience. No longer
surrounded by the protective shield of the hospital staff and their purpose, Xie Lian had
gotten uncomfortable just being somewhere for the first time in his life. No one made any
hostile moves toward him, but the stares lingered, and it struck him suddenly yet again how
little people smiled here.

He found the alleyway way ahead of time. It was just as deserted. Xie Lian waited, but the
hour had come and gone and Wu Ming didn’t show. Xie Lian waited some more, fretting, his
mind running unending and progressively more frightening scenarios of what might have
happened to the child. After a while, he realized that there was no point in waiting any longer,
and dejected, he started back.

Except the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and within seconds he couldn’t see
anything in the torrential downpour. Combined with the rapidly falling dusk, it served to
utterly confuse his sense of direction. Within seconds, he was fully drenched and hopelessly
lost. Futilely shielding his phone from the rain, he tried calling a DiDi, but his phone decided
to run out of charge just then, possibly escaping a watery death at the hands of its hapless
owner. Aggrieved, Xie Lian put it away, blinking water out of his eyes, then laughed softly at
his misfortune.

He looked around for any kind of shelter, as there was no point trying to find his way in the
downpour. A few meters away, he spotted an abandoned yard, all kinds of garbage littering
the ground, and the scent of old urine strong in the air. At the far end of it, there was a
dilapidated building that looked to be an abandoned shrine. Xie Lian sprinted for it. It was
dirty there, too, but at least it offered a roof over his head. He ran his hand through his short
hair, trying to wring it, and looked around.

It was an old shrine, though, by the looks of it, it hadn’t served as such in a long time.
Guanyin’s image could still be vaguely made out on the wall beneath the graffiti. Xie Lian
had never been particularly religious, but he felt strangely unsettled at that moment and
bowed his head, humbled by the benevolent, all-accepting nature of the deity.

Suddenly, a voice startled him. “Gege?”

Xie Lian jumped. The shrine was tiny, he had no idea someone else was there! A small figure
emerged from the shadows, an oversized black hoodie, a fall of messy hair covering the right
half of the face.
“Wu Ming?!” Xie Lian exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” He laughed in delight. “And
to think I was only just lamenting my bad luck to have missed you only to run into you here!
Come here, let me see that arm. How have you been?”

Wu Ming shuffled closer toward him, extending his arm, but keeping his face mostly
shadowed.

“Well,” he said quietly, his voice small, shy. “And gege?”

“Oh, I’m fine, I’m fine, never mind me,” Xie Lian chattered distractedly, carefully pulling the
sleeve up and peeling away the bandages. “This looks to be healing nicely. You’ve done a
good job taking care of it—well done!”

Wu Ming lowered his head, as if uncomfortable with praise. Xie Lian tugged on his hand
slightly, bringing him closer to get a better look at him and gasped. “What happened to your
face?!”

The boy’s striking red eye wasn’t visible as he had a very prominent black eye in its place,
swollen so much he couldn’t open it at all. Wu Ming tried to turn his head away, but Xie Lian
had caught his chin, tsking.

“Hold still, I have something for that,” he said and rummaged through his bag for the cooling
cream. The contents of the bag were mercifully mostly dry. “Did other boys do that?”

Wu Ming seemed to have resigned himself to his care and held still, but he wouldn’t look at
Xie Lian. “No,” he said. “It was him. He calls himself my stepfather, but he’s not! He’s just
the last guy my mother was sleeping with before she died.”

“Oh,” Xie Lian exhaled, having no idea what to say.

“He’s an asshole!” Wu Ming snarled, not loudly but with such hatred that it could cut through
living flesh. “They were all assholes, but he… Threatens me with an orphanage, as if it could
be worse!”

Xie Lian felt at a complete loss. To hear such harsh words from a child who was so young
and looked even younger, to imagine the picture painted so vividly with just a few strokes…

“Hold still for me,” was all he said, applying the cream carefully, trying not to make it hurt
more. What was he supposed to do? The boy’s home situation was clearly bad, but would it
be right to interfere? Wu Ming would most likely end up in an orphanage, and it was hard to
tell which option was worse. Yet, to leave things as they were was equally unthinkable. What
was Xie Lian to do? What was the right thing here?

However, at that moment, Wu Ming pulled back and said something that made all thoughts of
proper protocols and procedures go straight out of Xie Lian’s head.

“Gege?” Wu Ming said, staring out into the rain, his brows a flat, unhappy line on the side
that wasn’t swollen. “Can I ask you one question?”

Xie Lian blinked. “Uh…”

“What’s the point? Every day, it’s this—at home, at school, before they kicked me out, and
on the block I live, too. I hate everything! Every day, I wish I died! Every day, I want to kill
them all and then myself!” His hands curled into fists. “What do people live for? This whole
world is just fucking agony! What’s the point of living? What does it even mean to live?!”

Xie Lian had never felt so helpless before. He looked at the boy in front of him, the small
body shaking, not from any physical injury, but seemingly from the pain of existence. Xie
Lian’s heart was breaking, exposed to this raw despair, but he was seventeen, and neither a
priest, nor a psychologist. What could he possibly offer?

Yet still, he moved, led by some instinct, and slowly, gently, rested his hand on the boy’s
shoulder.

“I don’t know the answer to your question,” Xie Lian said softly. “I used to think… I used to
think the meaning of life was to serve others. To live your life in such a way that the world
will be a little bit better when you’re gone.” Wu Ming was still, listening intently. “But now, I
think… perhaps that is the meaning. Or perhaps—it’s just this.” He tightened his hold
slightly. “To find someone to share your warmth with. Someone who needs you, even if they
don’t know you. Everyone needs someone, so maybe just… If you can find no other meaning
at the moment, until you do—just find your someone? And live for them? Then, maybe you
can figure it out together.”

Wu Ming turned to look at him then, even his swollen eye straining to open. Xie Lian tried to
give him a reassuring smile.

Just then, there was a hard bump, a scream of pain followed quickly by an ear-piercing
screech of tires. Xie Lian couldn’t see through the night and the rain, but it sounded like an
accident.

He pushed Wu Ming back into the shrine and said, “Wait here, okay? I’ll go and take a look,
someone might need help. You wait for me here!” He had no intention of setting a potentially
suicidal teenager loose.

He sprinted toward the road where an elderly woman was struggling to get up and cursing a
mean streak. By the time Xie Lian had ascertained that she had sustained no serious injuries
and walked her to her door a few houses over, Wu Ming had disappeared from the shrine. Xie
Lian had looked for him for several hours, searching all the neighboring streets until the rain
stopped and the sun rose, but the boy was nowhere to be found.

--

The next time Xie Lian saw Wu Ming was five years later. Xie Lian was working at the
hospital by then, and, during one of his ER shifts, a shooting victim was brought in.

“He’s got a clean shot through his thigh,” the nurse briefed him as they walked. “But he
won’t let anyone touch him, is refusing the anesthetic, and won’t take his mask off. Tough
customer, good luck, Doctor.”
With that sendoff, he was gone, and Xie Lian was left face-to-face with a tall youth in an all-
black getup, down to the black face mask he had evidently refused to remove. His eyes,
though, even half-covered by the wild black hair falling out of the somewhat rumpled
ponytail, were unmistakable, and Xie Lian froze.

“Wu Ming?”

The tall teenager whipped his head toward him, and they stared at one another, both equally
shocked.

“Gege?”

His voice was no longer that of a child, and Xie Lian felt vaguely faint. Wu Ming, the kid he
had given up on, had tried to look for in vain, was here, was fine—well, except for the
gunshot wound, but all the same. It was hard to wrap his head around it.

Somewhere in the middle of treating the wound, Xie Lian said, “I looked for you, you know.
Back then… I came every week, whenever I could.”

Wu Ming looked away, saying nothing. But he allowed Xie Lian to give him a shot and to
work on his injury. He insisted Wu Ming was his name now, and he never took the mask off,
glancing at the cameras. He left, yet again while Xie Lian wasn’t looking.

But he didn’t vanish into thin air entirely the way he had the last time. When Xie Lian had
ended up in that dreadful apartment in the outskirts of the capital, Wu Ming found him not a
week in. He brought Xie Lian cup noodles and sometimes fresh fruit, but he disappeared the
moment Xie Lian started asking him about what kind of life he was living. He always came
back, but he never answered questions and he never took his mask off, as if unwilling to
show his face.

Xie Lian insisted Wu Ming came to him whenever he needed a place to lie low. The kid often
had injuries that were a story in and of itself, and living in that neighborhood, it didn’t take
Xie Lian long to figure it out. Wu Ming had clearly joined a gang, and that—Xie Lian
couldn’t help but feel that that was another of his personal failures. If only he’d found the kid
back then. If only—

And then what? a nasty voice at the back of his head mocked. You’d have taken him in?
Adopted him? So that he would still end up where you are now?

Xie Lian had no answers. But, to his shame, there were moments when he was secretly
grateful for Wu Ming’s presence. Even though the kid was mostly silent when he stayed over
or checked in, it was still a living human presence. Someone who cared and didn’t judge.
Someone who still looked at him with respect in his eyes, recognizing him for a human
being.

--

That night, he realized he’d lost that.

He resumed his previous policy of staying away from any kind of nightlife, but it was too late
by then. Along with Wu Ming’s respect, Xie Lian had lost his own.

--

When Jun Wu approached him, Xie Lian could barely comprehend it, so used to his ocean of
endless apathy by then.

Jun Wu smiled at him warmly, then frowned as he looked him up and down. “Xianle, you’ve
lost weight. How are you going to step in for me, if you faint on your way to the OR?”

Xie Lian blinked. “Step in?”

Apart from being chief surgeon, Jun Wu was the head of the transplantology committee, and
it turned out, that night he had conflicting surgeries, neither of which he could reschedule.

“And you want me to step in?” Xie Lian asked incredulously. Judging by the looks they were
getting, he was not the only one who was shocked.

Jun Wu only smiled. “Xianle, you didn’t let what people were saying about you get to you,
did you? You’re still the best young surgeon this hospital has. This is your chance to retake
your rightful place.”

Xie Lian agreed—how could he not? Jun Wu was his boss, and Xie Lian was tired of being a
pariah. A real surgery, not one with odds hopelessly stacked against him, was his chance to
show the board he was valuable. Jun Wu was right.

Xie Lian studied, prepared, psyched himself up. And then—

--

The surgery was a blur. Xie Lian had never felt this way before. He was entirely helpless as if
watching from the sidelines as some stranger hijacked his body. He tried to take control to no
avail. His hands were moving… what were they doing? He couldn’t even see. He felt so hot.
Then, he was shivering. He couldn’t see, but his lips were moving, he was saying something,
giving orders. What were they? It was all a strange, diluted blur. He tried to alert someone
that something was wrong with him, but the words wouldn’t leave his lips. He started praying
for it to be over, losing minutes at a time.

He came to when the alarm signals were blasting and his assigned assistant was yelling at
him, but it was too late by then. It turned out, he’d nicked a major artery, and while he tried to
repair the damage, he was a bit too slow, his hand a bit too heavy, and the man died. They
had to forcibly drag Xie Lian away, as he was still trying to revive him.

He could never remember what happened right after. He was yelled at by various people. He
was led somewhere; someone else yelled at him. His blood was drawn. Light was shone in
his eyes. Then, he was left alone for a while, and he slept. When he woke up, he had an
incredibly dry mouth, a splitting headache, and he faced the most horrifying news.

“There are drugs in your bloodstream, Doctor Xie. You operated under the influence.”
Xie Lian was immediately dragged into an emergency board meeting, facing among others a
stern-looking Jun Wu.

“I’m not on drugs,” Xie Lian kept saying. “I’ve never taken any drugs.”

It was useless, and horrible, and no one believed him, and there was even someone who said
with a vaguely sympathetic face, “We know your family is going through some difficulties
right now…”

But no matter how they wheedled and prodded, Xie Lian wouldn’t confess to something he
hadn’t done. He was, of course, suspended, pending an investigation, and he left the meeting
with a growing pit in his stomach as the realization had finally hit him.

He killed a man.

His head was threatening to explode. Abruptly, he had to run into a bathroom, where his
stomach attempted to hurl itself out of his body. When he emerged, dizzy and still nauseated,
someone grabbed his sleeve.

“Doctor Xie?”

“What?!” Xie Lian snarled. “I didn’t do it! I’m not going to say any different! Leave me
alone!”

“No, Doctor Xie, it’s not that. We just got a phone call.” The young nurse was looking at him
warily, something akin to genuine sympathy on her face. “It’s your father. There’s been an—
an accident in prison. Someone stabbed him, and he… I’m sorry, Doctor Xie, he died.”

--

The day of his father’s funeral was the day the hospital board ruled. They covered it up, not
for his sake, naturally, but their own. That he could show up to do a surgery high meant their
screening processes were lacking and the number of charges they would face if it got out
would be astronomical. Nobody wanted that, and so they had simply said he made a mistake
resulting in a patient’s death. Regrettable, but it happened.

Xie Lian, naturally, was fired and his medical license was suspended indefinitely. No one
would hire a surgeon who had made a mistake like that. His medical career was over. Jun Wu
pulled him aside after the ruling, offering to speak on his behalf ‘after the dust settled.’

“You’ll always have a place on my team,” Jun Wu said. “These things happen, we’re all
human. Just wait a bit till this blows over.”

Xie Lian thanked him, but he wasn’t feeling it. He wanted to leave. He wanted it all to be
over. He said goodbye to Jun Wu and went to attend his father’s funeral.

His mother was crying incessantly, tears streaming silently down her face. She looked so
much smaller now, fit entirely under Xie Lian’s arm. There was press and a crowd of people,
yelling insults and obscenities from behind a fence the police had forced them behind. It all
turned into white noise in Xie Lian’s ears as he watched his father’s coffin being lowered into
the ground. He felt nothing.

After it was over, Xie Lian walked his mother to the car Feng Xin had hired. Xie Lian had no
money to spare. He wouldn’t have asked, but Feng Xin had taken care of it before Xie Lian
was even aware of the problem. Mu Qing didn’t show.

His mother turned toward him. “How did your meeting go, A-Lian? Did you clear that
misunderstanding with the hospital?”

Xie Lian stiffened, acutely feeling Feng Xin next to him. He smiled at his mother. “It was
cleared, Mom. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, good,” she sighed in relief and patted his cheek. “You’re such a good doctor, A-Lian. I
was sure they would see it your way.”

He nodded, kissed her cheek, and gently guided her in. As the car took off, he turned toward
Feng Xin.

“Thank you for this,” Xie Lian said quietly. “I’ll pay you back when I can.”

Feng Xin only lifted his hand in a negating gesture, shaking his head.

“You’re a good friend.” Xie Lian smiled at him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more appreciative.”

Feng Xin bristled. “Just because that fucker was giving you grief, doesn’t mean that I—”

It was true. In the days following the fateful surgery, Mu Qing seemed to have remembered
who Xie Lian was, but only to pester him endlessly, pressing him to confess.

“Just tell them you did it!” Mu Qing had yelled.

“But I didn’t.”

“Who cares?! Just look at what’s happening to your family—anyone would snap! Tell them
you did it, say you’re sorry, play the sympathy card! You have to keep your fucking job or do
you plan on starving to death?! I won’t help you feed your stupid pride!”

Xie Lian had looked him dead in the eye. “Don’t worry, Mu Qing. I never thought you’d help
me.”

Mu Qing had flinched back from him as if slapped. Xie Lian had walked away.

Mu Qing didn’t believe him. Xie Lian could see it in his eyes. Feng Xin… Feng Xin wanted
to believe him, but it was hard when faced with overwhelming proof.

Xie Lian looked at his last remaining friend and said, “Thank you for everything you’ve done
for me, Feng Xin, but we shouldn’t see each other anymore. It won’t be good for you to be
seen with me. Even though you work in a different department, still better safe than sorry.”
In truth, he couldn’t stand to see Feng Xin. He couldn’t stand to see anybody.

Feng Xin argued, but Xie Lian said he was going away anyway to spend some time with his
distant family in the south. Feng Xin, who’d known him since Xie Lian was seven and who’d
never heard of any such relatives before, believed him.

“I’ll text you when I get back,” Xie Lian lied. “Take care, Feng Xin.”

--

That night, Xie Lian ended up at a club in a part of town he’d never been to before. How he’d
come to be there, he had no idea, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t care to repeat his previous
experience, but he badly wanted to get drunk.

He had never allowed himself to get drunk before. Not on birthdays, not celebrating
graduation—never. His body was to serve him for a long time and be free of toxins and
efficient so that he could serve others. Now—now there was no need to keep himself so pure
anymore. Everyone thought he was doing drugs anyway. Couldn’t he at least get drunk for
his trouble?

He laid out all the money he had and ordered the cheapest booze available for the entire
amount. The third shot had him pleasantly buzzed, his muscles loosening after weeks if not
months of hypertension. By the seventh shot, he felt like laughing, and did so. Getting drunk
was fun! Why had nobody told him before? Everything was so funny now! By shot ten, he
was overheated and started taking his clothes off to whistles and cheers.

Xie Lian frowned. He didn’t like that. Someone tried to grab him, mumbling something about
showing him a good time, and Xie Lian pushed him away. He had miscalculated, and the man
flew over the table.

“Hey!” someone yelled, outraged. “You think you can do that, you have another thing
coming!”

Xie Lian sneered. “Like any of you can lay a finger on me!”

The ensuing brawl was violent and vile, but short-lived. Xie Lian had been trained too well in
his youth. His mother had insisted on some regular physical activity to drag him away from
endless studying, and his father had picked martial arts for their ‘manliness.’ Xie Lian had
loved those classes, and his masters had nothing but praise for him.

Clearly, it was deserved, as even now, drunk and nowhere near his right mind, he’d come out
beaten but victorious. Then, the bartender said, “I’m calling the police,” and Xie Lian ran.

He was still drunk, though somewhat sobering up now in the cool air, and he ran and ran,
until the stich in his side had gotten too sharp. He looked around then, having no idea where
he ended up. He’d forgotten his coat in the club, and he was rapidly getting cold.

That night, he must have broken some kind of record for horrible decisions, as after
everything that had already happened, he had the bright idea to call Mu Qing. Xie Lian could
never explain what he was thinking, except that calling Feng Xin would have exposed his lie,
and… He didn’t know.

Shockingly, Mu Qing had turned up, locating Xie Lian by the dot on the map he’d sent over.
Xie Lian was shaking from the cold and the dissipating adrenaline by the time he got into Mu
Qing’s car. Mu Qing had taken a good long look at him, wrinkled his nose at the stench, and
started lecturing before they even pulled into the road.

Xie Lian wasn’t listening—he couldn’t even if he wanted to, but letting Mu Qing’s irate voice
wash over him was comforting in its familiarity. Until Mu Qing said acidly, “I thought you
said you’d never ask me for help. What are you doing calling me?”

Xie Lian didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know why he had called Mu Qing.
Perhaps out of habit. They had been friends for such a long time that, in his altered state of
mind, it had slipped Xie Lian’s notice that they weren’t anymore. Mu Qing, he remembered
just then, wanted nothing to do with him.

Xie Lian blinked and looked out of the window. “I’m sorry,” he said in a small voice he
immediately hated. “I won’t do it again.”

Strangely—wasn’t everything strange and inexplicable these days—his apology only made
Mu Qing more angry. He started yelling again, but just at that moment, a shadow dashed
across the road in front of them, and Xie Lian shouted a warning.

Too late. There was a bump and a swerve, and a squealing sound that cut to the bone. Mu
Qing hit the brakes, ashen-white.

“Was that a person? Did I run over someone?”

“Too small to be a person,” Xie Lian said, already opening the door and slipping back into
the cold darkness. He had to jog back almost fifty meters—an impressively short braking
trail, Mu Qing was going slower than Xie Lian had imagined—until there, at the side of the
road, there was a dark shape, unmoving.

“It’s a fox,” Xie Lian muttered, kneeling at its side. “Oh, you poor dear.”

The animal’s fur was soft, the body warm, but he knew instantly it was dead. Its neck was
broken. Not for the first time in so many days, Xie Lian’s head had begun to swim but in a
different way than before—with strange hyper-focus. Suddenly, it was as if he could see
inside the fox, could reach inside—with what he didn’t know, find the broken connection and
—fix it. It was such a tiny break. The rest of it wasn’t fatal, and this was such a small thing,
and the animal was still here, it didn’t even know it died yet, and if he could just—

The fox suddenly jolted in his hands, and within a moment, it sprang to its feet.

“What the fuck?!”

Only now did Xie Lian notice Mu Qing standing at his shoulder.
“It was dead,” Mu Qing said. “I know it was dead.” He turned to Xie Lian. “What the fuck
did you do?!”

Startled by his loud voice, the fox scampered off into the night, back into the woods it came
from with such unfortunate timing. Xie Lian stared blankly after it, until Mu Qing grabbed
his shoulder hard and shook him.

“Xie Lian! Answer me! What did you do?!”

“I think,” Xie Lian said slowly, staring at his hands in bewilderment. “I think I… healed it.”

“You healed it? How?!”

“I… I think it was… my qi, I—”

“Your qi?” Mu Qing sounded incensed. “You—could you always do this?”

“I—don’t know. I don’t think…”

“Oh my God! I’m an idiot! This explains so much!”

Uncomprehending, Xie Lian stared at him. Adrenaline was leaving, and he was beginning to
shiver.

“What?” he asked.

“You!” Mu Qing pointed at him accusingly. “You’ve never made a mistake, aced every
procedure! I’ve always wondered—no one is that perfect, no matter how good they are! Even
back in med school, I thought… Oh my God,” he groaned, then laughed hollowly. “You’ve
been cheating all along and lying to us, to me the entire time! Of course you’d be an
incomparable star when you’ve been using the forbidden techniques to cheat this whole
time!”

“I…” Xie Lian shook his head, fighting for clarity under the onslaught of Mu Qing’s anger.
“It’s not like this. It wasn’t like this.”

“Of course it was! You just resurrected a goddamn dead fox, for fuck’s sake! Can you be a
man and stop lying for five fucking minutes and just admit it?!”

Xie Lian only looked at him. “Mu Qing—”

But he had no words. His head was spinning wildly.

After a beat, Mu Qing shook his head in disgust. “Forget it. What was I thinking? Of course,
Mr. Perfect won’t admit to something like that. He wouldn’t admit to taking drugs, why
would he admit to this? And to think that I still came running when you called, because I still,
despite everything—despite your arrogance, and privilege, and fucking cluelessness—I still
thought you were a good person…”
Xie Lian couldn’t speak. His stomach hurt somewhere deep inside, a sharp, tugging pain, as
if someone was rearranging his internal organs with a hot poker.

Mu Qing turned away. “Forget my number. Never call me again. Just… forget I ever knew
you.”

Xie Lian watched him walk away and drive off, and still he couldn’t move. He was violently
sick at the side of the road soon after. He thought the fox may have been watching him. He
didn’t remember much after that.

--

He didn’t know how he had made it home that night. He vaguely remembered some walking
and some big truck passing by, the driver yelling something at him, but not much else.

His next clear recollection was waking up in his bed, and it was morning, the day after. He
wandered around his apartment aimlessly, and stared out the window for hours at a time.
There was only one thought in his head.

At least, it’s over. It’s all over.

--

But it wasn’t over. The next morning, his aunt called him to tell him his mother had hung
herself in her room. Xie Lian had to sell every single one of her remaining possessions to pay
for a very humble service. He never really knew how things had been done in the end, but
they had been. It was only him, and his aunt, who would not stop lecturing him, and his little
cousin who chased a stray dog around the cemetery, shouting profanities loudly. His aunt did
nothing to correct him.

Then, all too quickly, it was over.

Then there was nothing left.

--

Xie Lian existed in a strange kind of stasis. He went back to his shabby apartment, lay on the
bed, and stared into space for days on end. Sometimes, he would get up and munch on some
noodles. Sometimes, he’d even go out, though he never had any clear recollection of what
he’d been up to. Wandering the streets aimlessly, most likely. His mind felt as if it had been
wiped clean.

Sometimes, he’d catch a shadow following him out of the corner of his eye, but he never
cared enough to chase it. In reality, it was tall and dark, human-shaped. But in his dreams, at
night, it was small and red like a fox.

“Go away,” Xie Lian told it when, one night, he caught it. “People will kill you if they catch
you. Go away. I’m not worth it.”

The fox stopped appearing in his dreams, but the black shadow remained.
Instant noodles appeared at his apartment without him buying any. Once, a flower. Once, a
persimmon. He never questioned any of it, either.

At some point, he sat down to think. He had less than a month worth of paid rent left. He had
no money—in fact, he still owed the hospital. He thought blankly about what to do, but he
didn’t care enough to stay at it until ideas arrived. Most of the time, he just went back to bed.

His phone was always silent, even before his payment plan ran out. No one knocked on his
door. It was just as well, he thought. Perhaps, if he simply stayed still long enough,
everything would just stop for good. Wouldn’t that be nice? He kept thinking about it, finding
strange solace in the idea.

Maybe he could meet the fox in his dream again and just not wake up.

--

One night, Xie Lian woke up and decided he wanted to look at the stars. The light pollution
of the big city as well as smog made it largely impossible, but even a glimpse would do. He
didn’t know why he had the sudden urge, just that it was there.

He wandered the streets for a bit, but the houses stood too close to each other to reveal more
than a patch of sky. He walked until he reached a small square nearby, and there, finally, he
could look up.

There were no stars. He looked and looked, but it was useless. The sky wasn’t even black, but
some muted, brownish color, like dirt, and stale blood, and rot. Xie Lian felt angry suddenly,
felt like screaming. He wasn’t asking for a starry dome, hadn’t hoped to see the Milky Way!
Was one blinking, barely-there dot in the sky too much to ask?!

When he looked down, he was no longer alone. There were five of them, face masks and
baseball caps obscuring their features, but he could hear their sneers. Xie Lian laughed,
startling them. He didn’t have anything worth taking.

Nobody liked a defenseless laughing madman, and these kids had the instincts of street rats.
They hesitated, on the verge of backing away. But just then, another black shadow dashed
forward, putting Xie Lian behind its back. Black clothes, the same black mask, but this one
Xie Lian would know anywhere.

“Wu Ming, get out of here,” Xie Lian snapped. “This doesn’t concern you.”

Wu Ming, that impossible child, didn’t even turn, his tall, skinny silhouette solidifying before
Xie Lian like a living shield. He never asked for a shield!

“Gege shouldn’t dirty his hands with this trash. I’ll deal with them.”

“Oh, he’ll deal with us,” someone sneered, as the others laughed. “Little MingMing thinks
he’s a match for us!”

Another man, seemingly the leader, spat, “Let’s end this, the little brat has been getting on my
nerves long enough, always sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. Get rid of them both.”
They didn’t have guns by some divine miracle, but they did have knives. Xie Lian swore as
he saw this, but there was no time to try and diffuse the situation or even run. It was strange.
He hadn’t even cared that much a moment ago, but as soon as Wu Ming was there, it was all
different. Xie Lian might have nothing to live for, but Wu Ming—Wu Ming had his whole
life ahead of him. It was for this that Xie Lian fought. For this, he threw punches and broke
bones.

Two against five had never been good odds, but especially not when one of the two was a
teenager, and the other had never been a street fighter and had spent the last two weeks prone
in bed. It was brutal, chaotic, and surprisingly took a long time—or at least it seemed that
way to Xie Lian, who would be swearing nonstop if he had the breath for it. They stabbed
him in the abdomen repeatedly, like none of them had a single original thought in his head,
but that was nothing, it just made him slower.

But Wu Ming—Wu Ming’s whole face was a bloody mess, the fuckers had aimed for his
eyes. Three out of five were on the ground groaning, and Wu Ming was pressing down the
fourth one—he didn’t need sight to find his neck, but the fifth one… The fifth one had Xie
Lian by the throat, his blade pressed against Xie Lian’s solar plexus.

Xie Lian mostly was feeling hot, his clothes disgustingly wet, and he felt as if his head was
spinning—the euphoria of blood loss hitting him hard.

“Hey, Wu Ming!” his captor shouted, high-pitched—Xie Lian had hit him in the groin, but
the hold was strong. “You fucker, you can’t even see me, can you? Hahaha! Well, I have your
little friend here, and I’m about to finish him!”

“Leave him alone!” Wu Ming growled, still wrestling with his opponent. “I’ll kill you!”

“Hahaha, you idiot! You’re such a fucking moron, MingMing! Such a piece of dogshit…
D’you know, if you hadn’t shown up, we’d have let this little freak go! He’s crazy and got
nothing, why’d we want him? But you just had to jump in, huh? Fucking arrogant piece of
shit. Now, he dies because of you. Say bye!”

“Gege!” Wu Ming screamed, but just at the moment, everything turned upside down.

Xie Lian had rested up just enough to twist and turn and knee his captor in the face, breaking
his nose. The man staggered back with an ear-splitting wail, but Xie Lian had no mind for
him. He had nearly blacked out from the effort, but he couldn’t, because—because—

Using Wu Ming’s distraction, the man he tried to subdue had regained control of the knife
and aimed it straight at his heart. Xie Lian dove forward.

The last thing he saw was the glint of the blade.

--

Flashes. Sirens. Someone swearing. The hard stretcher under him jumping as the car hit a
bump. Many bumps. Hurt so much.
He slanted his eyes to the side. Another stretcher. A hand—pale, streaks of blood between the
knuckles, chipped black nail polish. The rest of the body, too, but he only looked at the hand.

Someone telling someone else to hurry up. Someone else swearing.

Xie Lian strained with everything he had, but couldn’t reach.

Then nothing.

Then—

—light.

--

He came to to a horrifying image. A bright white light was shining directly in his face, sharp
acid against his eyes, and a person wearing a medical mask, a cap, and glasses, was leaning
over him, a scalpel in one hand. Xie Lian screamed. The person jerked back and screamed as
well, and then, there was the sound of something heavy crashing down, and then—silence.

Heart in his throat, Xie Lian sat up abruptly, fighting off dizziness, and blinked as he looked
around. He was on an exam table in what was clearly the hospital… morgue. He was in the
morgue. And the man who was lying on the floor now, having fainted, was about to start an
autopsy.

Xie Lian forced himself to swallow; his throat was too dry so it hurt. He took a steadying
breath. Another one. His hand unconsciously began rubbing his abdomen, and only when
he’d caught the motion did he realize two things. His abdomen was hurting. It was also
covered in stitches. Shuddering, Xie Lian looked down. His belly had fresh sutures of
varying length placed all over it. The sutures were red where the rest of his body was stark
white. Oh, and he was naked.

A strange sort of calm had settled over him, pushing the panic and hysteria to the back of his
mind. At the moment, action was required, and Xie Lian’s mind felt strange, but clear.

Carefully, trying not to make any sharp movements, he slid off the table. His skin instantly
erupted in gooseflesh. It was really cold in the room. Considering it was the morgue, it
figured. Xie Lian knew instantly, it wasn’t the central hospital. Everything was a little too
small, a little too cramped. The room was an office, an exam room, and cold storage all at
once.

Slowly, and not quite feeling his body, Xie Lian glanced at the still unconscious man on the
floor, then padded over toward the desk where a clipboard was drawing his eye. As expected,
it was a printout of an OP and his name was at the top. He looked through it with no
particular emotion.

Lacerations on his arms and legs, seven stab wounds in the abdomen. His internal organs
seemed miraculously mostly intact except for the stomach that had to be resected. Despite the
heavy injury load and blood loss, the surgery had been going well. They were patching him
up when he coded on the table. Three attempts at resuscitation, as per protocol. They hadn’t
been able to get him back. He stared at the next line for several long moments.

Time of death: 05:34.

Time of death.

He was dead.

Xie Lian frowned, as if faced with an unclear passage from a medical text. On the last page
of the OP, there was a note on the abnormal activity of the heart monitor, but it was dismissed
as a malfunction. He knew what had happened then.

It had happened to him once before, during his childhood. He broke his leg once, and, before
he could get help, his body went into a strange kind of state where the pulse was so low, it
wasn’t more than one beat per minute. That’s how he was when he was delivered to the
hospital, but back then, the doctors had hesitated to pronounce him dead, as his parents had
been standing next to them, demanding all possible measures to be taken. As soon as his
injury had stopped causing him overwhelming pain, Xie Lian’s heart had returned to normal
on its own.

Xie Lian’s parents weren’t here anymore. No one here knew him. No one felt any need to
investigate an instance of bizarre equipment failure. They wouldn’t, especially, if it had been
a busy night with multiple people in critical condition.

Xie Lian sighed a little; mystery solved. Yet his eyes were drawn inexorably to that line
again.

Time of death: 05:34.

Time of death: 05:34.

Time of death...

An idea formed within his mind that went beyond words or conscious thought. He started
moving, and he completely ceased thinking.

With great difficulty and sharp pain in his abdomen, he crouched next to the unconscious
man on the floor and checked his vitals. He was bound to come around soon. Xie Lian
examined the supplies on hand, picked out a sedative, and gave him a shot. The man relaxed
further into slumber.

Xie Lian looked over the room, saw a few lockers in the corner, and carefully walked over.
He found a spare set of scrubs and put them on. Further investigation brought out a hoodie
that had clearly seen better days. Xie Lian drowned in it, the pathologist was a much heavier
man than he was, but he finally felt less chilled. There was also an old pair of slippers that he
instantly appropriated. Only then did he realize that the strange shuffling noise he kept
hearing was coming from the tag on his toe. With some difficulty, he bent down and took it
off.
He then walked toward the freezer and read the write up, then pulled a few sections out. As
expected, labeling was a mess. A distant thought fleeted by of how much small hospitals
could get away with as a single halfway-thorough inspection would have led to closing them
down. The thought didn’t linger.

After playing this macabre version of checkers for some time, Xie Lian had discovered what
he needed. Three unidentified and unclaimed bodies. The morgue didn’t have the capacity to
keep them indefinitely, and considering how long they had already been there, they’d be
cremated soon. One of them had the wrong body type. The other’s injuries were inconsistent.
But the third one could have been Xie Lian’s distant cousin and had a single abdominal
wound.

The effort required to move him to the examination table had left Xie Lian dizzy, sweating,
and holding on the table for support as a deafening level of white noise filled his ears. He
waited it out. He couldn’t lose consciousness right now. When it passed, he checked the
position of the body and put the tag with his own name on the man’s toe.

Xie Lian then made his way back toward the desk and sat down, waking up the computer. It
was password-protected, but the pathologist’s password was password. Xie Lian spared a
glance at the man sprawled on the floor with some mild disapproval.

The irony of the situation made the corners of Xie Lian’s mouth pull up in a bitter smirk.
They had fired him. They had suspended his license. They had forgotten to delete him from
the system.

He found his OP easily enough and began editing it without a single thought of what he was
doing. A single knife wound, not seven. No lacerations on the arms. A broken toe. He saved
the changes and logged out, leaning on the desk heavily to stand up.

He was done here. If any inconsistencies emerged, the pathologist would cover them for him
out of embarrassment. Opening up living people to do an autopsy was the stuff of endless
jokes—and some nightmares—for medical students. No one would admit having hallucinated
a body coming alive on the table. The ridicule could not be withstood.

With one last look around, Xie Lian left, the rubber slippers making soft squelching noises as
he walked.

His mind was still blank, but if there was one thing he knew it was how to move in a hospital
as if he belonged there. He climbed the stairs from the basement and walked the corridors,
squinting at the brighter lights, without drawing attention to himself.

If he could only find out… But if he asked directly, it would definitely unmask him. Yet he
wanted…

The elevator doors opened, and two nurses stepped out into the corridor in front of him.

“…so fucking tired of gang violence, I swear,” one was saying. “Just take that boy from the
other night.”
“Which one?” the other nurse sighed. “There were, like, a dozen.”

“The one with the eyes—oh, come on, you’ve seen him. The pretty one.”

“I may have seen him, but I didn’t stop to stare at his eyes, seeing as he, you know, was dead
on arrival. Unlike some, I’m not in the habit of ogling dead people.”

“Oh, fuck you, I’m not either. But that one was just so…”

“Pretty?” the other nurse snorted.

“Young,” the first one corrected. “Just a kid, honestly…”

Xie Lian turned the corner and stopped listening, leaning against the wall.

Dead on arrival. Dead. Wu Ming was dead. The pain in Xie Lian’s abdomen had migrated
into his chest at that. He felt dizzy again. If Wu Ming hadn’t been there, Xie Lian would have
been dead, but so what? Xie Lian deserved to be dead. Wu Ming died to save a man who was
an utter failure.

A thought occurred suddenly.

He was dead now, too. He had seen the words with his own eyes. Who was to say he hadn’t
actually died? How would Xie Lian even know what had happened? He was dead. Wu Ming
had been the last thread connecting him to his past life, and Wu Ming was gone. Xie Lian no
longer had to be that person. At the moment, he wasn’t anyone.

He wasn’t anyone.

He’d lost it all, and in the strictest, most basic sense, he was gone, too.

He walked out of the hospital, squinting at the bright daylight. At least it was cloudy, or his
eyes would have felt even worse. He looked around, reorienting himself. The day was humid
and warm, softening the sound of distant traffic, a mild breeze carrying over a bouquet of
artificial fragrances from a cosmetics shop nearby. People were going about their day, same
as always. The sky wasn’t falling down.

Xie Lian pulled the stolen hoodie tighter around himself, and headed for the highway.
 Chapter 8
Chapter Notes

Guys, I can't thank you enough for all your love and comments. They're giving me life.
♥

End flashback/back to present. In which it becomes (hopefully) obvious that Hua Cheng
has been to therary, but Xie Lian has not. Mu Qing is... Mu Qing.

TW: fear of flying is mentioned; organ donations are mentioned.

Thank you, secret_chord25 for cleaning this up for me! ♥

Happy reading!

He wakes up to blinding white light shining in his eyes and a silhouette of a person looming
over him. Xie Lian screams and thrashes on the table, trying to get away, panicked out of his
mind.

“I’m alive, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t—don’t touch me!”

The hands that gripped his shoulders instantly release him at that, and their owner steps back
hurriedly.

“Gege, it’s me! You were having a nightmare—I only wanted to wake you up. I won’t touch
you, just take a breath for me, all right? Take a deep breath. You’re safe. You’re okay.”

Sitting up on the table, chest heaving and the pain in the old scars flaring, Xie Lian looks
around wildly, desperately trying to make sense of what he sees.

“You’re okay,” the same soothing voice repeats reassuringly. “You’re okay, Gege. Just
breathe.”

Xie Lian’s eyes snap to the tall dark figure, and, with recognition, the nightmare finally
releases him, leaving him shaking and gasping for breath. He’s in his clinic, in the backroom
where he operates, he’d come here for a nap.

Hua Cheng has backed a few meters away from him, as far as the room allows. His hands are
still in the air, like he wants to prove himself harmless. His face is extremely pale, gaze filled
with concern.

Relief, closely followed by embarrassment, overwhelms Xie Lian, and he feels himself on the
brink of crying. It’s too much, and he just wants—he just needs… He opens his mouth, but
only a broken sound slips out, further distressing him. Unable to ask verbally, he makes an
abortive, awkward gesture with his hands, reaching, like a child asking to be picked up.
Shame makes him drop them a second later, but it was enough.

Hua Cheng is there in an instant, wrapping his arms around him tightly, gathering him close.
He’s warm, his arms are strong, their hold secure, he smells of maple and cedar. His chest is
moving, his heart is beating, and he is so immediately, solidly alive that Xie Lian loses it. He
buries his face in Hua Cheng’s shoulder with a sob of relief and clings for all he’s worth.

“San Lang,” he whimpers, shaking, trying to claw his way even closer, fingers trapped in the
silky fabric of Hua Cheng’s shirt. “Sang Lang, San Lang…”

Hua Cheng hums, tightening his hold. “You’re all right, Gege. You’re all right. I have you. I
won’t let anything happen to you. You’re all right. You’re safe. I’m here.”

“Don’t go?” Xie Lian hiccups.

Hua Cheng’s lips press against his hair. “Never. I’ll never leave you. Gege, hold on.”

Before Xie Lian realizes what’s happening, Hua Cheng slides one arm under his knees and
picks him up off the table. Xie Lian should be embarrassed about it—would have been
embarrassed, at a different time. Now, he only loops his arms around Hua Cheng’s neck,
holding on, face tucked into his collarbones. If they’d been in the water, Xie Lian would have
drowned them both with how tightly he’s holding on.

I love you, he mouths inaudibly. Please don’t go, please don’t go, not you too.

Hua Cheng carries him out of the dark room and into the daylight filling the reception area.
Distantly, Xie Lian realizes that a day must have passed. Mu Qing had left late the day
before, yet still… how long has he slept?

The couch near his desk is that in name only. A third of it is missing, so it’s more like a
loveseat in size, which was why he didn’t think to sleep on it. Even curled up, he’d still have
fallen off. The operating table was a horrible choice in retrospect, though. He should have
just slept on the floor.

Hua Cheng lowers him onto the couch gently and kneels beside him. “Gege, can I get you
anything? A glass of water? Some tea?”

Xie Lian shakes his head, but he can’t help but say a little desperately, “Please, don’t go.”

Hua Cheng’s expression is complicated as he squeezes Xie Lian’s hand gently. “I’m right
here, Gege. Would you like me to—”

“Please,” Xie Lian whispers, tugging at him.

Without another word, Hua Cheng moves to sit down beside him. Xie Lian shifts to make
room, but it’s still a tight fit. He flushes with embarrassment, but Hua Cheng only makes a
little impatient huff, then wraps his arm around Xie Lian’s shoulders, tucking him into his
side. His arm slides down to coil around Xie Lian’s waist and stays there, a snug, secure hold.
Xie Lian finally feels like he can breathe. He closes his eyes and lets Hua Cheng’s warmth
soothe him.

He is behaving selfishly, and worse—childishly. Shame begins to eat at him, but he can’t
make himself let go. He needs this. He needs this. And even though Hua Cheng is far too
kind, and Xie Lian shouldn’t be taking advantage of him like that, he can’t pull away right
now, he can’t—it feels so good to be held. It’s so strange, and obviously irrational, but Xie
Lian almost feels as if he’d never been warm before this moment, and now that he knows
what it’s like, he can’t let go.

“Sorry,” he mutters. He can at least apologize though. “I’m sorry, San Lang.”

Hua Cheng rests his chin on top of his head. “What are you apologizing for?”

“This—me… I—I’m being…” Rude, he swallows. Inappropriate. Friends don’t do this.

Normal people don’t make their friends do this. “You must be uncomfortable. I’m sorry.”

Hua Cheng brings his other hand up, his arms a completed circuit around Xie Lian now.
“Gege, I promise you, I’m the most comfortable I’ve ever been.”

Xie Lian can’t help a small laugh, warmth spilling down his spine in a gentle wave. “So
insincere,” he whispers.

Hua Cheng squeezes him gently. “Gege, don’t you remember? I’m the most sincere person
you’ll ever meet.”

Xie Lian bites his lip, embarrassment waking up more and more now that he’s calming down.
“Still I… I don’t mean to be like this. I’m sorry you have to… I didn’t mean to cling to you
like that.”

“Oh?” He can hear the smile in Hua Cheng’s voice. “How did you mean to cling to me?”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian groans and digs his elbow into Hua Cheng’s stomach lightly.

Hua Cheng laughs and nuzzles Xie Lian’s hair like a playful cat. “Gege can cling to me
whenever and however he likes.”

Xie Lian elbows him again, half-hearted at best, then settles. Hua Cheng is so solid, so warm,
and his arms feel so secure. Xie Lian’s mind keeps coming back to this, but he can’t help it.
Hua Cheng exudes such an aura of power, confidence, protectiveness, and safety all at once
that it activates some kind of reptilian hindbrain response in Xie Lian. He never wants to
leave. He hasn’t felt this safe in years, possibly ever. He moves a bit, just to shamelessly
snuggle closer.

“San Lang?”

“Hm?”

“How come you’re here?”

Hua Cheng hums softly against his temple. When he speaks, his lips brush against Xie Lian’s
hair. “I heard about the power outage and wanted to check that gege was okay.”

Xie Lian turns his face a little to hide it in the crook of Hua Cheng’s neck. “You’re too good,
San Lang. You didn’t have to.”

Hua Cheng makes some kind of indistinct, vaguely disagreeing noise, and—no mistake this
time—presses a kiss to Xie Lian’s hair. It has a drugging effect on its own, and Xie Lian
barely stops himself from doing something disastrous like kissing the underside of Hua
Cheng’s jaw in response. Hua Cheng’s affection is comforting and friendly, but if Xie Lian
were to do something like that, that would be crossing the line. Still. So tempting, it’s right
there…

“Gege?” Hua Cheng calls softly. “Can I ask you something?”

“Mn?”

“Why were you sleeping on that table?”

Xie Lian blushes for a whole different reason and presses his forehead against Hua Cheng’s
shoulder. “I didn’t want to go home in the storm and get drenched. And… I was just so tired.
We did it all the time in med school, you know, just slept on whatever surface was available
whenever we could. Nothing else would fit me here, and the floor was too cold.”

He should have slept on the floor. He should have slept in the rain. Anywhere better than—

“And the light?” Hua Cheng asks.

Xie Lian lets out an embarrassed laugh. “I was so tired, I just passed out and forgot, can you
believe? Haha…”

Hua Cheng’s chest rumbles slightly with displeasure. “Gege. Is it so very funny?”

“Sorry,” Xie Lian exhales, then pulls back just enough to look at him. “San Lang? Whatever I
was shouting when I woke up—it wasn’t aimed at you. You know that, right? I was still
seeing… something else.”

Hua Cheng seems unaffected, but his chin dips slightly, and some tension Xie Lian wasn’t
even aware had been there dissipates. He presses a kiss to Xie Lian’s forehead openly this
time, and tucks him back under his chin as if dissatisfied with distance. Xie Lian feels his
entire face grow hot, yet his spine melts—every muscle locked up tight releasing as if on cue.
He wants to stay like this forever, or at least until Hua Cheng verbally asks him to leave.

Hua Cheng, meanwhile, asks softly, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

Xie Lian exhales. “Not much to tell. I… it was just… something from my past. Yesterday, a
—an old friend stopped by, and I guess it brought up some memories, that’s all.”

“Friend?” Hua Cheng, of course, picks up on his stumble.

Xie Lian sighs. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you. I used to… I used to be a surgeon in the
capital. Mu Qing is a friend from back then.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever spoken of such a… friend before,” Hua Cheng says, his tone heavy
with some odd emotion.

Xie Lian huffs out a laugh, but it falls flat. “I—I moved away, and my life has changed so
much. I guess we… drifted apart.”

A cold voice cuts in from the doorway. “If by that you mean that you faked your own death
and left us all behind, then yes, Xie Lian, we drifted apart.”

Xie Lian freezes. “Uh…”

--

Xie Lian sits up instantly, blushing at being discovered cuddling with Hua Cheng on the
couch. Strange how just a moment ago it felt nothing but comforting and innocent, if
intimate, but now that Mu Qing’s eyes are on him, Xie Lian immediately feels as if he’s done
something inappropriate.

He gets to his feet quickly, stumbling a little, and saying inanely, “Mu Qing. You’re back.”

Hua Cheng, who has only reluctantly released him, aggressively sprawls over the couch,
ankle over his knee, as if implicitly staking his claim on the entire room, possibly the whole
building—which technically is his—and fixes Mu Qing with a dark look.

“I’m sure most of the people who know you would fake their deaths just to get away from
you if they could,” he drawls with cool malice. “It can’t have been that surprising.”

“You—!” Mu Qing sputters, glaring at him. “Who the fuck are you anyway?!”

“Guys, guys!” Xie Lian exclaims, mildly alarmed, looking from one to the other. “Let’s uh…
let’s all calm down here.”

This earns him a slightly hurt look from Hua Cheng—‘how am I not calm, Gege?’—and a
glare from Mu Qing. Oh, great. Now, Xie Lian is the problem.

He smiles placatingly, splaying his hands palms out. “San Lang, this is the friend I was telling
you about—Mu Qing. He’s a top surgeon in the capital.”

Hua Cheng studies his nails, which he clearly finds more impressive than this title. Mu Qing
glares at him.

Xie Lian ignores it all with determination and soldiers on. “Mu Qing, this is Hua Cheng.
He’s… a friend of mine.”

“A friend.” It’s Mu Qing’s turn to sneer. Then, his expression shifts. “Wait, Hua Cheng—as
in Ghost City Hua Cheng? And here I thought this guy was really into cosplaying.”
Hua Cheng stops examining his nails and narrows his eye at him. Personally, Xie Lian thinks
that Hua Cheng’s ensemble is downright tame today—a muted burgundy-red button-up and
black pants, form-fitting yet not loud. Even the jewelry is kept to a minimum. For Hua
Cheng, that’s practically a ‘don’t look at me’ statement, which, come to think of it, is a bit
concerning. Xie Lian frowns slightly. Belatedly, he realizes that Mu Qing must have meant
the eyepatch, which, honestly, was quite rude of him.

“Mu Qing,” Xie Lian hisses.

Hua Cheng, however, doesn’t seem bothered, and only smirks. “Gege, your friend looks a
little green. Contrary to popular belief, envy is not a good look on everybody.”

“You—!” Mu Qing glares, before rounding on Xie Lian. “How exactly are you friends with
him?! Do you even know who he is?! Half the country owes him money! Hell, half the
government owes him money! What exactly would a man like that forget here?” Mu Qing
gestures around with a grimace, indicating Xie Lian’s… everything.

Xie Lian hunches slightly in onto himself before he knows it. Even with years apart, Mu
Qing can still deliver his blows with uncanny precision.

“It’s not like that,” Xie Lian manages, hating that he’s losing his voice as he speaks.

He hates himself for being like this. There was a time when he’d offered his company and
friendship freely, never doubting that it was sought after. That him had been irreparably
flawed, but at least he’d had that certainty. Except, it had all been based on a lie, right? When
his status, his family’s place in society, the prestige of his job, the money—everything that
wasn’t truly his—had been taken away, it turned out he had no value as just himself to
anyone, except…

Except Wu Ming, and Xie Lian had treated him monstrously, and gotten him killed.

Hua Cheng is suddenly on his feet, a wall of heat at Xie Lian’s side, one hand gently touching
the small of his back. “Gege, don’t listen to him. He knows nothing.”

Xie Lian closes his eyes for a moment, drawing on borrowed warmth. It feels so good, and he
doesn’t deserve it. He usually has a better grip on himself than this. Last night really did a
number on him.

