He paused for two seconds, then turned. The expression on his face shifted from the absolute confidence of a man about to win to the blank stupor of someone who had been hit over the head.
He stared at her, from head to toe, and then exhaled two quiet words:
“Holy shit…”
Li Xun sat there twisted around with a cigarette in his mouth and his hand still frozen in the middle of playing his card. The effect was genuinely rather comical.
Zhu Yun laughed despite herself.
He laughed too.
“Are you playing or not? What’s the holdup?” The player downstream was growing impatient.
Li Xun dropped his cards. “Sorry, I’m out.”
“What’s going on?”
Li Xun shrugged, resigned. “Someone’s come to collect me.” He pushed all his winnings into the center of the table. “It’s not much — consider it a round of cigarettes, everyone.”
He had won the most at the table, and now that he was redistributing it, good wishes for the New Year came from all around.
As the cards were reshuffled, the others stole glances past him, each wearing an expression that could only be described as conspiratorial. Someone winked at Li Xun. “Stop dragging your feet and get upstairs already.”
Amid a chorus of snickering, Li Xun rose. He swaggered over to Zhu Yun with considerable self-satisfaction.
Zhu Yun felt a mischievous impulse rise in her. She stepped forward half a pace and said quietly: “What if I turned around and walked away right now? Wouldn’t that be awfully embarrassing for you?”
“It would.” He dropped his gaze to meet hers, a smile in his eyes. “Does Her Royal Highness wish to leave?”
Zhu Yun pressed her lips together. “That depends on how you behave.”
“I guarantee your satisfaction.”
Zhu Yun raised an eyebrow.
Li Xun: “Still leaving?”
“…”
She said quietly: “I suppose I won’t, for now.”
Li Xun bent his head and said into her ear, in a tone of spectacular irreverence: “How gracious of the imperial personage.”
Zhu Yun swallowed a laugh and followed Li Xun upstairs. They had barely gone half a flight when a wave of rowdy catcalls rose from below.
Her face grew a little warm.
The New Year really was wonderful.
The Lihua Inn was a modest establishment — narrow corridors, and the rooms were mostly singles. Li Xun fished out his key and worked the lock. Zhu Yun waited quietly behind him.
She snuck a look at him. In the cramped hallway under a dim bulb, he was tall enough that he seemed almost to brush the doorframe.
The door swung open. Li Xun stepped aside and turned to Zhu Yun with a small gesture. “After you, Your Highness.”
Zhu Yun stepped in and swept a look around the room. “It’s a disaster in here.”
He smiled, and tossed his key onto the table.
“I’m going to wash my face.”
Li Xun was in a remarkably accommodating mood tonight.
Zhu Yun attempted to find somewhere to sit.
The room really was a catastrophe. He had only arrived today — it was difficult to imagine anyone capable of reducing a room to this state in the space of a single day. He had no luggage case; stuffed in one corner was a black athletic duffel, unzipped halfway, the clothes inside all balled up in no particular order.
Li Xun came out of the bathroom.
“Why are you just standing there? Sit down.”
“And where exactly would you have me sit?”
Li Xun dried his hands while surveying the room, then tilted his chin in one direction.
“There.”
The bed.
A single bed.
Up against the wall.
Actually, perhaps not. Zhu Yun crossed the room and rescued a chair from beneath the pile of clothing that had buried it.
Li Xun took the bed.
The chair was tall. Zhu Yun was rather pleased with her superior vantage point.
“It’s such a mess in here,” she said again.
“Mm.”
“Like a pigsty.”
“Mm.”
She criticized without mercy. He agreed with languid indifference, one assent after another.