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Chapter Text

Guo Changcheng can't believe his eyes.

It was bad enough that he'd choked on the incense smoke enough to make his eyes water, even before the lights flickered and the fog rolled in. Everyone else took the whole thing in stride, though, so it was probably normal for there to be weather inside the building at the SID. How would he know?

And sure, having Hei Pao Shi show up suddenly was -- okay, that was the only way Changcheng had ever seen him show up, so maybe he just came and went like that all the time?

But then a gaping hole appeared in the ceiling and dropped two people on the table, and that was just too much for his nerves to take. So Changcheng found himself crouching behind the stairs, legs shaking, as --

-- a second Chief Zhao dusted himself off, laughing as all eyes turned to him. His hair was different, and he was wearing a blue coat instead of a green shirt. But it was definitely the Chief.

"Aha! I remember this!"

And even that made a certain amount of sense, because Chief Zhao was exactly the kind of person to drop in like that and be so confident even with everyone staring.

But the other person who fell out of the wormhole was a second Changcheng! And even though he slid off the table and landed in a pile of limbs on the floor, he picked himself up right away and jumped up onto the table to stand behind his Chief. He held something in his hand and gazed back through the wormhole in determination.

So self-assured! So competent!

Surely that couldn't be Changcheng! His eyes must be wrong. He rubs them enough to make them water again, but that other person still looks an awful lot like him. He has that t-shirt in his closet at home, too.

"I know you have questions," the second Chief Zhao is saying, "but we don't have time for that. We only have a minute to tell you what you need to know."

"Chief Zhao." Hei Pao Shi speaks, and Changcheng ducks his head automatically; he doesn't even wait for Chu-ge to glare at him. "The timeline?"

"Doesn't survive your death, Professor."

"Eh?" Chief Zhao -- the first one, or at least Changcheng's Chief Zhao, this is already so confusing -- swings around to look at Hei Pao Shi.

"Or so I was told by the version of myself who came to talk to me." The other Chief Zhao jumps down from the table and walks over to -- yes, this is very confusing --

"You!" he waves a finger in the other Chief's face to get his attention and talks fast. "The Hallows affect time. This is the earliest point you can reach safely; don't try to go back farther! The Dixingren behind the recent attacks is Zhu Jiu, he needs light to teleport, and he isn't the one in charge."

"Hei Lao-ge," he says, finally pausing for breath and a little bit of respect. "Please consider sharing what you know sooner than you might think prudent."

Hei Pao Shi nods slowly.

"xiao-Guo?"

"Uh?" Changcheng calls, at the same time that the second Changcheng shakes his head, still staring into the wormhole. "Not yet, Chief!"

The second Chief Zhao rolls his eyes. "You're too stubborn for your own good, Hei Lao-ge. If your brother gets the Hallows before we do, many people will die."

"Ah! Ah!" The second Changcheng startles at something he can see in the wormhole, and then moves the object in his hand -- a mirror? Light flashes up through the hole in the ceiling. "They say yes."

"Good! That's my cue." Chief Zhao reaches out suddenly to shake Chief Zhao's hand in both of his. "One last piece of advice: don't be nervous of wormholes, there are rather a lot of them in your future."

Changcheng's Chief Zhao laughs and tucks his hands into his pockets. "I look forward to it!"

For the first time, the other Changcheng looks over at where Changcheng is still crouched behind the stairs and grins. He waves a gleeful thumbs-up sign at Changcheng before leaping back into the wormhole. So brave!

The second Chief Zhao follows a moment later, right before the wormhole disappears with a loud pop!

And then it finally happens, what Changcheng has been dreading since this started: He passes out.

Chapter Text

Lin Jing is spending another -- quiet! -- night in his lab. It’s his only oasis of sanity in the chaos of the SID, ever since future-Chief Zhao dropped through a wormhole and into their meeting with Hei Pao Shi. Between their usual case load, the overtime spent hunting for this Zhu Jiu guy, and Lao Chu’s fixation on finding and stopping whatever might even be capable of killing the Envoy... things have just been too hectic to think straight during the day.

