Chapter Text
Li Cu pulls his Audi into the space next to Wu Xie’s beat-up Jinbei van and turns off the engine. He’s not sure why Wu Xie still drives that piece of junk when he can afford a car as nice as the one he gave Li Cu, but he’s certainly not going to ask. In the two years since he found out Wu Xie is his biological father, they’ve carved out a tentative peace and Li Cu isn’t going to be the one to mess it up.
He grabs the bags from the back seat and slings his duffle over one shoulder before pulling the old wooden gate closed and locking it. The tissue paper in the gift bag hanging from one hand rustles as he makes his way up the path to the front courtyard, and Li Cu regrets the impulse that made him wrap it.
It’s nothing fancy, and despite the fact that Wu Xie’s birthday is next week, it is definitely not a birthday present. The qilin incense burner he’d spotted in the window of the little shop in Nanjing had caught his eye months ago, and this is just the first chance he’s had to bring it to Wushanju.
And anyway, it’s as much for Xiaoge as it is for Wu Xie.
Even if it was a birthday present—which it isn’t—he has to head back to Nanjing for the start of the spring semester, so he won’t even be at Wushanju for Wu Xie’s birthday. He dropped Su Wan off in Nanjing to spend some time with his girlfriend before coming to Hangzhou from Beijing, but he can only stay a few days before Su Wan starts nagging him.
Li Cu exits the path neatly lined with silver cloak ferns and yellow larch to the open expanse of the front courtyard. There are a few new evergreen plantings around the porch and the whole courtyard looks like it’s been freshly cleaned and painted. Wang Meng must have been hard at work because it certainly wasn’t Wu Xie.
Something glints in the midday sun and Li Cu pauses to bend down and pick it up. It’s a glossy button. He turns it over on his palm and looks around. There is another one a few steps away and two more in the dirt next to the wall to the right of the front gate. Li Cu frowns and pockets the one in his hand.
Though Li Cu has his own rooms in one of the small buildings beside the pond, he doesn’t technically live at Wushanju. Wu Xie had explained that it was easier to give Li Cu his own space—also big enough for Su Wan and Yang Hao—than it was to make up guest rooms in the main house every time they came to visit. Despite the perfectly reasonable explanation, Li Cu tried hard to ignore the warmth that had spread through his chest when Wu Xie gave him the keys.
Li Cu slips into the main house and closes the door behind him. He’s gotten used to just walking in, which is a marked difference from his first visit with Liang Wan, but he’d like to think Wu Nainai would approve. There’s a soft murmur of voices coming from the direction of the kitchen, so Li Cu drops his duffle on the floor next to Wang Meng’s desk and makes his way down the hall with the gift bag.
Hopefully one of those voices is Xiaoge because he didn’t respond when Li Cu texted him yesterday to ask if he was in Hangzhou this weekend. Though they text fairly regularly, Li Cu hasn’t seen him since the day in the fall when he found out about Thunder City and Wu Xie’s near death. Li Cu drove in from Nanjing to bitch Wu Xie out and Xiaoge had been a very quiet referee.
Li Cu had been intimidated the first time Wu Xie had taken him to meet Zhang Qiling—and more than a little surprised that the man Wu Xie had nearly burnt the world down for appeared to be no older than Li Cu himself—but he’s come to appreciate Xiaoge’s stability and dry sense of humor. It also doesn’t hurt that he has continued the training Li Cu received from the Wangs. His methods are certainly a little more orthodox than those Hei Xiazi uses when he comes to see Li Cu and Su Wan in Nanjing.
The sound of the voices stops as Li Cu gets closer and when he turns the corner into the kitchen, his brain short-circuits.
Wu Xie is there, but it isn’t Xiaoge with him. Instead, a slender woman with straight, shoulder-length chestnut hair has her back to the door. She’s wearing what Li Cu is pretty sure are Wu Xie’s pajama bottoms and the yellow sweater Li Cu gave Wu Xie for chunjie last year as a joke.
But the fact that she’s wearing Wu Xie’s clothes isn’t the worst part. No, even worse is that she has Wu Xie pressed against the counter and they are very obviously kissing. Li Cu is frozen in place until Wu Xie slides the hands that are gripping the woman’s hips down to cup her ass and yank her against him, and the sight burns itself onto Li Cu’s retinas.
“Holy shit, Dad! What the fuck are you doing?”
The words come out before Li Cu can think better of them, and Wu Xie and the woman jump apart so quickly Wu Xie hits the counter behind him and nearly knocks over a pile of plates. He flails his arms and grabs the plates before they go crashing to the floor, but the bundle of chopsticks on top of the pile scatters across the kitchen like kindling. The sight would even be funny if Li Cu wasn’t sick to his stomach.
After everything, Wu Xie is cheating on Xiaoge, right in the kitchen of Wushanju? And where are Pangzi and Xiao Mei? Surely Pangzi wouldn’t tolerate this. Next to Wu Xie, Xiaoge is his best friend. They’re closer than brothers.
Did Wu Xie finally give in to Wu Erbai’s demands that he produce a legitimate Wu heir and no one thought to tell Li Cu? Does this mean Li Cu is going to have a little brother or sister? Does Xiaoge know?
“Dad?” the woman gasps at the same time as Wu Xie yells, “Li Cu!”
