Chapter Text
--
Xiaoxiao doesn’t remember much of before. Dark wooden floors. Kneeling. A swish of white robe. The sound of falling water. The moisture in the air. A sweet calming melody.
The melody, he thinks, had been played for him every night to make him sleep easier. Sometimes it didn’t work, but that was okay, because someone was there. A reassuring hand in his, a soothing voice, not much different from his own.
A brother. He thinks he had a brother once. He doesn’t remember a face or a name, but there’s a feeling that lingers—a warm presence, a protective wall between him and the world. Someone who always listens to all his troubles, big or small, and doesn’t laugh.
Xiaoxiao may have imagined him. After all, he doesn’t remember even his own name. He just knows it’s not Xiaoxiao, though how he knows this, he couldn’t say. All he’s ever truly known is this run-of-the-mill brothel tucked away in the no man’s land between Yiling and Yunmeng, the faces of his jiejies, their voices calling out at all hours.
“Bring more water for our bath, Xiaoxiao!”
“More wine, Xiaoxiao!”
“Can’t you see our esteemed guest is hungry? Run to the kitchens, double-quick, Xiaoxiao!”
Xiaoxiao runs. He fetches, pours, cleans. He bows all the time. He tries not to run into Madam Ji too often, but it’s her brothel, so that, of course, isn’t possible. She always finds some fault with him and always metes out punishment. Usually, it’s her hand across his cheeks, but sometimes, when she’s not busy, it’s beating sticks across his back. Sometimes it’s dunking his head in ice-cold water.
“Cry! Just cry, damn you, and I’ll stop!” she usually yells at some point, frustrated with him.
Xiaoxiao doesn’t cry. There is something about this, taking punishment, weathering pain silently, that he can’t let go of. Doesn’t want to. Something that whispers to him, ‘Hold on. Hold on. This is yours’. If pain is what he’s earned, then pain is what he’ll take. There is no injustice here to protest. If he hadn’t earned it, he wouldn’t be here.
This is the life he knows. He’s a branded slave of Madam Ji’s brothel. He’s six or seven—so he’s been told. Nobody knows who his parents were. He was spare change, left to Madam Ji as payment when a passing trader had been short on silver. He’s been here ever since.
It’s not bad. He has a cot in the shed near the kitchen with the other serving boys, so he’s usually not in danger of freezing in winter. He’s fed twice a day, and it might not be appetizing or elaborate, but it’s sufficient. He doesn’t talk much, but he’s not expected to. He’s supposed to blend in with the walls, and he usually excels at it.
Until the night comes when he doesn’t anymore, and that’s when everything changes.
--
He pours wine for Zhao-jie’s guest, a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing soldier’s attire. A captain perhaps. Xiaoxiao has never seen their brothel visited by someone ranked higher. He pours with a practiced hand, hoping to have a moment to himself between his tasks. Ling-jie is playing qin in the common room. She keeps missing the right notes, and her instrument is old and improperly tuned—though how he knows this Xiaoxiao can’t say, he just does—but it’s music. Xiaoxiao only ever feels himself alive when he hears music.
He's about to bow and retreat when a big hand clasps his wrist. He looks up, startled, to find the man’s eyes on him.
“Such a pretty face,” the captain murmurs, staring at Xiaoxiao with glazed-over eyes. Xiaoxiao goes cold. He’s seen that look many times, but never directed at himself. “Is he old enough to entertain, love?” the captain asks Zhao-jie.
“Xiaoxiao?” Zhao-jie laughs, looking at him. “Still a little young, Madam said, but soon, I think.”
“Look at that skin, smooth as jade,” the captain says, his free hand sliding over Xiaoxiao’s cheek.
Xiaoxiao shudders in revulsion, and tries to pull away before he knows it, but the man laughs and keeps him in place, his grip becoming punishing.
“Shall I book you in advance, little jade?” he muses, his hand slipping into Xiaoxiao’s hair now. “So pretty. Might have to get in early to beat the competition.”
Xiaoxiao only has a vague notion of what he’s talking about. Having grown up here, he’s had a comprehensive education between all the things he’d heard and seen. He knows what sex is, knows that men come here to get it, usually with one of the jiejies, but Madam Ji does have a couple of cutsleeves in the house. Xiaoxiao knows men do that with each other, too, sometimes, but he doesn’t know how, had never wondered.
