Chapter Text
Opening the door, the smell of incense and old books hit him in the face like a wave. Shi Qingxuan peered around the door, then he stepped inside and let the door shut behind him. A chiming bell dinged over his head, and beside the front desk a black crow squawked loudly. It’s feathers ruffled as he stared at it, head turning to the side. One of its dark eyes stared back at him, and Shi Qingxuan felt a bubble of nervousness in his throat. “Alright,” he said, then he turned and walked further into the shop. There were display tables with jewels and amulets, rows of shelves that contained labeled boxes of spell ingredients. Shi Qingxuan wasn’t in his element.
His plain, white converse and blue crop-top certainly made him stick out like a sore thumb in the dark interior of the magic shop. Smoothing his fingers back through his hair, Shi Qingxuan bravely stepped forward to look over the rows of shelves. He brushed a manicured finger over the labels underneath the boxes, reading them as he walked along the row. “Fish eyes, mule hair, cloves, anointing oil…” He opened the last box and looked inside to find several small vials all in neat rows. Shi Qingxuan plucked one out, looking at the yellowish liquid that sloshed inside.
“Find something you like?”
Shi Qingxuan flinched, spinning around. He placed a hand on his chest, heart hammering behind his ribs. He stared at the man who’d walked from the beaded curtain leading into a back room. His red tunic stood out against the dark shelves behind him. He had an eyepatch over one eye, and his dark hair hung in a messy braid.
“Oh,” Shi Qingxuan breathed a sigh of relief, then he put the ‘anointing oil’ or whatever it was back in the box, sliding it shut. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this stuff. I’m just trying to get a birthday present for my friend.”
The shopkeeper extended a pale, long hand and gestured for him to come closer. Shi Qingxuan stepped over, glancing at the crow that sat on its perch a few feet away, then he smiled nervously at the shopkeeper. “And what does your friend want from a simple shop like this?” he asked, leaning his elbows on the desk.
“That’s a good question,” Shi Qingxuan said, and he pulled out his phone. He pulled up the texts they’d shared that morning. “I asked some vague questions. He practices some sort of spellwork. I don’t really understand it at all, but I want to get him something nice. I’m this close to just finding a nice candle or something.”
The shopkeep read the messages, then he handed the phone back and stood up straight. “Come around here,” he said, motioning for Shi Qingxuan to follow. He went into the backroom, through that beaded curtain which swayed and clacked together. After a moment of hesitation, Shi Qingxuan followed him and pushed apart the curtain. His mouth fell open.
The entire back room was filled with bookshelves that went from floor to ceiling. The shelves were decorated with animal skulls, large crystals, and flickering candles. The shopkeeper pulled a large chest from one of the lower shelves and placed it on the table in the center of the room. He used a key from around his neck to unlock it. “Oh my god,” Shi Qingxuan said, standing as still as a statue.
“This is a private collection,” the shopkeeper stated, and he opened up the chest. “But I think I have the perfect thing for your friend.” He took from the chest a ring hung on the end of a long chain, and he presented it to Shi Qingxuan on the center of his palm. “Is this something he would like?”
“Well, Xie Lian doesn’t really wear jewelry,” he said, reaching out to take the ring. He held it in his fingers for a moment, feeling the texture of the metal. There was a stone inlaid on the top of it, black as night, and Shi Qingxuan gently brushed his fingers over it. It seemed to suck in the light without even a glimmer.
“It’s a powerful protection amulet. I think you should gift it to him.”
“Ah, well, you clearly know more about this stuff than I do.” Shi Qingxuan clutched the ring in his hand, and he glanced over the rest of the table. His eye caught on a large, black candlestick that was settled in the center of the table. A gold candle sat atop it, unlit, and his eyes blinked a few times. He stepped forward, reaching a hand out to touch.
The shopkeeper’s hand suddenly wrapped around his wrist. “What are you doing?”
