Chapter 25: Half in the Light

Li Rong, the living Grand Canal of Rong City.

Information networks, illicit arrangements, arms, opium, the occasional assassination of inconvenient officials — there was nothing she wouldn't touch and nothing she couldn't supply. The freckles that had earned her the nickname Li Mazi were the same reason she moved through the city without anyone looking twice. Unremarkable on the surface, and underneath it, indispensable. Over time this had made her one of the more notable figures in Rong City.

Unlike the other NPCs, Li Rong had a hidden quest that could surface unpredictably — unlocking a special ending for the player who found it, or removing another NPC from the story entirely, depending on how the session went.

Hu Xiu had come to Rong City ten times. She had bought escape Tickets, Communist Warrants, moved Opium. Li Rong's scenes all took place before the Battle Royale, and her personality was its own challenge — eccentric, mercenary, openly lecherous, and cheerfully willing to exploit a mission for maximum personal gain.

There had been one session where the actress playing Li Mazi had asked Hu Xiu for her WeChat. Likely the handwriting had been illegible. Nothing came of it.

She had never expected to walk in and find Qin Xiaoyi in the role.

He came in from the main road holding a folding fan, snapping it open as he walked. When he spotted Hu Xiu, something crossed his face — a flicker of surprise, quickly followed by a lowered head and the private, pleased expression of someone who has been found out and doesn't entirely mind.

The cotton-linen gown he wore was pale and close-fitting, moving against his frame as he walked. The freckles had been applied with precision, placed like beauty spots rather than blemishes — lending him a scholar's roguish charm instead of the homeliness the character was supposed to have. He looked like a young man from an old film who had wandered slightly off his intended trajectory.

Hu Xiu looked at him, then at the Li Rong who was currently performing nearby — slick smile, practiced swagger — and accepted that whatever she'd been expecting today, it wasn't this.

The blue-haired woman from the Tycoon Ladies Club stood nearby, expression composed and unreadable, the particular calm of someone on her fiftieth round who has seen every version of Rong City and no longer needs to react to any of it. If she tipped generously, Hu Xiu thought, she had probably flirted with every NPC in this game at least once, the way some people collect stamps.

The other ladies stood beside her: Number One had a nose elevated beyond its natural ambition and a chest following the same direction — a face revised by cosmetic negotiation. Number Two was tall and built like something structural — Tank. Number Three wore a green cheongsam with jade at her ears and fingers, plain-faced and decorative at the same time — Green Sprite.

The jewels caught the light. Money was truly remarkable.

Thanks to ibuprofen — sincerely, with gratitude — the 3:30 session in Rong City had Hu Xiu on her feet and producing sweat, which was at least a sign of life.

This round, Miss Feng was technically Chinese but operationally British, embedded in Ning Zechen's network. Her tasks: assassinate a German officer, manage a drug disposal, and escort a Russian journalist named Herzen to Britain.

She found a bench outside the theater and worked through the logic. The assassination required a hitman through Li Rong. The drug problem required Li Rong's black market channels. The British escape route required a Ticket, which was also through Li Rong.

Every single task ran through the same person.

Coming here during her period had been completely worth it.

She adjusted her hat and walked toward Li Rong, who was lying in a rickshaw with a pipe in his mouth and his eyes shut, performing the role of a man who couldn't be bothered.

She called out Mr. Li three times. Nothing. She tried Li Mazi.

Li Rong opened his eyes.

"Why use a nickname when I have a real name? Don't you know I hate that?"

"Calling you Mr. Li didn't get a response either."

"Speak louder, then!" The volume of this was sudden enough to make her flinch. This was nothing like Qin Xiaoyi.

Li Rong straightened, brushed his sleeves with the fastidiousness of someone who held cleanliness as a personal value, leaned his elbows on his knees, and said, low and unhurried: "What do you want?"

"To buy something and sell something."

He looked at her chest for a moment — reading the character name on her badge — already reviewing the mission in his head. "Miss Feng. Buying what, selling what?"

"Things that can't be discussed openly in Rong City." She had done this enough times that the line came out clean.

"Such things are complicated to arrange." He climbed off the rickshaw. "I'm in a bad mood today. I'm not doing anything for anyone without some gesture of goodwill."

He tilted his head and looked at her. The expression was lazy and calculated, eyebrows slightly raised — a roguishness that had absolutely nothing in common with the person she knew.

And he hadn't shaved. The faint shadow around his mouth—

Hu Xiu made herself focus. "What do you want?"

"We're standing right outside Yunheng Department Store. Show me how sincere you are, Miss Feng."

She checked her pocket — four thousand — and went in to buy a watch.

Li Rong looked at it. "The hands aren't even moving. How sincere are you, exactly? How much did this cost?"

"Eight thousand."

"Eight thousand." He looked at her. "I've been in Rong City long enough to know the price of things. One more time."

