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Li Lianhua did not take his eyes off the sea.
He knew it all the same, the moment he had company. They weren’t exactly being quiet about their approach on horseback. He knew it when they dismounted and began walking towards him, knew it when Hulijing trotted up behind him in glad recognition, and knew very well the expressions his two friends must be wearing.
Li Lianhua smiled.
"It took you long enough," he said, still without turning.
"Li Lianhua!" Fang Duobing cried. Li Lianhua imagined Fang Duobing shaking his fist at him. "How dare you disappear on us again! How dare you!!"
Li Lianhua heard the sob in his voice and knew he was crying.
"You left clues knowing we would follow," came Di Feisheng's deadpan voice. It was emotionless; there was no hitching sob to be heard anywhere in the tones. Li Lianhua knew a carefully controlled, stoic expression would match those words if he turned to look. "But it has taken a long time to follow them."
Li Lianhua tucked his hands in his sleeves and continued to address his words to the sea. "I know you have been searching for me for months," he acknowledged. "I could not show myself to you until I was sure you'd lost the spies following you."
"Spies!" Fang Duobing spat. "What spies!?"
"The emperor's spies, of course," Li Lianhua said in an easy, light tone. "He has had a tail on you both since the fight at Zhurong Hall. Congratulations, though; you lost them last week."
There was silence behind him.
"I rather thought you would figure it out on your own," Li Lianhua said, "but I'm glad you didn't. You were more convincing that way. You see, all of this has been a show specially for the emperor's benefit."
"What?" Fang Duobing asked, his voice breaking.
Li Lianhua finally turned around. The sight of them made his heart skip a few beats. Fang Duobing, in shades of pale blue, simpler clothing than used to be his style, side-by-side with Di Feisheng in his striking dark red over black. Fang Duobing was looking hurt and outraged and silent tears were spilling down his cheeks. Di Feisheng was looking grim, his teeth clenched and jawbone bulging slightly in the attempt to control himself.
Li Lianhua loved them both so much.
"I began planning it the moment shiniang informed the world about my origins," Li Lianhua said, making his voice as soft as possible. "The emperor would never simply take my word for it that I have no ambitions for his seat. No emperor could afford to."
"But you settled the score when you gave him the Wangchuan flower," Fang Duobing protested, his brow wrinkling in adorable confusion.
"Ah," Li Lianhua said lightly. "Is that so?"
Fang Duobing did not seem to know what to make of this. Di Feisheng glared at Li Lianhua.
"Is that so?" Di Feisheng echoed. His voice was cool and suspicious. "Did you give him the Wangchuan flower?"
"That is the right question to ask," Li Lianhua said, beaming at Di Feisheng. "I did not."
"You did not!?" repeated Fang Duobing, stunned. He surged forward, grabbed Li Lianhua's wrist out from where it was tucked in a sleeve, and felt for his pulse. Li Lianhua made no move to resist.
Li Lianhua watched as a cautiously blooming hope spread across Fang Duobing's face. His eyes were still wet, but he was very near to actually smiling.
"Your pulse is weak, but steady," Fang Duobing marveled. "I am no doctor, but even I can tell it's better."
"But the emperor also got better," Di Feisheng pointed out. He looked unimpressed. "He was cured of his poison. Unless that, too, is a trick."
"It is not a trick," Li Lianhua said, inclining his head slightly. He tugged his wrist back from Fang Duobing, who let it go and took a step away. "The emperor was indeed healed from his poisoning. But he had not been afflicted with Bicha poison."
"Shan Gudao did not have the real Bicha poison," Di Feisheng guessed. "Medicine Demon never gave it to him."
Li Lianhua nodded. "Instead, Shan Gudao used a poison he developed himself."
"How could you possibly know that?" Fang Duobing demanded.
"The princess was able to accurately and completely describe the symptoms to me. She is very clever and quite competent, you know," Li Lianhua added teasingly. Fang Duobing gave him an indignant, angry huff in return. "Shiniang recognized the symptoms as a poison Shan Gudao developed during the days he studied under her tutelage."
"You contacted Granny Qin for help," Di Feisheng summarized. He was frowning hard in thought.
"Correct again," Li Lianhua said. "We worked together to disguise her remedy to look like the Wangchuan flower, so that when I presented it to the emperor, he would believe I was giving up my only cure for the sake of his survival. We took an ordinary flower with white petals, and curled and dyed and trimmed them to look alike. The real antidote for his poison was a hidden powder we bound in the stem."
"Please tell me you then used the Wangchuan flower for yourself," Fang Duobing said, his eyes wide and his voice pleading. "And not on another elaborate scheme to help someone else at your own expense."
