Chapter 11

The next day, as Wenxi applied his salve, Wei Tong half died of the pain. Hearing him groan, Wenxi couldn’t help saying, “Wei Tong, did you… offend someone?” Looking at the great swaths of bruising on his body, he hardly knew what to say.

After Wenxi finished, Wei Tong shook his head. “Didn’t Grandpa Liang send people over with medicine yesterday? He even granted me a few days’ rest. I’ll be all right.” Faced with Wenxi’s worry, Wei Tong couldn’t help saying a few extra words. He was in no state to go see Wei Ning; he could only hope nothing happened to her these few days.

That night, Xuan, who hadn’t “seen” Wei Tong for several days, listened to the huffing and puffing from across the folding screen and asked, puzzled, “Wei, what are you doing? What’s all that racket?”

When had the dreamscape ever known such sounds? The two of them were always quiet as still water here.

Finishing a set of forms, Wei Tong sat down and sighed. “When your martial arts are weak, sparring with someone just means being pressed flat the whole time. There’s really no choice but to train harder.” The painful lesson had forced him to take it seriously. One more round like that and he might have been beaten to death on the spot.

Xuan thought of those recent days and went somewhat silent.

“Sparring with someone leaves you uncomfortable?” Hearing the question, Wei Tong instinctively shook his head before answering. “No, that depends on the opponent. Evenly matched, the fight is exhilarating; utterly one-sided, it’s miserable.”

“Hahaha, I really would like to see that scene.” Xuan laughed loudly. Wei Tong answered with a deadpan face, “At that moment I likely would not wish to see you.” Being beaten until he could barely crawl, and he was supposed to enjoy the audience?

At first Wei Tong hadn’t been entirely unconcerned about the matter, only he’d figured the Emperor’s sparring partner could never fall to him. Who knew that over these days he had practically become the Emperor’s exclusive sparring partner. Worse off than Wei Xiaobao. At least Wei Xiaobao could bite Kangxi a couple of times to vent.

He finished his set, stepped back, and sat on the bed, leaning back. Every part of him ached these days; sitting was uncomfortable, standing worse. Fortunately Kangxi seemed to have run into some trouble of late; the training at the ground continued, but he himself hadn’t come again.

“Wei, if someone close to you holds an opinion opposite to yours, what would you do?” Xuan’s voice was light, but carried a worry he himself didn’t recognize. Noticing it, Wei Tong laughed inwardly. However calm and mature Xuan appeared, he was at bottom still a youth of sixteen or seventeen, his heart unsettled.

“That depends on who it is. If an elder, then even if what the elder says is wrong, you still have to go along on the surface. One face in front, another behind; you can’t defy your elders. If it’s a peer, then it comes down to who’s in the right. If they have no cause, why not push back?” Wei Tong’s head was tipped back, but his eyes were closed.

“Push back?” Xuan repeated. Wei Tong sat up abruptly. This was bad. Every time he entered the dreamscape he relaxed and let slip words he shouldn’t.

“It means telling them plainly to their face. If a matter can wait, fine, but in your situation, Xuan, one step of concession might change everything.” Though Xuan rarely spoke of it, those few scattered remarks made clear his situation was perilous. One wrong step and every step after was wrong; it was nothing like the modern world. Retreat a single step, and what you surrendered was far more than mere advantage.

“Hah. What you say has reason, Wei. I fear there is no returning to what once was.” Xuan’s tone carried a trace of feeling. His voice had started out clear and bright with a boyish ring, then turned hoarse through the change, and now was growing round and pleasant again by degrees, deep and magnetic. Even a single word from it, unguarded, made the heart give a sudden twitch.

Thank goodness Wei Tong wasn’t the sort to be ruled by a voice, or he’d have long since groveled at Xuan’s pomegranate… boot. And hearing it sound nice was useless anyway; the moment he and Xuan woke, neither could remember how the other’s voice went.

The two of them, separated by a single screen, came to know each other, friends of wildly unequal stations; outside, strangers passing.

It wasn’t that Xuan had never wondered about this dreamscape. However superstitious the ancients might be, appearing for no reason in such a place, a person’s first thought would surely be not heaven’s grace but demon-possession. To accept it this calmly was Xuan’s own capability. And for now, this quiet stability was fine.

Only… how was Little Ke doing?

Wei Tong still checked in on that consciousness from time to time, but since Little Ke’s mind had sunk into sleep, he had never felt its presence again. Even if he had, he’d have had no way to speak with it, but at least they could sense each other.

“Tongtong…” A vague, slurred, affectionate child’s voice rose at Wei Tong’s ear, very small and soft, yet it made his heart jolt. He stood up at once, sweeping the room again and again, black eyes laced with astonishment, but that half of the room remained as it ever was.

