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When Fu Xuan unwraps the plastic packaging, her face falls into the deliberate arc of disappointment.
In her hands is a tiny round-shaped doll, fitting right in her palm. But rather than the sharp mane and confident smile of the Merlin’s Claw, a similarly white but much more fluffy and lazy image of the Dozing General draws a lazy smirk from below.
Fu Xuan finds herself heaving in a heavy breath. Exhaling it out. Then—she squeezes the doll hard, crumpling her fist as tightly as possible, with every intention to implode the doll.
But the doll, much like the roach that refuses to die, pops back up good as new. (Or maybe Fu Xuan just isn’t strong enough. She doesn’t think she’d lose to a doll, of all things, but then again, this is a Jing Yuan doll, and Jing Yuan always manages to find a way to beat her, one way or another.) Jing Yuan smiles at her annoyingly—those crescent shaped eyes, the little dot adorning his cheek, the mewing mouth.
Stupid general. Bastard, Fu Xuan thinks as she lets out a groan.
She is just about to haul the doll to the corner of the room when a knock interrupts. Fu Xuan quickly shoves the doll in her bag, rushing to open the door, only to be met with none other than…
“Are you ready?”
Jing Yuan leans by the doorframe, swinging a set of keys in his hand. Fu Xuan’s face sours further, if that’s even possible.
He seems, at least, to notice this. “Bad day at work? This calls for some extra-sweet boba. Whatever shall we do with the Master Diviner’s health…”
She has to see him for work, has to see him for after-work affairs, and now his face is etched in her hard-earned doll?!
Whatever. Even if it won’t be easy, Fu Xuan can always try to get her hands on another one of these limited-edition dolls. Maybe next time, she’ll get the general she actually admires, instead of the one she already gets to see every other day…
Curse her luck, this time around.
“Let’s just get it over with,” mumbles Fu Xuan with great displeasure, dragging Jing Yuan out her doorstep.
Annoying as this certain general is, at least he treats her to some dim sum and boba every now and then.
~
“None of you managed to get one of the limited-edition Arbiter-General series of Pop Plushes?” Qingque all but cackles, slamming her palm on her trusty desk. “Ha! I managed to land my hands on none other than the Marshal, suckers!”
Murmurs erupt across the diviners, who are typically silent during work hours. That alone is enough to comment on the craze that surrounds these Pop Plushes. “Her luck really knows no limits,” comments Liumu, the other archivist, tapping her pen idly.
“Does she even have enough money to afford it?”
“Hey! I do work a full-time job,” huffs Qingque, but she doesn’t appear at all offended. “This is none other than the reward of that hard work, of course!”
“If that’s where the fruits of months of your labor go, I must admit I’m quite disappointed, Qingque,” Fu Xuan drawls, dropping by a stack of scrolls on her table—divinations—as she walks by, earning her a scowl from the librarian. “I assumed you’d have better ways to manage your funds…”
“Not everyone is as hard to please as yourself, perfectionist Master Diviner. Some of us derive joy from the simple things in life.”
“Ha. It only means I have standards and meaningful desires.”
“Of course you’d think yourself above mere dolls, wouldn’t you?”
There’s a knowing glint to Qingque’s gaze, one that causes Fu Xuan to falter. “It’s just a ridiculous amount of money and effort for dolls, of all things. You can get dolls anywhere. Why bother?”
“Ah, ever so practical.” Despite that, Qingque holds up her doll of the Marshal, admiring its stupidly round countenance. “Maybe you can donate some of your luck and get some for your other diviners, instead? Fenghuang’s been looking for General Feixiao’s plushie, I hear. Surely you’d be able to get some in her stead?”
The nerve of this girl—rubbing salt in the wound! Not that she should ever know that. Fu Xuan’s eyes further narrow, gaze as sharp as knives, to no one in particular.
“Do I look like an errand runner? Do I seem so jobless to you?!” Fu Xuan nearly throws the scroll in her hand, but in the end, she only furiously points at the stack she’s just put in Qingque’s desk. “You finish that by sundown, or I’ll cut your pay for the month. Clearly, you have enough to burn, if you’re spending it on uber expensive dolls of all things.”
“Sundown?! That’s too mean even for you, Diviner Fu!”
“Let it be so, then. I’m sure you know I’m not one to joke.”
