Link Click: Instinct (Part One) [1/5]
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prose_alchemistTitle: Instinct (Part One) [1/5]
Author:jordannamorgan
Archive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: PG for fantasy violence.
Characters: Cheng Xiaoshi, Lu Guang, Xiao Li, original characters.
Setting: Post-season two, after our heroes have had enough time to make a full recovery. (While leaving aside any possible Lu-loop drama for now. My heart can’t take it.)
Summary: Hired to solve a wealthy client’s personal mystery, Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang discover there are even darker powers in the world than they realized… and the damage left in the fallout will not be easily fixed for anyone.
Disclaimer: They belong to Li Haoling, LAN Studio, and Haoliners Animation League. I’m just playing with them.
Notes: Written for the “Werewolf” monster prompt at @http://spook_me 2023, this is my first work of “Link Click” fanfiction.
I. Inception
“Are you sure it’s really okay to meet a prospective client privately in his own apartment?” Cheng Xiaoshi muttered, squirming restlessly in the back seat of a chauffeured luxury sedan.
Seriously, the thing was barely less pretentious than a limousine. It even had a TV and a minibar installed. There was a time when Cheng Xiaoshi would have been determined to enjoy this ride for all it was worth, but some very hard experiences—gained both in his own life and by diving into the lives of others—had made him more than a little bit wary of being whisked away by a stranger to parts unknown. He was only surprised that his ever-cautious partner in time didn’t seem to be taking their current situation with as much concern as he was.
Beside him, Lu Guang didn’t even make the effort to glance up from his phone. “It’s fine. I talked to Captain Xiao earlier. He told me the client’s background checks out. And besides…” His eyes finally drifted up to the window, and a gleaming high-rise apartment building that loomed into view ahead of them. “We are being paid a lot for this special accommodation.”
“A high-level exec for one of the biggest tech companies in the country can afford it.” Cheng Xiaoshi grimaced. “Which just makes you wonder how a guy like that heard about us in the first place.”
“The same way anybody hears about us. Rich people are human too, you know.”
As Cheng Xiaoshi thought of every scion of wealth he had encountered in his own life and beyond, his grimace turned into a full-on scowl. “You sure about that?”
“Just focus. We have a job to do.”
Cheng Xiaoshi sighed as the car slipped into the shadows of the building’s parking garage.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m very pleased to see you—and sincerely grateful that you were willing to meet with me.”
Their prospective client Sang Zhaojun looked every bit the part of the chief marketing officer for Yujian Electronics. He was slender and immaculately groomed, ageless in the face despite a scattering of silver hairs, dressed in a finely tailored gray suit and blue silk tie that practically smelled of money. His voice was perfectly modulated, delivering genteel and soft-spoken words of welcome… but he was unsmiling, and there was something lurking in his eyes.
Desperation, Cheng Xiaoshi noted grimly, feeling echoed emotions of far too many people who had harbored that same look in their eyes as he gazed out through them. Whatever we’re here for, it’s not going to be pretty, is it?
“Let’s hope we can be of help,” Lu Guang responded politely to the man. “But first, I’d like to know one thing. Why were you so insistent on meeting with us in your own home?”
Sang Zhaojun shifted his weight and half-smiled awkwardly. “I apologize for the inconvenience. You can think of it as a rich man’s whim if you like, but I can assure you that I do have my reasons. Not least of which is the fact that I’m an extremely private person, and what I have to discuss is quite… sensitive. It will be easiest for me here.” He spread his hands to indicate the sumptuous yet almost sterile-looking penthouse into which he had ushered them, with its noise-stiflingly plush white carpets and near-colorless minimalist art.
“Well, according to our boss, you’re paying plenty extra for our time here.” Cheng Xiaoshi shrugged. “So what exactly is the job you want us to take on?”
“My admittedly vague understanding is that you have an uncanny ability to discover secrets from the past, merely by studying photographs.” Sang Zhaojun’s lips twisted in another fragile, self-deprecating smile, but his eyes were lightless. “If that truly is the case, what I would ask of you… is to determine whether I killed someone a month ago.”
Cheng Xiaoshi’s breath caught faintly, his muscles tensing in immediate surprise and unease. Oh, hell no… this is a criminal case?
