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"I am an exile; citizen of the country of longing." — Suketu Mehta
The new governor of Hetao likes to ruffle feathers, and Jia Kui still has a job to do.
Over the years at his side, Jia Kui has learned to read his gestures, the unspoken commands, even his moods. It's strange to think he serves a eunuch (a decade his junior no less) while no longer beholden to the man, yet that's the situation these days in the small military town some miles from the border pass. As a youth he had joined the army with the dream of serving his country, and these days he knows where his skills are needed. These days Wang Zhi holds meetings with the local officials, and border inspections, and stays up late into the night reading military reports, and Jia Kui is as ever a watchful guardian at his side.
Wang Zhi is not as difficult to read as people assume. He doesn't stand on ceremony, can't respect anyone who attempts to get in close with him through bribes (even though he will make his refusal sound like a great compliment), and takes the duties of his job extremely diligently. But that's easy to learn for anyone who paid the minimal attention. Jia Kui being at his side day-in day-out sees other things.
The governor of Hetao is still so young. He has lived a life strongly defined by his station. Sometimes, Wang Zhi makes it easy to forget that he had spent the majority of his years behind the walls of the Forbidden City, and then he'll ask something that makes Jia Kui wonder how anyone could not know it and the truth is staring him in the face. It's a kind of paradoxical innocence.
He is thoughtful. Conscientious. His attention to detail means that he will remember a legless beggar on the side of the road next to an inn they drove by briefly, and later offers the man the job of gathering information in town in exchange for food. Wang Zhi will notice if the uniforms of the guards at the town's gate are fraying, and look into the salary financials, staying up late into the night to pour over the books. Even so far away from the capital, he still serves his vision of Ming.
He is so lonely.
This last Jia Kui realizes one evening while watching Wang Zhi open a newly arrived letter from the capital. The man uses a pen knife to remove the wax seal from the paper (carefully as if preserving a valuable artifact), and gently sets the knife aside before unfolding the letter with both hands, eyes eagerly scanning the contents. His face, placid and unperturbed as the surface of a still lake all day, changes into a rolling mix of expressions, each one chasing the other as they swiftly go from exasperation to amusement, to something like longing, and back to amusement again.
Jia Kui doesn't wonder who the letter is from; it's obvious. After Wang Zhi reads it for a while, he folds it and sets it aside, but his expression never quite goes back to that same stillness for the rest of the evening. It's strange to see him so animated again.
Tang Fan shows up in Hetao, with Sui Zhou in tow, one sunny afternoon completely out of the blue.
"We are on our way back to the capital," — he is smiling, his eyes are practically dancing as they bounce between Wang Zhi and the large official building they're in front of, and back to Wang Zhi, who is smiling back — "so we thought we'd pay a visit to an old friend." Sui Zhou nods respectfully from a step away, and Jia Kui nods back.
"Somehow you managed to show up just in time for lunch." Wang Zhi arches a brow.
For some reason, the comment makes Tang Fan both roll his eyes and look inordinately pleased at the same time. He bounces on his feet, fairly bursting with energy.
"We've been on the road since dawn! Does hospitality not exist this far away from the capital?" he kvetches.
"Come, come." With a barely hidden smile, Wang Zhi waves them indoor while motioning for a servant to set the table for his unexpected guests.
While the others sit down at the table, Jia Kui stands with his hands crossed on his chest further away leaning against a wooden beam. It's not that he doesn't feel welcome — he's shared plenty a meal with Wang Zhi by then — it's that he likes observing from a vantage point, instead of in the thick of things.
Wang Zhi and Tang Fan spend most of the meal talking more than eating, about the affairs of common acquaintances back in the capital, about the case that Sui Zhou and Tang Fan have solved that had taken them on a trip all the way to the north of the country. Tang Fan asks some questions about Wang Zhi's life here, in Hetao, but they are quickly turned back on him, and Jia Kui watches as Tang Fan talks and Wang Zhi looks at him, and looks at him, and smiles.
