Chapter Text
Da Qing glared at the Guardian Lantern. Bad Hallow! How dare it be missing its wick? It wasn't fair that the quest for four Hallows had now added on a fifth item - not even a sidequest or some bonus content, but necessary for completing the main quest. There wasn't anywhere to leave a bad review, either! And Ma Gui, who'd been mostly responsible for the design, was long dead.
Things had been going so well before that - they'd had a real streak of good luck today. First they'd arrived at the SID just in time to help Lao-Li fend off some Crow attackers; then Lin Jing had called Lao-Zhao to say he'd just narrowly escaped being captured by Ya Qing, but had planted a bug on her, so they should expect new intel soon. And then Lao-Zhao had had a brainwave, and they'd found the Guardian Lantern in an old box, right here at the SID.
Apparently good things came in threes - and the fourth thing to come was bad. Like the fourth Hallow, lacking its wick.
"It's possible," said Shen Wei, "that the wick is still in Dixing."
Da Qing mostly tuned out while Lao-Zhao and Lao-Shen squabbled over who got to go to Dixing and who didn't. (Lao-Shen was winning because apparently he couldn't safely bring anyone.) He drummed his fingers against the edge of the table. Something was niggling at the back of his brain, like a fish on a hook.
Mmm, fish ... water ...
Right. That was it! Except -
"Wait," he said out loud, interrupting Lao-Zhao's planning. "Wait, wait, wait, give me a moment."
Lao-Zhao turned to him. "What?"
"I'm trying to remember something."
Lao-Zhao leaned forward, resting an elbow on a knee. "I thought you got all your memories back."
"Yeah, yeah." Da Qing waved a hand in the air, dismissively. "Not remember like 'I don't know my past', remember like 'where did I put my keys'. Except not my keys."
Zhu Hong huffed, Lao-Chu snorted, and Lao-Zhao said, "Damned cat, what are you talking about? Start making sense."
"Right. I just need to remember where I put it. I got it back in the day - it must have been, what, a thousand years or so after the war?" He scratched at the back of his head. How to explain? "Oh! You know part of the story, of course. The Dragon of the City, except back then there wasn't a city yet, just a Flower Tribe settlement. Humans came later, the city came later, but the story got around, and they named it after him."
The Flowers had spread the story; Da Qing had heard it told many times. No wonder they had a reputation for knowing everything. Other people heard things on the grapevine; they liked being the grapevine!
"Right. You knew a Dragon Yashou. Sure you did." Lao-Zhao scowled and kicked out at him, right across Lao-Shen's lap. Da Qing leaned away, grinning, and Lao-Shen patted Lao-Zhao's calf.
"He wasn't Yashou. Some other thing," Da Qing corrected. Everyone knew there weren't Dragon Yashou. There hadn't been dragons - or dinosaurs for that matter - when the ancestors of the Yashou had arrived in their spaceship, so how could there be? "I never saw him again, so who knows. But ask Ying Chun if you don't believe me, he should be in the Flower Tribe's histories."
"Their histories," Lao-Zhao said snidely, "say they were neutral in the ancient war. Some people will write down anything. What does this nonsense have to do with us?"
"Bah," said Da Qing, "you have no room to talk! Your human history doesn't even officially include the ancient war. Anyway, I just remembered where I put it. Give me a moment!"
It was a day for boxes, apparently. After meeting Da Ji again and recovering his memories, Da Qing had retrieved some old stuff from before - left with a Flower Tribe friend for safekeeping - and dumped the box with Lao-Li.
The bottle must be in there if it was anywhere.