Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Xiu Ya is screaming again—the warping, chiming shriek of a blade on the edge of shattering. The scream echoes all the way through Shen Qingqiu, his meridians howling in harmony—burning inside him until the pouring rain steams off his drenched robes.

The beast strikes, its roar nearly lost under Xiu Ya’s endless cry. A desperate block; he stumbles. Feet slide in the ankle-deep mud, as Shen Qingqiu scrambles to stay upright—to stay alive. The creature withdraws again with an inhuman yell of rage and agony, its arm split to the bone by Xiu Ya’s block, but it won’t back down for long.

It’s always the mud, the part of him that lost interest in suffering long ago thinks idly. He was always going to die in the mud in some no-name village.

The creature returns, and this time he only manages to cross his arms. Claws shred his sleeves—his arms. His back slams into the crumbling stone of an old house, and pain bursts like fireworks behind his eyes. He’s failing. He’s faltering. The world is soaked and burning at once, and he has no one to blame but himself.

If he hadn’t trapped Shang Qinghua into outing his demonic connections—he flash-steps away only to fall to his knees, crumbling like a tower—if they hadn’t blamed him for the sect’s instability after—the creature roars. He lifts his blade almost too late. Xiu Ya screams as it flies through the air, and Shen Qingqiu screams his own fury aloud in answer. He surges upwards, clawing at the creature’s eyes, and it withdraws in a hulking slide of motion, pawing at its face.

“Whoa,” breathes a voice past the howling fury and the rain.

The creature’s gaze snaps over at the same moment Shen Qingqiu’s does. A child, shoeless, ill-fitting robes, drenched, staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at creature and cultivator both.

Idiot, thinks Shen Qingqiu poisonously as the child stands there gaping and the monster shakes its head. It’d serve him right to die like this , he thinks as he sprints towards the little boy. He’s so small, he thinks despite himself as he scoops the child into his arms. Was Qi-ge ever this small? He was certainly this stupid.

The monster shrieks. Shen Qingqiu holds out one hand, calling to Xiu Ya with every fragmented piece of his spiritual power, the energy grating like glass shards inside his veins. Xiu Ya’s mournful, agonized howl picks up pitch until the soul sword is trembling, screaming in the mud. But it doesn’t move. Shen Qingqiu’s broken, battered, ugly, useless soul cannot get itself out of the mud. He can never—

The child in his arms gasps, clenching his fists in Shen Qingqiu’s robes. It’s just enough warning for him to turn, taking the hit that would have killed a child but only rips open an immortal master’s skin. He goes tumbling at the force, guarding the child as best he can. It’s worthless, of course. It’s a worthless, pathetic attempt. They’ll find his body curled around the boy’s dead form, and they’ll probably say he tried to shield himself behind the innocent.

The monster bellows its triumph as Shen Qingqiu slides to a stop in the mud, his hair and robes in ruins, blood sliding off him with the rain, into the murk and mire of the town’s flooded streets. The boy in his lap is gasping, shaking, and Shen Qingqiu shoves his way up and puts a hand on the boy’s chest to shove him away—to make him run. Instead…

Instead his faltering power echoes inside the boy’s chest, down past his rabbiting heartbeat and into the very core of him.

The child has a blade. It shouldn’t be possible. Soul swords are grown over lifetimes. They are formed through years, and this child cannot have lived more than a dozen of those. The monster is coming. The rain is pouring.

Once, the young master of the Qiu estate drew a soul sword, bleeding, from his slave’s chest. It hurt. It hurt more than beatings, more than starvation, more than anything. It was the only time the slave truly begged.

The young master had the bloody sword cleaned. He hung it on the wall of his study, and took it down sometimes to look at it. The slave felt it when he did. The slave dared not speak out—dared not fight back. Not with his soul bare and exposed. Not with the bleeding, scarring wound in his chest.

When he took his sword back—when he wetted it with new blood, and returned it to his chest, he swore to himself no other would touch it.

He thinks of Qiu Jianluo for only a moment as he closes his hand on the child’s sword. He thinks of the smile on the man’s face as he drew Shen Jiu’s last, desperate hope from beside his heart.

He does not smile as the child screams in his arms. He yanks the sword free and whirls in place, slicing the monster’s face in half with a blade that is not his own. Behind him, the child scrambles, gasping for breath, back against the wall. The monster’s blood spills into the mud and rain, but it does not fall. It roars past a bisected face, and attacks once more.

Shen Qingqiu’s body is failing. His qi spikes and drops, stabbing him from within. He clenches the blade he’s stolen and fights with every scrap of power he has remaining. It’s pathetic. It’s nothing . He makes blades from wet leaves—he throws mud at the creature’s bloody face—he defends and strikes with a too-small sword. Xiu Ya glows in the mud, screaming for him. He does not have the breath to do it himself.

By the time he realizes the monster is dead, he’s atop it, stabbing it over and over—over and over—over and—

The sword in his hands is not Xiu Ya.

Shen Qingqiu staggers to his feet. His sword. His soul. He has to—He can’t let anyone—

He drops to his knees, shaking like a bamboo leaf in a tempest. The world wavers in his eyes, the rain too cold, and too hot. His chest echoes, empty. And then something touches him.

His eyes fly up, hazed with fury, only to see—

The little boy is staggering. There’s blood on the front of his robes. He’s got Xiu Ya wrapped in both arms, and he’s already managed to cut himself. The sword is too big for him, especially hunched and weakened as he is. He drags closer to where Shen Qingqiu has fallen. The screaming terror of his touch against the blade quiets with every step, until Shen Qingqiu is only staring, panting in white plumes of breath, as the boy drops at his side. He holds out the rattling blade, its chiming screams subsiding into little chokes of noise, like a sobbing child.

Shen Qingqiu snatches it away, twisting the blade at once and throwing himself back, arching his body and holding Xiu Ya above himself. Its tip presses only briefly under his clavicle, and then it is him again. Slotting into place within him—still aching and crying, but safe.

When he blinks his eyes open again, it is to see the boy staring at him out of wide, dazed eyes. There’s blood splashed up on his chin, marking his too-pale face.

Slowly, Shen Qingqiu lifts the too-short blade he drew by force from this child. A miracle—a harbinger of doom. If anyone ever hears what he’s done—stealing the soul of another to brutally kill a monster—it will ruin him. His hands shake as he presses the sword into the boy’s hands.

The boy only stares, clenching his own soul with both hands.

“Like I did,” Shen Qingqiu snaps.

The boy jolts, then shudders all over, like he’s just realized the pain he’s in. He scrambles to obey, clumsily trying to gain himself the distance to press the blade back into place in his chest. When it shines bright green and gold, sheathing itself back into place, the child lets out a strained sob of relief, pressing his muddy hand to his blood-stained chest.

Shen Qingqiu grabs him by the wrist, and shakes him roughly, just once.

“Tell no one,” he demands, harsh and vicious. “Tell no one.”

The boy stares at him. Dumb child. Idiot child. His lips are turning blue from the cold of the rain. Qi-ge had been the same—always out in the cold until he was nearly frostbitten, always for the stupidest reasons. Though at least he had never stood gawking at a literal monster.

Shen Qingqiu tightens his grip, no doubt bruising the fragile bones of the child’s arm. There’s no guarantee. He should… He should really kill this child. He can say the monster did it. No one could prove him wrong. He should…

“Say nothing, and you may follow me to Cang Qiong Mountain,” he finds himself rasping instead, his whole body shaking and burning still, but strangely quieted. The Qi deviation has run its course somehow, miraculously abating with the return of Xiu Ya to its place.

The boy blinks twice. He looks dazed. Maybe broken. Having one's sword pulled by force can do that, after all.

“To,” the boy says slowly, “cultivate?”

“Yes,” Shen Qingqiu answers. “So long as you hold your fool tongue.”

The boy stares longer. Then—idiot child—he lights up like a candle in the dark, his mouth stretching into a grin so wide it cracks his chapped lower lip.

Shen Qingqiu returns to Cang Qiong gravely wounded, with a sleeping child in one arm. He will let Mu Qingfang tend to neither of them. As he wraps the wound on the child’s chest with clean bandages, he thinks over and over of those small hands slicing themselves open returning his soul to him.

By the next week, the whole mountain knows that Shen Qingqiu has taken in a new disciple—a greatly favored, scrawny little creature known as Shen Yuan.

Chapter Text

As far as transmigration locations went, Shen Yuan felt from the day that he opened his eyes that he’s been given the short end of the stick. Waking up in a ditch to not even an error screen, but instead just a bright blue text box proclaiming [Oops!] then cheerfully winking out of existence felt very much in character for such a slack-ass piece of writing’s transmigration experience!

One bonus is that it hadn’t taken him long to figure out what world he was stuck in—in keeping with “Great Master” Airplane’s worldbuilding, people in this universe really did just walk around casually proclaiming things like ‘Thank goodness Huan Hua Palace called in those many cultivation sects to defeat the demon emperor those years ago! I hear Cang Qiong Mountain’s new sect leader was particularly impressive!’ like they were the shitty worldbuilding NPCs in some mobile game.

But if this is Proud Immortal Demon Way, Shen Yuan wants his money back. In a world full of unparalleled beauties, incredible spirits, powerful cultivators, and influential nobles, what sort of bullshit is it to be transmigrated in as a nobody side character???

For a moment he’d been excited—waking in the dirt as a nobody was classic protagonist fodder! Surely, he’d thought as he picked himself up past his body’s aches and pains, it meant he was destined for great things! And once he’d realized what story he was in, it had seemed clear to him—He was no doubt the great Luo Binghe, destined to reach for the stars! And surely with his foreknowledge of the plot he could avoid much, if not all, of the suffering between him and eternal glory!

Of course, not five minutes after that revelation, some other street kid knocked him over and said “Shen Yuan, you bastard, you just try taking my spot begging again! Wasn’t one beating enough? How did you even have the strength to crawl out of that ditch we threw you into?!”

Shen Yuan had stared at this veritable fountain of information—a perfect example of Airplane’s shitty low-IQ bullies and villains—and laughed himself sick. The other boy had gotten very uncomfortable at that, and had run off somewhere.

So. He hadn’t transmigrated into the hero at all, and instead was some sort of self-insert character? Fine. He doesn’t remember anyone named Shen Yuan dying on screen in the story, so he’ll just have to work on surviving and removing himself from the plot as thoroughly as possible! Huan Hua palace will probably be his best bet to survive the merging of the realms, though he’d never really liked its aesthetic. Gaudy robes aside, it’s good to have a goal!

He’d nodded to himself as he planned and plotted how to arrive. He knew enough about the story, surely he could figure out a good backstory for himself! A noble but lost family—those were a dime a dozen, and he knew most of them thanks to Luo Binghe’s hundreds of wives and their hundreds of tragic backstories—a dying guardian’s final wish for him to be accepted at a sect, yadda yadda…

And then, he’d thought with excitement, lifting one bony child’s hand to touch the center of his chest, maybe he’d actually get to enjoy his favorite piece of world building!

In Proud Immortal Demon Way, cultivation worked much like it did in classic Xianxia novels—though “Great Master” Airplane never bothered to get his facts straight, so nascent soul cultivators and golden immortals were not only interchangeable, both were a dime a dozen. However, there was one piece of worldbuilding which stood as a notable exception: the spiritual weapons.

While it was still possible to forge weaponry, the cultivators in Proud Immortal Demon Way preferred to do battle through use of their own souls, condensed into physical form and empowered by the cultivation of their hosts. These soul swords were more than an extension of the body—they were a pure reflection of their wielder’s true self! To know a character’s soul sword was to know the character!

Take for example the young white lotus Luo Binghe with his fine, gleaming, sweet spiritual sword Zheng Yang, which then became the brutal demonic blade Xin Mo—a hateful weapon formed around the breaking pieces of his human soul, as ruined and vicious as the protagonist himself.

At first every mention of the soul swords swords had been an impeccable piece of the storytelling—imagine Shen Yuan’s delight in reading the startling revelation that the rotten Shen Qingqiu wielded a blade as beautiful and rotten as its master, even its handle was sharpened to allow it to drink its master’s own blood—but then, like everything else in the story…

By the seventh time a young woman offered her ample bosom to Luo Binghe so he could draw free her soul sword to defend them both, with a sweet, heartfelt ‘It won’t hurt if it’s you, Junshang, I’m certain!’ only to be proven right, and then to weep in his arms for gratitude, and have him praise her sword’s beauty, and then the two of them…ahem… 

Well, it got old!

Still, there were things Shen Yuan had loved—had wondered—had wanted to explore! And now he has that chance!

If he dares.

Likely he’ll have to content himself with possibly getting to see his own soul sword. Perhaps it will be striking, perhaps it will be plain, but it will be his! He has no doubt that holding it in hand, he might even be capable of becoming a helpful assistant and companion to the protagonist himself!

But first, he’s going to have to figure out how not to starve to death. Because it turns out even with all the knowledge of this universe directly implanted into the head of a low-level NPC, that NPC is still an NPC! Shen Yuan’s body is only a child, and after his long day of planning he’s hungry! Only to discover that he has no money. And no food. And, according to his best guess and the way the other boys had spoken to him, nowhere to go.

Still! He’s genre savvy! If he cleans up his face a little in the river and goes earnestly to ask for work, surely—!

Nope. “Great Master” Airplane strikes again, with his shitty world where 99 out of every 100 people are the worst, and that 1 remaining person is a washerwoman who’s already spoken for.

So it is that days after Shen Yuan thought to make his move towards Huan Hua, he instead finds himself standing still in that same stupid starting town in the beginnings of an almighty downpour, hungrier than ever, and beginning to suspect that he will never get to see his soul sword.

Despite his better judgment, the cold rain matches his mood, and it’s not like his hiding spot is that much dryer. The streets had been mostly empty that day, and he’s barely managed to scrounge up any money at all, his plans of getting to Huan Hua are looking dead before they’ve even begun, and the other kids are getting less wary of him, despite his continued attempts to drive them off with strange behavior and unhinged laughter.

Which is how he finds himself standing and gaping at the sight of the most beautiful man he’s ever seen, desperately trying to claw the eyes out of a Three-Tailed Grinding Ape—one of the sturdiest and least visually exciting of Proud Immortal Demon Way’s monsters. It’s a memorable monster, certainly, because its plain appearance had lulled the protagonist into a false sense of security, only for Liu Mingyan to reveal that once her brother, the late Liu Qingge, had nearly met an early death at the claws and teeth of such a beast on a rainy night in—

Wait, is that pretty boy cultivator Liu Qingge?

His brain hasn’t finished processing what he’s seeing before he’s snatched up in vicious hands, fingertips digging bruises into his body as he’s yanked away just before a massive impact splatters mud and stone where he’d just been standing.

The cultivator clings to him with one arm, and throws out his other hand. Shen Yuan follows the motion with wild eyes, and gasps at the sight of a sword in the mud, shining golden and shaking. A soul sword, he realizes, even as the cultivator moves again—too fast for Shen Yuan to think until they are brutally tossed aside. If not for a hand locked tight around the back of his neck, Shen Yuan’s child body might have died simply from whiplash!

What is this? What is this?! Is he an NPC destined to die in Liu Qingge’s fight?! Is he going to be saved to add to his hero points?! “Great Master”, what storyline is he in?!

The cultivator grabs him roughly and Shen Yuan tenses, preparing to get shoved away, or grabbed, or tossed, or something else awful, only—

Only instead something strange happens. The cultivator’s wild eyes meet Shen Yuan’s, his snarling expression giving way only for a moment into shock, and then something…Else. Fear? Horror?

Then Shen Yuan forgets to think, because the cultivator is pulling, and Shen Yuan is coming apart, the cultivator tugs, and some piece of Shen Yuan unravels, and he is in the man’s hand, and he is standing frozen in place, and the cultivator’s hand is bloody and shaking, and Shen Yuan can feel it—he can feel him . Echoing empty, his own soul pulled free and screaming. He is not a hero. This man is not a hero. This man is rotten, and dying, and trying so hard, so hard, for another breath, for another moment, for—

Shen Yuan can’t breathe. He’s doubled over, hands clenched in the front of his robes. His chest hurts. He’s himself. He’s awake. He’s in pieces. He’s dreaming. It hurts. It doesn’t. Something is screaming. He’s making something scream. Drawing blood. Hurting. Wounding.

In the mud, the shining sword is screaming.

He’s suffering, Shen Yuan thinks with agonizing certainty, and stumbles towards the blade.

It’s warm in his hands. He knicks himself on it. Even the hilt is sharp. Some piece of him is drawing blood on blood on blood. Some piece of him is held too tightly in vicious hands, plunging in and out of a creature that used to be alive. He feels sick. His body is too small for the depth of feeling it brings.

