literal city boy zhao yunlan, the au
Jan. 12th, 2022 12:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
presumenothingOr: surprise, turns out your secret identity (unknown to even yourself) is literally the sentient manifestation of Dragon City itself! Pretty cool actually.
-
“You get a statistically-improbable number of green lights whenever we’re going anywhere. Every time.”
“Shen Wei.” Zhao Yunlan’s voice curls upwards in a half-whine from behind the hands over his face. “Baby. I will listen to you talk about bears again, you know that, just please spare me the math.”
“I don’t recall the last time we had to stop at an intersection,” Shen Wei continues, patient but relentless. “Except when it’s someplace you are very much in favour of not going to.”
Case in point: the string of roadworks that had manifested almost overnight the last time SID’s chief had been invited to a bureaucratic function – arriving very regretful for his tardiness, of course, but some things are so very unavoidable with their need to be in the heart of the city instead of the ministry districts, you know how it is –
Said chief peers out from the gaps between his fingers, lashes fluttering. “That doesn’t mean it’s me. Maybe it’s just the universe hinting at me to play hooky and spend the time with you instead!”
Right. A universe so-coincidentally aligned with Zhao Yunlan’s desires, the city bending almost imperceptibly to give him what he wants.
Which is as it should be, as far as Shen Wei is concerned. Just as well.
-
The thing that some people (alright, a lot of people) don’t get is that none of the many personalities Zhao Yunlan wears are fake.
Okay, maybe not so much the over-the-top social butterfly act he puts on for earning favour as the chief of the SID, though the need for that has lessened as their reputation establishes itself strongly enough to overwrite doubts at his too-young age. But that aside – all the rest is him. The utter lack of quietude or seriousness he displays eighty percent of the time is mostly because he really isn’t a quiet or serious person except when he is.
His father doesn’t agree with the way he undersells himself by default; it’s obvious for all that they’ve never talked specifically about it, but fortunately for everyone concerned Zhao Xinci has less than no say over how Yunlan runs his life. Being underestimated in capability but well-liked enough to make up for it has come in useful at least nine times for every tenth that it’s backfired on him.
But acting like he’s got cotton candy for braincells doesn’t actually mean that it’s true. Just look at Lin Jing.
…fine, maybe don’t look at Lin Jing.
The point is, no matter how much any actual mention of statistics and its terminology sends him straight back to the hysterically mind-numbing boredom of the month-long workshop on evidence-based crime-solving he’d been sabotaged into attending, this line of work inherently calls for excellent pattern-spotting skills.
And Zhao Yunlan is very good at his job.
Though in his defense, a lot of the earlier signs – the way he literally cannot get lost in the city unless drunk out of his mind and with a concussion to boot, or how he’s learned to listen to the indefinable sense he gets when something’s gone wrong somewhere even the official calls come in – had still been explainable by good instincts combined with being half-raised at the hand (well, paw) of a cat untold centuries older than the city itself.
(He contemplates how Da Qing had taught him these streets in a way that only a cat can, then promptly shudders at the implications and shuts down that line of thought.
Yunlan himself might’ve turned out fine, for a given definition of the word, but if anyone gave that damned cat this much authority the whole of Dragon City would be sold for a fish chip in the next instant.)
But then he’d gotten blinded, and out went plausible deniability – driven half-mad first with helplessness then by the othersight he started to catch in vague bits and flashes, as if to make up for the temporary loss of his own.
Or even something that’d been there all along, just never quite expanded into being until there was suddenly extra space to be filled in his senses.
Probably the entirety of it would’ve been too much, to be comprehended by the puny mind of a mere mortal, but that sense hasn’t fully faded either. When he walks outside now it’s with knowing certainty of each street camera and surveillance point. Every eye of the city itself.
And of course, Zhao Yunlan isn’t the kind to leave any advantage he has unused.
It’s not like anyone’s handed him a manual on what he can or cannot do, and anyway he’s got a great track record of not following that kind of thing, either.
“You want me to be the city?” he tells the thin air around his desk, sunlight slanting in through the window. “Fine, that’s fine, not much more or less than what I signed up to do anyway. But here’s the deal: I do this, and you protect him. Got it? I don’t give a damn if he’s from the depths of hell or whatever. Shen Wei’s mine now. Two for one. He gets hurt on your watch and I’ll make all of us regret it.”
There’s no response, not aloud, but then he hadn’t been expecting one anyway.
Instead there’s the overweight thud of something against his door, then the pad of Da Qing’s feet. “Lao Zhao? You talking to somebody?”
Zhao Yunlan leans back into the chair, kicks his feet up to their rightful place on the table. “Just giving them a piece of my mind.”
Da Qing flicks over a silent but definite query of his sanity – but then again he looks like that fairly often anyway, even when Zhao Yunlan is doing the obvious and eminently sensible thing. Though it’s not quite clear what, exactly, allows that expression to be physically possible on his overfed biscuit of a face.
Probably just his sterling personality, Zhao Yunlan thinks, followed unbidden once again by the terrible mental image of Da Qing turned some patron deity of fish snacks.
