Chapter Fourteen
“Is that man angry at us?” Shanlin asked once the door closed.
“Craftsman Zhiyuan has his own story, one which has little to do with you or your father,” Master Teacher Wang said.
“Nei Heng should not be in Yaan by himself. These people could be dangerous.”
“Acolyte Heng is dangerous,” Master Teacher Wang countered, “and he is not alone. He has taken a friend—a woman—so his journey appears mundane. To outsiders, they will appear as a rural couple seeking a night or two of romance. In addition, she is also not without talent.”
A strange squirming filled Leander’s chest. He was not so self-deluded as to miss the signs of jealousy, but that was stupid.
Heng had built his own life while Leander had been off manufacturing drugs, so he had no right to hope Heng would have waited for him.
Hell, Leander hadn’t thought of Heng more than a dozen times since leaving China.
He’d made his bad choices, and he’d lived with them rather than retreating into a fantasy life where he’d made better ones.
He was a felon—a thug—and after chipping away at his soul, he didn’t get to hope for a happy ending.
Master Teacher Wang pushed open the gilded doors to reveal a room done in greens and subtle blues. Creek was lying on an ornate Chinese bed with carved panels. He turned toward the open door. “Leander!” His smile was weak but genuine.
“Lian,” Leander corrected him, feeling like a hypocrite because he kept thinking of Creek as Creek, and not Xi. Hu Xi.
Creek’s smile faded, but it returned when Shanlin ran to his side. “I’m so glad you’re awake. When Heng came to get me and said you were sick, I thought you were dead. When father—” Shanlin sucked in a breath.
“Shhh,” Leander said. He didn’t want Shanlin talking about Finn here, around people who thought he was Shanlin’s father. “We don’t want to wear Xi out.”
“There are people in town. Outsiders,” Shanlin blurted, as if Leander had not, with his previous breath, said to avoid wearing Xi out.
Xi sucked in a quick breath and then clutched his stomach.
Master Teacher Wang moved to his side, waving his hands over Xi for a moment before nodding.
“Your qi tries to move through damaged pathways. It will hurt for a time, so I would advise you to avoid calling on your magic. You have cultivated enough that you are between the egg drop soup and stew stages, so it is too thick to move easily through injured pathways.”
“Egg drop soup?” Xi looked confused.
Shanlin pushed between Master Teacher Wang and Xi, planting himself at the edge of the bed. “Master Wang explained it all. Magic gets thicker when you develop it. Mine is like air–like a burp caught under my ribs. Yours is thicker–like stew.”
Master Teacher Wang smiled so the lines at the corners of his eyes turned to furrows. “Little cicada friend, I never said yours was air.”
Shanlin frowned. “Yes, you did.”
“No, I said in children, it is like air. For most, it is. For you, the qi is like tea. You can still burp tea, but it is a good deal more messy,” he said in a tone that suggested he was sharing a great secret.
Seeing a wise Chinese sage sharing this as some mystical secret startled a laugh out of Leander.
Master Teacher Wang winked at Leander, a gesture Leander had not thought stately Chinese adults used.
“You, little cicada, are in the foundational stage–in the dantien foundation level. Your father and his qidi are more advanced, which is good. Hu Xi, you never would have survived Craftsman Lian’s inelegant cure had you not completed your body foundation stage. ”
Xi frowned. “There is so much in there that I don’t understand that I don’t know where to start.”
Leander stepped forward, resting his hand on Shanlin’s shoulder. “I used my power over plants to pull the poison from your blood, but it made you bleed. Everywhere.”
“Accurate,” Master Teacher Wang said. “Unless you develop more finesse, Craftsman Lian, I would suggest you avoid such treatment unless one has completed their foundational stages. It took a strong body and spirit to survive the cure, but had Craftsman Lian not performed such odd magics, you would have died, qidi of his.”
“Then shouldn’t he be Healer Lian?” Xi asked with an inappropriate grin in Leander’s direction. None of this was funny. None.
“No, I think I shall call him Craftsman Lian,” Master Teacher Wang said with exaggerated seriousness.
“Come, little friend cicada. You have not eaten, and your father and his qidi must speak.” He put a hand on Shanlin’s shoulder and guided him toward the door.
When Shanlin hesitated, Leander nodded for him to go with the teacher.
He would be safe with the old man, although the old man’s ears wouldn’t be safe if Shanlin figured out what a cicada was.
