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The last of the drizzle gently pattered onto the roof tiles of Rain Village’s only town hall that also doubled as the village’s only clinic, as Wu Xie pushed open the weathered door into humid air. The single-storey brick building had seen better days, weathering rain and sunshine since the 1950s. Strips of once-white paint clung stubbornly to the red-brick underneath, moss thriving in the exposed cracks, rain dripping through from broken roof-shingles.
The checkup reiterated what Wu Xie already knew and the last checkups confirmed, he was as healthy as he could get. However, if he used that as an excuse to skip the checkups Pangzi would have dragged him here by the ear. Xiaoge would have just picked him up bridal style and carried him through the village to the town hall. While Xiaoge would have been unbothered, even Wu Xie's thick face was not thick enough. His face would have endured a fireman carry but his lung wouldn’t. The back pain and cough persisted, but it no longer felt like his body would cough his lungs up. It was to be expected; at least, the foreign matter and the toxins that had invaded his body all those years ago showed no signs of returning.
Moving through the damp air felt like wading through thick molasses; Wu Xie felt sweat pooling in the small of his back, and lines of it dripping down his face. The meandering stroll back to their new place just on the edge of the village was accompanied by the buzz of annoying fruit flies swarming around the fruit trees that lined the pebbled path.
Elderly men and women chatted over work, their slower speech joined by the lively chatter of grandchildren screaming, laughing, and running wild. Wu Xie was greeted with smiles and the latest village gossip; these stubborn old men and women had stayed back in the village while their sons and daughters left for the cities in search of better opportunities. They had left their children behind in the care of grandparents as they worked toward a better life. Wu Xie stopped to exchange pleasantries with Granny Li, an experience that more or less embodied an elder attempting to match-make him and her granddaughter who apparently would be returning home for Chinese New Year. Fending off the persistent well-intentioned nagging and waving farewell, Wu Xie continued on the pebbled path, absentmindedly reminding himself to call his grandmother this weekend.
In no time at all, he could see the tall red-brick walls surrounding the siheyun at the end of the path. Faded red tiles on the two-storey houses around all four sides of the courtyard peeked shyly above the walls. After everything that went down in the City of Thunder, they had needed a quiet place to recuperate. In the end, they had decided on Rain Village mostly because the siheyun was free and no one knew who they were. How exactly it ended up in Pangzi's possession and then transferred to Wu Xie, was a long and involved story full of missed opportunities, betrayal, and heartache; at least they got the house out of that whole fucked up venture.
As Wu Xie got closer to the entrance – a tall wooden gate, stubbornly held on to the last vestiges of its original red paint – he could hear voices coming from inside. Pangzi's loud laugh filtered out into the street, accompanied by an answering drawl. Three months have passed since their crazy journey into the City of Thunder and the subsequent events, and Wu Xie was hit with a sudden longing deep in his bones to be surrounded by his loved ones.
He picked up his pace and walked through the dull red wooden gate, immediately greeted with the smell of leather and an arm around his shoulder. "I’ve been here for roughly two hours now," Hei Xiazi smirked. "If you hadn't walked through the door, they were gonna send me to the village to hunt you down. Some shit about not eating before you got home." Hei Xiazi looked the same as ever, comfortable in his own skin and his shoulders in the relaxed slouch that made people mistake him for a lazy bum. "Also, the fucking fatty won't let me help. You burn the rice once –”
Pangzi roared, "It was a non-stick pan, you fucker!"
"Wu Xie!" Xiuxiu yelled, interrupting the likely avalanche of an epic tirade on the wonderous properties of Pangzi’s non-stick pan. She flapped one arm in a wave, pulling Xiao Hua with the other, bulldozing through any unlucky person in her way. Elbowing Hei Xiazi out of the way, she rushed forward to hug Wu Xie; Hei Xiazi huffed in indignation but stepped aside nonetheless. Xiao Hua followed with a longer, gentler hug. "You look well," He spoke, taking in the sight of Wu Xie, looking for signs of deterioration and finding none. Xiao Hua was in another pink shirt that probably cost more than the house they were living in. Wu Xie laughed and hugged the two of them close. "I wasn't expecting any of you until next week!"
"It was a surprise," Xiuxiu giggled. She was in a canary yellow short-sleeved dress that would have washed anyone else out, but no color palette would dare overwhelm Huo Xiuxiu. Her hair was slightly shorter than the last time he saw her, resting just slightly above her shoulders. She hooked an arm through Wu Xie’s left arm, and Xiao Hua smiled at the two of them indulgently before he hooked his own arm through Wu Xie's right. The three of them headed to the center of the courtyard with Hei Xiazi following behind.
A long wooden table had already been set up under the plum tree, covered with a blue tablecloth. Pangzi was putting down plates and bowls filled with beautifully plated food, and Xiaoge was leaning against the tree. He turned towards Wu Xie, his lips ticked up slightly, almost undetectable if Wu Xie hadn’t made a career out of examining every single change in Xiaoge’s face. Wu Xie wouldn’t call himself an expert, but he was at the very least a talented amateur in curating every one of Xiaoge's facial expressions. Wu Xie beamed at him, and Xiaoge’s gaze turned soft. "Welcome home."
…
Wu Xie was surrounded by the people he cared for most in the world. Pangzi on his right, telling him about his latest money-making scheme - something involving the Gobi desert and tourists. While Xiaoge sat silently on his left, exuding calm and amusement at Pangzi’s antics. Xiao Hua sat with Xiuxiu opposite Wu Xie, and as usual, they were going through their weird and formal mating dance, which involved Xiao Hua swiping away on his phone and Xiuxiu chatting about the stock market. This had been going on for nearly an hour, and it didn’t seem it would end anytime soon. Hei Xiazi sat beside them shoveling fried rice into his mouth, chiming in occasionally with ideas on Pangzi's Great Tourism Escapade, before turning around to ask Xiuxiu a question about the current stock market. Wu Xie was surrounded by his family, the people who had walked with him through hell and back, who always supported him and loved him without a word of true complaint.
This was honestly the perfect time.
"So,” he casually picked a cup of wine, “I'm going to break into Warehouse 11 again to rescue my clone; anyone interested in helping out?"
