#mlc nano 2023

[shamera]

NaNo day 13

where am i going with this it was meant to be tiny scene tiny scene maybe 4k in total for whole story

guess what. it was even supposed to be time loop for EACH of the three characters, but i feel like it's just gunna end with dfs now because wow this got long and wordy. but then again. nano. if i can't hit the word count, i cry.

He made his way downstairs without disturbing Fang Duobing, and gave Hulijing a pat to keep her quiet as she snuffled up next to him. He would have to call for Wuyan for information and for breakfast in a bit, but in the dawn hours with Lotus Tower parked firmly along the forest road leading up to the strange village surrounded by budding greenery, something twisted within his gut. 

Li Lianhua was curled in bed facing the wall, blanket pulled halfway up his head in the chill of the morning air, hair unbound and trapped against his neck. Di Feisheng stared for a moment, although he didn’t know why, before he deliberately made a noise just loud enough to wake a trained swordsman.

Li Lianhua stirred, movements groggy and slow, and to Di Feisheng’s surprise, he only pulled the blankets up higher before moving to settle back to sleep, only the end of his fingertips showing from the cocoon of the blanket. 

Di Feisheng kicked at the stool again, and this time Li Lianhua made a sighing noise and spoke from beneath the blankets, voice deepened with the dregs of sleep, “Go back to sleep, A-Fei. It’s too early for this.”

“I need to talk to you,” Di Feisheng insisted, although his voice was also quiet in deference to the early morning. His hands untensed knowing that Li Lianhua had known he was there all along, and had chosen to remain sleeping rather than— than what? Had Di Feisheng been interrupted from his sleep like this in his rooms at Jinyuan Alliance, he would have already held a sword to the throat of the offender, if they were lucky. If they weren’t, there would already be blood spilled. 

“Mmm,” Li Lianhua intoned, and turned his head further into the blankets. “Later.”

Di Feisheng didn’t respond, although he also didn’t leave, staring at the bundle of blankets on the bed. 

It didn’t take long before Li Lianhua pushed down his blanket irritably, turning over to glare back at him. “Are you just going to stay there the entire time?”

“Until you listen.” Di Feisheng confirmed. 

“It’s unnerving.” Li Lianhua complained. “No one can sleep with you staring like that.”

“Then stay awake,” Di Feisheng challenged, even as Li Lianhua glared harder. “Get dressed. The day’s already started.”

“Are you going to stare for that as well?”

Di Feisheng was tempted, just to be contrary. But he would rather Li Lianhua be a better mood for the upcoming conversation, so he turned and left Lotus Tower, taking the time to wander far enough to summon Wuyan in his usual fashion to deal with the search for the Styx flower and with breakfast. 

— 

What Lotus Tower lacked, Di Feisheng realised, were walls that were sufficient for privacy purposes. He didn’t understand how Li Lianhua could stand to stay there during harsh winters when there were gaps that constantly needed to be filled or fixed in the tower, several parts more aesthetic than functional. Keeping out rain was bad enough, but sound travelled easily, and he could hear Fang Duobing’s stomping around upstairs when he got back, and there was no way to prevent the words from being overheard when Li Lianhua already opened a window and even had the wall of the back of the house open for the air and the view. 

It was sufficient for one person, but three meant constantly tripping over each other. 

He could see Fang Duobing lean over the railing of the room upstairs, mostly dressed but still looking bleary as he called out, “Have you seen my boots? Are they down there?”

“No,” Li Lianhua answered, voice only the slightest bit muffled despite not being seen. He wasn’t even speaking loudly. “Why would they be down here? Check under the bed, Xiaobao.”

Fang Duobing disappeared back behind the curtains of the upstairs room, and called out moments later, “Found them!”

Shaking his head, Di Feisheng entered Lotus Tower again. 

Li Lianhua was fully dressed and prepared for the day, folding the blankets on the bed and smoothing out the creases in the linens diligently. Di Feisheng took a seat at the bench, and said, “Yesterday, we went fishing and you lost a hairpin in the water.”

Li Lianhua paused in his movements, brows creased. “...Yesterday, we stayed in because it was raining and both you and Xiaobao nearly wrecked my home fighting. Lao Di, what are you on?”

“Yesterday, I told you I have been living the same day over and over, and you thought I ate something off, or that I had a strange dream. I asked you to tell me something that I shouldn’t know, so that I can convince you of my words today.”

“Lao Di,” Li Lianhua said slowly. “You were definitely dreaming.”

“Yesterday,” Di Feisheng pressed yet again, “you spoke of once wanting to be a weaponsmith, before giving up on the idea because you lacked talent.”

Here, Li Lianhua looked perturbed, motion stilling. 

“Li Lianhua,” Di Feisheng addressed him. “This day has been repeating for me for a while now. I live through the day, but when I sleep, I wake to find that it is today all over again. The same morning no matter the weather the night before, the same place no matter where I fell asleep before, the same me no matter if I was wounded the day before. No one remembers living through the day before, and nothing that will happen today has happened yet.”

“An odd statement.” Li Lianhua’s expression was still composed, but his tone was more bewildered. 

“We have investigated the village several times,” Di Feisheng told him. “They attempt to poison us three times on average, and trap us at least once this day. We have left this area to travel in all directions, and had uneventful days that only led back to today once more. You always go along with what I say, but have yet to fully believe me.”

“That’s… a strange story,” Li Lianhua said, and Di Feisheng thinned his lips in frustration. “I’ve never heard of such a thing happening before.”

That was a terrifying thought— that perhaps this had happened to others before, but no one ever heard of it because they continued to live the same day over and over and never made it to the next day where the information might spread. 

Di Feisheng refused to believe that. 

“Help me figure this out.” He said, although the words were gritted. “Or if you still don’t believe me, tell me a way I can make you believe me.”

By now, Fang Duobing had made his way downstairs as well, his footsteps light as he came in the door, confusion evident on his face. Lotus Tower really did not allow for private conversations. 

“Repeat?” Fang Duobing asked, “Lao Di, what do you mean?”

Exactly what he had said, although he understood Fang Duobing’s confusion. Rather, Di Feisheng focused on Li Lianhua, knowing that even Fang Duobing’s response this time around was different and it was because Li Lianhua wasn’t brushing the statements aside as easily this time around. 

There was a tense moment of silence before Li Lianhua resumed folding the blankets, putting them away before coming to sit next to Di Feisheng on the bench, eyes narrowed in thought. 

“Alright,” he said. “Suppose what you said is true. Tell me everything that happened.”

— 

Li Lianhua said, there must be something in the village that triggered this the first time around.

Li Lianhua said, there is a way to convince him this was the truth in the mornings.

Fang Duobing sat opposite them, listening intently the entire time even as Wuyan came by to drop off breakfast, staying a few moments longer to give Hulijing a jerky treat and a scritch behind the ears. The pan-fried meat buns cooled as their conversation continued, marking out details and what could be said and done. 

“Tell me how to convince you again if today doesn’t work out,” Di Feisheng told the both of them. 

“Whatever I tell you, it won’t guarantee anything,” Li Lianhua told him. “We should focus on finding what happened to you in the village.”

Fang Duobing, on the other hand, just shook his head. “It won’t hurt to tell him something. Just in case we don’t find out what happened today.” He looked rather perturbed. “What happens to us, then? If you get sent back to the morning? If we don’t get sent back, then… are you just missing, if we get to the next day? Or do we not exist at all?”

“Try not to think of that yet,” Li Lianhua told him. 

“Tell me something to convince you if today repeats again,” Di Feisheng urged Fang Duobing. “Before, you asked me to predict fortune sticks. I can still do that, but something to convince you immediately would be most efficient.”

“You can predict fortune sticks?” Fang Duobing gaped, and then his gaze turned devious. “What about gambling in town—”

“Don’t,” Li Lianhua interjected quickly. “Pick up bad habits.”

Fang Duobing looked properly admonished, pulling back with a nervous laugh. 

“But Xiaobao had a point with the fortune sticks,” Li Lianhua admitted. “If you could predict, say, something yet to happen, it would be more convincing than words we may have shared.”

“What did you have in mind?”

— 

“Circumstances change from moment to moment,” Li Lianhua said as they set up to grind ink on the plate. “Different movements or time of day would trigger different responses. If I asked you to think of a bird right now, your answer may be different than if I asked you to think of a bird the moment you wake up, merely because you heard a songbird as you woke, or because you just ate something that reminded you of another bird. If I asked for the first colour that comes to mind while we’re in the forest, you may think green, but in here you may think brown. Questions can’t be nebulous like that, but rather grounded in something solid that is unlikely to change.”

“Too confusing,” Di Feisheng dismissed. “Tell me what I should ask.”

“Take the fortune sticks for example,” Li Lianhua ignored him. “A person could throw them twice in a row and get different results. Will likely get different results. Even if the day repeats for you, the results may be different. So it will have to be something you can predict, but we cannot.”

“Then how are you sure you could convince me with fortune sticks?” Fang Duobing asked Di Feisheng suspiciously. 

“Li Lianhua cheated.” Di Feisheng revealed shamelessly. “The results would always be the same.”

Fang Duobing turned his suspicious stare at Li Lianhua, although this time with a twinge of wide-eyed betrayal as well. 

Li Lianhua waved a finger, “You didn’t know that, and he shouldn’t have known that either. That makes it an accurate prediction.”

“That makes it cheating,” Fang Duobing grumbled. 

“Ahh, but he’s not the one doing it, is he?” Li Lianhua placated him, and then turned his attention to Di Feisheng. “Is there anything special that happens through the day not to do with us that you can predict? A tree falling in the forest, a disturbance outside?”

Di Feisheng thought about it for a long while, and shook his head slowly. “Outside of what happens in the village, different events occur each time. The day is calm.”

Li Lianhua rubbed his fingers together and furrowed his brow in thought. 

“Then you’ll have to create those events.”

Di Feisheng raised an eyebrow. “Then I cause it instead and you will not believe me.”

“Not necessarily,” Li Lianhua said. “Say, if you send Xiaobao hunting first thing in the morning, then you can tell me what he comes back with before he gets back. But it will have to be first thing in the morning, before you can influence his actions to change the results.”

Fang Duobing looked between them and then shook his head, mouth in a determined moue. “I refuse to go hunting before the sun is up. I won’t do it.”

“It’s just an example.” Li Lianhua reassured him. 

“...It could work,” Di Feisheng admitted with a smirk as Fang Duobing crossed his arms. 

“The point is,” Li Lianhua interrupted their to-be spat, “that if the day is repeating exactly the same, then you are the only thing changing it. Whatever you don’t change remains the same. Unless, of course, this isn’t truly a repeat of the day, but rather something to make you think it is.”

“Inconsequential.” Di Feisheng dismissed.

“Of course, that’s just to prove yourself in case we don’t believe you.” Li Lianhua frowned, hands pausing on grinding the inkstone. “So long as you give sufficient information, you may not need to prove yourself.”

“Tell me something, then,” Di Feisheng said once more. “That you’ve never said aloud before.”

Li Lianhua set down the inkstone, and Fang Duobing reached to pull the plate away. “Something I’ve never said aloud? There’s usually a reason for that.”

“Something that can’t be used against you.” He thought for a moment. “How did you get your dog?”

“Hulijing?”

At the mention of her name, Hulijing perks up her head from where she was lying in a patch of sunlight, tail wagging slowly. 

“She followed me home one day. Not unlike you two.”

“And you just let it stay?” Di Feisheng questioned. 

“I was still building Lotus Tower then,” Li Lianhua elaborated, reaching for one of the cold buns. “It was at one of the coastal towns. Back then, I had… more health issues. The townspeople were not unkind, but they didn’t like outsiders. I kept mostly to myself, but there was once…” he trailed off, lost in thought, and Hulijing stood from the patch of sunlight and yawned before padding on soft paws over to Li Lianhua, setting her head on his knee. He smoothed a hand against her fur absentmindedly, offering her the bun. “I didn’t account for how sick I was. I couldn’t make it back by myself, so I just sat in an alleyway for a while to catch my breath. She found me and stayed with me the entire time, and then came with me when I finally went home again. Then she never really left.”

“No one helped you back?” Fang Duobing sounded heartbroken. 

Li Lianhua reached to pat his hand. “I was ill, and an outsider. It was kind enough of them not to throw me out. For all they knew, my illness could be contagious. Besides, Hulijing helped me back.”

[shamera]

NaNo day 27

DID IT, this is where I originally envisioned part 1 of the hunter AU ending, lol. If anyone has read the manhwa, they will now know which one had a ginormous influence on this story.

unedited, part 1 came in at 46 pages and 27,447 words. (i am FEAR) I guess I should go back to the time loop story tomorrow, especially since I'm in no rush now that I passed the NaNo goal, so i can take my time to try and get as much done as I can in the next two days before November ends!

It was nearly two full days before Fang Duobing was allowed out from under watchful eyes and got his things back. Two days of interviews, interrogations, doctor check-ups and psych evaluations to ensure his injuries would heal properly, especially the poison in his legs. Two days of deflecting when asked what happened in the dungeon, telling things accurately all the way up until everyone else left and it was only him and Li Lianhua. 

He didn’t know what to say. How could he tell anyone what actually happened?

To the world at large, Li Xiangyi disappeared and supposedly died ten years ago. Fang Duobing could change that supposed fact now, he could rub in the faces of disbelievers who all thought Li Xiangyi actually perished fighting a dungeon boss. As if! How could the founder and leader of Sigu Sect, the one who took out reams of dungeon bosses, be felled by one?

(Especially when Fang Duobing just watched Li Lianhua defeat one in just a little over a minute.)

The news from the television in his hospital room kept covering the sudden and unexpected dungeon, the first one in China in two years, and the shock when it opened only to close again within an hour of its inception. 

The first dungeon, in fact, to close in the past decade. 

It brought about plenty of questions, especially since no one understood what happened, and the number of dungeons throughout the world was close to reaching its starting point. The common theory was that once the earth held enough dungeons as when the event initially occurred, then unexpected dungeons would stop appearing, and there would be a sort of stability and civilizations would stop having to worry about unexpectedly being pulled into a gate the same way Fang Duobing did twice in his life now. 

He didn’t know if he believed that theory. It sounded nice on paper, but there was evidence to back it up, and it just— didn’t feel right to him. 

So. He feigned amnesia for the duration of his time in the dungeon. Terrible side effect, so sorry, and it only prompted doctors to do extra tests and scans that came up with nothing. 

(Besides, there were plenty of other people from Wansheng Sect within the dungeon all the way to the end, searching for people, and they should know far more than he did!)

Every time he asked about Li Lianhua, the answer was the same. 

He hadn’t woken up yet. 

When his parents came to visit him, sitting by his bedside as he tried to protest that he felt fine, that he was okay with only surface wounds that would heal within a week or two, they stayed quiet with a strained smile, their hands white in their laps. 

His father had to leave after half a day being the busy man that he was and the fact that he would be the one taking care of any media slip-ups from this incident, and Fang Duobing only breathed a sigh of relief when his father gave him a comforting squeeze of his shoulder and was ushered out the hospital room by his harried assistants who already had things they needed him to read over and liaisons that were searching for him. 

His mother, on the other hand, stayed the entire time with a grim countenance. 

“We could have lost you,” she murmured as she held onto his hand, running her thumb over his wrist over and over again. It made Fang Duobing feel horrible, remembering all the times during his childhood where his mother would sit by his bedside doing the same thing at the height of fever or recovering from treatments. “I would ask what happened, but… we won’t talk of it here. Once the doctors release you, I’m having both you and Li Lianhua transferred to private care.”

Fang Duobing couldn’t prevent his tense frown. “...He’s still not awake yet?”

He Xiaohui’s hand tensed over her son’s and she gave him a stern look. “No. He’s… we won’t speak of it here.”

A government liaison gave him back his things when he was finally discharged with orders to report in the moment he remembered what happened within the dungeon. Within the plastic bag were his dirtied and ripped clothes and his cracked phone. 

Fang Duobing gave a hollow smile at that moment, glad for the one privileged of being a Hunter that allowed him to conceal items on his person at all times like an invisible Qiankun pouch. He didn’t want to be questioned about the wooden dagger he had.

In the western countries, it had often been compared to video game inventories, but for Fang Duobing the space had been too small to be of proper use. He tended to only shove his wallet, keys, and phone in a space that amounted to a tiny purse (along with whatever might end up in pockets normally so he tended to have a napkin or piece of candy and some paper bills now that he got used to living with Li Lianhua). His cracked phone had been shoved into his pocket on instinct as they ran, a holdover from before he Awakened as a Hunter. 

The government liaison gave him a squinty look as Fang Duobing attempted a polite smile back, but there was no law yet requiring Hunters to empty out their inventory and Fang Duobing was prepared to refuse if asked. 

He didn’t have anything to hide, not really, but it was a matter of privacy. And if forced, then he could show what he had and turn the situation into one where he wasn’t trying to hide anything, but rather that his rights were being violated. 

(It was a suspiciously Li Lianhua thing to do.)

With the tower of Tianji Hall still under surveillance, not the mention a portion of the building still gone and the surroundings cordoned off as workers demolished the top of the building so that it wouldn’t fall on unsuspecting civilians before it could be rebuilt— Fang Duobing found himself bundled up back to his childhood home rather than the apartment he had been renting away from his family. 

(It was a bet, really, and a concession. Living away so he wouldn’t be pressured by his family on the regular, but also proving that he could live away on his own. Proving he could be the person his family wanted him to be, but that he just didn’t want to— that had been his way of proving to them that he had the capability to choose his own path rather than having it chosen for it. It was only meant to be for a year, just long enough to drive the point home.)

The home of the Fang and He family was a lavish and luxurious one, one that He Xiaohui inherited and her husband moved into despite his own prestige and wealth. Fang Duobing knew he was lucky in this way, to have parents so content with each other, who were in a happy and harmonious relationship in an era of divorce, especially for the families of wealth and status. While his father was extremely serious with his job, he was far more relaxed in his home life, often content to leave decisions to his wife and support whatever she wanted. 

Pulling up into the ridiculously long driveway and beyond the gardens specifically designed to both look beautiful and hide deadly traps for anyone who might think their family easy to infiltrate, Fang Duobing had a moment where he wondered if all his adult years had been just one fever dream. 

There were people in the gardens tending to the plants, and Fang Duobing parked carelessly along the driveway, slipping on his sunglasses against the bright afternoon before he left the vehicle, taking even that basic level of protection against the barrage he knew he was about to get. 

“Fang Xiaobao!”

And there it was. He tried not to cringe as his aunt shouted, somehow coming up behind him even though he hadn’t seen her on the drive in. Fang Duobing mustered up a sweet smile, hands up placatingly as he turned to face her. 

“You sure do have some nerve, not responding to any of my texts! Do you make a habit out of making trouble for me, while pretending to be a good son for my sister, huh? I had to take care of all the clean-up and the PR with your dad, and shareholder meetings since my sister obviously deserves to spend time with her injured son, but what about me? If she hadn’t been keeping me updated on if you were okay, I would have thought you died in the hospital! Maybe the doctors strangled you to death for how annoying you can be!”

“Xiao-yi,” he pleaded, “I just got my phone back today, I swear. I wasn’t even allowed out of my room the last two days, how could I have contacted you? I was being watched around the clock! Didn’t they do the same for you? So you have to be a little more understanding for your favourite nephew, alright?”

She took a step forward to jab a finger at his chest, and he was glad to see that she looked far healthier now, merely a bandage on her arm exposed by the sleeveless sundress she was wearing and the dramatic makeup gone now to reveal a more familiar look. 

“Oh, you think you can sweet-talk me, mister? I ought to—”

“Xiaobao.” They were both interrupted as He Xiaohui called out from the front door. “Do come inside before you catch a cold. You too, Xiaofeng.”

Fang Duobing wanted to give his mother an incredulous look as he glanced up at the blue sky. Catch a cold? In this weather? But his aunt was already dragging him forward by the arm, and he only protested mildly, letting her get her way. 

After the door closed behind them, Fang Duobing realised that there were no servants in the foyer to greet them. Even his aunt calmed down immediately, her earlier expression of indignation fading away fast enough for Fang Duobing to grab that it was a front all along. 

“Anything outside?” He Xiaohui asked her younger sister, who shook her head. 

“Not that I can find.” He Xiaofeng responded, unusually serious. “But we wouldn’t know all the abilities that they have at their disposal.”

“What is this about?” Fang Duobing demanded, pulling off his sunglasses. He looked between his mother and aunt, remembering the wording while he had been in the hospital. “...Are people spying on us?”

His mother, her mannerism impeccable even now, merely pursed her lips in response, the muscles of her jaw tightening. 

“There’s no proof of it.” She admitted, and ushered him along down the hall to the main room. “But there have been some suspicious inquiries being made. On what happened to the dungeon, of course, and on whether Tianji Hall had anything to do with it as it appeared right in our building, and then disappeared before a Sect could confirm that it would have been a harvesting dungeon.”

With dungeons placed in different categories and ranks based on how dangerous they were, harvesting dungeons were the most convenient for people, with weaker monsters to allow for Hunters to go on and look for goods they could bring back to the world. It meant the location would be protected for the Sects to use so long as they logged the items they brought back and paid a portion of it as taxes. 

That meant, however, that Tianji Hall would lose their entire building location to the Sects due to that. 

“Why would anyone think that?” Fang Duobing demanded. “It wouldn’t benefit us at all! Not to mention, it was our people who got harmed in the process— who do they think they are? No one can predict, much less command the location of new gates—”

A whap to his ear halted his complaints, and his mother responded fondly, “Of course all you say is true. But rumours are hard to dispel once it’s been released.”

“Not to mention,” his aunt added, “just how unusual it is for a dungeon to disappear like that. It’s the first time it’s happened, so people have a right to be suspicious, even if we had nothing to do with it.”

Fang Duobing stared between them. 

“Actually.” He said, then halted. Then he thought better of saying anything, but then thought at least they should know. “About that.”

He Xiaohui held up a hand. “Explain later. I know there was more to your story, Xiaobao, but there’s someone you should see.”

Fang Duobing’s childhood home was large and sprawling, situated just outside a metropolitan city for quality real estate, and there was an entire wing dedicated to when He Xiaohui felt like working on her unusual inventions at home. That meant there was also a makeshift medical room besides her laboratory, in case of emergencies. It had been something her husband asked her to build, worried about her burning or electrocuting herself. He fitted it with hospital worthy equipment, and no one questioned its existence after He Xiaohui’s experiments nearly shut down the city power grid when Fang Duobing was thirteen.

Now, the room was renovated yet again, with another occupant in mind. 

Fang Duobing felt his breath catch as they entered. 

“I took the liberty of securing Lotus Tower out of harm’s way,” His mother said quietly, settling behind him. “Your aunt made sure to visit him when she could since they didn’t have him as tightly guarded as you, and the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong. The Hunter specialist they sent in thinks there might be signs of a curse, but they dismissed that soon after. After several… suspicious individuals were found around his room, she called me and I made the arrangements to have him brought here instead. As he didn’t have any family listed, a more determined organisation would be able to keep him until he woke otherwise.”

“You think someone would have just stolen him away?” Fang Duobing asked, his eyes still on Li Lianhua, connected to several machines and resting atop a makeshift hospital bed. The man was so still underneath the connected wires and breathing tube that the only consultation was the heart monitor steadily ticking away. 

“There were a few fake names on the visitor registry,” his aunt said darkly. “I left Zhan Yunfei to keep watch, and they were definitely there for Physician Li. We didn’t manage to see their faces in the hospital, but… well, I have people checking the identities against CCTV. They should get back to me today.”

Fang Duobing had the nagging feeling that someone knew. 

After crossing back through the gate, Fang Duobing barely had a moment to breathe a sigh of relief, of being safe now, before Li Lianhua just. Dropped. Next to him. Dropped like his strings had been cut, nearly bouncing on the ground before Fang Duobing noticed and dropped to his own knees painfully on the uneven pavement as if he could still catch the man. 

Everything had been fine right before they crossed the gate— and for a single shameful moment, Fang Duobing imagined that Li Lianhua arranged something like this just so he could get out of the conversation he promised. 

Then he noticed the blood staining his mouth underneath the darkness that was still fading away from where they had originally been drenched, and the panic turned very real as Fang Duobing made to carry Li Lianhua the rest of the way to the paramedics. 

He thought perhaps it was the fight that caught up to the man, the exertion that Li Lianhua usually could not expend. But the doctors could take care of that, couldn’t they? They would fix him and he would rest, and then Fang Duobing would be able to confront him about what happened in the dungeon. 

“Xiaobao,” his mother said gently. “The two of you were the last ones out of the dungeon. I know how you are when you lie, and you’re not very good at it. And with Li Lianhua like this…”

“It really does look like a curse.” His aunt interjected very quietly. 

Fang Duobing could understand why the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong, and why the Hunter specialist might dismiss the idea of a curse. Curses only applied to Hunters, mostly because civilians tended to die immediately rather than be afflicted. Yet a curse shouldn’t have— shouldn’t have taken him down like that. Not when Li Lianhua had no trouble battling the dungeon boss, not when he could yank Fang Duobing from the darkness, and not when he was just fine as they left. 

All sects had curse specialists, the way they aspired to have healers. Too many times Hunters would come back from dungeons with a debilitating curse that would need to be seen to, sometimes taking the specialist months before they could figure out what it actually was and how to break it. 

“Did the two of you… encounter something? Something unusual, something out of the ordinary? Did he touch something or, god forbid, accidentally eat something—”

“Not like that.” Fang Duobing interrupted his mother. “But we… The entire dungeon was unusual, wasn’t it? We found a place that… well, everything he touched, I must have as well. But I’m fine, nothing’s happened to me.”

“You’re a Hunter,” his aunt said quietly. “It could be different.”

So is Li Lianhua, Fang Duobing thought, but did not say. 

“Whatever it is,” He Xiaohui gave a frustrated huff. “So far I haven’t figured it out. And I wanted to bring you first because events at the hospital were far too fishy, and because— Xiaobao, you might have to prepare yourself. He’s not doing better—”

And then he thought of letters he had seen in Lotus Tower before, that niggling feeling when his mother said Li Lianhua had no one to claim him from the hospital. 

“He did have someone.” Fang Duobing said suddenly, realising only in that moment he had sat next to the man’s bedside when he had to look up at his mother. “He often wrote to… a temple. A monk. Not even emails or anything, but actual real letters.”

