Spirit-Trapping Pouch

The moon's dropped beneath the coffin home roof by the time he gives up for the night. He hadn't been relying on it for light—there's a row of candle stubs along the edge of his coffin-table, leaning and bleeding into one another, and he extinguishes them all with a sweep of his arm before slapping a couple of stasis talismans on the heap of organs in front of them.

Not that he's convinced it's worth it, keeping them for tomorrow morning. He knows this kind of work, focussing on the flow of qi through different tissues, the better to reanimate them, is a distraction from what he should really be doing. Sure, his fierce corpses could always stand to be more lifelike. But what's the point in making a perfect simulacrum of a breathing body when you don't have—if it doesn't have the—

Whatever. It'll stink less before he orders Song Lan to clear it away.

Xue Yang stands up, leans back to hear his spine cracking down its entire length, and walks to the water butt in one corner of the courtyard. It's not a warm night, but he's greased with sweat in all the places where his skin's been pressed together. The smell wafts out when he unties his robes. He doesn't bother heating the water he scoops up, just scrubs at himself with a cloth around a handful of soap berries. It takes one basin to get the blood and bile off his hands, and a second for the rest of him.

Clean, he can wrest off the lid of Xiao Xingchen's coffin. His night vision's fully recovered by now, but the face he leans down to is not much more than a pale grey oval. Xue Yang's cheek brushes against the linen bandage at Xiao Xingchen's temple. He twists to press a chaste kiss onto the cold, waiting, sleeping flesh beneath it.

"Good night, daozhang," he whispers, his right hand smoothing a lock of hair away from Xiao Xingchen's face, as if the wind could have blown it into disarray.

With his left hand he grips the lapel of his outer robe, the pocket sewn there and the pouch it holds. It always feels as if Xiao Xingchen's body should have some special gravity for that pouch; he fears it slipping out of his grasp when he bends over the coffin. Of course, it doesn't. That's the problem.

A shadow lurks in the doorway of the coffin home's main building, indistinct before the darkness of its interior until Xue Yang comes near and it begins to move.

It was briefly hilarious when he first had this idea. The joke's worn thinner, now. Nonetheless, he waits for the fierce corpse kneeling in his way to prostrate itself fully before he enters the room with quick, precise steps. His right foot lands on Song Lan's spill of hair, just short of his face; the left bears him over Song Lan's torso, feeling the flex of the ribs as they take his weight. Last of all, he slides his boot between Song Lan's thighs until the sole touches the floor, the weave of his fierce corpse's robe scraping against its private skin.

"Get out of here," he commands it. "Shut the door behind you."

When he undresses, he takes the spirit-trapping pouch from its pocket first of all, keeping it safely in his hand until he's lying on their bed in only his inner shirt and trousers. He pulls their blanket up over his shoulder and rolls onto his side.

It used to require such constant calculations, sharing a bed with Xiao Xingchen and keeping him from ever touching his wooden little finger or the stump it covered. Now he could sleep in whatever position he likes, but this is still the most comfortable one. Xiao Xingchen used to curl up and fit himself into the crescent of Xue Yang's body; now, he's tucked between the age-beaten pillow and Xue Yang's jaw, so Xue Yang can talk to him softly in the dark, listening as if Xiao Xingchen might reply. It's not so different. It's not so bad.

He tells him about the progress he's made today, such as it is. Maybe the honourable cultivator Xiao Xingchen wouldn't have wanted to hear about the best ways of channeling resentful energy through dead meridians, back in the old days, but Xue Yang's daozhang once told his friend, I could listen to you talk all afternoon, about anything. I'm sure you couldn't be boring if you tried , and that's what it's going to be like when he comes back, too, so they can start now.

"I'm gonna make a trip in a couple of days, daozhang," he says, eyes drifting shut. "Got a tip about some interesting items up for sale in Tanzhou. If they're what I think they are, Jinlin Tai's treasure rooms've got a leak. I might be able to get my hands on a few very useful supplies."

Xue Yang yawns. The bag does not respond. If he stops breathing and focusses hard, it does make a sound: the faintest chiming, like the jingling of a horse's bit and bridle, too far away to see it, through snowy woods. That never changes, though. Even when they paid their visit to Chang Ping in Yueyang, the captured pieces of Xiao Xingchen's soul expressed neither protest nor gratitude.

