Chapter Text
The day had begun well enough. The weather had been good and they’d gotten to the guest house well before nightfall. The proprietor, Boss Xue, had seemed a little surprised to see them again, since he apparently didn’t get many repeat customers, but he’d been happy enough to take their money, and had even given them a better rate than he had before.
While he and Fang Duobing headed off to the stables with the carriage, Li Lianhua went up to their old room, carefully balancing two boxes, Hulijing trotting at his heels. And as soon as he’d placed them on the table, his expected visitor arrived.
“I guess you really aren’t a ghost,” Huan’er said by way of greeting, watching Li Lianhua rummaging through one of the boxes, bathed in the bright light streaming through the window.
“I guess not,” Li Lianhua said, without looking up at the proprietor’s son. “But I can introduce you to someone more interesting. Hulijing, go say hello.”
Hulijing approached the boy slowly, tilting her head at him.
“Hello, Hulijing,” Huan’er said gravely.
Hulijing preened under Huan'er's respectful attention and eventually allowed him to scratch an ear while Li Lianhua muttered into the box he was still looking through before emerging with a letter and a bag of candy.
“You did see Gege!” Huan’er exclaimed, springing forward.
“Your gege is very well,” Li Lianhua said, “And he asked that I give you these. He said they were your favourites.”
Huan’er’s smile grew a little watery at this, but he jutted his chin out, and thanked Li Lianhua in language more proper than Li Lianhua had ever heard him use.
They chatted for a while longer, Li Lianhua telling him several flattering stories about his gege, and managing to delicately impart the information both that Xue Yu would like his younger brother to try and read his letter by himself and also that if the journey had somehow smudged a character or two, that help was available from those with extensive experience reading damaged documents.
By the time Fang Duobing entered the room carrying the rest of their luggage, Huan’er had left, but after putting everything down, Fang Duobing plucked a discarded candy wrapper off the table and held it up.
“I see I’ve missed your young friend again,” he said.
“Hm,” Li Lianhua said, around the candy he himself was currently eating.
Fang Duobing smiled and shook his head. “Ready?” he said.
Li Lianhua nodded.
Together, they walked over to the left superior room. Hulijing accompanied them across the landing, but when she reached the door, she laid her ears back and returned quickly the way they’d come. Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua looked at each other, and Li Lianhua’s fingers gripped the paper in his hand just a little more tightly.
Once inside, Li Lianhua spread the paper out on a table. It was a drawing of the room they were currently in, covered in notes, with a circle drawn in one corner.
“And this is where Xue Yu said he saw it?” Fang Duobing said, tapping the circle.
“Yes,” Li Lianhua said. In his interview with Xue Yu, Li Lianhua had confirmed that Huan’er had embellished the story his gege had told him somewhat; Xue Yu had seen the same creeping mist Li Lianhua and Fang Duobing had encountered during their last stay, but, in his experience, it had gathered itself up and he’d compared the result to a person in white wearing a veiled hat, which is where Huan’er had gotten the idea for the apparition he’d described.
Fang Duobing got up and walked over to the spot. “It’s colder here,” he said, “Do you remember that draught we felt last time?”
“I don’t feel the draught now,” Li Lianhua said, joining him, “But it is colder.” He gave an involuntary shiver, and Fang Duobing turned to him with a concerned expression.
Li Lianhua waved his hand. “I’m fine,” he said, and Fang Duobing grumbled but let it go, as they both looked at the wall in front of them.
The windows of the room were still tightly shuttered, but the still-bright day outside gave them a little more light to work with, and, after their recent experiences finding things in walls, they began a more thorough examination.
While Li Lianhua held both candles up, Fang Duobing ran his fingers along the wall, stopping at certain points, knocking and listening.
Finally, close to the floorboards, they both heard the hollow sound they’d been listening for, and Fang Duobing knocked once more to be sure.
“Here,” Fang Duobing said, and they both crouched down, holding the candles close.