Or more precisely, how loud one was. Leander watched Master Teacher Wang take Shanlin away before he turned his attention to Xi.
“How do you feel?”
“Like shit. Like I got run over by a truck. Like I was blown up after being run over by a truck. And I can’t use my magic. Do you have any idea how annoying that is?”
“I can imagine,” Leander said. This expanded space had disconnected him from the network of magic he’d developed around Orange Flower Hills, so he felt blind.
But at least he could feel the gardens and the vines crawling along the walls, even if he hadn’t yet tangled magic with those plants.
It felt disrespectful to do so in such a magical place.
But the lack of connection left him uneasy and cranky. Well, crankier than usual, anyway.
“Tecca told Shanlin that you knew dangerous people.” Leander had never believed in avoiding the cold, harsh truth.
“Yeah. They’re called police,” Xi said with a snort.
Leander considered the room—the ornately carved chairs, the lacquered chest standing against the wall, the calligraphy wall hanging illustrated with a tree and cranes set against stylized clouds.
Leander hated all of it. His stomach soured and his chest was tight, and he yearned for an isolated mountain cave and silence.
“Lian?” Xi asked softly.
Leander ran his fingers through his hair.
“What is it?” Xi hissed in pain as he tried to sit up.
Leander pushed Xi back down. “Stop being an idiot. I didn’t pull the poison out for you to kill yourself pushing too hard.”
Xi yielded, settling himself on the embroidered pillow. “Then tell me what’s going on.”
“You’re keeping secrets, and we both remember how badly I react to secrets.”
Xi snorted and then winced as he pressed his fingers into his stomach, right where Master Teacher Wang had said the dantian lay. “You’re a bastard. Finn apologized, if you remember. You’re the one who held the grudge and drove him away.”
“Not how I remember it,” Leander said.
Once Tecca had lost her baby, she’d been the center of everything.
If they watched television, she was in the middle of the couch with the remote and all the attention.
If they went out for dinner, she was the one they all had to pay for.
And she had chosen places Leander couldn’t afford and shows he couldn’t stomach.
The others just put up with it and worked extra shifts and stole a few more wallets to pamper their precious, precious princess.
“I thought you said you didn’t want to relive the past,” Xi said.
“Trust me. I don’t. However, I want to know what secrets you’re keeping.”
A flicker of fear crossed Xi’s face. Leander wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t been watching so closely—and if he hadn’t retained a ghost image of Xi’s body from when the poison had flowed through his veins, highlighting them to Leander’s senses.
Anger made Leander clench his jaw. “Secrets. We’re isolated, hunted, in danger from every direction, and you keep secrets.”
“I don’t!” Xi winced. “I can’t tell you other people’s secrets,” he said in a much quieter tone.
“Who do you know that is more dangerous than the police?”
Xi gave Leander a blank stare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Shanlin told me that his mother was afraid of your other friends—the ones who were more dangerous than the government. She said she would work with the police to avoid them.”
With every word, Xi appeared more alarmed. “What?” He struggled up onto one elbow, clutching the edge of the mattress. “Tecca... she didn’t know.... She wouldn’t have told a child....”
Leander sank into one of the ornately carved ch airs.
It was ridiculous to spend so much time creating something just to hold up someone’s ass.
“She knew more than you assumed, and Shanlin thinks your anonymous friends found us. I might not have liked Tecca, but I trusted her judgment. So, who is hunting you, Xi?”
Rolling onto his back, Xi stared up at the carved canopy. “They wouldn’t....”
Leander snorted again, and Xi gave him a weary look.
“There are Westerners in the nearest town,” Leander said. “Tecca was more afraid of these strangers than the police. Is this the time to keep secrets?”
Xi didn’t meet his eyes.
“I’ll leave you,” Leander threatened. “I’ll take Shanlin and leave you to deal with your own shit.”
“It’s your shit, too,” Xi snapped, his gaze pinned to Leander as though afraid he would vanish this very second.
Leander jerked away, startled by the vehemence in his tone. “Do you mean Druwolf? Is he behind this? Were you involved with him?”
“That psychopath? Fuck, no. I have more self-respect than to get involved with that bastard.”
Shame burned in Leander’s veins. As an adult, he could see the other choices he’d had, choices he hadn’t noticed as a teen. But the rest of the friend group who had survived had made the same terrible choice.
“The people.... I....” Xi swallowed.