Chapter Text
Shangqi stops in front of the door to his apartment and sighs, remembering his juvenile behavior and childish words, guilt and remorse twisting and turning in his stomach. It takes a lot of willpower to keep his hands by his sides instead of wringing them together nervously, a habit that Wenwu had vigorously trained out of him. No bouncing of the leg, no nervous ticks that might have signaled his opponents about his state of mind...
Which one of them is wrong?
He doesn’t know, but what he does know is that the likelihood of his dad apologizing for something he firmly thinks is correct is astronomically close to zero. The chances of Wenwu actually changing his mind is further impossible.
Even still, Shangqi readies a heartfelt apology on his tongue and sappy words to follow them to soothe his dad’s temper and stubbornness.
When Shangqi finally takes those few steps forward into the building after convincing himself to apologize to his dad, he freezes, dread pooling into his heart.
This entire past month, in the instances when Wenwu would disappear for some rare reason, Shangqi could always still feel his presence lingering like a pleasant warmth, the inhale of steam from a kettle of fresh, steeping tea.
His home is completely sapped of all that warmth.
Shangqi quickly pushes further in, past the kitchen and to his bed area, alarm flooding his lungs with every shaky inhale and exhale; his small, single room apartment, where could his dad even hide? Refusing to accept the obvious, he searches every nook and cranny, shakes his bed like a crazy person, calls out for his dad over and over again, each one more desperate and hysterical than the last, his croaky voice far too loud to his own ears.
Nothing.
Quiet.
Cold.
As if Wenwu were never actually here.
Shangqi stops breathing altogether, and his emotions finally explode like a massive volcano eruption.
“No... no, no no!” Shangqi cries. “Don’t go, Dad! Please, I’ll do whatever you say! Don’t go! Don’t leave me…!”
What answers him is the painful silence of his dark and empty apartment.
“Don’t leave again…” Shangqi falls to his knees, dropping with a painfully loud and resigned thump. Down his cheeks fall a watery stream of tears that trail off his chin and onto the dull fabric of his pants.
He—He misinterpreted everything. He thought it was just another moment where his dad wanted to remove himself from the situation, but… “in the process of dying,” Wenwu had said?
What did that mean, exactly?
Shangqi...
“Ba…!” Shangqi’s head snaps up, his gaze flitting around his bedroom looking for the shimmery body of his dad’s ghost.
Despite the lack of physical form, Wenwu speaks again, and it feels as if he’s talking directly into Shangqi’s mind.
I might be dead, but you can still save me. My body is in Ta Lo… that is the only way I will ever appear to you ever again, my son.
The only way…
He sniffs. Stands up, and steadies himself against the wall. “... I’m coming.”
No one notices when Xu Shangqi slips out of San Francisco on a flight scheduled for just after midnight. He doesn’t bother telling anyone either, lest they try to convince him of how much of a bad idea this is, just like his dad did from before Shangqi foolishly ran away from his problems, again.
***
He can’t sleep on the flight despite the dimmed lights and extra blanket and pillows the flight crew gives him because of absolutely how terrible he looks.
After being on the receiving end of some strange looks from several people on the plane, he takes the time to look at himself in the bathroom mirror. And he’s a wreck. He can almost hear Katy’s voice calling him an absolute mess, telling him that he desperately needs to sort out his daddy issues.
Instead, he splashes some water on his face and rubs at his eyes and hopes he looks marginally less worse than before. When he asks a passing flight attendant for another hot towel, she takes one look at him before dumping the extra amenities onto his lap, and that’s how he ends with more blankets and pillows than he really needs crammed into the small space of his seat. They even offer him ice water before the complimentary drinks are supposed to be served, but Shangqi can hear the old wisps of his dad's voice scolding him for drinking cold water when he’s already feeling unwell, so he politely tells them no thank you.
