Chapter Text
The constellations made by the skyscrapers’ windows start to die down as the sun slowly peeks over the horizon. Jun Wu likes the sight, that’s why he works out in darkness and facing his own picture window, the one with the best view to the skyline in the area. It brings him some sort of peace to see how the city rushes to start yet another day that will lead to nowhere. As he doesn’t particularly enjoy exercising, he thinks that perhaps seeing other people pursue similarly pointless endeavours can help him feel less alone. Unfortunately, it’s the Sunday of the mid-autumn festival. There are fewer stars blinking than during workdays —not enough to improve his sour mood.
To compensate, he’s rowing with more weight than usual. The increased difficulty and the slow pace dictated by the song he’s listening to make his muscles burn, but he perseveres, patiently waiting for Xie Lian’s voice.
Why…
That marks sixteen repetitions. The hoarse whisper dissolves as quietly as it appeared and the viscous, repetitive sound of the percussion continues. Jun Wu is looking forward to asking Xie Lian what he used to make it. He’s sure it’s not a stock sound effect because the texture of each beat is unique. Melons and cabbages are the obvious choices to emulate stabbing sounds like those, but there’s something about how the impacts resonate in the flesh that makes the body sound heavier. Denser. Like an animal.
… can't…
Thirty-two repetitions. Jun Wu’s lower back muscles feel about to tear. He ought to spend less time sitting at his desk. Huffing sharply, he strives for getting in sync with Xie Lian’s breathing, which has emerged from the pervasive murmuring of the synthetic bass and the faint, scattered whimpers of a theremin.
Xie Lian sounds restrained and tense, like he’s gnashing his teeth in agony. He’s become such a good interpreter! His voice before was beautiful, a technical wonder for sure, but it had the same depth as an oriole’s call. All that poetry and fables he sung about were nothing but the same shallow “look at me, look at me,” worded differently and always delivered in the same way. Now, though? Most of his songs have only one stanza, some, like this one, are just one sentence long, but that’s enough for him to express any and all emotions, always in a way so raw and vivid that it feels paralysing. He’s gotten so far that, if he wants to, he can forsake words altogether. For how tortured his mere breathing sounds, Jun Wu could believe that Xie Lian was stabbing his own leg while recording.
… I…
Forty-eight. This is the longest stretch, but the reward at the end is also the best because the crescendo in Xie Lian’s voice resolves with a fry scream that’s more like a howl, a visceral wail like nothing Jun Wu has heard anywhere else. The first time he listened to the song, he almost fell to his knees at that point, fulminated by the overwhelming certainty of having heard a word in a primal language he didn’t think anyone else understood.
The sky turns a lighter shade of blue with every hit of the bloody percussion, the last lights of the other buildings go off one after the other. Jun Wu puts effort into the rowing, pushing and pulling at the rhythm of the stabs, forcing his muscles to the extreme so the relief of Xie Lian’s cry hits harder. At beat eighty-three, a notification pops up on the screen of the rowing machine, which is connected to his cellphone, and Jun Wu grunts. Another message arrives at eighty-nine, and one more at ninety-two.
Ninety-four. The screen goes black. Ninety-five. Inhaling deeply, Jun Wu puts all his strength into the last pull.
… DIE?!
With a roar that’s half of laughter, half of pain, he pushes against the foot rests to straighten his legs, swings his shoulders to lean back with the force of his core and brings the handle to his diaphragm.
One, two, three, four. The burn is deep, Xie Lian’s scream starts to fade. One, two, three, four again. Silence. Letting go at last, Jun Wu allows the chain of the machine to pull him back to a sitting position and taps the screen.
__________
Crow [05:43]: Target spotted walking up Porcelain Road towards the house
Nest [05:44]: Confirmed that he didn’t spend the night there then?
Crow [05:44]: Affirmative
__________
Feeling his entire body tingle with exhaustion, Jun Wu looks dazedly at the messages for a couple seconds and then lowers his head to run his calloused fingers through the whitening sides of his hair.
