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Chapter Text

“Are you sure it’s really okay to meet a prospective client privately in his own apartment?” Cheng Xiaoshi muttered, squirming restlessly in the back seat of a chauffeured luxury sedan.

Seriously, the thing was barely less pretentious than a limousine. It even had a TV and a minibar installed. There was a time when Cheng Xiaoshi would have been determined to enjoy this ride for all it was worth, but some very hard experiences—gained both in his own life and by diving into the lives of others—had made him more than a little bit wary of being whisked away by a stranger to parts unknown. He was only surprised that his ever-cautious partner in time didn’t seem to be taking their current situation with as much concern as he was.

Beside him, Lu Guang didn’t even make the effort to glance up from his phone. “It’s fine. I talked to Captain Xiao earlier. He told me the client’s background checks out. And besides…” His eyes finally drifted up to the window, and a gleaming high-rise apartment building that loomed into view ahead of them. “We are being paid a lot for this special accommodation.”

“A high-level exec for one of the biggest tech companies in the country can afford it.” Cheng Xiaoshi grimaced. “Which just makes you wonder how a guy like that heard about us in the first place.”

“The same way anybody hears about us. Rich people are human too, you know.”

As Cheng Xiaoshi thought of every scion of wealth he had encountered in his own life and beyond, his grimace turned into a full-on scowl. “You sure about that?”

“Just focus. We have a job to do.”

Cheng Xiaoshi sighed as the car slipped into the shadows of the building’s parking garage.  

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m very pleased to see you—and sincerely grateful that you were willing to meet with me.”

Their prospective client Sang Zhaojun looked every bit the part of the chief marketing officer for Yujian Electronics. He was slender and immaculately groomed, ageless in the face despite a scattering of silver hairs, dressed in a finely tailored gray suit and blue silk tie that practically smelled of money. His voice was perfectly modulated, delivering genteel and soft-spoken words of welcome… but he was unsmiling, and there was something lurking in his eyes.

Desperation, Cheng Xiaoshi noted grimly, feeling echoed emotions of far too many people who had harbored that same look in their eyes as he gazed out through them. Whatever we’re here for, it’s not going to be pretty, is it?

“Let’s hope we can be of help,” Lu Guang responded politely to the man. “But first, I’d like to know one thing. Why were you so insistent on meeting with us in your own home?”

Sang Zhaojun shifted his weight and half-smiled awkwardly. “I apologize for the inconvenience. You can think of it as a rich man’s whim if you like, but I can assure you that I do have my reasons. Not least of which is the fact that I’m an extremely private person, and what I have to discuss is quite… sensitive. It will be easiest for me here.” He spread his hands to indicate the sumptuous yet almost sterile-looking penthouse into which he had ushered them, with its noise-stiflingly plush white carpets and near-colorless minimalist art.

“Well, according to our boss, you’re paying plenty extra for our time here.” Cheng Xiaoshi shrugged. “So what exactly is the job you want us to take on?”

“My admittedly vague understanding is that you have an uncanny ability to discover secrets from the past, merely by studying photographs.” Sang Zhaojun’s lips twisted in another fragile, self-deprecating smile, but his eyes were lightless. “If that truly is the case, what I would ask of you… is to determine whether I killed someone a month ago.”

Cheng Xiaoshi’s breath caught faintly, his muscles tensing in immediate surprise and unease. Oh, hell no… this is a criminal case?

“That sounds like a job for the police,” Lu Guang swiftly echoed the thought, his keen gray eyes narrowing.

“Ordinarily I would agree, but the circumstances are… not normal.” Sang Zhaojun swept a newspaper from the top of a low bookcase, holding it out to the two younger men. As Lu Guang carefully accepted it, Cheng Xiaoshi leaned over his partner’s shoulder for a better view, and grimaced at the lurid headline from a month earlier that was splashed across the page: Man’s Body Found Mutilated in Xiàngshù Park.

“I remember this story. The police concluded the victim was mauled to death by a dog.” His appraising glance flickered up toward Sang Zhaojun, small in stature and trim but by no means athletic. “Don’t take this the wrong way—but what makes you think you’d even be capable of an attack like that?”

“Only the fact that near dawn on the morning after it happened, I woke up naked and bloody beside the fountain in the same park where that victim was later found torn to pieces.”

Even Lu Guang blinked and flinched at that.

“…Yeah, okay. Now I’m only more confused about why you didn’t go to somebody for help before now,” Cheng Xiaoshi said incredulously.

Sang Zhaojun ducked his head, his cheeks taking on a faint rosy tone of embarrassment… or perhaps more accurately, humiliation. “Put yourself in my place. I was never even aware of blacking out the night before, much less what happened to me afterward. I was terrified—yet even despite that, I could only think about the scandal it would be for Yujian Electronics if I was seen in such a condition. For a while I was only concerned with avoiding anyone on the street as I crept my way home. Only later did I learn of the death that also took place in the park that night, and when I did… the pieces that fell into place were very difficult to come to terms with.”

“So you don’t remember anything? …Maybe you were drugged or something.” A thought that was probably inspired by too much television flitted through Cheng Xiaoshi’s head. “Maybe it was some kind of frame-up to make your company look bad!”

“Idiot,” Lu Guang muttered under his breath.

“I wish I could believe that was so,” Sang Zhaojun replied ruefully. “But even if one of our competitors would go to such criminal lengths just to defame an officer of my company, I doubt a marketing executive like myself would be seen as a productive target. No, the truth is that I have a very different suspicion of my own… and when you hear it, you’ll understand why I couldn’t trust any authorities to take me seriously. In my desperation, I’ve only sought you out because the rumors I discovered online make me believe you could have more open minds.”

“What is it that you think happened, then?” Lu Guang asked patiently, and was met with a canny look.

“There’s more to the story. A month earlier, on the last night of a business trip in France, I myself was attacked on the street at night and bitten by some kind of animal. I don’t know how I even survived.” As he spoke, Sang Zhaojun unbuttoned the cuff of his right sleeve, rolling it up to show his guests the red curve of a scar on his forearm. “It can’t be a coincidence that I’ve now found myself at the scene of two animal attacks on two different continents, both in large urban cities where no wild animals should be… nor that there was a full moon on the nights both attacks took place.”

It took Cheng Xiaoshi a long moment to process that incredible implication.

“…Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell us you think you’ve been turned into some kind of werewolf?”

There was no trace of jesting or insincerity in Sang Zhaojun’s grave expression as he answered. “I know how it sounds—but every piece of evidence leads me to that conclusion. That, and…” A visible shudder passed through him. “The nightmares I’ve had since it happened. The only time I feel as if I can almost remember… something too horrible for my conscious mind to endure.”

Before Cheng Xiaoshi could counter with a suggestion that the man may have watched An American Werewolf in London a few times too many, Lu Guang spoke up decisively. “Alright. Whatever it was that really happened, we’ll try to help you get the answers you’re looking for.” He ignored his partner’s dubious glance, remaining focused on the relieved face of their newly accepted client. “But we’re going to need any pictures you may have taken within twelve hours of the incident.”

“I’m afraid I’m hardly one for sharing my life online… but there is one thing, I suppose?” Sang Zhaojun slipped his phone from his pocket and proceeded to tap on the screen. “I can’t imagine how this could be of use to you, but I did take a picture of my receipt at the bar I visited that evening. When the head of a partner company we advertise with invited me out to celebrate a new contract, I paid the tab myself, and filed it as a business expense. I lost my phone somewhere along with my clothes when I blacked out, but fortunately, I had already emailed the receipt to Accounting. With any luck, that picture hasn’t been deleted from our data cloud yet.”

“Hold on. You were drinking that night?” Cheng Xiaoshi’s dark eyes narrowed. “Don’t you think that might kind of explain a few things?”

Sang Zhaojun looked mildly offended. “I had one glass of wine. It’s not uncommon in my line of work to share a social drink now and then with business partners and colleagues. …In any case, I can assure you my head was still quite clear when I left the bar. I began walking back to my office three blocks away, to meet my driver and pick up some documents I planned to review at home. I distinctly remember taking a shortcut through side streets I often use… and sometime after that is where my memory stops, until I woke up in the park the next morning.” He held out his phone for Lu Guang to see. “This is the picture. Will it help you?”

The white-haired young man glanced only briefly at the unremarkable photo of a printed receipt. “We’ll find out. If you can send that picture to me, we’ll go back to our studio and begin our investigation.”

“Of course—but I must implore you to find the answer for me as soon as you possibly can.” A shadow of genuine fear passed over Sang Zhaojun’s face. “It so happens that the moon will be full again tomorrow night, and if the worst possibility I’ve imagined is really true…”

As Cheng Xiaoshi bit back another skeptical remark, Lu Guang merely nodded. “We’ll do our best. If all goes well, I think we can get results as early as the end of the day.”

“Excellent. I have to go out and attend to some personal matters, but I’ll be home again shortly. Call me anytime you have news, and I’ll send Yee to pick you up. If you don’t mind, I want to hear it from you in person.” Sang Zhaojun’s eyes glimmered with an unsettlingly urgent emotion. “Thank you for doing this for me, gentlemen. Even if you do think me a fool… all I want is to be sure I’m not a danger to anyone.”

As the driver escorted them back to the car, those words rang in Cheng Xiaoshi’s head more loudly than he wanted to admit.  

“So what do you think?”

The question spilled impatiently out of Cheng Xiaoshi the moment he and Lu Guang had stepped through the door of Time Photo Studio. In the presence of Sang Zhaojun’s driver Yee, they had been unable to discuss the mission on the way home, leaving the more impulsive and emotional young man bursting with equal parts curiosity and agitation.

“I think we’re going to find out exactly what happened to our client that night, and report it to him—just as he asked us to do,” Lu Guang retorted unhelpfully, leading the way to the tranquil green space of the sunroom where they so often carried out their work.

“Yeah, but… seriously. A werewolf? You can’t actually think there’s a chance that crazy theory of his is true, right?”

“That seems like kind of an ironic attitude coming from someone who can enter photos to possess other people’s bodies in the past.”

Cheng Xiaoshi flushed in consternation. “That’s different. There’s just no way a human being can turn into some shaggy beast lusting for blood.—You wanna know what I think really happened?”

“I’m sure you’re about to tell me,” Lu Guang sighed, not glancing up from his phone as he navigated to the photo Sang Zhaojun had sent him.

“I think that guy doesn’t hold his liquor nearly as well as he thinks he does. I mean, you saw him, right? A stiff breeze would probably blow him over.” Cheng Xiaoshi flopped onto his customary end of the sofa, lanky arms stretched out along its back. “The alcohol probably just hit him on the way back to the office, and he wandered off drunk until he finally blacked out in the park.”

