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It had been too ludicrous to believe.
“Say that again,” I’d hissed, pressing the goon down into the rough table below us with a knee. My heart froze on a knife’s edge; I couldn’t breathe. No one would be stupid enough—
A blade appeared in my hand, its flat edge against the goon’s neck, millimeters from his jaw.
The goon repeated himself, words spilling out of him in a disjointed babble. Sure enough: Xie Yuchen kidnapped. I should have slit the goon’s throat for even thinking the words, but I’d needed the information the goon had been falling over himself to supply once properly incentivised.
On its face it makes no sense. The boundaries of the main grave-robbing families are well established. None of them would directly attack another’s head—unless it dovetailed with some nefarious plot or another. Things have been quiet these last few months, though. No reason for a rival family to do something so colossally reckless as capture the Xie family head.
Some upstart, then, a nobody nothing of a group trying to make their bones? Maybe.
Simmering rage fueled the days after that revelation. It helps to have the contacts I have, know who I know. Every line I pulled, thread I untangled in three days—three fucking days!— of searching led to a sprawling, remote home on the outskirts of a village with pretentions to city-ship.
A walk around its perimeter reveals enough goons to be respectable but not ostentatious. I recognize none of them. Upstart Nobody trying to make a ruckus, it is, then. I can’t help the sneer that bubbles up as I easily evade one of the goons ostensibly on ‘guard duty’. The man was absolutely blind and deaf. He doesn’t even raise a brow at the shrub I’m hiding behind.
Taking out everyone in this house will be a treat. I don’t get to do it often enough and maybe it will take the razor’s edge off my nerves. A steadying breath, a handful of heartbeats, and I’m over the low hedge and on top of the patrol goon. He goes down in a silent stagger, my hand clamped like a vice over his mouth.
In the distance are a couple other guards but they’re walking away from me. I let them go and creep up to the house. A goon emerges from a ground floor room and stumbles towards more bushes, apparently mistaking them for a restroom. Disgusting.
I’ve pissed in my fair share of shrubs and brush but I have the decency to use an actual restroom when it's available.
These goons deserve what is coming for them. Still, I don’t take out pissing boy just yet. I need information. Rumor and whispers say this is where Yuchen has been taken, but I want confirmation. I need to know.
A deep breath steadies my heart, keeps it from galloping away.
I’m too old to be this shaken.
But it’s Yuchen. Somehow that pink flower has wiggled his way into my exclusive list of People Who Matter. The asshole.
I should bill him for pain and suffering.
The goon wanders back into the house and I follow. My hunch pays off when he joins a room full of his comrades. They obviously aren’t paying their own bills; every light on in the place is on. I take a quick peek through a window, then close my eyes tight for a moment until the sharp pain from the brightness recedes. There are three, maybe four men, including the one I followed lounging around a table. Under ten guys at once is easy pickings.
I press up against the outside wall—wood framing, thankfully enough. My breathing stills and I focus on the house, reading the motion within. I dont have anything like Zhang Qiling’s superhuman hearing or any of his other ridiculous powers, but I have enough.
Apart from the guys on the ground floor, there are a pair, maybe three, in an upstairs room, to the right of the stairs beyond the main ground floor room. They are a loud, lumbering bunch, save for that maybe third, who is likely sleeping. The rest are unmistakable. A bunch of oafs. None of the major families would hire such useless muscle. Whoever this upstart is, he’s an amateur. An amateur I will take pleasure in gutting. Slowly. With a serrated knife. A dull one.
Later.
Six, seven guys is child’s play.
I wait, listening at the window. Timing is everything.
And I still need confirmation that Yuchen is here. If he isn’t there’s no sense in tipping my hand.
There’s a creak at the top of the stairs. “Princess is refusing to eat,” the goon on the stairs says in a rough voice as he stomps down into the main room. His accent is nearly unintelligible.
One of the goons at the table sighs. “What’s The Exalted One’s problem, now?”
“Apparently the quality of the food is lacking.” The goon slams a tray down on the central table. Cutlery dings as the rest of the group start picking at the leftovers.
“Eh,” one of them says, their leader I assume, “eat, not eat, we’re only being paid to keep him tied up and alive. If we have to, we can shove some food down his throat tomorrow.”
“I’ll shove something down that pretty little throat,” a goon says and a pair of knives blossom from his shoulders. I’m on their leader a breath later.