Understanding the gravity of the situation, Qingque quickly picks up the topmost file from her stack. Another one of her little lucky turns, Fu Xuan thinks, even if nothing else seems to go as smoothly.
~
She rarely does divinations at the end of the day, preferring to start with them—but when she’s particularly anxious, she tends to fiddle with her jade abacus; then, the readings flow naturally. Fu Xuan reaches into her bag, searching for her fiber cloth to wipe her orb with, when—
She feels the fluff of a most demented doll.
Fu Xuan takes it out, stares at it with utmost contempt. “The reason for all my worries and agitation, you…”
But she does not return it to her bag, nor does she throw it as she had once wished to. She keeps it in her one fist as she continues to search for her cloth, like she hasn’t yet decided what verdict to give that innocent, filthy doll.
Upon cleaning her equipment (as though she hasn’t cleaned it after the last time she’s used it), she prepares for her readings, making sure nothing obstructs the sky, nothing will interfere from her surroundings. She sits in her lawn, meditating; looking into that starry orb not with her eyes, but with her mind, as she is so accustomed to. (Jing Yuan likes to note that there is no need for three eyes if she’s going to just sleep through it anyway; Jing Yuan often comments that she is so prickly for someone who meditates for a living. Jing Yuan is always blabbing on about something, that annoying lifeless loafer.)
And here he is again, disturbing her innermost thoughts, even within the walls of her abode, her single comfort.
She peers deeper into the divine, listening from within what it is the stars are saying. If nothing else, the sky seems to be the same as it is the last time she’s done a reading; not that the sky is ever the same, per se, but if every star is moving at roughly the same pace, then—
Fu Xuan feels something, the flicker of a glint, fly past her vision.
Maybe it’s an illusion—nothing is ever so vivid, nor agile, in the sky, if not for an astronomical disaster.
But this considerably still falls within the stray leaf; nothing that would wreak utter havoc, at least not for the nation. And if it is not a disaster of such a large scale, then it is something Fu Xuan can deal with. If nothing else, when it comes to solving matters, there is none more efficient than Fu Xuan herself.
She unclenches the plushie in her hand, fluffy and warm, round as new.
“I guess you’re forgiven… for the meantime,” Fu Xuan mutters, in a tone that can almost be considered fond for someone like her.
~
Yanqing arrives at the courtyard where they’re having a brief catchup—over starchess, of course—with a grim expression. “The crowd has been dealt with,” he announces, clearly not as proud as he usually tends to be.
Jing Yuan hums, before doing a double take. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“Like laymen can,” he lets out a huff. “It’s just… a bit of a hassle. I get it, sort of.”
The general lets out an understanding smile, patting the place next to him. The kid doesn’t appear too elated to be sitting so close to the Master Diviner, but Fu Xuan only throws her right cheek to him, advancing her knight. “What sort of situation is this?”
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard. It’s been causing all the ruckus lately,” Jing Yuan chuckles. “It’s those limited-edition dolls. A fair few desperate souls have been getting into altercations—physical altercations—just to get, or perhaps keep, such dolls.”
Oh. Those. Fu Xuan is suddenly acutely aware of the texture of her collar, tugging on it to give herself some air.
“Yanqing’s also been through the war to get one, but unfortunately failed to get the one he wants. Which I consider to be ridiculous, because—”
“—I always get to see you, I know,” he finishes glumly. Yanqing’s golden eyes (they’re very much like Jing Yuan’s, Fu Xuan notes absentmindedly) are fixed upon the chess board, but evidently, it’s all flying past his attention. “Obviously it’s not the same.”
“The way I see it, you’ve just developed a terrible spending habit,” Fu Xuan comments, matter-of-factly. “He spoils you too much—I’ve been saying.”
But if he got someone other than Jing Yuan, and she has the Jing Yuan doll, maybe…
“Who did you get, anyhow?”
Yanqing took it out—looks like he’s been keeping his, too, regardless of the fact that he did not get who he wanted. “General Huaiyan. Which I guess is not all too bad,” he shrugs. “I was going to give it to Yunli, but she says she’d rather have General Feixiao’s plushie.”
Fu Xuan nods in satisfaction. “Now that one is the true jackpot.”
“… Technically, the jackpot is the Marshal,” Yanqing mutters, not noticing the incredulous look in Jing Yuan’s face.
“Why jackpot?”