Lu Guang sat down at his own end of the sofa, still preoccupied with his phone. “Either way, we’re going to find out. With any luck, I’ll be able to see what happened myself, and you won’t need to dive.”

“Great. The last thing I want is a hangover when I didn’t even get to do the drinking first.”

No response was offered or needed, as Lu Guang focused intently on the photo of Sang Zhaojun’s receipt from the bar. Cheng Xiaoshi sat up a little, watching with interest as an opalescent blue light blazed to life in his best friend’s gray eyes. No matter how many times he watched this power in action, its fascination never dimmed—and he could never quite settle on just how to imagine what Lu Guang saw.

For half a minute Lu Guang stared at the picture, frowning with intense concentration. Then he let out a hiss of breath and lowered his phone, the luminance in his eyes fading out as he frustratedly shook his head.

“It’s no good. I could see Sang Zhaojun walking back to his office along a shortcut, just as he described. But somewhere along the way, things got… cloudy.”

“Isn’t that what happens when the person you’re watching loses consciousness? Like the time I got drugged while I was in Doudou’s body, and you missed out on seeing where I was taken.”

“That’s not quite it. I don’t think Sang Zhaojun lost consciousness, exactly. The difference is hard to explain, but it’s more like he lost… awareness.”

“Just sounds even more like my theory is right, then,” Cheng Xiaoshi sighed, realizing that a dive into the photo to experience their client’s questionable night firsthand was unavoidable. “I’m telling you, he just got smashed. And then maybe something happened in the park that led to him committing murder in a drunken rage—or maybe the body turning up there was a coincidence, and all he really did was throw up all over himself. So he undressed and tried to clean himself up in the fountain, but then he passed out, and he just mistook his own puke for blood when he came to in the morning.”

Lu Guang stared at Cheng Xiaoshi, blinking slowly. “…Somehow that’s a scenario I’d want to watch even less than seeing you turn into a ‘shaggy beast lusting for blood’ while in our client’s body.”

“Hey, I’m the one who’s gonna have to live it!” Cheng Xiaoshi tossed his head back against the sofa cushions and stared up at the skylight, blowing out a breath. “But seriously, we’re being offered enough money for this one dive to pay off six months’ worth of my debt. For that, I might be willing to get drunk and take a naked fountain bath myself.”

“You really have no dignity whatsoever, do you?” Without bothering to wait for a flippant response, Lu Guang scowled and looked away. “I don’t like this. Something feels off.”

“Come on, Lu. It’ll be fine.” As his friend turned to face him, Cheng Xiaoshi grinned and extended his hand. “After all, I keep my own physical abilities when I dive, and I’m a lot better conditioned than Sang Zhaojun is. I’m sure I’ll be able to stay alert when he didn’t—so I’ll go in just long enough to see what happened to him, and jump out as soon as we know. Deal?”

The indecision in Lu Guang’s face slowly wavered into reluctant acceptance. “Alright… but if I give the word, you get out of there immediately, with no questions asked. Are we clear?”

“Clear,” Cheng Xiaoshi agreed confidently. “Let’s do this.”

After a moment of further hesitation, his partner reached out. Gray eyes gazed into luminous gold, and the clap of their palms meeting echoed through the too-quiet room—suddenly occupied by only one of them.

Chapter Text

The next moment, Cheng Xiaoshi was staring down at the screen of a more expensive phone than he would ever be able to afford. The image displayed on it was a now-familiar photo of a receipt; and as he lowered the phone, that very receipt came into view, resting atop a polished oak bar.

A brief instant of disorientation swept through him. It was the same every time, the strange rush of his mind adjusting to the confines of a body and brain that were not his own. The very reason he’d chosen the word dive to describe his excursions into other lives was that he felt initially like a deep-sea diver, acclimating to the foreign and heady pressure of his subject’s identity. For a moment he closed his borrowed eyes and let it all wash over him, simply feeling this new other self that was Sang Zhaojun.

A small part of that self would linger with him from then on, just like every life he dived into. Those quiet ghosts of other—unexpected reactions to matters outside his own life experience, faint emotions and desires that weren’t quite him—were a haunting reality he had learned to accept as a consequence of using his power. He was careful never to speak of them to Lu Guang, instinctively wary of a reaction that might… complicate things.

…Regardless of the fact that deep down, he was fairly sure Lu Guang already knew far too well. Even when they weren’t peering through time, his partner’s extraordinary eyes never missed anything.

Shaking his head, Cheng Xiaoshi focused on sifting through the impressions that filled him. Gleaming threads of honor and duty, of dignity and responsibility; cool glimmers of efficiency that never quite descended to impatience. Yet beneath all that armor of a corporate warrior, there was a warm core of kindness—and a quite unexpected frisson of shy. Sang Zhaojun was a man who played the confident and commanding role he had learned, yet had no idea how to express to others who he really was behind the mask.

More physically, the time traveler felt other things in a clear but somewhat detached way. A tightly controlled urge to fidget with his hands that must have been a symptom of all that shyness. Phantom stiffness in a right knee scarred years ago by… a baseball injury, he was informed by a fragment of memory that did not belong to him.—This guy was one of the best players on his college team before that injury ended his career, too. So much for judging a book by its cover.—And most noteworthy of all, he felt a pleasant, relaxing tingle that came from alcohol, but it was in no way strong enough to interfere with his thoughts.

[Don’t just stand there,] the echo of Lu Guang’s voice suddenly intruded upon his mind through their link. [Sang Zhaojun is incredibly  punctual. You have to email that photo to Yujian Electronics’ accounting department now, or we won’t have it in the present to make this dive possible in the first place.]

Cheng Xiaoshi growled quietly between clenched teeth, fumbling with the phone on what was more his host’s conditioned reflexes than his own conscious effort. “Can’t you at least give me a minute to orient myself?” The muttered words came out in Sang Zhaojun’s voice, but in a peevish tone that was nothing at all like the calm and measured ones they had heard from the prim businessman during their meeting.

[It’s about more than just staying in character,] Lu Guang replied sternly. [You’re following a critical timeline now. If something does cause our client to become violent on this night, it needs to happen at exactly the same place and time as before, or else—]

“Or else no one will get hurt after all?” Cheng Xiaoshi offered with perfect innocence, and could practically see Lu Guang’s eyelid twitching before a flat response was fired back.

[…Or else someone could get hurt who wasn’t hurt in the history we know.]

That put a different light on things. Heaving a sigh, Cheng Xiaoshi cast a swift glance around to be sure no wallet or keys of Sang Zhaojun’s were left lying on the bar, and then hurriedly made for the exit. Chilly winter air hit his face and filled his lungs as he stepped out into a deepening dusk.

[Go to your left until you reach the end of the block, and then turn left down the side street,] Lu Guang instructed him. [Walk faster… Not quite that fast. Remember, you have a bad knee.]

Restraining his objections to his partner’s backseat driving, Cheng Xiaoshi instead chose to address the fact that was foremost on his mind.

“Our client wasn’t wrong about one thing,” he observed, dutifully turning off onto the narrow deserted side street Lu Guang had directed him to. “He really didn’t drink enough to get drunk. I can feel the effects of a little alcohol, but my head is still more than clear enough.”

[That’s what has me worried. …Be prepared to jump out at any moment, alright? Even though you haven’t done anything to change the timeline, I still can’t see how this walk is going to end—and I don’t like it.]

“Yeah, sure.” Cheng Xiaoshi took his restless hands out of his pockets and allowed them to hang at his sides, loose and relaxed but ready to be raised in a clap at the slightest alarm from his watcher.

For several minutes, Lu Guang continued to guide him down a series of streets and alleys. He soon found himself winding through darker and narrower delivery-truck driveways between the backs of downtown shops and eateries. In this space where yellowed light from back-door fixtures reflected eerily off of oily puddles, and piles of trash collected in dank corners behind stacks of crates and pallets, he had to admit that he could have started to feel like he was in a horror movie.

…Of course, it was probably just his nerves, tempted to run wild with the unconscious suggestions Sang Zhaojun’s overactive imagination had left him with.

“This area is a maze,” he remarked, more to himself than to Lu Guang. “Why would Sang Zhaojun…?—No, I take it back. I do get it. This bum knee bothers him more than he lets on, but he’s too independent to rely on Yee to take him just a few blocks. So to spend less time walking on it, he learned the shortest routes around the streets near his office.”

[According to the almanac for that date, the full moon will have been up for about five minutes now.] Lu Guang sounded entirely too serious about that little detail.

Cheng Xiaoshi raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Wait, it rose already?—You could have warned me earlier.”

[I thought you didn’t believe in Sang Zhaojun’s werewolf theory.]

“I don’t. The whole thing is just creepy, that’s all. Especially in a place like this.”

[Well, regardless, you’ve almost reached the point where I started to lose sight of Sang Zhaojun before. How do you feel?]

“I’m… fine? I might be getting just a little more heady from the wine. Otherwise, as far as I can tell, everything about his body feels normal.”

[Stay sharp. And keep talking to me.]

“Right,” Cheng Xiaoshi agreed, peering cautiously into the shadows of a pair of tipped-over empty trash cans as he maneuvered around them. The night didn’t seem quite as dark here; the flood lights on the adjacent buildings must have been brighter. It felt much warmer to him in that alley sheltered from the wind, as well. A different heat that must have been belatedly due to the wine was spreading from the center of his belly, giving rise to a not-unpleasant haze that crept invitingly around the edges of his awareness. He blinked and made a conscious effort to push it back. “I think the alcohol really is hitting him now.”

[Focus, for our client’s sake. I have to know what you’re feeling. Because if I think for one second that I’m going to lose contact with you the way I lost sight of him, this dive will be over—and we won’t get another chance.]

“Mmm,” Cheng Xiaoshi pouted vaguely, feeling the warmth inside and out becoming just a little too uncomfortable. He gave in to Sang Zhaojun’s repressed nervous tic of fidgeting, and rubbed at his faintly prickling arms through his sleeves. “Y’know, for what he must’ve paid for it, this damn suit sure itches…”

A distinct note of unease crept into his partner’s voice. [Cheng Xiaoshi, stay—]

The words after that were a muddled noise. The haziness in his head was growing more insistent, but at the same time, everything suddenly felt… so vivid. His senses would normally override those of his host during dives, and he’d been sure he had better eyes than Sang Zhaojun; yet shapes and outlines were standing out more sharply in the darkness than he could ever remember seeing, even while in his own body. Furthermore, that oppressive suit felt entirely too tight on his skin, stifling his lungs and prompting him to pull his tie loose. His breaths quickened as his heart rate increased.

So hot. Heartbeat almost hurts.

Was I… talking to someone just now?

