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Zhou Zishu wakes to the smell of medicine.
He wrinkles his nose. Without opening his eyes, he turns away from the smell and says, extremely petulantly, “No.”
“Yes,” Wen Kexing says, and pulls the quilt away from Zishu. The heat from the braziers has not yet faded, but a cold room in a stronghold atop a mountain for a bedroom is what it is. Chill seeps into Zishu’s bones, and he shudders, though the quilt’s only been lowered to his waist. Wen Kexing still has a conscience, it seems.
Zishu tries to yank it back up, and then it’s gone altogether. Never mind.
He curls up as much as his protesting body will allow, socked feet kicking half-heartedly at the quilt that’s now pooled at the foot of the bed.
“No,” he says again.
“A-Xu,” Wen Kexing scolds, and then Zishu’s being shaken as violently as he knows this hateful, nagging hen Wen Kexing can bear, an unyielding hand on his thin shoulder rocking him back and forth. It’s not as violent a hand as when they were younger and newly-immortal, yet not as weak as the tenderness he’d hated at the very beginning, when he was slowly fading and the truth of it finally revealed.
“I’m an elder, can’t you leave me alone? Haven’t I earned this?” Zishu complains.
“You—” Wen Kexing pauses, his voice aggrieved. “What about this fellow elder? Haven’t I earned at least one day of no complaints?” A finger dampened with medicinal soup presses itself to his lips. “Drink your medicine, you miserable, stubborn bastard.”
Zishu sits up, eyes flying open, his lips puckered in disgust as he prepares to shout; then, he registers the taste.
“It’s not bitter,” he says, surprised.
Wen Kexing hands him the bowl, eyes flat with the look of the long-suffering. Zishu sips cautiously at it. His brows raise, and he tips it further up, gulping with gusto as Wen Kexing says exasperatedly, “Slow down, old man, it’s going to spill—”
Zishu slows down then, though it’s nothing to do with Wen Kexing’s warnings—he’s nearing the bottom now, where the dregs of whatever powdered root and stray bitter herbs collect. Sure enough, the sweetness dissipates at the very last half-mouthful. His face twists in disgust, and he shoves the bowl at Wen Kexing as he wipes at his mouth with the sleeve of his robe. At that, Wen Kexing’s face creases further, the middle of his brow like the rings of an aged tree; one new wrinkle for every headache he claims Zishu brings him.
“Finish it,” Wen Kexing says.
Zishu looks at him with a petulant expression.
“You have to finish the entire bowl,” Wen Kexing says, staring at him, patient. Neither of them move as they continue to look at each other, unblinking.
Zishu grabs the arm Wen Kexing aims at his waist. He forces his eyes open further as Wen Kexing glares at him, his clouded gaze both alight and resigned at once. He catches the finger Zishu aims at his face; now, both their hands are locked in the other’s.
“Let’s both blink at the count of three,” Zishu says. “And we can let this go.”
“How about you blink first, and finish your medicine,” Wen Kexing says.
“One, two… three,” Zishu says, ignoring him. Then, when neither of them blink, he continues, “Well, I’m deeply disappointed in our ability to come to an agreement about this. Have our years together taught us nothing about conflict resolution?”
“Is it so difficult, finishing your medicine?” Wen Kexing asks, complaining, still exasperated. His eyes must be burning. They’re wide open and twitching, and his forehead creases more with each second.
Zishu finally shuts his eyes, putting an end to their non-competition. He sighs, letting go of Wen Kexing, and holds out a hand, palm up. There’s a pause. Zishu cracks an eye open; then, Wen Kexing pets his cheek thrice and huffs a laugh at the expression Zishu’s already wearing in anticipation, and slides the bowl into his waiting hand.
He holds his breath and screws his eyes shut as he empties the bowl, gagging as he shoves it back at Wen Kexing.
“See,” his beloved, hateful harbinger of medicine says. “Was that so difficult?”
“You deserve a challenge in this old age of yours,” Zishu replies, deadpan, smacking his mouth grumpily. Ugh. “A shidi who’s even managed to overtake his decrepit shixiong in martial arts… The least I could do was make life a bit more difficult for you.”
Wen Kexing snorts. “Overtaken in martial arts my ass, the only thing that’s happened is you overtaking even yourself in laziness.”
