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Chapter Text

April couldn’t be called the cruelest month, if one were to judge by the weather in Beijing. Su Muqiu had checked the forecast before he got on his flight, and the day was slated to be dry, sunny, hitting 20 degrees Celsius in the afternoon—perfect for a venture outdoors.

But Su Muqiu was still indoors for now, and felt only the chill of the airport’s air conditioning pierce him to the bone. While he waited for his ride to pick him up, he idly passed the time browsing through QQ. He liked to assign many of his contacts irreverent display nicknames for his own amusement, and snorted when he saw a new group chat notification from Fang Shiqian blink brightly at him.

Fang Shiqian seemed uncannily aware as ever of everything that was happening on the social media accounts of Glory pro players. Not too long before, Su Muqiu had posted a picture to Weibo of the sight through the window as his plane taxied to a stop, along with the caption: Good spring weather finally comes for Season 7! See you all at the game this weekend!  

(One cheeky fan had commented under his post: Mr. Autumn, aren’t you betraying your own name?)

Su Muqiu chuckled and was about to throw out a few words in defense of Huang Shaotian, but then a new message caught his attention.

His amusement strangled itself and died. He tucked away his phone and slung his backpack over his shoulders, navigating to the appropriate airport exit. 

Su Muqiu squinted when he came out through the doors, feeling a warm breeze caress his face  as he scanned his surroundings for Ye Qiu’s license plate number. He knew it by memory; catching sight of a familiar black car just as the passenger side window started to roll down, he walked forward to meet it.

In the driver’s seat, Ye Qiu leaned over to look him up and down. His eyes were a limpid brown that when lit by sunbeams shone like burnished gold, but the rest of his appearance was far more prosaic—Ye Qiu was the walking, talking paragon of a well-off, self-assured, diligent career professional who wore perfectly fitting suits and sported perfectly tidied hair (unparted—he’d stopped parting his hair seven years ago). He rarely appeared any less than put together. Barring their first meeting, the only times Su Muqiu had ever seen him turn deeply emotional were the instances they’d gotten drunk together over the years, which were few and far between.

Ye Qiu asked, “That’s all you have with you?”

“You know me,” Su Muqiu said as he got into the car. “I’m a light packer.”

“We can stop by your hotel first, if you want.” Ye Qiu started the engine and peeled away from the curb.

“Come on, one bag’s not worth the traffic—I’d rather say hi to Ye Xiu now. My match schedule really worked out this season! I’m only a few days late to see him.”

“The time of year doesn’t actually matter,” Ye Qiu said. “I appreciate it either way.”

“You know I don’t visit for your gratitude,” Su Muqiu replied dryly. “I’m just saying—even with both Tiny Herb and Royal Style in Beijing, double the teams and double the chances, the timing’s never matched up so well before. I think this is the first time I’m playing an away game in Beijing around the week of Qingming.”

“... Fair enough.” Ye Qiu cleared his throat. “That reminds me, I might be in Hangzhou next month for a work trip. Will you be around?”

“May? Yeah, the regular season ends at that time and we’ll be buckling down for playoffs. Come come, let’s meet up then! I’ll get you tickets to our games. Excellent Era’s in a pretty good spot this year.”

Ye Qiu frowned in thought, tapping the steering wheel as he overtook a vehicle and slipped into its lane. “Right, your team… you got that one transfer last season, and another transfer this season…”

“The Spellblade from Parade and the Striker from Tyranny,” said Su Muqiu, though Ye Qiu would almost surely forget this all over again. “Plus new second-stringers coming up from my training camp. Lots of tactical reworking this season. But it’s always a gamble, right? I’ve been lucky so far.”

Ye Qiu smiled a fleeting smile. “Hard work plays a role too, doesn’t it?”