Shit. I’ve gotten ahead of myself. This lack of professionalism is concerning. What would our Zhang Qiling say? Or, not say… he’d just raise one of those pretty eyebrows at me. Well, too late to be circumspect now.
I press hard against the windpipe of the leader and his eyes flutter closed before the others in the room can react. The leader and the goon I turned into a pincushion are both down, one is knocked out and the other…there’s no way his arms will be usable.
I dodge under the arms of the others in the room and roll to retrieve my knives, coming up as one of the goons from upstairs finishes clambering down the stairs. Another roll and I’m behind him, blades slicing through the tendons behind his knees. He goes down with a piercing shriek.
I rush at the three remaining men. A knife arcs to the one on my left and the one on my right as I lunge forward, tackling the third. We scuffle back and forth but it is too easy to get an arm around his neck, locking him down.
The pincushion is screaming his head off but that’s easy to ignore as I listen, ducking the lumbering limbs of the two last goons I’d knifed. No one else is coming. The last person in the upstairs room isn’t moving. Yuchen. My heart skips a beat but I can’t go to him yet.
There are two last impediments. My knives had taken each of them in the upper chest but not hit an organ. Both are still alive and breathing clearly. Damn. I really need to work on my aim. It’s almost as pitiful as they are. Bleeding profusely, they’re easy to take down. Darting around the room, I scoop up my knives and hamstring them both.
Standing, I straighten my glasses and take stock. Not too botched a job if I say it myself. The goons are all debilitated, some still screaming, and alive. I can take them out of their misery but something holds me back. The patrol goons aren’t close. I have a bit of time. I need information.
There’s a cough from upstairs.
Fuck.
I spring up the stairs and rush into the bedroom with someone in it, smashing open the door. That someone is tied to the bed.
The moment he recognizes me, Yuchen’s body goes stiff, hard. He’s upset.
I slouch against the doorframe. “Get yourself into a bit of trouble, Princess?” I needle him. His breath is sharp, frosty; oh, he’s furious. Good. Maybe he’ll take it out of my hide and purge some of the terror clawing at me despite confirming with my own eyes that he’s alive, safe.
“Why am I not surprised!” He yanks against the ropes tying him to the bed, like he’s trying to swing at me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Stupid man to not realize I would burn down the entire world to get to him.
I match his energy, stalking into the room. “How the hell did you let this happen?” Our voices echo a bit. The room is sparse. Just Yuchen and a flimsy bed.
“What, like I planned to be kidnapped?” Yuchen snaps. “How did you even find out about this?”
I roll my eyes. Doubly stupid of Yuchen to think I wouldn’t hear about his capture. I get to him and start to run my hands over him, checking his chest, arms, legs.
Yuchen jerks away. “Stop that.”
I growl and ignore him, slicing through the ropes that bind him. “No one is allowed to tie you up.”
Yuchen snorts. “You do it all the fucking time.”
“That’s different.”
“How is it different?” Yuchen’s fury is so pure. It’s intoxicating. “And we should discuss how fucking often you tie me up!” He sits and rubs at his wrists, flinching in pain. I’m going to eviscerate every man downstairs. But first I cut the ropes at his ankles.
“I almost never tie you up!” I retort more, just to keep him yelling at me.
“You do too! There was that time in Guanxi—”
“A job I was paid for!” Payment is very important. Also that was years and years ago. Why is he still holding onto it? “You weren’t even tied up that long and I let you go and helped you after.”
Yuchen is relentless. “And that other time at that one fucking restaurant—”
“That was also a job.” Huh. I’ve never though of how often my line of work requires tying Yuchen up. None of these are even the sexy times, they’re all just work. What is going through his brain?
Yuchen softens a bit, sways. It’s not quite a swoon. I grip his shoulder to steady him. He must have been laying down for a while. The blood will be rushing to his head.
“There was that one time at my place,” he mutters and I can’t stop my smile. That had been fun.
I take the break in Yuchen’s temper to run my hands over him again. He’s shaking, almost rattling. Adrenaline. And rage. Or maybe it's me shaking from both. Yuchen winces as my hand skims his back, just along his right side. Kidney? Rib? My breath sucks in a violent hiss.
Yuchen pulls away from me and tries to stand, only to fall forward. I’m there instantly, catching him.
“Move, I can stand.”
I realize his words are slurring ever so softly. “Drugged?”
