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Wen Kexing tenderly slides his jade hair pin through Zhou Zishu’s hair like a promise, and wonders; were it not for his sickness, the state he found him and the state he loved him, would that pin have fit so perfectly through his bun? Zhou Zishu was not a particularly vain man, but Wen Kexing noticed the small changes, the things he knew but would not say. It was a pointless façade. Zhou Zishu knew that he knew. How could he not? They knew each other off the back of their bloodied and calloused hands. Wen Kexing had memorised the dip between his shoulder blades like he memorised the names of those he would drag down with him into the pits of hell. There was no need to speak. The words echoed in the hollow of their chests.
The night before, Wen Kexing kneaded rosemary soap into Zhou Zishu’s hair, because he once offhandedly said it wasn’t awful. He did not mention that his hair was growing thinner every day, and he did not say that it was scaring him. Zhou Zishu, in return, did not mention that Wen Kexing didn’t have to keep buying that scent, because it wouldn’t make a difference anyway; he couldn’t smell it anymore.
In the reflection of the bronze mirror, Zhou Zishu was pale, exhausted, at the end of his days and glowing with pride, wearing the most precious thing Wen Kexing had to offer. It felt something like a claim, like Zhou Zishu was his. Wen Kexing combed through his hair with a smile that was achingly real, and he lied to him, as easily as he breathed. He was simply going to ensure a smooth transition of leadership and tie off the loose ends. Of course, he would be back immediately after. His fingers did not stutter, though he thinks, perhaps, this should have been difficult. It wasn’t. This, after all, was what they were built for. This was the material they were made of.
“Lao Wen,” Zhou Zishu said, dragging out the sound of his name on his lips like it was something sweet to savour, like they had a lifetime left to do just that. Wen Kexing was starting to hope they just might. Zhou Zishu tilted his chin up to meet his eyes, and Wen Kexing slowly traced his fingers up the side of his jaw, tucking his bangs behind his ear and earning a light shiver. He grinned, as easily as he lied, and leant down to kiss his forehead, landing the final, ruthless blow.
Zhou Zishu would have to forgive him the indulgence, just this once.
“A-Xu,” Wen Kexing replied, loving and fond and horribly cruel. A boy who grew up without knowing when he’d get to eat next, will learn to grab and hide and hoard every scrap he can get. Wen Kexing wanted this to stay, he wanted his name on Zhou Zishu’s lips for the rest of time, he wanted to grab and hide and hoard every piece of him that he was allowed, and then every piece he wasn’t. He would cut ties with his hatred, with that barren world that didn’t have his A-Xu in it, and until then, he needed him to be safe. He needed him there, safe, like he needed water to survive. He would carve out his heart, bloody and raw, if it meant he could protect him inside it.
If Zhou Zishu asked him to, he would scratch and pull until he tore off his human skin. He would take his bones out of his chest and present them on a plate with his tongue, to show him everything that he was.
A-Xu, forgive me. Just this once.
The quiet still, the eye of the storm, was interrupted by a light knock on the door. It looked like Jing Beiyuan, his silhouette waiting behind the thin screen. Zhou Zishu blinked up at Wen Kexing, in a silent ask for permission. He ducked his head, ever weak to his will. It would have been preferable to spend some time alone with his A-Xu before he left, of course, but perhaps this could serve as an empty excuse later. You see, he just hadn’t gotten a chance to tell him. He’d meant to, really.
He smiled to himself, stepping away from Zhou Zishu’s back. As if he’d get a chance to say a word of that when A-Xu found out. But he would find out when he was better, and that was all that mattered. He could be angry at him for however long he wanted, because soon, he would have the time to be angry. They would have time , a lifetime worth of it.
Jing Beiyuan opened the wooden sliding doors and stepped in. He smiled agreeably, peerlessly beautiful in an almost unnerving way. Wen Kexing bristled instinctively, jealousy tended to rear its ugly head around the friend that had known Zhou Zishu truly before Wen Kexing had ever gotten the chance to (chronologically, he still won). But he felt his A-Xu snicker quietly at him, and forcefully relaxed his posture. They had come a long way to help, it was thanks to them Wen Kexing could even consider a future by his side. They didn’t ask for anything, but the debt Wen Kexing felt he owed was the weight of his entire world. Zhou Zishu, alive, was his universe.