“Of course, that’s a given! Everyone works hard.” Su Muqiu pressed himself back into the comfy cushioning of his seat, shielding his eyes against the sun. Among the pros, one could never sit still and rest on their laurels. Wind Howl was getting more creative with the tactics its Criminal Partners tested in battle, merrily spreading their dirtiness to everyone on the team; Hundred Blossoms’ experimentation with a Brawler-Berserker DPS-heavy duo had taken everyone by surprise, though Zhang Jiale just laughed, Tang Hao just scowled, and Sun Xiang just looked nonplussed whenever people asked about the inspiration behind this combo; Samsara was already appraising potential recruits for next season, in pursuit of bettering team cohesion, and the rumor grapevine said Fang Minghua was eyeing one of Tiny Herb’s trainees for Ghostblade or Spellblade.

But Su Muqiu didn’t go into further detail. He knew that the only attention Ye Qiu ever paid to gaming was focused on Excellent Era, the team Ye Xiu had planned to join; Ye Qiu was as ignorant about the rest of the Glory world as Su Muqiu was ignorant about Ye Qiu’s job. In truth, if it weren’t for the fact that they shared an old grief, Su Muqiu doubted that they would have ever become acquainted.

Ye Xiu, on the other hand… he had been at once more down-to-earth and approachable, and more rarefied in his dedication too. Even if they hadn’t met by chance during that bygone summer, Su Muqiu liked to think that they still would’ve chased Glory, that they still would’ve ended up as friends.

But no one could foresee the cruelty of coincidence, just as no one could foresee the favors of chance.

“How are your parents, by the way?” Su Muqiu asked, after a long pause. “Are they in good health?”

“Ah, yes, they’re doing well. My mother’s recently gotten into oil painting…”

So the two of them, younger brother and older brother, went on chatting lightly as the car powered over the roads, ferrying them to their destination in Beijing—here where Ye Xiu had been buried years ago, his gravestone marked by a death date that was the identical twin to one on a gravestone hundreds of miles south in Hangzhou—there where Su Mucheng was sleeping an eternal sleep, forever fifteen, in the lowest-grade area of Nanshan Cemetery.

*

A sweltering summer, a terrible summer—but despite the heat, the old woman who lives next door is still wearing a neatly knotted silk scarf and looking cool as a cucumber. She comes out as he’s about to step over the threshold of his own home, and says to him, Oh, Muqiu! I just made soup for my little grandson, he’s coming by soon. How about I give you some too.

Thanks, granny, but it’s fine. You should save it for him, he replies. 

No need to be polite, I’ll give you a little! she says, retreating from sight. 

Ugh, says his sister out of nowhere. I don’t want to drink her soup… she puts too much bitter melon in it.

He startles and whirls around. You’re back already? Where’s Ye Xiu? Is he lugging all the groceries? I think I figured out how to fix the fan, so we won’t feel like we’re being cooked alive…

Mucheng tugs hard on his sleeve. She’s wearing her middle school tracksuit uniform. Hurry, skip the soup. Let’s go.

Where? he asks. What’s the rush?

You’re going to miss me, she croaks, turning to look up at him, hurry so you don’t miss what I say… and Su Muqiu stops in place.

Her eyes are curiously round and big and black, like that old lady’s in a wintry void, pinning him down with skin-crawling unease, and as she stares at him the eyes melt right out of her sockets and dissolve into fine powder and speckle his vision with swimming black spots, as he feels her tug hard again on his sleeve and gasps awake and nearly rolls off the couch, opening his own eyes to—

—Night. Darkness, punctured by a gentle glow.

He can see light emanating from the kitchen through an open doorway, light flaring around the silhouette of a woman sitting on the floor in front of him. Her long hair, slightly disheveled; her eyes, swollen from tears; her hand, stretching out to touch his shoulder, as if to reassure herself that he won’t disappear into thin air.

“This is embarrassing,” Su Muqiu mumbles, still dazed as the nightmare fades. “I couldn’t even stay awake long enough to see you…”

“I don’t care,” whispers Su Mucheng, with a pained smile. “At least you’re here.”

She’s no longer wearing her middle school tracksuit uniform; she’s a decade too old for that, older than the Mucheng of his dreams.