That must have been a close friend. Li Lianhua certainly never wrote him letters before the times Fang Duobing had been dragged back home, not even emails. 

Once more, Fang Duobing was struck by the idea that he had never really known Li Lianhua. 

Above his head, the He sisters exchanged troubled looks. The silence stretched for a long moment until He Xiaofeng’s phone alerted her of a message, and she hurriedly pulled it out in an effort to focus on something else. 

“Sorry,” she mumbled, checking through her message. “It’s an alert—”

And then she quieted, and Fang Duobing looked at his aunt when she didn’t continue. “What?”

“I’ve got hits for three of the people who tried to visit Li Lianhua at the hospital.” He Xiaofeng said, eyes glued to the glow of her screen. “All three are ex-Jinyuan Alliance members.”

Fang Duobing stiffened. Jinyuan Alliance. The very reason for Li Xiangyi’s disappearance, now looking for Li Lianhua. 

“All the more reason to keep him here.” His mother said firmly. “Whatever specialist he needs, we can bring them here instead. I’d like to see anyone try to send a spy here or break through my defences. I’ve been needing new test subjects for my experiments.”

“And I keep telling you that you can’t say things like that aloud if you don’t want the lawyers to come down on us,” He Xiaofeng grumbled with a pout. “Xiaobao, what happened in the dungeon? Do you know why it closed suddenly or why the Jinyuan Alliance is now sticking their nose where they don’t belong?”

It made sense for the Jinyuan Alliance to investigate this. They disbanded a decade ago just as Sigu Sect did, when the last dungeon had been closed. And now ten years later a new dungeon appeared and closed. If Li Xiangyi hadn’t died in that disastrous event back then, then what about the Jinyuan Alliance leader Di Feisheng who was said to have died alongside him, was said to have killed Li Xiangyi…?

“I don’t know,” Fang Duobing admitted. He turned his attention to Li Lianhua, far too quiet and pale and still on the bed. “I’m still working that out myself.”

It must have been enough of the truth to pacify his mother, as she only sighed and laid a hand on his hair, fingers curled to sift through the strands above the ponytail. 

“Don’t take too long.” She told him. “In fact, sort through your thoughts today and tell me by tomorrow if you can. Whatever you can manage, that is. Whatever this situation is, there are forces we’re not aware of at play here and I’d like as many details as I can to better prepare. Tianji Hall can’t sit on the sidelines this time, not when we’re right at the centre of it.”

“I know, mom.” Fang Duobing told her. 

“Find me those letters,” she continued. “Not to read through it, but so I can send a message to this monk to tell them what happened. And don’t spend all day in this room. You need to eat a good meal and take a shower— you smell like the hospital. You know where to find me if you need me.”

Then she pressed a brief kiss against his hair and left. 

“I’ll be back in the evening,” his aunt told him.”First I have to follow up on those three— Jinyuan Alliance doesn’t even exist anymore, but if they had anything to do with this dungeon, then I’m going to find out about it.”

She followed her sister out the door, closing it carefully behind her, and then it was just Fang Duobing left. 

“And then there were two,” he said to himself, sitting back against the chair (and did they have to imitate the hospital so much that the chairs were uncomfortable as well?) to relax his knees as he stared at Li Lianhua’s form. “...You were supposed to tell me everything by now. I still don’t know…” he trailed off, uncertain as to what he meant to say.

He reached behind his waist toward his belt where he usually reached for his inventory, and pulled out the wooden sword, which looked more like a dagger now that he was all grown up. Despite using it in the dungeon, hacking through thick monster carapaces, the wood was still smooth and polished, entirely blunt and safe enough for a child to practise with. 

The name ‘Li Xiangyi’ was carved into the base. 

“What’s the truth?” Fang Duobing mumbled to himself, smoothing his thumb over the characters. “You old fox, always avoiding me when I need to hear from you. Even now you’re running away.”

He spent so long— more than half his life, even, chasing after the ideal of Li Xiangyi. To be just like his childhood hero, to live up to him, to continue where he left off… It was really no wonder he felt such a connection with Li Lianhua when he thought about it. It wasn’t that much of a stretch that he could anticipate Li Lianhua’s words and actions when he spent so long scrutinising every detail of every interview and observed moment in Li Xiangyi’s life. Fang Duobing spent his teenage years daydreaming of finding the Hunter again, of perhaps just… meeting him where he stood, and Li Xiangyi would look at him and remember him, and he would smile and look proud and— 

It was a silly dream, especially when he couldn’t even make it into Baichuan Court. 

He didn’t know how long he stayed there, sitting vigil over Li Lianhua and lost in his thoughts of just how he really should have recognised him, have realised everything, from the fact that despite how very different Li Xiangyi and Li Lianhua were (and they were so, so different), at the core of it all, Li Lianhua threw himself into danger the same way Li Xiangyi did to help other people. 

And wasn’t that the crux of how he influenced Fang Duobing’s life? Wasn’t that the very same will, the strong instinct to protect, that Fang Duobing was chasing after? 

He couldn’t reconcile the two, not really. They stood different, they moved different, they looked different no matter how similar. Li Lianhua had tics and habits that Li Xiangyi definitely did not have ten years ago, and one was so earnest and truthful most people took it for arrogance and disrespect while the other lied with a silver tongue in such a way that he always got his way. 

To Fang Duobing, they felt like two entirely different people. 

“Li Lianhua,” he said quietly. “Just… be okay.”

Even if he never got his answers, Fang Duobing would rather be angry at the man for years and years more than to think he might come to some conclusion only to have him leave forever. 

He sighed, listening to the calm pulse of the heart monitor, and tucked the wooden sword back into his inventory, frowning when he found barely enough space for it. 

Why…?

There was something there that wasn’t the usual, and it felt heavy now that he was paying attention. He grasped at it, the item small in his hand, and pulled it out of the inventory, feeling the weight of it like a metaphorical thing. 

It wasn’t physically heavy, but it had such a presence that Fang Duobing couldn’t believe he didn’t realise it was on his person before now. It was round, and as he put it to the light, he could see it looked like pearlescence caught within a ghost. Like a shimmering aerogel shaped into a sphere where the core was denser as it went in, visible despite being only the size of a bottle cap. 

It wasn’t the same, but he recognised that feeling of metaphorical weight. Of the denseness, the heavy presence. 

It was the very same as that black ball that prevented them from exiting the dungeon. Sure, all dungeons had drops, but he had never seen anything like this before. Tianji Hall specialised in Hunter gear and materials, and that included all materials brought back from dungeons. 

“What?” Fang Duobing asked dumbly, raising it against the light. 

“I told you,” Li Lianhua’s tone was cranky, the same as when Fang Duobing used to wake him up too early in the morning. “Not to take anything out of the Black!”

Fang Duobing snapped his head to the side, elation running through his veins for a single moment before he registered the sight. 

Sitting on the edge of the bed next to the prone and unmoving body, was the irritated ghost of Li Lianhua.

(Fang Duobing would later deny the shrill scream that brought his mother racing back into the room.)

[shamera]

NaNo day 26

Originally in my head, there's one more scene before part 1 ends, but this might be the best place to end it?

I'll write it anyway and then see, but this might be the place to end today's bit! Gotta go back and change a few things too, especially since I was struggling on translating most things to English but honestly I have finally given up with how fdb addresses his aunt. He calls her 小姨 in the series, and while I normally just translate that as small aunt (at least I did in previous stories), I never had him CALL her that before, because that just sounds weird in translation. So I might have to go back and change all the 'small aunt' into 'xiao-yi' in this story instead just because just sounds better.

(Also, people just don't address family members as like 'big uncle' or something in English, because they include a name there. But in Mandarin that just sounds like you're not actually related to them, because you can call all your parents' friends aunts and uncles, too.)

Also in my head, it was 黑暗 for what I translated to "the Black", which. Uh. Well, the translation worked in my head as I was writing, but I'm a terrible terrible translator.

“No, tell me now.” Fang Duobing said, hand tightening to a bruising grip around Li Lianhua’s wrist. “Tell me what actually happened. Tell me the truth.”

“Tell you what, that you just fell right into some psychedelic core of a dungeon boss?” Li Lianhua bluffed, deceptively nonchalant. “Whatever you saw, we don’t have time to unpack all of that. This dungeon is going to start falling apart in moments, and—”

Fang Duobing refused to let go. “No one’s destroyed an active dungeon in ten years. How would you know that?”

Fang Duobing thought, maybe, maybe it would be easier if Li Lianhua just said it outright. If Li Lianhua would stop trying to yank out of his grip, as if he was really weak Li Lianhua again rather than someone Fang Duobing had just seen take down a dungeon boss. 

He felt strange, like the darkness really was clinging to him, like he was hovering just right above his body, like his actions made sense to him and were guided by his thoughts but there was a barrier between what he was thinking and feeling, and what he was actually doing. 

He felt untethered by the recent realisations. 

“Fang Duobing,” and here Li Lianhua’s tone grew harsher as Fang Duobing continued to cling to him. “Why must you insist on this? Isn’t it enough to survive the dungeon? What if I say I’ll explain it all to you later?”

“You’d just run away,” Fang Duobing already knew this. “You’d run away until you could come up with a suitable lie for yourself, and then you won’t say even if I already know that you’re lying. Li Lianhua. I’ve been your friend for two years now, haven’t I? I have always considered you my friend even though I was never sure what you thought. And I’ve told you—”

Drunken rambling under starry skies about his dreams of being a Hunter, of living up to Li Xiangyi’s legacy, of breaking free from familial expectations to forge his own path. Of his aspirations. 

“—I told you everything about myself.” Fang Duobing finished lamely, the force of his anger deflating into a disappointment that cored him. He was starting to get feeling in his limbs again, and his legs were tingling. His grip felt stiff, like he was using one hand to hold onto Li Lianhua, and his other to hold something else. 

Wait. He was holding onto something else. 

Li Lianhua was quiet in the darkness for a moment, and then a cold hand patted the grip Fang Duobing had on him. 

“Later,” Li Lianhua amended. “I’ll explain later. You always manage to find me. How could I run away?”

What had Fang Duobing expected? Li Lianhua was reluctant to part with the truth at the best of times, never mind when he was forced into a situation where he had to say something real. It was likely the best he was going to get from the man.  With that, his grip started to loosen, only to tense as the smell of acrid smog permeated his senses. Immediately following the smell was the rumbling of the ground underneath them, different from the fight before as this was a more even spread, like the world itself was starting to shake itself apart, evenly and building with each second. 

“Time to go.” Li Lianhua said briskly, and hauled Fang Duobing up to his feet unceremoniously. The younger man stumbled for half a second before resting his weight on protesting legs, unable to see the ground or where they might be going. “Hold on, then. This is going to feel— strange.”

Then Li Lianhua was pulling him along, grabbing onto his wrist in return as the two of them raced along the unstable ground, soon joined by the sounds of thousands of skittering feet, yet their path was unimpeded. Fang Duobing didn’t know where they were going, didn’t know how Li Lianhua knew where to go in the darkness.

“Which way?” Fang Duobing called out in a panic as they ran. 

“Any!” Li Lianhua called back. “The edge of the dungeon is closing in, and we just have to pass it—”

And there it was— the faint purple glow associated with gates, except it was appearing in front of them endlessly, like a light to cross through. Within the glow, he could now see the shapes of endless monsters, none of them paying the two of them any attention as they crashed against the purple gate, climbing atop each other and flooding the ground, but unable to pass through. 

Apprehension slowed him as they approached, even with the shaking underneath growing worse and crashing sounds coming from behind them. Li Lianhua continued to pull at him, displaying uncharacteristic strength as they ran, and then soon they came upon the gate and they were going to be okay and then afterward Fang Duobing was going to tie Li Lianhua to a pole and refuse to let him go until he got answers—

It was like hitting a solid wall. 

Perhaps not a solid wall, as Fang Duobing nearly bounced back from the impact, as the feeling had been evenly spread rather than hitting at a single point of impact. He nearly let go of Li Lianhua, who didn’t have the same problem, but the man didn’t let go of his wrist. 

Li Lianhua stopped at Fang Duobing’s sound of pain and the jerk backward, the purple light now bright enough to see each other clearly. “What—?”

Within a moment, his stunned expression changed toward something strange. 

“Put that down, drop it right now.” Li Lianhua ordered, and reached to yank at Fang Duobing’s other hand. “You can’t— bring things from the Black, how did you even—?”

In his hand, the one curled into a death group, was a ball the size of his palm, like a black pearl shimmering against the purple light. Fang Duobing hadn’t even noticed— or rather, he had, yet the knowledge managed to escape his attention somehow. 

“What?” He asked, mind blank as he stared down at the ball in his hand. His fingers were caught in a death grip, like it wasn’t his own hand at all. For a moment, he shook his wrist, but still couldn’t let go of it. “I… I can’t?”

Li Lianhua was prying at his fingers, backlit by the purple light, the creatures of the dungeon swarming around them in panic, each of them hitting the same wall that Fang Duobing had. 

The gate seemed to be pushing them back, skidding them across the unstable ground, drawing to a smaller and smaller point as they attached to detach the ball from Fang Duobing. In the distance, he could see the extent of the gate, of it encroaching from the opposite side, from all sides. It really was drawing in like it would crush everything within the dungeon. 

“Let go,” Li Lianhua told him, a heavy panic in his tone. His fingers were pale even in the purple light, pulling at Fang Duobing’s. Fang Duobing was trying, he really was, but it was an involuntary reaction, like reacting to getting shocked, like electric currents running along his nerves now that he knew where to look in order to feel it. 

“I’m trying!” Fang Duobing protested, and both wrestled with his hand as they were pushed back by the gate, and the shove of monster bodies began to press in against them. He shook at his own hand in a panic, trying to help Li Lianhua in prying his fingers open. 

They got one finger, and then another, and the carapaces of the creatures around them were pressing in tight, stuck in the nonspace between the dungeon and the magic of the gate until it felt hard to breathe. 

Around them, the dungeon was starting to disappear, the bits of stone illuminated  falling into nothing at all, and even the monsters starting to disappear into nothingness. 

“Got it!” Li Lianhua called, and then he was holding onto the orb with both hands, looking up in victory. “Now we go—”

He dropped the orb just as they were swallowed by the purple light. 

— 

He Xiaofeng was yelling at the representatives from Wansheng Sect when Hunters started pouring out of the gate in a flurry, her arm in a sling as the medic next to her attempted to gently dissuade her from aggravating her injuries to no avail. 

“What do you mean the dungeon is collapsing?” She shouted, her good hand around the collar of the representative’s throat. He was a good head taller than her with a tired slant to his eyes and chin-length hair wearing a button up with Hunter accessories. He must have introduced himself at some point, but she didn’t care for his name unless she needed Tianji Hall to start legal shit against him. “Dungeons don’t collapse!”

Not unless the dungeon boss was defeated, and that wasn’t something anyone attempted in the past decade. Not to mention the difficulty of it, and the fact that she doubted Wansheng Sect could manage it at all.

Wansheng Sect was a shit sect, in her opinion, but they were apparently high ranked and the ones who came first at the call of a newly formed dungeon with people caught up in it, and the members apparently already rescued the rest of her employees. To them, it was He Xiaofeng and her group who had been unlucky as the rescue operations were well underway even when they had been waiting and running, yet when she dragged Bei Yun to them, yelling at the top of her lungs that her nephew was still in there, that she was fit to go back in if she had to in order to rescue him and Physician Li despite her injuries, so long as they provided backup to obtain more crystal shards— 

They refused to let her back in! She was a qualified Hunter, even if she never trained for search and rescue in dungeons before. 

“Do you know who I am?” She asked, voice low and dangerous as she dragged the man down to her level to brush her nose against his, glaring him down. The wailing of sirens around them and the overwhelming scent of ozone from the gate was only infuriating her more, feeling like a sensory overload to go with stupid men who would dismiss her. “Do you know who my nephew is? If you think your Wansheng Sect can withstand the wrath of Tianji Hall—”

Technically, Tianji Hall was a tech company intermediary between Hunter sects and the government, but they had authority the same way Baichuan Court was given authority to police Hunters. 

“Ma’am, please,” the medic next to her said, voice pained. “We’re already short staffed and don’t need more injuries to see to right now.”

She refused to let up on her grip, even as the man started choking in her grasp, hands coming up to claw at her in vain. 

“Send people through,” she demanded. “Send people through or let me through, or so help me—”

The gate was getting smaller and smaller, had been for the past minute or so, and her panic grew inversely. What would she tell her sister, her brother-in-law— 

“Xiao-yi!”

She released the man immediately, paying no mind as he tumbled to the ground and instead turning on her heel toward her nephew’s voice. 

“Xiaobao!” She gasped out, already pushing past both Bei Yun and the medic to jog toward the figures that appeared out of the gate. He was covered, absolutely slathered, in a black substance that looked like it was slowly wisping away in the air, evaporating into nothingness to reveal bruises and dried blood and torn clothes. 

Li Lianhua was similarly drenched, hair out of his usual neat bun to cover his face and drape over Xiaobao’s shoulder, his form limp carried across Fang Duobing’s back. 

“Xiao-yi,” he gasped out again, just as she reached him to grab onto his shoulders, too worried to know what to do or what to say first. “Help.”

And then his legs gave out underneath him, just as the team of medics converged on them.

[shamera]

NaNo day 5

not part of the casefic

instead I got frustrated so here is what i've got of the time loop fic i wanted to write so far

i did not consider when in the timeline it is, soooo timeline? what timeline?

Di Feisheng knew things were strange the moment he opened his eyes. 

It wasn’t just that he fell asleep the previous night in the middle of a cave, blood covering his clothes and dragging his companions (one slung over the shoulder, another under his arm) up a mountain on a twisted ankle, but he distinctly remembered just how irritable he was about how his spine would feel in the morning sitting guard at the cave entrance. 

Yet the sun was shining and the birds were chirping, and Fang Duobing was elbowing him in the ribs in his sleep. The bed under him was a thin mattress over hard wood, yet comfortable and warm. His ankle felt fine, and the blankets atop him smelt of Lotus Tower. 

This definitely wasn’t a cave. Fang Duobing wasn’t bleeding from his head, and they weren’t being chased by angry cultists. 

Downstairs, he could hear the vague pittering of the dog, already awake and snuffling around the house, not loud enough to wake anyone yet but already restless. 

He pushed the blanket off and sat up, ignoring Fang Duobing’s unconscious grumbling over the cold air before the younger man shuffled down the bed to wrap himself back up in the blankets. 

The brisk morning air indicated it was early yet, the sun having risen only a while back, already starting to heat up for the summer. He remembered this feeling, which would sound strange except it had been cloudy for a full week before that. 

He stared blankly at the drawn shades which barely managed to conceal the room from the outside. Taking a breath, Di Feisheng cracked his neck and marvelled at the lack of pain. 

It must have been an extremely elaborate dream. 

— 

It was not a dream. 

The same breakfast, the same conversations that he managed to change parts of by questioning different things whenever he started to feel unnerved, the same reactions from the townsfolk when they went to investigate the case, and the same clues presented. 

“I think we should leave.” Di Feisheng said, minutes away from when he knew disaster would strike. 

“Wait, why?” Fang Duobing said, looking up from where he was examining a cracked bronze cup, one of the many miscellaneous items in the dungeon they wandered into. 

He debated what to say for just a moment before deciding, “I know what’s going to happen. We’ll be trapped here if we stay longer.”

At that, Li Lianhua looked up from where he was scrutinising several old scrolls, and Fang Duobing made an unimpressed face at him. The two of them looked at the wide and broken entrance, with absolutely nothing that could block it. Their disbelief was clear. 

“If we don’t leave now,” Di Feisheng said, “I will end up carrying the both of you out.”

“Oh, please,” Fang Duobing retorted, “As if that—”

— 

Di Feisheng managed to avoid the sprained ankle, which meant he was faster this time around, and they made it all the way back to Lotus Tower although the other two were still unconscious. He dumped both of them on the bed downstairs, not bothering to carry them upstairs. 

After making sure they were merely knocked out with only light injuries that would be fine in time, Di Feisheng went to stand guard outside for the cultists that were chasing after them at the beginning. 

— 

When he woke up in the upstairs bed with Fang Duobing’s elbow digging into his ribs and the early sun shining outside, he cursed loudly. 

— 

“Repeat?” Li Lianhua asked over breakfast, expression rather incredulous. The three of them were sitting around the table with only the cursory food items for breakfast, and still dressed in sleepwear. Li Lianhua’s hair was down, while Fang Duobing had his in a messy low ponytail, not having the time to put it up properly before he was dragged downstairs by Di Feisheng. 

Hulijing was laying across Di Feisheng’s feet, snoozing lightly. 

“Today we investigate the village.” Di Feisheng confirmed, taking care not to move in a way that would dislodge the dog. “They’re hiding a dungeon full of bones and artefacts. Three different families claim to need help, and each tries to drug us in different ways. Five travellers have disappeared after arriving in this village.”

“So what happened to them?” Li Lianhua asked. “And why are the villagers doing this?”

Di Feisheng gave him a flat look. “That, I did not care to find out.”

“Well, that just means we need to investigate.” Li Lianhua said, with Fang Duobing nodding along sleepily. The younger man looked like he hadn’t even heard what Di Feisheng said.

“One thing, then.” Di Feisheng added, leaning forward to place an arm along the edge of the table despite Li Lianhua’s frown. “Think of a response, the first thing you think of, when I tell you that I have lived today already. What is it?”

“Do you really think that you’ve lived today before and will live it again?” Li Lianhua’s tone was rather sceptical, but he went along with it. “In that case, I would think you likely ate something strange last night and that the resulting dream left quite the impression on you.”

“And if I tell you those exact words before you say them to me?” Di Feisheng asked. 

“Then I would once again think you know me far too well.”

Di Feisheng turned his attention toward the half-asleep Fang Duobing. “And you?”

The young man made an incoherent noise at him before downing the scalding tea to wake himself up, regretting it immediately as he burned his tongue and made a choked noise, almost dropping the cup. He stuck out his tongue and waved a hand to cool his mouth off, before saying with a slight lisp, “I think you’re being weird.”

“Then why don’t you tell me something that I can say to you when I live this day again?” Di Feisheng challenged him. It might be easier to coax a reaction from Fang Duobing than it would be from Li Lianhua, who was prone to lying and would be harder to convince. 

The young hero made a face. “What, you really think your tomorrow is going to be today again? Isn’t that— messed up?”

“How would I convince you tomorrow?”

To his pleasant surprise, Fang Duobing seemed to be genuinely considering it while Li Lianhua calmly drank his tea, watching the two of them. 

“Alright,” The younger man said after a few moments of consideration. “If your tomorrow happens to be today again, then… tell me which fortune Hulijing picks today. Li Lianhua, where are the fortune sticks? We can get Hulijing to do a fortune telling today, right?”

At that, Li Lianhua gave a noise of amusement. “We can.”

“You want to leave it up to the dog?” Di Feisheng asked, tone flat. Yet Fang Duobing was already up and rummaging around the shelves behind the table for fortune sticks, and Di Feisheng hadn’t even known that Li Lianhua kept fortune sticks to begin with. He was also fairly reluctant to move the dog from its warm spot under the table. 

Then Fang Duobing was back with a cup of wooden fortune sticks, whistling for Hulijing’s attention. The resting dog squirmed a moment over Di Feisheng’s boots, and then nosed out from under the table, tail wagging with curiosity. 

Fang Duobing shook the cup a moment, and then gently spilled the contents out onto the floor next to the dog. “Alright, Hulijing, pick one, okay? One!”

The dog perked up, and then went to nose at the sticks, sniffling at each one a moment before gently grabbing one between its teeth and bringing it back to Fang Duobing, clearly waiting for a treat in exchange. Li Lianhua was looking on in amusement, attempting to hide his smile behind a hand. 

“Good girl,” Fang Duobing cooed, “And what will our fortune be today— Great misfortune?! Hulijing, why!”

At that, Li Lianhua couldn’t hide the amused snort, and Di Feisheng gave him a suspicious look. 

“You knew the dog would choose that one,” he accused, and Fang Duobing’s head came up, now also staring accusingly at Li Lianhua. 

“Maybe,” the physician admitted, still smiling. “But Xiaobao didn’t.”

Di Feisheng gave that some consideration and nodded grudgingly. That was true; Fang Duobing chose this method for Di Feisheng to convince him of the repeat tomorrow, not Li Lianhua. It worked out that Li Lianhua knew in advance, as it meant the dog would likely pick the same result every time. 

At this, Fang Duobing examined the stick in his hand more carefully this time, and then said, “You covered this in dog food before, didn’t you?”

Li Lianhua’s quiet sip of tea was quite telling. 

— 

They still went to investigate. This time, better prepared thanks to Di Feisheng. None of them were poisoned, and they found the dungeon immediately, saving nearly a sichen of searching. Yet Li Lianhua still managed to subtly piss off the villagers, and Fang Duobing sweetly mixed an insult into his greetings. This time, they were not stuck in the dungeon and Di Feisheng told them which spots to avoid standing in, resulting in only minor scrapes and bruises when they fought their way out. 

“You have any more information for us?” Fang Duobing shouted as they faced down wave after wave of villagers armed with farming equipment, face pinched in concentration to ensure that he knocked them back with enough force that they would either give up or be knocked out, yet wouldn’t kill them. 

“We never got this far,” Di Feisheng admitted through gritted teeth. 

“Something to tell us next time, then,” Li Lianhua’s words were nearly drowned out by the sounds of battle, and Di Feisheng barely had a moment to look before he was rushing in to intercept a strike aimed at the man’s back, kicking the attacker across half the field. 

Ahh. Normal people were unlikely to survive that. 

“A little help!” Fang Duobing called out, because despite them being excellent fighters, attempting to defend themselves while holding back to not kill everyone meant a great deal of concentration. Add to the fact that the multitudes of people were attacking haphazardly and could easily kill each other by accident as well, and he was deflecting to ensure they wouldn’t do that— 

“I’m fine,” Li Lianhua said somewhere close to Di Feisheng’s ear, and then turned away to dodge a hoe that had been aimed at his neck. “Help Xiaobao!”

Barring a flare up, Li Lianhua would be able to take care of himself better than Fang Duobing, and thus Di Feisheng followed the instruction and used the flat of his dao to non-lethally hack his way over to the man, all the time keeping an eye on Li Lianhua’s path of retreat. 

