Chapter Text
Debuting tonight, we have the Adventures of the Yiling Patriarch only here on RFQ!
The Yiling Patriarch wasn’t always hunted by the Jianghu. He grew up the adopted brother of the clan at Lotus Pier. He was raised as an inner clan member and he was adored by the people. He had status, strength, and ambition. He was inventive and crafty, too…
“Didi!” Wei Ying shouted into the peaceful morning. He sucked in a deep breath of sharp early-autumn air and studied his surroundings: the courtyard next to the pier was alight with the stains and glows of late autumn, red painting the ground beneath the hardy maple and yellow beneath the soaring birch. A thick bed of needles blanketed the ground beneath the windscreen pines, some of them lifting with the deciduous foliage when a gusty breeze overtook the courtyard. Salty spray from the nearby water made the air shimmer as if filled with glitter.
Despite his loud announcement, there was no response from Wei Ying’s brother, Jiang Cheng, or from anybody else for that matter. The courtyard was silent, save for the breeze ruffling the crispy leaves on the ground and the waves slapping against the concrete wall. A couple seagulls cawed in the distance, likely searching for an easy breakfast–or lunch, Wei Ying supposed, since he’d slept in so late when they were supposed to head downtown together to meet with a prospective client for the family business. Jiang Cheng hadn’t come to wake him as he usually did when Wei Ying overslept. Moreso, Wei Ying’s phone had been silent and devoid of messages.
Snuggling deeper into his red hoodie and breathing against the bracing chill, Wei Ying headed to the next place where his brother and family might be: the kitchen. With his sister newly married to Jin Zixuan of the Lanling real estate empire, it was rare that she came home now; but since she was visiting, perhaps they were spending some time in her favorite space, making food. Just the thought of a delicious and warm meal made him hurry his steps along in hopes of snagging a bit of breakfast.
When Wei Ying arrived, he was disappointed to see the kitchen was empty, too. There was an empty pot on the stove, slightly warm as if it had been turned on and then shut off just as quickly. On the island was a slew of ingredients, each showing partial preparation. There were two cutting boards, one with chopped vegetables on it, and the other with a slab of pork. Only one held a knife.
That’s weird, Wei Ying thought to himself as he set about getting the pork back into the fridge so it wouldn’t go bad in the room temperature. In addition to the food, one of the sinks was full of hot soapy water, so the dishes could be washed as the prep went along. Other than these pieces of evidence that food preparation was happening, Wei Ying didn’t see either of his siblings or his adoptive parents. Things were too quiet.
Beginning to get suspicious now, Wei Ying peeked out the entrance to the kitchen that led to the dining room, still seeing and hearing nobody. The rest of the house smelled as it always did, a bit sharp and a bit sweet from scent warmers stationed in each room. The chill from outdoors hadn’t crept in.
It was a split-second decision, but he decided to grab the knife left on the cutting board, just in case. Once he found his siblings, they could laugh about his paranoia. He hoped.
Room by room, Wei Ying searched carefully and quietly for his family. The dining room was completely empty, except for a copy of the newspaper sitting on one end where his adoptive father liked to sit and read it with a cup of coffee. There was no coffee. The living room proved to be just as fruitless, with even less signs of life. Wei Ying had almost reached the bedrooms when he paused, hearing something in the distance. Was it shouting?
He frowned and turned back to the grand entrance to the manor, which was located between the dining and living rooms. He was just about to head that way when suddenly something latched onto his arm and tugged.
Wei Ying flailed and shrieked in surprise, hand with the knife flying up. Then he saw his sister’s tear-stained, terrified face, and he dropped the hand at once, knife tucked carefully next to his side.
“They’re coming,” Jiang Yanli whispered as she tugged him towards the bedrooms.
Wei Ying was tempted to ask who, but the expression on his older sister’s face shushed him. He allowed himself to be pulled past the bedrooms until they reached the closet at the end of the house. There, Yanli opened the closet and lifted the false back panel to reveal the small room hidden behind there.
Wei Ying knew the hidden room existed, since he’d once snuck in here as a kid during a particularly bad day when his adoptive mom was in a bad mood. His earlier days with the Jiangs were more fraught with negative memories than recent years, and he had been sensitive after living on the streets before then.