The last time Su Muqiu slept was two nights ago, and he’s been running on wild adrenaline ever since he realized this new reality: reading up on Excellent Era and Happy and the rest of the Pro Alliance, browsing through a million photos of Su Mucheng and Ye Xiu, gambling on his approach to contact her via Qiu Fei... He’d thought he had the stamina to hold out until Su Mucheng arrived—but his body couldn’t help but crash, protesting unhappily at the strain he’s put on it over the past day and night. It isn’t sleep deprivation alone that has worn him down; all the while, he’s tried not to dwell on the sorrow uprooted from his heart, a healed scar that’s rewound its own existence to become an open wound.

He reaches out and pulls her into an embrace, burying his face into her shoulder. She tightens her arms around him too.

“My flight landed late, I just got here,” she says quietly. “It’s ten o’clock. Sorry to make you wait.”

“What are you apologizing for,” he mutters. “Let me hug you a little more. You’re so warm!” And alive!

“That’s because I took off my coat only a minute ago...”

“You’re so big! And so tall!”

“You’re wearing glasses!”

“Really?” Su Muqiu chokes out a laugh. “Is that weirder than seeing each other again like this?”

Su Mucheng giggles and sniffles. “I guess I never pictured you with them. Whenever I imagined how you’d look if you were older… I thought you’d be taller. And wear much nicer clothes. That’s all.”

The people in their memories are like flies caught in amber—beloved, fossilized images. But the living lead different lives.

Su Muqiu gently pulls Mucheng to her feet. “When Qiu Fei dropped me off here, he said your flight would be coming in tonight.”

“Did he say anything else to you? I didn’t explain a thing, I just asked him to do me a favor.”

“He might’ve figured something out from whatever he overheard… he didn’t ask me anything.”

Su Mucheng sighs. “Qiu Fei really is a tactful kid.”

“Are you going to explain anything to him?”

“That’s my business, don’t worry about it.” She sounds very sure of herself, so Su Muqiu drops the topic and switches to a more pressing matter.

“Are you hungry? I made dinner.”

“Even if I wasn’t hungry, I’d eat it,” Su Mucheng says, swinging their hands together with childish glee as she follows him to the kitchen. “I’d eat it even if it was soy sauce on rice.”

“Hey! Are you making fun of me? I was still learning how to cook straight out of the orphanage.” Back then, they’d been horribly short of money. He had learned very quickly how to sweet-talk in pursuit of food and shelter.

“I mean it,” she solemnly says. “After all, my brother made it for me.”

Su Muqiu squeezes her hand in acknowledgment. Then he lets go. “Let me heat it up,” he mutters, wiping his face. “It’s just fried rice from the leftovers in the fridge...”

“That sounds delicious.”

They fall into an awkward silence as the microwave whirs. Su Muqiu can see Su Mucheng clearly now under the kitchen lights, more vividly real than in photos online. Her cheeks are flushed from the winter cold, and her hair is pulled back into the bastardized half crown braid that he always did up for her when she was younger.

She watches him watching her, her face filled with a silent wonder.

Su Muqiu looks away, his eyes watering all over again. It’s impossible to stop his treacherous tears from spilling—he’s given up on even trying. “I’ve had a whole day and night to get used to this,” he says to the counter. “But it still feels surreal.”

His little sister’s answering laugh sounds more like a sob. The microwave beeps, as if in agreement.

He retrieves the bowl of fried rice and carries it out to the dining table. Following behind him, Su Mucheng says, “You always told me we can’t take things for granted… do you know how long this can last?”

Su Muqiu selects a pair of chopsticks and pushes that along with the bowl towards her. “I don’t know,” he admits. “That old woman I told you about said, ‘Hasn’t Dongzhi started already?’ And that’s about all.”

Su Mucheng’s eyes widen. “But Dongzhi Festival’s basically over, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Su Muqiu says—and as agitation creeps over her face, he adds, “But more importantly! We can’t take things for granted, but we can take care of our needs first!” He picks up a chopstick and taps her forehead lightly. “Come on and eat, Mucheng.”

“Mm, okay.” Su Mucheng reaches for both bowl and chopsticks, staring down at the food. “You said… you said Ye Xiu and I died in an accident. Was it a car accident too?”