“Wait, what are you doing here?” Fang Duobing shouted incredulously when Di Feisheng bumped into his back, taking care of the enemies he wouldn’t be able to see. “What about Li Lianhua? We need to look after him!”

“He’ll be fine.” Di Feisheng gritted out, irritated at being passed around like that. If his next strike was heavy enough to break the arm of the villager wielding an axe, he only ignored the pained scream to whirl and strike again at the next person. “You said you needed help!”

“Not if you’re going to leave Li Lianhua alone!”

Honestly, at this point Di Feisheng was tempted to smack Fang Duobing over the head as well if only it wouldn’t make their situation worse. “And how did you expect me to protect him and get to you at the same time, then? Do I look like I can be in two places at once?”

“I was expecting,” Fang Duobing emphasised as he ducked the swing of one man wielding a hefty wooden beam at them, only to stop in mid-momentum and grab onto the man to ensure the hit wouldn’t actually accidentally bludgeon another young man who was coming at them with a kitchen knife, kicking him in the chest instead so that the knife wouldn’t kill the main with the beam. “That the two of you might make your way here! Together!”

“Why didn’t you make your way to us?”

“I have more people attacking me!”

That was as blatant a lie as Li Lianhua would tell, and Di Feisheng spitefully started counting the amount of people just so he could give an exact number later to contradict him. 

“Look out!” Li Lianhua’s voice barely carried over the horde of yelling villagers, and Di Feisheng’s attention was drawn back to him in a flash, only to realise that the other man was staring at him and Fang Duobing instead, separated from them by a veritable sea of people, eyes wide. 

Look out for what? There was nothing out of the ordinary around them, and—

There was a strange scent in the air, and then he could see white dust falling around them, and within moments he was falling, limbs unresponsive, and then his eyes closed of their own volition before he hit the floor. 

—

Di Feisheng woke to the early morning sunshine in the bed of Lotus Tower with an elbow digging into his side, and he moved to shove Fang Duobing off the bed spitefully. 

— 

After Fang Duobing yelled at him so long Di Feisheng found himself grudgingly impressed by his lung capacity (only for Li Lianhua to shout at both of them for waking him up downstairs after Hulijing joined Fang Duobing’s enthusiasm by howling loudly), Di Feisheng found himself with an idea. 

Thus he abandoned Lotus Tower entirely in the middle of Fang Duobing’s rant, jumping over the railing of the second floor in his night clothes and going a distance away (far enough to not hear the angry yelling) before calling for Wuyan.

The man showed up as promptly as usual, head bowed with his usual salute. 

“Update me on the search for the Styx Flower.” Di Feisheng demanded. 

“My lord,” Wuyan said, and then hesitated. “...I’m afraid there has been no progress yet.”

“Where have you searched?”

[[ insert locations, look them up later ]]

Di Feisheng frowned. “And will you be able to cover this city by nightfall?”

Wuyan hesitated only a moment before confirming. “If it pleases you.”

“Then do it. Report to me by nightfall. And bring a map.”

— 

“—repeat?” 

“You think I ate something strange the night before.” Di Feisheng confirmed lazily. He had come back bearing gifts of youtiao and soy milk after sending Wuyan to the closest market for them as well. “And you think I could predict you saying that because I know you well.”

“True.” Li Lianhua confirmed, not looking convinced but still taking a stick of youtiao. 

Fang Duobing, sulking next to Li Lianhua at the table, took two sticks. “What nonsense are you up to now, Lao Di?”

Unlike the previous iteration of the day, the two of them were properly dressed, and this time it was Di Feisheng alone who was lounging downstairs in his sleepwear still, utterly content to relax in his inner robes. 

“Don’t rush into the village today.” Di Feisheng said. “There are other things we need to do first.”

“Like what?” Fang Duobing spoke around a mouthful of food, while Li Lianhua leaned down to feed Hulijing small pieces of ripped dough by hand. The dog whined for more food between each bite, eventually ending with front paws on Li Lianhua’s lap and half an entire stick of youtiao as a prize, where it ate while nosing for pets at the same time. 

Spoiled thing. 

“Research.” Di Feisheng bluffed. 

— 

He managed to delay them for half a day before a child ran up to them in the middle of the forest, begging for help rescuing their parents from bandits, and suddenly they were back in that accursed village again. 

This time, Di Feisheng had stolen knockout incense off Li Lianhua’s shelves and managed to avoid two of the three attempted poisonings for the three of them. 

Not that the other two appreciated his efforts. 

By evening, he managed to cart them back to Lotus Tower under the suspicious gaze of the villagers (who were actually cultists) by not investigating and pretending to not only be wary travellers but also travellers who suddenly received an urgent message to return home and definitely would not be back. 

“That was too weird. You’re being weird today, A-Fei,” Fang Duobing grumbled, although he did collapse into a chair at the table and then leaned to bury his face in his arms. The younger man had been tense the entire time they were in the village, reacting not just to the awkward tension but to Di Feisheng’s strange behaviours and being shushed constantly. 

Li Lianhua, on the other hand, looked beyond suspicious now, but his posture was as relaxed as ever. 

“Repeating the day, huh?” He murmured toward Di Feisheng. 

“Believe me now?” Di Feisheng said in response, not bothering with pretences. He understood the scepticism. Had either of the two confronted him with such a delusional concept, he too would have merely humoured them but not given it too much thought. 

Li Lianhua didn’t respond, although his expression was thoughtful as he started on tea. 

The sound of a bird call moved Di Feisheng to excuse himself, leaving Lotus Tower just far enough to find Wuyan waiting for him. 

“Anything?” Di Feisheng asked, only for Wuyan to shake his head, and then offer up a map. He accepted the scroll, staring at the areas that had already been crossed out. There were far too many areas untouched on the map. “...Cross out the city. Tomorrow, we will start in the forest.”

— 

“Cross out the city and the forest,” Di Feisheng said the next day (the same day, the same exact day) as he met with Wuyan again. The man only agreed and didn’t question him. “Survey the surrounding lake.”

— 

“Repeat?” Fang Duobing asked, the young man still blinking sleep from his eyes at breakfast. 

[shamera]

NaNo day 14-15

...i got distracted last night and ended up reading manga instead, whoops. where am i going with this story? i feel like i need another idea to sustain my nano. just so i can work on something else when i get distracted, rather than staring blankly. then i can alternate or something.

anyway, here's wonderwall.

“No one helped you back?” Fang Duobing sounded heartbroken. 

Li Lianhua reached to pat his hand. “I was ill, and an outsider. It was kind enough of them not to throw me out. For all they knew, my illness could be contagious. Besides, Hulijing helped me back.”

A touching story, for sure. Di Feisheng shifted his weight as he eyed the dog, and then asked, “I’ll believe half of that.”

It was too sweet a tale to be entirely true, and seeing Li Lianhua’s bitter smile as he told it, Di Feisheng would reckon that half was a lie to placate himself. He didn’t know what parts were true, but that wasn’t the point. It was whether this story could convince Li Lianhua in the future to trust his words, even if the story itself was a lie. So long as he recognised it as his own lie, then it was fine. 

Fang Duobing, however, had a different reaction to that tale being exposed. 

“What?” The young man asked, looking between the two of them. “What do you mean— what really happened?”

Li Lianhua reached to flick him on the side of the head lightly when he pushed into his personal space. “Exactly as I said. You don’t need to worry about it any further.”

To Di Feisheng, he said, “Tell me about what happens in the village.”

— 

In the end, they write down a whole chart. Nonsense, most of it, but Li Lianhua looked satisfied nevertheless. Di Feisheng frowned as he realised how little he remembered from the first go at the day. There hadn’t been much that stood out to begin with for me, but with the repetition of days, there were details he couldn’t remember if it happened on the first iteration or on a repeat. 

“If this is only happening to you, what did you do?” Fang Duobing asked, and while his words were rude, his tone was genuinely curious. “Touch something weird? Killed the wrong person?”

“I stayed standing when the two of you were knocked out.” Di Feisheng told him. 

Fang Duobing flushed and puffed up. “I think Lao Di is lying.”

It was the truth, but with the look Li Lianhua was giving him, Di Feisheng dropped the topic. 

“We’ll look once we get there.” Li Lianhua said, and the three prepared for a trip that this time they knew would end disastrously. 

— 

Having foreknowledge did not mean it went any better than usual.

— 

The first family they met was deceivingly polite, and Li Lianhua clocked the drugged tea immediately with a smile, just as he had the very first time. With the added knowledge that the entire village was likely attempting to drug them for some reason, this time he subtly switched their drinks with the hosts’, and the three of them left after the family passed out atop their table. 

“Did that happen before?” Fang Duobing asked as they made their way across the tiny and unassuming village with none the wiser. Di Feisheng was unsure how to answer. 

The second family they spoke to was far more suspicious, quiet when asked about the missing travellers, cooperating only when Fang Duobing revealed himself to be a Baichuan Court detective. Di Feisheng did as he always did and stood menacingly to the side while the other two asked questions, keeping an eye on the two mischievous children who were whispering by the doorway. When the tea was poisoned once more, Li Lianhua merely gave a flat smile after snipping the liquid and this time set it down as if distracted by another thought. 

When none of them drank the tea, the family changed their antics and claimed to need help with something, attempting to coax them toward the back of the house before Di Feisheng interfered and knocked the two parents out, seeing at the young children was now nowhere to be found. 

“Did that happen the first time?” Fang Duobing demanded as they dragged the bodies to a more comfortable position. 

“We can just head straight to the dungeon.” Di Feisheng suggested. 

Li Lianhua shook his head as they closed the door to the knocked out people. “The point is to retrace your steps. We may have arrived because of the missing travellers, but… Whatever you saw, did, and where you went… did you follow them the first time?”

“No.” Di Feisheng confirmed. He grimaced at the thought of the third family. “...Fine, let’s get this over with.”

They didn’t have to go looking for the third family, as it was the third family that found them. Or rather, two of the five unmarried daughters of the third family who attempted to bodily collide with Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing respectively, and fell into a swoon on the ground even when their collision didn’t happen. 

“Apologies, young masters,” the younger one, a dainty thing with such weak wrist bones that Di Feisheng doubted she could so much as lift a sword, called out as she clutched onto the fallen arm of her older sister, who had a sleeve raised to her face in faux distress. “A thousand apologies! My sister and I are in dire need of your help!”

For a moment, Fang Duobing looked like he would reach toward them to actually help despite the fact that Di Feisheng warned him in advance of this exact situation, but then he pulled back with a regretful expression as Li Lianhua kicked him in the leg. 

If Di Feisheng could avoid this family, he would. In fact, he was tempted to do so despite the hard look Li Lianhua was throwing his way, already knowing what he was thinking. 

“Of course we’ll help.” Li Lianhua told them, and the sisters tittered at each other as they stared up at him with large doe eyes. He gestured with a sleeve when they got up (unlike the first time when Fang Duobing had reached to help them up and received an ‘accidental’ cut across his arm). “Lead the way.”

— 

The knockout incense Di Feisheng unapologetically swiped from Lotus Tower kicked in right after the ageing parents eagerly offered up their daughters to be wed to the prominent detective and his friends. Their choice of the lot! There were five of them to choose from, after all! 

Fang Duobing had a white cloth to his face, wet to absorb the smoke before he could inhale too much of it. It didn’t hide his disturbed expression. 

“They really did that.” He said, wide eyes turning to Di Feisheng. “But… that’s their daughters! They don’t even know us!”

Di Feisheng gruntled an acknowledgement, one hand holding his own wet cloth to his nose as the other started rummaging around the room, attempting to find the clues that had originally led them to the dungeon. Behind him, Li Lianhua was the only one without a cloth, carefully setting a few of the daughters who had fallen at awkward angles into a more comfortable position on the floor. 

“Some families struggle to feed everyone,” Li Lianhua placated, which Di Feisheng thought was far too generous a statement considering the youngest daughter was perhaps ten years of age. And for the fact that there was something very wrong with the village, and the family was one of the ones attempting to poison them. 

A thud toward the back of a drawer, and Di Feisheng pulled out an inscribed stone triumphantly. He shook the palm-sized stone up in the air to catch the attention of the others. 

“Here,” he said, tossing the stone over to Fang Duobing, who caught it easily. “Skip the pleasantries. They offer their daughters, Li Lianhua claimed he already had a fiancee, they offer their daughters, and you tried to say the same but they didn’t believe you—”

“That is unfair.” Fang Duobing exclaimed. “He doesn’t have a fiancee.”

“And you do.” Li Lianhua nodded along, the amused smile barely hidden in time as he turned his head away from Fang Duobing’s accusing stare. 

“And they didn’t offer you?” Fang Duobing asked Di Feisheng, tone accusing. Di Feisheng, on the other hand, just gave him a flat stare, attempting to convey that of course he was far too frightening for the couple to offer him one of their daughters in marriage. 

(The truth was that he was uncomfortable thinking about just how close their eldest daughter sat the first time they were invited for tea, leaning into his space to whisper her opinions and senseless words to him while inching her way closer to Di Feisheng by the moment until she was practically on his lap and he had to physically shove her off, which was what started the skirmish in the first place. Then one of the daughters tried to stab them with a poisoned knife, and Li Lianhua knocked her out.)

“We ask around the village,” Di Feisheng continued his summary. “Eventually find a cavern by the well that leads to the dungeon. Congratulations, we’ve saved an entire sichen of search time.”

“We should be doing the search.” Li Lianhua reminded him. Fang Duobing was squinting at the inscriptions on the stone, holding up and tilting his head as if the changed perspective would make sense of what was written on it.

“There were a lot of trees.” Di Feisheng said. “Grass. Dirt. We encountered few people, and none came close to us. No strange smells, no strange sounds.”

Li Lianhua gave him a flat look. “You’re risking missing pivotal information nevertheless.”

“If that happens, I’ll go back again.” Di Feisheng said. 

Li Lianhua narrowed his eyes. “You’re assuming there’s an ‘again’. And if there is a limited amount of repeats for you to find the cause of the situation?”

“Then there are a limited amount of repeats, and I live past them. And we solve what happened here tomorrow. Or leave.”

“Then why bother with this?” Fang Duobing interjected when it looked like Li Lianhua was too irritated by those words to respond. “If you’re repeating today, but you seem to be okay with it… you’re not worried about things going wrong, and you’re not worried about this not ending, it seems…”

Di Feisheng didn’t understand it fully himself. While curious and mildly inconvenienced by the repeating days, he had also been relieved and used the time to spend his days… exploring. He had the time to search for the Styx flower now, and there were no worries clear in the future with the repeats. Some days he woke and trained, other days he woke and allowed the repetition of conversations wash over him like rereading a worn book. Other days, like the previous iteration of ‘today’, he did something new. 

Perhaps it was because his training would amount to nothing when the day restarted. 

“So I can answer your questions when I do live past this day.” Di Feisheng answered them. He turned and shut the drawer he had taken the stone from, uncertain why it would rather not face their stares at this moment. “Whatever is causing this may be useful.”

He didn’t know why he felt like a liar. 

— 

The dungeon underneath the cave was filled with the same curious trinkets, the same cells, the same gaping entrance that he thought couldn’t possibly trap them with how wide it was. There were the same cobwebs and the same torches, the same mismatched tiles interlaced on the ground and the same stifling air that made it almost hard to breathe. 

Fang Duobing picked up the same broken bronze plate, frowned, and tossed it the same place as the first time he did that. Li Lianhua leaned in with his torch to examine the same unreadable inscription on the wall. 

“Superstition and folklore,” Li Lianhua concluded after a thorough examination of the pictures and words, torch flickering as he brought it around. Di Feisheng stayed near the entrance, arms crossed as he leaned his shoulder against the wall. “Warnings to not venture out late at night in fear of vengeful ghosts, and goddesses that demand sacrifice.”

“Sounds more like demons,” Fang Duobing said. 

“Perhaps it was.” Li Lianhua made a considering noise before turning his torchlight toward Di Feisheng. “Was there anything in here you touched? Disturbed? Knocked over, perhaps?”

“I let the two of you handle this place.” Di Feisheng told him. He didn’t remember actually examining anything in particular, only the violence that came after.

“A-Fei,” Li Lianhua said with a sigh, “you are no help at all.”

“Hey,” Fang Duobing’s voice called to them from across the dungeon toward the back of one of the cells. “I think I found something.”

They made their way over to him, where Fang Duobing was holding a red lacquer box the size of a pillow, worn and dusty but otherwise in good enough condition it didn’t fit in the setting of the dungeon. He brushed the dust from the box, frowning as he turned it one way and another. There must have once been vivid paints along the grain of the box, but now it had faded into something that only hinted at its once brilliance. 

“It looks old,” Fang Duobing remarked, “but recently handled. Look here—” 

He was correct in that there were areas on the box more worn than others, the colours fading into pale wood through the lacquer, like fingerprints where it was held over and over again. The layer of grime was higher in those areas, but the dust entirely gone. Along the crease between the opening of the box, there was a scent of metallic bitterness. Fang Duobing attempted to open the box, but it didn’t budge.

Li Lianhua lowered his torch to get a better look, even as Fang Duobing raised the box, searching for another method of opening it. 

Di Feisheng didn’t recall seeing it before. He frowned, crowding in close. 

“Got it!” Fang Duobing said triumphantly as he touched a mechanism mostly hidden along the bottom of the box, hearing a click as a latch gave way and he fingered the seam once more. 

“Wait—” Li Lianhua started, and Di Feisheng smelt the metal and sulphur a moment before he saw the glint of fire in the corner of the room, grabbing each of them with a hand to drag them backward only for the tiny flint of light in the corner catch ablaze within a split moment to become a roaring blaze, the walls of the cell coated with something that whited his vision immediately. 

— 

Di Feisheng woke up in Lotus Tower, entire body tense with the aftershock of fire running along his nerves, and breathed through lungs that felt seared from a nightmare. 

For the first time since the repeats, he grit his teeth and had to swallow down failure.

[shamera]

NaNo day 12

continued from here, I guess?

I guess this time loop fic will have chapters, lol here is the beach episode, part 1

“Repeat?” Fang Duobing asked, the young man still blinking sleep from his eyes at breakfast. 

“Yes,” Di Feisheng responded easily, drinking his tea easily as he allowed Hulijing to climb onto the bench next to him and curl up next to him, resting a hand on the warm furred back. 

“That sounds—”

“Implausible?” Di Feisheng completed Li Lianhua’s statement, and then added, “Sounds like I ate something wrong the previous night, or had a strange dream? Didn’t get enough sleep?”

Li Lianhua only raised an eyebrow at him, unperturbed. He was always unperturbed about this conversation, arms folded neatly into his sleeves on his lap after pouring the tea, the very same manner he held every morning— perhaps even before this loop started. He couldn’t remember a difference from before and after the day started repeating. 

Di Feisheng wasn’t entirely sure how long he lived this single day, but it must not have been very long with the way Wuyan continued to cross out only small sections of the map he brought. 

Li Lianhua and Fang Duobing both humoured him, and the days were different enough whenever Di Feisheng tested another move or suggestion. He was content for this to continue until he found the Styx Flower. 

But for this day… 

“Let’s head south,” Di Feisheng suggested. “Away from the village. Perhaps the loop will end.”

Li Lianhua gave him a long look, but then shrugged. “It would be nice to spend a day not worrying about anything. Did you have a destination in mind?”

“No. Just south for a day.”

— 

“Just east for a day.”

— 

“Just north for a day.”

— 

That morning, Di Feisheng deposited a pile of rolled scallion pancakes and a pot of warm congee, to Fang Duobing’s absolute glee and Li Lianhua’s confused glances. 

“What’s the occasion?” Fang Duobing asked right before he grabbed at a scallion pancake and then readjusted his grip as it proved hotter than he imagined, blowing on it gently a few times before handing it over to Li Lianhua, who gave him a bemused smile as Fang Duobing then went to grab two more pancakes and repeat the same process as the food scalded his hands. 

Li Lianhua set his food down on the plate and scooped congee into three bowls, distributing it between the three of them. The clink of clay pottery against the uneven wooden surface of the table must have been comfortable even before the loops began, but now it was familiar in a way that settled his nerves. Di Feisheng couldn’t remember the last stretch of time where his days were so repetitive in motion, except for his seclusion where the days passed entirely without his notice. 

This theory about the continuing and repeating days being tied to the area they were in didn’t pan out, but that didn’t mean he exhausted his options yet. 

“Let’s delay the investigation a day,” He said, watching as the others began eating. “There’s somewhere I want to visit.”

“Close to here?” Fang Duobing asked with his mouth full, sounding doubtful. 

“Close enough.” Di Feisheng confirmed, refilling the tea for them.

It was hours later, the sun already high in the sky, when Lotus Tower came to a stop along the sandy roads next to a tiny fishing town. Di Feisheng had seen this place on the maps for days, but had no reason to visit a location where only a smattering of poor wooden houses were, the shore lined with a handful of wooden fishing boats. 

“We should stop here for the day,” Di Feisheng decided, the nonchalance in his tone attracting Li Lianhua’s suspicions once more. 

“And what are you up to this time, Lao Di?” The other asked him, hands tucked into his sleeves as they surveyed their surroundings. It was a clear and beautiful day, and the call of gulls above them was as loud as the strong winds, the cool air just a touch too chilled to entertain the idea of going out into the water. 

“This is definitely not close,” Fang Duobing grumbled, rubbing his hands from where he had been handling the horse reins the past hour. Hulijing was circling the young man’s legs happily, tail wagging and tongue out at the new adventure. “Where are we, anyway? Why are we here?”

The dog sneezed, and then trotted off toward the water, ignoring the rest of them. 

“Hulijing!” Fang Duobing called out, already chasing after her. “Don’t just go off by yourself! What if there are crabs? You’re going to get pinched!”

It wasn’t quite the coast, but the inlet of a large lake, with the winds creating waves on the water that lapped gently onto the sandy beach. Li Lianhua squinted against the sunlight and then turned to say, “This is certainly unlike you.”

“Is it?” Di Feisheng asked, and set out on a sedate walk after both Fang Duobing and the dog, knowing that Li Lianhua would follow. “What do you think this is, then?”

Li Lianhua made a considering noise, keeping pace with Di Feisheng. He picked at a random leaf as they passed the dwindling shrubbery along the shore, stepping out onto the sand. “...An intervention? I can’t imagine what for. We spent a week travelling in the rain, I would think you’re sick of seeing water at this point.”

Di Feisheng almost forgot about the previous rains. For him, the sunshine of ‘today’ stretched along his memory. 

“You’re incorrect.” Di Feisheng told him with a half smile. 

“Oh? I don’t recall expressing a solid theory. You’re very quick to say I’m wrong.”

Ahead of them, Hulijing had already run into the shallow waters, slashing along the shore, jumping from one wave to another and barking happily. Fang Duobing nearly tripped over himself to stop in time before he got splashed as well. 

“You are.” Di Feisheng confirmed, more than a little smug. “Whatever reason you think we stopped here for, you’re wrong. I guarantee it.”

Li Lianhua raised an eyebrow. “No confidence in me? I’m hurt.”

“Tell me a secret,” Di Feisheng urged, “And I will tell you exactly why we’re here.”

Li Lianhua huffed, and tossed the leaf between his hands, turning his attention over to Fang Duobing and Hulijing instead. “This again? A-Fei, you already know everything about yourself. I don’t have any secrets that you don’t already know about.”

By this point, Di Feisheng knew that he could easily convince Fang Duobing something strange was going on with the fortune sticks, yet each iteration of the day remained the same in that Li Lianhua never fully believed unless Di Feisheng managed to predict every event in the day. He was always quick to accept Di Feisheng’s words, but never truly believed them. 

“I never said a secret about me.” Di Feisheng turned to face him fully. “A secret about you. Something you’ve never told anyone else.”

“So you can use it against me? No, thanks.”

“So there is information I can use against you?”

Li Lianhua made a face, but didn’t deny it. He instead cupped his mouth and called out to Fang Duobing, “Don’t fall into the water! If you get sick, I won’t be the one cleaning up after you!”

At the water’s edge, Hulijing shook off water all over Fang Duobing, who protested, “I’m not the one who gets sick easily!”

Ironic coming from someone with a name like that, Di Feisheng mused as he folded his arms and watched Li Lianhua grouse half-heartedly at that response. After watching their antics for another second, Di Feisheng looked up to judge the time they had left that day. 

“Come on,” he told Li Lianhua, “let’s go find a boat.”

— 

It was easy to find a family too busy that day to be out on the water, and Di Feisheng handed the silver over in exchange for their boat and equipment for the day before slinging the bag over a shoulder and handing the poles to Li Lianhua and Fang Duobing, who tagged along curiously while flapping at his damp sleeves. 

“Is this a dream? It must be a dream.” Fang Duobing commented, staring vacantly at the fishing pole and not moving even as Di Feisheng urged them forward. “Is this a nightmare? Is something really bad going to happen now?”

Li Lianhua pinched him, and Fang Duobing jerked away with a betrayed look. “Good now? What are you talking about? Why would we be in your nightmares?”

“That’s what I want to know as well.” Fang Duobing lamented. 

“The wind might blow us all the way to the other side,” Li Lianhua said to Di Feisheng. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“No,” Di Feisheng admitted, nudging a foot to kick at Fang Duobing’s shin until the young man started to move again. It was mere steps toward the edge of the lake shore where the small boat, barely able to comfortably fit the three of them, was dragged halfway on land. “If that happens, we can walk back.”

“Do you even know how to fish?” Fang Duobing asked Di Feisheng, tone suspicious. 

“Do you?”

Hulijing jumped into the boat after them, sniffing around the wood and the abandoned netting at the front before raising its head and making loud snuffling noises of disapproval. With the dog there, there definitely wasn’t enough room for three people to stretch out their legs. Fang Duobing, however, brightened at the dog joining them and clucked his tongue in an attempt to tempt it to sit next to him. 

Di Feisheng pushed the boat out the rest of the way into the water and hopped in as well, rocking the boat down heavily enough that the dog scrambled a bit for purchase. They were immediately pushed further into the waters by the low lapping waves, the motion rocking back and forth heavily for a while before it stabilised slightly. 

“I know how to do this,” Fang Duobing said as he stared into the bag of supplies, openly fascinated. He had the fishing pole braced against him like he normally would his sword, and pulled out a pouch of bait. “But I have to admit, this young master has never done this before.”

