September came, and the days breezed slowly by.

On the twelfth, which was a special day, Jinyue found himself running through the Rizhai outskirts at dawn. The streets were muddy from a shower the night before, and he did not have time to navigate puddles. Thick brown stained the lower quarter of his white robes, splattering the rooftop shingles when he hopped on for the elevation. Down below, his target sprinted in wild lunges and intoxicated gasps.

The man had been charged with assault and destruction of property. This was not why Jinyue had spent the early hours of morning hunting him down, however. More concerning than the man’s disturbed trashing of the shopkeeper’s wares and customers was the substance he had been accused of consuming—and selling.

Jinyue saw it clearly when he jumped off the rooftop, cornering the man in a dead end alley. The man flailed backward, gasping like a pained wildhog, his veined eyes dilated to black.

“No!” he screamed, voice hoarse. “I didn’t piss in it! I didn’t piss!”

Jinyue frowned. “What?”

“The soup is yellow! The soup is sour and yellow!”

The man was delusional. Sighing, Jinyue unhinged the leather handcuffs on his belt. As he stepped forward, the man yelped and fell to the wet ground, curling with his hands over his head. His shouts became incoherent mutters, a string of words about food and urine, and even more incomprehensibly, blue moss.

“It’s not moss, is it? What do they call it? Heavensbane?” Jinyue knelt by the man. The man scampered away, but the wall was close behind him. Jinyue said, as kindly as he could manage, “The soup is sour and yellow. You will hurt yourself if you keep running. Give me your hands and let me help you.”

The man whimpered. His eyes narrowed at Jinyue, tremors twitching the lids. Those swollen pupils scanned Jinyue’s clothes.

“Crane,” said the man at last. “Crane. Crane.”

“Yes,” said Jinyue.

Slowly, the man held his hands forward. Jinyue smiled so as to not alarm him, and then cuffed his wrists. Only after the cuffs had locked did the man seem to realize what had happened. He stared at his bound hands, and then screamed again.

“Up you come,” said Jinyue. “We’ll have our doctor take a look at you.”

“No! No! I didn’t piss!”

Jinyue held the man by his shoulder and his cuffs. All his intoxicated struggling did nothing against Jinyue, who moved him forward through the town. A pair of women walking down the streets with wheelbarrows of market produce slowed to stare. Jinyue nodded at their alarmed expressions while his captive continued to scream nonsense. One of the women lifted her sleeve over her mouth and giggled, though there was little amusing to Jinyue about the state of the poor fellow.

He intended to walk the man back to the estate, since Jinyue had come to Rizhai by foot this morning. But passing through the town center, he was stopped by a small hoard of footsteps.

Three men and a woman intercepted his path, each wearing the blue uniform of the Provincial Council’s enforcers. The woman, who appeared to be heading the group, clasped her hands and bowed in front of Jinyue.

“Master Guan. Thank you for your trouble. We’ll take the criminal off your hands now.”

The ‘criminal’ shrieked even louder. “I didn’t want the moss! They put it in my food!”

“He’s coming back to the Guan estate with me,” said Jinyue.

“I must insist,” said the enforcer. “That man has been charged with the possession and distribution of an outside poison.”

Heavensbane, this so-called blue moss—the drug intoxicating him to madness right now. It had appeared in Guilin once before, and under the examination of their shamans, it was confirmed to be a chemical substance produced under the advanced engineering of the states beyond Guilin. For all the temporary ecstasy the drug allowed, their people didn’t have the constitution to endure its dangerous side-effects. To sell it within Guilin was a crime indeed.

Still, Jinyue pursed his lips. “I will bring him back to the estate for treatment.”

“Our doctors are sufficient for that, Master Guan. We will take care of him.”

Jinyue narrowed his eyes.

“Quite responsible today, aren’t you? I did not see the Council interfering when one of our women was raped last month.”