“You.” Hua Cheng’s eye turns on Mu Qing, and his voice reaches arctic levels of coldness.
“Friend, was it? What makes you think that you can just show up here—after how many
years?—and act like anyone owes you answers? Owes you anything, for that matter?”

“I—” Mu Qing’s mouth falls open. “That’s not what—”

Hua Cheng steps forward, pushing Xie Lian slightly behind him. “You think you can just
barge into his life and question his choices? What gave you the impression that anyone wants
your opinion? You’re only here now, because you need something from him, isn’t that right?
Where were you when he was struggling to keep his doors open? Where were you when he
needed your help?”
“FOR THE LAST TIME, I DIDN’T KNOW—”

Hua Cheng cocks his head and delivers devastatingly, “Was it not your job to know, friend?”

A strange sort of despair grips Xie Lian, and with it comes a sense of eerie calm. He steps
forward, touching Hua Cheng’s hand lightly.

“San Lang, enough,” he says quietly. “Mu Qing was… rude just now, but he’s right. I left a
mess when I… left the capital eight years ago. It’s only fair that I help clean it up.”

Even Mu Qing looks uncomfortable at that. “I never said it was your fault,” he mumbles.

“Didn’t you?” Xie Lian frowns. “I must have misheard last night. In any case, I need to fix
it.”

“You’ll help?” Mu Qing looks at him. “Good. Then tell him to leave and we’ll discuss—”

Xie Lian lifts a hand, stopping him, and glances at Hua Cheng. His heart hurts. “San Lang, I
need a word, please.” To Mu Qing, he says, “We’ll be a moment, wait here.”

Thankfully, no one says anything.

--

He takes Hua Cheng outside. The clinic really is too small to grant any kind of privacy, and,
right at the moment, Xie Lian isn’t keen on going back into a dark, windowless room.

Outside, it’s cloudy but bright. The storm has passed, but the wind is still very fresh, and Xie
Lian hugs himself before he knows it. He used to be able to walk in the snow in just a t-shirt
and feel just fine, but ever since his ‘death’ he’s been like this—cold when everyone else is
comfortable or even hot. He’s used to it, though, and doesn’t mind it much.

Hua Cheng, however, says, “Gege, hold on a moment.”

He walks to his car, parked up front like yet another ownership statement, and bends over for
something. Xie Lian, in a strange thoughtless state, looks over the street where the evidence
of the storm is still everywhere—broken tree branches, ripped-off posters, upturned trash
cans. A few people have emerged to observe the damage, but the wind is still too strong and
the air filled with moisture, so any efforts to clean up would be wasted.

“Here.” Hua Cheng’s voice is suddenly close. “Put this on.”

Xie Lian turns to see he’s being handed a black cable-knit sweater. He blinks. “San Lang, I’m
fine.”

Hua Cheng steps in front of him, blocking the wind, and says, “Gege, you’re cold, I’m not.”

“I’m not either—”

“Your nails are blue.”

Xie Lian looks away and mumbles, “I’m a little disgusting.” He hasn’t had a chance to take a
shower since before the club.

Hua Cheng huffs, like Xie Lian is being ridiculous. “You’re not, I promise, and even if you
were, I wouldn’t care.” Then, with endless patience, “Gege, you’re shivering. Please take it. I
swear E’Ming didn’t sleep on it.”

Involuntarily, Xie Lian laughs and gives in. “Thank you.”

He pulls the sweater on over his head, and has to suppress an aggrieved sigh. Where it would
probably just reach Hua Cheng’s hips, it hits Xie Lian mid-thigh, swallowing him. The
sleeves cover his knuckles, which at least can be construed as a fashion statement. He is—
sigh—infuriatingly warm.

Hua Cheng is biting his lip, watching him, but as Xie Lian glances at him, prepared to glare,
he only tugs at his sleeve. “Let’s walk.”

Walking at Hua Cheng’s side through the mostly deserted, storm-roughed streets feels like a
scene from a post-apocalyptic movie. They end up in a small park, normally only frequented
by teenagers seeking to escape adult supervision and an occasional day drinker. It’s even
more unkempt than it usually is. Xie Lian steps over a broken tree branch, the white boots
he’d worn to the club slipping on some litter. He finds it all strangely fitting.

Eventually, his way forward is blocked by an upturned bench, and Xie Lian stops,
subconsciously hugging himself again. Hua Cheng pauses a step or two behind him, saying
nothing, patiently waiting. Xie Lian closes his eyes, knowing he can’t postpone this
conversation forever. He never wanted to have this conversation. Never wanted to have to
have it. His time, however, has run out.

He turns around and looks up at Hua Cheng. “San Lang, we’re friends, right?”

Hua Cheng is watching him as one would watch a ticking bomb. Slowly, he gives a cautious
nod.

“The thing is,” Xie Lian says. “What Mu Qing said in there… It was rude, but he’s not
wrong. You and I—we don’t make much sense, do we? I am so far below you, it’s
ridiculous.”

Hua Cheng comes alive at that. “Gege—”

Xie Lian lifts a hand up to stop him. “I’m sorry, San Lang, but I need to get this out. If I can’t
say it all in one piece now, I don’t think I ever will.”

Hua Cheng frowns as he watches him. His face turns carefully blank and he nods, but it’s not
hard to discern his severe disapproval.

“Thank you.” Xie Lian gives him a bland smile. “I know you don’t care, and, frankly, I never
have, either. I enjoy your company, you enjoy mine—why must anything else matter?
Except…” He bites his lip. “You don’t really know me, do you? You know how I am—who I
appear to be now—but I wasn’t always this person. My past is… complicated. I’ve made so
many mistakes. I told you I killed someone, but that wasn’t all. I was—arrogant, selfish,
callous. I was cruel. If you’d met me back then, you’d have hated me. I hated me.”

He takes a step away, then another, looking at the overturned trash can, and smiles weakly at
a handy prop.

“You know this cliché when they say life has a way of testing you to reveal what kind of
person you are? Well, I’ve been tested. And it found me an entitled brat and a failure. I killed
one person with my own hands, but there was another one who died because of me. I treated
that kid horribly, and in the end I got him killed.”

He inhales deeply through his mouth, and has to look up at the sky and blink a few times
quickly, stopping tears.

“So yeah,” he sniffles and tries to turn it into a laugh. “I was pretty much trash. And I—I
made peace with it. I accepted it about me, tried to be better. Just a harmless neighborhood
vet who knows his place. And it’s been… it’s been good, actually. Better than I deserve, but
I’m grateful. I just never—”

He turns and forces himself to meet Hua Cheng’s gaze.

“I never wanted you to see me like that, San Lang.” He smiles helplessly. “But that’s okay. If
we’re friends, you have the right to know. If you never want to see me again—that’s your
right, too, and I understand perfectly. That’s not why I asked you here. It’s… Mu Qing wants
my help with something that’s connected to my past. And he’s right—I took the easy way
out, and I left a mess. I have to clean it up. But it can be dangerous, and that’s why I don’t
want you involved. You’re an innocent, and innocent people around me tend to… Well, they
tend to die.”

He takes a step closer.

“San Lang, if so much as a shadow of my curse touches you, I… I won’t be able to live with
myself. So I’m asking you not to get involved. If… if you even still feel like you want to.”

His will runs out, and he jerks his chin away, dropping his eyes. He’s said his piece. The
important part is that he made it, even if he’s shaking in the toasty warm sweater that Hua
Cheng had lent him. He inhales the clean, tangy-sweet scent of maples and wants to cry.

After what feels like an eternity, Hua Cheng shifts slightly. “Is it my turn to speak now?”

He sounds so cold that Xie Lian flinches. No, not cold. He sounds like someone barely
suppressing his rage.

“You’re mad,” Xie Lian whispers.

“Of course I’m mad,” Hua Cheng says. “I’m not mad at you, Gege, but it’s hard—when you
speak of yourself like this, it’s hard not to get angry. That life, that people have made you
think that, it’s… When you say that you’re below me—Gege, it’s nonsense, and I don’t think
you understand how much it hurts to hear. You’re not below anyone, least of all me.”

Xie Lian bites his lip. He’s never seen Hua Cheng like this. Wind tugging at his wild black
hair, against the backdrop of a storm-battered city, he looks like a vengeful demon.

“Your friend Mu Qing”—Hua Cheng’s lip curls—“has never been right about anything in his
life and should not be allowed to talk where there are people.”

Xie Lian opens his mouth reflexively, but Hua Cheng lifts a hand up.

“Uh-uh, no, Gege, my turn now. You have a past. I already know that. So do I. Everyone does
—didn’t you say so yourself? If someone cares for you, they’ll only care for you, not your
mistakes, not your past, not anything. Was that not what you told me that day?”

Not in so many words, but… Xie Lian nods.

“Gege…” Hua Cheng pauses, then shakes his head. “You call yourself all those names, when
I’m certain that whatever situation you faced wasn’t so simple… Were they not
circumstances outside your control? I’ve never seen you not take responsibility for anything,
but you’re not a god, Gege. Is it fair to demand of yourself to shoulder everything? Would
you ask this of anyone else? Is that not,” Hua Cheng prods him gently, “a form of
arrogance?”

Xie Lian looks away, cheeks burning. When put like that, it’s inescapable that Hua Cheng is
right.

At his side, Hua Cheng hums. “Since we’re exchanging our darkest pages, here’s mine. I
lived through a lot of abuse and violence. My childhood wasn’t pretty. But the worst
experience of my life was watching someone I loved with my entire soul being treated
unfairly, humiliated, trampled, hurt beyond the human capacity to withstand. Watching him
go through that and being unable to do anything, being too weak, useless when he needed me
—that was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Hua Cheng’s hands curl into fists, and he visibly fights to steady himself before continuing.

“All I knew how to do back then was fight, and when I finally got the chance to do that for
him—I nearly got him killed. That he lived at all was no feat of mine. If there is anything
worse in life than this, I don’t know it.”

Xie Lian feels as if with every word his heart is being ripped out of his chest slowly,
demolished piece by excruciating piece. Hoarsely, he whispers, “Your someone?”

Hua Cheng looks at him with strange desperation. “My someone.”

Xie Lian swallows, breathes through the pain in his chest, inches closer. “San Lang is… very
hard on himself, too,” he says haltingly. Every instinct he has is screaming at him to soothe
that pain. “I’m sure the situation… wasn’t so simple?”
Hua Cheng barks out a curt, involuntary laugh, like it’s punched out of him. “I suppose…
that’s fair.”

Xie Lian smiles at him shakily and reaches for his hand. “I’m sorry.”

Hua Cheng catches his hand and uses it to tug him closer. “You don’t have to apologize to
me, Gege,” he murmurs, the look on his face warm again. “But it hurts to hear you talk of
yourself like that, when I—I know you. Gege, believe me.”

Xie Lian nods, and bows his head, unwilling to meet his gaze. If he were E’Ming, his tail
would be between his legs now, chastised and guilty.

Hua Cheng loops his free arm around his waist and brings him close. “And as for the other
thing, Gege… I’ve already been too useless to help someone I loved once. Please don’t make
me stand on the sidelines again.” Softer still, “Let me help.”

Xie Lian falls into him, hugging him around the waist and hiding his face against his chest,
wrung out and raw, yet feeling strangely as if something warm and soothing had been spilled
over his entire being, patching up his broken edges.

“Okay,” he murmurs softly. “Okay.”

Hua Cheng seems to sway slightly at his words, and the next moment he hugs Xie Lian so
tightly his bones squeak. “Gege, I think you’re trying to kill me.”

Xie Lian laughs against him, enjoying the moment, but just then, his stomach rumbles. Hua
Cheng instantly turns suspicious.

“Gege,” he starts in a dangerous tone, “when was the last time you ate?”

“Um,” Xie Lian says shiftily.

Hua Cheng sighs, corrals him with an arm around his shoulders, and starts pulling him along.
“Gege, I swear, you’ll be the death of me.”

--

Hua Cheng flatly refuses to let him go back to the clinic before he’s had a proper meal. Xie
Lian grumbles and puts up some token resistance, but he’s a horrible person, and he can’t
help but enjoy Hua Cheng’s concerned fussing. He knows he’s only a stand-in, knows, too,
that whenever Hua Cheng figures it out with his someone, this situation is unlikely to repeat
itself. Sure, they’re friends, and Hua Cheng will still probably care on some level, but it
won’t be the same.

Xie Lian knows himself. He can be as jealous as he likes, but he’d never do anything to
jeopardize someone else’s happiness. He never really understood it, that people would do
that, say things like, ‘Don’t love her—love me!’ What good is forced affection? Can you
really be happy knowing your lover would rather be with someone else?
And now, after what Hua Cheng has revealed, how would Xie Lian dare to encroach on
someone else’s place in his heart? The memories of what happened in Ghost City come back
to haunt him with a vengeance, and he blushes in shame. It’s useless to deny that a part of
him had enjoyed it. Even after everything that had happened to him, Xie Lian had never
thought that he would turn out to be that person, the one who wants something that doesn’t
belong to him and can’t accept a clear ‘no.’ How many times must Hua Cheng refuse him
before he gets it? Wasn’t twice humiliating enough?

He puts such thoughts out of his mind. He’ll have plenty of time to chastise himself when
Hua Cheng disappears from his life with his someone.

The coffeeshop on the corner is open, and Hua Cheng terrorizes the staff until the table in
front of Xie Lian is overladen with food. Normally, Xie Lian would object, but today, he only
smiles softly, eats slowly, and lets his mind drift. No matter how hungry he is, with his
stomach, he can’t eat much in one sitting, and he suspects Hua Cheng has long figured it out.
Everything in front of him is bite-size in a variety of nutritional groups, and Hua Cheng
seems to be keeping track and pushes whatever Xie Lian has missed toward him.

It’s sweet. Xie Lian watches him with soft eyes, obediently chewing whatever’s been nudged
his way. If he could freeze this moment, he would.

“What?” Hua Cheng fidgets.

Xie Lian smiles till his eyes crinkle and shakes his head. “Just thinking that you’re very easy
to love, San Lang. You’re wonderful.”

Hua Cheng’s fingers slip around his tiny coffee cup.

“Gege,” he says a moment later, sounding a little strangled, “if you’re in the mood to bully
someone, can you not save it for your ‘old friend?’”

Xie Lian laughs. “Oh, so you can tease me all you like, but I can’t tease back? San Lang is a
baby.”

“Gege!”

“A big baby.” Xie Lian stops short of sticking his tongue out at him. “Speaking of which, we
need to ask them to pack this food. I’m done, and Mu Qing might be hungry.”

Hua Cheng looks like the thought of bringing Mu Qing any form of sustenance physically
pains him and like he’s evaluating the merits of trying to persuade Xie Lian off the idea. At
long last, he sighs, “If you must.”

Emboldened by his victory, Xie Lian looks at the cup in Hua Cheng’s hand. “I want an
espresso, too.”

Hua Cheng narrows his eye at him, instantly on alert. Xie Lian bats his lashes at him
innocently. Hua Cheng sighs.
“I’ll get you a cappuccino,” he concedes. “Heavy on the milk, since I know you’re not
intolerant.”

With that, he stands up and stalks toward the counter.

“Really?” Xie Lian, who didn’t expect to win this one, beams after him. “I love you!”

Hua Cheng trips.

--

Xie Lian will admit to being slightly wary of returning to the clinic. He said they’d be ‘a
moment,’ and they had been gone for nearly two hours. Contrary to his fears, however, they
find Mu Qing sitting peaceably behind Xie Lian’s desk, scrolling through his phone.

When he looks up, he frowns, but says only, “Took you long enough. I fed your rabbits.”

Xie Lian blinks, then glances at the bunnies who seem to be happily cuddling in their little
container-room. The black one, the troublemaker and Shi Qingxuan’s favorite, appears to be
napping. The usually quiescent white one keeps one vigilant eye on the room, but appears
much more interested in imitating a loaf than in them.

“Thank you,” Xie Lian says, feeling slightly off-kilter. “Their owner was supposed to pick
them up last night, but the storm…” He trails off.

“No problem,” Mu Qing says coolly, his gaze drifting to Hua Cheng, the question clear.

Hua Cheng leans against the wall, folds his arms over his chest, and smirks.

“Uh,” Xie Lian says and sets the paper bag with food in front of Mu Qing, hoping to pacify
him, and if not that, distract him. “San Lan is staying; he wants to help.”

Mu Qing glowers at Hua Cheng, but yet again, surprisingly, doesn’t throw a fit. “Fine, your
funeral. It’s not my decision anyway.”

“Whose is it?” Xie Lian asks, sitting down on the couch. He’s both grateful and resentful that
Hua Cheng doesn’t sit with him this time. As much as Xie Lian would have enjoyed it, it
would have been needlessly distracting, too.

“There are a couple of investigators from the Central Bureau working this case. Officially, the
investigation is closed, but they are… taking initiative. I don’t know how they square it with
their bosses, but whatever they say goes.”

Xie Lian nods. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ll do whatever I can, but I’m not sure
exactly how I can help.”

“Well, if you didn’t take—” Mu Qing starts, then throws a narrow-eyed look at Hua Cheng.

Xie Lian quickly waves his hand at him. “Don’t worry, San Lang knows. I gave him a brief
rundown.”
Mu Qing looks like he’s sorely tempted to comment on that, but reins himself in. “Right. As I
was saying, if you didn’t take the drugs yourself, someone must have given them to you.
Probably not directly—you’d have remembered being stabbed with a needle or being handed
a pill—so, most likely, it was in your food or drink. How much do you remember from that
day? Did anyone join you for lunch? Offer you a snack?”

Xie Lian ponders this for a moment. “I wasn’t eating at the cafeteria by then—I couldn’t
afford it. Sometimes I brought my own food, but no one would sit with me when I did.” He
frowns in thought. “That day… No, I don’t think I had anything with me. I was too nervous,
and I didn’t think I could keep it down… Wait.” His eyes go wide.

“What?” Mu Qing prompts, impatient.

“No, this can’t be right.” Xie Lian shakes his head. “I mean it happened, but there must have
been something else.”

“What?” Mu Qing’s temper flares. “Spit it out.”

“Jun Wu.” Xie Lian stares at him. “Jun Wu brought me coffee before the surgery. He came to
give me a pep talk, said something nice. He said… he said he’d thought that I could use a
pick-me-up, and so the coffee…”

He expected Mu Qing to start yelling that it’s impossible, that Jun Wu of all people would
never do something like that, but Mu Qing is conspicuously silent.

“What?” It’s Xie Lian’s turn to ask. “You know something.”

Mu Qing leans back in the chair, a deep frown on his face. “The investigators,” he says
slowly, “are after Jun Wu. Or at least I think they are. They started off asking questions about
Quan Yizhen, but most of them weren’t about him so much, as about how Jun Wu treated
him.”

“Quan Yizhen is the surgeon who’s in trouble now?”

“Yeah.”

“How did Jun Wu treat him?”

Mu Qing fixes him with a look. “Much the same as he treated you—like a kindly father and
guardian angel or some similar nauseating crap.”

Tilting his head to the side, Mu Qing considers Xie Lian. “You know, you and Quan Yizhen
aren’t much alike, but you are in some ways. For one thing, he’s very young to be where he
is. A child prodigy like you, though he’s an orphan. He has no social skills to speak of, can’t
chew with his mouth closed, and is continuously rude to people without realizing it, which is,
admittedly, hilarious.”

Mu Qing smirks, clearly remembering something.

“That said, when it comes to medicine, he’s a genius, no question. It’s just that he doesn’t
care about anything but medicine and is more of an oaf, where you were… well, not.”

Xie Lian doesn’t know what to make of this comparison. Mu Qing’s compliments have
always been indistinguishable from his insults.

“But when it comes to Jun Wu…” Mu Qing looks pensive. “He’s had a few favorites over the
years—since you, I mean—but none of them have lasted. I’m actually not sure where they’ve
even gone, or when. Huh. I never realized that, but yeah—his favorites tend to just… vanish.
Not in a fiery death or anything—they mostly just quit at some point, and no one thinks much
about it.”

“Interesting,” Hua Cheng comments in the voice of someone bored out of his mind. “And in
what way are gege and this Quan Yizhen different?”

Mu Qing spares him a look, but then peers over at Xie Lian with a complicated expression.

“I guess you wouldn’t have seen it. Our first year, when Jun Wu was all over you, I assisted
on most of your surgeries, and when he was there, the way he would look at you… I thought
it was creepy as fuck. One moment, he’s like your dearly loving father, the next—he looks
like he wants to crush your soul under his boot. It was weird. But he was giving you all those
surgeries, so I guess you wouldn’t have noticed.”

By Mu Qing’s standards, that’s barely a barb, and Xie Lian doesn’t react.

“He was very kind to me,” he says slowly. “Encouraging. He kept trying to talk me into
joining the transplantology team. Even…” He remembers it so clearly now, even though at
the time he’d been in no state to pay attention. “Even after I had been suspended, he talked to
me—told me to wait. Told me he’d talk to the board for me, that after ‘the dust settles,’ he’d
bring me back. I thought… I thought he just—liked me.”

“He did like you,” Mu Qing grumbles. “Even after you were gone, he wouldn’t shut up about
what a genius you were. It was annoying.”

Xie Lian looks at him. “Why then? It makes no sense. Why would he—”

“It makes sense,” Hua Cheng says darkly. “Gege, do you know what the second biggest black
market in this country is for?”

Xie Lian looks at him, but it’s Mu Qing who answers.

“Organs.”

“En.” Hua Cheng nods. “People who can’t get on the list would do anything to get them.
People who are on the list would do anything to skip the line. It’s a lucrative business.” His
lip curls in disgust. “And Jun Wu seems to have a hand in it.”

Mu Qing scoffs. “He’s the head of the hospital transplantology committee. That doesn’t
exactly make him White No-Face.”
“Who?” Xie Lian blinks.

“White No-Face,” Hua Cheng says. “He’s the person behind the organ black market. Always
wears a mask and loves white, hence the nickname. No one knows his real identity. The
police”—Hua Cheng snorts derisively—“can’t get close. Rumor has it, he’s made billions in
black market organ trade in the last twenty years. It’s a whole system where everyone keeps
silence. Doctors operating illegally, people being coerced of directly forced to part with their
organs… It’s nasty.”

“That’s got nothing to do with Jun Wu, though,” Mu Qing says, frowning deeply.

“Maybe not,” Hua Cheng says. “I brought it up to illustrate the point. Jun Wu has political
ambitions, doesn’t he? What better position for him to be in to collect favors? A party
chairman’s niece needs an urgent kidney transplant? No problem. A politician with a liver
disease? It’s an open bar. Except, to maintain it, he needs to never be implicated—and that’s
where you come in, Gege.”

Xie Lian is listening to him transfixed, the hair at the back of his neck standing on end. Even
Mu Qing seems to have lost all will for sarcasm.

“What if you did do as he said?” Hua Cheng posits. “You were fired, your license suspended,
the entire medical community riled up against you. You live a few months in misery, and then
Jun Wu strides in and rescues you—talks to whoever he needs to talk, influential man that he
is, and just like that, you have your job back. Only now, you owe him.”

Xie Lian swallows.

“Your debt isn’t small. The man saved your career. So when one day he asks you to do a
surgery off the books and not tell anyone about it—you agree. If you don’t, I imagine, the
medical board finds some other reason to suspend you again. He can pull those strings
indefinitely. And if you do agree—you are now implicated in illegal activity. That, he can
hold over your head forever. From that moment on, he owns you. And all the while, his hands
stay clean.”

Xie Lian is speechless. This whole time, he’d believed that everything that happened to him
had been a series of unfortunate accidents. Just—circumstances beyond anyone’s control; the
will of God. To think that everything he had gone through had been deliberate…

Mu Qing, also visibly shaken, yet fighting it, peers over at Hua Cheng. “How do you know
so much about Jun Wu?”

Hua Cheng gives him an extremely fake smile. “I have business interests all over the country,
the capital not excluded. He is a rather prominent figure there. Hard to miss.”

Mu Qing huffs. “I admit, Mr. Ghost City weaves a compelling tale, but those are all
suppositions. No proof.”

“That’s true,” Xie Lian says, still dazed. “But that’s my question, too. Mu Qing, I can go with
you to the capital as you asked and give my testimony to those investigators—but what good
will that do? I have no proof. I can’t even be certain that the drug was in the coffee he gave
me, even if it couldn’t have come from anywhere else. No one saw him do it. I never told
anyone—no one spoke to me much in those days. Wouldn’t this just be a baseless accusation?
A case of ‘he said—she said?’”

He shifts in his seat, dropping his eyes. Maybe he’s just being a coward. The thought of being
exposed to ridicule again makes him feel like he’s swimming in acid. He thought he’d
become immune to it, yet evidently not.

Mu Qing shrugs. “I agree, and that’s what I told them. I didn’t know about the coffee thing,
obviously, but I told them whatever you said wouldn’t have any proof behind it. They still
insisted you come in. They seem to have some sort of plan.”

Xie Lian closes his eyes. A part of him has known all along that he can’t escape this. From
the moment he saw Mu Qing on his doorstep, he’d known.

“When do you need me to come in?” he asks.

--

“I’m flying back tonight,” Mu Qing says. “Get a ticket for the same flight, I’ll send you the
details.”

“Tonight?” Xie Lian blinks, then looks around his tiny clinic, a little lost. “Uh…”

He supposes he can close it for a few days. The bunnies are currently the only residents, and
if the owner doesn’t show up, Lang Qianqiu should be able to look after them. There is a
more immediate problem, however.

How will he pay for the ticket?

What funds he managed to amass, he spent on Shi Qingxuan’s birthday present and the boots,
though even before that, he probably wouldn’t have had enough for a plane ticket. He’s loath
to say this, foreseeing Mu Qing’s reaction, and he would absolutely hate to borrow from him.
Whatever their past or present relationship is like, that’s just too humiliating.

It might be inevitable, though. How else is he supposed to—

“Gege,” Hua Cheng speaks suddenly. “You’re flying to the capital tonight? What a
coincidence, so am I. Yin Yu insisted I take that meeting personally, and he gets cranky if I
disobey his obsessive rule too often. My private jet isn’t that big, but it can easily take an
extra passenger.” He slants his eye in Mu Qing’s direction, and adds reluctantly, “Or two.”

Mu Qing gapes at him. “You have a private plane?”

Hua Cheng ignores him.

Xie Lian for his part looks at him a little helplessly. “San Lang—” He chews on his lip,
blushing with embarrassment. If only he was less of a mess. “You don’t have to do this…”
“Gege, it’s not a big deal,” Hua Cheng assures him. “I was supposed to fly out tomorrow
anyway, moving it up one day is nothing.”

Xie Lian can’t look at him, frustrated. His pride rebels. He doesn’t know how he’ll ever be
able to repay Hua Cheng for anything as it is, and now this… It’s all too much.

As if sensing this, Hua Cheng steps closer. “Gege, I promise you, I was already scheduled to
fly out. You can ask Yin Yu if you don’t believe me. This is convenience, nothing more, and
besides…” In a softer tone, “Didn’t you say you’d let me help?”

Xie Lian lifts his eyes at him, half a glare, half a plea. “San Lang—”

Hua Cheng nudges his arm gently. “Come on, let me show off a bit. Yin Yu hasn’t been
impressed with anything I did in at least a few years now. I’m beginning to forget the
feeling.”

Involuntarily, Xie Lian snorts. “I’m sure you impress yourself plenty.”

“Cruel, Gege, that’s hardly the same. Come on, please?”

Xie Lian sighs, “San Lang, I—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Mu Qing, whose entire existence Xie Lian has forgotten just now,
snaps. “Yes, he’ll take your plane, thank you. Pick me up at my hotel whenever you finish”—
he waves a hand between them with clear disgust—“this.”

With that, he sweeps out of the clinic as if he can’t get away from them fast enough.

--

Xie Lian packs fast. For one thing, Shi Qingxuan is still at Ghost City, so the apartment is
empty of distractions. For another, he doesn’t exactly have a lot of things to pack, so he’s
done within ten minutes, and finally goes to take a shower.

Even tepid water feels immeasurably good. He scrapes his skin until it starts to sting and
takes his time washing his hair. It’s long enough to be a nuisance, but when Xie Lian fled the
capital, he let it grow out in a subconscious bid to leave his past self behind—including the
appearance of a young professional with impeccable clothes and a neat haircut. He’s
discovered he likes having it long, even if it can be tiresome.

He steps out of the shower and looks at himself in the mirror over the sink. With his hair out
of the way, his neck looks… colorful. The bruises from two nights ago have only just started
to fade. Resolutely, he doesn’t allow himself to fall into the sensory recreation of exactly how
he got them, and rummages instead in the pile of Shi Qingxuan’s toiletries until he finds a
concealer. He doesn’t have much experience with this, but he does his best. That Hua Cheng
hasn’t said anything until now is a miracle.

There isn’t enough time for a nap, so he makes tea, and calls Lang Qianqiu, who is delighted
to look after the rabbits. Xie Lian frowns as he hangs up and texts Banyue for good measure,
asking her to keep an eye on his accidental apprentice while he’s gone. He has to rely on
children to keep his life together. Wonderful.

To be fair, none of this was the plan. Until relatively recently, his life has been… if not slow,
then definitely predictable. Busy, but without much variation. The way everything seems to
be speeding up now leaves him feeling terribly off-balance.

--

When Xie Lian steps out of the building, he gets a sense of déjà vu, looking at the familiar
town car and Zhu Ling leaning against the hood. Hua Cheng’s assistant comes over to take
his bag instantly, smiling at him.

“Good evening, Xie-xiansheng. It’s good to see you again.”

“You too.” Xie Lian smiles. “Are you coming on the trip, too?”

“Of course,” Zhu Ling says, opening the door for him. He’s dressed for travel. “Boss tends to
skip on his meetings when no one’s making him follow his schedule.”

Huh. So maybe Hua Cheng really had the trip planned before Xie Lian tagged along. That
cheers Xie Lian up slightly.

They stop to pick Mu Qing up from his hotel. He gives Xie Lian a loaded look, but says
nothing, instead directing his attention to Zhu Ling—more precisely to Zhu Ling’s striking
silver hair. Seemingly absentmindedly, his fingers reach to catch the end of his own silvery-
lilac ponytail falling off his shoulder and start to twirl it. Zhu Ling smirks and offers Xie Lian
snacks.

Xie Lian isn’t terribly surprised when they don’t go through security. Instead, through a gated
entry, the car brings them straight to the tarmac where a beautiful red jet is already warming
its engines. Xie Lian and Mu Qing step out of the car and pause, staring.

The plane is… not small. It’s painted the vivid Crimson Corp. red, with silvery accents, and
numerous silver butterflies adorning its sides, wings, and tail. In the light of the setting sun,
they glint and seem to move, tiny wings fluttering, as if the entire thing is alive. It’s gorgeous.

“I think I recognize that hand,” Xie Lian murmurs without noticing.

Mu Qing glances at him, then unexpectedly grabs his elbow, and jerks him aside.

“Xie Lian,” he says in a grave tone. “I meant what I said. Sure, I was an ass, but that doesn’t
mean I was wrong. Look at this.” He gestures at the magnificent plane emphatically. “What
would a man like that want with you? Being all over you like that, taking you out on a private
plane? He has to have an agenda.”

That stings, but Xie Lian tries not to show it.

“What agenda?” he asks. “Mu Qing, I have nothing of value. No money, no patents, no land.
He already owns the building where my clinic is in all but name. I have nothing anyone
would want—what agenda could he possibly have?”

Mu Qing scowls at him and shakes him by the arm. “You’re not this stupid. Do you not see
how he looks at you?”

Xie Lian stares back at him with incomprehension, then it dawns. He starts to laugh. He
laughs and laughs until his sides hurt.

“Mu Qing,” he only just manages, not choking. “You can’t be serious! Hahaha, oh God,” he
groans clutching at his stomach. “Have you seen me? You think… don’t be absurd!”

“Who’s absurd? You—”

“And even if,” Xie Lian cuts him off, still chortling, “your imaginary scenario was true… Oh
God, I can’t. Even if it were true, do you imagine a man like that would need to go to such
lengths? Private plane rides? Mu Qing, all he’d have to do would be look at me and say hi.”

Mu Qing’s mouth falls open. “You—since when are you—”

He can’t even finish the sentence, and Xie Lian shakes his head. It’s still funny, but the mirth
feels hollow, hitting a little too close to home.

“It’s the twenty-first century, Mu Qing, sorry nobody told you.” Xie Lian rolls his eyes.
“Grow up.”

“That’s not what I—you—!”

There’s a sudden clang, loud enough to cut through the rumbling of the engine. When Xie
Lian looks around, Zhu Ling smiles at him, having just closed the boot with more force than
was probably required, considering how sleek the car is.

“Gentlemen, if you please,” he says, gesturing at the boarding ramp. “They’re only waiting
on us.”

With another meaningful look at Xie Lian, Mu Qing goes to pick up his suitcase, but Zhu
Ling stops him.

“The luggage will be brought up. You can go ahead and board.”

Xie Lian studies his bright, guileless smile and estimates that there’s approximately a nine-
out-of-ten chance that Mu Qing’s suitcase is going to end up in Siberia, nevermind that they
won’t be going there. Mu Qing, however, suspects nothing and just stomps onboard.

--

Hua Cheng meets Xie Lian at the top of the steps, extending a hand to him, his eye sparkling
as he takes in what Xie Lian is wearing.

“I—” Xie Lian blushes. “It was still chilly, and I… There was no time to get it cleaned
anyway, and I thought I’d do it after…”
“If gege likes this sweater, he can keep it,” Hua Cheng says, smiling and looking inordinately
pleased with himself. “Looks better on you anyway.”

He pulls Xie Lian inside, not listening to any further protests.

If the plane was gorgeous outside, inside it’s nothing short of decadent. If not for the shape, it
wouldn’t look much different than a luxury hotel suite. Xie Lian had been on board a private
plane or two as a child; none of them had been like this.

“San Lang, it’s so beautiful,” he says, awed.

Hua Cheng looks like a cat who wants to be petted but doesn’t want to show it. “It’s not bad,
I guess.”

Xie Lian glances at him and nearly snorts with how coy he looks. If he wasn’t feeling a bit
faint already, he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to tease.

“I have a smaller one which I use more often,” Hua Cheng says, tugging him along gently.
“But under the circumstances”—he slants a look at Mu Qing, whom Zhu Ling had situated
up front, and pulls Xie Lian further in—“I thought this one would do better.”

Xie Lian only shakes his head. Hua Cheng can be ridiculous sometimes, but Xie Lian is not
one to deny him his little bouts of pettiness. God knows, Xie Lian is plenty petty himself.

Hua Cheng takes him to a… lounge. Separated from the rest of the plane by a heavy curtain,
it has a huge flatscreen, a bar, a playzone, and chairs that look both like clouds and like they
could eat you. The same deep red color scheme is opulent here, but the hues are muted in
such a way that the eye never gets tired. The sophisticated lighting is an intricate finishing
touch.

Hua Cheng settles Xie Lian in the seat closest to the window. Xie Lian bites his lip, but feels
too shy to say anything. He’s already in the belly of the beast, not like a specific seat location
will matter. At least, the carnivorous dark-red cloud-chair comes with a seatbelt, which is
more surprising than not at this point, and Xie Lian nervously fastens it.

“All right?” Hua Cheng asks him. “I’ll tell them to proceed to takeoff, would you like
anything before I do?”

Xie Lian shakes his head and forces a smile. “I’m fine, San Lang, thank you.”

Hua Cheng nods and retreats to speak on the intercom. He then settles in the seat next to Xie
Lian, but the chairs are ridiculously huge, and there’s a gulf of space between them.

The plane starts moving. Xie Lian shifts in his seat, trying to get more comfortable. The
engines change modes, becoming much louder. Xie Lian moves again, comfort eluding him.
He looks out the window to distract himself, then quickly turns away from it. The vibration
of the plane changes. They must be on the runway.

Xie Lian fidgets, trying his best not to, and failing. The big too-soft seat is swallowing him. It
should be immensely comfortable. It is immensely comfortable. People must ascend all the
time just sitting in those. He wishes it was less so. Something harder would have been
welcome. More… substantial.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng says gently, watching him. “Are you afraid of flying?”

Xie Lian gives him a tortured look, caught out. “Not flying so much,” he confesses miserably.
“I’m fine when it’s up there, but the takeoff and landing… I get a little nervous. It’s nothing.
I’m fine.”

Hua Cheng nods like he believes that, takes his hand, twining their fingers, and squeezes.
“Focus on me. Squeeze as hard as you want. Better?”

“Mhm.” Xie Lian nods quickly. His hand feels clammy and utterly incapable of movement.
“Better. Yes. Thank you.”

Hua Cheng tsks before unbuckling his seatbelt and standing up.

“San Lang, what are you doing?” Xie Lian asks, alarmed. The plane is moving, moving,
everything is vibrating. It’s horrible. Now is not the time to be taking a walk!

What Hua Cheng does next though leaves Xie Lian speechless, caught between impending
panic and trying to process. Hua Cheng leans over and unbuckles Xie Lian’s seatbelt, before
squeezing himself into the seat beside him and fastening it again over both of them. The fit is
even tighter than on Xie Lian’s couch; they are pressed together hip to shoulder. Hua Cheng
lifts his arm and wraps it over Xie Lian’s shoulders, making it even more snug.

“There,” he murmurs, “how’s this?”

Xie Lian can’t reply, his heart beating too fast. His body is confused, and his brain doesn’t
know what to process first in the chaos of conflicting input. The engines roar suddenly right
outside the window, and Xie Lian turns his head involuntarily toward it, every muscle
seizing. It’ll be over soon, he just needs to… The plane starts picking up speed; it’s going to
—it’s going to—

Two fingers press gently but confidently under his chin and turn it forcibly away from the
window. Before he can react in any way or so much as think, Hua Cheng’s lips press against
his firmly, and then—

Then he’s being kissed.

At some inevitable point, the plane wheels leave the ground. Xie Lian doesn’t notice.
 Chapter 9
Chapter Notes

Wangxian rabbits and E’Ming say hi. E’Ming would like me to tell you that he misses
Xie Lian, but that he is an aging dog, and unnecessary air travel is stressful and best
avoided.

Author’s mini-theatre (from last chapter):

Hua Cheng: Excuse me? He clings to me when he’s scared, he tells me he loves me, he
takes plane rides from me, and he keeps stealing my clothes. Was I supposed to NOT
kiss him?

Author: You were supposed to be better behaved.

Hua Cheng: Did I mention he looks fucking adorable while doing that and I’m only
human? Hey! Author! This is your fault—you made me human!

Author: You weren’t better behaved as a ghost king at all, trust me… Any time Xie
Lian has to introduce you in the novel or in fic, I think of this… ;P

Hua Cheng: :(

See the end of the chapter for more notes

--

His mind goes blank.

It’s a horrible cliché, but at that moment, Xie Lian forgets absolutely everything, even his
own name. Neither the stupid cloud-like seat beneath him nor the deathtrap of a plane around
him exist anymore. Nothing exists, except for this—Hua Cheng’s lips on his, Hua Cheng’s
tongue sliding along the seam of his mouth, his hand cradling Xie Lian’s jaw and gently
guiding him into a deeper kiss, taking it with no hesitation, as if it’s not even a question, as if
Xie Lian is his to do with as he pleases.

It’s not the same as in the club at all. That night had been… a strange kind of assault that was,
against all odds, impersonal. Xie Lian could have been anyone; Hua Cheng wouldn’t have
known the difference.

Now—Xie Lian is drowning in an ocean of heat. He can’t escape, can’t so much as move, his
body betraying him. His head is spinning; he’s hopelessly lost between heaven and earth,
unable to tell up from down. He’s falling, only he’s being caught. He’s being cradled so
gently, so sweetly, only to make it easier for the one who holds him to pull him even deeper
into the overwhelming, domineering kiss—a hint of teeth, a threat of roughness lurking in the
shadows, never quite unleashed.

Fear spikes, yet intense arousal curls low in Xie Lian’s belly, and his throat vibrates around a
small, pitiful whine. Hua Cheng doesn’t let him up for air, easily overpowering his
instinctive, if feeble attempt, and—

Xie Lian’s need snaps free, unfolding like a solar flare. He pushes back into Hua Cheng,
clumsy and unskilled but so starved for it he doesn’t care. Hua Cheng is a devastating flood,
and Xie Lian wants more of it, asks for it the only way he knows how.

Hua Cheng shudders against him, moaning low in his throat, and, for a second, Xie Lian gets
exactly what he desperately wants.

Then, Hua Cheng grips his shoulders, gently but firmly, and pulls away, breaking the kiss.

It takes Xie Lian a few long moments to slowly blink his eyes open. Hua Cheng is all he can
see. The plane is high up in the sky and has been for a while, but it’s a distant thought,
something unimportant. Hua Cheng is staring at him as if he’s never seen him before. Xie
Lian freezes.

Then, he panics.

“I—” he breathes out, looking away, his face on fire, his skin tight enough to burst. “I—I—I
—”

He tries to back away, only to be stopped by the seatbelt still holding them in place, together.
Xie Lian thrashes wildly, jerking against the restraint, his mind incapable of processing what
needs to be done to free him. Each unsuccessful attempt only makes him more desperate, and
he can’t stop—

Seeing that he’s on the brink of hurting himself, Hua Cheng holds him still with an arm
around his waist and quickly reaches to undo the clasp.

Freedom!

Xie Lian jumps to his feet unsteadily, stumbling. The plane is still ascending, and he rights
himself hastily with a hand against the wall. He quickly, hurriedly staggers away—only to
turn around, having reached the curtain, and march back. He stops abruptly and turns away
again, looking for an escape, and finally turns to face the wall and freezes, breathing hard.
The realization of how he must look right now makes him want to die.

“I—”

Anything to escape this, to pretend it never happened. Anything, God!

“I—I—I’m a little hungry!” he blurts out, and wants to die twice as hard. “I forgot to tell you
before, I—no! No, I think I need a nap! Just a little one, I—”

Lord. Where’s the emergency exit? If he opens it, can he throw himself out of the plane?
“I’m sorry,” Hua Cheng says softly.

Xie Lian looks at him blankly. “What?”

Hua Cheng is uncharacteristically subdued, watching him with a troubled look in his eye.
“I… read somewhere that a kiss could stop a panic attack. It controls your airflow, reduces
cortisol…”

“Cortisol,” Xie Lian echoes numbly.

A tight hug would do that… And Hua Cheng had tried that, only for Xie Lian to still remain
an anxious mess, and so he—

Can he PLEASE die?

“I’m sorry, San Lang,” he groans, dropping his face into his hands. “I overreacted, like an
idiot.”

And before then, he’d reacted, like an even bigger one.

“No such thing,” Hua Cheng denies, rising to his feet and freezing when Xie Lian reflexively
backs away from him. Hua Cheng’s expression stills entirely. “Gege, I’m sorry. I was the one
who crossed a line and offended you. I’m very sorry.”

“No, no.” Xie Lian shakes his head with enough force to give himself vertigo. “I’m not
offended, San Lang, just—terribly embarrassed.”

“Gege—”

“Is it a habit of yours, to help people that way?” Xie Lian interrupts with sudden sharpness,
surprising even himself.

Hua Cheng pauses, lifting an eyebrow. “You are the first one.”

Xie Lian can only look at him. “One can easily misunderstand you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hm. So… if Yin Yu was having a panic attack in front of you?”

The corner of Hua Cheng’s mouth lifts. “Gege, if Yin Yu ever had a panic attack, never mind
in front of me, that would be a sure sign of the apocalypse. I’d run for cover and leave him
for dead.”

Xie Lian is startled into a laugh. “San Lang! You wouldn’t really!”

Hua Cheng hums noncommittally, making Xie Lian laugh again, before asking softly:

“Gege, are you really hungry?”

Not even remotely, but he has to save some face—or at least pretend like he still has any to
save. Xie Lian nods and sinks back into his seat, resisting the urge to bury his face in his
hands.

--

Naturally, the plane comes equipped with a chef. If Xie Lian was feeling less thrown by his
own embarrassing behavior, he’d have teased Hua Cheng about it.

As it is, he only watches as Hua Cheng distracts him with light conversation while he would-
be absentmindedly loads Xie Lian’s plate with amazing-looking delicacies. Xie Lian
responds by doing the same for him, nodding along to whatever Hua Cheng is saying. At
some point, their chopsticks collide in midair, and Hua Cheng keeps Xie Lian’s trapped with
his own, reaching for another pair with his left hand and deftly returning to his mission. Not
even the corner of his mouth twitches. Xie Lian laughs.

“San Lang, I couldn’t get a hold of Qingxuan before we left. Do you happen to know how
they’re doing?”

Hua Cheng nods. “Getting better. They’re still resting in their suite.”

“Oh?”

Hua Cheng smirks. “Shi Qingxuan drank nearly half that bowl that night, Gege, and they’d
been on some idiotic diet before then, so their body mass isn’t what it should be. Don’t worry,
a nurse is looking after them.” He pauses. “And He Xuan.”

Xie Lian blinks. “He Xuan?”

“He volunteered.”

“Uh… is that wise?”

Hua Cheng snorts, but, seeing real concern on Xie Lian’s face, amends quickly, “They’ll be
fine, Gege. He Xuan looked beyond sour, which means he really wanted to talk, not just yell.
And the nurse has a black belt in wushu.”

“Hm.” Xie Lian allows that. “Have you found out who’s responsible for it all yet?”

Hua Cheng’s face reflects derision. “Yes, not that we had to go far. Shi Wudu really didn’t
like it when Shi Qingxuan took He Xuan’s side and left. Apparently he thought that, if he
embarrassed Shi Qingxuan publicly, they’d crawl back to him. My club’s reputation
becoming collateral damage was just a bonus.”

Xie Lian frowns. “That doesn’t seem like a good way to reconcile with family.”

“According to Shi Wudu, it is.” Hua Cheng snorts. “He only understands threats himself, so I
can’t say I’m surprised. He bribed one of the models, and she spiked the punch. My security
is at fault, too—they decided that, since Shi Qingxuan had signed all the models in, they
didn’t need to check them.”
“Ah,” Xie Lian says, biting his lip. “Did you fire them?”

“No.” Hua Cheng smirks. “I gave them to Yin Yu for a month. If they survive that, I’m sure
they will have learned their lesson.”

Xie Lian’s mouth twitches. He knows he shouldn’t find this funny, but…

“Speaking of that night, Gege,” Hua Cheng says, his gaze suddenly sharpening. “I watched
the security video from the main floor and the lounge. It was... quite a sight.” His lips curve
in distaste. “Yin Yu’s lab rats tell me the drug was designed to act mostly as an aphrodisiac. I
appreciate your quick thinking that night, or a lot of people would have ended up having sex
they didn’t want. He Xuan said you knew at once what to do.”

Xie Lian shakes his head. “I did nothing; it was all him. Well, and Yin Yu, I suppose.”

Hua Cheng hums thoughtfully. “A drug that blocks inhibitions and raises arousal… And yet
you say we fought?”

Xie Lian forces himself not to wince. If he hadn’t been expecting something like this on some
level, he’d have given himself away. He frowns, as if in thought.

“I don’t imagine street drugs are anything so... precisely calibrated,” he says. “And
idiosyncratic reactions are always possible.” He steels himself and meets Hua Cheng’s gaze
directly. “What are you asking me, San Lang?”

Hua Cheng doesn’t beat around the bush. “How did you get that bruise on your neck? And
the one beside it?”

Preparation or not, Xie Lian’s face isn’t that thick. He blushes, hand flying up involuntarily to
cover the mark under his jaw. He should have worn his hair down like he had earlier, damn it.

“That?” he laughs nervously. “Don’t worry; it’s not from you hitting me.” True. “It’s, uh…
Well, it’s a little embarrassing.” Is it ever. “Lang Qianqiu decided I looked a bit tired at the
clinic the other day and tried to give me a massage.” True. “Only I don’t think he’s any good
at it, bless him, hahaha!”

Definitely true. Qianqiu has a heavy hand, and he’ll need to work on that if he wants to make
a career out of treating animals.

“He pressed a bit too hard.” Even that is true—it just happens to not be where the bruise has
come from. Xie Lian feels a little bad throwing Lang Qianqiu under the bus like this, but,
desperate times.

When Xie Lian chances a look at him, Hua Cheng’s expression makes him shiver. He quickly
picks up his cup and takes a sip to have an excuse to swallow.

Casting about for a safer topic, he asks, “What are you going to do about Shi Wudu?”

Hua Cheng looks away from him with visible difficulty, an edged smirk cutting his lips. “I’ve
already done it. Bastard didn’t like it when I sponsored Shi Qingxuan after he’d pulled his
backing. Let’s see how he likes me forwarding that last tranche that He Xuan needed to take
him down for good.”

It sounds… ruthless, but Xie Lian supposes it’s fair. Then he remembers how vulnerable Hua
Cheng had been that night, and how badly it could have ended, and vindictively says,
“Good.”

Hua Cheng gives him an odd look, and then they are mercifully past the subject.

Eventually, Xie Lian begins to yawn, at which point he discovers that the stupidly-big cloud-
chair transforms into a bed. Ah. It makes a great deal more sense now. Xie Lian wants to
marry that bed and mumbles as much. Hua Cheng laughs softly, but if he responds, Xie Lian
doesn’t hear, falling swiftly into slumber.

--

Xie Lian sleeps through the landing. When he wakes from a gentle tap to his shoulder and
realizes that fact, for a moment, he can’t decide if he’s disappointed or relieved. He nods,
staring confusedly at the soft pillow and blanket that definitely hadn’t been there when he’d
fallen asleep a few hours ago. Hua Cheng doesn’t linger beside him, though, and Xie Lian
takes it as his cue to get a move on.

The air outside is sticky and cloying, the light of the early morning meager and soaked with
smog. Another car is already waiting, and Zhu Ling smiles brightly at Xie Lian even as he
tells Hua Cheng something, one hand subconsciously touching the wireless device in his ear.
A few meters away, Mu Qing is talking on the phone with someone, his expression stern. He
looks pale and not at all well-rested.

“They want you to come in at nine,” Mu Qing says after hanging up. “I’ll text you the
address.”

“At nine?” Xie Lian blinks. “And now it’s—”

“Just after seven.” Mu Qing grimaces. “Enough time for you to take a shower and change
into something more… appropriate.” He looks at Xie Lian, as if expecting him to say
something. When Xie Lian doesn’t, half-asleep still, Mu Qing rolls his eyes. “Do you have a
place to stay? Do you…” He seems to brace himself before pushing out, “Do you want to
come over to mine?”

Xie Lian opens his mouth, but someone else beats him to the reply.

