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    Her daozhang has a text. This is new. Every night Xiao- daozhang checks his phone, routine and responsible the way he always is, and his phone tells him there are no messages. A-Qing pretends she doesn’t know how sad that makes him, because he only ever shows his sadness in a sad little frown, and a-Qing isn’t supposed to be able to see his face. It’s even more important now that Chengmei is with them, because Chengmei always looks at a-Qing like older boys in the street used to, like they were making fun of her and jealous of her at the same time, and she doesn’t want to know what he’ll do if he finds out she can see him.

    A-Qing only realizes that Xiao- daozhang has a text because Chengmei notices it. A-Qing doesn’t look at Xiao- daozhang ’s phone, even when nobody else is home, because there’s never anything interesting there. But now the phone makes a little twinkling melody in the other room, and a-Qing hears Chengmei launch himself towards it, loud and clumsy and nothing like Xiao- daozhang , who is never impatient. Why is he in such a hurry? Xiao- daozhang is out at the market, and it’s not like a-Qing is going to pick up the phone. Carefully, she peers around the corner, ready to bluff and pull back if Chengmei is looking. He isn’t, so she keeps watching as he fiddles with the phone. 

    “Message from Song Zichen,” says the phone, out loud, making her and Chengmei both jump. “Xingchen. Can we talk,” the phone continues in a flat voice. A-Qing watches as a sharp grin spreads over Chengmei’s face. She doesn’t like that look at all.

    “Xingchen, can we talk?” Chengmei mimics, mockingly. “I don’t think so, Zichen .” He’s still messing around with the phone, and the phone keeps starting to talk and then skipping around. “How do you stop this thing?” Chengmei mutters to himself. It doesn’t stop talking. “Shut up!” he shouts, and throws it at the wall. 

    The phone plays the twinkling melody again. “Message from Song Zichen.”

    Chengmei sighs, dragging himself out of the chair dramatically and picking up the phone. A-Qing wonders who he’s putting on a show for. It’s not like he knows she’s watching.

    “I understand if you don’t want to talk to me. I just want you to know I’m sorry.”

    “I just want you to know I’m sorry,” mocks Chengmei, again. A-Qing wants to stab him. This must be who Xiao- daozhang was waiting for a message from every night! Chengmei can see. He must see how sad Xiao- daozhang is. 

    But of course Chengmei is being mean. He’s the worst. A-Qing already knew that, but she thought he did care about her daozhang . Apparently not. 

    “Whatever,” Chengmei finally mutters, “it’s almost dead, anyways. Silly Xiao Xingchen, your phone is going to die soon. Now you’ll never know!” The last bit is singsong and vicious. A-Qing hates him. But she’s smarter than him, even if he is bigger and stronger and has a sword. She’ll get back at him somehow, she just has to keep fooling him.

    Chengmei goes digging through Xiao- daozhang ’s bag, which makes a-Qing furious, and comes out with a pair of earphones. He plugs them into the phone, and the noise of him scrolling through the phone disappears. Then he stuffs the phone into the pile of blankets that serves as his bed, stands up, and dusts off his hands dramatically.

    A-Qing ducks back into the little kitchen before Chengmei can turn around and notice her. She sits back down against the wall, where she had left the sleeve of crackers she had been eating, and the toy Xiao- daozhang had bought her, the second day they met. She noisily crunches her cracker, running her fingers over the braille on the sides of the Rubik’s cube. Xiao- daozhang had said they were lucky to find something like this in an old second-hand toy store, and that they couldn’t not get it when it had been put into their path. A-Qing hasn’t solved it yet, but she loves it.

    Chengmei creeps into the kitchen on silent feet, and a-Qing pretends she can’t see him from the corner of her eye. “Hey, blind kid,” he says, right next to her ear, and she jumps.

    “What are you doing?” She yells, throwing a cracker in his vague direction and missing nearly. “Why are you creeping up on me like that? And don’t call me that! I have a name.”

    Chengmei laughs. “Didn’t you hear anything?”

    “I heard a song. What was it?”

    “Xiao- daozhang ’s phone. It was his friend, but he was sending him cruel messages.”

    A-Qing hides her anger inside. What a liar! “That’s not nice!” she says out loud. “I hope he doesn’t come here to be mean to my daozhang. You’re bad enough!”

    This makes Chengmei laugh again. “I’m much nicer than this friend. Anyways, I hid the phone. It would only make Xiao- daozhang sad, to hear such mean things from someone he thought was his friend. He has us now, so he doesn’t need him. Don’t tell him, alright? To protect him.”

    A-Qing lets some of her suspicion show on her face. “Are you sure? Maybe they’re mean to each other for a joke, like the people who own the nice fruit stall.”

    “I’m sure,” says Chengmei, and there’s the undertone of threat she’s used to. “You better not say anything. It will make him cry.”

    “Okay, I won’t!” A-Qing says, pouting a bit.

    Chengmei seems to believe her. He pats her shoulder, which she hates, and leaves. “Good. I’m going out to make sure Xiao- daozhang is alright with the vegetables. See you, blind kid!”

    He’s always making jokes like that. A-Qing ignores him and his manic giggle as he walks out the door. She doesn’t move from the kitchen until he and Xiao- daozhang come back. She’s waiting.

__________________________

    Even as his heart is beating out of his chest, Xiao Xingchen reminds himself that he should know better. It’s ridiculous to be so attached to an object— a useless object, even. It’s not like his phone has been receiving any messages for the past three years.

    Still, he has to check. “Hey,” he says, as casually as he can, “do either of you know where my phone is?”

    There’s some shifting from the other makeshift bed, from the one sagging couch where a-Qing sleeps. “Not me, daozhang !” a-Qing chirps. He really didn’t expect the girl to be of any help. She’s as blind as him, and it’s not like there are games on his phone that she would be interested in even if she could see. She’s only nine, and there’s no internet in their ramshackle little house.

    “I haven’t seen it since you checked it last night,” says Chengmei.

    “I bet you stole it!” hisses a-Qing venomously. Xiao Xingchen really doesn’t understand why she hates the man so much. Xiao Xingchen has reassured her many times that he can have a friend and still be there for her, and Chengmei has never harmed them.

    “Don’t be ridiculous,” says Chengmei dismissively, “if I was going to steal a phone, why would I steal Xiao- daozhang ’s? It’s old. I would get one that worked better.”

    Xiao Xingchen can’t help but chuckle a bit at the way Chengmei brings himself to a-Qing’s level. Growing up on the street the way she has, relying on her wits, a-Qing hasn’t quite learned that she can’t simply take the things she wants. Xiao Xingchen would have tried to explain, as he already has many times, that he wouldn’t steal because stealing is wrong. Chengmei just circumvents that confusion by explaining that he doesn’t want the phone. He’s right, too. Xiao Xingchen’s phone is not a big target for thieves. 

    “Don’t worry about it, I was just checking,” he reassures them. “It isn’t important. What do I need a phone for? Who am I talking to besides the two of you?”

    “Nobody!” announces a-Qing, and Xiao Xingchen hears the telltale signs of her movement just in time to brace himself as she flings her whole body towards his pile of blankets. He has to reach out to both sides and make himself a big target— a-Qing isn’t quite a close enough listener to always find him, and more than once they’ve both missed and a-Qing has gone careening into the wall. Thankfully, he catches her in the crook of one outstretched arm and pulls her into his chest, cradling her carefully. She giggles. “You’re my daozhang .” She cuddles closer to him.

    Xiao Xingchen can’t help the way his heart melts at her possessiveness. He shouldn’t encourage her to treat people that way, but he loves her, in his heart of hearts thinks of her as his , too, somewhere between a baby sister and a daughter. So instead of reprimanding her, at least tonight, he folds his arms around her and rocks slowly until her breathing slows and he thinks she’s asleep. Then he tucks her back in among the blankets on the couch, carefully prying her fingers from his shirt. She sighs a bit as he backs away, but there’s no other sign that he’s woken her, so he lets himself move back to his blankets.

    He starts to go through all his belongings one more time, just in case he missed the phone the last two times. It still isn’t there.

    “Whoever you’re waiting to hear from, they never text you,” says Chengmei quietly, “why do you keep waiting on them?”

    Xiao Xingchen tries not to let on how much it hurts to be reminded. “He was... an old friend,” he struggles, knowing it’s not enough to really explain, “and we fought. He said he never wanted to talk to me again. The fight was my fault, and he was right to be so angry. So I left. I’ve been foolish, holding out hope that he would call me. I wouldn’t call me.” Xiao Xingchen plucks at the fabric of his pants absentmindedly. “It’s probably a good thing that the phone is gone. It’s time to let go and move on.”

    “You have us now,” Chengmei reminds him, and he feels a hand brush across his cheek and down his hair, coming to rest lightly on his shoulder blade. Xiao Xingchen smiles a little, to reassure him, and the hand leaves. “You should sleep,” Chengmei says firmly.

    So Xiao Xingchen sinks down into his blankets and puts his back to Chengmei, listening to the last quiet rustlings of the evening as the household settles into sleep. When there’s nothing but deep breathing and the sound of the wind, he lets himself cry.

__________________________

    Try as he might, Xiao Xingchen can’t let it go. He stops looking for the phone among his things after the second night, after Chengmei tells him that he checked every nook and cranny in their little house and it was nowhere to be found, but he can’t stop thinking about it. 

    Or rather, now that he’s lost his only way to talk to him again, he can’t stop thinking about Song Lan.

    As he’s walking to the market, he gets distracted and takes a wrong turn, thinking about Zichen, his serious approach to fruit buying, how he would stock up in small towns and at markets so that he could avoid grocery stores in the cities at all costs. He thinks about the press of the crowd as he looks over a stall of desserts, about texting Zichen the options and then searching out his dark figure, standing across the street looking down at his phone, answering. He buys three sweet buns, an indulgence, because he can’t stop thinking about it. 

    He thinks about meeting for the fifth time, at a coffee shop in Chongqing, so ridiculously improbable even though they had travelled together for six months after the third meeting, three months after their fourth. He thinks about Zichen sitting down across from him and saying how ridiculous it was, saying “If this is how it’s going to be, I’m done waiting to run into you again. We may as well stop losing each other. Come on,” and dragging a confused Xiao Xingchen, still clutching his food, down the streets and onto buses and into a mall (a mall , Zichen, who hated even grocery stores, brought him to the mall ) to buy two cell phones. “Now if you get lost I can just find you,” Zichen had said, setting up his contact for him, looking so serious as he took a selfie for his contact picture that Xiao Xingchen had laughed out loud. His laughter had made Zichen smile his flicker of a smile, and that was what the phone had captured, a bit blurry but real. He couldn’t even see the picture, anymore, so it’s not like it matters if he’s lost it.

    That’s what he keeps telling himself. 

    Xiao Xingchen’s life has been an exercise in letting go. He had loved his master and her small temple, but he had left his studies and the perfect peace of the mountain for the chaos of the world. In those early days, when people had asked him where he was from, he had always explained that he could never go back. Their grief for him always seemed greater than his own, his heart full of every new experience, of the noises and smells of farms and markets, and later the riotous cityscapes. He had been so young, barely sixteen, falling in love every day with a new place and a new friend, and always leaving them behind. This was the way of everything, to be caught and held for a moment, then let go. Xiao Xingchen had work to do in the world. He could not cling.

He had thought it would be the same with Zichen, even as they kept meeting and parting, until Zichen had taken their fate into his own hands. And then Zichen had been the one to let go, after Baixue Temple. Don’t stay in touch.

    He kept the cell phone because even when Zichen wasn’t texting him, it felt like he was still there, like a physical line connecting them as they roamed, never meeting, like it kept them in each other’s orbit. But Zichen doesn’t want him there, anyways, and it was selfish of him to keep it so long. He should let go of his attachments. It’s a good thing the phone is gone; he can set Zichen free.

___________________________ 

    It takes Chengmei five days to throw the phone away. A-Qing watches him as closely as she can, and it’s the Worst. She doesn’t like being around him, and now she can’t wander away. She has to sit in the living room with her Rubik’s cube, and follow him carefully when he leaves the house, and always be peeking around the corner. And he never uses the phone so that she can hear it— he always has the headphones in. He only takes it out twice more before it dies, but both times whatever he hears makes him smirk meanly and scoff, so probably Song Zichen has sent more texts. She wants to know what he’s saying. If he really hurt her daozhang , she needs to decide if he deserves to be forgiven.

    But Chengmei keeps the phone for three whole days after it dies, just staring at it sometimes. This is especially dangerous, because now that he isn’t looking through the phone, he looks up more. He turns the phone over and over in his hands, and at any tiny noise his head shoots up and a-Qing has to be very fast to make sure she never gets caught actually looking at him. Sometimes, while she stares at the wall or down at her knees, fiddling with her toy, she feels him staring at her, like he knows that she’s watching.

Once, he goes through Xiao- daozhang ’s bag and pulls out his charger, and stares at both things for a minute before he throws the cord back on top and flops dramatically onto Xiao- daozhang ’s bed. A-Qing doesn’t say anything about that but she really wants to. Chengmei shouldn’t be in Xiao- daozhang ’s space like that. She really hopes that this Song Zichen is good, so that she can tell him to come make Chengmei go away, and then Xiao- daozhang will be happy and Chengmei won’t be around to be all creepy anymore, and things will be perfect instead of just better than they’ve ever been before.

    Eventually, eventually , Chengmei stops staring at the phone, sighs, and gets up. He says “Hey, blind kid. I’m going out,” and leaves before she can even answer him. As quietly as she can, a-Qing stands up and follows him. Xiao- daozhang is working in the yard, in their tiny patch of herbs, and she has to stop and tell him that she’s going for a walk, and promise that she won’t heckle Chengmei while he’s running his errands. For once, it’s a promise she’s all too willing to keep.

    Once he’s out of sight of the house, Chengmei skips down the street. He seems happy, and he’s talking to himself. “I knew you were right,” he says, in a funny voice, “ha!” He does a little spin in the street and a-Qing ducks behind an empty stall, heart pounding. He doesn’t seem to notice her, so she slowly creeps along again, trying to stay hidden. “I’m sorry, Xingchen. Ha!” Chengmei throws the phone into the air, spins again, and drops it in a public garbage can. Then he stops, holding very still, and stares at the garbage can for a couple minutes like the huge weirdo he is before leaving. A-Qing waits until she’s sure he’s gone, off to do whatever he does when he’s not bothering her and her daozhang , and then she braces herself and breaks into the garbage.

    Fortunately, it doesn’t actually take very long to find the phone. It is disgusting, though, and a-Qing has to wipe it off carefully with her shirt, hiding the mess under her baggy hoodie. She’ll need to charge it somewhere that has electricity, not their little hut, before she can go any further in her plans. Luckily, Chengmei has thrown out the headphones along with the phone, so at least she doesn’t have to go scavenging for those. 

    She stuffs the phone and the headphones into her big pocket, and strikes back for the house. She has a lot of work to do.

__________________________

    Her plotting takes patience. She has to wait for a time when neither Chengmei nor Xiao- daozhang will catch her trying to find the phone charger. This requires going through Xiao- daozhang ’s things, which she was very angry at Chengmei for doing, but she tells herself it isn’t the same. Chengmei was lying to Xiao- daozhang and letting him get hurt. She’s going to help him. Also herself, hopefully.

    After she has the charger, she puts the next part of her plan into action. There’s only one cafe in Yi village, which is very small, but it does exist, and a-Qing has seen people with their phones plugged in through the window when she went out before. She has to go on a day when Xiao- daozhang goes to market, because otherwise he’ll want her to stay and start learning math and other boring things, and it has to be a time that he takes Chengmei with him, or Chengmei might follow her and catch her. Fortunately, Xiao- daozhang likes having company, and Chengmei likes going along, probably to make fun of the merchants and creep people out, so it doesn’t take too long. Two and a half weeks after the phone first went off, a-Qing walks into the cafe, orders a water, and plugs the cellphone in.

    It takes a few minutes for it to even turn on, but eventually it wakes up and the mechanical voice starts coming through the headphones. The voice helps her find the messages, and she can listen to them as many times as she wants. There are two message threads on the phone. One is with Song Zichen, who has a picture of himself next to his name. She likes his face. It’s more serious than Xiao- daozhang ’s, but he doesn’t smirk meanly like Chengmei, so he’s already off to a good start.

    The other message thread doesn’t have a name or a picture, and there are only two messages on it. The incoming text reads “hi this is wei wuxian now you have my number just in case!”, and the outgoing text says “thank you”. 

    Song Zichen’s thread is more complicated. What a-Qing really wants to do is go back and read all of the texts in the whole thread, but she doesn’t have time. She can do that later. Instead, she just scrolls up to the first text that she heard, and listens from there.

____________________________

    Xingchen, can we talk? 

    I understand if you don’t want to talk to me. I just want you to know I’m sorry.

    You didn’t deserve what I said.

    When I got there and saw everyone dying my first thought was that if it were you, you would have been on time, you would have stopped it. You’re never too late. 

    Xue Yang wanted me to blame you. He told me, when he took my eyes, that it was because of you. I knew as soon as I said it that I had played into his trap. I’m sorry I listened to him.

    You’re probably wondering why I texted you now, after years. I thought about it every day, from the moment I woke up. But you were gone, and I thought maybe you didn’t want to talk to me. And then I thought that if it was meant to be, I would find you again, and my apologies would seem more sincere in person. You deserved to hear it in person. And then, every day, I thought that I should just text you, and ask you to meet me, but it seemed like you were just too far away, wherever you were, like I should wait until I heard reports of you or something, like I needed an excuse to get in touch again. I texted you after all this time, though, because I just couldn’t not. I was thinking of you, like I do every day, and I couldn’t stand the thought of not texting you anymore.

