Chapter Text
The Black-Cloaked Envoy slammed down into the nondescript little flat like a thunderbolt from the heavens, not a moment too soon. Zhao Yunlan let out a breath of relief. When he, Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng had arrived, their suspect had already been smouldering with black energy, dense clouds of it roiling off his body, and now -
The Envoy lifted his arm, palm out, wide sleeve sweeping. A containment bubble snapped into place just as Chen Jun exploded in a seething, crackling surge of power.
Much like last week, when Lin Yusen had gone after Zhang Danni and her face-stealing boyfriend. This nice little small-stakes case - cracked pavement tiles! not a murder in sight! definitely no black-cloaked interference required! - had turned out to be anything but.
"Hei-laoge, you're late aga..."
Something flared from the energy bubble. Zhao Yunlan flinched as black flames surged back towards the Envoy, breaking containment. Lightning flashed amidst the black. Fuck!
More power welled from the Envoy's hand in response, reversing the flow, forcing it back.
Zhao Yunlan moved further away. Chu Shuzhi was already pushing Guo Changcheng towards the door behind him.
"Go," the Envoy ordered, voice hoarse. "I will handle this."
Zhao Yunlan hesitated. The Envoy was straining, something he'd never thought he'd see.
"Are you sure?" he asked, in the same moment Chu Shuzhi protested, "Daren -"
"Protect the SID while I cannot."
What? Zhao Yunlan's thoughts were racing all of a sudden. Was this a trap? A distraction, while something was happening at the SID?
"Understood." Chu Shuzhi pulled Xiao-Guo away.
Zhao Yunlan didn't move, eyes riveted on the struggle of black energy against black energy, his skin turning to gooseflesh. He couldn't help with this, could only watch as the Envoy slowly, inch by inch, forced the eruption back into containment. But every instinct in him rebelled against leaving someone behind, alone.
Even the Black-Cloaked Envoy, powerful as he was.
Right now, this implacable figure of Dixing justice was gritting his teeth. His outstretched arm was trembling. And - were those scorch marks on his hand? It was hard to see through the stream of black energy. Surely Zhao Yunlan was mistaken.
The Envoy swayed; Zhao Yunlan rushed forward and caught him with an arm around the shoulders, steadying him. The Envoy stiffened and shoved him away, back, but - no way was Zhao Yunlan leaving now!
Leaning forward as if physically pushing, the Envoy strained. His energy rushed in another powerful surge until finally the explosion fell in on itself, suffocated. The force bubble collapsed. Chen Jun's scorched body dropped to the floor behind the coffee table - and the Envoy went down with him.
It looked controlled enough - a not-too-graceless drop to one knee - but that he'd fallen at all ...
"Great job making that look deliberate," Zhao Yunlan muttered under his breath, crouching down beside him, grimacing as the smell of burnt flesh spread through the room. "Hei-laoge?"
"Go!" the Envoy snapped, then swallowed convulsively, his throat working. His eyes were fixed on the body. "I have this. You must leave now."
What? Wasn't the danger over? "What's going on?"
At least there didn't seem to be a fire hazard. Though Chen Jun had blown up right next to it, the shelf dividing the room was only somewhat blackened, not smouldering or smoking.
The Envoy, still on one knee, half-turned around. His expression was unreadable beneath his mask. He swept his hand towards Zhao Yunlan, black energy taking shape - was he trying to open a portal?
Suddenly, the Envoy coughed. The power fizzled as he bent over, catching himself with his other hand on the edge of the coffee table. Another cough; blood spattered the carpet. His eyes seemed to narrow beneath his mask as he swayed, focusing with effort. A rapid gesture -
A jolt went through the air. Zhao Yunlan's ears popped. And the Envoy fell to the floor, unconscious.
The Black-Cloaked Envoy, knocked out.
"Fuck." Zhao Yunlan crouched down beside the crumpled figure, held two fingers under his nose. He was breathing, at least.
Then Zhao Yunlan looked up. "Uh-oh."
Around them, a new energy sphere had formed: perhaps four metres wide, centred on Chen Jun's body. Outside that shimmering barrier, by the door, Lao-Chu and Xiao-Guo were staring. Their eyes scanned the bubble, paying no attention to the fallen Envoy. That wasn't right.
"Lao-Chu!" Zhao Yunlan called, springing to his feet.
Chu Shuzhi didn't seem to hear him. Even when Zhao Yunlan stepped right in front of him, as close as the bubble allowed, and waved his arms, neither he nor Xiao-Guo reacted. They couldn't see him either. Was the energy field like one-way glass, opaque from the outside?
Bracing himself, Zhao Yunlan tapped it quickly with the very tip of his index finger. He expected a zap. Nothing happened, so he pressed his palm against it. It felt cool and firm, with no give, like glass.
"Damn, damn, damn!" What could he do? He tried his phone - no signal. "Hei-laoge, what did you do?"
And why?