Xie Lian is back. Jun Wu inhales deeply and exhales slowly. Xie Lian is finally back.
He doesn’t like to resort to extreme measures like this. Having people physically follow Xie Lian is risky and very stressful, that’s why Jun Wu sticks to tracking him only through digital transactions and online activity if he can help it. He thinks that the situation is mostly the result of some bad luck and several rushed decisions on his end, but really, with charity events, concerts and competitions to celebrate the festival demanding everything out of him, the last thing Jun Wu’s already frayed nerves needed was that Xie Lian started to behave.
Since his arrival and up until yesterday noon, the boy was consistent like a clock. He switched to a new lodging every three or four days, kept busy by applying relentlessly to terrible gigs, and didn't spend a dime in anything other than what he needed to barely cover basic necessities, get his pathetic jobs done and attend appointments. So far, there’s not a single restaurant bill or leisure ticket in his account. He has bought exactly one drink during his whole stay and it was a cup of tea during his meeting with Ling Wen. There’s no evidence of him getting in contact with any of his old acquaintances either. Most importantly, until his sudden disappearance, he was always online, looking for freebies and discounts, replying to humiliating enquiries or searching his apps for a new gig in which he could make a fool of himself. Although it’s true that there was a sharp decrease in the amount of appalling jon applications a few days ago —which made the information input scarce enough for Jun Wu to suspect that Xie Lian was up to something— it aligned with Xie Lian’s appointment at the office of intellectual property registrations, so Jun Wu assumed that the boy was just feeling depressed after receiving some carefully crafted bad news.
What did he overlook? What is Xie Lian hiding?
__________
Nest [05:48]: Status?
Crow [05:48]: He’s unlocking the main door to get inside the house
Nest [05:48]: Describe the target’s condition
Crow [05:50]: Clean, uninjured, hair properly groomed and tied in a braid. Wearing a deep red oversized hoodie, black sweatpants, grey fingerless gloves and worn white sneakers. Came from the direction of the closest subway station, not carrying any bag or case. Appears tired but not hungover or under the influence.
__________
If Xie Lian arrived with his hands empty and while dressing so casually, then he wasn’t working. Did he decide to wander around and see what was up for the festival? It’s not impossible, but it doesn’t explain why his phone was off almost the entire time. Jun Wu has tracked Xie Lian long enough to know that he uses the thing for absolutely everything. Rationally speaking, that doesn’t mean that Xie Lian can’t do without it, but it’s hard to imagine it when he doesn’t even use cash beyond the coins he gets while busking every now and then.
With a deep sigh, Jun Wu reaches for his water bottle. If he doesn’t stretch in the next ten minutes, he’ll make his Monday miserable and won’t be able to get out of bed on Tuesday. After the hell of a week he just lived through, taking time off sounds like something his doctor would approve of, which is precisely why Jun Wu won’t indulge. The next few days are critical for what he has in mind, anyway, regardless of whether Xie Lian attends their dinner later today or not.
Why…
The returning whisper of Xie Lian’s voice makes Jun Wu realise, with a startle, that he left the song playing on loop. Deciding to let it continue, he grabs the towel hung from the front of the rowing machine to pat his neck and wipe his hands, then reaches for his phone.
__________
Hunter [05:52]: Thanks for the updates
Hunter [05:52]: Did he look wary or scared?
Crow [05:53]: Affirmative. He kept looking over his shoulder and waited until no one was near to introduce the code of the lock
Nest [05:53]: Did he see you?
Crow [05:53]: Negative
__________
At least he seems to be aware now of how dangerous the place where he’s staying really is. No, of course Xie Lian isn’t scared of that neighbourhood, he’s scared because of the calls and the message. Even Jun Wu is unnerved by the message, despite the fact that he was the one who wrote it. In the heat of the moment, he deceived himself into thinking that, if Xie Lian hadn’t answered any of his thirty-something calls, he wouldn’t receive any texts either. Recklessly freeing himself of any scruples, he lashed out in a shockingly passive-aggressive way. Hours later, when his virtual assistant announced that the message had been received, Jun Wu read it again and felt such a cold panic settle on his guts that he didn’t even bother trying to go to sleep. Instead, he waited for a reply that never arrived for what felt like hours, pacing around his penthouse like a caged tiger. He even gave in and rang Xie Lian once more. The call bounced.