But at night, when it’s quiet, he can focus on the real science he needs to be doing. He’s been working on a new device, and he’s really close to getting it to work! He told everyone he was making a device to help them find the rest of the Hallows -- and technically he was, but he put that aside a couple of nights ago when we realized he might be able to use the Dial to make a wormhole. A small one, maybe just a three minute jump into the past... just to test a couple of theories he has about the timeline.

It’s totally relevant! Who do they think made the wormhole future-Chief Zhao used last time? It’s not like there’s another scientific genius working at the SID! (Professor Shen doesn’t count. He’s not a physicist, and besides, he’s only a consultant.)

Lin Jing makes a few final adjustments to the projector and carefully seats the Dial into the brace. It begins to glow faintly -- a good sign! He takes a couple of steps back, though. Just to be careful.

Lin Jing figures it’ll take about fifteen minutes to charge up and open. Then he can test the portal’s stability, and maybe send an object through. Something his past self will recognize right away, but completely replaceable if it disappears. Maybe his watch? --

The far wall shimmers like water and parts around a wormhole. A dry wind blows in from -- from where, exactly?

Looking in, he sees a riot of color in a dark world. Kind of like looking into space near a nebula, but not nearly so empty. Things really don’t look so very far away, there, although he supposes that might be a function of the way light curves around time and not actually a reliable measure of distance -- and is that someone moving toward him?

It’s definitely a figure in a lab coat, waving at him, moving like he’s on a conveyor belt. Lin Jing waves back, careful to stay on his side of the opening -- he still hasn’t tested if it’s stable -- before realizing that the person is him, Lin Jing, some other timeline Lin Jing, and he’s waving because Lin Jing is standing right where he’s headed --

He tries to duck to the side, but doesn’t quite make it in time. The other Lin Jing barrels forward like he was shoved out an elevator door, and they’re knocked to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

When he catches his breath, the other Lin Jing is lying sprawled on top of him, glasses askew and lab coat bunched up on one side. Or maybe that’s his lab coat; it’s hard to tell.

“Hi.” The other Lin Jing smiles at him from way too close.

“Hi,” he answers automatically, but he’s thinking about sex. It’s totally not his fault! Just, they’re lying on the floor of the lab, pressed together like lovers, and he knows what that smile means from the inside.

The other Lin Jing’s smile broadens. “We should...” he waves a hand in the universal gesture of ‘I’m stating the obvious’ and it’s probably only a little because finishing the sentence would be a blatant innuendo.

Lin Jing snorts a laugh. “You first.”

“Oh, right.” The other Lin Jing smirks at him and slides off his body in a way that doesn’t help at all.

But at least Lin Jing can finally get up off the floor. “You’re doing that on purpose.”

“Well, yeah. It was fun when it happened to me.” The other Lin Jing does a thing with his eyebrows which looks ridiculous, but also really hot in a genius-scientist-who-gets-his-jokes kind of way. Then he sighs. “Too bad we don’t have time for more.”

“Ah.” Lin Jing adjusts his glasses and doesn’t adjust himself in his pants. He doesn’t actually need to, he just kind of wants to... and the other him is doing exactly the same thing. Damn. “So how long does the wormhole last?”

“About three minutes, if it’s anything like the one I saw. But it’s my first try.”

Lin Jing stops. “Wait. When are you from?”

The other Lin Jing grins at him. “About twenty minutes from now. Why? Were you thinking I’d drop more hints about your future?”

Lin Jing punches his shoulder, hard. “Dumbass! You went through an untested wormhole!”

“Ow! Why’d you do that?” The other flinches away, rubbing his shoulder. “I ran into the me who’d done it before me, so it wasn’t really untested.”