    You always were the better of the two of us. You were so dedicated to doing what was right, every time. You pushed me to be better. You made me want to follow you anywhere. It was you pushing us to help people. It was your idea to hunt down Xue Yang. But that doesn’t make it your fault. I wanted to do it, because I knew you were right.

    I wish I knew where you were.

    Xingchen, I understand if you don’t want me to talk to you anymore, but can you answer my texts, just once? I’m starting to worry you’re

    You don’t owe me anything.

    I’ll leave you alone. I’m sorry, Xingchen.

__________________________

    A-Qing decides pretty quickly that Song Zichen needs to come and talk to her daozhang in person. It sounds like they fought, like Song Zichen said something mean, but the way Xiao- daozhang always checked his phone every night seemed like he still wanted to talk to Song Zichen. 

    A-Qing can’t write, so she can’t text back and explain what’s happened. She’s going to have to call. She can’t do that in the coffee shop. She’ll have to wait until the phone is a bit more charged.

    While she waits, she scrolls back further in the phone to listen to the message thread from the beginning. It takes a long time to get to the top, and she doesn’t finish the thread before she decides that the phone is probably charged enough for her to call. She has the phone now, though, she reminds herself, so if she wants to listen to all of the texts she can do it later. But she needs to call Song Zichen before someone comes looking for her.

    She unplugs and packs her cord away in her pockets, then makes her way to the edge of the village. She’s even more careful now, looking around to make sure nobody sees her sneaking away. She hides herself away in a clump of trees and bushes, then, heart pounding, makes her call. The phone rings exactly once.

    “Xingchen?” says a voice in her ear. It makes her jump even though she’s expecting it.

    “No it’s a-Qing,” says a-Qing.

    There’s a pause, and then the voice says “Who is a-Qing?”

    Oops. A-Qing forgot. “I live with Xiao- daozhang ! And Chengmei, but he’s mean and I don’t like him.” 

    “You... you live with Xiao Xingchen?”

    “Yes! He looks after me.”

    “Of course he does.” The voice sounds very fond. “I’m pleased to meet you, a-Qing. I’m Song Zichen.”

    A-Qing rolls her eyes. “I know. The phone says so.”

    “Ah, I see. Did you take the phone from Xiao- daozhang without permission, a-Qing?”

    “No!” A-Qing is indignant. She would never do that to her daozhang ! “Chengmei threw it in the garbage. I just took it out!”

    “Alright,” says Song Zichen. “Why are you calling me, then? Why didn’t you give it back to Xiao- daozhang ?”

    “Because you sent him a lot of messages. Xiao- daozhang likes me, and sometimes Chengmei even makes him laugh, but he’s still sad on the inside. But he doesn’t know you sent him all these messages. I think the messages might make him happier, but I needed to make sure you were going to be nice to him first. You weren’t nice last time, right?”

    “I was not,” sighs the voice, “I texted him to apologise.”
    “He’ll forgive you, probably,” says a-Qing. Xiao- daozhang is so nice, after all. “That’s why I had to make sure, because he’s too nice.”

    There’s a small chuckle. “He’s always been that way. It’s a good thing he’s got you looking out for him.”

    “Exactly!” says a-Qing, triumphant. He understands. A thought occurs to her. “Song Zichen, are you a daozhang like my daozhang ?”

    “I am. Not quite like Xiao- daozhang. We studied in different places. But I am also a daozhang, yes.”

    “Song- daozhang !” a-Qing crows. “You have to come here and be with Xiao- daozhang . Then he’ll be happy! And you can make Chengmei go away.”

    “I don’t think he’ll want to see me, a-Qing,” says Song- daozhang . This is clearly ridiculous. A-Qing has already explained this.

    “He will! He listened for messages every day, and you’re the only person who sends him messages, so he was listening for you. Also, somebody has to make Chengmei go away. Xiao- daozhang won’t do it because Chengmei tricked him into thinking he’s nice, and I tried but I’m too little, so he won’t listen to me. He nearly made me walk into his sword once! He isn’t nice at all but I can’t make him leave.”

    “A-Qing, did you tell Xiao- daozhang about the sword?”

    “I can’t!” wailed A-Qing. It wasn’t Song- daozhang ’s fault that he didn’t understand, but this conversation was taking a long time and she wanted him to come and help her already. But she was tough, so she only sniffled a little bit.

    “Why not, a-Qing?” Song- daozhang ’s voice was gentle. A-Qing sniffed again.

    “Because— because— I’m not actually blind. Xiao- daozhang thinks I’m blind, that’s why he’s helping me, because we’re both blind. And if he found out he would leave me! If Chengmei found out I’m not blind he would stab me with his sword! He doesn’t believe me, he made me nearly walk into his sword as a test. If I told Xiao- daozhang , Chengmei would know and he would hurt me!”

    “I see. A-Qing, if I know one thing about Xiao Xingchen it’s that he would protect you. You can tell him. He won’t leave you behind because you aren’t blind. If you tell him Chengmei tried to hurt you, he’ll help you.”
    “But he says no lying!”

    “He’ll forgive you. He’s always too nice, remember?”

    “I can’t tell him! He would try to fight Chengmei but he’s blind for real. Chengmei would get him!”

    “A-Qing,” says Song- daozhang , “is Chengmei’s sword a spiritual sword, like Xiao- daozhang ’s?”

    “I think so.” A-Qing thinks about Chengmei’s sword. They’re kind of the same, she supposes. “But it makes me feel bad. Xiao- daozhang ’s sword shines all silvery and it protects me. Chengmei’s sword is black.”

    “When Chengmei held it out to you, did it have a name?”

    “There was writing on it,” says a-Qing, “but I don’t know what it said. I can’t read, I’m blind.”

    “That’s alright, a-Qing. Chengmei never told you his family name?”

    “No. It’s weird! He’s been with us for two years but he never said his name. He said it didn’t matter.”

    “Hmm. Is there anything different about him? Not that he’s mean, but in the way he looks. Something that could help me figure out who he is?”

    “He’s so mean it’s weird,” mutters a-Qing, rebelliously, feeling a bit like Song- daozhang isn’t understanding the scope of her problem. “Um, his face always looks like he’s making fun of you. And one of his pinkie fingers is fake! That’s different, right?”

    “Yes. A-Qing, listen to me, you have to be very careful.” Song- daozhang sounds scared now. “Ignore what I said before. You can’t tell Xiao- daozhang about Chengmei yet, okay? You need to listen closely and do as I say.”

    A-Qing feels sick in her belly, the way she felt walking towards a sword she was pretending not to see. “Okay,” she says.

    “Chengmei is somebody that Xiao- daozhang and I knew before, and he’s very dangerous. He doesn’t like us because we arrested him. He’s killed a lot of people, and he’s not somebody you can mess around with, understand?”

    “Okay.”

    “Good. Now, where are you right now? I know you probably move around a lot with Xiao- daozhang , but if you know where you are I can find you more quickly.”

    “We don’t move around a lot,” says a-Qing, frowning. “We just live in Yi village.”

    There’s silence from the other end of the line.

    “Lots of people here work with dead people. That’s why Xiao- daozhang said we can stay here, because they need help a lot.”

    “Alright. This is going to be a bit complicated, but here’s what I need you to do.” Song- daozhang guides a-Qing carefully through navigating her phone so that he can track it and find them. Eventually he says, “I see you. A-Qing, I’m going to come as fast as I can, but it will probably take a week. In the meantime, I need you to be very careful. Don’t let Chengmei know that anything is wrong, and don’t try to warn Xiao- daozhang . You’re right, he will try to fight Chengmei and he will lose. Can you get away every day?

    “No.”

    “Ok. Then in five days do you think you can call me again?”

    “Five or six, maybe,” says a-Qing, frowning again. 

    “Good. Call me when you can, alright? We’ll make better plans then, when I know how close I am. In the meantime, look after your Xiao- daozhang , and be careful.”

    “I will,” sniffs a-Qing.

    “Good work,” says Song- daozhang softly. “You’re very brave.”

    “Okay,” says a-Qing. She wants to cry, but she won’t, because she’s very strong. She hangs up the call, and curls into a ball against the tree. Song- daozhang is coming. It won’t be long, just a week, and then he’ll be here and he’ll save them from Chengmei and Xiao -daozhang will be so happy. He’s coming, it won’t be long, she reminds herself, but she’s scared anyways. What if Chengmei finds out she talked to Song- daozhang and hurts them before he gets here? What if she accidentally says something? What if Xiao- daozhang is angry at her when he finds out and he leaves her behind?

    You’re very brave , says Song- daozhang in her head. A-Qing sniffs one more time, then pulls herself together. She’s very brave.

Chapter Text

    Song Lan sets his phone down. He’s shaking, a fine tremor that makes the tea slosh about in his cup when he lifts it. He sets it down without drinking.

    Xue Yang.

    Just for a moment, he lets himself entertain the possibility that it isn’t Xue Yang. A-Qing saw wrong, it’s a different finger. She’s lying. Xingchen lost his phone and someone picked it up and is playing a trick on them. Xingchen hates him so much that he saw the messages and hired someone to play a cruel trick on him.

    He knows none of those are true, but he wishes for one of them, any of them, even the last one which would break his heart into a million shards but would still be better than the truth, which is that Xue Yang is living with Xingchen and a child and they’re defenseless. He reaches for the tea again, but cannot bring it safely to his lips. He gives up.

    Looking down at his phone again, he can zoom in on the signal a-Qing turned on and see that she’s moved, just a bit. She must be home. Yi village.

    If Song Lan had the money for a plane ticket, he could get there quicker, but he doesn’t. He’s going to have to take the train, and it will take him a week, and he will have to be content with the fact that there are trains, and he isn’t walking the whole way. A-Qing said that Xue Yang has been with them for two years. He’s not going to kill them this week. Still, it’s a good thing his work in town finished last night. He was going to spend the next couple weeks in the countryside, away from the cities, to let himself rest. Instead, he makes for the nearest train station and buys his first ticket.

    No matter all the things Song Lan knows, rationally: that he can’t be any faster, that it’s unlikely that Xue Yang will choose now to turn on them, that Xingchen is smart and competent, none of them stand up to the other thing Song Lan knows: that he has been able to go on alone all this time because he was sure Xiao Xingchen was alive. If he is not alive, Song Lan will not go on. The more level headed part of Song Lan knows this is not as it should be, but he’s used to that. It’s always been a part of his relationship with Xingchen.

    The first thing he remembers about Xiao Xingchen is the flash of Shuanghua and the whirlwind of white robes in its wake, splashing through the shallows and drawing the attention of the drowned spirits fighting Song Lan. The second thing he remembers is Xingchen’s smile. He remembered that smile all the way up the coast, as he wandered north to the fishing villages and Xiao Xingchen pressed south, eager for a glimpse of the legendary Cloud Recesses and then for Shanghai. Song Lan remembers how excited Xingchen had been, recounting his plans over a pot of tea, how easy it had been to be around him, but mostly he remembers Xingchen’s smile, bright and sweet and full of the wonders of the world. He had wished, as he wandered north, that their paths had not been taking them in opposite directions. He had wished to see Xingchen smile again.

    The third time they had met, they had been going in the same direction. “How convenient,” said Xingchen, offering Song Lan another sugar-sweet smile, and Song Lan could do nothing but agree. The fourth time they left each other, Song Lan heading to the temple for a festival, Xiao Xingchen had said “perhaps we’ll meet again,” and Song Lan had thought if you asked, I would leave my path and follow you anywhere . But he did not say it aloud.

    After Baixue, after the things he said to Xingchen there, after waking up on Baoshan Sanren’s mountain with Xingchen already gone, he wished he had said something earlier. Instead, he descended the mountain alone, down through the clouds that surround it, and trekked along the cold plateau. He meditated at the source of the Yangtze river and followed it back into the towns and cities, and he tried to go only to places Xingchen had never shown express interest in, and not to think about Xingchen if he did not have to.

    It was hard when he saw Xingchen’s eyes in every mirror, every still pool and shop window. It was enough to wear him down, eventually.

    Now Song Lan boards a train to take him south and west, in the direction of the river and the mountains he has slowly but steadily been leaving behind. It’s apt, somehow, that Xingchen has been in the same place for years and Song Lan has just been getting further away. It’s right that this bend in his life’s path requires him to turn around.

__________________________

    Something is wrong with a-Qing. Xingchen knows she thinks she’s hiding it from him, but he can tell that something is bothering her. She's too quiet. Not that a-Qing isn't frequently sullen, but that's different from the silence in their little house now. Chengmei is still out, which usually means that a-Qing will be chatty and eager for his attention, but not today.

    “What’s wrong?” Xingchen asks, feeling his way around a-Qing’s rubik’s cube. Neither of them have solved it yet, but they’re working on it. A-Qing set it aside in frustration a couple minutes ago, but she hasn’t moved on to something else.

    “Nothing,” says a-Qing, angrily.

    “That doesn’t sound true,” Xingchen prompts, trying to tease a bit without making her any more upset.

    There’s a deep sigh from the couch beside him, then the noise of awkward movement before he feels a-Qing rest her head against his arm. He sets the rubik’s cube aside and settles a-Qing more comfortably against him, his arm around her shoulders.

    “What’s wrong?” he asks again.

    “I walked past the school yesterday, and the girls were making fun of me. They said I was stupid because I couldn’t go to school.”

    Ah. Other children do sometimes make fun of a-Qing, for being blind or being poor. Xingchen has dealt with this particular melancholy before. “You’re not stupid, a-Qing,” he says gently, squeezing the girl tight against him. “Just because the school can’t teach you doesn’t mean you aren’t smart. You’re one of the smartest kids I’ve ever met.”

    “But— but I’m not good at doing math or remembering history or the poems you keep trying to teach me. I can’t even read!” A-Qing sounds on the verge of tears.

    “A-Qing,” says Xingchen patiently, “I can’t read either.”

    A sniff. “What?”

    “I haven’t been blind all my life, like you. We don’t have any books in braille, you know that, and even if we did, nobody has ever taught me the letters. I can’t read.”

    “Oh,” says a-Qing, and she’s a bit calmer but she still sounds sad.

    Xingchen chuckles a bit. “Don’t expect yourself to be able to do things if there was no way to learn them, xiao -Qing. For someone who just started to learn math this year, you’re very good at it. You learn quickly! The other things will come as well. One day, maybe, we’ll find enough money to go somewhere else, to get some books, and we can learn to read together.” He reaches over with his other hand to stroke her hair, and she laughs as he deliberately misses and drags his hand over her face instead.

    “Okay,” she says, still giggling a bit. Xingchen smiles at her, leans in and presses his mouth to her forehead so she can feel the curve of his lips. 

    “Good girl,” he says. “I’m so proud of you, a-Qing. Now,” he gives her a last squeeze, “someone around here has to make supper, hm?”

    Before she pulls away, a-Qing slips her hands around his waist and squeezes him back. “You’re the best, Xiao- daozhang . I think we should have stir-fry for supper.”

    Xingchen laughs, getting up and moving towards the kitchen. Stir-fry doesn’t take long, so it’s actually a good choice. When Chengmei gets back, which should be soon, they’re going night-hunting, so they should eat early and get a-Qing off to sleep.

    Chengmei heard about the case yesterday, fierce corpses a town over. Since they started living together, and Xingchen first felt the need to start night-hunting again, Chengmei has done most of the investigating for him and acted as his eyes, leaving Xingchen the fight. It’s a good system, even though Xingchen can’t take on anything nearly as large as he used to. It’s mostly fierce corpses, in this area, and Shuanghua can sense them, so the fight isn’t particularly dangerous. Xingchen likes knowing he can help his neighbours.

    They don’t night-hunt frequently, so Xingchen is excited to get out. He tries not to let on too much, though. He knows it makes a-Qing afraid, when they go out, so he doesn’t like to make her think about it too much. 

    “Come in here and help me,” he calls, that goal in mind. “People who want stir-fry have to help with the cooking!”

    “I can’t cook, daozhang !” A-Qing calls back, but he hears her moving.

    “Come learn, then,” he says, laughing again, and in a moment she’s there, gripping his elbow. 

    “Are you sure?” she asks, and he pats her hand.

    “Of course I am. Trust me, xiao -Qing.”

    And she does.

_______________________

    A-Qing has a problem. She’s supposed to be looking after Xiao- daozhang , especially when Chengmei is around. But now they’re going on a night-hunt. A-Qing is not allowed on night-hunts, because Xiao- daozhang says they’re far too dangerous. They always put her to bed before they go hunting. 

    “Go to sleep, a-Qing, and we’ll be back when you wake up. It’ll be like we were never gone.” Xiao- daozhang is bent over her, tucking the blanket around her. He says the same thing every time. The first couple times, she didn’t sleep all night, worried that he would leave her (if Chengmei abandoned her she wouldn’t care. He could leave any time). Recently, though, she’s started to sleep better. Not tonight, though. Tonight, a-Qing will either convince him to stay home, or she’s going along. 

    “Stay with me,” she whines, reaching up for him. It’s a bit babyish, but she knows that Xiao- daozhang has no defence against her needing him. “I don’t want to stay by myself. I don’t want you to go!” 

    Xiao- daozhang sits down and pulls her into his arms, rocking a bit. “What’s all this? You’ve been just fine, the past few times.”

