The boat slows against the tension of the sand before Zhou Xiwei even sees the beach.
Even when he looks down, past the shallow clearness of the water, it looks like the shells are floating in a void. He actually has to run his fingers through it to understand. Black sand? Huh. He’s heard of it before, but only in far-flung places, like Hawaii or Iceland. Why it’s here…
Well, no matter. It helps things make sense. The island that they arrive at is small, and there’s not a telephone pole or brightly lit windows or… electricity at all? At least not in sight. No moon, no buzzing street lights, no white sand for the stars to reflect off of.
It’s no wonder that he didn’t see the island until they were nearly on top of it.
How lucky they are!
Mother and Father Song get out first, followed by Zhang Zhiping and Ding Dongqi carrying a still drunk and blubbering Qian Li with them. Qian Li is muttering something about sharing the covers– seems he has no idea what kind of trial he just experienced. More luck for the sloshed little architect.
The rescuers help stabilize the liferaft while the crew leaves, and the chef takes one long look at the lot of them before decisively ignoring both groups and walking off with his stew and his bottle.
Guess it’s pretty fucked up, to not get rescued by your employers or your fellow crew.
Zhou Xiwei is so busy trying to let his eyes adjust to the light and the interpersonal relationships on display that he ends up being the last to leave. Song-ge helps out his sister, and when a hand reaches out for him, he takes it on instinct-
But it’s not Song Bai. It’s the rescuer with the dark eyes and the nice voice.
Zhou Xiwei leaves the boat like a tin man, all stiff joints and stiffer smile. When in doubt–
“Thank you again, for finding us. I’m sorry for putting you out.” –Be thankful.
“There’s enough empty rooms.”
Zhou Xiwei is better than most, at expressing thanks and sorrow and all those other demure emotions that you learn to master, when you’re a foster child foisted upon a family of your betters.
But it’s hard to talk to someone that’s so different from the rigid or libertine young people that he’s used to meeting. He can deal with stiff and judgemental traditionalists, and he can deal with dissolute and disappointing modernists, but this person–
Fuck, he hasn’t even remembered introductions!
Hand still grasped in a cool palm, he smiles again before looking off to the side. Not at anything in particular. Just for the sake of not looking at him. He’s too intense, but in a quiet, magnetic way that threatens to drag Zhou Xiwei in. It must be the shock of the cold water.
There’s no other explanation for why Zhou Xiwei feels so off-kilter and easily influenced.
“I’m Zhou Xiwei, by the way. You pulled up me, and my sister Zhou Xiting, as well as our best friend, Song Bai– it’s his birthday, believe it or not, so his parents and friends and– well, anyway, umm.” Oh no, he’s rambling. Rambling and still holding the guy’s hand in the longest, stillest handshake in history. “I’m Zhou Xiwei, again, and I’m so glad to not be still in that water, so thanks again, Mister– uh?”
The rescuer tilts his head, like he has to think about the answer. Odd.
“Shan Haoyu.” An odd name to match his odd giving of it. He doesn’t elaborate, or name his companions. Just as Zhou Xiwei is feeling awkward, Song Bai returns and wraps an arm around his shoulder, rescuing him.
“Ai, that’s our XiXi, trying to rattle off a full set of proper introductions, even soaked in seawater.” Song Bai laughs, gently enough that it feels like a compliment instead of censure. “I’m sure everyone will be better in the morning– if there’s some place that we could bed down? A hotel, maybe? Payment is no problem.”
Song Bai smiles, but his easy social graces don’t make Shan Haoyu bloom like they do other people. If anything, his eyes dim a little? But Zhou Xiwei misses it. He’s too busy enjoying not being in charge; he’s emotionally spent. Also, body warmth is like, very, very welcome.
Brrrr.
Shan Haoyu turns and starts walking away, up a hill that he must have walked a thousand times, to be able to find his way on such a dark night. Song Bai watches him for a few second before shaking his head and pulling a still-shivering Zhou Xiwei forward.
“Must be tired? Let’s hurry and follow along.”
—
With the exception of the pissed cook and that junior steward, everyone else follows after Shan Haoyu. Up the hill and then back down a bit– like walking into the crater of a volcano so old and worn down that it barely resembles one. But then there’s a second ridge in the distance– can volcanoes be double-ridged? Is that a thing? He wasn’t be best geology student.
“Maybe that’s where the sand came from?” Zhou Xiwei wonders, aloud. Father Song is the only one who notices.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. Just talking to myself.”
The older man nods, pauses, looks down– hangs back, and knows that Zhou Xiwei is the type of child that will get the hint and match his stride. Song Bai lets go, catching up to help with the Qian Li carrying, and Zhou Xiwei does indeed falter and adjust his pace.
