But I recall a scene. I was riding on a donkey with my mother by my side. My father was right in front of us. It might be that my mother cracked a joke and my father laughed.
"Wei Wuxian really went for it, didn't he? Jin Ling's mother was Jiang Cheng's blood sister, eh? And what's more, she was also the shijie who raised that Wei Wuxian"
"What an injustice for Jiang Yanli, too, to have raised such an ingrate."
– Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Chapter 3: The Prideful
Xiao Xingchen would have caught Xue Yang long before the Chang Manor massacre...if only he'd stopped getting distracted by doing good deeds.
Read on AO3 - T - xuexiao cracklette
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“After, you madam. I insist.”
The old woman smiles up at Xiao Xingchen. She’s entering the inn as he leaves it, her arms laden with bags of fresh produce. “Thank you, young man.”
Xiao Xingchen steps back inside the inn, graciously holding the door open. Out of the corner of his eye he catches a flash of black and gold.
Xue Yang, escaping out the back window.
One leg over the sill, Xue Yang stops to wave at him before dropping out of sight.
If Xingchen hurries around the building, he can still catch him—
But, “The rain isn’t easy on these old bones,” sighs the old woman, and suddenly he’s offering to carry her heavy bags of vegetables to the kitchen.
“You remind me of my grandson,” she says as he sets the bags on the table. “Such a lovely young man. Just last week he brought me a new hat, and the week before, my granddaughter, A-Ling, came over and had—”
Ten minutes later, Xingchen manages to politely excuse himself.
The rainwashed street is empty, Xue Yang gone.
Stymied!
This is the tenth time Xue Yang has gotten away this month. But what was Xiao Xingchen supposed to do, _ not _offer to help the old lady with her bags? Shove her out of the way and race into the inn when he first caught sight of Xue Yang through the window?
Impossible!
They next cross paths three days later in Yitang.
Xiao Xingchen is drinking tea when he glimpses a familiar gold-leaf hairpiece through the teahouse door.
He quickly searches his coin purse for the appropriate change (including a tip for the busboy, after carefully searching his robes for extra coins), neatly arranges his cup in the exact center of the tray (like a well-mannered gentleman), wipes up a spot of tea the waiter spilled on the table (the poor busboy works hard enough!), and hastens out of the teahouse.
Xue Yang is nowhere to be seen.
Xiao Xingchen is looking around, hoping for a hint of black and gold, when he hears a hair-raising cry in the distance, the heart-rending sound of a strong man in torment:
_ “My cabbages!” _
Blood turning to ice, he flies off towards the sound. A man kneels in the dirt, his cart overturned, surrounded by loose cabbages.
Xue Yang must have been here! This has all the hallmarks of one of the many devastating scenes of tragedy the delinquent has left scattered in his wake.
“Sir, what happened?” he asks, righting the cabbage cart. “Did you see where the culprit went?”
“He came out of nowhere!” the man whimpers. “He said—he said—” A fresh burst of sobs wracks him. Xiao Xingchen hands him a cabbage and the man cradles it against his chest, drawing strength from the soft green ball. “He said, ‘Sorry, grandpa, but I don’t have all day to wait around for him.’ What does that _ mean _ ? And then—and then—” He draws a long, shuddering breath. _ “And then he kicked over my cart and flew off!” _
A familiar giggle.
Xiao Xingchen looks up. Xue Yang stands on the roof, grinning down at him.
“Took you long enough,” he says.
Xiao Xingchen is about to fly up and arrest him when he’s distracted by a fresh whimper from the man at his feet.
“The cabbages will be trampled—trampled—”
“Don’t go anywhere!” Xingchen calls up at Xue Yang. “Consider yourself under arrest—” Quickly he starts gathering cabbages and piling them into the cart. “Just stay put for two minutes—”
Laughing, Xue Yang flies off.
Xiao Xingchen works faster, but it’s too late. By the time all the cabbages are back in the cart, Xue Yang has long since disappeared.
Stymied again!
“He’s simply too devious,” he complains to Song Lan when they meet later that day. Song Lan hunts ghosts and demons while Xingchen hunts Xue Yang, but Song Lan keeps in the same general radius and meets Xingchen as often as possible. “I’ve never met anyone so crafty. Just when I have him in my grasp, he slips through my fingers!”
Song Lan nods sympathetically. He’s heard this before, and would help Xingchen if only he too had a spare month to faff around tracking a single half-trained hooligan across the jianghu.
“Do you remember last week, when he slaughtered that caravan?” Xingchen continued. “I was just about to nab him when he released a puppy that exactly matched the description of that lost puppy in Hujindian! I had no choice but to return her to her owner, and by the time I returned, Xue Yang had vanished like smoke on the gentle breeze!”
Song Lan shakes his head. The depth of Xue Yang’s depraved ingenuity never fails to shock and appall him. He still has chilling flashbacks to the time when, just as the righteous net of justice was descending upon the signature-color-stealing miscreant, Xue Yang somehow got Xingchen roped into judging a local poetry contest, allowing him to evade punishment for yet another day.
“And that time is always!” Xingchen had protested when Song Lan suggested that there was perhaps a time and place for poetry contests. “Education is important, and how could I refuse my services after the villagers had been so gracious and hospitable?”
