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Their escape was a clandestine affair, as all escapes ought to be. They waited until nightfall and stole away under the watchful stars.
On another night, the stars might have been beautiful. On this night (and many other nights to come), they were but pinpricks of light that resembled nothing more than a million judging eyes.
Han Wenqing didn’t allow Zhang Xinjie to move too far from him. The world as they knew it was ending and all he could think was that, should Zhang Xinjie be lost as well, everything would be over. Just—it would be over. All of it.
It helped that Zhang Xinjie stuck close. In the sky, flying upon their hastily recovered swords, they were hardly more than a few meters apart. Always within sight of each other. Always waiting for the moment the distance lengthened beyond their tolerance. The correction of their respective courses was a task they undertook graciously and without comment. There was no snapping, no warning, no frowns or stern glances.
When Han Wenqing reached for Zhang Xinjie, he was always there.
* * *
They stopped when familiar peaks grew unfamiliar. When the plains came and went. When the northern shores of the great sea fell behind them. When forests rose and rose and rose until the trees resembled giants.
As Zhang Xinjie placed his feet on the earth for the first time in days, he felt a strange swooping in his gut. Like this should be forbidden, like he should be struck down. He waited for a moment, still and cold, and then he stepped. Once. Twice. His vision swam.
Five steps, and Han Wenqing was there to brace him.
They didn’t say anything. Their gazes caught and held, and Zhang Xinjie wished the silence wasn’t so oppressive. Wished the night could last forever. The sun had risen and set and risen and set and risen and set. It was to rise again soon. He had not missed the blush of blue on the horizon, now obscured by the canopy. He had not missed it, but he wished to forget it.
The night felt safe.
(It wasn’t safe. He just wanted to pretend.)
Dawn arrived. The rivers of Zhang Xinjie’s dreams flowed red.
* * *
For a fortnight, they did nothing but rest. Rest and mourn and soar above the treetops to stare challengingly back the way they came. As if daring the rivers of their nightmares to follow them. As if welcoming the chance to spend their rage.
Because there was rage, beneath the fear. Maybe because of the fear. Rage for the loss of their friends, of their pride, of their legacy, of centuries of innovation. Few cultivators could compare to them, yet they had been driven off like minnows before the long beak of a ravenous crane. In nearly five hundred years, who could claim the honor of calling them prey? Who could boast of their defeat?
It had almost not been defeat. It had almost been destruction. A lot was destroyed—but they remained.
Alive. Somehow.
In the dark woods, Han Wenqing pulled Zhang Xinjie’s body against his and willed with everything in him: Keep him safe. Even if we cannot go back, keep him safe. Keep him safe.
The stars peeked out from beyond the leaves, watching, judging.
* * *
Nothing changed, until something did.
“We’re not alone here.”
“We’re not alone anywhere,” Han Wenqing returned. The forest appeared somber and deathly, but it was thriving in its own quiet way.
“I don’t speak of the wildlife. Something is watching us. Something with intentions.”
Han Wenqing’s eyes sharpened. He didn’t startle, only raised his head and gazed thoughtfully into the shadows molded around the forest’s mysterious depths.
“Bad intentions?”
This was their lives now, this tiny clearing far from any food or water, where the qi was abundant enough to keep them in good health. If they had to leave…
“I don’t know. Perhaps not.”
“We stay?”
Zhang Xinjie breathed out. “We stay.”
* * *
Han Wenqing appreciated Zhang Xinjie for his candor. Zhang Xinjie appreciated him for the same reason. There were many other reasons to appreciate each other, of course, but this one shared trait stood out.
When they struggled, they talked about it. They didn’t try to hide. They spoke openly and searched for solutions. Zhang Xinjie wanted the best for Han Wenqing and vice versa. There was never a point where they doubted this.
They didn’t doubt it now (especially not now). But the practice of talking fell quickly by the wayside as the crushing weight of their reality dropped upon their shoulders.
Neither of them had ever been north-of-the-sea. Who knew what dangers lurked here? Who was to say that what they’d find in this forest was any better than what they’d left behind?
Demons came from east-of-the-sea, Han Wenqing knew that much. But what came from north-of-the-sea, other than cold winds and sinister omens?
If Zhang Xinjie knew, he did not mention it. If he didn’t know, he did not mention it. They bore their ignorance and their peril in silence.
* * *
The creature came with the rain and dark. Its eyes were the only sign of its presence. That, and the sharp blade of its attention, cutting across the space separating them.
