Chapter 18#
Winter Limited#
The bedroom was still quiet.
Quiet, warm, the light very dim.
The System was eager to talk to Ji Landong. It had heard Li Xingyun’s memory too, and was incensed: 「Ji Landong, what he did was wrong. Let me tell you — you weren’t just allowed to be sick. You were allowed to be angry.」
「Ji Landong.」
The System said: 「You were allowed to be very, very angry.」
The System had seen what came after. Had seen Li Xingyun simply breathe out in relief, drag Ji Landong to the wrap party, drag him back into the noise and chaos that was loud enough to give you a headache.
The habit Li Xingyun had of apologizing on Ji Landong’s behalf — the seeds of it had actually been planted right there and then.
Ji Landong drank forfeit cups for the trouble he’d caused himself.
Jokes, pleasantries, socializing, a blur of figures — cup after cup of liquor going down.
Ji Landong appeared to return to normal.
「To hell with normal.」 The System was furious. 「What even is normal? You were allowed to be alone. If you weren’t doing well, you weren’t obligated to say a word to anyone. Ji Landong, I should have come back then. I would have smashed his head in for you.」
That was, admittedly, a somewhat violent sentiment. But you couldn’t blame the System for it.
These past few days, the System had been unable to contain itself, and had spent half the night following network threads on Ji Landong’s behalf to settle scores — arguing back against extreme fans, and picking up no small amount of internet slang in the process.
Ji Landong was woken by the noise. He slowly opened his eyes to find a mushroom that had burrowed under his blanket.
…The System abruptly went quiet.
It didn’t want to argue anymore. It didn’t want to smash anyone’s head in either, not just now: 「Ji Landong.」
The System moved a little closer and saw the gentle trace of a smile.
The System loved to see Ji Landong smile. Even in data form, those eyes felt warm.
One of Ji Landong’s hands had an IV line taped to it. He was on a drip.
Glucose — Ji Landong had been asleep for thirty hours without eating anything. His body in its current state was prone to hypoglycemia, and Li Heng had arranged for several home doctors.
Li Heng came back every three hours without fail. This had some impact on the investigation, though the Li family’s own unraveling had compensated for that.
The System had so much it wanted to tell Ji Landong. It wanted to say that Ji Ran had really gotten the worst of it this time — everything that couldn’t stand the light was now out in the open. It wanted to say the Li family had been stupid enough to bring it all on themselves, that even the head of the household had received a call from the Investigation Bureau and was now obliged to cooperate. It wanted to say all of it — but looking at those eyes, it couldn’t say anything at all: 「Ji Landong.」
The System asked: 「How are you feeling… are you all right?」
“Very good.” Ji Landong’s hand was wrapped in the System’s embrace, so he just moved his fingers and touched the mushroom — which had taken on a jelly-like texture. “We got sixty points.”
The System froze.
The System clumsily hid the redemption score panel. The thing had malfunctioned. Ji Landong had hit sixty points. Technically the mission was complete.
But the System did not feel good about this at all.
It also didn’t want to leave. It pressed against Ji Landong’s hand, decided that wasn’t enough, and burrowed into Ji Landong’s sleeve, refusing to give him a high-five in celebration: 「No, no. Fifty-nine point nine.」
Ji Landong gave a soft laugh.
「Ji Landong, you’re still zero point one short.」 The System attempted to hold his sleeve hostage. 「I’ll keep you company for your medication. Try a little harder. There are so many new things you haven’t tried yet. Li Heng said a lot of things — you didn’t hear, did you? He mentioned buns.」
The System gave everything it had: 「Pork rib buns, little side dishes, vinegar, millet congee — oh, it smells so good.」
It saw the genuine smile in the eyes that were right there, close enough to touch — only very far away, as if it were a fire on the opposite bank, seen through ice water, soaked in soft mist.
Ji Landong may have understood what it was saying. He may not have. But the System had already stopped caring about figuring that out — something else was more pressing: “Ji Landong, are you in pain?”
The person cocooned in pillows and blankets and dim warmth was dazed. Ji Landong had never been this relaxed. He lay with his eyes barely open, slowly found a little strength, and used it to shake his head.
