Chapter Text
"What's that?"
A voice chirped to his right all of a sudden, startling him out of his musings.
"Linglong! I told you not to sneak up on me like that…" cried out Tianhao. "I spent the whole night waiting for the concoction to settle. If anything happens to it now I'll have to start all over again…"
The young girl hid her snicker behind a well-placed cough, stepping back with an apologetic grin. "Sorry, sorry, Xiao Tang," she said, palms up. "You were so focused, I didn't want to disturb you…"
But you did anyway, thought Tianhao with a sigh. He then smiled and beckoned her closer—he could never stay mad at her.
"Come closer, I want to show you something."
They spent the rest of the day talking about the new poisonous plants he'd managed to cultivate- well, it was mostly him rattling off his discoveries and Linglong listening intently. And listen she did. His chest huffed and puffed from all the air he'd lost in his nonstop rambling, and when he turned his head, he yelped. Linglong's face was inches away from his, looking down intently at the notes he was showing her.
Too close! He wailed, trying to calm down his racing heart.
"Hm…I see. So that's what the mark looks like if they try to delay the poison?"
"H-huh? O-oh, yeah…"
She hummed. "Looks kinda pretty. Kinda like the roots of your plants, don't you think?"
He blinked, "I…guess so? The veins of the human body do resemble roots, now that you mention it."
"So pretty…and yet so dangerous." A small frown grew on the girl's lips, "I wouldn't want to see it on anyone's skin."
At her words, Tianhao felt his breath catch.
And there it was, the crux of the problem. No matter how much he wanted or prayed, the fate of his family would never be able to steer away from their expertise in killing others with their poison-clad hands. Ever since his uncle became the head of the family, he'd seen too much tragedy at the hands of his family members, his father's futile attempt to shield him crumbling into pieces after his death.
Tucked away in his very own corner of the Tang Sect mansion, Tang Tianhao pretended not to see or hear the caws of the ravens circling over his family, burying his head in his plants and scrolls and calculations, because only then could he drown out the guilt eating away at the edges of his heart.
Besides…it wasn't like anyone cared about what he thinks in his family. You’re too soft, his father had said. Too weak to be the next head of the family, his family would whisper behind closed doors. What a disappointment of an heir.
Even if he wanted to stop it, he was…simply powerless…
A piece of paper was suddenly thrust in his face, stopping his train of thoughts.
"Is there an antidote for this one?"
He blinked. "…Come again?"
"This…'Old Souls at First Glance', is there an antidote for it?" She shook the paper in her hand pointedly. "Surely something this dangerous wouldn't have no cure, right? What if someone in your family got struck by it?"
"Oh! No, not yet but…I've been working on it! The makeup of the poison itself is really intricate, but as long as I trace back to its base ingredients—"
His worries melted away from his mind as he continued rattling off the exact combination and amount of grounded beetle and blood-withered grass to offset the first hurdle of the symptoms.
That's right. Even if he couldn't change the fate of his family or dare to bear its sins, at the very least…he could do this.
With a lighter heart, he beamed at Linglong who smiled back just as wide.
"You went through life and death together…doesn't that mean he'll soon be as important to you as me, your childhood friend—?!"
Linglong cut him off with a fond eyeroll.
"In your mind, is everything I do for the sake of romance?" she rebuked him.
Before meeting Zhan Zhao and his friends, before his uncle's death, before…everything, his entire world was his poisons, his plants, his scrolls…and his few friends.
Xiao Zhao sent him occasional letters updating him of the changes in the court, and he in turn would update him on the ongoings of his clan (what little he did know), but mostly he used it to boast whenever anything Linglong-related happened. Tianhao would roll his eyes whenever he read those letters. He understood the deep admiration the prince had towards Linglong—truly, he felt the same! But the way the other would wax poetry and gush about every little thing she did felt much too corny for his taste.
Linglong truly had too many admirers…
Linglong…
She was…the only true friend he's ever had, the only other person he corresponded with regularly, day or night. The person he shared his woes with whenever his uncle decided something for the clan that his father never would, a trusted friend he would update when there's progress on his newest project and…she was about to be whisked away into a marriage she didn't even want, with a person they both didn't like…
He remembered the letters leading up to the eventual runaway, his back and forth with Xiao Zhao before the prince revealed (or boasted, really), that Linglong came to him first.
He still could clearly recall the deepseated anxiety seeping alongside jealousy—emotions only an older him would realize stemmed from his insecurity. His words echoed back at him—
"…Doesn't that mean he'll soon be as important to you as me, your childhood friend?"
Looking back…perhaps his fear was not unfounded.
But now, with the fate of his people under his hands, the sins of his forebearers sitting heavily in the depth of his heart…he realized how trivial all that was, and how narrow his world truly was.
"You just wanted to preserve the innocence of your youth," Zhan Zhao had smiled at him, no traces of animosity despite the innumerable trouble and pain his inaction had caused.
It was then he realized how lucky he was to have known Linglong and had the chance to meet Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.
And as he watched Linglong talking and smiling next to the two men, comfortable and content in her quiet affection despite the heavier set of her shoulders and the shadow lingering behind her eyes…maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to share her friendship with them. And who knows? Maybe there was still space for him as her childhood friend even with others filling up her heart to the brim.