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August April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
—
You cannot say, or guess, for you only know
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
Wu Xie has always known, in the way glimpses of far-off futures appear as shapeless outlines beyond a veil of formless smoke in the imagination, before dissipating, relegated to a distant tomorrow, that the pheromones would someday, inevitably, push him over some unseen edge.
He’d known it from the moment Hei Yanjing had brought him the first snake, dark and writhing in its glass prison like a wraith made flesh come to reap what was left of him, hellbent on burning as many bridges as he could so that he might better become the demon the Wang family would never suspect. He’d known it as he’d lain on the derelict chair in that underground clinic listening to Hei Yanjing explain at length how his nose would have to be maimed—possibly beyond repair—for the pheromones to take effect, Wu Xie watching as his habitual flippancy shed from him not unlike paint doused in solvent, half there half not, leaving him with a murky, deformed veneer of levity that couldn’t hide the weary weight of his years behind it, along with a wry sense of pity Wu Xie immediately found intolerable.
In his weaker moments, Wu Xie has sometimes wondered if that edge he knows approaches but can't see will simply be death. Perhaps it will be something worse. Perhaps he’s already dived off of it, had done so the moment he’d accepted his involvement in this conflict was inescapable, and had willing become the very kind of man he’d found so viscerally repulsive a scant few years ago—the very kind of man he’s now dedicated his life to dragging from the shadows so he can better see how they bleed. That he should find the same end as them would only be fitting. Wu Xie has known better than to delude himself into believing in the illusion of his own invulnerability for long enough now.
He may not survive to see his plans through to their bitter end; it’s a simple truth, nothing more or less.
Part of him, he thinks, would like that, would like for death to come and absolve him of his sins past and sins to come, though not before he can be certain the wheel he’s set in motion will continue to turn without him. Not before he can be certain the tangled web centuries in the making that has trapped and subsumed so many lives, some innocent, some more dubiously so, is finally torn to shreds. Not before he can be certain the sacrifices both his Sanshu and Xie Lianhuan, Chen Wenjin and Huo Ling and all the others had made, willingly or not, were not in vain. Not before he can be certain that he can safely return. In the face of such high stakes, Wu Xie hadn’t found it in himself to care enough about his own well-being to further question Hei Yanjing about the possible consequences of prolonged pheromone intake. So long as Wu Xie can keep doing it, then he’ll do it. He can’t afford second thoughts or hesitation—his brief stint posing as his Sanshu had been proof enough of that.
(He wonders sometimes if, like Xie Lianhuan, Wu Xie too had forgotten to take off the mask he’d worn on his heart. The thought should likely scare him; but fear is another thing he can’t afford.)
Even if he were to ask, Wu Xie suspects that for all his knowledge on the most esoteric things, even Hei Yanjing himself doesn’t fully know what the long term effects of snake pheromones might be, even less so in someone so rarely susceptible to them. Wu Xie is likely the only person in recent memory to be desperate enough (or crazy enough) to ingest them at the rate that he does, so he supposes for once, it means he’s the one to set a precedent. A few years ago, the realization would have made him smug with petty pride at having finally gained the upper hand at something. Now, on the rare occasion he thinks to consider the irony in it, his lips curl into a deformed, wry rictus of a smile while he holds the worn filter of another cigarette between clenched teeth, suppressing a private laugh at his own expense.
Hei Yanjing had only ever alluded to what those consequences might be once, his tone uncharacteristically grave, possibly the last time in recent memory that Wu Xie can recall him as such since the day he’d deemed Wu Xie had achieved as much as he ever would in terms of fighting capability, thus putting an end to his ‘training’.
(“Mediocre at best,” he’d lamented with a sigh of despair genuine enough Wu Xie knows even Xiao Hua’s hefty paycheck hasn’t completely assuaged him of his regret at being involved in all this. Wu Xie wonders if Hei Yanjing knows that he could care less that he’ll never be a master of any martial art so long as he knows to recognize the sound of covert movement in the dark, can trust his kukri’s blade to puncture flesh when it needs to, and has the skills needed to simply survive as long as he’s required to. He likely does.)
As he’d turned away to fetch the first vial of freshly extracted and distilled pheromones, content to let Wu Xie make his own choices—a novel sensation at first, though Wu Xie could laugh at the further irony that for once, there’s no one to blame but himself for the ones he’s made since—Hei Yanjing had paused even as fresh blood from the surgery still dripped sluggishly past Wu Xie’s lips, and told him in not so many words with an uncanny sort of seriousness that one day he’d feel as though he’d hit a wall, and when that day came, he’d know to stop, lest he venture past a point of no return.
It’s a shame Wu Xie was never all that good at listening to people trying to persuade him not to do things.
In hindsight, the gradual increase in blood from then on each time he woke from pheromone-induced illusions should have been his first clue, though he’d simply chosen to ignore it. In his defense, he’s had more pressing things on his mind. If Wu Xie were to heed each and every complaint his body has regarding his treatment of it, he’d have crumbled long ago.
The increase in pain in the aftermath is predictably much the same. At first, it had been nothing more than a twinge in his nose, not unlike a bad cold, unpleasant, but ultimately harmless. The sudden burning ache that flares up in it now as soon as he emerges from the clutches of whatever vision the snake had helped his mind conjure is another beast altogether, and even it pales in comparison to the indescribable agony that follows soon after.
Wu Xie had discovered, after desperately downing two cans of old Coca-Cola he’d abandoned at his safe spot almost a full year before in hopes of soothing his throat coated in fresh blood, that soda drinks calm the worst of his spasming limbs once the pain sees fit to release him, allowing him to slowly piece together the fragments of his fractured mind from the emptiness where it had retreated. He suspects it’s the sugar that forces his worn body to reconnect with the here and now, and more than once he’s found himself giddy, ecstatic even by contrast with how he’d writhed in his chair moments before as he sips at his drink of choice, hidden away from the world in the abandoned power station he’d picked for this exact purpose, collapsed against its mold-ridden walls in fits of manic laughter he cannot feel, his throat already scraped raw from screaming. He makes a game of rediscovering each soda’s different flavors, wonders as he takes out the next vial of pheromones to inject which particular taste today’s aftersales experience will take. By then, Wu Xie had been forced to acknowledge that though he might not have reached the wall Hei Yanjing had warned him of, he’d likely already been pushed beyond that looming unseen edge.
(What he doesn’t acknowledge, however, save for rare moments under cover of night when he allows himself a brief reprieve, his mind wandering past doors he’s maintained firmly shut these past few years for reasons he’s careful not to examine too closely, is that the aftermath of his pheromone visions is significantly worse whenever he chances upon Zhang Qiling in them. Whether it’s nothing more than a fleeting glimpse, or a suspended moment in time where Wu Xie can vicariously walk beside him, the result is always the same. He tries not to see it as anything more than the urge to add one more piece to the puzzle of the man whose life he’s done his utmost to piece back together, and steadfastly ignores how he finds himself searching for the afterimage of those particular illusions in the brief deceptive calm before the pain hits, as if he could look towards the window and see Xiaoge sitting beside it, basking in late afternoon sunlight if he willed it enough. He tries just as hard not to think about what that means.)
Wu Xie knows his time is running out, one way or another. It’s simply a matter of when, and how soon. He wants with a fervor unlike any he’s ever felt to find the breach in the endless, faceless fog that has circled ever closer to his Wu family and the rest of the Nine for more generations than he cares to count before he’s outlasted his use. Life, however, has a habit of denying Wu Xie of what it is he wants (though there is no power in this world that could give him back what he truly wants). And so, he takes his precautions.
For every contingency he meticulously crafts, Wu Xie makes certain there are more yet that lie in wait behind it. With his inevitable expiry date looming overhead like a sword of Damocles ever poised above him, Wu Xie begins to turn part of his efforts towards the search for suitable outsiders to bring, willingly or not, into the fold, though he spares no thought to the possibility of it alleviating his own burdens. There are few people he can trust, and fewer still he would readily delegate the responsibilities he’s shouldered onto, what with all of them having their own role to play in this high stakes game of cat and mouse they’ve all engaged in with an opponent that may as well be smoke for how difficult it is to seize. He would hate to burden Xiao Hua especially more than he already has. The weight Wu Xie bears is one he bears willingly.
Though he may not need (or even deserve) reprieve, what Wu Xie does need, imperatively, is an ace up his sleeve that could, in time, become an apt enough replacement should he reach his limit too early, winding up relegated to the role of mere architect (or worse). It’s a comparison that amuses him endlessly, bitterly ironic in ways that pull a tired smile from his tired face. Oh how his parents had lamented at length about Wu Xie’s continued disuse of his prestigious education when he’d first chosen to do business with Lao Yang, and later still when he’d happily contented himself with running his grandfather’s antique shop at his father’s behest. If only they could see him now, sullying the virtue of his namesake as an architect of an entirely different kind, soon fit for little else but overseeing the continued integrity of an ever-expanding structure of his own conception, long after his own cog in it has slotted out of place.
So Wu Xie searches, dogged and relentless, the months slipping by as he wanders the country’s fringes, seemingly aimless (though he is anything but), until at long last, he finds the first suitable candidate. He introduces himself to the man—roughly his own age—as Guan Gen, under the guise of discussing landscape photography at a local exhibition. Wu Xie has always been sociable, happy to strike up easy conversation with amenable strangers, first by nature, now by design—naturally, Guan Gen too is a remarkably stellar conversationalist. They exchange pleasantries for long enough that Wu Xie learns the man is engaged, due to marry his girlfriend of five years who’d been taken in by his passion for China’s vast and sprawling topography when they’d met by chance at a wayside rest point somewhere in Inner Mongolia.
“Not unlike ourselves, eh Mr. Guan?” he jokes, the quiet laugh that follows easy and good-natured. Wu Xie smiles in return, small in a way that softens his sharper edges, and answers with nothing more than,
“Perhaps.”
He says nothing of the possibility, infinitely small though it is, that his wife-to-be may in fact be a Wang operative, nor that they may not have met by chance. There will be time enough for that later. For now, Wu Xie takes this rare moment to indulge in the secret thrill of having at long last managed to gain the upper hand, after spending so long feeling like Sisyphus on his way up an endless hill. Every minute that passes further confirms that the man he’s selected from what he knows is a damningly finite pool has yet to be corrupted by the Wangs and their fanatical ideologies, leaving Wu Xie, for once, with a window in which to act. The man’s sincerity and guilelessness are apparent, exuding from him as starkly as his obvious passion for photography, although Wu Xie also senses not a little curiosity aimed at him specifically. A few years ago, he might have cowered under the disconcerting lens of such hawk-like attention—the man both enticed and ensnared—a hunger lurking at its edges that prickles at Wu Xie’s skin like tiny needles that coax goosebumps to rise along the length of his arms. Now, he simply disregards it, lets the unease of it glance off of him, innocuous and unimportant, as he does with most unpleasant things of late. Wu Xie remains unfazed as their conversation rolls ever onward, choosing to see nothing more in the shameless display than an assortment of blatant cues from a man who has yet to have reason to conceal the heart he so clearly wears on his sleeve.
In hindsight, it should have been his final clue.
Much like the increase in blood loss and pain, the onset is gradual, perhaps more insidiously so for how well it creeps unnoticed past his unsuspecting defenses, such that finding an inception point proves to be an exercise in futility. What Wu Xie does know, however, is that the difference between the before and after eventually becomes great enough that he takes notice of it, for all that it will take him longer still to see its true nature.
In the beginning, the change is subtle enough he mistakes it for another milestone in his ever improving ability to read people; he has, after all, endeavored to hone this particular skill, necessary as it is to ensure the upper hand in any given situation. Though the recent extent of it had felt uncanny, he’d chosen to believe it was nothing more than heightened awareness, a final payoff from Hei Yanjing’s tutelage.
The guide on his latest trip to the Nepalese border, for instance, turns out to be little more than a harmless crook after days of Wu Xie quietly scrutinizing his every move in search of a crack he intuitively feels exists in his far too amicable facade. The greed and disdain that seep from the ugly little man as he sits next to Wu Xie one evening, once the rest of the expedition team has retired to their respective tents—all smiles even as his true colors saturate him at long last like oil stains on fine paper—is powerful enough Wu Xie finds himself taken aback for a brief moment, wondering how he’d ever struggled to decipher his now glaringly obvious intent. Regardless, the display is enough to assuage his suspicions. For all their guide’s intentions are less than honest, it seems he harbors no associations to the Wang family, the certainty of it bone deep for all Wu Xie lacks tangible evidence of it. The overwhelming impression of those deep-seated emotions eventually dissipates once the man tires of his empty pleasantries and returns to his own tent, leaving Wu Xie to keep watch, the tension seeping from him enough that he feels as though he can breathe easier for the first time in days.
It happens again on a return trip to Jinan several months later, where he once again finds himself hours away from the city deep in the mountainous wilderness of Shandong, chasing a lead he dreads, though strongly suspects, will lead him to yet another dead end. Wu Xie would be lying if he denied he’s grown tired of turning over every suspect rock along the path he doggedly treads much like his grandfather’s namesake, only for them to yield nothing for his efforts more often than not. It’s however not a gamble he nor any one of them can afford to take when the odds are stacked against them.
If nothing else, this particular trip allows him a brief reprieve from wearing the mask of Guan Gen, the debonair photographer who’s made waves in the relevant circles of late, and lets him simply be Wu Xie instead, accompanied by no one save for a handful of his Ershu’s trusted men mixed in with the rare few leftover from his Sanshu’s affairs in Changsha, perusing the lush mountainside in search of, if not an edge to gain, then a pawn to pry away from the Wangs’ unwitting hands. Their group moves as one, Wu Xie at its head, venturing further off the beaten path until their advance slows to a mere crawl, the branches and vines and underbrush so thick each step becomes its own hard-won victory. It’s when Wu Xie resorts to drawing his kukri, its blade more effective than his hands to do away with the onslaught of vegetation, that he brings their party to a momentary halt. He sends three of his men to scout ahead, all of whom acquiesce without question, content to comply with a chorus of “Yes Wu laoban ” as they move forward to disappear further into the trees.