Zishu lies back down again, stretching. “Isn’t it your fault, then?” he says, sticking his lower lip out.
Wen Kexing shudders, holding a palm out to cover his eyes. “That face worked better when you were younger and more attractive. Quick, put one of those old disguises of yours back on.”
“Can’t,” Zishu says, sitting back up as he reaches for Wen Kexing, who escapes his hold in time. “Such a young and dashing beggar disguise is only wasted on this elder who isn’t as limber, and smells like old man and medicine.”
Zishu only manages to grasp a fistful of robes. He smacks his mouth again, his distaste writ clear on his face at the lingering medicinal taste in his mouth.
Wen Kexing holds out a hand, ignoring his theatrics. “Come on, old man Zhou, we’ve got to reach the village by yin hour.”
“I know,” he groans, and lets himself be helped out of their bed. He shuffles over to where his robes are hung, slowly dressing himself, and fumbles with the tie of his third layer as Wen Kexing waits, patient. It takes a while, with his unsteady fingers, but soon enough Zishu’s done, and pulls on his outermost layer with Wen Kexing's assistance.
Right next to the mouth of the cave marking the entrance to their home are two baskets, each big enough to fit a human child. A bamboo cane and hanging lantern are placed next to them. The cane is Zishu's Baiyi sword in disguise—once, it was worn proudly around his waist; now, it’s tucked neatly in the hollow of a length of bamboo that doubles as a walking stick.
Zishu wonders, not for the first time, if it would’ve felt disrespected.
He lifts the cover off one basket to check—the blocks of clear ice they’ve hewn two days ago have already been packed, layered with fresh straw and wrapped in leaves. He covers it back and hefts it up onto his back, as does Wen Kexing with the other.
Then, they start the trek down the mountain.
It’s still pitch-black this early in the morning. The moon, nearing the end of its cycle, is all but absent from the sky, as is the scant light it would’ve brought. The sound of wind is absent, leaving just their breathing and the slow shuffle of their steps down a now well-worn, well-tread path, lit by the glow of the lantern hanging from Wen Kexing’s hand.
Zishu spears the cane deep in the snow, and takes one step after the other. His other hand is hooked in Wen Kexing’s elbow, and they amble along at a pace that would have made the them of—who knows, it’s been a while, maybe a few hundred years prior—cry in frustration.
“How did you manage to make that godawful medicine taste fine?” he asks. A gust of wind blows, and Zishu shivers.
“You know Lao-Li?” Wen Kexing says, as he disentangles their arms to fumble at Zishu’s robes, pulling them together, allowing a stray stream of qi to leak from the hand on Zishu’s chest. Zishu presses himself closer and hums.
He continues, “We were talking when he traded ice with us last week, and he offered to swap a few cubes of rock sugar and a bag of apples instead of coal, remember? He said that if you don’t use too much, it doesn’t affect the medicine’s effectiveness, so I’ve been trying different ways of cooking it to mask the bitter taste. I’ve gotten it to work now, so I’ll just tell them we’re welcome to trading for rock sugar as well.”
Zishu had indeed thought that their home smelled a bit more medicinal in the past week, but he’d attributed it to him not paying any mind to the accumulation or buildup of smell, given its dreaded daily appearance in their lives all those years ago.
“But the first few tries nearly made me vomit, they were so bad,” Wen Kexing laughs, and Zishu grips his arm as they start walking again, thinking. His own portion of medicine’s been as acceptably nasty as always, and for drink-it-up-it’s-not-so-bad-Wen to complain…
“Don’t suffer for my sake,” he scolds.
Wen Kexing laughs. “You forget it’s for my sake as well.”
This close, their sides are pressed up against the other’s, the baskets on their backs almost knocking against each other. They slow down even more to avoid tripping, and Zishu looks at Wen Kexing’s profile, the smile etched on his face; his white hair, orange by the light of the lantern. He grips his arm tighter.
The presence of light is a precaution; they’re familiar enough with every rock and corner of their mountain to be able to make their way down blindfolded, never mind a dimly-lit night. Nevertheless, vigilance is an oft-overlooked virtue, and recklessness is unbefitting of an old person. Wen Kexing once tripped over a rock on a grassy path his deteriorating eyes couldn’t catch, and Zishu’s heart had almost stopped.
