038. vinegar

“Are you excited to see the Fengs, Lin?” Gui Ao looked over to his younger brother with a fondness that narrowed his eyes. His sun bleached hair fell just above his chin, framed his face in wavy lines that shook with the movement of their wagon pulled by a pair of horses. Its construction creaked and moaned over the uneven lay of the dusty road, nails complained from every pocket of planking they were hammered into, screaking softly in the sway of travel. At his feet jangled an array of weapons, sharp silver swords and projectiles glistening in the afternoon sun.

Fanxing City’s outer perimeter was fast approaching on the road the brothers tread. Roofs of too long, rickety Zhao district houses towered into the sky, shoddily shaped like zigzags of precarious construction that could topple over at any moment. The Guis were coming from the north where higher elevations meant harsher conditions, where higher latitudes brought colder climates riddled with the sort of unchecked lawlessness the youths were always prepared for.

The pair of boys spent most of their days on the open road because they were in the business of armored transport. Their entire enterprise was propped up by Feng funds ever since their father was rumored to have been murdered by their mother and their mother was forced to seek protection from the fierce clan of all females called Zhenxi. They, in fact, should have been Fengs themselves, since their father was Feng Youzui’s own brother, but the boys long ago decided to adopt their mother’s surname—they held onto it with tooth and claw, wild and feral like the edges of civilization they so frequently dallied in.

“I think the Fengs will be happy to see us,” Ao looked back to the road, sardonicism indistinguishable from sincerity when he was smiling. 

“Only if we’ve got a handful of gold held out in front of us when we arrive—they need to see the money before they see our faces,” Lin’ai, the younger of the Guis, glibly reminded his elder with a precocious cant. Both brothers were so dry in their delivery they maintained a good reputation in Fanxing simply because their ill-will comments were accepted as praise. Sleepy eyed thing with his red-tinged hair loosely braided over his shoulder, Lin crossed his arms and lounged back on the wooden rest, boots propped up on the lip of the wagon’s front end. “We can’t forget to pay our bills or the late fees will compound, Ao-ao.”

“Late fees are just an added bonus on top of all that debt we’re buried in, Lin. When I die, leave my body to rot in the sun. I don’t want to be laid in a grave of insurmountable interest.” Ao put his feet up on the front of the driver’s box to match his brother, boots permanently caked in clay and wrapped with carelessly strung red cord from which dangled a strange charm: light and thin, green dotted with copper. “We could always just not see them. Skip visiting altogether.”

“But that would be rude.” Lin’ai pouted. “Our Uncle might think we don’t like him and the service fees will really come down on us.” A shrug, then. “I guess Quan’s okay, maybe he’ll pay us money to prank Yixun’s invalid brother again.”

“Quan’s an asshole. Yixun is too.” Ao peered to the side, catching the tail end of his brother’s pout. He leaned over and vigorously elbowed the boy in the arm, sharp bone matching the hooligan grin bending his lips. “But since you’re sooOOOOooo excited to see the fam, then you can suck up to Uncle Youzui this time and ask him for an extension on the due date of our next payment.”

Frowning, the younger boy was suddenly serious, fiddling with the end of his braid. He only ever displayed his nerves in front of his brother; to everyone else, he was nothing more than the catastrophically confident, self assured, cocky piece of shit that rolled into Fanxing every few months or so. “Ao-ao: what if we just… I don’t know, what if we never went back? Just let Mom know where to find us and just split?”

“We’d have to find something else to do with our lives, don’t you think? Find somewhere to plant our roots.” The older boy always took the younger seriously in his vulnerable moments. Fatherless for so long, Ao felt a great responsibility to make sure that his sibling was happy, immediately snapped out of his facetious disposition at the first sign the boy wasn’t. He straightened, rearranging the driving reins in his grip. “Is there something else you want to do? Is there a place we’ve been where you wanted to stay?”

That braided boy made an orphan by supposed patricide sighed, looking up at the lacework canopy of trees overhead. He squinted, tracers along his cheek glinting in the sunlight. 

What would he miss about Fanxing City? Their mother, even if they didn’t get to see her often. He’d miss the lantern festivals, always so rowdy with such a large populace. He’d miss the arena; he’d miss challenging. 

