#beiguang triad au

[yuniemaki]

Dancing in circles

A beiguang mafia au. Beidou x Ningguang. Art by Taro Rating: M Status: Complete Content Warnings: organised crime, gun violence, drug dealing, gang violence

Summary: Thirteen years ago, Ningguang vanished, but Beidou will not give up on her first and only love even when she returns a criminal. After all, in a time long lost, they made a promise.

Chapter list on AO3

Cruelty in red

Just business

Stasis

Secrets

Dancing in circles

Rules of the game

Weeds in the garden

To play the game

The right thing

Consequences

Turbulence

Web of lies

Lingering feelings

Love

Blood oath

Kind-hearted

Mine

Equilibrium

One last game

What is love?

Caduceus

Yours

Restoration

Ours

[yuniemaki]

Dancing in circles // ch18: equilibrium

Read on ao3 Series: Genshin Impact Words: 70k+ Rating: M Pairing: Beidou x Ningguang mafia/triads AU

Summary: In their story, twin serpents will reunite in the shadows, entwining together like a caduceus.

Sneak peek:

When the door closes, Ningguang allows herself to pay full attention to Beidou — to her quivering lower lip and her trembling frame. She lays a hand on her arm. “Beidou,” she softly calls, drawing the other woman’s attention to her.

Beidou shakes her head, swallowing her words and staring at the floor.

Ningguang’s eyes narrow. She grips Beidou’s chin tightly, forcing the brunette to look only at her. Beidou scowls.

“Speak.” Ningguang’s order falls like the lash of a whip. Beidou flinches, but keeps her silence.

The Tianquan lets go of her chin, tangling her fingers into the other woman's hair, and tugs. Beidou winces, following her motion and sliding off the chair. She kneels before Ningguang, her head tilted up by Ningguang’s hand. 

The brunette is still quaking. Ningguang’s grip in her hair loosens, and she silently cards her fingers through Beidou’s brown tresses, smoothening the tangled ends.

“Ning,” Beidou finally whispers, “I can’t…” She sucks in a deep breath, pressing her knuckles on her knees as she seeks comfort in Ningguang’s eyes. “I can’t lose you again.”

“Neither can I,” Ningguang replies, quashing the bile rising in her throat at the thought of Beidou wounded, hurting, lost to this world. She cups Beidou’s cheeks in her gloved hands as she bends, pulling her face forward until their lips meet. “You cannot,” she murmurs between kisses, “Give your life away… so easily.”

“Speak for yourself,” Beidou growls, rising from the floor. The brunette pushes her back into her chair, her grip painfully tight on Ningguang’s shoulders as she leans in, sealing their lips again. This kiss tastes of possession and desire and pure, unbridled selfishness. “You’re mine.”

[yuniemaki]

Ch20: What is love? // Read on ao3 Series: Genshin Impact Words: 90k+ Rating: M Pairing: Beidou x Ningguang mafia/triads AU

Summary:

I love you to Celestia and back; I'd give my life for yours— I promised you the world; don't make me break my word.

Sneak Peek:

By the time Ningguang turned 23, she had formed a plan.

She was born out of wedlock, a misstep in her parents’ meticulous plans. Their second misstep was attempting to pass off as a normal family, for in that mistake Ningguang found her. 

It had been a series of coincidences, a cruel twist of fate. 

Ningguang never intended to sit next to Beidou at recess, never intended to make a friend. She had wanted a moment to herself before she’d head to the rooftop of this school and put an end to her parents’ little games with her. 

But Beidou — that new transfer student, sitting sullenly by herself on a bench away from the others, wearing her sorrow like a cloak — Beidou had drawn her attention and captured it in the palm of her hand. There was something about her melancholy that Ningguang understood almost instinctively, the way an animal might recognise one of its kind.

Beidou, standing strong in a swirl of cruel rumours presuming to know why she was orphaned, taught her what her parents could not.

Beidou, through all her kindness and love for life, taught her how to utterly destroy them.

Ningguang started small, whispering venomous words into the ears of her peers, the ones she knew admired her mother, adored her father. She wondered aloud why they’d spend a few years pretending to be a normal couple, letting their only daughter attend a public school. Why, it didn’t make sense at all. Hell, they were nearly killed on that fateful night.

Indeed, they agreed, it was ridiculous. What possessed them? Why did they give birth to Ningguang away from the triads, in a home away from their family? It was unfair that they would celebrate the birth of their daughter without the ones who made their power possible. Why was she not born directly into violence; why did they keep their daughter away from their work in the beginning? 

There was only one answer.

She planted the seeds of doubt in their heads, leaving throwaway remarks and parallels that she lovingly cultivated into hatred. Hatred not for the Qixing, but for the love that existed between her parents. 

You see, brother… love is a weakness. 

She met with Bolai, the Liyue Police Department’s most promising police captain, in the dark of night. She handed her parents’ plans to him on documents paid for in blood, be it her own or her brethren’s. She crafted layers upon layers of deception, endured beating after beating in silence when her parents inevitably suspected her of double-crossing the Qixing. She doctored her own files in the police department’s archives when she learned Beidou joined the police, determined to keep her far, far away. 

Love is a weakness.

Ningguang fanned the simmering waves of dissent, the susurrations that love had blinded the Tianquan’s judgements. She watched these soft, barely audible whispers grow in strength and numbers until she heard her own goals echoed back at her: the Liyue Qixing should not be led by weak lovebirds, but by one.

She made her move two years later with the full support of the Qixing’s inner circle and their finest sniper by her side. She watched her parents drop to the floor like useless sacks of meat, and closed her fist around their unimaginable power.