The System didn’t believe it.
The data did not look good at all.
Ji Landong’s face was paler than frost. His body temperature and heartbeat were abnormal. His breathing was faint. Cold sweat was constant. The hollows between his ribs shuddered in irregular spasms — this body was plainly being tormented by pain. And yet Ji Landong’s expression looked comfortable.
“I feel very good.” Ji Landong smiled. He did his best to pull himself together. “Sixty points. You get to go home.”
Ji Landong coaxed it: “Since when does a mushroom not go home?”
The System had absolutely no interest in going back to that broken home: 「Ji Landong, are we still friends?」
It didn’t ask Ji Landong to answer. Of course Ji Landong considered them friends. The System didn’t need a hollow word to prove it — and turned away to find the small dog Pudding instead: 「Get Li Heng back here. Ji Landong, you’re in a lot of pain. Li Heng will take you to the hospital…」
Ji Landong didn’t look particularly enthusiastic about this plan, but the sound of rapid footsteps was already at the door.
Li Heng had come back at just that moment. Li Xingyun had been taken by the agents to be investigated alongside the rest of the Li family — he wasn’t worth the time. Li Heng opened the bedroom door and walked quickly to the bedside.
Ji Landong apologized for the shrill alarm the monitor had been making, and explained: “I’m fine.”
Ji Landong didn’t feel like he was in pain.
Li Heng bent down. His fingers moved through the sweat-damp hair at Ji Landong’s temple, gently touching his face: “I know.”
His hands were calm and steady. He carefully lifted the person sunk in blankets and cold sweat. Ji Landong was running a fever — but because his baseline body temperature was so low, he didn’t feel burning to the touch, only as though there were a faint, weak warmth held in his throat.
Team Leader Li returned to his old refrain, thoroughly nagging: “Playing in the snow with the window open is a high-risk activity.”
The witness closed his eyes and pretended not to hear.
Li Heng didn’t waste a second. He wrapped Ji Landong tightly in a down jacket and a coat, walked quickly for the door, phone out to call the hospital — he had already organized Ji Landong’s medical history into a neat, thick stack, placed on the bookshelf right by the door where he could grab it on the way out.
“Team Leader Li.” Ji Landong rested his head against his neck, leaning slightly downward, bundled up until he could barely move. “I’m fine.”
Li Heng held him with one arm and pressed the elevator button with his other hand. He missed the basement parking level several times, pressed harder, the pad of his finger going white.
Li Heng: “Mm.”
Li Heng looked down. His expression was still light and easy, and he gently combed back Ji Landong’s fringe: “I can tell.”
A rare chance for Film Emperor Ji to receive a compliment on his technique. He was being held at the throat — fingers against his carotid — and let a faint smile reach his eyes. His lashes seemed to have grown heavy, pressing down over his eyelids, sinking — and then someone stroking his hair called him gently back.
Through the bewildering wet cold of the fog, Li Heng’s silent gaze filtered in like light.
“I wasn’t thinking carefully enough,” Li Heng said. “The insulation wasn’t sufficient. If I’d added a cold-weather face covering, even with the window open, you wouldn’t have caught a chill.”
“Don’t sleep yet.” Li Heng held his hand. “The road ahead is all snow. It’ll be tedious. Keep me company — talk to me. All right?”
Ji Landong’s temper really was genuinely good.
Li Heng carried Ji Landong into the car, settled him against the passenger seat, buckled the seatbelt, realized Ji Landong couldn’t sit up on his own, and went back to gather all the cushions from the rear seat.
Ji Landong’s head was bowed. He watched Li Heng quietly, not sleeping, doing his best to cooperate and lift his arms. The curve of his eyes when they bent was very faint.
Li Heng pulled out of the underground garage and pressed the accelerator, doing his best to keep the car smooth while still maintaining speed.
Ji Landong said: “Team Leader Li.”
Outside the window, there was only snow. Almost no other cars, almost no pedestrians. It was, in truth, very monotonous and dull.
Film Emperor Ji slowly began telling the story of a film he had once acted in.
A roughly redemption-adjacent, stream-of-consciousness kind of film.
