Chapter Text
It isn’t until Shang Qinghua is halfway to his leisure house that he remembers he doesn’t actually have time to stop and treat himself, not today.
Today, there is a mandatory meeting between all the new head disciples of Cang Qiong’s peaks. A way for them to build the foundation of the close bonds and rapport that they will need to have going forward and into their eventual ascension to peak lords.
The meeting is scheduled after lunch, and Shang Qinghua has skipped lunch. He’d claimed he had some last minute paperwork he needed to get out of the way before the meeting.
His stomach twinges, and he presses his uninjured hand into it harshly, willing it to stop. He’d skipped lunch, but it wasn’t because of paperwork. He’d thought he’d have enough time to slip in a report to Mobei Jun.
Instead —
He pauses in the middle of the path, shaking. He takes his hand away from his stomach to wrap his fingers around the forearm of his injured limb to hold it still. The shattered bone is unrelenting with the pain signals that it ruthlessly shoots to his brain without pause. He feels almost lightheaded.
It’s stupid. He’s had worse than this, so why does he feel so unmoored? Why does he feel as if he’s about to pass out? It’s a broken wrist.
Shang Qinghua slips to the edge of the path, shouldering himself against the bark of a tree, partially hidden in the foliage. Lunchtime is still ongoing, though it’s coming to a close, so he should have enough time to do this, at least. He won’t be late.
Reaching into the sleeve of his robes, he thumbs open the qiankun pocket and retrieves a roll of bandages from his emergency stash. It’s the thickly woven type, and not the flimsier gauze for injuries involving fragile broken skin. Hopefully it’s sturdy enough to provide some structure for his wrist. He’ll have to see to it more properly back in his house after the meeting.
Disappointment claws up the walls of his chest. Guess it’ll be the DIY splints after all. Just like always.
His eyes sting viciously, and Shang Qinghua finishes winding the bandages carefully around his wrist, tight enough to hold it in place but loose enough so it doesn’t choke his blood flow. Once he’s confident that he’s bound it as good as he can for now, he bites his teeth into the material and rips it free from the rest of the roll.
Stashing the unused bandage back in his qiankun pocket, Shang Qinghua pins the end of the binding around his wrist in place and then draws the sleeve of his uninjured arm across his eyes to stem the flow of his tears.
He needs to stop by a stream on his way to Qiong Ding as well, it seems. It wouldn’t do, to show up at the head disciple meeting with the evidence of his crying all over his face. He’d be laughed right out of the sect.
He tucks his wrist back against his chest and holds it still with his other hand. Even so, they still tremble, and no amount of deep breaths and on-the-go meditation techniques are helping. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes another breath, walking onward.
By the time he arrives at Qiong Ding, lunch has ended. The meeting should just be starting. So he isn’t late! He’s right on time. No one will look twice at the An Ding head disciple being a straggler. Honestly, it’s pretty much expected, given their workload.
However, as he approaches the doors to the hall where the meeting is to take place, he can faintly hear the quiet murmur of voices from just beyond the slightly ajar double doors, and his chest choses that moment to seize painfully.
Shang Qinghua stops in his tracks. It’s like his lungs have just ceased working. He can’t draw in a single breath. The trembling in his limbs, having grown small enough to be unnoticeable on his climb up the mountain, returns with a ferociousness that makes his head spin. Or maybe that’s the abrupt lack of oxygen?
He staggers to the side, pressing his back flush against the stone wall between two columns. It should be hidden enough, and thankfully the area is pretty empty of any wandering Qiong Ding disciples. He should be able to take a few moments to calm down from this inconveniently timed anxiety attack. He slides down the wall into a crouch and bows his head, curling over his injury and struggling to inhale.
For a second, he’s almost certain he’s managed it. A crack appears in the wall surrounding his lungs and keeping out any breath. A tiny piece crumbles away. In a few moments, the rest of the barricade will follow and Shang Qinghua will be able to breathe again.