But as her eyes met Beidou’s for the first time in 13 years, she was wrenched all the way back to a precious time — a time where it was just the two of them skipping rocks on a riverbank, daring to dream of a future brighter than the stars. 

Beidou, who taught her everything she needed to know for her to finally sit on the throne — was now an enemy. She turned away before her heart could shatter, before the memories she cherished so dearly could break her once again.

Love is a weakness indeed.

[yuniemaki]

Ch22: Yours // Read on ao3 Series: Genshin Impact Words: 90k+ Rating: M Pairing: Beidou x Ningguang mafia/triads AU

Summary: After all, light always casts a shadow.

Sneak peek:

“I’m sorry, my heart,” she murmurs, cradling her cheeks tenderly. “I wasn’t going to risk a repeat of what happened at Baizhu’s. Their leaders may be dead, but” — she pauses, recalling Ningguang’s own harsh words — “the game takes no prisoners.”

And I won’t let anyone use us like this again.

A faint smile tugs Ningguang’s lips upwards. “You… remember.”

“I remember many things about you, Ning.” The way her eyes soften every time she looks at her; the way her smile crinkles the corners of her eyes; the way her hand feels just right in Beidou’s palm. Being here, with her, feels inevitable: as if Beidou could trace their love all the way back to that day when Ningguang first sat next to her at recess and discover roots there, the seed that would blossom into this. 

The other woman's cheeks redden, almost as though she can hear her thoughts. 

[yuniemaki]

dancing in circles chapter 10: consequences Read on ao3 Words: 38k+ Rating: M

Summary: The game was played; the die was cast. Listen to your heart, for it tells only the truth.

Sneak peek:

The red ring folder sits on the metal desk, looking terribly out of place amidst the monochromatic theme that Chief Superintendent Bolai’s office boasts. It does, however, do a perfect job of immediately capturing Beidou’s attention when she steps in for the second time in a month.

She’s in trouble. Any fool can tell; no cop gets summoned to the Chief Superintendent’s office first thing in the morning, barely a day after submitting a twenty-page report on the Crux Squad’s failed sting operation at Emerald Maple Inn. The neutral expression on Bolai’s face doesn’t help. 

His hairline is receding, Beidou notes. Not that she’ll mention it.

“You’ve been temporarily reassigned,” Bolai begins.

“Where?” She lets the weariness in her voice show.

“Administration.” He holds out a hand; she carelessly unpins her badge and drops it onto his palm. 

“Why?” 

“The audio logs from your communicator.” Bolai nods at the red ring folder. “You and the Tianquan… are clearly connected beyond just cop and criminal. Internal Affairs made the call after hearing your conversation with her.”

Beidou doesn’t argue. A part of her whispers that she should have turned the communicator off when she entered the room, but she’d needed Xinyan to listen in, to call for the medics and guide backup. If there’s one thing that makes Beidou’s chest swell in pride, however, it is the fact that Xinyan didn’t cover for her.

Always do the right thing.

“Who is my replacement?” she asks.

 A slight frown tugs at Bolai’s lips. “Childe will assume control of the Crux Squad until the bosses decide what to do with you.”

Her eye narrows. “That guy can’t be trusted. He almost fucked us over when he hauled our gal in for a brawl!”

“It’s not my place to argue,” Bolai replies, shaking his head. “This… came from above, Beidou.”

“So Childe’s sucking up to the Commissioner of Police? Good to know,” she spits.

“Beidou,” the Chief Superintendent sighs, “Things aren’t so black and white out there. My hands are tied. Internal Affairs was going to escalate this, but I convinced them to just get you reassigned for now. If I can offer a word of advice: lay low for now, alright? Don’t give our bosses more to work with.”

“Yeah.” Her shoulders sag. “For what it’s worth — thanks, Bolai.”

He clasps his hands together, appraising her carefully. “One last thing. You sure you don’t want therapy? It’s free, you know.”

She pauses. She wants to say yes, to say she knows damn well she’s lost the game, to admit that she needs something to fix the terrible helplessness still permeating her very being and sapping her will. She wants to confess that she hasn’t slept a wink, not since Ningguang placed the power of a chessmaster in her hands, however briefly, on the second floor of a heritage site. 

It is a sort of power that no one man should have. It is a power that the upper echelons will wrestle and bicker and murder for. It causes bile to rise in her throat, because how can anyone wield this power and still sleep at night? 

Even now she questions what she did that day, whether it was right to have chosen her death over Kazuha’s or Keqing’s. She’d turned this power upon herself and watched pain burn away all that she loved in Ningguang’s eyes in the name of making the right choice.

If Bolai notices the conflicting emotions cycling through Beidou’s expression, he makes no comment. 

At length, the police captain shakes her head, rolling her eye for good measure. “Kokomi is bad enough. I’ll be fine.”

“The offer still stands. If you wish to take it up another time.”

Beidou bites her tongue, offering him a curt nod that is as stiff as his steel cabinets and metal desk. “I’ll get my things,” she mutters. Without waiting for a reply, the police captain leaves, quietly walking back to her office on the twelfth floor. When the glass doors slide open, she sees Kokomi and Xinyan seated at the large table. Both women look at her.

Beidou plasters a smile on her face and quickly strides to her office, grabbing documents and tossing them into a bag. “Got reassigned for a bit,” she says cheerfully, “Gonna be bored out of my mind over in admin.”

Kokomi’s lips press into a thin line, but she says nothing. Xinyan sighs. Beidou hurriedly zips her bag and logs out of the computer, glancing around her room for a moment. She’s certain she’s taken everything related to Ningguang and the triads, but it doesn’t hurt to take one final look. She’ll make sure Childe will glean nothing from her office. Satisfied, Beidou steps out and closes the door.

