Chapter Text
“It’s a terrible love and I’m walking in—,” croons a raspy male voice on the speaker.
Her eyelids flutter to the thrumming drumbeat of the last song, slowing down with the dying ambiance. The bar reeks of sweat and a faint odor of weed. The counter has thinned out, rolls of tips scattered among empty glasses.
Hank’s Saloon is a real charmer at 2am on a Thursday.
She blinks, staring at her own hands that seem to be busy wiping the cooler on autopilot. The superimposed sounds and colors of tonight have dimmed in the background of her consciousness. Something is not working for her. Maybe she should speak to Althea, swapping out for brunch shifts this weekend.
“—it’s a terrible love and I’m walking with spiders,” the singer chants with all the depth of his white-guy-with-a-guitar genre. Counting the bills, she bobs her head, yielding herself to the manufactured melancholy of the acoustic production.
“So you agree?”
She looks up, surprised. An amuse gleam meets her tense gaze, ten inches too close into her personal space.
“Your love,” the stranger says, in a tone that sounds—she can only describe as—liquefied. “It is terrible. And maybe spidery, you know, full of… webs.” His eyes glimmer with the neon redness reflected from the wall behind her, shade matching the crimson ribbon tying together his top knot.
She does not think she knows what that means. “I do not think I know what that means,” she says, the unfiltered words ringing like an echo in her head. The stranger pauses, and then laughs, like he can hear both, her thought and its echo. He shakes his head, and then sits down, one leg propping on another stool. Hank’s has emptied out; they are the last people here. She sighs, but she can be obliging for the final customer.
“Can I help you?”
He grins, “Yes! Yes, you can! You are an exceptionally good bartender, so you will definitely be able to help me!” He leans forwards, grasping her hands. “But you already know what I want, don’t you?”
She does. She stoops to the liquor cabinet and retrieves a bottle of Ming River baijiu. He smiles, like he knows exactly what the treat will be. “That is perfect, you are perfect,” he blows a chef’s kiss with a wink.
She shakes her head. She pours out 30ml of baijiu over the ice, then tops it up with red vermouth. She watches the glass glow orange.
The stranger starts humming to the background tune. It has moved on from walking in a terrible, spidery love to it takes an ocean not to break it takes an ocean not to break it takes an ocean—she wills herself to focus on the trickling sound of liquid over ice, letting it subsume the chorus, all notes sharing the same pitch, as if the singer needs even more emphasis on the monotonous emptiness of this horrible, repetitive lyrics, as if it is art, as if it conveys something, symbolizes something actually meaningful, or anywhere approaches the heartbreak of a real, vile love—
“Tell me, my spidery friend, was he worth all that?”
She jerks up to stare at his face, his features growing soft and a bit blurred, and then she realizes she is staring at him through the mist of her watery eyes.
“I do not think I know what that means,” she says, for the second time of the night.
He seems to grin again, but her vision has become so hazy that his face now looks featureless, emotionless. She blinks once, twice, and each time the stranger seems more indistinct, like moon craters on a cloudy night. She keeps blinking. Perhaps the face will morph again, becoming clearer, more acute, taking on characteristics she cannot help projecting.
“I had a terrible love too, once.” He is leaning forwards now, warm breaths ghosting her cheeks, and she wants to shrivel into herself. She wants to shrink so badly until she realizes she already has, ears sunken into her shoulder.
“My love, he doted on me. He loved me so much. I love him very dearly, very much.”
She shakes her head to keep out the invasion of those lilting words. She hears the echo of something now. He pulls her into his orbit with arms around her neck, and her brain wants to explode as their foreheads make contact.
“My love, he hated me. He tore his gaze from me. He pretended not to know me. I still love him very dearly, very very much. I forgave him.”
The voice has thinned out to a hollow, and she is startled as she finds her lips moving, his words sucked into her throat, strumming her vocal cords.
“My love, he loved me,” their two voices synchronize in a sick harmony. “And then he hated me the next day. And then he loved me the next day. And I think, finally, finally he did it. He broke me.”