A hunter’s cabin on a snowy night. Travelers trapped by thick fog. A fireplace, flames, the window blurred with steam, a borscht churning hot with its fragrance rising all around.
A kiss. Winter limited.
Li Heng listened to the story carefully: “Winter is good. Why does it have to be limited edition? Can’t you kiss in spring?”
Film Emperor Ji, who had fielded ten thousand sharp questions: “…”
Ji Landong laughed, a soft laugh broken by coughing.
He slowly rubbed his forehead. The fever had done something strange to his complexion — lent it a kind of color. His eyes held the steam of the high temperature, and they looked bright, with a charm that had once upon a time been enough to turn heads and keep them turned.
“Because in spring,” Ji Landong thought for a moment, remembered what he’d been going to say, “the snow stops.”
Some things required atmosphere to hold them together.
When the snow stopped, people became free. The traveler would discover that the hunter was nowhere near as tragic and heroic as they’d imagined — the wounds all over him from a beast attack were simply the result of genuinely terrible marksmanship. The hot soup only tasted so good because of the cold, the scarcity, and the hunger.
What had been trapped in that small cabin deep in the forest was really just a perfectly unremarkable, perfectly ordinary person.
“And then?” Li Heng waited. “The traveler just leaves?”
Ahead, the traffic was slowly thickening — not a good sign. The blizzard had caused road disruptions, and emergency snow clearance was still underway.
At the end of an uncountable series of red lights and hard stops, they too were forced to slow and stop.
Ji Landong looked out at the snow through the window and felt a sudden small pang of regret. Li Heng kept calling it “playing in the snow” — it made him realize that he hadn’t really played in it much at all: “Yes.”
His third Film Emperor had been for that film.
Li Heng hadn’t watched films in the past, but it wasn’t hard to deduce — Ji Landong must have been extraordinary in it. Full of that particular magnetism. He decided to watch it the moment he had time.
Beyond that, Team Leader Li had other opinions: “The screenwriter should be arrested.”
Film Emperor Ji: “…”
Li Heng was serious. He could not understand the logic: “What does the traveler want? A torturer? A professional butcher? A borscht chef of the highest order?”
Ji Landong was leaning against the car window. He’d been drawn in by a sparrow bathing in the snow outside, watching it for a moment, then turned back when he heard his name: “A sharpshooter?”
A sharpshooter did sound somewhat cooler, at least.
Li Heng saw no real difference. He looked ahead at the snow barrier still being cleared. The agents joining in had already improved efficiency as much as possible, but it would still take time.
The blizzard had buried the entire city.
Li Heng: “Then it shows that the screenwriter has no lived experience. Hasn’t asked the right people.”
It was an admittedly blunt assessment, with more than a hint of the layperson overstepping their place.
But Ji Landong’s temper really was genuinely good. Even meeting an amateur like Team Leader Li who insisted on telling the professional how it was done, he still listened attentively and cooperated: “Is that so?”
“Yes.” Li Heng pulled the hazard light on and nosed the car to the position closest to the snow barrier. “If I were trapped in the snow and the screenwriter came to ask me, I’d tell them — I don’t want any damned torturer, butcher, or chef.”
No sharpshooter either.
Li Heng’s own marksmanship was perfectly fine.
Ji Landong had never talked like this with someone outside the industry before. It was novel: “Then what would you want?”
Li Heng said: “Ji Landong.”
Ji Landong instinctively responded — and then the meaning of it landed, that this seemed to be the answer to a question. He was cupped at the back of the neck by Li Heng, and some very gentle confusion rose to the surface of his eyes.
Li Heng shifted in his seat and reached out, carefully gathering the back of Ji Landong’s neck in his hand.
Ji Landong was sweating heavily. His skin was pale and cold in a way that was unsettling. Li Heng was worried about electrolyte imbalance and tried to get Ji Landong to take a little of the ginger and red date tea.
“My marksmanship is good.” Li Heng spoke quietly, trying every method he could to maintain Ji Landong’s consciousness while suppressing the urgency in his peripheral vision — the snow barrier that still had to wait to be cleared. “Ji Landong, do you want to try target shooting? There’s a range. I have access through my position. Free of charge.”