One of them, however, is not like the others.
As the men pass him by one by one, there comes, abruptly, the alarming sensation of something cold and sharp dragging along the length of his spine, not unlike the keen edge of a knife poised on the cusp of pressing into his skin, before it coalesces into a focal point of pain that sinks deep into his flesh, so deep it feels as though it pierces his lungs. Wu Xie’s breath hitches as the familiar tang of iron rises in the back of his throat, cloying and thick. Though he’s long since learned to school his expression, and reveals nothing of the alarm that rises in him sharply, Wu Xie fears for one breathless moment that he’s been stabbed, or worse, that it’s the snake pheromones at work, the moment Hei Yanjing had warned him of rising to meet him at last. He expects the agonizing slide of a blade being torn from his body, or the sluggish trickle of blood from his nose he’s grown accustomed to—yet neither comes, and his face remains dry and unsullied. His men walk past him with measured footsteps, untroubled even as Wu Xie does his utmost to hide his agitation, and were his senses not heightened as they are, he might not have noticed as one of them brushes slightly closer than necessary, his stride assured, guiding Wu Xie’s head to turn to him on instinct, quick enough for their eyes to lock for one brief moment.
The physical sensations abruptly spike in intensity, enough that Wu Xie can’t be sure he manages to hide the instinctive grimace of pain that threatens to twist his features, the taste of iron on his tongue so strong he feels nauseous from it. But even these pale in comparison to the overwhelming sense of malice and incongruous glee that surge in him, only to recede as quickly as they had come once the eye contact breaks. He stands still, eyes on his men’s retreating figures not unlike a hawk who’s found its prey, the sensations and emotions both ebbing with each step they take further into the lush green of the forest, disappearing altogether once they fall out of sight.
The experience, momentary as it had been, leaves Wu Xie on edge. Perhaps years ago, he would have simply chosen to ignore his own apprehension and pressed forward, wary but convinced that determination alone would suffice to make up for his own deficiencies, guiding him to success. He’s since learned that he’d been nothing more than naive and overconfident, more often than not reliant on the skills of others to simply survive, and that in a business where morality has no place, it is he who hesitates who bares his neck first. Wu Xie waits until all three men have long since disappeared into the underbrush and turns to face his remaining contingent, quiet as he calls them to attention.
“Leave your equipment, take only the essentials. Say nothing. We go around from the east.”
His men comply without protest at the sudden change of plan, though it’s more a testament to their loyalty towards his uncles and his family than towards him himself. Nonetheless, they veer off course with Wu Xie in the lead, taking a longer, far more convoluted route to their intended destination.
Wu Xie will never know what might have happened had he ignored those inexplicable sensations and continued as he’d initially planned, though neither of the three men he’d sent ahead ever return. He takes it as confirmation enough that for all he knows, he might have died on that mountain, quietly slipping through the cracks of the world, never to be seen again. When Wu Xie returns to Hangzhou, once again empty-handed, he only ever gives his Ershu one name. He figures it’s enough.
It happens again. And again. And again , until finally, he can no longer deny that there’s something more at play than what ill-begotten vanity had pinned on his own uncanny perceptiveness.
Wu Xie is many things—a liar, a thief, an opportunist, alongside a number of other detestable traits he’s cultivated or simply let fester out of convenience or necessity—but he is not a fool, not anymore. There’s something afoot; all that’s left is for him to determine what .
And so, Wu Xie starts to pay attention. He thinks to take stock of himself whenever he feels himself overcome with violent surges of foreign emotion, or visceral sensations that leave no tangible trace for all he feels them as keenly as physical violence on his body; eventually, it happens often enough that he draws his own conclusions. He finds it happens most often in fleeting moments of weakness, whether in body or mind, fatigue, doubt, or any number of other burdens heaped onto his weary shoulders leaving him, for brief windows of time, more vulnerable to dropping his carefully crafted defenses. Wu Xie is only human, much as he endeavors not to be. He hops from one archeological team to the next in the far reaches of China, builds his fabricated reputation as an imminent photographer even as he travels off the beaten paths alone, always searching, never stopping, never forgetting the burden of now three generations of the Wu family he carries on his shoulders, nor the weight of dark eyes that flicker in the firelight on a cold mountain night, nor a ten-year promise Wu Xie has bound himself to fulfilling no matter the cost—that he should falter, if only briefly, is an inevitability. Now, he might have a way to find an advantage in even that.
From there, he experiments, and discovers that eye contact is another factor that facilitates what he’s come to see as exchanges of emotion and intent between himself and whatever unsuspecting subject he’s chosen, consciously or not. Once he learns to harden his mental defenses, and only allow these exchanges, for the most part, to happen on his own terms, it’s little more than a question of Wu Xie finding ways to lock eyes with any given person, even for a split second, to receive any intense emotion they’ve, unbeknownst to them, left to bleed into the open air around them, leaving their intentions ripe for the picking. How much he can take in is simply a matter of how long Wu Xie can maintain his concentration.
Wu Xie knows no amount of honed perceptiveness can account for this newfound ability to ‘read’ people. He’s unsure of what else to call it, and finds himself chuckling around the worn filter of his cigarette at the idea of agonizing over a name for what, to all intents and purposes, amounts to an unnatural ‘superpower’ as he pins another page marred with nearly illegible characters to the intricate web plastered on his Sanshu’s basement wall (his grandfather, his Ershu and his father would all likely smack him upside the head if they saw his impeccable calligraphy debased to inelegant scribbles—it’s another thing he could care less about). It makes it seem as though he’s some Marvel superhero instead of the useless third generation grave robber he knows himself to be. It’s a concept that sounds about as insane as Lao Yang’s explanation all those years ago on the psychological persuasion that bronze tree still buried deep beneath the Qinling Mountains can supposedly induce.
Insane or not, it does little to persuade him not to throw himself into the task of mastering the ins and outs of it with as much ardor as he undertakes everything else these days. Wu Xie spends weeks on end testing the limits of his reading ability on each hapless, slightly suspect stranger he crosses paths with, progressively harnessing control over it with a manic energy he hasn’t felt in months, perhaps even years, until he feels as though the pieces are all miraculously falling into place exactly where he needs them to. Sometimes, it feels too good to be true, and the exhaustion that curls along his bones, serpentine as it drapes the length of them, heavier with each day that passes and each successful reading, tells Wu Xie of the price he pays the more he uses it. But he’s inclined to not look this particular gift horse in the mouth. Wu Xie knows with a rationality that should scare him more than it does that at the rate he’s going, he’s a candle swiftly burning at both ends, desperate enough to try and reach the finish line before he’s consumed himself entirely. There’s a voice in the far corner of his mind that sounds suspiciously like Hei Yanjing that whispers at him, reminding him of what he’s always known would come, sooner or later.
‘You may even feel like a snake for several years, who knows? Best not to ram into that wall too hard now Xiao Sanye. You might not like what you see on the other side.’
Wu Xie has little doubt that gaining the uncanny ability to read people through what he assumes is pheromone output wasn’t exactly what Hei Yanjing had in mind, but it’s a far better outcome than some of the more gruesome ones he’s envisioned. It’s a laughably small price to pay, if he can even call it that.
Sometimes, on rare quiet nights that coax his buried thoughts from where he’d locked them away, grown too cumbersome once his mind had needed the space for other, more pressing ones, Wu Xie remembers the ghost seal he’d hidden away all those years ago for safekeeping, out of sight, but never entirely out of mind, and thinks of the man who had gently placed it in his hand before slipping away into the shadows, whose many names that are not names all bring to Wu Xie the echo of an indescribable, nameless grief. It’s a grief that sank into the hollow of his chest to make its home there, strange detachment its only companion, and resurfaces when he thinks of how that same man waits alone behind the impenetrable doors hidden beneath that hateful mountain that reeks of death and loss, live or dead or worse still.
It’s enough for Wu Xie to cling to the thought of how perhaps the snakes have unwittingly gifted him the edge he needs to help guarantee Xiaoge’s safe return and hard-won freedom, just as it may prove to be the key to freeing his Wu family from a conspiracy they’ve all become far too embroiled in to tear free from through willpower alone. What worth could Wu Xie alone have compared to these priceless things?
Armed with this newest ace up his sleeve, Wu Xie throws himself into what he and Xiao Hua have begun to dub the Sand Sea project with all the fervor of a madman, though Wu Xie is anything but. He’s meticulous, methodic until it borders on maniacal, and though the fatigue eats at his body, worn increasingly thin, the thrill of witnessing his grueling efforts slowly begin to pay off keeps him pushing forward, steadfast and resolute.
He revels in the certainty of knowing others in ways he’s painstakingly made sure he himself is not, his inherent distrust soothed and assuaged in turn by every echo of raw emotion he harvests from those he meets, leaving no stone unturned, disregarding the way each reading eats at his waning strength in favor of taking heart from the progressive control he gains. He finds understanding the precise mechanics and reasoning behind his strange ability is of little importance, or rather it never occurs to him to further question it beyond the certainty that it had stemmed from excessive pheromone intake. It serves to dissipate, if only briefly, the fog that threatens to swallow him—swallow all of them—whole, allowing for a small window of clarity most men would kill for, perhaps himself included. There’s little else Wu Xie can be bothered to know.
The months slip by in a torturous crawl as Wu Xie’s candle burns ever faster, each passing day one step closer to a goal that finally, after so long spent toiling blindly in the dark, seems within reach. When they’d spoken last, he’d hinted as much to Xiao Hua, telling him in not so many words that he believed it was time to push his chosen guinea pig into the field, a proposal to which Xiao Hua had initially said nothing—nothing overt in any case. Wu Xie has discovered in the time they’ve spent rebuilding between them what time had undone that while Xiao Hua is ostensibly an honest man, his honesty is in fact a currency he uses more sparingly than his approachable demeanor might suggest. Wu Xie has wondered on more than one occasion whether he himself has ever had the privilege of bearing the full brunt of it. The walls have ears—a fact both of them know all too well—and yet Wu Xie knows just as keenly that the silence Xiao Hua had leveled at him before he’d replied had not solely been a show of calculated restraint.
“You’ve found it then.” It’s not a question.
You’ve found Gutongjing is what he doesn’t say.
“Not yet,” Wu Xie answers, smiling wryly as he reaches into his coat pocket for a cigarette. Xiao Hua tosses him a lighter he picks up from his desk beside him, the glint of it as it soars through the air between them lasting a split second before Wu Xie catches it deftly with his free hand. He studies it as he flicks it open; it’s pristine, tastefully engraved with Xiao Hua’s stage name, something sober and elegant in the way most things in Xiao Hua’s possession tend to be. Wu Xie lifts his gaze to meet Xiao Hua’s unwavering one as the flame ignites with a quiet flick, the end of his cigarette catching, the edges of it curling like delicate blackened lace that burns red when he takes his first drag, the fragrant smoke Wu Xie can’t smell anymore rising into the open air between them. When he speaks again, his voice is uncompromising, filled with gravel and imbued with unquestionable finality.
“But close enough.”
When he leaves later, en route for Harbin under cover of night, Wu Xie wonders when Xiao Hua had stopped putting his foot down on Wu Xie’s less than ideal plans. He’d expected a rebuttal, at the very least a comment on what Wu Xie knows must seem, from an outside perspective, like an absurdly hasty move. Part of him is glad for it. It saves him from having to work through fanciful dodging to avoid telling Xiao Hua that he can suddenly read minds, or as close to it as he can without being privy to people’s worded thoughts. He doesn’t intend to tell anyone at all, with the risk of compromise being as high as it is. He supposes some of it can be attributed to Xiao Hua’s trust in Wu Xie’s abilities and judgment by this point, something Wu Xie would have gloated about in juvenile pride if only in the privacy of his own mind not so long ago—but he’s not fool enough to think Xiao Hua is one to back down quite so easily. It’s more likely that Xiao Hua, beyond the trust he places in his competence, knows that Wu Xie, once he’s made up his mind, is a near unstoppable force, for better or worse. He should likely feel worse about it than he does, and likely will later, when (if) there will be time to parse through the debris of the mess that he’s made of his life.
For now, all it does is leave him strangely unfazed as he watches Beijing rush by before disappearing entirely as his train careens off into the night. Things are going well. It’s only a matter of time before he can fulfill his promise and leave all this behind him. The faster it can all come to an end, the better.
Naturally, it all goes to shit in spectacular fashion.
He’s not sure, even years down the line, where exactly he’d gone wrong, which stone he’d been negligent enough to leave undisturbed as he’d carved his path forward, though he has his suspicions. In the end, he’ll come to understand he doesn’t need the answer. That he’d failed is all that matters.
He’d jumped the gun, guessing he’d closed in enough on Gutongjing’s approximate location by then that all it would take was a little extra push to set things on their final course. He meets with his guinea pig in an inconspicuous teahouse in Harbin he’d chosen thanks to Guan Gen’s connections. He was told it was a quaint little haunt for up-and-coming artists of all sorts, and figured it would arouse the least amount of suspicion while allowing him to lure the man into the sands of Inner Mongolia with minimal effort. They chat good-naturedly, Wu Xie taking his time to spin a tale of recently uncovered ruins in the desert, of the returning archeological team that he’d been invited to join, extending the invitation himself to an esteemed colleague. It’s not entirely a lie—the archeological team exists, but it is comprised of a team of his own making, some of them his Ershu’s men, some of them remnants of his Sanshu’s connections that had remained in his employ after Wu Xie had been forced to take over his uncle’s businesses. It’s little more than a front, but what matters is that it’s an entirely believable one. Wu Xie had made certain before setting things in motion that the man had already agreed to come; their discussion now is only a social formality.