He’s stuck replaying the last words he said to his dad—no, that’s wrong. He had shouted, yelled angrily, completely losing his composure. He never really could think straight when it came to matters concerning his family. He likes to think that he’s usually the type of person who thinks before he speaks, but when it comes to his dad…
“What makes you think Mom would want anything to do with you?” Back by the lake at Ta Lo, Shangqi had been so bitter and angry and upset. It was a mix of his jealousy of the rings and his frustration with his dad’s inability to let Mom go when Shangqi and Xialing were right here, still alive.
What Shangqi had really wanted to say then was, “What makes you think Mom would want anything to do with you or me?” because his dad had turned Shangqi into a jutting piece of sharpened darkness by the time he was fourteen. If his mom didn’t want anything to do with Wenwu, then she also wouldn’t want anything to do with Shangqi.
His verbal jab was a double edged sword. Shangqi had wondered if his dad knew that as he was sent flying into the lake just seconds later, having only caught a brief glimpse of Wenwu’s devastated expression, the exact same one his dad had been wearing before Shangqi had run out of the apartment.
What if he had stopped to consider that it wasn’t Lingling who sent the postcard out of nowhere? Then, would his dad have never been able to take her jade pendant like he so easily took Shangqi’s? Without it, Wenwu would have never found his way into Ta Lo… he would have never died...
He can’t sleep. He can’t sleep until he accidentally does, lulled into unconsciousness by his heavy emotional exhaustion, drifting into a restless blur of warped feelings and monochrome.
“Shangqi, ni bixu yao hui meiguo. Dang ni daoda jichang, diaotou huiqu. Bie qu Da Luo Tian… Bie zhao wo...”
Shangqi groans in agony. He can’t see anything in the pitch darkness, can’t feel the warmth of his dad’s presence.
“Shangqi,” the voice calls urgently. “Listen to me!”
“Don’t lie to me…!” Shangqi grits out, pressing a disembodied palm to his forehead. The other grips a handful of short hair tightly on the opposite side of his temple. It feels like his body is going to tear apart under the pressure of this plane of existence. “You’re not…”
“I promise, I’m real!” his dad urges. “Wo mei pian ni. Shangqi… listen… listen…”
Listen… go to Ta Lo… help me… help me…!
Shangqi drifts in and out of consciousness until the plane touches back down on the ground. His eyes are glossy and glazed over when he starts the long trip to the moving bamboo maze forest, only vaguely remembering the pleading voice of his dad in his dreams.
***
The trip to Ta Lo is a daze. The usually unnavigable bamboo maze is scared of Shangqi when he powers up the Ten Rings and just starts shredding at the trees like they’re made of paper. In a combination of an impenetrable defensive sweep of the rings around him and the offensive pulsing of energy from each powerful swing, tearing up all the flora in its path. Shangqi is untouched by the violent maze and continues to be that way, swing after swing, his arms burning from the extensive strain.
He finds it kind of funny that Wenwu never tried to push through the forest on his own, with just the rings and anger and nothing else. Or maybe his dad was trying to respect the place where he and Mom first met with the little bit of sanity he still had left, at the time.
After each slash, more and more of the colors of dusk and the setting sun spill through the gaps in the canopies, revealing a colorful sight of intermingled galaxy purples and hazy pinks and creamsicle oranges all blended together on a wet canvas on the horizon line, the soft brightness melting down into the Earth and being overtaken by the darkness of night with each passing minute.
Wo mashang lai le, Ba, Shangchi thinks, ignoring the glare of the sun in his eyes warning him to turn back. Just wait for me.
By the time he finishes forcefully ripping a straight path right through the forest, heaving when he finally passes through the waterfall, the sun is just about gone from the sky and replaced by an inky-black blanket of nighttime.
All eyes are on him when he emerges from the natural tear in the mountain, rings still glowing and activated around his wrists like a bright beacon of light in the darkness.
“Where is my dad?” Shangqi calls out, impatience lining the sharp edge of his words.
Knowing looks are exchanged, but still, no one says anything. A few even look at him with this pitying expression.