“That sounds like a job for the police,” Lu Guang swiftly echoed the thought, his keen gray eyes narrowing.
“Ordinarily I would agree, but the circumstances are… not normal.” Sang Zhaojun swept a newspaper from the top of a low bookcase, holding it out to the two younger men. As Lu Guang carefully accepted it, Cheng Xiaoshi leaned over his partner’s shoulder for a better view, and grimaced at the lurid headline from a month earlier that was splashed across the page: Man’s Body Found Mutilated in Xiàngshù Park.
“I remember this story. The police concluded the victim was mauled to death by a dog.” His appraising glance flickered up toward Sang Zhaojun, small in stature and trim but by no means athletic. “Don’t take this the wrong way—but what makes you think you’d even be capable of an attack like that?”
“Only the fact that near dawn on the morning after it happened, I woke up naked and bloody beside the fountain in the same park where that victim was later found torn to pieces.”
Even Lu Guang blinked and flinched at that.
“…Yeah, okay. Now I’m only more confused about why you didn’t go to somebody for help before now,” Cheng Xiaoshi said incredulously.
Sang Zhaojun ducked his head, his cheeks taking on a faint rosy tone of embarrassment… or perhaps more accurately, humiliation. “Put yourself in my place. I was never even aware of blacking out the night before, much less what happened to me afterward. I was terrified—yet even despite that, I could only think about the scandal it would be for Yujian Electronics if I was seen in such a condition. For a while I was only concerned with avoiding anyone on the street as I crept my way home. Only later did I learn of the death that also took place in the park that night, and when I did… the pieces that fell into place were very difficult to come to terms with.”
“So you don’t remember anything? …Maybe you were drugged or something.” A thought that was probably inspired by too much television flitted through Cheng Xiaoshi’s head. “Maybe it was some kind of frame-up to make your company look bad!”
“Idiot,” Lu Guang muttered under his breath.
“I wish I could believe that was so,” Sang Zhaojun replied ruefully. “But even if one of our competitors would go to such criminal lengths just to defame an officer of my company, I doubt a marketing executive like myself would be seen as a productive target. No, the truth is that I have a very different suspicion of my own… and when you hear it, you’ll understand why I couldn’t trust any authorities to take me seriously. In my desperation, I’ve only sought you out because the rumors I discovered online make me believe you could have more open minds.”
“What is it that you think happened, then?” Lu Guang asked patiently, and was met with a canny look.
“There’s more to the story. A month earlier, on the last night of a business trip in France, I myself was attacked on the street at night and bitten by some kind of animal. I don’t know how I even survived.” As he spoke, Sang Zhaojun unbuttoned the cuff of his right sleeve, rolling it up to show his guests the red curve of a scar on his forearm. “It can’t be a coincidence that I’ve now found myself at the scene of two animal attacks on two different continents, both in large urban cities where no wild animals should be… nor that there was a full moon on the nights both attacks took place.”
It took Cheng Xiaoshi a long moment to process that incredible implication.
“…Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell us you think you’ve been turned into some kind of werewolf?”
There was no trace of jesting or insincerity in Sang Zhaojun’s grave expression as he answered. “I know how it sounds—but every piece of evidence leads me to that conclusion. That, and…” A visible shudder passed through him. “The nightmares I’ve had since it happened. The only time I feel as if I can almost remember… something too horrible for my conscious mind to endure.”
Before Cheng Xiaoshi could counter with a suggestion that the man may have watched An American Werewolf in London a few times too many, Lu Guang spoke up decisively. “Alright. Whatever it was that really happened, we’ll try to help you get the answers you’re looking for.” He ignored his partner’s dubious glance, remaining focused on the relieved face of their newly accepted client. “But we’re going to need any pictures you may have taken within twelve hours of the incident.”
“I’m afraid I’m hardly one for sharing my life online… but there is one thing, I suppose?” Sang Zhaojun slipped his phone from his pocket and proceeded to tap on the screen. “I can’t imagine how this could be of use to you, but I did take a picture of my receipt at the bar I visited that evening. When the head of a partner company we advertise with invited me out to celebrate a new contract, I paid the tab myself, and filed it as a business expense. I lost my phone somewhere along with my clothes when I blacked out, but fortunately, I had already emailed the receipt to Accounting. With any luck, that picture hasn’t been deleted from our data cloud yet.”