The catch for the hidden compartment turned out to be not in the wall, but in the floor, and before Fang Duobing pressed down on it, he and Li Lianhua looked at each other and Li Lianhua gave a tiny nod.
A panel in the wall slid open and Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua stayed back for a moment, covering their mouths and noses with their sleeves before peering inside.
Inside the wall was a metal box with a sickly green sheen to it, and Fang Duobing drew on a pair of gloves before removing it from the compartment.
Even through the gloves, holding the box felt strange, like Fang Duobing wasn’t actually holding the box itself, but merely imagining holding something, and he leaned closer to try and focus.
“Fang Xiaobao!” Li Lianhua said, and Fang Duobing shook his head, trying to dispel the ringing sensation in his ears that he had only just become aware of.
Without looking at the box, Fang Duobing shoved it back into the wall, pressed the catch to close the panel, and stood up, still shaking his head.
As his vision cleared, Fang Duobing noticed it had suddenly become very dark in the room, the faint shine of daylight no longer emanating from the cracks around the shutters. Li Lianhua’s expression in the candles’ glow was tense and earnest, Fang Duobing’s earlier concern now echoed in Li Lianhua’s eyes.
“Let’s go,” said Fang Duobing, and putting himself between Li Lianhua and the thing he’d just replaced in the wall, quickly walked them both back to their room.
When they returned, Hulijing sniffed at Fang Duobing and whined, and it wasn’t until he had cleaned his face and hands that she settled down and let Li Lianhua feed her some dried meat.
“I’m going to take her down to the stables,” Fang Duobing said, and after whispering to Hulijing for a moment, led her out of the room.
While he was gone, Li Lianhua went over to the table, carefully opened a long thin box, and gazed down at the peach wood sword He Xiaohui had sent them. His hand hovered over the hilt for a time, hesitating, and then he finally grasped it and lifted the sword from its box.
In weight and feel it was not so terribly different from a practice sword, but there was something lying beneath that familiar grip that he couldn’t quite describe.
When Fang Duobing returned, he found Li Lianhua sitting on the bed with the peach wood sword across his knees, staring down at it, and instead of saying anything, he merely nodded at Li Lianhua and sat down beside him, holding Erya in the same way.
Somehow, it had gotten very late and when they looked out their window, it was almost fully dark, the brightness of the day having turned into a murky configuration of shifting clouds with no hint of a moon.
They sat like that, side by side, swords to hand as the night grew darker and darker, until, finally, just as they’d begun to wonder whether they’d imagined what they’d seen the last time they’d been here, the same tendrils of mist appeared from beneath the door.
Immediately, they were both on their feet, swords held out, and, then, seamlessly, they moved as one.
Fang Duobing stepped in front of Li Lianhua and lunged to the right. As they’d hoped, the mist followed him, and then Li Lianhua stepped out from behind, and, as quick as ever, pointed with the peach wood sword directly into the center of where the mist was gathering.
Later, they could only have described it as a scream, but whatever it was was utterly soundless, all noise collapsing into a flash of blinding light that forced them both to close their eyes.
When they opened them again, the mist by the door was gone, but it had been replaced by another visitor; Di Feisheng was standing by the window and looking fixedly at the sword in Li Lianhua’s hand.
Just as Di Feisheng’s expression was passing from eagerness to incredulity, however, there was an actual noise, a loud bang from the other side of the room, and a small box on top of the table snapped open.
The item inside flew through the air and Di Feisheng reached out to grab it.
“Don’t—“ Fang Duobing began, but it was too late.
“Ah,” said Li Lianhua as Di Feisheng toppled over, a piece of carved jade falling to the floor beside him.
Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua stared down at the unconscious Di Feisheng for a moment before Li Lianhua directed Fang Duobing to prop him up against the nearest wall.
“I hope he remembers who he is this time,” Fang Duobing sighed, as he stood back up, dusting off his hands.