“Huh. I’m not sure that’s true?” Lin Jing tries to think about it, but gets sidetracked by the more important bit -- “Hey! It works!”

He dashes over to the projector and runs his hands along the casing lovingly. The crystal in the center is glowing almost as brightly as the Dial at this point -- it’s probably about a quarter-charged.

“Yes, it works. I even figured out how to make it open in the wall instead of the ceiling. The me before me sprained his ankle coming through.” The other Lin Jing tweaks two of the connectors, and the charge jumps at least ten percent higher. “There!”

Lin Jing just watches him. All of this is moving so fast, but -- “You’re changing the timeline.”

“Only a little.” The other Lin Jing ducks his head nervously. “I’m pretty sure we all do it?”

“That makes sense.” It doesn’t, it’s stupid, but he doesn’t think he could resist even if he knew it would destroy the lab. Wait, he might be able to short-hand the conversation they really need to be having -- “Infinite universes or collapsible difference hypothesis?”

“Don’t know yet.” The other Lin Jing grins at him. “Wanna try again in two hours and find out?”

That... would make a good test, actually. If they each still remember their own differences... “Sure. Leave your watch.”

“Good idea!” The other Lin Jing strips off his watch and hands it over. “We can find out if physical objects can remain safely once the wormhole closes.”

Lin Jing lets his fingers linger on the other Lin Jing’s hand. “And if they can...”

The other Lin Jing does that eyebrow thing again. “I bet we can do a lot in twenty minutes.”

It’s still hot. In an I’m-really-likely-to-get-laid kind of way.

“Forty, really.” Lin Jing laughs as the thought occurs to him. “Just with different versions of us.”

The other Lin Jing’s eyes go wide. “Hell, yes.”

His watch -- the other watch -- begins to beep.

“I’d better go.”

Lin Jing isn’t sure which of them starts the kiss, but it’s brief and wet and really good, if he does say so himself.

The other Lin Jing pulls back and winks. “See you in two hours!”

He walks back through the hole in the wall with a wave -- and a stumble as he walks through. He gets smaller faster than he’s walking -- maybe it really is a conveyor? -- and the wormhole closes with a pop and a sudden change in air pressure.

Lin Jing glances around at the door to make sure no one is around to notice, but it stays quiet.

He probably ought to tell someone that he’s experimenting with time travel. And changing the timeline. And making more changes to the timeline every time he does.

But he’s going to be flirting with another version of himself in less than twenty minutes now, and he’s really, really looking forward to it. And then if all goes well, in two hours... well. It’ll be fun, and it almost certainly won’t destroy anything.

Reporting his findings can wait til morning.

Chapter Text

Mornings at Bright Street usually come with some amount of grumbling. Punctuality isn’t exactly a trait Chief Zhao prizes in the hiring process -- or rewards on a regular basis after -- so the team tends to trickle in slowly and groggily as their various sleep schedules allow.

Zhu Hong waves a hand in Wang Zheng’s direction without making eye contact and drops her purse onto her desk. She barely registers the sound of raised voices; by this time, she can recognize the difference between real trouble and drama by tone alone, and this is definitely drama. She stifles a yawn.

She’s halfway to the coffee maker before she recognizes one of the raised voices as her own.

“I can’t believe they gave it to you!”

“And why not? You think you’re a better choice?”

Zhu Hong takes a deep breath and makes an executive decision: coffee before drama. She makes sure she has a firm grip on the cup before she turns to look up the balcony.

That’s definitely her, or a version of her, up there arguing with Da Qing. Or a version of Da Qing? She doesn’t think she’s ever seen their Da Qing in a Yashou formal jacket, even if it’s draped over his usual overalls. He looks good. Petulant, but good.

Future Zhu Hong is wearing one of her nicer jackets, too. Too nice for a day at the office, at any rate.

It’s a little jarring to see herself from the outside like this. The woman over there is some other person, obviously. Who just happens to look and dress and sound exactly like Zhu Hong.