He’d miss Tian Yuhui, that boy he’d left crying on the steps of Skyline Manor just three months prior, the day he and Ao left to transport Fanxing minted silver bars to the northern coast. 

Lin’ai reclaimed a sliver of his reckless smile at the thought of seeing that cursed boy again. He looked down at his hands. 

He hoped Yu wasn’t too upset with him.

“Aah, it was a dumb idea,” the mercenary said. “What good am I if I’m not doing this? Besides: Uncle Feng would just put a bounty on our heads. We’d be watching our backs for the rest of our lives. So inconvenient.”

“Don’t act like we aren’t already watching our backs all the time, Lin.” Ao’s grave chiding was a product of his coming to terms with the conditions of their chosen path. “Don’t act like a bounty would ever prevent us from doing what we wanted. You’re smarter than that.” 

Just as another grin began to break through the fog of their passing solemnity, Ao jostled the reins to startle their horses into quicker action. The sound of eight hooves hitting the ground broke through the noise of Fanxing’s afternoon. They approached and then cobbled across a sturdy bridge arching over the river streaming down from Yunji, they tore through the streets, narrowly missing families leisurely strolling and side swiping vendors whose wares spilled out into the road from the crowded market. A woman shrieked as she yanked her child back. The older of the Gui boys laughed loudly as a curse was caught in the dust cloud trailing behind them.

“Someday you’re gonna hit someone and you’re gonna feel bad,” the young mercenary laughed, like he was spouting off some joke rather than droll tidings of a someday consequence. He snatched up a bag of loquats from one of the stalls they dashed by, tossing a silver at the vendor before he settled into the last leg of Mr. Gui’s wild ride to The House of Infinite Dawn, a sprawling, palatial estate and center of the Feng family empire. 

Lost to some thought or another, Lin’ai bit into one of the loquats, watching the angry world whiz by their empty caravan.

“I’m going to hit this bitch right here,” Ao announced with a chilling sincerity, target-sharp eyes narrowing on the shape of Feng Quan and Ma Yixun emerging from the Feng mansion’s gates. He urged the horses faster with a choppy slapping of the reins. The boy leaned forward as though it would make it easier to hone in on his victim, smirk dripping with devilry upon his thrillseeker face. Gui Ao was the type of boy who played rough, he was a charmingly wretched thing who let himself be shaped by the mercilessness of the world around him.

Turning at the sound of the runaway ruckus, the platinum son of that wealthy clan—with his eyes so, so wide—was more than happy to sacrifice his friend to the accident-in-progress, grabbing Yixun by the arms to try and deploy him as a human shield.

Yixun looked much less alarmed with his expression flat and his eyes sullen and narrowed. How often had he stared down these two fucking horses? How often had Quan pushed him forward to take the blow? How often had both Guis cackled at the Feng heir’s expense?

Yixun wrenched his arm from his wounded friend’s grasp and made a valiant leap forward, tagging one hand on each of the horse’s muzzles before he skidded back to his position as Quan’s shield in a cloud of gold flecked dust, whispers of blue travelling up and down the tracers hidden beneath the thin fabric of his clothes. He took both horses over like a lightning strike, head to core to ground. Immediately, upon Yixun’s toxic command, both horses stopped short, wagon coming to an abrupt halt that unseated both those wild Gui boys at the apex of their delight. 

Ao’s lithe body hit the ground in a tumbling thud, clumsily launched over the heads of those side-by-side beasts of burden to land in a mess of spirited wheezing. He was athletic and had fallen off enough horses in his time to know how to fall without breaking his every bone. His brother landed immediately after and atop him, loquats littering the bed of their fall. Ao tried to laugh even though the breath had been knocked from his lungs and Lin’ai’s weight kept him from regaining it. He laid his head back in the skid-mark of his landing, closing his eyes to both the blond who unhappily peered down at the mercenary and the day, still bright behind Quan’s head.

“What the fuck, Ao,” the Feng son spat, arms grumpily folded across his chest. “You could’ve hurt someone.”

“Oh shi—” the boy choked, voice ragged as air slowly returned to him. “Hah, haha, shit. Aw man, hah. I wasn’t—oof, ow—I wasn’t going to hit you for real, cousin. Ha ha, augh.”

