Work Text:
It wasn’t a good day for Li Lianhua.
Not that anything went actively wrong; it was a bit rainy, and maybe there were flowers somewhere near here that his body didn’t really like and that reminded it of the bicha poison -- but all in all, it was just a bad day physically.
In the years since his men -- his cultivation partners -- his sworn brothers now -- had found him on the beach at the East Sea, Li Lianhua had learned that a physically bad day didn’t have to be a mentally or emotionally bad one as well, and that it was unfair to them to snark at them or shut them out when he was feeling poorly or hurting.
And in all other respects, it started as a very good day, and he didn’t want to ruin it for them.
He had woken up alone in bed, to soft moans from nearby. He opened his eyes and saw Xiaobao and A-Fei, on a cushion on the floor, sitting upright, joined at their roots, making love -- or rather, dual cultivating, from the subtle ozone tang of swirling qi that he picked up from them.
They were transcendently beautiful together, and also unspeakably sensual, but nothing stirred around Li Lianhua’s lower dantian. On the contrary, he felt a bit cold down there, and his neck and shoulders were aching. It was going to be one of those days, he realized.
He did not sigh; he just lay still, watching them from under half-closed eyelids.
They were so very sublime, and he loved them quite insanely.
As so often, A-Fei grew quiet towards the end, and Xiaobao grew rather loud; and when they finally had come down from their utter elation and collected the swirling qi inside themselves, they turned to look at Li Lianhua, who acknowledged them with a little smile and fully open eyes.
“Xiangyi,” Di Feisheng said softly, “would you like to -- in a moment?”
“I’m good,” Li Lianhua said softly. “It’s not rising for me today, even though it was so very good to watch you. I should stay in bed and drink tea and try again tomorrow. Don’t bother…”
“Bad day, huh?” Fang Duobing said. He kissed A-Fei, pushed him off, and walked over to the bed, stark naked.
“Come on, sit up,” he said, insinuating a strong young arm underneath Li Lianhua’s shoulder, “we made the good stuff just now, and I have more than enough to spare for you.”
Li Lianhua allowed him to pull him up, and meekly sat on his own as Fang Duobing knelt behind him, put flat hands on his shoulder blades, and let the mingled Yangzhouman and Beifang Baiyang they had just cultivated flow right into Li Lianhua’s weakened, mundane meridians.
“I’ll make tea,” Di Feisheng said, “and then take over from you.”
“I still won’t be able…” Li Lianhua said, a bit ruefully, but Fang Duobing just chuckled.
“We know,” he said, “but if it makes the difference between you staying in bed, sniffling and drinking tea, and you sitting at the table waéaring the good warm wrap from Yunnan and eating comfort food, then it’s all worth it.”
“And who’s going to cook that food, then?” Li Lianhua grumbled, because no matter what, something in him spurred him on to be a bit abrasive at almost all times.
“I am,” Fang Duobing said, plainly. “We have some of the good broth left, and four chicken legs, and new onions from the big raised planter. I can make a decent congee while it’s A-Fei’s turn to pass you qi.”
Di Feisheng had put on his trousers and under-robes, started the mechanical brazier in the kitchen, and was making tea.
“Congee takes time,” he said. “I can go into town and get some youtiao for breakfast to go with it.”
They had parked the Lotus Lodge just half a li from the nearest town; Li Lianhua had done a brisk trade there during the Ghost Festival. They’d leave in a few days, but were in no hurry to be anywhere else right now.
And Di Feisheng was fast; he wasn’t above using his qinggong for mundane things like getting breakfast pastries.
“If you’re going anyway,” Li Lianhua said, “can you have a look in the bookshop and see whether they have anything new? You know what I like.”
“Of course,” Di Feisheng said. He knew by now that Li Lianhua liked to read when he wasn’t feeling too good; and if his eyes were getting tired, the other two would take turns reading aloud to him.
***
A-Fei came back much sooner than Li Lianhua would have expected. Fang Duobing’s congee hadn’t even finished simmering.
He was a bit flushed, as if he’s used his qinggong to the maximum of his ability, as he would in an emergency, or if he needed to prove how very persistent he was.
