Evil and fucked up things are happening in the ch. 3 drafts. Sneak peek below! Heads up for explicit near-death of a child and wounds.
Despite all of his protests, anyone with functional eyes could see that Shen Shi was fading. Shen Jiu most of all. How could his brother stand to wake himself up every night coughing until he pukes and still go on the next day claiming it to be some minor bug? How could he not realize that with every stumble, every near-faint and retch, he was dying?
Shen Jiu knew his brother had never truly shaken off the illness that had nearly killed him all those years ago. It had been a passive spectre, flaring only on the coldest of winter days. But with every new day of torment and humiliation, he fades. With every private lesson, he weakens. With every late night moment where he pushes Shen Jiu's own failure of a body back into alignment, he makes his own worse. Shen Jiu is the reason his brother is dying.
He curses his own spiteful nature often. He should've let that horse run wild, damn the rest! He should've kicked up a fight when the money was trading hands. He should kill them both to spare them the indignity of this fucking hell pit even one second longer!
Sometimes...he eyes his brother's peaceful face at night. Flushed, and totally helpless. He eyes that too-thin neck. He could save his brother. He could make it quick. Wrapping his hands around Shen Shi's throat is all too easy. Even there, they slot together perfectly. Shen Jiu has felt his brother's breath push in and out, hitching on some unseen obstacle that makes the skin under his hands jump and quiver.
In the end, though, he has always redirected his hands until they are holding on to Shen Shi's own. He curses his cowardice, too.
It had been an elaborate dinner for several important merchant families. Qiu Jianluo had insisted they both be at his side to serve refreshments and be ogled in their complimentary, mirrored attire. Halfway through the party, Shen Shi had asked quietly to be excused, his hands already shaking and sweat pooling at his temples. Qiu Jianluo flatly refused.
As dessert was served, Shen Shi fainted.
To save face, Qiu Jianluo had made a big show of ordering his dear Shi-er to be taken to the medical house at once and for the local doctor to be called.
Of course, the "medical house" was the old wood shed. Not that the guests would know that.
Afterwards and in private, Shen Jiu had demanded his brother receive real treatment. Didn't he see that Shen Shi was on the brink of death? Didn't Qiu Jianluo care that his perfect matched set would be ruined?
Shen Jiu was strung up for a day and beaten until he couldn't walk for his impudence. Then he was dumped into the wood shed too.
"Look, Xiao Jiu! I've found a doctor for little Shi-er. If even you can't make him healthy, then I suppose I should start preparing for a funeral. Unless, of course, you get on your knees and beg me for medicine."
Even bloody and disoriented, Shen Jiu knew it was a trap. A tantalizing carrot on a string that would only lead to worse humiliation. So, he refused. The door had slammed in his face and then locked with a heavy clunk!
He'd done everything he could. He'd tried to focus and feel out his brother's energy, to do for his twin what Shen Shi always did so easily for Shen Jiu. All that he felt was clammy skin burning too hot in a freezing room. He'd switched to scrounging up straw and dirt to be blankets. Carefully brushing Shen Shi's hair from his face and soothing the furrow in his brow. Shen Jiu held his twin's hand and whispered prayer after prayer after prayer for his health.
Then Shen Shi stops breathing.
It's in snatches of seconds at a time. He comes back with a weak splutter but the gap of silence in between keeps growing. There is nothing left in this room that could help.
Shen Jiu plasters himself to the door. He scratches at the hinges and handle until pieces of his nails chip away, and then even more beyond that. He's desperate and he knows it. So much of his own body thrums in agony that he can ignore the brilliant flares of pain in his hands if it means getting help for his brother. The old wood should be soft with age but all he gets are splinters and bleeding fingers. He tries to batter it down but cant stand to get enough leverage for it. He tries anyways and is forced to stop when he almost passes out against it from the pain.
Something huge and hot cracks right next to his heart. He sinks to his knees in the dirt, pressing his face to that fucking door and he gives in. "Please! Please, medicine please! Help! I'll do anything just help him please!"
His eyes are burning pits in his face and he can hardly breathe past the mucus building in his nose and falling down his throat. He wails as loud as his lungs will take him. When nothing comes of it, he starts screaming. The words that leave him don't make it to his own ears. He is begging, grovelling, swearing to anyone that will listen everything he could ever have to give.
Ah, but, is there anyone to listen?
The realization strikes him dumb. His voice dies in his throat and he can faintly hear the sounds of night crickets and star gazing frogs outside. It's the dead of night. No one but the guards at the gate are awake. The house won't rise for many hours more. And who knew when Qiu Jianluo would bother coming to check on them. Was there a window of time where he had been waiting? Could he have saved Shen Shi if he'd given up on his stupid pride sooner?
No, those questions are pointless. Shen Jiu digs his fingers into the wood grain and scowls. He knows Qiu Jianluo very well. The man had probably walked away as soon as the door had shut. There was never any hope of medicine.