    “I don’t like it and I want you to stay!”

    “A-Qing, people need help and I can help them. I should do so.”

    “Let Chengmei do it! You stay with me.”

    “Hey brat!” Chengmei leans heavily on the back of the couch above them. “Let your Xiao- daozhang get out of the house and do something fun! Don’t be so selfish.”

    “You don’t be selfish and do the work yourself!” 

    “I’m not as good as Xiao- daozhang —”

    “Obviously,” says a-Qing scathingly.

    “--and he enjoys it. Just let him do his job!”

    This is not going to work. Xiao- daozhang is still holding her, but she can tell that he wants to go. She’ll just have to be extra careful when she follows them.

    “Fine!” she says, and throws herself out of Xiao- daozhang ’s lap, lying on her back with her arms crossed in a pout. “Just go then. Leave me all alone.”

    “A-Qing—” Xiao- daozhang reaches out to her, and she turns so his hand slips off.

    “Whatever,” she pouts.

    It seems like Xiao- daozhang is going to say something more, but there’s movement, and then Chengmei says “come on, daozhang . Let her pout. She’s just being a brat, and we have work to do, especially if you want to walk tonight.”

    Xiao- daozhang sighs, pulls the covers back over a-Qing, and whispers “We’ll be home soon. I promise.”

    “Good night, blind kid,” says Chengmei as they leave. A-Qing grumbles a harrumph and curls up into a tighter ball as the door swings shut.

___________________________

    Two minutes later, she’s creeping out the front gate, dressed in her darkest clothes, Xiao- daozhang ’s phone in her pocket. A-Qing might not actually be blind, but her vision isn’t really good, either, and the dark of the night makes it worse. She doesn’t like to go out in the dark, but she has to this time. For Xiao- daozhang, and for Song- daozhang who is relying on her to look after Xiao- daozhang until he gets to them. A-Qing tries to be very quiet so she can listen for the cultivators ahead of her.

    “I feel bad leaving her. She was so upset today, Chengmei.” Xiao- daozhang sounds sad. A-Qing does not feel guilty about that, even though it’s her fault. She did what she had to.

    “She’ll be fine, Xingchen. She was every other time, right? She’s just whining because she wants your attention, and she needs to learn she can’t always have things her way.”

    The joke’s on him. Soon Song- daozhang will come, and he’ll make Chengmei go away and then a-Qing will have everything she wants. She grins in fierce satisfaction and hurries to keep up.

    It’s hard. In the dark, it’s hard to see all the little obstacles that a-Qing might trip over and give herself away, but she still has to keep to the side of the street, where there are more shadows and things to hide behind. When they leave Yi village it gets worse, trying to travel the relatively open road to the next town over. She knows she can’t just walk on the path, so she tries to walk through the bushes, but as soon as she makes too much rustling both cultivators stop walking. Xiao- daozhang tilts his head in her direction, like he does when they’re playing in the yard and he’s chasing her. Chengmei peers into the dark bushes near her. A-Qing holds very still. 

    After a tense moment, they move forward again. That was too close. A-Qing is pretty sure she could bluff her way out of it if they caught her, but she would lose her chance to make sure Xiao- daozhang was safe. She’ll have to follow at more of a distance, and hope that they don’t go anywhere unexpected. A-Qing waits, almost too scared to breathe, until they’re far enough away that she can’t hear their quiet talking, then slips out of the bushes and follows. She sticks to the shadows even when they’re out of sight.

    Luckily, this road doesn’t branch off before it reaches the town that Xiao- daozhang is going to help. A-Qing creeps along, afraid of making too much noise again, until she hears a strange roaring and Chengmei shouting “Xingchen, behind you!” Then she forgets all about being sneaky and runs towards the noise. 

    It’s only when the village comes into sight that she remembers, veering sharply to hide herself behind a shed on the outskirts. She’s panting, but it’s alright because she won’t be heard over the strange noises coming from the street. Tentatively, she peers around the corner. She has to pull back immediately, because the first thing she sees is the gleam of firelight in Chengmei’s eyes as he swings around, a torch in one hand. Are they fighting something with fire? A-Qing shivers.

    But she has to look again. She has to make sure Xiao- daozhang is safe. As slowly as she can, she looks around the corner again. 

    Nothing is on fire except for the torch— it’s just so Chengmei can see. It throws weird shadows across the open street, and before a-Qing even sees Xiao- daozhang she sees the shadow of his sword slash across the wall and into something surprisingly human-shaped. A-Qing swallows her gasp. 

    There are lots of people on the street, stumbling around. They all have dried blood on them, and they’re the ones making that strange roaring noise. They don’t seem to be fighting, though. Some of them are trying to dodge the fighting. Others fall to their knees in front of Xiao- daozhang and grab at his robes like they’re the most desperate market beggars. Xiao- daozhang moves gracefully through the crowd and stops them, one at a time.

    A-Qing doesn’t like watching this. Xiao- daozhang told her stories about night-hunting, but they were all about scary beasts and ghosts. These just look like people.

    Suddenly, there’s a more human shout, and a-Qing sees a man rushing out of his house, waving his arms. Before he can say anything, Chengmei is there, his own black sword flashing out. But he doesn’t kill him. Blood pours from the man’s mouth, and there’s a puff of something in the strange torchlight. The man’s hands go to his wounded mouth, then to his throat. Seconds later, Xiao- daozhang shouts “Chengmei!” and he’s right there, sword running clean through the hurt man as Chengmei answers his shout. The man slumps to the ground. Xiao- daozhang reaches out for Chengmei, who grabs his arm, pulls him close, and presses their foreheads together for a moment before turning Xiao- daozhang back to the crowd of people.

    A-Qing ducks back behind the shed, heart pounding. They killed that man, she saw them. He wasn’t one of the roaring people, he was alive, and Chengmei did... something, and Xiao- daozhang stabbed him! She feels herself trembling, and her stomach twists like she’s going to be sick. She can’t stay here, even for Xiao- daozhang , she can’t. 

    She runs.

    She leaves the path and crashes into the forest, feeling thin branches hitting her face and bushes scraping at her legs. More than once she trips over roots and stones, falling and feeling her hands and knees scrape in the rocky dirt. She pushes herself up and keeps going. Her breath is sharp in her lungs. She’s crying.

    Eventually she collapses, shaking, and curls herself into a ball at the foot of a tree. She pulls at her own sweater frantically, looking for Xiao- daozhang ’s phone. She turns it on.

    “Contacts” the phone says, loud and mechanical in the cool night air. She’s accidentally pulled the headphones out. She fumbles around more, dragging them from her pocket and trying to untangle them enough to plug them in and put them in her ears. “Song Zichen,” the phone says, pauses, then repeats “Contacts, Song Zichen.”

    A-Qing gives up on the headphones. “Call Song Zichen,” she instructs, voice quavering. She has to repeat herself before the phone understands her, but then there’s the faint ringing, and she presses it to her ear.

    “A-Qing?” comes Song- daozhang ’s voice, and a-Qing can’t help it, she sobs. “A-Qing?” says Song- daozhang , “Where are you? What happened?” She cries harder. “Are you safe for now? I’m sorry, but you have to talk to me.” His voice is pleading. 

    “I— I’m s-safe,” A-Qing manages, trying to calm down.

    “Good,” says Song- daozhang , “that’s good. Take deep breaths, let yourself calm down. When you can, I need you to tell me what happened.”

    It takes a few minutes, but a-Qing cries out the whole story. When she finishes, there’s silence on the other end. “What— what should I do?” A-Qing asks, pressing the phone tighter to her ear.

    “Where are you now?” asks Song- daozhang , and his voice wavers just a bit in her ear. 

    “I’m in the forest, but I don’t know exactly where,” admits a-Qing, pulling her knees up tight around her. 

    “That’s alright. Listen to me. You can’t go home tonight, because you might run into them. You don’t want them to think you were anywhere near the night-hunt, do you understand?”

    “Yes.”

    “Good. You’ll have to try to sleep out here. Try to find somewhere a bit sheltered. In the morning, you’ll have to go back.”
    “I don’t want to go back!” A-Qing cries, feeling herself start to shake again. “I don’t want to!”

    “Shh,” Song- daozhang soothes. “I understand. But if you don’t go back, you know your Xiao- daozhang will come looking for you. And if you run away for too long, Chengmei might start to suspect that you know things you aren’t supposed to know. If you go home tomorrow morning, you can say that you ran away because you were angry at them, and then you fell asleep in the forest, but you’re better now. That’s what you need to tell them.”

    “I’m scared,” whines a-Qing. “I don’t want to go home.”

    “I know. I’m coming, a-Qing, I promise. As fast as I possibly can. You just need to hold out a few more days. You’ve done so well so far, looking after Xiao- daozhang like that. You’re so brave.”

    “Xiao- daozhang killed that man,” whimpers a-Qing. She can still see it happening in her mind.

    “It wasn’t his fault, xiao -Qing. From what you told me, it wasn’t his fault. Xiao- daozhang ’s sword can sense fierce corpses, but it sounds like Chengmei found a way to trick it. It works because Xiao- daozhang can’t see that he’s not fighting a fierce corpse. I promise, Xiao Xingchen would never hurt you. You’ll be safe as long as you don’t let Chengmei know what you saw. I know it’s hard, but you have to stick to the plan.”

    It wasn’t his fault. Xiao- daozhang isn’t a killer. A-Qing is still afraid, but that helps. “Okay,” she says, tentatively.

    “Good girl,” says Song- daozhang . “I’m proud of you. I’ll see you soon.”

    “Okay,” says a-Qing again, and then, with one more gentle hum, Song- daozhang disconnects the call. 

    A-Qing stuffs the phone back in her pocket, along with the hopelessly tangled headphones, and stands on shaky legs. Song- daozhang said to look for somewhere sheltered, but in the trees there’s not even much moonlight, and she has trouble. Eventually she finds a little bowl in the ground, formed by tree roots, and decides it’s good enough. She dashes away the last of her tears and curls into the hollow, closing her eyes against the headache starting behind them.

    It takes a long time, and the ground is hard and the air is cold through her t-shirt and sleep pants, but a-Qing falls asleep.

Chapter Text

    A-Qing wakes up to Chengmei’s voice. Gasping, she scrambles out of her little hollow and, after a second’s hesitation, starts pulling herself into the tree. 

    The voice continues. “I’m sure she’ll turn up. How far could she possibly have gone?” and then, louder, “Hey, blind kid! You’re scaring your Xiao- daozhang , you little monster! Why don’t you come out?”

    A-Qing settles on a branch, high in the leaves, and presses her back against the trunk. She pats her pocket, making sure she has the phone and headphones safely tucked away. If Chengmei finds her, she needs to make sure he doesn’t know about the phone.

    “A-Qing, xiao -Qing, can you hear us?” That’s Xiao- daozhang ’s voice. He sounds upset. “Where are you? I promise you aren’t in trouble. A-Qing? Can you hear me?”

    Part of a-Qing wants to answer him. She wants to call out and make him feel better. She wants him to tell her everything is okay, and to carry her like he does when she’s sad even though she’s too big to be carried. But the other part of her remembers what he sounded like calling for Chengmei in battle, blood splattered across his white robes, and she’s scared.

    There’s silence for a moment, and then she hears Xiao- daozhang say, quieter, “Do you see anything? Any sign?”

    “Nothing,” Chengmei’s voice says. “Don’t give up, Xingchen.”

    “A-Qing?” Xiao- daozhang starts his calling again, “Are you there? If you can hear me, answer! You aren’t in trouble. We just want you to come home safe. A-Qing? Can you hear me?”

    A-Qing whines, squeezing her eyes closed. Song- daozhang said she has to go home. He said Xiao- daozhang would never hurt her. She wants to go to Xiao- daozhang , but Chengmei is there. 

    “Did you hear that?” says Xiao- daozhang . A-Qing opens her eyes just a tiny bit. She didn’t think they were close enough for that, but when she looks down, careful not to be too direct in case Chengmei can see her, she sees them not far away, below her. She closes her eyes again, pressing herself harder against the tree trunk. She doesn’t know if she wants to go home, but she doesn’t want to be seen.

    “I didn’t hear anything,” Chengmei says.

    Liar! If Xiao- daozhang heard her, Chengmei probably did too! Xiao- daozhang is upset, and Chengmei is still lying! A-Qing is angry. She opens her eyes, clings hard to the nearest branch, and calls out “Xiao- daozhang ? Are you there?”

    “A-Qing!” Xiao- daozhang sounds very relieved. “Where are you, sweetheart?”

    “I’m in a tree! I can’t get down.” She wiggles a bit on the branch and tilts her head like she’s listening for them.

    “Chengmei, can you see her?”

    “I’m here!” A-Qing wiggles more, making her branch bounce so that she can’t be ignored, “I’m here!”

    “I see her,” Chengmei says, and suddenly he and Xiao- daozhang are right beneath her branch. “Hold still, blind kid. I’m coming up to get you.”

    “No!” shouts a-Qing, scared. She does not want Chengmei to come anywhere near her. She does not want him in her tree. “I don’t want you! I want Xiao- daozhang !”

    Xiao- daozhang makes a small, sad sound beneath her. Chengmei snorts. “Xiao- daozhang can’t climb up and get you, silly girl. Then you would both be stuck. I’m coming up.”

    “No!” she shouts again, even as Chengmei swings himself up onto a low branch. “I’ll jump down. Don’t come up.” She slides forward.

    “Don’t be stupid,” Chengmei starts, but Xiao- daozhang interrupts him.

    “Just come and help me move to the right place. I’ll catch her.”

    “Whatever,” Chengmei says, and drops out of the tree. He takes Xiao- daozhang by the shoulders and moves him. He stops when they’re just a little bit to the side of where a-Qing would land if she jumped now.

    “Are you ready?” she asks, sliding forward a bit more.

    “Ready,” Chengmei confirms, and Xiao- daozhang reaches his arms up. 

    A-Qing pushes herself out of the tree at a fumbling awkward angle, flailing a bit, and falls right into Xiao- daozhang ’s waiting arms. He doesn’t put her down. He settles her on his hip and lets her rest her head on his shoulder, her forehead against his neck. He’s warm. She squeezes him tight and mumbles “You caught me.”

    “Always,” he says, squeezing her back. She curls around him, shuddering, and sighs.

________________________

    Xingchen knew he shouldn’t have gone out last night. He knew it when he left the house and he was right. Now, twelve hours later, a-Qing is shaking in his arms and he feels like the worst person on the face of the planet. He rocks her gently and listens as her breathing evens out. Her skin is cold under his palms, and as he holds her he’s reminded again that she’s too thin, that no matter what he does he can’t actually take care of her.

    He can’t do well by her, and he can’t bring himself to find someone who can do better because he can’t give her up. She was gone for a few hours and he panicked the whole time, and now that she’s back with him he doesn’t even want to put her down. Nine is too old to be carried so long, but he carries her all the way back to the village, to their little house, settles on the couch with her in his lap and lets Chengmei fuss around them. He can’t let her go, can’t let either of them go. When did he become someone so possessive and grasping?

    He knows when. 

    He shakes off the thought. A-Qing is here, now, and she needs him. He runs his hand over her hair. “How did you end up in the tree?” he asks, quiet and murmuring, because Chengmei is just in the kitchen getting food and he knows she might not answer with Chengmei around.

    A-Qing sniffs. “Last night I was angry because you left me so I was going to follow you but I couldn’t hear you and I got scared and went into the forest to hide but then I got lost. So I fell asleep and then I woke up and I was scared so I climbed the tree and got stuck.” She sighs. “And then you found me so it was okay.”

    His chest hurts. “I’m sorry,” he says, pulling her even tighter against him, “I shouldn’t have left you, especially when you were feeling like that.”

    “It’s okay now,” says a-Qing, patting his chest, but she doesn’t let go of him so he doesn’t think she’s really okay just yet. He isn’t okay just yet, so it works out for both of them. 

    Chengmei comes out with a strong broth, the kind of broth they make for their return from night-hunts, when they don’t want a meal but need something heartier than a cup of tea before bed. Xingchen can smell it, rich and salty. He hears Chengmei drag the small table up to them, and then his hand is grasped in the other man’s and brought to the bowl. 

    “Is this poisoned?” A-Qing asks as she’s given her own bowl, but it doesn’t seem like her heart is in it. 

    “I could have left you in the forest,” Chengmei answers, but his teasing seems flat. It warms him to know that, underneath their snark, they care about each other too.

    He sips his own broth and lets the weight of a-Qing on his lap and the sound of Chengmei’s restless tapping across from him reassure him that they’re all still alive.

__________________________

    The last few days of waiting are the hardest. Before the night-hunt, a-Qing had been trying to act as normal as possible while also watching over Xiao- daozhang as much as she could. Now she doesn’t even have acting normal to help her. Xiao- daozhang wants her to stay with him all the time. He’s still scared because she hid in the woods, and she’s scared too, and she wants to stay with him, except that she also doesn’t. Sometimes she just wants to sit with her daozhang and listen to him recite poetry and explain it to her, patient and gentle. Other times, she can’t even be close to him without seeing the man he killed, stumbling and grabbing at his throat. Also, Chengmei is always, always around, because Xiao- daozhang wants him to stay close, and Chengmei being around is even worse. It’s like that torchlight is still flickering on his face, spooky and startling, like his dark sword is going to leap out at her face at any moment.

