Work Text:
The scandal when Fang Duobing dropped out of his first year of university and disappeared was nearly comparable to the scandal Li Xiangyi and Di Feisheng had caused a decade ago when they had vanished just a month before their final exams. However, that isn’t the current gossip topic a group of thirty-year-olds care about; instead, they are reuniting to celebrate a recent engagement.
“Wow,” Yun Biqui marvels, leaning in closer to look at the rose gold ring moulded to resemble a lotus with a diamond at the core, “I don’t even dare to dream of how much that cost.”
“Tacky,” Shi Shui chides his comment, and then turns to the only other woman, warmer, “Congratulations, a-Mian. This is a significant life decision for the both of you. I’m wishing you nothing but the happiness that you deserve.”
The bride-to-be herself doesn’t look that happy. Instead, there’s a red bloom around her iris and a downward turn to her mouth. With her right hand, she pushes the food around the bowl.
“I’m just happy that she’s graduating from stay-at-home girlfriend to stay-at-home wife,” says Xiao Zijin, beaming, an arm around Qian Wanmian’s shoulders. “A toast for all of us! We’ll want you all there and involved with the wedding, of course.”
Ji Hanfu, Bai Jiangchun, Yun Biqiu and Shi Shui all pour a drink and raise it up, before knocking it back.
This group had all studied law together at Sigu University; most of them had went on to join the Baichaun Court as lawyers. Xiao Zijin alone went on to join a private law firm working in international copyright law.
But the groupchat (Sigu Squad) used for coordinating their busy schedules and adult life for reunion dinners isn’t their original groupchat. It’s not even their second. There was one before, a decade ago, called suffering law students [coffee cup emoji] and the last record was Li Xiangyi has left the chat. There was one before even that, deleted now, lost to history, filled with pictures of drunk teenagers and long messages accusing each other of romantic betrayal. If someone managed to dig up the meta-data, they might find a picture of a seventeen-year-old with a red ribbon in his hair, hand in hand with a smiling girl and a glaring boy. He is grinning at the camera like the whole world is his.
Qiao Wanmian’s phone buzzes once; then again, then more and more frequently until her phone is almost vibrating off the table. She looks at Xiao Zijin once for affirmation, then unlocks her phone to see if there is a family emergency.
She taps through a link, frowning. She stares at the phone without blinking, then begins to tremble. Xiao Zijin, already holding her, drops his mouth wide open. He looks as if his worst nightmare has come to pass.
“What is it?” demands Shi Shui.
Qiao Wanmian turns her phone around, wordless.
A video from a popular account named XIAOBAO. Alternatively known as the account of Fang Duobing, son of a minister and engaged to the princess, who is well-known to this group for attempting to finish his schooling early and enter the Baichaun Court since he was fifteen years old.
“What, another too-harsh vlog criticising a famous restaurant?” jokes Bai Jiangchun, leaning forward. “He’d be better off as a food vlogger rather than a lawyer – what the fuck.”
Yun Biqiu sets his cup down so sharp that it cracks and water spills over his hands, but he doesn’t notice. “Turn the volume on,” he begs, his voice breaking. “Please.”
The video starts off focused on Fang Duobing, the arch of his throat covered in light bruises and a teasing smile on his face. It’s the soft smile of every teenager experiencing their first love, like the sky has opened up and revealed an entirely new universe to them. “So I know I’ve been absent,” he drawls, twirling his hair, “and I wanted to update you all as to where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing.”
The camera flips; it focuses on an older man looking decidedly unimpressed.
“HIM. That’s all I need to say.” Fang Duobing giggles, the older man rolls his eyes, and the video ends, looping around.
It’s an enigmatic soft-launch of a boyfriend bound to set the gossip sites alight. Considering that Fang Duobing is supposed to marry a princess and that he dropped out of his dream school to apparently abscond with an older man, that’s already enough. He was careful not to have any location-identifying features in the video. But no one at this dinner table cares about any of that.
They would have recognised this man dead or alive, in the sea or sky, at a moot court or in a bar.