She is choking on the words now, sobbing with it now. Her stomach folds on itself, bile welling up her gullet, bitterness exploded all over her triggered memories. He squeezes her neck, murmuring into her shoulder blade the words that cannot help spooling out of her lips.
“My love, I think he could stay happy with one person, and he could love them, love them without hating them. I think he really could, with someone who is not me.” His brace tightens, a python’s seize. “What else is left to do, my love, my spider? What else can I really do?”
The glass shatters as she clutches his biceps, clamoring for the oxygen being squeezed out of her lungs, mind singling out the only thought that is ringing louder in her head.
He relaxes for a second, letting her take a gasp. “I do not think I know—,” she finds herself chanting the mantra and then he chokes her again, not letting her finish. “But he does, of course he does know what it means. He knows exactly what it means. And you know—you do—exactly what is left for you to do.”
She cannot breathe. The response that she has repeated thrice like a shield now seems foreign on her tongue, an invasion of someone’s words that she has been obsessed over. There is a static television buzz sizzling from the back of the stranger’s throat, searing her shoulder and forcing her body to jolt violently. His eyes are boring into hers again, but they are no longer the same eyes: his face is no longer the same face, replaced with fuller lips, a sharper jawline, a thinner nose bridge, the shape of a person she holds equally dear and detestable.
She can’t breathe. She is fading. Will this be how she dies, alone in a bar with only a single wretched, vengeful thought?
Then a chime rings. A pure clanging sound, like that of funeral bells welcoming one to the other world. This is it, she thinks.
But this is not, because the squeezing suddenly ceases, then loosens completely. She blinks, some semblance of cognition returning to her as he steps away, a scowl flashing on his face that is quickly replaced with a sunny beam.
“Crap, ah well, thank you for listening to my ramble. Drunk customers, the worst, ain’t I right? You’re a terrific bartender, I’ve had a good time, but I need to leave now. You know what to do though, don’t you?”
Wei Ying turns around and disappears before she can respond. Come morning, she will not remember this dream anyway.
❖
Wei Ying is yanked out of the trance by the nasty jingling of the emergency alarm. He opens his eyes, blinks, and squeezes them shut again. “Mother goddess damnit.” He lets out a mewling groan, then takes a reorienting breath. “A-Ning, what is it?”
“Y-Ying-ge,” echoes back the flustered response from downstairs. Downstairs? “Ying-ge, I’m s-sorry for waking you, someone is here for you!”
Wei Ying glances around at the chalked array he is lying at the center of, scrolls of temporarily inked words peppered the floor like evidence of a crime scene struggle. His head is still spinning, and his eyes are stung with unshed tears.
There are consequences to a broken trance, a gentle reprimand echoes at him from beneath the depth of buried memories. The shock of depositing his own soul back to his body usually reverberates up to an hour, and that is why they need an invocation partner, many times a whole team to ensure a restful wind down, a stable soul rebinding. But it is fine, it is fine, he argues with the laoshi in his head. These days, it is not a big deal because he only dances come nighttime, when the spirits of the living are the most defenseless and therefore least likely to come knocking on his door—
“Ying-ge!”
Point taken.
“Okay okay okay,” he mutters. “Okay, I’m coming, I’m coming!”
He digs back further into the cold floor and then propels forwards, gravity yanking his body up to his feet.
The first few rays of the morning sun glimmer through the half-drawn curtain, lighting his steps out of his walk-in-closet-turned-altar. It is still ass-o-clock, Wei Ying notes, which he supposes is when the Chinese aunties live their best lives. Besides, the needs for his goods sometimes come quite—sudden. He puts on a raggy long-sleeve that was draping over a stockpile of ghost money, gives a two-second glance in the mirror to check for any uncovered words on skin, and then bolts downstairs.
