Shen Wei put down the manuscript printout he'd been reading and rubbed his eyes. With the amount of comments he was leaving, he was at great risk of becoming the dreaded Reviewer 2 with unreasonable demands, but the results and discussion section was infuriatingly vague, and they'd misunderstood the paper of his they'd cited. The scientific community depended on his corrections.
Someone knocked on the door. “Come in,” Shen Wei said.
Li Qian entered and closed the door behind her. “Hi.” She swallowed. “I brought pastries?”
Shen Wei wasn't a fan of sweet things, but understood the human social norm of bringing a gift to appease someone. Besides, he'd skipped lunch. “Please, sit.”
She'd lost weight and looked a bit haggard, Shen Wei thought, but other than that seemed in better spirits than she'd been at their last meeting. Not that that'd take much.
“Here, have one,” Li Qian said and pushed the opened bakery case at him.
Bringing her tofu skins in the hospital must've been momentous for her. “Thank you.” He bit through the creamy sweet exterior only to be surprised by the interior having a crisper taste. Citrus, and something with a bit of a bitter bite. He made a little noise of surprised pleasure.
“How are you?” Li Qian asked, more shy than he remembered her being.
“Busy with a multitude of tasks,” Shen Wei replied and took another pastry. He'd have to ask her where she got them so he could bring a less terrible option for those times when he was expected to bring some sweet misery for a faculty meeting and partake. “Would you like to restart your PhD? All of your experimental setup should still be there.”
Li Qian blinked. “Huh?”
Shen Wei's eyes narrowed. “You're not Li Qian.” He rose to his feet-
-only to sink down into unconsciousness for the second time within a week.
Zhao Yunlan sat at the communal couch with his feet up on the table. He tried not to whistle. It was hard being so happily content without being able to tell anyone the reason.
Figuring out that Professor Shen and the Black-Cloaked Envoy were one sexy, sexy person was an achievement to be proud of, right? He could excuse himself some smugness.
The office phone rang. Wang Zheng picked it up. “Hello?”
She gasped. Zhao Yunlan's eyebrows rose. It must be something really big to elicit an actual reaction from Wang Zheng – or she'd grown more reactive now that she had Sang Zan back, who knew.
“It's the Dean,” she told Zhao Yunlan. “Professor Shen has gone missing.”
“What?!” the SID chorused.
Oh, Shen Wei, Shen Wei. Well, they were together now; Zhao Yunlan would just have to figure out how to keep Brother Black's alter ego away from suspicion.
Had there been a body, it would have been a classic locked room murder mystery. As there wasn't, Zhao Yunlan had its less common variant, the locked room kidnapping mystery, on his disposable-gloved hands.
“You said the door was locked?” he asked the janitor.
“Oh, yes. Professor Shen usually doesn't do that, as you've probably noticed,” the janitor said. Zhao Yunlan ignored the pointed remark about how much time he spent loitering on University premises. “Sometimes he even forgets to lock it when he goes home for the night. His students were very concerned when he didn't turn up to the lecture and they couldn't even get the door open.”
Zhao Yunlan looked over the office once more. The fish were fine and the chairs in place. There were papers on the desk. He took a few steps closer to see if they were potentially interesting.
Professor Shen seemed to have been proofreading some paper thingy and made lots of notes. How cute. The papers weren't in a stack, but it was hard to tell whether it was due to their stacking being undone or them never being stacked in the first place.
The globe behind the desk, however, should not be on its side. Zhao Yunlan refused to believe Brother Black would be so clumsy as to knock it over, so there must have been a struggle. A small one, which Shen Wei lost, as he hadn't righted the globe on his way to the Dixing judiciary. The swivel chair was askew as well. Nothing on the ground.
Zhao Yunlan rose up. “Who was the last person to visit his office?”
“It was right at the end of his office hours,” the janitor said. “Li Qian.”
Li Qian? “Did you see her?”
“Ah, no; one of the students from the class, Jiajia, had visited almost at the end of his office hours and said Li Qian had come after her.”
How many students did this university have, five? “Where's Jiajia now?”
“She's speaking with the Dean, I think.” The janitor glanced around himself nervously. “What should I do with the office?”
“After Lin Jing's done, lock it from the outside and tell him the names of all the people who have the key.” He walked back to the door end of the office. “I'll go interview Jiajia. Thank you for your time, Mister Janitor.”
Outside, Lin Jing was pointing a dark energy detecting contraption at the window to the office and trying to shoo away concerned students. Zhao Yunlan walked up to him and murmured in his ear, “See if you can find any traces of dark energy or evidence of drugging. Some signs of struggle at the desk.”
“Got it,” Lin Jing replied.
Zhao Yunlan patted Lin Jing's shoulder and turned to the students. He afforded them a dazzling grin. “Don't worry, we'll find your Professor Shen in no time!” he said, then slipped past them to the Dean's office.
It wasn't hard to find: the Faculty of Natural Sciences was mostly all in the one building, and the administrational people's offices' location clearly signposted. The dean had an office one storey up from Shen Wei's corridor. Zhao Yunlan knocked.
Jiajia opened the door. “Chief Zhao!” she exclaimed.
“Jiajia!” Zhao Yunlan leaned in a bit. “I was looking for you. I hear you spoke to Professor Shen today. Would you like to answer some questions?”
“Yes,” she said decisively. “We all wish for Professor Shen's swift return,” she added in a pointed remark that didn't seem aimed at Zhao Yunlan, but instead – the dean. Ah.
“The Special Investigations Department is on the case,” Zhao Yunlan somberly said. “We will do everything in our power to bring him back.”
He couldn't just appropriate the dean's office, so he ended up interviewing Jiajia at the end of the corridor. He perched himself on a windowsill and asked, “When did you last see Professor Shen?”
“It was a bit before eleven,” Jiajia said. “I'd come across a paper that used a novel process for extracting autosomal DNA from plants similar to the ones I'd gathered on our trip to the mountains, and wanted his opinion on whether I should switch to that one. We chatted for maybe a quarter hour. I wanted to give him time to eat before his lecture, so I left ... a bit before quarter past? Then I went to my desk, and when I visited the bathrooms, I walked past Professor Shen's office and bumped into Li Qian on the way back. I told her Professor Shen had a lecture at noon and hadn't eaten yet. She had some sort of plastic bag and said she'd brought food? It was maybe a quarter to.”
“Does Li Qian often come visit Professor Shen?”
“No. It's odd, no-one has seen her since she quit, but she'd still come over with food?” Jiajia inhaled abruptly. “She must've heard about Professor Shen passing out in the mountains! Of course she'd want to come make sure he was all right.”
Shen Wei, apparently, had a horde of overprotective students, and he hadn't ever told Zhao Yunlan. “Are you sure the person who came was Li Qian?”
“It ... looked like her...” Jiajia stared at him. “Are there forces in this world that can impersonate just anyone?”
