Shan Haoyu must be sick.
He must be, to have gotten used to Zhou-ge’s steady heartbeat so quickly and to become so dependent on his presence that waking up alone feels like a punishment. He might be a novice at relationships, but he’s sure that it’s abnormal, to wake up holding a pillow and feel dread, instead of sappiness at your lover’s unwillingness to wake you.
He’s sure that normal people don’t crack the windowsill into long splinters, when they look out and see their boyfriend walking to the same spot as the people that want to leave forever. He’s positive that the hollow dread he feels, waiting for Zhou Xiwei to step on the boat and leave him, is a sign of mental disturbance.
It’s not normal to be this afraid.
He knows that well enough that he watches, with bated breath and trembling hands, but he doesn’t run after.
He likes, admires, loves? Zhou Xiwei enough that if he really wanted to leave, he wouldn’t hold it against him. He’d be hollowed out by the abandonment, but he wouldn’t want Zhou-ge to feel bad. He’d even make excuses for him, like that he wanted to leave him with a sweet memory, and that’s why he left without saying goodbye. He’d spend his days pacing the beach and circling the island, waiting in case his Zhou-ge needed re-rescuing.
He’d be miserable, but devoted all the same, even if it was just to a memory.
Luckily, Zhou-ge is the very best person.
Shan Haoyu doesn’t have to think long about what he’d do if he joined the escaping party. Luckily, Zhou-ge comes back without ever even taking more than a look at the ship. Luckily, he slides up to him and links their palms and whispers, “I still couldn’t convince them” in that way that fills in all the blanks for Shan Haoyu.
The very best person, one worthy of all the world’s greatness, and none of its misery.
Shan Haoyu lets gratitude pump through him, washing his marrow clean and turning the overcast morning into something beautiful. Who knows?
Maybe the captain and those two crew will really make it. Zhou Xiwei doesn’t want them to be hurt, and the island likes him, so perhaps… Perhaps his strategy was wrong from the start, and all it takes to make this island part of the real world again is for a group to stay together, stay determined, stay kind-
…With one or two exceptions…
It could be enough? Maybe rescue will come, but Zhou-ge will smile and pull him along, instead of saying goodbye. Or- if he leaves- if he leaves, maybe if Shan Haoyu is good enough, he’ll be willing to come back to this place that no one wants to return to?
Shan Haoyu could survive for years on a few weeks of sweet emotion, he’s sure of it.
If nothing else, if the island opens up again, maybe he can convince Zhou-ge to come visit them? That’s- that’s a good plan. More reasonable than keeping him forever, especially given how many people are left and how much he dislikes bloodshed. Perhaps they could-
“Penny for your thoughts?” Zhou Xiwei breaks his reverie with a worried smile.
“Just wondering if they’ll make it. And if you’ll come back to visit, if they do.” Shan Haoyu leans down and, once more, tells the truth. He doesn’t even hide the expectation in his voice like he would have a few weeks ago.
For his progress, he’s rewarded not with skittishness or aversion, but with Zhou Xiwei looking up at him, happy over his question.
“I’ll probably need a whole pharmacy of meds to get me on a boat again, but- yeah. I would visit. If you have the space for me. Assuming you don’t-” Zhou-ge coughs and pulls him over to the table where everyone is saying their goodbyes over breakfast. He doesn’t finish his sentence, but Shan Haoyu doesn’t worry too much.
He’s too delighted by the idea that Zhou Xiwei is willing to come back.
Because of him. For him. Even his mother wasn’t willing to do that, but Zhou Xiwei is.
It fills Shan Haoyu with optimism and well-wishes for the yacht crew that he’d earlier been at odds with. It allows him to dig into breakfast with the kind of gusto that he’d long since lost. It’s enough.
Enough for anything to happen.
—
Eventually, breakfast ends and final farewells are said.
Li Yichen, Di Qing, and Fang Daiyu still end up leaving, but it’s not quite as morose as Shan Yutian expects it to be. It’s…calm? Still not a great idea, not by any stretch, but it’s a far cry from that time that their visitors threw molotovs at them, or the one where the boat immediately sank, or the one where they could hear the screams for three nights before their bones washed up, cold and clean.
