Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I’m so glad I don’t live in the real world.” —Leverage

“Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others.” —Virginia Woolf

Although he could sleep through the noise of storms, dogs barking, and passing cars honking at each other, the boy was always easily awoken on the nights when the soft but insistent buzz-buzz-buzzzz of the intercom outside the front door whispered secrets into the cool, misty air. Only three kinds of people would request entry to the Wu family estate in the middle of the night: Wu Sanxing on several occasions when Wu Erbai had gotten mad enough at his brother’s activities to lock him out, business clients seeking a discreet meeting for their problems, and thieves. It was this third category of visitor that the boy was most excited by, and he was more likely to slip out of his bed and sneak down to the door that connected the living space with the insurance business when he knew that thieves were within.

Certainly, the first two possibilities were entertaining on their own. The most recent passive-aggressive standoff that the young boy had witnessed between the Wu brothers had involved Uncle San-ye sprawled out in the street at 3am, drunkenly yodeling a 1990s pop song about betrayal in love while pelting gravel at Uncle Erbai’s bedroom window with surprising accuracy (Erbai pretended to be asleep inside, but Pan Zi finally took pity and secretly let Wu Sanxing in).

The midnight clients for the uncles’ business were also interesting to peek at from around the hall corner: they ranged from statuesque women whose faces were shadowed by large hats, to elderly couples clutching each other close, to nondescript suited men who came “on behalf of my employer”. These clients invariably had one common denominator that the boy noticed: they were all desperate.

Why else would you come to people like Wu Erbai and Wu Sanxing for help? Why else would you throw your lot in with a den of thieves?

If you asked one of their neighbors about the gossip on the Wu brothers’ house, the reluctant answer would likely be, “not much.” The Wu brothers were the ones that ran that little insurance business attached to the house. Established in the neighborhood for decades. Took out the trash on time, no loud parties. That young nephew was living with them right now and going to school at the local university, such a sweet boy. Now, once in a while you might glimpse someone entering or exiting the house who didn’t look normal at all, but as Wu Erbai would explain with an unblinking and discomfiting stare, these were simply some paying customers from out of town. The insurance business takes all types, after all. Everyone has something they consider valuable.

Within a very different community, however, the Wu reputation was only normal in the sense that they were an established family of thieves (freelance goods retrievers, Wu Erbai hissed) going back to Wu Xie’s grandfather.

It had all started, as Uncle Sanxing would tell an awed young Wu Xie during warm evenings in his childhood, when Grandfather Wu had come across an old friend stumbling his way through the street with tears streaming down his face. The friend’s story was sad but not unheard of; he had gambled too much during a game one evening at a private party and drunkenly bet away his prized family heirloom, a carefully maintained watch that had been passed down to him upon the death of his father. Once sober, the horrified man had rushed to the game winner’s house and explained his mistake. He offered the watch’s estimated value in cash, as he had scraped together the money for it, but to no avail. The winner of the watch liked it too much and wouldn’t exchange it for any money. To make matters worse, as the man grew increasingly desperate and upset, the winner (a powerful man in town) had him removed from the house and publicly thrown out onto the street. Humiliated and grieving, he stumbled home to tell his family about the loss. Wu Xie’s grandfather had caught him only a few houses away from his own. Grandfather Wu found himself angry on his friend’s behalf. Certainly, his behavior had been foolish and irresponsible—but for the other man to refuse a reasonable deal to restore someone’s family heirloom, particularly when he didn’t need the money himself, and to publicly embarrass this friend to boot?

Grandfather Wu never explained to his sons just how or when the thought came to him, but it was an idea that would change the family line forever: taking the watch back is the right thing to do.
His journals didn’t provide much information about how he accomplished it; a reference to a sympathetic servant in the house, tips jotted down for making an innocent diversion at the right moment. However he accomplished the watch retrieval (leaving the money in its place), Grandfather Wu got a taste for it after that—and other friends and acquaintances who had heard about the watch incident came by or wrote to him with their own problems and a tidy sum to ease the way. The rest, as Uncle Sanxing would say while tucking young Wu Xie into bed, was history.

In the next generation, however, Wu Xie’s father pointedly set up a legitimate business in antiques insurance. Nothing against his family, he let them know, but he wasn’t going to get mixed up in that business. The Wu family was going straight from here on out. The uncles shrewdly went along with it, setting up their own business—as a cover for their real work. The job was still simple: clients came and told the uncles their stories about what they needed to get and why. After deliberating, and with Grandfather Wu’s input while he was still alive, they would decide on whether to take a case. As for their collaborators, the imagination required for planning a robbery invites all sorts of colorful characters to the table, and Wu Xie’s summers at his uncles’ house growing up were full of grifters teaching him pool, cardsharps giving him tips on how to make an ace vanish in his hand, and hackers showing him how to get the media he wanted for free. All of this, mind, under his elders’ noses. He was meant to be learning the insurance business, and summers were for learning to mind the store and keep the accounts, not for getting involved in that immoral thieving business.

Wu Xie unwittingly grew up as a sort of living olive branch between the brothers; the one thing that Wu Xie’s father and uncles seemed to really agree on was that their beloved Wu Xie, sheltered as he was, would not become involved in the shadowy world of “freelance goods retrieval.”

Or rather, Uncle Sanxing *claimed* to agree. This would change.

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As you can see, it’s very much an AU and I’m sure I’m getting stuff wrong about the family structure, their history, etc from the books. Apologies, please just think of it all under the banner of it being an AU!

Please let me know your thoughts, it’s just starting out!!

Chapter Text

“Sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get” —Leverage

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” —George Bernard Shaw

~Wushanju, Three Years Ago~

Wu Xie

Wu Xie wouldn’t realize it for a long time, but his life changed forever over the course of one warm August night at Wushanju. The boy who had grown up learning everything there was to know about assessing the value of insurable antiques (Uncle Erbai) and how one might successfully—if not entirely innocently—acquire said antiques (Uncle Sanxing) was now a nineteen-year-old student living at his uncles’ business/residence while attending the local university. Wushanju was at once his home, his training wheels, and his future. Wang Meng worked in the business every day and seemed perfectly cheery about it. He tried to convince himself that it was enough to get to be in the room with these people. And so the cycle went on, day after day that summer, an odd sort of tedium where things were always happening, just out of sight. Just out of Wu Xie’s reach.

The night in question that changed everything, let’s call it August 17th, followed a day that had been mostly uneventful.

However, it is important here to acknowledge what passed for uneventful at Wushanju:

1.) Several thieves came around during the day, as usual—an unspoken rule was that this was the time for the regular, respectable Wu collaborators, the overlap between the ones who felt safe being seen in the Wushanju business and the ones who Wu Erbai felt were safe enough to allow near his family and in the public eye. Despite this rule, Hei Xiazi sauntered in at 9:00am sharp and stayed on the premises just long enough to flirt with an unimpressed Wang Meng, ruffle Wu Xie’s hair and make him laugh at a truly terrible pun, and shoot finger guns and a wink at a passing Pan Zi (who automatically shot finger guns back, as was their established routine).

**It was also later discovered that Xiazi had somehow gotten into the kitchen pantry when no one was looking and made off with some instant noodles.

2.) Wang Pangzi came by just after eleven, grinning wickedly at Wu Xie from behind the charred wooden box in his arms (which appeared to be smoking slightly). Pangzi was a thief who simply presumed he would have access to Wushanju at all hours, loud and confident of his welcome. Wang Meng looked slightly ill at the sight of him, as he did whenever he saw Pangzi entering the business, although that had less to do with Pangzi himself and more to do with the cleanup in his wake. The boxes Pangzi brought had an unfortunate tendency to leak...liquids. And explode. And dissolve. Uncle Erbai paid grudging compliment to Pangzi’s success rate as Tech/Explosives expert, as well as his ability to switch between other roles as needed during missions, but Uncle Sanxing was usually the one to actually hire him. Pangzi had semi-successfully vaulted over the counter, smudging fingerprints and bootprints on the glass and causing the mysterious contents of the smoking box tucked under one arm to tip ominously (Wang Meng was edging over toward the broom on the wall) as he leaned over to ruffle Wu Xie’s hair playfully. “There he is!” he shouted, his voice making him seem even louder, even bigger. “Pangzi’s favorite Wu. The delight of elderly ladies everywhere. A lovely smile, an even lovelier a—” Wang Meng smacked him over the head with the broom.

3.) A-Ning called the office phone looking for San Xing. No, she didn’t want to leave a message. No, she didn’t want to join for lunch and play pool, Wu Xie. No, she wasn’t being mean. No, those weren’t guns in the background noise. Goodbye, Wu Xie.

It had been incredibly hot in the store that day, with the ancient air conditioner that had limped through the summer seemingly in its death throes. Wu Erbai saw no point in fixing things that weren’t entirely broken. If it could still function, it was fine.

Shortly after A-Ning’s phone call, Wu Xie was cataloging paperwork under Wang Meng’s supervision when he heard the faint tones of Wu Sanxing’s trademark ringtone—Edith Piaf’s “Je Ne Regrette Rien”—coming from the store only a few rooms away and nearly rolled his ankle trying to get down the ladder. This was his chance to talk Uncle into the plan he had rehearsed for hours this week, finally Uncle was here, Wu Xie was sure with a little luck he—

Was being blocked from descending.

Wang Meng held onto both sides of the ladder firmly. “Nope. You are still on the clock, kiddo, which means you finish your work now and socialize later. Consider this training for the real world where your income doesn’t come as allowance.” Wu Xie trained his best glare on Wang Meng, the one that he hoped mimicked Wu Erbai’s baseline expression, but the clerk remained unphased. “If you are out of items to catalogue on this list, we can always move on to the shelves of shame.” He twitched the ever-present feather duster in his hand menacingly.

