The Heist

AN: What is this? Is this an update after two weeks?

That's right folks. I looked forward to writing this chapter for so, so, so long. And I figure, I really should get to wrapping up Part 2 of the story. I can't believe this is the 10th chapter! I haven't written 10 chapters for anything, since I was 13! Haha, I guess I should be proud of this milestone.

Thanks to those who read and reviewed my previous chapter!

Edward felt a hand lightly grip his shoulder. Looking to his side, he found Winry settling down on the hospital bench beside him. From her drawn, somber face, he knew that she wasn't going to deliver any good news from her phone call.

"Ling is not coming," she told him. "He and his mother were in a car accident."

Edward swore, feeling dread dissipate into a simmering stew of anger.

"Calm down," Winry's hold on his shoulder tightened with reassurance that was so distinctly hers. "They are okay. They were questioned briefly by the cops to determine what happened. Mrs. Yao said she's on her way here, but she managed to convince Ling to take a trip to Xing, for his safety's sake."

Ed stood up from the bench, Winry's hand sliding off of his arm. It took all his self-control not to turn around and punch the wall behind him, a habit he was accustomed to doing when pressure became too much. The hospital was supposed to be a quiet, safe place for the sick, and not to mention, the room right behind him was where Ridel was under operation. The man took two bullets, one on the leg, and one on the side of the back. His entire study was destroyed. His wife and new baby were lucky enough to have been thoroughly protected by being at the farthest room in the house, but Ridel's workroom was peppered with bullet holes by the time the militants arrived.

Edward knew that it was no coincidence. The LeCoultes lived in a relatively safe part of the city, and nobody could blame what happened on delinquents or gangs. Ridel fronted as a freelance developer, and his work for Auto-Mail was less known among the public. So soon after Hunter Manos's death, and now, tailed by the Yaos' road accident, the LeCoulte's shooting was definitely an attack against Auto-Mail.

Breathing in deeply, Edward sat back down beside Winry and leaned close to her. Whispering in her ear, he said, "Why don't I just kill Henry Chu in his sleep?"

It was meant to be a joke, but it did nothing to diffuse the anger in his chest.

"You know why," Winry whispered back. "I can't let you stoop that low."

Ed groaned, hoping that vocalizing his frustration in this way made for a much more hospital-friendly expression than punching through walls, but a nurse walked by and shushed him. He scowled at her.

From the corner of the hallway, Satella LeCoulte, Ridel's wife, walked towards them, holding the baby in her arms. She looked terrified.

"Satella, it's going to be fine," Winry reassured the woman. "Lieutenant Hawkeye had already issued for militants to safeguard you and your family."

"I know," Satella replied. "But it doesn't make me feel better thinking about what could have happened, you know. I think... I think that after Ridel recovers, it would be best if he stays out of Auto-Mail for a while."

Winry didn't respond to that, and Edward knew what she was thinking. Ridel's software powered Auto-Mail's computer networks. And while the software was usable even if Ridel didn't work on it, its maintenance required frequent attention from the man. Not to mention, with the quick expansion of Auto-Mail, and the increasing complexity of the matches, Ridel often resorted to creating new algorithms to improve the software.

"I'm sorry," Satella continued. "Auto-Mail is a big part of our lives, but at the rate things are going... I'm not sure if it's safe to continue."

"You know, it might not be safe even if Ridel does stop working," Edward pointed out.

Satella's lips quivered. "Then I don't know what is safe and what isn't anymore!" she cried, and buried her face in her baby's soft clothes. Her son began to wail, sensing his mother's distress. Winry glared at Ed, and he slumped against the wall, pouting.

"Edward didn't mean it like that," Winry said softly, rubbing the woman's shoulders. "What he meant was that there are always going to be risks, and at this point in time, we're really groping in the dark. None of us can predict what's going to happen."

Satella lifted her head, sniffing a little. She reached into her pocket, and pulled out a small note, which she handed to Winry.

"Here," she told them. "I found this stuck on Ridel's work desk when I came down to check on him after the shooting happened."

Ed watched as Winry unfolded the piece of paper. He cringed as he read what was written.

I hate to say 'No Pressure,' because in my business, it is anything but. I hope that we understand each other. ~Henry

"Ugh, what a swine," Winry said, crumpling up the piece of paper.

Satella shook her head. "No, don't do that. You can use it as evidence. Don't you want to report him to the police?"

"I'm sure tons of people have filed reports, but he's still not behind bars, isn't he?" Ed mumbled.

"You act as if there's nothing you can do."

"There is, I'm sure of it," Edward said rather weakly. "I just don't know what it is right now. But Henry Chu is human like all of us, so he's bound to make a mistake sooner or later."

And perhaps one of the things that irritated Edward more than anything else was the loan shark's apparent infallibility. Almost everyone he knew loathed the man, but nobody could do anything about it. Everyone was paralyzed by fear. But Edward knew that it was impossible for someone to be so invincible. They were just missing something. That was all. And if they could somehow eradicate their own blind spots, then the playing field would level out.

They were so close this time around. They really were. It didn't matter what Ling thought. Edward wasn't going to just let the operation dissipate, especially not when people he cared about was getting attacked left and right. He could see the pattern. For sure, he and Winry, or maybe his brother and some of his other friends, were next. For some reason, he felt more challenged than afraid. Let Chu do his worst then. Let him.

They stayed at the hospital, waiting for the doctors to come out of the operating room. After a couple of hours, Yuna came bounding towards them, looking a little less refined than she usually did. Her clothes were rumpled, and her hair sported some fly-away strands and frizzy ends.

"Mrs. Yao!" Winry exclaimed, standing up and extending a comforting embrace to the older woman. "How are you doing now? Are you okay? Is Ling okay?"

Yuna nodded, taking a seat beside Ed at the edge of the bench. Winry handed her the paper that Satella had given her earlier.

"Apparently, shooting houses and rigging cars are just your ex-husband's way to remind his clients to pay up," Winry said. "He wants the two million, four hundred something thousand paid as soon as possible."

"Ling had told me about the termination of the contract," Yuna said. "It seems to me as if he wants to sever all ties with Auto-Mail. Usually when his clients find themselves in a pinch, Henry would stall as long as possible, milking the interest out of the loans."

"Are you sure?" Ed asked. "I don't know, but it seems to me that if he wants us to pay up as soon as possible, shouldn't he be making our lives a bit easier? You know, not putting holes in the walls of our houses, and fiddling with car brakes, so that our expenses don't actually spike up through the roof?"

"Eh, Henry doesn't care about that. If kidnapping your siblings would make you pay faster just so you could get him off your back, he'd go through with something like that. He doesn't care what kind of expenses you rack up paying for security, investigation, or even a psychotherapist intervention."

Ed snorted. The man was twisted, no doubt about that.

"And how about Ling?" Winry asked.

"I sent him home. He's packing to leave for Xing tonight," Yuna answered. "Look, if it were just up to him, he would never leave you guys. He'd never abandon his friends. That's not the kind of person he is, and that's not how I raised him. But I was the one who insisted that he goes. He's behind the entire operation after all, so his father's wrath would fall heaviest on him."

"Yeah, fine. I understand," Ed said, rubbing his face. Truth be told, he wasn't sure if taking the nobler path was the best choice either. That said, there were people that Ed cared too much about to leave behind. And there wasn't anywhere he could go to that could help him more than staying here in Amestris. He wasn't like Ling. Edward's best resources were himself, as well as his friends.