"Four thousand." There was no point lying to Li Rong. Qin Xiaoyi was devoted and one-track-minded, incapable of dishonesty. Li Rong was shrewd and had made a specialty of noticing things others preferred she didn't.

She adjusted her approach. "I spent every coin I had on this watch for you. Doesn't that count for something? My intentions toward you are entirely honorable."

"Too much honor usually hides something else." He leaned in and went through her bag himself. She felt her skin react, despite everything. "I'm not lying. I wanted to buy from you and now I have nothing left. If you want to take advantage of me, go ahead."

She heard herself say: "Feng Yao has nothing left to offer except her honest heart and the fact that she's standing here."

She regretted it the moment it was out. Then thought — this was acting. Anyone could do this.

This time it was Li Rong who went slightly red. He took a step back. "What do you want to buy?"

"A Pass and a Ticket."

"Twenty thousand."

"What?" She'd dealt with Li Mazi before — two paper tickets had never run more than five thousand.

Thinking about how hard money was to come by in this city, Hu Xiu felt something sharp behind her eyes. "You can't overcharge a person just because you're handsome."

This made him laugh.

And in that laugh he was suddenly, completely Qin Xiaoyi — the barely-contained amusement, the shy pleasure breaking through, entirely unable to compose himself. He cleared his throat. "Go earn some money. There's still time."

She was already turning to leave when she glanced back. He was still standing by the rickshaw, the warm yellow light on his dark hair, pale skin, the clean line of him. His gaze was on her.

Every ache she'd been carrying dissolved, just for a second.

She ran Rong City and came back with twenty thousand.

Li Rong was surrounded.

Unfamiliar players, all of them loud, all of them orbiting him — shrill voices competing with deeper ones. The Tycoon Ladies Club had arranged themselves in a protective formation with him at the center. Every step he took, they followed. Only now did Hu Xiu understand: the 3:30 slot was for veteran players. Fifty or more rounds each. The late sessions were quieter, newer. This was the window when the wealthy regulars came out.

Ning Zechen materialized at her elbow. "Miss Feng. Why are you just standing there? First time seeing Li Rong like this?"

"Is it always like this?"

"Classic moment. The real climax hasn't happened yet." He smiled. "By the way, I heard you're carrying contraband. Move it before someone searches you."

He sauntered away. Other players were gravitating toward him too — if two people competed for the same sale, someone could turn a profit. Hu Xiu went to find her own position, waited on the bench outside the theater, and watched as the human formation around Li Rong migrated from one end of the street to the other.

She stood up and walked over. "Pockmarks. I want to buy something."

Li Rong's head appeared above the crowd. "Twenty thousand. Do you have it?"

"Fifteen."

"Keep earning."

He retreated back into the formation. Plastic Surgery Face had hold of his arm. Tank was keeping other players from getting too close. Green Sprite slapped a stranger's hand away — "Don't touch Rongrong! He's marrying me today!"

Marriage.

Li Rong had the expression of someone mildly put-upon but still in character: "I already agreed to marry Miss Mei. Though naturally I can break it off. We've been married, we've been in love. Who's next?"

Hu Xiu found Ning Zechen again. "Marriage?"

"You can get married in Rong City. Just need the certificate stamped at the notary office. Either party can dissolve it. Do you want to marry Li Rong?"

"I'm asking a question."

"You probably won't get your turn this round." He dropped his voice. "You haven't seen the marriage scenes before, have you? Late-night sessions are newcomers doing honest quests. This time slot is the wealthy ladies with their afternoons free."

Hu Xiu looked at her quest card. The assassination of a German officer, Qin Xiaoyi framed for poisoning a general and about to be publicly interrogated. The plot had shifted.

Plastic Surgery Face was unhappy: "I wanted to bribe the guards and watch up close. Who triggered this?"

Green Sprite, who appeared delicate and was entirely gossip: "Watching him get beaten publicly works too. I heard someone brought him a gift this round. Wonder when she'll give it."

Hu Xiu checked her card — the buying quest should run through the blue-haired woman. She crossed to her. "Do you need to buy from me?"

The blue-haired woman didn't look at her. "I don't want them anymore. The reward isn't worth it. Find someone else."

Baffling.

The interrogation scene — Hu Xiu watched from a distance as the new Qin Xiaoyi improvised under questioning, his face genuinely handsome, a quality of nobility about him that felt almost unearned for someone this young. But the acting betrayed him: the fuller cheeks, the bearing of someone still learning how suffering looks from the outside, the slightly wooden suffering. No one was moved.

Hu Xiu counted every second of it. She needed to get out and find Li Rong the moment curfew lifted.

The doors opened. She moved first.

Before anyone else could reach him, she bought another gold watch and cornered Li Rong in the restaurant lobby. "Time is short. Are you satisfied with the gift? I need you to kill someone."

"Who?"

"The tall one. The German politician."