“What do you suppose it wants?” Han Wenqing asked, his voice neutral, his hand tight around the hilt of his saber.
“Maybe it only wants to see us.”
“It sure is looking.”
All it did was look. For the entire night, it looked. It hardly moved, and only occasionally blinked. Zhang Xinjie and Han Wenqing looked back.
The rain fell and fell and fell, adding to the gloom of their moods. But when morning came, the light of those eyes winked away, and a shaft of sunlight erased what might have been a body.
“Peculiar,” Zhang Xinjie commented. He said nothing more for the rest of the day.
* * *
The rain didn’t stop. It had already been four days and Han Wenqing was sick of it. The mist was cloying and oppressive and he could taste wet dirt in every breath and swallow.
When he meditated, though, he was grateful. Deep inside himself, where fury and shame smoldered away, the dew dripping off the leaves felt like a balm to his spirit, a cool drink of water in the middle of a searing desert.
It was tempting to keep meditating, but sunset approached, and he couldn’t let himself be comforted to the point of foolishness. Summoning all his willpower, he opened his eyes.
The creature had returned.
It was right in front of him.
“What are you?” he asked it, clinging to calm. He was old, powerful, fierce. Nothing should frighten him. (Nowadays, too much did.)
Golden eyes blinked. The creature resembled an over-sized fox, or maybe a jackal. Part canine, part feline. Its fur was bright red—not blood-red, but fire-red. How did it ever escape his sight?
“It’s beautiful,” Zhang Xinjie said from the other side of the clearing, voice soft.
Han Wenqing had to agree.
* * *
“Why have you come here?”
Zhang Xinjie stroked the scabbard of his sword. “You speak.”
“Obviously.” Its voice was not ominous. Rather, it was deep, expansive, and betrayed nothing of its gender. Not a human voice, for all its fluency. “Will you not answer me?”
“Can I afford not to?”
The fox-thing grinned. Its teeth were too white, like bleached bone. In the dusk, those golden eyes burned bright as the sun.
Han Wenqing answered for them. “We fled. Demon lords from east-of-the-sea overran our city. Our whole country.”
The fox-thing’s long, sinuous tail twitched. Naturally, its expression was impossible to judge, but Zhang Xinjie thought it was surprised. Perhaps.
“You did not fight?”
“We fought,” Zhang Xinjie replied, suddenly weary. “We lost.”
The fox-thing hovered around their clearing the entire night, which was not wholly unexpected. What was unexpected was that it did not disappear into the dawn.
Zhang Xinjie couldn’t decide whether that was a good sign or not.
* * *
Never let it be said that Han Wenqing wasn’t brave. He may have fled the demons, but there was no point in fleeing now. They weren’t being chased. They weren’t even being threatened. This was as safe as they were going to get; silence would make them no safer.
In the light of day, daring came easily. “What are you?”
The fox-thing laughed. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”
Zhang Xinjie, sitting next to him, shifted forward to give their…guest…his full attention. Han Wenqing remained leaning against the tree trunk, his focus split between the bright pulse of his battle-ready qi and the burning presence of the fox-thing.
“I’m the guardian of this forest. You humans would liken me to a deity. But I’ve met deities, and I’m not one of them. Praying to me will earn you nothing, I’m afraid.”
“Did you feel our presence in this forest, then?” Han Wenqing asked.
“Yes. I was on the hunt when I saw something interesting. Your demons chased you from south-of-the-sea.” The guardian licked its lips. “They are dirt now. Food for the trees. A thankless sacrifice, but the cycle stops for no one. Bodies are bodies, and bodies are nourishment.”
* * *
The guardian soon introduced himself as a he. Then he entrusted them with his name: Ye Xiu. Zhang Xinjie wondered at titles, but Ye Xiu promised those were unnecessary.
“Will you not leave this spot? The forest is vast. There are better places.”
“We need nothing,” Zhang Xinjie said. “We want nothing.”
“Now, that’s not true.” Ye Xiu’s golden eyes pierced through his skin. “There is much you want. To go back whence you came, perhaps?”
If Zhang Xinjie were five centuries younger, he may have winced. As it was, Han Wenqing had to be the one to say, quite grimly, “There is no going back.”
“Well. I suppose you are safe enough here.” Ye Xiu’s toothy grin didn’t promise anything like safety, but Zhang Xinjie was not worried. Ye Xiu had done nothing to hurt them. Indeed, he had helped them tremendously. It was possible he had even saved their lives.