"I know it probably doesn't really matter at this point, but my son would definitely feel much better if he knew that his friends would be okay," Yuna continued.

Edward gave his cheekiest grin to the Yao woman. "C'mon, haven't you realized by now that I can take care of things regardless of whether your son is here or not? Trust me, we only needed him for comic relief!"

Yuna smiled, not insulted in the slightest. "I hope what you're saying is true. Look, I can lend you some money to offset the burden from Auto-Mail's treasury. It's best if you give Henry Chu what he wants now, before he gives you any more trouble."

Pandering to the Xingese man's childish, violent tantrums was the last thing Edward wanted to do. It was exactly what Chu needed to prove his power, that even the most prevalent black market in the country could do nothing but succumb to his whims.

But if that was what they needed to do to buy themselves more time, he would take it.

"I told him to find Lan Fan there," Yuna stated, and then proceeded to explain what Office Falman had told her and Ling just earlier that day about their deportation. Ed turned to Winry to gauge her expression. From her sigh, he could tell she was slightly relieved. In a way, he knew how she felt. If Lan Fan wasn't the traitor, it meant that he and Win didn't foul up bringing her into the group. "If you send your correspondence to my father, you can still keep contact with Ling. In the meantime, you can focus your energy into finding the lost two million sens, and keep as many people safe as possible. As for me, I'll do my best to distract my ex-husband as much as I can. There are some failing Drachman businesses I can probably exploit.."

Yuna continued to babble about businesses and finances and stupid people not thinking with their heads.

"Ed," Winry whispered. "Not to taint a dead man's soul or anything, but I've been thinking. I'm pretty sure that Manos took the two million sens that we are missing."

"Huh?"

"He's the one who spilled the beans on us! If there's anyone who would go as far as pilfer our money, it would be him. Or at least, someone he's acquainted with."

Ed frowned. "Well that sucks. Now he's gone, and we don't have a lead."

"But think about it. If you were a thief, where would you keep a stash of bucks?"

He shrugged, "I'm not a thief, so how would I know?"

"Exactly! But you know who's a thief?"

Slowly, he realized where Winry was taking this speculation. Heh, he knew that that Paninya girl had to be useful for something sooner or later.

-o-

A week after the commotion, Riza found herself with an early end to her shift. As she was packing up, the Colonel weasled his way past her without a word, and though she didn't notice his hand slip into her pocket, she definitely felt the added weight of the object he dropped in it. When she was through the door, she pulled out the object and found that it was a key.

She smiled. Trust the Colonel to get things done.

Once she was at her apartment, she called Alphonse, Mei and Winry to ask them if they could meet her at the train station the next day.

The key that the Colonel gave her opened the room to a special laboratory in Central City, one where the Red Stone project was conducted years ago. Now that Colonel Mustang revealed the price they had paid for their triumph over Bradley during the uprising, it was about time to swallow their pride and look back at one of the most disgraceful decisions they ever made as a team.

When they arrived at the laboratory the next day, Riza led the three of them to a filing cabinet where all the documents regarding the research were stored.

"These have been untouched since the project was put to rest when the uprising occurred," Riza explained, as Alphonse and Mei excitedly extracted the documents from the cabinet. "Most of the doctors who worked on this endeavour had long since dispersed. Or died. We've questioned a few of them after Grumman became President, but they refused to come back, noting lost of interest, or even doubt that they could actually succeed in creating the medicine as it was first envisioned."

Riza turned to the youths, and found Winry hovering behind Alphonse's seat, reverently fingering the sheets of the research papers. For her, Riza thought, this was more than a matter of 'magical' potion. It was her parents' legacy, a testament to their hardwork and their noble intentions.

From inside one of the folders, they retrieved a disc that introduces the concept of the Red Stone, and they placed it in one of the many computers lined up against the wall. The disc was filled with the digital versions of the documents, some videos, several computer programs, and a directory of spreadsheets, among other things.

"I don't know much about all this scientific jargon, so you kids go ahead and read," Riza told them.

"Is there anything specific you want to find out?" Alphonse asked gently. "If not, I can't assure you that we won't just happily go along, obsessing about every single amazing detail!"

Riza nodded. "One of the biggest things we're curious about is how to make the Red Stone. We believe that if we figure this out, we can manage to compete with Henry Chu in its distribution. It will be one less thing he controls."

"Well, here's something off the bat," Mei piped up excitedly, pointing to the screen of the computer. "There's a brief introduction at the beginning, talking about the objective of the research project. The medicine is made up of synthetic cells that apply an advanced algorithm to learn anomalies in a person's body and eliminate them. Look here, Al!" she exclaimed excitedly. "They've sited that the algorithm was based off of Hohenheim's Method. Your father seems to have contributed to the project indirectly as well!"

Alphonse rushed over to look at the screen, grinning. "Heh, I'll make sure not to tell brother. He'll have an apoplectic fit if he realizes that Dad's work was actually of some use."

"What do you mean, Al?" Winry interjected. "Is Ed still sulking about your father?"

"Eh... I guess my brother would just prefer to believe that our Dad was a good-for-nothing idiot. After all, a hero leaving his home to save the world wasn't exactly the kind of picture our Dad painted for himself."

"In any case, back to the topic!" Mei clapped her hands. "In order to know how to make it, we have to know exactly what it does. It says here that there are two main objectives: for wounds and other physical injuries, the antidote must be able to heal its host. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that the host will become immune to similar damages in the future. This means that after the medicine cures a cut, the host will still be able get a cut again.

"On the other hand, the medicine must be able to both cure and provide increased immunity against diseases caused by pathogens.

"Those are the basic goals that the Red Stone must be able to accomplish before the doctors would consider their product a success." Mei finished, looking up at the others to see what they thought.

"Hey, look here!" Alphonse picked up a print-out from the documents they gathered from the cabinet. It was a diagram of the artificial cell, labeled and completely annotated in a messy handwriting. "This is the learning cell they're talking about! They outlined all the major components and what they're made out of. I'm sure it would be easy to replicate it, if we're able to find the right ingredients."

"But that diagram only shows the physical aspects of the cell," Mei said. "It doesn't tell us how to make the cell perform its most basic function. Here it says," she continued to read from the computer. "The biggest obstacle is how to make the cells learn. To learn, the cells need data. In particular, they need points of comparison. One point of reference must be the healthy version of the host, and the other point is the degraded version. The cells' job is to learn how it got from one point to the other, and reverse the process."

She paused, looking very serious. Alphonse observed her for a moment, then nodded his head as if she had just said something he agreed with.

"That's a very simplistic scenario, and not realistic at all," he told the rest of them. "If that's what the cells need, then the medicine would almost never work. Because first it needs to know what the healthy version of the host is like, but most people would never need to administer a medicine until they're already sick!"

Riza sighed. It seemed to her as if so may things could go wrong. Wouldn't doctors then have to personalize the medicine then, since each person was different? And how did the medicine know what exactly was 'wrong' with a person? If someone had a cold at the same time they broke their ankle, which one would the Red Stone target?

Hm, perhaps this was why the doctors gave up after one prototype. And from what she had heard, the prototype couldn't exactly heal anything yet. It was just a base.

She allowed the kids to continue their reading quietly. She didn't want to impose, but at the same time, she was the only one here who was authorized to access the room, so she couldn't leave – and even then, she didn't have complete authorization, which was why the Colonel had to pass the key to her in hiding.

At midday, Alphonse and Mei took a break to get some lunch and came back with bento boxes for all four of them. After eating, they continued to read.