Half an hour into their exchange, however, something unexpected happens. A young woman walks into their private room, putting Wu Xie immediately on edge. He does his best to simply look surprised even as he dips into his depleted reserves to read her, though he feels nothing of note despite his best efforts.
There’s a flutter of happiness, warm enough to perceive the comfort of, but little else, explained in the next moment when the man across from him turns towards her with a sheepish smile, extending a hand that she gladly takes, sitting beside him as she bows her head to Wu Xie in greeting. The man introduces her as his fiancée, who has heard of Mr. Guan at length (and that Wu Xie has heard of about as much no doubt), and as an amateur photographer herself, had insisted on coming along when she’d heard Mr. Guan would be there.
Wu Xie is hesitant to allow for an unknown variable in his plans, and while he smiles charmingly at the woman, subtly beautiful in ways Wu Xie knows men cannot help but admire, he spares no effort in making another concentrated attempt at trying to identify any hidden nefarious intent. When he finds none, he’s forced to concede she’s likely nothing more than an enthusiastic woman in love, tightly clinging to the object of her affections. Resigned, Wu Xie persuades himself that with any hope, she may yet be of some use. A man in love is a man appeased, and the lower his guard, the better it suits Wu Xie’s own purpose. He soon discovers that while his assessment isn’t wrong, the duplicity of human nature can reach depths that, at the time, he had not yet suspected.
He pays for it dearly.
In the aftermath, Wu Xie finds his memory of what follows remains unclear, even sporadic, as if he’d tried to erase it from his mind altogether. There is the advance into the desert, the looming rock formations ahead, the surprise sandstorm that had scattered him and his men, leaving him and the couple alone in the solitude of the desert. There is Wu Xie, who decides to take his chances, leading them both into a nearby cave, more of a gouge in the rocks truthfully, though secluded all the same, as he clutches a vial filled with black substance in the hand buried in his coat pocket.
What he cannot forget, standing out in cruel, terrible clarity, is the sudden click of a gun being cocked, loud in the surrounding quiet, before he turns to see the woman smiling warmly, a small revolver clenched in her delicate hand that she points at her fiancé’s face. The look of disbelief, then abject fear that fills the man’s eyes as he stares at her, uncomprehending even as he instinctively begins to back away towards Wu Xie stands out starkly, as does the memory of the violent terror that courses through Wu Xie’s veins like ice when the man turns to him as if in slow motion, his panic cloying when their gazes meet, leaving Wu Xie frozen in place under the weight of it, before the sensation is brutally ripped away by the bullet the man takes point blank to the back of his skull, and that misses Wu Xie’s head by mere centimeters on its way out.
The man collapses, terribly quiet in death, at Wu Xie’s feet. Wu Xie stares at the small trickle of blood that seeps from the exit wound on his forehead, the crimson stark against the man’s pale skin, and at his empty eyes frozen in fright, only torn from his stupor by the soft click of a revolver’s cylinder that sounds again, loud and grating. Wu Xie’s eyes swiftly rise to find the young woman’s still softly smiling face, from whom he still feels nothing but that subtle warmth, an unobtrusive sort of happiness not unlike the caress of a comforting blanket, so at odds with the violence of death that surrounds her, that was begot by her.
Before, he might not have sprung to action quite so quickly, the sense of oncoming danger so at odds with the face it had chosen to take. But Hei Yanjing had taught him well.
Wu Xie doesn’t let his mind think, only allows his body to act. Before he quite realizes that he’s pulled his kukri from its sheath, the keen blade has already drawn an arc in front of him, cleanly slicing into the delicate flesh of the woman’s neck, crimson blood welling, then pouring from the open wound left in the wake of its passage. Her smiling face freezes, eyes widening in surprise that briefly sparks through their connection even as she drops the still loaded revolver to the ground with a resounding thud. She too drops with it soon after, collapsing onto the ground in a hapless heap. Wu Xie watches, unmoved (though perhaps he should have been) as she chokes, feels her fade in proportion with the blood she spills freely onto the dry desert stone, until finally, mercifully, she stills, the connection severed. When he thinks back to this moment, Wu Xie will remember most of all how all he had felt from her besides that one brief window of surprise had been the same steady, fragile warmth of unfettered happiness, unperturbed even by encroaching death.
—
I think we are in rats’ alley
Where dead men lost their bones.
(Hurry up please it’s time)
The journey back, fruitless and tainted by bitter failure, proves to be as much of a blur. There isn’t much to tell, or at least nothing worth mentioning. He finds his men eventually, or rather his men find him once he thinks to launch a signal flare after the raging winds die down, leaving nothing save for the ghost of their presence behind in memory. By then, he’d already moved to boil the contents of his gourd before turning the woman’s fresh corpse face down into her own drying blood, cutting her shirt open to reveal the pale skin of her back on which he’d unflinchingly poured the scalding water. Wu Xie had watched with detached but rapt attention as the heat of it had colored her soon-to-be rotting flesh red, small blisters forming even as a sprawling phoenix with spread wings had faded into view.
He’d thought the confirmation of his suspicions would move him in some way. It leaves him indifferent instead.
After that, he and his men dispose of the bodies. Perhaps it’s the lingering sentimentality in Wu Xie that urges him to dig the graves himself, to bury them both side by side, murderer and murdered, gone hand in hand to face the next life. She’d truly loved him, of that much Wu Xie is certain. How she could have reconciled that love with what she’d done is knowledge Wu Xie buries with them. The dead cannot speak, or rarely—if they could, Wu Xie isn’t certain he would want the answer. Whatever secrets the desert holds have yet to yield to him. There’s nothing left to do but retreat.
Hours, even days later, time incalculable and meaningless, Wu Xie finds himself back in Changsha, once again shut away in the bowels of his Sanshu’s abandoned home. He stares at the expanse of wall he’d covered with piece after piece of what he’d believed to be a meticulous plan, each connection that ties one fragment to the next another thread to darken it. He’d thought they would bring him the clarity he so desperately needs. Now, all he sees is a tangled web of his own making from which, it seems, there is no hope of escape.
The time that follows is no less nebulous, each passing day fading into the next without clear distinction. The guilt, above all else, is what haunts his every waking moment, its crushing weight a constant companion that hounds Wu Xie day and night as he feverishly recalls each detail, each choice he might have overlooked or delayed that had led him to believe the man’s wife-to-be had been nothing more than that; that had allowed him to die, suddenly, meaninglessly, without even knowing why. Those final moments, the terror the man had felt, complete and terrible as he’d turned to Wu Xie, though for what purpose he will never know, replay on loop in every idle moment, his mind a broken record that refuses to let him know peace.
It’s only fitting that Wu Xie ensures he leaves no space for him to know any peace to begin with.
He throws himself into his work with renewed dedication and energy he does not have but expends nonetheless, seldom granting himself time to eat, let alone sleep, spending every waking moment pouring over document after document, lead after lead, in an effort to ignore the gnawing regret that wears him to the bone until he inevitably sinks into merciful, dreamless oblivion. When even that fails, he turns to the snake pheromones, sometimes taking them three times in as many days, or so he thinks—he finds he doesn’t care much to know the number or names of the days that slip by unnoticed. More often than not, Wu Xie wakes on the floor, in a chair, anywhere but his makeshift bed to find his clothes stained with blood, gone tacky as it dries, sticking the fabric to his skin in a way that sets off his threadbare nerves even through the echo of pain that never truly relinquishes its hold on him.
Good, he thinks each time his lungs rattle from the strain, each time his bones, turned brittle in his worn and weakened flesh, ache more fiercely. The thought never fully forms then, his mind pulled too taut, frayed at the edges—he’ll only consider later that these things are his penance, justly dolled out. His body, however, proves too weak to withstand it for long. Even all of Hei Yanjing’s best tutelage can’t change this one fatal flaw.
Wu Xie lasts, and lasts, and lasts, until one day, he simply does not.
He wakes one night, in his bed for once, after another brief bout of restless, dreamless sleep, nerves alight for all his mind is deceptively calm, knowing abruptly that he desperately needs it to stop. His jaw aches from having clenched it, teeth grinding against teeth as if that alone could ground him. And Wu Xie finds he knows with sudden disconcerting clarity what needs to be done.
He watches, as if a distant spectator to his own body, as he reaches for the dagger he keeps buried beneath his pillow, grasping onto its solid handle, contemplating the faint gleam of its blade in the voracious dim of his underground prison. He rises then, with difficulty, on unsteady feet, dagger in hand, to stumble his way into the small bathroom, blinded by the glaring brightness once his trembling fingers find the switch.
He does himself the mercy of running the blade under a stream of water first, the harsh overhead light half-blinding as it reflects on the pristine wet steel, before calmly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Wu Xie slowly lifts his left arm until it’s outstretched before him, deceptively steady despite how it visibly, minutely trembles in his overwhelming exhaustion. He brings the dagger to his skin, pressing it there, savoring the cool, smooth slide of the blade before all too casually, he presses harder, with intent, slicing through the fragile skin at an agonizingly slow pace that lets him keenly feel how the sharp edge tears into his flesh, drags through it, leaving a gouge and a trail of fresh blood in its wake. Wu Xie watches as it wells from the open wound, only beading there first, then, once there’s enough of it, as it begins to trickle in small rivulets that drip down onto the unmarred white porcelain of the sink.
Only then does his mind finally, mercifully calm, the fierce burn of the pain a focal point of sensation that serves to ground him after he’s spent so very long unmoored. He doesn’t care to bandage it, not properly. Wu Xie supposes the cut is deep enough to need stitches, but he gives it no more treatment than a simple wrapping that he changes regularly, knowing full well that it will scar.
Good, he thinks. Let it.
The knowledge helps Wu Xie settle back into his skin like a ghost that had slipped its mortal coil without quite noticing; from there, he starts again from scratch. After so long spent locked away in a sunless basement, he wanders out of his Sanshu’s house into the busy streets of Changsha, the noise deafening in contrast to the roaring silence he’d grown accustomed to. He later learns he’d retreated into his voluntary seclusion for what amounts to two weeks—long enough to forget how bright the afternoon sun can be against his straining eyes, but not enough to forget there is vast world out there that didn’t cease to exist while he’d been gone; that there’s still work yet to be done.
Wu Xie had thought the worst of his strange lapse in judgment had passed, the throb of his arm a constant, welcome reminder to not grant himself the opportunity to spiral out of the tight control he persists in maintaining at all costs. He hadn’t accounted for the even stranger paranoia that diligently tries to sink its deft claws into him with each stranger he meets, though try as he might, he can’t quite quell it entirely. No one is spared from it, or nearly. Anyone he considers might be of some use to him becomes fair game, another opportunity to push his reading ability further still, intent on analyzing each and every emotion he receives until he can parse through the surprising layers of them, some hidden undertow, lurking where he’d never thought to look. It puts a number of things in perspective, but mostly highlights how blindingly stupid he’d been, so enamored with his own hubris that he’d truly believed he’d been untouchable, that nothing could slip past his all-knowing gaze.
Wu Xie, even now, is still a fool. And the world had seen fit to remind him of that.
Bitterly, he wonders if the outcome of that day in the desert would have changed had he been humbled sooner. Perhaps it’s for the best that he’ll never know. It earns him a new breakthrough if nothing else, and together with the dull throb of the still-healing wound on his arm, drives him forward at an even faster pace, as if he’d needed to be kicked down to better pick himself up and start again. The fatigue that had already dug into his bones long ago grows heavier with each passing day, though he ignores it in favor of pressing forward. If anything, he feels calmer, more in control in spite of it. Wu Xie knows better than to delude himself into believing he can go on like this forever—not if he wants to preserve the integrity of his plans (nor if he wants any hope of seeing them through to their bitter end). And yet he can’t find it in himself to slow down. He might have forged onwards for far longer, hellbent on pursuing his goal—now more distant than ever—in the manner of a flash fire, until he’d burnt himself out beyond a point of no return, had he not been course corrected (or rather slapped in the face) on a trip to Beijing one month later, where in lieu of stopping to see Xiao Hua, he decides to pay a visit to Pangzi instead.
Wu Xie should have known that if anyone could knock some much needed sense into him, it would be Pangzi.
He doesn’t call ahead—the niggling sense of being watched that’s settled in the back of his mind these days has left Wu Xie reluctant to let his comings and goings become too common knowledge. It’s why he’s taken to shuttling between Hangzhou and Changsha more frequently—he figures it serves to keep him from being too predictable. It’s doubtless made seeing people like Xiao Hua, busy man that he is, far more difficult, but the sense of security, flimsy as it may be, makes the sacrifice worthwhile.
Wu Xie wanders into Pangzi’s shop from the crowded streets of Panjiayuan unannounced on the cusp of six o’clock, Beijing’s summer heat still stifling even as the sun begins its rapid descent. The shop owners that line the bustling city roads with their wares, as if by tacit agreement, start to wind down, preparing for the fast approaching end of their day’s work, their wares disappearing one by one into their shops, put away until the next morning when their business can resume once again. Pangzi, predictably, is no exception.
