Chapter Text
This was bad. This was very, very bad. And awkward. And confusing. But mostly bad because it was all too easy to imagine it getting worse, a lot worse and fast. Because that's what things generally did in his life.
Wei Ying stared at the side of Lan Zhan's beautiful face as it transitioned between shadowed to light, shadowed to light as cars passed them going the other way through the night. Lan Zhan's eyes were directed like his headlights, straight ahead as he drove at what was, knowing him, the very edge of the speed limit. Even under the current circumstances, he wouldn't risk breaking it.
Lan Zhan's hand on the gearstick was scarred, and Wei Ying knew that his other hand was too. He'd noticed both when they'd all shared tea together at New Lotus House earlier. The scars had that topographical look that screamed burns and so had to have been gained during the arson attack on Cloud Peaks, but Wei Ying's memory was clearly even worse than he'd thought. Though he could recall Lan Zhan being very brave that night, as hard as Wei Ying strained his thoughts, he couldn't remember Lan Zhan with his hands injured afterwards.
He'd ask about it, but forgetting something so major could hurt feelings, couldn't it? He'd already let Lan Zhan down more than enough.
"How long does it take to get into the centre of the City anyway?" he asked instead. Was that another thing he should remember? No, he'd only been twelve when he left Lotus House, after all, and the roads were different now, half a lifetime later. Well, half his lifetime anyway. He had been back since, a couple of times, but he hadn't been paying attention to roads.
Nonetheless, his question prompted a disparaging snort from the backseat as if he should remember passing facts about mileage and traffic. He didn't look around. He didn't know what was going on there and wasn't quite ready to face it head on.
"At this time of night, about forty minutes," Lan Zhan said, his voice level, almost monotone. "The hospital is closer. Twenty-five minutes if we meet no delays."
Was Lan Zhan even blinking? Wei Ying stared hard, trying to spot a blink of the one eyelid he could see. At stressful times like this, Lan Zhan always seemed a little like an automaton… Only not at all like one really because automatons didn't have muscles subtly bunching over their noses and under their eyes, small signs of distress that reassured Wei Ying in inappropriate ways. If he could still see them, then he hadn't completely forgotten how to read Lan Zhan despite… well, everything.
Wei Ying had feared all sorts of reactions to his unannounced return, and he'd hoped for something kinder than those reactions. At no point had he imagined he'd find himself trapped in a luxury car with the two men who had most dominated his thoughts over the terrible years of blood and fire.
Over now, he reminded himself, trying to clamp down on his thoughts before any of his demons could wake up. Over now.
Wei Ying can still hear the screams, five minutes after they've stopped. Blood is still sticky on Wen Ning's hands, and that blood is neither of theirs. The stink of it is ever present in Wei Ying's nostrils these days, and there are other smells too, worse ones.
He would have thought he'd be used to these scenes by now. This is his third, after all. The aftermaths aren't becoming any easier to handle, however, and many more such slaughters lie ahead unless the WenCorp bastards finally manage to stop them.
"I'll get the fuel cans," Wen Ning says, his eyes dark sinkholes above his mask. This is what Wei Ying has done to him, turned him from a naive young man with the sweetest of smiles into a ruthlessly efficient killing machine.
Had Wei Ying understood the plague of ill fortune he carried with him like a miasma back then, he would never have approached Wen Ning's family. He would have stayed away from not just them, but from every good person. He would have turned true avenging vigilante and somehow done this all by himself.
But it's too late now, and Wen Ning has long since forgotten how to smile. He leaves Wei Ying alone with the bodies.
They always say people look peaceful in death. Wen Chao doesn't look peaceful, but then, there isn't much left of his face to look like anything. Did Wei Ying really do all that? When he came back to himself, he was bending over the wreckage, an empty bottle in one hand, a bloody knife in the other.
He wonders, distantly, if Wen Chao lived long enough to regret taunting him about what he and his men did to a-Cheng. Wei Ying has certainly punished that poisonous, fat mouth. The teeth are still bubbling and hissing even now.
Wei Ying finds himself retching in a corner. He isn't sure how he got there.
Wen Ning has returned. Silently, he hands Wei Ying one of the jerry cans. This is becoming routine – the clean up, the arson. Another, lesser crime to add to their growing list of atrocities. Neither of them expect to survive this. Wen Ning has lost everyone. Wei Ying isn't sure he ever really had anyone in the first place, but his heart and soul are nonetheless torn away. Gaping holes abide inside him.
So long as they can free a-Cheng, give little a-Ling a future, that's all that matters now.
His foot slips in offal as he walks around the building, and he ends up sitting in shit. That's funny, isn't it? Life can still be funny. Wei Ying laughs. He laughs and laughs. He doesn't cry at all.
Over, but never forgotten, it seemed, because hell was a place inside his skull. His mind was so unobliging at times. Why did his useless memory fail to remember so much, but never let him forget one single moment of the terrible things he'd done?
Wei Ying wrapped his arms tightly around himself and tried to let the darkness and passing lights of the road hypnotise him into an empty state of mind, but his incessant thoughts never had given in that easily.
Of course, he had a new nightmare now. They were heading to Central Hospital where a little boy lay unconscious, victim of a head injury, and if Wei Ying managed to keep thinking about it using those detached terms, then maybe, just maybe, he could survive this journey intact. As intact as he ever was these days.
It wasn't just any little boy though.
Fuck! He should have come back sooner instead of dithering, afraid of his reception. If he had, then maybe a-Yuan wouldn't have been at Lan Huan's today. Wei Ying could have watched over him while his… while his dads were busy, and if that wasn't the most insane thing about any of this, he didn't know what was. When he'd first heard that the two of them and the kids were living together at what was left of Lotus House, he'd thought Wen Ning had been joking.
He'd thought it so hard that, to start with, he hadn't even been able to rejoice at the news that a-Yuan had somehow survived the slaughter of the Commune.
Oh, it made some kind of sense for normal people, he supposed. If two good friends had each found themselves suddenly solely responsible for a small child, it did make sense for them to pool resources and time, bringing the boys up together, but they weren't normal people, neither of them, and they weren't – or hadn't been – friends. Maybe they were now. Co-parenting together had to form some kind of bond, didn't it?
Once he'd finally believed, once he'd snuck back and spied on them to see for himself, lurking in as anonymous a van as he could steal, he'd found he was all kinds of grateful for the fact that they had each other.
He hadn't understood and still didn't really understand why Lan Zhan wasn't with his family; it seemed hard to believe even now that Lan Qiren of all people would refuse to accept a-Yuan, and Wei Ying couldn't think of any other reason other than possibly his career that Lan Zhan would leave home for good. Nonetheless, the fact that Lan Zhan was at Lotus House had made the other three there seem so much safer in Wei Ying's mind.
Nonsense really, he knew. Lan Zhan was just one man. He couldn't have stood up to the whole of WenCorp. Although, if anyone could have…
Wei Ying must have made a small noise or something because Lan Zhan cast him a quick, sharp look now – concern, Wei Ying remembered. The blank page of Lan Zhan's face was again filling out with a map of tiny tells for Wei Ying. He could still read him. The information hadn't faded from his patchwork mind. In the small way that knowledge could be a form of possession, Lan Zhan was still his Lan Zhan.
Arms still wrapped around himself, Wei Ying leant against the door to watch his ex-boyfriend. Lan Zhan was a far finer prospect than the inside of Wei Ying's head.
Lan Zhan's ears are completely red, Wei Ying notices unhappily. Scarlet even. And just like that, his pebble of hope that Lan Zhan remembers nothing of the night before is dashed into fine gravel.
He's been avoiding Lan Zhan all day, not wanting to face the consequences of his own unthinking impulses. He snuck out of the school during the lunch break to spend time in the town, thinking he'd be safe there as Lan Zhan would never miss lessons to follow him. But apparently he would and has because here he is, standing with his burning red ears in front of Wei Ying.
For now, Wei Ying decides to stay on the wall where he's currently perched. It gives him a height advantage and makes him harder to attack. "Bubble tea?" he offers, holding out his own large cup with little hope that the distraction will work.
Lan Zhan infinitesimally shakes his head.
This is the end of their friendship then. How can it not be, not after what Wei Ying did last night? The thought hurts more than he would expect. They're just friends, aren't they? Not anything more than that regardless of all that nonsense a-Cheng wrote in his horrible letter, and they haven't even been friends for that long. When they first met, Lan Zhan had hated the sight of him!
Aiya, this, the way it hurts to consider Lan Zhan turning his back on him, is because of a-Cheng leaving, isn't it? That terrible day, waking up to that letter that didn't sound like a-Cheng talking at all – it was so complimentary and encouraging! And his brother was just… gone. Wei Ying isn't over it. He doesn't understand it. He thought a-Cheng would always be there, brothers forever, like they'd always promised each other during the worst times.
So of course the idea of losing his new friend hurts.
"Ah, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, I'm sorry. I'm a terrible friend, an awful–"
"No." Lan Zhan interrupts in a tone that shuts him up immediately. "Wei Ying."
"Yes, Lan Zhan?" he asks meekly.
"You are not a terrible friend."
"But Lan Zhan, I took ad–"
"Wei Ying, I ignored my family's long-standing tradition regarding alcohol. I chose. I am responsible."
"No, but Lan Zhan! That's just it. You were drunk. Too drunk to make good decisions. I had a whatdoyoucallit, a duty of care, and instead of looking after you, I, uh." Wei Ying laughs nervously. "I took advantage."
"You did not."
"I–" Wei Ying winces. "How much do you remember of last night?"