The curiosity in his eyes is both earnest and devious. Fu Xuan clears her throat. “Well, I think General Feixiao, despite her youth, has managed to pull off admirable feats as an Arbiter-General. Communicating with her for work has always been efficient and easy, pleasant. I’d want her plushie too—if I was into that sort of thing, of course.”
“Huh. I didn’t know you had a favorite general,” Jing Yuan muses, eyebrows arched.
“Well, I try not to be biased, but everyone has preferences, and you know I’m a particular person. If I had to choose one, it’d be her.”
“Not even Yaoguang, but Feixiao?”
Fu Xuan shrugs. “The Seer Strategist… we’re too similar, we would probably butt heads more than we harmonize,” she admits. “I have my reservations about her as well. Call it professional pride…”
Jing Yuan tilts his head left and right, narrowing his eyes. “If you had to choose a favorite, you’ll choose someone who is neither from your home fleet, nor from your current fleet?”
The laugh escapes Fu Xuan before she can hide it. “You? You expect me to choose you as my favorite?“
Never mind that Yanqing is throwing daggers at her with his eyes.
“You wound me,” Jing Yuan hits at his chest. “You’re my favorite diviner, but I guess I’ll never be… your favorite general…”
“Well, of course. Few diviners are as proficient as I, after all,” says Fu Xuan, throwing her hair into the wind. “Can’t say the same for you, alas.”
“Can’t say the same? You’re making me cry, Fu’qing.”
A ring breaks through the lighthearted air, and Fu Xuan recognizes it to be hers in an instant. Her bag is placed closer to Jing Yuan than it is to her, and he offers: “I’ll grab—”
“—my bag, please,” Fu Xuan cuts in a hurry, holding out her hand. “The whole bag.”
Jing Yuan stares at her, a question in his eyes, but quickly dismisses it, passing on to her the whole bag. She regards his skepticism with a click of the tongue.
“You can’t go peering into a woman’s bag!”
Never mind that her face is heating up a little.
She picks up the call, and it comes like a saving grace, rescuing her from this increasingly suffocating patio.
~
Fu Xuan’s leg is bouncing erratically, her patience visibly thinning. She is two seconds away from screaming at the customers two places ahead of her, who are placing orders like they’re booking for an entire village.
If they had so many orders, why can’t they just do an online reservation? Wouldn’t that have been easier as well, considering the many different specifics of drinks the stall owners have to make? Fu Xuan doesn’t know who she pities more: the ones making the drinks, or the many customers behind them.
Of course, she briefly considers lining up at a different boba tea store. But she’s been lining up here for at least half a system hour, and the lunch rush hour has only gotten worse since then; lining up anywhere else would have only wasted more of her time. (Of course, this is all within her calculations. Even her jade abacus has predicted that she’ll face a particularly patience-testing ordeal, but she could never have expected it would be during something as trivial as buying boba.)
At this point, even seconds felt like minutes. Fu Xuan is fighting both her anxiety and her immense anger, nails biting down on her palms.
Subconsciously, she reaches for the stress ball in her bag. That stress ball, of course, being the stupid plushie she didn’t want.
No better way to relieve stress than to squeeze the life out of your super frustrating general, is there? (Briefly she imagines actually choking Jing Yuan by the throat. She wondered… but quickly dismisses the image. Not that such an opportunity would come—not that it’s something she should ever do as a diviner to her general, so there’s no further point dwelling on the thought.)
Perhaps it’s because she managed to exert some pressure on something else, or perhaps it’s the fluffy texture of the fur that makes up the hair—Fu Xuan finds herself breathing slower, ignoring the slow passing of time. With some courtesy—thank her luck—the store owners have decided to serve the other customers first, understanding that most of the patrons here are also working people, and need to get back to their work as soon as the lunch hour ends.
Fu Xuan casts the little doll a brief, haughty glance. Guess you’re not good for nothing, little one.
~
Despite the doll being an effective stress reliever in most situations, she’s not always available to hold it in her hands—for one, divining, especially with the Matrix of Prescience, requires her utmost concentration and both hands at work. She is often too preoccupied with reading that this doesn’t call for a need of stress relief as often, that she does not need to be holding her little plushie.
