Psychedelic Purple #9: Chasing the Bat - Part 1 (Lin Moniao Series)

[ilthit]

Name: Chasing the Bat - Part 1
Story: Lin Moniao Series (AO3 link)
Colors: Psychedelic Purple #9 (I don't care too much for money)
Supplies and Styles: gesso; interactive art, life drawing, mural, silhouette
Word Count: 34K
Rating: explicit
Warnings: Dual cultivation, betrayal, murder, light BDSM, messy polyamory, graphic violence, reference to rape, reference to child abuse, self-harm ideation.
Summary: The Illustrious Qilin Villa has promised to acquire the treasure known as the Obsidian Bat for Xie Lijuan, the Heartless Dagger, and Lin Moniao and an old friend team up to track it down.
Note: Co-written with minutia_r . Also available on AO3 here, with some more notes and art - and the full text. I had to split this in two because it is over Dreamwidth's single-post character allowance.

-

Beggar Huang

"Let's go fishing," Hua-shixiong says.

It's the day after Master Wu and Master Guo returned to the Illustrious Qilin Villa to pay their respects to the ancestral tablet of Master Gao, their shixiong, and this night will be the last night before the Hungry Ghosts festival. The summer has been long, hot and bright, but now the sky is white and gray, and the wind over the water is almost cool.

The Villa is built partly over a small island and partly on poles sunk into the lake bed, facing the expanse of the lake on one side and a long bridge back to land on the other. A rocky outcropping on the lake side has always been a favorite spot for fishing and swimming whenever the studying, training and work allowed. It is also a good place to hide if you don't want to get drafted into additional chores. Of course you hadn't heard there was extra work to be done, you were fishing for something fresh for the midday meal--isn't it a good thing to feed your brothers? Even if you don't catch anything, it's the thought that matters.

Hua Haoyu has spent enough time at the Villa to have a sixth sense for when chores are about to be handed out, and in this fork of time after a morning of lighting joss sticks and saying prayers for the departed, and before the midday meal, seems ideal for telling idlers to pick up making extra food for offerings or run out to the nearest village to buy more lanterns and paper goods, or tidy up the foyer and hang up decorations. Or worse, get back on the training fields and show the masters you haven't been slacking off in your training in their absence.

"It's been ages since I was fishing," Lin Moniao agrees. "The fish here must be getting fat and bold lately, believing themselves quite safe. We ought to teach them the error of their ways, eh?"

Hua-shixiong chuckles. "The fish elders will see your face and it will lull them into complacence. They'll tell the younger ones not to worry--it's just Lin Moniao! Then I will get them." He makes a snatching motion, then runs off and returns a moment later with a net on a hoop and fishing lines with hooks, and a small basket of dried bait.

Yu Long catches up with them as they head for the fishing spot, jogging up from the direction of the shrine. At first Hua Haoyu jogs faster just in case he has a chore to give, but he just shows them a bundle of fresh dumplings and a bottle of ale, and so he's invited along.

"It's good weather for fishing," Hua Haoyu declares as he sits and sets the bait in his hook. The wind has stirred the waters and made them impenetrable, gray as steel.

Lin Moniao stretches out comfortably on the shore. "All weather is good weather for fishing, as long as it's not raining too hard to sit outdoors. And even then it depends what chores are waiting indoors."

"Hear, hear," says Hua Haoyu and hands him the end of a fishing line to hold.

Yu Long squats on the edge of the water, gazing thoughtfully over the lake. "I wish Dong Yuan was here," he says at last, poking a stick into the water and scaring away a fish--a flash of its silvery side shows through the surface as it flicks away. "What if we're never together like this again, here?"

Lin Moniao holds loosely onto his line, watching it disappear beneath the surface. "Of course we will be," he says, as if he hasn't been thinking the same thing himself. "Dong Yuan will return with fabulous treasures and stories of being chased by creatures unheard of in civilized lands. And then he will drink all the ale himself and not leave us any, so we might as well enjoy it while we can," he adds, reaching for the bottle.

Hua Haoyu leans back on his free hand, gloom sneaking back on his too-easily-read face. "Alright, I think we all know something we're not telling the others. Don't we?" He tugs at his line a little, making the bait dance enticingly somewhere unseen in the water. "We've all been expecting some kind of a big announcement. There's rumors about what it will be, most of them silly. But there have been three inventories of the treasury in the last two months, and some of those treasures have gone out in grand procession as presents to other sects. So I know something's going on."

"I've been told not to discuss it," Lin Moniao admits, taking a long drink. "Although really I don't see the harm, there's bound to be a general announcement any day now."

Of all the things Lin Moniao knows that he's not telling the others, that one is fairly safe. And of the things that both he and Yu Long know--well, hopefully a change of subject will make Yu Long less tempted to spill them.

Hua Haoyu groans. "Oh, of course you would know everything and not tell any of it." He sighs. "I'll never get a rich and powerful lover. They'll think I'll tell everyone what they say in their sleep. And I probably would, too. Would you like to know what I've figured out? I'll tell you anyhow. The sect is bracing up to go to war with someone. I don't know who, but they're sugaring up all the other sects so they'll stay out of it. The Leng-Piao sect--or rather the Lengs and the Piaos, now--and the Dragon Clan have all been sent treasures. We've been collecting more wonderful weapons. If Master Wu manages to win recognition from the Empire, it might mean whoever we're going after won't have imperial protection... I bet that's it. And they've been planning it for years, longer than we've been members."

"There, there." Lin Moniao pats Hua Haoyu consolingly on the arm, then has to dive after his fishing line before it gets washed away. "I'm sure your rich and powerful lover will keep you locked in a tower where you can never reveal any of their secrets. And... well, maybe you're right. I hadn't thought of that. But if so..." It's a good thing we don't have any secrets from Xie Manor, Master Wu had said, because if we did she would have them. "Then it's definitely not Xie Manor."

Hua Haoyu shudders and nearly drops his line as well, only slamming his foot on it at the last moment. He wraps it around his wrist, cursing. Even Yu Long grows pale. "I should hope not!" Hua Haoyu declares. "Heaven! I didn't think the sect leader is mad! Why would you say that, though?"

"Well, because Xie Song is the Heartless Dagger's uncle, didn't I mention that part? But we've promised her some treasures too if we can get them, is what I understand."

"Fuck! Okay, so is the vendetta called off or...?" At this point Hua Haoyu’s line tugs and for the next moment or two his attention is on splashing at the water with his net.

"Not exactly." Lin Moniao pulls in his line, but it's only gotten tangled in some water weeds. "It's being pursued with extreme caution, let's say. If we pull it off without being obvious about it, then she won't retaliate, but it hardly seems worth it, at this point."

"I guess so, if we are going to war. Hehe, look at that!" Hua Haoyu clambers back up the shore and displays a big perch wriggling in his net.

"What a beauty! No wonder all the fish here are scared of you." Lin Moniao pauses in clearing his line to admire Hua Haoyu's catch and pass the bottle to Yu Long. "Well, I've told something and Hua Haoyu's told something, now it's your turn. Did anything exciting happen on your trip home?" he asks, nudging Yu Long with an elbow. "And don't worry too much, maybe we're not going to war, Hua-shixiong's just guessing, he doesn't know."

The nudge sends Yu Long curling, pulling his knees up to his chest. "No, nothing exciting. No bandits, no ghosts, nothing that would make a good story. Just... thinking too much, I guess. The dead man in the carriage, and the juniors..." He clams his mouth shut.

"You've adopted those two, haven't you, Yu-shixiong?" Hua Haoyu puts in, and bashes the fish's head on the rock. It stops wriggling. "They follow you everywhere like ducklings after a mother hen. I don't know how you shook them this morning."

"Sweeping duty."

"I see."

"Ah, I should look in on them too," says Lin Moniao. "Make sure they're keeping up with their lessons."

In case anyone ever tries to lock them in anywhere again, is what he would say, but Hua Haoyu doesn't need to know about that. There doesn't seem to be anything else he can say, in front of Hua Haoyu or otherwise, so he just leans up against Yu Long, tosses aside the rest of the weeds he caught, sets a fresh piece of bait on his hook, and drops it back into the water.

Yu Long wraps an arm around Lin Moniao's shoulder and squeezes, dropping his head on top of his for a moment. He may never have approved of what happened at the White Cloud bathhouse, even if he went along with it, but it has been fully forgiven.

--

A bell rings that afternoon to announce a visitor, but as the servants flock to the bridge side wall, the shout soon goes up: It's not a visitor, it's Beggar Huang, approaching patiently on foot across the long wide bridge in his ragged and faded blue traveling robe, staff in hand and light rain pattering on the top of his weimao. A runner goes to tell the masters, and the gates are pulled open even before he can ring the bell.

Beggar Huang tilts up his hat and grins at all the fuss. "The hospitality of the Qilin Villa never ceases to astonish this humble one. I don't suppose anyone is going to offer a drink to a weary traveler?"

Coming out of the midday meal with the vague idea of finding Yuwen Duyi for some training, Lin Moniao goes to investigate the commotion, glad enough of an excuse to not follow through on his good intentions. "Well, hello there, you old reprobate! I think there's still a swallow in here somewhere." Having ended up still holding Yu Long's bottle, Lin Moniao passes it over to Beggar Huang, swirling it first to make sure there is any liquid left in it after all. "Where have you been?"

"Young Master Lin, what a pleasure! Generous as ever." He graciously accepts the bottle and feels its weight. "Mm... as I said." Nonetheless he hoists it on his lips for the last mouthful or so. "I heard old Gao Chengyi died. My condolences. How sorely missed he must be." He claps a hand on Lin Moniao's shoulder. "So, naturally, I've come to pay my respects. But I do feel a man focuses more on grave and respectful prayer when his belly is full. Alas, I have missed the midday meal..."

Lin Moniao makes a face at him. "If only Huang-qianbei would send word of his coming, you cannot imagine the feasts we would prepare for you! Sadly, when one is determined to remain mysterious in one's movements, one must accept the consequences, the bad along with the good. Still, let's see what we can find." He leads Beggar Huang off in the direction of the kitchens, and, once they're past the initial crowd, drops his voice and adds, "I don't suppose you've heard anything interesting from your friends in Shanghai lately?"

It's probably too soon for Beggar Huang, here, to have heard anything of Shen Shanwei, there, but Lin Moniao can't help but hope for some word, and Master Wu did tell Shen Shanwei to contact Beggar Huang's people.

Beggar Huang puts his hands together and makes Lin Moniao a bow before following. "Young Master Lin makes a good point. If his master is willing, perhaps he will be made privy to our conversation, and can contribute his good sense to it." Meaning, he will not discuss important business without the master's presence. But he touches Lin Moniao's sleeve and lowers his voice. "Your shidi--it's shidi, isn't it?--left Shanghai safely, heading to Kaifeng."

Shen Shanwei safe, and on his way to Kaifeng! Lin Moniao could kiss Beggar Huang, but he settles for flashing him a grateful smile.

The kitchens are in the middle of washing up, with juniors working together with the cook, one of the few servants of the Villa who do not do double duty as martial members. Hu Qiu is there, his sleeves rolled up and his hands deep in hot water, and he waves a pink hand at shixiong. First the sweeping, now the washing.

Lin Moniao waves back. Hu Qiu has apparently not yet mastered the fine art of dodging chores, but maybe Lin Moniao will leave that part of his education to Hua Haoyu.

"Ah, Kang Chenglin, greetings!” Beggar Huang calls out. “This humble one supposes..."

"Huang Tianlin!" the cook exclaims when he spots him. "Have you no shame! You think I have leftovers to spare with a house full of hungry young men? Arrive on time and fight them for it yourself, instead of bothering me!" He says all this while ladling a bowl full of leftovers and shoving it in Beggar Huang's hands.

He bows low. "Words cannot express my remorse at causing Chef Kang distress."

"Go on!" The cook pushes them both out of the kitchen and into the kitchen garden. It is a walled addition to the Villa, perched on a narrow strip of the cliff and fenced on the side of the water to keep gardeners from slipping down a short fall into the lake, as in high tide the water splashes the stones and makes them slippery. Boxes full of good dark earth line the inside of the area, and vines climb up a trellis, bearing grape.

"Ahh, a moment of peace before the masters find me." Beggar Huang sits on a sack of earth and starts eating, savoring each bite.

Lin Moniao has just had his midday meal, but he picks a cluster of grapes anyway and pops one in his mouth as he leans back against the trellis. "Oh? Do you expect your meeting with the masters to be less than peaceful, then?"

Beggar Huang snatches one of Lin Moniao's grapes and pops it into his mouth. "I don't expect any trouble, if that's what you mean, rascal. Wu Zhenghao had plenty of opportunity to send one or two of his little birds after me if he was really angry about the manual." He holds his hands up. "I'll explain all about that in time! Short version, the lady was very pretty and very kind and I was quite hungry."

"Prettier than me?" Lin Moniao protests in mock outrage, but it lasts only a moment before he laughs. "Oh well, I suppose she was there and I wasn't."

Beggar Huang shakes a finger at him. "Maybe not as pretty, but definitely more generous. And I felt she needed it more than I did."

The food is disappearing at a brisk rate. You would think the Villa provided the man with no means whatsoever--which can't be the case, no matter how ragged and hungry Huang Tianlin looks.

The door to the kitchen slides open and the frame fills with Mu Liqiang. Beggar Huang begins to eat faster. "Ah, Master Wu said Huang-qianbei would be here. Would Huang-qianbei like to join him and Master Guo in the back quarters?" He shoots Lin Moniao a mildly disapproving look.

Lin Moniao gives Mu Liqiang his best injured-innocence look in return, helped along by the fact that he's really not sure what he's supposed to have done wrong in this case. "I'll come with you, just in case I'm wanted," he says, and hands his remaining grapes to Mu Liqiang by way of apology.

Mu Liqiang eats a grape and trails after them, back through the kitchen.

"You! New guy!" the cook shouts. "Are you stealing my grapes? Those are for wine!"

Beggar Huang picks up his pace. Mu Liqiang follows suit, turning to put his hands together for the cook before they burst back out into the central courtyard.

The back of the Villa is where the treasury and library are, along with the God's quarters and the rooms kept by the sect leader and the masters. Two of those rooms stand empty now in the absence of Master Gao and Master Xie.

Master Wu stands waiting in the foyer, and laughs when he sees Beggar Huang still wiping his mouth. "It wasn't much of a task trying to figure out where you'd got yourself into. Come on, Huang Tianlin." He pauses and considers for a moment. "Actually, you two as well. I have some tasks for you."

"Of course." Lin Moniao bops a quick bow and trails along behind. If the tasks turn out to be nothing more than the chores he's been dodging all day, fair enough, but he's hoping for and expecting something more interesting than that.

They go straight in and through to the sect leader's quarters. These are the three center rooms in the back, with a balcony opening out towards the lake just where it will catch the evening sun in a few hours. Wide and beautifully furnished, the center room, where the sect leader works and receives important visitors, is now filled with the scent of aromatic tea, enticing even over the subtle scent of incense. The sect leader is standing by the balcony, shadows against the light as she opens doors to let in a breeze. The God is not with her, though she is still wearing the leather padding that serves as his usual seat at her shoulder. Master Guo is there too, standing by the tea table set for four, fiddling with his sleeves.

"There you are," says Beauty Niu as she turns and steps towards them. "Huang Tianlin, what a pleasure." Her voice is older than what is visible of her unblemished face through the gauzy veil. She smiles as Beggar Huang bows to her and returns the bow, a little less low, as he compliments her and her house and her kitchen, and as an afterthought offers his condolences for the loss of Master Gao.

"No need for that now," she says with a touch of scorn in her voice. "First, Wu Zhenghao, let's get to business so we can let these young men go and have some tea." Her eye wanders in Lin Moniao's direction. "Heaven, little ambitious one, did you grow more handsome when you were traveling? You are browner, I think. It suits you."

"If the sect leader says so, it's not this one's place to contradict her," Lin Moniao says, grinning, bowing deeply, and flushing even darker--which apparently suits him. But as he straightens up, he can't help a quick sideways glance at the God's usual place. If He was missing once, last night--well, He does as He wills, doesn't He? If He's still missing--there's nothing to be said about it. One cannot simply ask if there's something wrong with the God.

Beggar Huang speaks Lin Moniao's thoughts out loud. "Are we not joined by the divine Yu today?"

"We are," she says, pointing up at the ceiling. In the roof beams there is a flash of green and a scrape of talons on wood. "He has not been very talkative recently. No doubt He has much on his mind."

As they speak, the God leans over and turns His head, and they are all speared with a single beady eye. "Carry on," he says in an annoyed tone, and retreats. Something in Lin Moniao's chest eases. Of course, He's here. He's been here all along.

"Well. As I was saying. Wu Zhenghao?"

"Someone needs to go to Kaifeng as soon as possible to prepare my house for the arrival of the God, ahead of our more cumbersome retinue, and to liaise with the Palace. Someone else should go after that treasure that might win us solid favor with Xie Manor, which should ideally be accomplished within a month. I had meant to ask Huang Tianlin to help, if that does not interfere with sect leader's plan?"

She shakes her head. "There won't be many lessons on the classics before now and then, however he answers."

"Then, we have two favors to ask."

"This one has only just arrived, and immediately he is to be sent away?" Beggar Huang laments. "Is this how the Qilin Villa treats its friends?"

Beauty Niu laces her fingers together. "It is how we treat our masters, occasionally. Huang Tianlin, would you agree to be the Illustrious Qilin Villa's new classics master?"

"...You old foxes!" Beggar Huang replies after a moment's stunned silence.

Lin Moniao turns to him in surprise. Of course, he knows that the man is more educated than he looks--he has dropped classical allusions often enough in conversation, and unlike Dong Yuan, he never gets them wrong--but classics master?

Well, studying with Master Huang will certainly be different than studying with Master Fa, if it comes to that! Still, Lin Moniao can't help but feel a bit sad; he probably shouldn't call his master an old reprobate and offer him the last swallow of ale from a mostly empty bottle.

"Well?" The sect leader asks, crossing her arms. Her eyes crinkle over the veil.

"Well, the way I see it..." Huang Tianlin strokes his chin. "There'll be no teaching for the upcoming month, as you say, and someone needs to go get this treasure. How about I give you my answer in a month's time?"

Beauty Niu inclines her head. "I believe that's fair. It is enough that you know the offer has been made."

"That leads to why these two are here," Wu Zhenghao continues. Mu Liqiang draws himself up and shifts on his feet imperceptibly. "You should take someone with you. Someone reliable, steady..."

"Less likely to abscond with priceless manuals," the sect leader finishes ruefully, turning on her heels and pacing gracefully along the length of the room. Master Guo coughs.

Beggar Huang sways a little from side to side noncommittally.

"Do you have a preference? I know you worked with Lin Moniao before, but Mu Liqiang is capable and could use the experience."

"Do they have a preference?" Beggar Huang looks at the two curiously.

It's on the tip of Lin Moniao's tongue to beg Huang-qianbei to take him. Another chance at the Obsidian Bat--he won't let it slip through his fingers this time--not that he ever really had it the first place. Another month on the road with Beggar Huang, before he has to start calling him Master and all sorts of tiresome things. It sounds much more fun than preparing Master Wu's house--that's more in Mu Liqiang's line.

But--but--liaising with the Palace. He should. Sha Zhengtian means to sponsor him for a position, and Master Wu wants him to make connections, and he needs to secure his mother a comfortable living without any need for her to marry--that's always been the whole point.

Besides, didn't Master Wu say he meant to send Mu Liqiang after the bat? And isn't Lin Moniao's own destiny in Kaifeng, and not anywhere else? Do not fail Yu, the God had said, and Lin Moniao said--

The greatest warrior. A legend. Xie Lijuan is that, without a doubt. Lin Moniao will never forget how it felt to stand in her presence. And he could do it again. He could restore her to what she should be, not the shadow of her that he saw. He could earn her gratitude.

He looks up into the rafters, hoping for some sign. The God continues to preen himself and ignore the people gathered below.

Lin Moniao puts his hands together and bows his head. "This one is ready to do whatever the sect leader and the masters require of him, of course. But if it were permitted... it would be an honor and a pleasure to work with Huang-qianbei again."