Some kind of concern flickers over Lan Zhan's face, and he frowns so heavily for him that anyone could spot it if they looked deeper than a casual glance.
"I… I drank your wine," Lan Zhan says slowly. "I fell asleep. I woke up and broke school curfew. You followed. I–" He frowns, obviously having problems with his recall. "We were at the observatory. You… Wei Ying, my actions were offensive and dishonourable. You teased me. I pushed you. Then I– I did things to you."
And those things had felt really, really hot, especially the things Lan Zhan did with his tongue. And the biting! Wei Ying isn't sure why the savagery, that has left garish marks on his neck and around his clavicle, made him so hard, but it really did. And talking about hard, Lan Zhan had felt amazing, grinding against him, and so big! Wei Ying didn't even know he had a thing about size until last night. He really wants to know that size more intimately, and now he never will.
"Only over clothes, Lan Zhan," he says breezily, trying for a casual, no-big-deal approach and not to think about teeth and bulges. "It was all quite decent."
Lan Zhan seems to be compacting somehow. He still stands upright yet seems to be losing inches of height as he speaks. "It was not decent. It was–" He seems to have to force the next words out. "Sexual assault."
Wei Ying spits out his bubble tea. "Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan, it's always such absolutes with you, isn't it? You've remembered a lot; you really have, but you seem to have forgotten the most important thing!" Lan Zhan stares at him, and Wei Ying takes it as the question it surely is and explains. "You've remembered most of what you did to me, but forgotten what I was doing back to you."
Lan Zhan blinks at him owlishly, and Wei Ying wonders if there are any owls with scarlet ears. He'll have to look it up.
He laughs, feeling lighter now for some reason despite what he's about to say. "I was a willing participant in everything we did, and it was me in the wrong because you were too drunk to give consent for anything."
"I give it now," Lan Zhan says emphatically, stepping forward, his posture now almost normal again. Clearly Wei Ying's words have reassured him. "After the fact. Be at ease, no advantage was taken."
Wei Ying isn't sure it works that way. He stares at Lan Zhan for a short while, studying a new type of expression on that immaculate face, one he doesn't think he's ever seen before. Then he smiles. "Look at us both. Here we both are, each thinking we've somehow abused the other. There's only one way to resolve this."
Frowning slightly, Lan Zhan stares back a question.
Wei Ying grins. "It's obvious! We'll just have to do it all again while both of us are perfectly sober."
A pause happens then. Somehow the whole of the marketplace around them seems to stop moving, stop making noise, and the world zooms in like a focusing camera until there's only the two of them staring at each other, unblinking.
Then Lan Zhan moves. He grabs Wei Ying's wrist and yanks him off the wall, catching him briefly so that he doesn't stumble, before dragging him off through the marketplace at a rapid pace, completely ignoring his yelps.
"Not to worry, not to worry!" Wei Ying cries out to the bemused onlookers as he tries not to trip, the grip around his wrist as immovable and irresistible as a particularly intractable force of nature. Is Lan Zhan going to drag him all the way back to his rooms in Cloud Peaks and take Wei Ying up on the offer of doing it all again?
Wei Ying cannot wait to push him even further.
"...Ying. Brother took him straight to the hospital after stabilising him," Lan Zhan was saying. "There was no delay."
Wei Ying shook himself, clearing his head, and just like that the uneasy reality of the situation returned.
Lan Zhan must have thought Wei Ying's silence was due to worry as the words were obviously meant as reassurance, but Wei Ying now couldn't help imagining a-Yuan hanging limp in Lan Huan's arms, small and dirty in ragged clothes like Wei Ying had last seen him at the Commune and not at all as the boy would look now, nearly three years later.
Despite everything that had happened, Wei Ying had seen that there was still enough money left at New Lotus House for the strange family to have been living in easy comfort there. So the children would be clean, well dressed and well fed. Not that any of those things meant a thing when children could still end up unconscious in a hospital bed.
"How did–" he started in a small voice. Real life wasn't like TV as he knew all too well. In real life, a head injury followed by unconsciousness was bad. Possibly more than bad. And it really would be nice if his stupid mind could stop showing him all the head injuries he himself had caused right now. Not just showing him, but the whole five-sense extravaganza.
"What exactly happened?" he managed in the end.
Before Lan Zhan could tell him what he'd probably already told him once, the harsh voice from the back asked, "What do you care, anyway?"
"Jiang Cheng," Lan Zhan said. It was a warning, but a surprisingly gentle one. Nothing more came from the back, and Lan Zhan continued. "Wei Ying, a-Yuan woke up after bedtime at Brother's apartment. He left his bed and fell down the stairs, hitting his head on the corner of one of the steps. He was unconscious when he was found. Brother is a junior doctor at Central Hospital now. I'm certain he did all the correct procedures upon finding him."
A choked noise came from the back, and Wei Ying twisted around in his seat to look at his brother, who was behind Lan Zhan, wedged into the corner made by the door and the seatback. Jiang Cheng's long legs were folded up half beneath him, his canvas bag held between his calves and his thighs, and his face was uplit by an unsettling purple light coming from his phone, which he didn't look up from.
Curled up like that, and dressed as he was in sweats and a hoodie, it was hard to believe Jiang Cheng was the chairman of anything, let alone Jiang Industries. He looked like the teenager he'd once been, an effect only encouraged by the bruise visible above the neckline of his tee and his bitten down nails.
"I never stopped caring, a-Cheng," Wei Ying said softly, answering the question belatedly. "Not for any of you. It was thoughts of the four of you that kept me going, a reminder and a reason. Making the world safe for a-Yuan and a-Ling to grow up in was a very good reason."
Jiang Cheng made a loud scoffing noise, not looking up from his phone. "So noble. So brave. What a hero to have on our side. We're truly fortunate."
"Jiang Cheng," Lan Zhan said again, more intensely this time.
"Oh, just fuck off, Wangji," Jiang Cheng muttered, still using Lan Zhan's courtesy name as he had been ever since Wei Ying had arrived that afternoon. It was the name given and only usually used by Lan Zhan's old-fashioned and too-formal family. Was Jiang Cheng family now?
"It's all right, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying said, trying not to let any sadness infect his tone. "Let him get it out."
Jiang Cheng curled into even more of a ball, looking very miserable. He must have grown very close to a-Yuan over the past three years, or maybe he'd just lost so many people that he couldn't bear the thought of another at risk.
When Wei Ying had first turned up at the house today, Jiang Cheng had seemed happy, overjoyed even. The hug… the hug had been everything Wei Ying had dared hope for. Jiang Cheng had always given the very best hugs.
But something had changed during the afternoon and early evening. Yes, it had definitely started changing before the phone call about a-Yuan had intruded. A silence had been growing. Jiang Cheng had got up to go to the bathroom, and when he'd returned, he'd sat back down further away, not on the sofa the three of them had been sharing, but on the old chair by the far bookcase.
Wei Ying's jigsaw heart formed new fractures, looking at his brother now. Life had taken almost everything from Jiang Cheng, and it showed. Wei Ying generally tried not to think about what his brother had been through in any detail. Too much of that and he'd be coming back to himself surrounded by blood and the echoes of screams again.
"... joining us for the ongoing story this morning. Grim scenes in the countryside south of the City today where at least ten people are believed to have been found dead at a house near Lake Amaranthine after a possible gangland slaughter. The house, part of a large, historic complex known locally as the Lotus Estate, is the residence of Jiang Fengmian, the recently retired Chairman and CEO of Jiang Industries, and his wife, the new CEO, Yu Ziyuan. We go now to our reporter at the site, Tara Blum."
"Thank you, Anya. Grim scenes indeed. As you can see there's a huge police presence here at the Lotus Estate today, including multiple forensic team vehicles and canine support for this major incident.
"The facts, as we understand them, are as follows. In the early hours of the morning, locals reported hearing loud bangs coming from the property. Police arrived quickly and in increasing numbers, rapidly cordoning off the area. Eventually, the closed body bags started to come out.
"So far, we believe twelve bodies have been removed, and we've been hearing that there are more to come.
"Lotus House and the surrounding estate are the property of the influential Jiang family, founders of the multinational Jiang Industries. We understand that the family were at home last night. Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan are believed to have been entertaining their daughter, Jiang Yanli, together with her husband, Jin Zixuan, the heir of Jin Pharmaceuticals, and their baby son. The Jin's luxury SUV remains in the driveway this morning.
"Also believed to have been present at the time was the Jiang heir, Jiang Cheng, 20, who is perhaps best known as the subject of the long-running missing persons case that was finally closed two years ago when he returned home. It's likely that numerous staff and security personnel were also present at the time of this attack.
"While there's been no official statement from the authorities so far, earlier an official on the scene spoke to us under the guarantee of anonymity. He said the bodies had all been found in one room and claimed that the crime scene showed strong indications of a gangland execution.
"While Jiang Industries has no known connections to organised crime, recently the top levels of the company have been under a cloud. In January, Jiang Fengmian suddenly resigned from his positions as CEO and Chairman of the Board after an emergency board meeting called by his wife. He was then replaced as CEO by his wife, and the board voted in a new acting chairman a few weeks later.
"Despite the company's insistence that Jiang Fengmian had been preparing for retirement for some time, and that only a change in his health had provoked the hastened resignation, rumours of a darker truth have dogged the company ever since. Online whistleblowers have repeatedly claimed an embezzlement scandal has been covered up, citing as part of their evidence that the company's Chief Finance Officer and multiple accountants had all unexpectedly taken retirement or left the company at roughly the same time.