Shen Yuan has never killed anything before. Even now he hasn’t really. But he has. He’s been used to do it. And it’s…

He can see the cultivator, staggering to his knees in the rain. In his hands the sword is choking on its screams, and Shen Yuan shushes it gently, even as he forces his steps closer. That man is still clutching his bloodied soul in his vicious hands, but his eyes are fixed on Shen Yuan, dangerous and deadly.

When he gives the screaming sword back, he watches the cultivator dip into an elegant backbend where he kneels, and is abruptly reminded of the motions of a swan. The man’s arm extends, lifting the blade, then shoving the brutal, screaming sword into his chest with a motion like a drowning man heaving for breath. He stiffens, shudders, then his dark, narrowed eyes fix on Shen Yuan.

“Like I did,” spits the cultivator, his voice ragged as if he’d been the one screaming in agony and not his sword.

It was, Shen Yuan realizes much later while sitting in a warm bathtub, his first lesson from his new shizun.

A man who, it turns out, is definitely not Liu Qingge.

“Shidi, we’re only concerned!” calls a voice aching with worry through the door.

“The beast is dead and you’ll have my report in the morning, Zhangmen-shixiong.” spits Shen Yuan’s new master.

Oh, thinks Shen Yuan. Shit.

“Shen-shixiong,” another voice calls—less kind, and more impatient. “You left bloodstains flying in.”

“Mu-shidi,” snarls ‘Shen-shixiong’, “surely you have some herbs which require your tender ministrations more desperately. Both of you, get off my peak!”

Shit! thinks Shen Yuan again, sinking down in the bath until the screaming goes distant beyond the sound of water warping and warbling in his ears. Shit, shit, shit. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Off the streets, and into the house of the scum villain himself.

There is only one peak lord surnamed ‘Shen’ on Cang Qiong mountain.

A hand grips the back of his neck, yanking, and Shen Yuan yelps, garbled with bathwater.

“Sit up properly!” snaps the man with the pale, blood splattered face. “Unless you plan to drown in the bathtub after barely surviving a demon!”

He’s wrapped in a new outer robe, but he’s still drenched wet, his dark hair soaking the fine silk, or whatever the green brocade is made of. Shen Yuan coughs, making a face at the taste of both the floral oils added to the water and the mud he himself wasn’t able to scrub off before his bath behind the—he glances around—yeah, it’s a bamboo house. Shit.

“Yes sir,” Shen Yuan mutters, glancing around for exits.

Shen Qingqiu—because it definitely couldn’t be anyone else— sneers. The disgusted expression shows bloodstains even on his teeth, and Shen Yuan tries not to stare.

“ Sir is a word for the shitstains of the mortal world,” spits Shen Qingqiu. “You will address me as shizun.”

“Sh—” Shen Yuan coughs again, averting his face and lifting a hand to cover his mouth, hiding whatever expression is back there. Ah, is this what it means to feel like you’re going to spit blood?

“Shizun,” he manages to choke out, hoping that it reads as a frail young street urchin’s uncertainty and not a hate-reader’s desperate attempt to hide his internal screaming of ‘GET CASTRATED, YOU ASSHOLE! AS IF A SCUMMY PERV LIKE YOU WOULD EVER BE MY SHIZUN!’

Shen Qingqiu, if anything, manages to look less happy , despite having his instructions followed. What the fuck!?

“Finish washing,” he snaps. “There are robes for you at the corner. Leave your top off and I’ll bandage that.”

He gestures with a renewed sneer, not looking at the mark in the center of Shen Yuan’s chest even as he acknowledges it.

Shen Yuan cranes his neck, trying to get a look at it. It had been mentioned, sure, that having someone yank your soul sword out before you were ready or against your will could leave a scar, but it had never been mentioned without being surrounded by heaving breasts or ‘the twin rosebuds of her heavenly mountains’ or whatever so he’d never really gotten much out of the description.

He can’t see it well, but he sure can feel it! It aches, throbbing down through the core of him.

He’s half expecting to be beaten anew when he walks cautiously around the privacy screen—given cane or whip marks to match his new scar from Qing Jing Peak’s cruel master.

Shen Qingqiu’s face does twist in disgust when he sees him, and Shen Yuan’s heart jackrabbits in terror only—

“Dry your hair, you animal. Don’t drip on my floors!”

Shen Yuan scrunches his nose, pulling back in affront.

“It’s not like I’ve had a bath before, how am I supposed to know?!” he demands before he can think better of it.

Shen Qingqiu’s disgust turns into fury in a heartbeat, and he approaches in a flurry of robes. Shen Yuan should cower and whine, probably. Begging should practically be second nature to him at this point!

Instead he straightens up as much as he can, glaring at the snarling peak lord in an eerie reverse of how Shen Qingqiu himself had glared up at a monster mere hours ago.

Shen Qingqiu pauses only for a moment, then snatches Shen Yuan’s thin arm in one hand, dragging him back behind the screen.

“Ow!” shrieks Shen Yuan, less because it hurts and more for the principal of the thing.

“Shut up! ” Shen Qingqiu snaps.

“Why are you hurting me?!” Shen Yuan demands, trying to drag his arm away. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you you catch more flies with honey!?”

“I hate flies.” Shen Qingqiu snarls in reply, snatching a piece of cloth that looks identical to every other piece of cloth in this damn place and yanks Shen Yuan closer.

This time it really does hurt. Shen Yuan snaps his mouth shut before he can make a sound, his nostrils flaring and his jaw clenching at the searing pain that cuts through him. The wound in his chest aches. He remembers those hands on him—so harsh, so vicious, so scared —

Shen Qingqiu drops his arm like it’s scalded him, and takes a sharp step back.

Shen Yuan doesn’t look at him. He swallows back the pain, and breathes through his nose.

“Dry your hair,” Shen Qingqiu says, and thrusts the fabric at him without touching him again.

Shen Yuan does, even though it hurts. Shen Qingqiu doesn’t move while he follows instructions, staring down at him like he’s not seeing Shen Yuan at all.

“You’re too soft,” Shen Qingqiu mutters, as if speaking to himself.

“What?” Shen Yuan snaps, jolting in insult.

“Stupid little thing,” Shen Qingqiu says, but he sounds almost fond. “If it hurts, hit back. If you don’t want to be here, run. If someone rich-looking falls over, take their money—don’t just bring them a sword . How did you survive this long?”

“I don’t want to hit you.” Shen Yuan grumbles, scowling as he tries to get all the water out of his too-long hair.

“You’ll give yourself matts.”

Shen Qingqiu takes the towel, or fabric, or whatever, and moves closer. This time he doesn’t touch, only squeezing the water out of his hair.

“I’m not soft,” Shen Yuan objects. “Not wanting to hurt people doesn’t make me soft.”

Shen Qingqiu looks at him for a long moment, then tosses the fabric carelessly into the filthy bath water and turns away.

“Come.”

Shen Yuan follows him, bewildered and uneasy. He’s dragged to a stool, and Shen Qingqiu harshly braids his hair, knots and all, tugging with every motion. But then he pulls out a length of what can only be bandages and some sort of foul-smelling paste.

He drops the paste into Shen Yuan’s hands.

“Your name.”

“Shen Yuan,” he mutters, scooping up some of the chunky herb stuff and scrunching his nose at it.

“Less than that. An even layer over the wound.” Shen Qingqiu snaps, lifting a fan off his dresser and rapping Shen Yuan’s wrist with it.

“Ow,” grumbles Shen Yuan again, though it’s more annoyance than anything.

Shen Yuan follows the instruction under the scum villain’s cold observation.

“Shen,” the Qing Jing Peak lord repeats, too loudly to be muttering it to himself, but not appearing to expect a response.

The herb stuff had smelled like it would sting, but everywhere his fingers touch with it the burn settles. He lets out a breath despite himself. The hot bath had been nice, but now that the pain is subsiding he can admit it hurt a little…

“That’s enough. Lift your arms.”

He shouldn’t just do whatever this scum says. He probably shouldn’t even have put random stuff on an open wound! That bastard Shen Qingqiu would poison anyone who inconvenienced him, and from the way he’d said ‘tell no one’ Shen Yuan had the feeling that he knew exactly how it would go over if anyone found out he’d yanked out a child’s soul to murder a monster with!

Not that Shen Yuan disagreed with the choice really. He was alive, after all! A lot could be forgiven in the sake of not being eaten by one of the least-interesting of Airplane’s monsters!

“You will be my disciple,” Shen Qingqiu says, unwinding the bandages and starting to wrap them around Shen Yuan’s chest in secure, steady figure eights, “and enjoy the benefits of peak life and cultivation. However, if you ever speak of what occurred tonight, you will say only that the monster attacked and this master saved you. Is that clear?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes shizun, little idiot.”

Shen Yuan huffs. “Yes, shizun.”

“And if they ask for more information?”

Shen Yuan blinks his eyes wider, gazing up at Shen Qingqiu with a tragic little pout on his face. “I try not to think about it. It was so frightening. If shizun hadn’t been there…”

“Hm.” Shen Qingqiu’s eyes narrow in consideration, even as he nods. “That should do. No matter what happens, you will never tell anyone who drew your soul blade. Swear it.”

“I swear.” Shen Yuan agrees, and means it. Shen Qingqiu’s done some skeevy stuff, but this wasn’t really skeevy! It was self-defense. And Shen Yuan defense too! He’ll take it!

But then sharp fingers are pinching his face, one thumb and forefinger dimpling his cheeks harshly as Shen Qingqiu forces him to make eye contact.

“If you ever break that promise, I will cut your heart out with that very same sword,” he hisses. “Do you understand?”

Shen Yuan gapes at him, then wrinkles his nose in distaste. This scum is really going to threaten a ten year old???

“Keep your part of the deal too,” he demands, the words coming out mushed by the fierce grip on his cheeks. “I get to enjoy cultivation, and I get to eat every day, and I don’t get beaten up or abused!”

Shen Qingqiu snorts, then drops his chin.

“Out of my sight,” he demands. “Do not leave the side room.”

“I guess I’ll just pee in the corner?” Shen Yuan snarks back, crossing his arms despite the pain.

“There is a chamber pot, you filthy creature,” Shen Qingqiu scolds, and chases him out of the room with his fan.

It’s only when he’s scowling at the little cozy room he’s suddenly got access to that Shen Yuan realizes Shen Qingqiu never saw to his own injuries. He peeks his head out, certain for a moment that he’ll see his new ‘shizun’ in a heap of robes on the floor.

What he sees instead is a brief glimpse of a sharply muscled chest and a starburst scar in screaming red centered on Shen Qingqiu’s sternum.

He ducks his head back in before he can be seen and strangled, his heart thundering in his chest again.

Right. He remembers that. Towards the end, when Luo Binghe was carving Shen Qingqiu apart, he’d laughed at the great Xiu Ya sword bearing such a mark. Shen Yuan had posted a lot of theories about that revelation, but the one that picked up the most steam was that it must have been an assassination attempt from one of the brothel women—brave girl! There had been a fan petition for Luo Binghe to find her and wife her for her bravery!

But Shen Yuan thinks of that screaming sword, cutting his hands apart, and he thinks of Shen Qingqiu’s hand gripping his soul with desperate strength, and suddenly he can’t imagine it. He can’t imagine Shen Qingqiu letting anyone close enough for that. Not with a soul sword that bites everyone who touches it—even its own master.

Luo Binghe had laughed at the pain when he took the blade from Shen Qingqiu’s limbless body and struck down Yue Qingyuan with it.

Shen Yuan chews his lip as he sits sleepless on the little bed, hugging his clean robes to his stomach to avoid the bandages on his chest. For now, things are good. For now, he can roll with this.

And maybe, when the time comes—when Luo Binghe arrives—Shen Yuan can change things! Maybe—maybe—the secret headcanon he’d kept to himself through all those many many chapters would bear out in reality!

Maybe Luo Binghe just needed one friend he could trust!

He falls asleep that night in the side room of the scum villain’s bamboo house, daydreaming about punching Ming Fan in the face, and taking the protagonist’s side against the unfair cruelty of his new shizun. Maybe they can run together, away from Cang Qiong and the cultivation world! Maybe Luo Binghe will take him to the demon realm!

(Maybe, he thinks, just on the edge of sleep, hugging the aching place in his chest where his soul rested, he will survive.)

Chapter Text

“Terrible.” Shen Qingqiu proclaims.

“Worthless,” he scoffs.

“Ridiculous,” he tacks on, well after the reasonable window for complaints has passed.

“Mmhmm,” Shen Yuan agrees, even as he sticks his tongue out and keeps working on his painting.

“Stop,” Shen Qingqiu clarifies.

“I’ll stop when you tell me how to make it better,” Shen Yuan agrees, lifting his brows and turning to his master.

“Choose a better subject,” Shen Qingqiu instructs with a wrinkled nose.

“You just hate fun,” Shen Yuan informs his teacher, and turns back to delicately painting the Fierce-Eyed Manlike Flame Dragon for his new fan.

Is it an off-brand Charizard with the serial numbers filed off? Yes. Is it extremely cool? Also yes.

“I should not have taught you to paint.” Shen Qingqiu notes, glaring daggers at the silk Shen Yuan is utilizing. “You will not use that while representing the peak.”

“Official business, official fans,” Shen Yuan agrees, sitting back to admire his work. His scale textures have really improved! “This head disciple would never discredit shizun by displaying anything more than the bland austerity he so loves in bamboo patterns.”

Shen Qingqiu whacks him over the head with his fan, but not very hard.

“Of course, how foolish of this disciple,” Shen Yuan adds, turning to his shizun with a broad grin. “Bamboo, fog over the mountains, or the most subtly insulting poetry available at the time.”

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes narrow hatefully, and he flicks open his fan.

Once it would have left Shen Yuan a little queasy with stress, and definitely angry. Now he glances down at Shen Qingqiu’s fan instead of quailing under the glare. It’s a delicate painting of fog over a mountainside, and Shen Yuan lets a shit-eating grin curl his lips instead of shying away at all.

“An essay on respecting your elders.” Shen Qingqiu instructs with a sniff.

“I’ll make it a treatise and you can publish it,” Shen Yuan promises, even as he glances at the water clock he’d been ‘gifted’ as a subtle slight against his inability to show up to meetings on time. “Are you skipping disciple selection?”

“Sadly not.” Shen Qingqiu snaps his fan shut again, sneering openly—though not directly at Shen Yuan. “Yingying has been pestering for a younger disciple, and this master would just as soon shut her mouth by accepting.”

The thing about Shen Yuan’s life on Qing Jing Peak isn’t that it has been easy, necessarily. It turns out his cultivation root had been damaged by having his sword drawn so early—a fact that had elicited the strangest, most-twisted smile he’d ever seen on his master’s face—so he’d had to throw himself into every lesson to even hope to catch up before his remaining potential went to waste.

Before he knew it, he’d sort of gotten used to working super hard! And then, once he’d gotten used to it, he found it was a lot harder to stop than he’d thought. Especially with so many fellow disciples clamoring for tutoring or extra help!

And then there was Shen Qingqiu, cold and distant and cruel, but never directly to Shen Yuan. At first, that had been enough for him, thank you very much! Shen Yuan was 100% shameless enough to hope to survive on the goodwill he’d earned by not ratting the scum villain out to any sect leaders!

That was, until he came across Ming Fan—younger than Shen Yuan’s body in this world, but not by much—carefully trying to reach around his own back to apply medicine to the cane marks on his shoulders.

He should have left it alone. He was an NPC! NPCs don’t change villains! They just get themselves killed by trying to do the right thing!

He didn’t leave it alone. His screaming matches with Shen Qingqiu were heard throughout Qing Jing, rustling the bamboo and agitating the disciples. 

“Find me one peak lord who does not discipline his students!” Shen Qingqiu had snarled at last, his eyes blazing with fury. “One master who does not teach first and foremost with pain!”

Shen Yuan thought of a blade with spikes on its hilt, and found it only made him angrier.

“Then they all suck and you should be better than them!” He’d yelled in return, and stormed out of the house.

He’d sulked in the woodshed for three nights, attending classes without once meeting Shen Qingqiu’s eyes, before the night the man came for him. He looked out of place, in his perfect, peerless robes, standing in the doorway to the woodshed.

“If you were really angry,” Shen Qingqiu had noted, something strange in his voice, “you would have told Yue Qingyuan what you know.”

Shen Yuan had barely resisted the urge to chuck a piece of wood at his damn teacher.

“I promised you I wouldn’t, didn’t I?” he’d snapped. “Besides, what would they do?”

“Beat me, probably.” Shen Qingqiu noted, gaze dispassionate. “Kill me, perhaps.”

“And does that sound like something I would want to happen? We’re only fighting because I don’t want people to get hurt!” Shen Yuan spat, nose wrinkled and expression sour.

Shen Qingqiu had only stared longer, then let out such a long breath it could only have been called a sigh, despite the fact that he was not a man given to sighing. Or to anything other than rage and disdain, for that matter.