Wu Xie groaned. There were six rows of standing shelves in the very back of Wu Investments, hidden behind holiday décor, old clothes, and the motorcycle Wu Sanxing had given up tinkering with years ago, a veritable black hole of uncatalogued merchandise, retrieved items that had, for one reason or another, never been claimed by their clients, and paperwork dating back decades. It was dusty, dark, and smelled of old paper and mold, because not even Wang Meng liked to spend time back there. Wu Erbai liked to talk about how this waste of space in an increasingly crowded building was going to get cleared out one of these days, but somehow it never happened. Something about the shadowy stacks was strange and off-putting, and they remained, as Wang Pangzi had once called them, “the shelves of shame." Wu Xie affected a dramatic prostrating pose with his upper body. “Mercy, my captor. Even you wouldn’t be so cruel as to make me catalogue the back shelves.” Wang Meng just laughed and kept his hold on the ladder.

Fine. The threat of the shelves of shame was enough to keep him working, if not motivated. Wu Xie grumpily re-ascended the ladder and called over his shoulder, “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to bend the rules now and then. It’s not like they’d ever fire you. How could we afford any other Wang Meng?”

The Wu family were hardly powerful these days within the ring of the Nine Families, the organization of different “families” that specialized in different underground pursuits, not with all the different kinds of income and connections the other eight families had. But the Wu family was special, as Wu Sanxing used to tell Wu Xie—they were the only ones to specialize in the retrieval of rare and hard-to-find antiques. Oh, the Xie family might dabble here and there, and a younger Wu Xie had often played at puzzle games with the Xie family heir, but generally the Xie family focused on intelligence. Secrets, documents, inventions, the moves of the movers and shakers of the world. The Huo family didn’t even bother associating with the Wu family for the most part, since their specialty was political maneuvering, thinly disguised as PR management.

It didn’t matter what every family did behind the veil of their respected cover business, Wu Xie reflected sourly as he placed another file of insurance forms in its box, because he never got to do any of it. Sure, Uncle San-ye had taken him on some “vacations” that seemed suspiciously like stakeouts of various wealthy and sinister individuals, but Wu Xie was always, always left at the hotel (and during one memorable trip, on a beach overnight) with Pan Zi or some other trusted person, and only saw their findings for brief seconds before they were swept off to a grateful client.

“Just one time,” he mumbled, sweeping the remains of Pangzi’s box (which had disintegrated, albeit harmlessly, about five minutes after Pangzi left with his paycheck) into a dustpan. Wang Meng, taking the broom from him, cocked his head in silent question at his friend. “Just once, I want to be visiting Wushanju to get an assignment. I want to help, and I think—I know I’d be good at it, I know the history of every item that came through here today. Besides, I hate, hate, hate getting left behind when there are so many exciting things happening just out of my reach,” Wu Xie whined pitifully. It was more grumbling than he usually voiced out loud, as his usual personality was quite sunny, but something about today was just itching at him.

“We all have things we are meant to do for the greater good around here, Wu Xie,” announced Wang Meng solemnly, pointing the broom at him. “Some of us”—he gestured at himself—are domestic gods. Some are thieves. Some control the missions. And some”—now pointing at Wu Xie—"are meant to meet with old people to discuss their expensive vases and give them that sweet smile that keeps the place running, and that is fine. Besides, who says this job isn’t exciting? You never know what’s up a thief’s sleeve or what they are capable of.” This last part was said with a haunted expression, although Wu Xie knew that Wang Meng was thinking about Pangzi’s box debacle today. “Be sure to treat them with respect so they can’t say you deserved to be robbed, you know? And that’s something important and necessary, to be the go-between. Especially considering your Uncle Sanxing’s temper issues.”

Wu Xie finished emptying the pan into the trash and sighed. “I know I sound like a cut-rate Luke Skywalker, believe me. But I really get this feeling sometimes, like I am meant for something else. Like there’s just this…this something out there that is waiting for me, and I am just stuck here.”

“And yet there are worse things than being the family heir,” Wang Meng commented dryly. “You are not a Jedi yet.”

“It’s like they think I need to be protected from everything forever,” Wu Xie went on, ignoring this. “I’m nineteen now, I know about both sides of the business, I’m finally getting that minor in anthropology, I can help. Uncle Erbai is always droning on about tradition and duty, so why can’t I carry on the family tradition?” Wang Meng just hummed absently in response, organizing his pen supply by ink color. Wu Xie reddened, wincing a little at his own mood. “Whatever,” he grumbled. “Pan Zi would support me on this, I know it.”

For a fundamentally curious kid, Wu Xie had never really questioned why so much of his life had been spent under his uncles’ care. Well, really Pan Zi's care. When Wu Xie thought back over the times in his childhood years where he had felt truly safe and cared for, there were plenty of sepia snapshots of him playing those blueprint maze games with Uncle Sanxing—and even some video games with Uncle Erbai—but his most consistent memories of being taken care of involved Pan Zi.

This quiet, tall, and powerfully built man, with eyes that suggested an unquiet internal life, gracefully moved between roles at Wushanju that ranged from his on-the-job “freelance goods retrieval” activities (the team’s hitter, most commonly) to his more domestic work as a caretaker and protector for the family. Hired on as Wu Sanxing’s primary retrievals assistant nearly twenty years ago, Pan Zi had silently chosen to add on childcare once his boss’s nephew was in the picture and it became clear that neither Wu Erbai or Wu Sanxing had any idea of how to take care of their nephew. Pan Zi didn’t either, technically speaking, but he had been in the military—he knew discipline and adaptation. He applied that rigor to reading child development books as if he was preparing for a mission, and Wu Xie flourished so much under his style of care that teachers included approving notes in his school reports about what a helpful and well-mannered boy Wu Xie was.

He didn’t have the same relationship with his parents. It wasn’t an especially bad relationship; it just wasn’t much of a relationship, period. They had never been harsh or demanding towards him, but Wu Xie always knew that producing an heir for the family had been an obligation for his parents, not a choice. This sense of obligation was reflected in their absent-minded interactions with Wu Xie that held an oblique affection for a good-natured and necessary heir who didn’t make too much trouble and took after his father’s side in looks.

When he was living at home, his mother signed his permission forms and left them on the counter, left his lunches in the refrigerator, and left the house—and Wu Xie—with whichever housekeeper was there at the time. Wu Xie never knew where she went. His father had clapped proudly at his graduation and his mother told her friends all about his college acceptance. But it had been a secret relief for all of them, he knew, when he had gotten into college at a school so close to Wushanju.

His parents did, however, pay for his schooling—therefore, adding a minor in college this month required a trip home. Home, where his parents pretended to know their son’s life and everyone acted a little too happy to see each other. He knew his mother called Pan Zi for updates nowadays (punctually, once a month), but he had saved this conversation for an in-person interaction. The sun was setting on the last evening of his brief trip when Wu Xie broached the topic with his mother. The dining room seemed as good a spot as any, considering the circumstances. Dinner had been pushed back once again, and Wu Xie could surmise his father’s business meetings running late from the tightened corners of his mother’s mouth. He wasn’t above using both her annoyance and her lack of backup to his advantage—he had been raised as a Wu, after all, and negotiating for everything from toys to bedtime was practically formative education for Wu children.

His mother’s response to Wu Xie’s plan to get a minor in anthropology was not an out and out ‘no,’ which was encouraging. “It’s important to know the history of your wares, and it would please your clients, I suppose,” she had allowed hesitantly, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles in the thick cream tablecloth. “Your uncles have already spoken with us about you inheriting Wushanju someday and then consolidating it with your father’s business once you have built a partnership with someone to spread out the workload. Shouldn’t you be focusing on making connections for that, Wu Xie? Some friends?” She laughed a little, using the distraction of turning to straighten out the cloth’s edges, trying to conceal her discomfort over the conversation. It was usually someone else handling this side of parenting.

Wu Xie gave her his most innocent smile, and didn’t say that he had plenty of friends, she just didn’t know any of them. “Like you said,” he pointed out. “It will show prospective customers that I have worked to professionalize myself and can appreciate the value of the items I am insuring for them.”
His mother was still fretting, although she didn’t seem to know quite how to articulate it. “Why don’t you do a history minor? Why does it have to be anthropology?” The trouble was, they both already knew the answer to these questions. Studying anthropology was as close as Wu Xie could get to working in the field with his uncles.

There was something else, he could tell. There had always been this something else, an unspoken something that lurked behind all these conversations, something his parents and uncles kept from him in quick, murmured exchanges during the brief instances that they met. Something that made them all nervous about Wu Xie joining the family business at any level, much less at the level of “freelance retriever” status. What was it, he wondered. What could be so bad about following in his elders’ footsteps?

Wu Xie watched his mother glance at the clock again, her eyes narrowing, and knew that he could send over the paperwork.

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At last, however, the clock chimed six—closing time—and Wushanju’s insurance business patrons began to slowly filter out, some stopping to sign insurance paperwork (regular customers) and some holding quick, hushed conferences with Wang Meng (not regular customers). Wu Xie propped his elbows on the counter and watched the procession leave, waving goodbye to a couple of people on the way. “Take care! Have a good evening!” Not a challenging day (not that any of Wu Investment business days ever really had challenges), but still, some interesting people had come in who were now filtering out.

That guy there, for example, was a regular insurance customer: grey hat, cane, trembling hands, sweet old guy with a tiny dog. Now, that guy taking one last look—ooh, hello there, that must be a new customer: tall, very handsome, clearly defined muscles under a thin black hoodie, giving Wu Xie a friendly smile as he left. Surely not just an ordinary customer? He schooled his expression to be as business-like as possible in case Wang Meng was hovering somewhere. People they didn’t know being friendly to Wu Xie always made Wang Meng fret for some reason.

Finally, bringing up the rear, a different sort of familiar face: an elderly woman with a sweet, lined face who smuggled communications between teams of thieves in her knitting bag, she’d been around since Wu Xie’s childhood and was a particular favorite of Wang Meng’s. As a child, Wu Xie had gone through a Lord of the Rings obsession and imagined her to be Galadriel for her graceful, flowing hair and long, simple dresses—he had never quite kicked the habit of seeing her that way. She smiled at Wu Xie and leaned over the counter to press a gentle palm to his cheek. “Sweet boy, always good to see you. Take care of yourself.” Wu Xie returned the smile with a small bow and made sure she got out to the bus stop safely before returning to the business.