"As Councillor Yao pointed out in the studio a little earlier, these terrible events today, following on from the devastating arson attacks upon the properties of the philanthropic Lan family last year, are enough to raise questions about what exactly is going on within the five great families that dominate the economic and political landscape of our great city. Could it be that a deadly and escalating war has broken out between the business dynasties? If so, it seems that the Jiang may be the first full casualty.
"More information as we have it. I am Tara Blum reporting for City News. Back to Anya Ioveanu in the studio."
Wei Ying is wondering, in the small part left of his mind that isn't screaming, how exactly someone has managed to fake what he and Lan Zhan just watched.
Because it can't be true, can it? It can't be. Someone he's pissed off somehow is having a very unfunny joke at his expense. It can't be real because he'd know if a-Cheng were dead. A-Cheng can't just die, and Wei Ying not know about it. And if a-Cheng isn't dead, then Yanli, Uncle Jiang and everyone else can't be dead either.
It's a joke. A really, really stupid joke. And the joke will be on the perpetrator when Wei Ying finds out who they are.
"Wei Ying," a deep voice says, and Wei Ying realises he's being held tightly by strong arms, pulling him back against a hard chest. "Wei Ying, talk to me."
"Haha, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, wondering what's happened to his voice. It sounds so weird. "What an elaborate joke! Who do you think was behind it? I bet it was that Jin Zixun. He's the only one I can think of who might have the money to buy time on the network like that. I knew he hated me, but I never thought he hated me this much! What a silly man. I mean, your uncle hates me too, but he'd never waste money on me like this, and anyway, it's far too interesting a punishment for one of his. I suppose it might have–"
"Wei Ying. Stop." Lan Zhan moves his hands to Wei Ying's shoulders and turns his body to face him, but Wei Ying's head doesn't seem to want to turn with it, his eyes still following the images on the screen even if his ears have stopped hearing the words. Has he gone deaf? But he can still hear Lan Zhan, can't he?
"Breathe now," Lan Zhan says, confirming it, a hand now on Wei Ying's face forcing it to turn too. "Look at me and breathe."
"Hahaha, silly Lan Zhan. I am breathing. How could I be talking if I wasn't breathing?" Although he supposes that might explain why it seems harder and harder to force the words out.
Lan Zhan's phone is on the sofa beside him, the screen lit up as what looks like text after text silently arrives. That's strange. Not many people that aren't Wei Ying message Lan Zhan at all. And he's certainly not messaging him, is he? He doesn't even know where his phone is right now, otherwise he'd be texting up a storm about the bad, bad joke.
"Let me watch the TV, yeah? If someone's gone to all this trouble to hoax me like this, I'm kind of obliged to watch it, don't you think? City News is so corrupt, yeah? Just gossip and fake news all the time. How much do you think it costs to get such a long segment on the network? Maybe there's Jin money in the current affairs department. That could explain it. Do you think that's it? Auntie Yu's going to lose her shit when she sees it. It's a good job there's such strong ties between the Jin and Jiang or else war would break out, and no one wants that! Why can't I hear the report anymore, anyway? Have you turned the sound down? Sneaky, Lan Zhan. You hate my attention on anything not you, don't you? Such possessiveness, tut tut. Just let me–"
"Wei Ying!"
He freezes at the tone in Lan Zhan's voice, and oh no, now that he's stopped to look, he can see that Lan Zhan is looking very upset, enough that even people without his secret Lan Zhan decoder knowledge would be able to see it easily. Perhaps it's the mention of the arson attacks in the fake report that has upset him. They're the reason they are currently in Lan Zhan's hotel room rather than his rooms back in the family side of Cloud Peaks that no longer exist.
Wei Ying reaches out with fingers that seem to be trembling and touches his boyfriend's face. "It's all right, Lan Zhan. It's all right. You're all right."
Lan Zhan's eyes flutter shut, and he takes a pained breath before opening them. "Wei Ying, the news story is not a joke."
"Wh– what? Of course it is. It has to be."
"Brother confirms it. It is real. The Jiang were– They are dead, Wei Ying."
"No."
"I'm sorry."
"No! No no no no no no, Lan Zhan!" He hits Lan Zhan's shoulder hard enough to make him rock. "Why would you join in with this stupid joke?" Lan Zhan wouldn't, and Wei Ying knows it. "You're wrong," he insists, faltering now. "They can't be dead. Not Yanli. Not… Not a-Cheng! I'd know. I'd know if he left me like that."
Just like he hadn't known when Jiang Cheng vanished overnight from Cloud Peaks in order to go home to Lotus House without him. Yeah, just like that. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…
"Brother is finding out more," Lan Zhan says. "His contacts are good." As if summoned, Lan Zhan's phone starts to vibrate, a small image of his brother showing on the screen. "I must answer this," Lan Zhan says regretfully.
Half-released thanks to the call that Lan Zhan doesn't seem to want to put on speaker, Wei Ying is able to wriggle free. Grabbing the remote, he moves closer to the TV. An image of Jin Zixuan's face currently fills the screen. Stupid peacock. He increases the volume just enough to hear what's being said.
"...derstand that a spokesman from Jin Pharmaceuticals will be–" The anchor put two fingers to her ear. "Ah, and it seems we're returning now to the scene of a massacre in the Lake Amaranthine area last night as there are new developments. Is that correct, Tara Blum?"
The screen changes to show the same reporter as before; she's right in front of the police cordon, which itself is a few metres out from the Lotus Estate walls. The house itself can be seen through the open gates, far in the background and surrounded by police vehicles.
"Yes, Anya. We heard just a moment ago that the police may have found a survivor. The identity of the survivor is unclear, but whoever it is will no doubt be a vital witness for any future prosecutions. A police armoured SUV has just been taken up the driveway, and we believe that this will be used to transport the survivor to a protected place. If this was indeed a g–"
The camera veers suddenly, zooming in towards the front door of Lotus House, which is now open. Only the top of the open space is visible at this angle, but people are coming out. The reporter keeps talking, but Wei Ying is no longer listening. All that matters is seeing who it is coming out of that door.
The angle changes abruptly, and the scene becomes much clearer. Viewed only slightly from above as if from the point of view of a very tall person, it's probably coming from a trespassing drone. And so Wei Ying sees his brother for the first time in two years.
Flanked by two bulky men in full police body armour, Jiang Cheng looks frail and far shorter than Wei Ying knows he is. His face, hair and clothes are filthy, covered in… in… That's blood, isn't it? Blood and the debris or dirt that's sticking to it. He's holding a bundle of fabric close to his chest.
More police crowd around the three, possibly to hide them from the cameras beyond the gate, but the drone can still see. And Wei Ying is finally able to take something like a full breath. His brother, at least, is alive.
His brother is alive but looks like the walking dead. His eyes are glassy, unfocused, and his mouth slightly open. He walks where he is taken. His escorts each have a hand on one of his arms, guiding him in a way that looks too forceful to Wei Ying, but then, it doesn't look like they have much choice about that. Jiang Cheng does nothing at all whenever his minders pause; he just stands, wavering like a zombie, until restarted again.
As the three on the screen reach the armoured SUV, someone, a woman, tries to take the bundle of rags out of Jiang Cheng's arms. Jiang Cheng suddenly becomes violently animated, visibly snarling, ripping himself from one of his minders' grip and turning sharply away, curling over his armful protectively.
Oh fuck, it's a baby, isn't it? Jiang Cheng has Yanli's little son in his arms. Is the child alive? Please let him be alive. Wei Ying reaches out a trembling hand to touch the screen which…
...suddenly goes black. Wei Ying whirls around to scream at Lan Zhan. "Turn it back on!"
"No need," Lan Zhan says resolutely. "Brother has told me more than the reporters know."
"I want to see!"
Instead of answering, Lan Zhan hands him a bottle of vodka.
Wei Ying snatches at it, fumbling with the seal around the top. "Give me the remote back."
"There is no need to torture yourself with the reports, Wei Ying. I can tell you what happened."
Wei Ying strongly disagrees. There's plenty of need. There's so much need he's thinking of fighting Lan Zhan for the remote, an entirely pointless endeavour as Lan Zhan is stupidly strong. "Tell me then," he says as he eyes the remote in Lan Zhan's hand and tries to make his screaming mind strategise. "Tell me who did it."
"It was the Wen."
The Wen. The same bastards behind the arson attacks that hit every property the Lan owned during that awful night last year.
Wei Ying is going to kill every last one of them.
Jiang Cheng was looking at him now, his phone finally dark. "Wen Ruohan died three months ago. Your self-appointed mission was over, yet it took you this long to come home? Why even bother?"
"Ah, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng. You have no idea how much I wanted to come sooner," Wei Ying said, wishing that he'd never even alluded to what he'd been up to while missing. They'd seemed so accepting of him when he'd first arrived, but then they'd taken the little he'd said and run with it, making huge assumptions about what he'd been up to that just happened to be right. He'd never wanted them to know the whole truth. "Too many things just needed to be done still. You know how it is."
"No," Jiang Cheng said flatly. "I don't. You let us believe you were dead for nearly three years."
"I know. I'm sorry. I…" He sighed and gave in. He owed them the truth, really. "I got revenge for you, a-Cheng. For Yanli and Uncle Jiang and… and all the Jiang, even old uncle Silin." He chuckled in a way that didn't sound right to his own ears. "And for Cloud Peaks and Lan Zhan's dad, and everyone in the Commune, and all the people I didn't know and couldn't save that WenCorp also destroyed."
Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes, a gesture so familiar that it almost felt like a miracle, a little wonder to brighten the gathering darkness around them.
