Chapter Text
The river ran sluggish and blue through the ramshackle town clinging to outskirts of Beijing.
Dawn’s light barely pierced the spring morning mist, and the air carried the damp rot of reeds and the faint tang of woodsmoke, there was a woman yelling in the far distance, selling Mantou.
By the water’s edge, SuoWei knelt, his hands raw from scrubbing linens against a jagged rock. His long fingers, nimble from years of stitching garments for the town’s few well-to-do, ached as he wrung out a merchant’s shirt. The pile of laundry beside him was her side job—meager coins for harsh work, yet it was enough to keep him from starvation when work became scant.
A shout broke the morning’s rhythm. Upstream, two fishermen, their bamboo hats bobbing, dragged a limp figure from the shallows. Their nets, tangled with river weed, snagged on the man’s tattered uniform as they hauled him onto the muddy bank. An alpha, given his build.
His face was pale, bruised, half-hidden by matted hair, but the olive-green tunic was an obvious hint— he was likely one of the warlord Chi’s men, whose iron grip choked the province, his mere name causing fear and evoking rage among common people.
The fishermen muttered among themselves, their faces sour.
“Leave him,” grunted Old Chen, the elder of the two, spitting into the dirt as he wiped sweat off his forehead.
“Warlord’s dogs bring nothing but trouble. Let the river take him.”
The other man a younger alpha named Zhang, hesitated, peering at the man’s still form.
“He’s half-dead already. What’s he gonna do, curse us from the grave?” old Chen insisted.
SuoWei’s hands stilled. He glanced up, his breath catching as the fishermen turned the man’s onto his side, making him face SuoWei.
Even through the grime and swelling, he could instantly recognize him.
That sharp jaw, the line of his nose—five years hadn’t erased the lines of his face. His heart lurched, a sickening mix of feelings swarming his insides.
Memories surging toward the present, overwhelming him. Chi Cheng. The warlord’s sole heir.
The alpha who ruined him, broke him beyond repair. Used and discarded, tainted.
Taking his youth and shattering his hopes.
Panic crawled up, clawing at his throat. She ducked her head, hoping the fishermen hadn’t noticed her staring. They were still arguing, Old Chen kicking at the soldier’s boots as if to prove he was more corpse than man.
“He’s no dog,” SuoWei heard himself say, his voice sharper than he meant. The fishermen turned, startled. He stood, wiping his hands on the patched pants he was wearing, forcing his face into calm. “He's a man and he’s alive. You can’t just leave him.”
Old Chen snorted. "What does an omega like ya know? He's nothing but misfortune brought ashore"
But SuoWei couldn't take his eyes off the unconscious man.
“You want him, tailor? Take him." The old alpha barked "But don’t you come begging for help when Chi’s hounds come sniffing, tearing your house down to have him back"
He ignored the jab, his mind racing. If they knew who the alpha actually was- Chi’s only son, the heir to his blood-soaked empire, the owner of the very ground they stood on-they’d either ransom him or slit his throat open. This town had no tolerance for the warlord’s kin, not after years of taxes, Conscription and war. But SuoWei, he couldn’t leave him beat the mercy of others. Not when he was like this, unconscious and perhaps on the brink of death. Not even if it hurt like hell to save the one who had ruined him.
“I’ll take him,” he said, his voice a steady stream. “just...help me get him to my house.”
The two fishermen paused, taking him in. Hesitant of his motives.
"Please, we can't let him die" he begged, desperate to get Chi Cheng help.
The two alphas grumbled but complied, hoisting Chi Cheng's limp form between them. SuoWei led the way, his basket of laundry abandoned by the river, forgotten.
The townsfolk watched from their doorways, eyes narrow with suspicion, but none spoke.
Soon his small home came into view, tucked behind a old sagging willow.
It was more than he could afford nowadays; a two room house with a separate kitchen and a rather big yard.
The smaller room held a straw mat and couple quilts folded by the wall. On the mat there was pot and a single cup.
They laid him on the mat, his breathing shallow, but left without saying as much as a word.
SuoWei knelt beside him, his hands trembling as he cleaned the mud from his face with his bare hand, the alpha's uniform was torn apart, blood seeping through the thick fabric. He’d been in a fight; perhaps ambushed. The younger man had no way of telling. All he could see was the man who had hurt him, at his mercy.
Fate loved to play games, and it had played them well. Bringing the same alpha who had lured him into a cage with the promise of freedom to his doorstep. He laughed, his voice a broken tone void of any humor.
The night passed in silence, broken only by the alpha's fevered murmurs. SuoWei stayed awake, boiling herbs, dressing his wounds and pressing cool rags to his feverish body and face, lost in a past he thought he had long forgotten. But here he was, laying in his bed once again just by cruel chance.