The regular patrons were boring, easy enough to handle (Wu Xie reflected that if that handsome guy returned, he might be worth the bother to work on his paperwork). But the others…there was something so challenging in negotiating with those clients. After all, they were the link between people like Wu Xie and thieves. All thieves were in the business for their own reasons, all out looking for their own piece of leverage—sticking within the lines, of course, of the established Wu code:

1.) Honor among fellow thieves—thou shalt not poach jobs or staff or items.
2.) Get the job done and done well.
3.) Don’t get caught with the goods.
4.) Don’t work with/against the other families without provocation/family permission.
5.) Don’t ever, ever, ever give away your secrets.

The last one was a clear message to those who were in the family but not in the business: this is something you do not and cannot understand.

“And never the twain shall meet,” Wang Meng would primly extoll when the subject of the Wu Code arose. “Tradition is tradition for a reason.”

Not long after Wang Meng had locked the doors and flipped the sign around, however, two unusual events occurred that would prove this idea to be wrong, events that would ultimately lead to absolute chaos (which Wu Sanxing always labelled as “adventures”).

Like most beginnings of adventures, however, the two unusual events that started everything seemed relatively small in scope: Wu Sanxing left to take on a last-minute retrieval mission, and Wu Erbai came into the office and abruptly shut down the business for the week.

Wu Erbai

Being the head of Wu Investments as well as the coordinator of the Wu family freelance goods retrieval had its ups and downs. On one hand, any thief worth their salt knew (rookies learned the hard way) that Wu Erbai was in charge. Projects that wanted adequate funding, the right team members or pre-formed team, and any help with…cleanup after the mission had to go to and be approved by Wu Erbai specifically. On the other hand, projects worth taking on/being done for the right reasons didn’t always pay well, and Wu Erbai was growing more suspicious by the day that his troublesome brother was sneaking unscrupulous team members and shady business clients into the mix.

He’d always had an inkling just based on knowledge of his brother’s personality (absolute asshole gifted with brains and cunning), but evidence was beginning to pile up. For example, the “quick acquisitions trip” his brother had ducked out early for today. One minute he’d been whining about how much more useful their nephew could be if they aimed that innocent charm at the right marks, and then came a short phone call that got him up from his perch on a table (Wu Erbai despaired) to call for Pan Zi, eagerness clear in his voice. Wu Erbai had at least the comfort of knowing Pan Zi's character, which wouldn’t allow Wu Sanxing to do anything too terrible. Or so he hoped.

“And just where is this sudden ‘item’ coming from?” he challenged his brother, who was changing into what he considered his “gear”—all black, with a mottled olive green canvas jacket—right in the middle of the kitchen. “One doesn’t wish to pry, naturally, into every mission,” he continued (ignoring his brother’s muttered “and yet ‘one’ always manages to…” in favor of training his most direct stare on Wu Sanxing), “However this is all a bit sudden. No planning ahead for days, no team outside Pan Zi running basic surveillance and backup. And while I would usually applaud reticence in sharing the identities of our clients and the items we locate as opposed to your usual gossiping around every bar in town, I need to know more of what’s happening here.” He planted his feet firmly between Wu Sanxing and the door.

A strange fire flashed in Wu Sanxing’s eyes—or had it? Had he imagined it?—but after a brief pause, his brother began to calmly lay out the mission. An antique sword, belonging to an old and venerable family. Stolen by some wretched businessman. On egregious display in his office. A quick in and out.

A simple mission. So simple that afterwards, Wu Erbai was surprised at his own folly in accepting it. Wu Sanxing smiled briefly and fakely before brushing past him. He peeled out of the courtyard on a motorcycle, Pan Zi following him more sedately in a sedan.

Well. At least that was one less headache today.

He returned to the hidden office behind Wu Investment’s main spaces, idly eavesdropping on his nephew and Wang Meng. Still on about some exciting future awaiting him. If Wu Erbai got his way—and he generally did—Wu Xie’s greatest excitement in life would involve filing taxes. They had quite enough people, both on permanent staff and short-term contract, that involving his innocent, untrained nephew in any kind of mission was out of the question. Sometimes missions went wrong. Sometimes people tried to doublecross them, sometimes someone didn’t want to share the findings with the client, sometimes law enforcement got dangerously close to catching on.

They’d had a terrible time some years ago, when some waitstaff at a restaurant across the street from a target started telling the police about seeing a tall, military-like man crossing the street right before a necklace went missing. Against his better judgment, Wu Erbai took the recommendation of an old friend and hired Hei Xiazi, possibly his least favorite contractor, to get rid of any conceivable evidence and lead the police well away from Pan Zi's identity. Much to his surprise, Hei Xiazi performed flawlessly. There was something almost supernatural in the ease with which he accomplished things. He was aware, however, that his grateful brother still relied on and likely overpaid Hei Xiazi for intel, and thus the strange man—who never seemed to get older—was a semi-regular face around the place. And there was no question that Hei Xiazi and his shadowy compatriot had been invaluable a few years after that incident in saving young Wu Xie’s life. For that alone, Wu Erbai put a pin in his vague suspicions about Hei Xiazi’s true nature and kept his mouth shut.

Even thinking about that horrible day made him shudder involuntarily. In addition to keeping Wu Xie out of the illegal side of their business, Wu Erbai wanted Wu Xie well away from It. That went without saying. He indulged in a second coffee before turning his attention to correspondence. He was trying to watch his caffeine intake, but sometimes needs must, and it had been a long year for both sides of the business. His paper tray and inbox were filled up with the usual insurance business letters and emails, but sprinkled throughout, there were carefully worded messages about ongoing retrievals and potential missions. Some he forwarded to Wang Meng to dispatch to the right teams, some he read with disbelief. One involved the offer of a large sum for finding a woman that the would-be client had gone on a first date with, who hadn’t returned any of his calls after the date. Wu Erbai typed out a curt apology, hinting between the lines that “lost” and “unwilling to be found” were two different categories that he should respect.

One subject heading caught his eye—an email only marked, “Fair Warning.” What had Wu Sanxing done now, he wondered, clicking on the email with some annoyance. By the time he was done reading the content of the email, the coffee was long forgotten.

This needed to be handled, and fast.

Wang Meng

There was something so nice about dusting. Finding neglected spots, relaxing in the lemony scent of the cleaner, and seeing the finished product. The perk of working in an office setting was that there were often people around, the doors to the outside and to the rest of Wushanju opening and closing, producing daily dust that someone needed to take care of. Wang Meng gloried in it. He had been unusually serious with Wu Xie earlier, listening to the boy’s complaints about the struggles of having too easy a time on earth. He was aware that he and Wu Xie were around the same age, but Wang Meng had actually lived in the world before coming to Wushanju, and he knew about the real reason why the bosses worried about Wu Xie.

He reminded himself the heir wasn’t really a whiny kid. Wu Xie was patient with customers, hard-working when he wanted to be, and could be alarmingly motivated out of compassion to help with the troubles of others. It was just that the complaining today about menial tasks flew a little too close to belittling Wang Meng’s work and life. Wu Xie wouldn’t have realized that it bothered him—for all his kind intentions, the kid was often shockingly oblivious to what other people were thinking—and Wang Meng didn’t really feel that it had been enough to warrant a speech about respecting labor. Still, it had stung.

Wang Meng had softened enough by the end of the day to give Wu Xie the closing-up task of wishing everyone farewell. He gave an evil eye to the attractive young man who was all but undressing Wu Xie with his eyes while leaving. This was a place of work, and his coworker was barely old enough to remember the 2008 Olympics. He hoped the heavy front door hit him on the way out.

He was just tidying the filing cabinet when Wu Erbai burst into the business, out of breath and eyes darting around. His face was gray and drawn, and Wang Meng was uncomfortably reminded that his boss wasn’t a young man anymore. It wasn’t that unusual for people to make dramatic entrances to Wu Investments. Wang Pangzi and Hei Xiazi in particular seemed to plan their arrivals ahead of time. But Wu Erbai was not a man who had ever rushed anything—not like that Wu Sanxing, Wang Meng thought with familiar disapproval—and he could only assume that something terrible had happened.

Before he could say anything, Wu Xie, who had been bent over out of sight behind the desk putting things into the bottom drawers, popped up suddenly with surprise. “Uncle? What is it? Are you alright?” At the sound of his nephew’s voice, Wu Erbai’s head whipped around, taking in Wu Xie’s worried face and almost absently scanning him, as if to convince himself of something.

Wu Erbai quickly regained his famed composure, turning his back to the boys to grab a piece of paper and a pen. “All is well. Or at least, it will be. I’ve decided to shut down Wu Investments for the rest of the week.”

Wang Meng thought he must have misheard. Wu Investments was Wu Erbai’s pride and joy, and he never permitted early closings or extra vacation—his philosophy being that he had only ever closed the business during week hours on 1.) the day of Wu Xie’s birth and 2.) for a single day when the entire household caught a cold during one memorable winter.

But here he was, already bustling around putting out the explanatory sign on the door as Wang Meng and Wu Xie stood open-mouthed in the foyer behind him.

“It’s only Tuesday, Uncle,” Wu Xie finally said, in a would-be casual voice that just came out timidly. “Isn’t that an awful lot of time to stay closed?”

His uncle looked distractedly back over at his young employees and seemed surprised that they were still there. “You boys should go have some fun, get some fresh air. There will be plenty of work waiting here next week.” He grabbed some files from the cabinet and marched back to the office, already dialing on his phone as he closed the door behind him. A pointed end to any chance of further conversation.