"I'm sure," Jiang Cheng said, "that they're all very grateful to you." His words dripped with both bile and, at the very end when his voice caught, something that sounded a lot like anguish. He looked away, out of the window.
Wei Ying stared at him, not knowing what to say, but then Jiang Cheng inhaled a huge breath through his nose and shuddered when he let it out.
"When we heard at the office about Wen Chao, we celebrated," he said, still staring out of the window. "We didn't even hide it. The bastards they'd left to keep an eye on me yelled in my face so I offered them a drink." He snorted. "Then I threw it in their faces."
"It was unwise," Lan Zhan said quietly.
"It was worth every bruise," Jiang Cheng insisted. "Mine, that is. I wasn't too happy when they started threatening the others. Anyway, was that you, Wei Ying? We heard some rumours about the body…"
"It was," Wei Ying admitted, the images back in front of his eyes yet again. "I– I wasn't–"
"You don't have to explain," Lan Zhan said. "Talk only if you want to."
"I wish I'd been there," Jiang Cheng said, sounding almost wistful, and Wei Ying had to swallow down the compulsion to scream at him.
"Aiya, a-Cheng, you don't. Believe me, you don't."
"Don't I?" Jiang Cheng said challengingly, leaning forward and glaring into Wei Ying's eyes, a cruel sneer twisting his lips. "Really?"
Wei Ying couldn't help the sob like noise that burst from him when he recognised what he saw in those hard eyes. Jiang Cheng had killed too. Wei Ying hadn't even been able to save him from that.
"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan said, pain in his voice.
"I'm all right, I'm all right," Wei Ying tried to hurriedly assure him. "Nothing to worry about. I'm just a touch PTSD-y. You know how it is. Already passed. I'm fine."
"You're no more fine than I am," Jiang Cheng said, sinking back down into his spot. "Getting you in to see someone in my therapist's practice will be a priority."
Wei Ying spluttered out a laugh. "This is you on therapy?"
He was lucky that Jiang Cheng's sense of humour had always been as dark as his own. "Terrifying thought, isn't it?" Jiang Cheng smirked, but the look in his eyes was ice cold.
They both chuckled uneasily.
"I tried to come to see you, you know," Wei Ying heard himself confessing. "Maybe you do know because it was Lan Zhan who drove me. I know you didn't want to see me again after you left, but I thought that maybe that had changed after–" He cut himself off, not even wanting to say it. "Anyway, they wouldn't let me in. They claimed they would pass on any messages, but I don't think they ever did. I thought maybe you still wanted nothing to do with me, but Lan Zhan found out that the men at the gates were Wen, so it wasn't that, was it? The bastards never told you."
Jiang Cheng shook his head. "If they'd let you in, and they'd seen that you were… important to me, you would have become another weapon to use against me, a more disposable one. If you'd been there earlier, during the attack, I would have had to watch them put a bullet through your head too. And watch it, and watch it, and never stop fucking watching it just like all the others."
And oh, didn't Wei Ying know exactly how that one went.
"It wasn't like the crap they spun in the media, you know." Jiang Cheng looked down at his phone that he was turning over and over in his hands. "I wasn't hiding somewhere, valiantly trying to get a-Ling to safety. I was in the same room as everyone else when it happened. That bastard made me watch as–" He shook his head again, and it turned into a full body shiver. "Then they held a gun to a-Ling's head and told me I was to be their puppet prince, a public face to appease the stockholders while they cannibalised Jiang Industries from within, and if I refused–"
"Talk about this later, Jiang Cheng." Lan Zhan said. Well, instructed really. "When we're home again."
Or not at all, Wei Ying thought. Not at all would be fine by him. Jiang Cheng's words were all too easy to picture, even the ones he hadn't quite said. The terror everyone must have been feeling, the nightmares Jiang Cheng must be having even now…
They were in the outer city now, the old southtown, ramshackle and bright. It made Wei Ying think of the abandoned house they'd stayed in for a while when they were fourteen or so. That place had seen so many firsts for them.
"Do you remember that old place we squatted in for over a year?" he asked Jiang Cheng impulsively. "The one where the chimney fell through the roof in the middle of the night, and we thought something had exploded?"
Jiang Cheng looked back up at him, his expression suggesting he thought Wei Ying had lost the few senses he had left, but he nodded. "What about it?"
Wei Ying shrugged. "Ah, nothing. Nothing really. I just think about it sometimes. Don't you?"
His expression guarded, Jiang Cheng nodded again. "I liked it there," he said so quietly that Wei Ying didn't think he would have heard it had he not been looking that way.
"Me too," he said and smiled. "Good times, eh, a-Cheng?"
"That was then," Jiang Cheng said, his voice suddenly hard, interrupting Wei Ying's pleasant reverie before it could even properly start. "There's no going back. I don't recognise those foolish children anymore. Who were they? Certainly not us." He gestured with a hand between them, a look of what might have been disgust on his face. "I don't know you, and you don't know me. Some things change you forever."
Wen Ning had been wrong. Wei Ying shouldn't have come home. He could see that now. He tried to form his brightest smile. "Aiya, a-Cheng. I understand. I wasn't there when you needed me, so why would you want me around now? What kind of useless big brother am I? I can clear off, disappear into the night, and you need never see me again if that's what you want. No hard feelings, I promise."
Lan Zhan made a cut off noise – pain or anger or… something. If he was about to say actual words, he never got the chance as suddenly Jiang Cheng was right in front of Wei Ying, gripping the seatbacks and snarling.
"Already? You're not been back even half a day, and you're already talking of leaving? How little we all mean to you. How pathetic you must think us. Are we meant to be grateful for these few hours of your precious attention? I'd thought…" He visibly swallowed. "I'd thought at least you'd stay for Wangji. It would have been kinder to have stayed dead, Wei Ying, than do this to him again. This is just fucking cruelty!"
"A-Cheng!" Wei Ying quailed under the onslaught, a blurry wash suddenly filling his eyes from nowhere. He dashed the useless tears away before they could fall. "Brother, stop. I don't want to leave again. I really don't. I really just want to come home. I want that more than anything. I'm so tired. But not… not if it's just going to hurt any of you further."
A hand that should have been on the gearstick landed on Wei Ying's leg and squeezed before returning to change gear, and Wei Ying could feel the concerned glance directed his way.
Jiang Cheng laughed, the sound bitter as coffee grounds. His face seemed to be wet too, or at least it shone a little in the passing lights. "Here's a thought that apparently never occurred to you even once during your years of pretending to be dead while serial killing Wen on our behalf – you could always, I don't the fuck know, ask us what we want?"
"Jiang Cheng," Lan Zhan said now, and he sounded exhausted. Great job at making everything better, Wei Ying. "A-Cheng, please. I have to drive safely. For a-Yuan. Not now."
Lan Zhan had said 'a-Cheng', Wei Ying realised, not just 'Jiang Cheng'. It was good that they'd become close friends over the few years they'd shared. Something to hold onto. They did have each other.
Jiang Cheng was staring at Lan Zhan, silent now, his lower lip trapped between his teeth. Before he could think better of it, Wei Ying touched Jiang Cheng's hand where it rested next to the headrest.
"Running away is what we've always done, isn't it, you and I?" he said with what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "I suppose it gets to be ingrained behaviour after a while."
Jiang Cheng huffed. "I don't stay where I'm not wanted," he said as if it was something obvious. "You're wanted here. Wangji wants–"
"And you, a-Cheng," Lan Zhan interjected. "You want him to stay too."
Jiang Cheng didn't acknowledge that Lan Zhan had spoken at all, just repeated, "You're wanted here."
"I don't have to run," Wei Ying said, squeezing his brother's hand. "Not this time, not if I'm welcome."
"Stay," Jiang Cheng muttered, not meeting his eyes, and he pulled his hand out from under Wei Ying's and shuffled back into his corner. "Lotus House is your home."
Wei Ying,
I've gone home. Don't follow me.
I've been thinking this through for a while now, and I've been writing to a-Li a lot. Even more than usual. She thinks they'll accept me back, and now that I won't be leaving you alone, it's time for me to face up to my responsibilities as heir.
Cloud Peaks has been amazing for both of us, and I'm sorry to leave, but you've always been the one who's destined to excel. Study hard, Wei Ying. Make the most of everything you're offered. Go to one of those big name universities and not even the sky's the limit for you.
Stay close to Lan Zhan. I've spoken to him, and after he got over himself, he promised to stand by you. Play it right and he'll have your back through thick and thin, so don't alienate him with your chaos, all right? You'd have to do a lot to make that happen, seeing as he's your number one fan, so that still gives you a lot of leeway.
My duty in life is different. I've run from it for too long, but no longer. It won't be so bad. A-Li says things have calmed down a lot since we fled. I think we did my parents a favour as well as ourselves by leaving when we did.
That said, don't follow me to Lotus House and don't try to visit later. Your presence would just start it all up again, and I hate to think what she'd do to you now with years of having nursed her anger. You know she'll blame you for us having run even though it was my idea.
Don't write to me either. I don't want to risk either of them finding out where you are.
Try not to miss me. I know I've been around a long time, but you don't need me any more. You've got your genius brain to bring you success in life and Lan Zhan for everything else. I don't think you realise how thoroughly you've hooked him. I think you realise even less how thoroughly he's hooked you. So trust me. On this one last thing between us, trust me. I know what I see when you two stare at each other.
So I suppose this is goodbye. You were the most infuriating of brothers, Wei Ying, but you were also the best. Our lives follow different paths now. Yours is shining and golden, and you won't walk it alone. Whatever you decide to do, I know it will be brilliant.