“Beiyuan,” Zhou Zishu said warmly, and Wen Kexing couldn’t help his chest puffing out in pride as Jing Beiyuan’s eyes slid to the hairpin in his bun. His claim, tasteful but bold. Zhou Zishu was still recovering, but one day, Wen Kexing would parade him around at his side, to show the world what was his. To show the world that he no longer belonged to hate, to violence and to the dead.
He belonged to A-Xu, now.
“Prince,” Wen Kexing belatedly greeted, respectfully bowing his head, to which the man laughed and dismissed him.
“Ah, I told you there’s no need for that. I’m no prince, now. Just Beiyuan is fine.” Beiyuan’s expression lifted in mischievous amusement when they landed on Wen Kexing, and it was almost enough to make him feel embarrassed. Almost. He wouldn’t have been able to shamelessly cling to Zhou Zishu’s side were he a thin-faced man. “Besides, any… ahem, friend, of Zishu’s, is a friend of mine. I already got an overview from my little venom, but I thought to check up on you myself anyway. I’m glad to see you seem to be… up and about.”
“ Beiyuan , we did not-” Zhou Zishu hissed, like a hackled cat. Wen Kexing, with all his bravado, had to fight down a flush. They really hadn’t!
“-My lips are sealed, don’t worry!” Beiyuan cheerfully cut in, clapping his hands together. “My husband shall hear nothing of it. As long as you’re careful, youthful indulgences are a wonderful thing. You must tell me the details later, I have a bet with Wu Xi to win.”
“I’m older than you! What’s with that condescending attitude? And don’t bet on my…!” Zhou Zishu grumpily barked back, though unable to finish the sentence, earning another light laugh from the man.
“Are you older? Anyone would think I had several lifetimes on you,” Beiyuan teased, amusing himself like he was telling a joke that no one understood. Zhou Zishu rolled his eyes with a loud, irritated exhale.
“And just while we’re on the topic, I would top,” Wen Kexing shamelessly announced in an attempt to slide himself back into the conversation, stepping back over to try and drape himself around Zhou Zishu, who elbowed him in the stomach with far more strength than a technically dying person should be allowed. It made him want to beam with hope, with pride.
He desperately, selfishly hoped that when Zhou Zishu learned the truth, he’d remember this moment fondly, untainted by what had been hidden from him.
“Hah? Who the hell agreed to that!”
Wen Kexing happily bickered back, and Beiyuan invited himself to the table in the centre of the room, kneeling on one end and facing them. Wen Kexing made sloppy kissing faces at Zhou Zishu, who pushed his mouth away with the palm of his hand, giving him a disgusted look that only fueled him on. Underneath the harmless, playful exterior, and even underneath the knowledge of what they were capable of, they were, at their core, the same.
Their guest seemed happy enough to watch the show, a strange man since the moment Wen Kexing had met him. Zhou Zishu soon shoved him off to stand up and join Beiyuan at the wooden roundtable, his movements slow and careful, with no effort to hide that he was injured. He was safe, safe with Wen Kexing.
Wen Kexing begrudgingly followed, starting to regret that he hadn’t insisted on spending the morning alone with him. It had been hard enough to fend off the wave of new, puppy-eyed disciples who all wanted to help their shifu , and now all his work to shoo them away was in vain.
“You’re really feeling alright?” Beiyuan delicately asked. Zhou Zishu exhaled, and he nodded.
“I am. I’m better than I’ve been in a long time. Suspiciously so,” he chuckled, wincing slightly as the motion aggravated his wounds. Wen Kexing had a steady hand on his shoulder within the second. Zhou Zishu smiled at him, and he did not look away as he said, “It feels like if I accept it, I won’t be able to keep it. Not after everything I’ve done in this life.”
He was telling the truth, the whole of it. He was giving Wen Kexing a knife on a tray with his bloodied, beating heart and letting him decide what to do with it. Honesty was a vulnerability, and Zhou Zishu was braver than Wen Kexing might ever be. Wen Kexing’s chest constricted as he smiled back, lying by omission every second that he wasn’t lying explicitly.
“It is often circumstance that makes loyalty and intelligence become violence and cruelty. A good person is a dead person, in a place like that. In my mind, if nothing else, you are deserving of a chance to be allowed to be good. Wouldn’t you say so?” Beiyuan calmly said, and Wen Kexing did not know what to do with the way Zhou Zishu looked at him after. In a way, that was it, wasn’t it? It would not matter how cruel of a person he was, if he had grown up with his parents, safely tucked away and loved. It would not matter, if he were born as sharp and dangerous as he had ended up now, because there would be no need to ever use it.