The decision to return to their mountain, already an easy one, had further firmed after that.
They had rid themselves of the shackles of immortality and allowed themselves to be carried on whatever winds blew across the jianghu, but one underestimated the freedom of a caged bird. There has never been a locked door; the cage is illusory. Yet, when the easiest way you could be with your other was if the both of you remained in a fixed place and abided by rules and imbibed the cold, what other choice was there? You bind yourself to a place for too long, and what others see as a prison has already become your home.
It’s not that they did not often leave it when the conditions of the world outside mirrored that of the mountain later in life, testing the limits of their freedom. But while the world was unfamiliar though welcoming, and excitement and joy could be found in a few quiet things, it was never home.
Wandering the jianghu is an adventure for the young. It made sense, once they’d had their fun, to retire as elders should, cultivating their health in the seclusion of the mountains.
The glow that illuminates the path before them slowly shrinks from two paces to one, the candle close to burning down—soon, they’ll have to pause to rest as they light another, borrowing from its flame. Wen Kexing will fuss, and Zishu will put up a token protest even as he all but collapses atop a rock, relieved.
The trip down the mountain takes one and a half shichen, on average. They make it just shy of two; they’d rested more than necessary, thanks to Wen Kexing’s incessant nagging, but it’s also nice to take one’s time.
Only Er-lang, Tang-zi and a handful of villagers await them at the mouth of the village today. Demand for ice always falls sharply once the autumn chill finally sets in, in comparison to the summer months—a few more weeks, and they’ll put a pause on ferrying ice downhill, leaving their mountaintop for Siji Manor to see the winter out. Their bones, once preserved by the cold, now find it too much.
There’s a chorus of greetings when they’re finally within earshot, and they seat themselves at the table and stools already set up below the lantern that marks the entrance.
Wen Kexing prepares his scale as Zishu settles their baskets. Er-lang and Tang-zi, here on behalf of their family businesses, have made every single trade in person. Wen Kexing asks after Er-lang’s daughter and his family’s inn, and Zishu grunts encouragingly as Tang-zi talks his ear off about business at his dessert stand, wielding a sharpened hatchet as he breaks a block down into more manageable pieces.
They’ve never profited off this, only seeking to make an almost equivalent exchange with whatever they lacked: spare coin, medicinal herbs, grains and vegetables, and coal. In this, they succeed—their baskets are much lighter when they’re finally done, Zishu’s filled with coal and leaves and straw and whatever couldn’t go in Wen Kexing’s own. They bid the villagers farewell, and turn around to shuffle back up their mountain.
“Let’s take the long way up,” Wen Kexing says. The light coming from his lantern is brighter, their freshly-replaced candle swapped out for a fat, strongly-burning stub the Xia family’s eldest son had insisted they take. He had come for ice to alleviate his pregnant wife’s hot spells. “The sunrise ought to be beautiful today.”
“The sunrise is always beautiful,” Zishu replies, but he’s not looking at the sky.
Zishu’s energy starts flagging when they’re almost all the way up. It creeps up on him, a lightheadedness and shortness of breath he’s learned to recognise for what it is, and he tugs at Wen Kexing’s sleeve. He helps Zishu to a flat rock with a steadying palm light under Zishu’s arm and his other hovering behind Zishu’s back.
Wen Kexing helps him set his basket to the side as he settles himself. After catching his breath, Zishu uncorks his gourd and drinks deeply from it; when he’s done, Wen Kexing offers his own flask, and takes Zishu’s. He scoops a pile of snow into a palm and brings it close to his face as he examines it, rheumy eyes squinting; it must pass muster, because he then packs it into Zishu’s gourd and warms it up with his qi.
The blue-black of the sky, which had shifted to a deep purple, is now an orange; beneath their feet, the snow looks almost pink.
“Don’t push yourself so hard,” Wen Kexing says, though it lacks heart.
“I didn’t realise,” Zishu says, and Wen Kexing knows, so he just nods. Today’s condition is worse than yesterday’s, which was worse than the day before, but a few decades of his body failing him couldn’t compare to the centuries it hadn’t. His bones knew, but the mind forgot, sometimes.
“You rest here,” Wen Kexing says. “I’ll carry my basket back up first, and come back to join you.”
