At first, yes, he’d accounted for the “curious dog” of it all by keeping Mauritz’s ashes on the mantle, where Taotao couldn’t nose at it. The stained glass had survived for nearly a thousand years, so clearly, it wasn’t made of weak stuff. Still, better—or at least Liánlí thought—not to take any unnecessary risks with something so important. He’d promised Lilitu that his late partner, however much of a piece of work Mauritz had been, would be properly buried in accordance with Arcalian traditions.
Immediately upon getting home with the thing, Liánlí had nearly crashed into Heibing. Currently playing the s**t-head teenager in the house (despite being the eldest of all six housemates), he hadn’t bothered to smuggle his daily liquor by hiding it under his many layers of shirt. Brazen as anything, he’d just staggered past Liánlí into the downstairs bathroom with the bottle openly in-hand. Liánlí had rolled his eyes at the slamming of the door, but he’d felt entitled to that reaction. Between the thousand-and-change-year-old alien currently making Huanjing (herself all of twelve-and-three-quarters) look perfectly mature and well-behaved, and the fact that this had started because Liánlí didn’t like Heibing going to help Dagon-jiejie with her world’s Chaos while drunk?
Yeah, having shown what he felt was remarkable patience through all of that, Liánlí had more than deserved to roll his eyes.
Soon thereafter had come the telltale slow-burn crash of water rushing into the tub in copious amounts. Not long after that, Liánlí had walked past the door and heard Heibing’s choice of music for that day’s round of sulking in an overheated bath: downtempo and folksy, understated rhythm coming primarily from the bass, with both guitar and come-and-go accordion playing a tune that lilted one way, then another, then somewhere else entirely, staggering as though the song itself were drunk. Briefly, as Rob Taxpayer, tight-voiced and nasally, had started singing “Heavy humid night, corner of Park and Main, cast that first glance: your smile, my veins,” Liánlí had wished to be on a sitcom in the style of The Office or Parks and Recreation. Under such circumstances, he could’ve actually stared into a camera with a flat, unimpressed frown.
Stunts like this weren’t exactly disproving his idea that Heibing needed to go to therapy.
Sure, okay. Maybe playing “I Love You Like An Alcoholic” was only about liking the song. Fair enough, honestly: it was a damn good song.
But the choice of music had felt extremely pointed, coming from Heibing. That’s all Liánlí was saying.
He’d taken the urn off the kitchen table immediately thereafter. That hadn’t been the intended spot for it in the first place, and part of Liánlí still felt……less-than-great? About letting Heibing’s antics—for he was undeniably working overtime on some certifiable Antics—get to him in a way that actually moved Liánlí to relocate something precious? On one hand, the guilt for allowing himself to judge Heibing while he clearly had some struggle—no doubt very complicated, twisted up, and noxious—seeping out into everything he’d done since the battle with the Calamitous Hollow while Heibing refused to untangle and deal with any of it. On the other hand, deep well of genuine sympathy that had, for months, motivated Liánlí to say nothing about Heibing’s obvious spiral, hoping to let him come to somebody—anybody, Ryla and Imnolu (only his best friends of over a thousand years, no big deal or anything!) had been literally right there, the entire time—on his own because it would make any healing more likely to take.
On the spectral Chaos tentacle rising from the depths, however, letting Heibing have any ground, or showing in any way that he’d successfully gotten a rise out of you? That meant letting him win.
In his time (back when Huáng Zhìháo had been thirteen or fourteen and already halfway through high school), Liánlí had lashed out at the people around him like this. Maybe not in this exact way—hurting or not, Zhìháo hadn’t wanted to risk everything he’d unreasonably decided was at stake with underage drinking—but Liánlí recalled all too well the ways that he’d picked fights with Qiáng-er, refusing to respect his older brother’s presumed authority. He remembered going after Xīnyán because, as the second daughter, even being older than him didn’t give her that much more heft to stop him from being obnoxious. From trying to get a rise out of her because one of the only things he’d had going for him at the moment was his ability to make things just that little bit more unpleasant for his siblings.
Getting a rise out of them had always meant that Zhìháo won.
Managing to successfully ignore him during any given attempt meant that he’d lost.