“Every option, no matter how improbable, must be considered,” Zhao Yunlan said in what he hoped was the right mix of assuaging her concerns and expressing professional competence. “The SID is on the case.”
Jiajia nodded. “I'm glad.” She swallowed. “I have to go to my lab timeslot, but if there's anything, I will gladly help.” She glanced at the corridor and added in a hushed voice, “If the dean gives you trouble, just tell me and I'll fix it. He's my grandfather.”
“Certainly,” Zhao Yunlan replied. “I'll contact you should further questions arise. Go do your science.”
He watched Jiajia march off to her lab and thought. Brother Black had been confronted by a Li Qian fake or real, and then ... something. Had the food been drugged? If only Professor Shen's office had a surveillance camera in it.
Five seconds later, Zhao Yunlan felt very stupid – of course there was a surveillance camera there, he'd installed it himself.
He dug out his phone and ordered Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng to come over and question all the students who'd spoken to Professor Shen today. Then he ducked out of the building and drove to the SID.
“I guess it's nice that we're getting some usage out of the camera, but how are we going to explain its presence to the University?” Da Qing asked.
“We aren't,” Zhao Yunlan said, searching for the playback options. He knew they were there, but the user interface was far from user-friendly. The livestream of Lin Jing actually doing his job puttered on despite his best efforts.
Finally he found the option to access recorded footage. There was a lot of it, so the timeline bar was practically useless, but with a hefty amount of trial and error, Zhao Yunlan managed to get them onto the correct day. Fastforwarding from the 4:37 timestamp he'd landed on to eleven-ish took some more fiddling, but then they were in business.
Shen Wei was reading something and making comments on another piece of paper. Occasionally, he'd open a drawer and consult something else.
At 10:53, Jiajia entered with a stack of papers in her hands. She and Shen Wei chatted until 11:14, whereupon she left with her papers and Shen Wei returned to his own commentary.
That continued for a half hour. Then Li Qian came in with a bag of something and gave something to Shen Wei.
“He ate it?” Da Qing asked.
Zhao Yunlan rewound the footage by a minute. Indeed, Shen Wei did accept the – it looked like a pastry of some sort – and eat it. Then he ate another one, rose up, and passed out in a fashion disturbingly similar to how he had in the mountains.
Li Qian then rose and muscled Shen Wei onto her shoulder, knocking against some things in the process. She opened a portal and staggered through it.
“Since when has Li Qian been able to use Dixing powers?” Da Qing asked.
“She's just a regular girl.” Unless the Longevity Dial had given her all-new capabilities, that meant- “Someone's impersonating her.”
“But if that Dixingian's power is portals – she must have help.”
“Right.” Zhao Yunlan dug out his phone and scrolled through his call history. It was three months ago, but he managed to dig out Li Qian's number nonetheless. He called her.
Shen Wei had been pretty upset when Li Qian dropped out. If something bad had happened to her because an evildoer wanted to use her to get at him... Zhao Yunlan doubted Shen Wei would ever forgive himself.
“Hello?” Li Qian answered.
“This is Zhao Yunlan of the Special Investigation Department.” What should he ask first? “Where were you today between eleven and twelve?”
“I was at- Um.” She put the receiver down and spoke to a man. Zhao Yunlan made out his own name and something to do with confidentiality. Interesting. “I've been at the Department of Supervision since nine. Any further questions are to be addressed to Professor Ouyang.”
“You're still there?”
“Yes?”
“I'll come over. Please stay there.” He ended the call.
Well. At least Shen Wei's dear student was all right. “I'll go to the Department of Supervision to interview Li Qian,” he told the damn cat. “Ask Jiajia whether she or Xiaoquan told anyone else about Shen Wei's alcohol intolerance.”
“You'll get your highly suspicious obsession back in no time, don't worry,” Da Qing said, then transformed into a cat and hopped off the desk before Zhao Yunlan could swat at him.
It took forever to get through the Department of Supervision's security check, even by usual standards, and he was stopped twice more on his way to the labs. The second time he had to ask the guards to phone Professor Ouyang to let him through. For all that whatever it was was hush-hush enough to merit this amount of security, Professor Ouyang was curiously unwilling to let Li Qian out.
When he finally arrived at the lab, he was greeted by Li Qian, an irate man who must be Professor Ouyang, and a moderately exasperated old man. “Good afternoon,” he said. “I'm Zhao Yunlan. I know Li Qian, and you must be Professor Ouyang, but I don't believe I've had the pleasure of meeting you.”
“Professor Zhou.” They shook hands. “Shen Wei has told me a lot about you.”
Oho, someone else invested in Shen Wei's wellbeing. Zhao Yunlan would have all the backing he needed. “Li Qian says she was here from nine onwards. From eleven thirty to noon, was she under observation?”
Professor Zhou took out a paper and said, “From eleven to twelve, she was being scanned with the dark energy radical fluximeter over there, and we broke for lunch at quarter past.” Professor Ouyang shot him a glare, but it wasn't like Zhao Yunlan had the training to distinguish a dark energy radical fluximeter from an x-ray machine. To him it was just a bulky science thing with buttons.
Nonetheless, that Li Qian had been in some large scientific apparatus under constant observation by the Department of Supervision gave her an airtight alibi. “And you're sure this is Li Qian?” Zhao Yunlan asked.
“Of course! The effect of the Hallows on her genome is obvious!” Professor Ouyang said. “It has a three-sigma divergence from baseline humans, yet is completely distinct from that of Dixingians.”
Zhao Yunlan nodded. “Li Qian, when did you last see Professor Shen?”
“At the funeral,” she said. “Has something happened to him?”
“He disappeared from a locked room today before noon,” Zhao Yunlan told her. “Eyewitnesses report that you were seen visiting him in his office.”
“But I was here all day,” Li Qian said.
“Dixingians?” Professor Ouyang asked.
“That is the most probable explanation at this juncture,” Zhao Yunlan said. “We think one of them must have used some power to copy your features, or otherwise disguise someone as you.” He supposed they should all be glad it wasn't Jia Hui stealing faces for Zhang Danni. “Have you encountered anyone suspicious in the past weeks?”
Professor Ouyang grumbled something about hidden confounding variables ruining his data. He seemed a bit high drama to work with. Professor Zhou lectured him about the vast complexity that was human subjects and how he should've expected something like this.
Li Qian, however, wracked her brain to answer Zhao Yunlan's question. “I ... don't think I've had any really? Oh, wait, last week I went out the apartment complex door only to walk into a guy taking a photograph of my face. He said it was an accident and apologized for the flash. Do you think that was it?”
“It's possible.” Impersonating someone based on a photograph. Interesting. Zhao Yunlan was glad of the shield around the SID. He might need to update instructions for the Department of Supervision, though.
“Chief Zhao, I must say, he's been working with you so much and now he gets kidnapped,” Professor Zhou said. “Don't you think it's irresponsible of you?”
