“Good heavens, my little ancestors! How did things end up like this?” Everyone hurried over when they heard the commotion.
Their third older cousin pushed up the glasses he’d thrown on in a hurry and couldn’t help exclaiming, “Good grief! What, are you two the only people left in the world? Why didn’t this little one know to call someone for help?”
Seeing so many people arrive, Fu Hui figured nobody would be bringing out a chamber pot now. He breathed a sigh of relief and gingerly lay back down.
But when he heard his cousin say that, he couldn’t help raising his head again. “Lan Xi was just too worried. He’s still…”
“Still a little baby. I know,” Third Cousin smoothly finished for him.
Fu Hui fell silent.
Third Cousin was startled and hurriedly reached out to check whether he was still breathing.
The family doctor arrived soon after. Once he’d checked Fu Hui’s temperature, he worried that something might be wrong with his lungs, so they bundled him off to the hospital. Lan Xi, the most determined little attachment in the world, squeezed himself onto Fu Hui’s stretcher.
The doctor was somewhat surprised and pointed at him, about to say something.
The Fu family waved their hands before he could. “No, no, you’ll get used to it! Hospital first. Let’s go, let’s go!”
At the hospital, Fu Hui was put on an IV drip.
While examining him, a nurse asked, “How did he get hurt on his head?”
“Maybe he fell,” the Fu family members guessed.
Before Lan Xi could confess that he’d bumped Fu Hui, the nurse said, “Then we’ll need a head CT as well.” She promptly wheeled Fu Hui away.
Fortunately, nothing serious showed up. They treated the external injury and waited for his fever to subside.
At Fu Hui’s age, children who were neither very young nor fully grown were at their sturdiest.
Once Fu Hui was settled in a hospital room, Lan Xi began trying to drive everyone else away. “Go on, go on, everybody go.”
But how could the family possibly stop worrying?
Fu Hui was Fu Lin’s only son.
If anything happened to him, not a single one of them would have an easy time when Fu Lin returned.
Two of the older relatives stayed, along with five of Fu Hui’s cousins.
Fu Hui usually seemed rather distant from the rest of the family, but ever since Lan Xi had come along, they’d spent quite a bit of time having fun together.
Lan Xi was a little unhappy that so many people were staying, so he simply crawled under Fu Hui’s blanket.
Third Cousin couldn’t resist commenting again. “Good heavens! Are you helping Fu Hui sweat out his fever under there?”
Without lifting his head, Lan Xi answered lazily, “Mm-hmm.”
“Don’t let him pass the illness on to you.”
Lan Xi shook his head beneath the blanket. “Lan Xi isn’t as weak as Cousin.”
“…”
Lan Xi wasn’t asleep.
He rested his head against Fu Hui’s arm and involuntarily began remembering all those nights he’d run fevers himself, when his horns were growing or his tail had gotten stuck, and so on.
What had Fu Hui been thinking on those nights?
Lan Xi thought about it for a long time without finding an answer. His chest simply felt full and achy.
The other children found sitting around too boring, and Lan Xi wouldn’t pay attention to them, so they went off to play cards among themselves. The adults, unusually, were in no mood to supervise them, and they kept playing well past midnight.
Yawning, Third Cousin got up for some water. As he passed the hospital bed, he glanced over and saw two faces close together, both fast asleep.
He shook his head and passed judgment on this thoroughly unqualified little caregiver. “And he said he’d look after Fu Hui himself. What a little piglet! He sleeps more soundly than anyone.”
They had played cards so late that they simply made do and slept in the hospital room.
Lan Xi woke earliest the next morning. When Fu Hui opened his eyes, he found himself staring straight into Lan Xi’s bright, wide-awake eyes.
Fu Hui’s heart missed a beat. He was about to ask whether Lan Xi hadn’t slept.
But Lan Xi promptly wriggled onto him and said, “Let’s go find Dad! Lan Xi has a way!”
“All right.” Fu Hui got up immediately and dressed, then helped Lan Xi into his coat, shoes, and socks as well.
Out of habit, Lan Xi lifted his feet for someone to dress him. Only then did he realize, “No, no, that’s not right!”
He hastily pushed Fu Hui back down. “Lan Xi will dress Fu Hui!”
Fu Hui said, “…But I’m already dressed.”