Everybody, not just Beggar Huang, had turned their eyes to Lin Moniao as he made his decision. There is even a scrape and a ruffle of feathers above in the rafters. Beggar Huang claps a hand on his shoulder. "One more caper before they try to tie me down! I'd be happy to have you."

Beauty Niu looks up at the rafters, but no green-feathered fury comes down to object, so she nods to Wu Zhenghao.

"It's settled, then," says Master Wu. "Just keep each other safe out there. Now, dear disciples of mine, I'm afraid there is sect business to discuss. If you had chores this afternoon--you don't anymore. Just wait for me to call you for a briefing."

Mu Liqiang puts his hands together and bows. He has made his face carefully blank, but even so there is an unhappy twist to his mouth.

Lin Moniao tugs at his sleeve as soon as they're out of the sect leader's quarters. "Come on, Mu-shidi, let's go sit right in the middle of the main courtyard and whenever anyone tries to give us chores, we'll tell them they can't. What can there be to be upset about?"

"Lin-shixiong!" His tone is scandalized, but he actually laughs at that. He gives Lin Moniao a wet, fond look and nudges his shoulder with his. "I guess if you can be away from shifu for weeks and weeks, then I can, too."

Oh, is that the trouble? "Yes, you can," Lin Moniao tells him firmly, although he's not sure the logic holds up. Parting with Master Wu has sometimes cost him a sweet pang, but never enough to make him actually not want to go. "It means he's trusting you with important things. It's good."

"I don't think he's mad at me, at any rate." Mu Liqiang looks back towards the masters’ quarters and smiles shyly. "He was nice to me this morning."

Out in the courtyard, the last vestiges of grayness have lifted, and the afternoon sky is a deep, brilliant blue. There is a lull in activity before the juniors are expected at the training field. Despite the moratorium on chores, Mu Liqiang volunteers for sweeping duty, too antsy to sit still.

It isn't long before Master Wu himself comes to find them. There isn't much call for formality at home, after all. "In my quarters."

As soon as the three of them are alone, Mu Liqiang breaks and plasters himself all over Master Wu in a hug. "There, there," says Wu Zhenghao, patting him as if he was a large, overly friendly dog, and shoots Lin Moniao a resigned look. He got himself into this, after all.

"I will miss shifu so much."

"Shifu knows." Pat pat. "But shifu needs a reliable person for this. Mu Liqiang will do just fine."

Lin Moniao bites his lip and tries not to laugh at Mu Liqiang, or at Master Wu either. Lin Moniao may have set this situation up, but Master Wu didn't have to go along with it--although he knows from his own experience how difficult it can be in the face of Mu Liqiang's enormous unhappiness. "So!" he says, leaning back on his hands on the windowsill. "Is there anything else we ought to know about? Beggar Huang said he'd explain about the Shadow Manual. I really did think..." He twitches his shoulders irritably. "Well. I did good work on that."

Nearly died, in fact, although he doesn't like to think about that.

"You did. It isn't the first time Huang Tianlin has given away something that he shouldn't. That's what you need to look out for, out there--don't let him go donating the Obsidian Bat to a hospital. I understand and appreciate the impulse but we have our own people to look out for. I did want to ask your ideas about how to proceed there. Liqiang--oh, wait a moment. Let's all sit down."

In Master Wu's reception room, there is a low table as well as a desk and treasure shelves lining the rooms, though he has repurposed some display shelves for books. Sitting down has the added advantage of keeping Mu Liqiang at arm's length. The young man sniffles a little but allows it. "So, where do you plan to begin?"

Lin Moniao settles on a pillow and rests his chin on his hand, frowning down at the table. "I suppose if it really was in Handan, we should start there, although I don't know if there will be anything left of the Handan Escort Company. I do have a contact there, or at least... she was traveling south last I heard, but she'll probably have returned home by now. Or! If we stop in Kaifeng on the way, I can look up Shi Jia. He was looking into the incident at the Handan Escort Company at the time, maybe he learned something that will seem more significant with the new information... or guesses... that we have now. Of course, we ought to also check in with Beggar Huang's friends when we can, in case they've picked up any leads... but until then we can travel together, Mu-shidi."

Master Wu nods. "Why not? Kaifeng is not too far out of the way you would have to follow to Handan anyway. Your friend Shi Jia sounds useful, and I do think you should meet with him if you can; but be very careful how much you share with him. And ah, perhaps we should let your shidi in on a few things." He pats Mu Liqiang's thigh indulgently. "Huang Tianlin says Shen Shanwei left Shanghai safely, but he also told us who he met with." He pauses and gives Lin Moniao a look from under his eyebrows, just to make sure he is paying attention. "He gave a false name, but I happen to know who uses that false name, and the description matches. It was a government official by the name of Shi Minhua. The brother of Shi Minshan, and uncle of Shi Jia. So--choose your words very carefully."

"Ah." Lin Moniao's eyes go wide. "I will."

What he does not say is that if Shi Jia is investigating his own father for fraud--and if he was willing to forgo reporting Lin Moniao's activities to his superiors--he doesn't think he has to worry about Shi Jia reporting on him to his uncle. And, after all, he only has Shi Jia's word for any of that. It would make sense to be careful.

"...Shifu?" Mu Liqiang asks cautiously, so Master Wu clears his throat and briefs him. Shen Shanwei had not gone to Kaifeng, but had gone to Shanghai to follow a lead, pretending to be a sect traitor to find out who was looking into their business. He leaves out the part about Gao Chengyi's treachery or that he seems to have offered two of their juniors, primed as sexual healers, as part of the deal. "He had orders to return to Kaifeng after the meeting, so unless something has happened to him on the road, you should meet him at my house.

"If Shi Minhua is involved with one of the investigative bureaus, it would give him reach and influence far beyond his status as a rank two official, which is already more influence than most of us will ever have. It also means that the Empire is looking into us, which--is fair. We are about to be granted access to the very heart of the Empire, and we are after all a martial sect. They may just be erring on the side of caution. Although I should be very interested to know if there is some deeper reason behind it."

"He--!" Lin Moniao bursts out indignantly, but presses his lips closed on more words. If Master Wu hasn't mentioned the juniors in front of Mu Liqiang, then he shouldn't either, but there is no fair reason for anyone to try to purchase them.

Well. Maybe Gao Chengyi was making the offer, and Shi Minhua had no intention of following through on it? It's a possibility, though not one Lin Moniao is willing to give much weight to.

"The Locust Tree Society is based in Shanghai, isn't it?” he says.

"It is, and I thought of the same thing. Still, how much weight can we put on the location? It is close to Nanjing, where Shi Minhua could have legitimate business. From our point of view, it doesn't make much difference. The Locust Tree Society could have other, unrelated reasons to be interested in us; if it was Bureau Eight, they would certainly be advancing the Empire's cause. That is all."

“What name is he using, in case I should run across it?"

"He seems very fond of it to not have changed it in all this time, but it's Xiu Xinyi. He might have others as well."

Lin Moniao nods. "Of course. I'll try not to make any unfounded assumptions. Was there anything else?"

Master Wu taps his chin thoughtfully. "I think that's all you need. Oh, ah--you can trust Beggar Huang in one thing--he is not fond of the Empire. Few know this, but he used to be palace staff. Inner courtyard. They stripped him of rank and wealth, and he has lived as he does since then, for, oh twenty years now. But he has not forgiven the insult."

"I... see," says Lin Moniao, trying to digest this. "Should I not introduce him to Shi Jia, then?"

Master Wu sighs. "So many people, so many grudges to keep track of. Use your best judgment in the moment. Now, Mu Liqiang, you already know the running of my house, but there are special arrangements to be made, which we should discuss, but I would once more like to reiterate--"

"This one will follow shixiong's instructions," Mu Liqiang replies quickly.

"Don't interrupt."

"Apologies, shifu."

"As I was saying... Keep your head, think before you act. You are clever enough to use your own head to figure things out. Don't only listen to shixiong."

"...Yes, shifu."

"But definitely do listen to me," Lin Moniao says with a grin. "Ah... should I let you two discuss housekeeping details, then?"

Master Wu laughs. "You are excused, Moniao. Just be back by bedtime. We'll be busy tomorrow with the Ghost Festival, and I need time to say goodbye to you properly, don't I?"

"Yes, you do." Lin Moniao's grin widens, and he gives a pleased, anticipatory wiggle. "I will miss you too, shifu, you know."

Maybe not as much as Mu Liqiang, but how can he be expected to do anything as much as Mu Liqiang does everything?

--

The celebrations start early that morning, with breakfast laid out not only for the past masters of the sect but outside the gates for whatever hungry spirits come wandering by. The shrine is fragrant from incense from morning until evening, and lanterns are kept lit on the bridge well into the night.

Common living visitors are welcomed just as spirits are, and in the evening the servants of the Parrot God put up a performance for the guests from the neighboring villages and from further away in Anqing, showcasing their martial skills. It is loud, colorful and rambunctious, meant to please the dead as well as the living. It is a duty Hua Haoyu has not managed to dodge, and he is there twirling his dagger on the training grounds, made showier with the flash of twirling red sashes. Yu Long escapes by virtue of having been too involved with the juniors in the past week to practice.

After the performance, however, while others take his place, he is popping with excitement as he corners Lin Moniao to tell him all about his interrupted theory of the upcoming war. He lays it out in these terms, still sweaty and getting ever drunker on a bottle of purloined baijiu.

Normally, he says, sects would go to war to expand their territory, but there are no major sects close to the Villa other than the Leng-Piao clan, which would be easy pickings because of its proximity. Of course that's an option. However, they also have operations in the cities, the most significant being Master Wu's in Kaifeng. Could they be going after one of the sects close to one of those cities? It would be crazy to go after Lu Bank or Xie Manor, but Immortal Sword Manor? Does Master Wu not speak in his sleep at all, even a little bit?

"How should I know?" says Lin Moniao. "I'm sleeping then, not listening for gossip. He tells me things when he's awake, because he knows I won't repeat them."

For instance, he'd said that it would be awkward, now that the sect has closer ties to Xie Manor, if Xie Manor continued its animosity towards Immortal Sword Manor, which does suggest that they're not planning to go to war with Immortal Sword Manor. And according to Hua Haoyu's own logic, the fact that they've sent gifts to the Leng and Piao clans means that they're not going to war with them either. But why point that out and ruin his fun?

"No theories at all?" He tempts Lin Moniao with half a bottle of strong baijiu.

"I do have a theory." Lin Moniao drops his voice to a whisper and leans in close enough to smell the baijiu on Hua Haoyu's breath. "But you must promise not to tell anyone."

Hua Haoyu grins and shakes his head, grabbing Lin Moniao by the sleeve. "No promises. Tell shixiong anyway, eh?"

"I think..." Lin Moniao plucks the bottle from Hua Haoyu's unresisting fingers. "That Shifu means to ask the imperial government..."

"Stop teasing," Hua Haoyu whines.

"For permission to declare war on Yang Yu, and force her to give us her recipe for marinated mushrooms," Lin Moniao finishes, and dashes away with the bottle.

"Hey!" Hua Haoyu gives chase. "Give that back, you cheat!"

Lin Moniao is fast, but Hua Haoyu, fueled by indignation and baijiu, is faster for once. He catches Lin Moniao in a flying tackle and sits on him; and the bottle returns to its rightful owner.

-

Dual Cultivation

The following morning, Mu Liqiang comes to bully Lin Moniao up far too early for a morning after such a night. Master Wu wanted to see them off early, to make good use of the sunlight. They're to go on horseback, since a carriage would only slow them down. Beggar Huang has apparently never gone to bed, and is currently trying to make friends with the meanest young stallion in the stables. Is Lin Moniao packed?

Lin Moniao is packed. And he's going to get a horse. It's already a more auspicious beginning than his last mission's, but it's hard to acknowledge that when every ray of sunlight feels like it's stabbing him through the eyes into his brain. With a string of incoherent grumbles, he manages to drag himself to the stables.

When they get there, Beggar Huang has given up on the stallion and is tempting one of the cart mules with an apple, leaning half over the gate of the stall.

"Lin-shixiong!" A shape shoots out of the shadows by the bales of hay and tackles Lin Moniao around the waist, a second following after. Hu Qiu and Yang Xiuxing had stayed up as late as everyone else, and yet here they are.

"We woke up early to come say goodbye," says Hu Qiu.

"I'm going straight back to bed after this," says Yang Xiuxing, already yawning.

"Gently, hooligans, it's too early in the morning to have the breath knocked out of me." Ignoring his own advice, Lin Moniao gets an arm around each young man's waist and squeezes back just as hard. If his eyes start stinging worse, it's because of the hangover, surely. "The two of you must be terrors on the training yard."

"Hu-shixiong knocked a senior off his feet yesterday!"

"I wasn't trying to."

"Next time it will be on purpose."

The Villa is quiet for the hour, but as they saddle up, more people come up to block the morning sun at the stable door. Yu Long half-carries a willing but barely conscious Hua Haoyu over to give his good luck wishes. The cook, trailed by a sleepy servant, hangs a bag of dried foods and fresh fruit on Beggar Huang, berating him all the while.

Yuwen Duyi pokes her head in and makes a beeline to Lin Moniao. "Here." She slaps him on the chest with a thin, hastily bound book. "It's not finished or refined so use your head if you decide to practice, but at least you can get started reading." She gives Mu Liqiang a calculating glance. "And if you practice, maybe it should be with someone with less Yang energy."

"Ah! Thank you, shijie." Lin Moniao's eyes light up and he tucks the book into his bag. Before he can think better of it, he gives her elbows a quick squeeze. Following her gaze to Mu Liqiang, he adds, "I will take your advice under consideration."

She doesn't seem to know where to put her hands, and ends up patting him on the shoulders awkwardly.

As they make it to the yard, even more people have woken up to wave them off. Master Guo and sect leader Niu stand at the far end of the yard, and she raises a hand to them. The God is again missing from her shoulder. Master Wu is waiting just inside the gates as the bells announce them opening for the day.

Beggar Huang has been persuaded onto a swift but steady dun mare over his picks of the most ornery animals in the stable. Mu Liqiang rides a tall black mare, and pets and soothes her as she flicks her ears at the sound of the bells so close by. Lin Moniao's own mare is a dark brown, not the handsomest, and a little nervous, but a good runner.

There isn't anything much more to say, so they ride out past the remains of the ghosts' meals by the gate, many hands waving goodbye as they go. Mu Liqiang keeps glancing back at shifu, eyes shining with tears. Master Wu, who already said his goodbyes, just smiles as he waves them off.

"Ah, nothing like a bright morning for traveling," says Beggar Huang, who must have a skull of steel to be so chipper after the night he's had.

Between Beggar Huang's good cheer and Mu Liqiang's moping, Lin Moniao has to resist the urge to take his horse into a gallop and get away from both of them. "There are overcast afternoons," he says. "Overcast afternoons are excellent for traveling."

They pass by the same lakes and fields they had ridden through just the other day, now going the other way. The same craggy, worn down mountains overlook their way all the way through Anqing, where the signs of the festival can still be seen, from the doorstep meals to hanging paper lanterns in the shape of hanging ghosts and ashes on every shrine.

Across the river, they continue up south. The weather is humid here, and moist undergrowth is climbing up on the road on each side as they pass in the shadow of trees. The landscape opens up to hills dotted with tea fields, and they see women pass through the lines of bushes picking up leaves for less refined teas, their straw hats turning this way and that as they work and gossip.

They stop when both horses and riders are tired; in the city of Lu'an. Mu Liqiang heads for the first likely-looking merchant inn. The woman at the gate is all smiles until she sees Beggar Huang. "Move on, you wretch! You'll get the young masters' robes dirty."

"A thousand apologies." Beggar Huang bows with all sincerity. "This humble one will go and find somewhere else to sleep." He picks up the reins of his mare and turns to go.

Mu Liqiang gives the woman a fierce look. "Huang-qianbei is an honored friend and elder. How could you be so inhospitable?"

"There's no need to get into an argument, Mu-shidi," Lin Moniao says peaceably, but meeting the woman's eyes rather than looking at him. "If our company is unwelcome here, we can certainly find another establishment to patronize."

In fact, it would probably be a good idea, as long as they're traveling with Beggar Huang, not to let Mu Liqiang choose their accommodations. But since he has, and the woman has been insulting... well. If she apologizes, so much the better.

The woman looks between Lin Moniao and Huang Tianlin, who has stopped to watch to see what she will do. "We have a reputation to uphold," she mutters. "Are you saying he is an eccentric master who prefers to go about in rags? Well--I suppose--so long as he doesn't bother anyone!"

Huang Tianlin puts his hands together and makes a series of deep bows. "Madame is all kindness and grace and generosity. This old fool's heart is touched."

She forces a smile on her face and waves them in. "Welcome to the young masters and uncle."

They get more stares at the stables and the reception area, but Mu Liqiang's money is still the right color, even if he looks stormy at anyone who sneers at Huang-qianbei, and they book two nice, quiet rooms in the back. Lin Moniao goes ahead and orders a table at the restaurant--they might as well tarnish the reputation of this fine establishment a bit more, while they're at it.

"Still," he says under his breath to Mu Liqiang once they're seated, "we don't have to have this fight every night, do we? In the future we ought to find places to stay where Huang-qianbei will blend in a little more. As long as they have rooms and beds."

Mu Liqiang nods meekly. He did promise to listen to shixiong, after all.

Turning to Beggar Huang, Lin Moniao adds, "Do you have any friends to check in with in Lu'an?"

Beggar Huang wipes crumbs from his scraggly beard, but his expression is sober. "I have a few friends hereabouts, and my friends have friends. Although I'm sure they'll forgive me if I don't pay them a visit, since our company is in a hurry, perhaps I should ask around to see if there's been news of trouble on the road up north. Is that what young master had in mind?"

"Trouble, or anything else of interest," Lin Moniao agrees. "You know what I have in mind."

Beggar Huang nods. "Don't expect too much. My friends will know what interesting thing happened in Lu'an yesterday, and in Anqing two or three days ago, but the further you go the slower the news travel, and the fewer get all the way here unchanged."

He eats quickly--but then, he always does, in case someone tries to take the food away--and excuses himself, though he takes a room key to make sure he can come back in later. A waiter visibly breathes a sigh of relief and offers the young masters a refill.

"It's sour and poor quality," Mu Liqiang tells him with a slight sneer, and pushes it away. The wine is fine, but he objects to the attitude.

"Ah well." Lin Moniao watches the wine go with only the mildest regret. "I'm still recovering from last night, after all. And I have studying to do." He lingers a little longer over the food than Beggar Huang, and then asks, "Shall we go upstairs?"

"Mm," Mu Liqiang assents and piles up their bowls as they would back at the Villa. "I should do my exercises too. You'd think studying a martial style the Crazed Raksha would involve less meditation." The Crazed Raksha manual is indeed rather heavy on meditation and the cultivation of control and focus to counterbalance the mindless violence that defines it.

There's a long quiet period after they go up to their room where they're both going through their manuals. As Yuwen Duyi warned, the one she wrote is rather fragmentary. As short as it is, it doesn't take Lin Moniao long to read through, but there are definitely connections he's missing, places where the theory isn't quite clear. Probably if he reads it a few more times, and really thinks it through, he'll understand more. On the other hand...

"Can I play with your balls, shidi?" he says, looking up from his reading. "And if so, I think it would be a good idea for me to practice with your healing treasure first."

Mu Liqiang had been rather focused on the text, and so he has already dug out his box of the jade healing balls and handed it over before the joke registers. When it does, his face goes blank for a moment, then he bursts out in a laugh. "At shixiong's service. Is this Yuwen-shijie's technique?" He abandons his manual and crawls over, cozying up to Lin Moniao and nuzzling his neck. "Should this one prepare himself to be of best use to shixiong? Call for a bath? This shidi would be ashamed to stand in the way of shixiong's education."

