The longer the conversation goes on, the closer they shift on the bed. By the end of it, Shan Haoyu is halfway in his arms, leaning against him like he’s a wraparound chair. It’s comforting. And apologetic.
They both want to be safe for one another– so Zhou Xiwei inhales Shan Haoyu’s scent as he carves a path forward for them as he kisses the crown of his head.
“Even if someone sucks, even if you’re worried- That’s what zip ties and doors with locks are for.” Zhou Xiwei’s grown up in modern, civilized society, and he’s sure there’s all sorts of ways to protect the public without having to hold a funeral after.
Shan Haoyu’s in no mood to argue.
“Okay.”
“Seriously. You get any feelings again, tell me, okay? Tell me, let me help, try my way. If we all get murdered after, I promise to apologi-”
“Don’t joke about that.”
“I’m sorry.” Zhou Xiwei’s heart breaks at how Shan Haoyu tenses in his arms. “Fuck, just what have you seen?”
“Death.”
“Well.. Not anymore. Miss Xu is the last one, okay? We’ll go pray for her, and we’ll burn money, and she’ll be the last person that has to die here, the last person that either of us has to see go into the ground, okay?”
“Okay.”
“It’s a promise.”
Zhou Xiwei hooks their pinkies together and brings up their joined hands to kiss the back of Shan Haoyu’s dusky, fine-knuckled one. He also nuzzles, a tiny bit. What? He’s been miserable too, okay?
And now that Shan Haoyu’s explained, and promised, he convinces himself that they really can fix things, even with a body between them.
He likes to believe that he’s being rational and enlightened, in this little bargain that he makes with Shan Haoyu. He hopes that being willing to move past this is a sign of maturity, and not just his own desperation in liking the guy. After all, Zhou Xiwei took a psych class. Once. He’s watched those profiling shows. Lots.
He can understand, once being psychically linked is on the table, how things can get confused. How seeing the spiritworld apply karma, how seeing people fail to live up to the name, how being left alone-
He can see how all that can lead to some temporary repression of morals. Even the best person can identify with the captor, even if the captor is a bit of land jutting out of the sea.
He doesn’t blame Shan Haoyu. He truly doesn’t.
He’ll blame him if he keeps it up, but he- he believes that Shan Haoyu has just been doing what he thinks is best. He believes that Shan Haoyu, the boy that he’s fallen asleep pressed against, is a good person. A good person in a situation that doesn’t have precedent, where he’s had to blindly make his own way for far too long.
Hell, if he was the one left here, who knows what kind of heroics he’d manage. He can’t judge.
Zhou Xiwei believes (hopes) that he’s not just cutting him slack because of his own weak and self-serving desire for things to be okay between them. He hopes he isn’t giving into delusion, in hoping for the island’s punishments to be the kind of thing that they can interfere with, for the better. He hopes that his optimism isn’t baseless, and that the way his heart still flutters, a tiny bit, is okay.
Of course, he still feels guilty towards Xu Mei.
He still feels like in liking Shan Haoyu, he’s betraying her, but… He really can’t help it. And if he can forgive her for trying to kill Ding Dongqi because she was desperate, surely it’s okay to forgive Shan Haoyu for standing by and letting the island kill her?
It still feels a little cruel, but-
He feels what he feels.
And he’s been earnestly praying for her. Will continue to do so. And those parents of hers that Xu Wang talked about, he’ll be sure to take care of them! As soon as they go home, he’ll show Shan Haoyu and Shan Yutian the beauty of the modern world and then he’ll do everything in his power to take care of Xu Mei’s family in her stead, so that her spirit can rest easy.
He’ll pay any cost for a professional team to pick up her remains and re-inter her somewhere of beauty and peace, somewhere that her family can visit and bring her comfort at. Someplace where monks can help wash away bad things.
Zhou Xiwei will do what he must to make up for these feelings, because the last four days have shown him that he can’t revoke them.
He’s very afraid that he wouldn’t be able to, even if Shan Haoyu hadn’t been brave enough to come here and help assuage his fears. He’s afraid that he might be weak enough that even if Shan Haoyu fails– even if he ends up allowing others to die out of some misguided sense of justice or protectionism–
Zhou Xiwei’s afraid that no matter what, he won’t be able to stop caring about him.
He knows himself well enough to know how weak he is to sweetness. How much he likes being liked, being held, being important. So it’s better for everyone that they all stay on the straight and narrow, with no violence or vengeance to test his mettle.
He doesn’t want to learn anything else disappointing about himself.
