Two days after they captured Huo Wensi, and one day after the surgeons had finished working to ensure he’d stay alive, Qin Xiaoman walked into his solitary room at the prison hospital. They’d learned, after last time, to keep him manacled in place with two guards attending him at all times.
Upon seeing her, Huo Wensi sat up. “I wasn’t sure your people would save me,” he said, gesturing to the bullet wound on his leg. “I’m grateful the French were there too.”
Qin Xiaoman rolled her eyes and sat next to his bed, though she kept the chair far enough away that there was no danger of him grabbing her. “We would have saved you.” They needed information from him, and Huo Wensi knew that. “You’re in our hospital, not theirs.”
“But still.” Huo Wensi’s eyes were wide and soft in his wan face. Qin Xiaoman knew he was trying to tug at her heartstrings; that it worked, even though she knew what he was doing, rankled. “Where’s Luo Fei?”
Qin Xiaoman shook her head in resigned disbelief. They could be so alike in the most infuriating ways sometimes. She leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms. “I’m sure you have a very good guess,” she said tartly. She didn’t want to tell him that Luo Fei had sent her, desperate to know how Huo Wensi was faring but refusing to visit himself. “Why don’t you share it?”
Huo Wensi’s mouth flattened and his eyes went hard as he studied her. Clinical, she told herself, but over the last year she’d seen too much evidence that this expression also meant Murder. The line between the two, for Huo Wensi, was far too thin. Qin Xiaoman didn’t let herself flinch or look away, and the slight curve of Huo Wensi’s lips told her he respected that.
“He’s sulking at home, isn’t he,” Huo Wensi said, warm amusement rolling off his tongue. He wanted camaraderie in this understanding of Luo Fei, Qin Xiaoman thought. She refused to offer it, especially once Huo Wensi murmured, “So childish of him.”
Qin Xiaoman shrugged, projecting uncaring indolence. “I never said I’d tell you whether or not you were right.” He was, and Huo Wensi almost certainly knew that, but she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of confirmation.
He smiled anyway and settled back on the thin pillows of the hospital bed. “I want to talk to Luo Fei,” Huo Wensi said, casual and direct in a way she hadn’t anticipated. “Can you make that happen?”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to make demands,” Qin Xiaoman snapped. She didn’t say that the only power she had would be to convince Luo Fei, and that Luo Fei’s mind was difficult to change. Huo Wensi wouldn’t believe the former, and knew the latter perfectly well already.
“I won’t tell anyone else what I know.” Huo Wensi looked at her, all the humanity he’d worked so hard to convince her of in their first meetings now swallowed by the ocean-deep chill of his eyes. “Not even you.”
Goosebumps brickled along Qin Xiaoman’s arms as she stood. “We’ll see about that.” It was a weak response, and they both knew it, and Qin Xiaoman pretended she didn’t hear Huo Wensi’s soft laugh as she turned and marched away.
Two weeks later, Qin Xiaoman stood in Luo Fei’s apartment, which was lit golden by the afternoon sun, and said, “He won’t talk to anyone but you.” She didn’t bother naming the He. There was only one person she could be referring to: Huo Wensi, the man who had occupied every spare space in Luo Fei’s mind for the last year.
Luo Fei’s shoulders stiffened as he kept silently working on what he claimed was a very important project to catalogue the different types of mud around the city and its rivers. Qin Xiaoman knew perfectly well he’d started it the day after Huo Wensi had been captured as a way of avoiding both Savoy’s summons and his own emotions. It had worked well enough for the former; Savoy had sighed and said he’d try every other option first. As for the latter…
Qin Xiaoman looked at the tension in Luo Fei’s back as he bent over his desk and the messiness of his handwriting. Not well enough, it seemed.
Huo Wensi does this to him, she thought, not for the first time.
Then she waited, because her continued presence would eventually force him to acknowledge her words.
“He wants something,” Luo Fei said, almost ten minutes later. He stood, cane clutched in his hand like a weapon, and stared out the window. “He’s got some plot, some scheme; he wouldn’t be in prison otherwise.”
Qin Xiaoman snorted—of course Huo Wensi was plotting something, but she wasn’t so sure being wounded and imprisoned had been part of his original outline—and reminded him, “Your plan led to his capture.” That plan had involved playing nice with the French to use their embassy as a staging ground, misleading most of the police force until the last minute, and being on the other side of the city defusing bombs to trick Huo Wensi himself into thinking the embassy grounds were unguarded. “It barely worked.”
She didn’t need to say It almost killed him, because she’d seen Luo Fei’s face go white when they’d learned Huo Wensi had been shot and was in emergency surgery. She’d caught him when he staggered and nearly fainted himself.
She’d told him, two weeks ago, that Huo Wensi wanted to see him, and Luo Fei’s only reaction had been to ask, “Because he’s dying?” and then—as soon as Qin Xiaoman had shaken her head—run out to the rivers babbling about finally having time for this project of his.
