Chapter Text
Riding behind Shun in the morning sun was a very nice way to admire the broadness of Shun’s shoulders. The sun peeked through the trees and glanced over Shun’s back. Lan’s eyes slid down the outline of Shun’s muscles could be seen with the loose light cotton hanfu he was wearing. He let his eyes flicker close for just a moment. In his mind’s eye he could see the way those muscles lay, tanned and rippled. Perhaps tonight, when the two of them pulled their bedrolls side by side...
“What are you thinking about?”
Lan started. Shun had stopped in front of him, turned around on his horse and was watching him with a raised eyebrow. “We should be paying attention to the road.”
Shun was right. Another journey through the little known cave networks that crisscrossed underneath the mountains and borders between Xu and Jin had seen their arrival in Jin relatively unnoticed. Travellers were common this time of year, in late spring when the weather was good. Huiqing had given them plenty of supplies. When they had finally needed to enter a town on their third day, they tried to keep their story as short and simple as possible. They were brothers, travelling together. An elderly relative in Dongfeng, at Xu’s border was ill and they had been visiting. They were now travelling back to Yangnan. Whether it was their ancestors or the Heavens that were keeping them safe, Lan did not know but no one had questioned them - yet.
With the alliance that had been established between Xu and Jin, there were fewer sentries patrolling the borders. Part of the agreement had been to allow a more free path of trade for merchants of both towns. Jin supplied barrels of salted fish and shrimp into the the landlocked Xu and Xu’s tea merchants were able to bring the pu’er tea the region was so famous for back to Jin. Shun and Lan had been blessedly fortunate to have not encountered any of the border patrol in the first three days of travel. Now, on day five, it would be even less likely that they would run into a troupe of soldiers but they still needed to be alert.
It didn’t mean Lan had to admit it, though. Lan mock-scowled, and huffed. “I was just thinking of how much like a heavy ox you look,” he said. “All bent over your saddle.”
Shun snorted. He clicked his tongue and nudged his horse into action. “If I am a heavy ox then what are you? A skinny white - “ He broke off as a wild rabbit suddenly scurried across their path. Shun pointed after it, eyes bright. “Look! Lan! It’s you!”
Lan’s scowl deepened. Two years Shun’s junior meant that he was born in the year of the rabbit. Lan couldn’t remember when or which of his brothers had decided that ‘skinny white rabbit’ would be a good nickname but it had stuck. “Those born in the year of the rabbit are said to be elegant and graceful,” he said, “Unlike the slow, stubborn -”
“-stupid ox,” Shun finished with a broad grin.
“I have never, ever called you stupid.” Lan rolled his eyes. “An idiot perhaps, but stupidity and idiocy are two different things.”
“Well, I suppose you are no longer a skinny, white rabbit. You’ve become quite brown.”
Lan looked down at the back of his hand and wrist. Shun was right. A childhood of growing up cooped in studies and libraries, studying for an examination that was to determine the path of his life meant that he had always been pale. Now, the sun had kissed his skin a light golden brown. Lan’s arms hand legs had always been spindly: the fervent way he had tried to avoid all sword practice had guaranteed that. Four years of living in the slave harems, being forced to learn the humiliating dances had put muscle on his limbs. Sparring with Shun had filled them out although he would never be as big or solid as the other man.
Lan drew in a breath and puffed out his chest. “I wasn’t always smaller than you either - ”
“I remember you were taller than me, once. I think it lasted - all of a week?”
“Just because I hit my growth period earlier…” Lan sank down on his saddle and pulled a face. Shun had started his growth period late - not until he was well over the age of seventeen. Lan remembered two months after his own height was starting to shoot up that Shun suddenly doubled in height - overnight. Shun had always been larger in frame. While Lan’s gain in height left him as lanky as a bean pole, Shuns’ shoulders and chest broadened. By the time he was ready to leave for the military exams Shun looked more solid than the walls that surrounded the Cheng family manor.
“Besides, seven months earlier and I would have been born a tiger.”
“Seven months is a long time, little brown rabbit.”
Lan huffed. He wished he had something to throw at Shun’s head so he could wipe the smug smile off the other man’s face. He settled by pulling a another face.
Shun just grinned and nudged his horse ahead of Lan’s again. “You know,” he paused and flashed Lan a wicked grin, “According to the matchmakers, the tiger doesn’t match well with the ox.”
Lan’s cheeks suddenly flushed red hot. He scrubbed at his face with a hand in an attempt to hide the blush. “Who would want to be well matched to an idiot ox?”
Shun’s laugh was his only answer.