Picking out the same pattern in the most recent chapter of Heibing’s bullshit had been about as easy as reading a picture book with particularly large letters. So, rather than even let him know that there was anything he could ******** up for someone else by being drunk and unconcerned with other people or their things, Liánlí had removed Heibing’s ability to see the issue in question. The stained glass urn containing Lilitu’s late lover had sat in Liánlí and Huanxi’s master bedroom since then, on the desk where no enterprising Táotáos could get at it either.
Maybe she wouldn’t have had any malicious intent behind it, but the fact remained: she was only a dog. She didn’t know better about not trying to play with something that one of her daddies kept treating with such importance.
But first, there’d been the rush to keep on top of the increased posting schedule for December. Everything on Youtube was a ******** mess right now, yes. Liánlí didn’t even understand all of it, just that he remained constantly grateful for Patreon and tips through Paypal, Ko-fi, Venmo, and all the rest of them. Still, getting the extra ad revenue where he could remained important (especially if he was serious about getting his idiot housemate into therapy at Qiye-jie’s clinic, which he was).
And then there’d been the holiday season itself. Most of it, uninteresting, but having people over for December 25th took effort.
And then, and then, and then.
Finally, a couple days into the new year—nearly a month since he’d acquired the urn—Liánlí sat at his desk and sighed at it. Unfolding a piece of paper he’d been carrying around this whole time, he refreshed himself on the cultural traditions that he needed to honor while taking this thing to his Wonder. A lot of the finer points of Arcalian beliefs, they’d skimmed over with little more than Lilitu acknowledging that there were complicated histories or debates he was skipping so they could get to the main points. The things that Liánlí most needed so he could do his job as Kaifeng of Saturn to the best of his ability.
All of the cultural debates and histories they’d passed on for the time being held some interest for Liánlí, sure? But those nuances probably would’ve meant more to an actual historian like Imnolu’s “friend” Pergamon or an “I was raised in the untamed wilds of an academic library by a pack of feral historians, I just get really excited about space history” like Kiyoshi. As the Knight of Kaifeng, Liánlí’s concerns were twofold: first, Lilitu had trusted him with something important. Ridding him of his Real Piece of Work late partner’s remains while still giving Mauritz the honor in burial that their culture called for—these things would give Lilitu the peace of mind that he very much deserved after so long literally carrying Mauritz around with him.
Beyond how significant this was for Lilitu, though, this was a duty that had fallen to the Knight of Kaifeng, back when more people had existed on other planets and needed burials on Saturn.
So much of what Xingyi-ge had done back a thousand years ago, it had been in the service of their Wonder and its purpose. He’d killed people, even when he hadn’t wanted to and even when Huanxi had stood up for his right to not kill, because giving them a quick, peaceful death allegedly meant that their soul would leave behind less pain and turmoil when they crossed that river, and carry less of it with them when they reincarnated. He’d abandoned time that he wanted to spend on Helene, with Huanxi at his private residence—possibly the only place in the universe where Xingyi had truly felt safe—so he could return to Kaifeng, bury someone, and see their murder solved or their last wishes honored to the best of his abilities.
He’d taken care in weaving burial shrouds, working with broken threads, all so he didn’t need to kill the silk moths in droves, boiling them alive before they could leave their chrysalises. All so they could transform themselves, the way they deserved to do. All so they could have their simple, beautiful dreams instead of being sacrificed for a luxury fabric that people could have done without.
Hardly seemed appropriate for Liánlí to call himself Knight Kaifeng of Saturn if he didn’t treat this execution of his duties with the seriousness that it deserved.
Another sigh, and he drained the rest of his mug of tea. Before he powered up—before he could stash the urn in his subspace to bring it to Saturn more safely—he ducked downstairs to the kitchen. He scribbled out a note for Huanxi. Ran it down the hall and stuck it to the door of the room Liánlí used as his recording and editing studio.
- Hey, 哥哥 🖤
I’m running up to Kaifeng with the urn from Lilitu. I’ve gotta dig a grave when I get there, so I don’t know how long that’s gonna take? But I’ll be home once I’ve handled burying Lilitu’s lover.
There’s still some of that spicy vegetable soup left if you want any? If not, we can figure out dinner when I get home. 🖤
A thousand thousand kisses forever & always,
莲黎
wc: 1,650.
