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The evil thing was going to bring Xiao Xingchen back.

That was what he said, anyway. A-Qing knew it was something he could do, hypothetically. I’ve done it before, he said. I’ve raised plenty of corpses and one conscious one so there’s no reason I can’t do it again.

She should run. Xiao Xingchen had wanted her to. But Xiao Xingchen was gone and her only chance of getting him back, maybe, was the bastard himself. Xue Yang.

It might be worse if she tried to run now, besides. She had a feeling he’d find her anyway and probably be mad about it, and that...she shivered a little. She didn’t want to know what he’d do then.

And he said he wasn’t going to hurt her. I’m not going to hurt you, Qingqing, he’d said. Don’t get me wrong, you fucked up and I’m pissed at you but Xiao Xingchen likes you and he’ll want you around when he wakes up. So I guess I’m letting you off.

It wasn’t a good deal. And she was keeping the knife close that she’d snuck off him when she first came back to the yizhuang and found him passed out in a puddle of blood.

But if he could bring back Xiao Xingchen...

I won’t let anything happen to you, he said another time, one of the nights when he didn’t sleep all night and seemed crazier than usual. Nothing! We’re gonna get him back and it’ll be just like before. We don’t even have to stay in Yi City! We can go somewhere else, wherever you want, where do you want to go, Qingqing? Come on, tell me, we’ll do it, as soon as Daozhang comes back.

Comes back, he said, like Xiao Xingchen had just gone on a trip somewhere and was taking a little too long.

She didn’t ask about the other one. The man in black who’d come looking for Xiao-ge, who said he was a friend. He’d seemed nice enough.

A-Qing knew he was dead now.

He was dead and he was also, when a-Qing woke up one morning, standing by the coffin where Xiao Xingchen was.

(Not that she’d seen him in there. She wanted to almost as much as she didn’t want to but last time she’d gotten within a foot of the coffin, Xue Yang had just appeared out of nowhere to snarl at her.

Don’t touch it, leave him alone, he’d growled. If you fuck something up - you could fuck something up. Just don’t mess with the wards. You’ll get to see him soon.

The idea of doing something that might ruin her chances of ever seeing Xiao Xingchen again was scarier than Xue Yang. She kept her hands off.)

The man hadn’t been there the night before but he was there now, dressed in black and standing stock still. He didn’t even glance in her direction. There were dark lines in the pattern of veins up the side of his neck.

A-Qing’s skin crawled.

“Good,” said Xue Yang behind her, and she whirled around, grabbing onto the hilt of her knife. “You’re awake. We’re going on a trip.”

A-Qing stiffened. “What do you mean,” she said. “Where? Why are we leaving here? And what’s - what’s he doing there?”

Xue Yang followed the direction of her pointing finger. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah. Zichen’s here to make sure Daozhang stays safe while we’re gone. Aren’t you, Zichen?” His voice got all sharp and mean and he stared at the man in black like he was hoping for a fight but the man in black didn’t even blink.

“Isn’t he dead?” she said, relieved that her voice stayed steady even though her heart was pounding.

“Yeah,” Xue Yang said. “And he’ll do what I tell him to.” He glared a moment longer before turning back toward a-Qing. “And we’re leaving cause I need to get some things. Supplies. There’s stuff I need for...for work, for getting Xiao Xingchen back, and I can’t get it here.”

Stuff like what, a-Qing sort of wanted to ask, and also didn’t. She was having a hard time looking away from the man in black - the corpse, standing there, staring. She tried to pretend he was a statue. Or a normal person just standing very still. Just Xiao-ge’s friend.

“You don’t need to be scared,” Xue Yang said abruptly. “He’s not going to do anything to you. It’s safe. Watch–” and he walked over to the man in black, reached up, and flicked his nose. A-Qing flinched, but the man didn’t. Xue Yang turned to stare in her direction. “See? Harmless.”

“I’m not scared,” a-Qing said.

“Liar,” Xue Yang said, but he sort of smiled at her, too. A-Qing didn’t smile back and it sort of stuttered and fell off his face. “Whatever. Point is just grab enough shit for a few days and let’s go, I don’t want to leave him on his own any longer than we need to.”

“I could just stay here,” a-Qing said, even though the idea of doing that, staying here alone with Xiao Xingchen’s body and a walking corpse, made her feel a little like screaming. But she wasn’t sure traveling with Xue Yang would be any better. Xue Yang shook his head immediately.

“No,” he said. “No way. You’d just get in trouble and if something happened to you cause I just left you on your own, Daozhang would–” He stopped, sort of shook himself, and said, “no, you’re coming with me. I might want your help.”

It’s not being on my own I’m worried about, a-Qing thought, but she watched his fingers tap his leg in a restless, jittery kind of movement and decided not to argue about it.

“Help with what,” she said instead.

“Just help,” he said. “Stop asking stupid questions and get moving, okay?”

A-Qing went back inside, moving slower gathering her things than she could have. She could hear Xue Yang talking outside but couldn’t quite make out the words. When she came out again he was standing with his hands on the coffin with Xiao Xingchen in it.

“Be back soon, Daozhang,” she heard him murmur. Then he straightened, turned to the man in black, and said, “if anything happens to him I’ll chop you into pieces, you hear me?”

“Can he even understand you?” a-Qing asked. Xue Yang’s head swung in her direction, his eyes narrowing.

“I don’t care as long as he does what I tell him to do, which he will,” he said. “Are you ready to go?” A-Qing nodded, and Xue Yang took one step away from the coffin and then another one.

