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Zhang Xinjie wasn’t sure what he was expecting when Huang Shaotian had called him up to ask him if he could come visit him soon. He’d checked his schedule and relayed the dates to Huang Shaotian who got back to him with his own availability and everything was soon in place. Blue Rain’s vice-captain had arranged everything quickly. Too quickly in fact. Quickly enough that Zhang Xinjie couldn’t help but be suspicious. He knew Huang Shaotian would deny everything if he asked, so he called Yu Wenzhou instead. Not that he expected him to rat out his long-time partner, but that didn’t mean Yu Wenzhou wouldn’t slip up.
“Is Shaotian visiting you? He hasn’t mentioned it.” Zhang Xinjie couldn’t help but wonder where Yu Wenzhou’s shiny reputation came from seeing as he was willing to lie to his friends so openly.
“It’s Shaotian, there is no doubt that he’s mentioned it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were upwards of twelve times.”
“Xinjie it’s been an hour.”
“Exactly. I know you know what he’s up to, he never plots without you,” Zhang Xinjie didn’t appreciate Yu Wenzhou’s mocking snort but he amended his statement nonetheless. “He never successfully hides his plots from you.” Yu Wenzhou makes a quiet pleased sound and Zhang Xinjie chooses to ignore the opportunity to bring up how indulgent Yu Wenzhou was, he still had his goal in mind.
“You’re admitting that your grip on your vice-captain’s leash is slipping?”
“I’m admitting no such thing, after all, Wenqing still comes to me for advice.” Zhang Xinjie can hear the mockery in his friend’s voice and resists the urge to go press Han Wenqing for answers.
“But you’ll admit that you’ve failed to tease out the truth from Shaotian?”
“No matter what you choose to believe, Shaotian doesn’t involve me in every single one of his plans. Perhaps you can find your answers elsewhere.” Zhang Xinjie suspects that Huang Shaotian has sworn Yu Wenzhou to secrecy and he suspects he doesn’t have anything of equal value to exchange so he gives in and suggests that Wang Jiexi’s surprise ambush still has Yu Wenzhou off balance. He gets an innocent reply suggesting that perhaps Zhang Xinjie’s memory has been affected by the blows to Immovable Rock and they pass the time peacefully like this for a long while.
Zhang Xinjie also uses the time to send off politely worded inquiries to the rest of Blue Rain and gets a series of identical responses that suggest that Blue Rain’s players do not want to put themselves between Zhang Xinjie and Huang Shaotian. He admires their survival instincts even as he frowns at the lack of any new information.
He can practically hear Huang Shaotian gloating about having outsmarted him. While Huang Shaotian doesn’t quite cherish outsmarting him in the same way he cherishes his victories over Yu Wenzhou, he does know that Huang Shaotian still records each moment lovingly. He knows this because Huang Shaotian had shown him the notebook, cackled in delight at Zhang Xinjie’s expression, taken a picture of his expression and then ran off to the protection of being at his captain’s side. Zhang Xinjie was still planning his retaliation. Perhaps an offhand comment about how convenient it was that Huang Shaotian had been at Tiny Herb that day the pillows at Blue Rain had been replaced by balloons.
In fact, Huang Shaotian had been hiding at Tiny Herb, leveraging a photo he had of Wang Jiexi to ensure his silence and sanctuary needed to pull off the prank. Zhang Xinjie was still working on finding out what photograph granted Huang Shaotian such sway over Wang Jiexi but his friend had stated that he’d suffered for the photo, meaning that he wasn’t sharing it with anyone. He suspected that if he collected enough photos of Yu Wenzhou that Huang Shaotian lacked then perhaps a trade could be made. During the incident, Zhang Xinjie had been sworn to silence, Huang Shaotian citing their great friendship but if he was willing to betray him with logging his triumphs, then he couldn’t be surprised if Zhang Xinjie retaliated. At least, that is how he planned to justify it to Huang Shaotian when he found the right moment to throw him under the bus.
However, despite the delight that came from plotting against Huang Shaotian and planning on ratting him out to Yu Wenzhou, none of this got him any closer to what Huang Shaotian could be planning. He was revelling in knowing something Zhang Xinjie did not, popping up every so often to see if Zhang Xinjie had figured it out yet and his delight was palpable when he learnt Zhang Xinjie was still in the dark.