“I’ve heard of no such thing.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

Such was the self-important nature of the Council’s enforcers. They managed the people of Guilin and little else. Like any political entity, the Provincial Council that governed Guilin could not exist without an executive arm. House Guan was not their lapdog, and so the Council had created their own band of quasi-police to enforce their laws. It was a coexistence delineated by unspoken agreements: the Council and their enforcers, respecting the strength and guardianship of House Guan, would not retrospectively challenge any dealings of House Guan; and House Guan, sworn to protect Guilin—including the integrity of its governance—would not interfere with legal matters already claimed by the Council.

Jinyue wished he could pretend he didn’t know where this particular matter fell. The matter of substance abuse was carefully written into the Council code. And since House Guan hadn’t already executed the man—not that they would have—he fell under Council jurisdiction.

Reluctantly, Jinyue released the man. The man scrambled to run. He was caught by two enforcers.

“What will the Council do?”

The lead enforcer inclined her head again. “Don’t worry yourself over it, Master Guan.” She straightened with a polite smile. “Please, enjoy the celebrations tonight. You have our regards.”

With that, the enforcers led the screaming man away. By then his voice was torn and weak. Jinyue watched them fade down the street, a dark cloud swarming his chest.

“Master Guan, Master Guan!”

He turned. A young boy carrying a basket of fresh autumn corn waved at him.

“Master Guan! Do you like sweet bean or lotus seed? My mama’s makin’ baozi for you tonight!”

“Oh?” said Jinyue.

“Yeah!” said the boy. “She says Lady Jie made the best baozi! Though you might miss ‘em, so…” The boy grinned widely. “So sweet bean? Or lotus seed? Or both?”

Jinyue smiled, his discomfort forgotten.

“I’d love some lotus seed baozi.”

“We’ll make lots!” said the boy. “You’d better save room!”

Jinyue laughed. With a thank you for the boy, whose name he didn’t know, he began his walk back to the Guan estate.

----------------------------------------

It happened at the abandoned shrine inside the valley forest.

Nine years old and naive, Wenzhan had lingered too long in the shadows. He was searching for a white fox that day, because the school children had fooled him into thinking an immortal godling lived in such a form, haunting the valley forest. By chance, he’d chased down a white creature to the lost shrine. And because it was a shrine—though old, centuries old, chipped, and covered in living greens—he fancied it must be fate. The immortal fox had brought him to the shrine to pray.

Ironic, in retrospect.

He wasn’t supposed to be there that day. He was supposed to be at the Guan estate, studying. Playing in the woods was a delinquent offense, so when Wenzhan heard the approaching footsteps, he hid behind the trees. The wiser course have been to leave the area entirely, yet he was not ready to give up on meeting his white fox. Then he recognized the voices, and immortal godlings did not matter so much.

Hard to pin at first. The first voice was strewn by breath and laughter, nothing in the way of its usual elegant composure. Light footsteps ran to a stop within the shrine. The laughing gave way to words, a smile curling the syllables.

“Not coming?”

The second set of footsteps had stopped chasing.

“It’s a shrine,” said the second voice, windblown and deep. Distinct. Wenzhan straightened and fought the urge to peer at the owner.

A light laugh, Anjie’s. “Enjoy your superstitions, then. I will be in here.”

There was a pause. Meanwhile, Wenzhan frowned behind the trees. He was of the same mind as Ziyuan—there was something unlikeable about that man, the one with Anjie, something disturbingly paradoxical about his strange softness and sharpness. Back then, Wenzhan was not so viscerally jealous. He was merely irritated to see his brother playing games with him.

And it was a game, a ridiculous sort. The autumn leaves suddenly rustled. Those footsteps struck old stone. Anjie laughed again—and was cut off sharply with a quick breath and other sounds. Wenzhan made a face, innocent enough to be vaguely horrified at the concept of kissing. It went on for quite a time too, dissolving from something passioned to something gentle.

At last, between the breaths, Anjie’s soft, unhinged words drifted over. Wenzhan would not have caught the intimate murmur if he did not have his sharpened hearing.

“You’ll be cursed for this, Jun Musheng.”

Another kiss.

“I don’t care,” said Musheng, in a voice that Wenzhan had never heard before.

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“Says the man who dares not point at the moon.”

“I don’t care,” said Musheng again. “I’ll take any curse for you.”