Jiang Cheng
Jiang Cheng became silent now, frowning back down at his phone. He seemed to be reading some kind of article, and Wei Ying had a sudden horrible thought that it was probably about brain damage in children.
He faced forward in his chair and slumped down. Surely they couldn't be far from the hospital now? He looked at Lan Zhan's phone tucked into the holder on the dashboard and wondered if there'd been any further messages. He didn't ask though. It would have felt like taunting fate.
"Is a-Ling still with Lan Huan?" he asked instead.
"He's with his uncle, Jin Guangyao, Brother's partner," Lan Zhan said. "A-Ling remained asleep during the accident and the alarm that followed it."
"Ah, that's good. I'm glad."
After a few more miles, Lan Zhan said, "Wei Ying."
"That's me. Yes, Lan Zhan?"
"I want you to stay. We want you to." Clear words, not a chance of misunderstanding them, and yet Wei Ying's first thought in response was to wonder who 'we' defined and did Lan Zhan mean a few days or… or longer?
"All right, Lan Zhan," he said soothingly. "If that's what everyone wants, of course I'll stay a while."
"For fuck's sake, Wei Ying!" Jiang Cheng sprang back to snarling life as if someone had flicked a switch to turn him back on. "He doesn't want you to stay for 'a while'. He wants you to stay for good. How are you still this oblivious?"
For good? Lan Zhan really still wanted…?
"If you want that too," Lan Zhan said. "What you want matters."
"I… ahh, Lan Zhan, take pity on me. What do I of all people know about 'for good'? I've never lived anywhere for longer than, uh…" He tried to work it out in his head.
"Five years," Jiang Cheng said, and of course it was.
"Yes," he agreed aloud. "Five years at Lotus House. How could I forget, a-Cheng?"
"Then agree to five years," Jiang Cheng said. "And reassess after they've passed."
That sounded like a contract, Wei Ying thought. He supposed Jiang Cheng had signed a lot of those by now. "Do you go to work dressed like that?" he asked, twisting around to look at his brother again and hoping to distract the other two from the whole 'for good' stupidity. It worked.
Jiang Cheng scowled at him. "Of course I fucking don't. I've got designer suits hanging up for the times I have to go to that shitheap in person." His face convulsed in what looked like disgust or nausea, and he looked away again.
"Aren't you meant to be running the business?" Wei Ying asked, feeling confused.
"I'm the Chairman of the Board and majority shareholder, not the CEO. I pay the CEO to do all the day to day running of shit, so I can concentrate on better things like parenting and… Yeah, things."
"Ah," Wei Ying said, realising he knew almost nothing about business structures despite having lessons in that sort of thing as a kid. Uncle Jiang would have despaired. "Who's the CEO? Someone I know?"
"No," Jiang Cheng said and seemed to be leaving it at that.
"None of my business," Wei Ying said. "I know. I get it. You're right, of course."
Jiang Cheng sighed, the noise edged sharp with exasperation. "He was someone who helped during the shit times. He's a network specialist originally from QN International, but who left there after some kind of family falling out. He was all I could afford when I finally had real control; there was almost nothing left by then; WenCorp had stripped us skeletal. He's turned out to be very good at more things than computers though. He'll get Jiang Industries back to what it used to be in another five years, ten at the most. I can already pay him what he's worth now, at least."
"Ah, that's good. That's good, a-Cheng."
"A-Ling needed a legacy, seeing as the Jin moved the line of inheritance rather than risk giving WenCorp any hold over them," his brother said with a half-shrug. "An old shell full of ghosts and nightmares wasn't much of a legacy, but I'd nothing else to offer, so it had to be restored."
Not even for himself then, and not for the many dead, but for little a-Ling. Wei Ying wondered if the boy would ever realise quite what his uncle had done for him as it was clear the very idea of Jiang Industries was torment for Jiang Cheng.
"You're a good uncle," Wei Ying told him. "A-Ling is lucky."
Jiang Cheng gave him a fiercely disbelieving look. "Lucky?"
"Aiya, Jiang Cheng, not always lucky, obviously. Things started bad, the worst, but he's fallen on his feet with an uncle like you, protecting him, putting him first."
"Yeah," Jiang Cheng said, a cruel sneer hooking up his upper lip. "An uncle like me. What kid wouldn't want a walking husk of Complex-PTSD and rage as their Guardian? Who'd want their kind and nurturing mother or gentle, stupid father when they could have that? He's so lucky."
Wei Ying reeled.
Beside him, Lan Zhan took a deep and stuttering breath. "A-Cheng," he said in an low, intense tone. "You know you're more than that. We will talk. Later. I need to drive safely."
"I– Sorry, Wangji," Jiang Cheng muttered. "You need to stop talking to me," he hissed at Wei Ying, scowling, and he unlocked his phone again, clearly intending to retreat into it once more.
Wei Ying faced front and found he was trembling. Well, that wasn't good.
He looked out at the City. They were in an area of towering modern offices and company HQs. Everything was very shiny. It made him feel like he was in a music video.
"Stay for your 'while', Wei Ying," Lan Zhan said after a few minutes, sounding like the words were hard to form. "This is a bad day. We live a peaceful life normally. Give the four of us a chance."
"Of course, Lan Zhan. If I won't get in the way."
"New Lotus House has five bedrooms," Lan Zhan told him, which hadn't precisely been what Wei Ying meant, but he supposed it answered some of it.
He'd known from his spying even before coming home today that Jiang Cheng had had the old house demolished for reasons not too difficult to imagine. The new one was smaller and modern, lacking the historical grandeur. Much of the surrounding land had gone too, sold off to developers. It was sad in a way, but probably a good thing. It wasn't just a-Cheng who had painful memories of the old place.
Did he really want to live there again even in a new building? And if he didn't, why had he come home at all?
"I, uh," Wei Ying started, looking at his hands and wishing he had something to fiddle with. "Rent might be an issue. I don't think I'm the steady worker type. I'm not sure I'm even an employable type, seeing as the world maybe thinks I'm dead."
"Rent is not required," Lan Zhan stated. Wei Ying listened for, but didn't hear, a noise from the backseat disputing that. "You could return to your degree plans. You scored highest in our year in the exams. Uncle would write a strong letter attesting to your ability."
Wei Ying laughed. "Now, now, Lan Zhan. Fibbing is forbidden. Your uncle hated me."
"Uncle did not. Uncle believes in 'hate the behaviour, not the child'. Uncle has stated that he believes you are a genius."
"Fifteen out of ten on brains," Jiang Cheng said from the back. "Zero out of ten on common sense."
"Heh. The fifteen's overstated, but you're not wrong, a-Cheng," Wei Ying said as he could hardly deny it. "Lan Zhan, I don't believe that 'he's a genius' is all your uncle said." He rubbed at the side of his nose. "Was it perhaps just a small part of a really long rant listing every way in which I'm 'impossible'?"
"Maybe," Lan Zhan admitted, clearly unwillingly, but he'd never liked to lie.
"He came to the service we held for you," Jiang Cheng said unexpectedly. "He wasn't invited. It was meant to be just the two of us; he just turned up. He'd probably come to fight with Wangji again about his decisions, but he didn't do that. He just lit incense, said a few things about you, and left again."
Wei Ying didn't know what to think about that, so he decided not to try.
Looking out of the windscreen, he saw a sign for Central Hospital. They were nearly there, just three miles now. Of course, in the City, three miles could take an hour, but not at this time in the evening.
"You scored just one point less than me in the exam table, Lan Zhan," he said, returning to the last subject from a different angle. "I'd expected you to be finishing your own degree by now."
"It's complete," Lan Zhan said matter of factly. "I chose to attend locally. The School of Law at City University is very good, one of the best in the world. I start my doctorate in the Autumn."
Law? That had definitely not been what Lan Zhan had planned while they were still studying together.
"Your plans for the Conservatory…" Wei Ying started hesitantly.
"Were selfish," Lan Zhan said firmly. "I want to bring meaningful changes to the world."
"But your music…"
"The benefits of music do not require years of advanced study to materialise, Wei Ying. I still play."
Wei Ying guessed that Lan Zhan must have changed his plans after the destruction of Cloud Peaks. Nothing else could explain it.
"Lan Zhan!" Wei Ying exclaims only to start to cough again. He really has inhaled far too much smoke and fumes tonight, but then they all have. At least he's finally found his boyfriend after searching everywhere that the fire service would still allow him to reach and some places he'd managed to dart into when they weren't looking. He'd been getting really worried.
Lan Zhan is sitting by himself at the very edge of the sports fields they've all congregated at. Wei Ying drops down onto the grass beside him, but Lan Zhan stares forward with a blank expression, not acknowledging him. Wei Ying decides the behaviour indicates fatigue. If it isn't fatigue, then it should be. It's been a very long, very hard night.
"Are you all right, Lan Zhan?" he asks. "You didn't get burnt, did you? All the fires are out now. The Chief Fire Officer just told me."
"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says heavily, turning slowly and looking at him with reddened eyes.
"Aiya, Lan Zhan, you look terrible!"
Lan Zhan has always seemed immaculate to Wei Ying. Even during sex, Lan Zhan somehow maintains his perfection until the last minute while Wei Ying falls apart almost instantly and becomes ever more of a complete mess beneath him. But now Lan Zhan is smudged all over with soot and debris. His clothes are rumpled and stained, and his hair thick with so much ash that it looks grey. It's wrong on an intrinsic level for him to look like this. It offends something deep inside Wei Ying.