Shen Jiu slumps against the ground, his back pressed up against the door so he can watch Shen Shi across the room. How funny. They're both curled the same way.
Shen Shi is going to die buried under dirt and straw in an old wood shed tucked away in the far corner of an estate that belongs to a horrible man. What would they do with the body? Qiu Jianluo wouldn't bury it. He'd probably end up using it as just another carrot on the end of a switch to get Shen Jiu to bend further inside himself.
Shen Jiu knows he should ruin it before anyone else gets the chance. He should kill Shen Shi, mangle him so horribly no one would ever dare to look at or touch his little brother's body ever again. He should fish out a bone and chew it into a key. He should. He really, really should.
He can't bring himself to move.
Minutes or hours stretch into nothing as he watches the other half of himself struggle to die. Then, faintly, a mutter.
"It has to be this one..." Someone says, muffled footsteps coming closer to the woodshed.
Shen Jiu forces himself to his knees, pressing up against the door to try and get a look through the keyhole. "Hello?" He calls, his voice cracking horribly.
The footsteps stop, then shuffle rapidly his way. A soft thud and the door shakes under his touch, as if someone had put their own hand to its surface. "Is that you? Xiao Jiu?"
"Qi-ge?" He doesn't want to be right.
"Yes!" Qi-ge is breathless on the other side of the door. "Yes, it's me!"
Shen Jiu has already begged once, a second time is easy. "You have to open the door! Right now! Get this open, please."
Silence from the other side drags on far too long and what little patience he has snaps in half. "Qi-ge you have to get this open, there's no time-!"
"I can't!" Qi-ge says. "I...I can't. Not right now."
Begging on his knees twice feels suddenly trivial in the face of having hope die twice in Shen Jiu's chest. The cold of the room has found a home in its place.
Ignorant, Yue Qi continues. "I've finally joined a sect and I've begun cultivating but I'm- I try to push it and I get weaker instead of stronger. I can't break this door down without alerting all of the guards, and I can't fight that many people off. So...I'm scouting tonight, but- but tomorrow-!"
Shen Jiu stares blankly at the wood grain of the door. "My legs are broken," he says. Yue Qi starts making noises again so Shen Jiu continues. "They broke both of my legs. I can't run. Shen Shi is dead." It's only a lie if Yue Qi opens the door and proves him wrong. Shen Jiu waits for his words to fan the fire, for them to push Yue Qi into unveiling his lies, but...
The voice outside the door shatters into unrecognizable pieces. "They broke Xiao Jiu's legs? Xiao Shi is...dead?" A rustle of fabric and then the sound of someone muffling their sobs into their arm. "How...how long ago...?"
Hope dies thrice that night. "Days," Shen Jiu says.
"I'm so sorry." The voice cries. "I've failed you, both of you. I should've pushed harder, I should've insisted more I- I...am so sorry, Xiao Jiu. I'm so sorry."
It's the last thing he wants to hear. "Will you open the door? Will you?"
"I- as I am I'm too weak to-" the voice chokes on something in its throat. "But, I have...an idea. I'll need a few days to make this work but once it's done I'll have all the power I could ever need to save you. Four- no, three days. I'll do it in three days. Can you- will you last that long?"
"Please," Shen Jiu says. "Please hurry. Before they kill me, too."
The voice scrambles up on the other side of the door. Soft metallic sounds, a sword in a belt, clatter along with the motion. "Yes, yes, just three days and I'll be back here. Xiao Jiu I promise. Three days. Please wait for me."
"Please," it's all Shen Jiu can say any more. The voice says some more parting words that he doesn't hear, and then it scrambles back the way it came. It's just him and Shen Shi again. As it always has been.
He crawls across the floor to sit at his brother's side. He should reach for that throat but instead his fingers dance across his twin's forehead and gently twist flyaway hairs back into place. "Please," he whispers, "please, please, please."
He sits vigil at Shen Shi's side. In the day, he holds his hands cupped under the leaky spot in the roof and catches snowmelt there. He passes each mouthful to Shen Shi's in careful dribbles and keeps every fifth one for himself. Shen Jiu's fingers ache then go numb, but he doesn't care. He sits, silent, and waits.
Five days pass and then Shen Shi's eyes finally open. His breath is still stuttering in his chest, but he's breathing consistently. "Jiu-ge?"
Shen Jiu brushes the old sweat from his brother's face. He hums.
"I dreamed...that Qi-ge came." Shen Shi mumbles. "It felt so real...did it happen? Did he come back?"
Shen Jiu keeps running his swollen fingers through Shen Shi's hair. It helps keep it untangled and clean and it warms him, too. He likes to be practical. "Go back to sleep." He says. And dream of a world where that could still be true.
His twin closes his eyes, his nose scrunching weakly above thinned lips. "Oh," he whispers. "Never mind, then."
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