The captain tells him how. In excruciating detail. He makes Xiaoxiao stand there as he disrobes, shamelessly, until he’s completely naked. He strokes his organ, huge to Xiaoxiao’s eyes, in front of the boy and explains exactly where it would go. Xiaoxiao feels his stomach lurch, and only barely manages to keep from retching.
The captain laughs at him then, and finally dismisses him, turning instead to Zhao-jie. As Xiaoxiao dashes out of the room, he hears, “So damn pretty, better than a girl.”
Xiaoxiao all but falls down the stairs, finds his way by touch until he burst out into the backyard, trips toward the bushes, and vomits, and vomits. His whole body is shaking when he’s done, when there’s nothing left in him to throw up, just bile. He’s shaking so hard, he can’t stand, can barely sit.
A voice rings in his head, a voice that might have belonged to someone a long time ago. ‘Sit properly! Hold your back straight! Slouching is undignified!’ He can almost hear the swish of a bamboo stick accompanying each command.
He tries to sit up straight, but he’s nearly convulsing. He’s so cold. It’s not a cold night, and he’s dressed in his warmest set of clothes, but he feels as if he’s freezing.
He makes himself stand at long last and moves on shaky legs towards the rainwater basin that Madam Ji likes to dunk his head in. He washes his mouth and face with unsteady hands. Shameful. Must have better control. He doesn’t know where commands are coming from, but he’s grateful for them. It almost feels like a phantom touch, as if someone is there with him.
He sits on the cold ground and tries to think. Maybe, the captain is just one of those perverted men. Like the other guest who tells the jiejie to beat him, or the one who likes to tie jiejie up. Maybe it was just a prank. It’s not like Xiaoxiao understands these things. He has always known that his sense of what’s funny isn’t like other people’s. Jokes, sarcasm, even flirtation—those are all things he struggles to understand, even just observing. Maybe it was just a joke.
‘Still a little young, Madam said, but soon…’
Madam said.
Madam said.
Cold sweat breaks out on his forehead. Madam Ji hates him. Madam Ji always complains he’s useless, that he’s eating her food and earning nothing. Madam Ji… would absolutely do it.
Xiaoxiao starts shaking again. How naïve he was to think he could be a servant forever. He just assumed that if he behaved well, if he did everything asked of him, if he learned to anticipate Madam Ji’s orders, sooner or later, she’d accept him as is. Maybe then, he’d tell her that he can read, and, if he practiced, probably write as well, and then he could be useful in other ways, and maybe get permission to visit the book store, and…
His chest burns with something, and he realizes it’s a stifled laugh. Xiaoxiao never laughs, never wants to. Something is probably terribly broken in his head if he wants to laugh now.
So that’s how it is. Madam Ji had only been lenient with him, because she was waiting for him to turn profitable. Her beatings, while painful and severe, never left permanent damage. She was preserving his looks.
Xiaoxiao’s mind starts churning. If it’s his prettiness that is the problem, he can deal with it. He knows just what to do.
Somewhere in his lower belly, something sparks for a moment, gentle and golden, warming him up. Decided, Xiaoxiao springs to his feet and dashes out of the house.
--
Xiaoxiao knows the town really well. His mornings usually begin with household chores—bringing water, chopping wood, washing the floors and linens. In the evenings, later into the night, he’s serving and fetching. And in-between, the sisters send him out all over town for errands. Xiaoxiao doesn’t talk much, but he hears things, and remembers a lot without trying. He knows just where to go.
The dark jie lives at the outskirts of town in a half-crumbled hut. Most people simply call her a witch. Xiaoxiao overheard rumors of evil spell work and resentful energy spilling from the place. The whispers were usually frightened and angry, someone promising to complain to the first decent cultivator passing through. Xiaoxiao prays that no one has done so yet.