That’s Li Xiangyi, the centre of a love hexagon. The Gordian knot of relationships. The charismatic and confident law student, a starving orphan adopted by a barrister and sent to the country’s number one university. Of course, everyone wanted him dead; he was gorgeous, funny, kind, rightfully arrogant, intelligent, successful, in an official relationship with a girl and a boy and sleeping with at least three others on the regular. You either hated him, wanted to fuck him, or both.
He already had an apprenticeship set up with a barrister for after university. Then, just a month before the final exams, he disappeared. On the same day, both law student Li Xiangyi and his ex-boyfriend business student Di Feisheng submitted their notice of withdrawal from studies to the university. Their belongings were abandoned in their flats. Their phones were discovered handed in to a lost-and-found.
Rumours abounded if it was a bet gone wrong. They said they were drug addicts, or had sold themselves to a brothel, been trafficked, were radicalised, had too-high debt to the wrong people, that their shared pasts as abuse victims had caught up to them.
Qiao Wanmian posted missing posters of Li Xiangyi to social media for years. His adopted parents filed an official report with the police. They never found anything. No sign, no notice. It’s as if he just walked out of his life entirely. A victim of an alien abduction. That’s how she’s felt, ever since that day – that life is just an absurdist skit, waiting for the hero to walk back into the story.
No one looked for Di Feisheng. Why would they? He was a child trafficking survivor with almost no education who entered university on a sob-story scholarship. (The rumours said that fifteen-year-old Li Xiangyi volunteered at an abuse shelter and was assigned to be Di Feisheng’s tutor and that’s how they met, but no one believes it.) No one liked him. He had no social skills and argued with everyone. But no one needed to look for him either – he turned back up three years later as an overnight start-up success. These days he lives the life of a rich CEO figured on magazine covers, an entire world away from these lawyers. He would probably deny he ever knew them.
At the dinner table, they all stare at each other, the world turned upside down by one ten-second video.
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XIAOBAO-EATS has 3.4 million followers. Fang Duobing started the account as a twelve-year-old rating all the diplomatic and political dinners he was forced to accompany his parents to, which resulted in his account going viral in media circles. His cute cheeks and then unnervingly handsome face as he grew also helped to grow his follower numbers. The account is named for his childhood nickname. Everyone calls him by it.
In recent years, the account has been dedicated to trashing the hopes and dreams of every Michelin-star rated chef in the capital city.
Now, Fang Duobing has started posting meals he has never posted before. Maybe never even been served before. Maybe never even seen before. The magazine spreads know very well that the Fang family have had a private chef since before Fang was even born. (His mother’s pregnancy has many rumours surrounding its existence.)
What meals? Home-made meals.
Not just any home-made meals. Bad home-made meals.
XIAOBAO takes pictures with his expensive phone camera, of meals seated on a plastic flip-out table in an RV. Balanced on his knees. On the grass or dirt outside. Occasionally there is the rim of another plate in the frame, or a glimpse of a man’s thin wrist and frayed cotton hem. Once, there is a flash of a man’s sleeve with black velvet blazer and a glimmering silver watch.
The captions are always long complaints about how the cook added spices that do not go with the ingredients, or how he didn’t time cooking the vegetables and the noodles at the appropriate for them both to be finished at the exact same time for the best serving possible. The meals themselves look fine to an amateur’s eye, but all the famous chefs following XIAOBAO-EATS are appalled.
Everyone else is wondering if Fang Duobing has snagged himself a poverty-stricken house-husband.
Then one day, Fang Duobing posts a picture of a completely plain bowl of rice. No sauce, no meat, no vegetables. The caption reads: “@difeisheng cooking a romantic dinner for three is the worst meal i have ever eaten in my whole eighteen years [side-eye emoji]”.
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“The seventh meeting this year of the Getting Over Li Xiangyi support group will now begin,” Qiao Wanmian sets her four-inch-think binder of hundreds of printed papers down with an audible smack. The founder is technically Shan Gudao, but as he never turns up, President a-Mian is the real leader. For once, you can tell that this woman graduated summa cum laude from her law degree.