Honestly, the doppelganger was one of the dangling mysteries in his life that he could potentially get some solid answers about. Hence, he was going to break in, rescue his doppelganger/clone/poor random stranger that got shanghaied into plastic surgery to look like him for nefarious, possibly world-ending, purposes by a power-hungry thousand-year-old-cult, and get some answers.
Wu Xie had long accepted the fact that his life was an online novel.
Pangzi choked on his beer, Xiao Hua looked up from his phone, and Xiuxiu paused in her deeply involved monologue on hedge funds. Hei Xiazi had actually stopped eating to listen to Xiuxiu but was now focused on Wu Xie with a look that screamed that Wu Xie was being a fucking idiot of untold new heights. And Xiaoge, well, Xiaoge stared at Wu Xie with laser-focused intensity as if he was trying to see into his head. Wu Xie sat back, silent and calm, and waited for their questions.
Pangzi was the first to respond. "Why in the Eighteen Levels of Hell would you go back to that cursed shit hole? Why would I want to go back?"
Xiao Hua nodded lightly. "I'm curious as well. As far as I’m aware, there’s nothing there that we need anymore."
Hei Xiazi took a long sip of his beer and sat back like an audience member at a spectator sport.
Xiaoge didn't move, gaze calm and steady, as he waited for Wu Xie to explain.
"So, the coffin thing I was in showed me some visions -”
"Yeah, San Shu, Chen Wenjin, their star-crossed romance, the aliens that crashed in the bronze meteorite from thousands of years ago, yada-yada-yada," Pangzi interrupted, waving his hand around. "What do aliens have to do with this? Wait, the X-Files was right? The government is holding the aliens as prisoners!"
"No, they aren't holding the aliens as prisoners! At least, I don't think they - look, that's not the point! The point is that they’re holding a clone or a copy of me in a basement somewhere in Warehouse 11, and it told me in a vision to seek it out when I returned from the City of Thunder."
That derailed Pangzi from whatever else he was going to say. Everybody silently digested the new piece of information as they tried to figure out if this was even worth the effort.
"Well, shit. So, alien-hybrid-clone is a thing," Hei Xiazi gleefully broke into the silence.
…
So, they were going to break into Foye's top-secret, high-level security government facility, full of fucking cultists who worshipped the greatness that was Foye, polluted down to the bone with corruption. Wu Xie wondered if Foye had foreseen his setup eventually transforming into a breeding ground for complete nutcases who couldn’t survive in the real world and creating a society based on superstition and fucked-up rituals.
Also, complete dicks, all of them.
From the stories Wu Xie had heard, he felt that Foye himself would have nuked Warehouse 11 in its current form out of existence. So honestly, what he was planning to do was harmless and completely acceptable.
Wu Xie actually felt it would be a much simpler excursion now since he had already done it once before. That optimism only lasted until Hei Xiazi came back from his surveillance with unfortunate news. (Wu Xie had asked Hei Xiazi why he wanted to join this venture when Wu Xie honestly didn't have the cash to pay him. Hei Xiazi had stared at Wu Xie as if the brain he was known for was filled with horse shit instead of intelligence. "You’re breaking into Zhang Da Foye's pet project. Zhang. Da. Foye." He could see the irresistible challenge it posed, to break into something your idol had built, but it wasn't a real challenge if Wu Xie and Pangzi had managed to do so with minimal fuss. "Alien. Hybrid. Clone." Wu Xie didn't really have an adequate response to that beyond, "I don't know if it’s an actual alien hybrid clone." Those dark reflective glasses had judged Wu Xie very hard. That had been the end of that conversation.).
"After the last time Wu Xie broke in and then fired from Warehouse 11, security has been completely overhauled, with some major changes to the power behind the scenes," Hei Xiazi said as he slapped some photos onto the table: patrol schedules and personnel data.
On one hand, Wu Xie admired any major bureaucratic institution that actually reacted and revised policies and regulations when something went wrong. On the other hand, Wu Xie's original plans to break in again were now pretty much defunct. (On a completely petty level, Wu Xie also fucking hated nearly all the staff of Warehouse 11. If he could make their days a little bit shittier, he would do so with extreme enthusiasm.).
After much discussion (the plans getting progressively stupider as they drank too much tea, beer, and some sort of herbal mix that gave everyone the runs except for Xiao Hua and Xiaoge, who hydrated with water, like actual grownups), Xiuxiu triumphantly turned up a map of the facility dating back to the 1950s.
"As much as the city has been demolished and rebuilt in the past 70 years, the basic sewer system has been pretty much the same," Xiuxiu explained as she pointed out the pipelines on the map. "Newer connecting tunnels have been built and put in place, but the system under Warehouse 11 has been almost exactly the same since the '50s."
It was always easier to get information when you had the combined powers of the Xie and Huo Family heads greasing the way. Wu Xie was unsure exactly how many deep-cover agents the Xie family still had entrenched in the many levels of the government. He knew that Xie Jiuye had slowly infiltrated, killed, and replaced personnel since the '70s, but how many of those and newer contacts were still active was always in question. Xie Jiuye was a scary motherfucker with foresight and some legit beef with Foye.
They all looked at the map, and Wu Xie took a deep, slow breath, feeling the soft vibration of air in his overtaxed lungs. He tapped the table in thought, processing the new information. After a few minutes, his fingers paused, then traced the lines that indicated the sewer system. Pangzi groaned in anguish. "So, same shit?"
"It’s what we know and do best - crawl through dank, damp, dark spaces," Wu Xie said.
"We’re going through the sewer system?" Pangzi pleaded, hoping for a better option.
"We’re going through the sewer system," Wu Xie confirmed.
Moving on, they examined the guards’ rotation schedule and the new security system. "Xiuxiu and I can get you through the new security locks. You'll need to get as many keycards from the guards as you can," Xiao Hua said, then shrugged at Wu Xie's questioning look. "The Xie and Huo families have been doing some research into new technology that we haven't released to the general public yet."