Anjie laughed yet again. His lungs had seemed to be filled with the ease of it that day. “Brave words. But the old shrine gods can be quite cruel, don’t you know?” Faintly softer, “They can lock you in a cage and bind you to a blade. Are you sure you can endure such a curse?”

A pause.

“I would rather free you from it,” said Musheng. “But if that’s not possible, then yes. I’ll share it with you.”

Quiet. The forest trees hushed with a breeze.

“I’m not sure I want that,” Anjie eventually murmured. His voice sounded muffled, vulnerable and protected at once.

“I do,” said Musheng. “Let the shrine gods hear my words, Guan Anjie. I want you.”

Their conversation melted away afterward. Wenzhan, entranced, felt his nerves crawl beneath his skin as the sounds echoed in his ears. It would be years before those feelings of confusion, revulsion, and innocent fascination morphed into something else. And then the raw, ruined mess of Anjie’s voice would haunt his dreams like the horrific shrine curses he had warned his lover of, always whispering that same name.

Musheng.

Musheng.

Musheng.

“Wenzhan. Oh, Wenzhan—Wen—fuck, fuck—I’m—”

Nails dug into his skin, a shuddered groan. He finished and collapsed onto the bed, rolling to the edge. As always, the shame came after the high of his fantasies. Frustration drummed his pulse, built in his throat. He shut his eyes and ignored the gasps heaving behind him.

There is nothing wrong with you.

How laughable. There could be little more wrong in the world than dreaming of his name on his brother’s lips while he came inside a woman.

Fingers traced his back. Wenzhan didn’t move, letting that gentle hand stain with his sweat and intangible grime.

“You alright?” said Suzha.

Wenzhan grunted.

“Well, aren’t you pleasant? Not even a thank you? I let you go at it pretty hard, too.” As if to prove her point, Suzha hissed as she shifted upright. “Don’t remember the last time you were so rough.”

He glanced over his shoulder. Despite the pained noise, Suzha was smiling down at him. In the orange evening sunlight, her skin shimmered, a mixture of afterglow and moisture. Her eyes were faintly hazed, her lips swollen. A beautiful sight, yet only barely enough to nudge away Wenzhan’s uglier thoughts.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

Suzha laughed. “There we go. Our boy still has his manners.” She pat his ass and then sauntered off to the washroom of her tiny apartment complex. When she returned with fresh robes and damp hair, she said, “So I’ve been hearing about a thing tonight at your place. Care to catch me up?”

Wenzhan opened his eyes, which had drifted closed during her shower. “The Remembrance. It’s the annual thanksgiving.”

“Keep talking.”

He sighed and sat up. Suzha had come to Guilin several months after last year’s Remembrance, so she was asking for the whole exposition. Too lazy to give it in detail, Wenzhan merely said, “It’s to thank House Guan for defending Guilin against the last invasion.”

“Oh, I’ve heard about that. Yulai put on a two year siege, didn’t they?”

“One year. And it wasn’t a siege.”

“How old were you then?”

“Ten.”

Suzha crawled onto the bed again, eyes lighting up with curiosity. “Yeah? What happened?”

He scratched his head in annoyance.

“People fought. People died. They kept me out of it. So I guess, if you want my perspective, it was a lot of sitting around waiting for the damned killing to stop.”

“I heard Yulai got swallowed up by Xijia and Beiguo afterward. Too crippled from the battles here to defend themselves.”

“I guess.”

“But House Guan’s just, what, a hundred people? Less? Yulai was a whole kingdom.”

Wenzhan grunted again, tugging his clothes over and beginning to dress.

“So, it’s an open invitation?”

“Huh?”

“To the thanksgiving thing. Can I come?”

He paused, uncertain if he wanted his family meeting Suzha. She was neither a girlfriend nor a simple friend—a keeper, perhaps, for his rawer self. She did not know his secrets, but she knew the unadulterated consequences of having them, the urges that drove him to drink and fight and fuck and drown himself in his self-destructive indulgence. He preferred their relationship private.

Suzha tugged lightly at his ear. “What? Ashamed of me?”