"Mmmm." Distracted by the nuzzling, Lin Moniao turns his head to kiss Mu Liqiang's temple before picking up the thread of his thought again. "Ah--yes. I wouldn't expect any concrete results from a first try, but it might help me grasp some of the fundamental principles involved--as it were," he adds, grabbing a handful of Mu Liqiang's bottom, to a pleased sound. "A bath... would probably be a good idea. If only to give me a reason to keep my hands off you while I practice with the health balls. Shidi is very distracting, but I don't want to risk anything going wrong." He gives him one last kiss before taking the balls out of their box and trying to focus his attention on them.

"Then this one will make sure not to bother shixiong." There is a purr to his voice that belies his words, but he does leave Lin Moniao alone to go rustle up hot water.

This is Mu Liqiang'a treasure, after all, and he knows just how long it takes to sink into meditation and to gain the benefit, so he makes sure Lin Moniao has had enough time before the tub is brought in, with a string of three servants carrying hot water behind it. His ire does not seem to extend beyond the restaurant serving staff, as he speaks politely to them all, and discreetly holds up one side of a bucket a young girl servant is struggling with. Only once they are gone and the bath steaming, does he approach shixiong in his meditation, and even then it is only to watch to see if he is ready.

He is too much of everything, he knows he is, even when he is trying to be helpful, but he has to try, hasn't he?

Blinking, coming out of his meditative state, Lin Moniao is a little startled to find Mu Liqiang so close. "Oh! There you are." Over his shoulder, the bath is steaming invitingly, and Lin Moniao cups his face and kisses him slowly and lazily before breaking off, resting their foreheads together, and saying, "Well, should we get started?"

Being kissed had made Mu Liqiang soften and shift closer. He sucks in his lower lip and frowns. "This shi--I have been thinking, Lin Moniao would probably like it better if I was more like shifu. It would be selfish if we only did it the way I like it." His hand finds a handful of Lin Moniao's hair and tugs it tentatively. "I can be... less respectful."

"Oh, sweetheart." Lin Moniao can't help it; he starts laughing, dropping his head into the crook of Mu Liqiang's shoulder, and Mu Liqiang flushes with pleasure at the endearment. "You said it yourself: who else is like shifu? It's not necessary for you to be anyone but Mu Liqiang."

He slings a knee over Mu Liqiang's legs, straddling his lap. "I like Mu Liqiang very much. But--" Reaching up, he unfastens Mu Liqiang's hairpiece, burying his fingers in the curls that spill out. "If you want to pull my hair--" He closes his fist and draws it back suddenly. "Do it harder."

Mu Liqiang cries out in surprise, but then his eyes get a predatory gleam. "I see. Like this?" He pulls Lin Moniao's hairties apart, takes a good handful of hair and matches the strength of his yank. It opens Lin Moniao's neck, so he puts his mouth on it.

"Ah!" Pain blooms along Lin Moniao's scalp, and the heat of Mu Liqiang's mouth on his throat, and he presses up against him, gasping, "Yes--"

He can feel Mu Liqiang getting hard beneath him, and his own excitement growing, and--

The desire to become one is where it starts, Yuwen Duyi had written.

He can almost trace the shape of the thing building between them. He can almost touch it. He can almost--

Mu Liqiang bucks his hips up and wraps an arm around his waist, bringing them closer even as he rests his teeth on shixiong's neck, tugging the collar down and off his shoulder. His breath is hot against Lin Moniao's skin, and his fingers dig in a little too hard, and he flips them around, putting shixiong on his back, himself between his spread legs. He grabs Lin Moniao's hips and brings them together. "I liked it last time," he says into his ear, low. "Felt good inside shixiong. Would like it again."

"Oh--but we only have horses this time--" But Mu Liqiang's weight on him, and the breath against his ear, is so good, and he can feel the connection between them slipping away as he starts to think about things. It's like a taolu, it must be, you simply have to fall into the next step. "Nevermind," he says recklessly. "Let's."

Mu Liqiang's breath hitches, and the way they are tangled, Lin Moniao can feel him hardening between them. "Shixiong is very obliging." He sits up between Lin Moniao's legs and smiles down at him, making quick work of shixiong's belt and robes. He runs a hand down Lin Moniao's chest to his belly, admiring the lines of his body. He bucks his hips against his, and his eyes darken with lust.

"Mmm, that's good, let me--" Lin Moniao pushes his hips up so he can wriggle out of his trousers. He's fully hard himself by now, and just the friction of his clothes, the heat radiating off Mu Liqiang's body even where they're not touching, every sensation is heightened. Mu Liqiang's qi blazes like a torch, and the next step is to draw on that power to bring his own energies into harmony--can he do that?

Mu Liqiang tosses Lin Moniao's trousers aside and descends for a kiss, then looks down his body shamelessly, his breath catching again. He sits up just to shimmy out of his own robes. It only makes his erection more obvious, held down by just his loose trousers. He ignores it, however, and sinks down to worship Lin Moniao with his mouth--his belly, the insides of his thighs, finally his piece, holding his knees apart for access. He comes up for air and fumbles one-handedly at the pockets of his robes for oil. "Shixiong should relax now." His voice is heavy and low with want.

Lin Moniao whines and arches up, chasing Mu Liqiang's mouth, his thighs trembling. Relax, yes, he can do that.

The oil comes out, the top popping off, and Mu Liqiang puts his fingers to work, but that's no reason to stop what he was doing. He licks up the shaft and suckles the tip happily as he works, and uses his free hand to put Lin Moniao's hand on his own head, guiding it to take hold of his hair. "Ahh." He comes off it just as he's fitted his third finger inside and climbs up for a soft kiss. "Shixiong tastes so good, I could spend all day down there." Despite his words, he is shaking, his cock heavy and hard, and he takes it in hand to press it up against Lin Moniao's opening. His qi is wild around him, mixing freely with Lin Moniao's, but with no shape or guidance involved.

"Good? Yes?" he pants. "Now?"

His fingers woven through Mu Liqiang's hair, gasping against his mouth, tasting himself on his lips, senses too fuddled to focus on anything else, Lin Moniao groans, "Now. Oh, shidi, now."

Mu Liqiang is careful, he would never not be careful after how well shifu taught him, and how aware he is of the unwieldiness of his weapon. But Lin Moniao's body is speaking loudly enough and it just feels so wonderful to be accepted in; and he knows how good it can feel from the other side... he fucks him open slowly, deeply, finally all the way, kissing his gasping mouth, his neck, soothing even as his own body feels on fire. When Lin Moniao squirms, he pulls him down and puts his legs up over his arms to keep him in place, finally losing himself in the motion and the pleasure. Shixiong is curled up all around him and under him and he doesn't ever want to ever let him go again. Just keep him like this, just for him.

No matter how slowly he moves, or how many times they do this, Lin Moniao will never get used to it--he doesn't want to get used to it, he wants to be amazed at how deep Mu Liqiang can go, how much of him there is to take in, just this side of too much. Held beneath him like this, the only thing he can do is ride it out, the ache and the cresting joy together.

Mu Liqiang takes his wrists in one hand and puts them over his head, and kisses him as he starts pounding him faster. "Shixiong's so good to me, look how he makes me fit. This shidi doesn't deserve it." Such self-deprecating words, but he's coming now whether he gets permission or not, shixiong still folded under him. His muscles stiffen as he spills, and he keeps pounding without much conscious thought until he's done, at which point he sighs out and looks down, eyes soft. "Shixiong, ah, I couldn't help myself..."

Lin Moniao wraps his arms around him and pulls him down, pressing kisses to his sweaty forehead and temple. "Sweetheart, don't, it's alright," he murmurs. He wriggles his hips and can't hold back a hiss of frustration as Mu Liqiang, softening, slips out of him--he had been so close--but it truly doesn't matter. "After all, shidi has so thoughtfully gotten me a bath, and I will need it, and you can take care of me then, eh?"

"Mmhmm." He kisses him for a while, selfishly sated, then picks Lin Moniao up bodily and carries him to the edge of the bath, raining kisses on wherever he can reach. The upside of having gotten carried away is that the bath is still hot.

"Ah." Lin Moniao, with his arms looped around Mu Liqiang's neck, takes another moment to snuggle against his broad chest before slipping out of his arms and into the water. He tilts his head back and looks up at him fondly. "Mu Liqiang deserves everything. Whatever he likes."

Mu Liqiang gives him a sweet smile but says nothing; shixiong is just saying nice things. "What would shixiong like?" He pulls Lin Moniao's hair out of the way and rubs his neck and shoulders, settling down behind him.

Mu Liqiang's hands feel nice, and so does the water, but he can't quite relax. Still too wound up, probably. He rubs his cheek against Mu Liqiang's knuckles and says, "Your hands will do nicely. You have lovely hands. Have I told you how good you feel inside me? Probably not, I'm usually not much for talk at that point."

"Tell me now, then?" He slides a hand down into the water, nipping at Lin Moniao's earlobe.

"Oh--you fill me up so well," Lin Moniao sighs, tilting his hips up towards Mu Liqiang. "It feels like I'll never be able to take at all, and then I do, and I love that. And when you hit the sweet spot, you really do."

Mu Liqiang makes a pleased sound. "Keep saying things like that, and we can do it again in a moment." But he gives Lin Moniao his hand, pressing up close behind him with his arm deep in the water.

"Oh, can we?" Lin Moniao's interest perks up at the same time as Mu Liqiang's hand closes around him, both of which make it less likely that he himself will last that long.

"Shixiong has such a beautiful jade stalk. I loved having it in my mouth earlier. I think shixiong liked it too."

"I did, I liked it very much, shidi has a sweet mouth, and he is so enthusiastic."

"Mmhmm." He turns Lin Moniao's face towards him to kiss him deeply while he works his hand up and down his length.

Lin Moniao surges up into the kiss, thrusting into Mu Liqiang's hand, his heart racing. Suddenly he clamps his hand on Mu Liqiang's wrist, pulls his mouth back and asks breathlessly, "Do you think you might--"

But it's too late, or maybe it's the half-formed question that tips him over the edge, but either way his hips jerk and stutter and he spills over Mu Liqiang's hand and into the water, burying his face in the crook of his arm.

It's good. But afterwards, he doesn't sink down into the bath, all of his limbs too heavy to hold up, a sated drowsiness settling over his mind. Somewhere in his lower belly, it almost feels as though he hasn't spent at all. Something's gone wrong.

He tries to think--Mu Liqiang had been kneeling between his legs, energy humming between them, and Lin Moniao had been trying to balance his qi--and then Mu Liqiang had put his mouth on him, and he'd forgotten everything else.

Everything he's learned on the subject says that having unbalanced qi is bad. Intellectually he knows that's true. But this feels... good.

He leans his head back against the edge of the bath and laughs. "Shidi, if you really have it in you to go again, wait for me on the bed, and I will do something about that."

Mu Liqiang's eyes widen, and he nods. "Already? Yes, please!" He had been quite prepared to let Lin Moniao fall asleep as he had all the other times, but he gives him a quick kiss on the temple, towels himself clean and dry, lays out another towel for shixiong and does as he's told. That in itself is its own kind of a thrill. Shixiong wants him again!

"Was shixiong's cultivation successful, then?" he asks as he lies back and takes hold of his own piece, to calm it down a little.

"Well, no," Lin Moniao admits, clambering out of the bath and drying himself off perfunctorily. "But in a way yes, because I thought practicing would help me understand the theory better and it has. Including why it was a bad idea to do what I just did. I think shijie just told me not to because she hates fun." Digging through the pile of clothes on the floor he comes up with two long fabric sashes, his own and Mu Liqiang's. "That's a lie, I don't actually think that."

"Yuwen-shijie does not seem to very interested in fun." Mu Liqiang modifies his voice instinctively to a soothing tone on the face of Lin Moniao's sudden energy. He looks at the sashes and lifts himself up on his elbows. "What does shixiong need? I am at your service. Really, anything. I have also practiced with the jade balls today, I could try..."

"Could you?" Lin Moniao looks at Mu Liqiang curiously. He looks good like this, the angle that he's propped up at showing off his stomach muscles. Lin Moniao wants to touch them, so he does. "Shidi looks so good like this. What was I saying? I think you could try. It might be a good idea. No, thank you. Shixiong will take care of everything. You liked it when shifu had me do this last time." He holds up one of the sashes. "It helped. So we don't have another unfortunate incident where you finish up before you're supposed to, rascal," he adds, grinning widely and tapping Mu Liqiang on the nose with a finger.

Mu Liqiang frowns at him, concerned--isn't shixiong the one that looks like he could use grounding right now?--but it melts into a sweet, greedy smile, and he offers his wrists. "This one is very sorry for his earlier misdeeds and accepts any punishment shixiong deems necessary."

"I can't stay mad at you," Lin Moniao tells him, tying his wrists firmly and pushing him onto his back, positioning his wrists above his head. Lin Moniao can't resist stealing a kiss, moving down to nibble at his throat and give one nipple a quick bite before tying his ankles as well.

"How nice!" Lin Moniao leans back on one hand to admire his work, trailing the other one down Mu Liqiang's body from chest to hip to thigh. "Like a present I'm giving myself."

Mu Liqiang tugs at his tied hands. With shixiong going as he is, he may regret this later, but right now he takes comfort and encouragement to find the ties are quite secure, and can't help the smile that lights on his face, or his body's predictable response.

It only lasts a little longer than their first go-round. Especially since Lin Moniao has been worked open already, all it requires is a fresh application of oil and he can sling a leg over Mu Liqiang and sink down onto him. He makes sure to finish himself off first this time, stroking himself with one hand while Mu Liqiang is buried deep inside him, another strangely incomplete climax which quickly turns into Mu Liqiang shuddering and crying out and finally lying still. He's half asleep by the time Lin Moniao climbs off of him, too far gone to protest Lin Moniao cleaning up, mumbling softly when Lin Moniao undoes the ties and kisses the inside of his wrists.

Lin Moniao likes him so much. He watches as Mu Liqiang sinks into sleep, thinking vaguely that he should join him but feeling far too wakeful. He only hates it when Mu Liqiang's self-deprecation slips from a formality or a game into something that feels more real... he thinks that Mu Liqiang didn't believe him when he said he deserved whatever he liked. Lin Moniao should get him something--something he'll like--and then he'll have to believe it, won't he?

As he's thinking all this, he's already putting on clothes and weapons and reaching for a string of coins. He's already outside, blinking in the moonlight, when he realizes that no shops will be open now where he can buy anything.

Well, so what? There must be a place where people go with things that Lin Moniao can steal. Or well, maybe not. He still remembers Mu Liqiang's chagrin two days ago when the cook caught him with the grapes Lin Moniao had given him. Something stolen would not make a good present.

Still, if there's a place people go--and there must be--then there's likely to be gambling as well. He can win something nice. As long as Thief Goddess Li isn't there, he should be alright. And if she is there, maybe Lin Moniao will make her sorry she ever touched Mu Liqiang's balls.

Lu'an is not a bustling capital or a den of iniquity, but everywhere people live, there will be a place for a little unruly behavior. By following the logic of the city and the gleam of lamps, Lin Moniao finds a building lit up on both floors with colorful lanterns, the sound of laughter and singing coming from inside. The sun-faded sign outside calls it a theater, but the only show they have on now is a group of drunken men singing a song on the balcony and stopping every now and then to remind each other of the lyrics.

It looks perfect--or at least, as perfect for Lin Moniao's purposes as he can expect in a town like this. He calls up some random suggestions for lyrics to the singers, and then goes inside.

"Yes, he's right!" one of the drunks insists. "It goes, In the valley the goats cry out--"

"It's ghosts, you old fool!"

"I went on a walk and I saw a goat..."

Inside, the downstairs is mostly one open room with a stage at the back, now filled with more tables for guests. Nobody here is rich or in finery, but there is laughter and society and plenty of drink being passed around from tired waiters who stop to joke with the patrons. The only game being played is xiangqi, and that only at one table, between two crusty old men who look like they have been drinking for a while; even so, they have an audience of a few people.

Unfortunate, but Lin Moniao is not about to give up at the first setback. He flags down a waiter for a bottle of wine and asks the room at large, or at least the people closest to the xianqi game, "Who here has something nice? Whoever has something nice, I'll play them for it."

"I'll show you a nice thing, darling," an older woman calls out, to the sound of laughter from her friends.

A small man next to Lin Moniao pokes him in the arm. He is smiling. "The only one here that has anything nice enough for a well-dressed lad like you us Li Nin, but good luck getting anything out of him. He's been here all week and all he does is drink and fight." He points Li Nin out anyway. The man is staring into nothing, mumbling to himself with one hand on the neck of a bottle. "Believe it or not, he's not had a drink yet. He's better company once he starts. But look at that sword of his."

There is indeed a sword at the man's waist, in a sheath that's dirty but intricately carved and beautiful. His clothes have that same element of having once been fine and expensive, and having run to ruin a long time ago.

That sword--Mu Liqiang would like that. Not only that, but Lin Moniao has seen the man before. What did they call him again? Shi Jia said he had a reputation as a scholar and a fearsome warrior, but Wang Xiaonan said he had gone completely to seed, and he certainly looks it. He probably wouldn't even notice if Lin Moniao lifted that sword of his... but he's already decided not to do that.

Instead, he sits down next to Li Nin. "Hello, I met you in a noodle shop once," he says. "They called you the Dishonored Blade or something."

"Nothing left if you throw your string in the wrong place," says Li Nin gravely, but he is looking just to the side of Lin Moniao's face.

The helpful, or perhaps entertainment-seeking, uncle from before pads closer. "If you want him to acknowledge you, he needs to start drinking. Here we go, alley-oop!" He goes to lift the bottle to Li Nin's lips, but the man snatches it away and gives the uncle a glare.

He does drink, however, deep and long, and finally focuses his eyes on Lin Moniao. "What?"

"You're the Dishonored Blade." Now that Lin Moniao has said it out loud twice already, he's sure that's right. "I met you at a noodle shop. You have a fine sword; I'll play you for it. Or else--" he concedes, reflecting that Master Wu has already given Mu Liqiang a blade, and he doesn't mean to compete with shifu-- "if you have something else fine, we can play for that instead."

Li Nin stares at him uncomprehending for a moment, then takes another long swig and sits up, leaning towards Lin Moniao. "This swordmaster wonders what a beautiful young man like this wants his sword for. What is there in the world that's worth wanting? This ugly thing? Take it." He unties his sword from his belt and throws it at Lin Moniao, sheath and all.

"You want more? Take this." He reaches inside his robes and pulls out a heavy gold necklace. A gasp goes around the room as avaricious eyes turn their way. Li Nin plops the necklace on Lin Moniao's lap. "What will that buy you? You are nothing, you come from nothing, you will become nothing. All this is nothing!" That last part is a shout, and he half rises from his chair, bellowing it at the people who have been creeping closer to see what Li Nin might throw at them. They all take a step or two back.

For a moment Lin Moniao blinks at his lap, stunned. This is how his night is going, it seems--he's gotten what he wanted, but it feels like he hasn't at all.

But then a lesson of his mother's comes to his rescue: a gift is a gift. And, after all, why shouldn't people give him nice things? He slides the sword into his belt and fastens the necklace on.

"Let it be as Li Nin says, anyway I'm obliged to you. And since Li Nin has no use for material possessions, perhaps he'll like this." And Lin Moniao leans over and kisses him.

Li Nin, thus, was surprised in turn. He burps and takes another swallow of wine. "Love is the greatest nothing--the greatest--" He makes a shuddering sob and goes for his bottle again. A waiter hurries up and puts another next to it.

"Now you've done it," whispers the kind uncle. "He'll be going on about love, and if anyone interrupts him he'll fight them. Come on, lad, this way to go out quietly through the back, so he won't notice and call you back."

"Women in love have no soul!" Li Nin yells. "Men in love have no chance! Love makes ghosts of us all!"

The uncle prods Lin Moniao gently towards the back. Lin Moniao shrugs his hands off and watches Li Nin's diatribe curiously. "What will he fight them with? I have his sword."

"Shh, shh! He doesn’t need a sword!" Prod, prod.

"Do you think you are different? Hah! The gods hate lovers! It takes all sacred things in you and twists them into heart demons!"

"Maybe, maybe not," Lin Moniao laughs, "but I have never heard any complaints."