    She makes herself leave the house. She doesn’t want to, and it’s hard, but it also feels better to be gone, away from Chengmei and Xiao- daozhang . She’s waiting for Song- daozhang to call her, and when he does it has to still be normal for her to go around the village on her own. The first couple times, Xiao- daozhang wants to come along, and makes her promise to come home quickly. After that, he makes her promise to stay in the village and not go anywhere near the forest. That’s okay with her. She’s not ready for that, either. 

    When she goes back to the house, Xiao- daozhang is always still there, patiently busying himself with other things, and always obviously waiting for her. He never says that, though, so she doesn’t either. She just lets him sit close to her, takes the extra candy he gives her that must have been hidden in his pack, because he hasn’t gone to the market. When she goes to sleep at night, she whines until he indulges her, petting her hair and humming as she drifts off, and she feels his hand tremble on her crown. 

    A week after the first time she calls Song Zichen, they run out of groceries. A-Qing wakes up in the morning feeling like she’s going to shake out of her skin, leg jigging and fingers tapping on the table as Xiao- daozhang cuts up their last orange for her breakfast. He hands her the fruit and laughs at her for her impatience. Chengmei tsks “greedy girl.” She sticks her tongue out in his general direction. 

    “We’ll have to go to the market today,” says Xiao- daozhang , “do you want to come, a-Qing?”

    A-Qing shakes her head, using her teeth to pull the fruit off the skin. “No, daozhang, ” she says, once her mouth is empty. 

    Her daozhang sounds concerned. “Are you sure? It could be fun,” he offers. 

    “I don’t want to,” she repeats. “I want to stay here and go for a walk in the forest later.”

    “In the forest?” Xiao- daozhang asks, and he reaches out to put his hand on her shoulder, a bit clumsy, “ xiao -Qing, stay in town. I don’t want you going into the forest by yourself, please.”

    “Hmm,” says a-Qing, indulging the twitchy feeling in her legs by kicking them harder under the table. “How about you go get the groceries, and then maybe when you come back we could go for a walk together? Then I wouldn’t go to the forest alone.”

    “Hmm,” copies Xiao- daozhang , “A walk in the forest, all three of us? What do you think, Chengmei?”

    “I don’t—” Chengmei starts. A-Qing doesn’t care what he thinks.

    “No!” she shouts, and sees how both of them startle at her yelling. “Just you and me, daozhang , please?”

    “A-Qing, it wouldn’t be very fair for us to leave Chengmei behind.”

    “Would too! You and Chengmei can go to the market together because I don’t want to go there, and then you and me can go walking in the forest. Sharing!” A-Qing thinks that’s a particularly clever angle. Xiao- daozhang will like it.

    “You and I,” he corrects. “I don’t know, a-Qing...”

    “It’s fine,” Chengmei interrupts. “She’s right, we’re sharing.”

    “Well, if you say so. That sounds good, a-Qing. Once we’re ready, Chengmei and I will go out to the market. After lunch, you and I can go out to the forest.”

    A-Qing cheers and bounces up to wash her hands and face at the little sink. The rattling pipes sound like she feels inside, like her bones are rattly. She can’t stand still, ends up bouncing and dancing around the living room while she waits for Xiao- daozhang and Chengmei to leave. She tries to run into Chengmei on purpose and make it look like an accident, but he dodges out of her way.

    “Blind kid, you’re so weird.”

    “I’m dancing!”

    Xiao- daozhang laughs. He’s turned away from them, facing the wall. He has to uncover his eyes to comb his hair and replace the bandage. A-Qing thinks he doesn’t want to scare Chengmei, because he always faces away so that nobody can see his face. Now he starts humming, something light and fast to go along with her dancing. It makes her want to spin, so she does.

    She doesn’t know if she’s happy or scared, just that she can’t sit still. She’s still spinning when Chengmei and Xiao- daozhang leave, and she can hear them laughing as they walk away.

    When she can’t hear them anymore, she collapses to the floor, breathless, and scrambles under the couch where she hides the phone. It’s today. Song- daozhang should be here today. Maybe he’s sent her a text!

    Nothing. 

    So A-Qing waits. She keeps herself occupied by practising her handstands, kicking up against the wall and falling back. She’s just managed to hold herself up for more than half a second when the phone buzzes and says “Message from Song Zichen.” She tumbles down and grabs it.

    “I’m here, a-Qing,” the phone reads out to her, “call me when you can.”

    Now! She can call now!

    “A-Qing?”

    “Song- daozhang ?”

    “You’re alright?”

    “Uh huh. You’re here?”

    “I’m here, I’m right outside the village. Where are you?” Song- daozhang sounds happy the way a-Qing feels.

    “In our house. Xiao- daozhang and Chengmei went to get groceries because we have no food left.”

    “Good. You’re doing so well, a-Qing.” That makes her feel warm inside. She likes it. “There’s only one thing left. If I come in, Xue— Chengmei, I mean, might get in the way. I want to be able to talk to Xiao- daozhang without him first. Can you find a way to bring Xiao- daozhang out here? It’s okay if it takes some time—”

    “We’re going for a walk after lunch!” A-Qing says happily. She already thought of this part. “Then we can run away.”

    Song- daozhang breathes out a big sigh. “Not necessarily, a-Qing. We might have to deal with some things first. But you’ll be safe, I promise. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

    “You might have to deal with what?” She doesn’t think she’ll like the answer, but she asks anyways.

    “With Chengmei,” sighs Song- daozhang .

    “No!”

    “A-Qing,” Song- daozhang says, very gently.

    “No! Why can’t we just leave him alone and never come back?”

    “Listen. You saw how he was hurting people, right?”

    A-Qing pouts. “Yes.”

    “If we leave him here, he’ll keep doing that to more people. And he knows who we are, so he could follow us and try to hurt you, or Xiao- daozhang . We can stop that.”

    That made sense. “Are you going to kill him?”

    “No! No, a-Qing, we’re going to bring him to a trial. Why would you think we would kill him?”

    “You said you were going to stop him from hurting people ever again.”

    “There’s more than one way to do that. It doesn’t matter, because we’re going to leave you somewhere safe. It was smart of you to plan a walk for today, a-Qing, I’m proud of you.”

    A-Qing is a bit confused by the way Song- daozhang changed subjects, but she lets it go. “A walk in the forest, just me and daozhang ,” she confirms.

    “Clever girl,” answers Song- daozhang. “I’m going to listen for you, alright? I’m not far away from the main road on the east side. If you come that way, I’ll find you.”

    “Okay,” says a-Qing, thinking about the village. East is sun in the morning, Xiao- daozhang says, and west is sun in the evening, lighting the way to her daozhang ’s master’s mountain. She can find that.

    “Good. I’ll see you soon, a-Qing.” It sounds like maybe Song- daozhang is smiling. A-Qing smiles too.

_____________________________

    Song Lan is waiting. He has a lot of practice in it, in sitting still, sinking into himself and letting the world go by around him, but today is different. The world can’t go by, today. He needs to notice. 

    It’s hard to wait, this close. He hasn’t stopped moving for a week unless he absolutely had to. Fear has made him uncharacteristically frantic, and now he’s so close he can’t decide what he wants most. He wants Xingchen, maybe, the bright light and kindness of him, or for little a-Qing to no longer be a scared voice on the other end of the line (somehow, in two conversations, she’s taken half his heart for her own). Or his revenge on Xue Yang. He wants that, too.

    But it isn’t up to him. He has to trust their plan. So Song Lan waits, as the sun crests in the sky and lunchtime comes and goes. He creeps closer to the road leading out of the village, where he should be able to hear if someone is coming, and immediately has to move back when he realises he’s visible from the path. He leans against a tree and keeps waiting.

    “-- want to listen to the birds, daozhang ! And then maybe we can go down to the stream so I can put my feet in. It’s very hot today.”

    Song Lan recognizes that voice. He recognizes the answering voice, too, familiar like a warm, worn cloak.

    “That sounds like a good plan, a-Qing,” says Xiao Xingchen, smile evident in his voice even though Song Lan can’t see him. The voices are moving towards him, but they’re too close to the road, still. He doesn’t want to be easy to find, if Xue Yang goes looking. He moves away, listening as they move further into the trees, following until they’re deep in the shadowy forest. Then he’s fast, circling around the side so that he doesn’t startle them from behind, stepping out in front of them not ten paces ahead. 

    Xingchen is everything he remembered. He’s stunned for a moment, just looking at him, at his smile and the familiar shape and movement of him, at the bandage tied across the eyes Song Lan knows are in his own face. Then he notices that a-Qing has stopped, too, pulling Xingchen to a halt next to her. She’s staring up at him with cloudy eyes— no wonder everyone believes she’s blind— and a look of open desperation on her sharp face. He nods, and suddenly she’s dropped Xingchen’s hand and is running at him, Xingchen reaching out for her.

    “A-Qing!”

    Song Lan catches the girl up in his arms when she reaches him, no matter that it makes his skin crawl. He can deal with it; it’s nothing compared to the way she buries her face in his shoulder and squeezes him with her thin arms, to the way it feels when she whispers “You’re here.”

    “I’m here,” he murmurs back, holding her securely.

    “A-Qing! Where did you go? Who’s there?” The look on Xingchen’s face is crossing into panic.

    “ Daozhang! ” a-Qing starts, but Song Lan interrupts, stepping forward.

    “Xingchen.”

_________________________

    He knows that voice, Xingchen knows that voice, and he thought he would never hear it again. It hurts to breathe, a stabbing pain in his lungs, by his heart. He has not once regretted giving away his eyes, but just now he wishes he could see , just to be sure.

    “Zichen?” he asks, and it comes out breathy and sad. 

    “Xingchen,” Zichen says again, and then there’s a rustle, steps, and a body slams into his, arms going around his waist. A-Qing, right.

    “Xiao- daozhang , Song- daozhang is finally here!”

    What.

    Xingchen’s mind is whirring, trying to take in Zichen, so close he can hear his breathing, and the implications of a-Qing’s excitement. He pets her head absently, the familiar feel of her hair grounding him.

    “You knew Song- daozhang was coming, a-Qing?” he asks, as gently as he can. He tries not to frown so that it doesn’t seep into his voice. She nods, head bobbing against his stomach.

    “Don’t be upset that she didn’t tell you,” says Zichen, and he sounds... unsure. Like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to talk to Xingchen. 

    Everything was Xingchen’s fault. Zichen shouldn’t sound anything less than cool and collected and rock-solid the way he’s always been. 

    “I’m not upset, Zichen, I— are you really there?”

    There are rustling steps again, and then the feeling of fabric brushing deliberately over his knuckles where his hand rests on a-Qing’s head. It’s familiar, creased like a wide sleeve caught up in someone’s fist, rough and heavy like Zichen’s traditional robes have always been, even back when they first travelled together and they were searching for ways to accommodate Zichen’s dislike of touching and Xingchen’s deep skin hunger. His tears are choking him. 

    “I’m here,” says Zichen, more confidently, “Xingchen. I’m sorry.”

    “No,” That’s all wrong, Zichen shouldn’t be sorry, Xingchen is sorry, and he says so. “It was all my fault, and then I left you when you were still hurting because I thought it would be easier than letting you be mad at me, and it wasn’t fair—” he gasps for breath. So lightly he can barely feel it, fingertips brush his cheek.

    “Don’t cry.”

    It’s enough. It sounds like Zichen, quiet and straightforward, and Xingchen lets his body give up and sob.

    A-Qing is fluttering around him as he kneels on the ground, he knows because he can hear her moving. Sometimes she reaches out to pat his cheeks or his hair, and sometimes she goes away and comes back. His lap is filling up with things he cannot identify. A-Qing pats his head and says “It’s okay, Xiao- daozhang . Song- daozhang is here. He’s going to make everything better.”

    That prompts a soft gasp from beside him, where Zichen is waiting, not touching him. 

    Eventually he calms down. A-Qing has taken his hand and is guiding his fingers over a flower blossom she brought him. Zichen is waiting. They seem to have some understanding.

    That reminds him. “A-Qing. Does this mean, when my phone went missing, you had it?”

    “Not right away!” A-Qing lets go of his hand, and he hears the soft thumps as she sprawls back on the ground. “I didn’t have it when you asked. Chengmei did. I only took it once he threw it in the garbage.”

    Something twists inside him. He doesn’t understand. “Why did Chengmei have it?”

    “He said it was because you were getting texts from somebody who was bad and hurt you,” A-Qing sounds doubtful. “But he was lying, because you were only getting texts from Song- daozhang , and they all said sorry. Song- daozhang isn’t bad. He helped me.”

    A-Qing has never liked Chengmei. It’s possible that Chengmei really was trying to help, even if he was going about it the wrong way. Chengmei is like that sometimes, but he cares about them, really.

    “I don’t think he was lying, a-Qing. He was probably trying to help.” Xingchen soothes. “I’m glad that Song- daozhang made it here anyways, but why didn’t you just tell me?”

    “Song- daozhang said not to! He said that if I told you and Chengmei found out he could hurt us, and I had to wait until he could help.”

    That explains it. Zichen didn’t know what a-Qing and Chengmei were like with each other, so a-Qing had convinced him Chengmei was bad to them. He turns in the direction Zichen’s breathing is coming from. “Chengmei wouldn’t hurt us. A-Qing has a bit of a grudge, but they’re always taunting each other. It doesn’t mean anything.”

    “She’s right, Xingchen.”

    “No, she’s not, Zichen, trust me, it’s just—” he becomes aware that they’re moving, communicating in some way he can’t see. He doesn’t know what they’re doing, the sounds are too quiet. 

    “He’s lying to you,” says Zichen.

    “You can’t know—”

    “He is, Xiao- daozhang ! One of Chengmei’s little fingers is fake! You didn’t know that, did you? He didn’t tell you!”

    Xue Yang . Xingchen feels his breath leave him like he’s been kicked in the stomach. He’s— no, it can’t be. Xue Yang can’t be the only person with a prosthetic finger. He can’t have been living with him for so long and not known.

    “I told you he was bad,” a-Qing is saying, and how did she know about the finger? How— “He’s always mean and once he nearly made me walk right into his sword and—”

    There’s a hiss from behind him, then a frantic mess of sounds as the three of them startle to their feet. “I knew it ,” says the voice behind him, and now that he knows, Xingchen can hear his old enemy under Chengmei’s familiar voice, “I knew you were lying, you little monster. It doesn’t matter now, though.” He laughs, the eerie, giddy laugh Xingchen remembers. “I’ll deal with this. I’ll deal with all of you. Hello again, Song Lan.”

Chapter Text

    Song Lan feels the rage of years of pain and two massacres rise in his chest, and he forces it down. Last time, he lost control. Not today.

    A-Qing is clinging to his robe, but he can’t spare a hand to comfort her. When Xue Yang draws his sword, Song Lan has to be ready. 

    “He doesn’t want to touch you, either, hey blind kid? Still too proud for the dirty rabble, Song- daozhang ?” Xue Yang is taunting, sauntering out of the trees with the careless insolence he’s always had. Song Lan ignores him, but a-Qing whimpers with her face in his side, and he trembles.

    “Chengmei,” Xingchen tries to interrupt. “Chengmei, what—”

    “A-Qing,” murmurs Song Lan, dropping a hand to her shoulder in the moments Xue Yang is distracted, “a-Qing, you need to run.”

    “I don’t want to leave!” she cries, and Xue Yang’s attention snaps back to them.

    “The brat can’t leave,” he croons, “not when I know for sure that she can see. Who knows what she’s seen, isn’t that right?”

    A-Qing pushes away from Song Lan’s side and turns to glare at Xue Yang, arms crossed. “I saw everything ,” she says defiantly, “even when you were tricking Xiao- daozhang during the fight!”

    “Uh oh,” singsongs Xue Yang, coming closer. Song Lan’s hands go back to his sword. “How do you think your Xiao- daozhang feels to find out that his little girl is a big liar? Do you think he’ll keep you around when you could see all along?” Xue Yang leans in and in a heartbeat Song Lan has Fuxue unsheathed between Xue Yang’s face and a-Qing. Xue Yang just laughs and dances back a couple steps. “Xiao- daozhang won’t love you if you’re just a lying, disobedient little girl.”

    Song Lan hears Xingchen choke on a sob, and he chances a brief glance away. Xingchen looks broken, bloody tears streaking his cheeks again. 

    “Xiao- daozhang isn’t going to love you either!” A-Qing is shouting, “He’s not! You made him kill that man in the village! You tricked him into doing bad things! He’s going to make you leave and never come back!”

    Xue Yang cackles. “You only saw one? I made him kill most of them!”

    This confession draws a long moan from Xingchen, and all three of them look to him, knelt in the undergrowth. He’s shaking, Shuanghua discarded on the ground, fists clenched in his lap.

    “Oh, Xiao- daozhang ,” croons Xue Yang again, syrupy-sweet, “If I’d known you would be this pretty, I would have told you a long time ago.” He reaches out a hand, stepping towards Xingchen, and Song Lan snaps.

_________________________

    Above him, the ringing of swords meeting, and then skinny arms close around his chest. 

    “Xiao- daozhang , we have to move!”

    Xingchen scrabbles for Shuanghua, scrambles to his feet, pushing a-Qing behind him even as he realizes that he won’t be any use in this fight. Nothing like night-hunting, now, when he doesn’t know where his enemy is. He lets a-Qing pull him back, away from the fight, even as his heart screams at leaving it. 

    “It’s going to be okay, Xiao- daozhang ,” whispers a-Qing loudly, but her voice is trembling, not confident like before, “Song- daozhang came to help us. He’s a good fighter, he’ll beat Chengmei for sure.”

