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Look at me, look at me!
Ba Ye wanted to shout it. Over and over if necessary, until Fo Ye met his eyes and wiped that terribly dazed, blank look off his bloodied face. He wanted to tear Fo Ye away from everyone currently swarming him, and shake him until he started being himself again.
Instead, though, Ba Ye very slowly and carefully sat down again, lowering himself against the fallen tree. There was a mass of Zhangs blocking his view now, which was frustrating, but they were taking care of Fo Ye and he should be grateful for that.
Standing up, let alone as abruptly as he’d done it, had been such a bad idea. He could feel every heartbeat throb painfully in the spot where he’d been skewered. He was maybe going to be sick, except that would probably make things even worse.
“Lao Ba? Are you all right?”
No. “Yes,” he said, squinting up at Xiaoyu. “Is Fo Ye —”
Xiaoyu interrupted him. “Can you come to him? He keeps asking for you. I’m not sure he hears us.”
Ba Ye wanted to wail at the idea of getting up again. He lifted his arms before he could change his mind, and Xiaoyu obediently took hold and pulled him up. He couldn’t not let out a whine, because it hurt even more than he’d expected; much more than last time, without the shocked rush of seeing Fo Ye alive to cushion him this time.
“Lao Ba?” Xiaoyu asked, but Ba Ye just shook his head, breathless. He tilted in the direction of Fo Ye and luckily Xiaoyu understood and began walking without any further attempts at conversation, letting Ba Ye lean on him heavily. It felt like his skin was splitting around the stitches with every step.
Fo Ye had his eyes open, but he was lying on the ground and staring at nothing. Ba Ye had seen plenty of head injuries before, and this one looked… bad. “How did this happen?” he demanded, and Xiaoyu helped lower him to kneel beside Fo Ye as the answers floated in from all sides. An explosion — flung against the rocks — he’d pulled on his blood-strength and fought like a demon, and then when it was over —
“Ba Ye,” Fo Ye said, in a hoarse scratched-up voice.
“Yes, I’m here, yes,” Ba Ye said, and squeezed Fo Ye’s shoulder through the blanket tucked around him. He tried not to pant for breath. His muscles felt watery.
Fo Ye blinked very slowly, and his eyes sluggishly turned towards Ba Ye’s hand, but didn’t quite reach that destination. “Hurt,” he mumbled.
“Yes, you are,” Ba Ye said. “You finally found something harder than your skull.”
It had knocked out Fo Ye’s sense of humour as well, apparently. “You,” Fo Ye snapped, or tried to snap. It had hardly any air in it.
“Xiaoyu stitched me up,” Ba Ye assured him. He paused to catch his breath. “Far more than necessary. I think he embroidered a whole peony on my back.” He watched Fo Ye’s face for a smile and was rewarded with the very faintest shade of one.
“You’d be complaining more right now if I’d used too few stitches,” Xiaoyu muttered.
Ba Ye considered also complaining about his ruined clothes, but it seemed like it might come across as rather churlish, and additionally he didn’t wish to remember the amount of blood there had been on them. “You see, Fo Ye? Things are fine. Don’t worry.”
Except he was remembering, unfortunately. It must have been that memory which was making him feel faint suddenly, his head and stomach swooping. “Xiaoyu, I, I need to sit down.” Oh, but he was already sitting down. “Xiaoyu —”
Xiaoyu grabbed his shoulders, taking his weight. Or someone did. Hands were helping him lie down, on his front. He was cold, shivering, but breaking out clammily into sweat.
“Lao Ba?” Fo Ye called, alarmed, confused. “Where —”
“Yes,” Ba Ye gasped. He groped a hand in Fo Ye’s direction, and someone helped place it on his arm. “Here.” He closed his eyes, which made him feel a bit steadier, and Fo Ye clearly wasn’t taking much in right now so he wouldn’t be offended.
He might have passed out for a while, because a conversation suddenly jumped into its middle over his head. About moving.
