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It is safe to say, getting kidnapped was not on Zhao Yunlan’s agenda for today. Probably fair to say that that is not on anyone’s agenda ever, but who is he to assume? The cloth bag over his head suddenly gets ripped off and his eyes protest at the overwhelming brightness. His hands and feet are strapped to the chair, but he jerks instinctively anyway with an undignified noise of surprise.
“Chief Zhao, so good of you to join us,” a voice says. When his eyes adjust, Zhao Yunlan sees two men standing in this empty room with him, one standing in front of him holding the cloth bag in one hand and a gun in the other, and one more off to the side tapping away at a tablet of some kind.
“Oh, I couldn’t refuse your hospitality now, could I?” Zhao Yunlan adds a smug grin for extra effect.
The response he gets to that is a swift punch to the nose.
“That was uncalled for,” Zhao Yunlan mutters as the taste of blood reaches his lips.
“Still think it’s a good idea to play funny here, Chief Zhao?” Thug #1—as Zhao Yunlan has begun to call him in his head—says. Well, now he knows one thing: they know his name, so this was not a random snatch off the street, or well, out of his bed. Just how early even is it, still? Or late?
“Look,” Zhao Yunlan says, “I know how this business works. Usually, wannabe kidnappers start with demands first before breaking out the punches. So, you’re the ones fooling around if you ask me.” He nods his head and wiggles his hands along with the explanation, speaking to them as if they were misbehaving students
“Well, that’s not how we’re doing things here,” Thug #1 says, Techie Thug starts walking over, “Unless you can bring someone back from the dead, we don’t have any demands for you.”
Oh, revenge then, great. You can’t bargain with revenge, from Zhao Yunlan’s experience. When Techie Thug crosses the room, he holds the tablet screen out toward Zhao Yunlan. On it is a fuzzy picture of another man, around the same age as these kidnappers, if he had to guess. His face is vaguely familiar, but it takes Zhao Yunlan a moment longer to place it.
“Recognize him?” Thug #1 asks.
“Can’t say that I do,” Zhao Yunlan responds.
“You should, you killed him. Shot him in the heart. And as the chief of the SID, you can’t claim it was an accident either. You knew exactly where to aim for a Dixingren’s heart.” Thug #1 stabs the barrel of his gun into the right side of Zhao Yunlan’s chest, opposite of his own heart.
“Your friend was killing people,” Zhao Yunlan says calmly.
“Oh, so you remember now?”
He does. A fairly young Dixingren, fresh on Haixing with some sort of electricity powers. It seems he couldn’t control it on Haixing, causing anyone he touched or those who simply brushed past him on the street to get a strong enough static shock to stop their heart. The kid was clearly overwhelmed and scared—and it hurts Zhao Yunlan to remember—but he was lashing out and Zhao Yunlan still clearly remembers the fear that gripped him when the kid almost grabbed Da Qing. He shot him. He shot him and he still sees the kid’s face in his nightmares ever since.
Zhao Yunlan doesn’t respond. He knows his captors don’t want his excuses. He is not willing to make them. Whatever these guys want to do with him, he knew he’d end up expendable in this line of work. He only has himself to blame.
Thug #1 turns to Techie Thug and whispers, “Are they set up?”
Techie Thug nods. Zhao Yunlan notices a small earpiece in one ear, communicating with someone else off-site?
“Good,” Thug #1 turns back to Zhao Yunlan, “Now, you and your SID have killed enough of our friends. I think it’s time you know what that feels like.”
What?
The tablet is turned back toward him. Instead of the fuzzy picture, there is a video feed. In the frame is someone else in a similar situation to Zhao Yunlan’s own. A figure wearing what looks like pajamas strapped to a chair with a cloth bag on their head. Zhao Yunlan barely has a chance to process more of what he is seeing when the bag gets ripped off on the other side of the screen.
No—
It’s Professor Shen. His face looks bare without his glasses, but it is undeniably his face squinting at his surroundings and eventually landing on the camera.
“Shen Wei,” Zhao Yunlan shouts even though he does not know if the feed is going both ways. Shen Wei doesn’t visibly react, and Thug #1 just laughs at him.
There’s someone else there where Shen Wei is—obviously someone had to remove the bag from his head. Zhao Yunlan just barely gets another glimpse of them before their hand fists itself into Shen Wei’s hair and yanks up hard. Zhao Yunlan’s grimace matches the flash of pain on Shen Wei’s face. The third crook leans down to Shen Wei’s level.