"Don't worry, daozhang, of course I'll take you with me. Not Zichen, though. He can make himself useful here without us."

He shifts on the bed, automatically avoiding the corner where the ropes have started coming undone and the thin straw mattress has wedged itself into the gap. Outside, a lone, confused bird trills three notes, croaks, and repeats them again. It's nowhere near dawn yet, but it is late. Xue Yang's brain is still going too fast for him to sleep. With a sigh, he shoves the blanket away from himself.

"Hope you don't mind," he mutters to the spirit-trapping pouch, as he runs his right hand down his front, pulling open the knot on his shirt and freeing his skin to the air. With his left hand, he presses the bag against his chest. It feels dangerous to touch Xiao Xingchen with that hand, transgressive, even now. His heart thumps against his ribs in warning.

It's beating so fast, Xiao Xingchen told him, his ear to Xue Yang's sternum. You must like me after all.

You often get blown by guys who don't like you, daozhang? Xue Yang asked. At the time, he still thought he was being ironic.

He pushes his trousers out of the way and takes himself in hand, still mostly soft. Lets his fingers trail down over his balls, squeezes a little, pulls his hand back up and starts a slow rhythm. He's too tired for real indulgence; he just needs something mechanical, a release to knock him out of his thoughts for a little while.

Still, as he rolls the bag across his chest, in tempo with himself, he can't stop himself imagining that he's tangling his fingers in Xiao Xingchen's hair instead, and feeling him kiss his way from Xue Yang's collarbone to his nipples.

You bit me! he spluttered, the first time Xiao Xingchen surprised him that way.

Sorry? Xiao Xingchen's apology was belied by his broad grin. I won't do it again, if you don't enjoy that.

No! No, it's good, I just— He was embarrassed to be so startled, as though he was the innocent one, walking through the world dressed in white and picking up strays. Meanwhile, not waiting for him to finish the thought, Xiao Xingchen bent his head back down, sucked one nipple into his mouth and sank his teeth in, holding on while Xue Yang's back arched involuntarily.

He digs his nails into his chest, right hand speeding up. There's no one in the coffin home to hear him if he groans at the pain.

The spirit-trapping pouch is made of five layers of silk, each woven more tightly than the last. The fine threads are reinforced with spells, like ox-hide strips braided with steel cables: impossible to snap with even a cultivator's raw strength, he knows from experience. It makes the fabric shiny and stiff, the opposite of Xiao Xingchen's soft robes and flowing sleeves.

He brings it up to his face, huffing damp breath against the weave. "Are you comfortable in there?" he asks. "You can come out any time you like, daozhang. Just say the word. I'm keeping your body warm and ready for you."

Maybe it's not warm right now, sealed up in its casket outside in the yard, but he's heated it through before, with talismans and his own qi, circling it through both their flesh until he got dizzy with it, until he couldn't have pulled himself up and out from Xiao Xingchen's arms if he'd wanted to. All he could do was pant against Xiao Xingchen's mouth, insinuating his tongue between the lips that were motionless but still soft, and pretend that, when the smooth, straight teeth parted to let him inside, it was Xiao Xingchen's will that moved them, not his own hand at the hinge of his jaw.

Let me in, he thought, thumb pressing into the corner of his mouth.

Let me in, Xiao Xingchen had whispered before, lifting his leg even higher, the head of his cock pushed right up against him, and Xue Yang, not used to being the one in this position, had gasped and wriggled and tried to remember how to relax more but—but then it was easy, and his body welcomed Xiao Xingchen's in. Not an invasion, as he'd thought of it before; more like they were merging into one another.

The memory of his own voice on a different night follows as if drawn along on a thread. Fuck―fuck, daozhang—deeper, please—

His daozhang on top of him, lungs heaving and hips pounding, I don't think—hah—I could get much deeper—

He wanted him to, he wanted him to try.

He kisses the bag, or rather, he realises that he's been kissing it. The wet tip of his tongue traces the embroidered stitches and knots that hold Xiao Xingchen within it, even if they can't tie him back together. His hips are lifting from the bed now, the frame shuddering in sympathy, and his lip slips suddenly over the top hem, down into the furl where the drawstrings cinch the opening tight.

Xue Yang's brain flashes like a streak of lightning. He freezes, limbs tense.

