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One Tuesday afternoon, when his last lecture had finished, Shen Wei teleported himself to the SID headquarters. The latest of Zhu Jiu's – Ye Zun's – minions was an annoyance whose Dixing power was teleportation through sewage, giving him unfettered access to any toilet. A ministerial aide had already been killed in an undignified fashion on his restroom break; it was up to the SID to let everyone use the bathroom in peace again.
When Shen Wei walked in the door, emptiness greeted him. Before concern could well in him, he heard a cacophony of laughter from the lab. Ah. Fooling around, then.
Slowly making his way to the lab, Shen Wei couldn't help but think that the SID members really needed to learn how to clean up their desks. Wang Zheng had some idea of how to stack things, but Zhu Hong's desk looked like something had exploded on it. Shen Wei sighed at the disordered mess of papers and started shuffling them together.
From between the papers detailing Dragon City's sewage pipes and other municipal utilities, a small handwritten note slipped out. Shen Wei bent to pick it up.
At the top of the note was written “What Zhao Yunlan Likes” in Zhu Hong's neat handwriting.
This was personal, this was private, this was something unrelated to the case and thus neither Professor Shen nor the Black-Cloaked Envoy should pry into it... But Shen Wei, that collection of bad habits and selfish desires he'd yet to manage to shed, he wanted to read the note. Wanted to read it like burning, for it dealt with Zhao Yunlan's likes, ways to entwine them together and make Zhao Yunlan happier.
The sound of a door opening behind him. Shen Wei quickly stuffed the list into his trouser pocket, next to the keys he carried purely for decoration, and placed the rest of the papers in a neat pile.
“Shen Wei! You came!” Zhao Yunlan called out. “Excellent timing; Lin Jing figured out a potential way to get a lead on the Shit Sailor, and I wanted to run it past you.”
“May I suggest cleaning up after yourselves, so you don't lose the clues you've already gathered?” Shen Wei lightly said to try and cover for his snooping.
“But Professor Shen, have you never heard that a little bit of disorder is what lets the brain make the intuitive leaps with which cases are solved?”
Shen Wei sighed. He didn't deign to answer that, and instead let himself be led to the lab.
Later, when the SID had entrapped the renegade Dixingian and the Black-Cloaked Envoy had brought him back to Dixing, Shen Wei had an opportunity to sit down with the list. The SID were all partying – rejoicing in again being able to get blind drunk and puke into the toilet bowl without risk of death – and Professor Shen had politely declined the invitation, claiming he had grading to do. A stack of exams did sit on his table, it was true, but he'd graded more than half of them already, and the deadline for handing the grades over to the department secretary was over two weeks away. He could afford himself this indulgence.
With slow and careful motions, Shen Wei first closed all the curtains, ensured the door was locked, and retreated to his bedroom. In this most private of sanctums, he pulled the note from his pocket and unfurled it.
This was it: a look into Zhao Yunlan's deepest psyche from a member of the Snake Tribe, renowned for their mentalist powers, who'd had the occasion to be at his side from the very start of his tenure of Chief of the Special Investigation Department. A pang of guilt wracked Shen Wei over stealing a list made by someone he'd beaten in the race for Zhao Yunlan's heart, but he told himself that this list must have been made for the purpose of bringing Zhao Yunlan joy. The recipient would remain the same; only the bringer would change. Guilt assuaged, Shen Wei started reading.
The first item was “Every red-blooded man wants to fuck an iguana.”
Shen Wei stared at it in despair for a moment before recalling that modern slang was on occasion impenetrable. Something might thus be self-obvious for Zhao Yunlan and Zhu Hong, yet utterly opaque to Shen Wei, who'd never been up to date on the slang even in his original time. Perhaps the rest of the list would be more comprehensible.
The night they'd captured the Shit Sailor, Shen Wei had gone to grade exams and hadn't visited Zhao Yunlan. It was a bit disappointing, but Zhao Yunlan supposed the Envoy had standards to keep up with, and those standards included keeping his uniform smell-free. Zhao Yunlan hoped that one day, his Envoy would be comfortable enough to tell him more about the care and upkeep of Envoys, but until then, he'd just have to steadily lure this one in with praise for his cooking. And cleaning. And all the other housework he did for Zhao Yunlan. And the sex as well, though Shen Wei might combust with embarrassment at that. Really, Zhao Yunlan didn't deserve him at all.
The day after, they both had their jobs – Shen Wei was after all still a professor at the University, and Zhao Yunlan had a bunch of boring paperwork to do – but Zhao Yunlan couldn't help crossing his fingers that Shen Wei would come over in the evening. They'd been a thing for less than a month, but he was all too used to the home-cooked meals already.