“Thank you. I thought I wanted to be good at the start of it all, too. It was just one person, just one sacrifice, for a greater good,” Zhou Zishu then replied with a humourless smile, taking the weight off Wen Kexing, recognising when he wasn’t ready to process something just yet. Wen Kexing adored him. “You know what happened after that. It’s the same old story.”
“Ah, it never stops at just one in that viper pit, I’m afraid. Cruelty and apathy show results, and nothing but results mattered. A hard habit to break, for the both of us I’d imagine.”
“Being back in the capital just reminded me how bleak things once were. I don’t know when I started seeing bodies and flesh, not humans and people,” Zhou Zishu said, and he leant into the comforting hand on his shoulder. Wen Kexing held him gently to avoid hurting him, but when Zhou Zishu spoke like he could read his mind, like he understood him better than anybody ever could, he wanted to grab and dig his fingernails into his skin, so he could never think of leaving him again. How hypocritical.
“I thought I was smart and clever. I tried to control everything, like it was all a game of xiangqi . But people are not wooden pawns,” Zhou Zishu continued on, his gaze tiredly dropping to the table. “Not like I was. That arrogance got Juxiao killed.”
Jing Beiyuan was too intelligent to look surprised, and yet, there was something reminiscent of it at the admission. The old friends who met when they survived by concealing their words, cleverly evading the truth, had grown outside those walls. Wen Kexing would change too. When this was all over. He would face his parents then, when he could say he had the face to do so. When he could tell them he has the life they would have wanted for him, now, even if he could never really forgive himself for their deaths.
Perhaps there was a lesson to be learnt from A-Xu’s grief, about wooden pawns, about arrogance and control, about making decisions for the people you love behind their backs. Ah, forgive me, A-Xu. I cannot grow, I cannot change, until you are safe.
They were two bodies with warm blood and frozen fingers, creatures who blame themselves relentlessly for deaths they’d give their lives to reverse, while still having the nerve to take a thousand lives without remorse. Guilt was a lifeline, the absence of it no less necessary.
“Ah, Zishu, we’re so similar in the worst ways. I betrayed Wu Xi’s trust, and refused to let him stand by me when it counted. I know I should regret it, but I’m not sure that I do,” Beiyuan honestly responded, casually shrugging his shoulders as though he were discussing the weather. “I was ruthlessly solitary, because I expected to die with or for Da Qing. I don’t feel at home where I’m safe. We’re working on it, anyway. It’s certainly more stable than it was at the start.”
“Isn’t it frustrating when they just won’t let you die in peace?” Zhou Zishu quietly joked, smiling warmly at Wen Kexing, who was starting to feel wildly out of his depth.
“You’re not allowed to drink, but I’d toast to that,” Beiyuan quickly agreed with a bright laugh.
Wen Kexing was surprised at how openly Beiyuan spoke in front of him, while he was still practically a stranger. The comfort with which he seemed to speak, the ease of his words, all unsettled him deeply. The thought of truly discussing the things he’d done in the valley, the horrible things he had no choice in, and the worse ones he did, made him nauseous. He could still only bite and snap, baring his teeth in a false bravery, and spitting the better half of it out, as if to self-destruct and take everyone down with him. He had thought he was well-adjusted. That he was silent throughout this conversation because he simply had nothing to add, not because there was anything left that he couldn’t say. When he knelt before Zhou Zishu and presented himself as a disciple of the Four Seasons Manor, he thought that was it. It should have been enough.
Seeing the two of them conversing, at peace with what happened, Wen Kexing felt his own wounds rubbing raw. It was painful, to heal well and right.
Beiyuan gasped quietly out of nowhere, pulling him out of his thoughts and drawing his attention to where a small snake had slithered out the top of his robes and was curiously looking around the room with it’s small, beady eyes, like it were summoned by the mention of a viper pit from earlier. Wen Kexing blinked, and then warily eyed the bright orange patterns on its scales.
“Ah, this little one must’ve snuck into my robes earlier to hide from the sun. It’s a fea's viper, and very shy. Non-venomous, actually! We just picked him up on the way here,” Beiyuan explained, keeping his hands in his lap as the small snake explored his shoulder. “Sorry about the viper pit comment, you know I didn’t mean that, you’re much better than the vast majority of the Imperial Court.”
“You just… picked it up? Off the side of the road?” Wen Kexin questioned, incredulously. Zhou Zishu had warned him beforehand about their… exotic, deadly idea of pets, but this was still…
“Who’s dumb idea was that?” Zhou Zishu added on.