“He’s coming with me,” Hua Cheng says matter-of-factly, coming over to stop at Xie Lian’s
shoulder. Xie Lian thinks, with some chagrin, that he would have stopped closer before. “If
that’s all right with you, Gege?”

His voice has its usual gentle tone when he speaks to Xie Lian—that’s something, at least.
Xie Lian hopes that means Hua Cheng doesn’t hold Xie Lian’s despicably inappropriate
behavior against him.
Then again, why should he? Xie Lian isn’t special. Hua Cheng is the kind of man who must
get hit on constantly. Less… invasively, perhaps, but still. He must be used to it.

Xie Lian pushes the thought away and smiles at him. “If it’s not terribly inconvenient for San
Lang.”

Hua Cheng smiles back. “Not at all. I usually stay at one of my hotels. Gege will do me a
favor by making it less boring than usual.”

Mu Qing abruptly looks like he’s hungover, perhaps contemplating projectile-vomiting. Zhu
Ling herds him away, loudly saying something about having called him a taxi.

“Gege? Are you okay?”

Xie Lian nods at him, offering a sleepy smile and covering his mouth with his sleeve to hide
a yawn. “Sorry, San Lang, I just seem to be a little… um. Those cloud-chair monsters of
yours are too cunning. Possibly sentient. I think they’ve put me under a spell.”

Hua Cheng laughs softly, reaching with his hand toward Xie Lian’s elbow. He pauses, fingers
hovering awkwardly, then completes the motion, setting his palm on Xie Lian’s arm and
squeezing lightly.

“Should I get gege one for his clinic, then?”

Xie Lian gives him a stern look. “Don’t you dare.” He sighs ruefully. “I’d never get any work
done.”

There—he can be normal enough. Xie Lian is an old hand at putting shameful episodes out of
his mind. If he hadn’t become one, with how much he tends to embarrass himself on a daily
basis, he’d really never get anything done.

--

The car ride is hazy. Xie Lian hasn’t missed the capital in the eight years since his abrupt
departure, and now that he’s here again, he doesn’t find himself curious in the slightest. It’s
just a generic, disproportionally huge metropolis streaming past the windows; he feels a
strange sort of fatigue drape over him like an unwanted cloak the longer they drive through it.
He doesn’t fight the feeling; Hua Cheng and Zhu Ling seem to be in the midst of preparing
for some meeting, and Xie Lian lets the sound of their voices wash over him as he dozes off,
his eyes half-closed.

The hotel is nothing like the opulent, over-the-line and bordering on gaudy Ghost City. It’s
not as big, for one thing, and it’s understated in a way that says it can host royalty in their
accustomed luxury with the utmost discretion. Xie Lian had rarely accompanied his father on
his business trips, but it’s the exact type of place he would usually have stayed at.

He sneaks a glance at Hua Cheng and wonders why a man who so clearly values his privacy
would prefer to stay in a hotel at all, even if it’s his own. Why not invest in a home? When
Hua Cheng catches him looking, Xie Lian only smiles.
They come inside, the staff solicitously holding the doors open. Xie Lian looks around
curiously as Hua Cheng leads the way. They are met long before they reach the reception by
a senior manager. She bows to Hua Cheng, despite the latter’s grimace, and then,
surprisingly, to Xie Lian, who only blinks. The staff is clearly well-trained, but Xie Lian still
senses curiosity bombarding his skin from all sides. Has Hua Cheng never brought a...
personal guest with him before?

Xie Lian is too woozy to feel awkward, but somewhere at the back of his mind, there’s a self-
conscious thought that he stands out in this kind of place much more than in the chaotic
Ghost City. At least there, anything goes, with all kinds of people walk through the doors—
crazy rich, unspeakably poor, and everyone in between. Xie Lian fits just fine in there, but
here, not so much, not anymore.

He smiles at the personnel warmly. They’re doing their jobs well, and people who stay at
places like this tend to act as if the staff don’t exist. Xie Lian remembers how it always
bothered him when it was his father, and he finds it bothers him still.

Hua Cheng, for his part, looks indifferent as the manager tells him they’ve prepared a suite
next to his for his guest. Xie Lian smiles at her.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

She stares at him for a moment, stunned, then blushes and bows. “No, sir! No need to thank
us! We’re just doing our job!”

“Maybe, but you’re doing it well, and you should know it’s appreciated.” He can feel the
staff’s attention focusing on him twice as hard. Are they that starved for praise? He shoots
Hua Cheng a vaguely reproachful look.

Hua Cheng is watching him indulgently. “Gege, we’ll be here all day if you don’t stop that.”
To the manager, he says, “Have someone bring a full breakfast up to his room.” To Xie Lian,
he adds, “You need to eat before your meeting.”

“Please,” Xie Lian presses him pointedly. “Please, have someone bring breakfast up?”

Hua Cheng rolls his eye, but obediently says, “Please.” He doesn’t look away from Xie Lian,
which kind of ruins the effect.

“Gege, do you think I mistreat my staff?” Hua Cheng smiles at him. “I have neither the time
nor the inclination to hold their hands and coddle them, that’s true. I show my appreciation
through their yearly bonuses, and I honestly think they prefer that.”

The manager bows again. “Hua-zong is extremely generous.” Still, she flicks her eyes to Xie
Lian, and her mouth quirks. “But thank you, sir.”

“Oh, great,” Hua Cheng sighs, sounding put-upon. “You’ve been here two minutes, Gege,
and now I have a revolution on my hands. Thanks ever so.”
He doesn’t look displeased, though, which even the manager can clearly sense, so Xie Lian
just smiles innocently at him.

From behind them, Zhu Ling says, apropos of nothing, “Oh no.”

Hua Cheng turns toward him. “What?”

Zhu Ling has grown terribly pale and stares at Xie Lian with wide eyes, one hand pressed to
his earpiece. “Xie-xiansheng, I’m so sorry. It appears I… It appears, your bag never came
onto the plane with us. Our driver just informed me he still has it.”

“Oh.” Xie Lian blinks, somewhat taken aback. Is this karma for his unkind thoughts? “Uh—
that’s okay, no big deal. Don’t worry.”

“That’s not okay, and it is a big deal,” Hua Cheng growls, eye boring into his assistant.

“It absolutely is and it’s my fault.” Zhu Ling doesn’t look at his boss as he bows to Xie Lian.
“I deeply apologize, Xie-xiansheng. I should have checked myself—”

“No, please, don’t blame yourself, these things happen—”

“The specifics of your negligence aren’t important right now,” Hua Cheng cuts in coldly.
“Unless you want to get fired, you will fix this.”

“Ah, San Lang, please calm down,” Xie Lian says quickly, touching Hua Cheng’s arm. “No
need to fire anyone; it’s all right. I had a change of clothes and a toothbrush; nothing to fuss
over. I’ll just go to my meeting and then stop to pick a few things up—it’s that easy.”

Provided he can find a thrift store quickly enough, of course. But that’s a problem for the
time when nobody’s getting fired and Hua Cheng looks less mulish.

“Out of the question,” Hua Cheng says, his gaze locked with Zhu Ling’s now, some kind of
communication passing between them. He turns toward Xie Lian. “The hotel will, of course,
provide anything you need in terms of comfort. As for the rest—”

“I’ll go shopping for you, Xie-xiansheng!” Zhu Ling assures him, eyes bright and tone eager.
“Don’t worry about a thing; everything you need will be here by the time you come back!”

“I—that’s not necessary…” Xie Lian trails off. He is beginning to suspect something isn’t
right here.

“It’s very necessary.” Hua Cheng looks at his assistant again. “Why are you still here?”

“Going, boss!” Zhu Ling bows to Xie Lian again, trying hard to look contrite and failing,
before he rushes off, snagging one of the hotel employees with him as he goes.

“Gege, I do apologize—”

“San Lang, stop,” Xie Lian says firmly and takes his arm to propel him forward under the
watchful gazes of the staff. “It’s fine; no harm done. And please, don’t be mad at Zhu Ling. It
wasn’t even his responsibility.”

Hua Cheng scoffs. “I beg to differ.”

Xie Lian sighs. “He works very hard to please you, you know. He admires you a great deal.”

Hua Cheng looks unimpressed. “That’s his business. I never asked for that.”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian sighs again as the elevator doors open. “Just don’t fire him, okay? I’m
sure it was an honest mistake.”

Hua Cheng gives him an unconvinced look, then leans against the spotless, mirrored wall of
the elevator, clearly brooding. Xie Lian waits.

“Is it because he’s cute?”

Xie Lian blinks. “What?”

“You defend him a great deal,” Hua Cheng mutters, glaring at the floor as if it had personally
offended him. “You defend Lang Qianqiu, too, and you think he’s cute.”

Xie Lian’s mouth falls open slightly as he tries to digest this. His lips twitch. “San Lang…”
he breathes out helplessly, before dissolving into laughter.

Hua Cheng appears aggrieved with his mirth. “They both have a crush on you.”

That sets Xie Lian off even worse, and he has to catch himself against the elevator wall.
“That’s not remotely true, but... sure,” he manages as the doors open, spilling them into a
quiet corridor. “Shall I start a little harem, then? Only cute men younger by at least ten years
need apply?” He giggles as Hua Cheng steers them in the right direction.

Hua Cheng glowers at him, and Xie Lian should probably feel bad about it, but he can’t. It’s
too funny.

“I’m so glad you find this amusing,” Hua Cheng says, sounding anything but. “I hope you
laugh twice as hard when I’m proven right.”

It should be teasing, but it’s not, and Xie Lian does feel a little bad at that. Hua Cheng is only
looking out for him… in his own ridiculous way.

“Ah, San Lang, it’s not like that at all. Who’d want a tired old man like me?” Self-
consciously, he touches his temple where he knows the white strand of hair is clearly visible.
He smiles. “Lang Qianqiu only needs a teacher, and Zhu Ling is attentive to me because he
wants to please you.”

Hua Cheng sighs, handing him a key card. “Gege, sometimes, you can be… Putting lipstick
on you was to please me?”

Xie Lian will never know what possesses him at that moment, but, as he takes the key from
Hua Cheng, he looks up at him, tilting his head. “I thought it rather did?”
Hua Cheng’s eye widens, and he says nothing.

Xie Lian holds eye contact with him for as long as possible before turning to open the door.
“See you in a bit. And don’t fire him.”

--

The hotel suite is outfitted as well as can be expected, and Xie Lian only sighs wistfully as he
cleans up. Just as he’s finishing, there’s a knock on the door—the breakfast Hua Cheng had
requested, but also, a fresh shirt. The young woman who brings it explains that the hotel
wardrobe is extensive, and perhaps he’d like a suit?

Xie Lian shakes his head. The meeting he’s about to go to isn’t the formal-wear type, and the
cloying, ever-present heat of the capital will get even to him. He supplements his refusal with
a smile and sincere thanks. The girl smiles back and assures him that he can ask for
absolutely anything.

He changes into the shirt. It’s a classic white button-down that, by the quality of the fabric,
probably costs more than his apartment. The fit is slightly loose; he rolls up his sleeves and
opens his collar before looking at himself in the mirror. He looks…

Huh.

He’d forgotten this. With his hair pulled up, in lieu of a haircut, he looks almost identical to
the young, cocky med school graduate he had once been. Not even the streak of white at his
temple ruins it, appearing more as a fashion statement. Xie Lian shakes his head at himself
with a rueful smile. Suddenly, he feels intensely homesick, and wants nothing more than to
be ensconced in his tiny, shabby clinic with Banyue and the rabbits.

He doesn’t really feel like breakfast, but he has a feeling that if he skips it entirely, it’ll get
back to Hua Cheng somehow. He grabs a still-warm baozi off the tray and chews it quickly,
washing it down with some tea. Everything is superbly made, but he’s too nervous to enjoy it.
He just wants to get this over with.

When he gets to the lobby ten minutes early, he isn’t terribly surprised to find Hua Cheng
already there, looking mouth-wateringly good in a fresh suit, but he is surprised to see Yin
Yu.

“Doctor Xie,” the other man greets him politely upon spotting him.

“Yin Yu.” Xie Lian smiles widely, ignoring the way Hua Cheng’s eye seems to linger on him.
“This is a surprise! San Lang dragged you here, too, huh?”

“I was already here dealing with the Shi Wudu situation,” Yin Yu responds with a slight
smile. “Doctor Xie, I meant to thank you for your quick thinking that night. It saved me a lot
of headache.”

“Please, I did nothing. I wish I’d done more.”

Yin Yu looks like he desperately wants to argue but cuts a look to Hua Cheng and seems to
think better of it. “We’ll be off then, boss. Please, follow me, Doctor Xie.”

“What?” Xie Lian blinks. “San Lang—”

Hua Cheng takes him lightly by the elbow. “Gege, you’re not dealing with any form of police
without a lawyer present.”

“Mu Qing said—”

“I don’t care.”

“And Yin Yu—”

“Is a lawyer. Among other things.”

“Please, sign this, Doctor Xie.” Yin Yu offers him a tablet. “It’s a standard contract.”

Xie Lian presses his finger to it and quickly signs, only to find both Hua Cheng and Yin Yu
stare at him in horrified disbelief.

“What?”

“You didn’t even—” Yin Yu inhales, seemingly trying to form any kind of sentence. “You
didn’t even read it."

Xie Lian looks back and forth at them. “You told me to sign it!”

“Gege,” Hua Cheng says, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “It’s… nice that you
trust us”—he ignores an incredulous look Yin Yu sends his way—“but please, be more
careful in the future.”

“San Lang, I’m not a baby,” Xie Lian says, by now somewhat irritated. “I wouldn’t have just
signed it if it was anyone but you.”

Hua Cheng looks like he can’t decide if he’s more pleased or unnerved by this information.

Yin Yu schools his features to neutrality and takes the tablet away; despite his efforts, he still
projects severe wariness verging on horror at now having a Xie Lian on his hands. Xie Lian
smiles brightly at him, and Yin Yu takes a reflexive step back.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng says, taking Xie Lian by the wrist. “Please call me the moment your
meeting is over.”

Xie Lian blinks. “But you might be busy! I wouldn’t want to—”

Hua Cheng squeezes his wrist gently. “The moment it’s over, okay?”

“En.” Xie Lian nods and smiles softly at him. “San Lang…”
He wants to kiss him. He is apparently incapable of learning his lesson, because he wants to
kiss Hua Cheng again so badly that he’s barely able to remain still.

“Have dinner with me tonight,” Hua Cheng breathes out in the small, suddenly private space
between them. “Please, let me… let me take you out.”

Xie Lian swallows, mouth suddenly dry. Hua Cheng must mean as friends, right? Friends do
that all the time. They’ve already done it plenty of times. It’s another one of those, Xie Lian
desperately tries to convince himself, but that tone, in combination with the intimate tilt of
his head and the way his thumb slides over the underside of Xie Lian’s wrist in gentle circles,
makes it really, really difficult.

He shouldn’t. Hua Cheng has a someone. No matter what he thinks he’s doing, this will end
in pain. Xie Lian has done many, many idiotic things in his life, but even by his standards,
this is a supremely bad idea.

Except he’s weak, and when Hua Cheng sighs very softly and makes to pull away, Xie Lian
says quietly, “Yes. Yes, all right.”

Hua Cheng stills, and a smile so brilliant overtakes his face that it steals Xie Lian’s breath
away.

Well, now he’s done it. He’s doomed.

--

Yin Yu doesn’t comment on the scene he’s just witnessed, either out of tact or self-
preservation. Instead, while the driver takes them to the address Mu Qing had texted, he pulls
out his tablet again.

“Doctor Xie, I’ve familiarized myself with the official report on the incident leading up to
your suspension.”

In what time? Xie Lian wants to ask, but doesn’t.

Yin Yu looks at him over his reading glasses. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Not at all.” Far be it for Xie Lian to prevent Yin Yu from doing his job.

A thought of how strange this all is flashes through his mind. Perhaps Xie Lian had been born
for exactly this kind of life, but it’s not his anymore. For years now, he’s been a humble
country vet—he still is, and he loves it. Yet suddenly, now, he’s traveling on private jets and
in expensive town cars, staying at luxury hotels and having some of the most competent
people he’s ever met babysit him. All because—

‘Have dinner with me tonight.’

It may or may not be a date, but that doesn’t matter—Xie Lian feels intensely awkward
accepting any of it, under the circumstances. He hasn’t earned any of this. He’s never wanted
to be that kind of person.
But not accepting it at this point would only create more problems for everyone. Hua Cheng
uses his staff as an extension of himself—which also explains why he’s never kind to them—
and they seem to expect it.

“Yin Yu, how long have you been working for Hua Cheng?” Xie Lian asks, interrupting Yin
Yu’s line of questioning.

Yin Yu keeps flicking through his documents. “About six years, Doctor Xie.”

“Just Xie Lian, please. And how is he as a boss?” When Yin Yu looks at him, he shakes his
head, smiling. “I won’t tell him, I promise.”

Yin Yu pauses, appearing thoughtful. “Hua Cheng isn’t the warm and fuzzy type of leader,”
he says lowly. “He might be brutal, but he’s always fair. He has no patience for people who
can’t figure out their own problems, but he will help if they have a solution and only lack the
means. He has an eye for talent, and he woos and protects any who come his way. If someone
breaks his trust, he’ll fire them in a heartbeat, but he’s fiercely loyal to those he considers
his.”

Xie Lian listens, spellbound. Yin Yu glances at him and smiles a little. “There’s talk that
Crimson Rain Corp. is a bit of a cult, and I suppose that’s not untrue. He couldn’t care less,
but a lot of his employees all but worship him.”

“And you?” Xie Lian asks.

Yin Yu doesn’t answer at once, but doesn’t try to evade. He ponders the question for a
moment.

“He poached me from one of those fifteen companies he ruined at the start of his career,” Yin
Yu says. “At the time, I thought he was a flashy lunatic.” He smirks a bit, a mirror-reflection
of Hua Cheng, though on Yin Yu’s bland face, it looks somehow more sinister. “But he
helped me out of a tight spot when no one else was there, and I have never once regretted
trusting him.”

Xie Lian feels as if his heart might burst. Barely controlling his voice, he says, “He’s lucky to
have you.”

“En,” Yin Yu says gravely and immediately. Xie Lian laughs. “Shall we continue with the
questions?”

Xie Lian nods. “Sorry. Yes, of course.”

--

The address belongs to a non-descript building in a shabbier part of the city, where several
businesses seem to be sharing space. Once they get inside, Xie Lian and Yin Yu walk past a
noodle shop, a print store, a travel agency, and a few other offices before reaching the stairs
where Mu Qing is waiting with a mildly irritated air—not that Xie Lian can picture him
without it.
“You’re late,” Mu Qing says. “You could not have come in a more conspicuous car. And
who’s this?”

Xie Lian steels himself, ready to pacify him out of habit, but Yin Yu beats him to the punch.

“We’re on time,” he says flatly. “Cars like that are, in fact, quite common in this area, as local
loan sharks prefer their cheaper versions; and I’m his lawyer. Shall we, or do you intend to
make us late?”

Mu Qing opens his mouth, then closes it, glaring at Xie Lian but showing remarkable
restraint, and turns to lead them up the stairs.

They walk to another unmarked office behind a small, noisy restaurant, and Xie Lian feels
slightly surreal, as if in some sort of movie. He wishes Hua Cheng was with him, then
immediately chastises himself for the thought.

The room isn’t large, and the ventilation is straining, making the air stale. The investigators
who rise to meet them turn out to be two men. One has a pleasant smile that doesn’t reach his
eyes and who introduces himself as Lan Jue. His colleague is noticeably younger, tall and
reserved, with a face that doesn’t seem capable of smiling—Zhang Ping. He frowns at Yin
Yu’s presence, but Lan Jue nearly shrugs.

“It’s fine, Zhang Ping,” he says. “Everyone, please sit. Doctor Xie, thank you for agreeing to
do this.”

“He hasn’t agreed to anything yet,” Yin Yu says crisply.

Another fake smile. “Of course.”

They ask him to repeat his story, and, while it might have been traumatic before, after so
many recent repetitions and Yin Yu’s prep, Xie Lian gets through it quickly and almost
painlessly. They’re only talking about what happened with the hospital, and that’s the part
that’s the easiest to look at with detachment. Sure, Mu Qing’s appearance and his words have
brought on some nostalgia for the career he’d once dreamed of and the life he can never have,
but Xie Lian feels more grounded now. He knows who he is, who he wants to continue being.
He’s no longer destined for surgical stardom, despite whatever gifts he might still possess,
but if he gets to keep his clinic open, that’s all he needs to feel at peace.

Mostly, it’s Lan Jue asking the questions, his expression mild and encouraging. His
colleague, on the other hand, stares at Xie Lian in an unnerving way, as if dissecting him
where he sits. After Xie Lian is done talking, he speaks.

“Doctor Xie, are you here of your own free will?”

“What?” Xie Lian blinks. “Of course I am.”

Yin Yu gives Zhang Ping a thoughtful look, and even Lan Jue appears slightly mystified.
Zhang Ping presses forward. He has a handsome face, if frighteningly expressionless.
“Doctor Xie, are you aware that Crimson Rain Corp. has been in negotiations for a
government contract to build another big hospital for this city? It’s been stalled in committee
for a while now. If your testimony is made public, even without proof, the whole hospital will
suffer damages, not just Doctor Jun. I imagine if Capital Central takes a reputation hit like
that, Crimson Rain will win their bid in a week.”

Xie Lian stares at him. Zhang Ping stares flatly back.

“Doctor Xie, you’ve come to the capital on a plane owned by Crimson Rain Corp.”

By the wall, Mu Qing flinches and opens his mouth as if to protest, but says nothing.

Zhang Ping continues. “The man sitting next to you may be a lawyer, but in the business
world, he’s known as Hua Cheng’s toughest enforcer. Doctor Xie, you’re wearing a shirt that
fits you poorly as it was clearly meant for someone taller, and it costs approximately twelve
times more than everything else on you. You have a number of marks on your neck that
indicate recent sexual activity, most likely with a man. So I will ask you again, Doctor Xie.
Was it your own decision to come in here, or are you being coerced by your lover?”

Xie Lian can hear nothing but the sound of his own heart. It’s a heavy thumping noise in his
temples, deafening and going ever-faster.

He hadn’t known.

He hadn’t known he could still be humiliated so thoroughly like this—worse than anything
he’d experienced before. He hadn’t known it was even possible.

He can see Mu Qing’s mouth moving—he must be yelling—but Xie Lian can’t hear him.
He’s surprised that Mu Qing seems to be aiming his ire at Zhang Ping.

The senior inspector is frowning at his colleague, also saying something. Xie Lian’s hearing
tunes in and out, and the world is going up and down, as if someone had turned him into a
daruma doll and knocked him on his head.

“—your proof, Zhang Ping?” Lan Jue is saying. “You can’t just say something like that to
people for no reason.”

“How is that no reason?” Zhang Ping objects. “Doctor Xie faked his own death and had
stayed dead for eight years. He conveniently comes back from being dead, hand-in-hand with
Crimson Rain, just as they need to deal a decisive blow.”

“We’re investigating Jun Wu!”

“Yes, we are, and we can’t rely on his testimony if he’s lying, can we?” Zhang Ping retorts,
cocking his head toward Xie Lian. “I don’t care about how rich people fight—I care about
putting an end to black market organ trade. We can’t risk sabotaging our entire case because
Doctor Xie is lying to us, or because his boyfriend is lying to him.”

He turns to Xie Lian again. Xie Lian wants to shield himself from him somehow, nearly
shrinks back, but there’s no reprieve, no cover.
“Doctor Xie, didn’t you only meet Hua Cheng a few months ago? Your clinic had been
deeply in debt until he bought it from the bank—isn’t that right? Did he tell you he’d give it
to you if you helped him, or did he simply seduce you? With his reputation, I imagine that
wouldn’t have been hard. Which one is it? Why are you really here today?”

Xie Lian is shaking. He presses his palms against his face, a childish attempt to hide, to say,
‘Please stop, please stop, it hurts. It hurts, it hurts, IT HURTS.’

By the sound of it, Mu Qing jerks Zhang Ping back, snapping, “Stop it. What the fuck are
you saying?”

A distant part of Xie Lian’s mind finds it surprising. He’d have thought Mu Qing would be
standing next to Zhang Ping, telling Xie Lian ‘I told you so.’

“Enough.”

That’s Yin Yu’s voice, but Xie Lian almost doesn’t recognize it in its chilliness. His hands fall
helplessly, and he watches Yin Yu rise to his feet. For a person who doesn’t usually stand out,
his aura suddenly fills the room. He fixes Zhang Ping with a look.

“Inspector Zhang, are you always this sloppy when doing your homework?” Yin Yu
questions, his voice a scalpel. “Crimson Rain Corp. is not taking part in any governmental
deal—that’s what we allowed them to say, to save face. It was our initiative to build a new
hospital—only we started it five years ago.”

Zhang Ping, finally, blinks.

“What, your five-second internet search didn’t show that?” Yin Yu asks with weaponized
condescension. “Even if they had greenlit it, instead of dragging their feet, the new hospital is
not meant to replace Capital Central. Our proposed site is in the suburbs, and not the wealthy
ones. It’s meant for people who don’t have access to proper medical care, and it will be a
hospital full of expensive equipment that we are going to pay for. The government has been
stalling the project because they are unwilling to pay for it themselves, and they would lose
face if a private company does it.”

Zhang Ping blinks again, as though a computer processing new inputs.

Xie Lian doesn’t recognize his voice when he says, “The slums? He wants to build a hospital
in the slums?”

Yin Yu looks at him, the hard edge leaving his gaze. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Yin Yu holds his eyes. “Because he’s from there.”

Xie Lian shudders, closing his eyes as tears spill. “No.”

“It wasn’t my story to tell.”

“No.” He gulps, shakes his head. “No.”

It feels like falling from a great height and smashing into the hard ground, except—he knew.
On some level, he must have already known.

‘San Lang, have we met before?’

He can’t breathe. He hugs himself unconsciously and rocks softly from side to side.

Confused, slightly wary silence fills the room. Xie Lian doesn’t care about any of them.

After a pause, Mu Qing asks hesitantly, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing that concerns anyone else in this room,” Yin Yu says firmly. “Doctor Xie?”

Xie Lian nods at him to indicate he can keep going. He could keep going with seven stab
wounds in his abdomen, why not this, even if it feels worse?

Yin Yu, mercifully, instantly understands both this and that he needs to move on.

“Inspector Zhang,” he says as if the last bit never happened. “Have you revised your
suppositions yet?”

“I... assume your assertions are true,” Zhang Ping allows tersely. “If you were lying, that
would have been too easily exposed. I seem to have made an... erroneous connection.”

“You’ve done more than that,” Yin Yu says pointedly. “You’ve accused an innocent man of
coercing a witness, and you’ve needlessly distressed Doctor Xie.”

“...It appears so.”

“I thought you needed his cooperation?”

A pause.

Lan Jue sighs. “He’s sorry,” he says, standing up as well and bowing to both Yin Yu and Xie
Lian. “I apologize on behalf of my colleague. His insights help greatly in our investigations,
but he sometimes gets carried away.” He looks at the man in question and hisses,
“Apologize.”

Zhang Ping looks like an actor who’s being cued to say someone else’s line. Awkwardly, he
copies his elder colleague and bows. “I apologize, Doctor Xie.”

Xie Lian can only shake his head, his hand half-lifting in an abortive, dismissive gesture.

“Back to our actual investigation,” Lan Jue says, resuming his seat. “Doctor Xie’s testimony
corroborates the theory we’ve been working off of, until someone took a wrong turn down a
rabbit hole on the internet this morning,” he adds dryly. “However, as all of you are no doubt
aware, testimony isn’t proof.”
Xie Lian nods numbly. “I’ve been saying this the entire time,” he says, voice thick with tears.

“Quite,” Lan Jue says. “That’s why we’ve asked you to come in, Doctor Xie. Jun Wu is too
good at covering his tracks. Even if we had twenty years to investigate, we wouldn’t be able
to uncover more than some extremely circumstantial evidence. The only chance we have is to
catch him off guard—to provoke him into confessing.”

Xie Lian blinks in incomprehension, but Yin Yu’s eyes narrow.

“You want him to wear a wire.”

Lan Jue and Zhang Ping exchange a look.

“Correct,” Lan Jue confirms. “We suspect Jun Wu isn’t just doing an occasional favor for his
powerful friends. We think he’s connected to the organ black market, that he has ties to the
White No-Face organization. Two of the surgeons he personally trained after Doctor Xie’s…
disappearance have been implicated in illegal surgeries to remove organs after they quit the
hospital.”

“They are now dead,” Zhang Ping says. “So we can’t interrogate them. Doctor Xie is our
only option.”

“Why?” Xie Lian asks blankly.

“According to our data, Jun Wu took a special interest in Doctor Xie, even compared to his
other ‘favorites,’” Lan Jue says, softening his tone—as if he can scare Xie Lian anymore. Xie
Lian detests this. The man knows nothing. “He made quick work of all the others, sending
them off to join White No-Face’s empire, but by all indications, Doctor Xie, he was
grooming you to become his successor at the hospital, as he himself moved on to building a
political career.”

Xie Lian considers this. Was this likely? Perhaps. He has nothing to run a comparison on, but
Jun Wu had always been very warm with him. Xie Lian had even… Xie Lian had even
wished, at times, that his father had been more like that.

“This is why we think you’d have the best chance of getting him to talk,” Lan Jue says. “For
one thing, he won’t expect you—the surprise of you being alive could temporarily make him
drop his guard. For another, you’d always been special to him. If you approach him saying
you desperately need a job, we think you might get him to talk.”

Xie Lian no longer knows what’s likely and what isn’t. He just exhales.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

“Wait,” Yin Yu interrupts and turns to face him. “Doctor Xie—Xie Lian. If your former boss
really is connected to White No-Face, this is dangerous. Life-threateningly dangerous.”

Xie Lian nods at him. “I understand, but it’s my mess, Yin Yu. I have to clean it up.”
“You neither started this nor willingly participated in his actions,” Yin Yu insists. “This is in
no way your mess.” Pausing, softer, he adds, “But I understand.”

Well, at least Yin Yu doesn’t treat him like an easily-excitable fragile flower of an
undetermined mental state. How refreshing.

Xie Lian looks at the investigators, repeating, “I’ll do it.”

Yin Yu lifts his hand. “On two conditions.”

Zhang Ping looks tense, but Lan Jue smiles diplomatically. “What conditions?”

“One—he gets immunity,” Yin Yu says. “Faking one’s death is a criminal offense. I want his
record expunged of any such occurrence, before he goes in.”

“Uh…” Lan Jue blinks. “Well. That might take a few—”

“Before he goes in,” Yin Yu says.

Lan Jue sighs. “I assume you want that in writing?”

Yin Yu lifts an eyebrow. “This isn’t America; what good will that do? I want to log into the
system and see his file straightened out—not a patch, not a correction. I want his ‘death’ to
never have been recorded, and any ‘misunderstandings’ or ‘glitches’ that followed it erased. I
assume you can make that happen Senior Inspector Lan?”

If not, the deal’s off is heavily implied.

Lan Jue holds his eyes for a long moment, but eventually deflates. “I can.”

Zhang Ping twitches at that, opening his mouth, but Lan Jue lifts a hand, and, for once, his
younger colleague instantly subsides, though he doesn’t look happy about it.

“Done,” Lan Jue says. “And the other condition?”

“You will never involve him in your investigation in any way ever again,” Yin Yu says curtly.
“He does this, then he’s done. Back it up through channels. Trust me—I have a way to
check.”

Lan Jue looks reluctant, but Zhang Ping nods. “Fine. If he does this right, we won’t need him
again anyway.”

What if I do it wrong? Xie Lian thinks with macabre humor. Oh, right. I won’t be there to
care.

“Then I think we’re done here,” Yin Yu says, getting to his feet. “When you’re ready, you
know where to find us. Doctor Xie.”

Xie Lian stands up numbly and follows him out the door.
--

The moment they leave the building and the moist, dusty air hits them in the face, Mu Qing
blurts out, “I didn’t know!”

Xie Lian ignores him.

“I’m serious; I didn’t know they were going to ask something like that of you! I never would
have told them we found you if I did. Xie Lian, dammit, listen to me—”

“Not now, Mu Qing.”

“But—”

“I said not now!” Xie Lian snaps. “I don’t care, I would have done it anyway, just—just—”
He whirls away, facing—

“Yin Yu.”

“I can’t,” Yin Yu says instantly.

“Please—I need to know.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t. Doctor Xie—”

With a growl, as though watching outside his own body, Xie Lian grabs him by the arm,
pushes him between two buildings, and presses him against the wall.

“Tell me,” he orders, forearm pressed against Yin Yu’s throat. “Now.”

Yin Yu doesn’t resist, though he doubtless could. Xie Lian almost wants him to. He wants to
throw himself at something, to tear and bite and claw.

“I can’t,” Yin Yu says hoarsely, his air pipe constricted. “Doctor Xie, he will kill me if I tell
you.”

“And if you don’t, I will.” Xie Lian presses him into the wall harder. “I need to know. I need
to!”

Mu Qing just watches the scene unfold, speechless.

“He has... a tattoo,” Yin Yu says at last. Xie Lian’s hold on him instantly slackens. “On his
right arm. You’ve seen it.”

Barely. It never seemed polite to ask, when he’d snuck a peek, and even that night, Xie Lian
had felt it would be wrong to take advantage.

“It’s a broken line,” Yin Yu says, working his jaw against a spasm. “When he was thirteen,
his… stepfather. He cut his arm open with a key, just for fun.”

Mu Qing swears.
“It should have scarred. There was nowhere to get medical help in the slums, and no one
would have taken him to see a doctor.”

Xie Lian feels a tsunami of noise rising in his ears.

“But that week, there was a temporary free clinic, and someone stitched him up.”

Xie Lian lets go of Yin Yu entirely, but Yin Yu doesn’t move, only watching him with a
complicated look.

“No,” Xie Lian whispers.

“That someone did such a good job that there was barely a scar, possibly none to be left at all,
but he—boss wanted to keep it. He stole needles from a tattoo parlor and inked his own arm
in the shape of that scar. He wanted to remember.”

Xie Lian staggers back, unable to feel his legs anymore, until the opposite wall catches him.

“Wu Ming…” he breathes out, and wants to scream. “He… he… survived that night?”

Yin Yu looks at him. “Doctor Xie, everything they said inside was bullshit. He was gravely
injured that night. He lost his eye and spent three months in a coma. The moment he woke
up, he started looking for you, but you were gone—officially, dead. He never believed; he’s
been looking for you ever since.”

Xie Lian is shaking now, the sounds coming out of his mouth those a wounded animal.

“He started talking about building that hospital before he even really had the means for it. He
couldn’t find you, and he wanted to commemorate your kindness. That’s all.”

Xie Lian can’t breathe.

Yin Yu straightens up, shoulders tight and mouth unhappy. “I’m betraying him by saying
this,” he mutters. “But he would never tell you himself.”

Xie Lian presses his hands against his face and slides down against the wall. “Wu Ming,” he
sobs, pent-up grief rushing out. It’s all he’s capable of. “Wu Ming… Wu Ming…”

“What are you saying?” Mu Qing says, looking at him in clear distress. “Who’s Wu Ming?
Wait. Wasn’t he that kid who used to hang around you? The one we called—”

Xie Lian’s sobs turn into horrible, jagged laughter. “Bad news,” he chokes out. “You and
Feng Xin used to call him bad news.”

“Because he was, okay?” Mu Qing insists, but it’s reflexive. “He would just stare at you
like…” He shakes his head. “So you’re saying that that kid is… that he’s now… Hua
Cheng?”

Xie Lian looks at him, feeling almost mad with emotion. “Yes. How d’you like that?”
Mu Qing doesn’t respond, visibly stunned.

Abruptly, Xie Lian gets to his feet and turns to Yin Yu. “Can you please—don't tell him this
happened?”

Yin Yu purses his lips, regret flashing in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Please,” Xie Lian begs. “Not forever—just a few hours. I’ll call him now, like he asked me
to, and you know I’m having dinner with him tonight. Just give me until then. Not for
anything, just…” He closes his eyes. “This needs to be ours. Please.” Then, remembering
he’s dealing with someone from Hua Cheng’s world, he adds, “I’ll owe you.”

Yin Yu, however, doesn’t relent. “May I ask what you intend to do?”

Xie Lian huffs out a soft laugh. “I’ve been mourning Wu Ming, the kid I couldn’t save, for
eight years.” He meets Yin Yu’s eyes. “I’ve been in love with Hua Cheng since the first night
I met him. What do you think?”

It takes a long moment for Yin Yu to nod slowly, his expression thawing a little. “Then I hope
you both have a very pleasant evening. No debt, Doctor Xie.”

Xie Lian smiles shakily in response. “Thank you.”

--

He calls Hua Cheng from the taxi he insists on taking. He needs some time away from
everyone, if he is to survive this with his sanity—whatever’s left of it—intact. Yin Yu doesn’t
put up much of a fight, though he insists on calling the cab personally and putting Xie Lian in
it himself.

Xie Lian takes a deep breath, smiling preemptively, and makes the call. Hua Cheng picks up
on the second ring.

“Gege?”

“San Lang!”

Phones are a marvelous invention. Phones don’t show tears that spill at the sound of his
voice.

“How’d it go?” Hua Cheng asks. “Everything all right?”

“En. It’s… well, it’s been interesting. Mu Qing was right—they do have a plan. I’ll tell you
about it in person.”

His fingers fiddle with the crystal ring on his neck.

“San Lang?”

“Yes?”
 A stupid smile splits his face. “I’m really looking forward to seeing you.”

He disconnects before he can start laughing or sobbing.

Chapter End Notes

Yin Yu is paid monstrously well and yet somehow still not enough for this...
 Chapter 10
Chapter Notes

Thank you all so much for your feedback and support! ♥

Hm, what's the point of going on a date if it doesn't end in emotional devastation? We're
not wimps here. ;P

(Please note that the rating for this work might go up in the next chapter, though I'll give
additional warning if that happens.) Enjoy! ♥

Xie Lian asks the driver to drop him off a few blocks away from the hotel. There’s time, and
he wants—badly needs—to clear his head.

He has vague memories of this area, and his feet bring him to the riverbank, encased in
concrete and stone. The river is… brown. It’s always been this way, the silt in the water
gifting the river with the unromantic hue of mud. It’s peaceful enough, though, precisely for
that reason—it’s the same as it’s always been.

Xie Lian breathes. He walks, evading the occasional jogger and young mother with a stroller.
His mind drifts.

Wu Ming, Wu Ming. Part of him still can’t believe it, and yet now that he knows, the
connections, the little things, are unavoidable. Right from the start, he’d felt that there was
something about San Lang, but it had gotten eclipsed by his striking appearance, his charm,
and his—well, everything. Hua Cheng hadn’t exactly been any help, either, though he’d said
it that one time, hadn’t he? He’d had a reason.

Xie Lian stops, resting his forearms against the railing and looking over the water.

Wu Ming. Hua Cheng. It’s hard to reconcile the two in his mind.

Wu Ming, that kid… Huh. Kid. Wu Ming had been nineteen when he’d ‘died,’ not a child by
any definition—he’d been taller than Xie Lian even then. Still, Xie Lian had always thought
of him that way, because… Was it easier? He’d been twenty-three at the time—hardly a
chasm—but it had felt like the opposite back then. He’d felt responsible for Wu Ming, even
though he wasn’t. It’s strange to think that he has those kinds of feelings for the man who
used to be that kid.

Xie Lian groans and buries his face in his hands, blushing furiously. He hadn’t lied to Yin Yu
—Hua Cheng had swept him off his feet the first night they met, even if it had taken Xie Lian
a while to catch up to what was happening. His mind almost refuses to process that this is the
same person whose cuts and bruises he used to treat while chiding him for not being more
careful.

He can see them even now, late at night in Xie Lian’s dingy apartment, with Wu Ming
looming over him, holding his breath as Xie Lian patched him up. It had been a nasty cut on
his chest that time, the light poor, the air too cold, Wu Ming’s skin covered in goosebumps.
The boy had winced and shivered under his ministrations, stoically not making a sound—and
how could he, when Xie Lian wouldn’t stop lecturing.

Hua Cheng is talkative and easy—smooth and flirtatious and teasing—but Wu Ming hardly
spoke to him. Wu Ming would bring him fruit, and Xie Lian would just tell him off,
suspecting it was stolen. God, he’d been so full of himself.

Wu Ming would wait for him at the train station to walk him home, no matter how late, so
that no one would try anything, and Xie Lian had sent him off, time and again. He could take
care of himself; he didn’t need an underage bodyguard. Xie Lian had gotten himself into that
way of living; no one else should have had to pay for it. Wu Ming would nod dejectedly and
disappear, and then trail him anyway, where Xie Lian couldn’t spot him, until he turned to
open his apartment door.

And then there was that night. Xie Lian wants to howl just thinking about it. That Wu Ming,
the kid he was kind of responsible for, had witnessed that was shameful enough. That Hua
Cheng knows this about him, had seen just how Xie Lian had debased himself, falling lower
than humanly possible—that…

Xie Lian isn’t certain how to live with that.

Yet—Hua Cheng is still here. Hua Cheng is gentle with him. Careful. Hua Cheng knows all
this, and he still acts as if Xie Lian is something precious, as if he can still be dirtied or
damaged if treated without caution. It’s absurd—Xie Lian has rolled through worse mud than
most people can imagine, and worse still, Hua Cheng has seen him do it. Which begs the
question—

Who was Xie Lian to Wu Ming? Who is he to Hua Cheng? They are the same person, if still
struggling to merge within Xie Lian’s mind, so could it be… Could it be that he really is a
revered older brother to Hua Cheng? Could it be that any and all romantic connotations that
Xie Lian ascribes to their interactions are there because of him, and Hua Cheng only indulges
him out of loyalty?

The thought sends a chill down his spine. If that’s true, it’s even worse than that night at
Paradise Descent. At least then, Hua Cheng’s desire had been real, even if it wasn’t
necessarily for Xie Lian. Fire, lit unintentionally, is still fire. This, on the other hand… The
danger of taking something innocent at heart and subverting it is all too real.

He remembers the all-powerful ‘key-to-the-city’ coin Hua Cheng had slipped him like it was
no big deal. The ring around his neck is clearly something vital to Hua Cheng himself, yet
he’d just left it with Xie Lian, like it didn’t matter if he broke or lost it. Hua Cheng seems to
anticipate his needs, delights if he learns of his wants, no matter what they are or what they
cost in any possible sense. Back on the plane, if Xie Lian had said, ‘Keep kissing me,’ Hua
Cheng likely wouldn’t have refused him—but would he have wanted it on his own?

There’s no answer to that.

Xie Lian’s heart, which had been soaring up in the sky, plummets back to earth at the
thought. Hua Cheng returning his feelings had always seemed too good to be true, and now
he knows that it definitely is—just not the way he’d thought. Nothing is ever easy for him, is
it?

He shakes his head forlornly. He’d managed to live the first thirty years of his life without
falling in love once. He should have stuck to that.

“There, there,” a gentle, somewhat amused voice says beside him. “Whatever it is, it can’t be
that bad.”

Startled out of his musings, Xie Lian turns—and has to look all the way down. There’s an
elderly lady at his elbow, looking up at him with kind, laughing eyes from under her sunhat.

“I’m sorry?”

“You stand here all sad and mopey,” she says, shaking her head. “Is someone sick?”

Xie Lian lifts his brows, smiling uncertainly. “No.”

“Someone dead?”

“No,” he laughs.

“Then what’s there to be sad about?” she chides, slapping his arm with a lot more force than
would be suspected. “You’re young, you’re cute—whatever you’ve done, she’ll forgive you.”

Xie Lian blinks. “How do you—”

“What else could it be with people your age?” She huffs dismissively. “Now, you do as I say.
Finish school and get a job before you propose, got it? Stability is important—don’t rush into
things.”

As she is looking at him strictly and expectantly, Xie Lian nods quickly, biting his lip.

“Then, clean up a bit before you talk to her, would you?” She looks him over with a frown.
“What have you been doing in that shirt—rolling in the mud?” She tries to dust him off but
gives up with visible disapproval. “Clean up, go talk to her, and stop worrying—she’ll
forgive you. Look at that face! You’re so pretty!” She actually pats his cheeks. “Face like
that, girls will forgive you anything!”

Xie Lian blushes, bowing his head. What about guys? he wants to ask, but refrains.

He might as well not have bothered. The lady looks at him shrewdly. “Ah, it’s like that, is it?”
She frowns for a moment, chewing her lip. “Well, I still say put yourself together. Nobody
likes a slob.”

Xie Lian smiles helplessly. “Thank you, popo. I will.”

“Off with you, then; don’t waste time!” She starts making tiny, aggressive shooing motions at
him, as if he’s a misbehaving puppy. “Standing here like a wet dog, honestly. Do you think
you have all the time in the world? Silly children. Go, go!”

Xie Lian bows to her, smiling, and leaves.

--

He almost forgets about his missing bag until he gets back to the hotel. He sighs with relief as
he steps back into his room, safe in the knowledge that he has some time, even as he feels the
first stirrings of anxiety in his stomach.

He wants a shower—no, he wants a bath. The bath in his suite can easily fit three people, and
it’s been so long since he’s had the luxury of a good soak.

He unbuttons his shirt, humming absentmindedly and smiling, now. No matter what’s
coming, he’s learned some truly wonderful news today. So what if Hua Cheng isn’t in love
with him? Wu Ming is alive and thriving—that alone should be enough to fuel Xie Lian’s
smiles for the rest of his life.

Something catches his eye just as the shirt slides off his shoulders. A two-rail clothes rack
that hadn’t been there earlier stands beside the wardrobe, polished wheels glinting. It’s not
empty. Beside it, there’s a smaller rack, containing five pairs of shoes. The wardrobe door is
slid slightly open, revealing… Yes, that’s a new suitcase, clearly meant to carry all this.

Xie Lian stares. His bag contained a toothbrush, a hairbrush, a razor, four pairs of underwear,
and two sets of clothes. It would have lasted him a week, provided he was diligent about
doing laundry. Zhu Ling had taken that bag from him and, by its weight alone, should have
been able to tell. Yet he still did this.

Xie Lian frowns, though his hand subconsciously reaches to touch the closest item—a light
top, wonderfully soft to the touch. With a strange feeling caught between anger,
embarrassment, and some kind of macabre mirth, Xie Lian walks over to the dresser and
checks it, too. Zhu Ling had not forgotten about the underwear—black and white in even
numbers; the fabric is silky smooth. It would be amazingly comfortable to wear, and it would
look…

Xie Lian knows how it would look. He used to wear that brand, once upon a time.

He closes the drawer, back to blushing and not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Hua Cheng
had thrown a fit, however contained, over the lipstick. He’d better find out about this exactly
never, or Zhu Ling will be in danger of losing more than his job. His suspicions are
confirmed after he picks up the note Zhu Ling had left for him.
Xie-xiansheng, apologies again for the bag incident! I know these may not be your usual
choices, but I took the liberty of selecting some items that I believed would suit you. There’s
nothing absurd about being spoiled when you deserve it, so please enjoy!

Oh! If you wear the jacket, pull the sleeves up, you’ve got the arms for it! ;)

Again, a thousand apologies.

Zhu Ling

Xie Lian puts the note back onto the dresser and huffs in exasperation. Zhu Ling must have
overheard him and Mu Qing talking on the tarmac, at least in part, and had taken Xie Lian’s
frank opinion of himself as a personal offense. Xie Lian shakes his head, touched and
aggrieved about it. That child. He didn’t have to do this, but he clearly takes after his idol—
instead of asking for things and risking being denied, he does them first and apologizes later.
Hua Cheng must be so proud.

“What am I, his parent?” Xie Lian mutters under his breath. “Ridiculous.”

He gives up and goes to take a bath, feeling bullied and outnumbered and strangely warm.

--

The bathtub is heavenly as he’d hoped, and Xie Lian stays in it for a while, soaking and
thinking. Perhaps it’s the fragrant water gently eroding his defenses and licking at his
lingering embarrassment until it melts like ice cream, but a strange mood overtakes him.

While love is difficult, if not impossible, to pin down, desire is straightforward. Its absence is
impossible to conceal. He will hardly misrepresent himself if he simply… doesn’t shrink
from who he is—from everything that he is. He’s blamed himself for so many things for so
long; he’s grown accustomed to making himself small. What if he… stopped?

Hua Cheng’s words float back to him, unbidden.

‘I don’t think you understand how much it hurts to hear.’

And Xie Lian knows—he knows what that’s like. He remembers what it used to be like with
Banyue when they’d only just met. Hearing her put herself down was painful; it made his
skin crawl. He’d had to coax her out of it, lead her gently and patiently into forgiving herself
for—for simply feeling pain and responding out of it. The question is—

Can he also do that? Can he forgive himself for being… human?

He holds his breath and submerges himself fully in the water, clinging to the childish hope
that he won’t have to come up.

--

He takes time washing and drying his hair, for once not just putting it up and out of the way.
It gleams a warm, dark chestnut hue in the light, seemingly asking for more pampering. Xie
Lian huffs, catching himself—the nerves are beginning to make themselves known, and
he’s... stalling. He leaves his hair loose for the moment and goes to get dressed.

Zhu Ling’s choices are… Xie Lian rarely feels unkind toward anyone, but he might be
rethinking his stance.

In the end, after one horrifying discovery after another, he settles on the safest options he can
scavenge. The pants are a calm charcoal grey and a mostly classic design, except they cling,
revealing every shift of muscle. Xie Lian tries to overlook it. The top he picks is the most
modest of the lot, which is saying something. It’s a wine-red, the fabric some kind of silk-
cotton blend that feels divinely soft against his skin. On the left side, it reaches just below his
waist; on the right, it falls to his mid-thigh. Fashionable, stylish, except it’s sleeveless, and the
cut is low, a generous distance from his collarbones. The fit is semi-loose, drapey, but the
fabric, while not sheer, gives that effect when he moves under direct light. The chain with the
crystal ring that he always wears is visible under the tunic, resting against his solar plexus.
The most modest option. He swallows. At least it doesn’t highlight his scars.

Thankfully, the sneakers are a quiet black-and-white and, of course, heavenly comfortable.
Xie Lian would question how Zhu Ling knows all his sizes so precisely when Xie Lian
himself isn’t sure half the time, but he’d rather keep what’s left of his sanity.

The jacket, he actually likes—dove-grey, made out of some material that looks like leather
but isn’t, light and soft. It’s not necessary for the weather, but he won’t overheat in it, either,
and it makes him feel less naked. He pauses for a moment, but eventually pulls the sleeves
up, cheeks heating.