“What will happen to us while you’re gone, captain?” Xinyan asks as Beidou slings her bag over her shoulder, making for the door.

The brunette turns and opens her mouth, but a voice — all too smug and calm — beats her to it. “I’ll be taking over,” Childe announces as he walks up behind her. “Looking forward to working with you, Xinyan, Kokomi.”

Play nice , Beidou mouths at Xinyan, who reluctantly gives him a small smile. Kokomi stands, ever the professional, and extends a hand. “It’s a pleasure,” she says coolly. 

A frosty silence descends upon the four.

The police captain clears her throat, breaking the ice. “I’ll be off now,” she mutters, “Was just grabbing some personal stuff.” Beidou claps a hand on the ginger-haired man’s shoulder. “You’ve come in at a bad time. Watch your back, Childe.”

“Right back at you,” the Snezhnayan answered, catching her hand. “You know I’ll do what you can’t, Beidou.” 

There’s a cocky smirk on his lips, one that makes her blood boil. She stops, glaring daggers at him, as he steps closer.

“I’ll destroy her first, and then I’ll come for you,” he breathes in her ear. “It’s nothing personal.”

Beidou wrenches her arm free, never once looking away from him. Without a word, the brunette spins on her heel and storms out of the office. 

Over my dead body, Childe.

[yuniemaki]

Dancing in circles // Ch17: Mine

Read on ao3 Series: Genshin Impact Words: 70k+ Rating: M Pairing: Beidou x Ningguang mafia/triads AU

Summary: But they have always been two sides of the same coin. Nothing more; nothing less.

Sneak peek:

“Beidou.” Her name rolls so very gently off Ningguang’s tongue, despite their weeklong silence. “A word?”

She sits.

Ningguang takes a deep drag. Beidou briefly entertains the thought of slapping the vape pen out of her hands and putting an end to these petty little attempts at hurting herself. “Do you know” — another drag, and Beidou wrangles her fingers under the table — “why my parents were jointly called the Tianquan?”

Beidou freezes. Her mind completely blanks, and she simply watches Ningguang puff smoke out of her nostrils. 

“Celestial balance,” she breathes, a hint of wistfulness in her voice, “Balancing the very heavens. That’s what it means.” 

Equilibrium. It is, Beidou supposes, just like how light always casts a shadow. One cannot exist without the other, for their joint existence gives it value. Take the perception of power, for instance. Power corrupts, blinds, enslaves. Beidou has always feared power for those reasons alone. But Ningguang embraces power precisely because.  

Two sides of the same coin. Twin serpents that maintain equilibrium. One led its people into the light; the other stayed in the darkness, grieving as it ate its own tail.

“Balance,” Beidou repeats, and understanding dawns on her the way the rising sun illuminates a slumbering sea. If Ningguang is the bloody darkness, then Beidou is her—  

Ningguang’s eyes never leave hers when she says: “How can there be balance if there is only one?”  

For just a moment, Beidou struggles with words the way a juggler with too many items would. “You, uh… you have a very creative way of saying you’d like me around, you know,” she finally jokes when the words settle in her throat.

Idiot.  

Ningguang doesn’t smile. As she slowly lowers her walls, Beidou lets her gaze wander over her, tracing the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, down to her dark circles and quivering lower lip. Quietly, the brunette rises, rounding the table and kneeling before her. “I’m sorry,” Beidou whispers, laying a hand on Ningguang’s thigh. “I… I needed the time to work through… to find answers. For myself.”

Ningguang looks down at her, one hand slowly carding through Beidou’s brown tresses the way a queen might love her consort. “Have you found your answers?”

Beidou leans forward to rest her head on Ningguang’s lap. Slender fingers close around the back of her head, keeping her still. “Yes,” she breathes into soft, supple skin, her mind on the sins she has committed and has yet to commit. 

She stays on her knees for several heartbeats longer, held in place by Ningguang’s hand in her hair. The Tianquan finally unwinds her fingers from Beidou’s tresses, and she lifts her head to look into tenderness, quiet and red.

[yuniemaki]

Dancing in circles chapter 11: turbulence Read on ao3 Words: 42k+ Rating: M Pairing: beiguang mafia au

Summary: You can't change the past, but perhaps you can change our fate.

Sneak peek:

A key benefit of knowing your way around Liyue’s largest mountain range, Ningguang thinks, is that you can easily shake off pursuers and ‘disappear’ into rock and shelter. Somewhere along the massive base of Mount Tianheng is an entrance hewn into stone. Water drips rhythmically from its ceiling, and the air within is moist and suffocating. But press into the darkness long enough, and you will come across a steel gate with a piece of plaustrite locking it.

That plaustrite reacts only to a key containing cor lapis.

Ningguang created this mechanism while she was sequestered away by her parents and learning her place in the triads. It was here, in this safehouse deep within Mount Tianheng, that her will was broken. It was here that she learned not to shed a single tear, to stand in defiance even when her father played Russian roulette with her head.

The gun wasn’t loaded, he later said. But the damage was done.

It was also here that she plotted their deaths from within, to seize their power and rule the triad the way she desires. No more hiding in the shadows and relying on senseless violence to gain power. No, she will weave the upper echelons into her tapestry; she will make the Liyue Qixing indispensable to the city of commerce. She will sink her fingers into every business and every industry, so that they will rule from the shadows.

Before her ascension, the violence was widespread. Nowhere in Liyue was safe from turf wars and gang fights. Her parents only encouraged this state of affairs. Even when Ningguang told them of its impact on the people, on Beidou — they did not relent. And after that fateful night where the assassination on their home almost succeeded, they’d accused her of betraying them with a dagger to her neck.