He’s in luck. As he nears the hut, he can see a weak light through the only remaining window. It’s an ominous sight, but he doesn’t feel much fear. Apprehension, perhaps, at the need to talk and make himself clear. He’s not always understood, no matter how hard he’s trying. He has to be extra clear now. He tries to rehearse the words in his head, but he’s running, and he’s still shaken, and afraid to get caught. It makes it hard to concentrate.
He knocks on the door, too forceful in his panic, arms too strong with the amount of physical work he’s been doing, eyes too dry with lack of sleep and nerves. He’s shaking like a leaf, he realizes. Very unbecoming.
The door swings open and a woman dressed all in black appears, staring down at him with a frown.
“What the hell do you want, kid?”
Xiaoxiao’s heart plummets, his palms grow wet, but he manages to lift his chin up and shouts, too loud again in his fear to stay silent and not be able to say anything at all.
“I need you to make me ugly!”
--
The dark jie turns out less evil and more concerned with consequences than any true dark cultivator, never mind a proper witch, has any business being. She explains again, and again, and again, until Xiaoxiao begins to lose patience.
“Unless you want me to maim you, kid, which I won’t do, don’t ask, something like this can only be done by a curse. A powerful curse—do you get it? So powerful, you probably won’t be ever able to break it. What if you change your mind, huh? Life isn’t easy for ugly people.”
Xiaoxiao bristles impatiently. Life isn’t easy for beautiful people, either. Maybe if they are rich and protected, maybe if he were the emperor’s son—or, better yet, if he belonged to a powerful cultivation clan, the true royalty of the land, maybe then he could have been beautiful and have it easy. But like this, beauty itself is a curse. He’s a branded slave. If he runs away, they’ll look for him, and when he’s caught, they’ll kill him. There’s no escape for him, not from any of this. His only hope is—
“Make me so ugly that no one will ever want me,” he says. “Please.”
“Oh hell, kid,” the dark jie sighs. “Have you even seen yourself? Do you know just how beautiful you are? What you’re asking me to take away?”
Xiaoxiao nods stubbornly. “Do it. You can’t refuse any honest request put to you. I heard.”
She glares at him. “You hear too much. Fine. If you’re that stupid, why do I bother. Sit here. I need to look something up.”
“Do not try to trick me,” Xiaoxiao warns. “I can tell.”
He doesn’t talk too much, so people frequently think he’s stupid. Best disabuse her of any such notion. The dark jie only shakes her head and disappears further into the hut. When she comes back, she’s holding an old leather-bound book in her hand, leafing through it with a frown.
“Well, this one would work,” she says, pausing at a page. “But it’s one of them, true love curses. They are literally unbreakable, no cheating your way around them. And I know it sounds romantic and all, but do you know how many people actually meet their true love? I’ll give you a hint, kid, not that many.”
“What’s the curse?” Xiaoxiao asks.
“I’ll take away your true appearance, your beauty with it. It will only return when someone will fall in love with you as you are.”
Xiaoxiao thinks about this. His priority is to get rid of his pesky beauty so as not to be an object of lust. That hasn’t changed. He hadn’t thought much about his life from this point onwards. Falling in love sounds like an abstract concept, nowhere near as important as being safe from lecherous men.
But now that he does think about it… doesn’t it sound about right? If someone would only love him because he’s beautiful, what would such love be worth? He doesn’t want it.
“It’s fine,” he says. “Do it.”
“Kid.” She sighs again, snapping her book shut. “And what about finding your family? You said you didn’t know who they were. Didn’t it occur to you that you might look like someone? That they would recognize you if they met you? I’ll be taking that away, too. Forever.”
That, for the first time, gives him pause. Like every lost child, he dreams about finding his parents. His family. The brother that he’d possibly imagined. He never thought about simply being recognized. Could that really happen—
But no. For one thing, he can never leave Madam Ji’s brothel. It’s not like he’d be able to travel the country. For another, people don’t always look like one another when they are related. The cook is Madam Ji’s own sister, and no one would have ever guessed.
Most importantly, though—and he doesn’t like to think about it, but it doesn’t make it less true. What if there’s no one to look for? What if they’re all dead? Why else would he have been abandoned? And worse yet—what if they aren’t dead, but aren’t looking for him, because they don’t want him? What if they’d left him on purpose because there’s something wrong with him? What would be the point of finding them then?