But it’s only a little weird. Who knew you could get used to time travel?

“You know what?” Da Qing is still yelling. “I don’t even want this job. You can have it!”

“Oh no, you’re not foisting it off on me just because you’re too lazy!”

They’re too engrossed in their argument to even look down.

Zhu Hong drifts over to where Lin Jing is draped across his own desk, head buried in his arms. He’s still in yesterday’s clothes, again, with shrimp cracker dust in his hair. Ewww.

“What is it this time?” she asks him, keeping half an eye on the balcony.

Lin Jing blinks blearily up at her. “Something about Yashou leadership? I don’t know, they’ve been at it for half an hour now.”

“Is Da Qing here yet?”

“He was, but he left as soon as they started.” Lin Jing lets his head flop back down, face buried in the crook of his elbow so that his next words are muffled. “Don’t think he wanted to get stuck with it.”

Typical cat. Zhu Hong thinks back through what she’s heard so far. She probably doesn’t want to get stuck with... whatever this is, either. But Chief Zhao wouldn’t have sent them back in time if it didn’t need to get done.

... he wouldn’t have sent them back in time together if they weren’t both needed, either.

Zhu Hong presses closer to Lin Jing’s desk, frowning as a terrible thought occurs to her. “Are they from different futures?”

Lin Jing freezes.

“They are, aren’t they?”

Lin Jing lets out a loud, obviously fake snore.

Zhu Hong grabs his ear and jerks him upright.

“Ow! Ow, that hurts! Okay, yes, you’re right--”

“Didn’t you say this couldn’t happen?” Lin Jing is trying to scrabble backwards, but her grip on his ear holds him in place. “That there’s only ever one timeline?”

“Um, ow, Hong-jie--”

“That it’s not possible to end up with more than one, because that would be... Dangerous?”

“That’s not exactly what I said -- Ow! Come on, Hong-jie, please--”

Zhu Hong twists his ear harder. “The timeline stabilizes itself, you said.”

“Okay, you’re right, I did say that,” he says, and Zhu Hong takes pity enough to let him go.

Lin Jing drops right back into his chair, hand wrapped protectively around his ear. “This’ll probably stabilize out, too, you know--”

“I don’t know, and neither do you!”

Zhu Hong realizes she’s yelling when the noise on the balcony stops. Four startled eyes turn to her.

“Why is everyone here such an idiot!” She wants to kick over her chair, or throw something, or just scream her head off, but someone has to act like a responsible adult. She keeps telling them to be careful about time travel, but no, the couldn't listen to her, could they?

“You two! Write your secrets down on a sheet of paper and then get back where you came from. I don’t want to hear another word out of you!”

Future Da Qing just shrugs and slinks off, muttering under his breath. Future Zhu Hong glares. “Someone has to stop Ya Qing.”

“Ya Qing? What does she have to do with... you know what, never mind.” Zhu Hong glares back at herself. “You can write that down, too. We’ll take care of it after you’re gone!”

Twenty minutes later, Zhu Hong is back at her desk with two pieces of paper, each sealed into an envelope so she doesn’t see them accidentally. She doesn’t especially want to open them on purpose, either. She doesn't know which future she wants.

At least the world hasn’t ended yet. That’s a good thing, as Lin Jing pointed out from the safety of the other side of the room. Even if he doesn’t understand how this point in time could lead to two different futures. Their resident science expert is baffled. As usual. Why would she ever think otherwise?

Zhu Hong remembers the first time, when Chief Zhao and xiao-Guo came through that first portal. It was so startling! They looked like they knew what they were doing!

She shakes her head. No one here knows what the hell they’re doing, damn it. But if the Crow Tribe is involved in the rebellion in Dixing, then someone does, in fact, have to stop Ya Qing.

Zhu Hong knows she’s got a decision to make -- even if she doesn’t know what it is. Even if she can’t possibly know what the consequences are. She, or Da Qing, have to do something. Whatever that is.