Wu Xie slips past the threshold of the shop’s open door, the front room empty, quiet save for the ever-present hum of the city beyond its walls, and the delicate, tasteful chime of a bell that sounds as he pushes back the bead curtain that separates the quaint space from the street. For a moment, he stands there in the room, painted in the beginnings of the setting sun’s darker hues, the dull murmur of the street a soothing background noise to a rare moment of calm Wu Xie allows himself to sink into before it’s abruptly broken by a muted call of “Coming, coming!” from further inside, the voice and tone both painfully familiar. It pulls a rarer, genuine smile from Wu Xie’s tired face as the rustling of heavy footsteps grows louder, until Pangzi finally emerges from the back room, carrying what looks like an open account book in hand that he peruses even as he walks, a pen wedged between his teeth.
“Don’t go, I’m not closed yet—Tianzhen!”
Pangzi’s mouth opens in surprise as his eyes widen, the pen dropping unceremoniously to the ground, forgotten as he grins, wide with unabashed joy, before laughing heartily. He slams the book shut on the countertop as he squeezes past it, and he’s on Wu Xie within two strides, his arm already thrown across Wu Xie’s shoulder before he quite realizes it, squeezing him tightly.
“You bastard, couldn’t have warned Pangye ahead of time you were coming eh? Had to make me look bad that I don’t have the fancy tea out?”
“Since when do you give a shit about that?” He chides, lifting an eyebrow at Pangzi’s dramatics though he can’t stop his smile from shifting into an amused grin, his chest warm with the familiarity. He’d missed this—more than he cares to admit. Pangzi laughs, loud and unapologetic, clapping him on the back as he leads him deeper into the bowels of his shop.
“True that Xiao Wu, true that.”
Pangzi insists on closing up shop on account of Wu Xie’s impromptu visit (despite Wu Xie’s token protests), and half an hour later finds them both sat in the backroom of Pangzi’s shop, the setting sun casting its now russet hues through the wooden shutters that bask the room in encroaching shadows.
Contrary to what he’d first seemed to suggest, Pangzi breaks out the aforementioned fancy tea Wu Xie knows he only ever bothers to brew for his higher paying customers instead of the chilled beer Wu Xie also knows he keeps stashed in the shop’s mini fridge for these types of occasions. Wu Xie says nothing, giving Pangzi some face for once—the gesture, however, does not go unnoticed, and warms Wu Xie all the same. He goes about pouring himself and Pangzi a steaming cup, only tolerable thanks to the air conditioned coolness of the room, as Pangzi makes sure to shut the door behind him, peeking out the window discreetly before he sits down opposite Wu Xie with a dull thud. Wu Xie digs through his pockets, pulling out his half-crumpled pack of cigarettes from which he pulls two of them, tossing one to Pangzi before lighting his own, taking the first drag, then tossing Pangzi the lighter for good measure. He watches Pangzi do the same, the faint red of the tip glowing as he takes his own mouthful of smoke, and lets himself relax for the first time in a long time, closing his eyes as he sinks into the back of the cushioned chair behind him. When he opens them again, he sees Pangzi reclined in his own chair, looking to him as if deep in thought, eyes narrowed in obvious disapproval.
Wu Xie spends all of a moment wondering why, puzzled by the sudden change of atmosphere, before he thinks to follow Pangzi’s gaze downwards, until he lands on his still bandaged arm he hasn’t bothered to hide. He tries not to frown, wondering how he could have better hidden it.
Next time, he thinks. He doesn’t stop to question the certainty of there being a ‘next time’.
“So…,” Pangzi starts, hesitant, though his eyes stay firmly fixed on Wu Xie’s arm. “What brings you to the north these days?” It sounds like nothing more than a harmless question, but Wu Xie knows better. He knows Pangzi far too well to believe he’ll be content with whatever answer Wu Xie supplies him with.
“Business,” he replies, pausing to take another drag from his cigarette. He’s not in the mood to humor Pangzi’s curiosity any more than strictly necessary, not when Wu Xie feels their conversation is headed towards something decidedly unpleasant.
“Business eh…” Pangzi hums sagely, his nod of understanding entirely for show as he takes another drag from this cigarette before moving to fiddle with the rim of his tea cup.
“Last I heard from Hua’erye, ‘business’ hasn’t been so smooth lately.” His gaze stays riveted on Wu Xie’s arm. “Didn’t hear about that though,” he finally comments around the filter of his cigarette after a brief pause, voice gone quiet. Wu Xie frowns. He hadn’t thought Pangzi would cut to the chase and ask quite so openly. In hindsight, he should’ve expected it. Wu Xie’s mood darkens as his lips pinch the filter of his own cigarette. He hadn’t come here to talk about that.
“A little accident, that’s all.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Pangzi raises an eyebrow, huffing as he exhales a lungful of smoke that dissipates between them, leaving the air in the room staler for it. Before Wu Xie can think of a convincing retort, he adds, “Tianzhen, you look like shit.” It raises Wu Xie’s hackles immediately.
“Fuck off.” His brow furrows as he pulls his cigarette from between his lips to hold it tighter than necessary between his fingers, preferring to take a sip of his tea rather than say something else he might regret.
“I tell it like it is Tianzhen, and I’ll say it again. You look like shit.” Pangzi levels him with a look that, while not a glare, tells Wu Xie he’s not in the mood for his beating around the bush variety of bullshit. It’s too bad Wu Xie isn’t in the mood for unwelcome prying either. He falls back into his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose as he goes to try and quell his frustration. He knows Pangzi means well, and that he’s not wrong either. Wu Xie sees himself in the mirror every morning, sees how haggard and unkempt he looks—he just doesn’t need Pangzi to rub it in his face. He hears Pangzi sigh across from him, heavy with its own brand of weariness when his comments are only met with Wu Xie’s stone cold silence.
“When was the last time you slept huh? Or ate anything that wasn’t water?” Wu Xie grits his teeth with a dry laugh, shaking his head before taking a calming drag from his cigarette that shrinks about as quickly as his patience.
“You can’t eat water, you fucking—,” He wisely cuts himself off. Usually, that would warrant him a smartass comment at best. It’s a shame Pangzi doesn’t seem to be in a joking mood. Wu Xie watches as Pangzi smokes in silence for a moment, his gaze dark and uncharacteristically serious, more so in the fading daylight, as he looks Wu Xie in the eye, pinning him in place.
“Let me be honest with you Tianzhen,” he starts, low and quiet in a way Pangzi rarely ever is. “When I say you look like shit, I mean it. I know you’re busy—,” he raises a hand to stop Wu Xie’s protests, “I know you’re busy. Hell, I don’t know about half the shit you get up to these days. I don’t know if anyone really does. But putting one foot in the grave isn’t gonna help anyone.”
Wu Xie knows, deep down, that Pangzi means well. He always has, in his own ways, often giving Wu Xie more allowances than any stranger should have when he’d been little more than a bumbling idiot pretending he knew anything about robbing tombs or the cruel ways in which the world works. There’s also more than just a grain of truth to his words. However skilled Wu Xie has gotten at keeping troublesome things out of sight and out of mind, he knows only the truth could hurt as keenly as Pangzi’s words do. They only echo the voice that whispers to him, saying that he’s nothing but a coward who’s preferred to bury his head in the sand in the hopes it might fix the broken pieces left behind in the aftermath of his own failures (and another one still that tells him that he deserves for it to hurt). It’s why, despite knowing his words aren’t quite an accusation, Wu Xie can’t help but bristle at them when they’re a finger that points at all his still festering wounds.
At first, he resolves to keep his silence, tilting his head back to rest on the back of the cushioned chair, preferring to stare at the ceiling rather than grace Pangzi with any sort of answer, taking a long drag of his dwindling cigarette in an effort to calm himself. Wu Xie throws his free arm over his eyes, the bandage itching at the skin of his face, hiding the world from view, and only then does he dare to speak.
“There’s… things that need to be done.”
“And I get that. You think I don’t know that?” Wu Xie can’t see his expression, but Pangzi’s tone alone is enough to tell he’s beginning to lose his temper. “But do you really think anyone wants to see you digging yourself into an early grave over it?” Wu Xie lets his arm slip from his face and takes in another lungful of smoke, though he continues to stare at the ceiling above him. He can taste the filter’s bitter tang between his lips as the more soothing one of tobacco rolls over his tongue, and thinks it best to let Pangzi say his piece. Nothing Wu Xie could say would deter him from his tirade now that he’s started, and so it leaves Wu Xie with little choice but to bear it. He’s gotten good at that at least. Yet somehow, he doesn’t expect the turn their one-sided conversation takes.
“Kicking the bucket like a fucking martyr isn’t gonna bring Xiaoge out of that damn gate any faster. And you’re not leaving me the job of telling him none of us stopped you when he comes back. I’m not taking him to burn paper money for you.”
Wu Xie freezes.
Xiaoge, for all his importance both to the deadlock he and the rest of the Nine families are engaged in with the Wangs, and to Wu Xie himself, is a subject that he’s often skirted around with a caution bordering on obsession these past few years. After he and Pangzi had parted with ways with Zhang Haike in Motuo on their return trip down the mountain, Wu Xie, armed with the foundations of what would become his ambitious plan to dismantle the true face of ‘It’, had begun to avoid actively thinking of Xiaoge without quite realizing it. He suspects no amount of effort will ever be enough to banish Xiaoge from his thoughts altogether (Wu Xie is more convinced that he would ever want to for all it would likely be a mercy), and so he contents himself with making certain that his mind never strays too close to the hollow maw left in the wake of Xiaoge’s departure that would likely swallow him whole given the chance to.
It’s enough that merely hearing someone call after a xiaoge makes him bristle with sudden tension, or that his mood darkens considerably when someone ill-advisedly chooses to address Wu Xie himself as such. Wu Xie isn’t quite so far-removed from his own tells that he can pretend these reactions have gone unnoticed by those who know him best—that those closest to him had, without his knowledge, had unanimously decided to avoid any mention of Zhang Qiling in front of him outside of strict necessity, tells Wu Xie all he needs to know.
Perhaps that’s why Pangzi’s admonition sinks into him like so many shards of glass, all agonizingly sunk into every crevice of him, leaving him feeling uncomfortably exposed, scrutinized with a scalpel poised above him to dissect him further. Part of him abruptly seethes with a kind of anger he hasn’t felt in far too long, that surprises him by its raw intensity. A larger part of him is suddenly, bone-shatterinly tired, as though Wu Xie is Atlas upon which has been bestowed yet another burden to shoulder. Wu Xie will never know for certain whether it’s the exhaustion or the anger that finally eats away at his carefully maintained composure, or if it’s more so that it’s Pangzi, Pangzi who, at his core, despite everything, he trusts unreservedly, enough to let his weathered defenses, if only for a moment, crumble at his feet. All he knows is that his restraint, in that moment, finally wears thin enough to snap—his teeth clench around the butt of his cigarette until it breaks in his mouth, the remnants of its tobacco leaves sticking to his tongue, his voice filled with ice when he finally deigns to reply.
“Don’t bring Xiaoge into this,” Wu Xie hisses, low and threatening as he keeps his gaze resolutely on the ceiling, now wreathed in shadows as the sunlight finally wanes into twilight. He hears Pangzi scoff, pause, then retort over the loud clack of porcelain on wood.
“And why not? Shit, he’s as much a part of this as you are. As we all are. Might as well remind you of our good brother’s opinion.” Wu Xie’s fingers clench on the armrests where his arms had settled, finally pulling himself upright to face Pangzi, whose face paints a picture of rare gravity, a harshness displayed there he’s rarely ever seen, more so directed at Wu Xie himself. It does nothing to quell the viciousness in him—if anything, it stokes it higher still.
“He made his choice. This is mine.”
“Oh yeah? And what choice is that?” When Wu Xie says nothing, Pangzi sighs heavily, raking his hand through his hair as though it might help calm his visible agitation. “I’ve seen corpses that looked fresher than you Tianzhen. Had more meat on them too. You’re so dainty now if your hair was longer I’d think you were a little girl.”
“Fuck off.” It’s far from the most eloquent comeback he’s ever made, but Wu Xie’s long past making any kind of effort.
“You know I’m right. You’re not stupid Tianzhen. A man has to stop and smell the flowers for his own good sometimes.”
If he were the sort of person to make excuses for himself, Wu Xie would justify what comes next as nothing more than the product of his overtaxed mind finally bending too far. He’s fresh from his first disastrous attempt at uncovering Gutongjing, from weeks of self-imposed isolation from which he’s emerged with nothing to speak for his efforts save for a likely hideous scar in the making across his arm, and insidiously encroaching paranoia. It stands to reason that only a severe lapse in judgment could pull him away from the downward spiral he hadn’t even realized he’d already embarked upon; that perhaps what he does is a necessary evil, one of many he’s commited, and one of many yet to come.
But Wu Xie isn’t in the habit of indulging his cowardly ego. He saves face only because Pangzi will never know how thoroughly he lost it.
Amid his anger and frustration that crawl beneath his skin like insects in search of a means to breach it, a seed of irrational doubt begins to take root in him, shameless whispers of how Pangzi’s adamant claims that Wu Xie should slow down, perhaps even put his plans to a grinding halt, if only for a time, make no sense.
Pangzi has never been one to deter Wu Xie from anything, not once he’s made his intentions clear, just as Pangzi knows all too well the importance of the burden he carries, both inherited and willingly shouldered. Pangzi has seen for himself, perhaps to a lesser degree, how many lives the Wang family’s hubris has claimed in the name of an impossible dream, and how many it continues to poison even now. He knows, though perhaps not as much as Wu Xie, what the Wang family and the dying remnants of the first Zhang family had both done to the last Zhang Qiling, a boy who’d never truly been a boy, ripped from his mother’s arms too early and stripped of his name to become a distant Bodhisattva, both revered and reviled, that Wu Xie refuses to let him continue to be. That Pangzi would ask him to abandon any of this is incomprehensible. As Pangzi continues to speak, taking Wu Xie’s silence as his willingness to finally listen, a terrible, inconceivable thought takes shape in his mind, its fangs digging deeper into his consciousness until he can no longer ignore it.