Wang Meng and Wu Xie looked at each other. There was just too much unexplained weirdness all at once—for one thing, Wang Meng was pretty sure that the word “fun” had never before left Wu Erbai’s mouth. For another, Wu Erbai would have planned ahead for a closing, he never acted so hastily…except today, just now, when he had looked at Wu Xie in that awful way, like he’d expected to see—something.

Perhaps it was this confusion that persuaded him to stand guard as Wu Xie tucked a walkie talkie right next to the office threshold’s warped crack, tape keeping the audio on. They made a show of walking away from the office and into Wushanju, Wang Meng rambling loudly about making some soup for dinner. Once they reached the kitchen, Wu Xie pulled the other walkie talkie out of his pocket and they stood over it, listening in on his boss’s strange day.

Wu Erbai was speaking very quickly on the phone to someone, barely audible even with their makeshift listening device. His voice was low and full of suppressed anger. “You know what that means, right? If It is really back, if It has followed your foolish, greedy little trail back here, you’ve put everyone in danger. I’ve had to notify the families—stop. Talking. Just answer when I ask you questions. Where are you now?” A brief pause before Wu Erbai spoke again, his voice still displeased but no longer rushed. “When you and Pan Zi get back tonight, we are going to have a conversation, and you are going to tell me everything. In the meantime, I want Pan Zi to take him out of the city for a while—at least until his semester starts. No, I don’t want to hear about…about the plan you have, over the phone. Just finish tying up those loose ends and try not to tell everyone your business along the way this time, do you understand me? I will handle getting everything ready to go, just be back here by nightfall.” Silence fell in the office as the phone call ended abruptly, but the two boys standing in the kitchen remained where they were, trying to process what they had just heard.

Wu Xie

“This is ridiculous!” Wu Xie yelled through the door of his closet, well aware that his uncles, moving around his room and sniping at each other while pulling out drawers and zipping up cases, weren’t listening to him anymore. “Just tell me what’s happening! I can help! Who is after us?” No one responded, but he didn’t expect them to. The door remained stubbornly locked, as it had been for almost a half hour.

He already recognized that whatever this situation is, it had happened before. He’d never let on—a kind of lie by omission, although he knew Wu Sanxing suspected—that he had retained a very dim memory from the summer when he was seven, this exact kind of scrambling with him being scooped up and deposited in a quiet room with a grim-looking guard while the grownups argued with other grownups outside on cellphones and someone packed up a bag for him.

He could remember getting into the backseat of a car, the guard joined by another guard (Mr. Grumpy 1 and Mr. Grumpy 2, Wu Xie had privately labelled them). He remembered the car suddenly shuddering as it got rear-ended, smoke filling the air and shouting and bad things happening to the Grumpies that he didn’t really understand at the time was murder. He remembered crying, being held in the back of a van in a carpark for hours surrounded by strange grownups whose expressions turned ugly with malice whenever they looked at him.

He remembered—the fuzziest part of the memory—startled shouts from the bad men as the back of the van suddenly wrenched open to reveal a man dressed all in black standing there, alone. He remembered starting to cry because the man was clearly here to help but he was alone and bad things would happen to him, just like with the Grumpies. The man’s head tilted to one side as he spotted the frightened child curled up in a corner of the van, and he suddenly drew a sword from behind his back.

What happened next was a blur. Suddenly another black-clad figure appeared, swooping down into the van from overhead. He snatched Wu Xie up in his arms before whirling and leaping back up onto the top of the van, so fast that the bad men didn’t have time to react. Their roars as they spilled out of the van, drawing guns and knives, were so enraged Wu Xie hid his head in his rescuer’s shoulder. He felt a rumbling chuckle from the shoulder he was pressed into. “Don’t be scared, little one. My friend and I won’t let them touch you.” Wu Xie dared to look up to see a smiling man wearing a pair of dark sunglasses, balancing him on one hip and holding a long knife in the other. The man jerked his head, long messy hair flying, in the general direction of the carpark floor. “Don’t look now, but he’s taking care of business.”

The roars had turned to screams and groans, and Wu Xie was too afraid to look behind him to disobey—and then the screams died off and suddenly there was the man, flipping onto the top of the van with them. Wu Xie peeked up at the newcomer, startled. The man’s face was hidden in the shadow of his hood, blending into the semi-dark carpark, but he remained silent. “Hey, Speechless. Baby Wu is freaked out enough without you doing your whole Batman thing. Maybe give him a hello? So he knows you aren’t actually a creature of the night? Kid’s already got enough traumatic shit from these assholes.” The man in sunglasses bounced Wu Xie on his hip.

The man called Speechless slowly raised a hand, in a small wave.

Wu Xie remembered his manners (Pan Zi was a stickler for proper introductions) and gave as good a bow as he was able while being seven years old and carried on someone's hip. "Thank you, sirs. I won't forget your kindness."

The man in sunglasses threw his head back and laughed. "Hear that, Xiao Ge? We are gentlemen now, according to this little gentleman!"

The man in black, who had frozen at being thanked by Wu Xie directly, just nodded slowly to him, then nodded once to the man in sunglasses and leapt up from the van, elegantly disappearing into the darkness of the roof. And that was that. Sunglasses Man did something to the car’s ignition to make it restart while muttering under his breath about being left to handle the hard work and pick up after everyone, and then advised Wu Xie—with a somewhat disturbing perkiness—to pretty please with a cherry on top don't look around outside the car until they were out of the carpark.

Later, once tucked into bed and dimly listening to his uncles lie flawlessly on the phone to his parents, Wu Xie tried to close his eyes on the whole, terrible, confusing thing. Who were the bad guys, and why hadn’t they done horrible things to Wu Xie like they had to the Grumpies? Who were the men in black, and why did one say curse words so much and the other say nothing at all? Why did one know how to start cars without keys and why did the other one look so shocked and almost frightened by a simple "thank you"? And how--this was the biggest question, one that he puzzled over for years--had neither of them gotten hurt in the process of saving him?

He had never forgotten the menacing, murderous gang in the van, or the two men who had rescued him. He thought about them now and then, and one summer a few years later the man in sunglasses came into the back of the business during one of Wu Sanxing’s mission meetings. He’d been thrilled to get to hang out with thieves and attend the meeting (as Wu Erbai was in Florence “taking a break”) and when the man in sunglasses cheerfully introduced himself to Wu Xie as “Hei Xiazi, a friend of your uncles,” the boy instinctively threw himself into welcoming arms for a big hug. Wu Sanxing had laughed along with the other thieves present as Hei Xiazi ruffled his hair with vigor, clapping with delight at his nephew’s enthusiasm. “He probably doesn’t remember where he knows you from”—his eyes were thoughtful, however, as they darted between Wu Xie and the supposed family friend—“but that’s our Wu Xie, always a charmer.”

No one had asked anything about why Wu Xie might know Hei Xiazi, or made any mention of the man who had been with him. As he got older, he realized Hei Xiazi and whoever the other man were must be something special. Hei Xiazi was permitted to cover pretty much every position on a team (except for actually planning the mission—his proposals always involved some combination of military-grade weapons, crossdressing, and baked goods, and it was only during those proposal presentations that Wu Erbai was known to knock back some whiskey).

Wu Xie was old enough now to know that whatever was happening outside his little makeshift holding cell was very, very bad. He had been reminded of that awful childhood experience just now partially because the circumstances were too similar to those of 12 years ago to be coincidence.

And partially because he was reminded, sitting in the closet jail, that despite Wu Erbai’s efforts to keep his nephew out of things, it was Hei Xiazi (at the time, still simmering with injustice that Operation Cupcake Honeytrap Airstrike had just been vetoed in a meeting) who had taught him to pick locks when he was thirteen.

The voices were moving closer to the dresser near the closet door, and he paused rummaging around for clips to press his ear to the keyhole.

“How could I know It was following me?” Wu Sanxing sounded on the verge of losing his voice from yelling. “I don’t exactly have your hypervigilance, brother.”

“I’m well aware.” Wu Erbai, by contrast, had hardly raised his voice once, which was somehow more frightening. “But I assumed you would at least stick to talking with Pan Zi in that morse code system you use on the off chance that someone could hear you, and not go off to 'have a chat' with a stranger. Considering the stakes. Considering the consequences.”

“I don’t use morse code, I’ve told you, Pan Zi and I made a nonverbal code but it’s predetermined patterns of knocking and—never mind, you don’t care. All you care about is this one time I dared hold a real conversation with someone outside the family.”

“I do hope he was worth your…conversation." Wu Erbai's voice was icy. "Is Pan Zi aware of this?”

Wu Xie frowned, trying to angle his ear to hear better. The grownups weren’t making much sense. Why would Pan Zi care if Uncle Sanxing talked to someone? They were together, it wasn’t a secret in the family.

The footsteps moved away, one faster than the other. “Nothing happened, my dear brother, and you can fuck off for suggesting it.”

“You are aware that as your dear brother, I actually do know you.”

“…he isn’t one of them, but he works for them, if I had had any idea at all he was part of—”

The door to the bedroom slammed shut as the brothers continued to argue on their way down the hall.

Wu Xie took a deep breath and picked the lock as quietly as possible. The door swung open to reveal a duffel bag on the bed, mostly packed. Rolled bills and a passport that Wu Xie didn’t remember getting were scattered next to the bag.

Wu Xie made a face. Clearly, he was being sent away “for his own good” rather than anyone honestly telling him what there was to be guarded from. Suddenly, he felt incredibly angry by the whole situation. He was almost twenty, and they’d shoved him into the closet and tried to pack up his life for him without consulting him or explaining anything. In an instant, he made the decision that tipped fate. He stuffed the money and the passport into the bag and hoisted it onto his back, trying not to think too hard about what he was doing.
He edged open a window, and crawled out onto the roof. It was a quick leap into the tree overlooking his window, and then a shimmy down the trunk, made awkward by the bag on his back.

Then he was standing in the darkening courtyard, alone, still upset, and confused. The first step taken, Wu Xie had no idea what to do next. His face felt strange, and he reached up to touch it with one hand, only to realize with surprise that he was smiling.