At the very least, one of them is going to have to open an envelope and get a message from the future. For all the good it'll do.

Time travel was supposed to make things simpler. She should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy.

Chapter Text

Ye Zun waits. Not patiently, never patiently -- the darkness inside the pillar is as endless as time, the plaza that entombs it as empty as the void, and still there is no room in his furious existence for something as limited as patience--

--but the long years have taught him when to fight, and when to watch. So he watches, and waits.

Zhu Jiu doesn't come back.

The ever-present clouds roil gray against black, settle, and roil again. The dry dust of broken rock blows constantly across the plaza, scouring its inscriptions into meaningless silence. Zhu Jiu doesn't come. He doesn't come, or send word through one of his petty underlings. He is simply... missing.

Ye Zun does not panic. He destroys the world a dozen times in his imagination, dreams the curdling death-cries of everyone who has ever crossed him over and over again as his mind scrabbles at the bonds of his cage like a rat desperately seeking a crack through which to flee -- but none of that is panic.

When a portal opens in the dead street, he feels the blast of energy scraping along his nerves like fire on his skin. He expects the Envoy come to gloat again, but--

--something different happens, and it focuses his attention. New things are opportunities, and opportunities must be seized.

Out of the portal walks a man in white, and only when he comes closer does Ye Zun see: the man has his face. He could almost mistake the man for his twin (never his brother, never again), but the Envoy has never been this casual.

The man is wearing white jeans, like a surface-dweller, though his energy furls dark tendrils around him. He has his hands in his pockets. He wears a t-shirt with words: Eat this, motherfucker.

He is an imposter of the worst sort, and it makes Ye Zun laugh. He uses a scrap of energy to scatter the noise across the plaza.

The man doesn't flinch.

Instead he bows with a flourish, perfectly, a showman without an audience. "Greetings, Lord Night!"

Even the voice is an echo of Ye Zun's. It's a joke, at Ye Zun's expense, and his anger boils helplessly. Now is not the time to strike, he tells himself, and chokes down any words he might have said in haste.

"Right, yes." The man nods, as if Ye Zun's silence were an answer. "Really, I spent a long time wondering what I could tell you, to make you believe that I come to you from the future. But there's nothing, is there? You're far too clever to believe in children's stories."

The smile that follows sets Ye Zun's teeth on edge. The words themselves are flattery -- insincere on their face, but their presence is encouraging. There is no point in flattering him, unless he has something the man wants. He can use that.

"You're a fool, to come here wearing my face and spinning lies." He makes sure the sound of his voice comes from everywhere and nowhere.

"I've been called that before." By better men than you, the words unsaid but clearly heard in the tilt of the man's head and the way he shoves his hands disrespectfully into his pockets. "But here are some truths: Your plots have been discovered. Zhu Jiu has been imprisoned, and his people have scattered. Your brother has the Dial and the Awl."

"I have no brother!" The words spin out in a gust of wind, raising the dust to slap against the man's face.

Ye Zun would like to say the outburst is deliberate, that he merely wants the man to think that Ye Zun is affected by his ploys. It isn't, though, and the embarrassment crawls across his skin like flies.

He will not forget this humiliation, when the time comes to kill this man.

"Hm." The man brushes grit from his sleeve with a dismissive flick of a finger, and continues as if nothing had happened. "You have one hope. The Merit Brush has a new master, a boy, weak and foolish. If you can reach him, I am certain you can convince him to release you from your captivity."

He waves a hand and an image appears in the air: a young man, hardly more than a boy. The boy is dressed as a surface dweller, his eyes soft, with a trusting smile. A child of fortune, no doubt.

Ye Zun accesses the data storage embedded in the pillar and slides the photo from his perception into the memory pool. He hasn’t decided to use it, yet, but... if this boy has the Merit Brush, then Ye Zun wants him found.

"Why should I believe you?" he asks the obvious question.

