Work Text:
When Wei Ying was younger, she always worked on Christmas. Not just Wei Ying, but the entire Jiang-Yu clan. Their restaurant was open every year through that holiday season, so Wei Ying’s main association with Christmas is the smell and bustle of the restaurant, frantically working wherever she was needed (mostly prepping takeout orders), and trying not to mess up anything in front of Yu Ayi.
Her first ever stereotypical Christmas experience had been with an ex’s family, where the mother had fretted over giving Wei Ying an “authentic” experience and apologized profusely about a cousin who was apparently breaking with tradition and bringing a salad for Christmas dinner instead of sprouts. She had only seemed more upset when Wei Ying had admitted that she usually ate restaurant leftovers.
Since that breakup, Wei Ying has only worked jobs that have Christmas off as a holiday, so she’s used it to go help out at home. Yanli runs the restaurant now, and every time Wei Ying shows up her sister makes a lot of noise about “You don’t have to come back, we don’t need the help,” and then sits Wei Ying down at the table to roll silverware while she gossips about her in-laws for hours. It’s so good, and Wei Ying couldn’t imagine a better Christmas tradition.
***
This year, Yanli gently told Wei Ying a few months earlier not to bother coming home. Yu Ayi won some kind of cruise and insisted on Yanli and Jiang Cheng joining her, so the Lotus Pier Seafood Garden will be closed for Christmas for the first time in Wei Ying’s memory.
Wei Ying is refusing to mope about it. What’s to mope about? She can pick up the on-call cultivator shift at work, get time and a half, and indulge in some takeout. Plus, she hasn’t worked at the office on Christmas before—maybe it’s very exciting! Christmas spirit and all.
It turns out being at the office on Christmas Eve is hellishly boring. Lan Zhan, the only other person in the building, is probably making major headway in her paperwork (being a cultivator is way more paperwork than Wei Ying would have ever guessed, and it sucks), but Wei Ying got distracted a quarter of the way through her second report writeup and has spent the majority of the day just fucking around.
She’s made three cups of tea and forgotten each one of them until they’d gone cold. She turned on the radio to help fill the suffocating silence, and after the fifth Christmas song she started turning up the volume level by one each minute. Her plan is to stop when Lan Zhan notices from across the office and yells at her. Or until Wei Ying can’t stand it anymore, whichever comes first.
“There’s never any ghosts on Christmas,” Wei Ying sighs, tilting back in her chair. If she scoots back enough, she can see the back of Lan Zhan’s head reflected in the mirror above the water cooler, and beyond that to her computer screen. Sure enough, Lan Zhan’s working on a report.
It’s too bad Lan Zhan doesn’t like me, Wei Ying thinks. She gets it—like, she’s a lot of fun but she can be too much. Lan Zhan definitely thinks she’s too much. It just sucks, because there aren’t that many women cultivators! And Chinese women cultivators in the Northeast US? Forget it. Most sensible Chinese cultivators stick to Asia, or at least the west coast. Generally speaking, ghosts of different ethnicities tend to behave differently, and different styles of cultivation work better on the people who developed them. Wei Ying wrote her undergrad thesis on it, not to brag or anything.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying calls out.
Lan Zhan’s chair swivels slightly, but otherwise she doesn’t stop typing.
“Lan Zhannnnnnn,” Wei Ying tries, putting more whine in her voice.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan responds, her deep voice showing a hint of strain.
“Why aren’t there ghosts on Christmas?”
No answer.
“Is it because they’re tired of A Christmas Carol and don’t want to be cliché?”
Still no answer. God, Lan Zhan must really hate Wei Ying.
“Lan Zhan, how can you still be working on your reports? You only had one case this week.”
“It is important to be thorough.”
“Yeah, totally, which is why I write at least one sentence per section,” Wei Ying says, and bites her lip to hold down her instinctive smile.
Wham’s “Last Christmas” drowns out what Wei Ying assumes is Lan Zhan’s weariest sigh, but she can still feel Lan Zhan’s disapproval radiating at her from across the office. “Wei Ying, these reports are very—”
“—I know, I know Lan Zhan, I was just joking! I definitely always write at least a paragraph.”
Lan Zhan’s silence doesn’t sound pleased. She probably writes one page per section. Wei Ying could never.
The computer pings, and Wei Ying sees an IM from Huaisang, ostensibly the office admin and HR but also the CEO’s sister.
bzd: hey
yllz: sup
bzd: u and lan zhan are in the office today right?
yllz: sigh yep
yllz: it’s so boring huaisang save meeee
bzd: absolutely not lol, above my pay grade, im getting my whole vacations worth!!!! you hear me
bzd: meimei gives no fucks
yllz: then why are you messaging me? Shouldn’t you be sipping eggnog and eating candy canes somewhere?
bzd: ew no to lactose and mint gives me heartburn tyvm
bzd: my sister is insisting on taking everyone in our family to dimsum tomorrow so i am busy getting intel on all the cousins so i know exactly what questions to ask if anyone tries to grill me on something
bzd: “biaoge your new boyfriend’s a mechanic right?? Can he take a look at my car to see why the engine lights on?”
bzd: boom, no more questions from nosy cousin cuz the boyfriend’s actually an escort
yllz: …
bzd: i digress
bzd: i overheard jiejie on a call just now, p sure you guys are getting an assignment
yllz: !!!!!!
bzd: don’t get too excited
bzd: still gonna have to do it with the office buzzkill
Filled with excited energy at the idea she might be released from this dull office prison, Wei Ying briefly considers turning the volume on Sting’s rendition of I Saw Three Ships to blasting levels, but the phone rings before she can choose violence.
“Yup,” Wei Ying answers.
“Ah, Wei Ying. You and Lan Zhan are on call today, correct?” Mingjue’s voice is warm, and she apparently gives no fucks about the way Wei Ying answered the phone. This is why Wei Ying loves her boss.
“Yup,” Wei Ying says. She imagines the twitch of Lan Zhan’s jaw clenching as she listens to Wei Ying. Lan Zhan does have opinions about professionalism.