More garbled sounds in his head. The words were unrecognizable, but the urgency of a distant familiar voice spurred a nearly unconscious reaction. As golden-lighted eyes opened wide, his hands reflexively rose in front of his chest; yet he had no clear awareness of exactly what he was trying to do with them.

“Lu…!” he gasped—and his mind stumbled completely as he tasted odors of rancid meat from a nearby restaurant dumpster.

Why am I… so…

Hungry…

The burning heat in the pit of his stomach suddenly exploded into a sharp stabbing pain, pitching him onto his hands and knees to vomit uncontrollably. Through helpless spasms of retching, he felt the pain roll through his body in searing waves, so overwhelming to his mind that he couldn’t even form a conscious question of what was happening. He wasn’t sure whether it was he or the far-off voice in his head that was screaming; he heard something tearing, and didn’t know whether it was fabric or flesh.

When his stomach had emptied itself, the convulsions of vomiting relented, but that slight reprieve only allowed the sensations in the rest of his secondhand body to come into focus. Defying the fiery pain that seemed to be rending flesh and muscles apart, he mustered the effort to try to push himself upright… and he saw things that were no longer hands grasping desperately at the pavement underneath him. He saw palms hardening into dark rough pads, and claws erupting from fingertips to rake bloody trails across the ground.

For an instant, one brief coherent thought penetrated the shock and pain.

It’s all true.

Like a puppet with its strings jerked, his spine abruptly arched and his joints twisted themselves in directions not meant for human limbs, contorting his entire body with a series of sickening cracks. As his ribcage expanded and his formerly slender frame hulked to a monstrous shape, he very nearly whited out altogether from the agony. He was barely aware of once perfectly-fitted suit fabric splitting at the seams, falling away in tatters to expose patches of thick dark hair spreading and merging across his skin. A needling pressure at the base of his spine was released, freeing new flesh and bone to sprout into a long and lashing tail.

The cry that was most definitely torn from his own throat then was no longer a scream, but a howl. It was an abortive sound, choked off just as quickly by the swell of a lengthening tongue as it writhed over newly sharp teeth, lolling out between jaws that stretched and tapered into a gaping, panting muzzle. His vision warped as even his eye sockets shifted, and the warm yellow of the distant lights drained away, darkening to dull gold against the too-defined blue of the night.

As the heaving violence of the outer changes finally slowed, a primal wave of darkness welled up from deep within. It rushed at his mind, promising to sweep away not only the pain, but whatever splinters of self were left to him… and for a moment, all he knew was the desire to let that wave drown his last torturous awareness of everything.

[—Cheng Xiaoshi! Get out!]

It was the voice that he suddenly knew had been calling to him all along. He would never know how its words managed to reach some part of him in that moment—but all that mattered was that they did at last.

Even as that black wave crashed down on him, twisting talons that were once hands stretched out in desperation, clumsily but firmly coming together.

A month removed in time, Lu Guang helplessly bore witness to a nightmare wrought in flesh.

It would have been horrifying enough to watch anyone endure that transformation: to hear such chilling screams, to see a human body tear itself apart and reform into a beastly new shape. Yet to know his best friend was inside that body, experiencing every moment of it, was beyond anything he could have been prepared for. From the moment he sensed that something was terribly wrong, he had shouted Cheng Xiaoshi’s name until his voice was raw, trying to call him back to the present and the safety of his own being; but there was no response. The change had crept slowly and insidiously into the brain Cheng Xiaoshi occupied before it affected the body, numbing him to the realization of danger until it was too late, and even drowning out his anchoring link to Lu Guang.

…That is, until the very last moment, when Lu Guang could feel his final chance to reach his partner’s mind before their connection was completely broken.

Seconds later, Cheng Xiaoshi thudded heavily back into the present, crouched and panting on the floor at Lu Guang’s feet.

Relief instantly rushed through every fiber of the seer’s being. He bent down, reaching out to put a hand on the shoulder of the time traveler who appeared to be safely returned. “Cheng Xiaoshi—”

His hand never made contact. Cheng Xiaoshi twisted with a savage snarl and recoiled against the coffee table, teeth bared and pupils blown wide… and for a split second, Lu Guang thought he glimpsed one detail his friend could not have been aware of in his ordeal. He thought he glimpsed eyes glowing the same pale full-moon yellow as those of the creature Sang Zhaojun had become.

The gazes of the two young men locked for an endless, fragile moment, and Lu Guang slowly released the breath he was holding. No. Not moon-yellow, but only the brighter gold that lighted Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes when he summoned his power. …For that matter, Lu Guang noticed that his hands were not raised in one of Master Siwen’s fighting stances, but braced to clap together.

A fight-or-flight response—and this is the reaction that most instinctively means flight to him, Lu Guang realized with a pang.

Something was still terribly wrong.

Cheng Xiaoshi continued to stare at him, seemingly without recognizing him. After a moment of uncertainty, Lu Guang stifled the anxious ache in his heart and crouched as well: hands open and spread wide to present no threat, head lowered beneath Cheng Xiaoshi’s eye level to make his own position the more vulnerable one. He spoke in a soft and soothing tone, never letting their eyes break contact.

“It’s okay. You’re back in the present, Cheng Xiaoshi. You’re safe. …You’re human.”

He wasn’t quite sure why he added that last, seemingly obvious assurance, and it caught distressingly in his throat as he said it. Nevertheless, it was what Cheng Xiaoshi finally responded to. Golden eyes slowly darkened to deep brown, coming alive with recognition once more; and then they closed as he slumped to his knees, covering his face with his hands. A faint sob wavered in the uneven breath he let out.

“Lu Guang…” he whispered in a shaking voice, and promptly gave up any further effort to hold back tears.

Assured now that contact would not cause alarm, Lu Guang was quick to kneel beside Cheng Xiaoshi and simply hold him. For only a moment he felt a ripple of tension pass through his friend’s shivering frame, but then Cheng Xiaoshi leaned into his arms like a child, tangibly exhausted in body and spirit as he wept on the shoulder of his guide.

They sat there like that for a while, as Lu Guang finally allowed himself to process everything that had happened, and just how much damage he now knew had been done: not to the past, but the present.

All because of him.

Because he hadn’t been able to see this coming—and yet even without a clear vision from his power, he should have been able to see it coming. He knew something was off before Cheng Xiaoshi ever made the dive. He’d sensed a danger and let himself dismiss it, and he hated himself for that, because it meant what his partner was suffering now was his fault. No matter how willing Cheng Xiaoshi had been to take the job, to help their client and earn a generous paycheck, Lu Guang should have been the one to listen to his instincts and say no.

Yet he knew Cheng Xiaoshi wouldn’t see it that way, and that was quite possibly the worst part of all.

“I’m sorry,” the seer apologized at last, when the time traveler eventually grew quiet and still against his shoulder—incidentally leaving a sizable snot stain on his shirt, but that was the very last thing he was going to complain about right now. “I never should have agreed to let you make that dive.”

Predictably, Cheng Xiaoshi only shook his head as he pulled away, glancing up with reluctance through swollen and bloodshot eyes. In its own way, that simple and immediate dismissal of Lu Guang’s guilt was more crushing than any rebuke he could have given vent to.

“Sang Zhaojun was right,” he murmured brokenly. “…And we have to tell him.”

“I’m not worried about him right now,” Lu Guang asserted with blunt candor. “What I’m worried about is you.”

Another vague head shake. “I’ll be fine. I just… need some time to clear my mind.” Cheng Xiaoshi pushed himself slowly to his feet, drawing in a deep breath that he almost managed to make convincingly steady. “What matters right now is figuring out how to help him, before…” And there was the faint quiver once more. “Before that happens to him again during the full moon tomorrow night.”

From that small hitch in his breath alone, Lu Guang was intensely aware that Cheng Xiaoshi was not fine, and would very likely not be fine for quite some time; but he also knew it would be impossible to convince him to put his needs before someone else’s. Heaving a sigh, he also rose from the floor, and focused on what was important to his friend in that moment. The sooner they helped Sang Zhaojun, the sooner Cheng Xiaoshi might accept help as well.

“We can ask him to meet with Captain Xiao,” Lu Guang proposed. “He’s trustworthy, and after seeing our powers at work, he should also be willing to believe the truth about Sang Zhaojun.”

Cheng Xiaoshi took a long moment to consider that, as if his mind was still working to fully surface from the depths it had been dragged down to. At last he gave a faint nod of agreement, and Lu Guang reached for his phone.

Chapter Text

As the minutes ticked by, it all only seemed to be getting worse instead of better.

On the way back to Sang Zhaojun’s apartment, Cheng Xiaoshi slumped against the door of the luxurious car’s rear passenger seat, gazing out unseeingly at blurs of passing traffic and streetlights in the gloom. It had taken extra time for Yee to pick them up, as he first had to take the executive home from his personal errands. That wait and now this drive were terrifyingly empty spaces of time, allowing Cheng Xiaoshi’s reeling mind to keep replaying what he’d felt and seen during his dive into a wide-awake nightmare.

He didn’t remember everything, but he remembered more than enough. He remembered far too much—and he didn’t need to experience what happened after to know their client’s worst fears were true.

Werewolves were real, and today Cheng Xiaoshi had learned what it was like to become one… and now, beyond any shadow of doubt, he knew the dead man in the park where Sang Zhaojun woke up was killed by the very claws and fangs he had shared the pain of manifesting. He knew because at the last moment, in the cresting of that awful black wave, he’d felt the beast’s hunger overcoming all else. Nothing except human blood could possibly have sated that unnatural ravening rage.

…And when he closed his eyes, he still felt echoes of it, crawling all too vividly beneath his skin and inside his brain. Nothing else he could try to concentrate on would make it go away.

Lu Guang sat close at his side, saying nothing, but making no attempt at all to disguise an intent focus on him. Cheng Xiaoshi was still too frightened and off balance to have any will to object to that scrutiny. Even for him, the stare of his best friend’s uncanny colorless eyes could be almost unnerving sometimes; but right now, it was the one thing that felt like a warm blanket around his shoulders.

On the other hand, sitting so near him, he was more conscious than he should have been of the sheer physical imprint of Lu Guang’s presence: his breathing, his warmth, his very smell. After so much time spent living together, it was hardly as if the soft scent of green tea and old books that lingered on him was unfamiliar, and at the moment perhaps that should have felt comforting too—yet instead, it had never seemed so sharply intrusive and difficult to ignore. The possibilities of why scared the hell out of Cheng Xiaoshi, and his mind fled from the question, even as he could think of nothing else.

Nothing, that is, except the report they were bound to deliver to their client. Nothing but having to look Sang Zhaojun in the eye and tell him he was exactly the monster he feared he was. Even in the midst of his own inner turmoil, the pain Cheng Xiaoshi saw awaiting someone else weighed on him more heavily than his own… because that was who he was.