“I’m here, A-Ning, see,” he puts on his charmer’s grin as his hand draws asides the hallway curtain separating the residence stairwell from the shop. “Aiyah, go back to the clinic and tell Qing-jie thanks for letting me borrow you for a sec. I can take over A-Yuan duty tomorrow so tell her to surprise jiejie with a date ni—”
His tongue freezes. The silhouette greeting him is unexpectedly, shockingly, achingly familiar, its sight overloading his whole body with a guttural, instinctual jolt.
He stands on the spot, gawking.
He can hear a voice, and for a second, the store, the dream, Wen Ning, the surfacing mash-up of desire and repulsion, all get washed away, leaving that voice to resound in his brain like prayers in hallowed caves.
The words repeat, and he blinks, tasting his own name in that deep pleasant voice, memory-sweet.
He whispers back, “Lan Zhan.”
Wen Ning makes a squeaky sound about having to return to the clinic lest jie needs help, then vanishes. Wei Ying can feel the wooziness returning, but he is not sure whether it is because of the dream departure, or the déjà vu of Lan Zhan, all long hair, white robes, molten gaze, standing here in the center of his world. Boring into his soul, once again.
“Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan! Good goddess, Lan Zhan!” He cannot stop his mouth from running off with an increasingly embarrassing amount of exclaims. “Are you even real? How are you even here! Welcome to my humble den! It’s been what—? A decade, no probably—”
“It will have been thirteen years, in five days,” Lan Zhan responds, eyes shifted, breaking their contact. He hesitates, before adding, “…since I last saw you, that is. You may have left Suzhou… later. I wouldn’t know.”
Even after all these years, Wei Ying still finds himself picking out the micro-inflections in Lan Zhan’s every word, which to most probably sound emotionless. There are always a lot—Lan Zhan felt a lot, and deeply, and if one cared to listen, he was the most expressive fatherfucker on Earth, heart worn openly on his sleeves.
There are still many things in his words, now, but Wei Ying is no longer sure how to interpret them. Nonetheless, his gaze softens, “Ah, Lan Zhan, it’s been that long, eh? Who would imagine I would be running into you—here!”
Lan Zhan nods, leaking a hint of his own disbelief. “Here.”
Here, as in, the other side of the world, as in New York City, as in Yiling House of Funeral Supplies. But also, here, as in, the place in life Wei Ying has found himself in, a path that has already crossed Lan Zhan’s once and diverged; Euclidean geometry would have dictated them never to meet again.
In his moments of liquor nostalgia, Lan Zhan always seems to belong to a different world. A world with curved roofs decorated with dragons, scarlet-lacquered pillars and statues gilded with gold. There would often be incense, a whip of sandalwood. In his quieter dreams, Lan Zhan would sit on the temple floor and meditate, always dressed in the white and blue uniform of a Cloud Recesses disciple.
Sometimes it gets more exciting, like the times when Lan Zhan is given a blade—to call up a soldier, or an ancestral swordsman. If everything Lan Zhan does is already imbued with an elegant discipline, his ethereal blade dance, all gorgeous lines and delicate arcs, lifts the trance to a whole new level of otherworldliness. The kind that can persuade the most skeptical of onlookers that spirit mediums are real, and truly powerful.
“How are you, Lan Zhan? How have you been? Are you still living in Gusu? What brings you to Brooklyn? Vacation? Business trip? Spill the tea, catch me up!”
“Wei Ying…”
“Hold on, why are you letting me be a terrible host? It is—6:24am—so time for morning tea? Morning tea is still your thing yeah? Let me run upstairs real quick and I can bring down the set. Please tell me you do like heicha, I don’t think I have white tea stashed around, but jie does stock up this excellent lotus heicha from Hubei—”
His forearm, the inked area, itches. It makes him want to reach out to Lan Zhan, rubbing against his inner wrist, tracing up all the way to his elbow, his biceps. Then his clavicle, the prime real estate for short, one-line verse because of its natural straight lines, like printed rules on a piece of paper.
Maybe he can offer inking, still. Maybe Lan Zhan will still be up for that, pliant, the way the Lan Zhan of his memories has been, except that this Lan Zhan is real, fleshy and physical and tactile.
