Chapter Text
You’d think that a trap door opening up underneath your feet and chucking you down an ancient slide, before spitting you out in a very small and very dark chamber, would provoke rather unpleasant feelings, such as surprise, shock, fear. Probably all at once.
There should be screams and disbelief that something like this just happened to you. Maybe even tears, nobody would judge! Nobody even could judge, it was way too dark for that and, also, would make him a hypocrite.
In any case, it should not, Li Zihan thought bewildered as a flashlight was finally switched on and he was able to stare at the two grinning and obviously properly insane middle-aged men accompanying them, result in glee .
~ Flashback to two days prior ~
“Well, it could be worse,” Wu Xie whispered, while hiding from Ershu’s search group under a tarp in pouring rain.
“How could it be worse, exactly?” Pangzi quietly hissed back. “We could be home right now. We could be dry right now!”
“We could,” Wu Xie agreed, “but then again, we’ve been home and dry for months.”
Pangzi glared. “I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”
“It’s boring ,” Wu Xie whined. “And don’t tell me you don’t want to explore that tomb as much as I want!”
“Yes, but for different reasons! You just want to look at the pretty murals, and there’s no money in any of that,” Pangzi grumbled.
Wu Xie licked his lips. “Weeeeell…. not just the pretty murals,” he hedged.
Pangzi’s eyebrows climbed up. “Oh?”
“Yes well, you know, those books I found last month?”
“Yes?”
Wu Xie looked around cautiously, as if the trees surrounding them had suddenly grown ears. “There might be a sword. Like the one Xiaoge lost in Tamutuo? There were depictions of one like that in those books, and speculations about a “treasure” that sounded much like it. I want to check it out.”
Pangzi blinked. “Oh,” he said, then leered. “You want to propose to him with a sword?”
Wu Xie glared, until Pangzi put up his hands in a “don’t look at me like that, I’m only speaking the truth”-way.
“Okay, so we’re looking for a sword in a tomb, so you can present it to Xiaoge, I understand that,” Pangzi said. “But Wu Erbai’s men looking up and down the mountain for you just screams trouble. What did you do?”
“No trouble,” Wu Xie said, disgruntled, “he just doesn’t want me out of his sight, because apparently, he’s found another potential mother for a potential future grandnephew, so he doesn’t want me to ‘run off and risk my health again’”.
Pangzi blinked. “Uuh. What about Xiaoge, though?”
“Well. I’ll make sure to tell him you thought he’d make a great potential mother for Ershu’s potential grandnephew,” Wu Xie replied dryly, eyebrows raised, and immediately ducking to avoid getting slapped by Pangzi.
“You know what I mean!” Pangzi said. “How come Wu Erbai still wants to find you a wife, when Xiaoge is right there?”
“....” Wu Xie said, quietly.
Pangzi furrowed his brow. “What?”
“....haven’t told Ershu yet..” Wu Xie said, not making eye contact.
“And?” Pangzi demanded, “Wu Erbai would be blind and stupid not to notice how utterly disgustingly bisotted you two are with each other.”
Wu Xie shrugged and opened his mouth to reply, when a sudden commotion behind the tarp drew his attention, seconds before two bodies barrelled into him and Pangzi, taking the tarp down in the process, and leaving all four of them in pouring rain and ankle deep mud.
Instincts sharpened by getting into enough ambushes to last more than three lifetimes, Wu Xie immediately sprung to his feet, a knife in one hand and the other raised to defend himself from… two wide-eyed young men, who looked barely 20 years old. Covered in mud from head to toe, their backpacks lost somewhere underneath the crumpled tarp, they both stared at Wu Xie like he was the lunatic that had just destroyed their protection from the rain.
Wu Xie frowned, not lowering the knife. There had been more than a handful of instances where looks could and had been deceiving - he himself wasn’t an exception, after all, and he would die before letting anything happen to Pangzi because of any error in judgement.