Li Lianhua snickered, and stole the bait from him. “Oh? I would never have guessed.”

Fang Duobing flushed. “I never had the chance!”

“You have the chance today.” Di Feisheng said evenly, leaning in to peer into the bait bag as Li Lianhua opened it, ignoring the fact that Fang Duobing was doing the same on the other side. Inside were various fruits and insects, the smell such that Fang Duobing immediately recoiled away with a hand going up to cover his nose. 

“Not bad,” Li Lianhua said. “That’s if there’s anything good in this lake.”

“Why have fishermen living here otherwise?” Di Feisheng pointed out. Then he eyed his own pole a second, thumb pressing down on the thin and unevenly carved wood, and added, “How about a wager?”

Fang Duobing perked up. “A wager?”

“Person with the least catches makes dinner,” Di Feisheng said casually, already unspooling the line to tie to the pole. The other two were giving him wide-eyed looks, and Di Feisheng raised an eyebrow in challenge. 

“You don’t cook.” Li Lianhua pointed out to him. 

“I’ll buy something.” Di Feisheng said. 

Fang Duobing’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward until he was shoving up against Li Lianhua’s shoulder to point at Di Feisheng. “I want braised pork. Stewed lamb! Chicken with—”

“Make that yourself.” Di Feisheng told him. 

“You said you’d buy dinner!”

“If I lose.” His voice was smug. “This is not my first time catching fish.”

As they argued, Li Lianhua was calmly choosing his bait, pushing a curious Hulijing’s snout away from the bag from time to time, and already preparing his line. His movement was careful and measured even with the rocking of the boat and with Fang Duobing pushing up against his side in efforts to reach and claw and Di Feisheng, the other man only smirking smugly as he leaned away. 

“I don’t remember the last time I fished,” Li Lianhua murmured amongst their argument. He frowned at the line, thinner than he remembered. Hulijing nosed at his hands as he investigated, and he petted her flank absentmindedly. “I’m much better with traps.”

“Fine!” Fang Duobing all but shouted at Di Feisheng, jerking a thumb to gesture at himself. “This young master will cook dinner for the week if I lose, but you’ll see! I won’t lose! In return, you have to buy everything I listed if you lose! And I eat a lot!”

Di Feisheng didn’t bother to respond, instead letting the silence fluster Fang Duobing more. 

“I am not,” Fang Duobing repeated with an expression that was more pout than frown, “going to lose!”

— 

Nearly a whole sichen later, Di Feisheng was starting to regret the wager. 

“No, no,” Fang Duobing was saying, arms around Hulijing since his fishing pole had been tied to the side of the boat. “That definitely counts. That’s a catch!”

“It counts,” Di Feisheng agreed quickly. 

Li Lianhua was staring at the snag of weeds he reeled in, frowning. The deep line between his brows betrayed his genuine upset, although his posture was still relaxed— far more relaxed than both Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing, who each caught two fish (Di Feisheng’s being much larger) before they realised that Li Lianhua had yet to catch a single one. 

“Look at it,” Fang Duobing was saying with round, panicked eyes. “How many is that? Three clumps now? That counts as three! We can dry it and use it for seasoning later.”

“This isn’t the ocean,” Li Lianhua pointed out. He flicked the clump of weeds back into the water despite Fang Duobing’s protests. “You can’t eat that, Xiaobao.”

“I could try,” Fang Duobing insisted weakly. 

Li Lianhua sighed, looking slightly aggrieved as he checked their surroundings. They managed to drift a good distance into the large lake, and the shore looked far away. The sky was calm, and the winds dissipated to a mild breeze to help keep them cool under the sunlight. It really was a perfect day for fishing. There were a few other boats out as well, although they were larger and far away, and looked to be pulling in entire nets. 

“It’s fine,” he said, “I already had plans for a new recipe tonight.”

“You can have my catch,” Di Feisheng offered generously. “It can count as yours.”

“Mine, too,” Fang Duobing quickly offered on the other side. “We’ll just start over—”

“That’s cheating,” Li Lianhua said, although there was a subtle upward curve to his lips. “There’s only three of us, and we all know the count. But I will take the fish to cook for tonight.”

Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing exchanged a look, and came to an agreement. 

“Well,” Fang Duobing said awkwardly. “Who says this contest is over? We still have time.”

— 

They stayed out on the water until the sun was ready to set, until they all shifted in the tiny space to find the most comfortable spot, until Li Lianhua’s back was pressed flush against Di Feisheng’s, a line of warmth in the slowly cooling air. The boat was small and too narrow to comfortably sit two next to each other for an extended amount of time, but sharing a seat was still doable if each was facing the opposite direction. 

Fang Duobing, who had been attempting to give entirely nonsensical directions in an effort to help Li Lianhua catch more fish, finally gave up and was dozing lightly with a cloth covering his head for shade, sprawled at the front of the boat among the netting with his arms crossed, and his legs sprawled askew over Li Lianhua’s lap. Hulijing was curled up underneath the seats, also dozing. 

While Li Lianhua was still holding onto his fishing pole, Di Feisheng had done the same as Fang Duobing and tied his pole to the edge of the boat, undisturbed unless there was a bite on the line. He had his eyes closed and hands atop his knees, breathing evenly in a semi-meditative state, curiously relaxed despite the open environment. 

“How did you learn how to fish?” Li Lianhua asked softly in the stillness of the sunset. 

Di Feisheng breathed out, taking his eye and not bothering to open his eyes as he responded, “I haven’t before like this. Catching them with my hands was more effective back then.”

He could feel Li Lianhua’s slightest movement against his back, as the other asked, “...Back then?”

Di Feisheng wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about it. But he was calm, calmer than if anyone else dared to ask. “Before Jinyuan Alliance.”

It was several ke before Li Lianhua spoke again. “...When I was younger, I thought about being a weaponsmith. I tried, a few times. Swords were so beautiful to me that I wanted to make something that beautiful myself. But I was never any good at it.”

“...so you gave up?”

He could feel Li Lianhua shrug. “I also liked martial arts, and that I was good at. It made sense. It was a passing fancy. I never had the patience for the forge. Just the fascination.”

Di Feisheng thought about them sitting there, on a cramped boat, with Li Lianhua calmly and patiently waiting for a catch that would never bite, and not once expressing any upset over it. Not even when Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng were both also there, both inexperienced in the craft and surpassing him in their first try. 

He thought Li Lianhua might have made more use of the time if he were the one stuck the the repeat of days, and perhaps he could use that time to relearn how to forge. Within the repeats, Di Feisheng was calm. He knew how the day would end, how it would begin again, and the repetition eased the constant sense of urgency within him. So long as the day kept repeating, the future was pushed to a comfortable distance. There was no immediate threat, not even bicha. 

Di Feisheng had never felt like this before. 

He wondered, if they managed to get through everything, if he found the Styx flower, if this was how things could feel like. The endless drifting of waves gently splashing against the boat, the rocking motion and the breeze against his face. The line of warmth against his back, shifting slightly whenever Li Lianhua moved to pat at Fang Duobing’s leg. 

This was the information, Di Feisheng understood, that he asked for. 

“After this is all over,” he requested, eyes still closed, “make me one.”

— 

This time, when Di Feisheng woke in Lotus Tower after a day out on the water and an evening under the stars, he felt calm. There was a sense of peace, along with regret, lingering with the taste of wine and charred fish. He recalled Hulijing kicking up sand running around the fire they built by the shore, and sparring with Fang Duobing while Li Lianhua called out corrections on the side, his suggestions more and more ridiculous until Di Feisheng upended him from his seat on a log. 

It was morning now, and Fang Duobing’s elbow was digging into his side. The birds were loud in the forest, and the sun already making its way above the mountains, and… 

Somehow, there was a sense of grief. 

[shamera]

NaNo day 21

...i took the day off writing yesterday and used my free time to read, whoops. it seems my brain doesn't want to do the writing thing anymore, so i moved back to the time loop story!

short update, but i think i just missed dfs even if he sure didn't miss me and the frustration i like to put him through.

“Here,” Di Feisheng indicated on the map Wuyan brought. “Cross out all the places above. And one more thing.”

Wuyan didn’t dare object, and bowed before he left.

— 

“Where is everyone?” Fang Duobing asked as they walked through the village. He was peering around, craning his neck around corners as if the townsfolk were merely playing a game that he might win should he find them. It was strange mostly because there were stalls already out, and some food gone cold yet no people to eat or man the area. 

On an otherwise brisk but beautiful day, the entire village was silent. 

“Who knows?” Di Feisheng offered casually, looking away specifically. He didn’t have to look back to know that Li Lianhua was giving him a suspicious stare, but by the time he glanced back at the others, the physician was already studying one of the empty tables with interest. 

Li Lianhua ran a finger down the wooden grain of the table, and then lifted it up to check, rubbing his fingers together. 

“There’s ash,” he said with surprise, bringing his hand up to sniff delicately. “Trace amounts, but something was burnt here earlier. Not too long ago. The people might have evacuated thinking there was a fire.”

“Very effective.” Di Feisheng observed. 

Li Lianhua gave him another look, but didn’t comment further on the words. “I suppose we’ll have to investigate the area for today and wait until the people come back to ask about the missing travellers.”

“Tomorrow?” Fang Duobing’s voice was dismayed, but he merely scowled as he crossed his arms. “I’d rather take care of it today.”

Li Lianhua flicked his fingers. “There’s no rush.”

They searched through the village with far less hassle this time around, but also coming up with far less clues as to what happened to the travellers. 

“Let’s head down this path,” Di Feisheng suggested after the other two refused to rummage through the abandoned homes of the villagers. It meant they hadn’t found key items, but at the same time it meant they weren’t hassled by aggressive strangers. 

“Why?” Li Lianhua asked suspiciously from where he was resting next to a lopsided wooden fence. “You’ve been behaving strange all day, A-Fei.”

Luckily, it seemed Fang Duobing was a little too preoccupied poking through a fire pit a little too large and close to the village centre. Di Feisheng had seen the pit enough times to know that it was there normally and therefore not the source of whatever fire Fang Duobing was looking for. 

“A hunch,” Di Feisheng responded, and turned to leave, knowing the other two would eventually follow him. 

He leads them (suspiciously) to the well and the cavern where the dungeon was, and then (suspiciously) refuses to say how he knew that would be there. For all the times Di Feisheng had quietly attempted to get them to believe that he was repeating the same day over and over, he didn’t want to have that conversation today. 

He generally didn’t want to be called upon to explain how the previous iteration of ‘today’ ended. He just wanted to finish searching through the dungeon to see if they could find something particular or strange, and then perhaps take the next several iterations of ‘today’ away from this place. 

He wasn’t even looking to end the repeats. There were still things he wanted to accomplish if given the extra time. The distant sense of urgency to find a solution to the repeats from the previous day had already faded, but Di Feisheng’s irritation concerning this village had yet to do so. 

“Don’t,” he warned as they searched, “go into the cells. There’s an incendiary trap in there.”

Now it was Fang Duobing frowning at him. “How do you know that?”

Di Feisheng thought for a moment, and then replied, “Ask me this tomorrow.”

They found nothing of use, and when they returned to Lotus Tower for the night, Wuyan reported in the negative and Di Feisheng crossed out another section of the map. 

He spent the late evening practising his sword forms, an uneasy feeling building within as he took his frustrations and uncertainty out on the trees surrounding him. Even as the candle light of Lotus Tower was blown out, he stayed out under the moonlight until he fell asleep resting against the roots of a tree.

— 

Di Feisheng opened his eyes to an unoccupied bed the next day, and frowned. The birds were still chirping, but there was the smell of rice cooking and the distinct sounds of murmuring and footsteps below him. 

He wasn’t… he was still staring up at the roof of Lotus Tower, but was it the next day?

He lifted an arm. He was back in his sleep clothes, although he was certain he fell asleep outdoors in full wear the previous night. He brought the sleeve to his arm and sniffed. No. Unless someone managed to wash him of the sweat accumulated from his training last night, it was just another loop. 

Yet this time, he overslept. 

Judging from the sounds, the two downstairs were trying not to wake him up in a surprisingly thoughtful turn. Di Feisheng moved out of bed slowly, taking stock of his own body as he moved. Nothing seemed amiss, and he certainly wasn’t feeling the exertion from the day previous. He felt as he had each morning for each repeat, and as the bed creaked and his feet hit the floor, he could hear the noises below him change. 

After dressing and strapping his sword to his back, Di Feisheng made his way down the stairs to Fang Duobing attempting to not so subtly push Li Lianhua away from the kitchen area with a spatula as he held onto the pan over the flames and Li Lianhua stirring a pot on a burner with a frown.

“A-Fei!” Fang Duobing called out cheerfully as he pushed through the door. “You sure slept in this morning. Just in time for breakfast, though.”

With bowls of watery congee and a plate of stir-fried vegetables, they sat and discussed the disappearances of several travellers in the village they were heading toward. Di Feisheng stayed quiet during their discussion, watching them for cues. Luckily, that was not unusual of him, although they gave him confused glances from time to time. 

“We probably could have been on our way already,” Fang Duobing bluffed (they never left this early, not in all the iterations) with a sly smile, leaning over the table. “If someone hadn’t overslept!”

Di Feisheng gave him a flat look and set down his empty bowl. 

“I’ll join you tomorrow.” He said. “Something came up today.”

Immediately, Fang Duobing’s smug expression melted into concern instead. It was unfortunate that his emotions were always so clear on his face, as Di Feisheng couldn’t understand how the young man could be a detective when he couldn’t bluff his way out of a wet paper bag. 

Li Lianhua, sitting opposite him, merely took the statement in stride. 

“Good luck on your endeavours,” the man told him, his bowl still more than half full. Half because he ate so slowly, and half because Fang Duobing kept piling more vegetables into it. 

“Wait, wait,” Fang Duobing waved his arms as Di Feisheng stood from the bench, catching their attention. He looked between Li Lianhua and Di Feisheng with concern. “Did something happen? I thought we agreed yesterday to do this together? We spent a week getting here!”

“Something came up,” Di Feisheng repeated, but then amended with a thought, “Go tomorrow. I’ll join you. Do something else today.”

“Like what?” Fang Duobing asked, bewildered.

“There’s a leak in the corner upstairs. Fix that.”

At that, Fang Duobing’s concern slid toward irritation. “Why me? It’s your room, too! You should help!”

“A-Fei,” Li Lianhua interjected smoothly, and Di Feisheng looked down toward him as he set his bowl down to pick up a cup of tea. “You’ll be back tomorrow, then?”

Underneath the cool nonchalance were sharp eyes turned his direction, and Di Feisheng didn’t bother to acknowledge or deny it. 

“Or today.” He said, because it was true. Should the day pass over to the next, he would be back. Should it not pass to the next day, then he would wake in Lotus Tower regardless. 

He called for Wuyan once he was a good distance away, and when the man appeared, Di Feisheng told him, “Today, I will join the search.”

That day, he directed his people around and up a stream, and that night he slept in an unfamiliar inn at an unfamiliar town, surrounded by those of the Jinyuan Alliance in the adjacent rooms, yet his heart continued to be uneasy over the difference in how he woke that day. 

— 

Di Feisheng wakes in Lotus Tower to the sound of early morning birds chirping and sunlight just starting to peek through the horizon through the blinds of the room. Fang Duobing’s elbow was jabbing him in the side, and the sense of relief he felt was so acute it was nearly a physical sensation. 

He goes downstairs in his night clothes and once more stares until Li Lianhua drags himself out of bed with sleepy complaints. 

“I have been living this day again and again.” Di Feisheng told him quietly as they waited for the water to boil for tea. “I have found different ways to predict events, and different secrets you have told me to help me in the next repeat, but I don’t believe you need to know any of that to believe me.”

“So you’re not going to tell me if a lightning strike suddenly breaks through the clouds?” Li Lianhua asked, a hand holding his sleeve back as he scooped tea leaves. The gesture was elegant, sure, and Di Feisheng watched as he carefully poured the near boiling water into the teapot, and then lifted the teapot to swirl the liquid around before emptying the first pour into a bowl to be dumped later. 

As he refilled the teapot, Di Feisheng responded, “That doesn’t happen. I thought I would need proof for you to believe me, but now I realise you’ve never disbelieved me.”

“You’re not the type to lie,” Li Lianhua said. “Especially not about strange events.”

It was true, but not merely in the sense that Di Feisheng didn’t waste time bothering with petty lies and made up stories. Every single time he revealed the repeat of days, Li Lianhua and Fang Duobing went along with whatever he said. If he claimed he was living the same day over and over and they needed to go elsewhere, then the three of them went elsewhere. If he claimed to know what happened and that they should delay a day, then they delayed a day.

It was a heady feeling, knowing that he could say something and they would go along with it, no matter how strange. 

Or perhaps, because of how strange his explanation was. 

Li Lianhua directed the second pour into two small teacups, and then set the teapot back down, releasing his sleeve and flicking his wrists to smooth out the cloth, actions so perfunctory he likely never noticed just how fussy he looked. 

Di Feisheng smiled at the action, picking up a teacup to savour the warmth and smell of it.

Li Lianhua narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“Nothing.” Di Feisheng told him, still smiling. He imitated Li Lianhua’s movement to draw attention to the superfluousness of it. It looked even more ridiculous when he did it, with his sleeves coiled up under his bracers. “You’re exceptionally vain.”

The other man looked affronted. “Is it vain to keep a clean appearance? I think you’re not using that word correctly, Lao Di.”

Di Feisheng downed the tea in one swallow like wine, savouring the burn on this tongue. It was a warmth that spread down his throat and through his chest, and he savoured it. 

Setting the cup back on the table with a click, he said, “Come with me today. We’ll untether the horses and ride out.”

Li Lianhua raised a brow, hands cradling the warmth of his own teacup without drinking it. “You want me to leave my house?”

“We’ll be back tomorrow,” Di Feisheng stated. One way or another, it would be true. We’ll go now.”

“We should wake Xiaobao up if—”

“He’ll find us.” Di Feisheng interjected. He hadn’t planned on keeping their tracks secret, and if Fang Duobing couldn’t find them, then… well, that would be a lesson to the young man to learn better tracking skills. Already, he pushed himself up from the bench and reached out a hand. “Another thing to teach that disciple of yours.”

Li Lianhua gave him a strange look at the extended hand, but then allowed Di Feisheng to pull him up off the seat. 

Di Feisheng was smiling again, with the cool, calloused hand within his own. 

Li Lianhua sighed. “At least let me leave a message before he accuses us of leaving him behind again.”

[shamera]

DIDDLY DOG-GONE DONE IT

...okay time to finish this section if I can, I wanna at least try to finish part 1 of the Hunter AU before November ends, so we continueeeee

it's been, on average... 6k on the murder mystery before I gave up 13k for the time loop story so far 8k on the Love and Redemption fanfic 23k on the hunter au

[shamera]

NaNo day 23-25

I LIVE back with hunter au

so the first part felt fun but then I had a really hard time writing and got distracted by rl left and right so if it feels choppy... it is. that's what editing is for, right? that is if i keep most of this, hurhur.

I had an idea for this, I swear I did, but I kept meandering. Finally coming up to the end, though. of the part? of the story? idk, but we're finally coming to the part I imagined when I first started this, even if that image was nebulous in my head.

also scene not complete but my brain is done tonight

One thing that always irritated Fang Duobing about Li Lianhua was just how easy it was to trust the man. No matter how many times Fang Duobing watched him lie or cheat or weasel his way out of things, when it came down to it, Fang Duobing instinctively trusted Li Lianhua. 

At first he blamed it on his own inexperience with the world. Growing up ill, he had mostly been homeschooled until he recovered enough to be thrown into an exclusive and extremely rich private school where other children of diplomats and royalty attended, yet Fang Duobing never quite… connected the other children. He was different and intense and he didn’t share the same life goals as them. 

Unlike his schoolmates, he hadn’t wanted to inherit companies or marry up or maintain rich connections. Instead, he wanted to be a Hunter, someone who needlessly endanger their lives for little gain. Fang Duobing wanted to fight, wanted to get in the middle of things and get his hands dirty saving others. His frustration grew over the years as he found no one to share or understand his dream, and the last straw had been when his parents arranged his marriage to Princess Qiaoling. 

He was meant to inherit his mother’s company and his father’s name, marry the Princess and live a soft, sheltered life where his children would be even more powerful and the Fang and He lineage would be secured, and even more, of royal blood. 

When Fang Duobing first ran away from home, he made mistake after mistake that had his aunt hunting closely after him. He learned to pull out his sim card from his phone, learned to dress differently and cover his face in big cities due to surveillance at every corner, and circumnavigate paper money rather than rely entirely on paying via his phone. 

(Although he continued to make that last mistake again and again whenever he needed food or money, instead learning how to run faster than his aunt could catch him.)

With his inexperience with people, it just made sense that he kept getting tricked by Li Lianhua. 

Or, it would make sense if Fang Duobing ever learned from his mistake. 

Yet he didn’t know why, but when Li Lianhua snuck a look at him, Fang Duobing would understand exactly what he meant by the look. They communicated seamlessly in a manner that he wouldn’t notice until much later, when Fang Duobing could review the day and be breathless at how easily they navigated around each other. 

It must be, Fang Duobing determined early on, the storybook friendships. That’s how people felt about best friends, right? It was the type of connection seen on tv dramas, and the type of connection that Hunters would develop after years of fighting alongside each other. 

That would make sense except for the fact that Li Lianhua very obviously didn’t fight. 

He complained about long walks and lost his breath on stairs, and Fang Duobing was always the one doing the heavy lifting and fixing around Lotus Tower. He would have complained about it more if not for the fact that Li Lianhua really did get very sick from time to time, with no prior warning. 

And when he got sick, he would spend days in bed in a state that worried Fang Duobing tremendously. He couldn’t understand how the man survived to this point at all without someone to take care of him. 

After being caught by his aunt the first time (because! Li Lianhua! Snitched! On him!), Fang Duobing spent months back home seething over the betrayal, constantly trailed by maids, servants, and bodyguards paid to not let him out of their sights. He spent the time spamming Baichuan Court with requests and shoved his application and resume in their faces the entire time, only to be rejected time and again. 

It took months of intense studying and online spoofing for Fang Duobing to find a time where he managed to sweet-talk his mother into allowing him to one of her company parties, lying through his teeth about a sudden interest in a corporate career, especially since he was now not a child but in his twenties. 

His escape the second time had been so narrow he heard his aunt’s angry screaming while he was still climbing down over the wall of the private retreat, rolling down through the bushes in his suit in glee at finally escaping from the excessive overprotectiveness of his family. 

Goodbye, arranged marriage and arranged life and having the names of his nonexistent kids already picked out! He was going to go off and make a name for himself with his own blood, sweat, and tears, and he was going to fulfil his dreams of being a Hunter and fighting monsters and saving people— 

And then, somehow, he ran into Li Lianhua again in the first town he escaped to via the first long-distance bus he could find that didn’t require his identification for a ticket. 

He would have left, he really would have. He would have just turned around and made his way to the next town without acknowledging him at all, except Li Lianhua had been pale like he was still recovering from a recent bout of illness, and there was a girl standing with him that Fang Duobing recognised from a previous case together, and what was she doing there as well?

Apparently in Fang Duobing’s absence, Su Xiaoyong had taken it upon herself to trail after Li Lianhua, and Fang Duobing was having none of it. It just wasn’t proper, and so what if that view was old fashioned! Her following them had been funny originally when Fang Duobing was there the first time, but it wasn’t funny now that he wasn’t there!

So he bullied his way back into his room at Lotus Tower (which was his and not Su Xiaoyong’s!), and back into travelling with Li Lianhua again on the promise that the man wouldn’t rat Fang Duobing out to his aunt again. 

It was not even three weeks after that Fang Duobing found Li Lianhua having pulled out that ancient laptop of his at the kitchen, frowning at the horrible internet connection from where they were parked. 

“Why do you need that?” Fang Duobing asked then, surprised. He leaned to peek at the screen. “Does that thing even work? It must have existed along with the dinosaurs. I’ll get you a new one.”

A second later, he changed his mind. 

“Are you emailing my mother?” Fang Duobing shrieked, a hand shaking at Li Lianhua’s shoulder. “Why?!”

For someone usually so sickly, Li Lianhua didn’t bat an eye at being shaken like that. “We have a rapport. She asked me about you, I thought it was only polite to respond. She wants to know if you’re still alive and standing.”

That wasn’t all of it, from what Fang Duobing could read on the screen. He Xiaohui included quips about her day and random cooking recipes, along with thanks for recommending the acupuncturist for her sore shoulder. She had jokes on the side. She used emojis in the messages. 

It wasn’t until the post-script that she asked about her son’s well-being. 

P.S., she wrote, is my darlingest Xiaobao still alive?

Then he saw Li Lianhua respond with ‘he's reading this right now ‘before Fang Duobing attempted to wrestle that laptop out of his hands, but not before the man managed to hit send. 

And that was how Fang Duobing learned he didn’t need to be as careful with his phone use and purchases, because his mother had known where he was all along and was only mad he didn’t tell her himself. 

(Although perhaps he had been a little too ambitious in thinking he could hide from his mother, the head of a company on innovative technology who happened to moonlight in R&D as well.)

“Now I’m glad you don’t have a phone,” Fang Duobing griped afterward. Despite his extensive badgering about getting Li Lianhua a phone (mostly so he could find the ever elusive man), Li Lianhua had remained steadfast in his adherence to living like an old man. Fang Duobing shuddered to think of his family on a WeChat group with Li Lianhua, who could be documenting Fang Duobing’s greatest failures on the daily. He thought of his own collections of photos and videos around Lotus Tower, mostly of Hulijing because she was the cutest dog in existence, but also of Li Lianhua cooking, or drinking tea, or tucked into a corner and reading, or— 

“I somehow remember a certain someone badgering me about needing a phone for everyday use,” Li Lianhua said, even as he shut down the laptop and packed it away once more. “From messaging to paying for things, to maps…”

“Eh!” Fang Duobing made panicked noises to stop the other man from continuing. “Who said that, huh? Not just me! It’s common sense— how do you survive the modern world without Alipay, anyway? No navigation, no contacts, no access to TaoBao…”

“I make do.” Li Lianhua replied with faux demureness. 

