Changes

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Branch

A fusion of the novel backstory with the drama canon.

Ink Burns

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

This is a work of fanfiction, produced according to the principles of transformative fair use as put forward in US copyright law, and abiding by the custom and practice of fan-produced work in Japan, where the source texts were created. No author is in any way affiliated with any of the creators of the source texts, nor with the companies who distribute their products, nor any other rights holder, and these stories were not authorized by either the creators or the producers. Ink Burns is a fan site and the material here is freely provided for the enjoyment of fellow fan-community members; there is no commercial infringement.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 US license at the Ink Burns fanfiction archive (http://www.branchandroot.net/archive/).

"The Wandering Fire" published on 2019-08-16 18:02:05.

"The Advance of the Mountain Wind - One" published on 2019-08-19 18:00:21.

"The Advance of the Mountain Wind - Two" published on 2019-08-21 18:18:42.

"The Advance of the Mountain Wind - Three" published on 2019-08-23 17:16:27.

"The Advance of the Mountain Wind - Four" published on 2019-08-26 20:05:55.

"The Advance of the Mountain Wind - Five" published on 2019-08-28 20:15:08.

"The Advance of the Mountain Wind - Six" published on 2019-08-30 17:12:08.

"Approach Over the Lake" published on 2019-09-02 15:37:52.

"The Marriage of Lightning and the Lake" published on 2019-09-04 19:23:34.

"Swallow the Mountain" published on 2019-09-06 19:34:13.

"The Influence of Mountains" published on 2019-09-10 20:56:35.

"Grace and Radiance" published on 2019-09-12 21:01:10.

"Contemplate the Wind Above" published on 2019-09-16 18:43:33.

"The Innocence of Thunder" published on 2019-09-18 17:35:19.

"The Heavens' Gracious Restraint" published on 2019-09-20 17:58:24.

"Sinking in the Deep Waters" published on 2019-09-23 13:44:03.

"The Radiant Thunder" published on 2019-09-25 17:39:28.

"The Conflict of Water with the Heavens" published on 2019-09-27 17:45:09.

"The Release of Thunder" published on 2019-09-30 17:10:13.

"Thunder's Movement" published on 2019-10-03 18:23:07.

Attributions can be made by author's name and a link to the archive.

This ebook edition was published on October 3, 2019 by the Ink Burns fanfiction archive.

Cover illustration is æµ“äº‘ by å¹¿åš éƒ, CC-BY-3.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E6%B5%93%E4%BA%91_(235513467).jpeg).

Cover design by Branch.

The Wandering Fire

Shen Wei's ten thousand years of watching Kunlun's lives and, eventually, finding his own. Character Study, Drama, Angst (lots of angst), I-5

So, about the Changes arc. I loved the Guardian drama, but the backstory and cosmology of the novel appealed to me mightily. I mean, really; gods and demons, ten thousand years of angst, who could resist? And when I went to think about it, the two actually fit together reasonably well, if you tinker both ends a bit. So this arc is a fusion of the drama and novel.

A fusion isn't quite like a crossover. Instead of, for example, Inu Yasha and company being dropped into the Cowboy Bebop world, a fusion means that Inu Yasha is Spike. So here we have a novel!Shen Wei who is, or becomes, drama!Shen Wei. Part of the fun is, of course, getting him from point A to point B, and the question this arc asks is: what might happen to make the novel backstory lead to the drama canon events? And what would happen next, especially to Zhao Yunlan?

To find out, forget the drama preamble, and read on.

When his love chose to release his final hold on the world, to make way for the new growth of mortal life and the spirits that life created, Shen Wei watched it happen. He watched, and did nothing to stop it, nothing to deny Kunlun's choice. But at the end of that choice, he made one of his own. He caught Kunlun's soul before it could unravel and brought it to Shen Nong.

He didn't like the price Shen Nong demanded from him, before agreeing to give Kunlun's soul to the cycle of reincarnation. To be guardian to the humans and the shadow of death to his own kind was a harsh task. He agreed to it, though, because one of those humans would be Kunlun.

And so Shen Wei watched most of Shen Nongâ€™s being shift, flow the way the material existence of gods so easily flowed, into another form. That form was an immaterial shape of potential and life-brightness rather than physical being but it still spoke to him of a wheel, an endless turning. He watched that turning catch up two souls, Kunlun and Shen Nong, both now shorn of the weight of memory and power that would mark a god, and buried his face in his hands, shaking with relief and pain both.

It was done.

Kunlun would live, if not as himself and not as Shen Weiâ€™s any more. He would move through the world as a human, terrifyingly fragile and brief, but he would live.

Live again and again, with no memory of Shen Wei.

The voraciousness at the core of Shen Weiâ€™s nature raged over that, screamed at him to seek out something to break, some power to conquer and consume that might change what was. For the first time in many centuries, he was tempted to listen. Yet, at the same time, Kunlun's parting gift, the part of Kunlunâ€™s own nature that heâ€™d poured into Shen Wei, soothed the rage a little, gentled it until Shen Wei could tell it was actually grief. Perhaps it was even what had moved Shen Nong to agree to their bargain, in the end.

Or perhaps it had just been the possibility of seeing all ghosts finally destroyed, if the seal between realms was ever broken again.

Shen Wei sighed and straightened. Whatever Shen Nongâ€™s motive, heâ€™d agreed. A bargain between gods, even if one of them was only half a god, impressed itself on the material of their very beings. Now the integrity of that seal was his to ensure. He would follow that imperative that was now half of his nature.

But first, he would follow the spark of Kunlunâ€™s soul and see where he found life again.

For quite a while Shen Wei found no difficulty in fulfilling his bargain to contain his people while also keeping an eye on Kunlunâ€™s soul. Considered frankly, few ghosts had any particular ability with planning ahead; most would seek the nearest source of power or life-warmth to attack and devour. If that source was another ghost, without the generative capability of a god or human or shape-changer, that would be cause for rage but not for plotting an escape from their realm. Shen Wei merely needed to keep a distant eye on the seal between realms, and visit now and then to check it in detail.

It wasnâ€™t until Kunlun was reborn in Shuâ€™s great inland city that Shen Wei realized he might need to do more than that. The city was far enough from the gateway and itâ€™s ancient marker tree that even he had trouble seeing that far without time slipping forward or back in his sight. Still, it wasnâ€™t too difficult to craft alarms to leave at the gate. That much use of his power drew down his ability to shield his nature and kept him further from humans than heâ€™d have preferred, but if he was careful to conceal and contain himself he could still come close enough to listen to Kunlunâ€™s current incarnation debate cosmology with his fellow priest-administrators.

â€œ...really reasonable that none of the gods could have stopped a mere flood from causing such widespread devastation as the Second Chronicle speaks of? Even Beiling could handle a flood.â€

â€œBeiling, the king who drowned and returned to life?â€ Kunlun asked dryly. â€œWho was selected by Duyu himself to watch over the people precisely because he proved to have power enough over water to handle a flood? It wouldnâ€™t surprise me at all if the Chronicle is true.â€

Shen Wei wondered, sometimes, just how much or little Kunlun truly remembered of his past existence, to be so certain the legends were true. Shen Nong had said he would remember nothing, could remember nothing lest the weight of his soul be too great for the still-fragile inertia of reincarnation to hold. But Shen Wei still wondered, sometimes.

By the time Yu of Xia started his ambitious canal project, Shen Wei had stopped wondering if Kunlun remembered and started wondering if humans in general had somehow managed to imprint a universal urge to be prepared in the re-event of catastrophic flooding.

If so, he didn't suppose he could blame them, but to Shen Wei the changing moods of the landâ€™s rivers would always remind him of Kunlun. Their summer ferocity, that surge that swept over the land and altered it, reminded him just as intensely as the calmer, nurturing flow of autumn. He loved them both.

He wondered if it was irony that Kunlun was here, heaving shovel-fulls of dirt alongside the rest of his team of canal diggers, working to tame one of his own wild rivers. Yet he knew, watching Kunlun straighten and scrub a dirt-smeared hand across his forehead, laughing at some joke from one of his men, that Kunlun had liked the wildness in humans, too, and probably would have enjoyed watching the contest between the two, no matter which triumphed.

He wished he could do more than watch, himself. That he could be down there with them, with Kunlun. That he could lay his hands on those bare shoulders, lean against Kunlun, listen to what made him laugh. The ache of that wishing grew until he thought it might cut off his breath completely.

Shen Wei watched Kunlun, a soldier this life, climb the shallow hill behind his current encampment and sprawl in the tall grass, leaning back on his hands to look up at the clear arch of the sky overhead. It was the time of evening that Kunlun had called the blue hour—after sunset but before full dark, when the sky was a sweep of shifting blue, trees and mountains stark black against it as the strongest stars began to shine.

Kunlun had always said this hour reminded him of Shen Wei himself. Dark, yes, but beautiful and changeable, all shapes knife-edged sharp but with the sky softening behind them for this brief time. Kunlun wouldn't be thinking about that right now, though. Couldn't remember it, because Shen Wei had chosen Kunlun's life over his memory, over preserving those memories as all Kunlun would be. He didn't regret doing it, but seeing Kunlun be so much himself, still, hurt like a blade slicing down Shen Wei's heart, over and over and over.

Shen Wei drew concealment tighter around him and watched over the encampment as blue slid away into blackness.

It was a handful of rebirths after that that Shen Wei first lost track of Kunlun, who had died while Shen Wei was examining the seal between realms. That was when it came home to him just how widely humans had spread themselves. It was possible that the ghost who managed to thread past the seal and take up Shen Wei's time tracking him down didn't entirely deserve to bear the full weight of Shen Wei's frustration, but if it served to deter others of his kind from trying his patience, Shen Wei would consider it a net gain.

It took him a ridiculously long time to remember that he carried a spark of Kunlun's soul with him, considering that his fingers found that bead of golden warmth at least twice a day, for comfort. By the time he'd followed the whisper of connection all the way north into the mountains of Yan, he was determined to do whatever was necessary to keep his watch over the seal without leaving Kunlun. He'd followed Kunlun's soul through another rebirth, this time in the capital of Luoyi (and hadn't the capital been further west just a bit ago? couldn't humans ever hold still?) before he finished the beacon that would connect his awareness to the sacred tree that marked the gateway between realms. It took significant power to keep up, more than his simple beacons had, but it wasn't as though he needed his power for anything else, these days.

The first time Shen Wei heard the phrase â€˜The Mandate of Heavenâ€™ he was hard-pressed not to laugh out loud. Heâ€™d never observed any mandate to guide or restrain living creatures. Gods and ghosts and humans and beasts, they all sought their own way and then had to deal with the consequences, and the heavens said nothing about it that heâ€™d ever heard.

â€œThe true nature of the Mandate must be care,â€ Kunlun expounded enthusiastically, and probably a little drunkenly, to two of his fellow scholars. â€œItâ€™s when care for the land and people fail that Heaven withdraws its approval, thatâ€™s demonstrated time and again!â€

"No, no!" one of his at least as drunk companions complained, waving his cup. "Clearly the law is the true core of the Mandate! Care must follow the path of the law, otherwise it's blind and you'll have no balance at all."

"Only," Kunlun leaned back with a sidelong smirk at their third member, "if you let care be tainted by personal concerns."

"Which is the only natural approach, and not a corruption at all," the third man huffed.

Shen Wei leaned against the wall in his shadowed corner, arms crossed, smiling a little to himself. At least it was entertaining to listen to. Kunlun still had all of his gift for bringing the most unlikely of conversants together.

When the great states the humans had scraped back together proceeded to spend a solid couple centuries warring with each other, Shen Wei was entirely unsurprised. Neither was he surprised when the constant tide of wars sweeping back and forth, flaring all kinds of passions higher, tempted more of his kind to dare the gateway between realms. The spell he'd left to warn him of such tugged at his attention more and more over those years, and he was grateful that Kunlun's soul seemed to have settled into mercantile pursuits for a while, with only occasional forays into politics. It was easier on Shen Wei's nerves, that way.

Kunlun's idea of useful politics was often a little... unconventional. If he didn't have money on hand to use as a lever, he'd probably resort to direct action. Again.

Shen Wei wasn't sure he was ready to watch over another life of dashing banditry, yet.

Shen Wei sat beside the bed (the deathbed), curled tight in on himself, head buried in his knees.

Two years.

One moment of carelessness, letting Kunlun, letting San, realize he was present, and he hadn't been able to leave again. And for that weakness, San had died. He was human; he'd only been able to survive Shen Wei's presence at his side, in his bed, for two brief years.

And, like a fool, he'd promised to await San's, Kunlun's, return. How could he keep that promise, when it would mean Kunlun's death? Death because of him?

If only Shen Wei's nature could be sealed away, the way his people were sealed. Half of his nature was a god's nature, wasn't it? Kunlun's own nature, his last gift, taken in and made Shen Wei's own. If only there was a way to lock away the half that was ghost. He would do it, in a heartbeat, if it would prevent this grief happening ever again, prevent Kunlun dying for Shen Wei's weakness, the next time it overcame his better sense.

He knew he would never, could never, deny Kunlun, no matter what shape or name or life he wore. This would happen again, the next time their paths crossed, unless he stayed away entirely or...

His link to the gateway tugged at his attention, a flash of vision of the sacred tree Nuwa had planted to mark the gate, and Shen Wei uncoiled upright, eyes wide.

The tree.

None of the first gods lived as themselves, any longer, but the tree touched by Nuwa's hand still lived and grew. It had its own spirit; Shen Wei had felt it, when he'd set his watch-guard spell. The tree had its own share of a god's nature. And Shen Wei knew, from the working out of his bargain with Shen Nong, that deals made between gods branded themselves deep into the world. If the tree's spirit consented to help, could they perhaps create a bargain that would seal Shen Wei's ghost nature while he was in this realm? Could they, perhaps, even transmute Shen Wei's power into something that would protect humans?

The breath of hope finally unlocked Shen Wei's bleak, frozen despair, melted it back into grief, and he turned to bury the tears that stormed through him in the bed he and San had shared, fingers fisting tight in the blankets. "I will wait for you," he promised again, hoarse, when they'd finally eased. "But it can't be here." He pushed himself up to his feet, scrubbing his palms over his face, and took a deep breath.

He would try.

It took nearly thirty years. The life of trees was slow, and the kind of working Shen Wei asked for was not a small matter. It built gradually between them, not a bargain spoken once and bound in that moment, but a repeating cycle, year on year, that circled between them again and again. Again and again, Shen Wei agreed and offered; again and again, the tree accepted his power, drank it and changed it, like sunlight into sap. And as the last year drew down into the darkness of winter, Shen Wei felt the bargain crystalize between them, gain matter and reality in the world. The shape of it flickered, now a wood tile, now a pressed sheet, now stamped metal. Finally, as it dropped into Shen Wei's outstretched hands, it settled into a scroll of wood slats. Marked on the outside, as though burned there, was a single word.

Guardian.

Shen Wei smiled faintly, resting his hand on the tree. "Thank you."

The leaves above him rustled without any breeze.

Their bargain hadn't taken all of his power as a ghost. He was, after all, his people's ruler—the strongest among them. But about half was sealed away and siphoned off, now, he thought. It should allow the other half of his nature to dominate, in this realm at least, and to restrain the relentless void of a ghost's nature from consuming whatever lives of humans or shape-changers he came close to. If the human in question was the holder of the bargain's physical token, then the thing would be certain. In time, this bargain might even affect all ghosts, through him. Shen Wei straightened and lifted a hand to lay his fingertips against his pendant, listening for the whisper of Kunlun's new life.

He arrived just in time for the wedding.

Shen Wei kept himself wrapped deep in concealment as he watched Kunlun and his bride depart from the banquet, watched the wistfulness in Kunlun's eyes as he glanced around, as if looking for someone absent. He watched Kunlun pat his bride's hand, and smile kindly, if distantly, and then Shen Wei went to find the nearest bottle of plum liquor and drink himself unconscious.

When the pain in his heart had died down enough that he could face consciousness for more than an hour at a time, again, he asked among the Crow tribe to see if any of the Cat tribe had survived. Not entirely to his surprise, the Crows told him Da Qing himself was still alive; at another time, he might have been amused by their apparent glee that the dark Envoy had some business with the cat. He laid the Guardian scroll in Da Qing's hands, told him where Kunlun was starting married life, and retreated to the gateway between realms.

For years, the quiet presence of the sacred tree was the only company his freshly torn heart could endure.

It was whispers of the brutality of a budding empire that drew Shen Wei away from the peaceful company of the sacred tree again, and out into the world to follow the faint voice of his pendant until he found Kunlun's soul again.

Not to stay. Not to get close enough to be caught again; that would still be dangerous, regardless of the locks he'd put on his own power, and he wasn't quite fool enough to court that kind of pain twice. But if Kunlun was in danger, in this sudden festival of military conquest and consolidation, there were still things Shen Wei could do.

Somehow, he wasn't surprised to find Kunlun among the ranks of the new scholar-officials, still speaking on the nature of benevolence, if more quietly this life.

For all that Kunlun favored peace, he'd always had a talent for finding trouble. Just look at Shen Wei, himself.

The next time Shen Wei visited his own realm, he was honestly surprised by what he found.

"Bureaucracy? Really?" he asked, as he was shown through an already growing library of laws and precedents. Admittedly, some of those laws were his own dictates, as he saw paging through a volume or two.

"We may be creatures of chaos, but exactly for that reason we always seek form. It's one of the things we take, when we consume human life, is it not?" The one who was now calling himself only Regent paced beside him and cocked a sharp eye up at him. "And even through we are sealed away from the human realm, we are not separate. Every time one of your people looks up, we see the light of the Lamp. It was created to comfort and guide, for all that it's also a prison to us."

"And every time someone sneaks past it," Shen Wei added, dryly, "they bring back a new piece of human form to imitate." The Regent spread his hands, noncommittally, and Shen Wei stifled a sigh. He'd known he was sacrificing some control, when he chose to guard the seal largely from the other side, but someone had to be in the human realm to do so and he certainly didn't trust anyone else with that.

"Very well. But what's this about choosing a Lord?"

"Never one that could supersede you, of course." The Regent bowed deeply, and Shen We suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Clearly, the Regent had absorbed some human court manners, and likely the notion of politicking that went with them. "But laws need a final judge, do they not?" He led the way back out into the high ceilinged central hall, and gestured to the broad, elaborately carved throne at one end. "And, as you see..."

The throne had a feel of embedded power that Shen Wei recognized from the token of his bargain with the sacred tree, though on a smaller scale. He skimmed his fingers close to the seat, testing the feel of it, and jerked back. "This is—!"

"What is necessary to preserve impartiality," the Regent finished, quite evenly. "Is that not ideal? The one who wishes to take this throne will serve the needs of our realm."

Would be bound to serve, every bit of will and desire bound to the execution of those growing volumes of laws, until death. "I think you've learned a little too much from humans, lately," Shen Wei said, low and sharp.

The Regent looked back at him, calm. "Would anything less hold one of our kind to such a task?"

Shen Wei's mouth tightened. He knew the nature of ghosts; it was still half of his own nature, after all. His people were rapacious and violent, even in their hunger for some stabilizing, ordering force to form around. Those who were even capable of desiring peace were still rare, even after thousands of years of the Lamp's slow influence.

It was the reason he had never yet destroyed the Regent.

"Very well," he said, at last. "But be sure that those who seek this Lordship know the terms of it before they choose."

Unmistakeable satisfaction flashed over the Regent's face as he bowed again. "As you command, my Lord Envoy."

Staying near, but not too near, to Kunlun's incarnations was even more frustrating than watching over him from hiding close by had been, which Shen Wei hadn't previously thought was possible. To distract himself, he started listening to the local scholars and priests again. It passed the time, and watching the concept of family be re-worked to support imperial rule honestly amused him.

Really, it was no wonder his people mirrored humans so closely whenever there was contact between them. Humans had their own share of the world's darker elements, and sometimes the generative properties of their souls only went to fuel that.

It was on one of his visits to the Imperial University that Shen Wei first heard another amusing trend in philosophy.

"Of course the legends aren't literal." The mid-rank scholar he'd been listening in on gave his student a withering look. "The gods named in our legends represent universal principles. Their tales are a moral guide to be unraveled, not some kind of engineering map of creation."

Shen Wei couldn't help but wonder, wryly, just what kind of moral guide he was supposed to be, then.

After the long peace of the empire, the bloodshed that followed came as a shock, even to Shen Wei. Kunlun lost three lives in the span of little more than half a century, and frantic worry drew Shen Wei to follow his soul more closely again.

The farmer in the central plains died.

The soldier in the east died.

The small town scholar's son in the north died, and that time Shen Wei couldn't stand it any longer, tried to intervene, but he could only hold off so many unless he wanted to break his oaths, shatter his promises to Kunlun and the tree both, draw all of his power back into himself and give himself up to the side of his nature that could call down the death of a whole battlefield.

He did consider it.

In the end his memory of Kunlun, and his word, held. Barely. He took them both back to the sacred tree and left the humans to their own devices. He didn't think he could do anything else without breaking.

Even the whisper of Kunlun's soul fire in his pendant was faint and sad.

The humans were building a city around the sacred tree.

A city.

Over the gateway to the underworld.

Shen Wei wasn't sure whether to be impressed or to despair.

Actually, from the things he overheard among the architects and engineers, he suspected the humans were building everywhere. It seemed the centuries of strife he'd been trying not to think too hard on had finally eased, given way again to an empire of trade and construction. And also foolishness, but perhaps he should take human forgetfulness as a compliment of sorts. He had kept his part of the bargain well enough that they didn't know, any more, to fear this place.

At least, he reflected, ducking out of the tent where they kept the maps, it looked as though they planned an open space around the sacred tree. Nevertheless, he was going to have to stay in this region far more constantly than he had before. With the warmth of human lives so temptingly close to the seal, more ghosts would attempt to find their way past it.

Shen Wei drew concealment closer around him as a party of cheerfully drunk workers passed in the darkness. Perhaps it was for the best. If it kept him away from Kunlun's human lives... perhaps it was for the best.

Perhaps Shen Wei had never truly been meant to be anything but a threat of death in the shadows.

Shen Wei watched from a corner of study belonging to the senior Dragon City physician, nearly vibrating with conflicting impulses.

He should have known. He should have known this would happen. He hadn't gotten to Wan Jun in time, and this was the result. Two senior physicians and their apprentices, all clustered around a table with a dead ghost on it, exclaiming over the results of their examination.

"The temperature hasn't changed at all, in death!" The older physician sounded nearly rapturous with the medical puzzle before him. "We absolutely must examine the thyroid."

"And the structure of the eyes! Did you see how they changed color?" His younger colleague was nearly bouncing with excitement. Shen Wei rubbed his forehead and wondered whether it would really be that great a breach of his bargain if he killed them both himself.

The casual disrespect for the body of one of his own was... all right, not actually surprising. Kunlun had spent a few lives as a physician and, whatever the era, outside the presence of friends or family of the deceased, physicians with bodies in front of them tended to be either excited over something interesting to study or else furious over what they saw as a personal failure. So should he try to discourage or enable this? Would a medical study of his people arm humans better to be of at least a little assistance capturing trespassers, or would it tempt them to foolish trespass themselves?

"Do you think he might have been taking medicinal compounds to achieve this?" the youngest of the apprentices asked, looking up from the scroll where he was keeping notes.

Shen Wei stifled a snort of amusement. Perhaps he'd wait and see whether any of their conclusions even approached the truth, before deciding what to do about it.

Shen Wei stood at the back of the Yashou tribesâ€™ meeting and listened to their increasingly heated debate.

"We need some kind of help with this. There are too many of them for us alone!" the normally composed Snake Elder insisted.

The Crow Elder folded his arms, unconvinced. "Help from the humans would only be more trouble in the long run. You wouldn't even have suggested it if you hadn't taken a human lover, Fu You."

The Flower Elder waved her hands between them, looking exasperated. "Please leave off about that, already. Just because she refused you, xiao-Ding..."

"My relationship with a human only means that I am more aware of their resources than you are," Fu You said, tight and controlled. "Lay down your pride and think! If we oppose a dozen Dixingren alone, we'll lose some of our people. If we invite help from those who have it to give, we have a far better chance of all surviving this."

"I don't disagree, but the way they've found into our world is in Yashou territory." The Flower Elder wrapped her arms around herself, as if chilled. "If this keeps happening, we will take the brunt of whatever damage is done each time. Humans can't help us with that."

Fu You folded her hands on the table between them. "There is one who deals with such things, is there not? Your own people have seen him, Zhu Mei."

"Their Black-cloaked Envoy," the Flower Elder murmured, frowning. "True enough, but how could we contact him?"

Despite his own intense annoyance with the current problem, Shen Wei smiled at the perfect cue and relaxed the concealment he'd kept folded around himself to let the chill of his presence curl outward. "There is no need; I am here."

The Crow Elder shot to his feet, and even Zhu Mei stiffed, though she rose with the slow care of someone feeling her age in her bones. Fu You, on the other hand, didn't even start. "I thought you might be, Honorable Envoy."

Shen Wei was impressed, which didn't happen often. "Indeed. Trespassers in your world are my care, and I have failed to contain this incursion."

"Whatever your power, there is only the one of you." Fu You sat straight, watching him with dark, level eyes. "If we can hold off these trespassers, as you call them, can you close this breach they have made within our territory?"

"I can. It was why I came tonight." He withdrew the branch he'd spent weeks separating from the sacred tree without killing the wood, and held it out on his palm. "Once I have done so, I would entrust the key that will lock that door to the Yashou, if the Elders can agree to keep it."

A quick exchange of glances, including one blistering glare from Zhu Mei, and all three of them nodded, though reluctantly in the case of the Crow Elder. "Fu You will speak and act for all the tribes, in this," Zhu Mei said, firmly.

"Then when the passage is locked, I will entrust this to her." Shen Wei hesitated. There were actually fewer than ten trespassers, by his estimate, but they included at least three of the strongest among his kind, short of himself. "I have no wish to interfere in the Yashou's governance decisions, but I strongly suggest you do find allies in this. I expect sealing the passage to take at least a full turn of the moon, and those who broke in include several who are very dangerous."

Fu You lifted her chin and didn't even glance at her fellow Elders. "We will find what strength and allies we need." The Crow Elder's mouth was a tight line, but he bent his head and didn't gainsay her.

Shen Wei really was quite impressed.

The bigger Dragon City got, the more sympathy Shen Wei had with Kunlun's old solitary tendencies. He hadn't viscerally understood why Kunlun preferred to seclude himself, back then, though he certainly hadn't protested the opportunity to have the one who'd given his existence meaning all to himself. Now he thought he understood a little better.

Humans got into everything.

Shen Wei was finding it harder and harder to conceal his presence, or to keep even his restrained power from affecting the people of the city. There had been two cases he knew of, and probably more he didn't, of people sickening simply because his proximity had drained their life before he'd realized that the young idiots had chosen the grove his home was in—on the edge of the Snake tribe's local territory, no less—as a trysting spot! He'd considered spreading rumors that the grove was haunted, only to find there already were such rumors and that it hadn't stopped anyone. He couldn't abandon the city without missing those people, and even beasts, of his realm that managed to sneak around the seal, but something clearly had to be done.

If humans were sane creatures, he reflected rather darkly as he stalked through the back streets of the city, he might simply cease to conceal his presence and rely on the harsh chill of it to hold them at a distance. Other creatures had at least that much sense, as the sudden silence of the city's dogs at his passing demonstrated. It might even work on the majority of humans.

"Hey! Who's there?" a man's voice called from the door of one of the wine houses as he passed.

Unfortunately for Shen Wei, his bargain encompassed all of them, including those who were too bold for their own health. He slipped down a darker alley, trusting his robes to blend with the shadows there. He was too annoyed to bother with more.

A yank on those robes jerked him to a halt.

"Hey!"

Shen Wei rounded on the fool who dared to lay hands on him, power flaring outward, dark and furious.

The man who had followed him cowered back with a panicked yelp, eyes wide and staring in the darkness, and Shen Wei stopped and hauled his power back in, closing his eyes for a breath. He hated his own people's fear of him, even when it was what let him rule them, let him keep his word. He wasn't any more fond of humans' fear, no matter how short his temper this evening.

"Go," he told the man, low. He didn't have to say it twice; the man scrambled back toward the faint torchlight of the road without a word. Shen Wei sighed and turned to walk on, slower now.

The city wasn't going anywhere, and he could hardly rely on humans suddenly becoming sensible. He needed a way to move among humans without harming them. An innocuous disguise that would pass without notice, without challenges that might stir his temper. That, and some way to keep his power turned inward, limit it in ways even his bargain with the sacred tree didn't. This would all be much easier if more of his nature were Kunlun's, were fluid to his will and intent, the way the gods' forms were.

Shen Wei paused in mid-stride, struck by that thought. Easier, yes, but wasn't that half his nature already, by Kunlun's gift? Could he re-shape that part of him, fold it around the ghost half of his nature? He smiled and touched his pendant, letting himself really listen to the whisper of Kunlun's soul-fire for the first time in centuries. Kunlun, who had liked humans because of their troublesome nature, not in spite of it.

It was worth an attempt.

A little trial and error, and another forty years spent in concealment waiting for the inconveniently observant councilman Lei Min to die, demonstrated that Shen Wei could spend most of his time in his human form. Dragon City had enough trade passing through that an allegedly itinerant scholar or artisan choosing to settle down there wasn't unusual. As long as he didn't choose the same profession or the same district to live in two generations in a row, no one remarked, and he'd certainly seen enough trades, shadowing Kunlun's lives, that he had a considerable store of knowledge to choose his own lives from.

What he hadn't expected was how comfortable it was.

The cool quiet of his current workroom soothed both his human and his deeper senses, and it was easy to lose himself in the scent of medicinal ingredients and the rhythm of preparing them. One final pass with the pestle wheel, and the sound told him the licorice root was ready to measure out. It didn't take any long, drawn-out planning or violent action or make his heart catch in his throat over a risk to one he loved. It was simple. Straightforward. Easy. The weight of the Guardian token's binding even felt lighter, in this form, with his power folded underneath as it was.

A polite tap on the doorframe made him look up with a faint smile. Sure enough, it was young Li, the eldest apprentice in Dragon City's tiny branch school of medicine. "Mr. Shen? Dr. Huang asks—"

"Yes, yes." He waved toward the shelf by the door, where a paper parcel waited. "I prepared it earlier this morning." The open relief on her face made him chuckle. Huang was the most irascible, as well as the most senior, physician of the school, and Li was an earnest young woman who often took his snapping and barking to heart. She snatched up the parcel, bobbed a grateful bow to him, and hurried out.

Perhaps next time someone asked the city's new apothecary to take an apprentice, he'd consider it.

Shen Wei sat in a quiet corner of his favorite tea house, staring down at the cup between his fingers, and thought fast.

The thing he'd been half waiting for, for centuries, had finally happened. One of his people had talked just a little too much, before Shen Wei had caught her, to humans who'd survived the experience. The volume of medical records and case encounters that resided in the city's Records office had been growing bit by small bit over the years, but never with any conclusions that would present a threat to either ghosts or humans. Now that had changed. A report had been added suggesting that his people lived underground, probably underneath Dragon City itself, which was close enough to the truth to get untold numbers of humans in trouble.

Archeology, he decided. He'd need to be a scholar of archeology for his next 'life'. It was starting to be popular, and therefore well-funded, thanks to the imperial court's recent fad for relics of ancient kingdoms. As an archeologist, he could 'discover' a treaty stipulating separation of his people from humans. With official documentation, especially one with the imprimatur of one of the ancient kingdoms so beloved of the current government, it shouldn't be too hard to steer local law enforcement around to keep people from getting too curious for their own good. Especially if he appeared in his own person, to confirm the alleged treaty. Ma Gui, of the Dragon City guards, had already made a bit of a hobby of investigating rumors of Shen Wei's people; he'd make a suitable local contact.

Shen Wei took a slow breath, and a sip of his tea, finally settling back on his bench. That should work. He might need to intimidate a few physicians to keep from being interrogated about the source of his people's abilities, but it should work.

Perhaps, he thought with another slow sip, he'd better wear a mask when he appeared.

A bare generation later, he heard the name Dixing for the first time and had to laugh, if a bit harshly. It suited well enough, given his people were created from the darkest elements of the earth. Dixingren.

So be it.

Shen Wei sat with his back against the sacred tree, arms braced over his knees, and let his head hang down.

That way he didn't need to look at the smoke rising from the city.

He'd forgotten how much this hurt. In the long years since he'd made himself turn away from Kunlun's side, since he'd confined himself to the whisper of Kunlun's soul-fire under his fingers and the knowledge that his love would always live again, he'd let himself forget how much it hurt to lose human companions to violence and upheaval rather than simple age. Dragon City wasn't one of the great urban centers, wasn't home to any branch of the imperial court or regional governors. The last two ruling clans had brought only peace to the city Shen Wei watched over. The greatest threats had been a scant handful of ghosts who found their way past the seal.

He'd let himself forget that humans had their own share of his people's nature within them, had violence and destruction in their core, as well.

A shift in the wind brought the smell of smoke to him again, by turns harsh with the household goods that burned in the wreckage of buildings and queasily rich with the scent of bodies that burned there as well. Shen Wei's hands flinched into fists, and his next breath shook in his lungs. He didn't look up.

There was nothing he could do. All his bargains were to guard humans from ghosts, not from other humans. To guard humans from ghosts, including himself. To keep his bargains, he must do nothing.

He hoped, bitterly, that Shen Nong appreciated this result of the bargain he'd demanded.

Shen Wei listened to the whispers through his open outer screens and smiled as he painted the last tree in the landscape commission he'd been working on this week. He didn't usually think of himself as an artist, but the fashion lately was stylized enough for a steady hand and good eye to stand in for inspiration. There was enough demand to make a viable career, even in the still-small rebuilt city, especially since his favorite occupation of scholarship was not in demand. Rather the reverse, lately.

And the city's children loved to watch him.

He laid aside his brushes, chuckling under his breath at the faint scramble behind him as today's audience hid behind the azaleas that edged his veranda. He made his way out to the pump and carefully kept his back to the little sounds of interest as he washed his brushes and palette.

This 'life' might be one where he took an apprentice. He usually didn't. Anyone that close was the most likely to notice his odd absences, and the times he forgot to let his human form age. But if he wanted to encourage stability, in the city, and reduce the temptation for his people to dare the seal... well, he could do worse than help one of the little ones watching him on their way to a livelihood. For all his power, sometimes the only things he could change were small ones.

Sometimes he wondered if this was the real reason the first gods had chosen to leave the world.

Shen Wei's visits to his own realm had been more frequent, of late. The more he tried to make small places of peace, in his human form and lives, the more he found himself trying to do the same among his own people. Trying to support the few—still so few, but slowly growing in number—who had found little pieces of love, or beauty, or care within them. The girl who lived in the neighborhood nearest the wastelands, who played flute in her open window, music that seemed to calm the passers-by. The archivist he always made a moment to speak with, when he was in the Palace, who mentioned sidelong which cases might need or deserve a touch of the Envoy's intervention. The tea house run by the couple who had never strayed from each other's sides, for centuries, that he left off his formal robes to visit. They were the ones who had taken bits of light, whether from humans or from the distant comfort of the Lamp itself, and nurtured rather than merely devouring them. They were the ones who gave him some faint hope he wouldn't have to spend all of eternity being the threat of a bared blade to his own kind.

Sometimes, though, he had to admit that his people's tendency to adopt every passing trend from humans took him a bit aback.

"Are you saying our own people think the seal is a matter of treaty, now?" he asked, staring at the Regent where they'd stopped short in one of the Palace's halls. "Do they not remember their own lives and beginnings?"

"The greatness of your power blinds you, my Lord Envoy." The man gestured them on down the hall with an obsequious bow at odds with the sharpness of his glance. "You forget that many of our kind, especially those of lesser power, spend most of their capacity for order on keeping their physical forms; they have none to spare for things such as long memory. Many have already taken on that new human name for us—Dixingren, isn't it?" He sniffed, waving his fingers as if to brush away something inconsequential. "If they think themselves some kind of mortal creature, well it will be true enough should they dare the seal between realms won't it?"

Shen Wei's mouth tightened. "Yes. It will." He still held to that. And for a ghost, death meant utter destruction.

The Regent nodded, perfectly agreeable and without a hint of mercy in his cold eyes. "Then all is well. And if the Palace archives keep a copy of this 'treaty', then it's one more thing to give them pause before they attempt it."

"I suppose so," Shen Wei acknowledged, low, and paced on through the halls in silence.

The city's university had been re-built in the new style, and was finally large enough again for Shen Wei to return to his favorite occupation of scholarship without creating many ripples. And just in time, it seemed; the newest school of thought, with its focus on explicit evidence, offered hours of entertainment.

"Obviously, Xu Min's emphasis on the process of learning aligns him with the School of the Heart..."

"But surely you noted," Shen Wei dropped into Feng Gang's pause for breath, "that in his second chapter he refers repeatedly to essential principles." The pause got longer, and he smiled at Feng with an inviting tilt of his head.

"Well," the old blowhard drew himself up, and Shen Wei's smile got a touch wider, "perhaps, but if you read closely, young man, I believe you will observe that Xu frames his concept of principles as static ideals rather than creations of dynamic tension."

"Clearly you have studied him closely." Shen Wei waited for Feng to settle back and start to look smug, and then added casually, "You do not feel, then, that Xu's concept of principles runs counter to the mind as the source of reason?"

A little whisper of interest ran through the room and Feng immediately puffed up again. Shen Wei leaned back and folded his hands, looking just as politely interested as possible.

Hours of entertainment.

The next time Shen Wei circled back around to a medical career, he found the profession had made another of its periodic leaps in knowledge while he was away. There had even been a scholar who'd written on the possible physiological roots of his people's powers, as observed over the centuries in Dragon City, though this was stored right next to several more volumes of disdainful dismissal of the 'legendary' Dixing race. Shen Wei indulged in a quiet laugh over those, as he browsed the additions to the university library.

The new study that truly startled him, though, was the one that held his people must have come to this world from another one entirely. Which, given the separation of realms, wasn't actually all that far off except for the alleged means of transportation.

Which was a spaceship.

Shen Wei had no idea what expression was on his face as he stared at the text in his hands, but it caused a passing student to glance at the title and then laugh.

"Oh, you found Zhang Tao! He's actually getting more of a following, you know; his archeological studies are first rate." The boy waved at the open book. "Even that would be decent circumstantial evidence, at least, if the species he was talking about were actually real."

"Indeed." Shen Wei shook his head, and set the book aside. "I was actually looking for Professor Sun's text on cell biology."

The boy instantly looked sympathetic, which amused him; students were the same whatever the era. "Two shelves over. Good luck; Professor Sun is a real stickler for details and evidence!"

Having spent several 'lives' leading scholarly disputants in circles based entirely on available evidence, Shen Wei just smiled. "I'll be sure to study carefully for him, then."

At first, he thought the rumors of change and unrest were simply another tiresome round of the humans outgrowing another ruling clan (or party as they were calling it now), and he merely kept an eye out for sudden changes in news or fashion that might follow.

When the news that came was of yet more widespread war, and whispers of weapons that might break the very heavens again, he started to prepare a close to his current 'life'. If whispers were even close to truth, the seal between realms might be at risk again. He remembered the chaos and upheaval, the last time the seal broke—the seas upending into land, the air and earth twisting to change places as the fabric of the world itself strained and tore. If it happened again... well, he would keep his bargain and his duty, even if it meant the death of his whole people and most likely of himself too.

But if it happened, he would seek out Kunlun, before he went.

This time, though, it wasn't the fabric of the world that tore. It was the fabric of human lives and minds.

The waves of madness that swept the land shocked him the way no war or simple destruction before them had, shocked him with the way rage and fear twisted together, fired by the generative power of human souls to a reaping edge even his own people's nature could hardly match. He abandoned any thought of keeping a human life or form and clung to the gateway, to the anchoring presence of the sacred tree, fighting for years at a time to damp the resonance of fear and hunger and desperation that consumed the land.

Let his people taste that, and no threat of his would stop them from besieging the seal.

When the taste of madness finally ebbed from the very air, and Shen Wei dared to leave the gate again, he found Dragon City still there. Many of its people looked very like he felt, though—like people who had lived through catastrophe, dazed and uncertain whether the ground under their feet was reliable. A quiet visit to the municipal library revealed an alarming breadth of destruction behind the neat shelves and now far fewer cases. Even if it had been some time since he'd bothered to read them, it was still a shock to see that the history texts had largely disappeared, replaced by slim new volumes purporting a history he barely recognized. The 'treaty' was among the missing documents, and Shen Wei was surprised at his own sense of loss, considering he'd forged the thing himself, centuries ago.

He'd meant to start thinking about a suitable new 'life', but that night he pulled concealment around his true form and retreated to the sacred tree. That presence, at least, was still constant. That night it felt as though the tree leaned into him as much as he did against it, and he reached up to pat the trunk. The madness of the recent years couldn't have been much easier on something of the tree's nature than it had been on him.

The slow, vibrant life of the tree nudged at his thoughts, a gentle press that felt like his own sorrow, threaded with a sip of bright comfort. The feeling slowly shaped itself into an image—the scroll he'd held in his hands, long ago, the token of the bargain between them. Shen Wei smiled faintly.

"Yes," he answered, voice soft in the darkness. "We are still here. Our bargain still holds."

Gradually the image hovering at the edge of his thoughts changed, flattened into a heavy sheet of pressed paper, characters stark and black, seals in red marching along the bottom. Shen Wei blinked at the words, in his mind's eye. They were the same words he'd composed for the 'treaty'. A feeling of offering and comfort curled through his perception, like a new leaf unfolding, and he laughed out loud for the first time in what might be decades.

"That would certainly be a lot harder to burn than mere paper, wouldn't it? If I find who holds it now, can we change it?"

The image of the treaty strengthened sharply in his mind, wrapped around with a hint of smugness like incense lingering on the paper.

"You've done it already?" he asked, softly, astonished that the ancient life he'd bargained with so long ago would reach out with such immediate kindness to him.

Leaves rustled over his head, and he reached out carefully with the side of his nature that protected, touching the tree's own life with his gratitude. This one thing would not be lost. It was a small thing, but it helped.

Remembering what else had helped, the last time the city had been razed, he looked thoughtfully toward the quarter where the university still stood. Perhaps, when he went forth again in his human form, he would return there—not simply as a scholar, this time, but as a teacher. Perhaps, that way, he could make a small place of peace for the young ones, again.

First, though, he should visit his own realm, and try to calm whatever echos of the humans' madness had leaked through.

Shen Wei stared up at a dark sky, dark and flat as a stone ceiling, heart cold within him.

The light of the Lamp, the whisper of Kunlun's presence and the brilliance of his sacrifice, was gone.

"The disruption was immense," the Regent complained, at his shoulder. "I'm too old to deal with this nonsense." He backed a step as Shen Wei's furious gaze fell on him, holding up his hands. "It affected all of us, my Lord Envoy, is all I mean to say. Many lost what form and memory they'd managed to hold and fell on each other again, like our first days of existence, consuming each other to regain power and shape. You will see many new faces, and almost all have had to start over, to absorb thought and history from the echoes of the human realm that seep down to us here.

Shen Wei stilled, cold turning sharp in his chest. "And my brother?"

"The Pillar held." The Regent fidgeted as Shen Wei stared at him, flat and demanding. "With, perhaps, some mild wear. His voice should not reach beyond the wastes, though."

Shen Wei took a slow breath for calm. "I see." Lower, hating it but unable to see any other way to keep his bargains, he added, "Do whatever is necessary to keep what peace and stability we may. I will seek the Lamp. And the other Holy Tools, in case they can show the way to it. If you know who, of our people, might manage to live among humans for a time without breaking, tell me now."

That would not, he was grimly certain, be an easy charge. But he didn't see that he had a great deal of choice. The longer his realm remained dark, the worse things would get.

The Ministry's new Special Investigations Division was more dangerous and prone to snap judgements than the tiny Office of Dixing Affairs Shen Wei had encouraged into existence long ago, but at least they were just as dedicated to containing the occasional trespasser. With a little extra emphasis on the non-interference clauses of the 'treaty', he could work with that. He was less certain about the Institute, also Ministry sponsored, that his erstwhile mentor Professor Zhou kept trying to convince him to join, but if that was going to cause problems, well he'd deal with them when they happened.

Between the current dead-end of the search for the Lamp and the constant, low-level unrest of his people under their dark sky, he had plenty of problems already.

Today, though, he would set all that aside for a few hours. Today was his first day of teaching a class of his own in this life, and he was already smiling when he opened the door to his classroom.

"Good afternoon, Professor!" his students chorused, most of them already answering his smile, and he let himself relax in the simple brightness of their interest. He laid his notes out on his lectern and glanced around the room, nodding approval for all the pens already poised.

"Good afternoon. Today we'll be discussing a brief history of the biological sciences..."

Epilogue

Shen Wei stood with his hands and forehead pressed against the sacred tree, uncaring of the roughness of bark against his skin. He held nothing in his mind but his need and his hope. Need for a weapon, a trap strong enough to hold his twin brother, whose power had always matched his. Hope for aid, for permission, for blessing.

The rustle of the tree's leaves was sharp and unsettled.

"I know," he whispered, eyes closed against the pain of that knowing. "I know this will probably mean my death. My dissolution. But Ye Zun's madness will kill me just as surely, injured as I am now, me and everything I love."

He had been a fool to think that he could use one of the Holy Tools as a human might. Had he let himself forget, in the years of living human-like lives that he had no generative core to his being, that it wouldnâ€™t be merely years of life he gave up? The Dial had done exactly as they'd asked, broken off part of his being to heal Yunlan, and unless Shen Wei wished to shatter all his oaths and bargains in one blow and find a living being whose energies he could consume, he was now at a serious disadvantage.

If he could use his remaining being to conceal a power inimical to ghosts, though...

Grief shook him harshly, grief he'd felt ever since he made this decision. It took him a moment to realize it wasn't just his own, this time.

"Forgive me." He reached out to the tree with as much of the divine side of his being as he could, unbalanced as he was by what the Dial had reft away. "I'm abandoning our charge, our bargain, and yet I have the selfishness to beg the gift of its power."

The image of their bargain's physical token settled into his mind, soft as a leaf falling, and Shen Wei's breath caught short at the ease of that permission. "Thank you," he whispered, voice choked tight.

Slowly, as the night wore on, he matched his remaining power with the tree's, just as they had to create the bargain, and together they drew the token of it back. Like an endless breath in, like winding gleaming thread back into a spool, they drew the token back and fed it into Shen Wei's being until he felt the pressure of that bright power running through every vein, pushing against the part of his nature that was ghost. Pushing so hard he finally called his sword to him and nicked his wrist to release some of the pressure twined so tightly with his blood.

Comfort brushed over his heart—comfort and trust, and he closed his eyes, leaning against the tree.

He could only hope he had earned enough of Zhao Yunlan's trust, as well, to see this through to the end.

End

The Advance of the Mountain Wind - One

Yunlan calls bullshit, at the very end, and everything changes, including himself. The SID can probably cope, but the Ministry may never be the same, to say nothing of Dixing. Romance, Drama, I-4

It wasnâ€™t, Zhao Yunlan thought, anything like what heâ€™d have expected. He didnâ€™t feel any great enlightenment or sudden attack of wisdom. It didnâ€™t feel like a scroll of ages unrolling in his head, or like he was about to burst with the weight of memory. Returning divinity didnâ€™t feel like anything appropriately dramatic, in his opinion. It was just...

He recognized this.

He recognized the faint inward curve of Shen Weiâ€™s shoulders, and the tiny crease of his eyes. He recognized that instant when Shen Weiâ€™s lips firmed, just before he offered Yunlan a shaky smile. He knew this, all the little signs that said Shen Wei wasnâ€™t telling the truth. Not just wasnâ€™t saying everything, though Yunlan had certainly seen enough to that to recognize it. No, this was xiao-Wei actually trying to lie to him about something.

And he knew, just as surely, just as unobtrusively, that the smeared starlight all around them was not what two souls should be seeing, in this moment.

...or, one soul and one ghost. He was certain of that too, and all right that was a little more suitably strange.

â€œSoooo,â€ he drew the word out until Shen Wei huffed a faint laugh and took an obvious breath for composure before raising his brows. Yunlan smiled and spread his hands. â€œWhatâ€™s really going on?â€

Shen Wei went completely still for one moment, and Yunlan was sure, in his head this time and not just the bottom of his heart, that heâ€™d been right. â€œHmmm?â€ he prodded, wiggling his fingers in a â€˜give it upâ€™ gesture.

â€œDidnâ€™t we just cover that?â€ Shen Wei asked back, almost dryly enough to cover the flicker of his eyes aside. Almost.

Yunlan reached out, the way he never had but remembered so well, and touched his fingers to Shen Weiâ€™s chest, over his heart. â€œXiao-Wei,â€ he said quietly, and watched Shen Weiâ€™s eyes go wide with shock, soft with want, the way heâ€™d only seen once before. No, more than once, but only ever for him. That hadnâ€™t changed.

Shen Weiâ€™s throat worked as he swallowed, and his voice came out husky, unsteady. â€œWhat...?â€

Yunlan grinned at him, just as roguishly charming as he could make it, and coaxed, â€œTell me the truth?â€

That made Shen Wei start back a step, though, whole body stiff. â€œI canâ€™t.â€ His voice turned sharp with what sounded to Yunlan like genuine fear. And the only times heâ€™d seen Shen Wei truly afraid had been for him; that also felt correct all the way down. So there probably was something big at stake. Even so... Yunlan looked around, thoughtfully. The more he considered it, the more he felt like their surroundings were thin. As though, if he reached out and dragged his fingers down, heâ€™d smear paint down a canvas backdrop.