“When my mom died, I did nothing…!” Shangqi’s whisper is almost a shout in the silence of everyone openly staring at him. “My dad isn’t dead yet. I’m here because I can do something about it, so please.”
And they just keep doing nothing but stare at him while his frustration climbs into a crescendo.
My body...
Where is his body, where is his body, “Where is his body?!” Where is his dad’s body—
Don’t take your anger out on them, the wind whispers to Shangqi. Relax… Open your fist…
Help me. Help me...
“We can’t go near it,” someone says in Chinese. Shangqi doesn’t know who. “It’s too dangerous. Something happened— ”
“—I. Don’t. Care.” Each word is emphasized by another hard step forward, digging imprints into the ground from the force of the rings’ power. “Where is my dad’s body?!”
“Shangqi,” he hears his Yima ’s voice, a hint of soothing cutting through the chaos of too many voices at once. “Come with me and sit down for a moment.”
As if on cue, an earthquake sweeps the area and the ground trembles. The epicenter, coming from the direction of the destroyed gate, is surrounded by people dressed in dragon scale armor, wielding glowing halberds and cudgels and dao, all pointed at a single, motionless threat lying on the Earth. All the ground surrounding his dad’s body is marked up with remnants of slashes and harsh attacks, burn marks and torn terra.
“You… You were trying to destroy it…” Shangqi says, realization and shock creeping into his words. “You were trying to destroy him…!”
The shock Shangqi feels is suddenly doubled like a rebounded mirror sent careening directly back into himself. No, that’s incorrect. This presence is...
It’s not his emotions. It’s the emotions of a ghost still tethered to Shangqi’s soul.
“Ba?” Shangqi asks aloud. He waits for the shimmering outline of his dad to appear, like he’s used to. Waits for his dad’s reply to a million unspoken questions.
That’s correct, my son. You’re almost here… just a little bit closer...
Shangqi shakes his head, confused. “No, but… I can’t see you.”
“Who are you talking to? Shangqi?”
“My dad,” Shangqi whispers. “I can feel him. But I can’t see him anymore. He hates me.”
The words provoke the response he’s looking for. Indignation pulses through the space surrounding them, offended that such a thought would even cross Shangqi’s mind.
“See?” Shangqi laughs, broken. He knows his dad loves him. Ai zhi shen ze zhi qie. He doesn’t have to like it or imitate it or forgive it, but he knows his dad loves him. Shangqi understands, now. “He’s right here. Or at least his spirit is, sort of. I don’t know how much he can hear or see anymore. I don’t think a soul should be left out in the open world like this for so long.”
Yima speaks softly, using a tone meant for bearing bad news. “That body is no longer your father… I wish I had the time to tell you before you came. During the fight on Qingming jie, a piece of the Dweller’s soul snuck itself into his body; desperate to save itself, it latched onto the nearest thing...”
“... And then what remained of my father’s weakened soul was ejected out,” Shangqi finishes speaking. He laughs, a huff of disbelief and incredulity that dissolves into a pained wheeze. “So what? That soul-sucking monster wanted to lure my dad’s soul back here through me to finish eating it? This has never happened before, has it?”
“What would you like to do, then?”
“My dad has been appearing to me,” Shangqi slowly reveals, squeezing his eyes shut for a brief moment to process everything so he can pretend that everything he’s feeling isn’t pain, pain, pain. “For about a month, he was right beside me. And not once did he tell me to return to Ta Lo. Instead, he told me…”
Unable to finish his sentence, Shangqi shakes his head vigorously. He brings a hand up to his face and covers his mouth with it, to hide his disbelief and the visible quiver of his lips as he dips his head.
“What did he say?”
“He said…” Shangqi finally sobs, once, twice, and then he cannot stop as the floodgates part. His voice is wrecked with ragged and sharp inhales between each breath like he can’t get enough air. His head is feverishly warm and the tips of his ears are hot. He’s openly crying, vision blurry and distorted when he finally answers, muffled, with both of his hands covering his face, “He said he wanted me to move on. And the last thing I did was yell at him.”