(Fang Duobing doesn’t manage to convince him to get a phone, although soon enough a brand new and high-spec tablet ends up in Lotus Tower just by coincidence, only to be thrown into the same compartment as the ancient laptop. After that, he stuck to purchasing newer kitchen appliances instead. At least the air fryer was a hit.)

Two days later, they exposed a supplier for illegal dungeon materials who attempted to drug them, only for Li Lianhua to take one look at the tea and smile sweetly before diverting attention and dumping the cup below his sleeve, barely needing to nudge Fang Duobing’s foot for him to do the same. 

After that they managed to come up with the same plan, executing it at the same time without saying a word about it to each other. They gave the same story to the police who showed up afterward as well, even in separate rooms and even without having corroborated beforehand. 

It was like having someone who knew exactly what was on his mind, and knowing exactly what was on his mind in return, even if Fang Duobing couldn’t quite comprehend his actions most of the time. The feeling was exhilarating enough that he couldn’t help but forgive Li Lianhua’s strange habits and awful lies. 

Because when and where it counted, Li Lianhua did live up to everything Fang Duobing hoped of him. 

He hid and he ran away and he lied endlessly, but Fang Duobing had always known the type of person Li Lianhua was, the same way they always knew each other’s decisions and actions. It was the connection of a lifetime— he met Li Lianhua and he just knew.

He knew. 

Staring at the view before him now, within the domain of the boss dungeon, Fang Duobing found he really didn’t know anything at all. 

With most of the tendrils of the monster cut off, it was like half the body disappeared after the sword swing (sword? What sword? Where did that sword come from?), unbalancing the large beast and bringing its heavy body crashing forward, the darkness it hide between the tendrils disappearing amidst the glow of the grass as it hit the ground, only for the shrieking noise to grow even louder, louder until Fang Duobing wasn’t sure if his ears would soon be bleeding. 

Li Lianhua (tired, sickly Li Lianhua who couldn’t even be bothered to carry his own groceries) wasted no time as he dashed forward into a sprint, the faint glow of the sword blending in with the surroundings as he darted around the falling monster to jump atop it, the movements so graceful Fang Duobing almost felt like time slowed for it as he lept, weightless, landing with just one foot on the hulk of the monster before he pushed off again before gravity could set in, spinning in an effortless movement to balance atop the crashing body and evade the renewed tendrils that came from the other side of the monsters as its form split once more, shorter now, yet no less deadly in its force. 

Fang Duobing was too far away to see clearly, the movements and the dust blurring the battle, but he knew that footwork. He knew the slash, that sidestep, that evasion. 

He’d been studying it since he was ten years old, attempting to find every video and snippet the internet had of the famous Sigu Sect founder, eyes wide with wonder and reverence. He read every article, replayed every clip of every fight with breathless marvel as teen prodigy Li Xiangyi climbed his way to the top of the world of Hunters. Every shaky phone footage from civilians who managed to catch seconds when Li Xiangyi was challenged by other Hunters, only for him to end the fight almost instantly, within only a few moves. 

The famed Whirling Steps of Xiangyi Swordplay, as light and easy as laughter. 

(But it couldn’t be!)

The tendrils were moving faster now, focusing on the ones with spikes down the side, readily destroying even the body of the monster in attempts to target Li Lianhua, who evaded the attacks easy as breathing, and turned to hack those tendrils off as well, the ground shaking with each and every heavy fall of monster parts, the flash of a blue sword cutting swiftly and deftly like a knife through butter. 

With the closest tendrils taken care of, Li Lianhua was pulled back into action atop the monster, amongst the splattered dark blood and gore, and the dug his sword in the body of the creature, nearly to the hilt as it thrashed and screamed, attempting to buck him off even as he clung onto the blade. 

The creature’s movement seem to turn against itself, though, as the blade sank to create a deeper and wider cut as it moved, until Li Lianhua pulled the sword out and then sank it in again in a different location, doing this several times in a row until he drew away to once again battle the remaining tendrils. 

Ten seconds, twenty seconds, and the creature that was the size of a house was getting hacked into pieces, and blood splattered carelessly over Li Lianhua’s pale clothes and skin, half hidden by the curtain of dark hair. 

It took less than a minute before all the tendrils were gone, and the body of the beast was merely twitching on the ground, cut nearly in half by the glowing blue blade, which remained free of blood despite its owner being half covered in it by now. 

And then the monster collapsed, the endless shrieking finally halted as it began falling apart like a pile of snakes to reveal the darkness it had been protecting inside, a gaping maw of abyss that grew and lifted, and Li Lianhua was standing right there—

“Look out!” Fang Duobing shouted out, immediately pushing himself onto his shaking feet as if he could make it over in time to add action to his warning. 

Li Lianhua pushed himself back from the expanding darkness, expression veiled underneath his hair, and for a moment Fang Duobing thought he might have looked back at him. 

And then all the glow in the dungeon went out, sending the world into a pitch black. 

— 

He didn’t pass out, and he didn’t merely lose sight of everything. 

Between one moment and the next, all the light was gone and even the world dropped out from under his feet, leaving only the sensation of falling without wind, of dropping forevermore in a vast and empty void, like crashing and sinking in the ocean as all his senses dulled along with his vision. 

It was cold and numbing, like pressure along his skin yet there was nothing there. Like there was no air to breathe, but he might yet be crushed in this nothingness, by the nothingness. 

Fang Duobing knew his eyes were open, that he was reaching upward, yet he could not feel nor see his actions. Without sensation, he came the devastating realisation— 

This was within the monster. 

Distantly, he remembered a story about a man swallowed by a whale, and wondered if this fate could be compared to that. 

He wondered until he felt something grab the back of his collar, and drag him up. 

Up and up and up and this time there was a sense of direction, of place, and Fang Duobing gasped for breath and found that there was no air in this void of darkness, no existence outside of this grasp on his clothes pulling him along, and he— 

He breathed. 

Moreover, he choked and he coughed and he curled into a ball as gravity asserted itself on his limbs again and he felt like he weighed a thousand tonnes, pressed into the ground on shaking limbs that came away almost wet but not with a black substance like tar yet felt like it wasn’t there at all. Like black smoke if smoke were opaque at all times and clung the way tar did. 

“Good,” a shaking voice said next to him, and the pressure on his collar disappeared. “Good.”

The familiarity of the voice was enough to remind him of his situation, and Fang Duobing shot out an arm to grab at Li Lianhua’s wrist. “A-are… Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” Li Lianhua’s tone was full of fond exasperation, even if Fang Duobing was still blinking dark spots from his vision, only to realise it really was that dark— at least, there was only the barest of light where they were, and he didn’t know where that luminescence came from. He could barely see Li Lianhua’s shape, and even that was difficult as the other man was also covered head to toe with the solidified darkness still dripping off him in clumps from his hair. “Fang Duobing, you’re the one who— didn’t I tell you not to open your eyes or move?”

“I counted,” Fang Duobing croaked out, although he didn’t claim to have done the complete count. His throat felt like it was on fire, yet each breath of air felt cleaner and fresher than the last. “But you—”

“Forget that part,” Li Lianhua said grimmly. “We have to get out now, before the dungeon collapses. Can you stand, or should I carry you?”

The words felt like a dream. Carry me? Fang Duobing was almost tempted to laugh. If anything, he expected it to be the other way around with the two of them in a dungeon, and yet— and yet. 

That wasn’t the case anymore, was it?

Fang Duobing had been prepared to charge forward into the unknown with no real weapon, determined to keep himself between Li Lianhua and danger because despite all their usual bickering and the trouble they got into regularly, Li Lianhua was often sickly and ill. He had a heart condition and a terrible immune system, and he was pale and often didn’t eat healthy enough or just enough in general, and despite the lies and the arguments and betrayals… Fang Duobing had always wanted Li Lianhua to be safe. 

Li Lianhua could keep a level head in any situation, but Fang Duobing was meant to be the one keeping both of them safe. 

Fat lot of good he did, and Li Lianhua— 

Li Lianhua— 

“No,” Fang Duobing insisted, the rasp in his voice giving way to a surge of anger. Grief. Betrayal. Of all the things, he never considered that Li Lianhua would lie about his own health, about who he was in general. Did he ever really know the other man? If they really had a connection, if they truly understood each other the way Fang Duobing always thought they did, then how did he miss this? 

How could Li Lianhua hide this? Lie about this? 

What a connection. What a similar mindset they had. With the monster now not an immediate threat, he couldn’t think of anything other than this. His entire being felt like his thoughts were resonating with this information. Was it truly a connection or had Li Lianhua lied about that as well? He lied about his identity, about his health, about little and big things, he’d lie about the colour of the sky right to Fang Duobing’s face if it amused him, wouldn’t he? 

He would say that’s just the person Li Lianhua was, but Fang Duobing truly didn’t know, did he?

He always did think that Li Lianhua’s features looked a lot like Li Xiangyi, although he was too embarrassed to bring it up after a patient pointed out the resemblance and Li Lianhua merely laughed at that, pointing out that he would have to work on the dosage of his remedies if that’s what they thought. 

But Li Lianhua’s features were both softer and sharper than Li Xiangyi’s, limbs thinner with even his stride stiffer and slower compared to Li Xiangyi’s confident movements. 

Fang Duobing would know. He’d studied Li Xiangyi enough, and stared after Li Lianhua enough. 

“No, tell me now.” Fang Duobing said, hand tightening around Li Lianhua’s wrist. “Tell me what actually happened. Tell me the truth.”

[shamera]

NaNo day 22

...it exists, I promise! it's just that I did half my words in the time loop story and then half my words in the hunter AU, and I don't have the brain power to figure out how to post that. so. uhhhhhh.

have a snippet from the hunter au i thought was funny.

[shamera]

nano day 3

don't ask i'm definitely not proud

but at least i did some

This time, it was the star anise that was missing. 

Li Lianhua clicked his tongue at the missing ingredient, brows furrowed as he studied the array out on the counter already. They were out of chilli oil, and somehow each time this happened, there was an ingredient missing to delay Li Lianhua in making more. 

It couldn’t be helped, not when Fang Duobing continued to loudly and vehemently disparage Li Lianhua’s choice in spices whenever the young man made his way into the kitchen. It just meant that Li Lianhua had greater motivation to try even stranger dishes, and make sure to feed it to the others. 

Su Xiaoyong peered around him to take the empty containers, and gave it a sniff. 

“Star anise?” She guessed, and then brightened. “Does Fang Duobing think he can stop us by stealing ingredients? Well, I brought some with me! Don’t worry, Li-dage, I have my own pouch of herbs and spices we can use, and we can make sure dinner is extra spicy for him!”

Around them in the outdoor kitchen, the morning dew was still drying on fresh leaves, barely budding from branches after the harsh winter started giving way mere days ago. The weather was cool enough for them both to be in thicker cloaks, although the winter clothes were traded for something lighter to account for the warmer air and the fires keeping the kitchen warm with bubbling dishes. 

The visiting young woman set down the pestle and smoothed down the pale green of her dress before declaring, “I’ll go get it. Be right back!”

Her footsteps were quick and nearly silent, covered by the sounds of birds in the morning. If not for her bright greeting to Di Feisheng halfway down the path, Li Lianhua might have missed the footsteps coming up at the same pattern, camouflage in the sound of Su Xiaoyong’s steps. 

Instead, he collected the dried peppers and garlic, portioning them out as diligently as he would medicine. 

“Cooking this early in the morning?” Di Feisheng’s voice asked as the man stepped into the outdoor kitchen. “You said it was too cold in the mornings to do so just yesterday.”

“Xiaobao will be back from his latest case today.” Li Lianhua said, and heard the amused huff of air behind him. 

“...We’ll be having a strange dinner, then.”

Turning, Li Lianhua pointed a ladle at the man. “You’ve never complained!”

“Why would I? Food is food.”

It had taken months, nearly a year, before Di Feisheng would voluntarily eat Li Lianhua’s cooking, although he claimed it wasn’t the taste of it that was off putting. The man willingly ate everything put in front of him, once he could actually be coaxed into eating something other than plain rice or plain vegetables or plain meat. 

Seasoning, Li Lianhua found, was not something Di Feisheng cared for. It hid the taste of whether food was fresh or rotten, whether it was tampered with or not. It had taken months before the man willingly reached for one of Li Lianhua’s stranger dishes, an experiment on combining sour and salty that even Fang Duobing (who complained and complained but in the end usually ended up eating the most) would not touch. 

Once that happened, Di Feisheng became the one to finish off the plates that others wouldn’t touch, although he did prefer to fight Fang Duobing on the tastier dishes on a weekly basis. 

This time around, Li Lianhua planned on seasoning fish with hot oil— but rather than the ginger and salted scallions in oil, wouldn’t it be more flavourful to use chilli oil instead? He could, of course, include the ginger and salted scallions in chilli oil as well, and maybe this time Fang Duobing wouldn’t make ridiculous faces at the dish. 

That was, however, unlikely. 

Li Lianhua hesitated over a jar of dried herbs. It wasn’t something that was usually added as a food ingredient, but it was medicinal and good for the body… 

“You should add it,” Di Feisheng said, as if reading his thoughts. “It can’t hurt.”

There was a mild undertone of amusement colouring the words, and Li Lianhua gave a considering hum before agreeing, emptying the jar out into the wide mortar. If Xiaobao was going to complain about the taste anyway, might as well make it slightly better for him. 

“Here,” Li Lianhua offered his spot to Di Feisheng, who took up the pestle, “I’ll get started on the oil.”

They worked together in silence for some time before Su Xiaoyong came back with a small folded packet of spices. She lifted a hand to her nose as she got close, fingers under her nostrils as she grimaced. 

“Why is the scent so sweet?” She asked, “We haven't used any of the star anise yet.”

Sweet was good, right? That was the point of the star anise, and if they hadn’t managed to get any of that, then… 

“Is that vernal grass? That shouldn’t—”

But Di Feisheng continued to grind, expression blank even as Su Xiaoyong tried to shove herself between him and the mortar and pestle. “What of it?”

“It’s far too potent!” The young woman insisted, but then slumped when she realised she was already too late, and the grass had made itself a paste-like consistency amongst the other dried ingredients. “It’s going— it’s going to taste like grass—”

“Help me with the pan,” Li Lianhua said instead, distracting her as he went to pull out the small straw mat used for drying peanuts. She looked over his way, expression brightening at the thought of roasted peanuts. 

This was the scene Fang Duobing arrived at, hours later when the sun was high in the sky and the temperature warmed enough that all three cooks discarded their cloaks over the back of a wooden chair. 

The young man was dressed in several formal layers, embroidered blue robe underneath a gauzy layer that denoted his noble status alongside the silver-edged accessories and dyed leather bracers and belt. He still wore his hair in a high ponytail, although his bangs now brushed lower to be brushed back behind his ears. 

Li Lianhua imagined that the young man would complain about the mixture of scents, the amalgamation of different fragrances coming from the stove off-putting to even himself, although he remained rather stoic about it. Su Xiaoyong, on the other hand, had long since decided to tie a rag across her face, although she still seemed pleased to be there with him. 

Perhaps it was petty to raise such a reaction with Fang Duobing, but Li Lianhua found it a nice tradition for when the man came home again, and he— 

“Su Xiaoyong,” Fang Duobing said, no hint of having registered the smells at all. He looked exceptionally grim, holding onto a letter in his hands. “You’ve got news.”

— 

Su Xiaoyong excused herself after reading the letter, her normally bright and cheery exterior falling into something serious and blank, lips turned downward in upset. 

“So?” Di Feisheng asked after Fang Duobing wrested control of the ladle away from Li Lianhua, who did not give much resistance after they all fell quiet. The young man banked the fires, jaw tense as he settled all the boiling sauces. 

“There’s been an incident.” Fang Duobing confirmed, and then shook his head. “The last case went fine, but I received word after of an assassination attempt on Lord Su. He’s been moved from his estate for his own safety, and is likely requesting that his granddaughter join him. No one knows who did it, and no one knows why.”

“Lord Su is knowledgeable.” Li Lianhua said. “It’s likely he learned something he should not have.”

“Maybe.” Fang Duobing agreed. “Someone could want to kill him for that knowledge. But we don’t know what he knows, which means we have no leads on who it might be.”

They moved from the kitchen to an attached pavilion, away from the smoke for a fresh breeze, and Li Lianhua sat with a satisfied sigh. His knees had been particularly irritable lately, but he didn’t want to draw attention to his still healing body. So long as the present was an improvement from a season previous, it seemed a null point to complain. 

Di Feisheng sat opposite, while Fang Duobing settled next to him. 

“What if they know—?” Fang Duobing murmured, but Li Lianhua shook his head to stop him. 

“Why would anyone care about the identity of a failed poet?” Li Lianhua asked. “Lord Su has far more dangerous knowledge in his home and his books. Has there been anything he learned recently which might threaten anyway?”

“I don’t keep track of that,” Fang Duobing admitted. “Miss Su might.”

There was a good chance Su Xiaoyong might not know, with the time she spent visiting Yunji Pavilion in recent months. It hadn’t been too long since Madam Qin finally allowed long-term visitors since the past years Li Lianhua had still been too sickly to entertain. True to form, however, Su Xiaoyong wheedled her way into visiting as often as she could, bringing along with her presents and compliments until Madam Qin smiled and preened at the young woman’s presence. 

(“This place could do with a woman’s touch for things I am too old to maintain,” Shiniang told him the last time he had been feverish and bedbound, patting his hand placatingly between her mending. “You young man help care for this place plenty, but you haven’t the eye for things the way women would.”) 

“If she knew,” Li Lianhua said, “she may be a target as well.”

There was no need to target Su Wencai for fame or money, not when the scholar was well-known to be quite modest in wealth and demeanour. His greatest contribution was his mind and library of knowledge in his brain. 

Two years ago, the famed scholar took a trip with his granddaughter to visit an ailing man, and between him and Madam Qin, they came up with a new identity for Li Lianhua, one that would escape the interests of the imperial court for just how simple it was. Qin Huahua would be the wayward son of Madam Qin, a failed poet who studied under Su Wencai for a time before returning home to support his ageing mother. Li Lianhua had written terrible poetry and limericks until his hand ached for Lord Su to take back with him, using as evidence of a student that might have resided with the usually secluded scholar on and off for a period of years. 

With the discrete help of Yang Yunchun, they managed to rustle up official documentation papers just a bit altered for Li Lianhua. He had yet to use the identity, although that was only because Li Lianhua had yet to leave Yunji Pavilion for any amount of time outside of some walks through the mountain searching for herbs. 

Instead, for the past two years Yunji Pavilion opened to a variety of guests, the public reasoning being that Madam Qin was giving martial arts advice for those who sought her out, and unofficially so that those in the know could visit and assuage their worries over Li Lianhua’s steadily improving health. It had taken almost four years since the Styx flower, but he felt far healthier than he had toward the end. 

“I sent inquiries to Tianji Hall,” Fang Duobing admitted as he reached within his bag to bring out three bright persimmons, setting two on the table and taking out a short knife to deftly slice the last one into long slices, the inside barely starting to soften into ripeness. Di Feisheng took one of the ones on the table and bit into it, not caring to so much as brush off the surface. “So far no one knows why anyone would target Lord Su. He’s been on good terms with— everyone, really. No new trade treaties, no abnormal source of income, no recently learnt secrets.”

Fang Duobing hesitated a second, then continued to slice, “Apart from you, that is.”

With that, he handed Li Lianhua one of the slices. 

“Then it has to do with us?” Di Feisheng asked. 

“I don’t know,” Fang Duobing said. “And I don’t like it. Whether it does or not, it might be best if we don’t stay here for the time being. If Lord Su was attacked, then I don’t want to bring trouble to Yunji Pavilion. I’d rather no one even found out about this place.”

Li Lianhua didn’t respond to that, occupying himself with the winter fruit. It was true that it wouldn’t do to bring trouble to Yunji Pavilion, yet it was also heavily defended and one of the safest places in the world. 

Fang Duobing handed him another slice after he finished the first, the young man’s brows furrowed in thought even as he refrained from eating as of yet. 

“I know where to go.” Su Xiaoyong’s voice called out from a distance away. Li Lianhua lifted his gaze to see the young woman halfway across the courtyard, complexion wan in the bright sunlight. She walked toward them, each step purposeful and determined. Despite the shock prior, her back was straight and her head held high. 

Normally, Fang Duobing would turn up his nose at her presence, a gesture mirrored by Su Xiaoyong herself in a childish rivalry and lead to the both of them competing heavily in almost everything either of them did, whether it be cleaning dishes or carrying heavy loads. Li Lianhua thought it was rather sweet that the two got along so well, even if both denied it vehemently. 

Now, Fang Duobing only said, “You should stay here. No one knows you’re here.”

Su Xiaoyong made her way over to the table and slapped her palms down on it. “You’re sure about that? Grandfather didn’t leave much information, but he’s told me a little about the exchange of information in the jianghu, and if there’s information about potential assassins that Tianji Hall and Baichuan Court has no knowledge of, then there’s one more place to look.”

Fang Duobing gave her a flat look, more reminiscent of their usual antics. He gave Li Lianhua a third slice, despite him not being finished with the second. “The Imperial Court doesn’t keep tabs on the jianghu like that. If they did, they’d go to Tianji Hall.”

“Not the court.” She said, and jabbed at the table with a finger. “And not somewhere any of us have been before. It’s Hongling Garden.”

Fang Duobing scoffed. “That’s a children’s tale.”

“It’s not! It’s a base for assassins, but, look,” Su Xiaoyong snatched the last of the persimmons, prompting Fang Duobing to make an offended noises in protest. “I know where it is. I asked grandfather a long time ago, and he told me I shouldn’t go there unless there was life or death knowledge that I needed. And now he tells me that I can’t come home, and that he doesn’t know what’s going on but he also can’t leave where he’s at.”

She took a large bite of the persimmon, chewing angrily and swallowing before adding, “So I’m going to figure this out myself! Someone is targeting my grandfather, and he doesn’t know who or why, and if this person finds him, they might try again and this time succeed. This is a matter of life and death to me, and I’ll go myself if I have to.”

“Take that sworn brother of yours with you.” Di Feisheng suggested, both helpful and not. 

“Guan-xiong has been busy with a long-term patient lately.” Su Xiaoyong admitted, shoulders slumping. “And if I take him, they’ll know who I am immediately. So this time…”

She pointed the bitten persimmon at Fang Duobing. 

“I’ll need your help!” She claimed, and then scrunched up her nose as if she couldn’t believe what she just said. “At least. Fang Duobing, I need you to lend me your reputation.”

“For what?” The young man exclaimed, frowning. “You have your own!”

“Oh, don’t fuss.” She told him. “You’ll like it as much as I hate it.”

HuaHua as in 嘩嘩, not flower. I wanted a homonym, so I went with 'the sound of flowing water' Hongling Garden, as 紅嶺園 I got lazy here, so it's Red Ridge Garden.

[shamera]

NaNo day 30

...I missed a day yesterday because I spent the whole time reading The Lone Necromancer. Whoops?

Today's is kinda a mess, but this is basically how far I got for NaNo and I figured I should put that last bit out even if it ends nearly in the middle of a sentence, lol. But that gives me a place to go back to when I get back to this story, because sometimes all you need is to be able to continue and finish off a sentence before you're back in the story mindset again!

Goodbye for now, hunter au! The more I think about it, the bigger this story gets, so I'm sorry we didn't manage to get to DFS yet because that part was meant to be pretty funny, lol.

(THIS PART TO BE DELETED BC SINCE WHEN DID LLH EVER OFFER INFORMATION TO FDB?? NEVER, THAT'S WHEN.)

“If Baichuan Court hasn’t accepted you yet, they’re not going to accept you now.” The man said, breaking all of Fang Duobing’s dreams. “It’s never been about whether you had the qualifications or not, it’s about the fact that your mother holds the building deed.”

“What?” Fang Duobing said blankly. 

“You didn’t know?”

He was lucky they didn’t crash into another car before Fang Duobing managed to pull to the side, hastily parking on the side of the street before he turned to give the ghostly figure of Li Lianhua his full attention. 

“You didn’t know.” Li Lianhua concluded, and shrugged, not offering more information. 

“No!” Fang Duobing exclaimed, because he hadn’t known. With the way his family tended to avoid Hunter affairs despite being right in the middle of them, it didn’t make sense. His mother looked down on the Sects and the corner they carved into the market, citing that there was no point to enter dungeons if rescue missions weren’t a priority after defeating dungeons became illegal. 

Hunters, she used to say, could do so much good in the world rather than throwing their attention into the wealth and commercial gain that was raiding dungeons. Fang Duobing always figured that Tianji Hall’s current business existed because she aimed to regulate and authenticate items so that Hunters could not scam the common populace. He certainly heard enough stories from her ranting while growing up, all about con men and arrogant ne'er-do-wells who deserved to be behind bars rather than seen by the public as ‘heroes’. 

“Now you know,” Li Lianhua said generously. 

“That’s a conflict of interest!” Fang Duobing exclaimed, fuming. No wonder his parents never seemed too concerned by his attempts to continually throw himself against the wall that was Baichuan Court. He thought they would at least approve he was aiming there rather than a lower Sect, since Baichuan Court was known to regulate Hunters rather than dungeon dive. 

“Not really. Both Tianji Hall and Baichuan Court keep track of Hunters and Sects, and deal with the flow of information. I kept telling you to go back home and join your family’s company if you wanted to be in Baichuan Court so badly—”

He had said that numerous times, but Fang Duobing always assumed Li Lianhua was urging him to give up on an useless endeavour. 

…Did it really matter now, knowing who Li Lianhua was? All Fang Duobing wanted as a child was to hold tight to the connections left in the world by Li Xiangyi. 

(END OF PART TO THE DELETED)

“Just,” Li Lianhua finally sounded like he had given up trying to argue. “...Fine. But after this, can you please just— pick up Hulijing?”

Fang Duobing nearly hit the horn as he startled, realising that was what he had forgotten about. 

“Hulijing,” he gasped out, because they all disappeared into the dungeon and then he was at the hospital for two days and then another day at his childhood home, and—

“She’s fine,” Li Lianhua said, staving off the panic. “Your mother picked up Lotus Tower, remember? I’m sure she’s taking care of Hulijing as well, but I’d rather see how she’s doing myself.”

That was fair. That was entirely fair, because now that he thought about it, Fang Duobing wanted to make sure the sweet dog was alright. He wouldn’t even question why his mother might know where the spare keys to Lotus Tower were. He shouldn’t. 