“We were not aware of this avenue of attack. We will of course update security procedures, both for Professor Shen and the recommendations for the Department of Supervision, once we have retrieved him.”
Professor Zhou still looked unhappy, but he nodded. “And see to it.”
“Professor Shen is an esteemed collaborator,” Zhao Yunlan continued in his best soothing voice of professionalism. “We will do everything within our power to get him back unharmed.”
This seemed to reassure Professor Zhou somewhat. He sighed. “Tell Shen Wei to call me once he's free. He really needs to take better care of himself.”
“Don't we all?” Zhao Yunlan replied and extracted himself from the situation.
Zhao Yunlan stared at the various leads gathered on the table. Or rather, he stared at the empty table, as their only lead so far was the video which Lin Jing was showing to everyone at the side.
Someone had kidnapped the Envoy. That someone had been observing closely enough to know about Shen Wei's weakness to alcohol and his close relationship with Li Qian. There were at least two of them, one with the portaling powers and one with the ability to give other people disguises.
They'd kidnapped the Envoy, and were holding him somewhere. Dixing or Haixing? Had Shen Wei had a mobile phone, Zhao Yunlan could've had Lin Jing see if he was in Haixing and roughly where in Haixing he was. But Shen Wei didn't have a mobile phone, and Zhao Yunlan hadn't given him one to go with the hidden camera, so that thought was of no use.
Just speculation, then. The kidnappers knew Shen Wei's disappearance would soon bring over the SID's attention. The SID was a Haixingian institution, so if they had access to the entry to Dixing, they'd rather hold Shen Wei hostage there.
Unless there was some equivalent body in Dixing? And wasn't Shen Wei stronger in Dixing?
Zhao Yunlan wiped his face with his hand. For all that he'd been the Chief of the SID for years and was the boss of one Dixingian and dating another, Dixing was a black box to him. Perhaps he should ask Chu Shuzhi-
“Hey, Boss, do you think that looks like one of the Envoy's portals, too?” Lin Jing asked.
Zhao Yunlan turned to look as Lin Jing helpfully showed the footage again. The portal was similar, Zhao Yunlan had to admit, though the Envoy's were swirlier.
“How large a difference in appearance is possible in people's portal powers?” Zhao Yunlan asked Chu Shuzhi.
“Individual powers are as different as different can be,” Chu Shuzhi said. “Though some run in families. The Lord's Registry in Dixing might tell if there are any families with portal powers.”
“So that's one of the Envoy's relatives?” Lin Jing asked. “What did Professor Shen do to them – stand up the Envoy's daughter?”
Zhao Yunlan glared at him. “The Black-Cloaked Envoy's power is learning. With enough practice, he can acquire any power he sees. He doesn't have anything to do with those portal people.”
“Wait, how do you know this?” Da Qing asked. “Is this part of the SID Chief info packet, or did you make up with the Envoy so he told you this?”
He'd done more than make up with the Envoy – make out with the Envoy, for one – but he'd rather not spill Shen Wei's beans for him. “Of course we made up,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
“Then we can call him to get his help finding Professor Shen!” Guo Changcheng said.
“I'll fetch the incense!” Wang Zheng said and ran off.
Zhao Yunlan stared after her. How would the incense affect things? Would Shen Wei interrupt his whatever it was – no doubt he'd free himself as soon as he'd woken up – to come talk to them?
That might not be too bad, he decided. When Wang Zheng brought the incense, he lit it.
Smoke rose, spiraling up to the ceiling just like it should. Shen Wei would just have to figure out how to manage his own secret identity. Perhaps Zhao Yunlan could just ask him to bring the Professor back somewhere, and the Envoy could appear extremely busy with his important Envoy stuff and just dump Professor Shen somewhere with only a note to the SID?
“It's ... not working?” Guo Changcheng said.
Zhao Yunlan looked around himself. He didn't have much experience using the incense, but the last time he'd used it, it hadn't looked like this. The smoke had risen to the ceiling now as well, yes, but it sort of stayed there like regular smoke.
The SID fire alarm started ringing. “Turn the damn thing off!” Zhao Yunlan barked and snuffed out the incense.
Five minutes of incompetent flailing later, Chu Shuzhi hopped on the table and used his puppet threads to bring the alarm down to the table. Zhao Yunlan picked it up and removed the batteries, silencing the screaming. They'd have to find the actual ladder to put it back on the ceiling. Or perhaps he could kick everyone out and make it a date with Shen Wei, should Shen Wei have levitation powers.
“Why isn't the Envoy here?” Wang Zheng asked.
“Is there something really urgent going on in Dixing?” Da Qing asked.
Chu Shuzhi thought for a while. “There shouldn't be. Not more than the usual.”
“M-maybe he's upset about something to do with the Hallows?” Guo Changcheng suggested.
Da Qing snapped his fingers. “That's right! He was really pissed at lao-Zhao when we were handling the Zheng Yi case. What did you do to upset him?”
“He was stressed and we made up already,” Zhao Yunlan said. “He's not avoiding us.”
“Maybe he's arrested that Professor Shen?” Zhu Hong suggested in an altogether much too hopeful fashion.
“Why would he send someone else to do that?” Lin Jing replied. “I mean, Professor Shen is very suspicious, but that wasn't him. Unless you think the Black-Cloaked Envoy impersonated Li Qian for the shits and giggles.”
“The Envoy would not impersonate anyone,” Chu Shuzhi definitively replied.
“Well, then he's just busy with something else. I mean, it's not like you think Professor Shen is the Black-Cloaked Envoy, right?” Lin Jing tossed out as a joke.
Everyone froze, Lin Jing included, as they suddenly contemplated the idea. Just like Zhao Yunlan had in the mountains, they ran the notion over in their minds and saw how the evidence stacked. Gradually, all doubting faces turned to Zhao Yunlan.
It was Chu Shuzhi who spoke. “Is he-”
“Yeah,” Zhao Yunlan replied. He sighed and leaned back on the couch. “So please tell me – who in Dixing would want to kidnap the Envoy?”
The world was dark and heavy, but eventually Shen Wei swam back into awareness.
He was in – no, it didn't feel like Dixing. A bunker of some sort. His hands were handcuffed to each other and he was on his back on a hard metal surface.
He couldn't sense anyone with his dark energy senses. He'd teleport out and ask Zhao Yunlan to-
Nothing happened when he called on his portaling powers.
He opened his eyes. It was dark like Dixing, and the roof was rock of a very Dixingian sort. All signs pointed to him being in the cradle of dark energy. Why wouldn't his powers work?
“So you're awake,” a woman's voice came from near enough that Shen Wei should've been able to detect her.
He didn't respond. Let her monologue, since she was in a talkative mood.
“It is a testament to our ingenuity and rightness that we could capture the Black-Cloaked Envoy,” she said. “And now we can grow stronger by consuming your essence.”