“I’m not moving,” he said, into the grass. Some of it got into his mouth.
“Lao Ba?” It must be Wu Laogou tapping him on the face to accompany his voice. “Are you awake?”
The urge to say no was so very strong. “Let’s just… rest here. Not move.”
“Sorry,” Wu Laogou said. “We need to get off the mountain and reach one of the villages downriver. Everyone needs shelter. And food.”
“Send Xiaoyu,” Ba Ye grumbled.
There were multiple exasperated huffs from above him.
“You’re not expected to walk,” Huo Xiangu said. “We’ve made litters, to carry you and Fo Ye.”
That sounded not so horrible, until Wu Laogou and Xiaoyu helped him crawl onto his. They’d lashed crossbeams all the way down between long poles so that he could lie flat on his front, except everything had been freshly scavenged from the forest so even with a blanket covering the rough bark of the sticks their uneven bumps still jabbed into him.
“Ba Ye,” Fo Ye gasped, sudden and sharp.
Ba Ye tried to reply, but then he was being lifted and only managed a groan.
“Ba Ye,” Fo Ye said again, insistently.
“He was like this before Xiaoyu brought you over,” Wu Laogou said. “Wouldn’t listen to anyone else.”
Ba Ye jolted against the sticks with every step they Wu Laogou and Xiaoyu took. Wriggling to try and find a more comfortable position sent up ribbons of fire through his nerves and he groaned again.
“Lao Ba?” Xiaoyu asked, worriedly. And Fo Ye echoed him, sounding even more worried.
“It’s fine,” Ba Ye forced out. “Just, this transport. Awful. Worse than — your motorcycle.” He took several breaths which were as deep as he could manage, and then felt up to opening his eyes again. They were carrying Fo Ye’s litter next to his, which was good. “Ai, yours is more like a hammock. The world isn’t fair.”
He could see Fo Ye’s face relax a little as he spoke. Fo Ye had closed his eyes, which was good, he needed to sleep, but then as Ba Ye caught glimpses of him between both their litters jolting up and down asynchronously he opened his eyes again, that same glassy anxious stare that was making Ba Ye’s heart hurt.
“Settle down, settle down,” Ba Ye ordered him. “I know you’re the terrifying Zhang Da Fo Ye, but you did get your skull caved in. Surely even you need to rest after that.” He was gratified to see that it worked, and Fo Ye closed his eyes. Maybe the first time ever that Fo Ye had listened to him without making a song and dance of it. Ba Ye hummed in satisfaction and closed his own eyes, catching his breath tightly a moment later as the next jolt found him. Maybe he could manage to fall down into unconsciousness. He had a worry that sea-sickness would find him first.
“Lao Ba?” Xiaoyu asked, again, and Ba Ye opened his eyes with a frustrated groan. He hurt, and he wanted to be not awake.
But then he saw that Fo Ye had once again unsettled himself, this time reaching out with a uselessly grasping hand, searching for… something. “Fo Ye,” he snapped. “We’re all right here. No one’s disappearing.”
“Can you keep on talking to him?” Xiaoyu asked.
“What? What about?”
Wu Laogou snorted with laughter. “Are you ever short on things to talk about?”
“I am hurt,” Ba Ye protested. “Stop being unkind to me.”
“Ba Ye, you could explain what we discovered in the laboratory,” Xiaoyu suggested. His tone was placating, which Ba Ye was frankly happy to receive.
So he repeated the summary of his findings from Yin Changsheng’s research. It wasn’t as good a delivery as the previous one, because he had to keep stopping to catch his breath. Wu Laogou was moderately interested, probably because it involved beasts.
Then he moved on to the story of the zhainiangniang hunt, because Wu Laogou hadn’t been interested in hearing it while he’d been missing his memories. Xiaoyu made embarrassed sounds at various points, which Ba Ye meanly took pleasure in because he was hurting so much and it wasn’t fair. But then Fo Ye was hurt too, maybe more seriously, and that was even more unfair, and his words stumbled around this confusion while he felt ashamed and anxious.