Pangzi had, after all, once worked for Qiu Dekao long ago. Perhaps for long enough that the fractured remains of his company might have retained his likeness. Perhaps for long enough that ‘It’ had had no need for the likeness of a man to whom Wu Xie had so freely granted access to each and every weakness he ceaselessly endeavors to hide. On some level, he rebels at the thought, at the mere suggestion that Pangzi (especially Pangzi who knows his Menyouping as Wu Xie does) would ever stoop so low as to betray him, betray them.
But Wu Xie is so very tired.
And so, it’s he who stoops low enough to do the very thing he’d promised never to do.
Wu Xie looks to Pangzi, his gaze unwavering in a way that gives Pangzi pause, his endless tirade of reproches fading as he narrows his eyes in question, their eyes meeting across the scant space that separates them in the coming dark of nascent night. Wu Xie concentrates, and in doing so, reaches out to read him.
What follows is not unlike being submerged by a wave, powerful and surging, a maelstrom come to sweep him away into the merciless waters of a restless sea. He thinks he gasps, but whether he truly does or wishes he had is beyond him as he struggles to find his footing amid the kaleidoscope of sensation that fills him to the brim. It’s the rush of heated anger that prickles at his skin like tiny blisters; it’s the undertone of deep sadness, a cool current that passes through Wu Xie like a sudden chill wind; it’s the cloying wrongness of concern, sharp and lodged in his throat, puncturing it like a blade, and underneath it all, it’s a warmth so incongruous with all the rest that Wu Xie struggles to identify it as he slowly regains his bearings.
It’s nothing like the subdued, calm warmth of the Wang woman in the desert that had eventually reeked of death—this warmth is comforting, steady, a small but incandescent flame battered by the elements, made strong despite them. It’s a warmth Wu Xie has never perceived from any of the many people he’s read, but even in his discovery of it, finds he knows its name and shape all the same, greets it like a long lost friend. It’s the warmth he’d felt long ago, when he’d still been pure as his namesake, when his grandfather would tell him stories of his tomb robbing days. It’s the same warmth he’d felt when his Sanshu would put him to bed, weaving tall tales of his grand adventures for him as he’d drifted off to sleep, or when he’d bring him to his shop in Hangzhou, or his home in Changsha, and teach his nephew all the things his parents had never wanted him to learn. It’s the same warmth he’d felt one night many years ago by the lakeside in the mountains of Guangxi as he and Pangzi had laughed endlessly, as Yun Cai had danced for them in all her youthful beauty, and as Xiaoge had observed them all quietly from the far end of the fire’s glow.
It’s this warmth that anchors him in the tumult of all the rest, grounds him as he shuts his eyes, letting the echoes that remain fade like an ebbing tide, and as they finally pass, disappears in turn, leaving Wu Xie more settled than he’d been before, and with a clear understanding of what it is that warmth had meant.
The guilt that rises in him is crushing, its heavy weight that presses on his chest worse than even the burn of his fresh wound had been that first night. He’d doubted a man he’d come to see as a brother. He’d doubted a man who Wu Xie now has irrefutable proof of having come to view him just the same. He’s gained nothing of it save for the deep sense of having sullied that.
It’s Pangzi that finally breaks their uneasy silence first, having likely sensed that something has gone awry.
“You ok there Tianzhen…?”
The question is tentative, though the concern in it is easily discernable. Wu Xie opens his eyes, slow and subdued as he takes in Pangzi still sat across from him, shrouded in the dying twilight, his brow twisted in now obvious concern, the last embers of his cigarette glowing a deep red in the encroaching dark. Were he less tired, and still the younger, better (though increasingly not enough) version of himself, he might have felt the urge to cry. As it stands, he feels little else than his exhaustion rise up to meet him beneath the clamor of guilt, driving him to sink into his chair until he’s little more than a deflated, boneless heap.
“...It’s nothing. You’re right.” His voice has dwindled down to little more than a croak. There’s a brief silence during which neither of them speak, before Pangzi sighs explosively.
“Damn right I am. I know it’s hard for you to admit when you fuck up, but Tianzhen,” he pauses, his eyes boring into Wu Xie’s as if his conviction alone could convince him. “Hua’er and Heiye would agree with me. Hell, they’d be a lot less kind about it. Cut yourself some slack.”
Wu Xie can no longer find it in himself to argue back.
The guilt continues to eat at him long after the conversation has passed, even as Pangzi drags him to his apartment and forces him down onto his couch to spend the night. It dogs him as he goes about his business in Beijing, and dogs him still as he makes his way back to Hangzhou, intent on checking in with Wang Meng and what little business Wushanju still maintains for appearance’s sake. Pangzi, in his barebones yet effective view of things, is right. Wu Xie feels sometimes that out of the three of them in their iron triangle, Pangzi has always been more attuned to the finer workings of the human heart. Though Wu Xie had learned to mostly curb his restless thoughts as hesitation became a liability he couldn’t afford, in the wake of this latest failure, he’s allowed them to resurface, bringing with them yet more difficult truths to face. Perhaps more than even the lingering guilt, what dogs Wu Xie is the extent of the power thoughts of Xiaoge hold over him. He’d reacted so intensely at the mere mention of him, all rationality discared the moment he’d been acknowledged as the elephant in the room. What troubles him is why . That he should feel so strongly about him, though his absence is a different breed of guilt that haunts him all the same, puzzles him, yet that he does is undeniably true.
(In truth, Wu Xie has always been careful not to look too closely at how everything of Xiaoge’s pulls at his bones in ways nothing and no one else ever has; at how the grief of their parting had left an ache in Wu Xie nothing, even nearly eight years into the longest decade of his life, has managed to assuage, no balm enough to curb the hurt, the loss, the despair, the guilt, and the myriad other sentiments tied to a man who so often has appeared fickle as waning tides to him and so many others.)
There’s another thought that lingers at the edge of his mind, just out of reach, but deliberately so, its implications too fraught to navigate. Of all the people Wu Xie had instinctively associated with Pangzi’s warmth, not one of them had been Xiaoge alone, and even now, its particular shade refuses to fit into the slot that exists between them, has existed perhaps from the moment Wu Xie had laid eyes on him in the depths of the forests of Shandong. He’s not quite so stupid as to pretend this holds no meaning, in the same way the idea of what it might be nips at the back of his mind like a persistent pest until Wu Xie is forced to lock it away like so many other things he can’t afford to dwell on.
There will be time for that later (provided he survives long enough to reach that nebulous ‘after’). For now, the show must go on.
Time, as it is wont to do, continues its inexorable forward march, pushing Wu Xie ever closer to the deadline that looms ahead, and the reward that he yearns, that awaits him after crossing the interminable desert, yet can’t allow himself to take so long as the beasts that roam the sands yet live. August 17 2015 is marked on each calendar, a chosen date and a reminder both, a warning that he can’t be led astray again.
Months slip by as Wu Xie slowly settles into himself once again, the dark despair and mindless drive to wear himself into dust receding, replaced instead by calm and much needed control. He listens to Pangzi for once, the guilt from his reading helping to push him to accept that this time, he’s right. He’d said Wu Xie needed rest; and so, Wu Xie rests. Likely not enough as he should—certainly not as much as he’d want to had he the luxury of indulging in it—but enough. He never dreams; or if he does, he remembers nothing of them. It’s a strange, almost artificial sort of calm that finally settles over him; not the calm of still water, limpid and at peace, but the calm of a raging torrent frozen solid, eerie and unnatural in its stillness.
He thinks of himself at 26, 27, desperate and mind in shambles, having to rely on Xiao Hua to find the solution to what he’d then seen as an impossible problem, offering Wu Xie his Sanshu’s likeness as a second skin. He thinks of himself now at 35, standing side by side with him and calling the shots as he carries his steadily mounting guinea pig death toll behind him, though he’s allowed none of them to sink the claws of guilt into him as the first one had. There’s work to be done—there are snakes he has yet to read, less now than he could before, his body edging closer to the point of no return each time he does. He should likely fear the approaching wall Hei Yanjing had warned him of all those years ago, the way he feels it tangibly in ways he couldn’t before, knowing his time is running out, and yet he remains unfazed by the coming end. More than that, what Wu Xie laments is the imminent loss of his usefulness (and the loss of the final window he still has into Xiaoge’s life before that too is stolen from him, much like everything else of him has), though not all of his usefulness.
Much like the snakes, his mind readings too have proven too taxing to use anywhere near as frequently. Wu Xie had realized some time after his uncalled for reading of Pangzi that he’d begun to view the ability as a crutch, and beyond the toll it takes on his body, not unlike the one the snake pheromones do—albeit in different ways—Wu Xie has no way of knowing whether this too will fade once he slams into the oncoming wall where he’ll stay, never to rise to greater heights again. What he needs now more than ever is to relearn how to rely on himself, flawed as he may be.
Wu Xie feels more at ease in his own skin, more in control than he’s perhaps ever been, fit to guide his pieces on the vast chessboard at the same pace as an opponent that will not rest. It disgusts him more than words can express.
The only concession he makes to morality, flimsy and tattered as it is, is the sharp pain of the knife that he continues to slice into the skin of his arm, now an ugly canvas of raised scars, one for each failure and life lost by his own hand. He’d understood long ago that he wasn’t like the others in this business, too much heart in him to turn a blind eye to the death of those around him so long as it was in his power to save them. Wu Xie had had to learn to turn his back and let bygones be bygones—but for each life he cruelly throws to the dogs, he finds permanent marring of his skin to reflect his tarnished heart is an appropriate, if insufficient punishment.
—
‘My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet.’
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
13 months and eight scars later finds Wu Xie back in Changsha, though not in his usual haunts. Tonight, he finds himself in a different part of the old city center, knocking on the door of a decrepit old inn that has seen better days.
The door opens, and the innkeeper, a kindly old woman, greets him warmly, inviting him into the sparsely furnished interior as she guides him further inside towards a nondescript door, assuring him that his room has been prepared. The door pushes open to reveal a corridor behind it, its sudden extravagance clashing terribly with the rest of the building that houses it, the floors laid with the finest lacquer wood, and the walls with tasteful artistry. Wu Xie is surprised by none of it, only raising an eyebrow in amusement at Xiao Hua’s continued penchant for his particular flavor of dramatic flair.
He ventures down the corridor, the soft click of the door shutting behind him blending seamlessly into the tap of his footsteps as he makes his way towards the only open room, its door ajar in clear invitation, from which he hears familiar raucous laughter. He pauses in faint surprise. He hadn’t known Hei Yanjing would be here as well, though perhaps given Wu Xie’s own rare summons from Xiao Hua, he concedes that his presence isn’t altogether unexpected. He announces himself with a knock on the great oak door, noting its weighty brass handle, ornate yet simplistic, on par with Xiao Hua’s particular tastes, before pushing past it into the room beyond.
There, he finds Xiao Hua, reclined in a likely expensive cushioned leather chair, the room lined with shelf upon shelf filled with countless books, its free walls adorned with various western paintings bathed in golden, subdued light that plays off the polished wood of the sparsely arranged furniture. With him is Hei Yanjing, who leans against the table that separates them, across from him on a similarly cushioned leather bench, a gleaming glass of amber liquor held between the tips of his fingers, much like the one innocuously placed on Xiao Hua’s side of the table.
Xiao Hua raises his head, his expression morphing into a relaxed sort of smirk Wu Xie has learned to know as one of friendly contentment, while Hei Yanjing turns his head, loudly exclaiming,
“Well! If it isn’t my favorite apprentice.”
“I’m your only apprentice,” Wu Xie retorts as he throws his coat onto a nearby chair, amused to see Xiao Hua’s predictable frown at the mistreatment of his property.
“Well there you have it then. If you’re the only one then you’re my favorite by default.”
Wu Xie sits on the remaining chair that faces the length of the table between them, letting Xiao Hua pour him a glass on the rocks of what he assumes from the bitterly sweet taste is bourbon, or something else incredibly lavish he’d taken from his likely amply stocked liquor cabinet, though Wu Xie knows better than to believe Xiao Hua indulges in it much himself. It’s a far too risky pleasure, these days especially, although he can’t help but think it must be the perfect ploy to use against unwitting businessmen and their ilk. They catch up briefly, though it’s mostly a friendly formality. All three of them are well aware this is not a social call. As he’d expected, it takes barely half the lifespan of a lit cigarette for Xiao Hua to sit up, take a conservative sip from his own still full glass, and cut straight to the chase, turning his body towards Wu Xie as he speaks.
“What do you know of Zhang Rishan?”
Wu Xie feels his face, usually carefully controlled, contort into what must be a complicated expression. The mere mention of the surname Zhang carries its load of connotations, and one associated with Zhang Da Foye no less. His mood darkens. He hasn’t forgotten how Xiaoge had first landed in ‘It’s’ hands. It’s not hard to imagine Foye’s man is of the same dubious loyalties, the backing of Xinyue Hotel notwithstanding. Xiao Hua, predictably, picks up on Wu Xie’s souring mood.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he reassures, firm in the way he always is when he’s certain of his success.
Do you?, Wu Xie thinks, though he knows perfectly well that while Xiao Hua isn’t privy to the minutiae of Xiaoge’s life, he knows enough to be privy to Zhang Qishan’s role in their current strife.