“My loquats—” Lin’ai whined, unmoving with his sharp chin stabbing into his brother’s sternum. “Ugh, I paid for those…”

Soon enough, the pair were engulfed by Yixun’s shadow, standing tall above them. The black and blonde boy had his arms crossed over his chest, frowning with that same insolent feline stare that had locked both their horses, that had caused the market to cheer. Now, his frown made the gathering crowd quickly disperse as he offered his hand to the brothers—

only to help them get back on their feet, of course. 

“It’s cool,” Ao croaked from beneath his younger brother to that disturbed man looming above them. “I’m good but thanks for the help anyway! I do appreciate it. It’s really kind of you to offer.” It was strange how such appreciation could sound very real and, concurrently, entirely sarcastic. The older of the siblings squirmed, rolling the protrusion of bones that was his brother off of him. 

“Daddy said you’d both be in town today,” Quan said, backing up to give the struggling pair some space. “I was waiting for you.”

“Yeah? Excited to see us, huh? I don’t think we kept anything from our travels this time to give you—” Ao’s dark eyes turned upon his brother. “Lin, did we find anything interesting to give Quan and his considerate friend?”

Lin’ai groaned at the thought of having to think fast on the gift front as he was shoved off and into the dust, rolling onto his back and looking up at their eerily stilled horses. He gazed up at their muzzles on pause, their hooves in picturesque mid-stamp, held still by Yixun’s dangerous demand. The only thing still animate was their black glossy eyes and Lin’ai knew, he could see it flashing in their pinpoint pupils: it was fear. Suddenly, the younger Gui sat up. “Can the horses breathe? Yixun, are the horses breathing?”

Slowly retracting his friendly offer, Yixun continued to stare down at Ao—but his mouth curled into a smile. 

“Apologize,” he demanded, haughty and cruel.

“Don’t kill the horses, Potato and Turnip didn’t do anything wrong!” Lin’ai protested as he scrambled onto his knees. That wild-eyed, concerned boy loved those horses and regardless of his feelings on the matter, there were the more logical consequences of Yixun’s vengeance: how would they buy new ones? The majority of the money they earned was going toward their upside-down business loan. Without the horses, the Gui boys were screwed. “Please, Yixun, c’mon, we were playing around, he’s sorry—we’re both sorry—”

“Yeah, Yixun,” Ao joined in his brother’s pleading explanations with his own, subdued and careful, reserved, simple. “Think about this. The horses were just doing what I told them, don’t take my wrongs out on them. They don’t deserve to die like this in the streets of Fanxing.” He looked up at the man. “Please, I don’t know how I’d ever tell my uncle that his horses had the lives choked out of them. We don’t have the money to move them so they would just be left here to rot.” He looked down, face shaded by a mockery of regret. Rather than kneeling, Ao kowtowed before his cousin’s friend. The older boy would have loved to be a hard headed asshole about all this, but he didn’t want Lin’ai to have to watch their animals die for the sake of it.

“I’m sorry, Yixun,” Ao announced, glad his face was hidden in subservience.

“There, he apologized, Yixun,” Quan chimed in. “Let the horses breathe. We have business to discuss.”

“I forgive you, Gui Ao,” the black-and-blonde nobleman dotingly uttered all smeared with blackened strawberry preserves, his voice a confection gone wrong: insect husks coated in crisp burnt sugar. 

When Yixun turned, he let the horses go to a sudden rush of frightened braying. If one of them didn’t immediately collapse to the ground, the pair surely would have bolted with the wagon—instead, Lin’ai was crawling in the dirt, trying to comfort the fallen mare with his arms around her chestnut neck. “Shh—shh it’s okay, you’re okay.”

Ao looked up to his brother before picking himself up off of the ground, running dusty palms over dustier knees, smearing dirt over more dirt. He ran a hand through his hair as his gaze turned to his fair-haired cousin, nonchalant despite the underpinnings of worry working itself into his guts—a Feng wanting to talk business was always cause for concern.

“What kind of business did you have with us? Is this about us being late? You know those deadlines that Uncle sets are near impossible to meet.” The boy’s eyebrows furrowed in true annoyance, voice carried in a defensive terseness that made his tongue work faster than normal. “We’re out on the road all the time, Quan. We work day and night, it’s not always possible to get back here by the end of the mon—”

“Shut up. That’s not what I want to talk to you about.” Quan moved to wrap his arm around Ao’s shoulder, but a second inspection of the boy’s appearance gave him pause. He smelled like the open road, leather and sweat and grass and grime. The blond pulled his arm away. “Are you hungry from traveling? Let me get you food and we can talk. Come. Come, Lin’ai. Leave that dead horse alone. I’ll send someone out here to come pick it up.” He was backing up toward the gate, words an enticing chime.

