Chapter Text
Zhao Yunlan felt like he was being ripped apart at the seams.
It seemed that, upon their return to the void, Zhao Yunlan’s memories had once again been sent into a jumble much like they had during his first trip to Dixing, when he had been reminded of his late mother. Except this time, he had been assailed by flashes of recollections that all seemed to gravitate around a common theme—Shen Wei.
He remembered... everything.
Whether it was in the way that the professor lost his cool composure every time Zhao Yunlan touched the Hallows against his repeated warnings, or in the genuine fear that filled his eyes whenever Zhao Yunlan acted foolishly and got himself into trouble—which, though Zhao Yunlan was ashamed to admit it, was most of the time, really—or in the way that he looked out for him and protected him and just seemed to treasure him above anyone else. How he had taken him home during a particularly awful bout of gastritis and cared for him until morning. How he had exchanged years of his own precious life to restore Zhao Yunlan’s sight with the Dial, and how, as a result of this, he had stopped healing like he had used to, making him seem, despite his monstrous strength, so vulnerable and fragile. Fallible. Human.
‘Xiao Wei.’ A seemingly unimportant nickname which had all but destroyed the carefully-erected barriers that he kept around himself at all times in front of others, but that always seemed to come down whenever Zhao Yunlan was nearby.
A warm bowl of congee. A pile of ancient, moth-eaten books. A hand tucking him into bed. A pair of round, wire-rimmed glasses. A plethora of fancy suits. The calming, earthy scent of pine. Dark, bottomless eyes. A mask, and beneath it… just a man, really, who, like all other men, experienced all kinds of complicated feelings. A man with a long history that Zhao Yunlan had just found out he had been a part of, and in which, indeed, Zhao Yunlan had not only been just a stranger watching from the sidelines, but had also played a central role.
Shen Wei’s past and Zhao Yunlan’s future were one and the same.
And then, there were the different personas. The impressive, all-powerful Black-Cloaked Envoy. The dependable and brilliant Professor Shen. Shen Wei… just Shen Wei, his best friend. And then... this younger version of him, so innocent and naive, yet fearless and brave, and fiercely holding onto hope in a world at war.
Everything suddenly made sense: the energy that crackled between them whenever they were in close proximity, or the way that Shen Wei always seemed to have eyes only for him. Why Zhao Yunlan had felt such a strong attachment to him, and such profound nostalgia upon meeting him, like seeing an old friend—or perhaps a lover—after a very long time. He had finally understood what sort of heavy past Shen Wei carried with him. They had fought side by side what seemed like eons ago, and although they had been ultimately separated through the cruel whims of fate, Shen Wei had not been able to forget him. Zhao Yunlan wasn’t blind, and it wasn’t like Shen Wei hid it well. As for Zhao Yunlan, well…
During his stay in ancient Haixing, Zhao Yunlan had grown close to the honest, young soldier whose fair mien was like a slate on which he could read the things, few as they were, that Shen Wei did not readily choose to disclose with him—the Shen Wei who was not yet shaped by an eternity of isolation and self-restraint, living as a shadow on the borders of society. And when his time had come to an end and he had been compelled to leave, pulled by the mysterious power of the Hallows, Zhao Yunlan, witnessing the raw pain etched all over Shen Wei’s beautiful features at seeing him vanish in front of his eyes, had felt like someone was tearing at his insides with a blade—he now had personal experience to support that claim—as well as a homesickness the likes of which he had never known in his life before.
Zhao Yunlan hadn’t gotten around to analysing that.
“Zhao Yunlan.”
Out in the void, Shen Wei’s voice sounded like it had just come out of nowhere—which was actually pretty accurate. Startled by the sound, Zhao Yunlan whirled around to face the professor whose eyes were swimming from emotion behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. Zhao Yunlan himself could feel his throat close up upon seeing him. Bracing himself, he cleared his throat and blinked away the tears that had formed in his own eyes and which threatened to roll down his cheeks, and then he tried to think about what he could possibly say after everything that he had seen in the span of a few... days? weeks? months? Just how long had they been gone, anyway?
“I’ve looked for you for ten thousand years,” Shen Wei said and, okay, Zhao Yunlan did not have an answer to that, so he laughed awkwardly in an attempt to shake off the tension, not to mention the crushing guilt that he felt for doing this to Shen Wei: for stumbling into his life uninvited, turning it upside-down, and then leaving him alone to pick himself off the ground and carry the weight of his loss for millennia.