On instructions from his employer, now that the guests knew their own way to the penthouse, Yee waited at the car for their return. There was no conversation as Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang took the elevator upward, as they made their way down the hall to Sang Zhaojun’s front door. When Lu Guang knocked, the executive opened it immediately, stepping back to let them inside; but he did not look up at their faces as they entered, and it pierced Cheng Xiaoshi to the core as he realized just how deliberate that was.

Sang Zhaojun knew that simply looking at them would give him his answer before they ever said a word—and he wanted to meet it on his own terms.

Sure enough, after gently and carefully closing the door, only then did their client turn to face them. He took in Lu Guang’s grave expression, and Cheng Xiaoshi’s still-clouded eyes that could not bring themselves to meet his… and he bowed his head, releasing a soft sigh.

“…I see.” He drew a deep breath, and then lifted his head with a resolutely dignified poise, showing them the same hollow smile they had seen earlier. “You don’t have to say anything. The looks on your faces prove that somehow, you’ve seen my nightmares with your own eyes… and that says all I need to know.”

“Let us try to help you,” Lu Guang said simply.

“You’ve helped me already, just by confirming what I couldn’t be certain of on my own. I’m grateful for that—but however your methods of seeing the truth work, what I can see now is the hurt I’ve already put you through. I had no idea it would be so difficult. After that, I have no right to ask anything more of you.”

“It’s not just us.” Cheng Xiaoshi forced himself to raise his averted eyes, to look at the face of the man whose living nightmare he had shared. “We know a police captain who understands things like this. He’ll believe us if we explain what’s happened to you. I know he could make sure you don’t hurt anyone else, without forcing you to be punished for something that wasn’t your fault. …You don’t deserve that.”

“Thank you for that kindness, Mr. Cheng.” For only a moment, something warm touched Sang Zhaojun’s eyes. Then it faded once more as he appeared to consider for a long moment. “Very well. I’m willing to put myself in the hands of your friend from the police… but give me tonight to prepare. I have some letters to write, and my resignation to submit, so that my suddenly stepping down can raise as few questions as possible.”

Lu Guang nodded once. “That’s understandable. We can arrange for Captain Xiao to come here with us in the morning. I’m sure that will be enough time before…” His sentence died a quiet, awkward death. It was an uncharacteristic falter, coming from the normally composed and exacting observer.

“Of course.” Their client moved to the bookcase where the month-old newspaper with its grisly headline still lay, and picked up an envelope that had joined it since their first visit. His gaze passed solemnly over both guests before he made the apparently deliberate choice to offer it to Cheng Xiaoshi. “In the meantime, this is your payment as promised. Please don’t hesitate to accept it. You provided exactly the service I asked of you—and I appreciate it more than you can know. Because of you, I can rest knowing that not even one more person will suffer because of me.”

Cheng Xiaoshi felt the urge to argue. He wanted to counter that the suffering caused was not because of Sang Zhaojun, but an unnatural and horrific thing that was thrust upon him through no fault of his own. He wanted to spill his guts about what he knew all too intimately of the man’s care and gentleness, the compassion for others and deep sense of responsibility at the root of his feelings of guilt… but it was too much for him to find the words for now. Not when the memory of their secretly mutual pain was so fresh and raw, and he couldn’t even trust himself to think clearly.

It would wait until tomorrow, when they returned with Captain Xiao. If Cheng Xiaoshi ever did manage to sleep that night, surely it would help take the edge off the horrors still roiling within his mind, and his thoughts would be more coherent. Tomorrow he could find the right way to say what he wanted to, without saying altogether too much.

So he mutely accepted the envelope, even though it felt as if it was burning his fingers. Even though something about this moment felt so completely and utterly wrong.

Standing face to face with the man, he desperately wished that he didn’t know Sang Zhaojun smelled of fear.

Yet a quiet “Thank you again” was all their client said in farewell, with a soft and genuine warmth that belied the bleakness in his eyes. Then he ushered them to the door, and closed it almost silently behind them—and Cheng Xiaoshi stood feeling somehow as if the ground was crumbling beneath his feet. When Lu Guang moved ahead of him on course for the elevator, he could only follow in a disoriented lurch. Another silent ride down was passed, and then they were in the parking garage once again, walking to the car as Yee opened the doors for them.

Something in Sang Zhaojun’s words was tugging urgently at Cheng Xiaoshi’s sense of the man, but it was still so hard to think instead of simply feeling. He shook his head and tried to focus. Sang Zhaojun’s self-identity before that night was crystal clear to him, but if he only understood a little more about the shrewd executive’s mindset now in the aftermath, then maybe…

As they reached the car, he looked to Yee with an impulsive inspiration. “Hey, could I ask a question? …Where did you take Mr. Sang today?”

“That’s no business of ours—” Lu Guang began to chide him in a sullen mutter.

Even so, Yee was evidently more than willing to share, and he talked over Lu Guang’s objection. “Eh, first the boss went to his office for a while. Then he stopped at his bank, and finally spent some time with his lawyer. Seems like an awful lot of important business in one day, but what do I know?”

Only then did Cheng Xiaoshi manage to fully connect the dots between Sang Zhaojun’s actions and words, and the essence of who he was—and suddenly the time traveler knew exactly what was wrong.

Honor. Dignity. Responsibility.

I can rest knowing that not even one more person will suffer because of me.

I can rest…

Cheng Xiaoshi seized Lu Guang’s wrist. He gripped far more tightly than he realized; but in the heat of the moment, even his friend’s subtle wince of pain eluded him.

“We have to get back up there, right now. I don’t think he’s safe to be left alone!”

What he did recognize was the flash of grim comprehension in Lu Guang’s eyes, as the seer immediately pulled away to run back toward the elevator. Cheng Xiaoshi rushed after him, as did Yee, who was oblivious to the situation but apparently caught on to the two young men’s abrupt sense of urgency.

The elevator seemed to crawl upward, and Cheng Xiaoshi felt every second of its passage. At the top floor, he threw himself out between the doors when they had barely opened, sprinting down the hall to Sang Zhaojun’s apartment. His heart pounded in his ears as he knocked furiously, meeting no response or sound of movement within.

He breathed in deeply to call the man’s name… and the world suddenly turned red as he smelled a faint odor of blood.

Lu Guang and Yee could only watch in shock as Cheng Xiaoshi hurled the full weight of his body at the locked door, barely even feeling the impact.

Once, twice, thrice… and on the fourth blow, the door finally gave way with a violent crack. Cheng Xiaoshi’s momentum carried him stumbling inside, into a living room still perfectly pristine—and empty. Yet the blood smell was only stronger to him there, dizzying his senses as he jerked his head back and forth, questing for its source.

Bedroom…

With a sick feeling clawing at his stomach, Cheng Xiaoshi leaped toward the adjacent doorway, as Lu Guang followed a step behind. In the bedroom was a setting of snowy whiteness identical to the décor of the living room, from the carpet that swallowed their running footsteps, to the perfectly organized writing desk by the window, to the large four-poster bed that dominated the space…

But there, the white was splashed with brilliant red.

An instant after his mind registered that shocking blaze of color, Lu Guang’s arm wrapped around his chest from behind, cutting off his horrified cry and swiftly wrenching him back toward the doorway. He struggled on sheer frantic impulse as he was dragged out of the room, his eyes still searching desperately for Sang Zhaojun… and the glimpse he caught at last was a protruding pair of polished shoes and neatly creased gray trouser legs, lying too still beyond the other side of the blood-soaked bed.

Cheng Xiaoshi’s memory went black for some time after that.

“…I suppose it’s safe to say your being here is no coincidence,” said Captain Xiao Li, looking down grimly at the two young men slumped on the sofa in a dead man’s living room.

Lu Guang grimaced and sighed, while next to him, Cheng Xiaoshi did not react at all. He’d been that way for a while, practically collapsed into catatonia at the end of another emotional breakdown that was… not good. Preoccupied with calming his partner down after their gruesome discovery, Lu Guang was only able to tell Yee to call the police and ask for Captain Xiao—which left the lawman quite unhappily surprised when he walked in to find the two most confounding people he knew at the scene of an unnatural death.

With the Captain involved, at least that aspect of the situation would sort itself out. At the moment, Lu Guang’s deepest worry was still for his best friend’s mental state. In taking on other people’s identities, reliving their experiences, even absorbing fragments of their memories and feelings, there was no way the lives Cheng Xiaoshi dived into could not become personal to him—and the part of Sang Zhaojun’s life he had shared was more horrifically intimate than anything before. This was a man Cheng Xiaoshi had not only wanted to save, but believed he could save through actions they could freely take in the present; yet Sang Zhaojun had chosen to deny him that chance.

Even in the present… death is an unchangeable fate after all.

“Sang Zhaojun was a client of ours,” Lu Guang stated quietly, mindful of the other investigators still swarming about in the bedroom. “We only met with him for the first time today.”

Xiao’s hard-bitten face softened a fraction. “Look, you’re not under any suspicion. Aside from my knowing both of you too well to think you’d harm anyone, it’s very clear from the physical evidence that Sang took his own life. But even if you never meant for it to happen, I also realize there must be some connection between whatever he hired you for and the reason he’s dead—and I’m guessing this has something to do with it too.”

He stretched out his hand, opening his fist. Within a handkerchief resting on his palm, there lay two ominously shaped lumps of metal that gleamed with an abnormally white brightness.

“These were still loaded in the revolver Sang used,” Xiao stated flatly. “Backups in case he botched the first shot, I assume… but the question I want an answer to is why he thought he needed a silver bullet to die.”

Without hesitation, Lu Guang raised his eyes from the chilling ammunition to the Captain’s face, and told him the precise truth.

“Sang Zhaojun was a werewolf.”

For only a moment, the policeman flinched in entirely reasonable astonishment; yet just as quickly, his expression grew firm once more. He ground his teeth together and let out a faint huff.

“If I hadn’t seen firsthand what the two of you can do, I’d say that was crazy—but as it is, I know better than to doubt you when it comes to things like this. …So I take it this ties into the reason he hired you.”

“Yes. He changed for the first time during the full moon last month. The beast he became killed the man whose body was found mauled in Xiàngshù Park. But he had no memory of what happened to him that night, so he asked us to determine if what he’d pieced together from evidence and his nightmares was the truth… and we learned that it was.” Lu Guang’s eyes hardened. “I saw him transform—and Cheng Xiaoshi experienced it.”

“Oh, damn…” Xiao’s astounded and sympathetic gaze shifted to Cheng Xiaoshi, who only continued to slump sickly with his head almost bowed between his knees. “It’s no wonder you look like hell.”