He groans and flinches as my arm comes up around him. I steady him and push him up to stand but he cries out and nearly falls forward again. Fucking fuckity goddamn shitballs—
I gingerly sit him down and kneel at his feet, hands doing another pass over his leg. Another wince when I touch his left leg. Lifting his linen pant leg, I lay a hand against his skin. There’s bruising and swelling. It’s not quite hot to the touch.
Downstairs a door opens. Patrol goon shouts of shock join the general cries of misery from my handiwork.
“Time to go,” I say, pivoting smoothly on a heel to offer Yuchen my back.
He lurches forward and I grab the arms he wraps around my neck. I stand easily and am struck by how light he is, how easily he settles on my back. I’ll get you out of here, love.
There are two windows, one on each side of the room. I take the one opposite the side of the house the newest goon just came in, jumping down into soft grass just as feet start to clatter up stairs.
Yuchen holds most of his weight well, making it easy to trot along the outskirts of the town. I take a winding route, making a point to spend several yards in the creek that winds at its far end. I come out on large rocks and follow them until a small deer track breaks the brush along the shore. Steady breaths from Yuchen mark the time as much as the slow creep of the moon overhead. This is the perfect light for me.
I duck into the trees, the dappled moonlight along the path guiding me. A chill rolls through me as Yuchen’s breath hitches but he’s just tucking his head against my neck to avoid being hit by a branch. He’s safe.
“What’s this?” he whispers into my ear as we come out into a clearing. “A house?”
“Safehouse,” I say. “Belongs to the Wus.” They’ve started to move into this area and it's their current base of operations.
“I didn’t know they had one this far out.” I don’t like how the slurring in his voice is still present - gentle, but unmistakably there.
“We can get patched up and rest a bit.” And you can rest. He feels too light against my back.
“Good, then I can tan your hide for showing up when you did.” His words are sharp, his tone… less so. I wonder when he last slept.
I grumble and take the steps up to the front door and unlock it. “I can’t believe you’re giving me shit for rescuing you.”
“I was so close to finding out who was behind this! I could have gotten myself out of there at any time.” He’s right and I know it. I knew it when I first heard he was taken. He likely could have escaped the very first day. That fact changes nothing about my choices since learning about his capture. I’d do it all again.
Settling him down into the narrow bed in the single room, I start rummaging through the cupboards, pulling things out and setting them on the narrow table that is the only other piece of furniture in the room. The Wus, as usual, have stocked things well. “It’s some upstart,” I say casually, “not one of the families.”
“Yes, but who?”
“Doesn’t matter, they’ll be dead soon.” I face him. “Strip.”
He sneers but obeys. Kneeling, I set to wrapping his ribs then help him with his pants so I can wrap his ankle. “Do you know what they gave you?”
Yuchen shakes his head and grunts a no.
“Damn, we’ll just have to let it wear off.”
“Can’t be too bad,” he says, reassuring. His sharp edges are starting to dull. “Mostly it makes everything soft. Fuzzy.”
I fasten the binding around his ankle and stroke his leg, reassuringly. His fingers find my collar, hook into it and tug me forward gently.
“Thank you,” Yuchen whispers, almost too soft to hear. Years ago, he would never have said it.
The fingers pull me up and we are kissing, my lips going to his instantly. His hands wrap around me, pulling me close, pulling me atop him as he falls back. Yuchen is there below me, alive and safe and in my arms. I am rough, shoving my tongue into him; he is rough, ripping at my jacket, fumbling at my belt. I could cry from joy, from unrealized terror. Love, love, love.
He breaks off the kiss to beg, “Please.” Please, let everything be alright.
I realize he is running his hands over me, conducting his own survey. I pull my jacket off my wrists and hold still, let him examine everything. There are a few bruises. I can feel them, now. A few scratches from stray branches. Nothing broken, no deep cuts. My arousal at his touch is inevitable.
“Please,” I beg and I straddle him. Please, I need him to make me alright.
I'm careful of his side as I run my hands down his torso, letting his unbuttoned shirt fall open. His skin is silk against my fingers. I trail them up to flick at his nipple. He gives a gratifying sigh and his hips buck up against me. He's already hard. A familiar ache—need—is building in me. Helpless to it, I grind down against him. His hands go to my hips and he rocks up violently into me then gasps, a small hiss of pain.
I fall to the side, off of him, hands checking his side.
“I'm fine,” he says as he sits up, but his voice is a hair too taut and he's trying to catch his breath. “Just need a minute. Then I can teach you the lesson you deserve.” He glares, well, tries to glare at me. The darkness is too deep for him to really see me. The glare goes more to my shoulder than my face.