Admittedly, no one was more surprised than him when starlit blue really did start to come apart under his reaching fingers. Even after he bit back an undignified yelp and snatched his hand away, something lingered on his fingers. Something light and chill.

Familiar chill. The chill that whispered â€˜xiao-Weiâ€™ to him.

Yunlan rubbed his fingers together, eyes fixed on the shreds of blue and silver still flickering around his fingertips. The same colors, now he thought about it, that lurked between the shadows of Shen Weiâ€™s power. â€œWhat is it youâ€™re trying to do?â€ he asked, softly. â€œWhat is it you need me not to know?â€

â€œWho you are.â€ Shen Weiâ€™s voice was soft, too, as if he didnâ€™t want to upset some delicate balance, which made Yunlan chuckle, shaking his head as he looked back up. That balance was already tipped, quite likely by the forced actualization of that damn shot of serum now he came to think about it.

â€œIâ€™m Kunlun. Arenâ€™t I? Or I was.â€ He frowned a little. â€œAm? I think am, maybe. This should be a lot stranger,â€ he complained. â€œI keep forgetting Iâ€™d forgotten.â€ He started a little when Shen Weiâ€™s hands closed on his shoulders, bruisingly tight.

â€œHow...? But your soul is whole,â€ he whispered, as if to himself, gaze raking over Yunlan. â€œSo bright, though. If you're drawing the matter of the Lamp back to you...â€ His head jerked up and he looked aroundâ€”and, tellingly, away, as if he saw beyond the pretense draped around them. â€œBut the seal of the Lamp is still whole.â€

Yunlan considered the surprise in Shen Weiâ€™s wide eyes and the thread of fear still running through his voice, and reached out to lay his hands on Shen Weiâ€™s shoulders in turn. â€œWhat are you worried might happen?â€ he asked softly, as if coaxing a witness.

At that, Shen Wei hesitated and his eyes slid aside, fixing straight over Yunlanâ€™s shoulder. Yunlan stifled a sigh. Few things frustrated him as much as that iron wall of reticence Shen Wei used instead of a flat out lie (which might reveal something). For once, though, Shen Wei didnâ€™t refuse or dance around the answer, for all it looked dragged out of him.

â€œAfter you sacrificed yourself to keep the realms separate,â€ he paused, mouth tight, and added, â€œafter the first time you sacrificed yourself, I caught your soul and went to Shen Nong, asking him to see you reincarnated as a human.â€

Yunlan had another genuinely strange moment, at that, as his head said that was the most peculiar thing heâ€™d ever heard (which was saying something), while his heart said it made perfect sense (and was exactly the kind of thing xiao-Wei would do). Yunlan was starting to think heâ€™d need to invest in some folklore textbooks to get used to the inside of his own head. And, possibly, to get at what were some apparently juicy details that current explanations of history left out.

â€œHe said the cycle of reincarnation only had capacity enough to hold human souls, not a god. Gods are... thereâ€™s so much potentiality in them, and it flows so easily between forms. He said it would only be possible if he sealed away your power, and even memory of your power, and...â€ Shen Wei hesitated again, glanced at Yunlanâ€™s expectantly raised brows, and sighed. â€œAnd if I stayed away from you. As a human, you wouldnâ€™t have the strength, any longer, to resist the destruction inherent in my nature.â€

Yunlan tightened his grip on Shen Weiâ€™s shoulders, stroking gentle thumbs along his collar-bone, trying to soothe the tightness in Shen Weiâ€™s voice. â€œFor how long?â€ he asked, curious.

Shen Weiâ€™s hands flexed tight again for a breath. â€œTen thousand years. That part was true.â€

Yunlan thought back to another interval that had started in star-smeared blue, and couldnâ€™t help laughing, the laugh that he used to hold the rest of the world off for a momentâ€™s pause and give himself time to think, because the implications of this were... well his head was alarmed, anyway. â€œSo that whole â€˜back in timeâ€™ thing was, what? An illusion?â€

"Not exactly. It would have been dangerous for me to control your senses directly for that long, and I wasnâ€™t sure I could, by then. It was... it was an idea, a story of sorts, that I gave to the Holy Tools, to the Lamp especially. They fueled a kind of life in it, so that it felt real as it played out." For a moment, Shen Wei looked rueful. "I hadn't expected it to have quite as much life as it did, for it to keep happening whenever you started to touch the true nature of the Tools themselves, let alone for it to touch other minds also, but perhaps I should have."

Shen Wei was watching him, now, eyes dark, and the whole line of his body was cautious, ready to step back before he was pushed away. Yunlan could feel the body-memory of that in his own muscles and bones, from long years of dealing with his father. He tightened his hold on Shen Weiâ€™s shoulders a little, automatically reassuring. Considering that â€˜time-travelâ€™ interval as a sample of Shen Weiâ€™s (and perhaps the Holy Tools') storytelling ability, he smiled slowly and asked, â€œIs that why you seemed so young?â€ Because that part felt right, that xiao-Wei had been... perhaps not innocent, but definitely young, when theyâ€™d met.

The faint line of tension in Shen Weiâ€™s shoulders eased. â€œYes,â€ he admitted, softly. â€œI had to create that idea seed very quickly. Most of what was in it was actually true, just... not all in order, and not in that context.â€ He looked rueful for a moment, mouth quirking. â€œProfessor Xia would probably lecture for hours on all the modern historical theory I got wrong, too.â€

Yunlan waved dismissive fingers. â€œAh, fair enough, since modern theory is apparently already wrong.â€ Shen Wei hesitated, suddenly looking much more professor-ly, and Yunlan poked at the sense of certainty in the back of his head. It didnâ€™t change. â€œIt is wrong, isnâ€™t it?â€

Shen Wei tipped his head to one side. â€œYes and no. The star travel part, certainly. That was just the conclusion one charismatic scholar pushed to the fore. However varied in nature, weâ€™re all creatures of this world, gods and humans, beasts and spirits, and all. But the biological and energy-state distinctions are certainly present. They arenâ€™t all there is to the nature of the Yashou or of my own kind.â€ A corner of his mouth curled and there was a hard glint in his eyes for a moment. â€œThatâ€™s undoubtedly why Professor Ouyang's experiments largely failed. There was an element the researchers simply werenâ€™t taking into account. Even so, modern science isnâ€™t wrong, per se. It just doesnâ€™t have all the pieces and ignores some possibilities.â€ He chuckled, suddenly, and Yunlan had to take a moment to retrieve his thoughts as they snagged on the sound of itâ€”Shen Weiâ€™s laugh always did that to him, even now he remembered hearing it more often. â€œI wish we had more time. For you to return to the world as your old self... I wish I could be there to see the academic establishment trying to cope with that.â€

Yunlan blinked at him. â€œYou will, though.â€

Shen Wei smiled, and Yunlan felt his heart twist at the sadness in it. â€œWhether you consider it a stable energy pattern or a soul... I donâ€™t have any such thing, to draw me back into the world again. I think the Lamp will keep me from complete dissolution, but Iâ€™ll never leave it.â€ The smile softened, and Shen Wei touched Yunlanâ€™s cheek with light fingers. â€œItâ€™s all right. The Lamp was created from you. To be one with you, and always near you... I couldnâ€™t imagine a better end, for one with my nature.â€ Softer still, as horror pulled Yunlanâ€™s breath short, he added, â€œWhen you finally choose to rest from the cycle of rebirth, you can find me here.â€

â€œAbsolutely not!â€ Yunlan shouted, giving Shen Wei a good shake. â€œDo you ever damn well stop?! For once, think about your own worth!â€ Shen Wei just looked back at him, level and resigned, and Yunlan let go long enough to drive his hands through his hair with a sound of furious frustration. Under the fury, though, was still the bedrock certainty heâ€™d spoken out of, not moved at all by Shen Weiâ€™s determined self-sacrifice. He had a lot of damn nerve, taking Yunlan to task over doing this a measly two or three times. Yunlan scrubbed his hands over his face and pulled in a deep breath for calm, trying to get a better grip on the certainty. He knew, down to the core of his bones, that they both would, could, leave whatever in between place or gateway of the Lamp xiao-Wei was currently holding them in. He could do so because of his soul, Shen Wei saidâ€”and quite probably a push from xiao-Weiâ€™s power to get him clear. If that was what it took, then Yunlanâ€™s... Kunlunâ€™s... his own power could probably push just as well, but Shen Wei still needed that stable energy pattern. A soul. Which he didnâ€™t have, so how was this supposed to work?

The answer floated up into his thoughts, along with the memory of xiao-Weiâ€™s pendant.

Soul fire.

Yunlan opened his eyes, holding tight to that certainty, listening to that knowing with all his heart, and reached out to touch the hollow of xiao-Weiâ€™s throat, where the pendant had lain for millennia. Yes, he could feel it there, still. Of course xiao-Wei wouldn't have been able to leave him the real one; it wouldn't match the story. Yunlan was willing to bet that the pendant he thought he'd picked up really had been illusion, carefully crafted as a parting comfort that matched what he thought he knew. He hooked a finger under the cord of the real one and rubbed his thumb over that small, precious bead. Golden fire flared alive, between his fingertips, answering the will of its source, and Yunlan didnâ€™t hesitate, pushed away all his doubt and skepticism, and laid his palm against the brilliant glow, pressing it into xiao-Wei. He could feel it changing, flowing into another shape, and that was correct; it needed to become xiao-Wei, take on the shape of his being. He remembered doing something like this before, didnâ€™t he? Which meant it could be done again. Yunlan nudged the glow along, reaching deeper with... not exactly his hands.

All he would be able to say, later, was that he knotted his soul fire into Shen Wei, twined the strands of it tight with the strands of Shen Weiâ€™s being. He could never explain it in more detail than that, to the despair of entire biology departments and several eminent particle physicists. When it was over, Shen Wei was staring at him, eyes wide and a little wild, gasping for breath. â€œHow?â€ xiao-Wei whispered. â€œWhat did you do?â€

â€œWhat I should obviously have done a long time ago.â€ Yunlan paused, though, because the thought made him feel... wistful. â€œExcept maybe I couldnâ€™t?â€ he hazarded. â€œHuh.â€ Something hadnâ€™t been right, then. Hadnâ€™t been ready? Yes, that was right; heâ€™d needed to share a different part of himself first, and xiao-Wei had needed to accept it.

â€œOf course you couldnâ€™t! Your nature is one thing, thatâ€™s fluid enough in any god, but sharing your soul shouldnâ€™t be... Thatâ€™s not... it isnâ€™t...â€ Yunlan grinned at the rare sight of Shen Wei sputtering, and got a glare for it. He turned his hands palm up and shrugged. â€œIf itâ€™s an energy pattern, it has to be replicable, doesnâ€™t it?â€ Or, at least, that sounded reasonable given Yunlanâ€™s rather esoteric dabbling in the sciences, and also as though it might calm Shen Wei down with academic theory.

Shen Wei opened his mouth and closed it again, slowly. â€œI suppose what Shen Nong originally did with your soul fire was to stabilize the pattern in humans, and fuel a re-accretion of energy and matter around it,â€ he mused. â€œIn modern terms, at any rate. Itâ€™s at least theoretically possible that use created an echo, or template, of the process.â€

Yunlan refrained from pumping a fist in triumph, but Shen Wei eyed him like an he was an over-enthusiastic student anyway. Yunlan smiled back, innocently. â€œSo, you wanna get out of here?â€

Shen Weiâ€™s expression turned shuttered again. â€œMy part of the bargain was also to ensure my kind were contained, or destroyed if the seal between realms ever broke again.â€

â€œThatâ€™s already my job,â€ Yunlan pointed out with what he felt was admirable logic, spreading his hands wide, â€œso why canâ€™t you just keep helping me do it?â€

â€œIf we both withdraw our power from the Lamp, the seal will be weakened again and the Division wonâ€™t be enough to guard against trespassers, any more,â€ Shen Wei said flatly. â€œIf you remember anything, now, you must remember the ferocity of my people.â€

â€œIf we both have the powerâ€”the potentiality, you said?â€”of gods, now, why wouldnâ€™t we be enough?â€ Yunlan shot back. â€œWhy shouldnâ€™t we be able to find another solution, if it isnâ€™t enough? Since when do you just give in, anyway?â€

Shen Weiâ€™s voice rose, rocking Yunlan back on his heels. â€œSince I spent ten thousand years dealing with the fact that I was unable to go near you without killing you!â€

In the ringing silence that followed that, Yunlan sighed and stepped forward again, wrapping himself around Shen Wei. â€œIâ€™m here now, and a year with you hasnâ€™t destroyed me,â€ he offered, quietly. â€œAnd I remember some pretty crazy things being possible. Like a young ghost deciding to go off and tour the world, instead of continuing to fight and devour his own kind. We can at least try, canâ€™t we?â€

After a long, tense moment, Shen Wei gave in, leaning his head against Yunlanâ€™s shoulder. "As if I've ever been able to deny you." He laughed, helpless and unsteady, and Yunlan just held him tight, waiting. â€œAll right,â€ he agreed at last, soft. â€œAll right, letâ€™s try.â€

A ripple of blue-shot black swept over them, and the starry void dissolved in it, unfurled in streamers of power, letting golden light burst around them like day. More than day. Like the heart of the sun itself, if you could stand there and not be burned. It was absolute reassurance and security, and it tugged at Yunlan with terrifying strength but no force at all. It felt so familiar he thought he might drown in the sensation this time. Xiao-Wei was pressed tight against him, though, and that was almost as familiar. Plus, Yunlan had just spent a year learning to trust Shen Weiâ€™s judgement in tight spots, so when Shen Wei breathed in his ear, â€œRemember the world we want,â€ it was easy to think about the Divisionâ€™s offices, of their mirrored and yet so different apartments, of avoiding paperwork and chasing strange tales and Da Qing waking him up with a sandpaper tongue and demands for breakfast, and that was when he felt it. There was a current of chill running through the golden safety of the Lamp, xiao-Weiâ€™s power curling its way out toward that world, and he reached out to push both of them into that current, to send it running faster, faster, out through the flare of golden brilliance and into unsupported air.

â€œWhat...?!â€

â€œBOSS!â€

â€œAaaaaaaa!â€

Yunlan dropped onto a hard, wood floor, in a tangle of limbs, all the air knocked out of him in a rush. It took a minute or two of wheezing before he managed to figure out which way was up and lifted his head to squint at his subordinates, frozen and staring where theyâ€™d all started up from the long table in Division headquarters. â€œWell?â€ he finally gasped out. â€œStop looking like youâ€™ve seen a ghost and help us up!â€

He was fairly sure Shen Weiâ€™s faint groan was for the pun, and not injury, but he was careful about untangling them all the same. The team gathered around, hands reaching out, less to help than to touch them, patting over them both as a babble of words broke out.

"...been a year!"

"...really you, not Zhang Shi, right, you're not Zhang Shi..."

"What the hell, Boss...?"

"Chief?"

"Professor?"

"Chief...!

Yunlan patted xiao-Guoâ€™s shoulder, gingerly, and shot a meaningful look at lao-Chu. Lao-Chu gave him a glower, and an only slightly less ferocious one to Shen Wei, but did come coax xiao-Guo off Yunlan's shoulder before it got any wetter.

"Okay, in order, wow has it really been a year, no I'm not Zhang Shi, yes it's really both of us." Yunlan gave the tall windows a second look and yes, he could see night sky out there. "Also, what are all of you doing working so late?"

"We're not working," Zhu Hong snapped, hauling him up off the floor by an elbow and dropping him on the couch. "We wanted a memorial among ourselves, because yes it's been a year, but the office has too many other people in it during the day."

Yunlan blinked up at her, stunned. "We got more staff? Seriously?" He turned to look at Shen Wei, being guided down onto the next cushion by Lin Jing. "Are you sure we're back in the right world?"

"Yes, I'm sure." Shen Wei was smiling at him, but it was Professor Shen's small, contained smile, and that just didn't feel right. Yunlan leaned comfortably against his shoulder, and was satisfied to feel the straightness of Shen Wei's posture relax a bit.

"But what happened?" Da Qing demanded, scrambling up onto the table so he could stare demandingly at both of them.

Yunlan looked at Shen Wei, who was looking back with the very same helpless expression Yunlan felt on his own face. "Well, that's... a long story," Yunlan finally managed.

Shen Wei sighed and straightened, as though shaking himself back to reality. "For the Ministry's consumption," he said, sounding convincingly authoritative, "I think the story had better be that the injection Zhao Yunlan took did work, but had a delayed onset. Any inconsistent behavior can be explained by intermittent onset symptoms. For anyone who knew about Zhang Shi, we can say instead that he was caught in a wormhole created by the Holy Tools' reactivation and only found his way out at this point in time. For myself, we can say I was hospitalized easily enough; there wouldn't have been a body reported, after all."

The team looked at each other, trading grimaces, nods, shrugs. "It sounds plausible," Lin Jing agreed, and then leaned forward on the edge of his chair, eyes bright in a way that always meant trouble. "So? What really happened?"

Shen Wei glanced at Yunlan again, and the question in his eyes was so clear Yunlan thought he might as well have spoken. "I'd like my team to know," he agreed, quietly. "But are you sure?" In his opinion, xiao-Wei had gotten far too good at sacrificing his own wants for Yunlan's, and there was no time like the present to start breaking that habit.

Xiao-Wei hesitated. "I've watched human science for a very long time," he said, at last, just as low. "What the 'serum' actually does... now that those results are out in the open, I think there will be another shift, soon. If that does happen, what you and I are may become hard to conceal. Better to be prepared."

Zhu Hong straightened, at that, mock-temper melting into serious attention, but Lin Jing actually bounced in his chair. "What it really does? You know the mechanism?!"

Da Qing rolled his eyes. "Down, boy."

Yunlan grinned, relaxing into the familiarity of his team of maniacs. "Well, it's like this. It turns out I'm a god."

There was a long moment when everyone very obviously waited for the punchline, and Shen Wei actually rolled his eyes.

"Backing up a little," he put in, dryly, "the current theories of history, of meteorological disasters and legends being metaphorical interpretations of the lives and doings of mortal leaders, are inaccurate. The first gods, the later gods, they were true beings. Nuwa and Fuxi. Shen Nong." His hand slid over to rest on Yunlan's knee. "Kunlun."

Da Qing shook his head like he'd gotten water in his ears. "Wait. Wait, that..." He rubbed his forehead, frowning, and asked, plaintively, "Why does that sound right?"

"Memory as long as yours and mine is a slippery thing, sometimes." Shen Wei's hand tightened on Yunlan's knee. "There are things I remember as sharply as if they just happened, but many of the lives I watched over, and even lived, are faded, now. Jumbled together." His mouth twisted for a moment. "I stopped reading history, after a while. It got hard to remember whether some things were true memory or just things I'd heard later. It's probably worse, for you, since you lost so much memory entirely, for a while."

"But if... but then..." Da Qing's eyes swung back to Yunlan and widened. "Kunlun was... ?" he whispered. "Kunlun...!" He scrambled to his feet in a burst of black fur and leaped across to land on Yunlan's chest and shove his head under Yunlan's chin.

"Ow, ow, ow," Yunlan protested, as claws dug in through his jacket. "Careful, damn cat." The admonition didn't stop Da Qing from clinging tight with every claw, and Yunlan supposed he hadn't expected it to. He leaned back against the couch cushions, scratching behind Da Qing's ears. "Yeah, it's me." He winced as the claws dug in a little tighter.

"Zhao Yunlan is the soul of the god Kunlun, reborn," xiao-Wei explained to the staring team. "Reborn as human, but I believe that shot really did shift his nature and tear Shen Nong's seal over his memories and power. As soon as he gave himself to the Lamp... well, the Lamp was created from Kunlun, to start with. Passing through it again completed the shift and restored both his memories and his nature, fully."

Lin Jing had been muttering under his breath the whole time, and now he looked up, eyes nearly glowing. "You said the later gods were real, the ones supposed to be humans raised to godhood." His voice was soft, as if he wanted to sneak up on an idea and not startle it. "If that's true, and what the serum really does is change a human's nature, then the serum is creating gods."

Shen Wei gave him an approving, professorial nod. "Exactly."

Lin Jing's crow of glee nearly drowned out xiao-Guoâ€™s yelp of, "Gods?!"

Xiao-Wei got a glint of mischief in his eye. "You took up your responsibilities quite capably, I thought." He relented when xiao-Guo started looking like he might faint. "It needn't change much, really. It isn't merely an extra ability, but you can deal with the rest of what it is slowly."

Lin Jing stopped doing a victory dance in his chair. "Stability. The other results weren't stable."

"It was a change imposed from without." Xiao-Wei's voice was quiet but stern with a warning that made Lin Jing listen seriously and lao-Chu wrap a protective arm around xiao-Guoâ€™s shoulders. "Humans were created by the hands of one of the first gods. This path of development has always been part of your kind, but to shock it alive, to force the change," xiao-Wei shook his head, eyes dark, "that was a fool's move."

"This isn't the first time," Yunlan murmured, listening to the sadness inside him that had the weight of memory. "Some of those stories are true too—of humans gaining the power of gods, who couldn't handle it." He flapped a reassuring hand at xiao-Guo, who was starting to look like fainting again. "Ah, don't worry about it. If that was going to be a problem, it would have happened sooner. Xiao-Wei's right; you're doing just fine with it."

Zhu Hong straightened up from where she'd been leaning against the table, wide-eyed. "Oh." She peered closer at Yunlan. "Is that why you called him xiao-Wei, that time?" She managed a tiny smirk. "I guess even the Envoy would be young, to Kunlun."

Yunlan felt Shen Wei lean into him just a little more, and felt his easy grin turning soft. His voice was lower than he quite meant for it to be, when he answered, "Yeah, I think so."

Da Qing lashed his tail and finally scrambled off him, taking care to stomp on Yunlan's stomach on his way. "I'm staying at Lin Jing's place, tonight," he announced, imperiously, changing only long enough to fish keys out of his pocket and drop them on the table before turning his back and wrapping his tail around his toes.

That felt so familiar Yunlan couldn't help laughing. The rest of his team exchanged smirks and nods and elaborate eye rolls, and suddenly everyone was standing, gathering their things.

"See you tomorrow, Boss," Lin Jing told him brightly, helping lao-Chu herd a confused-looking xiao-Guo out the door. Zhu Hong picked up Da Qing and stalked after them without a backwards glance.

A soft huff made Yunlan look over at Shen Wei, insouciance firmly tacked down over a sudden urge to blush. Shen Wei looked like he was trying not to laugh, and refused to look at Yunlan. "So." Yunlan picked up the keys, spinning the ring around his finger. "I guess we're going home?"

That did the trick, and Shen Wei's smile broke out, warm and bright. "I suppose we are."

Satisfaction, heavy with the weight of who knew how many lives and years, settled in Yunlan's chest, and he smiled back. "Good."

The Advance of the Mountain Wind - Two

Yunlan calls bullshit, at the very end, and everything changes, including himself. The SID can probably cope, but the Ministry may never be the same, to say nothing of Dixing. Romance, Drama, Porn, I-4

They paused in the hallway between their apartments, staring at each other in silence for a long moment. Yunlan would deny to his dying breath (and beyond, obviously) that he ever had or ever would feel anything in shouting distance of â€˜bashfulâ€™, but he did have to admit to a sudden moment of regret that heâ€™d never gotten at lot of practice at taking a date home. Or being taken home, for that matter, except that Shen Wei didnâ€™t seem to be doing any taking anywhere, either, and was just...

...just standing there, quite still. Watching him.

Yunlan laughed a little, feeling the sneaking tension in his shoulders let go all at once. He knew that look. Knew the stillness of xiao-Wei restraining himself. More than that, he knew the heat shuttered behind that waiting gaze.

â€œSo.â€ Yunlan scrubbed a hand through his hair, glancing around the empty hallway for inspiration before he finally gave up and swept his arm toward his own door, inviting. â€œCome in?â€

The waiting in Shen Weiâ€™s gaze melted into intent heat, and he smiled, slow. â€œYes.â€

â€œRight. Yes.â€ Yunlan turned to open the door, and the light pressure of Shen Weiâ€™s hand settling at the small of his back nearly made him trip over his own threshold.

The path from his door to the bed had never seemed quite so full of obstructions, even if they only consisted of some scattered shoes and a bit of a corner.

â€œYunlan.â€

The sound of his bare given name, rolled over Shen Weiâ€™s tongue like he was tasting it, made Yunlanâ€™s breath shudder in his lungs. â€œYeah?â€ he managed, almost his nonchalant self.

Shen Weiâ€™s hands slid over his shoulders, turning him to see that Shen Weiâ€™s smile had softened. â€œLet me?â€

Old, deep certainty washed over Yunlan again. This was the one he could always trust, beyond sense or reason, beyond question or doubt. His smile was easy with that certainty, if tilted with the newness of the oldness. â€œYeah.â€

Shen Weiâ€™s hands closed around his face, careful, tender, as though Yunlan was the most precious thing heâ€™d ever held, and it was so very easy to relax into them, to reach out and settle his hands on xiao-Weiâ€™s waist, and open his mouth for the soft, cool lips sliding over his.

One slow, careful kiss after another, Shen Weiâ€™s tongue stroked deeper and deeper into his mouth, until Yunlanâ€™s breath was coming fast and short and his fingers dug into Shen Weiâ€™s hips, pulling him closer. Urgency coiled tighter and tighter in his belly, and finally spilled over into words.

â€œAll right, can...â€ Another kiss. â€œCan we just...â€ Another, and this time he felt the curve of Shen Weiâ€™s lips against his. â€œXiao-Wei...!â€ His laughter was what finally broke them apart, though the quiet mischief dancing in xiao-Weiâ€™s eyes made Yunlan lean their foreheads together as he caught his breath. â€œBed?â€

â€œIâ€™d like that.â€ Shen Weiâ€™s hands slid over his shoulders and down his arms to catch his hands, and Shen Wei backed up without so much as looking over his shoulder, drawing Yunlan toward the bed. That amount of attention focused on him made his breath quicken again. And Shen Wei himself...

Yunlan had always thought Shen Wei was beautiful. He had eyes, after all. But it was amazing what you could get used to when it walked beside you day after day, stuffed breakfast into your hand way too early in the morning, and silently petitioned the heavens for patience over your unfolded clothes. Now it was leaping out at him all over againâ€”the economy of Shen Weiâ€™s movement as he shrugged out of his unbuttoned shirt, the fullness of his lips as he smiled, the careful strength of long fingers wrapping around the back of Yunlanâ€™s neck and tugging him down to another kiss. When Shen Wei pushed Yunlan down to sit on the edge of the bed and knelt to tug his boots off, the grace of it stole Yunlanâ€™s breath. Seeing Shen Wei smile up at him under his lashes nearly distracted Yunlan from the fact that Shen Wei was undoing his jeans.

It wasnâ€™t awkward at all to lie back, to stretch out on the rumpled sheets, and feel the weight of xiao-Weiâ€™s eyes on him, and Yunlan had another moment of disorientation at how not-strange this felt. It blew away like milkweed down, though, when Shen Wei prowled up onto the bed to settle against him.

Part of him expected the cool of xiao-Weiâ€™s skin against his, and all of him positively purred at how good it felt. â€œXiao-Wei,â€ he murmured, sliding his hands up the sleek line of Shen Weiâ€™s bare back, the way heâ€™d really, really wanted to that one time Shen Wei had volunteered to have baseline energy readings taken. He could feel Shen Wei shiver under his palms.

â€œYou keep calling me that.â€ Shen Wei didnâ€™t sound upset, but he did sounds a bit wistful. Yunlan smiled, wry.

â€œDonâ€™t think I could call you anything else, when weâ€™re like this. It just... itâ€™s the name thatâ€™s there.â€ More slowly, sorting the urge out in his own head, â€œItâ€™s my name, for you.â€

Xiao-Wei kissed him again, at that, swift but so tender it made Yunlanâ€™s chest tight. â€œYes,â€ he agreed, against Yunlanâ€™s mouth. Yunlan wound himself tighter around xiao-Wei, breathless with the simple amazement that this was really his.

And then a lot more breathless with the way xiao-Weiâ€™s hands slid down his body, open and openly possessive, and maybe he should have expected the jolt of heat that sent through him but he really hadnâ€™t. â€œI can tell you again, now,â€ xiao-Wei murmured against his throat. â€œYou are the heart of me. Whatever life Iâ€™ve had, all this time, is because you stopped and smiled that very first day, so long ago. I have always treasured you.â€ With every word, the heat in Yunlan sank deeper, softened, filled him with a warmth and sweetness that he thought might undo him all by itself. That old-new familiarity ran under it, but twined through the familiarity was wonder. Yunlan had to close his eyes and just breathe, holding tight to xiao-Wei, when he realized this must always have been a wonder to him, to have xiao-Weiâ€™s love and care.

â€œThe more things change, the more they stay the same.â€ He meant it to come out light, but his voice caught and cracked on the words. Xiao-Weiâ€™s hand cupped his cheek, cool and gentle, and Yunlan opened his eyes to see xiao-Wei smiling down at him, eyes bright with laughter and soft with understanding.

â€œYes.â€

And then xiao-Weiâ€™s smile widened and Yunlan braced himself on pure reflex, both old and current. â€œPerhaps we should test that a bit, though,â€ xiao-Wei murmured. His hand slid down from Yunlanâ€™s cheek, trailed across his chest and down his stomach, and Yunlan barely had time for his eyes to stretch wide with realization before long fingers wrapped around his cock. The chill of xiao-Weiâ€™s touch against heated skin felt incredible.

â€œXiao-Wei... oh fuck...â€ Yunlanâ€™s hips rocked up into xiao-Weiâ€™s hold, and he shuddered with the heavy curl of pleasure up his spine. â€œOhhh fuck.â€

Pressed this close, he could feel that xiao-Wei was laughing. â€œWell, I see thereâ€™s no change there.â€ Yunlan made an inarticulate sound and reached up to pull xiao-Wei down to another kiss, deep and wet and wanting. Xiao-Wei gathered him closer, touch gentling. "Yes," he murmured. Yunlan wasnâ€™t at all surprised when xiao-Wei reached unerringly for the bottle tucked under the bedside table, and those cool, deft fingers were slick when they closed around him again. Yunlan groaned, hands working against xiao-Weiâ€™s shoulders as pleasure coiled low in his stomach, hot and slow. It felt so simple, so stunningly easy, to let his senses take him, to just move with xiao-Weiâ€™s hands on him as the heat wound tighter and tighter, and finally broke like a storm, shaking him apart until he was gasping for breath, holding tight to xiao-Wei against the intensity of it.

And xiao-Wei held him secure through all of it.

In fact, when Yunlanâ€™s thoughts started fitting sensibly together, again, he realized that xiao-Wei was just holding him, fingers sliding through his hair, slow and soothing. â€œSo, um.â€ Yunlan cleared his throat and glanced up, â€œwere you...?â€ He trailed off completely when he saw the warm satisfaction in xiao-Weiâ€™s smile.

â€œLater,â€ xiao-Wei said, simply.

The familiarity of that care rang through Yunlan like his heart was a struck bell, sweet and certain and so overwhelming to him now that he could barely breathe, only catch Shen Wei close and hold on. This. This was the one who would always care, would never leave, who had proved his trust over and over again.

It took a while for Yunlanâ€™s breath to come evenly again.

As he quieted, though, the unquestioning steadiness of xiao-Weiâ€™s arms around him connected one thought to another, and Yunlan stared up at the ceiling, past Shen Weiâ€™s shoulder. â€œIt must have hurt you so much,â€ he whispered, â€œwhen I didnâ€™t know you. Didnâ€™t remember you.â€

Xiao-Wei went utterly still, against him, for one heartbeat, another, and then stirred with a tiny shrug. After the past year, Yunlan was ready for that, though. â€œAh-ah! Donâ€™t try to deny it.â€

A tiny snort answered him, but at least xiao-Wei's body stopped shifting toward dismissal. Xiao-Wei was quiet for a moment. â€œI could hardly blame you for not remembering when I was the one who took Shen Nongâ€™s bargain without consulting you.â€

â€œOf course not,â€ Yunlan agreed, waiting for xiao-Weiâ€™s shoulders to settle, under his hands. â€œBut that doesnâ€™t mean it didnâ€™t hurt.â€ He felt the tiny, instantly stifled flinch, too, and sighed, rubbing a hand slowly up and down xiao-Weiâ€™s back. â€œIâ€™m sorry.â€

â€œDonâ€™t apologize,â€ Shen Wei snapped, pushing up on an elbow to glower at him. Yunlan smiled and touched a finger to xiao-Weiâ€™s lips.

â€œIâ€™m not apologizing. Iâ€™m just saying that Iâ€™m sorry you had that pain.â€ As heâ€™d grown to expect, and felt heâ€™d probably learned to expect a long time ago, xiao-Wei didnâ€™t contradict his insistence, only made an irritated sound and dropped back down against his shoulder. Yunlan smiled wider and snuggled up until xiao-Wei relaxed and curled around him again. Yunlan let his eyes drift closed, satisfied.

Even without prior (current) experience, he felt like he was getting a pretty good handle on how to do this relationship thing.

Knocking woke Yunlan up, and it took him a moment to figure out why, when he turned over to bury his head in the pillows, he wound up pressed tight against another body instead. "Ngh?" he asked, squinting at the expanse of chest in front of his nose.

"Do you want me to answer the door to your apartment?" Shen Wei asked, sounding both amused and far too awake.

Imagining the response of any of his team to that, Yunlan winced and pushed up onto his elbows. "I'm awake, I'm awake."

"Hmm." A cool hand settled on Yunlan's cheek and suddenly he was being kissed, slow and thorough. A curl of heat licked through him, in answer, and his hand reached up to thread through xiao-Wei's hair. The ease of it, the knowledge that this was his and he could reach out for it any time, for any reason, left Yunlan more breathless than the kiss. When xiao-Wei drew back, Yunlan stayed leaning over him for a long moment, stunned all over again.

"I'm awake," he finally said, soft and wondering.

Shen Wei smiled up at him, small and bright, and so perfectly content Yunlan's heart ached. "Then go answer the door."

Another knock underscored the point, and Yunlan crawled out of bed and into some clothes, since whoever it was obviously wasn't going away. When he opened the door, though, he had one moment of wondering whether he really was awake or not, because he came face to face with himself. But no, heâ€™d seen this, hadnâ€™t he, while holding fast to the gateway into the Lamp? Zhang Shi had done as he'd promised and taken Yunlan's place.

"Well." Yunlan ran a hand through his hair and stood aside. "This is going to be awkward."

"That depends." Zhang Shi pushed a large cardboard box with 'Shen - clothes' written on it inside and shouldered past him to dump an entire backpack full of files on the table. "If you want to avoid the hero worship and bureaucracy that's trying to swallow the Division, you could always start running now. Otherwise," he gestured to the files, "get reading on the past year's cases and new personnel, and I'll try to catch you up. Your cat informed me of things last night, so I came prepared."

"You know, I get the impression that you might just tackle me and drag me back to the paperwork if I tried to run." Yunlan flopped down on the couch and eyed the stack of binders; it didn't actually look that bad, for a year's worth.

Zhang Shi interrupted his calculations of how fast he could get through this to lean over him and jab a finger into his chest. "When I thought you were dead, that was one thing. Now I know you're not, you had better not ever make me accept an award in your place again."

The face might be Yunlan's, but that glower was one he'd seen more than once on his father's face, always after he'd done something that was maybe a little more reckless than it should have been. Just a little. Yunlan patted his other dad's hand, smiling. "Don't worry. We won't let it happen again."

Plates clinked very distinctly as Shen Wei set breakfast down beside the files. "We most certainly will not."

"Now, why does that sound more like a threat than a promise?" Yunlan asked, lightly.

Shen Wei gave him a dark look. "I had things under control, with Ye Zun. There was no need for you to come rushing in when you were still a human. He could easily have killed you by accident. He nearly did."

Yunlan knew exactly where xiao-Wei's sudden anger was coming from, because he could feel it leaping up in his own heart. Now they had time for it, and a reminder of it, his blood was abruptly boiling with the fear and pain of watching Shen Wei take the blow meant for him and fall, limp as a broken doll. "Your entire 'plan' consisted of sacrificing your life to force-feed Ye Zun an incompatible energy," he snapped, "and do you want to talk about the part where that means you had to be poisoning yourself to set it up?"

Shen Wei's hands flinched into fists and he jerked his chin aside, breaking Yunlan's gaze to look past him. Yunlan made an inarticulate sound of frustration, and threw himself onto his feet to pace a few lengths of the room before he started wanting to throw something else.

"If I may interrupt..."

It was his own voice, but his father's tone through and through, and Yunlan buried his face in his hand, biting back a groan. He'd just had a fight with his lover in front of his demi-dad. The morning couldn't get any better. "Sure, feel free," he muttered into his palm.

"My Lord Envoy," Zhang Shi said, very formal, and sounding less and less like Yunlan, which was a relief, "may I ask your assurance that you are well, now?"

Yunlan could hear the deep breath that Shen Wei took to make his voice quiet again. "You may. And I am well, now, though it may take a little time to be sure of the other effects."

Yunlan spun around sharply at that. "Other effects?"

Shen Wei gave him a tight-lipped glance. "You shared a spark of your soul with me, created a soul in me where there never was one, and that's in addition to the part of your nature you shared with me ten millennia ago. I'm not even sure what I am, now."

Cold fear washed over Yunlan, though he felt it break against an old, deep certainty, and he took a step back toward xiao-Wei. "It couldn't hurt you, though, right?" He pressed a hand to his chest, as if he could take hold of that certainty. "That's right, isn't it?"

The hard line of Shen Wei's shoulders softened at once, and he reached out to wrap a hand around Yunlan's arm. "Yes, that's right. If there were going to be problems, it would have been obvious immediately." He hesitated for a long moment and finally sighed, his giving-in sigh, and Yunlan couldn't help a tiny grin when he realized he could recognize the sound. Xiao-Wei snorted at him and pushed him back over to the couch, settling beside him. At xiao-Wei's wave of permission, Zhang Shi nudged plates of dumplings and fruit aside and sat on the table.

"I am well," xiao-Wei started, firmly, "but between what I did and what you did, it's very likely that my entire nature has been changed. When I realized the kind of disruption the Dial had caused in my being, it was just when I'd become sure that my brother was breaking free. I'd been considering asking the sacred tree to release our bargain and reclaiming the Guardian token already, because a significant part of my power was bound up in creating it. If I'd been able to reclaim that power, to reconvert it into my own, I could have faced Ye Zun evenly, though it would have meant all restraints on the power of my people in this realm would be removed. It seemed like a reasonable risk, if it meant I could stop Ye Zun early enough. But once I was injured, my chances of containing Ye Zun again went down considerably. That was when it occurred to me that if I absorbed the token's power without reclaiming or reconverting it, especially if I could displace enough of my own power to keep the conflict of energies from being apparent, it would be very easy to bait my brother into consuming it."

The shock on Zhang Shi's face was, if anything, even greater than Yunlan's. "If the Guardian charge was a bargain with the sacred tree... that's a heavenly power, you would have had to reduce your strength to almost nothing!"

"As I said," Shen Wei answered, terrifyingly level. "Very easy."

After a long moment, Zhang Shi bowed his head to Shen Wei. "Noble Lord," he said, softly, more formal than ever.

"Stop encouraging him!" Yunlan snapped. "That was not a reasonable risk!"

Xiao-Wei raised his brows and gave Yunlan a very pointed, sidelong look. "So, it's reasonable when you do it, but not when I do it?"

"Don't tell me you don't think exactly the same thing." They eyed each other for a long moment before the essential ridiculousness of their mutual insistence caught up with Yunlan and he had to stifle the snort of laughter that was trying to escape. When he spotted the twitch at the corner of xiao-Wei's mouth, he lost it, and the two of them leaned together, laughing low and helpless for a long moment.

"At any rate," xiao-Wei finally said, adjusting his glasses for composure just like a cat resettling its fur, "the half of my nature that has always been ghost was considerably weakened, in part replaced with the token's power, which was half mine and half the sacred tree's, and then on top of that the same one who gifted me with a god's nature added soul fire." He spread his hands. "I have no idea, yet, what all that became in the process of regaining matter on our way out of the Lamp."

"A god," Yunlan said, quietly, words that came whole and certain from that deep sense of memory inside him, now. "A god of ghosts. I think... I think that was what I always meant and hoped for."

The sound xiao-Wei made was wordless, as soft and amazed as his eyes had gone.

"That's quite the courting gift," Zhang Shi murmured, sounding both impressed and paternally amused.

A choked laugh escaped xiao-Wei, and he added, "Better than antique books." Yunlan gave serious consideration to sinking through the couch in embarrassment, at least until xiao-Wei leaned into his side again with a tiny, warm smile.

"Well." Yunlan scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Maybe the first order of Division business is actually some test-runs to find out what you can do now, and how."

"After breakfast," xiao-Wei specified firmly.

"Right, fine, breakfast." Yunlan agreed peaceably, raising his hands. He didn't so much as glance at Zhang Shi. He could feel the doting-dad vibes from here, which would be too bizarre to see on his own face. "Also, we need to get Zhang Shi a new identity."

"I called Dr. Cheng this morning." Zhang Shi sounded relieved. "She knew of a good prospect at once."

"Cheng Xinyan has great integrity," xiao-Wei commented mildly, between small bites of orange. "I trust her judgement. A candidate sheâ€™s chosen will be acceptable, but to stay here you will need to re-join one of the law enforcement departments. Not," he added a bit dryly, "the Supervisory Bureau." Yunlan had actually forgotten, for a moment, that Zhang Shi would need the Envoy's approval to continue living in this realm. His other dad was his lover's subject and quite possibly about to be his employee.

It was a good thing he'd never much wanted a normal life.

The Advance of the Mountain Wind - Three

Yunlan calls bullshit, at the very end, and everything changes, including himself. The SID can probably cope, but the Ministry may never be the same, to say nothing of Dixing. Romance, Drama, Porn, I-4

The three of them snuck out of Yunalnâ€™s own apartment and into his car as carefully as if they were smuggling a body, which he had to admit amused him. After all, in a way they were. It was Shen Weiâ€™s directions they followed, though, through the city and skirting around the edge of Yashou territory to one of the parks near the University. Shen Wei led them through the trees, keeping out of human or mechanical sight with an unthinking ease that made Yunlan mark this place in his mind as one xiao-Wei considered his own. Through a tunnel of concrete and twining vines and past a round brick plaza, they came to a concrete fountain, a low burble of water from a square, tiered base.

â€œHere.â€

Shen Weiâ€™s voice was tight and controlled, the voice that Yunlan had heard often from the Envoy, at the start of their acquaintance. Hearing it now locked Yunlanâ€™s attention like a chain wrapped around it, and he stepped up quickly to lay a hand on xiao-Weiâ€™s shoulder. Sure enough, it was straight and hard and still under his hand.

â€œHey,â€ he said, softly, just between the two of them. â€œQuit worrying. Whatever came of the change in you, weâ€™ll deal with it.â€

Xiao-Wei released a breath, shoulder easing just a little bit. â€œAll right. Step back, though. Just in case,â€ he added, glancing over to see Yunlanâ€™s brows going up. Yunlan scoffed, but took a couple steps back, arms spread.

â€œGood enough?â€

â€œI suppose weâ€™ll see.â€ Before Yunlan could try again to ease that sharp tension in him, Shen Wei closed his eyes and lifted a hand. Slowly, far more slowly than the flash and burst of power Yunlan was used to seeing, a glow built.

Heâ€™d gotten used to the colors of Shen Weiâ€™s power, the flowing black threaded with deep blue. More than just familiar, now, the memory of it alone made him smile, called up echoes of playfulness and peace from deep inside him. The familiar colors were still there, in what grew and flowed between xiao-Weiâ€™s hands, but now it was the blue that predominated, like a cloud of evening sky drawn into daylight.

Shen Wei wavered on his feet, as if heâ€™d stumbled without taking a step, and his eyes snapped open, wide and startled. Yunlan started forward to catch him with a hand under his arm, and marked the depth of xiao-Weiâ€™s shock by the complete lack of any warning to stay back. â€œXiao-Wei?â€

â€œThereâ€™s no... Iâ€™m not...â€ Xiao-Wei swallowed and took a deep breath, hands steadying around his own power as he found his balance again. â€œI think you were right. Before now, my power drew somewhat through my own life but mostly through the lives around me. Now... now itâ€™s entirely through my own life, my own place within this world.â€ The next breath he took shook a little, and his voice turned softer. â€œMy own soul.â€ Yunlan could feel all the remaining tension bleeding away as xiao-Wei straightened, reaching out with both hands to direct the flow of his power toward the fountain.

The shifting blue of it flowed across the water, around it, and the water rose in answer, sparkling up through the air to form thin bubbles, leaf shapes, even a snowflake or two out of running water. Yunlan had seen Shen Wei fight and heal, entrance and command, but heâ€™d never seen such delicate shaping as thisâ€”though that deep echo inside him felt like it had. Had even seen xiao-Wei play with his strength, perhapsâ€”had coaxed or maneuvered him into it, most likely. Predictably, xiao-Wei looked entirely serious the whole time, as if this little whimsy was nothing but a functional test of control. Someone, at some point, must have convinced him that it was an appropriate test, though, and Yunlan was pretty sure that someone had been him. He gave his past self an approving internal nod.

Eventually, xiao-Wei let his power fade back into the air and his skin, flexing his fingers. â€œIt will take a little getting used to, having that much to work with again,â€ he murmured, and then frowned. â€œZhang Shi. In the past year, has there been any deterioration in the Division staff who come into contact with lao-Chu Shuzhi?â€

â€œThat would be xiao-Guo, and no one else,â€ Zhang Shi noted, a bit dryly. â€œNo. Though if youâ€™re right about what xiao-Guo's becoming, there wouldnâ€™t be. They haven't taken harm from me, either, though, even without a host to absorb my power. And there havenâ€™t been any reports of strange wasting deaths at all. I did start looking for them when I recognized the unbinding of my own power.â€

"Possibly just luck, so far," Shen Wei murmured. "We'll have to keep an eye on that."

Yunlanâ€™s mind flickered through the connectionsâ€”unbinding, old legends of ghosts eating life, the one thing Shen Wei had said he had taken into himself. â€œThe Guardian Treaty or whatever was a literal binding on all Dixingren?â€ When Shen Wei and Zhang Shi both nodded, he prodded at the echo-memories, but couldnâ€™t make head or tail of the tangle of ruefulness and hope and grief he got out of them. â€œHow does that work?â€

"I am the ghosts' ruler," Shen Wei said quietly, not looking at either of them. "The strongest among them, and the most feared."

"Not only feared," Zhang Shi interjected, but softly, as if he wasn't sure it would be allowed.

Shen Wei shrugged, a faint motion under his jacket, as if he could barely be bothered to make the gesture. "Whether it's for fear or loyalty, greed or love, the one who's the focus of a whole people can affect all of them."

"So," Yunlan summed up, "you're saying that you've been sacrificing your power and safety for thousands of years, to keep humanity safe, and that now, having sacrificed your actual life, you're worried you haven't done enough." He shook his head, smile tilting crookedly, and reached up to rest a hand on xiao-Wei's cheek, turning him to look at Yunlan. "You know, I'm not even surprised, any more?"

Xiao-Wei's eyes were wide again. "I—"

"Ah!" Yunlan stroked his thumb along the sharp line of xiao-Wei's cheekbone. "I dare you to say that's not what you're doing."

Xiao-Wei huffed softly, turning his head a little into Yunlan's hand as he looked away. "You are ridiculous."

Yunlan smiled. "Sometimes, I've been told." And now it was probably time to move along, because he could just feel Zhang Shi paternally doting on them again. "So! Do we have to visit the hospital next?"

Dr. Cheng didnâ€™t even blink to see two of him, just shook her head with an expression that suggested she was resigned to the SIDâ€™s nonsense.

â€œThis way.â€ She led them back through some utility corridors. â€œThe patientâ€™s name was Li Huiliang. Her husband and son were both killed in the fighting, a year ago, and the shock wasnâ€™t good for her mind or her heart. Sheâ€™s been in and out of the hospital often, since then.â€ She brought them back into one of the regular corridors and paused in front of a closed door, head bowed. â€œLast night was the final time. She just... slipped away, this morning. I was about to report it when you called.â€

â€œI give you my word, Dr. Cheng,â€ Zhang Shi said soberly, in what Yunlan had long mentally labeled as his fatherâ€™s â€˜responsible officialâ€™ tone, â€œI will honor this gift, and keep her place in the world.â€

Dr. Cheng turned with such a steely look in her eye that Yunlan straightened up on pure reflex. â€œYou will invite me to her memorial.â€ It wasnâ€™t a question; it was an order. Yunlan suddenly found it a lot more understandable than he had, that this woman was Shen Weiâ€™s friend.

â€œIâ€™ll make the arrangements today, Doctor.â€ It would have to be private, of course, but she was quite rightâ€”it was the least they could and should do. Dr. Cheng nodded firm acceptance and opened the door.