"Did you rescue lots of people?" Wei Ying asks. "I couldn't find you again after I helped that old woman we rescued get to the carpark. Where did you go?"
"Wei Ying, my father has died," Wangji says, his hoarse voice more monotone than usual. "He was trapped in his cottage."
"Oh, Lan Zhan. Oh no." Wei Ying doesn't know what to say. Lan Zhan hasn't ever spoken much about either of his parents. Wei Ying knows Lan Zhan's mother died when he was little, much as both Wei Ying's parents had. He's long since gained the impression that Lan Zhan and his father were estranged somehow, but maybe that was false. The man is – was – a recluse, after all, so it isn't surprising that he rarely saw his sons.
Anyway, even if they were estranged, death is always a big deal. Wei Ying shuffles closer and puts his arm around Lan Zhan. "I'm so sorry. Being an orphan really sucks."
"Nothing has changed," Lan Zhan states. It seems a strange thing to say. The night is full of milling, traumatised people and emergency vehicles with their lights still lazily rotating. In the distance, the shells of Cloud Peak structures still smoulder.
Wei Ying still doesn't know what to say, so he's not unhappy when his coughing starts up again. It doesn't last long though. His throat is just a little scorched, he thinks.
"Are you all right?" Wangji asks with a little more life to his voice.
"Ah, I'm fine, Lan Zhan. You don't need to worry about me. Although it's getting a bit cold now the flames have died down, isn't it? Maybe I'll go and steal one of those blankets they're giving out to the shocky types. We could share it if you like. Are you cold?"
"No need to steal. They will give us one if we ask. I will come with you." Lan Zhan gets to his feet and offers Wei Ying his hand.
Standing, Wei Ying only just resists the urge to try to brush Lan Zhan down. It's really not right, him looking such a mess. It's as if Lan Zhan's superpower of perfection is intrinsically linked to Cloud Peaks somehow, and as Cloud Peaks dies, the glamour fades from Lan Zhan.
"I think your uncle is organising accommodation for everyone. Us students will be heading for one of the halls in the town for a mass sleepover, but I'm sure the hotels will open up for you Lan. You'll be able to have a nice shower and then– Oh. Our clothes have all gone."
"Mn. The shops will be open in the morning."
"Ahha! Good thing you thought to grab our phones as we hurried out then. Clever Lan Zhan!"
"I was calling the emergency services."
Wei Ying is privately sure that someone else had already called them by that point. They were late to notice because of what they'd been getting up to in bed together. It had been such a good night until suddenly it had become a frantic sped up disaster movie of sensation – the sounds of timber cracking and splitting, and of screams and wails; red-orange flickers that burned their retinas and made the night entirely opaque away from the flames; and the heat, of course, the unbelievable heat. He couldn't forget the choking, acrid smoke either, like from a giant illegal bonfire, which Wei Ying supposes is exactly what it was.
They'd immediately started knocking on doors to get people up and out, but the fire had spread with a speed Wei Ying wouldn't have believed possible, constantly threatening to trap them. The ferocious heat had really started to hit them as they'd tried to rescue people who'd been far slower to react even than them. They were in the family village, which meant many of the residents weren't young, fit students able to move quickly and get themselves to safety, and that was how Wei Ying had found himself separated from Lan Zhan.
Having broken down a door to get a sweet but very scared elderly Lan woman out before the flames spreading over her bungalow roof reached inside, Wei Ying volunteered to get her to the Village carpark where the locals were currently gathering. By the time he was able to pass her onto someone who would see that she was looked after, he couldn't get back.
"I was really worried when I couldn't find you, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying tells him as they walk towards where the majority of emergency vehicles are now gathered. "Fire and Rescue arrived and just wouldn't let me go back to the Village whatever I said!"
"Mn. It's good that they stopped you. I couldn't get through to the carpark. I had to run with my cousin, each of us carrying a child, to get out through the woods. The flames chased us. The children were very scared."
"Oh, I see. You must have ended up at the complete opposite end of the complex. Did we get everyone out from the Village, Lan Zhan?"
Lan Zhan shakes his head. "I think many have died tonight, Wei Ying."
"Bastards," Wei Ying says with feeling, and Lan Zhan looks askance at him.
"I heard the CFO say it was arson," Wei Ying explains. "Someone did this to us deliberately, Lan Zhan!"
Lan Zhan nods. "I saw evidence for it – a bundle of old cloth behind one building that smelled of petrol. I'll report what I saw."
"Why would anyone want to?" Wei Ying asks. It was finally hitting him just how much had been lost. "The Lan are good people; everyone knows that. Cloud Peaks is… is a haven. It's brought so much good to the world!"
"Perhaps a disgruntled student?" Lan Zhan says, frowning slightly. Wei Ying doesn't get the impression that Lan Zhan really believes that's a possibility. "There's Brother."
Lan Huan is standing next to his boyfriend, Nie Mingjue, who is looking very large and intimidating beside him as if prepared to protect him from all comers. It doesn't seem to worry Lan Zhan, however, who walks straight up to them both. Wei Ying hovers a little bit behind him.
"Brother. Father is gone."
Lan Huan nods sadly. "I know, Wangji. Are you both all right? Have you been checked out by the paramedics?"
"I am fine. Wei Ying may have smoke inhalation issues."
"What? No, I'm fine!" Predictably, his lungs take Lan Zhan's words as a suggestion, and Wei Ying starts to hack again."
"You both should be checked over," Nie Mingjue says with authority once the coughing stops. "For all we know, there were deliberately added toxins in the accelerant."
"That would be a very inefficient way to attempt to poison us," Lan Huan replies calmly. "Nonetheless, I will feel better once you've both been seen. The normal fumes from house fires are toxic enough. Please go quickly before the last of the paramedics leave."
Lan Zhan turns to obey, but Wei Ying is staring at Nie Mingjue. "You know who's behind this, don't you? You know the arsonist."
"We don't know anything, Wei Ying," Lan Huan says before Nie Mingjue can answer. "At best we have unfounded suspicions."
"Hardly unfounded," Mingjue growls. "And there's plenty we know for sure. It was a professional job, targeted and coldly efficient. Incendiary bombs with timers and dumps of flammable materials to make sure the flames spread fast. Not just here, but at all or most Lan holdings. They're not even trying to hide what they've done, Xichen. They want everyone to know what they're capable of so no one dares argue with them again the way that your Uncle did."
Lan Zhan stirs uneasily, and Wei Ying glances at him. There had been a lot of new information there, and Lan Zhan must have questions.
"Brother?" Lan Zhan asks.
"Mingjue," Lan Huan says, almost pleads really.
It's clear that he wants his boyfriend to shut up in front of them, but it doesn't matter. Wei Ying has already heard enough to work it out. There's only one person Nie Mingjue hates enough to sound quite that coldly angry – the man he believes killed his father.
"What did your uncle fight with Wen Ruohan about, Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying asks, not because he believes Lan Zhan knows, but in order to share what he's worked out.
Lan Huan tips his head up and closes his eyes as if wishing he was anywhere but here. "You will mention this conjecture to no one," he says as he looks back down. "It would be disastrous if word were to get out, not to mention potentially lethal to you personally if it turns out to be more than conjecture."
"Yeah." Nie Mingjue is looking a little sheepish now. "You can't take on WenCorp, boys. Don't get involved."
Wei Ying wants to argue, but he starts coughing again, and Lan Zhan insists on leading him off to the paramedics. By the time they've both been seen and given the all clear, or rather the 'take it easy and see a doctor tomorrow, but we're not taking you for an ambulance ride tonight', the sun is only just below the horizon, the sky there brightening into pinks and oranges.
Wrapped in the blankets Lan Zhan asked for and somehow just got given, just like that, they make their way wearily down the road to the town below. Lan Zhan does indeed have a hotel room waiting for him, and he's kindly said that Wei Ying can share it with him. Lan Zhan is the best.
"So what are we going to do to WenCorp, Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying asks as they walk.
"Nothing," Lan Zhan replies. "It would be pointless and dangerous."
"So we're just going to let them get away with it? Lan Zhan, they killed people tonight!" Lan Zhan gives him a look with an easily visible frown, and Wei Ying backpedals fast. "Which you know. Of course you know. I'm sorry. I'm so stupid. Sorry, Lan Zhan."
"Mn."
They keep on walking.
"Still though," Wei Ying said after a while, "we have to do something. You can't let bullies get away with bad shit. They'll just do it even more."
Lan Zhan stops walking. "What are you suggesting we do?"
"Well, to start with, we find out who the firebug is in the Wen family and take him out, a life for many lives. Ah, ah, ah!" Wei Ying backs off, holding up his hands. "Don't look like that. There's ways of doing it that won't link back to your family. I'm not stupid, not in that way."
"You are not, but your idea is. Meeting violence with violence begets nothing but more violence."
"Then should a country not try to repel an invading army?" Wei Ying demands. "Your Lan rules are all very well for peace time. This is war!"
"This is not war." Lan Zhan starts walking again.
"Lan Zhan!" Wei Ying starts walking backwards down the hill so that he can keep watching Lan Zhan's face. "They've destroyed everything the Lan owned. Your whole philanthropic empire is over. Aiya, how is what they've done not an act of war?"
"The Lan are not a nation state. You and I are not soldiers," Lan Zhan says, staring straight ahead like one of the soldiers he just denied being. "We have no licence for violence. Murder is murder, and few things are more wrong."
"They murdered first!"
"If we murder in reply, how are we any better than them?"