Now, Luo Fei slammed his cane against the floor. It looked more like a need for support than anger, but the space between the two when it came to Luo Fei’s reactions to Huo Wensi was so very small. “He always has plans.”
“And we don’t know what they are.” Qin Xiaoman crossed her arms, unimpressed. “If you want to learn about them, you’ll need to talk to him yourself.”
Luo Fei glanced over his shoulder, and Qin Xiaoman read vulnerability in the corners of his eyes and the downturn of his lips. “Does he require me to come alone?”
“He’s said nothing of the sort.” Qin Xiaoman stepped forward to rest her hand on his shoulder. “I was planning on being there with you.”
For a moment, Qin Xiaoman saw the barest hint of pain in Luo Fei’s eyes, but then he turned away. “We’ll see,” he said, in a tone Qin Xiaoman understood meant Give me a day to prepare.
Qin Xiaoman squeezed his shoulder once, then stepped back and said, “Tell me about your mud?”
Luo Fei nodded absently, but didn’t move.
Minutes later, when he turned back, Qin Xiaoman didn’t mention the reddening of his eyes or the way he’d rubbed at them to wipe tears away.
Qin Xiaoman entered Huo Wensi’s room three paces ahead of Luo Fei.
When she stepped aside to reveal Luo Fei, Huo Wensi’s pleasant socialite’s smile—almost warm enough that she forgot how much of a lie it could be—turned first to the briefest moment of shock before flattening into benign neutrality.
“You came,” Huo Wensi breathed, delight and surprise intermingled in his words, and Qin Xiaoman realised that he hadn’t expected this. Or, she amended as Huo Wensi’s eyes narrowed, he hadn’t expected Luo Fei to come so soon.
Luo Fei leaned on the doorframe. Qin Xiaoman didn’t need to look at him to know how shuttered his face would be, how tight his hands would be on his cane, the way he would be staring at anything but Huo Wensi himself. “Yes,” Luo Fei said, the syllable almost a sigh.
Huo Wensi set aside the book he’d been reading and smiled. It was, Qin Xiaoman was surprised to see, an honest expression. “What are you here for, Luo Fei?”
The long pause was unexpected. So was the way Luo Fei’s eyes were closed, faced screwed up as if in pain, when Qin Xiaoman glanced back at him. She frowned slightly, then took a seat where she could carefully observe both men.
“I hear you’ve said you’ll only talk to me,” Luo Fei said, expression smoothing out to the stony mask Qin Xiaoman was more familiar seeing on him around Huo Wensi. “I’m here. Talk.”
“What do you want to know?” Huo Wensi asked, that smile still playing around his lips. A cat with cream, Qin Xiaoman thought, which was better than one with a mouse.
Luo Fei opened his eyes to meet Huo Wensi’s. More softly than Qin Xiaoman expected, he said, “Everything.”
Huo Wensi’s mouth opened, then closed into a frown as he tilted his head. “When you say everything—”
“Everything.” Luo Fei’s repetition held more weight than Qin Xiaoman expected. She knew there was history between them, but no matter how many times she’d asked about it, Luo Fei had simply told her that it didn’t matter to the current cases.
Right now, Qin Xiaoman couldn’t imagine that past being anything but central to their conversation. The way Huo Wensi’s eyes flickered to first the silent guards and then to her was yet more evidence, confirmed by how Huo Wensi slowly said, “Are you sure?”
Luo Fei stalked forward, footsteps punctuated by the sharp impact of his cane. “We’ll start with the public matters.”
The air stilled as Huo Wensi held Luo Fei’s gaze. Qin Xiaoman tried to study them with every technique she’d learned, from the academy or Luo Fei, but nothing told her what passed between them to make Luo Fei look away first.
The handcuffs around Huo Wensi’s wrists rattled as he gestured towards the nearby chair. “Sit down, Luo Fei, and ask your questions.” The smallest smile blossomed on his face. “I won’t lie to you.”
And which of those words, Qin Xiaoman wondered, was the emphasis on? She’d heard his tongue twist around lie and you in equal measure. No doubt Luo Fei had heard the same, as he let out a huff and almost threw himself into the chair. Luo Fei’s cane rapped against the frame of Huo Wensi’s bed, unerringly poised above the bullet wound. “You always say that.” He didn’t take his eyes off Huo Wensi as he said, “Take notes, Xiaoman. I want to catch him if he lies.”
She’d already been pulling out a notebook and pen. Even so, she was barely ready in time for the barrage of questions Luo Fei rattled off, one after another without pause.
Nobody would be able to remember all the questions. The only reason she could keep up was because half of them were standard questions asked of any subject, and so Qin Xiaoman had developed a shorthand for notating them.
Huo Wensi listened, intent and amused, until Luo Fei finally ran out of words. Then—unlike every other time Qin Xiaoman had been in this room—he opened his mouth to give them answers.
