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It starts small.
The first is a bar of gold. Yin Yu finds is when returning from his latest assignment, a covert operation that included rescuing the trapped ghost of a fourteen-year-old girl from her living mother’s closet. Hua Chengzhu hadn’t given him the details, but Yin Yu rarely finds he needs them. By the time they breached the corridor outside the master bedroom, the noble woman was three glasses of wine deep into a fit of despair that had escalated to the point of opening and closing the closet door with increasing force, raging all the while.
Yin Yu and his team are weary even for ghosts and immortals when they return to Ghost City. The girl is sealed safely in the clay pot under Yin Yu’s arm, and he gives it a gentle pat. She hasn’t spoken since they drew her out, but she just needs time. They all do when they first get here.
Yin Yu nods to his teammates as they disperse at the city gates. Only he has to report to Hua Chengzhu. However, as he turns in the direction of Paradise Manor, something on the path glints in the light of the overhead streetlamps. He blinks at it before approaching cautiously.
It’s a bar of gold.
Yin Yu pokes it with his sword; there’s a clink with the contact, and the bar is pushed slightly back. Yin Yu lifts his mask.
A patter. It comes from a nearby alleyway.
Yin Yu tenses, reflexively holding tighter to the pot. “Who’s there?” he calls.
No answer. No more sounds at all, save those of the market that never sleeps.
Yin Yu hums and looks back down at the gold. He reaches for it, hesitates. Then he picks it up. If it’s cursed or tampered with in any way, Hua Chengzhu would be able to tell. He’ll bring it to him for inspection, and if all is well, he’ll add it to Hua Chengzhu’s stash.
Decided, he gives the pot another reassuring pat and starts again for Paradise Manor.
~
By the time he finds the fish mask, he’s already aware these gifts—offerings, bribes, whatever—are meant solely for him.
They’re always placed either directly in his path or within his reach. They’ve become gradually more personal, too, graduating from money and flowers to weapons, masks, spicy treats, things he’s either in need of or would greatly enjoy.
He brings them all to Hua Chengzhu, who lazily glances over everything before tossing it back when he finds it harmless. He at first suggests this benefactor might be trying to garner a relationship so he can undermine Hua Chengzhu’s rule. Then he starts teasing that Yin Yu might have a secret admirer.
Yin Yu suspects Hua Chengzhu knows exactly who it is, too, especially when his response to Yin Yu trying out one of the new masks is:
“Hopefully he doesn’t get too excited seeing you in that.”
It isn’t said with concern, only amusement, so Yin Yu merely blushes under the mask and turns to run his daily errands, ignoring Hua Chengzhu’s chuckles that follow him out of the room.
~
Yin Yu starts to suspect who it is when Xie Dianxia asks, obviously prying: “How is that new mask?”
Yin Yu blinks, steps faltering as he leads Xie Dianxia towards where Hua Chengzhu has prepared a picnic for the two of them on the edge of the city limits.
“It is very comfortable, thank you, Your Highness,” he replies, keeping his tone pleasant.
“Not too big?” Xie Dianxia asks, smile as gentle as ever, but nervous, somehow. Like he’s lying, but not. “Too small?”
Yin Yu shakes his head. “It fits very well,” he assures him. “Almost as if… as if who gave it to me knows the shape of my face very well.”
Xie Dianxia’s eyes and smile widen. “Oh, really?” he asks, and his voice is suddenly an entire octave higher. “How strange! I mean, um, your Hua Chengzhu wasn’t who gave that to you?”
Yin Yu pauses to look at him. He’s not quite sure how to soothe his flustered state, but he does know that if Hua Chengzhu sees him like this, he’ll punish Yin Yu for it.
“...He did not,” he says eventually, spreading his hands, “but it is fine. I’m now certain whoever it is means neither me nor my lord any harm.”
Xie Dianxia relaxes, smile returning to normal.
Yin Yu returns it, even if it’s hidden behind the wolf mask he’s currently wearing. He likes Xie Dianxia. Not the way Hua Chengzhu does—and thank the gods, because his lord would cut him down in half a second—but he finds himself thinking, when he allows himself to contemplate what could have been, that he and Xie Dianxia could have been friends if the heavens hadn't banished him.
Yin Yu considers his next words very carefully as he returns to leading, Xie Dianxia following along at a comfortable distance. “I only wish I could thank whoever is doing this,” he says. “They obviously took the time to figure out what I like. Their effort is… appreciated.”
Xie Dianxia isn’t an idiot. Just before they round the corner that will reunite him with Hua Chengzhu, his smile takes on a knowing tilt. “I’m sure he would love to hear that.”
~
Yin Yu extends the invitation, because it has to be Yin Yu. He’s made his stance on their relationship very clear, and the other party has honored that as best he can with his limited understanding of these things.
If it were anyone else, Yin Yu would consider this entire affair a breach of terms. But, since it’s him, he can’t. He can only recognize this as an attempt to meet Yin Yu halfway.
And he has to ask himself: Will he close the gap?
His hands are shaking so terribly that the tea cup he’s holding clatters against its plate. He’s not sure how long he’s been sitting here, because seconds feel like hours and minutes feel like months. Hua Chengzhu bought out the entire establishment so they won’t be interrupted. Xie Dianxia helped him push the rest of the tables against the wall in case the meeting devolves into a brawl.
With him… it could go either way.
The bell over the entrance jingles, and there’s a wave of heat that comes and goes.
The sound, the footsteps that follow it, freeze Yin Yu’s blood in his veins. He doesn’t look. He keeps his eyes on his tea.
Someone sits across from him. Slowly, as if they’re afraid to startle him. Then a hand reaches across the table.
Yin Yu does not flinch away.
His mask is pulled away then up, pushing his bangs out if his face as it’s slid to rest on top of his head.
“Shixiong?” he says, as if the word might break him.
Yin Yu lifts his eyes. “Shidi.”