Chapter 47

On Christmas Eve, Ning Shu got a call from Lu Zheng.

She hadn't much wanted to answer it, but Lu Zheng was stubborn. One call rang out, so he made a second. Nobody picked up. Fine. A third.

The whole way there her phone buzzed and buzzed in her pocket, and the battery drained by more than half.

In the end she gave in and answered, and her first words were: "That iPhone X you gave my brother. I'll bring you the money on Monday."

She was still angry about it.

Lu Zheng was relaxed and offhand. "It was nothing."

She held her ground. "It's not about the money."

"Ning Shu, do you think I'm an easy-tempered man?" His voice had an edge in it now. "Talking to me like that?"

No, no, no. His temper was not easy. Not in the slightest.

He was a man who had to control everything, which was why she had always had to do as she was told.

That was the first life. What was there to be scared of now?

"I've got things to do. Bye."

She couldn't be bothered to say more.

Down the line Lu Zheng could hear "Jingle Bells" bouncing out of some shop on her side. "You're out?"

"Mm."

He looked at his watch. "It's late. What are you doing out?"

"I'm meeting Fu Nansheng for dinner."

"…"

There was silence on his end for a good ten seconds. Then the busy tone. He had hung up first.

"Young master, the company's year-end party has started. Mr Lu asks you to get ready and…"

The steward hadn't finished before there was an almighty crash. Lu Zheng had kicked the table in front of him over.

His face dropped straight to freezing.

It wasn't often the young master lost his composure, but it happened, and the steward, Lu Jian, had nerves of iron. He didn't move a muscle.

"Go down and wait for me." Lu Zheng closed his eyes and breathed the anger back down.

Ning Shu got off the bus with some distance still to walk to the restaurant. Fu Nansheng rang. "Not here yet?"

"Nearly. The buses were packed tonight, I couldn't get on for ages."

"I'll order for you, then. What do you want?"

"Curry chicken." She said it, and stopped dead, and looked back. In the dark little lane behind her there seemed to be two figures in black.

They were some way off, and she hadn't noticed them at first. But just then a gust of wind came from behind, and what the wind carried told her, clear and sharp, that there was danger in it.

Those two meant no good.

She lowered her voice. "Someone's following me."

Fu Nansheng's hand paused on the menu. "People?"

"I wish they weren't." She walked faster. "Things that aren't people, I can handle."

"Have you got the staff?"

"No."

She had come out to have dinner with Fu Nansheng. She could hardly turn up armed to the teeth. The demon-subduing staff and the seal were both at home.

"How many?"

"Two, I think."

"Where are you?" He was already gathering his things and hurrying for the door. "I'm coming to get you."

"Fusheng Road."

"What are you doing on Fusheng Road?" His voice had sped up. "It's nothing but empty lanes down there."

"I was late," she said. "I didn't want to keep you waiting."

"You idiot."

The ever-courteous Fu Nansheng had sworn at her for the first time.

But he followed it at once with, "Fusheng Road's not far. I'll be right there. Don't be scared."

"I'm not scared."

He hung up and hurried out of the restaurant, and tripped over something at his feet the moment he stepped through the door. He nearly went down.

"Miaow."

A black cat slid away from under his feet, and didn't forget to look back at him.

"Dahua? What are you doing here?" He stood there a moment.

Dahua was his companion, and had been for many years: an old cat that had become something more than a cat.

It miaowed again, turned and ran off.

Fu Nansheng frowned slightly, then took a few small pebbles from his bag and scattered them on the ground. They spread out.

He murmured, "Heaven in the west, Earth in the east, the Purple Star to the north. Very bad. A parting by death."

The black cat came back, scraped a paw through the pebbles, gave him a warning look, and spoke. "If you go to save her, it'll cost you your life."

Fu Nansheng seemed long used to the way Dahua talked. He pushed its head aside, picked up the pebbles and muttered, "A girl walking alone at night runs into bad men. Am I supposed to not go?"

"She was born to come through every danger. You were born to lose. You can't save anyone."

He did hesitate. He thought about it for several minutes, and then he set off stubbornly towards Fusheng Road anyway.

"To hell with it. Twenty years of bad luck and the King of Hell still hasn't come for me."

The cat watched his back go, and counted under its breath. "Three. Two. One."

A screech of brakes. Fu Nansheng, on the pavement, threw himself sideways as a car ran the red light and all but sent him flying. He was quick, and it missed him.

By now he had stopped caring. He walked on, swearing. "Come on then, whatever you've got. I've lived this long. What's there to be afraid of."

Ning Shu was flat-out running. Just as she reached the mouth of the lane, two more men came round the corner ahead of her, and with the two behind she was caught between them.

She looked back. The pair behind were closing fast.

No way forward, no way back.

The moon had gone into the clouds. A cold wind blew down the lane, and there wasn't a soul about.

She felt in her schoolbag. A few textbooks, and a stack of charms she had drawn in boring lessons.

Nothing to defend herself with. She could hardly slap paper charms in their faces.

She couldn't fight. She was fit enough, but fit meant running fast and jumping high. She had won the long-distance race at the autumn sports day.

Caught front and back, she couldn't run either.

The two in jeans ahead of her had pulled knives out of their bags.

She screwed up her courage and shouted at them, "Who are you with? Give me a name!"

They said nothing and came towards her.

"Money or something else, at least say which!"

So she could brace herself, at least.

Damn it.

She bolted. The man in front caught her round the waist. She fought with everything she had, but all four of them piled on, grabbing at her clothes and tearing at her bag.