Zishu raises his hand, and they brush their fingertips together in a not-quite farewell; Zishu hooks his pointer finger with Wen Kexing’s and doesn’t say, hurry back, old man. Wen Kexing allows the edge of a nail to catch on a fold of skin, and Zishu is assured he’ll be doubly careful on the way up and back down.
He misses him. He misses him when he’s not in their bed, having risen early to brew medicine for Zishu. It’s already an ugly, jagged chunk torn from his chest when he cannot see him, but still hears the sound of a cleaver on wood, the long-warped song he tunelessly hums as he clears snow where it’s fallen in front of the entrance to their home, as he heats Zishu’s bath water. He feels as if he’s lost his heart, with him out of sight.
There’s a part of him that’s viciously glad it’s his body that’s breaking down first. It’s not easy, being the one left behind. Zishu dabs at his eyes with the edge of a sleeve. Damn these failing eyes, watering when one stares at the sky for far too long.
The appearance of the sun is always too rapid. When Wen Kexing returns with a blanket and woven baskets piled high with beansprouts, it’s already high in the pale blue sky, and the snow that surrounds him is once again its familiar, startling white.
This is how they spend the morning: sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on a blanket over a rock, Zishu sipping melted snow-water from his gourd as Wen Kexing plucks beansprouts.
Zishu looks at Wen Kexing and traces his profile with his eyes. A tendril of hair falls into his face when he leans forward and squints at a stray sprout to check if it’s as wilted as it feels, and he reaches out to brush it back.
Wen Kexing turns his head into the touch, and Zishu sighs. He turns back to the beansprout, squinting harder. A different ache tugs at Zishu’s heart. Medicine was enough to slow deterioration of the body, but it wasn’t enough to keep it all the way functional until one's inevitable demise. You are born, you live, your body breaks down, as all things do. You die. You return to the ground, and your soul is born anew.
He discards the beansprout.
“When I go—” Zishu starts. Wen Kexing shrugs the shoulder that Zishu’s now fully leaning against, though it’s not enough to shake him off.
“Nonsense,” he says quietly, as he continues plucking tails off the beansprouts from the basket before him, a small mountain of white stalks and round yellow-green heads heaped high. To its right is another basket with a smaller mountain of already-plucked beansprouts. On its left is a third basket, discarded tails and wilted sprouts scattered across its flat surface.
Zishu pinches the inner skin of Wen Kexing’s wrist. His sleeves are tied up, revealing his pale forearms. Near the base of his right palm is a sunspot, newly developed.
He makes up his mind to kiss it later in bed when they’re curled up around each other and whispering about the things they’ll do to each other, if only they had the ability to get anything up.
“When I go,” he repeats again, helping himself to a plucked beansprout, “promise me one thing.”
Wen Kexing gives his wrist an admonishing tap. “Don’t eat those before they’re washed,” he murmurs, then nudges Zishu again. “What?”
Zishu reaches out, helping him pluck the beansprouts, discarding the roots in a pile before him.
“Don’t do anything I would do,” Zishu says, and smiles at Wen Kexing when he turns to him.
Wen Kexing’s mouth is a flat line, and his eyes twitch in disbelief. Zishu’s smile grows wider. He plucks the next beansprout with more ferocity, and says, voice even, “Only if you do the same, if I end up being first.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Zishu complains. “See, that’s why dying together is always more fun, not this old age nonsense. Some people die at ninety, others past a hundred… Who’s going to entertain me in the time you’re not here? What if you end up forgetting me while waiting by the Naihe bridge?”
Wen Kexing shrugs again, rolling his eyes. This time, Zishu makes a show of falling over; he gently lays himself across Wen Kexing’s outstretched arms, hair strewn across his green robes and falling over the edge of the rock they’re seated on, a waterfall of grey into snow. He twitches a feebly-raised hand at Wen Kexing, who stares at him stonily.
“Mercy, mercy,” he intones flatly, opening his mouth to accept the handful of beansprouts Wen Kexing shoves into it, before sitting back upright.
Zishu takes over plucking beansprout tails as Wen Kexing helps him rub at that one spot in his back; it jostles him a bit, but he’s not complaining. It’s better than contorting himself to reach it.
“Hey, old man,” he says. “Listen.”
Wen Kexing pauses. He resumes massaging his back again, and Zishu continues.
