Contract

"Sect Master, do you think he destroyed any of your furniture?" Bo Penglai had turned serious. This could only mean one thing; that money was involved. "Those furnishings were all worth a small fortune. Perhaps it would have been best to place him into a guest room now that he's awoken rather than your personal living space."

"Well…" Xian Wu paused.

He'd no idea what 'sounded like he was moving furniture could mean', nor what Lai Yiteng was trying to accomplish by doing so. But the simplest way to confirm anything was to just go there and see it with his own eyes. 

"…it's fine. Let's go see."

Bo Penglai had only followed after him down the hallway before Xian Wu spoke up again.

"Actually, I almost forgot. You go get the new tonic from the medicine hall. It's the only one that looks blue and purple."

"Yes, Sect Master!"

Xian Wu stepped up to the door of his own room with some apprehension.

"Yi'er? It's me," he called in.

There was no response within several seconds. Xian Wu sighed.

They hadn't exactly argued earlier, Lai Yiteng even agreed to listen to him, and that he'd try the new treatment for the poison. But there was some strange look on his face when Xian Wu mentioned thinking about the future. Lai Yiteng suddenly turned quiet and apathetic.

So…they hadn't really fought, but Xian Wu still knew it hadn't been entirely harmonious either.

He called again, and this time tapped his hand on the door.

"Hellooo? Yi'er? Are you sleeping?"

Xian Wu was worried, so he just went ahead and opened the door.

All he saw in front of him was the wooden frame of the back of his dresser. It was like a wall, as though Xian Wu had been sealed off from his own room.

"…"

Then there was the sound of wood, some heavy object, being pushed across the floor. The dresser was quickly pushed out of the door frame, and Xian Wu's spacious room came into view.

Lai Yiteng was there as well. His hair was a little messy, making it clear that he'd just woken up.

"I am here," he said as a belated response to Xian Wu's earlier question. "I was sleeping."

"…" Xian Wu stared at the dresser that had acted as a barricade.

S-Should he comment…?

No.

Xian Wu decided not to mention it. He was going to let sleeping dogs lie and pretend like nothing was strange about it. If Lai Yiteng felt safer with a dresser blocking the door, so be it. Just let him do that.

Lai Yiteng looked in Xian Wu's hand but saw that there was no medicine in it.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, puzzled.

Xian Wu grinned. "I came here for several reasons. One is the medicine, which is on its way here. The second is this knife…" he brought out Lai Yiteng's knife from his robe sleeve, and immediately Lai Yiteng locked his dark pupils onto it.

Didn't that fat lackey, Bo Penglai, have it before?

Still confused, Lai Yiteng was even more confounded and annoyed when he reached out a hand to take it back, only to watch as Xian Wu nimbly kept it out of his reach.

Lai Yiteng spoke bitterly. "What are you doing? Trying to give me a hard time? That knife isn't even worth anything."

"That's not my intention," Xian Wu assured, somewhat shallowly. He took out a piece of paper and tapped it with a finger. "I will give it back to you, free of charge! I just want you to sign this contract."

"You—!" Lai Yiteng was still annoyed from being woken up. He squinted his eyes as he read the fine print on the small piece of parchment.

It read: 'I, Lai Yiteng, swear that I will not stab or injure a Graceful Dragon Sect Member unless attacked first.'

"…" Lai Yiteng was fuming and gave a scorching glare to Xian Wu, his features beautifully enraged.

"Really? You think I'm that big of a threat?"

Xian Wu was silent a moment, then his smiled deepened. "Remember that one time on the mountain? In the middle of martial arts practice we heard footsteps. A hunter came into view a distance away from us, and you were about to pick up the nearest rock you found and throw it with killing intent at his head... Who stopped you then? Me. So you see, you're more than welcome to stay here, but I at least want you to think about the consequences before snuffing someone out of existence. Alright?"

Lai Yiteng averted his gaze. "This is ridiculous."

Shifting some of the bangs off his pale face, he snatched the paper out of Xian Wu's hand.