“Great, the firm got a referral. It’s for a level 3 disturbance at a bed and breakfast. We need you two to take it. I’ll send you the initial report and the location. You know the deal, sign out whatever you need.”
“Gotcha,” Wei Ying says, a delighted grin crossing her face. Maybe she can have a ghost for Christmas after all.
***
Cultivators are supposed to stay on the down-low when they’re investigating, partially because people are dumb and panic easily, but also because there’s always a chance there’s someone who is stoking the fire, so to speak. Wei Ying suggests they pretend to be sisters, mostly because 90% of the time she’s out in public with another Asian person people always assume they’re related. Once things are roughly hashed out, Wei Ying books a room. There’s only one left, so she barely looks at it—it says it’s for two people, and she figures even if it’s not two beds, she can always sleep on the floor.
Privately, Wei Ying calls their storeroom a junk closet, but technically the label outside the door is, blandly, “storage room.” As she enters, she sees Lan Zhan packing. When she thinks about it for more than a second, Wei Ying supposes she shouldn’t be that surprised that Lan Zhan is a light traveler. All of the cultivators have overnight bags stashed at the office for this kind of situation, since once a disturbance has been identified it’s a priority to quell it before it…disturbs any civilians. But Wei Ying has, you know, a bag, and Lan Zhan barely has a duffel. To add insult to injury, Lan Zhan doesn’t even take any of the cultivation tech. Wei Ying tries not to act like it’s personal, even if it kind of is because she invented half of the stuff in there, but it’s hard not to pout as she flings a handful of her favorite remote ghost detectors in her bag and Lan Zhan…stands there.
“Just your sword, really?” Wei Ying asks. Unlike the old days, cultivators can’t really go around carrying literal swords everywhere. Aside from anything else, their size alone would be super annoying. Like, can you imagine a sword on the subway? Modern cultivators don’t even use swords anymore—Wei Ying has her dizi Chengqing disguised as a whistle on her keyring. Lan Zhan is old school, though, and her Bichen is a sword. It’s just that the sword happens to look like a really fancy silver pen most of the time, tucked into her breast pocket. It should look very nerdy? But somehow Lan Zhan makes it look classy and purposeful, like she spends her whole day signing very important documents with a very shiny pen that matches her very expensive watch.
“And my guqin,” Lan Zhan responds, tapping a leather case that looks like it holds sunglasses.
Wei Ying sighs. “You’re really a technophobe, huh?”
“I prefer the classics,” Lan Zhan says with a shrug.
“Blech.” Wei Ying makes a face. Literally anyone else would have laughed; Wei Ying makes good faces. Lan Zhan just looks at her, unamused, and leaves the storage room.
***
Wei Ying hasn’t technically worked with Lan Zhan before. When the office is staffed, only one cultivator gets sent out at a time to deal with anything lower than a level 4, since the understanding is they’re adults and can call in backup if needed. And they don’t get that many reports above a level 4. But on-call means no one else is around, means you can’t call backup, means you’re stuck with a stuck-up partner who you don’t know that well. Lan Zhan doesn’t even have any personal decorations at her desk for Wei Ying to speculate from, just a framed photo of some misty mountain.
In fact, the first time they met was the night before a cultivation conference. Lan Zhan had just started with the firm, and Wei Ying had been told by Huaisang to keep her eye out for their new colleague. In Huaisang’s words, “She’s a hot butch with a braid, and you know how I feel about braids, you gotta see it.” Which she had planned on doing, but of course Jiang Cheng had shown up in a mood. And Wei Ying, being the good older sister that she was, had to match him drink for drink in solidarity. She’d checked the schedule for presentations the next day—all of the early morning ones were boring, the most relevant of which would be Mr. Beaumont’s presentation on “Talismans- 5 Uses You Wouldn’t Expect!”
Wei Ying was pretty sure she could expect actually, but Mingjue was paying for her to be here and would look expectantly at her when she asked how the sessions were. So Wei Ying was going to go, but she wasn’t worried about how hungover she might be at the session.
Anyway, that’s how Lan Zhan had met Wei Ying: mostly drunk, free tote filled to the brim with bar snacks, leaning too hard against Jiang Cheng. Wei Ying didn’t remember much about it, but she did remember Lan Zhan telling her that it was unprofessional to drink at a work event—which, hello, had she never been to a conference?
So yeah. It’s safe to say they pretty much kept their distance from each other after that.
***
Wei Ying graciously lets Lan Zhan have the keys to the company car for the two-hour drive to the bed and breakfast. There’s a minor power struggle over the stereo that Wei Ying doesn’t lose, exactly, but classical music wouldn’t have been her first choice for music. Or even fifteenth, really. Her first choice of music to head to a job is always the Ghostbusters soundtrack. Still, she’s used to negotiating car music deals thanks to many road trips with her siblings, which reminds her to send them a brief “I get a ghost for Christmas!” text. They probably don’t have good service on a cruise, but Wei Ying is determined to pretend things are normal. Even if the text went through, she’s sure they’re too busy doing cruise things (Shuffleboard? Looking at the water? Re-enacting The Lonely Island’s “I’m On A Boat”?) to check their phones or respond.
Wei Ying offered to read the report to Lan Zhan, so she does, because she refuses to be petty about the music thing.
“Like I said, it’s a level 3. The report says the cultivator was unable to find the source of the energy and had to leave, so the evidence was just that… ‘5 books flew off a shelf at a speed of 5mph’. Dang, that’s some detail. No news reports or past reviews to suggest the ghost has been noticed by anyone else yet, which means it was either recently disturbed or recently empowered.”
“How long has the business been open?” Lan Zhan asks.
Wei Ying pulls the website up on her phone. “Since 1950, looks like. So empowerment seems more likely.”
Lan Zhan makes an agreeing noise. Empowered disturbances tend to be easier to deal with, since they’ve always been around, they just… had something give them some oomph. Wei Ying likes dealing with the recently disturbed better, with their emotions sharp and fresh, but she’ll take it.