He feels a weight on his shoulder in the shape of a hand. His fingers slowly creep up to confirm its presence, but there is only an empty space where he senses his dad, slowly fading.
Stifling his crying, Shangqi wipes the tears dripping from his face with the back of his hands. The Ten Rings clink against each other with every small movement, as if mocking him. “If that… thing really isn’t my dad anymore… I’ll do as he told me. I’ll destroy his body and the Dweller-in-Darkness once and for all.”
What happens next is a much calmer echo of the final battle from a month ago in the direct opposite time of day. Maintaining full control over the rings, Shangqi manipulates them into a ring of interlocking circles hovering around his dad’s body, reminiscent of the symbol of the Ten Rings.
Don’t…!
“You went awfully quiet there for a second, didn’t you?” Shangqi quips, sniffling. It helps, a little. “What, did you run out of ways to convince me that you could ever be my dad?”
Please, my son...
“I just hope you know,” he says quietly, “that you didn’t beat my dad. It was the final act of his life but it was also his first act of remorse and atonement since my mom died. He let that happen because he wanted to protect me and entrust his legacy to me. That was all.”
Shangqi breathes, moves his open fists in accordance to the flow of the wind, fast and controlled. “I won’t let you violate his body like this.”
Faster and faster, his hands glide, and the rings push his dad’s body upward into the air, glowing golden. It is near midnight when Shangqi thinks of the blue, cold, and crackling electricity from whenever Wenwu used them. For too long, his father was lonely and lost in the world.
Shutting his eyes, Shangqi allows nature to do the rest, one with his movements. He is attuned to each ring, to the bamboo maze forest already healing from the destructive path he left in his wake, the slowly pulsing of a dying soul, the droplets on the surface of the lake, the heartbeat of something old and powerful deep in the water, and the dark and distorted soul that does not belong in his dad’s body.
And he squeezes his fists.
That sick and evil thing didn’t stand a chance.
Wenwu’s body is gently lowered into the lake, sinking to the bottom. The brightness of the Ten Rings dim to the gentle glow of a firefly, then to nothing.
Never one for goodbyes, Shangqi only watches from afar.
Just like that, it’s a new day in the world without Xu Wenwu in it.
***
It is early the following morning just after the sun has risen that Shangqi finds himself searching for the picture of his mother and then runs into his Aunt who is already there.
“I wanted to be convinced so badly,” Shangqi says, bitterly. He touches the portrait of his mom on the memorial stand and wonders if they’d put one up for Wenwu. Probably not. “Now I guess I know how Dad felt when he started seeing and hearing Mom.”
“You’re not at fault.” She takes his free hand and places it in between her palms, comforting, and rubs soothing circles into the skin. “Neither was he.”
“You think so?” Shangqi whispers. “He loved Mom that much. The Dweller-in-Darkenss could have whispered anything into his ear... money, power, fame. Instead, it used Mom’s voice. And when his soul was…” Shangqi sucks in a ragged breath. “Well. Despite everything he did, it proved that he had a soul to begin with.”
“Of course he did,” Yima smiles wryly. “He fell in love with your mother.”
“He did, didn’t he? I can’t help but think about how lonely he was before he met her…” Shangqi trails off. “I wish I knew more about him before everything happened. One month wasn’t long enough, but… he was right. It helped.”
“Do you feel like you’re ready to move on?” She releases his hand, and it falls back to his side.
Shangqi opens his mouth.
Closes it.
He shakes his head and blinks several times in succession to stop the tears that want to escape, again. He can’t lie about this. “I want him back. I want him back.”
All of a sudden, like someone has been listening to and watching him all along, the wind and the leaves pick up at once.
“Shangqi…” Yima says, her eyes widening. They both stare at the flowing patterns of nature, unnatural but familiar.
“I—” Shangqi swallows his hope. “I gotta go.”
He follows, and it leads him down to the big lake, where his dad left him for dead and where he met the Great Protector.