“Ridiculous,” he whispers, his voice breaking shamefully. “I said, do it. You can’t refuse.”
It feels wrong using this against her, but he has no choice. He’ll try to make what amends he can for forcing her hand when he’s no longer desperate. Maybe she would appreciate her roof being fixed. Xiaoxiao is handy with the tools.
“Fine,” she snaps, not sounding appreciative at all. Xiaoxiao realizes with regret that he has forgotten to speak aloud again. “I’ll do it. But when you find yourself cursing me for having done this to you, remember that it was your idea!”
Xiaoxiao nods somberly and closes his eyes.
--
By the time Xiaoxiao makes it back to the brothel, his absence has long been discovered. He knows he’s in for a beating and is prepared to submit to it. It was worth it. He touches his new face, still unable to believe it. So worth it.
He’s not prepared for the way Madam Ji screams.
“What—what—what is this?! What monster is—get away from me! Get away! What have you done with that useless trash Xiaoxiao?! Why are you wearing his clothes?!”
Xiaoxiao blinks. Surely, he’s not entirely unrecognizable? The dark jie let him look in the mirror, and, while his appearance had definitely changed, it wasn’t enough to mistake him for a different person… was it?
But all the jiejies and other servants who came running attracted by the sounds of Madam Ji’s shrieks are gaping at him with various degrees of disgust and horror. No recognition.
He catches a glimpse of himself in the polished surface of a silver plate. His body hasn’t changed, for which he is glad. He needs it. His face… His eyes that used to be clear and light are now mud-color, smaller, and uneven, the left noticeably bigger than the right. He can see just fine. His nose is now too big for his face, a mess of sharp-angled, broken lines. He can breathe just fine. His cheeks are marred with bright red scars, misshapen, like someone had tried to scratch a dirty word into his skin when he’d only been born but had stopped midway. They should have faded into white by now, but Xiaoxiao knows they never will. There’s no loss of mobility in his facial muscles. His lips are now thin, dry, and pale. It wasn’t as if he was known for his smiling.
He’s not a pleasing sight by any means, which is what he’d wanted, but he doesn’t think he’s actually scary. People have strong aversion to visible scars, of course, particularly on the face, but—
“Out!” Madam Ji shrieks, hurting his eardrums. “Out, monster! Now! Never show your ugly face here again! Out! Get out!”
She’s wielding the closest thing she could reach—a butcher’s knife, rough steel glinting menacingly in the candlelight. Behind her, the jiejies and servants all reach for some kind of weapon, whatever happens to be nearby—a broom, a pan. Many are making signs to banish evil spirits.
It’s too much for Xiaoxiao. He never liked being the center of attention, crumbled under it, couldn’t wait to get away. But he’d never had that much murderous intent focused on him. Worst of all are Madam Ji’s shrieks—they are a weapon in itself, the shrill, discordant sounds piercing through him, burning like acid. A wave of noise begins to rise in his ears, his vision begins to blur, and his body starts going numb. Another second, and he’ll collapse, and then they’ll have him, and—
His lower belly pulses suddenly with something warm and golden, helping him center himself for a crucial instant, maintain control over his failing body.
Run! flashes like a bolt of lightning in his mind.
Xiaoxiao runs. Breaks away from the crowd closing in on him, ducks under someone’s arm, pushes at someone’s knee, hears gasps and curses behind him, feels something heavy knock into him from behind, nearly bringing him to the ground, but he keeps his feet stubbornly until he reaches the door, and then he runs, and runs, and runs.
--
Yiling is cold in winter. Snowfall isn’t heavy, but it stays on the ground, the streets, the buildings frozen through, solid. It’s not a particularly beautiful place, nor is it overly ugly—just unwelcoming. It’s as good a place as any to die, Xiaoxiao thinks, his thoughts slow and numb, reluctant.
It’s been a month since Madam Ji had chased him out of her brothel. Xiaoxiao had made his way here not with anything resembling purpose, but simply running away from the next person who’d kicked him, and the next, and the next. Avoiding soldiers was a high priority.