“Property was built in 1904,” Wei Ying says, still scrolling through the website. “Oooh, Lan Zhan, they have a special Christmas Eve dinner! Roast duck, hell yes. Oh hey they even have a vegetarian option!”
Lan Zhan looks over at Wei Ying sharply, as if she’s offended that Wei Ying knew she was vegetarian.
“We may not even need to stay the night if we can settle the disturbance easily,” Lan Zhan says instead. Of course she’s a party pooper and doesn’t want a firm-funded fancy dinner. Wei Ying texts Huaisang as much, and Huaisang responds with several poop emojis.
***
From the outside, the house looks old, but not particularly haunted. Wei Ying doesn’t know much about old houses, despite living in a state full of them, but it looks like the kind of place in which you’d expect wealthy white people dressed in historic clothing to live.
“Oh hi!” A woman who must be the receptionist sits behind a desk just inside the house next to a giant Christmas tree covered in sparkling ornaments. “You must be the Wei Ying who ordered our Romance of Christmas getaway package! Is your husband outside?”
“Uhhhhhh—” Wei Ying pauses, all mention of ‘hi my sister and I are on a Christmas trip to try and heal from our parents being very dead’ gone from her brain.
At that moment Lan Zhan, having apparently finished her initial sweep of the outside of the building, walks through the entrance.
The woman looks between Lan Zhan and Wei Ying, her mouth open.
Wei Ying’s brain has just about caught up with herself and she’s about to introduce herself and her sister, haha, not married, ew can you imagine—
“Ohmigod I am SO SORRY,” the woman says, her hands over her mouth. Wei Ying laughs and raises a hand in a calming gesture.
“Oh no, you’re fine, we’re actually—”
“No no no, you don’t get it, like my brother is gay and everything! Ugh! Why did I assume that you had a husband when you clearly have a very beautiful wife??”
A laugh is shocked out of Wei Ying, and before she can correct this woman or make a comment about assuming someone’s gender, the stranger bursts into tears.
“Oh-oh god, it’s okay—”
“I can’t believe I COMMITTED A MICROAGGRESSION,” the woman wails between sobs. Wei Ying looks at Lan Zhan, who has a frown line between her eyebrows.
“Oh, buddy,” Wei Ying tries, walking forward to awkwardly pat her on the shoulder. She never knows what to do when women cry. It’s very intense. “What’s your name?”
“Barbara,” Barbara manages, blowing noisily into a tissue. “I’ll make it up to you—-I’ll upgrade you to the deluxe package for free, as an apology.”
“Deluxe package?” Lan Zhan asks.
“Yeah, it includes a key to the kitchen so you can get food whenever you want, and our Christmas reception and dinner is included.”
“Well, actually, uh—”
“We’ll take it.” Lan Zhan’s voice is firm.
Wei Ying looks at Lan Zhan in shock. Why—why would she want this to be their cover?
“I so appreciate your understanding,” Barbara sniffs. “Let me make the arrangements, and in the meantime here is the key to your room. We’re so happy you’re here.” Barbara’s smile is watery but genuine.
***
When Lan Zhan had first started at the firm, Wei Ying and Huaisang had spent happy hour debating their new coworker.
“I just don’t know if she’s gay,” Wei Ying had said, and Huaisang had looked at her like she was stupid.
“You’re stupid.”
“What! You can’t tell someone’s sexuality by how they look, that’s so homophobic!”
“Wei Ying, the woman has a side shave. And she only wears slacks and button downs to work!”
“She could be very stylish and dislike wearing dresses to work because she doesn’t like to be sexualized! Some people have very different casual outfits from their work clothes, Huaisang. Also, should you really be speculating on anyone at the firm’s sexuality? You’re technically our HR person; that feels weird.”
Huaisang had rolled her eyes so dramatically Wei Ying almost asked if she was okay.
“Whatever, she’s queer. Definitely. My sister knows her from some lesbian sport thing they used to do together.”
Wei Ying frowned, trying to imagine Lan Zhan playing tennis in a sports bra and a white skirt…nah. It couldn’t be tennis.
“What sport?”
“Ohmigod, Wei Ying, how am I supposed to know? One of,” Huaisang flapped her hands, “One of the ones with a ball that you throw places, I don’t know!”
“It’s weird to me that you don’t know a sport your sister played.”
“What can I say? I’m not paying attention to the points getting scored, if you know what I mean…”
***
Wei Ying stays silent until the latch to their room closes. She notes with unease the (one) king size bed, covered with holly in the shape of a heart. Yikes.
“What the fu—”
“The deluxe package offers us more access than the alternative would have,” Lan Zhan says shortly. “For our investigation.”
Wei Ying pauses, and feels a hot rush of embarrassment course through her. That makes sense, and is something she would have caught if she hadn’t been so distracted by Barbara’s hysterics.
“Okay,” Wei Ying allows. She watches Lan Zhan calmly assess the room. “So what made you fall for me?” Wei Ying asks, sweeping off the holly to sit on the bed. Lan Zhan glares over at her and Wei Ying wonders if she’s an anti outside-clothes-on-the-bed person.
“Excuse me?” Lan Zhan responds coolly, hanging her jacket in the closet.
“Just want to make sure we have our cover stories straight,” (ha) “in case anyone decides to ask questions.”
Wei Ying lies back on the bed, jacket still on, and—yep. There’s that frown between Lan Zhan’s eyebrows as she looks at Wei Ying. But like, what’s the point of a hotel if not to break the rules a little?
“Your work is brilliant and you have a nice laugh,” Lan Zhan says, still looking annoyed.
Wei Ying feels her chest go hot before she realizes Lan Zhan is answering her question. “Oh. Right.”
“We got married…” Lan Zhan hums thoughtfully. “Three months ago.”
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying’s voice is scandalized. “That’s like a month after we met!”
“Two.”
“Wow,” Wei Ying breathes. “Time really flies.”