There is a dark shadow on the surface of the water.
Dad, Shangqi mouths. The word never even leaves his mouth because he is breathless as he barrels full speed into the emerging figure of his father, still soaking wet from dragging himself out of the lake. The force of his near-tackle sends them both sprawling to the ground of the shore and to their knees.
Finally, finally. For the first time, Shangqi is the one who presses their foreheads close together until there is almost no space between them.
“Baba,” Shangqi’s voice cracks with emotion. His dad is a warm and solid presence against him. “Huanying huilai.”
From this distance, Shangqi can see the wrinkles of his dad’s laugh lines and then gasps out loud because his dad is smiling, unrestrained and genuine and every bit of the same warmth Shangqi almost doesn’t remember from the slices of peace in his childhood cut short: the Dance Dance Revolution nights and evening walks where his dad would hoist Shangqi’s small body up into the air and onto his strong shoulders so he could be closer to the heavens while Wenwu would point out the many Chinese constellations in the sky, his low and calming voice lulling Shangqi to sleep; when his dad would play-fight with him and laugh when Shangqi couldn’t even reach his waist let alone his open palms awaiting small and gentle fists; when Shangqi would force himself to stay awake so he could be there when his dad came back up the mountain with groceries and always a little treat that Shangqi would like no matter what, and most important of all, when his dad would set the grocery bags to the floor and kneel on the ground to press a chaste kiss to Shangqi’s tiny forehead and then ruffle his hair and say—
“Wo huilai le,” Wenwu murmurs, almost as quiet as the wind settling down around them. He weakly wipes at the drying tear trails on Shangqi’s cheeks with his thumbs before he immediately collapses forward into Shangqi’s arms in a sudden faint, but not without slipping all Ten Rings off both Shangqi’s wrists.
The rings are sprawled out on the ground, depowered, and that is when Shangqi feels like he can breathe properly again.
Shangqi doesn’t shout or panic, doesn’t tremble or start crying again. He only looks down at his precious person and observes the peace in Wenwu’s unconscious expression and thinks to himself, his dad is alive, alive, alive…!
“Thank you,” he whispers into the universe, “for giving him back to me.”
The shenlong that Shangqi knows is resting, hidden somewhere in Ta Lo, gazes through the vast clearness of the lake.
***
Shangqi doesn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to him that Ta Lo could experience weather the same way it did on Earth. He’s standing under the pavilion by the memorial area, staring out at the rain. He remembers being much younger, under a different roof, one evening, waiting for his dad to return. It had just started raining, and he was just so curious.
His mom is in the kitchen, making lunch, and his sister is still too young to walk.
That’s how his dad finds him, running circles around in the rain and stomping on shallow puddles, damp fabric and hair clinging to his skin, wet rain on his flushed cheeks, sniffling and giggling.
They are both soaked to the skin, Shangqi from carelessly running around in the rain and Wenwu from not bringing an umbrella when heading down the mountain to buy several chickens despite the suggestion from his wife at the sight of the clumped and darkening clouds earlier that morning.
“Xiayu le, Baba!” He’s grinning so widely that the water gathers on his upper lip and drips down his chin, some of the refreshing droplets getting into his mouth at his excitement.
Wenwu laughs at Shangqi’s youthful antics and slicks his wet hair back and out of his eyes with one hand. “It is, isn’t it?”
They are both given a lighthearted scolding later. His dad sneaks a grin to Shangqi like they are sharing a secret.
“He’s awake,” Yima tells him. Shangqi blinks and shivers, breaking out of his reverie.
His heart races in response, aching from the memories and from current events, and he nods at her before rushing to the room where his dad is being kept.
“Hao yu zhi shijie,” Wenwu says, turning to Shangqi from his makeshift bed. His dad is smiling sadly, slowly struggling to push himself up into a sitting position with his elbows.
“Yeah, it’s really coming down,” Shangqi replies with an awkwardly apologetic smile. “Do you need more blankets? I’m sorry I couldn’t really bring you to a proper hospital— ”
“—This will do just fine,” his dad cuts him off before breaking into a brief coughing fit, dry and sickly.