Zhang Xinjie wondered at debts, but Ye Xiu promised there was no such thing.
If only Zhang Xinjie could believe him.
* * *
It wasn’t as if going back didn’t occur to Han Wenqing. He had doubts about how long the demon lords would reign. According to good sense, demons did not rule over humans—demons killed humans. And humans, in turn, killed demons. It was only a matter of time before rebellion freed the conquered nations. Then the demon armies would retreat east-of-the-sea and the realm of humans would gradually return to normal.
Demons invaded four thousand years ago, too. It took almost two thousand years for human civilization to recover from merely two centuries of demon rule, possibly because over seventy million people died in the fighting. A point of scholarly debate, this.
If Han Wenqing and Zhang Xinjie went back, though… It wouldn’t take them two centuries to send the demon lords running. With Zhang Xinjie’s meticulous plotting, it’d be a surprise if it took them more than a decade. They were cultivators of renown, heroes to the common people, and natural leaders. Perhaps not even a million lives need be lost if they triumphed soon enough.
But then he thought of the dungeons, of the chains, of the agony. He thought of Zhang Xinjie, sprawled on the blood-slick stone, rivulets of red gleaming in the cracks of his skin.
Han Wenqing stood on his saber and gazed south. They did not go back.
* * *
Immortal cultivators did not have to sleep often. Sleep wasn’t a requirement for them at all, technically. Zhang Xinjie was proficient at meditating fatigue away and even preferred it to sleep, but Han Wenqing was a different story. Han Wenqing liked sleeping.
So Zhang Xinjie slept with him, if only because he didn’t want Han Wenqing to be alone. (He didn’t want Han Wenqing to leave him alone.
But everyone dreamed alone.)
When his nightmares woke him, he walked to the edge of the clearing and sat with his back pressed against his favorite tree, a sturdy pine. As was his habit, he tipped his head up, even though it was almost impossible to see anything of the sky from this spot.
“Ye Xiu,” he called softly into the night, a whisper of sound upon the air. Ye Xiu’s presence had not left them since he first spoke. Perhaps he’d be willing to make conversation.
Ye Xiu, like a deity he claimed he wasn’t, appeared in the shadows to his left. But he was not a fox-thing—he was a man. Dressed in robes as red as his fur, skin like moonlight, he was noble and ordinary and so very human.
Zhang Xinjie couldn’t help but stare. “You…”
Ye Xiu winked at him and disappeared.
* * *
“Are there others like you?” Han Wenqing asked, eying Ye Xiu’s attire dubiously. It wasn’t all red—his under-robes were varying shades of white and cream, and his leather forearm guards were glossy black. There were golden studs in his earlobes to match his eyes and a beautiful jade pendant hanging from his neck. A fine outfit, truthfully.
It was just so…unsuitable. Han Wenqing and Zhang Xinjie fled in the clothes they managed to nab, but someone who lived in this dark, damp forest ought to wear something befitting the setting, no?
“Yes,” Ye Xiu replied, sifting through the dirt with his snow-white fingers. He had thrown himself on the ground without a care for cleanliness as soon as Han Wenqing woke up from his nap. “You may meet them one day.”
It took effort to react to that. Ye Xiu’s voice, his appearance—why was it all so normal? Was this the truth of his form, or was the fox-thing his real self? “Why would I meet them?”
“They visit me, and I am with you. It follows that you will meet them.”
As the shadows lengthened, Zhang Xinjie descended from the sky. His gaze collided with Han Wenqing’s. “Let’s leave this place. I’m tired of it.”
Han Wenqing was too stunned to reply right away.
Ye Xiu, still lying on the ground, hummed. “We can leave at nightfall,” he suggested.
Neither of the humans denied him.
* * *
Zhang Xinjie thought about nourishment. Life, death, life again—it was an unstoppable cycle, just as Ye Xiu said. But another way to look at it was—death, life, death again.
That didn’t sound like nourishment. That sounded like stagnancy. Like inevitability.
But for everything that was inevitable in this world, there was something else that wasn’t. Something preventable, avoidable, escapable.
Zhang Xinjie didn’t want to fool himself anymore. He and Han Wenqing had played dead for too long, relied on pretenses for too long; now they were safe in truth. Ye Xiu was here, and this forest was his. It wasn’t enough to be alive. They had to live.