“Think about it, Xiao Sanye. He’s an asset,” comes Hei Yanjing’s voice to his right. He glances at him furtively, and finds his expression is one of rare seriousness, his lips pursed as he takes a conservative sip from his half-empty glass. Wu Xie knows, at the crux of it, that Hei Yanjing had involved himself in their shared mess only because Xiao Hua had taken pity on him (Xiaoge too apparently had had his hand in it, though Wu Xie welcomes it far more from him) and pays out of pocket to keep this man at his beck and call. He rarely calls the shots when they’re not in the field; that he would now is proof of his genuine conviction. If nothing else, Hei Yanjing is trustworthy in his assessments. So Wu Xie, though reluctantly, listens.
In the end, they agree to send Xiao Hua as their ambassador, seeing as Wu Xie may as well bow his head to be beaten should he step foot in Xinyue Hotel’s fine establishment ever again, never mind Xiao Hua had personally footed his debt. The rest of the night is spent as a rare occasion for much needed downtime, and for once, Wu Xie decides he’s in good enough company to simply let himself go, if only for a few hours. He’s been so careful of his drinking, building up tolerance to keep up with the drunkards he fares with on the regular now, but never having enough to leave himself vulnerable. He figures for once he can afford to test his limits.
Two glasses of bourbon on the rocks and three shots later, Wu Xie is well and truly drunk. He’s far gone enough that he’s slipped into his own comfortable silence, preferring to observe as Xiao Hua and Hei Yanjing keep up a volley of seemingly inexhaustible conversation. His lack of contribution doesn’t seem to be a problem, and if he were feeling more maudlin, he’d even go so far as to say that his silence is a welcome thing. Wu Xie may as well have been summarily forgotten, and while he isn’t sure how drunk the two of them are, they’re far gone enough they don’t even make a perfunctory effort to include Wu Xie in their continued exchanges.
“But Hua’er,” Hei Yanjing taunts as he leans on the richly hued mahogany table, cocking his head good-naturedly at Xiao Hua who’s reclined into his chair, one leg thrown across the other, looking very much deeply unimpressed despite Wu Xie knowing Xiao Hua’s visible displeasure often goes hand in hand with his amusement. He remembers all too well what a genuinely unhappy Xiao Hua looks like, and the challenging glint in his eye as he lets Hei Yanjing prod at him is not suggestive of that. Hei Yanjing continues in a low drawl, entirely relaxed, though that too is something Wu Xie can’t blame on the dubious amounts of alcohol he’d likely consumed.
“Surely a man of your caliber would know to select his goods through personal assessment. You certainly don’t skimp out on examining the tomb goods your Xie family acquires.” Xiao Hua scoffs as he swirls the bottom of his most recent glass around, holding it delicately between the tips of his fingers as if it were a habitual, natural thing, a lazy smirk creeping onto the corner of his lips as his eyes fix onto Hei Yanjing not unlike a cat onto its prey.
“Those are tomb goods. This is liquor. I don’t drink it often enough to care about what my liquor cabinet tastes like beyond how attractive it makes my pocketbook.” Hei Yanjing hums, seemingly in thought before he takes his own glass to his lips, his response given over the brim of it as he too fixes his gaze onto Xiao Hua, neither of them backing down from the eye contact.
“And what an attractive pocketbook it is. I’m much obliged to it, Xie laoban.”
If he weren’t as drunk as he is, Wu Xie would likely be more annoyed than quietly fascinated by their exchange. He’s always felt, on the rare occasions he’s had the misfortune of sharing space with both Xiao Hua and Hei Yanjing at once, that their rapport was a strange one. That they know each other doesn’t surprise him—Xiao Hua has eyes and ears everywhere, and his reach extends far beyond anything Wu Xie himself could ever hope to achieve in this lifetime. He’s never said as much, but he’s sure that Xiao Hua knows all the same how grateful Wu Xie is for his help in cornering the Wang family, even as personally involved as he is by virtue of their elders’ failings. It doesn’t stop him from feeling as though Hei Yanjing is an exception to any number of Xiao Hua’s unwritten rules, though in what capacity he’s not entirely sure.
There’s a camaraderie there Wu Xie isn’t privy to the nature of, and it leaves Wu Xie perplexed, though faintly amused when he remembers their time hanging on the cliff edge of Siguniang, Xiao Hua wistful and wry in turns as he’d told Wu Xie that once upon a time he’d resolved to not have friends if all he could ever do was leave them behind. But adept as Xiao Hua is at toeing the fine line between sociable and aloof, Wu Xie doesn’t believe his easy-going exchanges with Hei Yanjing are born of professional politeness. Not entirely.
As Wu Xie sits there, relaxed in a way he hasn’t been in far too long, his mind unraveling like a taut rope allowed to loosen its tangled knots, his curious mind, curbed along with his hesitant nature, comes alive once more in this brief reprieve, and with it, a burgeoning idea that takes a muddled, if discernible shape. Wu Xie has never made a second attempt at reading those he considers friends—not after Pangzi. Now, he can’t help but wonder if it might give him something of an answer to a question he’s long considered moot. Without the hearty warmth of alcohol to guide his lax thoughts, Wu Xie would never have considered it—in this moment, however, his better judgment gives way to indulgence, allowing himself this one perverse little secret, a rare upper hand the two other people in the room will never know he’d had. He waits until their respective gazes cross his intentionally blank, patient one, to carefully let down his mind’s defenses, his reach unspooling to grasp at whatever thread they’d left trailing from theirs.
Wu Xie expects any number of sensations, bracing himself for whatever intensely charged onslaught he’s unleashed on himself, his muscles reflexively going taut in anticipation. What he gets instead isn’t the crashing wave come to bash him against a rocky shore he anticipates—no. What comes instead is more of a gentle surge, no less concentrated for how unexpectedly deprived of violence it is. It’s a cocoon, warm and syrupy, mixing with the sweetness of the bourbon that spills through Wu Xie’s veins, the subtle tang of something sharper lurking in the undertow, but never overpowering its easy, tantalizing ebb and flow. He’s quietly mesmerized, watching Xiao Hua and Hei Yanjing as if from beneath clear water, their conversation on the merits of Xiao Hua’s liquor selection muted as Wu Xie takes in the other conversation that drifts between them in a neverending current, always returning from whence it came, only to start again.
There’s playfulness in spades, that much at least apparent from the words that volley between them, though it’s a playfulness ripe with notes of quiet happiness like sugar on his tongue, and something else he can’t quite name that tingles along his limbs, a different kind of anticipation that coaxes light shivers to trail down his spine, along with a warmth that suffuses him, not unlike that of the bourbon that it feeds into, though this one spreads from the core of it in his chest to sit lower in his belly, unobtrusive yet pleasant, undemanding yet undeniably present, pulsing to the beat of their seemingly empty words. For a moment, Wu Xie isn’t quite sure of what to make of it, lulled as he is by the unexpected pleasure of the emotions that curl about him like a cat would at its master’s feet rather than passing through him like the pointed tip of a sharpened blade—but soon enough, he’s reminded, abruptly, of one of its many meanings when his own body, taken in by the myriad sensations, awakens in sympathetic response as he feels himself, while not harden, twitch in the confines of his pants.
Oh.
Wu Xie stares.
The sensations running through him are too visceral for his own mortification to override them completely, but it does serve to wake him from whatever stupor he’d fallen into. He feels abruptly like a child who’s inadvertently walked in on his parents kissing or something akin to that, privy to a private scene he was never meant to witness. He looks at Xiao Hua and Hei Yanjing, their conversation entirely at odds with the unspoken one their emotions weave, the desire that flows between them and imbues the warmth there that speaks of a different affection than the one shared between friends. Wu Xie has never loved a woman, not really—but he imagines it might feel something much like this. He knows with as much certainty that what he’s understood exists between his childhood playmate and his once teacher is something he was never meant to know, that perhaps no one is meant to besides them, and that it’s a knowledge he will have to carry until it can be buried with him in the grave.
“Wu Xie!”
The connection snaps along with his concentration and train of thought as Wu Xie is abruptly drawn from his earth-shattering realizations by Hei Yanjing, who he finds looking to him with a wry smile on his face, his eyebrow cocked in amusement above his concealed eyes. Xiao Hua says nothing, though he’s turned to look at him, mildly perplexed, and Wu Xie can hear the What the fuck are you doing? as clear as if he’d spoken it outloud. When all he does is blink in response, Hei Yanjing turns to Xiao Hua, sneaking a look back in Wu Xie’s direction as he adds,
“Oh dear. Xiao Hua, I think your cousin’s gone a bit...," he trails off, lightly tapping his temple with a finger. "Unfortunate."
Xiao Hua’s eyes swivel to Hei Yanjing, the look he levels him with difficult to decipher, though his body remains tilted in Wu Xie’s direction. In the meantime, Wu Xie manages to unstick his tongue from where it had lodged in his mouth to very smartly retort with,
“Fuck off.”
“Oh never mind then he’s fine. Might want to try lightening up on the drinks though.” Hei Yanjing chuckles darkly as he goes to finish off his own glass, shaking his head as he does. Xiao Hua looks back to Wu Xie a moment longer, seeing, it seems, nothing worth his concern, before he turns back to Hei Yanjing, content to leave Wu Xie to his own devices, all while Wu Xie lets the perceptions he’d read fade and die, leaving him not a little dumbfounded. He sinks back into his chair, finishing off the dregs of what he knows will be his final glass, and stares at the upper portion of the wall wreathed in shadows by the burnished lamp light.
Wu Xie allows his mind to calm and his thoughts to wander, and in lieu of reassessing each sporadic interaction of Xiao Hua’s and Hei Yanjing’s that he’s been present for, he settles instead on why, if Wu Xie has never even held a woman’s hand, the sense of warmth behind the undercurrent of desire, so keenly different from the one he knows best, is familiar to him all the same. His drunken mind catches on the discrepancy, not content to let it be, picking at it like a scabbed wound, determined to see the raw flesh beneath the healing skin. He thinks of the people he calls friends, of his family, trying to fit them into the final piece of a puzzle he’s only just uncovered the existence of, none of them fitting there, not quite, not unlike a color whose shade is only slightly off from its ideal hue. It’s not until, muddled from the liquor as he is, Wu Xie tentatively delves into the corner of his mind where he’s painstakingly hidden all thoughts of Xiaoge away to see what he might find there, that the missing piece finally, terribly, slots into place.
Wu Xie never lets himself linger on Xiaoge more than necessary if he can help it, the complicated mess of guilt and grief too great a burden on his already weary heart. He’d rather the artificial calm of numbness that so often takes its place. Even now, drunk as he is, he treads carefully, steering around those broken shards to avoid their sharp edges, and turns instead to the memories of Xiaoge’s presence, rather than the ever-expanding gulf of his absence.
He remembers a taciturn man perhaps younger than himself, indifferent to all around him yet immeasurably competent, so much so that his Sanshu, whoever he’d been, had bowed to his authority, and that Wu Xie, green as the nascent buds on a tree on the cusp of spring, had trusted unquestionably. He remembers the small ways in which he’d helped him, quiet but meaningful, and the way in which he’d allowed for Wu Xie’s own gestures of kindness in return.
He remembers the steel of his dark eyes by firelight on a cold desert night, of a man who thought himself nothing more than a ghost haunting the fringes of the world that tomorrow might disappear without a trace, words perhaps Wu Xie himself had not been meant to hear, but that he’d denied all the same with the promise that Zhang Qiling could never disappear so long as Wu Xie noticed his absence.
He remembers a man who spoke to no one, and yet spoke to Wu Xie if only he asked. He remembers how he’d accepted Wu Xie’s harsh words of concern that he’d not known how to express in ways other than anger, all as he’d sat in silent grief, faced with the wall of a past that eluded him at every turn. He remembers the budding yet undeniable connection between them that Wu Xie had steadfastly grasped at, the quiet sorrow at being pushed away, only for Xiaoge to finally reach back when he’d resolved to go where he would not allow Wu Xie to follow.
Wu Xie remembers the crackling warmth that had burned so keenly as if lodged in his lungs when he’d sank before the statue of a crying Zhang Qiling in the cold of a temple courtyard, the nature of it twisted by grief while it yet remained, a lone torch battered by icy winds that stoked it, ever-burning in the night that wished to subsume it. It is this same warmth he feels tonight, nestled at the heart of him. It is this same warmth that, without his knowledge, had taken form and lodged itself there more firmly each time he’d crossed paths with Zhang Qiling, made stronger from each parting, until the connection between them had, for Wu Xie, molded into this singular shape he now finds mirrored in Xiao Hua and Hei Yanjing, and through them, can at last give it a name.
Wu Xie knows, on some level, that that name is ‘love’—most would settle on it as the obvious answer. Yet the word feels bloated, made meaningless from overuse and connotations that cannot and will never apply to the nature of what he’s acknowledged tonight. The realization, the mere thought of what it means should shock him. On some level, it does. But Wu Xie, for better or worse, has grown immune to great epiphanies that change the course of his life, enough that so earth-shattering a revelation settles into acceptance with little fanfare even as the alcohol still burns through his veins. Instead, it gives way to a greater sadness that wells in him, this too a heavy load he’s buried far beneath the now icy depths of his clear water heart. He stares at the wall across from him, lost in thought, and feels the bitterness of it rise in his throat, settling there like a burr that makes his eyes sting, though not much else. He’d thought all the tears he’d had to shed had all flowed from him, leaving him a dried husk. It seems he’d been right, for once.
‘Ten years from now, should you still remember me, you can open the great bronze doors to replace me.’
Wu Xie feels the laughter, caustic and cruel, push at his chest demanding release, but holds it back. The wry smile that creeps onto his face instead twists it just enough that he’s pulled from his thoughts by Xiao Hua’s suddenly louder voice, unaware that unbeknownst to him, he had helped pull from Wu Xie this final, terrible secret.