It was stupid, and he knows that the explanation to Xie Lian going offline must be so simple that, when he figures it out, he’ll feel even more stupid. Most likely, Xie Lian felt like taking a stroll, ran out of battery at some point, and thought he’d rather look for a place where he could charge it instead of returning home. Because of the festival, the good weather or whatever reason, that took him six hours, more than enough time for him to make some friends to whom he asked for a place to stay the night after Jun Wu's message spooked him. If Jun Wu had thought about it calmly and arrived at a normal conclusion like that before bombarding Xie Lian with calls, they wouldn’t be going through such an impasse right now.
… can’t…
Jun Wu stands up from the rowing machine and takes a sip from the water bottle before leaving it aside. It was just a moment of weakness, he tells himself, of impatience overcoming him as it tends to do these days. Since Xie Lian started working under the name of Withering Lotus, Jun Wu has grown prone to mistakes. He can’t help it, the music is so promising that dreaming about its potential keeps distracting him. There’s a mix of greed and helplessness growing in his heart, a fear that won’t stop gnawing. It’s as if Xie Lian really was a withering bloom, one that Jun Wu must watch carefully to make sure it never dries completely, becoming undying in its agony, paradoxically out of reach from the merciless pass of time.
Right when Jun Wu is about to start his stretching exercises, a subtle ring from his private messages makes him stop.
__________
Nest [05:57]: Should we finish the operation here?
__________
Jun Wu clicks his tongue. It makes sense to withdraw the scout now that he knows that Xie Lian is back in his lodging, but the boy’s online activity is still flatlining. How much longer can he go without the apps, money and services of his phone? Won't he at least use his laptop to check his inbox? Regardless of how shaken he is after the calls and the message, he can't afford the luxury of staying offline for more than a day. He's well aware of the fact that the world won't stop turning no matter how badly he wishes for it.
… I…
In any case, Jun Wu already sank low by hiring people to spy on Xie Lian, so the least he can do is to keep them working until he's sure he can track him by himself again.
__________
Hunter [05:57]: No. I’ll tell you when
Nest [05:58]: Understood
__________
The first stretching exercise makes his joints crack in a way that matches the crudeness of the song. With a groan, he focuses on Xie Lian’s agonising breathing to ignore the soreness of his own muscles. He’ll need more than bland congee and barely palatable multivitamin smoothies for breakfast if he wants to survive the day. He’s in the mood for a big and greasy steak, and he could kill for a real espresso oozing with caffeine. His diet, designed by the top nutritionist of the country, is one of the many things he does to stay at the top of his game, alongside the exercise, the meditation, the borderline military schedule and other thousand methods to enhance productivity. He hates it all, of course, but he won’t stop.
Until Xie Lian’s potential gets fully realised through the mask of Bai Wuxiang and takes Heaven’s Will to the place it has always belonged to, Jun Wu won’t stop. It’s not a problem. He’s used to overwork and frustration, he already has his ways to deal with such things. That’s one of the few good things that come with age.
He goes through the stretching routine mechanically, ignoring the pops and aches as if his body didn’t belong to him. The day has almost cleared completely and there are many little ants down there, rushing among the skyscrapers to clean the mess left by others the night before.
When he’s done, he wipes his hands with the towel once again and opens the group chat.
__________
Hunter [06:05]: Any movement?
Crow [06:05]: Negative
__________
Pocketing his phone, Jun Wu wipes the rowing machine and picks the bottle of water up. When he’s about to head to the kitchen, Xie Lian’s scream fills the room.
… DIE?!
A shiver goes up Jun Wu’s spine. He’s reluctant about using this specific song for mundane things like workouts precisely because he tends to let it fade into the background, which is a disservice to it. He wouldn’t have done it if he had felt capable of listening to literally anything else.