In attendance: Qiao Wanmian, Zhan Yunfei and Yun Biqiu. The other two suspect that Yun Biqiu has his phone on a muted call with Jiao Liqiao who is listening in the same room as Shan Gudao, which is why he refuses to touch his phone during meetings, but they can never get proof. Honorary members include Xiao Zijin (whose unhealthy animosity towards Li Xiangyi is definitely some kind of redirected horniness, Qiao Wanmian has tried to discuss with him countless times) and Di Feisheng (who refuses to consider getting over him).
A biographical breakdown of Li Xiangyi’s dating history is one of the papers they have set out in front of them. First love was his older foster brother who turned out to be an asshole, then was dating both Qiao Wanmian and Di Feisheng quite seriously and yet also on-off, while also sleeping with Zhan Yunfei (mutually casually) and Yun Biqiu (self-admitted it was angry jealous sex). Had consistent threesomes with Shi Shui and Qiao Wanmian for a period of five and a half months. May once have hooked up with Jiao Liqiao, but no one knows for sure.
“You owe me fifty taels of silver,” is the first thing Zhan Yunfei says to Qiao Wanmian, but what would have been arrogant from anyone else is just a statement of fact from him, “I knew it would be Di Feisheng to get the man.”
“We didn’t even know he was alive!” says Yun Biqiu.
“Would any of us be attending these meetings if we really believed he was dead?” retorts Qiao Wanmian, thumbing through a large section called DISAPPEARANCE THEORIES and POSSIBLE SIGHTINGS. “He’s alive, which means we can archive a significant section of our work, thank goodness. Now onto our next step.”
Zhan Yunfei leans back in his chair, tapping a pen against the table. “How are we going to contact him? XIAOBAO’s account is too large for us to comment or try to DM him. Would Di Feisheng follow you back if you followed him? Isn’t it a work account for Jinyuan? You were closest to him out of the three of us.”
“I do not think any of these activities are conductive to the main point, which is getting over and moving on and ceasing to talk about Li Xiangyi.” Yun Biqiu is staring at the binder in front of him, right next to his phone.
Qiao Wanmian shakes her head, exchanges a glance with Zhan Yunfei and exhales a sigh. “You’re still trapped in the denial phase.” She holds up a finger. “But! We do not have to go begging to the new baby twink or a-Fei. After searching through social media, I found an account which I believe belongs to Li Xiangyi.”
The other two sit up straight. “Show us! Show us!”
LOTUSTOWER is an account dedicated to a quack doctor who lives in an ancient RV. He never reveals his face. He has 208 followers and is only following three accounts: monk12345, XIAOBAO and difeisheng.
His account is dedicated to #vanlife, how to live in a tiny space, complete 360 degree panoramic photos of the inside of his ancient RV. When they zoom in, they can see his hanfu collection, his extensive accumulated lotus-themed hairpins, his combs. Other photos include scenic well-positioned photos of sunsets and rivers and mountains. Many photos of his dogs in different collars, always wagging their tail. He’s the type to dress the dog up in costumes for relevant festivals. Approximately one in every seven post is medical advice ranging from first aid to chronic illnesses. As they could tell by this point, he’s a frequent poster with very little engagement. Nowhere is this more evident than in his daily posts of his meals. Three times a day, no likes at all. The meals look like a child’s first attempt at cooking.
Qiao Wanmian has an entire spreadsheet comparing pictures of meals LOTUSTOWER has posted claiming that he made them, compared to identical meals XIAOBAO posted complaining about, with very close times of when they were posted. There are statistical analysis and charts too.
Zhan Yunfei reaches forward and places his hand on her shoulder. “I know I’ve told you this nine thousand times, but you are wasted being Xiao Zijin’s stay-at-home girlfriend. Please break up with him and find someone better. Shi Shui. Me. Anyone.”
“I’ll take Li Xiangyi, please and thank you,” says Qiao Wanmian, fierce and flippant.
She switches over to a series of videos tagged #lotustarot, which involve absolutely bullshit tarot readings and fortune tellings done at 3am with a phone torch and an open bottle of wine. The account usually uses a voice garbler to hide his real voice, but he hasn’t bothered for this one. His accent is diluted. His voice is softer, wine-smooth.