“Good,” he said. “Come on, then,” and he picked up Xiao Xingchen’s sword and swung it across his back. A lump materialized in a-Qing’s throat and she wanted to shout no, put that back, it’s not yours, but she didn’t say it.

Just shuffled over to the coffin and blinked the tears away. She wanted to see him. She didn’t want to see him, like then she could pretend it was like Xue Yang made it sound, that he was just hurt and off somewhere recovering for a while.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Daozhang.” Then she made herself look at the man in black and swallowed hard. She opened her mouth and then closed it. A part of her thought if you hadn’t come this wouldn’t have happened. A part of her thought why didn’t you win? Why couldn’t you kill him? Then Daozhang would still be alive.

“Hey, brat! What’re you doing?”

She turned and hurried away from the yizhuang, and didn’t look back.

It took them two nights and a day to get where they were going. To a-Qing’s relief, they walked instead of flying. She didn’t like flying. Xue Yang’s sword made her skin crawl, and she could never shake the fear that he was about to throw her off it.

It wasn’t a terrible trip, either. Xue Yang was in a good mood, but not one of the scary good ones, just one where he acted like nothing had changed, teasing her and telling dumb jokes. What’re you so happy about, she half wanted to ask him, but it seemed like that’d risk ruining it and as much as it was weird when Xue Yang got like this it was definitely better than the alternative.

And when they did stop…

“What’s this?” a-Qing asked, wrinkling her nose.

“It’s a house, Qingqing. I know you’ve seen one of those before.”

A-Qing glared in his direction. “Don’t call me that,” she said, “and I don’t think it counts as a house when it barely even has four walls. You could barely call it a shed. And what’s here that you need so bad?”

“Here? Nothing,” Xue Yang said. “Other than a place for you to wait for me while I go take care of things.”

A-Qing stiffened. “You can’t just ditch me here,” she said. “I thought you said you wanted my help.”

“I can definitely ditch you here if I want to,” Xue Yang said, “and I said I might want your help. I don’t, so it’s better if you just stay out of the way.”

“Then I could’ve just stayed back home,” she said.

“If I’d left you there you’d’ve probably ended up getting eaten by wild dogs or something,” Xue Yang said. “And I didn’t know then. It was just in case.”

“Don’t pretend like you’re worried about me,” a-Qing snapped. Xue Yang’s eyes narrowed and she tensed, fingers twitching toward her knife, but didn’t look away.

She saw when he shifted, a subtle motion that meant he’d been thinking about doing something and decided not to. “You’re not missing out on anything fun if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said. Paused, and added, “nothing you’d think was fun, anyway,” and gave her a nasty grin that she ignored because she knew it was meant to bother her.

“I didn’t think that we were here to have fun.”

“Glad to hear it,” Xue Yang said. He fidgeted and glanced toward the position of the sun in the sky. “Look. Just stay put. I’m not gonna be that long, and you’d just be in the way.”

The corner of a-Qing’s eye twitched, but the thing about arguments with Xue Yang was that most of the time she couldn’t win them. And she usually knew when she could win them, when he was just being stubborn to be stubborn, and it wasn’t one of those times.

And she wasn’t sure that he was wrong. She probably didn’t really want to be there, whatever he was doing. Supplies sounded harmless enough but that didn’t mean it was actually.

“Ugh,” she said, because she wasn’t going to give in gracefully at the very least. “Fine. You owe me for how bored I’ll be hanging around here, though.”

“I don’t owe you shit,” Xue Yang said, but she thought he actually relaxed a little. “If you get really bored you can always–”

“Fuck off,” she said loudly, because she could tell from the gleam in his eyes that whatever he was going to say wasn’t going to be a real suggestion and was probably going to be gross.

“So rude, Qingqing,” he said, grinning, and for a dizzy moment a-Qing could almost imagine turning to see Xiao Xingchen covering his mouth like that’d hide his failure not to smile.

But of course he wasn’t there. And the moment broke so fast it left her feeling sort of sick, and maybe Xue Yang’d felt something of it too because his face did something funny before he turned away really fast.

“All right,” he said, voice shorter. “Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll be back soon.”

A-Qing sat down outside, looking up at the clouds and pulling up grass. Her chest was tight and she missed Xiao Xingchen the way she did sometimes - she always missed him but sometimes it was more, sometimes it hurt. It hurt right now.

Sometimes she thought about saying something about it to Xue Yang. Asking if it ever happened to him.

She never did, though.

The moon had risen and set by the time Xue Yang returned.

The door of the shed opened and a-Qing jumped to her feet, seizing her knife and preparing to strike.

“It’s me,” said Xue Yang’s voice, rough and a little strange. A moment later a flame appeared, leaving a brief afterimage on her eyes before they adjusted. The light was still dim but it was enough for her to see that it was, indeed, Xue Yang.

She lowered the knife slightly but didn’t put it down. Xue Yang took a step inside, closed the door behind him, and staggered sideways, catching himself on the wall. A-Qing narrowed her eyes. “Are you drunk?” she demanded, and then smelled the blood. Her eyes widened. “Did you kill someone?”

“Yeah,” Xue Yang rasped, and she flinched even though it wasn’t like she was stupid, she’d known that he was a murderer but it was still different hearing him say it just like that. “Fuck.” He pulled a bottle out of the pouch at his waist and opened it, shaking a pill out of it and into his hand. Only to spill several onto the floor. “Fuck,” he said, louder, and turned his head to the side, spitting something dark onto the floor.

