#one of the video game store rewards: cure to all poisons

[shamera]

NaNo day 14-15

...i got distracted last night and ended up reading manga instead, whoops. where am i going with this story? i feel like i need another idea to sustain my nano. just so i can work on something else when i get distracted, rather than staring blankly. then i can alternate or something.

anyway, here's wonderwall.

“No one helped you back?” Fang Duobing sounded heartbroken. 

Li Lianhua reached to pat his hand. “I was ill, and an outsider. It was kind enough of them not to throw me out. For all they knew, my illness could be contagious. Besides, Hulijing helped me back.”

A touching story, for sure. Di Feisheng shifted his weight as he eyed the dog, and then asked, “I’ll believe half of that.”

It was too sweet a tale to be entirely true, and seeing Li Lianhua’s bitter smile as he told it, Di Feisheng would reckon that half was a lie to placate himself. He didn’t know what parts were true, but that wasn’t the point. It was whether this story could convince Li Lianhua in the future to trust his words, even if the story itself was a lie. So long as he recognised it as his own lie, then it was fine. 

Fang Duobing, however, had a different reaction to that tale being exposed. 

“What?” The young man asked, looking between the two of them. “What do you mean— what really happened?”

Li Lianhua reached to flick him on the side of the head lightly when he pushed into his personal space. “Exactly as I said. You don’t need to worry about it any further.”

To Di Feisheng, he said, “Tell me about what happens in the village.”

— 

In the end, they write down a whole chart. Nonsense, most of it, but Li Lianhua looked satisfied nevertheless. Di Feisheng frowned as he realised how little he remembered from the first go at the day. There hadn’t been much that stood out to begin with for me, but with the repetition of days, there were details he couldn’t remember if it happened on the first iteration or on a repeat. 

“If this is only happening to you, what did you do?” Fang Duobing asked, and while his words were rude, his tone was genuinely curious. “Touch something weird? Killed the wrong person?”

“I stayed standing when the two of you were knocked out.” Di Feisheng told him. 

Fang Duobing flushed and puffed up. “I think Lao Di is lying.”

It was the truth, but with the look Li Lianhua was giving him, Di Feisheng dropped the topic. 

“We’ll look once we get there.” Li Lianhua said, and the three prepared for a trip that this time they knew would end disastrously. 

— 

Having foreknowledge did not mean it went any better than usual.

— 

The first family they met was deceivingly polite, and Li Lianhua clocked the drugged tea immediately with a smile, just as he had the very first time. With the added knowledge that the entire village was likely attempting to drug them for some reason, this time he subtly switched their drinks with the hosts’, and the three of them left after the family passed out atop their table. 

“Did that happen before?” Fang Duobing asked as they made their way across the tiny and unassuming village with none the wiser. Di Feisheng was unsure how to answer. 

The second family they spoke to was far more suspicious, quiet when asked about the missing travellers, cooperating only when Fang Duobing revealed himself to be a Baichuan Court detective. Di Feisheng did as he always did and stood menacingly to the side while the other two asked questions, keeping an eye on the two mischievous children who were whispering by the doorway. When the tea was poisoned once more, Li Lianhua merely gave a flat smile after snipping the liquid and this time set it down as if distracted by another thought. 

When none of them drank the tea, the family changed their antics and claimed to need help with something, attempting to coax them toward the back of the house before Di Feisheng interfered and knocked the two parents out, seeing at the young children was now nowhere to be found. 

“Did that happen the first time?” Fang Duobing demanded as they dragged the bodies to a more comfortable position. 

“We can just head straight to the dungeon.” Di Feisheng suggested. 

Li Lianhua shook his head as they closed the door to the knocked out people. “The point is to retrace your steps. We may have arrived because of the missing travellers, but… Whatever you saw, did, and where you went… did you follow them the first time?”

“No.” Di Feisheng confirmed. He grimaced at the thought of the third family. “...Fine, let’s get this over with.”

They didn’t have to go looking for the third family, as it was the third family that found them. Or rather, two of the five unmarried daughters of the third family who attempted to bodily collide with Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing respectively, and fell into a swoon on the ground even when their collision didn’t happen. 

