Chapter 22#
How Could That Ever Be Enough#
Li Heng and the ambulance had a difference of opinion.
Team Leader Li’s position was that Ji Landong had learned something quite important: how to cry with his eyes.
The System’s position was that this was an excuse.
It was definitely that Li Heng was too embarrassed to admit how badly he’d been crying himself, and so he’d handed half the blame to Ji Landong.
It was definitely that Li Heng had held Ji Landong too tightly, and his tears had accidentally drowned Ji Landong — surging all the way across the palm of his hand and seeping through the gaps between his fingers, which was the only reason they could have scalded him.
The little dog Pudding’s position was that the cake was good.
Three parties, three opinions — and so the family needed whoever was most credible and most trusted to serve as referee.
Team Leader Li openly cheated at this stage. He kept Ji Landong wrapped in his arms and refused to let go — face tucked into the hollow of his neck, fingers laced together and held tight.
The System rode the little dog in a charge, forced its way onto the sofa, wedged itself into Ji Landong’s arms — one occupying his shoulder and refusing to get down, the other with the sleeve caught in its teeth and refusing to release.
「Ji Landong has the entire family hanging off him.」
The System logged this. The day had descended into something truly unconscionable.
Unconscionable.
Fortunately, even a family this unconscionable — with opinions flying apart in every direction — had one thing they didn’t need to discuss:
Ji Landong would wake up.
The little dog barked. The System had dismantled the ambulance’s horn and was tooting away on it. Li Heng held Ji Landong’s hand, decided the ring size was about right, and was still calmly attempting to deliver his eight-hundred-word ring sales pitch.
The big, soft sofa in the small wooden cabin was in complete chaos.
A warm world entirely sealed off from the outside — the light soft, the fireplace blazing, light and shadow shifting without pause. Someone seemed to be becoming, little by little, happy.
…Seemed to.
The System was the first to put down its horn.
Ji Landong rested against Li Heng’s shoulder, his lean body carefully held. His hand was gathered in Li Heng’s palm.
Those dark, lustrous eyes curved very slightly. The System knew, truthfully, that it didn’t have a leg to stand on — Ji Landong’s pupils were empty and unfocused, but the outer corners of his eyes and the tip of his nose were a little red.
But just now, those eyes — eyes from which tears seemed truly to have come — were on the other bank, far away, in a place where thick fog covered everything and time itself moved at a different speed.
A translucent shadow, almost gone, had been drawn by a warmth and brightness it had never seen before.
「Ji Landong will wake up.」
The System’s position this time was clear and certain.
「Ji Landong is almost back.」
Ji Landong — held tightly by Li Heng, who was terrified of using too much force and breaking him, yet utterly unwilling to let go. Ji Landong — stolen away by force into that fog of death.
On the far shore of a dark and frozen river, standing quietly, alone.
Looking at their commotion with dazed curiosity. His hand being held. His eyes slowly curving just a little.
Li Heng stopped breathing.
The System pressed down on Pudding’s tail, which was wagging like a propeller.
In the quiet crackle of the flames, Li Heng bent down to kiss that hand. Ji Landong’s body trembled slightly. His fingers curled inward, involuntary — but they were held, carefully, in a warm palm.
“Ji Landong.”
Li Heng held him close, and softly, right at his ear, taught him: “This is called holding hands.”
“When the road is especially hard to walk.”
“When the wind and snow are fierce, the sky is dark, the water is cold, and your legs won’t carry you any further — but you still want, just a little, to go home.”
“When that happens.”
Li Heng taught him: “We hold hands.”
…
Li Heng began demonstrating this in practice, day by day.
Ji Landong’s body had recovered considerably. Bundled warmly enough, he could go outside for a little while to play in the snow. He could place leftover millet grains from the porridge in the palm of his hand and let a skylark — newly returned from its long migration — land and eat.
Pudding was a city dog, and didn’t know how to catch birds. It ran back and forth in high spirits, looking for the bird to play with.
Li Heng held Ji Landong’s hand the whole time.
Feeding the bird. Feeding the dog. Touching the mushroom that had appeared out of nowhere in the snow.
Catching a snowflake knocked loose by the wind.
Putting a little snow down Team Leader Li’s collar.
Cradling a small blueberry and raspberry cream cake from a family bakery — sweet and faintly tart.
Pudding had an excess of energy. Its tail spun like a propeller, and because it had eaten its way into being a not-so-small dog at remarkable speed, it could stand up and hook its front paws over Ji Landong’s knees.