‘Life isn’t easy for ugly people’ wasn’t a joke, he finds out. No one wants to give him any work, people turn to strike him the moment he shows his face. When he begs for food, it’s even worse. Begging requires talking, and he could barely manage before, when it wasn’t something so humiliating, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. Whether he talks or not, nobody’s taking pity on him. He’s so ugly, people think he’s a demon. He becomes increasingly familiar with the ward-off-evil signs. He wants to tell them that those signs are useless, though how he knows this, he couldn’t tell either. It’s not like anyone would listen to him anyway.
When he hunts for scraps behind tea houses and restaurants, he’s in an unfair competition with the other street rats. They always come in gangs, and they always beat him up. Once or twice, he deliberately leaves the food for them, asks, haltingly, barely able to push the words out, if he could join them. He’d spent a day and a night rehearsing the words, training himself to speak.
They throw rocks at him. Hungry as they are, they don’t touch the food he touched. Xiaoxiao stops trying.
By the time he makes it to Yiling proper, he shouldn’t be alive by all rights. He’s been hungry for so long, he almost doesn’t feel it anymore. His clothes aren’t as filthy as they could have been—he’d washed them in the freezing-cold stream on the way. He can’t stand being dirty; it’s worse than hunger for whatever reason, the crawling sensation of grime on his skin, unbearable where his empty stomach doesn’t bother him as much. But relatively clean or not, his clothes are too thin for winter and torn in many places. He’s perpetually cold.
He should be dead. The thought doesn’t elicit any emotion from him. It just is.
Yiling is quiet. Due to winter or for some other reason, Xiaoxiao doesn’t know. The people are quiet, even the vendors don’t shout as loudly trying to lure in customers. The dogs…
The dogs are not quiet. There are entire packs of them, roaming the streets, wild with hunger. The other day, Xiaoxiao watches four of them chase down a small boy, perhaps Xiaoxiao’s own age, but skinnier, visibly more fragile. The boy cries in pure fear, long trailing wails of blind panic rearranging the air in his wake.
Xiaoxiao throws a stick at the dogs, drawing their attention. They leave the boy alone and circle him instead, eyes flashing, barking loudly. Xiaoxiao doesn’t run. He’s not scared, though he knows it’s not bravery that holds him steady. This is something else, some kind of overwhelming, numb indifference. The dogs are no worse than people. The dogs, at least, don’t care what he looks like.
They tear into him, one sinking its teeth into his leg, the other biting on the arm he lifts up in defense. It hurts, sharp, hot. But it’s just pain. Xiaoxiao is used to pain, and this is no worse than Madam Ji’s beatings, only a different type of sensation. The dogs growl, and it’s as if he can understand their language, the sounds making sense where speech oftentimes does not. They’re confused by him. He’s odd. He doesn’t fight, but he doesn’t smell of fear. Drawn by some strange impulse, he makes eye contact with them, and suddenly they skulk back, leaving him alone.
Xiaoxiao looks down at the blood running down his arm and leg into the snow. Such a loud, vivid color. The heat the injuries had sparked is slowly seeping out of him. The blood stops running, and he’s cold again. He looks around for the other boy, but he’s gone, too scared of the dogs, or perhaps of Xiaoxiao himself. He supposes now, after such a display, he might indeed look like a demon.
As quiet as Yiling is, Xiaoxiao decides he doesn’t want to die here. He makes his way out of the town westwards, toward the lush, green mountains. There’s a Guanyin temple up there somewhere, he’d heard. Perhaps, those worshipping the goddess of compassion would be more merciful toward him. And if not, it’ll be as good a place as any to let it all end.
--
The mountains are full of small game, but Xiaoxiao doesn’t hunt. He’s tired and weak, but not to the point where he couldn’t he thinks. He tries to imagine it sometimes, to plan it in his head as he does most things, but it falls apart at the key moment. Wringing some defenseless creature’s neck. Bludgeoning their head against a stone. No. No. Madam Ji was never generous enough to feed servants meat, and, while some of Xiaoxiao’s comrades complained, he never felt any desire for it. And to kill for it…
It was the same for him with stealing. Back in those first weeks when he wasn’t used to hunger, when it gnawed at him and tortured, he’d think about it. It wouldn’t be hard. Grab a flat bread off a stall and run. He could run so fast. Knick a radish off a cart. The farmer wasn’t even looking. He’d think about it, plan it, calculate every step… and at the last moment, he’d turn away and leave, some deeper inhibition stopping him. The strict voices in his head sounding betrayed at the very idea.