He puts his hair up in a high ponytail, feeling it stream fluidly down his back. The style
sharpens his cheekbones and draws attention to the cut of his jaw. It also makes him look
slightly androgynous, he’d used to like that when he was young and finds he still likes it now.

He looks at his pierced ears a little sadly, wishing, for the first time in years, that he had any
jewelry on him. He used to have red-pearl studs that his mother had gotten him while his
father wasn’t looking. He’d pawned them off, along with most of his other possessions,
around the time his father died. The shop owner, he remembers, had monstrously
undervalued them.

Shaking his head and the thoughts away, he looks in the mirror to take in his whole reflection.
His heart does a nervous flip. Well.

He twirls a strand of hair around his finger. At least he still knows how to wear clothes like
that, even if he’s fallen out of habit of doing so.

His phone chimes, and Xie Lian takes a deep breath, watching his chest rise and fall. It’s
time.

--

Hua Cheng had texted him earlier to say he’d meet him at the lobby, having been captured by
the hotel staff and being patently displeased about it. Xie Lian had told him he didn’t mind, to
which Hua Cheng had responded with a lengthy complaint about how he has staff so that he
doesn’t have to deal with staff. Xie Lian had told him to suck it up and stop trying to skip out
on work, only getting a pouting emoji in response.

He’s honestly... glad. This feels less like a date and more like something he’s used to, and it
helps mitigate his anxiety somewhat. Stepping into the corridor, he nearly bumps into a maid,
who does a poorly hidden double take as she sees him. Xie Lian smiles at her, not knowing
what to make of it. For all he knows, the reaction could be bad.

He calls for an elevator, feeling increasingly silly. He’s never felt so self-conscious in his life.

It then occurs to him that, if this is a date, it’s his first one. He immediately wishes it hadn’t.

The doors open eventually, releasing him into the lobby. He immediately spots Hua Cheng
standing at the end of the reception counter, speaking to the same senior manager as before.
He hasn’t noticed Xie Lian yet, and Xie Lian takes a moment to observe, slowly coming
closer.

His heart does a little wobble when he realizes that, by some cosmic coincidence, Hua Cheng
is wearing all black tonight, like… like Wu Ming used to. It’s not remotely the same, though.
Where that black had concealed and hidden, this black is meant to stand out. The crushed
material of his long-sleeved top has hints of purple and red in it, arresting the eye. It doesn’t
hug him too tightly, but it’s not humbling at all. His hair is its usual artful mess, and he’s
wearing an ornate silver cuff on his left ear, the motif—butterflies and vines—repeating itself
on the wide cuff on his right wrist. Xie Lian swallows.

Hua Cheng is unfairly attractive.

The realization is neither new nor original, but it hits him differently now, like a personal
attack. Why does he have to be like this? Couldn’t he have been just slightly, just a tiny bit
less… less? Xie Lian doesn’t understand how Yin Yu or Zhu Ling or anyone else, for that
matter, can work so closely with Hua Cheng day by day and not—expire. Combust.
Something. Ugh. Hua Cheng is also a jerk to most people, so that must help, but Xie Lian
doesn’t have to dig very deep into himself to admit that he likes that. The fact that it’s never
directed at him is beginning to feel a bit like a slight, even if being singled out in that way
also does things to him.

Agh. Is there anything about this man that doesn’t elicit a volatile and contradictory reaction?
Xie Lian must be wired wrong.

There are other people in the lobby, and Xie Lian feels himself an object of scrutiny, too
dogged and overt to be polite. It must merely be that he’s a fresh face, but it still tingles
unpleasantly across his skin. He forces himself not to drop his smile as he walks past them.

He can see the exact moment when Hua Cheng spots him. He stops talking mid-word,
looking like a man who’s been stabbed through the chest and doesn’t know it. The manager
looks up at him, confused, then follows his gaze, and her mouth falls open slightly. After a
moment of staring, though, she grins at Xie Lian, pulls the tablet from Hua Cheng’s slack
fingers, and retreats without a word. Hua Cheng doesn’t notice.
Xie Lian feels like a night butterfly exposed to sunlight—no matter how gentle, it feels like
fire over every single nerve ending he possesses. The urge to hide, to look away, is almost
overpowering, and he forces himself not to. It’s all right; he can handle this. It’s only—

“San Lang.” He smiles, stopping before him, and affects a frown. “I changed my mind. You
absolutely need to fire your assistant.”

Hua Cheng comes to life at last, his eye sliding up and down Xie Lian’s figure for the first
time. “Oh?” He lifts an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, Gege; I changed my mind, too. He’s getting a
raise.”

Xie Lian huffs in would-be annoyance, knowing that he’s losing his fight against a blush.
“I’m pretty sure he lost my bag on purpose, you know.”

As he’d suspected, Hua Cheng doesn’t even try to look shocked.

“I did train him better than that,” Hua Cheng admits with a hum, reaching to catch a lock of
hair that’s made its way over Xie Lian’s shoulder, seemingly as compelled as a cat who’s
spotted a string. He touches it, lets it go, then touches it again. “I like his initiative, though it
takes strange forms sometimes. What would you recommend? More discipline?”

Is he a puppy I’m co-parenting with you? Xie Lian thinks a little hysterically, looking away.
Hua Cheng is... too much.

“I wouldn’t know—”

“Never mind that, enough of him,” Hua Cheng nearly interrupts, stepping well within Xie
Lian’s personal space, trapping him against the reception counter. “Gege, you look stunning.
And all for me?” He’s practically purring, though there’s something vulnerable in his voice,
too.

Xie Lian looks up at him, his face turning the same red as his shirt. “You’re shameless,” he
manages. “Please, San Lang, people are staring.”

Hua Cheng only smirks, playing with him now that he’s all caught up. He shows no
inclination to move away and twirls that damn lock of hair around his finger. “And what are
you afraid they’ll see?”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian hisses, knowing that his face must be flaming red now. He finally
resorts to pushing Hua Cheng back with a palm across his chest. “If you’re going to be like
that, I’ll go have dinner by myself then, hmm?”

Hua Cheng instantly lifts his hands up, looking scolded but not remotely contrite. “Gege is
asking for the impossible—I can’t not be like that when you look like that.”

Xie Lian bites his lip against a laugh. Ridiculous. This man is ridiculous.

“San Lang, are you flirting with me?” he asks, directly and a great deal more confidently than
he feels.
Hua Cheng lifts his eyebrows, and his expression softens. “Gege looks beautiful and should
expect to be flirted with,” he says, folding his hands behind his back. “But I was being
sincere. I’ve only ever been sincere with you.”

Xie Lian’s heart lurches against his ribs. Well, this is worse, he thinks fatalistically and lowers
his eyes.

“Can we go?” he asks on an exhale.

Hua Cheng steps out of the way, letting him pass. “Of course.”

--

They take the car to the restaurant, though by the shortness of the ride, they probably could
have walked. It only gives them enough time for Hua Cheng to say, “Gege, your meeting—?”

Xie Lian puts his hand on his knee gently. “It was”—he can’t make the word ‘good’ come
out of his mouth—“productive, and there are some important developments.” With some
trepidation, he asks, “Yin Yu didn’t brief you?”

Hua Cheng is looking at the hand touching him fixedly. He clears his throat and says, not
looking away, “He was… vague. Something about you being his client now and it being your
decision.”

Clever, clever Yin Yu. With an argument like that, Hua Cheng wouldn’t press him.

Xie Lian smiles and nods. “Can I tell you tomorrow? I don’t want to—” Ruin our evening
was what he meant to say, but he swallows the words. He can hardly expect Hua Cheng to
leave it alone after that, and he doesn’t want to have the fight he can sense coming. “I don’t
want to think about it all night,” he says, keeping his tone light. “It’ll keep. Will you trust
me?”

Hua Cheng finally lifts his gaze to look at him. “Always, Gege,” he says, but his tone is...
weighted, like there are caveats to that claim that Xie Lian probably wouldn’t like.

Before he can do more than frown, though, Hua Cheng picks up his hand and brings it to his
lips, his warm breath wafting over the skin of Xie Lian’s wrist. He doesn’t kiss it, just
holding it close, one eyebrow raised and that fox-demon smirk on his lips.

“Does gege trust me?”

Xie Lian shivers, which, by the widening of that smirk, Hua Cheng can undoubtedly sense.

“En,” Xie Lian breathes. Then, capitulating, “San Lang…”

Hua Cheng chuckles, a deep, intimate sound, and lowers Xie Lian’s hand without releasing it,
twining their fingers instead and moving closer. “Gege shouldn’t tease if he’s not ready for
retaliation.”

I wasn’t! Xie Lian wants to say, That was meant to calm you!
What comes out instead is, “Why’d we stop?”

Hua Cheng glances out the window and pulls back with a sigh. “We’re here.” He turns back
to Xie Lian and grins. “I hope you like wonton soup, Gege. No one in the world makes it
better than Ma Gong.”

--

Xie Lian had already known, somehow, that Hua Cheng wouldn’t waste their time on a
pretentious fine dining experience. Still, the charming, homey restaurant that seems just a
little out of place in this part of town is an unexpected delight. Over a dozen pavilions are
scattered throughout a beautiful, carefully maintained garden, tucked between artificial
streams and ponds and tiny bridges, everything lit by paper lanterns and twinkling fairy
lights. Laughter and voices can be heard from everywhere, merging into a relaxed, pleasant
white noise.

It’s breathtakingly... sweet. Xie Lian doesn’t notice as his hand ends up wound around Hua
Cheng’s arm while he just looks with wide eyes.

“San Lang—it’s so beautiful,” he breathes out, awed. “I never knew a place like this was
even here!”

Hua Cheng is gazing down at him with a smile. “It’s… relatively new, just a few years old.
Come on, Gege, this way.”

The hostess greets Hua Cheng with a respectful bow, and by name. She leads them along the
winding paths to a small, private enclosure that is somehow more beautiful still. It faces a
little lotus pond with underwater lights and flowers in full bloom. Xie Lian sighs, unable to
stop himself.

Not even two minutes after they arrive, the owner shows up to greet them. Gong Mingyao is
a short, slightly harassed-looking woman in her fifties, with a soft, round face and wrinkles
puckering her eyes.

“Ah, Cheng-er, you haven’t stopped by in a while,” she chides Hua Cheng, reaching to hug
him. Xie Lian watches. It seems... stilted, like a televised celebrity hug, and, while Hua
Cheng doesn’t protest the nickname, he doesn’t seem particularly softened by it, either.

They part quickly, and Gong Mingyao turns her eyes on Xie Lian, critical under her smile.
“And you brought a guest! Young man, you’re very handsome!”

“You’re very kind,” Xie Lian murmurs, lowering his eyes.

“And he blushes, too!” she coos, then sighs, a little wistful. “My husband used to blush just
like that. It’s been… oh, well, too many years. Never mind, never mind! Cheng-er, you want
your usual? It’s a good thing you called—I made a fresh batch just for you!”

Xie Lian looks between them curiously. “You know each other well?”
Gong Mingyao turns to him, excited. “He didn’t tell you? This one here is my main investor.
I used to have a food stall back in the day—nothing special, you know. Sure, people liked my
wonton soup, but that doesn’t mean much where I’m from. I thought I’d die selling it, but
then one day, this one strides by—looking, I’ll have you know, like death warmed over.”

Xie Lian shoots Hua Cheng a look, but Hua Cheng listens idly, his face turned aside.

“I admit, I thought he was hungover, or maybe on drugs,” Gong Mingyao tells Xie Lian in a
stage whisper. “So I sold him a cup, and he ate it, and then he said, ‘How would you like your
own restaurant?’” She claps her hands. “I laughed at him, of course, but it turned out he was
serious.”

“I find he frequently is when you least expect it,” Xie Lian says softly, seeking to wrap up the
conversation as he senses that Hua Cheng isn’t enjoying it much. His face remains steadfastly
hidden.

“He is, he is,” Gong Mingyao agrees hurriedly, also casting a look at her patron. “Well, I’ll let
you decide what you want and come back—”

“No need,” Xie Lian says quickly. “I’ll have the same as him. Thank you.”

“Oh! Very well, then. It’ll be right up!”

Even after she leaves with visible relief, Hua Cheng doesn’t take a seat, instead leaning
against the pole at the entrance to the pavilion, his shoulders tense. Xie Lian stops beside
him, heart tugging painfully.

“San Lang?” He speaks quietly. “Are you okay?”

“En.” Hua Cheng lowers his head slightly. “I’m sorry, Gege. Sometimes, I…”

Xie Lian hums and rubs his shoulder with his palm. “That’s not the whole story, is it?”

Hua Cheng sighs and subtly presses into his touch. “No. I—gege knows I don’t come from an
affluent background.” He grimaces. “I grew up in the shitty part of town—well, it wasn’t
even within the city limit back then, and it was… rough. My mother and Ma Gong weren’t
exactly friends, but sometimes… sometimes, just one person willing to say two words to you
is enough.” His jaw tightens. “When Mother died, she would occasionally slip me food when
my… guardian wasn’t around. She didn’t particularly like me, and she had children of her
own, but even so, it was… nice.”

He sighs a little, shifting under Xie Lian’s hand.

“When my circumstances changed, I found her again. She didn’t remember me, and that’s
fine; not many people would have, and I prefer it that way. Her wonton soup was just as
good, though. She’s a good cook, and she has a head for business. It was… a good
investment.”

Xie Lian can’t take it anymore and hugs him from behind, pressing close.
Hua Cheng goes still. “Gege?”

Xie Lian squeezes his waist tighter, burying his face in Hua Cheng’s back. “You brought me
to meet the family.”

Or the closest thing to it that Hua Cheng has—a passing acquaintance of his mother’s, who
hadn’t been completely horrible to him when he was a child.

“They’re… not really,” Hua Cheng protests, as if he, too, understands this, but his voice gives
him away. “The food is good, and it’s pretty here, and…”

Xie Lian feels as if his heart is being pulled to pieces. He makes a dissatisfied noise when he
can’t hug Hua Cheng any closer. Hua Cheng moves then, turning within his arms, his own
sliding around Xie Lian instantly. Hua Cheng’s face is still shadowed like that, but Xie Lian
suspects his own eyes are fairly reddened when he looks up.

Hua Cheng lets out a soft, surprised exhalation, gently cupping Xie Lian’s jaw with his hand.
“Gege, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not.” Xie Lian shakes his head, pressing his palm over Hua Cheng’s, trapping it against
his cheek. “I’m not, San Lang, I’m just… I wish you’d had a better childhood.”

Hua Cheng sucks in a breath, then says fervently, “I don’t. Mine got me here. This, right here,
I wouldn’t risk for anything.”

He’s leaning closer, as if pulled in, and Xie Lian doesn’t think he will stop him, all thoughts
about how this is potentially a disastrous idea wiped out of his head.

There’s a soft tinkling noise, followed by hushed voices, and then there’s a knock on the
decorative door separating the space from the rest of the garden. Hua Cheng exhales loudly
and drops his head onto Xie Lian’s shoulder, the moment broken.

Xie Lian laughs and pulls away from him, resuming socially acceptable distance as the
servers come in to deliver the food.

--

There’s a lot of food. The table between them isn’t particularly small, yet not a single
centimeter of it remains free once everything is transferred off the trays. The servers grin and
promise to come back with still more. Xie Lian just stares at the spread with wide eyes.

“This… can’t be your usual order,” he manages thickly.

Hua Cheng laughs. “It’s a starter course for when I bring He Xuan here.” He picks up the
chopsticks and starts loading Xie Lian’s bowl, critically choosing the crispiest pieces of fried
tofu, the juiciest parts of the braised pork belly, the most tempting pieces of eggplant. “But
no, Gege, that’s not my usual order. Ma Gong must have picked up on my desire to spoil
you.” His eye twinkles as he pauses briefly, choosing between the vegetables and the
mushrooms, and smirks. “Or else she’s decided to fatten you up for her own purposes.”
“San Lang, stop!” Xie Lian pulls the bowl closer to himself in self-preservation. “I can’t
possibly eat all this!”

“Hm.” Hua Cheng seems to find this a challenge, but relents, picking a few things for his
own plate. “Save some space for the wontons.”

The food is delicious. Xie Lian has never been particularly food-obsessed, even less so since
his unforeseen stomach resection, but this might convert him. He can’t help little noises of
delight as he tries things and moans shamelessly when he gets to the wontons.

“San Lang, they’re so good!” He might whimper a little. “It should be illegal to cook like
that! Did Lady Gong sell her soul to the devil?”

Hua Cheng grins at him, obviously pleased. “I wouldn’t know. He Xuan asked her to marry
him once, after he’d despaired of trying to get her to move her business to Ghost City. She
turned him down, but what happened after that...” He shrugs.

“He Xuan?” Xie Lian’s eyebrow arch. “That, uh…”

Hua Cheng rolls his eye. “He was pretty drunk, and his next best idea was to propose directly
to the food. He may have cried a little; I had to ask Ma Gong to deep-freeze a bunch of it for
him just to get him out of here. He was a nuisance, but then, he frequently is.”

Xie Lian smiles, taking a sip of the broth.

“You’re cute when you smirk, Gege, but why?”

Xie Lian hums. “Just thinking that, for a man who claims to have no friends, you’re very
good at taking care of people.”

Hua Cheng sputters, looking affronted. “Gege, take that back,” he half-pleads, half-threatens.

“Oh, but why?” Xie Lian wonders innocently. “You always take such good care of me, San
Lang, and”—he flicks a look at him from under his lashes—“aren’t we friends?”

It is extremely gratifying to watch Hua Cheng’s lips part around what is clearly a swearword,
but without any air to give it voice.

“Gege,” he whines after a moment.

Xie Lian laughs, and the more he looks at Hua Cheng’s pouting face, the harder he laughs.
He has to push himself away from the table for fear of knocking something over. Hua Cheng
watches this with a resigned and somewhat aggrieved look, his shoulders drooping.

“Am I so very funny?” he grumbles, dejected.

“You…” Xie Lian can barely speak between giggles. “You…”

He looks at Hua Cheng—indescribably lovely from every angle, like a huge wild cat,
graceful and vicious and deadly—and entirely flabbergasted because someone dared to boop
it on the nose. Xie Lian’s heart is full. Even if this is all he gets, he will never, ever complain.

“You remind me how easy it is to be happy.” He speaks his mind without thinking, laughter
melting into something tender and honest. He feels so very warm.

Hua Cheng goes still at that, for a moment, then shifts a little closer. “Shall we call for
dessert?”

Xie Lian groans.

--

The stars are already out there when they leave the restaurant, invisible under the lights of the
never-sleeping capital. Hua Cheng nods readily when Xie Lian suggests they walk back.

A quiet park stretches for several blocks between the restaurant and the hotel, and it’s too
tempting to miss. Due to the late hour, it’s already closed for admittance, but apparently,
there’s no door that would be closed to Hua Cheng, and they are let in without issue. The last
strollers and a few late-night joggers are the only people around.

They walk unhurriedly along the lanes, side-by-side, carried by the scent of fully bloomed
magnolia trees, the night’s silky warmth, and the muted sound of traffic. Xie Lian watches
fireflies soundlessly congregating in the bushes furthest from the lanterns, his arm brushing
occasionally against Hua Cheng’s. It doesn’t seem deliberate, but it happens so frequently
that Xie Lian has a feeling Hua Cheng would have taken his hand, if they weren’t in a public
space. The thought is tinged with both comfort and disappointment.

Hua Cheng seems pensive but relaxed, his conversation easy. Xie Lian could listen to him all
night, but there’s a persistent buzz beneath his skin that has been growing louder all evening.
If they were just two people with no shared past, it would have been simple—easy. Win or
lose, no complications or consequences. But they are not, and he still wants, and he is scared
to death.

Perhaps it’s the mounting pressure, a moment of distraction, or simply his usual luck—but he
trips, and would have nose-dived into the ground, had Hua Cheng not caught him with an
arm around his waist.

“Careful, Gege,” he murmurs, pulling him upright.

He doesn’t let go as Xie Lian regains his balance. The touch is innocent, except it brings Xie
Lian flush against his side, and through the thin fabric of his shirt, it feels as if Hua Cheng’s
palm is pressed against his bare skin. Neither of them moves for a moment; Xie Lian doesn’t
lift his eyes. The late passersby are gone, and it’s as if they are alone in the universe, their
entire existence narrowed down to the golden dome of a streetlamp light.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian says slowly, not daring to look up, heart beating so wildly in his chest
he wouldn’t be surprised if Hua Cheng could feel it against his own ribs. “I have to ask you
something.”
Above him, around him, Hua Cheng makes a deep, encouraging sound.

“San Lang.” Xie Lian swallows and finally looks up. “Is this a date?”

Hua Cheng’s arm around him tightens in response, his free hand catching a lock of Xie Lian’s
hair again. “I thought,” Hua Cheng says softly, “that I could not have been more clear.”

Xie Lian nods reflexively, the sharp, burning feeling in his chest growing. “Then… what
about your someone? Did you not say you were in love with them? Or did I...” He exhales.
“Did I misunderstand?”

Hua Cheng goes so still, he becomes indistinguishable from stone. It breaks Xie Lian’s heart
to do it, but he can’t carry on without knowing, without once and for all establishing if he has
any right to continue, any chance to…

Gently, he frees himself from Hua Cheng’s hold, refusing to give in when he sees Hua
Cheng’s face crumple.

“San Lang,” he presses. “Did I misunderstand?”

Hua Cheng shakes his head woodenly. “No.”

“All right.” Xie Lian lets out a breath, praying not to go deaf over the sound of his own heart
beating. “Then… forgive me, but is this… Are you being unfaithful to them now?”

This time, the answer is immediate, tone sharp. “No.”

“I see.” Xie Lian nods, then frowns. “Except, I don’t. You are in love with them, yet you’re
on a date with me, and—you’re not being unfaithful?”

Hua Cheng is silent, trapped in the crossfire between the streetlamp light and the deep night
behind him.

“San Lang. How can they both be true?”

Hua Cheng’s gaze catches his, shoulders screaming with tension, his tone defeated when he
says, “You seem to know already. Why ask?”

Xie Lian’s heart misses a beat. Perhaps it misses a dozen. Perhaps it has exploded in his chest
entirely, and he keeps standing only because he doesn’t know it.

“Something like this has to be said clearly,” he whispers, losing his voice even as he speaks.
“Am I your someone… Wu Ming?”

Hua Cheng sucks in a breath sharply, going rigid. It takes a few moments before he manages
a single, hoarse, “How?”

“Something came up in the meeting,” Xie Lian replies softly. “Don’t blame Yin Yu—I forced
the rest out of him.”
Hua Cheng swears, jerking his face to the side. His breathing is strained, chest rising and
falling. “I never wanted you to know.”

“Why?” Xie Lian hopes those are not tears in his voice.

Hua Cheng’s hands curl into fists. He glares at the ground as if it insulted him—for the
moment, beyond speech. When he gets a hold of himself, he forces out, “How can you even
ask me that?” His tone is broken, jagged shards sinking into defenseless flesh. “I had no right
to even come near you after what I’d done, let alone…” He bows his head. “I couldn’t help
myself. When I found you, finally, after all those years, when I saw you, I… I couldn’t help
it. I wanted to hear your voice again. Just once.” He almost smiles, rueful. “But it never
seemed to be enough.”

“Puqi Town.” Xie Lian’s own voice is faltering, trailing off again. “You’re renovating an
entire city block, just because—”

“For you. All of it, only for you.” Hua Cheng is looking at him now, visibly calmer. “Gege, if
you never want to see me again—I understand, and you won’t have to. I can set it all up so
that we never have to meet. If you—”

“That… would be a little inconvenient,” Xie Lian interrupts, desperately blinking back tears.
“Seeing as I—I…” He swallows, wringing his hands. “I’m afraid I’ve fallen quite hopelessly
in love with you, and the thought that I won’t see you again is a bit—a bit…”

Like swallowing a blade soaked in acid and set on fire.

“But I didn’t know who you were, and now…” He forces himself to look at Hua Cheng’s
face. “If you’re only doing this to repay some imaginary debt, San Lang, I promise, it’s—”

“Say that again.”

Xie Lian blinks, swaying slightly backward. Hua Cheng hasn’t moved, but the intensity of
the command has the power of a punch.

Hua Cheng must notice this, and steps forward, his tone becoming pleading. “Gege, please—
could you repeat what you just said?”

Xie Lian nods, feeling more than slightly out of it. “I don’t think there’s any debt, you don’t
have to—”

“No,” Hua Cheng interrupts, sharp and desperate. “The other thing.”

His mind feels too clogged up with emotion to think clearly, but eventually, he gets there.
“Oh. I’m... in love with you? That?”

“Yes,” Hua Cheng breathes out feverishly. “That. Could you—?”

Xie Lian quickly wipes away the tears that have spilled despite his better efforts and looks
straight at him. This—this part is easy. It has always been easy. It’s having to keep it bottled
up that’s been hard.
“San Lang, I’m in love with you. I really, really love you.”

Hua Cheng is staring at him as if he’d just said the sky was falling. “You weren’t teasing,” he
whispers. “All those times, you—”

That brings a small smile to Xie Lian’s lips. “Hiding in plain sight?”

“Gege,” Hua Cheng says in a shaken voice Xie Lian has never heard from him before. “One
of these days… you really, truly, honestly will be the death of me.”

Xie Lian lets out a small, helpless laugh, and Hua Cheng catches it on his lips.

--

The rest of the walk through the park is at once lightning-fast and torturously slow, a flurry of
stolen kisses and restless hands. Hua Cheng’s status has never been more convenient than
when they’re able to slip into the hotel through the back entrance, avoiding a march through
the lobby. The elevator ride is endless, their fingers tangled together too tightly for simple
connection, the air thick with tension.

The hour is too late for the corridor to be more than dimly lit, and Xie Lian feels a little as if
he’s walking through a dream-space. Every point of contact only makes him crave more, and
yet he stumbles slightly when they walk past his door. Hua Cheng stops instantly and turns
around to look at him.

“Gege?”

“I—” Xie Lian wishes his head would stop spinning. “San Lang, I…”

After a beat, Hua Cheng steps closer and cups his face. “Gege, you don’t have to be nervous.
I won’t do anything you wouldn’t want me to. In fact”—he presses a gentle kiss to Xie Lian’s
forehead—“nothing needs to happen at all. I just want you close.”

Xie Lian frowns slightly, shaking his head, frustrated with himself. “It’s not that; I only…”

Hua Cheng lets go of him and waits, patient as ever.

Xie Lian looks at him, restless and only getting more agitated. He steps up suddenly, loops
his arms around Hua Cheng’s neck, and kisses him—it’s so easy, so addictive to kiss him
whenever he wants to. It’s…

He lets go again, pulling back.

“Gege.” Hua Cheng sounds a little winded, one of his hands seeming to unconsciously lift to
his mouth. “You... I’m afraid you’re giving me some mixed signals here.”

“I know,” Xie Lian groans. “I’m sorry. I want this; I know I want this. But you—because
of… What if you only…” He exhales; can he find the words? “Back then, you… I want this,
but I don’t need this.” He looks up at Hua Cheng, begging him to understand. “I don’t want
you to… force yourself.”
Hua Cheng’s jaw goes a little slack, his eyebrows shooting up. He stares at Xie Lian mutely
for a moment.

“I’m sorry.” Xie Lian looks away, biting his lip. “I didn’t mean to push you into—”

His response is Hua Cheng taking him by the wrist in an uncompromising grip and tugging
him further along the corridor.

Xie Lian doesn’t resist, but—“San Lang?”

Hua Cheng doesn’t stop this time. “One moment, Gege. Please.”

--

He opens the door to his own suite and pulls Xie Lian in, the metallic noise of the lock
sounding final behind them. Xie Lian darts a few looks around, though the lighting is low
here, too. It’s unsurprisingly bigger and differently planned, with a big open space in the
center. There, a gigantic leather divan forms a square around an ornate glass table facing the
tinted panoramic windows. The building isn’t as tall as Ghost City, but the view of twinkling
city lights is still... nice.

Hua Cheng pulls Xie Lian toward the divan and gently pushes him to sit, while he himself
kneels on the thick carpet at his feet, not once letting go of Xie Lian’s hand. He brings it now
to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to Xie Lian’s knuckles.

“Now, Gege,” he says, caressing Xie Lian’s hand and looking utterly content, if... alert.
“What was that about me forcing myself?”

Xie Lian huffs a little, cheeks flushing.

“You…” He starts and falters, but he has to get through this. “San Lang. I lied to you about
what happened that night at Ghost City.”

Hua Cheng hums and squeezes his hand. “I know.”

Xie Lian bites his lip. It’s not surprising, if he’s honest.

“Gege.” Hua Cheng’s expression grows serious. “My only concern was that I might have hurt
you.”

Xie Lian shakes his head. “You didn’t, and I…” He sighs. What’s the point of hiding? “What
you were doing—I liked it. I wanted it. But you were not yourself, and I would never take
advantage, would never… use you like that, no matter how much I…”

Hua Cheng’s other hand squeezes his knee, then rubs his calf in gentle, reassuring circles.

“It is the same,” Xie Lian says. “Back when we first met, we were… You were just a child,
and I was older. You… I’m sorry, if this sounds arrogant, but I think you—maybe looked up
to me?” He shakes his head, hardly believing the words. “Only because of our ages, and
because you didn’t know any better, obviously; I’m no one’s paragon. But just… San Lang, if
this is what it is…”

He can do this. He straightens, looking at Hua Cheng directly. The angle is distracting as hell,
but he persists.

“The way I am now, you wouldn’t be attracted to me if we hadn’t met before. And if this is
only you wanting to please me, because of what happened then, I can’t—it would be the
same as in the club, and I... I couldn’t.”

Hua Cheng is staring up at him with an expression of such profound incredulity that Xie Lian
loses his train of thought, abandoning his disjointed, inarticulate monologue.

After a long moment, Hua Cheng clears his throat. “Let me—” he starts slowly. “Let me get
this straight. You think that, because I looked up to you when I was young—which I did, by
the way, and I was right to, so let’s get that out of the way. You think that, because you were
my hero—”

He says the word so matter-of-factly that Xie Lian can’t help blushing again.

“—I can’t be really attracted to you? You think I’m with you like this out of—obligation?”

...Well. When put like that, it sounds a bit… far-fetched.

Xie Lian purses his lips stubbornly. So what if Hua Cheng is clever with his words? That
doesn’t mean Xie Lian is wrong. Hua Cheng—

—has dropped his head onto Xie Lian’s knees and is shaking, his hair hiding his face entirely.
Xie Lian stares, alarmed. What has he done now? It’s possible Hua Cheng hasn’t been aware
of his true motivations. Xie Lian should have been more careful, shouldn’t have just blurted it
out like that. Now what?

“San Lang?” He reaches carefully to tap Hua Cheng’s shoulder. “San Lang, are you—”

Hua Cheng makes an odd kind of noise and rolls over, back pressed against the divan’s seat,
head thrown back with an arm covering his face. It’s as if he’s—

“Laughing,” Xie Lian states, utterly bewildered and slightly offended. “You’re laughing.”

“I’m sorry, Gege,” Hua Cheng manages, giggling helplessly and still sensitive to his tone.
“I’m sorry, just a moment, I… Sometimes you really can be so…”

Xie Lian finds this all... very discomfiting. “This is revenge for dinner, isn’t it?”

Hua Cheng flips back to face him, a huge grin on his lips, his eye shining. “It wasn’t, but now
that you mention it—”

He leans up suddenly and presses a quick, hard kiss to Xie Lian’s lips. “I think we need a
drink for this conversation. Some tea perhaps, or simply hot water?” He steals another kiss
and rises to his feet. “Make yourself comfortable; I’ll be a minute.”
“Not wine?” Xie Lian asks, more out of a stubborn attempt to save face than any real desire
for it.

Hua Cheng looks at him, and, as much as having him sit on the floor and look up at Xie Lian
was… interesting, this… Xie Lian feels pinned in place, a tremor running through him, and
all Hua Cheng does is cup his face with one hand and slide his thumb over Xie Lian’s
cheekbone.

“I’d rather keep my head about me tonight,” Hua Cheng says softly, gazing down at him like
their world has narrowed once again. “Wouldn’t you?”

Xie Lian swallows and nods slowly, unable to look away.

Hua Cheng’s pupil dilates, and he seems to hesitate for one torturous moment, but in the end,
he lets go and disappears, presumably to make tea.

--

Xie Lian feels shaken in a dozen different ways. Revelations may pour, and heaven and earth
may change places a few times, but Hua Cheng’s capacity to knock him thoroughly off his
axis remains constant as the north star.

‘Make yourself comfortable’ sounds, if anything, slightly mocking, but he might as well. Xie
Lian toes off his shoes and pulls his feet up onto the divan, ankles folded at his side. The suite
is perfectly climate-controlled, so he gets rid of his jacket, and then, with a groan of relief,
reaches up to tug the elastic band off his hair, letting it loose. His hand dives to massage his
head involuntarily. Oh God. He’d forgotten what a torture device a ponytail usually was.

He folds his hands behind his neck and rolls his head from side to side a few times, exhaling
quietly in pleasure at the release of tension. When he opens his eyes, he finds Hua Cheng
standing before him, a teapot in one hand and stacked cups in the other, staring down at him
with a glazed look in his eye. Xie Lian feels a tingle of electricity all over his body.

“What?” he asks, somewhat defensive. Hua Cheng had told him to get comfortable.

Hua Cheng blinks slowly and turns to set the teapot on the table. “Oh, nothing much,” he
grits out. “You tease me all night—wearing my colors, playing with me, touching me—and
then you do this, and you ask me ‘What?’” He shakes his head with a tense smile. “Gege, you
think too highly of me.”

Xie Lian blushes, suddenly self-conscious, but pretends he isn’t, reaching to take the cups
from Hua Cheng. “Sit, San Lang. Didn’t you want to talk?”

Hua Cheng lets out a quiet, helpless snort. “I’ve never needed to have a conversation more
and wanted to have one less.”

But he kicks off his own shoes and sits down next to Xie Lian this time, one ankle under him,
sprawling over the back of the divan like a—well, Xie Lian has been a vet for a long time, so
the comparison isn’t going anywhere—like a gigantic and utterly spoiled cat.
Xie Lian pours tea and picks up his cup, though Hua Cheng leaves his on the table.

“So what was so funny?” Xie Lian asks, somewhat coolly.

Hua Cheng grins. “Gege, there’s a reason why I’m so annoyed with Lang Qianqiu and even
my own idiot assistant, even though I don’t actually hate him. You think them harmless. I, on
the other hand, remember vividly what it was like to be nineteen and have you in my space—
gorgeous, kind, paying attention to me. Gege, your smile alone can drive anyone to
distraction. The rest of you…”

Cheeks flaming, Xie Lian seeks refuge in his cup hurriedly. “You exaggerate,” he pushes out.

“Hm,” Hua Cheng hums, clearly disagreeing but choosing not to argue. “Gege,” he sighs.
“When we first met, I thought you were some kind of deity.”

“San Lang!” Xie Lian laughs, startled. “You couldn’t have—you weren’t such a flatterer back
then!”

Hua Cheng just shakes his head, looking a little wistful.

“Gege, in the slums, there was very little exposure to beauty. Since my mother died, my
entire world had been some shade of ugly, and then suddenly—you. I saw you long before
you saw me, and you were the most beautiful person I’d seen in my entire life. I didn’t know
people could be like that outside of TV. And then you... caught me, and you were so kind, so
gentle, I… Gege, you told me my eyes were pretty. You said it like you believed it.”

Xie Lian’s heart clenches. “I did. I do.”

“I know,” Hua Cheng says softly, even if he does still sound a little incredulous. “Before
then, I’d never even thought if I liked girls, or guys, or anyone. After that”—he grins—“that
was never a question again.”

“San Lang!” Xie Lian buries his face in his hands. “You can’t just—”

Hua Cheng leans in and kisses the tip of his ear. “There’s no point hiding now, Gege.” His
tone is deep, fond, and terribly amused. “It’s over and done; you can’t take it back.”

Xie Lian unearths himself with difficulty, face on fire. “But you didn’t show that second
night.”

A shadow runs over Hua Cheng’s face as he looks away. “The asshole who called himself my
stepfather had discovered I’d gotten my arm treated. He tried to pull my stitches out; banged
me around the house about it when I wouldn’t let him. I ran away—I frequently did, though
he always dragged me back—the pay was too good to pass up. Anyway, I was not… a pretty
sight.” He looks down at his hands. “I was ashamed, that you could see me like that.”

Xie Lian silently covers Hua Cheng’s hands with his own.

“Except then, I felt so bad about not getting to see you again that I…” Hua Cheng draws in a
deeper breath. “I was very seriously thinking about killing him, and then myself.”
Xie Lian’s hand trembles. “San Lang…”

Hua Cheng presses it between his own, a mute confirmation. ‘I’m here. I survived. It’s all
right.’

“Then, you stumbled into the shrine,” he continues softly. “And you said—”

“Oh God,” Xie Lian groans, bowing his head. “San Lang, I spoke such nonsense! I was so
ashamed of myself—I suppressed the memory!”

“Maybe.” Hua Cheng hums. “But that ‘nonsense’ saved my life, so don’t be too hard on
yourself.” He lifts Xie Lian’s hand to his lips and kisses it. “You told me to find someone to
share my warmth with—only I had already found him. If your dream was to help people, then
my dream was only you. Everything changed from that moment onward. I knew what I lived
for, what I worked for—who I wanted to be. I wanted to catch up to you, to be someone you
wouldn’t be embarrassed to have by your side. I wanted to become impressive enough to
deserve you. Gege—”

Hua Cheng looks at him suddenly with such yearning that it takes Xie Lian’s breath away.

“I did look up to you,” Hua Cheng says. “And respect you. And admire you. All those
feelings were true, but Gege—I have always been in love with you. It just grew as I did.”

It’s Xie Lian who has to look away now, unable to withstand it. He pulls back, his shoulders
hunching.

“San Lang, I’m just human,” he says quietly. “Putting people on a pedestal like that is
dangerous. I don’t deserve it; no one does.”

To his surprise, Hua Cheng agrees. “En, I know. When we met again, I wasn’t ready. You
were”—he smiles slightly—“even more beautiful than I remembered, only I was an adult
now. I wasn’t prepared for how much it would… affect me. I could barely think straight
around you, let alone string two words together.”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian groans, back to hiding his face in his hands.

Next to him, Hua Cheng chuckles. “Gege, if this is news to you, it’s only because you must
have been the most disciplined teenager on the planet.”

Xie Lian looks at him through his fingers, aggrieved. “You try getting into medical school at
fifteen! I was studying so hard, I barely knew I had a body, let alone that it wanted... things!”

“En; I surmised as much. You were… I’m sorry, incredibly oblivious to the effect you had.”
Hua Cheng lifts an eyebrow at him pointedly. “You still are.”

Xie Lian shakes his head but refrains from arguing. He has a feeling he’d lose and be even
more thoroughly embarrassed about it.

“But you’re right,” Hua Cheng continues, “That time around, I saw you clearly—not as a
fantasy, but as a man. They hurt you, and you got angry. You were sad and even resentful
sometimes, though never for long. I watched you throw yourself at them, again and again,
still trying, always trying, still fighting. You were incredible. And Gege, you never changed.
You’d snap at me when you were tired and I annoyed you, but you’d still share your food,
your home; you’d still tell me off for being careless, when no one else had cared whether I
lived or died since I was four.” He slides closer, gaze never breaking. Xie Lian has to flick his
own eyes away, down at his lap. “You were human, yes, and every imperfection only made
me fall harder, because you were more real to me then. Flesh and blood, not a dream I dared
not touch. I still didn’t, but it felt as if it had become possible—as if one day, when I was
stronger, more worthy, when you’d look at me and stop seeing a child, I could—”

He shakes his head. “Beyond anything, though, I dreamed of you safe and happy, getting
everything you wanted. That would have been enough.”

When Xie Lian looks up at him, Hua Cheng is a little blurry. He blinks; tears again. It’s that
kind of night, it seems.

“You must have been so disappointed in me,” he whispers, looking at Hua Cheng fixedly.
“That night, when I went to the club. When I went… with some stranger… You must have
been disgusted.”

Hua Cheng’s hands curl into fists. Then, they relax.

“Gege, you needed something, and you sought it out. I would never judge you. I was
disappointed, yes—in myself, because you didn’t think you could turn to me. And I was also
… insanely jealous.”

Xie Lian breathes out. “Ah.”

Hua Cheng fixes him with a look of his own. “Do you understand, now? I’ve always loved
you; I’ve always wanted you. What matters is you and not what’s happening to you—not the
state of you, not the circumstances, not the situation. No matter the background, I always see
you. I always have.”

Xie Lian doesn’t know how long he sits there, staring at Hua Cheng, transfixed. It could be a
minute. It could be an eternity. He only knows that it’s over, and then—

He moves, pushing Hua Cheng back against the divan, straddling his hips and pinning him in
place. He can feel how taut the body under his is, all but trembling with the effort to stay still,
allowing him this strange reverie. Allowing him anything. The sensory realization of just
how much he’s wanted is headier than wine.

He doesn’t know how long he stares down into Hua Cheng’s eye, studying the lines of his
face, and he’s been looking. For months now, he’s been looking with both his eyes and his
heart, and all that’s left is for him to believe.

“You deserve so much better,” Xie Lian whispers, cupping Hua Cheng’s face, breath ghosting
over his lips. “You deserve so much better than me, San Lang.” His eyes flicker up one last
time. “But I’m a horrible, selfish person, and I want you all for myself.”
 Chapter 11
Chapter Notes

Thank you all for the love, it sustains me! ♥ God, this has turned into a saga. That was
not my intention!

Please note the rating change. This chapter is almost entirely papapa, so if you don't
like that, you won't lose much by skipping it. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Galvanized by Xie Lian’s words, Hua Cheng surges up into the kiss, arms winding around
Xie Lian’s waist and jerking him forward. It draws a moan from them both, pressed flush
against each other now, Xie Lian’s weight bearing directly onto Hua Cheng’s groin. For a few
moments, it’s a sweet, frustrating, delicious ride—

Then, Hua Cheng breaks the kiss, even as his arms hold Xie Lian tighter.

“We can stop at any time,” he breathes out into the space between them. Finally meeting Xie
Lian’s eyes, he presses, “Say the word, and I’ll stop. I won’t get mad.” They inadvertently
shift slightly, and he groans, breath punching out of him. “I might… possibly die, but I won’t
get mad, I promise.” He frees one hand to run his thumb over Xie Lian’s moist lips. “You’re
in control, Gege.”

Xie Lian turns his face to the side, breathing hard, for all that they’ve barely done... anything.
His face feels too hot, and he bites his lip, shifting in place unconsciously again. This time,
it’s less intent and more agitation.

Hua Cheng swears beneath him, his hold tightening, as if on the verge of moving Xie Lian
where he wants him. He never does, hands only squeezing Xie Lian’s waist.

“Gege.” His voice is rough when he forces the words out. “You’re—ah. You can… keep
doing that, if you like, but—I need a verbal answer, please.”

Xie Lian nods, bowing his head, all the more embarrassed and shy. It’s only fair, and Hua
Cheng is being amazing, and Xie Lian would love to give him an answer, but—how does one
say something like that? He knows what he wants, but to ask for it…

“Gege.” Hua Cheng is now placing soft, teasing kisses following the line of Xie Lian’s neck.
When he gets to the hinge of Xie Lian’s jaw, he bites down gently, and Xie Lian gasps,
shuddering all over as his fingers dig into Hua Cheng’s shoulders. “You’ve been so bold, just
now.” His voice is like deep, hot honey in his ear. “I want to make you feel good so badly.”
Hua Cheng catches the tip of his ear between his teeth and pulls. Xie Lian whimpers, his
vision blurring. “Just tell me what you want, and you’ll have it.” Hua Cheng’s lips move
against his skin. “Anything you want.”

“That’s... not fair, San Lang,” Xie Lian breathes out, feeling overheated all over even as he
shivers. “I… I want…”

It’s terribly selfish. It’s completely shameless, how selfish it is, and he doesn’t know if he can
ever say something so completely—

“Yes,” Hua Cheng growls at him, a low, visceral sound that sets Xie Lian’s marrow alight.
Oh; he’s been speaking out loud. “Yes, be selfish, I’m begging you. If it has to be just once in
your life, let it be now.”

“I—”

Hua Cheng rocks up, cutting him off with a brutal shot of pleasure. “Gege, I promise you,
anything you want—I want it more.”

Xie Lian reels back a sob, and manages, “Stop.”

Hua Cheng freezes instantly, only holding him steady as he looks up into his face, and that—
that’s hot as hell. The way Hua Cheng just obeys, the way he’s watching Xie Lian as if every
single exhalation is weighted with incredible significance, as if the flutter of his lashes
contains his marching orders. Xie Lian still writhes on top of him, unable to cope with
everything being this much—too much.

Hua Cheng sucks in a breath but doesn’t wholly move, only his hands clenching reflexively
on Xie Lian’s waist until he forces them to relax again. Xie Lian loves him so much he thinks
his heart will tear.

“I—” Xie Lian nearly cries at his inability to maintain eye contact, forcing his eyes back to
Hua Cheng’s face. “I need to…” His voice drops. “I don’t want to be in control,” he
confesses, feeling like he’s dying. Maybe he’s already died and this is a strange version of
hell. “I need to…” He bites his lip and lets out a frustrated groan. “I want it all, but I will try
to... to run,” he whispers. “I can’t help it. I need you to…” He stills, finally, willing himself
into submission. “I need you to not let me.”

Hua Cheng’s eye is nearly all-black, the iris eclipsed completely. His chest rises and falls, fast
but steady, as he reaches to push a strand of hair out of Xie Lian’s face.

“Thank you for telling me.” His voice is raspy, cracked all over, yet deeper and more
powerful than before. Whatever restraint’s been holding it leashed is gone. “You’ve done so
well.”

Xie Lian jolts, as if an electric charge has gone through him, and bites his lip viciously
against a whimper, before he forces himself still again, face on fire and unable to look up.

He can sense Hua Cheng watching, spellbound and hungry, like someone who’d asked for a
cup of water and had been led to a sky-high waterfall.
“Oh, Gege.” There’s a cruel mockery of pity in his voice, and Xie Lian can’t hide his shivers
now, nor the whine that starts low in his throat. He hears more than feels Hua Cheng grin at
him, sharp and vicious. “I’m going to ruin you.”

--

Hua Cheng carries him to the bedroom, pushing him off his lap and lifting him up into a
gentle carry before his intent even registers in Xie Lian’s fogged mind. Instinctively, Xie Lian
tries to fight it, but he doesn’t get anywhere, easily subdued, and settles.

“You really love doing that,” he grumbles as Hua Cheng bodily pushes the door open.

Hua Cheng grins at him again, beautiful, sharp, all teeth. “I really do.”

Xie Lian’s heart is beating madly as he is lowered gently yet swiftly onto the bed, the sheets
silky and cool. Hua Cheng doesn’t hesitate to crawl on top of him, and where, on someone
else, it might have looked ungainly, with him, it’s like being stalked by a jaguar. Xie Lian
backs away until there’s nowhere left to go, and Hua Cheng follows, smirking down at him,
not touching yet—playing with him. Xie Lian feels all his hair stand on end.

“Look at you,” Hua Cheng purrs, breath hot against Xie Lian’s unprotected throat. A kiss
here, a nip there—teasing, barely enough. “You want this so badly.” Without warning, he
presses the flat of his palm directly over Xie Lian’s cock trapped in his pants.

Xie Lian moans, desperately trying to stifle it, his face on fire. “I’ve never… since that night,
I’ve never…”

“Well, isn’t that just too bad for you,” Hua Cheng coos in his ear, now fully settled into
asshole mode, his hand never stopping its torture. “I’ve waited too long for this, and I intend
to claim my prize.”

The word choice has to be deliberate for the effect it has, and how does he just know—how?
Xie Lian writhes under him, not exactly restrained yet perfectly trapped, not knowing if he
wants to get away or get closer. His mind resists the notion that he is anything worthy of
being desired enough to be pursued and claimed, but his body loves the idea, shakes with
how much, arching up and pleading for it.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” Hua Cheng breathes out, like he can’t help himself, voice
saturated with lust and awe both as he leans down to capture Xie Lian’s mouth in a hard,
deep kiss. “I can’t believe I get to see you like this. I can’t believe I get to have you like this.”
His teeth press against Xie Lian’s jaw, dragging. “Unless... there are any objections?”

The way he maintains eye contact when asks the question—the way it’s real, under the haze
of lust—makes the last of Xie Lian’s barriers dissolve.

He shakes his head slowly, gazing up into Hua Cheng’s eye. “I love you. My San Lang. Do...
do whatever you want with me.”
“Fuck.” Hua Cheng shudders, only just stopping an involuntary jerk of his hips. “Gege,” he
groans. “You’re definitely out to kill me.”

He pushes Xie Lian’s knee up roughly, wedging himself between his thighs with no
hesitation, and swallows Xie Lian’s instinctive meowl on his tongue. The kiss is brutal, hard,
and so long that Xie Lian loses any notion of gravity, no longer knowing if he’s being pressed
into the bed or falling forward onto Hua Cheng’s body. It’s disorienting, dizzying,
exhilarating. Hua Cheng captures his wrists and pushes them over his head, pressing them
down with one hand, the cuff on his wrist a shock of cold against Xie Lian’s heated skin.

His free hand inches to pull Xie Lian’s top up, and—

Everything stops.

--

It takes a moment filled with harsh breathing and the deafening thumping of his heart for Xie
Lian to realize he’s frozen still. His hand, only just restrained above his head, is down now,
clutching at Hua Cheng’s wrist with bruising force, stopping him. When he looks up, Hua
Cheng is peering down at his face, trying to read him with desperate intensity.

The lighting is dim, and yet there’s still too much of it. Xie Lian swallows hard.

“It’s... ugly,” he manages, voice shaky.

Hua Cheng’s expression softens. He pulls his wrist free from Xie Lian’s hold without much
resistance and lifts his hand to his face, fingers whispering a feather-light caress over Xie
Lian’s cheekbone as he leans in for a kiss. It’s gentle this time, a sweet, soothing touch.

“It’s not, Gege,” Hua Cheng murmurs, pulling away ever so slightly. “Trust me. Please trust
me.” Another sweet kiss, and Hua Cheng keeps speaking against his lips. “There’s nothing
about you that is ugly—certainly not the evidence of how strong you really are.”