Maybe Shen Wei ought to have never met him.
“Shen Wei. Do you know how to go back… ?” Zhao Yunlan asked to distract himself from these unpleasant thoughts. “Can we take the wormhole back to the SID?”
“Yes… and no,” Shen Wei answered, his eyes trained on him. “Theoretically, it is possible to return to our time period, but we will not be able to use the same route. There should be another wormhole that will get us as close as possible to our target within a reasonable time. If we’re lucky, it will not have been too long since we left,” Shen Wei explained to Zhao Yunlan who nodded in partial understanding, then scanned their surroundings briefly, peering into the boundless depths of the emptiness around them. “Let me try to find it,” Shen Wei proposed.
Zhao Yunlan squinted at the distance while he waited, but he couldn’t see anything that looked remotely like a door, so he left this task to the expert and took in the sights, watching as a variety of random things floated above him and below his feet. After a while, he grew bored of this activity and instead focused his gaze on Shen Wei, whose eyes were now shut in deep concentration.
After a while, Shen Wei spoke again. “This should be it. Take my hand to ensure that we are not separated.”
Zhao Yunlan heard the silent ‘again’ in Shen Wei’s voice, and his chest ached, as the memory of their tragic farewell was still fresh in his mind. Nodding resolutely, he clasped his fingers around Shen Wei’s tightly, not intending to let go no matter the cost. Shen Wei smiled at him, then closed his eyes again as he lifted a dark energy-imbued hand, then made a wide sweeping motion, cutting through the nothingness with his arm like a scythe. Squeezing his eyes shut, Zhao Yunlan prepared himself mentally for what promised to be a rocky ride, his stomach still not over the last trip, but the familiar, nauseating feeling did not come. In fact, nothing happened.
Baffled, Zhao Yunlan pried his eyes open and turned around.
Beside him, Shen Wei stood rigid as a post.
Zhao Yunlan clutched Shen Wei’s arm, shaking him gently. “What’s wrong? Shen Wei. Hey, Shen Wei! Snap out of it!”
The contact of Zhao Yunlan’s fingers on him seemed to trigger something in Shen Wei, who woke from his daze and stared at Zhao Yunlan with confusion in his eyes.
“Hey, you alright there? You were kind of spacing out for a moment,” Zhao Yunlan said in jest, in a feeble attempt to ease his anxiety which had just shot up like an arrow. “...sorry, that was a bad joke.”
A faint crease had appeared on Shen Wei’s brow. “I have a premonition, like something is about to go terribly wrong.”
Zhao Yunlan shifted uncomfortably. “Wow, okay. That’s… not worrying at all.”
It was hard to explain—Shen Wei had this vivid impression that something major was on the verge of befalling them, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was. There was this weird, crawling sensation under his skin, like the heavy emptiness of the void was about to collapse onto them and swallow them whole. Something that might shake the order of things, forever sealing their fates. He felt uneasy, to say the least.
Shen Wei closed his eyes and tried to look for the wormhole again, but his vision was clouded by a dark veil, as if some kind of invisible force was deliberately sending them astray. But Shen Wei had to persevere—he couldn’t give up just yet, not when Zhao Yunlan was counting on him to get them home unscathed, when Zhao Yunlan’s safety depended on him. Undeterred, Shen Wei continued searching until he finally found something, like a tiny strand of hope, and he grabbed onto it and pulled with all that he had, until the scenery started spinning around them in a flurry of lights and they were sent tumbling down towards Shen Wei wasn’t sure what.
After a huge drop which stretched out for what felt like eternity and sent their hearts into their heels, everything came to an abrupt stop, and then there was complete darkness.
Death?
******
No, not death.
There was… a glow.
It was faint at best, but if Zhao Yunlan could see it, then surely that meant that he was alive, right?
Wincing at the bright light filtering through the wide windows, Zhao Yunlan opened his eyes, which were still, thankfully, attached to his body; a very solid one, mind you, and not some kind of weird astral projection. Speaking of which… There was also a warm, living body underneath him. In fact, he was sitting on one. A pleasant fragrance wafted into his nose, carrying with it a strong familiarity, as well as a sense of comfort and belonging. It smelled like a combination of freshly-washed linen, sandalwood, and books. As the world materialized around him and came into focus, Zhao Yunlan’s gaze fell upon Shen Wei, who, as he regained consciousness, registered the presence of Zhao Yunlan.