“Smile, your good friend Chief Zhao is watching.”
Shen Wei’s eyes widen. Then, they harden into something fierce. Zhao Yunlan has only seen a similar expression aimed at the two thieves who tried to touch the unusual pendant around Shen Wei’s neck the other day. If looks could kill, everyone in this room would be dead. Shen Wei does not even flinch as a gun is lowered at his chest.
“No,” Zhao Yunlan begs, “Don’t, please.”
The barrel is centered right above Shen Wei’s heart, and Zhao Yunlan hears the click of the safety being released. No!
“Please, hurt me instead, kill me if you want, just, please stop, please don’t hurt him—” Zhao Yunlan is babbling at this point, just trying any string of pleading words hoping one will stick, that one will let Shen Wei be spared.
Zhao Yunlan’s eyes don’t leave Shen Wei’s through the screen even as he thrashes in the restraints. The pounding of blood through his ears is already loud enough that he sees more than hears when the shot goes off. Shen Wei’s eyes turn pained for a single second before they go unfocused and his head drops against his chest where a patch of deep red stains his shirt, growing larger.
“No.” Zhao Yunlan is frozen, blood like ice in his veins. The screen goes static, but Zhao Yunlan cannot turn his eyes away. The image of Shen Wei is still ingrained in his vision like an afterimage from looking into a bright light.
The tablet is taken out of his field of vision, but Zhao Yunlan can’t focus on it. He can’t think, he can’t breathe. Distantly, he hears a door clank shut. Is there even anyone still in the room with him? He can’t bring himself to care.
Some time passes. How much time, Zhao Yunlan doesn’t know. His head hangs limply, a mirror of how Shen Wei looked when, when—
The door clangs again. Zhao Yunlan doesn’t lift his head up. Footsteps grow louder, coming closer to him and then stopping. An arrogant scoff breaks the silence again followed by the clicking of rock against concrete, bouncing. His eyes already glued to his feet, Zhao Yunlan sees the shiny round object that hits against his shoe and rolls to a stop—an amber pendant on a cord, half of it covered in shiny red blood. His eyes widen. He jerks his head up.
“In case you need the reminder,” the thug from the other side of the video says.
Zhao Yunlan growls, “How dare—” his rage is indescribable, insatiable. He renews his thrashing in the binds, if he could just get out and strangle every one of these monsters with his bare hands—
The air turns cold. There is a sound like crashing thunder then a scream that cuts off to silence almost instantly as the Dixingren disappears from right in front of him, gone in a swirl of black.
Then, between one second and the next, the air splits, and out steps Hei Pao Shi from a swirling portal. The Envoy instantly rushes to Zhao Yunlan’s side. With a twist of his hand, all the ropes binding Zhao Yunlan to the chair slide right off.
“Chief Zhao, are you injured?” The Envoy asks, unusual intensity lacing his words. His hands grip Zhao Yunlan’s shoulders, preventing Zhao Yunlan from bolting upright out of the chair like he immediately wants to.
“Shen Wei! You’ve gotta find Shen Wei, he’s—I saw him—please he needs your help first.” Zhao Yunlan’s eyes can’t meet Hei Pao Shi’s; in his mind’s eye is a replay of the scene from the tablet over and over again, his heartbeat echoing as loud in his ears as the gunshot. He shoves the hands off him and falls to the floor, frantically clutching at the amber bauble at his feet. The drop makes him lightheaded, and he brings his other hand to his chest, clawing at his shirt like it will let him take in more oxygen because he can’t breathe, he can’t—
“Chief Zhao, calm down. Breathe.”
Zhao Yunlan lets out a shaky breath, but it does nothing to relieve the tightness in his chest.
“They had to have been keeping him nearby—if we could find the tablet and trace the video feed—or maybe they were in the same building—” Zhao Yunlan pushes himself up shakily. Hei Pao Shi supports him, pulling him up with more strength than Zhao Yunlan has at the moment. He goes to head toward the door when the Envoy secures his grip on Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder.
“I’m taking you back to the SID,” the Envoy says decisively.
“Wait—” Zhao Yunlan cannot get the whole word out before his world blips out from under him.
The Envoy’s portal deposits them squarely in Zhao Yunlan’s office at the SID. After Zhao Yunlan gains his footing from the abrupt portaling, he whirls around, more questions and demands already on his tongue. He needs to know if the Envoy knows where Shen Wei was being kept, if he also managed to catch the sick bastard who shot him.
Just then Da Qing bursts into his office, and the Envoy disappears in a swirl of smoke.