Song Lan had just shaken his head, but perhaps Xingchen is right. Song Lan has been questioning himself ever since he’d been struck by the idea that, if he didn’t know any better, he’d think that Xingchen is _enjoying _ the chase. A ridiculous thought. Song Lan has simply spent too many late nights hunting ghosts, perhaps, or there hasn’t been enough time spent in silent meditation, or perhaps too _ much _time spent in silent meditation.
Whatever the reasons, his judgment has obviously been a bit skewed lately.
_ Obviously_.
Xue Yang trails Xiao Xingchen from afar until Song Lan leaves to go investigate a nearby haunting. He's more than a little bored. It’s been days since he’s crossed anyone off his revenge list, but when it comes to outright murder he likes to get far enough ahead of Xiao Xingchen to make sure he’s not interrupted, and being days ahead of Xiao Xingchen means he'll have to sit around waiting for him to catch up, and sitting around, even in anticipation of seeing Xiao Xingchen, is dull.
It’s not that it’s not fun to draw Xiao Xingchen after him. He wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t. He stays up nights planning the little clues he leaves for Xiao Xingchen, trying to be as creative as possible to impress the cultivator in white. After all, he’s sure Xiao Xingchen has many other people he can be chasing through Yunmeng, and Xue Yang needs to make sure he doesn’t regret choosing him.
Perhaps he’s been _ too _ creative lately, though. Or not creative enough. Or not obvious enough. Or _ too _ obvious. After all, last week, while distracted by replacing the tanghulu he had knocked out of a child’s hand, Xiao Xingchen missed the embarrassingly pedestrian clue he’d left after disemboweling a farmer who had refused to feed him as a child—a headpiece-shaped leaf he’d painted on the side of a building in blood. He'd anticipated righteous fury and perhaps a footchase, but Xue Yang had to spend three days waiting for Xiao Xingchen to pick up his trail after _ that _one.
All this stopping and waiting, stopping and waiting, is ruining his flow. He needs something to really spur Xiao Xingchen to action, make him put a bit more effort into the hunt, get the blood pounding. Perhaps an actual swordfight instead of all this cat-and-mousing around. Impress the self-righteous cultivator in white with his swordsmanship, show him that you don’t need a fancy education to succeed.
Perhaps if he tripped a little old lady trying to cross the street—?
No. Enraged as Xiao Xingchen would be, he’d still take too long helping her to feet and escorting her home. He might even stop at a food cart and buy her lunch, and Xue Yang would need to send him an anonymous letter tipping him off as to his whereabouts again.
Sneak into Xiao Xingchen’s room at night and write “kick me” on the back of his pristine white robes?
Naw. He’d probably think that was funny, if he even noticed. Xiao Xingchen would hear a crying child five blocks away, could detect a butterfly landing on a blade of grass six feet behind him, but he tended to miss the obvious. Xue Yang would never forget the time he spent two hours sitting three tables away from Xiao Xingchen, forced to listen to endless teahouse poetry about moons and swans and cherry blossoms, fruitlessly waiting to be noticed beneath his false mustache.
Song Lan had been there too, but the unnecessarily tall hanger-on in black had never actually seen Xue Yang and hadn't noticed him. Xue Yang is glad he’s not the one after him. He doubts Song Lan would find him half as charming, intriguing, and attention-worthy as Xiao Xingchen must, to chase him for so long. He can’t remember the last time anyone who didn’t want something from him has given him this kind of attention.
Still, just in case, Xue Yang always avoids showing himself while Song Lan is around. No point in risking that attention-hogging priest becoming too fascinated by Xue Yang and following Xiao Xingchen around even more than he already does, which is an annoying amount.
Xue Yang is finishing a bowl of honey-fried dumplings when he realizes that he has the perfect thing right there in his qiankun sleeve. He’s been saving it for a special occasion, but fertilizing a budding relationship is just as important as adding spice to it later.
Besides, it’s always best to be direct with what you want from a relationship. Communication is key. This, he thinks to himself, is the perfect way to up the ante.
He changes into one of his better outfits before heading out to intercept Xiao Xingchen. If they’re going to swordfight, he wants to make sure his robes will have the maximum dramatic spin. He still doesn’t go for those long, flowy, I'm-so-aristocratic-sleeves—too easy to get them caught on things as you’re fleeing the scene of a crime—but he appreciates a good dramatic robe swirl.
Perched on a rooftop, he waits for an hour before Xiao Xingchen steps out of his inn, looking radiant in the bright morning sunlight.
_ This is it! _
“Catch!” Xue Yang tosses him a severed hand.
“Ugh!” Xiao Xingchen bobbles the hand like a hot potato. “Xue Yang!”
“Good morning, daozhang!” Xue Yang grins at him. Xiao Xingchen’s hand looks even more delicate and dove-like against the mottled purple of the bloated hand. “Race you to Yunping!”
He flies off towards the city gates, letting a trail of wadded-up papers, apple cores, and tanghulu sticks spill from his qiankun sleeve.
“Stymied!” he hears Xiao Xingchen saying from far below him as the white-clad cultivator stops to pick up the scattered litter. “Stymied yet again!”
Shaking his head, Xue Yang lands atop the city gate.