“Consuming my essence.” Was this some sex thing, or were they that bunch of sad Ye Zun imitators out in the boondocks? There were some odd instruments lining the walls. Either the sad Ye Zun imitators or a very odd sex thing, then.
The woman nodded. “We have the tools here to extract your very soul, the seat of all your power, into a soul capsule for storage. We've called over all our brethren; when the last of them have arrived, we'll feast on your power and share it all between us.”
So they were the bunch of sad Ye Zun imitators who thought they were gaining powers by eating others. They had the technology to make what must be power-restraining handcuffs; that explained the way they caught people. No doubt the Regent had been hiding the magnitude of this problem from him as well. Shen Wei sighed.
His hands were cuffed together, but he was otherwise unrestrained. The woman was still talking about their glorious vision when he kicked her face in and took off.
The first door had a handle and was unlocked; it was easy enough to operate. He slid himself against the wall and closed the door behind him.
He was in some sort of tunnel system. This made it hazardous; he had no dark energy vision and was running blind.
Small tunnel systems in Dixing were usually the products of rainwater flowing from Dixing through the rocks to deeper aquifers. Those rivers often dried up, leaving behind cave systems small to large which people used as dwellings. The other set of caves were from water flowing from the surface to Dixing, but those were larger and dried up much less frequently. They were also moderately famous, as Dixing kept track of them and someone would've noticed if cultists had moved into a former life stream.
Up, then, to bring him to Dixing's main cavern. He closed his eyes and rocked on his feet. Left was up.
He slinked upwards, hoping he'd been correct about the cave type. He had his eyes peeled, but without his Dixing powers and dark energy, he couldn't see a thing.
It wasn't long before the cave mouth yawned before him with some of Dixing's dim light and the sound of people talking. He paused to listen and caught glimpses of conversation – the logistics of transit, speculation on how this batch of souls would taste. Cultist territory.
He'd have to get out fast. He took a deep breath and nonchalantly walked out of the cave, immediately turning right.
No-one seemed to have been looking at him; good. He'd just stay near the cliff edge and walk with purpose. If this ended up being the wrong direction, he'd double back. Dixing's city would be far away, but there he could ask Wu Tian'en to cut open the handcuffs-
“Stop him!” someone yelled behind him.
Shen Wei broke into a run. Either they meant him or they'd be distracted; he needed every advantage he could get.
Footsteps behind him, approaching. Definitely coming for him. He'd have to figure out a way to shake them-
He tripped on a loose stone he hadn't noticed. He put his cuffed hands down to break his fall but couldn't roll like he'd have wanted to. The impact jarred his hands and left dust in his mouth.
The first of the pursuers was on him before he could rise. He rolled to the side and kicked at him.
The pursuer dodged. Shen Wei rolled over his back and onto his feet, swinging his fists together at the man; this time he blocked and threw a punch of his own at Shen Wei's head, which Shen Wei dodged.
Another man caught up before the pack. Shen Wei kicked him in the head and he went down. He needed a weapon-
More fast runners. The first of them stood wide-legged and started drawing some sort of knife. Shen Wei kicked him in the genitals as hard as he could. He yowled and fell down, the knife tumbling from his grip.
Shen Wei dove for the knife and evaded the next arrival's strike. It was a woman with a longer blade; he was at a disadvantage. He stepped to the side and parried her next strike.
She was one for broad slashes – inexpert with her weapon. When the next one came, Shen Wei dodged and lunged.
Pain shot through his leg as his right knee gave way with a crunch. The first of the pursuers followed his kick with a strike to the head. Shen Wei tumbled down.
The rest of the pursuers descended upon him as a pack. He kicked out with his good leg, high on adrenaline as his other was immersed in pain and not healing, waved his knife as much as he could.
The woman with the blade hit him in the side. His suit and skin split open between ribcage and hip, and then it went deeper and deeper and the world faded to black.
Ye Zun was silent in his prison. Ten thousand years of torment had taught him that sometimes, it was necessary to wait. He'd tried liberation through building empires, but so far he knew only of the Hallows as a means of giving him back his body.
Dixing was as it always was. No-one was approaching his pillar. Ye Zun quieted himself and extended his reach.
There was something odd with the river today. Bodies would on occasion turn up, though mostly they were whole; this one was chopped up and oh so familiar in energy signature-
Wait. Had someone truly killed and dismembered the Black-Cloaked Envoy?
Ye Zun reached out with his energy and pulled in a piece for further study. He poked at it and it echoed in the way only his twin brother did.
How dare they. Only Ye Zun got to kill his brother.
“Who killed you?” he asked the foot. “I will kill them.”
The foot didn't answer. It was still in its brown leather shoe and white sock.
That left only one avenue to pursue: Ye Zun would have to resurrect his brother before taking his revenge.
It was a long day pulling pieces of his brother out of the river, both with his own powers and with mind controlled small fry, but at the end, he had a pile of bits that wasn't missing anything save structural integrity and the spark of life.
Ye Zun had never been one to accept the cruel decrees of fate. He pushed a trickle of the dark energy he'd so jealously hoarded into the mass of body parts.
They started to coagulate in their intended positions. Nothing seemed to be missing, so they formed a full shape. Further application of dark energy healed the seams between them, then the splintered knee and the gouged side. Ye Zun sent another splat of dark energy in to fix those and waited for his brother to wake up.
Nothing happened.
That ... what? His asshole brother should've woken up. Ye Zun tossed another lump of dark energy at the body. Again, nothing.
What on earth could've caused this? Was this part of some gambit of his brother's, where he'd locked up his consciousness for some time and would at some point soon wake up, moderately surprised that someone had gone to the trouble of putting his body back together?
Ye Zun poked the body again. It wouldn't stay alive long. It was his identical twin's, too, so perhaps he could go visit?
A moment of interminable darkness later, he opened his eyes behind his brother's glasses. He blinked.
Dark energy still flowed through him. He tested a power of his own – minor distortion of the air – and found it worked. Then he tested something he'd seen his brother do often and summoned the Envoy's blade into his hand.
Ye Zun grinned. He was twice as powerful! Now, time to see what had happened to gege.
He sat down and let himself sink into the memories. Lots about that Zhao Yunlan or Kunlun, lots about biology, ah, there-
The soul eaters.
The soul eaters had gotten his gege's mind and would eat him and not gain anything from it. Ye Zun's – or perhaps gege's – blood curdled. How could gege have fallen to them?
Something to suppress Dixing powers. Ye Zun tried to draw pleasure from his brother feeling even a fraction of the fear he'd felt with the Rebel Leader, but couldn't.
What had his brother been thinking, then? Ye Zun had in his ten millennia plumbed the depths of depravity in the Dixingians who came to him to ask for favors, but they were twins, supposed to be identical in every way. How had his brother become a traitor at such a tender age?
