Chapter Text
Zhang Chengling is fourteen years old. The perfect age for your run-of-the-mill outstanding wuxia protagonist. Just old enough to have cultivated a sense of independence, young enough to have retained that sense of naivete that readers found universally endearing.
At last Zhang Chengling hopes he’s endearing. When you’re living as a wealthy young master of one of the most eminent martial arts sects in the jianghu, people in general are incentivized to at least pretend to like you. It’s good business, after all.
Life’s hard when you’re a wuxia protagonist. Chengling certainly thinks so when he finds himself running away in the dead of the night with two men he barely knows. Newly orphaned, the only home he’s ever known in flames, and a gaping wound in his side. Ouch. He gets that the Liulijia is important for Reasons to Be Explained At the Right Moment Which Would Likely Be at A Terribly Inconvenient Time but did his father really have to slice open his belly to keep it safe? Chengling could have easily hidden it in his boot.
On the bright side, the scar would make a very neat memento, a tale to share for the campfire. Assuming Chengling does not die of infection first. Then again, considering the members of their party, who would die first looked to be a tight race.
Old Man Li spits out a gob of blood. The street beggar-who-was-not-a-beggar keels over after killing a man with a swipe of his sword. So, okay, definitely not a beggar. The number of men around Chengling not in mortal peril is dwindling alarmingly fast. A wuxia protagonist thrives on hardship but Chengling thinks it would be a bit much for two kind strangers to die for him on top of having already lost his entire family, friends, and sect all in one night.
Later, Chengling will find a place to cry. But not right now. Not when they are running for their lives, the Ghost Valley assailants hot on their trail. Although to be fair, with two limping men and a child with no martial arts to rely on, the chase was not a particularly impressive one. The youngest son of a reclusive sect, Chengling has read more poetry than cultivation manuals, more ethics than anatomical points vulnerable to a qi strike. He has spent more time picking up pastries for his mother rather than picking up a sword.
The spoiled young master who can’t even light a fire, Gu Xiang sneers, pouring salt on the wound in that way of hers that was too careless to be cruel. Wen Kexing had given the maidservant a sharp look when he saw Zhou Xu--now Zhou-shu’s frown.
Right, Chengling has an Uncle now. With an alcohol problem. But honestly, that was a minor flaw in the grand scheme of things. For a mentor figure, Chengling figures he could do far worse. Martial arts masters were reputedly a quirky lot, to begin with. The more eccentric, the more powerful. And despite the fact that the man looked like he was going to drop dead any moment, Zhou-shu seemed like the reliable sort, the kind you could depend on to keep a promise to a dying man for three taels of silver.
“A true gentleman, a real beauty of a man! Just look at those gorgeous shoulder blades.”
“Walk faster,” Zhou-shu mutters from the corner of his mouth. It’s the crack of dawn, Chengling is tired, but the hero’s journey waits for no one so he dutifully picks up the pace and tries to mimic the soundless way Zhou-shu glides over vale and hill, his steps feather-soft like some woodland fairy. Indeed, Zhou-shu’s qigong was quite amazing for such a sickly man. It gives Chengling a bit of hope that perhaps one day he might be able to do the same. To become strong enough to avenge the savages who had murdered his family.
Oops, maybe a little too dark for heroic protagonist material.
“Is he still following us?” Zhou-shu asks him when Chengling stubs his toe for the fourth time that morning. He winces. It’ll go nicely with the other blisters festering in his boots.
“He?” Chengling is so out of breath he can hardly get out more than a word or two.
“The crazy guy.”
“The one who complimented your shoulder blades?” Frankly Chengling thinks Wen-gongzi ‘s eyesight must be supernaturally discerning to have drawn such a conclusion. For all his affected carelessness, Zhou-shu was a modest man.
Even with the sweat dripping into his eyes, he catches the ruddy tinge in the man’s cheeks. Chengling has seen that look before on his father’s face. Usually when his mother is in a good mood.
Chengling misses his parents.
“The crazy guy,” Zhou-shu insists, with a stubborn tilt of his jaw. Ah, and this was familiar too, like when Feng-dage skipped out on poetry practice to practice the sword.
“Wen-gongzi seemed nice.” Chengling offers.
Zhou-shu scowls.
“Kid, a word of advice. There are only two types of ‘nice’ people--those who want something from you and those who are too stupid to know better.”
Chengling refrains from asking which type of ‘nice’ Zhou-shu considered himself. Instead, he nods, fixes his features into something appropriately contrite until the harsh lines of Zhou-shu soften.
“It’s about ten li until the lake. Can you hold on?”
Chengling nods. He slaps at a mosquito and trudges on, the liulijia digging underneath his ribs.
(He really, really hopes he doesn’t die of infection.)
They run into each other on the road. At the lake. At the teahouse with extremely questionable tea. And then at the only inn in town.
Fated, Wen-gongzi proclaims proudly with a flutter of his eyelashes.
Cursed, Zhou-shu mutters and slams the door in his face.
Zhou-shu is cautious enough that he gives the clothes a thorough inspection before pronouncing them wearable.
A snort.
“Fucking bastard even knows our sizes.” In actual clothes, Zhou-shu actually looks almost...handsome? Chengling cannot confirm the state of the man’s highly praised shoulder blades--perhaps Wen-gongzi had mastered the Third Eye--but the man had subtly transformed his bearing from the roughshod gait of a vagrant to that of one who was used to being followed. He even sees Zhou-shu self-consciously touch the top of his head, as if reaching for a hair clasp that was no longer there. Chengling wonders what kind of sect the man had once belonged to and the tragic end it must have met. How else would such a capable master take to looking after an orphan on a mere whim?
“Since Wen-gongzi clearly has coin to spare, I’m going to drink this inn dry.” Zhou-shu pauses at the doorway. Ever since Chengling had flinched when he offered medicine, the man had been very careful about not touching him. “Kid, you need anything?”
Not calling me ‘kid’ would be nice.
Instead, Chengling shakes his head. He pulls up the covers and tries to sleep on a bed that is actually quite comfortable but smells completely unlike home. He dreams of fire and bloodied lips against his forehead, a letter shoved into his hands. For the Changming Sword Immortal. Haunting laughter chokes him like smoke. His father draws his sword, shoves him into Old Li’s arms. “Take the back door. I’ll be right behind you--” Chengling reaches out with desperate hands, eyes aching with the knowledge they’ll never meet again.
He reaches for his father only to grab Zhou-shu’s arm. To Chengling’s mortification, he clings to it like a small child, until Zhou-shu pries his arm free.
“You’re all right.” The man’s hand twitches in mid-hover before settling into an awkward pat, fingers stiff as if trying to remember how to soothe. Chengling gives him points for effort. Even in the dark, his eyes are kind.
“Go back to sleep.”
And Chengling does as he’s told.
Outside his window, Chengling hears Wen-gongzi kill two assassins. He sleeps very soundly that night.