Whatever happens, Shan Yutian hopes they don’t suffer. For everyone’s sake.
If they become infected by something evil, he hopes their pain is eased by the hand-rolled cyanide tablets that he’d tucked into the very bottom of the provisions. It had taken so many ground apricot pits to make them, and his fingers still ache. He hopes if it comes to that, they follow his instructions on how to take it, just by the side of the railing, so that convulsions will combine with drowning and allow them to pass quickly.
His care may be ghoulish, but he’s seen enough suffering that for good or ill, his main concern is making people more comfortable. Sinners or saints, whatever comes, he wishes for everyone to have some source of comfort, buried somewhere in all the darkness. And sometimes, the only comfort is a quick death in one’s own hands. He knows that.
And yet… Better yet would be if the provisions and the skill and the rainwater collection and the sails combine to make the boat just strong enough to create a miracle. No one else has ever left so well-encumbered. Other teams, busy killing their fellow man or hiding their goals, never had the chance to prepare so thoroughly.
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.
Zjsyf la klii yf fcbeut bo j vloofgfcmf ab wjaafg.
Po cba-
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Vtjc Tealjc mifjcr eq ygfjxojra jcv gfwlcvr tlwrfio atja ogbw cbk bc, atfgf klii yf olnf ifrr qfbqif ab mbbx obg. C atlgv bo atflg uefrar jgf ubcf, bg lcmjqjmlajafv. Dea bcis bcf lr vfjv. Ktja’r j gfmbgv, klat pera fcbeut ygfjatlcu gbbw atja tf lrc’a mbcrajcais qjclmxfv jybea ktfgf tf’ii qeii wbgf rfgnlcukjgf ogbw lo rbwfbcf aglqr jcv rtjaafgr atflg vlrtkjgf.
It’s almost like they’re normal? …If you ignore the pantry that keeps refilling itself with Zhou Xiwei’s favorite. Still better than knives and blood.
—
They leave.
—
Zhou Xiwei spends the rest of his morning sitting on the dock, watching the fogbank that the Xiao Jing had disappeared into hours earlier. It’s too chilly to sit there, at first, but the longer he stays, the more the air seems to heat up. The sun even comes out, but it’s the strangest thing–
It doesn’t burn away the mist, the way it should. The way it would, anywhere else. Instead, it’s like they’re in the middle of the world’s gentlest and most dispersed hurricane, in a sunny eyewall hemmed in by not clouds, but a faint mist that doesn’t fall out of the air, no matter how refreshingly the island itself dries out.
But Zhou Xiwei doesn’t investigate the oddness. He just feels grateful that the sun beats down on the wooden planks so that he can keep watching without feeling slimy or cold. By the time he’s seen whatever he’s looking for out there, the boards are almost baking, warm enough that if he was alone, he’d strip down and become that lizard child again. Instead, he swings his legs, stands, and stretches out.
He’s glad that he didn’t hear any thunder, or screams, or fuck, see a bloom of oily blood in the water.
Blame growing up on over-the-top blockbusters, but when he hears ‘disaster’ he expects shockwaves, or great plumes of smoke. The Xiao Jing just slipped into the curtain and kept puttering along, the whine of the engine holding steady until it grew so faint that he was sure he was imagining it.
No explosions.
It sets him at ease. But he still waits, just in case. He waits for signs of distress, and he waits for permission to investigate his own feelings. There’s a lot to unpack. Shan Haoyu asked if he would come back to visit. He didn’t ask if he could come with him. The difference is enough to keep Zhou Xiwei deep in thought.
It might not be anything?
After all, Shan Haoyu has been deeply hurt by the world. His brother, even worse. It’s not so strange, that they’d prefer the safety of the island and its small servings of mania when weighed against the billions of people who could plot against them in the wider, wilder world.
Even if he’s ready to come along…
Well, it takes a lot of bravery, to invite yourself over to your lover’s house for the first time, nevermind to their continent. Shan Haoyu coming with him might be the kind of thing Zhou Xiwei has to suggest first. They haven’t known one another long, he’d be indigent upon arrival, he has a brother and a caretaker to look after in the bargain–
Of course, Zhou Xiwei is more than willing to pay for them all. His family life might be tragic, but his family circumstances are still stellar, and it’s nothing at all to sponsor three people, even if he has to do it or the rest of their lives. But he hasn’t exactly told Shan Haoyu that, so maybe he’s just being practical, in limiting his requests?