“Cuocuo,” he calls when the song ends. “Turn the music off.”
His virtual assistant lets out a childish giggle —the sound of acknowledgement that Jun Wu picked for it and considers changing whenever he hears it— and silence takes over the penthouse. Jun Wu rolls his shoulders and neck, feeling the cracking of his vertebrae resonate inside his skull. Standing at the threshold of his house gym, he checks Xie Lian’s online activity again and finds as dead as it has been since the beginning of the debacle.
__________
Hunter [06:07]: Be prepared to follow him if he leaves the house again, but don’t do it unless I give you the green light
Crow [06:07]: Understood
__________
A half-eaten bowl of nuts and seeds greets him in the kitchen, remnant of his anxiety last night. Fantasies of greasy meat cooked rare and food fried in a bit too much oil make his stomach growl. Indifferent to them, he starts preparing congee. He’s not going to indulge his cravings beyond maybe adding some eggs, for protein. And well, now that he’s not so frantic, maybe also…
“Cuocuo,” he calls while he waits for the water to boil. “Play Black Lotus.”
“Playing Black Lotus by Xianle.”
It’s a seemingly uncreative name for a playlist, but it makes sense in relation to ‘White Lotus’, the definitely uncreative and slightly self-defeating name of Xie Lian’s former band. In it, Jun Wu has organised all the songs Xie Lian has made in the right way, the ones in which he’s achieved something meaningful, worthy of immortality. Some, like the one that starts playing, are barely there, and Jun Wu ponders whether to take them out every once in a while. Some others are good, a few are great, and a couple are almost at the level of 104… being ‘almost’ the key word.
While Jun Wu doesn’t think there’s a way to top the visceral effect of the bloody stabs of percussion and the stertorous lament that make 104 able to pierce his heart like a sword, the fact that Xie Lian hasn’t reached that same high again in around six years is a bit concerning. Jun Wu thinks that he’s still got it in him, otherwise he wouldn’t go through the pain of turning him into Bai Wuxiang, which is the last resort he has to keep the boy under control. He wishes things could be different, but Xie Lian has always been infuriatingly stubborn and weirdly persuasive in his ability to inspire others, becoming a headache to management and a hindrance to himself. He doesn’t give Jun Wu any other choice.
In fact, Jun Wu should have been firmer from the beginning, back when he first contacted the Xie family, enchanted by the potential he saw in their young heir. At the time, he tried to convince the boy and his little friends to use the name Black Lotus instead of their chosen White Lotus —hence the name of the playlist, in part. For reasons he doesn’t fully understand yet (but that he blames on Xie Lian regardless), he and Mei Nianqing ended up indulging the kids and defending their choice of name in front of the marketing department, which didn’t want to accept it under the argument that it’s slang for insincere or double-faced. In retrospect, Bai Wuxiang’s later intervention to try to correct Xie Lian’s ways makes the choice of name quite ironic.
Just as Jun Wu, with a small smile on his face, stops the blender, his phone lights up.
__________
Crow [06:15]: Target is leaving on foot and carrying plenty of luggage
Nest [06:15]: What direction?
Crow [06:15]: Subway station
Nest [06:16]: @Hunter, permission to follow?
__________
Jun Wu’s fingers tremble while hovering over the screen. Thanks to his hasty message the day before, Xie Lian knows for sure that he’s being monitored in some capacity, but if he realises that he’s being followed in person, there won’t be any amicable way to reach an agreement with him regarding Heaven’s Will or any other project. However, if he disappears again and changes his data, as he has done in the past, won’t all possibilities be cut short in an even harsher way? When or how is Jun Wu supposed to find him if he finally decides to leave the country, for example?
Although, thinking more carefully —as Jun Wu knows he has to— Xie Lian has no way to do anything like that. This time, Jun Wu took all the measures needed to prevent the boy from getting away. For starters, the copyright issues that brought Xie Lian to the Capital haven’t been solved yet, which means that, eventually, he’ll have to attend another appointment at the registration office. Besides, even if his debt with Immortal Records got paid in a moment of carelessness, Xie Lian needs a lawyer to issue a proof of full payment in presence of Jun Wu in order to settle it for good.
