No sign as yet,

november 18, 1922

3 days

His condition gets worse.

The doctors won't let anyone help him out of bed- they worry that his bones might be too frail to support any weight at all. His body is tearing him apart, needing every part of him and taking it without the slightest indication of consent, and Lan Fan knows that soon, there will be nothing left of him to give. There's barely anything left as it is.

She spends her days reading to him, because his fingers shake and hands falter at the slightest contact; in the afternoons, May sits on his bed and plays games of chess with him- he orders the pieces around, she moves them for him.

Lan Fan sees the sadness in his eyes when he has to tell someone else to fetch him something, or give an order that he cannot fulfill himself. She knows that Ling likes to work; if he could do every little chore in Xing, and manage the big picture things, and work in factories and laboratories, he would do so without hesitation. His heart breaks anew every time she reads to him, every time someone else cooks for him, every time someone else signs a document in his name.

"Lan Fan," he says quietly one day, reaching out for her. She does not close the distance, but she comes to kneel by his side. "You can go. If you want to."

Her breath catches in her throat, and when she looks at him, he is smiling.

She wants to shout at him, because he's dying, and he has to stop pretending like he isn't being consumed from the inside by the aftermath of the beast he spent his childhood chasing.

"I'm not going anywhere," she tells him instead, and her voice shakes.