"Alright, so it is tough business," Alphonse admitted. "There's just too many ways the process can go wrong. The cells can 'overlearn,' meaning that they think that the old health of the host is the perfect version of the host, so it will try to revert the body to that state. This will interfere with natural aging and healing process, especially when the Red Stone is administered for long-term use against a disease.

"On the other side of the spectrum," he continued. "The cells can also 'underlearn,' meaning that the cells are not effective, because they can't tell the healthy version of the body from the damaged version. What the cells need is a balanced rigour for learning, one that will allow them to grow along with the body's natural progression, and at the same time, know when the body needs fixing."

"So what exactly is the prototype that they made? What did it do?" Riza asked.

Alphonse grabbed the binder from where he took the picture of the synthetic cell, and browsed through the last few pages. His brow furrowed in concentration, although as the minutes ticked by and he continued to read, it morphed into something akin confusion.

"What's wrong, Al?" Mei pushed herself off the chair in front of the computer and joined Al, looking over his arm to see what he was reading.

"Lieutenant, are you sure that the research was postponed because of the civil war?" he asked.

Riza perked up. "As far as I know, yes. Though to be totally honest with you, I only ever knew the basics of the project. I was never in the inner-circle. That was mostly composed of doctors and researchers, you see. The government was only funding it, and my faction of the military then was only told to protect the team if needed."

"Well it seems to imply here in the end notes that the research team was in a deadlock even before the uprising occurred," he explained. "They managed to build a prototype of the Red Stone, and imbue it with a superficial sense of what makes up a healthy constitution, which was learned from the collective, averaged data of the researchers' own healths. But after that, it seems as if the researchers themselves had a falling out."

Riza tapped her fingers on the desk, trying to make sense of what Alphonse was telling them.

"Could it be that their political views were already driving them apart? That some of the doctors and researchers were supportive of President Bradley, after all?" Mei tried to suggest.

Riza shook her head. "No, we tried keep this project from really penetrating Bradley's radar, which was why it was launched under the Aerugan War Act. Anything that would support our men in battle, he favoured, so we managed to sneak it in disguised. I'm certain that none of the researchers and doctors who participated supported Bradley at all. They were all handpicked by my grandfather himself."

Winry pulled a sheet from the pile she was looking at, and pointed. "Here's a resignation note I found from one of the doctors. She wrote that she was leaving because she was afraid that if she continued, she would be violating her oath as a doctor."

Mei suddenly gasped, and they all looked at her wide-eyed expression, gaze unseeing as some kind of horrible realization hit her. When she snapped out of it, she snatched the notes out of Al's hands.

"Don't you guys get it yet? Look what it says here. The doctors averaged their own healths and ingrained that info into the cells. They used data from their own bodies! Now think about it. If the doctors wanted to test their algorithm, they would have needed an unhealthy version of themselves."

Riza began to see where the young girl was going with this. Mei looked at them each one of them in return, a mix of disgust and fear shading her eyes.

"For something as precise as this, the only way to train the cells properly is to experiment on people. In their case, they would have needed to test the medicine on themselves. That's why they had a falling out."

-o-

When her grandfather Fu had been healthy years ago and he would let her accompany him on a simple bodyguarding job, they had developed an easy series of gestures to communicate their next actions without notifying others around them. Rubbing the back of the neck meant that they were coming close to the end of their session, so they should try to wrap things up with their clients; a hand through the hair meant that one of them sensed danger; a quick swat of the hand, like someone ridding the air of a fly, meant go away, leave, escape.

It was the same sign he's been giving her now, for the past three mornings, when she tried to clean him up.

But Lan Fan couldn't leave.

It wasn't that she wasn't confident she could make the slip. Sure, a few people inside the house and several more outside could hardly stop her if she truly wanted to leave. This wasn't the tightest, toughest neck-breaking situation she'd gotten herself in. And if she was to be completely honest, she had already devised four different ways in which she could slip unnoticed until she made it to the bottom of the stairs outside of the door. By that time, she would have all the space she needed to take care of her pursuers.

But all of that entailed leaving her grandfather behind.

And she couldn't do it.

Maybe she just wasn't enough of a warrior to leave behind what most in that profession would consider dead weight. Perhaps, despite her grandfather teaching her all he knew about martial arts and instilling in her the principles of a disciplined fighter, she would never truly be like those Xingese elite warriors. And maybe she didn't want to be. After all, when they fled from Tong Hua, her grandfather could have easily left her behind after her parents' death. He didn't need to carry a weak, crying two-year-old across the continent, didn't need to worry about feeding and housing a toddler, when already he was stretched to the limits trying to make a living in a new country by himself. Her grandfather didn't abandon her, even though the warrior's code would have frowned upon it. She couldn't abandon her grandfather either.

She was way too sentimental for a fighter, she had always known that.

Lan Fan filled a large basin with water from the pump in the bathroom, and dumped her grandfather's sweat-soaked clothes. Mámù had gotten them some change of clothes, nothing fancy – more like peasant garb than anything else, but if it meant improving their sanitation, Lan Fan wasn't going to complain.

When her grandfather had harshly whispered into her ear that it would be best for her to escape and save herself, one of the big men cuffed her on the head, unexpectedly. "No, low talking." Apparently that was a new rule. Another was "No talking in Tong Huan dialect." Basically, they didn't want Lan Fan and Fu conspiring.

It didn't matter. To Lan Fan, there was no difference in her ability to save herself whether she performed her escape now or after her grandfather was dead. And if her grandfather really was dying, she'd rather just stay and be with him a little bit more. Stay until his last day.

A drop of tear disturbed the surface of the water in the basin, and Lan Fan scrubbed her face with her forearm. There was no point in mourning someone who was still alive. No matter how close to death they were.

After she finished washing her grandfather's clothes, and hung them on a makeshift clothes line she'd installed across the walls of the bathroom, she went outside to begin cooking their midday meal. There really wasn't much to cook. Yesterday a new batch of food came, but they weren't any more interesting than the first bag. If anything, Lan Fan would be hard pressed to find all the nutrition her grandfather needed.

Her heart clenched. This morning, he didn't even bother waking for long enough to eat breakfast. Somehow, she thought, it was now harder to wake him than to feed him. Putting away the morbid thoughts from her head, she began to select what she could turn into lunch from the poor array of vegetables she'd been given.

Just then, a loud knock reverberated through the tiny house, surprising most of its occupants.

Lan Fan looked at Mámù, who looked back at her with an arched eyebrow. The woman then turned to look at her peers, an accusatory glint to her gaze. But the four men and women who were in the house, shook their heads vigorously as if to say that they didn't have anything to do with why there was someone knocking on the door.

"Where the hell is Shin?" Mámù growled. "I told him to warn us if anyone was approaching."

Lan Fan knew the implication of that almost immediately. She stilled herself, and tried to sense where the other four guards were. They usually didn't go very far. There were those two – Lan Fan presumed they were a couple – who always smoked by the side of the house; she observed those inside, and thought about the ones that had had to be guarding their home from the outside. There was the small, bald man whose name she didn't bother to remember, and the pockmarked woman who couldn't be any older than Lan Fan herself.

She couldn't sense them.

What she did sense, however, was a rather large group of people hovering by their front door.

Mámù stood up and opened the door. Lan Fan took a step back from the table to see over her shoulder.

There was an elderly man on the other side, flanked by some sort of special escorts with hair neatly tied up in top-knots, all wearing a deep red uniform and porcelain half-masks. Lan Fan thought those went out of style fifty years ago, but perhaps not everyone in Xing felt the same way.