Still, his eyes are too pretty when they spit fire at me. I bring a hand up to cup his face, fingers lost in the darkness of his hair—a riotous mess I enjoy but won't bring attention to. He’s always so fastidious about his appearance. My palm presses against his cheek, thumb stroking over his lower lip, wet and soft from kissing.
I place another kiss on his lips, tender. The prettiness of his eyes makes me want to be gentle, the fire raging in me a second ago has stoked, simmering, building.
Light from the full moon filters into the room from the single small window by the door. It is the best light to see by; it bathes Yuchen in a soft, luminescent glow. His hands slide up to my face, his fingers gently pull away my glasses. I blink and wince. Without the filter of black glass he's too bright to look at for a moment.
I look away and remember the first time he'd done that, the first time I let him see my bare face. In a moment my eyes adjust and I can look back at him, still brilliant but no longer painful to see.
He's looking back at me, face soft and open. My heart pangs painfully.
Fingers trace soft lines along the edge of the scars around my eyes. He calls me by name and the pang in my heart sharpens. Why did I tell him my name? …Because he asked.
“You're so fucking stupid,” he says, his voice is a hollow whisper.
Steadying myself, I manage a manic grin, wide and toothy so he can’t mistake it. “Good for me you like stupid.”
He laughs. A beautiful sound. It means he's alive.
“Take the rest of this off, will you?” He yanks at the hem of my shirt, it is tight and sweat slicked to my body. He flicks an irritated hand at my half undone fly.
I kiss him again. “Only if you promise to fuck me.”
“You truly are the stupidest man alive.”
I love you, too. I think it, I don't say it. There are rules to our little games.
It's too dark for him to see much so there's no point in giving him a show. In between one of his breaths and the next I'm naked. As he's still sitting, I pull off the shirt that’s dangling from his shoulders.
He lays back and tilts his hips so I can pull his pants down. In a single swoop they are gone to join the pile of clothes at the side of the bed and I'm on my knees between his thighs.
“Don't,” he says and pulls back as he realizes what I'm going to do.
I get why. He's been captured for several days. Maybe he's the dumb one for not understanding that that is the point. The smell of him is overpowering, overwhelming. I can make this quick, I know his body well enough. A hand around the base of his cock, increase of suction and a little faster with the flicking of my tongue, I could push him right over the edge. I don’t. This is just a tease because I need him inside me.
Once he is slick I straddle him again and pause, looking down. He’s so beautiful it pains me, it makes me feel too much.
“Lube?” he asks. But there is none. “We could—”
He’s going to offer to blow me. Or for us to just jack off together. We’ve done that plenty before in circumstances as lacking as these. But I don’t want that. The sweat, the spit, the blood and pain all mean we are alive. I want him to rip me apart to cut out the fear that lingers inside me. I could have lost him. We could both be dead. Though I’m sure getting taken out by goons as hapless as we encountered tonight would be intolerable to his pride, nothing is guaranteed.
Before he can protest or equivocate, I slide down, taking the pain and drinking in his cry of pleasure. I need the hurt to purge the tension of this night.
A twig snaps and I am instantly awake. It’s early, very early. Predawn. There’s a cough. Yuchen is tangled in my arms, finally sleeping off whatever was in his sytem. I disentangle from him and grab my glasses, donning them as I cross to the window. The snap and cough are a courtesy; Wu Xie, Pangzi and Zhang Qiling are crossing the small clearing in front of the house.
The door opens and I slink to lean against the bed’s footboard, illuminated by a pair of bouncing flashlights. I wince.
“Shades!” Pangzi shouts, arms spread wide. I cross my arms and smirk at him. He takes in the bed and who is shifting to sit up, disoriented. “It worked!”
Worked?
“What worked?” Yuchen snaps. He scrambles for his clothes and tries to shove everything on at once.
Wu Xie gives a deprecating laugh. “Uh, well, you see—”
“You!?” I shout, finger raised accusingly. Where are my knives?
Zhang Qiling slides smoothly between me and the pile that is my clothes… and knives.
I don’t push my luck. “You did this!?”
Wu Xie’s mood is appropriately abashed. Pangzi, however, is shameless. “Yes! You two are always sniping at each other, bickering like an old married couple—”
“We can only stand so much flirting,” Wu Xie adds.
“—And we want you to be happy!” Pangzi finshes. “So—”
“So,” Wu Xie adds, the word trailing off.