More frustrating situations include social settings like work meetings, in which she has to sit through one or two unbearably long hours with people whose minds seem to process slower than even the most ancient models of abaci. Qingzu has elaborated regarding the development of Crimstone Hill twice now, yet the Artisanship Commission and Alchemy Commission representatives are still questioning with regards to their roles in the whole operation—not only has it been very clear from Qingzu’s explanation, it also bores Fu Xuan to death considering it does not concern her at all. Of course, she is not entirely out of the operation, so it wouldn’t be in her best interest to stop listening, but…
“No, the mountains wouldn’t be flattened out,” Fu Xuan only mutters, but perhaps her annoyance is poignant enough to capture the others’ attention. “Certain mountains will be hollowed out, but our primary goal is to build around those mountains, and that’s where you come in,” she throws a pointed look at the acting leader of the Artisanship Commission. “And you people from the Alchemy Commission won’t have much to do until the reconstruction of the land itself is complete. What is with all the questions?”
It is not often that Fu Xuan spares her voice for any comment beyond that in her line of work, so the attendees are reasonably surprised. Maybe it’s also her straightforward words, as opposed to the divinations she usually spews. But Jing Yuan only lets out a chuckle.
From under the table, he beckons with his hand for something.
Fu Xuan throws him a questioning glare, brows furrowing.
Your hand, he mouths, ever so subtly.
Her frown deepens. Like she hadn’t seen anything, she turns back towards the table with an impassive face. “Is the vision, at least, clear to you?”
“Uh…” Master Gongshu looks between the counselor and Fu Xuan herself, nodding hesitantly. “Yes, sort of… I guess we just have to do as instructed, in the end?”
Fu Xuan sighs. Obviously, that is the truth, but if they don’t understand what’s going on… forget it. Far be it for her to stress over this. It’s not like everyone cares about the why’s as she does, though she’d expected that the commission heads, at least, would be a little more conscientious than the average worker.
“You’ll see as we go, Master Gongshu,” Jing Yuan reassures, gentle as always. “If there are no further questions, you’re all free to take your well-deserved breaks; I’m sure all that new information will take a while to process, and I’ll brief you further on when the operation is about to begin. As for the Master Diviner, I’ll have to hold you back for a while.”
“You’re always holding me back,” Fu Xuan retorts under her breath, “but before that, I do have to ascertain: is this work-related?”
Jing Yuan scoffs. “What, so if it’s not work-related you’ll deny my request?”
“Obviously. I don’t need to entertain your personal whims.”
The general leans over to her… and gives her a light flick on her forehead.
“Hey—what was that for?!”
“I’m scolding you for just now.”
“For just—” Fu Xuan recalls when he’d asked for her hand. She wants to retaliate, but her face is quicker to turn red than she can get out words. “For me not giving you my hand?” she yells a little more quietly, “How is this important, or even worthy of a scolding?!”
“Not that, of course. For your impatience. You know it well.”
Fu Xuan pauses, then continues to glare at him, but recoils her temper. “You’re treating me like a hot-headed child,” she sneers. “It’s not like I lashed out at anybody—I was doing my best to speed up the endless question and answer session, by explaining precisely as it is. How is that punishable?”
“I know.” Suddenly, without warning, he places a gentle hand over her head, patting it with slow strokes. Fu Xuan may have blushed even further. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I know you were well agitated—that’s why I asked for your hand.” He lifts her hand—crazy man—and lets it tremble gently above his.
She quickly snatches it away, hiding it behind her back. “That’s—that’s none of your concern. I can handle myself.”
“You can. But you don’t have to.”
“This is not at all work related,” Fu Xuan quickly concludes, not once looking up to see his face in the entire conversation. Quickly reaching for her bag and clutching it tightly, she bolts out of the meeting room, away from her biggest stressor.
~
The doll is too small to be used for anything other than a keychain, but loath is Fu Xuan to dangle it where anyone can see, so she’s opted for having it tucked into the deepest corners of her bag. Sometimes, though, she sees that it’s accumulated a tad bit of dirt. She takes it out, if only to clean the bag—and then the doll, so she doesn’t get an infection, she claims—and she’d place it by her nightstand, lest she forgets to put it back in her bag the next morning. (Like she ever forgets anything.)
The amber glow of the lamp shines a small halo upon small Jing Yuan’s fluffy hair. If only the man actually acted like an angel.
The doll is almost perfectly spherical. Yuan Yuan, she’s decided to call it—'round Yuan'.