In no time at all, he and Father Song are at the back of the pack.
“Xiao Wei, you know your father was my dearest friend. More like a brother really-” Zhou Xiwei puts on an attentive look, like he always does whenever Father Song talks about their family connection. He also clenches his fingers against his outfit, in anticipation of being corrected.
After all, there’s always a correction, a wrong step he’s taken, when Father Song talks to him so softly, like this. The man doesn’t have the free time or the free emotions to have purposeless chats.
“When he died, I swore that I would raise you and your sister up properly. Prepare you to be the kind of people that your parents would be proud of, and protect the company so that your legacy would not be strangled in the crib.”
Zhou Xiwei knows.
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.
The Songs have been good to them.
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The Songs took them in, and raised them to be genuinely good, instead of wastes– he and his sister were put in the best schools, they were protected, they weren’t allowed to become dissolute. The Song parents even invested their money thoughtfully, so that the fortune grew instead of dwindling. They really took care of them, from start to finish, without asking for anything back except that they do their best.
Even now that they’re legally adults, the Song family shelters them.
Zhou Xiwei can’t mount a defense against such meticulousness. Especially when he knows, well and truly, that he’s the biggest impediment to his own success– not as confident as his sister, nor as focused, not as pleasing to investors– in love with Song Bai, which is the greatest of his sins.
So he keeps his eyes downcast and his face appropriately open-to-instruction, as Father Song looks down at his exposed legs and winces. “Xiao Wei, your father has one daughter. Not two. Doing such things, I can’t face your father later if you act this way.”
The chill of the night invades Zhou Xiwei all at once, from his stockinged ankles to his exposed collarbone to his ringing ears. Can’t face your father.
Zhou Xiwei sees his father before him, the smile that he remembers so well giving way to a look of disgust that he never had to see before, that his father never showed him while he was still living. He sees his mother as well, thinks that she’ll save him, but she looks– looks like having a second child was a mistake, like he wasn’t worth the fines they faced.
“Zhou Xiwei. Are you listening?”
It feels like he’s back in the freezing ocean. Feels like his lungs are burning with the need for air that won’t come.
“..Yes. I know, Uncle. I’m sorry. It was just a joke. A joke for Song Bai’s birthday.” His voice is very small.
Father Song clicks his tongue, but doesn’t press further.
He never does, when they reach the outskirts of Zhou Xiwei’s transparent, but unmentionable feelings for his son. After all, why ask questions that you don’t want the answer to? Isn’t it easier to decry the submissiveness of a disappointing scion, when you don’t investigate what, or who, exactly, is breeding such submission? Better to invest in benign neglect, in the hopes that the feelings will fade and the sense of unity can be maintained, when it’s done.
“You shouldn’t make yourself into a joke so cheaply.”
“Yes sir. I know. I’m sorry.”
Just like that, they reach the first set of simple wood-clad buildings, and Father Song calls the lesson done.
—
“The old dorms should work– It will take a bit to find fresh sheets, but by the time you all pick a place and everyone’s showered and settled in, we’ll be able to bring them over.”
Standing on the porch of a low slung building that looks like a rural Chinese courtyard crossbred with a Thai riverhouse, an older man– one of the silent rescuers– speaks. Beside him, the youngest– a boy that looks no more than fifteen– fumbles with matches and lights two oil-and-wick lanterns, allowing light to finally spill into this peacefully, almost morbidly veiled place in the middle of the sea.
Sure enough, doesn’t look like they have access to electricity.
Out of some strange instinct, Zhou Xiwei looks for Shan Haoyu, but he’s disappeared. It’s late, he’s no doubt tired; who goes out fishing and pulls up almost a dozen strangers instead?
It’s not abandonment, for him to leave.
Zhou Xiwei follows the rest of the group in, Father Song’s rebuke making him stick close to his sister, instead of Song Bai or any of the rest of them.
Anyway, even in a dress, even as the younger of them– as a brother, he should really make sure that she’s okay and settled, before he worries about his own rest.
“Jie, are you okay?”
“I think so. I-” She looks over and taps her head against his shoulder as they walk down the central hall and peer into the rooms on either side. She shows him the vulnerability that most others have never seen. Would never believe, coming from her. “I’m sorry for before. I didn’t know it was you, or that– I just, it was like I wasn’t in control.”
“You took the same lifeguard class as me. You know it’s normal. It’s not like I’m going to hold it against you.”
Survival instincts are a powerful thing.
“Well, still… Sorry.”
“Yeah, no worries. Must have been fucking weird to wake up to that.”