"I did use it," Li Lianhua said gently. "Shiniang came and helped administer it the day I disappeared from Lotus Tower."
"Why did you need her help?" Fang Duobing protested. "I was coming to help you with Guan Hemeng!"
"I wasn't lying about one thing," Li Lianhua answered. "Without her help, the antidote did have only a thirty percent chance of working. I needed her inner power to sustain me through the cure. And hers was the only one that could." Then Li Lianhua cast a gentle, indulgent look at Di Feisheng. "Having Bitterwind Poplar helped as well."
Fang Duobing drew a sharp breath. "You refused her help, earlier!"
"Because without the Wangchuan flower, I needed too much of her help—she would have died to cure me. I could never have accepted that."
"But it worked?" Fang Duobing pressed. "The cure worked? You are not going to die?"
"It worked. I am not dying. I am still weak, but I will slowly regain my inner power instead of losing it excruciating inch by excruciating inch. Nor am I likely to go mad and lose my mind."
Fang Duobing looked like he was torn on whether to actually believe this, to fully accept it as the truth instead of another one of Li Lianhua's careless, flighty lies.
Di Feisheng looked comparatively unmoved.
"So... you were already cured when you left all your worldly goods in Lotus Tower, shattered Shaoshi, wrote that letter delivered to everyone waiting at the East Sea, and made us search for you for months," Di Feisheng summarized.
Li Lianhua nodded. "The emperor's spies were watching every single one of those events. He must believe I'm gone. He must believe you two believe I'm gone."
Fang Duobing was crying again. Li Lianhua wanted to be sorry, but he was not. Every step of the way, he had done what he had to.
"You have no idea what we've been through, what we've felt for you," Fang Duobing said. "Wasn't that too cruel, too unnecessarily elaborate a scheme even for you?"
"Too elaborate!" Li Lianhua repeated, stung. He drew himself up to his full height and leveled a glare at Fang Duobing. "There is no such thing as too elaborate a scheme to hide Princess Longxuan and Prince Fangji's heir from the descendant of Consort Ying and Feng A-Lu's bastard son!"
Fang Duobing winced at that. He knew it full well—he'd known it from the moment they explored the Pagoda of Bliss. Such a discovery would mean their deaths once the emperor found out about it.
"And we are not finished yet," Li Lianhua admonished. He turned to Di Feisheng. "You must find a body in that lair of Jiao Liqiao's, a corpse that died of Bicha poison. Disguise it to look like a body dead and decayed for a month or so. Make sure this is found on the body."
Li Lianhua tossed the Nanyin jade pendant to Di Feisheng, who caught it out of the air with his usual neat reflexes.
"Hold a funeral for me in the capital. I have complete trust in you to carry out the scheme," Li Lianhua informed Di Feisheng blithely. "You will appear your usual stoic, silent self, with an inscrutable expression and refusing to speak about anything to anyone. It will be utterly convincing all on its own. You don't need to put on an act in any respect.
"But you!" Li Lianhua said, rounding on Fang Duobing. "You will not be able to carry the act at all. You are the worst liar I have ever met. You must send your family a letter, stating you heard my body had been found and you can't face the funeral. You don't know when you'll be home. Go somewhere very far away from here to send that letter. Take Hulijing. If anyone catches a glimpse of you, it is important you still be seen with my dog."
Fang Duobing didn't argue with him. He clenched his hand into a fist, looking pained, but he didn't argue.
"Fine," Di Feisheng said. He could always be counted on to be short and to the point. He clutched the jade token. "You will be here when I return?"
Li Lianhua gestured to the north. "There is a fishing village nearby. I live in a small house outside the village. There I will remain until you find me again."
Di Feisheng nodded. He spun on his heel, mounted his horse, and galloped away without so much as a good-bye.
Fang Duobing didn't go. His eyes still shining with tears, his hand still clenched in a fist, he stared at Li Lianhua.
"I don't believe you," he said, bewildered and hurting. "I don't believe I will ever see you again."
Li Lianhua stepped forward.
"I will give you this as a guarantee that I mean it this time." Li Lianhua pressed a kiss to Fang Duobing's lips, light and pleasant but more than just a passing brush. He kissed him like he meant it, because he did mean it. He meant it with all his heart.
Fang Duobing was too shocked to move. Li Lianhua broke off the kiss and stepped back. He smiled.
"Go," he ordered. "I will be there when you return."
Fang Duobing returned to him first. He stepped through the door of the modest little house on the outskirts of the fishing village, looking like he expected to find another trick, another deserted dwelling from which Li Lianhua had left him in the dust.