“You’re too soft,” he’d complained, neither for the first nor the last time. Then he’d gestured for Shen Yuan to follow, and turned to leave the woodshed.

And then before he knew it there’d been the head disciple discussion, which Ming Fan hadn’t even been MAD about, which—good! It’s for your own good, A-Fan! No ant pits for you, my little sycophant shidi! No bullying at all, in fact! This Head Disciple will peer pressure you into being sweet!!!

Then there were the hall masters, and the sword training, and the quiet ache any time he drew his heart out into a sword.

‘Should it hurt?’ he’d asked Shen Qingqiu, eyes narrowed against the pain as he held his blade in one hand. It was light, but it ached in his hand, like it was turning his blood vessels to wood inside him.

‘Depends on the person.’ Shen Qingqiu hand replied, eyes flat and merciless. ‘Wipe that look off your face. So it hurts. Don’t let anyone see, or they’ll use it against you.’

Because, yes, even his scumbag master definitely has some baggage that wasn’t in the book! Shen Yuan has only barely started to dig into that mystery! Something to do with Yue Qingyuan? But the sect master worked so hard to give Shen Qingqiu any support he could offer, and Shen Yuan couldn’t imagine such a good bro having actually hurt the man! The mystery was an itch, just like the damn canon divergences!

No Shang Qinghua on Cang Qiong mountain?! He’d been driven off by Shen Qingqiu after being discovered colluding with demons?! Rumor had it he resided in the Northern Demon Realms and was plotting revenge?! WHAT?!

So all of that to say… 

Shen Yuan hadn’t forgotten the plot. He’d never stopped thinking about Luo Binghe! He hadn’t known where in the timeline he was! Was the washerwoman still alive? Was the little protagonist learning how to cook while holding her apron strings, all starry eyes and enthusiastic?

When Ning Yingying had first been accepted to the peak he’d had a realization of ‘oh, the next disciple to come will be Luo Binghe’, but then he’d had to go put out a literal fire in the library!

“Shen Yuan!” snaps Shen Qingqiu, in a tone that very much suggests he’s either going to skin Shen Yuan alive or he’s quite worried.

“I could go for you!” Shen Yuan offers as quickly as he can. “If you don’t want to bother with it!”

For his selfless offer he gets an intense stink eye.

“To whom are you offering this service?” his master asks coldly.

“...Shizun.” Shen Yun amends, sheepishly.

Shen Qingqiu’s lip twitches—not quite a sneer. This is something new—only really starting in the past few months, and Shen Yuan jumps at the chance.

“Peak Lord Shen,” he adds, “Xiu Ya Sword, master of all scholars, this humble one’s savior, wisest and best of Cang Qiong mountain—”

The rap of Shen Qingqiu’s closed fan against his head shuts him up, but only because he laughs. The mixed look of amusement, scorn, disgust, and affection on Shen Qingqiu’s face is such an adventure! It looks like it hurts! Shizun, do you need your brothel ladies to give you a face massage after making such an expression?!

“Finish your abomination and prepare the peak for a new arrival,” Shen Qingqiu instructs, turning away with a huff. “This master can handle selecting a whelp that won’t disgrace us.”

“Yes, shizun,” Shen Yuan agrees with a genuine bow, watching his master sweep out of the room.

Shen Qingqiu had smiled. He did it with semi-regularity, in fact! Surely a Shen Qingqiu who made faces like that—who brought Shen Yuan in, and let him stay in his side room, and made him head disciple… Surely a Shen Qingqiu like that wouldn’t abuse Luo Binghe, right? Surely Shen Yuan had already put this universe on the right track!

That evening, he returned from preparing the dorms to a room bearing not his master, but a single boy, kneeling stiffly on the floor. His hair was still dripping in slow, tragic ‘plip’s and ‘plop’s down onto the floor.

If the sound was all the tea in his hair and not the tears on his face.

“Oh,” Shen Yuan whispers, and the boy jolts, his head snapping up to stare at him.

…ADORABLE!!!! What is this face?! A tiny protagonist! SO LITTLE!!! A cute bun!!! Who made his eyes that big, ah?! And shouldn’t he be half-starved?! What’s with these pinchable cheeks!?

Only his little face is all red, and his dark, starry eyes are wet and shining, and oh, he hasn’t even begun to clean the tea off of himself. To his side sits a neatly placed tea cup, carefully set aside, upright and empty.

“Stay right there,” Shen Yuan says, and ducks deeper into the house.

Once, Shen Qingqiu had roughly dried Shen Yuan’s hair with a towel the new transmigrator hadn’t recognized.

Shen Yuan fetches the same towel, and returns to the child in their visiting room.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, even as he carefully scoops up some of the dripping hair hanging around Luo Binghe’s shoulders and squeezes the moisture out.

The boy stares at him, then slowly shakes his head.

“You can tell me if you are,” Shen Yuan offers, meeting the child’s eyes. “I’ll beat him up for you.”

“Don’t!” Gasps the boy. “It was—that is—shizun must have had a reason, so—”

“What reason?” Shen Yuan scoffs. “I’ll dump tea on his head and see how he likes it! Was it hot?”

“No,” says proud, brave, adorable Luo Binghe, far too quickly for it to be the truth.

The liquid still hasn’t cooled down, soaking warm through the towel.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Shen Yuan tells him, averting his eyes from that watery gaze to focus on Binghe’s dripping hair. “Shizun is just wrong sometimes. I’ll tell him off.”

“Please don’t,” Luo Binghe whispers, reaching out a hand to tug on Shen Yuan’s sleeve.

“Why not?” Shen Yuan asks, stubborn and fierce.

“He chose me,” Luo Binghe breathes. “Whatever I did to offend him, I’ll fix it, but he didn’t kick me off the peak. He chose me. It’s just tea.”

“It’s disrespectful is what it is,” Shen Yuan mutters, carefully releasing the bundle of hair he’d been squeezing dry. “Asshole.”

He reaches up to dab at Luo Binghe’s face, and only catches himself when the boy sniffles, his head tilting towards Shen Yuan’s hand thoughtlessly before he pulls back all together.

“Sorry,” the boy chokes. “Sir, sorry, I’ll—this one—I should—I can clean up this mess, I—”

For a moment Shen Yuan freezes, then he softens, all the tension draining out of him.

“Hey,” he says softly, reaching out and dabbing the towel against Luo Binghe’s teary cheek again. “Breathe. Let shixiong take care of you for a while.”

After all, the last time someone took care of Luo Binghe would have been a long time ago now, and the protagonist had been so alone. Shen Yuan had read it all with his heart aching for the broken boy, not yet knowing what a powerhouse his suffering would turn him into!

Yes, even doing this—cleaning the tears off a boy’s face—is probably going to nuke Luo Binghe’s protagonist power in the future! After all, everyone knows that the protagonist’s strength is directly proportional to their suffering!

Still, Shen Yuan thinks to himself as he holds his hand still for the boy to lean into, it won’t hurt to cling to these golden protagonist thighs a little, right? His chances of survival probably just skyrocketed!

With enough clinging, maybe he can beg mercy for the rest of the peaks too!

(But will any begging be enough to spare a villain?)

“Sir,” Luo Binghe says at last, his dark eyes clearer and brighter already, “May this lowly disciple ask your name?”

“Mm,” Shen Yuan pulls the cloth away, folding it and setting it aside before patting the top of Luo Binghe’s head a couple of times. “I’m your shixiong and Qing Jing Peak’s head disciple, Shen Yuan.”

“Shen?” Luo Binghe parrots, tilting his head slightly to the side like a little puppy.

“No relation,”Shen Yuan assures him, swallowing back the part of him that felt like maybe that wasn’t as true as it should have been.

“I—I’m sorry to have troubled shixiong, then!” Luo Binghe declares, cupping his hands inexpertly before himself and bowing.

Ah, he has his hands backwards in his bow. Is that an honest mistake, or has one of his other shixiong showed him wrong on purpose? Though, of course, with Ning Yingying on the peak, it’s always possible it was an honest mistake.

“No trouble,” Shen Yuan assures him, gently taking him by the wrists and reversing his hands. The boy immediately recognizes what’s needed and corrects himself, bowing again with the new organization of palm and fist.

“Good,”Shen Yuan sits back with a satisfied nod. “Now. Have you been shown to the dorms?”

Luo Binghe shakes his head quickly.

“Then this shixiong will show you the way,” Shen Yuan offers. In part because he wants to be sure that Luo Binghe is well away from Shen Qingqiu’s wrath whenever his master returns, and in part because he wants to make sure that no woodsheds are even considered.

After all, he doubts that Shen Qingqiu will be returning so soon, considering that he’d left himself instead of kicking Binghe out of the house.

A night with the ladies at the Warm Red Pavillion it is! Thank you for gifting this head disciple a night without someone criticizing his reading material, ladies! Shizun, please be back in time for the morning bell this time so this loyal disciple doesn’t have to chase the rumors away from the stair sweeper’s lips!

“Don’t fear,” Shen Yuan says to the little protagonist as he stands outside the dorms with him. “This shixiong will see to it that this does not happen again, disciple Luo.”

“Shixiong has already corrected this disciple’s bow,” Luo Binghe objects at once “It’s no wonder shizun was displeased with me.”

“Shizun’s moods aren’t always based on the behavior of those around him,” Shen Yuan whispers. “But, ah… Don’t spread that, please.”

At being given a secret, the boy’s eyes brighten even more.

“I won’t, shixiong.”

“Good boy,” he praises, patting that cute little head again. “Now to sleep. The peak wakes up too early for little disciples to be running around so late at night.”

Luo Binghe bows to him--picture perfect after a single correction--and scampers inside.

What a cute little bun, Shen Yuan thinks to himself with a sigh, crossing his arms. And what an absolute mess.

When he returns to the bamboo house, he thinks long and hard about whether to clean the mess of tea on the floor. He knows from the novel that Luo Binghe would have, if he’d been left there long enough. He would have sopped up the spill with his own robes rather than leaving it to stain the bamboo.

Shen Yuan looks at it for so long that it dries, then settles down at his master’s table to meditate until morning, letting the stain set in.

Chapter Text

The Erhu has never been Shen Yuan’s best instrument. The bow tends to squeak against the strings despite his best efforts, and he always adds too much or too little vibrato for Shen Qingqiu’s taste.

He sits on the back deck practicing viciously and coaxing out extra squeaks on purpose.

“Shizun.”

“Shen Yuan,” Shen Qingqiu wrinkled his nose. “What are you doing there?”

“This disciple came home to a new disciple weeping.”

Shen Qingqiu scoffed, a cruel amusement twisting the corner of his mouth. “No doubt frustrated he found this master more difficult to manipulate than expected.”

Is it childish to be tormenting his master by silently playing an instrument badly? Maybe. But no more childish than a peak lord throwing a jealousy-fueled tantrum about a little sprout like Luo Binghe!

“He’s just a kid!” Shen Yuan had snapped, fists clenching over his thighs where he still knelt neatly.

“He’s a little beast,” Shen Qingqiu hissed, gesturing to the tea stain on his floor. “Not even trained enough to clean his own mess.”

“I told him to go,” Shen Yuan stood up, no longer willing to face this sneering distortion of the teacher he’d come to know in a position of deference. “You’re the one who made the mess.”

The narrowing of Shen Qingqiu’s eyes spelled only trouble, but Shen Yuan had never let that stop him before.

Doggedly, Shen Yuan squeaks the high notes in his erhu solo rendition of ‘Call Me Maybe’, and hears something snap in the bamboo house. Another one of the scum villain’s writing brushes bites the dust. Or maybe a fan this time?

“OUT,” Shen Qingqiu roars from inside.

“I was leaving anyway!” Shen Yuan screams back, throwing down his bow and letting it rattle against the poor erhu’s strings.

“You’re still only a stupid child, so it’s no surprise you don’t recognize his type,” Shen Qingqiu said, pulling his fan out and flattening it before himself. “Creatures like that are no good, Shen Yuan. Those filthy little hands of his will grab hold and never let go unless they are firmly corrected.”

“Are you pleased with yourself?!” Shen Yuan had yelled back, stalking forward in a swirl of silk so similar to his master’s. Once he’d felt a quiet pride in looking so much like him. Now it makes him feel a little queasy. “Tormenting a child? You’re supposed to be better than this, Shen Qingqiu!”

“You will not speak my name in that tone, boy!” His master had screamed in return, all elegance thrown aside in a twist of anger.

He’d lifted his hand, and Shen Yuan had gaped up at him in utter shock. Was he about to be hit? Was he about to receive a beating from the scum villain, after all this time? Had seeing Luo Binghe really sapped every last brain cell and ounce of empathy from his master?

He watched the lifted hand curl into a fist, then be pulled violently back to Shen Qingqiu’s side, as if it hurt him not to lash out.

“If you want him so badly, take him,” Shen Qingqiu had snarled. “Coddle him as much as you like. Make him pretty promises, and pour all your kindness into that black hole of a beast. Just you wait until you fail him the first time. Just you wait to see how fast a creature like that turns on you!”

“His name is Luo Binghe!” Shen Yuan screamed back. “And if taking him on keeps him away from YOU then I’ll gladly make any promises he needs!”

“Out of my sight!” Shen Qingqiu had screamed in his face, his dark eyes ringed in white and his lips pulled away from his teeth.

Shen Yuan kicks a stone as he walks, feeling as childish as if he really was just a fifteen year old idiot. Shen Qingqiu has a genuine talent for making people feel like pieces of shit, and just because he’s held back on Shen Yuan until now doesn’t make it less effective.

“Idiot,” Shen Yuan mutters to himself, standing at the edge of his favorite view in Qing Jing.

Overlooking the little bamboo paradise of the peak he’s called home for years now, he narrows his eyes against the discomfort of his soul sword rattling in his chest. Discord between him and his shizun always seems to make it itchy. He wonders if Shen Qingqiu’s is the same way. If that spiked, cruel weapon pricks and tears at him on Shen Yuan’s behalf, remembering his hands on it just as Shen Yuan’s blade remembers Shen Qingqiu’s trembling hands raised in his defense.

His defense, his sword reminds. Shen Qingqiu would claim all day that it was selfish. That he didn’t want to die. That he’d seen a tool in Shen Yuan and had used it for his own gain. That Shen Yuan had blackmailed him into taking him on as a disciple, despite that every instance of blackmail between them had been suggested and carried out by Shen Qingqiu against himself with no need for Shen Yuan to participate in the slightest.

But Shen Yuan’s soul was the one that struck the demon down. His soul was the one that Shen Qingqiu held in hands that the man feared wouldn’t be strong enough. He was the one who’d been scooped away from the demon’s attack long before Shen Qingqiu had any idea that he had a fully-formed sword ready for his use.

“Stupid, idiot, scumbag ,” Shen Yuan hisses, closing his eyes tightly and pressing his hand over his chest. “I’m trying to protect you.”

By the time he arrives at the end of the disciple’s meal, he’s regained his calm. He wears his Qing Jing greens in delicate layers of silk that frame his body where they fall—more delicate than he would have hoped for a second life as a badass cultivator, but handsome enough.

Unlike the waves of bows and murmured respect that falls through the dining hall when Shen Qingqiu arrives, a chorus of enthusiastic ‘Shixiong!’s rise from the crowd of students, and Shen Yuan smiles pleasantly, nodding to their little clusters, even has he walks towards the table that his eyes found when he first walked in.

After all, it’s hard to miss the protagonist and his first love! There’s practically a bubble of precious innocence and adorable puppy eyes surrounding them!

What a surprise, though, to see Ming Fan at the table too. Clearly Shen Yuan’s intervention has made some difference, because Luo Binghe isn’t cringing away from a bully and tolerating his presence, but had indeed been gazing at him with those starry, attentive eyes until Shen Yuan drew their attention.

“Shixiong!” Ming Fan cries as well, hopping to his feet and giving him a picture-perfect bow.

Luo Binghe tries to follow suit, but Ning Yingying clings to his arm, laughing.

“You don’t have to, A-Luo!” She chirps, pleasant as a little bird. “A-Fan just thinks shixiong hung the moon!”

Luo Binghe gazes up at Shen Yuan with those bright eyes.

“Then this disciple will learn from his Ming-shixiong,” he says, gently unwinding his arm from Ning Yingying to offer Shen Yuan a bow.

“Sit down and finish your breakfasts, both of you,” Shen Yuan instructs with all the mild-mannered grace he’s tried so hard to cultivate, settling into a seat at their table. “I’m only stopping by to have a word with Luo-shidi.”

He sees the boy’s shoulders jump with stress immediately.

“Nothing bad,” he clarifies. “Shizun has asked this one to help disciple Luo get started, as he’s our only new disciple and may be behind in some studies.”

“But shixiong,” whines Ning Yingying at once, “A-Luo is my little shidi!”

Young mistress, he’s not a pet! Shen Yuan cries inside his heart, even as he turns his mild smile on the spoiled treasure of Qing Jing Peak.