She was still working the watch strap — Qin Xiaoyi had carried her out of the last round and she still hadn't adjusted to being touched, her fingers were cold — and every accidental brush against his arm confirmed what she'd half-noticed before: he was warm, almost feverishly warm, running hot underneath the costume and the character.

Her face was doing something she didn't need it to be doing.

"Forty thousand," she said. "One bullet. Before the Battle Royale. She's been in my way."

"Such deep hatred?"

"Love rival." She got the strap buckled, turned, and walked away. Penniless and inexplicably confident. She would earn petty cash with the time left, buy herself jewelry, get some candy from the street vendor. If no one else was doing quests, neither was she.

She picked three flavors of gummy candy at the stall and went to sit by the theater entrance.

The main road spread out before her. Closer in: the new Qin Xiaoyi with three women arguing over him, asking them why they expected him to choose, while Plastic Surgery Face held his hand and made her case. Further out: Li Rong at the center of his formation, Tank and Green Sprite holding the inner circle, the blue-haired woman standing at the edge of it all with her arms folded, watching the entire scene like it was mild entertainment.

Amid the overlapping claims of he's mine and it's my turn, Li Rong turned to the blue-haired woman and said: "I'll marry you."

So there had indeed been a wedding before the candidate announcements. Six of the sixteen players stood on stage — three pairs. Li Rong performing devoted loyalty. Qin Xiaoyi, looking more aristocratic than Tank standing beside him. Ning Zechen with his collar open and his laugh too wide.

Hu Xiu sat on the bench, counted her remaining money — twelve thousand — and chewed her candy, audibly, without looking up.

Li Rong delivered his vows in his most theatrical voice: "Loyal to the motherland. Loyal to my wife."

The candy crunched.

---

Third round. Battle Royale. Hu Xiu was taken out early and waited, glowing, for the session to end.

Sitting against the wall in the dark, she watched the blue-haired woman calmly take a knife from her bag and draw it across her own coating — deliberate, methodical, choosing her own exit. Then, moving through the shadows, she went to Qin Xiaoyi and pressed something into his hand.

She was close enough to hear him say thank you, politely.

Ning Zechen had called it a host club from the beginning. She'd resisted the description. It was confirmed in front of her now.

---

Evening rush hour. The subway packed her in with everyone else, bodies in close formation, the moisture pressed out of the air. Li Rong had worked through a crowd of wealthy women and settled on the one who appeared most flush with money. Which was, of course, the point. Tips, Ning Zechen had said. Twenty thousand a month from tips alone.

So frivolous, she thought, on the train home.

She got into bed. The ibuprofen was wearing off. Pain returned from the outer edges of her body and moved inward, bringing cold sweat with it.

She pulled the blanket tighter and lay in the dark.

The scenes from Snowpiercer — from when Qin Xiaoyi had been Qin Xiaoyi — still felt recent, vivid in the particular way that recent things are. Today's Li Rong felt further away. Maybe she was forcing the distance. It didn't matter. She would bundle all of it up and discard it together.

The rainy season had a relationship with menstrual cramps, and apparently also with heartbreak. The mold that grew in the corners during wet weather, the cold that arrived with the rain and didn't leave when the rain did — sunlight wasn't enough to fix it. It had to run its course.

All her heartbreaks, she noticed distantly, had happened on rainy days. The damp cold arriving with the grief, both at the same time, layering.

She thought: next time, if there was a next time, maybe someone who wouldn't break her heart. Someone who could hold what she offered without treating it carelessly. Someone who could give something back.

She pushed her face into the pillow.

This will absolutely be the last time.

---

Three in the morning. The moonlight was too bright and woke her. She got up to draw the curtains.

Kneeling on the sofa, reaching for the curtain rod, she glanced down at the entrance below — not intending to, just the direction her eyes happened to move.

She caught herself immediately and began the self-mockery before the thought was finished. She had decided to stop. How long would it take to break the habit of looking at that spot?

And then she looked again because something was actually there.

Qin Xiaoyi — Diao Zhiyu — was standing at the entrance below.

Not on his bike. Just standing, positioned where the white light from the building met the darker edge beyond it. Half of him in the light. Half in shadow. He was looking up at the upper floors with the expression of someone who hadn't entirely planned to be here and wasn't sure what to do about it.

Hu Xiu pressed against the glass and looked down.

Her hands were wet. She realized she was crying onto the window, the tears reaching her fingers before she'd noticed they were falling.

Any reasonable love story would have a clear next step: she would run downstairs, push through the door, pull him into the light, into the scene, forgive him everything — the Li Rong performance, the women, the tips — because it was all acting, just a role, just the job, and if he could stand in the dark outside her building at three in the morning, then he was real.

Hu Xiu stayed at the window.

She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes finding his in the distance without planning to.

Then she drew the curtains shut, went back to bed, and let sleep take her somewhere else.