Li Huiliang had been an older woman, hair just starting to gray in streaks here and there. There were lines of stress around her mouth, even now with all muscles slackened in death. Yunlan watched quietly as Zhang Shi stood beside the hospital bed for a moment, one hand resting gently on hers where theyâ€™d been folded over her stomach. When he stirred, though, Yunlan had to ask, â€œSo, how are we doing this? Thereâ€™s about to be an unexplained body, isnâ€™t there, since you werenâ€™t sharing mine?â€

Dr. Cheng made the face of someone who wished she were a bit less capable, right this moment. â€œI suppose I can arrange something, as long as you can make sure the documentation matches outside the hospital...â€

â€œActually,â€ Zhang Shi hesitated, glancing between Shen Wei and Yunlan. Finally, he spoke to the air between them. â€œIt takes a great deal of energy, to inhabit a body thatâ€™s died. Iâ€™d planned to ask the Envoyâ€™s help, but it might be... cleanest to use whatâ€™s bound up in this form.â€ He spread a hand over his (Yunlanâ€™s) chest.

Shen Wei stilled for a breath, but it eased away as soon as he looked over at Yunlan. Yunlan spread his hands and shrugged. â€œItâ€™ll be a little strange,â€ he answered the question in xiao-Weiâ€™s eyes, â€œbut honestly it was already a little strange, when I feel like all of me is right here,â€ he waved at his current body. â€œI say go for it.â€

Xiao-Wei nodded slowly and turned back to stand beside Zhang Shi, one hand on his shoulder. One slow breath, and the night-blue flow of his power rose around them. â€œBegin,â€ he ordered, quietly.

A darker something flashed between Zhang Shi and Li Huiliangâ€™s body, and Yunlan pushed back the shiver that wanted to walk up his spine, watching his own body (as was) just... dissolve into that blue, ribbon away in streamers like blowing dust. It reminded him sharply of what heâ€™d seen Ye Zun do, of the fact that Ye Zun and Shen Wei had been twinsâ€”the most powerful among their kindâ€”and that when it had come to a contest between them, Ye Zun had lost. Twice. Part of him was wary of that kind of power, while part of him, especially the deep echos of his past self, was just mildly pleased and approving and blasÃ©. The clash felt like it should be giving him a headache, even though it wasn't.

All right, and a little part of him was turned on by how effortlessly Shen Wei wielded that power, but he was ignoring that right now. That was for later.

As the last of â€˜himâ€™ faded away, the body on the bed drew a slow breath, healthy color flushing her cheeks and hands. Dr. Cheng, standing beside Yunlan, let out a breath that it sounded like sheâ€™d been holding for a while, and smiled a bit wryly when Yunlan patted her shoulder.

â€œRemember your promise,â€ she said, softly. â€œHonor her memory.â€ Yunlan nodded, accepting the weight of that.

â€œWe will.â€

A sudden flash of golden brightness snapped his head back around toward the bed. Shen Wei was starting back from it, and Zhang Shi had jerked upright, one hand clenched tight in the light blue cotton over his (her) chest, eyes wide.

â€œWhat happened?â€ Yunlan snapped, mind suddenly full of all the physiology heâ€™d ever read, including neurology, and all the ways it could go wrong, Dixingren powers or no.

â€œWas that...?

â€œThat was...â€

Shen Wei and Zhang Shi just stared at each other some more, while Yunlan waited. â€œThat was?â€ he prodded.

â€œSoul-fire,â€ Shen Wei finally answered, barely above a whisper.

Zhang Shi sucked in a shaking breath, and her (his?) voice came out even softer, reverent. â€œMy Lord...â€

Memory wasnâ€™t just an echo, this time. It washed over Yunlan like a flood, and for a breath he knew himself as Kunlun, knew xiao-Weiâ€™s distaste for the formless, mindless nature of so many ghosts with the depth of centuries, knew triumph that heâ€™d succeeded in giving his dearest friend and love the full gift heâ€™d intended. It took long moments for the knowing to ease, and it left Yunlan shaky, leaning against the wall for support. â€œThe focus of a people affects the whole people,â€ he repeated back to xiao-Wei, a little breathless.

Xiao-Wei spun to stare at him. â€œYou... this...â€ He pressed a hand to his throat, where the pendant had rested for so long. Yunlan spread his hands with a flourish, smiling.

â€œAll part of the plan. Apparently.â€ After a momentâ€™s reflection, he added, â€œDa Qing definitely isnâ€™t allowed to insult my ideas of courting gifts, any more.â€

That drove a faint breath of stunned laughter out of xiao-Wei.

â€œYouâ€™re going to tell me all of what that was about, later,â€ Dr. Cheng ordered, going to to peer into Zhang Shiâ€™s eyes and measure her pulse with quick fingers, eyes on her watch. â€œFor now, just tell me: is it going to cause any health problems?â€

â€œNo.â€ Xiao-Wei slid his glasses up to rub his eyes briefly. â€œNo health problems. Much larger political problems, perhaps, but that neednâ€™t concern anyone but me.â€ Yunlan cleared his throat meaningfully, and xiao-Wei added, on a bit of a sigh, â€œAnd perhaps the SID. Speaking of political problems and their solutions,â€ he went on, otherwise ignoring Yunlan, â€œwill there be any problem with the paperwork showing I was hospitalized here for the past year?â€

â€œNo, we had several cases that needed long-term care, after the fighting.â€ Dr. Cheng stepped back, giving Zhang Shi an approving nod. â€œThe fact that you were an SID consultant will actually help explain why we would have kept your presence confidential.â€ She gave xiao-Wei a stern look. â€œYouâ€™d better be back to explain things, later, but for now, letâ€™s get Ms. Li discharged.â€

â€œAnd then maybe ask lao-lao-Chu to drop by the apartment?â€ Yunlan suggested quietly, as they headed out into the halls once more.

Shen Wei glanced at him once before fixing his eyes straight ahead. â€œI think that would be wise, yes.â€

Yunlan nodded, satisfied. However much this whole contagious soul-fire thing might have been a gift of his past self, his present self wanted to know exactly what it was going to take from Shen Wei before letting his lover go haring back off through the gate between realms.

Yunlan read personnel and case files with all his concentration while they waited for lao-Chu, pressing Zhang Shi for details of temperament, of flexibility, of fears and dreams and motives. Clearly, he was going to need to take his re-entry into life at a run, and he didn't want his own Division tripping him up. When lao-Chu arrived, attention immediately fixing on Shen Wei to the exclusion of anyone else, Yunlan barely took the time to roll his eyes.

Shen Wei explained the situation, voice quiet and steady. Reassuring. Yunlan thought that might be the voice his students were used to hearing. â€œWeâ€™re not sure if this is normally transferable, or if it only happened because I was involved so deeply in the process of Zhang Shiâ€™s transfer and revivification. I donâ€™t know, yet, how deep I might need to reach into the being of another of my people, or...â€ He broke off as lao-Chu snorted and flipped his coat aside to kneel down at Shen Weiâ€™s feet and wait there, head bowed.

Really, it was enough to make a mere boss feel inadequate.

â€œNot only fear,â€ Zhang Shi murmured, from Yunlanâ€™s other side, and xiao-Wei closed his eyes for a breath.

â€œI know.â€ Yunlan thought the ruler-straight line of lao-Chuâ€™s back eased a little at xiao-Weiâ€™s soft words. He was sure xiao-Wei saw it, too, because he reached out, the way he almost never reached out to anyone but Yunlan, and laid a hand on lao-Chu's shoulder.

And golden brilliance flickered around his fingers.

lao-Chu jerked upright like it was an electric shock, staring up at xiao-Wei. "Lord...!" That sounded shocked out of him, too.

Xiao-Wei was holding very still, which meant he was just as startled, but slowly he tightened his hold on lao-Chu's shoulder. "So." Finally he smiled, achingly slow but with a brightness in him like the sun rising. "It can be done."

Lao-Chu, who Yunlan had never seen willingly discomposed unless he was trying to scare the liver out of someone, looked like he was one breath from bowing his head to the ground before xiao-Wei, and his voice was rough. "Noble Lord, thank you. I've watched Changcheng every day, ever since we were unbound, every day ready to leave if he started to fail. I never thought..."

Xiao-Wei's face tightened, so much pain in the flinch of his brows together that Yunlan started to get up, to go to him, even as xiao-Wei lifted his hand to rest it gently on lao-Chu's head, quieting him. "I know." Xiao-Wei's eyes rose and Yunlan froze under the darkness of them, breath stopping. Xiao-Wei was talking about him. That certainty went right down to the bone. Some time, somehow, he had died because of xiao-Wei's nature.

Suddenly, xiao-Wei's fierce insistence on his safety felt a lot less like a Dixingren underestimating a human and a lot more like frantic, desperate grief. Suddenly, the information that xiao-Wei had been the one to create the instrument that halved his people's powers in the human realm felt less like politics, or even compassion, and more like love—reckless, headlong love and a deep fear running under it.

"Xiao-Wei," Yunlan whispered, reaching out, and xiao-Wei came to him at once, caught him close with an absolute disregard of anyone watching that told Yunlan everything he suspected was painfully true. He let out a slow breath and wound his arms around xiao-Wei, one hand sliding up to urge his head down against Yunlan's shoulder. "I'm here," he said softly, and promptly lost most of his breath to the way xiao-Wei's arms tightened around him. He barely registered the apartment door closing behind Zhang Shi and lao-Chu. "Tell me?" he asked, hands rubbing slowly up and down xiao-Wei's back.

"You did something foolishly noble and got injured. I was the only one there. I couldn't leave you like that." Xiao-Wei's hands tightened on him. "And then I couldn't leave you." His voice was muffled against Yunlan's shoulder. "I should have known better, but part of me still couldn't believe..." A quick, hard breath in and out again. "In two years, you were dead."

And then Shen Wei had spent who knew how many years and how much power changing the world so that it wouldn't happen again. Yunlan closed his eyes, breathless with the weight of the thought. It was like the morning he'd found Shen Wei draining his blood, allegedly to repair the wound he'd taken sharing his life force with Yunlan, all over again, only turned on its head. Instead of furious shock that anyone would sacrifice himself so completely and unhesitatingly for Yunlan, it was a warm weight of certainty inside him. Because Yunlan had spent twenty-eight years waiting for the man in his arms, barely looking at another person, even casually, and he was sure in his heart, all the way down to the echoing memory of his first life, that he'd spent ten thousand years worth of lives that way.

Shen Wei's devotion wasn't the alarming imposition it had seemed, in the shock of that morning. It was the answer Yunlan hadn't realized he was listening for, so intently he hardly noticed any other.

"I'm here, now," he repeated, smiling against the darkness of xiao-Wei's hair. "And so are you."

A faint laugh shook xiao-Wei's shoulders, and he finally lifted his head, starting to smile again despite the redness of his eyes. â€œYes.â€ Whatever he saw in Yunlan's face, it eased the tension out of his body, and Yunlan made a pleased sound as they leaned more comfortably together.

â€œThatâ€™s better.â€ He linked his hands behind xiao-Wei's neck, thumbs stroking absently up and down xiao-Wei's nape, and smiled wider at the sudden heaviness of his eyes, the quick, soft draw of his breath. "Xiao-Wei. Come to bed?" Personally, he could think of no better way to ground them in the present. In fact, when xiao-Wei lifted a hand to cup his cheek, thumb stroking along the curve of Yunlan's mouth, Yunlan stopped being able to think of anything but the present moment.

"Yes," xiao-Wei agreed, softly.

Yunlan suddenly wanted very much to have xiao-Wei's bare skin under his hands, and made such short work of undoing xiao-Wei's vest and shirt that xiao-Wei was laughing under his breath by the time Yunlan went after his pants. He was willing enough to stretch out on Yunlan's bed and be touched, though, and that was the important part. The soft contentment in dark eyes as Yunlan's hands slid down his body, fingers tracing along his ribs, over his hips—that was the important part.

One such thought led to another, and Yulan made a thoughtful sound as he pressed a kiss under xiao-Wei's ear just to hear him laugh again. "Hey." He leaned up on his elbows, looking down at xiao-Wei. "Okay if I try something?"

"Anything you like." The promptness of xiao-Wei's answer, so ready and unthinking, made Yunlan smile, probably quite foolishly. He didn't care.

"Thanks." He stole another kiss and slid down the bed, nudging just a little hesitantly in to lie between xiao-Wei's legs. The sharp intake of xiao-Wei's breath was promising, though, so Yunlan went ahead and leaned down to close his mouth around xiao-Wei's cock.

"Yunlan...!"

He made an inquiring sound around his mouthful, and observed the way xiao-Wei's hands clenched tight on the blankets. That seemed like a good sign, too. Yunlan slid his mouth carefully further down, tongue stroking against smooth skin, taking in the taste of it—a little flat, a little salt, ever so faintly sweet, all twined together into one. The newness of it faded into the back of his mind, though, when xiao-Wei moaned, low and open.

"Yunlan." The huskiness of it locked Yunlan's attention, and he glanced up at xiao-Wei as he drew back. The pleasure and heat in the heaviness of his eyes on Yunlan, the part of his lips, made Yunlan grin, quite pleased with his experiment, so far. He wrapped his mouth back around xiao-Wei and sucked on him. He could feel the tremor that ran through xiao-Wei, the fierce control that caught short the lift of his hips, and positively purred around him. He liked this. He liked knowing that he could bring xiao-Wei pleasure, and he liked xiao-Wei's care for him, even in the midst of it.

The same part of him that enjoyed the possessiveness of xiao-Wei's hands sliding over his shoulders liked even more the thought that he was the only one who was ever going to see xiao-Wei like this. Ever see him flushed, head tossed back against the pillows, breathing deep and fast. Ever hear that clear, precise voice turn velvety with hunger.

When xiao-Wei gasped out a warning, Yunlan just made a pleased sound and sucked harder.

Xiao-Wei groaned, body arching taut as long shudders rolled through him. The upward surge of his hips drove him deeper into Yunlan's mouth, and Yunlan suddenly understood the warning. It put a curl of excitement down his nerves, too, though, and he relaxed into it the way he would into an unexpected fall, hot and breathless with the rush that filled his mouth.

He did wonder, as xiao-Wei dropped back against the bed, suddenly lax, whether there was a graceful way to wipe one's mouth after this kind of thing. He suspected there might not be, but it could be worth a little research, later. Right now, it was far more important to slide back up to settle against xiao-Wei and bask in how gorgeous his lover was, panting and undone, eyes closed as he slowly relaxed from the edge of pleasure.

When xiao-Wei opened his eyes again, he huffed a soft laugh, reaching up to run his fingers through Yunlan's hair. "You look pleased with yourself."

"Mmm, I think I am," Yunlan agreed, and leaned down to kiss him. Against xiao-Wei's mouth, he added, "We're here, and it's now. You can feel it here," he spread a hand over xiao-Wei's chest, "can't you?"

Xiao-Wei stared up at him for a moment, eyes wide and dark. Finally he laughed again, soft and rueful. "I can," he murmured, hands sliding down Yunlan's back. "And yet, you're still the same." He drew Yunlan down to him and kissed him, slow and deep. "Still the one I love with all my heart." Another lingering kiss. "That will never change."

Yunlan made a breathless sound at the surge of wanting that shook him. Xiao-Wei caught him closer and turned Yunlan under him. "Always," he promised, and the intensity of it left no room for doubt, no room for anything but the certainty that Shen Wei would never let go. Yunlan let out a slow, shuddering breath, holding him tight as that certainty settled into his chest, warm and soothing.

"Yes."

They lay quiet for a while, twined together, and Yunlan relaxed into the rare peacefulness. Eventually, though, xiao-Wei stirred against him.

"Don't think this gets you out of eating a decent dinner, tonight."

It startled Yunlan into an open, genuine laugh, and xiao-Wei leaned up on an elbow, smiling down at him, eyes soft and warm just for him. "I think I probably have some fried rice cakes that should still be good," he suggested, just to see the exasperated look xiao-Wei gave him. It eased away when Yunlan reached up to touch his cheek, though. "We're going to be all right, now, yeah?"

Xiao-Wei leaned into his hand, smiling. "We will."

Yunlan thought it was getting a little easier for both of them to believe it.

The Advance of the Mountain Wind - Four

Yunlan calls bullshit, at the very end, and everything changes, including himself. The SID can probably cope, but the Ministry may never be the same, to say nothing of Dixing. Romance, Drama, Porn, I-4

They both went in to work the next morning.

("Are you sure about that?" Da Qing had asked when he stopped by at dinner-time to drop off more of xiao-Wei's boxed up belongings. "Anyone would think you were in heat, the way you've been acting, are you sure you'll be able to keep your hands off each other for a whole day?"

Yulan had swatted him across the back of the head and shoved a bag of fish treats at him to keep his grin from becoming any further commentary.)

He dropped Shen Wei off at the university, even though it meant circling back to the SID headquarters, and took away with him the tiny, wicked curl to xiao-Wei's lips when Yunlan wished him a good day. The thought of xiao-Wei walking through his campus, greeting colleagues and students with a polite smile and trailing shock and disruption in his wake like a more entertaining version of his black cloak got Yunlan through the morning without giving in to the urge to sneak up behind his dreadfully earnest new office staff to see who was paying attention.

Much.

Really, anyone who worked for the SID should have better situational awareness than that.

"Oh, he used to be like this all the time," he caught Lin Jing telling He Niu, their new archivist. "He's been grieving this last year, you know. Now Professor Shen is back, I'm sure the Boss' heart has started to mend..." Yunlan clapped a heavy hand on Lin Jing's shoulder, cutting off his increasingly melodramatic explanation. Lin Jing flashed him a split-second smirk before assuming a suitably daunted expression.

"And what are you still doing here, anyway?" Yunlan asked. "Don't you have work enough at the Institute?"

"I resigned today," Lin Jing told him brightly. "Since Professor Shen is back, things will be getting fun again, won't they?"

"Oh, so you think you can get your job here back, just like that?" Yunlan raised his brows, carefully not answering the question. Lin Jing obviously noticed, going by the alarming way his eyes lit up. "Three month probation at base pay only."

"Oh come on, I'm more useful than that!"

Which was true enough, not least in helping maintain Yunlan's cover until they decided what to do about the whole 'back to being a god' thing. "Oh fine, one month," Yunlan offered. "Bonuses contingent on producing better data or tools than our new analyst does."

Lin Jing whined and moaned dramatically, but finally accepted.

"And he's always been like that," Yunlan told He Niu, on his way back down the stairs. Which was not strictly true, but he'd leave it up to Lin Jing how much of his mask he wanted to keep.

Or to make real.

By the end of a day of subtle, sideways testing, Yunlan had a fairly good sense of his new staff, and Zhang Shi had been regrettably on target—a lot of them had hired on out of hero-worship and been put to work indexing all the old reports for lack of anything else to do with them. The exceptions so far were He Niu, who was the one actually directing the re-indexing efforts, and seemed like a capable archivist if not exactly field agent material, and Xu Jian, the data analyst who had been more or less filling Lin Jing's place. More in that there was suddenly a lot more supporting data tucked into those old reports, and less in that there were far fewer mostly-working, possibly-explosive tools tucked around the lab room.

Though what was in there still included the Holy Tools, requiring Yunlan to conceal several minutes of mild panic over whether they would start responding to him the way they would presumably not have ever responded to Zhang Shi.

"They really left all four of the Holy Tools with us?" he asked Zhu Hong as soon as they'd managed to shoo the new kids out for the day. She only shrugged, sliding bonelessly down into her favored chair, opposite lao-Chu and xiao-Guo, who was perched on the arm of the couch beside his partner.

"The Lamp couldn't be moved, and this is the most strongly shielded building in the whole city. Besides, the Ministry was falling all over themselves to pretend they never tried to make us their scapegoat."

Yunlan frowned as memory prodded at the back of his mind. Something about the Lamp, and why he wasn't surprised that it couldn't be moved. "The Lamp... is only part here?" he murmured. "No, that's not quite it." He wondered, exasperated, if thumping on the side of his head would improve his reception on that huge, dense weight of memory deep inside.

"Close, though." Lin Jing hopped up onto the long table, swinging his feet cheerfully. Yunlan had heard the argument he'd had with Xu Jian about the amplitude of dark energy output by the Holy Tools, earlier; the whole building had heard. At least they both seemed to have enjoyed themselves. Lin Jing waved at where the Lamp hung over everyone's heads, looking for all the world like a third ceiling lamp except that it was suspended from nothing. "It's actually more that it's in two places at once. I have a theory that it would have to be moved in both places simultaneously, to move it at all."

"So much for my plans to ask for a bigger headquarters building. Maybe I can just get an auxiliary building to put the reports and new staff in." Yunlan squinted up at the Lamp, thoughtfully, wondering whether he and xiao-Wei together could move it.

The Lamp wobbled in midair.

It was reflex more than reason that shot his hand out to catch the Lamp. He'd forgotten, though, that his reflexes now went a little further than most people's. Green and gray flowed out from his hand, green like pine needles, gray like sheered rock, green like the icy heart of springwater welling up from stone. It curled out and up and around the Lamp, and Yunlan clenched his teeth on a surge of real panic, because he didn't know what he was doing or about to do. The Lamp wobbled again, in his hold.

And then it steadied.

Yunlan took a deep breath, feeling the solid support of Shen Wei's body behind him and the shadowy coolness of Shen Wei's power running under his, pressed against his, rising from the hand suddenly outstretched under his own.

"It's a good thing I didn't stay late, talking to my students, it seems," xiao-Wei murmured against his ear. Yunlan laughed, perhaps just a little shakier than usual. Xiao-Wei's other hand tightened on his shoulder. "Easy. You know this." Yunlan could hear the smile in his voice. "This was how you taught me to truly control my power, after all—to shape it rather than simply hone it sharper." The cool of his power curled around the edges of Yunlan's own, a light touch that coaxed him to ease his grip, a steadiness that assured him nothing could go to wrong.

Yunlan leaned back against xiao-Wei, relaxing into the easy support of his power, and had to close his eyes for a moment at how good it felt. "Was I trying to get you into bed?"

Pressed together like this, he could feel xiao-Wei's silent laugh. "Not at the time."

The more Yunlan calmed from the first shock of power rising from his hands, the more memory rose. This was right. This was his, was him. Once he gingerly let that thought settle in, it got a lot easier to draw back and let green wisp away from the Lamp.

Which sat innocently in midair as if it had never wobbled at all.

Yunlan finally looked down again, to see his staff staring at him.

"Kunlun," lao-Chu said quietly, eyes dark as he studied Yunlan.

"God of mountains," Zhu Hong whispered. "Yashou legends say so, still, the oldest ones."

"Huh." Lin Jing was eyeing the Lamp like a stray data point. "Okay, maybe I was wrong. Or maybe it really was made out of you, though how that's supposed to work..."

Da Qing put his feet up on the table, unimpressed as only a cat could be. "I told you you wouldn't be able to go a whole day."

Yunlan realized he was still leaning half in xiao-Wei's arms and straightened up, rolling his eyes. "Shut up, Damn Cat."

The stifled grins that flashed around the group suggested Da Qing had shared his prediction with the rest of the team. So, business as usual, really. Yunlan ignored them all loftily and pulled out a chair, slinging it around to sit backwards. Xiao-Wei pulled a second chair up to sit neatly beside him, and everyone settled down again.

"We need to make some plans." Yunlan ticked points off on his fingers. "What are we telling the Ministry? What are we doing about the new kids? What are we doing about the whole contagious souls thing?" Xiao-Wei gave him an exasperated look and Yunlan amended, "Fine, the communicable, stable, generative energy form thing."

Lin Jing sat bolt upright. "Ah!"

"Science later, planning now," Yunlan admonished, not that he thought it would do much good.

"For the good of both ghosts and humans, I will return to my people as soon as possible, to ensure this change," xiao-Wei touched a hand to his chest, "is spread. But that will mean the seal between realms won't bar them from crossing, any more."

Lao-Chu crossed his arms over his chest. "The danger of consuming human life just by being near will be erased, but those of great power will still be more than humans can easily handle."

"Job security for us," Da Qing pointed out, popping another fish snack into his mouth.

"So we tell the Ministry about the results, but not the reason," Yunlan concluded, and then glanced over at xiao-Wei. "Unless you want to reveal yourself?"

"Not unless you choose to." Xiao-Wei's voice was level. "They would reasonably fear my influence over you, otherwise."

"Even if they know about the Chief's power?" xiao-Guo asked, hesitant and looking sad enough to remind Yunlan he was asking the kid to lie to his family. Yunlan sighed, leaning his arms over the back of his chair.

"Even then. They'd just wonder how much of it was the Envoy's doing, and what he was up to, giving the head of the SID power like that."

Xiao-Guo nodded, drooping where he sat until lao-Chu slid a hand up to the back of his neck and shook him, gently. "I understand, Chief." Then he perked back up a little. "So maybe the new staff should be the ones to talk most to the Ministry? Since they won't look too closely at the Chief and the Professor." The whole team turned to stare at him until he fidgeted. "Um? They're very impressed with both of you, you know?"

"That's actually a good plan," Zhu Hong marveled.

"All right, then. Step one, I'll escort our good friend the Envoy to his people. Step two, we'll come back and tell about two thirds of the truth to the Ministry. Step three, we sort out who's on call for field work and who gets to be liaisons and file clerks." Yunlan planted his hands on the back of his chair and pushed up onto his feet.

Xiao-Wei stood as well, brushing his jacket straight. "Tomorrow, you can escort me to my people."

Yunlan waved a hand at the still-bright sky outside the office windows. "We have plenty of time to get a start now..."

"Tomorrow," xiao-Wei repeated, immovably, wearing an exceedingly calm smile.

After a testing pause, during which xiao-Wei failed to show the tiniest amount of the irritated acquiescence that usually met Yunlan's insistence on something, Yunlan spread his hands wide, magnanimously. "Tomorrow, then."

Lao-Chu held out a palm to Zhu Hong, who glared at him for a long, fulminating moment before finally pulling out her pocketbook and slapping a bill into his hand. Lao-Chu smirked as he tucked it away.

With the wisdom of years of leadership, Yunlan didn't ask what the bet had been, and ignored Lin Jing and Da Qing's snickering as he led the way out the doors.

"Why tomorrow?" Yunlan asked, as he closed the apartment door behind them.

"Because," xiao-Wei answered, shrugging out of his suit jacket and sitting on the bed to pull his shoes off, "I am not taking you back down there until you have some kind of control over your power." He scooted back to sit with his legs crossed and held out a hand to Yunlan.

Memory echoed up again, echoes that said xiao-Wei was a lot more tense than he appeared. Yunlan sighed and gave in, yanking his own boots off and sitting knee to knee with xiao-Wei. "Okay," he said, gentler than he'd first intended. "What do I need to do? Because I don't actually remember much of this, not where I can get at it easily."

The straight line of xiao-Wei's shoulders eased a little, and he smiled at Yunlan, so warm and relieved Yunlan could feel the last of his annoyance melting under it. "Just feel and listen." Xiao-Wei took Yunlan's hands in his. "Feel how it happens."

Slowly, nearly as slowly as when xiao-Wei was testing the new balance of his own power, cool blue spread against Yunlan's palms, soft and beckoning, somehow tender, the way xiao-Wei's hands on his body were. "Are you sure I wasn't trying to get you into bed, when we did this?" Yunlan asked, a bit husky.

"Fairly sure," xiao-Wei murmured, though a corner of his mouth curled up. "Reach back to me."

Put that way, suddenly, it made sense, and Yunlan reached out at once with the part of himself that felt most like xiao-Wei's twilight blue action-in-potential, twining through that waiting coolness like lacing their finger together. Xiao-Wei's breath caught.

"Oh." His eyes were wide and unguarded as they met Yunlan's. Slowly, his power tightened around Yunlan's.

"This is new?" Yunlan asked, soft. Xiao-Wei nodded, and took in a quick breath as Yunlan stroked experimentally against the edges of him.

"I hadnâ€™t noticed earlier. It feels different, now. I can feel more... texture, I suppose; it used to be just the heat of life.â€ He swallowed. â€œWell. I suppose I don't need to worry whether you'll be able to catch someone trying to strike at you this way, at least." His voice was a little husky, and Yunlan had to wrestle with himself for a long moment before he sighed and drew back. Xiao-Wei really did have a point, here.

"Let me try." Yunlan drew himself all the way back to... well, to the rest of himself, he supposed, trying to keep a mental hold on the memory-and-echo of how this worked. "Slowly?"

Xiao-Wei smiled. "Of course." He gathered his own power into a tight sphere in his hand, and just looking at it made Yunlan want to duck aside enough that he didn't have to think at all before reaching out, and further out, and pushing a wall of green up between them. Xiao-Wei nodded and flicked the sharp knot of his power out to burst against that stone-solid wall with a flash of blue and silver that filled the whole apartment before fading.

"Excellent." Xiao-Wei looked very pleased, when Yunlan gathered the wall of immovable intent back into himself. "I'd hoped it would come back quickly once you tried it."

Yunlan looked down at his hands, flexing them thoughtfully, though it hadn't been his physical hands that had been involved, exactly. "I think I understand better, now, what you meant when you said gods are potentiality."

"Immense potentiality," xiao-Wei agreed, low, "and every part of your being is available to be actualized into the path you choose."

Yunlan clenched a fist. "The Institute. If a way to force development of that gets out..." Xiao-Wei's hand folded around his fist, cool and gentle. When Yunlan looked up, xiao-Wei was smiling, small but also happy, like there was a light burning inside him.

"Then I'm glad that there will be two of us."

It took a minute for Yunlan to get his breath back, shaken again by the bone-deep knowledge that it was him, his presence, his company, that made someone like Shen Wei happy like this. "Yeah." He turned his hand over to grip xiao-Wei's. "So am I." The soft stroke of xiao-Wei's thumb over his knuckles made Yunlan have to clear his throat, glancing aside. "So. Does it work mostly the same way when it's a thing people are throwing at me, instead of just power?"

A spark of mischief danced in xiao-Wei's eyes and the curve of his mouth. "Why don't we see?"

Yunlan spent all of dinner reflecting that he really needed to remember about xiao-Wei's sense of humor, as he deflected napkins and chopsticks and the occasional book, if xiao-Wei though he wasn't paying enough attention.

It wasn't until they were in bed, that evening, that Yunlan finally voiced something that had been nagging at the back of his mind. "If what I am can take any path of actuality that I choose, what does this 'god of mountains' thing mean?"

Xiao-Wei turned on his side, sliding a hand up to rest over Yunlan's heart. "It's just a description. The best way people found to describe the shapes that your being and power most easily fall into." His voice softened, in the darkness. "The stone that rises to meet the sky. The life that blooms fiercely in the unyielding places, sufficient to itself. The rivers that flow down from stone—the source of danger and the source of life."

Yunlan's breath shook in his chest as those words rang through him, feeling the weight of how deeply xiao-Wei had known him. He reached out blindly to xiao-Wei and didn't stop until they were wrapped tight around each other, until he'd reached out with the green at the heart of him, now, to twine with xiao-Wei's cool, shifting blue strength and could taste xiao-Wei against every part of him. Xiao-Wei pressed close with a soft, pleased sound.

"What about you?" Yunlan asked, when he could speak again, fingers running slowly up and down xiao-Wei's spine. "I feel like I know this, but... it feels complicated."

Xiao-Wei stirred against him, sounding surprised. "Not especially. It's..." he hesitated, but when Yunlan just waited, finished reluctantly, "it's death. Death and ice. If I reached out with all my strength, with no binding on my power... cities would die. That's always been the core of my nature—to consume life." He pressed a little closer, adding against Yunlan's shoulder, "It was you who showed me how to gentle that into other forms, and changed my nature enough to learn new forms from other people."

"It was you who wished to be able to," Yunlan answered, absolutely certain. That wasn't all of the complication sitting at the back of his head, though, and he poked at the feeling some more. "It will be different, now," he finally said, slowly. "When I think about it like that, about the shape of you..." he thought of the changeable blue of xiao-Wei's power and buried his nose in xiao-Wei's hair, smiling, "I think of the sky after sunset."

Xiao-Wei went very still for a long moment. "You used to say that," he whispered, finally.

"Well, you said it yourself, just now, didn't you?" Yunlan pointed out. "The stone that rises to meet the sky." He held xiao-Wei close, as his breath hitched. "I think Kunlun wanted, very much, to give you that sky and see that become the whole truth of you."

Xiao-Wei laughed, leaning up on an elbow to look down at him in the apartment's darkness. "Then it will be." He laid a hand along Yunlan's cheek. "It's always been you who gave me the shape of a future.

Yunlan turned his head to press a kiss to xiao-Wei's palm. "Then let's go see what it will look like." He smiled against cool skin and added, "Tomorrow."

Xiao-Wei settled back down against him. "Tomorrow," he agreed.

Yunlan was still smiling as he closed his eyes to sleep.

The Advance of the Mountain Wind - Five

Yunlan calls bullshit, at the very end, and everything changes, including himself. The SID can probably cope, but the Ministry may never be the same, to say nothing of Dixing. Romance, Drama, Porn, I-4

"You were always a morning person, weren't you?" Yunlan asked from under his pillow, far too early the next morning. Why hadn't he remembered that sooner?

"Just because we're not going to the office doesn't mean we don't have work to do." Xiao-Wei's clear voice and unreasonably firm step approached, and something clinked on the bedside table. "If you're not up in ten minutes, I'm going by myself."

Yunlan groaned and flopped over onto his back. There was a cup of coffee waiting. He couldn't even complain without being an ungrateful ass, which seemed very unfair. Suddenly, he was remembering just how sly of a weiqi player xiao-Wei was. He hauled himself out of bed, grabbing for the cup, and reached down to rummage a pair of jeans out of the clean-laundry basket.

They were all folded.

Xiao-Wei was watching him with open amusement from the couch, already brushed and dressed and eating noodles at the kitchen table. Yunlan decided it was too early to deal with anyone that much more awake than he was, and silently made for the bathroom to scrub the sleep off.

"All right," he said when he emerged, coffee and cold water having kick-started his brain for the day. "Anything particular we need to do to get through the gate, now the Lamp's lit again?"

Xiao-Wei put a steamed bun into his hand. "It may take a little more effort, but I doubt I'll notice it with my power unbound, and the seal itself was a part of you. Changed as you are, it should let you pass easily."

Yunlan glanced from the bun to xiao-Wei's calm, expectant expression, and sighed, taking a bite as he locked the door behind them. Breakfast was apparently going to be part of his life, going forward.

By the time they reached the crossroads where the gate was, his sense of humor had caught up with him, not least because of the echoes of memory that said xiao-Wei had always been this way with him, and also that the fact was adorable. He wasn't sure about that second bit, but had to admit he felt more settled and alert than he usually did at this hour. Possibly that was just from being with xiao-Wei, but he wasn't ruling out the coffee and food.

Xiao-Wei paused as they reached the tree and closed his eyes for a moment, with a slow breath in and out. At the end of that breath, shadowy blue swept over him and left familiar black robes behind and an equally familiar weight of power sweeping outwards. "Ready?" he asked quietly, eyes fixed on the flex of light and space that, Yunlan abruptly realized, he could see clearly.

"Whenever you are." Yunlan held out his hand to xiao-Wei, waiting out his still moment of startlement, and smiled when xiao-Wei took it. They were doing this together, whether xiao-Wei was in his working clothes or not.

When xiao-Wei raised his other hand, Yunlan felt what he did more than saw it, as though xiao-Wei pulled open a window and let snow in to fall on their skin. He stepped forward at the same moment xiao-Wei did, stepped over the threshold and out beneath the arch that marked the gate on Dixing's side. Yunlan turned his face up to the bright sky with pleased recognition; at some point, he'd known that the Lamp's light gave Dixing a sky.

And then he had to stifle a laugh as the gate guards nearly passed out over having a revived Envoy descend on their shift. Holding on to the humor helped keep him from getting too tense about the way he could feel everything around him trying to pull bits of him away as they moved swiftly through the city. Not to mention the way that, when the Regent hurried out to meet them on the Palace steps, he stopped short and stared like Yunlan and xiao-Wei both were a surprise banquet of all his favorite food.

"And how did this come about, my Lord Envoy?" he asked with a quick bow that didn't hide the gleam of avarice in his eyes.

"My passage through the Lamp completed Kunlun's gift to me." Xiao-Wei ignored the welcoming gesture that tried to guide them inside the Palace. "Now that it is complete, I have already determined, it flows outward from me to my people." The Regent froze in the midst of his attempts to herd them inside, and the faintest breath of a smile curved xiao-Wei's lips. "So tell me, my lord Regent. Am I your ruler?"

Yunlan had to take a moment to appreciate how effortlessly xiao-Wei could lay down the winning move, when he chose to. It was beautiful to watch, at least when it didnâ€™t involve xiao-Wei sacrificing his life.

Slowly, the Regent straightened, and Yunlan could nearly see the power he usually hid behind fawning or age or whatever other slight-of-hand was available settling around him like the folds of a robe. "You are the strongest of us, Lord, the one no other has ever been able to even dream of consuming—not even your twin, in the end. You have always been my ruler, even when I wished or feared it otherwise."

"That will not change, whatever else we become, through this gift." Xiao-Wei's voice was cool, but his eyes, even behind the mask, were steady on the Regent. Sympathetic, Yunlan might even have said, if he had to name that look.

After a long, silent moment, the Regent grumbled, "Well, that will be something stable, at least." And then he bowed, deeply, and stayed down. "Your will, Lord.â€

Xiao-Wei gestured him back up, graceful and easy. "Call our people together, then."

The Regent cast a look down the Palace steps and snorted. "Somehow, I don't think that will be necessary."

A corner of Yunlan's attention had also been on the gathering crowd below as people pointed and whispered and broke away, only to reappear dragging more people with them. With the confrontation done, Yunlan let himself search the gathering faces until he found his favorite bar-tender, staring up at them with open excitement. Yunlan glanced back at xiao-Wei and gave the man a nod of confirmation. He lit up like a streetlamp turning on, and promptly darted away into the city.

It wasn't long before the square in front of the Palace was packed with bodies, overflowing into the nearby streets. The pull Yunlan had felt since he stepped through the gate was very noticeable, by then, and he let old-new reflex push back against it until the air near him had glints of green. When xiao-Wei stepped forward to the edge of the steps, the rustle and chatter of the crowd turned sharper.

And then it abruptly cut off as xiao-Wei lifted his hands, folded back his hood, and removed his mask.

"Ten thousand years ago," he said, into the deep quiet, "I was given a gift by one of the first gods of this world. You have all followed the shape of human understanding, and called them something else—simple heroes and ancestors—and forgotten their natures, and sometimes even your own. Now I call on those who can to remember why some of you called me traitor to our kind, then. Not for any politics, but for the change in my nature that Kunlun wrought and I accepted." He held out one hand to the crowd, open and palm up, and Yunlan could see a faint flicker of golden light starting to grow around his fingers. "I call on those who can remember to bear witness, because this very year that gift was completed, and in its completion it has become one that I may share. The gift of a generative nature, of a soul that can anchor you in this world and take the fear of dissolution from death. The gift of beginning again. The gift of an end to endless hunger." The light curled around him, now, rising like a fire, and there was absolute silence as Shen Wei asked, quietly, "Will you have it?"

For a long, suspended moment, nothing moved. Yunlan wondered if any of them would dare answer, and couldn't entirely blame them if they didn't. If the Regent's power had been a cloak around him, xiao-Wei's burned outward like the sun's corona, beautiful and searing, terrifying in the vast sweep of it. Slowly, though, the crowd swayed forward as one, whispers threading through the air again.

"Lord Envoy..."

"Yes..."

"Black-cloaked Lord..."

"Please..."

One person after another reached out, sank to their knees, faces turned up to the shadow standing above them, surrounded by golden brilliance, and xiao-Wei bowed his head, eyes sliding closed.

"Then it will be so."

The low words reverberated like a shout, and the light around him leaped outward like a star exploding, bursting through the square, the Palace, the city. It curled around and past Yunlan, but he could see it running into and through everyone else present, see the shock of it in wide eyes and gasping breath all around him. Anyone who wasn't on their knees already was by the time that golden wave passed.

Finally, xiao-Wei lifted his head to look out at his people again. "This is a gift." His voice silenced the growing babble of the crowd as some started to catch their breaths. "Do with it as you will. Know, however, that I will have no more tolerance than I ever have for violence or trespass."

"...but if we are no threat?" Near the front of the crowd below, a young women scrambled to her feet, and stumbled a few steps forward, hands held out, entreating. It took Yunlan a moment to recognize her as the mirror-girl, who took Weiwei's place. She was still wearing the same face, but it looked fiercer, now, longing and hunger tangled up together. She fell to her knees again at the lowest step, staring up at Shen Wei, and her voice was pleading. "If we are no threat, now, Noble Lord?"

Xiao-Wei was still for a long moment, looking down at her, but finally Yunlan saw the faint fall of his shoulders that meant a silent sigh, and he descended the steps to stand directly over her. "Demonstrate to me that it is so," he said, flat as an order. "Show me, when this gift has grown in you, that you are no longer driven by hunger alone, that you have mastered the violence at the core of you." He lifted his head to sweep his eyes over the whole crowd before looking back down at her to add, more quietly. "Do this, and I will speak in your cause."

All the breath seemed to leave her at once, as her face lit up, and she bowed down to the ground before him. "Yes, Lord!"

Whispers of excitement swept through the crowd, as xiao-Wei came back up the steps. The Regent, however, was pinching the bridge of his nose. "Was that entirely necessary to say right now?" he asked, sounding pained.

Xiao-Wei huffed a faint laugh. "If the question was asked now, the answer was necessary now."

"You could have said no!" The Regent gave back an aggravated look to xiao-Wei's unamused one. "This will lead to many of them presuming on your mercy and attempting the border well before they've met your requirement, and the seal will no longer stop them."

Xiao-Wei's eyes turned hard, and his voice fell. "Then they will find that they have assumed incorrectly." He turned on his heel and strode into the Palace, and Yunlan followed.

And caught him as xiao-Wei stumbled on the stairs down to the central hall. "I thought that probably took more out of you than it looked like."

"I'm not tired," xiao-Wei protested, though his hand lingered on Yunlan's arm as he straightened. "It was just a little disorienting."

"Directing your being as a god would?" Yunlan smiled at xiao-Wei's sudden stillness. "It didn't occur to you that was what you were doing, did it?" He'd made the connection when xiao-Wei had reached out to lao-Chu and passed the gift along simply by intending it. It was exactly how xiao-Wei had described the potentiality and actualization of a god's nature. Clearly that particular change hadn't quite sunk in yet, for xiao-Wei, and Yunlan shook his finger, admonishing. "You never think enough of yourself."

"Never mind that," xiao-Wei said, abundantly proving Yunlan's point and apparently not even noticing. "Do you know how you want to present this to the Ministry, yet?"

"Blame everything on the Lamp," Yunlan answered promptly and smiled at xiao-Wei's exasperated look. "Just wait and see." Not least because his own thoughts about what he'd need to tell the Ministry had started to change, but he wasn't quite ready to admit that.

Xiao-Wei's eyes narrowed a bit. "This is your way of getting back for all the times I didn't tell you all of what was going on, isn't it?" Hurrying steps approached from the archway and xiao-Wei swept his hand out brusquely. The Palace dissolved around them in a wash of shifting blues that flowed away in turn to leave them beside the gateway tree.

Part of Yunlan was amused by xiao-Wei's temper, the part of him that took a bit of enjoyment out of getting a rise from the ever-collected Professor Shen, and quite a significant part of him was increasingly distracted by watching those beautiful hands wield such power so easily. Business first, Yunlan reminded himself regretfully, fishing out his phone. "Let's see if the Minister can fit us in today."

It took him half the distance through the city to get an appointment set for three hours on. Yunlan growled as he tossed the phone onto the seat between them and accelerated a little more sharply than perhaps he should have when the light changed. "You'd think, considering how much I try to avoid the whole Ministry building, that when I actually ask for an appointment, they'd understand it's important." Especially when he didn't want too much time to overthink this.

"Bureaucracy tends to work the other way around," xiao-Wei told him, mouth quirked. "People they don't see often go to the bottom of the list." He laughed softly at Yunlan's growl. "Back to the offices, then?"

Yunlan spotted the road they were about to pass and made an abrupt decision, followed by an abrupt turn. "No. No, I think there's a better way to spend the time."

Xiao-Wei's brows rose as they pulled in to their apartment building. "Yunlan."

Yunlan held up a finger, trying not to show the little shiver that xiao-Wei's voice wrapped around his name put down the back of his neck. "Three hours. If I go to the office right now, I'll just be snapping at the new kids when they only half deserve it." He slid out and closed his door firmly.

"And what are you going to do at home?" xiao-Wei asked, sliding out the other side.

"Ask me that again in three minutes."

Xiao-Wei was looking tolerant as he followed Yunlan up the steps to their floor. "Has it been three minutes?" he asked as he closed the apartment door behind them with a soft click of the latch. Yunlan felt like the tiny sound snapped the last bit of calm he'd been holding between himself and the thought of what he might just be about to do.

"Close enough." Yunlan turned on his heel and reached out to touch xiao-Wei's cheek, tracing down the line of his jaw with light fingers.

Xiao-Wei paused, first startled and then laughing. "Yunlan..."

"Please," Yunlan said, husky, and watched xiao-Wei's breath still, his eyes go dark and intent, all hint of teasing drain away into open hunger. Xiao-Wei reached out to take Yunlan's shoulders, pressing him back a step and then another, until Yunlan came up against the wall of his entryway. Xiao-Wei took one last step into him, body fitting against Yunlan's. When he spoke, his lips almost brushed Yunlan's.

"Anything you wish."

"Then kiss me," Yunlan said, soft.

Xiao-Wei ran his hands gently up Yunlan's neck, threading into his hair, and leaned in to kiss him, mouth slow and cool against his. Between kisses he murmured, "You are my heart. Anything you wish. Anything at all."

The knowledge, just recently reinforced, of what 'anything' might mean from a man like Shen Wei wrapped around Yunlan like a coat in winter, warm and solid and comforting. He let his hands spread wide against Shen Wei's back, sliding up under his jacket. "What if I asked you to fuck me?"

Shen Wei smiled slowly. "Then I would."

Even knowing it, even having just heard it, the simple, bare agreement caught Yunlan's breath short. Xiao-Wei pressed a little closer, bending his head to trail light kisses down Yunlan's throat, and asked against his skin, "Is that what you want, right now?"

Yunlan tipped his head back and laughed, feeling a fizz of reckless glee rising through him at the very idea of it being this simple. "Yes."

Shen Wei kissed his way back up Yunlan's throat to murmur into his ear. "So do I."

Undressing for each other in the middle of the day made Yunlan a little uncertain again; it seemed so much more intimate, a thing with so many more assumptions attached, to be looking at each other bare in daylight. He really couldn't help but feel a certain sense of accomplishment, though, in the fact that Shen Wei's clothes ended up tossed over a chest instead of folded. When Shen Wei's hands slid over his bare shoulders and down his chest, open and caressing, he managed to relax again into the certainty that Shen Wei wanted him.

Yunlan thought xiao-Wei had started to realize at least part of what was going on, because he stayed close as they settled onto the bed, always in contact with gentle hands or slow, hungry kisses. "Anything you wish," he said again, into Yunlan's mouth, and the assurance made it easy to relax into the rush of heat as Shen Wei's hands pressed his thighs apart.

The slide of Shen Wei's fingers between his cheeks put another shiver through him, want and uncertainty twisted together, and Yunlan reached up to pull xiao-Wei tighter against him. The weight against him settled Yunlan just like the fierce intentness of xiao-Wei's eyes on him, the nearly tangible weight of his attention. Being at the center of all that focus made Yunlan remember again what he'd just seen that morning, remember those long, deft fingers wrapped around hope and light and power, and that pulled a low moan out of him as Shen Wei's fingers pressed in.

"Yes..." Yunlan's hands slid up the straight line of Shen Wei's back as that slow, intimate stretch danced down his nerves. "Yes, I want..."

"Anything." Shen Wei said it like it was a declaration of unbreakable law, and Yunlan moaned out loud, spreading his legs wider against the bed. It felt so good, the care in Shen Wei's hands as he opened Yunlan up.

"Xiao-Wei." Yunlan smiled up at him, breathless and a little wild with how much he wanted and the growing certainty he would get it all. "Fuck me."

Xiao-Wei caught Yunlan tighter against him, kissing him deep and fierce, on the edge of uncontrolled. Yunlan made a satisfied sound, winding around him and kissing back with open pleasure. He was the reason for that wildness in Shen Wei, and he liked the taste of it very much. He liked it even more when Shen Wei's cock pushed into him, thick and hard inside him. The muscles of his legs went watery with the sharp stretch and hard slide, and Yunlan groaned as Shen Wei's hands slid up his thighs, cool and sure, spreading him further open, sinking into him deeper, and it felt incredible.

Xiao-Wei wasn't stopping either. He leaned over Yunlan, rocking out and back in, slow and steady, dark eyes fixed on Yunlan's face. The weight of his focus eased away anything resembling tension, until Yunlan was moving with him, boneless and hungry for the slow, heavy pleasure of feeling xiao-Wei inside him.

"Mm, yeah..." Yunlan smiled up at Shen Wei and purred at the flare of heat in his eyes, the way his hands tightened on Yunlan's thighs.

"Yunlan." There was answering velvet in Shen Wei's voice, and the slow curve of his lips made Yunlan brace himself—as much as he could. Which turned out to be not nearly enough when Shen Wei reached down and wrapped long fingers around Yunlan's cock, stroking him slowly.

"Ah...!" Yunlan's whole body arched taut against the sheets as the new layer of pleasure curled through him like a tide, washing him under in a surge of hot sensation. His breath cut into quick gasps as pleasure wrung his body tight around Shen Wei's cock.

Shen Wei drove deep into him and moaned, head tipped back, and Yunlan couldn't take his eyes away. Shen Wei was always beautiful, but like this, with his eyes closed and lips parted, flushed with pleasure because of Yunlan, he was enough to strike anyone senseless.