“At least you can’t open your mouth,” Fu Xuan mumbles to no one in particular.
She resumes lying on her back, staring at the empty ceiling. Her room is entirely barren, void of such ridiculous trinkets like the singular doll—and perhaps it is because of that, that her eyes drift back to the sight of Yuan Yuan, sitting peacefully by the light. It is only a ball with crescent eyes and curved lips, with fluffy hair and a mere red ribbon—nothing as fancy as the other generals’ dolls, even, nothing too intricate.
“It must be nice, to be able to fall asleep so easily.” Her tone is as sour, but perhaps less violent as it would have been, had she been talking to the doll’s actual namesake. “To have a calm enough mind… a calm enough heart… to not have to worry about what comes.”
…
The doll makes no response.
“What comes, comes anyway, right? But what if… what if I need something different to come? What if I need it to not come at all? You don’t have to worry about those—you do only what you can do in response to what will come. But I have to…”
Yuan Yuan continues to smile at her silently, eyes closed.
Fu Xuan lets out a sigh, falling to her back. “What am I doing? You never listen anyway.”
Perhaps the magic lies in the very act of letting it out—soon after, somehow, Fu Xuan manages to slip into the dark, into the multitude of her dreams.
~
And of course, fate has her forget to bring it right when she needs it. (More accurately is that she’s only discovered that she lost it when she needs it most, but it’s more of the same.)
She thinks she must have left it at home—it’s an easier thought to digest than it being lost somewhere, anyhow. No one should have access to her bag—no one in the Divination Commission would even dare, and Fu Xuan has only gone to the Divination Commission today, so it couldn’t be anywhere other than home or here.
But the readings in the Matrix of Prescience are not reassuring, and she has nothing else to reassure her—nothing but truth itself, looming tall ahead of her, the fluctuating trigrams that shift with no rest, calling for…
“The start of a disaster,” echoes Mingyue. The other managing diviners cast an equally glum look. In a twisted manner, Fu Xuan is the one who appears least troubled by this prediction, as though she regularly has Great Disasters for breakfast.
It is her job to prepare for what is to come, anyway. Wasting no time on the gravity of the prediction, she gets to work—if it’s worth anything, at least this prediction does not concern the Luofu’s flight path itself, but rather, one of the fleets carrying the Cloud Knights for a certain operation.
It is an urgent matter nevertheless, which requires her to quickly draft a report for the Seat of Divine Foresight—
A headache hits Fu Xuan, a silent but constant throbbing against her skull. This, unlike the fluctuating trigrams shown by the Matrix, is no uncommon occurrence, something she’ll swallow as she moves on with her work. But Huixing interjects: “I’ll run more divinations for this reading, Master. In the meantime, you should go get some medicine for those headaches.”
Jingzhai sighs. “Have you eaten at all, Master?”
Come to think of it… It’s not surprising for her to forget her meals on occasion; high work stress tends to have her doing so, shutting out every other need to focus on her readings. Fu Xuan dismisses them with a flick of her wrists. “I’ll have to tell the general—we’ve already had a negative reading the other day, from one of the interns, and I’ve had a bad feeling since then. We’ll still need to draft an official report, but we’ll wait for Huixing’s further calculations before that.”
Her feet are already taking her away from the Matrix, out towards the docks—to her surprise, who she wishes to see is already before her, inspecting a round object.
A strange object indeed.
He lifts up a ball with white fluffy hair. Dread rises up Fu Xuan’s stomach, swimming in a mixture of acid and bile, while all the blood leaves her face. There is no way…
“Hey—is this yours?”
“What sort of—hey!”
Jing Yuan tosses the plushie high in the air, too high for Fu Xuan to possibly reach without using her powers. Rather, the issue is that the plushie leaps too quickly, and before she can catch it, it’s fallen… off the ledge. Into… boundless sky.
“Jing Yuan! Are you mad?!”
All sanity, all her prior panic, all the information she had wanted to tell him leave her mind, and Fu Xuan’s vision goes white.
“Ah—thought it wasn’t yours. Why are you so mad?”
“Do you know how much one is worth, and how much effort is—gods, of course you wouldn’t!” Fu Xuan is practically in hysterics, but she doesn’t take the step to the ledge like she wants to, feet frozen in the ground. Maybe she doesn’t want to see for herself—like there is anything to verify at all, for it is… gone. Lost to the abyss.