Or maybe-
And this is what troubles Zhou Xiwei the most: Maybe Captain Li is right.
Zhou Xiwei doesn’t (can’t) believe that the first person to make his heart race like that doesn’t have their own heartbeat at all, but maybe Shan Haoyu is cursed? Maybe the bloodshed and the isolation and the impossibility of leaving– maybe he’s tethered here in a way that can’t be easily broken.
Maybe visits are all they’ll have?
If that’s the case…
Well, he’ll just have to find a very generous doctor and get a very impressive array of meds to carry him over the waves! Maybe he can hire a courier service to knock him out from dock to dock? It may seem foolhardy and shortsighted, but he likes Shan Haoyu enough to be willing to try it out.
But he also likes him enough to try to break his curse. If there is one.
If Shan Haoyu really is chained here, then fuck chores and fuck sunbathing– what Zhou Xiwei wants to spend his time on is unraveling the mystery, so that Yu’er can make his own choices…hopefully choices that involve the two of them.
When Zhou Xiwei finally steps off the dock, he’s filled with a renewed sense of purpose. And exactly zero idea where to start digging. But a lack of expertise can’t stop a young person with a fire in their belly!
—
In Zhou Xiwei’s reckoning, curses are a product of a bygone age.
Before arriving on Uto, he always adopted an attitude of ‘better safe than sorry’ when it came to respecting taboos and participating in ritual, but he didn’t really believe in any of it. Human evil was plenty, right? That said, he wouldn’t try to debunk anyone else’s beliefs, and he wouldn’t touch certain totems or supposedly dirty things. Why risk it, even if you know that the supernatural has no foothold?
Now that he’s having strange dreams, wooing someone that can sort of see the future, and is dealing with an island that seems to be able to punish humans…? Well, now, let’s just say he believes in curses.
But it still feels off-
When someone is cursed, shouldn’t they be miserable? Terrified and asking for help, or twisted beyond recognition and looking for a substitute? That’s always how it is in the movies.
Shan Haoyu doesn’t meet that description at all. He’s suffered– even in the fractured stories he’s heard bits of, it’s obvious that he’s suffered more than his fair share. But he’s not been broken by it, and his care, however stilted in its expression, carries the scent of hope. Not the misery of the broken.
But by Captain Li’s judgment, he’s either cursed or he’s dead, so he must be cursed.
Maybe it’s a small curse that’s almost washed off?
That could explain the contradiction between Shan Haoyu’s goodness and the strange gloom that sometimes settles on him. Yes, the curse could be something old and accidental, something picked up from brushing a doomed locket while swimming, or drawing the attention of the wrong kind of spirit as a child praying for deliverance.
It could even be a blood debt! His family’s mess, nothing at all to do with him!
Zhou Xiwei thinks he’s heard something about that?
Children inheriting the sins of their parents, chased and punished for crimes committed long before they were even born, because supernatural doesn’t mean fair.
Yu’er and A-Tian are great, but their parents abandoned them.
That sounds like the kind of thing a curse-worthy parent might do. Or maybe they left them because they were trying to protect their children from their badness? Same event, opposite interpretations. Of course it might not connect to parents at all.
Bah, this is the trap of idle thoughts. They leave you idling, more often than not.
Zhou Xiwei wishes he’d paid more attention to Mad Madame Lu who lived over the New Age bookshop by campus. If he’d gone to her weird little crystal reading sessions, he’d know more about such things. The more he knew would probably be bullshit, but it would be a starting point at least.
Instead, he’s stuck on ‘curses are antique’ and extrapolating from there to ‘I should dig around the records in the library.’ Libraries are full of old things.
Nice and sunbaked, he heads up the finally-dry hill, no longer having to worry about slipping on the slick grass or squelching into mud. He walks towards the schoolhouse, where someone has thrown open every last window. It’s a good day to air things out. Buildings, secrets, hearts…
He walks, he arrives, he pours himself a thermos of Shan Yutian’s always-brewing herbal tea to accompany him across the hallway, a small flask to keep the sunshine close at hand even once he’s buried in some sideroom. He likes being warm more than he likes being cold, and just in case he stumbles on something chilling, he wants an antidote close at hand.