"It’s buggy as hell, but better than nothing. We will most likely scrap the whole thing later because government oversight is a torment we don’t need," Xiuxiu said. Yes, better get rid of anything that certain sections of the Party could nail them to the wall for. They had rooted out as many of the Wang Family and government agents as they could several years ago, but who knew if some had escaped the purge, biding their time to strike when they were least expected. The Wu, Xie, and Huo Families had initiated several cleanup operations since then; their families were as secure as they could be from outside influence. The rest of the Nine Gate Family were slower, but all of them are recovering. And who the hell knew what the Zhang Family was doing; their presence on the mainland was still almost nonexistent, the bulk of their power base being overseas. Xiaoge probably knew, but it wasn’t Wu Xie’s place to ask, no matter what Zhang Haike tried to insinuate.
They talked through further details until Wu Xie was happy at the structure of the plan. It wasn't great, but it was what they had given the constraint of no dying on the mission. Wu Xie just wanted this done as soon as possible.
"The plan is for -"
"I'm coming with you," Xiaoge interrupted, his tone brooking no argument. Wu Xie and Xiaoge locked eyes until Wu Xie took a slow, deep breath and nodded in agreement. In many ways, it was comforting to know that both Pangzi and Xiaoge would be with him.
"Pangzi, Xiaoge, and I will infiltrate the facility through pipeline thirteen," Wu Xie said, finger moving over the map. "We’ll locate and extract the clone." He turned to Hei Xiazi and tapped the map lightly. "Hei Xiazi will come along to support the three of us in case we have to engage the enemy. Xiao Hua and Xiuxiu will be providing a distraction outside the facility via localized and controlled explosions. The two of you need to be fast, and set them off from a distance; you can track us via our comms."
"That's nice, but how are you going to find your evil twin?" Pangzi asked.
"I was thinking that the guardian children might know," Wu Xie said and grinned winningly in the ensuing silence. The look Pangzi threw at him could strip paint, and Wu Xie threw his hands up in surrender. "Kidding! I saw the door number and floor where my evil twin is being held in my vision."
…
The plan didn’t disappoint their track record. In that, it was going well until it went sideways. Objectively, Wu Xie thought it was practically an improvement on some of the shit that had happened in the past year. Their progress through the sewers was unsettlingly smooth. There were no guards or additional security- a clear oversight someone was going to pay for after tonight. Wu Xie really hoped it was one of the fuckwits that had made his previous stay at the warehouse hell.
Wriggling through some of the smaller pipelines ensured that they were increasingly, unpleasantly damp with the sewer fluid as they progressed. Wu Xie honestly didn't want to know what his clothes were now soaked in as he squeezed through the narrow tunnels. The smell had killed most of his scant scent receptors- a godsend. Adding icing to the shitty cake, Pangzi accidentally elbowed him in the kidneys as he squeezed past, aggravating his already aching back, while the cherry was Wu Xie's comm unit making its grave in the dank and dirty sewer water. After much crawling in tight spaces and avoiding putting his hands in indefinable substances with minimal success, they finally reached an opening into Warehouse 11.
It was covered by an iron grate rusted enough to have stood for decades. Xiaoge gently nudged Wu Xie aside. After silently studying the iron grate for a few seconds, he pushed his fingers into the cracks on either side of the grate. It came loose with a twist and hardly any sound. Not for the first time, Wu Xie reminded himself to ask exactly what the maximum strength those fingers were capable of. The four of them stood squashed together, Pangzi softly counting under his breath while the rest of them waited in silence. Fifteen minutes into their wait, the sound of a series of explosions could be heard in the distance, the vibrations large enough that they felt a slight shake.
"How many explosives did they bring?" Pangzi asked with morbid curiosity, as Xiaoge lifted himself through the opening.
"Enough that I want to know who their supplier is," Hei Xiazi said with too much curiosity. "Also, I better get free laundry service after this. Leather is hard to clean. Hell, I might need a whole new jacket; that’s going to be such a pain to break in."
Xiaoge reached down and pulled Wu Xie up; calloused hands secure and warm against Wu Xie's cold ones. They both reached down to pull up Pangzi, who wheezed about how he was getting a little too old for this shit. Hei Xiazi climbed up and placed the iron grate back into the opening, and without looking at them he moved to the fork in the corridor, disappearing into the right.
The three of them took the left turn, with Xiaoge in the lead, Pangzi in the rear, and Wu Xie in the middle. Wu Xie honestly didn’t know if it was a formation which they fell into consciously. The explosions caused by Xiao Hua and Xiuxiu did attract the attention of most of the guards. Unfortunately, the “improved” guidelines implemented after Wu Xie got fired and the review of the place led to Pangzi being discovered by a team of guards on their second round of patrol. Thankfully, Xiaoge moved before anyone could react, coming from behind and hitting each guard in the temple with a sharp chop of his hand. The guards fell to the floor before they could call for help.
While resolved, it proved to be an excellent indicator of how the rest of their venture was going to go. It took them longer than expected to reach the floor in Wu Xie's vision, meaning they had to duck more guards returning to their posts, in turn meaning that Wu Xie had to adjust their plan to factor in the possibility of everything going pear-shaped. For one hot second, Wu Xie thought about just gassing the whole fucking place, but quickly abandoned the idea- too many logistics, and frankly, would be impossible with the technology the warehouse was installed with.
Finally, they found the right room. Pangzi knelt down to inspect the lock, which of course required a keycard and a fingerprint scan. Thanks to Xiao Hua’s reminder, they had picked up all the staff keycards of the people they had knocked unconscious on this level. Unabashedly Wu Xie expressed more than just a little bit of glee when he watched Xiaoge take down some very familiar-looking faces. It wasn't as satisfying as personally tasering them, but thieves couldn’t be choosers. "Hua Ye, I hope you can get this open because this is beyond us," Pangzi said into his comm, and whatever he got in reply made him snicker. He looked through the keycards until he found the one that appeared to be what Xiao Hua needed. Pangzi swiped the card over the lock. In three seconds, the light on the lock turned green with a beep, and the door swung open inward.
Inside, the room was dark and cool; the smell of antiseptic and cleaning chemicals cut through the air. Something- a humanoid figure- shifted in the dark in one corner; it was curled in on itself, breathing rapidly.