Chapter Text

Zhang Qiling
He didn’t sleep well on trains. Generally, his sleep troubles were due in no small part to a paranoid streak, but in this particular case, his sleep was troubled because sleeping under moving trains was difficult. He had wedged himself above the axle under a dining car, thinking that there would be the most chatter there, both to listen in for potential intel and to drown out any sounds of him adjusting position, but also a good warm place to rest up before confronting Wu Sanxing.

A good idea, in theory. In practice, he hadn’t considered this was a 24-hour dining car and that lots of people would take their vacations during the last bit of summer. Four hours straight crammed under a train car listening to squabbling families, a confused but happy tourist group from a place called Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and an elderly woman determined to set her son up with his coworker, who was most definitely a lesbian.

Somewhere, Hei Xiazi must be laughing his head off, the mercenary little shit. He entertained a brief fantasy of using his sword to cut up into the floor and flip up into the train car, if only to silence everyone in a moment of peace.

Except that he didn’t have his sword right now, and the reason for that was the same reason that this temporary discomfort was necessary.

His clan had always used their high position among the nine families to obfuscate the exact structure and inner workings of the family to the outside world, and even lower-ranking members of the Zhang clan only had a vague understanding that there were supposedly those among the Zhang bloodline who didn’t age at the rate everyone else did. Mercifully, the other eight families tended to keep an uneasy distance from that strange and powerful Zhang clan, except when called on to assemble for larger meetings.

The Mystic Nine had begun as a coalition of a group of petty thieves, each bringing something different to the team. Even after the nine families drifted apart, the model still persisted in their own missions—whatever they stole, each team had some combination of at least one hitter (any physical heavy lifting or fighting), a grifter (to carry out cons and the majority of undercover work), a hacker (whether computer hacker, locksmith, codebreaker, puzzle master, etc), a thief (usually the one to actually steal the item), and a mastermind, the leader who put everything together and managed the missions.

The Zhang clan didn’t consider themselves to be thieves in the same sense as the other families; after all, they would argue, the artifacts they hunted for were mainly hidden legacies from their own ancestors, so it wasn’t stealing so much as inheritance. Regardless, they maintained their standing in the Mystic Nine. They were an old, close-ranked family, often hidden or forgotten even in Mystic Nine histories, but what kept the Zhang family so insular and private was something so great and terrible that a significant portion of the clan focused their energy on ensuring it could never be stolen. The Zhang legacy, what the other families only dimly perceived and what the shadowy organization It hungered for. Zhang Rishan called it their legacy.

After decades of dodging in and out of security cameras and well-intentioned questions, watching everyone grow up and grow old or just die young over and over, and sometimes waking up completely blank and unknowing of everything around him—he, Zhang Qiling, called it their curse.

Hei Xiazi called him melodramatic. What did he know, he’d swallowed a mysteriously stolen pill of some sort because he wanted “to see what would happen” and had become timeless that way. Another reason Hei Xiazi was not invited to gatherings.

On the rare occasions where he worked on a Zhang team, he usually took on the role of hitter or thief, and sometimes hacker. He dreaded having to communicate or diplomatically resolve conflicts constantly as a leader would need to do, and getting close to people as a grifter would was laughable.

He wondered what roles he would need to have on this particular trip. His grip tightened around one of the knives strapped to his body. A hitter, certainly. Even if none of the damned Wu family members tried to give him trouble—unlikely, as Grandmother Huo had pointed out more than once that the name Wu should really just mean “chaos”—he planned to handle Wu Sanxing personally.

Most of the families didn’t take the Wu family seriously, and perhaps that had been his mistake here. His sword rarely left his person under any circumstances—sometimes it felt like a part of him—but earlier today, he had agreed to sit in on a meeting with the Xie family, which necessitated him to follow one of the few hard rules of Xie clan etiquette: no weapons on hand during negotiations. Foolishly, he had relented for the sake of avoiding conversation about it, and had left it on a designated table outside the main room, still in his line of sight.

But somehow—somehow, Wu Sanxing, that bastard, had managed to swipe it in the three seconds where his back was turned.

It had happened when the meeting was practically over, and he was so bored he was considering whether the roof was accessible to practice some sword forms while everyone socialized. Zhang Rishan’s plea to “sit quietly and stare at them while I negotiate how to deal with that peculiar burial site” wasn’t so much work as it was his baseline. The main negotiations had just concluded, relatively satisfactorily for both parties, and the tension was finally starting to dissipate.

The Xie and Zhang families seldom interacted, but he could appreciate how they presented themselves while hosting any kind of event—the fresh-cut flowers on the table were rare and out of season, likely from some expensive hothouse, and he suspected that the chandeliers were even more valuable than they looked. The Xie clan had always been gifted at displaying their wealth without being gaudy, and their young heir, Xie Yuchen, was reportedly building the family’s public profile steadily every year. The heir in question was conversing with Zhang Rishan, clearly trying to wiggle his way into some camaraderie. Watching, he suppressed a yawn. It was just as well that the little heir hadn’t tried that with him, as he wasn’t one to be swayed by a charming smile.

Nevertheless, he felt relieved that the family had maintained their ties with the Xie family; Zhang Rishan ran the family skillfully, but it was always good to have allies in the families, and the Xie clan was well-connected—he’d even spotted Hei Xiazi skulking around the punch bowl with a too-innocent smile earlier that evening. People from both Zhang and Xie clans were slowly relaxing back in their chairs, more drinks were being poured, even Zhang Rishan was being practically friendly (only a Zhang would have recognized the calculating look in his eyes as he danced his way through conversation), and there was a general mood that the evening as a whole had been a success.

He was just about to go look for the roof access when Xie Yuchen elegantly rose from his chair, raising a glass of wine. “I propose a toast,” his voice carrying well throughout the room—he was quite good at projecting without shouting—“to a good and prosperous autumn ahead of us all.”

Appreciative murmurs filled the air as everyone jostled for a standing position to join the toast, and he was elbowed in the chest by a tiny old man from the Xie clan who was hoisting his glass in the air with a little too much enthusiasm. The impact barely registered with him, but the other man’s arm bounced off as he gave a squeak of surprise, overcorrecting, and the frail elder would have fallen over if not for him smoothly grasping his shoulders and steadying him. The old man beamed up at him and patted his sleeve—"Such a nice young man! Shows respect for his elders!”—and the toast went on uninterrupted.

When he lifted his eyes again to the hall table, however, there was an obvious gap in the well-arranged line of Zhang weapons. He scanned the rest of the weapons, just in case it had gotten jostled out of place, but the rest were there, untouched, it was just his—no no NO—

Zhang Rishan was turning to him, probably to ask a question, but stopped mid-speech at whatever look was on his face. “Patriarch? What is it? What’s happened?” Zhang Rishan spoke softly and pleasantly while reaching inconspicuously into a jacket pocket, narrowed eyes shifting around the room. “Do we need to leave early?”

He shook his head, speechless in his anger, and left under the cover of the group’s cheery continued toasts to health, family, and long life, Zhang Rishan looking concerned behind him but letting him leave without drawing attention to his departure. He’d explain everything to Zhang Rishan once he’d found whoever was stupid enough to steal from a Zhang thief. He didn’t care much for the Patriarch title, but at least the position should have deterred anyone from taking what was his. He really, really didn’t like it when people tried to take what was his, and someone was about to find out just how much.

The table was just outside of the main room, at the end of a long hallway. He moved swiftly down the hall and through a whole maze of halls (damn the Xie clan and their money) towards the stairs, conscious that he was running a little too fast to be considered normal human speed if anyone had eyes on him right now, but not caring. The sword was too important to him. He might still not remember why, or where it came from, or when he got it, but it was more than just a weapon. It was a key to all the selves he had lost, as well as his one constant companion and safeguard. It wasn’t a question of IF he would be getting it back, but a question of how many people he would need to go through—and potentially run through, with said sword—to get it.

Just as he reached the top of the marble staircase, he was torn from his brooding by a chirpy little whistle. No one was in sight, but he had a feeling that he knew exactly who it was. He slowed his pace enough to look up and around. Sure enough, Hei Xiazi was lounging on a high window ledge opposite the stairs, looking a little too pleased with himself, as usual. “You took long enough to notice that.”

Had he—his friend, had Hei Xiazi—no, he wouldn’t, he was a bastard and a liar, but he understood some things couldn’t be touched. Unless, had he underestimated his friend? They hadn’t seen each other in a while, who knew what could have changed? It woudn’t be the first person to betray him. He didn’t recognize the growl emanating from his core as he stalked over the the window, where was the sword where was it—

“Hey, hey, whoa, Gollum, slow your roll. It’s just bestie over here.” Hei Xiazi sat up and raised his hands in a lazy surrender. “I mean, ancient weaponry is cool and all, but not really my aesthetic, you know? It’s Wu Sanxing you want to hunt down for it. He’s gotten totally obsessed with your sword, and not in a sexy way. Like a low-rent Ringwraith.”

He stopped but didn’t move out of his attack stance. “What does that even—why?”

Hei Xiazi swiveled slightly in his seat to pick up a bottle of wine (apparently swiped from the meeting room) and took a delicate swig. “From what he told me, and by that I mean, from what I put together based on gossip and Wu San-ye’s pitifully amateur attempts at deceit, it’s not to resell. I think it’s meant as collateral, actually—a bargaining chip to make you some kind of human shield between his family and a group of Big Bads that just cropped up in his area of the neighborhood. So yeah, once I realized what he was after, I told him you were here and that the sword wasn’t glued to your hand like usual. And he paid! Good money for a hard day’s leisure.” The sunglasses seemed to twinkle to match the angelic smile.

He finally found his voice, trying not to lose patience. “Why are you telling me? You could have left the building an hour ago and I wouldn’t have known you were ever involved.”