“Hold on. You were drinking that night?” Cheng Xiaoshi’s dark eyes narrowed. “Don’t you think that might kind of explain a few things?”
Sang Zhaojun looked mildly offended. “I had one glass of wine. It’s not uncommon in my line of work to share a social drink now and then with business partners and colleagues. …In any case, I can assure you my head was still quite clear when I left the bar. I began walking back to my office three blocks away, to meet my driver and pick up some documents I planned to review at home. I distinctly remember taking a shortcut through side streets I often use… and sometime after that is where my memory stops, until I woke up in the park the next morning.” He held out his phone for Lu Guang to see. “This is the picture. Will it help you?”
The white-haired young man glanced only briefly at the unremarkable photo of a printed receipt. “We’ll find out. If you can send that picture to me, we’ll go back to our studio and begin our investigation.”
“Of course—but I must implore you to find the answer for me as soon as you possibly can.” A shadow of genuine fear passed over Sang Zhaojun’s face. “It so happens that the moon will be full again tomorrow night, and if the worst possibility I’ve imagined is really true…”
As Cheng Xiaoshi bit back another skeptical remark, Lu Guang merely nodded. “We’ll do our best. If all goes well, I think we can get results as early as the end of the day.”
“Excellent. I have to go out and attend to some personal matters, but I’ll be home again shortly. Call me anytime you have news, and I’ll send Yee to pick you up. If you don’t mind, I want to hear it from you in person.” Sang Zhaojun’s eyes glimmered with an unsettlingly urgent emotion. “Thank you for doing this for me, gentlemen. Even if you do think me a fool… all I want is to be sure I’m not a danger to anyone.”
As the driver escorted them back to the car, those words rang in Cheng Xiaoshi’s head more loudly than he wanted to admit.
“So what do you think?”
The question spilled impatiently out of Cheng Xiaoshi the moment he and Lu Guang had stepped through the door of Time Photo Studio. In the presence of Sang Zhaojun’s driver Yee, they had been unable to discuss the mission on the way home, leaving the more impulsive and emotional young man bursting with equal parts curiosity and agitation.
“I think we’re going to find out exactly what happened to our client that night, and report it to him—just as he asked us to do,” Lu Guang retorted unhelpfully, leading the way to the tranquil green space of the sunroom where they so often carried out their work.
“Yeah, but… seriously. A werewolf? You can’t actually think there’s a chance that crazy theory of his is true, right?”
“That seems like kind of an ironic attitude coming from someone who can enter photos to possess other people’s bodies in the past.”
Cheng Xiaoshi flushed in consternation. “That’s different. There’s just no way a human being can turn into some shaggy beast lusting for blood.—You wanna know what I think really happened?”
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me,” Lu Guang sighed, not glancing up from his phone as he navigated to the photo Sang Zhaojun had sent him.
“I think that guy doesn’t hold his liquor nearly as well as he thinks he does. I mean, you saw him, right? A stiff breeze would probably blow him over.” Cheng Xiaoshi flopped onto his customary end of the sofa, lanky arms stretched out along its back. “The alcohol probably just hit him on the way back to the office, and he wandered off drunk until he finally blacked out in the park.”
Lu Guang sat down at his own end of the sofa, still preoccupied with his phone. “Either way, we’re going to find out. With any luck, I’ll be able to see what happened myself, and you won’t need to dive.”
“Great. The last thing I want is a hangover when I didn’t even get to do the drinking first.”
No response was offered or needed, as Lu Guang focused intently on the photo of Sang Zhaojun’s receipt from the bar. Cheng Xiaoshi sat up a little, watching with interest as an opalescent blue light blazed to life in his best friend’s gray eyes. No matter how many times he watched this power in action, its fascination never dimmed—and he could never quite settle on just how to imagine what Lu Guang saw.
For half a minute Lu Guang stared at the picture, frowning with intense concentration. Then he let out a hiss of breath and lowered his phone, the luminance in his eyes fading out as he frustratedly shook his head.
“It’s no good. I could see Sang Zhaojun walking back to his office along a shortcut, just as he described. But somewhere along the way, things got… cloudy.”
“Isn’t that what happens when the person you’re watching loses consciousness? Like the time I got drugged while I was in Doudou’s body, and you missed out on seeing where I was taken.”