Xiaoge entered the room first, Pangzi guarding the entrance. Wu Xie stepped into the dark and stretched out one hand to the figure. "I'm a little late, but I'm here now." His fingers trembled with nervousness; the vision was several months old, and while he was sure that he had been asked to come here, he couldn't be a hundred percent certain that it wasn't a hallucination brought on by blood loss.
There was a second’s pause before a hand reached out from the dark corner. Xiaoge made to snap the wrist, but Wu Xie motioned for him to stay back. The hand didn't pause as it grabbed Wu Xie's hand. Wu Xie returned the grip and pulled; the figure unfurled from the corner as Wu Xie pulled it up. It seemed to lose its balance halfway and fell onto Wu Xie.
Similar eyes stared back at Wu Xie, and a wide grin split its face. "You came."
…
The doppelganger looked almost exactly like Wu Xie, with minor differences – longer hair, leaner, packed with muscle rather than all skin and bones. Its eyes kept moving, taking in its surroundings, but they stayed the longest on Wu Xie, and then Xiaoge. Its gaze was a heavy weight between Wu Xie's shoulders as it silently followed behind them. Wu Xie had the suspicion that it could travel way faster but was keeping to their pace, curious about their actions, and what they had planned for it in the future. Wu Xie noticed that it wasn’t weak, not like in his vision when it crawled over the concrete floor and stared through the windowpanes at the people who dared cage it like a beast in the basement. It could easily be plotting their murders as much as wanting a warm meal.
They got out. Hei Xiazi had to set off the fire alarm inside the facility. Wu Xie didn't want to think about what Er Shu would do if he found out what Wu Xie had done. He would have his suspicions, but actual confirmation would lead to nothing good.
They got out without anyone the wiser.
…
“You’re just going to let it stay with us?” Pangzi incredulously asked Wu Xie. It didn’t help that almost everyone who was still present was looking at Wu Xie as if he had finally lost his mind.
(Xiao Hua and Xiuxiu had left almost as soon as the doppelganger was brought back to Rain Village; they still had a multibillion-yuan business to run. Reclaiming the Xie fortune took way too much time and effort for them to let it slide through their fingers just because they had to go and explore some tombs or break into a top-secret facility.
Before he left, Xiao Hua had spoken with Wu Xie, who avoided meeting his gaze directly. “I trust you, but you’re hiding something from us. Don’t go running off on your own, okay?” Wu Xie had finally returned the look, his lips quirked up in a small smile. "I won't; take care of yourself and Xiuxiu." Xiao Hua had sighed and reached out to hug Wu Xie; he held on with all his strength, as if afraid that Wu Xie would disappear like a mirage, air slipping through fingers, letting go reluctantly. With one final gaze at Wu Xie, he left with Xiuxiu after that.
Sometimes, Wu Xie was reminded of how well Xiao Hua understood him; they were too similar and had essentially walked the same path, if not in detail, then in its outline. It was hard for Xiao Hua not to see the nebulous shape of Wu Xie’s plan.)
Hei Xiazi kept staring at the doppelganger, or maybe he was staring at the silk print on the wall, which was a nifty piece of work from the sixth century that wasn't worth much but which Wu Xie liked. Then again at the end of the day, who knew what he was staring at; Wu Xie had spent more than two years getting his ass handed to him by Hei Xiazi every single day, and he still didn’t know what Hei Xiazi thought of him half the time.
Xiaoge remained silent throughout the whole trip, fairly standard by now. Wu Xie needed to be careful; he needed to strike a balance. Of course, he was plotting something; he was almost always plotting when he needed something. However, this needed to be a plan that Pangzi and Xiaoge would figure out, predicting Wu Xie’s final outcome, as he dictated it.
…
Pangzi finally left the room, swearing up a storm and gesturing wildly with his hand. Hei Xiazi trailed after him, looking disappointed. The doppelganger watched on, fascinated by all the interaction and the rhythm of their dynamics. Xiaoge finally moved from where he had been keeping an eye on all the exits and the doppelganger in the corner of the room towards Wu Xie, never turning his back on the person who had Wu Xie’s face.
“Er Shu will know,” Xiaoge said calmly as he stopped next to Wu Xie, not bothering to hide what he was saying from the intruder. “Hei Xiazi and I can run interference.” Wu Xie felt satisfaction at Xiaoge’s implicit trust that he was doing this for the right reasons, and that he wasn’t going to fuck them all over on a whim. “Thank you.” Wu Xie reached out to touch Xiaoge on the shoulder, both in acknowledgment and as a way to ground himself in the present. Xiaoge nodded and left without a backward glance, and for a second, Wu Xie felt his world shift. It was as if the ground he was on was going to swallow him whole, the air all escaping in a rush to follow in Xiaoge's wake. It was something he now almost always felt every time Xiaoge left, the deeply buried fear that Xiao Ge would disappear from his life like before.
He shook off the lingering thoughts and refocused on his own face, only to see that his copy’s eyes were tracking Xiaoge’s departure from the room. The gaze was intent, and if Wu Xie could trust himself on this, he almost thought there was a hint of desperate want before the expression smoothed once more, like the surface of a placid lake.
Things would change and remain the same; Wu Xie would ensure it, he will protect them.
…
Wu Xie spent as much time as he physically could with the doppelganger, and it wasn’t until midway through the day that he realized that they didn't actually know what to call it. Wu Xie refused to keep on calling the person that looked like him a doppelganger. And no, alien-hybrid clone was not an option, despite Hei Xiazi’s persistent, irritating suggestions. Wu Xie was trying to build a relationship with his look-alike, not fucking accidentally train the next world-ending villain, because fuck, this was his life, and if he knew one thing for sure, it was that that was how shit would go if he wasn’t careful.
So when he had finally remembered to ask whether his doppelganger had a name, it turned to look at Wu Xie with sparkling eyes.
"Qi Yu," it said, voice husky with disuse, cold amusement ringing through loud and clear.
Wu Xie felt – felt nothing. It was as if his senses had gone offline; he couldn’t hear anything but the beating of his heart and the blood rushing through his veins and the deep cold in his lungs. He didn’t know how long he stood there, unmoving and unable to think, but reality did eventually come rushing back with the force of a punch. He felt the name Qi Yu reverberate in his bones and set his teeth on edge as the outside noises pierced his overstimulated ears. Adrenaline flooded his system, and he felt his body suddenly tense as it prepared to fight or flee. And the doppelganger – no, Qi Yu – just sat there and looked at Wu Xie, taking in every minute change in his body, fascinated and so very amused.
