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That night, the moon bled out and tinted Bai Choufei’s hair, stained it with an unbearable absence. What is he to do with this darkness?
When he’s not too dazed, he listens with half an ear to the white-clothed figure crouched in the straw-covered corner, scratches his fingers on the stone-cold wall, trashes his head against the metal bars. The nights are too long and too silent; a shadow suffuses the cell and everything in it, sombre and soothing on the surface; but inside, it’s a creature with a familiar voice, slowly stretching out into its old form.
Once, he had wanted to explain it to Wang Xiaoshi, that he didn’t want to be any more what he once had become to survive, and how he had learned to write and to paint, how he had indulged in poems and art and music, hoping that it would quiet the savage thing inside, that the avid clawing would ebb away.
In the end, he hadn’t said anything. It didn’t matter, because they had met in the midst of a betrayal and a raging of greed, but they had walked off together as friends, a bright day before them, the dazzling sun, the wide sea, and an oath at his parents’ grave, a blessing.
When Wen Rou had made fun of them, about how they could aspire to be heroes when they were only a monkey and a fox, he understood something. If he was a fox, Wang Xiaoshi would be the moon that nourishes and guides him, so he wouldn’t feed on human flesh.
And then, Wang Xiaoshi died. He died when Bai Choufei needs him most, when he is fighting desperately for his humanity, more than ever before.
There are these dirty bowls with raw meat and putrid water, but it’s not enough, never will it be enough. He had been willing to do anything to protect the gentle light inside him, but the light is gone now. The thing is rearing up instead, old and ugly and rotten and craving. What does it matter? To whom? He doesn’t need to keep it small now, he couldn’t, even if he wanted – the moon is gone, and the thing needs to be fed.
Maybe it will get him out of here, but not yet. They force another pill down his throat, the room is spinning, dissolving, and his mind comes off in scrapes.
He can’t fly. He never could. No, he isn’t the eagle in his painting. It is Su Mengzhen, it was him all along. Or rather, what Bai Choufei wanted to be when he wanted to be like Su Mengzhen. But, unlike the eagle that is condemned to persevere on the paper, frozen in its flight, da-ge cannot even leave his nest.
He is shaking with laughter at the thought. The master of the house is bound to the very building, he’s trapped, he’s dying, and yet! He’s even reeking of death already, and is still the most alive person in this world. His blood is poisoned, he’s decomposing, and yet! All others are hollow and blurred compared to him.
He should kill him. Kill him before he fades out, end him before the sickness does, swallow him, even if it destroys himself, wrench him open like a snake feeding on a too large prey. There is no time left. He has to-
Footsteps invade his fever as if small droplets of dew fall on him. He tries to get up, turns around, heaves himself up on his knees, coated in straw and shame and dirt and sweat. Prepared for anything but the look of pity on Zhu Xiaoyao when she pulls down her mask, he can’t get on his feet.
They’re here to save him. Save him! Is there even something worth saving left of him?
The cell door opens easily. They put a body inside, almost his height, dressed in his robes, and they help him put on the black clothes and the mask they brought for him. A man starts making a fire.
“Wait, we can’t just leave him here,” Bai Choufei whispers. The old man in his corner winks and starts laughing, he laughs and laughs like a madman, deafeningly loud. Does he want to wake the whole building? Why doesn’t anyone hush him?
Zhu Xiaoyao looks at him strangely, reaching out for his arm. “Vice housemaster,” she insists softly, “there is no one else in this cell but you.”
He feels something behind his face twisting, something dying, dousing like a candle.
The thing is useless now, but so is the “vice housemaster”. He’s only fever, from the nasty cold he had brought from prison, consuming his body, and the heart devouring pill, consuming his mind. Everything is blurry. Lei Mei stays by his side, and he lets her, for they both have gifts of the night – the moon’s silver beams linger in his hair, her eyes are black and wide and full of stars.
The sound of her voice whirs in his ears, and he thinks he can hear her pulse too, and smell her skin; the fever is like a bloodthirsty animal. Kill me, Bai Choufei murmurs in time with her heartbeat, kill me, kill me. He knows she has a knife up in her sleeve, pretty and small, in her robe which is carelessly draped on the floor. Or is it? Maybe this is a dream.
Sh, she whispers. With a tender hand, she removes a dewy strand of hair from his temples; she kisses little drops of sweat away, kisses his cheek, kisses the corner of his mouth. You need to sleep.
But isn’t he sleeping?
Sh, Lei Mei whispers, lower, sleep now.
He drifts somewhere else, somewhere quieter, curled around the empty space in his midst, holding it lightly.
Somehow, he keeps on functioning. He eats, bathes, walks around the house in the middle of the night like a ghost. He can’t leave here since he is officially dead, burned alive in his prison cell. The irony – now he and Su Mengzhen are both stuck here, both are only a poor outline of what they had used to be. Every evening, they drink a cup of wine together, but Bai Choufei doesn’t remember if they talk at all, except that he still calls him er-di, and it hurts.
Bai Choufei doesn’t trust his eyes either. Maybe he never woke up after that first pill; all is still a haze. Just like before, he’s mostly sitting in a corner and staring out of the window, seeing nothing, and the nights are still too long.
One evening, he suddenly wakes up from his state, startled by a violent cough. Su Mengzhen is shaking from spasms, he’s pressing a cloth to his mouth, but he can’ hide that he’s coughing out blood, and it’s a lot.
For the first time since he is back, Bai Choufei can really see him. He looks so worn out, weak, sunken, like a fire that is barely smouldering; it is heart wrenching.
“You should be in bed and rest if you’re not feeling good.” Why is he so different from how he remembered him, and since when? Not only is the moon gone, the sun is going down as well.
Smiling, as if seeing that Bai Choufei is a bit closer to normal, Su Mengzhen lays his hand on his shoulder. “What kind of life would that be if I couldn’t even have wine with my brother?”
Later, Bai Choufei helps him to his room; it’s going slow and tedious, and when they’re there, Su Mengzhen sinks heavily on the bed, exhausted.
“I miss him too, every day.” He sighs, and it sounds like the wind rattling at the door.
Does he deserve a miracle? When Yang Wuxie comes running, and tells him, no, screams at him: He is alive!, he doesn’t believe it. Too often, he sees Wang Xiaoshi die, hanging on a branch, falling down an abyss, too often, he sees him coming through the door and vanishing into thin air.
Does he want Wang Xiaoshi to come back, when he’s like this? The effects of the heart devouring pills are irreversible. He’s nothing but a burden.
Instead of looking out of the window, he stares at the door, cowering in the corner of his bed, feeling nauseous. The whole of Sunset Drizzle House is holding their breath. They sent Zhu Xiaoyao to greet Wang Xiaoshi at the capital’s borders, and likely also to tell him what had happened, because, when he arrives at home, he’s out of breath, churned up, his lips are trembling, his eyes are full of tears.
He’s standing in the door frame, just long enough for Bai Choufei to realize that it must be real him for the cold from his coat wafts into the room.
Bai Choufei tries to stand up, but his knees give in. If this is a dream, he hopes to never wake up.
Wang Xiaoshi rushes to him, grabbing his arms for support. His hands are cold as ice, but his eyes show his warm heart. “Da-Bai,” his voice is cracking like a dry leaf, “I’m here. I’m back.”