“You’re thinking something strange again and you need to stop.” Li Lianhua told him. 

“I’m not,” Fang Duobing denied, but then started driving again as the light changed. “I’ll go pick her up afterward." (CONTINUE SCENE, BRAIN EMPTY)

It was Shi Shui who greeted him after the secretary called her down. 

“Fang Duobing,” she said in exasperation, barely making a noise as she stepped over the floor with her sensible flats. Rather than a business suit, she was wearing gear for Hunters, a black bodysuit underneath lavender silks and various light armour, with her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. Had it not been for her severe expression and the grander than life presence she constantly put off, someone might have called her petite and delicately-boned. 

Yet as one of the four leaders of Baichuan Court (and the only woman after Qiao Wanmian refused the position, citing that she would visit but wanted to retire from the Hunter life), there were very few in the world who could fight on par with her, and no one who dared call her delicate to her face. 

In fact, there were very few who could arouse such irritation on her features and not run away. 

“Jiejie,” Fang Duobing greeted brightly, the same way he had for the past three years of him visiting Baichuan Court again and again, hoping in vain to win her over so that she might put in a good word for him. 

“Are you here to try again?” She asked, although he could detect a note of fondness (Fang Duobing absolutely knew she appreciated his tenacity, he just knew it even if she would never show it). “My condolences for what happened at Tianji Hall, but the answer is—”

“Actually,” Fang Duobing interrupted her, holding up his hands in askance. “There’s something I’d rather like to talk to the leaders about. In private, if that’s alright.”

— 

Unlike the modern highrise that was Tianji Hall tower in the middle of the city, Baichuan Court was several kilometres away from the major metropolitan areas, set in a sprawling property nestled into a mountain with classical architecture and wide courtyards. Stepping inside felt like he was stepping back several centuries with intricacies in the detail of the structures. Fang Duobing almost felt like they should be wearing hanfus rather than modern clothing when walking through the area. 

All four leaders of Baichuan Court had once been Li Xiangyi’s subordinates in Sigu Sect, and part of his personal raid party. They were famous for having a raid party consisting entirely of offensive fighters rather than designating defence. No one stayed back, no one was even a long-ranged fighter. 

Every single one of them had chosen to wield a sword, and every single one of them fought on the front lines with a synergy that ensured there was no friendly fire. 

Fang Duobing had met all of them at various points the last few years to argue his case, but he had never managed to grab all four of them at once (nor did he want to— his plan had be to get one of them to allow him in, and then that person could vouch for him against the others). 

“Young master Fang,” Ji Hanfo acknowledged politely, often the first to start a conversation. “I’m glad to see you well from what happened at Tianji Hall, but…”

Fang Duobing stepped forward, knowing he couldn’t allow them to reject him once more. 

“Actually, I’m here on behalf of that.” Fang Duobing said quickly. “I know you have questions on what happened to that dungeon, but I have a few questions as well. My aunt found CCTV footage of several former Jinyuan Alliance members hanging around afterward, and there’s suspicion of their involvement—” 

“That can’t be,” Yun Biqiu spoke up from where he was sitting, frowning. “Jinyuan Alliance has been disbanded for a decade now. The majority of its members were arrested for various crimes, and the rest are dead.”

“Presumed dead,” Fang Duobing stated. He glanced at each of them. “Their bodies were never found, right?”

Not Di Feisheng, and not dozens of members who originally participated in the last dungeon raid. They were all originally presumed dead, alongside Li Xiangyi and over fifty members of Sigu Sect as well in that last battle. 

“Are you suggesting that Jinyuan Alliance could somehow have something to do with the reason why the previous dungeon disappeared?” Shi Shui asked him. 

Fang Duobing leaned forward eagerly. “What if,” he started and hesitated for a dramatic pause. “They had something to do with the opening of the dungeon to begin with?”

“No one can cause a dungeon to form,” Bai Jiangchun shook his head. “And the idea of anyone— much less Jinyuan Alliance, being able to target— weaponise— them… that’s too outlandish! Fang Duobing, I understand that you may have concerns about what happened, but the formation of dungeons really is a random thing. If there really were former members of Jinyuan Sect looking around, it’s likely they were just trying to figure out what happened just like the rest of us.”

At least he wasn’t denying that there were Jinyuan Alliance members still around, and Fang Duobing rested behind his belt toward his inventory for his trump card, hand grasping onto the wooden sword as he said, “I have reason to believe—”

He was interrupted, not by any of the people in the room, but by a massive shaking of the ground underneath him, and the sound of stone groaning and grinding underneath them. 

“What—?” Bai Jiangchun gasped, holding onto Yun Biqiu next to him. “This is—?”

The smell of ozone and dust, the sharp glare of purple, and Fang Duobing’s last thought before his vision went black was a mixture of shock and exasperation, because there was just no way this was happening to him again, in the same week!

— 

It wasn’t dark this time, and he didn’t fall. The good thing was that Baichuan Court might exist atop a mountain, but it didn’t so much as have a second story to their buildings, so unlike Tianji Hall, there wasn’t anywhere to fall. 

Instead he landed in dense, plush grass that emitted a warmth that clung uncomfortably to his skin. 

It was sweltering in this dungeon, easily a ten degree difference at the very least. Rather than darkness and vast caverns like he experienced just previously, the dungeon this time was bright, lit from every side and angle while covered in colourful plants and flowers. 

It even looked like the sky when he glanced up. Or an approximation of a sky, anyway, if the sky was of a strange magenta colour and made him dizzy staring at it because it somehow looked close but far away at the same time, like a movie effect of a tunnel drawing closer and expanding further, except for the vast sky. 

Li Lianhua’s voice was in his ear as he said, “...You might actually be on to something this time.”

Next to him, Shi Shui was crouched gracefully, her entire posture instantly on alert, while the others stumbled a step in their shock at the sudden dungeon formation. 

“No way.” Fang Duobing fumed, now mad at himself not merely for falling into a dungeon twice in a week, but also that he hadn’t thought to equip himself after falling into a dungeon once, which meant he fell into a dungeon a second time without any proper weapons on him. Tianji Hall specialised in Hunter weapons and gear, and his family wouldn’t blink twice if he wanted to gear himself up after what happened just days ago. Why hadn’t he? 

A foolish, foolish mistake— 

“Tianji Hall tower, and now Baichuan Court?” Li Lianhua was inspecting their surroundings, his form nearly fading into the colours around them. “Jiangchun is right— no one’s been able to open gates, much less direct them, but the two organisations that keep Hunters in line, both besieged by a dungeon formation in the same week? Either you’ve got a hit out for you, or there really is a political agenda to this.”

“I’m not the only one caught up by both dungeons,” Fang Duobing hissed quietly under his breath toward Li Lianhua, eying Shi Shui carefully to make sure she wasn’t paying attention to him. She was standing up warily, helping the others, and pulling out a long, gleaming sword from her inventory. Fang Duobing hurried to stand after her, although he only had his dinky wooden sword in hand. 

Around them, the plants swayed in an invisible breeze, their colours bright and psychedelic, every leaf and stalk and stem oversized to the extreme. If the flowers could eat people, they could probably eat Fang Duobing whole in one bite. It was a dense garden if people were the size of mice and if plants were shoving each other for space in every step. Fang Duobing couldn’t even see the ground. 

“A newly formed dungeon?” Ji Hanfo exclaimed in disbelief. “This can’t be. We’ve just had one. There shouldn't be a second one so soon, and the chances are it wouldn’t even be in China, much less than same city. This is…”

Then he looked at Fang Duobing, who shook himself out of his bewilderment in an attempt to look serious and purposeful, like he had a point to his words rather than it being another way to get Baichuan Court to accept him as a member. 

“Tianji Hall, and now Baichuan Court,” he echoed Li Lianhua, who shot him a bemused look from where he wandered away. “Either someone is out to bring down Hunters, or… I’m just really unlucky.”

He thought he should be feeling scared right now. The last dungeon was… well, Fang Duobing still hadn’t worked out his mental state over that yet, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to yet. The last one had been harrowing, and it was brutal, and he was stressful in a way he never experienced before. 

This time, he watched as Shi Shui adjusted a pack strapped to her thigh and materialised her sword, and as the others— who were less ready to be drawn into a dungeon, but were still wearing clothes that signified Hunters, also pulled out their swords— and he didn’t feel as stressed this time. 

Maybe because last time he felt pressured to take responsibility, a little due to the fact that it was his employees in danger, and a lot because he and his aunt were the only Hunters of the group while the rest were civilians. 

Baichuan Court employed only Hunters, even if they did have civilian correspondents. That meant those who got pulled into this dungeon would all be experienced and seasoned Hunters, who knew how to keep any unfortunate people who also fell in safe. 

In this case, Fang Duobing was the amateur here, and he would get to follow along and observe how the professionals did it. 

To be honest, he was a bit excited. 

“Is that what you have?” Shi Shui asked him with her gaze on his wooden sword, partially covered by the tall grass. She shook her head, and then materialised another weapon to toss at him. “Here. Just this, and put that back in your inventory.”

It was a sword, although a very plain one. Fang Duobing caught it by the scabbard, and tested the solid heft and weight of it. A basic sword, it seemed, with no embellishments or specialisations. Likely a back-up weapon for her. Fang Duobing was used to wielding a better weapon during his training at home, but that had been a sword his mother prepared for him, and not one he carried around with him. 

“Thanks,” he told her, and bounced the sword up to check the weight of it before tucking his wooden one back into his inventory. “...I wasn’t expecting to be back in a dungeon like this.”

“No one ever is.” She told him, and then eyed the disappearance of his wooden sword. “You should keep more weapons in your inventory, just in case. It’s a feature to benefit Hunters. You should use it.”

He grimaced. “...My inventory is a little small. I can’t exactly fit a sword inside.” Or a bow, or arrows, or much of any kind of weapon, really. Maybe a dagger, but that would mean taking things out first. 

“That’s because you don’t have dungeon experience,” Yun Biqiu reassured him. The man was tying up his hair, and then reaching before himself into his inventory for a belt full of sharp implements and vials attached to it. “You just need a few kills in a dungeon. The items automatically end up in your inventory, and the more items you collect in one dungeon run, the bigger your inventory will stretch. Like a balloon, except the size doesn’t shrink again afterward. That’s why some Hunters used to—”

His words trailed off, and Fang Duobing wondered why for a moment until he saw Shi Shui glaring at Yun Biqiu. 

“Ahh, that doesn’t matter,” Bai Jiangchun interjected nervously. “Let’s find everyone and make our way out first before we—”

“Incoming!” Li Lianhua called out, and Fang Duobing reacted just in time as a vine underneath his feet swung upward in a deadly arc, a disorienting lime green colour that was also beset with orange tinted blossoms, each wider than a handspan each crowded on the vine. 

The others reacted even faster, Yun Biqiu ending up pulling Fang Duobing further away and Shi Shui charged in to jump and slashed off the vine before it could make its way back down. She landed back on the ground before the wiggling vine did. 

Fang Duobing stared, gaping at her reaction speed, and then looked to the side to see Li Lianhua giving his old group a fond look. The man only looked away when he realised Fang Duobing was looking at him. 

Well, Fang Duobing supposed. She wasn’t anywhere near as fast as Li Lianhua had been, but he was still allowed to admire her speed and efficiency! (Even if Li Xiangyi’s was better.)

“What are you looking at?” Li Lianhua murmured after Fang Duobing didn’t look away. “Look at your surroundings instead! You’re in a dangerous surrounding, Fang Xiaobao, you’ll need to pay attention to the things around you more.”

There were so many things Fang Duobing wanted to say to that, but if he did, those of Baichuan Court would either think he was crazy or he would have to explain that the spirit of Li Lianhua was here with them (and that would require way more explanation than he was willing to give at the moment). 

“This way,” Ji Hanfo said with a frown, already heading away. “I heard sounds of fighting. Everyone be on your guard. We don’t yet know what’s actually alive and considered a monster in this dungeon yet, or if the dungeon itself is out to kill all intruders.”

“It can do that?” Fang Duobing asked Yun Biqiu, who was guiding him. 

“Some dungeons don’t have many creatures within it.” The man informed him, tone even as they walked. “But the dungeon itself is alive and Hunters walk into its stomach. It’s not malicious, but it will try to digest us.”

The imagery of that wasn’t very flattering, combined with the strangely coloured garden they were in. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Yun Biqiu told him. “There are still ways of leaving the dungeon if that’s the case.”

As they went, the other members moved to slice off random vibes and stalks as soon as they started to move, and stayed clear of the larger, more beautiful flowers. They moved with a synergy and experience that had Fang Duobing staring at the fact they stepped within each other’s footsteps when possible, like cat backtracking in the snow. 

Li Lianhua disappeared from view more than once, and Fang Duobing would be more worried if he couldn’t still feel the weight of the orb in his inventory akin to a warm presence. 

After several minutes, they found their way to a clearing where there were several other Hunters teamed together in a fight against a creature that looked like a cross between a mushroom and a tree if the both of them gave birth to an insect instead. The shape was vaguely that of a grasshopper, but brown like bark and mushroom caps, its carapace rough hewn and with wet brown moss growing atop it. The only recognizable feature was the overly large pincers, each the size of a person, which it snapped at the Hunters as they cornered the creature. 

There were perhaps a team of six surrounding the creature, and one other who stayed behind, weapon drawn and sticking close to a person who looked like a civilian librarian who was clutching onto a stack of books. 

Without a word, Shi Shui leaped into the frey, joining with the other Hunters to take down the creature, their movements synching without a word to each other, and the monster crashed onto the forested floor, dead before ten seconds was up. 

“First one,” one of the team declared, and bowed toward Shi Shui for her help. The man reached up, and a shard of crystal materialised in his hand. He went over to the civilian and handed it to her with a reassuring smile. “Go back and tell anyone out there that everything’s fine. We’ll get everyone out.”

No one protested, and Fang Duobing was struck once more by just how different this felt from only days ago, when everyone was scared and disorganised. 

The civilian’s eyes were wide as they accepted, and they murmured a quiet thanks before disappearing altogether.

[shamera]

NaNo day 28

....okay instead of time loop, I ended up starting part 2 of the hunter au.

Whoops?

I swear I meant to work on the other story, but the word wars started and I panicked because I couldn't figure out the next scene, so I rushed back to hunter au to continue the idea I was already going with.

Follows pretty much directly after part 1!

Fang Duobing didn’t believe in ghosts. 

He wasn’t the type of person to read into the supernatural— mythical creatures around the corner hiding from the eyes of society, or magic secretly existing on the fringes to spark the imagination of children and the downtrodden. He wasn’t particularly interested in ghost stories, either, although that could be due to him not having the life experience to feel a need for those stories. 

But he had encountered people, while travelling with Li Lianhua, who adamantly believed. Who insisted they were haunted, or that children lost years ago were trying to convey a message. 

Each and every time that happened, Fang Duobing had to piece together clues that would eventually disappoint those people. (It tended to be coincidences, or neighbours with a grudge, or even their own failing mental health playing tricks on them.)

Dungeons were one thing! Strange and supernatural events happened within those otherworldly pocket dimensions, and he wasn’t going to question how that made sense. 

But in the real world, there were rules. Gravity made things fall down. Physics existed. Time was straightforward. Everything followed the cycle of life. Two plus two equals four, and that sort of thing. 

Or it would, if it weren’t for the fact that Li Lianhua was yelling at him at the same time that Li Lianhua was lying in a coma on the hospital bed. 

“Foolish, childish move!” Li Lianhua fumed, looking like he was ready to whack Fang Duobing over the head with something as he used to when he was frustrated. Except there was nothing for him to grab, and for the fact that he was— 

Fang Duobing could see through him. 

He stared blankly, slack-jawed, even as the door burst open and He Xiaohui charged in ready for battle at the sound of her son in distress. 

“What is it?” She demanded, and she had a sword at her side of all things, ready to cut someone down. “What’s wrong?”

He couldn’t muster up the words, instead gaping at her and then back at Li Lianhua, and then at Li Lianhua and oh no, Fang Duobing was going crazy, wasn’t he? He felt too young to be going crazy, but maybe that’s just how schizophrenia started, with seeing things that couldn’t possibly be there even though he knew it was crazy for him to be seeing those things. 

He pointed a finger at the ghostly apparition of Li Lianhua, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking irritated, and asked his mother, “Do you see— see—?” 

“Don’t point at me.” Li Lianhua told him. “Rude.”

He Xiaohui, who scanned the entire room for any signs of threats only to come up with nothing, gave her son a strange look. “See what?”

Okay, so she definitely didn’t see what Fang Duobing was now considering to be his… well, maybe this was what people meant by having a voice of reason. Surely, if he had a ghostly version of Li Lianhua there yelling at him, it was a manifestation of that nagging feeling of doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, right? 

People had that. He’s heard about it. He’s never heard anyone describe it as a ghost or even that they might be able to see a person, rather than imagining what they would say, but it wasn’t like he researched extensively on the subject. 

“I think I’m going crazy,” he said to his mother, still feeling a state of shock. 

The tension in her shoulders melted away, and she said, “Oh, Xiaobao… I told you not to stay in this room all day. You just need some food and sleep, that’s all. Come, come,” and she was manoeuvring him out of the uncomfortable chair, twisting her other wrist in a movement like sheathing her sword, and suddenly that object was gone. Back in her inventory, Fang Duobing thought numbly. 

He stared at the ghostly figure of Li Lianhua the entire time. 

“You should listen to her,” Li Lianhua said. “When’s the last time you ate? You look like you’re ready to fall over at any moment.”

“I’m going crazy,” Fang Duobing confirmed, and his mother ushered him out of the room with gently shushing noises, dragging him along the hallways and upstairs back to the living space and then the kitchens. 

“I’ve gone crazy.” Fang Duobing affirmed when she heated a bowl of leftovers for him, the scent of wanton soup and steamed eggs wafting to him. He was staring over the table, where Li Lianhua seemed to have followed them. Except he couldn’t have, because he was downstairs where he was supposed to be safe, because he was vulnerable and there were people looking for him. 

“You haven’t,” his mother countered, and then hugged his head and pressed a kiss atop his hair when he didn’t respond. “But you’ve been through a traumatic event. Eat. And then shower and take a nap. Things will feel better after that.”

She left once more after ensuring he was alright and not going to fall face first into the soup, although she took a few more seconds to stroke at his hair and send him worried looks. 

The apparition of Li Lianhua was calmly sitting in a chair opposite him, dressed in the same clothes as the day in the dungeon, although noticeably cleaner and neater and with his hair back in its usual low bun. He was giving Fang Duobing a judging look. 

It made him sweat. 

“So,” Li Lianhua started calmly. “Jinyuan Alliance, then?”

“You heard that?” Fang Duobing demanded, but then hunched over and lowered his voice. “You were there the entire time?”

Li Lianhua gestured to the food and told him, “Eat,” and Fang Duobing reluctantly picked up the bowl to sip at the soup, still staring at Li Lianhua for answers the entire time. 

“I wasn’t really aware until you took that out of your pocket.” Li Lianhua said, nodding toward where Fang Duobing still had the sphere pressed into his palm uncomfortably while holding onto his soup bowl. “So no, you’re not going crazy. It’s an effect of the item.”

That made Fang Duobing slump into his chair in relief. That made far more sense! Dungeon items sure were strange, and who said it couldn’t alter someone’s perception of reality? Maybe Fang Duobing was hallucinating all of this because he felt bad. Maybe the stone was helping him do that. 

“From the expression on your face, you just thought of something dumb,” Li Lianhua told him. “Stop.”

“You can’t tell me to stop, you’re a figment of my imagination.”

“A figment of—” Li Lianhua narrowed his eyes. “And what makes you convinced of this?”

Fang Duobing brought up the small pearlescent orb. “The easiest explanation is that this thing causes hallucinations? Maybe it causes people to see someone they— well, either way, you’re supposed to be in a coma. I can test it later. See what xiao-yi sees.”

“A hallucination. A figment of your imagination.” Li Lianhua echoed him, and crossed his arms. “You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“I’m not going crazy,” Fang Duobing reassured himself. “This is just an effect of the item.”

“Take out your phone.” Li Lianhua demanded, and although Fang Duobing was reluctant at first (why was he listening to a hallucination? But then again, it was a hallucination of Li Lianhua, so he probably had some weird point to make), he did so. “Unlock it. Now go to a news site. Go on, go ahead. I know you read those in the mornings.”

Fang Duobing (quite reluctantly) went onto Weibo just to spite him. 

“Okay, now turn the phone toward me so you can’t see it. Scroll down.” After a second, Li Lianhua started reading the names of current top shows and celebrity gossip, along with titles of blogs that were recently updated. 

When he stopped reading, Fang Duobing turned the phone back toward himself. 

…That was everything on the screen, word for word. 

He stared incredulously. 

Then he went to a random number generator and set it up between one to a million. He flipped the phone over, finger already on the generate button. 

Half a dozen different numbers in the tens and hundred thousands later, his theory of Li Lianhua being a hallucination brought about by the item was shot down entirely. 

“Are you actually this orb?” Fang Duobing asked. “Did we bring a dungeon boss back by accident?”

This time, Li Lianhua did attempt to swap him over the head, although the feeling was barely like a light breeze, enough that Fang Duobing could have figured it was his imagination reacting only because he saw what Li Lianhua was doing. Instead, the hand seemed to go through him and both of them looked unsettled by it. 

“Fang Duobing,” Li Lianhua told him seriously. “Maybe you really have gone crazy.”

…Alright, so that was definitely Li Lianhua’s usual snark rather than a dungeon boss. 

“I don’t understand,” Fang Duobing exclaimed. “You’re down there and you’re… up here? Like an out of body experience? Is this why you’re not waking up? Because your spirit is just roaming around, not going back?” 

He perked up. “Will you wake up if we go down there?”

Now, Li Lianhua’s nearly translucent figure (and wow, it really did look like some movie special effect) slumped his shoulders. “That didn’t work. You just saw— I can’t interact with anything. That includes myself.”

“And this?” Fang Duobing asked, thrusting out the orb between his fingers. “Can you interact with this? What if this was touching your body?”

“You’re touching it, and if I could have hit you, I would have.” Li Lianhua told him dryly. 

Fair point. 

“We should try it anyway.”

They went back down where Fang Duobing attempted various methods of having Li Lianhua’s physical body hold the orb, pressing it against his cool palm with his own assistance and also without his own assistance, but nothing seemed to work. 

“I can still see you even when I’m not touching that thing.” Fang Duobing observed. 

“Well,” Li Lianhua shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket. “It’s your item, isn’t it? It was your drop, and in your inventory. I only touched it last before we left the dungeon.”

Fang Duobing jolted. Was that what happened? Back then, the orb had been so much bigger and black like an abyss, and felt like it was fused against his skin, refusing to let go. 

“You said things from the Black can’t be brought out of the dungeon.” Fang Duobing recalled, his words slow as his brow furrowed. “You haven’t explained that.”

The ghostly figure shrugged. “It’s exactly what it is. Every dungeon boss has a heart that contains the darkness you saw. Every time you kill one, it… explodes outward, in a way. It tries to latch on to something else. Once it fails, the dungeon starts to fall apart. There were people who obtained drops from the Black before, but those items can’t leave the dungeon. The only way it does is if it’s… changed.”

“You changed it?” Fang Duobing asked.

Li Lianhua grimaced, shifting. “So it seems.”

It sounded like he hadn’t meant to. 

“If you changed it, then it should be yours instead. This orb should belong to you, not me.”

The man gave him a withering glance. “And what would I do with it, the way I am now?”

That… alright, so he had a point. But that brought up another thing he wanted to ask about. 

“Li Lianhua,” Fang Duobing addressed, only to feel strange about the name in his mouth for a moment, knowing who he actually was. “My aunt said… there might be a curse? Did you feel it? How do we break it?”

At that, the ghost was quiet for a long moment, still as he gazed away. “It’s nothing you have to worry about. I didn’t get cursed in the last dungeon.”

The answer sounded evasive, yet Fang Duobing knew enough to understand that if he pressed harder, it was likely Li Lianhua would switch to deliberately lying instead. It didn’t matter, because Fang Duobing would find out what was going on with him, and he would eventually get better and then he would wake up again. 

The thought made him feel better, and Fang Duobing waved the orb in front of the ghostly Li Lianhua’s face smugly. 

“Okay.” He said. “Guess you can’t run away this time.”

Li Lianhua’s previous forced nonchalance and apathy turned into a look of mortification. 

— 

Fang Duobing eventually went back to finish eating the cold food, take that shower, and then threw himself down for the nap his mother wanted for him, until the next thing he knew it was already the next day and the nap had become full on passing out for more than twelve hours. He woke only because he was used to waking at a certain hour, glancing around his room blearily for a long time wondering why his alarm hadn’t gone off before he realised his phone was finally dead. 

“Xiaobao,” his father greeted him as he stumbled down the stairs toward their dining room. Fang Zeshi was already dressed for work, nursing the last of his tea as he read the papers. “How are you feeling? Your mother told us not to disturb you when you didn’t come down for dinner.”

“I overslept,” Fang Duobing mumbled, pulling out a chair so he could collapse into it, head in his arms on the table. He was still in the pyjamas he had as a teenager, and was nursing the headache of someone who slept too much at once. 

“You need the rest,” his father said gently. There was a rustling on the newspaper before his father continued, deceptively calm, “You should get dressed before your fiancée gets here.”

That made Fang Duobing jerk up in panic. “What? Why is she coming over!”

“To check up on you, of course. She has been very patient in waiting for a message from you. One that you didn’t give, I might add, so your mother and I had to reassure her that you not only survived the attack, but were doing well. We informed her that your phone was taken from you, and it would be unwise to interfere in the investigation the Hunters had. Although you could have responded to her messages this morning.”

“Can’t, phone’s dead,” Fang Duobing announced, and then pushed himself back up out of the chair, suddenly completely awake. “And I have— uh. A prior appointment! Things to do. Too busy to meet her, sorry, I have to run—”

“She’s a nice girl and you can’t avoid her forever,” Li Lianhua scolded from where he was standing over Fang Zeshi’s shoulder to read the paper as well. It was just like him to prefer reading physical newspapers rather than just scrolling through a phone like everyone else did.