“Wei Ying, there’s no need.”
Except that this is the Lan Zhan who broke him.
“I did not know you were here.”
Oh. “Oh.”
The gears are turning in his head, finally. “You mean you are here because—of course. Lan Zhan, you are such a good person, of course you wouldn’t just rudely barge into this good honest business at wee hours without a good reason.”
It finally occurs to him that his store is in a Chinatown, selling a line of niched goods, opening at times few other stores are (there is no fixed time, because Wei Ying lives here and keeps no fixed sleep schedule, and the clinic holds extremely extended hours anyway).
Combined with Lan Zhan’s probable profession. “You are doing an emergency dance,” Wei Ying states.
Lan Zhan gazes at the floor, pointedly, “I did not expect to dance, but the reading I did yesterday returned inconclusive, and now a ceremony is—imminent.” He pauses, then continues, discomfort leaked from his tone, “I apologize for—rudely—barging into your store, Wei Ying, and waking you from your sleep.”
A shiver runs up the tail of his spine. A bad goosebump.
Once, they vowed to discard any words of thanks and apologies between each other.
He opens his mouth, half-intending to remind Lan Zhan, but what comes out instead is, “No big deal, Lan Zhan. I’m sure—you are so good, of course whoever you are helping must be needing this, urgently. Of course I’m happy to help. What do you need?”
He schools his expression into a smile, his best salesman face. If he can deal with grieving widows and anxious new brides planning their first family deathday, he can serve a master medium who probably knows exactly what he needs. “So… just one spirit? How old? How long ago? Will there be fun things like fire or swords? Why are your invocation partners letting you roam around doing these petty chores by yourself?”
He staggers to an inner corner of the store, away from the front display which mostly consists of lifelike paper replicas of this season’s Louis Vuitton handbags and cardboard mansions walking out of country lifestyle magazines. The flashy stuff makes up his biggest margin, but Lan Zhan will need the truly fundamental supplies.
“Obviously you need the essentials, so here, I do have the usual gold and silver paper—jiujin, kanjin, xiaoyin,” he unpacks a few boxes, picking out the less ostentatious packs, smokeless edition of course. Something, like a flash, lights up his murky mind. “But I bet you have them on hand already—you did a reading yesterday.”
Lan Zhan nods.
“At least tell me which goddess?” He pauses, surprising himself. Then, his body remembers—ah, so he is still not fixed, how comforting—and his shoulders fold into themselves, bracing for triggers to go off.
They never arrive.
“Ah, Lan Zhan, why are you so silent?” he says, his voice croaky. “Do I have to guess what you’re here for?”
He thinks of his closet-turned-workspace on the third floor, inkwells and brushes littered underneath the altar. No, not that, he decides. He cannot think about Lan Zhan inking or inked, someone or by someone. Someone else. If that is indeed what Lan Zhan is here for, too bad, his stock is not meant for sale, feel free to make the trek up to Mulberry Street; he is pushing his luck here in Brooklyn Chinatown.
He feels dazed and light-headed. He should stop moving entirely, lest he loses his footing for real and swoons like a maiden into Lan Zhan’s arm. Wouldn’t that be awkward for both of them now?
“Wei Ying, earlier, when I arrived…” Lan Zhan finally speaks, each word enunciated like he is struggling to form a sentence. He pauses for a second, like he is trying to make a decision. Wei Ying stares at his throat, watching him swallow, so intently that he misses the moment Lan Zhan steps up and encircles his wrist in a firm hold. “What kind of trance were you in?”
❖
“And what did you tell him?”
Quips Wen Qing that night in a dead blasé tone as she snaps the IV catheter from the fold of his arm. As if she is just mildly engaging in a good bedside manner, and not asking Wei Ying to relive the traumatic moment his thirteen-year-estranged… something (ex-lover? partner? light of his soul, song of his heart?) took a glance at his shabby self and perceived his deepest darkest secret.