“What’s wrong with you, then?”
Or — Or not.
He jolts violently, absolutely despising how the action nearly sends him toppling over and onto the ground. He stays upright, thankfully, but that’s less due to himself and more thanks to the person who has come upon him. They make a quiet sound of surprise and reach out a hand to steady him.
“Asking again, what’s wrong with you? This isn’t the best place to have a breakdown, you know. The head disciples are meeting just beyond those doors. You will disrupt them.”
Shang Qinghua knows. He also knows that, by now, he’s definitely late to the meeting. His Shizun will be disappointed, but… but not surprised, and —
He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe. He can’t.
The person standing above him shifts closer. The hand on his shoulder is removed, only to replace itself around — around his wrist, and —
Shang Qinghua flinches, violently, and lets out a breathless whimper. He presses his other hand over his mouth to smother any cries that try to follow it, and opens his eyes, staring up at whoever it is and pleading without words for them to let go of his broken wrist, please, it hurts.
The person stops — likely, it had been an attempt to pull him up to his feet. But now, they observe him with a sudden frosty silence, that Shang Qinghua feels more than sees. His vision is too blurry with his tears to really make out their face.
“Your wrist is —?” They begin, and then stop. The indifferent and slightly abrasive, yet uninterested tone from before is replaced by one of chilly steel. “... Let me see.”
Shang Qinghua is shaking so badly, feels so faint, that he’s not really able to fight them when they wrap their hand around his arm again. Further away from the wrist this time, thankfully. They draw it away from his chest.
His sleeve is pushed back, pulled away from the catching material of the bandages.
There’s a moment of silence, and then a sharp breath.
“It’s broken.”
No fucking duh. He hadn’t noticed! Thanks so much for informing him!
Shang Qinghua presses his hand more firmly against his mouth. He still — he still can’t breathe, and this really isn’t helping, but he’s trembling all over and his vision is swimming and he can’t breathe.
He’s late for the meeting.
All his peers are going to look down on him for this (as if they wouldn’t have before? He’s really just kidding himself).
Shizun is going to be mad.
“Why are you here, and not at Qian Cao? This should be seen by a healer.”
Because he’s late!
Shang Qinghua shifts his legs underneath himself, falling out of his crouch and onto his knees.
The person is still holding his arm. Their grip is strangely firm and yet somehow gentle at the same time.
“Was this a training accident?” They ask.
Oh, a perfect excuse! Of course it was. Shang Qinghua opens his mouth to readily agree, relieved, but instead a wheezing, incredulous laugh bursts free from his mouth, sardonic and bitter and completely without permission.
“I see,” the person says, flatly, and panic rises up in Shang Qinghua’s chest.
No, wait — !
He’s actually fine!
With renewed strength — though barely — he tries to tug his wrist free from the person’s grip. It’s almost just as useless as when he’d tried getting Mobei Jun to release him earlier. Their grips are similarly unrelenting, and something about it makes Shang Qinghua’s tears renew themselves. He reaches out with his other hand to try and pry the person’s hand off of him. Their touch is suddenly incredibly uncomfortable, sending fissions of terror through Shang Qinghua’s nervous system.
He’s too weak, however. He’s shaking, and faint, and it’s as if he has barely any muscle at this moment. The person’s fingers do not budge at all.
Shang Qinghua draws in a watery breath, too small in the way that it squeezes itself down his throat and attempts to press past the barricade and into his lungs. He brings back his hand and presses it over his eyes instead, closing them. The next breath is even more shaky.
“Who did this to you?”
No. No, absolutely not. Shang Qinghua desperately shakes his head, mind whirring uselessly in search of an appropriate excuse. He’d already failed in agreeing with the training accident, dammit, so he can’t use that, so… what else…?
He can’t —
He can’t let anyone know about Mobei Jun.
No one is ever suppose to know.
He’ll be killed for treason.