“Turnip’s not dead,” Lin’ai grumbled his correction as he reluctantly stood, smoothing his hand along Turnip’s neck in a see you soon, not a farewell. What choice did he have? Both Gui boys knew: when Quan called, they were required to follow. 

There was a sweetness in Quan’s calling though—like whatever business he had with those armed escorts would require the good food, the food the Feng’s sprawling kitchen only made for banquets and the family themselves.

Yixun was strolling along behind the pack with his wildcat smirk, like he had to leave the tail to make sure Quan’s cousins couldn’t escape his lure.

Quan led the trio behind him into the house, past large entryway doors hammered with gold that spread to show the Feng’s lavish interior, expensive and ornate, dripping red like blood money and blood diamonds and blood debts accumulated and aged to interest-bearing perfection. The furniture was all new, pristine and glistening in the gleam of afternoon filtering through large windows. The Feng clan preferred to show off their wealth in unmarred lacquer rather than the charming dullness of antiquated wear, they wore their upper class status prominently, proudly—for the world to openly see.

“What did you want to talk to us about, cousin?” Ao asked again when they were behind closed doors, feet echoing through the stillness of the vast mansion.

“I wanted to ask you both for a favor,” Quan curtly replied, steering the group down an elongated hallway dressed in shadow. The blond turned at the last door on the right, showing the Guis and his friend into the family’s vast dining room where a sprawling dinner was already laid out: heaps of steaming buns were stacked next to savory cuts of meat, noodles idly simmered in aromatic broths, vegetables were plated and ready for the picking, a kaleidoscopic array of delicacies perfectly arranged.

“Sit please,” the heir to the Feng fortune announced, pulling the door behind Yixun. “I would have let you wash yourselves first, but I figured food should take priority. Help yourselves to everything. I’ll get wine to celebrate your return to Fanxing.”

Lin’ai was a rude thing. It was like he learned to teleport when they walked into that room—as soon as the words help yourselves left his cousin’s blood money mouth, Lin was in a chair with a bowl of rice in his hands, an overly generous chunk of gelatinous braised pork hock already hanging out of his mouth. 

“Fuck we haven’t eaten since yesterday morning,” Lin attempted to convey but it came out garbled with his mouth so full. His gesture was hard to mistake: he pointed at Ao with his chopsticks, then pointed at all the food. 

Yixun rolled his eyes. What a little heathen. How were they even related to the Fengs? This ignoble behavior must have come from their mother’s side: the murderess Gui Naohe, the feared swordmaster of Zhenxi clan. Yixun shook his head as he took a highback seat closest to the door. He slumped into it with his arms crossed, watching and studying both Gui boys as he waited for the wine.

Quan was out and back in quickly. When he returned with the bottle of wine, he poured for his best friend first, emotions so easy to read on that grumpy face. The blond took a seat on the other side of the door, effectively trapping the brothers in the room. He began to fix his own plate; looked to Yixun and nudged him with an elbow—a reminder that he didn’t always have to play bouncer when they were in the midst of laying out one of their elaborate schemes, a reminder that he was allowed to eat too.

“Ao, you should feed your poor brother more,” Quan chided in a melodic tease. “Malnourishment will do you no favors out there in the wilds.”

“We eat whenever we can.” The older Gui was indignant but reserved, too suspicious to really indulge himself in the other two’s presence. “The wilds aren’t exactly generous, you know. We don’t get too much extra money when we factor in the amount we have to sit aside to make our payments. We don’t really get a choice in a lot of things.”

“Is that right…” Quan hummed, eyes focused down on the table in contemplative avoidance, coy evasion. “How long do you both plan to be in town for on this stop?”

“Uhm,” Ao tilted his head, glancing over to his sibling. “A few days. Right, Lin? The merchant Wuzhou is supposed to be packing up a thing for us to take west, then we have a couple of jobs lined up along the way.”

