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It was quite simple, really. Despite the complicated, confusing mess Fang Duobing’s life had become since he met Li Lianhua, there were a few things that he’d determined to be true and possible.
- That Li Lianhua had been poisoned with Bicha, and that he was dying.
- It was possible for a man to transfer his poison to a woman via the “yunuqiao” technique.
- It was possible to change one’s body with the “Dragon Phoenix Shift”.
With this information in hand, it was only logical for him to arrive at the next conclusion.
- Fang Duobing could change himself into a woman and transfer Li Lianhua’s poison to himself.
The transformation would be temporary, of course. He was sure his female form would be as attractive as he was now, but he rather liked his current body. He was pretty sure Li Lianhua did too, even if the sly old fox refused to admit it. He’d even caught Di Feisheng looking once or twice, which did things for his ego he refused to admit even to himself.
The point was, it would buy them all some time. Time for Di Feisheng to find another Styx flower, time for Li Lianhua’s worn out body to start to heal. Fang Doubing had been practising yangzhouman for a few months now- nowhere near strong enough to fight Bicha for a decade like Li Lianhua, but he didn’t need to. He just needed to buy them all a little more time.
When he was younger, some days felt like eternities. Weak and lacking strength, tasks that took his peers minutes took Fang Duobing half a shichen to complete, and he’d be drenched in sweat by the end of it. When his body failed him, he would push forward with his mind. Learning not only history and etiquette and music but the intricate logic and mathematics of mechanisms. Even better, the jianghu storybooks his xiao-yi would sometimes let him borrow.
Shan Gudao wouldn’t talk to his ‘nephew’ much about his shidi , even when it was clear Fang Duobing idolised the young prodigy. It was easy to look back now and recognise the petty jealousy but as a child it had seemed more like an adult’s patronising dismissal of a child’s impossible dream. It was strange how ten years changed things.
At ten years old, Fang Duobing dreamed of seeing the world, trapped inside the walls of Tianji Hall. At twenty, he had travelled far and wide, learned how to survive on his own two feet. Fang Duobing wondered where he would be in another ten years.
He wondered if Li Lianhua could have another ten years.
Learning the techniques was….surprisingly easy. It was probably for the best, considering the time pressure, but shouldn’t unique techniques be more mysterious and hard to learn? Or was it because they were often easy but morally questionable that those who preferred shortcuts to power chose such methods?
So, Fang Duobing had told A-Fei he would take care of Li Lianhua and watched as the man rode off to search for another flower. Li Lianhua slept a lot these days, bundled in several layers of robes and the thickest blankets Fang Duobing could buy. When he woke, it was to be gently fed soup and nourishing tonics.
“Aiya, Xiaobao, I’m not an invalid,” Li Lianhua quietly murmured one evening as Fang Duobing helped him lay back down.
“Of course not,” Fang Duobing agreed. “Get some rest, I’m sure A-Fei will be back soon.” Tiptoeing back upstairs, he had continued to practise circulating his inner energy. He had already gotten as far as being able to shrink his frame, bones realigning as muscle and fat shifted accordingly.
He thought A-Fei might have suspected something.
“Xiangyi has never been good at telling people how much he cares,” Di Feisheng had said as he adjusted the saddle on his horse. He paused to look at Fang Duobing. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. He wouldn’t want you to do something stupid.”
“I don’t plan to,” Fang Duobing had replied, rolling his eyes. He’d planned this out very carefully.
“You both better be alive when I get back,” was all A-Fei had told him before swinging himself atop his horse and kicking his heels. He rode off at a brisk pace without looking back. Fang Duobing watched until his figure disappeared over the horizon.
The hardest part was figuring out the actual transfer to himself. He needed Li Lianhua to willingly transfer the poison, all of it. He needed Li Lianhua to do it without realising that he was transferring it, that he was transferring it to Fang Duobing, and that Fang Duobing was currently a woman.
Li Lianhua’s eyesight had been getting worse over the last few weeks, and Fang Doubing had always had rather doe-like eyes and pouty lips. So the last part was actually the easiest. The rest of it wasn’t as above board as Fang Duobing preferred, but he told himself he was just giving Li Lianhua a taste of his own medicine.