"Do or don't." The man shrugs dismissively. "If you can't break free, now that I've shown you the way... you won't be useful enough for me to bother returning."

The dismissal burns, and Ye Zun feels it worm its way under his ribs and clutch around his stomach. Without Zhu Jiu, he has nothing. Nothing but his hatred, his twin, and the long lonely darkness of the plaza. He could wait a century or more to speak with another person.

No. He will lure someone new into the plaza. He will find another helper like Zhu Jiu.

He refuses to be weak. "And when I do?"

"Then we'll meet again." The man's smile flickers, mocking and amused. "You can still have everything you've ever wanted. If you do as I say."

It's a pointless promise, and Ye Zun smothers a laugh. The man intends to use and discard him, like everyone else. But he will have everything. He will take what he wants, and he will be free. No one will be able to stop him.

The man spins a thread of energy between his fingers. It shoots to one of the plinths of the plaza, winds its way to the next, and twists. For a moment, the walls of Ye Zun's cage flex like young reeds, and he throws himself against them. But there is no crack between them, no give, just--

--something new in the data flow of the pillar. A tiny sliver of light, like a rivulet of mercury glimmering against dark stone. When his attention focuses, it shimmers.

Hi! Do you like dogs?

The words form a message, strokes written in smoke.

"Convince him." The man's words echo even as the portal swallows him away, but Ye Zun is too thoroughly distracted to care. There has been nothing new within the pillar for ten thousand years. What is this?

This is Sunny. She's a songshi-quan, and very smart!

Behind the words, an image forms: the same boy from the imposter's photo, holding -- a ball of brown fluff.

No, not a ball. A puppy, with tiny curled ears and a short muzzle. It is very clean, and very very fat.

The puppy is also very cute.

Ye Zun ruthlessly suppresses that thought. What appears as cuteness is merely the sole weapon of a helpless young creature otherwise unprepared for the world. It is weakness, a strategy to avoid harm. It will not move him.

Still. Flattery is a good place to start, and the boy seems enamored of the beast. He can lure the boy to him, and use him as he used Zhu Jiu. If the boy does have the Merit Brush, all the better -- but he will be useful either way.

Ye Zun concentrates on a message of his own, and the words appear. No doubt she is the best puppy in the world.

That's what I said!

The first image shrinks, and then a stream of images floods through the channel. Ye Zun finds himself inundated with puppy photos, losing count as they roll by. He tries to focus on the backgrounds -- the boy, his life on the surface, the grumpy man in black who appears almost as often as the boy -- anything but the dog. He can do this. The boy is clearly simple-minded and easily manipulated, to take on such a useless animal. Ye Zun will find his weakness and reel him in!

...There is video of the puppy bounding like a rabbit back and forth across a colorful rug, and Ye Zun is watching it for the third time before he realizes what he's done.

Do you have a dog?

Or a cat? My aunt has a cat

The deluge of images begins again, this time of an adult cat, clearly more sedate that the puppy. But it is just as fluffy and almost as fat, and Ye Zun wonders if all surface-dweller animals are so plush and clean.

It's difficult to process so much information. He tells himself it is the speed and inanity of the interaction, after so long with the emptiness of the plaza. All of the images are bright, and the people are smiling.

I'm sorry if I'm talking too much

Ye Zun forms his thoughts more easily this time. No. You should keep talking.

If the boy keeps talking, he can form a strategy. He can make this work to his advantage, learn what he needs to know--

OK!

ɷ◡ɷ

He can do this. He ignores the cold shiver of dread in his stomach, and the voice that tells him he's out of his depth. He has twisted stronger men than this one.

His thoughts form into a new message before he can stop them. You should also send more pictures.

ヽ(＾Д＾)ﾉ

The wind continues to blow across the empty plaza, but Ye Zun pays it no mind. When he lures the boy to Dixing, he thinks, he'll have to make sure he brings the puppy along.