Hei Xiazi’s smile turned slightly rabid. “Uh, DUH—so you can go get it back! He paid for intel, after all, not loyalty. He doesn’t get that shit for such a low price. You’re welcome in advance.” He took another sip. “I know the bastard way better than you—he’s fucking tenacious and he was gonna get ahold of it one way or another, even if he had to break his own family code. This way, it’s manageable—you get the sword back, he knows you know, I know you know he knows you know, etc, and if he’s smart he’ll just hire bodyguards next time and not piss you off again.”

Despite the wide grin, Hei Xiazi’s eyes were solemn. “The thing is, he could have just come to us in the first place. If he had offered to pay for protection, I would have helped. I’m a sweetheart like that, especially for a group rate. I think you would help, too, cuz you’re always being noble about protecting the innocents, blah blah blah. But Sneakykins McMotherfucker decided to just take your family’s heirloom and your primary weapon hostage and force you to help him, instead of asking like a gentleman.” He hopped down from the windowsill, beckoning imperiously to follow him. “So he doesn’t get to have nice things.”

Zhang Qiling moved with him towards the stairs, already calculating how long it would take him to get to the train station (he didn’t trust cars, road rules were absurd things), and how to get to Wu Sanxing’s home from the station, as he was sure he had been there before but couldn’t recall anything about it.

“I need directions to Wushanju. He’ll be taking it back there.”

To his surprise, his friend’s face was a little uncomfortable. “I was worried you might say that. Can’t you just hunt him down on the way there? Waylay him like a highwayman or something? Use the ol’ spidey senses?”

“Not a guarantee. And why would I have the nervous system of an arachnid—"

“It’s not a big deal, but the Wu family has an heir that you and I rescued once, a while ago,” Hei Xiazi said quietly, slowing down and not looking directly at him. “You probably don’t remember him. Wu Xie. An itty bitty baby that got kidnapped by some baddies?"

“I have no idea,” he said slowly. He shook his head, dispelling whatever strange cobwebs were in there—damn it, Hei Xiazi, stalling him—and abruptly descended the stairs, his friend still chattering behind him.

“Yeah I figured, cuz your brain did that factory reset like ten years ago, and the Wu thing was about twelve years ago? I gotcha, it’s a case of mo’ memory, mo’ problems. It’s why you never remember to get me souvenirs from your travels—”

“I don’t forget, I just don’t want to do it.”

“—but just like…a favor, por favor?” Hei Xiazi had slowed behind him, wearing a strange expression now, and he realized with a start that this was what Hei Xiazi looked like when he was totally serious. “I mean, obviously we are gonna get your sword back, that’s not even a question…but when you find Wu Sanxing, whatever you do to him, please make sure the kid isn’t collateral damage? I kinda watched him grow up, a little. I give you my word that the kid wouldn’t hurt a fly. Like, if a fly got into his room, he’d probably make it some tea and give it a cute nickname then gift it the cardigan off his back.”

He frowned, disconcerted by what his friend seemed to be implying. “I don’t even deal with civilians; you know that I wouldn’t—”

“I know, I know YOU wouldn’t. Under the angsty boi is a sweety boi, I’ve always said it. And I’m like 98% sure Wu Sanxing wouldn’t go there either, except that I’ve seen him backed into a corner before, and he won’t hesitate to use whatever buffer he can find, especially against you. Guy’s a survivor, I give him credit for that, but he’s got a nasty habit of ensuring his survival through less than chill means. You feel?”

“Got it. Don’t confront Wu Sanxing anywhere near his nephew. Wu Xie. Are we done?” He had been already thinking of how he could properly menace Wu Sanxing without permanently damaging him or anyone around him, but if it made Hei Xiazi feel better to hear confirmation…

Hei Xiazi pointed at him. “Just you keep in mind, you promised! So the next time I sneak into their pantry to stock up—I mean, the next time I visit Wushanju—Wu Xie will be in one piece, yeah?”

He held out his hand for the map. Hei Xiazi eyed his hand for a moment before sighing loudly and handing over a handwritten set of directions, complete with a stick-figure version of each guard stationed around the building.

Finally.

Hei Xiazi
Watching his friend stalk out of the Xie estate like a hound that had scented blood was a little unnerving, but it took more than that to bother Hei Xiazi. Nah, Lil’ Hissypants over there would be fine. Probably. The chances of him killing anyone were low, at least. Kinda. Meh. He would just…maybe just in case, he would pay a quick trip to Wushanju tonight. Not to stop him, just to make sure the bloodshed was kept to like, a bloody nose. And maybe some specific severed limb. He congratulated himself on his own restraint.

Hei Xiazi didn’t take kindly to sneaky little rats who took advantage of people who had helped them. And he especially hated people who went after Xiao Ge. Dude was at a disadvantage already with the whole memory thingy, and it always made him kinda sick to hear people talking about missions where the homie had done something amazing and nearly gotten killed nonetheless. Almost like none of these people had had Xiao Ge’s back, or something. The Sunglasses Trust (Fund) included a slightly confusing and contradictory moral code, but at least he had one.

Zhang Qiling would never ever believe it, but he had a stronger moral code as a thief and man than anyone else Hei Xiazi knew. It was one of the reasons they were friends—everyone needs a role model that they will trust, if not imitate. The chances of Zhang Qiling actually doing much beyond a beatdown was unlikely.

But just in case Wu Sanxing decided to be himself tonight... He swung himself up into the Jeep he’d, er, borrowed from some guy who’d been drunkenly flirting with Xie Yuchen at the club last night. It wasn’t like Xie Yuchen had been in any danger, or even any real inconvenience—in fact, he seemed to be taking the opportunity to extract some intel from the drunk guy about the guy’s clan (Chen, maybe?) and their shipping practices. Hei Xiazi shivered at the very memory of Xie Yuchen transforming smoothly from sweet and coy looking to downright dangerous, a black widow spider with its lovely eyes fixed on a particularly annoying fly.

He tried not to think too much about why he’d been hanging around the club in the first place (not invited, particularly not to the VIP lounge), why he’d been so annoyed about some hammered idiot swaying into Xiao Hua’s personal space, or why the Xie heir’s elegantly adept handling of the situation made his throat so dry.

Well. If Hei Xiazi was being honest with himself—and he did his best to never be honest with himself, on principle—he already knew the answers to those questions. But knowing was one thing and dealing with it was quite another, and he really didn’t have time for that right now when one of his sometime employers was at risk of being mangled. He started the Jeep, dipped into the shopping bag full of pilfered Xie clan pastries for a croissant (he related to croissants on an emotional level, yesss it was the almond one, a good sign for tonight), and started off in the direction of Wushanju.

Zhang Qiling
Once off the train, everything seemed a little clearer. He took position and surveyed his target. The lights were still on in Wushanju. He peered at the building’s various lit rooms, reasonably confident that no one could see him here, perched on the top of the building across the street. It was a good position, two stories up. Someone would have to be sitting in that tree in the courtyard to even have a chance at seeing him, and the Wu family wasn’t known to have any snipers other than Pan Zi.

He sat back for a moment, contemplating his options. He could wait for everyone to go to sleep, but the place was apparently quite busy tonight, people running around and visible activity in almost every room. Perhaps they are looking over their newest acquisition, he thought in anger. Enjoy it while you can, you greedy fools…

“Hey Xiao Ge, how's the view?”

Zhang Qiling had often been described (by all manner of strangely friendly and touchy people on the street, in cafés, on trains, etc) as an elegant, graceful panther. But at the shock of that sudden voice in his ear—and how had anyone snuck up on him?—he jerked to one side a little awkwardly, flailing for a single moment before recovering to spin up to a crouched fighting stance, ready to defend against—

“Hei Xiazi. Again.” He slowly sagged back to sitting on the ledge.

His friend, leaning against the fire escape behind him, flashed him a peace sign along with a completely unconvincing innocent smile. “Long time no see, what are the odds of us meeting up like this twice in one night? Destiny, mi amigo. We should play the lottery numbers or go gambling later. You’d love—well, no, you’d actually hate Vegas.”

“The odds are always in your favor when you cheat,” he muttered, somewhat embarrassed to have been played by Hei Xiazi of all people for the second time that day. “Just in the neighborhood, I assume?”

His friend was still on another train of thought. “I mean, if we DID go to Vegas, like to maybe get away for a bit until the heat dies down from whatever, that would be a good time. Hey, we could even join a heist and get cool new code names, right? It’ll be like James Bond, but like, way sexier AND way better at keeping our romantic interests breathing. I’ll be Bond, obviously, and you’ll be my arm candy. A soft-spoken but horny secretary named Kitty Noir, who started out cursing all I stand for but who is now ready to risk it all for me. Together, we will flirt wittily over an armed grenade and save the something—something blahblah missile plans.” Hei Xiazi looked a little starry-eyed at the thought of his own daring nerve and sex appeal.

“Why are you—”

“Like this? Such a snack? Full of good ideas?”

“Confusing me with your daydreams about Xie Yuchen,” he corrected, and felt a little smug at having his suspicions confirmed when Hei Xiazi’s left eyebrow twitched minutely. “Why are you HERE?”

“Just trying to ensure your anger reaches the right destination, and at not too fast a speed where you can’t slow yourself if necessary. These aren’t all bad folks here, okay, and I wouldn’t want to put a target on someone’s back.”

“…you told me exactly what Wu Sanxing had done and then gave me directions to his home address."

Hei Xiazi waved a hand vigorously, and pastry flakes (what?) went flying in the air. “Uh, that’s Wu Sanxing, A of all, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t break out the burn book. Or maybe a good old-fashioned catfight. Mud wrestling? It’s just, if you are planning to attack Wushanju without having told Zhang Rishan about it…”

“Not attacking Wushanju at all. Going in, getting the sword back, having a quick physical interaction with Wu Sanxing, then leaving.” He ignored the meaningful emphasis placed on his kinsman’s name. He knew that it wasn’t technically within the rules of his clan for him to be here.

“Right, define *interaction.*” Hei Xiazi plopped down next to him, wiggling his eyebrows. “Let’s workshop this.”