His eyes went wide, and he pulled his wrist free and stepped back. “Uh, I…sorry!” He flushed, remembering the man had called all of this his private collection. There was an almost protective look playing on his face, and he slid his eye over to check on the candlestick. Something about it...Shi Qingxuan found the dark metal that curved in delicate shapes to be intriguing. He blinked, looking closer at the base. Waves were carved into the flared base, and he swallowed. “I just...I think it’s pretty.”
The shopkeeper turned his head, looking back at Shi Qingxuan again. “It is something. Do you want the ring or not?” The friendly warmth was gone. “Come, let me get you a bag and something to wrap your gift in.” He turned and left, going back through that curtain again.
Shi Qingxuan turned to follow him, but he felt a prickle up the back of his neck. Turning, he looked back at that candlestick again, his teeth biting into his bottom lip. Without giving him much more time to think it over, he grabbed it and shoved it down into his bag, covering up the candlestick with his makeup bag and phone, then he hurried out and laid the ring down flat on the table.
He was nervous through the entire transaction, and he could swear a knowing eye was resting on him, burning straight through his guilty brain. Shi Qingxuan had never stolen anything in his life. Not even a tube of fucking massacre from a drug store. He grabbed the carefully gift wrapped ring and rushed from the store, the new heaviness in his bag bumping against his hip with every step. Pulling out his phone, he saw a new message from Xie Lian, so he just called him instead.
“Hey,” he said, stopping at the crosswalk up ahead.
“Hey! Did you get done with your errands for the day?”
“Yeah…” He breathed out a soft sigh, then rubbed at his forehead. “Hey, you know that magic shop you get all your supplies from? Do you know the store owner?”
“Yes.” Xie Lian gave a confused laugh. “Yushi Huang? She’s really kind. Did you go shopping there today? What did you need to pick up from a magic shop? If you’re trying to get into spellcasting, you should have asked me for advice first.”
“Oh, it’s not-” Shi Qingxuan winced. “It’s nothing. I was just looking around. Curious, you know? Anyway, do you know some guy that works there? Really tall, long, long hair. He has an eyepatch over one eye.”
“Um...no, I don’t know anyone like that,” Xie Lian replied.
“Oh. Have you been to the back room before? With the big private collection?”
Xie Lian didn’t say anything for a moment. “Qingxuan, there’s nothing in the back except a tiny storage room. I used to help Madame Yushi out on the weekends.”
Shi Qingxuan didn’t say anything, thinking back to that large, tall room. With a vaulted ceiling and flickering candlelight, it did look like something out of a fantasy novel. His hand shook on the phone. “Does she have a pet crow?”
“A pet crow? Qingxuan, are you sure you were in Yushi Huang’s magic shop?”
“No, you’re probably right. I just went into the wrong building or something. I have to go, Xie Lian. See you at the party tonight.” He hung up before Xie Lian could reply, then crossed the road. He snuck one look back over his shoulder, and he could swear he saw a red clad figure behind him in the crowd of plainly dressed pedestrians. When he looked again, that figure was gone.
He got home from the bar around two am, fumbling with his key in the lock. Eventually, the door to his apartment swung open, and he kicked it closed as he crossed the threshold. Tossing his bag on the table, he winced when he heard a clunk. “Right, that fucking candlestick,” he grumbled to himself, and he dug out the candlestick from his bag. He flipped on the kitchen lights as he went in, blinking as the bright lights flickered on.
He set it up in the middle of the counter, scratching at the back of his neck. The long candlestick was dark, slick. It almost looked like glass but had the weight of metal to it. The wave pattern etched onto the bottom was intricate and reminded Shi Qingxuan of famous paintings that he’d seen in art museums before. The gold candle was set in the top and there was a small well for dripping wax to fall into. The wick was untouched. This candle hadn’t been burned before.
Going to his drawer, Shi Qingxuan pulled out one of the long kitchen lighters. “If you can’t summon flames directly from hell, store bought it fine,” he said to himself, then snickered. Oh if only someone else was around to hear his bad jokes. He lit the candle, then stepped back. Watching the flame dance atop the wick, he suddenly felt embarrassed. He was standing there, waiting for something to happen. It was just a candle. A stolen candle. He’d risked getting thrown in thief jail for a candlestick. “Okay, well.” He put the lighter down and placed his hands on his hips.