On his lap.
“What the—”
Zhao Yunlan violently jolted back, unwinding his arms from around Shen Wei’s neck while his heart thumped away in his chest, and scrambling off Shen Wei’s legs in alarm, and he would have crumpled to the floor like a stringless puppet had Shen Wei’s hand not shot out, snatched his arm and steadied him. Blushing furiously, which was definitely not a regular occurrence for him, nor something out of which he wished to make a habit, Zhao Yunlan averted his eyes from the flustered professor who, having stood from his chair, looked like he was trying to become one with the walls.
While Zhao Yunlan was trying to recover from his shock and think of something clever to say, to save them both the embarrassment of what had just happened, he briefly scanned the room where the wormhole had sent them. At a glance, the office looked normal enough, and the light fixtures and modern furniture, not to mention the cutting-edge computer equipment—was that a gaming mouse and keyboard set?—seemed to correspond to the right time period.
So they had gotten at least that part right.
Judging by the general arrangement of the room, Zhao Yunlan noted as he let his gaze wander across the place appreciatively that the owner had great taste, down to the choice of a very sharp leather armchair which he was dying to plop down onto after sleeping on roots and stones and strange-looking moss for gods-only-knew how long.
On the wall, Zhao Yunlan spotted an imposing plaque where one could read ‘Special Investigations Department—SID’.
Maybe this really was his office and his team had had the place redecorated during his absence?
Out of the blue, Shen Wei cleared his throat subtly, and Zhao Yunlan turned to face him at last, figuring that he couldn’t avoid his friend forever, when he noticed Shen Wei’s expression. His curiosity piqued, Zhao Yunlan walked over to where Shen Wei was currently standing, boring a hole into the desk with his eyes, and breaking the laws of nature as he managed to appear as livid as a ghost, with ears flushed a bright, vivid red. “Shen Wei, what is—” Zhao Yunlan started, but stopped dead in his tracks when he glimpsed the object of Shen Wei’s attention.
Both of them were wearing suits. Now, that in itself wasn’t a rarity for Shen Wei, but it was definitely not an everyday thing for him. Next, Zhao Yunlan had one of his arms snugly wrapped around Shen Wei, and again, there was precedence of that, but what was vastly different this time was that Zhao Yunlan’s lips were pressed to Shen Wei’s cheek in a loving kiss, and both of their eyes were closed in pure bliss. What was more, if he squinted hard enough, Zhao Yunlan thought he could make out matching, golden bands around their entwined fingers which lay on their laps.
On the picture frame, someone had stuck a post-it note bearing a message, scribbled in a handwriting uncannily similar to his own. The note read ‘Me and baobei’, adorned with a little doodled heart.
There was something so deeply intimate about the portrait that Zhao Yunlan almost felt like he was intruding, and so he looked away, troubled, though it was already too late—the image had been burned into his mind.
A great part of him wished this was reality, but Zhao Yunlan knew better than to hope. Besides, he had no recollection whatsoever of such a moment; he was sure he would remember if this had happened before. No, this had to be one of Lin Jing’s pranks—that fool. This time, Zhao Yunlan swore he would really take away his salary for good and force him to work free of charge until he was old and gray and all his stupid hair fell off. Once the initial wonder and envy that the photograph had stirred in him faded a bit, Zhao Yunlan suddenly felt a burning rage at what all this seemed to indicate. Not only had someone had the nerve to forge his handwriting, but they had fabricated a photo of him and Shen Wei in such a compromising position. Was there no respect to be had in this place anymore?
While Zhao Yunlan contemplated his revenge, which involved a fair amount of bonus cuts and of people being fired, someone barged in through the door. Zhao Yunlan’s head shot up at the sound, and he pointed his finger accusingly at whoever dared show their face after pulling that kind of stunt. “You! What is the meaning of this?”
Unfazed by his boss’ outburst, Lin Jing merely blinked, dawdling over to the pair and dragging his feet while taking his sweet time as he went. “Professor Shen, amitabha. Thank you for the red packet money,” Lin Jing mumbled under his breath, pressing his palms together and bowing his head lightly at Shen Wei—who looked back at him with wide, bewildered eyes—before turning to Zhao Yunlan. “Hey, Chief Zhao. Your voice sounds different today… and, wow, did you change your hair recently? It’s, well… it’s unique... for sure.”