She laughs and then winces, at the way the salt in her airway makes her vocal chords hurt.
“Understatement. In the extreme. I was half-awake from the movement? And then– The loudest crack you ever- like thunder split the room open, and it was just water where there used to be sheets, and I didn’t know where I was or where you were or why anything was happening…”
She squeezes his hand, tightly, tighter than even Song Bai had when his parents were missing.
“It’s so good you’re safe.”
“We’re both safe.”
Their family can’t take another tragedy, especially not of the double-barrelled variety. Zhou Xiwei swings their connected arms and puffs air out between clenched teeth. Manages to joke about himself, the way he can only with her, this person that understands him better than anybody.
“Not curious about my attire then?”
She snorts. Very unladylike. Mother Song would be aghast, if she wasn’t hurrying along, trying to find the cleanest and best of the sparse and mostly identical accommodations.
“Dear brother, of all the things that have happened tonight, your choice to be Madame Minx doesn’t even rate in my top five. Especially since it’s patently obvious. Those jerks, your Song Bai– I’m just grateful it’s not a bunny costume, or something.”
Yeah, he’s also pretty sure he’s not wearing a cottontail. He still defends him.
“It’s not his fault.”
“Nothing ever is.”
“Jie-” Zhou Xiwei’s voice bleeds with half-hearted warning. Zhou Xiting rolls her eyes and swings their arms a little higher, like she’s going to make her complaints one way or another, even if she can’t speak about it with her dumbass didi.
“Okay, okay. He hung the moon, lets not fight, I’m too tired from all that nearly murdering you I did.”
“Yes, it’s no wonder killers stay so trim.”
She chuckles, pain be damned.
“You know, he might like you more, if you could be like this with him, instead of turning into a little doll with no voice and no opinions.”
“Jie…” It’s old advice, already long-since discarded.
Song Bai already loves him the most he ever will– as his dear brother.
And no one prefers a smart mouthed and sarcastic brat to a well-behaved little shadow. Zhou Xiwei is sure about that– has been sure with every new school and every new friend group and every relative and godfatherly business associate that he’s ever been introduced to.
This is as good as it gets, and his tired sigh says as much. And warns her not to say any more– even as a whisper– in public.
“Right, right, not getting into it. Come on, let’s choose a bunk and get to bed.”
Finally, something to agree on.
They turn through the next open door, accepting that one room will be much the same as the others, and nearby is better than far. It’s the typical boarding configuration– four corners, four beds, with desks and dressers to give everyone their own space, even if the spaces are carbon copies. They lift tarps and flip the thin twin mattresses and, knowing that no one else will bunk with them, pull the second set of mattresses to create two double-deckers that are almost the same depth as a proper bed would be.
As far as clothing–
That’s a little harder. Bedsheet togas? Maybe?
—
There’s a knock on the doorframe.
Thin and silent, Shan Haoyu waits, like this is really their space and not just a bit of slapped-together charity, holding a pile of clothing in his hands. Zhou Xiting, who has always hated being soggy and stuck-together, yelps and skips over and before Zhou Xiwei can even make introductions, she’s scurried off to find an empty room to change in. She grabs a spare set of leftover dorm slippers as she goes– can’t be too careful about splinters and tetanus and such.
Zhou Xiwei wants to hide his face in his hands. Honestly, normally, she’s much more put together than this. He promises!
“…Sorry about that. She’s really grateful. Just like me-” He smiles and steps forward and…
Is confused by the two sets of clothing still in Shan Haoyu’s hands.
“Oh, sorry, did A’Ting take the wrong set-? I can-” He looks out, worried that in taking a pair of cotton trousers, his sister has doomed someone else into wearing something between a nightgown and a sundress.
“No.” Shan Haoyu frowns, like a child asked to come to the board and complete a math problem. His voice finally has a little emotion added in. Uncertainty? “I wasn’t sure what you wanted. This was a boy’s home, so it took awhile to find something different. You can take either. Or both.”
It takes Zhou Xiwei longer than it should to realize that Shan Haoyu is trying to accommodate his perceived crossdressing. Fuck.
Well– it’s better than disdain? And a little surprising, to think that someone from a village so small that it doesn’t even seem to have electricity could just take it in stride but still… He wants to clarify before this misunderstanding spirals.
“I’m not into women’s clothing.”
“Oh. Okay.” Shan Haoyu takes the dress that he ran to half-a-dozen abandoned houses to find, wraps it around his knuckles, and hides it behind his back so that the only clothes on offer are the more typical pants and wide-necked shirt.
Zhou Xiwei feels oddly guilty.
He softens his voice and tries to bleed thankfulness into his tone.