And he doesn’t want Shan Haoyu to be party or witness to any more sin. So he holds him close and they make promises and he buys into a better future, and a cleaner means of surviving the island.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
—
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It’s their friend who is dead, it’s their ghost stories that are coming true, it’s their dreams that are increasingly veiled by mysterious dark clouds and whispered words.
They move as a group. They take their meals to go. They plan and panic and adjust and turn themselves into a school of fish, flitting around and trying to confuse the sharks that they feel circling them.
With Fang Daiyu left alone, they’ve pulled every desk out of their room and piled in beds, with a passage barely wide enough to shuffle through, so that they can stick together, even when they’re unconscious. Chef Bohai refused, and Wang Xi won’t leave him or their little cottage alone, but a bed remains for when they’re ready to seek safe harbor.
They also begin to work on the boat like they’re religious fanatics carving an idol to prostrate themselves in front of. And just like fanatics in a famine, their worship does little– and ignores the real problem.
They still don’t have the tubing they need, but they press forward blindly, fixing every other problem and scrubbing the place pristine, because to stop is to admit that they’re trapped. Trapped in a place they know to be deadly, and that they are helpless to rebel against.
They swear they can see things moving in the water. They swear they hear wet, dragging footsteps.
—
Team Oblivious is, as always, made up of the wealthier members of society.
It takes a certain level of unearned confidence to stick your head in the sand, no matter the situation, without the fear that your throat will be slashed by a passing crab.
…Metaphors are hard.
The point is, Mother Song leads the entire charter party (minus Zhou Xiwei) in treating this like a two-star vacation– dreadful, but the kind of thing that you can use to entertain the ladies at lunch, and to get vouchers for a better experience once the lawsuits settle. Character-building. A good future story.
She keeps playing mahjong and taking nature walks with her husband and even has ‘that nice young boy with the strange name’ dig out an old sewing set for her, so that she can lead Zhou Xiting and the slower-moving of her son’s friends in light seamstressing, embroidery, and even creating curtains to freshen up the dorms.
No one can laugh at Zhou Xiwei’s sewing skills now! In fact, they rather wish they could get his help…
But after countless stuck fingers and ruined hems, Qian Li actually develops quite the talent with a needle and thread. He’s got the eye for it. Which is good, since his tendency to stare off into space and get lost sketching sees him caught by Mother Song, nine times out of ten.
—
Somewhere in the middle of these two silently opposed psychologies linger Shan Yutian, Director Xi, and…
Xu Wang. Their living ghost.
Xu Wang has been having a hard time of it. He can’t flee- not with Xu Mei here, under the earth, reaching up to hold him as he sleeps. He’ll miss her embrace if he leaves. He also can’t accept the island or the islanders, not when they killed her.
He can’t accept himself, for doing the same through his own inaction.
So he’s just… stuck.
There’s only one thing that’s uncomplicated, only one clear choice:
To take care of Ding Dongqi, to whom he and his cousin owe a debt that he must spend a lifetime repaying.
After the funeral, after the burning paper that he’d messily inked with the help of an equally silent Zhou Xiwei in the nights before he laid her to rest–
After that, his whole world begins to develop a figure-eight orbit, between Xu Mei’s hilly grave and Ding Dongqi’s shrouded sickroom.
He even moves his things, taking over the bed that was once Zhou Xiting’s, right across from his pallid patient. He dreams of his breathing. He has nightmares about his silence. But he never considers retreat.
These endlessly repeating tasks– They give him a purpose, a list of obligations that keeps him steady and busy and away from other people. They give him a place away from his own thoughts, except for when the night comes, and the exhaustion claims him.
He is a monk, and his sutra is that of the broken heart, the broken path– redemption, absent salvation. His world, absent his conscience. And his cousin.
All that’s left is duty.
—
“You check in with Xu Wang yet?”
“No change. Still doesn’t want to talk. Can’t blame him.”
Di Qing and Captain Li sit hunched over a makeshift table at the boathouse, a dozen disassembled mechanical pieces laid out before them to be oiled. And there’s so little lubricant available that every last bit has to be carefully rationed, no messy spills or haphazard wiping here.
To their left, Fang Daiyu and Wang Xi are slowly knitting together something that might one day endeavor to be called a sail, in case the engine craps out on them like they’re all expecting.
After all, they still have no way of feeding the fucking fuel.
“We should fi- FUCK!”
For the seventh time, Fang Daiyu sends the needle straight into her thumb, and the ‘sail’ gains another small crimson blossom. She pulls her hand away and sucks at the bead of blood while the three men look up, notice her wound, and shake their heads.
“Didn’t you say that Madam Song had gotten you right back in the swing of it?”