The voices in his head didn’t need to eat, yet they would stop him anyway, and Xiaoxiao had felt so angry. ‘You have abandoned me!’ he wants to yell. ‘You’ve left me, tossed me away! What’s it to you if I’m a thief? You never cared enough for me to look for me!’
The anger would keep him warm for a while if nothing else, but in the end, no matter how he raged, he couldn’t make himself do it—reach out and take what wasn’t his. In the end, it had nothing to do with the voices, but his own stubbornness and inexplicable, stupid pride.
By the time he reaches the mountains, he stops trying to force himself. He doesn’t hunt, only picks up wild fruit and berries he knows are edible. They make for meager meals, but they sustain him. Some of the roots look edible, too, and he tries them. One makes him sick for an entire afternoon, and by the end of the spell he feels like the only thing he hadn’t thrown up are his own internal organs.
He knows how to make a fire, but has no kindling, so he curls up in the trunk of an old tree, probably burnt down by lightning. As the quivers in his body ease, he notices he feels neither warm nor cold, neither in pain, nor hungry. He’s floating, and it’s not entirely pleasant, but not bad either. He closes his eyes and lets himself drift.
--
The cart is creaking softly underneath him, warm wood, smooth with time and use. He’s kicking his feet, sending his white robes flying. It’s not appropriate behavior, but he can’t be seen behind all the sacks of fragrant herbs he’d helped gather that afternoon. Someone’s deep voice saying ‘It’d be good practice for them to learn their medicinal herbs and do their part besides.’
He feels tired, but pleasantly so, after a day spent in the sun and blooming fields, and anticipating coming back in time for the evening meal. Kicking his feet is fun.
“A-Huan, I thought I told you to watch your brother.”
Oh. So he can be seen even over the sacks.
“Yes, Uncle.”
He becomes aware then—strange that he wasn’t before—that he’s not alone at the back of the cart. Another boy is sitting next to him, pressed close against his side, knees, also clad in white, moving, too, but a lot more subtly than his own. When he looks up, guilty for giving them away, the other boy grins.
He’s got a clear, handsome face, eyes light as amber, a smile on his lips. There’s a white ribbon tied around his forehead, its ends floating in the wind. He leans in closer.
“Want to play cat’s cradle?”
He feels himself nod. “Mn.”
The other boy—his brother pulls out a string from somewhere and starts to teach him how to play. He tries to understand, feels himself frown. His first attempt to recreate his brother’s movements is a disaster. He looks up, worried, but his brother only laughs.
“Like this—here, let me.”
He obediently gives his hand and lets his brother position his fingers before twining the string between them.
“See, not that hard? Now you try.”
He tries again, and it’s—fun. His brother holds his own hand out for him patiently, letting him do as he pleases. The string between them rings with its own resonance, caught between their hands and the late summer air. He feels his own mouth curving upward into a smile, and his brother is laughing outright.
“Aw, Didi, how’d you manage to do that?”
He looks down to find he’s managed to tie their hands together somehow in a tangle of accidental yet hard to break knots. He looks up and, just for a moment, grins. His brother’s face softens, he opens his mouth to say something—and then it’s a blur.
There’s a cacophony of sounds that make his ears hurt. Horses neighing, black, huge beasts with glazed-over eyes, foam at their mouths. Men shouting. Weapons flying, clashing. Curses and yells all around.
A tall figure in white jumping next to him a moment too late. Someone grabs him, pulls him off the cart. His arm jerks painfully, hand still tied to his brother’s, a few inches of loose string between them. More shouting. A barrier of bright blue light falling between him and the cart. His arm straining.
His brother is held in the arms of the man in white now, screaming and kicking up a storm, except there’s blood gushing down the front of whoever’s holding him, the man’s knuckles white, his whole silhouette trembling with effort. The two of them try to pull him back, but it’s useless, he can feel the power of the horse beneath him, its rider unyielding, holding on fast.