“You’re such an old man,” Fang Duobing complained, and then cringed back when his father glared. “I mean! No, not you, I just. I’ve really got to go. Tell Qing’er not to wait for me, I’m sure she has better things to do today—”

Before his father could respond, Fang Duobing already made his escape, skidding across the hall to leave out the back before thinking better of it and racing up the stairs again to get dressed for the day before he left. 

(He also clipped on an old bluetooth earpiece when Li Lianhua commented on Fang Duobing confusing people if they spoke to each other.)

“Poor princess Zhaoling,” Li Lianhua mused as Fang Duobing climbed into his car, making a quick getaway. “She deserves better than how you treat her.”

“Then she should get someone better,” Fang Duobing murmured back, eyes on the road rather than where Li Lianhua was sitting in the passenger seat, head resting on a palm as he leaned against the door to gaze out the window. “Besides, I never agreed to this arrangement. In fact, I said no but then my parents said yes to her father. Just because we’re kind-of friends—”

“Kind of,” Li Lianhua mocked. 

“I shouldn’t have told you about her.” Fang Duobing muttered, face heating. He couldn’t be held responsible for the random information he tended to blurt out about himself when drunk! So what if they happened to be in the same group chat as kids? They attended the same school too, but Fang Duobing never really interacted with her there since she was several years under him. He used to think she was a cute, mouthy kid until he realised she was the girl his parents wanted him to marry. 

In the end, she ended up being far more filial than he was, demuring to the arranged marriage with a determination to get to know him better despite the fact that they had been rather distant as children. The more Fang Duobing attempted to run away, it seems, the more she was determined to run after him. 

He thinks that soon she might get herself in some sort of trouble for it, being as bullheaded as she was (a trait he used to admire until it was aimed at him), but it wasn’t like he was going to stay! 

It was several streets before Li Lianhua aimed a suspicious look toward him. 

“...Where are we going?”

“Baichuan Court.” Fang Duobing answered breezily. He wasn’t going to head back to his (temporary) apartment, especially if Qing’er was looking for him! That would be the first place she would look, and if he was unlucky enough, then his family would gladly give her the key as well. 

Besides him, Li Lianhua radiated displeasure. He had never gone anywhere near the group that emerged from the remains of Sigu Sect, and now Fang Duobing was starting to realise  why. 

“Relax,” he said. “It’s not like anyone else can see you. But the Jinyuan Alliance is looking for you, and even if my aunt is investigating this matter, without priority it’ll take her days to get to the bottom of things, if at all. Baichuan Court is the foremost authority on Hunters and the Sects, and if I claim to be in the middle of things, then I should be entitled to information that pertains to me, right?”

“You’re up to something,” Li Lianhua accused, but he sounded resigned. 

Fang Duobing grinned. 

“I just need a bit of your help.”

[shamera]

NaNo day 19

I worked really hard to get to a point where I felt I could at least stop writing for the day without ending it somewhere mid-sentence, lol.

needs a lot of work, but I just need to push through this part first. xiaobao feelin' some things here. things he will not be talking about, no thank you.

He didn’t know how long he froze for, but his eyes were burning by the time Fang Duobing was able to look away from the dungeon boss, thoughts frantic and buzzing in search for the exit. 

They fell in. He couldn’t even see walls, much less a place for them to have come from. The boss room felt like a dimension of its own, a protected bubble that would allow no exit once someone ended up there. If he had known… if he hadn’t taken off running…

They might have been food for the monsters if he hadn’t done that. Fang Duobing studied up on dungeons well enough the last several years to understand that they had gotten lucky getting the amount of crystal shards they did, as most dungeons had monsters that were difficult to kill one at a time, yet this one was filled with creatures that were rather weak but made up for their weakness in numbers. 

The problem was when they needed only a few crystal shards, but couldn’t take on a swarm of dozens to hundreds of monsters at a time. He should have strategised drawing a few in at a time somehow, even if at the moment he still didn’t know how he would have done that. There must have been a way, at least a way better than running and then ending up in the boss room. 

The first handful of years after the gates appeared, no one had been able to defeat dungeon bosses. Many Hunters tried once they discovered their existence, and ultimately lost their lives, and the lives of the teams they brought with them. 

It was Jinyuan Alliance’s leader Di Feisheng who cleared the first dungeon, purposefully taking his sect into a do or die situation where they either took down the dungeon boss or didn’t come out. The first dungeon clear had been a shock, and then a cause for celebration as the gate disappeared entirely from a place that had once been a highly visited mall. 

He declined all interviews, but the official statement from his PA Jiao Liqiao had been that he wanted to take the top rank, to push and prove himself as the greatest Hunter in the world. Di Feisheng’s persona was that of a cold man who cared not to do good but to become stronger and stronger. He didn’t focus on saving people, but rather on bettering himself. 

Immediately after, Sigu Sect cleared a dungeon as well, and then two, and then three. Once it was proven that dungeons were, in fact, not indestructible, Li Xiangyi had turned it into a personal mission to clear dungeon bosses, with or without the help of his sect. While others planned weeks in advance and took large raid parties, by the third clear, Li Xiangyi took only a small group with him, usually with only a few people in excess to give them the experience and knowledge of how to fight a dungeon boss. 

But as the dungeons collapsed into nothing, the media portrayed the remaining ones as… stronger, somehow. And soon the celebratory support behind the sects turned into that of doubt and suspicion as Hunters started protesting the closure of the dungeons. 

Sure, the first dungeon would be easy to clear. Maybe the second and third as well! But once they closed ten, once they hit more than that… wouldn’t that make it harder for everyone else? If they wanted to close all the dungeons, then sure the last handful would be impossible to do! And it would be more dangerous for any civilians who fell through the gates as well! With the average monsters growing stronger as each dungeon boss was defeated, more Hunters would be put in danger. 

But Sigu Sect and Jinyuan Alliance did not stop, and their successes spurred Hunter groups around the world to compete in closing dungeons, until there were less than a hundred all over the world. Until sects had to team up, had to send their best, for a hundred man raid battle against the bosses rather than dedication teams. 

And then the disastrous day when Sigu Sect and Jinyuan Alliance fell apart in the middle of a raid, when they started fighting each other along with the boss, when both sects were decimated and most of them died. When the boss was finally defeated, when the dungeon shut down and everyone made it out, they discovered that neither Di Feisheng nor Li Xiangyi had been among the people who returned. 

No one ever saw them again. 

And then the worst came to pass: gates started appearing around the world once more, randomly, infrequently, but growing as if attempting to balance out the dungeons that had previously been defeated. Every several months, a new one would appear in the world. While the first wave had appeared in the brightest cities in the world, all the subsequent gates were scattered about. 

Many over the ocean, some over deserts or rural towns, and there was no way to predict when or where one might appear. 

The common speculation was that the gates would stop appearing once they reached their original numbers, and civilians navigating around them became the new normal. Dungeons existed alongside society, and new businesses supporting Hunters and selling scavenged items started popping up. 

Many online wrote of their dissent, blaming the new dungeons and the civilian deaths associated with them, the danger of being caught up in a new gate, the feelings of anxiety over never feeling safe enough, all on the old Hunters. On sects like Sigu and Jinyuan, on people like Li Xiangyi and Di Feisheng. If they had only left the dungeons alone, many wrote, then the world wouldn’t be in such a situation! The gates and dungeons were here to stay, and to attempt to abolish them brought about the last decade of uncertainty and fear. 

If only the Hunters left the gates alone, then no new ones would have to appear. 

Fang Duobing didn’t think so, and spent too many hours of his teen years angrily flaming those posts on Weibo and Baidu forums. 

How could the Hunters have possibly known what was going to happen? How could civilians blame them for trying to prevent more innocent people from falling through the gates, from property damage as the gates breathed in size? The sects had a duty to close the gates if they could! They were trying to protect people, and it wasn’t their fault that further gates appeared! 

But country after country agreed to stop closing the dungeons, to let the numbers to grow back to its initial size, and Fang Duobing could only seethe in silence. 

It was now illegal to confront a dungeon boss, as if any normal person could actually take one on. 

It meant no one would be coming to help Fang Duobing, not unless his aunt convinced his parents to sanction the government for a special force to find him. But it would take hours, if not days. 

With the way the large coiled creature was already starting to move, responding to Fang Duobing’s presence in its territory, he didn’t have that sort of time. 

The only way to leave was through the boss. 

But before that, he had to find Li Lianhua. 

He had to find Li Lianhua, and then he had to find a way to… to leave somehow. If they could just find two other monsters who might have fallen in with them, if they could take those two out, then they’d be able to get the crystal shards to leave. 

(Deep in his mind, Fang Duobing understood that those thoughts were delusional. Ordinary monsters would never enter the boss room, and he could see no exit in any direction.)

He shrunk back into the grass, giving a reprieve to his aching legs as he crawled through the higher grass, hiding and searching. 

“Li Lianhua,” he hissed out frantically, unwilling to raise his voice and draw attention, yet also unable to stay silent. “Li Lianhua, where are you?”

As he moved, he could feel the creature waking, stretching, searching. The movements were slow and lethargic so far, just rousing from a deep rest. 

“Li Lianhua!” Fang Duobing hissed out again, tone switching to despair. He couldn’t be the only one here, could he? Li Lianhua couldn’t have— how bad was the fall? How far had they fallen? With the way his shoulder felt, he would certainly need medical care after this if they could escape, but… Li Lianhua wasn’t a Hunter, he complained about having to walk after an hour or so, and needed frequent rests. He would spend days in bed when his illness flared up, barely able to eat and definitely without the energy to care for himself. Today’s exertion must have already been too much, and to fall at such a height, he had to— 

There was a flash of something pale through the glowing grass, and Fang Duobing made his way over quickly, trying to ignore the rousing monster that was pushing his heart rate into a panic. Around thick clumps of grass, he saw Li Lianhua’s pale clothes, parts of his skin covered in dark red blood that had Fang Duobing reeling. 

Li Lianhua was on his back, unmoving, but he didn’t look overly worse for wear. Fang Duobing didn’t know what to do, grabbing at the man’s cold hand to feel for a pulse, and letting out a breath in relief as he found it, slow but steady. There was the beginning of a bruise across his temple on the same side where he sustained the cut, and Fang Duobing didn’t know whether that was because of the fall or if it had been there before, but unseen due to the dim lighting. There were several scratches that tore through the sleeves of his shirt, and one long cut up his thigh, but it didn’t appear to be bleeding too badly. Other than that and the mud splattered across his clothes, he looked relatively alright. 

Relatively. Fang Duobing didn’t know how to gauge. 

“Li Lianhua, wake up,” he breathed out frantically, gingerly shaking his shoulder. What if he had a spinal injury? A concussion that meant he wouldn’t wake? What if Li Lianhua had internal bleeding that Fang Duobing couldn’t assess, and he was making it worse?

What if he was already too late?

“Wake up, we have to go,” Fang Duobing murmured with wide eyes, darting to look at the moving mountain, the monster that had yet to find them. “We have to hide—”

He must have made too much noise, as suddenly there was a loud roar that reverberated through the cavernous room, shaking the earth under them. The sound was deep, deep enough to settle in his bones and pool within his marrow, laying the foundation of fear. 

It was that roar that finally roused Li Lianhua, the man twitching into awareness with a frown that left a deep furrow between his brows. A rhythmic thump spread across the ground like ripples in a pool, and the man’s hand twitched as it hit him. 

“Li Lianhua,” Fang Duobing repeated, demanded, because they didn’t have the time for a slow and peaceful awakening. If he had to carry the man out of the dungeon himself, then Fang Duobing would do that. The thumps on the ground were quickly growing in frequency as Li Lianhua finally opened his eyes, awareness settling in quickly despite the way his eyes were unfocused. With that acknowledgement that the man was awake, Fang Duobing pulled him forward and up. “No time, we have to find a place to hide.”

To his credit, Li Lianhua didn’t protest or even indicate discomfort from his injuries, following along with Fang Duobing’s movement until he caught sight of the towering monsters that was rising from its coiled position, revealing more lines of sharp spines that curled around its form, twining its way down corded flesh that was starting to pulse with discolouration, the fleshy pink and browns sliding into an array of blues and purples that mirrored the colours of the gate. 

He didn’t know where the reflex came from, but within a moment Fang Duobing managed to pull Li Lianhua all the way to his feet while he got up himself, and yank them both out of the way as a large tendril slammed into the ground where they had previously been. There was a shrieking sound from the plants crushed underneath the tendril.

The pulsing tendril hit deep into the earth, and pulled back slowly as Fang Duobing stared in shock and horror, hands grabbing tightly on Li Lianhua’s shoulder and arm, sure that he would leave bruises. 

It was as thick as a dinner plate, yet nowhere as large as the monster. Where did it come from?

“Move!” Li Lianhua’s voice was raspy, and soon the two of them were stumbling away from the boss, feet bumbling over the ground as the thumps continued, attempting to trip them up. 

The roar came once more, feeling like a wave crashing into them and pushing them as physical as a hurricane of wind. 

Fang Duobing stumbled, crashing forward into the soft earth alongside Li Lianhua, who exhaled sharply in pain at the fall. Then he stopped, and yanked Fang Duobing toward him as he rolled away, and a moment later there was the crash of another tendril right where Fang Duobing had been, mere inches away and close enough that he could feel the resulting gust. 

“Stop,” Li Lianhua commanded before Fang Duobing could scramble up, chest to chest as they drew panicked breaths. His thin arms were bracketing Fang Duobing, weight painful on his ribs. “Don’t move.”

Above them to the side, the tendril was pulling up, shining with a purple light like smoke as it slowly retreated, and Fang Duobing stared with bated breath as it withdrew toward the monster, and the thumping of the ground slowed and stopped. 

The monster made another noise, this time less a roar but rather something higher pitched, and Fang Duobing stayed frozen. 

“It’s movement,” Li Lianhua breathed against him. “It senses movement on the ground.”

They stayed utterly still, and the monster made another one of the pitched noises, its every movement rumbling through the dirt. Despite not being able to see the monster clearly as they lay in the grass, he could feel its movements as it searched for them. As they held still to the point of holding their breaths, the creature emitted noises like clicks, at first slow and then growing in speed and pitch. The sounds of shrieking grass became a chorus as the monster slithered and crushed it. 

Fang Duobing’s eyes were wide, staring straight at Li Lianhua, afraid that even the motion of looking away might attract the attention of the boss monster. 

They were tentatively safe for the moment, lying on the grass, but that safety wouldn’t last with the way the creature was moving around the cavern. It couldn’t last when they weren’t allowed to move, but the moment they did move, then— 

Fang Duobing was fairly confident in his ability to take down some dungeon monsters, reassured of his martial training if nothing else. But the creature searching for them now was beyond anything he imagined fighting by himself. He didn’t even have a proper weapon, nothing more than a small wooden sword he carried with him for luck. 

Above him, Li Lianhua’s mouth flattened into a stern line, likely reading Fang Duobing’s panic. He was always good at figuring out Fang Duobing’s thoughts with a look. It was something that fascinated Fang Duobing at first, and then irritated him later, until he was determined to do the same. 

They could wait there, rest while they could, but with the way each sound the monster made was making his heart pound faster, it seemed more likely that the longer they waited, the more ill prepared he would be. Panic created mistakes, Fang Duobing knew. 

No one was coming for them. 

There was no way of getting out. 

But he couldn’t afford to start a fight he couldn’t win. The fear crashing against his throat and faltering his breathing was screaming at him very clearly that he couldn’t win. He didn’t have the skills, he didn’t have the experience. Even if he did have both, he didn’t have a team to back him up. He was already injured. He had to keep Li Lianhua safe. 

“If it could tell where we were by movement,” Li Lianhua muttered lowly under his breath, and Fang Duobing almost shushed him for it except the man looked too deep in thought to pay him any mind. “Then we would have been killed the moment we fell in. It didn’t do that. Why?”

Fang Duobing struggled with his urge to stay completely still to the point of not speaking for a long moment, but as the monster continued to move a direction not close to them for the moment, he risked, “It seemed asleep.”

“No,” Li Lianhua’s eyes were narrowed in thought. “Anything could drop in here. This cave is at the bottom of the dungeon. A creature that big would need to conserve energy, it can’t go chasing after every rock dropped into this room. It’s about secondary movement. Like a venus fly trap.”

Fang Duobing didn’t know anything about venus fly traps except for the shape and that it ate insects. 

Another series of pitchy clicks erupted above them, and Fang Duobing tensed his jaw even as he stared at Li Lianhua worrying his lower lip in thought. 

No one was coming for them. The thought bounced continuously in his head. His mother would be so mad. She always said that his obsession with being a Hunter, with dungeons, would get him killed. She had done everything in her power to lock that path from her only child, even as Fang Duobing raged and rebelled against her orders. 

She was going to be so, so mad about being right. 

He couldn’t give up. He had to… to… 

It wasn’t until Li Lianhua shifted slightly above him to touch his shoulder that Fang Duobing realised he was shaking. The older man looked down at him and then closed his eyes for a moment, expression softening. 

“It’s okay,” he said. “I have a plan. But I need you to do something.”

Fang Duobing couldn’t nod, but said, “Anything.” Li Lianhua was smart, so much smarter than he often let on, which was astonishing because Li Lianhua had never been shy about boasting his own intelligence. If anyone could come up with a plan in this situation, it would be him. 

“Close your eyes.” Li Lianhua told him, shockingly intimate as they lay chest to chest and Fang Duobing found himself flushing in that moment where he hadn’t before. They were injured, dirty, and bloodied, yet Li Lianhua’s hair was escaping from his loosened bun, and the strands were tickling the side of Fang Duobing’s face. “Count to a hundred. All the way to a hundred. Don’t move before then.”

Fang Duobing made a face. “What? That’s not a plan— Li Lianhua—”

A slight movement, but it was enough that the clicking from the monster petered out, and a rough hand covered his eyes, prompting Fang Duobing to close them unintentionally. Li Lianhua’s skin was cold, his poor circulation not helped by blood loss. 

“Count.” Li Lianhua told him, and in the absence of sight, Fang Duobing could feel the warmth of his breath. “And don’t move, no matter what. It’s part of my plan.”

And then he was gone. His weight, his warmth, the hand across Fang Duobing’s eyes… Between one moment and the next, he was gone and Fang Duobing squeezed his eyes shut to start mentally counting, trusting in Li Lianhua’s plan. He was smart, he always knew what to do— 

The monster roared once more, and the thumping on the earth began once more, like ripples across a pond. 

Locating movement, Fang Duobing realised now. 

There were heavy thuds, great hits against the dirt that he could feel, at a distance from his person, and he wondered just what Li Lianhua managed to do that drew the monster away. Hopefully, Fang Duobing prayed, throwing stones to divert its attention. But where was Li Lianhua himself?

A heavy shaking, a great impact that had Fang Duobing clenching his fists, and then the creature gave out a pitched scream, discordant like the sounds of faulty machinery, the frequency vibrating through his bones. 

A beat, another, and Fang Duobing continued to count even as his conviction wavered hearing the shrieking flowers from one area and another, and the feeling of the boss monster moving, the shaking of the ground underneath him overpowering even the rapid beating of his heart. Each moment built his anxiety, his fear, his uncertainty, and Fang Duobing felt like a bow string drawn tight, verging on breaking. 

He was halfway through his count, his entire body a ball of tension, when he smelt it. 

Beyond the pained shrieking of the creature was a sharp, heavy ozone smell. Metallic. Almost warm, in a way that alarmed his senses. 

Blood. A lot of it. 

He couldn’t stay still. He couldn’t keep his eyes closed. If something happened to Li Lianhua, and he sat back and didn’t do anything— 

Li Lianhua was smart, so smart, but Fang Duobing was now remembering all the times the man would throw himself in dangerous situations or anger the wrong people with his sharp tongue, never once backing down despite being outnumbered and outclassed. How many times had Fang Duobing stepped in to stop a fight? How many times had Li Lianhua been in danger without him even knowing it?

He opened his eyes to the glow of the grass, the lights escaping up toward the ceiling, and found there was a plume of dust fogging the area high above. He shouldn’t move. Movement would draw the attention of the dungeon boss, and it might ruin Li Lianhua’s entire plan— 

But the man never told him the plan. And he was never good at keeping himself out of danger. 

With gritted teeth, Fang Duobing carefully and quickly pushed himself up and got his feet under him, crouching in the tall grass but now able to see over it. What he saw was the giant worm-like monster, except now it was halfway uncoiled, unravelled like the frayed end of a rope to reveal itself made of dozens of tendrils of purple-blue, pulling apart to reveal a dark abyss at the centre, so black it looked like a hole in the fabric of reality. Some of the tendrils had serrated edges, the spines he originally saw, and writhed wildly in pain. 

Half the tendrils on one side of the creature lay cut and limp, leaking what could only be a blackened blood as the entirety of the monster flailed upward away from a figure and a shine. 

A figure in pale clothes that landed before the monster with their back to Fang Duobing, hair unbound and wild, and one arm extended to reveal a glowing blue sword held firmly and with impeccable control. 

It was a posture he had seen before many years ago. On a figure he in recent years came to know all too well. 

And then the figure moved once more, barely having landed on the ground for a split second before he was back in the air in a display like a dance, twisting to evade two tendrils that shot at him and spinning the glowing blue blade to slice through yet another tendril, prompting the monster to let out another piercing cry and lash out blindly. 

The movements were beautiful and almost otherworldly, speaking to years of experience and practised grace. He landed on a tendril, already off running before it could sweep down under his weight, and pushed on higher, higher in the air until he twisted above the monster entirely despite the size of it, hair a curtain trailing after him. 

And then Li Lianhua came back down, in one sweeping move slicing through the rest of the monster tendrils.

[shamera]

NaNo day 18

...I fell asleep during my writing time. 😭 did you know this hunter au is now over 12k? it is 22 pages on my document already. stopping here because it is now 5am and also this feels like a natural point to stop

today when i wake up, if i have time, i will work on this fight scene. that's if i have time, so we shall see! fight scene and flashbacks might be entirety of chapter two. dfs in chapter three. 👀

(or if i miss him too much, i go back to the time loop)

nano stats so far: 30k for mlc nonsense (+8k for love and redemption nonsense)

currently word count before bed: 38,331 / 50,000

They ran aimlessly, and Bei Yun gasped out between steps, “If you’re all volunteering to stay, please let me go! I’m like Miss Li and I can’t be of any help, I’m no good at running or hiding either, if I stay, I’d just die! Please!” He reached forward to pull at He Xiaofeng’s shoulder, prompting her to give a painful gasp as the movement jerked on her injured arm and had her crashing down mid-step while running. 

“What are you doing?” Fang Duobing demanded angrily as he noticed, stopping mid-step as well despite the burning protest in his legs, and Bei Yun cringed back apologetically as he pulled his aunt up to her feet again, noting she was so pale her skin almost glowed in the dark as she grimaced in pain. “Come on, we have to go!”

“I’m—” He Xiaofeng bit out, and then grit her teeth. “I stepped badly.”

Not merely ‘badly’, it seemed, with the way her skin dotted with sweat within moments of being pulled up. Li Lianhua came to a stop as well, and said, “She needs to leave the dungeon now, we have to run and she can’t do that anymore!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Bei Yun called from steps away, eyes wide with panic. “I didn’t mean to— I just wanted to get her attention—”

“Both of them,” Li Lianhua said grimly, and grabbed onto He Xiaofeng’s hand. “We’ll follow behind you. There’s no time to argue, go now!”

Despite looking as if she wanted badly to argue with him, He Xiaofeng responded to the words by grabbing onto Bei Yun with the hand holding the remaining crystals and ordering Fang Duobing, “Get back safe or I will hunt you down, do you hear me, Xiaobao?!”

Then they were gone, and Li Lianhua grabbed onto Fang Duobing’s sleeve again and the two of them took off in the dark tunnel, with only a single light left shining from Fang Duobing’s shirt pocket. 

“Why did you let him go?” Fang Duobing demanded as they ran, furious at the man who injured his aunt, even accidentally. Up to him, he would have only sent his aunt away and left one more crystal for the last emergency. Bei Yun was uninjured through the entire dungeon run, and could have been a good asset still. 

“He would have done it again,” Li Lianhua said darkly between huffed breaths, “Look out!”

The swarm of darkness had caught up with them finally, closing in before then and behind. Fang Duobing could make out the shine against carapaces, the quick needle feet, and— 

“This way,” He called out, and reversed his grip to yank at Li Lianhua’s hand, pivoting sharply to race down a passageway he almost missed due to the low light, hidden between cragged rock edges and drowned in further darkness. It could be a trap, it could be a dead end, but at the very least Fang Duobing couldn’t hear more skittering from that passageway, and if they could just hide until the monsters passed, if they could catch the tail end of the swarm to kill two more to obtain the crystals, then they would be home free— 

The echoes of thousands of needle feet against stone rushed behind them, swarming the area they were just standing, although Fang Duobing didn’t turn back to look, pushing forward as fast as he could in the narrow passageway, the jagged stone walls closing in from the sides and above him until he and Li Lianhua couldn’t run side by side anymore, but had to push ahead one person at a time, with Fang Duobing leading into the darkness with the tiny light of his phone and dragging Li Lianhua behind him in a tight grip. 

The passage was closing in, smaller and smaller, and there was a grim satisfaction for Fang Duobing as he was forced to turn sideways to continue pushing forward, because at least this meant if they were ambushed here, there were be fewer monsters that could come after them, and in that case they could just kill two, all they needed were two more crystal shards! 

He could hear the monsters coming after them once more, echoing down the passageway. A little further, a little bit more and they could make a stand, if Fang Duobing stood in the front to ensure that Li Lianhua wouldn’t be hit with the poison, then he’d be able to—

“Stop!” Li Lianhua called, tugging back against Fang Duobing in attempts to pull him back, but it was too late. The passageway had been too dark to see, but suddenly Fang Duobing’s next running step hit air instead of ground, and he pitched forward into the darkness, and then the both of them were tumbling, falling, into a cavern of black. 

There wasn’t enough time for panic to set in before Fang Duobing hit the floor, softer than he imagined, but still with enough force to knock him out. 

— 

Two years previous, and a year after Fang Duobing Awakened as a Hunter only to be rejected by all the sects due to his parents’ insistence that they would ruin any sect that dared take their darling son into a profession with such a high mortality rate, Fang Duobing ran away from home and crossed paths with Li Lianhua. 

