Chapter Text
"Your mother is Li Li Zhen?" said Meng Shao Fei after he had finished choking out the tea from his nostrils and wiping snot from his face. Tang Yi averted his eyes. There were some sights that even a boyfriend would find too disgusting.
"That Li Li Zhen? Senior Superintendent Li Li Zhen of the Taipei City station?" Shao Fei went on, his voice squeaking in his excitement. "The one who single-handedly destroyed Xing Tian Meng?"
It sounded like Shao Fei had met his hero. "I wouldn't say 'single-handedly'," Tang Yi muttered. He'd helped her from the inside! Even if she'd covered up his involvement later so he'd never be linked with the gangster world. "She had help."
Shao Fei waved his contributions off with a sweep of his arm. "Nah, they were just supporting her," he said. "She was the one who dug up every bit of incriminating evidence, wasn't she? She was the one who planned for all of Xing Tian Meng's leaders to be arrested in one fell swoop. She found incontrovertible evidence against their boss, Tang Guo Dong. She was promoted three times above her previous rank for that, and she's still breaking records for being promoted so quickly. They say even the other gangs give her a width berth, she's that awesome."
Any more gushing, and Tang Yi was going to get a towel for Shao Fei to mop up his drool.
"And she's your mother," Shao Fei said in hushed tones.
"Yeah?"
Shao Fei breathed in admiration for a while longer, then finally, his composure reasserted itself. "But you are Li Tang Yi. This means you take her surname," he pointed out.
"So?"
Tang Yi knew that Shao Fei had deduced that his mother had not been married to his father. Were this thirty, twenty years ago, most people would have felt that there was something shameful about his mother having a child out of wedlock. Tang Yi, of course, didn’t see it that way.
"So nothing," Shao Fei said. "I didn't think she was old enough to have a son your age. I thought you were her relative, like a cousin or something. You two look a bit alike."
Tang Yi snorted. "How can you tell that when you've never even met her?"
"I have pictures of her, from the news reports." Shao Fei had stars in his eyes again, like that of a teenage boy seeing his idol. It has sometimes hard to believe that Shao Fei was even older than Tang Yi (he'd graduated from university before deciding that he wanted to be a policeman). Most of the other recruits, like Tang Yi, had joined right out of high school.
It was going to be amusing to see Shao Fei's head explode. Metaphorically speaking, of course. "Well, we're allowed to go back home for the mid-autumn break. Would you like to go back with me, and meet her?"
Shao Fei's eyes widened so much that it looked as though his eyeballs were going to pop out. "Really?" he exclaimed, loud enough that the patrons in the other tables turned towards them with frowns.
"Unless you're going home yourself," Tang Yi added belatedly. Even now, he sometimes forgot that other people had families that they grew up with, families that they saw regularly. Most of the other recruits at the academy had been making plans that whole morning for the return trip back to their homes, everyone excited about getting away from their demanding instructors for the next four days. Tang Yi had finally dragged Shao Fei out to the on-campus café to avoid all the questions about where he was going.
Shao Fei shook his head. "Nope. My mum's going to be in Hong Kong helping my sister with the baby," he said. "They don't need me there, I'd just get in the way. I was planning on staying here."
This was the most Shao Fei had ever said about his family. "It's just your mother and sister?" Tang Yi asked. Shao Fei had mentioned his older sister a few times, but not his parents.
"Yeah. My sister went to work in Hong Kong after graduation, and got married there. My dad passed away just before I started university," Shao Fei said, sobering for a moment, then focused his attention on Tang Yi. "Erm, your dad-" he began, then shook his head, reddening, "erm, nothing! Pretend I said nothing."
Tang Yi wondered if he had been scowling without realising it. The topic of fathers inevitably did that to him, starting with his adopted father, then Tang Guo Dong whom he'd taken as a father figure, only for- no, not going into that now. Finally, there was Chen Wen Hao. Reformed gangster, he had said. Tang Yi scoffed inwardly. Looking at Shao Fei's worried face, he unbent enough to say, "My birth father's alive," he said. "I see him once in a while," usually only after his mother's repeated requests. "Otherwise it's just my mother and Hong Ye." He'd told Shao Fei lots about Hong Ye, anyway, enough for Shao Fei to declare himself lucky that he had an older sister and not a younger one.