“Unnecessary. Leave.”

“Oooh hoo hoo, look who’s all confident. Have you even considered the rest of the Wu clan that is bound to be there? They’re like a damn wolf pack, claws and fleas included. You’ve not thought about Pan Zi, I bet. You remember him at all? Twice your size and loyal as hell to Wu Sanxing—relatedly, has terrible taste in men? Dude is seriously super-duper military-trained. He probably couldn’t beat you in a fight but I’d bet Xie Yuchen’s money that he could hold his own long enough for backup to arrive.”

He hadn’t thought that through at all. Another reason why he was never team leader. He preferred to act swiftly and come up with solutions to issues as they arose. He slouched down into his hoodie to avoid looking at his friend. “Maybe he’s asleep?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he’s just decided to give up the business and open a tiki lounge. Sure.”

“Well, one person isn’t that hard to avoid—”

“Wang Meng is almost always on site, and I know from experience that he is self-taught in the hallowed arts of frying-pan guerilla warfare. And what if Wu Sanxing is spending some quality time with his family tonight? To be perfectly honest, Wu Erbai would probably welcome you through the door himself if you showed up offering to kick his brother’s ass, but remember, I told you that our little Wu Xie lives there right now, too.”

“…maybe Wu Xie’s asleep?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he’s—” Hei Xiazi abruptly went silent, staring past his shoulder at Wushanju. “Ah. Um. Climbing out his bedroom window?”

He turned around, following his friend’s line of sight, to confirm that Hei Xiazi was indeed telling the truth. A shadowy figure with a large duffel bag on his back, ostensibly Wu Xie, was leaning out an upper window, and seemed to be in the process of sizing up the distance from the roof’s edge to the tree trunk with vague hand-wavey measurements.

There was no familiarity or recognition from this distance. He wondered. Who is this Wu Xie that Hei Xiazi is bothering to shield him? Would he remember me?

Hei Xiaxi was cursing quietly. “It’s truly a marvel. All the work collectively done keeping that little shit alive, and he still manages to pull this kind of shit. You gotta admire the moxie. Don’t worry, he won’t see us. Too preoccupied with defying gravity, apparently.”

“But why leave?” he wondered aloud, watching the small figure gingerly edge onto the roof, the duffel bag awkwardly swinging behind him.

Hei Xiazi shrugged, holding his breath for a moment then cursing again as Wu Xie leapt, enthusiastically if not gracefully, from the roof to the tree, swinging wildly from a branch and hugging onto it for dear life. “Who knows. Too cozy and well cared-for, insufficient peril? Decided he’s ready for his Eat Pray Love phase? I can’t believe I’m having to be the responsible one tonight, it sucks.”

He didn’t respond, focused on the figure now awkwardly shimmying its way down the tree trunk.

“Here’s the plan: I’ll go find Pan Zi and get him chatting. Once you’ve gotten the sword, I’ll snitch on seeing Little Mr. Freebird and voila, the household will get busy looking for him. He won’t have gotten far by then, but it’ll still get people out of the way and buy you some time to locate and smack the shit outta Wu Sanxing. Then we’ll go back to your family’s teahouse, have a nice hot cuppa, and wait for this all to blow over. Win-win. Okay?”

“…Sure.” His friend was right on one point, they needed to focus on what they were doing before Wu Sanxing slipped out of their fingers. He vaulted from his perch onto the awning of the business below, dimly aware that Hei Xiazi was following him down. His friend strode confidently into the courtyard, ignoring the small figure of Wu Xie, still clinging to the tree and apparently oblivious to his surroundings.

He scuttled across the dark, quiet alley around the back of Wushanju, telling himself firmly that it did not concern him at all if the Wu heir got down safely, so he shouldn’t want to check for himself.

Wu Sanxing
One problem that Wu Sanxing had not foreseen in his early twenties, when he’d agreed to move back to live in the family home, was that his family would be living there, too. Over the last twenty-ish years, his relationship with his brothers had deteriorated, and he knew (yes thank you Pan Zi, he was in fact aware) that this was somewhat his doing.

“I’m the only one taking steps to look out for us!” he shouted, slightly hoarse at this point, but aware that he needed to maintain this level to cover what he was certain would be the noise of his nephew climbing out the window. He’d be very annoyed and disappointed in his nephew if he didn’t take the opportunity to escape—he’d left the items on the bed specifically and drawn his hissing brother out into the hall to give him the chance. He’d give him another fifteen minutes—he’d kept arguments going with his brother for hours before—and then casually saunter back in the room, feigning shock that their nephew possessed both free will and basic lock-picking skills (he knew it had been a good idea after all, recommending that Hei Xiazi teach Wu Xie “a thing or two”).

It wasn’t that he actually planned on Wu Xie getting away, quite the opposite in fact. He knew well and good that if he wanted to get his brother’s help and support to hang onto the sword and use it to persuade its owner, he would need to present a good argument for the family needing extra protection that couldn’t be provided by their current staff. He winced internally; Pan Zi was already unreadable tonight, having most certainly heard the little jab about his—well, call it what it is, he thought guiltily, an affair—with Wen Zhi, and his mood was not likely going to improve when Wu Sanxing showed everyone that the family heir could disappear under his watch. He knew his brother well enough to know that Wu Xie was the one weak spot he had, and he wasn’t above exploiting that, but he did feel a twinge of discomfort about the part of the plan where he needed Pan Zi to see himself as an insufficient caregiver and help him to overrule Wu Erbai’s concerns. Those two were his best allies in going up against the Zhang family with some leverage.

Wu Erbai was slowly pacing back and forth along the gallery of the dining room, although his expression suggested that this was a far cry from his usual sedate stroll. “So good of you to finally start caring about people other than yourself. Now. You need to start thinking up some good apologies for the Zhangs when we return their sword. Temporary—well, no one will believe *temporary* madness from you—”

“I’m not risking some Wang shithead taking another crack at our family, brother.” He’d warned Wu Erbai, twelve fucking years ago he’d warned him that It was a danger that didn’t just go away, not really. His brother was just so relieved to get their nephew back safely, so stubborn and self-confident in his new security plans. It would serve him right to have their nephew disappear for—he eyed the clock on the wall surreptitiously—twelve more minutes.

Wu Erbai stared him down. “Let’s say this little plan of yours works well enough that we have the Zhangs behind us, however reluctantly or temporarily. Fine, more enemies in the Nine Families, nothing new. But you haven’t thought through what this will mean for us right here at home. What if word gets out to people who are insuring their antiques with the Wu business? People saying that the Wu family can’t be trusted? How were your actions today any better than those of the people we steal from, or It?”

“There are people out there right this minute who are hard to identify as dangerous until they’ve got a knife at your throat. At our people’s throats. At Wu Xie’s throat. Having the power of the Zhang family at our back will make It back off, and you know we don’t have the money or clout right now to actually afford Zhang Qiling. Not at that family’s prices, not with how shit your holier-than-thou legitimate business has been recently.”

“So, we double down on our own security. We order Pan Zi to guard Wu Xie personally. We give Wang Meng carte blanche to use that taser he’s been hiding in the big vase, I don’t care, we use what we’ve got before making rash choices. Frankly at this point, I’d just like to see you use your head to think.”

He'd like to see Wu Erbai bring home a Zhang sword. His smug, righteous brother. Just ten more minutes up against his brother, and then this conversation would be unnecessary. He’d undergone far worse for far longer.

Zhang Qiling
It had been laughably easy to find the sword, not so laughably easy to get it. If he was someone in the mood for laughter, now or any time. He was dangling upside down from a gutter over a lounge area near the kitchen, eyes intent on the gleaming object visible through the cracked window. His sword had been placed on the table near the fire, and it seemed to glow with anger—Hei Xiazi always called it “projecting your constipated little emotions on an inanimate object”—in the light of the reflected flames.

He could see Wu Sanxing’s right-hand man Pan Zi was sprawled on a chair near the fire, his eyes far away and troubled. He hoped that this evening wouldn’t involve fighting this man. If the rumors his friend kept chattering in his ear were to be believed, Wu Sanxing was not only traitorous in his business dealings, but also romance. He would never find himself in such a position because he would never develop a relationship with someone, but it was depressing to see one of the Families’ most competent staff humiliated and hurt like this. Another thing Wu Sanxing should be answering for.
He willed Pan Zi to need the bathroom, take a phone call, anything that would move his gaze for the few seconds it would take him to ease the window open enough to fit his body through, grab the sword, and swing himself up and out.

Just then, Pan Zi turned and half-rose from his chair. “Who’s there?”

He froze. How had—Pan Zi was known to be quite skilled, but even he—

“Just me. Sorry, bro, trying to not interrupt the bosses. They’re really going hard this evening; my ears are burning in sympathy.” A large shadow moved from the hallway into the room. “Thought I’d stop in and take a look, heard through the grapevine that there’s some mysterious antique sword lying around.” The man bent over the sword. “Now that’s a motherfuckin sword. Damn.”

Wang Pangzi. He was vaguely familiar with the man, from a decided distance—not a member of his clan, and certainly not someone with whom he had anything in common—but he hadn’t realized the loud, explosively cheery man had it in him to be stealthy.

Pan Zi was seated again, but shaking his head, brow furrowed. “He shouldn’t be telling anyone about this, especially not until things have been settled…I still can’t believe this. This whole evening. The Zhangs have always been—well, not kind exactly, but decent and respectable. I understand his worries, but it’s possible Wu Sanxing has taken it too far this time.”

He mentally added another point in favor of not fighting Pan Zi. Not that he agreed with the estimation of his family—decent and respectable was a bit of a stretch—but on the grounds of mutual respect between warriors. He was thinking about how to get them both out of the room when he heard a familiar voice calling from the hall. “Yoohoo, dears? Any sexy soldier boys in the room tonight?”

Pan Zi finally cracked a smile, standing and stretching. “It’s a bit late for you to be in town, isn’t it, Sunglasses? I thought you’d be squatting at the Xie house.”