“We were going to bring the case to you,” Lu Guang continued. “Sang Zhaojun agreed to let us arrange a meeting with you tomorrow, but that must have been just to send us away none the wiser. Now it’s obvious he knew all along what he planned to do if we proved his suspicions about himself. He could only have gotten a hold of the gun and had those silver bullets specially made before he ever talked to us.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Xiao said ruefully, glancing toward the bedroom where Sang Zhaojun’s body still lay. “If you’d brought him to me like you planned, I would have tried to help him. At the very least, I could’ve locked him up to make sure he didn’t hurt anyone on the full moon. And with his money, he could’ve sought out any potential treatment in the world. Why should he have taken his own life without at least trying to fight what he’d become?”

“You don’t know him.”

The seer and the policeman both turned quickly to Cheng Xiaoshi. He had raised his head at last, showing a terribly pale and stricken face.

“Sang Zhaojun was proud… and he was kind. He couldn’t live with the thought of what he was being found out, much less the fear that anyone else might ever be hurt because of him. No matter how much help we could have tried to give him, in his eyes, he’d still be dangerous as long as he was alive. It was a risk he wasn’t willing to take… and after experiencing what he went through, I’m not going to blame him for the way he felt.” Cheng Xiaoshi exhaled a shaky breath. “The person I blame is myself—for not realizing sooner that this was exactly what he would do.”

Lu Guang scowled at him. “Stop it, Cheng Xiaoshi. None of this was your fault.”

“I’m sure he’s right,” Xiao agreed, reaching out to give Cheng Xiaoshi’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “You only got tangled up in this by doing the job you were hired for—and from the looks of you, you’re already paying a price you don’t deserve. I can’t imagine it. …Just get some rest, and let me take care of the situation. I will need statements from you both, but that can wait until you’re feeling better. For now, I’ll have one of my men take you home.”

Looking unconvinced, Cheng Xiaoshi slowly rose to let himself be escorted out. As he moved toward the front door, his hollow and haunted gaze was drawn to the bedroom doorway one last time… and Lu Guang knew uneasily that all of this was still far from over.

Chapter Text

The twenty-four hours that followed were a restless haze for Cheng Xiaoshi.

He went to bed that night without eating, and lay awake for hours, dreading what would await him in nightmares. When he did sleep, that fear made his repose too light and fitful for dreams—or for any proper rest. For that matter, his worse-than-usual tossing and turning must also have kept Lu Guang up most of the night in the bunk above his own, for the eternally-pale young man had even darker shadows under his eyes and an especially sour morning face the next day. Yet he never voiced a complaint, and it was still barely past dawn when they both gave up trying to sleep and moved downstairs.

Lu Guang heated instant noodles and insisted Cheng Xiaoshi eat. While hardly a conventional breakfast, it was practically all the cooking the seer could manage when left to his own devices; and even if Cheng Xiaoshi wasn’t very good at expressing it just then, he did appreciate the sentiment. That was the main reason why he tried to eat at all. Part of him knew his body was hungry after more than fifteen hours without food, but his mind that still seethed with stomach-turning images was resistant to the thought.

After choking down the bland sticky meal, they sprawled in the sunroom in shared silence as the daylight brightened, sometimes managing to doze for a few minutes. Lu Guang finally left the room when it was time to open the studio, but Cheng Xiaoshi could hear him puttering around up front. It would have been comforting if he wasn’t convinced every sound was still sharper and clearer to him than it should be.

…And that was truly the fact that gnawed at his awareness, exacerbating a quietly frantic tremor of unease that ran through his veins all day. The trauma of living out Sang Zhaojun’s transformation, followed by the shock and guilt of the man’s subsequent suicide, would have weighed heavily enough on Cheng Xiaoshi’s heart—but the anxiety rattling around in his brain now was something even more present than those memories. He tried to distract himself from it with mindless games on his phone, but it wouldn’t go away.

Business was thankfully slow, allowing Lu Guang to spend most of the afternoon in his familiar reassuring place at the end of the sofa, book in hand. Even when a few people came in with ordinary photo work, he didn’t fuss at Cheng Xiaoshi to help. …Maybe he thought his partner looking like a stressed-out zombie just then would scare the customers away. In any case, Cheng Xiaoshi did drag himself off the sofa late in the day to cook a simple pot of rice and vegetables, if only as a defense against the threat of more instant noodles. However, making himself eat was still an effort.

When the sky above the skylight was purple with dusk, he put down the fighting game he’d been too unfocused to beat the first level of for three hours, and finally confronted what was really on his mind.

“Lu Guang? …I’d like you to do something for me.”

On any other day, Lu Guang might have reacted to that opening with impatience or indifference; but this time he gave it his full attention, immediately setting aside his book. “What is it?” he asked intently, and from the way his sharp eyes narrowed, Cheng Xiaoshi had a good idea his friend already knew what was coming.

“Please. Just… watch me tonight. After the moon rises.” He hesitated, expecting a poor reaction to the second half of his request. “And if I start acting weird at all… I want you to lock me in the darkroom.”

Lu Guang’s lips thinned in a concerned frown. “Cheng Xiaoshi, I know you went through something horrible during the dive yesterday. But that was Sang Zhaojun’s life—not yours.”

“I know that… but.” Cheng Xiaoshi’s nervous stress finally spilled over, and he faced Lu Guang with a wild brightness in his dark eyes. “I haven’t felt right since I came back from it. My senses seem like they’re all maxed out, and I’m reacting so hard to everything, and—”

“Cheng Xiaoshi.” Lu Guang leaned closer, looking at him sternly. “Listen to me. You’re safe. I promise, you didn’t ‘catch’ lycanthropy just because you were in Sang Zhaojun’s body when he changed.”

“How can you be so sure?” Cheng Xiaoshi fired back. “What do we even know about what happens physically when I dive? My body disappears from the present—so where does it go? Does it merge somehow with the person I become in the past? And if so, then—”

“Calm down. It’s not like that. You don’t acquire any physical traits of the people whose lives you dive into. But it’s true that their experiences and emotions can’t help influencing your mind for a while—and a strong enough mental effect can affect your body too. It’s called psychosomatic symptoms.” Lu Guang sighed, a somber expression that may well have been guilt passing over his face. “You didn’t just absorb feelings and memories from Sang Zhaojun, but from the thing he turned into as well—and it’s only those lingering impressions your body is responding to. I know it must be wreaking havoc with your hormones and instinctive reactions right now, but as your system balances out and you process the memories, it will get better. You need to believe that, Cheng Xiaoshi.”

“…I want to,” the time traveler murmured. His throat felt dry, and there was a tightness in his chest that made it hard to breathe. “I’m just… so damn scared of what’s gotten inside my head.”

“I know. But those instincts aren’t you.” Lu Guang laid his hand on Cheng Xiaoshi’s shoulder. “Your instincts were the ones that made you raise your hands to clap when I startled you, that first moment you jumped out. You didn’t know you did that, did you? Even then, when you felt confused and threatened, it was your power you reached for—not that beast’s.”

The words gave Cheng Xiaoshi pause. As Lu Guang suspected, what happened just after he tore himself out of Sang Zhaojun’s changed body and returned to the present was a blur to him; but when he tried to think about how that moment felt, he thought he sensed a familiar muscle memory of raised hands held slightly apart, prepared to escape the primal distress and echoes of pain coursing through his nerves. A clap would have taken him nowhere then, as he was neither already inside a photo, nor focused on a specific one he intended to dive into. Still, the point was that he was used to relying on that gesture as his exit from dangerous situations.

It was a comforting thought. If he’d resorted to his human instincts even then, when human was the last thing he felt like, perhaps he could believe Lu Guang was right. Perhaps the dive hadn’t tainted him with anything more than the breakers of that black wave, a secondhand residue of the monster’s animal impulses. That was bad enough, and he knew it would take time to unwrap those threads from his own psyche, but he could deal with it. As long as he could be sure he wouldn’t physically change, and become something that would hurt anyone… then he would be okay.

Eventually, at least.

Slowly he relaxed, slumping back a little on the sofa as he released a deep breath. He was acutely aware of Lu Guang’s eyes lingering on him; but even without returning the gaze, he felt the rare warmth in it, and just a little more calm crept into his frayed heart.

Lu Guang was his perennial observer and guide, after all. He was always watching over his partner—even without Cheng Xiaoshi having to ask.

“I’m going to make some tea. Want anything while I’m up?”

Cheng Xiaoshi couldn’t help smiling faintly at the question Lu Guang asked later, as the seer put down his book and rose from the sofa with a feline stretch. It wasn’t normal for him to be so solicitous, and it would start to feel weird if he kept it up for too long; but just for the moment, the time traveler was grateful for that understated display of care.

“Nah, I’m good.” he stifled a yawn with his hand. “Just getting sleepy, after how rough last night was. Don’t be surprised if you come back and find me dozed off.”

“If you do, I’m leaving you down here and going to bed myself,” Lu Guang muttered bluntly as he went out of the room.

With a brief wider smile at the threat, Cheng Xiaoshi dropped his head back against the sofa cushions, staring up through glass panes at the black night sky. It was funny how his best friend just being trollish as usual could seem like a kindness now, making him feel a pleasant warmth in his insides.

…Perhaps a little too warm, he noticed, becoming aware of a thin sheen of sweat on his skin. He blinked and frowned, ghosting a hand over his chest and down to his stomach, where the heat strangely seemed to be centered.

Drowsy-lidded eyes suddenly opened wide. A sharp gasp escaped him as he remembered this sensation—and then the pain slammed into him, throwing his body into a violent spasm that sent him crumpling to the floor between the sofa and coffee table.

As convulsions wracked his shifting muscles, tearing a choked cry from his lungs, the hands he saw sprouting claws beneath him were not those of a stranger. The body that twisted and heaved and changed was his own, spotlighted within brilliant white moonbeams that poured down on him from the skylight above.

The coup de grace came in the form of that horrible black wave rising within his mind, brimming with every same monstrous urge and instinct that had turned kindly Sang Zhaojun into a murdering beast—and as it swallowed up his very self, his last conscious awareness was of Lu Guang standing frozen in the doorway, eyes filled with shock and mortal terror.

No…!

—And then Cheng Xiaoshi thrashed himself awake, tangled in blankets on the floor beside the bunk bed where he must have tumbled, while the raw tearing sound of that one word he had cried out seemed to hang in the very air.

“Cheng Xiaoshi!”

Lu Guang’s voice reached him. Gasping and sweat-drenched, Cheng Xiaoshi rolled his eyes to the side and saw his partner crouching beside him: visibly alarmed and reaching out halfway, but seeming hesitant to touch.

The reason was obvious. He was wary that Cheng Xiaoshi might again lash out in a feral panic and possibly hurt him, even without meaning to… and that realization felt even worse than the nightmare itself.

“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi mumbled through a thickness in his throat, if only to prove that he recognized his friend and guide.