Suddenly, it’s like everything slows down. Or perhaps it’s his own thoughts that begin to flit too quickly, a strange, emotionless progression. Everything is so clear to him at that moment as if he’s looking at a mural and someone’s helpfully highlighting everything important, having all the time in the world.
The man in the cart is weakening. More blood bursts out of his mouth, his stance unsteady. He won’t last long. The white-blue light surrounding the cart is a protective barrier the riders can’t breach. They scream in pain when they try. Yet he himself is stuck near in the middle of it, held in place by the string, but there’s no pain or discomfort. The light feels like a tingling, ice-cold curtain on his skin.
The rider holding him is determined, too strong, he won’t let go. He’s jerking to the side, hoping to get the other boy out from under the protective circle. They want both of them, the intent very clear. The man in the cart is pulling back, but it won’t last long. Something has to give, and it won’t be the rider. The string won’t snap on its own—it’s the same string they used to tie up the sacks, it’s meant to endure.
He sees it all then, and fear shoots through him at last, sharp and selfish. He wants to hold on, even as he sees it—there’s no way for him to get back. Whatever happens, he’s lost already.
But his brother is still safe, if only for another moment, until time speeds up again, and then—and then—
He twists in the arms of his captor, squirms to get to his own wrist, and bites clear through the string, cutting the connection.
“No!” his brother screams, even as he and the man holding him fall back onto the sacks of herbs as the tension of the string snaps. “No! No! Let me go! A-Zhan! A-Zhan!”
Teeth are a weapon, too, he realizes and bites at the arm holding him, hard and vicious. The rider above him curses loudly, and then something heavy hits him in the temple, and his entire world goes black.
--
When he wakes up, it’s daylight.
The dream dissipates around him, despite how hard he tries to hold on to it. Every detail that has just been so vivid and clear fades before he can grasp it, commit it to memory. Maybe it’s for the best. Whatever he saw happen he had probably imagined. Only the feeling lingers, tormenting him, of someone reaching out for him, crying out his name. What was it again? He can’t remember.
He climbs out from the tree trunk that had given him shelter and realizes it must have rained in the night. Everything is damp and muddy, and he’s dirty again, except now it’s just natural dirt, not city filth. It makes it marginally better to bear.
The road leading up to the temple is old and rarely used, and now half-flooded. By the time Xiaoxiao reaches the top of the mountain, there’s not a spec on him that is clean. The climb has taken its toll, red and black circles dance before his eyes, his limbs heavy and awkward. He doesn’t even attempt to go through the gate. He doesn’t think he can make the distance, and, the state he’s in, he’ll undoubtedly be chased away anyway.
He goes to sit by the wall, not too close to a few other beggars. They all give him looks anyway, some call out, something loud and nasty. He ignores them. He wouldn’t know how to answer and has no energy to try.
He sits with his back to the wall, trying to maintain proper posture. He doesn’t have an empty bowl to put in front of him. Monks in Guanyin temples are known to share food with the beggars sometimes when they have some to spare. Xiaoxiao hopes this might be one such order. He’s willing to eat off the ground if it comes to that. He’s not picky.
He sits with his eyes closed, but no one approaches him, not the first day, and not the second. He doesn’t know if others managed to get food. He thinks he’d heard some commotion at some point, but his mind is drifting too much. He’s beginning to lose words, and what few remain refuse to form into concepts.
The only thing he’s consistently aware of is the soft amber glow in his lower belly. With what senses he can feel it, he doesn’t know, but, with his eyes closed, he can see it curling down below, burning steady but weak, and getting weaker. He’s suddenly overwhelmed with sorrow for it. In his mind’s eye, it’s like a tiny, soft animal, trusting and defenseless, like a kitten or a bunny. It’s kind, he feels. It’s kind and caring, and he’s supposed to protect it, and he can’t. His eyes burn, but he can’t produce tears.
--
At some point, he senses a presence. His eyes snap open, but it’s a while before he can make sense of what he sees.
A boy is kneeling in front of him, dressed in grey travel robes. He’s maybe slightly older than Xiaoxiao, and has a kind, beautiful face. His eyes are like stars. Xiaoxiao had heard some of Madam Ji’s patrons say that to the jiejies, but that had always been a lie, a meaningless compliment. This boy’s eyes really are like stars—illuminated from within, bright with their own light.