"It's not a question of being better," Wei Ying says, willing Lan Zhan to understand. "It's a question of stopping them before they can do this to anyone else!"
"No." It's a command, not a disagreement.
"No?"
"No, we will not stoop to their depths."
Lan Zhan is looking really unhappy now, and Wei Ying is regretting making his boyfriend's terrible day even worse. He sighs and faces forward again.
It's clear Wei Ying is never going to convince Lan Zhan that he's right, and maybe he doesn't want to, not now he thinks about it. Maybe this is like the soot and dirt that have ruined Lan Zhan's white clothes and perfect face, wrong in a way that makes Wei Ying truly uneasy. If Wei Ying were to try to force the issue and push Lan Zhan into things like revenge and preventative murder, would it feel like Wei Ying had taken a tarry handful of blood and cinder, opened Lan Zhan up, and smeared it all over his soul?
"Ah," he says after thinking about this until they're nearly at the edge of the town. "You know what? You're right, Lan Zhan. Of course you are. I'll say nothing more about it."
"Thank you, Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says in a much softer voice and reaches out to take hold of Wei Ying's hand.
And that's easily enough to convince Wei Ying he's made the right decision. Whatever happens now, whatever Wei Ying decides to do, he must keep Lan Zhan safe from… from metaphorical dirt. Lan Zhan is going to become the world expert in ancient and classical music he's destined to be. His knowledge and skill will illuminate the musical theory world, and–
Oh fuck.
"Lan Zhan, your qin!" Wei Ying says horrified, thinking about what has been lost to the flames.
"Qins can be replaced," Lan Zhan tells him. "The library cannot."
Oh no. The Lan library is world famous for its collection of rare ancient manuscripts, including some of the earliest musical manuscripts still in existence.
"Wouldn't the fireproofing…" Wei Ying starts hesitantly, but Lan Zhan shakes his head.
"The library burnt from the inside out. The fire was started already within much of the protection."
Wei Ying swallowed down the lump that had appeared in his throat, thinking about Lan Zhan's discarded dreams, and put on a bright grin. "Your uncle must be over the moon – one nephew a doctor and the other a lawyer!"
"Not a lawyer," Lan Zhan said. "I have no interest in private practice."
Not a lawyer? Then… a lawmaker? "Politics, Lan Zhan? Really?"
"Think tank. The Lan Institute for Social and Economic Integrity. Uncle will head it. I will direct it."
Wei Ying pulled a face. "Risky business. There's plenty more like WenCorp out there who won't like the sound of that 'integrity'."
"We have political support. Few want the carnage of the last few years to continue."
Wei Ying was far from convinced. "So the school really is no more then?"
Lan Zhan glanced quickly at him. "Cloud Peaks never stopped teaching, Wei Ying. We reduced intake for a year. It returned to a normal level for the year after you… were gone."
"Oh." He hadn't known. He hadn't wanted to… look back. "That's– That's good, Lan Zhan. That's really good. So... they rebuilt it?"
"Lessons and accommodation were housed in prefabricated units during the reconstruction. Most of the prefabs have been dismantled now."
Wei Ying nodded. "I… I'm sorry I vanished. I just knew you'd try to follow me if I said where I was going, and I couldn't let you throw everything away like that."
"I followed anyway," Lan Zhan said. "I'm sorry."
"You did?" Wei Ying asked as Jiang Cheng stirred in the back, saying,
"I thought we weren't meant to be talking about shit like this while you were driving, Wangji."
"It took me too long to find the Commune," Lan Zhan said, apparently ignoring him. "I arrived too late. I'm sorry."
"Not too late," Jiang Cheng insisted. "Not completely."
"No, not completely," Lan Zhan agreed, his hands gripping the wheel too tightly.
Wei Ying looked at those burn scarred hands and suddenly he understood. "That's how you came to adopt a-Yuan. You found him there amongst…" He swallowed.
"Most of the place was alight," Lan Zhan said. "The fire made it easier for me to find in the dark. I broke in through the back wanting to find you, but the flames were too high. I discovered a-Yuan while trying to find a safe route back out. He was unconscious. WenCorp would have wanted no survivors, so I asked Brother to tend to him privately instead of a public hospital. I… When he was recovered, I decided to take a-Yuan to Lotus House."
"It all worked out," Jiang Cheng said gruffly. "Concentrate on driving, Wangji. It would be fucking stupid to crash when we're so close."
"Thank you," Wei Ying said quietly. "Thank you for saving him, Lan Zhan. When Wen Ning and I heard, we–" He stopped as he didn't know how to say anything more without it sounding disturbing.
Lan Zhan glanced at him. "A-Yuan is my son." The words had seemed to hold far more than their simple meaning as if they were an explanation for much more.
"I know. I know, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying said, and he patted Lan Zhan's arm close to the steering wheel.
They were silent then as Lan Zhan navigated a rapid series of junctions and turnings, and then they were there, driving into the vast hospital carpark, and suddenly the fear for a-Yuan that Wei Ying had just about been holding back hit him like a speeding truck from the side.
"Captain Squiggle-nose's Magical Monster Truck," Wei Ying suggests loudly.
"No!" A-Yuan shouts back, giggling all the while as he pushes their latest joint creation over the floorboards.
"What? Why not? That was a good one," Wei Ying protests. It's his fifth suggested name for their creation so far.
The creation is a vehicle they've made from many things. An incomplete Lego kit that Wei Ying found in a second hand shop during his most recent shopping trip forms the chassis and provides the wheels. A tube of strong glue was used up in order to apply the many layers of decoration.
All the little treasures they could find in the Commune's small garden or in its kitchen have gone into expanding the extravagant structure – tiny snail shells, wilting flowers, large, stiff feathers, loads of small fluffy chicken feathers, several pieces of coloured foil that had once wrapped some kind of chocolate, dry rice grains they had 'dyed' with the felt reservoir from inside cheap markers, a very small funnel, an old shoelace, sticks, little stones, half a Pokemon card, two tarnished and holed copper coins that they threaded the shoelace through, a gold coloured bottle cap and, most importantly, a small rabbit made of rubbery, light red plastic.
Nothing can now be seen of the underlying Lego other than the bottom of the wheels. It's a miniature, one vehicle carnival procession.
"How about the Beauteous Bunny Buggy?" Wei Ying asks.
"No!" a-Yuan yells. "No, no, no, Wei-gege! All your names are stupid!"
"A-Yuan!" Wei Ying clasps his hand to his chest in mock affront. "How can you say that? Such disrespect! I, who bore you with my own body to see the ducks just this morning."
"Stupid," a-Yuan insists and sticks his tongue out, grinning all the while, the rascal.
"Outrageous!" Wei Ying declares before shouting out, "Wen Qing, this child is wild and uncontrollable. I demand you take him back and give me the well-behaved, polite boy I was promised."
"You bought it, you sort it," Wen Qing calls back, heading out of the front door. "And if you've finished making that mess, clean it up!"
It had been Wen Qing who told him to spend several hours with a-Yuan today, insisting that Wei Ying needed time away from his obsessive researching and planning as he builds up the knowledge and resources he needs in order to further take on WenCorp. He doesn't know what she's making such a fuss about. He's doing just fine.
Admittedly, he's having a few issues with guilt right now. The incident with Wen Zhuliu had been… far from ideal, but he's fine. He just needs to keep working.
"Wei-gege," a-Yuan says, sounding a little alarmed now. "I want to stay with you."
Wei Ying gives him an appraising look, his hand holding his chin, and then says, "All Terrain Rabbit Rover."
A-Yuan opens his mouth, probably to continue their shouting game, but then seems to reconsider. "What's terrain?"
"It means 'ground or land'," Wei Ying explains. "'All terrain' means that the vehicle can drive over all sorts of ground, not just roads."
A-Yuan releases a very adult sigh. "All right. I suppose we can call it that. It's quite a good name."
"Just quite?" Wei Ying asks, rubbing the side of his nose.
"It's a very good name." A-Yuan eyes him carefully to see if that's enough and clearly decides it isn't. "I like it a huuuge amount!" He stretches his arms out to illustrate the breadth of his feelings on the matter.
Wei Ying grins, having effectively just taught the boy how to lie to get what he wants, which is to carry on playing with Wei Ying. Ah, he supposes he probably shouldn't feel so proud about that, but being a good liar is a vital survival skill in life!
"What an exemplary boy. Such excellent taste. Now let's see if we can find Granny and persuade her to give us a length of wool or string so we can take the All Terrain Rabbit Rover out for a walk."
They get to their feet, and a-Yuan carefully gives Wei Ying the Rabbit Rover to carry. He slips his small hand into Wei Ying's free one, and they start navigating the crowded space of the Commune.
Twenty-five people are currently living here, all of them renegade Wen apart from Wei Ying, and all of them fearing for their lives should anyone find them. They are political refugees from a sprawling family, whose capacity for mindless slaughter has already been made more than clear. Wei Ying's friends have no choice other than to get themselves so lost that they'll never be found, and he's all too happy to help them as, well, he's not exactly lacking in responsibility for what besets them.
It had been Wei Ying who found them their current refuge after his actions had forced them to run. The Commune is based in a deserted foreman's house at the edge of an equally deserted village that once housed and catered to the miners of the nearby exhausted zinc mine.
The foreman's house is the only habitable property here. The miners' houses had been more cheaply built and seem to have quickly turned to ruins after the people left. Some remain fit enough to use for storage of non-perishables or to hold workshop areas for those who craft, but most are hazards to be avoided.
