If there had been one thing Xu Shu had learned through the course of secret letter writing, it was the importance of time. He had done things on the days he received letters in set amounts of time with each minute accounted for. He had been quick about his own body language and learned what to look for–a carefully tied red scarf–on the messenger. Each messenger was different so as to remove suspicion, even though the contents being brought inside Xuchang were the same, the most important being the letters.
Fa Zheng’s letters always arrived in the afternoon, just after security rounds were made, and just after Xu Shu arrived home. These days, Taohua wasn’t around to greet him (she was out and about now in the city capital, more than likely pouring over texts or further inside the opulent palace, looking for her teacher), there was only silence. After Xu Shu changed into his informal clothes, he would have enough time to pull out blank parchment, a bottle of ink and a brush to write up a response before the messenger arrived.
The letters, while serving as some form of catharsis, made Xu Shu hate himself. He wanted to be anywhere but Xuchang, putting his strategies to good use. However, he knew where he needed to be.
Xuchang was where he had begun to build a life. He received promotions, more money, and at one point he’d even gotten a bigger home here but at his core he knew he was all but wasting away. Sometimes he wondered if things would have been different had he stayed with Liu Bei, but he figured the end result would be the same. He would leave the people he cared about behind him. And yet…
It took him weeks to respond to the first letter, even though his gut instinct told him that by the style of the brush strokes that the sender was none other than Xiaozhi (who had long since made the promise that he would always find Xu Shu just when he was needed). When Xu Shu finally did respond, he kept his questions vague but the ending was the same each and every single time:
Please tell Luoyi I’m fine.
Xu Shu had to write those words for himself. Those five words convinced him that staying in Xuchang would do him well, strangely enough. If Ma Dai, the one other person who knew him well was alright, Xu Shu wouldn’t have a reason to leave Xuchang. He could keep his honor-bound promise, and thrive off of letters from outside.
“Speaking of letters…” Xu Shu mumbled as he heard the knock on the door. The messenger was on time as he always was. Had Xu Shu not been so deep in his thoughts, he could have counted the seconds.
As he headed toward the door, he made quick work of pushing open the hallway window just slightly to poke his head outside first. It was a habit, checking for the red scarf around the messenger’s wrist. When the strategist saw it, he resumed his trek to the door and opened it.
“ Ah, good after…noon..” Xu Shu trailed off, as he looked at the messenger first, as he always did.
Something felt different.
“…Might you have something for me?”
The door opened when he didn’t expect it to, which was both a relief and a deeply-seated source of pain. To think that if the hadn’t, perhaps this was all just a ruse; a cruel stratagem composed by Fa Zheng to test the limits of the soldier’s obedience--that he would return back to Chengdu, and Xu Shu would be where he belonged. That, at worst, he would be punished for insubordination, and at least Yuanzhi would be home. But the agony that ran deeply through his core intensified as his own head was kept low, suddenly unable to look up as the calm, warm notes of the jaded tactician’s voice had once again rung within his ears. If the letters that had been hidden from him for months--no, years--were not proof enough, this very moment was.
Despite the usual air of comfortable confidence he held, Ma Dai was unable to muster it. Not immediately. Though it would come, he knew. So it was with a hesitant lift of his head that his cloaked arm reached out, offering the parcel he was due to deliver--unable still to meet the other’s gaze--especially knowing full well that he had gone against exactly what Yuanzhi asked and desired.
“A letter.” Came an eventual, simple reply; less of what he wanted to say, but restricted in the public eye they were. It was with a breath of courage that his posture straightened, and knowing that he could delay no longer. With the inhalation came a tilt of his head and the tumbling of material around the frame of his face, features that moments earlier were largely obscured by a shadowy hood and wrapped scarf, now exposed to the elements. Pink cheeks from the abrasive wind, tired eyes from nights of restlessness, and gentle signs of age that came with the stress that began with Xu Shu’s sudden,immobilizing departure.
“Is there anything you wish for me to return with?” An inquiry that he did not necessarily require an answer to, but something used to cover his tracks should a set of unknowing eyes find suspicion in the exchange. But as he spoke, silver hues traced his features rapidly, remembering specifics he had been afraid to forget over time. Anxiety faded, and instead it was replaced with comfort and satisfaction--all from simply being able to see him again.
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