“Lao Zhao, where have you been? I woke up and you were gone!” Da Qing cries. Zhao Yunlan wants to shout, cry, fold down into a heap on the floor, and never get up again, but his team will want an explanation, one he doesn’t feel prepared to give right now. He will give Da Qing the gist of it anyway, if not the damn cat will just keep pestering him, he knows from experience.
He tells Da Qing the bare bones of his morning, distancing himself from it already in his head. This is just a normal incident report. He can’t bring himself to talk about Shen Wei yet. For all Da Qing knows, it was just him kidnapped by random Dixingren until Hei Pao Shi rescued him. Da Qing pries him for more, cozying up to him in cat form and Zhao Yunlan physically tosses him out of his office and locks the door. He needs some space. That is the only explanation he provides.
He slumps down into his office chair and closes his eyes, willing everything to just stop for a little while. After a long moment, he pushes himself up and slumps over his desk. He lets his hand fall to the table, the one still gripping the pendant with white knuckles. It hurts to release his fingers from it. The rougher metal pieces where the bulb meets the cord leave marks on his palm, and the blood from it leaves a stain, too.
Elbows on the table and head in his hands, Zhao Yunlan forces shuddering breaths into his lungs. What is he supposed to do here? What can he do here? Why is he allowed to sit in his office like nothing happened—nothing besides a few bruises and scraped wrists—while Shen Wei, Shen Wei—
His fingers dig into his hair painfully. He should tell someone, but who? He does not think Shen Wei has any family. He had been elated to learn Shen Wei was unmarried and single, but now the thought makes his heart ache. Alone with no one to mourn him. No, not no one, Zhao Yunlan thinks bitterly, as if he is not already in the throes of grief for someone who he barely got a chance to know.
Someone would notice him missing after a while, though, surely. The university seems like the most likely candidate. Zhao Yunlan knows his colleagues care—cared—about him dearly, and the administration, at least, deserves to know. Maybe they would have some emergency contact to inform.
Zhao Yunlan falls back into his chair. Realistically, with how dangerous this job is, the idea of this conversation was always in the back of his mind. Sure, one of his employees is already dead and one has nine lives, but no one at the SID is truly immortal, himself included. He knows this. He knew this. But for someone not even really associated with the SID, only someone unlucky enough to be caught up in their riptide, dragged under the waves under no fault of their own? That hurts worse. Shen Wei was collateral damage, and he knows it is his fault. Surely one difficult conversation can’t hold a candle to the weight of his guilt. He grabs the phone.
It sits in his hand for a few more minutes as he gathers the strength to dial. Even as he starts to press buttons, he hopes he will be shown some mercy today and reach a voicemail box.
The Dragon City University administration office line rings once, twice—
“Hello, Dragon City University, how can I help you?” An all too cheerful voice says on the other side of the line.
“It’s about Shen Wei—” Zhao Yunlan starts to say, the words barely make it out of his throat, caught like a fishbone.
“Oh, Professor Shen?” the admin staff questions, “He’s in a class right now but I can take a message for him if you’d like.”
Zhao Yunlan’s spine jolts ramrod straight. He did not hear that right.
“What? Wait—in, in a class? Are you sure?”
He hears some typing on the other end. “Yeah, it’s the one he teaches every Friday during 2nd and 3rd period, advanced genetics.”
“What time does it get out?” Zhao Yunlan scrambles to get into his coat while holding the phone between his shoulder and his ear.
“In about 30 minutes.”
“Thank you.”
Exactly 29 minutes later, Zhao Yunlan bursts through Shen Wei’s office door making it slam into the wall behind it with a clatter. The entire ride over, besides not following the speed limit, he was running through all the possible scenarios he could think of. Maybe the footage was doctored. But how would that explain the bloody pendant? Maybe Shen Wei did not like being investigated and had something to hide so he faked his own death. But then why would he show up back at the university? Now that he’s made it here, all the theories and speculation leave his brain.
Shen Wei has his back to the door. He is standing, still holding his bag from class. He spins around at Zhao Yunlan's entrance, and Zhao Yunlan almost expects the face that greets him not to be him, just some similarly dressed substitute—despite knowing that not a single other person in this world still wears goddamn sleeve garters—but the shocked eyes that meet his are undoubtedly Shen Wei’s.
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” Zhao Yunlan roars. Seeing him here—seeing him alive—Zhao Yunlan’s misplaced grief rears its ugly head, but he squashes it down. Confusion and anger war in his head.