Also, it’s just generally delicious. Harvested from island goodies every spring, and then carefully preserved and mixed with tea from the grocery ship to last them until the next harvest. Zhou Xiwei leaves a little smiley face and his scrawled thanks on the scrap butcher paper before heading off.
—
From the second story, Shan Yutian had amusedly watched Shan Haoyu steal glances at Zhou Xiwei, setting his mind at ease with every glimpse of Zhou-ge. He’d watched, turning their quick chore into a slow one, but there’s no real rush. Now that the danger is past and the proactive people have left, the island wishes to return to pampering Zhou Xiwei, rather than trying to convince others that it’s unwise to leave.
Sun should be in the forecast for the foreseeable future, as long as they can stay happy and at peace.
Shan Yutian is a little surprised when Zhou Xiwei walks back, and his brother doesn’t immediately run down. He looks at the sill that he’s helping him fix and wonders if that’s the answer. Usually, they work in silence. Living like this, you have to carefully ration your topics lest you run out. But he really wants to know, ah! He starts with a softball observation, to get their conversation started.
“Zhou-ge really likes the sun.”
“En. It looks good on him.” Aww, is his brother flaunting? He’s proud. And a little jealous. Mostly proud though, he swears. But if it was him that Zhou-ge liked so much-
“Why didn’t you join?”
“It’s not good to suffocate people. And I should help with what I damaged.”
“Da-ge…” Shan Yutian uses that warning tone that is more appropriate to elder than younger brothers. He can tell when his brother is skirting a question. And his brother can tell when he won’t let things go. Shan Haoyu still makes a token effort of playing it off–
“This morning, I was scared that he would leave. Until I am more calm…this is better. I don’t want to make my sickness his problem.”
“Da-ge.” The same words, with a completely different flavor. Pampering, understanding, and infinitely gentle.
Shan Yutian dedicates himself to fixing the sill even better, delicately painting the cracks with sap and carefully wiping the edges so that his brother can have a nice place to be sweet, and so that Zhou Xiwei won’t see the damage and wonder at the cause. His brother is worried enough about his shortcomings without making a mountain out of a broken molehill.
“I think he probably likes being focused on.”
“Well, I don’t. Not this kind. I don’t want to pollute happiness with hysteria.”
Pollution? But they’re so bright together; it’s like imagining a few drops of ink being able to change the color of the sun. Shan Yutian can’t understand because he’s yet to ever fall in love. The idea that the more precious something is, the more you worry that you can’t keep it– isn’t something he can connect to romance. To his brother, sure. Every time that Shan Haoyu starts to break apart, he feels that dread as he pulls him back, worried that he’s been pushed too far. Maybe his soul was arrested at the same time as his body, and he’s cursed to only ever pour his feelings into his brother?
Or maybe he just needs to wait for a few more disasters to wash his special person up? But that doesn’t seem like a very stable start to a relationship.
Oh.
Oh.
Okay, maybe he can see a sliver of why his brother is so cautious, despite Zhou-ge being so obviously fascinated by him. Well, Shan Yutian can’t really help with any of that, but he can make the school more homey and can freshen the rooms up! He can also keep brewing that tea that Zhou-ge seems so enchanted with!
…Is it too early to start trying to figure out how to distill wedding wine?
It is, isn’t it?
—
While Shan Yutian thinks strange things and Shan Haoyu marshalls his neediness, Zhou Xiwei walks idly through the library, fingers running over the spines of long-forgotten books. Everytime he finds an extra-worn category, he smiles and imagines Yu’er and A-Tian returning to an old favorite over and over–
Especially since the most well-loved ones seem to center on cooking.
It makes sense for Shan Yutian, but he’s very soft at the idea of a quiet Shan Haoyu diligently fetching the paltry offerings from the highest shelves and presenting them like treasures to his didi. As far as he can tell, Shan Haoyu doesn’t care about food at all, but cherishes his little brother’s happiness enough to pretend.