Lan Zhan shrugs. “We moved fast.”
Wei Ying huffs. “Guess so.”
“Are you going to take off your coat?” Lan Zhan asks pointedly.
“Nah.” Wei Ying had considered it, but making Lan Zhan slightly annoyed is more fun. “We should do 20 Questions or something, I feel like I barely know you,” Wei Ying says, sitting up and shifting to bring her foot up underneath her. Lan Zhan quickly catches Wei Ying’s ankle before she can put her boot on the duvet.
“Wha—” Wei Ying starts, watching as Lan Zhan unzips the zipper and tugs her boot off.
“No shoes on the bed,” Lan Zhan says. She doesn’t sound annoyed, but she does sound… authoritative. Wei Ying is suddenly very aware of the fact that they are sharing a bedroom. That they are pretending to be married. Lan Zhan’s hand is hot on her ankle, long fingers easily wrapped around the denim. And Wei Ying is—well, she’s turned on.
“Uhhhh okay,” Wei Ying manages as she watches Lan Zhan let go of her leg and drop the boot with a thump in the closet. She toes off the other boot and kicks it to join its sibling before Lan Zhan can come back and try and take it off too. Wei Ying is, uh, not ready for that on any level.
Instead of interrogating her sudden spike of lust at Lan Zhan taking her boot off, Wei Ying digs her GhostHunter (™, but not really because cultivators don’t do patents, and because a lot of cultivators think the g-word is tacky, which Wei Ying finds hilarious) from her bag. This, at least, should be able to give them a reading on where the energy is coming from.
Wei Ying clicks the device on and inputs the energy levels they’re expecting, and the scan starts with a chirp. Lan Zhan looks at her with what she imagines is a mix of curiosity and disdain.
“It takes a minute,” Wei Ying says once the GhostHunter starts scanning. She’s pretty proud of the thing, actually. It took the better part of a year to figure out how to embed the array into the technology so the device could detect what she was looking for. The best she’d have been able to do, before GhostHunter, was a dowsing type situation with Chengqing.
“I bet it’s in a bathroom, they’re always in fucking bathr—ah, here we go,” Wei Ying says when the machine beeps and the screen lights up.
Lan Zhan steps closer and looks at the screen, which does things to Wei Ying’s ego.
“This is the distance from the ghost, this is the energy reading, and this is the direction.” Wei Ying points to the numbers in succession. “And here,” she taps one screen over, “is a kind of radar-y view. Looks like it’s somewhere near the lobby, although it could be on the floor above—we won’t know vertical space until we’re right below or above.”
“Hm,” Lan Zhan hums, and Wei Ying is pretty sure she’s impressed.
***
After all that, the ghost turns out to be in the kitchen. Or at least, Wei Ying’s pretty sure—there’s a small chance it’s in the bookcase on the other side of the wall behind the fridge, but that seems pretty unlikely. None of their subtler coaxing techniques are getting the ghost out, though, and after a near-miss scenario where Barbara walks in on them because she has to “refresh the teas in the tea box,” they decide to stick up Wei Ying’s ghost detectors and wait for a less busy time to try and call out the ghost. Wei Ying will get a text if any ghosty activity happens in the meantime, and there’s apparently a reception before the special Christmas dinner; Barbara made a specific point to invite Lan Zhan and Wei Ying to it while she was stacking teabags. So they can’t not go.
After Barbara leaves, Wei Ying bites her lip and turns to Lan Zhan.
“Do you think this is a fancy clothes kind of reception?” Wei Ying asks.
Lan Zhan’s expression is response enough.
***
Lan Zhan, of course, looks perfectly put together for a fancy occasion in her work clothes, and therefore doesn’t need to change. Wei Ying, who dresses for work in a sweatshirt and legging pants, does. She rifles through her bag and drags out a black dress that is technically a swimsuit coverup but passes as fancy attire clothes in a pinch. She throws it on in the bathroom, and smudges on some eyeliner to hopefully look “artistically hot” and not “disaster”.
When Wei Ying exits the bathroom, Lan Zhan has pulled the rings she wears off of her hands and is frowning at them.
“What’s up?”
“These won’t fit.”
“What do you mean, you were literally just wearing them—oh.” Wei Ying stops when she realizes Lan Zhan was thinking about fake wedding rings. She picks up the one Lan Zhan wears on her pinky and tries it on her ring finger. Nope. “If it helps, I don’t think anyone will even look. But if they do, we can say that we don’t believe in the patriarchal system of rings?” Wei Ying offers.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says, still frowning as if her rings have personally offended her.
“Or… hold up.” Wei Ying digs through her purse for her sticky note talisman paper and cuts a few even slivers off. “Come here,” she says to Lan Zhan, who still has that sour expression on her face. “Which hand is the wedding hand?” Wei Ying asks, because she never remembers, and Lan Zhan dryly holds up her left for Wei Ying to take.
Wei Ying doesn’t have a hand thing, necessarily, but if she did, Lan Zhan’s would be her ideal. Long, strong fingers with short nails, likely evidence of an early nail-biting habit. Wei Ying tries not to notice how square Lan Zhan’s knuckles are as she loops the sticky note talisman around her ring finger for sizing. She sticks it to itself and grabs for her cinnabar pen from her pocket. Wei Ying briefly considers asking Lan Zhan to help her remove the cap, but that’s silly—she’s holding one of Lan Zhan’s hands hostage anyway, so she sticks the end in her mouth to click the cap off and scribbles the tiniest strokes she can manage on the ring-sized talisman paper.
“Don’t-notice-me talisman,” Wei Ying explains through the pen cap while she writes. She glances up and sees that Lan Zhan is looking at the pen cap in her mouth, probably judging how she’s trying to talk through it. “With a small mod to the ‘notice’ part. So it can’t blend in with your skin, and it’ll have to show up as—ah. Yep, there we go.”
Before her eyes, the talisman paper with tiny scribbles on it turns into a gold ring with the slightest hint of shine. She watches Lan Zhan turn her hand around to see the ring from multiple angles.