No smells of cooking greeted him in the corridor, but Zhao Yunlan's hope sprung eternal. He turned the key in the door and all his anticipation was rewarded when he heard Shen Wei's voice hesitantly say “Yunlan?” from inside.
A grin erupted on Zhao Yunlan's face. “Honey, I'm ho- Uh, is dressing up as a dinosaur some Dixing custom?”
“It's an iguana,” Shen Wei said, like that was supposed to clarify matters at all.
Zhao Yunlan took a moment to regroup. He closed the door and slowly walked to the bed where Shen Wei was sitting in his iguana costume. Wracking his brain for anything reptilian lao-Chu might've mentioned even in passing but coming up with zilch, Zhao Yunlan sat down next to Shen Wei. “So. Iguanas. I'm afraid I haven't really had the opportunity to study Dixing customs; is today an iguana festival?”
Shen Wei made what could only be called a sound of despair. “Yunlan, you, you-” he said in anguish. “Don't you want to- But you said ‘every red-blooded man wants to fuck an iguana’!”
Wait. Oh no, was that- “Shen Wei,” Zhao Yunlan very carefully said, “where did you get that information?”
“I-” Shen Wei evaded his gaze. “I found- I found a note...”
“May I see?”
Reluctantly, Shen Wei dug it out. He didn't meet Zhao Yunlan's eyes.
The note was neatly written in Zhu Hong's handwriting, with each entry on its own line, all seemingly direct quotes. Based on the content, it was from around the time he'd taken over the SID. He sighed. “Shen Wei. This list ... is from when I first took over the SID. It was a bit rushed – you recall Chief Ji, whom you gave lao-Chu to? He was very suddenly turned into an iguana, and then I was stuck with a department chock full of humorless people left behind by my father and Chief Ji, who'd report everything I did to my father. Anyway, I decided to make the worst ones uncomfortable so they'd take the promotions and transfers my father set them up with and leave me alone. The previous Deputy Chief was the most stubborn stick in the mud and also a loyal supporter of Chief Ji's, so the easiest way to get him out was to claim I thought everyone wanted to fuck iguanas, including the iguanafied Chief Ji.”
Shen Wei peeked at Zhao Yunlan very carefully through his lashes. “So ... is there anything on that list that you actually like?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Well...” Zhao Yunlan went through the list. In addition to the things he'd said to smoke out unsavory remnants, Zhu Hong had captured some actually revealing remarks of his. “I do like high heels, long hair, and sex in and on vehicles.” In a very gentle voice, he continued, “But Shen Wei, if you want to spice up our sex life, you could just ask me, you know? Sex is a thing we do together, after all.”
Slowly, Shen Wei nodded, then turned his head fully to Zhao Yunlan. “Then – what do you like?”
“I like you,” Zhao Yunlan said. “I like it when you turn up and tell me how and what you want to do, I like it when you kiss me like I make the Sun rise, I like it when you get impatient and dematerialize our clothes. I want to make you happy, Shen Wei.” His Envoy was looking awfully like a deer in the headlights, so Zhao Yunlan enfolded him in an embrace. The ridiculous iguana costume cushioned Shen Wei's tendency to take half a minute to figure out how he should react to being hugged.
“Is that all you like? That and things from the list?”
He rubbed Shen Wei's back and considered his words carefully. “I like lots of things, but the heels and hair and sex on a motorbike and all that are extras. Nice to have, at least occasionally, but they must occur on a solid foundation.” He waited until Shen Wei made a small sound of assent against his shoulder. “I like you, I want to make you happy, and if you don't want to do one of the extras, you should tell me, because I don't want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Yunlan,” Shen Wei said with yearning on his voice. He pushed down the hood of his iguana costume and sat back up. With a deep breath, he closed his eyes, and – oh. Whatever Dixing power this was, Zhao Yunlan appreciated the results. He reached over to yank at the newly waist-length inky hair, and when Shen Wei shyly opened his eyes, the grin splitting Zhao Yunlan's face made a mirroring smile blossom on Shen Wei's.
Zhao Yunlan sat back, holding and playing with the ends of Shen Wei's hair. Such a pretty Professor Shen in his bed, Zhao Yunlan very much wanted to do some serious ogling, but- “Shen Wei, could you please take off the iguana costume? It's a bit ridiculous.”
A faint hint of color rose to Shen Wei's cheeks. “I'm not wearing anything under it.”
Zhao Yunlan's ear-splitting grin very easily turned into a leer. “That fits my plans perfectly.”
“In that case-” Shen Wei dematerialized the iguana costume, and Zhao Yunlan had one very naked and long-haired Dixingian in his bed. Said Dixingian then pulled him down onto the bed, and, well, Zhao Yunlan was very satisfied with this turn of events. Especially after his clothes were dematerialized as well.