Chapter 18

The New Year drew near, and Wei Tong spent New Year’s Eve with Zhao He, just the two of them. Normally their duties would lighten around the holiday, with time off, but with only two men in the small study, the night passed as best it could.

But where there’s a rule, there’s a workaround. That morning, Wei Tong had gone to see Chen Dali, Fugui, Wenxi, and the others; the afternoon shift went to Zhao He, and Wei Tong kept watch over the small study. Such small liberties were common in these days. Those in charge looked the other way. Palace servants were people too. Human nature was human nature.

He had read all afternoon, and by evening his spirits flagged, but for the sake of seeing the old year out, he scrubbed his face with ice water. He couldn’t leave Zhao He to keep the vigil alone.

Wei Tong and Zhao He kept a distance neither close nor cold, calibrated just so. Their division of labor ran so smoothly that they rarely spoke, so sitting face to face for the year-end vigil felt a little strange for both.

They sat in silence for a while before Zhao He finally spoke first. “Do you know what I’m thinking right now?” He picked up the wine bought that afternoon with hard silver from the kitchens and poured for them both.

Wei Tong shook his head and murmured his thanks.

“I was thinking, if I never spoke first, how long would you wait before you spoke to me?” Zhao He set down the wine flask and raised his cup to Wei Tong. Wei Tong raised his own in answer and said softly, “Perhaps the very next moment.” They drained their cups and looked at each other, laughing. For Wei Tong, this was already rare beyond words. Outside the dreamscape, he always buried his feelings deep.

Zhao He was a man much like Wei Tong. Not that he wore the same silent mask, but his restraint and composure were rare indeed among the lowliest attendants. Half a month ago, if not for that one warning from Zhao He, Wei Tong might well have slipped. A man who cannot master his own emotions cannot master his own actions.

The wine loosened both their tongues. Buoyed by it, Wei Tong said far more than usual, rambling on, and the distance between them closed. Past the midnight hour, they helped each other off to bed; one of them stumbled and landed on Zhao He’s cot, and Zhao He was asleep the instant he went down. Wei Tong at least managed to lie there a while, then struggled back to his own bed, fumbled his outer robe off through the haze, and was under within a minute of his head touching the pillow.

Wei Tong drifted and sank through his sleep, as if dreaming of something, but every time he grasped the thread, he plunged into another dream. A long while later, when he finally struggled upright, he found himself lying on the bed in the dreamscape. The dreamscape couldn’t be touched by the outside world, and yet his head still pounded.

“Xuan, does your head hurt too?”

“What do you think?”

The two of them lay on their respective beds in mutual despair, neither with any desire to rise, which, admittedly, was rather comic. Wei Tong, recalling Xuan’s usual persona, conjured the image of a noble young lord sprawled and reeking of wine, and the picture alone sent him into giggles.

By some uncanny means, Xuan knew exactly what Wei Tong was laughing at. He rolled over lazily and called toward the folding screen, “Wei, if we could ever meet in person, I’d drink you under the table a few times over. Then we’d see whose head holds its liquor better, yours or mine.” Wei Tong shot back at once, “How about you climb out of bed first, then talk.”

“Have you managed to get up?”

…

The two traded a few rounds of this childish banter before stopping at the same instant. Wei Tong said quietly, “Another year gone.” He had known Xuan for a year and a half now. Sometimes, thinking on it, it truly felt like a marvel.

“You know, at first I took you for a dashing, dissolute young lord. The first time we spoke, I actually thought, so people really can be such poseurs.” Wei Tong said it softly. Looking back now, the days of a year ago seemed strangely unreal, blurred at the edges.

“Poseurs?” Xuan sounded puzzled. Wei Tong snickered, racked his brain, and said, “It means, having nothing but acting like you have it. Strutting your own grandeur.” Whether or not that was the true meaning, Wei Tong washed his hands of it. “But once I got to know you, I decided you were actually tolerable.”

“And you, at the start, bristled like a hedgehog. You should count yourself lucky I deigned to talk to you at all.” Xuan tossed the words right back, and Wei Tong bristled at the injustice. “I was nothing like that! Everyone says I’m quiet and gentle and well-mannered, thank you very much.” Heaven knew what those two words were doing welded together like that.

Xuan let it go, staring at the folding screen a while, then frowned, as if some old doubt had surfaced. “Come to think of it, Wei, the way you talk sometimes… you nearly had me wanting to investigate what kind of place on earth could produce a specimen like you.” Wei Tong was unbothered. “If you manage to find it, I’ll gift you a flask of fine wine.”