“What’s the matter with you,” a-Qing asked, tensing but not moving forward yet. Xue Yang’s head swung in her direction. In the light of the flame talisman it was hard to see much clearly but he definitely didn’t look good.

“Motherfucker broke my ribs is what’s the matter,” Xue Yang said. He slid down to the floor, gasping in breaths, his head knocking back against the wall. “Fucked up - fucked me up. Bastard. Dead now though.”

A-Qing edged forward, though she kept her grip on her knife. “Who was he,” she asked, even if she probably shouldn’t. It felt like she should know. If she wasn’t going to stop it then she should at least know.

“Doesn’t matter,” Xue Yang said. He eyed her, still sucking in those short, strained breaths. His stare dropped to her knife and she tensed again, starting to raise it. “C’mere,” he said.

A-Qing planted her feet. “Why?”

Xue Yang laughed, or at least she was pretty sure that was what the sound was trying to be. “Cause if you don’t I’m probably gonna bite it and then what are you going to do,” he said. “You need me. Remember? I’m the only one who can get Daozhang back.”

A-Qing’s eyes widened. “You’re dying?”

He bared bloody teeth at her. “Good chance, yeah, since he fucked up one of my fucking lungs. You want to try living without one of those, cause - augh.” He coughed, though it was really more of a hiccup, and licked pink-tinged foam off his lips. “So come on, I can’t do this on my own.”

“Do what,” a-Qing said, nauseous dread seeping into her belly. Suddenly convinced that he wanted to use her blood or something and no way was she going for that. Xue Yang pulled a small knife out from his sleeve and glanced over at her.

“I need you to stick this in my back where I tell you to,” he said, and a-Qing jerked, blinking several times.

“What?”

“I didn’t think it was complicated,” Xue Yang snapped, and then panted a few times.

“You want me to stab you?”

Xue Yang bared his teeth in what was maybe meant to be a grin but mostly looked like a snarl. “Thought you’d be excited about that part, little brat.” A-Qing shifted, taking a step back and swallowing hard.

“Why,” she said.

“Pressure,” Xue Yang said. His voice sounded thinner and he slid down to sit on the floor, though it looked more like a controlled fall. “Let the air out. Come on, idiot, I don’t have all day.”

A-Qing gripped her knife tighter and didn’t move. Xue Yang’s head fell back, lolling a little sideways; his eyes half closed and he visibly forced them open.

If she didn’t do anything he’d probably die. He’d said so. And - and didn’t he deserve that, for Xiao-ge, because he was a murderer and a liar and mean as a hungry dog–

If he died then Xiao-ge was gone forever.

She took a step forward, and then another one, approaching slowly and still holding onto her knife. Xue Yang’s eyes dropped to it and he huffed a laugh. She held out her hand and was proud that it didn’t shake.

“There,” Xue Yang said, panting. “That’s more like it.”

“What do I have to do,” she said. Xue Yang flipped the knife and pressed the handle into her hand, then started tugging at his clothes. A-Qing’s eyes widened and she took a step back again. He barked a wet-sounding laugh.

“It’d be hard to do this through clothes, Qingqing. Don’t worry, I’m not interested in your precious virtue.”

A mixture of disgust and embarrassment twisted her guts into knots. She didn’t say anything, just watched him struggle out of his clothes, muttering curses under his breath. A-Qing didn’t offer to help. With his shirt off, even in the dim light a-Qing cold see the beginnings of spectacular bruising spreading across his stomach and chest. A part of her itched to ask what’d happened, but mostly she thought she probably didn’t want to know.

Xue Yang laid his outer robe out on the floor, his movements wobbly and unsteady. He paused, and cast a-Qing a searing look.

“If you kill me I’m going to come back and rip you to shreds,” he said. A shiver ran down a-Qing’s spine but she stared stubbornly back at him even if she could believe it. “Okay,” he said, quieter, coughed, gagged, and then stretched out on his stomach. The brief huff was the only indication that it hurt. Well, that and the fact that his face went even paler than it’d been.

“Your turn, Qingqing,” Xue Yang said. “Do - exactly what I tell you, okay, don’t fuck it up like you - fucking son of a bitch–” He broke off, panting, and for a moment she thought she saw his eyes roll up like he was going to pass out but then he didn’t.

“You’re not gonna - be able to do anything from all the way over there,” he said. A-Qing steeled herself and came closer again. Her hand was sweating. The hilt of the knife felt slippery.

Closer, she could see how tense he was. She could see him breathing, short little gasps. She held the little knife tightly and thought about how easy it would be to sink it in deep and then again and again and again until Xue Yang was dead.

She wasn’t sure she could actually do it. And if she failed...that’d be a lot worse.

And if she didn’t she’d be alone again and she’d been alone plenty but she didn’t think it’d be so easy now. Xue Yang was a bastard and a killer and a monster and he was the only piece left of the closest thing to a home she’d ever had.

“Count down four ribs. Between that and. That one and the fifth. Just...just about half the blade deep, four fingers width away from my spine...should do it.”

She counted. Where the muscle was thinnest and she could find bone at all and she tried to touch him as lightly and as little as possible. He twitched a little, just once, breathing stuttering like she’d hurt him but he didn’t say anything so she didn’t stop. Four down. The space between that rib and the next one, estimated the distance like he’d said and put the knife against skin and then she stopped, frozen.

Xue Yang hissed. “Do it,” he said, voice thin, barely more than a wheeze.