“You kidnapped me?” Yuchen shrieks, standing next to me, hands waving angrily at the trio.
Pangzi’s face falls, affronted. “Hey, it took a ton of planning! We had to be very careful.”
“It was a pain finding people who could do it and who you wouldn’t recognize.”
That explains so much. Still, I can feel the weight of Yuchen on my back as I ran though the village last night. Can sense his wince when I touched his side, his leg. “You!”
“We thought it was the only way to get you together,” Wu Xie offered.
“And it worked!” Pangzi added, self-satisfied. “You’re welcome!”
I… don’t even know how to respond. Idiots. All three of them are idiots. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Oh,” Pangzi says, “yeah, good job there.”
“So you’re just here to gloat, then?” Yuchen hisses and I wince. He is going to make the Wu family pay for this, one way or another. I do not envy the Iron Triangle.
“Well, and to get supplies.” Pangzi crosses to the cupboards and starts stuffing protein bars into his backpack.
“There was a map,” Wu Xie explains, “to a cave up around here so we figured—”
I sigh and just wave them off. Whatever.
Bunch of misguided idiots. I’m done but Yuchen isn’t.
“You just figured!” he shouts. “You just figured you could nearly get me killed!”
Yuchen harrangues them. Wu Xie grows more and more abashed, almost apologetic. Pangzi, however, refuses to be cowed or shamed, giving back as good as he gets. I tune them out and focus on Zhang Qiling who just regards me silently, flatly. His expression is, as always, inscrutible. But I get the sense he’s trying to convey something. Probably an apology.
Wu Xie shifts over to me and says, in a low voice, underneath Pangzi and Yuchen’s shouting, “I’m sorry.” I snort. Silly, naive Wu Xie.
“We really did just want you to be happy,” he adds. I can feel the weight of his eyes on me and my heart sinks. He is too intense, too grave. A word hangs in the air between us. A name. Her name. An old, familiar, pain surfaces. Wu Xie is one of the few that knows about her. He knows but he doesn’t really understand. It’s part of why I’ve never explained about Yuchen. For all that he—however briefly—was also one of my lovers, for all that he’s bound for life by the twin loves of his Xiaoge and Pangzi, he wouldn’t understand Yuchen and me and the others that flit in and out of our lives.
It feels like a lifetime ago, the time I spent with Wu Xie. The time that Zhang Qiling was gone.
Time. An abstraction, now, with as long as I’ve lived.
He wouldn’t understand that either, his hair peppered with flecks of grey, fine creases deepening on his face as Zhang Qiling stands right next to him, a strapping youth barely into his mid-twenties, if that. It's how he’s looked for all the decades I’ve known him.
There is no appreciation within the deep well of empathy in his dark eyes for what time means to me, to Zhang Qiling; what love means for each of us. And maybe that is unfair. Qiling doesn’t love like I do, reckless and unfettered, monogamy rendered a meaningless construct by the unrelenting crush of time. No, Qiling has only ever loved twice, and one of those is more a proxy love born of the shared burden of keeping Wu Xie alive.
I wear my heart on my sleeve compared to Qiling, too easily entangled with those around me.
And so I nod, accepting the spirit of Wu Xie’s ill-concieved gift. Wu Xie understands none of this, but he smiles, relieved.
Yuchen understands me without need for explination. It’s how he first caught me. It’s why we’ve lasted so long. Well, that and his exquisite rages. They’re a balm on the weight of my soul.
Wu Xie nods back at me, seeking one last reassurance, and I give it to him with an exasperated smile and a clapped hand on his shoulder. It’s strange to have someone actually care about my happiness. Who am I to be churlish about it.
There are a few more exchanged shouts laden with accusations of ingratitude and promises for restitution later before Wu Xie gathers his boys and the interlopers are on their way.
Feeling a bit smug and self-satisfied, I’m assaulted with my own shirt the second the door closes behind them.
“Put something on!” Yuchen shouts. I let the shirt fall to the ground. “I can’t believe you just stood there naked the entire time!”
“I’m wearing underwear.”
Pangzi’s voice comes back to us from the courtyard, a loud, bawdy tune about fighting cocks. I snort. That man is never subtle. “Those pricks, why would they—”
“Because you won’t stop flirting with me,” Yuchen accuses.
“Me!”
“And staring! The last time we were together you were constantly looking at me! Like some goddamn lovesick idiot. The whole job! Of course they would decide to do something about it!”