But the three of them would still know that voice even in another life, and they close their eyes and listen to his made-up lies like they are sacred words from a deity.
Yun Biqiu is the one who breaks the silence. “But how could this possibly be Li Xiangyi? Our Li Xiangyi? There’s no way that he would ever lower himself to live a life like this. If he’s like this, then isn’t the person that we used to know dead anyway?”
Qiao Wanmian and Zhan Yunfei unconsciously and simultaneously time perfect glares.
“As long as he’s alive and happy,” Qiao Wanmian starts, then swallows, then continues, “even if he doesn’t ever want to see us again, as long as he’s alive and safe, that is all that matters.”
Yun Biqiu raises a finger, points it at each of them one-by-one until the circle is completed. “Then, what are we going to do?”
“Watch XIAOBAO’s social media,” says Zhan Yunfei. “Free entertainment, if nothing else.”
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The stock market price of Jinyuan Alliance crashes for one brief moment at half ten in the morning, before beginning to rapidly climb for the rest of the day. The cause of this market distortion, wealth-destroying-then-creating chaos and a headache for speculators? One chubby-cheeked eighteen-year-old food vlogger.
To be more accurate, a four-minute video of one Di Feisheng. Di Feisheng, pictured on magazine covers in sleek suits and long braided hair. His burning gaze and long eyelashes have won him many admirers. Despite his rags-to-riches story, he’s wiped almost all available information of who he was before the Jinyuan Alliance off the internet. He has a PR manager called Jiao Liqiao who works to edit and maintain his professional image to be as sharp as her red nails.
He’s an enigma. His personal life is always off-bounds in interviews.
Which is why the impact is so dramatic when XIAOBAO casually posts a video of Jinyuan Alliance CEO wearing a pastel-peach cardigan and neon yellow washing up gloves, humming rock songs to himself while he does the dishes. He turns and his eyes crinkle as he leans over to quickly press a kiss to the man sliding by him – a long-haired, dark-shadows-under-eyes man. Fang Duobing flips the camera back to himself and widens his eyes, placing his fingers to his mouth. Offscreen, there’s laughter. Maybe more kisses, but the audience will never know.
The only comment XIAOBAO responds to is “who is that?????” with “oh yeah that’s my boyfriend’s boyfriend a-fei. he flies in to the nearest airport and stays on our sofa-bed lol” and then responding to himself “I guess huahua is our shared boyfriend? @difeisheng is my boyfriend-in-law”.
The post breaks the world record for the most viewed, liked and shared post within 53 hours.
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XIAOBAO posts an collage of different facial expressions of one ill-looking man with an almost ruined-beauty – him scrunching his nose up in disgust, him smiling soft and sweet, him snorting with laughter, his dead-eyed glare of anger, the smirk and mischievous eyes of an obvious lie – entitled: “I Have Never Loved Anyone The Way I Love Him And I Never Will Love Anyone Else”.
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The video starts off with shaky black – blurred colour – huffed laughter – and then the shot comes into focus, Fang Duobing’s thighs jogging up a tiny set of stairs and turning to slam the door behind him. “Okay, okay, they’re making out underneath a tree, time to do a wardrobe reveal!”
His hand reaches out and flings open a tiny in-set wardrobe right beside the single bed. Fang Duobing rifles through the clothes. There are three distinct styles shown: soft neutrals and pastels, designer clothes in a variety of brighter colours and tailored black suits.
“Huahua carves his own lotus-themed hairpins,” Fang Duobing talks while pulling out some wool cardigans embroidered with tiny flowers, “as well as making his own clothes from scratch. Isn’t he the perfect catch? Well – if he stopped cooking like shit and lying… but then he wouldn’t be the man I love, right?” His hand splays out over a lilac hair-ribbon. “Comment if you would buy this! I’m bullying him into starting his own online store!”
All the while, he is casually discarding designer one-of-a-kind clothes which have been featured on international magazines and cost more than the average price of a house, in favour of these unique handmade clothes.
