Everything is going to plan up until the precise moment it starts to fall apart.

The tipping point is Tang Fan catching his eye from across the room and fluttering his fan against his chin. To anyone else, it simply looks like a pretty woman being coquettish under the guise of cooling herself. To Sui Zhou, it is a very specific signal in a system they’ve had to specifically establish as much for safety as for sanity’s sake: Come here.

Whatever the issue is doesn’t seem to include any immediate danger, so Sui Zhou takes the afforded time to make it all look natural. He stands slowly, and wanders over with no apparent rush to his purpose. There’s an established connection, tonight, in the narrative of their disguises, but he still waits for Tang Fan’s cue to lead him in.

(If, even half a year ago, anyone had suggested to him that he and his— that he and Tang Fan would have, through some rather terrible trial and error, built up an entire process over playing spy for whatever case at hand required it… well. He would have met it with a disbelief equal to the adamancy Tang Fan had in his refusal to ever pretend to be a woman again, no matter the urgency. Now, Tang Fan has a hidden shelf in his cabinet specifically for his makeup and dresses. Funny, after a fashion, how that all worked out.)

“Zhao-xiong!” Tang Fan calls out to him, in the fluttery and soft voice that he’s still not quite accustomed to hearing, yet, from Tang Fan’s mouth. “Is it so late, already?”

Ah, so that’s what Tang Fan wants from him, then. Sui Zhou takes the last few steps to the table, offering a polite bow of his head to the others present. “Excuse me,” he says, by way of greeting and apology, then, “yes, Huang-guniang, it is.”

Tang Fan taps his fan against his chin as he pouts exaggeratedly, then holds out his hand for Sui Zhou to take, to a chorusing rumble of disappointment from the other men at the table.

“You must come again, Huang-guniang,” one of them insists, as Sui Zhou helps Tang Fan stand. Tang Fan wafts his fan against his bare clavicle, reaching across his belly to toy with the tassel strung through its handle when Sui Zhou unthreads their fingers.

“You must host me again, Gongzi,” Tang Fan replies, punctuating it with a shy giggle. He’s applying a bit too much of the advice he’s been given by the Huanyi girls, Sui Zhou thinks, but that is something best kept to himself. He sets his hand down flat between Tang Fan’s shoulder blades instead; rests it there as Tang Fan draws and drags out the last of his farewells before he turns into the insistent press of Sui Zhou’s touch and lets himself be led away.

They are in a hurry, but they do not hurry, not even after they have spilled over the threshold to the main hall and out into the courtyard. The moon is high and the night air is cold; despite his beizi, Tang Fan shivers and crowds in impossibly closer, trying to snatch any scrap of Sui Zhou’s heat that he can.

Sui Zhou hears the telltale footfalls of a tail on the path some paces behind them, and smoothes his hand up to rest on Tang Fan’s nape as he leans in. “Do you know who is following us?” he asks quietly.

Tang Fan giggles softly, as though Sui Zhou has whispered a sweet nothing into his ear. “I’ve seen him at the brothel before,” he hisses under his breath, the moue of his mouth shaping exaggeratedly around it. “I think he recognises me.”

Well, Sui Zhou can’t say he expected that. It is not that Tang Fan's comings and goings are Sui Zhou's business, but it's one thing to be recognised as Tang Fan, and another thing to be recognised as a woman, let alone one— from Huanyi. They have everything at home; there really isn't any need, anymore, to lean so heavily on their... various expertises, surely?

He doesn’t have much time to think more on it, let alone muster up an answer; they’re at the estate gate, and Tang Fan’s hand bridges between them, fisting in his robe before giving it a yank. There’s not enough strength behind it to really send him stumbling, but it is a surprise enough that Sui Zhou falls a bit too heavily into it, hands coming up to steady the sway of his weight as Tang Fan makes him cage him up against a pillar.

“Tang Fan,” Sui Zhou grits out. It is not without exasperation, because the gate is right there, which means Jin San and the carriage is right there as well. They can be outside and gone in mere steps, leaving their pursuer to wonder about the resemblance but otherwise none the wiser for the tail.

“No, no, no, I have an idea,” is the warning Tang Fan gives, before he tucks his fan under his arm and tugs Sui Zhou in closer by the chest of his robe. He lifts his other freed hand to his face to nudge down his sleeve with the point of his chin, then starts scrubbing roughly at his mouth with the back of his wrist. Sui Zhou realises his plan the moment he glimpses the wreck of the rouge smearing his mouth, and then Tang Fan is tipping up towards him and turning his face into his cheek, letting the fall of his hair paint the rest of the picture of an illicit tryst just as their pursuer rounds up to them.

Sui Zhou is uncomfortably and unfairly aware of the damp warmth of Tang Fan’s breath against his cheek and the ghosting brush of his lips against his skin. There’s a stuttering scuff of boots against the wood, an awkward clearing of a man’s throat, and then, after a beat that goes on and on like a marching hour, the sound of retreating footsteps.

Sui Zhou straightens and lets his hands return to his sides. Tang Fan swallows, smiles a smile that is equal parts pleased and self-aware, then pats Sui Zhou’s robe back into place where the twist of his fingers has rucked and creased it.

Jin San, when she sees them and the sight they make, manages to show remarkable restraint in reacting only with a cocked brow. She helps Tang Fan up the steps and holds the curtains aside for him, but stops Sui Zhou mid-climb with a hand to his elbow. Sui Zhou throws her a look, and she pointedly licks the pad of her thumb before rubbing it against her cheek. Sui Zhou wipes at his face in her mirror, more compelled than conscious, and his fingers come away red.

Right. Well. Night, thankfully, disguises many discretions, and Jin San, if nothing else, will keep secret the rest for them.