“You—” Zhao Yunlan points an accusing finger. He stomps further into the office, letting the door slam carelessly behind him. Shen Wei’s eyes widen to a nearly impossible degree.
“I—” he stutters out. Then, his eyes fall. Shen Wei sets his satchel down and adjusts his glasses with his palm. The face that emerges from behind his hand is closed off, distant. Once again, Shen Wei’s mask is locked firmly in place. “I don’t know what sort of explanation I can provide, but if it is about biology again—”
“Stop fucking lying to me, Shen Wei!” Zhao Yunlan snaps. Shen Wei flinches minutely and once again meets his gaze. The eye contact lingers, a silent battle waging on. Shen Wei breaks the gaze first, but something inside Zhao Yunlan breaks then instead when Shen Wei’s hand instinctively reaches for just below his throat, where his pendant would be if it wasn’t leaving a bloody stain in Zhao Yunlan’s pocket.
“I saw you die,” a scratchy whisper finds its way out of his mouth. “They shot you in the heart—” Shen Wei’s brows furrow at that, and then it clicks. Oh. Unless—
“You’re Dixingren,” Zhao Yunlan says, not a question, “You’ve got the backwards heart thing—”
“Dextrocardia,” Shen Wei interrupts, looking almost surprised himself that he said anything.
Zhao Yunlan turns around. He throws his neck back, glare piercing the ceiling as an incredulous laugh rips from his chest. This insufferable—this impossible man—
“Damn you, Shen Wei,” Zhao Yunlan bites out. He is half reaching for the door handle when Shen Wei replies.
“I understand that my Dixingren nature angers you, but—”
Zhao Yunlan freezes. He turns back around slowly. Shen Wei is leaning on the edge of his desk, half sitting on it. The eyes that meet Zhao Yunlan’s show a hint of sadness, but mostly resignation. He is completely serious.
“What the fuck?” Zhao Yunlan sputters, “Do you truly not understand why I’m upset right now, Professor Shen?”
Shen Wei simply stares, eyebrows furrowing slightly. And Zhao Yunlan cannot take it anymore. He moves so he is standing directly in front of Shen Wei; From where the professor sits on the desk, Zhao Yunlan is looking down at him.
“You let me think you were dead! I don’t care about your damn secret identity—I had a feeling from the start. What I care about is that you didn’t bother to tell me you were okay. I’m pretty sure your office phone has the SID number; you may not know how a cellphone works but I know you know how to make phone calls.” Zhao Yunlan grabs the desktop phone and waves it in Shen Wei’s face for emphasis. When he slams it back down, Shen Wei winces.
“I’m sorry. I did not realize you would be this worried,” Shen Wei says.
“If that isn’t the most backhanded—” Zhao Yunlan huffs out a breath, “You know what, never mind. Show me.”
“What?” Shen Wei blinks.
“Clearly, we’ve established you have the emotional intelligence of a brick so for all I know you could still be bleeding under those stupid layers of yours. Even if that shot didn’t hit your heart, Dixingren still have lungs there, don’t they? So, show me the wound, now.” He tries to pull off joking, but it lands more seriously than Zhao Yunlan intended.
“I can assure you, I’m fine. There’s no need—”
“I don’t care about your damn modesty right now, Xiao Wei, just take your shirt off.” Zhao Yunlan is two seconds away from starting to rip into the buttons of his shirt himself. He brings his eyes up from the shirt buttons to suddenly notice how close his face is to Shen Wei’s—he can see each individual long eyelash and a faint blush high on sculpted cheekbones. Perhaps belatedly, Zhao Yunlan realizes he is standing between Shen Wei’s legs. He takes a step back and swivels around. Shen Wei waves a hand subtly and the blinds in front of his office window fall closed.
“Handy trick,” Zhao Yunlan comments with a false chuckle, feeling a blush rising to his own cheeks.
By the time he turns back around, Shen Wei is halfway through unbuttoning his shirt. He stops and raises an eyebrow when he catches Zhao Yunlan looking. Zhao Yunlan rolls his hand in a please continue gesture.
Shen Wei strips down to only his undershirt, the cut of it low enough that he only needs to pull it down to reveal the definite bullet wound.
“There,” Shen Wei says, deadpanned, “Happy now?”
Zhao Yunlan moves in closer again. “But this looks weeks old,” he says. His hand twitches with the need to reach out and brush the scar tissue, because it does look scarred, not fresh, angry, or bleeding like he would expect it to be. Shen Wei pulls the neck of his undershirt back up as Zhao Yunlan leans in to inspect it.