Which was, maybe, why it took until Shen Wei had resettled them both against the rumpled sheets and gathered Yunlan close for Yunlan to find words again. He wound closer around xiao-Wei and reached up to cup his cheek, thumb stroking over the line of his cheekbone. "Thank you," he said, softly.

Shen Wei caught his hand and turned his head to kiss Yunlan's palm, smiling. "What for?" His eyes were warm.

Yunlan shrugged a little, glancing down. "Letting me haul you back here in the middle of the work day?"

Shen Wei nipped gently at one fingertip, and startlement pulled Yunlan's eyes back up to his. "Anything you wish, I said."

Just remembering it made Yunlan unwind again, calmed enough to tease a little again. "Well sure, but what about what you wish?"

Shen Wei smiled. "I have everything my heart desires."

Yunlan remembered xiao-Wei's lips brushing his as he murmured, My heart. It made his voice husky. "Xiao-Wei..."

Xiao-Wei made a distinctly satisfied sound and Yunlan laughed, low and helpless, winding his arms around him.

It was the warm, quiet certainty of xiao-Wei's care that Yunlan held onto two hours later, when they walked into the Ministry offices to meet both Minister Guo and his father.

"You don't often visit in person," the Minister said as they all sat down around his conference room table, with a distinct edge of worry behind his smile. "What was so important it couldn't go in a report? Things have sounded very quiet for the SID, lately."

"Yes, it's been like a vacation." Yunlan leaned back in his chair and watched his father's mouth tighten out of the corner of his eye. So, it looked like he had been missed after all; he honestly hadn't been sure—maybe his father would have preferred Zhang Shi as a son. It was nice to know, but it wasn't going to stop him. "The thing is, we finally tracked down the reason for some of the strange readings from the energy detectors Lin Jing created. It seems the Lamp getting re-lit had an effect on the levels of dark energy in the whole Dixing people."

"The Lamp was lit for thousands of years without any such thing happening," his father noted, voice sharp. Yunlan interpreted that as 'come up with a more plausible story, idiot boy' and gave him a tight smile.

"That was why I asked Professor Shen his opinion, though I hated to disturb him so soon after his recovery." He waved to Shen Wei, who folded his hands on the table and gave the Minister the kind smile of an expert about to reveal all the answers. The Minister settled back a bit with an attentive look.

"To be more precise, I believe it was the interruption and then re-initiation of the Lamp that caused the effect we're seeing now." Xiao-Wei leaned forward, serious and intent. "Unlike the other Holy Tools, the Lamp is a positive-polarity energy source. It counter-balanced the dark energy that Dixing life forms produce, and maintained a stable environment for them. As a biologist, I can tell you that abrupt environmental changes often trigger rapid expression of latent traits. The vacuum of vital energy left when the Lamp was extinguished appears to have prompted a change in the balance of energy Dixingren generate. In that destabilized state, the reignition of the Lamp and reintroduction of such an intense positive energy source has encouraged dominance of a matching, rather than opposing, trait." He spread his hands as if to present the new state of affairs between them. "The life energy produced by Dixing people as a whole has shifted polarity as a result."

Which was the most plausible-sounding, half-true, non-disproveable explanation they'd been able to come up with. After a moment to digest it, or possibly just a pause to indicate uncomprehending respect for an expert in the field, the Minister went straight on to practicalities, as Yunlan had hoped he would. "What does this mean for interactions between us and Dixing, then?"

"Simple, or even extended, contact will no longer be dangerous in and of itself," Shen Wei declared with calm authority, apparently ignoring the way Zhao Xinci's hands clenched on the table. "The difficulties of law enforcement are more than I can speak to, as a biologist, of course."

"Will Dixingren powers persist?"

Xiao-Wei inclined his head. "It seems likely, yes. Expression of those genes does not seem to have been affected by the fluctuation from negative to generative life energy, based on the cases I am aware of as a consultant to the SID."

"And as a consultant, what is your opinion of the upcoming difficulties of law enforcement?" the Minister asked, with a faint smile. Shen Wei returned it, and Yunlan had to refrain from rolling his eyes. Xiao-Wei might profess distaste for politics and bureaucracy, but he was alarmingly good at them, and frankly seemed to enjoy the game. At least when he was winning.

"I would say that the problem will continue to be twofold: one of information, and one of capability. The difference in capability will be more of a problem if humans remain largely unaware that Dixing powers are a possibility. If that remains the case, then more effort, and funding, will be needed in the one enforcement body that is aware, the SID. If accurate information is more widely available, then policies and approaches sufficient to deal with low-level powers can be put into place across all enforcement bodies, leaving the SID only necessary to deal with the unusually great powers."

"If contact increases, there will be significantly greater risk to humans, regardless of policy," Yunlan's father interjected, sharply. "Maintaining separation is the only approach that will truly reduce harmful incidents. That was what the improvement of conditions in Dixing was supposed to facilitate."

"Oh, I think we're already pretty well situated to deal with any risks." Yunlan slouched a little deeper into his chair as his father rounded on him, and held out a hand. Both his father and the Minister jerked back from the table as green curled around his fingers, and his father pushed further back when Yunlan wrapped his grip around his father's untouched glass of water and drew it back into his hand.

"What...?" His father's voice was thin, edged with disbelief. Yunlan kept his eyes on the glass hovering over his fingers, and shifted just enough in his chair to feel the twinge of recently-worked muscles; it helped keep his voice even.

"You remember Professor Ouyang?"

"There was no report that you were injected with his product." The Minister was looking a little grim, when Yunlan glanced over, but not actively alarmed. Yeah, he thought this would probably work.

"It was during the last fight with Ye Zun, so it wasn't exactly documented. At first we all thought it just hadn't had an effect. The screens that Lin Jing ran, when we all returned, showed nothing." Which was true enough. "I was only sure of this effect recently, myself."

His father stirred, quick and short, but said nothing. Yunlan marked down another point for himself on his mental scoreboard. Heâ€™d thought Zhao Xinci would most likely stay quiet about Yunlanâ€™s year in an alleged wormhole rather than reveal his own long-time passenger.

"Have you evaluated what you can do?" Yunlan was hard pressed not to sag with relief at the Minister's question, which skipped over all the worst outcomes (including lab rat and prisoner) to go straight for how useful Yunlan could be. Compassionate pragmatism was the best possible trait to see in the man who was his father's boss. Especially when the quick glance he couldn't quite prevent showed his father's expression shuttered and cold.

He also carefully ignored the tension in xiao-Wei's arm, beside his. However warm it made him feel, personally, to know xiao-Wei was prepared to defend him, he didn't actually want to set the Black-cloaked Envoy at odds with the Ministry.

"Not formally." Yunlan set the glass down and folded his hands over his stomach. "Do you want there to be a formal record of this?" Not an offer he'd have made to Guo's predecessor, but this man was Changcheng's uncle. He was hoping at least some of that world-bending purity of heart ran in the family.

The Minister laid his hands flat on the table and contemplated them for a long moment, during which Yunlan's father got tenser and Yunlan tried hard not to notice that. When Guo finally spoke, it was with certainty. "Yes. It should be internal, to begin with. But I think the events of a year ago showed us just how vulnerable to disruptions we are when we try to maintain a wall of silence between two peoples who live in the same world."

"Xiao-Guo." Yunlan's father leaned over the table with the earnest look he used to convince superiors he was on their side. Yunlan couldn't quite keep his hands from clenching on each other. "I can't think it entirely wise to open relations between two such disparate groups without more assurances than we have, that Dixing powers can be contained."

Guo's smile was more formal than Yunlan had seen directed at his father in a long time. "I understand your concerns. But we cannot allow fear to hold us back forever."

"I'll talk to Director Li about what measuring sticks she's developed for this kind of power, then," Yunlan interjected before his father could attempt further persuasion, setting his jaw against the paint-stripping glare he got for it. "Let us know how the SID can support the Ministryâ€™s policy."

"I will." The handshake he offered as they stood was firm, and Yunlan returned his gaze as steady and sure as he would be if he were trying to encourage one of his team. The rather wry smile Guo gave him said that the Minister had noticed that he was trading Zhaos, and hoped Yunlan would be worth it. Yunlan swallowed down the nerves tightening his throat and nodded farewell.

Xiao-Wei was quiet until they were out of the building and back inside the Jeep. "You hate politics," he finally said. "You always have, then and now both."

"I'm not fond of them," Yunlan agreed, with generous understatement.

Xiao-Wei gave him a quick, sidelong look. "So what was that about?"

Yunlan's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I can't let my father's fear of Dixing keep shaping everyone's actions. You took the action you felt was right, for your people, no matter how much trouble it might cause you. How could I watch you and then do less?" Xiao-Wei's soft laugh made him look over. The look in xiao-Wei's eyes was... old.

"You always were a far better Mohist than Confucian."

Yunlan smiled, crooked, turning back to the road. "That too, I suppose. But it's really simpler than that." There was quiet in the car for a long moment while xiao-Wei just waited for him, not looking away. It was so much the perfect representation of Yunlan's reasons, in one moment of time that he laughed a little, himself. "I want you to be happy." They stopped at a light, and he looked over. "You hate having to be the law of death to your people, but you made the bargain anyway, for me. How could I let it go on, knowing?"

He could hear the tremble in xiao-Wei's breath, see the slow, slow dawn of hope for his old bargain's true dissolution that turned his eyes wide and unguarded, and the slowness of it told him all he needed to know about how deep this pain ran. He reached over to rest his hand on one of xiao-Wei's, clenched tight on his thighs. "Youâ€™re the one who cares for me above all else; why would you think I feel any different? I want you to be happy," he repeated, softly, feeling it echo all the way down inside him.

Xiao-Wei turned his hand over and lifted Yunlan's, pressing a kiss to his fingers. Softly, head bowed, he answered, "I am."

The warmth of that settled deep into Yunlan's chest and eased away the tightness of knowing he'd chosen another over his own blood. He'd chosen to go another way a long time ago, well before he'd known who it was he was turning towards. Knowing all the parts of his choice, now...

He couldn't regret it at all.

The Advance of the Mountain Wind - Six

Yunlan calls bullshit, at the very end, and everything changes, including himself. The SID can probably cope, but the Ministry may never be the same, to say nothing of Dixing. Romance, Drama, Porn, I-4

The next morning found Yunlan standing in a rather alarmingly torn-up field, miles outside the city. At Li Qian's intermittent direction, through his earpiece, he'd been lifting and deflecting and (cautiously, very cautiously) destroying rocks and bits of rusted metal, working his way up from pebbles to boulders until he'd drawn out so much of his power that green and gray roiled in clouds around him. They'd been at it for over an hour, and he was sweating but nothing he'd done had been all that much effort.

He was starting to understand, all the way up in his head, what xiao-Wei meant when he talked about the weight of gods in the world. He could feel the ground singing under his feet, feel the sky like it was something he could reach up and touch, feel the attention of the city's river like it was alive and listening for his word and would rise if he just spoke.

Given that dizzying awareness of just what he could do, if he chose to, it wasn't hard to lean convincingly with his hands on his knees, as if to catch his breath. "We done yet?"

"If you're getting tired, then yes," Li Qian answered, voice as steady as if she hadn't just watched him crack a boulder into shards. He'd have to tease xiao-Wei, later, about how he raised such fearless students. "Can you retrieve or dismiss the visible manifestation?"

"That is a very good question." Yunlan straightened up and flexed his fingers, looking thoughtfully around. "Hm."

Li Qian's startled, "Professor?" warned him ahead of time, so he wasn't too surprised to see xiao-Wei, a minute later, walking calmly through the swirl and flow of green. He was a little surprised that he could feel xiao-Wei's presence before he saw it, as if xiao-Wei was walking close enough for their shoulders to brush. But that was right, older feelings told him a moment later—xiao-Wei was walking through an extension of Yunlan's being.

And xiao-Wei's own being was reaching out to trace the edges between them.

Yunlan's breath caught at the feel of it, and xiao-Wei smiled at him, even as Li Qian's voice asked sharply if everything was all right. "Yeah, fine," Yunlan answered, distracted. Whatever xiao-Wei was doing (touching, his memory said, just touching) it was subtle. Even looking for them, Yunlan could barely spot the glints of blue around the edges of green. He felt it, though, like xiao-Wei's hands on his shoulders. When he refocused on the man in front of him, xiao-Wei looked warmly amused, lips curved softly. Yunlan reached up to cup a muffling hand over his earpiece. "This feels kind of familiar. Have we done this before?"

"Yes," xiao-Wei said, low. "I've stood in the heart of your power many times, before."

"Thought so." And the touch of xiao-Wei's power did help him find the edges of his own again. Slowly, reaching out his hands to make it feel a bit less odd, he drew those edges in. A little reluctantly, he admitted, because it felt really nice, to touch like that.

When the last slow curl of his energy unwound from around xiao-Wei and they stood in clear air again, xiao-Wei lifted a hand to curve around Yunlan's cheek. "Later," he promised, eyes dark and intent in a way that made hot anticipation coil in Yunlanâ€™s stomach.

The chorus of groans in his earpiece reminded Yunlan that they had video pickups trained on them, and he cleared his throat. "So! Are we done?"

Li Qian sounded like she was stifling laughter. "Yes, Chief Zhao. You can come back to the observation building. Professor Shen, too."

Back inside the low, concrete building at the edge of what Yunlan frankly suspected was a weapons testing, field Lin Jing was busy with whatever the impressive rack of instruments was telling them. Zhu Hong and Da Qing, on the other hand, were both free to give him unimpressed looks. Yunlan could feel xiao-Wei laughing silently, behind his shoulder. "I've put up with all of your nonsense," he reminded his team. "And why aren't you scolding Shen Wei, too?"

At that, Lin Jing turned around to join Zhu Hong and Da Qing in staring at him, utterly disbelieving, and xiao-Wei's laughter escaped him for a breath. He cleared his throat and composed himself again while Yunlan rolled his eyes; even godhood wasn't enough to get some respect around here, obviously.

"What do the results look like, Director Li?"

Li Qian blushed prettily, the way she'd been doing every time xiao-Wei called her Director, and Yunlan once again resisted the urge to pat her on the head. Why couldn't he have such adorable underlings?

"We still haven't completed a sensor specific to this type of energy, but we can, at least, observe the effects." She picked up a sheaf of paper just finishing printing and handed it over. To xiao-Wei, of course. Yunlan sighed and read over his shoulder. "The magnitude of Chief Zhao's power is impressive, as is the flexibility with which he uses it." She nodded respectfully to Yunlan. "The type does seem to be limited to physical manipulation of matter on the macro scale, though, which falls in line with our existing model."

Yunlan felt xiao-Wei's shoulders fall a little, where his arm was draped over them. It had been important that they convince Li Qian of that, at least for now. "So where are you at on creating direct measurement?" he asked, to distract her from xiao-Wei's relief.

She made a frustrated face. "We're having to work backwards from the manifestation to the mechanism, since the mechanism doesn't seem to overlap with the source of dark energy at all. We have a few ideas, but I expect simply testing them will take months, if not years to complete."

Yunlan gave her his best encouraging smile and spread his hands. "No worries as long as the catalyst isn't in circulation, right?"

She gave him a thoughtful look. "Not immediate ones, no. I would like us to be prepared, though, in case there are further changes in the symptoms you or Guo Changcheng have experienced." She hesitated, glancing back and forth between him and xiao-Wei, and added, slowly, "I feel care for the integrity of those affected must be of primary concern, in our research, especially given the weaknesses demonstrated by Professor Ouyang's methodology."

Yunlan beamed at her and patted xiao-Wei on the shoulder, congratulatory. He raised such smart students. "I can hardly argue with that."

It was, of course, xiao-Wei's quiet smile and small, meaningful nod that made Li Qian settle back on her heels with a faint, determined glint lighting her eye. "Then I think we're done for the day. Thank you again, Chief Zhao."

A few parting civilities got them all out the door and back into the cars, where Yunlan could finally sag back against the seat with a faint groan and rub at his cheeks, which were aching a little from all that grinning.

"It may not be necessary to play the fool with all of the rest of the Ministry," xiao-Wei noted, settling beside him.

"I know she's an ally," Yunlan sighed, reaching over to rest a hand on xiao-Weiâ€™s knee for a moment before turning the key. "But this is a heavy secret to ask someone to carry, and it's you she knows and believes in, not me."

"Perhaps we should start with my secrets, then."

Yunlan looked around quickly, at that, hands stilling on the wheel. Xiao-Wei just raised his brows a bit, as if he didn't see what was strange in the Black-cloaked Envoy of Dixing, let alone the god of ghosts, casually offering to reveal himself to the human Ministry's foremost researcher. After a moment, Yunlan bent his head, laughing a little; maybe someday he'd stop being surprised by xiao-Wei's care. Xiao-Wei's hand settled on the back of his neck, cool and steady, and he let himself lean into it, let his muscles unwind a little further.

"I wish for you to be happy, as well," xiao-Wei said quietly. "Concealing yourself doesn't please you."

"Mm. You know, I don't think I can conceal myself from you." Not even if he tried. It was a novel feeling, a little thrilling, a little uncertain.

"Do you need to?"

The question crystalized thoughts and plans and memory into a single shape, so clear it struck Yunlan breathless. "No," he whispered, feeling a genuine smile tug at his mouth. "I don't." He lifted his head to look over at xiao-Wei and the brightness in his eyes, warm and open and just for Yunlan. It made the entire world feel so much easier, that Shen Wei was beside him.

The thought made him smile all the way back to the Division headquarters.

They arrived just as the team was setting out the last bottles and dishes.

"What's this?" Yunlan asked, giving the whole team a mock-stern look. "More excuses to loaf around in the middle of the work day?"

"It isnâ€™t an excuse at all," Zhu Hong claimed with a sniff. "This is vital team-building activity, to welcome Li Huiliang and to welcome Professor Shen back, of course."

Yunlan spread his arms. "Oh, of course." A gust of laughter ran through the group, including He Niu and Xu Jian, and joined by the tiniest flicker of amusement over lao-Chu's face. Yunlan shook a finger at him. "This was the 'job' you said you and xiao-Guo had to do instead of today's testing, wasn't it?"

Lao-Chu just looked back, perfectly poker-faced, but xiao-Guo was nearly bouncing beside him with pleasure and excitement. It was as good as a neon sign. Yunlan threw up his hands with a laugh. "All right, all right."

Everyone promptly grabbed for drinks and food.

"So, aren't you going to make a welcome speech or anything?" Da Qing prodded Yunlan. Yunlan grumbled under his breath but lifted his glass.

"Today we welcome a new teammate," he declared, and added, "sort of." Xiao-Wei promptly elbowed him in the side. "I'll explain that part in a bit," Yunlan told He Niu and Xu Jian. "Li Huiliang, the SID is pleased to have you join us."

Zhang Shi's smile was only a little wry. "Thank you, Chief Zhao."

Lin Jing lifted his glass toward her. "To new teammates."

"To old teammates, who apparently can't hold down a job anywhere else," Zhu Hong lifted her glass mockingly to him, in turn.

"To new beginnings," xiao-Wei offered smoothly, before Lin Jing could answer back.

"To finding out exactly what's going on," He Niu added on, with a narrow look at Yunlan.

"To better data," Xu Jian added, sliding a sidelong glance at Lin Jing.

"To the bosses being way more relaxed," Da Qing chipped in with a wicked grin and ducked when Yunlan swatted at him.

"To new hopes," Zhang Shi kindly deflected, though there was distinct amusement in the tiny crimp at the corners of her mouth.

"To gifts given," lao-Chu said quietly, looking down at his glass.

In the moment of silent surprise that lao-Chu had actually spoken, xiao-Guo looked up from his own glass with a bright smile and said, softly, "To protecting people."

Yunlan watched his team exchange glances and smiles and tiny nods, watched the edges of bickering and plotting and worrying blunt for a moment, and smiled. "Yeah," he said, quietly. "We can drink to that." Little clinks skittered around the table as everyone tapped their glasses together and drank.

As the group broke into smaller conversations, xiao-Wei set his glass down and leaned against Yunlan's shoulder. "Will you tell the new ones everything?" he asked, softly.

"I think we need to." Yunlan glanced at him, glad to find him looking calm, without the tightness around his eyes that spoke of real concern. "Now we have the cover stories in place, and the Ministry at least a little in hand, that's the next step, isn't it?"

"To start gathering allies and the numbers to handle a change in the way most people think the world is." Xiao-Wei nodded, and Yunlan took a moment to simply enjoy the familiar flow of shared thought and the deeper familiarity of xiao-Wei's power, curled in potential around the two of them. For one breath it felt strange to know that, to feel a potential presence and his own twining around it, but the moment Yunlan focused on the feeling it was familiar again.

Xiao-Wei smiled sidelong at him, as Yunlan relaxed against his shoulder. "Is it well?" Yunlan smiled back and took another sip from his glass. It was the taste of his own answer that he savored on his tongue, though.

"You know, I really think it is."

End

Approach Over the Lake

Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei go apartment hunting. Humor, Fluff, Romance, I-2

At first Shen Wei had been amused by Yunlan's team bringing another box of his belongings to Yunlan's apartment every time one of them visited, as though he might not notice them moving him in if they just did it gradually enough. The fact was, though, that despite not accumulating a great many things, Shen Wei owned too much to fit easily into the apartment of a man who had turned his bedroom into a workout space. So it was only a few weeks after they'd returned from the Lamp that he said, on the drive in to work, "Either I need to re-acquire my old apartment, or we need to think about moving."

Yunlan laughed. "What, you don't think cardboard is the hot new material for book cases?"

"It does clash a bit with your decorating scheme," Shen Wei noted dryly Cardboard would never hold the weight of Yunlan's collection of alcohol, for one thing.

"I think Da Qing is the only one who really approves of those boxes." Yunlan gunned the engine through a light about to change, and Shen Wei braced himself with the habit that a year disembodied had done nothing to blunt. "Our building doesn't have any larger units, though."

"Which is why you need to think about where else you might like to live," Shen Wei pointed out as Yunlan pulled in to the front drive of the biosciences building. "We can find an agent once you decide that." Yunlan set a hand on his arm as he went to open the passenger door, staying him.

"What about where you'd like to live?" he asked, quietly.

Warmth curled through Shen Wei at that ready thoughtfulness. "Yunlan, I've lived in and around this city since it was first built. Every district in it has places that I've enjoyed spending my time." Yunlan settled back at that, with a faintly rueful smile. Shen Wei thought he still let the knowledge slip away, sometimes, that Shen Wei really was that old. The crooked line of Yunlan's smile didn't feel like quite the right way to start the day off, though, so he added, as he swung down from the Jeep, "Besides, what makes you think I don't have a list of requirements already written up?"

That made Yunlan laugh again.

When Shen Wei thought about it, he felt he should have expected the problems they ran into. After all, he'd noticed Yunlan's taste in vehicles, in clothing, even in liquor. The style might be casual but the substance was both choosy and expensive. The moment they'd started looking for new apartments, that taste had surfaced with a vengeance.

The high-rise downtown hadn't been sufficiently insulated. The re-zoned and renovated block of modern apartments by the park had security that was too intrusive. The second-story apartment on the edge of the university district had appliances that were too old, despite the fact that Yunlan would not be the one using most of them.

Their agent was starting to look like she regretted her choice of career, or at least of clients.

"This is the last one on my list," she said as the door was unlocked. "It's at the top end of the price range you wanted, but it's been recently upgraded..."

Shen Wei followed Yunlan inside and stepped into light. Broad windows on two sides of the large, open room caught the late afternoon sun, and it glowed back from white plaster and honey-colored wood around the frames and across the floor. The faint creak under his feet suggested it was fairly old wood, but the light gleamed off clean, new steel and dark blue tile to the left, where the kitchen had a wide window of its own, over the sink. Shen Wei went to glance down the short hallway beyond, which opened into three more rooms, two of them almost as bright as the living room, and a generous bathroom.

It wasn't until he was running his fingers over the tall shelves of the living room that he realized Yunlan hadn't said a thing, yet. "Yunlan?" he asked, a bit curious about such restraint, turning to see his lover smiling at him.

"We'll take it," Yunlan told their agent.

Shen Wei felt a strong need to adjust his glasses. Their agent looked even more stunned. Yunlan merely shrugged, as if his reasons should be obvious.

"None of the rest of them made you smile like that."

It took Shen Wei most of the way home to regain his composure.

He did not succeed in talking Yunlan out of getting the apartment that made Shen Wei most at ease. After a week of arguing, however—a week that Da Qing spectated like they were a particularly entertaining tennis match—he did manage to insist that Yunlan arrange and decorate the place as he pleased. That resulted in a day of Yunlan wandering about looking thoughtful, and then a shopping spree that produced heavy, dark curtains in the living room, half a dozen inconspicuous lamps that Yunlan put on the floor and pointed at the corners, and a few gallons of paint that turned their bedroom a deep, underwater green. The second bedroom acquired two walls of bookshelves and a lavish new desk, with Shen Wei's brush sets arranged on it. The far corner of the living room gained a corner table for Da Qing's bed, and his swing was hung next to it, looking out one window past the houseplants. The wine shelf was installed by the kitchen. The windowless bedroom turned out to fit all of Yunlan's workout equipment, even the weight bench, and started to look rather like a shrine to violent physical fitness. Yunlan's wealth of small tables, stools, and shelves clustered around the living room furniture and were quickly populated with a mixed collection of statuary, lamps, wood work, and Da Qing's goldfish.

And Shen Wei finally relaxed a little.

"You're really that unused to anyone at all taking care of you, aren't you?" Yunlan asked, winding his arms around Shen Wei from behind and gathering him back against Yunlan's body. Shen Wei leaned against him, looking around the airy lightness of the living room, which was only heightened by the contrast of the dark curtains framing each window.

"It's not that." Yunlan made a disbelieving sound, and a faint smile tugged at his mouth. "Well. That too, perhaps, but... I don't want you getting lost in me."

Yunlan smiled against his neck. "You don't need to worry about that, xiao-Wei."

The reminder that Zhao Yunlan had the memory of a whole other life worth of stubbornness, now, did relax him, he had to admit. "All right," he agreed, quietly, resting a hand over Yunlan's. And then his breath caught as Yunlan pressed an open-mouthed kiss just under his ear.

"So. Want to try out the new bed?" Yunlan murmured against his skin, and Shen Wei had to laugh.

"All right," he agreed again, with far more of a purr in it this time.

Maybe there really was no need to worry, after all.

End

The Marriage of Lightning and the Lake

Zhu Hong works on how to be Chief Elder, and falls hard for Ya Qing in the process. (Her uncle may have a point about her terrible taste.) Fluff, Romance, Character Study, Drama with a Pinch of Action, I-3

Now

Zhu Hong had been brought up as the precious daughter of the Snake tribe. Her uncle had spoiled her, especially after she lost her parents. Her older cousins had doted on her, and she'd never lacked for indulgent eyes watching over her. She'd been the uncontested princess of the children her own age, and ruled over her playmates with careless ease. She'd been taught the history and arts of her people until that had bored her, and then been allowed to go among humans for schooling in the greater world. When she'd stumbled across the Special Investigations Division while they chased a life-stealer, she'd decided she wanted to work for the Division Chief who'd taken the time to make sure she was safely away before closing on the culprit. She'd gotten her way.

Zhu Hong had perfected the pout, the winsome look, and the hard fist as tools to make the world go her way, and she knew exactly how to use them. As time went on, and sheâ€™d started wanting to be stronger, she'd honed her natural abilities until she could do almost what any of her fully-transformed cousins could. She'd learned human ways so well she could blend in as completely as she wished.

None of that told her the first thing about how to be Chief Elder of the Yashou people.

Then

â€œ...never learned a thing about ruling, I never even took any classes on politics.â€ Zhu Hong twisted her hands together, pacing her uncleâ€™s small outer room. â€œIs this really a good idea?â€

He sat back in his chair, face perfectly neutral the way it almost never was with her. â€œDo you wish to abdicate, then?â€

â€œNo!â€ Zhu Hong bit her lip. She didnâ€™t want to give up on the way forward Zhao Yunlan had probably hoped for, for the Yashou. But... â€œBut if itâ€™s the right thing for the tribes,â€ she said, slow and reluctant, â€œI should.â€

An unimpressed sniff from the open door sent her spinning on her heel to see who would be eavesdropping on the Elder of the Snake tribe. Sheer black draperies stirred, just outside, and Zhu Hong stiffened. Of all the people she shouldnâ€™t let overhear the slightest lack of confidence!

â€œYou donâ€™t need learning, for this, little snakelet.â€ Ya Qing didnâ€™t look around at her, only stood with folded arms and her back to them. â€œWe have that. What you need is wisdom.â€ Now she turned her head, and raked Zhu Hong head to foot with a cutting gaze. Another sniff. â€œI suppose you have enough of that to be going on with.â€

As Zhu Hong stood there, stunned, the breath sheâ€™d taken in to protest caught short in her throat, Ya Qing spread her arms and leaped into the sky.

â€œThat one always did have a taste for drama,â€ her uncle snorted, and stood to come and take Zhu Hongâ€™s shoulders. â€œSo? What do you want to do, a-Hong?â€

Zhu Hong took another breath, trying to ignore the tangle of flattery and annoyance making her stomach flutter. â€œI want to try.â€ And then she couldnâ€™t quite help asking, â€œDo you think sheâ€™s right?â€

Her uncle smiled. â€œI think she could be.â€

Zhu Hong smiled back, a little shy, and repeated. â€œIâ€™ll try.â€

Now

Honored Chief Elder...

Zhu Hong stifled a groan. It was getting so she felt a headache coming on just reading those words. And there'd been three letters waiting for her, this week, when she visited her uncle's house. Three! For the Chief Elder, bypassing the tribe Elders completely!

Unfortunately, a glance at her office computer showed no new cases miraculously appearing to cause a plausible delay in dealing with these. She sighed and unfolded the first letter.

Then

Zhu Hong paced back and forth across the roof of the University's east classroom building, trying not to move too fast or clench her hands or be otherwise obviously nervous, but unable to be still. She still wasn't sure this was an entirely good idea.

Neither was anyone else. Her uncle, and even Ying Chun, had offered to come with her. When she'd refused that, her uncle had tried to send a cousin with her as a bodyguard. She'd had to argue for ten solid minutes to avoid that. She'd have felt better for some backup, yes, facing someone of Ya Qing's power, but... taking someone from her own tribe just felt wrong, and bringing the Elder of the Flower tribe would make her look like a child hiding behind her aunt's skirts. So instead, she'd done the next best thing and just had to hope it wouldn't backfire...

"Interesting choice of location."

Zhu Hong whipped around, biting back a hiss of surprise. She hadn't even seen Ya Qing approach, let alone change. There she was, though, leaning against the roof safety rail with her arms crossed, black gown ruffling in the wind.

Smiling.

Zhu Hong settled back on her heels. Ya Qing's smile was sharp and crooked, but it looked more amused than mocking. So Zhu Hong took a breath and lifted her chin. "It seemed suitable, to meet in neutral territory at first."

"And to remind me which of us chose the winning side?" Ya Qing flicked dismissive, gloved fingers when Zhu Hong started to protest. "It was a clever choice. So? What does the Chief Elder want with me?"

Zhu Hong crossed her arms with a huff, because she couldn't actually deny she'd hoped the lingering shadow of the Black-cloaked Envoy would keep things calm. She also tried to ignore the little curl of pleasure that the Crow Elder thought her clever. "I just want to know. What exactly is it that you want? Snake, Flower, they're both pretty content with how things are. The Snake tribe is happy if they're left alone, and the Flower tribe already goes anywhere they please. What is it that Crow wants?"

Ya Qing pursed her lips, looking thoughtful, and pushed away from the rail to stroll over to Zhu Hong's side. "You could have asked your uncle, or Ying Chun. They've heard it often enough."

"Maybe." Zhu Hong's hands tightened on her elbows. "I want to know what you say, though. To hear it in your own words." That was basic investigation, after all; she hoped it was basic politics, too.

And it seemed like it was, because Ya Qing relaxed a little, the feathers of her cloak rustling as her shoulders eased from their tense poise—flight-ready, Zhu Hong realized. Maybe she wasnâ€™t the only nervous one? Ya Qing turned her face up to the sun.

"I want to stop hiding," she said, quietly. "In the last hundred years, humans have turned further and further away from us, forgotten that they live in the same world as us, and we... we have let them. We've withdrawn and hidden from them. Even when we've been caught in their catastrophes, like the killings that swept the land these last fifty years, we've done nothing but hide ourselves away deeper." She looked back down, and Zhu Hong took a step back. Ya Qingâ€™s eyes burned, dark and furious. "I am sick of it."

Zhu Hong wet her lips. She recognized that fury, had seen it so often in the SID's investigations, and she'd seen it drive terrifying explosions of violence. Very softly, she asked, "Who did you lose?"

Ya Qing laughed once, short and hard. "Such a smart little serpent." She looked away, over the University's central lawn. Zhu Hong waited, trying not to feel fear of the fire she was standing so near. "My eldest sister," Ya Qing finally answered, low. "The one who should have been our Elder. She liked to go among humans—said their gossip was more fun to listen to than ours. But someone saw her change, and that was a time when the slightest deviation was feared, attacked." She swallowed, sharp and convulsive. "They mobbed and killed her."

Zhu Hong's hands closed tight on each other. "I'm sorry for your loss." After the way the public had been turned on the SID, she had an unpleasantly visceral idea of how that might have gone. How much, she suddenly wondered, had Ye Zun turned Ya Qing against him, with that order? Had that been why Ya Qing had surrendered so easily to the branch's choice of Chief Elder?

"She's gone," Ya Qing said, dry and distant, not looking at her. "There's nothing to be done about that. But I can try to keep it from happening again." With a quick breath, she seemed to come back to the present. "Or at least I can argue for it."

"So," Zhu Hong said slowly, "you want humans to know about the Yashou? So they're less afraid of us?"

Ya Qing gave her a cool smile. "Precisely."

The smile was cool, but there was a gleam in her eye that made Zhu Hong think that the matriarch of the biggest eavesdroppers and gossips in the world probably knew full well what Zhao Yunlan's thoughts had been, when it came to informing the populace. Zhu Hong tried, but she really couldn't hold back her laugh at the sheer nerve and grace of Ya Qingâ€™s dance across the lines of friend and foe. Ya Qing's smile curled wider, and she set a hand on her hip, smug (preening) in her success.

"You look like a cat," Zhu Hong giggled, and Ya Qing ruffled up.

"Bite your tongue." A faint sniff and she settled again, serious again but without all the fierce, edged focus of her first appearance. "So?"

Zhu Hong missed the teasing smile with an unexpected pang, but she took a breath and thought about it. Zhao Yunlan had chosen something right for humans; was it right for Yashou?

An image drifted through her mind, of going out to eat, maybe even with company, and being able to order a raw meat dish. And maybe some of the other diners would be disgusted, and maybe some would be fascinated, but what if she could know that the server would only hesitate a moment, and the cook would maybe even be excited to make something unusual, and that her companion would expect it. Might even have taken her out specifically for this treat.

Ya Qing's smile flashed through her head, and she stuffed it immediately away, trying to pretend there was no blush on her cheeks. "It seems reasonable," she said hastily, to Ya Qing's raised brows. "At least as long as our territory is respected. But how... I mean, it seems like the kind of thing we could only do through negotiation with the human Ministry."

Ya Qing smiled, slow, cocking her head. "What an ambitious scope you think in, Chief Elder," she purred. "I think I like it."

Zhu Hong tried very hard not to squeak, or blush any more, or really react at all. She was pretty sure she was failing. "Then..." she cleared her throat and forced the breathlessness out of her voice. "Then I'll consider, with the other Elders, how this might be done to everyone's satisfaction."

Ya Qing laughed softly. "Everyone's? You're an idealistic child. But I think perhaps I will like that, as well. Better than the reverse, at least." She gathered her cloak about her. "Perhaps that ancient bit of wood truly does judge our natures." In a flash of wings, she was gone.

Zhu Hong sat down abruptly on the short wall around the edge of the roof, careless of how her pants were going to get smudged, and pressed her palms over her cheeks. Ya Qing was just teasing. Of course she was; she thought of Zhu Hong as a child—she'd even said it. Typical of a Crow.

Of course, that must be it.

Now

The first letter was complaining of a human trespassing on the edge of Snake territory, and Zhu Hong had to wrestle with a strong urge to stab the paper with her pen, or possibly even bite it. They had a process for this kind of thing, and it did not include bending the ear of the Chief Elder!

She muttered under her breath as she hammered on the keyboard, sending a query to the police to see whether this had been reported (in which case the complainer might just live) or had been sent straight to her and no one else (in which case someone was about to get his tail tied in a knot, just see if she didn't).

Then

"This will require re-writing parts of the treaty between the races."

"I know."

"We don't even have contact with Dixing, right now, to fully ratify it again."

"I know."

"A-Hong, this will make things far more complicated—"

Zhu Hong exploded up out of her chair, in her uncle's front room. "I know that! But Ya Qing has a point! If we really had stayed neutral, this time, how do you think the humans would have looked on us, if they'd won? Do you really imagine we'd have been able to wave the treaty at them and say 'neutral!' and they'd have just accepted that?"

Her uncle sat back, brows rising. "We could have hidden," he said, but he sounded more thoughtful now.

"Where?" she demanded. "And for how long, before we ran out of places? Humans hunt their enemies; it's something they have in common with Dixingren. And the less they know us, the more we withdraw, the more we look like enemies."

Ying Chun finally looked up from her hands, folded on the table before her. "What if they do know of us, though? What will that mean for my people who don't wish to be treated like some rare plant display, or fenced off?"

Zhu Hong chewed on her lip. What public suspicion might do to them all was one of the things she didn't quite know what to do with, yet. "What if... what if no one had to reveal themselves immediately? Only the ones who want to, at first, and we just... don't mention everyone else?" Professionalism nipped at her, and she added, "Unless someone has witnessed a crime."

Ying Chun shook her head, kind but firm. "That will touch off a hunt, the first time someone has to come forward who had stayed hidden until then."

"All or nothing," Zhu Hong murmured, mostly to herself, and flopped back down into her chair with a sigh. There seemed to be danger both ways. If only the Yashou had anything resembling local patrolmen, anyone who was used to looking after large groups of people... Abruptly she sat up again, eyes widening. "Oh! We could use their's!"

"A-Hong?" her uncle asked, cautious in a way that reminded her of his reaction to her attempts at creating medications, when she was young. She huffed at him, disgruntled.

"The police! The ones who patrol on the street, and have their own neighborhoods to look after. They're the ones who could look out for trouble, and make sure everyone was safe; it's their job!"

"Could we rely on human patrolmen to look after us?" Ying Chun asked, hesitant.

Zhu Hong sat forward, hands tight on each other with excitement as the thought unfolded further. "We could ask for liaisons from our people. The same way I am, to the SID." Her hands broke apart, reaching as if she could hold this idea between them. "Maybe even use that as a way to get those of us who want to live closer to humans a start, introduce them and let them see how things work!"

Her uncle was back to looking thoughtful. "I suppose there are a few of the youngsters who might try. And sending them around with a human in authority would protect them, too."

"Borrowing human authority to smooth our own way. I like that idea." Ying Chun smiled at Zhu Hong. "I think I see why Qing-jie has started to approve of you more."

Warmth flashed through Zhu Hong, like basking in the perfect beam of sunshine, and her breath caught on it. "She has?" Both her uncle and Ying Chun paused, staring at her, and she promptly blushed. That had probably been more gleeful than she should sound about Ya Qing's approval.

"A-Hong." Her uncle, in his turn, sounded alarmed, and she slid down in her chair, not meeting anyone's eyes. "You're not... you're not really..."

Ying Chun burst out laughing, sweet and light, and Zhu Hong tried to sink through the floor. "Oh, no wonder she looked so pleased with herself!"

Uncle started half up from his chair. "If Ya Qing thinks she can trifle with my niece...!"

Ying Chun crossed her arms, stubborn as wood. "What's wrong with it? Qing-jie is a good person! She wouldn't lead anyone on."

That made Zhu Hong look up from the start of her plan to slink under the table and escape. "Really?" Her uncle sagged back with a groan, which Zhu Hong firmly ignored. Ying Chun patted her arm with the kind smile that had made Zhu Hong tag along after her whenever she visited, when Zhu Hong was a child.

"Really. It's been a long time since she looked at anyone like that, actually. I'm glad she is again." Her smile turned impish. "And she thinks you're cute."

Zhu Hong could feel the smile taking over her face, bright and hopeful as the feeling in her chest.

"I believe her exact words were, 'more guts than brains, but she does have some brains, and it's a cute look on her'."

"Auntie!" Zhu Hong pressed her hands over her face, blushing so hard she thought she might faint.

"Stop teasing your Chief Elder," her uncle grumbled. Zhu Hong couldn't help noticing she only seemed to be Chief Elder when it was convenient. "If we're really going to plan on revealing ourselves and sending some of us among the humans' patrollers, we need all three Elders here to discuss it."

All right, maybe not just when it was convenient.

"I'll send a message to Qing-jie." Ying Chun rose and patted Zhu Hong's shoulder as she left, which was comforting even if she was still grinning.

"A-Hong." When she peeked out from between her fingers, her uncle was leaning toward her, serious. "Are you sure about this?"

"I didn't mean to," she said, voice smaller than she'd quite like. "It just happened! When we talked, she smiled at me, and I just... And she liked my ideas, and she's never treated me like a lesser threat or went easy on me, even when she's so strong, Uncle, and—"

"All right, all right." Her uncle was rubbing his forehead, and Zhu Hong chewed on her lip some more. "When you spoke," he said, at last, "she truly wasnâ€™t just toying with you?"

"I asked about what she had lost." Zhu Hong looked down at her hands. "About what had hurt her. And she told me. She didn't yell at me or insult me, even though she was so angry I could taste it. Instead she said I had good thoughts, that I was clever." Very softly, she finished, "She said maybe the branch judged us rightly."

Her uncle heaved a sigh and muttered something under his breath. Zhu Hong thought she caught the words "terrible taste" and bridled, but when he looked up he was smiling, even if it was crooked. "All right. No one has ever been able to change your mind, once you made it up. But think about the politics you're going to have to deal with, being the Chief Elder carrying on with one of the tribe's Elders."

Zhu Hong sat very still, eyes wide. "...oh." She hadn't thought of that. If the Chief Elder was known to favor one of the Elders who were under her, that... that could be bad, couldn't it? Favoritism. That could mean resentment, even people thinking Ya Qing had found a way to rule from behind Zhu Hong. Maybe if she was careful to be seen listening to the Elders of Snake and Flower? Or especially Flower, since she was a Snake herself, and she hadn't thought about that either...

"Here we are!" Ying Chun slipped back into her chair, followed by Ya Qing ducking through the door hanging in a rustle of silk and feathers. When she straightened, she looked straight at Zhu Hong, smiling faintly, and her eyes were warm.

"You keep your word, it seems. I like that, too."

Zhu Hong smiled back, helplessly, feeling like she was floating in a cloud of happy warmth that made it easy to ignore her uncle rolling his eyes and Ying Chun stifling laughter.

She'd figure something out.

Now

The second letter was from one of the patrol liaisons, which soothed Zhu Hong's temper a little. That, at least, was something that was supposed to come to her eyes. This time, it was from one of the more adventuresome young Flower men, who seemed to be picking up his police-partner's attitudes quickly. The letter read like an incident report, especially the part about the two Crows in his neighborhood who had had a "domestic disturbance" that annoyed the neighbors. Zhu Hong smiled over that part.

Who'd have thought, a year ago, that two Yashou shifting on the street, especially to have a fight, would be called something so common by the humans around them? The Crow tribe did seem to have a knack for that making that change happen, though.

Then

Zhu Hong had thought that things would move slowly. That there might be lingering glances, and perhaps gradually sitting closer at meetings of the Elders, and possibly even a visit to her home if she were out on the balcony or roof.

Instead she got Da Qing tearing through the offices just as everyone was packing up for the day, nearly yelling, "Ya Qing is out front!"

The new staff jumped, and lao-Chu stood slowly, eyes narrowed, and xiao-Guo started chewing on his lip, and Zhu Hong realized abruptly that she hadn't told her co-workers anything about recent events except that she was working on improving Yashou-human relations.

"Stop!" Everyone turned to look at her, but at least no one was reaching for a weapon or for his power any more. Zhu Hong heaved a quick sigh of relief and let her outstretched hand drop. "It's not... I mean... Look, just let me handle this, all right?"

"Are you sure?" Da Qing demanded, actually looking serious for once.

"Yes, I'm sure." She spun on her heel and marched out to the front door. The new staff, at least, stayed where they were, but Da Qing crowded after her and lao-Chu was sauntering after him. Zhu Hong could tell already this was probably going to be embarrassing. She wasn't used to doing things she needed to keep others informed of!

Ya Qing was across the street, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and a sharp quirk to her lips, and Zhu Hong supposed Da Qing could be excused for thinking her threatening. But Zhu Hong could see the brightness of amusement in those dark eyes as they raked over the small crowd on the SID's steps. She elbowed Da Qing back and stepped forward, hands clasped to keep from fidgeting.

"Elder. Was there something you wished from the SID?" She did her best to sound dignified, but the way Ya Qing's mouth curled up made her heart skip a beat.

"Indeed, I think there is." Ya Qing pushed away from the wall and strolled closer. "Perhaps later for that, though." A wave of tingles ran over Zhu Hong when she caught the implication, and Ya Qing's smile got a little wider. "For now, I simply wished to see my High Elder safely home for the day."

Da Qing looked quickly back and forth between them. "Wait a minute. You came just to walk her home?" He started to grin, and dodged back when Zhu Hong tried to grind her heel into his toe.

"Did something happen?" Lao-Chu, thankfully, was looking more thoughtful, though there was a definite sardonic tilt to his brows that Zhu Hong ignored with all her might.

Ya Qing flicked dismissive fingers. "A few of my people are having difficulty moving with the times."

Zhu Hong's eyes widened, but the flash of worry that the Crow tribe might not accept the compromise the Elders had reached ran straight into the realization that Ya Qing had come to protect her, and drowned there. "Oh," she managed softly, hands clasping on each other tighter.

Laughter flashed in Ya Qing's dark eyes again. "So go get your things, and I'll walk you home."

"Yes." Zhu Hong barely noticed Da Qing's snickering. "I'll... yes." Lao-Chu was rolling his eyes when she turned around, and she glared at him. It wasn't like he had any room at all to talk, not with xiao-Guo draped over his shoulder, now giving Zhu Hong his brightest puppy-dog smile as she stalked past to grab her shoulder-bag.

"Have a good night," Da Qing prodded as she passed, and skipped back with a laugh when she hissed at him.

There was a definite smirk tucked up at the corners of Ya Qing's mouth, and she ushered Zhu Hong down the last step with a hand just barely touching her back. Zhu Hong tried not to blush and failed completely. As they walked, though, and Ya Qing let the quiet deepen between them, Zhu Hong felt herself relax into the ease of it. Ya Qing walked close to her, and her arm curved behind Zhu Hong once or twice when they turned a corner, but it wasn't teasing any more. Just... nice. Protective, but quietly, not the overbearing way her older cousins tended to these days.

"Do you think there will really be trouble?" Zhu Hong asked as they turned down her street.

"Possible, but not likely." Ya Qing cast a sharp eye over the rooflines of Zhu Hong's block and nodded, looking satisfied.

"Why did you come, then?" Zhu Hong dared to ask, eyes fixed on her keys as she sorted out the one for the front door. A sidelong glance showed Ya Qing's smile getting that teasing curl to it again.

"I did wish to see you home safe. You've shown yourself a reasonable and intelligent person, as we've planned the Yashou's revelation, and I want to encourage that." She reached out and set a finger under Zhu Hong's chin, lifting her head. Zhu Hong fumbled her keys with a tiny gasp as a thrill of excitement ran through her. "I also simply wished to walk with you. Would you prefer I didn't?"

It took Zhu Hong a moment to find words again. "No, I..." she swallowed and dared, "I liked walking with you." The knowledge that she walked in Ya Qing's protection had made her feel warm, all the way home. Even Ya Qingâ€™s teasing fit in so well with the way the SID teased each other all the time that it made Zhu Hong's heart turn over at how easy it felt.

Ya Qing's teasing smile melted into a deeper, quieter warmth. "Then perhaps I'll come to walk you home again."

Zhu Hong wet her lips, intensely aware of the gloved finger resting under her chin. Her voice came out soft and breathless when she said, "I'd like that."

"Then I will make sure it happens." Ya Qing stepped closer, and Zhu Hong's eyes went wide, lips already parted on a quick breath when Ya Qing leaned in and brushed the lightest of kisses over them. "Sleep well," she murmured, as she drew back, and was gone into the shadows of the evening before Zhu Hong could even squeak.

Zhu Hong took a deep breath and found her key again. She walked steadily up to her apartment and let herself in, locking the door carefully behind her. She set her bag down and sat composedly on the couch.

And then she covered her face with her hands and squeaked.

Now

Their rapidly assimilating Flower patroller had added a post-script asking if he could double up with a friend, who he thought would work well with his current police partner. Zhu Hong chewed on her lower lip as she thought. It would be a good thing, if a trusted partner could introduce the next one in line, but would it be seen as unfair? Not all Yashou wanted to try out a human partner, by any means, but among those who did the competition for who would get to learn human-style policing next was pretty stiff.

Or perhaps this was exactly the gesture she needed, to make sure the Flower tribe felt equally treated? That had been getting to be more of an issue, she knew, ever since...

Well, it had been getting to be more of an issue.