“Hello,” the boy says softly, his voice a welcome melody after so many things have been grating on Xiaoxiao’s ears. “What’s your name?”
Does he truly expect Xiaoxiao to speak? Xiaoxiao blinks. It isn’t as if he doesn’t want to. He just… he’s no longer certain how.
“Oh, forgive me, I’m so silly,” the boy laments, looking contrite. “You’re probably hungry. Here.”
He reaches into his robe and pulls out a mantou. Xiaoxiao stares at it.
“Here,” the boy insists, pushing it closer. “I’ve already eaten today. You take it.”
It probably wouldn’t have worked either, except then the scent reaches him. Dough, sweet and unexpectedly fragrant.
Xiaoxiao’s hands react before he does, grabbing the bun. He’s biting into it and chewing furiously, before he gets yet another jolt, and a voice that sounds like his own chides, ‘Are you an animal to behave like one? Stop it at once!’
Xiaoxiao doesn’t think he can, except then he does stop. Somehow. Lowers his hands with half the bun clutched in them, and chews slowly. His mouth feels too dry, and his stomach is suddenly growling loudly. Utterly embarrassing.
The boy watches him with kind curiosity. “You haven’t eaten in a while, huh? It’s good that you can slow down. You can keep it down better that way.”
Xiaoxiao chews until there’s nothing but flavored air in his mouth. Then he carefully takes another bite.
“Were you trying to meditate just now?” the boy asks. “You were sitting so still.”
Xiaoxiao shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to meditate. It’s not like anyone in Madam Ji’s brothel would have instructed him. It’s just something that happens to him sometimes—a state of quietness he slips into when things become too much, when he’s been hungry for too long, or when people have been too loud. It feels odd, as if he’s witnessing everything around him without participating, as if it doesn’t concern him. He sees everything, knows without naming, hears without identifying the sounds yet knowing what they are.
He doesn’t know how to do it on purpose or how to end it when it comes. Since Madam Ji had kicked him out, he’s been slipping into it every day, sometimes for hours. He’s not tired or hungry or hurt when he’s like that. It’s odd, but he’s odd, so there’s no point in questioning it.
“Strange,” the boy muses. “Since I formed my golden core, I’ve been able to sense it when someone is engaged in spiritual work. And I sensed it from you.”
Xiaoxiao blinks. Golden core?
“You’re a cultivator?” he blurts out, as stunned at the sound of his own voice as the boy facing him.
“Oh, uh. Well, I hope to become one. I’m on my way to look for my teacher. If… if she accepts me.”
Xiaoxiao nods. Teachers are fickle, giving out odd and complicated tests before admitting someone as a disciple. Most of Xiaoxiao’s knowledge of the world comes from things overheard under Madam Ji’s roof, but even he knows that.
“Hey, do you want to go with me? We can be her disciples together.”
Xiaoxiao is no longer hungry. “I can’t…” he breathes out. “I…”
“Why not? Don’t you want to be a cultivator?”
Xiaoxiao nods furiously. He’s dreamed about it ever since he’d learned what cultivators were. Helping people, fighting evil, protecting the innocent—he wanted that more than anything. But what good is he? His own family didn’t even want him, had probably sold him off to a brothel, and what is he now? A runaway slave, cursed with ugliness.
He looks up at the other boy suddenly, remembering. “You’re not afraid of me?”
“What?” The boy blinks. “Oh—you mean because of your scars? It doesn’t matter to me. But your energy… it’s beautiful. I can sense that you are a good person.”
A good person. Xiaoxiao blinks. A good person? He never really thought what kind of person he was. He’d always done what everyone had told him to. Does that make him good?
“My name is Xiaoxiao,” he says shyly. “Not… my real name. I don’t—don’t remember that one.”
‘A-Zhan!’
He blinks, shakes his head. The echo dies.
A smile spills over the boy’s face. “Xiaoxiao?” he repeats, and then shockingly bows to him. “It’s nice to meet you, little brother. It has to be a sign then. My name is Xiao Xingchen.”
--