Lan Xi was imperious. “Take them off, take them off. Start again.”
Fu Hui: “…”
Fine.
It wouldn’t take more than two minutes anyway.
Fu Hui took off his jacket and sweater.
Lan Xi demanded, “What about your pants?”
Third Cousin, who had gotten up to use the bathroom, poked his bleary head over. “What are you two doing?”
Fu Hui urged, “Hurry up, Lan Xi. I’ll get cold and come down with a fever again.”
Lan Xi quickly grabbed the sweater and made Fu Hui bend his head so he could tug it down over him.
It was a little tight around his neck. Fu Hui looked down. “It’s backward.”
Lan Xi whipped the sweater around. “Arms…”
Fu Hui held out his arms.
Lan Xi pulled the sleeves over them, then hurriedly shook out his jacket and bundled him into it. His caregiving duties were finally complete.
Lan Xi put on his own socks and shoes next, refusing Fu Hui’s help and looking every inch the grown-up little boy.
The two walked out past their cousins, who were sprawled asleep in every imaginable position.
Lan Xi criticized them. “A whole bunch of lazy pigs.”
Fu Hui gave an appropriately agreeable “Mm.”
And just like that, the two abandoned the adults and set off for the place where Fu Lin had last disappeared.
Secretary Li was driving, and he was sorely tempted to call them “my little ancestors” too.
“Young Master, aren’t you still ill? What good will going there do? You need to look after your own health first!”
Lan Xi cut in. “There’s Lan Xi too!”
Secretary Li declined to comment.
Lan Xi was furious. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Secretary Li hastily changed the subject. “Little Lan Xi, have you had breakfast? Don’t go out cold and hungry. You’ll fall sick like the Young Master.”
Without saying a word, Fu Hui began taking steamed soup dumplings, egg rolls, soy milk, and other food out of a bag.
Secretary Li smelled the food and glanced back when he had a moment. “You even bought breakfast? Perfect. I was in such a hurry getting out that I haven’t eaten either.”
Lan Xi curled his lip. “Only an idiot would forget to buy breakfast.”
Secretary Li: “…”
Lan Xi pressed down on Fu Hui’s hand. “Don’t give him any.”
This little fellow certainly knew how to hold a grudge!
Secretary Li sighed. “Have you forgotten all those wonderful times we had at summer camp? What am I supposed to do if I starve to death?”
Only then did Lan Xi magnanimously relent. “Fine, fine. You can have a tiny bit.”
They chatted on and off along the way.
Although most of the time it consisted of Lan Xi looking down on every human-shaped creature other than Fu Hui.
Those conversations did a remarkable job of lifting the invisible weight pressing down on Fu Hui.
At 1:11 in the afternoon, they reached a village more than four hundred kilometers from the capital.
Secretary Li said, “Come on. I’ll take you to the place where the incident happened first…”
Lan Xi waved him off and pulled Fu Hui in the other direction.
Secretary Li was baffled. “Where are you going? The bathroom?”
Without looking back, Lan Xi said, “Don’t follow us.”
Secretary Li felt faint. “Don’t go getting yourselves lost too, my little ancestors!”
Fu Hui turned back then. “Aren’t there bodyguards all around us? There’s no need to worry.”
With that, he led Lan Xi behind the wall of a nearby house and asked, “What is it?”
Lan Xi rose on tiptoe and tugged Fu Hui down closer. In a very quiet voice that still couldn’t hide his excited pride, he announced, “Fu Hui, Lan Xi can fly now!”
At some point, the size of his wings and the lightness of his little body had come into perfect balance.
Fu Hui stood frozen for several seconds before recovering his wits. “Since when?”
Lan Xi gave a pleased little hum. “While I was waiting for you.”
That meant the two days when the bodyguards had taken Fu Hui away and Lan Xi had been left with the Song family.
“How did you discover it?”
“I just discovered it like this!”
“Was it because the house we used to live in didn’t have any stairs, so Lan Xi never had anywhere to practice flying?” Fu Hui quietly tried to draw more information out of him.
Lan Xi tilted his head and considered it. “Maybe! I jumped down from the little house and suddenly I could fly!” The Song family’s little house had two stories. Lan Xi had climbed onto the second-floor windowsill and squeezed his tiny body outside.