A-Qing bit the inside of her cheek and stuck the knife in. It went in easier than she’d thought it would. Smooth. She stopped when she could only see half the blade’s length left just...sticking out.

She felt a little sick.

“Out,” Xue Yang said, and she yanked it free, almost throwing it away across the floor. Xue Yang made a weird noise, sort of a click in his throat crossed with a grunt, and then went limp and for a terrifying, dizzying moment a-Qing thought I killed him, I did it, he’s dead, but then he twitched and rasped, “hold it. Hold it open.”

A-Qing’s stomach dropped. “What? With - with what?”

“Fucking - fingers if you have to, fuck,” Xue Yang gasped, and she stared at the red wound welling up blood and thin pink fluid. She squeezed her eyes closed and thought it’s not any worse than fishing through garbage for food. It’s just - just raw meat, that’s all, not even rotted or moldy–

She squeezed her eyes shut and stuck her two smallest fingers into flesh.

It was so much worse. Hot and slippery and Xue Yang’s body seized up with a brief, half-swallowed hiccup. She wanted to yank away, recoil and get as far back as possible, but she didn’t. Just waited, eyes squeezed closed, listening to Xue Yang’s labored breathing and half expecting it to stop.

It did seem to be slowing down. But steadying too, a little. Evening out, sort of. A-Qing could feel little shudders running through Xue Yang’s body but she didn’t think she’d be able to see them if she’d been looking.

Her ears were ringing a little and her head was spinning

“Fuck,” Xue Yang wheezed, after a long silence, and then made a noise that sounded like it was trying to be a laugh. “Okay. Okay. Good - ah. Stop. You...stop.”

It took a-Qing a moment to parse what he was telling her, and then she yanked her hand back (the noise her fingers made coming out, she almost puked) and scrambled back, putting as much distance between them as she could. She could hear her own breathing, loud and fast.

Xue Yang didn’t move, still sprawled on his stomach on the floor. He looked very still and she could see white slivers between his eyelids.

“Xue Yang?” she said warily. He didn’t answer and her stomach swooped. “Xue Yang,” she said, louder. “You, asshole, what now?”

“Hnn,” he said blurrily. Licked his lips, swallowed, and opened one eye. “Nice. You, uh. Was that fun?”

“No,” she said. His eyelids fluttered and closed again.

“Now we see if it works or if I’m gonna die in a stupid shed with you, stupid,” Xue Yang slurred, and she recognized the moment when he passed out.

Her eyes fixed on the wound in his back. Still bleeding.

She could’ve killed him. It would’ve been easy.

A-Qing drew her knees up to her chest, eyes fixed on Xue Yang’s unmoving body.

She didn’t move for a long time.

Xue Yang came around with a loud groan well after the sun had risen. A-Qing was thirsty and her eyes felt like they were full of sand; she’d barely slept all night, and when she had it’d just been nightmares. Then there’d been one where she’d woken up and Xue Yang was dead, cold and stiff, and a-Qing wasn’t quite sure whether it’d been a nightmare or not.

But he wasn’t dead. She stayed where she was and just watched as he started to push himself up to hands and knees. His head turned, black eyes fixing slowly on her.

“Huh,” he said, and then let out a ragged coughing noise. “Figures. Water?”

What figures, a-Qing thought, but she just shook her head. “I don’t have any left.”

“Fuck,” Xue Yang said. His voice sounded raspy enough that a-Qing’s throat almost hurt, listening. “Well, that’s fucking great.” He sat up slowly and looked down at himself. The bruises that she’d seen starting to form were really nasty now, huge and black and purple. Xue Yang made a face at them and then let out a rough laugh. “Nice,” he said.

“What happened,” a-Qing asked.

“Not important,” Xue Yang said. He started tugging his robes back on with stiff movements that looked like they had to hurt. “Only thing that matters to you is I got what we came here for and we should get going.”

Now? was what a-Qing thought. You’re pretty fucked up still, aren’t you, but if Xue Yang was saying they should move on probably that meant they’d be in trouble if they didn’t. Someone was dead out there who hadn’t been when Xue Yang had left, and that would mean trouble.

If Xingchen-ge were here he would stop this. Stop him. What would he think of you?

She didn’t exactly have a lot of choices. And as soon as Daozhang was back he’d take care of Xue Yang and then it would be just the two of them again, like it should be.

Xue Yang pulled out a small bottle, shook a pill into his hand, and swallowed it dry, hacking a little without the water to wash it down, then tucked the bottle away again and cracked his neck to one side.

“Okay, brat,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

Home.

Before Xiao Xingchen, a-Qing hadn’t had one. She wasn’t sure she still had one now or if it’d gone away with Xiao Xingchen and now the yizhuang was just a corpse of a home the same way Yi City was a corpse of a city and the man in black was...a corpse.

So much death, all around her.

The first thing Xue Yang did when they got back was check the wards on Xiao Xingchen’s coffin; the second thing was to turn and sneer, “guess you’re not a complete failure,” at the man in black. He snapped his fingers and said “go on, make yourself scarce.”

A-Qing didn’t watch him go, instead wandering over to the house and standing there looking at it for a little while. She glanced back when Xue Yang groaned. “Well, shit,” he said. “At least it wasn’t a total waste of time.” He rubbed his eyes and it occurred to a-Qing that he still didn’t look very good. It took him a few moments to notice her staring.

“What,” he snapped, tensing, and she shook her head, looking quickly away.

“Nothing,” she said. “What now?”

“I’ve got work to do and you’re going to stay out of my way,” Xue Yang said.

“I could help.”