Zhu Hong kept her head bent over her desk as she wrote a note to herself to discuss it with Ying Chun, privately. Less chance of lao-Chu or Da Qing noticing how she was blushing, that way.

Then

Zhu Hong was glad the series of attacks the SID had been called to look into weren't actually the doing of a Dixingren. She was glad they didn't have to subdue someone with the kind of power a Dixingren might have, and even more glad they didn't have to try to figure out what to do with the man after since there was no Black-cloaked Envoy to hand him over to any more.

With her growing political awareness, she was entirely sure that the human Minister was even more glad to not be faced with that question.

But, while it meant that she and Da Qing had not cornered a Dixingren in a blind alley, it did mean she and Da Qing had cornered a crazed human with metal claws of some kind strapped to his hands. One who had attacked three women with them, and was staring at Zhu Hong with a mad, fixed gaze.

"We'll be all right," Da Qing muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "If he charges you, can you push him back? I'll jump on him while he's open."

Zhu Hong sucked in a deep breath, ignoring how it shook, and nodded sharply. She could do this. She could. She'd kept up her training, and she could hold off even other Yashou most of the time. Claws wouldn't be a problem.

The man smiled nastily at her, and she tensed.

The moment he stepped towards her, though, black fell out of the sky like the shadow of lightning, bursting between them in a swirl of power and feathers. Six black feathers shot forward and pinned the man to the brick behind him by his jacket.

"You dare." Ya Qing's voice was low, but cut through the man's shout of outrage like a knife. Another handful of feathers hovered over her outstretched hand, gleaming and sharp. "You dare raise your hand to her?"

All of Zhu Hong's coiled tension unwound in a soft shock of warmth. "Qing-jie," she whispered.

Ya Qing glanced over her shoulder, eyes raking up and down Zhu Hong. "You're well. Good." She flicked her fingers, and the hovering feathers nailed a few more handfuls of cloth to the brick, pinning the struggling man more firmly. "I suppose I'll refrain from killing him, then."

"Yeah," Da Qing put in slowly. "We do kind of try to do that."

Ya Qing sniffed. "Make yourself useful then, Cat, and take care of him."

Muttering under his breath about bossy birds, Da Qing edged wide around her and went to clout the man smartly, like a cat stunning a mouse it wanted to play with. Ya Qing watched closely until the man was zip tied at wrists and ankles, and finally sighed, relaxing with a shake of her shoulders that resettled her feathers. "You're our Chief Elder," she scolded Zhu Hong, coming to take her shoulders and look her over more closely. "You should be better guarded than this, when you're out working."

"I can take care of myself," Zhu Hong protested, though not as strongly as she might have. "And there are so few of us who can do field-work at all..."

On his way back past them, phone out and lifted to catch some reception, Da Qing paused and took a second sniff. A smirk spread slowly over his face. "Once a princess, always a princess, I guess. You liked being rescued, didn't you?"

Zhu Hong delivered a swift kick to his ankle and hissed when he hopped away, still laughing. She couldn't meet Ya Qing's eyes.

Until lace-gloved fingers caught her chin and turned her face back. Qing-jie was smiling. "Did you, then?"

"Only because it's you," Zhu Hong said, caught in those dark, laughing eyes, and then blushed harder when she realized what she'd admitted.

"I'm glad," Qing-jie murmured, just between the two of them, stepping closer. "Perhaps I shall watch over you myself, then."

Zhu Hong wet her lips and reached slowly out to tuck her hands under Qing-jie's cloak, around her waist. "That would take up a lot of your time, though, wouldn't it?" Not that she was actually protesting, just... trying to be a little bit responsible.

"Time spent guarding our Chief Elder would not be wasted." Qing-jie's thumb traced just below the curve of Zhu Hong's mouth, and her lips parted on a soft gasp for breath as her heart tripped. "Time guarding you would not be wasted." She closed the last centimeters between them, and Zhu Hong melted into the kiss, dizzy with the heat of knowing this magnificent, powerful woman wished to protect her, to hold her safe—and yet would not stand between Zhu Hong and her chosen work.

It felt so sweet.

When Qing-jie let her go, Zhu Hong pressed closer for a moment, snuggling against her just for one breath before she drew back and stood on her own feet. Qing-jie's smile was warm and proud, and Zhu Hong smiled back shyly.

"Tell me, when you go out on work." Qing-jie smoothed a lock of Zhu Hong's hair back. "And I will watch over you."

Zhu Hong ducked her head and promised, "I will."

"Then I will see you tonight." Qing-jie's voice was soft with a promise of her own, and the warmth of it lingered even after she vanished back into the sky in a rush of wings.

"So, is it safe to look yet?" Da Qing called from the entrance of the alley.

"Shut up," Zhu Hong snapped, brushing her blouse straight with brisk hands. "How long until someone comes to take him off our hands?"

Tonight couldn't come fast enough, for her.

Now

Zhu Hong jotted down another note to herself to ask Ying Chun to send a small thank-you to her tribesman's human partner. The man seemed to be getting along well with Yashou in general, and she wanted to encourage that as often as possible. She added a note at the bottom to ask Qing-jie to make certain someone spoke to the Crow couple. Relatable squabbles were one thing, but a serious fight in the streets would only set matters back.

And then she doodled the characters of Qing-jie's name in the fanciest style she knew, smiling over them until she caught lao-Chu smirking from two desks away. She scowled at him and folded the note up.

She'd keep the SID up to date on Yashou affairs that might land on their desks, but what she felt about Qing-jie was nobody's business but her own.

Even if it did tend to overlap with her official business an awful lot.

Then

It had taken months of planning, and then another month of concerted arguing with one after another administrative assistant to the new Minister, but Zhu Hong had finally done it. There was a new treaty document written out, and it was going to be signed on Yashou territory.

She stood in the back room of her uncle's house, examining her makeup and twitching her flowing black vest into place and trying not to hyperventilate.

"Calm yourself, Hong-er." Qing-jie's hands slid over her shoulders from behind. "Haven't the tribes all agreed to this? Even the old hold-outs?"

Zhu Hong took another quick breath. "Yes."

"And hasn't the human Ministry agreed to our draft? Hasn't their Director of Administration spoken in favor of the patrol liaisons?"

Zhu Hong nodded at her reflection, breathing a little slower. "Yes."

Qing-jie leaned against her back, warm and light, and purred in her ear, "Wouldn't your uncle squawk, if I kissed you right here?"

Zhu Hong burst into helpless giggles. "Qing-jie!"

She could hear the smile in Qing-jie's voice. "Hmm?"

Zhu Hong took a breath and let it out, feeling her shoulders drop under Qing-jie's hands. "Yes." She turned and wound her arms around Qing-jie, holding tight and feeling the strength of Qing-jie's arms around her, and then leaned back. "I'll be all right. You go ahead."

She'd learned not to arrive with Qing-jie, not to meetings with other Yashou, the same way she'd learned to be careful what she ate in front of humans and to restrain her hiss when she was surprised or angry. She didn't like it any better, but at least it was for a better reason. She didn't want the tribes to doubt that she was keeping everyone in mind, not just Qing-jie, that she was doing her best as Chief Elder.

And Qing-jie smiled at her approvingly for it, and touched her cheek gently. "That's our thoughtful little serpent. I'll go argue with the other two about where we'll hold the next market." She did kiss Zhu Hong, then, but light and swift, and was gone with a rustle of feathers.

When Zhu Hong ducked out of her uncle's house, the three Elders were indeed arguing, around his small table. Zhu Hong gave Qing-jie a narrow look and snorted at her lover's tiny smile; yes, Qing-jie had done it on purpose. Well all right, then.

"The three of you must have been arguing for decades," she declared. "Aren't you tired of it, yet?"

All three of them laughed, which made her think Qing-jie wasn't the only one trying to tease her back to calm. Zhu Hong took a breath and came to stand beside the table, straight and sure, and finally spoke the words officially.

â€œAs your leader," and then she looked at Qing-jie's smile and couldn't help teasing back, "she who had a crush on the Lord Guardian and competed against the Black-cloaked Envoy," Qing-jie and Ying Chun both snickered, and even her uncle's mouth tugged into a smile. "I've taken time on my day off to come here in order to host an important meeting, you know. It's not like it's easy, with two jobs!" Qing-jie gave her an indulgent smile, and Zhu Hong laughed a little herself.

"All right, a-Hong," her uncle started, and she glowered, "yes, yes, Chief Elder," he amended, patting the air with mollifying hands. "Our mistake. It's your turn; go ahead."

Zhu Hong sniffed, arms folded. "That's more like it." She took a deep breath and stood straight again. "My charge to our tribes is this: we will seek peace and pursue development through internal reforms and exchange of ideas with other peoples." She lifted a hand as if escorting a new age in. "Let the first convention we will host begin!"

They all applauded, good natured, as Zhu Hong heard the first crunch of human footsteps through the old leaves that carpeted the forest ground. She wound her hands tight together, nerves leaping up again. The brush of lace-gloved fingers over her wrist made her look down to find Qing-jie looking up at her. In that steady gaze Zhu Hong saw both ferocious determination and a quiet faith that made the whole world stand still around her for one second.

Including her nerves.

Zhu Hong smiled, soft and small with her thanks, and lifted her chin to step forward and greet Minister Guo for the first time as an equal, feeling the whole weight of the tribes behind her, pushing her forward. If she didn't know all of how to carry that weight, yet, she would learn.

Her Elders would teach her.

Now

The third letter was a demand that the Chief Elder mediate an inheritance dispute.

Over a cloak pin.

Zhu Hong finally gave up and groaned out loud, flopping down across her desk in despair, and never mind how Da Qing would undoubtedly laugh at her. No matter how much she ignored or schemed or yelled, these just would not stop coming. Letters asking her to fix family affairs. Letters asking her to solve a quarrel with a spouse. Letters asking her to tell someone's child to straighten up. Did she look like some kind of avatar of the heavens, here to solve everyone's personal problems? No! But the letters wouldn't stop.

"Does someone want you to solve their love life?"

Zhu Hong sat bolt upright, staring, because that had sounded like...

And it was, in fact, Shen Wei, who had paused by her desk on his way past and whose mouth was quirked in a tiny, commiserating smile.

Zhu Hong tried to wrap her mind around the idea that, apparently, some Dixingren buttonholed the Black-cloaked Envoy with this same kind of nonsense, and felt her eyes trying to cross. "You... I mean, they really...?" she asked weakly, waving the letter.

"The Regent takes a certain pleasure in saving them for me," he said, dry. "If you wish to learn from my mistakes, just ignore them all with as much dignity as you can manage."

She looked up at him, caught by the implication that he had ever been in her position—a young ruler, maybe not consulted all that much about what he really wanted, trying to learn how to do right by his people anyway. And she heard again the words Qing-jie had murmured in her ear, one evening as they lay together, talk meandering through Yashou into Dixing politics.

"I didn't learn as much as I would like, from Ye Zun, but one thing he said repeatedly. That Shen Wei had never wanted to be his people's ruler. That he only did it because of Kunlun. So I think it must be true that that's how the Envoy began. But I watched what he did all last year, too. He has a short temper, and little mercy for enemies, but for his own... for his own, he can show great compassion. He loves his people, now, in his own way." Qing-jie stroked her fingers gently through Zhu Hong's hair. "I respected that. In the end, I wished it had been him I went to, listened to." She'd leaned up on an elbow, smiling down at Zhu Hong. "And more than that, I wish you could have known more of him and his experience, now that you've taken on such great responsibilities."

Zhu Hong had curled closer and admitted, softly, "So do I. He... he was kind to me. Even when I was being foolish and jealous, he was kind. I wish I could ask him things, sometimes."

And now here he was, offering that experience freely.

Zhu Hong's eyes fell from the level darkness of his. "Thank you..." Her gaze flickered up and down again before she could stop it, and she made herself take a breath and look back up to finish, "...Shen da-ge?"

She couldn't help ending on a question, unsure he would accept such familiarity. Would even want or understand the apology she was trying to give. There seemed to be so much age, so much time in the weight and quiet of his gaze.

After a long moment, though, he smiled faintly and lifted a hand to rest on her head. "You're welcome."

Zhu Hong broke into a relieved smile, ducking her head under his hand, shy and pleased.

She could feel lao-Chu smirking from two desks over, and tossed him a glare as Shen Wei turned away toward the Chief's office. Lao-Chu looked irritatingly smug. "I told you," he said. "Didn't I tell you?"

"Oh shut up," Zhu Hong huffed, turning back to her own screen for a report to finish or something. The office already had a fan of the Envoy, it wasn't like she needed to add anything there.

She was going to tell Qing-jie, though, when she came to pick Zhu Hong up tonight. She thought Qing-jie would approve.

Zhu Hong was smiling as she tucked the last letter away and opened her files.

End

Swallow the Mountain

Zhao Yunlan provides a temptation that Shen Wei has no intention of resisting. Even if they are in his office. Porn with Characterization, I-4

A knock on his office door made Shen Wei look up, and he started to stand when he saw, not one of his students, but Yunlan in the doorway. "Is there—?"

"No, no, no problems today," Yunlan assured him, strolling in.

After a moment of fruitless waiting for an expansion on that, Shen Wei sat back, brows lifting. "You usually wait for me at the Division headquarters, if there are no problems," he pointed out.

Yunlan waved an airy hand. "Oh, nothing urgent. Just a little matter I wanted to consult our consultant about." He hopped up to sit squarely on the desk, planting his boots casually on Shen Wei's chair, on either side of his thighs.

"Ah, I see," Shen Wei agreed dryly, and crooked his fingers at his office door, beckoning it closed and locked for good measure. He leaned back comfortably in his chair, looking up at Yunlan, just as mild and enquiring as possible when there was a bubble of laughter trying to escape his chest. "And what is this little matter?" Just as Yunlan was drawing breath, he wrapped his hands around Yunlan's calves and suppressed a smile at the tiny hitch of breath that answered.

Yes, he'd rather thought that was the point of today's visit.

"We have a new applicant who listed a biosciences degree from the University in their background. Shang Xie. Was he ever one of your students?"

Yunlan leaned temptingly close, elbows braced on his knees, and Shen Wei smiled, not bothering to soften the predatory edge. There'd always been a hint of wildness in Kunlun, for all he'd preferred peace and quiet—the intractability of stone and snowmelt—and he'd never feared this side of Shen Wei, in any life. "I would have to check my rosters to be sure, with just the name," he murmured, stroking his fingers down the curve of Yunlan's calf muscles and watching the way Yunlan wet his lips, slow and deliberate. "Did anything else about him stand out?"

"He sounded pretty laid back, but he had good grades." Shen Wei slid his hands over Yunlan's knees, thumbs stroking little circles against the insides, and pushed them ever so slightly wider apart. Yunlan's eyes went dark and dilated, but his voice was still even when he added, "Graduated three years ago, I think."

"Mmm, I think I do remember a Shang Xie about three years ago." Shen Wei could hear his own voice sinking into a purr, and didn't try to stop that either. After all this time, he didn't have a great deal of control left, when it came to Zhao Yunlan, and he didn't particularly care any more. "Not an outstanding student, but very precise." He ran his hands slowly up Yunlan's thighs, thumbs tracing quite precisely along the inner seams of his jeans. Yunlan leaned back as he did, hands catching the far edge of Shen Wei's desk. Shen Wei stopped his hands just short of Yunlan's increasingly evident erection and smiled up at him. "Shall I check my office records for his assignments?"

Not a lot of control, but plenty of motivation to pay Yunlan back for all those damn lollipops.

"No, no that's not necessary." Yunlan sounded gratifyingly breathless, now, and looked like a calligraphed invitation to debauchery, leaning back on his hands with his legs spread for Shen Wei. "I was just hoping to get a general feel."

Shen Wei couldn't help laughing at that slip (or perhaps not a slip) of the tongue. "Oh really?" He slid his hands just a little further up and ran his thumbs firmly over the bulge in Yunlan's jeans.

"Nnh!" Yunlan tipped his head back, hands tightening on the edge of Shen Wei's desk. "Oh yeah, definitely."

"Well, then." Shen Wei undid Yunlan's jeans, fingers light, not looking away from the heaviness of Yunlan's eyes on his. He didn't look away until he leaned down and closed his mouth, softly, over Yunlan's cock. At the sharp, wanting sound that jerked out of Yunlan, he drew back just far enough to speak, the soft breath of words directly against wet skin. "Shh. It's still working hours here, you know." The bitten-back moan that answered made him smile.

He wrapped his lips around Yunlan's cock and slid his mouth down, slowly, and slowly back up, deliberate and caressing, watching Yunlan under his lashes, savoring the way he arched back over the desk, flushed and gasping for breath. Shen Wei made an approving sound and wrapped his hands around Yunlan's thighs, holding them apart while Shen Wei took him in again, all the way down, and sucked firmly. Yunlan whimpered, pushing up against his hands, and Shen Wei smiled around him. He worked his mouth up and down, slow and wet, and took his time about it, which was only what Yunlan deserved—in every sense of the word.

Yunlan moaned for him, all the more intense for how soft it was, and Shen Wei let his hands slide up Yunlan's thighs, over his hips, to hold him fast. And then, ever so delicately, he bit down.

"Nngh!" Yunlan jerked in his hold again, but this time Shen Wei kept him still. Again and again, he closed his teeth lightly around Yunlan's cock, working up the length of it, and then slid his mouth back down all in a rush, sucking hard.

A groan burst out of Yunlan as he came undone, arched taut over Shen Wei's desk, and Shen Wei swallowed around him, drawing him out and out until Yunlan collapsed back on his elbows, panting hard. Shen Wei drew back and smiled, satisfied.

"Oh." It took a few moments for Yunlan to find the second world. "Wow."

Shen Wei laughed softly and stood up, holding out his hands. "Come here."

Yunlan reached back, lazily, clasping his hands, and Shen Wei pulled him upright, gathering Yunlan into his arms. He made a pleased sound at the relaxed way Yunlan leaned into him. Against Yunlan's ear, he murmured, "You know you can have anything you wish, from me. I would never deny you anything."

"I know," Yunlan agreed, just as low, lacing his hands behind Shen Wei and tugging him a little closer.

In other words, Shen Wei reflected a bit wryly, he knew it the same way Shen Wei knew Yunlan remembered him, now. He knew it, but old habit still made him hesitate sometimes before he spoke of shared moments from long ago. He spoke as softly as Yunlan smiled at him, every time Shen Wei mentioned those memories after all. "I don't mind demonstrating, in the least."

Yunlan laughed against his shoulder. "I noticed that."

â€œI should hope so.â€ When Yunlanâ€™s hold on him eased just a little, with the teasing, Shen Wei drew back far enough to meet his eyes. â€œAlways.â€

The promise eased the rueful edge from Yunlanâ€™s laughter, softened his smile into something a little more peaceful. â€œYes. Always.â€

Shen Wei smiled back, warm with the satisfaction of Yunlanâ€™s agreement, and set his fingers under Yunlanâ€™s chin, tipping it up so Shen Wei could kiss him, deep and slow and thorough. Yunlan nearly purred into his mouth, pulling him closer again.

â€œI have students coming soon,â€ Shen Wei murmured against the fullness of Yunlanâ€™s lips, sliding his hands down Yunlanâ€™s back to stroke bare skin under his loosened waistband, â€œor Iâ€™d demonstrate for you further.â€

Yunlan groaned, low in his throat. â€œYou are coming straight home after that, right?â€

â€œDirectly,â€ Shen Wei promised, reaching around to tuck Yunlan in and do his pants back up. â€œYouâ€™ll be there?â€

â€œAbsolutely,â€ Yunlan said, husky. He slid off the desk and stole one more kiss before tugging his shirt straight, running his hands through his hair, and sauntering to the door.

Shen Wei took his seat again, and a good breath for composure, and didnâ€™t let his smile escape at the little cascade of scandalized giggles and whispers from the hall, as Yunlan strolled out.

He rather looked forward to watching the Dean try to come up with a suitably indirect and polite way to tell him not to have sex in his office, at least during office hours. He looked up with a calm smile of welcome to greet his two oâ€™clock appointment. â€œMr. Wu, come in.â€

He had spoken truthfully. He did hope, very much, that Yunlan's hesitance to ask for things he wanted eased in time. But the deep current of possessiveness in Shen Wei's heart hadn't changed with his changing nature; he didn't mind demonstrating as often as Yunlan desired.

He didn't mind the least.

End

The Influence of Mountains

The SID introduce Dixing to the police as ordinary citizens. The Supervisory Bureau may be having heart attacks in the background. Drama, Humor, Romance, Fluff, I-4

Yunlan was always careful, when he visited now-Minister Guo, to measure his smile for now-secretary Gao. Not too casual, not too bright; civil without being ingratiating; not showing his discomfort when the man fumbled between treating Yunlan like an unofficial nephew and like a division Chief. It was delicate and rather uncomfortable, and he could never help relaxing a little when the door shut behind Gao Jingfeng.

The fact that Minister Guo was the beneficiary of his relief wasnâ€™t lost on Yunlan, but for now at least, that was probably a good thing.

â€œGood afternoon, Minister.â€ Yunlan nodded his thanks as Guo Ying gestured him to the seating arrangement and clasped his hands loosely between his knees, leaning forward, attentive. Just because he had a small personal allergy to looking respectfully attentive didnâ€™t mean he didnâ€™t know the body language. â€œWhat was it you wished to see me about?â€

The Minister leaned back in his own chair and ran a hand over his hair. Unnerved, if Yunlan was any judge. â€œWell. Weâ€™ve received a petition from... well, from the Black-cloaked Envoy himself.â€ Ah, that explained it. â€œHe asks that the treaty stipulations be loosened to allow for controlled visitation from Dixing, and eventually naturalization for those willing to live under human law.â€

Yunlan nodded soberly. â€œI wondered if that might be coming, given what Professor Shen theorized about the change in the polarity of Dixingâ€™s energy,â€ he said, just as if he hadnâ€™t kibitzed over xiao-Weiâ€™s shoulder as heâ€™d been writing the letter. â€œDo you want the SID to handle the requests, or...?â€

The Minister seemed to settle at this evidence that someone already had some plans in place to deal with the issue. â€œI want the SID to review the applications before sending them to my office for confirmation.â€ Yes, that was definitely relief. â€œIâ€™d also like your people to keep an eye on visitors, but you mentioned having a limited group of field-ready agents?â€

â€œI wouldnâ€™t want most of the past yearâ€™s new staff in charge of what might be a delicate situation, no.â€ The Minister smiled his wry smile at that, which Yunlan took for a good sign of understanding what he wasnâ€™t saying out loud. â€œI wonder, though, if this might be a good opportunity to extend what the Yashou patrol partners are already doing?â€

The Minister sat back, eyeing him thoughtfully. â€œPartner your people with regular police to oversee visitors, and introduce the regulars to the idea of Dixingren that way?â€

Yunlan grinned openly and hooked an arm over the back of the formal little couch. It seemed safe enough, now, and he did appreciate an intelligent boss. â€œSeems to be working so far, for the Yashou.â€

â€œTrue enough.â€ The Minister looked down at his tented fingers for a long moment and finally nodded. â€œAll right, weâ€™ll try it.â€ When he looked back up, though, the gaze that fixed Yunlan was dark and serious. â€œI expect you to keep me informed of how itâ€™s going, Chief Zhao.â€

In other words, Yunlan thought rather darkly himself, make sure the Minister heard more than what Zhao Xinciâ€™s continuing influence among the police might filter for his ears. He made his voice firm and certain. â€œI will, Minister.â€

His father might be far better at playing ministry politics than Yunlan, but Yunlan had always been better at playing for winning outcomes.

One Month

The first official visitor from Dixing had flown straight past â€œvisitationâ€ to a trial of citizenship, and Zhu Hong personally thought it had been planned to stress-test Minister Guoâ€™s nerves. It would have done hers, too, if she hadnâ€™t already known the whole thing was a put-up. As it was, she stood straight and serious beside the middle-aged police lieutenant whoâ€™d been assigned as her oversight partner, and carefully bit back her smirk when the gateway between realms misted into visibility and the man startled back.

â€œIs that it?â€ Tan Xiao asked eagerly, from behind them.

â€œBe patient, Mr. Tan,â€ she admonished. â€œSheâ€™ll be here in a moment.â€

A moment later, sure enough, translucent air parted around the tiny form of Zheng Yi, and the considerably more intimidating sweep of hooded black robes beside her.

â€œWhoâ€”?â€ Lieutenant Deng started to snap, hand falling to his sidearm. The Chief had warned her to be alert for that kind of reaction, though, and Zhu Hong stepped forward smartly and bowed.

â€œYour Eminence.â€ She waited for Shen Weiâ€™s silent gesture to rise and turned to Deng. â€œLieutenant, this is the Black-cloaked Envoy, the preeminent ruler of Dixing.â€ She trusted that her quick glare added an unspoken so mind your manners.

Deng Chao took his hand away from his sidearm, at least.

Shen Wei nodded, graciously ignoring the political gaffe, and then tipped his head at Tan Xiao. â€œYou are Tan Xiao?â€

Tan Xiao followed Zhu Hongâ€™s lead and bobbed a bow. â€œYes, your Eminence.â€

Shen Wei set a hand on Zheng Yiâ€™s shoulder. â€œThis is more irregular than I would prefer, but Zheng Yi has been firm in her wish to return to you. I would not separate her from the family she has known.â€ He fixed a sharp stare on Tan. â€œAre you prepared to take responsibility for the care and upbringing of this child of my people?â€

Tan Xiao nodded firmly several times. â€œI am, your Eminence. I swear Iâ€™ll raise her as my own little sister.â€

Shen Wei nodded back, slow and measured. â€œAnd what provisions have you made to help her keep her power under control?â€

Zhu Hong noted Deng Chaoâ€™s start of surprise and rolled her eyes. Did the Chiefâ€™s father really think theyâ€™d be caught out that easily, and not take precautions to ensure humansâ€™ safety? Or perhaps, a second thought that sounded very much like Qing-jie added, he had just been working with a blunt instrument, in Deng Chao?

Tan, on the other hand, positively beamed, mostly at Zheng Yi. â€œI was researching it all this time, hoping.â€ Which was probably quite true. He pulled out a choker-length necklace with a delicate chain and a large silver oval at the front. â€œThis should modulate the vibration produced by her power.â€

He held it out and, after a glance up at Shen Wei for permission, Zheng Yi stepped forward to take it and fasten it around her neck, adjusting the smooth silver oval carefully against her throat. â€œLike this, Xiao ge-ge?â€ she asked, and her voice was soft, devoid of the terrifying, vertiginous edge Zhu Hong had heard before. Tan beamed wider.

â€œJust like that, mei-mei,â€ he agreed, and looked up hopefully at the Envoy.

â€œAre you sure this is your will, Zheng Yi?â€ Shen Wei asked quietly. She clasped her hands and nodded, small face serious, and he seemed to sigh. â€œVery well. I grant your care to Tan Xiao. These two,â€ he swept a hand out to take in Zhu Hong and Deng Chao, â€œwill oversee your presence here. You may go to them, as well, if you are ever in trouble or wish to contact Dixing.â€

Deng Chao blinked as if that had never occurred to him, and Zhu Hong suddenly saw how this bit of the game had been played. He was old enough to have children himself, or perhaps nieces and nephews. Most of the officers Director Zhao would have the strongest connection and most influence with would be that age, wouldnâ€™t they? The Chief and the Envoy had blocked his very first move just by making the first entry case a child. She had to stifle a sigh of sheer envy, and remind herself to keep observing. Someday sheâ€™d learn to play the game like that, too.

She had to admit, though, Deng Chao wasnâ€™t the only one affected by the way Zheng Yi lit up, and turned to hold up her arms, or the way Tan Xiao dropped to his knees to gather her close. â€œWelcome home, mei-mei,â€ he whispered against her hair, and Zhu Hong looked away from them, blinking back a little wetness in her eyes. Deng Chaoâ€™s gaze crossed hers as he did exactly the same. Yes, that was definitely the last of his resistance done for. He patted his pockets awkwardly until he came up with a scrap of paper and a pen.

â€œHere, Miss Zheng.â€ He held the paper out to her. â€œYou can call this number, if you need us, all right?â€

Her eyes got big, and she looked up at Tan questioningly. At his encouraging nod, she reached out and took the paper with a tiny, shy smile. â€œThank you, Officer Deng.â€

Deng Chao positively melted, and Zhu Hong marked off a complete victory on her mental scoreboard.

The SID one, Director Zhao zero. Maybe she'd make an actual scoreboard, back at the office.

Two Months

Guo Changcheng was excited by his latest assignment. He liked his regular job, of course, but there was no denying that Special Investigations only got called in when something had already gone wrong. A chance to introduce Dixingren who werenâ€™t criminals to his city was a very nice change indeed.

His assigned police partner didnâ€™t seem to agree, but Chief Zhao had told Changcheng that it might take a little while for the other divisions of the Inspectorate to get comfortable with the idea. To start seeing Dixingren as regular people, instead of scary stories or case reports of broken laws. So Changcheng smiled as warmly as he could at Officer Zhu Gang, even if the other young man just looked back at him with steely eyes, more suited to a member of the Armed Police than an urban sub-bureau.

Right on time, the smoky white circle of the gateway whispered into existence. Officer Zhu braced as if he expected something to charge through it, but before Changcheng could say more than a word or two to reassure him, the Envoy stepped through.

Changcheng had to admit, Professor Shen wasnâ€™t very reassuring when he looked like this.

After a long moment of staring silently at Officer Zhu, though, and a brief nod at Changcheng, the Professor, or rather the Envoy Changcheng corrected himself conscientiously, stepped aside and two other figures emerged through the gateway. The visitors were a couple just this side of elderly, who promptly stopped and stared around with wide eyes.

â€œOh my goodness, Tao-ge!â€ the woman said, clasping her hands together. â€œJust look at the trees! Oh, oh, and look, itâ€™s a bird!â€ She sounded as excited as a child seeing pandas at the zoo for the first time, and her husband beamed and patted her arm before turning to bow deeply to Professor Shen.

â€œMy Lord, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for supporting our application.â€

â€œOf course,â€ Professor Shen murmured, and spread a hand toward Changcheng and Officer Zhu.

The man looked around and beamed some more. â€œOf course, of course! Good afternoon, young men; is there paperwork to be done? We made sure to bring all of our copies of our application materials.â€ He pulled a substantial wad of papers out of his jacket and offered them.

Officer Zhu looked like he wasnâ€™t quite sure what to do with all that fatherly goodwill and cooperation, so Changcheng patted his shoulder with a reassuring smile and stepped forward to shake Mr. Taoâ€™s hand and glance through the papers just to be polite.

â€œThat all looks in order, sir. Welcome to Dragon City!â€ He fished out one of the cards Hong-jie had told everyone to carry after she got back from her first assignment receiving visitors, and offered it. â€œIâ€™m Guo Changcheng, and this is Officer Zhu; weâ€™ll be your police contacts and oversight while youâ€™re here. Please contact us at once if you run into any trouble.â€

â€œOh, how kind of you,â€ the woman exclaimed, and then lowered her voice and leaned closer. â€œThe Lord Envoy did say some of your laws might be quite different from ours. I donâ€™t suppose thereâ€™s an office we could consult about that, to make sure we understand whatâ€™s allowed?â€

Changcheng traded a glance with Officer Zhu, who looked just as much at a loss as he was. â€œInternational Cooperation, maybe?â€ he suggested.

â€œOr maybe the Entry and Exit Administration.â€ Officer Zhu looked completely puzzled by two people volunteering to be taken down to the Inspectorate offices, which just went to show that Chief Zhao had been right. Clearly, a lot of the police only knew of Dixingren from the case files.

â€œWeâ€™ll figure it out,â€ Changcheng told the couple cheerfully.

Perhaps they should all carry a pamphlet on local regulations, along with the cards?

Three Months

Chu Shuzhi stood impassively by the gateway and waited, not bothering to glance at his police 'partner'. One glance was all he'd needed to tell that someone in the Supervisory Bureau had gotten into the SID's records on today's incoming visitor. They'd sent the most senior officer yet, and the man had the no-nonsense look of someone with a warrant already in his pocket.

It was a good thing they'd gone light on the romantic details of that case. Shuzhi held back a smirk as the gate activated and Yuan Yi straightened up a little further. As the young woman they were waiting for emerged, he stepped briskly forward.

"Li Juan?"

Her eyes flickered back and forth between them. "Yes?"

"Dixing's Envoy," the lack of any respect in his language made Shuzhi's fingers itch for his strings, "pushed hard for you to be allowed a visit. But in light of your criminal record, we want to keep this brief. You mentioned in your application wanting to see a..." he paused and leafed through the folder in his hand, mostly for effect Shuzhi felt, "a Ji Xiaobai, yes?"

She started forward a step, hands coming up to clasp tight against her chest. "Yes! Is he well?"

Yuan Yi gave her a very dubious look and said, quellingly, "I sent an agent for him; he should be here," a call from down the road made him look around with a satisfied smile, "any moment. Let's get this over with."

Shuzhi was starting to have a hard time not smirking openly.

A much younger officer pelted up with Ji Xiaobai in his wake. "Here he is, sir!"

Ji Xiaobai didn't say anything for a long moment, just staring at Li Juan who stared back, both of them wide-eyed as stunned deer. Yuan Yi was just opening his mouth when Ji Xiaobai stumbled forward another step and whispered, "Weiwei? Is it really you?"

A smile slowly took over Li Juan's entire face. "Xiaobai."

Visible relief swept through him, shoulders falling, hands opening. "Weiwei." And then he cleared his throat and added, ducking his head shyly. "That's... that's not your name, though is it?" Ji Xiaobai smiled at her. "What's your own name?"

Li Juan had her hands pressed to her mouth, now, tears starting to run down her cheeks. "Li Juan. I'm Li Juan."

"Li Juan," he repeated, so soft and caressing that Shuzhi was tempted to tell them to save that for in private. Yuan Yi was looking increasingly red in the face, though, and his eyes actually bugged out when Ji Xiaobai held out his arms and Li Juan flung herself into them and buried her tears against his shoulder. "Juan," Ji Xiaobai repeated against her hair, and looked up at Yuan Yi with a brilliant, if rather damp, smile of his own. "Thank you, sir. Thank you so much!"

Yuan Yi had to make two tries before he managed to answer. "That... well..." He took another look at the couple clinging together, both of them laughing and crying at the same time, and sighed. "You're welcome."

"Here," Shuzhi prodded Li Juan's shoulder and handed over the pieces of the SID's developing visitor's kit. "He and I are your contacts and oversight; call this number if you get in any trouble. Review this pamphlet for local laws and regulations. And," he finally let the smirk escape, "if you choose to apply for citizenship, follow the procedure on this form. Do that before the wedding, this time."

Li Juan blushed red and looked up at Ji Xiaobai under her lashes. "I hadn't thought... I mean..."

If Ji Xiaobai smiled any brighter, everyone watching was going to need sunglasses. "I waited. If you want, if you're sure..." The details of her answer got lost in another flurry of hugging, but it certainly looked positive.

Shuzhi figured this would be another mark for the "total victory" column on the score board Zhu Hong had started keeping.

Four Months

Da Qing lounged in a corner of the municipal police offices and tried not to cackle out loud as a harried young officer tried to deal with Ye Huo and his backup band of followers.

"Look, the fact remains that all of you were breaking the law by taking part in an underground fighting ring..."

He was immediately drowned out (again) under the protests of Ye Huo's followers.

"...only trying to help..."

"...saved us all!"

"...can't just wave it off when..."

Ye Huo himself shrugged helplessly at the officer's aggravated look, and turned (again) to try to calm them down. When the protests had died down to muttering, he said, "I'm perfectly prepared to pay the fine, of course. We all are; that's why," he gave the crowd a fairly stern look, "I let everyone come along." He turned back to the officer with a calm and deliberate smile. "Perhaps you can help us with that now?"

The officer very obviously weighed the little details of procedure against the chances of another outburst, and quickly slapped a receipt book down on the counter. "All right, let's get this done then."

Da Qing snickered as Ye Huo shepherded his men up, one at a time, to pay their fines, and scolded the one who started to discard his receipt, and generally acted more like a mother hen than the champion of an underground arena. Once Ye Huo had paid his own fine, he offered a completed request for citizenship with a hopeful look. The officer eyed the lot of them darkly, but finally sighed and took it.

"I can't guarantee this will be accepted, you know."

"Of course not. Thank you for your assistance in letting us settle our debts, though. I appreciate it." At Ye Huo's meaningful look, the rest of them chipped in with muttered thanks also, and Ye Huo finally herded them out the door. The officer sat back with a faint groan.

"I did say you could let me handle it," Da Qing mentioned, just to twist the knife, and got a scorching glare in return.

"Shut up and make sure they all get a copy of that law pamphlet your Division does up. Seems like he's just about the only one who doesn't need the reminder."

Da Qing grinned. He thought he should get a total victory plus one on their score board, for that.

Five Months

Lin Jing felt that they were making progress on the whole "Dixingren are good" indoctrination process. He definitely expected today to move things along a little further. But he couldn't say he was surprised that Yu Jun was looking a bit suspiciously at he and Xu Jian.

"Why are there two of you, today?"

Lin Jing gave the good Officer his best "I am a harmless geek" smile. "Because there are two visitors?"

Xu Jian rolled his eyes mightily. "Ignore him," he directed. "He's just a tagalong on this one. After all," he slanted a sidelong look at Lin Jing, "we want to avoid personal bias."

"Filtering initial approaches based on experience is not bias," Lin Jing insisted for the nth time. "Recapitulation is all well and good for biology, but it just wastes lab time for us."

Xu Jian's eyes narrowed into a glare. "It is not recapitulation to give proper consideration to all avenues of research. One of these days you're going to miss something obvious. And this time, it won't be on purpose."

Lin Jing winced. He'd known, when the Boss decided to keep Xu Jian, that eventually he'd get the whole story of Lin Jing's part in the mess a year and a half ago. He'd also known Xu Jian didn't believe in pulling his punches when science was on the line. He respected that; he honestly wished he'd had just a little more of that conviction himself, at the time. It still stung.

"Can we save the science argument for later?" Yu Jun asked, a bit dryly. "The gate's open."

Lin Jing whipped around to face it, argument forgotten, and held his breath as a figure darkened the white mist. No, two figures. They stepped through together, hands clasped, and Lin Jing couldn't help the smile that took over his face, no matter how silly Xu Jian's snort suggested it made him look. "Sha Ya," he said, softly.

She looked good. Of course she did, she always looked good, but she looked healthy and happy, and even after Professor Shen had said she and a few others hadnâ€™t been fully â€˜digestedâ€™ and had mostly recovered, he hadnâ€™t completely believed it until now. And she also looked maybe a little nervous, which was exactly how he felt too, and she was looking at him with wide eyes.

"Lin Jing."

For a breathless moment they just stared at each other, and then Sha Ya took a deep breath, stalked forward, and punched him in the shoulder. Hard.

"You jerk!" she snapped, over his yelp and Hua Yuzhu's sudden laughter. "That was the most embarrassing password ever!"

"Sorry?" he offered weakly. He maybe should have considered this possibility sooner, but at the time he hadn't thought he'd ever see her again!

Sha Ya crossed her arms, glowering. "Also, the power ran out way too fast."

That made him straighten up, startled. "It did? But I calculated that battery should last for..." He trailed off as her eyes slid to the side, and then really couldn't help a completely soppy smile. "Oh. I can, um. Replace it. If you want."

"You'd better." She still wasn't quite looking at him and just possibly had a hint of pink on her cheeks. Just a hint. "And show me more of those skies, too."

He dared to step closer, reaching out a hand. "I will. Promise."

She glanced at him and huffed a little. "All right, then." She finally unfolded her arms and, after a long moment, reached out to rest her fingers in his hand.

Lin Jing folded both his hands around hers, so happy he could barely breathe.

"You know," Officer Yu said, watching Lin Jing and Sha Ya holds hands and smile at each other some more, "some of the others told me that volunteering for visitor oversight was just asking to drown in syrup, and I didn't believe them."

"You should have." Xu Jian might still be new to the SID, but he'd read the old reports and they were as thick with star-crossed lovers as they were with dangerous attackers. He doubted the Chief and the Professor would run out any time soon.

"Obviously." Yu Jun sighed and turned to Hua Yuzhu, holding out a folder of papers. "Make sure she gets her half when she comes back down from the clouds, will you? Here's our contact information, this is a brief overview of local laws, and," he sighed again, casting a slightly aggrieved look over his shoulder at the previously dangerous criminal who was now handing a ring back to Lin Jing and blushing, "here are the directions to apply for citizenship."

Hua Yuzhu dimpled at him as she took the folder. "Thank you, Officer. I understand there will also be check-ins because of Sha Ya's record?"

"The schedule is in there, too. Not," Yu Jun added dryly, "that I think we're going to lose track of her at this rate."

Hua Yuzhu glanced over at the couple and giggled. "Not likely. I'll make sure she sees it, though."

Xu Jian noted the casual wave of acknowledgement Yu Jun gave that, and smiled, satisfied. He would definitely be able to report this one for the 'total victory' column.

Six Months

Yunlan draped himself backwards over a chair and contemplated at the SID's running scoreboard cheerfully. "So, what percentages do we estimate, based on this?" he asked Xu Jian.

"Calculating in the frequency with which our oversight partners mention another member of the Ministry voicing favorable views, I think we have between sixty and seventy percent penetration, by now." Xu Jian tapped the end of his pen against his notebook. "I imagine it actually helps that so many of rank and file in the other divisions are only just learning that Dixing is real."

Zhu Hong tipped her head, frowning. "Does that mean we have lower penetration at the upper levels?"

"Exactly," xiao-Wei agreed. "We seem to be doing reasonably well with senior officers who stayed in the sub-bureaus, but the upper levels of administration are where the Supervisory Bureauâ€™s attitude has had the greatest influence."

Zhu Hong nibbled on her lip and slowly ventured, "Can we work through the Minister, maybe, for those?" She ducked her head at xiao-Wei's approving nod, and Yunlan leaned over against his shoulder, laughing.

"You just can't resist teaching, can you?" Kind of the way Yunlan couldn't resist teasing him about it, and watching his ears turn red. The fact that teaching was, in some way, xiao-Wei's guilty pleasure was absolutely adorable. "The Minister's policy will be our strongest lever, but we'll have to be careful, too. If he thinks we're using him, this all blows up."

"We're not, though, are we?" xiao-Guo asked, and fidgeted when the rest of the team turned to look at him. "I mean, we're doing everything we can to make his policy a success, because it's the right thing. Aren't we?"

There was one of those pauses that happened whenever xiao-Guo knocked an entire conversation sideways by unthinkingly voicing the moral consideration underneath all the details. "Absolutely true," Yunlan agreed, once he'd caught his mental balance again, and xiao-Guo beamed. Lao-Chu settled a hand on the back of his partner's neck, looking satisfied.

When the staff meeting broke up, though, xiao-Wei caught his arm and said quietly, "The Minister will notice how much we didn't tell him, if and when my identity needs to come out."

"You're a head of state," Yunlan pointed out, because it was something that had entertained him ever since he first thought it out. "You outrank him." At xiao-Wei's exasperated look, though, he gave in. "I know trust is going to be an issue. But I think he's sensible enough to understand why we didn't just drop the whole package on his head at once." Especially if they'd just dropped all the really heavy bits on his head at once.

Xiao-Wei smiled like he was trying not to, clearly following the thought and probably not wanting to encourage Yunlan. Yunlan smirked and leaned into his shoulder.

It wasn't exactly that he was looking forward to what would probably be a fairly fraught conversation. It was just that he did look forward to xiao-Wei being able to be openly himself. From the way the thought resonated all the way down inside him, he thought that had probably been one of his goals for quite a long time. Xiao-Wei was an amazing man.

Yunlan was willing to reach for a fairly big hammer to make the rest of the world realize it.

End

Grace and Radiance

Shen Wei gets impatient and decides a desk is just as good as a bed, for somethings. Zhao Yunlan has to agree. Porn with Characterization, I-4

Yunlan slumped a little deeper into his desk chair and flipped to the next page of the long-and-only-getting-longer file on what he could only call Dixing tourism requests. Someone down there, and he darkly suspected the Regent, had declared that final decisions on who could come garden-viewing or shopping or whatever could only be made by the human Ministry, who had promptly passed the question on to the SID.

Which, all right, better him than his father. Yunlan appreciated that, he really did. But the paperwork.

Still, better him than his father. Yunlan crossed his feet on the edge of his desk with a sigh and signed off on yet another page, this one wanting to do a river tour, (who, thankfully, had no priors at all). With a little luck he could get this set done before—

"Yunlan?"

He looked up, startled, to see xiao-Wei in the door of his office, brows raised. A glance at the clock showed him it was already later than he'd thought. "Ah."

Xiao-Wei now looked amused. "You lost track of time?" He stepped in, letting the door shut behind him, and came around the desk to glance over Yunlan's shoulder, one hand on the back of his chair. "The requests, hm?"

"There are so many of them," Yunlan groaned. "All of them with supporting paperwork. At this rate, we're well on our way to having a copy of the Dixing Register up here!"

Xiao-Wei's faint chuckle seemed a bit heartless, under the circumstances. "If there are that many, they'll certainly still be here tomorrow." He plucked the folder out of Yunlan's hands and laid it on the desk, ignoring his sound of protest. "It's time to head home."

"If I wait until tomorrow, there will just be even more," Yunlan pointed out, though he didn't reach for the file again. It wasn't like he was actually eager to wade through more paper.

"Then I'll help you with them. Later." Before Yunlan could really consider the pros and cons of that, xiao-Wei tilted his chair back further and leaned over him, one hand coming up to catch his chin. Yunlan's breath caught sharply as xiao-Wei tipped his head up to meet his eyes. "Later," xiao-Wei repeated, stroking his thumb over Yunlan's lower lip.

"Ngh," Yunlan said, articulately, and then pulled himself a little more together, though he couldn't take his eyes off Shen Wei's. "I should really finish these..."

Xiao-Wei smiled slowly, the smile with the predatory edge that never failed to make Yunlan hard. "Should I convince you, then?" he murmured, leaning down to take Yunlan's mouth in a slow, thorough kiss. The wet slide of xiao-Wei's tongue through his mouth put a shudder of heat down his spine. "Or perhaps I won't wait at all."

Before Yunlan could retrieve enough brain cells to quite process that, xiao-Wei straightened, hands sliding down his arms to pull Yunlan to his feet. The thought home, then and the faint hope that he wouldn't get in an accident, driving this distracted, stumbled to a halt when xiao-Wei stepped around behind him, hands sliding lightly over his shoulders and pulling his jacket off.

"Um?" Yunlan started to turn only to be pulled to a halt by Shen Wei's arm around his waist, pulling him back snug against xiao-Wei's body, and the hand wrapped firmly around his wrist, stilling the questioning finger he'd started to raise.

"Just like this," xiao-Wei said softly, against his ear. "Right here, over your desk. I like the thought of that. Do you?"

Heat rolled through Yunlan like a wave, at the very thought, so intense his toes curled. "Glass door," he pointed out, with the last gasp of sanity.

"Looking at nothing but a brick wall," xiao-Wei murmured against his neck. "Do you want it?"

Knowing that was the only question that truly mattered, to xiao-Wei, that Yunlan's wishes were absolutely the only thing that would change his mind turned the rush of heat soft, melted Yunlan back against the steadiness of xiao-Wei's body. "Yeah," he said, husky. "I do."

"Good." Xiao-Wei lifted the wrist in his hold and pressed a soft kiss to the inside, which didn't do a thing to help the whole melting feeling. When his hands slid down to undo Yunlan's jeans and push them down off his hips, now, that did—both the relief and the surge of awareness that this was his office he was standing in with his ass bare and his cock hanging out. The thought, and the brush of fine, suit-grade wool against his ass, made him harder, if that was possible. Xiao-Wei made a pleased sound, palms stroking over Yunlan's hips as those cool hands slid back up to his shoulders and pressed them gently down.

Yunlan shuddered as he was bent over his desk, weight sagging against the hard surface as he knees when a little wobbly with heat and anticipation. "Xiao-Wei..."

"Shh." Xiao-Wei's hands stroked up and down his back, easy and slow, until Yunlan relaxed under them, soothed down from the edge by the reminder of xiao-Wei's care. "That's better." There was a smile in xiao-Wei's voice. "It won't do, if you're tense." A few faint crinkling sounds, and long fingers dropped an open foil packet on the desk beside him.

The thought of xiao-Wei carrying lube around in the pockets of his neat, tailored suits made Yunlan groan, even before those fingers rubbed over his entrance, firm and slick. When they pushed into him in one long, slow slide, Yunlan reached for the far edge of the desk, because he was pretty sure he was going to need something to hold on to.

Xiao-Wei's hand slid up his spine to wrap around his shoulder, holding him in place while xiao-Wei's fingers worked his ass open. Yunlan moaned, and went completely lax against the desk as xiao-Wei's thumb stroked slowly up and down his nape. It was such a simple touch, but it felt just as intimate as the fingers actually inside him. Gentle, even as xiao-Wei drove his fingers in deep and twisted them sharply. It was all so very xiao-Wei, gentleness and ferocity both, and that was what left Yunlan sprawled over his desk, open and unwound and wanting.

"Mmm, xiao-Wei." Yunlan turned his head a little, looking back over his shoulder with his very best come-hither smile. "Fuck me?"

Xiao-Wei smiled back, eyes dark with heat and focused on nothing but Yunlan. He leaned down to brush a kiss over the corner of Yunlan's mouth, weight pressing him down for a moment. "Yes."

