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Stumbling into the quiet street outside the bar, Zhao Jing straightens his suit, no longer needing to play the role of a drunk fool. Tomorrow his careless business partners will be out of a job and all the pieces will fall into place.
It takes a few steps before he is aware of the disquietingly still road while he congratulates himself. Today is the fifteenth day of the seventh month, a night said to spawn spirits but he has never been of the superstitious sort. He has seen plenty of times how such silliness can be easily manipulated.
Taking a breath of the cool evening air, he starts off towards his car at a leisurely pace. Parked three blocks away on an empty street as he would rather not have his presence here noted.
The narrow strip of asphalt has not a soul in sight until a change in the light draws his eye off to his left. A tall figure stooped over in a doorway. Maybe some real drunkard, clothing pools around him in the dark. Slashes across fabric stained with what disgusting material Zhao Jing would rather not waste thought on.
When Zhao Jing is near enough to pass, the person suddenly turns.
A tattered red scarf around neck flutters against waxy skin and hair worn disheveled and long. Something undoubtedly foul dribbling dark from the corner of his mouth. The rest of his features swathed in shadows.
The best way to deal with disturbed refuse like that is to ignore them. So Zhao Jing continues forward.
But the sliver of teeth broken into a grin cuts a vibrant gash across darkness as the stranger extends his hand. Round glassy blue within. Glint of spilling red wrapped around it surely a trick of the neon night signs. “Were you searching for this, A-Jing?”
He must have misheard. No way this refuse of a man would know his name. None would address him so casually. In those outstretched hands probably rest a bottle fragment dragged out of the nearest restaurant rubbish bin. It should not give him pause as it does. Like he is still that poor little boy easily dazzled by a shiny bauble. He clawed himself away from that years ago. Climbed on top of and anyway from anything so far beneath him.
With those thoughts and a hitch in his step he moves on, refusing to engage with the man, no matter how familiar his ratty robes of grey and gash of crimson across neck may be. And it works, he does not hear any further movement behind him.
Crossing the intersection of one alley, another figure appears as though formed out of the gloom. Where the first was tall and thin, this was one is all squat and square. Wide of shoulder with a broadness to encompass the entire path.
In a night already gone bizarre, this new apparition has his head rested against the side of a building. No, a pillar of some sort. Something it certainly was not before.
Red dripping from this stranger’s forehead when he turns around and takes a step in front of Zhao Jing. Unmistakable the sight of this, not sludge or mud. How strange it is, that what must be blood stands out so sharply while once again the face remains indistinguishable.
“San Di, will you claim ignorance once again?” Another baffling line from this man blocking the way.
He will not stop. Nor would he say anything in return. There does not exist someone who he would hold in such high esteem. A breathless few moments when is near enough to see the elaborate swirled grey patterning on black cloak before he is past this obstacle as well. The wind picking up feels like a flutter of fabric brushing against the back of his legs.
Must be something going around tonight bringing out so many of the unstable riffraff. Nothing to old superstitions but everything in the belief of it. The street is dimmer and the buildings in more disrepair than he recalls from past excursions. No longer does the soft glow of signs brighten the way. But he knows the path so he continues.
As he passes by a crumbling doorway someone lurches forward and sways gently before him.
This time, a woman. It is not so dark that much of her face should be so obscured. Yet this another visage he can neither read nor see. Her already crimson dress with a splotch of scarlet darker upon her chest. Perhaps a spill of wine. All the real drunkards may filter out into the streets after dusk. Did she arrive from some costumed party with hair so white?
Lips so red open, “Jing-lang, where are you?”
A shiver down spine, no mistaking it this time. She says his name clearly in the heartbreaking crack of her cry. Someone must be setting him up. Which one of his former associates would put together such an elaborate ruse? Even if it were not an act of deception, no reason to acknowledge this mad woman with the jewelry askew across her forehead. A phantom scratch of something along his back but nothing more as his feet take him away. The end of the road is within sight. His car rests untouched and serene nestled beside a rickety wagon. That was not there earlier, but not so unusual, people come and go as they please on public paths. He quickens his pace. He is not concerned, but the drop in temperature no longer makes for such a comfortable walk.
“Yifu.” This single word slicing through the silence like the glacial shard it is.
If a wall sprung up between him and that so very soft voice it will still find him all the same. He falters. A yizi he has never had. A evening of all the things that do not exist.
“Yifu, are you cold?” The question must be one of confusion, this child is the one with skin so pale as to be the lightest blue. Wrapped in layers of night fringed by red. Braided hair shines in the lamp lights just a stretch away. The glare of them bouncing bright over Zhao Jing’s car.
He feels a tug on his sleeve as he goes on. Zhao Jing cannot say what compels him to turn back around instead of yanking his arm away. Almost out of the side road and yet...What if he were to help the child with the words of splintered ice? Maybe the chill will not follow him home.
Seeing nothing when he peers down the darkened street behind him, he lets out a breath. The little urchin likely wandered off to find a more compliant target. To think he almost fell to that forlorn voice. What was he going to do, take the boy in like a stray and wrap robes of lightest blue around him? The image so clear in his mind.
He can indulges in these fanciful thoughts in the warmth of his car. He turns back around with his next step bringing him into cold arms.
As all else dims and he is pulled through the musty fabric covering not a wagon, but a faded gold palanquin, Zhao Jing hears it.
“Yifu, I waited so long for your return.”