“You’re in a mood tonight,” he comments, finishing off his glass. It’s not a question, but a statement, no answer demanded, but inquisitive all the same. Wu Xie lets the tail end of the laugh escape him, dry and profoundly amused.
“It’s a good night for that,” he answers with a croak, leaning over to pull his nearly empty pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. Xiao Hua holds out a lighter, different from the one he’d used last time, a wry smile of his own etched onto his face as he watches Wu Xie nod in thanks, then light his cigarette. He doesn’t comment further, letting Wu Xie sink back into his chair, watching the cloud of smoke he exhales rise to the ceiling. The room will have to be aired out, no doubt.
As if I could ever forget. It’s a little late for that. Just like everything else.
There’s still a year and a half to go. It’s a small mercy it’s taken him this long to realize what the true face of longing looks like.
The next day, when Wu Xie wakes with a pounding headache on a bed far more comfortable than he’s used to these days, he recalls the night before, and decides then and there to bury the knowledge of that longing. There will be time, perhaps, in the nebulous ‘after’ for those thoughts to run rampant.
For now, there’s work yet to be done.
—
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
That work comes to a swift, inevitable end far too soon. It was only a matter of time before Wu Xie finally met the wall he’d been waiting for all this time.
It’s not so much a collision as it is the realization of one in its aftermath, the wall invisible, but tangible in inexplicable ways that tell him that at long last, he’s reached his limit.
He wakes in the small power station in the mountains overlooking Hangzhou below in the dead of night, not in his usual chair, but on the ground. His head is heavy, heavier than it’s ever been before, and the ground, he eventually realizes, is soaked not with water, but with tacky blood that had drenched his face, his hair, his shirt, all of him, before it had dried, leaving him stiff in the aftermath. The pain, when it hits, is blinding. It always is, but never to the point where he passes out again, waking some unknown time later once dawn has begun to creep through the sole window in the room, bathing his surroundings in a new light. It takes more time still for Wu Xie to muster the strength to rise, his limbs unresponsive, dragging himself into an upright position against the nearest wall, where he sees the carnage he’s left behind. The soda bottles stacked beside the chair are of no use to him now despite how his hands still tremble, from blood loss or shock or both.
Wu Xie knows, in the way he’d always known, that the snakes have finally pushed him over that unseen edge; knows that one more pheromone-induced illusion will be enough for him to never wake again.
He’s outlived his usefulness.
Dully, Wu Xie looks down to the seventeen scars painstakingly carved into his left arm, some hidden beneath the mess of dried blood that even now flakes away, cracked, though what lies beneath is no more appealing.
He’s outlived his usefulness. But there is still work yet to be done.
There’s no time to lose, nor to hesitate—his eighteenth chosen candidate, its seems, is set to make his debut into the field earlier than anticipated. Whether the boy succeeds or becomes yet another indelible mark on Wu Xie’s skin, only time will tell, though time is a commodity that’s fast running out.
Perhaps his own usefulness had been the true obstacle to his success all along. It wouldn’t be the first time fate has played Wu Xie for a fool. The irony in it would be unmatched, but so close to victory, on the cusp of these ten years coming to a close, Wu Xie finds it doesn’t matter. All he needs now is to survive—after all, the destruction of the Wangs from within has only just begun.
Perhaps it’s why he allows himself to speak so freely with Su Nan—though he knows that likely isn’t her real name, if she ever had one to begin with—as they ascend the mountain to the temple in Motuo. They could have killed each other a thousand times along the way, and yet neither of them had. It would have been terribly easy to slit the woman’s throat once she’d lost her sight, to let her warm blood spill onto the pure white of the snow and leave her there, where none would ever think to look (and he suspects none would ever think to care). But he doesn’t. And neither does she. Wu Xie never thinks to read her as they go, having never tried again after he’d stopped taking from the snakes, hoping Li Cu could take up the mantle in his place. It’s looking like the boy so far is on the verge of success, the first in eighteen tries. Perhaps this time might finally prove to be the last.
Wu Xie is content to pry no further into his own suspicions about Su Nan, vague as they are—though slowly, trapped together in the lama temple for days on end while Wu Xie diligently cooks for and feeds a woman he knows has wanted him dead for the better part of her life, he begins to wonder, even here so close to an end for one or both parties, why despite her blindness, she still hesitates. He’s checked for poison both in his food and drink, in the incense the lamas bring, and even in his cigarettes, the last few of the pack he’d brought with him when he and Wang Meng had set out in the car. None of them have yielded anything, and so Wu Xie’s left to wait until inevitably, Su Nan plays her hand.
He doesn’t expect, almost a month into their seclusion, that he would give in to his own niggling curiosity for the first time in what feels like a lifetime. In his defense, there’s nothing much for him to do besides wait for a death that may or may not come. He’s recorded the location of the Wang family’s base of operations from Li Cu, who sends it out each day without fail. Wu Xie has now done all he can—as for the rest, it’s out of his hands. m
It’s in this way that eventually, even as he and Su Nan both speak empty words to each other that they both know will sway neither of them, that Wu Xie gives in and reads her. He’s not sure how much he can perceive with how the tenuous state of her eyes persists, still unable to handle the day’s harsh sunlight even now. Nonetheless, he tries. He would be lying if he insisted the story he chooses to share with Su Nan (the one of the last Zhang Qiling, of how that name that is not a name means nothing to Wu Xie, of how it sometimes seems like he alone in this world hasn’t forgotten the man behind it, of how to Wu Xie, he will always be his Menyouping before he is anyone else) is nothing more than a means to coax a reaction from her. It is, undeniably—but it’s also, undeniably, more than just that.
It’s also the first time in many years that Wu Xie has allowed himself to speak of Xiaoge so openly. It feels not unlike a festering wound finally given the means to be purge. Wu Xie prefers not to dwell on the irony of sharing in this moment with a woman who’d emerged from the very throng of people he’s dedicated his entire life for the past five years to decimating from the moment he’d learned of their existence. As he tells his tale, letting his fingers sweep along the temple’s adornments in much the same way he lets his words seep from where he’s long buried them, Wu Xie turns to face Su Nan, who he finds looking to him with far too knowing eyes, barely healed yet unnervingly perceptive. For the first time in a long time, he lets his mind reach out.
The sensation isn’t intense, though he hadn’t expected it to be. Instead, it comes to him as a bone-deep ache, as though someone had carved into the marrow of Wu Xie’s bones to hollow them, leaving him as nothing but emptiness left to rot. Wu Xie can’t help but smile, tired and wan, at the thought. The kinder part of him he’s done his best to silence had hoped his suspicions wouldn’t be confirmed, even as he’s keenly reminded of the very same ache ij him that’s all too familiar—it’s one that has dogged him for far too long, and has hollowed him in much the same way, such that some days he fears all that’s left of him is an empty husk. It’s an ache that speaks of loss, of inner conflict, and above all of longing for things that cannot be had. Wu Xie knows it all too well. He’d suspected as they’d climbed the mountain that Su Nan, against her better judgment, had taken a liking to him. Not enough to put a stop to her plans—Wu Xie’s no longer fool enough to believe in that. But enough that she hesitates where before she wouldn’t have, dragging out a projected end both of them know will inevitably come.
Wu Xie pauses, looks away as he stares out at the deceptive beauty of the mountain scenery beyond the window, his chest constricting in sympathy.
“You only know him as Zhang Qiling. I know him as someone else. Maybe if you did too, you’d understand.”
Su Nan doesn’t grace him with a response. He doesn’t expect one.
That night, Wu Xie lies in his bed, watching the smoke rise from his last remaining cigarette in the dim of the petrol lamp that lies on the ground beside him, and thinks of his own loss and longing that Su Nan’s had recalled so vividly. Wu Xie has known Xiaoge far more from his absence than his presence, and even now the space where he should be stands stark in its resounding emptiness. Xiaoge’s many disappearances have haunted him for as long as they’ve known each other, the distance he’d imposed on more than one occasion forming the beginnings of an ache that would only take its true shape once Wu Xie had well and truly lost him to a fate greater than both of them. That Xiaoge had come to him to say his goodbyes means more to Wu Xie than he could put into words. That he allowed Wu Xie to follow him back up Changbai Mountain once again even more so. It’s proof enough that Xiaoge views him as a friend, someone worth his seldom offered regard. Wu Xie treasures this knowledge like he does little else.
But Wu Xie isn’t a fool, not anymore—though for once, for this, he wishes he were.
He knows Xiaoge cares for him. He also knows he will never care for him in the same way that Wu Xie cares for him. Perhaps he should be bitter; or perhaps he’s just grown used to bitterness, like the astringent taste of tobacco that rolls on his tongue that’s become his most steadfast companion. It’s more likely that Wu Xie has never been capable of resenting Xiaoge, not really. All he’s ever wanted from the moment he’d left was for him to come back. If nothing else is gained from all these years filled with countless sacrifices, at least Xiaoge’s freedom will be guaranteed. Whether Wu Xie is there to see it in the end is of little importance. If he is, having Xiaoge safe and whole will be more than enough—whatever feelings Wu Xie has for him are his own burden to bear. To tie Xiaoge to him further, when all Wu Xie can ever be is just another passerby in his long, long life would be needlessly cruel, if not futile. In one hundred years, Zhang Qiling will still walk the earth, long after Wu Xie has ceased to exist. The least he can do is ensure he still walks free.
He waits until the temple has grown quiet, save for the wind that hisses and howls in the long night, until the moon, only a half-grown crescent, has risen high in the sky, its half-light blotted out by the clouds that cast a veil of darkness over the mountain, and slips away towards the snow-capped heights alone. He takes nothing with him, save for the clothes on his back—he won’t be needing much more than that.
Wu Xie walks and walks, until his hands and feet grow numb from the cold, and then walks further still, until the night bleeds into day and fades into night once again, and he finds himself on the edge of a cliff battered by wind and snow. His tired gaze stares into the foreboding abyss beyond it as if it might swallow him whole, though he knows that below its modest height lies nothing more than a field of vermillion flowers, hidden for now by the surrounding darkness of the cold night. He wonders, briefly, whether the rest of the many seeds of his plan have germinated, whether they’ve succeeded, or if Wu Xie, standing here at the end of the line he’s finally pulled taut, is all that’s left. For the first time in a long time, so close to the promised date, he dares to hope. There’s not much else to be done now at any rate; if they all fail here, then he can at least find peace in that.
And so, he waits.
For a time, there is nothing but Wu Xie and the icy wind and snow that threaten to bury him until he’s made one with the stone of the cliff beneath his feet, a nostalgic reminder of a different mountain not unlike this one where, long ago, it’s Wu Xie’s heart that was buried. He knows, however, that he won’t be alone for much longer. He’d known even the night before as he’d walked tirelessly into the snowy mountain that he was not alone, the unsettling sensation of eyes on his back as he trudged onwards proof enough. The knowledge had followed him, dogging his steps until he’d reached this final destination, like prey inexorably cornered, left to await its fate. He might have been frightened by it once. He might even have felt his breath catch in his throat in panic. Now, though his heart rate picks up the longer he waits, Wu Xie is not afraid. Instead, he anticipates.
As he’d expected, when it happens, it’s sudden.
He hears the faint rustle of movement behind him, close enough the piercing whistle of the wind can no longer conceal it. He makes to turn around, but before he can, a hand comes to cover his mouth, pushing his head back against its momentum, followed by the sharp sting of a blade that slices clean through the skin of his throat from where hot blood pours generously. Wu Xie stumbles forward, clutching at his slit throat as if he could ever hope to staunch the bleeding, turning to face his assailant with difficulty even as the snow around him turns dark. Behind him, retreated to a safe distance, stands a figure clad in white mountain gear, a bloodied dagger held firmly in their faintly shaking hand, a ski mask discarded at their feet. He shivers, though whether it’s from cold or blood loss or both is hard to say (in the end, does it truly matter?), and strains to see the face of the person he knows intends to be his killer tonight.
It’s Su Nan. Of course.
Wu Xie grits his teeth against the burning pain as he watches her stand there, waiting as he’d been moments before, though while he’d waited for the unknown, she waits to confirm his fast approaching death, her equipment proof there had likely been a spy in the temple, though by now, Wu Xie is beyond caring about technicalities. She’s stoic, patient and unmoving, much like the mountain that surrounds them both, save for a single crack in her impenetrable armor that Wu Xie, his vision compromised as it is by his rapidly failing body, can still see across the short distance between them. Su Nan’s expression, much like the rest of her, betrays no emotion, unmoving and unmoved like every killer should be, save for the traitorous tears that slide unbidden down the length of her face, glistening there as they freeze in the biting wind. He doesn’t need to read her to know what it means.
It’s a sight Wu Xie will never forget for the rest of his life.
His legs grow weaker with each passing moment while the blood continues to pour past his useless hands and onto the pure white of the snow, incandescent as it lies stark against the shadows. With his remaining strength, Wu Xie stumbles back, his dimming gaze never leaving Su Nan’s, somehow bright despite the obscurity of the night, knowing that regardless of their respective fates, they’ll never see each other again in this lifetime. Just as he feels himself begin to falter, his foot suddenly meets empty air instead of hard snow—Wu Xie, instead of fighting it, welcomes it, leans back, and lets gravity take him over the cliff’s edge from which he falls, his bloodied hands slipping from his ruined throat to lift above him towards the sky with the last of his strength, watching as the cliff grows distant, and the wind rushes past his battered and torn pieces.
Wu Xie knows this calm, even greets it like an old friend. It’s the familiar calm of encroaching death, the merciful gift of serenity before the great and unknown beyond. Before, he’d thought of his grandfather’s words on the irrational nature of human fears. Now, his fading mind turns to something else entirely, a memory from ten long years ago in which he’d fallen from an even greater height into the snowbank below it and cried for help, watching as Xiaoge, fearless and resolute, had leapt from its summit like a divine intervention to save Wu Xie from the biting cold.