You told her where we lived, didn’t you? You told Beidou!

Ningguang sighs, expelling the memory together with smoke through her nose. Coming back here, to the Jade Chamber, is the last thing she wants to do — but it’s also the most secluded of the Qixing’s safehouses. She sealed it when she first left, and never opened it again until now. 

The Tianquan sinks into the leather chair and takes another drag. She lets the smoke escape from her lips, carrying the dull ache in her heart away, and idly wishes she could be as light as the vapour dissipating into the air. 

Two knocks on the door. “Enter,” she breathes. Her two most trusted associates silently file into her old room-turned-study. 

The walls of the Jade Chamber are reinforced steel, its numerous rooms carved into Mount Tianheng. The octagonal safehouse is furnished with classic Liyue-style furniture — walnut desks, ceramic lamps and lacquered screens. This room, in particular, once bore a bamboo bed for a child; now it holds a long table carved from a single trunk and several leather chairs. 

Yelan and Tian settle on the opposite side of the table, motionless. The silence hangs between them like a taut rubber band, trembling ever so faintly.

“The Fatui must go,”  Ningguang says, swiftly snapping the band with a twang. Its two ends bounce back, slapping both the Tianshu and Kaiyang into action.

“The Rooster?” Yelan asks.

“Captured. Alive enough to talk.” As much as it irks her, she needs a confession from Pulcinella to clear her name.

Tian leans forward. “They’ve spread their bases; striking Heyu Teahouse alone won’t be sufficient.”

“That will not be a concern.” Ningguang takes another drag, willing it to calm her fraying nerves. “Prior to this, Pulcinella and I made an agreement.” She puffs the smoke out, fondly recalling how Keqing would angrily swat it away. It’s funny how the police’s mole turned out to be one of their best Yuhengs in a while. 

Unfortunate. A good many things in this situation are unfortunate, and one of them is how the vapour seems to do nothing for her constricting chest.  

She sets the vape pen on the table. “He is supposed to deliver the remaining ammo in our deal on Saturday night.” Ningguang slides a piece of paper across the wood; Yelan and Tian swiftly catch it. “Memorise the details. I want every one of our people at this deal to seal off all exits.”

“What makes you think Pulcinella will be there?” Yelan muses. 

“He will.” Ningguang stands. Her chest feels far too tight, and her mouth is drier than a desert. She really doesn’t like being here, in a safehouse that teems with unpleasant memories. If she stares long enough, the walls seem to move, closing in around her and only adding fuel to a monstrous fear starting to stir deep within. Her nostrils flare in defiance. “I’ve made the arrangements; he knows I’ll see to the deal myself.”

“That’s a big risk,” Tian replies, “If they tip the police off—”

“I’m counting on the police to be there,” she interrupts, glancing at Yelan. Her heart is pounding hard, rattling her ribs and screaming to be freed. “Their mole hasn’t been outed, I presume?”

“They’ve hidden the spy well,” the blue-haired woman admits. “My men are certain the Fatui’s mole is a police captain or an inspector, but we don’t know who.”

“Then they already know this deal is happening. It’s the perfect time to nab me, since I apparently killed the Minister of Civil Affairs.” Ningguang turns away, restlessly pacing the length of the room. She hates it. She hates the Jade Chamber. She forces herself to return to the pressing matters at hand, though it feels like trying to gain control of a speeding car whose brakes have failed.

Yes, of course she’d murder the one man in the government whom she had painstakingly wrapped around her little finger over the years. It’s painfully obvious their enemies are behind this, and all she’s lacking is proof.

As for Tongtong … the poor boy’s only crime was to be Bolai’s beloved son. It’s a smart move, Ningguang admits to herself — frame the child’s death on her so that Bolai would turn on the Qixing. Now, she is blind to the activities of both the police force and the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Two of her most important allies were felled in one blind swoop while she drowned in melancholy. 

In her mind’s eye, the damned car approaches a guard rail she can’t avoid.

Tian brings a lighter to the paper, and Ningguang watches it dissolve into ashes — a sign of their acknowledgement. Her two associates bow; Tian comes to her side, lifting her hand and pressing it to his lips reverently. She waits, keeping her expression impassive, till the door shuts.

Ningguang scrambles for her bag immediately, digging through it as her heart thuds furiously against her ribs. It pounds so hard she can hear the roar of blood in her head. Archons, she hasn’t had to pop pills in years , but stepping in here — where it all began — is almost unbearable.  She dry-swallows two benzos and slumps against the wall, shakily feeling around the table for her vape pen. 

Her head spins like it once did long ago. Ningguang closes her eyes, patiently waiting for the medication to kick in. It does, soothing her heart and making her thoughts fuzzy, like brocade fraying at the edges. She takes a drag with trembling fingers, letting the pen drop to the floor with a clatter. Ningguang has always known, of course, that her life would end in violence. There’s no peace for those who rule the triads — it’s the price they pay for unimaginable power. She’d always thought that it wouldn’t matter, that she’d welcome death with open arms when it finally came for her in blood and pain.

And yet, now that she has looked death in the eye… it is not at all what she’d expected. Death is an overbearing, intangible presence in every room. Death has stalked her from the moment she received the Tianxuan’s severed hands and went into hiding. Death is formless, shapeless, a void. Death is absence . And here in the Jade Chamber, where she’d stared down the empty eye of a gun at death, it has become all the more powerful. It holds her by the neck in these reinforced walls and she cannot rest.

It brings her back to that memory she’d shoved aside, and she’s once again holding back tears in her bedroom, unable to believe her own parents would accuse her of betraying them. 

But this time, she looks her parents in the eyes, ignoring the flare of pain in her neck.