"Good day, my lady!" the old man announced cheerfully. Something nagged Lan Fan about the intonation of that voice, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. "Would you kindly let me in? I have some matters I'd like to settle with you."

"Sorry, but you must have gotten the wrong address," Mámù said sternly. "I, for one, don't remember anything that has to do with you, so if you'd go your merry way without further incidents, it would be best for all of us."

She tried to shut the door, but the old man imposed himself in its way.

"On the contrary," he said in a jolly voice. "I think I got the address just right."

"Who are you?" Mámù said, planting herself squarely in the doorway. Some of the others began to shift their positions to better guard themselves from trouble, blocking Lan Fan's view of the outside. She cursed, but stayed focused on the conversation.

"You could say I'm a local governor from a nearby jurisdiction. I have a couple of issues to deal with among your lot."

"My lot?" Mámù scoffed. "You uptown dandies really think you're all that, don't you? Banging on people's doors as if you have a right to. It's true we're just squatters, but we're not bothering anyone else!"

Eh, squatters? That was the cover Chu assigned them? Lan Fan clicked her tongue. She found it rather comical too that nobody could have picked a better place where they wouldn't be disturbed. It seemed a little slapdash, considering that Chu was behind the entire thing. She didn't remember him to be that careless.

One of Mámù's friends began yelling, and Lan Fan tried to see what was going on, but her view was still obstructed. After a moment, the old man pushed through those blocking his way, but stopped short when he noticed Lan Fan. One of Lan Fan's guards, the one who had taunted her during her first night there, grabbed him from behind, but a masked escort quickly dispatched of him, sending him hurling across the floor. More masked guards began spilling into the house, engaging her captors in a troublesome fight. The old man himself was busy trying to subdue Mámù, who turned out to be rather competent in combat as well.

Lan Fan braced herself. However, none of the guests seemed to be interested in trying to get to her. As a matter of fact, they even seemed to be trying to prevent Mámù and her crew from going back to Lan Fan and keeping her subdued during the mess.

A swift, lean escort pushed through the crowd, taking the kick that Mámù sent for the governor. But the escort didn't so much as cringe; he closed his hand around her ankle, and yanked it forward, causing Mámù to lose her balance and trip over someone else who had already fallen. Disregarding the woman, the escort turned back around, blocking the attacks that were meant for the older man. His actions were fluid and precise, but then again, so were his companions'. Lan Fan became certain right then and there that the governor had been expecting trouble.

Lan Fan shook her head, knocking herself out from her fascinated stupor. If there was any opportunity she would get to escape, this was probably it. By herself, she could make it out even without those strangers. But with their distraction, she actually had a chance of taking her grandfather with her.

Quickly, she grabbed the stash of food that she'd been given for the week. She rolled up their extra clothes and the blanket that was covering her grandfather. Neglecting all gentleness – her grandfather was unconscious anyway, not merely sleeping – she slung his emaciated body across her back. She didn't sense the others outside who were supposed to have been guarding their house, and knowing that Shin had failed to report the arrival of the strangers, Lan Fan supposed that the perimeter was clear of anyone who would try to stop her. She pushed her load through the windows. Then one last time, she looked back to assess the situation.

And stopped.

The ground was littered with her guards' bodies. All knocked-out or... dead. The floor she worked so hard to scrub for her grandfather's sake was peppered with thick blood stains, though she wasn't sure whose they were.

Standing expectantly near the door was the old governor and his host of bodyguards, all staring at her.

"Look," Lan Fan began, shifting her grandfather's weight on her back. "I'm not with those people. Believe me. If you let me go, I promise I won't bring you any trouble at all. I just want to take my grandfather to a doctor."

"Well, I'm sure you won't be any trouble at all, but I'm afraid that I can't let you go," the old man said, and Lan Fan's face darkened. Had she gotten caught up in something completely unrelated to her? She didn't even know the kind of things the Xingese locals dealt with on a daily basis. What if this was a syndicate or something? "I'm looking for my granddaughter."

Lan Fan shook her head. "I'm not from this area. I came here only a week ago. I don't know her or where she is."

"Ah, but on the contrary, I believe you do!" he continued cryptically. "Is your name Lan Fan, by any chance?"

That caught her by surprise, and her heart thudded with anxiety. What had she gotten herself involved in? The old man walked up to her, but he didn't seem threatening.

"Depends on who is asking," Lan Fan answered.

"That's too bad, because if you happened to be Lan Fan, then my search would be over."

It took a moment for what he said to completely sink in and for Lan Fan to understand what it implied. She couldn't help the little laugh that came out of her mouth.

"I'm not your granddaughter! You are mistaken, sir."

He smiled at her kindly, but mischievously. "Am I? Are you sure?"

Lan Fan couldn't control her laugh anymore. This was a very funny way to punctuate the rush of adrenaline that came when the fighting began.

"I don't mean to be rude, but how could it be? I only have one grandfather left, and if you don't step aside and let me find a doctor, he'd be joining my only other grandfather in the ground."

"How could it be?" The old man repeated her question. From a pocket in his suit, he pulled out an envelope, from which he unfolded a piece of fancy paper. He laid it on the table, stretching it out with wrinkly fingers for her to be able to inspect its contents.

Her heart almost stopped. It was a certificate.

"By marriage with my grandson, of course!" he continued happily.

Just then, one of the guards stepped up beside the governor. She recognized him as the one who had guarded the old man the entire fight. He removed his mask.

"Hello again, Lan Fan," Ling said.

Lan Fan almost fainted.

-o-

'Governor.' Well, Lan Fan supposed it was true. Though the more complete title for introductions would have been the Governing Minister of the Yao province. And 'nearby jurisdiction' her butt! The Yao province was a three hour car-ride away, the midst of which she was in at the moment.

The elderly Yao had been kind enough to request for a speedy ambulance to take her grandfather directly to the best, highly-reputed hospital closest to their compounds in the Yao province. Lan Fan sat in the ambulance, wringing her hands.

"What is your grandfather's illness, if you don't mind my asking," Governor Yao said. He accompanied Lan Fan and her grandfather in the vehicle. Ling, however, opted to head straight for his home and wait for her there. He'd been serious and distant since their meeting, but he wasn't unkind when he told her that they would be providing medical care for Fu for as long as he needed. Xing, after all, was a hotbed for medical advancements, even moreso than Amestris.

"I'm not sure," Lan Fan answered truthfully. "I wouldn't be surprised if he's sick from many things."

He whistled, but didn't say anything after that.

"Sir," Lan Fan began after a while. "That marriage certificate..."

The old man shrugged. "My grandson brought it with him when he came to me several days ago. I don't know the particulars. You'd have to ask him about that. Though by your shock... I'm guessing he married you in absentia."

Lan Fan sighed and rubbed her head. She could already feel a headache coming on.

"Don't worry too much. If that really is the case, it's most likely–" he lowered his voice and gave her a wink. "Fake. Don't go saying that out loud though. If Ling obtained a certificate for it, he must have a reason to make it look like you're officially hitched."

She leaned her head back against the wall of the truck, allowing the cool metal to permeate her heated mind. Here she was wondering if Ling would ever want to see her again, and the next thing she knew she was married to the guy. She tentatively picked up the certificate, unfolding it.

Lan Fan Yao.