Li Heng had been about to intervene, but noticed that Ji Landong seemed to like it, and for the hundredth time abandoned his principles about cleanliness.
“Shake.” Li Heng clumsily imitated the videos he’d watched online. He took Ji Landong’s hand, gently turned the palm upward, and guided Pudding to set its paw on top. “Pudding — shake.”
Ji Landong received one small, fluffy dog paw.
A warm little dog head burrowed into his chest.
A mushroom growing on the dog’s head.
All of it vivid and clear — if you were a skylark, looking down from high and free, the white snow below held a family piled together in happy chaos.
Ji Landong was caught by this unfamiliar warmth.
The feeling was distinct. A person with gentleness deep in their nature — even if they’re too quiet, even if they say nothing, even if they don’t move for a long time — you still know they’re listening carefully to you.
Ji Landong was drawn by a kind of warmth he’d never seen before, one that even the most perfect family-reunion ending of any film he’d ever acted in would never have thought to capture. He passed through the thin mist and came to the bank. He couldn’t leave.
Couldn’t leave.
A System, a little dog, and a Team Leader Li — busy building a bridge across the dark, cold river.
And so the next several evenings passed like this:
Li Heng kept up his home bakery, moving the steps for making all kinds of sweets to the fireside. The heat was just right — amber caramel syrup bubbling in a pot, the whole cabin smelling sweetly of caramel.
Pudding lay belly-up and lazed around, and when it attempted to stick its paws into the flour and cause trouble, it was temporarily apprehended and sentenced to warm Ji Landong’s knees and calves.
The System carefully selected the right fruit for jam, then discovered that Pudding had athletically stolen a piece and rage-sprouted a small mushroom: 「Hey!」
Team Leader Li’s cleanliness issues had not healed to this extent either: “You can’t eat it on the slipper!”
Pudding, an apple slice carved into a rabbit shape between its teeth, ran back to Ji Landong’s feet in high spirits, just about to set it down — when one person and one mushroom united to stop it, and it immediately rejoiced and started a game of chase.
And so the firelight threw quite a lively set of shadows on the wall again.
Ji Landong watched the shadows.
These days, Ji Landong’s condition had improved further. He could sit upright without the support of a pile of cushions. He could slowly chew and swallow a small piece of caramel apple tart made with rum and vanilla. He could proactively decline Team Leader Li’s technically disastrous attempts at coffee.
…Film Emperor Ji had never kept his mouth shut so thoroughly before.
This had become a running family joke. Li Heng paid the System mushroom in large quantities of hush money every day — at minimum, a full steaming bowl of borscht.
Fortunately, Pudding currently could not speak, and showed no signs of evolving in that direction.
Pudding ran off with the apple. The mushroom launched like a projectile and hit Team Leader Li, who had absolutely no defensive chemistry with it.
Li Heng was temporarily K.O.’d and retired from the field, arms folded on the back of the sofa, lying on them sideways while discussing with Ji Landong whether they should plant anything once the snow melted. Out of habit, familiar enough that no groping was necessary, he took Ji Landong’s hand with perfect accuracy.
And then froze at the look in those eyes.
Team Leader Li, deep in the pleasure of a holiday, hadn’t displayed his top-tier Investigation Bureau physical conditioning for a while.
Li Heng pushed off the sofa back and vaulted clean over the half-height sofa — an unassuming move that startled both the System mushroom and Pudding in the middle of their battle, but Li Heng had no time to explain.
He crouched down, both hands braced on the sofa, and looked up, studying Ji Landong’s eyes seriously.
A few seconds of this, and he rose, gently cradling the back of Ji Landong’s head.
Li Heng looked at Ji Landong, right there in front of him.
He said quietly: “Ji Landong.”
“Ji Landong.”
Li Heng said the three syllables slowly, softly, with the utmost gentleness — waiting for them to pull a very faint response, the way a name works like a spell, able to bind a person for a lifetime or able to pull them free from mud and thorns.
Li Heng held Ji Landong’s hand, pressed it against his own face, and folded the fingers around it.
He noticed Ji Landong’s attention shift — his gaze moving slightly, turning toward him. Like a deer that had wandered between life and death for a long time, returned at last to a pond it hadn’t seen in ages — a little unfamiliar, yet with the careful curiosity of a gentle nature.
And yet familiar.
Very familiar.
Ji Landong’s hand recognized him. His body recognized him. His eyes, in truth, recognized him too.