Wu Xie watches the world fall away, not even fully registering the pain, dulled and distant, when he hits the ground, broken and defeated, coloring the flowers beneath him a darker red, though he suddenly wishes, sorely, that he could call Xiaoge’s name again, knowing full well that this time, no one will answer him; that no one will come. His lips part, though no sound escapes them, save for a quiet rasp that claws at the tatters of his ruined throat, his voice lost to the wind and snow and seemingly endless supply of blood that leaves his body as though it were nothing, spilling onto the barren earth like an offering. Wu Xie lets out a shaking breath, even now as his vision fades to black finding the strength to laugh. Of course he would think of Xiaoge—even in death, this longing of his won’t relinquish its hold, buried as it is into the marrow of his bones. He’s suddenly, inexplicably, reminded of a poem he’d once read, one of many that had been part and parcel of his Ershu’s education, and for the first time, understands its true meaning.
As is the red bean inlaid in the exquisite bone-dice, do you know that my longing for you has seeped into my bones?
Wu Xie has never truly been hollow. How could he be when longing has filled all the empty parts of him that even now, as the world finally, mercifully falls away, are still consumed by it.
If you disappeared, at least I would notice.
He’d done far more than that. Wu Xie had carved Zhang Qiling’s absence into his very bones, such that even dead, he’s sure they’ll find proof of it in what’s left of him, inlaid here in the snow among the red, not of beans, but of the flowers that cradle him as he lets the darkness take him. Whether he wakes again is in the hands of fate.
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
—
Fate, it seems, had been kind for once. Though Wu Xie isn’t sure some days if he can trust in that.
He remembers what Hei Yanjing had told him all those years ago, before he’d thrown himself headfirst into the fray and never looked back, about how the pheromones would create illusions, and that it would be up to Wu Xie to parse through the lies to see the grain of truth in them. Sitting here on a wooden chair he’d especially commissioned to adorn their porch in their little townhouse in Yucun, whiling away his time munching on melon seeds as he watches the first signs of spring come forth in their modest little garden, he can’t help but doubt if any of it is real.
How is he to know if this unreal life of peace, a luxury he’d never have thought possible not even a year ago, isn’t one final relapse of the residual pheromones he’s sure he still carries, nothing more than his own mind tricking itself into easing into death like he’d ease into a warm bath. Pangzi does his best to pull him from these maudlin moods, picking up on them despite not knowing the path his thoughts take, usually dragging Wu Xie to tend to something or other, or pestering him until the thoughts dissipate like cobwebs, uncluttering his mind, though inevitably, those same thoughts creep back in despite his best efforts. Perhaps it’s Wu Xie’s fault for still acting surprised, even months after they’d all finally come down Changbai Mountain, leaving its secrets behind once and for all, when he turns his head and finds Xiaoge there, feeding the chickens they’d bought, napping on the porch, coming back from his morning runs around the village, or any number of mundane things, as if he’d always been there at Wu Xie’s side, painfully within reach.
He’s more at peace than he’s ever been. He has everything he’s ever truly wanted, or mostly. Wu Xie is happy—yet it’s still not enough, somehow.
There are nightmares now, where before there had been none. It frustrates him to no end that now that he has all the time in the world to sleep, sleep suddenly eludes him. It’d been worse when they’d only just settled in Yucun, the change from waiting to simply being too fresh for his mind to recalibrate. He’d find himself lying awake in the aftermath of dreams he could never fully remember save for the lingering fear that remained, driving him to his study at all hours of the night. His anxieties, irrational as he knows they are, would only worsen on days where he’d emerge from a night of reading to find Xiaoge gone without a trace, and would only settle once he returned some time after noon.
Wu Xie had never spoken of it, determined to bear his own burdens for once, though Xiaoge, perceptive as he is, had eventually picked up on it, and without saying a word, had begun to leave notes on the kitchen table, or simply announce when he planned on leaving, and when he anticipated he’d be back. It’s almost enough to make Wu Xie laugh, and wonder whether it’s he that’s so transparent, or if Xiaoge too has some sort of reading gift he’d never thought to mention, though thinking as much does Xiaoge a disservice. Xiaoge has no use for those kinds of tricks; it’s only Wu Xie, even after years of stamping down on his innate nature, who remains an open book the moment he lets his guard down. In his defense, it’s hard not to so long as Xiaoge is around.
Wu Xie had been nervous as they’d made their way down Changbai Mountain, wondering how to ask Xiaoge if he’d want to join him and Pangzi here in Yucun, away from the tumult of the world. He’d made a point of telling him what he needed to know—that it was over, that the Wang family was done, and that Xiaoge was free to do as he pleased—but had hesitated until they’d reached Erdao Baihe once again to ask if now he had plans. Wu Xie, perhaps more than anyone, refuses to cage Xiaoge; it would make him no better than any who’d done it before him. It hadn’t stopped the tight knot in his chest from untangling the slightest bit when Xiaoge had agreed to follow them without hesitation. Wu Xie has seen Xiaoge practically every day since, more than he’s ever had the privilege of seeing him in all the time they’ve known each other. He savors each moment as if it were the last.
Wu Xie sometimes watches intently as Xiaoge exercises in their courtyard, often bare-chested, until his qilin tattoo is stark against his ivory skin. He watches as Xiaoge feeds the stray cats that have taken a liking to him, shooing them away when they’re underfoot, though Wu Xie knows it’s so as not to hurt them as he goes about his business. He even watches sometimes, as Xiaoge naps on the branches of the tree overlooking Wu Xie’s study, waiting until Xiaoge notices so he can smile and wave at him before they both resume their respective activities. Wu Xie, after everything, has the happy privilege of seeing Xiaoge at peace. It’s more than he could have ever hoped for.
And yet. It’s still not enough.
Wu Xie will never put into words what he feels for Xiaoge, never act on it, knowing as he does that Xiaoge’s indifference to the world at large is genuine, and that that indifference extends to the various pretty young village girls that have tried their best, to their credit, to fawn over him, and that Xiaoge steadfastly ignores. Wu Xie likes to think he’s gotten better at letting things go, and at being content with what he already has; he’d be foolish if he asked for anything more, the gains and losses at long last balanced out. Part of him, the traitorously efficient one that’d had no qualms dispensing with morals and other soft-hearted, yet profoundly human niceties, regrets the Wu Xie of before who by the end had never hesitated, never faltered, and had locked away his longing as best he could.
But Wu Xie was never a good man. He refuses to burden Xiaoge with feelings and expectations he doesn’t return; it’s a line he’s long resolved not to cross. It does nothing to stop Wu Xie from wanting, wishing, selfishly, that he could have more . Nor does it stop his endless curiosity, like a lingering voice that whispers to him from time to time, from reminding him there is a way for him to know for certain what Xiaoge thinks of him, without Xiaoge, nor anyone, ever needing to know.
Wu Xie has never used his reading ability since he’d done so with Su Nan. He’d heard from Li Cu, in passing, that she had been the one to help him escape the Wang compound, and to infiltrate it again in hopes of helping Wu Xie. He’d listened, expressionless, as Li Cu had mentioned her engaging with a member of the Wang family determined to bring them down with them, and that she’d never returned.
Though he knows he can’t hold himself accountable for the choices that others make, Wu Xie can’t help but think of her bitterly. In his eyes, much like Su Nan and everything else tied to that time, his ability to read others is something to be laid to rest, reminders of a time he’d rather forget. He’s not even sure he still can after all this time. Wu Xie hasn’t touched a snake in over two years now—for all he knows, the ability has faded along with his sensitivity to pheromones, in proportion to his sense of smell that, while nowhere near what it had once been, has slowly started to return. None of these things do anything to dampen the temptation to open a brief window into Xiaoge’s so often opaque thoughts, all while knowing that the guilt of that would eat him alive. He tries not to think of how whatever he might discover there could ruin him—there is always a price for knowledge, after all. Wu Xie has learned his lesson—though it seems he hasn’t learnt it enough.
He’d sworn to himself after Pangzi, and again after his drunken display of stupidity with Xiao Hua and Hei Yanjing, that he would never try to read those closest to him again. It’s simply a line not worth crossing, even less so now that there’s no need for it. Wu Xie finds knowing everything there is to know about even the most mysterious of people—even Xiaoge, who still withholds his share of secrets—no longer captures his interest quite so fiercely, his curiosity for the most part quenched.
Except, damnably, for this one small thing.
Wu Xie doesn’t need to know what Xiaoge thinks of him—he knows enough, sees enough with each day Xiaoge chooses to stay with him and Pangzi in Yucun, to understand that Xiaoge holds Wu Xie in high regard; that he views him, at the very least, as a friend, if not family. But, Wu Xie, in spite of and despite himself, wants . It’s only a matter of time before he gives in.
It happens on a nondescript day many months into their stay in Fujian, the weather balmy as spring slowly gives way to the more oppressive heat of June, the past week’s heavy rainfall lessened to a light shower. It had rained enough that the roads had flooded, leaving Pangzi to postpone his return trip from Beijing, and Xiaoge stuck indoors with Wu Xie, the mountains too unpredictable to navigate, and the ground too wet to tend to it.
Wu Xie knows that by now, Xiaoge would be roaming the surrounding wilderness if he could have his way, and hadn’t missed the smallest signs of his displeasure yesterday at having to stay, for the most part, inside the house. It draws a smile from him, both to see the minutiae of the human experience come to life in Xiaoge who so rarely expresses much of anything, and to have the proof that Wu Xie has grown more adept at understanding Xiaoge beneath his cloak of indifference. Xiaoge, he knows, would be perfectly content to sleep all day—Wu Xie has seen it happen on more occasions than he can count—but he’d seen the way he’d looked out the great window in their living room yesterday, contemplating the curtain of ceaseless rain that blurred the view of the garden and of the chicken coop beyond it, and had resolved to remedy it.
It’s why Wu Xie, some time before noon, had taken it upon himself to pull out the tea table, setting it on the covered porch, followed by comfortable cushions made for sitting, and finally, had prepared a pot full of the delicate silver needle tea he’d noticed Xiaoge had taken a liking to, setting it atop the dark wood of the table top along with its corresponding cups, and an assortment of digestible foods for a light lunch. The sense of accomplishment when Wu Xie finishes draws a contented sigh from him as he contemplates the result of the last two hours’ work. It won’t replace whatever business Xiaoge would prefer over lazing in front of the TV for hours on end, but Wu Xie supposes an outdoor lunch to the light tinkle of rain is if nothing else a change of pace.
He calls Xiaoge, who slips out the door in nothing but a light shirt and a pair of basketball shorts, tailed closely by Xiaomange who had likely smelled the food, and blinks at the display. He looks to Wu Xie, who’s already sat down, to which Wu Xie responds by patting the cushion beside him in invitation. Xiaoge says nothing, though he moves to settle onto the proffered seat, wordlessly moving to take Wu Xie’s bowl to serve him first. Wu Xie huffs in amusement, letting him, though he’s not one to be outdone; he sets about grabbing Xiaoge’s bowl, filling it with various bits of food in turn. Soon, they’ve both sat down and eaten in silence, content to watch the falling rain and bask in the peaceful quiet, Xiaomange asleep by Wu Xie’s other side, then poured the tea, savoring it as the afternoon stretches onward, timeless in its serenity.
Wu Xie can’t be sure what it is precisely that finally pushes him over the last unseen edge. Perhaps it’s the way things feel out of time, out of the world enough he believes, in that moment, that only he and Xiaoge exist in it. Perhaps it’s in the relaxed slope of Xiaoge’s shoulders as he watches the rain, silent, but steady and at peace in ways he’d never truly been in the far-off before. Or perhaps, more likely, it’s in the surge of warmth and fondness that rises in Wu Xie, inexorable as the tide, as he watches him, the familiar ache of it enough that he succumbs to a moment of weakness and reaches out, for the first and last time, to see what awaits him beyond the divide.
“Xiaoge?” he calls, his voice quiet, a hoarse quality to it that reflects the surrounding calm. He should be nervous, or even afraid, yet strangely, he is neither. Xiaoge turns to him, face impassive, eyes subtly inquisitive, and Wu Xie meets his gaze, clear yet impenetrable, before finally, he lets his defenses down.
What he perceives is unlike anything he’s ever felt. At first, he thinks the ability has left him, dissipating as had all the other side effects passed on to him by the snake pheromones. Soon, however, he realizes that is not the case. There is a calm, deeply steady, that he feels settle on him like a soft blanket, a protective shroud that anchors Wu Xie even as it seems to silence his errant thoughts, bringing him a sort of peace he’s yet to achieve on his own. There is the pleasant tingle of a subtle happiness, unobtrusive yet distinctly present, delicate and fragile in ways that tell Wu Xie that it must be treasured. But beneath it all, nestled at the core of these things as if it was their beating heart, is bright warmth, gentle yet fierce, that burrows into Wu Xie’s chest alongside his own aching one, soothing it, and above all, mirroring it.
Oh.
“Wu Xie…?” Xiaoge blinks in question, Wu Xie having stayed, it seems, quiet and blank too long for Xiaoge’s taste. There are any number of things Wu Xie could reply to him with. Later, he’ll think back to this moment, and wonder what words could possibly have been enough. Instead, all he can do is smile, so wide his jaw hurts from it, helpless to hold back the quiet, choked laughter that spills from his suddenly tight throat.
“Nothing,” he waves Xiaoge off with his hand, dissipating the connection between them, but not before Wu Xie feels the warmth flare, pulsing brightly before it fades altogether into memory.
Of course.
—