Everything is under control, he just needs to calm down and focus. No more impatience or carelessness. No more mistakes.
__________
Hunter [06:18]: Denied
Hunter [06:18]: We won’t risk him noticing anything that makes him suspect
Nest [06:18]: @Crow, confirm reception
__________
Jun Wu looks at the screen without blinking, growing desperate the more time passes with no new messages popping on it. In his mind, he can picture the crow ignoring his command and approaching Xie Lian to offer him help carrying his bags. He can hear Xie Lian declining politely and the crow insisting, following him to the elevator of the subway station or chasing him down the stairs. There mustn’t be many people inside because it’s early morning on a Sunday, which will only make the crow more suspicious. Service will also be sparse, given the low demand. The crow will have plenty of time to try to establish a conversation with Xie Lian and give away Jun Wu’s whole scheme, like Lang Ying’s nephew did eight years ago with that idiotic prank he proposed.
__________
Hunter [06:19]: Don’t follow him
Hunter [06:19]: Stop the operation
Hunter [06:19]: Withdraw
__________
Jun Wu keeps staring at the screen, waiting for the nest or the crow to acknowledge his orders until the smell of burnt rice becomes impossible to ignore. Disgruntled, he turns the stove off and pulls the pot to the side to make it cool down faster. Whatever, he’ll remake the congee once he’s been assured these people didn’t ruin things. If he just lost Xie Lian again, he might as well starve.
__________
Crow [06:22]: Target is out of sight. He took the elevator of the subway station
Nest [06:22]: Did he see you?
Crow [06:23]: Yes, but he gave no indication of suspecting me
Hunter [06:23]: What do you mean by that?
__________
Xie Lian is paranoid. He wasn’t like that when he was young, but because of Jun Wu’s mistakes, he has learned to mistrust even his own shadow. As things stand, the smallest crack in the crow’s facade could have given them away. The man in question is still typing. What’s taking so long?
A vaguely familiar feeling of loss takes a hold of Jun Wu’s heart. Trying to release the tension, he puts the phone on the counter and goes to vigorously scratch the burnt rice out of the pot.
The situation takes him to the time when Xie Lian managed to start blooming again and his petals were black, as intended. It was right after the release of 104. Of course it was; the only reason Jun Wu has let six entire years pass since that magnus opus is that his immediate attempt to bring Xie Lian back didn’t succeed. He had been so sure! At the time, Xie Lian’s debts with the label were nothing short of astronomical and Bai Wuxiang was still in the game, herding the boy to make sure he didn’t stray too far from the path. Xie Lian had no other option but to run into Jun Wu’s open arms, and yet all he did was to go on a tirade of uncreative insults and proceed to erase himself from the map so thoroughly that he almost had Jun Wu fooled, thinking he’d left the country on foot like a war refugee to stupidly try to reunite with his parents.
It took his business conglomerate more than a year to find Xie Lian again. When he finally appeared, he was making a name for himself in the sector of videogame soundtracks, right under the nose of Upper Court Music, which cost the company half of their directive board. Worse than that, Xie Lian’s metal had regressed to something nearly as insufferable as the fucking Body In Bla Bla Bla song. It had been a shock, but once Ling Wen took charge and sorted things out (it isn’t for nothing that Jun Wu trusted her with contacting Xie Lian first), they rebuilt their monitoring system and also identified some pieces that showed potential worthy of the Black Lotus playlist.
That’s what doesn't let Jun Wu be at peace. Whenever he’s ready to give up on that stubborn, incorrigible child, he produces another gem that makes him wonder. Every time he wants to leave him behind, the scream of 104 drags him back, reminding him that, deep down, Xie Lian understands. He’s the only one, besides Jun Wu, who understands, and if only Jun Wu puts in a little more effort, Xie Lian could turn into the Calamity Dressed In White that he’s always dreamed of.