"Do you contradict me?" Li Nin bellows and everyone, even the uncle, steps away from Lin Moniao. Before he does so, however, the uncle quietly slips Lin Moniao's Curved Beauty Dagger in his pocket and sidles towards the door.

"Are you contradicting me? But how would you know? You have never--" As he speaks, Lin Moniao reaches for his Beauty Dagger in order to flip it in the air, which is his habit when he's not necessarily threatening someone, only to find it not there. "Pardon me, we will have to continue this conversation later," he says politely to Li Nin, and takes off after the person who was most recently close enough to him to have lifted his dagger.

"Of course," Li Nin replies just as mildly and politely, and sits back down to finish his drink. "I will wait."

The little man is already at the door when he looks back and sees he has been spotted. He takes off like a hare, sprinting down the dark street.

Lin Moniao races after him, but the uncle is fast. Not only does Lin Moniao not catch him, the uncle manages to put a little more distance between them.

The streets turn at sharp angles, and just for a moment it looks like uncle has managed to slip him, but a movement catches his eye--there is the thief, clambering up the side of a building, using a barrel and a window nook as footholds, and hoists himself up on the roof, where he continues his sprint, feet clacking on roof tiles.

Lin Moniao leaps up and catches the window nook with his fingertips, easily gaining the rooftop and making up the ground he'd lost. The thief is almost within reach now, and Lin Moniao launches himself at him.

The uncle yelps as Lin Moniao's arms tighten around him. He makes a spirited attempt to wriggle away, but only ends up slipping on the tiles and landing on the roof on his belly, dragging his attacker down. "I give up!" he wails. "It was a misunderstanding! I have children! Respect your elders!"

Lin Moniao retrieves his Beauty Dagger and bangs the uncle's face against the roof tiles once for good measure. "Then run back to your children before I throw you off the roof! Respect people's property!" he growls as he lets him up.

Uncle scrambles up, wiping his bloodied nose. "Youth these days!" he shouts, but legs it. Perhaps he knows he got off easy.

With his objective accomplished and his property recovered, Lin Moniao should return to the inn now. But all the tiredness that he hadn't felt earlier in the night seems to hit him all at once, and maybe he will just rest a little first... and close his eyes while he's at it... his last conscious actions are to slip his new necklace into an inner pocket and his new sword and newly-retrieved dagger beneath his outer robe, before he curls up on the roof tiles and falls asleep.



A Qi Imbalance

The world is bright and noisy, dust rising from the streets as a carriage trundles by. A blunt end of something is poking at Lin Moniao's side, none too gently. A familiar voice calls from below, "Is that him? Did you find him?" There is a note of panic as it continues, "Is he alright?"

Rude! Before Lin Moniao opens his eyes or really understands what's happening, he grabs the something and tries to use it to shove the person on the other end of it.

"Whoa!" says another familiar voice, the holder of the pokey thing as his feet scuff against the tiles. "He's still kicking, don't worry."

More scuffling and a thump, and hands are on his shoulders, shaking him gently. "Shixiong, shixiong."

"Shidi!" Lin Moniao opens his eyes to see Mu Liqiang's worried face looking down at him. "What can be the matter? It's morning and I feel all right, a little sore from sleeping on roof tiles and more than a little sore from what we were doing before I fell asleep on the roof tiles, but it's the morning and I don't hate the world, I don't remember the last time that happened."

"Nothing is the matter now that you're found and you're well." Mu Liqiang, the emotional creature, tears up and pats shixiong's shoulders. He looks up over his shoulder at Huang-qianbei, blocking out the sun, a hand on his hip and the other on his staff. "He's still chattering more than usual."

"I can see that, young fool. Rascal! You're lucky Huang-qianbei has well-informed friends. Did you know that the Unraveled Sword waited all night for you to return to your conversation? They had to close shop around him."

Mu Liqiang scowls at him. "I don't care about any Unraveled Sword. We need to get him back to the inn and get him help."

Lin Moniao laughs. "The Unraveled Sword! I was sure it was the Dishonored Blade. And did he really? I said we would continue our conversation later but I had no notion he took me so seriously." He suddenly feels an enormous fondness for Li Nin. "And is he still there? I ought to oblige him, he was very obliging to me. Oh! That reminds me! Now where did I put it?" After a quick search of his pockets, he triumphantly comes up with the gold necklace. "Don't cry, shidi, I got you something. Don't wear it now. There are thieves around. But it will look very well when you're dealing with Palace officials and such, and I would like to see you in it too sometime."

"I don't think I should ask where you got this," Mu Liqiang murmurs, but he's smiling. He admires the chain, pockets it, and leans over to kiss Lin Moniao's cheek. "It's lovely. Thank you."

"It's not stolen, but perhaps you shouldn't ask anyway," says Beggar Huang, "because I heard he traded it for a kiss."

"I suppose that makes sense." Mu Liqiang clambers back up to his feet and offers Lin Moniao a hand up.

Lin Moniao accepts it, uses it to launch himself onto a balcony across the street, swings from the railing, and finally lands lightly on the ground, looking back up at the other two with a grin. Mu Liqiang cries out in surprise as shixiong flies off, and lands on the street next to him within seconds, two stories down, softening his own fall with martial arts. He straightens up and grabs Lin Moniao around the waist. "I thought you were running away! Take shidi with you. You're not well." He touches Lin Moniao's forehead.

There is audible grumbling from above as Huang Tianlin climbs down far more prosaically. Below on the street the door opens and children spill out, giggling at the beggar climbing down their wall. Their mother follows, none too pleased. "What are you people doing up there? My roof isn't a public street!"

Lin Moniao looks up at Mu Liqiang, considering. "I should take you with me. It will add force to my arguments." He lets out an amused puff of breath as he realizes what he just said. "Well, force, so to speak, if it comes to that, which it may not. Is Li Nin still at the theater?" he adds, to Beggar Huang.

Beggar Huang drops the woman glaring at him a few contrite bows before answering. "He was half an hour ago. Let's pay our respects." His eye sparks with curiosity. "I want to see what the Unrivaled Scholar has come to! I heard he crawled down the bottle after an ill-fated engagement and never came out again."

The theater is only a street down from here, but when they get to it, it's closed and the door bolted. A woman is sweeping the front, though, and she stands up straight and glares at them as they approach. "You! You're the young man from last night. Go on in, that no good Li Nin is still waiting for you. We couldn't make him leave. I had to stay up just to make sure he doesn't take the till and run!"

"Well, that was unnecessary; Li Nin has no use for material possessions. But it's your lookout," Lin Moniao says heartlessly to the woman as she lets them in.

The place is shadowed, but lighter than before, as the windows let in the daylight, which mercilessly draws out chipped tables and cracked paint; at least the floor is well swept. Li Nin sits where Lin Moniao had left him, slumped over and snoring, his hand around the neck of a bottle of wine.

Huang Tianlin sucks in his lower lip and quietly unties a whip from his belt, but prods Lin Moniao in the small of his back to go forward while he hangs back. Mu Liqiang sticks close behind Lin Moniao, narrowed eyes taking in the location and finally studying the sleeping man. "Is he really so dangerous?" he shoots back at Beggar Huang, who raises his eyebrows and makes a slashing motion across his neck. Then he mimics strangling, and getting beaten to a pulp, and being stabbed, and something that is a little more difficult to interpret. Mu Liqiang frowns at him, but it's then Li Nin burps loudly, lifting his head, and Huang Tianlin returns to a wary stance.

"I hear Li Nin was waiting for me all night," says Lin Moniao, dropping down to sit beside him. "Well, you're hardly the first person to do so, but nevertheless, here I am now."

"You said you would come back." He burps, coughs, and beats his chest. "Ach… ah! And here you are. A gentleman. Spot of bother out there? Where were we?" He hugs his bottle to his chest. He is blurring his words and his eye is unfocused.

"Shidi." Lin Moniao looks up over his shoulder. "Do you have any complaints about me, as a lover?"

Mu Liqiang shakes his head without hesitation.

"Well, there you have it," says Lin Moniao. "He is in a position to know, and you are not. As far as heart demons, who can say? Quite likely you're right, and I am full of them."

Li Nin blows a raspberry. "I am talking about love, not your immature fumblings, you stupid child."

"What a shame you will never know anything about it," Lin Moniao says, leaning his chin on his hand, "you worthless drunkard."

"That's where you're wrong." He pokes Lin Moniao on the nose. "I have loved! Great love! Transcending all borders of proprop--propr-iety! I have been loved! And look at me now! If I had not been so ex-shellent once, I would be six feet under. But I am extraordinary, so I here I am, like a bodhisattva to relay the great truth!"

Beggar Huang ventures a little closer to lean in and mutter in Lin Moniao's ear, "Maybe you should let him win this one, eh?"

Lin Moniao flicks Li Nin's nose back. "Huang-qianbei is softhearted, and perhaps he's right that it's unkind to continue to dispute with someone who can barely articulate words. My point, however, is this: you have not loved me."

Li Nin jerks back at the touch, then sneers, but seems to find no comeback. "You--you are not talking about what I am talking about. What are you talking about?"

Lin Moniao thinks back to their conversation the night before. The memory is bright and vivid, but when he tries to recall details, it gets a little fuzzy. "I'm an excellent lover," he says. "Don't go around saying I'm not."

"Did I say that?" Li Nin looks around, confused.

Mu Liqiang takes Lin Moniao's arm. "Come on, let's go," he coaxes gently. "Shixiong is wonderful. Let's go back and make love again just to spite him."

"Immature fumblings!" Lin Moniao says indignantly, but he lets Mu Liqiang lead him away. "Can you believe him!"

"You got off easy," Beggar Huang says, bonking Lin Moniao on the head with his staff as they exit, and ties his whip back on his hip.

Mu Liqiang is not letting go of Lin Moniao's arm, smiling again now they are back in the sunlight. "But let's really go back and--"

Beggar Huang bonks him too. "You're as bad as each other! That's how you got into this mess! No no no. Acupuncture and meditation. After breakfast, maybe. Heaven! I will tell Sect Leader Niu no. I am not spending my twilight years herding idiots."

"Hey!" Lin Moniao rubs his head and rounds on Beggar Huang, but before he can do more than that, something Beggar Huang said catches his attention. "Breakfast! I'm ravenous."

Breakfast is as good a reason as any to get back to the inn. They have it in Beggar Huang's room while Beggar Huang tells Lin Moniao about his night as Mu Liqiang admires (and discreetly cleans) his new necklace. Word is, Xie Lijuan has been traveling in these parts--which they knew already--and was last scene going northeast, close on the route that the three of them are travelling. There used to be a bandit problem on that road that has gone away, and the two facts are related. "It's a dangerous thing to start thinking of Xie Lijuan as your friend," Beggar Huang muses, "but people only see what's in front of them, and what's in front of them is that nobody's stealing their pigs anymore."

"That's good to know, even if it doesn't tell us anything in particular. If we run into her, we run into her," Lin Moniao says around a mouthful of steamed vegetables. He has been shoveling food into his mouth almost as quickly as Beggar Huang; he can't remember when he was ever this hungry. "If that 'don't think of her as your friend' was directed at me, don't worry, I'm not. But she knows we're trying to get her something she wants--I am thinking of her as not an immediate threat. She has already passed up a chance to kill us once."

"I don't like the idea of shifu having to talk to her again, though," Mu Liqiang puts in.

"I learned nothing else very interesting to us. There is a man, a lord of his own fine manor, up near Luoyang giving away all his treasures and wealth. My friends say to hurry if you want a piece, everybody's going who can get away.

"Then this humble one was starting to get a little tired, and came back to his room, and would have visited his friends, but listening in on the door decided it did not seem a good time, and went to sleep. Little did I know I would be rudely woken in just a few hours to be told one of the little birds had gone missing. How are you feeling now, Lin Moniao?" He tilts his head, as if examining a specimen.

"Hungry." Lin Moniao examines Beggar Huang curiously right back. "Is this how Huang-qianbei feels all the time? A little--I don't know--itchy? Not my skin, on the inside. I cannot quite--last night, I couldn't sleep, and I had to be doing something, and then all of a sudden I couldn't do anything but sleep. And I woke up feeling alright, did I tell you that? It was amazing. I don't feel bad, only a little odd, and it's bound to sort itself out sooner or later. I truly didn't mean to worry you. If you want to try--with acupuncture and meditation--I won't refuse again."

Beggar Huang bursts into a crackling laugh and slaps his thigh. "It isn't how Huang-qianbei has felt in a long time! Haha! The surgeon's knife made sure of it."

Mu Liqiang, instead, is looking at Lin Moniao with a worried kind of recognition on his face, but he drops his eyes and only says, "I have an acupuncture kit. I was studying the vital points for a technique, though it probably won't be the one I will be going for now."

"Then you do it," says Beggar Huang, patting him on the knee. "I want to sleep."

"I meant for food. There is the other kind, too, but I didn't--" Lin Moniao shoves a crab cake in his mouth, partly because he's still hungry, partly to stop talking. He is a little unsettled. He chews, swallows, looks at Mu Liqiang. "Well, shidi."

Beggar Huang pokes him. "Haven't you figured it out? It's the Yang energy. All of us feel it differently. My body doesn't overproduce it anymore. If I'm hungry, I just haven't eaten. Your body is trying to be ten feet tall with a two foot dick and eat like it, too. You need to let it dissipate. Relax, calm down, encourage the natural flow of energy within and without, and no more sex. Unless you find a female cultivator for it, I suppose."

With that he climbs on his feet, leaning heavily on his staff, and Mu Liqiang stands to go, putting his hands together for Huang-qianbei but not quite meeting his eyes.

"I know, but--why do you eat like that, then? I know we feed you! Alright, I'm going," Lin Moniao stands, following Mu Liqiang.

Mu Liqiang has fallen into a sullen, thoughtful silence, and keeps a good distance between them as if Huang-qianbei told him not to touch Lin Moniao at all. He gets out his healing balls and sits down by the table in their room. "We'll have to meditate first," he says stiffly. "I haven't had a chance to practice yet. It won't be too long."

But even as he closes his eyes he is frowning, restless, circling thoughts intruding on the practice.

Lin Moniao reaches out for him, and then snatches his hand back. He hates to see Mu Liqiang unhappy, and he knows one way to soothe him. It generally works, but he can't right now.

He retreats to the other side of the room, folds himself into a lotus position, closes his eyes, and tries to meditate. He can still feel Mu Liqiang's agitation from here. Mu Liqiang unhappy makes him think of Yu Long unhappy, and how he can't do anything about that either. That, in turn, makes him think of Gao Chengyi, sunk into a carriage seat, pretending to meditate, just like he himself is doing right now.

He feels a sticky breeze on his face before he knows he has crossed to the window and thrown it open. He wants to be moving. He wants to be gone. He stood like this in front of a window a few days ago, when Master Wu had met with Xie Lijuan, and he knows that if he had felt then like he feels now, nothing on earth could have stopped him from going.

For the first time, he sees clearly that he has a problem.

He takes his Beauty Dagger out of its sheath, and folds his left hand around the blade. If he tightened one hand and drew back the other--he would feel something. The thought frightens him; it's not one he's ever had before.

Slowly, deliberately, he starts going through a martial form, the simplest one, the first one he ever learned, as well as he can in the small space.

"That's probably enough," Mu Liqiang says after a while and sighs. His box goes in its safe place inside his robes and he goes to rummage in his bag for the acupuncture kit. "Shixiong should go lie down now for the treatment." He still sounds distant and doesn't look at Lin Moniao.

Once again, Lin Moniao reaches out towards Mu Liqiang and then stops himself. "You'll need me to--not be wearing things," he says in a way that's almost a question.

Mu Liqiang looks at him then, and looks down at his neck where it disappears under cloth, and bites his lip. He closes his eyes tight and says, "Yes."

"I don't think you will be able to do it with your eyes closed, shidi," Lin Moniao says before he can stop himself.

Mu Liqiang lets out a breath and blinks his eyes open. He sets his jaw stubbornly. "Shixiong is ill but I am not. This shidi is just ridiculous. Go on."

"Don't," Lin Moniao says with a little heat to his voice, but he obediently strips off his clothes and lays down, trying to do it as matter-of-factly as possible.

Mu Liqiang really does try his best. He has the manual by his side, and should know just how deep to insert each needle, and he focuses on that instead of any other thoughts. But as he gathers them up again, he already has a sense that it didn't go as well as it should have, and that at the same time he is going to combust if he does not kiss shixiong right now, so he does.

That's better--Mu Liqiang kissing Lin Moniao is so much better than Mu Liqiang stiff and distant. Lin Moniao puts his arms around him and draws him closer, rising up a little to meet him, running his hands down his back. Now he can comfort him, and show him that everything's alright. And if Lin Moniao feels a tightness in his groin and heat pooling in his belly, if he rocks his hips and makes a hungry noise against Mu Liqiang's mouth, how can he help it, with Mu-shidi in his arms? It doesn't mean anything, they're just kissing, it's fine.

Mu Liqiang makes a pleased sound, but after a while he touches Lin Moniao's face and breaks them apart, pushing him back firmly. “I’m sorry, this shidi didn’t do much better with his eyes open." Then, with more difficulty, "Shixiong should put his clothes back on.”

"You're doing splendidly," Lin Moniao says, breathless. He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. "I'm trying very hard not to push you down on the bed and take you right now. Clothes. Yes."

He grabs a fresh inner robe from his bag and shakes the dust out of his trousers and outer robe as best he can before putting them back on. It's really a good thing his mother isn't here to see him. "Fix my hair," he tells Mu Liqiang, leaning back on his hands on the bed. "It looks like I spent all night on a rooftop."

Mu Liqiang puts away his needles and takes out his combs and oils and settles behind him. Lin Moniao's hair does not need oil, but he puts a little in anyway, to make the tangles and dust come out easier. "Shixiong was doing taolu before. It seemed like it was working. I think that is probably the best thing to do now, but not here. Somewhere public. I'll come with you. Shixiong is--" His fingers tighten a little in Lin Moniao's hair, but he smooths it out gently. "This shidi won't take advantage."

"We should go," Lin Moniao counters. "I'll be all right if I'm going. We can still make half a day's travel if we start now. We've wasted enough time on my nonsense already."

"No." Mu Liqiang sets his jaw stubbornly. "You're ill. What if it gets worse and there's nowhere to stop? Besides, Huang-qianbei is sleeping."

"I'll wake him." Lin Moniao pushes up off the bed.

Mu Liqiang catches his hand and pulls him back. "No. Shixiong. Taolu. We stay here."

Lin Moniao jerks his hand back. "Whatever happened to listening to shixiong? Don't answer that, I haven't actually become stupid. No comments about that either. Fine. Fine! Somewhere where there's space. If I stay in this room I will really go mad."

"This one promises to listen to shixiong when shixiong is well again." There is a note of satisfaction in his tone.

Lin Moniao answers with a wordless snarl, and falls into step with Mu Liqiang. There is a public park in the shadow of the temple not far from their inn. "You do it with me," he says, when they reach the park. They've never practiced together before, but Mu Liqiang is Master Wu's student, so he names a taolu somewhat more advanced than the one he was doing, confident that Mu Liqiang will know it.

And he does. He watches and tests Lin Moniao at first, to see if he is faster or sloppier than usual, and adapts to the best of his ability, matching his speed and the strength used. It's about keeping the body in motion, a moving meditation. He can do as much.

Maybe Lin Moniao was right the first time to choose the simplest form he knows. It's not that he's making mistakes, but he's not moving as smoothly as he should, speeding up without meaning to, shortcuts marring the precision of the form. It's a good thing Master Wu isn't here to see him.

He tries to push thoughts of what Master Wu would make of any of this out of his mind, and just let his body fall into the next step. Beside him, Mu Liqiang is a current of calm focus, and taking his cue from him, Lin Moniao eventually enters the same flow.

They do taolu after taolu until Mu Liqiang's muscles are sore, but at least neither of them is getting into a fight or in bed, which has to be better. People come and watch for a while, then move on. The day is long, but turning slowly towards evening, so eventually they break and head back for the inn for dinner.