The room itself was now little more than a storage room, but it’d once been used for the servants of the old estate to travel from one space to the next without being seen by guests. Wei Ying had explored the tunnels once, but he found he didn’t like the enclosed space and darkness. He hadn’t even been in the room since he was ten.
Jiang Cheng was inside, looking white as a sheet, as he wordlessly watched Yanli pull the closet door shut and carefully set the panel back in place. “Where the hell were you?” he hissed as he approached and hugged Wei Ying.
Accepting the rare embrace, Wei Ying pulled back and looked between his siblings. Jiang Cheng looked spooked, his eyes wild as he studied Wei Ying in turn. Jiang Yanli was still crying, trembling hand pressed over her mouth as she did her best to stifle her gasps.
“I just got up, what the hell is going on?” Wei Ying asked as anxiety bubbled in his stomach.
Yanli grabbed his free hand and began to stroke the back of it with her thumb. “There’s something wrong with the cell service,” she told him first. “I couldn’t send any texts to Zixuan when I got up, and he always texts me good morning and that hadn’t come through either. Then half an hour ago…”
“Somebody came running down the street saying they were shutting down Qishan,” Jiang Cheng continued when she trailed off and hiccupped. “Word on the street is they’re coming after the big families. There was a rumor that Gusu got hit in the middle of the night, and Qinghe was all but under siege. Mom and Dad went out to greet the soldiers marching down the street, and they told us to hide here. Did you see them?”
Wei Ying shook his head, eyes wide as he digested the information. For some time now, President Wen and his family had been putting pressure on the smaller districts to keep business only within Qishan’s borders. They’d been demanding more and more lately, and Wei Ying knew his whole family had felt the strain in their attempts to comply. Still, that was only what happened outside their family home, not inside…
“Are you sure?” he asked hoarsely, studying his siblings’ faces to confirm that they believed what they were saying. Both nodded and Yanli rubbed her eyes. It didn’t make any sense to him, and he voiced his confusion aloud, saying, “But why? What do they want?”
“What do any dictators want?” Jiang Cheng muttered, but his gaze had drifted to the door where they could hear voices again, much closer this time. As one, the three of them fell silent. Wei Ying took his sister’s hand with his left and gripped the knife tighter with the right.
There was some calling out from the front door, and then the unmistakable sound of the front door opening unimpeded and boots entering the space. There was a pause and somebody called out, “Qishan Police! Come out with your hands up!”
Yanli flinched at the yell and gripped Wei Ying’s hand tighter. They didn’t move.
After a few quiet minutes where the police seemed to be waiting for an answer, the boots began to stomp around the house. Officers opened doors to each of the bedrooms as they made their way closer to the siblings’ hiding spot, until somebody opened the closet–Wei Ying brought the knife up and waited, heart pounding in his throat, for them to pull the false panel aside–and then the door closed again.
“This side is clear!” Came the shout from the other side of the closet door. Jiang Cheng’s shoulders loosened and Wei Ying lowered the knife again.
“I doubt it,” a man’s voice muttered next to him. They stomped back to the living room, and there was some quiet discussion. Then the same man yelled at the rest of the house, “We know you’re here! Come out now, or your parents pay!”
“But we just–” somebody else began, but then they shut up.
A horrible chill crept up Wei Ying’s spine as he met his siblings’ stares. What had happened to their parents? Were they taken? Were they hurt?
“If your parents aren’t motivation enough, we also took one Jin Zixuan into custody this morning,” the original male voice continued. “Come out and there won’t be terrible consequences for insolence.”
Jiang Yanli gasped again and stepped back, leaning heavily against the wall as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng both turned to her, each latching onto her side and trying to silently comfort her. Wei Ying wondered what they should do–should they turn themselves in and risk harm to themselves? Or should they continue to hide and risk potential harm to their parents, if they weren’t hurt already?
“Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli!” the voice said again. “Come out now or you’ll be found in violation of Qishan law and we will arrest you!”
Wei Ying froze. His siblings looked at him with shock at the lack of his name being part of the search. Were they not looking for him, too? Perhaps it was because he was adopted, or their records weren’t updated?
“A-Ying,” Yanli whispered, her hand pressing against his cheek. “You should go.”
Wei Ying vehemently shook his head. “I can’t! I won’t leave you!”
Jiang Cheng gripped his arm tighter. “I can take him to the shore,” he told Yanli. “We’ll go to our secret hideout and he can swim to the mainland from there.”