Fu Hui’s vision darkened in waves, and the dizziness from his fever swept over him again. “Lan Xi, weren’t you afraid you’d fall to your death?”
Only then did Lan Xi notice that Fu Hui didn’t seem particularly happy.
He secretly pouted.
Everyone had been watching him so closely back then. How else was he supposed to run away and find Fu Hui?
“Fu Hui is making a big fuss over nothing. Haven’t you learned how baby eagles learn to fly? Mother eagles even throw their chicks off cliffs!”
“Fu Hui, why aren’t you talking?”
“Fu Hui, your face is really pale.”
Fu Hui was so angry he was on the verge of fainting.
Lan Xi hurriedly offered himself up as a crutch.
Fu Hui sagged against him and hugged him tightly, so tightly it seemed that only by holding on like this could he barely keep the darkness from closing in on his eyes.
“Lan Xi…”
That was far too dangerous. Never do anything like that again.
The words reached Fu Hui’s lips, but he swallowed them.
For a demon, this was probably an unavoidable part of growing up. Lan Xi wouldn’t understand such a warning. And Fu Hui couldn’t forbid him to fly, any more than he could demand that a carnivorous animal become a vegetarian.
Fu Hui held on to Lan Xi and said, “From now on, we’ll find a special place where you can practice flying.”
“Mm-hmm,” Lan Xi agreed.
He tilted his head to look at Fu Hui and suddenly asked, “Fu Hui, are you worried?”
“Mm.”
Lan Xi had already launched into a triumphant explanation. “That’s why you have to take Lan Xi with you! Then Lan Xi won’t be in such a hurry to fly and secretly jump down from places.”
“…”
Lan Xi gave Fu Hui a dashing pat on the shoulder. “Lan Xi will fly up into the sky and find Dad.”
So that was Lan Xi’s plan.
But Fu Hui had to tell him, “Lan Xi, we’ve already had drones flying around everywhere to search.”
Lan Xi was outraged. “What’s a drone?”
How could something else replace him so easily?
Fu Hui asked Secretary Li to bring one over for Lan Xi to look at.
Lan Xi glared at the cold black machine as though he wanted to rush up and bite it twice.
Secretary Li added, “The drones are equipped with infrared thermal imaging cameras, and they still haven’t found anyone. To tell you the truth, we’re very worried your father may have been kidnapped, but we haven’t received any call from kidnappers either…”
Lan Xi refused to listen. Pointing at the drone, he declared, “It’s just useless and stupid. Lan Xi is different.”
Fu Hui thought about it, then took Lan Xi aside again. “You’ve only just learned to fly. What if you get tired before you’ve gone very far? Could you fall out of the sky?”
“Fu Hui is silly. Lan Xi can rest in a big tree.”
Fu Hui lowered his head and thought seriously for half a minute. “All right. Go ahead, Lan Xi.”
To be safe, he also fitted Lan Xi with a parachute.
Fu Hui carefully taught Lan Xi how to use it. Lan Xi was amazed. “There’s something like this? Then demons with injured wings won’t have to be afraid anymore.”
“Are you going to take some back to hell to sell?”
“No, no.” Lan Xi directed Fu Hui to shield him from view, then slowly let out his little wings. “I don’t want to go back to hell.”
As he finished speaking, Lan Xi rose unsteadily into the air.
After another round of molting, his wings had grown much larger under such attentive care. Sunlight spilled across them, shimmering with a dark sheen. No matter how many times one saw them, the first glimpse still struck some instinctive chord of wonder.
Lan Xi beat his wings comfortably, deliberately brushing the tips against Fu Hui’s face.
Fu Hui lifted a hand and gently caught one for a moment.
Lan Xi immediately pulled it away. “Fu Hui, wait for me.”
“Mm.”
Lan Xi and Fu Hui stayed in the village.
Secretary Li didn’t know that Lan Xi was secretly flying all over the place every day. He merely sighed over how touching the two children were, stubbornly staying here and insisting on waiting until Fu Lin returned.
Secretary Li said, “Try not to go out too much over the next few days. Apparently a huge eagle has appeared around the village.”
Lan Xi paused in the middle of shoveling down his food. “Where? Where?”
Fu Hui: “…” Could that possibly be you, Lan Xi?
Lan Xi spent a long while discussing the eagle with Secretary Li, then pretended he was going to take an afternoon nap. In reality, he secretly found somewhere to take off.