“What the hell is this?” Zhao Yunlan snapped, pointing at the incriminating portrait, while Shen Wei wished he could dig himself into a hole. “Making fun of your boss—me—is one thing, but how dare you mock the Black-Cloaked Envoy?”
Lin Jing stared.
“Lao Zhao, I... think you may be confusing your dreams with reality. Or is that a character in one of your comics?”
Zhao Yunlan gaped at Lin Jing, speechless. “C-Comic…?”
Someone must be having fun at his expense. This was the only possible explanation. None of this was real!
Oh, how he suddenly craved sugar. Badly.
Zhao Yunlan opened the desk drawer, rifling through it in search of a lollipop, and found a half-spent pack of cigarettes and a lighter instead. His fingers twitched at the sight, but he resisted the urge, if only for Shen Wei’s sake.
Just now, Zhu Hong came bursting through the door with a black cat on her heels. At least, Zhao Yunlan assumed it was, since it had the general shape of one, though it was immensely fat. As he stared at the ‘cat’, Zhao Yunlan recognized Da Qing’s feline face, but was a bit shaken by the fact that he couldn’t see his neck and could only vaguely make out his stubby legs. “Dead cat! When did you get so big?” Zhao Yunlan wondered incredulously. “I swear I’m going crazy here... What the heck happened while we were gone? And how much time has passed?” He asked, ducking at the last second and barely avoiding the pen that Zhu Hong had just flung at him. Da Qing yowled and skitted out of harm’s way.
“You jerk! How dare you throw away my meat!” Zhu Hong shrieked as she grabbed Zhao Yunlan by the collar of his shirt. Seeing this, Shen Wei was by Zhao Yunlan’s side in a blink, planting himself between the two and glowering dangerously at Zhu Hong, who instantly backed away, yet continued to glare at Zhao Yunlan around Shen Wei’s strong stature.
“I did no such thing!” Zhao Yunlan exclaimed in outrage from behind his living shield.
“Oh yeah? Then, what is this?” Zhu Hong retorted as she took out a crumpled note, meaning to throw it at Zhao Yunlan’s face like she had the pen, but deciding against it and handing it to Shen Wei, who unfolded it and examined it carefully:
Ha! Serves you right!
—Zhao Yunlan
Peeking from behind Shen Wei’s robust frame, Zhao Yunlan very nearly lost his mind again upon seeing the taunting note that he didn’t remember writing, but that had undoubtedly been penned by his hand.
“I didn’t…! Is this a prank? You’re all joking, right?” He asked the assembled SID members, his patience reaching its limit.
“Zhao Yunlan... we need to talk,” Shen Wei suggested to him under his breath.
“Talk,” Da Qing scoffed, miraculously climbing onto the desk to get a closer look at his master. “Yeah, we all know what ‘talk’ means. Can’t you just do that at home, Chief, and not in your office where we all have to go on a daily basis?”
As Zhao Yunlan digested Da Qing’s unfair accusation, a man who looked familiar—though much more gaunt-faced and ghostly pale than the usual—chose this very opportune moment to come in after having been alerted by the chaos. “What are you all shouting for?” Chu Shuzhi asked nonchalantly to a roomful of people before spotting the newcomers. “Chief Zhao—… Is that a beard I see? Going through that too-lazy-to-shave phase again?” He chortled, having no qualms about making fun of his boss in front of all of his subordinates. Not that Zhao Yunlan wasn’t used to his defiance. But.
Before Zhao Yunlan, who was raging at that point, could comment on that, Da Qing took it upon himself to intervene.
“Red alert, meow! Chief Zhao and Prof Shen need to ‘talk’. Help us out here,” he said, addressing Chu Shuzhi and Lin Jing.
“On it,” the tag-team echoed.
******
Five minutes later, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan were standing outside of the SID headquarters and staring at a closed door.
“Did we just get kicked out…?” Zhao Yunlan pondered out loud, eyes wide with shock at the mere prospect.
Shen Wei looked on helplessly, no less surprised than Zhao Yunlan by the unexpected turn of events.
At that precise moment, Shen Wei’s superior hearing picked up a sound and, sensing something, he grabbed Zhao Yunlan by the hand and pulled him to the side of the building to take cover behind a large tree. Shen Wei made a shushing gesture at Zhao Yunlan who was about to protest and ask him what was going on and, not long after, two men came walking down the streets. One had on a pair of round, wire-rimmed glasses and was sporting a spotless dark blue suit jacket and a stark white shirt, which made Shen Wei’s current outfit, composed of a khaki trench coat, grey button-down cardigan and blue slacks, pale in comparison. The other, tall and slender, wore clothes far more casual—a simple pair of jeans and a plaid shirt—yet moved with an almost catlike grace to his limbs. His face was in every aspect identical to Zhao Yunlan’s, the only difference being that his cheeks were silky-smooth and beardless, with not a hair in sight.