Only one way to find out. He sank deeper into his brother's memories and found what he was looking for heavily written over with ... regret?
Remembrance altered the memory, and things not filled with emotion would soon fall forgotten. Nonetheless, Ye Zun knew what he remembered, and could refer against that.
The memory started like Ye Zun's, with them walking up a hill as Ye Zun hacked and coughed and they were accosted by the Rebel Leader. Then Ye Zun fell unconscious-
-and his brother tried to protect him from the Rebel Leader, full of fury beyond his child's frame. The Rebel Leader, in a move Ye Zun recognized all too well, picked him up by the neck and dropped him off a cliff. He survived the drop only due to his powers, and ran up the cliff with the now-familiar glaive he'd stumbled over at the bottom only to find Ye Zun gone.
Ye Zun stared at the pillar. No. Had it – had it all been a lie?
Had the Rebel Leader not merrily lied, tortured, and mind controlled his way through Haixing? Had his brother not been happy to see him when they next met?
All of his life, he'd been wrong about his brother. His driving motivation had been born of the lies of another.
Zhu Jiu? Ye Zun tried.
Yes, Boss? Zhu Jiu responded. The link still worked, then.
Change of plans.
“M-maybe he's been abducted by aliens?” Guo Changcheng suggested.
“Well, I mean, Dixingians and Yashou are technically aliens, so yeah, he was definitely abducted by aliens,” Lin Jing said. “If we're talking about extraterrestrials, however-”
Zhao Yunlan groaned. They'd been doing this for hours, they had no more clues than they'd started with, and their spitballing had devolved into Shen Wei going home with ET. Chu Shuzhi had suggested that this was a plot by the Regent, but Zhao Yunlan was flying blind on Dixingian politics beyond the official party line of it being ruled by a triumvirate of Envoy, Regent, and Lord. Though if Shen Wei spent all his time on the surface and the Lord was chained to his chair, then it would in practice be run by the Regent.
An alarm buzzed, then paused, then buzzed again. It continued turning on and off rhythmically – almost as if someone were knocking.
“What's that?” Guo Changcheng asked.
“It's the alarm for the shield,” Lin Jing explained. “Someone's trying to breach the back door?”
Zhao Yunlan looked at Chu Shuzhi. They rose and walked through the SID.
Hostage negotiations? A trap? Zhao Yunlan pulled out his gun and opened the doors.
Zhu Jiu was right there and jumped back. Before Zhao Yunlan could shoot him, however, he spotted Shen Wei.
Shen Wei was in the clothes he'd last been seen in, but held his body completely wrong. “You're not Shen Wei,” Zhao Yunlan said and trained his gun at the ground beneath Shen Wei's feet, not quite willing to point it at what might be Shen Wei's body.
“Indeed. Let me introduce myself: I am the person behind Zhu Jiu – Ye Zun.” Ye Zun bowed with a flourish.
“Then why are you wearing Shen Wei's face?”
“We're twins. There is only our face,” Ye Zun said with the creepiest smile and tone of voice Zhao Yunlan had seen in his eventful life. “Though in this case I'm wearing gege's body to keep it alive while we find gege.”
“You're twins?” Zhu Jiu choked out.
“Identical,” Ye Zun confirmed. “Now, have you heard of the soul eaters?”
Chu Shuzhi inhaled sharply. “Do you mean-”
“Gege was captured by them and his Dixing powers suppressed while they extracted his very soul. Then they dismembered his corpse and tossed the bits in the river.” Ye Zun shrugged. “I reassembled it, don't worry.”
“And you want out help in getting him back.”
“Yes. I want to destroy those people utterly and totally, and I believe you do, too. Don't you, Chief Zhao?”
Yes, Zhao Yunlan did, from the bottom of his pitch-black heart. But he'd been taught to always look a gift horse in the mouth. “And what do you want in return?”
“Oh, two things. Firstly, complete amnesty for past crimes and permission to live in Haixing, for both Zhu Jiu and myself.”
He shouldn't, but he'd be willing to do anything to get Shen Wei back. “And the other?”
“I get to make a body for myself and move in,” Ye Zun said. “I'd have to move out anyway so gege could move in, and some of the equipment the soul eaters have looks like it could rebuild my body.”
“What happened to – you're the prisoner in the Sky Pillar,” Chu Shuzhi said. “Why did your brother leave you there?”
“Not even he could stand up to the full power of the Hallows,” Ye Zun said, sounding hurt. Interesting. Why were they working at cross-purposes, then?
“Okay, deal, you get your amnesty for your past crimes and your new body,” Zhao Yunlan said, deciding he could get an explanation of the politics from Shen Wei later. “Further crimes will be prosecuted with the full force of the law. Now let's go rescue Shen Wei.”
“So the entry to Dixing is in a park?” Zhao Yunlan asked. “I'd have expected something grander and more out of the way.”
“Can't you-” Ye Zun sighed. “Of course. Your puny human eyesight can't make out the grandeur of the portal.”
Zhao Yunlan glared at him. Okay, sure, fine, it needed dark energy vision to see, no need to rub it in. “Shall we go?”
“Of course.” Ye Zun theatrically waved a hand and walked into – there might have been a faint purple haze there, or it might've been just something Zhao Yunlan's mind supplied by itself – and vanished. Zhu Jiu followed suit.
“After you,” Chu Shuzhi said.
Zhao Yunlan nodded and walked forwards. Would the portal even work for him, human that he was?
Turns out it did. He was spat out in ... well. It was dark. Zhao Yunlan realized too late this would be the perfect opportunity for a trap.
Chu Shuzhi collided into him from behind. Zhao Yunlan took a hesitant few steps forward and discovered he could make out some things. Like Ye Zun and Zhu Jiu's faces. Well, Shen Wei and Zhu Jiu's faces, the former of which was temporarily inhabited by Ye Zun.
Ye Zun waved his hand and opened a portal similar to the ones Zhao Yunlan had seen the Black-Cloaked Envoy walk through. “Let's go somewhere with less eavesdroppers, shall we?”
All four of them traipsed through it. They left the city with its occasional torches and low buildings and were now on some sort of rocky plain.
Zhao Yunlan took a look around himself. He couldn't see much – it was even darker here – but his eyes would adapt. Hopefully. “So. You mentioned soul eaters?”
“They kidnap Dixingians whose powers have come in, then suck out their soul and place it in a capsule,” Zhu Jiu said. “When they have enough, they'll make a stew of some sort with the souls and eat it. They claim it improves their Dixing powers.”
“It doesn't, of course,” Ye Zun said. “They even leave the dark energy core in place so they just waste everything.”
“You know an awful lot about them,” Chu Shuzhi said, perhaps looking at Zhu Jiu.
Zhu Jiu shrugged. “I grew up here, near the cave system their headquarters are in. We were told not to-”
“They let a hick like you into the Palace Guard?”