Xie Lian is beyond speech but begs for another kiss silently, and gets it. He lets it distract him
as Hua Cheng guides his hand gently back over his head to join the other. Then, with one
final glance of confirmation, he slides his hand under the fabric of Xie Lian’s top and pulls it
up in one long, smooth motion. Xie Lian arches up to help him guide it over his head and
then—off.

He doesn’t realize he’s closed his eyes until—

“Gege, look at me.”

It’s as if the gentle command absolves him of all responsibility. Compelled, he opens his
eyes.

The scars aren’t so bad by themselves, but there are so many. Jagged, broken lines, whitened
with time, permanent etchings on his skin. It’s something like a mad graffiti artist might leave
on a once-pristine white sheet, forgetting halfway through what he was going for and hating
what he’d done so far.
Xie Lian looks up, heavy with trepidation, to find Hua Cheng staring down at him, his gaze
burning. For a moment, there’s a flash of agony across his face, and then it’s gone, replaced
by something else.

Something suspiciously like awe.

Xie Lian swallows.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng half-whispers, half-growls, releasing his wrists. “Keep your hands there
for me, all right? Don’t move.”

Before Xie Lian can answer, or indeed process, Hua Cheng presses his face against Xie
Lian’s bare stomach and starts kissing his scars, one by one.

Oh.

As aroused as he is, and as much as his cock is screaming for attention, this... this is different.
Hua Cheng’s kisses start off gentle, but as he meets no resistance, he loses himself in the
action, tracing the lines with his tongue as he murmurs endearments and praise. Xie Lian is
so sensitive there—truly, everywhere, but especially there, where no one else has ever
touched—that he nearly goes out of his mind from this sensory assault, unable to stay still
and grateful that Hua Cheng is keeping him immobilized with an arm across his hips, and yet
hating him for it. The litany of “beautiful, gorgeous, so strong, so powerful, look at you, look
at how hard you fought, incredible, one of a kind, there is no one else like you, Gege, Gege,
you’re so good” threatens to undo him completely.

“San Lang!” he whines, hot tears spilling from the corners of his eyes. “Please, I… I won’t
last if you keep this up.”

Hua Cheng hums directly over his belly, rubbing his cheek against the over-sensitized skin.
“Gege can come whenever he wants. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Please…” Xie Lian is close to sobbing, though his voice is barely there. “San Lang,
please…”

Hua Cheng lifts himself up on his elbows and looks at him. “How do you want it, Gege?”

Xie Lian can scarcely make his lips move. He wants closeness. He wants intimacy. He wants
to be taken apart.

“Come here,” he whispers. “Over me. Hold me down.”

Hua Cheng’s jaw goes slack. Before Xie Lian can say anything else, he pulls away, sitting
back, and makes quick work of Xie Lian’s pants, gently but swiftly pulling everything off of
him. Xie Lian gasps as he’s left naked and entirely exposed, still reveling in the way Hua
Cheng’s eye flashes. Hua Cheng pulls his own shirt over his head, and—

Well, that’s unfair.

His skin is lightly tanned, every shift of muscle clearly visible—and he has a lot of it,
understated yet sculpted in a way human beings almost never are. The curved black line of a
tattoo on his right arm, half-hidden beneath the cuff, is a tease, but there’s no time to study it
now. Hua Cheng takes the rest of his clothes off, and Xie Lian can do nothing but stare
helplessly, a lifelong habit of discipline and his sense of modesty unable to fight where his
gaze is drawn. Surely it’s all right to look now? Surely, it’s expected.

Hua Cheng’s cock is long and thick, flushed red and glistening at the tip. Xie Lian’s mouth
waters, and he wants, with pathetic, humiliating neediness, to have it buried inside him. He
knows he won’t have the patience to wait now, but the desire is so strong that his head is
spinning.

Hua Cheng catches his look and smirks, posing, utterly unself-conscious and showing off, his
jewelry the only thing still on him. “Enjoying the show?” he challenges, one eyebrow raised.

Xie Lian’s quiet, honest “Yes” has the effect of a blow, and Hua Cheng’s shoulders hunch in a
little, his eye going wide.

Then, he pounces.

Grabbing Xie Lian’s ankle, he jerks him roughly toward himself, eliciting a startled gasp.
Before Xie Lian knows what’s happening, Hua Cheng’s long palms are on his thighs,
spreading them apart in one sharp motion, and then Hua Cheng is covering him, pressing him
down with all of his weight, the ring Xie Lian wears on his neck caught between them. Xie
Lian cries out, caught and overwhelmed—the skin of his belly had no chance to recover from
its sensitive state, and now it has Hua Cheng’s hard abdomen pressed against it, all that
unyielding muscle as his cock slides alongside Xie Lian’s own. One of his hands grabs ahold
of Xie Lian’s hip and hikes it up higher, the other diving in his hair and pulling sharply to
bare Xie Lian’s neck.

Just having this weight on him has Xie Lian whimpering, but then Hua Cheng digs his
elbows in on either side of Xie Lian’s face and starts thrusting against him, and Xie Lian’s
mind—whites out. He’s yelling, he thinks, though he doesn’t know what—Hua Cheng’s
name, probably, or just mindless pleas. His throat feels raw, his eyes burning. The way they
slip and slide against each other is rough and almost cruel, and it’s so slick between them,
which Xie Lian knows is mostly his doing, and it’s humiliating, and scorchingly good. Hua
Cheng’s face above him is expressionless, almost cold, his jaw locked tight, promising no
mercy, and it has Xie Lian close to sobbing, thrashing against the weight holding him down.

It’s good. It’s mind-numbingly good, but he’s never done this before, not like this, and they’re
teetering on the brink of going too far, even though it’s exactly what he wanted—wants.

Hua Cheng catches on to how Xie Lian’s voice changes in pitch and moves, gathering him
into his arms and murmuring, “Hold on to me, Gege,” his mask slipping and the usual
warmth of his voice pulling Xie Lian back.

He wraps his arms around Hua Cheng’s shoulders, clinging to him. Hua Cheng catches his
lips in a kiss, hot and wet and perfect, and keeps kissing him as he slides his hand between
them, wraps it around both their lengths, and starts jerking them off, tight and fast.
Between Hua Cheng’s mouth on his, Hua Cheng’s hand on his cock, and just Hua Cheng all
around him, it doesn’t take long for Xie Lian to blaze past the point of no return, and he
throws his head back, breaking the kiss and shouting, “San Lang!” as he comes hard. His
whole body spasms, his vision dissolving in a whirlpool of silver sparks.

As if triggered by the sight before him, Hua Cheng follows almost instantly with a guttural
groan, burying his face in the crook of Xie Lian’s neck.

--

After they clean up, in which Xie Lian is too floaty and sluggish to actively participate, Hua
Cheng moves them under the sheets and peers into Xie Lian’s face with a hint of wariness.

“Was it all right?” he asks softly, tucking a strand of hair behind Xie Lian’s ear. “Was I not…
too much?”

Xie Lian leans up to kiss him, though he can barely manage it for how widely he’s grinning.
“You were perfect, San Lang,” he murmurs. “You gave me exactly what I needed, what I
wanted, when I didn’t even know how to ask.”

Hua Cheng relaxes visibly at that. “I lost control for a bit,” he confesses almost timidly. “You
drive me crazy, Gege. If you give me free rein like that again, I might… do things that—”

Xie Lian is abruptly all too aware of his spine and of how it’s suddenly not there, replaced by
a stream of molten-hot lava.

“This.” Hua Cheng nods at him with his chin. “This look on your face is what will end me.”
He smiles, though it’s a little shaky. “You’re playing with fire, Gege.”

Xie Lian laughs, feeling suddenly bold, all-powerful, and shockingly, brazenly alive. He
pushes Hua Cheng down, leaning over him. “Do your worst.”

The kiss is long this time, sending tingles throughout his entire body. Eventually, though, Xie
Lian breaks free and sits up, palms pressed against Hua Cheng’s chest. He laughs, shaking his
head.

“Ah—I’m a little silly right now, San Lang,” he says, bashful and yet unable to control it. “I
feel like I’m made out of champagne bubbles! Is that—am I… Oh, this is so embarrassing!”
But he’s still giggling.

Hua Cheng is smiling softly, watching him. “It’s immensely flattering, Gege,” he says
without a trace of smugness. Softer still, “You look happy.”

“I am happy! San Lang makes me so happy!” Xie Lian grins down at him. “The sex helped,
too.” He presses a finger to his chin, feigning thoughtfulness. “It must be all the endorphins.
What was it you said that time? Reducing cortisol?”

Hua Cheng actually blushes, even as his eye narrows. “Evil. You’re evil.”
Xie Lian bursts into laughter. “Aw, San Lang, you’re so cute!” His voice turns into a squeal
as Hua Cheng tackles him, rolling them over.

It’s hard to kiss someone who won’t stop laughing, but Hua Cheng is not the type to give up
and eventually succeeds. They’re tangled together, exchanging soft, lazy kisses until the
pleasant buzz under Xie Lian’s skin starts tipping toward arousal again. He sighs a little as he
pulls slightly back.

“San Lang?”

“Hm?”

Xie Lian pulls on the chain around his neck until the crystal ring slips between his fingers.
“Will you ever tell me what this is?”

It takes Hua Cheng a moment to refocus, which Xie Lian agrees is very flattering, but then,
his expression becomes... complicated.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Xie Lian backpedals. “I just thought it was
important… That night at the club, it sort of… reset you. But you don’t have to tell me, it’s
fine—”

Hua Cheng kisses him quickly, stopping the words. “I don’t want to keep it a secret from
you,” he clarifies. “It’s only that this is… It’s going to sound a bit like I’m mad and… seeing
things.”

Xie Lian hums. “I once resurrected a definitely-dead fox, San Lang. Is it going to sound
madder than that?”

Hua Cheng looks at him and leans in to kiss his forehead. “Probably not. All right. Uh... well,
we should get comfortable, this will take a while. Tea?”

It must be past midnight, and Xie Lian has never felt less like sleeping. “Please.”

--

They relocate back to the divan, Xie Lian wearing a spare pair of Hua Cheng’s sleeping pants
and a t-shirt. Hua Cheng himself eschews of any kind of shirt, and the pants hang low on his
hips. Xie Lian feels unfairly bullied by the sight and can’t stop staring. It’s a little
discomfiting, as he believed himself to be above such things, but now, he’s discovering he’s
just like everyone else. It makes him a bit rueful, and the tea is a welcome distraction.

Hua Cheng seems pensive, gathering his thoughts. At last, he says, “It has to do with that
night. When we…”

Xie Lian takes a guess. “When we both nearly died?”

Hua Cheng nods, eye sliding half-closed as he shudders slightly. “En.”

Xie Lian wants to touch him, but if he does, he knows he won’t be able to stop. The scent of
Hua Cheng’s skin alone makes him a little dizzy, just sitting beside him, and this feels too
important to risk distractions.

“I woke up on the way to the hospital,” Hua Cheng says. “Only—not quite. I was awake, but
—not in my body.”

Xie Lian sucks in a breath, fingers digging into the pliant leather of the divan.

“It was bizarre. I couldn’t feel anything, but I saw them work on me—saw them remove my
eye, when it couldn’t be saved. I overheard them talking. Apparently, the rest of my injuries
weren’t life-threatening, and I should have woken up—only I didn’t.”

He turns his head toward Xie Lian.

“I saw you. I saw them pronounce you dead, when I could see that you were breathing. I—”
He swallows, looks away again. “Something happened then. It felt like I was screaming, but I
didn’t have anything to scream with. I tried to get to you, but I was… like a speck of light. I
couldn’t even touch you. Then, everything disappeared, and I was somewhere else.”

Xie Lian is very quiet.

“It was so strange,” Hua Cheng muses. “When I was there, I remember that nothing had
seemed odd—I could see everything clearly, and it wasn’t anything unusual. But afterwards, I
could never remember a single detail. I tend to think it was a garden, but that’s just my mind
trying to fill in the blanks.”

Xie Lian hums. “Was anyone with you?”

“En. There was—a woman… I think. I saw her so clearly then, too, but I can’t remember. At
first, I mistook her for my mother, but when I came closer, I saw they weren’t alike at all.”

“What happened?”

“She… spoke to me. That part was like white noise even then. I could only make out that I
had… broken through something, and that I was there because of it. I didn’t understand, but
she said it was a good thing. She was… kind, but... I don’t know. It felt… impersonal, like I
wasn’t that special. Like if Big Bo, who’d stabbed me in the eye, or my asshole stepfather
had gotten to that place, she’d have been just as kind to them.”

Xie Lian nods, something stirring in the back of his mind. For some reason, he thinks of the
little old lady in an enormous sunhat.

“I don’t think they could have, though,” he says out loud.

Hua Cheng glances at him. “Maybe. I wasn’t thinking of it then; it was all… hazy. It felt very
real when I was there—as real as this is.” He reaches over to take Xie Lian’s hand in his.
“But afterwards, it was like a dream I couldn’t quite remember.”
Xie Lian is grateful beyond words for the contact and twines their fingers. “What happened
then?”

Hua Cheng is looking down at their hands. “She asked me what I wanted. I said to save you.
She said it wasn’t my purview and that, in any case, you’d been taken care of already. She
asked what I wanted for myself, and I said... power.”

“...Ah.”

“Yeah, she didn’t like that, either, but she asked what for.” Hua Cheng looks away. “I said I
needed it to protect you. I never wanted you in danger again. I never wanted you unhappy or
suffering again.”

“Oh, San Lang,” Xie Lian sighs and bows his head, pulling his hand free.

“It was what I wanted,” Hua Cheng insists. “I’m not as selfless as gege, who would have
undoubtedly asked for world peace.”

Xie Lian huffs out a laugh. “I should feel insulted, I think.”

Hua Cheng shifts closer to him and starts gathering Xie Lian’s hair gently, beginning to braid
it. “You are a better person than I am.”

Xie Lian looks at him over his shoulder. “That’s an unrealistic ask, San Lang. Even if you
were talking to some kind of… higher power, it wouldn’t have been feasible. I’m not that
naïve.”

Hua Cheng places a kiss under his ear before nudging his head gently forward again. “It’s not
naivety, and I have... reasons to believe differently. But, in any case, I asked for power, and
she gave it to me—just not how I’d imagined.”

“What did she give you?”

“The strongest kind in existence.” Xie Lian can sense him smiling. “Knowledge.”

“Ah.”

“And I had to gain it myself. Suddenly, I opened my eyes, and I was a student in business
school in London. It was a whole life—I went to classes, I submitted projects, I fought for
internships and, eventually, for a job. It didn’t feel not real; there was just this nagging feeling
that I’d forgotten something. Then, one night I went to sleep, and when I woke up, it was a
different life. I was in training to be a line cook in France; the chef really hated me, the way
he’d yell at me…”

Xie Lian can hear the grin in his voice, now, feels the air disturbed by Hua Cheng shaking his
head. His fingers in Xie Lian’s hair are so very gentle.

“I spent years there, until I eventually took over the restaurant, and then—I woke up
somewhere else again. Only that first morning, I would always remember what was going on,
and then it’d be submerged again.” He sighs. “I don’t know how many lives I’ve lived, or
how many careers I’ve had. I spent eighteen years studying martial arts in a Tibetan
monastery. I was a designer for a fashion brand. I was trained as a stock market analyst. I was
in the army. I apprenticed with a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and I helped little old
ladies from a remote mountain village with no electricity sell their yarn and survive winter. It
always felt real, yet, at the same time, like I was living my life half-asleep.”

Xie Lian struggles to imagine the scale. Good God. No wonder Hua Cheng projected such an
aura of confidence and maturity when they’d met again.

“Then, I finally woke up at the hospital,” Hua Cheng says, releasing the thick braid he made
but not moving away. “I expected to be told that three hundred years had passed, but it had
only been three months. My eye was gone, but I was alive, and—the knowledge was still in
my head. The experience in my hands, in my body, didn’t go anywhere. And this”—he tugs
on the chain around Xie Lian’s neck lightly—“was brought to me with my personal
possessions.”

Xie Lian’s hand closes around the crystal ring. “So what is it?”

“A failsafe,” Hua Cheng says. “She said I’d earned what I’d received, but a counterbalance
was still needed, in case I decided—decide—to do ill.” He brings Xie Lian’s hand to his lips
and kisses the knuckles. “It contains my living essence.” When Xie Lian turns to look at him,
aghast, Hua Cheng only grins brightly. “It’s hard as diamond, but it can be broken, given
enough effort. If it’s crushed, I’ll die.”

“San Lang!” Xie Lian stares at him, horrified, his hand clenching reflexively, then uncurling
just as quickly. “Why would you give this to me?! You know my luck! What if I’d lost it?!
Damaged it by accident?! You just—left it with me like it was no big deal!”

Hua Cheng keeps grinning at him, as if he’s just pulled some very clever prank. “You can do
as you like. What do I care?”

Xie Lian wails, pushing at him in frustration. “You’re impossible—impossible! San Lang! So
irresponsible—”

Hua Cheng drags him into a kiss that shuts him up for a while, but as good as it is, Xie Lian
feels indignation like itching powder under his skin. He rebels, pushing and pushing, until
Hua Cheng releases him and says with a smirk, “Gege looks cute when he’s all hot and
bothered.”

Xie Lian growls.

--

They end up having sex right there on the divan—Hua Cheng had the foresight to bring
supplies with him, and Xie Lian has too many complex feelings, all of them volatile, to work
through for them to stop. The ring now burns against his skin as he finds himself naked in
Hua Cheng’s lap, biting his lip, head thrown back as he slides down onto him with possessive
determination.
Hua Cheng is saying something, possibly warning him to slow down, but Xie Lian bears
down even faster, ripping a groan out of them both. He can’t help but wonder how many
lovers Hua Cheng had had in all those lives he claims to half-remember. Were they good?
More experienced? Prettier? Younger? Jealousy burns like vinegar down his throat, and he’s
dying to ask—but he won’t. He’s too prideful for it, irrational anger sloshing around in his
stomach, making him reckless with both of them. Even if it happened, it wasn’t even real.
And still…

He’s panting by the time he sits down fully, sweat glistening at his temples. Hua Cheng is
big, and he feels perfect inside him, even if the burn hasn’t faded yet. Xie Lian almost doesn’t
want it to, his claim feeling more real that way, even though he can barely take it, a single
movement threatening to split him apart. It’s intense, more so than anything he’s ever felt in
his life. He’s very distantly aware that he should be ashamed of himself, for more than one
reason, but he isn’t, not even a little bit.

He gives no warning, just lifts himself up halfway and slides down, and Hua Cheng’s fingers
dig into the meat of his thighs as he swears. Xie Lian braces himself on his shoulders and
starts up a rhythm, pushing through the pleasure-pain, the intensity of the sensations never
waning. He feels high. He feels incredible.

“Gege…” Hua Cheng’s mouth falls open, as he stares at the point where they’re connected
with a glassy look on his face. “Gege, you—”

“Are you mine?” Xie Lian asks. Where he’d aimed for demand, there’s a heavy dose of
plaintiveness. “Are you?”

Hua Cheng’s gaze snaps up to his eyes. “Gege, I—ah—could not be more thoroughly yours.”

Xie Lian falls onto his chest, his thighs suddenly giving out. This pushes Hua Cheng even
deeper in, and both of them gasp. Xie Lian’s vision blurs. “Then... won’t you show me?” he
whispers, a plea glazed with command. “Won’t you?”

Hua Cheng growls, and the next moment, Xie Lian’s back hits the cushions, ankles wrapped
around Hua Cheng’s waist in an instinctive attempt to hold on. Hua Cheng doesn’t wait,
doesn’t ask questions—he fucks like he doesn’t know what restraint is, his pace verging on
brutal. He alternates angles until he finds the right one, and then he pounds in mercilessly
until Xie Lian’s whimpers turn into screams. Hua Cheng’s jaw locks tight and he doesn’t
relent, not for a moment.

Xie Lian’s mind tries to run, but there’s nowhere to hide from this overwhelming intensity.
The universe is the sound of skin slapping skin, the sensation of his blunt nails digging into
the plush leather under him, the fire in his chest, the blinding punches of searing-hot pleasure
in his groin that threaten to knock him out.

His legs fall open, the muscles refusing to hold them up any longer. Without breaking his
rhythm, Hua Cheng lifts Xie Lian’s knees over his own shoulders, and then he keeps
thrusting, one hand stroking Xie Lian in perfect sync. Any remaining thought is wiped clean
from Xie Lian’s mind.
When his climax hits, he shouts something but can’t hear the sound of his own voice.
Whatever it is, it makes Hua Cheng groan like someone had shot him and follow Xie Lian
over the edge. He looks so beautiful falling to pieces that it sinks straight into Xie Lian’s
heart.

--

He has to be half-carried into the shower, his legs refusing to hold him up. Hua Cheng still
kisses him breathless against the warm wet tiles.

“I’m sorry, San Lang,” Xie Lian mumbles, clinging to his shoulders to remain standing. He
can barely keep his eyes open. “I got a little jealous and... lost it a bit, just now.”

Hua Cheng’s lips are on his again, arms wound around him. “It was hot as fuck.” His voice is
low, hoarse, and sounds exactly like everything they just did. “But you don’t ever need to
be.” Another kiss, sweet, lingering. “Gege, was I too rough?”

Xie Lian feels warm and hazy. “Hm?”

“This was your first time. You kept… saying things, and I… sort of lost it a little, too.”

Xie Lian shakes his head and tries to cuddle up against him. “You were perfect. I might…
have trouble walking tomorrow. Always thought it was… just an expression.”

“Just stay in bed, then.”

Oh, now he’s smug.

Xie Lian frowns slightly, hearing the smirk. “Shameless.”

“En.” Hua Cheng kisses his forehead. “Can you stand without me for a moment?”

Xie Lian sighs, put upon at having to do so much work.

Hua Cheng turns the water off, unwraps the towel he’d used to keep Xie Lian’s hair dry, and
quickly dries them both, Xie Lian kept plenty busy trying not to fall. His eyes won’t open. He
has a vague notion of being moved and of Hua Cheng redressing him into yet another set of
sleepwear—seriously, how many has he brought?—and then, finally, the lights are off, and
he’s in bed, sinking into the heavenly-soft mattress. He still makes sleepy, displeased noises
until Hua Cheng pulls him close, an arm around his waist, and kisses the back of his neck.

“Sleep, Gege.”

Xie Lian fusses, making himself more comfortable, vaguely aware of Hua Cheng’s amused
indulgence. He finally settles to his satisfaction and murmurs, “San Lang? Do you have to get
up early for work tomorrow?”

For a moment, there’s no answer, except Hua Cheng moving a bit oddly for some reason,
disturbing Xie Lian’s carefully arranged sleeping position.
“Wha—” he starts with a frown, until it hits him. “You’re laughing again.”

Hua Cheng presses a placating kiss to his shoulder. “Sorry, Gege. I’m just happy.”

“‘s okay, ’s not your fault,” Xie Lian mumbles, no longer knowing what he’s saying.

That earns him another ripple of laughter, and then, he’s asleep.

--

They do it all over again in the morning—slow, sleep-glazed, a little fumbling and
unbearably sweet. Xie Lian’s eyes are closed, but he’s grinning into the pillow, and by the
time it’s over, he can’t tell which one of them is purring, a soundless, rumbling vibration he
can feel in his bones. He suspects it might be him.

He dozes off, vaguely registering Hua Cheng sliding out of bed with displeasure. Hua Cheng
says something that possibly would make sense to someone who’s awake. Xie Lian frowns
and buries deeper under the covers. He thinks he hears laughter again.

Some time later, he wakes up for real, to brighter light streaming from the windows and Hua
Cheng’s hand on his shoulder. “Gege?”

“Morning, San Lang,” Xie Lian murmurs, rolling over and lifting himself up on his elbow.
His smile fades as he registers what Hua Cheng is wearing. A suit. It looks gorgeous on him,
of course, but that means—

“You’re leaving.”

“Trust me,” Hua Cheng says with a scowl, “I’m not happy about it, either.”

“Hm.” Xie Lian pushes himself up and loops his arms over Hua Cheng’s neck, pulling him
into a sloppy, drugging kiss. He takes his time, and when he finally, reluctantly releases him,
Hua Cheng looks flushed, his breathing elevated.

“Gege,” he croaks reproachfully, touching his lower lip with his thumb. “That was cruel.”

Xie Lian huffs. “Not as cruel as your… this…”—he gestures vaguely with his hand
—“everything.”

Hua Cheng lifts an eyebrow. “My everything? Would you care to be more specific?”

Xie Lian opens his mouth, then stops, narrowing his eyes at Hua Cheng. “Surely there are
plenty of people to ply you with compliments already?”

Hua Cheng grins. “But I only care if they come from you.”

“So insincere,” Xie Lian mutters, resigning himself to being awake and sitting up in bed. Hua
Cheng really looks too lovely. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”
Hua Cheng sighs. “I hate coming to the capital, so Yin Yu and Ling Wen always
overschedule me—that way, I can be done as quickly as possible. I find it to be… the lesser
of all evils.” He reaches out to tuck a strand of hair that had escaped Xie Lian’s braid in the
night behind his ear. “What are your plans for today?”

Xie Lian blinks. Plans. He needs to think about those.

“You can stay here,” Hua Cheng suggests, smiling softly. “I ordered breakfast; it’s out there.”
He tilts his head at the door. “There’s a nice swimming pool downstairs and a spa. If you
need anything—anything at all—tell any of the staff and they’ll get it for you. If you decide
to go anywhere, tell them, too, and they’ll order you a car.”

Xie Lian listens to this recitation somewhat incredulously. As magical as the night before had
been, he’s beginning to suspect that sleeping with Hua Cheng may have been a tremendously
bad idea. He’d thought Hua Cheng was bad before—now, it seems, whatever leash common
sense had had on him is gone entirely, never to return.

“San Lang,” he says a little faintly. “If I do any of that, your staff will think that I’m your
terribly spoiled wife.”

Hua Cheng tries to look like that isn’t exactly where he was going with this, but he abandons
the ruse quickly and backs away from Xie Lian.

“Well.” He smirks. “You do have the ring?”

Xie Lian chucks a pillow at him. “San Lang!”

Unfortunately, Hua Cheng’s reflexes are too fast, and he ducks, laughing as he keeps backing
away toward the door.

“Ah, Gege, don’t be mad!” he implores, lifting his hands up. “I can be your wife if you’d
rather! I’d really love that, actually.”

“You—!” Xie Lian lobs a second pillow at him and misses again. “Don’t joke about that!”

“My bad, my bad!” Hua Cheng is laughing too hard, and the third pillow, gratifyingly, hits
him in the face. He catches it and holds it in front of himself as a shield as Xie Lian, on his
knees on the bed now, looks for more ammunition. “Uh, Gege, I really need to—”

“Well, go then! Who’s keeping you?”

Certainly, no one who’s married to you.

He plops down with a huff, the too-wide collar of his borrowed t-shirt sliding off his shoulder
as he blows on a strand of hair that’s fallen onto his face.

Hua Cheng drops the pillow, his laughter petering out. He licks his lips, his gaze becoming
strangely arrested. “Gege,” he says slowly. “Maybe I can—”
“Out,” Xie Lian says, reaching for the last pillow on the bed. “You had your shot; it’s gone
now.”

“I’m in love with a tyrant,” Hua Cheng laments.

Xie Lian gives him his most unimpressed look, but Hua Cheng still comes over and kisses
him, and then his knee is on the bed, creasing the fabric of his perfectly pressed suit, and then
Xie Lian is maybe not so mad anymore—

And then Hua Cheng’s phone starts making obnoxiously loud noises in his pocket.

--

After Hua Cheng is gone, Xie Lian sits on the bed for a while longer, shoulders slumped. He
looks down at his body a little ruefully. How much sex does a person need, anyway? He’s
never had this problem before.

To be fair, he was always too busy, too stressed, too exhausted, or all of the above to even
contemplate doing more for himself than the requirements for basic survival. Occasionally, a
particularly interesting visitor to the clinic would stir his physical interest, but it had never
lasted beyond a fantasy or two, and he’d always felt worse, somehow, for having indulged—
empty and pathetic, his perpetual loneliness rubbed in his face with the reminder of things
that weren’t meant for him.

Then, Hua Cheng had blazed into his life, and he was not in a negotiating mood when it came
to Xie Lian’s physical responses. Beyond their complicated history, that Xie Lian can have
him like this is still difficult to process, and it messes with his head a little—

A lot. It messes with his head a lot.

With a heavy sigh, he heaves himself out of bed and forces himself to start the day. It’s
almost nine anyway.

The breakfast Hua Cheng had ordered is a generous, Western-style spread, and Xie Lian feels
ravenously hungry just looking at it. He fishes his phone out from his discarded jacket and
happily munches on some buttered toast as he checks his messages and emails. The food gets
abandoned as he gets sucked into answering them, giving advice on pet care to people who’d
visited the clinic before and hadn’t expected to find it closed. There’s an email from Yin Yu,
which Xie Lian scrolls through and closes.

Banyue has texted him a few photos, and Xie Lian laughs out loud at the picture of Lang
Qianqiu knocked over by the rabbits. The accompanying video is even more hilarious, with
Banyue asking Lang Qianqiu concerned questions in a flat voice and not moving an inch to
help while the white rabbit sits on his face like a conquering hero. Grinning, Xie Lian texts
her back a frowny face. ‘Mean. You were supposed to help him.’

The reply comes quickly. ‘It’s the survival of the fittest.’

Xie Lian snorts and finally remembers to finish his toast.

--

It’s rare that he has a day to himself. He can’t remember the last time he’d had so much as a
free morning, and he feels a bit at a loss about what to do with himself. Hua Cheng’s
suggestions, while tempting, are a bit… out there for him. He didn’t used to be this
pampered, even in his youth.

On a whim, Xie Lian turns on the TV and scrolls through a few channels. Nothing grabs his
interest, and he’s about to turn it off when he hits on a crime news report. His hand pauses on
the remote.

“…multiple bodies discovered in the basement of an illegally operating clinic in Wuyong.

After the earthquake of 1986 damaged many properties in this once-prosperous
neighborhood, the prices for real estate dropped, and most wealthy residents left. Afterward,
he district had been steadily in decline, until it became known for its cheap rent, harsh
conditions, and ever-growing criminal activity. Still, given Wuyong’s close proximity to the
capital, many ask how an illegal operation of such scale could have existed for so long right
under the government’s nose. Billions are made in the illegal organ trade every year, with
many people suffering severe and frequently fatal consequences. As an unnamed witness told
us, ‘One clinic is nothing. White No-Face has eyes and ears everywhere. Anyone who knows
anything and is lucky enough to have survived knows to keep their mouth shut. Those who
come forward don’t live long.’ It would appear that the efforts to put an end to the illegal
organ trade have once again amounted to nothing…”

The pictures that fill the screen aren’t anything that should be shown so early in the morning,
or at all. Damaged, broken bodies with the most gruesome injuries blurred out; the faces
remain in terrible, stark relief. Xie Lian watches until he can’t anymore, then turns the TV
off.

He stands beside the window for a long time, looking unseeingly over the park below. Having
suddenly remembered, he picks up his phone and finds Yin Yu’s email again. This time, he
reads it carefully, and nods to himself. His finger hovers over the call button.

He frowns, glancing around. Not here.

Quickly, he gathers his things and makes his way toward his own room, thankfully meeting
no one in the corridor. He’s certain Hua Cheng’s staff already has a lot of fuel for inevitable
boss-related gossip.

He drops his things carelessly on the bed and walks halfway toward the bathroom but stops.
A shower can wait the length of a phone call; he’s stalling. With a sigh, Xie Lian makes
himself place the call.

Yin Yu’s answer is very quick. “Doctor Xie? Is everything all right?”

“Xie Lian, please, Yin Yu,” Xie Lian says. “I’m fine; don’t worry. Is this a bad time?”

“My time is yours whenever you need me.” Yin Yu’s tone is matter-of-fact, making it
impossible to tell how he feels about that.
Xie Lian purses his lips. “Are you… By any chance, are you with Hua Cheng now?”

A pause. “No.”

Xie Lian frowns. “Yin Yu—”

“He’s in a meeting with the entertainment industry commission, scaring the living daylights
out of them, I imagine, since that is what Ling Wen had asked for. I’m in our local office.”

“Right.” Xie Lian breathes out. “I’m sorry.”

“What can I help you with?”

“I read the contract,” Xie Lian says. “You didn’t sign it as a Crimson Rain Corp. employee,
but only as Yin Yu, a registered lawyer.”

The pause is a little wary this time. “...Yes? To avoid a conflict of interest?”

“Right, right.” Xie Lian nods, even though Yin Yu can’t see him. “So, I’m your client, and
whatever I say goes?”

The next silence is filled with tension. “Yes.”

“Good. I want you to say nothing to Hua Cheng about the deal,” Xie Lian says firmly. “And
when that senior inspector calls you, I want you to only call me. No one else can know about
this, least of all San—Hua Cheng. Do you understand?”

There’s no immediate response.

“Yin Yu,” Xie Lian presses. “I know that I’m putting you in an awkward position, but he
can’t know about this. Tell me you understand, please.”

“...I do.” Yin Yu sighs so heavily that it’s clear he understands a great deal more than what’s
been said. “Doctor Xie—Xie Lian. For the record, I think this is a very bad idea. I’m bound
by the contract and will do as you say, but I strongly urge you to reconsider. I saw him this
morning.” Yin Yu pauses. “He looked… happy. I’ve never seen that expression on his face
before.”

Xie Lian closes his eyes. “Yin Yu—”

Yin Yu is merciless. “He doesn’t forgive easily, and not for something like this.”

Xie Lian nods, unseen. He knows that well enough himself. “Just don’t tell him, that’s all I
ask. I’ll handle… the fallout.”

“Under vehement protest,” Yin Yu says. “I’ll call you when there’s news.”

The call disconnects before Xie Lian can respond. It seems Yin Yu doesn’t like him very
much. Xie Lian can’t blame him.
 Alone in his room, he stares up at the ceiling and groans. Why can’t he ever, not even once,
have it easy?

Chapter End Notes

Author's mini-theater:

HC: Gege, wanna get married?

XL: ...It's not nice to tease about that.
HC: I wasn't teasing, though?
XL: ...

HC: 🥺
XL: I just remembered, I can't have nice things.

YY: I can and will murder you both.

 Chapter 12
Chapter Notes

🥺
A short update because I am chaotic, and because they deserve a moment before it all
goes down. The ending to yesterday's episode has been on my mind too.

More papapa, more TW for old scars and injuries.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

--

Xie Lian discovers, with some relief, that the hotel has a gym. He’s been restless since the
phone call, and, for lack of anything to immediately focus on, was beginning to feel a little...
funny. He doesn’t have workout clothes, since even Zhu Ling’s deviousness hadn’t stretched
that far, which creates a bit of a hiccup. Xie Lian cringes away from the idea, but, in the end,
there’s nothing for it.

After some breathing exercises, he tries to delve into his younger self’s mentality, where
things like that were nothing extraordinary for him. Channeling the confidence he no longer
feels—that the world is there for him—he smiles, probably a little too brightly, and relays his
problem to a gym attendant, just as Hua Cheng had told him to. The thought that it will make
Hua Cheng happy reconciles him somewhat to the fact, but even that feels a bit like a
concession he hadn’t wanted to make. Hua Cheng will be so very... smug. As alluring as that
look is on him, Xie Lian didn’t actually want to yield.

The attendant seems ecstatic at having something she can help him with. Her eyes scan him
up and down quickly before she bows and disappears, still smiling with excitement. She
reappears just as quickly, handing him a set of clothes, a towel, and a water bottle, and beams
when Xie Lian thanks her. After that, he’s mercifully left alone.

He selects a treadmill facing the tall, tinted windows, far enough away from the only other
few people at the gym—hardly surprising for the late morning. A few women who look
trophy wife-adjacent give him measuring looks before returning to their conversation. Xie
Lian smiles at them, then turns away.

His thoughts turn wry as he selects a program and starts walking. Or should that be other
trophy wives?

Then, they plummet altogether.

He’s no trophy.
He doesn’t doubt Hua Cheng’s feelings for him—how could he, when he knows now how
they came to be? But it’s exactly because he knows this that he’s aware he’s taking
advantage. He’s no prize. Hua Cheng is… fixated on him, because Hua Cheng had had a
terrible childhood and Xie Lian had been kind to him once, by accident, at just the right
moment. He knows what that’s worth, and he knows that it will run its course sooner or later,
when the romanticism of chasing a childhood dream will inevitably fade and Hua Cheng sees
him clearly at last. Xie Lian is only being honest when he says he’s... nothing.

This entire space is an ideal setting for achieving clarity. It takes being surrounded by luxury
and privilege once more—yet again, handed to him for nothing at all—to see how easy it is to
start thinking of oneself as something special. So many things have happened in the last few
days that he’s still reeling and not done processing. Now, certain facts have become so
vividly outlined that he couldn’t ignore them if he tried.

Xie Lian has never been anything special. It was only his status that had made it appear so for
a time, creating a persistent illusion in his own mind. And that’s fine—he’s all right with not
being extraordinary in any way. He knows, too, that one doesn’t have to be any kind of
special to be loved. Love isn’t something earned; it’s the one thing on the planet given and
received freely. If it’s not, then it isn’t love.

Except—well, that doesn’t apply to Xie Lian specifically. He does have to earn it, after
everything he’s done, after how stupid, careless, and arrogant he’d been. He’d taken an
innocent life because he’d been too blinded by the prospect of making getting his career back.
He hadn’t been there for his father; he hadn’t even seen him before he died. He’d been so
stuck stewing in himself and his own misery, perceived as unfair, that he’d managed to miss
his mother deciding to kill herself. Was this not his fault? All of it?

And then, there was Wu Ming, to whom he’d barely paid attention. That he had survived was
through no action of Xie Lian’s. If he’d been less fortunate in meeting someone as
extraordinary as Hua Cheng, that death would have haunted him forever. Its shadow still
does.

Jun Wu’s actions are one thing, but there were so many decisions that hadn’t been forced on
Xie Lian and he’d made them anyway. He’d been self-centered and self-serving and so
damaging to those around him. He’s grateful for this chance to clean up his own mess—it’s
the only thing he’s good for, and he should thank the heavens that at least he’s capable of that
much.

Perhaps he’s been broken from the beginning. Yes, everyone deserves to be loved, but Xie
Lian had fucked up too badly to still be counted among them. And he definitely doesn’t have
the right—the gall—to be loved by someone like Hua Cheng, who is the definition of
extraordinary. Hua Cheng is too noble to ever admit that fact, but Xie Lian doesn’t think he’ll
stick around long enough to see Hua Cheng face it. Xie Lian will take the now, because he’s
weak, and selfish, and he wants too badly, but he won’t overstay his welcome. That’s his one
saving grace. He’d made peace with his own disappointment a long time ago, but he doesn’t
think he can survive Hua Cheng’s.

He runs until his muscles feel sore, and then past that point. Despite his doubts the night
before, he’d been filled with energy this morning, feeling almost supercharged by it. It feels
good to just run for the sake of it—such exercise is a luxury he couldn’t afford for a while,
not so much even going to the gym but simply when it came to time and energy. Xie Lian
works out when he unloads crates in the clinic or when he’s chasing or being chased by
people who want to rob him. He hasn’t had the pleasure of working out as its own goal and
reward in a very long time, and he’s trying to soak it up even past the point of reason.

He’s on the verge of hurting himself when a phone call jerks him out of it. His knees buckle
as he steps off the treadmill.

“Yin Yu?”

“The deal came through,” Yin Yu says, as expressionless as ever. “Your record has been
cleaned up. You’re a proper citizen again; no need to use your mentor’s old accounts or
misspell your name.”

“Oh.” Xie Lian blinks. “That’s… Uh, thank you.”

Yin Yu dismisses the statement. “I did nothing.”

“So... It’s happening, then? When?”

“Tomorrow night,” Yin Yu says. “You’ll need to meet up with Lan Jue and his team around
five for instructions. They want you to ‘bump into’ Jun Wu after work.”

Xie Lian swallows, his pulse still racing. “I see. Good. Good. Thank you.” He doesn’t really
know what he’s saying.

“Please, stop thanking me for this,” Yin Yu sighs. “You haven’t changed your mind about
telling the boss, have you?” He doesn’t sound particularly hopeful.

“No!” Xie Lian says sharply. Then, softer, “I’m sorry, no. He’s… I hurt him once already. I
can’t… let that happen again.”

A bout of silence follows. Finally, Yin Yu says, “Please don’t try to explain. I didn’t think it
was possible, but you’re… so help me, you’re making it worse.”

Xie Lian bites his lip. “I only—”

“Xie Lian.” Yin Yu, uncharacteristically, interrupts. “I apologize for overstepping. We’re not
friends, but you could use one right now. This is a mistake. Change your mind.”

“I—”

“What Jun Wu did to you—making your decisions for you? Forcing your hand? You’re doing
it to him right now. Can’t you see that?”

Xie Lian closes his eyes. He’s shaking. “It has to be this way. You don’t understand…”

Hua Cheng will try to interfere, and Hua Cheng is not expendable. His screams from that
night are still ringing in Xie Lian’s ears. Hua Cheng doesn’t have nine lives, nor nine tails,
for that matter. Whatever supernatural forces had interfered back then, Xie Lian knows that
he’s maxed out their favor. There won’t be a second miraculous escape.

“It’s just a talk,” he tries to reason—with Yin Yu or himself he can’t say. “I just need to talk
to Jun Wu; it’s no big deal. I don’t… I don’t want San Lang to worry. I’ll tell him everything
after. I’ll tell him it wasn’t your fault, that I forced you—”

“Because that’s my outmost concern,” Yin Yu says dryly. “What a high opinion you have of
people, Doctor Xie.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to—”

“I’ll keep you posted. Let me know if you do change your mind.”

Yin Yu hangs up. Xie Lian stares at the phone a little blankly. It seems he can’t do anything
right.

--

He showers in his room for what feels like an hour. He means to order lunch but never gets
around to it. At some point, he’s aware that he’s sitting on the floor by the tall window,
hugging his knees and watching the street outside.

Then, there’s a knock on his door, and he blinks. It’s gone dark now; the day has passed.

There’s another knock. “Gege?”

Xie Lian springs to his feet and runs for the door, throwing it open. Hua Cheng looks at him
with some relief.

“Were you resting? I didn’t mean to disturb you—mph—”

Xie Lian loops his arms around Hua Cheng’s neck and pulls him into a heated kiss, not caring
that they’re still in the doorway, in full view of the cameras if not actual people. He wouldn’t
have cared if there were people.

Hua Cheng’s arms slide around his waist, and he responds to the kiss with fervor, half-lifting
Xie Lian off his feet. “I like this greeting,” he rasps during a breathless pause, nuzzling along
Xie Lian’s jaw. “Did you miss me?”

“Yes,” Xie Lian says at once, tugging him inside. “Come in here.”

Hua Cheng makes a low rumbling noise, and his hold tightens. He captures Xie Lian’s lips
again, hand twisting in Xie Lian’s hair as he steps through the door, letting it swing shut. Xie
Lian makes an encouraging sound, pulling him toward the bed.

“Gege.” Hua Cheng, infuriatingly, tries to pull away. “It’s been a day; I haven’t even
showered. Just let me—”

“No,” Xie Lian growls, looking up. “Now. Like this.”

Which is how he ends up pressed face-first against the window, Hua Cheng’s hands leaving
bruises on his hips. Hua Cheng, still fully dressed, takes him from behind, rough and fast, lips
latched onto the column of Xie Lian’s neck. Xie Lian catches blurry glimpses of himself in
the window, unable to believe how wild, how brazen he’s being. It hurts, the way he craves;
his eyes are stinging, and he wants Hua Cheng’s pleasure more than his own. He wants to be
used.

It makes his mind float. It makes all the parts of him that he didn’t believe were possible
reach, crying out sharply in the pain-ecstasy of being turned over, touched confidently, and
caressed to within an inch of what he can handle.

Xie Lian wants to be used—and Hua Cheng does it perfectly, chasing his orgasm with single-
minded, almost cruel determination, teeth sinking into the meat of Xie Lian’s shoulder as he
comes. Xie Lian’s head spins; his body wavers. If he could just be left here on the floor, a
shaking, soaking wet mess of overstimulated neurons…

Except—Hua Cheng doesn’t wait even a moment. He picks him up and carries him the short
distance to the bed. He drops Xie Lian onto his back and swallows him down before Xie Lian
can form a single sentence.

It’s good. It’s beyond good, and Xie Lian can’t even process the odd spark of jealousy, too
busy feeling his toes curl and stuffing his own fist into his mouth to stifle his screams. He
tries to resist the pleasure he doesn’t feel he deserves, but Hua Cheng is relentless and skilled,
and way too stubborn, and he clearly doesn’t agree. His fingers slide back in, and he
swallows, and Xie Lian flies apart, a supernova exploding behind his eyelids.

--

Hua Cheng stretches out on the bed next to him, suit rumpled and fly open, not caring how
indecent he appears. His lips are sinfully red and a little puffy. He’s watching Xie Lian
carefully, fingers whispering across Xie Lian’s temple.

“Gege’s in a mood,” he murmurs, his voice lower than usual, half-teasing, half-questioning…
heavy on the questioning.

Xie Lian feels his cheeks coloring, which is, admittedly, absurd at this point. “Do you mind?”
he asks shyly.

Hua Cheng shakes his head, leaning in to gently kiss under Xie Lian’s jaw. “Not if that’s what
you need. You were… pretty keyed up. Want to talk about it?”

Xie Lian snuggles into him, hating himself a little—a lot—for the weakness. He can’t stop
craving Hua Cheng’s warmth. “I want… I want to stay in. Order some food and just…
cuddle.” He looks up, suddenly nervous. “Is that okay?”

Hua Cheng hums, kissing his temple, his brow, and, finally, his lips. “Perfect.”

They relocate back to Hua Cheng’s suite and shower together. Hua Cheng doesn’t let Xie
Lian do anything, washing him gently with infinite care. When Xie Lian, blushing, tries to
object, Hua Cheng only looks at him, murmuring softly, voice fragile. “Please, Gege. I need
this.”

Xie Lian can’t say no to him after that. He finds it more and more difficult to say no to him in
general.

They eat on the divan again, ignoring the dining table. Xie Lian doesn’t have much of an
appetite but obediently opens his mouth when Hua Cheng feeds him choice pieces. Hua
Cheng amuses him by complaining petulantly about bureaucracy, and Xie Lian listens with a
terribly smitten smile. He wants the night to never end. He wants, desperately, to be someone
who can have this every night—someone he knows he can’t be.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng says at some point, with the air of a man who’s been patient for a very
long time and is prepared to be patient a great deal longer but would still like some answers.
“Can you tell me what’s bothering you? Has something happened?”

Xie Lian’s heart skips a beat, though he isn’t exactly caught off guard. He knows he needs to
be on the offensive to have a shot at getting away with this.

“My meeting,” he admits with a frustrated sigh. “I knew from the beginning that my
testimony alone would be useless, and I still don’t see how it isn’t. They said they had…
some kind of plan and that they’d get back to me, but they didn’t. I just… I don’t do well
with waiting.” With sudden and perfect honesty, he finishes, “I need to be the one to fix it.”

Hua Cheng eyes him carefully. “Gege. You know that none of what happened was your fault,
right? You were the victim there, not—”

“I know that, San Lang,” Xie Lian snaps suddenly, unable to control a flare of temper. In one
swift move, he’s off the divan and stalks away to stand by the window. “Why do you think I
feel so wretched?”

Hua Cheng says nothing.

Xie Lian’s shoulders droop. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. He has a sudden flashback to his
twenty-three-year-old self. He’d been just as selfish then. And to think that he had believed
himself to have changed!

Hua Cheng comes to stand behind him, close but not touching. Xie Lian feels his presence,
that powerful aura, with his entire skin. If he closes his eyes, he’ll drown in it.

“Gege, you want to take control back—of course you do. I know what that feels like, believe
me. But—it can be a dangerous state of mind. It’s… a difficult thing to see, but when you are
like that, you’re still playing someone else’s game. You’re still… reacting to what’s been
done to you.”

“Well, how can I not?” Xie Lian snaps. “I allowed it all to happen. Yes, I know he tricked me,
but if I hadn’t been such a blind idiot, if I hadn’t been so full of myself, I would have seen—
should have seen!”
“Gege, you can’t have one set of requirements for the entire human race and a different one
for yourself,” Hua Cheng growls with audible frustration. “You’re not superhuman!”

Xie Lian chuckles humorlessly, lifting his palm and letting his energy gather there—a light,
tingling ball, on the brink of being visible. “Aren’t I?”

Hua Cheng steps closer. “Gege, that’s not—”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian interrupts. Maybe it’s best to just... cut this off now. “I think I’d like to
be alone tonight. Thank you for the meal, but I’m sure you need your rest, and—”

He chokes on his words as he senses Hua Cheng’s aura abruptly shrink. He turns away from
Xie Lian, head bowed.

“If… if that’s what you want, of course…”

In an instant, Xie Lian has never felt so awful in his life. He moves to Hua Cheng’s side,
turning him around and hugging him tight. Hua Cheng is unresponsive.

Xie Lian starts kissing his chest through the t-shirt he’s wearing, holding him closer, trying to
reach higher. Hua Cheng is too damn tall! Xie Lian feels horrible.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” More desperate kisses. “I shouldn’t have said that! Please,
San Lang, I’m so sorry—”

“You’re free to do as you please,” Hua Cheng says woodenly. “You don’t need to apologize
for wanting space.”

“I don’t!” Xie Lian loops his arms over Hua Cheng’s neck, pressing his face into the hollow
of his throat. “I don’t want to leave; I don’t even know why I said that! I love you! I’m so
sorry, San Lang!”

Hua Cheng seems to sigh with his entire body and finally moves to wrap his arms around Xie
Lian’s frame, dropping his head onto his shoulder. “I pushed too hard,” he says into Xie
Lian’s hair. “I pressed you, and you felt the need to bolt. I’m sorry; I should have known
better.”

Oh, that’s it, Xie Lian is crying now. “It’s not your fault I’m messed up,” he says hoarsely.
“Everything you said is right. I’m just… me.”

Fucked up, scared, and useless.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng intones, in such a carefully modulated tone that it makes Xie Lian’s teeth
hurt. “If you wish to leave tonight, it’s perfectly all right. Just because we… You don’t owe
me all of your time. It’s fine if you—”

“Can we go to bed?” Xie Lian sniffles and looks up at him, eyes undoubtedly red. “My San
Lang. Can... can I hold you?”