Above him, the light suddenly went out. Shi Qingxuan yelped when the room was thrown into darkness, only that candle lit up. He spun around, going to the light switch. He pushed it down, then back up again. Flicking it back and forth, there was no change. “Stupid bulbs,” he said, then rubbed at his eyes. He wasn’t entirely too drunk to climb a ladder and try to replace the bulbs. But it was also two in the morning. Shi Qingxuan decided to go to bed. He left that candle burning, not really thinking about it, and went back to his bedroom.
He changed into plain pajamas, then crawled into bed. He was out like a light the minute his head hit the pillow, arms and legs stretched out, a blanket half covering him. Shi Qingxuan tended to be a very sound sleeper, never had a lot of dreams. But he had one that night, an intimately strange dream. A figure stood at the end of his bed, and Shi Qingxuan watched him as if out of his own body. He saw the dark figure reach a long arm across the bed, and sharp nails gently ran along his cheek.
He didn’t feel fully solid. Like there was something keeping him contained to shadows. When his hand brushed Shi Qingxuan’s arm, it felt like curls of mist against his skin. And he was frigidly cold. He stood there, touching every so often, his form never taking on more detail than an amorphous black shape in the night. When the sun started to rise, he disappeared.
Waking, his hair a mess and his eyes heavy with exhaustion, Shi Qingxuan stared outside at the bright sunlight. He squinted, then rubbed the sleep from his eyes and reached over to check his phone. It was already noon. “What the fuck?” he asked himself, stumbling out of bed. He’d slept through all of his alarms, and now he was fully late to work. He got up, shoving on the first thing he dug out of his closet, rushing around to get ready to leave. He was still pulling a comb through his hair when he came out to the kitchen, and he paused midstep. He’d been burning that candle all night, and he nearly slapped himself.
It was all melted, the wax overflowing from that well, and it had dripped down the sides of the candlestick and stuck onto the wave pattern at the bottom. The flame had gone out on its own. Groaning, Shi Qingxuan realized that he didn’t have the time to deal with it, so he just turned and threw his comb onto the table. He grabbed his bag and keys, rushing out the door, and he hurried along to work.
All day, he felt fully exhausted. He hadn’t gone to bed all that late, and he’d slept in until noon. He shouldn’t be this tired. Still, he kept falling asleep at his desk, and Ge banged his fist loudly on the wood whenever he walked past. Shi Qingxuan eventually had to go out and get some air. He called Xie Lian, sitting on the stairs outside the office building with a coffee from the shop across the street.
“Hey? What’s up?” Xie Lian asked, and strangely enough, his voice sounded tired, too.
Shi Qingxuan laughed a bit. “Hey, uh, nothing. I just wanted to see how you were, um. I slept through all my alarms this morning, and I’m still exhausted. I didn’t think I drank that much last night.”
“Oh, you didn’t. No one did, really.” Xie Lian laughed a little bit, a sharp inhale of breath. “No, stop. I’ll come back to bed in a minute,” he said, speaking to someone else.
Shi Qingxuan’s head perked up, and he blinked a few times. “Back to bed?”
“Hahahaha, it’s nothing. Not what it sounds like. I have to go. Do you want to get dinner after you get off?” Xie Lian definitely seemed like he wanted this conversation over so he could get back to whatever he was doing, and Shi Qingxuan wouldn’t stop him.
He had a wide smirk on his face, happy that his friend was finally getting some. “Okay,” he said. “Meet you at my place later. Bye, Xie Lian.” He laughed, hanging up the phone. He tucked it back into his bag, then looked down at the coffee in his hand. Sighing, Shi Qingxuan slowly stood up and walked back into the building to keep working. Or sleeping through work, which is what he ended up doing.
He dragged himself home, finally feeling somewhat less groggy. But he had a strange feeling in his bones, like an exhaustion he couldn't quite explain. He walked up to his door and found Xie Lian was already standing in the hallway waiting for him. Shi Qingxuan smiled, seeing him, and he hurried over and hugged his smaller friend tightly. “Tell me everything!” he exclaimed, then gripped him by the shoulders, leaning back to look at him.
