Chapter Text
The rain stopped at 19:47, exactly as scheduled.
Hu Tao watched the last droplets fade from the skygrid above, their silver threads dissolving into the neon haze that perpetually hung over Liyue Harbor. She'd counted the seconds once—forty-seven minutes of perfect, programmed precipitation, falling in rhythmic patterns that matched the circadian cycles of three million people living beneath.
Tonight, she didn't count. Tonight, she just watched.
Seventeen years old. Director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. Seventy-seventh in the line. Youngest they'd ever had.
Youngest and most tired, she thought, pressing her palms against the observation deck railing. The metal was cold beneath her gloves, impersonal and sterile like everything else in this fifty-story monolith of glass and steel that had once been a humble funeral parlor.
Below, the city pulsed with its usual rhythm. Holographic advertisements flickered across the faces of passing drones. A street vendor was selling synthetic noodles from a cart that hovered three feet off the ground. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed—the old-fashioned kind, not the digital alert that pinged directly into your neural implant.
Hu Tao liked the old-fashioned things. They felt real.
"Director Hu."
She didn't turn around. She knew that voice—Assistant Manager Chen, one of the dozen or so people who actually reported to her in this corporate nightmare disguised as a funeral service.
"Chen," she said, keeping her gaze on the city. Her voice was casual, light, the way she always sounded when she was about to deliver bad news or make a joke about death. Old habits. "What is it? Did someone finally figure out how to upload their soul into a vending machine? Because I told the board that was a terrible idea, but do they listen? Nooo."
"We have a situation on floor twenty-three. Memorial Services."
Hu Tao's shoulders dropped. The joke died in her throat.
Of course we do, she thought. Because why would anything ever be simple?
She turned to face him then, forcing a grin that felt brittle around the edges. Chen was older—forties, maybe fifties—with the kind of polished efficiency that came from years of working in corporate environments where emotions were metrics and grief was a KPI. He wore the standard Wangsheng uniform, crisp and white, with the stylized flame insignia embroidered over his heart.
It looked ridiculous on him. The flame was supposed to represent the soul's journey, the beautiful impermanence of existence, the poetry of endings. On Chen, it looked like a logo.
"What kind of situation?" Hu Tao asked, pushing off the railing. She walked toward him, her boots clicking against the polished floor. Every step echoed in the empty observation deck, a reminder that she was alone up here. Alone like she'd been for three years.
"Lin Yue. Twenty-four years old. Her mother died three weeks ago." Chen paused, checking his datapad. The screen cast blue light across his face, making him look like a ghost. "She won't let us process the body. Won't upload the consciousness. Won't schedule the memorial. She just… sits there. With the body. In the viewing room."
"Sits there?"
"Twenty-three days. She hasn't left. She hasn't eaten much. She hasn't slept. She just sits there, holding her mother's hand, waiting for her to wake up."
Hu Tao's fingers tightened on the railing she'd just left. The metal bit into her palms, sharp and real.
Twenty-three days.
She'd once waited twenty-three days for something too. Not a body. Not a mother. A message. A reply. A sign that someone still cared.
Don't, she told herself. Don't go there. Not tonight.
Below, the city continued its endless performance. Holographic koi swam through the air between towers, their scales shimmering with advertisements for consciousness upload packages. Live Forever in the Cloud! the largest one proclaimed. Your Memories Deserve Better Than Decay!
Hu Tao wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or throw something through the nearest window.
"Her family tried to intervene?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral. She was good at neutral. Neutral was safe. Neutral didn't require feeling things.
"Her friends, her colleagues, everyone. She won't listen. She says her mother isn't dead. That she's just… sleeping. That if she waits long enough, she'll wake up."
Hu Tao was quiet for a long moment. She thought about her grandmother, about the stories she'd told of the old Liyue—the one before the skygrid, before the Transition, before death became a subscription service. She thought about the woman who had taught her that grief was the price of love, that if you didn't hurt, you didn't really care.
Grief is the price of love.