“We did, and it was my idea, of course. He was injured! And very docile. It only tried to kill me a few times on the journey before it settled down. Wu Xi seems to think he won’t thrive in Nanjiang’s climate though, so we’ll drop him off in a good environment before we leave. Unless, I suppose, there was someone who…”
“Absolutely not, you’ll put it back where you found it,” Zhou Zishu quickly denied. If he really wanted to keep it, Wen Kexing would have found a way, but he was certainly grateful that he didn’t. Two ruthless killers was more than enough for one household.
“Well, will you hold him while I fix my robes?” Beiyuan innocently asked. At first, when Zhou Zishu said that Beiyuan was a trouble maker, he’d seen his handsome and elegant appearance and doubted. Wen Kexing was starting to believe him now.
Zhou Zishu slowly frowned, fakely coughing once to the side, like a pathetic kitten. “I’m not sure I could reach that far. You wouldn’t do that to a recovering man, right?”
Trouble maker count doubled. Is this how all intelligent political schemers ended up? Childishly playful and mischievous? Wen Kexing felt a sense of dread, as Beiyuan happily slid his eyes over to him instead. He looked over to Zhou Zishu for support.
“Lao Wen has no excuse though,” he said instead, like a traitor.
“I’m going to put dirt in your food.”
“Do what you like, I still can’t taste anything. Try harder.”
“You’re sure you don’t wanna hold him?” Beiyuan asked Wen Kexing, who quickly and decisively shook his head. It was true that it looked small, and was supposedly non-venomous, but it was just big enough to strangle a man to death and Wen Kexing was smarter than to give it ample opportunity to do so. Fake was the key word in his plan to fake his death, there was no need to die for real ahead of time.
“I will definitely have to pass on that one, thankyou.”
“Hear that? There’s your next target. You could maybe bite off a finger if you really tried,” Beiyuan sweetly told the snake, reaching his wrist up to let it slither across his arm and curl around it. When he stretched out his arm, it was closer to Zhou Zishu’s side. Wen Kexing watched it cautiously, shuffling across a little closer to him protectively despite the earlier betrayal, which made Beiyuan loudly laugh. “Just look how tiny his little teeth are, he’s as harmless as that rabbit-like boy of yours.”
“Which one?” Wen Kexing asked, not initially realizing his slip up. Zhou Zishu leant his elbow on the table, and rested his chin on his palm, tilting his head to smile privately at Wen Kexing so fondly that his heart almost stopped beating. In this life, he had died a thousand times over, and it felt like every death had led him to this. To fake his death, and to start his new life. To die truly for the last time by A-Xu’s gentle hand, and to be reborn from the love he held now, not hatred and anger over the love he was denied.
He quickly forgot any of his previous worries about the safety of being in close proximity to Beiyuan’s snake, and Beiyuan in general, by extension. He grumbled under his breath half-heartedly and looked away, feeling more painfully light than he ever had. That stupid Cao Weining didn’t deserve his A-Xiang, but he loved her with everything he had, so whatever, fine, he was one of them.
He was so, so close, to being able to call all of this his . Wen Kexing was almost lost in the narrative, this story of family, a sect of his own, an idea he had never before allowed himself to entertain. (Just one more loose end. Just one more thing to do, before he could come home. Before he could build a home to come back to.)
“Not a word, A-Xu. Not a word,” he vaguely threatened, without much feeling to it, only encouraging Zhou Zishu’s fond expression to become increasingly amused.
“Lao Wen is so generous. I’m sure Cao Weining will be overjoyed to hear that he’s our rabbit-like boy now,” Zhou Zishu smugly announced, raising his voice for anyone outside the room to hear, just because he knew it would fluster him.
He hated his smug tone, like Zhou Zishu knew he would get his way. He hated it because he would, he always did, he wanted him so badly that he considered hiding him away inside his ribcage, in the bones his body called home, and never letting him go.
The three of them were interrupted by a loud banging noise, what sounded like a chicken but Wen Kexing couldn’t be sure wasn’t that idiot Cao Weining shrieking, and indiscriminate yells from various disciples.
Zhou Zishu was the first to stand, rolling his eyes into the back of his head. Something about the fact that A-Xu knew well how to act regal and proper, but lowered himself to eyerolls and boyish tussles in the grass, had always delighted Wen Kexing.
“I’ll see what the problem is.”
