The Advance of the Mountain Wind - Five

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Branch

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/).

Published on 2019-08-28 20:15:08.

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

This ebook edition was published on August 29, 2019 by the Ink Burns fanfiction archive.

Cover art created by Branch

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.