Zhang Xinjie made a note to find out how Huang Shaotian had secured everyone’s silence, usually someone would have offered some piece of information by now, even if only to gain some gossip. Yu Wenzhou had joined Huang Shaotian in being impossibly smug and Zhang Xinjie made a note to plot with Huang Shaotian to get back at him. Perhaps after he threw Huang Shaotian under the bus and Yu Wenzhou carried out his retribution.
Han Wenqing had noticed Zhang Xinjie’s attempts to learn why Huang Shaotian had been so determined to visit in this particular week and had been especially stoic when asked. Zhang Xinjie came to the conclusion that he had also been roped into whatever scheme Huang Shaotian was concocting and Zhang Xinjie added him to his list of people to interrogate afterwards.
While Han Wenqing was often willing to play a part in Huang Shaotian’s scheming, rarely did he join in the schemes where Huang Shaotian pitted himself against Zhang Xinjie so openly, meaning there had to be something in it for Han Wenqing and he was determined to find out what.
However, for now, Zhang Xinjie was out of time and tomorrow Huang Shaotian’s victory was assured. Zhang Xinjie fell asleep, still wondering what Huang Shaotian could be up to.
Zhang Xinjie met Huang Shaotian at the station and to his surprise, his friend had a large suitcase with him.
“You didn’t mention staying for longer than a night.”
“I’m not staying for longer than a night, captain come help me this is so heavy, I need your muscles to help me with how heavy this is, Xinjie you can’t help it will ruin the surprise!” Zhang Xinjie watched, tilting his head to the side, wondering if he could figure out what Huang Shaotian was up to in these final moments. Yu Wenzhou helped with the bag and Zhang Xinjie scrutinised him, his friend clearly laughing at him but there was no other hint of what could be in the suitcase.
Zhang Xinjie hoped that it wasn’t something that would start a prank war, he knew from experience that Zhang Jiale threw himself into these with far too much enthusiasm to avoid getting entangled. He didn’t think that Huang Shaotian wanted to start a prank war, after the hair chalk that nearly had him transferred to Hundred Blossoms, he’d been far more cautious with his targets. Yu Wenzhou was far too smug regarding the transfer rumours and Zhang Xinjie still suspected he was the one at the centre of it all, but he lacked any evidence, something that Yu Wenzhou knew.
The mysterious suitcase wasn’t making any noise, making Zhang Xinjie deduce that it likely only had one item inside, but that didn’t help him much. He wondered idly if Huang Shaotian had decided to pack his snowglobe collection again. He knew from Yu Wenzhou that there was an ongoing battle to limit the number of snowglobes Huang Shaotian carried around with him.
Zhang Xinjie knew that enabling Huang Shaotian by frequently gifting him new snowglobes would likely backfire on him someday, but for now he was content to delight Huang Shaotian while revelling in the fact that Yu Wenzhou was lamenting that yet another snowglobe was about to go on frequent trips around China. He was particularly proud of the Swoksaar snowglobe he’d found, Huang Shaotian had raved about it for weeks and Zhang Xinjie knew Yu Wenzhou, he was too weak when Huang Shaotian was genuinely enamoured with something and Zhang Xinjie revelled in his victory.
“Neither of you are going to tell me what is happening?” Zhang Xinjie got a sunny smile from Huang Shaotian along with Yu Wenzhou’s familiar and infuriating calm innocence. “”Will you tell me how you secured my captain’s cooperation with your scheme?”
“Maybe it isn’t a scheme, did you consider that Xinjie? Did you think that maybe we aren’t scheming against you, maybe this isn’t a plot against you.” Huang Shaotian’s grin was far to knowing for anything he’d just said to be innocent.
“It may not be a scheme but you are undoubtedly plotting against me.” Yu Wenzhou hummed from where he was sat and Zhang Xinjie narrowed his eyes at the suitcase again.
“The suitcase has done nothing to you.” Sometimes Zhang Xinjie hated how observant his friends were and settled for glaring at them both while Huang Shaotian patted his shoulder gently.
