There is something to make a man sick to his stomach.
It starts out as an oily, thick smell that rolls in and sticks to the inside of his nostrils. The smell is the hallmark of decay and decomposition, of viscous blister fluid and putrefying flesh. It is a stench on so many different levels: the dull, throbbing ache of rot, the sharp, tangy sting of curdling liquids, the blunt force of fermentation.
Then, tiny, sharp splinters scatter into the air, darting into his ears like a swarm of angry needles. Even before the footsteps, even before the words, and just lurking in the cloud of rot, is the sound of the bells.
When Gan Ning had been alive, that sound had been the omen of death and violence for so many, so much so that temples along the river had began to use gongs instead of bells, the hellish objects. The chiming had been Gan Ning's trademark, his signature and his pride. He had marched under it as if it was a banner, and he had killed behind it as if a cause.
Today, the sounds still ran as little demon heralds running ahead to clog throats with dread, but for an entirely different reason.
The contrast between the smell and the sound, one sense cloudy and the other sense jagged, is sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant. But always, it floats around its source like a cloud of warning.
Zhou Tai's keen senses pick up the warning before anyone else. He stiffens, alerting his lord to his alarm.
Sun Quan looks up puzzled, but the cloud and the shards fly into the room, and he understands.
It is not long before the others are aware as well. Slowly, their noses are clogged over by a greasy film and their ears hear nothing but the percussion of the pirate's bells.
Ling Tong saunters in. He is not the actual cause of the alarm but is part of it nonetheless.
It is the body that he carries that exudes the mix of stench and sound. Gan Ning has been steadily rotting for about a week, and like any body, shows it in the air and the eyes.
No matter how great or small, how kind or cruel, every body, by its seventh day of death, rots and breaks down like Gan Ning's. But he is still decked out in the clothes and armor that he had died in. Perhaps that armor is what is keeping the body together, or relatively together, as the human parts melt and fall apart.
In his boots, the skin and flesh has long liquefied and melted into a soup. This is the oily slush that leaks out of the tops of his shoes every so often, as the bones are barely held together by the last of the tissue there.
Oblivious to the sickening of others, Ling Tong gently sets the body down and sits next to it. He puts an arm around Gan Ning's shoulders and closes his eyes. One hand reaches over to grasp the gray, clammy hand of the corpse, fingers stroking the bulging, dried knuckles. He hums tunelessly but contentedly, his lips slightly lifted in an unconscious smile.
There is a long silence, broken only by the footsteps of those who truly cannot bear it.
After a while, Ling Tong yawns and opens his eyes. "We finished drilling the new recruits. Han Dang took over."
Sun Quan starts, as if breaking from a trance. "Oh. Yes. Good work, Ling Tong…"
"Yeah, you hear that, Ning? I told you I was doing all the work," Ling Tong snaps.
No one knows what to say. Lu Xun grips his brush and papers, a cold sweat running down his dusky skin.
"You should've seen those new recruits… The moment we stepped out they looked like they were about to keel over! Man, those kids…" Ling Tong chuckles. "Afraid of their own commander? Intimidated, I can understand that, but that afraid? What are we going to do?" he asks lightly.
Once again, no one knows what to say.
Thankfully, Ling Tong does not require a response. He simply leans back, running a hand through corpse's blonde hair. Surprisingly for a corpse, only a few hairs come out with his fingers- perhaps Ling Tong has done something to it? The scalp is taut and dry, pulling what had been the pirate's handsome face into a skull-like grimace.
The wounds that had killed the man are spongy holes now. Yellowish fluid seeps out of a gash along the body cavity, collecting on the edges of the fraying skin. It drips onto Ling Tong's arms, but he does not seem to be aware of it.
"Does he not notice?" Sun Quan whispered quietly. "How can he not- this is madness! Has he gone mad?"
"My lord… I truly do not know." Lu Xun looks worried, but the young minister does not extend his query.
Time to take the plunge. "Ling Tong, you do know that…" Sun Quan begins, standing up with an anxious, concerned expression. "Gan Ning was killed days ago-"
Ling Tong glances up at his lord. "Hey. Lord Sun."
His tongue stiffening with dread, Sun Quan speaks. "Yes, Ling Tong?"