Hua Cheng nods, seemingly before he knows he’s doing it. “Please,” he whispers.
--

In the dark, under the covers, they curl around each other, Hua Cheng’s head on Xie Lian’s
chest, arms and legs tangled. Xie Lian runs his fingers through Hua Cheng’s hair, murmuring
apologies and endearments.

“I love you,” he says, feeling Hua Cheng melt a little more into him. “I’ve never felt this way
before; I didn’t think I could. I thought I was fine hiding, living half a life, then you came in,
and—I was a blind man suddenly seeing fireworks. I didn’t stand a chance.”

Hua Cheng shudders against him. Xie Lian smiles, fingers scratching behind Hua Cheng’s
ear, massaging gently.

“San Lang, do you know how amazing you are?” Xie Lian shifts under him, bringing his lips
closer to Hua Cheng’s ear. “San Lang is the best,” he whispers. “So capable. So strong. So
kind.”

“Gege!”

“Shh. So pretty.”

Hua Cheng purrs. Grinning, unseen, Xie Lian feels bold. “Every time I see you, I lose my
mind a little,” he says, the confession exhilarating. “San Lang? You don’t have to if you don’t
want to, but…” He breathes in, then out. “Can I see all of you?”

Hua Cheng shifts slightly, his body tensing up. “You mean—”

Xie Lian kisses his brow—over the eyepatch—gently. “Yes. You don’t have to.”

Hua Cheng sits up with a sigh. Moonlight falls on his face, and Xie Lian bites his lip. Even in
black-and-white, he’s gorgeous.

“I don’t mind; it’s just… not pretty,” Hua Cheng warns.

Xie Lian sits up next to him and kisses his lips gently. “All of you is too handsome to be
fair,” he murmurs. “May I?”

Instead of answering with words, Hua Cheng tilts his head toward him, inviting him to take
the eyepatch off. Xie Lian does, and guides Hua Cheng’s face gently toward the light.

Both Hua Cheng’s eyes are closed now, and Xie Lian sucks in a breath. He’d wondered
occasionally why Hua Cheng doesn’t wear a prosthetic. It’s not that the eye is missing; it’s
the scars that cover the once-tender skin. Xie Lian knows instinctively that it’s not from that
night alone. He wonders, with a pained twinge in his heart, if any were self-inflicted.

Hua Cheng is sitting perfectly still, so much so that his body is shivering slightly. Xie Lian’s
heart-twinge swells into a weeping ache. He slides his thumb under the sunken eye socket
gently, and Hua Cheng’s lips part around a soundless exhale.
Xie Lian lifts himself up on his knees then and kisses the rise of the cheekbone, soft, sweet—
just below, just above, and, finally, right in the center. Hua Cheng’s hands find their way to
Xie Lian’s waist, seemingly without his knowledge, and hold on tight.

Xie Lian pulls back slightly, and, peering down, tips Hua Cheng’s face up. “San Lang, look at
me.”

Hua Cheng does, instantly.

Xie Lian lets everything he feels flood his expression, a smile lighting up his face.
“Gorgeous,” he whispers, then takes Hua Cheng’s face between his hands. He kisses him on
the lips, as heated and forceful as he knows how. Hua Cheng groans into his mouth, holding
on to him like he’s drowning, and Xie Lian is nearly swept away by an overwhelming wave
of tenderness.

Hua Cheng tries to lead, but Xie Lian easily, wordlessly, dissuades him, guiding him to lie
down, and then proceeds to explore Hua Cheng’s body in a way he hasn’t had the chance to
yet. He kisses every inch of him, stroking and caressing, learning the ticklish spots and the
tender, and those that make Hua Cheng swear and tense up.

Xie Lian has never known there could be such a direct way of loving someone—of pouring
every emotion that swells inside him straight onto someone’s skin like this, watching it
bloom and hum and sing with it, feeling every response like a sweet, tugging echo within his
own heart. Hua Cheng seems to have melted entirely under him, reduced to broken
vocalizations and quiet gasps. It spurs Xie Lian on, and no matter how aroused he is, he feels
he could do this forever, as long as he’s allowed, never chasing release from this sweet,
suspended torture.

When he finally takes Hua Cheng into his mouth, they both moan. Xie Lian has neither the
skill nor the experience Hua Cheng had demonstrated earlier, but that doesn’t stop him. It
becomes a natural continuation of his exploration; he’s endlessly curious for every taste and
every reaction, and he doesn’t take suggestions, too lost in the act.

It takes him a while to register that Hua Cheng is begging, hoarse and barely audible, but
there. Xie Lian flushes all over, embarrassment and intense pleasure all mixed up in one
sweltering wave. He hasn’t figured out any tricks yet, so he tightens his lips around Hua
Cheng and starts moving up and down, helping himself with his hand.

Once he gets into a rhythm, he looks up, and very nearly comes himself from the look of
concentrated lust on Hua Cheng’s face. Hua Cheng’s hands are fisted in the sheets, white-
knuckled, and Xie Lian chokes a little at the sight, momentarily distracted. It’s not that he’d
doubted, but this—this…

He chokes and tries to swallow around it, and Hua Cheng wails, then surges abruptly upward,
pushing Xie Lian off him and rolling him onto his back. He strips his own cock hard and fast,
and within seconds, he’s coming all over Xie Lian’s stomach and chest, some of it landing on
his face. He drags Xie Lian into a filthy kiss, licking into his mouth, chasing his own taste as
Xie Lian helplessly ruts against his hip, mindless and desperate, and it doesn’t take long at
 all. Hua Cheng kisses him through the aftershocks, his naked face somehow more intimate
than any of their actions.

“Gege is full of surprises tonight,” Hua Cheng manages as they catch their breaths.

Xie Lian doesn’t feel like he has bones in his body, but he reaches up to gently swipe his
thumb over Hua Cheng’s right cheekbone. “San Lang is very inspiring.”

“Gege…” Hua Cheng looks at him helplessly. “How can you be so… so…”

He gives up on trying to be articulate and goes for another kiss instead. They don’t stop until
they’re in danger of being stuck together.

--

Xie Lian sleeps poorly. Or, rather, he sleeps well for about two hours, but then he wakes up
and can’t go back to sleep. Even with Hua Cheng resting peacefully beside him, he can’t
seem to make his heart unclench.

In the light of murky, slowly-unfolding city dawn, Xie Lian studies Hua Cheng’s face and its
scars on the right side, usually covered. The brutality behind them, the violence, the hate—
Xie Lian wants to weep again. He’s also angry.

Never again.

Never again will Hua Cheng come even close to being in that kind of danger. Not because of
him. Yin Yu means well, but he doesn’t understand. Nobody does.

If Hua Cheng is his to love, however temporarily, then he is definitely Xie Lian’s to protect.
Xie Lian had failed him once. He won’t do it again.

It’s his mess, and this time, he won’t run away. He’s fully capable of sorting it out without
putting anyone else in danger.

Chapter End Notes

Author's mini-theatre:

XL: Don't worry, Yin Yu. One day, I'll put together enough money to pay for your
therapy.
YY: I don't need therapy! You need therapy! I need a vacation! On Mars!
 Chapter 13
Chapter Notes

Hello everyone, apologies for the wait! Action is tough. Thank you so much for the
amazing feedback! Apologies for not giving each and every one of your wonderful
comments its due, but please know that I reread them all constantly to keep going.
Thank you ♥

Various previous warnings apply...

See the end of the chapter for more notes

It’s odd, but he doesn’t feel nervous. The calm that settles over him is almost like the kind he
used to feel when stepping into an OR, or when he has a patient in front of him. He is
collected, focused, and he feels… useful. Like he’s in the exact spot he’s meant to be.

Xie Lian is unsurprised that Yin Yu picks him up, but mercifully, Yin Yu says nothing on the
subject they both hate to discuss. Xie Lian is still raw from having lied to Hua Cheng about
meeting up with Mu Qing this evening, and Yin Yu seems moody and resigned, having
exhausted all his arguments. They drive in near silence.

Lan Jue’s team—and he really has a full team with him this time—set up in a non-descript
office not far from Capital Central. Lan Jue smiles perfunctorily at Xie Lian before
exchanging pleasantries Yin Yu, who responds with the mechanical grace of an AI. Zhang
Ping comes out of the back room, looks Xie Lian over, and says, “He needs to change.”

Xie Lian had expected as much. He follows Zhang Ping to another office room and changes
into a provided set of clothes, maneuvering carefully between someone’s abandoned desks.
There’s a terribly petty, possibly anxious part of him that wants to ask the junior inspector
‘How’s my wardrobe now? All within the same price range?’ and ‘Yes, these are fresh marks
on my body. Yes, Hua Cheng is my lover. Judge me all you want, I don’t care.’

He says nothing, of course, and neither does Zhang Ping, looking Xie Lian over critically
once he’s done. The irony of it is, he’s now wearing something that could have come out of
his missing bag. The jeans have holes in them—not for fashion, but from wear—the t-shirt is
misshapen and of an indefinite color thanks to too many washings, and the sneakers look
ready to fall apart at too sharp a movement.

“How do you usually wear your hair?” Zhang Ping asks as they rejoin the group in the main
room.

Xie Lian makes a lazy half-knot, leaving the rest to fall freely down his back. He glances into
the small mirror on the wall to check and pauses, noticing that the white strand of hair he’s
gotten used to is darkening again at the roots. Xie Lian blinks. How..?
“That’s good.” Zhang Ping’s approving voice brings him out of it. “We can put the
transmitter there.”

There’s a tiny listening device that looks like a generic black bead glued to the elastic band
they give him. Xie Lian obediently puts it in his hair and then patiently waits as they do the
sound check.

Yin Yu frowns. “Is that all he gets?”

As it turns out, there’s more. He gets a tracker in the sole of his shoe, as well as a second bug
sewn into the waistband of his jeans. These things really are tiny now.

Xie Lian listens attentively as Lan Jue makes him go over the script with him, talking
through possible improvisations and options. Everything is beginning to feel a little surreal,
as if he’s getting ready for a school production, some show for which he hasn’t rehearsed a
single line. Xie Lian feels a little ridiculous and has to remind himself that this is, in fact,
very real.

Once it’s all done, and there’s nothing to do but wait for the signal from the outer surveillance
team—Xie Lian has difficulty processing this, so he doesn’t bother trying much beyond just
nodding—he walks up to Yin Yu, who’s standing off to the side and typing something
furiously on his phone.

Xie Lian clears his throat. When Yin Yu lifts his dispassionate gaze towards him, Xie Lian
pushes out, “I wanted to apologize. I know that San—Hua Cheng made you help me, and that
he’s your boss and your friend. I know that I’ve put you in a terrible position, and for that, I
am deeply sorry.”

“Doctor Xie—”

Xie Lian lifts up a hand. “I’m under no delusion that you won’t call him the second I’m out
that door. That’s fine; I understand. Just—one thing.”

He looks at Yin Yu squarely. “Protect him before you protect me.”

It’s not that Xie Lian thinks Yin Yu needs his permission for that—Yin Yu’s loyalty is to Hua
Cheng, and he’s the man’s first priority. What Xie Lian wanted to convey was that he
approves. In case anything goes wrong, Yin Yu shouldn’t feel guilty, nor hesitate even for a
second.

Yin Yu regards him with a measure of detached curiosity. His sigh is world-weary. “With all
due respect, Doctor Xie, I don’t think you understand what protecting him really means. But I
can promise you that I’ll do exactly as you say.”

Xie Lian frowns, not liking the self-satisfied look in Yin Yu’s eyes, nor the vague implication
in his words. At that moment, the attention in the room suddenly shifts and sharpens.

“He’s out,” Zhang Ping says. “Go.”

--
Xie Lian walks briskly along the busy street, hyper-aware of everything. He jumps out of the
way of a bike messenger, and, for a moment, expects his body to retaliate, but he feels
nothing more than a faint twinge in his thigh muscles. It’s strange; after the highly
unreasonable workout he’d given himself yesterday, not to mention the other... activities, he
should feel more than sore—the last time he’d pulled something like that, he’d had to move
through the muscle pain for a week.

He feels—fine. He feels… Now that he thinks of it, he feels better, physically, than he has in
years. His hand flies unconsciously to his temple. Odd.

Perhaps it’s the moment of distraction. What was supposed to happen is this: Xie Lian
walking past Jun Wu on the sidewalk, doing a double take, and then calling out to him,
feigning surprise—all finely orchestrated and choreographed.

What actually happens is Xie Lian losing sight of where he’s supposed to be, thanks to a
group of tourists who have decided that this is the exact moment they should stand on the
sidewalk, blocking the path while figuring out where to eat. In his desperation not to get
stuck, Xie Lian gets flustered, trips, careens into someone, and has just enough time to curse
mentally and prepare for a painful encounter with the pavement when two powerful arms
catch him out of the fall.

“Young man, you need to watch where you’re—Xianle?”

That nickname… No mistake. Jun Wu had a strange habit of calling everyone by the name of
wherever they were from. Xianle was the name of the gated community Xie Lian had grown
up in.

Xie Lian looks up, eyes wide and panicked, heart in his throat. His mouth is dry suddenly. He
swallows. “D-Doctor Jun?”

Jun Wu stares down at him incredulously, then barks out a laugh, scaring the crowd into
backing away from them. “Xianle, it’s really you!” He’s still holding Xie Lian by the arms,
and his booming laughter reverberates through him. “Oh my God, I can’t believe it! I was
right! Of course you didn’t die!”

He sounds so openly delighted that Xie Lian has to look away, feeling warm despite himself.
His cheeks color, and he hates himself for buying into the act… except it isn’t one, is it? Jun
Wu really did always like him. That’s what makes this so damn hard, as even now Xie Lian,
absurdly, feels guilty for deceiving him.

“I’m sorry, Doctor Jun,” he mutters, straightening up in his hold, indicating that support is no
longer needed. “I—I really wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Nonsense! It’s not your fault those idiots stood in the way,” Jun Wu dismisses, finally letting
go of him. “How have you been, Xianle? You look…” He frowns, scanning Xie Lian up and
down. “Emaciated. And that hair... Has life really been so hard?”

A hot wave of shame nearly makes Xie Lian topple. Jun Wu’s heavy attention and frank
judgment are a harsh reality check. Hua Cheng looked at him like he was still beautiful, and
that made Xie Lian deceive himself alongside him.

“I…” He stumbles, forgetting the entire script suddenly. “I’m not so bad. I—I’m a vet now.
It’s—”

He falls silent at the look on Jun Wu’s face. His former boss and mentor seems speechless.

“A vet?” he croaks after a beat. “Xianle…” He grabs Xie Lian’s hands suddenly, jerking them
up, his hold uncomfortably tight. “Xianle, these hands are worth millions. Millions. And
you’re telling me you’re a vet?”

The new wave of shame is worse. At this point, it’s a tsunami.

“I—I had no choice,” Xie Lian stammers, trying to pull his hands away. He can’t lift his eyes
off the pavement, his face on fire. “I—I like it. I’m good at it. I’m… helping…”

He’s suddenly mad at himself for the way his voice trails off. He believes these things! He
likes the life he built! He doesn’t have to defend his choices! Why does it feel as if he’s on
trial and his defense is ludicrously weak?!

“Oh, Xianle…” Jun Wu sighs, finally letting go of him, his disappointment like an arctic-cold
waterfall down Xie Lian’s back. “Why the self-deprecation? You’re more capable than
anyone I’ve had on my staff, before or since.” He glances to the side and seems to remember
that they’re in the middle of the street. “Come; I’ll feed you.” His hand lands heavily on Xie
Lian’s shoulder. “We’ll talk then.”

He turns around and starts walking, expecting to be followed. Xie Lian does, of course,
thinking of how, once, he’d thought such manners a natural extension of Jun Wu’s authority.
Now, he can’t help but feel that it’s simply rude. Xie Lian, however, has a task, so this suits
him fine.

Getting into the car with Jun Wu was something Lan Jue had strongly advised against. ‘Only
if there’s no other choice,’ he’d said. Xie Lian hesitates, shuffling his feet, as he tries to think
of an excuse.

“What’s wrong?” Jun Wu asks. “Do you have to be back here later? Don’t worry, Xianle; I’ll
call you a cab.”

Well, that… rather settles it. Xie Lian nods jerkily and gets in.

--

The ride is strangely long, and Xie Lian frowns, but he’s soon distracted by Jun Wu telling
him about the surgeries he’d done earlier that day. Drawn in despite himself, Xie Lian starts
asking questions, actually getting into it, and it’s not until he notices Jun Wu’s pleased smile
that he realizes this is a test. Judging by Jun Wu’s expression, he’s passed.

They don’t stop until they’ve crossed the city border, and not for a while even after that.
When they finally do arrive, Xie Lian gets out of the car and looks around in growing
bewilderment. Whatever neighborhood they’re in, it looks… not unlike where he’d lived,
after he’d lost everything. It’s dark, shabby, and has a distinct flavor of danger oozing from
its numerous side streets and alleys. He shivers.

“Don’t worry.” Jun Wu smiles at him, leading them confidently onward. “I know it doesn’t
look like much, but I don’t come here for the view. The cook in this place is excellent—well
worth the ride.”

“Where are we?” Xie Lian asks, deciding that such a question wouldn’t sound too out of
place, considering.

“Wuyong.”

Xie Lian’s heart stutters, and he can’t suppress his reaction in time. Jun Wu glances at him.

“I don’t remember you being so easily spooked, Xianle,” he remarks lightly. “It’s all right. I
grew up here; I’ll look after you. Don’t you trust me?”

Reflexively, Xie Lian nods.

Will it be this easy?

Jun Wu eventually leads them inside a large, mostly deserted, Western-style bar. A few
booths are occupied, and people give them looks, but they ricochet off Jun Wu almost
instantly. Xie Lian shivers again and tries to look as hapless as possible. It shouldn’t be hard,
seeing as he’s starting to feel like it, too.

The food arrives. Jun Wu has ordered for him, which Xie Lian would have normally objected
to, but... well. He tries to look hungry instead of nauseated, but it’s a struggle. The congee is
bland, the side dishes over-spiced. His lips burn and his jaw hurts as he forces each bite down
his throat.

After awhile, Jun Wu, who’s mostly been watching him instead of eating, sighs. “Oh, Xianle,
you really do look awful. Why didn’t you come to me? Didn’t I tell you to? Didn’t I say I’d
take care of you? I told you to take some time, but you simply disappeared.”

Xie Lian is grateful for an excuse to stop chewing. “I didn’t want to be a bother,” he
mumbles.

It’s true. At the time, he’d taken Jun Wu’s words as simple politeness. It hadn’t occurred to
him once to approach him for help.

“Nothing good comes from being too humble.” Jun Wu shakes his head. “No matter. It took a
little longer than I thought, but you’re here now.” He smiles more widely. “How would you
like to be back inside an OR?”

Xie Lian chokes on a sip of water. “But... I can’t! That’s impossible for me now. I have no
license, I’m no longer qualified—”

“Nonsense,” Jun Wu interrupts. “I’m sure you’ve forgotten nothing, and there are many
places that won’t care about your license.”
“I—” Xie Lian blinks. Something is wrong. It seems to take him longer than usual to open
his eyes. “I don’t… understand.”

The room is spinning. Why is it spinning? Like a… like a…

“Oh?” Jun Wu smiles. “Don’t you?”

Carousel. Like a carousel. Why is he thinking of carousels?

Xie Lian can’t keep his head up. “You… put something in my coffee…”

Jun Wu’s eyes flash, and his smile widens still. “Dear boy, I didn’t get you any coffee… This
time.”

Fuck, is Xie Lian’s last coherent thought. He knows.

--

He comes around in a bland, non-descript room that is somehow familiar—not in the sense
that he’s been here before, but in that it’s the type of place he’s seen frequently in the past,
with its utilitarian furniture, grey walls, and sharp fluorescent lighting.

Xie Lian seems to awaken all at once and immediately takes stock. Whatever Jun Wu had
dosed his food with must have been a simple sleeping agent, since there’s no trace of
confusion or fogginess in Xie Lian’s mind. He’s lying on a couch, and he’s…

His heart skips a beat.

He’s no longer wearing the clothes he had on earlier, clad instead in a set of dark blue
medical scrubs. There’s no footwear in sight. He wonders if the transmitter in his hair has
been removed, too, but stops himself from checking in case he’s being watched.

Something else is nagging at him persistently, banging on the glass…

He sits bolt upright, drenched in cold sweat. The ring! Idiot, moron—how could he have been
so careless! He couldn’t part with it, couldn’t have just left it on his bedside table knowing
what it is, but now…!

Hands fumble feverishly, slipping in the coarse synthetic fabric, until—

Oh, thank God.

The chain is still around his neck, and the ring settles in his palm, a reassuring weight. Xie
Lian breathes out, his chest constricting painfully, red circles before his eyes as he sways in
relief.

“That looks valuable.”

He jumps on the couch, clutching the ring in his fist, as his heart leaps into his throat again.
Jun Wu is standing by the door, leaning against the wall and watching him, eyes hooded and
tone mild. Xie Lian forces himself to breathe.

“Family heirloom,” he manages, unable to unclench his fingers.

Jun Wu huffs. “You seem to have some misunderstanding of me, Xianle. I’m not a thief; you
can keep your bauble. This tracker we found stuck in your shoe, on the other hand…” He
pulls out the bug from his pocket and twirls it in his fingers. “Would you mind explaining
that? Starting with—who sent you?”

Xie Lian swallows, calm settling over him once more. He slips the ring beneath the shirt he’s
wearing, reassured by its touch against his skin, and sets his attention firmly on where it
needs to be. He’s here for a reason.

“Uh, nobody… not how you think,” he says, looking appropriately shaken. He doesn’t have
to try hard. “I… the clinic I work at is struggling. I don’t have any head for business.” He
shakes his head ruefully. “So, I took a different job—I deliver packages. It’s paying really
well, but… the boss has to know where his couriers are at all times. Because of… because of
what’s inside.”

“Oh?” Jun Wu lifts an eyebrow. “And what’s inside?”

Xie Lian closes his eyes, as if in abject misery. “I didn’t ask.”

It occurs to him suddenly that there’s no need to resist Jun Wu’s treatment of him. He can use
it. People never question those who act in accordance with their own views, and he’s not here
to prove Jun Wu wrong about himself or anything else. He’s here to get justice.

Jun Wu puts the tracker away and approaches, towering over Xie Lian. Their height
difference is worse than even between him and Hua Cheng, and unlike Hua Cheng, Jun Wu
has the bulk to truly make for an imposing physical presence. With Xie Lian seated, it’s
nothing short of intimidating, and Xie Lian deliberately emphasizes it by hugging his knees
to his chest.

“Am I supposed to believe that you bumped into me by accident?” Jun Wu asks.

Xie Lian allows his body to tremble. “I d-didn’t expect to see you,” he stammers. “It’s not the
first delivery I’ve made t-to the hospital. I assumed—”

Jun Wu takes a step closer. “You assumed what?”

Xie Lian lets his voice drop to a whisper, his hold on himself tightening. “People in high-
stress jobs… Boss said… good customers.”

There’s a beat of dead silence—then, Jun Wu barks out a laugh. “Xianle! Making addicts of
your former colleagues! Did you enjoy your little revenge?”

Xie Lian shakes his head vehemently. “I don’t know—I don’t know what’s in the packages! I
don’t know!”
“All right, all right, stop shaking.” Jun Wu’s laughter fades, his tone changing to chastising.
“Xianle, do you realize how dangerous this is? Getting involved in something like that?”

“I—”

Suddenly, Jun Wu’s big palm takes hold of Xie Lian’s chin and lifts it up firmly, on the verge
of painful. “Xianle, all you had to do was come to me. I would have taken care of you.”

Xie Lian’s eyes go wide, heart crashing into his ribcage again. Did he overdo it? He wanted
to appear helpless, yes, someone in need of protection, but—not at that cost! The way Jun
Wu is peering down at him makes his skin crawl.

His panic must be obvious—Jun Wu lets go of him and takes a few steps back. “What are
you thinking, Xianle? Do not mistake me for Pei Ming—I don’t want that from you.”

Xie Lian blinks, utterly confused now. “Pei Ming?”

Jun Wu rolls his eyes. “He still can’t keep it in his pants. No intern is safe—female intern,
anyway. As far as I know, you were his only foray onto the other side.”

Xie Lian’s jaw falls open. “W-what?”

Jun Wu looks at him in surprise, then rolls his eyes. “For God’s sake, Xianle, how naïve can
you be? Do you think he offered to let you move in with him out of the goodness of his
heart? I think you single-handedly caused that man’s sexuality crisis.” His lip curls. “It was
amusing to watch.”

Xie Lian is speechless for a moment. The more he learns about his own past, the more he
thinks nothing had been as it’d seemed. Forcefully, he pushes the thought back as
unimportant now.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, bowing his head.

Jun Wu sighs in the manner of a kindly father whose child made a mistake again. Xie Lian
deferring to him is a habitual image, and it must pacify him.

“As I said, it’s no matter now. You’re here, finally, at my side, where you belong. You can
stop with all that nonsense and be a surgeon again. Don’t you want that?”

“I—” Xie Lian swallows. “I don’t understand how it’s possible.”

Jun Wu smiles at him and extends a hand. “Come with me.”

--

The corridors they walk through aren’t empty. Xie Lian sees people in scrubs like his own,
but more than that, he sees people wearing all-black ensembles popular with local street
gangs. Everyone is wearing face masks, and in the poor light, all he can see of them is the
shape of their bodies. Everyone steps back to let Jun Wu pass, Xie Lian trailing him. Behind
them, two men who have the unmistakable air of the gang ‘muscle’ follow in silence.
At last, Jun Wu pushes another door open and lets Xie Lian into a small room that seems
more like a few meters of space caught between two windows. One is looking over a dark
street below, and the other—

Xie Lian looks down at what is clearly a medical theatre. A surgery is in progress, and the
more he watches, the more he feels trickles of fear run down his spine. He presses his hands
against the glass, barely holding back from shaking.

“This is…”

“A harvest,” Jun Wu says calmly.

Xie Lian has to clap his hand over his mouth, swallowing down bile. The man on the table is
being meticulously emptied out, and it’s… It can’t have been voluntary. No human being
wants to be stripped down for parts like this.

This is abominable.

“Oh, don’t tell me your stomach has become weak, Xianle,” Jun Wu says, cold and slightly
mocking. “After all, you once killed a man for no reason at all.”

Xie Lian looks at him, unseeing. “You drugged me.”

“To open the door for you, yes.” Jun Wu nods, like all he’d done was lend Xie Lian a spare
pen. “But you ran away instead of walking in. Will you do it now? You have to understand
you don’t have a lot of options.”

Xie Lian can’t even focus on the threat. “Why? You—this is… You’re working for White No-
Face?”

Somewhere far away, Lan Jue is having convulsions at Xie Lian going so far off-script, but
Lan Jue isn’t here. He’s not seeing this. It’s not his life.

“Working for White No-Face?” Jun Wu lifts his eyebrows. “Xianle, has life been so hard that
it’s addled your brain? I don’t work for anyone, boy. I am White No-Face.”

Xie Lian has to give it to Jun Wu—at this point, it’s more than obvious. Xie Lian has
underestimated his own denial.

“White No-Face…” he echoes, pushing the shock back.

Jun Wu grimaces. “A tasteless nickname, but a catchy one.” He turns back to the theater,
away from the wave of horror crashing over Xie Lian. “Do you see now? Who cares about
your license? I can give you anything you desire—all I need is your obedience and your
hands.” The operating room glass reflects his smile. “In time, we can even return you to the
official side of things. There won’t be much to stop me soon.”

No matter how he fights to stay focused, Xie Lian’s mind is struggling. “Why?” he can’t help
but ask again. “These are people. Living, breathing people. How can you—”
Jun Wu scowls. “They’re nothing but trash. ‘People,’” he repeats in an angry, mocking tone.
“People. They don’t deserve the name. Where were these people when you needed them?
You’d done nothing but help them, and they wanted to take your hands! Do you remember
that, Xianle? They gave you nothing but scorn when you’d done nothing to deserve it—and
do you know why? Because they’re animals. They can’t think for themselves. And what’s the
first requirement of donor availability, student Xie? The patient being brain-dead. Well”—he
scoffs—“I’d say they qualify.”

Xie Lian can do nothing but stare. Jun Wu paces the short room until he eventually comes to
stand by the window facing the street, hands behind his back.

“Let me tell you a story, Xianle.

“I was much like you when I was young. I, too, wanted to help people. Everyone thought I
had political ambitions, but I just wanted to help! I designed a whole set of reforms to
promote education, extend medical care, support families—everything. People cheered me
on. They said I was the hope of their generation.

“Then, the earthquake happened, and my family lost everything. And they had the gall—
these people you care so much about”—he scoffs—“they had the gall to blame us for not
protecting them!”

He shakes his head. “Doors were slammed in my face; no one would give me the time of day.
I was such a naïve fool—I thought they would at least take my ideas, even if I could no
longer be a part of them. They were meant to better their lives! But they just laughed. They
never cared about that. They supported me when I was powerful and when I wasn’t anymore,
they dropped me for a fresh face.”

Xie Lian feels the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. A coincidence? Surely that’s too
much of one, but…

“I understood then,” Jun Wu says crisply. “They were nothing; livestock at best. The moment
I realized I didn’t have to care for them as if they deserved it, I became—”

Mad?

“—enlightened.” Jun Wu turns to him. “I tried to show you the same. I saw so much of
myself in you—I wanted to save you the time, bring you up to my level by my own lightning
path. I’m not sure it’s worked yet.” He sighs. “You’re very stubborn, Xianle.”

Xie Lian stops breathing. “What…” he croaks. “What do you mean you tried to show me?”

Jun Wu’s expression turns pitying. “You didn’t think your father’s company collapsed by
itself?” he asks, almost gently. “A few of his business partners had… health issues. It was
easy to press them. Easy, too, to let the crowd into the parking lot. Your father’s death—now,
that is not, I believe, of my direct doing. But the rest…” He sighs again, now definitely
mocking. “Oh, Xianle. You really didn’t know?”
Xie Lian feels as if he’s having an out-of-body experience. This whole time, he’d thought
that Jun Wu had ruined his career, just that alone—that everything else had been a stroke of
bad luck, or Xie Lian’s own ineptitude. But this…

“Xianle, don’t look at me like that,” Jun Wu says impatiently. “I wanted to bring you over
fast, so I had to be harsh, yes. How else would you have learned?”

“You’ll forgive me,” Xie Lian manages slowly, “if I can’t be grateful.”

“Xianle.” Jun Wu exhales, his disappointment a heavy pressure against Xie Lian’s skin. “This
wallowing in self-pity isn’t dignified. Now tell me—will you be a good boy and go into that
room voluntarily, or will you force me to take care of that for you again?”

At that moment, Xie Lian doesn’t remember his mission, Lan Jue’s scripts and objectives. He
doesn’t care what the smart, strategic thing to do is.

This is his life.

“We are not alike at all,” he says, his voice now ringing clear. “Do what you have to, but I
will never become anything like you.”

Jun Wu’s expression hardens.

“Very well.”

He throws the door open and motions the two enforcers in. The struggle is insultingly short—
Xie Lian doesn’t have room to move, and he’s not fast enough, still reeling. A few of their
blows land hard, making him gasp for breath, and he can’t fight them off when they twist his
arm, nearly wrenching it out of its socket. Then, there’s a sharp prick of a needle piercing
skin, and within seconds, his world goes dark.

--

Warmth. Everything is too warm. And… wet, somehow? Blurry.

He’s swaying. He’s standing still. He’s hanging upside down. He’s paralyzed.

Another trickle of that disgusting wet, clingy warmth around his neck, and, bizarrely, around
his left ankle. The contents of his head are soup. Lukewarm—he’s lukewarm, sloshing in a
bucket. Isn’t he dead? Isn’t he in a morgue? Do morgues store bodies in buckets?

There’s a light in his face. He’s standing, but his face is covered… half-covered? It’s hard to
breathe, and he wants the mask off. Mask?

Someone is lying prone before him, drenched in the cold white light. The measured beeping
of a heart-monitor. He’s…

Oh.

No.
His mind is struggling, submerged in some warm, heavy slime, but Xie Lian knows what this
is! He’s been here before. He never wants to be here again; he still has nightmares about it.
He can’t. He can’t!

“Make the cut, Doctor Xie.”

People in the room. There are people in the room with him. Those two henchmen behind
him; a nurse looking at him from the opposite side of the table. Compared to last time, Xie
Lian is strangely aware. It’s difficult—it’s damn hard—but he can focus, and he is aware.
This feels more like being very, very drunk. His body feels as if it doesn’t belong to him.

“Make the cut, Doctor Xie.” Someone pokes him in the back. “Cut her open.”

Xie Lian looks down. Her face is uncovered. A girl—a young girl. Still a child. He can’t. He
can’t!

“Make the cut, Doctor Xie.” A heavy hand settling on his shoulder. “Make the cut now.”

No. He can’t go through that again. Not this time.

He dives deep into himself where that healing energy lies and pulls hard. He’s never used it
on himself—it had never occurred to him to use it on himself, and he doesn’t know what to
do. Still, it offers refuge, and he plunges into it, unthinking.

Heat rises up in his stomach—dry, steady, burning. For a moment, he almost feels as if his
head is clear, but there are only flashes, and he can’t sustain them. An instinct guides him—
higher, higher, make it rise higher. He pulls with everything he has.

The moment it reaches his solar plexus, there’s a shock of crystal-clear cold. It’s not coming
from within; he can sense it. This sharp, slicing cold doesn’t belong to him at all, but it
recognizes him and latches onto his rising heat. Xie Lian nearly sways as the two streams
join, with no warning.

Then—

It feels as if something inside him explodes. From the center of his solar plexus, shockwave
after shockwave rolls throughout his entire body, scorching hot and scalding cold at the same
time. He doesn’t know how he doesn’t scream through the excruciating pain. It feels eternal,
but in reality, it’s less than an instant, of which he is immediately aware, because—

He opens his eyes, and his mind is clear. His body is his own. And, judging by the clock on
the monitor, exactly three seconds have passed.

Xie Lian takes just a second more to press into the sensation of the silver chain still hanging
around his neck, sending it a quiet thank you.

Then, he explodes into motion.

The scalpel still in his head, he brings his elbow sharply into the stomach of the man standing
behind him. Without pause, he twists and slices the second man’s neck—it’s not immediately
fatal, but he’ll bleed out if he doesn’t get help or moves too much. The other one comes
charging at him, and Xie Lian moves faster than in his peak years of training, tripping him
and bringing his cupped fists sharply down the back of his neck. He goes down and doesn’t
get up.

The nurse has backed away and is staring at him in horror—really, the irony—when Xie Lian
points the bloody scalpel in her direction and smiles.

“Stay there, and don’t make trouble for me.”

She nods feverishly fast.

He can hear the sounds of commotion from upstairs, but they can’t teleport down—he has a
few seconds still.

He leans over the girl on the table, pulls the sensors off her, scoops her up, and runs.

--

There are people in the corridors—everywhere, there are people. But they didn’t expect him.
Jun Wu thought he knew Xie Lian, but, for one, Xie Lian had never told him he had martial
arts training, and for another, he’d played the role of a demoralized, helpless victim to
perfection. Above all else, no one could have expected him to simply neutralize the drug in
his bloodstream. Xie Lian wouldn’t have.

He pushes, pulls, kicks, and runs. Him taking them off guard is his only advantage, and he
knows it. Sensitive areas will be monitored—perhaps even all areas, though this is an old
building.

Xie Lian doesn’t know where he’s going—he dives for whatever path is open and where he’s
least expected. Stairs—going down. Doors being kicked open, slammed shut. He manages to
stumble into an entirely empty corridor with a single room at the end of it. He bursts in.

It’s an office of some sort, abandoned and cluttered with binders and printouts. Xie Lian
swiftly moves a metal cabinet to block the door, carefully sets the still unconscious girl
wrapped in a hospital sheet on the floor, and dashes toward the window. He knows they don’t
have more than a handful of minutes at best.

As he approaches, his heart plummets. They’re on the third floor, and there’s no way down—
no fire escape, no trees conveniently growing nearby. It would have been too perfect,
perhaps, as the window is on the wall facing the street, not the yard. They could have had a
chance…

The sound of rapidly-approaching heavy footsteps comes from the corridor, and Xie Lian
knows he’s out of time. He desperately looks for anything to make a rope, but what can be
found in an office stuffed with papers?

Just then, he hears a noise coming from outside, and a horrifying, desperate idea overtakes
his mind.
He throws the window open, and it’s just as he thought. There’s a car approaching, some kind
of truck, from what he can see in the sparse light. The street is narrow, hardly any distance at
all, and…

It’s a third-floor window.

Loud voices from the corridor—footsteps going away, then coming back. Then, someone
tries to force the door open, and that’s it.

Xie Lian quickly brings the girl back into his arms, then pauses by the desk. After a second’s
hesitation, he grabs the hard drive. He doesn’t expect anything valuable to be on it—nor that
it will survive, for that matter—but he needs something heavy to test the trajectory.

He sits on the window, his back to the street, then glances at the approaching truck. He has to
be precise about it.

Closer. A little closer. Almost there…

He tucks the girl under his chin, trying to curl around her as best he can. When the distance is
right, he throws the hard drive, and watches it land, measuring the time.

Then, he pushes off the floor and falls out of the window.

--

He didn’t miss.

For what feels like the longest time, that’s the only thought in his head as he watches the tall
building with its harsh lights get further and further away, as if carried off by the sea.

Then, with a gasp, he’s abruptly thrown back into his body, and pain explodes everywhere.

For a few endless minutes, there’s nothing in Xie Lian’s world but searing agony. It doesn’t
really fade, but now that the air that’s been punched out of him is back, he can think through
it. He moves tentatively, and though he doesn’t like it, he realizes that he can. The sheer relief
that floods him at understanding he hasn’t broken his spine makes the pain recede somewhat.

Gulping for breath, he shifts a little and is able to localize the pain. His arm is—yep, that’s a
dislocated shoulder, flashes of searing white under his eyelids. His left ankle feels warm and
wet, so something is probably bleeding. The rest is… negligible.

He turns his attention to the girl he hadn’t released until his back had hit whatever the truck is
carrying, pressing his fingers to her neck. Oh, thank goodness—a pulse, strong and steady.

Xie Lian swallows a cry of pain and sits up, sliding on—he tries to see in the dark. Plastic
bags of some kind, filled with… They’re not too soft, but not hard, either, they’re yielding,
shifting…

The truck turns the corner, jumping up on yet another bump, and some light falls over the
cargo. Xie Lian stares in disbelief. Then he laughs, his body hating him massively for it.
Cat food. Bags upon bags of cat food.

Xie Lian laughs until he cries, and only stops when he sets his shoulder back, biting his lip
clear through to stifle a shout.

--

The road is hideously bumpy, and the driver has music blasting on inside the cabin, which
would probably explain why he didn’t notice two passengers suddenly dropping down on
him. Xie Lian thinks quickly—there’s bound to be a chase, and the smart thing to do for him
would be to grab the girl and slip out of the truck, try to hide in the dark maze of streets.

Except—he doesn’t know the territory, while his opponent does; no one here would dare help
him even if they’d want to; and the thought of jumping out of a moving vehicle after he’d just
jumped into one makes his body seize with a harsh, visceral no.

He stalls by checking his ankle—he’s definitely cut it on something, a deep slice that goes
through his calf. It’s still bleeding, but whatever is lodged in it is holding it at bay. Xie Lian
fights off the natural human instinct, leaning into his medical knowledge, and leaves
whatever’s in there in place, firmly shutting down the train of thought that keeps blaring
‘Infection!’ inside his head.

He turns his attention to the girl again. She did land on him, but it would still be prudent to
check her for injuries, so he does, ignoring his own aches. She’s naked under the surgical
sheet she’d been covered with on the table, and Xie Lian tries to wrap it more securely
around her—

—which is the exact moment that the girl opens her eyes, blinks at him woozily, then freezes.

Then, her eyes widen in terror, and she screams.

Xie Lian jolts, startled, and before he knows it, his hand flies up to cover her mouth. That
only makes her thrash more wildly, and, even as the movement makes her sink deeper
between the endless bags of cat food, she manages a number of kicks and punches that make
him go white with pain.

They slip and slide between the bags like kids in a ball pen. The girl is not unlike a cat
herself, fighting vicious and sneaky. By the time Xie Lian manages to get her in a headlock,
he’s in danger of passing out.

“Listen to me.” He speaks right into her ear, fighting to keep what’s left of his voice calm.
“I’m not going to hurt you. You were just in that”—he can’t make himself say
‘hospital’—“place, where they would have cut you open and taken your organs. I was there,
too.”

The girl stills in his arms.

“I got us out of there,” Xie Lian continues quickly, while he’s got her attention. “But they’re
after us, so if you scream again, you’re just going to help them find us more quickly.”
He feels her take a deeper breath. Good.

“I’m going to let you go now,” he says. “Please don’t scream.”

Easier said than done—at this point, he’s mostly under her, the sheet she’s been covered with
bunched around her waist. Xie Lian forces himself to move, despite his body screaming, and
keeps his eyes averted.

The girl... doesn’t scream. As soon as he lets go of her, she pushes herself as far away from
him as she can and scrambles for cover. He waits until the sounds of her trying to get the
papery fabric around her body come to a halt, and only looks at her then.

He smiles softly. “Hi?”

The girl must be around fifteen—very scrawny, with a flat kind of face, which most people
would call unflattering. The passing lights make her eyes beady with fear as she watches him.

“My name is Xie Lian,” Xie Lian says. “I was held there against my will. How about you?”

He knows the answer, of course, but he needs to get her talking.

“I’m… I’m Xiao Ying,” the girl responds, voice quiet and shaking.

“How old are you?” Xie Lian asks.

“Eighteen… three days ago.”

Oh. Xie Lian blinks. “Do you have family here?”

Xiao Ying shakes her head. “I’m an orphan. I—my school friends, we… we went out to
celebrate my birthday. These men... caught me. I wasn’t allowed to leave. I thought they were
going to…” She looks away, biting her lip. “But they drew my blood, and put me into that
machine, and then…”

Xie Lian nods. “It’s all right. It’s going to be okay now. I’ll get you out of here. We just need
to—”

The noisy truck screeches to a halt.

Xie Lian tenses. He’s become too distracted, and too complacent. Xiao Ying stares at him
with ever-wider eyes, but he shakes his head at her. It’s too late to run now.

The driver’s door opens, and a man steps out. Xie Lian tracks his movements, his mind
taking measure of him on autopilot. Short, bulky in a decidedly non-athletic way, easy to take
down… normally. Xie Lian winces as he tenses his left leg and tries to steady himself to
ignore the pain.

The man pulls the back wall of the truck down and stares at them, mouth gaping. The street
now surrounding them is deserted and dark.
“What the fuck?!” the driver exclaims at his discovery. “Who the fuck are you? How did you
get into my truck?! I thought that was no bump! If I wasn’t in such a hurry to get out of this
hellish place—”

Xie Lian smiles automatically, trying to appear as harmless as possible, and leans forward.
“Uh, hello! You see, we’re—”

With the movement, his face comes more into the light, and the driver suddenly gasps.

“You!”

Xie Lian blinks, bewildered. “Uh—what?”

“You! You!” The man points his finger at him and starts grinning. “You—what’s your name?
You’re that vet, you helped my Caocao! Xiao—Xia—Xie! Xie-xiansheng, right?” The man
laughs in delight. “Xiansheng, what are you doing here?”

It’s Xie Lian’s turn to gape. “Uh… you know me?”

“Yes, yes! Last year, I blew it all again playing in Ghost City, and I thought the wife would
kill me. Then Caocao got sick, and that cat—she's is my wife’s whole life! I thought I was
done for, but you helped me, totally free!” He smiles, teeth crooked. “Don’t you remember,
Xie-xiansheng? It’s me, Li Bao!”

Xie Lian smiles wanly. He doesn’t remember the man, but he’s fairly certain he remembers
the cat.

“She’s a three-year-old, grey and white, with a black spot under her eye?” he guesses.

“Yes! That’s my Caocao!”

“You named your cat Caocao?” Xiao Ying pipes up from behind.

Li Bao cuts a suddenly-serious look at her. “She’s cunning and ruthless. She wears it with
pride.”

In Xie Lian’s memory, the cat was really rather sweet, but then, animals frequently react to
him differently than they do to other people.

“Uh, Xie-xiansheng, you look to be in some kind of trouble,” Li Bao says, frowning as he
returns his attention to Xie Lian. “Can I help? I feel bad for not paying you that time, and I
have money now. I started selling cat food—who knew it was such a lucrative business? The
wife is very pleased.”

Xie Lian looks around, his senses on high alert. He hates to use the man’s kindness, but he
has Xiao Ying with him, and for her, he has to ask. “We need to get out of here and get back
to the capital,” he pushes out. “But there are people after us, bad people. They’d likely kill us
if they catch us. I don’t want to put you in danger, Li Bao-xiong.”
“Say no more!” Li Bao straightens instantly. “I hate this fucking place; it’s the last time I use
this shortcut, I swear! I’ll get you to the capital, Xie-xiansheng, don’t you worry! But—uh,
maybe you both could come to the cabin? And you, xiao mei, you’re barely dressed—you
must be freezing! Hang on!”

Xie Lian scrambles to get out of the trunk, pleased to note that he can stand on his left leg,
the pain manageable. After a minute, Xiao Ying follows him, dressed now in Li Bao’s shirt
and the hospital sheet that she’s somehow managed to fashion into a long skirt. Xie Lian
smiles at her.

“You look so fashionable, A-Ying!”

The girl’s plain features alight as she blushes. “I’ve always been good with clothes and
makeup,” she says bashfully.

Xie Lian feels his smile grow. “I have a friend who would love to meet you.”

The girl doesn’t respond, looking at him with a frown of concern. “Gege, you’re shivering.”

“It’s nothing,” Xie Lian dismisses. “Come; we shouldn’t linger.”

Cold is the least of his troubles.

--

They seem to be in luck for a while, but it runs out eventually.

“Yep, they’re on to you, all right,” Li Bao grouses as they’re forced to back out from yet
another alley, cars blocking it at the other end. Good thing Li Bao drives with his lights off.

“I don’t want to get you in trouble,” Xie Lian worries. “Maybe just drop us off, and we’ll—”

“Oh, no.” Li Bao smirks. “I know a road they definitely wouldn’t think to block.”

The road is... not a road. Li Bao drives to the edge of the settlement, then straight forward, off
an alarmingly steep hill and into—a bog. Then a field. Bumpy doesn’t begin to cover it—Xie
Lian feels like he’s inside a washing machine, thrown in every possible direction without
pause. His insides, he’s fairly sure, have rearranged themselves entirely at least four times
now. They’re still driving without any lights, tearing into the terrain that absolutely doesn’t
appreciate it, the car growling like an ancient monster on steroids as they travel.

Xiao Ying had screamed at first, then clapped her hand over her mouth before being forced to
release it to grab a hold of something, which happened to be Xie Lian’s arm and the ceiling.
Xie Lian’s got his feet on the dashboard, desperate for any kind of leverage.

“Don’t worry!” Li Bao shouts over the noise, grinning maniacally. “If I could drive here
drunk, I can sure as fuck do it sober!”

Both Xie Lian and Xiao Ying turn to look at him, speechless, before another bump sends the
truck hurtling forward. Li Bao then turns the volume of his music up and starts singing along
to some old rock song, mangling the words beyond recognition and enjoying himself all the
more for it. At some point, Xiao Ying starts singing along, too, clearly surrendering to the
madness she can’t control, and Xie Lian almost envies her. This might be the most insane
experience of his life, and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He has no breath for
either.

Time stops having meaning, and he comes to slowly, surprised to realize that dawn is
breaking. The truck emits a warlike rumble, climbing up the rise toward—finally!—an actual
road. The angle is such that Xie Lian is certain they’re going to turn over, but Li Bao presses
on the gas, and they shoot up and onto the sand-covered asphalt of an abandoned track, in
triumph of human engineering and odds-defying stupidity.

“There!” Li Bao grins widely, eyes red and wild. “Didn’t I say I’d get you there?”

They are, indeed, driving into the sleepy streets on the furthest outskirts of the city, quiet and
deserted, thanks to the ungodly early hour. Xie Lian’s eyes almost can’t process the familiar
and entirely sane sight of shops and pharmacies and closed food stalls.

“Where to now, Xie-xiansheng?” Li Bao asks. Xiao Ying is slumped against Xie Lian’s
shoulder. “I can take you anywhere you say.”

Xie Lian shakes his head, twisting his head to look at the distant highway. No sign of
pursuit… Yet. “We shouldn’t trouble you further. Just, uh… park somewhere, and—if I could
borrow your phone?”

“Sure thing!”

When the car stops, he steps outside, wincing and suppressing the fiery pain shooting up his
leg. He forces himself not to limp as he takes a few steps away, typing the number from
memory, then waiting for the call to connect, not feeling his heartbeat.

Hua Cheng picks up before the first ring is through. “Yes?”

Xie Lian’s world wobbles. “San Lang.”

There’s the barest pause, then a terse, “Where are you?”

“I—” Xie Lian looks around, searching for the street address, and rattles it off. “We’re just by
the pharmacy, on the corner.”

“Wait there. We’re five minutes away.”

Over the line, Xie Lian hears a sharp screech of tires, the revving of the engine, and a second
voice repeating the address, probably over a radio.

“San Lang.” He swallows. “There’s no need to rush. We can—”

“Wait there.” He exhales. “Three minutes.”

Xie Lian nods—he knows Hua Cheng can’t see him, but he can’t make his throat work. He
doesn’t disconnect the call, and the line stays open, though Xie Lian angles the phone away
slightly. Xiao Ying is watching him with clear worry.

“It’s okay.” Xie Lian smiles at her. “You’ve been very brave. It’s nearly over.”

Li Bao exits the car, too. “Some friends are coming to get you, Xie-xiansheng? Good, good.”

Xie Lian nods again and glances away, blinking quickly. He can’t fall to pieces, not yet. He
bites his already-abused lip, the pain of it helping him cling to his composure.

Sooner than he’s ready for, several black SUVs converge on them from seemingly every
direction, raising clouds of dust. Li Bao looks spooked, and Xiao Ying squeals high in fright,
tucking herself into Xie Lian’s side. He rubs her shoulder with his free hand. “It’s okay.
They’re friends.”