She traced the lettering with a finger. She had been so many Lan Fans throughout her life. Lan Fan Tseng, a small, dreamy shadow she barely remembered or recognized; Lan Fan Zhang, sixteen years of uncertainty, of trying to walk on both sides of the fence at the same time; and now, Lan Fan Yao. What kind of life would this name bear for her? When would she get a name that sat comfortably on her shoulders, one with which she can face the world and feel it's okay to actually be herself?

She folded the certificate in quarters and tucked it securely in her pocket.

They arrived at the hospital an hour later, where her grandfather was rushed to the emergency rooms. Governor Yao and one remaining escort from the fiasco earlier, a quiet man in his prime, stayed with her. Lan Fan felt uncomfortable that someone so prominent would dilly-dally about with a young girl when she was sure that there were a lot of other things he could be doing. Governor things. Then she wondered whether Ling put his grandfather up to this, to make sure that she didn't just bolt.

Not that she could go anywhere. But hey, it wasn't like she could ask Ling to just trust her point blank.

When Fu was transferred to a nice, comfortable recuperating room, it was already dusk. The escort led them to the parking lot where a sleek, expensive car was waiting for them. When Lan Fan sat inside, Governer Yao handed her a paper bag of some take-out food.

"I'll be an embarrassing host for tonight and cut corners when it comes to dinner," he told her. "But tomorrow I promise you will get a taste of the infamous Yao cuisine that fuels my peoples' appetite!"

Lan Fan smiled, looking at the large combo packed in her styrofoam. She didn't care much for any luxurious food, since this already seemed like a feast compared to any meals she'd had since she stayed at Ling's home in Amestris. The escort reminded her not to eat too quickly, but she still managed to finish it by the time the car rolled into a paved driveway in front of a very large estate.

If Lan Fan had thought that Ling's house in Dublin was comparable to a mansion, well then his house here was like a palace. It wasn't just a single house. It was a compound made up of four to five large crawling structures and some smaller dwellings, all scattered in the midst of a beautiful, traditional garden sporting a lake to one side, and a pavilion in the center. And that was only what was visible from Lan Fan's vantage by the driveway.

"Come along," Governor Yao waved to her, as he started up the steps that led into the garden. Lan Fan openly marveled at the sight around her, eyes lingering on the different plants that bore no more blooms due to the season, but were still arranged aesthetically around the space. The buildings were a mix of traditional and contemporary architecture, which was both jarring and fascinating at the same time. The Governor turned and entered the doorway of the largest house.

Instantly, they were welcomed by servants. A thin, pale man came hurrying towards them, acknowledging Lan Fan only with a nod, before turning to the governor.

"The Comptroller of the Housing Committee has called for a brief meeting, sir!" he said. "They are tuned in at the conference room right now."

"Ah, I guess I must take my leave here, young lady!" Governor Yao said to her. "This kind woman here will show you to your rooms." Before she knew it, Lan Fan was left alone standing by the door with a female servant waiting patiently for her.

"Uh..."

The servant smiled awkwardly, before pointing to the left. "This way, Missus."

Missus! Did everyone already know she was married to Ling Yao?

The woman led her through a series of posh hallways, and ended at a dimly lit section decorated with paintings and figurines of peacocks. The servant pointed to a sliding door. "Here you go," she said deferentially. She nodded at Lan Fan, then turned around and left as well.

Lan Fan fingered the wooden panels of the door, its smooth, rich texture a testament to the grandeur of the Yao name. She slid it open, then stopped short.

Ling was on the other side.

Lan Fan paused, momentarily wondered if the servant had made a mistake, but realized that she was supposed to be married, and then blushed at the thought of having to share a room with Ling in this large, opulent place.

Ling stood up, and of all the things that she could have thought about, she noticed his well-fitting suit and how it made him seem so princely surrounded by all the luxurious furniture in the room. But then again, he was technically a prince.

"Don't worry," he said, voice low and smooth, devoid of the humour she'd gotten to know him for. He moved to the far side of the room, and pulled open another sliding door. "Here are your apartments. Unfortunately there's no access to it than through my own, but I'm sure it will do."

She nodded, but couldn't find it in herself to move or say anything. He stared back at her, expression guarded, yet expectant. She knew that this was probably the time to apologize, to beg for forgiveness, to explain her actions that night, and maybe even to ask what happened after she had left, to ask about the marriage certificate. But she couldn't formulate the right words to begin whatever it was that she felt he was expecting from her. Her mind whirled with feelings and memories all fighting for the sound that would come out of her mouth.

Only one of them won. "I will tell you everything."

He relaxed visibly, relief evident in the way his shoulders released their rigidity and his eyes lost their hardness. "I wish you would. I really, really wish you would."

Lan Fan inhaled deeply, and sat down on one of the small couches near the door.

"When I was young, my grandfather took odd jobs," she began, wondering if this was too far into the past that it was barely relevant. But she promised him everything, and this felt as good a place to start as any. "He didn't make much. He doesn't have formal white-collar skills than can get him high-paying jobs, and he was afraid that if he pursued something a little more clean-cut, his fake papers wouldn't hold up.

"But then the civil war happened. A lot of people suffered, including us. We had to change homes many times. And it wasn't easy for illegal immigrants like us. Other people, you know, they had insurance and records and things that will help them recover. But for us, the only thing we ever owned are the things we could physically possess. But if there was anything Grandpa Fu knew, it was how to live in the midst of violence and desperation. Because the crime rates soared, people looked for ways to secure themselves. Grandpa offered his services as a bodyguard.

"We survived that way. Grandpa took me along to his jobs. He considered it part of my training. People were dubious of me, but I never got in the way, and sometimes I even helped. Soon, even as a young teenager, Grandpa would let me take up bodyguarding jobs too. I took offers from people who didn't want to be conspicuous, mostly for parents with young children.

"I guess you could say that it was around that time that I got a little dreamy. My head was in the clouds. You probably won't understand. But I saw all these people who owned so many things. Big houses, multiple cars, fancy clothes. Even people who weren't that rich at least had three meals a day. I thought to myself, 'Maybe I can get a big break. Maybe I would be so good at a job that someone would have to pay me so much money. Maybe Grandpa and I can get work insurance so that every time we got injured at a job, the fees wouldn't have to come out of our pockets."

Lan Fan glanced up at Ling. He was sitting across from her, attentive and silent.

"Two years ago when I was sixteen, I caught my break," she continued. "At least I thought I did. Your father solicited me personally. It wasn't like I didn't know who he was. Actually, it was because I knew who he was that I readily agreed. I never told Grandpa. I was being silly, you see. I thought I'd surprise him. Take a job for one night, come back the next day with bags of cash, and tell him that we can move to a better apartment. Or something.

"The job that Henry Chu asked me to do? Protect him during his trade with The Dealers' Guild."

She sensed Ling stiffen at this confession. She closed her eyes, and tried not to imagine the look of betrayal he must have on his face. She was aware that all this time, he had thought she was an innocent bystander who had gotten caught up in the melee of his interception of the trade. And she never corrected his assumption. She didn't want to. To confess that she'd been working with Chu all along at that time? It would have had dire consequences on her employment with Ling.

Well... not that what happened this last week was anything short of dire anyway. Lan Fan knew she was an idiot.

"I had been there the entire time. When your friend robbed the Dealers' notebook, Chu began to withdraw his men. He was afraid. This trade would have been a very big success if it was completed properly, but it all depended on being a secure and isolated interaction. You were correct in your assumption that if you had exposed your father's connection to the underground drug dealers, the government would be less reluctant to protect him in order to save face. So you see why Chu was so paranoid about the robbery."