“Thank you. Really, that was very kind and thoughtful of you. But um, this isn’t-” He gestures at the tatty maid’s outfit, bending down to pull off the stockings like he can’t believe he hadn’t done so already. “This was just a silly thing. For a friend’s birthday.”
“Song Bai. He’s the one with the birthday.”
“Right.” Good memory.
“He wanted you to wear this?”
“Uh…” Zhou Xiwei chuckles nervously and rubs the back of his neck. “Not- not really. He- you know, birthday, and there weren’t any girls around– uh, my sister doesn’t count- so the other guys… thought that it would be funny for me to dress. Like… this.”
Shan Haoyu frowns.
“But you don’t like it?”
“No”
“You did it, just to make him happy?”
“-Yes?”
“You’re a good person.”
After making that judgment, Shan Haoyu hands over the clothing, walks out, and gently closes the door. Zhou Xiwei strips down, ‘bathes’ with the washcloth and basin that had somehow appeared in the room, and gets redressed.
Weirdest. Night. Ever.
But at least they survived it. At least their hosts are kind-hearted.
—
Shan Haoyu returns to the old schoolhouse, where he, his brother, and Director Xi spend their nights. It’s large, it’s central, it’s the most well-insulated building on the island, and– it doesn’t carry the difficult memories of some of the other parts. They’ve made a home here, in the old classrooms and the small offices that have become bedrooms.
He doesn’t head upstairs to his cobbled-together room though. Instead, he follows the faint humidity wafting up from the basement, to where his little brother is acting as laundress.
“Is everyone settled in?” Shan Haoyu had missed some things, running around for that dress.
Shan Yutian– his full-blooded brother, and the youngest person around, finishes putting the last load of linens into the wash tub before turning to him with a smile that’s made false by small worry lines that linger around his eyes.
“Yes. Most of them are in the dorms. Two– the one that was angry at being left behind and his boyfriend, at least I think it was his boyfriend?– They’re in the caretaker’s cabin. Is that okay? I know it’s not standard, but-”
“Why are you asking me? It should be fine.”
Shan Haoyu smoothes out the creases of the peony-printed dress before folding it and placing it in its very own drawer, just in case- in case it’s ever needed. He doesn’t want to have to run around again, into all those old abandoned buildings that he doesn’t like.
Just in case, it’s better to keep it. For Zhou Xiwei. Or any other good people who need it.
Shan Yutian raises an eyebrow at his brother’s behavior.
“Folding? You?”
“I do chores all the time.”
“I know, I know. Just not normally, you know, outsider things.”
“He’s a good person.”
“The one in the dress?”
“Yes.”
Shan Yutian chews his cheek and looks like he’s wavering between hopeful excitement and familiar dread. But when Shan Haoyu smoothes out the dress for the third time, he decides on hopefulness. He even smiles, and slides closer, eager to bathe in positive emotions.
“Good. It’s good if he’s good. Good people surround themselves with other good people, right? So…”
So it shouldn’t end like it always does. This time, it should be different.
Of course, he doesn’t say that. There are things that none of them can say out loud.
They finish their chores and head to their makeshift rooms in silence, but it’s lighter than it normally is, when the island hosts guests. For once, the old innocence returns, and Shan Yutian can’t help but hold some expectations.
If they’re good people-
That would just be the very best.
Author’s Corner:
Sometimes courtship is bringing a boy a dress.
Without judgment, without asking him to justify it.
Comparison breeds discontent– Zhou Xiwei, how do you feel about how all these different people responded to your unfortunate choice in drowning attire? Your sister is good, the stranger is good, but the rest of them…
Darling, maybe you should get shipwrecked more often.
i’m sure no one but zhou xiwei and his sister deserves that innocence from them
I’d hate breaking their dream but. yeah. really not sure that except the sis they’re good people (and maybe the young stewart ?)
Thank you for the chap !
Good people, huh? Maybe just few… unless those few have crazy dark secrets. I can kind of see father Song might fall into that category; putting up that mostly decent front, albeit a bit prejudice (but I’ll pass it off temporarily as him being a protective father), until poof! Some terrible past deed pops out!
Oh boy, that sounds ominous. I guess there will be ominous things on an island with 3 inhabitants and a bunch of abandoned houses. A boy’s home, of course, is a favorite of ghost hunters everywhere for good reasons. I was in tears when he offered up the dress – could he be any more supportive 🥺. During Daddy Song’s lecture, Lust for Life by Iggy Pop. Yes, Mr. Song we get it, you’re worth a million in prizes 🙄.
So they already saw a shipwreck and the aftermath? Mmh so ominous
But our ml is so attentive! Loving this ♡