    And what is Xingchen supposed to do with that, with the betrayal digging into him like the butt of a staff in his gut, with his only two friends ever trying to kill each other while he waits, unable to even watch?

    “—left him behind!” Chengmei— no, Xue Yang— is saying now, “High and mighty Song Lan, abandoning his friends.”

    Zichen isn’t answering, and Xingchen pictures him for a moment as he was the first time they pursued Xue Yang, serious and precise as he fought, shadowy robes swirling in the blue night. Zichen was better than Xingchen had been, then, at not rising to Xue Yang’s audaciousness, at watching his sword without listening to his mouth.

    “I bet he regrets giving you his eyes, now, hmm? His sight might have saved him; after all, someone who can see knows the difference between a person and a fierce corpse. There’s innocent blood all over his pretty white robes, Zichen , and it’s all your fault.” 

    Xingchen can’t track the battle by sound, not at the best of times, never mind now when every word from Chengmei’s mouth breaks off another piece of Xingchen’s own self, fractures him to the core, but beside him a-Qing grabs his sleeve, in excitement or fear he doesn’t know.

    “Song- daozhang is going to kill him, Xiao- daozhang ,” she whispers, and his heart rips apart a bit more.

__________________________

    The only way to make up for every pain he’s caused Xiao Xingchen is to free him, and so Song Lan fights. He’s fought Xue Yang before and he knows— the other man is faster but Song Lan is stronger, so he brings his weight to bear in every movement, pins him against trees and in thicker undergrowth. He hears Xue Yang speaking but it washes over him and he does not recognize the words. There’s nothing besides their two swords flashing in the afternoon sun.

    It isn’t enough. A flash, and a sudden sting, and in Song Lan’s bare second of surprise, Xue Yang saying “I know what he smells like.”

    So does Song Lan, but the damage is done. He can no longer close his ears to Xue Yang’s taunts. Song Lan presses, presses, and Xue Yang leaps away, running his mouth.

    “When he’s tired and sweaty, ah, Song Lan, it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. I know what his skin feels like, what his breath feels like. Ah, Song Lan,” Xue Yang laughs, sudden, and moves in a flurry of blows, “I’ve tasted him.”

    Song Lan’s heart skips, and suddenly he’s flying back, Fuxue spinning away, and he lands, hard, in the dirt. 

    Xue Yang descends on him, sword raised, and Song Lan sees it. As Xue Yang thrusts, Song Lan launches himself forward, grasping at the pouch on Xue Yang’s belt. It tears open, and powder fills the air as Song Lan keeps going for his sword. He hears Xue Yang scream behind him. 

    “Go!” someone shouts— a-Qing— and then there’s a flash of bright silver, the sweep of white robes, a wet, strangled cry, and quiet. 

    Song Lan grabs Fuxue and drags himself back to his feet, turning. Xue Yang isn’t dead, despite the unearthly silence. He’s standing there, staring at Xiao Xingchen, one hand clasped over the opposite shoulder, where Shuanghua is still embedded deep. There’s a moment of stillness as they all wait on each other to react, and then Xue Yang coughs, corpse powder still settling in his lungs. The sound startles Xingchen, who yanks Shuanghua back, more awkwardly than Song Lan has ever seen him, the blade twisting harshly as it leaves flesh. Xue Yang yells through his coughs, and it breaks the strange spell over the clearing. Song Lan gives up the pretence of an honourable fight and tackles Xue Yang from behind, pinning him to the ground while he pulls a rope out of a qiankun pouch and ties his hands securely behind his back. He grabs Jiangzai while he’s at it, sheathing the dark blade and putting it into his own qiankun pouch. Only once Xue Yang is secured does he look up at Xingchen. 

    Shuanghua’s blood-red tip is dragging on the ground, and Xingchen doesn’t seem to have noticed. Song Lan uses the excess rope to tie Xue Yang to a tree, and then he goes over to Xingchen, reaches out to touch his shoulder. “Xingchen.”

    “Zichen,’ says Xingchen, and then he gasps and starts shaking, “Zichen.”

    “Song- daozhang !” comes a cry from nearby, and then a-Qing barrels into him, wrapping her arms around his middle and squeezing. 

    For some reason this is what seems to steady Xingchen. He gropes about a bit for a-Qing’s shoulder, and tugs at her. “Let Zichen go, a-Qing, he doesn’t like to be touched.”

    A-Qing obeys, but she looks up at him curiously. “Why?” 

    Song Lan shrugs. It’s hard to explain.

    “He just doesn’t, just like you don’t like jello,” says Xingchen, and a-Qing makes a disgusted face. 

    “Okay,” she says, and she steps fully away from him, pressing into Xingchen’s side instead.

    It makes Song Lan’s face frown without his permission, and the next moment he hears himself saying “It’s not so bad, when it’s you. You can, sometimes, just not— not all the time.”

    A-Qing beams up at him, but she doesn’t try to hug him again. When he looks to Xingchen, the look on his face is soft and open and hopeful, and Song Lan can’t help himself. He gathers his sleeve into his hand, reaches out to brush the rough fabric over Xingchen’s bloodstained cheek. “You too,” he says, one of the things he’s wished for years he said before Baixue Temple: I would follow you anywhere; I trust you; Your touch doesn’t scare me . “It’s not bad, when it’s you.”

    “This is all very touching,” sneers Xue Yang, and the effect is somewhat ruined by his coughing. “But if you’ve got a few minutes to spare from your perfect reunion, you could help me. Unless you want my death on your hands.”

___________________________

    They’re all in a rush to get back to their little hut. Song- daozhang is carrying Chengmei in his arms like a baby, even though Chengmei is evil and tried to kill him, and Chengmei is coughing a lot. Xiao- daozhang is holding a-Qing’s hand and walking very quickly, and a-Qing thinks he’s pretending that everything is alright now, but she’s watching his face, and she can see every time it looks like he’s about to start crying again. She holds his hand tighter.

    Xiao- daozhang isn’t making her go away. Maybe he’s forgotten that she can see, and so he won’t hate her after all and he’ll keep her forever. She just has to not remind him. If she’s very good then maybe he’ll let her stay even if he remembers.

    When they get back, Xiao- daozhang rushes her into the kitchen with him. She doesn’t get to stop and watch what Song- daozhang is doing. Xiao- daozhang nudges her along, his hand awkward and stuttering against her shoulder, but his voice is mostly even when he says “Bring me some rice.”

    They make congee, and Xiao- daozhang takes it out to Song- daozhang , who feeds it to Chengmei. A-Qing wants to ask why , why they’re feeding him first, why they seem so worried, but she doesn’t want Chengmei to pay attention to her. He might remind Xiao- daozhang that she isn’t really blind.

    When the bowl of congee is gone, Chengmei falls back against the arm of the couch and sighs. A-Qing can see that there’s a big white bandage around his shoulder where Xiao- daozhang stabbed him. Song- daozhang ties Chengmei’s hands up again before he steps back. His hands are all covered in blood. She watches as he washes them in their little sink, and then she looks back at Chengmei. She’s trying to decide if he might get out of the ropes and attack them again. 

    “Don’t stare, not-blind kid,” Chengmei says without looking at her. It’s creepy. “You’re being a creep,” he adds.

    Not fair! Chengmei is the mean one who hurt them. It’s not creepy to watch someone if they’re dangerous. Also, he stole her bed, so what is she supposed to do, even? After a moment, she retreats to Xiao- daozhang ’s bed and curls up against the wall, hiding her face in her knees.

    Song- daozhang and Xiao- daozhang are whispering about something. A-Qing doesn’t look at them. Maybe Xiao- daozhang is saying that a-Qing has to go away now because she lied to him, and Song- daozhang is trying to convince him to keep her. Maybe now that Song- daozhang is here and his enemy is all tied up he’s decided he doesn’t want a lying girl either. Maybe they’re just deciding how to send her away. Maybe they’re talking about something else, and if she doesn’t draw their attention they’ll forget. Maybe she can sneak away and leave before they say they don’t want her. Maybe

    “A-Qing?” That’s Xiao- daozhang , and he’s crouched right next to her. “ xiao- Qing, baobei , are you alright?”

    He doesn’t sound angry. He just sounds worried. His voice is shaking a bit. A-Qing curls up tighter and hums a bit. “Uh huh.” If she’s okay, maybe they’ll let her stay because she’s brave.

    “Can I talk to you?” asks Xiao- daozhang , “outside, maybe?”

    A-Qing doesn’t want to talk. She wants Xiao- daozhang to let her take a nap on his pillow and make her supper and keep her forever and not send her away. “Okay,” she says anyways.

    Before she can stand up, Xiao- daozhang ’s arms slide around her, and he curls her up into his chest and carries her outside. She wraps her arms around his neck and when he sits down in the garden, she doesn’t get off his lap. If she’s going to be sent away, she wants as many cuddles as possible right now. And Xiao- daozhang really is soft. Maybe he’ll feel too sorry for her and keep her. He doesn’t try to make her sit by herself, either, just strokes her head the way he always does when she’s sad. His hands shake.

    “Why didn’t you tell me about Chengmei?” he asks gently. A-Qing doesn’t look at him. 

    “I did,” she answers, because it’s true, “I told you he was mean but you didn’t believe me!” 

    Xiao- daozhang ’s hand stops on her head and she hears his breathing stutter. “I— you did, yes.” He goes back to his stroking. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you.”

    “Song- daozhang said not to tell you that Chengmei was your enemy. He said you would fight him and get hurt and that I just had to wait for Song- daozhang and look after you until he got here.”

    “You did so well,” Xiao- daozhang says. “You did the right thing to listen to Song- daozhang . But I should have listened to you the first time you told me. Then maybe you wouldn’t have had to live with him for two years.”

    A-Qing doesn’t answer. She doesn’t know how to.

    “Why didn’t you tell me that you could see?” Xiao- daozhang really sounds sad now. A-Qing risks a glance at his face and he looks sad, too.

    She doesn’t want to tell him.

    “I understand,” he says, after she’s been quiet for a little while. “There was no reason for you to think I would believe you.”

    That’s not fair! Xiao- daozhang is a good listener. A-Qing is just a liar, like Chengmei.

    She doesn’t want to be like Chengmei. She pushes her face back into Xiao- daozhang ’s chest, into his soft, worn robes. “I didn’t want you to send me away,” she says, and the words get all trapped in the cloth so they can’t hurt anybody.

    Xiao- daozhang ’s ear tilts down towards her. “Hm? I didn’t quite hear you.”

    “I didn’t want you to send me away,” says a-Qing again, and this time the words get free. Xiao- daozhang ’s arms tighten around her. 

    “I would never,” he whispers into her hair, and it makes a-Qing shake. She feels like maybe she’s going to fall into a million little pieces.

    “I wasn’t good! I lied to you and I’m not really blind like you are and I hid your phone and you almost got really hurt and—”

    “Shh, shh,” Xiao- daozhang murmurs, rocking her. It interrupts her and her breath gets stuck in her throat. She gasps, and then everything is too much and she starts crying.

    Xiao- daozhang doesn’t make her stop, or push her off his lap, or let her go. He just keeps rocking her, arms tight around her while she sobs. She feels his nose pressing against the top of her head, and then wet in her hair, trembling in his body, and realizes that he’s crying too.

    Crying hurts. It makes her chest and head achy, but she can’t stop. She’s so tired. She had to wait so long for everything, for Chengmei to give up the phone and for Song- daozhang to come, and she always had to be watching Chengmei to keep Xiao- daozhang safe, and Xiao- daozhang killed all those people in the village and scared her, and then Song- daozhang came and she thought that maybe Chengmei was going to kill him, and Chengmei might have killed her, and then Xiao- daozhang stabbed Chengmei, and

    “It’s not fair !” she says, between crying. “Why did he have to be so mean? Why didn’t he like me?” It’s not fair that she has to be sad about Chengmei either. She hates him.

    “I don’t know, baobei , I don’t understand either,” Xiao- daozhang croaks, and she can hear the crying in his voice still.

    “I hate him.”

    “I know, a-Qing, I know.”

    “Why couldn’t he be nice?”

    Xiao- daozhang doesn’t answer her again, just bends his head back down to press his forehead against her crown and squeezes her even tighter.

_________________________

    Xingchen’s heart aches in his chest, and there’s a tightness behind his eye sockets from weeping. A-Qing is right. It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair at all for his friend Chengmei who made him laugh and defended him from unscrupulous fruit vendors and guided his sword to also be Xue Yang who slaughtered whole clans and blinded his best friend and apparently used him to kill even more people. You made him kill that man , a-Qing had accused, and Chengmei had laughed Xue Yang’s vicious laugh, you only saw one?

    Xingchen will never, never be able to overcome that. He’s not sure how a-Qing still wants to be anywhere near him, after seeing it. He doesn’t know why Zichen would stay, would even touch him, knowing that Xingchen has been doing their enemy’s work for two years.

    But Zichen is inside waiting, had brushed his robes across Xingchen’s shaking hands and promised he would never leave again, had encouraged him to talk to a-Qing with love so obvious in his voice already that in comparison Xingchen doesn’t know how he ever thought Chengmei cared. And a-Qing has her fists curled in the front of his robes, head tucked beneath his chin as her sobs settle to hitched breaths, then even out. They’re here, and as long as they’re staying how can he let them go?

    A-Qing’s breathing is so even now that he thinks she might have fallen asleep. “I would never send you away,” he whispers into her hair again, but she doesn’t stir. He’ll have to tell her again when she wakes up. For now he makes sure he’s holding her securely and stands, carries her back into the hut that has been home. Chengmei is on the couch, he remembers after he’s halfway across the room towards it, so a-Qing can’t have her usual bed. It throws him off, and he hovers a moment, lost.

    Zichen’s hand lands on Xingchen’s shoulder, and he murmurs “use your bedroll.”

    There’s a gentle push against his shoulder blade. Xingchen obeys, grateful for the instruction. Before he can bend and tuck a-Qing into the blankets, he feels Zichen at his front now, taking her small body from him. Irrationally, his hands grasp for her for a moment before he reminds himself to trust and lets go. “Lie down,” says Zichen, and when Xingchen has, Zichen passes a-Qing down to him. She settles, curled in the hollow of the crescent Xingchen makes with his body so that he can feel the warmth of her at his front. “Rest,” says Zichen, above them, his voice still familiar and soothing, and Xingchen closes his eyes and does.

Chapter Text

    Everyone is sleeping, so Song Lan cleans. He starts with himself, and then moves on to the house. Xingchen’s home is dusty, in some places dirty. He’s not sure it’s really safe for anyone to be sleeping on the couch or the bedrolls, but there’s not much he can do about that. He satisfies himself by starting in the kitchen and moving out from there, wiping away the dust and then using up a great deal of Xingchen’s soap on cleaning most of the surfaces. He digs in his own pack for the laundry soap flakes he carries and fills the sink with water and starts with what are obviously a-Qing’s clothes. There aren’t many, but he has to change the water before moving on to Xingchen’s things— if Song Lan was a gambling man, he would bet that Xingchen has been relying on Xue Yang to know when things were clean, and Xue Yang obviously was too careless for the job. He doesn’t particularly want to move on to Xue Yang’s clothes, but he’s going to have to touch the man if they’re to bring him to justice among other cultivators, and it would be better if at least his clothes were clean.

    Xue Yang wakes up as Song Lan is wringing out his shirts and sneers. “Does our home disgust you, Song- daozhang ? Do we make your skin crawl?” Song Lan ignores him, carrying the clothes outside to hang on the line next to the rest of his work. When he comes back in, Xue Yang starts up again. “The kid thinks you’re going to care about her, huh? Does she know your reputation? Song- daozhang doesn’t care like normal humans do. ‘The distant snow and the cold frost,’ isn’t that right?”

    Calmly, Song Lan takes the last of his washing— Xue Yang’s own socks— and ties them into a gag around Xue Yang’s mouth. Then, deliberately, both to assuage the way he wants to scratch off his skin and to bother Xue Yang, he washes his hands up to the elbows in new water. When he’s finished he realizes that a-Qing is sitting up and watching him. She looks away abruptly when he looks right at her.

    He goes over and crouches down by the bedroll. Now that he’s here, he can see that Xingchen’s face is creased in distress, even though he’s otherwise feigning sleep. He lets Xingchen slide for a moment, and asks a-Qing, “are you hungry?”

    She doesn’t make eye contact, or even look right at his face. Her cloudy eyes slide across his face and settle just above his right ear. Pretending she can’t see people must be a habit, by now, automatic. He reaches out and gently nudges her chin so that she’s looking at him like a sighted child would. “You don’t have to pretend,” he murmurs. “We won’t leave you. You can be honest.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Xingchen wince, and then the other man reaches out for a-Qing, sitting up when he realizes she isn’t lying down.

    “I will never send you away,” Xingchen says firmly, and a-Qing turns towards him. “Never, xiao- Qing, I promise.” 

    A-Qing stares at him for a moment, then turns back to Song Lan. Her eyes rest on his face, this time. “I’m hungry,” she says, and he lets the smile tugging at his mouth show on his face. 

    “Well, it’s food first, then,” he answers, standing up and offering his hand down to her. “That’s perfect. Maybe your clothes will be dry by the time we’ve eaten, and then you can put on clean clothes after you’ve bathed.”

    She pouts. “I have to take a bath?”

    He nods solemnly. “After supper.”

    “I don’t want to!”