They find Huang Tianlin in the restaurant, already eating. He has washed his face and shaved, and would look almost reputable if his robes weren't still ragged and dirty. "There you are!" He waves his chopsticks at them. "Have you two been good?"

"Ask your friends. Don't they know everything that happens here? I'm not a child." Lin Moniao takes his seat with an irritated huff. "We haven't--done anything that will make the situation worse. Or gotten into any more trouble. Mu Liqiang is very sensible."

"I don't keep my friends in a magic box that whispers into my ear," Huang Tianlin says mildly. "Sit, sit. Have some fish soup. So," he looks at Mu Liqiang curiously, "did you find a new Mu Liqiang or did he gain enlightenment in the meanwhile?"

"Shixioing is ill," Mu Liqiang says stiffly and sits down. There are many dishes, but between the three of them there cannot be enough.

Lin Moniao bumps Mu Liqiang's shoulder with his own before tucking into his fish soup. "There is absolutely no need for a new Mu Liqiang. I like the one I have very much."

"Shixiong is ill and saying silly things." But he is smiling. Beggar Huang makes a rude noise and eats a fish cake.

Lin Moniao devours his fish soup, and several fish cakes, and several more pork balls, and he is halfway through his third bowl of steamed rice when he suddenly feels very dizzy. He tries to brace himself with his arms on the table but ends up slumping forward, his cheek mashed against the smooth wooden surface. "Oh God and all his little chicks," he whimpers.

"There it is." Beggar Huang gathers up the bowls before Lin Moniao can knock any of them off the table. "Time for bed, eh?"

-

Beggar Huang's Friends

Lin Moniao wakes up in bed, which means that someone must have put him there, and taken down his hair and taken off the outer layers of his clothing, because he doesn't think he could have done it himself last night. Sunlight is coming through the window and he hates the world, so his qi must be back in balance. He really could have done without this part. Mu Liqiang, for some reason, is still asleep, and Lin Moniao buries his face in the hair at the back of Mu Liqiang's neck, breathes in deeply, closes his eyes, and wills the rest of the world to go away, but it doesn't, and presently Lin Moniao gets up.

Someone has laid out his clothes neatly and even cleaned them a little, and packed the rest of his things. As patient and helpful as Huang Tianlin has been, Lin Moniao doesn't think it was him.

It's light, and they ought to eat and start traveling, but Lin Moniao can let Mu Liqiang sleep a little longer. Once he's dressed and presentable, he slips out into the hallway to see if he can find a servant to bring a pot of tea.

--

Mu Liqiang wakes up when shixiong rests against his back, but stays lying still, breathing slowly. He hadn't made his decision yet last night, and he still can't. Shixiong is awake, he is going to be fine, he doesn't need help anymore. Now is the time to go, clear his head, be alone.

The other side of his internal debate pipes up, just as it has all night last night while he watched shixiong lie motionless like a corpse. You need permission to go, you should just focus, just stop making mistakes, keep it in your pants and use your head like shifu said.

He'll just have to get permission.

From one of them, at least.

--

There are no servants upstairs, but down the red-painted stairs is the reception area, and new guests arriving. It takes only as long as getting attention from one of the busy servants to obtain a promise of tea to be delivered at the earliest convenience.

Lin Moniao hurries back upstairs. It only belatedly occurs to him that if Mu Liqiang wakes up and Lin Moniao isn't there, he'll worry some more, and he's done enough of that already.

When he gets there, Mu Liqiang is gone, and so is his bag.

An internal voice tells him that he is getting exactly what he deserves.

But that's stupid. Won't they laugh if it turns out that Mu Liqiang has just gone out to order tea, the same as Lin Moniao has? Only why would he take all his things, and wouldn't they have passed in the hallway? And if they didn't, then--

Lin Moniao goes to the window and looks outside.

The window on the second floor shows the roof of the stables down below, a part of the stable yard visible, and on the other side the street. Further, beyond more rooftops, glimmers the river. It's still early, the sun is low behind the inn.

If Mu Liqiang has gone to wake Beggar Huang, then he is with Beggar Huang, and if Lin Moniao somehow missed him on the way to the restaurant, then he will be eating for some time. Lin Moniao may feel a little ridiculous afterwards, but he has already done so many ridiculous things in the last two days, what's one more?

He grabs his own bag, drops down onto the stable roof, and then into the stable yard below, hitting the ground running. If only Mu Liqiang is in the stables--or if not him, then at least all of their horses.

There is a cry from someone and people rush aside as they see this madman jumping down from the window. One stablehand instinctively reaches out to stop him, but his fingers only brush at Lin Moniao's sleeve as he rushes past. Their three horses were shut up in stalls at the back of the stable on the right, and they are all there now, including Mu Liqiang's tall mare, Matriarch. She lifts her head and flicks her ears at Lin Moniao.

Lin Moniao leans on the stall door for a moment, catching his breath. All right. Mu Liqiang hasn't taken off on horseback. Maybe he really is with Huang-qianbei. At a more ordinary pace, he goes around to the front of the inn, making a brief apologetic bow to the stablehand as he does, and heads for Huang-qianbei's room, with a quick detour to look in at the restaurant.

As he turns back from the restaurant, he catches sight of Mu Liqiang in the lobby, carrying his bag and dressed for the road. Mu Liqiang also sees him, and for a moment he looks like he's going to make a break for it. Then he hangs his head, grabbing his bag more tightly. "Shixiong."

What's there to say? Clearly he was going to leave without saying goodbye.

"Well, shidi, if you're ready to leave, so am I. It seems rather hard on Huang-qianbei, but after all, he's very well-informed, and I'm sure he'll find us soon enough." Lin Moniao looks up at Mu Liqiang with an encouraging smile. "If something has come up that wasn't on your original itinerary, why can't we handle it together? You delayed your journey for me; I can certainly delay mine for you."

Mu Liqiang looks down, embarrassed. "I spoke to Huang-qianbei just now. He agrees that it's worth it to pursue the matter of the charitable lord in Luoyang, in case he is giving away treasures the sect would be interested in. And shixiong is all better now, so... I'm going. Alone."

"Oh, yes, that is rather out of the way, which is why I didn't suggest pursuing it at the time... but what about your assignment in Kaifeng? I suppose Shen Shanwei will be there, he can handle it." Lin Moniao chews his lip thoughtfully. Master Wu had said he needed a reliable person for it, and isn't Shen Shanwei a reliable person? Hasn't he proven it? And maybe it won't be a bad thing if he gets a chance to prove it some more. "Have you left any instructions shifu gave you that he'll need with Huang-qianbei already?"

Mu Liqiang relaxes his shoulders and smiles. "There are still weeks before the Mid-Autumn Festival. I don't think I'll lose more than a day this way, but you and Huang-qianbei still need to travel all the way to Handan and back, and shouldn't lose any more time."

He adjusts the bag on his shoulder and steps closer. "Shifu didn't tell Shen-shixiong that the whole sect will be coming, including the sect leader and the God. Room will have to be arranged in the city. That's all. Shixiong is not mad that I'm leaving?" He takes Lin Moniao's hand.

"Why would I be mad? I'll miss you, of course." Lin Moniao squeezes his hand. "And--I'm glad I found you first. I wouldn't have been easy in my mind if you'd left without hearing my apology."

That makes Mu Liqiang open his mouth, then shut it again a few times. "But--you--why--it's-- I'm apologizing. You can't apologize if I'm apologizing. Shixiong doesn't have anything to apologize for." He adds his other hand on top of Lin Moniao's and speaks quickly. "I'm going to go and have an adventure of my own. Maybe a couple. I'll stop neglecting my cultivation, and sort out this qi imbalance, and stop messing up so much, and then I'll find shixiong again. I'll--bring you presents. Just you, not the sect. You'll see." He surges forward and kisses Lin Moniao on the mouth, then pulls back, drops a bow, and runs away in the direction of the stables. "Goodbye!"

"Shidi!" Lin Moniao dashes after him. "Didn't you promise you'd listen to me once I was well?"

"I can't hear you! Goodbye!" He waves behind him while sprinting.

"You filthy liar! Do you want me to shout this across the stable yard? I will!" Lin Moniao is laughing too hard to run properly. This isn't how he pictured his apology going, but that isn't going to stop him from saying it. "I'm supposed to be responsible for you but instead I was reckless and irresponsible and caused you distress! This shixiong is very sorry and hopes his shidi will forgive him! Also you are wonderful and kept your head just like shifu said and he is right to trust you with important things! Including me!"

Mu Liqiang skids to a stop at the other side of the stable yard, at the archway before the stalls, and turns back, a brilliant smile on his face. He waves a hand at Lin Moniao. "Very sorry, I didn't hear a word! Shixiong will have to tell me next time!"

A stablehand cleaning a pitchfork rolls his eyes.

Lin Moniao leans his hands on the fence around the stable yard, breathing hard, and then straightens up to wave back before heading back to the inn. He's probably got a pot of tea waiting for him; he might as well share it with Beggar Huang, now.

“Look who’s up!" Beggar Huang says, answering Lin Moniao's knock on his door. "Good morning. How’s your head?”

"I don't feel like I've been trampled by a herd of horses anymore. I'm sorry for causing trouble and... saying things I should not have said." He settles by the table and pours two cups of tea. "But you must admit the whole thing was a little funny."

Beggar Huang inclines his head to accept the apology as he comes to sit by the table. He snickers. "It will be when I tell the story. To experience it in person was enlightening. For one, this humble one is less inclined now to become a master of Qilin Villa." He holds up a finger. "I am still thinking about it."

"Well, I am glad to have provided an educational experience." Lin Moniao smirks over the edge of his teacup. "Do not tell the sect leader I said so. But, after all, now that we have the technique, I doubt I will be the only one practicing. Maybe we ought to recruit more female cultivators. Who is there, besides the sect leader, my mother, and Yuwen Duyi?"

"Shouldn't you know that better than me?" says Beggar Huang, who knows everything. "Well, there's the Nanjing house, of course."

"Oh yes, there are a few there, aren't there? I've never been."

Beggar Huang scrunches his eyes. "Are you still hankering to go to Kaifeng now that shidi has peeled off? We could go straight to Handan. Once we get closer, it will be easier to find answers. What happened to the Handan Escort Company, whether there are rumors of the Obsidian Bat surfacing, or the Immortal Sword Manor coming looking. Did Liu Xiuling really slaughter a bunch of no-names herself? I wonder."

"The main reason I wanted to go to Kaifeng really was to speak with a friend of mine who was there at the time--a little after the time--and is almost as nosy as Huang-qianbei. That hasn't changed. I'm afraid the trail in Handan may really have gone cold." Lin Moniao turns his teacup around in his hands. "But if you think it wisest..."

"Nobody is nosier than I am. Be clear. Who are we calling on?"

"Ah--a young man named Shi Jia. We were students together before I met Master Wu. I'm sure you've heard..." Lin Moniao trails off. Actually, he is curious what Beggar Huang has heard about Shi Jia. The rumor about his father arranging for him to pass the exams is practically a given, but what else?

"Shi Jia, the exam cheat that got through? I always wondered what happened to him. I never heard another interesting thing about him. No position, that's what I heard. I would have thought he went back to the country. So he's 'nosy', is he? Hah! Who owns him, do you know?"

"Nobody does," Lin Moniao says shortly. Is Beggar Huang trying to annoy him on purpose? If so, it's working.

"Well, if that's true, we might as well put in an offer. If he has a grudge against the empire, maybe he is looking for new friends." He takes a sip of his tea and sinks into thought, warming his fingers on the cup.

"Hmh," is Lin Moniao's only answer. But as the silence stretches out, he adds, "Anyway, thank you for looking out for me. Last time too. I don't think I ever said so."

Beggar Huang snaps out of his calculations and laughs. "You'll just have to dig me out of the next mess I get into. Ah, but this tea is weak. Let's go get a real breakfast and then get going. The moon travels even if we don't!"

The day is sunny and cool, and the traffic is high in the streets, but Lin Moniao spots a side street that lets them slip out from the crush and ride easily out to the open gates of the city. The rest of the day seems charmed in a similar way. They pass by an orchard just as fresh fruit is falling, and Huang Tianlin only has to follow Lin Moniao's pointing finger to go stuff his shirt full of snacks. They stop by a half-hidden well to eat in the dappled sunlight, and a fellow traveler stops by to play dice with them, losing all the way, though he also eats several of their peaches. And so when they do stop for the night, though tired, they are well fed and twenty copper coin richer.

The place Huang Tianlin chooses is one of the many roadside inns along this well-traveled route. It is large, though not fancy, and beyond it stretches out farmland bordered by tiered rice fields. This is less of a village and more of a collection of houses built by the road to catch travelers and merchants--besides the inn, there is a restaurant, a few shops, a gambling hall and a coffin house.

The inn is a little too fine, once again, for how Huang Tianlin is dressed, but no matter, he assures Lin Moniao--they know him here. And they do--the two of them are warmly welcomed by the proprietor and his daughter. "Master Huang passed this way before," the proprietor tells Lin Moniao enthusiastically. "He helped us through a difficult time, and we have yet to repay him in full. Please, our home is yours."

"Huang-qianbei is always helpful and generous. And Uncle is very gracious." Lin Moniao puts his hands together and bows shallowly. "I'm glad to see you prospering now." Not least because it makes it less likely that Lin Moniao will find his new sword given to the proprietor's daughter, with the excuse that she is pretty and kind and needs it more than he does.

The proprietor beams and they bow again; the daughter, who is indeed somewhat pretty, shoots Lin Moniao a flirty look from under her lowered lashes. Beggar Huang catches it, grabs Lin Moniao's arm and pushes him towards the restaurant.

The food is also free, and honored Master Huang could have all he wants, but he still stuffs his pockets with everything that will keep. "Well, then, rascal. Would you like to meet some of my other friends in this charming little spot?"

"Huang-qianbei really does have friends everywhere. I would be pleased to; a friend of yours is a friend of mine," Lin Moniao answers, even if he suspects that Beggar Huang is only inviting him along to keep him from getting into trouble with the proprietor's daughter while Beggar Huang himself is out. First it's, why don't you sleep with more women, Lin Moniao, then it's, not that one, Lin Moniao. There is no pleasing some people!

"This master quite likes it when Lin Moniao is so polite and yielding. Let's."

They leave the nice inn, bellies full of food, and pass the stores and the coffin house, and go beyond, where an alley leads them to a narrow dirt road meandering through the trees. From the road, Lin Moniao had already seen the wooded area on this side stretching out until it meets the field further along the road and expands into more open ground. They don't have to go far before they see the camp.

It really only looks like a camp because of the fire lit outside and the people sitting around it, roasting fresh fish. There is a barn beyond, patched-up and with a painted sign so peeling it has become unreadable, with laundry hanging out the window of the hayloft. A pair of small children run in and out of the open barn doors, shrieking, playing some indecipherable game.

Eyes turn towards them as they approach and one man stands up with a long branch in his hand, but when they spot Beggar Huang, the expressions change and a shout goes up. It's Huang Tianlin! Children, come meet the man who defeated the lotus pond yao.

"Defeated the lotus pond yao, did you?" Lin Moniao gives Beggar Huang a sideways smile. "I have never heard that story."

"No? You should hear the version they tell the children, that's the best one."

Indeed the two children have stopped running and are now staring at the two of them with round eyes. "That one?" one of them says, pointing at Lin Moniao.

"Psah! Does he look like such a great hero?" Huang Tianlin grouses. "Uncle Huang could run circles around this young runt. I'll show you later if you're good." But he gives one of them a peach and the other a stolen fishcake.

They are invited to the fire, and offered soup, which gets a lot thicker with Huang Tianlin's additions from the restaurant. There are several little households living in the barn, each with their marked out area, though not a lot of children, and many of the inhabitants are only there for a while before moving on. There are markings carved on the trees for stragglers, explains the Fourth Uncle, whose leg prosthetic means his traveling days are over, as he hands Lin Moniao a bottle of homebrew. "We don't let just anyone in," he says and laughs. On closer inspection, his long branch weapon has blades sunk into the wood on the business end.

"Well then, I'm honored." Lin Moniao raises the bottle in salute and takes a swig. He manages to swallow it down without coughing, although his eyes do start to water. "Woof! That has a kick to it."

The uncle laughs. "Value for money, that's us." He laughs again. "Let them know down in Jiujiang, boy, in case one of us ever goes that way looking for work."

"I certainly won't forget, unless I drink much more of this," Lin Moniao says, going back for seconds nonetheless.

"Well then, I wonder if I have anything to tell Huang Tianlin today that he doesn't already know. He never stops by but he has some stories to share and listen to. Did you hear about that Lord Liu up in Luoyang? A couple of the boys went to see if they could get some pickings."

"Good luck to your boys. We did hear something about that. It's all they're talking about in Lu'an--or was before we arrived. I suppose I gave them something else to talk about." He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and looks over at Beggar Huang fondly. "Huang-qianbei did say it would be funny when he told it."

Well, that's a challenge, and Huang-qianbei is up for it. And it is funny when he tells it now, though perhaps it would have been even more so if the subject hadn't been there to listen him tell it, and the teller therefore beholden to some semblance of truth. Next time, it might be a yet more famous hero that Lin Moniao defeated in debate, and that one not quite so drunk at the time, and he would have chased the thief through a chicken coop and ended up trailing feathers through a wedding reception. "And there you have it. We cleaned the soup out of his hair and carried him to bed, and he was dead to the world until this morning. If this humble one had not been there, who knows where he would have ended up?"

"Was the chain real gold?" asks a girl, not older than thirteen, who wandered out of the barn at the sound of storytelling. "Why did you give it away?"

"He's rich, sweetheart," her mother, a large woman, tells her. "But he's alright if he's with Uncle Huang."

"Give me the next one," she says boldly, and everyone laughs.

"The next time it happens, I absolutely will," Lin Moniao assures her, joining in the laughter. "The only trouble is I promised Huang-qianbei I wouldn't do it anymore."

"Only the stupid parts," Beggar Huang specifies, and waves at him to be quiet. Time for serious business. "Speaking of acquisitions, have any of you heard anything recently about a treasure called the Obsidian Bat?"

"I heard someone was asking around for it," says the Fourth Uncle, who hears everybody's story eventually. "Someone who isn't either of you, and wasn't too forthcoming with a name, but had money enough to buy dinners and wine and had a way of talking that loosens lips. That was a few weeks ago, though. Don't know if he ever found it. And then I heard the Immortal Sword Manor in Kaifeng is offering a reward, but that one was a lie, I think. A fellow came back this way a few days ago saying he went up to the manor inquiring, since he knew somebody who knew somebody who might know about it--not that he did, just wanted a warm meal--and was sent off packing."

"Hmm." Lin Moniao drums his fingers on his knee thoughtfully. I would expect results within months, Liu Xiuling had said, and prefer them within weeks. Well, it has been weeks, but it hasn't quite been months. Why the deadline, anyway? If it was how long she expected Xie Lijuan to live otherwise... that's interesting, but she was alive a few days ago, so the Sword Goddess would not have turned someone with news of the Bat away for that reason. What he says aloud is, "I know that the Sword Goddess wanted it at one time, but perhaps she's changed her mind. Or she's found it in the meantime."

Or else, he doesn't say, she simply didn't find the fellow credible. On the one occasion he met her, she didn't strike him as remarkable for her patience.

"What about this other person who was looking for it? He didn't give a name, you said--did anyone here meet him? Do you recall what he looked like?"

Fourth Uncle sucks in his lower lip, gaze wandering up towards the treeline. He scratches his head. "It's been a while... I'm not getting any younger..." His hand falls open in Lin Moniao's direction, palm up.

"Which of us is?" Lin Moniao sighs. In fact, he finds himself in a difficulty--how much do you tip an informer, anyway? What he has in his pocket is the twenty coins he won earlier, so he simply slides that over to Fourth Uncle as he leans back on his hands.

Someone whistles. Uncle closes his hand quickly.

"Do you need a maidservant, young master?" asks the bold girl, whose mother shushes her with a laugh.

"Ah, now I remember! Linlin said that her friend said he bought him a bag of bao for telling him... what was it again?"

Huang Tianlin prods him with his staff. "Get on with it!"