"But my father's name was never in the notebook," Ling interrupted quietly.

Lan Fan nodded. "It didn't matter though. He was on the scene. If your team managed to deliver that notebook successfully and the Dealers were captured, they would talk." She regarded his expression as he realized what that meant. Lan Fan added, "So you were also right in assuming that your father was behind the Dealers' deaths."

She paused for a moment before continuing. "We had driven away from the scene already, but Chu stopped the car, and retrieved a suitcase. He looked at me and a couple of his other bodyguards. He told us that the suitcase contained the five million sens that the Dealers Guild wanted in exchange for the notebook. He wanted us to find some of the dealers who ran after your friend, give them the money, and tell them to meet up with Chu later at a different meeting place with the notebook. In the meantime, we were to tell them that they should hide the money in their safehouse.

"We were so stupid! Really! Give the money away without the collateral? It was insane. But I didn't think then. I just saw the money that I would make by sunrise if I completed my job and did everything I was told." Sometimes, Lan Fan remembered the feeling of hope she felt that night. It was exhilarating. It didn't even matter to her that she was getting dirty money.

"It wasn't money in those suitcases, was it?" Ling asked.

Lan Fan shook her head, and avoided the urge to look at her missing left limb.

"We managed to track down several of the dealers who were pursuing your friend. We told them exactly what Chu said. I handed them the suitcase, and I think they believed us, because we believed ourselves. We thought we were saying the truth. When they checked to make sure however, the act of opening the suitcase triggered the bombs. I only managed to run a few seconds before they went off."

To be honest, she didn't even remember what it had been like to be caught up in an explosion like that. All she remembered was the excruciating pain attacking her senses when she regained consciousness.

"Then you came," Lan Fan said, her voice going a little soft. "I had no idea why you wanted to save me. I thought you were just a crazy guy who likes explosions or whatever, because anyone who saw that scene would have known that none of us lying on the ground had been up to any good anyway. I'm sure you remember what happened during the time we were together after that. At least I don't think I'd be able to forget it."

"I helped you because I thought you weren't involved. I thought you were just someone who got affected by my actions and my decisions. I couldn't live with that," Ling explained. Lan Fan nodded, afraid to ask one silly little question: if Ling would still have helped her had he known that she was with his father at the time. Most likely not. And she didn't want to acknowledge the sorrow that sprouted in her when she thought about it.

"That's why I told you I didn't blame you about what happened. I brought on those deaths. It was because of myself that I lost my arm. For you... I had nothing but gratitude."

"Don't be so harsh on yourself," Ling whispered, looking down at his hands. "If my team had executed our part better, maybe you wouldn't even have been asked to perform the double-crossing."

They were quiet for a while, Lan Fan rehashing the memory in her head to see where the points of blame really lay.

"So..." Ling spoke up. "Why didn't you wait for me? I came by the hospital the next night where Hawkeye said she left you, but you weren't there anymore. You couldn't have been healed enough to have been let go."

Lan Fan let out a shaky breath. She had never told this part of her life to anyone else, and she wasn't sure how she was going to go about it.

"I would have waited for you, but I didn't have a choice," she said. "I was taken."

"Taken?"

She nodded. "I didn't know how it happened, but when I came to, I wasn't in a hospital. Not exactly. I was in an infirmary room, with my grandfather sleeping on a bed next to me. We were locked in. My body was covered in cuts and bruises. At the time I thought that maybe the explosion got me worse than I initially thought, but I know now that those weren't all from the incident with the guild.

"A man came in. He was your brother, the one Grandpa killed on the night of the first hoax. He said we were lucky finds, and that his father changed his mind about wanting to kill me. I didn't understand what he meant, and I wasn't strong enough to fight him off. At that time, I hopped back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness. But I remember waking up and feeling more pain, or different kinds of pain. More wounds, more bruises. Sometimes burns from different causes. Sometimes I was so ill I thought my head would fall off..."

"They were torturing you? Why?" Ling asked, and she looked up briefly, recoiling slightly at the sight of vitriol coming from his eyes.

"Not torture in the usual sense of the word," Lan Fan shook her head. "I found out later, pieced together from information I was able to gather while I was awake, that they were experimenting."

"Experimenting?" Ling asked, incredulous. "With what?"

She looked up at him then. "The Red Stone. They had substance of some kind that could learn how to fix injuries or illnesses. I don't know the specifics, but the doctors and scientists there were talking about how to train it, how to develop the medicine so that it can learn by itself. That's what they wanted – a medicine that could just tell exactly what was wrong with a person and fix it. Grandpa and I weren't the only ones there. There were others too. Other... guinea pigs, you could say."

It was easy to talk about the medicine. It was harder to think about the time back then, the horror of waking up and finding new abrasions on her body, or even worse – when they had done it while she was still awake. It was harder to think about the way she felt then, hoping that the next cut or the next virus would just kill her off so that all of it could end.

"But then one day I woke up, and I felt better," she said. The medicine was starting to improve; the scientists were making headway. She remembered the fascination as she watched Arthur Hwang give her a few drops of the liquid and then see her bruises disappear before her eyes. "The shallow cuts and the light wounds, those were the first ones to heal. The doctors had to make several iterations on the medicine to heal my left shoulder, but when they finally did, I wouldn't say it wasn't amazing."

She unbuttoned the top of her shirt and slid one side to reveal her stump. "Look at how the skin is smooth." She touched the place gently. "I have full sensation on this stump. I don't feel any discomfort when it's pressed or bumped, I don't even feel any ghost pain on it." She replaced back the shirt over her shoulder, then resumed her story.

"These were the easy ones. The hard ones were the illnesses. It took weeks before someone was able to make the Red Stone heal a common cold. That was because the symptoms could be different for different people. I don't know how the Red Stone works, but I think that after it knows how to patch up flesh and skin and bone, it can replicate the process for anyone, you know? But if you have a runny nose and a headache, and someone else had dry cough and a sore throat, the Stone didn't know that they were caused by the same virus, not at that preliminary stage. The doctors worked very hard to address that, which meant I had a perpetual cold for weeks.

"The training process is complex and confusing. To be honest, I don't think the Red Stone could ever be truly efficient at anything other than physical wounds. That's just my guess. See, something strange started happening. The Stone was able to heal wounds on my grandfather, but it didn't do as well when it came to sicknesses. I was healed, I think, because I was young and strong, and my body's own defenses kicked in pretty efficiently and complemented the medicine.

"But Grandpa's old. When he was infected with a virus, he would heal momentarily after some doses of Red Stone. But then he got sick again. Not for the same reason though – the doctors checked, and the pathogens that were targeted really were gone. It was the same scenario for every kind of virus we were infected with. He'd heal from it, but then he'd get sick for some other reason. It was almost like he ping-ponged to the other side, like the Stone was doing too much, unable to find his stable state. Until eventually, he was just sick all the time, and only felt better while he was taking the Red Stone regularly."

"How did you two manage to get out of there? Did my father eventually stop testing on you guys?" Ling asked.

Lan Fan snorted. "I wish he did. But you see, we never really got out. You must have realized that when I disappeared from the operation. I could never have severed all my ties from your father.

"One day, after I was just cured from another round of experiments, I lashed out. By that time, I knew everyone's schedule, their habits and patterns. I went directly after your father and tried to kill him. It was the perfect opportunity. If he died there, nobody would be able to point to me and say that a person they were experimenting on tried to kill their leader. Most of them didn't even want to be there, but were forced to be. I'd been so close. I had him down on the ground, hand on his throat. He was desperate. I could see it.