“A-jie!” He turns to whine at his angel as Wen Qing rolls her eyes and plasters a Band-aid over the bleeding. “Tell Qing-jie to have mercy!”
“Stop being dramatic, you thirty-three-year-old child.”
He pouts at jiejie in protest of her ruthless girlfriend. “That is very wrong! Yingying is only three years old! A three-year-old who needs to be gently tended to! And fed! And… mothered!”
At that, Yanli blooms and begins stroking his hair with fondness. He leans into her touch, eyes dimming. In resignation at both of them, Wen Qing comes around to the lounge chair separating his and Wen Ning’s bed, sits down next to jiejie and nuzzles into her shoulder, taking a break from her battle with the IV bag.
For a while, their breaths synchronize, in and out in a peaceful calm. Jiejie begins a story about the actual children she tends to in her classical Chinese dance class. Her hand, the one not in his hair, curls up against his palm, her middle finger contorting against her thumb to demonstrate the many ways her kids kept fumbling on lotus fingers, which she suspects to be not not on purpose. Meng Shi-laoshi, the studio director, had a whole day fielding parents’ angry emails about not teaching kids white people’s vulgar gestures.
Wei Ying laughs and shakes his head and exclaims at the right moments, letting her distractions drown his own wanton thoughts. Through their window, a cop siren wails, growing louder, before dipping back into that Sunset Park house blend of night hums, a mix of drones from the Parkway traffic, the rattling of the NQR line, and the occasional mystery howls, which Wen-popo used to swear to be the restless cries of a hundred dead white people buried together in a hidden mass grave atop Green-Wood.
Once, Wei Ying could have verified that in a heartbeat.
He glances away. Maybe Lan Zhan can tell them now. Lan Zhan, who is still dancing, apparently. And why wouldn’t he? Even on the other side of the world, more than a decade later, what could possibly be the reason Lan Zhan would stop doing what he was born for?
(Except that there could be. There could be a reason. Wei Ying finds comfort in knowing there could be a reason, but there isn’t one.)
(He really should not feel comforted. He should not feel anything at all.)
Jiejie changes the topic after a long hum. “Do you think Lan Zhan might be saving himself? For you?”
“Jie!”
“A-Li!”
Wei Ying jerks away, his neck flushed. Surprisingly, Wen Qing seems to find the question equally appalling: she has slipped away from of Yanli’s shoulder and turned to face her girlfriend, brows disappearing into her bangs. Jiejie’s smile mutes a little, placatingly.
“It’s the twenty-first century, jie. Who says such thing as saving themselves anymore?” His protest was met with Yanli’s own quirked eyebrow, the room echoing her silent reminder of a universally known truth: Lan Zhan would, and had.
He coughs. “And even if he—still—who knows what he’s like any more, it’s a lifetime ago—jiejie, stop looking at me like that, and I know in your eyes—and yes, in my eyes too—I am very handsome and deserving to be admired, I also know I am not the type to inspire that kind of—obsession! Aiyah, Qing-jie not you too now, stop scowling at me, all you do is roasting me. And wouldn’t that be a bit creepy? Why would you make Lan Zhan sound so creepy?”
“You”—Wen Qing sighs, as if she has been made to contribute to this topic against her will—“are the last person to talk about creepy obsessions.”
He can banter with that, and he should. They have a script for this—jiejie needling his celibate pining with sisterly tenderness, Wen Qing either avoiding the subject or serving pure truth bombs, no in between, and if Wen Ning were here, he would cheer Wei Ying up with bat trivia. This is a familiar rhythm because he is with family. He is safe. He should be.
The flush has traveled all the way down his gut, but without the warmth of embarrassment. His stomach has twisted into a knot, his breaths quick and shallow, his hands going cold. He tries to move away from his sisters, only to find his body already stiffened from anticipation of an over-familiar panic.