At first, he was inexperienced and scraped his face in the woods. After that, though, he proudly reported to Fu Hui every day just how far he’d flown.
Fu Hui applied medicine to the scrape, his heart giving little painful twinges, even as he praised him. “Lan Xi is learning to fly so quickly. You’ll become the most powerful demon, won’t you?”
“That’s right, that’s right!” Lan Xi said.
Every time he heard that, he’d be so happy that he’d polish off two extra bowls of rice.
By the eighth day of the first lunar month… Lan Xi found Fu Lin.
Fu Lin really had been kidnapped.
The kidnappers had their own calculations. They had deliberately refrained from contacting the Fu family immediately, partly to evade police pursuit and partly to wait until the family had fallen into deeper despair day after day before making their demands. When a way out finally appeared, how could the desperate Fu family refuse?
Fu Lin had grown terribly thin. The bodyguards supported him as he came out, looking weak.
He said nothing. Only when he reached Fu Hui and Lan Xi did he spread his arms and draw both children tightly into his embrace.
“Dad saw Lan Xi fly past the window with the welded iron bars five times…” Fu Lin said softly.
Naturally, Lan Xi didn’t think he was stupid for having flown past five times without noticing Fu Lin.
He declared, “That’s right! Lan Xi had to search so hard!”
Fu Lin’s eyes reddened. “Yes. Lan Xi worked so hard. You two children had to worry so much. It was so hard on you.”
He didn’t ask what, exactly, Lan Xi was.
Even when the medical staff came to collect him, Fu Lin was reluctant to release the two children.
With Fu Lin safely home, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and could finally enjoy the New Year again.
Song Xu ordered a huge cake for the Fu household. Whatever anyone else might think, Lan Xi was ecstatic. Song Xu had excellent taste when it came to choosing cakes.
Fu Lin looked a little better after spending a night in the hospital.
And Fu Hui’s cold had almost completely cleared up too.
As everyone gathered to cut the cake, the breathtaking glimpse of Lan Xi’s beauty in that single frame of the movie trailer finally began spreading far and wide.
The head of the talent agency who loved wearing enormous gemstones called Lan Xi. “Young Master Lan Xi, you’re about to become famous!”
As Lan Xi opened his mouth, Fu Hui popped a bite of cake into it.
Lan Xi took a bite. It was fragrant and sweet.
Lan Xi had become quite good at describing his feelings by now.
He leaned close to whisper in Fu Hui’s ear. “Lan Xi is so happy! So blessed!”
Maybe it was because Fu Lin was back, or because Fu Hui wasn’t sick anymore, or because Lan Xi had eaten a huge cake, or because he was becoming famous… Whatever the reason, it was simply a wonderful day!
That wonderful day was captured by the camera in a bodyguard’s hands.
–
After that, Fu Hui added another subject to Lan Xi’s studies: “flight practice.”
He would even take Lan Xi to famous skydiving destinations around the world, jumping from high above so that they could take in all sorts of scenery. It was almost as though he could make up, in this way, for not having been there to jump from the little house with Lan Xi and witness the moment he first learned to fly.
At eleven years old, Lan Xi finished losing his baby teeth.
His tail was still stuck inside his bottom, and at a particular time every year, it would continue to give him a fever. This seemed to be caused by an inborn developmental defect, dooming his path to growing up to be rather harder than that of other demons.
“Fu Hui! Come pwick me up!” Lan Xi called him, his words coming out indistinctly.
Even while changing his baby teeth, Lan Xi had sounded adorably young, but he always tried to make every word clear and emphatic. He rarely spoke indistinctly.
Fu Hui immediately rose from his seat, grabbed his schoolbag, and asked in a low voice, “What’s wrong?”
“…You’ll know when you get hewe.”
When Fu Hui arrived at Lan Xi’s classroom, he spotted him immediately, his head buried in his arms as though he felt quite unwell.
Lan Xi’s classmates were used to seeing Fu Hui by now. They only remarked, “Lan Xi’s big brother is here again.”
They were frowning with concern too. “Lan Xi seems to be sick.”
At the sound of a voice, Lan Xi suddenly plunged his head into Fu Hui’s chest. He kept his face buried there, and the two shuffled out together in a terribly awkward position.