Does It Matter

23

  That damn brat. Did he get buried alive somewhere in this mess? Or did he escape and leave me here to die instead?  Wu Sanxing glared with all of his barely contained frustration focused on the rubble and ruin that was once the entrance to a tomb filled with treasures.

  He and his team had only just entered the tomb when things had already taken a turn for the worse, starting with his idiot nephew being nowhere to be found and continuing from there, the zombie that had found them almost instantly, taking nearly a third of his crew out of commission, the tremors in the earth had started soon after.

  Sanxing had felt his skin prickling beneath the surface along with every pebble that shook in the walls, and when the roots and arms had reached out from all around, he had barely managed to escape with three of his men, including Pan Zi. The other two had run away soon after.

  "Aish..." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "We will have to collect a new crew, start making the calls." He directed his words to Pan Zi, who still stood loyal at his side. He added one more thing, almost as an afterthought, "And find that idiot nephew of mine." He walked away, scowling at the earth around him as he briskly made his way back to camp. Damn kid always messing everything up.

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  Wu Xie sneezed quietly and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

  That's weird, I thought I was over that damn cold already. He sighed and got up, placing his book carefully on the coffee table after having folded the page to mark his place. He entered the bathroom to search through his medicine cabinets, searching for some cold medicine just in case, only to be interrupted by a knock on the gate, that somehow managed to be heard even from deep inside the house.

The knocking persisted and he grumbled to himself, stood up and straightened his clothes,   why couldn't people ever leave him be?

  He stepped outside of the house with a sense of trepidation slowing his steps, he vainly hoped that whoever it was would give up if he took too long to respond, but, alas, life was never in his favour, as another tap sounded on the old wood just as he reached the gate.

  He wished that the gate had a peephole, so that he could at least prepare himself for whoever he was about to meet.

The rapping on the gate became more insistent, and he steeled himself for a probably unpleasantly long conversation from this person.

  Slowly and deliberately, he unlocked the gate, slowly pulling it open a crack to peer outside, or to more easily stab the person if the situation required. "Yes?" He queried, fingering his pocket knife with the hand that was not holding the door. "What do you want?"

There was no response for a long moment, and Wu Xie strongly debated just closing the door in the person's face, but held himself back from appeasing the urge, instead pulling it open a smidge more, and casting a baleful glare at the unsuspecting visitor.

"Seriously what is so urgent....." He trailed off as he saw the person behind the door. "I thought I told you already," he stated with barely concealed contempt. "I want nothing to do with whatever scheme you have cooked up." He glared at the woman, who seemed to have the idea that bringing a truckload of lackeys would really change his mind.

He closed and bolted the door again, not waiting to hear a word from her scheming tongue, and as soon as they were out of his sight, the calm facade dropped like a bomb, leaving behind a blend of panic and anger, both of which were quickly overshadowed by his scarce survival instincts.

Fuck. Of course she had brought her crew. Of course. He could hear muttered orders being given on the other side of the door, and cursed himself for wasting time as he quickly looked about, moving a few garden structures over the walkway, just in case the nuisances decided to break through the gate, and ran inside, throwing a few extra things into the backpack he always kept packed in his room. He heard a crash and cacophony of shouts from down below, signifying his time was almost up.

He bolted to the window and shoved it open, before he remembered something and ran back, pulling a thick envelope from under the third drawer of his nightstand, he shoved it in his coat pocket and climbed out onto the roof, quietly closing the window behind him as he heard more shouting from the yard, and a few inside the house now.

  He cursed again and clambered further up, staying flat against the roof as he went, until he was completely out of anyone's sight curled against a ventilation shaft, and hoped that no one would be dedicated enough to check the roof.

  His hopes were cruelly dashed when he heard a thump as something landed on the opposite side of the roof, followed by a low grunt as someone pulled themselves up.

Of course.

Wu Xie almost felt the urge to roll his eyes at his own stupidity. Obviously they would still find him, they were,—probably— ,not stupid and in any case his bad luck was absolutely incorrigible.

So hiding could never be a viable option from the beginning. I always lost in hide-and-seek anyway.

He took a few slow, deep breaths as he heard the footsteps approach, getting steadily louder and somehow more intimidating merely by the fact that they were slow and deliberate, most likely this person was not accustomed to walking on roofs.

Finally, the person sounded to be just on the other side of his hiding place, and Wu Xie held his breathe, muscles tense, waiting for the other to date to make a first move. He silently slipped his pocket knife out of its place in his coat, holding it close to his body.

His nerves were wound tight, ready to burst, and his heartbeat was thrumming in his ears as he waited for what seemed like forever in anxious anticipation. He felt a shifting in the weight of the shingles, and he snapped, bursting out of his cover and tackling the person so that they landed on their back, with him on top of them.

Once they were down he shoved one hand over their mouth and held his knife to their throat with the other, his body was lay flat against theirs to hold the person down and not be seen by the mercenaries below.

"Who are you!" He hissed between his teeth, glaring at the person before a spark of recognition ignited in his mind. He slowly removed his hand, but held the knife close.

"Wu Xie." The person—the man, stated his name with an almost blank expression as he stared at him, but Wu Xie could have sworn to a hint of amusement hiding somewhere in those eyes.

"Zhang Qiling?" Wu Xie asked, bewildered for a moment before making a guess. "Ah, so you're one of her men. That's why you kept following me." At least that means that it wasn't my uncle this time. Oh wait... He worked for my uncle, now he works with her... Fuck my life they're both working for my uncle. 

Wu Xie gritted his teeth in annoyance at this turn of events. And here I thought that I had finally found an ally in this mess.

He sighed one more time before making eye contact with the other. He gave his sweetest smile he could manage as he spoke. "Would you prefer to be kicked off the roof or a knife in your throat?"

The older males eyes widened just the tiniest bit at that question, but Wu Xie only had a short second to see before he was suddenly thrown off and picked back up again.

What the fuck is happening? He thought as he was grabbed by the arm and dragged away towards the edge of the roof.

"We have to go. Now." The youngers eyes widened at the sentence coming from the supposed enemy in front of him. He barely had time to process the words before he was suddenly being dragged over the edge.