“Hey, I can make a mean curtain.” Even without being ‘inspired’ by Madam, she could do a quick hem repair on a customer’s dress or a cloth napkin on the boat. What kind of Chief Stew would she be if she couldn’t? “But this is industrial. Fuck, the needle looks more like a stiletto than anything else. And I have to push so hard- Whatever. You think you can do better, come trade with me!”
Engineer Di and Captain Li quickly drop their eyes back to their task. No thank you!
Small, greasy metal parts are still better than sewing.
More manly! Less painful!
Wang Xi smiles to himself and sews carefully. He has yet to prick himself once. Just saying. And these little moments of camaraderie? These are the real reason that he’s still helping with this questionable plan. That, and if he spends all his time with Bohai, he’s sure he’ll develop an alcohol or sex addiction.
He can’t afford either; he doesn’t have the passive income to be a libertine.
He needs to stay connected to other people, and to humdrum physical labor, or he’ll eventually be unable to return to his real life, even if they do manage to leave. Going from rags to riches is very easy, but riches to rags– well, he doesn’t want any share of that particular brand of misery.
And no matter what drunken sweetness Bohai pours in, about the richness of his family or how badly he wants to marry him in, Wang Xi has a good head on his shoulders. He won’t be taken in by pretty words or good sex. Idle hands and big dreams are the devil’s playthings– it’s much better to keep busy and grounded, even if he’s not at all sure that he wants to board this paranoid boat with the rest of them.
Back to sewing, back to chatting about Xu Wang. And trying to pull them from this path.
“…I think he might be right? When he said not to challenge them, or to upset the balance.”
“He’d just lost her, it’s not so strange.”
“But- I don’t know. The tubing. Where it came from. Remember what that Shan Haoyu said at the start? Maybe things really will be okay, if we just keep our heads down and don’t-”
“Not this argument again.” Captain Li rolls his eyes. It’s a pretty interesting choice, for such an old man.
“I just-”
This time, it’s Di Qing who interrupts poor Wang Xi’s attempt at saving them.
“I know! We know! We all know! But I won’t put my fate in the hands of something that I can’t understand. I didn’t convert to fucking Scientology for that girl from Bali, and I won’t convert to Island Worship for some weird guys that don’t even know what a fucking smartphone is.”
Wang Xi’s exasperation shows, snorting as he asks, “Are the situations really equivalent? Your life vs some pretty?”
“Ai, you didn’t see that ‘pretty’ naked. If you had, you’d understand. Basically sentenced my bedroom to death.” Di Qing clicks his tongue and scrubs his nuts and bolts a little more morosely as the room descends into light laughter–
It’s weak, and it ends too soon, but it’s still the first hint of levity since they pulled Xu Mei from the waters just below them. Fang Daiyu snorts, mutters about ‘men,’ and deflates a little at the lack of a good girlfriend to shit talk them with.
Wang Xi scoots a little closer to help her out.
“Sheesh. Straight guys, how base can they get?”
Fang Daiyu’s lips twitch, taking what she can get. “Yeah, and their aesthetics. I know we’re all a little shaggy, but if the Captain doesn’t let us shear him soon, he’ll be able to work one of those cheesy themed Love Boat cruises.”
The sewing feels a little easier, as the atmosphere lightens.
For once, there’s no feel of the water watching them.
—
As the most stable (least convinced) of the yacht crew, Wang Bohai is the one left to deftly inquire about the terms of their internment. Which is unfortunate, since he’s always been a little flamboyant, and being stuck in a place with no good ingredients to play with has really encouraged his more casual, blunt habits.
“So, this grocery ship~ is it ever fucking coming? Feels like it’s been ages, and I’m dying to see if there’s any good protein to play with. Or floaty things that can take us to places with restaurants? One of the two, I’m really not picky, but my little wife here loves to complain that I don’t take him out anywhere.”
Wang Xi grips his thigh underneath the table. Wang Bohai just winks at him. And looks like he’s thinking of different types of protein, higher up on his ‘hock.’ Incorrigible! Beast! Stupidly attractive, that son of a bitch! Just because they sleep together, just because he loves him a bit, just because he likes it in bed-
Saying that he’s his wife, out in public! Really!
…
Across the table from them, there’s a similar but more muted dynamic taking place between a newly reunited Shan Haoyu and Zhou Xiwei.
While Shan Haoyu listens to Wang Bohai’s wandering little questions, Zhou Xiwei reassuringly rubs his knee, trying to encourage him to be open to being honest with other people. It’s part of their new compromise, and Shan Haoyu does his best.
“The mist is worrying. In the past, when the weather’s been like this, the ship hasn’t come.”