He shrugged her off and stood. “Come if you want.”

By nightfall, the town was adorned with fresh red and white lanterns in honor of the guardian house. Guilinhe village was even more vivid, paper cranes twined from light pole to light pole. Come morning, the lanterns would be hidden and the cranes would be burnt. They were meant to sit vigil for only one night, a restriction set by the old First Lords of House Guan so that thanksgiving was merely thanksgiving, and remembrance remained remembrance. There had been many past Remembrance days for all the times House Guan had protected Guilin in its three hundred and sixty year history. Each Remembrance day had been overridden by the next, so that House Guan was only celebrated like this once a year.

A precaution like the sterility of their unchosen descendants, like the intentional crippling of their shamans: The Guardian House must never be glorified beyond these singular days of celebration, lest one day, their pride led them to forget their purpose. With power like theirs, such a thing would become a nightmare.

Already, the people of Guilin flooded the fields and gardens beyond the Guan estate. It was a night to express gratitude, so they came bearing gifts and flags, children sitting atop shoulders with woven cranes in their hands. Stalls had been set up with food and goods, things to sustain the growing crowd through the night. It was not an extravagantly planned affair, but a simple gesture—so that when the guardians of Guilin looked outside their estate windows tonight, they might see the love of the province keeping them company.

Wenzhan purchased a crane mask from a vendor on his way to the estate and wore it now, inconspicuous among the crowd. If anyone recognized his figure and shorn hair, they seemed respectful enough of his efforts to leave him alone. Beside him, Suzha handed over the coins for a bag of dried plums. Plopping one in her mouth, she asked, “So, what’s next?”

“Nothing,” he said. “They just come here to hang out.”

“How exciting.”

“We can leave.”

As he said it, a cheering rippled through the crowd. A row of villagers dressed in beautiful red-gemmed, white-silk robes were floating into the center of a quickly forming opening. “Make way, make way,” shouted a young boy at the head of the procession. “The cranes come to dance!” The cheers started again as the young boy, along with two girls, began to beat the drums hanging at their chests in practiced harmony.

Suzha tugged at Wenzhan’s sleeve and pointed toward the thick, low branch of a nearby tree.

“Let’s go over there.”

He followed her. They were sitting on the branch moments later, hidden by the canopy shadow and overlooking the estate exterior. Irritated by the holding string, Wenzhan peeled the crane mask off his face. Below, the performance flowed. It carried the rhythm of battle, yet with a romanticized beauty.

“It’s not bad,” said Suzha. “Want to try one?”

Wenzhan peered at her. She held out a dark plum. When he reached for it, she pressed the small, salted treat into his mouth.

“Say, Wenzhan, if there’s ever another invasion, would you have to fight too?”

“I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I guess I have to.”

Suzha made a noise and looked forward again. “That’s kind of fucked, isn’t it? Not saying you’d definitely die, but you really don’t get a say in whether you get to keep your life or not, do you?”

“People don’t get a say in a lot of things,” said Wenzhan.

“Have you ever thought about leaving?”

He frowned. “What?”

“Leaving. Getting the hell out of this place. You said it yourself, to Luxian. You never asked to be a Guan. Guilin’s beautiful and all, but there’s a whole ‘nother world out there. So, Wen-Gege…” She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “Let’s elope.”

Wenzhan pushed her away. She laughed loudly, scrambling for balance on the tree branch.

The dancing cranes on the ground were joined by masked, golden-cloaked men—the soldiers of Yulai. A riveting tension between their motions peaked and ebbed. In the end, the soldiers sprawled themselves gracefully on the ground, mimicking death. The cranes clustered around a single dancer, whose white robes were tossed aside with a flourish. Beneath it was a second robe, pure crimson. The crowd roared.

“What’s that supposed to be?” said Suzha.

Wenzhan swallowed a lump in his throat.

“The Red Crane.”

“You don’t look like you’re about to join the cheering.”

A pause.