“Woah, Ba, take it easy.” Shangqi pushes his dad back into a flat position on his back. “Stop trying to get up. You had a minor case of pneumonia, but that’s gone now. All that’s left is just the tail end of a large fever.”
Wenwu sighs.
Shangqi frowns at the noise.
His dad sighs again, louder.
“What’s wrong?” Shangqi asks, already finding himself incredibly worried over the distressing behavior. He looks over his dad’s body for any injury they might have missed before he presses his cheek against his dad’s forehead the way he remembers it being done to him as a child. Still slightly warmer than it should be, but that’s to be expected. He leans away and rubs his chin, wondering if he should grab a cup of hot water or Ta Lo’s local herbal tea, or maybe something like a warm towel would help with a sore throat?
Wenwu sighs for a third time. “How have I ended up in a situation where I’m bedridden and my son is fussing over me like a chicken with its head chopped off?”
“I’m not—” Shangqi initially retorts, but then shuts his mouth immediately, because he is. “So what’s your point? You’re not exactly in the state to stop me.”
“So I’m not,” Wenwu says, humorlessly.
Shangqi frowns. He really doesn’t want to know the answer to this next question, but asks anyway, “Do you want…” me to go away, he doesn’t say, “for me to get someone else? Lingling? Yima?”
His dad turns his head to avoid Shangqi’s gaze. “... No, that’s not it.”
“What’s wrong?” Shangqi asks again, more gently.
Morosely, Wenwu replies, still turning away, “Everything.”
Wearily, Shangqi sits down on the cushioned wooden chair by his dad’s bed and plants himself facedown on the edge. “Will you tell me specifically what?” his words come out muffled. “Communication is important.”
His dad scoffs. “If communication is so important then you would have actually listened to me and stayed away from Ta Lo.”
“Communication is important sometimes,” Shangqi corrects himself, lifting his head from the blankets to pout at his dad, who blatantly avoids his stare. “Ah, have you eaten the medicine Yima had someone mix for you?”
Wenwu shakes his head, glancing at the bowl of liquid by his bedside skeptically.
“It’s not poisoned,” Shangqi says, exasperated. “If they wanted you dead, they would have done it while you were still sleeping.”
Wenwu makes a scrunched up face at the first swig of the medicine before reluctantly drinking the rest while Shangqi laughs quietly at his dad’s expression. “Remember what you used to say to me? If it tastes bad, it must be good for you.”
Like a petulant child, Wenwu sighs, yet again.
“If you keep sighing like that, your soul might leave your body again.”
“That would be ideal.” Wenwu’s tone is curt.
“I don’t understand,” Shangqi shakes his head, standing and backing away from the bed abruptly. “Do you still not want this?” At the word this, he gestured between them, to wordlessly indicate their father-son relationship.
“Be realistic,” Wenwu says, dourly. “As soon as possible, I’m going to go to jail and be locked up until the day I die. There is no room for this. You should have just let me stay dead.”
“How can you possibly regret living?” The words leave Shangqi’s mouth before he can stop them in a rush of emotion. He thinks he’s figured Wenwu out. “It’s obvious by now that the Dweller tried to use your voice to lure me back to it. Your voice. Not Mom’s. Isn’t that enough to show you that I actually want you here? That I’m not lying or being polite or forcing myself to say these things? When I was younger, all I wanted was your care and attention. That was good enough for me. I didn’t want to inherit the rings, but if you wanted me to… then that’s what I would do, I had thought at the time. Just being able to have a proper conversation with you is good enough. Even if you don’t want to speak with me, the fact that you’re alive and here is good enough. Even if you never want to see me again, I would still be happy because you’re alive. Do you understand? So don’t say that you would rather stay dead…!”
At one point in time, Shangqi had abandoned the world for a fraction of his father's attention, coveting his gaze. He had lost sight of the world, and of himself. Now, the future lays bright and hopeful at his feet, with his father in it as well.