A rustle of clothes, and another foil packet was dropped next to the first. Yunlan blinked at it, because xiao-Wei's hand hadn't left his shoulder. He spotted the tooth marks at one corner just as xiao-Wei's other hand settled on his hip, holding him fast, and he moaned, low and open with the rush of heat as xiao-Wei pushed into him, slow and hard. He loved the thought that xiao-Wei didn't want to let go of him, even that long.

"Yes." Yunlan panted for breath as the stretch of his body around Shen Wei's cock sang through him, twice as hot for the careful strength of the hands that pinned him in place, over the desk. It felt so good, so sweet to just relax into those hands and feel xiao-Wei fuck him, moving hard and slow in and out of his ass.

"Yes, my own. Oh yes." Xiao-Wei's voice was breathless, and Yunlan purred to hear it. He loved knowing that he was what drove Shen Wei to discomposure, to impatience, to open possessiveness regardless of who might see or know. The pleasure of it curled down his nerves, as hot and heavy as every thrust of xiao-Wei's cock into him. The faint roughness of xiao-Wei's pants against his thighs, the brush of a crisp cotton shirt over his ass, made him groan, heat shivering up his spine with the reminder that xiao-Wei wanted him too much to wait.

Wait to start, at least. The slow, steady rhythm of each stroke, the slick drag and push into his ass, over and over, said that xiao-Wei fully intended to hold the end off for a while. Yunlan... honestly, he liked that thought, right now. Liked how it felt to lie spread out over his desk with xiao-Wei's cock working relentlessly in and out of him, sensation rolling through him, slow and easy. Liked the tightness of xiao-Wei's hands on his shoulder and hip, and the gentle stroke of a thumb, now and then, over his nape or hipbone. Liked the heavy weight of xiao-Wei's eyes on him, and nothing but him.

"Xiao-Wei..." It came out as a moan, soft and slurred.

Xiao-Wei's weight leaned down against him again, for a breath, and he murmured against the skin of Yunlan's nape, "Shh. I've got you."

It was that assurance that finally broke him, the sweetness of being absolutely certain that he could rest in xiao-Wei's hands for a little while. He groaned out loud as pleasure swept through him like a summer storm breaking, fierce and hot, wringing him tight around xiao-Wei's cock.

Xiao-Wei fucked him through it, both hands tight on his hips now, soft, breathless words tumbling over each other, yes and good and Yunlan. It made him positively purr with satisfaction, especially when xiao-Wei drove in deep and stilled, voice cutting off with a gasp. When his hands loosened on Yunlan's hips, they slid up his ribs and down his back, open and so openly possessive it made Yunlan shiver, even as wrung out as he was. He was perfectly content to stay right where he was and let that slow caress ease both of them back down.

Finally, though, xiao-Wei drew back and Yunlan sighed a little at the rustle of clothes being done back up. Maybe he'd see about convincing xiao-Wei to take even longer about things this coming weekend—see exactly how long Yunlan could take it for. The thought made him smirk, and then wince just a little as cloth that wasn't quite soft enough to be comfortable pressed between his cheeks. There was another of xiao-Wei's handkerchiefs done for until laundry day.

"Are you all right?" Yunlan smiled at the concern in xiao-Wei's voice, and pushed himself slowly upright from the desk.

"Very," he declared, once his legs were holding him up again, though he leaned back against xiao-Wei for balance as he tugged his jeans back up. He felt xiao-Wei's faint huff of laughter.

"Good."

Yunlan turned to drape his arms over xiao-Wei's shoulders and kiss him, quick and soft. "Very good indeed." He grinned. "Even if no one came to look in on us."

"Oh, Da Qing did."

Yunlan froze. "...he did?"

"Briefly." Xiao-Wei adjusted his glasses in the way that meant he was laughing behind that calm little smile. "You were quite distracted, at the time."

Yunlan was torn right down the middle between horror at the amount of 'humans in heat' teasing he knew he was in for and the twist of heat that went through him, knowing he'd been seen while half out of his head from xiao-Wei fucking him. After a few tries at finding words, he gave in and just laughed, leaning against xiao-Wei. Xiao-Wei smiled, and the possessive glint in his eyes softened into warm satisfaction.

"So, shall we head home?" he asked, as if he'd just stepped into the office.

"Sure." Yunlan leaned in to murmur against his ear, "And then maybe I'll see how long it takes to get you hard again, with my mouth around your cock."

The sharp intake of xiao-Wei's breath and the way his eyes went darker were deeply satisfying.

It was very possible, Yunlan reflected, as xiao-Wei gestured him politely ahead through the office door, that the two of them deserved each other.

He liked that thought.

End

Contemplate the Wind Above

Four people are wakeful at night. Shen Wei thinks about Ye Zun. Zhang Shi thinks about her new life. Ya Qing thinks about Zhu Hong. Zhao Yunlan thinks about his own past. Drama, Character Study, I-3

Shen Wei

Shen Wei leaned with his head propped on one hand and watched Yunlan sleep. Watched, on another level, the deep weight of him reach out to the world around them, touch the weave of the world with the same soft affection as he'd always had.

Watched how the brightness of Yunlan's potentiality reached out to Shen Wei, in particular, now.

He loved the familiarity of that brightness and power, loved it with the wild relief of feeling his past finally, truly, connected to his present. But sometimes, as tonight, watching how Yunlan reached for him first and foremost also made him think about his brother.

He wished Kunlun's gift could have been completed a little sooner.

It was a vain wish, of course. Cohesion had never been a significant part of his brother's make-up, and his being had unravelled swiftly at death. It had taken Shen Wei's assistance to stay together even as long as he had. And perhaps a new beginning wouldn't even have helped; no one knew better than Shen Wei that madness had been at the core of his brother from the start.

And yet...

Ye Zun's fractured awareness had seized such immediate hold of the story-seed Shen Wei had given to the Holy Tools. Such a firm hold that Shen Wei was fairly sure Ye Zun's own part of that story was at least half his brother's own making. Shen Wei had tried to work with that, at the end, to give his brother as much comfort as might be had, to assure him that he'd always had Shen Wei's love. Even if that wasn't quite the truth.

In the early days of their existence, Shen Wei hadn't known, yet, what it was he was seeking. What he'd been trying to feel, beyond hunger. And by the time he'd known, he'd been with Kunlun. It hadn't been the truth back then, but then... Ye Zun wouldn't have wanted Shen Wei's love back then, he didn't think. In their early days, all Ye Zun had wanted was to be one being with Shen Wei. As if that would stop the hunger.

The story-vision wasn't the truth of their beginnings, but it was the truth of the two of them now, perhaps. And so he couldn't help but wonder—might a new beginning have changed his brother, the way one after another after another had changed his lover, made the shape of his love so much more human?

Or perhaps it had truly taken complete dissolution to make peace enough for Ye Zun.

Either way, he couldn't change it now, and so he did what he always did on these nights and curled closer around Yunlan, closed his eyes and let the warmth of Yunlan's presence and attention to him—even asleep—ease him down into sleep, himself.

Zhang Shi

Zhang Shi completed her evening routine, as best she'd been able to reconstruct Li Huiliang's habits, by watering the plants on her tiny balcony and brushing her teeth. She still had to think about each action, a little. This had all been so very much easier when she'd had a host to deal with routine things, and she was very glad she'd had a year of being Zhao Yunlan to figure out how to fall asleep, to wake up, to get dressed, to think about all of that, before moving to Li Huiliang's body. It had been a long time since she'd last been a woman, after all, and all of that at once would have been very trying to deal with. So many little things were just so much easier when Zhang Shi had a host to take care of them.

On the other hand, the lack of pressure on her mind was an undeniable relief. He hadn't realized how loud a host was until he'd convinced Xinci to push him into Yunlan's body.

That had been a loud argument inside and out. Worth it, though.

To be sure, he hadn't thought so immediately. The first few months had been full of floundering as he had to feel all the little urgencies of a body first-hand. Sometimes it had felt like solid weeks of nothing but swallowing and pissing. But once he had some attention to spare, he'd realized that those things felt so all-encompassing exactly because he wasn't having to argue, to coax, to lean, to try to steer another mind and will.

When it had really sunk in that the only thing he was feeling was his own emotions, wants, needs... well, fortunately he'd been at home with no one else to notice a couple hours of crying.

And now she wasn't even having to be Zhao Yunlan. She didn't even have to be Li Huiliang. The feeling was honestly a little alarming, which was why she'd stuck to what of Li Huiliang's habits she could make out from her surroundings. That little bit of structure was comforting.

She wondered, often, how Xinci was doing. If he'd felt as adrift, that first little while. She thought maybe he hadn't, and the thought hurt a little. He hadn't sought out his 'son' any more after Zhang Shi had been Yunlan than before, at least. Honestly, the man could be so stubborn! Gifted with a brilliant child, and all Xinci could see was how messy the boy was—physically, mentally, procedurally. It was the same inflexibility Zhang Shi had had to push against their whole time together, never more than during the crisis of Ye Zun's invasion, and he hadn't quite realized how exhausting it was until he was out.

So maybe Xinci also felt relieved not to have to argue all the time. Relieved to be rid of her.

She sighed as she pulled on pajamas. They'd been such good partners, when they weren't arguing! And often even when they were, for that matter. She missed him, exhausting as he'd been, missed being connected to another heart.

At least she could still watch over their son, though, and probably a good deal better now. That was a comfort, and not a small one.

She pulled the covers up, and made a pleased little sound at the soft drape of them around her body. Her body alone, and she really did enjoy that, now.

Zhang Shi closed her eyes and composed herself for sleep.

Ya Qing

Ya Qing was a Crow and crows were known, among other things, for their senses of humor. So she chose to find amusement in the fact that she and Zhu Hong only had compatible sleeping habits when in human form.

Even then, it took a little negotiation.

Ya Qing settled back against the pillows, combing her fingers through Hong-er's hair, and smiled at Hong-er's contented little murmur as she snuggled closer in her sleep and wrapped her leg a little more snuggly around Ya Qing's. Her little serpent liked nothing better than to be wound around something warm. She'd been a bit flustered, at first, to wake up nestling between Ya Qing's breasts, but she'd also understood very quickly that Ya Qing needed her arms free.

It wasn't the kind of understanding Ya Qing had ever expected from another tribe, especially from someone as young as Hong-er, but of course that was what made her little serpent special. It wasn't that Hong-er had a brilliant mind or great learning; she could be stubborn and short-tempered and petulant when thwarted. But she had an instinct for putting puzzles together, even living puzzles, and she hated like fire to fail.

Ya Qing found the combination delightful.

She knew Hong-er's uncle, cranky old snake that he was, was still suspicious of her reasons for partnering with Hong-er, but honestly it was very simple. Zhu Hong had ambition.

It was astonishingly hard to find that trait in the Yashou. Perhaps it was the perspective of beasts, that focused on the now rather than the future. For years, Ya Qing had thought she might actually be the only one. At first, she'd thought Hong-er's reluctance to accept the judgement of the sacred branch was just another sign that she'd been correct about that. It hadn't taken more than two conversations, though, to understand that the part Hong-er actually objected to was having that victory chosen by someone else. No sooner was the girl acclaimed than she turned around and started over from the beginning. Presenting ideas. Making alliances. Persuading others to her support. Stubbornly making her way through every step she'd normally have needed to walk to be considered a candidate for leadership.

Ya Qing had found it a pleasure to watch.

She didn't know where it would lead them, but she was comfortable in the certainty that it would not be into a bad bargain or over treacherous ground.

Besides, it would probably be amusing.

She pressed a kiss to Hong-er's hair and settled deeper into the soft pillows, smiling.

Zhao Yunlan

Yunlan listened to Shen Wei's breathing even out into sleep and turned his head on the pillow to give his lover a wry smile.

He'd tried asking, once or twice, what xiao-Wei was brooding over on the nights he woke and watched over Yunlan for a while. That had gotten him a whole lot of evasion, which usually meant xiao-Wei was trying to shield him from something, but this time Yunlan thought there was also some guilt xiao-Wei himself was feeling. He didn't want to press too hard on that kind of pain, so he'd let it go, and usually just let himself drift right back to sleep if the weight of xiao-Wei's attention woke him.

Tonight, though, he had some thoughts of his own keeping him awake.

In the months since they'd returned, he'd pretty much managed to go on as usual. The strongest of his memories as Kunlun mostly had to do with Shen Wei, which wasn't much different from how he felt as himself. It was only now and then that something else would catch, like a nail snagging, and he'd suddenly be thinking and feeling something completely different.

The summer rains had been a bit of a trial, this year, as the city's perfectly tame river kept dragging at his attention with the itchy feeling that it should be flooding.

Ironically, it had all been much easier right after the Lamp, when those memories had been most intense and pervasive. Everything had been changing, in those couple weeks, so it had made a kind of sense to accept this change too—to roll with it. As things settled down a little, though, the moments of feeling like someone else had gotten clearer edges on them. Yunlan wasn't particularly interested in being anyone but himself, so he'd started pushing past those moments as quickly as he could. He had a feeling, though, that it wouldn't work forever. There was too much power and bone-deep awareness of the world lying under those memories. He had a feeling there was a choice ahead of him, and coming up fast, like a rock in the middle of those flooding rivers he remembered. He could choose to lock the power down, lock it away, and likely most of the memories with it. He was pretty sure of that. Or he could choose to change. To become...

Well he wasn't sure what, or who, and that was the problem wasn't it?

Life was change, of course. But this big? Enough to make his own the vast weight of power he could feel waiting? What would he be then?

The one guiding light in all this was the man sleeping beside him. Xiao-Wei had lived like a human while still holding immense power, an immensity like the breadth of the sky itself. Yunlan could feel that. And xiao-Wei still smiled at kids running past on the street, insisted on a specific fabric blend for his shirts, and was a bit of a tea snob. When Yunlan thought of it like that, his own power seemed less of a potential threat.

Less wasn't entirely, though, which led to nights like tonight.

End

The Innocence of Thunder

Professor Ouyang's work isn't through causing trouble, and everyone finds out why injuring Zhao Yunlan is an extremely bad idea. The Minster finds out a lot of things no one bothered to tell him earlier, and possibly wishes he hadn't taken the job. Drama with a Pinch of Action, Romance Of Course, I-4

One

Shen Wei enjoyed the quiet times in his life, the times when he had no miscreants to chase down; when the humans were calm, not indulging in wars of conquest or moving their seat of government again; when his chosen profession had no crises and he could let himself be soothed by completing the small, daily tasks. He enjoyed those times very much, but he didn't take them for granted. He'd lived long enough to know, with absolute certainty, that catastrophe would be back around sooner or later. The current quiet felt... provisional, to him. Fear still breathed faintly through the streets of the city, even after two years, feeding on the lingering aftermath of the chaos his brother had created. It was fear of just the kind that madmen and fools had all too recently seized on to set the whole country ablaze, careless of how they killed their own so long as they could hear acclaim in the people's screaming.

So he kept his voice calm, in class, and graded his students' work carefully, and made his smile easy and welcoming when someone tapped on his office door. He visited his own realm every week or two and paced the streets, let himself be seen, let his people approach close enough to taste the difference in his nature and know he was still their ruler, even so.

And a part of him waited, alert.

His office phone rang while he was signing off on his grade sheet for the new term's first test, and he tucked it against his shoulder as he wrote the date. "Yes?"

"We have a problem."

The sharp tension in Yunlan's voice made him straighten, letting the pen drop as all his attention refocused. "What is it?"

"Can you come by the Division?"

A significant problem, then. "I'll be right there." Shen Wei caught up his bag and made for the doors, stride just a bit quicker than would be casual.

When he arrived at the SID offices, he found Li Qian sitting at the long table, both hands wrapped around a mug of tea so tightly her knuckles were white. Yunlan perched on the table itself beside her, eyes dark and serious when he glanced up at Shen Wei. Shen Wei sighed and leaned his hands on the table, feeling very tired. Of course it would be this.

"There were other samples, weren't there?"

Li Qian winced. "I thought the lab's security would be enough," she said, voice low, not looking up from her tea. "I had Lin Jing overhaul it, when I took over. The samples from the serum experiment are locked with a sixteen character randomized passcode and a mechanical key that had to be signed out from building security." Now she looked up, face drawn. "Professor Shen, those were the failed samples. There's at least a sixty percent chance that anyone injected with one of those will die immediately."

Which left a better than one in three chance that the recipient would not die, at least not quickly, but become something considerably more troublesome than a simple corpse. Shen Wei glanced at Yunlan in question and got a small nod. "The safe was opened, not broken, so it was likely a human who took them, given the security measures," Yunlan said, quietly. "The regular police think it was probably one of the technicians Ouyang dismissed, maybe one with a grudge. They're looking into that."

And the Minister probably wanted the SID involved in case the thief, or possibly a test victim, wasn't exactly human any more. He smiled faintly at the question in Yunlan's level gaze. Of course Yunlan would see the moment of opportunity, and yet never press for it to be taken. It wasn't a hard decision, though; Li Qian was his student, and he owed her what understanding he could give. He reached out to rest a light hand on her shoulder. "The situation will be taken care of. But that this has happened probably means I should tell you something I've been meaning to sooner rather than later."

Curiosity eased the worried tightness of her mouth. "Yes, Professor?"

"Two things, really," he amended. "This is the first." He straightened and reached inward for his power.

This was different, since his nature had changed again. Before, he had used the part of him that was from Kunlun to wrap human form around the voracious void at the core of his being. That void was displaced, now—filled with Kunlun's (Yunlan's) second gift—but the chill of it was still part of him, and one he still did not care to let the humans around him feel. He still kept human form wrapped around it, but more lightly. Releasing human form, now, was less like turning his being inside out, and more like drawing aside a curtain.

Frost-edged blue swept over him and settled into his familiar robes, and the weight of his glaive in his hand.

Li Qian was staring, eyes wide. "I thought you must be Dixingren," she finally said, very softly. "But... Really... the Black-cloaked Envoy?" And then she blinked, frowning. "But so long ago... the Ministry's records say the treaty is thousands of years old. Is it an inherited title?"

Shen Wei smiled down at her, quite proud. Li Qian had always been one of his brightest students, in this 'life'. "It is not. And that's the second thing." He watched her tiny frown of concentration deepen, could nearly see conclusions snapping together behind her eyes. She looked up at him, glanced at Yunlan and back, and then she sagged back in her chair, hands closing tight on the arms.

"What..." she swallowed hard and whispered, "what did we make?"

Yunlan's smile was crooked. "Really, xiao-Wei, you have such smart students."

Shen Wei drew human form around him again, settling that veil over the shadowy well of his power. "I do, yes," he answered calmly, pulling up a chair beside Li Qian's. As he'd hoped, the approval of her teacher calmed her a little. "The serum experiment's results force development of latent potential. You know this already."

She took a deep breath and sat up straight again. "Yes. I'm honestly still not certain of the mechanism, though. It was purely empirical science, for the most part. The theory behind it... well, the biochemistry is solid, but as for how increased excitation actually instrumentalizes..." she lifted her hands in a distinctly frustrated shrug.

"That is the place where known biology crosses with matters of the spirit." Shen Wei smiled at her disgruntled expression, amused. "After ten thousand years, I have still never heard other words to describe that element. Though perhaps there will be more, soon." He spread one hand open. "Consider the Yashou. The matter they are made of is fluid, changeable from one form to the other, yes?"

"And Dixingren sometimes, too," she murmured, focused again. "Though I've never seen an energy conversion equation that looked balanced. But what does that have to do with spirit?"

Lin Jing's voice came from behind them. "If 'spirit' is the crossover point where awareness imposes form on energy, isn't that what balances the equation?" Lin Jing popped out from behind the stairs, as they all turned, with a sheepish smile. "I couldn't help listening in. Am I right?"

Li Qian's mouth quirked. "I'm going to kidnap you back for the lab, if you're not careful," she teased, still a little wan but rallying.

Shen Wei simply nodded. "I believe that's part of it, yes. There is a level other than the cellular, on which living things produce energy. The soul itself is a generative element. That I can tell you for certain, having experienced existence both with and without."

Li Qian opened her mouth, and then closed it again and rubbed a hand over her forehead. "I... all right. All right. Accepting that, for now... are you saying that the experimental results have an impact on this... this spiritually generative aspect of a person, also?"

"Exactly." Shen Wei folded his hands and leaned forward, faint amusement fading into grim sobriety. "And not by developing awareness to deal with that degree of potentiality, of capacity, but by forcing the connection wider. So far, only two people have been able to handle that. One is Guo Changcheng, who is the purest soul I have ever encountered and who shaped his power wholly to compassionate ends, ignoring any other possibilities. The other is Zhao Yunlan, who has been this before."

"Before... Wait." She held up a hand, eyes closed for a moment, clearly ordering her thoughts and questions. "This?"

"Gods," Lin Jing put in, bouncing down onto the couch with a gleeful grin.

Li Qian sputtered for a second over that, before glaring at him and telling Yunlan, "I take it back. You can keep him, Chief Zhao."

Yunlan chuckled, leaning back on his hands. "I suppose I'd better. But it's true, even if the terms seem like what you should find in a children's story. I'm still getting used to it, myself."

"Gods." She scrubbed her hands over her face.

"It's not what you're used to," Shen Wei agreed evenly. "Not what you're taught, any longer, not even as moral metaphors."

She reached for her tea and took a sip, looking down at it. "Ten thousand years," she said, low. "Truly? You've watched over us all for that long?"

"Yes."

She took a deep breath and looked up at him, eyes a little wide but steady. "Then please, Professor Shen. Teach me what we're not taught any longer."

He smiled slowly, immensely proud that this student of his could take such a large step into the unknown, and glanced up at Yunlan. Yunlan nodded firmly.

"Well then, let's start with the history of Kunlun..."

Li Qian felt dizzy and overstuffed with the amount of new information she was trying to fit into her worldview. Grateful, and privileged to hear it right from the source, but also a bit dizzy.

It didn't help when Professor Shen, escorting her out of the SID headquarters, said quietly, "I'm sorry."

She blinked up at him. "For what?"

He paused, and his eyes were dark when he looked down at her. "For not keeping you under my protection longer. If it had been a different year, I would have fought harder to keep you enrolled. I knew anyone I mentored might catch Professor Zhou's attention, and I might have realized that having had one of the Holy Tools in your possession would ensure it."

Even a year later, Professor Shen's astonishing care for his students still made her feel warm right through. The idea of being under the protection of the Black-cloaked Envoy was a little more daunting, but... it was still Shen Wei, wasn't it? The same one who lectured and challenged and coaxed, who encouraged and drove anyone who entered his classroom but also held them safe for that hour or two—or more, if they worked with him outside of class. "Everything you taught me has protected me," she said, simple and sure.

That lightened his expression into the faint, wry smile she was more used to. "Then thank you for being such a good student."

Li Qian ducked her head, pleased. "I'll let you both know, when I have the conversion estimates worked up, and a better idea of how much power someone injected with those results might gain access to."

She hoped, as she slipped out the door, that she'd have them before Professor Shen and Chief Zhao had to face whoever the thief had been. But she also had to admit that she was much less worried, now, about how the SID would deal with whatever they found.

When Shen Wei came back in, he found Yunlan with his feet up on his desk, considering four different profiles on his screen.

"Do you think whoever took it knows the risks?" he asked, flipping a pen through his fingers to tap against his knee every few revolutions.

"We'll know when we see whether they took it themselves or gave it to another." Shen Wei leaned a thigh on the edge of Yunlan's desk, watching him more than the screen. "Yunlan. Be careful, if we get into a fight with this person. You have far greater power, now, but you don't seem to think of it unless you're already concentrating on using it."

Yunlan grimaced, flexing his fingers around the pen. "I know. Some things, the things that are most like me now, are right there, but most of it—most of Kunlun—is kind of wadded up in the back of my head until I go digging." He looked up at Shen Wei with a crooked grin. "You're right there, everything I know about you, or ever knew. But all that power? Not as much."

Shen Wei softened helplessly at the confirmation that he was first in Yunlan's thoughts, but Yunlan's continuing reluctance to use his own power still worried him. "Would it be easier if we went outside the city to practice a little?" Away from anyone who might see or interfere or be injured.

Yunlan looked thoughtful. "It might. I don't want to be out of touch right now, though. We can wait until after this case is wrapped up." Apparently he noticed the frown Shen Wei was trying not to let show too clearly, because he took his feet down and leaned forward, hand on Shen Wei's knee. "I'll be careful, honest."

Shen Wei had some fairly dark thoughts about what Zhao Yunlan considered sufficiently careful, but doubted that was going to change quickly. He laid his hand over Yunlan's and said quietly, "All right."

He hoped they weren't both going to regret that he didn't insist.

Two

Shen Wei stepped softly through the industrial park on the western outskirts of the city, at Yunlanâ€™s shoulder. Most of his attention was on the outward flow of his power and senses, feeling along that flow for the eddy of another powerâ€™s presence. He spared a little attention, though, to cast a sardonic eye over the regular police team walking ahead of them. Despite Yunlanâ€™s best efforts, two of them, the oldest two, were still casting uncertain looks at Chu Shuzhi and even up at the straight-winged shadow of Ya Qing above.

â€œThe old man just couldnâ€™t stand not interfering, could he?â€ Yunlan muttered.

â€œYou dealt with it as well as can be done, before theyâ€™ve seen our work first hand,â€ he murmured back.

Not that Yunlan had wanted to. When their senior officer, Ma Heng, had protested sending SID agents in with the police team tasked to investigate the lab technician Luo Qiang, Shen Wei had seen Yunlan start to smile, start to muster a jest to pass the protest off with, and he'd caught Yunlan's eye and shaken his head. If Yunlan chose to challenge his fatherâ€™s influence in the Ministry, he couldnâ€™t rely on that camouflage any longer. Yunlan had paused with the tiniest of sighs before straightening up. â€œLao-Ma, your own people have determined Luo Qiang is the suspect most likely to have taken the Instituteâ€™s specimens,â€ heâ€™d said, quiet and level, and Shen Wei had seen how Ma Heng shifted back on his heels, startled. â€œThe SID has no intention of trying to take over your investigation. But if Luo Qiang is the thief, and if he or another victim has ingested a sample, your men will be in danger. Containing such danger is our job. Iâ€™m asking you to let us do it, if necessary.â€

â€œWell... I suppose...â€

Yunlan had finally smiled at that and clapped the older man on the shoulder, but even then the smile was closer to the small one he used around his team than the beaming mask he used with the rest of the world. â€œDonâ€™t worry! Weâ€™ll stay back unless it becomes our business.â€

Shen Wei smiled a little himself and nudged lightly against Yunlanâ€™s shoulder, remembering the adroit reassurance, strong-arming, and appeal to procedure that had left Ma Heng nothing to do but agree. Yunlan eyed him sidelong.

â€œYou enjoy it that much, huh, getting to watch someone else have to play politics?â€

â€œI enjoy that much being able to watch you show a little of your true strength,â€ Shen Wei returned, and studiously ignored the faint hitch in Yunlanâ€™s stride.

The more he paid attention to the moments of surprise that answered the faintest praise, the more seriously he considered doing something permanent to Zhao Xinci.

The police team ahead of them spoke quietly to the night guard at Luo Qiangâ€™s new employer, and the most junior fell back to Yunlan and Shen Wei, looking grim. â€œThe night guard confirms that Luo Qiang has been working late often, and that he hasnâ€™t left yet this evening. Weâ€™re going in to question him.â€

â€œWeâ€™ll be right behind you,â€ Yunlan assured him and waved up at Ya Qing, pointing toward the building. She dipped a wing and took up a circle over the roof.

â€œI notice you havenâ€™t tried to actually recruit her,â€ Shen Wei murmured, teasing.

â€œThatâ€™s up to Zhu Hong!â€ Yunlan smirked at Zhu Hongâ€™s rather alarmed look as she joined them, along with Chu Shuzhi and xiao-Guo. â€œIf she wants a consultant of her very own, itâ€™s up to her to convince Ya Qing.â€

Zhu Hong smacked his shoulder, hard, and looked away with a huff as Chu Shuzhi joined in smirking at her. â€œSheâ€™s one of my Elders; the SID doesnâ€™t need to have any official claim on her.â€

â€œYouâ€™re getting better at judging that kind of balance,â€ Shen Wei told her, quietly approving, and suppressed a smile at how she blushed. She used to do that over Yunlan's notice, and he had to admit he approved of the shift in her focus to pride in her leadership ability.

They followed after Ma Hengâ€™s team, through the wide halls of the offices and into the long chemical labs that made up the product research section. Passing down a hall of tall windows that looked onto an interior courtyard with a few trees and benches scattered in it, they could see the only lab with lights still on, on the other side of it. He exchanged a long look with Yunlan, silently agreeing that they were presenting far too obvious a target for anyone who might be watching out.

â€œHave a bad feeling thatâ€™s going to backfire on the old man,â€ Yunlan said, very softly.

â€œProbably unintentionally,â€ since Shen Wei doubted Zhao Xinci had meant for whatever disparaging words heâ€™d spoken to Ma Heng about the SID to make light of the possible danger, â€œbut yes.â€ He shot a quick, warning glance at Chu Shuzhi, who nodded and nudged xiao-Guo out to the side, flanking Yunlan and Shen Wei.

Presence flashed cold and heavy in Shen Weiâ€™s senses and he barely had time to call, â€œDown!â€ before every floor-to-ceiling window around the courtyard shattered.

Fortunately for Shen Wei's cover with the rest of the Ministry, catching objects was a skill heâ€™d enlisted the entire office to drill Yunlan in. It had resulted in a great deal of silliness defended as â€œProfessor Shenâ€™s ordersâ€ but it also meant that green-laced force shot up in front of them all like a cliff face against the avalanche of broken glass thrown at them. Crouched behind that shelter, Chu Shuzhi flexed his fingers, strings starting to gather between them, and xiao-Guo pulled his baton out of his bag and held it tight. Zhu Hong drew in a long breath between parted lips and abruptly reared back. â€œThatâ€™s a Dixingren!â€

â€œYouâ€™re sure of that?â€ Yunlan asked, slowly lowering his hand and power as the last of the glass dropped to the floor.

She nodded firmly. â€œThe scent is really clear.â€ And then she paused, frowning, and added slower, â€œUnusually clear.â€

Shen Wei drew in a sharp breath and his eyes locked with Yunlanâ€™s, just as wide as his own felt. â€œNot a victim. A partner.â€ Luo had given the stolen sample to someone who already had power. No wonder the presence in his senses was so heavy.

â€œWhat better way to get revenge on Ouyang?â€ Yunlan agreed, and reached out to squeeze Ma Hengâ€™s shoulder. â€œGet back, you and your men; back behind some concrete, if you can. This just became the SIDâ€™s business.â€

â€œWe can still back you up,â€ the man insisted. Shen Wei appreciated such staunchness. Perhaps Ma Heng didnâ€™t need to be added to the office's â€˜going to be troubleâ€™ list after all. Yunlan shook his head, though.

â€œThe only thing youâ€™ll be able to do is shoot him. Heâ€™s broken the rules of entry from Dixing but he hasnâ€™t killed anyone. Letâ€™s not have it be us that make it life or death, hm?â€

Shen Wei stifled a sigh. It wasnâ€™t that he didnâ€™t approve of Yunlanâ€™s desire not to kill his people; he did. He just approved Yunlanâ€™s continued wellbeing more strongly.

Ma Heng beckoned his men back, if reluctantly, and Shen Wei stepped carefully across the glass at Yunlanâ€™s side.

There was a man waiting for them, on the other side of the courtyard, and Shen Wei heard Yunlanâ€™s breath draw in harshly. A welter of uncontrolled threads of power spun around the man, shadow twined with eye-hurting shades of red. â€œIs that as bad as I think it looks?â€ Yunlan asked, low.

â€œItâ€™s not much under his control,â€ Shen Wei agreed, â€œand... I think whichever result he took has forced the potential of his soul as well as adding to his power as a ghost.â€

â€œOut of control, unstable, possibly crazy, with two different types of power,â€ Yunlan summed up with a sigh. â€œWonderful.â€ As they edged deeper into the manicured square of grass and trees, he called, "I don't suppose you'd like to come with us quietly?"

The man gave them as unbalanced a grin as Shen Wei had ever seen on one of his people's faces. "When I have the chance to strike down the one who keeps us penned?" Tendrils of his power flicked at Shen Wei like a cat's paw striking, and he deflected them calmly, considering their weight. It was nowhere near his own strength, but heavy enough for what had been more punctuation than a serious attempt to harm.

Yunlan spread his hands wide, a gesture that never failed to make Shen Wei tense up, in the field. "Oh come on! We've got a visiting process all set up, why not use that?" Under cover of his expansiveness, Chu Shuzhi drifted further off to the side, angling toward a clear path of attack.

"As if we don't know what happens to anyone who trusts your laws," the man spat. "As if Lan-jie wasn't killed that way!" Shen Wei had one moment to remember the case of Luo Lan, and the very pointed discussion he'd had with Zhao Xinci about lines of custody and spheres of authority afterwards, and then things happened very quickly.

Chu Shuzhi's burning blue strings wrapped around their opponent only to snap as black and red heaved against them, and Chu took xiao-Guo with him as he dove aside from the return lash of power. Another arm of it crashed down on Shen Wei, and this time he had to brace himself, hands raised to guide his own power as he pushed it back. The storm of red and black surged forward again immediately, this time straight for Yunlan.

And for one split second, Yunlan froze, hand twitching up and then toward his jacket, hovering empty of either gun or power. In that tiny breath of hesitation, their opponent's power struck him, threw him back with an audible thud against the trunk of a tree.

The world seemed to freeze around Shen Wei, crystalizing around a single thought. He should have known. He should have expected this, and thought ahead, and been sure to drill Yunlan to catch another's power just as surely as he did objects. He should have known.

The faint rustle as Yunlan dropped, boneless and silent, to the ground snapped the frozen world into shards, splintering in the rising surge of his rage, and Shen Wei reached deep into himself for the well of his power, restraint abandoned.

Zhu Hong started to dodge out from behind the minimal cover of a bench to drag the Chief around to the other side of the tree, only to stumble to her knees as a crushing weight of power exploded through the courtyard and outward. Qing-jie's alarm call pulled her eyes up to see the crow diving for the roof as dark clouds poured across the whole sky like ink spilled into water. A sharp crack and actinic glow yanked her gaze back down to where Shen Wei stood, rage black in his eyes and the harsh set of his jaw, hand reaching out to call his glaive to him. When the butt of it struck the ground, frost raced outward all around, and threads of lightning licked out from the foxfire glow around him to follow. A rising cyclone of wind caught up shards of glass and pulled on steel beams until the building around them groaned.

Every instinct, both human and serpent, told Zhu Hong to freeze. To huddle still under the weight of that world-shattering fury and hope it passed her by. The last gasp of sensible thought, though, drove her creeping through the grass to Zhao Yunlan, because if he was seriously injured then all that was left was to pray Shen Wei's wrath spared Zhao Yunlan's own team. If he was dead... Zhu Hong's hand was shaking as she reached out to feel his pulse, and she flinched helplessly as lightning split the air and the man they'd come for barely managed to scream before the scent of scorched meat blew over her.

Zhao Yunlan's pulse beat under her fingers.

"He's alive!" The rush of wind and crack of thunder drowned her out, and she drew in a deeper breath to shout it again before the cold, cutting wind and lightning dancing around Shen Wei destroyed the whole industrial park. The attempt strangled when she saw the small, black form diving straight down the throat of the cyclone around them to land at Shen Wei's feet, rising into Qing-jie's human shape, black gown whipping around her on the wind.

"Enough!" Those burning black eyes fell on Ya Qing, and Zhu Hong could see how she flinched back half a step before stiffening her spine; she'd never been more impressed with her lover than she was in this moment. Qing-jie raised her voice again, insistent. "The one you protect is safe!" She pointed toward Zhu Hong and Zhao Yunlan, who thankfully chose that moment groan and stir.

Shen Wei's eyes closed, and Zhu Hong could see the long breath he drew in. As he released it, the wind slackened. Another breath and the clouds thinned, only heavy and gray now instead of that terrifying, lightning-laced black. When Shen Wei opened his eyes again, Zhu Hong thought there was sense in them, and relief made her hands shaky as she propped Zhao Yunlan mostly upright. She could see Qing-jie's feathers and cloak trembling from across the courtyard.

Shen Wei finally released his glaive, and his words dropped into the falling quiet. "You have never lacked for courage, Ya Qing."

Qing-jie bowed silently, and Zhu Hong only waited until Shen Wei had come to take the Chief from her before scrambling to Qing-jie's side. Sure enough, she was shaking harder than Zhu Hong. "Are you all right?" Zhu Hong asked, anxious.

"I am." Qing-jie leaned on her. "I would rather not do that again, though."

Zhu Hong hugged her tight, uncaring for any watching eyes as lao-Chu and xiao-Guo and a few police slowly emerged from shelter.

Shen Wei helped Yunlan to his feet, unable to keep his hands from patting him down, heart still beating fast and hard. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Yunlan waved one hand, though he kept the other clamped on Shen Wei's shoulder. It made his attempt at insouciance only mildly convincing. "Just some bruises, I'll be fine." His brows rose higher the longer he looked around the scorched, frozen, and wind-battered courtyard. "Well. I guess now we know what shape your power takes most easily. Storm, huh?"

"You were injured," Shen Wei pointed out acerbically. "What would you expect?"

"Not quite this much violence, maybe?" Yunlan eyed a cracked steel support beam. When he looked back to meet Shen Wei's tight-lipped glare, though, he stilled for a long moment and then glanced aside. "Guess I should be more careful, then."

"I would appreciate it greatly." Shen Wei blew out a breath and made himself ease back from the edge of temper that panic had pushed him up on. "You will never not be the most important thing to me," he added, more softly, "but I will try to restrain myself, yes. I... wasn't quite prepared for how much more power I truly have to draw on, now."

Yunlan glanced over his shoulder and grimaced. "Is our suspect still alive?"

"Yes. For now," Shen Wei bit out, and had to yank his temper back down again. "Though he could probably do with a hospital visit."

"All right." Yunlan rubbed the back of his head gingerly. "I could maybe do with a checkup myself, I suppose." He turned to check on everyone else and his mouth curled up, rueful and amused, when he got to the police team. "And then we'd probably better visit Minister Guo."

Shen Wei pulled his brain back into line, along with his temper, and sighed as he contemplated the abrupt change in the shape of their campaign within the Ministry, with his identity revealed. "We'd better go in ready to tell him who you are, as well."

Yunlan's glance was as sharp as ever, even if his balance seemed shaky. "Mm. You think we can work him around that quickly, from panic that the Zhao he was hanging his hat on is outside his control to appreciation that he's got more than just a Zhao in his corner?"

Even with his growing concern, as Yunlan leaned more heavily on his shoulder, a part of Shen Wei relaxed into the warm comfort of a partner whose thoughts matched his. "He focuses on the bigger picture, whenever he has a chance to. It's why he chose you for his side, after all."

Yunlan made a thoughtful noise and pulled out his phone to take pictures of the scene, especially of the torn construction materials and trees. Shen Wei smiled helplessly at Yunlan's instinct for the most dramatic presentation possible and glanced around the courtyard. Chu Shuzhi was over by their criminal with a rather green looking xiao-Guo, taking the precaution of trussing the man up with ties. Shen Wei approved. Zhu Hong had righted a bench for Ya Qing and was on her own phone, demanding emergency vehicles. Ma Heng was edging towards them with white showing all the way around his eyes. Shen Wei nudged Yunlan gently, so he'd stop snapping pictures and notice.

"Xiao-Zhao," Ma Heng started, keeping his eyes fixed on Yunlan, voice rather thin. Yunlan smiled at him as calmly as if he dealt with such destruction every day, which was... less untrue that Shen Wei really wished, given the last few years.

"Lao-Ma. We'll take care of custody for this suspect, since he falls into our area. Are any of your men injured?"

"No, but..." He twitched as Shen Wei stirred, and Shen Wei took care to keep his voice low and soothing, the way he would for a student who was anxious over an exam.

"Did your men find Luo Qiang here?"

Ma Heng blinked, shaken at least a little out of his fear. "I... no?"

"Please make sure a search for him is started, then. If this man was mad enough to attack me, he may have been mad enough to kill his own collaborator."

Ma Heng nodded slowly, eyes skittering around the courtyard. "Yes, of course. We'll keep looking." He seemed to rally a little, as Shen Wei made no move to strike him down, and waved an arm around as he turned back to Yunlan. "But what was that?! Who...? What...?" His glance kept flickering toward Shen Wei.

Yunlan held up a hand. "That's not general knowledge, I'm afraid. I'll be sure to ask the Minister to address it for you, though, since you were right in the middle of our work, this time."

"The Minister knows?" Ma Heng seized on that implication, looking hopeful.

Yunlan held up his phone, still showing his last photo of the courtyard. "I'll be reporting to him as soon as the hospital lets me go."

Ma Heng slumped a little in obvious relief. "Right. Yes, of course. I'll take care of informing the company, xiao-Zhao, you go on." He bustled off, fortunately before Shen Wei lost control of the bubble of laughter in his chest.

"You're very good at talking around the truth. I'll have to remember that."

Yunlan's lean against him turned a little less heavy and a little more deliberate. "It's a talent." And then he winced at the sound of approaching sirens, immediately quelling Shen Wei's amusement.

"Zhu Hong." She jumped as if he'd stuck her with a pin instead of called her name, eyes wide as she looked around, but she wasn't shaking any more when she came over. Shen Wei gave her a steady, approving nod, and her spine straightened a little more. "Can you deal with the scene, here? I'd like to get him over to the hospital."

She took a good breath. "Yes. I'll take care of the rest."

He paused, considering her, and tipped his head toward where Ya Qing sat on her salvaged bench, looking composed once again. "Thank Ya Qing for me. You chose well, in the one who will support you."

Zhu Hong instantly forgot the remainder of her nerves and ducked her head, blushing pink.

"Call Cong Bo, while you're at it," Yunlan added over his shoulder as Shen Wei turned them around. "Tell him to make sure there are no leaks from the police side. Yet."

"Yet?" Shen Wei asked, keeping an arm around Yunlan as they threaded their way back through the halls.

"I might suggest some of the information go out that way. Did you see how Cai Peng and Ye Xiuying were looking at you?" Yunlan smiled. "Once they got over the first shock, I think they kind of approved."

Shen Wei looked over at him, brows lifted and Yunlan elbowed him lightly.

"It's not just my personal maniacs that can appreciate you, you know. What else was the past eight months worth of campaigning about?"

"I was under the impression it was to reduce fear of my people," Shen Wei noted dryly.

"That too, of course." Yunlan smiled at the catch in Shen Wei's stride, perfectly serene. Shen Wei tried, as they emerged into a parking lot increasingly crowded with emergency vehicles, not to be visibly flustered by the curl of pleasure at Yunlan's regard, so familiar and so dearly missed for so long. Yunlan leaned into him a little more and murmured against his ear, "You said it yourself, didn't you? You'll always be the most important thing, to me."

Shen Wei was aware the paramedic was giving him a rather odd look as she escorted them toward one of the two ambulances. He really couldn't help the brightness of his smile, though.

Three

By the time they got to the Ministry, both temper and pleasure had settled a bit and Shen Wei felt prepared, if not exactly ready, to deal with politics. He watched Minister Guo carefully for any signs of distress, but the worst he saw was a hard swallow or two as Guo Ying looked through Yunlan's pictures of the destroyed courtyard. He was not, therefore, surprised when the Minister passed over protestations of 'impossible' or questions of 'how'.

"Why was I not informed this was a possibility?"

Shen Wei exchanged a swift glance with Yunlan and returned his tiny nod; this was as good an opening as they would get. He settled back in his seat, legs crossed, and rested his folded hands on his knee, reaching for professorial rather than otherworldly authority. "I could have told you of that, at least, yes. Or rather, I could have told you a half lie. The truth is something it will be very difficult for you to believe, Minister Guo; that would have been so even before your kind burned your own history. It's been thousands of years, now, since scholars started to believe that because gods no longer walk the world to be seen, they never existed at all."

Guo Ying jerked back in his chair. "Are you claiming to be a god, as well as the Envoy?"

"I am, yes." Shen Wei smiled faintly, aware that Yunlan was having a certain amount of fun watching this. The Minister, on the other hand, was starting to look a little wild around the eyes. "I did say this would be difficult to believe. It may help, though, if you consider: what is a god?"

"That... But...!"

"A soul. A spirit. A personality. A body," Shen Wei continued calmly. "Gods have same parts of being any other living, thinking creature has. But in them, far more than in humans or ghosts, those parts are mutable, answering to the will. And the potential power bound up within them is... well." He waved a hand at the phone still clutched in the Minister's hand. "As you see. That was actually a fairly mild response, as these things go."

Guo Ying scrubbed a palm over his face, took a breath, and visibly pushed aside his shock. "Leaving the details aside, two things about this concern me. One is, as you say, the potential power and potential catastrophe walking around the city." He stared down at the phone again and added, with a distinct edge of disbelief, "Teaching university classes."

Yunlan snickered and, at the Minister's brief glower, turned his laugh into several unconvincing coughs. Shen Wei leaned a little more firmly against his shoulder; he suspected the painkillers the hospital had given Yunlan were taking effect, though he also had to admit that Yunlan didn't have much respect for authority on the best of days. Fortunately, the attentive look Shen Wei turned on the Minister was a bit more convincing. Guo Ying, demonstrating a pleasing degree of wisdom, focused on him.

"The second concern is the political issue of having a foreign head of state working within the Ministry."

"I guess we could always take you off the official payroll," Yunlan suggested, eyes still bright with amusement.

To Shen Wei's interest, Guo Ying flapped an impatient hand. "That's not the problem. 'Consultant' can cover a lot of ground, and we've done this once with Chief Elder Zhu Hong already. The problem is that this needs to be documented, with scopes of authority laid out, and approved at the highest levels of our government. Anything else is asking for very serious trouble at the lower levels." He straightened up and continued as formally as if they were, indeed, meeting in their most official capacities, "Is there anyone who can confirm your identity, for the record, Your Eminence?"

"Aside from every one of my people now resident in the city?" Shen Wei asked, a bit dryly, but shook his head at the Minister's frustrated expression. "I know you need someone not under my direct influence." He glanced at Yunlan, questioning. There was one possibility, but that one came with his own problems. Yunlan took a slow breath, looking down at his hands, and finally nodded. Shen Wei quietly rested a hand over Yunlan's as he turned back to Guo. "Zhao Xinci has known my identity for some time."

The Minister's eyes narrowed just a little. "Did he."

Guo Ying had long considered Zhao Xinci the exemplar of a specific type of career Ministry employee. He was only modestly talented; he got results through persistent and methodical work, rather than through brilliance. He was also intensely loyal to the Ministry itself, valuing proceedure and the Ministry's reputation above all else. Guo Ying had never considered that entirely admirable, though he was aware many other members of the Ministry did admire Zhao Xinci for it.

So Guo Ying had been careful, when he'd become Minister. He'd taken Zhao Xinci's smiling support with a grain of salt. And when Zhao Yunlan had finally stepped up to oppose his fatherâ€™s anti-Dixing agenda directly, Guo Ying had placed his trust with the one of them he knew to hold ferociously to integrity and compassion. That hadn't changed the fact that Zhao Xinci was his head of the Supervisory Bureau, though, so when Zhao Xinci stepped into his office today, Guo Ying nodded courteously.

"Director Zhao, thank you for joining us."

Zhao Xinciâ€™s glance turned hard for one small second, as it passed over Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei, but smoothed again into a warm smile. â€œOf course, Minister. How can I assist?â€

Guo Ying passed over the by-play, the way heâ€™d been doing all year. â€œIt has become necessary to have a member of the Ministry confirm Shen Weiâ€™s identity. Would you be willing to do so, for the record?â€

Zhao Xinciâ€™s smile abruptly froze, and his head snapped around to direct that cold look at Shen Wei. A crinkle ran down Guo Yingâ€™s spine, seeing Shen Weiâ€™s polite patience fall away, in turn. Watching Shen Weiâ€™s eyes turn hard, he realized just how much care the man had been taking to be courteous and accommodating.

â€œYou said this would never need to go beyond the SID,â€ Zhao Xinci said flatly.

â€œYou forget yourself,â€ Shen Wei cut back, cold. â€œWas that treaty made with you, or even the Office of Dixing Affairs, as was? It was not. I said that knowledge of my identity need not go beyond the SID, as things stood.â€ He spread his hands flat against the table, and Guo Ying didnâ€™t think it was entirely his imagination that there was a flicker of light around them. â€œDo not think that you ever had control over me, Zhao Xinci. My first bargain was never with you.â€

That caught Guo Yingâ€™s attention on the political level again, and he held out a quieting hand toward Zhao Xinci and reached for formality to lay over the tension in the room like a fire blanket. â€œMay I ask who it was with, Your Eminence, as this appears to have some bearing on Dixing and human relations?â€

Some of the chill faded from Shen Weiâ€™s bearing, and he inclined his head gracefully to Guo Ying. â€œYou may. When Kunlun, god of mountains, sacrificed himself to create the Lamp and make way for returning human life, I bargained with Shen Nong to see his soul reincarnated as a human. My part of the bargain was to guard humans from my own kind, even to the destruction of every one of us should the seal between realms break again.â€

Guo Ying jerked back in his chair, honestly shocked by the brutality of such a demand. â€œThat seems... extreme.â€

â€œOnly sensible, surely,â€ Zhao Xinci murmured, and Guo Ying suppressed a passing urge to gag his Director of Supervision with his own tie. Was it really necessary to antagonize an apparent ally with the kind of power it was clear Shen Wei wielded?