“Mrrfhgggggrrrrh,” Lin’ai corroborated eloquently. He didn’t have time to stop eating in order to make eye contact or be polite or breathe—not when he had at least a six thousand calorie deficit from the past few days to make up for. He was only tangentially aware that Quan was asking questions; he was even less interested in the contents of said questions. That was Ao’s department, wasn’t it? Logistics and other responsible shit. Lin was simply along for the ride, just an easy-going thing who always said yes when his brother called.

Yixun put his wine bowl to his mouth and drank deep, glancing over at Quan with a look that said it all:

You expect me to eat with these actual animals?

Placing his empty bowl down, the disgruntled Ma boy picked up his chopsticks and started listlessly feeding himself vinegar peanuts straight from the bowl.

“I think Quan might have something really good for you.” That highbrow rich boy came off with an air of indifference, chopsticks between his teeth when he finally looked up at the Gui brothers, Ao so suspicious to protect his kin, Lin’ai like a feral child brought back to society for the very first time. “When I came over earlier, he told me he just finished talking to his dad about your loan and how cruel it was to charge family so much interest.”

Ao’s eyes moved between their door guards. “This is for the favor, then?”

“That’s right,” Quan replied, studious in his nonchalance, like this was easy for him, like he really had talked to his father about the interest. “We would like you both to help us challenge for the Jade Millipede while you’re in town. I’ve decided that I would really like to win it, and since you both are so skilled, Yixun and I thought you’d be a perfect addition to our team. If we win, daddy will knock off some interest. Maybe even reduce the rate a few percentage points for the rest of the loan’s life.”

“How much?” The older mercenary queried, eyebrows furrowed in the uncertainty of Quan’s words. No absolutes meant flexibility, flexibility was a fairly good sign of a trap. 

“It’s still being discussed.” Quan’s answer came quick and was dismissive, reductive as though the particulars of business were beyond polite dinner conversation despite him having brought up the boys’ business in the first place. “Just listen for a minute: everyone is going to be trying to get this artifact. It’s legendary, very good and very important. With you both on our team, I know we can best its keeper. And hey, in the process you may even get to see some old friends.” The blond turned his eyes to the boy who stuffed his face. “I hear Prince Yuhui will be debuting on the Tian team for this one. Weren’t you good friends with him, Lin’ai?”

Unprepared to hear Yuhui’s name at the Feng dinner table, Lin’ai inhaled sharply. With his brisk pace, it was impossible for that breath to contain only air and the younger Gui sputtered and coughed. He quickly cleared the rice from his lungs but spattered Yixun with the remnants of a mouthful of chewed food—

and Yixun did not look pleased. 

Palms slammed flat on the table, that temper-tantrum mindfuck of a man wrenched himself to standing, knocking his chair back with a clatter of panic as he all but vaulted at Lin’ai, intent on wringing an apology from the younger boy’s throat. “You disrespectful little shit—”

Lin’ai, sensing impending doom, dropped his rice bowl on the table and scrambled back, knocking his own chair off its feet as he sought his brother’s aid. “Whoa, Yixun, buddy—hey, hey man, uh, it was an accident—”

“You fucking spat on me, don’t call me buddy—”

Ao’s hand flew to his side retrieving the knife he kept tucked into his belt. He put himself between Yixun and his little brother, popped blade propped against the filth of his palm, ready to slice open the skin. 

“Don’t fucking touch him,” the boy cautioned as though he were a set of explosives ready to engage, black powder guts so prepared to bleed vitriol and venom. His gaze was feral, unaware or unconcerned with bothersome things like consequences. “You leave him the fuck alone or I will make sure you die in the slowest, most excruciating way, understand? Quan call off your dog or there’s no fucking way we’re helping you.”

Sighing loudly, the heir of the Feng fortune pushed himself up and leaned toward his friend. “Yixun, he didn’t mean it. Sit down and be calm. You’re making this much harder than it should be, you know.”

“Be calm?” Yixun turned on Quan, dismayed at being judged as wrong. A Yixun with a clearer head would know it was all part of Quan’s ploy, his play to bring the Gui’s to his aid, but when that black and gold boy saw red, there wasn’t any room for grey. 

“Yixun, I’m sorry,” Lin’ai said from behind his brother’s protection. The words sounded more like a taunt than an apology but that’s what happened to words in Gui mouths: they went in earnest and came out dry, sarcastic, disrespectful. “Next time I choke on something, I’ll hold it in and die, okay? Would that be better?”