"Telling him that the Obsidian Bat had been stolen from a society of art lovers not two months ago, and they weren't too happy about some uppity bitch offering rewards for what wasn't hers. Linlin's words, not mine. And she said that he said it was a young fellow in scholarly blue, with a bag of books."

"Ah." Lin Moniao can't help a smile stealing across his face, thinking of Shi Jia and his ever-present bag of books. "I don't suppose she mentioned which direction he traveled next? Or, ah--anything about the society of art lovers."

There is, of course, the Society of the Solitary Temple in Kaifeng, but it could be a different one. It's another reason to visit Kaifeng, even if it turns out Shi Jia isn't there. If his mother should be back home by now, she might know something--that is her scene, after all.

"Well, her friend may have been... involved in the theft, so he would know." He puts his hands up. "Uncle is being honest now! Linlin did not give the name of her friend. But she did drop that this whole exchange happened in Kaifeng. And nothing about where the friendly scholar was heading."

Lin Moniao nods. "That's certainly more than we had to work with before, anyway."

"Is there a reason the followers of Yu are looking for that treasure?" Uncle asks with an innocent expression. "I'd understand if it was a parrot, not a bat."

"Bats are cute," Lin Moniao says. "I came across a forgery of it a while back, entirely by accident. I haven't been entirely sure the original even exists. Naturally I have been curious. And it might be inconvenient if people think I have it, when I don't."

All of that is true, even if none of it is actually an answer to the question.

"Oh, it exists," says Uncle, to murmurs of agreement from around the fire.

"Or if it somehow doesn't, the idea of it does, and that's just as bad," Beggar Huang puts in. He has not been drinking, but now he does, taking a deep gulp of the homebrew.

"Bad if people are chasing after us for it and we don't have it," says Lin Moniao, but it doesn't quite sound like that's what Beggar Huang meant. He looks over at him with a puzzled frown. "But why should its existence be bad?"

"Because," says Huang Tianlin, gesturing with the bottle, his brow dark, "if it exists, and these societies and rich people keep them on their shelves to look at and barter to other rich people, then it's not in a hospital. It's not being put to use! Give it to--give it to a bunch of killers, and they use it to heal their own people so they can go and kill more people. And if you did put it in a hospital, it'll be a week or two before someone comes to steal it away, probably killing still more people who are just trying to do some actual good. Fuck 'em all."

Lin Moniao looks down at his feet, rotating them at the ankles. "I have been trying," he murmurs.

Isn't this what Master Wu warned him about? He understood and appreciated the impulse, but it was Lin Moniao's job to stop Huang Tianlin, if it came to that. Only how can he? We have our own people to look out for, shifu had said, and isn't Huang Tianlin one of them? Even if Lin Moniao could fight him, he doesn't want to.

And after all, is Huang Tianlin wrong? When Lin Moniao had been at Immortal Sword Manor, hadn't he wanted to tell Liu Xiuling to go to hell? But he couldn't, because he had his own people to look after--himself, and Shi Jia and Wang Xiaonan and even Shi Jia's two worthless bodyguards. He had to get them through it, the same as shifu had gotten them through the encounter with Xie Lijuan.

She really is dying. Probably. Surely that much excellence is worth saving. But Huang Tianlin is right about her as well--she wears death around her like a cloak. Lin Moniao has felt it.

Well! What's the use of worrying about something that hasn't yet happened, and may never happen? His job now is to find the Bat. Let the future take care of itself. Just fall into the next step.

It takes Beggar Huang a moment to register the joke, but it breaks him out of his scowl and he cackles gleefully. "Do, do! Haha! I'll send you to the Immortal Sword Manor, haha! You'll have them all on their knees, you rascal!"

The mother of the bold girl pulls her a little closer to herself with a wry look at the two of them, then turns her around and pushes her back in the direction of the barn. She goes, but not without a pout.

"Well." Lin Moniao shrugs, as if modestly. "It might take a little time. But the Sword Goddess did say I was pretty."

A murmur of agreement goes around the fire again. "He is." "He really is." "I thought Huang Tianlin had tamed some kind of a seductive yao."

Lin Moniao laughs. "Maybe he has." He draws his Beauty Dagger and flips it in the air, tossing it a little higher than usual, which gives him time to draw first one, and then the other of his backup daggers and toss them as well. He catches one, drives it into the dirt at his feet, and then the other two, one in each hand. "And then again, maybe he hasn't."

The people of the barn applaud and make ooh and ahh sounds, though someone also says "Show-off!" and gets nudged by his friend.

"Lin-gongzi follows orders selectively," Huang Tianlin says sedately. "So if any of you try anything with him, there is only so much I can do to help. You can pass that on too."

It isn't much longer before Huang Tianlin and Lin Moniao have to take their leave. Tomorrow is another day of travel, so while the people cluster around and the goodbyes stretch out when Huang Tianlin stands up to go, they can't stretch out forever.

It was a lovely day, and it's a lovely night, cool and clear, the stars bright overhead to light their way back to the inn. Lin Moniao didn't drink enough homebrew to get drunk, only enough to give everything a soft glow, and, maybe, to loosen his tongue a little. "Huang-qianbei must have met many powerful people in his life," he says. "Did you ever meet one who you thought should be trusted with the power they had?"

"What a very specific question." Huang Tianlin had drunk a little more than Lin Moniao, but not so much as to affect him, either. He pokes at the dirt of the road with his staff. "Those in power have jobs to do, they have their places in the order of things. Do they do those jobs well? Do they fulfill their duty to those they have power over? If not, fuck 'em. I suppose I've met a couple."

"But not very many, eh? Well, neither have I. Still, as you say, we cannot do without them, can we?" Lin Moniao sighs. "What I don't like is people who will kick you in the face and act like they're righteous for doing it. I cannot say I cared for the Sword Goddess when I met her. Do you think she's gotten her hands on the Bat? It's as likely an explanation as any other for why she might have stopped looking for it. We ought to try to rule out the possibility before we go chasing up north, anyway, if we can."

Huang Tianlin stops at the edge of the trees. A few lights still glow in the cluster of buildings, including at the inn. "I think she must have the real thing. A mystical incense burner that heals wounds? If it was a fake, that would be easily discovered. The society believed they had the real thing, at any rate. And she would want the best to tempt Xie Lijuan, if that was the purpose of all this. Would you invite the Heartless Dagger to you and not deliver what she came for? I wouldn't!"

"Oh... yes." Huang Tianlin has, it seemed, reasoned ahead of Lin Moniao, who had missed the last step. "If Liu Xiuling has it, and Xie Lijuan is coming to her for it, that's it, then, isn't it? We ought to make sure that that's really what's happening, but other than that, what else is there for us to do? We've already lost." He kicks at a stone in the road, the lovely night ruined. He ought to take comfort in the fact that losing like this cannot possibly be his fault, unlike if they had found the Bat and then Huang Tianlin had donated it to a hospital, or destroyed it, or whatever he had in mind to do. Ought to, but doesn't. Lin Moniao doesn't like losing. "Even if we managed to steal it from Immortal Sword Manor and give it to Xie Lijuan ourselves--she would hardly thank us for giving her something she was about to get anyway. Or would she? If she has had to become this desperate before she was willing to come to Liu Xiuling--" Lin Moniao kicks another stone as logic once again intrudes on his delicate construction of hopes. "But Liu Xiuling would certainly hold a grudge. I'm pretty sure Master Wu doesn't want that."

"I have reason to believe that the Qilin Villa could tolerate a grudge with the Immortal Sword Manor better than you think--even more so if we have Xie Lijuan's regard. There is one other thing. Wu Zhenghao told me Xie Lijuan had been traveling for a long time, and did not know the Bat had resurfaced at all, let alone where it is. If she still doesn't know, we have some room to maneuver. What do you think? Should we see if we can get it out of the Immortal Sword Manor, if that's where it is, before those two have a chance to reunite?" He leans on his staff. "Or is there a different opportunity here? Show me your thinking, little bird. What do we want? What do we have going for us?"

"Well--the Heartless Dagger has been traveling ahead of us on the same road, and we are heading towards Immortal Sword Manor--or towards Kaifeng, but it's the same road," Lin Moniao says, his tongue picking up the quicker pace of his thoughts without quite meaning to. "I had thought--you seemed to be implying, and the logic seemed sound--that she was coming because Liu Xiuling had invited her, and Liu Xiuling had invited her because she had the genuine Bat in her hands at last. It did seem that when we last saw her, Xie Lijuan didn't know that Liu Xiuling had the Bat, but there's been time for her to learn otherwise, and change her plans accordingly.

"Why do you think that we could tolerate a grudge with the Immortal Sword Manor? I would like that to be true, but Master Wu said--" Lin Moniao tries to remember exactly what it was he said. "He said it would be awkward for us, if Liu Xiuling and Xie Lijuan continued feuding, when we are growing closer to Xie Lijuan, and the Immortal Sword Manor has such close ties to the Palace. Unless--well, if we could prove that Liu Xiuling killed those people in Handan--Master Wu said that everyone would prefer to believe that Xie Lijuan did it, but if they had no choice--don't tell me that Hua Haoyu was right and we're planning to expand our influence in Kaifeng by going to war with the Immortal Sword Manor."

Huang Tianlin cackles. "It's a good theory! Well done! But regarding the Bat, I only meant to say that Liu Xiuling is seeking Xie Lijuan, not that Xie Lijuan has accepted the invitation. Thus, the order of events: Liu Xiuling acquires the Bat from this society, tries to use it to lure Xie Lijuan, fails, and has to recover it. Or, she tried to lure her with a fake, failed, and then acquired the real one from whoever acquired it from the society. So many people wanting things! It muddles things, doesn't it?"

"If only we--" Lin Moniao bites his lip and doesn't finish his sentence. Thank heaven he doesn't have to say everything that comes into his mind today! If only we could all be beyond desire seems unkind, under the circumstances. "Ah--that is to say--whether or not she had the real one before Handan, it seems clear that she didn't afterwards, and if she now does, she must have gotten it somehow in the meantime. I wonder if Shi Jia got it for her? He was the one, you know, talking to Linlin--that's a guess, too, but I think it's a good one. There are many young scholars, and most of them wear blue and carry books, but he is particular about never letting his leave his side, and he has the means to hand out bribes as freely as Fourth Uncle was describing, and he was searching for the Obsidian Bat. He said he'd find Xie Lijuan for the Sword Goddess, you know. I thought--well, I'm not entirely sure what I thought. Maybe I thought he was doing what I was doing, and saying whatever he had to to get us out of there with our skins attached, and not meaning any of it. I was the one who figured out we must be carrying a forgery, but he was the one who figured out that Liu Xiuling had likely killed those people, and it's not like him to let a thing like that go."

Lin Moniao takes a deep breath. He may have told more about Shi Jia than he would have liked to, but it doesn't seem like he has a choice now. "I think we really must talk to him. If he has been working on something all this time--if he wants to bring down Liu Xiuling, then we may have goals in common, and I would rather work together, and not be stepping on each other's toes."

"We definitely want to talk to this friend of yours." Huang Tianlin scratches his head with his staff. "I hate to say so, but if you want to find a scholar, my friends aren't the people to ask. You'd need poets or courtesans or the like. That's more your area."

Lin Moniao looks around himself, at the quiet country night. "Well, I don't think we're likely to find any here. But I'll try tomorrow, when we get to Ruyin."

"Not the sort we need, anyway." Beggar Huang takes a step to move into the road at last, but stops and turns back to Lin Moniao, not meeting his eyes. "Don't take it too much to heart, what I said about the proper use of the Obsidian Bat. Your master is trying to do what is best for the sect. That's his duty and his place in the world. I just wish hospitals mattered more than war."

With that he nods, half to himself, and heads towards the inn.

Lin Moniao lingers a pace or so behind. There's something in the evasiveness of Huang Tianlin's speech now, in contrast to his candor before--the way he speaks of war and killers--whatever it is that prompts Lin Moniao to open his senses, he notices something that he never noticed before. A darkness surrounds Huang Tianlin, deeper than the cool of the summer night. It's not the miasma of death that chokes the air around Xie Lijuan, but the man is a killer.

Well, the jianghu is a bloody place, and Beggar Huang is a survivor. It shouldn't be a surprise that he's killed, and not one or two, but many. Does that give his words less weight? Or more?

It's not until Lin Moniao is in bed, turning their conversation over in his mind as he drifts off to sleep, that he realizes: Huang Tianlin never answered his question about why he thought they could risk a grudge with Immortal Sword Manor. Instead, he'd let Lin Moniao answer himself. It might be the habit of a teacher. Or it might be something Lin Moniao is more intimately familiar with: the tactic of a liar. What lie is more credible, after all, than the one your victim tells himself?

Shifu had warned him: it wouldn't be the first time Huang Tianlin had gone against the sect. And he has a grudge against the Palace, which might extend to the Immortal Sword Manor. At the same time, nothing Lin Moniao had said was false. Perhaps they'd better not pick a fight--not unless they can win it. And after all, it's not like he's done anything against Liu Xiuling yet. He's only keeping his options open, is all.

-

The Place With the Goats

The morning brings rain. The summer's warmth still penetrates the ground, so the whipping rain does not chill the travelers as it will in a month or two, but it also doesn't let up all through the morning's journey.

Huang Tianlin keeps his straw hat pulled down low and a hood over his poor mare's eyes. He and Lin Moniao would both be soaked were it not for the proprietor's daughter hurrying up with oilskins for them just before they set off. But the rain still gets through, slipping down their necks and into their boots.

The road hasn't had time to get muddy, however, and they make good time until, coming over a rise, they see down below a jam of carriages and horses huddled before a river-crossing. This is not the mighty Yangtze or the Yellow River, but it's wide enough to be a bother, and it's clear why the problem has occurred: part of the bridge is collapsed, and local imperial guards with their long spears have closed it off to all but foot traffic. The water churns underneath, worked up by the rain.

"It'll take ages to go around," complains a thin, sallow man sheltering in his own carriage at the edge of the jam when they approach him. Huang Tianlin inquires after alternate routes. "There's another bridge. It's over there, upriver, but the road is treacherous."

"I suppose we had better try it." Lin Moniao dashes the water out of his eyes and peers through the sheeting rain at the guards and the people walking across the bridge, then turns to Huang Tianlin with an ironic smile. "Unless you think there's someone here who needs our horses more than we do."

"At present, you insolent brat, the horses are the problem, for them and for us." Beggar Huang peers across the crowd from their vantage point still higher up on the rise, at the tail of the queue. "Although there's an idea... There are horses on this side and horses on that side, the horses can't pass but the people can. We could trade. Our horses on this side for their horses on that side."

"We could try." Lin Moniao brightens at the idea. "Shall I go on ahead? If I find anyone who agrees I can send them over to you, and in the worst case I can always come back."

"Make sure you have hold of the reins before they see my fine attire." Huang Tianlin laughs. There's not much risk of anyone on the other side noticing the raggedness of his robe, anyway, not with the rain and the new cloak thrown over it. "Go, go, be charming."

Lin Moniao grins and dismounts his horse, giving its neck a pat. A good Qilin Villa mare, but luckily he isn't the type to get sentimental over a horse. He bops a quick bow to Huang Tianlin and goes to join the queue and be charming.

The crowd is thick just where the guards are letting people through, but once past the crush, he is almost alone on the rickety remains of the bridge. The guards are taking no chances. Looking down into the water, he can see the trouble--one of the stone legs of the bridge has cracked and fallen into the river. So long as the three others stand, one side of the bridge should still be safe, unless someone slips in the rain.

On the other side is another press of people. Now, who among these farmers and merchants look like they could bear to part from their animals? Lin Moniao spots a pair of young men in expensive clothes making a racket at the back about how their father will hear about this, and how they'll be late for a promised visit on the other side, and surely the bridge can hold one horse, the guards should just let them try! It's so unreasonable!

Young wealthy men usually equals a superior quality of horse, unless he is very unlucky and these have been bred for beauty rather than speed or sturdiness; nonetheless, it seems worth a try.

"Hello!" Lin Moniao strides up to them, pushing back the hood of his oilskin--not enough to get drenched, just enough to let his face show to better advantage. "Isn't it annoying? But perhaps we can help each other. My friend is waiting on the other side with our horses--" He gestures towards the rise where Huang Tianlin is standing, although it's doubtful if they can make anything out in all this. "I hate to lose them, but we're in a hurry, and if I heard right, so are you. Perhaps we can swap horses? If you like, one of you can wait here with me and wait for my friend to bring back word from your friend that everything's alright, although you'll be on your way faster if you both go now."

The young masters look at each other, and then the big-eared one who seems to be the senior looks Lin Moniao up and down, gets off his horse and offers his hand to be clasped. "Upright gentlemen's agreement? We really need to get going. Li Ming of Five Peaks Manor appreciates this."

As Lin Moniao takes the young man's hand, he suddenly remembers where he's heard the name Li of Five Peaks Manor, and his smile falters for just a moment.

It's a very old memory. He had been lying on a balcony, playing with some discarded beads and broken pieces of jewelry, listening to gossip about the visitor--he hadn't given his real name, but even courtesans with no ties to Five Phoenix Manor have ways of finding things out. So wealthy, the lord of a manor, and a disciple of the Sword Goddess besides!

Li Ming isn't him, of course. He would have grown older too. A son, maybe, or a nephew?

"Hua Haoyu, of the Illustrious Qilin Villa," Lin Moniao says automatically, before he can stop to consider whether it's necessary, or even a good idea.

At least with Hua Haoyu stuck at the villa all the time, these young men are unlikely to ever meet the genuine article. And it's a name Huang Tianlin will recognize, if they give it to him.

They've shaken on it, and that's good enough. Li Ming and the other young man hand over their reins and wave as they push past the crowd to the bridge.

The horses, called Two Bites and Young Mistress, are indeed beautiful, but there seems to be nothing wrong with their temperament either. Young Mistress takes an immediate liking to Lin Moniao, nosing in his sleeves for treats.

It takes some time, but at least the rain is finally letting up, and the skies grow paler, and Huang Tianlin makes his way across the bridge. "Hua Haoyu!" he calls out as he gets closer. "You got skinnier. What happened?"

Lin Moniao lifts his chin. "Somebody keeps eating all the food."

"What a fiend." Beggar Huang tuts. "Well done. Hup! What can't the two of us do together? With my brains and your looks, all of Kaifeng will bow to us! What's this one's name, then?" He pats Two Bites's nose. The horse bites him. "Good," Beggar Huang says to the horse after he stops cursing at the pain. "You guard your boundaries. I like that in a beast."

With the rain dissipating entirely soon after, the rest of the journey is merry if muddy, with the wet landscape showing up to advantage--high rises and precarious roads up and down cliffs take the finally to another flat expanse of land, and eventually to the outskirts of Ruyin, the largest city in the province of Yuzhou. Here, verdant hills frame the city, and a long graceful bridge leads across the River Yinghe to the gates of the city.

Huang Tianlin, drenched and tired from the road, sighs in satisfaction at the sight of the peaked roofs promising shelter. "What do you say, do I look respectable enough for one of those inns where the bedding is almost free of fleas? What if I send you up ahead to book it and slide in through the back? One could get used to traveling in style again! And then I could go straight to bed while you rustle up some courtesans and poets."

Lin Moniao looks him up and down judiciously. "I think you could get by. You have owned that oilskin for a whole day and I don't believe it has a single hole in it yet. And even my mother would be muddy if she were traveling on a day like this."

It also so happens that Huang Tianlin shaved not two days ago, and lodgings prove to be no problem. The inn they find is near the nightlife and bordering a canal, where somebody has already set afloat a few lonely floating lights, though the end of the Ghost Month is nowhere in sight yet. Beggar Huang opens the window to admire the sight while he sits in their room, cradling a big plate of noodles. "I've been here," he says, but where hasn't he been? "But it has been a few years. Avoid that one place with the goats, if it's still there, even if the house looks very fine and that gentleman with the very pointy beard tries to get you to go. Other than that, I'm sure you can find your own way." He clearly has no intention of budging again.