Things were looking fairly bad. The blizzard ahead had buried the road completely.
Ji Landong lay with his eyes barely open, cooperating, holding the ginger tea in his mouth without swallowing, looking at him with a quiet, unfocused gaze.
Li Heng touched the corner of his lips, parted the lightly closed mouth, a careful brush of friction, adding a little gentle pressure. Ji Landong let out an involuntary, barely audible murmur.
A kiss at its most careful — and it drew up, faintly, the edges of a memory.
Ji Landong asked quietly: “Why?”
Probably not asking why he was abusing his position to give free access to the shooting range.
Li Heng was cradling the back of his head. He would honestly rather answer the question about the shooting range, because “why do I want Ji Landong” was a question that genuinely didn’t have an answer — it was like asking a person why they needed to breathe, why they needed to eat.
Li Heng needed to breathe. Needed to eat.
So he didn’t want any damned torturer, butcher, chef, or sharpshooter.
He wanted Ji Landong.
“Ji Landong.” Li Heng looked into those eyes. “You don’t believe things will get better, do you? And the things I say — they can’t make you believe that either.”
“This isn’t catastrophic thinking. It’s your reality. Everything will turn bad. Follow any road to its end and it will collapse.”
“It’s always been this way. You know it well.”
“So staying inside the best memory you have — that is the most rational choice.”
“You’ve decided to stay before the snow stops.”
Li Heng spoke very slowly and very clearly, making sure each word reached Ji Landong: “You thought it through carefully.”
“Ji Landong — I have to say, the reason you would make that choice in the end is because you really have already given everything you had. You fought to the last moment. You found the most effective method available to you.”
Team Leader Li had probably tried a little too hard.
But the compliment landed well enough — Ji Landong smiled.
That kind of smile had a way of piercing straight through your eyes.
His consciousness adrift to its limits, Ji Landong said nothing more — he didn’t like talking. He lay with his head in Li Heng’s palm, eyes curved just slightly, the steam of the high fever making those eyes look clear and bright.
Li Heng held back the sudden impulse to squeeze his eyes shut.
“There’s just one small problem.”
Li Heng leaned forward, his forehead against Ji Landong’s: “Ji Landong — you forgot about me.”
The person he was holding seemed to pause at those words.
The smile hadn’t faded yet. Ji Landong looked at him. His eyes were touched gently, and his lashes, stimulated by that, trembled once, involuntarily.
Li Heng said: “You haven’t asked me whether I have a way.”
He said: “Ji Landong — there are things you still haven’t asked me.”
Li Heng kept the person who had grown too quiet safe, careful in every movement. He did everything in his power — oxygen, glucose powder and salt for Ji Landong, found ways to bring down the high fever in that body.
He gripped his phone hard, activated every channel available to him, searching again and again for the nearest hospital that could provide adequate medical care, given the current state of the roads.
His sleeve was yanked hard, by an invisible force.
Li Heng looked down.
Probably Ji Landong’s friend.
He saw that Ji Landong was trying to raise his hand — but his body wouldn’t allow it. The hand only moved faintly, weakly.
Li Heng took the hand and pressed it against his own face.
Ji Landong gently stroked his temple. Like a curious, gentle deer.
A deer being submerged in ice water.
A deer that was dying.
The high fever had thrown his body into violent disarray. Years of excess medication. Ji Landong’s brain had lost its capacity to regulate. His body was failing at a rate that could not be slowed.
Ji Landong himself appeared to have no particular desire to stop this process.
…Appeared to.
“Li Heng.” Ji Landong slowly opened his mouth. It was already difficult for him to form each word clearly. The warmth in his throat was burning down everything left in this body. He had been waiting a long time for this outcome — but there was also, truly, one question he had nearly forgotten.
Ji Landong effortfully formed the shape of words without sound.
Li Heng read it quickly. His trembling arms pulled the person close: “The buns.”
Yes.
That was what Ji Landong wanted to ask. He had been meaning to ask Li Heng about that bun all along.
The pork rib bun.
How could you make a filling out of pork ribs?
Wouldn’t you have to take the bones out?
Ji Landong couldn’t work it out.
Ji Landong asked quietly: “Is it good?”