They rode in silence under the sun dappled trees. If they made good time, they could expect to reach Yangnan by early afternoon. Behind him, on the saddle, the pigeons Prince Mingyu had gifted them cooed softly. It should have been a be a soothing sound but Lan could not shake off an undercurrent of tension that thrummed through him.
Why had Prince Mingyu thought to give them pigeons?
They can be very useful to signal for help - if the need arises.
He tried to squash the feeling of apprehension down. Yangnan was more than three days ride from the Capital, he reminded himself. It was a sleepy little farming village and should be from from the attentions of the Royal Palace. All they needed to do was find Yuzheng, leave and disappear to a new life. It should be easy enough.
Lan turned slightly in the saddle and regarded Shun’s profile. Shun’s shoulders were loose and relaxed. He was looking in the distance with a soft half smile on his face. Shun would be looking forward to going home. Lan remembered Shun’s library and the collection of agricultural books he had bought even though reading was one of the tasks Shun had hated the most when they were boys.
“What do you want to do, once we find your mother and reach Yangnan?” Lan asked.
Shun shrugged. “I have a small amount of money saved up. We could go somewhere, buy a plot of land,” He grinned, “My father was a farmer - maybe it will be in my blood to know what to do with soil and plants.” His smile turned wistful. “We could have a cow, maybe even a little flock of chickens…”
Lan had to look away. It was their martial arts shifu who had proposed that Shun study with them and their father had agreed to the idea. Had the young Shun even been asked if he had wanted to be a soldier? Even if Shun had been, he had only been a child. Could have foreseen the implications of such a decision?
Lan forced a smile on his face as he turned to Shun. “It all sounds rather...peaceful.”
If Shun had not studied with them, had not taken part in the martial arts examinations, he would also not be involved in all this - Lan’s mess.
Lan felt sick.
“Lan - are you alright?”
Lan let the smile on his face widen. “Of course I’m alright - why wouldn’t I be?” He closed his eyes, tilted his head back towards the sun and tried to will his fingers to loosen their grip on the reins. “We just need to fetch your mother so she can disappear with us.”
“A life without complications and politics,” Shun said. Lan’s gut clenched at the words. A plot of land, a flock of chickens, was that what all Shun really wanted? Had Lan - with all the pride and ambition he had fostered on Shun, stolen that future from him?
“- although, I know that it isn’t what you really wanted - ”
Lan started. Shun was talking to him again. “I think I have had more than enough of a taste of court politics, master” he said after a pause. Lan rolled his shoulders back and avoided Shun’s gaze. “A farm, a cow, chickens. I - I think I could give that a try.” He turned to Shun and managed another small smile. “My ancestors were all scholars. I could help you interpret some of those books you have.”
The brilliance of Shun’s grin was reward in itself. He shifted in the saddle and sat up even taller than he had been. “Good. You, me, mother. It will be a good life, Lan, you will see.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to remind Shun what sort of a life Lan was leaving behind. Anything was better. He bit down on the inside of his cheek instead and tried to match Shun’s grin. “I’m looking forward to it.”
The sun was just starting to dip down over the distant mountains when they turned down the path that would lead into Yangnan. Lan’s eyes slid past the trail they had clambered up the first time Shun had brought him here. The view in the afternoon sun, how close they had been to each other, how close Shun’s lips had been… Lan felt his cheeks heat up again. Perhaps, once they arrived at Shun’s home, it would not be too much of a risk to spend the night. It had been four days since they had known the comforts of a real bed, after all. Shun’s bed, he remembered was wide enough for the both of them to sleep back to back with an additional rolled up quilt between them. It would be even more spacious without the separating barrier of that quilt, or, even clothes. Here, in the north, the evenings were still cool enough that they might be able to lie, arms wrapped around each other in the night.
“What’s that?”
Lan pulled back on the reins of his horse, coming to a stop behind Shun. He was pointing to a small mound of black fur in the distance, by the side of the road. It looked like a small animal that was asleep. Lan let his eyes trace over the form: a long tail, two pointed ears…
Shun had already dismounted. He was walking - then running up to the creature.
Lan slid off his horse. A strangled sound emerged from Shun’s throat - half gasp, half sob.
“Yao -?”
Closer, now, Lan could see that the animal was not asleep. Curled up on its side, it’s eyes were cloudy and stared out to nothingness. Its limbs were stiff with rigor mortis - clearly dead for at least a day. A black cat. Yao was a black cat. He had been the half drowned black kitten Shun had rescued fifteen years ago when they were both just boys.
Lan reached out a hand and placed it tentatively on Shun’s shoulder. “There likely are many black cats in the village. We should go home - how do you know this is Yao? In any case - ”
Lan stopped. To say that Yao would be at least sixteen this year and old was on the tip of his tongue but his eye caught sight of something else. Lan’s stomach turned. A perfect, round, puncture wound lay just above the cat’s belly. A arrow, or perhaps the pointed tip of a spear?