I didn’t tell Beidou.

She only wished she did.

[yuniemaki]

series: genshin impact pairing: beidou x ningguang rating: M genre: mafia au, slow burn, drama read on ao3 ┊ ┊ masterlist

chapter eight: to play the game

Resolves crumble; new ones rise. A new game begins, and may the best of us win.

Barely three days after she was discharged, Beidou finds herself back at the Rex Lapis General Hospital once again – this time as a visitor with a bouquet of flowers in hand, and not as a patient. She wanders through the glass doors and up to the reception, where a kindly nurse takes her particulars and directs her to the third floor, fourth room on the left.

The sickening smell of sanitiser; the icy-cold air-conditioning; the blindingly-white walls and floors of the hospital’s corridors — Beidou has never liked hospitals very much at all. She was brought here after that shootout, spending her days huddled up in a bed at the corner of the children’s ward with bandages covering her left eye. 

When the doctors finally let her go, she found a stranger with a kind smile waiting for her at the entrance. From the hospital, she travelled to Qingce orphanage. And from the orphanage, she travelled to an elderly couple’s home at Downriver. And from Downriver… she found her forever home in a person.

Now she is homeless once again.

[yuniemaki]

Ch19: One last game // Read on ao3 Series: Genshin Impact Words: 90k+ Rating: M Pairing: Beidou x Ningguang mafia/triads AU

Summary: When have things ever gone according to plan?

Sneak peek:

When Ningguang turned 21, her parents did not throw her a coming-of-age party. Instead, they brought her out of the Jade Chamber for the first time in three years. She was blindfolded in a limousine and brought to a warehouse, the name of which Ningguang never learned. Shipping crates and boxes were stacked sky-high to form a labyrinth within the space. She lost count of the number of turns she'd had to make, though she recalled passing a cabinet of hammers and a shelf of rifles. Finally, her parents stopped, and removed her blindfold. She laid eyes upon a young man around her age, bound to a chair with a plastic bag tied over his head.

The Qixing thugs around him yanked the bag off, and he gasped and sputtered for air. 

“What did he do?” she demanded, eyeing her parents warily.

“Killed a brother,” her father replied, “He has broken our oaths.”

“Hand,” her mother said.

Ningguang held out her hand, feeling the cold weight of a gun drop onto her palm. She deftly gripped the handle, checking the cartridge. One bullet. 

“Kill him,” her father ordered.

She stepped forward, years of isolation and training leaving her numb. She pressed the muzzle against the man’s forehead, noting how it slid across his skin, damp with sweat. She too, had shivered and shook staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. But unlike him, she would ensure her parents never found out.

Before she could pull the trigger, Ningguang made the mistake of looking into his eyes.

Brown, almond-shaped eyes, wide with terror; his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water; his pupils darting nervously from side to side. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead into his eyes, and he squeezed them shut. “M–mama,” he whimpered, “I–I’m scared—”

Of course you are. She pressed the gun harder against his forehead, watching more tears spill from his eyes. The visage of utter horror on his face, the ghostly pallor of his skin — it reminded her of Beidou, the way that spark in her ruby eye died when she spoke of how her parents passed away.

They died like this, shot in the head, innocent bystanders in a meeting between Wangshu and the Qixing that quickly turned ugly on her parents’ orders. They'd told her themselves. The game showed no mercy to those who succumbed to pity. But Beidou had been an innocent child, caught in the crossfire. The shotgun bullet had blown through flesh and bone, embedding shards of her father's skull in one eye. 

Only once had Beidou ever let her see her scarred eye. A pearlescent white iris, encased in faint hues of red.

“Ningguang.” Her mother’s voice was stern. “You cannot hope to succeed us if you can’t even kill a man.”

She didn’t answer; she stared at him, feeling her hand starting to tremble. What would Beidou think of her, if she took a life? She’d just be another criminal, like the ones who killed her parents in cold blood. This would kill what was left of her heart, the piece of her that still treasured life, the only thing that set her apart from the crime lords she called her parents. Would Beidou ever forgive her? 

Would Beidou still love— 

Her thoughts screeched to a halt when the barrel of a gun rested on her own skull. She stiffened. “Shoot,” her father breathed in her ear, digging the barrel mercilessly into her hair. She winced, cheeks burning in humiliation as hot tears stung her eyes. “Kill him, or I will kill you, darling.”

Tears fell unbidden as a familiar icy terror calcified in her veins. Her very blood seemed to stop flowing in her body, freezing all the way to her heart. This fear would be here to stay, she knew. Once she committed this sin, it would make its home in her bones; it would devour her until there was nothing left to love. Even so, Ningguang thought, perhaps this was exactly what she needed for fear to consume everything left of her; for fear to become her greatest weapon. If she could conquer this fear — she could conquer even them.

“Ah-Ning,” her father hissed, jabbing the gun violently into her temple. She whimpered. “You’re taking too long.”

“And you’re being too merciful to our daughter, bǎobèi,” her mother said, a hint of tenderness creeping into that deep voice of hers. “Hesitation will kill her long before you do.”

Tenderness she reserved only for her husband, never to her child. All these years they kept her hidden away in a massive prison, learning the art of blackmail, bribery and torture; to be their scapegoat when the inevitable happened. They imparted all their knowledge to her so that she could be the perfect bait, so that she could take the fall when their enemies struck, and none save for the Qixing itself would be any wiser. The day she was finally murdered in their place as the 'Tianquan', they'd start over. She'd be buried six feet under, if not hung from a tower for the world to see.

Ningguang felt a pitcher in her mind tip over, filling her heart with molten rage. Hesitation would kill them long before it killed their only daughter. She would make sure of it. She would play the game and turn all their knowledge against them. After all, Ningguang was taught by the best. She would not lose.