The slender man tilts his head to the side and brushes an errant wash of hair out of his face. "What's wrong?" he asks curiously. "Huh, are you sick?"
I am going to be. In fact, I am going to be very sick. Sun Quan dryly swallows, his throat working on so many different sentences. He settles for simply shaking his head.
"You're just looking a bit pale, that's all. But whatever." With a shrug, Ling Tong goes back to tangling his hand with Gan Ning's partially stiff, partially limp one. His bare arm brushes against a spongy mass of tissue falling off of the corpse's arm. He does not seem to notice. Instead, he cranes his long neck over and brushes the body's shriveled cheek with his lips.
Sun Quan falls over, pressing his head to his desk in hopes that perhaps he will wake up out of a drowning nightmare. His lord's distress proves to be too much for Zhou Tai. His face stiff and unmoving, he marches forward to stand in front of Ling Tong, his arms crossed.
"Oh? Hey," Ling Tong says lazily, rising up from another butterfly kiss to the corpse.
Without a word, Zhou Tai reaches out and seizes the pirate's body.
"Hey!" Ling Tong jumps up in surprise. "Zhou Tai, what are you doing? Let him go; no one feels like sparring!"
Zhou Tai ignores him and, with a heave, lifts the corpse up halfway off the couch.
With a shriek, Ling Tong throws himself at Zhou Tai, tackling the bodyguard and raking his face with open hands. Zhou Tai grunts in surprise and drops the body back down, where it falls to its side with the clanging of bells.
"Zhou Tai!" Sun Quan yells as Lu Xun leaps to his feet as well, unsure of what to do.
The loyal bodyguard remains silent, but his expression is clear: let the body go!
But clearly Ling Tong has no intention of doing so. His eyes wide and animalistic and his lips open in a horrid snarl, the young man strikes at Zhou Tai's armored form with his bare hands.
Someone, for sure, if going to get hurt. "Zhou Tai! Leave him!" Sun Quan yells. There surely will be a better time and situation another time.
With a grunt, Zhou Tai obeys, ducking and retreating back to the shadow of his lord's side.
Ling Tong freezes for a moment, then slides back into his normal smug posture, his lippy smirk shattering the previous image of a rabid beast. "Man, what is up with you?"
"What's up with you? "Lu Xun shouts angrily, his boyish voice piping cleanly in the air angrily.
"Prude," Ling Tong chuckles indulgently, grasping the corpse in his arms and lifting it to rest on his own lap. He trails his fingers across the dead body's face, across the puckered, gray skin.
"Prude? You're holding a corpse- Gan Ning's dead!" Lu Xun screams accusingly, dropping his writing utensils and standing up.
"A corpse?" Ling Tong laughs as if he has heard a delightfully ridiculous thing. There is nothing forced- it is an open, honest laugh. "C'mon, Lu Xun. I think I'd know if my boyfriend suddenly dropped dead. You hear that, Ning?"
Sun Quan thinks that if he had seen the situation in a play or story it would be darkly comical. But he can see nothing funny about it. "He's not joking. Ling Tong, why can't you see that Gan Ning is dead? That is a corpse you are holding!"
There is a sudden flicker of uncertainly in Ling Tong's eyes. His lips part for a moment, but just a moment. The fragment of a second ends soon, as his normal, smug expression slams back down with a final sort of certainty. "Is this a thought experiment?" he laughs.
"No, Ling Tong, can't you tell-"
"I think it's time for afternoon drill… Does that mean I have to get up?" Ling Tong sighs. "Fine, fine, I'm going, I'm going… C'mon, Ning, that means you too."
"Ling Tong- no, sit back down right now! We're telling you-"
But Ling Tong only lifts the corpse up in his arms, cradling the torso gently as the shriveled head leans against his own cheek. "Really. Can't you do the mind question philosophical experiment thing with someone else? I'm not in the mood," he yawns, stepping through the door and out of the room.
"This is not a joke-"
Zhou Tai rumbles something in his ear.
Sun Quan thinks for a moment, but shakes his head. "No. Don't go after him… Perhaps we should give it more time."
"More time than a week?" Lu Xun moans. "I don't think…"
"More time than a week," Sun Quan says steadfastly. As he looks out of the room after Ling Tong's departure, his eyes are full of a sort of longing.