“Wait, Zhu Jiu was a Palace Guard?” Zhao Yunlan asked. Not that he knew what being a Palace Guard meant in Dixing. It sounded respectable, though. Had Zhu Jiu been tossed out for his non-regulation dye job?
“He was – until I mind controlled him into murdering his superior officer,” Ye Zun said nonchalantly.
“...Boss?” Zhu Jiu croaked.
Zhao Yunlan was suddenly glad he had bypassed the ethical conundrum of holding people accountable for things done under potential mind control by granting Zhu Jiu amnesty earlier. “Right. The soul eaters?”
“They...” Ye Zun tilted his head in a manner most unlike Shen Wei. “There are perhaps three dozen of them. The caves they're in are relatively shallow. The river system that formed their caves dried up a long time ago. No ranged weapons, and they don't seem to have powers useful in combat. Gege wounded perhaps five of them to some extent.”
“Can you draw a map?”
Ye Zun knelt down and ran his finger through Dixing's loose dust. “This is the rock wall. We're coming from this direction. The caves are here and their main encampment is in the open here. Dixing's main river flows over there.”
“I suggest we approach from here and don't pass the caves until we've cleared out the open region. I have a ranged weapon, Chu Shuzhi can take things down with his strings as well, and I take it you can use the rest of Shen Wei's powers.”
Ye Zun tilted his head in what was probably meant to be a nod. “The necessary equipment is in the cave.”
“Right. Well, we'll have to take them by storm. Can you disguise our presence somehow so I can get a few shots in without being noticed, then maybe portal the three of you to the side so the moment they identify where the threat is, they get attacked from the back?”
“Sure.”
“Oh, and you probably know it already, but you don't want to get hit by a bullet from my gun. Does bad things to your dark energy core. Try not to teleport into them.” Zhao Yunlan stared at Zhu Jiu.
“...my power doesn't work in Dixing,” Zhu Jiu admitted, embarrassed. He clutched his arm where he'd been shot last week.
“Your-” Zhao Yunlan sighed. “Fine. Do what you can.”
Ye Zun twirled a portal around his finger. It was impossibly intense in Dixing's gloom. “Shall we go?”
The four of them walked through the portal to another stretch of Dixing, this one rockier than the prior one. A light haze shimmered around them. There was a group of people perhaps fifty meters in front of them.
“That's the soul eaters?”
“It's them,” Chu Shuzhi confirmed.
Zhao Yunlan pulled his gun and aimed carefully at someone who seemed uninjured. He pulled the trigger and the man dropped. Whatever Ye Zun was doing to hide them didn't affect bullet trajectories, then.
He aimed at another soul eater, this one a woman with what looked like followers around her. She fell to a headshot, too. Zhao Yunlan picked out a third one in rapid succession.
The soul eaters seemed to have located the direction of the bullets. Zhao Yunlan shot a fourth one before they mounted their charge-
-and then Ye Zun teleported the three Dixingians to the side of the mass of soul eaters, who now had something new to worry about. The mass pivoted to the side, and Zhao Yunlan picked off first people from the other side and then stragglers streaming out of the caves.
Chu Shuzhi's strings decapitated the last soul eater. The man's body fell down, twitching.
Right. Now the next step. “Where's Shen Wei?” Zhao Yunlan called as he jogged over.
“Somewhere in the caves?” Ye Zun said. He tilted his head again. “They didn't show gege, but I know what they should look like.”
“What do they look like?” Zhu Jiu asked.
“They're translucent spheres with a blue-greenish glow, the size to comfortably fit in a hand,” Ye Zun said. He tilted his head and smiled creepily. “Shall we?”
Based on Ye Zun's behavior, the brothers had probably had their falling out over whether to spend their lives in a constant audition for the role of creepy twins in a horror movie or something and any politics stuff had happened later. “Sure,” Zhao Yunlan replied.
The caves were even darker. Zhao Yunlan had trouble seeing anything within their gentle descent into the earth.
Ye Zun led them into the gloom. At a nod from Zhao Yunlan, Chu Shuzhi went to guard their backs. Zhao Yunlan and Zhu Jiu walked between them.
Ye Zun would pause at every fork of the cave and do – probably dark energy probing or something – and deliberately pick one path. Zhao Yunlan would always glance at the untaken fork; mostly they contracted into a passage too narrow to traverse that then plunged into infinity.
They stopped in front of a door. “Here,” Ye Zun softly said.
It was unlocked. Ye Zun stepped through.
There was a woman inside, doing something to another body. “You!” she hissed and jumped up, power coiling in her hand-
Ye Zun extended his own hand and – sucked her up. Turned her into a stream of dark energy and pressed her into his face. He smiled smugly and burped.
“Did- What-”
“Did gege not tell you what my power is?” Ye Zun asked. His expression turned even more smug. Zhao Yunlan considered sassing him, but that wouldn't have been a good idea for a multitude of reasons. “It's eating.”
“I'll take you to a noodle joint later,” Zhao Yunlan replied. He peered past him at the other body on the ground. “And that-”
“Oh, gege got to her,” Ye Zun said with a perverse pride. “The soul capsules are there.”
Zhao Yunlan stepped over the corpses and gingerly opened the chest Ye Zun had pointed at. There was a loosely-woven sack inside. Light seeped through its weave.
He fumbled for the sack's mouth and opened it. Inside, there were palm-sized spheres, perhaps twenty-odd of them, glowing an eerie green.
“Can we help the others as well?” Zhao Yunlan quietly asked.
“We might,” Ye Zun said, then returned to piling apparati on Zhu Jiu and Chu Shuzhi's arms. Two such contraptions later, he nodded to himself and opened up a portal. “Come.”
What choice did they have? Zhu Jiu and perhaps Chu Shuzhi might know how to get from here to wherever the portal was, but neither of them had transit-related powers and they'd have to walk. Zhao Yunlan didn't even have that. Thus, he grinned cockily and said, “Of course!”
They emerged at the banks of a wide river. It was the only feature nearby; at the edge of Zhao Yunlan's vision something obelisk-like punched out of the ground. He thought he could see a haze of light behind it, but that was likely just his mind playing tricks on him.
“Which of the orbs is the Envoy?” Chu Shuzhi asked.
“Patience,” Ye Zun said. “I have to get out of this body first, before gege can get into it. Now, let me...”
Ye Zun took all the instruments one by one and pointed them at a stretch of shore. He then took a step back and slammed dark energy into the clay until it congealed into the rough shape of a man.
“You'll move into that?”
“Can't you see that it's a work in progress?” Ye Zun scoffed. He rearranged the apparati around the clay, then activated them each with dark energy in turn.
Zhao Yunlan wondered what they did. Transmuting the clay into flesh and blood? Charging the wet earth with dark energy? A glance at Chu Shuzhi and Zhu Jiu revealed they didn't know, either.
“There,” Ye Zun declared with a smug smile that almost approached an expression Shen Wei would wear on his face. “Let's find gege.”