The nearest town of any size is thirty miles away, and no one ever comes out here. Even if they do, they don't stay, thanks to the government fences around the whole zone that are covered in warnings about toxic waste and unstable geology. No contamination has reached the area of the village as far as Wen Qing and her testing apparatus can tell, and their well is clean, but that quickly changes outside of the boundaries. The Commune has strict rules about leaving the village area.
They find Granny Wen upstairs sitting quietly in the small room she shares with Wen Qing and several of the other women. Wei Ying feels reluctant to disturb her, but a-Yuan doesn't hesitate, marching in and demanding string before dragging Wei Ying over to show her their creation.
Granny Wen thoroughly praises the Rabbit Rover, or at least Wei Ying thinks she does. His Mandarin is awful, and Granny Wen speaks little else. She pulls herself up then and goes to rummage through her bags. She has many bags, far more on the face of it than seems fair for someone living in such crowded circumstances. But her bags aren't stuffed full of her own belongings, but rather with a thousand and one useful bits and pieces, all too small or apparently unimportant for anyone else to have considered bringing them with them, but that have frequently been lifesavers since getting here.
Wei Ying makes sure they thank her thoroughly for the string. He can at least manage a decent 'xie xie'.
They head back downstairs, Wei Ying quickly shaping a harness and leash for the Rabbit Rover as they walk. They make their way to the door that leads out to what probably was once a neat and well appointed courtyard, but that's now an increasingly wild space. The paving remains, however, even if grass pushes up through the cracks, and creepers reach out over it. It's a good place to test out the harness.
"Take it for a trip," he tells a-Yuan once he's done.
As the boy pulls the Rabbit Rover up and down the snaking paths of their little bit of wilderness, Wei Ying amuses himself by telling a-Yuan a long and rambling story about a charismatic and very brave itinerant adventurer.
"...And wherever he went," Wei Ying says as he draws the narrative to a close, "no matter what problems he fixed, or which monsters he slew, or people he rescued, Captain Squiggle-nose always asked the same two questions. He'd wait until everyone was safe and warm, well fed in their homes, and then he'd ask, 'Have you seen my brother, Chief Grumpy Croak? He's purple and his mouth pulls down like this.'"
Wei Ying demonstrates the most exaggerated scowl he can manage, making a-Yuan laugh loudly, pointing at his face.
"And then he'd ask, 'Have you seen my friend, Lord Cold Bright? He's pale and silent and stands straight as a tree.'"
This Wei Ying demonstrates by sitting up, his spine pulled as straight as it goes and his chin lifted as he stares impassively into the middle distance like a noble stag.
"And every time the people would say that no, they hadn't seen Chief Grumpy Croak, and no, they hadn't seen Lord Cold Bright, and that they were very sorry and hoped he would find them soon. And Captain Squiggle-nose would shout out, 'Not to worry, not to worry,' and he'd wave goodbye and head on down the trail to the next adventure."
His posture now relaxed again, Wei Ying lifts his arm high and waves as if to people behind him.
A-Yuan stops and looks at Wei Ying with round eyes. "Poor Captain Squiggle-nose. He can't find his brother and his friend. Is he all alone?"
"No, no, no, a-Yuan. Don't fret. There's nothing to fret about! You see Captain Squiggle-nose has two secrets that all the people he helps don't know about."
"Ohh." A-Yuan trundles the Rabbit Rover over to the low step Wei Ying has perched himself on and crouches down by his leg. "What are the secrets?" he asks in a whisper.
"Well," Wei Ying says, leaning forward so that he can also whisper as he improvises further, "to start with, there's the All Terrain Rabbit Rover. Everyone coos over its extravagance and great beauty, but what none of them know is what's hidden beneath all its plumage."
A-Yuan looks down at his toy and frowns slightly.
"Underneath all the feathers and flora and other precious things," Wei Ying continues, "live the Tender Family. They are very shy and have to hide from the world, but they're Captain Squiggle-nose's friends, and he looks after them, and they look after him too. They're the reason he can have so many great adventures because they're always with him, hiding quietly, but making sure he's okay."
"Oh," a-Yuan says, running his hand over the Rabbit Rover as if stroking it. "What do they look like?"
"Oh, just like you and me only very, very small," Wei Ying says airily. "Underneath the plumage and foliage, they've built an entire home for themselves. Beds are strung between sticks and feather shafts. A place to eat with hanging tables can be found over the back right wheel. The tables have special grooves carved into them to hold pots securely for when the Rabbit Rover goes very fast. And there are places to gather, or play, or do exercise. Ropes are strung everywhere to help them get around, and there's a sturdy platform beside Captain Squiggle-nose where they go to talk to him everyday. Near the top of the tallest feather, they've built a lookout nest, where the most keen-eyed go to watch the world around the Rabbit Rover for danger."
"But… I can't see any of that!" a-Yuan says, staring hard at the top of the longest feather, which sticks out almost like a tail near the back of the Rabbit Rover.
"You're just not looking hard enough," Wei Ying tells him. "You see, the Tender Family use a rare magical filter that only they know. It's very hard for big people to see them or their things, but if you learn to look in just the right way–" he narrows his eyes and pretends to peer "–then you can see through the filter. Give them a little wave, a-Yuan. So that they know you're a friend and not a scary, big-person monster."
A-Yuan immediately gives his toy a very enthusiastic wave. "Hello, Tender Family. I'm a-Yuan, and I'm your friend, I promise!"
Wei Ying smiles a little dotingly at him. What a good boy.
"What's the other secret?" a-Yuan asks, looking up at him and forgetting to whisper now.
"Ah, well. That one concerns Chief Grumpy Croak and Lord Cold Bright," Wei Ying says, and he absolutely isn't thinking about any deeper meanings here. "You see, whenever Captain Squiggle-nose asks whether people have seen them, everyone he asks assumes – just like you – that he's lost Chief Grumpy Croak and Lord Cold Bright and really wants to find them again. But that isn't the case at all!"
"It isn't?"
Wei Ying shakes his head, leaning forward conspiratorially. "You see, Captain Squiggle-nose already knows where to find them both, but that's the exact opposite of what he wants to do. He asks if anyone has seen them in order to make absolutely sure he isn't about to bump into them further down the trail!"
"Oh!" a-Yuan exclaims. "He's hiding too. Just like the Tender Family."
Wei Ying gives a-Yuan a bright grin. "Ah, my clever little radish. So now you know what to say if a purple person who goes like this–" he stretches the corners of his mouth down again in the ridiculous frown "– or a person who looks like one of the silver birches on the ridge over there–" he gestures in the general area near the edge of the quarry "–asks if you've seen Captain Squiggle-nose, don't you?"
A-Yuan frowns. "No?"
Wei Ying isn't sure if that's an answer aimed at him or at the hypothetical inquirer. It doesn't matter. "You say, 'No thanks! Not today! I never talk to strangers, and I don't know any captains anyway!'"
"No thanks!" a-Yuan shouts. "Not today! I–" He hesitates, unsure.
"I never talk to strangers," Wei Ying prompts, and together they finish with, "and I don't know any captains anyway!"
A-Yuan stands up now and starts running up and down the path, dragging the Rabbit Rover on a hair-raising journey over the uneven slabs. "No thanks, not today!" he keeps shouting. "Don't know any captains anyway!"
He runs until breathlessness overcomes him, and he drops to the ground to lie against Wei Ying's leg, still giggling. The Rover slowly trundles to a halt beside his foot.
The rabbit will need to be stuck on again, Wei Ying notices. It's only hanging on by a thread.
The car came to a halt in a parking space. Lan Zhan turned the engine off, and Jiang Cheng immediately exploded.
"I warned him about those fucking stairs of his! More than once. I listed every way in which they could be lethal! He's a fucking doctor. He has no right to have such a deathtrap in a place where he regularly cares for children!"
Twisted on his seat, Wei Ying looked between the other two. Lan Zhan seemed pained by Jiang Cheng's words, but he wasn't arguing. Did he agree with Jiang Cheng?
"A-Yuan knows he's not meant to climb those stairs on his own," Lan Zhan said in a quiet, apparently emotionless tone that Wei Ying didn't believe for one moment actually was. "This is not the time to discuss it."
"When better?" Jiang Cheng yelled. "He's six years old! Talking to a small child and then thinking that's an end to the matter is naive at the best, criminally negligent at worst. They can't even fit stair gates the design is so idiotic."
"Jiang Cheng, enough," Lan Zhan said, a chilling sternness suddenly in his voice from nowhere; it made Wei Ying shiver. Lan Zhan took care to meet Jiang Cheng's widening eyes in the rearview mirror. "You will remain quiet now until you can maintain a calm mind."
Wei Ying's spirits sunk further, easily able to imagine how bad his brother's reaction would be to being ordered about in such a cold way… and yet not a sound came from the back. When he dared glance over, he saw Jiang Cheng staring down at his clenched hands. Everything about him was clenched in fact, but he said nothing.
Lan Zhan didn't say anything further either, just typed out a quick text on his phone, undid his seatbelt, and left the car.
As soon as the door was closed, Jiang Cheng swore under his breath and thumped the back of Lan Zhan's empty seat hard. Then he rolled his eyes and grabbed hold of his canvas bag before opening his own door, which he did with unexpected care. He stepped out, not exactly calmly but with controlled movements, closed the door, and then walked over to stand quietly to the side and a little behind Lan Zhan, eyes directed downwards.
Wei Ying sat still for a few moments, staring at the pair in confusion while he remembered how to breathe. But they were waiting for him and had to be impatient to get inside, so he forced himself out of the car.
Lan Zhan used the fob to lock the doors and then set a fast walking pace as he led them inside.