Stupid bastard of a general!
Jing Yuan appears to be completely unperturbed by her reaction, only continuing to smile. To smile?! “I thought you weren’t one for dolls, let alone those of the Luofu’s general?”
“I—wait—” Fu Xuan’s face is undoubtedly the shade of a tomato. “No, my plushie is a Feixiao one, of course. Was that not a Feixiao plushie? Then it wasn’t mine. Whew! That’s a relief, then! It really looked like a Feixiao plushie from afar. It’s the white hair, I see.”
Fu Xuan is still internally hyperventilating, but at least this should allow her to save face—the only thing more embarrassing than your general seeing you panic over a doll is to have him witness your panic over a doll of himself. No easier way to stroke his ego, either.
There is absolutely no chance she’ll let him know—
“Ah, yours is the Feixiao one? Alright, let’s say it is,” Jing Yuan laughs, and Fu Xuan understands there that he’s known the truth for a while now. This bastard! “You’ve lied about not caring for such plushies, but I’ll assume you won’t be so bold to lie twice. Diviner Fu Xuan is always harshly truthful, after all, especially when it comes to her not-favorite general.”
“See? You’re so annoying. Why would I ever keep a plushie of you? I’d rather have sold it and made a fortune out of it.” She should have. This was bound to happen all along—nothing escapes Jing Yuan’s notice. An absolute pain in the ass. “Forget it. You’ve distracted me from what I’ve been needing to say—there’s been another negative reading on the Borea Op. It’s the second out of many, but since this one’s given out by the Matrix of Prescience…”
Jing Yuan nods, falling into pace with her steps. “Then it should be of considerable credibility.”
“Mhm. We’re looking into it further, seeing if we can find alternative routes; Huixing will draft a report once that’s all through, so there is no need to worry.”
“Tell that to yourself.” He juts his chin towards her hands. Fu Xuan’s picking on the skin of her fingers, like she always does when she’s nervous.
“It’s just a habit born of restlessness. I know I can handle it,” she retorts, but her face falls sour. “If only I had my Yua—uhh, my Feixiao plushie with me…”
It’s apparent Jing Yuan wants to tease her more about it, but he cuts his tongue short. “How did you lose it?”
“I’m not sure. I think it must’ve been left at home, but…” But apparently it must’ve fallen out my bag while I was rummaging for something. If only someone hadn’t thrown it off the damn ledge… Fu Xuan is close to tears.
Perhaps, loath as she is to admit it, she’s grown attached to the mere doll.
Ah, how fate plays tricks upon her.
“The only way to verify that theory is to check it, no?”
Fu Xuan throws him a skeptical look. “Why does it sound like you have an ulterior motive?”
“Oh, ever suspicious goddess, why not gaze into my eyes and see for yourself the earnestness in my eyes?”
She rolls her eyes, giving him a light jab with her elbow. “Fine, let’s stop by my place—I need to take my headache pills, anyway, and I need to eat for that.”
“Of course you haven’t eaten.” Jing Yuan shakes his head, but the look he gives her is not so pitying, rather—a weird sense of fondness.
~
She finds it in none other than her kitchen island. Now when had she brought it out?
When she realizes Jing Yuan is there, right there in the living room, she quickly rushes to hide the tiny doll from his line of sight, but he must’ve caught it, too: “So the doll is here, yes?”
“Ahem. That is none of your concern,” she says, quickly pocketing the familiarly round doll. Oh, foolish Fu Xuan. “So that plush you threw…”
“Hm? Oh, that one…” Jing Yuan lets out a half-grin, not mockingly, but entirely mirthful. (He almost looks… almost… dashing. Not that Fu Xuan would ever admit that aloud!) “That was mine, of course.”
“That was—that was yours?!”
“Every general gets one of themselves—Marshal included. Though I suppose she would quickly dispose of it… I have no need for it, either. I’ve been holding on to it in case I might need it, and an idea came to me. I decided to test a theory with it.”
… It was all bait?! That scheming, sick bastard!
“You’re crazy, you are,” Fu Xuan only manages to mumble as she moves about the kitchen, foraging for leftovers. “You could’ve sold it—if not for money, you could’ve obtained information with it. You could have just given it to Yanqing! The boy wants it, and you just… toss it off the ledge like it’s nothing!”
“I thought you were the number one critique regarding my terrible mentorship skills because I seem to spoil him too much?”
