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It wasn’t one thing that did it, but rather a collection of them, accumulating one after the other, leading him inexorably down the road to a singular revelation, if one that came too late.
The familiarity of a laugh. The lilt of a voice. A maimed left hand and an anxiety around revealing it. A certain way of moving. He had a sword but never drew it, like he feared it being recognized. Other things, smaller things, one after the other after the other.
And yet it took him so long to realize it, or at least to acknowledge it. Too long.
Too late.
Don’t leave, Xiao Xingchen had said once, clinging to him in the aftermath of ecstasy, his warm, heavy body sprawled over his chest.
Ha, he’d said. I’m not going anywhere. You could die and I’d just bring you back.
Late at night, his breathing slow and warm against Xiao Xingchen’s skin, he tried the name in his mouth, like speaking it would settle the turmoil of his thoughts, the stubborn lingering uncertainty.
Or maybe the hope that he would wake, and make it easy.
“Xue Yang,” he whispered, but the man in his bed sighed and curled in closer, face pressing into his neck.
Xiao Xingchen knew what he had to do.
It was what should have been done back then, but hadn’t, because of the corruption of the sects. It would have been better if it had happened two years ago, when their paths had crossed again; if instead of a badly wounded man there had been only a body to bury. If he’d realized then, asked more questions, pressed for more answers–
But he hadn’t. Had thought it was a kindness, allowing this man to leave a clearly painful past behind. And he’d expected he would leave, then, that he would heal and move on, and he and a-Qing would go another way, and life would go on.
Time passed. The stranger didn’t leave, and didn’t leave. He never asked if he could stay, simply acted as though there’d never been any possibility that he wouldn’t. And Xiao Xingchen was relieved, was happy, because the stranger was good company, was clever and helpful and made him laugh, and with time even a-Qing’s misgivings seemed to ease. It felt like unexpected grace, this sweet thing. Sunlight breaking through clouds.
It was undeserved, that he should be making a home when Zichen had lost his, that he should be finding peace when Zichen’s had been ripped away. But he soothed himself with the thought that he was helping, that he was still doing what good he could, that he wasn’t harming anyone with his happiness.
He couldn’t save the world, wasn’t worthy of the lofty goals he’d had before, but he could make this.
He could let himself, one quiet night, driven by a burst of unexpected boldness and upwelling affection, to take his friend’s face between his hands (Chengmei, he had a name now) and kiss him, testing the bounds of flirtation.
And Chengmei had made a startled noise against Xiao Xingchen’s lips and then wrapped one hand around the back of his neck, the other latching onto the front of his robes, and held on like he never meant to let go again. His soft mouth was so warm, and he kissed him until Xiao Xingchen was dizzy with desire, with being desired.
That mouth, full of lies. Those hands, soaked with blood. The body he had held and caressed and loved, the instrument of so much evil.
What about you, Daozhang? Are you gonna leave me?
No, Xiao Xingchen said, smiling. How could I? You’d get into so much trouble without me.
Yeah, probably. So really you’re just doing a public service.
Not really, Xiao Xingchen said, because he felt like he needed to. Really, I...just don’t want to.
A hitch of a moment where Xiao Xingchen wondered if he’d said something wrong, but then his friend pressed his face against Xiao Xingchen’s collarbone and laughed in the way Xiao Xingchen knew meant he was uncomfortable. Aw, he said brightly. You’re so sweet, Daozhang. I could just eat you up.
You don’t have to. No one would know.
Xue Yang wasn’t harming anyone here. He had been helping Xiao Xingchen, night hunting with him. Who would his death serve, a voice whispered in the silence of his mind. What would it mean? You’re the only one who knows. Let it go.
A poisonous voice. A selfish voice. The sage desires not to desire.
Xue Yang had killed. That was a violation of the balance of things; regardless of who it served it needed to be set right. The dead of Baixue and the Chang and who knew how many others deserved justice, to have their killer punished.
He pictured Zichen. Zichen looking at him with accusation and betrayal. How can you even consider letting him live, he heard in his voice, familiar, beloved. Are you truly so selfish that you’d cast aside all principles in favor of your own shallow happiness? Shame!
And yet he fought it, his body betraying him by turning toward Xue Yang, by letting him touch him, kiss him, by doing nothing. Today, he would tell himself, today I will do it, and then he didn’t.
Xue Yang, he imagined saying. You’ve gone unpunished long enough. Face your rightful sentence. Would Xiao Xingchen bind him beforehand? Or would it be better to give him the chance to fight back? Would that make it easier?