Not a robbery, then. Something worse.

No. It was a robbery after all. One of them had her bag and was tipping everything out of it onto the ground, pawing through it.

He didn't find what he wanted. He seized her by the collar. "Where is it?"

"Where's what?"

"The twin-fish jade pendant."

"I don't know anything about a twin-fish pendant!"

"Search her!"

The others started pulling at her clothes. Ning Shu crouched and curled herself into a ball, clutching her collar shut with both hands. "Get off! Get off me!"

And then there were footsteps at the dark mouth of the lane.

Someone was running towards them.

She shouted, "Fu Nansheng! I'm here!"

The newcomer hauled the man off her, drew back a leg and kicked him hard between the legs.

She got a look at him. It wasn't Fu Nansheng at all. It was…

Lu Zheng.

He was like an animal gone mad. Four men were coming at him with knives and there wasn't a trace of fear in him. He roared and went for them, brought one down and drove his fist into the man's face, again and again, pouring all the fury in him into it.

Behind him, someone was coming at his back with a knife.

"Lu Zheng!"

Ning Shu screamed it. "Behind you!"

He rolled aside and the knife missed him.

At that moment more people appeared at the end of the lane.

"Young master!"

Lu Zheng's bodyguards, by the look of it.

Seeing them, the four men bolted for the far end of the lane.

"Get them!"

The guards went after them.

Lu Zheng crossed to Ning Shu, pulled off his jacket and wrapped it round her, and held her against him, breathing in great gulps, shaking.

"My darling."

"Darling."

His voice was trembling, the words tumbling over each other. That was all he could say.

In the first life he had called her that too.

Lu Zheng's whole body was shaking. He was terrified. He was more frightened than she was, that something had happened to her.

"I'll kill them." His voice shook, and there was murder in it.

Her face was pressed against his chest, and through his shirt she could feel the heat coming off him and his heart going like a drum.

"Lu Zheng, I'm all right." It was Ning Shu who ended up doing the comforting.

"Really, I'm fine. Loosen up a bit, I can't breathe."

He squeezed her once more, hard, before he let go.

"You must have been terrified. Damn them. I'll kill every one of them." He looked her over, breathing fast. "I'm taking you home."

He took her hand, and found it sticky. There was blood on it.

"You're bleeding!"

She opened her hand and looked at it for a long moment before she understood. It was Lu Zheng's. "It's yours!"

There was a great gash down his arm. The knife had slit his sleeve to ribbons.

"Hospital!" She got an arm round him. "I'm taking you to hospital."

He let her hold him up, and found he rather liked it. He asked, smiling, "Worried about me?"

She kept her face straight and said crossly, "What did you charge in for? Can you even fight?"

"Of course I can," he said. "Ten of them wouldn't be a problem."

At the hospital, the doctor dressed Lu Zheng's wound. Lu Jian the steward stood to one side, face dark, saying nothing.

Ning Shu had known Lu Jian in the first life. He was Lu Zheng's right hand, loyal to the bone, and had helped him take half of the Lu Group. A capable man, never a smile, serious to a fault.

He hadn't been born a Lu. He had taken the name when he went into Lu Zheng's service and the Lu household, for life.

Lu Zheng said, as if it hardly mattered, "Not a word about this. If anyone asks, you know what to say."

"Yes, young master."

Ning Shu understood. Lu Zheng was precious as a crown prince. If his family knew he had been hurt they would dig until they got to the bottom of it.

In the first life he had done everything he could to keep his family from knowing she existed. It would not have been good for her if they had.

"Did they catch them?"

"I'm sorry, young master. They got away."

His face went cold.

"Not one?"

"I'm sorry, young master."

After a long moment Lu Zheng said one heavy word. "Find them."

"Yes, young master."

Ning Shu went to the door at the end of the corridor and rang Fu Nansheng. Call after call, and he didn't pick up.

The last one connected just as she was about to hang up.

"Ningning." His voice was hoarse.

"I'm all right, don't come," she said. "Lu Zheng got there."

"Good." He let out a breath, then asked, "Who were they?"

"I don't know. But they were looking for something. I heard them say a twin-fish jade pendant." Her hand went into her pocket and closed on the fish-shaped pendant there. "They can't have come for this one!"

Fu Nansheng thought, and said quietly, "Next time we meet, don't leave the school. I'll come to you."

"Oh. All right. Tomorrow?"

"Not tomorrow." He thought again. "Two days from now."

"All right."

When the call ended, Fu Nansheng's phone slipped out of his hand onto the floor.

He was lying flat on the bed in his cramped little rented room. There was blood on his head, and his arm and neck were covered in it.

He thought back over the chain of near-misses he had just come through, and his heart was still going.

First the car. He dodged that. Then he passed a row of half-built, abandoned houses and a roof tile came down out of the sky and caught him square on the head and split it open. And that wasn't the end of it: next a drunk driver smashed through the roadside railing and the car came straight at him…

It was like a live performance of Final Destination.

Getting back with his life had been no small thing.

The black cat called Dahua sat elegantly on the windowsill, sneering. "Wouldn't be told. One disaster after another, and all to play the hero."

He sighed.

"You're a soft touch, too. Your own life on the line, and you still answer the phone and send her off happy to the other one."

He shook his head. "Someone like me doesn't get to be sentimental."

He couldn't afford it.

The cat stretched its front paws out and yawned. "A qilin and a phoenix. Made for each other."

Fu Nansheng felt for the cigarette packet on the bedside table. Click. The lighter caught.

"Qilin my foot."