Xue Yang snorted. “Did you learn demonic cultivation when I wasn’t looking? I don’t think so. I don’t want you to get ripped to shreds by a backlash ‘cause you don’t know what you’re doing.”

The first thought that surfaced in her head was you could teach me but she wasn’t sure she wanted Xue Yang to teach her anything. And demonic cultivation was...wrong. Bad. Everyone knew that.

The curiosity still itched at her.

When she didn’t immediately argue, Xue Yang relaxed a little. “If you really want,” he said, “when I’m done I can walk you through some of it. If you’re that curious.” He paused, then fixed her with a strange, set stare and said, “Daozhang wouldn’t like it.”

A-Qing glanced away. Daozhang wouldn’t like me sticking around with you alive was what she imagined saying, but that wouldn’t be smart. “Pretty sure I’m doing other stuff he wouldn’t like already,” she said.

It’d be okay. He’d understand. It wasn’t like she’d killed anyone and trying to stop Xue Yang would just get her killed. It wasn’t her fault.

Xue Yang huffed a weak sort of laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s true. But if he was gonna fuss about it he shouldn’t’ve left us alone.”

That us felt a little funny. Even if it shouldn’t.

“So?” she said.

“Yeah,” Xue Yang said after a couple moments. “Sure, okay. I can show you some things. But I’m not gonna teach you, or anything.”

Some corner of her was disappointed. “Who said I’d want you to,” she said. Xue Yang huffed again, mouth tugging into a smile.

“Little brat,” he said. “You should be so lucky. But you still have to stay out of my way right now.”

A-Qing decided to take her victory, however small, where she could get it. “Fine.”

“Good girl,” Xue Yang said, and mussed her hair, and went off to the corner he’d designated his workshop.

A-Qing left the courtyard. She didn’t have anywhere to go, but she didn’t want to stay, either.

She came back as the sky was just starting to change color, and almost turned around and left right away again. Xue Yang was pacing back and forth, muttering to himself and twisting his hair around his fingers in a rapid, agitated motion. She hesitated, considered leaving again and coming back later, and decided that wasn’t likely to make anything better and might make it worse. She steeled herself, brushed off the fear, and stepped over the threshold.

He didn’t even seem to notice she was there. He stopped dead, abruptly, cocked his head to the side like he was listening for something, and then snorted, shook his head, and muttered something that sounded like no, don’t think so, he’d and then she lost it again.

He looked like he’d lost it.

“What’re you doing,” she said loudly, still keeping her distance. He turned toward her and she registered immediately that he looked worse than he had earlier. Sort of pale and unsteady, but his gaze was sharp enough to nail her to the floor.

“Little brat,” he said. “There you are.”

“You told me to get lost,” she said, skin crawling. “Did you figure anything out while I was gone or what?”

She saw a quick flash of frustrated anger before he said, “I’m working on it.”

A-Qing made a sort of pff noise, because it helped her feel better about how her skin was crawling. “So you didn’t,” she said. Xue Yang’s eyes narrowed and he took a step toward her that had a-Qing planting her feet so she didn’t skitter back.

Then he twitched out of it like he was shaking something off and gave her a grin that was unsettling but not actually dangerous. “Not yet,” he said. “Give me time. Do you want to see what I was doing or not?”

“I’m hungry,” she said. “I want to eat something first.”

“Ugh, fine,” Xue Yang said. “I guess I can make you something.” He went back to the kitchen and a-Qing stayed where she was and let out a slow, relieved breath. The tingling of her senses that told her something was wrong didn’t abate.

There were times when Xue Yang would go for days without sleeping, barely eating. A-Qing didn’t know if that was normal or a cultivator thing or what, but it sort of sucked to live with him while it was happening (even if sometimes it meant he was in a better mood than usual) and he was always useless for almost a week afterwards. Sometimes when it started it looked like this.

He’d been like that with - when Xiao Xingchen was alive, too. But it was different now. Like he just - forgot everything else existed other than the work, other than whatever new thing he was trying to get Xiao Xingchen back.

Whatever, a-Qing thought. It wasn’t her job to take care of him. Not by a long shot.

Xue Yang only came back with one bowl rather than two and sat down in a sprawl of limbs. A-Qing looked from the bowl to him and said, “where’s yours.”

“Not hungry,” Xue Yang said. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, and Xue Yang snorted. “What, do you think I poisoned it?”

“You could’ve.”

He looked briefly annoyed and then briefly something else, like he was hurt or something, and then he said, “even if I ate some to prove it to you, it could be I was just burning off the poison with my golden core so you might as well just eat it or go hungry, I don’t care.”

He looked over toward the courtyard, fingers drumming on his leg. His eyes were bright and shiny. So are you all better now or what rose up and she swallowed it back down. It would’ve just sounded worried.

“What,” he said, and she realized she’d been staring.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just thinking about how I wish I didn’t have to look at your stupid face.”

Xue Yang barked a laugh and bared his teeth. “I could fix that,” he said, but a-Qing didn’t flinch the way she might’ve a month ago, or more.

“Try and I’ll gut you,” she said. Xue Yang’s laugh this time sounded wilder, strange enough that the back of a-Qing’s neck prickled.

“Yeah, you will,” he said. “Scrappy little bitch.”

She hunched her shoulders and glared. “Don’t call me that.”

“I’ll call you what I want.” Xue Yang stretched, twisted, and he got up. “Time’s wasting. I’m going back to work.” He paused like he was going to say something else, but whatever it was, he didn’t.