“Don’t turn my words against me!” But there is reason in Jing Yuan’s argument, as there always is. Fu Xuan puts her plate on the table with a groan. “You’re impossible to deal with.”
Jing Yuan lets out a hearty laugh. “Touché, Fu’qing. But the sentiment goes both ways. I find you very fascinating, oftentimes.”
“Now what’s that supposed to mean?”
“The plushie,” he says, shooting straight to the point. He leans across the table, and—without hesitation, without any sort of warning whatsoever—reaches into her pocket, pulling out the doll in question. Her weak hands do nothing to stop his atrocious act, and all she can do is let out a pained inhale.
Yuan Yuan, in the gigantic hands of Jing Yuan, appears almost like a tiny pebble. It’s a comical image.
“No matter how I think about it, I can’t seem to understand why you’d keep it,” he contemplates aloud. “I don’t doubt that you wanted Feixiao initially, and I don’t doubt you were disappointed to get me instead. But why keep it at all? You could, as you suggested, sell it for a fortune, for information, or just… give it to Yanqing?”
“I would never be so kind to that boy,” Fu Xuan immediately mutters, earning her a snicker.
“You get the point. You’re more pragmatic than you are sentimental—and even if you are, I don’t expect you to hold sentiments for me, of all people. Unless, of course, they’re of the negative kind—though I’d be inclined to believe you would rather unleash it all upon me directly than toward a mere doll. Do you feel any hesitation towards me, Fu’qing?”
Fu Xuan’s still reeling from the sight of the tiny doll exposed in the hands of Jing Yuan himself, and can hardly think clearly about all this. “It’s not like I can actually put your head in my hands and squeeze you. I think that would count as regicide.”
Jing Yuan’s laugh is so boisterous it hurts. “I never knew you were so violent! I mean, you can always try.”
When Fu Xuan looks up from her plate, Jing Yuan is in a slight bow, showing the crown of his head to her. That head of fluffy white… Fu Xuan doesn’t often take a good look at him (heavens forbid he catches her staring, but she occasionally does wonder), but his hair really is quite thick and long.
Naturally she does as expected: grabs a fistful of hair with her tiny hand, and yanks hard.
“A-a-ah—ow,” Jing Yuan yelps. Of course he hasn’t actually expected her to go hard; that’s on him. Ha. “Okay, okay, I get it, you hate me. Don’t you think that’s enough?”
“Hate is a strong word. You’re just really, really annoying,” retorts Fu Xuan, before letting go. “Thank you, though. That did relieve my stress a little.”
“See? You can do that anytime. General’s word.” Jing Yuan pats on his hair in a miserable attempt to tidy it, before undoing his half-tied hair entirely. “You don’t need a silly doll to torture in my stead.”
“… You’re sounding more and more like a masochist, with how you’re trying to deliver your point,” Fu Xuan almost laughs, if his face isn’t so genuinely earnest. Jing Yuan is the one to laugh.
“My point being, you have me. And although a Fu Xuan doll would be absolutely adorable…”
He places his hand over her head. She despises this gesture more than anything—makes her already short self feel even smaller beneath his touch—but Jing Yuan’s done it so often that the curve of his palm perfectly aligns with her head, and all she can feel is warmth.
“I have you.”
So terribly corny. Fu Xuan is not blushing, of course—her face is naturally pink-colored, one with her hair.
“I’m eating.” She swats away his hand in an instant, fixing her unruly bangs. “And it seems like you have a misconception—that little doll in your hand is not any “bite-sized” version of you. It is you minus all your loudness and your irritating mannerisms—it is so much better than you in every way. So don’t even dare insinuate that ‘you are all I need’, or whatever romantic propaganda you’re trying to push my way.”
With her other hand she snatches Yuan Yuan away from his grasp, keeping it safe in her pocket. Jing Yuan blinks, then lets out a disbelieving scoff.
“Wow. Wow. I don’t even know what to say, Fu’qing. You hurt me, time and again.”
What is he, some sort of high school jock who’s never been rejected? “You asked for the truth, and it has been laid bare before you. You’re not going to whine about it now, are you?”
“So will you like me more if I’m less annoying?”
Fu Xuan’s face contorts to an expression of disgust, but there is no betraying her flustered gaze, and her stupid ears that reveal everything. “What nonsense are you spewing? I won’t like you, so don’t think about it!”