Hazily he remembered how the evening had really unfolded—and how nothing had happened at all. As Lu Guang had assured him, the hour of moonrise came and went with no change in Cheng Xiaoshi, allowing him to slowly begin to relax. Given their prior sleepless night, they agreed to go to bed early; Cheng Xiaoshi was still anxious about nightmares invading his rest, but he was far too exhausted to resist sleep any longer. As he drifted off to the sound of Lu Guang’s soft breathing from the upper bunk above him, he’d only hoped any torments his mind put him through wouldn’t make him disturb his roommate again.

So much for that.

“It’s alright. It was just a nightmare. You’re safe.” Lu Guang’s hand finally came to rest on his shoulder, gripping it firmly in reassurance.

“…I’m sorry.” Cheng Xiaoshi sniffed and scrubbed his eyelids with the heels of his hands before finally darting an apologetic glance up at Lu Guang. “This isn’t working. I’m only keeping you awake too. I’ll go downstairs and sleep on the couch—”

He was reaching for the frame of the bunk to pull himself up from the floor, but Lu Guang’s slim fingers wrapped around his wrist to halt him. “No. I have a different idea.”

Curious in spite of himself, Cheng Xiaoshi waited as Lu Guang stood and crossed the narrow room to the bookshelf. He selected a book, flipped through its pages, and withdrew a small square of glossy paper, which he brought back to where Cheng Xiaoshi sat. His lips were pressed together in an expression of faint but distinct awkwardness as he held it out. “Here.”

Cheng Xiaoshi accepted the photograph and looked down at it; and regardless of all his troubled emotions, he couldn’t help releasing a splutter of surprised amusement.

The instant-film photo was of Lu Guang himself, peacefully asleep in his bunk—and oblivious to the cat nose and whiskers drawn on his face. Cheng Xiaoshi had smugly snapped the picture as a trophy after committing that piece of mischief three weeks earlier. The seer quite justifiably gave him hell about it in the morning, and took the photo away. Now he was rather bemused to learn that Lu Guang had only hidden it instead of destroying it—and he wondered what the choice to keep it actually meant to him.

“I thought I wasn’t allowed to have this back,” he joked feebly, waving the photo between his fingers.

Lu Guang huffed, the way he did whenever he thought Cheng Xiaoshi was being a child. “Just dive into the picture, idiot.”

“Huh? What for?”

“Because I remember how stupidly soundly you were sleeping the next morning, when I woke you up for our little talk about your foolishness,” Lu Guang grumbled. Then his expression softened slightly. “And that picture was taken before the trauma that’s sent your nerves and hormones so out of whack. Maybe it’ll help reset your system if you can get a decent night’s sleep in your past body, without the physical effects of all that stress. Either way, if you do start to have another nightmare…” Narrowed gray eyes shifted away uncomfortably, a faint touch of color gracing his pale cheeks. “We’ll be linked—so you won’t be alone in your head, and I can help you.”

The time traveler gaped at his guide in earnest disbelief. “You’d really be okay with doing that?”

“I guess so. Just this once.” Lu Guang scowled. “Just don’t wake me up in the past too.”

Cheng Xiaoshi felt his first genuine smile in two days beginning to blossom on his face. “Okay then… but I’m making sure to jump out in the morning before your past self yells at me again.”

“Fair enough,” Lu Guang deadpanned, and held out his hand.

Feeling the kind of warmth inside that was definitely nothing to fear, Cheng Xiaoshi first gave back the picture, and then slapped his hand against Lu Guang’s outstretched palm.

—And he promptly almost took a tumble, suddenly finding himself balanced on the ladder to Lu Guang’s bunk while clutching the camera that had taken the photo. As it was, he fumbled it and it slipped from his grasp, falling with a soft plop onto the blankets of his own bunk below. The freshly taken and still-developing instant photo fluttered down beside it.

[Watch what you’re doing!] chided the voice of the present Lu Guang in his head.

[Sorry,] Cheng Xiaoshi thought at him without speaking. He properly steadied himself, and then spared a quick glance at the whisker-adorned face of the Lu Guang from three weeks in his past who slept before him unawares. Smiling gently, he whispered a soft “Thanks” under his breath—and he meant it for both versions of his best friend.

[…Just shut up and go to sleep already,] the present Lu Guang sighed.

Obediently Cheng Xiaoshi eased himself down the ladder. He set aside the camera and photo and flopped onto his bunk, wrapping himself in his blankets like a spring roll. Lu Guang had been right: his own past body that he currently occupied felt so much quieter, and that already seemed to be making a difference to his mind.

[Better?] the present Lu Guang asked him simply.

[Yeah,] he answered, and closed his eyes. [G’night, Lu.]

[Good night, Cheng Xiaoshi.]

For the most part, Cheng Xiaoshi did manage to sleep peacefully in that borrowed night of the past. Only once did a formless, fearful darkness begin to stir in the depths of his mind; but then Lu Guang’s gentle but insistent voice was there to wake him, pulling him out of the dark before he could even remember any solid images or sensations from the nascent nightmare. Afterward, he was still calm enough to drift off again without much difficulty.

…Unfortunately for him, he slept just a little too well, and did not wake until the moment when a very angry past Lu Guang shook him to bleary consciousness to berate him for his prank—still sporting those drawn-on whiskers, which did nothing for Cheng Xiaoshi’s ability to take him seriously. At that point he could only sit sheepishly through the reproach, positively feeling the smug amusement in the present Lu Guang’s silence.

[You didn’t wake me up on purpose, didn’t you?] he groused mentally, tuning out the lecture he’d already received once before.

[Do I look like an alarm clock to you?] the present Lu Guang retorted dryly. [I think I deserved to sleep in for a while, after I already missed out on so much rest the night before last.]

Cheng Xiaoshi had to struggle to keep his indignation out of his face and hidden from the past Lu Guang, who was—or at least so he presumed—oblivious to the argument going on inside his head. …Honestly, the seer was so damn enigmatic that his partner was never quite sure how much he really knew about any given moment in time, past or present… or maybe even future too. Either way, the time traveler didn’t want to make the situation even more awkward by drawing attention to the fact that he wasn’t exactly the Cheng Xiaoshi who belonged in that particular moment.

When the past Lu Guang finally ended his tirade and stalked off to wash the feline embellishments from his face, Cheng Xiaoshi took the chance to escape, swiftly clapping back to the present. Landing in the sunroom where Lu Guang had carried the photo, he immediately drew a breath to complain about having to relive the scolding; but the words died unspoken when he saw his friend’s face, and the weary shadows under his eyes that were no better than they’d been the previous morning.

Then Cheng Xiaoshi wondered just how much of a second night Lu Guang had spent awake, quietly listening across their link for any sound or perhaps feeling of a disturbance in his sleep… and he could only smile in gratitude.

Without a word, Lu Guang held out the photo to him, and he accepted it almost reverently. Having used it once, he could never again dive back to that night and morning; but when he looked at the picture now, the feelings it brought him would be something quite different from the juvenile sense of mischief with which he’d first taken it. He was certain Lu Guang knew that as well, and was returning it to him for that very reason.

Before he could say anything that would probably come out all wrong, he was spared by the ringing of Lu Guang’s phone.

“Hello? …Yes, Captain. Much better now, thanks. …Of course.” Lu Guang glanced at Cheng Xiaoshi, and then at his watch. “Yes, ten o’clock should be fine. We’ll be here.”

The brief call ended, and Cheng Xiaoshi raised an eyebrow. “Captain Xiao?”

“Yes.” Lu Guang regarded him intently, as if prepared to study the smallest nuance of his reaction. “He’ll be coming by in about twenty minutes… to take our statements.” About Sang Zhaojun’s death was the part he didn’t say, but Cheng Xiaoshi heard it loud and clear.

Although he couldn’t disguise a small flinch at the prospect, he nodded. “I’m ready for it.”

“Well, you will be when you get dressed,” Lu Guang observed idly before he buried his nose back in a book—prompting Cheng Xiaoshi to realize he was still wearing only the shorts and T-shirt he slept in.

“…Yeah, I’ll get on that.”

Chapter Text

By ten o’clock, Cheng Xiaoshi had pulled himself together. He dressed, splashed water on his face, hastily combed his messy hair and retied his ponytail, and just had time to choke down some leftover rice downstairs before the door alarm squawked its familiar greeting. As Captain Xiao strode into the shop, the two proprietors were there to meet him together by the front counter.

“Good morning,” Xiao greeted Lu Guang, and then turned a much more interrogative eye upon Cheng Xiaoshi. “How are you holding up, Cheng?”

Xiao had more than enough justification to worry about them in all the wrong ways. He’d seen what their powers could do, and he was more adept than most would be at grasping the possible implications; yet the concern in his voice and eyes was purely for Cheng Xiaoshi as a person, not a walking paranormal phenomenon with the potential ability to unmake the world as he knew it. He was not only fond, but genuinely protective of both young men. Whatever it was he’d seen in them that earned such trust, Cheng Xiaoshi felt a flash of gratitude—and not for the first time—that the ruggedly grounded yet improbably open-minded policeman had learned and accepted their secret.

“I’m fine now,” he answered meekly. “Sorry you didn’t exactly see me at my best the other night. It’s just…”

“You don’t have to explain.” Xiao grimaced and shook his head. “For most people, only finding someone dead would be enough to shake ’em. But after what you must’ve been through—”

“We’re ready to give our statements, Captain,” Lu Guang spoke up, eyeing Xiao cannily from beneath the fringe of his snowy hair.

He was protective too.

Whether or not Xiao took the cue, he shifted subjects easily. “That’s fine. It should all be simple enough. We’ll sit down, and I’ll record your accounts of that evening in your own words, with just a few further questions.”

“But—we can’t just tell the truth on the record,” Cheng Xiaoshi realized with a frown. “Not about the fact that Sang Zhaojun hired us to look into the past for him. And not that the real reason he killed himself was…” He grimaced and averted his gaze, still unable to say the words.

At the corner of his eye, Xiao smiled grimly. “On the other hand, a marketing exec consulting with the staff of a photo studio about doing work for an ad campaign… now, that sounds perfectly normal and above-board to me.”

Even as Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes widened and his heart soared with relief, Lu Guang raised an eyebrow. “As plausible as it sounds, a lie is still a lot for you to be responsible for, Captain.”

“It’s necessary. I’m not willing to let the faintest whiff of your powers get into department records. And even after what we’ve dealt with already, claiming we have werewolves running around the city too would get the new task force kicked to the curb before we can start.” Xiao shook his head. “Listen. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but we’ve identified three other cases over the last two years that match the details of the attack in Xiàngshù Park—the one you say is the only killing Sang Zhaojun committed. If we can prove another werewolf was responsible for even one of them, that’ll open the door for us to take this on officially. And, well… one more death attributed to that killer instead won’t make any difference in how their case is handled. If Sang was an innocent man caught up in something he didn’t deserve, then his name doesn’t need to be connected to all this.”

