Chapter Text
All children should be sent to boarding school the second they hit eleven years old. No parent should have to suffer through the moodiness of puberty.
Of course, Zhou Zishu didn’t feel that way all of the time, or even most of the time. 95% of the time, he had a top-notch fucking kid. Chengling blew all other children out of the water, though, admittedly, Zhou Zishu was a bit biased.
He was well behaved. He did his chores with minimal prompting. He liked school work. All things considered, Zhou Zishu was coasting through parenting on ‘easy’ mode.
On the rare occasion Chengling was in a mood, though, he was in a mood .
Chengling was going through another one of his phases . When he was six, it had been dinosaurs. When he was ten, it was astronomy. Now, at twelve, he was going through a fairy tale phase. Privately, Zhou Zishu thought he was a little old to be going through such a phase, but it made Chengling happy and that, in turn, made Zhou Zishu happy.
Except now, when he came home for the third time in two weeks to every single book Chengling owned scattered across the living room floor, notebooks and highlighters and toys interspersed with them. Zhou Zishu tripped over an ugly stuffed creature, nearly toppling into the room, and twisting something agonizing in his back.
His back had already been screaming after a long day at work, but this tipped it over
“Chengling!” Zhou Zishu directed his silent curses into the crook of his elbow once he’d called for his kid to come downstairs. It was agony. Once in a while he’d turn a certain way, or sit weirdly, or not sleep well, and boom. Days ruined by this goddamn pain. And now this, all because of some stupid toy.
“Cheng ling!”
“What?”
“Downstairs! Right now!”
“What is it?”
Zhou Zishu wondered if he’d been this much of a handful when he’d been his age. He knew, somewhere at the back of his mind, that he absolutely was; everyone was hard to handle at this age, and even harder to handle as a teenager. But he wasn’t feeling particularly charitable just then, with his back on fire. And he’d told him before, he’d warned the kid what would happen if he didn’t clean up his things.
With a groan, Zhou Zishu moved around the living room, kicking the scattered books and toys and items of clothing together into a haphazard pile. Then he stormed his way to the kitchen, cursing a blue streak as he bent to grab a trash bag from the drawer.
“I told you to clean up your stuff!” He called once he was in the living room again. Here he just dropped to his knees and piled the offending materials into the black sack.
“I’ll do it!”
“Too late,” Zhou Zishu ground out, tying the bag off and reaching for the arm of the couch to hoist himself back up on his feet again. “I told you what would happen if you didn’t listen to me. I’m sick of telling you. I’m throwing it out.”
“What??”
“All of it!”
He wouldn’t really, of course. He wasn’t sure he could forgive himself if he did. He was pretty sure it was Bad Parenting with a capital B. But the threat had worked on him as a child (mostly because his guardians had followed through), and he was hopeful it would work on Chengling.
“You can’t do that!” Chengling skidded into the room, wide-eyed. He reached for the bag, and Zhou Zishu quickly held it up and away, hissing at the tug of pain that rolled through his shoulder and down his spine.
“You can’t leave shit on the floor,” he lectured, leaning awkwardly to one side to try and lessen the pressure. “It ends up broken, or I trip over it, and neither of those sound like good options.”
“It’s not my fault you don’t look where you’re going,” Chengling said, tears brimming in his eyes. He’d always cried too easily, and it always got to Zhou Zishu. Not this time. He was going to stay strong. It would be easy, if Chengling kept the attitude.
“You don’t get to talk to me that way,” he said, skirting around Chengling for the door. He’d drop the bag in the hall closet as soon as Chengling wasn’t looking, and then go have a serious talk with him as soon as he’d calmed down.
“That’s my research !”
“Research for what ?” Zhou Zishu couldn’t help but ask.
“My book! About goblins.”
“Book about goblins,” Zhou Zishu rubbed his eyes and sighed, leaning against the hallway wall for a moment. He was so close to just asking Chengling to bring him something to take, forgetting this whole argument that wasn’t going anywhere anyway but… beneath the pain, there still simmered that anger at being so blatantly ignored, at Chengling being so foolishly selfish over something so ridiculous.
“So this is what you do instead of homework.”
“I’ve done my homework dad!” Chengling whined, fists clenched at his sides as he all but stomped his foot in frustration. “And I was only upstairs for a second! It’s not fair!”
“No, it isn’t,” Zhou Zishu shot back. “But that’s the way it is.”
Chengling made a sound then, a low whine in his throat that often preceded a full blown tantrum, and Zhou Zishu gritted his teeth.
“Stop living in fairytales, Chengling,” he told him. “Read them, keep the toys, by all means, but you have to learn to leave that behind sometimes and act your age.”
“You’re just mad because… because…”
Zhou Zishu raised an eyebrow, gesturing for his son to continue. Chengling did stamp his foot then.
“Because you ignored me when I asked you to do something, again?” He prompted. This was met with a groan so low and long that Zhou Zishu was certain Chengling would feel it for a few hours after.
“Because you didn’t have the idea first!”