“That’s not quite it. I don’t think Sang Zhaojun lost consciousness, exactly. The difference is hard to explain, but it’s more like he lost… awareness.”
“Just sounds even more like my theory is right, then,” Cheng Xiaoshi sighed, realizing that a dive into the photo to experience their client’s questionable night firsthand was unavoidable. “I’m telling you, he just got smashed. And then maybe something happened in the park that led to him committing murder in a drunken rage—or maybe the body turning up there was a coincidence, and all he really did was throw up all over himself. So he undressed and tried to clean himself up in the fountain, but then he passed out, and he just mistook his own puke for blood when he came to in the morning.”
Lu Guang stared at Cheng Xiaoshi, blinking slowly. “…Somehow that’s a scenario I’d want to watch even less than seeing you turn into a ‘shaggy beast lusting for blood’ while in our client’s body.”
“Hey, I’m the one who’s gonna have to live it!” Cheng Xiaoshi tossed his head back against the sofa cushions and stared up at the skylight, blowing out a breath. “But seriously, we’re being offered enough money for this one dive to pay off six months’ worth of my debt. For that, I might be willing to get drunk and take a naked fountain bath myself.”
“You really have no dignity whatsoever, do you?” Without bothering to wait for a flippant response, Lu Guang scowled and looked away. “I don’t like this. Something feels off.”
“Come on, Lu. It’ll be fine.” As his friend turned to face him, Cheng Xiaoshi grinned and extended his hand. “After all, I keep my own physical abilities when I dive, and I’m a lot better conditioned than Sang Zhaojun is. I’m sure I’ll be able to stay alert when he didn’t—so I’ll go in just long enough to see what happened to him, and jump out as soon as we know. Deal?”
The indecision in Lu Guang’s face slowly wavered into reluctant acceptance. “Alright… but if I give the word, you get out of there immediately, with no questions asked. Are we clear?”
“Clear,” Cheng Xiaoshi agreed confidently. “Let’s do this.”
After a moment of further hesitation, his partner reached out. Gray eyes gazed into luminous gold, and the clap of their palms meeting echoed through the too-quiet room—suddenly occupied by only one of them.
© 2023 Jordanna Morgan
Author:
jordannamorganArchive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: PG for fantasy violence.
Characters: Cheng Xiaoshi, Lu Guang, Xiao Li, original characters.
Setting: Post-season two, after our heroes have had enough time to make a full recovery. (While leaving aside any possible Lu-loop drama for now. My heart can’t take it.)
Summary: Hired to solve a wealthy client’s personal mystery, Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang discover there are even darker powers in the world than they realized… and the damage left in the fallout will not be easily fixed for anyone.
Disclaimer: They belong to Li Haoling, LAN Studio, and Haoliners Animation League. I’m just playing with them.
Notes: Written for the “Werewolf” monster prompt at @http://spook_me 2023, this is my first work of “Link Click” fanfiction.
I. Inception
“Are you sure it’s really okay to meet a prospective client privately in his own apartment?” Cheng Xiaoshi muttered, squirming restlessly in the back seat of a chauffeured luxury sedan.
Seriously, the thing was barely less pretentious than a limousine. It even had a TV and a minibar installed. There was a time when Cheng Xiaoshi would have been determined to enjoy this ride for all it was worth, but some very hard experiences—gained both in his own life and by diving into the lives of others—had made him more than a little bit wary of being whisked away by a stranger to parts unknown. He was only surprised that his ever-cautious partner in time didn’t seem to be taking their current situation with as much concern as he was.
Beside him, Lu Guang didn’t even make the effort to glance up from his phone. “It’s fine. I talked to Captain Xiao earlier. He told me the client’s background checks out. And besides…” His eyes finally drifted up to the window, and a gleaming high-rise apartment building that loomed into view ahead of them. “We are being paid a lot for this special accommodation.”
“A high-level exec for one of the biggest tech companies in the country can afford it.” Cheng Xiaoshi grimaced. “Which just makes you wonder how a guy like that heard about us in the first place.”
“The same way anybody hears about us. Rich people are human too, you know.”
As Cheng Xiaoshi thought of every scion of wealth he had encountered in his own life and beyond, his grimace turned into a full-on scowl. “You sure about that?”