“Cool, right?”
“Mn.”
Once Lan Zhan has helped get Wei Ying’s talisman/ring on her finger, Wei Ying insists on taking a photo of her handiwork and sends it to Huaisang. She’ll think it’s funny, considering how much she knows Lan Zhan doesn’t like Wei Ying.
***
Once Wei Ying’s clothes and the rings are figured out, it’s just a matter of tugging her boots back on and they can head over. At the bottom of the stairs, Lan Zhan pauses and looks over at Wei Ying, her elbow lifted away from her body.
Wei Ying hesitates for a moment before she slides her arm through the nook of Lan Zhan’s elbow. It feels very rom-commy. All they need is another hilarious misunderstanding, really, and they’ve covered the plot of a Hallmark movie.
“Oh, you—you missed the mistletoe,” Barbara’s voice calls out, interrupting Wei Ying’s thoughts.
“The what,” Wei Ying’s voice is flat.
Barbara points up at a little sprig of green above the doorway Wei Ying and Lan Zhan just walked through, looking apologetic but expectant. It’s tied together with a little rainbow ribbon.
“It’s, um, part of the romantic holiday package. I picked the ribbon!” Barbara beams.
“Oooof course you did.” Wei Ying considers the fact that a spiteful god is punishing her, specifically, for all of the petty shit she did to Jiang Cheng when they were growing up.
Wei Ying glances at Lan Zhan, who looks bored. Which is insulting. Wei Ying has it on good authority that kissing her is far from boring! Not that she particularly wants to prove Lan Zhan wrong. It’s just—it’s just rude of her. That’s all. Which makes Wei Ying’s pettiness come out.
“Honey? You told our couples therapist you wanted to be better at intimacy, right?” Wei Ying asks, pouting theatrically.
Lan Zhan’s eyes shift into an expression Wei Ying can’t quite read. But instead of calling her fake wife a liar, or any other number of things Lan Zhan would be perfectly within her rights to do, she just nods.
Wei Ying is about to make a joke about performing in front of an audience to hopefully stop Barbara’s staring, but before she can say anything, Lan Zhan’s warm hand slides up the back of her neck and Wei Ying’s breath hitches.
She was wrong earlier, when she thought Lan Zhan’s bored expression at the thought of kissing her was rude. The smirking, pleased look on Lan Zhan’s face at Wei Ying’s involuntary bodily response? That is rude. Some people haven’t been kissed in a while and they can’t help it!
Then Lan Zhan’s hand squeezes, slow but firm on Wei Ying’s neck, and Wei Ying’s lips part and Lan Zhan kisses her. It’s overwhelming, so Wei Ying doesn’t catch many details. Lan Zhan’s lips are soft and smooth, and she kisses with a lot more tongue than Wei Ying would have guessed. It’s been a hot second since Wei Ying was last kissed like this, and she’s forgotten how much she loves getting lost in it—god Lan Zhan smells so good—
The sharp sound of clapping brings her back to reality.
“I’m just so—so happy you feel like you can be yourselves here,” Barbara says, sounding close to tears. “It helps me remember the true meaning of Christmas.”
What, getting all hornt up and making out with your coworker while a random straight woman watches? is the initial response that Wei Ying bites down. She realizes that she has her hands tangled up in Lan Zhan’s braid, and she extricates them gently.
“Uh, right,” Wei Ying says. At least Lan Zhan has stopped looking so cocky. Judging by how red her lips are, Wei Ying must’ve done a decent job of kissing her back.
Barbara nods, blowing her nose. Oh dear. Wei Ying feels like she needs to say something else.
“You’ve made a very welcoming environment, uh. Right, Lan Zhan?” Lan Zhan still has a hand on Wei Ying’s hip for—for acting reasons, she assumes.
“Mn.” Lan Zhan nods. “Thank you.”
Wei Ying manages to walk toward the noise of the party fairly normally despite feeling unbalanced and a little light-headed, grateful that she’s wearing her plausible-deniability black leather boots and not heels. Lan Zhan follows her, a hand at Wei Ying’s lower back.
There’s a surprising number of people here. In fact Wei Ying is pretty sure it’s more than just guests, which she supposes makes sense. Small towns, big parties. There’s a bar set up in a corner of the room, and even a karaoke booth, which Wei Ying was not expecting. Her eyes move to Lan Zhan, watching her take it in. Her face is still carefully blank, but Wei Ying imagines she’s horrified. There’s a dark part of Wei Ying that is pleased about this, and she drags Lan Zhan over to the bar to order the most obscene Christmas drink they have on the menu.
***
The locals aren’t bad for intel, actually. Wei Ying has just finished chatting up the building’s landscaper, who told her that the kitchen was actually renovated this year. That makes a lot more sense, and Wei Ying starts to get excited at the idea that they might be dealing with a recently disturbed ghost.
She’s found Lan Zhan and is about to suggest they go somewhere to debrief when a chime of music starts up at the karaoke booth, and Wei Ying’s stomach sinks.
“Oh no.”
Lan Zhan looks at her and touches a hand to her elbow. “Are you okay?”
“Oh. Yeah. No. I just.” Wei Ying makes a face. “‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ is a rough karaoke song. That’s all. Mariah Carey makes it seem so much shorter.”
Lan Zhan nods, like this is a normal thing to say. “From personal experience?”
“No—well. Kind of. My sister picked it one year and we all had to go up to save her because I thought she was going to burst into tears halfway through. It lasts for fucking ever.” Wei Ying wonders if there’s karaoke on the cruise. Probably? Yanli has since switched to better karaoke go-tos; she might even convince Jiang Cheng to perform some Amy Winehouse with her depending on how many drinks he’s had. Drunk Jiang Cheng does an excellent “Back to Black” but refuses to sing alone. Wei Ying can only hope someone records it if they do.
“Mn.”
Wei Ying watches the poor partygoer. She’s still in the honeymoon phase. It’s only going downhill from there. “I can’t watch this,” Wei Ying whines, and lets Lan Zhan lead her off into the dining room.