“Getting so emotional over nothing… sha haizi,” his dad murmurs, turning his head away and toward the window so Shangqi can’t see his expression. “I’ve made so many mistakes. How can someone blame a child for the death of their mother? And don’t even get me started with Lingling. How can you… how can you still…?”
“Just accept it,” Shangqi says, simply. “Accept it the way you accept that the sun will come up every morning.”
Wenwu doesn’t reply to him after that, but Shangqi thinks that his words have finally gotten through to his dad.
He leaves quietly to give his father space.
The next day, Wenwu willingly turns himself in to the proper authorities without protest, but Shangqi can tell that his dad leaves with Shangqi’s words echoing in his mind.
He thinks that after all these years, they have finally, finally touched souls.
For once, Shangqi is more content than he has ever remembered feeling.
***
Shangqi’s status as an Avenger is contested.
He hasn’t officially given them an answer yet, and it agitates them, he can tell, especially when the United Nations representatives keep trying to use it as a bargaining chip in anything to do with Wenwu. It doesn’t really accomplish anything when Shangqi already has his mind made up on what he’ll do.
“Your father is just another ordinary man now, Shang,” the official government agent says, when Shangqi is finally allowed to visit his father. “What prison he ends up in permanently is completely in your hands. Now, what will you choose to do, Bus Boy?”
“My son is not a commodity,” Wenwu snaps, irritably. He has a different air about him, one that seems much more comfortable and accepting of Shangqi’s presence compared to before. “And his name is Shangqi. Get it right.”
Without access to proper shaving equipment due to the dangers of sharp objects, a small beard has grown onto his dad’s face, one that strongly reminds him of the way Wenwu didn’t take care of himself at all right after Shangqi’s mom died.
It’s the thing that sends him over the breaking point and evaporates any bit of patience he has left in him.
“I’ll do it,” Shangqi suddenly blurts. “I’ll be an Avenger. But only if he can live with me. And I want a bigger apartment, too.”
“What?” comes the confusion of two overlapping voices.
“That’s my final offer. What threat does he even pose anymore? You said it yourself; he’s just another ordinary man now,” Shangqi shrugs, smiling a wane smile.
Gritting his teeth, the intermediary’s face begins to turn tomato red in anger. “This has to be a mutual agreement with both parties.”
“Gen wo yiqi shenghuo, Ba,” Shangqi says, softly. “Please.”
Wenwu sighs before smiling wryly. Shangqi already knows his dad is going to give in before he even speaks a word. “Ni zheme reqing, wo bu haoyisi jujue. Hao ba.”
“What are you saying?!” the intermediary’s furious gaze flits back and forth between them.
“I agree.” Wenwu inclines his head, exerting his usual air of flagrant authority. “Off you go to tell your superiors.”
And then all that’s left is for them to do is wait as Shangqi’s polite “request” is processed by not-so-happy intelligence agencies.
***
When his dad is being held in a maximum security prison designed for people specifically like him and when they both have just a little bit more waiting to do, Shangqi finally goes home to his apartment for the first time in a week, give or take, to clear it out and pack the meager collection of furniture he’s acquired from garage sales and carefully saving up money from his early part-time jobs.
He cracks open the fridge and finds a large silver dish of peeled and neatly cut white fleshed huolong guo staring back at him from the top rack that he definitely did not leave and wills himself not to cry when he immediately eats them straight out of the bowl with his fingers. As usual, it’s never as good as the fresh pink-fleshed ones from his early childhood that his Mama would peel for him while regaling stories of the breathtaking shenlong from her hometown, but at the same time, the one-and-a-half week-old bowl of dragon fruit in his refrigerator left to him by a Wenwu who was so sure he was going to die a permanent death is the most delicious thing Shangqi has ever eaten in his entire life, sweet and cold and slightly odd tasting from being left out for so long, all the flavors of the emotions he has finally allowed himself to feel about his dad.