He didn’t stumble or ask Luo Fei to repeat the questions. Qin Xiaoman respected that display of intellect and memory, even as she resented how unhelpful his responses were.
Huo Wensi said “No” or “Yes” to questions that implied choices. That was to be expected; the only surprise was how Luo Fei allowed him that ambiguity without pressing for more detail. Other questions, Huo Wensi outright called “Irrelevant to the current situation,” and Qin Xiaoman had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from arguing with him about that.
Even when Huo Wensi gave almost-proper answers, Qin Xiaoman felt like he was giving them riddles more often than not. He said brief phrases which forced Qin Xiaoman to guess the hanzi he intended, since she could hear multiple possible readings. It was frustratingly clear that Huo Wensi had heard these questions before and prepared his responses long ago, but Qin Xiaoman doubted that Luo Fei being the first interrogator would’ve helped much; Huo Wensi was clever, and he knew well what the police wanted from him.
When Huo Wensi reached the final question—“Why are you here?” Luo Fei had asked, obviously exasperated—he paused for a moment. Huo Wensi cleaned his glasses, slowly and carefully, before saying, “I’m here because I need to be,” while gesturing at his injured leg with his hand and at Luo Fei with his eyes.
Luo Fei nodded thoughtfully. Then, with a flourish of his coat, he stood and glared at the guards. “Out,” he ordered, waving his cane to make it clear the command also encompassed Qin Xiaoman.
Qin Xiaoman laid down her notebook and pen. Huo Wensi was watching Luo Fei with an expression that, on another man, Qin Xiaoman might call enraptured. For Huo Wensi, she thought obsessed was more appropriate. Qin Xiaoman bit her lip. She’d seen that expression before on Luo Fei, and it never heralded anything good.
“Sir,” one of the guards said, startled. “Our assignment—”
“Wait right outside the door, then.” Luo Fei was almost vibrating. “You don’t need to lock it, but I need you out.”
Neither he nor Huo Wensi would budge on this, Qin Xiaoman knew, and so she stood with a sigh. Whatever information Luo Fei was going to get out of this would need to be important, or else they would both be blamed for this breach in protocol.
But she would help him, for curiosity alone. Qin Xiaoman shot Luo Fei a glare—You owe me, she mouthed, and saw his eyes flicker in acknowledgement—and grabbed the guards’ arms. Luo Fei turned to face Huo Wensi again as she dragged the guards away despite their protests. “You’re moving less than a foot from your positions,” Qin Xiaoman informed them, ignoring their abortive attempts to remove her hands. Neither of them felt up to fighting a woman, it seemed, police officer or not.
Qin Xiaoman shoved both men out the door first. As she turned to close it, she saw Huo Wensi smile at her, approval clear on his face. She slammed the door shut and glared through it, as if she could force either man to acknowledge how obnoxious it was to see Luo Fei’s thanks on Huo Wensi’s face.
She took a deep breath, then turned and stared at the two guards. “This is the only exit, and Luo Fei will shout if he needs help,” Qin Xiaoman said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
They looked at each other, then at her. The determined confidence she projected—and, perhaps, the frustrated anger it covered—cowed them. “Yes, ma’am,” one said, and then they both returned to blank-faced waiting.
Qin Xiaoman schooled her own expression to stony indifference, and did not listen at the door.
If she weren’t ensuring the guards themselves didn’t eavesdrop, Qin Xiaoman knew she would have. She suspected that was even part of Luo Fei’s plan, a second layer of insurance that nobody else would hear what he and Huo Wensi spoke of in private.
Even so, she wished she could.
She also did not watch a clock or watch to track how much time passed before she heard the rap of Luo Fei’s cane on the floor, heralding his exit. Qin Xiaoman moved out of the way just as the door banged open and Luo Fei strode out, not looking where he was going as he combed his fingers through messy hair. Qin Xiaoman noticed, first, her notebook clamped under his arm alongside his cane. Then, behind Luo Fei, she caught sight of Huo Wensi adjusting his glasses in a satisfied manner before the guards returning to their posts blocked her view.
“I need to talk to Savoy,” Luo Fei said, catching her arm and leading her away. “Immediately.”
“What did Huo Wensi tell you?” Qin Xiaoman asked, jogging to keep up with his long strides.
Luo Fei shook his head. His hand drifted up towards his face, then dropped back down before reaching slightly parted lips. “What he said on-record is more than enough.” Luo Fei shoved Qin Xiaoman’s notebook back into her hands, as if that had been his entire reason for releasing her arm. “See for yourself.”
Qin Xiaoman bit her tongue before she asked something she shouldn’t and resigned herself to a taxi ride studying her notebook to understand what Luo Fei already grasped. Maybe later, when they were home, she could try once more to breach Luo Fei’s silence about Huo Wensi. But, right now, Luo Fei’s eyes were alight, Qin Xiaoman’s heart was racing in anticipation, and the game—unknown as it might yet be—was on.