“Just focus. We have a job to do.”
Cheng Xiaoshi sighed as the car slipped into the shadows of the building’s parking garage.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m very pleased to see you—and sincerely grateful that you were willing to meet with me.”
Their prospective client Sang Zhaojun looked every bit the part of the chief marketing officer for Yujian Electronics. He was slender and immaculately groomed, ageless in the face despite a scattering of silver hairs, dressed in a finely tailored gray suit and blue silk tie that practically smelled of money. His voice was perfectly modulated, delivering genteel and soft-spoken words of welcome… but he was unsmiling, and there was something lurking in his eyes.
Desperation, Cheng Xiaoshi noted grimly, feeling echoed emotions of far too many people who had harbored that same look in their eyes as he gazed out through them. Whatever we’re here for, it’s not going to be pretty, is it?
“Let’s hope we can be of help,” Lu Guang responded politely to the man. “But first, I’d like to know one thing. Why were you so insistent on meeting with us in your own home?”
Sang Zhaojun shifted his weight and half-smiled awkwardly. “I apologize for the inconvenience. You can think of it as a rich man’s whim if you like, but I can assure you that I do have my reasons. Not least of which is the fact that I’m an extremely private person, and what I have to discuss is quite… sensitive. It will be easiest for me here.” He spread his hands to indicate the sumptuous yet almost sterile-looking penthouse into which he had ushered them, with its noise-stiflingly plush white carpets and near-colorless minimalist art.
“Well, according to our boss, you’re paying plenty extra for our time here.” Cheng Xiaoshi shrugged. “So what exactly is the job you want us to take on?”
“My admittedly vague understanding is that you have an uncanny ability to discover secrets from the past, merely by studying photographs.” Sang Zhaojun’s lips twisted in another fragile, self-deprecating smile, but his eyes were lightless. “If that truly is the case, what I would ask of you… is to determine whether I killed someone a month ago.”
Cheng Xiaoshi’s breath caught faintly, his muscles tensing in immediate surprise and unease. Oh, hell no… this is a criminal case?
“That sounds like a job for the police,” Lu Guang swiftly echoed the thought, his keen gray eyes narrowing.
“Ordinarily I would agree, but the circumstances are… not normal.” Sang Zhaojun swept a newspaper from the top of a low bookcase, holding it out to the two younger men. As Lu Guang carefully accepted it, Cheng Xiaoshi leaned over his partner’s shoulder for a better view, and grimaced at the lurid headline from a month earlier that was splashed across the page: Man’s Body Found Mutilated in Xiàngshù Park.
“I remember this story. The police concluded the victim was mauled to death by a dog.” His appraising glance flickered up toward Sang Zhaojun, small in stature and trim but by no means athletic. “Don’t take this the wrong way—but what makes you think you’d even be capable of an attack like that?”
“Only the fact that near dawn on the morning after it happened, I woke up naked and bloody beside the fountain in the same park where that victim was later found torn to pieces.”
Even Lu Guang blinked and flinched at that.
“…Yeah, okay. Now I’m only more confused about why you didn’t go to somebody for help before now,” Cheng Xiaoshi said incredulously.
Sang Zhaojun ducked his head, his cheeks taking on a faint rosy tone of embarrassment… or perhaps more accurately, humiliation. “Put yourself in my place. I was never even aware of blacking out the night before, much less what happened to me afterward. I was terrified—yet even despite that, I could only think about the scandal it would be for Yujian Electronics if I was seen in such a condition. For a while I was only concerned with avoiding anyone on the street as I crept my way home. Only later did I learn of the death that also took place in the park that night, and when I did… the pieces that fell into place were very difficult to come to terms with.”
“So you don’t remember anything? …Maybe you were drugged or something.” A thought that was probably inspired by too much television flitted through Cheng Xiaoshi’s head. “Maybe it was some kind of frame-up to make your company look bad!”
“Idiot,” Lu Guang muttered under his breath.
“I wish I could believe that was so,” Sang Zhaojun replied ruefully. “But even if one of our competitors would go to such criminal lengths just to defame an officer of my company, I doubt a marketing executive like myself would be seen as a productive target. No, the truth is that I have a very different suspicion of my own… and when you hear it, you’ll understand why I couldn’t trust any authorities to take me seriously. In my desperation, I’ve only sought you out because the rumors I discovered online make me believe you could have more open minds.”