“There is no need to be grumpy Xinjie, there is no need to be grumpy at all, just because I was too smart for you, smart enough to trick you, that just means that between us, I am the superior vice-captain, does this mean I can be a master tactician captain? If I won against Xinjie, that means I get to be a tactician now right?”
“If you continue like this I’ll tell Yu Wenzhou where you really were when those pillows burst.” Zhang Xinjie knew it was petty, but revelled in the way Yu Wenzhou’s gaze snapped to Huang Shaotian, cutting off his squawk.
“You are a filthy betrayer.” Huang Shaotian’s words simply washed over Zhang Xinjie, after all, he’d somehow secured Han Wenqing in his plans meaning that he felt no guilt over throwing him to Yu Wenzhou. Besides, from the way Huang Shaotian was squirming under Yu Wenzhou’s focus, this wasn’t much of a betrayal on his part.
Huang Shaotian was nearly vibrating when they reached Tyranny’s building, seemingly at the end of his patience for concealing his surprise. In his defence, he had been keeping this secret for over a week. Zhang Xinjie was mildly disappointed that Huang Shaotian hadn’t ruined his own plans slipping up like that but seeing as his loss was unavoidable now, he was curious as to what Huang Shaotian had been planning this entire time.
Yu Wenzhou led him away once Han Wenqing spotted Huang Shaotian and Zhang Xinjie tilted his head when Yu Wenzhou broke the silence.
“Will you tell me where Shaotian was when the pillows burst?” Zhang Xinjie took a moment to admire how persistent Yu Wenzhou was at gathering information that he could use to watch Huang Shaotian dig his own grave.
“Did you tell me what Shaotian has been up to these past few weeks?” Yu Wenzhou inclined his head as if to concede the point, mulling something over in his head.
“What if I told you the real reason Xiao Shiqin was in that fountain?” Yu Wenzhou’s voice was calculating and Zhang Xinjie willingly took the bait. Xiao Shiqin had been steadfastly on the reason for the photo of him sitting in a fountain, soaked through, with a resigned expression on his face, and he needed to know the true reason, certain it was worth selling Huang Shaotian out.
And it was.
By the time Yu Wenzhou had finished retelling the story, with a variety of reenactments that were likely exaggerated but had Zhang Xinjie laughing, Huang Shaotian and Han Wenqing had finished whatever they’d been collaborating on.
There was now a mysterious object under shiny blue fabric and Zhang Xinjie eyed suspiciously. If Han Wenqing had helped set it up, it likely wasn’t going to explode in his face, but it couldn’t be entirely ruled out.
“It’s not going to explode Xinjie.” Han Wenqing’s words were reassuring, even as they made Huang Shaotian squawk in offence.
“So mistrusting, after I went through all that effort to get you…this!” Huang Shaotian paused for the effect before whipping off the covering to reveal a stationary trolley. Zhang Xinjie’s lips curved up into a bright smile at the sight and Huang Shaotian’s expression matched his.
“For me?”
“Happy birthday! See I had to keep it a surprise because birthday presents should be surprises, at least that’s what you told me when I asked you what birthday present you’d bought for me and also when it was Wenzhou’s birthday. I know you were only saying that because you thought I would tell Wenzhou what you’d got him but I can totally keep secrets see! And you can fit all your fancy pens here, and your highlighters here, and it has a space for your laptop and you can colour code everything if you want to, it even has wheels so you can move it around when you have to give those boring training presentations to management, I’m a vice-captain too I know all about those, and I even got you Tyranny stickers, even though it was a betrayal of my Blue Rain to get these, it was still important to get these for you because even if you aren’t on the best team you can still have stickers-!”
Huang Shaotian was cut off by Zhang Xinjie sweeping him into a tight hug. After a moment of surprise, he wrapped his arms around his friend, feeling the curve of Zhang Xinjie’s grin against his neck and knowing that his answering smile was just as bright. Like this, Zhang Xinjie’s thanks went unheard by everyone except Huang Shaotian and he simply held him tighter in response.
So maybe Zhang Xinjie hadn’t managed to deduce Huang Shaotian’s plot, but he was willing to cede the victory, just this once.