Shang Qinghua shudders, another whimper escaping him.
The person holding his arm gentles their grip. Not enough for Shang Qinghua to break free — he’s about as strong as a newborn, right now, he feels — but the fingers readjust their placement and his arm is maneuvered until it’s raised slightly above his chest. The insistent throbbing dies down just barely, at that.
A finger taps against the back of the hand that he has over his eyes.
“Answer me. Who did this? Was it those Bai Zhan brutes?”
Hopelessly, Shang Qinghua shakes his head. He can’t even think. There’s no thought in his head that actually sticks. Everything is going by too fast for him to grasp at it.
“Your robes are blue, so you must be An Ding. Are you sure it wasn’t Bai Zhan?”
Shang Qinghua just shakes his head.
“... Wait. That uniform….”
No, no, no. Shang Qinghua repeats the word like a chant in his head, because he can’t focus on anything else. Yet, it’s useless to stop this person from the realization of his identity.
“That’s the An Ding head disciples uniform,” the person says almost accusingly. “You are Shang Qinghua? Don’t you think you’re a little beyond bullying now? For heaven’s sake.”
Shang Qinghua curls into himself, trembling. He knows, okay? He knows how pathetic he is. He doesn’t need them to point it out!
There’s a sigh. “Shang-shidi, this one can’t do anything to help you if you do not answer.”
Shidi…?
With a jerk, Shang Qinghua rips his hand away from his eyes and sits up. The person, hovering slightly above him, moves away a little with another murmur of surprise. His vision is blurry, but Shang Qinghua can still make out the colors of the person’s robes — a light green, some white.
Oh, no.
“Sh-Shixiong,” he presses out, desperately, reaching forward to again try and pry his hand off of his arm. “Please, please don’t tell anyone, I — you — I can’t —!”
Shen Jiu stares down at him imperiously, grip still absolutely immovable.
“This shixiong will ask once more,” the Qing Jing head disciple says, expression entirely neutral. “Who did this? If it wasn’t Bai Zhan, this shixiong is unable to think of any other culprit, and…”
With movement like lightning, Shen Jiu strikes forward with his other hand. Something glints between his fingers and, in mere moments, the bandages fall away from Shang Qinghua’s wrist to reveal the mottled red skin, severe swelling, and unnatural angle of the joint.
Against the redness, the dark black bruises in the shape of a hand could not be starker.
Shen Jiu’s face darkens.
“Clearly,” he continues, stashing his knife away in the front of his robes, “it was no accident. Shang Qinghua.”
Shang Qinghua ducks his head down, shame rising up to mingle nauseatingly with the panic and the fear that consumes his heart and lungs.
Nobody is suppose to know. Especially not Shen Jiu.
Shang Qinghua is so fucking useless.
“Sorry,” he manages to squeak out, lungs so tight and burning that he feels they will burst at any moment.
“No,” Shen Jiu reaches out and flicks his forehead sharply. “Do not apologize. Tell me who it was.”
Shang Qinghua’s face scrunches up against the flow of his tears. He tries to breathe in again, fails, and then shakes his head.
“— can’t.” He grinds out, helpless.
“Shang Qinghua,” Shen Jiu growls, voice flat and unamused, sounding so terrifyingly like Mobei Jun’s for a moment that Shang Qinghua can’t help the way his entire body flinches back.
Shen Jiu goes quiet. There’s a long moment that stretches into the silence. Like a rubber band, pulled apart further and further until something audibly snaps, and the band comes whipping back to strike at both ends.
Shen Jiu gets to his feet from where he’d been kneeling. He doesn’t let go of Shang Qinghua’s wrist, and instead stoops down to wind his arm around Shang Qinghua’s back and pull him forcefully to his feet.
“Come,” the cruel man says. “We are both late for the meeting.”
Shang Qinghua whimpers in horror.
No! No one can know.
And now it looks like everyone will. Shang Qinghua is dead.