Pangzi, meanwhile, was brandishing his flashlight like a baseball bat, hitting his palm with it in a clearly threatening “keep still or else” manner.
Wu Xie narrowed his eyes on the two young men. Knife at the ready and shoulders drawn back, he knew he looked as dangerous as he could be. “Talk,” he said, leaving no room for argument.
So. Li Zihan and Huang Mingtao, as the two not-quite-teenagers-anymore introduced themselves after getting over the first shock of sliding down the muddy hill and knocking over two no-nonsense guys with knives and probably other weapons, were looking for their friend.
Who was on a treasure hunt. In a tomb two days from here, naturally coincidentally the very same tomb Wu Xie and Pangzi were on their way to rob visit. Alone. And they hadn’t heard from her in a few days.
Wu Xie sighed deeply, already knowing where this was going, but needing to hear the story anyway.
“So let me get this straight,” he said, while repairing their rain protection. They were wet now anyway, but at least under the tarp the rain would stop slapping them in the face. “You three read some books about ‘looking for lost tombs and preserving ancient relics’ and thought it would be a good idea to try it out? Am I understanding this correctly?”
Twin nods of two thoroughly chastised young men. Wu Xie sighed and finished his repairs, so all four of them could crawl under the tarp and try to get warm again.
When he saw Li Zihan and Huang Mingtao huddled together, lips turning blue, Pangzi couldn’t take it anymore and warmed up some soup for all of them. They slurped their soup in peace, Wu Xie leaning on Pangzi’s shoulder, thinking, until he fixed his gaze on their two guests once more.
“What I don’t understand, though, is why you didn’t go with your friend?” he asked, and the two young men huffed in exasperation.
“She’s… not a very patient person,” Li Zihan said, with his friend nodding along. “She more or less told us she was going to go on an adventure and then just… went. Didn’t wait for us.” He shrugged.
Well. Wu Xie very much could understand the sentiment, and Pangzi’s slightly shaking shoulders indicated he, also, could sympathise.
He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t seem too concerned,” he said.
Li Zihan shrugged again. “Nah. It’s just an old tomb, what’s the worst that could happen. We’ve read all the books and it doesn’t seem to be especially dangerous.”
Wu Xie stared at him in disbelief. Then turned and stared at Pangzi, who delicately cleared his throat.
“Ahm. Not especially dangerous?” he asked. “What gave you that idea?”
Huang Mingtao took a sip of his tea. “Well, all the books do mention a lot of dangerous stuff, yeah, but it’s not as if any of that’s true. It’s way too over the top and no one in their right mind would believe it. It’s just to deter travellers.”
Li Zihan nodded along. “Exactly. I mean, who really believes in bloody zombies, mind-reading snakes, homicidal clams, corpse-eating bugs that are afraid of some guy’s blood, king corpse-eating bugs that turn you into a bloody zombie… like no,” he laughed. “No, she’s probably sitting in some cabin on the way, out of reception range.”
Wu Xie stared again. As did Pangzi.
“That was… oddly specific,” Wu Xie said carefully. “You seem to be well informed.”
Huang Mingtao nodded enthusiastically. “Yes,” he said, “we’ve read all the books. Twice!”
Pangzi took a deep breath. “Ah, that’s certainly admirable. I’ve never heard of books like that! Can you tell this old uncle more about them..?”
Li Zihan beamed immediately and rummaged through his backpack. “Sure! Let me just - ah, here! You see, “The Grave Robbers’ Chronicles” is about- uh, are you alright?”
“Fine!” Wu Xie wheezed, coughing up the tea he had been sipping, “absolutely fine!” - cough - “never been better!” - cough cough - “good books!”
Pangzi clapped Wu Xie’s back and Li Zihan blinked. “Okay? So you do know them?”
It took Wu Xie some time to answer, eyes red and still coughing, “heard of them, yes.”