Hei Xiazi skipped into the room, high fiving Wang Panzi on his way to perch on the arm of Pan Zi’s chair without skipping a beat of conversation. “Heard that you were talkin shit, and wanted to get in on that. How much do we resent Wu Sanxing right now?”

Pan Zi huffed a laugh. “Right now? I…I think a drink would be good.”

“Lead the way to the bar!” Wang Pangzi elaborately gestured, clapping one hand on Pan Zi’s shoulder. Hei Xiazi gave a little cheer and clapped his hands with excited surprise, as if this hadn’t been part of his plan.

The trio slowly wandered out of the room. Finally. It was the work of a minute to slip into the room, finally finally, grab ahold of his sword, not damaged, good or he’d kill Wu Sanxing, which reminded him, now to find and—

“Who’s there?”

He froze again in the middle of the room, the déjà vu of hearing the low voice behind him alarming him more than any actual fear. But it wasn’t Pan Zi this time.

He turned and almost bumped right into Wu Xie.

Pan Zi
He was used to things not making sense in this house.

This line of work was fraught with confusion; sometimes items did…strange things, sometimes jobs weren’t what they claimed to be, sometimes people like his friend Hei Xiazi here existed and continued to exist for a long time with no signs of change. He’d made his peace with that. What he hadn’t really gotten adjusted to, apparently, was the idea that Wu Sanxing hadn’t changed. Not really.

Now here he was, nursing a single drink—he never drank much, it dulled the wits—with the only two non-Wu family members in his life (Wang Meng didn’t count, the boy was practically family). He just needed a break from all things Wu right now.

He’d known about Wen Zhi for days. It was his job to know what Wu Sanxing was up to, and it was frankly a little insulting that Wu Sanxing thought he’d outsmarted the man who’d taught him half of what he knew. Wen Zhi was physically the exact opposite of Pan Zi—that couldn’t be coincidence. The files compiled by his informants showed a small, thin, forty-something man with an incongruously young pretty-boy face. Loud, contagious laugh. Good family and good educational background. He had wrestled with his knowledge of this other man, trying to content himself with the fact that this was undoubtedly temporary, Wu Sanxing getting twitchy like he always did now and then and choosing an outlet that hurt everyone but himself.

Wu Sanxing had gone off before, spending time with men and women alike, but it had been years since the last time, and Pan Zi—well. Apparently Pan Zi had been stupid to think it was all behind them.

He hadn’t caught Wen Zhi working with the Wangs—it rankled all the more that if he had focused harder on the man’s background instead of getting caught up on surveillance of this Wen Zhi and his…whatever he and Wu Sanxing were now…he would likely have found this out. Instead, it had taken an email, with only a subject heading “Fair Warning” addressed to Wu Erbai from an unknown source, showing pictures of Wen Zhi and Wu Sanxing together followed by pictures of Wen Zhi in the company of a known member of the Wang family, clearly on the same day. The Wangs were a particular thorn in the side at the best of times, and sometimes more dangerous than others; they’d very nearly made off with Wu Xie a dozen years ago. And Pan Zi had missed this Wen Zhi working with them. His informants were good, but the Wangs were often just that much better.

He drained his glass. “Well. I’d better get back. Wu Erbai was saying something about taking Wu Xie out of town for a while.”

Hei Xiazi, slumped over on his right, suddenly appeared to be studying the ceiling. “…yeah. Uh, about that.”

Zhang Qiling
So this was Wu Xie. Round glasses, messy hair, soft-looking skin, looking totally unconcerned about bumping into a stranger in his home in the middle of the night. His quick perusal of the boy was suddenly caught on a pair of wide, curious eyes, looking directly at him.

He strained to try to remember the Wu heir, but the cobwebs only produced greater headaches. Again, those strange cobwebs…he shook his head minutely. The boy was dressed as if he was going somewhere, and a large duffel bag lay at his feet. The explanation for the postponed flight was in his hands—several sandwiches, instant noodle cups, and a bag of chips were all stuffed in a little bag.

The Wu heir had risked exposure and certain consequences to…get snacks from the pantry? No wonder the Wu line was supposedly ending.

The boy was looking at him curiously, with no evident fear. It was oddly unnerving, to have the attention of such big eyes so focused on him. “Who are you? Do I know you from somewhere?”

He swallowed; the air must be dry with the fire going. What he should do right now, would be to knock the boy unconscious. One hit, easy, no long-term effects, and it would have the added bonus that by the time the boy awoke, his family would likely have found him, cutting off the little adventure. It would be the smart thing to do, and probably the right thing to do in the long run. But Hei Xiazi’s voice was still in his head, damn it (I give you my word that the kid wouldn’t hurt a fly. Like, if a fly got into his room, he’d probably make it some tea and give it a cute nickname then gift it the cardigan off his back), persistent and insistent.

His friend hadn’t been joking about the cardigan thing, apparently. The messy hair and big eyes in combination with the creamy wool jumper he was wearing made Wu Xie look like even more of a lost lamb, and he…he couldn’t do it, he realized with surprise. He couldn’t strike this boy, even if it wouldn’t really hurt him. There was a strange instinct deep within him that was whispering to him: treat the boy with care.

The silence stretched between them.

“Wu Sanxing. He has taken something of mine, and I am here to get it back.” He nodded at the sword in his hands. There. Honesty and communication. Not his favorite thing, but if it got the word out that Wu Sanxing had been in the wrong this time, his witnessed entry into Wushanju might go uncriticized.

He schooled his features to be blank, rather than angry, but it didn’t matter—the boy was staring at the sword and not at him. “My uncle must have…I’m sure it was some kind of a mistake,” he stammered. “Maybe he was just interested in studying it. It’s a, well—it’s a really neat-looking sword.” The boy immediately looked like he wished he could take back that last bit, ears turning slightly pink.

He chose to ignore every aspect of what he had just heard, for both their sakes. “Do not try to stop me. I do not wish to hurt you. But I will take you down if you try to stop me from leaving with—with what is mine.” He’d nearly named the sword, exposing his identity! Damn it. Those doe eyes were so big, it was distracting. He hated them.

“He is who he is, I can’t change that.” The boy’s face hardened in determination, something in his eyes very old and young all at once as he spoke, half to himself. “But I know who I am, and I…I am not him, not really. Not like this.” He nodded down at the sword. “Of course, I’m not going to try to stop you. This is yours, after all.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A Wu offering to give up such a prize? A Wu, willingly letting go of potential leverage? This had to be some kind of trap. He tried to sense any peripheral threats, but all he felt was the wind, whistling through the partially cracked window.

The boy was fidgeting, twisting his fingers around the handle of his duffel bag awkwardly. “So, uh. My name’s Wu Xie. What should I call you?” He even managed a small smile, and held out a hand to shake.

He froze. Was the boy seriously trying to make small talk with a burglar? He stared at the outstretched hand. The boy couldn’t possibly think this was a moment for socializing. No one was that naïve.

The boy was undeterred by his lack of response. “Would you like a sandwich?” He bent and rifled through his bag. “You look a little hungry.”

Something was happening inside him that he didn’t understand. Cobwebs were being blown around his head, driven away by a soft, friendly voice. He shook his head a little. Get out, get out, you are not welcome here.

A rustling outside pulled him from his flustered thoughts, as Hei Xiazi appeared at the window, looking harried. “Oh good, you got it. C’mon, time to shake a tail feather—oh. Uh. Hey there Wu Xie. Listen, if you could, I don’t know, maybe pretend you magically didn’t see us—”

“Hei Xiazi?” The boy brightened. “I’ve just met your friend!”

“Wonderful. Now my nightmare is complete. Listen up, Kitty Noir, we need to bounce before the wolves realize you’re in here with their cub, Pan Zi is like, a minute behind me. You’re gonna have to postpone your special chat with Uncle Asshole, because they are all—”

Loud voices suddenly erupted from the second floor near the front of the house, footsteps pounding so hard overhead that dust and plaster fell from the ceiling.

“…is that your name? Kitty Noir?” The boy looked dubious.

“No.” He broke from his frozen state and slung the sword on his back, moving to the window in two long strides and swinging up and out through the crack in the window. He paused outside for a moment, just looking at this strange boy through the glass.

Hei Xiazi was already at the gate, making frantic get-a-move-on motions. The voices were getting even louder, and there were sounds of people on the stairs. The boy glanced behind him, then turned the full attention of the wide eyes back on him. “I won’t say anything, I swear.”

He finally found his voice. “Stay off the roof from now on.” And then he forced himself to turn and go.

As he and Hei Xiazi reached the top ridge of the building across the street, he could hear the loud voices reaching the room he had been in, rising in surprise before falling again in clear relief.

He had completely forgotten about confronting Wu Sanxing. An hour ago, that was all he could think about, and yet now--now somehow it seemed almost trivial in light of everything else. He wasn’t given a chance to ruminate further on the evening’s events, however, because he was friends with Hei Xiazi.

“Sweet little psycho Ning calls us from a firefight for help and you’re all, ‘oh, sounds like a you problem, thoughts and prayers’. This kid pulls a half-assed Rapunzel once and suddenly you turn into a chivalrous prince of rooftop safety tips.” His friend, still panting, half-turned to face him. “What’s up with that?”

“Let’s just go.”

His friend looked blank for a moment—was that what he looked like when he was thinking?—and then abruptly burst into a cackle. “Oh my god, you—you can’t even admit it. You like the kid, don’t you?”

“I said, let’s go.”

“Yeah, I’m calling it. It’s a thing now. While we’re here, we should circle back and check on his dowry. Is that still a thing? Dibs on maid of honor.”

“I’m leaving you here. Goodbye.” He hoisted his sword higher on his back and strode off over the rooftop. Wu Sanxing and he would meet another day when no one’s wide eyes were there to sidetrack him from his goal.

(end of flashback—next chapter will fast forward to the main action of the plot).