“As I said, I’m fine. It healed,” he says as he begins to shrug his layers back on.
“You must have been rescued by Hei Pao Shi then too, did he heal it?”
“He… did.”
“And he didn’t bother to tell me you were okay either, that bastard. Next time I see him he’s gonna get a piece of my mind about that for sure. I always knew he was a cold-hearted, insensitive—” Zhao Yunlan paces the small office as he says this, already plotting the ways he’s gonna get back at Hei Pao Shi for leaving him in the dark like this.
“Zhao Yunlan. I think that is uncalled for,” Shen Wei interrupts his plotting.
“I suppose I can thank him for saving you—but wait—” Zhao Yunlan pauses his pacing and turns back to face Shen Wei still sitting on the desk, “Shen Wei, if he knows you’re Dixingren, are you in danger? I can try to reason with him, or I can help you hide, anything—”
Shen Wei shakes his head. “Zhao Yunlan. It’s fine. There’s no need to worry.”
“But—” Zhao Yunlan steps over, and then he notices something has appeared in Shen Wei’s hands. Shen Wei turns it over to reveal a black mask with silver details. “Oh.”
Shen Wei’s eyes are glued down to the mask in his hands—Hei Pao Shi’s mask. Because Shen Wei is Hei Pao Shi. Zhao Yunlan’s brain short circuits for a moment, but then all the pieces fall into place. It does make a lot of sense, too much sense really when he thinks about it. Zhao Yunlan is more startled by the sheer amount of relief he feels at the revelation. Both relief in that he no longer has to be suspicious of Shen Wei and also that he has to worry less about him being hurt. Everything he knows about Hei Pao Shi and how powerful he is points to the man being able to defend himself better than most. Clearly, he is not invulnerable, however. Today has proven that much. And to make matters worse, it was Zhao Yunlan’s fault.
“I’m sorry,” Zhao Yunlan blurts out.
“Whatever for?” Shen Wei looks up and meets his eyes finally.
“I let you get hurt—I caused you to get hurt.”
“Zhao Yunlan,” Shen Wei says, and there is too much emotion in his voice for Zhao Yunlan to handle. He scratches the back of his neck.
“I’d hate to cause a diplomatic incident, you know, Hei Lao Ge,” he tacks on awkwardly.
Shen Wei looks down. He reaches for his throat again. “No harm done,” Shen Wei says carefully.
“Well, there is one harm I can fix, actually,” Zhao Yunlan says with a breath of courage. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the pendant. He holds it out for Shen Wei. Shen Wei sees it, looks up at Zhao Yunlan, and back down with fluttering blinks. He slowly reaches out both hands to take it as if he thinks Zhao Yunlan is going to snatch it away from him if he moves too fast. Zhao Yunlan does pull his hand away but only to grab either end of the cord and hang it around Shen Wei’s neck himself.
Shen Wei’s hand finds it the moment the amber hits his chest. He looks up at Zhao Yunlan once again, and his eyes sparkle. “Thank you.”
“It’s the least I could do, literally,” Zhao Yunlan shrugs. He feels a twinge of jealousy at how much the pendant obviously means to Shen Wei. If someone gave it to him, that person must have been incredibly special. Zhao Yunlan suppresses a distance longing to be that person. The thought scares him—he barely knows Shen Wei—only found out he was Dixingren and Hei Pao Shi a mere moment ago. Below that layer of secrets must lie so many more, not unlike the endless layers of his overly formal clothing. But, Zhao Yunlan finds himself willing to wait for those layers to come undone. He thought he lost Shen Wei today. Perhaps that is what puts it into perspective for him. As long as Shen Wei is here, is alive, the rest can come later. He has time to work out his own feelings.
Zhao Yunlan realizes he has been staring at Shen Wei in silence for too long. Shen Wei had cleaned the pendant with a tissue and tucked it back under his shirt where it belongs, and now he was looking at Zhao Yunlan expectantly.
“Ah,” Zhao Yunlan says, “I can assume the Dixingren from this morning have all been taken care of then?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any more classes today?”
“No.”
“Then, would you let me take you out for lunch?” Zhao Yunlan says.
“Alright,” Shen Wei replies, “I’d like that.”
“Alright,” Zhao Yunlan echoes. “Let’s go then.”
The heart of the matter is, Zhao Yunlan can wait for whatever this thing is with Shen Wei to grow. As long as he has a chance to figure Shen Wei out to the fullest, he will spend that time wisely.