Xian Wu's smile became lopsided. "Er, you're signing it, right? ...right?? Do you want a brush and ink, or-"

Lai Yiteng bit down on his fingertip and wrote his name in blood. Quite neatly, actually.

"…there. Are you satisfied?" he asked. "Now give me my knife."

Xian Wu was horrified as always. "S-Sure."

Lai Yiteng finally had his sweet, lovable knife back in his hand. He stared at it a moment before tucking it into its rightful place, although he had to adjust it a bit now that he was in woman's clothing. Afterwards, he was about to shut the door in Xian Wu's face.

"Um…" Xian Wu grabbed the door to prevent that. "So the last reason I'm here, besides the medicine and whole knife thing, is that this room is my private sleeping quarters."

Lai Yiteng was vaguely shocked. "You sleep here?" And yet, it made sense, otherwise why would he catch that scent of Xian Wu's when he took a nap earlier?

"Yup."

"So while I was unconscious, we still were sleeping in the same bed?"

Xian Wu laughed. "It was easier to keep tabs on your condition that way. I just kept you tucked into the bed like a little lover or something. Not a big deal. It's even funny, don't you think?"

Lai Yiteng felt his heartbeat quicken, and not in the way that usually ended up with him coughing up blood.

"Not funny," he muttered coldly.

Not long after Bo Penglai ran over from outside. He was carrying a bowl of purple and blue medicine in his hands without spilling a drop.

"Sect Master Xian, I've brought the medicine!"

He skidded to stop in front of the door, his eyes only glanced the reassembled furniture on the inside of the room briefly. Good, none of it seemed damaged.

Xian Wu took the bowl from him.

"That took you long enough."

Bo Penglai blinked. "No helping it, Master Song was at the medicine hall. She was looking for Mildew there."

"Oh?" Xian Wu raised an eyebrow.

Mildew, when it went missing, could usually be found at the medicine hall, snacking on rare poisons. Xian Wu always had the servants shoo it away with a broom, but most of them were too afraid to.

"And so, was Mildew there?" he asked Bo Penglai.

"Nope. She asked me if I'd seen it, but I haven't either. Apparently Mildew hasn't been as energetic as usual."

Xian Wu was notably curious.

Recently Mildew had eaten that little baby salamander…dragon…whatever it was. It had been over a month by now, but Mildew had been acting strangely ever since. When Xian Wu's arm was struck by the dragon-salamander back on Deathly Howling Mountain, it caused it to go paralyzed immediately, so the creature was certainly poisonous. Then again, Mildew was a demon crow that should be able to eat things like that.

What a confounding situation.

So in this case, perhaps it wasn't the doing of that little creature after all?

Xian Wu gave up on the idea for now, but figured he should send out some people to look for the bird later. He went over to Lai Yiteng with the medicine.

"Here you go. I think it won't taste as bad as before."

Lai Yiteng stared into the endlessly dark bowl of medicine, swirling with purple and blues like a poison dart frog. It looked much worse than the other kind of medicine.

"Did you make it?" he questioned.

Xian Wu nodded with a grin.

"Of course I did, there's no one else who knows as much about poison here as me." He swung an arm over Lai Yiteng's shoulder. "Don't be afraid. I made it earlier this morning. Only a few people can enter my private medicine hall, like Bo Penglai and Song Zhenxi, and they wouldn't have tampered with it."

"…" Lai Yiteng was not so sure.

He lifted it closer to his face, face dark and serious with thoughtfulness.

Xian Wu knew not to interrupt.

A few moments later, who knew if Lai Yiteng somehow worked out logic in his mind over it, he tipped the bowl to his lips and drank it all down rapidly. It was rare, but he gave a slight grimace from a taste so horrible that it cannot be described with words. 

Xian Wu, ever encouraging, patted him on the back.

"Good! Drinking it up without any complaints, what a man-" he coughed to interrupt himself as he remembered Lai Yiteng's current feminine attire, "-woman. You know what they say, women have minds of steel!"