“Swim?” Wei Ying repeated, aghast. “I won’t leave you two! And I can’t swim across the channel, it’s too cold!”
Yanli cupped his cheek and smiled through her tears. In the distance, the boots were still thudding around the house, the sounds of crashing furniture an echo in their wake. “You have to go, a-Ying,” she pleaded. “You have to be safe. We don’t know what they want. If you can make it out, then I’ll march in there with my head held high.” To Jiang Cheng, she said, “Let’s sneak out the lower entrance and I’ll double back. Perhaps they’ll believe I was in the courtyard and that you were on a walk.”
Wei Ying felt his stomach twist and turn, empty nausea flooding his being as he tried to find the words to convince his brother and sister to let him stay, to let him protect them. His mouth fell open and no words came out except for a breathy cry. Yanli had him bundled in her arms in an instant, her shorter stature a balm to his terrified heart. Jiang Cheng enveloped the both of them in his arms, and for a single moment, they held on as tight as they could – the closest three siblings in the world, as Yanli had once insisted.
“There’s no time to take anything,” Yanli said as they parted again. “Here, take my cash. It isn’t much, but hopefully it will help.”
Wei Ying didn’t have the heart to point out that any cash he had on him was likely to become destroyed if he was swimming across the canal. Jiang Cheng pulled out his wallet and stuffed bills into his hand, too, gruff, silent.
As one, they turned to the lower entrance that led to the old servant tunnels, and then they carefully opened the heavy door there. Stairs led down into a pitch-black hallway, and they shook their phone flashlights on to illuminate the cobweb-covered space. The hallway would be single-file, and they fell in line accordingly, Wei Ying sandwiched between his siblings.
With the door quietly shut behind them, they began trekking through the hallway, took a left at the fork, and reached their destination with little to no fanfare. The right fork would have circled back to the kitchens, but the left fork came out at a storm grate in the ground in a little part of the courtyard that was surrounded by trees. From there was the old servants’ entrance to the grounds, a rusty gate that had been welded shut years prior.
Wei Ying climbed up the ladder after his sister, reaching behind him to help Jiang Cheng up. They replaced the grate as quietly as they could, knowing there were officers everywhere, and then it was time.
“Please,” Wei Ying begged as his sister clutched his hands. “Please let me stay and help.”
Yanli shook her head sadly and smiled with watery eyes. “A-Ying, the best thing you can do to help is to be safe,” she told him. “Let us take care of things here, and you get to safety and figure out what’s going on.”
“Maybe this’ll all blow over in a few days and you can come back,” Jiang Cheng added, but doubt crept into his voice and hung in the air like a heavy blanket.
Around their heads, birds chirped in the trees and the distant call of seagulls shrieked against the air. Wei Ying turned to look through the trees at the main house, which didn’t show any sign of the soldiers inside. Between the siblings and the house lay the beautiful pond his adoptive father had put in before he’d arrived, the lotus within was past blooming and dying back for the winter season. Wei Ying had once thought of making a wine from the lotus plants. He wondered if he’d ever get the chance to do that.
“Stay between the hedge and the wall,” Jiang Yanli was telling Jiang Cheng. “Take him there quickly and then come back. I’ll be okay.”
Jiang Cheng hugged his sister and turned his face away, not quick enough for them to not see a tear falling down his cheek. Yanli turned to Wei Ying and gathered him in her arms again, squeezing tightly. Wei Ying savored the feeling as best as he could, trying to still his shaking limbs and commit every part of his sister to memory. He didn’t bother to hide the tears falling down his own face.
With one more desperate squeeze of his hands, Yanli ushered them over to the hedge and Jiang Cheng led the way out of the courtyard. They glanced one more time to see her waving and smiling. Then they turned the corner and the hedge blocked their view. Wei Ying’s breath hitched. His entire body felt cold and fearful. Jiang Cheng grabbed his wrist and pulled him along until he could catch up with his feet and follow on his own.
The space between the hedge and the wall was very small, and at times they had to squeeze by on their sides, backs pressed against the wall and fronts avoiding the worst of the branches. Wei Ying ended up with a couple shallow cuts on his arms and his hoodie snagged a few times, but for the most part he was okay. Physically, at least.