The twinkle has vanished from jiejie’s eyes. Wei Ying desperately wants it to return. He schools his eyes to shut, his face to smoothen, his lung to expand for a deep exhale. A hand reaches out and rub circles around his back. “Are you alright?” Wen Qing whispers, massaging his shoulder blades. “Sorry, I went too far. I didn’t truly think—”
“Qing-jie, don’t, you’re not—just—,” he snaps a little, control sapping the last of his energy. “I’m fine, I’m cool, it’s all good. I’m sorry! I know I’m a disaster. At least I can always count on you to knock some sense into my thick skull, yeah?” Good, his lips corners can twitch again. He pulls them up, willing himself to flash a beam at YanQing.
Judging by the troubled glances they exchange, his sisters are unconvinced. Good goddess, he is here recovering from an interrupted trance, on bed rest by doctor (Wen Qing)’s order like the disciplined patient he is. Why won’t they let this go?
He is about to remind them of this fact when Wen Qing, quietly but seriously this time, asks, “Wei Ying, what did you tell Lan Zhan?”
❖
Wei Ying did not, is the thing. Not that he didn’t want to, or that he wanted to but couldn’t, but he didn’t even have the chance to think about whether he wanted to, was allowed to, or simply must tell Lan Zhan. Mother goddesses must have decided on his behalf though, because A-Qing dashed into the store before his brain could string a thought together.
“Paprika Laozu,” she yelled with an unabashed rashness, her black purse clutched tight, bulging with what looked like rolls of cash, so perhaps the goddesses were just capitalism. “I need to tell you—about the dream you stole—”
“Hi A-Qing how are you A-Qing,” he exclaimed hoarsely from the back shelves, wincing at Lan Zhan’s tightened hold. “I know I know, that fake Tesla Model S was a magnificent dream! I’ve gone through so much hassle to find a—supplier—for you mei mei, keep it a secret won’t you?”
Finally aware of the beautiful stranger, A-Qing blushed, her eyes flustered.
“A—yeah, the dream—item,” she went on, somehow, either valiantly or in panic. “The one I—ordered—last night, that one. We need to discuss it. Something is happening—”
He liked A-Qing. Never said she was not one to try. Hard. Auntie Meo told him there was once a boy who wheeled into A-Qing’s massage parlor paralyzed from the waist down, only to walk out on two feet half a day later, sobbing, life turning a new leaf. Auntie Meo also told him that Starr Xiao, his local shroom grower, cured his partner’s glaucoma with a concoction of traditional herbs, so he would not take her words as gospel, but the thing is that A-Qing’s tenacity is well-rumored and well-respected. She would do much better, however, to try shutting up here.
In her defense, it was rare for Wei Ying to have a visitor that early, which made him feel validated about his own carelessness. Enough for him to step in and end the misery for them all.
“Ah, Lan-er-gege,” he cocked his head to the side, plastering on a tired grin. “It seems my assistance is sought by Lady A-Qing here. Have you found everything you need? Brooklyn is no Suzhou, but Yiling is better stocked than any funeral store you can find in Flushing! Don’t you have a trance to conduct? A spirit to help?”
Lan Zhan cast a glance between him and A-Qing with the slightest of brow twitch.
Wei Ying thought he looked torn, maybe confused, likely suspicious.
“Yes,” Lan Zhan finally said, tersely answering all three questions in that sweet baritone voice. He released Wei Ying’s wrist and came around to collect his purchases, the question seemingly forgotten. However, while Wei Ying’s clouded mind was straining to calculate the change, Lan Zhan placed a phone on top of the cash register, sliding it towards him. Wei Ying glanced up. The contact screen was displayed, the name field pre-filled.
“Your number.”
“Aiyah, what for, Lan Zhan. You already know where to find me!”
He entered it anyway. Lan Zhan gave him a darkened gaze, enrapturing, as if in supplication. “So I will.”
❖
“Is that all?”
Wen Qing does not have to sound so disappointed. Wei Ying is opening his mouth to argue for his virtue as a storyteller when her doe eyes meet his, firm and grave.
“From A-Qing. She didn’t say anything more to you?”