His eyes curved slightly.
Ji Landong’s hand — held in Li Heng’s — moved.
Fingertips traced his temple. Gently ruffled the prickling short hair. Li Heng found he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t lose his composure and embarrass himself in front of the mushroom, so after doing his utmost to smile, he quickly buried his eyes in the cool palm.
He noticed something stir, weakly, back to life — a strength that had been dormant for a long time. A few seconds later, Li Heng suddenly understood.
He reached out at once. He let Ji Landong’s forehead rest against the hollow of his neck, and without hesitation pulled him into his arms — against his shoulder, against his chest, his heart saying hello through ribs and fabric to the one on the other side.
Li Heng held Ji Landong without leaving a gap.
Ji Landong liked hugs.
Team Leader Li had figured this out considerably after the fact. The day he’d realized it, he had held Ji Landong the entire night without letting go.
They’d watched films together on the sofa. Hummed songs in the bathroom where the natural hot spring had been piped in. Lay and stared blankly at the stars through the skylight. He’d carefully helped Ji Landong blow-dry his hair. They’d lain in bed together, and he’d held Ji Landong close — close enough that the heartbeats blurred.
That night Ji Landong had fallen quietly asleep just like that, resting in his arms.
Now, the same position, the same closeness, Ji Landong was growing drowsy again. His eyelids grew heavy, his lashes trembled, and then he opened his eyes again.
The way he was so reluctant to sleep put an extra smile in Team Leader Li’s eyes. Li Heng drew him closer, forehead against forehead: “It’s all right.”
“There’ll be stars tomorrow.” Li Heng said. “The snow will melt and more will fall next year. Ji Landong — do you want to bet that tomorrow, when you wake up, all three of us will still be holding you?”
Not that it didn’t look a little extreme — Ji Landong was essentially surrounded on all sides.
Li Heng showed Ji Landong the skylight. The snow had stopped. The clouds that had brought it scattered, and the night sky was full again — stars bright and sharp, nearly gathered into a river of light.
Ji Landong lay beneath the Milky Way.
Li Heng lay down too, his arm beneath the back of Ji Landong’s head. The sofa was wide enough that Pudding didn’t need to be evicted. The caramel in the small pot was still slowly cooling — a process with absolutely no reason to be hurried.
Li Heng saw Ji Landong’s eyes curve slowly.
Not like an illusion. He rubbed his eyes hard. Stars had jumped into the hollow, drifting darkness.
Ji Landong closed his eyes. His warm forehead rested against the rushing pulse of Li Heng’s carotid artery.
Li Heng said quietly: “Ji Landong.”
He didn’t mean to disturb Ji Landong’s sleep. It was just that these three syllables were too good to hear — like the faint light of early morning mist, white snow outside the window clean and bright, golden sunlight stirring a wind chime.
He held Ji Landong’s hand. The ring he had slipped on Ji Landong’s finger — quite clumsily, completely failing to leave no trace of it — sat loosely between his knuckles. The size was still wrong. Ji Landong’s body hadn’t yet recovered to where it was meant to be. More nourishing, delicious food from the home bakery was still needed.
But the scarred, pale fingers moved slightly, and didn’t let it fall.
Li Heng looked at that ring.
He couldn’t control where his thoughts went. His mind was full. He thought — perhaps it was coincidence, but who cared, Team Leader Li, who had been in the business of investigating and catching wrongdoers since his first day on the job, had never believed in coincidence.
He thought Ji Landong might find the menu a little one-note — sweets had been the main staple lately because chewing and swallowing were difficult, but perhaps soon it would be time to add a little of the pork rib bun experience into the rotation.
Li Heng slowly tightened his grip on that hand.
Li Heng on holiday didn’t carry much of the smell of blood and gunpowder anymore. What he carried was the smell of cooking.
After all, Team Leader Li was devoting himself to culinary study with the enthusiasm of someone aiming for a perfect score.
Li Heng had also learned sour plum spare ribs, garlic and taro steamed ribs, and a spare rib soup with goji berries, angelica root, corn, and radish.
Don’t underestimate a home bakery.
Li Heng thought — he thought he needed to figure something out quickly. Fast. Timed for the day Ji Landong came home. He needed to use every means at his disposal to persuade Ji Landong to revise his plan about “living one more day.”
One day — how could that ever be enough? He had learned so many dishes.
How could that ever be enough?
Li Heng heard his own heart say: “Ji Landong.”
He heard Ji Landong say: “Mm.”