The men were holding hands as they came up the alley, looking every bit the happily-married, blissfully-in-love couple.
It was them—Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan—and yet, it couldn’t be. How was this even possible?
When Zhao Yunlan made to speak, Shen Wei pressed his hand over his mouth—motioning for him to be quiet—and he waited until their doubles had disappeared into the building and they were alone again to remove his hand.
“What in Haixing…?” Zhao Yunlan asked in a tremulous voice, suddenly feeling very faint.
“Zhao Yunlan,” Shen Wei interrupted him, his expression grave. “Stay calm. I may know what’s going on,” he ventured as the other looked at him with disbelief and confusion flashing in his wide eyes. “Have you ever heard of parallel worlds? That is, the notion that there are other versions of us out there, living different lives from us?” Shen Wei asked, and Zhao Yunlan nodded slowly. “I fear that instead of returning to our time, we may have been transported to another dimension. This Dragon City that we are standing in is not the one we know, and the people in it are strangers. We may look like that ‘Zhao Yunlan’ and that ‘Shen Wei’, and have similar identities—but we are not them, and they are not us.”
The Chief of the SID opened his mouth, then closed it. Opened it again.
“I… I think I’m going to pass out,” Zhao Yunlan said feebly, getting paler by the second as he supported himself against the tree, and slowly lowering himself onto the grass before his legs gave out under him. “So… they’re another ‘us’?”
Wait, ‘us’...? Since when is there an ‘us’? Zhao Yunlan wondered to himself, shocked at how quickly his brain had jumped to conclusions and adjusted despite his heart still being in turmoil over the recent developments.
Shen Wei crouched down next to Zhao Yunlan, joining him on the ground.
“In a way, yes. I’m sorry... I must have done something wrong,” Shen Wei apologized, lowering his head regretfully upon seeing Zhao Yunlan looking so distraught by their predicament.
Zhao Yunlan sighed.
Of course Shen Wei would take the blame for something which had been beyond his control.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Shen Wei. None of this is your fault,” Zhao Yunlan assured him, reaching forward to squeeze his shoulder in support. “We’ll figure this out together, and find a way to go back… probably.”
“Alright,” Shen Wei agreed reluctantly, before falling silent.
Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan sat quietly, trying to make sense of their situation and determine what could have caused such a reaction so they may find a way to reverse it, somehow. And so, the two were completely lost in their thoughts when the front door of the SID building opened again to reveal their doubles coming out of it, and down the alley again.
“Let’s follow them,” Zhao Yunlan suggested to Shen Wei, who nodded once in assent. In any case, they couldn’t go back inside after causing such a scene and, although Zhao Yunlan wasn’t sure if making contact with their mirror images posed some kind of a risk for them, he figured they might find out something useful by sticking around. “Erm… Can you make us less conspicuous?” He asked Shen Wei, pointing out their appearance, which was far too similar to that of their doubles not to rouse suspicion to any onlooker. It would look a bit strange if someone spotted them, or worse yet, if the other Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei became aware of their existence.
Shen Wei smiled at him mildly. “...I’ll try.”
Black wisps of smoke appeared around Shen Wei’s hand as he closed his eyes, focusing hard. Raising his hand, Shen Wei made a swirling gesture around himself and instantly became enshrouded in a pale grey mist, before fading into thin air. Zhao Yunlan stood blinking at the spot where Shen Wei had been until a second ago until he reemerged from underneath his Black Envoy’s cloak. Shen Wei stared at Zhao Yunlan momentarily, then ducked his head and blushed. “You’ll have to come underneath,” he mumbled, flushing a shade darker by the second. “There’s no other way to do it.”
“Oh? I… er… okay,” Zhao Yunlan chuckled nervously, feeling his cheeks grow warm at the revelation.
Zhao Yunlan took a few hesitant steps towards Shen Wei, who lifted his cloak high and wide enough to accommodate him inside the garment, then let it fall around them. As he slipped under the cover of the cloak, Zhao Yunlan immediately felt the heat radiating off of Shen Wei’s body and, remembering what had happened in the office, he was a bit reluctant to get closer, but these were a different kind of gymnastics and keeping a distance was almost impossible. “W-We… have to be touching or else it won’t work,” Shen Wei explained.