“When I do go before you, take my ashes and head away from this mountain. Spend the rest of your days at Siji Manor with the kids, okay? Teach them, eat as much as you want, and join me when that old body of yours finally gives up.”
He extends a beansprout in Wen Kexing’s direction; he gives both it and Zishu an exasperated look, before opening his mouth. Zishu places the tip of it on his tongue.
“Laozi doesn’t need a memorial tablet of any sort, and there’s no need to burn paper money for me. I won’t have anywhere to spend it, anyway; I just want you to live well while you’re waiting to join me so we can be reincarnated together.”
Zishu hesitates. “I won’t promise you anything.” He looks down and watches his fingers that had shook as he’d attempted to tie a knot this morning deftly twist a stringy tail, separating it from a white stem. “And if you dare to do something as stupid as dying of a broken heart and not natural causes, don’t think I won’t just push you off the Naihe bridge myself.”
The mountain of plucked beansprouts is higher than that of the unplucked ones now.
“That’s only if you’re the first to go,” Wen Kexing says softly.
Zishu turns to him, and reaches for his hand. He clasps it in both of his and presses his lips to Wen Kexing’s knuckles; then the paper-thin, leathery skin covering the backs of his hands.
How unsightly it must be, the affection of two old men. Zishu pets his hand, uncaring. To live until an age where one could be so unselfconscious about such a thing was already a blessing.
“Unfortunately, this old body’s frailer than yours; while the medicine’s strengthening your own bones, it’s only enough to keep this one going for a while more.” He looks up at Wen Kexing through his lashes. Truly unsightly. The Zhou Zishu of yore would’ve bullied him off their mountain immediately. “I am only blessed that you still find it in yourself to look upon it.”
Zishu chortles as Wen Kexing uses his other hand to pet his cheek twice, his affection and careful touch transforming the slap it would’ve been into, you fool. The gaze in his eyes is the cocoon of a lover’s embrace on a cold night, and Zishu’s smile can only grow. Wen Kexing’s ridiculously good-looking when he smiles at Zishu in return, and continues looking at him like that; beautiful people, even aged, are truly the most annoying kind.
There once lived an aspiring painter whose teacher made him stand in a bamboo grove every day for years on end until he could recall the scenery in his mind’s eye. When Zishu closes his eyes, that is Wen Kexing for him. Hand him an ink brush, and he’ll be able to recall his likeness with a few strokes.
He’d harboured a fear once that his mind would go as his body had. That he would forget Wen Kexing like the people they’d seen who lost their names, then their children’s, and their grandchildren’s. That Wen Kexing would be forced to live it.
Thankfully.
The hand Zishu’s holding on to twines itself with one of his own. Together, they resemble the gnarled knot of an old tree branch, one that looks like it’ll snap at the very hint of a bitterly cold winter.
“You’re so shameless,” Wen Kexing says, and Zishu retorts with,
“I learned it from you, after all.”
They turn back to the beansprouts, still holding hands. Zishu reaches for one, and Wen Kexing plucks the tail off, after which Zishu throws it in the pile on the right. While he’s doing so, Wen Kexing picks up another, and it’s Zishu’s turn to pluck the tail, and it goes on like this for a bit.
“This is ridiculous,” Wen Kexing says.
“If we can’t be ridiculous at our age, what’s the point,” Zishu retorts.
“To imagine that the upright and domineering Grandmaster of Siji Manor would have such a side to him.”
Zishu clucks his tongue. “Shut up and continue holding my hand,” he demands, exercising that domineering streak of his.
Wen Kexing rolls his eyes. They finish plucking the beansprouts by midday, a testament to their teamwork, and spend the rest of the afternoon reminiscing, as old men are wont to do. When evening turns to dusk is when Zishu cannot bear to wait any longer; he kisses Wen Kexing’s new sunspot, bringing their still-entwined hands to his mouth, thin lips to wrinkled skin. Then, he kisses the one over his wrist, and another on the inner skin of his elbow, Wen Kexing’s still-tied sleeves granting him easy access.
The sun in the west sets their mountain alight. Its colours bleed into the snow, and washes over them. Pink is its cast on Wen Kexing’s face; orange is what it stains his hair.
Zishu leans in and kisses him on the mouth. He tastes of old man and medicine.
Perfect.