She thought about the girl on floor twenty-three, holding her mother's hand for twenty-three days, waiting for a woman who would never wake up.
And she thought about him.
No. She shoved the thought away, hard. *Not him. Not tonight. Not when I'm already—
"Has anyone talked to her?" Hu Tao asked finally.
"Not successfully. We've sent counselors, therapists, grief specialists. She won't listen to any of them." Chen paused, his expression shifting slightly. He looked uncomfortable now, which was new. Chen was never uncomfortable. Chen was a machine. "There is… one possibility."
Hu Tao raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Do we have a secret weapon I don't know about? A grief ray? A consciousness cannon?"
"Xingqiu."
The name hit her like a physical blow.
Three years.
One thousand, ninety-five days.
Twenty-six thousand, two hundred and eighty hours.
She hadn't counted. Not really.
"Xingqiu," she repeated, and her voice was flat now, dead, the way it had been the day he stopped answering her messages. "The second young master of the Feiyun Commerce Guild? The poet who hides in his apartment writing verses about rain and impermanence?"
"The same." Chen's datapad pinged, and he glanced at it briefly. "He's good with words, Director. Better than anyone I know. He makes people feel things they don't want to feel. He makes them remember things they've forgotten."
Hu Tao turned back to the city, her fingers tightening on the railing until her knuckles turned white. The Feiyun Commerce Guild tower loomed in the distance, a monolith of glass and light that had dominated the skyline for generations. His name was on that building, in letters so large they could be seen from the Skywalk.
XINGQIU. FEIYUN. HEIR. SUCCESSOR. BURDEN.
Traitor, she thought, and the word tasted bitter on her tongue. Coward. Liar.
Love of my life.
She swallowed the last thought before it could escape. Some things weren't meant to be said out loud. Some wounds didn't heal, they just scarred over and ached when it rained.
"Where is he?" she asked.
"Last known location: his apartment in the old district. Balcony level, unit 47-B."
Hu Tao smiled, sharp and bright, though it didn't reach her eyes. It was her best smile—the one she used at funerals when families needed to see strength, the one she used at board meetings when executives needed to see confidence, the one she used when she was falling apart inside and the world needed to see a director.
"Good," she said, pushing off the railing. "Then I know where to find him."
She walked past Chen toward the elevator, her boots clicking against the floor. Each step was deliberate, purposeful, like she had a plan. Like she knew what she was doing.
Eight seconds, she thought. That's how long it took to pick his maglock three years ago. I wonder if it still takes eight seconds.
Eight seconds to break into his apartment.
Eight seconds to break into his heart.
Eight seconds to break everything.
The elevator doors opened, and Hu Tao stepped inside. The doors closed behind her, and for a moment she was alone in the small, mirrored space. She caught her reflection in the polished metal—seventeen years old, director's coat, dark circles under her eyes.
She looked tired.
She looked lonely.
She looked like someone who hadn't stopped loving someone who'd stopped loving her back.
This is a terrible idea, she thought as the elevator descended. He'll slam the door in my face. Or worse—he'll open it, and he'll look at me like I'm a stranger, and I'll remember that three years is a long time to be gone.
Three years is a lifetime.
Three years is nothing.
The elevator stopped, and the doors opened onto the lobby. Hu Tao stepped out, her grin back in place, her shoulders straight, her eyes forward.
Twenty-three days, she thought, walking toward the exit. That's how long Lin Yue has been waiting for her mother to wake up.
Twenty-three days is nothing compared to three years.
But I'm still waiting too.
The night air hit her like a wall as she stepped outside, cold and sharp and real. The rain had started again, falling in perfect sheets from the skygrid above. Hu Tao tilted her head back, letting the droplets hit her face.
It felt like the old rain.
It felt like him.
Eight seconds, she thought, pulling her coat tighter. Let's see if I still remember how.
She disappeared into the neon-lit streets of Liyue Harbor, heading for the old district, heading for the past, heading for the boy who'd broken her heart and never apologized.
This is going to be a disaster, Hu Tao thought, and grinned.
Disasters make the best stories.