“Yeah. Before Season 1 started?”

“Mmhmm. The driver lost control… it was raining that day when you were out.”

“... It was a sunny day in my world. You two went for groceries, and the bastard plowed right through the crosswalk.”

“I see.” Su Mucheng rubs at her face with her sleeve. “I guess one thing’s the same, in every universe,” she says sadly. “Accidents, no matter where we go.”

Su Muqiu lowers his eyes. As if through a fog, detached from himself, he can still remember the depression that covered him like a shroud in the days after. I’ll just start over again! he’d once said to Ye Xiu, when the Unspecialized was made obsolete—but what did he know then of literal dead ends? Of the devastation they could inflict?

“Don’t dwell on it now,” he tells her. “It’s all in the past. I’ll make you some tea.”

After Su Mucheng finishes eating, they move back to the couch and she tells him about how she finished high school and decided to become a pro player with Dancing Rain, how Excellent Era won three championships in a row, how the team buckled under Tao Xuan’s implicit approval of internal sabotage, how Ye Xiu had to give up One Autumn Leaf, how Lord Grim ascended at last to the Heavenly Domain, how Happy began and how it triumphed, how she flourished during Season 10 and the first Worlds competition, how she’s leading Team Happy forward as captain…

Su Muqiu listens, keeps his thoughts to himself, and rarely breaks in to interrupt. When they were younger, he always had a deep reservoir of patience reserved only for Su Mucheng; ten years later, he finds it hasn’t vanished.

Old habits, he thinks fuzzily. Su Mucheng’s leaned her head on his shoulder and burrowed into his side for comfort. Just like old times. Knowing, even as a kid, that their parents had died, that their remaining relatives didn’t care to take them in, and that the orphanage staff treated them as resource leeches and chore generators, Su Muqiu understood very early on that he had to fight for himself in that warmless world. Only one person had loved him unconditionally, miscalling him keke and then calling him gege—and so he’d loved her, and fought for her too.

“This season’s All-Star Weekend is going to be held here in Xiaoshan Stadium,” Su Mucheng is saying. (Even the stadium has changed back to its old name, Su Muqiu sighs.) “I was going to return soon from Harbin, to help Chen Guo—that’s our boss, Happy’s boss—manage the preparations. Ye Xiu said he’d show up too, but I’ve asked him to come back early to Hangzhou, right away.”

“Ah, that guy!... I want to see him, but he’ll come when he comes. I know Ye Xiu won’t ignore you,” Su Muqiu says. The crazed urgency that was driving him hours ago has gradually dissipated; now, as if her presence has bled all tension out of him, he chuckles. “His parents hold a big holiday party every winter, Christmas Eve or the day before, so he might be caught up in family matters. I bet he hasn’t even been able to look at his messages.”

Su Mucheng blinks up at him in surprise. “How do you know?”

Staring at the ceiling, he replies, “I’ve met his family. His mom and dad the one time, when they took his body back to Beijing… and I’ve stayed in touch with his brother over the years, so I know about it from Ye Qiu. We’re not close, but we’re not strangers.” Even if the bedrock of his relationship with Ye Qiu is grave visits, morbidly.

“Oh, Ye Qiu! He’s funny, so prickly when he talks to Ye Xiu.”

The Ye Qiu that Su Muqiu knows doesn’t act like that at all. But Su Muqiu can understand why his Ye Qiu is different.

He smiles wistfully. “Ye Xiu pulling people’s aggro again?”

Su Mucheng laughs. “Ye Xiu’s very good at it.”

“He enjoyed pissing me off the first time we met, so that’s no surprise.” Su Muqiu reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind Su Mucheng’s ear. “But I’m glad we met him. I’m grateful. For everything he did at Excellent Era, everything he accomplished with Lord Grim… and everything he did to take care of you. So you weren’t alone.”

Su Mucheng abruptly asks, “What about you?”

“Me?”

“I’ve been telling you about everything that happened to Ye Xiu and me,” she murmurs. “But you probably knew most of it already—the facts are online. And you’ve been listening to me all this time…”

Su Muqiu shrugs. “You think anyone can trust headline gossip? I wanted to hear you tell your story.”