Finally, a flash of light announces the arrival of the crow’s explanation
__________
Crow [06:26]: I’ve been cleaning the street to make my disguise believable. When he came walking down the sidewalk where I’ve been piling what I’ve swept, he realised he’d disturb my work, so he apologised from a distance and moved to the opposite side of the street. I waved at him to be polite and he waved back, then he went on his way without looking at me again
Crow [06:27]: My uniform includes a facemask, hat and headscarf, so he couldn’t possibly be able to identify my features. I didn’t say anything to him either, so he doesn’t know my voice. Rest assured that the operation wasn’t compromised
__________
That sounds… solid. For the first time since Xie Lian left his lodging, Jun Wu takes a full breath. It isn’t like eight years ago with Lang Ying’s nephew nor like six years ago with Bai Wuxiang. It isn’t even like three years ago, when Xie Lian’s stupid cousin and some idiotic thugs he got from who knows where got him trampled during a concert and used the commotion afterwards to steal Zhu Xin from him, thinking that bringing the guitar back to Immortal Records would grant them Jun Wu’s favour. No, this time, everything’s almost under control. Jun Wu doesn’t know where Xie Lian is heading or who’s helping him —because for sure someone is helping him— but he’s certain of having him within reach, securely leashed, and that’s enough. With his right hand holding a fistful of burnt rice, he can only wipe his left clumsily with a hanging towel and slowly type his reply.
__________
Hunter [06:28]: I see
Hunter [06:28]: Good job
Nest [06:28]: Well done. Finishing communication now. I’ll finalise details privately
Crow [06:28]: Understood. Thank you. Logging off
Hunter [06:29]: Thank you
__________
Before Jun Wu’s eyes, the chat deactivates and then disappears without a trace. Immediately after, Cuocuo interrupts the music to start the weekend wake up routine. Maybe it’s because Jun Wu is exhausted after all that Xie Lian has put him through, but he suddenly feels that 6:30am is a bit early for waking up on a Sunday.
Jun Wu doesn’t know how long it will take for Xie Lian to reappear, only that he has to be prepared for when it happens. While he's gone, Jun Wu will figure out who enabled him so he could leave so abruptly, and he’ll make sure to cut that lifeline so nothing can get in the way once Xie Lian gets back.
“Cuocuo,” he calls, reasoning that, at this point, it’s safe to assume that Xie Lian won’t attend their dinner. “I want to modify my reservation.”
“What reservation do you want to modify?”
“Today’s dinner at the Great Hall,” Jun Wu answers, throwing the fistful of burnt rice into the bin.
“Okay, I’ll make changes for you to the reservation today at the Great Hall. What do you want to modify?”
“I want to add two guests,” he says and picks the pot up again to scratch what’s left at the bottom of it.
“Allow me to check availability with the Great Hall.”
While his virtual assistant works, Jun Wu takes the last bits of rice out and stuffs the pot inside the dishwasher.
“I have confirmed availability with the Great Hall. What is the name of the first guest you want to add?”
“Nan Yang.”
“Guest Nan Yang added to the reservation today at the Great Hall. What is the name of the second guest you want to add?”
“Xuan Zhen.”
“Guest Xuan Zhen added to the reservation today at the Great Hall. Is there anything else you want to modify for this reservation?”
“... No.”
He’ll call those two later and pretend that the reservation was always meant to be for the three of them, but that some miscommunication happened and they were never notified. Jun Wu is very good at convincing people of stuff like that. With the reservation sorted, he goes back to the smoothie that he left half-done inside the blender, thinking that drinking it could help mitigate the hunger while he makes a new bowl of congee. However, the way the ingredients have layered after staying still for so long makes them look like the diorama of a swamp. After some consideration, he dumps the contents of the blender into the bin along with the nuts and seeds he didn’t eat the night before.
“Cuocuo,” he calls, revisiting his fantasies of bloody meat, fried dumplings and caffeine. “Tell me what restaurants are open. I want to order breakfast.”