The wall that bordered their property ended before an old forest. They hopped over the lowest point of the wall so they could leave the property behind. The forest was quiet and foreboding as they followed a path only known to their younger selves, and Wei Ying’s heartbeat ticked up higher. What if officers were waiting in the woods? What if they knew of Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying’s secret hideout?
“Come on,” Jiang Cheng urged him, and they stepped around the spindly pines and crunched over the undergrowth and decaying leaves. There was no direct path down to the secret hideout, which was why it had been such a fun destination for the brothers when they were young. Exactly how secret it was wasn’t known, but they’d never shared the location with anybody else except one childhood friend who came over a few times when his older brother had business to do with their parents. Wei Ying hadn’t seen Nie Huaisang in a decade, and he wondered if Nie Huaisang and his brother had made it through the ordeal today. Jiang Cheng had mentioned the Qinghe district…
The ‘secret hideout’ was a sea cave set into the cliffs on the edge of the water. The cave was set back far enough during low tide for trees to grow between it and the shore, but at high tide the trees flooded and the cave took on water. When they were kids, they would come and visit during low tide and wade in the shallow pools of salt water left after the water receded. Sometimes Wei Ying would take fish that got caught in the pools and carefully bring them back to the sea.
The tide was halfway to high now, but the water wasn’t reaching the cave yet. Jiang Cheng hopped onto the big rock that stayed above the water at the peak of high tide and held his hand out to Wei Ying to join him. Wei Ying clambered on top of the rock and together they entered the cave.
All around him were the ghosts of his childhood. A high ledge was full of kids’ toys they’d left down here years ago. The back of the cave had a raised ledge where a ratty old blanket and an old lantern stood. Wei Ying wondered if the batteries would even work in the lantern after a decade of exposure to the abrasive salt water. Whispers of childhood giggles and indignant sibling bickering seemed to seep from the very walls of the cave. These were happy memories, warmth and companionship and familial love.
The cave was cold now, and it was dark despite the partly cloudy day. Jiang Cheng stopped in the middle of the room, in front of one of the pools of seawater where no fish had been trapped today. Wei Ying stared at him, and he stared back, and Wei Ying felt his breath hitch as he knew it was time to say goodbye.
“This will blow over soon, right?” Jiang Cheng asked, voice small despite the sheer amount of emotion in his face.
Wei Ying immediately felt the need to be the older brother wash over him, and he moved forward for a hug. “I don’t know, but I sure hope so,” he answered. “No matter what, you gotta take care of Yanli, okay?”
“Of course I will!” Jiang Cheng snapped, but there was no heat in his tone. “And you – you need to look after yourself too.”
Wei Ying leaned back and pulled a smile from thin air, well-aware it probably looked similar to the sad one Jiang Yanli had left them with. “I’ll look after myself as long as you do too, do you hear?”
They hugged again, the soundtrack to their parting crashing waves inching ever closer and the echo of wind hollowly blowing into the sea cave. Wei Ying wasn’t sure who was trembling more, him or Jiang Cheng. Eventually, they pulled away and Jiang Cheng wiped his eyes.
“I have to go back,” he said. “I can’t leave Yanli alone with them.”
Wei Ying knew, and he stepped back and forced a grin. “Go,” he told him. “I’ll be okay. I’m going to stay here and then make it across the channel after dark. Be safe?”
“Of course.” Jiang Cheng slugged his shoulder half-heartedly, wiped his eyes again, and drew himself up to his full height. “If this goes on long enough, I’m going to make sure to check this cave once a week, okay? If the cell service stays down, leave something here for me.”
It was a good idea, even if the idea of things taking weeks to sort themselves out was terrifying. “I can work with that,” Wei Ying promised. “Go before it’s too late!”
Jiang Cheng glanced once more over his shoulder as he stepped back onto the rock, eyes shining with fear and determination. Then he hopped off the rock and was gone. Wei Ying was alone.
The first hour was the hardest. Wei Ying burrowed himself into the back of the cave on the ledge, underneath the ratty old blanket. The sea continued to seep closer until the waves were pushing into the cave, and he watched around his knees as the room began to fill with churning water. His ledge was high enough, but the sound of the sea crashing against the walls of the cave was deafening and set him on edge. He gripped his phone with one hand, having taken to watching the time and the mysteriously absent cell service. No calls or texts came through, no social media notifications popped up, and the time ticked too slowly for him to continually watch. It felt like ages had passed since he’d been left alone.