"Xiaobao," Li Lianhua greeted him with a pleasant smile. "There you are. Help me gut these fish. I'm afraid we'll be living on a diet of nearly exclusively fish in our future. Your exquisite connoisseur days have come to an end."
Fang Duobing laughed. Beaming unreservedly, Fang Duobing ran the rest of the way into the house and swept Li Lianhua into his arms. He whirled him through the air, while Li Lianhua smacked his arms and pretended to struggle.
"Put me down!" Li Lianhua demanded, but he had to fight not to laugh himself.
Fang Duobing put him down, and kissed him soundly on the lips.
"You're here," Fang Duobing said, looking like he might cry again. "You're really here. We can eat fish every day for the rest of our days as long as you're here to live them."
It took Di Feisheng quite a bit longer to come back to them.
Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua had settled into a rhythm, adapting to the small fishing village's constraints and the new climate that altered everything Li Lianhua previously knew about gardening and learning to cook dishes that actually tasted good.
Di Feisheng arrived one blustery, windy winter's day, looking the same as he always did. He did not cry to see Li Lianhua. He did not show any particular emotion when he opened the door and found Li Lianhua and Fang Duobing bickering over the design of the new coal brazier Fang Duobing was planning on constructing for the main room of the house.
"I'm back," Di Feisheng announced, like that wasn't obvious. "Li Lianhua is buried in the capital. The emperor himself attended the funeral. An imperial physician looked at the body and the emperor saw the Nanyin jade pendant for himself. I would not say where I'd found your body, and no one tried to ask me a second time."
He looked vaguely menacing at that, like he'd decided he had to scare people off from the topic.
"I knew I could count on you," Li Lianhua said with a wry smile.
"Well?" Di Feisheng demanded, shifting to the one topic that interested him above all others. "How is your inner power recovering? Do you even have a sword anymore?"
Li Lianhua chose to answer the last question first. With a flourish, out of his sleeve he drew a sword, its blade long and slender, glinting in the candlelight.
"Shiniang made it for me," he explained fondly.
"What did you name it?" Di Feisheng asked, examining the blade carefully. He looked impressed. The sword appeared plain and unassuming, but an expert like Di Feisheng could see that it was lethal and sharp and wicked fast when cutting through the air or other things.
"I haven't decided yet. What do you think about 'Hao Jian'?"[1]
Behind them, Fang Duobing burst out laughing.
Di Feisheng glared. "You're making fun of me."
"I'm not," Li Lianhua assured him. "It's a tribute; I thought you would be flattered. It doesn't have a fancy name so maybe it has a happier fate than my other swords."
"Whatever," Di Feisheng said dismissively. "And what about your inner power?"
"It's just now approaching ten percent again," Li Lianhua said with another smile, and a laugh. He was thrilled with this result, personally, but he knew this would be very provoking news for Di Feisheng. "It will likely not recover fully until we are old and gray-haired, A-Fei. You will still have to wait a long time for your rematch."
Di Feisheng glared. "Then why did I bother to help you at all? Why should I bother to stay now?"
Li Lianhua took a few steps towards him and placed a hand on Di Feisheng's chest. They stared unblinking into each other's eyes.
"Perhaps I can give you a reason," Li Lianhua said, and he leaned into Di Feisheng. He'd never known, since he first laid eyes on Di Feisheng as a teenager, whether he wanted to kiss him or kill him more. The answer, of course, had become quite apparent by now.
Li Lianhua kissed Di Feisheng, who didn't seem surprised. He wrapped strong arms around Li Lianhua, encircling him in an embrace that threatened to never let go, and kissed him back fiercely and possessively.
"Just so you know, I have no intention of being left out of this," Fang Duobing said in a loud voice, from where he was still crouching by the metalworkings that were supposed to resemble a coal brazier.
Li Lianhua and Di Feisheng broke off their kiss to look at Fang Duobing: a look of mingled amusement and affection on Li Lianhua's part, and a look that was equal parts challenging and intrigued from Di Feisheng.
As though it were the most natural thing in the world, Di Feisheng strode away from Li Lianhua, hauled a surprised but unresisting Fang Duobing up by the shoulders, and planted a kiss squarely on his mouth.
Li Lianhua watched them, feeling a fond indulgence and a hope for the future that was like nothing he'd felt in over ten years.
"I have no intention of leaving either of you out of anything anymore," Li Lianhua said, and he actually meant it.
[1] 好剑 means good/nice sword, like Di Feisheng's dao 刀