Two days after their return, a-Qing woke up with the nagging sense that something was wrong. It was just starting to get light out, the morning filtering weakly through the fog. She listened closely, unmoving, but it was very quiet.

Then she did hear something: a faint moan. A low, miserable sound and her stomach clenched up. She grabbed her knife, listening harder for a laugh, or…

Nothing. A-Qing swallowed hard and shoved her fear off to get up, knife in hand and nerves tingling.

She found Xue Yang outside where he’d apparently fallen asleep leaning against the coffin. There was no one else in the yard and she inched warily closer, picking up a pebble and throwing it at him. It bounced off his shoulder but he didn’t wake up.

A-Qing could hear him breathing raspily from all the way over here. Inching closer, she could see his eyes moving rapidly under closed lids and he was shivering even though it wasn’t cold and he didn’t usually do that even when it was.

“Wake up,” she said loudly. He shifted and moaned and that explained that noise anyway, even if it didn’t actually make her feel any better.

He’s sick, she thought. And then, and it’s bad. A-Qing took a step forward and then one back, glancing over her shoulder like there might be someone else who could deal with this but obviously there wasn’t. It was just her and him and maybe the dead man in black somewhere.

She came closer, half expecting him to wake up and lunge at her but he didn’t do anything, just sat there propped up and breathing with his mouth open, heat radiating off him. “Wake up,” she said again, louder, poking him in the ribs where she knew his bruises were.

“Hnnnh,” he said, body jerking, and his eyes opened to bloodshot slivers. “Fuck what,” he said, or that was what it sounded like, words a blurry jumble.

“You’re sick,” she informed him. He frowned at her, nose scrunching.

“No shit,” he said, a little more clearly. “Where’s Daozhang?”

A-Qing recoiled. She gaped at him but Xue Yang just shivered and said, “tell him to tell you to fuck off, would you? I need…”

Her eyes started to burn (stupid!) and a-Qing swallowed hard. “He’s not here,” she said. Xue Yang made a sort of grumbling sound and licked his lips, panting. A-Qing glanced over her shoulder and said, “Xue Yang.”

“Fuck,” he said, and then, “Qingqing?”

This is bad. This is very bad. A-Qing bit the inside of her cheek. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s me. Now wake up and…” she didn’t want to say tell me what to do even if that was what she needed. He blinked once, slowly.

“Where’s Daozhang,” he said again, and a-Qing hunched her shoulders.

“He’s dead,” she made herself say, voice rough and harsh. “Remember?”

Xue Yang swayed, staring stupidly, and a-Qing said, “what’s wrong with you?” even though she had a feeling she could guess.

“No,” Xue Yang said. “That’s not…” his expression did something weird. Sort of crumpled up, just for a second, confused and lost looking and it didn’t look right on his face, made her insides squirm with the wrongness of it. He shook his head like he was trying to jog something loose. “Water,” he said, not quite a request, but a-Qing got up and filled a bucket from the well anyway because at least that was something she knew how to do.

She hated feeling like this. Stupid and helpless and she wasn’t either of those things but since Xiao Xingchen had...gone, it seemed like she was feeling them a lot.

When she came back Xue Yang had stripped half out of his robes down to just his shirt, which was sort of sticking to his skin. His eyes were closed again, his head flopping back. She could see his heart pounding hard and quick by the motion at his throat, under his jaw. She put down the water with a thunk and he twitched.

“Let me see your back,” she said. She was maybe a little proud of how steady her voice sounded. Xue Yang let out a rough sound that didn’t quite make it to a laugh.

“What’re you gonna do about it,” he said, but he twisted around with a groan to show her. She steeled herself and made herself pull his shirt up. It was sort of stuck to his skin with sweat and dried blood.

The wound she’d made wasn’t big but it looked ugly. Swollen and tender-looking, the skin flushed an angry red that spread out in streaks. That was bad, she knew it was bad and she didn’t know what to do about it.

Xue Yang slumped back, panting, his eyes fluttering closed and then dragging open and then closing again.

“What do I need to do about it,” she shot back. Xue Yang’s shoulders moved with the force of his breathing and he didn’t answer. “Xue Yang,” she hissed, and he jerked.

“Good fucking question,” he said, and laughed, a little wildly. “There’s some. Uh. Medicines. Dunno if I...costs money if I don’t have them already. Bad if you get the wrong ones. Fuck me.” Another laugh that sounded even worse.

“Tell me,” a-Qing said. Xue Yang opened one bloodshot, blurry-looking eye, flickering with confusion.

“Okay,” he rasped after a couple seconds. “Yeah. Sure.”

It felt like a fight to get the information she needed out of Xue Yang when he kept veering in and out of clarity and consciousness. A couple of the medicines he’d indicated she did manage to find. The others…

“I’ll be right back,” she said, not quite sure why she bothered when she wasn’t completely sure that he was even conscious. He shivered and moaned faintly and a-Qing’s stomach turned.

This was all wrong and she hated it and she wanted to just let him die, or wanted to want to let him die but if he died then Xiao Xingchen was gone forever and the idea of just letting it happen felt - wrong, bad, made her a little nauseated.

She did bring the money she dug out of Xue Yang’s stuff, but she didn’t end up using it. Her fingers were as light as ever.

When a-Qing returned Xue Yang was actually on his feet. His head swung toward her and she froze, but he looked right through her.

“Get out,” he said, words sort of garbled.

“No,” she said. His eyes focused, sort of.