Shun reached out and touched the dead cat’s neck. “A black cat with a red ribbon collar? There would be two of the same in the village?”
That was also true. Lan put his hand on Shun’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry,” he said. Shun didnt move. Lan gave it another squeeze. “Shun we should go.”
“I want to bury him,” Shun said.
Lan looked around. They had no shovels and the sun was dipping southward. “We should go to Yangnan,” he said again. “If Yao is here - we need to make sure you mother is safe.”
Shun shrugged hard enough to dislodge Lan’s hand. Silently, he bowed forward, hands pulling at the grass and then scrabbling at the dirt next to the body of the cat. His face was pale and his jaw clenched into a hard knot.
“Shun,” Lan said. Shun did not answer.
Lan bit his lip turned around. The forest around them was bathed in the orange hues of sunset. Without a shovel even if he knelt and helped, Shun, how much longer would it take? His eyes spied a tightly rolled blanket, tied to the back of his saddle.
“Shun - “ Lan reached out a tentative hand towards the other man. “The road here is lonely and the nights - cold. If we bury Yao here, who would come, who would remember him? Why don’t we take his body with us - in one of the blankets? We will sleep in your house tonight, anyway.”
He remembered - Yao, the older black cat slow and full of the table scraps the cook had tossed to him, curling to sleep in the kitchen courtyard. “There is a tree, in the courtyard of your kitchen where he liked to sleep. Shall we bury him there?”
Shun paused, hands half buried in the dirt. He let out a breath and and rolled back on his heels. A grunt and a sharp nod. Lan allowed himself a sigh of relief. Together, they rolled the remains of the cat in one of the blankets they had used to camp and tied it securely to Shun’s saddle.
Lan followed Shun as the other man nudged his horse to turn towards Yangnan. His eyes glanced over Shun’s dusty hands, the dirt that had crept underneath Shun’s nails and the hint of a black tail that peeked out between the blankets. The cat had an arrow wound in its belly - an arrow that had been subsequently pulled out. Who would do such a thing?
Why?
What would they find in Yangnan?
The sky had faded from gold to blue by the time they reached Yangnan. A large village in the late spring evening should have been bustling evening markets and families preparing for the evening meal. It was dead quiet. Only the light emerging from cracks in the doorways and windows confirmed that there was still people living there at all.
Another icy trickle of unease slid down Lan’s spine. He glanced again at the bundle tied behind Shun’s saddle and tried to keep his eyes on the path ahead. The last time they had entered Yangnan, Shun had received a hero’s welcome. Why were now there no one on the streets?
“I cannot expect everyone to come and greet me every time,” Shun’s voice was low and despite the attempt at lightness in the other man’s voice and the smile that flickered on Shun’s face, Lan could not miss how stiff Shun now held his shoulders. “It is becoming late, everyone is probably eating with their families.”
“Of course not.” Lan nodded and then added with shrug. “You can’t win a war just before you come back home every time.” The evening breeze that drifted past them was warm. Why was there not a window open? There! In the distance, above a herbalist’s shop, a window swung open and face appeared for a brief moment. It slammed shut as they rode past. The pigeons behind Lan cooed. He shivered again and turned his head towards the hill beyond the end of the village. In the distance, he could not yet make out any lights from that direction.
Was Yuzheng there?
The moon was up by the time they rode to the doors of the Wei family manor. It was dark, and too quiet.
The first thing that caught Lan’s eyes were the drapes of white. They covered the main gate and were looped through the eaves that sloped down over the outer walls. Lan stopped suddenly, dread unfurling within him as he looked up, mouth slightly open at the sight of it. It was all white. White was the colour of death and mourning.
When they got closer, they saw the second thing. It was small yellow speck at first and as they drew near - a cross. Pasted to the front gates two strips of paper to form a cross in royal yellow. Words were scrawled across them in thick, black ink.
Entry is forbidden.
Shun stopped beside him. “What…?”
Blood pounded in Lan’s head. He had seen that cross before. It had been the dead of the night but the moonlight had glanced off that yellow cross, making it look as if glowed in the darkness. Lan’s arms had been bound behind him. He was surrounded by the City Guard. The cross was all he could see as the captain of the City Guard’s voice rang out, listing his family’s alleged crimes. His ears rang with the memory of the wailing.
A scream interrupted his thoughts. Lan spun around. From the side of one of the walls a figure dressed head to toe in the mourning robes of white hemp stared at them, one arm raised. It was Meiyu, a member of Shun’s old kitchen staff. Her face was stark white. She was pointing to Shun.
“G-General?” she said, “You - aren’t you dead?”