***
Dinner, as it turns out, is a group affair, and Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are seated at a table with a middle-aged couple and their teenage daughter, who looks as if this is the last place on earth she’d want to be. Wei Ying isn’t sure that she’d want to be sitting alone with Lan Zhan looking like they’re on some kind of romantic dinner date anyway (and what would they talk about? Work?), but the questions from the other couple make her wish she had forced Lan Zhan to do twenty questions with her earlier.
It starts when Wei Ying finishes her main course. She hadn’t realized she was eating much faster than Lan Zhan until her plate was clear, and Lan Zhan’s still looked full. Wei Ying thinks she’s a moderately fast eater, but surely Lan Zhan is eating way too slow?
Lauren, the middle-aged wife, leans forward and smiles over at Wei Ying. Definitely another question incoming. Wei Ying’s full stomach sinks as she braces herself.
“If I may ask,” —no you may not— “how did y’all get together?”
Wei Ying laughs, to buy herself some time. She’s had two peppermint martinis, and Lan Zhan’s mouth is full, so her brain helpfully reminds her that telling the truth is sometimes the best lie.
“We, uh, we were actually—I asked Lan Zhan to pretend to be my girlfriend to go to a friend’s wedding,” Wei Ying says, and as the words leave her lips she tries not to scream at herself because what???
Lan Zhan finishes chewing and looks at Wei Ying sharply, which she deserves. She so deserves this.
“That’s so interesting!” Kevin continues, because of course Lauren’s husband’s name is Kevin. “So you’d been working together before that but you hadn’t gone on any dates? Why not?”
Lan Zhan stiffens and Wei Ying suspects she’s got some choice words for Kevin, so Wei Ying jumps in.
“Oh, I assumed I was too straight for her. I mean, look at her! She’s like a poster child for queerness and I mean, I knew I liked women but I—I mostly dated guys when I was younger, because I thought it’s just as easy and you don’t have to worry about. You know. Like women are so cool? Like they’re too cool? Anyway I figured she was out of my league,” Wei Ying finishes, and Lan Zhan’s gaze is now on her, a little too sharp.
“I thought Wei Ying was straight,” Lan Zhan supplies, and gets back to her dinner.
Wei Ying manages to curb the questions and her weird answers by bombarding the couple with questions about Talia, the teenager, which turns out to be a great source of conversation all through dessert. Nothing quite like a teen’s absolute horrified embarrassment to save an awkward situation.
***
They stop by the kitchen after dinner and somehow Barbara is there again, this time “setting up the cold brews,” which like—why did this place have to be so infuriatingly fancy. By mutual agreement, Wei Ying and Lan Zhan return to their room, and decide the least disruptive option is to get some sleep now and wait until after midnight to finish up their investigation.
Wei Ying thinks about turning away when Lan Zhan starts unbuttoning her shirt, but she’s also curious about what kind of bra Lan Zhan wears. So she watches Lan Zhan out of the corner of her eye while she pretends to look for her toiletries.
When Lan Zhan shrugs off her shirt, Wei Ying sees a plain white tank underneath and a flash of ink, which makes her head turn fully to see better.
“Lan Zhan! You have a tattoo?” Wei Ying asks, scandalized, before she can stop herself. Obviously Lan Zhan has a tattoo; Wei Ying can see it right there on her arm, curving along her shoulder and bicep. It looks delicate and soft, and very unlike Lan Zhan.
Lan Zhan doesn’t respond, turning away from Wei Ying in what she assumes is a “mind your own business” gesture. Unluckily for Lan Zhan, Wei Ying has never once minded her own business, and with Lan Zhan’s back turned she can see even more of the tattoo.
“Is that a rabbit?” Wei Ying blurts out, again. She scoots closer to see more detail, and yep—a contented rabbit lounges at the bottom of Lan Zhan’s upper arm, just above the elbow. It’s surrounded by tiny purple flowers. Now that Wei Ying is closer, she can smell Lan Zhan’s sandalwood soap, and she realizes as her gaze travels up Lan Zhan’s arm to her shoulder blade that Lan Zhan isn’t wearing a bra.
“Why’d you get a rabbit tattoo?” Wei Ying asks, unable to stop even though Lan Zhan hasn’t acknowledged any of her questions. She gets pushier when she’s being ignored; she always has. Something panicky rises up in her, and she thinks about touching Lan Zhan—about tracing the line of the tattoo up her arm, partly for a reaction but also partially because she wants to.
Lan Zhan, perhaps sensing her intention, stands up and heads to the bathroom. Wei Ying watches her shoulderblades shift along the plane of her back. It’s more than a little poetic.
“I like rabbits,” Lan Zhan says before shutting the bathroom door.
Wei Ying turns the television on to preserve Lan Zhan’s privacy and tries not to think about the curve of Lan Zhan’s bicep and the smell of sandalwood.
***
Wei Ying, frankly, isn’t used to going to bed before midnight and therefore assumed that she’d just stay up while Lan Zhan slept, maybe listen to a couple of podcasts with her headphones in. But Lan Zhan’s pull is almost gravitational, and Wei Ying finds herself washing off her makeup and getting into her pajamas. She’s grabbing an extra blanket from the closet to bring to the couch when Lan Zhan makes a sleepy, questioning noise.
“Ah, Lan Zhan, I’m gonna chill on the couch, I probably won’t sleep anyway—”
Lan Zhan grunts in a disapproving way, and pulls back the blanket on the other side of the bed. “Too cold,” she rumbles.
Well. That’s that for Wei Ying’s plans.
Wei Ying dreams of someone holding her, wanting her. She dreams of hands tangled together on a walk, of a shoulder to lean her head against when she’s tired and watching a movie. She dreams of waking up to kisses and coffee, and an impossible fondness. She dreams of laughter and the smell of sandalwood.