A layer of clouds hid the stars when they abandoned their clearing. In the black of night, the forest seemed endless in scope, deeper than the great sea. Zhang Xinjie wondered where this forest ended and another began. How far did Ye Xiu’s protection extend?
Beside him, Han Wenqing was silent. Below him, a glowing red shape streaked across the earth. It moved faster than they could fly, but not so fast that they could not keep up. After all, Ye Xiu had promised he would stay within sight. He had also promised to lead them somewhere they could thrive.
They had known Ye Xiu for a week. He could be lying.
They followed him anyway.
* * *
Their new home was to be a spire of rock peppered with cavernous passages. It was comparable to a castle, if castles could be carved right out of stone. In the distance, a wide lake glittered tantalizingly. There was green all around, the qi as abundant as life itself, the growth lush and wild.
It was, in short, a magical place. Han Wenqing felt the burning inside him falter at the sight of it.
But the burning returned when he remembered: he was not free. He would never be free, not as long as his failures remained unpunished.
“You settle in,” he told Zhang Xinjie. “I want to see the lake.”
He flew to the shore and took a seat on a weathered boulder. The water was calm, rippled only by the breeze. He knew there were fish aplenty swimming within.
Ye Xiu’s approach was silent, but not hidden. Han Wenqing refused to look at him.
Then a hand brushed his shoulder and sent a pulse of numbing heat through his body. Han Wenqing let out a gasp, temporarily overcome by the sensation.
“Sometimes suffering makes us better people,” said the guardian. “Sometimes it only gets in the way. Why don’t you go for a swim?”
Han Wenqing turned, but Ye Xiu was gone.
* * *
Zhang Xinjie spent a lot of time walking around barefoot. He liked the feeling of grass and leaves and stone against his skin. He liked the way the lake water lapped at his ankles. He liked that he could see the sky from almost everywhere, what with the wider spacing between the trees.
“You’d think you’d never explored the wilderness before,” Ye Xiu said, amused.
This was Zhang Xinjie’s second lap around the lake this morning. He must seem strange to an observer, but he wasn’t going to acknowledge that. Instead, he asked, “What’s your favorite tree?”
Ye Xiu walked close enough that Zhang Xinjie could see the glint in his eyes as he studied their surroundings. “I don’t have one. I love all the trees, especially in autumn. They’re so lovely in autumn.”
“Even when their leaves fall away completely?”
“Even then. There is something to be said for the beauty of loss.”
“Hmm. I’m not so sure.”
Ye Xiu took hold of Zhang Xinjie’s wrist, forcing them to a halt. His grip was gentle, barely there, yet a cold fire radiated from the patches of skin he touched.
Zhang Xinjie was too enthralled to stop his sleeve from slipping.
“This is beauty too,” Ye Xiu said, smiling into Zhang Xinjie’s eyes, fingertip tracing the ropes of scar tissue they had all politely ignored until now.
“Pain is not beauty,” Zhang Xinjie said resolutely. He did not draw away.
“What comes after pain is.”
* * *
“I never imagined what lay north-of-the-sea,” Han Wenqing said. “I thought it would be empty, maybe dangerous. Uncivilized or degrading.”
Zhang Xinjie pressed his head against Han Wenqing’s chest. “Some scholars said there was a civilization here once, but it died away. Others said it was destroyed.”
Their guest—their landlord, technically—offered nothing by way of confirmation. The mouth of the cave framed his slender figure, granting him an undeniable dimensionality, but one only had to peer a little more carefully to notice how the glow of sunrise shone right through him. In the space between day and night, he could not hide what he was: a ghost in their midst, pretending at realness, at humanity.
(Han Wenqing forgot too often that he was pretending.
Was he pretending?
At this point, did it matter?)
The silence was disturbing. And as usual, when something disturbed him, Han Wenqing disturbed it back. “Well, Ye Xiu? Was there ever civilization here?”
“Not human civilization,” came his voice, more otherworldly than it had been in a while.
“Demons?” Zhang Xinjie asked.
“No. It wasn’t a civilization such as you would understand it. There were no serfs, no lords, no emperors. Something entirely beyond your experience.”
Curiosity roused, Zhang Xinjie shifted. “Were there laws?”
Ye Xiu laughed. “Of course. The living die, and the dead feed.”
No one spoke for several seconds.
“Have I frightened you?”
“No,” Han Wenqing said thoughtfully. “I find your candor refreshing.”