    Song Lan sees Xingchen sigh almost imperceptibly. “You and Xiao- daozhang will both have to take baths tonight,” he explains, gently. If they were only dusty and ordinarily dirty it might be kinder, but they aren’t. “You both have blood on you. I had blood on me, too, but I’ve already washed.” A-Qing looks dubious. “It’s been a long day. It will feel good to go to bed all clean. Once you get out of bed, I’ll wash the blankets while you and Xiao- daozhang make some food. Does that sound good to you?”

    “Do I have to?”

    “Yes,” Song Lan says, quite firmly. There’s blood in her hair. This is non-negotiable.

    A-Qing gives a dramatic sigh. “Okay. Come on, Xiao- daozhang , let’s make supper. I want stir-fry!”

    Xingchen drags himself to his feet and heads for the kitchen, a-Qing bopping at his side. “We made stir-fry earlier this week!” Xingchen protests as they go. “Maybe I want something different!”

    “Stir-fry!” crows a-Qing, and Xingchen laughs , quiet but there, and Song Lan feels the expansive joy fill his chest like breath, like he thought he would never feel again.

__________________________

    “It hurts! Stop doing that!” A-Qing whines, reaching up to bat away the hands pulling at her hair. When they leave she covers her head protectively and glares down at the water. There’s a hum behind her, and then Song- daozhang ’s wet hands cover her own and he rubs his thumbs across the back of her hands.

    “I’m sorry, a-Qing. I know it hurts. But the longer we leave the blood in your hair, the more tangled it will get, and if we leave it too long we’ll have to cut it all off.” He coaxes her hands away from her head, setting them on the sides of the little tub. “I’ll be as careful as I can, okay?” 

    “Taking a bath didn’t hurt Xiao- daozhang !” A-Qing is quite confident of this. She was waiting in the yard, right underneath the kitchen window, and she didn’t hear Xiao- daozhang getting his hair pulled.

    “He had less blood in his hair,” Song- daozhang answers, but when he brings his soapy hands back to her scalp it is gentler. After a couple more washes and rinses, he says she’s all clean and bundles her out of the tub and into a towel. While he throws the bathwater out, a-Qing sniffs suspiciously at her wet hair.

    “My hair smells like you now, Song- daozhang .”

    “I used my own shampoo,” answers Song- daozhang , “Xingchen will smell like that, too.” He hands her her pyjamas, fresh from the line outside, and she climbs into them. He takes one look at her hair, still dripping wet, and shakes his head. “Come here.” When her hair is dry to his satisfaction, he nudges her from the kitchen into the main room, bringing the comb with him. Xiao- daozhang ’s blankets are still gone from where he usually has his bed, and just the bare air mattress is left, but Song- daozhang has laid his mattress out right next to Xiao- daozhang ’s, and he has his blankets, too. It’s too hot for too many blankets anyways.

    A-Qing glares at Chengmei, who is still on her bed, but Song- daozhang just directs her away towards the air mattresses and sits her down so that he can start dealing with her hair again .

    “Ugh,” she sighs. “Maybe we should just cut it all off.”

    “Whatever you want,” Xiao- daozhang says immediately. He’s sitting on the bed, too, playing with the rubik’s cube, his damp hair in a braid over his shoulder.

    “As long as you’re sure,” Song- daozhang says, more slowly. “Think about it for a couple days. If you wait a bit longer, until we’re in a city, it will be easier to look up some hairstyles, too. Then you could decide what you wanted.”

    A-Qing just doesn’t want her hair pulled any more, and she says so.

    Song- daozhang huffs a chuckle behind her. “I’m going to put it into a braid. If we take care of it, it will get less tangled, and hurt less to fix.”

    “Like Xiao- daozhang ’s?”

    “Just like that. Do you always call him Xiao- daozhang ?”

    A-Qing frowns. “Yes. He’s my daozhang . What else should I call him?”

    Song- daozhang hums again. “It might get confusing with both of us, that’s all. You can call us whatever you want, a-Qing. If you want to call me Song- daozhang forever, that’s fine with me. But you can choose something else, too. Song- xiong or Song- ge , maybe.”

    A-Qing considers this. Having Xiao- daozhang feels special. Other little girls have brothers, but none of them have a daozhang who looks after them, and now a-Qing has two. On the other hand, maybe a-Qing wants brothers. “Hmm,” she says out loud. “Maybe.”

    “You can think about it,” Song- daozhang agrees, finishing off her braid and letting it flop over her shoulder. “Think about your hair, and think about what you want to call us.”

    “Okay,” says a-Qing. Song- daozhang ’s hands in her hair have made her all sleepy again. Xiao- daozhang sets aside the toy and lays down, stretching out his arm so she can curl up next to him like she does sometimes when she has bad dreams. She curls into his side. Song- daozhang lies down with them, too, close but not too close, so that they probably won’t touch him accidentally. He smiles at her when he sees her watching him.

    “You did very well today,” he murmurs, brushing his sleeve over her cheek just like he did to Xiao- daozhang earlier. “I’m very proud of you.” This makes a-Qing feel all warm inside, cozy, like Xiao- daozhang ’s hugs, and she drifts off to sleep content.

____________________________

       It feels strange to be on the road again. Xingchen hasn’t travelled further than a couple of towns over since he met a-Qing, really. They had picked up Cheng—Xue Yang so soon after they met, and then he had needed time to recover, and then it had seemed more reasonable to stay in one place while a-Qing was so young. Seven had been too little to wander like Xingchen had been wandering, with no permanent home.

     But now they’re back on the road. A-Qing’s hand is tucked into his, and she’s humming a bit to herself. She had been nervous this morning, when he and Zichen had broached the topic of leaving, because he had always left her behind when he went to work. She had wanted to know how long they would be gone, how long they would leave her alone, but the assurance that they wanted to bring her along had inspired a new kind of anxiety about leaving their home. It had taken time to convince her to leave, especially since they weren’t sure when they would come back.

    Xingchen isn’t sure he wants to come back. The hut, Yi village, had been their home for a long time, much longer than anywhere Xingchen has stayed since he first descended from his Grandmaster’s mountain, but now every memory is tainted with the knowledge that Xue Yang was living there too. Every time he came home from a night-hunt and washed his hands in the sink it might have been the blood of innocents. Every time a-Qing complained about Chengmei she was hurting. Every time Chengmei fed him, comforted him, cared for him, he was lying.

    It might be best to start over somewhere new, once this is done. A-Qing is older now, and they could travel a bit, and settle somewhere in the winters, perhaps. 

    It feels almost too optimistic to think this way, though, no matter what Zichen has promised, to think that they might stay together, might hunt together and raise a-Qing together and not be parted again. Xingchen has spent a long time letting go. It seems greedy, hoping for a future that he’s thought for years was the sole province of lost daydreams.

    “Where are we going?”

    Xingchen reaches out to ruffle a-Qing’s hair, and she giggles. “Didn’t we tell you this morning? We’re going to Lotus Pier. There will be a lot of lakes, with lotuses growing in them. We will have to take a boat to see Jiang- zongzhu .”

    “Can I swim in the lake?”

    “Maybe,” Xingchen allows, “if Jiang- zongzhu says it’s safe, and if we have time.”

    “Hmm,” says a-Qing, and then, “have you been to Lotus Pier before?”

    “No. I’ve heard about it, but I have never been there.”

    A-Qing tugs on his arm a bit as she turns without letting go of his hand. “Song- daozhang ?”

    “Yes, a-Qing?” Xingchen can’t help the small shiver as he hears Zichen’s steady voice nearby, as familiar and reassuring as the brush of his sleeve.

    “Have you ever been to Lotus Pier?”

    “I have not.”

    “Oh.” A-Qing seems to lose steam in her questioning, but she tucks herself up close to Xingchen’s side and he lets her, liking the soft warmth of her shoulder pressing into his waist. 

    Xue Yang is surprisingly silent, at least for now, and Xingchen can almost pretend that he’s not with them, that it’s just him and a-Qing and Zichen. He squeezes a-Qing’s hand tight in his and wishes.

______________________

    Song Lan is hesitant to fly with Xue Yang in his custody. It would be quicker, maybe, especially since it’s difficult to take the train when you’re transporting a bound criminal and also clearly are outside of the mundane justice system, but he would never make Xingchen carry Xue Yang, and he refuses to be that close to the man for that long. It’s not because he doesn’t trust Xingchen— he does, absolutely, even after everything— but because he doesn’t trust Xue Yang, doesn’t trust what he might whisper in Xingchen’s ears, and he won’t let him break Xingchen any further. They will simply have to walk, and Xingchen will be responsible for a-Qing, for carrying her when she’s tired and making sure she doesn’t get lost, and Zichen will be responsible for making sure Xue Yang does not escape.

    This works, mostly. A-Qing demands his attention, too, in ways he can’t resist. She wants him to tell stories about his travels, wants him to watch her climb a tree, wants him to comb her hair, wants him to take care of her just as he’s wanted to since he heard her voice shaking over the phone. When she's with Xingchen his eyes are drawn to the both of them together, to the gentleness of Xingchen’s elegant hands, to the softness of his smile, to the strength of his body as he carries her while she naps in his arms, to his mother-henning. Even more than he’s wanted the chance to care for a-Qing, he’s been desperate to see Xingchen like this, longer than Xingchen would ever imagine. While Xingchen lay near him, those years ago, and speculated about forming a sect of their own, about the good they could do without being bound to the long bloodlines of cultivator families, about building something on their shared values, Song Lan was thinking of Xingchen surrounded by children, their own disciples to teach but also to love.

    He is overwhelmed, somewhat, by the reality of Xingchen and a-Qing.

    Of course Xingchen notices that he’s taking all the responsibility of guarding Xue Yang himself, notices his distraction when he’s caring for a-Qing and watching their prisoner at the same time, and of course Xingchen confronts him about it. It’s a week into their journey, and Song Lan thinks he’s lucky to have held out this long.

    Xingchen waits until evening, until a-Qing is tucked up asleep and Xue Yang has been fed and bound again, comfortably enough that he can sleep but not such that he can escape. Song Lan knows how he thinks, by now, everything that he’s accounting for. Then he drags Song Lan away, far enough that Xue Yang will not hear their quiet conversation.

    “Stop coddling me,” hisses Xingchen, straight to the point, indignant like he used to be, when they first met. Xingchen never took well to the idea that someone might think he couldn’t handle something.

    “I’m not,” Song Lan replies, keeping his voice even. It’s barely the truth, but it’s close enough.

    “You are, you think I can’t handle Xue Yang, don’t lie to me , Zichen,” and Xingchen is scowling at him and Song Lan’s heart is so full.

    He wraps his hand around one of Xingchen’s clenched fists, his robes mediating the touch between them. “I know that you could handle him, if you had to. You do not have to.”

    “You need a break too,” says Xingchen, softening, “it’s not fair to you to have to watch him all the time.”

    “It doesn’t matter,” says Song Lan, because it doesn’t, not compared to Xingchen’s comfort.

    “It matters to me. Please, Zichen, I—” he falters. Song Lan waits. “It’s my fault. Let me share the responsibility.”

    It is not Xingchen’s fault that a villain took advantage of his blindness and his caring, upright nature and deceived him. Song Lan has told Xingchen this already, multiple times. He cannot, however, deny Xingchen anything, even what Song Lan is sure will hurt him, when he asks so desperately. “We will share it. Two thirds to me and one to you.”

    Xingchen frowns. “That’s hardly fair!” Song Lan does not respond. “Fine,” huffs Xingchen after a moment.

    “Good,” confirms Song Lan, since Xingchen cannot see him nod. They stand there together, cradled in the shadows away from the fire, quiet. Song Lan listens to Xingchen’s breathing.

    After a moment, Xingchen speaks again. “Once we get to Lotus Pier, what then?”

    “What do you think we should do?”
    “Oh!” It’s a quiet gasp, “I didn’t— I know you said before that you would stay, but I thought you might have changed your mind. I’m, I’m sorry, I should have— it’s silly. But I thought you might have decided you were better off without me. You wouldn’t leave a-Qing, you wouldn’t break your promise, but a-Qing would be better without me, too. I couldn’t keep her safe, I—”

    Song Lan cuts him off by cradling Xingchen’s cheek in his bare palm. It’s warm, and damp— Xingchen is crying again. If he pays attention, Song Lan can smell the metal-scent of his blood. “Xingchen.”

    “Yes?”

    “I should have told you earlier.”

    “Told me what?”

    “I do not want to leave you. I would follow you wherever you wanted to go. If you had asked me—”

    “What, Zichen, if I had asked what?”

    “If you had asked me to stay with you instead of going home, I would have.”

    “ Oh ,”

    “I should have done the asking. We might have avoided this,” Song Lan runs his thumb just below the bandage.

    “Zichen,” Xingchen grasps at his hand, pulls it from his cheek and clutches it between both of his own, seeming frantic, “you must never regret— I do not regret giving you my eyes. I would do it again. You must never think like that, or feel guilty, or think that you could have stopped me.”

    “Only if you won’t feel guilty either. Baixue, my eyes, the villagers... those are Xue Yang’s fault. They are not yours.”

    “I suppose ,”

    “Believe it.” his hand is still grasped in Xingchen’s, but Song Lan finds that he needs to touch him, needs to keep Xingchen listening, needs to feel him alive beneath his hands, so he reaches out his free hand and cups the back of Xingchen’s neck. Xingchen shakes a bit under his hand. “Trust me,” he murmurs.

    “Always,” Xingchen whispers, and Song Lan cannot help the way his hand tightens briefly in response. Xingchen sighs. “Zichen. Zichen, I’ve wanted—”

    “Anything,” promises Song Lan, “ anywhere ,” and when Xingchen makes a desperate noise and lunges toward him, clumsy, Song Lan catches Xingchen’s searching mouth with his own.

______________________

    Oh , Xingchen loves him, he loves him, and he can’t find the words to say it. It’s okay, though, because Zichen understands, because Zichen really is planning to stay, doesn’t hate him. He pulls his mouth away from Zichen’s and immediately regrets it, but he has to say something .

    “Stay with me forever,” he demands.

    “Yes.”

    “Raise a-Qing with me,”

    “Yes.”

    “Start a sect with me,” and when they talked about this, years ago, did it always mean ‘I love you?’

    Zichen huffs a chuckle at him. “Yes,” he says, and Xingchen can feel his own blood-tears tacky on his face, sticking Zichen’s hands to his cheek and neck, fastidious Zichen, who doesn’t say a thing about it, just tilts his chin up and kisses him again.

______________________

    They’ve been walking for days and days, and a-Qing is tired. Xiao- daozhang said when they left that they would have to walk for a long time, but she didn’t know that it would be so boring. Just walking all day isn’t very interesting, especially since they have to stay on the road and she can’t go exploring anywhere. Song- daozhang and Xiao- daozhang tell her a lot of stories, but they can’t talk all day, either. So a-Qing is bored, and being bored makes her get tired quicker. 

    They stop early for lunch when Xiao- daozhang notices. She can tell that he’s worried because he keeps passing the food that Song- daozhang unpacks over to her, and doesn’t keep very much for himself. Song- daozhang can tell too, because eventually he catches Xiao- daozhang ’s hand before he can pass over a second apple. A-Qing laughs a bit at Xiao- daozhang ’s confused face.

    “A-Qing has enough to eat,” Song- daozhang says, gently, which is mostly true. She has two sandwiches and an apple, and she’s probably not even going to eat the second sandwich, because it’s supposed to be Xiao- daozhang ’s, but she does not have any of the candy she knows is in Song- daozhang ’s pocket. She slides the second sandwich back in front of Xiao- daozhang and puts his other hand on top of it. Song- daozhang nods approvingly at her, then reaches across Xiao- daozhang to hand her her candy. She nods back at him. She and Song- daozhang have to take care of Xiao- daozhang. He should be eating more, because he’s sad because of Chengmei, and eating makes people less sad (at least, that’s what makes a-Qing less sad, so it probably helps Xiao- daozhang too). 

    Xiao- daozhang is pushing the sandwich back, so she stops him. “Are you sure?” he fusses, reaching his hand towards her like he can feel whether she’s hungry enough for a second sandwich.

    “I’m full, daozhang !” she whines dramatically, biting into her own sandwich in order to muffle her giggles.

    Song- daozhang takes Xiao- daozhang ’s hands in his and makes Xiao- daozhang pay attention to him. “Trust me, Xingchen,” he says, and Xiao- daozhang smiles , bright and sweet. 

    Chengmei and Xiao- daozhang were never like this. A-Qing is glad, because Chengmei was bad and mean and wouldn’t have been good for Xiao- daozhang at all. Song- daozhang is good and kind and can protect them. But A-Qing still doesn’t know how she feels about them being so... gooey. It’s new.

    “Always,” Xiao- daozhang says to Song- daozhang , and then he leans forward and kisses him on the chin. It makes Song- daozhang startle, which makes a-Qing laugh. 

    “Gross, daozhang ,” she giggles.

    “Yeah, gross, daozhang ,” snarks Chengmei, “some of us are waiting for our lunches here.”

    A-Qing glares at him. Song- daozhang says they can’t keep him gagged all the time, even if he’s annoying, but a-Qing thinks that Chengmei should maybe never talk again. They had argued about it a few nights ago, but Song- daozhang had won.

    Song- daozhang stops looking all soft at Xiao- daozhang and goes over to untie Chengmei so that he can eat. A-Qing slides over so that she’s pressed right against Xiao- daozhang , and he wraps his arm around her and cuddles her while he eats his sandwich. Behind Song- daozhang ’s back, she smirks triumphantly at Chengmei.