“I have waited a very long time to meet you, Wu Xie,” Qi Yu said, the man whose habits and mannerisms Wu Xie had been made to imitate since he was a child. His grandfather and San Shu had made him learn Shou Jin, the out-dated Slender Gold calligraphy style, and it wasn’t until years later that Wu Xie discovered that this was so that his handwriting would resemble Qi Yu’s script. Somewhere deep down, Wu Xie had known that there was a possibility that the man with his face in his vision could be Qi Yu, but Wu Xie hadn’t wasted time dwelling on it. He had reached a level of inner peace, in that coffin in the City of Thunder. Sitting in front of him now, however, and watching him in fascination, was a figure that had touched every aspect of Wu Xie’s life, and who could finally provide some answers to the mysteries in it.
Qi Yu preempted Wu Xie’s questions as if he knew what he was thinking. “I don’t know why your uncle and grandfather decided I was the enemy,” Qi Yu said, with a level of fondness that blindsided Wu Xie. “I admit I did have some associations with ‘it’, but only a few times. I never actively set out to hurt the Wu clan or the rest of your little Nine Gate Family.” Qi Yu shrugged rather philosophically. “But I do admit, I might have poked the hornet nest a few times to get a reaction. Your third uncle always gave the most interesting responses. Oh, wait, I suppose it was your third uncle and Xie Lianhuan. I could never tell which of them was playing the role of your uncle on a day-to-day basis. And I couldn’t access that basement of theirs. Your grandfather was too cautious.”
Well. Fuck. As a power move to demonstrate just exactly how much Qi Yu knew, this was fucking terrifying.
…
It was two days into the "fated-to-fail" venture, as Pangzi had dubbed it, or as Wu Xie secretly called it, “Get as much information from the possible immortal as he can” – it was a working title. Wu Xie was still trying to process it; it was great to get answers, but Qi Yu had been surprisingly squirrelly about his responses. Everything he said, either Wu Xie had already figured out himself, or at least guessed, based on the evidence he had. It was pretty much just confirmation at this point, which made Wu Xie more suspicious and antsy. Two days later, Xiaoge returned from what Wu Xie assumed was a mission to turn Er Shu’s attention elsewhere. As no groups of well-dressed men or military personnel had appeared in the village to take Qi Yu back to his basement home, or kick Wu Xie out of his own new rickety home, he was pretty sure Xiaoge had succeeded.
Hei Xiazi left a week into this whole business of trying to teach the clearly feral Wu Xie clone more about the wonders of humanity. There were no aliens in sight, and he had better things to do than watch this fiasco burn to the ground. Wu Xie punched Hei Xiazi in the arm as he walked past. "Thanks for all the help and not asking questions. I can't really afford you, but the next time you need to save my ass, I'll buy you dinner," Wu Xie said, a grin on his face. Hei Xiazi smirked back and punched him right back in the arm. Wu Xie winced; the fucker definitely used more force than Wu Xie had, and he was going to have a fist-sized bruise tomorrow. “Take care of yourself,” Hei Xiazi said, those black reflective surfaces turned towards Wu Xie. “I don’t want to know what you have planned; it isn’t my place. But let me know if you need help; don’t be an idiot and try to go at it alone.” Hei Xiazi didn’t wait for a response and turned and walked out of the faded red gate.
Wu Xie stood in silence until the lone figure clad all in black disappeared into the distance.
…
For two weeks, Pangzi refused to leave Wu Xie alone with Qi Yu. “Look, he might be some idiot who got forced into plastic surgery to look like you, though considering what you told me about Qi Yu, and how he was locked up in Warehouse 11, I doubt that. And fine, he hasn’t decided to murder us all in our sleep yet, but he ain’t right!” Pangzi pointed at Qi Yu, who was sitting next to Wu Xie, to emphasize his point. Qi Yu’s face was blank but his eyes were focused intensely on the two of them like they were some interesting specimens he wanted to dissect. “See?!” As if supporting Pangzi’s sentiment, Qi Yu bared his teeth in a slow grin. Pangzi had cursed at the crazy and walked away.
It was obvious that Qi Yu liked poking at them to get a reaction; Wu Xie had seen the very minute tilt to his lips when Pangzi, in a fit of aggressive fear, had brought in a statue of Buddha, a Cross, and some sort of religious beads, and left it in Qi Yu’s room. The man was at Xiaoge’s level of micro-expressions while probably carrying out threat assessments in his mind the entire time. Nevertheless, Wu Xie recognized the half-amused, half-fond expression on Qi Yu’s face when he looked at Pangzi; Wu Xie had worn it often enough in Pangzi’s presence. The terrifying thing was that if Wu Xie hadn’t completely dreamed up his vision, then Qi Yu obviously had some direct link to Wu Xie’s brain- the question was whether it was 24/7 high definition or trying to download a picture on a shitty ‘90s dial-up modem. Wu Xie was terrified to ask, He didn’t want to hear what Qi Yu would say, didn’t want anyone to know his most intimate thoughts, and his actions during those long years after Xiaoge left him on Changbai Mountain.
Except that wasn’t true anymore; now, Wu Xie talked, grabbing at the chance to let out everything he couldn’t say to those he loved, and Qi Yu absorbed all of it. Wu Xie showed Qi Yu his journals, giving him more access to those lines of ink than any other living being, and Wu Xie dimly wondered what it must feel like for Qi Yu to look at those slender strokes that looked like his own, narrating a life that wasn’t his. Wu Xie spoke a lot: he talked about his family, how he grew up, the places he visited, his friends. He spoke, and the living breathing person with his face stared back at him, listening to every word as if saving them for a rainy day to inspect in more detail.