Xie Lian blushed brightly, waving his hands around a few times. “Nothing, nothing!” he insisted, then rubbed at his cheek. “What you heard-” He smiled, shakily. “It was a misunderstanding. I wasn’t saying come back to bed, because we were doing that...we were tired, and we fell asleep. Uh, we stayed up talking all last night, so we were tired.”
“Well,” Shi Qingxuan said, his shoulders slumping a little bit. “Who was it? The only people you really talked to last night were me, Mu Qing, Feng Xin, and Quan Yizhen, so...who did you end up bringing home?”
“Haha, it’s not- I didn’t bring anyone home!” Xie Lian shrugged, then wriggled out of Shi Qingxuan’s hold. “I can try to explain it later. Maybe not in the hallway in front of your apartment.” His eyes swept around, and Shi Qingxuan finally pulled his keys out to let them.
“Okay, okay,” Shi Qingxuan said, unlocking the door and letting them in. “But, I need to know all the details ASAP. I’ll just die if-” He stopped walking as soon as the door swung open, his eyes sweeping the room. “Uh…”
Xie Lian stepped up behind him, placing his hands over his mouth with a gasp.
His apartment was in absolute chaos. The wall decorations had all fallen, glass in picture frames shattered across the wood. The couch cushions were strewn across the floor, cut open with the stuffing inside spilling out. The coffee table was flipped upside down, one of the legs snapped off. Shi Qingxuan ran ahead, with Xie Lian yelling behind him not to go in, but he hurried through to his kitchen and looked around. The drawers were all open, silverware spilled out over the floor. The blinds over the window had been shredded. The counter was covered in empty food containers. From last week’s leftovers to bags of frozen peas. All opened and emptied out.
“Someone might be here!” Xie Lian called to him, coming up with his phone in hand, but he paused when he saw the candlestick sitting in the middle of the counter. “What is that?” It was like all of his attention was suddenly sucked forward.
Shi Qingxuan had been looking around, and he hadn’t paid any attention to that damn candlestick. But when he looked up, his breath caught in his throat. The wax that had dripped over the candle was gone, completely, and instead the golden candle sat atop it as if it had never been burned. His knees felt weak. Shi Qingxuan fell back into a chair behind him, putting his head in his hands. “I got that from-from the magic shop…”
Xie Lian gripped his phone a bit tighter. “You should get rid of it. Throw it out. It’s evil.”
“Evil?” Shi Qingxuan glanced up at him, then he swept his hair off his face and looked back at the candlestick. “I um. Stole it.”
“You stole it?”
He winced. “Yeah...I don’t know, something just told me that I had to have it, Xie Lian! I don’t know why!” He didn’t know why he was trying to justify himself, because there was absolutely no reason for what he’d done. “That weird shopkeeper seemed protective of it, though. I should have just left it there.”
“Oh, right.” Xie Lian rubbed the back of his neck. “That weird shopkeeper. About that-”
He was cut off by a crash from somewhere in the back hallway. Shi Qingxuan jumped up, and he flew behind Xie Lian, gripping the back of his shirt. They scrambled around the kitchen for a weapon, bending down and sweeping a knife off the floor. Xie Lian gripped it tightly in his hand, and they slowly made their way down the hallway. As they approached the bedroom, another noise made them pause. Footsteps.
Xie Lian stepped forward and touched the door. It wasn’t closed all the way, but they couldn’t quite see anything moving around through the crack. He glanced back at Shi Qingxuan, then lifted his leg and kicked the door open with a bang. They both ran in the room, screaming loudly, whipping around wildly. Nothing was there. They pulled open the closet doors and checked, bent down to look under the bed. They checked the windows, which were bolted shut. Nothing. No one. Not a soul.
“Should we call the cops?” Shi Qingxuan asked, standing in the middle of his bedroom. The drawers had been opened, but nothing in here seemed to be destroyed.
“Is anything missing?” Xie Lian asked, glancing at him.