Back then, he had been soft and idealistic, sure that the world was a good and chivalrous place and the people in it good and honest. Everyone was just trying to make a living, trying to live their lives, and when he saw a group of looming men standing over someone who had already been pushed down onto the ground, he couldn’t just stand around and do nothing! 

He was a Hunter, and maybe that meant the most only in dungeons, but he had years of martial arts training and his physique was generally better thanks to being Awakened, and following the chivalry that Li Xiangyi set for Sigu Sect, those who had the power to help also had a duty to help. 

So Fang Duobing beat up those threatening men. And got taken down to the local police station because of it, sputtering and protesting all the while. 

Apparently, the men hadn’t been doing anything wrong. Apparently, they were merely bullying the travelling physician into doing an autopsy for them regarding a local thief who recently died, but also apparently they hadn’t actually crossed any lines despite the locals muttering about the gangster-like behaviour disapprovingly. 

Intimidating was not assault, the police officer informed Fang Duobing harshly. Beating them up for it, however, was.

It wasn’t until the physician came down to the station with formal charges of stalking that Fang Duobing was let go, as now it meant he really had been defending a civilian. With the very serious threat of those men continuing their harassment of the physician, Fang Duobing decided to stick around for a few days, just to make sure nothing bad came of it. 

He didn’t want to be the reason the situation escalated into violence, after all. 

Yet those days revealed that the physician had never been the victim in the first place, and that Fang Duobing likely should have been protecting those men as Li Lianhua masterfully connived them until it was revealed the thief had never been dead, merely faking, and that the entire fiasco involved documents originally stolen years ago and then resold, and then finally stolen back as the legality of ownership remained hazy to local authorities. 

Possession was nine tenth of the law, after all. 

Following that had been a chase searching for illegally distributed items taken from dungeons, and Fang Duobing’s first excursion in Li Lianhua’s converted school bus (dubbed Lotus Tower) that felt like it was half kitchen and half old apothecary with only a pull out futon for sleeping space. He appropriated the surprisingly luxurious rooftop tent as his own space (as well as Li Lianhua’s dog Hulijing half the nights), and learned to love the summer breeze and nighttime noises. 

In those first weeks tagging along with Li Lianhua from town to town, Fang Duobing felt like he saw more of the world than he ever had travelling on planes and inside expensive cars with darkened windows. He saw the countryside roll by, spoke to random strangers, and helped the elderly carry their groceries back home for them. He paid too much for handmade trinkets in night markets, and bought gift after gift for Li Lianhua’s tiny space until his apps got declined by his mother. 

He couldn’t fathom Li Lianhua’s strange and nomadic lifestyle. The man was entirely off grid, preferring small villages to big cities, and didn’t even have a phone! He had solar panels and a modern kitchen, yet the most advanced technology was a dingy laptop tucked away underneath the bed that was rarely used, while he filled his spaces with books and brochures from places he’d been. He cooked his own meals and crocheted his own sweaters and made his own hair accessories, and forced Fang Duobing to help around the bus fixing broken tiles and leaking pipes, hauling fresh water and emptying out tanks. 

Yet Fang Duobing felt like he somehow learned more about living in the first month he spent with Li Lianhua than he had his entire childhood. 

And then he might have gotten a little too enthusiastic when they drove close to one of the older gates outside a city, and Li Lianhua contacted He Xiaofeng to drag him away. 

—

It was the rumbling of the ground behind him that startled Fang Duobing back into consciousness. 

His face was pressed against dirt, and he could taste it in his mouth as he coughed and attempted to push himself up from the ground. Unlike the cave they had been in, this space was lit up, luminescent, and his eyes adjusted to see glowing plants covering the ground like grass, sparks of faint light lifting from the plants up into the air like reverse raindrops, floating lazily before fading away once it got too far up. 

Around him, the space didn’t look like where they had come from. Fang Duobing grimaced as he realised he had a strand of hair in his mouth, and spit it out hastily, then spit again and again to rid himself of the taste of dirt. His legs throbbed with his heartbeat, and his left shoulder felt heavily bruised. He had a headache as well, ringing in his ears combined with a dull numbing sensation that bled into his vision in a form of synesthesia. His hair was limp and mostly fallen out of his ponytail, matted with dirt and blood. From a head wound, he realised, as he must have hit his head hard when he fell, but the bleeding had already stopped. 

The area was so large that he couldn’t see the end of it, like a field of tall grass, all lit up, glowing and somehow emitting a dull, numbing noise that made his head feel heavy and slow. Fang Duobing shook his head, attempting to dispel the fog, yet that only aggravated his headache. 

It took him a long second for his disjointed memories to clear up. 

The sudden gate. The dungeon. The fire. The chase, and the fall. 

“Li Lianhua,” Fang Duobing breathed out, and scrambled to his knees despite the sharp pangs of pain at his movement. Everyone else was gone, and it was him and Li Lianhua left in the dungeon now, so why was he alone? He looked around frantically, but the grass was tall as his thigh, enough to easily hide a fallen person. 

They had fallen together, so he couldn’t be far. Fang Duobing attempted to stand, only to collapse under his own weight, the skin of his legs incandescent with pain now, feeling like it was smeared with burning oil, and Fang Duobing couldn’t help the long hiss of pain. He wanted to pull at the gauze, to rub off his skin, but knew better than to do so. 

It seemed that just because he had natural immunity to dungeons as a Hunter didn’t mean he was impervious to its effects. 

Another rumble of the earth beneath him had Fang Duobing freezing in place, the hair on the back of his neck tingling in a fear response. 

There was definitely something else with them in this space, and it was far, far larger than any of the monsters in the dungeon they encountered previously. 

He glanced up nervously, fearfully, still scanning his surroundings to look for Li Lianhua, but… now that he knew to look for it, he could see an incline at least ten metres away, a slope that climbed up so naturally he thought the grass might have grown taller there, but that wouldn’t make sense as the colouration was different. Between earth and flesh tone, the creature was long and curled up, with ridges and spines that protruded from the soft skin. There was a certain texture to it, like strands of rope coiled together into something bigger than itself, in the shape of something that looked between a worm and a snake. 

It was large as a house, coiled together and fast asleep. 

Fang Duobing had a slow and bitter realisation. 

The rescue teams weren’t going to find them, not even if they searched through the entire dungeon. One of the laws passed after the downfall of Sigu Sect and Jinyuan Alliance had been to forbid Hunters from destroying dungeons entirely, to ensure the stability of the gates and to accumulate materials from existing dungeons. Gates fluctuated with the amount of monsters inside the dungeon, and the only way to destroy a dungeon completely was to take out the greatest monster within it. 

In order to do that, the entire sect often assembled with alliances to other sects as well, but that hadn’t happened in ten years. No one even tried anymore. 

Fang Duobing had fallen right into the room of the dungeon boss. 

[shamera]

NaNo day 17 part 2

...I was tempted to leave this for tomorrow and say 'hey look how much i wrote!' but this is meant to be a marathon and i'm supposed to be honest about these things anyway.

so warning for injuries and a canon character death. and, uh, bugs. this is all shaping up to something, i promise. all of this and like the next two days' writing is like chapter 1 in my head. also names and actions are liable to be changed in edit for continuity and flow, but this is nano so i'm just speedwriting and not looking back.

Stopping here because I'm tired, need sleep, and this weekend is going to be really busy. To be continued!

Everything happened quickly. 

Wangfu was scouting ahead and coming back with a relieved expression when the floor (solid stone!) gave away underneath him unexpectedly, and he shouted in fear and confusion as he fell. Fang Duobing was after him immediately, falling to his knees to reach into the hole, attempting to grab him before he could slip away, but was too late to do so. 

“Wangfu!” He shouted alongside Li’er’s panicked scream, but the young man disappeared before his eyes into the darkness, prompting Fang Duobing to fumble his phone as he shone the light down into the hole, seeing rocks and darkness all the way down. “Wangfu!”

A cool hand rested against his wrist, and he glanced to see Li Lianhua’s bloodied sleeve as the man knelt next to him. 

“It’s not a direct drop.” He observed calmly, and pointed to the slant in the stone. “There’s a high chance he’ll be fine, but startled. We can go after him, although it would be the world’s worst slide. But with an already injured person…”

Fang Duobing bit the inside of his mouth in frustration. If they wanted to help Wangfu, then they’d have to split the party. If they didn’t split the party, then Wangfu would be left alone. 

“We have to go get him!” Li’er insisted from where she was also on her knees next to the hole, her own phone shining a weak light into the darkness. “Wangfu! Are you alright? Answer us!”

“I’ll go.” Fang Duobing insisted, already struggling to take off his suit jacket and searching for an anchor point. There was no point in going if he couldn’t bring Wangfu back with him, and that meant finding a way back up as well. He was going to take care of all of them, and that meant he had to get them all back in one group. He glanced over to his aunt. “Your jacket. Everyone’s, if you can spare it. If we can use it as a rope…”

He Xiaofeng was already slipping off her blazer, having the same thought. “It won’t be very long. I should go down.”

“Your arm is injured.” Fang Duobing rejected the idea. “If he needs help, how will you carry him up?”

“I’ll go,” Li Lianhua volunteered, but once more Fang Duobing rejected the idea, this time with a firm grip on his wrist before he could do anything. 

“I need you to help pull us up.” He looked at the others. “Everyone here who can do that will help. We can’t stay in one place for too long. If you hear something in the distance, just leave without us. I’ll catch up to everyone.”

“This is a stupid plan, Xiaobao,” His aunt told him, tone dark. She was pale under the dim light of the phones, the red of her lipstick unnaturally dark. “You can’t just—”

“It’s okay,” he insisted brightly. “I trained for this, remember? This is the kind of thing I need to be able to do if I want to join Baichuan Court.”

The others were also taking off their work blazers, but just as his aunt said, once the arms were tied together, the length of their makeshift rope wasn’t very long at all. Next to him, Li Lianhua had also pulled his sweater over his head, the pale knit a stark contrast to the rest of the clothes, the warm yarn frailer than the thick weave, and Fang Duobing found himself reluctant to take it, although he used it to tie around a rock, hoping it might receive the least amount of damage that way. 

“Climb down,” Li Lianhua told him, and Fang Duobing realised he had ever seen the man without his thick sweaters, the thin long-sleeved shirt looking strange to his eyes. “If it goes even lower than that, then just come back up. Don’t be stupid about this, Fang Duobing.”

“I won’t.” He promised, and heard his aunt huff behind him. He turned to her. “Nothing will happen.”

“It better not,” she grumbled back, although there was tremor to her shoulders and a tension that belied her nonchalance. Her eyes were just a tad too wide, a trait Fang Duobing recognised in himself when he was overwhelmingly anxious. “What am I going to tell my sister if you disappear?”

Fang Duobing didn’t know how to respond, so instead he took a hold of their makeshift rope, and jumped down into the hole. 

His feet hit stones almost immediately, and then his hip, and then it was just as Li Lianhua stated: the world’s worst slide. He lost a hold of the blazer sleeve he grabbed almost immediately, but the fall wasn’t as far as he feared. Even with the slant, he felt he had fallen perhaps five to seven meters, and was a great distance but not as bad as feared, even with the inevitable bruises all along his side from the jump. 

He wheezed as the ground evened out again, and then called out, “I’m okay!” 

A moment in the pitch blackness, and Fang Duobing pulled out his phone for a light again, frowning at the crack along his screen. At least it was still working properly. 

Examining where he ended up, he found that the walls here were smooth unlike in the upper area, and there wasn’t enough space for him to stand, the space circular in its design, with the ground underneath him giving way slightly with each step. It wasn’t stone, he realised. He rested a hand against the ceiling, and then slid it down alongside the wall, frowning at the texture. 

It felt like.. Clay. Smooth and malleable, although dry and firm. 

“Wangfu?” He called out cautiously, phone pointed in one direction and then the next. There were only two directions to go, since he had fallen from above into this tunnel, and looking at it now, it looked like the tunnel was dug previously and then covered over before it could be used much. 

Where he was standing, Fang Duobing realised with a shiver, was well worn. Used. 

This was definitely a path taken by the monsters in this dungeon. 

There was a skittering noise at the edge of his senses, and Fang Duobing whirled around to point the light in the direction of the sound, grabbing along the wall to brace himself. There was nothing in the light, and he turned again. 

There was no Wangfu, either. 

There were, however, indentations in the clay under him, where someone might have been dragged, and Fang Duobing followed it cautiously, heart rising to his throat as he pulled out a small wooden dagger from the back of his belt. It wasn’t a real weapon, but it was better than the nothing he had on him. The light from his phone was barely illuminating the darkness ahead of him, just far enough to see his hand through a thick fog, but the sounds of skittering were now growing closer than ever. 

“Wangfu?” He called out again, although this time quieter. 

There was no response, and no change in the sounds. 

A turn in the path of the tunnel, and Fang Duobing shone his light around the bend to see— 

Dozens. 

Dozens of black forms, armoured, like pill bugs the size of cats if they had hundreds of legs like needles moving along the ground and with glowing eyes painted across their carapaces. Crawling over each other, over the walls, over the ceiling, atop each other like crowded rats, and

Atop a still form that was Wangfu, dripping blood and still twitching as one of the monsters carefully made itself at home within his torso, crawling right through— 

Fang Duobing doesn’t remember his yelling, doesn’t remembering charging in with only a wooden dagger, but there was sharp needle-like points of pain on his legs as the monsters turned from their prey to swarm toward him instead, even as he stabbed them as well as he could between the ridges of their carapaces, as he would take down one and then another and another, but they would each be replaced two to three more each time. His legs felt like fire with a sea of pinpricks, and they were starting to drop down onto his head as well, and he was— 

Yanked back violently by his shirt, and then a storm of fire blazed past him, singeing the edge of his ponytail as he was dragged backward amidst the deafening shrieks of the monsters as they burned. They burned, but Wangfu would burn with them, and Fang Duobing struggled against the grip, blood running down his legs from the needle holes in his pants, but the grip was stronger than he was. 

“Stop.” Li Lianhua’s voice broke him out of the haze of rage. “Use your brain a little, Fang Duobing!”

The tunnel wasn’t big enough for two people, yet Li Lianhua, who would normally hoist his own groceries on Fang Duobing to make him carry it, was pulling him back strongly enough to keep them both out of the spreading fire. As the smoke and heat spread, Fang Duobing realised it was starting to get hard to breathe. 

The haze through his mind broke entirely at that, and he turned against Li Lianahu’s surprising grip, this time dragging the other man along with him and he raced half hunched toward the hole they dropped down from, pushing him forward ahead of him to get him up, to safety away from the monsters and away from the spreading fire and smoke. 

Li Lianhua stumbled a moment, but followed Fang Duobing’s urging as they struggled back upward in the slide down, catching themselves against the sides and on rocks before they could slip downward again, all the way until Li Lianhua managed to catch the end of the rope of blazers, and pull himself up with Fang Duobing following along behind him. 

When they reached the main cavern again, the heat behind them was starting to get unbearable, and it was Li’er and Man’er’s young man who pulled them out by the arms, dragging them away from the hole as they coughed. 

“What happened?” He Xiaofeng demanded, but was interrupted as Li’er tearfully asked, “Where’s Wangfu?”

Fang Duobing could only look at her sadly once he regained his breath, and then shook his head slowly. 

Li Lianhua, collapsed next to him, was still coughing, although his coughs were luckily enough dry ones, even as Fang Duobing’s aunt knelt next to him in concern, a hand on his back as he tried to get his breathing under control. It was only after when He Xiaofeng stared over at her nephew and startled. 

“Xiaobao,” she breathed out and reached out to him. “You’re bleeding!”

He shook his head in response, the pain in his legs growing to a sharp throb that echoed his heartbeat. 

“A mild,” Li Lianhua said between coughs, “paralytic poison. He’ll— he’ll be fine after some time. He’s a Hunter.”

The unsaid part, Fang Duobing heard, was that Wangfu as a civilian never stood a chance. 

“But how was there a fire?” Man’er asked weakly from where she had been settled against a wall, her leg resting in front of her. “What poison? How did you get those wounds?”

“There were monsters down there.” Fang Duobing said, and then pushed himself into a sitting position. His legs ached with the movement, and he hissed. “A lot of them. Wangfu didn’t—”

“He’s down there?” Li’er asked tearfully. “But… he’ll burn!”

“He was already gone,” Li Lianhua told her. 

She shook her head, hands tight around the rope of blazers. Li’er dipped her head, and then cried quietly, shuddering sobs that shook her shoulders each second as the shadows from her hair hid her face from their view. 

Fang Duobing ducked his head, tears filling his own eyes upon the realisation of just how badly he messed up. He hadn’t managed to save Wangfu at all. He just injured himself when he needed to protect everyone, and now…

His aunt’s hand tightened his arm, and he looked up to see her determined gaze. 

“You tried,” she said quietly. “And that’s what mattered. You did your best, Xiaobao. You got Physician Li out of there as well. I’ll take care of the fights.”

He untensed his shoulders, and gave a slow nod. Then he slid his hand across the stone floor and tucked the wooden dagger back into his belt where the familiar weight of it brought comfort. He would think about all of this later, when they were safe again. 

Except Li Lianhua was still coughing, at a lesser rate now but still hunched over trying to catch his breath, and Fang Duobing reached out in alarm as the man curled up into his coughs. 

“I’m fine,” Li Lianhua tried to wave him off, but his voice was a wheeze. 

“Then can we get the crystals from the monsters below us?” The young man who carried Man’er asked hesitantly. “They’re… they’re dead, right? In the fire?”

There were indeed dozens of monsters from what Fang Duobing had seen, but the idea of going back into the burning tunnel was…

“You’re free to go into the fire,” his aunt snapped. “See if you can bring those crystals back!”

The man paled. “I didn’t mean…”

“Then don’t suggest that!” She said tersely. 

Li Lianhua raised a hand from where he was still curled over on the ground, revealing his singed sleeve and reddened skin. He gave another cough into his shirt, and then opened the hand to reveal a shine on his palm. He Xiaofeng gasped and reached for his hand immediately. 

“It’s not enough for everyone,” Li Lianhua rasped, but even Fang Duobing was moving over in amazement. Four tiny, purple shards of crystal no bigger than a tiny pearl each lay within his hands. “That’s how many I could grab before… well.”

Fang Duobing despaired at not doing the same himself, at being so focused on killing the monsters that he hadn’t reached into the flesh to grab at their means to escape. 

“Four,” his aunt marvelled and then stared hard at the group who was looking over with hope in their eyes. “One for Man’er. And Li’er, and Xiaobao and Physician Li. I’ll stay behind with…?”

The young man looked ready to protest, his face running a gamut of emotions before collapsing entirely in despair. “...Bei Yun.”

“I’ll stay with Yun’er.” He Xiaofeng declared. “We’ll be along right behind you.”

“No,” Fang Duobing insisted to his aunt. “I’ll stay. The others should go, they can’t fight.”

There was a nagging thought in his mind, and he stared over at each of the people in the darkness. 

“And just what do you think you’re going to do, injured like that?” His aunt demanded. “Look at yourself! Xiaobao, you look like you’ve been mauled!”

His legs certainly felt like they’d been mauled, but were also getting more numb by the second. If the pain faded, then he could certainly use his legs again. 

Li Lianhua pursed his lips, looking like he needed to stay something, yet ultimately stayed quiet. Instead, he handed the shards to a surprised He Xiaofeng with a smile, and then moved carefully closer to Fang Duobing, who had most of his weight supported on his arms despite already sitting down, bloodied legs in front of him. 

“You need to patch your wounds up,” Li Lianhua told him. “Even if the poison doesn’t affect you, you’ll bleed out if you just leave this.”

“It’s fine,” Fang Duobing tried to brush off lightly. “None of them are deep!”

“You don’t need deep cuts to bleed out,” Li Lianhua responded drily. “The others will figure out what to do with the return crystals. Hunters aren’t immune to blood loss.”

That was true. Hunters gifted with any sort of healing abilities were incredibly rare, and most could only heal themselves. Only the top sects in the world could afford to have a healer waiting at their base. Fang Duobing heard of two in Korea, one in Russia, and three more in the west. 

This meant that casualty rates for Hunters were high enough that his family refused to allow him to become one on paper. 

“We need to get the injured people out and move,” Bei Yun was saying nervously. “If I have to stay…”

“Just a minute,” Li Lianhua interrupted without looking back at the man. “There’s no guarantee that you’ll be safe immediately when you get out. Just because there will be no more monsters after you doesn’t mean you won’t land back in a collapsing building, or have panicked people trampling over you. Injuries need to be taken care of now where it’s safe. We have the crystals, you can leave any moment. If we’re hunted down, then you can escape even at the last second.”

To Fang Duobing, he said, “Your pants are a lost cause.”

Fang Duobing grimaced, flushing in embarrassment, but agreed. With dozens upon dozens of holes and nearly soaked in blood, there was definitely nothing that could be done with those pants anymore. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t have bandages anyway. Can’t I just… tie it up or something?”

“Just who do you take me for?” Li Lianhua asked and then shifted to reveal the shoulder bag he carried with him. “Am I a physician or not?”

With that, he rummaged through the canvas bag and pulled out two rolls of gauze, as well as a tiny bottle of antiseptic that Fang Duobing hadn’t realised he had with him. 

“I don’t know if I’ll have enough,” Li Lianhua admitted. “This wasn’t the type of situation I prepared for.”

“You didn’t reveal that with Man’er?” Fang Duobing asked with round eyes. 

“You already had the fabric. Why waste this when you already made bandages? If her injury ended up being the only thing that happens here, then we’d have been blessed by the gods.”

Thankfully, his bespoke leather shoes were enough to prevent most injuries, although his suit pants had to be ripped under the knee, much to Fang Duobing’s dismay and embarrassment. He stammered questions that Li Lianhua answered with amusement and looked away, his face so warm he felt he must have a fever. Even the spray of antiseptic was barely felt over the numbness below his skin, and the way Li Lianhua worked deftly to wrap his wounds up tightly. 

It barely took a minute or so, and Fang Duobing was able to stand once again afterward, albeit with a limp as his legs were a tingle of sensation that didn’t feel real. He frowned down at the white gauze over his skin, tempted to hit his own legs to see if he could feel it. 

“Don’t overdo it,” Li Lianhua told him, holding on to his elbow. “You have a natural immunity to things in dungeons, but that doesn’t mean they can’t debilitate you. 

Fang Duobing tapped his foot lightly against the ground and felt it was good enough to walk on. Now to see if the others made any progress on who was going to stay and who was leaving. 

Scanning the rest of the group over, it was easy to see that had come to no decision at all. 

Man’er sat against a wall with a crystal fragment in her hand, clutching it tightly as she stared at the others, while He Xiaofeng held the remaining three fragments, arguing with both Li’er and Bei Yun over something entirely insignificant. 

“We could all be home by now!” Li’er exclaimed, the tear tracks on her face clear of the grime that accumulated from the smoke earlier. She looked miserable and scared, with her torn dress and wrapped wrist, her normally professionally pinned braids around her head having dropped so now she looked like a young girl with pigtails playing at being an adult. 

“All?” He Xiaofeng argued back. “Who is this ‘all’ you’re referring to? You would really leave my nephew and Physician Li behind? Are you that kind of person?”

“Yes!” Li’er burst out in a sob. She raised her hands to cover her eyes miserably. “I’m not brave and I don’t know how to fight! If I stay, I’ll only get in people’s way! If I go, I can tell the sects where you are, describe this area…”

“And what are you going to say?” He Xiaofeng yelled. “They’re somewhere dark? A cave? Big, blank space in the middle of nowhere, perhaps? That will surely help them find us!”

At that, Li’er burst out into tears again, crying Wangfu’s name between her sobs and even He Xiaofeng looked startled and a little regretful of her words. Fang Duobing couldn’t help but feel terrible looking at her. He knew that she and Wangfu had joined the company together, worked as interns together and both celebrated when they got permanent positions at Tianji Hall. They chose to work in the same department, and he saw them daily. They were both happy, bright people whose personalities complimented each other. For Li’er, she just lost her best friend. 

If he had been— faster, more decisive, if he hadn’t waited for to tie their clothes together as a rope and just jumped down after him— 

Wangfu might have made it out alive. 

There was a moment of awkward silence between them before Li Lianhua interjected gently, “She’s right. It’s best for her to leave first. Dungeons are difficult at the best of times, and for people with years of training. Li’er has done her best, and pushing her more would only be detrimental. I can stay longer, I’m good at running away and hiding if something comes near.”

At those words, Fang Duobing gripped onto his wrist tightly, above the burnt skin where Li Lianhua snatched the crystals out from the fire, the burns which Li Lianhua hadn’t treated at all despite treating Fang Duobing’s wounds. 

“Physician Li…” Li’er wilted under the words, shoulders slumping into a miserable curve in the dim lighting. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologise,” Li Lianhua said even as he shook off Fang Duobing’s grip without looking in his direction. “I volunteered.”

He Xiaofeng’s previous anger faded to concern, her pout clearly visible even in the low light of the phones, and the slant of her mouth turned downward to a reluctant acceptance. She wrung her hands together and said, “Don’t worry, Physician Li. I’ll keep you safe.”

Fang Duobing had to interject at this point, “No, I’m staying. I’m a Hunter, and you and Li Lianhua are both injured—”

His speech was interrupted by pitched screeching echoing around them, creatures drawn to the noise of their argument and the scent of blood that followed them. The walls seemed to shake with the sounds, prompting both Li’er and Man’er to cover their ears and tuck their head down, the light of their phones shining wildly at the movement. 

He Xiaofeng moved immediately, tucking a shard of crystal into Li’er’s palm and urging her, “Take Man’er and go, now! We’ll figure the rest out later, but you go and keep her safe!”

Li’er gave her a grateful look and then raced over to Man’er, skidding down painfully on her knees before grabbing onto Man’er’s arm and then they were both gone in an instant as if they had never been there at all. 

Bei Yun stood stunned, spurred into action only when Li Lianhua grabbed at Fang Duobing’s elbow to urge him, “Go! Now!”

They ran aimlessly, and Bei Yun gasped out between steps, “If you’re all volunteering to stay, please let me go! I’m like Miss Li and I can’t be of any help, I’m no good at running or hiding either, if I stay, I’d just die! Please!” He reached forward to pull at He Xiaofeng’s shoulder, prompting her to give a painful gasp as the movement jerked on her injured arm and had her crashing down mid-step while running.