“The idea? For what, a book about goblins? Chengling I have work to do, I have work to do so that we can keep this house, so that you can do the extracurriculars you like at school, so you can fill my house with this mess. I haven’t got time for nonsense.”
“You never have time,” Chengling told him. There were actual, full-fledged tears now, streaming down his face. Zhou Zishu felt the words as if they were knives in his chest. “And it’s not nonsense! Just because you don’t care about it doesn’t mean I can’t.”
“I never said that. Care all you want. But be more responsible .”
“I was only gone for a minute! You’re being… being… unreasonable!”
Zhou Zishu couldn’t help but laugh, which was probably a mistake, given how red Chengling’s face went. “ I’m unreasonable?”
“Forget it,” Chengling said, turning on his heel, “You don’t care! You don’t care about me! I wish the goblins were real, so they could take me away!”
Zhou Zishu rolled his eyes as he heard footsteps on the stairs. “Yeah, well, right now, I also wish the goblins would come and take you away.”
Close enough .
All the lights in the house went out.
For a moment, Zhou Zishu stood still and tried to get his eyes to adjust to the dark. There wasn’t a storm outside, and when he sniffed the air nothing suggested an oncoming electrical fire. Grateful for small miracles, he supposed. With a groan, he finally made his way to the hall closet and deposited the bag in there.
One task down.
Now he just needed to take something for his goddamn back.
But as he made his way back towards the kitchen-- he’d need to grab the torch from there anyway before finding the fuse box-- the ominous sound of silence from upstairs gave him pause. Ominous only in that twelve-year-old boys had zero capacity to be silent. And Chengling was a very emotional boy, he vocalized his displeasure, he paced.
He wasn’t doing either.
He also wasn’t a huge fan of the dark.
Had Zhou Zishu upset him so much that he was staying scared and quiet just to spite him? Had he really gone too far this time?
“Shit,” he sighed, rubbing his face with one hand. His back was aching, his knees close to giving out, but he bypassed the kitchen to make his way to the stairs instead.
“Chengling?”
Sure, his kid could be a bit near-sighted, he could be a bit selfish, he had the attention span of a goldfish, but he was still his kid. And no matter how mad Zhou Zishu was about scattered toys and his silly novel idea, he wasn’t just going to leave him all alone when the power had cut.
He heard a thump, coming from Chengling’s room, but no answer. Zhou Zishu almost dismissed it as a tantrum, turned around and went back downstairs, but…
Something was wrong. Call it a father’s intuition..
“You alright, kid?” he called, rapping on the door. It creaked open from the impact, displaying a sliver of Chengling’s room. Another thump. A rustling noise. A giggle.
Zhou Zishu stiffened.
Kids made noises. They made a whole catalogue of sounds, every one different, unique to that kid.
That was not Chengling’s laugh.
Zhou Zishu shoved the door open. Small shadows seemed to shift in the corner of his eyes, disappearing behind the bed, under the dresser, but it was the window that caught Zhou Zishu’s attention. Or rather, the figure in front of it, backlit by moonlight.
Much too tall to be Chengling. Zhou Zishu took his phone out of his pocket, blindly unlocking it as his eyes remained fixed on the window.
“Even if the power is out on the entire block, the cell towers are working, and I will call the police.”
“Now, now, there’s no need for that, surely?”
Not Chengling’s voice, either, but by now Zhou Zishu wasn’t even considering that the man in his house was his son. His eyes had adjusted to the dark enough that he could make out more details now; the man was dressed in white, or pale grey, in robes of all things, looking like he’d stepped out of a C-drama. He even had a goddamn fan that he was casually moving back and forth.
Seriously, what a day.
“Where’s my son?” Zhou Zishu asked. The man tilted his head, partially closing the fan and pressing it to his lips without a word. It was difficult not to roll his eyes. “Who are you?”
“You know very well who I am.”
“Doubtful.”
“But A-Xu, you called for me.” the man replied. “And your wish is my command.”
Zhou Zishu squinted at him, confused, before his mind dredged up the last words he and Chengling had spoken to each other before the lights had gone out. He snorted, shaking his head, and brought his phone up so he could start dialling. The device in his hands sparked and died, and a chorus of ghostly whispered laughter surrounded him for a moment.
“What the hell?”
“Magic and technology aren’t fast friends, I’m afraid,” the man shrugged. “Quite the nuisance, with modern developments.”
“Cut the crap,” Zhou Zishu hissed. “What the hell have you done with Chengling?”
The fan snapped shut, though the man kept a smile on his face. He dropped it into a pocket of his robes and then twisted his hand. An orb appeared there, crystal clear and perfectly round.
Sleight of hand , Zhou Zishu told himself.
“I’ve brought you a gift,” the man said. “A trade, of sorts.”
“You want to trade my son for plastic ?”
The man tutted softly. “It’s a crystal. And not just any crystal. This one holds your dreams.”
He twisted his wrist, rolling the ball back and forth over his fingers, slipping it from one hand to the next. “Do you want it?” he asked, holding it out.
“No,” Zhou Zishu said flatly. “I don’t have time to play games. Who are you, and what have you done with my son?”