“And I’ll be counting on you and A-Fan to help him settle in and support his progress as his closest shixiong and shijie, Yingying.” Shen Yuan agrees with a pleasant nod.

“This disciple would be honored!” Luo Binghe agrees quickly before Ning Yingying’s pout can develop into further objections. “Asking Shen-shixiong for instruction!”

He bows his head again and Shen Yuan can’t help but crack a grin, reaching over to pat his head lightly, holding his sleeve out of the way of their breakfasts.

“After you’re done eating, meet me at the Lotus Pod Pavilion. We’ll assess your starting point.”

As he leaves the table, he hears Ming Fan mutter sourly: “You’re too lucky. Shen-shixiong gives the best lessons…”

…Maybe he has to watch out for Ming Fan after all? But why would he fight about attention from a random NPC when Ning Yingying is right there?

Lotus Pod Pavilion is one of Qing Jing’s many water features. Does Shen Qingqiu hate it when Shen Yuan calls them that? Yes. Does it make Shen Yuan double down on calling them ‘water features’? Also yes.

Like so many places in Qing Jing, it’s part of the key to what Shen Qingqiu calls ‘the lie of quietness.’

“When one says they like silence,” his master told him, “they most often mean they like pleasant sounds. Qing Jing is called the quiet peak, but in truth it is built for noise. The wind through bamboo is louder than the wind over the barren rocks of Bai Zhan, but that type of noise is what the wealthy call ‘silence.’ Do you understand?”

Shen Yuan understood then and understands now, but it sort of pisses him off that he thinks about it every time he notices pleasant ambient noise on the peak. The quiet song of frogs and the trickle of running water flowing from one section of the lotus pond into another is exceedingly pleasant, but Shen Yuan can’t help thinking of it as ‘wealthy silence.’

“Shixiong,” a sweet voice calls, pitched softer in deference to what must seem to Luo Binghe like a truly peaceful moment.

“Binghe, good,” Shen Yuan turns away from the pond before it can annoy him out of his carefully-crafted shixiong character. “That was very prompt. Did you have enough to eat?”

“Yes, shixiong!” he answers, brimming with energy and enthusiasm.

Shen Yuan holds out a hand for the cultivation manual Luo Binghe is clutching, and opens it, flipping through page after familiar page. At least this one thing, he thinks with a feeling of relief so deep it made him a little weak-kneed. At least this one thing Shen Qingqiu didn’t do to the boy, even if it was only because his head disciple would notice and care . Even if it was for the wrong reasons, it was better that he hadn’t, right?

…Shen Yuan makes a mental note to make sure all of the disciple whips are still conveniently ‘missing.’

“Come join me,” Shen Yuan says, gesturing to the lotus-patterned stone of the pavilion floor. “The beginning of cultivation is stillness. Let’s see how meditation suits you.”

The bamboo house is silent when Shen Yuan returns home. There’s no note left for him, and no sound of even breathing from Shen Qingqiu’s room. Another night at the brothel, then. Hopefully he’ll work out some frustration and start acting like an adult again.

Shen Yuan goes into his own place in the side room, and finds his erhu carefully put away in its stand, picture perfect, as if he’d put it there himself. He stands for a long moment, looking at it, and wondering.

Is it an act of kindness? An insult? An expression of Shen Qingqiu’s increasingly-obvious OCD running amok yet again?

Shen Yuan sighs, crossing his arms and hanging his head, lolling it side to side in exasperation. In a way, his life would be much easier now if Shen Qingqiu was an absolute scumbag. An irredeemable predatory piece of shit who deserved the ending he got PLUS some would have been easy to write off as an acceptable loss.

The thought of Luo Binghe—not the sweet little disciple Shen Yuan had sent off to do his chores, but the fully realized protagonist—plucking his shizun’s limbs away like prying thorns off a rose stem and drawing the wicked, barbed blade from his heart to cut down the sect leader Shen Qingqiu betrayed…

There was a time when Shen Yuan liked those sequences. Now, looking at the erhu in the corner, the thought makes him so ill he has to stop thinking about it. It won’t happen anyway! No disciple whips. No bad manual. So there had been some tea-dumping—that was a surmountable problem! Shen Yuan would just have to make sure that Shen Qingqiu never got the chance to do worse.

“No beatings,” he promises himself, staring at the erhu. “No bullying. No woodshed. No fighting at the demon invasion. No abyss.”

Which, yes, sure, translates to ‘no story,’ but stories are for books. Shen Yuan lives here now, thank you very much! He’s met those faceless mob characters, and it turns out they’ve got faces! He’s been living in the scum villain’s side room, listening to the man’s nightmares and pretending to hear nothing! He’s turned the little bully nobody Ming Fan into a sweet little lamb in his own right!

Hell, Shang Qinghua isn’t even in the sect anymore! The great master Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky has been deposed, and his work is in better hands now. And when at last Luo Binghe comes into his own, Shen Yuan will be at his side—the faithful shixiong who guided him through his first years at Cang Qiong, clinging happily to his golden thighs!

When at last Shen Qingqiu returns, Shen Yuan is sitting and waiting for him again, his heart in his throat, but no longer fueled by anger.

“Shizun,” Shen Yuan greets, “this disciple has a request.”

“Impudent boy,” Shen Qingqiu mutters, his eyes narrowed and hateful, even as he tosses his fan aside and pulls the messy crown out of his hair, disordered from the flight back from town.

“I want a promise,” Shen Yuan says, looking up at his master, and watching him freeze, silks settling around him.

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes cut to him.

“Promise me you’ll leave Luo Binghe to me. That you won’t hurt or hamper him.”

“Him again,” Shen Qingqiu hisses.

“I want your word,” Shen Yuan presses, and when he sees Shen Qingqiu gearing up for another screaming match he adds: “You already have mine.”

Shen Qingqiu narrows his eyes.

“All these years,” he says, “and here is the second demand you’ve made in exchange for your silence. One to spare the thin-skinned backs of impudent disciples, and now to be gifted full custody of Ning Yingying’s pet beast.”

Shen Yan doesn’t rise to the bait this time. He stays still and calm, letting his master pace.

“I’m not threatening you,” Shen Yuan says. “I’ve never told a soul, and I never will. You saved my life that day. But this is important to me, shizun. If you’ll promise me not to hurt him, I’ll trust you.”

“Stupid,” Shen Qingqiu mutters again, but he’s staring out the window instead of glaring at Shen Yuan now.

“I know you don’t like him—”

“He is dangerous, boy. Make no mistake. He can cry and wail like any common street rat begging for coin, certainly, but it is a manipulation.”

“I’m not entirely blind,” Shen Yuan objects. “I know he’s capable of deception. And yes, you’re right, he might be dangerous. So shizun, why do you think it’s so foolish of me to want him on my side?”

“...When you inevitably fail him,” Shen Qingqiu says at last, a hateful tone in his voice, “he will never forgive you. But it is your mistake to make. Have your promise. To this master, the beast will be simply another faceless and distasteful disciple. May your new dog bring you joy.”

Eh, Shen Yuan thinks, lifting his clasped hands in a polite bow, that’s probably good enough.

Chapter Text

Luo Binghe is, as expected, an unparallelled prodigy. Within a week Shen Yuan can feel the faint stirrings of a forming core in his disciple’s meridians, and he tells him so with a proud smile and a head pat. Luo Binghe happily ducks his head into the touch, preening like a prize duckling, if there were such a thing.

Within a month he can perform the beginner sword forms to Shen Yuan’s specifications—which are not lax, despite his intention to take it easy on the boy! Cultivators use SWORDS! Even without being ready to draw their soul swords, Wang Jian’s work is no less sharp! Every sword they forge, they try to match the power of soul swords! The children could cut their noses off if they were allowed to use sloppy technique!

When Binghe meditates, the whole world seems to still, his cute little face settling into a solemn but peaceful expression. Glimmers of the man he’ll grow into are already beginning to show through, for all that he’s young. Looking at him in those moments, Shen Yuan can see the fierce beauty he’ll become—that protagonist with eyes like dark stars and a face that makes villains stupid and maidens helpless.

Shen Yuan tries to think of lessons that will be helpful to a budding half-demon, and finds himself happily conveying countless pieces of retained information from a previous lifetime at last. Luo Binghe will never encounter a creature he has no name for in this life! He’ll never wonder what the effects of this shitty lilly as opposed to that one will be! He’ll never bleed half to death before uncovering the secret of a demonic swamp trap!

He’s always busy planning lessons now—and always surprised when his little lectures in the lotus pod pavilion turn into full classes as first Ning Yingying, then Ming Fan, then countless other little sheep disciples start crowding closer to listen with eager ears to descriptions of Nu Yuan Chan, Black Rhinoceros Pythons, and the Tree Eye Falcons of the far south.

In the distance, sometimes, he catches a flicker of green silk, and glances up to find his own master watching them, expression unreadable behind his ever-present fan.

In the bamboo house, they do not speak of Binghe. In fact, after Shen Qingqiu made his promise, he has spoken less to Shen Yuan all together. When he looks at him, sometimes Shen Yuan thinks he sees something wrong in his eyes. Sometimes, he almost thinks it looks like loss.

Whatever it is, he always works to remove it through the most efficient means possible—annoyance! Shen Qingqiu is still just a grumpy old man at heart, and quickly loses his composure and any troublesome emotions besides anger and frustration. Shen Yuan takes care to annoy him as if it were a medical procedure, lancing whatever troublesome thoughts are building up inside his shizun and bleeding them out through annoyance.

It feels like no time at all when Shen Yuan discovers that Luo Binghe has been here for a year. Fourteen years old, taller and prouder with round meals to eat, and his sparkling eyes bright when he looks up to his shixiong for instruction.

That glimmer of handsomeness he displayed at first when meditating deepens—turning his lanky teenage awkwardness into a promise of more to come. Jealousy compels Shen Yuan to inspect the change, wishing his own body—sixteen at least —held a fraction of that easy grace that so clearly fills the protagonist. Even his first puberty had been more elegant than the one he’s going through now, he’s sure!

On this particular afternoon, Luo Binghe cracks an eye open to find his shixiong staring intently at his face, and his handsome solemness cracks into a delighted smile as Shen Yuan jerks away, turning his face to cough into one fist sheepishly.

“Does shixiong find this disciple pleasant to the eye?” Luo Binghe asks, cheeky and cheerful.

Shen Yuan bops him on the head with his closed fan—the Charizard he’d painted years ago quickly becoming his standard when out of the public eye.

That he hasn’t brought it to a peak lord meeting yet is a sign of how well Shen Qingqiu has kept his promise. He’d sworn to himself that at the first wavering in his master’s resolve to keep his distance from Luo Binghe he would proudly display the flashy dragon he’d promised to keep out of sight in solemn company as revenge.

As it is, Shen Qingqiu has not once bothered Binghe. It appears, however, that he’s managed this by never acknowledging that Luo Binghe exists. When they are in the same room—rarely— Shen Qingqiu keeps his eyes completely diverted and insists upon silence from all present disciples.

“Begging shixiong’s forgiveness,” Luo Binghe chirps.

“Focus yourself,” Shen Yuan instructs. “Aren’t you coming down the mountain on this shixiong’s recommendation for the mission?”

He watches the words lift the boy as if he weighed less with every word.

“Shizun agreed?” he asks, bright as a second sun.

Shen Qingqiu had gone cold and fierce, his lip curling at the words as he spat “As if you’ve left this master a choice.” but no need for Binghe to know that! Shen Yuan offers him only a pleasant nod.

“You’ll be riding out with us,” he agrees. “So save this shixiong some face and at least pretend to prepare.”

“Yes, shixiong! Thanking shixiong! This disciple will redouble his efforts!”

“Ah, please don’t,” Shen Yuan mutters, halfway unfolding his fan to gesture Binghe away with. “You’ll cultivate the mountain to rubble. Simply do your best as you have been. No need to push.”

Luo Binghe’s smile only went softer and brighter. As if that was a possibility! The boy was practically shining well enough to light a moonless night.

Sometimes, Shen Yuan could almost forget the wounded, vicious parts of this child in front of him. The pieces that would crack wide and swallow him whole if they weren’t carefully treated. The pieces that ground Cang Qiong to rubble, and dragged souls screaming from master’s chests to slay those who hoped to save them.

The ride to town is almost fun, despite his lingering disappointment that horse and carriage are the transport of choice in this shitty xianxia world. He’s fond enough of his horse of choice—a plain brown mare he’s called Baobao ever since she snatched the steamed bun from his hand to scarf it down, despite his horror. It was pork—practically her cousin! He pats her neck as she plods along like a creature that has never shamelessly turned against her herbivore heritage.

Luo Binghe rides beside him, sitting tall and easy in his saddle as if he was born to it. If Shen Yuan weren’t aware of Ming Fan’s secret riding lessons, he might have been fooled into thinking Luo Binghe had ridden many horses through his few years.

As it is, for now at least, Ming Fan is his loyal toady, thank you very much, and as such he reports things like ‘disciple Luo’s secret inexperience on horseback’ to Qing Jing’s head disciple.

Shen Yuan meets A-Fan’s eyes, and gives him a little nod of approval, only to watch that plain little mob character face scrunch up in a pleased smile. 

Inside the carriage, Shen Qingqiu rides so silently it’s easy to forget he’s there at all. Shen Yuan rides closest to the carriage, ready to answer the lightest tap of a fan against the window frame for his attention, but none comes. Shen Qingqiu has not deigned to speak at all so far in the day, and Shen Yuan takes it as an objection.

Perhaps, he reflects later, he should have taken it as a warning sign.

“This master will be entering seclusion,” Shen Qingqiu says, sitting on his bed in the bamboo house, his face still pale and his eyes averted.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Shen Yuan objects. “Shizun, you had a qi deviation. It’s not like Binghe or I would ever—”

Shen Qingqiu slams his fan down on the side of the bed with such force that the fan cracks in half and the bed frame itself splits like water-swollen wood.

“This master,” Shen Qingqiu repeats, cold with fury, “will be entering seclusion. Head disciple Shen Yuan will ensure that the peak does not fall into utter chaos . Is that clear?”

“Yes, shizun,” Shen Yuan says, bowing. “Now will you please let this disciple see to your hands?”

“I am no common mortal filth to have each pinprick seen to.” Shen Qingqiu hisses.

Shen Yuan gazes at him steadily, hand still held out expectantly.

“Shizun,” he says, trying to stay calm and strong, “this disciple knows it hurts.”

He still has a scar on the first finger of his right hand from Shen Qingqiu’s sword. Sometimes he rubs his thumb over it.

“Out,” Shen Qingqiu snarls. “Out, you wretched boy. Get out.”

It sounds like he wants to scream it, but with each word, he only sounds more exhausted. And after the mission…

Shen Yuan can’t bring himself to push. He bows, and he leaves.

He’d awakened bound to a wooden pillar, and immediately groaned, thunking his head back against the tacky, red-painted, very-familiar design choice. The Chen Mansion again, then. One of that man’s people or something. He shouldn’t have gone wandering with just his little disciple. He’d only wanted to get Binghe away for a while, after he’d spoken up in Master Chen’s presence.

‘Young miss, you wish to be here?’ Luo Binghe had asked, bold as a child who’d never been beaten, addressing the wrong he saw before him.

Butterfly had tittered. Master Chen had laughed. Shen Qingqiu had glared, his fury palpable.

“It seemed wrong,” Binghe had said, glumly following at Shen Yuan’s heels. “Aren’t cultivators supposed to right wrongs?”

Sweet, precious bun. In the original work, that idealist view of Luo Binghe’s had been crushed out of him early by Shen Qingqiu’s vicious treatment—callous at its kindest. In this world, no such crushing had occurred. That didn’t mean it never would. Some hopes were doomed to die. 

Shen Yuan had taken a deep breath, turning to look at the drooping boy.

“It can be difficult to know where the line is,” he’d said, softly, reaching out to take Luo Binghe’s arm in hand, squeezing in comfort. “We try to right wrongs, yes, and to protect mortals from what they can’t protect themselves from. Demons, ghosts, monsters, famine, disasters… All of these are things you will face bravely in time, Binghe. However…”

Luo Binghe’s eyes were already dark with understanding.

“However, the mortal affairs that could and should be handled amongst mortals, we’re to ignore?” he’d asked, something dangerous—angry—under his words.

Shen Yuan squeezed his arm more firmly, rubbing his thumb back and forth in an attempt at comfort.

“I know it doesn’t sit well,” he’d offered. “And there are times you can find ways to intervene. But if we intervene too much—put ourselves above other people in moral as well as physical ways—then we risk losing the faith of the masses. And losing their faith would mean no longer being called at only five deaths, and only being resorted to when it’s twenty—thirty—sixty lives lost.”

“And the lives that are lost anyway?” Luo Binghe demands. “The children who starve in the streets? The women bought and sold? The common people breaking their backs to bring home just a few grains of rice?”