“Not you,” he said. “Qingqing. A-Qing. Little - little blind girl, no, not so blind…” he laughed, strangely, and staggered, barely catching himself. A-Qing glanced toward the door and then quickly dragged her eyes back. Showing fear would be a bad idea.

“There’s nobody else here,” she said.

“Shows what you know,” Xue Yang said. He half-fell to the ground and made a sort of hiccuping noise. Then he frowned at her and said, “you weren’t here.” His eyes narrowed.

“I had to go get some stuff,” a-Qing said, waving it at him. “You told me you needed them. So?”

Xue Yang looked blank and a-Qing’s stomach turned cause if he was too out of it to remember then there wasn’t a lot she could do. A small part of her whispered maybe that’d be for the best but it wasn’t very loud.

“Come on,” she snapped. “You’re not that stupid that you already forgot.”

His expression cleared and he laughed, sort of, little hitching noises. “Right,” he said. “Shit, right. Okay. Just...little hard to focus right now. Shut up.”

A-Qing crossed her arms. Xue Yang coughed and it was followed by a sort of gah noise, half-swallowed. “You seemed fine,” she said.

“What,” Xue Yang said. “You think I’m gonna lie around expecting you to be helpful?” He scoffed. “Sure. Good way to…” He trailed off, eyes sliding out of focus.

“‘d kill you again if I could,” he said abruptly, then slumped back, panting, only to jerk up again. His expression did something weird and then he was looking at her again.

“Show me what you got and I’ll tell you what they’re for and...and what you need to do. I...fuck. I know, Daozhang, I know–”

A-Qing’s skin crawled and her shoulders drew up. “Daozhang isn’t here,” she said.

“That’s not true, he’s right over there,” he said, pointing at his coffin, and laughed, sort of. His eyes, when they fixed on a-Qing, were suddenly very clear. “If you want me dead then do it your fucking self,” he said.

She did want him dead. She needed him alive for now. She didn’t want him dead. But also she did.

“I’m not trying to kill you,” she said harshly. “If you could just keep it together for one minute…”

“Yeah,” Xue Yang said. “Yeah, okay. Fuck it. Could be worse.” He laughed again. It sounded awful. “Let me see what you grabbed.”

It was an even more painfully slow process getting anything useful out of him this time. He kept...slipping. He saw things and a-Qing didn’t know if it was a cultivator thing or if he was just going really crazy. And he kept...losing time. Acting like it was before everything broke.

But she got enough. Well. She got something and had to hope it’d be enough because he’d stopped responding to her at all. At least it was after she shoved and snapped and pulled to get him back inside and lying on his stomach on the bed. There’d been a smelly paste over the wound itself, some powder blended into water that she had to convince him to drink, a pill she made him swallow.

And then…

And then all a-Qing could do was wait.

Xue Yang burned. He mumbled and thrashed and shivered, called out half-intelligible gibberish and then lapsed into loud, strained breathing, exhales touched with a little bit of a whine. One time his eyes opened all the way and she sat up sharply, thinking maybe it was over.

“Daozhang,” he rasped, and then, “Xiao Xingchen,” and started trying to get up. She moved to shove him back without thinking and he actually went with it which said more than she wanted to know about how weak Xue Yang was right now. He still snarled at her, though.

“Get off,” he said. “Get off, need to, he’s, he’s here I heard–”

A-Qing’s throat closed and she shook her head. “You didn’t hear anything,” she said harshly.

“I did,” he snarled at her. “Just because you didn’t - he’s here and I need to, need to…jealous little bitch you know, you know I’m right and you just don’t want–”

A-Qing’s face got hot and she pulled back, stung, and that was probably what made her say, “he’s dead, you moron, remember?”

Xue Yang went still all at once. Still breathing hard but otherwise it was like he was frozen.

“He’s dead,” she said again, her voice wobbling a little, “and it’s your fault, and you said you’d bring him back but it’s been months and he’s still gone and maybe I should’ve just let you die back then.”

Xue Yang’s shallow gasps sounded loud. The silence stretched and she started to wonder if he’d passed out or something.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said, though his voice sounded strange, a little uncertain. It firmed up fast, though. “And just because I haven’t fixed him yet doesn’t mean I can’t.” After a brief pause he laughed, though it didn’t really sound like he thought something was funny. “So are you gonna let me die now?”

She could. She should.

“Just - go to sleep,” she said, and started to get up, but that brought her within arm’s reach.

His hand snapped out and his fingers wrapped around her wrist and squeezed, hard enough to hurt. “Let go,” she hissed, tugging against him.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Xue Yang said, rasped. His eyes were huge and black, too bright, fever-glazed. “He’s coming back. He is. He’s coming back and it’s...everything’s gonna be okay. Same as it was. You and, and him and me. How it’s. How it’s supposed to be. It was good. It was good. I’m gonna…”

He trailed off with a sort of rattling sigh, eyes slipping closed. His grip on her wrist slackened slowly until she could pull herself free and stumble back several steps, breathing hard herself. She knew where her knife was. All she had to do was stick it in the right place. Draw it across his throat. All she had to do...

She wasn’t going to. And there was nothing else she could do to help now.

A-Qing crawled into her coffin-bed and cried until she fell asleep.

She drifted in and out, dozing off and then waking, going to check on Xue Yang (see if he was still alive, mostly, she didn’t really know what else to do now), retreating, dozing off, waking again. Xue Yang wasn’t quiet, either. He moaned and whimpered and cried out, and sometimes she could understand it and sometimes she couldn’t.

“Stop it stop it stop it,” he said, his voice sounding high and scared. He called out for Daozhang. His eyes opened sometimes but he never seemed to actually see her.