I splutter. “Me!? It was you who couldn’t stop staring at me!”
“You fucking wish.”
“I don’t need to wish for the truth.”
Yuchen growls and sits back on the bed. “Whatever. If I’m staring at you, it's only because you’re always staring at me.”
I can’t help the smile playing at my lips. “You know if you would have just let me tell them about us originally—”
“Absolutely not!”
“Really, this is all on you.” I crawl back onto the bed, hand sliding up Yuchen’s chest. His shirt buttons are all misaligned. I could help him with that. I get my hands swatted for my efforts but I will not be deterred. Nuzzling into his cheek, I say, “You know, when I first heard you were taken, I thought for a moment this was your set up.”
“Mine?” Scandalized, he pulls his nearly open shirt out of my hands and leans back.
“Yeah,” I say. “For our anniversary.” He freezes. “It’s coming up, after all,” I mutter.
Yuchen’s silence is icy.
“You’re mad at that? It’s an anniversary." I bite my lip and try to nuzzle him again, get him to soften… or harden, actually. I return to those last couple of buttons.
He jerks his shirt back out of my hands.
“Don’t tell me you forgot?” That would be hilarious. “It’s ok if you forgot. You forgot last year too.”
“For the last time,” Yuchen hisses, “it is not our anniversary.”
What a stupid thing to say. “Is it or is it not the date of the first time we fucked, oh so many years ago.” I leave off the years. No need to draw attention to how many there have been. Just like there’s no need to address the fine lines that are starting to form in the delicate skin at the corners of Yuchen’s eys. No need to draw attention to the passage of time and how it always ghosts over me. If I dwell there too long, I’ll go insane.
Yuchen hasn’t answered me.
“Ok, fine, fine, if tomorrow isn’t our anniversary, then what is? You must have some other day in mind, if not that. When?”
Yuchen mutters something. It sounds like a date. My mind works to piece it together. “The day of our first kiss??” I laugh as I rip open his shirt and wrap my arms around his waist, delicately, careful of the bindings protecting his tender side. “This is so romantic.”
“Shut. Up!” Yuchen’s hands snake up to wrap around my neck. There’s no strength in them but I can’t help my instincts. In moments his wrists are bound with a sheet. He’s below me, spluttering.
“Damn,” I say, “I tied you up again.” Before he can shout at me, I kiss him. He lets me. He does like me, after all.
Holding his bindings in place, I straddle him again. “See, it's a good thing I stayed naked.” Mostly naked. I adjust the bindings of his wrists, pulling them down so they don’t touch the abrasions left by the ropes. I loosen them for good measure, so Yuchen can break free whenever he wants. He won’t, though. Another of our games.
I pull back to rip off my underwear, then settle on Yuchen’s lap. Essentials seen to, I start to rock, relishing the feeling of Yuchen’s dick hardening against mine. Yuchen is so fun when he’s tied up and spittin’ mad. I should send the Iron Triangle a thank you gift. Or, rather, an apology gift. Because nothing about Yuchen and me is going to change after today, if the years we’ve shared haven’t changed us already. Not the way we bicker, not the way we fight or flirt, and not the way my Xiao Hua has tied my heart up in flower shaped knots.
Odd that Zhang Qiling hasn’t figured it out, I think for a bare moment just before Yuchen spears up into me, rendering coherent thought impossible.
Epilogue
Zhang Qiling lets himself have a small smile as Yuchen’s shouts at Hei Xiazi fade into the distance. Over the years he has come to appreciate the way the pair show affection. It’s nothing like how he is with Wu Xie or Pangzi, or how they are with each other, but he recognizes its depth and meaning.
He’d had his reservations about Pangzi’s hairbrained scheme, but when Wu Xie bought in, he’d agreed to go along. Not that he believed Hei Xiazi or Kie Yuchen needed help getting together. He’d known about them since the first time they’d kissed. But they’d never revealed themselves. So Qiling hadn’t outed them either. Not even to Wu Xie and Pangzi.
Zhang Qiling has never been capable of saying no whenever Wu Xie turns his hopeful, excited eyes up at him. Hei Xiazi will appreciate the anniversary present.
Have fun, he wishes silently to the lovebirds.
“Tianzhen!” Pangzi shouts and the word is echoed by a whooping shout from Wu Xie. Zhang Qiling forgets Xie Yuchen and Hei Xiazi as he swoops through the trees to save Wu Xie from his latest disaster.