“What is it that you think happened, then?” Lu Guang asked patiently, and was met with a canny look.
“There’s more to the story. A month earlier, on the last night of a business trip in France, I myself was attacked on the street at night and bitten by some kind of animal. I don’t know how I even survived.” As he spoke, Sang Zhaojun unbuttoned the cuff of his right sleeve, rolling it up to show his guests the red curve of a scar on his forearm. “It can’t be a coincidence that I’ve now found myself at the scene of two animal attacks on two different continents, both in large urban cities where no wild animals should be… nor that there was a full moon on the nights both attacks took place.”
It took Cheng Xiaoshi a long moment to process that incredible implication.
“…Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell us you think you’ve been turned into some kind of werewolf?”
There was no trace of jesting or insincerity in Sang Zhaojun’s grave expression as he answered. “I know how it sounds—but every piece of evidence leads me to that conclusion. That, and…” A visible shudder passed through him. “The nightmares I’ve had since it happened. The only time I feel as if I can almost remember… something too horrible for my conscious mind to endure.”
Before Cheng Xiaoshi could counter with a suggestion that the man may have watched An American Werewolf in London a few times too many, Lu Guang spoke up decisively. “Alright. Whatever it was that really happened, we’ll try to help you get the answers you’re looking for.” He ignored his partner’s dubious glance, remaining focused on the relieved face of their newly accepted client. “But we’re going to need any pictures you may have taken within twelve hours of the incident.”
“I’m afraid I’m hardly one for sharing my life online… but there is one thing, I suppose?” Sang Zhaojun slipped his phone from his pocket and proceeded to tap on the screen. “I can’t imagine how this could be of use to you, but I did take a picture of my receipt at the bar I visited that evening. When the head of a partner company we advertise with invited me out to celebrate a new contract, I paid the tab myself, and filed it as a business expense. I lost my phone somewhere along with my clothes when I blacked out, but fortunately, I had already emailed the receipt to Accounting. With any luck, that picture hasn’t been deleted from our data cloud yet.”
“Hold on. You were drinking that night?” Cheng Xiaoshi’s dark eyes narrowed. “Don’t you think that might kind of explain a few things?”
Sang Zhaojun looked mildly offended. “I had one glass of wine. It’s not uncommon in my line of work to share a social drink now and then with business partners and colleagues. …In any case, I can assure you my head was still quite clear when I left the bar. I began walking back to my office three blocks away, to meet my driver and pick up some documents I planned to review at home. I distinctly remember taking a shortcut through side streets I often use… and sometime after that is where my memory stops, until I woke up in the park the next morning.” He held out his phone for Lu Guang to see. “This is the picture. Will it help you?”
The white-haired young man glanced only briefly at the unremarkable photo of a printed receipt. “We’ll find out. If you can send that picture to me, we’ll go back to our studio and begin our investigation.”
“Of course—but I must implore you to find the answer for me as soon as you possibly can.” A shadow of genuine fear passed over Sang Zhaojun’s face. “It so happens that the moon will be full again tomorrow night, and if the worst possibility I’ve imagined is really true…”
As Cheng Xiaoshi bit back another skeptical remark, Lu Guang merely nodded. “We’ll do our best. If all goes well, I think we can get results as early as the end of the day.”
“Excellent. I have to go out and attend to some personal matters, but I’ll be home again shortly. Call me anytime you have news, and I’ll send Yee to pick you up. If you don’t mind, I want to hear it from you in person.” Sang Zhaojun’s eyes glimmered with an unsettlingly urgent emotion. “Thank you for doing this for me, gentlemen. Even if you do think me a fool… all I want is to be sure I’m not a danger to anyone.”
As the driver escorted them back to the car, those words rang in Cheng Xiaoshi’s head more loudly than he wanted to admit.
“So what do you think?”
The question spilled impatiently out of Cheng Xiaoshi the moment he and Lu Guang had stepped through the door of Time Photo Studio. In the presence of Sang Zhaojun’s driver Yee, they had been unable to discuss the mission on the way home, leaving the more impulsive and emotional young man bursting with equal parts curiosity and agitation.