“Then be fair about it, and tell me yours.” Su Mucheng peers closely at him.

His story? An orphan with a sister. A school dropout, a friend, a partner. A hustler, a captain, a mentor. A winner, and a loser. An orphan without a sister. Su Muqiu’s all of these, and more.

He falls silent for a while, Su Mucheng similarly quiet under his outflung arm. “Okay,” he finally says. “Mucheng, do you know the difference between Ye Xiu and me, when it comes to Glory?”

“... Ye Xiu’s the greatest? Don’t look so betrayed, you told me so yourself!”

“Hahaha! That’s true, I did,” he admits. “Mucheng, why did you start playing Glory? Why do you like Glory?”

She says, “Those are two different questions.”

“I know they are.”

Su Mucheng’s gaze is steady. “I started playing Glory… because I wanted to support Ye Xiu, and because I had Dancing Rain. I never thought about becoming Best Partners, or having a big role—I just wanted to be next to him. I liked Glory because it was the best way to help him. Now I like Glory… because I think it’s fun.” She darts a glance at Su Muqiu. “Ye Xiu asked me the same question last season, before the finals. He said you two always wondered about that.”

“Well, you never really played Glory when you were young,” Su Muqiu replies. “When I came here and found out you became a pro player, I was glad to see you had Dancing Rain—but I was surprised.”

Su Mucheng smiles. “Mm, I changed my mind over time. I really like Glory, and I really like Team Happy.”

“If you like it, that’s good.”

“Am I supposed to ask you the same questions? Why you started playing Glory, why you like Glory?”

“Ah, my little sister’s so sharp on the uptake.” He pats her head. “I like Glory like you do—because I think it’s fun. I like stealing bosses, I like tricking my enemies, I like switching gunner classes to spring surprise strategies. I like coming up with new experiments for the equipment editor, and I like creating new weapons. I even like finding good spots in-game that I can use for drills, even though I don’t need to.

“But I didn’t start playing Glory because I thought it was fun. You know that, don’t you?”

“How could I not?” Su Mucheng says quietly. “You played Glory so we could survive.”

So we could survive. Paying rent—paying more for rent so they could move into an apartment without the direst mold infestation and with a smidgen more sunlit space to stretch. Buying food—buying better food so they wouldn’t have to subsist on cost-efficient basics alone, but had something more fitting for a growing girl. Buying school uniforms—buying the everyday and the formal, for winter and for summer. Never mind the supplemental tutoring that seemed almost a given for so many of her classmates, and which they didn’t even dream to afford. Su Muqiu had wanted to shield Mucheng from any sense of financial precarity, though he knew he was fighting a lost battle. Finish high school, and then you can decide what you want to do, he’d told her point-blank. I’ll let you choose your future. But I won’t let you stop and drop out like me. Let me work. You’ll go farther than me.

“That’s right. We needed the money, and Glory was the best way to earn it.” Su Muqiu doesn’t mince his words. “And the Pro Alliance was my ultimate bet. What did I have to lose? I barely scraped through compulsory education back then—we basically had to worry about ourselves even before we left the orphanage. I wasn’t going to get better jobs elsewhere—hustling and picking up jobs in the game was already the most stable, most profitable work I could find. If I went pro… the chances were small, but the potential return was huge. I wanted a better life for us. If it was just me, I could’ve gotten by with what I was doing, but I didn’t want the same thing for you.”

Su Mucheng says, “I could’ve gotten by too.”

“Even when we had it hard, you’ve always been so simply satisfied… That’s why I was—why I’m your big brother.” Su Muqiu covers his face with his hands. “And you’re you.

“So, after the accident, can you guess how I felt when I realized I’d lost you both? Ye Xiu was my best friend and my support; you were my sister and my motivation. I’d always liked Glory. I still like Glory. But when everything happened, I kept thinking—what’s the point of liking something, if I can’t imagine my future anyway?”