"I'll have rooms readied for you—" Wang Zhi starts to say when the meal is over.
"Oh, no, no, no," Tang Fan jumps up to interrupt. "We've got to get back. If we don't get on the road right away, we can't be sure to get back to the capital before the second nightfall. There's an innocent man who'll be punished unfairly if we don't make it back."
Wang Zhi nods with an understanding yet somewhat disappointed smile. "Then you must go," he nods at both of them, including Sui Zhou in that statement, even though they've hardly exchanged more then a few sentences thus far. Sui Zhou has looked at Tang Fan in exasperation more than once throughout, but supports him as ever as they decide to leave.
Wang Zhi says, "The next time business takes you out into these parts you should plan to stay at least for dinner."
Tang Fan nods, they both rise and soon goodbyes are made. The one hour visit is as fleeting as sunshine on a winter day. Ephemeral.
Wang Zhi watches from the town's ramparts as their carriage rides off to disappear behind the horizon.
He and Jia Kui make their way back to his rooms in silence, before Wang Zhi turns to him and wonders unexpectedly, "Do you know how to play Go?" Jia Kui is about to say that he's familiar with the game, if not proficient, but he doesn't get a chance because Wang Zhi follows up with, "It's just that I really have a mind to play Go this evening. Will you join me?"
Jia Kui nods, and brings the board from where it lies put away on one of the shelves, setting it on the low table between them.
He is beaten solidly in the length of one burning joss stick, and Wang Zhi sighs a little despondently, looking towards the window that faces south-east, exactly in the direction of the capital.
"Wine would be a very bad idea, wouldn't it?" Wang Zhi asks himself in a half-whisper.
He shakes his head, rises. Jia Kui understands that their gaming session is over. For a minute, Wang Zhi stands looking out the window, before he goes to his work desk and opens one of the official memorials. He frowns over the document, casts it aimlessly aside after a minute, and turns his face up to the ceiling, shutting his eyes for a long moment before reopening them slowly.
His face is young, but his eyes look a hundred years old.
The next time Jia Kui lays eyes on Tang Fan, Wang Zhi is not awake to welcome him.
Tang Fan runs into the bedroom and stops, eyes roving between the cold compress Jia Kui is wetting in a pan of cold water and the sick man on the bed. After a moment of looking him over in turn, Jia Kui goes back to folding the compress before putting it on Wang Zhi's feverish forehead. The man doesn't stir, his eyes are closed. He won't take note that Tang Fan is once again in Hetao, because he hasn't been fully awake in days. The doctors say it's pneumonia, that he should have known better than to stay out in the rain with a common cold, and brought it on himself. Jia Kui doesn't like the way the doctors look at Wang Zhi, even while they treat him.
Wang Zhi's pale face is shiny with sweat, his pillow damp with it. The fever wracking his body is intense. He had already been sick when he pushed himself to continue the inspection at the border, and the cold rain had taken care of the rest.
Tang Fan approaches the bedside quietly, almost tip toeing, his eyes fixed on Wang Zhi with a horrified look in them.
"He is really very ill?" Tang Fan whispers, as if he'd been hoping it was all a bad joke Jia Kui had played on him when sending that pigeon with the news. It seemed appropriate to let him know so he could be here. Of the few words that have slipped Wang Zhi's lips, niangniang and Tang Fan had been the only ones he called for, as the fever tormented him.
Jia Kui nods. "The doctors say the next two days will be critical." He wets the cloth and brushes Wang Zhi's cheeks and jaw with it, wiping away the sweat.
Normally, a servant would do this job, but once he'd gotten too sick to get out of bed, Wang Zhi had ordered everyone else to stay away under the penalty of a grave punishment. He'd been half delirious with the fever, and more prone to paranoia as a result. He'd flat out forbid Jia Kui from consulting with Ding Rong (an order Jia Kui had promptly disregarded, even though the other eunuch hadn't been much help from his prison cell, this being a natural illness rather than poison). Even while the illness progressed, Wang Zhi wanted to do everything himself until it laid him out completely. After that he slept all day, not even waking to eat, which was deeply concerning.