He felt sick contemplating it. Lying in bed, Xue Yang’s arm draped across his waist, considering his death sentence as his victim lay in peace–
No, not his victim. It was justice. It had to be done, and Xiao Xingchen was simply fated to be the instrument. Maybe it was right that it be so; that he be the one to settle this, when he’d been the cause of so much of it.
Don’t pursue this, Zichen had said. Don’t interfere. This isn’t our purpose.
He’d dug in his heels and insisted. Zichen had paid the price.
He had to take responsibility now, for fixing his mistake.
If only every fiber of his being didn’t vibrate with I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to.
Someone else take this duty from me.
Don’t make me kill someone who loves me.
He could try to tell himself that it was all a lie, that the way Xue Yang bent toward him was as false as everything else, that it was a front, an act, a part of the deception. But in his bones he couldn’t believe it.
It has to be done.
If only he weren’t the one to do it.
But there was no one else.
“A-Qing,” he said, “I’m going to ask you to do something very important.”
Her hesitation was audible. “What’s that?” she said slowly.
“You’re not going to like it,” he warned her, “but please, I need you to do as I say.”
“Daozhang,” she started.
“There’s something dangerous I have to do,” Xiao Xingchen said. “I need you to leave Yi City, go to Ziyang, and wait for me there.” He heard her take a breath to refuse, and hastened on. “If I don’t come to find you within three days, then…”
“No,” a-Qing interrupted. “No, I won’t, what do you have to do anyway, I can help–”
“Not with this,” Xiao Xingchen said firmly. “I can’t...I need to know that you’ll be safe.”
“I’m not doing it,” a-Qing said more loudly. “I won’t, and you can’t make me. I’ll stay out of the way but I’m not leaving.”
“A-Qing,” Xiao Xingchen said desperately, “please.”
“And what am I supposed to do,” a-Qing said after a moment, her voice wobbling very slightly, “if you don’t come back?”
Xiao Xingchen’s heart twisted in his chest. “There’s a temple,” he said. “Another day’s travel due north from Ziyang. I’ll give you a Qiankun bag with enough supplies to last you. They’ll...tell them that Xiao Xingchen sent you from Yi City. They’ll help you. From there...I’ll give you further instructions on where to go.”
His shifu would take her in. She might not be happy. But she wouldn’t turn her back on a young girl in need, either.
“You can’t do this to me,” a-Qing said. She sounded desperate, on the verge of tears, and Xiao Xingchen wanted to give in, wanted to tell her no, you can stay, I’m sorry, but…
“Please,” Xiao Xingchen said again. “For my sake.”
How much longer did he have? How much time until Xue Yang returned?
“Why can’t you come with me,” a-Qing said. “Get help from this temple place?”
“This…” Xiao Xingchen swallowed hard. “This is my responsibility.”
“What is?”
The monster I brought into our lives. That I allowed to run free.
That I fell in love with.
“I’ll tell you when it’s over,” he said, sick at heart.
Sometimes, Xiao Xingchen knew, there were times when a person was suffering beyond endurance, when they would not recover, and the only thing to be done was to ease their pain, and sometimes even their passing. A mercy killing, he had heard it called, and it had always struck him as a horrible juxtaposition. Why not simply call it mercy?
It felt apt for what he was going to do, though. Mercy killing. The gentleness of mercy. The harsh reality of killing.
He had to do this. No one was telling him how. That was his choice.
When Xue Yang returned Xiao Xingchen removed the basket he was holding from his hand and set it down, then kissed him soundly. Xue Yang made a startled sort of ‘mmph!’ noise and then leaned up into him eagerly, hungry as ever.
(Hungry. That had always been a good word for Xue Yang.)
“Hey,” Xue Yang said when they broke apart, breathless. “That’s a greeting. What brought that on, Daozhang?”
“Do I need to have a reason?” Xiao Xingchen said. The lie came terrifyingly easily.
“Guess not,” Xue Yang said. Xiao Xingchen could hear the smile in his voice and his heart twisted, wavering–
No.
He kissed him again, long and softly. “Where’s a-Qing,” Xue Yang said when he pulled back, voice a little dazed.
“I asked her to leave for a while,” Xiao Xingchen said. “To give us some privacy.” He’d never been able to lie before. He’d never had a good reason to lie before.
“Daozhang,” Xue Yang said, sounding gleeful. “Well, well.” A part of Xiao Xingchen screamed don’t trust me. Don’t believe me. Be suspicious–
Maybe a fight would be more fair. But it seemed like it might also be crueler. If it were him...if it were him, Xiao Xingchen thought he would rather keep the illusion until the last moment.
“So,” Xue Yang said, “what’re you gonna do to me that you wanted to be alone for?”