Zhao Yunlan inched closer to the professor until their hips were pressed flush together. “Like this?”
“Y-Yes, this is fine,” Shen Wei murmured, making the cloak flap around them as he shifted nervously underneath it.
Walking itself was a challenge since Zhao Yunlan was taller than Shen Wei. In order to remain hidden by the cloak—not to mention, to do so without tripping over his own feet and falling on his face—Zhao Yunlan had to stoop down a bit, which made the whole thing extremely awkward, not to mention dangerous. In the end, Zhao Yunlan figured that holding onto each other would allow them to steady themselves and move faster, and so he wrapped an arm around Shen Wei’s shoulders, while Shen Wei snaked his own around his waist to hold himself up. Zhao Yunlan swallowed hard, trying to focus on where he was putting his feet and not where Shen Wei’s hand was currently resting.
Why was he getting so worked up over this? And why did this feel like such a big deal?
Sure, the two of them had brushed shoulders and exchanged friendly hugs in the past, as well as supported each other in times of weakness, but their bodies had never been so… so intimately connected, and never for such a prolonged period of time. Adding Zhao Yunlan’s confused feelings about Shen Wei to that, and mixing it in with what the Chief of the SID had witnessed not too long ago, was enough to make his head spin. Thankfully, they did not have to go far before the pair they were tailing made a stop at an intersection and took a bend into a charming, winding stone path leading to a large villa standing apart from the rest. Behind the house, the outline of Dragon City University could be seen rising towards the sky and towering impressively over the rest of the town.
“Zhao Yunlan, we’re falling behind. Come on,” Shen Wei prompted him, taking the quaint road through the trees and dragging along Zhao Yunlan, whose only option was to follow suit.
Before reaching the house, their doubles stopped under a plum blossom tree to exchange a sweet kiss in the shade.
Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei stared intently at the display, at a loss for words.
“So, I guess we’re… I mean—… they’re an item, so to speak?” Zhao Yunlan observed as he watched the scene enviously, like that much hadn’t been painfully obvious from the very beginning.
“It would seem so,” Shen Wei answered, his eyes riveted on the sight of the lovers embracing each other.
Soon, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan’s doubles broke away from each other and started walking again, so they also resumed their pursuit, following them at a safe distance to avoid being betrayed by the sound of their footsteps on the road. Eventually, the couple reached the house and disappeared inside, leaving behind their crisp laughter ringing in the air.
As they approached the house, Zhao Yunlan ushered Shen Wei to the side, trying not to step on the professor’s toes as he hurried, and crouched down under the ornate window where the curtains were only partially drawn.
How easy it would be to peek inside.
“What are you planning to do?” Shen Wei hissed from underneath the cloak. “No… Zhao Yunlan, you can’t possibly be thinking about spying on them. It would be incredibly rude of us to intrude on their priv—...”
“I just want to see what they’re up to, so that we can find a way to go back,” Zhao Yunlan shushed him as he edged a bit closer and peered through the glass. “Besides, it doesn’t really count as peeping since we’re basically the same person,” he reasoned, though he knew that things weren’t all that simple.
“Zhao Yunlan,” Shen Wei whispered insistently into his ear. “This is wrong. We really shouldn’t—…”
“Aren’t you two gonna come in?” Asked a familiar voice above their heads, making the two of them nearly startle out of their skins and cutting their hushed conversation short.
Zhao Yunlan felt very peculiar at hearing his own voice, though it sounded a little bit off.
While Zhao Yunlan was contemplating this, the—almost—spitting image of himself pulled the curtains apart and poked his handsome head out of the house. Dancing chestnut eyes quickly pinpointed the exact location where Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan stood huddled against each other. “Hi,” the man grinned with a friendly wave. Frozen to the spot, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan shared a look before turning back to stare at the doppelganger in shock, as if to ask him how in Dixing he had managed to see through Shen Wei’s powerful disguise. “I could tell that you were there since leaving the SID,” Zhao Yunlan’s double shrugged, and Zhao Yunlan curled an eyebrow at the vague non-answer provided by him.
The other Zhao Yunlan’s eyes formed two downward half-moons as he laughed.
“It’s a bit of a long story. Come in and I’ll explain.”