"The place with the goats?" Lin Moniao raises his eyebrows. He's finished combing out his hair and is putting it up again. His outer robe, which has been drying out in front of a brazier, is still a little damp, but on the whole he feels much better, he's only not looking forward to shoving his feet back into his wet boots.

"You can't miss it. But really, don't go. A terrible time." Huang-qianbei points at his feet. "You could probably borrow some boots from the staff, or buy some. We are well off now, enjoy it!"

Lin Moniao narrows his eyes at him. "Do you think that if you're mysterious enough about it, I will go to the place with goats just to find out what it's about? Just for that, I will avail myself of the benefits of Huang-qianbei's wisdom and experience, and not go near any goats." He looks down at his feet and wiggles his toes. "I'm afraid that in order to go to a place where they sell boots, I must put on boots. The ironies of life! I don't know if we're quite well-off enough to summon a bootmaker here, but borrowing some isn't a bad idea."

Huang-qianbei salutes with his bowl. "Oh, well. I admit it would have been funny if you'd gone for the goats. Maybe next time."

Mostly presentable once more, Lin Moniao goes out in search of a wearable pair of boots, as well as any lead on where he might find news of Shi Jia. Poets and courtesans, Huang Tianlin had said, but he doesn't know Shi Jia--not that Shi Jia is averse to brothels, or anywhere gossip might be found, but Lin Moniao has never known him to seek them out particularly. If the bookshops were open, Lin Moniao feels fairly confident that he could find someone who had seen Shi Jia, unless he really never passed through here at all, but that will have to wait until tomorrow morning, and Lin Moniao hopes he'll be able to find something out before then.

When he asks a servant sweeping the hallway for boots, she thinks about it for a moment, then calls for her friend one floor down, and they converse, study Lin Moniao's feet and finally settle upon the third cook, who should still be sweeping up the kitchen, and has the same size foot, and is enough of a dandy to have several pairs of boots. They ask Lin Moniao to wait in the staircase and disappear, and after some time one returns with the third cook and a pair of serviceable brown boots.

The third cook turns out to be not only a dandy, dressed with great panache on a budget, but a chatty youth, and by the time Lin Moniao has his boots on, he also has a few recommendations. The theater sells books, mostly their plays; there's a tea shop not far down the street that stays up late for the philosophical sorts; there used to be a society for poets up the road but they moved, then the goat people moved in, and then there was the murder, and now it's just some fellow who lives there with all those books. The puppet show outside the big restaurant over the canal is very popular.

"A murder!" Lin Moniao exclaims. "With the goats, really? When was this?"

Beggar Huang, the old reprobate, may get the last laugh after all. Lin Moniao had really meant to leave the goats alone, but that was when he was thinking like Lin Moniao, not like Shi Jia. If Shi Jia heard half the mysterious warnings about goats that Lin Moniao has--and a murder on top of that--there is no way he would have refrained from sticking his nose in it.

"Oh, some time ago," says the third cook, leaning a little closer, his hands waving in the air. "It was a fine house, a big house, enough for the poets and all their books, but they left all of a sudden and rented it out to a man called Chu Yan, who moved in with his mother and all their goats and a mule. Imagine it: goats on the roofs, goats in the inner yard, goats nibbling your sleeve when you're having your tea. There must have been twenty, all let loose to wander where they wanted!" Perhaps that is an exaggeration. The youth is rather excitable. "They still had a lot of guests. Chu Yan was hospitable and many people came just to see the books, or maybe the goats, and they would have parties every week with opium and song and poetry. Then, well, Chu Yan was murdered. They found his body sliced in pieces right in the middle of his own inner courtyard. His mother, wrecked with grief, left on her own, and after some time, they let someone else take the house. It's still legally on the books of that society, I hear, but they haven't been back in years, even to collect rent. The goats are gone too. It's nothing very interesting now."

"And does nobody have any notion who did it? If he had been pushed from a high place, or nibbled to death, one would naturally suspect the goats, but sliced up, after all..." Lin Moniao trails off, thinking.

"What I heard..." The cook lowers his voice. "It was a hit ordered by someone you really don't want to mess with. Have you heard of Hu Ying, Moneybags Hu? Chu Yan owed him money. Open and shut, people say, but what are you going to do? It's Moneybags Hu."

"What about the person who lives there now? They must be sick, I suppose, of curious people knocking on their door and asking questions."

Back in his usual voice, the third cook continues, wrinkling his nose, "The man who lives there now is the dullest creature under Heaven. You can try and go talk to him, but honestly, even with the exciting story, I'd still rather go to the theater!"

Lin Moniao grins and flips the young man a few coins. (Judging by the reaction of Huang Tianlin's friends, he overtipped last time, and besides, this is an amateur informer, not a professional.) "Go buy yourself a theater ticket, then. I suppose I will have to go talk to the dullest creature under heaven."

The cook catches them deftly. "Blessings of the gods upon you! I will! It's down the road, past the restaurant with the puppet show, and five or so blocks, whitewashed walls and a carved bodhisattva in an alcove, you'll find it. Enjoy the boots." He grins back and gives Lin Moniao a wink before skipping away.

The smells of restaurant food and street food are tempting as Lin Moniao heads out, and lanterns outside the restaurant light up the bright colors of the puppet show the cook mentioned, barely visible through the crowd gathered to see it. A little further along, more lanterns are strung up over a square in what looks like a bustling night market. He would need to get closer in order to see what sorts of goods are for sale at the stalls and tables and spread-out carpets--afterwards, maybe. The dullest creature under heaven, first.

A little past the night market, he sees the house that the cook described, and he walks up and knocks on the gate.

There is no immediate answer, but after some time knocking there are footsteps beyond and the window in the door is opened. Beyond is a man a little shorter than Lin Moniao, who could be anywhere from ten to twenty years his senior, with a fussy little beard and a cap. The oddest thing about him is that even though it is quite dark, he seems to be wearing a pair of quartz sunglasses. He blinks at Lin Moniao through them, looks him up and down, then takes them off and rubs the bridge of his nose. "No, no," he says. "I mean no dishonor to the God Yu, but we are not looking for any religion in this house, thank you." He goes to close the window.

Lin Moniao grabs the edge of the shutter, keeping it open. "How fortunate I'm not here to discuss Him, then. In fact, it's an especially auspicious night for you, because I am also not here to discuss poetic societies, murders, or goats. I simply want to know if you've had any visitors recently who have asked about those things."

The man's expression grows sour at the mention of goats; the pinched look brings out wrinkles. Perhaps closer to twenty than ten years Lin Moniao's senior, then. "Recently, ah. Let me see. Yesterday we received the washing back, and there was a misunderstanding about the receipt. Around noon I had a delivery of dried seaweed. No, no visitors yesterday. Then the day before I had my walk..." He goes on in this fashion for a while, finally arriving at, "There was the fishmonger... And you know, just before the Ghost Festival everybody wants to come around to the goat-murder house, so I locked up and refused to answer the door. So, no, nobody in the last few days, and before that they may have tried, but you know, it is a rather strong door and I did install spikes on the walls." He points up at the wall of the house, where indeed there are spikes at the top to discourage any climbers. "Why do you ask? Are you looking for somebody interested in the goat-murder story? That is more people than you might think, young man. Really, you wouldn't think it was that titillating..."

"Aren't thrill-seekers tiresome?" Lin Moniao says, leaning his elbows on the window against another attempt to close it. "What about before the ghost festival? Was one of them, by chance, a young scholar in blue with a bag of books he refused to be parted with? Narrow face? Willing to listen to any number of anecdotes about fishmongers as long as you tell him what he wants to know in the end?"

The man looks up sharply, then his expression turns back into the mild confusion. But the slip has been made; he recognizes the description. He gnaws on his lower lip. "No young men recently, no no no... Some young fellows from up the river come every now and then, they seem to find this poor old man funny..."

"Oh, my mistake." Lin Moniao grins and settles his chin on his hands, getting comfortable. "About when wasn't he here? Did he happen to not mention where he wasn't staying, or tell you how you could fail to reach him in case you remembered any other details you didn't tell him at the time? However annoying he is, I will tell you from experience: I can outlast him."

The man sighs and drops the act. "You'd better come in, Qilin Villa." He steps back and unlocks the door, pulling it open for Lin Moniao. Beyond is a little garden and another door already open, leading inside the shadowed house.

Lin Moniao bows and enters. "Uncle is very hospitable. I won't tell a soul."

"I'm afraid I'm the only one here tonight. My day servant goes home long before dark. Come along." He picks up a lamp that he had set down by the door. There are no other lights anywhere, and so they make it through the house in a single pool of light, which falls on a stone lion statue here, a bookshelf there, until they reach a room with a table and worn pillows, where a brighter lamp already sits on the table. The man blows out the little oil lamp in his hand and gestures for Lin Moniao to sit.

The room is clean bit untidy, with books and knick-knacks left in piles, taken out of their shelves and shoved back in willy-nilly. This one room holds nearly as many books and scrolls as the entire Qilin Villa library--though, granted, that one is probably also more closely curated.

"They know me as Tan Hanying here, though Uncle will do just as well for you. Um... Ah, well, I could make some tea, I suppose but, hmm. If you give me a moment, I'll get us some wine, what do you say?"

"Wine would be lovely, thank you," says Lin Moniao, taking a seat.

Tan Hanying potters about among all his many things, cursing as he stubs his toe on a misplaced box, but comes up with a crate of unopened bottles of wine and a pair of clay bowls. He pushes the crate up to Lin Moniao and sets the bowls down, gesturing for the younger man to pick a bottle and pour. "So, you're here looking for... which name do you know him by?"

Lin Moniao picks the most expensive-looking bottle and pours two cups, raising his eyebrows at Tan Hanying. "How many names has he given you?" The man doesn't sound anymore like someone who Shi Jia was simply pestering about a random murder. Could he be a colleague? Lin Moniao has never been inside a Bureau Eight office, to the best of his knowledge, but he wouldn't be surprised if they looked a little like this. "Well, I have known him to call himself Xia Yang... but usually I called him Shi Jia. And he called me Lin Moniao."

"Friends, are you?" The question seems to be rhetorical, because he continues without waiting for an answer, "Well, he went by Xia Yang when he was here. But I might know how to find him, if you say it's urgent. Would you like to send a message?"

"I would be obliged if you could let him know..." Lin Moniao turns his cup in his hands thoughtfully. "I am on my way to Kaifeng, and I have been very much hoping to see him there. Or even sooner, if possible. I think our business from last time isn't finished."

Tan Hanying nods. "That can be done. Anything else? Where should he meet you?"

"Oh..." Lin Moniao drains his cup and smiles. "I have every confidence in his ability to find me."

Tan Hanying looks like he wants to say something more, but decides in the end to nod and drink his wine instead. "So how do you find Ruyin, Lin Moniao?"

Lin Moniao shrugs. "There are fewer goats than I had been led to believe. Frankly, I'm disappointed."

And that was how Lin Moniao made the dullest man under Heaven laugh.

Tan Hanying seems to feel quite enough information has been shared and implied, and sends Lin Moniao off amicably after another cup of wine. Maybe he ought to go back and tell Huang Tianlin the news. On the other hand, what's the rush, especially since it doesn't change their plans? There's still time for him to go to the night market and find some new boots, or more wine and fried dumplings, or someone who will be happy to buy him wine and fried dumplings.

When he does return, satisfied on both accounts, he finds Huang Tianlin sitting up. The man's sleep schedule has always been erratic, but late nights have been a typical feature as long as Lin Moniao has known him. He has lit a profligate lamp, but is neither reading nor writing but looking out the open window, half hanging out over the water. He pulls back in when he hears Lin Moniao. "Welcome back. Had fun?"

Lin Moniao flops backwards onto his bed, pleasantly light-headed. "I regret to inform you that Lin Moniao has been devoured by goats. Please tell his grieving mother that if only he had listened to Huang-qianbei, he would still be with us today."

Beggar Huang throws his hands up and hangs his head in a gesture of woe. "A sad duty, but it must be borne. What a good thing he willed me his boots before expiring, I would hate to see him go into the afterlife thinking he did not provide for his dear companion.

"So you did go, did you, rascal? Did Chu Yan read you his terrible poetry?"

"Ah, no. He really is dead." Lin Moniao half sits up. "He was found sliced up in his own courtyard--long before we got here! So don't try to blame me. Prevailing local opinion says it was a man called Moneybags Hu."

"Oh, ahhh, oh dear. Well, you reap what you sow." Huang Tianlin puts his hands up. "Heaven is high and the emperor is far away, especially when you have money like that one, may he soon expire."

"Well, so," agrees Lin Moniao, who doesn't really care about Chu Yan or Moneybags Hu. "In any case, it does seem that Shi Jia was here not too long ago, and I have hopes of seeing him in Kaifeng."

Huang Tianlin offers his congratulations; if he has anything more to say about this knowledgeable and snoopy friend, he keeps it to himself.

He does not go to sleep, however, but spends the night by the window, only drifting off just before dawn. By the time the sun is up, he is snoring wetly with his head on the table, curled up in what doesn't look like a comfortable position.

One more day's ride.

-

Return to Kaifeng

Yawning, Lin Moniao takes his time dragging himself out of bed and getting dressed, but Huang Tianlin doesn't stir while he does. The kitchen will have tea and breakfast, and Lin Moniao can return the borrowed boots. And perhaps linger a little thanking their owner, if he's around.

One of the women from last night is there on the way, and she bops him a bow, but she is busy with a tray on her way to another room. The way to the kitchen is through the restaurant, which is already busy, the inn serving walk-ins as well as guests, and full of chatter, but no one stops him until he is through the door. In the kitchen, the air is steaming and fragrant, A woman cooking in a deep pan sunk into the stone stove and a man cutting chives immediately spot him. "Can we help you?" he says. "Is the esteemed guest lost?" she asks.

"Ah, no--I wanted tea and breakfast for my room, but I also wanted to return these." Lin Moniao holds up the boots and peers around the kitchen curiously. "I don't suppose their owner is around?"

"Those fancy things!" the man scoffs but goes to fetch the third cook from his punishment duty in the cold room.

He is looking worse for wear this morning, but grins when he sees Lin Moniao. "Philantropist-gongzi! You survived!"

"Not sliced up or anything. It must have been your excellent boots that helped me run away from hired killers." He hands over the boots, giving the cook's arm a quick surreptitious squeeze as he does. "How was the theatre?"

"Brilliant! I owe gongzi. And I met with friends, and stayed up nearly all night." He tucks away the boots. Unlike Huang Tianlin, he does not have the privilege to stay sleeping after a sleepless night, but ah, he is young. "I was thinking you might rather die of tiresome anecdotes. Ah, gongzi! I wouldn’t have sent you there if I thought there still were assassins running around!"

"You did warn me. I have no one but myself to blame. But I shouldn't get you into more trouble," Lin Moniao says, taking in the other cooks and the evidence of punishment that's already been handed out. Still, as he turns to go, he tosses a smile over his shoulder and adds, "Unless you want me to!"

"Come spoil me anytime!" The third cook laughs. He really is far too familiar with the guests.

Huang Tianlin eventually rouses himself, but he isn't happy about it, and instead of breakfast asks for cakes and fruit to eat on the way. Even when saddling up the young master's beautiful horse, he is so sleepy he first buckles the saddle on backwards and doesn't notice until he tries to mount.

The early day is quiet and the journey easy and leisurely, as Huang Tianlin half-dozes in his saddle. It starts to warm up as they go on, but the rain the previous day ensures the heat will not be oppressive.

At midday, they stop by a small river bend to water the horses; Huang Tianlin eats a rice cake and three apples, drinks a bottle of baijiu, and settles under the canopy of an elm tree, within earshot of the soothing sound of the babbling stream. Within a few breaths, he is asleep.

It would be completely inappropriate for Lin Moniao to pick the pockets of a master of his sect--which is why he'd better do it now, before Huang Tianlin accepts the position. He may never get a better opportunity. And, after all, he's going to put everything back the way he found it. Probably.

Before he gets started, he nudges Huang Tianlin's shoulder, very gently, just to make sure he's really solidly asleep. The man does not even move, only snoring very lightly with his mouth open. He's curled up on his right side, but that leaves his sleeves and any pockets or any hidden bags he might keep on his left.

Very cautiously, Lin Moniao starts searching him. His whip, of course, is coiled at his hip, worn but well-made. His outer pocket contains snacks and the remains of snacks, and, on a frayed string and covered with rice cake crumbs, five copper coins. Inside his sleeve Lin Moniao finds a collection of authority tokens: the familiar parrot of Qilin Villa, and a rat like the one he'd given Lin Moniao to access his own network of friends, as well as a third token Lin Moniao doesn't recognize. This one is in the shape of a a tree frog wearing a fine bejeweled headpiece. Filing this piece of information away for later, he puts all the tokens back in their hiding place.

Beneath Huang Tianlin's outer robe, but accessible through a concealed slit in it--much like the arrangement where Lin Moniao keeps his own backup daggers--he finds a hip pouch. It contains a woman's bangle set with red gems, which shines like gold. It's quite pretty, but on the inside, where it has rested against a wrist, the gold color has worn off, and at a guess the gems are polished river-stones or glass, rather than anything truly valuable. A kit with shaving gear, cleaning oil, makeup and a shiny fine hairtie. A couple of slim volumes, which Lin Moniao sets aside to look at more closely afterwards. And at the very bottom, a very fancy set of padlock keys. They haven't been shined, as if they've been forgotten at the bottom of the pouch for years, but the quality is clear.

Back to the books. One is a manual for a martial technique using a whip. The other--

It's a list of names. Some of the writing has rubbed off, and it seems rather old, and as if it may not have been kept up to date. Next to most of the names is a list of misdeeds, vices or eccentricities, things that the people named would not like to be publicly known. Some of the entries are only a couple of characters; others are quite long.

As soon as he realizes what he has, Lin Moniao searches for one name, forgetting even to keep one eye on Huang Tianlin in case he starts stirring. But his mother's name isn't in the book, and neither is his own. In the course of his search, he realizes that what at first seems like a random collection of names does in fact have an organizational system. Bureaucrats are marked by a rank symbol, magistrates and their wives with another, a third category is people connected to the Immortal Sword Manor, and the fourth are laypeople, servants and laborers. There's also a fifth category, but Lin Moniao can't tell what it is; in all the categories, the majority of names are unknown to him, but here he can't find any pattern.

Well! It seems that he was right, anyway, that Huang Tianlin's grudge against the Palace extends to Immortal Sword Manor. Before pursuing that line of thought, though, there is one official whose secrets Lin Moniao would very much like to know, if he has them.

Sha Zhengtian is in the book. Apparently, some time ago, back when he was a junior bureaucrat, he misused his position to get his brother out of debt by lending him money from the treasury. It doesn't say if the money was later returned. Lin Moniao smiles to himself; it doesn't make him think any less of the man, and a willingness to transgress the bounds of propriety for the sake of a loved one can only be an advantage in any man interested in marrying his mother. Even so, it doesn't hurt to have a bit of blackmail against him either. In case it's needed.

As far as the current mission... Liu Xiuling is there, of course: her entry says bloodthirsty, and friends with the Heartless Dagger, as well as a list of people she's dishonorably killed, but none of those jump out at Lin Moniao as being particularly significant. Rather than look up individual members of Immortal Sword Manor, only a handful of whom he's met and none of them he knows well, he looks at the crimes of people marked with the symbol of Immortal Sword Manor, looking for any that might be useful in the future.

There: a treasure went missing from the manor and was never recovered. Disciple Huo Yimu took it and sold it, and the theft was blamed on a servant, who the Sword Goddess decapitated. A note gives the name of a trader in Kaifeng it was sold to. If Huo Yimu is still at the manor, this information might certainly persuade him to be helpful.

Lin Moniao glances aside at Huang Tianlin, who still seems to be sleeping heavily. He ought to replace the man's belongings before it's too late, and not press his luck--but there are still a few names he wants to look up. He can push it a little further.