Again that pain, like a sword driving through his heart. “I didn’t have particular plans,” he said. He traced Xue Yang’s cheekbones with his thumbs and then let his hands fall away. “Only that I wanted…”
He trailed off and kissed him again, sliding his hand around the back of his neck the way he knew he liked, drawing him close. One more time, he thought. One more time.
Xiao Xingchen pinned Xue Yang’s wrists and told him to keep them in place, because he didn’t think he could bear being touched, not right now. Then he proceeded to take Xue Yang apart, slowly, tenderly.
He knew what to do. Knew Xue Yang’s body, what he liked, what he responded to, better than he knew anyone else’s but his own. And he only knew his own desires because he’d found them here, because Xue Yang had drawn them out of him like a splinter from a wound.
Please, Xue Yang almost whined. Please, come on, you’re killing me–
That almost broke him. But not quite. He let the memory of Zichen weeping blood, Zichen shoving him away, voice raw as he told him to leave and not come back, carry him through. Though that almost undid him in a different way.
Not yet, he murmured into the soft skin of Xue Yang’s stomach. Not yet.
It was good. So wonderfully, terribly good, as always, as everything had been as long as he’d believed the lie. What if, some fragment of him said, pleading, but he turned away from it.
After, he cleaned up and then retied Xue Yang’s robe. “Worried about my modesty, Daozhang?” Xue Yang said, voice blurry, as relaxed as the rest of him. Xiao Xingchen tried to imagine what it would look like. Wished he could see it, just once.
But of course if he could see–
“I don’t want you to get cold,” he said. Xue Yang laughed.
“You’re what’s gonna keep me warm,” he said. Xiao Xingchen wrestled back the urge to weep.
“Would you put your head in my lap?” he asked. For the first time he heard Xue Yang hesitate.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, a faint thread of suspicion there but mostly just something more like confusion.
“No,” Xiao Xingchen said, and then tried to smile and said, “yes, but it’s nothing. Just a - just a touch of melancholy, that’s all.”
“Guess I’d better get on fixing that, huh?”
“It’ll pass.”
Xue Yang made a dubious noise. “If you say so,” he said, but apparently it was enough. He moved, collapsing into Xiao Xingchen’s open lap, the back of his head resting against his stomach. “Bet this’ll help,” he said. “I’m just selfless enough to look out for you like that.”
Why, Xiao Xingchen thought angrily, why do you have to make this harder?
Was it always going to have to end like this?
He ran his fingers gently through Xue Yang’s thick hair, drawing it back from his face, tugging through some looser tangles. His pleased hum struck him like a blow. His head felt heavy, his body limp and boneless. At ease. Relaxed. Trusting.
A sick tangle of grief and anger and misery and guilt gnawed at Xiao Xingchen’s heart.
I have to, he reminded himself. I can’t let him live. He’s too dangerous. He’s done too much harm.
“What’re you thinking about, Daozhang,” Xue Yang asked lazily. “I can hear you from here.”
“I’m just…” Xiao Xingchen took a deep breath. “Savoring the moment,” he said.
“Can’t blame you for that. I’m not complaining.”
“No,” Xiao Xingchen said, moving his hand to cradle Xue Yang’s head, fingertips brushing the steady pulse at his throat. He called Shuanghua to his hand and unsheathed it, whisper silent. “I don’t suppose you are.”
He drew Shuanghua’s fine, sharp blade gently across Xue Yang’s throat.
His body seized with a noise that quickly became a gurgle. Blood gushed out hot and wet over Xiao Xingchen’s hands and he let the sword fall, catching Xue Yang’s wrists as his hands lifted like he was going to hold the blood back. Xiao Xingchen’s breathing caught and he took a heaving breath as he listened to Xue Yang die, twitching and spasming and then going still. There was blood soaking through Xiao Xingchen’s robes. It felt like he was drowning in the smell of it.
And then, with one last wet, choked sound, it was over. A quicker, easier end than Xue Yang had given many of his victims.
It was very, very quiet. Xiao Xingchen could feel his eyes burning. A noise that was the echo of Xue Yang’s last burst out of him, and he broke. Lowered his head and sobbed, loud and wretched and unstoppable, his body shaking with it, heaving and painful. His heart felt like it was being wrenched out of him. Why, why, why, it was so unfair, he’d been happy–
A lie. Or, not a lie, but built on one, and Xiao Xingchen had fallen for it. Had taken a murderer, the man who’d hurt Zichen so badly, into his home, his heart, his bed, and yet what he’d just done felt like just as much a betrayal.
It hurt. It hurt so badly it felt like he would die, the agony of grief swallowing him whole.
Too much to bear.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not entirely certain to whom he was apologizing. Zichen. A-Qing.
Xue Yang.
He reached for his sword and set the edge to his neck.
Let it end.