* * *
People often made physicians out to be weak or vulnerable. Zhang Xinjie had never subscribed to such stereotypes. The only time he felt truly frail was in that dungeon, laid out on the floor and ceaselessly bleeding.
He told Han Wenqing as much, slowly, measuredly. It ached to speak of it, but he had shrunk away for too long. It was time to let the wound drain.
“You’re not frail,” Han Wenqing said quietly when he was done. They did not need light to see each other by, but Zhang Xinjie had still cast an illumination spell for the occasion. The glow of the light-sphere softened Han Wenqing’s beloved face. “Everything about you is strong. Your mind. Your will. When I got to you, you gripped my hand so tightly I thought it would break.”
Zhang Xinjie trembled. They were in a cave in the middle of a forest no demon could reach, yet he trembled at the mere memory— “I wish you hadn’t been so nearby. I wish you hadn’t seen.”
“I’m glad for it. I never want to be apart from you, even when it hurts.”
They embraced. They kissed. They moved. Skin against scarred skin, hand in shaking hand, cheek to wet cheek. Centuries-old vows spilled into the air, revived, relived.
Death, life, death. But the cycle never stopped, so there was still—
Life.
* * *
That same night, long after the light-sphere had been dismissed, Han Wenqing made a confession of his own.
“They might forget. In ten years, in fifty, a hundred, they might forget, but I’ll remember,” he whispered. “I ran.”
Zhang Xinjie didn’t stop stroking his hair. “We both did. Anyone would have.”
“And before I ran, I failed.”
The sigh above him was not disappointed or weary. Han Wenqing wasn’t sure he could have borne this if it were either.
“How did you expect to hold off an army on your own? How did you expect to protect me by yourself? It was us against the tide, and we fought. We fought so hard.”
“We have to go back.”
“We will. When we are well again, we’ll go back.”
Han Wenqing snorted softly. “Are we not well now?” he murmured into Zhang Xinjie’s thigh.
“We would both do well,” said Zhang Xinjie, “to keep in mind our fragility. There is no mountain that can’t be toppled, no stone that can’t be split. Stop blaming yourself for being human, Han Wenqing. They can forget all about us, our failures and our glories, as long as you remember: we are more than victory or defeat.”
* * *
Ye Xiu came and went, but they saw him every day and every night. As if he wanted to remind them of his existence…or to reassure them with his presence.
Zhang Xinjie did find his presence reassuring. Still, he had questions.
“Again, you don’t owe me anything. It’s not fair, you say? I don’t care. Fairness is for humans.”
“You killed the demons who followed us. Shouldn’t we repay you?” Han Wenqing demanded, frustrated.
Ye Xiu splashed some water at him. The coolness of the lake didn’t bother Han Wenqing, of course, but he still scowled and splashed Ye Xiu back.
(The droplets never touched him.)
“It’s my right to kill in my forest. It had nothing to do with you.”
Zhang Xinjie was unconvinced. “You killed them and let us live. What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means I like you,” said Ye Xiu. He pointed at the sunlit lake. “See this water? If I didn’t like it, I would remove it. The demons offended me with their presence, so I removed them.”
“Then you’re not just a guardian, you’re lord of this forest,” Zhang Xinjie decided.
Ye Xiu groaned. “Why do I bother explaining anything…”
* * *
Indeed, there was much that needed explaining, but perhaps there was more that couldn’t be explained.
“These are your humans?” said the one who introduced herself as Su Mucheng.
“They’re very…dark,” said the other one. Tang Rou, Ye Xiu called her.
Han Wenqing glanced at Ye Xiu, seeking a cue for how he should react, but Ye Xiu just laughed and nodded. “They’re getting better.”
Both the women were dressed in clothes similar to Ye Xiu’s, but in different colors. Su Mucheng’s robes were mainly orange, Tang Rou’s a deep indigo. Su Mucheng also wore a startling amount of jewelry, enough to put an empress to shame. Han Wenqing wondered if it was as illusory as Ye Xiu’s body sometimes appeared to be.
Neither of them seemed quite as inhuman as Ye Xiu. Han Wenqing wondered at that. Zhang Xinjie did, too, judging by his intent expression.
“How wonderful,” said Su Mucheng. “Will they stay here?”
“I like them.”
Tang Rou smiled, close-lipped. A single ray of sunlight bled into the thick grove they were standing in and passed right through her shoulder. “They won’t stay, but how can they go when they’ve seen so much?”