His brow hitches. There was no opportunity for A-Qing to say anything because Wei Ying pretty much passed out the moment Lan Zhan exited the store. Wen Qing has had to send Wen Ning down to take over for the day. Uncle Tran’s grieving family still needed incense and ghost money and flowers, regardless of whether Wei Ying had burned himself out for a broken trance. “Was something wrong?”
Jiejie nudges her sweetheart, who takes a long, deep and audible breath. She begins recounting how A-Qing helped Wei Ying upstairs to her clinic, her face paled, her hair frazzled. A-Ning had to hand A-Qing a cup of chrysanthemum tea to calm her down while she waited for Wen Qing to check his heart and temperature. She was unable to sit still, one hand coiling and uncoiling a stray strand of her bangs, the other swiping her phone every two minutes. The moment Wen Qing let her know Wei Ying would be alright with some rest, she said in a distraught sort of relief, oh thank fuck and I have to go, and bolted out the door.
He curses aloud.
He needs to check his phone. He will risk Wen Qing’s wrath, but A-Qing… A-Qing has not acted normal, now that he thinks about it. She was—in a rush, flustered, red-faced, not even in a clear enough headspace to wait until he finished with the stranger Lan Zhan. A-Qing, who is bright and cheery on most days as she kneads all the right knots out of her patron’s tissues while making funny quips about social wrongs, has seemed—on hindsight—downright distressed.
He has done it again, of fucking course. If Wen Qing has not been there, has not pressed him like this, will he even notice? A-Qing is not technically family, but she might as well be for how much time she spends with all of them, and he has let her down when she was in trouble—for what? For getting all woeful and obsessive and made groveling by a man who has not cared enough about him to reach out in thirteen fucking years?
(That is not fair, whispers a tiny voice in the background of his thoughts. He shoves its pathetic self back into the void where it belongs.)
“A-Ying, whatever it is, it’s not your fault,” Yanli gently admonishes, stroking his hand. Sometimes he wonders why Madam Yu would ever chide jie as lacking in spiritual power when she effortlessly does things no medium can. Like reading his thoughts, and saying all the right things. “A-Qing is twenty-four—an adult. She knows how to take care of herself. Check in with her in the morning, after you have had proper rest.” Wen Qing makes an agreeable noise.
Wei Ying should leave it at that. Do the mature thing and listen to his wiser sisters. For a decade now they and Wen Ning have been all he has left. They have given him a roof and a store and A-Yuan, keeping careful binders of his immigration papers and holding his hands as he exited the green card interview. He would carry their burden, fight their fight, and do anything to see the smiles on their faces.
Yet, perhaps it is the lingering fatigue, or perhaps it is the roller coaster of emotions he has gone on the few hours he was conscious today, but Wei Ying finds a welling urge to fight, to hurt instead. Even that cannot excuse the next words spilling out of his mouth, callous and almost in malevolence, “Was that what you tell yourself? When Jiang Cheng—”
“Wei Ying!” Wen Qing shuts him up with a sharp glare. Yanli’s eyes widen, her fingers trembling against his palm.
All the knives are rinsed out of him, leaving the rage drained and dissolved.
“We can call A-Qing tonight while you rest,” Wen Qing says, firmness seizing her voice, as if her authority alone can weather the storms for another day.
“Jiejie, Qing-jie,” he nods, hoping the apology is conveyed. “I think—I think I’d better sleep for a million years.”
❖
They have kept his door open as they exited the room—he hopes that means Wen Ning will be bullied into sleeping in bed tonight and not taking the couch “to not disturb Ying-ge.” He turns off his night light to another round of police sirens humming in and out; on Eighth Avenue it’s practically a lullaby. In his semi-conscious state, he reaches for another tune among the soundscape of never-ending city chatters.
Someone is playing the guqin tonight, he registers, the music coming from nowhere and perhaps everywhere. Maybe it comes from a past life—from strumming long fingers, fluttering white robes. He smiles, drifting off to idle fantasies of worming his way into the player’s dream.
How nostalgic.