Wu Xie started taking walks around the village with Qi Yu; they told the old folk that Qi Yu was Wu Xie’s twin. Qi Yu stood next to Wu Xie, back straight and engaged in the smallest of details, fascinated by all these people who swarmed Wu Xie, In front of strangers, he was calm and polite, without any hint of the otherworldly or predatory air that he often evinced in front of Xiaoge and Pangzi. The two of them took these walks in silence, Xiaoge or Pangzi following at just enough distance to give them a sense of privacy, but close enough that they could run to help if Qi Yu suddenly turned crazy and decided to go after Wu Xie. And Wu Xie, on these quiet walks, wondered if what he was going to do was the right thing.
…
In the second month, Wu Xie and Qi Yu had their first spar. It was Wu Xie’s idea, as almost all of their interactions were. Pangzi and Xiaoge stood by to monitor because neither of them trusted Qi Yu enough to let Wu Xie fight him without supervision. The fight started slow; Wu Xie wasn’t at a hundred percent, and he was fighting someone unfamiliar. He was trying to figure out the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, except that Qi Yu didn’t have any weaknesses which Wu Xie could truly exploit. It was like fighting a mirror image – no, it was like fighting his shadow, someone who knew all the dirty tricks he had learned under Hei Xiazi, but more refined and efficient. For every attack, Qi Yu had a defense that Wu Xie knew by heart; it was just Qi Yu’s moves were a touch faster and more practiced than anything Wu Xie himself could deliver. The longer they went on, the more Wu Xie fell into a tempo, a rhythm – Qi Yu deflected his right hooks with his right hand, then shifted his hips to avoid Wu Xie’s punch from the left. Wu Xie felt as if he had fallen into a trance; his body moved as if it knew that the other person would avoid all the damage he was trying to do while the latter smoothly launched attacks that Wu Xie could himself deflect.
“Enough.” Xiaoge’s quiet voice broke whatever meditative state Wu Xie had reached; only then did he become aware of his surroundings once more. He was drenched in sweat and gasping harshly. Right in front of his face was Qi Yu’s fist, which would definitely have hit its mark if Xiaoge hadn’t called the spar to an end. Qi Yu dropped his arm, stepped back from Wu Xie, and turned to face Xiaoge fully. Wu Xie didn’t know if it was something that had leaked from his brain into Qi Yu's or if Qi Yu had developed it himself, but the two of them automatically responded to Xiaoge’s voice, stopping whatever they were doing to focus completely on Xiaoge. It was Pavlovian, and entirely depressing if Wu Xie let himself think too much about this learned behavior.
“Go and take a shower,” Xiaoge said to the both of them, and after one long look at Wu Xie to make sure he wasn’t hurt, he walked away.
Pangzi snorted, and pointed at Wu Xie, irritated. “Tian Zhen, I have to tell you, you really know how to piss off Xiaoge, and he’s the closest thing we have to a living, breathing Buddha.” With that, he followed after Xiaoge.
There was a tiny line between Qi Yu’s eyebrows that could be called a frown, but Wu Xie was too tired to think about it, his muscles were screaming in pain. Shelving any further thoughts he went to take a shower, leaving Qi Yu standing in the courtyard alone; maybe he could come to some sort of conclusion about their response to Xiaoge.
…
One day and two months into their mutual exchange of well-meaning intentions, Qi Yu moved around the house exactly like Wu Xie. So much so, Pangzi wasn’t able to tell that the person asking for fried shrimps for dinner wasn’t Wu Xie. Qi Yu had gotten a haircut the week before that was almost exactly like Wu Xie’s, and was wearing a brown cardigan over a buttoned white shirt and deep olive khakis. And Pangzi, who had known Wu Xie for nearly 20 years, couldn’t tell that the person he was speaking to wasn’t Wu Xie.
Xiaoge took in the whole thing with slightly narrowed eyes, his mouth in a flat line. He glanced at Wu Xie, who had wanted to grab some snacks from the kitchen, but had instead like a person watching a car crash, stood there and listened to the whole exchange. Xiaoge gazed at Wu Xie for a long moment, eyes questioning and considering, but didn't say anything. Wu Xie had so many things he wanted to say to Xiaoge. It threatened to choke him, the words that he had kept to himself for over ten years now. But not a single word would come out, he couldn’t let out one single sound; it would only take them down a road that Wu Xie had walked before, a road that Wu Xie couldn’t let Xiaoge follow. He couldn’t let Xiaoge go through that; Xiaoge had already sacrificed too much. Too much for him.
They stared at each other outside the kitchen until Xiaoge walked away. His back was straight, but it was as if Wu Xie could see the weight of all of his responsibilities crash down on Xiaoge's broad shoulders. Sometimes, Wu Xie was tired of himself.
…
In the middle of the night, when Wu Xie knew Pangzi was asleep and Xiaoge was out patrolling the village, he would whisper to his own face his fears and insecurities. All the ways he had failed his friends; the way Xiaoge was like a galaxy-sized black hole, sucking in all the air and atoms of Wu Xie’s entire being; how meeting Xiaoge was the best thing that ever happened to him, but he was so fucking terrified, uncertain of it all. It was like the valve had finally been released, and Wu Xie couldn't stop talking to this man who was an exact replica of him – or perhaps, Wu Xie was the one who was the replica. After all, every last one of his mannerisms was meant to be that of this being’s, this person who had probably lived for centuries, who had witnessed god knew how many lives sputter out like mayflies. Qi Yu had existed before Wu Xie was even a thought, and he would still be here long after Wu Xie left the web of mortality. He spilled all his thoughts and secrets, and it was a relief to verbalize all his fears about the lives he had destroyed during those ten years when he had turned himself into a monster because he was too much of a coward to tell the people he cared for the truth.
One hot night, when the air was stifling and Wu Xie was talking about cutting another line into his forearm for failing the people he cared for, the figure lying next to him exhaled softly. He turned to look at Wu Xie with clear eyes, cold and removed. “I understand” – a pause, as if he was trying to figure out the words that would stop Wu Xie’s slow descent into a mess of broken promises and failures – “You succeed, I will take care of them.”
And Wu Xie felt the release of tension from his body, the cold knot in his stomach dissolving. He felt such relief.