“Apologies, young masters,” the younger one, a dainty thing with such weak wrist bones that Di Feisheng doubted she could so much as lift a sword, called out as she clutched onto the fallen arm of her older sister, who had a sleeve raised to her face in faux distress. “A thousand apologies! My sister and I are in dire need of your help!”

For a moment, Fang Duobing looked like he would reach toward them to actually help despite the fact that Di Feisheng warned him in advance of this exact situation, but then he pulled back with a regretful expression as Li Lianhua kicked him in the leg. 

If Di Feisheng could avoid this family, he would. In fact, he was tempted to do so despite the hard look Li Lianhua was throwing his way, already knowing what he was thinking. 

“Of course we’ll help.” Li Lianhua told them, and the sisters tittered at each other as they stared up at him with large doe eyes. He gestured with a sleeve when they got up (unlike the first time when Fang Duobing had reached to help them up and received an ‘accidental’ cut across his arm). “Lead the way.”

— 

The knockout incense Di Feisheng unapologetically swiped from Lotus Tower kicked in right after the ageing parents eagerly offered up their daughters to be wed to the prominent detective and his friends. Their choice of the lot! There were five of them to choose from, after all! 

Fang Duobing had a white cloth to his face, wet to absorb the smoke before he could inhale too much of it. It didn’t hide his disturbed expression. 

“They really did that.” He said, wide eyes turning to Di Feisheng. “But… that’s their daughters! They don’t even know us!”

Di Feisheng gruntled an acknowledgement, one hand holding his own wet cloth to his nose as the other started rummaging around the room, attempting to find the clues that had originally led them to the dungeon. Behind him, Li Lianhua was the only one without a cloth, carefully setting a few of the daughters who had fallen at awkward angles into a more comfortable position on the floor. 

“Some families struggle to feed everyone,” Li Lianhua placated, which Di Feisheng thought was far too generous a statement considering the youngest daughter was perhaps ten years of age. And for the fact that there was something very wrong with the village, and the family was one of the ones attempting to poison them. 

A thud toward the back of a drawer, and Di Feisheng pulled out an inscribed stone triumphantly. He shook the palm-sized stone up in the air to catch the attention of the others. 

“Here,” he said, tossing the stone over to Fang Duobing, who caught it easily. “Skip the pleasantries. They offer their daughters, Li Lianhua claimed he already had a fiancee, they offer their daughters, and you tried to say the same but they didn’t believe you—”

“That is unfair.” Fang Duobing exclaimed. “He doesn’t have a fiancee.”

“And you do.” Li Lianhua nodded along, the amused smile barely hidden in time as he turned his head away from Fang Duobing’s accusing stare. 

“And they didn’t offer you?” Fang Duobing asked Di Feisheng, tone accusing. Di Feisheng, on the other hand, just gave him a flat stare, attempting to convey that of course he was far too frightening for the couple to offer him one of their daughters in marriage. 

(The truth was that he was uncomfortable thinking about just how close their eldest daughter sat the first time they were invited for tea, leaning into his space to whisper her opinions and senseless words to him while inching her way closer to Di Feisheng by the moment until she was practically on his lap and he had to physically shove her off, which was what started the skirmish in the first place. Then one of the daughters tried to stab them with a poisoned knife, and Li Lianhua knocked her out.)

“We ask around the village,” Di Feisheng continued his summary. “Eventually find a cavern by the well that leads to the dungeon. Congratulations, we’ve saved an entire sichen of search time.”

“We should be doing the search.” Li Lianhua reminded him. Fang Duobing was squinting at the inscriptions on the stone, holding up and tilting his head as if the changed perspective would make sense of what was written on it.

“There were a lot of trees.” Di Feisheng said. “Grass. Dirt. We encountered few people, and none came close to us. No strange smells, no strange sounds.”

Li Lianhua gave him a flat look. “You’re risking missing pivotal information nevertheless.”

“If that happens, I’ll go back again.” Di Feisheng said. 

Li Lianhua narrowed his eyes. “You’re assuming there’s an ‘again’. And if there is a limited amount of repeats for you to find the cause of the situation?”

“Then there are a limited amount of repeats, and I live past them. And we solve what happened here tomorrow. Or leave.”