Shen Wei didnâ€™t even shrug, though, merely flicked his fingers dismissively. â€œFrom the viewpoint of the god who most loved humanity, after Nuwa herself, yes. The nature of my kind, in and of itself, was inimical to humans.â€

â€œThatâ€™s changed now, though,â€ Zhao Yunlan put in quietly, completely focused on Shen Wei, even to the exclusion of his father for once, which caught Guo Ying's attention. â€œThat old mistake is healed. Your bargain is fulfilled.â€

The iron hard line of Shen Weiâ€™s shoulders eased just a little, and he smiled faintly at Zhao Yunlan. â€œAlmost. When there are methods in place to regulate interaction that donâ€™t require the threat of my power to secure... then perhaps I will think it done.â€

Guo Ying relaxed, himself, at this calming of the atmosphere, at least until he noticed the hard look Zhao Xinci was giving his son. â€œYou donâ€™t think it a bit presumptuous to declare an end to someone elseâ€™s agreement?â€ the Director asked.

Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei both went very still, and tension wound itself back up Guo Yingâ€™s spine as he tried to anticipate how they might react, and once again damned Zhao Xinciâ€™s intractable distaste for Dixing and the powers of its people. Shen Wei quietly turned his hand palm up, and Zhao Yunlan closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, Guo Ying found himself frozen by the weight of his gaze, a bottomless depth that wasnâ€™t calm but was knowing.

â€œThat bargain was made for my sake. I am not apart from it.â€

Guo Ying felt like heâ€™d physically tripped over something, the conclusion that presented itself was such a shock. Which was, perhaps, why his normal grasp on diplomacy deserted him and he actually said out loud, â€œAh. Two gods on my payroll, then?â€

Apparently it was the right approach, though, because the momentary smile that flashed over Shen Weiâ€™s face was wry, perhaps even sympathetic, and the weight of Zhao Yunlanâ€™s quiet certainty melted into a sheepish grin. â€œYeah, well, apparently dying and being re-formed out of pure energy will do that to you sometimes.â€

Guo Ying blinked. â€œDying?â€

Zhao Yunlan paused, mouth open for a moment, and then stared at the ceiling. â€œAh. We hadnâ€™t gotten around to mentioning that part, had we?â€

â€œYunlan!â€ Zhao Xinci snapped, abruptly tense. And it seemed that the intimidating weight of Zhao Yunlanâ€™s presence hadnâ€™t dissipated so much as been set aside, because it fell back around him like a cloak as he turned to stare at his father for a long, silent moment.

â€œZhang Shi was wrong to ever take a host without their consent," he said at last. "Even your pragmatism has limits, and you were already wounded by that intrusion when you lost Mother to another Dixingren.â€ Zhao Yunlanâ€™s eyes were dark and heavy and old, holding his fatherâ€™s. â€œI know that he probably influenced you far more strongly than you ever admitted, during the crisis two years ago. But youâ€™re free of that now. Isnâ€™t it time you decided for yourself what it is you think and feel?â€

Zhao Xinci was pressed back in his chair, shoulders stiff, jaw set.

This sounded like a far deeper problem than Guo Ying had ever thought lay behind Zhao Xinciâ€™s hostility to Dixing. If so, though, he absolutely needed to know the full story, and Zhao Xinci did not look the slightest bit willing to tell it. â€œDirector Zhao,â€ Ying said, softly, â€œI think I need to speak with these gentlemen alone. Please write up that affidavit confirming the Black-cloaked Envoyâ€™s civilian identity, will you?â€

Zhao Xinci composed himself with the kind of speed Guo Ying didn't entirely believe. â€œOf course, Minister.â€

Guo Ying waited for the door to close quietly behind him before turning back to his increasingly complicated visitors. â€œPerhaps,â€ he requested, a bit tightly, â€œyou could tell me the whole of this story from the beginning?â€

Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan exchanged another long, speaking look and nodded to each other.

Shen Wei let Yunlan tell most of the story, this time. A quick glance between them agreed on it: what they needed now was a human's perspective on what it meant to change oneâ€™s nature as Yunlan had. That was the perspective closest to Guo Yingâ€™s heart, and the viewpoint most likely to make sense of what might otherwise seem utterly alien—Yunlan's power, Zhang Shi's centuries of interference.

Thinking about how this fit into their campaign helped distract him from the tangle of his emotions: worry over Yunlan's tension from the moment his father had entered the room; immense irritation with Zhao Xinci; the shock of breathless warmth, hearing the weight of their past in Yunlan's voice; calculation of just what penalties he might need to bring to bear on Zhang Shi, and how much of that story he might get from Yunlan. He needed to think about all of those, but not in the middle of a meeting with the human Ministry.

When Yunlan had finished, the Minister clasped his hands tight before him on the table and asked quietly, â€œThis came to you because of your past and the Lamp. That I can understand, even if it still seems strange. But what is happening to Changcheng?â€

Yunlan passed the question to Shen Wei with a glance. â€œThe same thing thatâ€™s happened to humans from the beginning,â€ Shen Wei answered, just as quietly. â€œThis is a door that has always been within all of you. Sometimes humans have found the key to it by long virtue and reflection. Sometimes you've stumbled through it by accident, and a life lived so intensely in one direction that the weight of it pushes the door open. Professor Ouyang found, not a key, but an axe. The people he injected found the door broken down without any of that preparation.â€ Shen Wei opened a hand toward the man sitting at his side, quiet and a little wrung out if Shen Wei was any judge. â€œZhao Yunlan had other memories to rely on, to help him when that happened, yes. But your nephew was not wholly without such aid. Guo Changcheng had his own purity of purpose and spirit, and those have brought him through the change safely. Be at ease, Minister Guo. Your nephew will be well.â€

Yunlan leaned forward, hands clasped loosely on the table, every line of his body projecting reassurance to support Shen Wei's words. â€œWeâ€™re not saying itâ€™s all going to be easy. The gift he found in himself isnâ€™t a light one. But heâ€™s still one of my people, and I keep my people safe.â€

The Minister looked up at that, caught by something in Yunlanâ€™s words. â€œYes, you do,â€ he agreed, slowly, and finally sat back. â€œThatâ€™s the essential heart of my job as well. If I can trust you to take care of your part...â€

Yunlan gave him a firm nod, eyes steady on his. â€œI will, Minister Guo.â€

Guo Ying returned it. â€œAll right, then.â€ He took a breath and turned back to Shen Wei. â€œYour Eminence. I have to admit that itâ€™s extremely irregular to employ a foreign head of state in the Ministry. But we've made use of legal fictions plenty of times in the past, and I have to offer my compliments on just how solid a legal fiction Professor Shen Wei is. If your people will also be willing to abide by the fiction, I believe this can be made to work.â€

â€œMy people are extremely adaptable,â€ Shen Wei noted, dryly. It was a massive understatement, given their lack of any internal ordering principle until this very year. If this was how he meant to go on, well, there was no better time to establish the precedent. He glanced at Yunlan, meaning to voice the question, only to smile wryly and let the breath out unused. Yunlan looked back at him, unwavering support in his steady gaze. â€œI will convey this news to the Regent, and to my people living as citizens here.â€

â€œAll right, then.â€ Guo Ying held out his hand. â€œThank you for your support, Professor Shen.â€

Shen Wei huffed a soft laugh, amused by the manâ€™s mix of forthright honesty and pragmatism, and reached back to shake his hand. â€œMy pleasure, Minister Guo.â€

â€œGood. Now.â€ Guo Ying ran his hands through his hair. â€œPlease get out of town for a week or so, both of you, while I figure out how to break this news to the rest of the Ministry.â€

Yunlan laughed and pushed upright. â€œSure thing, Minister.â€ Shen Wei smiled and followed him.

As they made their way through the halls of the Ministry headquarters, Yunlan gave him a sidelong glance. â€œSo. We never did get to have a honeymoon, did we?â€

â€œWe never did find time to train you properly in using your power, either,â€ Shen Wei countered, a fact that was now weighing harder than ever on his mind.

â€œDual purpose trip?â€ Yunlan offered in a hopeful tone. â€œOut of the city somewhere?â€

â€œI suppose that would be acceptable,â€ Shen Wei allowed, and rolled his eyes a little at the cheery arm Yunlan draped across his shoulders as they stepped out the front doors, and the way it made the building guards smirk. They were always amused by Chief Zhao teasing the reserved Professor Shen, and Yunlan seemed to like putting on that show. Shen Wei didn't actually protest, of course. Heâ€™d never really been able to say no to Yunlan.

As far as he could tell, the entire world had much the same problem, so he didnâ€™t worry too much about it.

â€œSo, just us this time?â€ Yunlan asked, as he started the car. â€œNo kids along?â€

â€œI believe thatâ€™s traditional, yes.â€ Shen Wei leaned back against the seat, reaching for all the small, familiar things to settle himself again. The rumble of the Jeep's frankly overpowered engine. The way Yunlan shrugged himself more comfortably into his seat. The habitual flick of Yunlan's eyes over the dash and mirrors, ending on Shen Wei himself.

"Are you all right?" Yunlan asked quietly, hands resting still on the wheel. "Usually it's me losing his temper with the old man, not you."

Shen Wei closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the spark of his own potential-nearly-actual along his skin, power still roused up and only barely waiting to be used. He suspected it would take a while to calm all the way. "I will be."

"Hey." The warmth of Yunlan's hand on his cheek made him look around. Yunlan was smiling, small and soft, the intimate smile that was just for him. "I won't leave you again."

Shen Wei jerked taut before he could stop himself, fear leaping up from where it lurked in the back of his mind, as soon as it was named. "Yunlan..."

"Shh, shh, xiao-Wei." Yunlan leaned across their seats, thumb stroking gently over Shen Wei's cheek. "Listen to me. I promise I will do everything in my power to stay with you. All right?"

Shen Wei searched the bright eyes so steady on his own. "Everything?" he asked softly. Today had demonstrated very clearly that Yunlan wasn't entirely comfortable with his own regained capacity.

Yunlan's smile turned a little crooked, but he didn't look away. "Everything. I promise."

Zhao Yunlan made very few promises, Shen Wei had noticed, and never lightly. He took a slow breath and let this one settle into his heart and mind, let it soothe back the bared edge of fear. "All right."

Yunlan leaned in a little further and kissed him, sweet and warm, before settling back and putting the car in gear. "Good. So where should we go?"

Shen Wei cast a thoughtful look up over the roofs of the city to the mountains, remembering what they'd said a few weeks ago about places Yunlan might be comfortable practicing with his power. "I think I know of a place we can use." And maybe the idea of a 'honeymoon' was a good one, after all. Perhaps, away from both of their jobs and people and responsibilities for a while, they could find some peace that was for themselves and not just other people.

He hoped so. Even Yunlan's promise couldn't immediately unwind the fear from ten thousand years of watching humans die with such terrifying ease.

Not immediately, but with a little time... maybe.

End

The Heavens' Gracious Restraint

Shen Wei has a judgement to make. Zhao Yunlan just wants to understand his family. Drama with Quiet Angst, I-3

Shen Wei glanced over his shoulder at Yunlan's rather set expression as they climbed the stairs to Li Huiliang's small apartment. "You really didn't need to come."

"Unless you want to make this a purely Dixing-internal matter and send Zhang Shi back, yeah I do." Yunlan jammed his hands a little deeper into his jacket pockets. "You know the Minister won't count you as SID oversight. Besides, he's the one of them that I actually like at least a little bit."

Which was exactly why Shen Wei hadn't wanted Yunlan to be present, but once Yunlan had started confronting his father, he didn't seem to want to stop. It was starting to make Shen Wei nervous, wondering where it would end and whether Yunlan's heart would still be in one piece by then.

Zhang Shi opened the door quickly, at his knock, brows rising as she saw both of them waiting. "Did something come up at the Division?"

"No." Shen Wei let the weight of his responsibilities settle over him, and saw the reflection of it in the half step back Zhang Shi took. "Things have come to my attention that must be addressed."

Zhang Shi was still for a moment. "I see." She stepped back and gestured them in. Yunlan took one of the chairs, but Shen Wei shook his head at the silent offer and went to stand at the window, looking out.

"How often have you taken a host without consent?"

"At least half of them," Zhang Shi answered promptly. "I'm sure you know how easily humans die. Sometimes death took long enough for me to ask the next one, but often not. And there were only a few I was sure enough of to ask before that point; anything else would have risked my purpose."

"Was Ma Gui really that ruthless?" A glance over Shen Wei's shoulder showed that Yunlan was leaning back with his legs stretched out, looking more casual than his thoughtful tone suggested. "The version the Lamp showed didn't seem like that." He cocked his head at Shen Wei. "Or did the Lamp mess with Zhang Shi, too?"

Shen Wei knew the sound he made was too harsh for amusement. "A little, I'm sure, but most of the damage was done well before that. This century was hardly the first time death has swept this land, but I've never tasted such madness in the very air as there was here for a while. Ghosts have... had no generative, ordering principle of their own. It swept my whole people into chaos along with the humans it touched. There aren't more than a score who came through that with memory and personality intact." He glanced at Zhang Shi, who was rubbing her hands down her arms as if cold. "I have no doubt it affected Zhang Shi as well, even protected by a human host. As for Ma Gui... no. But obsession is part of our nature."

"Oh come on," Yunlan protested. "I've never seen you act like that!" He was frowning a little, though, as if his own thoughts nagged at him, and Shen Wei managed a faint smile.

"Not often, no. But consider who it was that gifted me with part of a different nature." The flicker of amusement drowned quickly under the weight of his own memories. "Even so, it took a very long time before I could pay attention to anything but the path of your soul and lives." His eyes fell on Zhang Shi again, and she looked up as if she felt the weight. "Do not think I don't know how that imprint of purpose gripped you. But that is one of the reasons ghosts were barred from this world."

Zhang Shi stood straight, hands clasped before her. "I understand."

"Then answer me," Shen Wei ordered, quiet and level. "Did you ever cause the death of a host?"

Her chin lifted. "I did not."

The chill fear he'd felt ever since he'd heard Yunlan say Zhang Shi had forced Zhao Xinci eased. He would not have to execute his lover's sometime father, at least. "During the invasion two years ago, did you influence the will of your host, rather than simply block him?"

Zhang Shi's eyes did not fall. "I did," she admitted steadily. "Zhao Xinci is a strong-willed man, and he was fighting too hard for me to reliably block his actions."

Yunlan closed his eyes for a breath, turning his head away. It was an expression that said he'd thought so but still didn't like to hear the confirmation. Shen Wei weighed Zhang Shi's unruffled, unrepentant calm and stifled a sigh.

"I do not discount your reasons, but you will continue to be the kind of trespasser I cannot ignore if you take a host again." He straightened, holding her gaze. "My judgement, then, is that you may not take another host. This body will be your last. Do you agree to this?"

Zhang Shi flinched at his words, but regathered herself quickly. "Your gift to your people at least makes that a new beginning rather than a final end. I will abide by your judgement, my Lord Envoy."

Shen Wei nodded, as satisfied as he could be with this balance. "Then you may remain in this world."

Zhang Shi relaxed from her straight, waiting posture into a relieved smile and gave him a quick bow. "Thank you, Lord." Yes, as much hold as the purpose she'd imprinted still had on her, he'd thought it would be like that. And perhaps the value of the family she'd been part of, however covertly, was part of that relief as well.

As if he'd heard the thought, Yunlan looked up from his clasped hands and asked, quietly, "Were there other times you pushed him like that, before the end?"

Zhang Shi hesitated. "Not like that, no, but... Two minds, two beings, in one body means there's constant pressure, constant contact between us. It was actually very disorienting when we separated and I didn't feel that any more."

Shen Wei watched Yunlan hesitate for a long moment, expressions chasing each other across his face. Shen Wei thought he saw understanding and also something like horror before Yunlan closed his eyes again and took a slow breath, in and out. "You miss him, huh?" he asked.

Zhang Shi smiled, tight and crooked—a smile Shen Wei had seen a few times on Zhao Xinci's face. "He's not an easy man to get along with, I know, but... yes."

"No, I think I get it." Yunlan pushed himself up out of his seat and reached out to rest a hand very briefly on Zhang Shi's shoulder. "I'm glad you'll be able to stay."

Zhang Shi's smile eased into something gentler. "So am I."

Shen Wei got them out the door as quickly as possible, attention more on Yunlan's disquiet than his own parting words. "Yunlan?" he asked softly, as they reached the Jeep. Yunlan stopped and leaned against the side with a tired-sounding sigh, arms tightly folded.

"What a mess." He looked up as Shen Wei turned to block view of him from the sidewalk. There was a helpless quirk to his smile, as if he'd gotten stuck halfway through trying to be reassuring. "After however many thousand years, and who knows how many hosts, I still don't think Zhang Shi really gets what it means for a human mind—hell, for any other mind—to be constantly encroached on like that. The old man must have felt like a hostage situation in his own head for a decade and a half. And yet Zhang Shi is still the one of them I don't actually resent."

Shen Wei stepped closer and slid his hands over Yunlan's shoulders, a little hesitant, glad when Yunlan let his head fall and rested his forehead on Shen Wei's shoulder. "When I first saw how upset you were by mention or sign of your father," he said softly, running his fingers through Yunlan's hair, "I thought it was something smaller. The anger of a child at an absent parent, perhaps. I thought it was a shame, because I had seen that he did care for you. When you took over the SID, he requested my presence simply to ask me to stay away from you as much as I could." Yunlan made an irritated sound against his shoulder.

"Tried to tell me to stay away from you, too, when the other way around didn't work."

Shen Wei's smile was rueful as he curved his hand protectively over the nape of Yunlan's neck. "Yes. And I thought that was an overreaction, but at least a caring one. It wasn't until we confronted Wang Xiangyang and I saw you together, saw the way Zhao Xinci chose to try to keep you from offering yourself in his place, that I started to understand how long and harshly he must have discounted all your strengths." He gathered Yunlan closer and said softly, against his ear, "Don't be angry with yourself about this. Zhang Shi was the one who showed you at least some warmth, even if it was at Zhao Xinci's expense. I have to admit, he's the one of them I have less anger for, myself, even though he's the criminal of the two."

Finally, the tight line of Yunlan's shoulders eased a little, and he reached out to wrap his hands around Shen Wei's arms. "I really am glad Zhang Shi is staying," he admitted, low. "Knowing he approves feels kind of like having my dad's approval. I just kind of hate that I still need that, and that it doesn't change, knowing Zhang Shi has a really broken moral compass."

The sharp clarity of Yunlan's vision, even into himself, put a purr into Shen Wei's voice. "You are magnificent, Zhao Yunlan. Never doubt that."

That made Yunlan laugh a little, and when he lifted his head his smile was wry but warm. "In your unbiased opinion?"

"In my extensive experience," Shen Wei corrected, smiling back. And that was quite enough time spent on Yunlan's one and a half fathers. "So, shall we go finish packing?"

"Yeah, all right." The head shake Yunlan gave him said he knew perfectly well he was being diverted, but he still pulled out his keys and got in. Shen Wei opened his own door, satisfied for the time being.

And all the while, he carefully kept his mind turned away from his lingering suspicion of who, exactly, might have told Yunlan how to rekindle the Lamp. It would have been an abuse of his authority to let that suspicion influence his official judgement. As for his personal judgement, Yunlan wished for Zhang Shi to stay. As long as Zhang Shi served faithfully, as a member of the SID, Shen Wei would stay his hand.

He thought that he and Zhang Shi probably understood each other, on that point.

End

Sinking in the Deep Waters

Minister Guo and Zhao Xinci try to deal with some of the things revealed about Zhao Xinci's past, and decide what it will mean for the future. Drama, I-3

When Guo Ying knocked on the door of Zhao Xinciâ€™s office, his Director of Supervision looked wary. Guo Ying wasnâ€™t surprised. Heâ€™d taken time to prepare himself for this meeting, and that had included some necessarily vague discussion with both the psychologists the Ministry kept on retainer. While he hadnâ€™t been comfortable giving them any details, theyâ€™d both been firm that someone whoâ€™d suffered any breach of personal integrity—body or mind—would resist any interference in his coping methods. Guo Ying wished it wasn't necessary to interfere at all. Unfortunately, Zhao Xinciâ€™s resurgence of hostility toward Dixing was having a serious impact on attitudes among Guo Yingâ€™s other Directors and upper administrators. It wasnâ€™t that he didnâ€™t think Zhao Xinci had a right to his anger; he just couldnâ€™t afford to let it shape Ministry actions.

â€œDo you have a moment for a word?â€

Zhao Xinci eyed him for a long moment, but finally sat back with a sigh. â€œCome in, Minister.â€ He pushed up to his feet and came around to the set of chairs in front of the desk. The action was promising, even if Zhao Xinci's apparent resignation wasn't very.

Ying closed the door and joined him. â€œHave you had a chance to think about what Zhao Yunlan said in our meeting last week?â€ Because he was watching for it, he saw Zhao Xinciâ€™s momentary grimace, and added dryly, â€œI know the two of you approach things very differently, but it seemed he had a point.â€

That pulled a half smile out of Zhao Xinci. â€œWe do. And I continue to think that Yunlan relies far too much on intuition.â€ The smile tilted. â€œSometimes he does get results, with it, I admit.â€

Guo Ying sighed and leaned his elbows on his knees, looking down at his laced fingers. â€œLao-Zhao, you have a right to be angry. More than angry. I would never deny that.â€

Zhao Xinci leaned into the opening immediately. â€œAnd Zhang Shi is an example of one of their least harmful.â€

â€œI would actually call him one of the more insidious.â€ That made Zhao Xinci still, watchful, and Guo Ying nodded to himself. The Director was still trying to deflect attention from that personal cost. â€œI asked about his past. The Envoy cautioned that memory has been an unreliable thing in most of his kind, but from what they can tell Zhang Shi really did sneak out among humans thousands of years ago and was recruited by Ma Gui.â€

Zhao Xinciâ€™s eyes sharpened. â€œRecruited? As an agent to oversee Dixing Affairs?â€

â€œThatâ€™s what it sounds like, yes.â€ More quietly, Guo Ying added, â€œI donâ€™t think either of our peoples has a monopoly on questionable ethics.â€ Which he was hoping to steer his Director of Supervision away from. Zhao Xinci's eyes flickered aside for a split second, which was encouraging. At least the man did still know that what he'd done wasn't always righteous. Zhao Xinci huffed a faint breath.

â€œPerhaps, but itâ€™s Dixingren powers that increase the impact.â€

â€œAny power increases the impact,â€ something Guo Ying had become sharply aware of when he took over as Minister. â€œWeapons. Political power. Youâ€™ve seen a great deal of that, in your career, havenâ€™t you?â€

â€œAnd we control access to those things, donâ€™t we?â€ Zhao Xinci returned.

â€œSo tell me about what we should be doing to screen visitors from Dixing.â€ Zhao Xinciâ€™s mouth tightened, and Guo Ying shook his head. â€œLao-Zhao, they exist. We canâ€™t pretend they donâ€™t. But we can put policies in place to reduce the risk, just like we screen people who want to join the Armed Police.â€ Quieter, he added, â€œHelp me think about how to keep the things youâ€™re worried about from happening again.â€

Zhao Xinciâ€™s hands tightened on each other where they were laced on his knee, and he was silent for a long minute. â€œWe need to be able to see their Register,â€ he said, at last.

Guo Ying restrained an urge to do a small, undignified dance of victory in his chair. â€œI will bring that up with them immediately.â€

Zhao Xinci scrubbed his hands over his face. â€œIâ€™ll write up a report for you, on measures that might help. How likely do you think it is that weâ€™ll be able to institute them?â€

Guo Ying smiled and reached into his jacket for the letter that had come that morning. â€œRead this.â€

Zhao Xinci unfolded the letter, and his eyes slowly widened as he read. He glanced back up at Guo Ying, brows raised. â€œDid you request this?â€

â€œNo.â€ Guo Ying sat back, increasingly sure that this would, as heâ€™d hoped, be the thing that started dragging Zhao Xinci's response to Dixing back toward rationality. â€œI donâ€™t know whether the idea came from your son or from the Envoy himself, but it was a surprise to me, too.â€

The letter was a copy of an official sentence. Zhang Shi would never take another host; when her current body could no longer sustain life, she was sentenced to die. The order was witnessed and accepted by Zhang Shi herself.

After a long moment staring at the paper and not looking like he was seeing much of it, Zhao Xinci asked, â€œCan I keep a copy of this?â€

â€œThere was an extra copy included. I brought that one to leave here.â€

Zhao Xinci closed his eyes with a faint snort. â€œBlack-robed bastard always was too sharp for anyone else's good.â€

â€œA good quality in an ally,â€ Guo Ying pointed out as he stood. â€œIâ€™ll look for your report within a week, Director Zhao.â€ As he stepped out into the hall, he reflected on the fact that Zhao Xinci was apparently still more willing to think well of the leader of a race he hated than to think well of his son. That was going to continue to be a headache. On the other hand, it confirmed Guo Yingâ€™s own decision to use Zhao Yunlan as his lever, rather than Zhao Xinci. He needed compassion for the policies he hoped to put in place.

On the other hand, Zhao Xinci's sharp political acumen was still a useful tool also. Perhaps it was time for Zhao Xinci to rotate to a different Directorship—one a little less likely to make other administrators bow to his views. Public Relations, perhaps; he certainly managed those well enough within the Ministry. But only, Guo Ying thought firmly, after the revelation of a couple of gods in the city had already been managed. That was going to be the biggest headache he had, for a while, he was sure.

Or maybe he should just put Zhao Yunlan on the air and let him talk; it had worked last time.

Guo Ying chuckled as he headed back to his own office, turning over plans for the future that seemed to have a better chance, now, of combing out some more of the tangles that the Ministry had lately fallen into.

End

The Radiant Thunder

Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan have a sort-of honeymoon trip, which involves conversations they should probably have had sooner. Porn with Fluff and Characterization, I-4

Shen Wei

It took most of a day to get up into the mountains near Dragon City, and to the currently empty retreat facility the University kept. Shen Wei had been there before, shepherding various classes to and from the biosciences observation center a little further north. It was a fairly familiar area, by now, which meant the wave of nostalgia that hit him as they unpacked the car took him by surprise.

Yunlan looked up as he paused. "You okay?" When Shen Wei hesitated, he set down the bag he'd just hauled out and came up behind Shen Wei, arms sliding around his waist. "Air too thin?"

Shen Wei snorted, though he also leaned back into Yunlan. Of course it felt nostalgic; Yunlan was with him this time. "I'm perfectly fine. It just... it reminds me, being up here with you."

Yunlan's arms tightened. "Yeah. I can feel some of that, too," he said, softly. "The feel of this air, and having you near."

Shen Wei had to close his eyes, feeling his breath shake as he drew it in. He'd never thought he could ever have that again, his lover's knowledge of what had been. If he could have this memory of sweetness between them, he didn't care how many of the details Yunlan didn't know.

Except the ones relating to how to defend himself. Those were clearly necessary.

He lifted a hand to reach back and thread through Yunlan's hair. "We should finish unpacking."

"And get settled in?" The curve of his mouth against Shen Wei's neck suggested what Yunlan would consider 'settled'.

"Certainly," he returned, perfectly mild. "I would suggest we begin with meditation."

Yunlan huffed against his ear. â€œThe one thing Iâ€™m not having any trouble at all remembering is that you have an evil sense of humor.â€ He did let Shen Wei go and grab the duffle again, so Shen Wei didn't think Yunlan objected too strenuously to getting some work done, first.

Once theyâ€™d unpacked everything, though, he could see Yunlan hesitating. There was true uncertainty in the way he started to speak and then stopped, pressing his lips together again. Shen Wei immediately gave in and came to close his hands around Yunlanâ€™s face, leaning in to kiss him, tongue stroking softly over his lower lip. The catch of Yunlanâ€™s breath was sweet to hear, but more reassuring was the way his shoulders loosened as he slid his hands around Shen Weiâ€™s waist. Yunlan obviously noticed it in himself, too, because he murmured against Shen Weiâ€™s mouth, in between quick, soft kisses, â€œI donâ€™t know why. This is just more of what weâ€™ve done before, right?â€

â€œI think so.â€ Shen Wei let his hands slide slowly down Yunlanâ€™s throat and over his shoulders, savoring the way his lips parted at the touch. â€œYou havenâ€™t had trouble remembering anything once youâ€™ve reached for it.â€

Yunlan paused again, eyes dark and distant for a breath. â€œMaybe thatâ€™s what Iâ€™m worried about.â€

Shen Wei ruthlessly throttled a surge of sharp disappointment. Yes, he would be far more comfortable if Yunlan were better able to draw on his own power to defend himself, but Shen Wei was perfectly capable of keeping on as he had been. â€œDo you wish not to, then?â€ he asked, evenly.

Yunlan studied him for a long moment and finally snorted, one corner of his mouth curling up, though the smile was more wry than amused. â€œThat would just land us back where we started, wouldnâ€™t it?â€

Shen Wei dropped his eyes, silent. He hated giving Yunlan answers he didnâ€™t wish to hear. â€œIâ€™m sorry,â€ he finally said, softly. â€œI just... canâ€™t. I canâ€™t watch you die because of what I am, not again.â€

â€œXiao-Wei.â€ The aching softness of Yunlanâ€™s voice made him have to swallow hard, and he looked up slowly as the warmth of Yunlanâ€™s hand curved around his cheek. Yunlanâ€™s eyes were dark again, but steady. â€œNever again,â€ Yunlan said, certain as he might have said the sun would rise. The tightness in Shen Weiâ€™s chest eased a little at that, and he turned his head to press a kiss into Yunlanâ€™s palm, and whispered against his skin, â€œThank you.â€

â€œCome to bed?â€ Yunlan coaxed, and Shen Wei smiled.

â€œYes.â€

Yunlan didnâ€™t always have the patience to let Shen Wei undress him, but this time when Shen Wei ran his hands gently up under Yunlanâ€™s t-shirt, Yunlan smiled and lifted his arms to let Shen Wei tug it off. Shen Wei folded it over the back of one of the roomâ€™s two arm-chairs and stepped closer to spread his hands against Yunlanâ€™s chest, slow and caressing, and kiss him. Feeling the reality of Yunlan here with him, under his hands, eased the lingering twinge of long hurt and hunger in him, filled empty places with warmth again.

He nudged Yunlan down to sit on the side of the bed, creasing the smooth white spread. He knelt to loosen Yunlan's boots and pull them off, and then his socks, fingers stroking over the hollow of Yunlanâ€™s ankle, the arch of his foot. It was, he thought, this slow, careful touching that made Yunlan flushed and uncertain, sometimes, when Shen Wei undressed him, but he always leaned into Shen Weiâ€™s hands. Tonight he was doing it even more than usual, leaning forward to meet Shen Wei as he knelt up to kiss Yunlan again, hands sliding up Shen Weiâ€™s arms. Shen Wei pressed closer, letting his arms tighten around Yunlan, stroking his tongue against Yunlanâ€™s, coaxing.

â€œYou are everything that is precious to me, Zhao Yunlanâ€ he murmured against Yunlanâ€™s mouth, and savored the feel of Yunlan relaxing against him. This was one of the most different things, now, how much Yunlan liked being reassured of how he was loved. Shen Wei had to swallow sharp anger over the cause every time he thought about it, and only the knowledge that Yunlan wouldnâ€™t like it if he took direct action was saving Zhao Xinciâ€™s skin, but he didnâ€™t object in the least to how often he could say these things and feel Yunlan ease against him in response.

He slid Yunlanâ€™s jeans down his legs slowly, and smiled at how Yunlan leaned back on his hands, relaxed enough to show off for him. He loved the bright flickers of whimsy his lover had gained in this life, loved how Yunlan laughed as Shen Wei prowled up onto the bed in answer, pressing him back among the scattering pillows.

â€œYouâ€™re overdressed now,â€ Yunlan told him, laughter still brightening his eyes as he slid his hands down the lapels of the suit jacket Shen Wei had worn out of town, in deference to the Chancellorâ€™s fond notion that this was a working trip and Shen Wei would be writing the start of his next article up here.

â€œAm I?â€ Shen Wei murmured, genuinely thoughtful, because sometimes Yunlan liked it if he kept his work clothes mostly on.

Yunlanâ€™s eyes went wide and dark, and he made an inarticulate sound. Shen Wei smiled; yes, this was one of those times. â€œMaybe just a little,â€ Yunlan managed, suddenly breathless, fingers stroking down the length of Shen Weiâ€™s tie.

â€œWhy donâ€™t you take care of that, then?â€ Shen Wei suggested, leaning down to catch Yunlanâ€™s mouth again. He kissed Yunlan slow and easy, taking the opportunity to taste him thoroughly while Yunlanâ€™s fingers tugged loose his tie and left it hanging, unbuttoned his jacket, followed the line of his shirt buttons down to undo his belt and pants. That seemed to be all Yunlan wanted undone, because his fingers stroked over the line of Shen Weiâ€™s cock through his boxers, sending a heavy curl of heat up his spine, before dipping through the fly to draw him out.

Shen Wei growled softly at the teasing, and pressed one thigh up between Yunlanâ€™s legs, rubbing fine wool very gently against his bare cock. Yunlan groaned and grabbed for his shoulders again, rocking up against his thigh, and Shen Wei nipped softly at his lower lip, satisfied. When Yunlan tipped his head back, offering, Shen Wei promptly gathered Yunlan up against him and bent his head to bite gently up and down Yunlanâ€™s throat, enjoying the way Yunlan gasped with each bite, arching up under him. He loved that Yunlan enjoyed this, that he could give free rein to his possessive urge to mark Yunlanâ€™s skin and know that it brought Yunlan pleasure.

Yunlan moaned, hands clenched in the fabric of Shen Weiâ€™s jacket. â€œXiao-Wei, fuck me. Fuck me now.â€

Shen Wei stilled, staring down at Yunlan, heat washing over him in a tingling sweep. â€œJust like this?â€

â€œFuck yes.â€ Yunlan flailed an arm out for his jeans, still draped over the side of the bed, and rummaged out a foil packet to slap into Shen Weiâ€™s hand.

Shen Wei laughed and leaned down for another kiss, fierce and deep and delighted with his lover. â€œAll right.â€ He knelt back long enough to tear the packet open and squeeze out a palmful of slick to stroke over himself. Yunlan watched him, eyes dark and hot, sprawled out against the bed like an invitation.

Which was undoubtedly the case, since Yunlan knew quite well what it did to Shen Wei to see him so relaxed in Shen Weiâ€™s hands.

Yunlan made an approving sound as Shen Wei slid his hands down Yunlanâ€™s thighs to catch his knees and spread him wider. He reached up to drape his arms over Shen Weiâ€™s shoulders as Shen Wei leaned over him, smiling up at Shen Wei, warm end encouraging. Shen Wei needed a breath for self-control in face of that warmth before he pushed into Yunlan, slow and steady pressure against the tightness of his entrance until the muscles finally eased and Yunlan groaned, relaxing under him. Shen Weiâ€™s breath cut into quick, hard gasps at the slow slide into fierce heat, grip turning bruisingly tight around Yunlanâ€™s thighs as he forced himself to keep it slow.

Yunlan was panting for breath, too. â€œOh... oh yes, xiao-Wei...â€ He moaned as Shen Wei slid all the way in, hands stroking over his shoulders, trailing down the line of his jacket where it fell open over Yunlanâ€™s spread thighs. â€œMm, yes.â€

Shen Wei caught most of his breath, smiling at the way Yunlan was nearly purring. â€œGood?â€

Yunlan smiled up at him, lazy and pleased. â€œReally good. Fuck me now? Please?â€

â€œAnything you want, my own. You know that.â€ Shen Wei shifted enough to run a hand gently through Yunlanâ€™s hair, and Yunlan turned his face to nuzzle into Shen Weiâ€™s hand.

â€œI know,â€ he agreed, softly.

Shen Wei slid his hands under Yunlanâ€™s hips and lifted him up, drawing back only to drive in again, hard. Pleasure surged up, and his groan echoed Yunlanâ€™s.

â€œFeels so... good,â€ Yunlan gasped, voice breaking over each thrust. â€œSo good... when youâ€™re with me like this.â€

Shen Weiâ€™s own voice was rough and husky when he answered. â€œI will always be with you.â€ The way Yunlan relaxed into his hands made it very difficult to keep control, and he drove into the heat of Yunlanâ€™s body a little harder. Yunlan smiled up at him, bright and lazy.

â€œYouâ€™re so beautiful, xiao-Wei,â€ he said, low and breathless. â€œJust seeing you like this makes me so hard.â€ He stroked a hand down the dangling line of Shen Weiâ€™s tie and wrapped his fingers around his own cock, stroking himself slow and hard, displaying himself as Shen Wei ground his hips into the curve of Yunlanâ€™s ass. Heat coiled tighter up Shen Weiâ€™s spine in answer, and he leaned down to catch Yunlanâ€™s parted lips and kiss him, deep and fierce.

â€œYunlan,â€ he murmured against Yunlanâ€™s mouth, soft and coaxing, and gasped as Yunlanâ€™s body tightened sharply around him.

â€œYes,â€ Yunlan answered on a low groan as he bucked up into Shen Weiâ€™s thrust, coming undone in long shudders. Shen Wei tightened his hands on Yunlanâ€™s hips and fucked the tightness of his body, hard and fast, until the pleasure of it burst through him and he drove in deep, arching over Yunlan, breath broken into hard gasps.

They both settled slowly from the sharp edge of sensation, and Shen Wei eased back to shrug out of his jacket before stretching out with Yunlan. Yunlan pressed close, and Shen Wei gathered him in with a contented sound, running a hand slowly up and down Yunlanâ€™s bare back, tracing his fingers down the lines of long muscle. Yunlan ran his fingers down the buttons of Shen Weiâ€™s shirt, undoing them to spread his hand wide against Shen Weiâ€™s chest, and Shen Wei smiled, cuddling him closer.

He still wondered, at the back of his mind, what had alarmed Yunlan, because this had started as a need for comfort. Heâ€™d gotten to recognize that particular need fairly well, he felt. But the other thing heâ€™d gotten to know well was how tight Yunlan would close up if he pressed the question before Yunlan wanted to talk about it. So he let the question rest and just held Yunlan, freely enjoying the feel of his lover lying quiet and relaxed against him.

Zhao Yunlan

Yunlan had never been very enthusiastic about breakfast, as a meal, and had pretty much done away with it as soon as he'd moved out on his own. Shen Wei's disapproval of this had started to reverse the trend, though, and Yunlan was coming to admit that breakfast had some uses. Xiao-Wei almost never sprang heavy discussions on him until after they'd eaten, for one thing. This morning, xiao-Wei even let both of them get through their respective tea and coffee before he set his cup down with a sigh.

"I wish I knew the reason for this difficulty. Turning aside my power seemed to come to you so easily, I hadn't thought we'd need to work on it." Xiao-Wei looked up at him, mouth pulled into a tight line. "I'm sorry."

Yunlan immediately set down the cup he'd admittedly been using as a delaying tactic. "None of that was your fault." He paused, judiciously. "Except for the property damage, but even then..." Xiao-Wei looked a bit like he wished he was wearing his glasses so he could adjust them, and Yunlan smiled; distraction successful. Xiao-Wei had a bad habit of taking on all the responsibility, in Yunlan's opinion. Thinking about that pulled a sigh out of him, too, though. "I think it was easy because it was you. I never have..." he waved a hand as if to catch words for what was still a bizarre feeling when it happened, "arguments with myself, when it's about you."

Xiao-Wei smiled, small and private and warm in a way that still made Yunlan's breath catch to see directed at him. When xiao-Wei held out his hands to Yunlan, blue curling around his fingers, it really was the most natural thing in the world to take them and let that extra depth inside Yunlan reach out in turn. It felt good—close and intimate and easy, and his voice was a little husky when he asked, "What, you don't believe me?"

"I always believe you," xiao-Wei answered softly and, just when Yunlan was about to melt, added, "except about antique books." Yunlan sputtered, but the bright amusement in xiao-Wei's grin really did kind of melt him and in the end he just pouted at his lover. "If that's the difference, though," xiao-Wei continued, ignoring the pout, "you just need to spend more time sparring with Chu Shuzhi and Zhu Hong. That's manageable."

Yunlan knew he hadn't completely concealed his twitch when xiao-Wei's hands tightened gently around his, and the lingering amusement in xiao-Wei's eyes turned back to concern. Yunlan sighed and gave in. "It makes me a little nervous, I guess, using my power against other people. I never quite know what's going to happen, and feeling at ease doesn't mean I should be at ease, here and now."

Xiao-Wei's thumbs stroked over his knuckles, which made him realize how tight his hands were on xiao-Wei's. When he tried to loosen his grip, though, xiao-Wei wouldn't let him go. "I thought it would be better if I didn't push," xiao-Wei said, quietly, "but if this is the case... let me show you?" Yunlan raised his brows and xiao-Wei smiled. "Let me show you more of what you are?"

Yunlan hesitated for a long moment, but xiao-Wei had a point, and Yunlan had promised. "All right," he said, finally.

He followed Shen Wei outside, and then off the retreat property entirely, up the mountain until they were scrambling up rock and ducking the branches of scrub trees. When they finally broke out into a clear field, Yunlan glanced down at the roofs of the retreat center a significant distance below and felt completely justified in asking, "Just how dangerous is this going to be?"

Xiao-Wei swiped his hands through his hair, taking it back off his face. He looked quite unfairly beautiful, flushed from the climb and gilded by the early sunlight, and even the hint of mischief in his smile couldn't entirely stop Yunlan's thoughts from wandering away from demonstrations of power and toward kissing the red curve of his lips.

"Not very, unless someone gets in between us."

That pulled Yunlan's attention back quickly. When xiao-Wei held out his hand and shadowy blue curled and snapped into a familiar glaive, a reflex chill shot down Yunlan's spine. It was the chill of altitude, of high, thinning air where the blue of the sky darkened, now, rather than the chill of death, but it still sent his own hand reaching out to curl around...

...around what?

Yunlan jerked to a halt, blinking at the wisps of green around his fingers. What was he doing?

"Don't stop. You know this," xiao-Wei said, soft and coaxing, even as he spun his glaive behind his shoulders. Yunlan bit back a yelp of protest, because he did know that move, and for all it looked pointlessly showy it was designed to bring a staff weapon swinging around with all the momentum of its length brought to bear, and he'd seen that blade cut through steel. And it wasn't that he thought xiao-Wei would ever hurt him, but a sparkle of mischief was still in his lover's eyes, and it sparked an answer from the power whispering through Yunlan's bones, spun that taste of stone and water out into...

...a staff, wood hard and solid against Yunlan's palms as he caught the end under the sweep of xiao-Wei's glaive, shifted a step in and spun the incoming blade up and over and down to slice into the stony ground at their feet. Past and current reflex both sent him back a step to free the engaged end so he could swing the other over and down. Xiao-Wei's glaive misted away only to snap back into being between his raised hands and catch the crushing shoulder strike before Yunlan had to pull it.

"Okay, now that's just cheating." Yunlan was a little breathless with the rush of the exchange, and a little shaky with his uncertainty about his own certainty—worse this time, maybe, because some of his present self was just as certain as his old self.

Xiao-Wei stood perfectly steady under the weight of both their weapons, smiling at Yunlan past them. "Not if we're both doing it." He probably felt Yunlan's faint shift back through the staff, because his smile softened. "Yunlan. You won't hurt me; I promise. And this is something you know now, as well as you did then."

Yunlan blinked. "Wait, how did you know that?" It had actually been a while since he'd trained much with staff, certainly longer than xiao-Wei had been living with him.

"You aren't a man to keep weapons around for show," xiao-Wei said, simply. "And there's still a short and a long staff in your workout room." While Yunlan was busy being warmed by that easy faith in him, xiao-Wei shifted his weight and slid Yunlan's staff along his glaive and off to one side, spinning full circle to bring the blade sweeping back around.

Yunlan was laughing as he swept his staff to the side to deflect it upward and snap the iron-shod end toward xiao-Wei's ribs.

He'd never asked to spar with xiao-Wei before. A few of his teachers, over the years, had been from traditional lineages, however much his father had disapproved of such 'outdated attitudes'. In every movement the Envoy made, Yunlan had recognized the original shape of what those styles still held a hint of. Xiao-Wei had not trained for health or strength or self-defense. Xiao-Wei fought to disable and kill, every move brutally focused and nothing held back. He was beautiful to watch, and never careless with his strength, but Yunlan hadn't been entirely sure xiao-Wei even knew how to pull his blows, when he had that sword in his hand.

The answer was obvious now, as they spun around each other, weapons sweeping through the air fast and sure, but carefully leashed. Even beyond than that familiar, caught-back tension... xiao-Wei was laughing. When Yunlan spun his staff over his wrist in a blatant intimidation move, xiao-Wei downright smirked at him. Yunlan wasn't actually surprised when xiao-Wei answered with a burst of shifting blue force that Yunlan had to step wide around, straight into the next cut from xiao-Wei's glaive.

He was a bit surprised when his own response was to throw up a green-wreathed hand to stop the blade and give him time to swing his staff out and around. But only because of how smooth it felt—not an echo, this time, but like the flex of his muscles, hot and now and real. It was so easy, to lean into that smooth stretch and meet xiao-Wei on his own level, to meet that twist of force and intent with his own, like another pair of weapons spinning and weaving through each other.

The clearing was quite a bit wider, and the ground even more rough, by the next time they paused. Yunlan could feel sweat trickling down his spine, about the only place his t-shirt wasn't sticking to him, and he was definitely going to have a huge bruise across his thigh, where xiao-Wei had gotten through with the flat of his blade. Probably a few more he wasn't feeling yet, too. Across from him, xiao-Wei was in similar shape, panting for breath, hair ruffled wildly, left arm held just a little stiffly. When their eyes met, they both started laughing.

Xiao-Wei opened his hand and released his glaive back into a brief swirl of blue. Yunlan straightened slowly, planting his staff upright to lean on it a little as he stretched. "That looked easy, but somehow I don't think it is." He ran his thumb down the hard, seasoned wood of the staff. "So how do I put this away again?"

Xiao-Wei came and laid his hand over Yunlan's. "Here. Can you feel...?"

Already extended a ways beyond his skin, it was easy this time to feel the tug back and in and away. Yunlan opened his hand and let the staff be potential instead of realization, again. Xiao-Wei's smile softened, and his hand lingered on Yunlan's.

"That looked almost exactly like it used to." And then his smile slid away and Yunlan swore internally, because he obviously hadn't been able to conceal his flinch. "Yunlan?"

Yunlan looked down, running his free hand through his hair, and held a rapid debate with himself. Could he put this off again? Probably. Would Shen Wei still be increasingly worried if he did? Yes.

Fuck.

"It's just... every now and then I wonder if you want Kunlun back," he said as casually as he could, not looking up.

"I do have you back." Shen Wei sounded like what he was worried about now was whether he'd hit Yunlan on the head and not noticed.

Yunlan took a slow breath to keep his voice even. "Except I'm not. I'm not Kunlun, even if I remember some things. I'm Zhao Yunlan." And that had never really been good enough.

Cool hands closed around his face and lifted it, and Yunlan's breath caught at the look on Shen Wei's face. His lover looked perfectly at peace, eyes warm, smile small and serene.

"You are yourself, just as you always have been," Shen Wei said, so softly it froze Yunlan in place. "For over ten thousand years, you have lived and fought and grieved and loved, and every life you have lived has made your soul what it is today. From that soul grew Zhao Yunlan, the man who leads his people with wisdom and cunning." Shen Wei leaned in and kissed him, very gently. "Who burns boiling water and doesn't know what a dresser is for." He kissed the faint sputter of protest off Yunlan's lips, smiling. "Who has compassion in his heart, even for those he was taught to hate." He stroked his thumbs along Yunlan's cheeks, eyes holding his, dark and serious. "That man, that soul, is the one I love, just as I always have."

Yunlan had to swallow before he could find his voice, struck breathless all over again by the enormity of that love. "Xiao-Wei."

Xiao-Wei's smile turned brighter. "Exactly. Didn't you tell me that was your name for me?"

"Yeah." Yunlan reached out to settle his hands on xiao-Wei's hips. "I guess I did."

Xiao-Wei took a step closer, right up against him, and kissed him again, slower this time, deliberate and sensual. "I'm yours, Zhao Yunlan," he murmured against Yunlan's mouth. "All of me, for all of time. Remember that."

Warmth curled through Yunlan, breathless and sweet with that promise, sinking down and down and relaxing something he hadn't been entirely aware he was keeping tensed. And suddenly he could feel xiao-Wei, feel the immense potential of him as clearly as the body in his arms, vast and sharp and chill as the thin blue of a winter sky.

He could feel the weight of the mountain under their feet, rolling up toward the sky, and the leap of water running down, reaching through the plains. He could feel xiao-Wei reaching out with him, power and presence skimming along his like the slide of xiao-Wei's tongue against his, sweeping down here and there in a wet, coaxing kiss that sent the waters rushing faster. He could feel the sharp, wild tingle of delight and desire, where xiao-Wei wrapped around him, and the vibration through both their bodies as thunder rumbled.

Thunder?

Yunlan drew back with a blink from the rush of sensation and glanced upward just in time to get a raindrop right between the eyes from the suddenly dark sky above. "Hey!"

Xiao-Wei leaned against him, burying a laugh in his shoulder, and Yunlan could still taste xiao-Wei's dizzy joy along the edges of himself. Yunlan caught him closer, breathless. How had he ever closed that off? "Xiao-Wei..."

"This," xiao-Wei said, against his ear as the rain started coming down seriously. "When we did this, that's when I knew you were trying to get me into bed."