“Did they write the names on those things?” Zhu Jiu asked.
Ye Zun knelt in front of the sack on the ground. “Oh, no,” he said. “But one can ... feel who it is, in a sense.”
He plunged an arm in and stared at the sky. Zhao Yunlan felt his hand move gently within the sack, as if caressing each and every one of the orbs. The orbs' glow projected the process onto Dixing's dirt as if it were an arthouse shadow puppet play.
Ye Zun froze. Zhao Yunlan saw an array of complex expressions flit over his face as he stroked what must be Shen Wei's soul. “This one,” he eventually whispered, and raised it up reverently.
An indescribable emotion welled within Zhao Yunlan. “May I hold it?” he whispered back and gently set the sack on the ground.
“Here.”
Zhao Yunlan held out his cupped hands and accepted the orb. It was surprisingly light for the heavy importance of its contents. A light buzz emanated to his palms and had his heart flutter. The blue-green glow – like a will o' the wisp – danced within its confines. He wondered whether Shen Wei recognized him.
“What next?” Chu Shuzhi quietly asked.
“I move myself to my new body, you catch gege's body as it falls unconscious, and Zhao Yunlan slaps the orb against gege's forehead,” Ye Zun said. He turned to Zhao Yunlan. “Please wait until I've twitched in my new body; bringing gege back won't work if I'm still in residence.”
“I ... understand,” Zhao Yunlan said. He stood and waited closer to where Ye Zun was standing.
Zhu Jiu seemed to have received some private instructions, for he went to kneel by Ye Zun's future flesh vessel – which was still but a lump of clay – and waited. Chu Shuzhi settled into position as well.
Ye Zun closed his eyes and breathed in. He dropped his hands to his thighs, palms up, and raised them as if lifting something heavy. Dark energy twirled at his fingertips, long strings dangling towards the ground as they were pulled up from the middle. His hands rose to his mouth, where he turned his palms to face outwards, towards the body-shaped clay. Abruptly, he shoved the air.
He bent over double and coughed up blood. “Boss?” Zhu Jiu asked.
“It is hard,” Ye Zun said, a final string of blood still dripping from his lips, “to detach one's soul from a body.”
“Could we use the soul eaters' tools?” Chu Shuzhi suggested.
“Wouldn't work,” Ye Zun said. He tried again, dragging the dark energy upwards and expelling it out in front of himself.
This time, Shen Wei's body collapsed as if someone had turned the lights out. Chu Shuzhi caught it and gently set it down on the ground.
Zhao Yunlan consciously relaxed his hands so he wouldn't squeeze the orb so hard it broke and stared at the clay. It had now turned from a lump of earth into an actual human – Dixingian – body, skin and hair and clothes and all.
Ye Zun raspingly inhaled in his new body. He twitched.
Immediately, Zhao Yunlan turned back to Shen Wei. He placed the orb on Shen Wei's forehead and pressed.
It broke with a high-pitched noise like breaking glass. Zhao Yunlan didn't feel any pain as if from a cut, though, so he continued pressing the soul against Shen Wei's forehead. It tingled against his palm more intensely now, and the container seemed to be dissolving.
For a moment that felt like eternity, nothing happened. Fear ran rampant through Zhao Yunlan's mind – had they gotten the wrong soul, did this method flat-out not work – but then Shen Wei twitched his eyebrows. “Shen Wei?”
Shen Wei opened his eyes. “Zhao Yunlan? Why are you-”
Zhao Yunlan immediately descended on him and kissed him. He mashed his lips against Shen Wei's in a desperate need to connect, to feel Shen Wei alive and well, feel him breathe and feel the warmth of his living body. He bit Shen Wei's lips and tangled their tongues as Shen Wei returned his fervor.
Then Shen Wei pushed him off and awkwardly rose to a seated position. “You shouldn't be in Dixing.”
“How could I leave you for dead?” Zhao Yunlan asked. “Don't worry, we're safe now.”
Shen Wei was about to reply when he was interrupted by Ye Zun throwing himself at him and clinging like a burr. He sat with his arms extended in front of him, as if the concept of hugs were utterly unfamiliar to him, and stared at Ye Zun in open shock.
“I'm sorry, gege,” Ye Zun sniffled against Shen Wei's shoulder. “The Boss told me you'd willingly given me away and I believed him until I saw your memories.”
“You saw my memories?” Shen Wei asked. He gingerly wrapped his arms around his brother.
Ye Zun nodded against his shoulder. “All of them.”
Shen Wei winced. “Ah.”
“I'm glad you're back, Lord Envoy,” Chu Shuzhi said.
Shen Wei stared at Zhao Yunlan accusingly. “Look, how else was I supposed to explain why we couldn't summon the Envoy to save our kidnapped Professor?” Zhao Yunlan defensively said.
“What about the rest of the souls?” Zhu Jiu asked.
“Plant them in the mud at an elbow's depth three paces from each other,” Ye Zun said, still not lifting his face from where it was planted against Shen Wei.
“Go help him,” Shen Wei told Chu Shuzhi.
Zhu Jiu and Chu Shuzhi took the sack of orbs and started making their way along the riverbank. They were treating each other with obvious wariness and some hostility, but did manage to play farmer and plant their crop of souls. Zhao Yunlan told Shen Wei what had transpired as they watched them.
Shen Wei lifted a hand to scratch the bottom of Ye Zun's scalp. “You did well, didi.”
“Only I get to kill you,” Ye Zun murmured.
Shen Wei snorted fondly. He leaned his head against Ye Zun's.
It was the picture of affection. Zhao Yunlan could feel his heart melt just watching it.
When Chu Shuzhi and Zhu Jiu returned with a sack empty of orbs, Shen Wei patted Ye Zun's back. “Time to go.”
Ye Zun reluctantly extracted himself from his brother's embrace. His eyes were red-rimmed.
They stepped into Haixing through a portal Shen Wei created. The sunlight stabbed Zhao Yunlan's eyes and made them water. He hadn't realized Haixing was so bright. Was this how all the Dixingians felt when they first came up?
His phone buzzed in his pocket. “Hello?”
“This is Professor Zhou. Am I speaking to Chief Zhao of the SID?”
“Oh, Professor Zhou!” Zhao Yunlan exclaimed. “Yes, this is Chief Zhao Yunlan. Is something the matter?”
“Have you found Shen Wei yet?”
“We have,” Zhao Yunlan said as Shen Wei was staring at him in shock. “We will take him to the SID for debriefing before releasing him to the wilds, so don't worry if you don't hear from him for a while. He's unharmed.”
“Can I speak to him?” Professor Zhou asked.
Zhao Yunlan weighed his desire to sweep Shen Wei over to the SID against Professor Zhou's tone, which brooked infinite pestering should he not agree. “Sure,” he said. He put his phone on speaker mode. “Shen Wei, bring your face over here.”