Cheng Xiaoshi only half-heard the last few sentences. His brain seized up all over again at the one most pertinent fact Xiao delivered so casually; and as the color suddenly drained from the world, his breathing quickened into short, harsh gasps.

Three other cases…

Another werewolf was out there, if not more than one—and perhaps not only across the world in France where Sang Zhaojun had been bitten, but close. If the beast that committed the killings Xiao spoke of had not moved elsewhere by now, then it was a ticking time bomb that could go off within their city on any full-moon night, leaving death in its wake.

A now-familiar visceral terror bubbled up within Cheng Xiaoshi, as his heartbeat lurched into a pace of nearly-painful rapid thuds. He wasn’t sure if his sudden desperate urge to run or to hide was even entirely human, or something amplified by the lingering animal imprints of Sang Zhaojun’s wolf form; but for a moment, he felt as if the pressure of it in his chest would physically choke him.

“Cheng Xiaoshi!”

He snapped back to the world to find Lu Guang gripping his shoulder. Piercing gray eyes stared at him with grave concern.

“Easy. Deep breaths.” Lu Guang steered Cheng Xiaoshi unprotesting to the sofa opposite the front counter, gently pushing him down to sit. The time traveler obeyed, only barely resisting the urge to curl into himself by sitting rigidly with his hands braced on his knees: hands that were now visibly shaking, he realized with a stab of humiliation.

Lu Guang made the rare gesture of covering one of those hands comfortingly with his own.

After a few seconds, the contact belatedly sent an even sharper jolt of embarrassment through Cheng Xiaoshi. It was gutting to appear so weak in front of his best friend—not to mention Captain Xiao, who remained near the counter but stood looking on with obvious concern. Hastily he pulled his hand away from beneath Lu Guang’s and sucked in a breath through his teeth, struggling to shove all the distress and fear back into whatever primordial place it came from. “I’m okay—”

“No. You’re not.” Lu Guang’s hand moved firmly back to his shoulder instead, as if consciously trying to anchor him. “And you’re not going to be for a while. You can’t just get over what you’ve been through in a few days—or on your own. But that’s not your fault, and it doesn’t make you weak.” The tight grip slowly relaxed. “For now, just remember that you’re safe. Even if another monster like that is out there, it doesn’t know anything about us. In spite of what you experienced when you relived that part of Sang Zhaojun’s life, nothing has changed in our lives—except now we know how to avoid a danger we didn’t even know existed before.”

Cheng Xiaoshi knew the reasoning made sense, even if his mind wasn’t quite in a condition to fully rationalize it himself. He let out his pent-up breath, easing the tightness in his chest, and slowly nodded.

“The force has a safe house, you know.” There was an undercurrent of kindness in Captain Xiao’s cool and steady voice. “If a few days away in a private secure location could help you work through all this, I can make it happen.”

“…No. I need to be here.” Although he didn’t feel like it, Cheng Xiaoshi smiled wanly. “Just wait and see! Qiao Ling’s nagging will have me whipped back into shape in no time.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Xiao chuckled quietly in a fond tone, before his expression grew focused again. “Anyway, let’s get this over with, so you can put it behind you. Is there anything else either of you want to know before we start with your statements?”

“I’ve been curious how Sang Zhaojun’s suicide is going to be handled publicly by his company,” Lu Guang pondered. “Since no one would believe the truth, how will it be explained in a way that won’t raise questions?”

“He was careful to think ahead to those questions himself,” Xiao replied. “There was a note on his desk, along with several letters to superiors and colleagues—and his story in every one of them is the same. He claimed to believe he was starting to suffer from an early onset of dementia. Must’ve done his research too, because he checked all the boxes of what they usually say in real cases like that: he was afraid of losing his ability to work, he couldn’t live without his career, and so on. …In a sense, I guess it’s not that dissimilar to the truth.” The lawman shrugged pensively. “Regardless, it paints his suicide as a personal decision based on his own emotional state, without casting any negative light on Yujian Electronics. That’s obviously what he wanted.”

Choosing death over facing an illness that would rob him of himself… Yeah, maybe that really is close enough, Cheng Xiaoshi thought with a pang in his heart. At least most people may rightfully see his death as a tragedy instead of an act of shame.

“Regardless, the company’s public image is their problem. My only concern right now is keeping the involvement of you two to a minimum.” Xiao looked back and forth sternly between his two favorite headaches. “So which one of you wants to talk first?”

They sat in the peaceful environment of the sunroom to give their statements. Not surprisingly, Lu Guang volunteered to speak first, giving Cheng Xiaoshi the chance to hear their slightly altered account laid out in a calm and logical way. As Captain Xiao suggested, the seer framed their meeting with Sang Zhaojun as a consultation about photography for product advertisements. Their leaving and returning was explained away as a trip back to the studio to fetch more specific examples of their work.

It was all so short, simple, and sanitized that it nearly turned Cheng Xiaoshi’s stomach. Even so, he carefully repeated the same details when his turn came. It was easier when he reminded himself that these white lies were not just for their own protection, but that of Sang Zhaojun’s honor and final wishes. The man hadn’t meant for them to become involved by going back and finding his body; he never wanted to cause them trouble or pain. In the end, that was as important to accept as his determination to spare anyone else from harm by his hands… or claws.

Yet afterward, when Captain Xiao had asked everything he needed to and they were about to see him out, the policeman’s revelation came back relentlessly to haunt Cheng Xiaoshi again.

Three other cases. Was there even a remote chance they were committed by the same werewolf that had attacked Sang Zhaojun? Could it possibly have been a fellow traveler who returned to the city at the same time he did… or even one of his own colleagues on the business trip with him?

Cheng Xiaoshi wanted to ask Captain Xiao to let him help. He wanted to use his power in any way he could to hunt the beast down, to bring justice to the client he had failed and prevent it from hurting anyone else. He wanted to—

He wanted to lock the doors, draw the shades, and curl up in a corner. He wanted to never face anything like that again.

And there it was, the latest variation of the visceral, crippling fear that had haunted him since he shared Sang Zhaojun’s transformation. Every time he began to think he was conquering that trauma, something seemed to resurrect it in a new form. He hated feeling this way, but it had rooted itself someplace deep down and primal. Someplace where it could wrap its claws around his heart and squeeze any time he remembered that night—much less when he thought of coming face to face with the kind of savage creature he’d felt from the inside out.

Of course, after he and Lu Guang had already stumbled into the case deeply enough to have to obfuscate their way out of police records, Captain Xiao might want to keep them as far from it as possible anyway. Much as the lawman was intrigued by the potentials of their powers, he was even more invested in seeing them not draw attention to themselves—and he knew how personal this entire situation had become to Cheng Xiaoshi. Probably far too personal, in the eyes of a man who would have been trained to believe objectivity was key. When the time traveler knew that even he couldn’t trust his own emotions right now, surely there was no way Xiao would.

Either way, even if Cheng Xiaoshi was involved no further in the case, the prospect of a werewolf on the prowl raised terrifying possibilities. He would have to make sure he and Lu Guang stayed safe at home on full-moon nights. Qiao Ling as well; she would believe the incredible truth if it came from them, so he needed to warn her.

But what if he found the monster one of these days without even trying to look for it?

It might come to them as a client. Or it might be a mere random person whose identity Cheng Xiaoshi dived into, just because a picture on social media put them at the place and time he needed to visit for a job. There were brief minor missions like that almost every week. Out of the entire vast populace, the odds of him coming across the werewolf that way were small, but it was possible… and if he found them, he would know. He was sure of it. If he didn’t glimpse their own knowledge of what they were in a stray memory, he would feel it within their body, because he remembered.

He wasn’t sure how he would react if it happened, but he knew it wouldn’t end well.

Stop thinking about it. Cheng Xiaoshi shook his head briskly, trying to shake the dark thoughts and feelings out, as he followed Captain Xiao and Lu Guang towards the door of the studio.

Three steps from the threshold, the unlocked door was opened from the outside, and the too-cheerful alarm heralded the arrival of a guest.

The woman was of middling age: perhaps in her forties or even past fifty, yet still youthful for her years. Her features, thin and refined and somewhat sharp, were what Cheng Xiaoshi would label more as the feminine kind of handsome than beautiful. Her raven hair might have been long, but it was pinned up in a severe style that exposed the full graceful arch of her neck. She wore a crisp black business dress, and carried a slim leather attaché case under her arm.

Staring at her as she stood framed in the sunlit doorway, Cheng Xiaoshi felt his breath freeze in his chest, because he knew her…

Or rather, one of the ghosts he had collected inside him did.

Let’s meet for lunch the day after tomorrow. I’m afraid it’s all the time I can spare right now.

That blouse. Is it new? …It looks quite good on you.

I’m taking a business trip overseas next week. I’ll bring you back some tea to add to your collection.

…Yajing, you worry about me too much.

As fragments of memories swirled around him like snowflakes blown through the doorway with the woman’s entry, a pit opened up in Cheng Xiaoshi’s stomach—because that was Sang Zhaojun’s voice in his head, echoing mundane moments with an open warmth the time traveler had never heard from him in their brief living acquaintance.

“Miss Hua?” Captain Xiao blurted in surprise, at least marginally dragging Cheng Xiaoshi’s awareness back to his own life in the present. “What are you—?”

“Captain. Why am I somehow not surprised to find you here?” The woman’s expression was cold, and it only became more witheringly icy as it passed over Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang. “Gentlemen. Since the man investigating my oldest client and dearest friend’s death just happens to be here, I believe he can introduce me.”

Cheng Xiaoshi winced in genuine hurt at the harsh strain of anger and contempt in her tone. It was a reaction that belonged to the other much more than to him—and that made his pulse quicken with alarm, knowing he needed to get a lid on the uninvited memories and feelings Sang Zhaojun had left with him right now.

Seeking balance in the anchoring sight of his own best friend’s face, his eyes shifted away to Lu Guang—to find that the seer was not looking at their hostile guest, but watching him very intently.

He knew. Of course he did. Because he always knew.

Oblivious to the silent drama playing out between his two paranormally gifted problem children, Captain Xiao obliged the woman’s request. “Cheng Xiaoshi, Lu Guang—this is Miss Hua Yajing. She was Sang Zhaojun’s attorney.” He turned back to her before either young man could speak, an irascible frown on his face. “As for why I’m here, I came to take these two men’s statements. The question is, why are you here? I assured you when we spoke yesterday that we cleared them of any suspicion in your client’s death. They’re only witnesses. They were visiting his apartment on completely legitimate business when they found his body, and they even tried to help him.”

