Chapter 37 Yiran
Yiran
The door creaked open.
Yiran raised his head from the cold metal table. Whatever drug they’d sprayed on him to knock him unconscious had lost its
effect. He had woken alone, sitting in muted darkness with his thoughts. They weren’t pleasant ones.
Yuki’s sad smile kept appearing in his mind. The Hybrid’s revelations about an impending new world order, the blue flames
that ascended erratically from Rui . . . Ever since magic entered his life, it’d felt like he’d been treading water in the
deep end of the pool, his feet unable to find solid ground.
The lights flickered on.
Yiran rubbed his eyes. A small square room. Unnaturally bright walls and ceiling. Another chair across the table from him.
Empty.
A tired-looking Ash walked in. His clothes were caked with dirt and dried blood.
Yiran rose to his feet. “Where are we? What’s going on? Where are Rui and Zizi?”
“Sit down.”
Reluctantly, Yiran obeyed.
“Your friends are fine.”
Ash stripped off his coat and torn shirt and unbuckled his holster, laying his pistols on the table before sitting down. An
old scar ran down his side from the top of his ribs to his hip bone, long healed but vicious looking. A newer scar, curved
like a crescent moon, joined it across his chest. It was fresh and pink, recently worked on by a healer.
Yiran had never seen that second scar before. His voice was softer when he said, “Are you all right?”
Ash sank his head into his palms, then scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “We lost three of our own tonight.”
“I’m sorry.” Yiran didn’t know what else to say. He knew there was always a risk of casualties during a Night Hunt. But his
eyes had glazed over the statistics that popped up in the news off and on, desensitized and indifferent. They were just that,
numbers without faces or names. But it hit him now that they were numbers with families and friends, with hopes and dreams.
Ash lifted his head. His eyes were bloodshot and wet. “This is how it is. There will be victory and there will be loss. We
can plan everything down to the smallest detail, and people will still die. Sometimes it happens right in front of you and
there’s nothing you can do.”
He reached over and ruffled Yiran’s hair the way he used to when they were kids, before Yiran started to squirm away from
Ash’s attempts at affection. This time, Yiran didn’t move a muscle.
It could have been Ash who died tonight.
Briefly, Ash’s gaze shifted behind Yiran’s head like he was checking something. The walls. Were they being watched?
“I have some questions for you,” Ash said. “It seems like you left the house with your two friends, went to a hotel—The Reverie—and
then on the way back, your vehicle was involved in an incident with some Revenants.”
There was nothing accusatory about his tone, but something about it felt too rehearsed. Best to proceed with caution. “We
were attacked, ambushed by two of them,” Yiran said, giving nothing away.
“Let’s start from the beginning. Tell me everything that happened after you left Song Mansion. We need as much information
as possible on the Revenants you encountered. Leave nothing out.”
It sank in then that he and Rui and Zizi were witnesses to a secret the Exorcist Guild had painstakingly kept from the public.
They had seen the Hybrids; Rui had even killed one. They’d been zip-tied, drugged, and separated. Somewhere else in this compound,
Rui and Zizi were being interrogated by other Exorcists too.
This wasn’t a friendly conversation between brothers.
The Guild must have sent Ash specifically to loosen Yiran’s tongue.
Manipulating a subject’s emotions before interrogation was merely Ash’s job.
That was why he’d shown Yiran his scars, why the first thing he brought up was the death of his comrades in combat.
Brother or not, this was what Ash was trained to do.
The thought sat uncomfortably on Yiran’s chest.
Yiran weighed his options. He saw no choice but to behave like he was cooperating. Deliberately, he told Ash everything that
happened, what Yuki revealed and the fight that ensued. But he was careful not to use the word Hybrid, and he didn’t reveal the dark stains on Zizi’s hands or the separation spell, nor the blue flames that burst out from Rui
like she was possessed by something beyond this world. And he didn’t breathe a word about Seven, the child who could suck
the color out of a rose.
Ash listened closely, riveted by everything he said. “You’ve done well to remember all this. But there’s one thing I’m not
clear about. Are you certain Cadet Lin killed the second Revenant with her spiritual weapons?”
“She had only one sword with her at the time.”
“Our healers have examined her. Her spirit core is still in recovery. In her current state, it would’ve been difficult for
her to kill that Revenant by herself.”
The easy thing to do would be to spill everything. But throwing Rui and Zizi to the wolves was no guarantee that Yiran would
get to keep his magic. More importantly, his gut told him to protect Rui.
“Difficult but not impossible,” he said. “Rui’s the best at the Academy.”
Ash made a skeptical sound. “The details are important. Try to remember how she did it. Walk me through what you saw step by step and leave nothing out.”
Something clicked in Yiran’s head.
“You want to know how she killed a Hybrid. Specifically,” he said, finally revealing his card.
Lips thinning, Ash picked up his pistol. He started to clean it with the hem of his shirt, his admission so obvious Yiran
was surprised.