Wei Ying wakes slowly from the best nap she’s had in a while. As she shifts to stretch, she realizes there is an arm holding her back, just under her boobs. Her hips move without thinking, pressing her ass back against the warmth of—
Of Lan Zhan. Fuck.
Wei Ying freezes, trying not to panic even as she goes from “helplessly turned on” to “fight or flight” in an instant. It’s okay, Lan Zhan’s still asleep. She probably didn’t notice Wei Ying’s ass moving! It’s all fine! This is very normal and fine and not unprofessional in the least!
After a few moments of listening to Lan Zhan’s breathing to ensure she hasn’t woken up, Wei Ying gently wriggles her way out from under Lan Zhan’s arm and gets out of bed to check her phone. 2:55. Great. Five minutes before their alarm goes off. She grabs her clothes and closes the bathroom door gently, trying not too make too much noise as she realizes how damp her pajama bottoms are, oh god.
It’s fine! It’s totally fine and normal, people with penises wake up with morning wood all the time, right? It’s just like a, a biological response.
Wei Ying is still giving herself a silent pep talk when the alarm goes off.
***
When Wei Ying finally leaves the bathroom, Lan Zhan looks tired, but has changed back into her work clothes. Wei Ying takes her bag of cultivation tech, and they sneak off to the kitchen.
Once Wei Ying’s soundproofing and door lock talismans are placed, she nods to Lan Zhan, who takes out her guqin from the leather case. It fills up the whole kitchen table, and Wei Ying watches as Lan Zhan plucks out the first question. Wei Ying has always wanted to develop a piece of tech to communicate with ghosts in this way, but she’s never been able to fully figure it out. She wonders vaguely if Lan Zhan will let her run tests on her instrument, now that they know each other better.
There’s a moment of silence after Lan Zhan finishes. Wei Ying doesn’t realize she was holding her breath until the strings vibrate and she sighs with relief. So there is a ghost. Her phone buzzes in her pocket, confirming that the ghost detectors are working.
“Albert?” Lan Zhan says, a slight frown at the corner of her mouth. She’s much more expressive when she’s sleepy; if Wei Ying wasn’t trying to smother her unprofessional thoughts, she’d think it was cute.
Wei Ying knows that, like so many things, the translation of this traditional Chinese form of cultivation to mostly-American ghosts is…not ideal. Even at Lan Zhan’s level of skill, it’s a little like running things through Google translate and back again.
More notes. “He owned this building,” Lan Zhan says, more confident.
Wei Ying has studied this as much as she could, and she can hear the emotion of the answer in the notes.
“Can I try Chengqing?” Wei Ying asks. She’s found that the ghosts they deal with tend to respond better to her emotional brand of questioning. Lan Zhan obviously has Gusu training, right down to the logical three-step questions.
Lan Zhan nods, standing back.
Wei Ying plays a song of anger, first. She lets herself think of times where she’s wanted to fight but held herself back, and pours all of that into the dizi. She doesn’t feel any response after she pauses, so she moves on. Regret is next. Then Love, and halfway through the song there’s a discordant strum on the guqin that makes Lan Zhan startle.
“Oh, wow. Well.”
Slowly, a song is plucked out on the guqin by invisible hands. Wei Ying closes her eyes and listens to it, trying to understand without Lan Zhan’s translation. A loved one…a soulmate. Protectiveness and fear. A comfort in silence. The ghost doesn’t like having people around. Doesn’t want them to disturb their loved one.
When the song is finished, Wei Ying starts to play Chengqing again, this time trying to convince Albert their loved one has moved on. Halfway through, she’s stopped by a blast of power in the form of plates flying at her head.
Wei Ying is sharp enough to duck out of the way, even if Lan Zhan has intercepted the plates with her sword.
It’s a big ass sword. Wei Ying whistles. “Damn, Lan Zhan, I didn’t know your sword was that big,” she laughs. She really likes recently disturbed ghosts. They’re so feisty.
Lan Zhan glares at her and swings the sword back to her side. She looks like she’s about to say something when the guqin starts back up again, furiously twanging.
Now the ghost is angry. At Wei Ying, apparently. They’re…jealous? Wei Ying frowns. That can’t be right. She looks at Lan Zhan, who really should look more out of place with a giant-ass sword at her waist.
“Albert thinks you have everything they no longer have,” Lan Zhan explains. So, Wei Ying was right.
“I mean, as far as an incorporated body and soul, yes,” Wei Ying says dryly, but she knows what Lan Zhan meant. Love? A soulmate? Wei Ying has never believed in that bullshit.
Nevertheless, she can’t tell that to the ghost. Sarcasm does not translate well. Wei Ying taps Chengqing for a few moments, and then starts to play.
The thing about translating emotions into music is that she doesn’t have to be experiencing them with her logical brain for it to be effective. So she plays a song of loneliness for the ghost, and imbues it with everything she misses. Her family, left to go on a cruise without her, because blood means things to some people. Her singleness, to the point where she was dreaming about Lan Zhan because she was the closest human being and she smelled so good. Wei Ying paints a picture of the saddest parts of herself, all of the loneliness she could feel if she let it consume her. Don’t you miss your love?, she wants her song to say. You have a choice. You can return to them.
There is a long moment of silence after Wei Ying finishes. She’s fairly confident the violent part of the night is over, but she’s still tensed to move until the threat is fully gone. Wei Ying listens to Lan Zhan’s slow breaths until she finally hears it—the slightest hum of the guqin, as if someone is dragging their fingers along the strings. It’s as good a signal as any, and Lan Zhan takes it, strumming the final notes to send the spirit on their way.
Once you’re attuned to it, it’s surprisingly easy to feel when a spirit moves on. There’s a lightness to the air that didn’t exist before, and Wei Ying consciously relaxes the muscles in her shoulders. Her phone buzzes again, the ghost detectors letting her know the ghost is no longer detected.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says in a gentle voice, and Wei Ying opens her eyes to say something dismissive when she realizes that her eyes are wet. After all of that, it makes sense that she’s crying, but she’s embarrassed that she’s doing it in front of Lan Zhan.