Shen Yuan had been at a loss. He’d been scrambling for for some wisdom to impart to the boy—something that would answer the howling loss suddenly uncovered in those righteously angry words—when Binghe’s eyes popped wide and he’d cried “Shixio—”

And then there had been a rush of demonic qi.

“Fucking bullshit,” Shen Yuan hissed, thunking his head back against the wooden pillar again.

“Shixiong?!” cried a too-familiar voice.

Shen Yuan’s heart kicked into double time, slamming against his chest from the inside with such force he thought it might crawl its way up his throat.

It was one thing for an NPC to be captured at random, but the protagonist?!

“Binghe?” he choked, twisting in his bonds but unable to see the little protagonist bound on the other side of the pillar, and instead seeing—

Bound tightly to a pillar across the room from them, the Xiu Ya sword Shen Qingqiu was collapsed, a thin trail of blood streaming from his nose, staining his robes one drop at a time.

“You’re awake,” Binghe cried in a strained voice. “Shixiong, are you hurt? Are you injured?!”

“I’m fine,” Shen Yuan had assured at once, even as he cast about, seeking anything he could use to free them. “I’m fine. Binghe, listen, I need you to—”

“Awake already?” cooed a woman’s voice, and it all went completely off the rails.

The demon was monologuing. Shen Yuan tried to plan. Tried to distract her. Tried to think. When she prowled closer and stroked her long nails over Shen Yuan’s cheek, Luo Binghe struggled so fiercely that Shen Yuan’s breath wheezed out of him, strangled by the ropes binding them both.

The demon sighed, half her words lost as Shen Yuan tried and failed to access his spiritual power. ‘New body’ stood out, as well as ‘golden core’ and ‘beautiful.’

But then the demon was drifting away, and Shen Yuan could only stare in sick horror as she slid her fingers under Shen Qingqiu’s robes, and sliced the fabric apart with her claws.

“Shixiong?” Luo Binghe calls softly.

“Technically, disciples aren’t supposed to visit the quiet pool, Binghe.” Shen Yuan says, unable to make his voice anything but dull.

“No one saw you at breakfast or lunch,” Luo Binghe approaches cautiously, his footsteps soft and careful against the fallen bamboo leaves. “I was worried…”

“I’m okay, Binghe,” Shen Yuan assures the boy, tilting his head towards him without looking away from the water. He still doesn’t quite feel clean. He’s been considering walking into the cold water—letting it seep into his skin like Shen Qingqiu had taught him to do, back when he couldn’t clear his mind for meditation.

The little protagonist doesn’t stop, and when he steps up beside Shen Yuan, he at last pulls his eyes away from the water to look down at his precious student.

Cradled in the boy’s hands is a bowl of snow white congee, so fragrant with ginger that it warms Shen Yuan even at a distance and with perfect, crisp morsels of meat on top, glistening ever so faintly with flavorsome oil.

Shen Yuan is a grown up in a teenager’s body. He’s got feelings, sure, and the puberty hormones are probably getting to him a little, and yeah, things are a little hard, but he’s a grown man.

He covers his face and sinks into a crouch at the water’s edge so that Luo Binghe won’t see him cry.

Shen Yuan recognized the cause of the starburst scar on Shen Qingqiu’s chest. He knew from his own body what it looked like when a soul sword was yanked free by the wrong hands. The demon recoiled in disgust, then leaned in closer.

A fatal mistake.

There was an awful sound as Shen Qingqiu bit her nose off. An even worse one—like bones crunching, as he did something to his arm behind his back and twisted till one hand was above his chest, even as the demon cursed and staggered, spewing blood.

He drew Xiu Ya, screaming, from his bare chest and sliced through the ropes binding him. The world filled immediately with howling, warping qi and blazing heat.

“Shizun!” cried Shen Yuan desperately as the first crackling of fire tinged the world.

For just a moment, Shen Qingqiu looked at him. It was like the years fell away between them. Another monster. Another qi deviation. Another time Shen Yuan’s life hung in the precarious balance of Shen Qingqiu’s desperate struggle for survival. Then the demon lurched forward, claws raised, and Shen Qingqiu turned on her with an animal snarl.

Shen Yuan gasped for breath as the heat thickened and embers started to glow in the wooden floor. Blood spattered and hissed as Shen Qingqiu’s screaming sword found its mark, over and over.

“Binghe!” Shen Yuan yelled. “I need more slack! Let out your breath, press back, any inch you can give me!”

Immediately he felt the response. The ropes slackened around him with an audible ‘crack’ as Luo Binghe slammed himself back into the column obediently. Shen Yuan couldn’t dislocate his arm or crack his bones like Shen QIngqiu could, but he wasn’t bound as tight, and he’d seen what he needed to. He couldn’t reach his spiritual energy, but he could reach his sword.

He drew Xian Ya—named as a joke to sound graceful while truly meaning ‘early sprout’—and sliced through the ropes binding them with a cry of discomfort. The room was filling with smoke. Above a still body, Shen Qingqiu, still screaming, brought his sword down over and over and over.

Shen Yuan grabbed Luo Binghe and dragged him out before the fire or Shen Qingqiu could tear the little bun from his grip.

In the alley, choking on smoke, listening to the town awaken, he clutched Luo Binghe to his chest, one hand clawed in the boy’s hair, and one on the shoulder of his robes.

The congee is delicious. Shen Yuan eats it pretending he’s not fighting tears and pretending that Luo Binghe isn’t rubbing his back.

“I’m sorry,” Binghe says with a tragic lilt to his sweet voice. “I couldn’t do anything.”

“You shouldn’t have had to,” Shen Yuan objects in reply, carefully scraping the spoon against the side of the bowl--porcelain on porcelain, gathering the last soft pieces of flavorsome rice.

“Shixiong…shizun wouldn’t have hurt us, right?” Luo Binghe asks into the quiet of Shen Yuan considering whether or not his pride can stand the hit of licking the bowl.

“He was having a qi deviation, Binghe,” Shen Yuan says softly. “I’m certain he wouldn’t have tried to, but a cultivator in deviation doesn’t always think clearly. If you ever see such a thing, you must run for help, understand? Whether it’s shizun, Ning Yingying, Ming Fan… Even I can’t be sure I would know you in such a state.”

“Shixiong would know me,” Luo Binghe says, certain and soft.

“I hope so,” Shen Yuan says, giving him a quirked smile, “but I don’t want to stake your safety on it. Understand? If you see such a thing, light a flare, call for Mu Qingfang, whatever you can do, but first and foremost get yourself to safety.”

Luo Binghe said nothing at all, gazing into the still water and thinking with a small pout on his handsome little face.

Shen Yuan chews the inside of his cheek as he watches Shen Qingqiu press the Qing Jing seal into his final orders before seclusion.

“Stop making that face.” Shen Qingqiu says coldly, extending the scroll to Shen Yuan’s hands.

In the smoldering wreckage, Shen Yuan found his shizun kneeling, clutching his sword so tightly that blood still dripped from his hands down onto the mangled corpse of the demon.

“Yes, shizun,” Shen Yuan says, making no effort to conceal the worry he knows he’s showing.

“Idiot boy,” mutters Shen Qingqiu, sweeping past him.

Shen Yuan wants to say something good. A strong line to carry the scum villain safely through his seclusion, when all signs point to his instability somehow being worse than it was in the original novel. He wants to say something like the heroes of stories—or, no, like the sidekicks! The gentle and affectionate Samewise Gamgee of Luo Binghe’s story.

Some part of him wants to ask ‘Why are you ashamed? You saved my life again, and Binghe’s too, even if it wasn’t how you wanted to. That demon would have killed us. Why aren’t you boasting? Why aren’t you proud? Why aren’t you who I thought you were?’

Aloud he only says: “I’ll be waiting for you, shizun.”

For some reason, this makes the man stop in his step. He wavers, as if Shen Yuan struck him, then looks slowly back over his shoulder. He’s far enough away that Shen Yuan can’t really make out what expression he’s making—only that the dark gleam of his narrowed eye is fixed on him with an unsettling intensity.

When he turns and leaves, it is without another word.

Chapter Text

One could say that Shen Yuan leads Qing Jing Peak just as his master has, demanding the deep and long-lived traditions be upheld and that the silence and respect carry on unaltered.

One would be lying , but they could at least try saying it. It would be good for Shen Yuan’s self-esteem to hear that anyone else was willing to pretend with him!

The reality of the situation is this: Qing Jing Peak, home to many highschoolers, is currently operating in full ‘the parents are out and the babysitter’s cool’ mode, and has been for nearly two years now.

Shen Yuan has ignored it as long as he can. In fact, at first he’d encouraged it! Just a bit, really, but hey! How often is it that the lingering threat of Shen Qingqiu’s gaze traveled away from the sect to glare at something else for a while? He’s surrounded by kids who, in his opinion, have needed a good day off for years , even before encountering their first off-mountain mission gone haywire!

He was particularly concerned by Ning Yingying, Ming Fan, and Luo Binghe himself. Ning Yingying had listened to Binghe’s gentle telling of what occurred on the mission with her rosy cheeks going slowly ashen, and had thrown herself into training after, intent on ‘protecting A-Luo and Shen-shxiong next time!’ Her declaration had jumpstarted the other two into an anxiety-driven fever-pitch of training focused around the frankly mortifying rallying cry of ‘protecting Shen-shixiong.’

So Shen Yuan miiiiight have given in to some of his sillier ideas in the hopes of cheering them up from their grim determination. After all, there were all sorts of things one could do with cultivation! It wasn’t just kill or be killed!

Thus he began a self-assigned mission: Introduce ‘play’ to Qing Jing Peak.

In his defense, it had gone very well. His Exploding Water-Skin Talisman—a water balloon in all but name—was a particular hit. And when he thought of that day—watching Luo Binghe, who was dripping wet from taking a water balloon hit intended for Shen Yuan himself, burst into wild laughter—he couldn’t regret his choices.

The problem is that now he doesn’t know how to get things back under control…

He ponders it during morning meditation instead of actually quieting his meridians. He may even have heaved a ponderous sigh or two, listing from side to side in his lotus pose as he thinks.

“Shizun,” a melodious voice calls after his most recent sigh, and Shen Yuan’s eyes snap open.

“Binghe,” he chides.

“Shixiong,” Luo Binghe corrects himself, not looking in the slightest bit sorry. “Though if shixiong is this one’s only teacher, doesn’t the title seem appropriate?”

“When did you get so cheeky, huh?” Shen Yuan scolds, standing up and brushing non-existent dust off his sleeves just to have something to look at.

“Binghe apologizes,” the young man chirps, brimming with affected innocence. “Would shixiong like breakfast before training today?”

“Didn’t you already make it?” Shen Yuan accuses, pointing at his shidi with his fan. “Aren’t you ignoring your shixiong’s instructions and doing all his chores and cooking no matter what he answers?”

“Of course I made it,” Luo Binghe says, eyes sparkling. “Shixiong doesn’t have to eat it, however, if this shidi has displeased him.”

“Give me the congee, you unfilial monster.” Shen Yuan huffs, and Luo Binghe’s grin manages, somehow, to brighten even further.

Despite trying to lighten Binghe’s workload, and making sure the chores are as equitably distributed as possible, Shen Yuan has found himself in the odd position of having a shidi who refuses to do simply what is required of him. No, he adds to his chores daily, predominantly by taking on items from Shen Yuan’s list.

If he could, he would address the little sheep’s desperate need to please and serve—that sort of instinct won’t do his little protagonist any good when he’s an emperor, after all!--but it seems to give Binghe so much joy .

And, well… If Shen Yuan gets to eat the world’s best food AND make Binghe happy by doing it, why on earth would he not do that?! What would be wrong with him to turn down such an arrangement! Especially since…

After breakfast, they go into the bamboo forest. There’s a clearing they’ve claimed for their practice. It’s warded by some simple shielding tokens, mostly in an effort to keep them from being pelted by Ning Yingying’s water balloon attacks, which had disrupted many training sessions before that.

Shen Yuan winces in sympathy as Luo Binghe presses his glowing hand to his own chest, qi building, condensing, and then—

Nothing.

Luo Binghe grits his teeth, shaking the smoke off his palm and fighting to catch his breath. He steadies his breathing, sets his jaw, and then focuses again.

“Don’t push yourself,” Shen Yuan advises, watching with confusion from the sidelines.

In the novel, this whole series of years had been summarized with the simple words “After years of struggle, Luo Binghe pulled his beautiful and powerful soul sword from his chest, further filling his wicked master with envy.”

It was much easier to bear when Shen Yuan wasn’t actively watching that struggle.

“If this disciple doesn’t push himself, how can he improve?” Luo Binghe says, his sweet little smile straining at the edges with frustration.

Shen Yuan feels a deep, stirring worry at that expression. He shifts his weight, crossing his arms, and trying to think what his instruction has been lacking. In the book, despite his cruel and intentionally flawed instruction, Shen Qingqiu had led Luo Binghe to his spiritual sword Zheng Yang. Of course, then he had shattered it on the abyss edge and let the boy fall defenseless into the abyss. It was only Binghe’s grit and determination that let him build a new soul for himself from the fragmented pieces of his past—the terrible and beautiful Xin Mo.

However, in this world, despite Shen Yuan’s best efforts…

Perhaps, he thinks, touching a hand to his chest, it’s because ‘how’ was never a question for him in regards to his own blade. He never had to wonder what it would feel like, to manifest a weapon from his life. His scar aches, and he straightens up with a smile and sudden inspiration.

“Binghe,” he calls, interrupting his disciple’s qi-gathering for yet another attempt that would likely leave him exhausted and no closer to resolution.

“Yes, shixiong?” Binghe asks, blinking. “Do you have advice for this disciple?”

“I think, maybe, that Luo Binghe is a hands-on learner,” Shen Yuan says, nodding decisively as he walks closer, tucking his fan into his sleeve and offering the boy a gentle smile. “So maybe he needs to feel what it’s like to draw a sword before he can draw his own.”

Luo Binghe draws back half a step, his eyes widening. His breath hitches slightly, and Shen Yuan’s smile widens fondly. Such a good bun! In a few years, this precious lotus will have a harem of women who are basically his own private arsenal, each offering up their ample bosoms and the swords therein for him to conquer and kill with! Shattering taboos left and right were nothing at all to a man like Luo Binghe would become!

For the moment, he is still a tender sprout, young and filled with worries.

“Shixiong, you can’t mean— To draw someone else’s blade, it’s—”

“It’s alright,” Shen Yuan assures, reaching up to pat Luo Binghe’s head. “This shixiong isn’t going into such a thing foolishly or without caution.”

“But this disciple couldn’t—shixiong, you can’t mean yourself? This disciple has heard it can be painful—ruinous!” Sweet eyes dart around the clearing, no doubt anxious about being discovered in such an emotionally fraught and taboo act.

“And with anyone else, this shixiong would be concerned,” Shen Yuan agrees. “It’s only, if it’s Binghe, it will certainly be alright.”

After all, in all of those times pulling others blades in Proud Immortal Demon Way, weren’t the only ones hurt always the ones Luo Binghe was intentionally punishing?

“The clearing is warded to keep off troublemakers,” Shen Yuan adds, standing before Binghe. “No one will see, and you have shixiong’s word that no one will hear of it either. It’s only Binghe and I here.”

Ah, though, perhaps Luo Binghe isn’t so indiscriminate as to draw just anyone’s soul sword. Certainly they’ve become close, but Shen Yuan shouldn’t be too presumptuous!

“Of course, if Binghe doesn’t want to do something so intimate with this shixiong, that is completely alright,” he soothes. “I don’t want to pressure—”

“I want to!” Luo Binghe bursts out all at once, and Shen Yuan blinks at the vehemence.

“If shixiong really wants,” he adds. “If you’re really sure it’s okay. And—and you’ll stop me if it hurts! If you don’t like it!”

“En,” Shen Yuan agrees, relaxing at the bright enthusiasm of his little sheep. So excited! What a good learning experience it will be for him!

He stifles a smile as Luo Binghe’s arms raise, then lower, then raise again, hovering.

“How—” the boy mutters, eyes flicking from Shen Yuan’s face to his chest and back.

“Here,” Shen Yuan says, stepping in towards him. “I’ll have to be close. Is that alright?”

“Yes, shixiong.”

Shen Yuan takes a slow breath, steadying his heart and mind against what comes next. He remembers the pain of it. The sudden, harsh intimacy of having such a central piece of him handled. It’s alright if it’s Binghe, he tells himself, and offers the boy at his side a soft smile.

He guides Luo Binghe’s hand over his chest, holding it in place against his soft robes. The scar throbs in time with his heartbeat, but it isn’t fear. It isn’t every day you help the protagonist on his journey, after all!

“Feel for it with your qi,” he advises, his voice still calm and controlled.