It scared her. A-Qing knew she should find a doctor but she balked at the idea of bringing someone else here, and doctors were expensive. Xiao Xingchen would know what to do but he wasn’t here, it was just the two of them and half the time she didn’t even know if she wanted him to survive but she knew she didn’t want him to die right now.

“Don’t die,” she hissed at him, lying there sweaty and shivering. “Don’t you dare, you have to survive, you have to bring Daozhang back, you said–”

Her voice cracked a little. Xue Yang’s face scrunched up and he made a small, unhappy noise, eyes darting rapidly back and forth under his eyelids.

“You’re so stupid,” she said, and her head filled in takes one to know one but she didn’t get any response, not actually. “Stay alive,” she said, hard and maybe a little too loud. “Stay alive.”

Two days. On the morning of the third, a-Qing thought at first Xue Yang had died during the night because he was so quiet, but it didn’t take long to realize that he was still breathing, slower and deeper, and he looked maybe a little less fever-flushed. A wave of relief almost knocked a-Qing off her feet. She let out a shuddery, uneven breath, starting to reach out to confirm that the fever’d broke only to jerk back before making contact.

He woke up for the first time a few hours later with a low groan. She went over though she stayed out of arm’s reach and watched his eyes focus on her slowly.

“Qingqing,” he rasped after a moment. “Where’s,” and then his face did something strange, just for a second before it was gone and he said, “still alive, huh? Get me some water.”

“Don’t order me around,” a-Qing said, but she got the water. After he drank what must’ve been half a full bucket, he dropped back down to his side, eyes closing again and hand going to his chest.

He froze, eyes snapping open, and a-Qing didn’t think she’d ever seen him scared before. “What - where is it. Where–”

“I have it,” a-Qing said. His eyes widened.

“Give it back,” he said, voice a lot clearer. “Now.”

She shook her head. “He’s not yours,” she said, planting her feet. “Xiao-daozhang was my friend before you ever showed up. I want - I should get to–”

“You’re weak,” Xue Yang said, cutting her off. “You can’t keep him safe like I can.”

A-Qing sucked in a sharp breath and said, “you didn’t, though, you’re the reason he’s dead.” Xue Yang’s face went blank. She watched a shudder go through him and didn’t think it was weakness or fever. Her stomach flipped and she wondered if she should run.

Several moments stretched out and then he let out an awful, grating laugh. “No,” he said. “Did you forget? Xiao Xingchen’s the reason Xiao Xingchen’s dead, because he went and cut his own fucking throat.”

A-Qing heard herself make a faint noise. She hadn’t known that was what’d happened, not that specifically and her head was suddenly full of an ugly, vivid image of her Daozhang dragging his pretty sword across his neck and blood everywhere, everywhere.

Xue Yang laughed again. It sounded even worse. “I’m the one who’s going to fix him,” he said, hoarse and sort of thick. A-Qing balled her hands into fists and opened her mouth but only to close it.

She didn’t actually have anything to say.

Another silence stretched out before she said, “you talk to...him. I want to too.”

Xue Yang stared at her, eyes flat black and hard to read, which was a bad sign.

“It doesn’t have to be always,” she said. “Just - sometimes. At least.”

He blinked, and the danger eased a little. “When we’re here,” he said. “Only here and when I’m around. And...and I still want him back right now.”

A-Qing’s shoulders dropped. It wasn’t as much as she wanted. But it’d be enough for now.

She still hesitated before pulling the pouch out and handing it over. Xue Yang took it, hands uncharacteristically gentle. More of the tension eased and he let out a quiet sigh.

Then looked back at her, something strange about his expression. “A-Qing,” he said, and then frowned and stopped, mouth twisting. He dropped his head back, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s good you’re here,” he said all of a sudden, almost too quiet to hear, and it sounded...tired.

She didn’t know what to say, so she just said, “of course it is,” and that got an even tireder laugh. A-Qing fidgeted.

“Go back to sleep,” she said. “You still look like shit.”

“Flatterer,” Xue Yang said. His mouth twisted sort of toward a smile. “Probably your dirty fingers that fucked me up, you know. So nice going.”

A-Qing’s stomach clenched but she said, “I just did what you told me, so really it was your stupid idea.”

“Brat,” Xue Yang said. Maybe she was just imagining it but it sounded almost fond.

It made her want to flinch.

“Asshole,” she snapped, but she waited to leave until he was asleep again, the pouch tucked once more inside his robes, against his chest, as always.

Then she went out into the courtyard. The man in black was standing guard and didn’t react to her. A-Qing’s eyes went to the coffin next to him and then jerked away.

She was exhausted. Stupid Xue Yang, making her deal with him being sick. At least it was over now.

It was over and she shouldn’t care that he’d survived. She felt like a traitor. She shouldn’t be relieved, almost - almost happy, a little. She didn’t like him. He scared her sometimes even if she tried not to let him. She was only putting up with him for Daozhang, just until she had him back, it was Xue Yang’s fault that he was dead in the first place, she’d never…

You and him and me. How it’s supposed to be. It was good.

It had been. For a while.

She glanced back toward the house, then walked slowly over to the coffin, putting her hands lightly on the lid like she might push it away and actually look.

“I’m sorry,” she said, to Xiao Xingchen this time. “I don’t want it to be like this. We just - I just need you back.”

Everything’s gonna be okay. Same as it was.

She wondered if Xue Yang really believed that.

Almost, a-Qing wished she did.