“No, I don’t think so.” He rubbed at his forehead, suddenly feeling very tired again. He sat down on the edge of the bed, frowning. He was trying very hard not to get upset, but something creepy was going on.
“I really don’t think the cops are going to be able to help you,” Xie Lian said. “You need to get rid of that candle. And absolutely, under no circumstances, should you burn it. Don’t even think about it.”
Shi Qingxuan winced. “I burned it all last night. And it was all melted, and the wax...but it’s just like new again today. That’s not possible. Am I going crazy?” He looked up at Xie Lian who’s shoulders bunched up slightly.
“No! You’re not crazy, just...ah!” He threw his hands up, then came over to sit down beside Shi Qingxuan, leaning against his arm. “You should come stay at my place tonight. I’m going to worry about you if you stay here all by yourself.”
“But I need to get this all cleaned up,” Shi Qingxuan glanced around, then he dropped his head down against his knees. “I don’t know what’s going on. No one could have been in here. How does a candle cause any of this? Xie Lian, what’s going on? What did I bring into my house?”
“Well, I...I don’t know what it is, exactly.” Xie Lian gently stroked his back, his hand very gentle. He moved it in soothing motions that had Shi Qingxuan’s shoulders beginning to relax. “I just know that when I looked at it...it felt evil, like there’s this negative energy in it. I think burning the candle released the negative energy. Or maybe something even worse.”
“Worse?”
Xie Lian swallowed as Shi Qingxuan sat up, blinking at him with wide eyes. “Uh, let me call my friend,” Xie Lian said, and he reached into his shirt and plucked at the chain that hung around his neck. He pulled out that ring Shi Qingxuan had gifted him at his birthday party the night before, letting it dangle in front of his chest for a moment. “You said you got it from that shopkeeper, right?”
“Yeah, weird, but kinda sexy, eyepatch man.”
Xie Lian laughed, his cheeks heating up as he waved his hand back and forth. “Yes, yes, the uh, man with an eyepatch. Anyway, I’ll just-” He gripped the ring and gently pressed his thumb to the black gemstone that sat atop it, rubbing it in a circle.
“What are you doing?” Shi Qingxuan asked, staring at him.
“Shh, I’m calling San Lang,” Xie Lian replied, shutting his eyes and concentrating hard.
Shi Qingxuan gave him a baffled look, then turned out toward the wall. This was great. His apartment was wrecked by either evil spirits or food burglars, and his best friend had lost his mind.
“You rang, gege?”
“Ah!” Shi Qingxuan leapt off the bed when another voice whispered next to his ear. He spun around, finding that another man was suddenly sitting on the bed behind him. He was leaning toward Xie Lian, entirely ignoring Shi Qingxuan. Xie Lian opened his eyes, grinning brightly as he looked up at the guy who wore a solid red tunic and an eyepatch over one eye.
“San Lang!” He wrapped his arms around this man’s shoulders, hugging him tightly, then he leaned back. “Sorry, if I’m bothering you, San Lang. Qingxuan, this is my friend. You can call him Hua Cheng. San Lang, this is Shi Qingxuan, my best friend.”
“You’re never a bother.” He grinned brightly, then his eye shifted toward Shi Qingxuan who was holding his head and looking around the room for anywhere a person might have been hiding. “You. You took something that belongs to me.”
“What-” His face flush brightly, and Shi Qingxuan dropped his arms down to his sides. “You knew? Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I wanted to see what would happen,” he replied. “Gege, what did you need me for?”
Xie Lian glanced over at Shi Qingxuan, then gave a bit of an awkward laugh. “Well, the candlestick that my friend...took from you, it seems...has something of an evil aura about it. His apartment is completely wrecked. I was wondering if you knew, or if you could help.”
“Did you light it?”
“Last night, before I went to bed,” Shi Qingxuan admitted.
“Then, it’s too late.” Hua Cheng smoothly stood up from the bed, and Shi Qingxuan took a nervous step back. Had he been this tall in the magic shop? Hua Cheng fixed the cuffs of his sleeves, then reached a hand down to help Xie Lian stand up.
“But the candle...it’s not burnt. It like...fixed itself somehow.”
