Chapter Text
There was an obscure legend that if you turned thirty years old and were still a virgin, you would gain magical abilities. As if somehow, your sexual experience was being graded on some sort of arbitrary timeline for when it was “clearly” too old to have no experience in such a thing and something like sex could affect you enough to give you magic powers.
This silly, obscure legend was one hundred percent true and that was why, for the last five years, Xie Lian could read minds.
Not all the time of course, just when he was touching someone. It didn’t work on animals and he couldn’t probe any deeper than their most immediate, surface level thoughts. It made crowded spaces rather overwhelming with even more noise. It felt a bit like an invasion of privacy and most times you were bumping into people they didn’t have pleasant thoughts to give.
But, such was life.
Xie Lian had handled his family collapsing, his friends leaving, his parents dying, and a rock bottom filled with completely atrocious behavior on his part and spent about a decade picking himself back up and learning not to care so much. So, when he’d woken up on his thirtieth birthday and started to hear people’s thoughts, he hadn’t had a single problem with it.
Ah, he remembered thinking, I’ve started hallucinating. Was dinner that bad last night?
It had taken him a week of calm acceptance slowly turning to curious experimentation before he determined he was not in fact hallucinating, he could in fact read minds, and it would be a wonderful boon to his part time gig entertaining at children’s birthday parties. Xie Lian had learned a few more card tricks and that was that.
It had taken two years into having the powers for his latest roommate to tell him about the legend in the first place.
”The latest wife— well wives— are going to be sorceresses following the Cherry path.” Shang Qinghua had said as he typed, fingers flying over the keyboard like churning out drivel and having a conversation at the same time was as easy as walking and breathing.
“Cherry path?”
“You haven’t heard of it? It’s that old legend about how if you’re still a virgin when you reach thirty years old you gain powers. So virgin kink, depowering the wives, and orgy ending. Three big sellers, it’s sure to pay rent this month.”
Curious, Xie Lian had gone to do his own— non-porn related— Cherry path research and found it was indeed an old, highly specific cultivation method.
There was a bit more to it than just maintaining abstinence, but it did seem that was the most crucial rule of their method. The full method was clearly lost to time and possibly secret among practitioners, but Xie Lian really did seem to be following all the rules he could find laid out, and apparently turning thirty had been the boiling point for his excessive Yang that he had avoided purging with sex. In addition, his Yin heavy lifestyle was able to keep this balance with the Yang and merge to create a higher awareness.
Or at least that seemed to be the general principle he could gather from his readings.
Xie Lian took this newfound understanding of the very strange powers he had in stride and promptly did was he thought was the only sensible possibility: continued life as usual with very little care for the matter.
Sure, he could’ve gone out and gotten rid of his powers by finding someone to have sex with, but he’d gone this long uninterested in anyone enough to consider it and the powers, while odd, were familiar to him now. Besides, it gave him a new party trick.
Life continued. Xie Lian read minds. There was nothing terribly interesting about it when you lived with it long enough, just an abundance of people being a bit more blunt than they would otherwise be. He took the held back grumblings and lists of errands to run in stride and simply did his best not to touch others more than he had to.
And then he turned thirty-five.
***
Xie Lian was practiced in sword swallowing, sword dancing, light acrobatics acts, more sleight of hand tricks than he could count, and face painting.
But inevitably he found this was the favorite game of the children whose parties he entertained at.
Xie Lian closed his eyes, pretending to be drawing on some mystical force as he tapped the child’s forehead, making a point to really play it up with humming and nonsensical babble until his eyes shot back open and he announced: “Six!”
The children burst out into delighted giggles at him having guessed yet another number right.
“Again again!”
Xie Lian smiled, settling his draping ‘magic’ sleeves as the kids called it and almost going to begin again when he caught sight of one of the adults staring from the corner of his eye.
He must have been newer, he certainly hadn’t been around when Xie Lian had arrived. He would’ve been impossible to miss in his vibrant red and heavy silver. Not to mention the eye patch. Didn’t look like another performer, but he really could’ve been a prince dressed like that.
Catching his gaze, the man flashed him a smile, handsome and friendly.
Xie Lian smiled back before turning his attention back to the kids. He must’ve been watching one of the kids. There was no reason for him to be looking at Xie Lian after all.
***
Xie Lian packed up his face painting kit as the party began to wind down. Not a bad group all things considered. Kids often had very little filter in the first place, so it was in some ways easier to spend a day hearing them accidentally or on purpose in the course of the games.
Small groups like this really made it easier too. They entertained themselves much better without things getting out of hand with excluded or bored offshoots. All that was left was to find the birthday boy’s mother and make sure he got his final payment before he went.
He had only just stood up when he was met with that same handsome gaze he’d seen earlier.
“Hello. Is there something I can do for you?”
The man shook his head, holding out his phone. “I agreed to pay for your show.”
“Oh are you the father?” Xie Lian took out his own, giving his payment information over.
“No, just Lan Chang’s boss.”
The mother. What a kind supervisor to pay for the birthday entertainment of his employee’s kids.
“Must be a nice place to work.”
“Are you looking for a new job?”
Xie Lian laughed. “Always. Do you think my magic act will work well in your workplace?”
“Yes actually,” the man pulled out a card.
Paradise Manor Lounge. A number had been scribbled above the address.
“We could do with another performer. Whether it’s on a gig basis or as a regular show, feel free to reach out. The offer will stay open.”
Xie Lian smiled, reaching out to take the card, their fingers brushing just barely.
I hope he calls. I can’t—
He must have been desperate. Xie Lian couldn’t imagine why but he saw no reason to draw out the touch to pry.
“Thank you, that’s very generous, I will. I’m Xie Lian by the way. Should I call you laoban?”
The man’s smile was so bright you would’ve thought Xie Lian had just paid him.
“Gege can call me San Lang.”
If Mu Qing and Feng Xin had still been in Xie Lian’s life, they surely would’ve taken issue with a man who had just offered him a job addressing him so familiarly.
Xie Lian thought it was funny though. He thought his roommate would agree, a bit of cheek could be cute.
“I’ll let San Lang enjoy the party then. I hope you don’t find me too eager if I call first thing tomorrow.”
“I wouldn’t find gege too eager if he called tonight.”
“Hm. Seems San Lang might be the eager one,” Xie Lian joked.
San Lang’s eye shone with amusement. “Perhaps. Gege’s just so talented I’m sure everyone wants a bit of his time.”
“Well I’m sure I’ll be able to take time out of my very busy schedule divining for children to see Paradise Manor.”
San Lang laughed. “Have a good night.”
“You too. Tell Lan Chang I said thank you for having me. Her son was lovely.”
And so concluded his “first” meeting with San Lang.