Awful. Shen Wei will need to personally stop him from having nightmares about this for the rest of the week. It’s only fair, really.
-
“You get a statistically-improbable number of green lights whenever we’re going anywhere. Every time.”
“Shen Wei.” Zhao Yunlan’s voice curls upwards in a half-whine from behind the hands over his face. “Baby. I will listen to you talk about bears again, you know that, just please spare me the math.”
“I don’t recall the last time we had to stop at an intersection,” Shen Wei continues, patient but relentless. “Except when it’s someplace you are very much in favour of not going to.”
Case in point: the string of roadworks that had manifested almost overnight the last time SID’s chief had been invited to a bureaucratic function – arriving very regretful for his tardiness, of course, but some things are so very unavoidable with their need to be in the heart of the city instead of the ministry districts, you know how it is –
Said chief peers out from the gaps between his fingers, lashes fluttering. “That doesn’t mean it’s me. Maybe it’s just the universe hinting at me to play hooky and spend the time with you instead!”
Right. A universe so-coincidentally aligned with Zhao Yunlan’s desires, the city bending almost imperceptibly to give him what he wants.
Which is as it should be, as far as Shen Wei is concerned. Just as well.
-
The thing that some people (alright, a lot of people) don’t get is that none of the many personalities Zhao Yunlan wears are fake.
Okay, maybe not so much the over-the-top social butterfly act he puts on for earning favour as the chief of the SID, though the need for that has lessened as their reputation establishes itself strongly enough to overwrite doubts at his too-young age. But that aside – all the rest is him. The utter lack of quietude or seriousness he displays eighty percent of the time is mostly because he really isn’t a quiet or serious person except when he is.
His father doesn’t agree with the way he undersells himself by default; it’s obvious for all that they’ve never talked specifically about it, but fortunately for everyone concerned Zhao Xinci has less than no say over how Yunlan runs his life. Being underestimated in capability but well-liked enough to make up for it has come in useful at least nine times for every tenth that it’s backfired on him.
But acting like he’s got cotton candy for braincells doesn’t actually mean that it’s true. Just look at Lin Jing.
…fine, maybe don’t look at Lin Jing.
The point is, no matter how much any actual mention of statistics and its terminology sends him straight back to the hysterically mind-numbing boredom of the month-long workshop on evidence-based crime-solving he’d been sabotaged into attending, this line of work inherently calls for excellent pattern-spotting skills.
And Zhao Yunlan is very good at his job.
Though in his defense, a lot of the earlier signs – the way he literally cannot get lost in the city unless drunk out of his mind and with a concussion to boot, or how he’s learned to listen to the indefinable sense he gets when something’s gone wrong somewhere even the official calls come in – had still been explainable by good instincts combined with being half-raised at the hand (well, paw) of a cat untold centuries older than the city itself.
(He contemplates how Da Qing had taught him these streets in a way that only a cat can, then promptly shudders at the implications and shuts down that line of thought.
Yunlan himself might’ve turned out fine, for a given definition of the word, but if anyone gave that damned cat this much authority the whole of Dragon City would be sold for a fish chip in the next instant.)
But then he’d gotten blinded, and out went plausible deniability – driven half-mad first with helplessness then by the othersight he started to catch in vague bits and flashes, as if to make up for the temporary loss of his own.
Or even something that’d been there all along, just never quite expanded into being until there was suddenly extra space to be filled in his senses.
Probably the entirety of it would’ve been too much, to be comprehended by the puny mind of a mere mortal, but that sense hasn’t fully faded either. When he walks outside now it’s with knowing certainty of each street camera and surveillance point. Every eye of the city itself.
And of course, Zhao Yunlan isn’t the kind to leave any advantage he has unused.
It’s not like anyone’s handed him a manual on what he can or cannot do, and anyway he’s got a great track record of not following that kind of thing, either.
“You want me to be the city?” he tells the thin air around his desk, sunlight slanting in through the window. “Fine, that’s fine, not much more or less than what I signed up to do anyway. But here’s the deal: I do this, and you protect him. Got it? I don’t give a damn if he’s from the depths of hell or whatever. Shen Wei’s mine now. Two for one. He gets hurt on your watch and I’ll make all of us regret it.”
There’s no response, not aloud, but then he hadn’t been expecting one anyway.
Instead there’s the overweight thud of something against his door, then the pad of Da Qing’s feet. “Lao Zhao? You talking to somebody?”
Zhao Yunlan leans back into the chair, kicks his feet up to their rightful place on the table. “Just giving them a piece of my mind.”
Da Qing flicks over a silent but definite query of his sanity – but then again he looks like that fairly often anyway, even when Zhao Yunlan is doing the obvious and eminently sensible thing. Though it’s not quite clear what, exactly, allows that expression to be physically possible on his overfed biscuit of a face.
Probably just his sterling personality, Zhao Yunlan thinks, followed unbidden once again by the terrible mental image of Da Qing turned some patron deity of fish snacks.
Awful. Shen Wei will need to personally stop him from having nightmares about this for the rest of the week. It’s only fair, really.