Li Zihan brightened again. “Oh good! So you know about all this completely exaggerated stuff written in them! I mean, that one character, Wu Xie, has so much plot armour, it’s insane! Don’t get me wrong, all the characters are extremely competent, but it is a tad unrealistic that this Zhang Qiling guy just randomly shows up everytime Wu Xie is in trouble, don’t you think?”
Huang Mingtao scoffed. “Please. The most unrealistic thing in the series is that they still haven’t kissed. It’s been decades!”
Wu Xie really didn’t understand why, of all things, that detail had been left out in the books, but he wasn’t complaining. Also, he had been under the impression of being too old to blush, but apparently sitting under a tarp on the side of a very muddy mountain, in the rain, in the middle of the night, was the moment the universe decided to prove him wrong.
Pangzi draped an arm around him, grinning from ear to ear. “Oh, yes, I’ve read those, too! And you’re so right, Xiaog- Zhang Qiling coming to Wu Xie’s rescue every time is the cutest thing! Such a clumsy protagonist!”
Wu Xie glared at Pangzi before turning back to their current company. “So you think Wu Xie is basically a more-or-less damsel in distress?” he asked.
The two young men nodded.
Going for a smirk and looking at Pangzi from the corner of his eyes, Wu Xie went for the throat. “Oh? And what do you think about the third person in their triangle?”
Li Zihan beamed. “Wang Yueban? Best.Character.Ever! The heart! The other two would be lost without him!” he said dreamily, with his friend nodding along.
Wu Xie could feel Pangzi gaining at least 10cm in height, while simultaneously melting into a puddle of goo, and any sarcastic or sharp return he might have made vanished right off his tongue. Aww.
The conversation died down a little after that, the two young men squinting over maps of the area, and Wu Xie exchanging glances with Pangzi.
With them distracted, Wu Xie began knocking a rhythm on a plate.
//You told me all those books had been destroyed. :( //
//…and I was pretty damn sure they were. >.< // came Pangzi’s reply.
//Next time I’m seeing Hei Xiazi, I’m goint to kick him into the next tomb// Wu Xie grumbled and let his head drop onto Pangzi’s shoulder.
Repeatedly.
Which caused the other two to blink at him in confusion, but Pangzi just started waving their concern aside with an overly exasperated “that’s normal for him”.
Not protesting, nor moving his head from its place on Pangzi’s shoulder, Wu Xie glanced over at the two.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand… If you knew those books were fiction, why are you using them to guide you?” he asked.
Li Zihan blinked. “Oh! Oh now, they aren’t pure fiction! We’ve been assured that the basics are true and there’s just a lot of stuff added to up the sales.”
Wu Xie blinked. “Uh. Who told you that?”
“The guy we bought them from? Strange guy, worked at a street massage parlour and wouldn’t take off his glasses,” Li Zihan said, thoughtfully.
“....” Wu Xie said, and started knocking his head onto his current pillow once more.
In the middle of the night, Ershu’s search group found the tarp and its inhabitants - namely Li Zihan and Huang Mingtao, who assured the search group they were the only people camping in the area, and no, they hadn’t seen those two middle-aged men from the pictures, and could they please leave them alone, they were very tired? Thank you.
A few minutes after the search group left, Wu Xie and Pangzi crawled out of the bushes and back under the tarp. Thankfully, it had stopped raining by then. Small mercies.
Li Zihan eyed them, suspicious. “Are you, like, criminals?” he asked, and Wu Xie smiled slightly.
“A little late to ask that, don’t you think?” he said, neither denying nor confirming. Because, well. Technically .
“But anyway, thanks. In this case, it’s purely about family, so thank you for helping out,” he continued, nodding at Li Zihan.
Pangzi made to crawl into his sleeping bag. “You know what? We owe you now,” he said, dragging Wu Xie to also lie down, “and we’ll help you find your friend. A tomb a nice two days walk from here? Sounds intriguing! I’ve always wanted to rob- go down a tomb to admire artefacts! Now sleep tight, long day tomorrow!”
If there were protests, Wu Xie didn’t hear them anymore. Sleep claimed him almost immediately.