“Little Ke?” Wei Tong glanced at Xuan across the screen and called out in his mind. Xuan wasn’t speaking just then, presumably deep in thought or reading one of the scrolls. Wei Tong’s side had plenty of those too.

“Tongtong—” The voice came clearer this time, as if overjoyed at getting a response. Wei Tong felt an intensely warm consciousness brush against him. It was truly a marvelous thing. He was a flesh-and-blood human; how did he reach beyond his body to feel a consciousness?

Curious as he was, Wei Tong was happy too. Since that day he had first met Xuan, Little Ke had never appeared again. If not for their steady rhythm of “meeting” every three or four days, Wei Tong might have thought that night’s agony last year had been nothing but a fleeting dream.

“Tongtong, good, like Tongtong, ah Tong,” Little Ke called him over and over, so affectionate, the voice soft and tiny, that Wei Tong’s whole bearing softened along with it.

“Little Ke’s finally awake. How do you feel now?” Since Little Ke still behaved like a toddler, Wei Tong slowed his speech, fearful the little one might miss his meaning.

“Little Ke, Little Ke better, better, wu, a little, a little bit…” Little Ke timidly brushed against Wei Tong’s consciousness. “Let, Tongtong, see me, see Little Ke.”

“See you?” Wei Tong was momentarily at a loss.

As the words fell, a small mote of light suddenly appeared before Wei Tong’s eyes, slowly swelling, first sprouting tiny antler buds, then conjuring tiny hooves, until at last it became a little beast no bigger than a palm. Save for its tender red hooves, the little beast was snow-white all over, coated in a fine layer of down, looking ever so slightly like the qilin from the murals.

The moment it appeared, Wei Tong hurried to cup it in both hands. It tried a step across his palms, but its four frail little hooves couldn’t hold it; with a soft “aiya” the whole beast plopped down onto his hand, rubbing its black eyes with a forehoof almost humanly, looking rather aggrieved. Then it raised its head and beheld an enlarged Wei Tong, and Wei Tong could even see its eyes light up in an instant.

“Tong, Tongtong, Tongtongtongtong…” Wei Tong curled his fingers in slightly, terrified the little thing might fall. Little Ke nuzzled his fingers fondly, hugging his thumb with both little forehooves.

Though Little Ke’s voice was faint, Xuan’s hearing was exceptional beyond ordinary men, and he caught the unusual sounds at once. “Wei, has something happened on your side?”

Wei Tong looked at Little Ke and said softly, “Would you like to meet Xuan?”

Little Ke gazed at him with bewildered eyes, looked toward where Xuan’s voice had come from, then suddenly struggled up with all its might, as if to walk that way. Wei Tong simply carried it over toward the screen, and just as he was about to say something, Little Ke heaved with force and the whole beast leaped into the screen’s interior.

…Was this thing messing with him? Where was all that frailty from just now?

As Wei Tong shook his head helplessly, he heard Xuan’s voice, carrying a rare… no, not rare anymore; the Xuan of the dreamscape plainly let his emotions show far more freely. “Wei, what creature is this?” Xuan had at once connected it to the strange noises from Wei’s side before.

Wei Tong didn’t know how to explain either, but then a tender young voice rang out. “Good, be, be good to, Tongtong.” Wei Tong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The little thing had turned out his whole hand of cards at once. Wei Tong; even his name was now exposed before Xuan. And with Xuan’s acuity, he would deduce a great deal immediately.

Wei Tong gave a rough account of the matter, naturally without telling the whole truth, saying only that this little beast was the spirit beast of the dreamscape itself, and that some small mishap had left it so tiny.

As he spoke, he stroked the little mite dozing on his shoulder. The truth wasn’t far from his guess anyway; the question was whether Xuan could accept the explanation.

“So it’s because the spirit beast was injured that we appear here?” Xuan countered at once. Wei Tong laughed despite himself, then said softly, “Nothing gets past you, does it? Precisely so.”

This much Little Ke had just conveyed to him. Childlike in mind as it still was, not everything in its head had been lost. After nuzzling Wei Tong affectionately, it had told him a great deal through their consciousness.

Where the bead had come from could no longer be traced, but the dreamscape had indeed appeared because of Little Ke. Back then, the bead had desperately needed to find a host to shelter its healing, but its haste had left Wei Tong hovering at death’s door, and thus came his meeting with Xuan. Wei Tong had become the bead’s host, and Xuan, by association, could enter as well; only because Little Ke had not yet recovered could the two not even lay eyes on each other.

The two did not continue the topic; but as Wei Tong played with Little Ke, he would idly pull Xuan into a few words.

The next day, at midday, Wei Tong greeted Wenxi and hurried off to the Laundry Bureau to find Wei Ning.

Wei Ning was not there.