“Lao Ba? …We’ll take a break here.”
They lowered him carefully to the ground, and being still was a momentary relief, but quickly his whole back began throbbing again, pulse after pulse, as if he was still swaying along.
“Here, drink.” Someone was poking a stick into his mouth and he tried to push it away because he wasn’t in the mood for stupid jokes. But it was patiently replaced and he realised it was a bamboo straw. He took a sip.
“More than that, come on”
He grunted negatively, and tried to turn his head so that his face was hidden.
“Ba Ye, please, you have to drink some more.”
“Try ordering him like Fo Ye does.”
Ba Ye cracked his eyes open at Fo Ye’s name. Xiaoyu, his mask a black shadow, pushed the straw against his lips again, and Ba Ye reluctantly sucked up another mouthful of water and swallowed.
“Fo Ye?” he croaked, when he’d been allowed to push the straw away again.
“He’s sleeping,” Xiaoyu said, but he couldn’t disguise the worry in his voice.
Ba Ye made the effort to lift himself enough to turn his head to the other side, trying to ignore the way his back tried to stop him. Fo Ye had his men from Unit 401 around him, of course. Ba Ye couldn’t make out anyone’s faces from where he lay. The light must be going. Fo Ye, look at me! he wanted to call, to reassure himself that Fo Ye was all right — but of course Fo Ye wasn’t all right, and disturbing him wasn’t going to help.
A palm settled briefly across his forehead.
“How is he?” Wu Laogou asked.
“Warm, but no fever,” Xiaoyu said.
“Let me check.”
Ba Ye made an annoyed noise as Wu Laogou put his hand on Ba Ye’s forehead too, then another as the hand moved to his pulse.
“You should eat something,” Wu Laogou said.
“I will vomit it back up on you,” Ba Ye retorted, with as much dignity as he could summon.
There was a brief pause, with some whispering. “Ba Ye,” Xiaoyu said, diffidently, “We want to check your injury.”
Ba Ye groaned, and carried on trying to get a glimpse of Fo Ye. “Go on then.”
“We need you to sit up. The bandaging goes all around your stomach.”
“Why did you do it like that, then?” Ba Ye demanded, aware that it was extremely unfair of him but not caring.
No one bothered to argue with him about it. “You take his arms, I’ve got his legs,” Wu Laoguo said, and before Ba Ye could do more than take a quick panicked inhale he was being lifted and turned at the same time into a sitting position. It was like being stabbed all over again, maybe with a blade that was red-hot at the same time, and the only thing which prevented him screaming was not wanting to wake Fo Ye. He clenched his teeth so at least the sound which tore out of him was somewhat muffled. The arms around him were holding him up and he leaned heavily into them, letting his head rest against a leather-clad shoulder.
His undershirt was being tucked up and the wrappings undone. Some of the strips were the sleeves of his previous, now thoroughly ruined, undershirt. The mountain air was freezing cold against his skin, but also soothing.
“All the stitches are holding,” Wu Laogou said. “A lot of inflammation but no sign of infection so far. You did a good job, Fuguan.”
“Are you a doctor now?” Ba Ye asked, but he was still too breathless from the pain to be able to put any sharpness into it. His eyes were still closed against Xiaoyu’s shoulder.
“Stitching wounds is the same for dogs as for people,” Wu Laogou said. He began replacing the bindings. “Although dogs complain a lot less than you do, Lao Ba.”
Dogs probably got better treatment from him. Although his hands were surprisingly gentle. Ba Ye took shallow breaths as Wu Laogou took his time rewinding the bandages and tugged the undershirt back into place over the top of them.
“How is he?” Huo Xiangu asked. No one appeared to answer. After a moment she continued, “It’ll start getting dark soon. The men want to continue rather than rest overnight. They’re worried about them both.”
“Fo Ye? How is he?” Ba Ye asked, someone surprised to realise his face was still pressed against Xiaoyu’s jacket.