At once, a soft pulse of fresh and pure spiritual energy slides through him like a cold rain sweeping down over the bamboo forest of Shen Yuan’s meridians.

“Oh,” Luo Binghe whispers in a breathless tone, as if he’d found something awe-inspiring hidden in Shen Yuan’s chest, and not the simple, plain blade he knows lives there.

“You feel it?” Shen Yuan asks, tilting his head back and starting to bend. He feels a hand rise up behind him, cradling his ribs from behind, and he lets out a breath of relief. He can bend to draw his own sword, but like this it will be easier. His knees tend to go a little rubbery whenever he draws Xian Ya, and he knows it will be a stronger response when Binghe does it.

“Yes,” Binghe breathes, his eyes fixed on Shen Yuan’s face with incredible intensity. “Can I—?”

“Mm,” Shen Yuan hums permissively, and lets his eyes fall closed, and his body go loose in Binghe’s hold. His back bends, weight supported by that surprisingly strong arm, and he lets his head fall back as he feels—

When Shen Qignqiu drew Shen Yuan’s sword, it felt like being burned from the inside out. The fire wasn’t cruel, but it was still fire—hot and destructive, searing the softest pieces of him.

When Binghe’s fingers, wreathed in the golden light of Shen Yuan’s soul, touch the hilt, he is ready for pain.

Which means he doesn’t at all manage to tamp down on the sound that escapes him instead. A soft, breathy sigh of relief at the touch of that hand against him. It isn’t a fire. It isn’t painful. It’s too much, but in a way he doesn’t know how to describe. It isn’t cold or hot—it isn’t rough or smooth. It isn’t the difference between a barbed hilt and a leather-wrapped grip, or between his own hand pulling a sword—a nothing touch like washing his own face—and Shen Qingqiu burning him from the inside out.

Luo Binghe is something new. It’s a feeling that isn’t as simple as ‘hurt’ or ‘good.’ It’s…

Once, while training, he’d gotten hit too hard. He’d gone down, and he hadn’t been able to breathe. Normal, he knew. Even when he wasn’t a cultivator, he’d had the breath knocked out of him before. This isn’t like lying there unable to breathe—it’s like the first breath after.

He sags heavily in Luo Binghe’s arm, and Xian Ya sings free of his body—warm, alive, and eager in Luo Binghe’s hand. Shen Yuan can tell that if the boy used it, it would jump to his commands. It would pierce the sky or slice mountains in two—more than it ever would have done for Shen Yuan himself.

But Luo Binghe isn’t focused on the sword.

“Shixiong?” he calls, the arm he has around Shen Yuan’s bowed back drawing him closer to his chest.

“I’m fine,” Shen Yuan assures at once, embarrassed at how breathy his voice sounds. “I’m fine.”

It feels amazing, actually. His chest doesn’t feel empty at all. It just feels… Light. Like someone has picked up a heavy weight for him, and let him step lightly. He blinks his eyes open, and finds himself gazing up at Luo Binghe’s worried expression, his hands flat against his shidi’s chest, fingers just barely curled into his robes.

His sword, drawn and shining in the light, is held gently in Luo Binghe’s other hand, blade pointed safely away from them. It isn’t screaming, or shuddering. It won’t be turned on anyone. There’s no blood on its blade, from beasts or from Shen Yuan’s own chest.

Oh , he thinks, mouth going suddenly dry and his eyes widening. I’m safe here .

“Are you sure?” Luo Binghe asks, his brows twisted in concern and his lips parted around his breathing, trembling ever so faintly as if he were about to bawl. “It doesn’t hurt?”

“It doesn’t,” Shen Yuan breathes, then realizes—isn’t he just being a fainting maiden right now, slumped against the protagonist’s chest?!

Swiftly he pats Luo Binghe’s chest twice, then straightens up. His knees hold him, and he clears his throat, straightening the collars of his robes. It doesn’t matter that he’s fully covered, head to toe. He still feels fully exposed. Something far more intimate than his skin is in Luo Binghe’s hand.

“What do you think?” Shen Yuan asks, averting his eyes from the intense gaze holding him. “Do you understand a little better now?”

“Yes,” Binghe whispers, turning those dark eyes down on the sword in his hands. “This foolish disciple understands.”

Shen Yuan doesn’t have any idea at all why Luo Binghe has that look on his face. Xian Ya isn’t a very good sword. Shen Qingqiu told him so years ago, though not particularly unkindly. “It’s fragile, stocky, and artless,” he’d huffed. “But then, drawing it early may have stunted its growth. You’ll have to work harder than most to make any use of it.”

So why is Luo Binghe looking down at the blade as if it were a masterpiece?!

“You can use it if you want,” Shen Yuan offers uncertainly, tilting his head as he takes in the scene of his boring, stunted soul being gazed at by the man who will one day create Xin Mo—the most beautiful blade known to man.

“No, no, this disciple wouldn’t dare!” Luo Binghe cries at once, fumbling to offer up the blade in both hands for Shen Yuan.

In his haste, his fingers brush over the sharp end of the sword, and he flinches. But sharp as the blade is, it doesn’t even scratch him. Shen Yuan smiles, soft and indulgent, and carefully lifts his sword from Luo Binghe’s hands, throwing his head back and sheathing his soul in a swift, practiced motion.

He kindly pretended not to notice Luo Binghe flinching forward, as if trying to guard him from the sharp edges of his own soul. Such a sweet, silly bun…

“Ready to try again after feeling it?” 

Shen Yuan can feel the touch of Binghe’s warm hand against the hilt of his blade buzzing through him for a long time after they return to their normal lessons.

“Shizun,” he mutters, alone in the bamboo house, staring down at his favorite fan, “It didn’t hurt at all.”

Shen Qingqiu isn’t there to answer, but it’s just as well. Shen Yuan can’t imagine a reaction to knowing Luo Binghe had touched Shen Yuan’s soul that wouldn’t include screaming, tearing things apart, or another qi deviation.

Two days later, Luo Binghe sprints up to Shen Yuan with a wild grin on his face.

“Shixiong, shixiong!” he cries, bubbly as if he were still a mere child and not swiftly approaching adulthood. “Shixiong!”

“Yes, hello Binghe,” Shen Yuan replies indulgently, glancing to him from where he’d been speaking with Ming Fan. “This shixiong heard you the first time.”

“This shidi will excuse himself,” Ming Fan says with a heavy sigh, rolling his eyes towards Luo Binghe.

Shen Yuan flicks his fan at him affectionately enough, though he’s so captivated by what could have the protagonist so excited that he likely wouldn’t be able to focus on Ming Fan’s reports on the ongoing water balloon arms race against Bai Zhan Peak.

The fight-hungry shidi of the war god’s peak had been running rampant recently, and the residents of Qing Jing had taken to providing the unruly disasters with free showers any time they dare to show their faces. So recently Bai Zhan has been attempting to return fire in kind. Unfortunately they don’t have the talisman and spell skills of Shen Yuan’s brats, so they’re just appearing on the peak with buckets of water and explosive talismans.

All of that pales in comparison to the effervescent glee of Luo Binghe as the young man grabs Shen Yuan’s hand, tugging him towards their training spot.

With a laugh, Shen Yuan follows. Honestly, what’s gotten into him?

He’s burning to ask, but before he can so much as gather the words for it, Luo Binghe whirls back towards him, and closes the distance in a step. Shen Yuan’s heart beats once, hard , as if it pounded all the way through him at the sudden proximity of those star-filled eyes. Luo Binghe’s grin is blinding, wiping all thoughts from his mind but so cute, so fluffy, so—

Shen Yuan blinks, and catches up with the reality of the fact that Binghe is pressing his hand against his chest.

“Shixiong,” he breathes. “Feel!”

Delicately, carefully, barely expending the smallest trace of qi, Shen Yuan sends a pulse through his favorite character’s meridians, and sucks in a breath at the shape of a blade within him—shining, pure, new, beautiful .

“Binghe,” he says, laughing in bewildered delight. “Already?”

“Shixiong, draw it,” Luo Binghe urges, his eyes wild with excitement, and Shen Yuan—

Shen Yuan can’t breathe. He’s doubled over, hands clenched in the front of his robes. His chest hurts. He’s himself. He’s awake. He’s in pieces. He’s dreaming. It hurts. It doesn’t. Something is screaming. He’s making something scream. Drawing blood. Hurting. Wounding.

More sharply than he means to, Shen Yuan yanks his hand away from Binghe’s chest, palm still flat, holding both hands out in a gesture of peace.

“No,” he says quickly, and watches surprise drop over Luo Binghe’s expression.

“That is—” he scrambles, before that surprise can crumble into hate, “won’t shidi draw his sword to show me? This shixiong shouldn’t touch, but—”

“I drew yours,” Luo Binghe points out, brows furrowed.

“It’s been drawn before,” Shen Yuan says, “so it’s okay. But it can… It can hurt if the wrong person—that is—”

He takes a breath, watching the horror he’d wanted to avoid cloud Binghe’s expression. He chews on his lip, then nods to himself and starts briskly pulling apart his robes. Luo Binghe yelps, reaching forward to catch Shen Yuan’s wrists.

“Shixiong, what—”

“It’s okay,” Shen Yuan comforts. “There’s only Binghe here.”

Luo Binghe’s mouth drops open, but his hands go loose around Shen Yuan’s wrists, allowing him to pull apart the high collars of the robes Shen Qingqiu always insists he wears. He tugs apart the fabric so that Luo Binghe can see the ragged, ugly starburst of mottled, pale scar tissue in the center of his chest.

Then he has to stand there, frowning slightly, with his robes parted, until Luo Binghe actually looks at him, because for some reason his little shidi is staring off into the woods. Who knew he would be so embarrassed about a little thing like this between men! Doesn’t he live in the dorms with all the other disciples?

…He does live in the dorms with the other disciples, right? Shen Yuan makes a mental note to check the woodshed tonight.

Luo Binghe’s eyes finally flick towards him, dark eyes only briefly glancing at first, only to—

“Who did this?!” Luo Binghe snaps, immediately gripping Shen Yuan’s wrists again, but this time to keep them in place—keep the scar exposed.

Ah, so protective! Shidi, this shixiong isn’t one of your wives to be avenged!

“It was a long time ago,” Shen Yuan answers, shaking his head to wave it off. “This shixiong doesn’t mind it. I only want Binghe to see why I won’t draw his sword. If I were to hurt you like this—”

“Did it hurt when I—?” Luo Binghe starts, looking sick to his stomach, and Shen Yuan starts shaking his head before even the first word has finished leaving his mouth.

“Not a bit,” he assures, “but let this shixiong worry for his shidi and his brand new soul blade.”

“But who’s worrying for shixiong?” Luo Binghe mutters, his brows knit tight over his burning gaze, still fixated on the scar.

Shen Yuan shifts uncomfortably, tugging lightly against the grip on his wrists. He has to tug twice before Luo Binghe blinks back into reality and releases his wrists as if they were burning.

He clears his throat, closing up his top again. In truth, it doesn’t really matter whether it would hurt Binghe or not, though he’d prefer to avoid that chance. In the book, no one had ever dared to touch the protagonist’s blade! Even when he drew the soul from a different woman from his harem for every battle, never once was his own soul entrusted into the hands of another. If he couldn’t even trust Liu Mingyan, obviously the best wife, with his soul, then what right did Shen Yuan have?

He blinks out of his thoughts to find a Luo Binghe looking stricken, staring down at the grass beneath their feet. Oh, that won’t do at all… He looks so forlorn—so tragic! Shen Yuan can’t resist—he can’t help himself! He reaches out, and— paff!

Luo Binghe’s hair is soft and a little fluffy under his hand, even neatly bound as it is.

“There, don’t let this shixiong dampen your spirit,” Shen Yuan soothes as best he can, patting Luo Binghe’s head over and over. “Won’t you show me your sword? I’ve been looking forward to seeing how powerful my shidi will be when he grows into himself!”

Luo Binghe’s dark eyelashes flicker, then he glances up from beneath them, his chin still tucked and his lower lip sticking out ever so slightly in a tiny pout. Shen Yuan feels something crack and shudder inside him. Maybe his restraint? He definitely pats Luo Binghe’s head more quickly!

It’s not a reasonable response, but it does seem to help. A smile cracks through that pout, and the sparkle returns to Binghe’s starfield eyes.

“Alright, alright, shixiong,” he laughs, ducking out from under the patting with a broad grin. “Then…”

He tilts back, head first, then shoulders, then chest. A smooth, elegant roll, dipping himself backwards, surrendering as one must to unsheathe their true self.

Zheng Yang is more beautiful than Shen Yuan could have dreamed. Its blade gleams, still dull for now, but clearly already sharpening itself into something more useful. It is slender, and sweet—well-balanced, with a soft green color to its tassel, and a simple black wrap around the hilt.

Within a few short years, it will shatter on the edge of the endless abyss.

“It’s perfect for you,” Shen Yuan cries, forcing enthusiasm as his precious bun preens proudly, his newly formed soul sword resting in his calloused palms.

There’s a panic spreading in Shen Yuan’s blood. It feels like the moment he saw the monster turn towards him. It feels like the moment he woke up to find himself bound. It feels like the knowledge that he’s dying.

The abyss, he thinks as his soul sword screams in his chest, cannot happen .

Chapter Text

One of the things Shen Yuan appreciates about his transmigration experience is the lack of a system to torment him. In so many of the books he’d read as a wealthy second-gen longing for adventure, some transmigration system or another had enforced all sorts of plot points—great and terrible.

In this life, there’s no system to contend with, but that only means his struggle to change this world won’t be against an unknown, faceless evil.

It’ll be against Shen Qingqiu.

And sure, Shen Qingqiu has been… Honestly pretty great, in comparison to the original? Scumbag villain where?! What a threadbare plot PIDW must have had if an insignificant NPC like Shen Yuan can knock Shen Qingqiu’s whole character arc off course!

But he has to admit to himself he wouldn’t put it past even the comparatively sweet Shen Qingqiu he knows now to throw Luo Binghe into a Big Hole of Certain Death With No Consequences given the opportunity.

(Some part of him—some squirming, uncomfortable part—thinks he might not even mean to. He might not even be aware of doing it. Shen Qingqiu in the novel had frequent qi deviations, but they were always offscreen—subtle fluctuations of a damaged cultivation. The Shen Qingqiu Shen Yuan knows now seems more like a piece of rusty machinery, threatening with every moment to shake itself to pieces and come crumbling down. He doesn’t know what changed to make him that way, but it’s an inescapable truth.

And there’s a sick feeling in Shen Yuan’s chest that doesn’t fade easily, even with inattention, because the only thing that’s changed in Shen Qingqiu’s life is him.)

As the third year of Shen Qingqiu’s seclusion wears on, Shen Yuan spends more and more of his free time obsessed with the planning of a particular event that won’t come for years more. What can he do to dissuade his master without giving away what he knows? If Shen Qingqiu knew that Luo Binghe was fated to rip him limb from limb he would definitely just try to kill the protagonist on the spot!

Try being the operative word, because it wouldn’t work. Luo Binghe in the original novel, barely clinging to any shattered edge of cultivation, had still been able to beat even a demon elder. And Luo Binghe in this world…

“Shixiong, are you watching?” Cries his little lamb, balanced on one long, bending stalk of bamboo without deigning to use even a single hand, his gleaming soul sword in hand and a cheerful smile on his face.

“Closely,” Shen Yuan agrees, summoning more qi infused leaves for his little shidi to practice on. “Asking Binghe to stay focused as well instead of getting distracted showing off.”

“This disciple would never,” Luo Binghe chirps, and does a neat little backflip to avoid the sharp bamboo leaves Shen Yuan sends pelting towards him.

Shen Yuan hides a sigh behind his fan as he watches his cute bun play among the bamboo, light and fleet, flash-stepping from one bamboo branch to the other. The jostling branches provide Shen Yuan with endless ammunition to send flying back at Luo Binghe, but he feels no need to hold back like he had the first couple of times they played this game.

He’s certain Shen Qingqiu would spit blood if he knew what Shen Yuan was using the leaf-blade technique he’d passed along to him for such a thing.

A leaf split neatly in half flutters down past Shen Yuan, shortly followed by a rain of others. He stifles a laugh, looking up to where Luo Binghe stands on the very tip of a bamboo, bending it nearly to the point of snapping to be close to eye-line with Shen Yuan without quite ending the game.

“Shizun is distracted,” he teases.

“I’m not your shizun,” Shen Yuan argues, and walks forward to personally tap his closed fan against Luo Binghe’s forehead in rebuke.

“You teach me,” Luo Binghe argues with a wicked little grin.

“Unfilial,” Shen Yuan accuses. “Come down if you’re just going to stand there. The poor bamboo.”

Luo Binghe steps down in a smooth motion, not even flinching as the bamboo swings wildly back up to its full height, swaying along with the whole forest—not from the wind, but from serving as the young protagonist’s playground.