He remembered being cold and alone and afraid when he was a kid, in the years before he’d been found and taken in by his birth parents’ friends. He had been by himself for such a long time, and the days bled together and the nights provided little relief. He’d found a few restaurants who would share scraps with him, and once he even ended up at an overcrowded orphanage with too many bodies and not enough beds, so he left there after managing a couple of warm meals.
He remembered when Jiang Fengmian found him on the streets, waiting outside a restaurant in the early hours of morning while the fresh fish was being delivered. He smelled like fish and woodsmoke, and he had a kind smile and kind eyes. He had held out his hand, called Wei Ying by his name, and taken him home to his family. The adjustment period with the family, especially Jiang Cheng and his adoptive mother, was rough, but the food was warm and plentiful, and his new family grew inside the space in his heart until he was full of love and care once more.
Wei Ying wondered what had happened to his adoptive parents. Were they still alive? Would Jiang Cheng and Yanli be okay? There were so many what if’s to this quick-thinking plan that he had half a mind to leave his hiding spot and find them himself. Perhaps he could find out they were okay and come back.
No, that’s a bad idea, he thought sadly to himself as he pulled the ratty old blanket closer. There were more holes than blanket, and it didn’t keep out the deep November chill. He had to get to safety, since it was what his siblings expected of him. If he could get to safety, he could come back and help them. He could get the police across the channel to help!
He waited in the cave as the water came in and then began to recede again. The sun slowly marched across the sky as he huddled under the blanket, ears perked for any sign of life outside his hiding space. Aside from the distant waves and seagulls, the world outside stayed silent.
As afternoon arrived and trudged towards evening, Wei Ying got to his feet and began to pace. He needed to figure out how to get across the channel without being caught. He also somehow needed to get his phone and the cash from his siblings across without being ruined by the seawater. The latter was going to be difficult, especially if he was trying to avoid being seen while swimming, because swimming underwater would be the easiest way to do it…
He was going to be swimming after dark though, which meant he could keep his head above water the entire time. With that thought in mind, he took his hoodie off and experimented tying it in a way that would keep it around his head. There wasn’t an exact science to work with, but his inventive spirit – the same one that had led to him being a third year in physics at university – was determined to figure out if there was a way to transform the article of clothing into a hat with a pocket.
The sky was darkening just as he finished with what he determined would be the best chance to keep his phone and cash above the water. The large hoodie pocket would rest against the back of his head, and the arms and bottom of the hoodie were knotted to keep steady around his head. Swimming in only a t-shirt and jeans was going to be miserably cold, and he’d likely end up sick from the excursion, but at least he could get across the channel now.
Wei Ying had never swam across the channel before. About halfway through, large, green buoys separated Qishan from the mainland, and as kids he and Jiang Cheng had been told to not cross them at any cost. Wei Ying didn’t know what was out there beyond the buoys, but the glittering lights of the city of Yiling were calling him now. His throat was parched and his stomach was knotted in anxiety and hunger. The kitchen knife he’d brought with him was secured as best as it could be in his sock, his boot holding the weapon in place.
He nervously checked the time on his phone one more time, wondering if he was crazy for trying this. He didn’t even have his own wallet, or any identifiers except for his phone. Would they kick him out when he arrived? The unknowns left him trembling all over again.
It’s time. He couldn’t stall anymore. He silently snuck out of the cave, wide eyes searching the forest around him for movement but seeing none. Then he pushed his way down the slope and to the water’s edge at the peak of low tide.
The distant glow of Yiling seemed to stretch so far on the other side of the gaping chasm that was the channel. He gulped, looking down at the dark water against his shoes. The swim would take him a few hours. He was a good swimmer, always had been, but this was daunting.
“Okay,” he whispered. “You got this, Wei Ying. Just step in the water and go.”
Heart pounding in his ears, he took the first step into the chilly water. His boot, not waterproof, instantly soaked through. Another step in and he was already chilled to the bone. He chanced a glance back towards the house, and his heart stuttered when he saw the distant glow of what looked like a fire. Smoke lighter than the blackness of the sky was rising steadily into the air. Something was burning.
His heart jolted and he stuttered a couple more steps forward. Water sloshed around his ankles now, and waves pushed up to his knees. The water was frigid.
It was now or never. He waded out until he was chest deep, felt the constricting pinch of cold water as his bare arms dipped in, and then he began to swim.