“I’m okay,” she says, although the way her voice breaks sounds otherwise. “You know, just a… just a post-ghostbusting cry. Everyone does it.”
Lan Zhan’s face is screwed up like she doesn’t want to smile but she can’t help herself, and that makes Wei Ying laugh. “I’ll be fine.”
Lan Zhan looks at her for another long moment before nodding.
Clean up after a ghost is always the worst. Bichen goes smoothly back into Lan Zhan’s pocket, but the damage to the plates is still there. Lan Zhan makes a few case notes on her phone (energy levels, time of departure, etc.), then writes a note to Barbara in her blocky handwriting. You will be reimbursed for the cost of the broken plates. We apologize for the inconvenience. Lan Zhan even adds a sad face to the note, which makes Wei Ying laugh.
Wei Ying picks up all of her ghost detectors and raids the fridge for a few snacks while she’s at it. After the kitchen is as clean as it was before, the soundproof and locking talismans come down. It’s a ghost-free bed and breakfast now. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.
When they get back to the room, Wei Ying turns on the tv and lies on the bed, boots and all. Lan Zhan doesn’t say or do anything this time, although her hand twitches when Wei Ying plants her foot on the bed.
It’s morphed from being too late at night to too early in the morning, and Wei Ying could insist that they leave now, but she doesn’t want to. She wants to veg out to a dumb Christmas movie for at least an hour so she can feel human again.
Lan Zhan doesn’t seem like she minds. She sets up her laptop at the suite’s desk and starts typing up what Wei Ying assumes is their report.
Wei Ying tries to focus on the movie and not let Lan Zhan’s professionalism bother her. She does, however, try to get Lan Zhan to watch a few choice scenes.
“Look, Lan Zhan, they’re singing a duet in the snow! It’s supposed to be very romantic but I feel like he doesn’t have enough layers on? I know he’s supposed to be a surfer but like, come on. You don’t have to wear board shorts when it’s below freezing!”
“Lan Zhan! Their personal assistant is just like you. Very diligent. Would you wear an elf hat to work?”
Lan Zhan, paused in her typing, shakes her head.
“Not even to get into the Christmas Spirit?”
“I’m not Christian, Wei Ying.”
Wei Ying waves an airy hand. “Sure, but I mean elves aren’t really Christian, are they?”
Lan Zhan’s expression turns stern. “They are Christian because they are a part of Christmas, which is Christian.”
Clearly, Wei Ying has hit a nerve. “Okay, no need to wear an elf hat then. But that character is still a lot like you,” Wei Ying says. The character in question has a clipboard. It feels right.
“Mn.” Lan Zhan doesn’t sound convinced.
***
Two saccharine Christmas movies and several fridge snacks later, Wei Ying is finally willing to move from the bed. It’s almost checkout time, anyway.
“We could see if they will let us have a late checkout,” Lan Zhan offers. She’s been done with her report for at least a half an hour, judging by when the typing sounds stopped.
Wei Ying sighs. “Nah, it’s fine. I have a lot of chores to do back at my apartment anyway.” She rolls around one final time on the bed, ignoring Lan Zhan’s disapproving silence.
“Can I drive on the way back?” Wei Ying asks as they walk down the stairs, her roller bag thumping loudly behind them.
“Mn.”
“And play the Ghostbusters soundtrack?”
“... Mn.”
Wei Ying laughs. “Lan Zhan, you’re being too nice to me. I should cry after all my cases!”
They drop off the room key at an empty desk. Wei Ying hopes Barbara isn’t too upset about the broken plates.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan stops her before she can walk down the hallway. Wei Ying looks down and notices she’s still wearing the talisman paper ring.
“You’re not unloved,” Lan Zhan says, gripping Wei Ying’s arm firmly. “I know you aren’t.”
There are a lot of things Wei Ying could say. Lan Zhan’s expression is so genuine that it overwhelms her. She looks up to gather her thoughts, sees a familiar rainbow ribbon, and laughs.
“... Hey Lan Zhan?”
“Mn?”
“You missed the mistletoe.”
Lan Zhan kisses her like a question at first, tentative and without the heat from their previous mistletoe kiss. She doesn’t deepen the kiss until Wei Ying sighs into it, wrapping her arms around Lan Zhan’s warm waist. It’s so nice, for a while, to be held in Lan Zhan’s arms and kiss Lan Zhan’s soft lips. Then her brain catches up.
“Wait, does that mean you—” Wei Ying pauses, and looks at Lan Zhan. “You like me?”
Lan Zhan’s expression does that ‘trying not to laugh’ thing again. “Wei Ying. Yes. I like you.”
“But you shut me down in meetings all the time!” Wei Ying blurts out; somehow it’s the first thing that comes to her mind.
Lan Zhan looks offended. “I have follow up logistical questions. That’s hardly a shut down.”
“You told me I type too loudly!”
“It was distracting.”
“I—I can’t believe this. I thought you hated me! You’re always, like, glaring at me.”
Lan Zhan smirks. “I don’t know what to tell you except that I like watching you and I have a resting bitch face.”
Wei Ying smacks Lan Zhan gently on her chest. “Oh my god! Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I thought you were straight.”
“Wow, this is the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Wei Ying huffs. “Thanks a lot.”
Lan Zhan shrugs, and pulls Wei Ying into another kiss, this time biting her lower lip. It doesn’t feel like an apology, but it feels like a promise.
Later, when Wei Ying’s driving them home to make Lan Zhan watch more Christmas movies, she gets a text from Huaisang and makes Lan Zhan put in her passcode (1984, the year the first Ghostbusters movie AND Jiang Yanli arrived in the world).
“It’s a lot of exclamation points,” Lan Zhan says. “You sent her a photo of our rings?”
“Yeah, I thought I told her that I made them with talisman paper—did I not?”
“It doesn’t look like it. Now she says ‘Congrats you bitch am I going to have to do another HR training for this’?”
“Well that’s hilarious. She knows we’re not actually married right? …right?”