Yixun growled as he returned to Quan’s side. He picked up his chair, sat down, and poured himself another bowl of wine. 

“Now, Ao,” Quan patiently continued, self-appointed master of this miserable ceremony, “You put your weapon away. No one will be killed at your uncle’s table. I think he would be very upset to hear of such misfortune under his own roof.”

The boy backed down slowly but without needing any further persuasion, shoulders relaxing as soon as that two-tone aggressor was once again seated, once the threat to his brother’s life was staid. He tucked his knife back into his clothing and slipped back into his chair—it wasn’t like he could leave in an uproar anyway, Quan and Yixun were blocking the exit.

“So will you both help us?” The blond was hopeful, delivery light on the air as though no unpleasant events before this very moment had occurred.

“Help you? After your friend almost killed our horses and then came at Lin for choking?” Ao shook his head, eyebrows dipped in obvious anger. “No. Fuck no. Lin, do you want to help?”

“You could have hurt Quan or any of the people in the market driving like that—including children, the elderly,” Yixun protested after another drink. “I think if you can’t drive, maybe you shouldn’t have horses at all.”

Lin’ai took his seat tentatively but seemed strangely pensive. Looking up at Quan, the younger boy put on his confident air and smiled for his cousin, slick and conniving and so self assured. 

“I would help Quan if Uncle forgave our loan.”

“I said he would forgive interest, not the entire loan.” Quan’s counter to the younger boy was cautionary, head tilted to observe the cunning stares of his cousins, those narrow eyes so focused on him and made sharp by the ammunition they’d been given.

“Then this must not be important to you,” Ao snapped back. “I guess that artifact isn’t really worth the price, huh.”

Quan bristled, always obvious in his frustration. His anger was so easily seen in its approach, rolling steadily forward in the waves of his emotions, ready to crash upon the shores of his expression at any moment.

“… I’ll talk to him about it.” The Feng heir turned his nose up like the gesture was conclusive punctuation appended to his decision.

“You’ll pay it yourself.” Unfortunately for Quan, the Guis paid mind to no pauses, they plowed through peace with their riotous havoc. Ao leaned forward, hair dangling over his cheeks. “If he won’t forgive it, then you’ll pay it off with your own money. That’s the only deal we’ll make. Right, Lin?”

“That sounds fair, yeah,” Lin nodded after he considered his brother’s terms. He tilted his head this way and that. When Ao had the upper hand, Lin’ai always took his time to float; he liked to roll his brother’s victories between his fingers like tobacco and savor the aftermath. He had a fox grin when he watched Quan’s anger overflow into that upturned snub, watched Yixun’s brow furrow in micro-expressed concern for his friend’s ability to either deliver or weasel out of this deal. “So what do you say, Quan? Is it important or isn’t it?”

“I will do this only if we win.” Quan was not as skilled of a negotiator than his father, nor did he have the whims of luck on his side like his sister. He was just the acerbic first born of a family swimming in money, caught between need and want and desperately trying to not play a stupid hand that his lower-born goblin cousins would use to take advantage of him. The way he saw it: he needed to win the millipede—the Guis were already swimming in debt, they didn’t need immediate relief to the lifestyle they’d come accustomed to. “If it comes down to me using my own money, then it will not be for naught.”

Despite the overtones of amicability in his voice, Quan’s mind was still turning and scheming. Already he was mapping out contingency plans, plotting instances where he and his friend could force the pair of boys to agree to a new deal against the wills of their bodies and minds.

“No way,” Ao complained, childish eye roll so dramatic and pronounced. “We’re losing business by being here. Time is money, cousin. I know you know that. Maybe if your asshole friend hadn’t been so hard on us, we’d be more lenient, but…” Ao shrugged a shoulder, parodying feelings.

Yixun frowned with his vinegar mouth, nose scrunched because he smelled something absolutely rotten in the Feng’s garden of plenty.

“UGH,” the blond man immediately grumbled loud enough to be heard in the hall, but no servants came to see what the fuss could be. Annoyance was a common sound in the halls of Feng. “Fine. I will agree to this.”

“I want it in writing too.” Ao grinned.

“Yeah, of course you do.” This time it was Quan who swallowed deeply from his bowl of wine.