Su Mucheng suddenly turns and wraps her arms around his neck. He can hear her crying against his ear, even though the sound of it is very muted, very controlled. Her tears trickle down and dampen his neck. “I remember that too,” she mumbles. “I just wanted to turn into nothing. But Ye Xiu wouldn’t let me. And now—now we’re both here, right?”

“Yeah,” Su Muqiu says, his voice still muffled by her embrace. “We’re both here.”

They stay like that for a long while. Mucheng won’t mind me getting her sweater wet, I hope, Su Muqiu thinks in a daze, I don’t know where the tissues are …

“You know,” he says at last, “when I learned that Tao Xuan ended up ruining Excellent Era here, I really didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. My Excellent Era’s still going strong, you know. I was captain for a decade, and then I retired last season after we won our third championship. Qiu Fei has One Autumn Leaf, Excellent Era has three championships even if they aren’t three in a row… I have split ownership of the club with Tao Xuan, and personal ownership of Dancing Rain. The funny thing is, Lao Tao’s my friend.”

“He’s not my friend,” Su Mucheng says, into the crook of his neck.

“If mine did to me what yours did to you, I wouldn’t forgive him either.” Su Muqiu looks straight ahead. “But ten years ago, when I wanted to be nothing, he was the one who wouldn’t let me be. I know he had a selfish reason—Excellent Era had just lost its Battle Mage and intended captain, so losing its number two would only make things worse. But he’s human too, and he saw me at my lowest point. After all these years, no matter how much we’ve disagreed, no matter how much power has shifted between us… I know he doesn’t want to see me like that again. And… he’s never, ever envied me.”

Su Mucheng doesn’t respond at first, motionless against him. Then she draws back to look at his face, and says with a sigh, “Some things stay the same, but others change. If you have good friends, then that’s enough.”

“Mm, I have a lot of good friends, thanks to Glory. At first I played Glory so we could survive. Then I played Glory so—I could survive. And now I play Glory, even after retiring… because I like Glory, and I think it’s fun.” Su Muqiu gives her a brilliant smile, one tinged with melancholy. “So we ended up in the same place after all, see?”

“Literally? I guess so.” Su Mucheng laughs as she wipes her eyes. “Ah, I’m so tired…”

Su Muqiu promptly says, “Bedtime for you.”

“But what if you disappear?”

“If I stay for a whole week, are you going to stay wide awake the whole week? Mucheng…”

“Then let me hold your sleeve and sleep next to you.”

“All right.” When was the last time we did that? he wonders. When I was eight? Ten?

When they were young—when the thought of separation was but a nonsense idea.

He hopes he doesn’t disappear right away. He really wishes he hadn’t walked away from that old woman, and learned a little more about whatever the fuck is going on. He says, instead, “But don’t steal the blanket.”

Su Mucheng’s gotten to her feet, stretching her arms out with a yawn. “I don’t do that anymore! I’m not five,” she says sleepily. “I’m going to go wash my face—oh! Wait, I wanted to tell you something. Hehe, I think you’ll like it.”

“What is it?”

“You know the record Ye Xiu set with Lord Grim?”

Su Muqiu sorts through his scrambled memories of all the Glory news bulletins and forum posts that he’s read, bleary-eyed, over the last twenty-something hours. “His individual wins?”

“Yep! When we were at Worlds, Ye Xiu and I were talking about Lord Grim… d’you know, he thinks you’d be the greatest Glory player. He said he left out one match, to leave you a chance to surpass him if you’d controlled Lord Grim!”

“Me?” Su Muqiu looks at her in disbelief, then bursts into mad laughter. After all the tears he’s shed, the memories he’s dredged up, the bittersweet delight he’s struggled to process, this sudden reveal of the meaning behind Lord Grim’s record is so charming, and yet so utterly absurd. How godly of a Glory player does Ye Xiu think I am? Just because I’m dead here doesn’t mean I’m magically invincible!

“That guy,” he says—fondly, hoarsely, trying to fight off the lump that’s rising up in his throat. “As if I could pull off a winning streak like that. 37 consecutive wins? Giving me a chance to beat him? Fuck, that record’s going to taunt me forever!”