And that’s one of the many reasons Zhou Xiwei likes him enough to want to wash his curse away and give him a normal life. Hopefully with him, hopefully together, but even if this turns out to just be a relationship of convenience… He still wants Yu’er to be free to pursue his happiness on the island, or away from it.
Most of the library shelves are the kind of heavy, beveled and polished titans that you expect to see in a government office. There are even little brass plates for slipping in paper labels and staying organized. Castoffs, maybe? Nice castoffs, but oddly fancy for a far-flung, charitable institution.
Maybe they were purpose-built by a carpenter with a heart of gold and materials to donate?
Against the edges of them, much simpler shelves have been rigged up out of painted boards bracketed between their classier cousins, spanning the gap and filled with dozens of copies of the same basic textbooks. There’s no backing, just the plain wall behind.
These shelves prove to be the most useful. Not for the books but for what’s visible behind them. Some are just an unpainted wall, or a strange ugly duckling between swans in spaces where it looks like the original shelves have broken apart. But one of them– towards the back, in a dark corner, and filled to the brim with Chinese literature and composition books–
Behind that one is brown paper backing.
Which is suspicious enough to warrant Zhou Xiwei taking a second look. After all, none of the other shelves have a butcher paper vanity hiding the wall behind them. Aesthetics have clearly been left behind, so why try here? Unless it’s hiding something.
If this was a video game or a movie, this would definitely be a clue!
Zhou Xiwei sets down his thermos and pulls book after book, neatly stacking them on the ground. Even if they’ll never be used again and are horribly outdated, they aren’t his to disrespect.
Once half the shelves are emptied (and he comes to terms with how out-of-shape he is), he runs his fingers against the edges and finds the seam. He can’t just rip it off like wrapping paper. Maybe the brothers or Director Xi were trying to make the place look nicer, only to get waylaid or underwhelmed by the effect.
He’ll feel like a real jerk if he destroys it on a whim.
So instead, he searches until he discovers an edge near the bottom playfully curling up on itself. Ha! He- okay, so he can’t actually see anything. It’s dark and he’s at a bad angle– but still, discovery! He sticks his fingers in and feels the fired brick give way to a wooden door jamb and two inches deeper, something that should be grating? Ha, he might be blindly groping, but that feels like a door to him!
If his stories have taught him anything, it’s that small rooms hold big mysteries. And small rooms hidden behind shelves always have something other than little families of rats waiting for discovery. If he was the backstory on a curse, this is where he’d hide!
Invigorated, Zhou Xiwei pops the individual shelves up out of their brackets and sets them to the side. Eager for discovery absent destruction, he stands on his tiptoes and starts rolling down the paper. No climate control means sticky paste, and it comes down with suspicious ease.
But before he can reach the bottom, Shan Yutian appears behind him. His eyes– There’s something off with his expression.
Author’s Corner: We start the next arc next chapter– Full of such questions as:
Zhou Xiwei is looking for answers, but can he handle them?
Will we ever see the Scooby Gang again?
Does Ding Dongqi still count as a character?
Why does Shan Yutian know so much about unaliving people?
And on a lighter note, what’s going on in bed? 
That telenovela feeling on that author’s note while my mind was screaming for Zhou Xiwei to not touch that door !
Thank you for the chapter !
+1
Next time on ‘La Isla Del Pasión,’ experience people dramatically entering doorways, dramatically hugging, only to pull away and say ‘we musn’t!,’ and dramatically finding mysterious artifacts that suggest that Great Aunt Beatriz was a secret identical triplet and may have been murdered and replaced (twice!) jajajaja
This is… Mwah!
I am anticipating (apprehensive about) the boat team’s reaction to finding yutian’s lil gift…
we need to learn a lot more
Oooh! This is so fascinating. I wonder what’s behind those shelves? And what’s going on with Shan Yutian?
Ooh I’m afraid Uta will feel like its power is at risk by Zhou Xiwei looking for the root of its hold over the boys 😳. Also, hasn’t Ding Dongqi pretty much dropped from a character to more like a prop 🤭
Ding Dongqi (probably): A prop? That’s an option?! Yes. I’m a prop. Definitely a prop. Props are immune to being murdered, right? As long as I can be part of the unmurdable union of fans and beds and towels, I’m on board baby!
(Poor boy doesn’t get to stay a prop forever, hehe)