…
It was another month before Wu Xie told Pangzi and Xiaoge part of the truth, Qi Yu standing behind him in silent comfort. “So, I still have lung cancer,” Wu Xie said. He didn’t look up, couldn’t look as slow devastation crept over Pangzi’s features, or Xiaoge’s complete blankness. “The coffin in the City of Thunder removed the toxins that I had in my body, but it didn’t remove the natural problem, the cancer.” He took a deep breath and finally looked up. “But it isn’t terminal. Qi Yu – the reason I wanted to rescue Qi Yu – is because he can save me. Obviously, it’s also because I didn’t want him to be stuck there. But in exchange for rescuing him, after Qi Yu saves me, he gets to be free. No surveillance, and none of the ancient relics and the search for immortality bullshit.”
Wu Xie stood there and took in their reactions: Pangzi's whole body slumped in sheer relief from hysterical tension, as if whatever was crushing him had melted away, and Xiaoge unfroze to once again join the flow of time. Pangzi let out a loud sob and barreled into Wu Xie, dragging Xiaoge along in his wake. The three of them crashed into each other, a mash of tears and laughter, and Wu Xie was so fucking happy to have this still, holding on with white knuckles for as long as he could.
…
"The process is dangerous." Qi Yu stalked around the room like a predator. “It isn’t just a simple blood transfusion. like the one between Zhang Qiling and you,” he said, voice quieter than Wu Xie’s. At the mention of Xiaoge, a hint of disdain and something like regret flashed through in a split second. “The process will require you to be dead. The timing has to be perfect; once your heart stops, I’ll take you beneath Ta Mu Tuo. and no, you can’t follow us,” he said, stopping Pangzi’s interjection. “I have no interest in whatever it is in that gravel mound, much less waking it from a 4,000-year slumber and killing us all." Qi Yu’s pointed at Xiaoge. "And his presence will wake up that presence, or it’ll influence him, taking control of his mind for its own purpose.” Xiaoge didn’t look pleased to accept the truth of the statement. "The whole process will take roughly 18 hours. Once it’s complete, Wu Xie will return to the two of you and I will walk free."
"How do we know you won't kill Wu Xie and run?" Pangzi asked, frustration and anger roiling under the surface of his fake calm.
"I could have killed him at any time in the past three months, and disappeared before any of you found his body," Qi Yu said evenly. It wasn't pride, but the truth.
"Do you trust him?" Xiaoge asked Wu Xie, voice detached. Wu Xie looked at Xiaoge, gaze full of conviction as he nodded. "Yes, I trust him." The trick with lying was to half-believe in what you said; wrapping the lies with truth.
And that was that.
…
So they planned and hammered out the details as Wu Xie's body slowly deteriorated. They had to have the right equipment and the right location so that they could bring Wu Xie's body to Ta Mu Tuo. They didn’t tell anybody else. There was no time, no point – their plan would work.
Wu Xie thought about his parents, to whom he owed too many apologies to cover in this lifetime; he thought of Er Shu, who only ever wanted to protect him; he thought of the people he loved whom he was leaving in the dark. So many regrets plagued him, but not letting them know, and going on this final journey with the two people closest to his soul, was something that he would never regret.
Xiaoge returned one day with enough cash to cover the cost of specialized care for Wu Xie's condition. He didn’t leave them for long durations anymore, only ever gone a day here and a day there, always home by morning. Inky black eyes always locked on Wu Xie, as if fearing he would disappear as soon as his gaze left him. On a bad day, when Wu Xie’s useless body was racked with coughs, the realization struck that he and Xiaoge had spent more time together in one place during these past months than they ever had in the past, longer even than right after Xiaoge returned from the Bronze Gate. Desperation underlined their interactions now, and Wu Xie sometimes felt that Xiaoge was trying to remember him, trying to carve every line of Wu Xie into his mind. And Wu Xie let him, trying to enjoy every moment he was in Xiaoge’s presence; this was everything Wu Xie had ever wanted, and he clung tightly to every second, every touch, to make sure that this was what he took with him.
Wu Xie started needing more medical care two months later. They were as prepared as they could be; Pangzi had left and returned with vans of supplies – beds, monitors, and medication-taking lessons on palliative care as Wu Xie weakened. He came back from those lessons quiet, eyes red, but would check on Wu Xie, who had lost more weight and couldn’t walk without losing his breath or gasping in pain.
Pangzi would spend time with Wu Xie, joking and telling him about the bad drivers on the road, and the beautiful women who were teaching him all these new things. Once Wu Xie drifted off into a half-drugged sleep, Xiaoge would come in, and Pangzi would leave the house on unsteady legs, moving slowly through the village and smoking through half a packet of cigarettes before he could feel the strength return to his legs and the headache he seemed to be carrying all the time nowadays fade. Only then would he make his way slowly back to the old siheyun at the end of the pebbled path; time was more priceless than ever, and Pangzi couldn’t waste a second more of it.
...
It was excruciatingly slow and painful, and they all waited for Wu Xie to die, for him to live again. A constant ache persisted through their chests, throbbing with their pulse, watching life slip from Wu Xie, breath by breath. It was a state of affairs that seemed to affect Wu Xie the least; nowadays, he spent more time asleep than awake. The three other occupants of the house avoided each other, nursing their personal heartaches, but sharing a silent agreement that someone would always be there with Wu Xie when he woke up. Grief settled into their bones as their hearts mourned for the living dead.
Xiaoge cornered Qi Yu one night, while Wu Xie rasped in the neighboring room. “Will this work?” And Qi Yu stared at Xiaoge for a long moment, head slightly tilted, dissecting him as to judge his worth. “Yes, it will succeed. Your Wu Xie will walk out of the tomb alive and well.”
Xiaoge nodded and walked away. Qi Yu stood there for a very long time, immobile.
…
Three days later, Wu Xie was near the end; they packed up and left home. The home that was a promise of peace and rest, a promise of companionship, of three lives entwined together. They left behind the hospital-grade machinery, taking only the essentials and the bottles of morphine. They didn’t speak. Xiaoge carried Wu Xie into the van, which had been converted to house a gurney in the back so that Wu Xie would be more comfortable. Wu Xie didn’t wake up from when he had fallen asleep earlier. Pangzi got behind the wheel, and Qi Yu got in the passenger seat. The three of them were in tomb-robbing gear even though Qi Yu would be the only one to enter Ta Mu Tuo with Wu Xie's body.