Shen Wei stared at the phone as if it were an object of incomprehensible terror. “How do I use it?”
“Just speak towards it.”
“I'm fine, Professor Zhou,” Shen Wei said in an extremely awkward fashion. “Thank you for your concern.”
“You always say you are fine, even when you're not,” Professor Zhou replied, and chided him for over a minute on how he should get a cellphone.
Zhao Yunlan might've been happy to listen to someone else scold Shen Wei on joining the modern era and taking care of himself, but the audience was getting antsy. He turned off speakerphone and said, “I am glad to see that Professor Shen has people who are so concerned for him, but I really do need to take him to the SID for debriefing. I'll tell him to call you once he's done.”
“Ah, of course, you must be terribly busy,” Professor Zhou said. “Have a nice day, Chief Zhao.”
“You too.” Zhao Yunlan closed the call. “Okay. Next, the SID.”
“Didi,” Shen Wei said. “No mind control.”
“But-”
“No mind control,” Shen Wei sternly repeated.
Ye Zun pouted, but waved his arm vaguely in Zhu Jiu's direction. “Are you happy now?”
“Good.” Shen Wei pet Ye Zun's hair as Zhu Jiu spluttered and teleported off with an assurance he'd get back in touch with suggestions. Zhao Yunlan thought he probably wouldn't. At least he'd be out of their hair now.
Ye Zun had borrowed Shen Wei's portaling power to get them to the park. As Zhao Yunlan didn't fancy walking, they'd have to return the same way. “Portal us to the SID, Shen Wei?”
Shen Wei smiled. “Of course.”
It was hard, knowing that one had been dead from lunch to late dinner. Shen Wei still felt the twinges of phantom pain from his knee and side where he'd been there for the injury but not there to heal it.
It was hard, trying to cook dinner with not one but two concerned adults hovering over one. Shen Wei sighed. “I appreciate your concern, but I need space to make food.”
“No, I absolutely need to cuddle you,” Zhao Yunlan said. “You died, Shen Wei!”
“I was stuck in a pillar for ten thousand years,” Ye Zun said with a wobble to his voice that was entirely manufactured. “Don't I deserve someone being nice to me?”
Shen Wei stared at the pork and other ingredients, purchased to feed himself and Zhao Yunlan, and divided it in three in his mind. He suspected Ye Zun ate more than he or Zhao Yunlan did. He'd have to redo all his meal planning and go buy more food.
“Let's just get delivery and cuddle on the couch,” Shen Wei sighed and put the half-chopped pork and the intact vegetables back in their containers.
“You-” Zhao Yunlan stared at him in shock, then smiled. “Sure. What'd you like?”
“Ye Zun can choose,” Shen Wei said as he washed his hands and carried everything back to the refrigerator. He sat on the couch and enjoyed the blessed moment of personal space while Zhao Yunlan and Ye Zun were ordering food.
Then his two limpets sat one on either side of him and clung. He threw arms around them and pulled them closer. Relaxation settled over him, calming his heart and loosening his joints. He could grow used to this, he decided.
Ye Zun condensed out of the air into a mass of black fog with glowing eyes. Everyone in the Palace's Main Hall took an alarmed step back.
“Ahh,” Ye Zun said. “It has been so long.”
“So long since what?” the Regent asked.
Ye Zun floated closer. “Since I saw someone in whom the qualities were so concentrated.”
The Regent took a nervous half-step back. “Honored one, you have overpraised me. This old man is just a nothing, all-”
“Oh, but you are so much more.” Ye Zun drifted closer still. He loomed over the Regent. “You are the greatest evil I have seen. The perfect food for my despicable core.”
The Regent started backing away in earnest. “Now, now, I'm sure the prisoners-”
Ye Zun ignored him and inhaled his dark energy core. Not the worst thing he'd eaten, but not terribly tasty, either.
He burped. “With this power, I can conquer Haixing!” he declared and dissolved into the air.
The next item on his itinerary was the portal. He telepathically told gege Your turn, then floated off towards the edges of the city as a conglomerate of invisible particles of dark energy. It was a pretty cool power he'd acquired. He condensed into his regular, solid body at the edge of the city and spent a moment admiring the clothes he'd stolen from gege's wardrobe.
He felt a little puff of presence far away – that must be gege's arrival. He leaned against a recently-abandoned building and waited for gege to implement his masterplan and appoint some Wang Yike as the Regent's replacement. Apparently she'd found schools and hospitals, and had some ideas on using geothermal energy to bring electricity to Dixing. Having seen what electricity could do on Haixing, Ye Zun was all for it. And she'd have advisors, too: a Zhang Ruonan gege had found somewhere, and of course Zhu Jiu.
A twinge of guilt hit him over mind controlling Zhu Jiu like that, but, well. Zhu Jiu would recover from the experience. Dixing's resplendant dark energy would heal his bullet wound, too.
And Ye Zun would get to go home. Go home with gege and get fed. The world had compensated for all his sufferings.
He lazed against the wall. Gege would need time to arrange things, but he'd be done eventually.
Shen Wei portaled home, groceries heavy in his hands. There wouldn't be a soup dish today, and between organizing a coup in Dixing and coming up with a suitably milquetoast and unconcerning reason for yesterday's alarming absence from the University, he hadn't had the time to do proper meal planning.
He put the ingredients on the counter and took out his cleaver. The pork needed marinating, so he'd do that first, then chop the rest of the vegetables for the yuxiang rousi and stir-fried mustard greens.
“Yesterday, you were all over me while I was cooking,” Shen Wei said to Zhao Yunlan and Ye Zun as he finished mixing in the cornstarch with the pork and started julienning the stem lettuce. Their excess clinginess had been justified after what happened; to his surprise, Shen Wei missed it.
“I was raised by cats, remember? Rule number one: When you're being napped on, don't move.”
Shen Wei looked up. Zhao Yunlan was on the couch, with Ye Zun's head and Da Qing in his lap. He was petting both of them.
Shen Wei snorted. “It seems you're putting your talent for multitasking to good use.”
“I'm glad my abilities are recognized!” Zhao Yunlan replied. He moved his hand from Ye Zun's hair to skritch beneath his chin. “You know, are you and your brother part cat?”
“We're Dixingians, not Yashou,” Shen Wei said. He returned to the stem lettuce. Talking to all those people in Dixing had made him hungry.
“Of course.” Zhao Yunlan was silent for a moment; Da Qing started purring. “Mind turning a bit so I can appreciate your perfect butt where it has been vacuum sealed into your suit trousers?”
“Pervert,” Da Qing sleepily mumbled.
Shen Wei didn't catch what Zhao Yunlan might've replied. “Food will take another forty minutes. Please let Yunlan visit the bathroom if necessary.” Then he turned his chopping board and picked up where he'd left off.
Behind him, Zhao Yunlan made an appreciative noise. Shen Wei smiled to himself. It was good to be here.