There was another short silence. “Sleeping,” Huo Xiangu finally said. “Shouldn’t you be? Why do these two have you up?”
“To poke and prod at me,” Ba Ye complained. He got an arm up so that he could push off against Xiaoyu’s shoulder, and look around through the trees. The Unit 401 men were taking advantage of the break, sitting or lying in small groups.
“We need to know you’ll survive the journey,” Wu Laogou said. It was remarkably free of sarcasm, probably because Huo Xiangu was looking at him.
“I’ll go back to the front,” Huo Xiangu said. “Signal when you’re ready to move on.”
Ba Ye considered the benefits of flopping against Xiaoyu’s shoulder again. It seemed like it would take the least amount of effort of any of the options.
“Should we help you lie down again?” Xiaoyu asked.
Wu Laogou shook his head. “Since he’s halfway up already, he should try and pass water. And he still needs to eat something.”
“Stop acting like I’m one of your dogs,” Ba Ye said, irritably. Unfortunately, Wu Laogou was right, so he allowed them both to help him get to his feet and then stumble over to a tree he could lean against. He was currently very short on dignity, but at least he could preserve that much. There was blood in what he passed.
Wu Laogou, still playing doctor, of course asked him about it directly, and looked unhappy with the answer. “I’ve seen dogs recover from worse,” was what he actually said, though.
“Is there anything we can do?” Xiaoyu asked him.
“Food, water, rest,” Wu Laogou said. “Hope the stitches continue holding.”
“Stop talking like I’m not here,” Ba Ye demanded. He was reluctantly chewing some dried fruit, having been finally bullied into choosing something. On his feet still, Xiaoyu under his shoulder, because he wanted to change positions as few times as possible. And also because he could see Fo Ye from here, or at least his face, since the rest of him was all tucked up under a blanket. Most of the blood had been wiped off. There was something of a lurching fear which went along with seeing Fo Ye unconscious, but the root of that was several years behind by now, and also it wasn’t the result of a curse this time. Just from the sort of human frailty Fo Ye usually worked so hard not to show.
“Lao Ba!” Wu Laogou said, loudly, and poked his arm.
“What?”
“Don’t complain we’re talking around you and then stop listening.”
Ba Ye made a face at him. “What, then?”
“Are you ready to move on?”
Well. He had to be.
“You can wait another moment if you drink more water,” Wu Laogou suggested.
It was not a fair trade, but Ba Ye didn’t have a good hand. He sulkily took a couple more sips of water, bigger ones this time, which made Xiaoyu look disproportionately pleased.
His knees were shaking as they helped him lie down again. Just standing for such a short time shouldn’t have tired him out so much. But he didn’t even register the litter being picked up. He was so exhausted that its rocking movement even seemed comfortable.
He dozed, and slept, and dozed. The pain in his back was a dull ache that he couldn’t shake his awareness of.
Abruptly he was falling. And then there was agony, white-hot pain, and he screamed and screamed. Trying to curl up, but that made it worse —
“Lao Ba. Lao Ba!” There were hands cupping his face, holding him still.
He’d run out of air. He pulled in a gasping breath. Didn’t want to let this one out, because Fo Ye —
But Fo Ye’s face was above him, almost luminous in the dusk, eyes wide, dried blood and mottled bruising along his hairline.
“I’m all right,” Ba Ye managed to whisper. “Fo Ye, I’m all right.”
He could see the moment when the burst of adrenaline wore off. Fo Ye slumped back on his knees, his face going pallid. Zhang Lai caught his shoulders to steady him.
“I’m sorry,” Xiaoyu said. He was crouched on the ground on Ba Ye’s left. “Ba Ye, I’m so sorry. I tripped.”
Ba Ye wasn’t up to more talking. He reached to give Xiaoyu’s hand a clumsy pat.
“It’s because you’re tired.” Huo Xiangu had reappeared, and stood above them with her arms folded. “The Zhang soldiers carrying Fo Ye have been swapping out. Why haven’t you two?”