“Shixiong,” he says, submitting as easily as always to Shen Yuan’s scolding (not that it means he ever actually stops!), “has this disciple improved?”

Shen Yuan hums in agreement, casting his gaze away from Luo Binghe’s starry eyes and down to Zheng Yang.

So pure. So bright. There are even flower petals inlaid on its guard.

“Shixiong,” Luo Binghe calls again, practically begging for his praise.

“Alright, alright,” Shen Yuan sighs, giving a half-smile that reflects back at him in Zheng Yang’s blade. “Binghe has become nearly untouchable. Is that what you want to hear?”

“But shixiong could still beat me,” Luo Binghe insists cheerfully.

Unlikely, Shen Yuan thinks with a swell of pride that he realizes too late has made him curve into a full, real smile. He quickly clears his throat, tearing his eyes off his reflection to look back to Binghe.

“When shizun returns, you’ll likely start being sent on missions,” Shen Yuan says. “You’ve progressed so far I don’t doubt he’ll agree to sending you.”

Hah, for all his talk of not caring about his real shizun, Luo Binghe certainly straightens up and puffs with pride at that assurance.

“If shixiong deems this disciple ready, I’ll surely bring pride to the peak! Though, perhaps…”

He trails off, and Shen Yuan frowns.

“Is something wrong?”

“Not wrong exactly, but… Sometimes I worry that my sword isn’t good enough.”

Shen Yuan outright snorts, and quickly snaps his fan open to hide his expression.

“I do!” Luo Binghe insists. “Shixiong, don’t laugh!”

“Hasn’t it served you well?” Shen Yuan scolds, well aware his eyes are still laughing behind his fan. “Can’t you slice two dozen leaves in half and leave them to rain on this poor shixiong? Will you really disrespect poor Zheng Yang by not acknowledging how well it speaks for you?”

“This disciple would just feel better knowing an expert had evaluated it,” Binghe insists, carefully swinging his sword to rest over his palms. “Won’t you test it, shizun?”

Binghe, protagonist, shidi, why are you like this?! Though it’s probably a good thing you can trust so freely, not having the tenderness stomped out of you, shouldn’t a scene like this be reserved for Ning Yingying?! Isn’t your childhood love interest somewhere on the peak feeling abruptly forlorn knowing you’ve offered the first touch of your soul to your fuddy-duddy shixiong?!

“Binghe should be careful who he trusts with such things,” Shen Yuan offers.

“With respect, this disciple is being very careful,” Luo Binghe insists. “No one could be safer than shixiong.”

…Well what the fuck then. Shen Yuan’s eyes fix on the blade. Should he take it? Should he refuse? Is it… Appropriate? Sure Binghe’s already held Shen Yuan’s soul, but that’s different. This is the protagonist! The hero/anti-hero of PIDW! If his touch hurt Binghe, he couldn’t—

Distantly on the peak, something explodes.

Thank the heavens!

“This shixiong will endeavor to be worthy of Binghe’s trust,” Shen Yuan says, not breaking his shidi’s little heart, but also not agreeing as he reaches out to clasp a hand on his forearm. “Sadly, this shixiong should go look into what just happened.”

He squeezes Binghe’s arm once, refusing to look and see if he looks disappointed, and flash-steps towards the noise.

There’s a significant hole in the side of the kitchens, and Shen Yuan scowls at it darkly.

“Shixiong,” Ning Yingying greets with a bow that does nothing to soften her narrowed eyes and pouting scowl.

“Bai Zhan Peak again?” Shen Yuan guesses, gesturing at the damage.

“There was a fight.” Ning Yingying agrees in a completely flat voice.

“Right,” Shen Yuan says, straightening up and sending his own glare towards Bai Zhan, “that’s more than enough of that.”

How dare they endanger his precious bun’s kitchen?! Don’t they know Binghe gets stressed when he doesn’t have access to cooking equipment?! What if they’d damaged some of his preservation charms, or ruined his prep work?! Unacceptable!

“Asking Ning-Shimei to inform Ming Fan and begin the paperwork for An Ding.”

“I will!” Ning Yingying sings at once, chipper as a songbird to be of use. “But what will shixiong do?”

“This shixiong is going to take a page out of his shizun’s book and have words with a certain war god.”

It is well known on Qing Jing Peak that Liu Qingge is the absolute worst. Nothing he does is elegant, calm, or collected. He flings himself out of the sect, flings himself into battles, flings himself into meetings, flings himself into fighting with their shizun… So much flinging!

At his first glimpse of the man, during the first peak lord meeting Shen Yuan was allowed to attend for note-taking, he had considered the war god shockingly beautiful. After knowing him for mere minutes the shine wore off. Who did this idiot think he was, calling shizun without his title and accusing him of ridiculous sabotage simply because Shen Qingqiu couldn’t stop being mean, snarky, and sarcastic if his life depended on it! 

At least Qi Qingqi restrained herself to snarking back and glaring! Liu Qingge looked like he was about to fling himself over the table as well! What was this circus?! Why did Yue Qingyuan insist on telling everyone to settle down instead of calling out the person about to start a fist-fight, hah?! Didn’t he feel the piercing knives Shen Qingqiu shot out of his eyes at him for that?! Danger, Qingyuan-bro! Danger!

“Well?” Shen Qingqiu had said after that first meeting, straightening the fall of the ribbon draped over his hairpiece after their flight back to Qing Jing. “What has my student learned?”

“...May this student be frank, shizun?”

An indulgent wave of an elegant hand permitted it.

“Something is wrong with them!” Shen Yuan had exclaimed in disgust.

It was the closest he’d ever come to seeing Shen Qingqiu laugh, as the man’s cold eyes tightened at the corners and his lips twitched upwards before he could cover the motion with his fan.

“You!” Shen Yuan snaps, storming onto Bai Zhan Peak like a force of nature (or his best approximation of one—he’s seen Shen Qingqiu storm like that, and he’s been trying to imitate it ever since!).

The disciple he points at jumps, as if on instinct, then scowls and glares.

“What business does Qing Jing have here?” he demands, crossing his arms and scowling.

“I’m not wasting time with you,” Shen Yuan informs him with a disgusted sneer that he enjoys employing whenever he has a chance—particularly on Yue Qingyuan, as the sect leader always responds by flicking a panicked glance between him and Shen Qingqiu. “Where is Liu Qingge?”

“That’s Liu-Shishu to you!” another disciple yells.

Great, he’s already got an audience of little Bai Zhan idiots, they’re probably going to make him fight his way through.

“I will pay him due respect when he does the same for my master,” Shen Yuan spits, eyes narrowed, focusing his qi into the surrounding leaves—nothing deadly , but a deterrent if they decide to forego propriety! “Now where is he? This head disciple has words for him!”

One of the bullies scoffs and rolls his eyes. “If Qing Jing can’t handle a few fights, should they be considered cultivators?”

“Besides,” another yells, “Shifu isn’t here. He entered seclusion in the Lingxi caves upon returning to—Hey!”

This last is shouted at Shen Yuan’s back as he runs.

If he’d ever given in to the suggestion to pick up a Wang Jian sword in addition to his soul blade, he would have hopped onto it immediately. As it is, he has to stumble to a halt, throwing himself back to drag his aching sword from his chest. The moment it’s free, it shoots forward to let him jump atop it, rocketing towards the Lingxi caves.

It can’t be that time already. It can’t be. It can’t be!

He forgot. How had he forgotten? Shen Qingqiu entering seclusion… Wasn’t that the beginning of the end?! The blood on his shizun’s hands… How long had he stayed in seclusion before emerging with the corpse of Liu Qingge?! When during the seclusion had he killed him?! Was Shen Yuan too late? What if—What would he do if—The other peak lords already disliked Shen Qingqiu! Every meeting was a powder keg, miraculously not yet exploding! Maybe something to do with the sect leader’s even-keel presence?

But this—This would tip the scale irrevocably! Nevermind all of Shen Yuan’s plans for the Immortal Alliance Conference! This would ruin Shen Qingqiu’s life!

(What isn’t already ruined, his heart whispers, aching in the sword under his feet with truth. He knows, he knows, he knows—that sword that bit his hands, that screamed in his grip as surely as it screamed in Shen Qingqiu’s. He knows it’s not screaming in anger.)

He lands hard on the mountain path to the caves, grabbing his sword out of the dirt, stumbling forward to the cave entrance, drawing in a breath to scream.

A figure steps into the light from the cave entrance.

Too late, Shen Yuan thinks, his heart piercing straight through with the terror, his sword giving off a little wail of desperation.

At the sound, the figure turns sharply towards him, and—

All but hanging off of Shen Qingqiu’s side is a very dazed, but very much alive Liu Qingge. He’s drenched in blood—and worse, so is Shen Qingqiu. They look beaten and bruised—clothes torn, and hair in disarray, as if they’d just been fighting for their lives, but they’re both—they’re both—!

Shen Yuan drops his sword and flings himself forward, wrapping his arms tight around the scum villain. He feels the breath he sucks in. He feels how slim he is under his robes—clammy with sweat. He feels the qi roiling inside him, pinging off the sword he remembers so clearly, even so many years later.

He squeezes his master in the tightest hug he can manage, and shoves his face into his blood-stained robes.

“I knew you were the best,” he whispers, trembling. “I knew it.”

“What in the heavens is wrong with you?” Shen Qingqiu snaps, stumbling slightly under the combined weight of Liu Qingge and his clinging student. “Shen Yuan if you are qi deviating too this master will throw you off the mountain!”

Shen Yuan shakes his head. His position makes it kind of a nuzzle, but oh well. Shen Qingqiu will just have to put up with being nuzzled this one time. Relief always makes Shen Yuan stupid, and he has never been more relieved.

He’s ready to be struck or dragged off. He’s not ready for the hand that lightly touches his back, sending a thread of fragile, trembling qi through his meridians. His eyes burn and his throat tightens at the obvious display of care from a man who must be so angry.

“Wha?” mutters Liu Qingge, sounding half-awake.

As quickly and neatly as he can, Shen Yuan releases his master and clears his throat, remembering their audience. There’s blood smeared on his robes now, and some of it is fresh and hot.

“Shizun, you’re hurt,” he scolds, gesturing to Liu Qingge. “Let me take that for you.”

“Pick up your sword first you little idiot, ” Shen Qingqiu snaps, swaying like the bamboo Luo Binghe stretched too far in their spar.

“Shit, right,” Shen Yuan mutters, scrambling back for his soul sword.

“What was that?”

“I said ‘Yes, shizun!’” Shen Yuan hurries to lie, returning with his sword in one hand and his other extended for Liu Qingge.

“Unfilial little idiot,” Shen Qingqiu mutters, even as Shen Yuan hurries to grab the Bai Zhan War God under his armpit, dragging him off his master’s shoulders.

At the lack of weight, Shen Qingqiu sways in the opposite direction, throwing out a hand to steady himself against the rock wall. Shen Yuan wishes he could help carry him instead of the half-conscious pretty boy who must be entirely muscle from how heavy he is.

“Why are you even here ?” Shen Qingqiu snaps, though if he’s trying to sound angry he hasn’t quite managed it. 

Shen Yuan opens his mouth, then closes it again. Fuck. Shit! Why is he here?! He did not stop to think of a cover story! Prophetic dream? No! Prophetic of what!? That Shen Qingqiu would murder his martial brother in the caves?! Bad plan! That something went wrong on the peak? Oh, that he was here for Liu Qingge to take revenge for Qing Jing?! No, wait, he shouldn’t—

For the second time in the same day, with the elegance of a story built to allow plot contrivance, Shen Yuan’s spiraling thoughts are interrupted by an explosion.

Like a tram wheel popped back into his track, his brain connects this event to the next, and he chokes out: ‘Demons on the mountain?”

Shen Qingqiu stares at him. Halfway over his shoulder, Liu Qingge pulls back to stare at him too. For a moment there’s dead silence as a plume of smoke rises in the direction of Qiong Ding.

“Why didn’t you lead with that?!” Shen Qingqiu snarls, shoving off from the cave’s entry and dragging the screaming sword from his chest.

And oh, Xiu Ya is screaming. Not loudly this time, but like it’s pleading. Begging. Shen Yuan’s chest aches so badly he almost drops Liu Qingge straight in the dirt.

“Wait—” he starts to call, but Shen Qingqiu is already in the sky.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, he knows. Shen Qingqiu should be untouchable. It should only be after the demon invasion that Liu Qingge’s body is discovered. This scene is supposed to play out in a way to further condemn the scum villain’s actions. Empowered and emboldened by Liu Qingge’s death, he faced the demon invaders with no fear, even using the attack as an excuse to further torment Luo Binghe!

But just as Shen Yuan had begun to fear, whatever he’s changed, it’s changed Shen Qingqiu. And if he knows one thing about stories like PIDW, it’s that good people, whether they’re kind shixiongs or good teachers, always get killed.

“Apologies, Shishu,” Shen Yuan says, and grabs Liu Qingge around the waist, tossing him fully over one shoulder and taking off after his master.

“Hey!” Liu Qingge barks, wriggling weakly.

Shen Yuan pays him no mind. Surely, surely Shen Qingqiu doesn’t count as a good teacher. He should still be safe for this scene! But in the story, the three fighters were Shen Qingqiu himself, Liu Mingyan, and Luo Binghe. Win, loss, win. In this world…

Shen Yuan grits his teeth and flies faster. In this world, with his vicious sword crying for mercy, Shen Qingqiu is in greater danger by far than poor Binghe!

Chapter Text

When Shen Qingqiu rockets towards the ground before him, Shen Yuan first thinks that it’s a sign his spiritual power has given into impending qi deviation again. He pushes himself faster, making Liu Qingge groan over his shoulder, only to see Shen Qingqiu neatly land in the woods.

“Comb.” Shen Qingqiu demands the moment Shen Yuan lands, already stripping off his outer robe.

Setting Liu Qingge down is awkward, especially with the idiot war god still squirming, but Shen Yuan pays it little mind. He scrambles in his qiankun pouch, and holds out the comb he always carries for Binghe’s easily-mussed hair.

“Find my spare robe,” Shen Qingqiu demands, tossing a pouch of his own to Shen Yuan.

“Shizun, why are you—?”

“Get the blood off of your face too,” his master instructs sharply. “If we are to face demons, we will do so appearing untouchable.”

His hands are shaking as he drags the comb roughly through his hair. Shen Yuan pretends not to notice as diligently as he can, scrubbing at his face to remove any traces of Shen Qingqiu’s blood after their hug, then fumbling for a new robe for his master.

“Shizun need not go,” he insists, trying not to notice how bad the bloodstains are on even just the next layer down of his dumb scum villain’s robes. “If this disciple had known you were hurt—”

“He would have gone to face the demons alone, no doubt,” spits Shen Qingqiu, twisting half his hair into a knot with brutal efficiency and fumbling for his hair crown.

“Let me,” Shen Yuan hurries forward, reaching up.

Shen Qingqiu flinches.

They both freeze for a moment, dark eyes locked on one another. Shen Qingqiu’s breathing is elevated. Abandoned by his feet, Xiu Ya is still softly wailing.

Slowly, carefully, Shen Yuan continues his motion anyway. He replaces Shen Qingqiu’s trembling fingertips with his own, and places his shizun’s crown over the knot in his hair, pinning it through with the silver stick he’s chosen. He rubs his thumb over it, removing a fleck of blood.

Didn’t this character used to look so tall? Wasn’t he so much taller than Shen Yuan when he secluded himself? What happened to the untouchable scum villain? Why is his hair so easily in hands’ reach?

Shen Qingqiu moves a step away, and holds out a hand, yanking his gaze away from Shen Yuan and towards the now-audible yelling of whatever confrontation is going on at Qiong Ding Peak. Mostly anger, it sounds like. No wailing death screams or anything yet.

The spare outer robe Shen Qingqiu had carried into the caves is a thick green brocade, patterned with cranes. He wraps it over the drying bloodstains, and somehow, between one blink and the next, he is an untouchable immortal again.

“Leave the brute here,” Shen Qingqiu instructs. “We’ll send help for him after dealing with the demons. Best they don’t see our so-called ‘war god’ indisposed.”

“Hey,” mutters the man, fumbling a hand out towards them where he’s leaned up against a tree.

Shen Yuan pauses, watching him with narrowed eyes, even as Shen Qignqiu turns to walk away. He won’t die out here, right? If he undid all of Shen Qingqiu’s work and died like this, Shen Yun was going to be pissed.

“Why would you…?” Liu Qingge is muttering, squinting at Shen Qingqiu’s back. “Why would…?”

“Shen Yuan!” calls Shen Qingqiu over his shoulder, and he tears himself away to follow at his shizun’s side.

“What do you know of the situation?” demands the Qing Jing Peak Lord, his cold eyes fixed forward and no trace of fragility remaining about him, save for the mournful sounds of Xiu Ya.