The men and women who step out of those cars look like highly-trained assassins, decked out
in black gear with a crimson storm cloud on their sleeves. They spread out, seemingly
securing the area, and Xie Lian ignores them all, only soothing Xiao Ying further. His eyes
are on the car that has arrived first and come the closest.

The passenger side door opens, and Hua Cheng steps out, dressed in more casual black, face
ghost-pale and expression locked tight. He zeroes in on Xie Lian immediately.

Xie Lian’s heart leaps against his ribcage, though he tries not to show it. Without looking, he
passes the phone to Xiao Ying, and starts forward.

He’s been doing so well until this moment, but, as if to spite him, the second Hua Cheng is in
sight and Xie Lian needs his composure the most, it’s like something in him crumbles. He’s
limping more with every step, unable to stop it, his left hand reaching to support his right
elbow without his permission. Aware that that eye is tracking it all, missing nothing, he’s
powerless to stop himself from showing his pain.

He makes it to the middle of the clear space between them under his own power, and they
stop, taking each other in. Xie Lian has never seen Hua Cheng’s expression so... blank.

“You’re hurt,” Hua Cheng says, voice flatter than Yin Yu’s.

Xie Lian shakes his head. “Just a little banged up. Nothing major.”

Hua Cheng’s lips thin as his eye racks over Xie Lian, from his still-bare feet, the left red with
blood, to the bruise on his lip. “Right. Nothing major.”

Hua Cheng’s tone is so brittle that Xie Lian winces. He has a feeling that if he says the wrong
thing now, this whole street will feel it.

“I need to speak with Lan Jue,” he says. “It’s urgent.”

Hua Cheng tilts his head to the side slightly, and Zhu Ling’s voice responds immediately
from his left. “He’s ten minutes away.”
Hua Cheng’s lips almost disappear. “Tell him if he doesn’t step on it, he can chase us to the
hospital.”

“No.” Xie Lian shakes his head. “It really is urgent. Jun Wu is White No-Face; he’s probably
running now. He has to be stopped. I need to tell him…”

Only now does he remember about the transmitter in his hair. He lifts his uninjured arm to
check, and—yes. The elastic band with that dim black bead is still in place.

Hua Cheng follows his movement with a cold gaze. “It’s deactivated; stopped transmitting
your location shortly after you entered Wuyong. Unless it has its own memory bank, it’s
useless.”

His tone is sharp as ice. Xie Lian swallows. Very aware of Hua Cheng’s gaze on him, he
turns toward the clearly spooked Li Bao. “I dropped something in your trunk, Li-xiong,” Xie
Lian says. “A hard drive. I doubt there’s anything useful on, but you never know. Someone
should get that.”

“Zhu Ling,” Hua Cheng orders.

“On it, boss.” Zhu Ling moves past them, flashing Xie Lian a sympathetic smile as he goes.

“Xiao Ying,” Xie Lian calls. “Come here; it’s all right.” He watches as she casts Zhu Ling a
curious look—the man really does cut a dashing figure, dressed all in black with his silver
hair. “That’s Zhu Ling,” Xie Lian tells her. Zhu Ling stops briefly and waves at the girl.
“He’s my friend. And this is Hua Cheng. He’s…” Xie Lian trips, eyes darting toward Hua
Cheng’s face and flickering off, like a wave repelled by a cliff. “You’re among friends, Xiao
Ying. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

Xiao Ying comes to stand a little behind him, nodding shyly at Hua Cheng, whose gaze only
flicks to her for a moment. Xie Lian can’t look at him.

“And—and this is Li Bao!” he says a little too loudly. “If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have
made it out. I—I mean…” It’s too late, of course. He bites his lip again, forgetting, and
winces. In the early morning quiet, he hears the barely-audible sound of Hua Cheng drawing
in a breath and then releasing it. “He’s been a great help! Though we may have damaged his
car—” Xie Lian twists his head toward him, seeking refuge, the movement sending a painful
twinge through his neck and shoulders. He ignores it. “Li-xiong, you should tell me if
there’re any repairs to be made.”

“Aiya, what repairs?” Li Bao waves him off. “She’s been through worse, trust me. It was a
fun ride, wasn’t it?”

“Found it!” Zhu Ling calls.

“You probably shouldn’t touch it without gloves,” Xie Lian calls out.

“I’ve got a pair on me, Xie-xiansheng, don’t worry!”

“Xie Lian.”
Xie Lian’s head whips toward Hua Cheng. “San Lang?”

“You and Miss Xiao should get in the car,” Hua Cheng says, still in that tightly-controlled
voice. “You’re both barefoot. It’s cold.”

Xie Lian nods readily, his neck giving more painful twinges. “Yes, yes, of course. San Lang
—”

“Just—” Hua Cheng cuts him off, hands curling into fists at his sides, then uncurling, as he
looks to the side. “Just get in the car. Please.”

Xie Lian limps past him, not even protesting Xiao Ying’s wordless help. But when he’s about
to climb in, a different set of hands replaces hers, the arms holding him infinitely more
powerful. Xie Lian wants to press into the touch, more than anything, but...

He doesn’t know if he’s still welcome, and worse, he doesn’t think he can handle it without
shattering into a million pieces, and there’s still work to be done. He’s not done.

The instant he’s seated, an involuntary moan of relief escapes him. It’s good to be off his feet,
and his left calf throbs with heat, suddenly ten times as painful. Hua Cheng sinks to one knee
and rolls the soaked-through pant leg of his scrubs up. Xie Lian hasn’t even seen the injury
himself.

“What is it?” he asks.

Hua Cheng seems to be trembling on the edge of visibility, his thin skin trying to contain a
storm.

“You have a metal rod stuck through your leg,” he grits out. “Is that something of interest to
you?”

Xie Lian prays for Lan Jue to come sooner. “It’s all right, San Lang. Leave it there, so I don’t
—” He bites his lip again, too late.

Hua Cheng glares up at him. “Bleed out? Yes. I figured.”

Xie Lian has nothing to say for himself.

It’s a relief to finally hear the sirens.

--

Hua Cheng refuses to wait a second longer, so Lan Jue rides with them to the hospital and
Xie Lian gets a full debriefing in the car. He confirms that all of Xie Lian’s transmitters went
dark shortly after he and Jun Wu had arrived at the bar, but that the headband does indeed
have its own memory bank, so there’s a good chance that anything caught on it is still
salvageable. Xie Lian doesn’t know the address of the underground clinic, but Lan Jue sends
his team to sweep the area after hearing Xie Lian’s description.
The news that Jun Wu and White No-Face are the same person is both a shock and a
welcome surprise. White No-Face has been impossible to track down, but Jun Wu is a public
figure. More orders flow over the phone.

“He set my parents up,” Xie Lian interrupts suddenly, looking straight ahead. “My father’s
business failing is his doing. It’s not pertinent to your investigation, but…”

His eyes close and, naturally, his head wants to follow, but he straightens up with a wince.

“What’s wrong, Xie-gege?” Xiao Ying, seated in the middle, looks at him with concern.
“Does your neck hurt?”

Xie Lian gives a tiny shake of his head, summoning a smile for her. “It’s all right, A-Ying. I
probably just have whiplash from the fall.”

On Xiao Ying’s other side, Hua Cheng sucks in a breath through his teeth and orders the
driver, “Go faster.”

They are already flying through the streets at a truly unreasonable speed. Lan Jue, twisted
toward them from the front seat, looks like he’s about to warn Hua Cheng of public
endangerment by reckless driving, but, after seeing the look on his face, seems to think better
of it. Xie Lian says nothing.

When they do arrive, it’s thankfully not to some private clinic behind a very tall fence. A few
of the staff are already waiting for them, a wheelchair ready—Xie Lian loathes the idea but
submits without a fight. He wishes Hua Cheng would touch him, even just a hand on his
shoulder, but he knows why he doesn’t. They are... a long way from that.

Hua Cheng, however, follows him doggedly from procedure to procedure, and by the way the
staff seem to defer to him, never once shooing him out of the room, Xie Lian knows this is
yet again Crimson Rain territory. They do check with Xie Lian first, but he never objects,
immeasurably grateful for Hua Cheng's presence.

He does, in fact, have whiplash, so they put a collar on him, fixing his neck in place. The
orthopedic surgeon, a man well into his fifties, examines his shoulder and glowers at Xie
Lian.

“Young man, I was informed that you are a medical professional. Do you know what amount
of soft tissue damage you caused by setting it yourself, or do they teach nothing in medical
schools these days?”

Xie Lian blinks. “It’ll heal, and I needed my arm working.”

“Reckless,” the doctor grouses. “You’re all reckless. I’m wasting my breath here.”

His cuts and bruises are treated, though there’s nothing to be immediately done for his
cracked ribs. His shoulder is iced, his arm set in a sling to take the pressure off, and then it’s
time to deal with his leg. Xie Lian refuses the general anesthesia and is on the verge of
refusing any kind of painkiller, suddenly panicked. He doesn’t want more drugs in his system
and jerks back on the table at the suggestion, tensed for fight or flight. The medical team
stares at him, lost.

Suddenly, Hua Cheng is at his side. He still isn’t looking at Xie Lian, but he takes his hand
and squeezes, telling the doctors, “Local, the strongest you have.” In Xie Lian’s ear, he says,
more softly, “I’m here. I’ll be here the entire time. Nothing bad will happen. Just let them
help you.”

Xie Lian breathes out helplessly. “San Lang—”

“Not now, Gege.”

But he doesn’t let go of Xie Lian’s hand throughout the entire ordeal.

--

Eventually, it’s all—done. Xie Lian had wanted a shower too badly to object to the assistance
of nurses, his mind mostly checking out while they help him. Everything he was wearing,
except for the ring, is bagged and handed over to Lan Jue, along with the headband. In place
of that outfit, Xie Lian is given a heavenly soft track suit. The top has a zipper so that he
doesn’t have to torture his shoulder. The sling comes back on, as do the ice packs—chilly, of
course, but there’s no helping that. The sneakers are his own, brought over by... someone.

Xiao Ying, too, gets checked out, and is questioned by Lan Jue, who thanks Xie Lian
profusely between frantic phone calls before finally being whisked away by his own people.
She’s surprisingly calm about it. “I’ll stay with a friend for a while,” she tells Xie Lian.

He nods at her warmly. “We’ll speak soon.”

Before he knows it, Xie Lian is being wheeled out back toward the car. He can walk and
wants to protest, but one look at Hua Cheng convinces him otherwise. Xie Lian can feel his
body beginning to crash, and forces his mind to stay focused. Not yet, he tells it. We’ll get
back to the hotel, we’ll talk, then you can…

Except, they don’t go back to the hotel.

By the time Xie Lian realizes where they’re headed, it’s way too late to ask questions.

--

In a fit of rebelliousness, he climbs out of the car himself, then stands on the tarmac,
watching the gleaming-red jet warm its engines. Hua Cheng comes around the SUV and
stands beside him. He doesn’t look at Xie Lian, staring straight ahead instead.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian says softly. “We’re… flying back?”

“En.”

“Lan Jue may need me to come in—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No. You’re done with them.” His tone brooks no more argument than his stone-faced
expression. “Let them do their own fucking jobs. We’re going home.”

Xie Lian feels nausea rise up in his throat. He’s broken this so badly.

“San Lang,” he pleads quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Hua Cheng flinches, then closes his eye for a moment.

“I’m mad at you,” he confesses, seemingly shaken by it. “I don’t know what to do with it.”

Xie Lian almost bites his lip again, but suddenly, he can’t handle the sting. “When did you
know?”

Hua Cheng turns toward him ever so slightly. “When do you think?”

Xie Lian ponders this for a moment. “The morning after?”

Hua Cheng nods. “Yin Yu gave you the night, like you asked him to. Then, of course, he told
me.”

Xie Lian, admittedly, had expected that; he simply hadn’t let himself think about it before. He
inches a little closer. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“You think that’s my…” Hua Cheng’s chin jerks to the side. “You left me on the sidelines
again. Or you would have, if I…” His volume rises. “Had my people not been trailing you,
who even knows where you’d be right now, but even so—we lost you in that hellhole!”

He rounds on Xie Lian fully. “You had to jump out of a fucking window into a moving
vehicle! You were drugged, twice! You placed yourself entirely in his power! You could have
died last night and YOU LEFT ME WATCHING FROM THE SIDELINES!”

Xie Lian has never felt so small in his entire life. “I’m sorry, San Lang,” he whispers. “I’m
so, so sorry.”

“You’ll never see me as your equal, will you?” Hua Cheng asks, his gaze burning. “You’ll let
me do small things for you, but when it’s something like this, when it’s your life, you go back
to being someone who fights all his battles alone. Do you not see me standing here? Will I
always be someone weak, someone incompetent, to you, someone you can’t rely on—”

“San Lang!” Xie Lian interrupts sharply. “You are all that I see! Of course you’re strong! Of
course you’re—”

“Don’t!”
“You’re the strongest person I know—so much stronger, so much more capable than me! It’s
because all I see is you that I can’t stand the thought of getting you hurt! But I was wrong!”

He grabs Hua Cheng’s arm desperately. “I was wrong, and I hurt you anyway! That's—that's
not an excuse, I have no excuses, but you—you gave me this ring—you gave me your life—
to hang around my neck, trusting me—me!—to keep you safe. Do you know how that made
me feel?! What did you think I would do?!”

“The ring?” Hua Cheng says incredulously. “Gege, you think…” He staggers back half a step
and laughs. It’s not any sort of sane sound. “You—you can be so…”

He rounds back and grabs Xie Lian’s uninjured shoulder. “The ring isn't my life, Gege—you
are! You—not anything else! That's why I gave it to you—lose one or the other, it wouldn't
matter! It would all be over for me, too! How did you manage to miss that?”

Lose one or the other. Protect one—protect the other. The simplest math in existence. Yet
he...

"San Lang..." Xie Lian whimpers. "I'm—"

Hua Cheng sweeps down, careful not to jostle the medical collar, and seals his lips over Xie
Lian’s, hot and rude and pressing where it hurts. Xie Lian wails into it, overwrought and
desperate, shaking now. The iron tang of his own blood, when forced onto him like this,
tastes like forgiveness.

“San Lang,” he manages, panting, when they pull apart. "I'm so sorry."

Hua Cheng sighs, visibly softening. "I shouldn't have yelled. You are in error, not at fault."

"How can I not be?" Xie Lian whines. “You’re in love with an idiot.”

Hua Cheng grins suddenly, boyish and bright. “En. He can act like one sometimes, but he's
not to blame.”

“I’m sorry.” Xie Lian leans into him, relieved that he’s welcome. “I’m truly sorry, San Lang.
I hurt you so badly, and I don’t know how to... heal this. I’m so sorry. I got lost in my own
head, and I—I just…”

“En.” Hua Cheng wraps him in his arms gently, resting their foreheads together. “I know
where you went, Gege. I tried to bring you out, but I couldn’t. No one could.”

“How can you know?” Xie Lian whispers, turning his face into Hua Cheng’s chest, inhaling
his scent. Home. He smells like home.

“Gege, I know your everything,” Hua Cheng says, so easy, liquid warmth dripping down Xie
Lian’s back—down his very soul. “How kind you are. How smart; how foolish. How brave,
and how oblivious. You’ve made yourself insensitive to your own pain. You take
responsibility for everything, and punish yourself for things beyond your control. You think
you don’t deserve to be loved, and so you don’t see it when it’s right in front of you.” His
 firm gaze bores into Xie Lian’s watery one. “Gege, I know every single one of your demons.
Would that I could fight them for you, but you don’t—you never have to fight them alone.”

“Stop, San Lang.” Xie Lian can barely push the words out, his face wet. “Please. Mercy.”

Hua Cheng kisses the top of his head. “Gege, there’s no part of you that you ever need to hide
from me. Promise you won’t leave me behind again.”

“I promise,” Xie Lian swears. Then, pulling slightly away, blinking away his tears, “San
Lang, I love you. I—I’m trying to find words… other words, better words, but there are only
these, I—”

“Shh.” Hua Cheng leans into him. “I know.”

I don’t deserve you, Xie Lian can’t help but think, but he doesn’t voice it.

Hua Cheng leans closer still, grinning. “Yes, you do. We deserve each other.”

The kiss is long this time, gentle and sweet. Hua Cheng, ever-patient, leads him to the
airplane’s steps when he insists, and then, without another word, sweeps him up into his
arms.

Chapter End Notes

No mini-theater this time, YY was eaten by Caocao...

 Chapter 14
Chapter Notes

Hi guys! Thank you, thank you, thank you all so much! ♥ Nearly there!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Xie Lian wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, but there’s no sense of alarm or confusion; just some
sleepy curiosity. He’s propped up by multiple pillows that all seem to be memory foam, and
he’s wonderfully comfortable, if a bit stiff. The bed sheets are a deep, dark red, and the
bedroom itself is... He pauses, blinking back sleep. There’s a lot of black wood with muted
silver accents here and there, reminiscent of…

Hua Cheng’s office. This must be his house.

Xie Lian remembers nothing of the trip back. He must have passed out the moment Hua
Cheng had carried him onboard, but it’s also possible that he’d been conscious a while longer
and his brain had chosen to delete that information. His last clear memory is of the strong,
gentle arms around him, then—an ocean of warm, safe nothing.

Xie Lian slants his eyes down at himself, pushing the covers aside. He’s wearing something
white and heavenly soft; the sling is fixed in place, to avoid sleep-related jostling; and his
hair is pulled back into a neat braid, a white ribbon woven into it instead of a simple elastic
band. His heart clenches.

He sits up carefully and takes a better look around. There’s not a thing out of place, but he
knows instantly that this isn’t a guestroom. Hua Cheng isn’t here, and yet he might as well be
—the space is shaped around his presence, from the plush, blood-colored rug covering the
dark hardwood floor to the intricate metalwork of the arched ceiling-to-floor windows. Xie
Lian wonders distantly if he should feel out of place here, but a brief self-assessment assures
him he wants nothing more than for this space to swallow him whole and never let go.

He blushes, and is suddenly grateful that he’s alone.

His body aches.

It’s nothing too intolerable, but it’s exactly for that reason that the various pains and
discomforts are difficult to ignore. His neck feels fine, and he would love the collar off, but
it’s definitely not time yet. His ribs are… better than they should be.

Carefully, he pulls the hem of his top up, and—well. His torso is… colorful. He lets the fabric
fall back down, suddenly relieved to be wearing long sleeves.
His leg feels perfectly normal—until he tries standing on it. The instantaneous pain is so hot
and sharp that Xie Lian gasps. A pair of crutches sit next to the bed, and, loath as he is to use
them, he’s grateful for their presence. They are as comfortable as such things could be, and
perfectly adjusted to his height; cold comfort. Well, there’s nothing for it. His injuries are no
one’s fault but his own, and he should be grateful that, annoying as they are, this is the extent
of them.

Tucking the crutches under his armpits, he makes a slow trip to the bathroom, where he finds
himself unable to look away from the…

Pool. That’s no bathtub, that’s a pool.

Xie Lian forces himself to look away, but the massive shower stall isn’t better—a sturdy
plastic chair is set in the middle of it, and he wants to weep at the consideration.

Xie Lian honestly can’t remember the last time someone cared for him like this, anticipating
his every need and simultaneously treating it as no big deal. His emotions run close to the
surface, and it takes him a while to calm down and actually take steps toward bathing.

--

He eventually emerges, feeling somewhat refreshed and hoping the redness in his eyes will
fade quickly. As he nears the door, he’s startled by the sudden soft thud and then some
indistinct shuffling coming from behind it. For a moment, Xie Lian frowns—

Then, a wide smile overtakes his face, and he pulls the door open.

“E’Ming!”

The massive black dog twirls in place like an excited puppy, then plops down, barks quickly
turning into soft whines as he stares up at Xie Lian with limpid eyes. He doesn’t make a
single attempt to jump at Xie Lian or even brush against him, though it’s clear that the
restraint is hard-won.

Xie Lian’s heart grows three sizes, and his eyes tear up again.

“Oh, E’Ming, such a good boy,” he murmurs, leaning his weight on his healthy leg and
opening his palm. “Were you waiting for me to wake up? Or are you on guard duty?”

E’Ming butts his head against Xie Lian’s palm—gently enough not to jostle him or the crutch
—licks his fingers, and lets out another soft whine.

“Aw, I missed you, too, buddy,” Xie Lian continues, fingers sliding through thick black fur.
“There’s a good boy, such a clever boy, look at you.”

E’Ming seems to glow under his praise.

“Don’t coddle him too much, or he’ll get unbearable.”

Xie Lian’s breath hitches, and he looks up, his smile freezing.
Hua Cheng is beautiful any hour of the day, every day, breathtaking as a born-to-be-wild
artist on the prowl, deadly in his business suits, irresistible in his going out outfits. But this—
like this, he is…

In soft, well-worn clothes, a dishtowel over his shoulder, with a lopsided ponytail that barely
keeps his hair out of his face, he’s devastating to Xie Lian’s fragile heart. His vision blurs
despite himself, and his lower lip wobbles.

“Gege?” Hua Cheng is at his side in an instant, carefully taking him by his uninjured arm,
nudging E’Ming aside. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

Xie Lian shakes his head quickly, as far as the collar allows. “I’m fine, San Lang. I’m just…
happy to see you.” E’Ming whines, and Xie Lian laughs softly. “Both of you.”

Hua Cheng relaxes and moves closer still, nuzzling his hair and pressing a soft kiss to his
temple. “You woke up just in time. Lunch is almost ready.”

“Lunch?” Xie Lian blinks. “San Lang… what day is it?”

“Sunday.”

Xie Lian’s eyes go wide. “I slept for over thirty-six hours?!”

“En. You needed it. Your body was exhausted.”

Xie Lian feels a bit faint. “Is there any news on—”

“Not yet,” Hua Cheng says, pulling back slightly and gently prompting Xie Lian to start
walking. “Yin Yu is still in the capital, directing our people to assist Lan Jue and the bureau.
He’ll let us know the moment there’s any development.”

“He’s working too hard,” Xie Lian sighs. “So do you—all of you. I’m sorry to have been so
much trouble.”

“Gege,” Hua Cheng intones with seemingly endless patience. “You’re not trouble. We’re
hunting down a monster, yes, but it’s our choice. Do you think I’m forcing Yin Yu? No
money in the world could do that. Or do you think I’m forcing myself again?”

Xie Lian hesitates. “Maybe not forcing, but—”

“No buts,” Hua Cheng says firmly. “We make our own choices, Gege. Please respect that.”

Xie Lian... subsides. A part of his mind knows that Hua Cheng is right, but it’s a difficult
thing to accept. He turns his mind to other things.

--

They have lunch. Hua Cheng shows off his culinary skills with relish, much to Xie Lian’s
amusement.
“San Lang, I burn water,” he says around a laugh, Hua Cheng deliberately igniting whatever
he’s been tossing in a frying pan. “You didn’t have to do all this—I find unburnt toast
impressive.”

Hua Cheng pouts at him, grinning almost immediately after. “I relax when I cook,” he admits
as he serves them, nudging E’Ming out of the way with his hip. “I don’t get to do it much,
though. E’Ming, down.”

E’Ming gives him a displeased look and shuffles behind Xie Lian’s chair.

Xie Lian feels his eyes crinkle. “In that case... I’m glad.”

--

After lunch, Hua Cheng gives him a tour of the house. It’s big, but not the size one would
expect for a man of his position—certainly nothing like the unreasonably grand manors that
some of Xie Lian’s father’s former associates used to have. Even with abundant space,
though, there’s only one guestroom, which seems to reflect Hua Cheng’s personality
perfectly.

What is unreasonably large is the garden—more like a park—behind the house. The sliding
glass doors open onto a beautiful wood deck, and beyond it is artful wilderness—trees,
flowers, and rocks, and the twinkling sound of running water. Xie Lian falls in love in an
instant.

“San Lang…” He stares out with wide eyes as E’Ming brushes past him and disappears into
the fragrant, whispering shrubbery. “This is…”

“Do you like it?”

Xie Lian looks at him. “I may never want to leave.”

Hua Cheng looks way too pleased with himself to be borne, like a fox whose ruse has
worked. “Good. I have no intention of letting you go.”

It’s absurd that, after everything, a small thing like this can make Xie Lian flush all over. Hua
Cheng is the only person he’s ever met who can make declarations like that with a straight
face, and worse, he means them.

“May I show you the garden, Gege?” Hua Cheng leans slightly toward him. “There’s a patch
of ground that I think will be good for growing medicinal herbs. I remember you said you
wanted your own supply for the clinic but didn’t have space? See if this will work.”

Xie Lian closes his eyes briefly, unable to escape the underlying words.

Stay. Grow roots. Stay.

“San Lang,” he only just manages. “Can you—”

Hua Cheng stills. “Gege?”

“Can you please hug me?”

Hua Cheng gently takes the crutches away and sets them aside, then quickly wraps his arms
around Xie Lian’s frame, mindful of his tender ribs and taking on most of his weight. Xie
Lian all but collapses into him.

“I love you,” he pushes out when he can talk, lips brushing Hua Cheng’s chest. “I love you so
much. You—you know, right?”

“En.” Hua Cheng’s arms tighten very slightly, his head dipping onto Xie Lian’s shoulder. “It
doesn’t hurt to hear, though.”

“I’m sorry I keep falling apart,” Xie Lian half-whimpers, half-laughs. “I’m not normally like
this, I promise.”

“Oh?” Hua Cheng’s lips slide over the shell of his ear, making him shiver. “So normally, you
wouldn’t tell me you love me?”

“San Lang!” The scale tips toward laughter, and Xie Lian gives in. He looks up, blinking
moisture away from his eyes, and smiles widely. “Come on, show me the garden.”

Hua Cheng kisses him lightly, both their smiles getting in the way. “Yes, Gege.”

--

Later that night, after E’Ming has been ruthlessly evicted from the bedroom and Xie Lian is
yet again situated in his pillow fort, the aches of his body catch up with him, seemingly all at
once. Strangely, they seem to recede the moment Hua Cheng stretches out next to him.

Xie Lian smiles in the darkness, feeling himself quite the fool in love.

They have stayed away from all potentially-upsetting topics throughout the afternoon, but
Xie Lian is under no delusion that they can avoid them forever. Forgiving someone doesn’t
mean that their previous actions no longer hurt. Xie Lian has been on the opposite side of that
treatment too often to know that—when he accepts someone’s apology, and the person acts
like all pains and offenses are null and void, it’s a hurt in and of itself. He won’t do that to
Hua Cheng.

“San Lang?” he calls softly, knowing that Hua Cheng isn’t sleeping. “How are you? Really?”

To his credit, Hua Cheng doesn’t offer an empty reassurance and doesn’t answer at once.

“Better, now that I have you in my space,” he finally decides.

Where I can protect you, Xie Lian hears.

Hua Cheng shifts next to him. “I owe you an apology, too, Gege. I really shouldn’t have
yelled.”

“You were angry.”

“En. But my anger was misdirected.” Hua Cheng hums. “You never questioned my abilities; I
projected. It’s my issue, not yours.”

“San Lang, I am at fault,” Xie Lian insists quietly. “Maybe not for that reason, but—”

“No,” Hua Cheng sighs. “You were caught up in your reaction, but I was just as caught up in
mine. I knew what you were thinking of doing. I could have forced us to have a conversation;
I didn’t.”

“You wanted me to trust you with it,” Xie Lian surmises miserably. “San Lang, I did. That’s
not why—”

“I know,” Hua Cheng says. “It was… partly that. Partly my own stupid pride, but also…”

He’s quiet for so long that Xie Lian contemplates rolling over to look at him. He doesn’t—
that’s the shortest way to pull Hua Cheng’s attention from where it needs to be.

Eventually, Hua Cheng speaks, his voice softer and more vulnerable than before. “Gege, I’ve
been looking for you for so long. When I finally found you, and you were—not just near me,
but with me like that, I… I was terrified of pushing you away. I should have been fine with
just protecting you, I never would have asked for more, but you—you let me touch you. If I
was allowed to love you once, how could I stop?”

Hua Cheng sighs, the air nearly rippling with it. “I’m a selfish, greedy man, Gege. You let me
close, you asked me, and I—how could I miss even a second—”

Xie Lian would love nothing more than to let him close now, so that he’d stop saying such
things, so that he’d know he’s always welcome to anything Xie Lian has. His injuries are a
good deterrent, though, in addition to being a substantial torture device, forcing them to talk
it out.

“San Lang,” he breathes out, hot tears spilling down from the corners of his eyes. “I’m yours.
I hope you know. I hope… San Lang, you had me at hello. I—I only knew you for two days
before I asked you to come home with me. Don’t you remember?”

Hua Cheng sits up to peer down at him—close, but wary of disturbing the pillow formation.
“I remember. You were bone-tired and upset and not yourself.”

“And I knew what I wanted even then; I was just in denial.”

“Gege—” Hua Cheng sounds a bit strangled. “I could have been anyone.”

“But you weren’t,” Xie Lian insists, “you were you. I’ve never had a reaction like that to
anyone before. I’ve never been in love, San Lang, so it took me a while to realize…”

He laughs a little. “Now, looking back, it’s so obvious, I almost can’t believe myself. I’ve
been yours since that first night when you brought E’Ming in. There’s never… there’s never
been a moment when I wouldn’t have let you… do absolutely anything.”
Hua Cheng doesn’t move; only his chest rises and falls in even—too even—intervals, as if all
his concentration is devoted to controlling his breathing. “You are,” he grits out tightly,
“being exceptionally cruel tonight.”

Face on fire, Xie Lian tries to take his hand, but Hua Cheng’s fingers are curled too tightly in
the sheets. Xie Lian settles for stroking his hand gently.

“I’m sorry, San Lang,” he murmurs. “For everything.”

Hua Cheng looks to the side, his jaw a tense line against the backdrop of the arched window,
the gentle glow of moonlight streaming through the gauzy curtains.

It takes a long time for Hua Cheng’s breathing to start flowing more naturally. The tension
finally bleeds out of his hand, and he twines his fingers through Xie Lian’s, tugging playfully.
It’s Xie Lian’s turn to tense up. Even before Hua Cheng opens his mouth, he already knows
somehow that nothing good will come out of it.

“There’s another reason we didn’t get to talk that night,” Hua Cheng says, the smirk audible.
“Gege was... incredibly distracting.”

It takes Xie Lian a moment to process, then he blushes, trying to pull his hand free to smack
at Hua Cheng. Hua Cheng doesn’t let him.

“San Lang!” Xie Lian hisses.

“What?” Hua Cheng defends, Xie Lian’s hand between both his own now, caught tight. “My
incredibly attractive lover throws himself at me, and I’m supposed to think straight?”

“You—!”

Hua Cheng chuckles. “Gege, in the future, when you do something like that, please never
assume I retain any higher brain function. If you need me thinking”—Hua Cheng kisses the
center of his palm, then his wrist—“be as cold as you can.”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian utters feebly, finally managing to pull his hand back. They never used
to be this sensitive before. “Who’s cruel now?”

“Still you.” Hua Cheng grins and leans over carefully to press a light kiss to his lips before
stretching out on the bed again. In a serious tone, he asks, “Are you comfortable?”

Xie Lian wants to kill him. “No.”

There’s a pause. Then, “I meant your injuries.”

Xie Lian is grinning up at the ceiling, feeling both ridiculous and hopelessly in love. “I’m
fine, San Lang. Get some rest, please.”

But Hua Cheng doesn’t settle until he extracts a promise that Xie Lian will wake him if he
needs anything. Ridiculous man.
Xie Lian’s body aches all over, and he’s never been more at peace.

--

It takes a lot of... doing to get Hua Cheng out of the house the next morning. With Yin Yu still
stuck in the capital, his company can definitely benefit from his presence, but Hua Cheng
seems to turn into a bratty, sticky child who alternates between throwing a tantrum and
shamelessly pleading—anything not to be made to go back to school! Xie Lian doesn’t know
what to do with him or his own fond exasperation.

Except, when Hua Cheng finally does leave, Xie Lian starts missing him within five minutes.

Sighing ruefully, he folds himself carefully into one of the lounge chairs on the deck. E’Ming
pads over and rests his head on Xie Lian’s thigh, looking up at him forlornly.

“It’s because we haven’t had the chance to spend much time together, right?” Xie Lian
reasons, petting the dog who looks big enough to squash him. “I won’t always be so silly…
right? E’Ming, what do you think? E’Ming!”

E’Ming whines softly and sniffs at his fingers before sitting back and giving him a doggy
grin.

Xie Lian laughs, his ribs barely feeling it. “Some help you are.” He pushes the dog away
gently. “Go chase a butterfly! You don’t have to sit with me. Go on, go!”

E’Ming lets out a displeased noise at being ordered away and, instead of running off into the
garden, plops down on the deck a few feet away, giving Xie Lian a sad look.

“Oh, you’re as bad as he is,” Xie Lian complains into the air. “And I can’t take it from either
of you.”

He isn’t left alone for long, though; in retrospect, he suspects that was why Hua Cheng was
stalling.

The house is quickly alive with voices. Before Xie Lian knows it, Shi Qingxuan and Banyue
are rushing to him, accompanied, surprisingly enough, by a resigned-looking He Xuan, who
nods at Xie Lian from a distance.

“He knew the entry codes and volunteered to drive us!” Shi Qingxuan explains excitedly,
eyes roaming over Xie Lian’s form in concern. “Oh, Lianlian, what did you get yourself into
this time? You look all…”

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Xie Lian dismisses, easily maneuvering on one crutch to give Banyue a
hug. “I’m already so much better; I barely feel it!”

“Gege,” Banyue scolds, half-scared, half-angry. Xie Lian’s heart clenches. She only called
him that back when they had first met and she barely spoke to anyone.

“I’m all right, A-Mei, I promise,” he says softly, patting her hair. “I broke something and I
had to fix it. But I had a lot of help, and this—I know it looks bad, but it’s really not. Minor
injuries often look the worst.”

She stares at him distrustfully. “You’re lying.”

“Banyue—”

“You always lie when you’re hurt,” she says, mulish.

Damn. Xie Lian attempts to change the subject. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“Lian-ge!” Banyue glowers.

“But I’m really fine, though!” Xie Lian whines. “I’m sorry I worried you, but I’m okay
now!”

“Don’t worry, Yue-mei, Huahua won’t let him get into any more trouble,” Shi Qingxuan
intervenes, patting Banyue’s shoulder. They look back at Xie Lian, and a smirk promising
nothing good curves their lips. “Speaking of, where’s your boyfriend?”

Xie Lian blushes scarlet, shooting a look at a still-fuming Banyue. “Qingxuan!”

“What?” Shi Qingxuan lifts their eyebrows. “Are you still going to deny it? You’re staying at
his house.”

“I could just be a guest!”

“Hua Cheng doesn’t have guests,” He Xuan throws over his shoulder, heading for the
kitchen.

“Are you, though?” Shi Qingxuan asks at the same time.

Xie Lian wants the ground to swallow him. “No,” he finally admits. “We’re…”

What are they? It’s the third time he’s had to say it in front of someone else, and he still
hasn’t found a definition that fits.

Shi Qingxuan seems to have no such difficulties. “Oh, you’re finally together?!” They shriek
loudly enough to make E’Ming’s ears flatten. “Oh, finally, finally! I’m so happy! Both of
your pining was driving me nuts!”

Well, this is mortifying. Xie Lian can’t even bow his head to hide his face, the collar firmly in
the way.

Shi Qingxuan doesn’t stop fawning over the situation for quite some time, much to Xie
Lian’s embarrassment. At least it gets Banyue to smile at him, too, making the sacrifice of his
dignity slightly easier.

The three unexpected-but-very-welcome guests spend the entire afternoon with him, sharing
lunch that Banyue has to make, as the only one with somewhat-reliable cooking skills.
Later, after Banyue takes E’Ming out to play in the garden, Xie Lian tilts his head in the
direction of the kitchen, where He Xuan is still consuming the leftovers. Softly, he asks Shi
Qingxuan, “So how’s that going?”

Shi Qingxuan’s face turns a little wistful as they follow Xie Lian’s gaze. “There’s... progress.
We’re talking, as you can see. I’ve even managed to press him into admitting he wants to be
friends again, and let me tell you, catching a crime lord is nothing compared to that feat.”

From what Xie Lian knows of He Xuan, he’s inclined to agree.

“As for the rest…” Shi Qingxuan shrugs. “Time will tell, I guess.”

Xie Lian lowers his voice further. “You’re still in love with him.”

He wouldn’t have said that so easily even a month ago, though Shi Qingxuan had been the
one to tell him themself.

Xie Lian shifts a little in his seat. He’ll have to watch himself. Hua Cheng is a gift from he
doesn’t know what higher power; being with him doesn’t make Xie Lian an expert.

Shi Qingxuan smiles wanly. “I am. But it’s complicated.” They look at their hands clasped in
their lap. “I love my brother, too, you know. Yes, he’s been an ass, and yes, what he did was
monstrously fucked up, but—he’s still my brother. I might not speak to him for the
foreseeable millennium, but I can’t stop loving him.” They sigh. “When our parents died, he
took care of me. He was sixteen; he could have just left me with our extended family. They
punished me when I wore girl’s outfits and tried to shame me every time I didn’t ‘act like a
boy.’”

They shake their head, gazing unseeingly out into the garden.

“Ge wasn’t like that. He watched that I conformed in public—so that I wouldn’t get kicked
out of school and all—but at home, he never cared. He never told me I was… wrong for
being the way I was. And there were many other things beyond that…” They close their eyes.
“He took care of me. I can’t just… disown him. Certainly not now when he’s struggling.”

Shi Qingxuan glances in the direction of the kitchen. “Frankly, I can’t imagine my life
without either of them, Lianlian. But it’s a non-starter with He-xiong, and I’m… I’m so tired
of fighting.”

“I would hug you, but I can’t,” Xie Lian says.

Shi Qingxuan laughs, their mood instantly lifted. “And to think that you used to be so
skittish! You’d just freeze up and wait for your body to tell you it was fine—I remember! See
how far you’ve come! I’ve finally converted you!”

How could they not, with such a sunny personality? Xie Lian smiles warmly at his friend,
appreciative suddenly all anew of their company.

By design or accident, they leave shortly before Hua Cheng is supposed to come back.
“Hold down the fort a little while longer for me, okay?” Xie Lian tells Banyue, as she
gingerly wraps her arms around him. “I’m getting checked out in a few days, then hopefully I
can go back to work.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Shi Qingxuan drawls. “I doubt Huahua will agree to let you
out of his sight for that long. You’ll be a kept wife, Lian-xiong; just accept it.” They wink at
him.

“Please stop talking,” He Xuan mutters with a pained expression, ushering both Shi
Qingxuan and Banyue out. He then turns toward Xie Lian and says, with a complete lack of
inflection, “Congratulations; the asshole is your problem now. Break his heart, and they’ll
never find your body.” Before Xie Lian can say anything, he adds, “And thanks.”

With that, everyone sweeps out, leaving Xie Lian with more of whiplash than the fall out the
window had.

“And what about you?” Xie Lian asks E’Ming ruefully, settling back in the chair. He had
wanted to tidy up the kitchen, but he’s suddenly exhausted, and he has no intention of moving
now. “Will you rip my throat out if I hurt your master again, hm?”

E’Ming pads over to give him a highly offended look up close, then licks his fingers, before
curling up on the floor by Xie Lian’s feet. Xie Lian sighs.

--

For the next couple of days, Hua Cheng hovers, entirely unapologetically, which is both cute
and unnecessary. Xie Lian, meanwhile, is feeling better by the hour, to the point where the
collar starts to seriously annoy him. It’s getting frustrating that no one believes him.

He feels mildly vindicated when, two days later, Hua Cheng takes him to another private
clinic to be checked out by his personal physician. Doctor Yushi looks at Xie Lian over the
rim of her thick-framed glasses, making him squirm a little.

“You are a medical doctor yourself, are you not?” she questions. “What do you make of your
recovery rate, Doctor Xie?”

Xie Lian blinks. “Only that I feel fine.”

“Hm.” She turns back to the light screen where his scans are pinned. “These are from a week
ago; these, we just took this morning. Three of your ribs are visibly cracked here”—she
points—“and yet on these ones, there’s not even a trace.” Her eyes narrow. “Your whiplash is
gone, so you can take the collar off. Your shoulder—”

“Still twinges a bit,” Xie Lian says defensively.

“Yet it shows no signs of nerve damage, and with a minimal amount of physical therapy, I
estimate it will take no longer than another week for you to forget you ever dislocated it.”

Xie Lian bites his lip. “Um—”

Doctor Yushi doesn’t appear deterred. “Your leg will take a bit longer, but even so, with the
extent of the initial damage, I’m at a loss to explain how you’re nearly hopping around on it
now.”

Her dark eyes bore into Xie Lian, as if expecting him to admit he’s an alien. Xie Lian smiles
at her.

“Have you always been able to heal so quickly?” Doctor Yushi presses.

Xie Lian shakes his head. Apart from that anomaly with his heart, where it had stopped and
started twice in his life, he’s never noticed anything unusual about his physical reactions.

Well… Apart from the time when he was able to neutralize the drug in his body by
combining his own spark with the energy sealed in Hua Cheng’s ring—the ring that had done
the same thing for Hua Cheng that night at the club. Could that be—

Oh!

His hand flies up to his temple, where the white strand of hair has been slowly turning dark
again, the realization hitting him all at once.

He remembers, suddenly, that one morning when he’d felt fully rested for the first time in
years. It had happened after he’d fallen apart in front of Hua Cheng in his clinic, back when
they’d only just met. He hadn’t had the ring then, but he had… He’d had Hua Cheng, who’d
taken him home and, Xie Lian is pretty sure, spent the night holding Xie Lian in his arms.
The next morning, Xie Lian had felt as though he was twenty again, like he could move
mountains. He’d thought then that it was just the effect of letting go of some of his grief, and
it must have been, to an extent, but…

His mind flashes back to their trip to the capital and everything he and Hua Cheng had done
in the privacy of their hotel rooms. The first morning, and…

Xie Lian flushes. He may never have had sex like that before, but he is a doctor, or he used to
be, and he knows how bodies work. He should not have felt nearly as comfortable as he had
to run half a marathon. And then came the second morning, and his insane workout hadn’t
come back to haunt him nearly as hard as it should have.

He claps his hand over his mouth, blushing furiously and not knowing whether to laugh or
cry. Such a thing sounds like an urban legend, yet here are his scans, staring back at him in
mocking, irrefutable proof. He’s never felt so embarrassed and so amused at the same time.

This is not a theory he should share with any sane medical professional, so Xie Lian thanks
Doctor Yushi profusely for her time and recommendations and leaves as quickly as possible.
Having forgotten his crutches in his rush to get out, he blazes past Hua Cheng, who’s been
waiting for him outside Doctor Yushi’s office.

“Gege, wait!”

Xie Lian stops and hides his burning face in his hands.
--

He tells Hua Cheng in the car, once they are safely separated from the driver by a privacy
screen. Hua Cheng has to be even more patient with him than usual, since Xie Lian seems to
have lost all control over his body and keeps plastering his hands over his face or mouth,
muffling his own words even as he tries to get them out.

When Hua Cheng finally hears the whole thing, he stares at Xie Lian incredulously for a few
seconds before bursting out laughing.

“You mean to tell me,” he manages as he gets himself under control, eye glinting
dangerously, “that this whole time, I could have sped up your recovery, if I’d only—”

“You already did!” Xie Lian squeaks, pushing back. “San Lang, what are you doing—not
here!”

Hua Cheng doesn’t listen. He pounces on him like he’s starved, all hard kisses and rude,
irreverent hands, and—oh, Xie Lian had missed him.

He ends up straddling Hua Cheng’s thighs, arms looped over his neck, Xie Lian’s shirt
shucked up high and Hua Cheng’s nails scraping over his nipple. His lips seal over the jut of
Xie Lian’s collarbone and he bites down none too gently, making Xie Lian cry out and
instantly slap a hand over his own mouth again.

His body seems torn between surrendering to its instincts and locking down tight to stop
them. Xie Lian could never have imagined himself being so shameless—a part of him has
always judged people for doing things like this, even in movies, and here he is now, rutting
gracelessly against his lover with a whole other person barely two meters away from them,
just behind a screen that can’t possibly be all that thick.

Shame would have won out eventually, but Hua Cheng doesn’t give him a choice,
manhandling him roughly and touching wherever he likes. He only escalates after every half-
coherent admonishment that falls off Xie Lian’s lips, none of which sound remotely like
‘Stop.’

“I will never…” Xie Lian pants, as Hua Cheng’s hands on his thighs encourage him to move
up and down, “be able to… look that driver… in the eye. Ah! San Lang!”

Hua Cheng growls, fingers digging into Xie Lian’s flesh as he bites sharply under the hinge
of his jaw. “If you’re still thinking of others when I’m doing this—”

He jerks Xie Lian down roughly, making him suck in a breath. “What should I do to get your
attention, hm? Fuck you where he can hear?”

Xie Lian shudders, the crudeness of the words punching the air out of his lungs. Hua Cheng’s
hands slide under the waistband of his sweats, brutish and direct. His lips press over the shell
of Xie Lian’s ear. “Or should I lower that screen and fuck you where he can see?”
Xie Lian is shaking in his arms, biting his own arm to get away from everything, his whole
body doused in intense embarrassment and even more intense arousal. He whines pitifully,
not even caring.

“Oh, Gege…” Hua Cheng’s growl melts into a purr, hands sliding gently over Xie Lian’s
back now. “You like that. Gege, you should have said; I had no idea—”

“No, no, no!” Xie Lian shakes his head frantically, still hiding his face. “I don’t, I don’t, I
don’t!”

“Part of you clearly does.” Hua Cheng huffs in amusement, then kisses his neck almost
tenderly. “Don’t worry, Gege. I’m never in a sharing mood.”

Xie Lian keeps hiding, still shaking, and Hua Cheng switches to running soothing circles
over his back, sweetly kissing his neck, his ear, his temple while completely ignoring his own
straining erection.

“Too much?” he asks softly, when Xie Lian gets his breathing somewhat under control and
his thigh muscles relax their death grip on Hua Cheng’s hips. He hadn’t realized he’d been
clutching Hua Cheng like a lifeline.

“N-no.” Xie Lian shakes his head, finally lifting his head. He’s certain his face is crimson red
by now. “Just… unexpected.”

Hua Cheng hums thoughtfully, tips Xie Lian’s chin up, and kisses him, deep but very gentle,
insistent. Xie Lian’s body relaxes by increments until he feels himself melting into Hua
Cheng’s lap, his arousal a sweet, tugging ache, the urgency banked for the moment. He
doesn’t notice when the car stops, nor can he tell how long it’s been standing still.

Hua Cheng pulls back at last, grinning at him. “Shall we take this somewhere more
comfortable?”

Saving face is a long-lost cause at this point, but some reflexes are hard to fight. “Don’t you
have work to do?” Xie Lian asks.

“But this is work, Gege.” Hua Cheng pouts, his thumb rubbing teasing circles over Xie Lian’s
hipbone. “I’m helping you heal. Don’t you want to test your theory?”

Xie Lian groans, hiding his face again.

--

Getting out of bed the next morning is a chore for reasons that have nothing to do with Xie
Lian’s lingering injuries. Hua Cheng seems to have grown an extra set of arms in the night, if
the way he keeps getting in the way of Xie Lian trying to get up is anything to go by.

“San Lang!” He’s laughing too hard to really protest as he collapses back into Hua Cheng for
the third time. “You’ll have to let me up at some point!”
“Mhm,” Hua Cheng hums noncommittally, nuzzling his neck and pulling Xie Lian flush
against his body. “Five more minutes.”

“Hm, I don’t know,” Xie Lian sighs, pushing his hips back against Hua Cheng’s groin. “Will
you be happy with just five minutes?”

Hua Cheng’s hold on him tightens as he smirks. “Bet I can make you happy in three.”

“Cocky,” Xie Lian mutters, grinning, even as Hua Cheng wraps his hand around him. “What
kind—ah!—what kind of challenge is that?” he laughs.

“The kind where I get to do this,” Hua Cheng purrs, half-pinning him to the bed.

Xie Lian’s laughter soon turns into breathy moans. There’s something about Hua Cheng
moving him where he wants him like this, chasing his own pleasure, that undoes Xie Lian
completely every time. The feeling of being wanted like this—he’d never thought he’d have
it, and now, every single time it happens, a part of him freezes a little, afraid to believe lest he
spook it away.

“What must I do to get you to stop thinking, hm?” Hua Cheng murmurs over the slippery-
warm slide between them. “Perhaps, this?”

He rolls Xie Lian onto his back, pulls the sheet away entirely, and swallows him down.

It’s definitely over three minutes, but as an antidote for excessive thinking, it’s wondrously
effective.

--

Hua Cheng drives him to the clinic, but Xie Lian fully intends to walk in under his own
power, a simple cane in his hand instead of crutches. His leg is still giving him trouble,
though compared to what it was even just a few days ago, there’s really nothing to complain
about.

Something clenches in his chest at the sight of the beautifully painted façade, the building
seeming so small somehow, after just two weeks of absence, and so dearly missed. Xie Lian
grins as he takes in the artwork, and turns around for a moment to say goodbye.

“All right, San Lang, I’ll see you later ton—mph!”

Hua Cheng’s arm around his waist jerks him forward forcefully enough to unbalance him,
and Hua Cheng dips him slightly, taking his mouth in a deep, possessive kiss. Once Xie Lian
is allowed to be vertical again, he rests his free hand on Hua Cheng’s chest a little uselessly,
face flushed and breathing ragged—they are in public!

“W-what—” he stammers. “San Lang, what was that for?”

Hua Cheng smirks at him, entirely unselfconscious. “Just something to last me through the
day. See you tonight, Gege!” With that, he’s off.
Xie Lian blinks several times in bewilderment, feeling very much as though he’s just been
taken for a spin by a stray tornado. Shaking himself out of it, he turns toward the clinic.

“Good-good morning, Xie-laoshi,” Lang Qianqiu says, face red as an overripe tomato. “It’s,
uh… good to see you in good health.”

Xie Lian’s head whips instantly after the flashy red car cheerfully speeding away. Ridiculous;
Hua Cheng is ridiculous. Xie Lian loves him so much.

“Hello, Qianqiu,” Xie Lian says with a smile, firmly forcing down his embarrassment.
“Thank you so much for looking after the clinic while I was gone. Please, tell me
everything.”

Lang Qianqiu takes his cue and doesn’t comment on anything he’s just witnessed, instead
launching into everything he did while Xie Lian was away. The rabbits were mercifully,
finally taken home by their owner, and Lang Qianqiu had spent the rest of the time tidying
up, restocking, and studying. Hmm.

