Chapter Text
When Luocha first made it onto the Xianzhou Luofu, he thought Xueyi would reveal everything too soon. She was not a living being. Theoretically, she didn’t need to be healed, she said as much, but he couldn’t bear leaving her in such a condition. His bleeding heart throbbed at the sight of her, battered and hurt, yet still so determined. At the time, his only regret was that it would cause her pain. Now, standing at the entrance to the residence he rented for his stay, it truly hit him that her gaze had lingered too long on him when she was restored to proper health.
Wearily, he pushes open the door and gingerly slides his hand down the wall in search of the light switch. His palm catches it and the small living room illuminates immediately. He quickly pushes the door shut behind him with his heel when he sees his partner-in-crime waiting for him.
Jingliu’s posture is rigid and cold, her body radiating a chilliness that makes him grateful for all his layers. She slightly turns her head at his sound.
“This place is surrounded by people.”
He summons his luggage from his personal holding space and makes for one of the rooms. “I like being surrounded by people.”
He feels her eyes dig into his back despite the blindfold wrapped around her head. He knows she’s judging him, he knows how she perceives him. He doesn’t really care right now. He’s tired, he’s had a long day, and Yaoshi’s power is exhausting to use. It hungers for him, chewing on the fraying edges of his consciousness. Opening one bag, he begins to riffle for what he’ll need to get ready for bed.
The door frame creaks as Jingliu leans her shoulder against it. Her voice is dry when she speaks. “You still have that bag?”
“You don’t even know which bag I'm holding right now.”
“I know it’s that bag because you always put your toothbrush in the green travel pack.”
Luocha pauses, running a thumb across the worn material. “It was my sister’s.”
Jingliu doesn’t say anything to that. She doesn’t have to. She’s already said it many times before. The silent but persistent fact that Luocha can’t let things go.
He finally pulls out some sleep clothes and his toothbrush, moving to find the bathroom. Jingliu shifts out of his way, following his person with her head. She is Mara-struck and he is Mara, a moth will always feel where the flame is.
He is quick in getting ready for bed and when he returns to his room, she has not moved. Luocha stops in front of her in silent interrogation, which she doesn’t bother to acknowledge. Before he can write her off as having fallen asleep upright, her hand darts out and seizes the ends of his loose hair. He never gets over it, how fast she can move, how precise she can strike. It’s a constant reminder that she is the Sword Master and as such, this planet ship will always welcome her back with an embrace. She would not be here otherwise.
“Can I braid your hair tonight?”
Luocha lets out a breath. “Are your hands stiff again?”
Jingliu doesn’t grant the question any grace. She waits for him to give her a real answer. He relents and utters an affirmation before heading to his bed. He kneels on the floor beside it and she seats herself behind him unceremoniously. She feels across the blanket before finding the brush he set out, wielding it against his tangles with a ferocity only she knows. In the back of his mind, Luocha wonders if she did this for her previous student. She is deft and practiced in her weaving, as though she’s done it a thousand times before. After some more thought, he settles on the idea that it was the Foxian Nameless she learned it for. Speculation is all he has, he’s lucky to get any straight answers about her old friends. She tells him only what she deems he needs to know and nothing more.
She grabs a red ribbon he laid out with the brush, her muscle memory so strong she doesn’t need to see the knots she makes. Luocha didn’t pick the thing, she did. When she first asked to do this, it was after a battle where some unlucky bandits provided them with some extra coin. On that same planet, they passed through a market. He had mentioned the stall selling them and without hesitation, she asked if they had any red ones.
Jingliu had always been like that. Swift and decisive. It did not go unnoticed when she dropped the currency he had handed her after confirming. It wasn’t too surprising. Mara does that. When the body tries to rot, the Mara sweeps through the veins and across the skin to heal, and with her’s on Lucoha’s leash, it was better than most. It could not be ignored, however, that a bone not set will heal wrong. Joints and the ilk are more sensitive. They moved on. Her way of addressing it later was to begin demanding his hair before bed for the purpose of styling. When he tried to ask why, she only said it kept her from slipping up again. He couldn’t refuse her in that case. She was his protection, they both needed her to be reliable. They also both know he craved such human intimacy. There was no romantic emotion between them, there never would be, but if he didn’t turn his head he could imagine she was his sister. With her eyes covered, maybe his hair felt like Baiheng’s.