“You think your wine could best my cellar?” Xuan scoffed a few times, and Wei Tong fell silent. He had gotten carried away and forgotten what role he was currently playing. “Then let’s change the wager. If you really do find me, I’ll owe you one favor.”

Wei Tong had never believed he would ever meet Xuan face to face. Scarcely anyone could enter the Imperial Palace, and fewer still any man. And who on earth would spare a glance for a lowly little eunuch? It was nothing more than a wistful remark, made in an unguarded moment.

Xuan actually paused at that. But he recovered quickly, reading Wei Tong’s state of mind, and a faint smile touched his lips as light shifted in his eyes. “Wei, I have no need of a favor from you. Change the terms. If I truly do find you, you’ll owe me one condition of my choosing.”

“No killing, no arson, no robbery, no assassination. Nothing that offends every principle I live by. Anything else, ask away.” Wei Tong rolled over lazily. He really had drunk too much tonight; even here in the dreamscape, the fog of wine still filled his skull, but sleep wouldn’t come, and trading nonsense with Xuan like this felt wonderful.

Like idly chatting with an old friend. Sometimes, recalling his past life felt like watching it through a film of glistening soap bubbles. Even something this simple was, for Wei Tong, a rare gift.

“Wei, won’t you think it over more carefully?” Wei Tong seemed to catch a soft laugh from the other side. He mumbled something, a slurred murmur escaping him. “Said… ask whatever you like…” And then he fell asleep. In the dreamscape, he fell asleep.

When he woke the next morning, Wei Tong had no idea what he and Xuan had last said to each other the night before. Just before he slid under, Xuan had seemed to say something more, but wrapped in that voice, he had drifted off without noticing. It was the first time he had ever fallen asleep inside the dreamscape. A genuine miracle.

Rising to wash up, he crossed eyes with Zhao He, who had just sat up as well. They stared at each other a beat. Wei Tong nodded to him and went out first. From that night on, something between the two of them had quietly grown closer.

Whether to protect himself or not, Zhao He rarely spoke to Wei Tong, but that morning he volunteered, “By custom, the rules loosen for the next couple of days. If you have anything to take care of, now’s the time.” Water was still dripping down his face from washing. Wei Tong noticed, idly, that Zhao He was actually quite a fair-skinned young fellow.

As to the meaning behind the words, Wei Tong shook his head. “What needs doing is done. The rest depends on timing. I say we take a good rest today. Last night’s wine still has my head aching.” His voice was even and unhurried, without a trace of strain, and it earned Zhao He’s quiet admiration.

And so the two really did while away the whole day in their room. Wei Tong practiced his writing for a good while, admired the results on the ground for three seconds, then ruthlessly destroyed the evidence. Hmm. Rather in the wild-cursive style, that. Zhao He had stolen a glance from behind and burst out laughing. “Ha! Wei Tong, I thought my handwriting was ugly, but who knew you’d taken ugly a whole floor higher than me!” If the old poets knew this was how you honored their verses, they’d weep, Wei Tong grumbled inwardly, and silently moved to a fresh patch of ground.

Time seemed to leap forward all at once. The next time Wei Tong noticed its passage was when joy swept the Imperial Palace: the Empress was with child! The happiness rolled down from the very top in an instant. His monthly stipend doubled this month, along with scattered little rewards, and the whole palace seemed steeped in celebration.

Hearing the news, Wei Tong instinctively counted the time again. Three months left. The past two months of work had not been wasted; his relations with Liu Yu grew warmer by the day. Liu Yu was shallow, vain, and petty, yet there was one quality that kept Liu Cheng tolerating him at his side all these years. He was loyal. Not only that, he could keep his mouth shut.

Setting aside what had slipped out in front of Zhang Jiu, he had hardly ever let anything useful fall in front of Wei Tong. But only hardly. A few times, he had mentioned offhand that he hadn’t slept well at night, that he had nearly failed to get up in the morning. And once, Wei Tong had noticed mud stains on the hem of Liu Yu’s robe. It had rained in the middle of that night. Why on earth would Liu Yu have gone outside?

One more thing. Liu Yu held a strange, magnetic fascination with the Buku Training Ground. It hadn’t shown at first, but as Wei Tong grew familiar to him, his tongue loosened.

In all his time at the Buku Training Ground, Wei Tong had never noticed anything amiss… Wait. Wei Tong’s eyes narrowed. Something was surfacing. He seemed to remember that the unofficial histories had said something… said…

!!!