“Are you sure you can handle it, A-Xu, as a ‘recovering man’? Should your soulmate not share this burden with you?” Wen Kexing cheekily asked, with a worried, pitying tone. He laughed loudly, even as Zhou Zishu grabbed and squeezed his cheek until it was red.
“I’m very sure, thank you, Philanthropist Wen. You’ll just harass your son-in-law, and Beiyuan would make it worse for laughs.”
Beiyuan shrugged at the honest assessment, and Zhou Zishu left the two of them to deal with the chaos outside. Wen Kexing wanted to stand at the door and see what was happening, but then Beiyuan spoke up, distracting him.
“So, you’re the one he chose. It turns out that even I can be wrong sometimes, how refreshing,” he commented with amusement, shifting his posture to be a little more comfortable by lazing his legs out to the side.
“What do you mean by that?” He asked back, a touch defensive as he tried to figure out what was so funny.
“Nothing, nothing. It’s just, you see… I once promised Zishu I would find him an attractive woman to marry…” Beiyuan laughed, and Wen Kexing was starting to see where it was going. “His standards were so impossibly high, and he wasn’t even slightly interested in any of the girls I introduced. I thought that maybe the only love of his life would be alcohol. But I see now, I was looking in the wrong direction.”
Wen Kexing felt… mildly flustered under his teasing, and he wasn’t even totally sure why. He was starting to get the distinct sense that he had been left to the wolves.
“It doesn’t matter, there was no right direction you could’ve gone anyway. He wouldn’t have liked any men you might’ve introduced, I’m his soulmate, and there’s only one of me,” he answered firmly, past the embarrassment. He was possessively glad Beiyuan never introduced A-Xu to other men. Neither of them were exactly blushing virgins, but physical enjoyment and real feelings were very different games. Did Zhou Zishu exclusively like men, like he did? Now that he thought about it, he’d never asked. It didn’t seem to matter, when there would never be anyone like each other again.
“True enough!” Beiyuan grinned, agreeably. “He’s obsessed with you.”
“You think?” Wen Kexing couldn’t help blurting out, eager to hear it from someone else. Especially someone that knew Zhou Zishu so well, someone he respected and liked.
“That stubborn, decisive man, unhesitatingly cruel to even himself…” Beiyuan clicked his tongue, and over the top of his sleeve, the snake started to move around again. “He’s willing to live for you. For someone like him, that’s a powerful sentiment. Zishu is not a good man, but he is one of the few I can call a friend. His loyalty, once given, is almost limitless. I trust you’ll keep it well?”
“Is this a shovel talk?” Wen Kexing dumbly asked. Beiyuan’s smile seemed to take on a threatening edge. He had just given a shovel talk to Cao Weining not all that long ago, and now he was getting one himself. How the times were changing.
“Absolutely, someone has to do it. Zishu will absolutely hate it when he finds out. So? Will you break our little assassin’s heart?”
“Everything I do is for him, until the day I actually die. Whatever he wants, there is nothing in the world that can stop me from giving it to him. Life isn’t worth it without him.”
They were both just things in the shadows, learning what it was to be a human again. He wasn’t sure he deserved whatever it was they had, but he would fight, bloody and raw, to violently claw his way out of hell if it meant he could keep it. It was a dark and sinister thing, for two broken people who built their lives on bodies to love.
Wen Kexing would lay his grudges, his sins, and his pride to rest in the ground, if it meant he could keep him.
“Good.”
The voices outside grew louder, and there was no ignoring them any longer. Beiyuan got a curious look on his face, and instantly followed his whims outside. Wen Kexing, still suffering whiplash from the sudden shovel talk, mindlessly followed.
“I’m sorry, A-Xiang! One of the disciples gave him a name, and, and…”
“Sick man, tell him he’s being stupid!”
The scene was this; Cao Weining was holding a chicken protectively in his arms, while Gu Xiang was yelling at him with her hands on her hips. Zhou Zishu looked horribly amused by the whole ordeal, letting Wen Kexing’s wild, unruly daughter drag him by his robes and order him around.
“Eh? Am I your marriage counselor now, feral girl?” He teased, ruffling her hair with a grin on his face while Gu Xiang protested, trying to shove him off. “Why don’t you let him be? We have other chickens. It’s good to keep one for eggs anyway. Don’t you think Young Master Cao is just like a chicken that you named and ended up getting attached to?”
His silly A-Xiang lit up in understanding at the comparison, while Cao Weining looked more vaguely worried.
“I get it! Hehehe, Cao da-ge , you’re like a chicken!”