“That doesn’t matter. The golden candle will always respawn, but the one that was trapped inside is free.” Hua Cheng glanced around the bedroom. “He’s here somewhere. Probably hasn’t managed to secure his corporeality yet.”
“San Lang...what was in the candle?” Xie Lian asked, squeezing his hand tightly.
Hua Cheng, tilting his head, seemed to think on this for a moment. “He...was always known as the Ship Sinking Black Water, because of the terror he reaped on the seas.” A smile spread across his face, an inkinesss to his eye as he spoke. Shi Qingxuan felt a tremor go up his spine. “We are ancient, and our kind do not follow the same rules you humans do. I suppose you could call us demons, though believe me, He Xuan and I are something far worse than the average evil spirits that cling and cause misfortune.”
Xie Lian looked up at him, then over at Shi Qingxuan. His fingers curled tightly around Hua Cheng’s, and he didn’t for a second seem like he wanted to move away. “You told me last night that you are a demon, and I decided to trust you.” He smiled, and Hua Cheng returned the expression. “So tell me the truth, is my friend in danger?”
Hua Cheng’s expression grew serious, and he glanced over toward Shi Qingxuan. “It’s hard to say. Black Water rarely cares for individual humans. He usually just causes generalized chaos and mayhem, and he revels in it as much as I do. We are the same in that way. But...Black Water has always been strange. He’s...how do I put this?” Hua Cheng thought, dramatically placing his hand under his chin. “It is anybody’s guess what he might do. Frankly, he enjoys people’s misery, and if you entertain him enough, he’ll play with you like a cat with a grasshopper.”
“This is crazy!” Shi Qingxuan shook his head, and he let out a wild laugh that made both of his companions look at him. “Okay, I get it. I stole that stupid candlestick, right? Yeah, I did. I’m an asshole. I shouldn’t have. But this prank is just so cruel. Xie Lian, please say it’s a prank? You planned this together?”
Xie Lian’s expression fell. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t have anything to do with this. Why would I wreck your entire apartment over a candlestick?”
“And if I was really mad, I would have just killed you.” Hua Cheng slid his arm around Xie Lian’s waist and pulled him closer. He gently removed the knife that was still clenched in his hand, then twirled it between his long fingers.
“Why don’t we go to dinner, like we planned? And then we’ll all come back here and help you clean up.” Xie Lian smiled brightly, and Hua Cheng paused as he was volunteered to help someone, which he looked particularly scandalized about.
Shi Qingxuan shook his head. “No, I’ll...I’ll take care of it on my own. I don’t really feel like going out anymore.” He rubbed his arm, up and down quickly. This really irked him, because either his best friend was playing a prank on him, or some crazy person had broken in here. He didn’t believe all this talk about demons and magic. This was the real world, after all. He knew Xie Lian was into all this witchcraft stuff, and he tried to be supportive, but Shi Qingxuan didn’t believe in any of it.
“Are you sure? I don’t really want to leave you alone.”
“You heard him, gege. Let’s go.”
“Yeah, I’ll talk to you later,” Shi Qingxuan said, watching as his friend was pulled from the room.
“Ah, well, okay.” Xie Lian cast one last look to him, then he followed Hua Cheng out of the room. “San Lang, do you think he’ll be okay?”
“Probably. Don’t worry about it, gege.”
“Haha, stop calling me that. You said yourself that you’re ancient. Why are you calling me that?”
They laughed and chattered all the way to his door, and Shi Qingxuan smoothed a hand over his hair and walked out of the bedroom once they were gone. He went to his wrecked living room, placing his hands on his hips. Everything was strewn about, an utter disaster, and he had no choice but to roll up his sleeves and get to cleaning.
Halfway through, he genuinely regretted sending Xie Lian away. He’d managed to get most of the glass from broken picture frames swept up, and the broken coffee table was stashed against the wall. Putting the stuffing back in his couch cushions, he threw them back onto it, then collapsed face down. His body ached, strangely, even though he hadn’t done that much physical labor. He did more at the gym on a light day.