"But he had something that I didn't, and that I never would. He made me a bargain. Let him live, and he would supply me with as many Red Stones as I need for my grandfather. He knew that I could never heal him, that the only way for Grandpa to live now is to use the Red Stone as a crutch. If I killed him then, Grandpa would die also. But if I let him live, he'd see to it that the manufacturing of the Red Stone continues.

"That's not all. He also said that the moment I walk out of there, the militants would hunt me down. There were traces of me in the scene of the explosion, and I would be questioned, maybe even become a suspect. But if Chu is alive, he could pull some strings, and militants would leave me alone."

Lan Fan shook her head and buried half her face in her only hand. She'd thought at that time that it didn't matter if Chu was alive. If she and her Grandpa could make it out and live their own lives, she would be content. But that wasn't how things played out either.

"When we left, I thought, finally! We could pick up the pieces again and start all over. Live a good life. And we did... for a few weeks only. After a month or so, Chu placed a hefty price on the Red Stone. He said he needed it to continue manufacturing. I had no choice but to pay. Every once in a while since then, he has increased the price. It drove Grandpa and I into poverty. We had never really done well before, and now we were even worse." She closed her eyes in an attempt to quell the memories and the heaviness she felt, not towards Henry Chu, but towards herself. Imagine, if she hadn't been in over her head, none of that would have happened.

"What I don't understand is why you agreed to work for me," Ling said softly, not accusatory. "If you knew how risky things would get. For you, especially. Not that you didn't resist... I mean, I know I sorta had to push you into it. But what changed your mind after you already refused?"

"Well, I was tired," Lan Fan admitted. "I was exhausted living the way I was, always under his control. All he had to do was withdraw the Red Stone, tell me 'I need to get a job done,' and I would have to do it. It happened a couple of times, you know, when there were people he didn't like. I've avoided killing more people other than the Guild members, but there were other things to do. And I was never proud of it.

"If Chu was to go down without my knowledge, I would be in trouble. He is the only one who had access to the Red Stones, and he was the only who knew I needed it. Even if he was arrested, nobody in the government would care about a girl who needs medicine. But you offered me a way to be part of his downfall. I thought that maybe if I help orchestrate it, not only will I get rid of him, but I can also figure out how he's making the Red Stones and get some of it when he's gone. That's why I agreed to be part of your team."

Ling nodded, then said lamely. "Heh, I knew it wasn't because of my sharp wits and good looks."

Something about the way he said it, lighthearted and soft in the face of the morbid mood, made Lan Fan buckle under the weight of the guilt.

"I'm sorry, Ling," she managed to say. She couldn't even look at him in the eyes anymore, and for some reason that made her feel even worse. There was an ache at the back of her throat, and she tried to squeeze the rest of her apology out, before she just cracked. "I'm really sorry. Please..."

Maybe revisiting all those horrible things she'd been through – the two heavy years of worry and loneliness and anger – in a span of only a few minutes caused her strength to deflate. She felt uncontrollable as she cried, relieved and embarrassed at the same time, because somehow, it felt good that the secret was out where she didn't have to carry the burden all by herself. But she wasn't sure she had the right to ask anyone to help her carry it in the first place. She told herself to stop crying, but her body wouldn't listen, and she became more frustrated, then just cried even more because of it.

Then she felt – and perhaps a part of her had hoped all along – a pair of arms wrap around her, and she smelled Ling's scent as he held her head on his shoulder, one hand rubbing her back.

"I'm sorry too, Lan Fan," he whispered. He sniffed, and she realized that he was crying too. She found herself circling her arm around him, and for the first time in a long time, she gave herself the permission to be comforted.

-o-

When Ling woke the next morning, his eyes were slightly puffy. The blankets around him were soft, much too soft than he was accustomed to, and then remembered that he wasn't home. He was in Xing, at his grandfather's house.

He shot out of bed, pushing the voluminous covers aside and rushed to the other side of his room. Softly, he slid the door open. He saw Lan Fan sleeping soundly on the futon. He exhaled. He closed the door to her room, and headed to the main quarters for breakfast. His grandfather Shàngwǔ, was already there, and when he looked up from his plate, he gave Ling a look of mock horror.

"You cried? Your wedding night was that bad?" the old man clicked his tongue. "I knew there would be consequences of you growing up outside of our province! Hay! We Yao men, we make sure there are no tears during consummation! Why, it's our tradition!"

"Grandfather, please!" Ling retorted, wondering why everyone in his mother's family had to be such painful jokers. He wasn't this bad, was he? "It's not like that."

"Then what was it like?"

"We just talked, really."

"Oh." His grandfather nodded solemnly. "Then I understand why you cried."

"Grandpa, I'm serious here!"

"Alright, alright," Shàngwǔ pushed aside his plate, and took a sip of his tea. "I'm just teasing, you know. Joking aside, what happened to the girl? Is she okay? Do I have to take care of law suits or anything of the sort?"

"No," Ling said. "We'll lay low for a while." He piled his plate with some warm rice cakes and fruits. "Has any of Chu's underlings talked yet?" He and his grandfather's men had taken those who survived the previous day's squabble and locked them up for interrogation.

"One of the women answered a couple of questions, but she won't reveal details. The rest are dead tongues."

Ling took a bite from his breakfast before asking, "Will you be busy today? I think that Lan Fan and I should sit down with you and... try to figure out what's going on around here."

"What kind of crap hole you got yourself into, you mean?"

"Yes, exactly that."

"We can talk after lunch. I have a lunch date with the artisan's guild, and then a formal event with the city councilors at 3. In between, we can meet."

Shàngwǔ left shortly after that, and Ling waited patiently for Lan Fan to wake and have breakfast. She came half-an-hour later, looking much refreshed but a little lost. When she noticed him sitting on the table, she gave him a small smile and noted how large the place was.

"It sure is," Ling agreed. "The first time I visited here when I was five, my mother gave me a map and told me there was buried treasure somewhere in the compound. Of course, there wasn't. She just wanted me occupied."

Lan Fan sat down and tentatively picked a modest-sized breakfast from the selection. Ling let her have her fill, while he sipped on his tea.

Almost shyly, Lan Fan turned to him, and pulled something from her pocket.

"What is this about?" she asked, showing him the marriage certificate he'd asked Sheska to forge for him.

"Ah. Politics is still a little... 'us-vs-them' here in Xing. The 50 Families are still used to looking out for themselves. Having a Yao name allows you to invoke our protection wherever you go, something you wouldn't have if you openly admit you're from Tong Hua. The Tong Huanese have very little protection against other citizens of Xing since their emancipation. I would never have been able to just crash your doors open and take you away from Yan City if you weren't a Yao. I mean, I could, but it would be synonymous to kidnapping you from your kidnappers. This way, however, it's more like rescuing.

"Also, that certificate would allow you to cross the border back to Amestris. I was born there, so I'm a citizen. Marriage to me means that you'll be considered a naturalized citizen as well. You can now go back there if you need to."

"Oh," Lan Fan said. "I see. Heh, I knew it wasn't because of my sharp wits and good looks," she echoed his words from last night. He paused for a moment, wondered if there was anything he'd said that offended her, but she just smiled. He laughed.

"I have to remind you though, it is fake. It'll get you through simple inspections, but I doubt it would hold up under heavy scrutiny into your identity and past and documents."