    They don’t get up right away after they’re done eating. Xiao- daozhang just leans back against a tree and keeps a-Qing close, and her belly is full and the sun is warm. She closes her eyes. 

_____________________

    “--going in the same direction, there’s no reason not to travel together!” A-Qing blinks awake to strange voices. She’s not afraid— she’s still in Xiao- daozhang ’s lap, after all. 

    It’s two new people. The one who’s talking is loud and excited. He looks mostly like an ordinary person. He’s wearing black jeans and a red tank top with a black button-up overtop, but he’s also carrying a strange pouch, and his hand hovers by it. When he notices she’s awake, he grins and comes to crouch in front of her. “Hi! I’m Wei Wuxian! What’s your name, kid?”

    “I’m a-Qing,” says a-Qing, suspicious. “You’re in Xiao- daozhang ’s phone.”

    That makes the man’s eyebrow twitch, like he’s confused, but he keeps smiling at her. “Sure am! Your Xiao- daozhang is my shishu . I met him years ago, before he met you.”

    “Wei- gongzi and Lan- gongzi were investigating a mystery,” Xiao- daozhang murmurs to her, “but running into us and Xue Yang has solved their mystery.”

    Wei Wuxian stands up. “Well, more like it gives us many new leads, and if Xue Yang decides to talk it might give us answers. In any case it’s the end of this trail, and we have to take him back to Beijing. That’s where all the sect leaders are right now.”

    “Qinghe,” corrects the other man, Lan- gongzi . He looks much fancier than Wei Wuxian, dressed in grey slacks and a pale blue dress shirt. He has a ribbon wrapped around his head and he’s very beautiful. Almost (but not quite, she thinks loyally) as pretty as Xiao- daozhang . When Wei Wuxian makes a confused face at him, he tilts his phone screen towards the other man. “ Xiongzhang texted. Chifeng-zun is well enough to be moved, so they have gone out to the Unclean Realm where it is restful.”

    “Qinghe, then!”

    “I do want to see this through,” says Xiao- daozhang . “I want to make sure this time.”

    Song- daozhang hums. “I agree.”

    “But it’s much further than Lotus Pier. Yunmeng wasn’t too bad, but Qinghe is a long way. We would hold you back. We can’t fly.” Xiao- daozhang seems worried. Fly? A-Qing knows, from stories, that cultivators can fly, but she’s never seen Xiao- daozhang do it. He always said it was too dangerous when he couldn’t see.

    “Oh that’s no problem!” Wei Wuxian waves the problem away. “With us with you you can. We would get there much faster, and you would be able to get your justice. You deserve it. Song- daozhang , you can carry a-Qing here. Lan Zhan can carry Xue Yang, and I can be Xiao- shishu ’s eyes.”

    “I worry we would still be holding you back,” says Song- daozhang , “but if you’re certain, Lan- gongzi , we would be honoured.”

    “Mn,” says the beautiful man, “I agree with Wei Ying.”

    “Besides, Lan Zhan can’t carry me and Xue Yang at the same time.”

    “I suppose,” Xiao- daozhang agrees. 

    “Good! Then it’s settled.”

    A-Qing watches Wei Wuxian beam at them. There’s something different about him. He doesn’t have a sword. “Why does Lan- gongzi have to carry you?” She asks, and Xiao- daozhang freezes in the middle of urging her to stand up. “Can’t you fly by yourself?”

    “A-Qing! That’s a rude question!” Xiao- daozhang scolds.

    Wei Wuxian looks at her very seriously. “I got very hurt and lost my golden core,” he answers. “Now all I have are talismans and my music.”

    A-Qing feels bad for asking. “Oh. Sorry.”

    “It’s okay, it’s not your fault.” He perks up. “I’ll show you my coolest talismans, but later, okay? When we stop for the night.”

    “Okay!” says a-Qing, curious. Xiao- daozhang doesn’t use a lot of talismans. Maybe he won’t be so bad, even if he does get to fly with Xiao- daozhang instead of her.

__________________

    Flying with Song- daozhang is the coolest thing a-Qing has ever done.

Chapter Text

    Much as he worries about imposing on them, it is very nice to travel with Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. Xingchen remembers meeting them, years ago. He and Zichen had agreed, afterward, that they liked the young masters, but Xingchen hadn’t told Zichen at the time how much Wei Wuxian reminded him of himself. Wei Wuxian had all but draped himself over Lan Wangji’s shoulders, adoring, demanding his attention, and Xingchen had only seen someone so lovesick when he saw his own face in a mirror. 

    Now Xingchen doesn’t have to feel so desperate, not with the way Zichen always sits near enough that Xingchen can feel his body heat, with the way Zichen speaks so tenderly to him, acknowledges his every small sound, not with the way Zichen kisses him now. From the way Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji speak of their families and from Zichen’s descriptions of their behaviour, Wei Wuxian has nothing to worry about in that regard either.

    His shijie’s son is fun, too. His hands are steady and polite on Xingchen’s waist as they fly, keeping him balanced and flying straight, confident despite how terrifying it must be to rely on a blind near-stranger to keep one in the air. His steadiness in body is a contrast to his flighty mind, quick and clever and entirely unable to finish one thing before jumping on to the next. Xingchen thinks he hears a description of ten new talismans which Wei Wuxian apparently invented in the first two days of flying. Xingchen enjoys his company— he enjoys both of them. Maybe they should stay in touch properly, this time. 

    A-Qing certainly likes them, too, if only because they have new stories. Wei Wuxian is a wild storyteller, even if Xingchen suspects that his stories are not always accurate. Lan Wangji is more pragmatic, and strictly truthful, and his stories are sometimes stilted, but a-Qing seems enraptured by them anyways. Not to mention that Lan Wangji can apparently deny Wei Wuxian nothing, because it only takes minimal teasing and prodding before Lan Wangji takes a-Qing onto his own sword and shows off his best tricks. Dangerous tricks, if Zichen’s fingers digging bruisingly into Xingchen’s arm are any indication, but a-Qing never stops laughing uproariously, and they come down entirely safe.

    That night, a-Qing sleeps curled up nearby, exhausted with her adventure, and Xue Yang sleeps not-quite-ignored, and the four of them sit up talking. Wei Wuxian is teasing Lan Wangji again. 

    “Ah, Lan Zhan, don’t deny it! You’re too soft, especially for children. I know you would like more than a-Yuan.”

    There’s a frown in Lan Wangji’s voice. “A-Yuan is enough.”

    Wei Wuxian laughs. “Well of course he is! A-Yuan is the most perfect child in the world. But I see you on the train making your soft silly face at babies.” Xingchen’s memory of Lan Wangji’s face is practically non-existent, just an impression of seriousness, but it is still a funny thought, the Second Jade of Lan making faces at babies on the train.

    “Mn,” says Lan Wangji, and nothing else.

    “Ah, now you put on your mask and pretend you’ve never done anything like that! So cold, Hanguang-jun . Xiao- shishu , you must understand the struggle. Song- daozhang is so serious as well. How did we find such icy lovers?”

    Xingchen makes an involuntary noise, pained. Wei Wuxian still has laughter in his voice, but Xingchen is stricken. Zichen cold? Only in the most beautiful, perfect ways, cool, a balm to his heart. 

    “What is it, Xingchen?” Zichen asks, and Xingchen can feel him turn to him, so close that their clothes rustle together and Zichen’s breath is warm against his cheek.

    Xingchen needs him to understand. “I always liked that about you,” he confesses, quiet, “I liked it.”

    There’s something strange in Zichen’s voice now. “Liked what? That I was cold?” He pauses a moment. “I worried I would drive you away by not being enthusiastic enough.”

    Xingchen shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to put it into words. “It reminded me of home,” he says. 

    “I felt very welcomed on the mountain,” says Zichen, confusion in his voice.

    “No, not—” he doesn’t know what to say. “You know, you must have done it too. The mountain is cold. When you are coming down from the mountain, to come into China, you have to walk across the Tibetan plateau. It is cold, and you can always see the glaciers pouring down the mountains.” It has been a long time now since Xingchen saw those glaciers, but he remembers them, the weight of knowing that they were slowly and inexorably in motion. “The distant snow and cold frost,” Xingchen murmurs at last. “I liked that you were named as though you belonged in my home. I-”

    He hears Zichen sigh softly, not with exhaustion but gently, and then there are soft fingertips on his cheek. “Ah, Xingchen,” murmurs Zichen, tilting Xinchen’s face as he pleases, “bright moon, gentle breeze. How do you keep doing things which make me love you more?”

    The words strike Xingchen so deeply he gasps, and Zichen catches the breath in his own mouth as he kisses him. It’s deep but gentle, and Xingchen falls into it like sinking into a pool. When he surfaces again, drawing in air, he realizes there’s no noise from across the fire, no soft talking or sounds of Wei Wuxian’s constant shifting. He tilts his head, seeking the hints of where their companions have gone.

    Zichen huffs his quiet laugh and says “I think they’re giving us our privacy. They have gone to sleep,” then, after a moment, “Lan Wangji has gone to sleep. Wei Wuxian just winked at me.”

    Xingchen can’t help but laugh.

____________________

    Wei- gongzi says that there’s no reason a-Qing should have to miss seeing Lotus Pier, so they stop there one night on their way to Qinghe. 

    “It’s the most beautiful place ever,” Wei- gongzi calls to a-Qing as they fly. He’s kind of funny, a-Qing thinks, because he gets excited about pretty much everything. “Sorry Lan Zhan, I know you think that Cloud Recesses is the most beautiful. But it’s the only thing you’re wrong about. Lotus Pier is the most beautiful. A-Qing, this is the perfect season to see all the flowers in bloom and get to eat the seeds too! You’ll love it, I promise. Maybe you’ll love it so much you’ll want to become a Yunmeng Jiang disciple!” He laughs.

    Song- daozhang ’s arm tightens around her for a second, and she hears Xiao- daozhang make a loud, indignant noise. “How dare you, Wei Wuxian! Are you stealing my first disciple?”

    Not likely. A-Qing is staying with Xiao- daozhang and Song- daozhang forever, no matter how nice Lotus Pier is. She pats Song- daozhang ’s arm gently to comfort him. Then something else occurs to her, and she twists to look up at him. “Am I going to become a cultivator like you?”

    He smiles one of his tiny smiles down at her. “Only if you want to. You can take some time to think about it.”

    Song- daozhang gives her time to think about everything. It’s nice. She just nods and turns back around. They’re almost there and she wants to see the lake.

    The lake really is beautiful, the most beautiful place a-Qing has ever seen. There’s a whole town built right in the middle of it, and the town is absolutely surrounded by pink and green. Lan- gongzi leads them down to the dock, and when they land, a-Qing can see that those are flowers, floating on the surface of the water, swaying back and forth and crowding together. She stumbles off Song- daozhang ’s sword and runs to the edge of the dock, kneeling down to reach for a flower. She has to stretch out to reach one, but before she can she feels a hand grab the back of her t-shirt. “Careful,” says Song- daozhang , “I do not want to jump in.”

    “I do!” laughs Wei- gongzi behind them, “but first we have to do the important things. Come on, Lan Zhan, we can leave Xue Yang with the guards tonight and take a night off, but we should introduce everyone to Jiang- shushu and Madam Yu, or I’ll get in trouble for being rude. Or worse, Madam Yu will yell at Jiang Cheng when he gets back.” Jiang disciples in purple swarm around them as they come inside, and they all want Wei- gongzi ’s attention. Some of the smaller ones, smaller than a-Qing, even tug on Lan- gongzi ’s pant legs and chatter up at him. He looks like he’s listening closely. After a few moments, some of the disciples take Chengmei away and Wei Wuxian leads them all into a very beautiful building where an old man is bent over a desk writing a letter. The man jumps up to greet Wei- gongzi enthusiastically, and then calls out the window to someone. Moments later a beautiful woman sweeps in, holding a sword in one hand. 

    Wei- gongzi introduces everyone, but a-Qing is bored so she doesn’t pay very much attention. It’s all boring adult manners anyways. She pays enough attention to bow politely the way Xiao- daozhang taught her when her name is called, but mostly she just focuses on not fidgeting too much while her daozhangs talk to Madam Yu and Jiang- xiansheng . At one point, Jiang- xiansheng seems to notice that a-Qing is bored, because he nudges her playfully and hands her a small bowl of seeds that was sitting on his desk. They’re sweet, and she wants to eat them all, but she doesn’t, because that would be rude.

    Finally, the conversation winds down, and they turn to leave. A-Qing heads for the door as soon as she’s allowed— she wants to go back out to the lake— but Song- daozhang catches her by the shoulder and points her back towards Jiang- xiansheng . Right!

    “Thank you for the lotus seeds, Jiang- xiansheng !” she says, bowing again and then waiting until he acknowledges her thanks before grabbing Song- daozhang and Xiao- daozhang ’s hands and pulling them out of the room. Laughing, Xiao- daozhang catches her up in his arms before she can drag them right out to the docks.

    “Calm down, a-Qing,” he soothes, laughing when she wiggles, “we just need to sort out a few details for the evening, and then you can go look at the lakes all you want, I promise.” Huffing, annoyed, a-Qing settles down to wait, draped over Xiao- daozhang ’s shoulder.

    Wei- gongzi catches up to them and bends to poke his finger against her nose before saying “I was serious about wanting to jump into the lake, you know. Even if the daozhangs don’t want to go swimming, I could take a-Qing. I’m a strong swimmer, and if you’re really worried, Lan Zhan will probably come too, so she would be doubly safe.”

    Swimming! “Yes!” a-Qing shouts, and renews her wiggling so much that Xiao- daozhang nearly falls over before he manages to set her down.

    “I don’t know,” he says, frowning, and a-Qing pouts, grabbing his hand.

    “Please, Xiao- daozhang ? I would be very good. I want to go swimming, it’s so hot!”

    “You would have to listen to Wei- gongzi and Lan- gongzi and do whatever they said,” says Song- daozhang , but he seems more confident than Xiao- daozhang, who is holding a-Qing’s hand very tight.

    “I would, I promise,” says a-Qing, sensing her angle, “I would do everything they say even if it’s very boring.”

    Xiao- daozhang bites his lip, and then caves. “Alright, as long as you’re careful.”

    “Yes!”

_____________________

    Song Lan sits on the edge of the dock as the afternoon sun warms him, legs carefully tucked up beside him. Xingchen sits next to him, his feet dangling in the cool lake, robes rucked up around his knees. Even in Lotus Pier, ancestral home to the Jiang clan, surrounded by cultivators, the two of them stand out, Song Lan knows. Their everyday robes are perhaps old-fashioned, and their manners a bit stilted and formal. They get a few strange glances, sitting there, watching and listening to a-Qing learn to swim nearby. At least, she had been learning to swim. Careful lessons on front stroke seem to have been replaced by Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian throwing her bodily back and forth, letting her splash into the water each time before pulling her back up. She’s giggling madly in between each toss. Song Lan is glad they ran into the couple— he won’t give a-Qing up for anything, but he and Xingchen couldn’t have given her this, either. Now they have friends, friends who can help a-Qing learn things and be adventurous and help keep her safe. Not all of the time, just... sometimes. To give her new experiences. This is a good thing.

    The swimmers tire, eventually, and Lan Wangji helps a-Qing swim over to the dock where Song Lan and Xingchen are sitting, Lan Wangji’s hands steady and guiding, keeping her afloat as she kicks. Song Lan can see Xingchen tracking her movement by the sound of splashing, tilting his head down towards her as she reaches the dock and grabs onto his ankles. She beams up at them. Wei Wuxian pulls himself up onto the dock, and then offers his hands down to pull a-Qing up. 

    “Do I have to?” she whines, just a bit. Before Song Lan can answer, Lan Wangji taps her shoulder with the hand not holding her up. 

    “You promised,” he says, gently, and Song Lan can see now what kind of father he must be, strict but very kind. A-Qing caves, reaching her hands up to grab Wei Wuxian’s. Instead of a small boost, he yanks, and Lan Wangji helps by throwing a-Qing high in the air one more time. She soars, shrieking with delight, before Wei Wuxian catches her securely against his chest. 

    “Oof,” he grunts dramatically. “I forgot that you’re nine and a-Yuan is only five.” He sets her on the dock, where she stands, dripping from the ends of her hair and her borrowed Jiang shorts and t-shirt. She’s grinning wider than Song Lan has ever seen. 

    Song Lan himself offers a hand down to Xingchen, helping him stand but not letting go of his hand afterwards. He refuses to touch the dirty lake water, but Xingchen’s hand in his is different from almost any other touch— almost reassuring where any other touch is terrifying. He clings tight and lets himself revel in the warmth in his chest at the matching smiles on Xingchen and a-Qing’s faces. 

    Lan Wangji hoists himself out of the water and onto the dock, and Wei Wuxian, too, grins delightedly, reaching for his husband and kissing him square on the mouth. After a moment, he breaks away and whispers, not at all quietly, “Are you sure you don’t want more kids? We could totally kidnap a-Qing.” Even though he knows they’re joking, Song Lan’s heart clenches for a brief second. Xingchen’s hand tightens in his.

    “Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji reprovingly, but even he sounds amused. 

    A-Qing reaches out one wet hand to grab Xingchen’s free one and snorts. “You couldn’t kidnap me,” she says, and her tone says obviously , “I bite.”

    This makes Xingchen and Wei Wuxian laugh uproariously, and Song Lan meets Lan Wangji’s eyes and sees reflected there his own joy. 