The magic of a spirit-trapping pouch is sewn and woven all the way through it. Now it's been caught there, Xiao Xingchen's soul won't fly out if he unties the strings. If he loosens them, just a little.

He loosens them. It takes both hands, and they're shaking. No thunder cracks.

There's nothing spilling out through the gap, neither light nor qi. Xue Yang rolls himself onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow, to peek cautiously inside. Ignored for the moment, his erection thuds against his thigh.

At the bottom of the pouch, Xiao Xingchen's fragments of soul are glowing in phosphene blues and greys. They move in a long, slow sparkle, flickering out of focus to evade his sharp eyes, their shapes indiscernible. Xue Yang's chest constricts suddenly. A ragged breath is forced out of him.

It was one thing to know Xiao Xingchen was here, held in a bag Xue Yang can clutch in one hand or bind against himself in the wrap of his robe. It turns out to be something else to see him. Seeing, he needs to touch—but he's paralysed, his hands contracted into claws, still trembling.

No one can stop Xue Yang from doing what he wants to do, not even the resistance of his own body. He tears at his own inner lip with his teeth till blood wells up in his mouth. Then he spits it onto his reluctant hands. The red drops waver on his skin until the surface tension breaks and they run down like tears.

All it takes then is a moment's focus to call streaks of resentful energy through his muscles, letting it unlock the joints so he can puppeteer himself much like he does the fierce corpses out in the city. It calms him immediately. Whatever Xue Yang faces in this life, he'll find a way to beat it.

He slides his first two fingers into the bag and watches as the fuzzy points of light weave and roll away from his touch. The embroidery on the rigid fabric digs into the valley between his finger and thumb, a little scratch that reminds him where he is, that holds off the sense he could just fall into this dim galaxy. It's cool, inside the bag. He feels… nothing else.

No, that's not true.

All those years he lived here with Xiao Xingchen, he never got to see what lay beneath the white bandages the daozhang tied where his eyes used to be. It wasn't for want of trying. Xue Yang watched him bathing and laughing and fighting yaoguai; he drew damp cloths gently down Xiao Xingchen's cheeks after he’d cried his rusty, serous tears in sleep; he kissed him to distraction while running his fingers through his hair, letting them catch carelessly where the bandage passed over Xiao Xingchen's ear. However quick he was, though, Xiao Xingchen was faster. Even asleep, he would startle into motion at the graze of the unhemmed edge against his cheekbone, pulling it back—more or less gracefully—before Xue Yang could snatch a glimpse.

He'd thought it would be a small consolation, when Xiao Xingchen—when he—when Xue Yang washed his limp body before laying it out for revival, to finally peel back that covering and see what he'd been hiding. It wasn't. Xue Yang pulled his eyelids apart and reached right in to stroke the moist insides of one empty socket, and was absolutely unmoved.

Xue Yang realises that what he's feeling now is exactly what was missing then: the quiet and unimposing sense of Xiao Xingchen's presence.

He could weep, if he were a different kind of person. He might cry a little, actually, but he refuses to acknowledge it. Very carefully, he sets the bag down on the bed, rests his head next to it with his eyes screwed shut, and grabs his cock in a bruising grip. He lets the resentful energy still buzzing through his meridians speed his arm as he works himself back up to full hardness.

When he shoves himself into the soft chill of the spirit-trapping pouch, it's like a smith thrusting a red-hot sword into water to quench the steel. The change in sensation is too big, too much at once to make sense of; he hears the gargling groan he makes as if from a long distance away.

Xiao Xingchen is all around him—more so than when he held him in his arms, either naked or clothed, and more so than when he sat astride Xue Yang and leaned back to take him deeper, deeper, clutching at Xue Yang's hands where they held tightly to his hips. Xue Yang twitches and gasps. As the feeling settles, he's slowly able to make more sense of it. A nervous glance down confirms that the shattered pieces of Xiao Xingchen's soul are still confined to the bag: no tell-tale glowing trail follows when he strokes it cautiously up and down his cock, teeth gritted in an attempt to hold off his orgasm.

"I'd hate to disappoint you at this point, daozhang," he says in a low voice, and then shudders as pleasure winds through him, as intrusive as resentful energy.

He's almost surprised to find it's nothing like sticking his dick in a qiankun pouch. The spells for each are completely different, of course, but somehow he'd still expected that uncanny contradiction, a squeeze of the hand transferring absolutely nothing to the erection inside. It had been the least satisfying erotic experiment of his life. This is overwhelming.