“I think we’re going to find out exactly what happened to our client that night, and report it to him—just as he asked us to do,” Lu Guang retorted unhelpfully, leading the way to the tranquil green space of the sunroom where they so often carried out their work.
“Yeah, but… seriously. A werewolf? You can’t actually think there’s a chance that crazy theory of his is true, right?”
“That seems like kind of an ironic attitude coming from someone who can enter photos to possess other people’s bodies in the past.”
Cheng Xiaoshi flushed in consternation. “That’s different. There’s just no way a human being can turn into some shaggy beast lusting for blood.—You wanna know what I think really happened?”
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me,” Lu Guang sighed, not glancing up from his phone as he navigated to the photo Sang Zhaojun had sent him.
“I think that guy doesn’t hold his liquor nearly as well as he thinks he does. I mean, you saw him, right? A stiff breeze would probably blow him over.” Cheng Xiaoshi flopped onto his customary end of the sofa, lanky arms stretched out along its back. “The alcohol probably just hit him on the way back to the office, and he wandered off drunk until he finally blacked out in the park.”
Lu Guang sat down at his own end of the sofa, still preoccupied with his phone. “Either way, we’re going to find out. With any luck, I’ll be able to see what happened myself, and you won’t need to dive.”
“Great. The last thing I want is a hangover when I didn’t even get to do the drinking first.”
No response was offered or needed, as Lu Guang focused intently on the photo of Sang Zhaojun’s receipt from the bar. Cheng Xiaoshi sat up a little, watching with interest as an opalescent blue light blazed to life in his best friend’s gray eyes. No matter how many times he watched this power in action, its fascination never dimmed—and he could never quite settle on just how to imagine what Lu Guang saw.
For half a minute Lu Guang stared at the picture, frowning with intense concentration. Then he let out a hiss of breath and lowered his phone, the luminance in his eyes fading out as he frustratedly shook his head.
“It’s no good. I could see Sang Zhaojun walking back to his office along a shortcut, just as he described. But somewhere along the way, things got… cloudy.”
“Isn’t that what happens when the person you’re watching loses consciousness? Like the time I got drugged while I was in Doudou’s body, and you missed out on seeing where I was taken.”
“That’s not quite it. I don’t think Sang Zhaojun lost consciousness, exactly. The difference is hard to explain, but it’s more like he lost… awareness.”
“Just sounds even more like my theory is right, then,” Cheng Xiaoshi sighed, realizing that a dive into the photo to experience their client’s questionable night firsthand was unavoidable. “I’m telling you, he just got smashed. And then maybe something happened in the park that led to him committing murder in a drunken rage—or maybe the body turning up there was a coincidence, and all he really did was throw up all over himself. So he undressed and tried to clean himself up in the fountain, but then he passed out, and he just mistook his own puke for blood when he came to in the morning.”
Lu Guang stared at Cheng Xiaoshi, blinking slowly. “…Somehow that’s a scenario I’d want to watch even less than seeing you turn into a ‘shaggy beast lusting for blood’ while in our client’s body.”
“Hey, I’m the one who’s gonna have to live it!” Cheng Xiaoshi tossed his head back against the sofa cushions and stared up at the skylight, blowing out a breath. “But seriously, we’re being offered enough money for this one dive to pay off six months’ worth of my debt. For that, I might be willing to get drunk and take a naked fountain bath myself.”
“You really have no dignity whatsoever, do you?” Without bothering to wait for a flippant response, Lu Guang scowled and looked away. “I don’t like this. Something feels off.”
“Come on, Lu. It’ll be fine.” As his friend turned to face him, Cheng Xiaoshi grinned and extended his hand. “After all, I keep my own physical abilities when I dive, and I’m a lot better conditioned than Sang Zhaojun is. I’m sure I’ll be able to stay alert when he didn’t—so I’ll go in just long enough to see what happened to him, and jump out as soon as we know. Deal?”
The indecision in Lu Guang’s face slowly wavered into reluctant acceptance. “Alright… but if I give the word, you get out of there immediately, with no questions asked. Are we clear?”
“Clear,” Cheng Xiaoshi agreed confidently. “Let’s do this.”
After a moment of further hesitation, his partner reached out. Gray eyes gazed into luminous gold, and the clap of their palms meeting echoed through the too-quiet room—suddenly occupied by only one of them.
© 2023 Jordanna Morgan