However, he had done and brought his morning shopping: a basket of youtiao and other pastries, even flatbread, a box of new tea, some books -- and a large, rough pamphlet printed on yellowish low-quality paper.
Li Lianhua knew that kind of publication.
So that was what day it was.
And that was why A-Fei had run home as fast as he could.
“The new list is out!” Di Feisheng declared, plopping down the rest of his shopping on the table where Li Lianhua was sitting, wrapped in his warm, soft wool wrap from Yunnan, drinking osmanthus oolong tea. He waved the pamphlet in Fang Duobing’s face.
“It had come with the morning post; the bookshop owner was only just unpacking it when I came in,” Di Feisheng added.
Fang Duobing eagerly grabbed the paper, and Di Feisheng took over stirring the congee.
Xiaobao absently cleared the shopping off the table (Li Lianhua made sure that the youtiao stayed, and that he got his books before they got shoved in the shelf with all the other books), and then spread the paper.
“Zhan Yunfei is up three places!” was the first thing he declared as he was scanning the columns of names -- overall and specific.
“Isn’t it Wuyan’s job to send you the list of ranking jianghu heroes as soon as it’s published?” Li Lianhua said. Usually, The List came by rather large hawk.
“I guess it’ll arrive at some stage today,” Di Feisheng said, lighting up a second brazier to make more tea. “But the bookshop already had it -- I couldn’t possibly…”
“You couldn’t possibly wait three or five more hours,” Li Lianhua said, with a chuckle.
“It was right there!” Di Feisheng said. “How could I possibly leave it?”
“Well done, Lao Di,” Fang Duobing said. “Our HuaHua no longer wants any part of that world, but having it now means three or five more hours of having fun with it today. You won’t believe who is overall number one!!”
“You will proceed to tell us immediately,” Li Lianhua said, smiling into his teacup while he picked the first youtiao from the basket.
He was cold from the inside, his joints were aching, there was a vague pressure in his sinuses, and his nether equipment was feeling about as lively as a dead earthworm, but it was still going to be a good day, because it was A-Fei’s and Xiaobao’s list day.
“A-Fei!!!” Xiaobao squealed suddenly. “You are in it! You are even back in the overall top ten!”
“Can’t be,” Di Feisheng said. “I’m no longer even trying.”
“Let me see if I find an explanation,” Fang Duobing said, going through the paper from the leading lists to the part further back where the explanations and short write-ups were. That was the most interesting part, because it explained who had fought whom, and who was defeated in what way.
Li Xiangyi had studied those lists just as ardently when he was young; now, his men would still pore over them and discuss details until they knew it all by heart and could argue about them with other fighters of the jianghu wulin, and their followers. But Li Lianhua no longer cared. Half the names, he hadn’t even heard of before.
“Here it is,” Fang Duobing said, and went on to read out loud, “Surpise comeback of the season -- Di Feisheng, former leader of the Jinyuan Alliance. At the end of the sixth month, fought and vanquished former number five, Jiang Wangxian, in Hangzhou. Rather than killing his opponent, he cut the tendons in his knees; that man will never fight again. A-Fei, when did you even challenge him?”
Di Feisheng chuckled knowingly.
“Hangzhou?” he said. “Doesn’t that ring a bell?”
“Oh, you mean when we -- we came to put paid to his employer, and that guy refused to step aside when he was thoroughly beaten, and you took him out while I tried not to kill the mooks?”
His men had both been gone for three days, one time when they were still down in the Jiangnan area, Li Lianhua remembered, and had come back with smug grins and bloody clothes.
“Another former client of Di Fortress?” he guessed.
“Yes,” Di Feisheng said, flatly. “A rich merchant who could afford to hire an actual ranked fighter as a permanent body guard, in addition to the usual mooks from escort agencies. He must have done so after word got around that people who had hired Di Fortress assassins were meeting bloody ends.”
“The mooks read the lists, too,” Fang Duobing mused, “and they must have recognised you by reputation, and by your dao.”
“But he was fifth,” Di Feisheng said. “That man hired the actual fifth ranking fighter of the wulin to protect him -- it means they are really getting scared now.”
“How many are left on your list?” Li Lianhua asked. He no longer pretended not to know that there had been another, very secret, list of twelve names that Di Feisheng was working his way through, Fang Duobing helping in many cases.