Xie Lian inspects the clinic, praises his accidental apprentice for his hard work, and makes
them tea.

“I think you were right, laoshi,” Lang Qianqiu says, looking unusually thoughtful. “I watched
some of your videos, and I watched you this whole time, and I think maybe dealing with
animals like that really isn’t for me. But! I think I know what I want to do now.”

“Oh?” Xie Lian smiles at him, curious. “And what’s that?”

“Medical administration,” Lang Qianqiu says decisively. “I’ve been doing some research, and
—laoshi, your place really can’t stay open if you only charge some people for some services.
No, no!” He lifts a hand up before Xie Lian can so much as open his mouth. “I understand
why you do it, I really do, but I’m just saying, there are other ways.”

He picks a folder off Xie Lian’s desk and starts pulling printouts from it.

“Like, these are three grant programs you can apply for immediately, and these need some
adjustments but are also doable, I think. Also, you absolutely need an actual apprentice—I’ve
gathered some resumes, and these are the ones Banyue okayed. Oh! And there’s
crowdfunding! You should absolutely be doing events, and reach out to schools—parents
would do anything for their kids. Ah, there it is—I drew up a pilot proposal for the next
quarter, so please look at it! Tell me if anything doesn’t work and I’ll change it.”

He looks up finally, having absolutely drowned Xie Lian’s desk in papers, seeming to be
working under the assumption that anyone over thirty can’t use a computer.

Xie Lian stares at him for a few long moments, entirely speechless. “Qianqiu,” he manages at
last. “When did you grow up?”

“Uh.” Lang Qianqiu looks down at his hands, blushing. “Please don’t take this as empty
flattery, laoshi. I know I may have asked to be your apprentice for the wrong reasons…”
His blush deepens, and Xie Lian feels mirrored heat rise in his own cheeks. Hua Cheng can
never know about this, or he’s going to be smug forever.

“But spending this time working here, seeing how much you want to help, what an impact
what you do has on people...” Lang Qianqiu’s tone is firm. “It made me want to be a part of
it, or something like it. Find ways for places like this to stay open and even be profitable.”

Xie Lian swallows. “I—”

“But you should absolutely hire me!” Lang Qianqiu says quickly. “Like, not for money, I’ll
volunteer! I’m switching courses and I want to make this place my graduating project—if
that’s okay with you, Xie-laoshi? I have even more ideas if you don’t like these ones!”

At the prospect of more, Xie Lian feels vaguely faint. “No, no; I’m sure we’ll find workable
solutions here. Qianqiu, this is excellent work! I don’t even know what to say—what you’ve
done is amazing. Thank you.”

Lang Qianqiu beams.

--

It’s a busy day. Somehow, the news that the clinic is open again spreads like wildfire, and
within an hour, Xie Lian is smiling, greeting some of his old patrons who’d missed their
checkups and welcoming some new ones. It’s as if all the animals within a five-kilometer
radius have suddenly decided that this is the place to be.

Many of his regulars bring heaps of food and stay to eat it, catching up with Xie Lian and
each other, which gives Lang Qianqiu an idea to open a clinic-adjacent café. Xie Lian could
give lectures on pet care there, and maybe—maybe even make it a cat café, or a cat and
rabbit café, though Lang Qianqiu still has a grudge against rabbits. Banyue, who comes in
just as he’s excitedly talking about it, instantly volunteers as its manager, and even Pei Su,
God help them all, looks interested.

Xie Lian feels a little—a lot—overwhelmed by their enthusiasm.

“I liked it better when you didn’t like each other,” he mutters under his breath, then says,
louder, “Banyue, I appreciate the thought, but we don’t have room, and anyway, getting a
license is complicated—”

“I’m not asking you to do it, A-Lian; I know you’re too busy as it is,” Banyue rolls her eyes.
“It’ll be my project. And as for room, the space next door is empty, and I happen to know the
landlord.” She smirks at Xie Lian. “I’m sure if I just speak to Hua-ge, we’ll figure something
out.”

Xie Lian gives up and goes to talk to a grumpy cat who’d eaten something bad. She, at least,
doesn’t harass him. At least Pei Su is now looking at Lang Qianqiu with the same level of
affection and friendliness as Hua Cheng usually does. Small victories.

--
Later that night, when he’s safely ensconced in the whispering quiet of Hua Cheng’s house
with only Hua Cheng himself and E’Ming for company, Xie Lian still feels... unsettled.

“It’s like they’re rearranging my entire life,” he says a little dejectedly, sprawled on the carpet
in the lounge as Hua Cheng helps him go through his PT routine. “And I—I’m happy that
they’re happy, but it’s just… I feel like I’m hopelessly behind.”

“Mn,” Hua Cheng hums, fixing Xie Lian’s knee in place and rotating his ankle. “And like
they don’t need you anymore?”

“Yes,” Xie Lian admits, though that stings. “Am I a horrible person?”

“Of course,” Hua Cheng says. “E’Ming, come look at the man who saved your life at the
expense of his own. Isn’t he just the worst?”

E’Ming trots over and plops down half on top of Xie Lian, pushing the breath out of him and
sticking his cold nose under his jaw. Xie Lian giggles helplessly, fingers sinking into thick
fur.

“San Lang! No fair!”

“All is fair in love and war,” Hua Cheng rebuffs with a smile, drawing Xie Lian’s ankle into
his lap to massage the tense muscles. “And it’s natural to feel the way you do, Gege. You got
used to your routine, and all change is painful, even when it’s for the better.”

Xie Lian pouts, playing with E’Ming’s ears. “I don’t like it. I must be too old to want change.
Am I too old? I feel old.”

The three-hundred-year-old fox demon stuck in the body of a twenty-seven-year-old man

who has his clever hands on Xie Lian’s body grins at him, fangs almost visible. “You’re
ancient, Gege, and yet I find you endlessly alluring.”

Xie Lian grabs a pillow from under his head and chucks it at him. Hua Cheng ducks.

“They’re not leaving you behind,” he says after a while, done with his massage and now just
running his fingers over Xie Lian’s ankles for the pleasure of it. “You get that, right? Gege,
I’ve chatted with Banyue extensively on several occasions. Her aunt and uncle are family in
name only; I’m fairly certain that if you hadn’t plucked her from the streets, she’d be in jail
by now, or worse. I know the signs, and she had every one painted on her.”

Xie Lian says nothing, staring at the ceiling.

“And Lang Qianqiu would just be another young idiot wasting his life finding himself.” Hua
Cheng makes a face. “Or whatever it is kids these days do.”

Xie Lian snorts.

“They have grown through you, Gege. But they’ll never grow so far that they won’t need you
or that they’ll forget the part of themselves that is you.”
“San Lang…” Xie Lian whines, angling his gaze down at him. “You’re not allowed to be so
sweet and wise when I’m sulking!”

“Oh, my sincerest apologies, your highness.” Hua Cheng ducks his head with a smirk that
promises nothing good. “How can I make it up to you? Oh, I know. E’Ming, stay.”

“What are you—San Lang! Stop this instant! Ah! Ah!”

But Hua Cheng doesn’t stop, tickling the bare soles of his feet mercilessly, until Xie Lian
weeps with laughter.

--

The next few days pass in a bit of a blur, a kind of something hanging in the air. Hua Cheng
drives Xie Lian to work and picks him up, sometimes bringing dinner they can share with
Banyue, Pei Su, and even Lang Qianqiu, if he’s around. Sometimes, Shi Qingxuan joins in,
and once, even He Xuan drops by. At that point, it’s a full house.

It’s lovely, and Xie Lian doesn’t understand why he’s feeling slightly more discomfited by the
day. He wonders if it’s the absence of news on Jun Wu that’s making him antsy, but he
knows, even as the thought occurs, that that’s not it.

It comes to a head on the day he closes the clinic early to go to another checkup with Doctor
Yushi. He rejects Hua Cheng’s offer to send a driver, saying he’ll get a cab. He takes the train
instead, feeling strangely displaced and an odd kind of miserable about it the entire time.

The checkup goes fine, though Doctor Yushi advises him to rest his leg more and to keep the
cane for a while longer. Walking to Hua Cheng’s house isn’t feasible, so Xie Lian does call a
cab this time. His frustration grows.

When he arrives, he finds Zhu Ling waiting for him, smiling sheepishly. He’s brought both
the things Xie Lian had left in the hotel room in the capital and Xie Lian’s longsuffering
missing bag.

“Thank you,” Xie Lian says, feeling, for some reason, even more upset. Rallying so as not to
let it show—Zhu Ling, after all, has done nothing to cause this—Xie Lian smiles brightly at
him. “Thank you, for bringing those and for shopping for me. I... appreciate your taste.”

“It was my pleasure!” Zhu Ling beams. “We should go again, together this time—you only
have a few things.”

Xie Lian’s smile wanes. “Well... I’m sure you have better things to do with your time.”

“Boss would give me free time in an instant if I said it was for you!” Zhu Ling insists. “And I
love having a project! Not to mention”—he winks at Xie Lian—“unrestricted access to his
credit card.”

Xie Lian laughs, but he doesn’t feel it.

--
Fortunately, Zhu Ling has to go soon after, leaving Xie Lian only with E’Ming for company.
His mind churns. The beautiful house around him suddenly feels stifling.

Hua Cheng loves having him here; there’s no doubt about that. But that doesn’t mean Xie
Lian should take advantage of his hospitality like this. He hasn’t so much as set foot in his
apartment since he returned, content that Shi Qingxuan is still living there.

He and Hua Cheng are… dating? Is that the word for them? So recently, too. Hua Cheng will
never tell him to leave, which makes it Xie Lian’s responsibility. Hua Cheng was probably
surprised but too polite to say so when Xie Lian didn’t go back to his place after he was well
enough to go back to work.

His resolve solidifies, and his anxiety settles somewhat at that. They’ll talk about it tonight,
and Xie Lian will go back to his place tomorrow. Then, they’ll be on more even ground, and
can move forward from there.

--

He does not anticipate Hua Cheng’s reaction when he says brightly after dinner, “San Lang,
thank you for having me here this whole time—it was very gracious of you. I think I’ll go
back to my place tomorrow, so you can have your house back!”

Hua Cheng turns white. He takes half a step toward him then freezes, looking tense as a
pulled string. In a quiet voice, he asks, “Gege, have I done something wrong?”

“What?” Xie Lian blinks. “No, why—”

“You want to leave.”

“I—no, it’s…”

“You hate the house, don’t you?”

“What? Of course I don’t! It’s beautiful, and—”

“Then, is it me? Am I…” He inhales. “too much?”

“No!” Xie Lian shakes his head, utterly confused. “You’re wonderful, San Lang—how can
you think that?”

Hua Cheng appears lost and still far too pale. “Why then?”

Xie Lian chews on his lip and has to look away. “Well, we’re… we’re… uh, dating? Right?
A-and—”

Hua Cheng’s eye widens, and the way he processes the information at lightning speed is
almost visible.

“Gege,” he says, some of his confidence returning, and this time, he does take a step closer.
“I’m an idiot; I forgot to ask you. Move in with me?”
Xie Lian stares at him. “San Lang, that’s not what I—”

“Your apartment is within walking distance of the clinic,” Hua Cheng says, running quick
mental calculations. “If that’s the issue, I understand, but you drive, don’t you? You can pick
any car you like in the garage; you don’t have to depend on me to drive you. And if you still
prefer to go back there, please—” He gazes imploringly at Xie Lian. “Take me with you? I
can move into your place no problem, though you’ll have to kick Shi Qingxuan out. They can
stay in Ghost City, or even here—they’ll look after E’Ming. But stay or go, Gege, please
don’t leave me behind.”

Xie Lian stares at him with wide eyes. “San Lang,” he says a little hoarsely. “I’m not going to
make you leave your own home.”

“Residence,” Hua Cheng corrects. “It’s not a home unless you’re here, too.”

Xie Lian has to gather his scattered thoughts for quite a while. At long last, head bowed, he
manages, “Doesn’t it bother you that…”

When nothing else follows, Hua Cheng steps a little closer. “That—?”

Xie Lian’s shoulders droop. “I love this house, San Lang,” he admits miserably. “It’s so
lovely, and so comfortable, and the garden… But it’s…” He can’t say this looking up.
“You’re paying for everything. Doesn’t it bother you that it’ll look like… like I’m using
you?”

A scowl crosses Hua Cheng’s face. “Who cares what it looks like? Unless—” He gently tips
Xie Lian’s chin up. “It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

Xie Lian doesn’t answer, pulling away from his touch and keeping his eyes lowered.

“Gege.” Hua Cheng takes him by the shoulders, his hold firm. “Please, listen to me.
Everything I have is yours. I wouldn’t have any of it if it wasn’t for you. I wouldn’t be alive
if it wasn’t for you.”

“San Lang, that’s—” Xie Lian winces. “You make it sound like you owe me a debt, and that’s
nonsense. Now I really feel like I’m using you.”

Hua Cheng stuns him by dropping to his knees, arms wrapping around Xie Lian’s waist, as he
looks up with the widest grin Xie Lian has seen on him yet.

“Use me,” he says, as if barely containing his excitement. “Use me, Gege. Use me for my
money. Use me for my power.” His grin morphs into an absolutely filthy smirk. “Please use
me for my body. I swear on my life, there’s nothing I’d love more than to have you use me
any way you please.”

Xie Lian can’t with him and has to close his eyes, biting his lip against a laugh. Hua Cheng
really is too much, but the worst part is, Xie Lian can sense the truth beneath his words. Hua
Cheng makes it look like he’s joking. He isn’t. Xie Lian has trouble processing that.
 “San Lang,” he murmurs, cupping Hua Cheng’s face gently. “I love you. I could never use
you.”

Hua Cheng pouts, but it only lasts for a second before his grin is back.

“Then marry me.”

Xie Lian flushes all over. “San Lang!” He smacks his shoulder. “Stop joking about that!”

“I’m not joking, Gege,” Hua Cheng insists earnestly. “We’ll have to fly out of the country for
it, but I promise, I’ll hold your hand the entire time—you’ll barely notice we’re in the air. Do
you have your passport? Doesn’t matter, we can get you a new one. Just...” He exhales. “Say
yes?”

Xie Lian stares at him, unable to utter a word. Hua Cheng waits with seemingly all the
patience in the world, but his hands on Xie Lian’s waist give the smallest tremble.

“San Lang…” Xie Lian sinks onto his knees, too, arms going around Hua Cheng’s shoulders.
He’s looking up again, and it instantly settles him. He smiles. “San Lang.”

Tension is obvious in Hua Cheng’s voice now. “Gege?”

Xie Lian’s heart is in his throat; he can barely find his voice at all. “San Lang. Do you mean
it?”

Hua Cheng swallows. “More than anything.”

Xie Lian can’t breathe. “Ask me again.”

The response is instant. “Marry me.”

Xie Lian almost can’t form the word over the smile that overtakes his face. “Yes.”

Chapter End Notes

Author's mini-theater:

Black Rabbit: Psst. Dual cultivation is not a joke in your verse. Did we forget to tell
you?
XL: Huh??? Dual what now?

😎
Author: WWX, get tf out of the chat, they can figure it out on their own!
Black Rabbit:
 Chapter 15
Chapter Notes

So, this only overran by some meager 80k ish, compared to my original plan. In my
defense, this was my first Hualian fic, and the first MXTX fic I had started, so I didn't
exactly know what I was getting into. I know better now.

Thank you all for taking a chance on this one.♥ Wasn't this a fun ride? 😅
See the end of the chapter for more notes

Xie Lian gets very little sleep that night, courtesy of his fiancé. Hua Cheng had been
excruciatingly gentle with him during his recovery, no matter how Xie Lian had tried to push
him. That night, Hua Cheng doesn’t need to be pushed at all, and all Xie Lian can think about
—in the brief, irregular moments when he can think—is what he should do to get Hua Cheng
into that kind of mood again.

There’s probably some deeply-revealing clue in how Xie Lian needs to be loved to within an
inch of his life for him to believe and accept it, but he spends the night far too high to dwell
on such things.

They are still a tangled, breathless, filthy mess by the time sunrise starts threatening the
horizon. Xie Lian is fairly sure that the last round was in the pool that Hua Cheng calls a
bathtub, but dreams and reality have become indistinguishable by now, and he no longer feels
like they’re two separate bodies.

When he is finally allowed to fall asleep, wrapped up in his lover, it feels like no time has
passed between the moment he closes his eyes and when he opens them again, to bright
sunlight streaming from the windows, E’Ming barking somewhere in the garden as he chases
butterflies, and—

Hua Cheng, fully dressed and looking disgustingly refreshed, grinning down at him like a
very pleased fox.

“No,” Xie Lian declares at the utter unfairness of it all and pulls the cover over his head.

Hua Cheng chuckles.

“I’m marrying Lang Qianqiu,” Xie Lian says sulkily from under the covers. “At least he
doesn’t laugh at me.”

The sheet is pulled away from his face so that he can fully appreciate the judgmental slant of
Hua Cheng’s eyebrow.
“Lang Qianqiu wouldn’t know what to do with you,” Hua Cheng scoffs. “That moron might
be finally doing something right to impress you, but he wouldn’t know the first thing about
how to handle you.”

Xie Lian fights hard to swallow a grin. “And you do?”

“I brought you tea.”

“... Should have opened with that,” Xie Lian grumbles and struggles to sit up.

Hua Cheng conscientiously puts some pillows behind his back before handing him a
steaming cup, still grinning in the most infuriating way. Xie Lian sighs. It really isn’t fair that
he should love this jerk of a man so much.

“Come here,” he murmurs, giving in, and Hua Cheng instantly leans over, taking the cup
back from him and kissing him long and sweet, even playful.

“What would you like for breakfast?” he asks when they pull apart.

Xie Lian picks up the tea again and hums. “Anything. French toast, although…” He can’t
stop himself from asking, “Those pastries you make, I’d love one of those now... but that’ll
take too long, right? Never mind then, I’m good with anything; it doesn’t… What?” He
narrows his eyes at the sight of Hua Cheng’s ever-growing grin.

Only then does Xie Lian focus on his sense of smell, instantly realizing, “You’ve already
baked?! San Lang, when? Did you—did you not sleep at all?”

“I couldn’t,” Hua Cheng admits. “I wasn’t tired, and…” He tilts his face away, subjecting Xie
Lian to the rare sight of color rising in his cheeks. “I couldn’t make myself look away.”

If anyone else had said that, it would have sounded incredibly corny, but Hua Cheng chooses
the damndest moments to be stripped-to-the-bones-sincere.

Xie Lian can only manage a breathless, “San Lang…”

Hua Cheng looks at him, his smile rueful. “The man I’ve been dreaming of for the better part
of my life has agreed to marry me, spent the night with me, and fell asleep in my arms. Can
you blame me?”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian protests, sounding strangled to his own ears. “Please stop saying those
things. I can never match you.”

Hua Cheng’s confidence returns, and he grins again. “You don’t have to, Gege.” He leans
over again to gently peck Xie Lian before getting up. “Stay as long as you like. I’ll go get the
second batch ready.”

Xie Lian can only helplessly watch him go. The tea in his cup, naturally, is perfect.

--
When Hua Cheng reappears in the bedroom some time later, he’s wearing a very different
expression.

“I’m sorry, Gege; Yin Yu is here, and he wants to speak to us both.”

Xie Lian’s insides instantly clench, and he nods. “Give me five minutes.”

“Don’t rush; he’ll wait,” Hua Cheng tells him with a dismissive scoff.

“San Lang, that’s not polite,” Xie Lian chides. “I’ll be quick. Offer him breakfast!”

Hua Cheng very visibly pretends not to have heard him as he leaves. Xie Lian grins, despite
his growing anxiety.

He takes a quick shower, scrubbing himself vigorously as he tries to find an outlet for the
growing tension in his limbs. His heart rate, despite his efforts, only accelerates. He brushes
his towel-dried hair as fast as he can and puts it up to be dealt with later. He doesn’t let
himself stall picking out clothes and puts on the first things he finds—the pants are his, but
the shirt is probably one of Hua Cheng’s. It’s fine. Poor manners or not, it’s not like Xie Lian
can shock Yin Yu at this point, and, taken off guard like this, he needs all the support he can
get.

His leg has been hurting less lately, to the point where he only remembers his cane as it gets
later in the day, collecting admonishments from everyone. Now, the pain flares up bright at
just the anticipation of whatever news Yin Yu has brought. Xie Lian picks up the cane
gloomily.

Before he can succumb to the temptation to slip into the garden, climb over the fence, and
run, he makes his way into the lounge, a smile on his lips. It grows genuine when he spots
Yin Yu; Xie Lian really does like him.

“Good morning, Yin Yu,” he greets and waves the other man back down when he tries to get
up. “No, no, please sit. Did you just fly in? You must be tired, and hungry. Please help
yourself to anything. San Lang, why didn’t you get him a plate?”

Yin Yu is sitting on the opposite side of a low table from Hua Cheng, and between them is a
breakfast spread worthy of a photoshoot. Yin Yu has very clearly touched nothing, and Hua
Cheng is glaring at him as if daring him to.

“He’s not hungry,” Hua Cheng says flatly.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian chides sitting down next to him on a low divan.

“Thank you, Doctor Xie, but I’ve already eaten,” Yin Yu says, expressionless as ever.

“Then some coffee, at least?” Xie Lian offers, fidgety. “You like it black, don’t you? One
moment.”

A firm hand on his shoulder pushes him down as he starts to get up. “I’ll get it,” Hua Cheng
grumbles, disappearing in the direction of the kitchen.
Xie Lian bites back a smile and, to his delight, finds echoes of it in Yin Yu’s eyes before he
quickly schools his expression.

“I’m so glad he found you,” Yin Yu says, utterly inflectionless.

Xie Lian grins. “Has he never brought you coffee before?”

Yin Yu’s expression turns thoughtful. “Hmm; occasionally, in the beginning, when there were
so few of us and we were all working 24/7. Now, he buys coffee and pastries for the entire
floor every once in a while, but his hands never touch anything and he acts like he didn’t do
it.”

Xie Lian smiles. That sounds exactly like Hua Cheng—kindness and care he’d never own up
to.

Hua Cheng reappears holding a coffee mug that says ‘Please go drown’ and hands it to Yin
Yu with a smirk.

Yin Yu accepts it like he can’t read. “Thanks, boss.”

“Yes, thank you, San Lang,” Xie Lian adds as Hua Cheng sits down next to him, closer than
before. Seeing that Yin Yu’s eyes are averted, Xie Lian leans in to press a quick kiss to Hua
Cheng’s cheek. “You’re a good host.”

Hua Cheng slants a look at him that says ‘I know exactly what you’re doing,’ but as Xie Lian
beams at him, he only sighs, visibly softening.

Yin Yu clears his throat. “I apologize for coming unannounced, but I tried to reach both of
you by phone last night and couldn’t get through.”

“Ah... I’m sorry about that.” Xie Lian blushes. Come to think of it, he has no idea where his
phone even is. “We—”

“We were busy,” Hua Cheng says curtly. “What’s the news?”

Yin Yu smiles. “We got Jun Wu.”

Xie Lian feels the floor jolt beneath his feet. “You mean—”

“He’s in custody. We brought him in last night.”

“How—” Xie Lian swallows. “How did you get him?”

Yin Yu looks at him. “Thanks to your actions, mostly. That hard drive…”

Xie Lian blinks, head tilting. “I used it as a dead weight. I didn’t think it could possibly have
anything useful.”

“Well, that depends on your definition of useful. There was nothing on it pertaining to White
No-Face’s operation, but did you know that Jun Wu prefers his scrubs custom-made?”
Xie Lian’s eyes widen. “He has an allergy to certain synthetic fabrics, I think. Sensitive
skin?”

“En.” Yin Yu nods. “We found the order code and were able to retrace the entire logistics
chain to a still-functioning facility. The bureau raided it the night before, and no one wanted
to give up Jun Wu at first, but then we left a few of them with Inspector Zhang, and—well.”
Yin Yu looks quietly pleased. “Now we have Jun Wu.”

Xie Lian feels an inappropriate urge to laugh but holds it back. No doubt he’d only sound
hysterical.

“And what’s he saying?” Hua Cheng asks, pressing his thigh harder against Xie Lian’s.

“Not much,” Yin Yu admits, taking a sip of his coffee. “He refuses to admit or deny anything
and insists he’ll only talk to Doctor Xie.”

“No,” Hua Cheng says instantly.

Xie Lian thinks about it for a moment, then affirms, “No. Unless there’s some information
you think he can disclose that’ll be vital for conviction—”

Yin Yu shakes his head. “Doubtful. Even if he denies everything, the bureau now has enough
evidence to bury him for a few hundred years.” He fixes Xie Lian with a look. “I’m afraid
you will have to testify, though.”

“That’s... fine,” Xie Lian allows. It’s the furthest thing from what he wants, but he has to do
it, to close that chapter of his life once and for all. He has to be the one to do it, or he’ll never
feel truly free.

He looks at Hua Cheng, who has said nothing and is watching him with a neutral expression.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian says haltingly. “When I go to testify… will you come with me?”

Hua Cheng’s face transforms with his own smile. “Of course, Gege. You won’t have to face
him alone.”

A huge part of Xie Lian instinctively balks at this. He can face Jun Wu alone. After
everything Xie Lian has done, he doesn’t deserve coddling or support, not in this, he has to
be the one to do this, and—

“Thank you,” he says instead.

Hua Cheng takes his hand and squeezes.

“The trial won’t be up for months,” Yin Yu says, setting his cup down. “It’s a huge case, and
the bureau will spare no resource getting ready. I’ll keep an eye on things.”

“Thank you, Yin Yu.” Xie Lian leans forward, holding back sudden, grateful tears. “You’ve
worked so hard, and I—”
“Doctor Xie.” Yin Yu lifts up a hand. “I’m the one who should be grateful. Thanks to you, I
can now say that I’ve helped put a monster like that behind bars. Not many people get to.” He
bows, still seated.

“Ah—please don’t—”

“Good work, Yin Yu,” Hua Cheng says grudgingly, cutting them both off. “Now, was there
anything else, or can my fiancé and I go back to enjoying our Sunday?”

Yin Yu looks up, eyebrows lifted, as unfazed by Hua Cheng’s rudeness as always. He glances
from one to the other. “Congratulations?”

Hua Cheng only nods, looking both smug and impatient. Xie Lian blushes deeply, shooting
him a reproachful look before smiling shyly at Yin Yu. “Yes, thank you. We’re… very
happy.”

“Then I’m very happy for you both.” Yin Yu gets to his feet. “There was, in fact, one other
thing. Please wait a moment.”

Xie Lian and Hua Cheng exchange a look. Hua Cheng shrugs slightly.

Yin Yu returns, bringing with him, of all things, a pet carrier.

Xie Lian instantly shoots to his feet. “Oh, who’s this?”

Yin Yu hands the carrier to him. “I met up with your friend Li Bao yesterday to give him the
keys to his new truck, and he gave me this for you. His cat had... offspring, and he wanted
you to have one.”

Xie Lian pauses for a moment, hands on the zip lock, and looks at Hua Cheng. “You gave
him a new truck?”

Hua Cheng appears uninterested.

Yin Yu nods. “He also pushed a few very lucrative contracts his way.”

“San Lang…” Xie Lian melts in a helpless smile. “You’re so good…!”

Hua Cheng sighs, looking very put upon. “Open it, Gege. Let’s look at the monster.”

Xie Lian unzips the carrier and peers inside. “Oh,” he breathes out in wonder as a pair of
eyes, one blue and one green, stare back up at him.

The kitten is almost pure white, with a dusting of peach at the tips of its ears and tail. It’s tiny
and meows quietly as it stares up at Xie Lian, who feels... enthralled. Gently, he reaches
inside and picks the kitten up, scared to even breathe too loudly.

“Oh, she’s so cute,” he murmurs, as the kitten sniffs at him, then settles down in the cradle of
his arms and starts purring without a care in the world. “Oh my God, San Lang, look! She’s
so adorable!” Xie Lian exclaims in a whisper. “She’s purring!” He feels delighted, as if such
a thing has never happened to him before. “Can you hear it? She’s purring!”

“Of course she is, Gege.”

Xie Lian can’t look up from the cat, but he hears the smile in Hua Cheng’s voice.

“I’ve never had a pet.” He laughs a little, lightly scratching behind the kitten’s ears. The
purring intensifies. “I’ve spent this whole time treating other people’s pets, but I’ve never—”

He jerks his head up to look at Hua Cheng suddenly. “That is—I’m sorry, San Lang, I should
have asked. May I—”

“Gege, this is your house,” Hua Cheng reminds him gently, reaching to tuck a strand of hair
behind Xie Lian’s ear. “You can populate it with cats floor to ceiling if you want.”

Xie Lian laughs. “I think one will be enough.”

Hua Cheng shifts closer to him on the floor and carefully offers the cat his fingers. The tiny
creature sniffs at his hand, then butts her head against it, allowing Hua Cheng to pet her, too,
the purring getting louder. Hua Cheng’s eyebrows rise in surprise and... He looks pleased.

“Don’t look so shocked! Of course she likes you,” Xie Lian teases. “What do we call her?”

“Um.” Yin Yu clears his throat. “She has a name, if you want to keep it. Li Bao said it was
Ruoye.”

Xie Lian blinks in response. “That man... should not be allowed to name anything.” He looks
back down at the cat. “But Ruoye it is.”

Ruoye rubs her chin against his arm and keeps purring.

--

The day is spent in a frantic visit to a pet store, where Xie Lian absolutely has to get half of
it, before going back for the other half because ‘what if darling E’Ming feels left out?’ At any
other time, he would be deeply embarrassed by his behavior, but today, he can’t stop for even
a second.

Hua Cheng exudes infinite levels of patience as he appraises cat toys critically, gives his
opinion on the properties of various cat foods, and carries bags without a single complaint.
Xie Lian wants to kiss him in the middle of the store, refraining with difficulty, but, by the
little pleased smile on Hua Cheng’s lips, he thinks Hua Cheng knows anyway.

Ruoye, fortunately, doesn’t seem to be afraid of E’Ming, and, equally fortunately, E’Ming
seems to regard her as his little clueless sibling and has no trouble babysitting. Xie Lian coos,
watching them, and takes about five hundred pictures with Hua Cheng’s phone.

The nervous energy that had seized him begins to wane as the sunset draws nearer. When
Hua Cheng softly suggests, “Gege, let’s take a walk,” Xie Lian just nods.
--

They go to the beach. It’s a little bit away from the house—or rather from the cute little
village, populated, to Xie Lian’s delight, primarily by Crimson Rain employees. Hua Cheng’s
house stands apart, a long way from the rest, but Yin Yu is their closest neighbor, and so is
the infamous Ling Wen, whom Xie Lian has yet to meet on account of her working always.

The beach is too remote to be popular, and the weather is still a little too cold to attract people
who enjoy swimming in the open water. The long stretch of sand is mostly deserted as they
walk, the setting sun coloring the receding ocean red. Xie Lian’s cane sinks into the sand, but,
unlike this morning, he can barely feel his leg hurting. Hua Cheng keeps him company but
lets him be, not trying to draw him into a conversation.

Eventually, they sit down on the slowly cooling sand, the rising night wind tugging at their
hair and clothes. Xie Lian is beginning to feel slightly chilled, but he doesn’t want to move
yet. Strangely enough, Hua Cheng doesn’t fuss over him, either.

“Gege?” he says softly after a while. “Are you all right?”

Xie Lian stares out at the milky-blue water that is slowly but inexorably turning grey and
wishes he could pretend he doesn’t understand the question.

“I don’t think…” he says slowly, feeling his way through the words. The day has passed, and
it’s time to face his demon. “I don’t think I’ll ever be... all right about this. It’s like I have two
different tracks in my mind. One is telling me that what he did… that it had nothing to do
with me. That it…” His voice drops to a whisper, and even then, it’s difficult to say, “That it
wasn’t my fault.”

He shivers slightly. “But there’s that other track, the one I’ve been riding for so long. And
that one says that I may not have wanted it, but it was because of me that my loved ones were
hurt, that my parents and that innocent man died. I was the one who brought him into our
lives. There must have been something about me that drew him in, and so…” He sighs. “And
so it’s all my fault anyway. If it wasn’t for me, none of that would have happened.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Hua Cheng says quietly, with conviction. “You didn’t ask for any of
that to happen, and when it did, you did your best. No one could have done more than you.
No one could have withstood more than you did.”

“San Lang—”

“No.” Hua Cheng’s voice doesn’t waver. “If you’re dealing yourself blame so freely, don’t
forget a dose of praise, too.”

Xie Lian closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he says, unexpectedly, “San Lang, I
want to visit my parents. I haven’t been to see them in eight years. I want to apologize,
and…”

He turns his head to look at Hua Cheng. “I want to introduce you.”

Hua Cheng nods. “We’ll go whenever you’re ready, Gege.”

--

Xie Lian doesn’t want to close the clinic again, so they go over the next weekend, having Shi
Qingxuan and Banyue look after Ruoye and E’Ming.

Surprisingly, Xie Lian doesn’t feel the usual tag of anxiety as he boards the plane. Hua
Cheng, who, true to his word, has fully prepared himself to distract Xie Lian throughout the
flight, looks almost disappointed. Xie Lian laughs. As is often the case with fear, once the
bigger one is overcome, any smaller ones tend to release by themselves. But also—

“I think it’s because it’s your plane, San Lang,” Xie Lian says pensively. “I feel safe with
you, so I feel safe here.”

This, at least, makes Hua Cheng look pleased.

They sleep comfortably through the night and drive to the cemetery after breakfast. The
morning is overcast, tiny droplets of moisture hanging in the air, though it doesn’t quite rain.
Hua Cheng carries the flowers. Xie Lian tugs the sleeves of the black sweater he’d stolen
weeks ago over his knuckles, feeling an uncommon sense of trepidation.

His parents are gone, and he still doesn’t know how to do this.

When they get to the site, it’s a surprise. Xie Lian had fully expected the graves to be mostly
neglected, overtaken by grass and weeds. It’s the reason they’ve brought gloves, cleaning
supplies, and a small broom. But, to his amazement, the two graves look perfectly clean, even
neat, with some dry flowers lying at the foot of each tombstone, as if someone had visited a
few weeks ago.

“I don’t understand,” Xie Lian says, staring at the graves blankly. “Who would—”

“We can ask the caretaker later,” Hua Cheng says softly. “Don’t be nervous, Gege.”

Xie Lian nods. Taking the flowers from him, he arranges them on two stone plates and lights
the incense. His mother had loved lilies. His father had never cared much, but did remember
that one detail to please his wife. The uncomplicated task done, Xie Lian kneels, the fabric of
his dark jeans absorbing the moisture from the grass. Xie Lian swallows.

“Hello, Mother. Father. I… haven’t been to see you before. I am a very unfilial son. Please,
forgive me.”

There’s a lump in his throat, and he can’t speak. He hardly knew how to speak to his parents
when they were alive—what can he possibly say to them now?

Suddenly, there’s a warm palm pressed against his back. Hua Cheng’s deep voice sounds
softly in his ear. “Just tell them what happened, Gege. They would want to know.”

Xie Lian nods at him gratefully. Hua Cheng retreats, though he’s standing close.
Haltingly, Xie Lian starts talking.

He tells them everything. Stumbling, and frequently out of order, intermingled with
apologies, confessions of his fears, his thoughts and how they differed from reality, and how
he hadn’t found out until only just now—he keeps talking, laughing and crying as his words
weave into an avalanche, a turbulent mountain river.

He talks and talks, only dimly aware that it had started raining in earnest at some point, even
though it hardly ever rains in the capital. Hua Cheng is holding an umbrella over him, a red
shadow over Xie Lian’s face.

There comes a moment when his words stop, when he can’t think of another one, and he
simply kneels there, his breathing uneven.

A bottle of water appears in his vision, which Xie Lian grabs and drinks gratefully. There is
so much moisture in the air that he hasn’t noticed when he’d become parched. He gives the
bottle back and steadies his breathing.

“Mother, Father,” he says in a sturdier voice. A helpless smile pulls at his lips. “I’m getting
married.” His smile fades. “Father, I know your views on such things, and I know you would
never have approved. But I like to think that maybe… maybe you would have changed your
mind at some point, down the line, when you’d seen how happy he makes me.”

He draws in a deeper breath, and his smile comes back. “Mother, this is my San Lang.”

Seamlessly, Hua Cheng kneels next to him, still keeping the umbrella over Xie Lian’s head.

“Mother, he’s—he’s wonderful. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Mother, he’s
so, so good. I know you wouldn’t have been able to say it, but I know you would have loved
him, and Mother, I—I love him so much. He’s so kind, so loving, Mother—he’s the best
person I’ve ever met. I’m so sorry that—” His voice catches, and he breaks down fully this
time, tears mixing with the rain. “I’m so sorry you’ll never get to meet him—”

Hua Cheng catches him as he falls apart, and Xie Lian presses into the already soaked fabric
of his shirt, clinging, his whole body wrecked with desperate sobs. He hadn’t known. This
grief he’d repressed so thoroughly—he hadn’t even known it was still there.

Hua Cheng doesn’t shush him, doesn’t try to comfort him. He’s a warm, solid wall of
support, withstanding the wave of overwhelming grief as it passes through him. He holds Xie
Lian up, careful, always, always so careful with his heart.

It takes a long time for Xie Lian’s tears to stop. He pulls away eventually, wiping his eyes
with his sleeve.

“All right?” Hua Cheng asks softly.

“En.” Xie Lian nods, his forehead hurting but his chest feeling strangely lighter. “Thank you,
San Lang.”
“Then, Gege, hold this for a moment.” Hua Cheng hands him the umbrella. Xie Lian takes it
automatically, frowning in confusion.

Hua Cheng turns to face the tombstones again and bows, forehead to the ground. He stays
there a handful of seconds before straightening up and speaking, his voice still soft, but very
clear.

“Mr. Xie. Mrs. Xie. I know that I’m someone you wouldn’t have ever wanted to see near
your son, let alone marrying him.”

Xie Lian opens his mouth to protest but, with great difficulty, manages to refrain. He had his
turn. He won’t disrespect Hua Cheng by interrupting.

“I understand,” Hua Cheng says. “In part, I even agree. The fact that I’m a man aside, I’m not
at all how your son sees me.”

Xie Lian has to actually bite his tongue to stay quiet.

“I am what I am, it is true, but I love him. I promise I will always take care of him in every
way he lets me”—his voices tinges wry—“and in a number that he doesn’t. His happiness is
all I wish for. And even if, one day, he decides to leave me—”

“San Lang!” Xie Lian can’t hold back at this.

“Even if, one day, he decides to leave me,” Hua Cheng speaks over him, “it will change
nothing for me. I will love him and care for him for as long as I breathe.” He bows deeply
again. “Forgive my presumption. Please wish us well.”

Xie Lian can barely wait for him to come up and immediately pulls at his sleeve. “How can
you even say that?” he reproaches, locking his eyes with Hua Cheng’s desperately. “San
Lang, how can you—”

Hua Cheng kisses him softly, one hand over Xie Lian’s holding the umbrella, the other gently
cupping his jaw.

“I never said,” Hua Cheng whispers, pulling back an inch, a smirk hovering in the corner of
his mouth, “that I wouldn’t do anything within my power to change your mind.”

Xie Lian doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Hua Cheng makes the decision for him by
getting to his feet and extending a hand.

“Come, Gege, let’s tidy up and get you somewhere dry. I think we could both do with some
hot tea right now.”

Xie Lian takes his hand, still raw and sulking, and wants nothing more than to never let it go.

--

The rain stops by the time they’ve finished, the sun peeking out through the clouds. They
both bow one final time to the grave and start an unhurried track back. A few moments later
though, Hua Cheng suddenly says, “Gege, hold on.”

Xie Lian stops to look at him. “What is it, San Lang?”

“I have something for you,” Hua Cheng says, looking uncharacteristically hesitant. “I’ve had
it for a while, but I couldn’t figure out the right moment to give it to you. I might as well do it
now.”

He hands Xie Lian a small jewelry box.

“San Lang, you didn’t have to get me a gift,” Xie Lian chides.

“Open it.”

Carefully, Xie Lian does. His breath catches. Inside is a pair of red pearl studs that looks just
like the one he’d had to… no, that looks exactly like the one he’d had to pawn off. He can see
the tiny scratch on one of them that he himself had put there.

“San Lang…” he breathes out. “How?”

“I knew what shop you went to when you had to sell your things,” Hua Cheng says quietly.
“You never looked like you cared much, except when you took these. You seemed… so sad.”

Xie Lian lets out a ragged sigh and nods. “They were a gift from my mother. My father threw
a fit when I had my ears pierced, but she got me those in secret. It had just… hit me then—
what a failure I was if, I had to even give these up.”

“Never that,” Hua Cheng insists.

“But how did you—”

“I tracked them down when I couldn’t track you down,” Hua Cheng says.

“I wonder if they still fit…” Xie Lian muses, pulling one out of the box. “Oh! San Lang,
look, I can still wear them!”

It’s a tight squeeze, after so many years of him not having worn any jewelry, but it works. His
fingers shaking slightly with excitement, he puts the second one in.

“How do I look?”

Hua Cheng smiles at him, tucking the box away. “They suit you, Gege. Your mother had
good taste.”

“It’s because they’re red, isn’t it?” Xie Lian laughs. “And yes, she did. My father called it
‘expensive.’”

It feels good to be talking about her, about them. It feels good to laugh.

“Thank you, San Lang.” Xie Lian leans against him, hugging him. “You’re too good to me.”
Hua Cheng kisses his forehead. “No such thing.”

--

Saturday is a good day to visit, and more people have arrived since earlier in the morning. As
Xie Lian and Hua Cheng walk onto a broader lane leading to the gates, they have to step out
of the way to let a tall, broad-shouldered man, leading a small boy by the hand, pass. Xie
Lian walks for a few more steps before he suddenly stops and then whirls in place—only to
find the man having done the same and staring at him, wide-eyed.

“Feng Xin?!”

“Xie Lian?!”

The next thing he knows, he’s being swept up in a bone-crushing hug.

“I can’t believe it’s you!” Feng Xin’s booming, laughing voice half-deafens him. “I know Mu
Qing said, but—but I thought you were dead! When Jian Lan had brought that paper and I
saw your face on it, I—!”

“I’m happy to see you, too!” Xie Lian laughs, patting Feng Xin’s biceps that are hard as a
rock and equally huge. “Feng Xin, I can’t breathe.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Feng Xin lets him go, grinning widely and looking him over. “You need to put
on more weight!”

Xie Lian rubs his arms, already feeling the bruises, and grins back. “I can’t believe you
became even bigger. How do you fit through doorways?”

Feng Xin laughs again. “I never skip on my strength training.” He smirks, then looks at last
over Xie Lian’s shoulder. “Uh…”

“Oh, sorry, this is San—Hua Cheng,” Xie Lian says quickly. “He’s—”

“I heard,” Feng Xin says as he and Hua Cheng look at each other. Feng Xin nods eventually,
while Hua Cheng barely deigns to tip his chin down.

“And who’s this?” Xie Lian hastens to change the focus of attention and smiles at the little
boy.

“Oh! A-Xie, come here!” Feng Xin orders, pushing the boy slightly forward. “This is my
son! Come on, greet your uncle. This is your uncle Xie—I told you about him!”

The boy nods quickly at Xie Lian, eyes wide with alarm, and runs to hide behind Feng Xin’s
back.

“Ah, sorry, he’s a little shy,” Feng Xin says, his smile gentle, his huge palm landing on the
boy’s shoulder.
“A-Xie?” Xie Lian repeats, a little breathless. It clicks. “Feng Xin, were you the one to look
after my parents’ graves?”

“Of course I was!” Feng Xin puffs out his chest. “They’re only a short distance from my
folks, and they’ve always been so good to me. Your father paid my tuition, and sure, he was
strict, but… he cared, you know? I have a son now, I understand. And you—what are you
talking about, you’re like my brother! Of course I’d look after them!”

Blinking back sudden tears, Xie Lian bows to him. “Thank you.”

“Hey, hey, what are you doing?” Feng Xin bullies him up, looking irate. “We’re family; stop
this!”

Hua Cheng makes some kind of indistinct noise behind Xie Lian but doesn’t interfere.

“Thank you,” Xie Lian repeats, smiling at his oldest friend.

“It really sucked to think you were dead,” Feng Xin tells him, expression turning gloomy for
a moment.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well.” Feng Xin shrugs. “Figured you had to. So, are you coming back now?”

“What?” Xie Lian blinks.

“To the hospital!” Feng Xin’s eyes alight with new enthusiasm. “I mean, now that Jun Wu’s
crimes are all over the news, you can come back! Quan Yizhen has already been reinstated,
and Mu Qing has been butting heads with the hospital board—what’s left of it—to have your
suspension overturned. I mean, it’s been, what, nine years? You’ll probably have to retake the
boards and start from the bottom again, but come on, since when has something like that been
a challenge for you? You’ll be running the surgery department in three years, tops!”

Xie Lian’s head spins a little under the barrage of information. “Mu Qing is doing… what?”

Feng Xin scowls, presses his palms over his son’s ears, and says, “The fucker’s feeling guilty,
isn’t he? The way he treated you after everything happened? Sure, now he’s saying that he
wanted to get to the top fast so that he could help you, but I don’t know if I’m buying it. He’s
always been jealous of you.”

Actually, that kind of scheme sounds exactly like Mu Qing, but Xie Lian doesn’t say it.
Ultimately, he finds that… he no longer cares.

“Dad, I can still hear you,” Feng Xie says, looking up at his father. “You called Uncle Mu a
bad word again. I’m telling Mom.”

“Betrayed by my own spawn,” Feng Xin grumbles. “Mu Qing’s been corrupting this child.”
He turns his attention back to Xie Lian. “So are you coming back? Mu Qing aside, I’m sure
you can get reinstated no problem.”
“Uh…” Xie Lian smiles wanly, utterly unprepared for this. “Well…”

“Gege, we have to go or we’ll be late,” Hua Cheng says unexpectedly from behind him, palm
pressing lightly against Xie Lian’s lower back.

They have zero plans that require them to be anywhere on time. Xie Lian looks at him and
smiles gratefully.

“Yes, of course,” he says. “Feng Xin, I’m sorry, we have to—”

“Right, right. We do, too, actually, if we want to make it in time for lunch with Jian Lan’s
friends.” Feng Xin makes a face. “Hey, you should come!”

“We have plans,” Hua Cheng says coolly.

“Ah, thank you, Feng Xin.” Xie Lian smiles at him in apology for Hua Cheng’s curtness.
“Another time.”

They finally part, after Feng Xin extracts a promise from him to visit and a shy smile from
Feng Xie.

--

The cemetery connects to a small park, and, without discussing it, Hua Cheng and Xie Lian
turn to enter. There’s hardly anyone inside, thanks to the weather and location, and the quiet
of it is a welcome balm to Xie Lian’s nervous system after an eventful morning.

Hua Cheng walks beside him quietly for a while, before finally asking, “Gege, do you want
to go back? Your… friend is right. You can get your old life back if you want to.”

Xie Lian hums. “It’s so weird. I never thought about it—this whole time, it hadn’t been an
option.”

“And now?”

When Xie Lian doesn’t answer, Hua Cheng prompts, “We could move here no problem, if
that’s what’s on your mind. I’ll find us a house. We—”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian interrupts with a laugh. “Do you know the hours new surgeons keep?
I’d never see you.”

“I can wait, Gege,” Hua Cheng says calmly. “If that is your dream, I—”

Xie Lian stops and looks at him. “It isn’t. San Lang, I—”

How to say this?

“I don’t want my old life back. I guess it had to become possible for me to see it.” He shakes
his head, pensive. “All I wanted was to help people, and I thought that becoming a surgeon
was the best way. But there are many ways, and I like what I’m doing now. I like that I can
help in ways I couldn’t before.” He laughs softly. “God help me, I’m looking forward to
seeing what Banyue and Lang Qianqiu will turn my clinic into. They’re family—you’re all
family.”

He sighs, wistful. “I want to see Banyue and Pei Su get together and then break up and then
get married. I want to see Qianqiu grow into himself. I want to rub it in He Xuan’s face when
he and Qingxuan figure it out.”

Hua Cheng’s smirk is fleeting. “And what about you?”

“Me?” Xie Lian grins. “As for me… San Lang, do you know, now that it’s not my only
option, I think I really like being that weird doctor who treats animals with magic.”

Hua Cheng lifts an eyebrow.

“What?” Xie Lian asks.

“You being a ‘weird animal doctor,’” Hua Cheng says. “It’s how I found you.”

“Oh?” Xie Lian blinks. “Yes, you never did tell me how. That night, when you brought
E’Ming in, you clearly already knew.”

“En. When E’Ming first got sick, I took him to that clinic on Main. There was… a little old
lady waiting in line with us. I guess she could tell I wasn’t happy with their treatment,
because she pulled me aside and whispered about ‘that other clinic’ run by ‘a really weird
doctor’ who refused to take money for emergency care and could sometimes pull off
miracles.”

“Huh.” Xie Lian exhales, something stirring at the back of his mind. “San Lang, was she
wearing a big sunhat, perhaps?”

“She was, which was why I thought she was the weird one. It was night and it was raining.”

Xie Lian smiles, shaking his head as pieces fall into place. He could be wrong, but… it
wouldn’t hurt to stop by the shrine and burn some incense.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng sticks to the subject doggedly. “Are you sure about this? I will support
you no matter what you decide.”

“San Lang.” Xie Lian pulls him to a stop. “This life may not be… what I would have chosen,
but I would have missed out.” He takes Hua Cheng’s hand. “I'm happy. For the first time in
years, I’m excited about the future. I can’t wait for it to start.”

Hua Cheng’s shoulders relax, and he cups Xie Lian’s face gently. “Then that’s all I need to
hear.”

They kiss for a long time, concealed by the turn of the path. When they finally pull apart, Xie
Lian can’t help but stare up at Hua Cheng, starry-eyed, as if seeing him for the first time—so
indescribably lovely, and so entirely, completely his.
 “San Lang,” he whispers, arms still wound around Hua Cheng’s neck, a slightly unhinged
smile he can’t fight taking over his face. “San Lang. My fiancé, my partner, my San Lang.”

Hua Cheng looks spellbound. “Gege?”

Xie Lian beams at him. “We have a cat and a dog to feed. Let’s go home.”

Chapter End Notes

Aaaaand it's going to be sweet and happy and boring ever after... or at least for a couple
of weeks before Xie Lian stumbles into some other thing... ;)

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! ♥

Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!