This was what the interrogation was all about. The Guild must’ve been battling Hybrids in secret for a long time. As evident from
tonight’s ambush, they were having trouble dispatching them. They wanted to know how Rui had done it so easily. Zizi’s intense
dislike for the Guild was making more sense by the minute.
“You’ve known all along Hybrids exist. That’s why you’re not surprised by anything I’ve told you, about the weird things growing
out of Yuki’s and Aloysius’s backs, about what Yuki said about them banding together. You know they’re out there and they’re
planning something.”
Ash continued to clean his weapon.
The truth sank in even deeper. Yiran raised his voice. “The Guild has always known, hasn’t it? Your old scar came from a Hybrid—I’ve always wondered why it looks like that. It’s because you were burned
by yinqi.” He raised a hand to touch the fresh dressing that covered the wound on his own cheek. “Your new scar is also from
a Hybrid, and your Exorcist friends died tonight because you were ambushed by Hybrids, because those monsters can think, plot, and scheme, just like humans. Am I right? Tell me—”
Ash’s pistol clattered onto the table. He stood and made a slicing motion with his hand. The unnaturally bright walls dulled.
The sour taste in Yiran’s mouth grew. Someone had been watching and recording their interrogation.
“What do you want me to say?” Ash asked.
Yiran met his weary gaze. “Respect me. Tell me the truth the same way I told you everything. Stop treating me like I’m a kid.”
“But it’s my job to protect you,” Ash said fiercely. “You are my kid brother.”
“Half brother.”
Ash flinched like he’d been slapped.
Yiran looked down. They hadn’t let him wash his hands yet, and Zizi’s dried blood stained the lines on his palms. He heard
a sigh.
“You’re right,” Ash admitted. “We’ve known for a while that Hybrids exist.”
It was a confession Yiran didn’t want to hear. What other secrets were the Guild and his grandfather keeping?
“You shouldn’t hide the truth from the people,” he said.
“We shouldn’t hide the truth?” Ash scoffed. “Don’t be naive, Xiao Ran. You’ve seen the Hybrids, they look like normal human
beings until their weapons come out. Do you want to live in a society where everyone is suspicious of their neighbor? Of their
family and friends? People will be policing each other, pouncing on anything that seems a bit different, even if it’s nothing.
What do you think life will be like?”
“But if they knew about the Hybrids, maybe less people will be killed. If people knew what to look out for, how to identify
one, how to . . . I don’t know . . .” Yiran clenched his fists, hating that Ash was right. Fear and paranoia would run rampant.
The city would dissolve into chaos.
“There’re already people out there questioning the Guild; we can’t let that snowball,” Ash said. “We can’t change the fact
that our presence draws Revenants and Hybrids, but no one must think we’re the problem. We need people to know we’re doing our jobs and doing them well, that we are their protection. We may have magic,
but we still bleed when their bullets strike us.”
What will happen if they decide we’re no longer doing our jobs well? That we’re redundant? Or worse, that we are dangerous? This was what Song Wei was worried about, what he harped on whenever he disciplined Yiran.
“Things are never so simple,” Ash continued, sounding brittle. “Nothing is ever black and white, and we fight and survive
by working in the gray. You are a part of this too. You’re one of us. Never forget who you are, Song Yiran.”
You’re one of us.
For as long as Yiran could remember, this was something he wanted to hear. What he wanted to feel. It wasn’t his grandfather
saying it, but for a moment, it felt almost enough.
Was it so bad that the Guild was hiding things? It wasn’t like they were leaving ordinary people to fend for themselves. The main goal was to rid the world of Revenants, and extraordinary circumstances required difficult decisions. Maybe some lies had to be told. Maybe the lies kept everyone safe.
Ash gripped his shoulder. “Soon you’ll be an Exorcist. You’ll fight by my side, and we’ll make Dad proud. I need you with
me.”
You’ll fight by my side, and we’ll make Dad proud.
The light in Ash’s eyes broke through Yiran’s last defense. It didn’t matter whether Ash had been sent by the Guild to interrogate
him; Yiran knew Ash meant what he said. Drowning in the well of emotions, Yiran was tempted to confess everything: how he’d
gotten his magic, how Rui actually killed the Hybrid, how Zizi might have accidentally made a spell that could turn the tide
of the war in the Hybrids’ favor.
It wouldn’t be an act of betrayal. He never made a promise. He would be doing the right thing. But the confession stayed stuck
in his throat.
. . . deep inside that soul of yours, you know what’s right and that makes you a good person . . .
Zizi was wrong.
Yiran wasn’t a good person. A good person would put everyone else ahead of his own desires. But Yiran couldn’t bear to lose
his magic and his chance to belong.
“Are you with me?” Ash asked, in a tone that was soft but heavy with meaning.
Yiran nodded. He would be complicit in hiding the truth from the public. “What happens now?” he asked.
“You keep training, I’ll keep hunting Revenants. Life goes on.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“What about Rui and Zizi?”
“Well,” said Ash, looking uncannily like their grandfather. “I guess it depends on whether their stories match up with yours.”