Now, Tang Fan falls to his knees next to the bed and brushes his fingers over Wang Zhi's slack palm, where it lies face down on the bed.
"Why did you—" Tang Fan murmurs; he's talking to himself, or more accurately to the man sleeping on the bed. "You always think you have to do everything alone. I could have been here and—and—Helped!"
"How?" Jia Kui asks him bluntly, startling Tang Fan as if he'd forgotten the other presence in the room besides himself and Wang Zhi. "What good is it if you visit for a day or an hour?" Tang Fan looks stricken, so Jia Kui softens his voice. "Besides, you might have fallen ill yourself, and he wouldn't want that."
Even as he says it, watching Tang Fan's desolate expression, Jia Kui wants to ask him why he'd waited so long to visit again. Why didn't he come back when Wang Zhi had seemed like he would sigh every time his eyes moved in the direction of the window that faced the capital? Jia Kui knows why: Hetao is a boring place compared to the capital. There, Tang Fan can serve His Majesty in the corridors of power. Out here, the only way to survive is to let go of those ambitions, but also to live more freely as a reward. As far as Jia Kui can tell, Wang Zhi understands this, and does not resent his fate.
The power, the danger, the excitement of being in the thick of things has not been as difficult to set aside as the other, simpler dreams and longings for family. Those feelings follow no matter if you are behind the walls of the Forbidden City or hundreds of miles from the capital. No matter where you build your home, it's those around you that make all the difference. A simple hovel could be as majestic as a palace, if the right people live in it with you.
Tang Fan is watching Wang Zhi and his hand moves, as if beyond his control, fingers wrapping around Wang Zhi's slack palm, gripping it tight. He says something inaudible under his breath looking at Wang Zhi's sleeping face.
"It's not enough to be there only when disaster strikes," Jia Kui says quietly, making Tang Fan look up at him with wild, overly bright eyes. "Sometimes you have to sit still for the boring parts in between, too."
Tang Fan's expression flashes with pain for a moment. "I know."
He returns his eyes to Wang Zhi, chin trembling miserably, then lowers his forehead on the bed next to their joined hands.
The fever eventually takes a turn for the better and breaks the next evening, and Wang Zhi slowly opens his eyes. He tries to look around and orient himself.
"Tang Fan?" he says weakly, confused. "Are you...here?" He blinks sleepily and asks, with concern. "Are you alright?"
"Oh sure, I'm alright." Tang Fan says with some indignation, though he hasn't slept a wink in two nights and seems to be running purely on nervous energy. "You're the one who's been on your deathbed!"
"It's just..." Wang Zhi squints as if he isn't quite sure what's happening and mumbles, "Why are you crying?"
Tang Fan blinks at him, and runs a brisk hand over his eyes, wiping the tears roughly with his sleeve. "Never mind," he says, ear tips flushing red. He looks back at Wang Zhi mutinously and Wang Zhi in turn looks increasingly concerned and uncomfortable.
"Runqing. Really, what's the matter...?" Wang Zhi's voice fades out as Tang Fan plants his face down on Wang Zhi's chest, hiding his expression in the puffy duvet.
"I wish you wouldn't scare me like this," Tang Fan whispers into the covers, while Wang Zhi looks as if he definitely doesn't know if he's still asleep.
Slowly, Wang Zhi lifts his hand off the bed and places it carefully to the side of Tang Fan's head against his hair. It's almost not a touch at all, but Tang Fan turns his face into it, and lets Wang Zhi's fingers brush over his cheek, cup it, while his own eyes slide shut.
Wang Zhi is really quiet, just looking at him.
"You've been very, very ill," Tang Fan murmurs, eyes still closed, just talking in a quiet, intense whisper. "You have no idea what it's like. If something happened, what would I do then, huh? How would I fix it from all the way in the capital? I think you just enjoy tormenting me, that's what you do, isn't it, that's how we always end up in these situations."