Shi Jia isn't in there, and on reflection, this isn't surprising--none of the events detailed in the book are more recent than ten years ago, when Shi Jia was still a child. Of Shi Minshan, all it says is that he's Shi Minhua's brother, a fact that Shi Jia would surely be glad to know, even if the particular crime Shi Minshan stands accused of would not have been committed yet. Shi Minhua--

Lin Moniao breathes deeply and keeps his hands relaxed, not to tear or crumple the fragile pages while he reads. Shi Minhua's entry is long. Nightlife alias Xiu Xinyi, penchant for torture, especially of young boys, spendthrift and murderer, funds a casino called the Eight-Headed Dragon under the alias, which may be involved in more varied vices than just gambling.

Shi Minhua's name also comes up in another entry: Bureaucrat Liu Ruogang's real name is Xiang Bao. He was a secretary who murdered the real, orphaned young master Liu Ruogang and took his place. When relatives became suspicious, he gave all of Liu Ruogang's wealth to Shi Minhua in turn for him swearing that he is the real Liu Ruogang, and giving him an office in the palace guard.

This is who Shen Shanwei went to meet, and who Hu Qiu and Yang Xiuxing would have been sold to. Gao Chengyi, who would have sold them, is dead, but Shi Minhua is still alive, so the work is only half done. Someday, Lin Moniao intends to finish it.

He closes the book softly and replaces it and the rest of the things in Huang Tianlin's bag, then settles in, waiting for him to wake up.

Not long after Lin Moniao has put everything in order, there comes a clanging and singing from the road, and the sound of wheels and feet. At first it sounds like a religious group, but it soon becomes clear it is nothing of the sort--the song being sung is from a popular play.

Whatever it is, it wakes up Huang Tianlin where having his pockets picked did not, and he grabs his head with an unhappy moan, curling into an even tighter ball. "Heathens! Monsters!" he moans.

Lin Moniao pats Huang Tianlin's shoulder sympathetically (and lightly). He's generally in no better mood when he's been woken up himself. "Shall I kill them for you?" he asks, getting to his feet. "Only I'm afraid that would only make more noise."

Without waiting for an answer, he heads towards the road to see what it's about.

Now that Lin Moniao has a clear view of the colorful procession, there is no more doubt of it--this is a theater group, practicing their material while they travel. Musicians bang their cymbals while the actors sing. The whole troupe is packed into three carriages, piled high with rolled up stage backgrounds, crates and instruments. On one of the carriages, a woman with her face painted in stage white lounges with a fan beside the driver. When she spots Lin Moniao by the side of the road, her mouth forms an O before turning into a smile. She waves at him. "Hello, handsome!" she calls out to him, then says inside the carriage, "Girls, look, what a beautiful man!"

Several women of various ages peek their heads from the carriage window and they all call sweet things out to him. "Come see our show!" says one.

"Come hitch a ride with us!" says the woman with the fan. "There is space if I sit on your lap." She then hides her face coquettishly behind the fan while her friends laugh.

"Please kill them," Huang Tianlin calls weakly.

"What a generous offer! It's enough to make me wish I didn't have my own horse, which, alas, I have." Lin Moniao grins and bows. "But my friend might be grateful for a ride, if only you can practice a little more quietly. I don't think his head can take it."

Beggar Huang drags himself up and picks up his staff, which he leans on heavily as he makes it up to the roadside, his jaw set in silent fury. The troupe has come to a halt, as the carriage with the ladies is now refusing to move. One of the older women sees him and exclaims, "Hey! That's Huang Tianlin, isn't it?"

Now there are actors and stagehands coming down from the other carriages, and the singing and music has effectively stopped, and Beggar Huang's face clears as he recognizes his friends. Someone hands him a fresh bottle of baijiu, and he begins almost to smile.

"You're going to Kaifeng? So are we!" says a round, elderly man. "We're performing 'The Ghosts of Red Hill' there until the end of the month. It's truly bloody and terrifying, I promise you. Let's travel together. Don't you mind the sisters, young man, they'll tease but they don't bite."

"I bite," pipes up one of them. "Come closer and I'll show you."

Lin Moniao laughs. "Well, if you need to make room in the carriage for Huang Tianlin, you're welcome to ride double with me."

The women giggle and huddle inside the carriage, and by some unknown method select one among them to take up the offer. "Well, now we have to," says Huang Tianlin to Lin Moniao with a wry smile, but his good humor has returned, and he climbs happily on another carriage, where someone pulls up a board for a game.

They set off again, only a fraction more quietly, and now Lin Moniao has a sweet-smelling little actress snuggled up against his back with her arms around him, recounting the gruesome plot of their play in his ear. It's altogether a much more peasant way to travel than through the driving rain, with no other company than Huang Tianlin (not that Huang Tianlin is bad company). It's almost a shame when Kaifeng comes into view in the late afternoon. The troupe digs out the instruments and sets out to singing, with banners rolled down the sides of the carriages to advertise the play. The gates are closing at sunset, but they make it through well in time, and even attract a small crowd. Here it's time to say goodbye, parting with the troupe with half-meant promises to come see their play. The troupe will stay to advertise in the high-traffic bottleneck of the gates before going off to their lodgings in the cheaper side of the city.

"Well, let's go see how Shen Shanwei has been holding up," Lin Moniao says once the two of them have lodged their horses at a carriage house, since there's no room for them at Master Wu's. "Unless Huang-qianbei prefers to make his own arrangements?"

"I'm awake now," Beggar Huang points out. "Who knows about tomorrow? Let's go see this foolhardy friend of yours. Is there ah, anything I should know? More than what Wu Zhenghao told me?"

"Depends. What did Master Wu tell you?"

"Not very much. He focused on practical details. Nothing much at all about the young man's character. He did mention he was one of Gao Chengyi's disciples, but considered loyal to the sect, which seems just a little contradictory to me. And that he volunteered to follow the lead."

"Shen Shanwei is loyal. And capable," Lin Moniao says simply. It seems like the safest answer; he doesn't know what Huang Tianlin has been told, or discovered on his own, about the circumstances surrounding Gao Chengyi's death, and Lin Moniao isn't going to be the one to tell him. "He can come off as a bit... hm. Cold. But that's just his way, don't mind him."

Beggar Huang peers at him curiously, but soon gives up with a shrug. "Ah, very well then."

The days are shorter now, and the sky is already darkening. Ghost meals still accompany most doorways, and as they approach Master Wu's beautiful house, they see a fresh bowl set out on the front step there too, and a light glowing beyond the outer wall.

Lin Moniao's heart beats a little faster as he climbs the steps and knocks on the gate. He'd believed Huang Tianlin when he said Shen Shanwei was safe. And the house is clearly occupied. And even so--

The knock brings up a servant--not of God Yu, but of Master Wu, one of the few domestic servants he employs. Normally, when the house is full of members of the sect, it would have been one of them, especially so late at night. As Lin Moniao recognizes her when she pulls the fabric from the peephole, so she recognizes him, and opens the door to the gatehouse with a little cry. "Lin-gongzi! It's so late! Come in, come in! I'll go tell Shen-gongzi. Welcome."

She doesn't need to go get Shen-gongzi, because the ruckus has brought him over. As they pass through to the main hall, through which one enters all other interior rooms, Shen Shanwei himself comes in from the side of the inner courtyard. He lets out a little cry and walks up to touch Lin Moniao's sleeves. "Shixiong, what are you doing here? Oh, qianbei." He turns to drop Huang Tianlin a respectful bow. "I'm sorry. Welcome, we weren't expecting anyone."

It really is him. Lin Moniao pulls him into a hug, not trusting himself to speak. It's only that Shen Shanwei's mission was so dangerous. Lin Moniao isn't going to get like this every time Shen-shidi is out of his sight for a minute, just because of that one night, because that would be ridiculous and stupid. So he lets go after a few seconds, even if he would happily hold on all night.

Like every other time, Lin Moniao's hug catches Shen Shanwei off guard, and he pats him awkwardly. There's a shy smile on his face when they pull apart, though.

"I ought to apologize for not sending word ahead," Lin Moniao says. "We're only staying for a day or two, but Mu Liqiang will be arriving soon. Master Wu sent him to prepare for everyone coming for the Mid-Autumn Festival--and by everyone I mean the God and the sect leader and... he'll have the full list. So he'll be taking care of that, but until he gets here, you're in charge, and you ought to know, just in case."

Shen Shanwei's eyes widen. "What, the God? Is He--are they--? They're invited to the palace? Is that it?"

"Heh, you're not so stupid." Beggar Huang grins. "How did you figure that out? Was it because it's only what Wu Zhenghao has been working for all these years?"

"Who else would a God leave His home for?" Shen Shanwei addresses Beggar Huang, but looks at Lin Moniao, and smiles again, looks away, frowns. "Let's, let's get you some dinner, I was just going to have some soup, we will order something from a restaurant. Tea. You'll need tea." He turns in place, unsure where to go.

Qi Lian, the servant woman, bows, suppressing a laugh. "Masters, let this one take care of it! You'll have the tea here?"

"Yes," Shen Shanwei agrees, takes Lin Moniao by the sleeve, and pulls him towards the table. He sits down, the shoots up again. "I got you a present."

"Sit down," Huang Tianlin says with a touch of authority, tugging at Shen Shanwei's arm. He sits down again obediently.

"You can give it to me later," says Lin Moniao, settling by the table. A present, really! And here he didn't get Shen Shanwei anything. Or, well, there's the sword--he had a different idea about it, but it's not too late to change his mind.

"I was hoping to see Master Wu, but I take it he's not coming home yet. I made contact with the Nanjing house on the way back, and with Huang-qianbei's network," Shen Shanwei bows shallowly in Huang Tianlin's direction, and the master acknowledges it with a stately nod, "but didn't trust them with all details. Maybe if one of you is going to meet the masters first, you can deliver my report, so--so I will give it now." He rubs the heels of his hands together nervously but collects himself.

"I met up with Hua Yan not long after parting from Master Wu's retinue and we rode together southeast to Shanghai. We didn't exactly warm up to one another, but I don't think he minded me. In Shanghai, I took the room that had been booked for Gao Chengyi, and then Hua Yan took me to meet his friend at the Golden Lion Theatre."

As he warms to the subject, the bout of nervous tension seems to dissipate as well, and he seems more like himself again. Even the cadence of his speech slows down. "It was a private room up above even the balconies, where we could see the stage, but no one could see or hear us. The contact was waiting for us there. He was perfectly pleasant, and introduced himself as Xiu Xinyi. We talked about Master Gao, and I spoke of him like shijie would, all--all worshipful. I told him I wanted revenge--all the same things I had told Hua Yan. Xiu Xinyi told me he could help me get my revenge, and then he gave me a rather ridiculous amount of money. I believe he believed me. It was easy. Except." He falls silent, hesitating. "Except there was someone else there."

"Hm?" says Lin Moniao encouragingly. It's possible he's picked up some bad habits from Master Wu, when it comes to listening to reports. He wants to touch Shen Shanwei: to squeeze his thigh or to gather him close and rub the back of his neck, but he settles for brushing their hands together on the table.

He wants that man to never have been anywhere near Shen Shanwei.

Shen Shanwei looks to the side and swallows. “When I first saw him, I thought there was a month-old, dried up corpse propped up on a chair in the corner, dressed in fine embroidered robes and wearing a scholar’s hat. Then it--he moved. He--I have to assume it was a qi deviation, or some horrible illness. He moved, he breathed, he spoke. The whites of his eyes were--yellow--but he looked at me. Right through me.”

"Oh, great." Huang Tianlin groaned. Shen Shanwei looks at him questioningly. "Ah, go on."

Shen Shanwei slumps forward a little, staring at the table. “I… I don’t think he believed a word I had said.”

Huang Tianlin shakes his head. "The Dead Eunuch. Don't feel too bad, lad. You never had a chance."

Shen Shanwei closes his lips tightly. “But. They did send me back with all that money, and told me when and how to report to them, and that they'd be in touch when they needed me. I figured it had to be fine. Maybe they thought it was good to have me here, even if they couldn’t trust my reports. Maybe they thought it was a good idea to make me think I’d fooled them. Either way I didn't know what else to do, so I came right back here like I was supposed to.”

"Well, whatever their reasons were, I'm glad. And they won't--whatever it is they want from you, they're not going to get it. We'll figure something out." Lin Moniao turns to Huang Tianlin. "Who is the Dead Eunuch?"

"Zhang Chuanli was the man who cemented the current Empress in her position. He is inseparable from the imperial family as a result. And he is in charge of the Locust Tree Society. I've met the man. Really, you had no chance." He scratches his chin as Shen Shanwei hangs his head. "Are they that serious about us? Or was he after the White Cloud Technique? He has no use for it, but it could be something to barter for political favors."

"If--well, the Palace might have reasons to be vetting us closely right now. In any case, we know, and we have to assume they know we know. Likely that means they want us to know." Lin Moniao drums his fingers on the table thoughtfully. "But why do you think we'll be seeing the masters before you do, Shen-shidi? You're not--leaving again? Have they summoned you?"

If they have, Xie Lijuan can go whistle for her Obsidian Bat, because Lin Moniao is not letting Shen Shanwei go alone to meet those people again.

"No, no," Shen Shanwei waves his hand. "I haven't heard back from them at all. So maybe it is just that they wanted to send a message." His brow clears at the thought, but Huang Tianlin shakes his head thoughtfully. "I thought you'd be heading back in a couple of days. Why, where are you going?"

"Oh! No, we're not going back, we're going on. I would have told you where, but if you're dealing with people who can get the truth out of you at a look, it might be best not to risk--" Lin Moniao breaks off abruptly, remembering what he has already told Shen Shanwei, and claps a hand over his mouth. "Oh God."

"They didn't get the truth," Shen Shanwei says, surly. "They just knew I was lying. What is it?"

"It's nothing. It's not important," Lin Moniao says quickly. "Anyway, the truth is, we don't know exactly where we're going next. It depends what we find out while we're here."

Shen Shanwei nods. "Makes sense."

Huang Tianlin clears his throat. "So, you've had some time to think about this. Any ideas?"

Shen Shanwei purses his lips, then turns back to Lin Moniao. "How is Yuwen-shijie? Well, I assume, or you would have told me."

"Is that your squeeze point?"

"The only one they can find."

"You're sure about that?"

"I'm sure. My name's not even Shen Shanwei. I never told anybody that. I didn't want my family to find me."

"Ah, I see!"

Looking from Huang Tianlin to Shen Shanwei in this rapid exchange, Lin Moniao finally answers Shen Shanwei's question. "Shijie is--well, she's not happy, but when has she ever been? She called Master Wu shifu once before she corrected herself, and maybe she fondly believes I didn't notice, but I noticed. I am her apprentice now, can you believe that? She wrote me a manual. Which I promptly misused in exactly the way she warned me not to. I'm sure she will be unsurprised when she hears of it."

Shen Shanwei snorts, then laughs out loud. "Her apprentice! Oh! I both do and don't want the details. No, don't tell me."

"As you like. I can't guarantee you won't hear about it from someone else, though." Lin Moniao leans back on his hands, grinning. It's good to hear Shen Shanwei laugh. "So, ah--while we wait for our dinner to get here--you said you got me a present?"

"Well, there's also the tea, but..."

"Go on," Huang Tianlin says, waving his hand. "I'll leave you some."

Shen Shanwai climbs up on his feet. "Come on, I'll show you."

Lin Moniao stands up and follows him curiously. Shen Shanwei takes a light and leads him to one of the smaller rooms that disciples usually sleep in, the one he's clearly staked out. It's a familiar setup, with a bed and a cabinet and a window, and on the table is an open book, but he goes to the cabinet. "I made a note of what money I used, but I figured I was entitled to at least some of it, and there wasn't much to do once I got back, so... presents." There is indeed a stack of items in the cabinet. He takes out a black dagger sheath and belt with red gemstone decorations. "It's not anything that special, but I saw it at the market and the patterning looked like the headpiece your mother wore when I last saw her, and well... here."

"Shen-shidi." Lin Moniao puts it on right away, running his fingers over the decorations. "It is special, so there. I like it very much. And I meant to say--" He looks up from admiring himself, meeting Shen Shanwei's eyes, though he hates to bring the conversation back to serious subjects just when they'd finished with them. "I trust you. You know that. There are... maybe two people in the world that I trust as much as I trust you. And this--you heard what Huang-qianbei said. Nobody could have done better than you did."

Shen Shanwei's eyes search Lin Moniao's for a moment, before he remembers. "Oh! Your--I--they didn't ask about her. Don't worry. And I wouldn't tell them that any more than I'd tell them where my own mother lives." He hesitates for a moment, then pulls Lin Moniao up into a hug. "I trust you too. I--do you--um." He pulls back. "I'll give you my name, if you want. I'll tell you where my mother lives. Then we both have each other the same way."

"You'd better not. What good would it do? If they did... get my secrets out of you... I still wouldn't want them to get yours out of me." Lin Moniao reaches out and tucks a stray lock of Shen Shanwei's hair behind his ear. "I don't want to hurt you, Shanwei."

Shen Shanwei shies away from the touch and steps back, hugging his arms to himself. "Well, good. You haven't. The offer still stands, it's only fair. But you do owe me a present. Something just as nice." He rubs his nose and turns back thoughtfully towards the cabinet. "You know, I thought of getting something for Master Wu, too, to thank him... What sort of thing would he like? Some especially nice wine? You know him best."

Lin Moniao laughs. "Oh dear. No. I suppose you haven't spent enough time around him to know--it's not something he exactly likes to give out--but he has no taste for fine flavors, only strong ones. He likes fine paintings. Anything that's well-made and meant to be looked at. Only make sure that you have a good eye, or take someone with you who does, because if it's not good, he will not like it."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, shixiong." Shen Shanwei smiles, relieved, and touches his own hair, then doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands. "Let's go back. There's probably tea by now."

"All right." Lin Moniao runs his fingers over his new belt again, and pushes thoughts of Shi Minhua, and Zhang Chuanli, and all that out of his head for the moment. There's nothing more to be said about it. "And what about you, shidi? Since you've been so brazen as to ask me for a present, now you have to tell me what you'd like."

Shen Shanwei puts his hands together, fingertips touching, and draws himself up haughtily. "Something costing exactly twenty copper coins, since that is what I paid. Maybe a book."

"Noted." That leaves out the sword, then, because depending on how you reckon it it either cost less than twenty copper coins, or much more. Shen Shanwei would probably accuse Lin Moniao of trying to one-up him again.

When they get back, the tea is indeed served and steaming. Huang Tianlin leans back and raises his eyebrows at them. "Back already?"

"It did not take that long for Shen-shidi to give me a present," Lin Moniao says coolly. He doesn't ask what Huang Tianlin thought they were doing that would have taken longer, because Huang Tianlin would probably answer. Honestly! Lin Moniao is perfectly capable of keeping it in his pants when he chooses to. If Shen Shanwei had been up for it, that might have been a different story, but Huang Tianlin doesn't need to know any of that.

Any such nuance escapes Shen Shanwei, who smiles as he sits and pours tea for everyone and makes polite conversation with Huang Tianlin until dinner arrives in a tiered box--very tasty too.

They are in the middle of it when Qi Lian comes to deliver a note.

"A boy left it at the door," she says, and hands it to Lin Moniao. It reads:

Welcome back. Tomorrow wu, Yang Yu's restaurant? A-Jia

A smile spreads all across Lin Moniao's face, and not even Huang Tianlin's nosiness can bother him now. He tucks the note into his sleeve and asks, "Is he waiting for an answer?"

"Yes, young master. What should I tell him?"

He takes the note back out, tears off a corner, and scrawls: I'll be there. A-Niao

Huang Tianlin does not ask about the note, but the glitter in his eye says he thinks he knows. Shen Shanwei opens his mouth to ask, but decides not to.

The evening ends amicably, and Lin Moniao is free to claim his old room. Huang Tianlin complains about how oppressively neat and boxed in the house is, but in the end doesn't say no to crashing into an oppressively neat bed in one of the many vacant rooms, and so the house falls quiet.

- end of part 1 -

 

Comments

[bookblather]

I fucking love Huang so fucking much, he's amazing and hilarious. Does he ever narrate anything?

[ilthit]

I'm so glad!! He was one of my favourites to write, for sure. Alas I don't think we ever wrote his POV.

And thank you for this influx of comments, oh my goodness.