She knows we were there, Cheng Xiaoshi followed dizzily as Xiao spoke. She knows there was more to our visit than the Captain has told her… and she’s suspicious of us, no matter what he says.

That fact was painful in ways it damn well shouldn’t have been, because the ache he suddenly felt in his chest wasn’t his own, and the scent of her perfume was so familiar to someone else. He was used to feeling clients’ emotions like this while he inhabited their bodies, but nothing had ever made the lingering shadows of them in his head slam into his senses so strongly when he was himself.

Sang Zhaojun…

He loved her. He loved her and he could never say it.

…Not even when he visited her on that last day, knowing he could be saying goodbye to her forever. I’m sure of that, even if it isn’t a part of the memories I gained from him.

Cheng Xiaoshi needed to sit down; and heedless of what anyone else in the room might think, he did exactly that. He abruptly stepped over to the sofa and sank down on it, gripping his knees and drawing a few deep slow breaths to center himself.

Xiao gave him a slightly worried look, and Hua Yajing glared at him. Lu Guang, meanwhile, knew him well enough not to react at all.

Then the whole room mercifully took to ignoring him, as Hua Yajing turned back to the policeman. “Yes, I heard you yesterday, Captain—and I don’t believe it any more now than I did then. I know for a fact Zhaojun was as brilliant and as passionate about life as he’d ever been. He didn’t have dementia, and nothing would ever have made him commit suicide. …He was too much in love with his career to throw everything away like that.” The last sentence was tinged with the faintest note of bitterness, piercing Cheng Xiaoshi with a strange secondhand guilt.

You didn’t know him like you think, he thought miserably. You don’t even know the way he really felt about you.

“Miss Hua, I’m sorry, but the forensic evidence speaks for itself,” Xiao declared grimly. “There was no possible way anyone else could have been holding that gun when it was fired.”

“But you of all people should know physical force isn’t the only way to coerce someone into doing things they don’t want to,” Hua Yajing countered.

Frowning a little more deeply than usual, Lu Guang quietly repeated the same lie they had crafted for their official statements. “Miss Hua, please believe me when I say we were only there to consult for photography work. As we were walking down the hall after we left, Cheng Xiaoshi thought he heard something and was concerned, so we decided to go back and check on Mr. Sang. That was when we found him and called for help. We’d never met him before that day, and we had no reason to want him harmed in any way.”

“You say that,” the lawyer retorted, her eyes narrowing. “And yet the fact is that hardly more than an hour before he died, my client left me a very specific set of instructions regarding you and your partner—by name.”

Cheng Xiaoshi snapped his head up to stare in astonishment at Hua Yajing. Even Lu Guang’s pale lips parted to gasp out a small breath of unadulterated shock.

“…You never mentioned that yesterday,” Xiao ground out.

Hua Yajing’s smile at him was pure venom. “If these two are only witnesses, how does my late client’s further business with them concern the police?”

“What were the instructions?” Lu Guang asked. It was the first time in Cheng Xiaoshi’s memory that his voice had ever sounded so small and unsure. For once, even the cryptic seer who knew more than he ever let on had no answer for what would come next.

Now thoroughly presiding over the sudden tense silence in the room, Hua Yajing stood straight and tall. Her dark eyes shifted back and forth between the two young men, watching both of their faces with an intensity that made even Lu Guang’s most cutting stare look casual.

“He asked me to hold a letter for you, and a check made out to this photo studio—which I’ve since learned amounts to forty percent of the net worth of his estate.”

Cheng Xiaoshi heard but barely felt the wheeze that escaped from his lungs. His gaze immediately shot to Lu Guang, and he saw his unflappable partner standing slack-jawed, one hand subtly gripping the edge of the front counter for support.

Sang Zhaojun, why…

What the hell is even going on here?

Forty percent of the fortune earned by the chief marketing executive for one of the largest electronics manufacturers in the country… Cheng Xiaoshi couldn’t fathom the number of zeros that would be written at the end of that check, but he was certain even a half share of such wealth would let him repay his debt to Qiao Ling and her father several times over. More than that, it would let him finance a search for his missing parents: something he’d never imagined could be possible. It would allow him to bury his own regrets for once instead of everyone else’s, to leave behind the work that carved out another little piece of him with every dive, to forget he even had a damn power and just live a normal life—

“No,” he heard himself say quietly, hanging his head.

He remembered the way his fingers had burned when he accepted Sang Zhaojun’s original agreed-upon payment. It would be unbearable to feel his very soul burn like that.

“We completed the job Sang Zhaojun asked of us… but we still couldn’t save him,” Lu Guang said ruefully. The words were in perfect agreement with the emotions boiling inside Cheng Xiaoshi—yet the seer had to know he was only confirming to Hua Yajing that they were far more involved than the official record would show. “We don’t deserve anything from him.”

Silence stretched through the room until it felt like it would shatter. At last Hua Yajing said very softly and simply, “I see.”

Her voice was entirely different then, and Cheng Xiaoshi looked up to see that her face had changed too. Its harsh expression had faded, softening the lines of it until she looked almost like a different woman.

This is really the woman Sang Zhaojun fell in love with, he thought with a pang.

“So you really didn’t know,” she concluded, and in place of her previous temper, there was only a weary sadness. “Your reactions proved that to me. I still don’t know what Zhaojun really hired you for, or just how your visit relates to his death. But from his voice and his expression when he made these arrangements with me, I know it was incredibly important to him… and now I know you were telling the truth when you said you wanted to help him.”

Captain Xiao lowered his brows suspiciously at the woman. “Hold on. If this was your idea of a test for these two men—”

“It wasn’t. Both the letter and the check are very real.” The lawyer unfastened her attaché case, reaching inside to withdraw an envelope sealed elegantly with red wax. Her gaze shifted back to Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang. “But you misunderstood the purpose. The money isn’t a gift or a bequest left in Zhaojun’s will; it’s a reserved payment for a second commission of work. That’s all I know.”

Cheng Xiaoshi’s heart dropped. For a moment he met Lu Guang’s equally startled eyes, seeing his own foreboding reflected in them; and then he drew a deep breath, rising to step forward and accept the envelope Hua Yajing held out. He could scarcely breathe as he broke the seal and opened it. At his side, he was aware of his partner moving closer to read the contents with him.

The folded letter within the envelope was accompanied by a smaller slip of paper. Knowing exactly what it was, Cheng Xiaoshi staunchly avoided even touching the check, and eased out the letter alone. He unfolded the single sheet of Yujian Electronics letterhead, crowded with precise and elegant handwriting that felt hauntingly familiar to him… and a single unexpected photograph escaped, falling out onto the counter.

A choking sensation of déjà vu swept over him as he stared at the image of a receipt lying on a bar—but the text of this one was printed in French.

With trembling hands, Cheng Xiaoshi spread the letter on the countertop beside the photo; and as they read their client’s posthumous final wishes together, he felt Lu Guang’s hand clutch his arm almost possessively.

To Mr. Cheng Xiaoshi and Mr. Lu Guang of Time Photo Studio:

If you are reading this, it means your investigation confirmed my worst fears, and I have done what I felt necessary to ensure I will never bring harm to anyone else.

I apologize with all my soul for the burden I leave upon you. Please never think it was the answer you brought me that drove me to my response. If you had not proven my suspicions, I would have come to the truth by a much harder way eventually—and quite possibly with the loss of more innocent lives. Considering that, please know that I feel nothing but gratitude for your sparing me any more guilt. The last thing I would wish is for you to feel guilt instead.

That said, it is with a different sense of guilt that I write this letter, for I have one more request to make of you. I loathe the thought of burdening you further, but if your abilities are true—as you have obviously proven to me if you are reading this—then you are the only ones who can carry it out.

I took the enclosed photo on the final night of my business trip in France, less than two hours before I was attacked and bitten. I have no concept of how your talents work, but if the photo can serve for you as a window to that night, then I beg you to do me one last service. I implore you to look into the past for me once more—and uncover the human identity of the beast that cursed me, so it can be stopped from further killing in the present.

Please know that I ask this not for myself, but for the lives that monster may threaten in the future. While I can accept my fate, the thought of others having their lives destroyed in the same way is unbearable. If my case can help guide you to an answer that will spare anyone else from this, then I will feel that what has happened to me has served a purpose.

What hardship this task would be to you personally, I do not know. You have every right to refuse, but I can only hope you will be moved by the prospect of saving lives. In any case, if you agree to accept this request, a significant reward awaits you to express my gratitude.

Please forgive me for my weakness. Perhaps there was a better way… but for myself, the only answer I can see is to eliminate the danger I pose, and leave to you what remains. I have faith in you.

Thank you both once more, from the depths of my heart.

Having reached the end of the letter, Cheng Xiaoshi found himself staring with a soul-deep numbness at Sang Zhaojun’s neatly signed name. He didn’t move for a long moment, but on the inside, some part of him was screaming.

All the thoughts he’d had already about hunting the monster, about bringing to justice the creature that ultimately destroyed Sang Zhaojun. All the rationalizing that it was a bad idea, that he was emotionally unfit for the task, that he couldn’t do it… and in the end, that politely merciless little self-sacrificing bastard he’d allowed to die just had to ask him to.

Lu Guang’s fingers were clenched on his arm so tightly it hurt. Turning toward him at last, he glimpsed his partner’s head already shaking back and forth in urgent negation; but before their eyes could meet, Captain Xiao’s voice drew their attention to him.

“Cheng, you just turned nearly as white as Lu Guang—and I’m pretty sure I can guess why.” The policeman’s grim gaze flickered from Cheng Xiaoshi’s face to the photo on the counter and back again. He may not have been able to decipher the image from his position, but he clearly understood the intended purpose in its presence.

“It’s…” the time traveler began thickly, before his eyes darted to Hua Yajing. A far cry from her earlier aggression, she stood looking suspenseful and a little confused, clearly waiting for them to say something about Sang Zhaojun’s last wishes expressed in the letter. As not only his friend but the executor of his estate, she would expect to be informed on the last piece of worldly business he left behind.

She deserves an answer for why the man she loved is dead, he thought bitterly, but he knew he couldn’t tell her. Even if she could have believed it, he couldn’t put her through the pain of knowing what Sang Zhaojun had suffered in silence over the last month of his life. She didn’t need to spend the rest of her life imagining the horrors Cheng Xiaoshi could have described to her, or wondering why her oldest friend hadn’t turned to her for help.

Instead, he settled on one fragment of truth that would have to be good enough—and he forged on with saying it in spite of Lu Guang’s fingers squeezing even tighter, and the fiercely warning objection in his eyes.

“Sang Zhaojun asked us to find the person who was the reason he took his own life… and we have the ability to do it.”

2023 Jordanna Morgan