Her brow furrowed in determination; her grip tightened on the handle. No matter who had to die — even if she had to give up everything —  she would take their lives with her own hands, as much for Beidou as for herself. She would reign over the underworld that her parents loved more than their child. Ningguang stared at the hapless man quaking beneath her. He was nothing but a pawn; a stepping stone to the future she now saw. 

Ningguang poured her love and her dream with Beidou, all the memories that made her smile, into that single bullet sitting in her gun. Her gaze hardened like water freezing into ice.

The safety lock disengaged with a flick of her finger.

I’m sorry, Beidou.

Bang.

[yuniemaki]

series: genshin impact pairing: beidou x ningguang rating: M genre: mafia au, slowburn, childhood friends to enemies to lovers read on ao3 // masterlist

chapter nine: the right thing

Who determines what life is worth saving? Who has that right?

An ancient two-storey building, boasting the slanted tiled roofs that were popular in Liyue Harbour’s early days, stands proudly on the outskirts of the trade capital’s grand entrance. Its aged wooden beams are lovingly preserved; one or two couples and families dine in the quiet atmosphere of its alfresco section, overlooking the natural phenomenon that is Luhua Pool.

The Emerald Maple Inn is a historical site, the Zhu family having faithfully run it since their ancestors built the restaurant by hand. It is known for its beautiful alfresco dining — and the privacy of their dining room on the second floor of the building. This, combined with its relative seclusion on the outskirts of Liyue Harbour, makes it a hot meeting point for under-the-table agreements. It’s so obvious, in fact, that Beidou would have never thought about checking this restaurant for Qixing activity.

Of course Ningguang would choose to deal in the most direct of places, while she has the authorities’ attention fully focused on a private jet requesting permission to land tonight.

Beidou parks a good distance away, dimming the lights of her car. She checks her gun — it’s loaded — and taps on the communicator in her ear. “Status?”

“Some good tea here,” Xinyan replies. Beidou takes a pair of binoculars from her car drawer, spying on the restaurant until she spots the cop masquerading as an alfresco diner enjoying a pot of tea.

“Kazuha?”

“Ready. She’s upstairs, as well.”

Keqing. Beidou gets out of her car, slamming the door shut, and makes her way to the Emerald Maple Inn. The Crux Squad will lie in wait until their spy gives them the go-ahead; they’ll bust in and — barring unforeseen circumstances — catch Ningguang red-handed. Criminal mastermind or no, it’ll be enough to land her in jail, and that would buy them enough time to build their case.

“Alright.” Beidou takes her position at the back of the restaurant, listening closely to the open line. The conversation on Keqing’s side is far too quiet and muffled for her to make out anything, but she can hear the incessant drumming of the Yuheng’s fingers on the windowsill. It pauses and begins rhythmically tapping. Ta-tap. Tap–tap. 

She holds her breath.

It can’t be this simple, Beidou thinks, as she listens to Keqing’s clear tapping. It spells gibberish in Morse code to discard suspicion. The police captain waits, patient and unmoving. She hears a rustle ripple through the communicator. “Don’t move,” she mutters to Kazuha, “Not yet.”

[yuniemaki]

III.

When Beidou wakes, she immediately regrets every single decision she’s ever made. Her temples thrum with pain, as if a vice was busy clamping either side of her head. She sighs, catching a whiff of the alcohol still lingering in her mouth. 

Note to self: I’m getting old. 

A year or two ago, Beidou would have been capable of going straight back to work after a wild night out. But she’s starting to realise that once she’s past the big three, her body simply can’t work magic anymore. She groans, rolling over and pressing her face into her pillow. 

Damn Juza and the others for dragging her to Yanshang Bar on a Friday night. Been a while, they said. Time to relax, they said. Six shots later she sure wasn’t relaxing — she can’t even remember what the hell she did.

Her phone buzzes once. Twice. Nonstop.

Beidou picks it up, gets blinded by the screen’s glare, and promptly tosses it aside. “Shut up!” she grumbles to nobody in particular. A sympathetic insect scurries across her messy room.

A few more angry tosses and turns, in which she tangles herself in her blanket, before Beidou finally gives up on going back to sleep. She stares at the ceiling fan, watching it quiver as it spins endlessly in a circle, over and over again. 

What was that thing Ningguang had mentioned once, long ago? A serpent eating its own tail?

Ouroboros. Yeah. That’s what her ceiling fan reminds her of. Just spinning and moving and expending all that energy but going nowhere. 

That hits a little too close to home.

Beidou rolls out of bed, dragging her blanket along with her. She reluctantly distangles her legs from the sheets as she gets to her feet and stretches. “Okay,” she declares to her non-existent audience, “Can’t waste a nice Saturday.”

Kicking her dirty uniform aside, the brunette hobbles into her bathroom. Beidou splashes water on her face, staring at the woman looking back at her in the mirror. It’s funny how the years take a toll on the body, she muses. What was once a bright ruby eye is now half-lidded and sunken; her other eye is a pale white, a scar like a starburst surrounding it. If she studies her face closely, she can see the first wrinkles lining the corners of her eyes. 

Beidou rubs her face. The dragon tattooed on her bicep roars at the mirror. She smiles, inspecting the arm sleeve that she’d gotten all those years ago. Ningguang had opted for an elegant fenghuang entwined with lilies. Beidou, being the rebel she was, chose a full sleeve to display the ferocity of a Chinese dragon. Over the years, she’s built upon the original artwork, adding memory upon memory that she wished to remember, and before she knew it she was sporting tattoos on both arms.

Not that it matters. No amount of ink will bring her back to those halcyon days.