As the weather started to cool, Li Lianhua struggled to fight an intermittent fever. It was hard to tell weather the man was hallucinating or simply talking in his sleep, but he didn’t fight when Fang Duobing propped up his frail frame and sat next to him on the bed, back to back.
“I need you to listen to me,” Fang Duobing said quietly. “Xiaohua-er, please, listen to me. I’ve found a way to make you feel better. I want you to circulate your inner energy, okay? Focus on concentrating the Bicha in one spot, in your hand.” He reached out, grasping at Li Lianhua’s palm. It was cold and clammy despite the fever. Fang Duobing held it tight. “Let yangzhouman flow through your meridians, collecting every trace of the toxin, pooling it in your palm.”
Fang Duobing waited for several minutes. Li Lianhua gave a few incoherent mumbles but otherwise didn’t acknowledge him. Just as he was about to give up, resigning himself to try again tomorrow when he felt it. Li Lianhua’s palm in his hand, growing uncomfortably hot.
“That’s perfect,” Fang Duobing breathed. “Just one more step, and then you can rest. I’m going to count to three, and on three, I want you to act like you’re striking an enemy with this palm, that you’re pushing all the Bicha from your hand to him. It’ll make you feel better, I promise. On three, alright? One, two, three-”
On the count of three Fang Duobing slapped Li Lianhua’s hand against his own chest, unable to hold back a gasp at the sudden searing pain. He held the palm in place even when his skin started to feel like it was burning. Fang Duobing took a deep breath and focused on his own yangzhouman , trying to keep the poison contained. It took several long minutes before the burning began to subside, and by then Li Lianhua had already fallen asleep leaning against him. Fang Duobing carefully laid him back down, pressing a hand to Li Lianhua’s forehead with one hand and pulling the duvet up with the other. His fever had finally broken.
It worked. Now he just had to keep both of them alive until A-Fei came back.
Fang Duobing had never told anyone, but sometimes as a child he’d thought about dying. Not in any specific, actionable way, nothing like that. But he had been sick often enough, and badly enough, that more than once he’d wondered. What if this was it for him? What would his parents do? His father didn’t have any other heirs, and his mother would be so lonely whenever father was busy with court affairs. Plus, someone had to keep an eye on his xiao-yi , she always fell for the worst kinds of tricksters and liars.
Fang Duobing had choked down bitter medicine and fist-sized pills not just so that he could catch up to his idol. Fang Duobing was Fang Xiaobao, who had a family who loved him and who he loved in return. Loving meant wanting to live longer, live better. It meant wanting that for the people you loved too, even at the cost of your own time and health.
It took about two weeks for Li Lianhua’s poison-free body to actually show the effects of Fang Duobing’s rare and expensive medicines, so weakened was his body. Li Lianhua had always been pale, but the sickly wan returned to a healthier colour. He was able to stay awake longer, wasn’t coughing as much. The first time Fang Duobing saw Li Lianhua walking around on his own again, he stumbled and almost fell. At the time, he wrote it off to shock.
“You’re looking a little peaky, Xiaobao,” Li Lianhua said over breakfast. “It can’t have been easy looking after me all by yourself. Maybe you should go lie down for a bit.”
“Think you can start ordering me around again just because you’re feeling a little better?” Fang Duobing wrinkled his nose as he drank his porridge. He’d prepared it just like usual, why did it taste so bland today? “Finish your porridge so I can give you your medicine.”
“It’s just the last glow of a setting sun, Xiaobao,” Li Lianhua sighed. “I don’t want you getting your hopes up just because I have a little more energy right now.”
“A-Fei will be back with another flower, and this time we’ll stuff it down your throat ourselves,” Fang Duobing poured more porridge into Li Lianhua’s bowl. “Eat.”
“Fine, fine. Only because Young Master Fang has been working so hard to take care of me.”
It’s worth it, Fang Duobing thought as he watched Li Lianhua drink a second bowl of porridge. It was completely worth it.