Before he knew what had happened, Shi Qingxuan had fallen asleep with his face pressed into the ruined cushion under him. Sucked back into the weird dreamscape again, he found the smokey figure standing behind the couch this time, but the hand that reached forward to stroke along his hair was startlingly white and pale. He could see deep, black nails on his fingers that came to points. Certainly more solid than he had been the last time, the figure now touched him and felt real. A hand laid on his shoulder, and Shi Qingxuan could feel it. He was turned onto his side, and looking at his own sleeping face was just as strange as it had been the night before.
Very suddenly, the hand retracted, and the figure retreated. The wispy mists around him seemed to liquify, and a long ribbon of black water floated over the couch for a brief instant. Then, it coiled and twisted, rushing like the rapids of a dangerous river, and left for the kitchen. Shi Qingxuan felt a sinking sensation, and quite suddenly he was back in his body, staring at the floor in front of the couch. His brain tried to catch up, and slowly, he sat up and touched his aching head. These dreams were starting to feel much too real for his liking.
Sitting up, Shi Qingxuan threw his hair over his shoulder and blinked a few times. He rubbed carefully at his eyes, then put his feet on the floor. He yelped when his bare feet touched cold water. Pulling his feet back up, he looked down and found that a thin layer of water covered the entire surface of his floor. “No! No!” He jumped up, splashing through the water as he looked around for what the hell was leaking. He rushed into his kitchen, looking toward the sink. He had to maneuver around the forks and knives that were now dangerously pointed upward beneath the water. He ducked down, checking his pipes. There was absolutely nothing leaking that he could see. The ceiling was intact.
“Fuck!” He splashed back to his bedroom, sending a prayer of thanks to the universe that his apartment had hardwood floors, and he looked around for his phone. Picking it up, he went to pull up the number for his building’s supervisor. A noise from his bathroom made him freeze, a cold trickle of fear going down his spine.
A slow tune was whistled, low and soft. The tune was folksy and drifting, a melody that wouldn’t be out of place in an old sailor’s bar. Whistled by sea-hardened men, voyagers across unforgiving seas. It was deep, lonely, and absolutely should not be coming from someone in his apartment. Turning, Shi Qingxuan looked toward his doorway and saw a flash of black move down the hallway, too fast for him to really catch what the person looked like. He glanced around, looking for that knife that Xie Lian had with him earlier.
He remembered Hua Cheng taking it from him. Had he left with it? No, he needed to call the police. Looking down at his phone, the screen suddenly went black. No matter what he did, it wouldn’t come back on, and he tossed it down onto his bed in frustration. The only thing he could grab for self defense was a clothes hanger from the closet. Carefully, he stepped back into the wet hallway. His feet moved slowly, trying not to make too much noise, but ultimately that was pointless.
He spun when he reached the kitchen, holding out the hangar. No one. He heard that whistling again, somehow even more somber, and he rushed forward to the living room. “Hey! Whoever you are! Get the hell out of my apartment, okay? Just leave!” A sharp change in the tune of the whistling made him wildly spin about, his arms flailing. He wildly smacked the empty air with his pathetic hanger-baton, screaming at the top of his lungs.
A very, very tight grip on his shoulders made Shi Qingxuan freeze. His eyes went wide, arms dropping. His chest heaved, and he looked down to the hand now wrapping around his upper arm. Pale, black nails, long and slender and strong like he couldn’t believe. “Would you stop screaming?” A voice whispered in his ear, and he felt the tingle of breath on his skin, causing goosebumps to rise in its wake.
“Who?” He jerked away, turning, and found absolutely no one there. His breath caught in his throat, and Shi Qingxuan dropped the only weapon he had on the floor. It splashed into the cold water, and he stood there for a moment longer, until he couldn’t bear it anymore. Going back to his bedroom, he grabbed up a pair of rain boots and forced them onto his feet. Sloshing back through the hallway, he stopped in the kitchen once again. Empty chip bags were floating in the thin layer of water, and he rubbed his temples. It would leak down into his downstairs neighbors place eventually, but they’d probably end up finding him chopped into little pieces by the disappearing psychopath.