Shan Haoyu’s telling the truth. The ship almost never comes, but in his defense– the weather’s always bad. With Zhou-ge here and changing the climate so much, it really is quite possible that the ship will appear any day now, when there’s not mist. Any day now, and they’ll all be able to leave-
The sky darkens, and now Shan Haoyu’s the one holding Zhou-ge under the table, looking for reassurance.
He wants him to be happy, but he doesn’t want him to have to go away to do it.
Around them, Team Oblivious squabbles and worries about the possibility of being stuck here for even longer, while Team Panic shares dark looks with one another and once more start hiding biscuits in their pockets, like they’re planning to work through breakfast (again).
—
Dinner wraps up pretty quickly, once Chef Bohai gets the answer they (didn’t) want.
Getting up from the table, Zhou Xiting catches sight of her brother’s hand on Shan Haoyu’s thigh, and catches the perverted end of the stick (Ma’am, the ones you’re looking for are on the other side), and gets back into wingwoman mode.
She lightly flicks the back of her brother’s neck, smirking at his dazed little look.
“XiXi, my fingers are a little sore from all the sewing. Can I trade dish shifts with you? The water and those neat little moisturizing soaps that Shan Yutian uses– I think they’re just what I need tonight. It’s basically a miniature bubble bath.”
“Oh? Sure, yeah– your shift is– two days from now? I guess we can trade. Do you want a hand massage after?”
“Psha. That’s what Qian Li is for.”
Zhou Xiting grabs a stack of used plates and disappears into the kitchens before her brother can interrogate her. All according to plan! Shock him into silence, and then escape while he’s still stunned. Bah, the lengths she has to go to to keep his good manners from getting in the way of his good time.
She’s rewarded by the sound of XiXi and his man heading up the stairs a few minutes later. Mission accomplished, sister points gained. And actually, it’s pretty nice, to feel the warm water and smell the fresh scent of satsuma soap and to impose cleanliness on a dingy world.
Plus, the chores mean that she misses the migration back to the dorms– so once she finishes, instead of learning how to pleat little handkerchiefs, she can spend the rest of her evening reading. Reading the nifty spy novels. They’re honestly not very good, but every time she looks, she manages to find a new one, and they’re pretty addictive. Like eating barbecue or chips– even when it’s bad, it’s good.
Based on the dogblood and the steamy gala scenes, she’s starting to think that they’re the webnovels of the earlier generation, and as a cold-turkey’d internet addict, she is here for the somewhat unbelievable drama.
It’s either that or fall in love, and have you seen her choices? Blah.
After sharing a few words and looks with the little kid that already feels like half a brother-in-law, Zhou Xiting finishes drying her shares and happily fucks off to the library.
Sure enough, despite being positive that she checked the shelves carefully last time, she finds not one, not two, but three new-to-her pulpy spy game novels that are just perfect! She can’t read them all in one night, and she won’t risk taking them out in the endless drizzle, but choice is always nice.
She gets wrapped up in an African caper. Makes it 80% of the way through, before she realizes that she’s having to squint like she’s the one stuck in a Saharan sandstorm.
That means it’s time to go to bed. She uses a piece of thread to save her spot and stands, stretches– And smiles when she realizes that her brother is still upstairs.
It’s good to know that Shan Haoyu took her advice. And that her XiXi is happy again. Especially with all that talk about the boat, she was a little worried that her brother would withdraw into himself and start over-thinking instead of living in the moment. She’s glad that he’s choosing to make the most of it instead.
Also, having the room to herself means that she doesn’t have to hear teasing about her snoring come morning.
Win-win!
Author’s Corner:
Wang Xi: Psha. Men say anything.
Wang Bohai: I literally love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. Marry me?
Wang Xi: Words, words, words.
Wang Bohai: [wilts]
—
Qian Li: Wait, does Zhou Xiting like me? How? Why?
Zhou Xiting: No, she doesn’t. But for a skinny guy, you make a good screen.
Qian Li: Yes, yes, makes far more sense. Anyway, back to seamstressing.
Zhang Zhiping: Dude. Really? [disappointed dad face]
—
Ding Dongqi: [a sense of existence is dangerous. I’ll keep sleeping off-screen]
That’s a nice chapter. The most is feeling a little like a storm brewing but it was such a nice chapter… QAQ and the author’s conner was excellent as usual ~
we love a supporting sister like this
Hahaha~ your author’s corner
Ok, I did wonder if Zhou Xiting was going to take a closer look at either “networking” with one of the heirs or slumming with one of the crew, out of boredom.
I think she probably did consider it, out of boredom at some point, before deciding that it’s not worth it, esp. since none of them are her type (though Qian Li, minus the drinking issues, comes closest).