“Wen Kexing, at your service,” the man said with a dramatic little flourish. “And you are Zhou Zishu, sometimes known as Zhou Xu.”
How this man knew the pseudonym he published under, Zhou Zishu didn’t know, and he didn’t care. “ Where ,” he ground out, “is my son?”
“Just there,” Wen Kexing said, stepping aside to let Zhou Zishu look out the window. The window, where the sun was quickly rising. At 8 pm.
Zhou Zishu leaned his weight on the windowsill and just stared for a moment. Because not only was the sun rising at 8pm, it was rising over something that was definitely not his quiet suburban street.
Beyond was a vast plain dominated by a hill upon which stood what could only be described as a castle. Surrounding it, instead of a moat, was what looked like an enormous, intricate labyrinth.
Pain had never made Zhou Zishu hallucinate before, but he was pretty sure that was what was happening right then. He rubbed his eyes and blinked at the inexplicable scene before him again.
“And where,” he asked, tone flat, “is there?”
“The castle beyond the labyrinth,” Wen Kexing unhelpfully answered. “My castle.”
“Your castle,” Zhou Zishu shook his head and let it drop between his arms with a groan. “Because of course you have a castle, why wouldn’t you? Next you’ll tell me you’re the goddamned goblin king.”
“Thrice-damned,” Wen Kexing grinned, meeting Zhou Zishu’s eyes when he looked over at him. “Usually. But otherwise you’re quite correct.”
Zhou Zishu pushed himself up and squinted at the man next to him for a moment. The goblin king. He looked nothing like the stubby little creatures his son read about in his fairytales. In fact, he looked almost inhumanly beautiful.
Maybe that was worse.
No, that was definitely worse.
“You’re the goblin king.”
“Yes.”
“And you stole my son.”
“Not quite,” Wen Kexing shrugged. “He asked to be taken, and you gave your permission.”
“Like fuck I did!”
Wen Kexing gestured with an elegant hand, and the crystal he’d offered to Zhou Zishu hung in midair for a moment. From it, like a speaker, came the unmistakable sound of the argument he and his son had had before the lights went out.
“You call that permission?” Zhou Zishu ground out. He noticed that they weren’t in Chengling’s bedroom anymore; slowly they had materialised in the dusty savannah in front of the labyrinth walls.
“Semantics,” Wen Kexing’s smile was infuriating. “You wished, I obliged.”
“Yeah, well I wish you’d give him the fuck back now.”
“Doesn’t work that way,” Wen Kexing said. “You see, my castle is at the center of the labyrinth. You have to solve it first.”
Like hell . Still, Zhou Zishu was not stupid enough to attempt to punch someone who could teleport him without him noticing. Someone who spirited away children could probably do far worse to Zhou Zishu.
“It doesn’t look that far,” he said, mostly to convince himself. It looked awfully far for a man with a bad back, but he was used to masking and ignoring his pain.
“It’s further than you think, A-Xu, and time is short.”
When Zhao Zishu turned, Wen Kexing had materialized a clock. Or, it looked like a clock, but the number at the very top was a bold thirteen, rather than the usual twelve. A timer, of sorts, huge and elaborate.
“You have thirteen hours in which to solve my labyrinth.”
“And if I don’t finish in time?”
“Then dear Chengling gets his wish. He stays here, with me and my subjects. I’ll make him one of them, he’d make for a particularly mischievous goblin, I’m sure.”
Zhou Zishu’s jaw worked but he didn’t retort. He wanted to, god he wanted to, but he kept quiet for the moment. He was patient. He could bide his time.
“Or,” Zhou Zishu looked up, Wen Kexing held the crystal on the tips of his fingers again. “You could accept my gift. Return home. Get a full night’s rest, in a clean and quiet house.”
“No wonder Chengling wished for you,” Zhou Zishu muttered, rolling his shoulders. “You’re just as stubborn as he is.”
“Oh, I can hardly take the credit, he learned from the best,” Wen Kexing winked, the crystal disappearing when he splayed his fingers, like a bubble popping in midair. “Perhaps it will be your stubborn determination that gets you to the castle. Perhaps not. We’ll certainly see.”
“Oh? You’re not going to join me on this quest?”
“It would hardly be fair, for the owner of the labyrinth to help someone through it,” Wen Kexing smiled, crossing his arms. Zhou Zishu hummed.
“Small miracles, I guess,” he said.
To his surprise, Wen Kexing laughed, a genuine and warm sound that made his face seem even younger, more beautiful than before.
“Oh,” he sighed, shaking his head, eyes on Zhou Zishu. “I will have so much fun with you, A-Xu. Godspeed.”
“Don’t call me that,” Zhou Zishu said, but the man had already begun to fade, leaving nothing, not even a footprint, to show he’d been there.
Zhou Zishu turned to face the labyrinth, sprawling and huge. He was going to kill Chengling. But there was no use worrying about that , not when his time was ticking away. Zhou Zishu sighed.
“Could have at least let me grab some ibuprofen, first,” he muttered, heading for the outer wall of the labyrinth.