“I can be very serious if you want me to be,” Jing Yuan continues, and in like manner to his words, his face falls solemn, gazing deep into her eyes with pensive golden eyes. “I know you think I’m always playing with you, but I am very serious about you, Fu Xuan. You see, I—”
“Shut up! I don’t care! Stop messing with me, you blockhead! Get out of my house now!”
She kicks him under the table with a sharp jab—Jing Yuan lets out a muted cry—he quickly shuffles out of his seat, but fails to conceal his laugh, and erupts then and there. Of course. Fu Xuan lets out an exasperated sigh, placing both hands on her head like it should mitigate her growing headache.
“Okay, okay, I’m leaving. Don’t forget to take your medicine, hm?”
Right. She’s eating to have those pills. A headache that only grows further because of this juvenile general.
“I don’t need your concern,” she spits petulantly.
It’s unclear who’s the bigger child between the two, with how they behave around each other. Only, though, around each other, and never to the rest of the world.
~
“… Let’s play a little game.”
“A game?”
“Mhm. Surely, when it comes to predictions and chances, the Master Diviner won’t lose, will she?”
“Ha. You’re taunting the wrong person, Jing Yuan. Bring it on.”
A chuckle rings from the other end. “Okay. The rules are simple. I state a fact, and you tell me whether or not it’s true. If I’m correct, you have to give me what I want. If I’m wrong, you get your wish granted in return.”
“… There’s always the possibility that I lie.”
“There is. We’ve established you aren’t always the most honest person around—”
“Hey!”
“So there’s an additional rule to this, as well as an additional round. First, the statement has to be easily verifiable. Second, if I notice that you may be lying, I will ask you to verify your claim—meaning, you’ll be turning on the camera.”
“…”
“If, it turns out, you haven’t been lying, then you get your wish granted.”
“This sounds like an elaborate plot to get what you want. What if you just mention a fact that is practically certain?”
“I’m not that cunning of a person, Fu’qing. What little faith you have in me. To be perfectly fair with you, you also get to make a bet, and a chance to get what you want. The only condition being, our wishes cannot be correlated—as in, your wish cannot be negate mine.”
“… That is fair. But promise me you won’t mention something that is absolutely certain.”
“I won’t, I swear on my Knight’s Honor. Now, will you do the honors?”
“Alright. You’re lying down on your bed, aren’t you?”
“I thought you said no certain facts, and you pull that one out?”
“How is that certain? You could be sitting, for all I know. I’m sitting. No one’s on their bed at this hour, Jing Yuan.”
“And they call me cunning. But, fair. You’re right. I don’t suppose you’ll call me out for lying?”
“No need, of course. Your turn, then.”
“You haven’t said your wish.”
“I’ll think about it. You go first.”
“You’re holding the little Jing Yuan in your hand, aren’t you?”
“Oh, you piece of shit.”
Unfettered laughter rings in her ear. “I take that as a yes?”
“When are you going to let it go? I’m not obsessed with that doll, you know.”
“So is it true or not?”
“If I say it isn’t, aren’t you just going to call it a bluff?”
“If you hadn’t made it so obvious you were holding it, I might’ve not. But now you’re just dragging this out. Come on, just admit it.”
“You’re the worst. But… fine. I’m holding it. You’re terrible.”
“I know, I know. You’ve said it once, you’ve said it a billion times…”
“So what do you want?”
“I want you to come over.”
“What?”
“I want to see you. Is that so wrong?”
“You’re actually—”
“—the worst, I know, I’ve heard. Now, what do you want?”
“…”
“…”
“… I want you to buy me two cups of boba.”
“… I will, but over two days. There’s no way I’m letting you drink two cups at once.”
“I’ll need it, to deal with you.”
“No, you do not. I’m ordering one already. Come, now.”
“I hate you.”
“Tell that to my face, Fu’qing. Quickly.”
~
The big Jing Yuan is so much more of a nuisance than her tiny Yuan Yuan, but he certainly wins in one department: giving her very, very warm cuddles.
(”You get a little doll of me, but I, not of you,” he reasoned. “So you must come often, that I get to squeeze you as well. Isn’t that only fair?”
“You depraved scoundrel,” Fu Xuan commented, but quickly finds herself melting in his sturdy arms anyway. Who is she to complain, really?)