Before Fu Ran's thoughts could prove anything else; before they could reveal a proper response to his panic, he woke up.
Frightful sleep had left him covered in a sticky sweat, and the soft warmth of daylight filtering inside did nothing to alleviate it. And yet, despite his frantic mental state, the Twin Summit's inn room was quiet. Did everyone staying in Jinan awake with such incomprehensible peace?
Fu Ran shifted, and yet a weight firmly locked him in place. His chest was heavy. Trying to regain focus, he blinked several times.
"What is it…?" he murmured..
Trying to sit up displaced the weight, but a small cry snapped his mind awake. "S…zun."
Fu Ran could see it now. The bedsheets lay over a lump, and a tuft of ashen-brown hair stuck out from beneath them. Tentatively, he lifted the sheet.
Wan Yu had curled himself into a little ball, whimpering against his teacher.
Fu Ran breathed a sigh of relief. He might have awoken from a nightmare, but the child beside him looked just as shaken.
Was he having a nightmare too?
Gently, he brushed Wan Yu's bangs with the back of his fingers, and the boy settled deeper into sleep. His eyebrows, once tightly drawn together, softened and his grip slackened.
Wan Yu murmured again, "Shizun…" a soft cry.
"Shizun is right here," Fu Ran murmured back. The sight eased his heart, enough so that a smile tugged at his lips.
It was rare to see Wan Yu acting so much like a child. Crawling into his bed, seeking comfort after a bad dream? Fu Ran brought his sleeve to his lips. How sweet.
He remembered doing the same when he was that little, except his journey took a few extra steps. He would run all the way from the disciples' dormitory, barge through the back garden, and dive straight through the archway into his Shizun's bed.
His Shizun.
Just like that, Fu Ran's expression stiffened. He thought of his teacher, then of the previous evening. The thoughts circled like a whirlpool, yet somehow, they still led him back to his current situation.
His qi meridians were still damaged, and his sword was still gone—stolen. And by an imposter, no less.
Perhaps there was some validity to Tian Han's urgency to return home.
However, this wasn't a mission he could abandon.
What started with a simple task had exploded into more work that he would have first thought. The streets of Bei Zangli were not walked by corpses but by spirits.
If he left it to fester, then those spirits would be corrupted, and turn into an even messier situation. For now he had just a single suspect: The Impostor. He was seen in Bei Zangli first, and then kidnapped Wan Yu. His main motive seemed to be stealing Shi Wei Ji, however he was likely linked to the mission as well.
Fu Ran calmed himself by petting Wan Yu's hair. The small boy looked so peaceful in sleep, unaware of the troublesome thoughts that plagued his teacher's mind.
The silence had shifted, now uncertain rather than peaceful.
After a long while of thinking, chatter outside the door caught his ear.
"All right now, quiet—" Tian Han's voice softened into a whisper while the door was unlocked.
Tian Han stepped inside first, yet the moment he locked eyes with Fu Ran his attention jerked away.
Feeling guilt for yesterday? Fu Ran sneered, however, he too forced his gaze away. The Tyrant Emperor had shown quite a few tyrannical qualities last night. So wasn't it a good thing if he looked mournful or regretful?
But his dream… Fu Ran's dream made his feelings complicated.
The Tyrant Emperor had such fine features, and Fu Ran had grown used to seeing them fixed in a smile. Now, seeing him look like a slapped puppy was not to his tastes. Fu Ran gripped the bedsheets beside Wan Yu, who still lay motionless.
I didn't do anything wrong—at least not yesterday… So why do I feel like the villain?
Being mean to a man giving you a gift: that made you feel terrible. Denying someone who wanted to cook for you every day: it got tiresome. Thinking a man a monster when he had shown little proof of dangerous intent… perhaps Fu Ran was the unreasonable one afterall.
Unaware of the unspoken tension, Lin An broke the silence with gleeful cheers. "Shizun is awake!" She quickly clamped her hands over her mouth when she saw Wan Yu sleeping. "So sorry…" She lowered her head.
But Wan Yu had already begun to stir with a whine. Wiping away at a tear stricken cheek, he pushed himself to sit up. "Shizun?" Like his head was yanked, he looked to Fu Ran in a panic. "Is Shizun okay?"
That took him off guard. "Why would you ask me that?" Fu Ran ruffled the boy's hair with a heavy hand. "You were the one kidnapped."
Wan Yu dug his finger's into Fu Ran's robes and pressed his cheek against him. "Shizun…" Just like his guardian, somehow he seemed to only know a single word.
Tian Han gave a light cough.
"Shizun." He finally had worked up the courage to look back at him, and his weight shifted uncomfortably from one leg to the other. "If you're feeling well enough… would you like lunch?"
When Fu Ran didn't answer, Tian Han continued, "You haven't eaten since yesterday. I assumed you'd be hungry, especially since the kids were complaining about it too."
He wasn't entirely ready to let the Tyrant Emperor start making his decisions again, not so soon after what happened at the auction house. But at the mention of food, his mouth watered.
There were quite a few things he wanted to try while he was in the city—things that couldn't be obtained back on the mountain sect. An Xian Yun Peak preferred a certain blandness over sweets or spices, so any desserts were lackluster.
"Okay," he agreed.