“Then why bother with this?” Fang Duobing interjected when it looked like Li Lianhua was too irritated by those words to respond. “If you’re repeating today, but you seem to be okay with it… you’re not worried about things going wrong, and you’re not worried about this not ending, it seems…”

Di Feisheng didn’t understand it fully himself. While curious and mildly inconvenienced by the repeating days, he had also been relieved and used the time to spend his days… exploring. He had the time to search for the Styx flower now, and there were no worries clear in the future with the repeats. Some days he woke and trained, other days he woke and allowed the repetition of conversations wash over him like rereading a worn book. Other days, like the previous iteration of ‘today’, he did something new. 

Perhaps it was because his training would amount to nothing when the day restarted. 

“So I can answer your questions when I do live past this day.” Di Feisheng answered them. He turned and shut the drawer he had taken the stone from, uncertain why it would rather not face their stares at this moment. “Whatever is causing this may be useful.”

He didn’t know why he felt like a liar. 

— 

The dungeon underneath the cave was filled with the same curious trinkets, the same cells, the same gaping entrance that he thought couldn’t possibly trap them with how wide it was. There were the same cobwebs and the same torches, the same mismatched tiles interlaced on the ground and the same stifling air that made it almost hard to breathe. 

Fang Duobing picked up the same broken bronze plate, frowned, and tossed it the same place as the first time he did that. Li Lianhua leaned in with his torch to examine the same unreadable inscription on the wall. 

“Superstition and folklore,” Li Lianhua concluded after a thorough examination of the pictures and words, torch flickering as he brought it around. Di Feisheng stayed near the entrance, arms crossed as he leaned his shoulder against the wall. “Warnings to not venture out late at night in fear of vengeful ghosts, and goddesses that demand sacrifice.”

“Sounds more like demons,” Fang Duobing said. 

“Perhaps it was.” Li Lianhua made a considering noise before turning his torchlight toward Di Feisheng. “Was there anything in here you touched? Disturbed? Knocked over, perhaps?”

“I let the two of you handle this place.” Di Feisheng told him. He didn’t remember actually examining anything in particular, only the violence that came after.

“A-Fei,” Li Lianhua said with a sigh, “you are no help at all.”

“Hey,” Fang Duobing’s voice called to them from across the dungeon toward the back of one of the cells. “I think I found something.”

They made their way over to him, where Fang Duobing was holding a red lacquer box the size of a pillow, worn and dusty but otherwise in good enough condition it didn’t fit in the setting of the dungeon. He brushed the dust from the box, frowning as he turned it one way and another. There must have once been vivid paints along the grain of the box, but now it had faded into something that only hinted at its once brilliance. 

“It looks old,” Fang Duobing remarked, “but recently handled. Look here—” 

He was correct in that there were areas on the box more worn than others, the colours fading into pale wood through the lacquer, like fingerprints where it was held over and over again. The layer of grime was higher in those areas, but the dust entirely gone. Along the crease between the opening of the box, there was a scent of metallic bitterness. Fang Duobing attempted to open the box, but it didn’t budge.

Li Lianhua lowered his torch to get a better look, even as Fang Duobing raised the box, searching for another method of opening it. 

Di Feisheng didn’t recall seeing it before. He frowned, crowding in close. 

“Got it!” Fang Duobing said triumphantly as he touched a mechanism mostly hidden along the bottom of the box, hearing a click as a latch gave way and he fingered the seam once more. 

“Wait—” Li Lianhua started, and Di Feisheng smelt the metal and sulphur a moment before he saw the glint of fire in the corner of the room, grabbing each of them with a hand to drag them backward only for the tiny flint of light in the corner catch ablaze within a split moment to become a roaring blaze, the walls of the cell coated with something that whited his vision immediately. 

— 

Di Feisheng woke up in Lotus Tower, entire body tense with the aftershock of fire running along his nerves, and breathed through lungs that felt seared from a nightmare. 

For the first time since the repeats, he grit his teeth and had to swallow down failure.

#NaNoWriMo #mlc nano 2023 #am doing this early for tonight because i STRUGGLED #i did not like the idea that i had to include plot in this story #i was not prepared to plot this story #what if i wrote fang xiaobao getting video game isekai'ed instead #one of the video game store rewards: cure to all poisons #it costs like a ridiculous amount of points but he's gunna get it