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[detective_xiaobao]

[They are friends now. The probability of being poisoned has decreased by at least half. Which puts it at just shy of a normal day, probably. The Jianghu being what it is.]

Experience, I think. His world seems very [simple? straight forward?] set on its course. The pieces that move about do so predictably--or the role that he plays is clear enough that ally and enemy never blur. I don't think he's ever had cause to make peace with someone... and I'd like to hope that means he's never suffered betrayals, either.

[fragmentaryblue]

"You could humor me a little," she chides him, though she lacks the vibrancy for a proper ribbing. He likely knows a stalling tactic when he sees one--or perhaps his people were too mindful to try it, boring as she remembers them being. At least he indulges her in a sip of tea while she gathers her thoughts up like wildflowers in her hands, even as she lacks a vase to put them in.

"I would begin--traditionally--by laying the foundation of my story with Once Upon a Time. But time has not flown traditionally, and my tale could be both distant or recent by different measures. Instead, I will simply say, that this tale begins on a beach--with a daring young knight and his gentle lady. They find a likeness in each other, in their solitude and in their innocence. Their kingdoms will be at war one day, but that day has not yet dawned. Thus... he invites her home."

Her hand encircles around her cup, but she doesn't lift it to her lips. She only inspects the surface of the liquid with far more intention than she's given to his face. The words shake free a little easier, when she speaks them into a teacup, couched in a fairy-tale. "It is... a pleasant dwelling. Their needs are attended to--food and shelter, and most importantly the company kept. He brushes her hair for her and makes a mess of it, though there's kindness in the trying. A third joins their number, wild-eyed and curious, too feral for knighthood but no less enchanting. I hear, as the story goes, that he prefers wolves to spiders."

[wife_material]

[At this point Di Feisheng would sever his own tendons to avoid speaking to anyone from any unions, if he thought it would actually work.]

What, are you not going to take it seriously yourself? You should. They really are dangerous, and unfair, and only a fool would expect differently of tigers.

[No way is Inigo that smart. Neither is Di Feisheng, obviously. They're in this pit full of good advice and tiger wisdom together, availing themselves of neither.]

You should tell Iris I kept up my end of the bargain.

[wife_material]

He can understand and identify stalling quite well, and his people were never boring, thanks in no small part to his skill at humoring, actually. As to being chided for the perceived lack, this is just bird chirps to him, habitual and unactionable; humoring her is a substantial part of their bargain and she knows it. Di Feisheng does so with only the ghost of an eyeroll for her talking of kingdoms and knights and dark-eyed attention for everything else. It is probably just as well that she's reciting her story mostly to her tea and not inspecting his reactions too closely.

The humoring phase is much shorter than the interest phase, anyway. There's clearly more to it than nonsense, where she is taking pains to tell him the too-mutable function of time in it all and the identifying details. The pieces are easy to put together, and he appreciates that; maybe Li Lianhua would only have needed a poem or some tree sap smeared on the door or something, but he's bedridden by his own informational breadcrumbs and not here to gauge Di Feisheng's trail following abilities at this time.

It's the significance that he's caught up on. What he wouldn't mind some help with understanding is why this is such an ordeal for her, why it has to be a story at all, if she isn't having fun. Being cagey is one thing at which so much of their social ecosystem excels, is just common sense and an eye to self preservation. But maybe the gemstones of the soul (he can feel the eyeroll trapped in the muscles of his face even more strongly, thinking this) are easier to come by than he originally imagined and of just as little application as the real sort. Face-changing and identity-obscuring abilities could give poisons a run for their money, after all. He takes a moment to digest and sit with this knowledge while he works out how to feel about it besides the busy-ness of rewriting a few mental records. There isn't any scrutiny for her until he's done so, which may as well have come with a 'ding' of completion to go with looking her way expectantly.

"You made more sense, as a child." So she lives in some kind of disguise. He can only assume she prefers it now, or the dissolution would be too costly somehow. Or she hasn't any especial faith in the solidity of this realm's boundaries, which is very fair; he can't say he would either, if his circumstances hadn't been so thoroughly changed by his own hand. "Are you afraid of being recognized? Captured?"

[doctor_uhh]

What's with the cute disdain? Isn't that what the panther's inevitable watchful presence is meant to be? A lecture on not allowing some random stupid illness to defeat him in the end, on finding a way to cure himself with force of will alone, on never simply accepting the gains and losses fate hands out? The man is remarkably patient on this, or perhaps just characteristically tenacious, but Li Lianhua remains a poor student. He may know the right things to want these days, but knowing is only half the battle. And Li Lianhua is still so tired of battles.

He's also tired of being a disappointment. There does not need to be recrimination in the eyes of a big cat for Li Lianhua to find plenty within himself. His smile curls bitterly, and there's a sharpness underpinning the usual barbed levity between them that is woefully misdirected.

"You must be pretty bored of this by now. Next time I'll find something to die of that's more convenient for you to fight, alright?"

[fragmentaryblue]

At some point in the silence after she speaks, Blue's eyes do lift to regard Di Feisheng with something like anticipation, waiting for judgment or at least comment, searching for a hint as to the content of his thoughts. When he does finally voice them, he graces her with such a trivial complaint that a smirk pulls unconsciously at her lips, a very mild humor that she hides behind a sip of her tea. Not relief quite yet, but a start; and her breath comes a fraction easier than it did a few moments ago.

The questions are expected, and true to his nature he jumps directly to the most strategic ones. The concern would be touching, if she thought it was meant that way, and meant for her. But she doubts it.

"Aren't we captured already?" What is this place but a prison? But she knows he doesn't mean that, and she doesn't want to waste his time (at this moment).