He follows her with his eyes as she slips from the room. He then climbs into the bed to sleep, glad she remembered to close the door behind her.
Aurum Alley is a wonderful place, in Luocha’s humble opinion. So full of life, the mundane was broken up tastefully by the buskers and street performers. While looking around, he notices the Cloud Knight from before, Sushang. She’s lying on a table, a stone tablet resting on her chest. Another girl, loud in voice and color palette, is summoning people to watch with a hearty beating of a gong. Resting beside her is a mallet. Sushang catches his eye and gives a quivering wave, her eyes pleading. Luocha waves back sympathetically and slips off, leaving the poor girl to her fate. This has led him to a small antique shop, tucked away from the bustling restaurants. Some of the wares catch his eye, old toys, and he meanders over to inspect them.
Sitting among vintage kites and donated rattle drums is an old burr puzzle box. Luocha picks it up, rubbing the wood curiously. He’s always been fond of such things, reading mystery books when bored and doing crosswords in whatever local papers he finds. He likes the challenge, the fun of working for the solution. He had specifically purchased a copy of The Angler Mystery to rip out the spoiler written in it, like a gardener pruning a diseased branch. To ruin the fun of the game for somebody else rubbed him the wrong way.
He purchases the little puzzle box and when he goes back to the house at the end of the day, he gently pushes it into Jingliu’s hand. She frowns at him slightly.
“I can’t solve this.”
“You don’t need to. I just thought you’d like to be reminded of home.”
She considers him for a moment before handing it back. He prepares to accept defeat when she tugs off her bracers and then her gloves. When she has tossed them aside, she holds out her palm to him. He places it in her naked hand and she resumes her ministry. Tracing the edges, thumbing over the sharp angles as though to cut herself, cupping the whole thing as if to wish upon it. Her head remains fixed, staring unseeing at the wall, but the gentleness of her inspection is evident. After some time, she stiffens. Brushing her fingertips over a certain side of a piece, her muscles clench more. Without warning, she tosses it back to Luocha, who barely manages to catch it before it can be damaged.
Jingliu is already speeding toward her room, snatching up her garments on the way. “Keep it to yourself next time.”
Luocha searches for the side she was unsettled by, finding some Xianzhou characters engraved in the wood. He brings it closer to his face so that his Synesthesia Beacon could focus better. After a few moments, it became readable. The characters are a name: Jing Yuan.
Luocha hums a moment, rolling the name in his mouth like melting chocolate. Jingliu has talked of the man somewhat, her old student. He knows she misses him, knows she feels she failed him. From her stories, he was the one who tried to kill her in accordance with her last wishes. He is the man Luocha will have the hardest time with. The situation on the Luofu should theoretically distract the general, but nobody comes into such a position without being more than just a man.
Luocha glances over at the coffin resting next to him. He wonders if Jing Yuan is as lonely as Tazzyronth was. Being the last man standing…
To upkeep a facade is to dedicate yourself wholly to it, until it can’t be distinguished from you. A half-truth, the best lie. This leads to Luocha spending most of his days out spending money, trying Xianzhou foods, and chatting with locals. He knows his tranquil nature is taken as charming, some of his conversation partners picking up on his true age. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be in his early twenties anymore, despite his body being stuck there. An Emanator of life has no business courting death, this he has come to understand. He and these people are not so different, yet they would not see it as such.
Speaking of seeing…
Luocha flicks open the umbrella he’s purchased and braces it on his shoulder, blocking his body from the prying eyes of the man above.
The lion has stalked him for hours now, deeming him a prized deer for hunting. Soon, he will give chase, but that is for later. Right now, they are in the stalking phase.
Well.
They were supposed to be at least.
He didn’t anticipate the lion to approach him while he waited for his berrypheasant skewers, nor did he have time to pay before the man was beating him to the punch. The stand owner seemed a bit awed by this arrival, but Luocha was more focused on the way the man had draped himself over him, his warm breath on his neck, his calloused palm gently slapping away his own offering hand. He then claimed one skewer for himself and made to walk off with it.