At dawn, his eyes finally fluttered open, glassy but sharp, sober. He stared at him, disbelieving.
his cracked lips parting, the alpha called to him “Da Qiong” he rasped, his voice weak but certain.
His breath hitched. Five years, and it was as if nothing had changed. He wanted to scream, to cry and to ask questions, to curse him and chase him out; but he kept quiet and pressed a cup of water to the alpha's lips; his face a mask hiding the rage that hurled inside him.
“Rest,” he said, curt and cool, uncaring. “You’re not dying, not yet.”
But as he closed his eyes, he realized something. That the fate wasn’t done with them, Not yet.
+++
The morning sun crept through the cracked shutters of SuoWei's humble home, casting slatted shadows across the mat and the body that lay on it. His fever had broken on the second day, but his limbs were still heavy, his breaths shallow. His wounds were healing, albeit slowly beneath SuoWei's careful bandages.
He moved through his own home like a ghost, doing what he had to do
He washed clothes by the river, stitching a custom dress for the magistrate’s wife, boiling rice and herbs over the stuttering stove. Feeding Chi Cheng watery congee for his meals and each night, he would spoon bitter medicine into his mouth hoping for his recovery. He didn't think, kept his hands busy. He would harvest whatever had ripened overnight and sell it at the morning market.
In the blink of an eye ten days had passed since he’d dragged the alpha home from the river’s edge, and still, he had kept num
SuoWei couldn't bring himself to ask what he had wanted to ask, fearful of the answers he might get. The ache of their past sat like a stone in his chest, too heavy to unearth.
Five years ago, he’d been his everything.
The alpha had been the god he begged to, heartless and unfeeling; deaf to his pleas and prayers.
But the Chi manor had been nothing but a cage for him, and the alpha's desire a blade, cutting him at every turn.
The night he left, broken and still bleeding he was handed a hefty sum of silver and gold, like he was but a whore. Granted freedom but at what cost? No amount of silver could be enough compensate him.
As he knelt to change the bandage on his chest, the alpha's hand shot out, his bigger hand curling around his wrist. His sudden grip was weak but the shock of his touch sent him scrambling back. The omega's back hit the wall, his breath jagged, memories flooding his head like a breached dam.
His heart pounded as he clutched his own wrist, as if to protect it from his touch.
“Da Qiong” he croaked, his voice a dry rasp, his eyes burning with familiarity. He reached again, his fingers trembling, but he stayed out of reach, not making eye contact.
He bowed, his tone respectful.
"My lord" she said
“please” he turned away, busying his hands with a pile of clothes in need of mending, his hands shaking as he threaded a needle. The alpha sank back, too weak to argue, his chest rising and falling in shallow defeat.
He sewed him clothes he was in need of some. He couldn't keep wearing the bloodied uniform he’d arrived in. Each act of care was a duty to SuoWei, not a kindness. He wouldn’t let him die, he couldn't.
By the tenth day, he could sit up without wincing, his color returning, the worst of his wounds were scarring over. He ate the omega's meager meals; rice,eggs, greens from her yard and watched him, waiting. His eyes followed him as he moved through the small rooms, into the kitchen, out of the house. It was as if he was expecting the omega to crack, to demand answers. But he didn't.
One evening, as he stirred a pot of congee, the alpha spoke, his voice much stronger.
“You haven’t asked me anything, Da Qiong.”
He froze, his back to him, the wooden spoon still in his hand. The name stung, a reminder of the boy he used to be, the one who’d believed that maybe, maybe he could have a way out of the miserable life he lived, only for the hope to shatter painfully.
Slowly, he set the spoon down, his shoulders tight.
“There’s nothing to ask master.” he said, his voice flat. “You’re alive. That’s enough.”
He leaned forward, the straw mat creaking under him. “ Don’t you want to know why I’m here? What happened? What about-”
"No"
He turned, his eyes meeting the alpha's for the first time in days. They were the same dark orbs they used to be, piercing and full of that suffocating intensity.
“ there's nothing I want to know of” he lied, the words tasting like ash on his tongue.
“You’ll leave when you’re strong enough. That’s all I need to know”
The older man frowned, but the omega turned back to the stove, his hands steady now. The silence stretched between them, heavy with all they wouldn’t say.
Outside, the sounds of the evening carried on,
cart wheels creaking, dogs barking drifted into the night. Inside, the air was thick with unspoken words, and wandering ghosts of their past.
SuoWei knew he’d keep tending to the alpha, keep feeding him, keep mending his uniform. But he also knew that some wounds wouldn't heal, no matter how many years pass by, they wouldn't stop bleeding.