There was a silence. “Because…” Wu Laogou began, and petered out.
Huo Xiangu sighed heavily.
Fo Ye slumped further, his eyes slipping closed. Another of the Zhangs dropped down to help Zhang Lai with him.
“Fo Ye, please lie down again,” Zhang Lai said, trying to pull him over towards his litter.
Fo Ye resisted stubbornly. His eyes were fully closed now, but his hand was around Ba Ye’s arm, and not letting go.
“Fo Ye, don’t be stubborn,” Ba Ye said. He shuddered around another breath in and out. “You look terrible. Lie down and get warm.” They hadn’t got a shirt on Fo Ye before piling him with blankets, and now his chest was prickling with gooseflesh. The tattoo lines were fully hidden. “It’s not helping to hold on to me like this. I want us to get going too.” Another deep and painful breath. “Or at least, I want us to arrive somewhere I can actually sleep comfortably.”
Miraculously, Fo Ye listened. He let go of Ba Ye’s arm, and attempted to help the two Zhangs manoeuver him back over to his litter, although it frankly looked like he was mostly making things more difficult.
“Keep him warm,” Ba Ye said, anxiously.
“Yes, Ba Ye,” the Zhang who wasn’t Zhang Lai said, over his shoulder. He tucked the blanket over Fo Ye again with appropriate solicitousness, then turned back and frowned. “Are you cold?”
“I don’t know?” Ba Ye said, with complete honesty. He just felt… all-over bad.
That was a mistake, because the next moment Fo Ye was trying to get up again, presumably to sacrifice his own blanket.
“Stop that!” Ba Ye snapped, adding his voice to the general calls of alarm. It was getting difficult to lift up his head, but speaking used less effort. “How much falling over do you want to do in one day? Lie still!”
Fo Ye partially settled. He was mumbling something, which Ba Ye couldn’t make out.
He was still trying when warmth settled over his upper body and shoulders and he suddenly realised quite conclusively that yes, he had been cold. “Oh,” he said, because it was someone’s jacket, heavy and still body-warm. “Thank you. Don’t you need it?”
“It’s fine, Ba Ye,” Xiaoyu said. “I’m too hot from walking, anyway.”
Another jacket was placed over his midriff, and then another over his legs. He actually sighed with gratitude. “Mmm. Thank you.” He raised his voice slightly. “Fo Ye, I’ve got blankets now. Jackets. From Xiaoyu and other people.”
“Are you ready to move?” Wu Laogou asked him.
“But you’re not allowed —” Ba Ye began, flustered.
Someone laughed. It was probably Huo Xiangu.
“Ba Ye, we’re carrying you this time.” A different voice. “Zhang Mo and Zhang Weifeng.”
“Oh. Good.” He braced as he was lifted. He was so tired of this being ported around like a sack of rice. “Make sure Wu Ye and Xiaoyu keep doing as they’re told.” He raised his voice again. “And Fo Ye. Especially Fo Ye.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t dare do otherwise,” Wu Laogou said.
“Mmm,” Ba Ye said, skeptically.
He drifted, as much as he could when he could feel every step. Xiaoyu and Wu Laogou had carried him more gently, he was sure. It was beginning to feel like the blade which had stabbed into his back was still there. He wondered if they’d made quite certain it had come out.
“Yes, Fo Ye, he’s fine,” he heard someone say, distantly. “He’s quiet because he’s resting.”
“Who can rest like this?” Ba Ye grumbled, and heard some muffled laughter again, but couldn’t put a name to it this time. He made a face into the crossbeams of his litter anyway. “Is Fo Ye fretting again? Tell him to stop it.”
“There, Fo Ye, can you hear him?”
“I shall remind him of this the next time he tries to say I talk too much,” Ba Ye said. He didn’t need his eyes open, and it was dark anyway. “One time, when we were in Changsha —”
He fell into his story, one he’d told to many audiences before. It was good to have something to take some of his attention from his current misery. Xiaoyu and Wu Laogou had probably heard it before but he got appreciative noises from the Unit 401 soldiers near to him, and silence from Fo Ye’s direction.