    Song Lan and Xingchen spend the rest of the afternoon with Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, teaching some of the older juniors new sword forms. It’s fun , Song Lan thinks, in a way he thinks he hasn’t had fun since he left the temple to travel on his own. Xingchen’s form is still flawless, his body clearly remembering every step and swing perfectly, and he slows his movements to explain them. Song Lan in turn watches the students, catches their mistakes, and shows them how to fix them. They make a good team, and the Jiang juniors are good students. Before they go to supper, Song Lan agrees to test his skill against Lan Wangji in a friendly bout. 

    “The juniors mostly see Jiang Cheng fight, Song- daozhang , and Jiang Cheng is very impressive!” Wei Wuxian hastens to praise his brother, “but it’s good for juniors to see different fighting styles, and you’re far more measured and steady than the Jiang style. Besides, I know that Lan Zhan would love to test himself against the legendary Song Lan!” 

    Lan Wangji makes an indistinct noise, but he nods to Song Lan, so the juniors clear the practice field and they take their positions.

    The fight is short and fierce, and Song Lan thinks he holds his own quite well, but Lan Wangji is Hanguang-jun , a hero of the Sunshot Campaign and one of the Twin Jades. In the end, Song Lan’s sword goes flying before he can even see where Lan Wangji is going, and Bichen’s point is at Song Lan’s heart. He yields good-naturedly, and the juniors clamour around them, exclaiming. 

    Wei Wuxian doesn’t indulge them. “All right, back off, leave them alone. You’ve had your fun, kids. Hanguang-jun will teach you his tricks later,” he wades into the pool of juniors and slings his arm over Lan Wangji’s shoulders, making space for them to escape. He looks over at Song Lan and quirks a grin, “He’s too good, isn’t he? It’s those big, sweeping moves, they’re twice as fast as you think they can be. Lan Zhan, us mere mortals cannot compare.” 

    “Mn,” says Lan Wangji, but Song Lan can see red at the tips of his ears. 

    “ Hanguang-jun certainly lives up to his reputation,” says Song Lan as they reach Xingchen, and Xingchen slips his hand into Song Lan’s and they go with their friends to supper.

    With some reluctance, Xingchen and Song Lan let a-Qing spend the rest of her afternoon with the younger juniors, playing and exploring Lotus Pier. She’s flushed with heat and exercise when they meet her for supper, and full of stories to tell. For every story a-Qing has, Wei Wuxian has one crazier about the same spot. Supper is spent in laughter, and Song Lan is glad all over again for their new friends. 

    After supper, though, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji retire to their own quarters and Song Lan, Xingchen, and a-Qing have a moment entirely to themselves. It is more safety and privacy than they have had since Song Lan first arrived, and he revels in it. They walk down to a dock and sit again, Song Lan and a-Qing watching the pink-purple sunset and a-Qing describing the scene to Xingchen. A-Qing describes Lotus Pier in a blur of colours, the green and pink carpeting the water, the purple sky, and Song Lan thinks hold on . 

    “Lotus Pier is also rich in detail ,” he interjects at one point, “I particularly like the lotus and snake patterns on the walls.”

    He sees a-Qing look behind them at the walls quickly before she nods vigorously and says “They’re very pretty, Xiao- daozhang .”

    There are no snakes on the walls, and Song Lan knows that if a-Qing looked more closely, she would see it. He’s watched her trace her fingers perfectly over the details on Shuanghua’s scabbard and peer suspiciously at the greens he puts in her sandwiches before eating them. Still, perhaps they should get her vision checked.

    He does not bring it up now, just tucks the information away in his mind for a later date and slides a bit closer to a-Qing and Xingchen on the dock, close enough to feel the warmth of their bodies without touching. 

    “I think I want to be a cultivator too,” a-Qing says, after a few moments of silence, “the kids here are cool. And I want a sword.”

    Xingchen huffs a laugh and tucks a-Qing under his arm. “Alright,” he says.

    “We can start to teach you,” Song Lan says, and he reaches to tap her arm gently. “We can start right now. Sit up straight, close your eyes.” He smiles when she obeys quickly. “Good. Now pay close attention and we’ll teach you how to breathe.”

_________________________

    Lotus Pier is wonderful, but they do not linger longer than a day. They set out again in the morning, Jiang Fengmian and Madam Yu seeing them off from the docks, each giving Wei Wuxian a message to pass on to Jiang- zongzhu .

    They press on in earnest now, nowhere to stop and show off. Days they fly as steadily as their energy will let them, mindful of the attention and balance that a-Qing has to maintain, and keep themselves entertained telling stories about the landscapes they pass over. Nights, they talk about anything and everything, and Xingchen and Zichen are caught up on the complicated politics of the great sects while a-Qing and Xue Yang sleep. It is a pleasant trip, in fact, or it would be if not for Xue Yang. He is back to being obsessive and strange, now that his facade is ruined, and if he is not taunting Xingchen and Song Lan about how much Xue Yang took from Xingchen, he is begging for Wei Wuxian’s attention while he describes his tactics of demonic cultivation.

    Still, it is not as long as they think it will be before Beijing, the sound and smell of the city, is rushing up to meet them. They skirt around it, saving the experience of going in for a time when Xingchen and Zichen can devote their full attention to keeping an eye on a-Qing. Then, by that evening, they are flying up to the gates of the Unclean Realm, and a-Qing is shouting “It’s huge !”

    It is huge. Walking within the walls, Xingchen can feel the way they cloak him in shadow, can listen closely and just barely hear the sounds of Nie disciples up on the ramparts. The guards who met them lead them confidently through the maze of the fortress, and Xingchen cannot build a map in his head. They are met, eventually, by Zewu-jun . 

    “I regret that I am the one to meet you,” he says politely. His voice is gentle and melodic. “As I’m sure my brother has explained, Chifeng-zun is ill, and Nie- gongzi is already abed. Tomorrow, we will hear your news, but for tonight let me show you to some rooms.” 

    “We’ll make sure that the Nie disciples get Xue Yang all the way to the dungeons, don’t worry,” chirps Wei Wuxian, patting Xingchen’s elbow confidently, “We’ve got this now. Let Xichen -ge get you to a room so that you can rest and he can get back to Nie- zongzhu .” 

    So they do. Zewu-jun is nothing less than the perfect host, even in someone else’s home, and he chats with them as they walk and offers them tea and food before they sleep. He reassures them that either he or Lan Wangji will come in the morning to help them find their way around. “The Unclean Realm is difficult to navigate, even for those who have been here often,” he assures them, on his way out the door. Then they are alone again, waiting on a tray of tea and a late meal, and Xingchen can hear a-Qing flopping down on the bed.

    “We’re going to be lost here forever,” a-Qing says dramatically, “it’s so dark and confusing!”

    “We would be rescued eventually,” Zichen counters, dry in the way he always is, “Nie- zongzhu would send out search parties to find whoever was stealing all his treasure.”

    A-Qing giggles and it makes Xingchen smile too. He makes his way carefully over to the bed, which, like all of the Unclean Realm, seems to be bigger than anything Xingchen has ever experienced. Certainly big enough for the three of them, so that a-Qing doesn’t have to sleep elsewhere. Xingchen doesn’t think any of them would sleep well if they weren’t together.

    “Even the people are bigger here,” agrees a-Qing, when Xingchen mentions the size of the bed, “so they probably need bigger beds, too.”

    Zichen takes the opportunity for education (every day, Xingchen sees a new way that Zichen is perfect, perfect as a teacher for their hypothetical disciples, perfect as a parent for a-Qing, and every day Xingchen thinks he loves him more) and murmurs “the Nie fight with a sabre, and it means that their style relies more on strength than some others. You can watch them train sometime before we leave, if you like.”

    This sparks a whole conversation on fighting styles that lasts through their late supper and until they are curled up in bed, a-Qing curled between him and Zichen, trying to talk through her yawns. Xingchen drifts off to sleep on the feeling of safety.

________________________

    Nie Mingjue looks smaller than Song Lan remembers him, propped up on pillows in his bed. The imposing sect leader looks tired and pale, and his voice is quieter than Song Lan remembers the barking general from the days before the Sunshot campaign. His qi deviation had nearly killed him, and it shows. Despite that, however, his eyes are clear and sharp, and he addresses them with confidence. Lan Xichen stands at the right of his bedside, attentive both to the proceedings and whatever Nie Mingjue might need. Jiang Wanyin sits in one corner, fiddling with a ring which must be the famous Zidian. On the other side of the bed is Jin Guangyao, smiling pleasantly. Song Lan recalls from their conversations with Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian that Jin Guangyao had taken over the sect leadership when his brother had nearly died, and that Jin Zixuan, technically the younger brother if also the only legitimate one, had not pursued the position when he recovered. Xingchen and Song Lan himself stand just a bit to the side of the middle of the room. A-Qing is not with them, having been collected before this trial by Nie Huaisang, who had promised painting and exotic birds. 

    The door swings open, and Wei Wuxian walks in, swinging his flute carelessly. He’s followed by Xue Yang, in chains now, and then Lan Wangji, serious and stern. Xue Yang is thrust to the middle of the room, and Nie Mingjue clears his throat. 

    “Xue Yang,” he says, slowly. “You were to have been executed twice over, now. Something— or someone— has until now spared you, but your luck is running out. You will not leave Qinghe alive.”

    Xue Yang laughs, careless as always. “Are you sure, Nie- zongzhu ? You don’t look like you’re in such good condition yourself! There must be someone you want revenge on for this, hmm? I can be very helpful, you know. I’m good at assassinations.”

    Nie Mingjue growls, just a bit, and almost every eye in the room snaps to him. Not Song Lan, who knows better. He does not take his eyes off Xue Yang, but even so he’s not sure if he sees it right: Xue Yang, lightning-fast, tilting a wink at Jin Guangyao, who pales. 

    Then the room is back to rights, and Xue Yang is still laughing, taunting. 

    “Enough!” barks Jiang Wanyin, Zidian sparking warningly on his hand, and Xue Yang turns his attention to him.

    “Temper, temper,” he tsks, “wouldn’t want another sect leader to end up in his condition,” his head tilts towards Nie Mingjue again. 

    Jiang Wanyin ignores Xue Yang, turning instead to Xingchen and Song Lan and gesturing to them. “I have places to be, and I’m sure you want this over with. Tell us the new accusations.”

    Taxing as it is to try to explain everything over again, especially when they all agree that a-Qing should not have to be called as a witness if at all possible, the trial actually goes quite smoothly. The only incident of note is that, at the end, when the sect leaders declare that, unless the minor sects can bring any proof to exonerate him in a public trial, Xue Yang will be imprisoned for life, Xue Yang looks at Jin Guangyao and pouts “such betrayal, Jin- zongzhu . Was I not useful?” Nie Mingjue glares at Jin Guangyao for that, and Lan Xichen sets his hand on Nie Mingjue’s shoulder as if to settle him. Jiang Wanyin simply looks thoughtful, in his own angry way.

    Afterwards, Song Lan catches Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian outside the room. Xue Yang has been led away by the guards, but the sect leaders have stayed behind for discussion. Song Lan mentions the wink.

    “I saw it,” says Lan Wangji, nodding.

    “Jin Guangyao promised Nie Mingjue— and the rest of the sects I guess— that Xue Yang was securely imprisoned, and that the reason they would not turn him over to Nie custody was that they had convinced him to provide information about the Wen sect's secrets. They never told anyone that he had escaped.” Wei Wuxian is tapping his flute quickly against his thigh, eyes narrowed. “Xue Yang has been bothering me about that demonic cultivation... I wonder what he would tell me, if I promised him a good secret in return.”

    “Wei Ying,” 

    “Not one he could use to escape, obviously, Lan Zhan. Just an interesting tidbit, in exchange for what he told the Jin sect.”

    It seems like Lan Wangji has more to say on that, but then there is a shout of “ A-die!” from the end of the hallway, and they turn to see a small boy hurtling down the hall towards them. “ Fuqin!” the child shrieks. Behind him, a young man in jeans and a hoodie moves rather stiffly. 

    Wei Wuxian catches the child up in his arms, laughing. “A-Yuan! Are you running away from your uncle?”

    “No!” a-Yuan giggles as the young man catches up. Song Lan thinks he sees black lines running up the man’s neck, but he decides not to ask. Some things are none of his business, if Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian think it’s fine. 

    The conversation seems to be lost then as a-Yuan gleefully recounts the adventures of his morning. Lan Wangji looks up once and offers them a nod, an assurance that he will not forget what they discussed, and Song Lan takes a deep breath and reaches out to grab Xingchen’s hand. It feels as safe as always. He leans in, then, so close that Xingchen must feel his breath as he whispers “let’s go find a-Qing.”

    Xingchen shivers at his breath, then nods, and Song Lan doesn’t have to say what he knows they’re both thinking: Let’s go home.

_________________________

    A-Qing stands with Song- daozhang and Xiao- daozhang in front of the Unclean Realm, the thick walls behind them, and looks out at the plain ahead of them. There are a lot of people out to say goodbye to them, because they made a lot of friends in the past few days. They’ve already said goodbye to Lan- zongzhu and Nie- zongzhu , who had taken a-Qing aside by themselves the other day to ask her some questions about Chengmei and had rocked her when the questions made her cry. They were inside, because Nie- zongzhu was still sick. Nie- gongzi has come out to say goodbye instead, with two of his little songbirds sitting on one shoulder and a fan in his other hand. He crouches down to hold something out to her— another fan! 

    “You should always hold on to your first piece of art,” he says, tapping his own fan against the side of his nose and grinning at her. A-Qing grins back.

    “Thanks for painting with me, Nie- gongzi !” she says, bowing with her best manners. Nie- gongzi makes a silly face and bows back to her very deep, like he’s bowing to an emperor or something, which makes her laugh.

    He straightens up and says to her daozhangs , “Please do come back and visit! Visitors make it interesting and it can get boring out here. You’ll have to come back during the summer retreats, of course, though you’re always welcome to visit us in Beijing too!”

    There are other people to say goodbye to. Jiang- zongzhu , who a-Qing didn’t really talk to, though he did give her a piece of candy one time when Xiao- daozhang introduced him. Jin- zongzhu , who smiles all the time and doesn’t like anyone. And then Lan- gongzi and Wei Wuxian, who keeps telling her to call him Wuxian- ge , if she wants. Wei Wuxian ruffles her hair and says “see you around, kid. Don’t let your daozhangs wander around without ever visiting their friends, hey? I need to see my shishu more often, and a-Yuan would like to have a big cousin. Sort of. Anyways! I would say don’t get into any trouble, but that seems pretty boring. Get into just enough trouble!” He laughs, and a-Qing laughs too. She’s a bit sad to be leaving them behind. Wei Wuxian is a lot of fun. 

    As Wei Wuxian moves on to say goodbye to Xiao- daozhang and Song- daozhang , Lan- gongzi looks down at a-Qing. “Study hard,” he says quietly, “have fun. Be safe.” Lan- gongzi doesn’t talk much, but a-Qing thinks it’s probably because he has a lot of love stored up in him and it makes it hard to talk. Song- daozhang is like that sometimes too. She bows to Lan- gongzi, who bows back seriously, and then flickers her just a hint of a smile.

    Then they’re ready to go. A-Yuan waves to them from Lan- gongzi ’s arms, and Wei Wuxian shouts after them as they start to walk down the dusty path “I better see you within the year!” and Nie- gongzi ’s songbirds take flight above them, chirping.

    “Where are we going now?” A-Qing asks as Qinghe fades slowly into the distance. 

    “Where do you want to go?” asks Xiao- daozhang , tilting his head towards her. She skips beside him, feeling like she used to when they would decide together what to do that day, what kinds of adventures to have. She feels like she was missing Xiao- daozhang , and now he’s back. 

    “Everywhere, maybe,” she suggests, feeling greedy. Her daozhangs laugh, Xiao- daozhang bright like music and Song- daozhang quiet like wind.

    “We can go anywhere you like,” Xiao- daozhang says, “as long as there’s work for cultivators. But there’s work for cultivators everywhere.” He holds her hand tight in his, and a-Qing remembers him saying the same thing to her the day that they met, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm and leading her steadily along the path. She clings tighter to him, remembering the rest of the day.

    “And then,” adds Song- daozhang , “once we’ve travelled for a while, maybe we can pick a place to settle down. We could have a house, and maybe even some friends for you to learn cultivation with.”

    “Would you love them as much as me?” asks a-Qing, distracted from her memories and wrinkling her nose. She doesn’t want Xiao- daozhang and Song- daozhang to love anyone as much as they love her. They’re hers .

    “I don’t think I could love anyone quite like I love you,” says Xiao- daozhang seriously, and Song- daozhang nods. That’s not the same as loving the same amount, and a-Qing will learn this as she gets older, but by then it will be okay. Her daozhangs will always love her, and one day they will take in a little boy, and then twins, and then more children, and their small hut will grow to a bigger one, and then to a collection of buildings, and all those children will learn to cultivate and to care for each other and the world. But for now that answer is enough.

    “I think that would be okay. At least,” a-Qing considers, “I do want a house. Once we’ve travelled everywhere in China, though.”

    They all laugh again, and Xiao- daozhang bends down and sweeps her up onto his steady shoulders, and Song- daozhang reaches up and brushes his sleeve over her hand and Xiao- daozhang ’s cheek. “Let’s go home,” says Song- daozhang , and Xiao- daozhang tilts his head towards him and repeats it. A-Qing feels it like a shiver right down her spine.

    “Let’s go home.”