“That’s my brother,” he said quietly. The exaltation of the crowd was hard to bear because it was joyful, idolizing. Never witness to the tears on his brother’s face. The words pressed at his throat, a fierce protective instinct. He exhaled. “You said House Guan is only a hundred people, and Yulai was a kingdom. Yeah, it was a kingdom. And we weren’t ready when they came the first time. We thought we were. But we had fucking snake with us. They wiped out half our house that first invasion. My parents. My uncles, cousins.”

“In the first invasion alone? Then how…”

“My brother survived,” said Wenzhan. He looked at the crimson garments on the dancer. They should be torn, gored, hideous. “They say that when the fighting was over, not a speck of white was left on his robes. They say it was like this the first time, and it was like this the last time. They say it was all the blood of his enemies, but—” Wenzhan barked a laugh, humorless. “When the war was finally over, you would have thought he’d carved all the blood out of his own heart instead.”

Suzha was silent.

Wenzhan shrugged.

“It’s a heroic story for masses. For me, it’s just a reminder of how useless I was when he needed us.”

The cheering faded. The dancers dissipated into the crowd.

Later, well into the night, the gates of the estate opened. The guardians emerged to greet the crowd, try their food, accept their gifts. It was not a procession, just intermittent and casual. Wenzhan spotted Jinyue, kneeling with a smile among a circle of youths, accepting a bag of steaming baozi.

“You should go join them,” said Suzha.

Wenzhan shook his head.

Before Suzha could press again, Anjie appeared with Ziyuan at his side. Those two drew a different ripple through the gathering, a warm hush, a respectful retreat, as if afraid to suffocate the two guardians with their intense admiration. Noticing, Suzha said, “That’s him? Your eldest brother?”

Wenzhan nodded.

“It’s my first time seeing him,” said Suzha. There was an odd tension to her voice.

Wenzhan turned to her, frowning. She met him quickly with a smile. Too quickly.

“He’s something else, I’ll give you that.”

He paused.

“Yeah.”

He turned back to Anjie. A villager was kneeling before him, offering fine red garments in her weathered hands. Anjie pulled her gently upright, taking the gift with a smile and some certainly gracious words. As he straightened, he brushed a loose strand of hair behind his ear. Aside from this small slip, nothing about his appearance was out of place. Nothing about his motions, about his expression. He was as polished as fine porcelain, displayed upon a pedestal to be admired.

Wenzhan’s thoughts drifted back to the forest shrine. Back then, when Anjie’s voice had broken, a young Wenzhan had mistaken the sounds as pain. Afraid for his brother, he had bolted out of the cover of the trees. He’d stumbled ferociously toward that shrine, only to find his brother’s arms wrapped around the man above him. Anjie had reacted quickly, shoving back Musheng and sitting upright.

“Ah-Zhan!” he said, as flustered as Wenzhan had ever—and ever would—see him. Yet even as his face flushed and he scrambled to cover his hips, his body curled closer to the man next to him. Musheng had instinctively shielded him at the intrusion, his dark hand sprawling over the crane on Anjie’s back. “What are you doing here?”

“He—he was hurting you!”

Musheng rubbed his brow, chuckling. “Ah, heavens…”

With a sharp frown, Anjie shoved at Musheng, which only roused more laughter. “This is not amusing. Ah-Zhan, you should be studying. Go on home.”

“But…”

Perhaps sensing Wenzhan’s lingering suspicion of Musheng, Anjie said, “He isn’t hurting me, Ah-Zhan. Look, he hasn’t even hit back. And he could not hurt me if he tried. Go on, please.”

Wenzhan had gone. Because indeed, who could hurt the untouchable Guan Anjie?

And who could humanize the perfect, deified First Guardian of Guilin?

No one, thought Wenzhan with an aching bitterness—no one so brutally, and so thoroughly, as the man he had left his brother to beneath the shrine of the fox god.

“Wenzhan? Wenzhan, he’s looking this way.”

Wenzhan blinked. The valley forest faded away. Indeed, his brother had spotted him in the tree, and was smiling. Wenzhan returned the gesture, his lips pulling weakly. Inside, his heart wrung. For all the softness of those copper eyes, all the warmth they held for the people of Guilin, that smile had been porcelain for a long decade.