Simple, kinder days, like the one where Ningguang first joined her for lunch where no other kid would; or the one where Beidou told her how her parents died, innocent victims caught in a triad turf war, and Ningguang consoled her the best she could; or the countless ones where they’d sit by the canals of Liyue and talk and laugh and play until the sun set.

On the last of those days, Beidou waited for her at Wanmin Cafe, their usual haunt, with a letter in her hand. She watched the clouds drift by and watched a thousand people pass by. She waited, and waited, until the sun set.

As swiftly as she had stepped into her life, Ningguang vanished from it.

The brunette shakes her head, quickly brushing her teeth and trudging to the kitchen. She opens the cabinets, searching for the hangover cure she always keeps a few bottles of.

Thirteen years. Ningguang abandoned her for thirteen years. Not a word or a message or… anything. Her ruby eye waters even now when she thinks about it. Through a film of tears, she finds the scientific miracle that the Inazumans call Hepalypse. Unscrewing the cap, she downs the bottle.

Thirteen years of silence, in which all Beidou knew was that Ningguang and her family had disappeared overnight. Just another missing persons case, the cops said when Beidou inquired, it happens plenty to many people. They probably left to start a new life.

A new life without me.

She tosses the empty bottle into the bin.

Just as Beidou moved into a new apartment far away from their old Qingce haunts, ready to start afresh — Ningguang returned. It wasn’t in the way Beidou had expected. She’d announced her return in cruelty and blood, without a single apology or a passing acknowledgement of what they’d shared in their childhood and teenage years.

Beidou grabs a sachet from another drawer and brews a cup of white tea: Ningguang’s favourite.

Ningguang, who had returned a brutal, cruel shadow; a bloody moon pretending to be the light.

Beidou only wishes they could have talked one last time. She would give nearly anything just to speak with Ningguang again, to understand how the light of her life fell from the sky into the depths of darkness — but the one woman she’s ever loved keeps her at arm’s length, and for good reason.

The tea finished, Beidou stumbles back into her room, falling onto her bed and staring at the ceiling fan again. It spins and spins like ouroboros, forever in stasis, always staying put, never moving forward.

Perhaps in another life, fate will be kinder to them both.

But now, as long as they stand on opposing sides of the battlefield, one of them will have to die.

Masterlist ┊ ┊ Read the full chapter on:

[yuniemaki]

Chapter 15: Blood Oath

Read on ao3 Series: Genshin Impact Words: 60k+ Rating: M Pairing: Beidou x Ningguang mafia AU

Summary: A blood oath is sworn; their paths now intertwined. But terror is a powerful monster that only time and persistence can tame.

Sneak peek:

No sooner has the door closed that Beidou feels the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of her head, and hears the sound of a safety lock being disabled. She stiffens.

“She’s mine,” Ningguang says, her authoritative voice carrying across the silent chamber. She lets go of Beidou’s arm — Beidou spots her jaw hardening in pain — and joins the older man in front of them.

The pressure on Beidou’s head lifts. She swallows thickly, finally noticing the gangsters lurking in the shadows, just barely out of sight. 

The Tianquan turns, the splitting image of the criminal lord Beidou has glimpsed countless times as a police captain. The artificial light of the safehouse bathes Ningguang in a fiery golden glow, weaving across her silvery-white hair like an ethereal crown. Despite her flimsy hospital garb, Ningguang still looks ever so regal, even more so when the members of the Qixing emerge from the shadows to flank her and the older man. Beidou lifts her head to see more gangsters on the second floor of the safehouse, some leaning on the railings and others sitting with their legs dangling over the edge. 

Her gaze returns to Ningguang, whose presence is breathtaking, mesmerising, suffocating. There is a beauty to her, cold and clear, like a finely-honed blade glinting in the light. Not a single soul dares to breathe in the silence, and Beidou knows that she would bend her knee long before Ningguang even asks for it.

“You stand before the Liyue Qixing,” the Tianquan says at last, “Beidou.”

[yuniemaki]

IV. series: genshin impact genre: drama, beiguang mafia au rating: Mature

If you asked Lady Ningguang what she thinks of a library, she would give you a low chuckle, the kind that’s torn between a derisive snort and genuine amusement (that you dared to ask). But she would answer nonetheless: libraries are liminal spaces. They sit in a strange kind of limbo; they are places that simultaneously perceive what was and what will be. It’s a place where you are, for want of a better phrase, comfortably uneasy.

Maybe it’s the silence, the hushed whispers, or the transience of it all — the people filtering in and out, a thrum of endless change. The only constant is the library itself; its single moment of peace found when its doors finally close for the night.

It’s the exact opposite of the serpent that ate its own tail.

This time dressed in a simple black tank top and jeans, Ningguang walks along the library aisles like any other person, searching for meaning in paper and words. Today, the answer she seeks is at the aisle named 821.92 BIR, behind a book titled The Air Year. She takes the book and opens it, staring through the shelf at a man standing on the other side.

He’s getting on in age, she thinks, what with that receding hairline and sunken eyes. He’s made the effort to dye his hair black, at least. Wrinkles — no doubt born from his hectic line of work — crease his forehead. He looks down, unable to hold her piercing gaze. “What can I do for you,” Ningguang murmurs as she flips to a random page, “Chief Superintendent Bolai?”

Her gaze wanders over the poem fate has selected: Temporary Vows. Fitting.

“I’ll scratch your back… if you’ll scratch mine,” Bolai mutters, making a piss-poor attempt at reading his book.

“It depends on the offer.” Ningguang glances at the first line — ‘I hold two fingers to my head, trigger my thumb, I say pow.’ — and shuts it firmly. 