Pangzi and Qi Yu took turns at the wheel while Xiaoge stayed in the back of the van, eyes on Wu Xie, reaching Golmund in two days. The shithole where Pangzi never wanted to return to; where Ah Ning and so many people died. They retraced their route from over fifteen years ago, the trip mindless as they made their way through the desert. At least this time, there wasn’t a desert storm trying to kill them; for once, Mother Nature was on their side.
Wu Xie woke up that evening with shuddering breaths when they were setting up camp about a kilometer outside the bug and snake-infested ruins. He looked at the stars in the sky and the shadows of the ruins which hid a swamp filled with bodies, flesh-eating bugs, and snakes. “Fuck, I didn’t think I'd ever come back to this shithole.” Pangzi chortled, and gently ruffled his hair. “Better than the tombs. Tian Zhen, some people would pay a pretty penny for this view.” He waved at the starry sky. “Yeah, but they don't know about the fucking flesh-eating bugs or the fucking snakes. Shit, I don’t think I can deal with any more snakes.” Wu Xie croaked out dryly.
“They won’t bother us,” Qi Yu said from the opposite side of the fire, a hot mug of something in his hand. “None of you will be walking into that cesspit.” He spat, “I can carry Wu Xie through it without being attacked.”
Pangzi snorted. “And what makes you so special, Princess?”
Qi Yu paused and seriously considered the question. “I have more experience than the three of you combined, I’ve been here before, and I suppose you can say I’m at a similar frequency as those things.”
“Frequency?” Xiaoge asked, and oh, Wu Xie’s head was resting in Xiaoge’s lap; he had wondered why his pillow was so soft, warm, and comfortable.
“You should know; you’re the current Zhang Family Patriarch,” Qi Yu said offhandedly. “You went beyond the Gate and returned from your guardianship. Human language can be – can be inefficient, limiting. As I am now, I’m at the right frequency to accomplish things I couldn’t in the past, but by that concept, I can’t replicate what I did in the past now because my frequency is different.” Qi Yu shrugged his shoulders; he was becoming less alien and more human by the day. “Of course, frequency isn’t the correct term, but it’s the simplest way to explain it.”
Xiaoge was silent for a few seconds, and then his gaze turned razor-sharp as it locked onto Qi Yu. “You’ve seen the ‘Ultimate’.” It was not a question. Qi Yu's face turned alien-blank once more. “The ‘Ultimate’… Once again, the human language fails. I’ve never liked the term; makes it sound like part of a superweapon or something.” His gaze drifted to the city ruins in the distance. “I suppose, yes, I’ve seen the ‘Ultimate’.” And the conversation ended there, Qi Yu refusing to say more on the subject.
“I think I liked you better when I thought you were Tian Zhen’s alien-hybrid-clone,” Pangzi clapped back.
And Wu Xie couldn’t help it; he cracked up, the laughter exploding out of him. He gasped through the pain as Pangzi panicked, trying to calm him down, and Xiaoge held onto his shaking shoulders, strong and certain. Wu Xie tried to breathe through the pain and the tears – he loved these two fucking idiots. To the edge of time and back.
…
That was the last time Wu Xie was clear-headed enough to communicate with them. They remained camped for the next five days, and as Qi Yu promised, no corpse-eating bugs or fucking pythons came to attack them. Qi Yu was on the lookout almost all the time now, eyes locked on the ancient ruins.
Pangzi and Xiaoge hovered next to Wu Xie as his heart rate slowed down and his wheezing grew quieter while he slept. Xiaoge’s hand was almost always wrapped around Wu Xie’s, even in sleep, and Pangzi slumped in the chair next to the bed; he had been sitting for so long in the fucking chair that he was pretty sure it was now molded to the perfect shape of his ass. He kept his eyes focused on Wu Xie's pale, grey face. Unable to look away- as if they kept looking the rapidly unspooling breaths would unwind slower- as if they could keep him here, infinite in this moment. They didn't speak; they had said all they could to one another days ago. There was just the silence in the wait, until Wu Xie took his last shaky breath and his heart stopped.
There was no time to grieve, to process; before they could react Qi Yu had picked Wu Xie up in his arms and was carrying his still warm body away. Qi Yu walked towards the ruins, and Pangzi and Xiaoge followed the slender figure. Like a fishing line tied them to the cooling body. Pangzi noticed distantly that Qi Yu had lost weight and was almost as thin as Wu Xie before he shook his head and refocused on what was important now. They followed until they reached the edge of the city, watching Qi Yu walk away with their friend in his arms. They stood there and waited, silent and unmoving, the distance between them like a space void of matter.
The two of them could have returned to camp, but there was no point; either Wu Xie would walk out of Ta Mu Tuo alive and well in a day, or they would walk into this hellhole together. They were the Iron Triangle, and a triangle didn’t work if the two cornerstones didn’t have an apex; Pangzi had been through this once already-not again. A person only had so many ten years in a life to regret.
So, they stood there and waited.
Pangzi eventually crouched down as he stared blankly ahead, while Xiaoge stood facing the ruins with his legs spread apart and arms folded, a silent sentinel.
Night bled into day, sunlight piercing through the dark. And then, sometime in the heat of noon, Xiaoge suddenly tensed, eyes intent on the half-destroyed path leading into the ruins. Pangzi slowly stood up; a few minutes later, he could make out the sound of approaching footsteps. They held their breaths until the distant outline of a figure could be seen under the haze of the midday sun. Finally, Wu Xie stumbled through the gate, body, and clothes covered in dirt and dried blood, and blinking as if trying to get used to the sun’s glare.
They would never know who made the first move, but before they knew it, Pangzi had his arms tight around Wu Xie, and Xiaoge's head thudded against Wu Xie’s shoulder as if he couldn't hold up his weight anymore. Hands tightly grabbed onto Wu Xie's shoulders and neck. Harsh breaths and quiet sobs filled the air. And Wu Xie grabbed back, digging so hard into flesh and bone that his fingers turned white. A decade of pain, regrets, and watching loved ones walk into the abyss spilled between the three bodies.
Yes, this was what he had waited so long for.
..End Part One of Three..