Wild Creatures

Chapter 81

Lan Zhan has to breathe very carefully and let his emotions go, because by hanging onto them, he is giving away more than he wishes about himself, and in the space of a few seconds, Lan Zhan has come to the sudden realisation that it would be a very bad thing.

This is going to be a challenge.

"What are you going to do, if I continue?" The person speaks in measured tones, never looking away.

Lan Zhan is terribly glad that he has perfected the stoic expression on his face.

"In fact, what CAN you do?" He laughs, something cruel and twisted, as if he has made a joke.

That at least is pointing out the obvious.

The truth is, Lan Zhan can't do anything, not until his system recovers from whatever they injected him with, and his strength returns. His senses feel numb though, which is another bad thing, because he's under no illusions that he is most definitely among the enemy.

"Why have you taken me?" He asks, lending his voice a bland quality to suggest that he isn't bothered, not by what is happening, and not what he is going to hear.

"Ah, that's an interesting question, isn't it?" He muses, thankfully taking his finger away.

He begins to pace with his hands clasped behind his back, and this gives Lan Zhan an opportunity to study him properly.

He's tall and must have been broad shouldered at one point in his youth. He's wearing dark robes that drape across his thin frame as if the fabric were a liquid, with graceful, billowing sleeves. Along the cuffs, there is red and gold embroidery, swirls of fantastic fires that give Lan Zhan the impression that he's some kind of nobility. He looks a little familiar, but Lan Zhan cannot remember ever seeing him before, and that's even more strange because Lan Zhan has always been good with faces.

He feels that this one too, should be memorable to him, had he really seen it before.

At his waist, a tight leather belt holds his robes together, encrusted with an assortment of different sized rubies, and he's wearing a brooch.

It is the Wen logo, the emblem that hangs on top of the Wen Laboratories, and suddenly, there it is.

Lan Zhan has seen that emblem before.

Not on anyone's uniform, nor on a building, but somewhere far more personal.

These two dire owls with their spread wings are also custom made to embellish waistcoats that won't close any more, because two buttons with that same image are missing.

Lan Zhan thinks about that evening when Wen Rouhan had come to their table, also wearing that waistcoat. His buttons were there, all six accounted for. But Wen Chao was also there, and in between the useless flapping of his lips, Lan Zhan had noticed his gaping waistcoat and privately thought to himself that even monkeys, no matter how dear to their keepers, still needed to be taught how to dress if they insisted on mimicking their human counterparts.

Only then, too busy keeping Wei Ying safe meant that his attention was divided, and therefore he had not put two and two together until now: the buttons he and his Xiongzhang had found in the alley near Love Bites belonged to Wen Chao.

Probably broken off in a struggle, for which Lan Zhan was proud of himself.

He had tried to fight back, and that was saying something.

It loosened a knot of tension in his gut, because part of him thought it ridiculous that he had been attacked and let whoever it was, have their way with him. But he had fought back, and managed to get damning evidence of who his attacker was.