Yunlan recalled what he'd asked, back the first time xiao-Wei had wrapped his power around Yunlan's, and laughed. In comparison, yes, that had been more like xiao-Wei leaning against his shoulder on the office couch. This was... he let the flow of presence and potential twined between them surge up in his senses again and shuddered with the intensity. "Yeah." He leaned in to kiss the rain off xiao-Wei's lips. Xiao-Wei's fingers slid into his hair, starting to be tangled with the wet, and he made an impatient sound against Yunlan's mouth. Chill closed around them, and Yunlan laughed again as the sweep of xiao-Wei's power dropped them directly onto their bed at the retreat center.

Fortunately, their clothes hadn't gotten wet enough to make them hard to get off.

Yunlan spread a hand against xiao-Wei's bare chest, pressing him back against the sheets. "Let me?"

Xiao-Wei relaxed under him, easy and smiling, palms sliding down his ribs. "Of course."

Yunlan straddled xiao-Wei's hips and reached back with slick fingers to fondle xiao-Wei's cock, grinning at the way xiao-Wei moaned, feeling long fingers tighten on his thighs. The answer was always 'of course'. He knew xiao-Wei would give him anything he asked—at least his head had always known it. He'd certainly tested it often enough. Now, with the weight of xiao-Wei's power still laced through his, the slide of xiao-Wei's presence across his like skin across skin, he thought the rest of him might know it, too.

He shifted back, one hand guiding xiao-Wei's cock against him, and let out his breath, deliberately relaxing into the hard stretch as he sank down. It felt hot and good and immediate, the perfect balance for how stretched out his senses still were, and his groan wrapped around xiao-Wei's. It was so good to plant his hands against xiao-Wei's chest and move with him, rolling his hips down as xiao-Wei rocked up to meet him. "Fuck, yes," Yunlan gasped, eyes half closed.

Xiao-Wei's hands slid up his thighs and over his hips, open and caressing, and his eyes were dark with heat as he looked up at Yunlan. "My own." It was a statement, as much as an endearment, and Yunlan felt it stroke through him, heavy with xiao-Wei's intent. It wrung a low moan out of him, and he ground down onto xiao-Wei's cock, welcoming the way his muscles stretched around that hardness because it grounded him, made the whole weight of sensation into pleasure.

"Always," he returned xiao-Wei's promise, shuddering as it resonated through them both and outward. The curve of xiao-Wei's lips was slow and satisfied, and Yunlan felt the sweetness of it stroke down his nerves. He felt the deepest, oldest parts of him open up to that sweetness as he rode the thrust of xiao-Wei's cock, letting the movement roll through his whole body.

He could feel xiao-Wei's body pulling taut, under him, feel the edge coming in the urgency of xiao-Wei's hands on him. He wanted that, too, wanted to stay together for the end of this, so he slid a hand down to wrap around his own cock, gasping with the new layer of pleasure.

"Yunlan." Xiao-Wei's voice was rough, on his name, and the hot weight of his eyes on Yunlan made him grin, breathless.

"Yeah." And fuck but Shen Wei was gorgeous like this, flushed and alive and abandoned to the pleasure building between them, hair damp with sweat and falling over his forehead, eyes fixed on Yunlan, dark and devouring. Yunlan thought maybe that sight alone would be enough to undo him—that sight and the knowledge that he was the reason for it. Him now, all of him, and not any ghost in xiao-Wei's memory. One more stroke of his hand down his cock, in time with the rock of xiao-Wei's hips, and he was gone, groaning out loud as the heavy pleasure winding through him caught fire and burst down every nerve, body wringing even tighter around the thickness of xiao-Wei's cock. Xiao-Wei's moan was low and velvety and unrestrained, and the sound of it sent another shudder down Yunlan's spine, sent him reaching for xiao-Wei with all his senses, hands and heart and all, glorying in how tightly they were twined together. When the rush of pleasure eased, he slid down to sprawl over xiao-Wei, panting for breath and laughing, entirely pleased to feel xiao-Wei's arms wind around him.

"Thank you," xiao-Wei murmured against his ear.

Yunlan leaned up on his elbows to blink down at him, combing his fingers through xiao-Wei's hair. "For what?"

Xiao-Wei smiled up at him, small and sweet. "For reaching back to me."

Yunlan froze for a moment, really thinking about the overwhelming intimacy and sweetness of touching the way they had been. Of how it might feel to have that and then think it was lost. The very thought made his throat tight and his voice husky. "Xiao-Wei." Xiao-Wei promptly pulled Yunlan back down against him.

"Stop blaming yourself. You didn't know. And I didn't care, as long as you could bear my presence without harm." His hands slid up and down Yunlan's back, slow and caressing. After a long moment, Yunlan let himself relax into them, into that unending care that was the reason he put up with xiao-Wei's occasional high-handedness.

"You're welcome, then," he murmured against the line of xiao-Wei's throat, and couldn't help laughing at the satisfied sound xiao-Wei made.

Yunlan snuggled closer and let the flow of their power, over and around and through each other, comfort them both.

Shen Wei

When they stepped out of the retreat center that evening, Shen Wei stopped short, startled.

He'd expected some effect from the way their potentiality had laced together and swept out from them like a wave breaking; he'd felt the sliding shift as his own had tipped into actuality, and the answering surge as Yunlan moved with him. The storm that had drenched them before he'd taken them back inside had been of Shen Wei's own making.

He hadn't quite expected this, though.

The slope of the mountain glittered with pockets of hail, and more than one patch of scrub was scorched and smoldering, lightning-struck. He could see patches of dark stone and rubble, freshly sheered off the mountain's weathered faces. He could still hear the rush of water running off, even hours later, and the streams running down to the plain below were white with froth. At the same time, he could hear more birds than he had when they'd gone out in the morning, and the wind off the mountain was gentle for all that it was chill with the approach of evening.

Beside him, Yunlan cleared his throat. "Did, ah. Did we do that?"

"Yes." Shen Wei glanced over and smiled at Yunlan's blush. "I'd honestly forgotten just how far our reach goes when we're together like that. I expect the whole eastern quarter of this range will be... more awake." He cast a rueful look at the storm front only now spending itself out, well beyond Dragon City. "I hope they got the flash flood warnings out in time."

Yunlan's mouth twitched twice before he gave in and folded up on Shen Wei's shoulder, laughing. "And the Minister wanted to get us out of town so he could release the news calmly!"

"No one in the city will see it as anything but a freak storm," Shen Wei pointed out, with the benefit of considerable experience in what humans did and didn't notice.

"For now." Yunlan straightened up, still snickering. "Do you want to bet no one will remember, once news starts getting around about us?"

"Not particularly," Shen Wei admitted, sliding a hand around Yunlan's waist. "Will you mind?" Having finally figured out what had been bothering—and apparently inhibiting—Yunlan, he wanted to be careful of it.

Yunlan's smile for him was sweet. "No. You're the one who matters, and I believe you when you say it's me you want." He turned to drape his arms over Shen Wei's shoulders and murmur against his lips, "I believe you all the way down."

Shen Wei drew him closer and kissed him, slow and gentle. "It's you," he agreed quietly, and smiled. "You all the way down."

The depth of Yunlan's presence reached for him, and he reached back, letting his power curl around Yunlan's, and heard Yunlan echo his small sound of contentment. They leaned together in the courtyard of the retreat center, quiet and at ease. Let people talk, when that time came, Shen Wei decided. It would mean the breaking of some very old habits, but Yunlan was right.

This was all that mattered.

Zhao Yunlan

Their first day back at work they were nearly mobbed at the front door.

"Are you both okay?" Da Qing demanded, leaping out of Lin Jing's arms to pounce on Yunlan and dig his claws into yet another jacket. "We could feel the earthquakes from here!"

"Not to mention the storm." Lin Jing, at least, seemed more concerned with blotting his new claw-scratches than interrogating his boss.

"Shen da-ge?" Zhu Hong put in, glancing back and forth between them with a frown of genuine concern instead of the mock-glare the team saw more often. "Is everything all right?"

Xiao-Wei glanced over at Yunlan, eyes a little wide, which was about how Yunlan felt. "You, ah. You all noticed?" Yunlan essayed, not admitting exactly what they might have noticed just yet. He was kind of hoping one of them would tell him.

It was lao-Chu who rolled his eyes, just as if he hadn't been hovering right behind Zhu Hong. "Half the Yashou noticed the storm wasn't natural, and pretty much all the visitors from Dixing. We got a couple questions coming in from them."

That pulled xiao-Wei right back into the swing of his responsibilities, which Yunlan couldn't very well protest but certainly could regret a bit. "Please reassure them that nothing is wrong," xiao-Wei said firmly. "There was merely some spill-over in the process of re-acclimating to my power being unbound."

There was a pause while the team looked at them, and then at each other. Yunlan sighed. He liked that he had a team of smart people, good investigators who could put pieces together, but sometimes it was also a pain in the ass.

"Some spill-over, huh?" Da Qing transformed, apparently just so that he could waggle his eyebrows meaningfully. He ducked out of range, laughing, before Yunlan could swat him. Lin Jing was snickering, and xiao-Guo was blushing, and Zhu Hong was very obviously stifling laughter, mouth crimped up at the corners and eyes dancing. He Niu rolled his eyes at all of them and turned for the stairs with the air of the only adult in the whole room, and Zhang Shi was grinning like she was considering taking Yunlan out for a congratulatory drink. About the only good thing was the faint color on xiao-Wei's cheeks, which never failed to make him look twice as delicious as usual.

Which was, actually, perhaps not the best thing to be thinking right this moment.

Yunlan ignored the heat in his own face and waved his hands at them, shooing them toward the desks. "Don't you all have work do to?"

They scattered, nearly all of them laughing, now. Yunlan supposed it was good that they thought this was funny and not alarming, but neither he nor xiao-Wei could quite look at each other as they headed back toward his office.

Once the door was closed behind them, it was actually Shen Wei who managed to lay hands on his composure first, looking over at Yunlan with a faint huff of laughter. "Back to work, hm?"

"Back to normal," Yunlan agreed, rolling his eyes.

Well, it wasn't like he hadn't known they were all assholes when he hired them.

Xiao-Wei paused, though, like he'd heard something else. "Yes?" Suddenly he looked hesitant again, chin tucked down as he stretched out a hand, shifting blue curling around his fingers.

Oh.

Yunlan reached back, because there was no way he could not reach back to xiao-Wei, even if the delicate brush of nearly-actuality made him think things that were very inappropriate for work. It felt like xiao-Wei, after all.

And it felt like himself, too.

He stepped closer and brushed a soft kiss over xiao-Wei's lips. "Yes," he agreed again, and then had to catch his breath at the brilliance of xiao-Wei's smile. "See you this evening," he added, just because it was still a kick to be able to say it so casually.

Yeah, he understood why this made xiao-Wei so happy.

"Until then." Xiao-Wei closed the office door behind him with a faint chime of glass.

Yunlan dropped into his chair and gave himself a moment to smile at the ceiling before he started on his mail. His past was still going to take some getting used to, but he felt like he was finding his balance, now. Like maybe all that weight wasn't not-him. It was a bit like he'd felt right after the Lamp, and yet different. Less like he was Kunlun, and more like Kunlun was him.

Yunlan thought he could live with that.

End

The Conflict of Water with the Heavens

Zhao Xinci invites Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei to dinner and an argument. Predictably, Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei are too busy trying to protect each other to bother about themselves. Drama with Characterization and a soupÃ§on of Angst, I-3

"Yunlan?"

Zhao Yunlan looked up from his screen, a little startled. That was Li Huiliang's voice, and Zhang Shi was usually careful to call him 'Chief' at work. "Yeah?" he asked, trying not to sound too obviously wary.

She stopped hovering in the door, at least, and came to hold out a folded sheet of paper. "This came for you. It's from your father."

After a long, still moment of wrestling down the sharp tangle of anger and love and disappointment and trepidation—which hadn't gotten the littlest bit less tangled in the past year and a half—Yunlan reached out and took it. "Thanks."

"He wants to have dinner with you."

Yunlan opened his mouth to note that Zhang Shi still didn't seem to know the meaning of 'private', and then sighed and shut it again. At the moment, it was her job to open everything and know everyone's schedule. "Thanks."

She hesitated, looking like there was something she wanted to say too, but finally shook her head, patted his shoulder silently, and left.

After another minute to brace himself for whatever cutting additions there might be to the dinner invitation, Yunlan unfolded the letter. "Seven o'clock, know it's a slow month—as if, you've forgotten the paperwork already old man?—bring..."

Yunlan broke off, nearly choking on air in sheer surprise, and stared at the characters right there in black and white.

Xiao-Wei let them get home, at least, before he laid a hand on Yunlan's shoulder, just inside the door, and turned Yunlan gently to face him. "Yunlan. What happened, today?"

Yunlan ran his hands through his hair. "It's... It's my father. He wants me to come for dinner." For the first time in over four years. "And he wants me to bring you."

Xiao-Wei's brows rose. "To a family dinner?"

"Apparently." Yunlan pulled the letter out of his jacket and handed it over. Xiao-Wei took it and read as he moved into the living room, passing it from one hand to another as he shrugged out of his jacket. Yunlan focused on the grace of the motion to distract himself from the lowgrade confusion and anxiety that had made up his day since the letter arrived.

"Hm." Xiao-Wei glanced back over his shoulder and Yunlan took the moment to admire the sharp line of his cheekbones. "You did tell him he should decide for himself what he thinks, these days. Perhaps he has."

The tangle of Yunlan's emotions bit down again, right through his attempts to distract himself. He gave up and went to wind his arms around xiao-Wei, hoping for comfort instead. Xiao-Wei gathered him close, resting his temple against Yunlan's. "Do you want to refuse?" he asked, softly.

Yunlan was quiet for a moment, weighing his feelings, even if he couldn't quite disentangle them. "Not quite."

"Then I'll come with you," xiao-Wei said, simply. Yunlan relaxed a little into that unquestioning support.

"Yeah. All right."

Yunlan thought he might actually be experiencing vertigo, the feeling of disorientation was so strong at seeing his father in shirtsleeves, bringing plates to the kitchen table. It felt like ten years ago, when his father was still trying to provide, even if most of the food was carry-out. It felt like eight years ago, and a rather obligatory congratulation dinner when he graduated—which, in retrospect had almost certainly been Zhang Shi. It felt like five years ago, and a ream of sharp, useless, advice on how to handle the Division. Always his father still in his work clothes, and the bright kitchen table with the dark dining room a door away. Didn't Yunlan have enough problems with old memory, these days?

At least he retained enough sense to watch xiao-Wei. There was such a world of culinary disdain in the momentary look down his nose at the rather limp greens and peppers that Yunlan almost laughed.

Almost.

"So," he said, picking out a small piece of honey pork and an equally small bit of rice, "what's the occasion?"

His father swallowed his own mouthful, sharp eyes fixed on Yunlan. "I've been doing a little research about this thing you apparently used to be."

"The whole god thing?" Yunlan examined a bit of pepper and decided he was getting spoiled by xiao-Wei's cooking; it didn't look appetizing at all.

"Mm." His father took a quick drink, setting his glass back down precisely in place. "If the bits of legends that still exist mean what I think they do, it was a piece of Kunlun that was misappropriated to create ghosts. Dixingren. A part of him that was... spilled, and the spill consumed in the creation of a mockery of life." The man seemed to be ignoring or maybe not even noticing how white xiao-Wei's knuckles were getting around his chopsticks, though Yunlan was sure keeping an eye on that. His father leaned forward, intent as if he had a suspect in front of him. "If you are Kunlun, how can you not hate that? That theft of what you were?"

Yunlan sat back, eyeing his father thoughtfully. He thought it might be a genuine question, however aggressively it fished for one answer. He slanted a look over at xiao-Wei, and after a long moment the hard line of xiao-Wei's mouth eased just a little and he nodded. Always the teacher, Yunlan reflected fondly; even being justifiably furious didn't stop xiao-Wei from wanting to help people learn. He took mental hold of that fondness, like a guideline running between present and past, and reached for memory.

What he sank into was amusement.

"It was a gift, not a theft," Yunlan murmured, closing his eyes for a moment to weigh that knowledge in his mind, and the tickle of a laugh that came with it. "And it was me. I don't see why anyone was surprised it took an unexpected turn. Shen Nong, yeah, he was pissed off, but then he liked to pretend that none of us had any of the world's darkness in us." Yunlan opened his eyes with a snort of laughter, in complete agreement with his past opinion of this. "Such bullshit."

Xiao-Wei reached out to touch Yunlan's knee under the table, smiling soft and brilliant, the way he did when they managed to share a memory. "You all the way down," he murmured, reminding Yunlan of the truths they'd found on their little vacation up in the mountains, and Yunlan couldn't help smiling back. It was getting easier to believe that, as he got more used to thinking of Kunlun's power as his own, but it still helped to hear xiao-Wei say it. He was calmer than he'd felt all day, when he looked back at his father.

"That answer your question, old man?"

His father was sitting so still he might have been turned to stone. "Then you've always..."

"Always been me?" Yunlan prodded, when he trailed off. "Seems that way." The flash of what he swore was frustration, over his father's face, was no more than he'd expected, but xiao-Wei stirred, beside him. He was looking thoughtful, when Yunlan glanced over.

"Souls are always what they are," xiao-Wei said quietly, watching Zhao Xinci with dark eyes. "But living changes everyone, whether dying is involved or not. I am not, now, the same man I was ten thousand years ago. Neither is Zhao Yunlan. Neither are you the man I first met, Zhao Xinci."

Zhao Xinci's grip on his chopsticks tightened. It had always been the hands both of them showed tension in. "And you don't think that's a contradiction?" the old man asked, voice sharpening.

This time the certainty that rose in Yunlan felt so intensely his own, his own then and now, that it stole his breath and it was a moment before he could say, "Living things are always a contradiction. There is no answer that will always be right or always be wrong."

"Nonsense," his father snapped, and then paused right along with Yunlan because xiao-Wei was laughing. Very quietly, but definitely laughing.

"You have no idea how many times I've heard you have this argument. Once Legalism emerged as a philosophy, there were whole lives you devoted to arguing against it." Shen Wei's eyes flickered between them. "Even when you'd been taught another way, it was always care, for and in the moment, that you came back to as your basic principle."

Yunlan started to answer and then stopped, attention caught by the way his father's hands loosened and rested on the table. Bits of information snapped together in his mind to form a whole—the course of the discussion, his father's question about Kunlun, Zhang Shi's ability and inability. He spoke out of the shape of that sudden knowledge. "Zhang Shi could never change what you are. If he could, he wouldn't have had to change what you did."

His father's head jerked back like he'd taken a blow, expression darkening. He'd never liked how much Yunlan relied on his intuition, his ability to connect the pieces and see. Yunlan had stopped giving a damn around ten years ago, and he was more than willing to press the issue this time since it was more than just him in the line of fire. "That's why you wanted to see both of us, wasn't it? To try to judge how much of me changed, and use Shen Wei's knowledge of Kunlun to check your conclusion. That's why you asked about the lost soul-fire like that; trying to provoke him so he'd speak without thinking. That's why you didn't like it when he spoke of how you changed. You're afraid Zhang Shi changed what you are."

His father's expression went blank, like a board someone just wiped clean. Yunlan clapped a hand over his eyes and groaned. He was right. For fuck's sake. "Did you ever consider just asking?" he demanded, dragging his hand down his face, utterly exasperated. His mother had said once that his father was very good at figuring people out but not nearly as good at dealing with the people themselves. Personally, Yunlan thought she'd been too generous.

"Of course not, when one of the people he would have to ask is me." Xiao-Wei took a small sip of his water, the picture of composure if you didn't see how tight his jaw was.

"Are you surprised I wouldn't trust one of your kind?" Zhao Xinci cut back immediately, always on the attack when it was about Dixing, and Yunlan's temper finally broke.

"You have a right to your own pain," he snapped, "but you don't have the right to make everyone else act like it's theirs, too, just so you don't have to admit that it's yours!"

His father's expression tried to blank again, but this time his brows flinched together the way they did when he was thinking about his wife. Yunlan suspected he was sounding a bit like her; she was certainly where he got most of his understanding of emotions from, including the understanding that he had some, a fact the old man seemed to like ignoring. He made an inarticulate sound of frustration, scrubbing his hands back through his hair.

A hand slid over his shoulder, gentle, and he looked up to see xiao-Wei watching him, focused completely on him, now, and ignoring his father like the man wasn't there. He could see the offer in xiao-Wei's eyes perfectly well, and shook a finger at him. "Don't you dare. I am not listening to you say it doesn't matter; it does."

"Not this much," xiao-Wei said, so quiet and sure that Yunlan was pretty sure he'd have been able to hear his own heart breaking for it, if his blood weren't singing in his ears from how pissed off he was.

"Yes, this much." Yunlan stood, catching xiao-Wei's hand and pulling him along. "Great dinner, Dad, we'll have to do this again. 'Night."

His father had stopped looking blank and was now sitting back in his chair, brows raised in a considering sort of look. "Good night," he answered, slowly, like he'd just seen something he wasn't sure he understood. Actual love, probably, Yunlan thought savagely.

Yunlan didn't let go of xiao-Wei until they were at the Jeep, by which time xiao-Wei had stopped looking startled and started looking patient. Yunlan stifled a growl and took a breath. "You are not the reason that my father and I don't agree," he said, firmly, "and you making allowances for him won't fix anything."

Xiao-Wei leaned against the Jeep, arms crossed. "I'm the ruler of Dixing, and the one responsible for guarding the border between realms," he pointed out. "I think I am the reason, actually."

"You are not. He was an asshole who neglected his family before Zhang Shi." Yunlan flexed his hands open and closed a few times, bleeding off what frustration he could, and made himself reach for calm; it was the only way he was going to win this argument. "He was also always someone who believed in rules and laws over personal connections. That's why he can't admit what he's doing, what he's trying to find out, maybe not even to himself. Not because he hates Dixingren; because he's letting his personal feelings override Ministry law and policy."

Xiao-Wei pushed away from the Jeep and came to rest his hands on Yunlan's shoulders. "While you believe people are the most important," he finished, softly. "But I don't need you to confront your father for my sake, Yunlan. Truly."

Yunlan couldn't help a soft snort, because xiao-Wei knew him so well and still didn't see it. Of course he didn't. He stepped closer, running a hand up xiao-Wei's arm to settle at the back of his neck, and spoke almost against xiao-Wei's mouth. "What if it's for my own sake?"

Xiao-Wei's eyes were wide and dark. "What?" He sounded like he'd lost the thread of what they were talking about, which had been at least part of what Yunlan intended by touching him. He wanted xiao-Wei to really hear him. "You're right. My father and I have different priorities, and at this point I think we always will." He stroked a thumb gently down xiao-Wei's neck. "I argue with him because I can't agree and still be myself."

Xiao-Wei leaned his forehead against Yunlan's. "You can't say this one wasn't more intense because of me, though."

"It was more intense because the old man was being especially wrong," Yunlan corrected, and then smiled, feeling the truth of his next words all the way down. "And I wouldn't care, even if it were because of you. Who I am, who I choose to be, is the man who loves you." This close, he could feel the catch of xiao-Wei's breath.

"Even..." Xiao-Wei cut himself off almost at once, but Yunlan could fill in the rest easily enough.

"Even over family," he agreed, low and steady. "Zhao Xinci was the one who chose to deny what family should mean. He gets to live with the consequences." He leaned in to kiss the protest he could feel coming off of xiao-Wei's lips and added, "You already give me what I need, xiao-Wei. You are my history and my origin, and if I ever wanted kids, well there's the whole rest of the Division."

That made xiao-Wei laugh, even if it was a little unsteady. "All right." His hands came up to cradle Yunlan's face. "If that's so, if you're sure... then may I speak to him in your defense?"

It was probably very bad of Yunlan to spend a moment savoring the glorious mental image of Shen Wei's cold temper taking Zhao Xinci apart. He did it anyway. â€œ...just donâ€™t actually kill him?â€ he finally answered, more than a little distracted.

â€œI did say speak,â€ xiao-Wei pointed out, and kissed Yunlan gently, hands sliding down Yunlanâ€™s neck and over his chest. â€œThank you. Itâ€™s been... difficult to hold back, sometimes, since I first saw the two of you actually in each otherâ€™s company.â€

â€œAnd yet youâ€™d have let him step all over you,â€ Yunlan grumbled, and glared briefly at xiao-Weiâ€™s careless shrug. â€œAll right, then, fair is fair. Let me speak in your defense, when heâ€™s being an asshole.â€ Which would be all the time.

Xiao-Wei smiled, soft. â€œYou do that already, Yunlan.â€

â€œAnd you donâ€™t get to try to stop me.â€ The streetlights made it hard to be sure, but Yunlan thought xiao-Wei might be blushing a little.

â€œIf youâ€™re sure this is what you wish,â€ xiao-Wei agreed, slowly.

All Yunlanâ€™s lingering irritation from dinner melted at the reminder that that really was the most important thing, to Shen Wei. He leaned in to kiss xiao-Wei and murmur against his mouth, â€œThank you. Home?â€

Xiao-Wei drew back, reluctantly enough to make Yunlan think briefly about the possibility of making out against the side of the Jeep. â€œYes.â€

As Yunlan pulled out into the evening traffic, thinking about their apartment and their bed, he realized with a start that the acid tension that had usually followed a â€˜familyâ€™ dinner, since his mother's death, really was gone. He could turn his head all the way to check his blind spot and everything. Which didnâ€™t mean he was going to go courting any more such meals, of course, but did make him smile and reach a hand over to rest on xiao-Weiâ€™s knee. Xiao-Wei glanced over and smiled back, small and pleased, settling his hand over Yunlanâ€™s. Maybe, Yunlan thought, they should have a real family dinner when they got home.

He liked that thought.

End

The Release of Thunder

Zhao Yunlan may have finally figured out a way to get Shen Wei to relax completely. Fluff with Characterization, I-3

Zhao Yunlan had never been a big fan of meditation. His mind tended to have a lot going on, and he'd always found it way harder than everyone else seemed to think it should be to quiet his thoughts unless he had something else to focus on. He could meditate with his punching bag just fine, but sitting down? Not very well.

He had yet to decide whether focusing on the change in his own senses was easier or harder than his moving meditations. The changes were not insignificant, but they were subtle enough that he had to hold still to focus on them—unless he was faced with something as intense as, just for example, a gateway to another realm. Since there was not going to be one of those in his apartment unless xiao-Wei was in a tearing rush to get to or from home, Yunlan was currently stretched out on the couch with his eyes closed, mentally poking at his sense of the world around him.

The apartment building was filling up with quiet life as the evening drew on, a little weight in his senses like a stone held in his hand. But not hard like a stone—lives were bright and a little skittery, like sparks on water. Taken together, though, all those little bits became a glare of brightness that flowed and pooled across the plain at the foot of the mountains, themselves a much deeper weight.

Which was actually really disorienting, because Shen Wei, currently wiping down the kitchen counters less than four meters away had almost as much weight in his senses as those mountains. The moment Yunlan let himself focus on xiao-Wei, the depth and brilliance of his presence overshadowed most of the rest of the city. The first time he'd done this with xiao-Wei nearby, Yunlan had been stunned, wondering how he could possibly have not noticed before, how he could see anything but xiao-Wei every time he looked around. After weeks of practice with his own perceptions, though, Yunlan thought he might know why.

Shen Wei's presence was deep and vast, but it didn't reach outward much. He stayed wrapped tight in on himself, only a few layers unfurling even for the SID or his students. That little bit floated out like the silk layer of his black cloak—only so far and no further before it settled close again. More of him unfolded for Yunlan, especially when they were alone, but even then the feel of him in Yunlan's senses stayed taut, poised to coil in again.

Wary.

It was giving him a bit of memory clash, because everything he'd seen in his current life said that of course this made sense. Xiao-Wei seemed to have a lot of people just itching to stick a knife in his back at the first opportunity, plus the whole secret identity thing. Of course he wouldn't give himself to the world easily. At the same time, there was a very persistent memory echo that said the shape of xiao-Wei in his senses was wrong. That it should be reaching out to touch every new thing, brightening with the pleasure of simply tasting what the world was.

The knowledge that that was how xiao-Wei used to be made Yunlan's throat tight, made him twice as determined to stay by xiao-Wei's side and give him a partner who could guard his back. And the more he got reacquainted with his own power, the more it made him wonder if he could maybe do something more to help.

Shen Wei glanced around the kitchen, letting the order of it soothe him—one of the tactics he'd used over the years to stay sane. He still liked the simplicity of keeping order in his surroundings, even though the real source of peace was finally back in his life again. He stepped around the attached table, lower than the one in Yunlan's apartment which he approved of, and felt a helpless smile taking over his face at the sight of Yunlan stretched out on the couch, the feel of Yunlan's attention curling around him. He liked that familiar weight, and it still didn't happen as often these days unless Yunlan was thinking about it.

"Hey." Yunlan's eyes were half open, and he held out a hand. "Come here."

Shen Wei crossed the room to wrap his fingers around Yunlan's hand, sitting on the edge of the couch beside him. "Yes?"

Yunlan made a dissatisfied face and tugged him further down, nudging him around until Shen Wei was stretched out on the couch with him, resting against his chest. Shen Wei was laughing by the time Yunlan seemed content with their arrangement. "Better?" he asked, sliding an arm behind Yunlan and settling against him.

"Much." He could hear the answering grin in Yunlan's voice, and that was reason enough for him to tuck his head into the curve of Yunlan's shoulder and lie quiet with him for a while. The slow slide of Yunlan's fingers through his hair was an even better reason.

The rise of Yunlan's power around them, in the middle of that peace, startled him.

"Yunlan?" He started to look up only to hesitate as Yunlan's arms tightened a little around him, hand pressing his head gently back down.

"Will you do something for me, xiao-Wei?" Yunlan asked softly, lips brushing his forehead, and he settled a little more at the feel of Yunlan turning toward him, curling around him.

"Anything. You know that."

Yunlan's voice was still soft but also a little wry. "Yeah, I know. But this one might be kind of hard." Shen Wei felt the breath he took, felt the almost-actual weight of Yunlan's power fold closer around him. "Will you relax for me? Just for now; let me worry about the rest of the world, and making sure we're safe, and all that, and... just relax for a little while?"

Shen Wei held very still, trying to deal with the sharp conflict between his desire to say yes to Yunlan and his reflex resistance to the very thought of lowering his guard like that. Yunlan's hand rubbed up and down his back, slow and easy.

"If you can't it's all right. But xiao-Wei..." Yunlan's power surged up around them, heavy and deliberate, "I'm here. I've got this."

If there was one being in all the world who he could trust that to be true of, it was surely Yunlan, especially if he was willing to purposefully reach for that much of his power. The hand resting over Yunlan's heart tightened in the fabric of his shirt, and Shen Wei took a slow breath. "You'll keep watch?" he asked, low.

Yunlan's hand covered Shen Wei's, green curling around his fingers. His voice was just as low, but far more certain. "I will."

Shen Wei closed his eyes and nodded, trying to breathe out the tension of his body, to let Yunlan's solid warmth under him, wrapped around him, take his weight. Bit by bit, he let himself stop listening to the sounds of the building around them for one out of place, listening instead to the steady rhythm of Yunlan's heart under his ear. As his body eased, Yunlan held him closer, one hand sliding up to curve around the back of his neck. Focusing on that touch helped. Slowly, Shen Wei managed to relax physically, and with each little bit, each layer of waiting tension unwound, Yunlan gathered him in, every line of his body promising protection. When Shen Wei laughed, against his shoulder, it was unsteady.

"You already do so much of this. Why—?"

Yunlan didn't even let him finish the sentence. "Because you never get a chance to stop doing this. There's so much weight on you. Do you know how rarely you even sit without being braced?"

Shen Wei blinked. "I suppose... not very often."

"Almost never, unless we're alone together, and not even then if you're thinking about work." Yunlan's hand tightened on his nape, kneading the muscles there, fingers warm and steady on his skin. As far as he'd already relaxed, it drove a gasp out of Shen Wei. "Shh," Yunlan whispered against his hair. "Let me?"

Shen Wei closed his eyes and pressed closer, feeling rather unsteady without his awareness spread out and ready. "All right."

Yunlan shifted, settling Shen Wei a little more comfortably over him, and worked his hands slowly up and down Shen Wei's back, not digging into the muscles but stroking along them, sure and easy. It felt very good, and it was getting easier to relax against him. To let the warmth of Yunlan's presence sink into him.

Actually... that was more literal than he'd thought. Now he was paying attention to more than the fight to release some of his vigilance, he could feel the slow caress of Yunlan's power, his intention nudging at Shen Weiâ€™s own tight-coiled potentiality. He stirred against Yunlan, startled. â€œWhat...?â€

Yunlanâ€™s power tightened around him, tucking in around the corners and edges of his being. â€œIâ€™ve got you, xiao-Wei,â€ Yunlan said softly, against his hair. The taste of his power, the push toward actuality, turned fiercely protective, the weight of it sheltering. â€œI promise.â€

His hands slid up and down Shen Weiâ€™s back, not minding when Shen Wei stiffened again, flinching back from the very idea. "Yunlan..."

Yunlan's power built higher around them, deeper and more solid than stone itself, in Shen Wei's senses, heavy enough with Yunlan's intent on what would be to make even Shen Wei breathless. "I know," Yunlan said, achingly soft. "I wasn't there, for so long. There was no one to guard your back or take your hand. But there is now." For all the ferocity that Shen Wei could taste in the almost-actuality around him, it was gentle wherever it touched him, still coaxing and tender. He pressed his forehead against Yunlan's shoulder and took a slow, unsteady breath in and out.

It felt so good.

Bit by bit, Shen Wei relaxed the tautness of his attention, the waiting whiplash of his power that the past few years had only pulled tighter. Yunlan made soft, encouraging sounds, one hand kneading the back of his neck. He could feel Yunlan's own power doing something very similar—curling under each loosening of Shen Wei's potential action as he let it ease further back into potential, tasting of warm invitation. And all the while, the sense of Yunlan's readiness to act, to protect, stayed wrapped around him, certain as stone and even more immoveable. It made easing down from his own edge of readiness easier, but Shen Wei was still shaking against Yunlan before long, half with the release of tension and half with constant half-formed urges back toward vigilance.

"Shhh, easy, easy," Yunlan murmured, holding him close, taking the sharp flexes of Shen Wei's power against his own without stirring. "I've got you."

"Yes," Shen Wei whispered against his shoulder, agreeing and accepting, because as difficult as the process was, he was dizzy with the rush of release, with the feel of his very being flowing more freely along the contours of the world around him. Gradually the tremors eased, as they lay together and he felt the poised potential of Yunlan's power folded around him like mountains sheltering a valley, and he let out a long, slow breath, eyes drifting closed. The brightness on the other side of his lids was soft, late afternoon sun glowing gold off the wood of the floor and the pale walls. The velvety moisture lingering in the air from the recent rains lay soft against his skin.

It had been a long time since he'd actually noticed such things.

Slowly, halting because he hadn't done this just to touch and taste for so very long, had kept himself contained so carefully, Shen Wei reached out with his power—not just his sense of the world, but his capacity to change what he touched. Beyond his skin. Beyond arm's length. Beyond the room. He flinched back reflexively at the taste of human lives, bright and rich with the generative core of their natures, but Yunlan curled closer around him, catching his recoil.

"It's okay, xiao-Wei," he said against Shen Wei's ear. "You won't hurt them, not any more."

Shen Wei pressed closer, and took another breath. "All right." He leaned into the steadiness of Yunlan's support as he reached out again, letting the depths of himself slowly unfurl into the world. The city rang in his senses like a song, so many notes together that it became a complete thing of its own, and oh, he remembered this, reaching out to taste the way lives lived together blended like cooking spices into something rich and new, leaning against Kunlun's support to keep from drinking any of them down all the way. Yunlan's touch ran deeper now, less overwhelming but more complex, woven deeper into the world. The change reminded Shen Wei with every breath that he needn't fear what his own touch would do to other lives, and he let himself reach further, light-headed with that freedom.

"Yes," Yunlan whispered against his hair, cradling him close. "This will always be yours."

Already unstrung, that promise was all it took to overwhelm him completely, and Shen Wei pressed against Yunlan, gasping for breath as shock and desire and release shook him. Yunlan held him tight through the tangled surge of emotion and response, and when Shen Wei could think in a sensible order again, the taste of his power still hovered around them, sheltering.

"Always," Yunlan reiterated. Shen Wei laughed, faint and unsteady, because he could hear absolute intransigence in that quiet tone. It had already become so familiar. "All right," he agreed, softly.

Yunlan made a satisfied sound, hands sliding slowly up and down Shen Wei's back, and Shen Wei settled against him, content for now to be held. Perhaps, in time, it would even be something he could get used to.

The thought was almost as warm as Yunlan's arms around him.

End

Thunder's Movement

Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei go out clubbing, which results in Shen Wei getting a bit prowly. Shameless Self-Indulgence, light D/s, Porn, I-4

Zhao Yunlan was a man of simple tastes.

("What, really?" Da Qing had asked, the first time Yunlan had said this out loud, perching on top of Yunlan's then-beginning collection of wine and liquor.

"I said 'simple' not 'cheap'," Yunlan had pointed out.)

A man of simple tastes, which meant that every now and then Yunlan liked to go out to one of the city's two underground clubs. The drinks were invariably cheap, and a night of getting out on a floor full of other moving bodies and ignoring everything but the sound and the beat soothed something in Yunlan, made it easier to deal with his daily work of balancing procedure against his office full of talented oddities. The last few years had been busy enough, or busy-not-quite-dying enough, that he'd let the habit lapse, but the thought had cropped up once or twice recently that he might like to go out again.

So far, the thought had met with two checks. The first turned out to not actually be a check. In fact when Yunlan had, very casually and completely in passing, mentioned the modern, cosmopolitan (and only a little likely to be raided) notion of a dance club, xiao-Wei had laughed at him.

"I attended the university as a student not that long ago," he'd pointed out, eyes still bright with amusement even after he'd stifled the open laughter. "I've been to Upstairs more than once, while it was over on the west side. Though I admit I spent more time listening than dancing." His nose had wrinkled just the tiniest bit. "It's loud, but I certainly enjoyed it more than the Wings."

Yunlan had made a considerably less reserved face. Dragon City's very own superclub was not his idea of fun either.

So that was one hurdle cleared easily. The second, however, was giving him more trouble.

"Do you honestly not own a single t-shirt?" Yunlan asked from the depths of Shen Wei's wardrobe.

"No, as I told you ten minutes ago," xiao-Wei said patiently from where he sat on the bed in the oldest pair of jeans he owned (which weren't very), still shirtless. It wasn't that Yunlan objected to xiao-Wei being shirtless—far from it. But he did object to the idea of hitting an underground nightclub in any of xiao-Wei's usual wardrobe. Every relaxed knit shirt the man owned was long-sleeved, and while he didn't object to seeing xiao-Wei drenched in sweat, either, he'd rather it be for better reasons. The irony was not lost on him, that xiao-Wei, or at least his clothes, would have fit right in had they actually been going to the Wings.

"I don't suppose..." Yunlan started, in his best coaxing tone.

Xiao-Wei cut him off briskly. "No, I will not borrow one of yours." Yunlan sighed. He hadn't really thought xiao-Wei would agree; his lover was way too much of a tailoring snob to wear anything that wasn't perfectly his size.

"Okay, okay. I guess it's one of these, then." He pulled out the lightest-weight of xiao-Wei's band-collar button downs. Plain white, at least, which would blend decently. Xiao-Wei slung it on, doing up the buttons swiftly, and then allowed Yunlan to roll the sleeves up over the elbow, plainly amused.

"And you say I'm the clothes-horse," he teased.

"You are. I dress for comfort." Yunlan mostly said it to see xiao-Wei roll his eyes, and grinned at him, leaning in to steal a kiss. "Come on, let's go before it's too packed."

The Upstairs, currently tucked away in the re-zoned commercial block behind the University's Department of Athletics, already had the music going. Scraps of a driving beat escaped each time the heavy door at the bottom of steep concrete stairs down below street level was opened. That was really only a tease, though. Past the ticket table and through the next door, they walked into a wall of sound.

A bit of it was from the people who always insisted on attempting to talk to each other, either gesturing vigorously to supplement meaning or leaning over the tables scattered around the room, lips nearly brushing each other's ears. Some of it was the enthusiastic yelling that met any especially stylish transition by the DJ in his nest of equipment and multicolored lights. But most of it was always the music itself, rushing like a tidal wave out of the tall speakers. Yunlan stretched his arms over his head, feeling the vibration of it settle into his muscles and bones, and tipped his head back, laughing. This was what he came for.

A hand at the small of his back made him look around to see xiao-Wei smiling at him, small and warm, unmoved by the sudden dive into high volume but pleased by Yunlan's pleasure. Xiao-Wei's thumb stroked up and down Yunlan's spine, through the fabric of his worn t-shirt, and he gave Yunlan a little push toward the crowd out on the floor.

Oh well. It wasn't like he'd expected getting xiao-Wei out onto the floor to be easy. Yunlan nodded agreeably and threaded his way between laughing, shouting, breathing bodies until he was in the thick of them, breathing along with the beat and the surge of motion from one body to another.

And if he put a little extra effort into the sinuous twist of his hips, well he did want to get xiao-Wei out here eventually.

One song and then another pounded through him, and he gave himself over to the rhythm of them until he could feel it vibrating down his spine, until he could nearly taste each singer's rage and joy in the heavy air. The press of other bodies all around him, moving to the same beat and the same emotion, made his whole body feel warm and loose, made it easy to give and turn with the crowd, to laugh when a pair or group got energetic enough to demand more space. It made him notice at once when space suddenly opened up around him. He looked around for a moment, puzzled, before he spotted the reason. Shen Wei was coming towards him.

No.

Shen Wei was stalking towards him.

His stride was deliberate and unhurried, each step coming down with such absolute confidence that Yunlan felt like the ground should shake from it. His expression was smooth, but everyone between him and Yunlan was crowding back out of his path and Yunlan couldn't blame them. Shen Wei's eyes were fixed on him and nothing else, so intent Yunlan thought anything between them might burn from the heat of it. Shen Wei didn't make the smallest threatening gesture, but the leashed potential for sudden action rolled out from him like smoke curling through the air.

Yunlan took a step forward to meet him, because oh fuck, yes.

Shen Wei lifted a hand to slide through Yunlan's hair and down the back of his neck, caressing and unmistakably possessive when his grip tightened. Yunlan gave with it easily, stepping into Shen Wei and reaching out to curve his hands around Shen Wei's hips, tugging until Shen Wei moved with him, and Shen Wei's lips curled in answer to Yunlan's wild grin. They were so close Yunlan could feel the brush of Shen Wei's breath against his cheek. And for all that Yunlan was the one guiding their steps and the flex of their bodies as the bass of the next song came up, fast and heavy, Shen Wei kept that last little bit of air open as they moved, controlling the space between them as effortlessly as he'd just controlled the space around them.

It made Yunlan so hot he could barely think.

When Yunlan went out to these things, he gave himself up to the sound and the space. He let the rhythm of the music and the rhythm of the crowd blend together into one thing, and let that thing pound down his spine and move him. Shen Wei moved with him, now, but he cut through the crowd like a knife through water, slid between the other bodies on the floor without a hitch, every step smooth and certain, aware of every movement around him. Instead of becoming a part of the club's rhythm, Shen Wei made the club's rhythm a part of him.

And the whole time, he never looked away from Yunlan. Didn't let go. Didn't let the breath of space between them close. It was that easy display of control, even more than the strength of Shen Wei's hand on his nape, that made Yunlan hard and breathless with desire.

He tightened his hands on Shen Wei's hips and breathed into the tiny space between them, trusting his lover to see the words his lips shaped, "Xiao-Wei, please."

When Shen Wei finally closed the distance to catch his mouth in a slow kiss, Yunlan's knees nearly gave out from the rush of heat through him. When Shen Wei drew back and tipped his head toward the door, Yunlan nodded fervent agreement. Shen Wei smiled and slid his hand down Yunlan's back to curve around his waist, unmistakably possessive, and turned toward the door. Even caught up in the pounding bass and throaty vocals of the song just starting, every club-goer in his path cleared their way with no more than a look from Shen Wei.

Yunlan was seriously wondering if he'd make it to the door without coming in his jeans.

The cool evening air, once they got past the outer door, helped clear his head a little. All that really did, though, was make him very clearly aware of how hard he was, desire for the man beside him burning like fire through his body. He was also increasingly aware that they were in a nice, dark alley between buildings, with no one else present. Yunlan contemplated this for a moment before mentally wadding up his never-much-used sense of caution and throwing it over his shoulder. He turned to xiao-Wei, hands sliding up his back to press him closer, and leaned in to kiss him, just as heated and wet and persuasive as Yunlan knew how. The way xiao-Wei pulled him in closer, arms tightening around him, was promising, and Yunlan murmured against xiao-Wei's ear, "Right now?"

The sound xiao-Wei made was nearly a growl, and he stepped into Yunlan, pushing him back against the concrete block wall of the building. "Right here?" he asked, low, lips brushing Yunlan's as he spoke.

"Oh fuck, yes," Yunlan agreed fervently, shuddering with the feel of being caught between Shen Wei's body and the unyielding wall. He loved this, loved being the one thing that could turn the collected and reserved Shen Wei so fierce and intent. Loved feeling the weight of Shen Wei's attention, knowing he was at the center of it.

The shadows didn't hide the slow, pleased curve of Shen Wei's mouth. "All right." His hands slid down Yunlan's arms, lifting them up. Yunlan's eyes widened as long fingers wrapped around his wrists and pinned them against the wall over his head. Heat shot down his spine and tightened between his legs, and the sound he made didn't have actual words in it.

"Shh," Shen Wei told him, and caught his mouth in a slow kiss. Yunlan moaned into it, softly, opening up for the way Shen Wei's tongue filled his mouth. He'd never actually said that it turned him on when Shen Wei was commanding, but he'd figured Shen Wei had probably noticed; looked like he'd been right. Shen Wei gathered his wrists in one hand, grip still immovably firm, and stroked the other down Yunlan's body, slow and caressing. Yunlan whined when that gentle pressure settled between his legs, and jerked sharply against Shen Wei's hold when Shen Wei squeezed him through his jeans. Shen Wei's grip on his wrists didn't even shift, and Yunlan moaned out loud.

"Yes, that's good." Shen Wei's fingers flicked open Yunlan's jeans and slid inside to wrap around his cock, stroking him slowly. Yunlan was panting for breath, now, dizzy with how good it felt to be pinned against the wall and fondled, to feel the weight of those dark eyes fixed on him.

"Xiao-Wei," he managed, and broke off with a gasp as Shen Wei's fingers tightened around him.

"Hush, my own." The velvety, caressing note in Shen Wei's voice lay over steel command, and the heat winding up Yunlan's spine cranked tighter. "I have you." His thumb circled over the head of Yunlan's cock, slow and firm, and Yunlan whimpered. Shen Wei took his mouth for another kiss, and murmured against his lips, "You're so magnificent, my Yunlan. Come for me."

Wound up to the breaking point from the whole evening, Yunlan couldn't have resisted that order even if he'd wanted to, and right now all he wanted was to let go and let himself be caught by Shen Wei's hands. He groaned into Shen Wei's mouth as pleasure rolled through him like waves crashing down, heavy and unstoppable, shaking him apart in Shen Wei's hold, raking down his nerves until it finally left him stunned and panting, leaning against the wall.

Shen Wei made a distinctly satisfied sound into his mouth, kissing him one more time, slowly, before finally loosening his grip. He eased Yunlan's arms down again, hands running up them to rub his shoulders. "All right?" he asked softly.

"Oh yeah." Yunlan shifted to lean against him, laughing breathlessly into the curve of xiao-Wei's neck. "Wow. We should come here more often, if it gets you that riled up."

Xiao-Wei huffed against his ear, arms sliding around him. "I wouldn't say I was 'riled up'."

"I would. And it was amazing."

Xiao-Wei was quiet for a moment, one hand curling back over Yunlan's nape. "You are very... compelling, when you let that much of yourself show openly. I wanted all of that to be focused on me." His voice was soft, a little halting, and Yunlan wound his arms tighter around xiao-Wei.

"Yeah," he agreed, just as softly. "That's exactly how I felt, too." He smiled, feeling the thread of tension through xiao-Wei's shoulders ease. "You know I like it, that you want me this much. And this much of me."

Xiao-Wei's hand tightened, and his voice turned raw. "All of you. I want everything you are, and have been, and will be."

Yunlan let himself melt into that hold with a tiny, contented sound, treasuring up the certainty of being wanted so completely, for exactly what he was. "You have it. Everything I am is yours."

Xiao-Wei turned his head to press a kiss to Yunlan's temple. "Thank you, my heart."

Yunlan would have been happy to stay like that for a bit, but it was getting colder now the sun was down, and a lick of chill breeze across some very delicate parts made him shudder and hurry to do his jeans back up. "Want to continue this at home?"

Xiao-Wei laughed softly, eyes bright and pleased in the dimness of the alley. "That sounds like an excellent idea."

As they walked back to the Jeep, though, Yunlan tucked away the thought of going out more often to think about later. Or maybe alternate methods of riling Shen Wei up a little. He couldn't help wondering what expression it would put on Shen Wei's face if Yunlan equipped their bed with some nice padded cuffs.

Xiao-Wei's sidelong look, as Yunlan started the car, told him he wasn't hiding his smirk well at all, but that was all right. Xiao-Wei was the one who wanted all of him.

The one he didn't need to hide from.

End