This was never supposed to happen.
Bob Benson is a problem-solver. It's 45 minutes before the SCDP Christmas party and Pete has a pretty big problem.
New Year's Eve, 1845: Crozier drinks punch and mulls his options on Beechey Island.
If Jiang Cheng kills him here — so long as he sits with Wei Wuxian’s body in this field until he grows cold, and he does not return to Lotus Pier — his life will have been worth its cost.
“Do you know how?” Wang Yizhou asks, but it’s all a light tease, and he’s already taking his hand away, as if in expectation.
“Nope!” says Ji Li, confident. Then, in a move that he will recognise, in hindsight, to be the start of the complete undoing of his whole night, he adds, “But I’ll learn. Really quick.” He fishes out his phone from the pocket of his shorts, and holds it up, almost conspiratorial. “Bet I’ll have it down in one video. I’m very resourceful like that.”
Hickey and Tozer share an extremely unauthorized celebration in the showers.
Ding Rong has walked himself through five vivid calculations of Wang Zhi’s death at his hands in the carriage before Wang Zhi speaks.
“I’m in need of a second,” he says.
“You missed the discussion conference,” Jiang Cheng snaps back at him, whipping his head up stiffly from his perfunctory bow.
Nie Huaisang’s smile doesn’t waver, his entire expression perfectly, painstakingly polite. He looks pale, but anyone of his mettle would, clad in the violent contrast of silver and black. It all relinquishes nothing to Jiang Cheng but the means to inflame his irritation for the situation and for himself. He had left the conference too quickly to contemplate his choice, and now, in Qinghe Nie’s main hall, he’s slowed down enough for the whiplash of regret to be both immediate and immense.
Fitzjames contends with unparalleled excitations.
Tang Fan is stuck on a scene for one of his spring books. He enlists Sui Zhou to help him with some of the logistics.