"Yes, I must have gotten sick specifically on your account," Wang Zhi says laughingly. He coughs, wincing from the pain, and Tang Fan's complaints instantly turn to raw concern.
For the next several days Tang Fan hovers, and frets, and cajoles and scolds, as Wang Zhi slowly grows stronger and less prone to painful coughing fits. He is eating again, and some color returns to his face. While he still has to stay in bed, Tang Fan reads the official correspondence to him, and makes his own recommendations on top of Wang Zhi's decisions, all of which Wang Zhi allows with the ease of someone who'd been wanting for it to happen in the first place. For a few days it feels like new life has been breathed into the rooms they occupy, an energy that was missing before, a sense of unmistakable delight in each other's company.
"This hasn't been all bad," Tang Fan says, bringing hot tea for Wang Zhi to drink before bedtime. "Even if you did unfairly force my hand. I hadn't realized how many problems can accumulate in a border town. I suppose it's because there are fewer officials to deal with all the petitions. If you sort them by priority—"
Encased in a warm duvet, Wang Zhi sips his medicinal tea, watching Tang Fan pace the room and talk expansively about how to clean up the mess.
Once Tang Fan leaves to return to the capital, Jia Kui sets out the Go board, without being prompted.
Wang Zhi, still not completely recovered, but definitely out of danger, looks at the board, looks at Jia Kui, and shakes his head in a self-deprecating manner. "I really have become entirely predictable, have I?" he says with a sad little smile.
"Is it such a bad thing to be known by someone?" Jia Kui asks.
When Tang Fan had left, Wang Zhi had joked and smiled, and told him not to worry. They'd write each other letters. Tang Fan had said he was needed in the capital, he'd dropped everything unfinished when he rushed out to Hetao, and really, Wang Zhi had better not get sick again as that was far too inconvenient. Wang Zhi's smile at that last was a little more genuine.
Now, faced with Jia Kui's frank question, Wang Zhi only looks down at the Go board, lost in thought.
One day, Tang Fan shows up, alone, but with a sack of clothing on his back, as if he'd packed in a hurry.
"Did something happen?" Wang Zhi, of course, invites him into the private rooms away from prying eyes. Jia Kui stands in the shadows and watches Tang Fan drop the sack to the floor at his feet. He is pale, bags under his eyes and hair not quite perfectly coiffed, but his eyes are clear as they pin Wang Zhi with fervent intensity.
"His Majesty doesn't like it when people talk back to him," Tang Fan states as a matter of fact.
"You talked back to His Majesty?!" Wang Zhi is wide-eyed. Not quite in disbelief, no, but definitely in alarm.
"You know me." Tang Fan shrugs with that familiar outrageously blithe confidence. "Anyway, now it seems I can't return within a hundred miles of the capital, so naturally I thought I'd visit with you until its sorted out." He seems nervous and at loose ends. He peers at Wang Zhi as if expecting rejection — or at minimum to be scolded.
Wang Zhi is just staring. Jia Kui has learned to read him well over the years, and he's never seen him quite so stunned. His eyes calculate, plan, extrapolate. There is no "sorting it out", not without speaking to the Emperor to change his mind, and Wang Zhi has lost the power to do that ever since he's been sent away himself a year ago. Tang Fan knows this. Whatever happened in the capital, he would have understood the consequences of his actions.
Tang Fan loses patience quickly. "I've been exiled from the capital!" he cries, repeating himself and looking imploringly at Wang Zhi. "Say something!"
"And here you are," Wang Zhi responds in quiet shock.
"Yes, exactly!" Tang Fan's eyes meet Wang Zhi's, unrepressed, his lips in a grin that sits a little crooked on his lips. "What's for dinner?"
Once, Jia Kui accidentally walks in on a private moment, but he can slip away silently without letting the two people know he was ever there. They are too wrapped up in each other to notice, having let go of useless thoughts.
Exile is a state of the mind, after all.