Chu Shuzhi said something to Guo Changcheng, who was wringing his hands anxiously. Even Lao-Chu looked worried as he pulled out his phone. A quick conversation later, and both of them left.
The door to the flat fell shut behind them, as much as it could on its broken lock. They'd come here to interview a suspect, but when they'd heard alarming sounds from inside, Chu Shuzhi had ripped the door open with his strings.
"You're just leaving?" Zhao Yunlan murmured indignantly, but then he remembered. Right: the Envoy had said to protect the SID. Would Chu Shuzhi put that order above any concerns about Zhao Yunlan and his hero the Envoy himself? If he hadn't seen the Envoy fall, he'd probably trust him to have this under control.
Maybe even if he had. He might be right, too; the Envoy's last act had clearly been deliberate. It was Zhao Yunlan who'd trapped himself here without knowing what the hell was going on.
Zhao Yunlan grimaced. Better take stock of the situation, as best he could.
He was right next to the surface of the bubble. Its centre, where Chen Jun had fallen, was between the coffee table and the free-standing shelf partitioning the room. The front door and, at right angles to it, the half-open bathroom door were both outside the boundary. That would get uncomfortable if they were trapped here for long.
The sphere encompassed most of the living room - the sofa against the wall to the right, the TV on the left, the oval coffee table in between - and extended beyond the partition to the kitchen nook behind. A small section of the bedroom was inside too, enough for Zhao Yunlan to push open the door and see its curving shimmer.
The bubble seemed to cut through walls, floor and ceiling as if they weren't there at all. On a hunch, Zhao Yunlan flicked a light switch: still working. Huh.
He leaned close to the shimmering barrier and breathed against it. No huff of air was reflected; air seemed to pass through it somehow. Good. The scorched stench was bad enough without having to worry about limited oxygen.
Next, the body. He bent over Chen Jun's burnt remains: a young man Xiao-Guo's age with short-cropped hair and stubble on his upper lip. Zhao Yunlan held his breath against the smell, overwhelming and nauseating this close.
A trail of minor property damage had led them here: cracked pavement tiles left behind by a fleeing pickpocket; damage to the stairs in a residential building; a woman complaining about a sudden crack in her ceiling. Zhao Yunlan and Chu Shuzhi had thought they were after a Dixingren who couldn't properly control his powers.
But when they'd arrived, black energy had been smouldering off Chen Jun's body - and then he'd exploded.
Could that just happen to a Dixingren? Spontaneous human combustion, Dixing-style? Professor Shen might have a theory about that, but Zhao Yunlan had never heard of anything like it. If the Envoy hadn't come, Chu Shuzhi and Xiao Guo and Zhao Yunlan would have ended up like Chen Jun too.
Nausea clawed its way from Zhao Yunlan's stomach up his throat at the thought.
I have this, the Envoy had told Chu Shuzhi. Whatever this was, it clearly wasn't over.
Zhao Yunlan cautiously brushed his fingers against Chen Jun's badly-burnt body, and sneezed. Pressure in his sinuses, probably from the smell. There didn't seem to be any active energy left.
Better get back to the Envoy, who was still lying on the floor a few steps away, unmoving. He'd, what? Meant to lock himself into this bubble with the body, alone? Why?
Zhao Yunlan shook his shoulder. "Hei-laoge." No response.
He slipped an arm under the Envoy's back - it felt like he was doing something illicit, but he couldn't just leave him lying on the floor. Hefting the Envoy's arm over his shoulder was awkward - damn, the man was heavy! There was some solid muscle beneath that cloak. Physical power, not just black energy.
The Envoy suddenly jerked, his long eyelashes fluttering. "Kun-?"
Relief swept through Zhao Yunlan, so powerful it was almost dizzying. "You're awake!"
A hand closed over his arm, then abruptly let go again as the Envoy hissed in pain. His right hand, where the backlash from the explosion had hit - fuck, he really was injured. Unfocused eyes turned in Zhao Yunlan's direction. "Chief Zhao."
"Hey. Are you okay? What do you need?"
The Envoy shook his head, though it might have been an attempt to clear his mind rather than denial.
Zhao Yunlan squeezed his arm. "Come on, let's get you to the sofa." The dark grey fabric covering looked worn but clean, and was definitely in better condition than the carpet.
It probably resembled slapstick more than a coordinated move, but with the two of them together, they managed to shuffle around the table towards the sofa. The Envoy swayed, unsteady against Zhao Yunlan, then fell heavily into the upholstery. He was blinking rapidly, clearly straining to stay awake.
He didn't look disoriented, just bone-deep exhausted. Had the energy struggle cost him that much, or was the containment bubble the main culprit?
"If you need to rest -"
The Envoy shook his head. "If something happens -
"I'll keep watch," Zhao Yunlan promised, crouching beside the sofa. "Lie down, okay?
Hesitation. Shouldn't this man be used to delegating guard duty? Maybe he just didn't trust Zhao Yunlan.