However much he tries, he's not going to last long. Xue Yang lets himself thrust into the bag, rattling the bedframe and slamming his arm against his hipbone with each stroke in a way that's definitely going to bruise. The soul fragments cushion him and prickle against him by turns, now warm and now cool again. They wrap around the head of his cock and tickle at the slit.

He can feel the tension rising through his whole body, drawing up his balls and pulling his spine into the curve of a bow. The most vivid part of the whole thing, though, is the gut-deep knowledge that Xiao Xingchen is right here. He’s enveloped in him. With his eyes closed, Xiao Xingchen could be asleep beside him on the bed, or humming to himself as he takes care of some chore in the room—or wrapping his lips around Xue Yang to suck him awake—

He comes so hard it doesn't even feel good. Instead, it's like leaving his body entirely.

In the afterglow, he lies with his head on Xiao Xingchen's chest, their panting breaths rocking him back and forth like a boat tied up at a jetty, not going anywhere but unable to be still. He's too hot, both of their sweat drying on his skin, and then it starts to chill him but Xiao Xingchen won't pull the covers up. Somehow, he rouses just enough to pull tight the drawstrings on the spirit-trapping pouch, fumbling a knot that should at least hold until morning. He grabs at the blanket and gets it up over their legs and waists. Then he's out, like a blow to the back of the head.

Golden morning light invades through his eyelids. That bird is singing again, in concert with at least two others. It feels like only moments have passed, but the night has vanished and the long dawn with it.

The merciful dream that he's holding Xiao Xingchen still lingers, faintly. When he mouths at his neck, he can almost believe his lips meet skin. It fades too fast, though, and by the time he opens his eyes fully, he knows he's alone.

Xue Yang's hands are firm and confident when he inspects the spirit-trapping pouch, making sure the pieces of Xiao Xingchen's soul are undamaged by their overnight activities. They're fine, of course: scintillating less brightly in the daylight, but still wobbling away from the delicate intrusion of his fingers. He can't see the mess he was expecting against the dark inner fabric of the pouch. For a moment, he tries to recall the books he's read about these subjects—wouldn't it be too perfect if the secret to gluing a soul back together was infusions of jing?

Theoretically, it doesn't quite work out… Xue Yang's mind wanders away from diagrams on yellowed paper and towards more visceral memories.

Ah! Daozhang! he gasped, collapsing onto Xiao Xingchen's sweat-slick back.

My friend , Xiao Xingchen replied in a warm, satisfied voice. He relaxed under Xue Yang's weight, seeming not to mind that he was being pressed into the rough mattress.

Let me just lie here and catch my breath , Xue Yang said, sure of his welcome. He closed his eyes and nuzzled into his daozhang's tangled black hair. Sometimes I wish I could stay like this forever, you know?

Hm? Xiao Xingchen sounded as though he was falling asleep. Even that little noise seemed to take an effort.

Pillow talk was dangerous, he knew, but Xue Yang wasn't stupid enough to let anything important slip, even sex-drunk and rambling. Just like this, me inside you. Or you inside me, whatever, either's good. He flexed his cock inside Xiao Xingchen's body, as much as he could in its softening state, anyway. Sleep was creeping up on him too. I just want to… I don't know, meld into you somehow. Give you a part of me to keep inside you all the time, to remember me by.

Xiao Xingchen's shoulder blades twitched suddenly. It was not quite a shudder. You're heavy, he said sharply. He pushed himself up onto his elbows. Let me up, I need to make a convenience.

The door slammed behind him. Abandoned on the bed, Xue Yang ran back through their conversation in his mind. Fuck. He should have fucking known better than to say something like that.

The sky is pale blue when he steps out of the coffin home and into the courtyard.

He's wearing yesterday's outer robe, clean enough for another day of experimenting on offal and making the necessary preparations before he travels to Tanzhou. The spirit trapping bag is tucked into his lapel pocket. The soul inside it is as quiescent as ever.

Kneeling alongside Xiao Xingchen's casket, the fierce corpse of Song Lan doesn't dare to look up at him. Before it can stand, ready to serve him, Xue Yang kicks it viciously in the shoulder, sending it down into the dust that's piled up where nobody sweeps.