"Oh." Somehow, Shao Fei had found that Tang Yi's home situation was not exactly common, even though Tang Yi had done his best to keep things quiet. (Probably because he kept things too quiet. Shao Fei pounced on mysteries like a cat on a butterfly.) They had that short, uncomfortable conversation about Tang Yi's early life as an adopted child who later found his birth mother. But other than that, Shao Fei always followed Tang Yi's lead to let things be, even when his instincts said otherwise. Part of the reason Tang Yi had let Shao Fei into his heart so quickly.
"It's okay, I'm not bothered."
Shao Fei still looked dismayed so Tang Yi couldn't help but pull him close. One of the best things about Shao Fei's impulsive nature was how easily he was distracted with a kiss, and Tang Yi exploited that to the full.
***
Perhaps not shockingly, Shao Fei and his mother got on like a house on fire. Both of them were passionate about justice, believed in protecting the innocent and spent their free time geeking out on cold cases. Before the day was out, Shao Fei, who had been apprehensive about being introduced as Tang Yi's boyfriend, was raving about "Li Zhen-jie" in every other sentence, unable to stop even though it was past midnight.
"You can't call her Li Zhen-jie, she's my mother," Tang Yi said, though he wasn't expecting anything he said to dampen Shao Fei's enthusiasm by even an iota. At least Shao Fei wasn't pacing up and down the room in excitement; he had consented to cuddle on the sofabed beside Tang Yi. "It sounds weird."
"He should call me Auntie instead?" his mother interrupted, and both of them jumped to their feet, separating in a hurry. Except that Shao Fei promptly lost his balance and Tang Yi had to grab him by the waist to ensure he didn't fall flat on his face.
"Ma," he said in protest.
"Xiao Yi," she said.
"The two of you even sound alike," Shao Fei marvelled, once he had extricated himself. "Li Zhen-jie, I-" he thumbed his nose cheekily at Tang Yi's glare, "wanted to ask you about Xing Tian Meng."
His mother, to her credit, didn't look at Tang Yi. "What about Xing Tian Meng?"
"Well, it was one of your first big cases, wasn't it?" Shao Fei began, "but all this time we've talked, you've hardly even mentioned it. It's a case that I'm really curious about-" He eyed Tang Yi. "And Tang Yi always goes quiet whenever I mention it."
Tang Yi suffered the indignity of having his mother look knowingly at him, as though he was a teenager again.
His mother had a very faint smile for him, then turned to regard Shao Fei thoughtfully. "That's because it hit close to home for me," she said.
Shao Fei, no dummy, looked from her to Tang Yi. "Something to do with Tang Yi? Since Tang Yi came to live with you after you broke the case."
"Wait. How did you know that?" Tang Yi asked.
"How did you know that?" his mother echoed.
"Well," Shao Fei rubbed his nose, "Tang Yi never talks about living in Taipei as a child, or going to school here…"
His mother nodded with a little 'go on' lift of her chin.
"… and that time we volunteered at a children's home, he said something about staying in an orphanage. I didn't think much of it at first, but I got to thinking…"
"What else?"
Shao Fei looked shifty. "…and I may have casually talked to the neighbours? They said you moved here with Tang Yi and Hong Ye a few years ago. It was when Tang Yi was still in high school. That was when the news about Xing Tian Meng came out."
Tang Yi was annoyed at how sneaky his boyfriend was. Just because he didn't want to say-
His mother nodded, however. "You'll make a good cop someday, Shao Fei," she said.
"Thanks, Li Zhen-jie!" Shao Fei looked giddy at praise from his idol. After a moment, though, he frowned. "So I was right? Tang Yi was in an orphanage, but came to live with you when he was sixteen."
"Wrong!" Tang Yi said.
"There're a few missing parts," his mother said. "Tang Yi has had an eventful life."
"Ma!" She made it sound so dramatic.
"And those missing parts have to do with Xing Tian Meng," Shao Fei deduced.
"Some of it."
"Oh." Rather than Tang Yi expected, Shao Fei did not look gleeful at being right. "It must not have been easy to be reunited after so long," he said.
To Tang Yi's surprise, his mother nodded. "There were many complications," she said to him, glancing at Tang Yi, "one of which was Xing Tian Meng."
"Oh." Now Shao Fei was starting to look confused. "But-"
"And that part concerns Tang Yi," his mother went on. "Actually, it explains why he's called Tang Yi at all."
"Ma-"
"Which I will leave him to tell you, if he feels like doing so," his mother said.
Shao Fei looked chastened. "Yes, Li Zhen-jie."
His mother gave them a faint smile. "And you can continue calling me Li Zhen-jie until the two of you actually get married." She left the guest bedroom. "Good night."
/tbc