She all but shrugs her next words from her shoulders, less of a burden than the ones she offered before. "I'm not worried. There are those who would like to kill me if they found me here, but I'll deal with them if they come."

[flatteries]

[ Can't believe Di Feisheng would say all these things about tigers, implying Inigo should stay away from them, and then immediately tells him to go talk to Blue. Cruel. Dangling a child above a tiger pit.

Though Inigo doesn't see the danger, of course. Despite the other's words. It's why he doesn't push back against the other's suggestion at all, instead quickly sending back: ]

I will.

[ And then, added-- ]

I'll negotiate a reward for you from her.

[un: nolastname.siffrin | early may]

[tothebetterend]

[An image is sent one afternoon, with a message to follow it up shortly after.]

Isabeau is here!!!

[One less thing to burden Di Feisheng with One less person to keep track of!]

text; un: lovecraft

[la_meme_chosen]

[Unannounced, unprompted, unsigned other than her screen handle:]

Hello! How are you doing? Are you enjoying the competitions?

text, un | a.fei

[wife_material]

[NOT WHAT HE'S FOR. The competitions he can take or leave. How he's doing is classified.]

Who wants to know?

[la_meme_chosen]

[Who SAYS. Just answer the question!!]

Oh! Sorry! This is Mirabelle. Siffrin gave me your name on this... I hope that's okay?

un: a.fei

[wife_material]

[Ah yes. Ding ding ding. Nice of Siffrin to check him off the list. Hopefully this one is less...fraught. Surely he is, if he lacquers his own nails by hand.]

Good. I didn't lie, but I wasn't sure, either.

[He would hate to deal in false hopes, at least when it's someone else.]

[tothebetterend]

[If Siffrin was a little better at remembering things, he might have context behind Di Feisheng's message, but instead he sits there staring at it for a good while, desperately searching his brain. Didn't lie about what? Should they have thought they were lied to?? But they both agree this is good news...

What if...they just try to play it cool. This could work.]

It's pretty crowded in the house with three of us now, but we're used to it. It's too bad we're all on different teams. That makes things kinda complicated.

[wife_material]

Don't apologize.

[It's not against the law to text Di Feisheng, who is almost as good at ignoring messages as Li Lianhua. Weird to have people asking after him out of the blue, but not illegal.]

The competitions are only inconvenient, not fatal. Either is possible, here. What color did you get?

[wife_material]

[Sure, it could work. In this medium. Though it hadn't not worked before, precisely. If anything, not playing it cool had gained Siffrin a weird but powerful ally. This strategy could play out worse but surely won't.]

All different teams here, too. I think complication is the point.

['Too bad,' he says. Either they are gifted with an ability to understate suffering or...no, it's probably that one.]

Or just division. If that's it, your people are doing better than mine. They scattered like cowards.

[wife_material]

Maybe Li Lianhua wasn't so wrong to be putting words in a panther's jaws after all; the unlooked-for bitterness leaves Di Feisheng frustrated by the limitations on what he can convey, and the self-imposed stricture on talking like this isn't even mostly to blame. What backs up his throat isn't a martial lecture but simply the acrid familiarity of fear. Of being made to be afraid. An exhausting vigil, an almost superstitious dread not just of loss but the reminder of powerlessness. If it were any kind of secret, he'd be dying of the unutterability too.

He's here for commiseration. And general worry, and warding off untimely ends through some kind of apotropaic quality, but the commiseration is a big one and it's as compelling as its lack is vexing. Calling it boring just makes him bunch himself up to spring, either away or to wipe the poisoned smile off Li Lianhua's dear face. In lieu of either argument, escape, or unseemly violence against an invalid he turns the kinetic energy to a very purposeful prowl, tucking his ears and whiskers and ramming the bed with his shoulder. Somewhere between a demanding housecat and a shark looking to sink a raft. TRY AGAIN.

[wife_material]

It isn't concern, but it isn't not concern. Certainly if she had confessed to a true fear of being hunted down in her new identity and strange land (hardly the prison she implied), he would be the first (and undoubtedly best, in his mind) to offer strategic insights. It isn't concern, because she has seemed unconcerned, and she knows her own business best, but there had been something in it anyway; the dawning light of more awful empathy, obscured by the brightness of curiosity. It would have been a very understandable reason for what she's apparently been doing all this time.

But beyond that, he can't say he understands, if that's what she's looking at him for. Why such a thing weighs on her, if she isn't too on edge about the potential of being captured. Why it's a secret that could threaten her life. He hasn't registered any strain to her breathing, but the sense of being lightened he can read just fine, and that's good, though his noting of it isn't at the forefront.

She doesn't want to waste her time or his, but she's still digging at the hidden parts of something like a stone in wet sand, and whether despite his nature or due to it he is drawn back into the 'story,' tea cooling and forgotten.

"I'm sure you will." He won't even gloat for having been right to suspect her of not being what she claims, instead tipping his head like he's conceding a match rather than taking one. The graciousness isn't even performative. "But then, why? Or am I here to ask how?"

text; un: melancholic.gentleman (sometimes after the Departure but not nearly soon enough)

[detective_xiaobao]

Hey, how's the house? Are you remembering to water the vegetables when the weather is dry?

[wife_material]

House is fine. Doesn't even smell like dog anymore. Maybe you shouldn't come back.

Don't talk to me about vegetables.

[detective_xiaobao]

Isn't that too mean to Huli Jing?

[Wonder who that's for. Not him!]

Are you still mad that I've left the chores to you? You should know it's for the best.

[tothebetterend]

[Hmmm??? Well, he can't say he knows these people well, but still...]

Really? Fang Duobing didn't seem like the cowardly type.
Maybe...he's trying to spare you?
We all eat on our own in the city because our kitchen might explode if we tried to eat together there.