Luocha gave chase in agitation, trying to tuck away his now worthless money while juggling the sticky snack.
The thief sits at a table of a tea house. A storyteller drones in the background as Luocha takes the other seat, idly noting that Sushang had expressed interest in bringing him here.
“Do you like black tea? You seem the type.”
Luocha jolts at the question as the thief lazily scans the menus welcoming them.
“I do. I’d also like my food back.”
The man begins to nibble on the stolen skewer. The bastard.
“I paid for it.”
Luocha, frustratingly, cannot argue with that. He can, however, be incredibly petty.
When the server comes to take their orders, he jumps to speak before the bastard can.
“An earl grey for me and a steamed puffergoat milk for him.”
The girl stifles a laugh but trots off with their orders. The man’s amused face is still in place but Luocha can see the light has died somewhat in his eyes. “I don’t really drink that every day, you know, the Seat of Divine Foresight has denied that report.”
Luocha gives a small smile. “I know.”
“Your name?”
“You can call me Luocha.”
“Jing Yuan.”
“I know.”
They sit in a tense silence until their drinks come. Jing Yuan gives his puffergoat milk a gloomy look, his skewer long gone by now. Luocha is still working on his, made better by his lovely cup of tea. He’d always been fond of tea over coffee.
“The Ten Lords Commission informed me you healed one of their people.”
Luocha almost chokes. Almost. Even if he tried, Yaoshi would not let any harm come to their precious boy (as much as he hates being their precious boy, he’ll be freed of that soon enough), so he just has to smother a cough and steel himself. When he can talk again, he responds, voice strained, “I did. Is that wrong? I do have a medical license-”
“Oh no, you’re not in trouble. It was just interesting as she did not have a biological body.”
Luocha rests his hand on his sternum, subtly patting it to make the burning ease. “Ah, I see.”
Jing Yuan’s eyes press into crescents as he gives a particularly broad smile. “I thank you on behalf of her.”
Luocha quickly drinks his tea, finally feeling less strangled. “It wasn’t a burden.”
He stands to leave, finishing off the skewer and choking again when Jing Yuan opens his bastard mouth. “I also wanted to request your aid in the Alchemy Commission, treating victims of the recent disaster.”
Luocha gives up and tosses the skewer, mourning the little bit of candied fruit left and swearing to avenge it. “I’m just a civilian, General, a simple traveling merchant who happens to have picked up on some medicine over the years.”
Jing Yuan stands and walks over, bumping him playfully with the puffergoat milk bottle. “I wouldn’t make such a request if it wasn’t urgent. Some Mara-struck recently gave the Dragon Lady some trouble and your abilities would help the situation greatly.”
Luocha narrows his eyes. This is unfair. Horrible and unfair. Jing Yuan does not know him, but he seems so confident Luocha cannot refuse such a request. Maybe he thinks he could force him but at the end of the day, he is still a civilian and the General is not above the law.
Jing Yuan’s golden gaze makes Luocha feel peeled and scrutinized, it makes his skin crawl and itch. Yaoshi’s gaze made him feel much the same, but different. He does not feel small under Jing Yuan’s gaze (even if he is physically shorter, the smug bastard truly leaves him no advantage), because Jing Yuan would be just as small under an Aeon's. No, this gaze feels like a challenge. This is now a chess match and Jing Yuan has made the first move. White pawn to D4.
Luocha nudges him back with his folded umbrella before snapping it open, forcing Jing Yuan to dodge being hit in the face. He keeps his voice even and distant, “Very well.”
Jing Yuan watches him go, lets him go. He is so similar to Jingliu in the little ways, different but still that little boy she talked about raising.
It’s not until later that night Luocha realizes the ribbon Jing Yuan’s hair was tied up with was red. He glances at Jingliu out the corner of his eye as she ties his braid. Running his thumb over the engraved name in the burr puzzle box, Luocha rolls it between his cheeks again, silently mouthing it to himself and pulling on the vowels with his tongue. When Jingliu leaves and he lies down, he reaches behind himself to rub the ribbon’s edge between his knuckles in thought. He’s glad Jingliu remembered to shut the door behind her.