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There is a little-known account on a music streaming service, called feisings. The singer has a rich deep voice, accompanied by a bass guitar, presumably his own. He appears to be a singer-songwriter and producer. He doesn’t make much effort to edit, just publishing songs without any thought. Sometimes in the background there is a dog barking or a man laughing. Once, just once, there is a duet. The song is entitled “my moon”.
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Out of nowhere, there is one abrupt change in the LOTUSTOWER’s social media, one post that breaks the trend. The owner of the account never posts about another human being, never mind themself. If an alien came to Earth and only had access to LOTUSTOWER, they might have the impression that the entire world consists of scenic imagery, dogs, meals and informational posts.
Just one picture. The camera frames a bed, clearly intended for one man but barely just able to fit two. The first man sleeps shirtless, with well-muscled solid arms, sprawled out on his back. He’s holding a second man lying on him, face tucked into his neck, but everyone on the internet can identify the branded t-shirt he wears to bed. The second man’s hands are unconsciously grasping at the first man’s arm and shoulder. The blanket is tucked neatly around them, evidently done by a third party.
The caption is “and now where am I supposed to sleep?”.
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Breaking social media records is one achievement, but a social media post that results in multiple newspaper headlines and TV broadcast discussions on the political and legal impact is an entirely other type of post. Fang Duobing seems determined to get a world record before he turns nineteen.
The picture is innocuous: three left hands with golden bands on their second-shortest finger. There is no caption.
Legal aides search the wedding registration of every state and find no records with the name of either Fang Duobing or Di Feisheng. The emperor issues an official reminder that marriage between three people simultaneously is currently illegal. Journalists speculate on what it means for a business CEO to have married the only son of a minister.
Curiously enough, there is very little speculation on who their gaunt nomad husband is. It’s as the entire elite establishment know exactly who that man is and are all refusing to publicly identify him. Perhaps they want to leave him in peace, let the past rest. Perhaps the public are just far more invested in the popular personas of the business CEO and food influencer.
Princess Qian Qian comments “i thought you were supposed to be marrying me??? that’s okay tho i’m happy for you. your dad says to please respond to his calls”.
An account with the name wanyuanclub comments “seriously??? after all this time, him??? and my son? are you fucking kidding me???? this is why i got you to drop out of uni. you’re useless and you’ve achieved nothing. all you’re good for is sex and you’re losing your looks anyway. fucking slut”.
Zhan Yunfei comments to congratulate them. He sends sweets in the post.
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The day after finding out that Li Xiangyi has married Di Feisheng, Qiao Wanmian breaks up with her fiancé. She looks him right in the eyes and says, “If a-Fei is never going to settle, then I won’t either.” Shi Shui follows her out the door. She smirks backwards at Xiao Zijin.
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In the files of the phone of XIAOBAO’s account owner, there is a video that will never see the light of day. Well, there are many videos that fit that description, and would certainly be against the terms and conditions if they were posted online. But there is one video in particular that no one else will ever see.
The inside of the RV is lit by candles; Li Lianhua’s face is half-gold, half-silver. His long dark hair is tied up with a red-ribbon, secured by a hairpin carved into the shape of a lotus branch. He’s sitting on the edge of a bed. Di Feisheng is kneeling right in front of him, both knees on the floor, hands grasped in Li Lianhua’s. From how the camera is framed, the audience cannot see his face, but they can see the way the edge of his jaw trembles.
“I would have married you at eighteen,” says Li Lianhua, gentle, honey-smooth, “when you were a starving penniless scholarship student. You never needed to be rich or secure. I would have married you at the top of the world and I would marry you right here. But I -,” and here he falters, “you – you have so many options, a-Fei. Why me? Why not – anyone else? I threw all my potential away for an easier life. You didn’t – I didn’t – I don’t want you to follow me.”
Di Feisheng bows his head and kisses his hands, says to him in a low well-practised voice, “I would follow you anywhere, like the tides of the sea follow the gravitation of the moon. It has always been you.”
The camera cuts out. There is no need for a record of what happens after.