She nodded. "Thank you, Ling."

"For what? The marriage or the fact that it's fake?" he smirked. "Yeah, I understand if you have your reservations. Never really got to say 'I do', did you?"

"I'm not even gonna answer that."

When she finished her breakfast, he offered her a tour around the compound, showing her the nice rooms and special quirks in each building. Then they went outside to stroll about in the gardens. Ling related to her the events that transpired after she had disappeared; how chaotic everything was, from the money disappearing, to Hunter Manos's death, as well as the termination of Auto-Mail's 7-11 contract, and threats made against the LeCoultes and Ling himself. Lan Fan appeared shocked to hear everything.

"I shouldn't be surprised though," she admitted as she leaned against the railing of a bridge that spanned a small, green koi pond. "When you mess around with Henry Chu, he doubles his efforts against you. I know that from experience."

Ling stood beside her, and looked into the reflecting pool. He was truthfully, deeply horrified to learn what Lan Fan and her grandfather endured at the hands of his father. In some, odd way, it made him feel small. He looked silly pretending he was a hero, making little plans for his daydreams, when there were other people out there who truly knew what it was like to suffer and still tried to make the best of things. Lan Fan, in general, had that effect on him. He was awed. He realized he'd always been, since the beginning.

He took her hand, and was pleasantly surprised when she didn't extract herself from him.

"I meant what I said last night, Ling. I really am sorry. I couldn't have prevented Manos's betrayal, but I think if I had revealed right from the beginning what I knew, maybe we wouldn't be in this situation right now. I just added to all the confusion."

"It's alright. I think it's safe to assume that my father was always one step ahead of us since the beginning."

"Actually, I believe he's only half a step ahead," Lan Fan said. "When I confronted your father in Tobha, he told me that he figured out our plan only after Auto-Mail signed a contract for a loan with a value less than what Mustang borrowed. I don't think Chu suspects that Mustang and his team of militants are in league with us. He only thinks that Auto-Mail planned to use the government investigation as an opportunity to reveal his involvement."

Hm, if that was the case, the Colonel and his peers were safe. That part of the plan at least was still intact.

"Was there anything else you learned?" he asked her.

She thought for a bit before answering. "Actually, Mámù told me something about Chu. She mentioned that he is against the free-trade agreement between Amestris and Xing, and he seems to be planning something to prevent that from happening."

Ling frowned. "You think it's related to what he's doing right now with Auto-Mail?"

Lan Fan shrugged. "It could be. If we're getting in the way of whatever he's planning, then for sure he'll want us beaten back. We are trying to destroy him and his company after all; he won't be in any position of power to stop an international movement if his business collapses.

"Here's what I don't understand," she added. "Mámù mentioned something about Chu saving his clan. I... I think she views him sort of like a hero, however unlikely. Do you know what's up with that? What happened to the Chus? Why are they in trouble?"

"Saving his clan? Hah, if they need saving, I would think it's from him!" Ling joked.

"My thoughts exactly. Chu isn't a saint in anybody's eyes where we live. I am surprised that someone can see him in rose-tinted lenses."

"From what I know, the Chu clan is small and relatively inconspicuous. They're at the outskirts of the country, a small peninsula in the Sunrise Sea. Other than that, I don't know much."

They decided to ask Shàngwǔ later when they met up with him after lunch. Ling was almost embarrassed to admit this particular lack of insight when it came to his father's politics, but all his life, Ling viewed Chu as a business man first, anything else second. He knew some of the ways that Xingese politics affected and embittered his father, but as far as he knew, anything Chu did was for self-affirmation to make up for losing his chance at the throne. Ling never considered the angle that perhaps his father was still deeply embroiled in Xingese affairs.

"The Chu peoples... well, they are a sorry lot," his grandfather began. "And by sorry, I mean you would feel sorry for them. The peninsula where the Chu resides is in the southern portion of Xing. The people in this peninsula resemble the people in the southern continent more in terms of traditions and culture and even language. When they were annexed into the Xingese empire, the rest of the empire disliked them. They were thought to be beneath the rest of the citizens of the country. They were of the lowest caste.

"The thing that saved them was the Emperor's establishment of the 50 Families. They were one of the official ones, so they too have to be taken care of. The Emperor cannot ignore them just because he doesn't like them. Otherwise, he would be breaking his word. The moment an Emperor fails to take care of a family, any other family can use it against him as proof of his lack of honour.

"So you can see why that has all changed since the Oblique Era. The leader of this nation is no longer bound by the rules of the old empire. Instead, the republic relies on popular opinion. As proud as we are that we are moving forward and modernizing ourselves, many Xingese sentiments still remain primal. For example, the only reason the Chus were initially despised was because of their southern animist religion. Nowadays, most of the Chu peoples don't even have a religion, and yet, their name still leaves a bad taste in people's mouths."

"Mámù mentioned that Ling's father is keeping the Chu municipality afloat," Lan Fan said. "What did she mean by that, do you know?"

Shàngwǔ scratched his beard. "Well, in the old days, the Emperor's first duty is to support the equal survival of the families. The families represented the most basic pillars for the empire, see. These days, in strict political terms, there are no more 'families', even though we still retain the essence of that way of life. From the government's view, there's just one collective Xingese populace. So the leader is now concerned about what will help as many people as possible.

"I'm not saying that the old ways didn't have its fair share of problems – after all, some clans really were quite vicious, which the empire could have done without. But the old rules also prevented minorities and disadvantaged families from simply being wiped out of existence.

"The Chu village is now one of the poorest communities in the entire country. If what you say is true, then Chu must be supporting his village financially. Come to think of it, the peninsula sports a healthy growth of forests that lumber companies have been asking after for many years. Suddenly, they just stopped asking for it, and set their sights somewhere else. I wonder if Chu had anything to do with that."

"Hmm, then perhaps they use the money that Chu gives to dig themselves out of trouble, or pacify their enemies," Lan Fan suggested. "In any case, I still don't understand why Chu is so against the free trade."

"When is the signing?" Shàngwǔ asked.

"Not for another month yet," Ling answered.

Shàngwǔ whistled. "I don't think you two would enjoy your honeymoon very much then. You've only got a month to figure it all out and come up with a plan to stop your father's crazy scheme. Because trust me, he won't pit himself against both the Amestrian and Xingese governments unless he has something really, really big up his sleeves."

Ling looked at Lan Fan, and sighed wearily.

AN: So, there you go. Explanations everywhere. I hope this chapter didn't come across as a big info-dump, although I'm afraid it did. But I really did plan for Lan Fan to finally explain everything to Ling for two reasons: one, it's no longer strategic for me to hold her story back, and two, Ling and Lan Fan's relationship cannot go forward until she's explained herself. I really want to ramp up their relationship now – not rushing into something romantic, of course, but I just want them to get closer. I don't know if Ling forgave her too easily in this chapter, but at the same time, I feel like it would also be unfair of him to expect so much from Lan Fan, someone who's been through so much more than he had.

Anyway, I will be taking the rest of the month off in order to plan Part 3 of this fic, as well as to spend some time drawing. I've neglected my art-blog for long enough now. Also, Part 3 is the last part of the fic, so it's going to conclude everything. It would require tons of planning, especially since I'm thinking of finishing this off in only 5 more chapters.

Well, let me know what you guys think! If there's anything you'd like to see happen between Ling and Lan Fan, or anyone else for that matter, this is probably the time to let me know, so I can see how to fit it in the outline.

Thank you so much for reading!