“Five,” Di Feisheng said. He took a small spoon and tasted the congee, turned down the mechanical brazier, and started ladling the steaming, savory rice porridge into three bowls.
“Three,” Fang Duobing said. “I was meaning to tell you -- the dispatches from Baichuan Court that arrived yesterday listed two former Di Fortress clients as having turned themselves in.”
Di Feisheng made a disappointed face as he was bringing the bowls and the fresh pot of tea over.
“I wanted to kill them,” he said bluntly, pointedly not banging the crockery onto the table. “They deserve it. Who were they?”
Fang Duobing got up to fetch the papers he had received the day before, and while he was doing so, Di Feisheng shamelessly stole his seat.
“They are -- hey, I was sitting there!” he said when he turned around.
“The names, please,” Di Feisheng said, starting to pour tea for all of them. Li Lianhua quickly finished his and pushed his empty cup to A-Fei.
Fang Duobing pushed at Di Feisheng’s shoulder, a brief scuffle followed, and then they were snugly sitting together on the bench meant for one person, the list still spread out before them, even though there was a tea stain on it now.
They only very rarely broke furniture any more, and if they did, it mostly had to do with excess energy during dual or triple cultivation.
Fang Duobing said the names, and Di Feisheng scowled even worse. “I really hoped to kill the second one,” he said. “He ordered a suicide mission of three girls -- girls, not women! -- in order to eliminate a business rival. It was about money, and three girls died.”
“There is such a thing as justice in the Jianghu,” Li Lianhua said, archly. “FoBiBaiShi as well as my dear ex-fiancée Qiao Wanmian are working very hard to bring it about. We can just go there, and you tell them what you know. They might yet decide to execute the guy for the sake of the three girls as well as all the people they must have killed on their mission.”
“Bring out the red lanterns, the banners of good fortune, and the big silk ribbons to flutter in the wind!” Fang Duobing declared with a large gesture of his free hand. “Our HuaHua has an actual opinion on jianghu matters! And Lao Di is back on the list; he might even climb it again, if the remaining three clients keep hiring big names.”
“Nah, the four above me are righteous people from orthodox sects that wouldn’t work for the kind of clients that hire child assassins,” Di Feisheng said.
Li Lianhua fondly smiled to himself; at least in the privacy of their own moving home, Di Feisheng was now ready to mention his dire childhood as a matter of course.
“You can still become number one on a specialized list,” Fang Duobing argued. “Number one dao user. Number one not associated with any sect or organization. You get the idea.”
“I do,” Di Feisheng said, “but I no longer feel the need. I might climb the ranks accidentally, but will stop doing so once the last three are gone. Now, what’s much more interesting is who did Zhan Yunfei fight to climb three ranks at once…”
Li Lianhua leaned back and snuck a piece of chicken from his congee to Huli-jing, who was lying on the floor between the bed and the table, eyeing them with only half an open eye.
His guys would be at this all day, most likely, interrupted only by their daily sparring session, washing the dishes, and making more tea. It would preclude him from reading his new books, as he didn’t want to put plugs of wool into his ears to keep their voices out, but their nerdery was entertaining in and of itself.
“Suggestion,” he said, taking another youtiao. “If you spoil me nicely and I feel well enough in the evening, let’s all go into town and celebrate with a good meal cooked by somebody else. Lao Di being back on the official list is cause enough for that, even if it happened accidentally. I have been at the pinnacle of the jianghu as well, and looked down, and didn’t feel the need to go there again; but it is still an achievement.”
“You had me at ‘cooked by somebody else’,” Fang Duobing laughed.
“Hey,” Li Lianhua said. “Don’t be rude, or I might not feel well enough after all.”
“He got much better at it,” Di Feisheng said, bluntly. “Leave his cooking alone. Oh, here it is! Apparently, Zhan Yunfei…”
Li Lianhua zoned them out; he didn’t need to know all the details, even if Zhan Yunfei was an old flame of his, and now Fang Duobing’s uncle-in-law.
He took his tea and three more youtiao and retreated to the bed, to sit wrapped in his Yunnan shawl, idly leaf through the new books, and cuddle the dog who of course joined him immediately.
It was a good day after all.