His eyes froze on that candlestick again, and he walked over and picked it up. He checked the weight of it, finding it satisfactory. If he swung this at the creep’s head, he might be able to inflict some actual damage. “Come out!” he shouted, a tremor in his voice.
“Your adrenaline tastes too good. Why would I end the chase now?”
Shi Qingxuan swung the candlestick in the direction of the voice, but he only ended up hitting the side of his breadbox and sending it off the shelf and onto the ground. “Damn it,” he whispered, looking down at his feet. He felt his lip starting to tremble. “Okay, I don’t know how you’re doing any of this!” he shouted, then remembered what the creep had said. “Um...I don’t want to be killed, so...come out. My friend is coming over later, and he’ll know if I don’t answer the door that something’s happened. Uh…”
“You sent your friend away for the night.”
He looked in the opposite direction, letting out a frustrated shriek when he still didn’t see a person standing there. Was this some kind of ventriloquism? His heart was beating against his ribcage so hard that he was pretty sure he might explode.
“Besides, you already know who I am. Crimson Rain already told you.”
“Crimson Rain?” he repeated, not knowing what the hell this guy was talking about. “You mean that weirdo that Xie Lian snuck into my apartment?” He splashed around, stepping over the breadbox and hurrying into the living room. He started slowly walking toward the front door, keeping an eye out.
“Hua Cheng, yes. He’s Crimson Rain Sought Flower, the demonic king of chaos. He makes the skies cry blood, and drags the brightest of angels from their heavenly perches. You humans have already lost all of our legends, though. Moved on to different mythologies and beliefs. We’re much more ancient than anything in living memory, yet we’re still here.”
“What the fuck?” he asked, unsure how he could hear that voice like this crazy person was standing right beside him even though he was nowhere in sight. He was too busy looking around for any sight of the mysterious intruder to look where he was stepping, and this ended up being his downfall. Literally. He stepped on his own shoe that had been sitting by the door, and it threw him off palace. He toppled over, crashing down onto his side with a wet slap. He barely managed to catch himself, one arm extended, and his wrist gave a sharp crack that let him know immediately that something was wrong. The explosion of pain was only the second clue.
“OW!” He dropped the candlestick, then cradled his wrist up to his chest. Shutting his eyes, he tried not to cry over it, but he ended up nearly biting through his bottom lip. A quiver went up his spine, and he cracked an eye open to look at the damage. “Ah!” He cupped his wrist with the other hand, breathing out through his nose.
“What happened?”
Shi Qingxuan whipped his head around, and his heart completely stopped beating. Two golden eyes stared at him from a deathly pale face, only inches from him. The man’s presence felt like a frosty wind, and when his eyes shifted down to his wrist, Shi Qingxuan could only draw it closer to himself protectively. “I think I broke it,” he spoke, gritting out the words through the pain. A hand reached forward, and he shouted loudly, “No! Don’t touch it!”
The creep only paused for a split second. “Humans are so fragile.” He grabbed onto his arm and wrenched it outwards. Shi Qingxuan let out a cry as fingers wound about his wrist, and he smacked at the man with his other hand. However, his protests weakened when relief flooded into his wrist, and the pain began to evaporate. “This should be better, yes?”
“Yes.” He parroted the word, dumbly. He stared at the man through wet eyes, then pulled his wrist free. He rolled it back and forth, marveling at the lack of any sort of pain or swelling. He had been sure it was broken, snapped in half, something terrible. But he felt like he’d never even fallen. If it wasn’t for the fact he was all wet now. “How did you…?”
“Only fools purposefully break their toys.”
“What?” He looked, and the man had done his disappearing act again. And with him...all the water.
He looked around in shock, the entire apartment was bone-dry. The only proof that it had even been covered in water was his own wet clothing, the ends of his hair having dipped into the water. Getting up, Shi Qingxuan changed from his rainboots to his normal shoes, and he grabbed his keys from the hook by the door. “Holy fuck,” he whispered, hurrying out of the apartment. He had to get to Xie Lian’s house and tell him what the hell had just happened.