“A-ah? Am I? Mr. Zhou…”
Zhou Zishu put an arm around Gu Xiang, innocently blinking like he’d done nothing wrong through Cao Weining’s call for help. At some point while out of their sight he must have found a jar of alcohol, swinging it around in his hand and attempting to throw back a drink.
“Well, if our A-Xiang says you’re a chicken,” Zhou Zishu shrugged, “then I suppose we must listen to her.”
“Ah! No! You’re not allowed to drink while you’re healing!” A-Xiang violently battered it out of his hands, to which Zhou Zishu put on his best heartbroken, betrayed face. Wen Kexing was so proud of her.
“It’s just one!” “They said none at all!” “It won’t kill me.” “I would kill you if you died!”
Zhou Zishu adopted a playful, thoughtful look as he slowly started to lean more of his weight on her. She immediately struggled to support it, yelling at him to stop it and stand properly.
“Gravity is increasing… I’m weak while I’m healing, your rude words might just be the end of this old sick man,” he sighed, still smiling to himself as she tried to push him back up with as much irritation as a girl her size could manage. It was quite a lot, actually. Zhou Zishu didn’t flinch when she started punching his arm for being annoying, and he pinched her cheek right back, all the while Cao Weining had already escaped with the chicken (that Wen Kexing was pretty sure was meant to be their dinner.)
Wen Kexing didn’t know if there was a happiness greater than this, but he imagined he’d find out when the weight of his plan, of all the loose threads, was finally relieved. Then, he could have this, real and fully.
The man he loved made the little girl he raised as his own laugh, what else was there in the whole world that could equal that? What else could matter, when A-Xu loved his A-Xiang, when he was allowed to be there, with the family he chose?
“Lao Wen?” Zhou Zishu called out, once he’d half given up on trying to drag A-Xiang down to the floor. His sickly pale skin was a little flushed in the sun, and hope was a beautiful colour on him. Beiyuan nudged Wen Kexing forward from behind, and before he could question it, the mysterious man had sauntered off, gone with the wind like a ghost.
“A-Xiang,” Wen Kexing found the fan tucked into his sash and swiped it open, fluttering it dangerously under his face as he wandered forward into the yard, “is that Cao Weining bothering you?”
She processed the question for a second, before huffing a little sadly. “No. I just think it’s dumb. What’ll he do when we travel? What if he’s sad because we have to leave the chicken behind?”
Zhou Zishu gently patted her on the head like a pet, and the vision made Wen Kexing do a double take. That was exactly what he was about to do himself.
“He wouldn’t be sad, because he’s with you. If you want, when we find out where we’ll go after this, we’ll take the chicken.” Zhou Zishu turned to him with a smile, and Wen Kexing had never felt so seen. It turned out, there was no need to peel off his skin, to present his bones on a plate, to show him everything; A-Xu had seen it all long ago. He’d seen it, and he’d chosen it. God, if that small Zhen Yan in the valley could see him now. If the newly made Valley Chief, who skinned a man alive and left the remnants of his corpse to hang on display, could see what he had become. A chicken. They were thinking of taking the damn chicken.
Zhou Zishu continued, confident and assured. “You can say hi when you visit. There’ll always be a place for you, wherever the two of us are.”
Wherever the two of them were, when this was all over. It didn’t matter, did it? As long as it was the two of them.
Zhou Zishu trusted him with everything that he had, everything that he once was. There was something to be said there, of wells, snakes and honey. Zhou Zishu mirrored everything Wen Kexing thought made him unlovable, but oh, how regret and grief fit his figure like well-tailored robes, just as stunning as his joy and his love. The worst parts of himself were beautiful on A-Xu, his wounds and scars so loveable in the light of day, entrusted to Wen Kexing’s hands.
Just one more loose thread. Just one more thing, before this was all over. Wen Kexing smugly snuck an arm around Zhou Zishu’s waist, like he was made for that spot beside him, like he would never leave it again. Another lie of omission. They had stacked up beyond his count. His A-Xu smiled, lazy, mischievous and bright. Wen Kexing thought that wars had been started, fought and ended for less.
“I can’t wait to tell him how long chickens live,” Wen Kexing joked. Zhou Zishu stole the fan out of his hands and knocked him on the head with it.
“I was only supposed to live for three years, and you loved me anyway.”
“ You’re not a chicken.”
He loved him anyway, he loved him so. Wen Kexing loved him enough to protect him, in the cruelest way he knew how.