“Pardon me?” Zhang Xinjie interjected.
Ye Xiu waved his hand. “They have a hunt to see to.”
There was no more talk of staying or going after that.
* * *
Humans had fragile hearts. They were breakable, deeply flawed, and ever wavering. For the life of them, they could not be immutable. They could not be fixed in place and unbending.
Humans were made to bend. They were made to change.
Ye Xiu’s humans were no exception. They had healed under the branches of his trees. They had broken out of their rotting shells and faced their figurative demons. It would have been fine with Ye Xiu if they’d stopped there; instead, they had pointed their gazes at the great sea and realized their future lay behind them.
They were off to face their literal demons now. Ye Xiu approved; he also despaired.
How can they go when they’ve seen so much?
It hurt, but Ye Xiu forgave them. He forgave them because he liked them. He would have forced them to stay, except they’d hate him if he did.
(It shouldn’t matter if they hated him. He was forever. He was beyond them.
It did matter. They mattered.)
So a year after he told them his name, when they declared themselves ready, Ye Xiu guided his humans to the seashore. It was as far as he could take them. From here on, he had no purview.
“You can come with us,” Han Wenqing suggested from atop his blade, a meter above the ground.
Zhang Xinjie hovered beside him. “Yes, we can hunt together.”
Ye Xiu laughed. They were adorable. “Go on. You’ll be welcome back when you’re done.”
Han Wenqing edged closer. “You’re certain?”
“One such as I does not belong out there,” Ye Xiu said honestly. “It would be unfair, in human terms.”
“Do you care about fairness suddenly?” Zhang Xinjie raised an eyebrow.
“There are laws.”
Han Wenqing scoffed. “What does crossing the sea have to do with life and death?”
“Everything.” Ye Xiu gazed out at the vast expanse of water. “I bring death wherever I go.”
He glimpsed Han Wenqing and Zhang Xinjie exchanging glances out of the corner of his eye.
“You saved us,” Zhang Xinjie said softly.
Ye Xiu turned his head to smile at them. “You saved yourselves.”
Han Wenqing stepped off his saber and alighted on the rugged grasses. His approach was swift, unhesitating, baffling, such that Ye Xiu didn’t even think to react until arms were around him, pulling him close in the briefest—and most heartfelt—of hugs.
Strange, Ye Xiu thought when Han Wenqing drew away. He looked down at himself, wondering if something should be different. But no; it was only a feeling. A shock of lightning that should have echoed with thunder, but instead dissolved in silence.
Zhang Xinjie came next, because it was only natural he would. He did not embrace Ye Xiu, though; he only smoothed a lock of hair away from his face, tucked it behind his ear, and quirked his lips in a faint smile. The brush of his fingers against Ye Xiu’s cheek was another flash storm, there and gone again.
(They should not have been able to touch him. They touched him so easily.)
“We’ll be back, then,” said Zhang Xinjie. “Let’s say…two years from now.”
“Don’t rush on my account,” Ye Xiu said wryly, recovering his wits. “Two years, two decades, it’s all the same to me.”
“Two decades? Your faith is overwhelming,” Han Wenqing said, equally wry.
Ye Xiu jabbed a finger at their swords, which still floated in the air. “Go on. Hurry there and hurry back. Then I will show you—” Ye Xiu cut himself off.
“Show us what?” Han Wenqing asked after a beat.
Ye Xiu’s gaze drifted from one dear face to the other. They were not touching him any longer, but the storm was back inside him, flickering with light, disarranging everything he thought to be immutable, fixed in place, unbending.
What is forever supposed to mean to me, Ye Xiu wondered, now that I’ve met them?
“All I am,” he breathed in a rare moment of solemnity, “and all we can be. Together.”
“You really do like us,” Zhang Xinjie said, voice caught somewhere between surety and awe.
The moment passed. Ye Xiu grinned. “For better or worse.”
“For better,” Han Wenqing decided without hesitation.
Zhang Xinjie nodded, eyes lingering on Ye Xiu’s. Then he looked at Han Wenqing and said, “Now, enough dilly-dallying, or else we’ll fall behind schedule.”
“There’s a schedule?” Han Wenqing drawled.
“Of course there is,” Zhang Xinjie retorted, already mounting his sword.
Ye Xiu watched them vanish into the sky, contemplative. For better, hm? A fragile hope for fragile hearts.
But it was a hope they three shared, so perhaps it was sufficient. Perhaps it would keep.