"Chief Zhao, the body. If anything happens with the body, wake me at any cost."
What the hell? They were trapped, and the Envoy's first concern was a corpse? But Zhao Yunlan tried his best to project confidence. "Sure."
Not confident enough, or maybe too blithe. The Envoy's uninjured left hand shot out, grabbing Zhao Yunlan's face. "Promise me," he ground out, urgently.
Zhao Yunlan's mouth fell open at the sudden skin contact. "I promise, okay? I've got this."
And the Envoy, who'd apparently been holding on to consciousness with nothing but sheer willpower, let out a sigh and passed out again, his arm falling. Right, so maybe he did trust Zhao Yunlan after all. Or maybe he simply hadn't been able to hold on any longer.
Shaking off the thought, Zhao Yunlan lifted the Envoy's legs fully onto the sofa. It was a two-seater, and with the Envoy's head on the arm rest next to Chen Jun's remains, his feet dangled over the edge on the other side close to the edge of the energy bubble.
Zhao Yunlan looked back towards Chen Jun. If something happens with the body. Was that why the Envoy had taken Lin Yusen's body away?
That had been such a clusterfuck. Lin Yusen should never have been anywhere near those Dixing murderers. Zhao Yunlan had rolled his eyes at him before, had scolded him and told him to stay away, but it hadn't been enough.
Lin Yusen had gone after the murderers with a homemade bomb, and he'd died.
The Envoy had arrived at the last moment, containing the explosion. Bad enough that his late arrival had still left three people dead - worse that he'd then taken Lin Yusen's body away right along with the false Zhang Danni's and her boyfriend's, leaving Lin Yusen's family nothing for burial.
Because, the Envoy had claimed, he'd broken the Guardian Treaty by killing Dixinren. Maybe there had been more to it, after all. Maybe the Envoy had had good reasons.
"Damn, why didn't you say?"
The Envoy, unconscious, gave no answer.
He'd come at the last moment again today. But not as a slight to the SID, not because he couldn't be bothered to arrive sooner. After watching him struggle to contain the explosion, Zhao Yunlan knew better than that.
Hell. Lucky he'd arrived in time at all.
Zhao Yunlan glanced uneasily at Chen Jun's corpse, then back towards the Envoy stretched out on the sofa. How long was he going to be out? Was he going to be all right? "I hope you wake up again soon."
The Envoy showed no reaction, but he'd already regained consciousness once. That had to be a good sign, right?
What could Zhao Yunlan do? His eyes fell on the Envoy's right arm, hanging down the side of the sofa. Trying to use that hand had been painful, and the sleeve looked damaged, too.
There was a first-aid box on the coffee table, along with a bunch of theatre flyers and a half-full mug of tea; Zhao Yunlan had noticed it earlier. He reached for it, setting aside the syringe gun that had sat on top of it. What could Chen Jun have wanted with that? Never mind.
Zhao Yunlan knelt beside the sofa and carefully lifted the Envoy's hand, cradling it in his own. The back, partially protected by his wrist guard, was uninjured, but a reddish-black scorch mark marred the centre of his palm. Ouch. And despite that backlash, the Envoy had stood firm, kept forcing back the explosion.
The Envoy's hand was warm in his. A real person's hand, not a myth: sturdy, used to handling a sword. Strong fingers curled inward, with very short-trimmed fingernails, and a smudge of ink on the side of the index finger.
Such a tiny, ordinary mark. He'd never thought of the Envoy as someone who might have ink stains on his fingers, or any stains anywhere, for that matter. Too mundane, and the Envoy wasn't mundane at all.
Except that clearly he was: powerful and alien and stern, but a person, leading a life. Someone who wrote with ink and trimmed his fingernails - and protected people from devastating explosions at great personal cost.
Zhao Yunlan laughed awkwardly, then quickly reached for the first-aid box. No burn salve, but there was gauze, and wasn't that what you were supposed to do with bad burns if you couldn't treat them right away? Cover them loosely? And elevate them, if he remembered right.
Red burn marks ran up the underside of the Envoy's wrist. Zhao Yunlan carefully slipped off the loop that fixed the wrist guard to his middle finger, then pushed the tattered fabric of the sleeve away. The burns went almost all the way to his elbow.
What could do this to someone as powerful as the Envoy? Zhao Yunlan had thought the man essentially invulnerable. "So even you are just human after all."
Dixingren. He was Dixingren, not human. With the evidence of his injuries right in front of him, Zhao Yunlan found it difficult to remember that was supposed to make a difference.
He worked quickly, wrapping the reddened skin. There weren't any pillows or blankets, so he dropped the three lollipops from his pocket onto the coffee table and took off his jeans jacket. Rolled up and set across the Envoy's lap, it made an adequate bolster. Gently, he positioned the injured arm on top of it.
Was he doing this right? Was this helping, or was he just making busy work for himself?
"Hei-laoge, I really need you to wake up," Zhao Yunlan murmured.