“Look. The Fatui barging into Liyue like this… it’s bad for both of us,” Bolai mumbles, flipping through the pages of his book nervously. “You know it.”

“I do.”

Reassured, he takes a deep breath and looks up at her. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

She flips the book over to the back. “You want an equal exchange.” Intel for intel.

“I’m glad you understand.” Bolai’s shaky voice betrays his relief.

“How will your dear police captain Beidou, dedicated to freeing Liyue of triad rule, feel about this… agreement, Bolai? We know each other… hm, quite well, I must say.” She allows the faintest hint of mockery to bleed into her voice. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Bolai stiffen. 

A myriad of expressions cross his face — shock, disbelief, uncertainty, finally resting on impassiveness. But his emotions have already told her the truth: Beidou has told no one in the police department of their shared past. Does she hold it as close to her heart as Ningguang does? Does she keep quiet out of fear, or out of love?

One day there will be a victor in this game. And if it isn’t Ningguang, she knows at least that she will not die by Beidou’s hand — the kind-hearted brunette will simply not do it. She’s always admired Beidou for that; for her iron will and determination to do the right thing, born from the untimely loss of her parents. 

This same blind naivety that drives her will also be her demise. Ningguang has long planned for it; she only needs to tip the scales into motion and watch the bloodshed unfold — but something always stays her hand.

The Tianquan laughs quietly, drawing Bolai’s attention once again. “Don’t look so stressed, chief. It was merely a question.” She pauses, running her fingers over the book. “We have a deal.”

Bolai wipes the cold sweat from his forehead, returning the book to its place. Ningguang stays put, pretending to read for a little longer. For an agreement so sensitive, she would need someone absolutely trustworthy. Double-crossing the Rooster is undeniably dangerous, but anything that cements the Qixing’s power — and hers — is well worth the risk. 

She didn’t give up everything she loved just to lose it all to a pointy-nosed foreigner from Snehznaya. Pulcinella will soon learn what it means to mess with Liyue’s most powerful triad — Ningguang will ensure it herself. Even as he stretches his dirty little feelers across her land, seeking its vulnerabilities, she is sinking her claws deeper into its core, clutching the city tightly in her hand. 

What’s mine will stay mine. 

Perhaps she’ll give this job to Yelan, or Tian. Returning the book to its rightful place, Ningguang joins the flow of people exiting the library, leaving the place that was and is and will be.

Masterlist ┊ ┊ read the full chapter on:

[yuniemaki]

Ch16: Kind-Hearted

Read on ao3 Series: Genshin Impact Words: 60k+ Rating: M Pairing: Beidou x Ningguang mafia/triads AU

Summary: Promises are broken; promises are kept. Perceptions shift like the currents of the sea. There's no turning back.

Sneak peek:

Here and now, Beidou feels the crushing weight of the crime she has committed, and the icy knowledge that it is only the first of countless to come. She will kill, she will torture, she will dispose. She will sin the same way Ningguang has sinned, if only so that she can wholly and utterly embrace the darkness that her beloved has become. 

She thinks about Ningguang, whispering cruel words in her ear. You’re too kind-hearted for this, Beidou.

No, she disagrees silently, she is not. And she will prove herself again and again, as many times as Ningguang demands her to, until she can finally accept the truth. Beidou almost laughs to herself at that. The answer she sought has been there all along, but of course she would only find it after her pristine hands are stained with blood. 

Just like yours.

[yuniemaki]

Ch21: Caduceus // Read on ao3 Series: Genshin Impact Words: 90k+ Rating: M Pairing: Beidou x Ningguang mafia/triads AU

Summary: Love is a strength.

Sneak peek:

Ningguang floats in a sea of total darkness. It is a strange feeling; to be just barely aware that she appears to have a body, yet feel nothing beyond that vague knowledge. She can’t tell where she ends and where the darkness begins. But sometimes, voices will drift into her ears, though the words never seem to make sense. Other times, she notices a strange sensation on her hands, and it feels akin to having needles in her veins. Once or twice, she realises she has legs, and one of them seems painfully rigid.

Then it all slips away.

This time, however, the beeping in her ears is consistent. Slow. Steady. Ningguang reaches out into the darkness, creeping along her body, noticing how it ends firmly at her fingers and her toes. Her four limbs are heavy, like weights attached to her torso. She inhales; tubes and wires skitter across her bare skin with each breath. Her throat is sore; her eyelids are as heavy as her limbs.

She opens her eyes, just a crack.

A faint, gentle light greets her. Nothing too bright or jarring. She blinks several times, finally staring at a plain ceiling bathed in shadow. The room is dimly-lit, its curtains drawn. Ningguang slowly turns, letting her gaze wander over the machines and flowers and— 

Beidou.

The ex-cop is huddled on the floor against the bed, a blanket draped over her shoulders. Ningguang reaches out, feeling far too many tubes and wires move with her hand, and rests it slowly on Beidou’s head. Beidou stirs, but doesn’t wake.

Warmth radiates from her into Ningguang’s cold hand like rays of light illuminating the darkness. She gently ruffles Beidou’s hair, slow and soft, feeling her eyelids grow heavy again. There is… much… they need to talk about. Ningguang is sure of this, and yet… she can’t seem to think through the heavy fog that clouds her mind. She is lying on the shore in darkness, feeling waves gently tug at her with each kiss of cold water on skin, dragging her slowly across sand into the sea.

Bǎobèi…

She feels the ground lurch away from her with a final tug, and she floats on the water's surface for just a moment. Then the currents pull her under. Water closes over her head and she dissolves into it, dissipating into seafoam that carries her thoughts far and wide, across an ocean of darkness.

…I love you.