Afterwards he went into another story, words rattling off his tongue without much conscious thought. It might not even be a story, just a ramble about a particularly muddy Spring. He felt he should probably talk about something more interesting, and turned his ramble into the story of the Xinyue Hotel auction.
(“Ba Ye, did that really happen?”
“Yes, but you were there, don’t you remember?”
“I was inside the coffin, wasn’t I?”
“Oh. I suppose.”)
…Except, he heard himself mentioning Er Ye, which was wrong, wasn’t it? No, that was the other Xinyue auction. One of them. Which one had he been talking about?
(“Don’t worry, Ba Ye. You can just keep going.”)
Yes, but they hadn’t saved Yatou after all so it was a sad story really. He had better stories. His tongue could tell them even though he was too tired to think.
A bigger jolt than usual knocked him out of his flow. “What was I talking about?” he asked, when he’d got his breath back.
“Ba Ye,” Wu Laogou said, “I have absolutely no idea.”
Hurrying feet interrupted them. “We’ve reached the village!” the runner called out. “Qi Ye is talking with them.”
They came among lights shortly afterwards, although they weren’t good lights because they didn’t illuminate properly; only separated things into flame-orange blurs and deeper patches of darkness between. “Xiaoyu!”
“I’m here, Ba Ye,” Xiaoyu said, briefly touching him on his arm. “What is it?”
“Do they know — Tell them Fo Ye needs a doctor.”
“Yes, thank you,” Xiaoyu said. “I’ll tell them that.”
“Good. Good. Let’s stop here.”
“In just a few minutes,” Xiaoyu said. “There’s a guesthouse. They’re opening it up for us.”
Each minute seemed like it stretched for hours, now that the promise of a lack of motion had been dangled in front of him. But finally he was being lifted by multiple hands onto a soft, stationary surface. The sheets smelled somewhat dusty but he could still have cried in relief.
“I’m going to take the bandages off again, all right?” Wu Laogou asked, and frankly Ba Ye didn’t care. No one made him sit up for it this time and all of his back was already one aching mass of fire. He barely felt the careful unwrapping in comparison.
Besides, he opened his eyes in time to see Fo Ye being settled on the other side of the bed, not stirring at all. Ba Ye reached out a clumsy hand and got hold of Fo Ye’s wrist, pressing his fingers along it until he found his pulse, steady and slow.
Xiaoyu appeared on that other side, covering Fo Ye up with a new, much warmer-looking blanket.
“He needs a shirt,” Ba Ye said.
“Yes, we’re sending for supplies,” Xiaoyu said. “They’re happy to look after us here for a few days.”
“Lao Ba,” Wu Laogou said, on his near side, and Ba Ye reluctantly rolled his head over to look at him. “Here.” He shoved the bamboo straw back into Ba Ye’s mouth, and he drank without protest this time. “Now this.” Wu Laogou proffered a cup with a dark liquid inside.
“What’s it?” Ba Ye asked.
“Medicine. Drink it.”
Ba Ye accepted, though the taste made his mouth pucker.
“Now go to sleep,” Wu Laogou said. “Lie still and you should heal well.”
“I am still not one of your dogs,” Ba Ye grumbled. He fought his head back around until he could see Xiaoyu cleaning the remainder of the dried blood from Fo Ye’s hairline with a damp cloth.
“He will also heal well,” Xiaoyu said, reassuringly, seeing Ba Ye’s eyes on him. “He’s —”
“Yes, I know,” Ba Ye grumbled. “You Zhangs.” He was already having to fight to keep his eyes open.
“Sleep, Lao Ba,” Fo Ye murmured, without opening his eyes.
“See?” Wu Laogou said. “Everyone agrees —”
Ba Ye didn’t hear the rest of the sentence.