The woman turns to look at Wu Xie with eyes that are wide behind a pair of wire-framed glasses, and between the delicate features and the full lips, it takes Li Cu a moment to realize that the woman isn’t a woman at all.
Wu Xie was kissing a man who can’t be any older than Li Cu.
“What the fuck?” Li Cu says again, and this time the words do not even begin to encompass his surprise or disgust.
“Dad?” the guy asks again in a slightly louder voice, turning to look at Li Cu with those wide, startled eyes. He swings back to Wu Xie. “You have a son?”
Wu Xie gingerly stabilizes the pile of plates on the counter before turning to Li Cu. “Since when are you calling me Dad?”
Li Cu blinks. Though he’s found the word on the tip of his tongue a few times over the last year, he has very intentionally been avoiding using it until he was sure he’d forgiven Wu Xie for… everything. This certainly wasn’t the circumstance under which he’d imagined using it for the first time.
“Would you prefer I call you bastard ?” Li Cu says, coating every word with derision. He drops the gift bag onto the cart just inside the door and takes a few steps toward them. “How could you do this to Xiaoge? After everything you went through for him?”
Wu Xie pinches his nose and sighs. “It’s not what you think. I can explain.”
“Are you going to explain the part where you have a son who is basically the same age as me?” the guy Wu Xie had been making out with says. He looks from Wu Xie to Li Cu and back to Wu Xie again. The cord from a pair of earbuds shifts under his hair as he moves.
“I can explain that, too,” Wu Xie says in a voice that is slightly panicked.
“What is there to explain?” Li Cu snaps. “You’re cheating on him. He gave up ten years of his life for you and you’re just throwing that away.” Li Cu turns to the guy. “Did you know he has a boyfriend? Did he tell you how long they’ve been together?”
“I’m not—” Wu Xie begins.
“This isn’t—” the guy says at the same time.
“He loves you!” Li Cu yells, raw anger burning in his gut at how Wu Xie can so easily throw away what he has with Xiaoge the same way he threw Li Cu away. “Do you even care how much this is going to hurt him? You really haven’t changed at all, have you? You’re still just as fucking selfish as you’ve always been!”
Wu Xie’s eyes go wide. “If you’d calm down and let me explain, you’d see that isn’t what’s happening here. Xiaoge knows—”
Li Cu sees red. He’d convinced himself that Wu Xie is different now. That he’s no longer the same selfish kid who’d given Li Cu’s mother a small fortune to make an inconvenience go away. But here he is, not only betraying the person who loves him the most in the world, but he’s also lying and trying to pretend that Xiaoge is okay with it. Li Cu has seen the way Xiaoge’s eyes go stony when Hei Xiazi flirts with Wu Xie. There’s no way he’d ever be okay with sharing.
With an incoherent yell, Li Cu drops one shoulder and sprints across the kitchen. He learned a lot from the Wangs, and even more from Xiaoge since then, and he’s pretty sure he can hold his own against Wu Xie now. He’s no longer the helpless, stupid kid Wu Xie dragged into the desert.
Li Cu only makes it halfway across the kitchen before a set of strong arms wrap around his waist and yank him off his feet. He’s spun around and set down facing away from Wu Xie and the stranger, and he finds himself looking into Xiaoge’s placid face. “Calm down,” Xiaoge says in that same quiet, composed voice he always uses.
“But he— They—”
“I know.”
“You know?” Li Cu’s tone is incredulous.
Xiaoge releases him and looks over Li Cu’s shoulder with a soft smile that Li Cu has only ever seen him aim at Wu Xie. He looks back at Li Cu and nods. “That’s Liu Sang.”
Li Cu pauses. He’s heard that name. Wu Xie hadn’t wanted to tell Li Cu any of the details about Thunder City—hadn’t even apologized for not telling Li Cu he was dying—but Pangzi had filled in some of the gaps for him. And one of the biggest gaps had included the people who had helped them. Xiao Bai, Li Jiale, Huo Daofu… and Liu Sang.
“ That’s Liu Sang?” Li Cu whirls around, and Xiaoge moves to keep himself between them. Li Cu looks at Liu Sang over Xiaoge’s shoulder. “ You’re Liu Sang?”
Liu Sang nods carefully.
Li Cu turns to Xiaoge with slowly dawning horror. “And you’re— He’s— You and Wu Xie are—” The realization of what is happening sinks in. By the time he actually met Xiaoge, Li Cu had pieced together that he and Wu Xie were more than friends, but this is something else entirely. His father is sleeping with not one, but two men... and one of them is practically Li Cu’s age? Li Cu shudders. “Oh, ewww!”
Xiaoge narrows his eyes. “A consensual relationship is—”
Li Cu slaps his hand over Xiaoge’s mouth. Xiaoge’s eyes go wide and Li Cu’s life flashes before his eyes. Li Cu swallows hard and very carefully removes his hand. “Please, please, I’m begging you, do not finish that sentence. I do not want to know. Let’s just forget this happened.” Li Cu takes a few steps backward and snatches the gift bag off the cart. “I’m going to go wait in the shop. You, um, yeah, I’m going to go wait and you come get me when you’re ready.”
As Li Cu walks hastily down the hallway, simultaneously trying to figure out how to bleach his brain and lamenting every one of his life choices, he hears Liu Sang say, “And which one of you are going to explain how you have a son?”