Oh, right, Shen Yuan should have seen the demons to have gone for help.

“An invading force. I saw them shatter a rainbow bridge. Zhangmen-shixiong is away, and with shizun and Liu-shishu in seclusion…”

“They thought to waltz in with no repercussions,” sneers Shen Qingqiu, his stride lengthening into something closer to a stalk than an immortal’s glide. His robes and sleeves billow with his motion, and Shen Yuan mourns inside his heart. He will definitely never look that badass, no matter how hard he imitates his teacher!

“Let me fight for you!” Shen Yuan pleads, and the billowing stalk abruptly halts.

Shen Qingqiu’s gaze remains ice cold as he turns it on Shen Yuan. The anger and offense aren’t feigned.

“You’re hurt,” Shen Yuan objects, already feeling himself wilting.

“Idiot,” Shen Qingqiu spits, and turns straight back to stalking towards the smoke and screaming.

Fine then, Shen Yuan thinks, glaring at his back. They’ll do it the hard way.

In the original Proud Immortal Demon Way, this demon invasion had been milked for multiple chapters. With such a charming villainess as Sha Hualing and such a fraught, perilous situation endangering not only the protagonist, but his childhood sweetheart Ning Yingying and future wife Liu Mingyan, how could there not be page after page of thick, syrupy exposition and heavily flavored juxtapositions of demons in spiked and ridged armor surrounding delicate beauties?

The reality of the situation feels so strange in comparison, Shen Yuan thinks as he marches out onto Qiong Ding Peak at Shen Qingqiu’s heels, doing his best to match the intensity of his shizun’s glare and motions.

The first disciple to catch a glimpse of them audibly gasps, and scrambles to step out of the way. The sea of students parts for Shen Qingqiu’s fury, and Shen Yuan rides the wake of his passing, his eyes locked forward until—

There! Binghe stands towards the front of the crowd, his soul sword in hand and his glare fixed forward. There’s something wild in his stance—something furious . It looks alarmingly good on him. After all, this is the protagonist! He’s destined for greater things than simple sweet smiles! It’s no surprise aggression suits him!

Beside Binghe, it’s Ming Fan who sees them first, and elbows his shidi and Ning Yingying both to gain their attention. Yingying elbows him sharply right back, hard enough that Ming Fan stumbles and pouts at her in betrayal.

Binghe, though, looks right over to the parting crowd. His eyes lock on Shen Yuan, and the light in them is overwhelming . Shen Yuan almost loses his stride, catching a breath as Binghe’s expression shifts, as if the corners of his rage have been filled in with hope and…Is that excitement? Well, he’s certainly standing taller! Shen Yuan gestures to the three of them, and they immediately come, pressing through the crowd. Shen Yuan turns his head forward again, coming to a stop just behind Shen Qingqiu in front of the mass of disciples.

As if they’d practiced it, he and his scum villain snap their fans open in tandem. Shen Yuan gives the demons before him his best ‘Shen Qingqiu Special’ glare.

…Holy shit he’s actually seeing demons!!! All his years in this world, and he’s never gotten to lay eyes on a single one, and now it’s one of the main characters! Though she hasn’t come forward to directly face Shen Qingqiu yet, there she is: Sha Hualing, as scantily clad as promised by the florid prose of one Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky! Isn’t she cold in that?!

For just a moment, as Shen Qingqiu surveys the scene, there is a genuine hush. The demons are watching. The disciples are watching. All eyes are on the wounded peak lord of Qing Jing as he scans the situation before scoffing.

“You’ve come a long way for the privilege of dying on Cang Qiong mountain,” Shen Qingqiu says in a voice so cold that if Sha Hualing isn’t already freezing, surely she will be now.

“My my, how cruel the famed immortal masters of the mountain are,” pouts Sha Hualing, her voice toned into an annoying simper that does nothing to soften the wicked light in her eyes. “This poor Hualing only wished to see the home of the Northern Desert’s future consort, after all.”

“If some refuse kicked off the mountain has infected the demon realm, you have my deepest sympathies,” Shen Qingqiu sneers in reply, and from Shen Yuan’s position he can see the genuine disgust curling his lip.

One day he is going to get the full story of what the fuck happened with Shang Qinghua! Is he responsible for getting the future Mobei Jun hooked up with a wife in this AU? Which one of Binghe’s wives did the side characters steal???

Shen Yuan glances back at his little sheep in sympathy, and finds Luo Binghe’s eyes already fixed on him. Luo Binghe lifts his chin slightly, then glances down at the ground, before meeting Shen Yuan’s eyes again.

Following the gaze, Shen Yuan watches Binghe shift his foot slightly to show the smear of blood he’s covering where he stands before regaining his stance. Trust the protagonist to have noticed! Good boy, Binghe! Shen Yuan nods shortly, then turns his eyes back to the conversation. Not that he has to wonder too much about where it’s going from here. He’s giving it three more jabs before Sha Hualing suggests—

“My subordinates are overeager, and broke that fragile little bridge in their rambunctiousness, but we really only came to learn and exchange skills with such a prestigious sect!”

And then Shen Qingqiu, probably aware he can’t kill ALL of the invaders without sacrificing a few disciples and making himself look bad—

“Very well. Three matches of skill, and then you will leave this mountain or be slaughtered.”

“Oh, but of course! If Cang Qiong’s cultivators win, we will leave at once. But doesn't the immortal master agree that this Hualing should deserve a prize for winning should we come out victorious?”

“And what prize would you take?” Drawls Shen Qingqiu, affecting boredom with the skill of long practice.

And then Sha Hualing will say ‘The name plate of—’

“A cultivator of my choice to become my future consort!” Sha Hualing declares, her eyes wild and bright.

Shen Yuan’s mouth drops open behind his fan. He glances back at Luo Binghe again in horror. He’s too young to get married, isn’t he?! His little sheep is only sixteen this year!  Practically still an infant! And for that matter, isn’t Sha Hualing too young as well?!

Luo Binghe meets his gaze with brows scrunched in confusion, and tilts his head. Shen Yuan quickly looks away, clearing his throat and trying to resurrect his scowl.

“I do not deal in the selling of humans.” Shen Qingqiu is saying in a cold, annoyed voice.

Sha Hualing heaves a sigh. “Very well. The name plate of Qiong Ding, then, but know that should you wish to retrieve it, the one you send to fetch it back will be considered by my people to be courting me in doing so.”

She lifts an eyebrow, smirking at the gathered cultivators. The frequency of nervous shifting among those gathered increases considerably. Shen Yuan fights the urge to roll his eyes, and instead glances back at Binghe once more.

All he has to do is rig the game a little. In a way, he already has. In the novel, Luo Binghe didn’t manage to draw his soul sword until after the demon invasion. This time, armed and healthy, Binghe will surely sweep the floor with Demon Hammer-Bro. Apologies from your shixiong for leaving you to that fate, Binghe! Here’s hoping that noticing shizun is injured softens your opinion towards him after he picks you to fight!

No, what he really needs to rig is—

“For the first fight, this master—” Shen Qingqiu is saying, and Shen Yuan reaches out to catch his sleeve, tugging just once to pause his master’s words and inhaling to claim the fight for himself.

“Shizun!” interrupts a fierce, wonderful, completely wrongly-timed voice.

Slow as a praying mantis, Shen Qingqiu turns his cold gaze on Luo Binghe.

“Allow this disciple to fight for Cang Qiong’s honor!” Luo Binghe says, eyes blazing and chin lifted, looking every inch the brave protagonist.

This time there are no disbelieving murmurs. Ming Fan huffs as if he knew this was coming. Ning Yingying closes her eyes as if she’s suffering. Shen Yuan just stares.

“Fine,” Shen Qingqiu sneers, tearing his eyes away from Luo Binghe at once and covering his scowl with his fan. “Do not dare fail after being so brazen as to volunteer.”

Shit, thinks Shen Yuan as Luo Binghe strides out to meet the massive demon Elder One Arm in battle. And then Shit! again, because this was not part of his calculations! Binghe! Who told you to volunteer?! The math rearranges in Shen Yuan’s head. If Binghe isn’t available for the third match, who—?

His train of thought doesn’t survive contact with his eyes following the fight. It derails the first moment Luo Binghe’s soul sword slashes a shining, heroic arc through the air, knocking aside Elder One Arm’s strike.

Compared to the demon he is tiny, though any day now he will surpass Shen Yuan’s height. If the demon thought this was an advantage, he was sorely mistaken.

Luo Binghe is vicious, fierce, elegant, skillful, unparalleled, full of promise, sharp, clever, handsome, quick, precise, and—

The fight ends before Shen Yuan is nearly done admiring it, with Elder One Arm on his knees and Luo Binghe accepting his yield with a regal incline of his head.

“What have you been feeding him?” Shen Qingqiu mutters to Shen Yuan out of the corner of his mouth, his expression of distaste hidden from the world at large behind his fan.

Shen Yuan glances briefly at the fan. Facing Shen Qingqiu on the reverse side of it is Shen Yuan’s own calligraphy, barely legible from his position. He remembers it, though—his most subtly insulting poetic attempt yet.

/Beautiful are the immovable peaks

their heads filled with clouds./

On the reverse would be an image he’d carefully painted, snickering all the while—distant mountains swathed in fog, seen past a stand of unsubtle bamboo.

He’d made it as a joke for his master years ago, hoping to make him crack a smile. He’d only succeeded in making Shen Qingqiu sneer and huff.

It isn’t the fan Shen Qingqiu carried into the caves. Shen Yuan had thought he’d thrown the damn thing out years ago. He thinks of the qiankun pouch filled with extra robes. Had the fan been in there the whole time?

Luo Binghe bows to Shen Qingqiu. The scum villain does not look at him, eyes on the distant clouds. In the sky overhead, a crane is flying by, undisturbed by the petty squabbles of immortals and demons.

Luo Binghe took the first fight, Shen Yuan realizes with a numb sort of terror.

“This saintess will participate in the second lesson,” Sha Hualing offers, tossing her hair with a motion that makes the bells all over her body chime.

“Shibo,” Liu Mingyan greets, bowing over her Wang Jian forged sword. “Allow this disciple to take on this battle.”

Shen Qingqiu gestures her forward.

“Shixiong?” Luo Binghe whispers, panting and disheveled, his hair damp with sweat, frizzing and curling even more than usual with the moisture.

Shen Yuan reaches out to touch his precious protagonist’s fluffy and unfortunately damp head, not wanting his internal screaming panic to detract from the sweet lamb’s success.

“Binghe isn’t hurt?” he whispers, even as Sha Hualing and Liu Mingyan face off.

“No, shixiong,” Luo Binghe chirps in a whisper, his grin bright.

Behind him, Ming Fan tugs Binghe’s ponytail, then shakes him by one shoulder in brotherly affection. Ning Yingying is controlling her breathing, eyes fixed forward even as she locks her fingers in Binghe’s sleeve.

Shen Yuan tries to focus. Tries to breathe.

Liu Mingyan will lose. The contest will go to three rounds. The third demon will be an impossible opponent, coated in poison, wielding a vicious hammer.

Shen Qingqiu is wounded, and thinner than Shen Yuan thought he was, and better than he could ever have hoped he was, and—

Who else is there? He checks the faces of the gathered disciples. Extras and side characters, every last one of them—that’s not fair of him, he knows, but just this once, fuck being nice!—and though Liu Qingge is alive he won’t be swooping in any time soon, judging by his state when Shen Yuan last saw him, so…

Liu Mingyan loses. The demons jeer. Murmurs roll through the gathered crowd of disciples.

Shen Yuan can feel his heartbeat in his fingertips. His fan wavers in time with it, it’s so heavy.

“Shibo, this disciple has failed.” Liu Mingyan bows deeply, her eyes downcast over her veil.

Shen Qingqiu’s lips twist, and he leans in close, hissing directly into her ear. If Shen Yuan were even a step further away, he would think his master was cursing every one of her ancestors for her failure. As it is, he hears:

“Act ashamed. Pained. Your brother is wounded, but alive. Southwest, in the forest, beneath a pine. Go.”

Liu Mingyan jerks back, her eyes wide. She searches Shen Qingqiu’s face—what’s visible of it—then shoves through the surrounding disciples, running towards the woods. A few of the other Xian Shu disciples make sympathetic noises, casting furious glances at Shen Qingqiu before following her.

"Oh dear,” tisks Sha Hualing, eyes laughing and burning at once, even as she straightens her artfully torn red silks. “Does Peak Lord Shen make a habit of making young ladies cry?”

“Choose your third,” Shen Qingqiu commands her, unmoved and unwavering.

This is fucked, Shen Yuan thinks, watching Sha Hualing’s smile turn cruel and vicious. The crowd of demons parts, anxiously avoiding the spikes on Elder Hammer’s armor as he approaches. This is fucked. 

If Binghe were fighting, the poison wouldn’t affect him. If Shen Yuan hadn’t changed things, Shen Qingqiu would’ve had to fight Elder One Arm, but surely he could still have won that fight! He at least could have survived it! This, though—This is a death sentence! Elder Hammer’s thighs are almost bigger around than Shen Qingqiu’s waist! Even if he doesn’t get pummeled into paste by the hammer, he already has qi deviations! He’s already unstable! Xiu Ya is practically weeping! He can’t possibly win, and if Without a Cure gets into his system, there’s only one way to fix that, and NO, NO, NOPE, ABSOLUTELY NOT THINKING ABOUT THAT!

So—

So—!

Shen Qingqiu inhales, and Shen Yuan steps closer. He’s got a plan for how to pull this off, courtesy of Shen Qingqiu’s own plan. He catches his master’s sleeve between two fingers, tugging once. He lifts his fan, covering their mouths as he whispers into his master’s ear.

“Shizun.”

“What, boy?” Shen Qingqiu snarls, eyes narrowed, and his expression guarded from the demons by his fan.

Shen Yuan’s lip curls into a half smile.

“Sorry,” he whispers, then snaps his fan shut, stepping back and bowing.

“This disciple is honored with your choice,” he proclaims, loudly.

Luo Binghe sucks in a breath. Shen Qingqiu’s eyes narrow down to furious slits. Ning Yingying outright screams.

But here’s the thing about it, Shen Yuan thinks, a little superior smile lingering on his lips as he turns to face Elder Hammer, craning his neck to glare into the demon’s eyes.

He’s been learning how to manage Shen Qingqiu for years and years now, and nothing is more reliable than putting him in a position where he would have to admit an error or make himself seem uncertain. His shizun’s thin face is his greatest weakness, and Shen Yuan is absolutely not above using it to make sure he doesn’t die during this fight that shouldn’t even have been his.

He places a hand on his chest, and draws free Xian Ya from inside his chest.

“Shixiong!” Luo Binghe objects from behind him, echoed by Ming Fan’s teary-voiced: “Shixiong!”

“Silence, both of you!” Shen Qingqiu snaps. It sounds like he’s got his teeth bared.

“Boy, you could forfeit and spare your life,” chuckles Elder Hammer, hefting his enormous namesake over his shoulder. “It’s only an establishment plaque.”

“This disciple gladly offers you the same, Elder Hammer,” Shen Yuan gestures magnanimously with his left hand. “There’s no need for you to risk life and limb for the establishment plaque of a sect. After all, even if you were to win it, our esteemed cultivators coming to claim it would hardly be courting you in doing so.”

Uneasy laughter smatters through the audience, and Elder Hammer’s face twists up in annoyance and disgust.

I’m a fucking idiot, Shen Yuan thinks to himself past a pleasant smile as he holds his shining soul sword before him.

Theoretically, he should have a leg up in this contest.

The hammer slams down so hard that even after dodging it successfully Shen Yuan can’t capitalize on the opening it leaves, staggering against the buffeting winds.

He’s had years of training under his belt, experience in battle, the favor of a peak lord who’d been guiding him—all far more than Luo Binghe had ever had.

In a fair world, Elder Hammer would be slow in a clumsy way, like a mortal stumbling through a stream—easily harried by the darting minnows around them. 

Hell, Shen Yuan even has foreknowledge of events! He read the book! He should know what’s coming. 

Elder Hammer is not clumsy. He is slow in an inexorable way that should remind Shen Yuan of something majestic or terrifying, and instead only reminds him of Optimus Prime.

What Shen Yuan doesn’t have is a main character’s fighting prowess. What he doesn’t have is demonic blood to soften the blows of a massive hammer. What he doesn’t have is the protagonist’s killer instinct.

The first time the hammer hits him, Shen Yuan almost screams. All of a sudden, those words on the page are brutal, bloody reality. There was so much violence written in the original PIDW. This had fallen by the wayside, one drop in an ever-growing pond of brutality.

If this is one drop, Shen Yuan won’t even need an inch to drown. He can feel his pulse through his whole body—especially his left side. His fan slips from his hand and clatters down, but he keeps his sword lifted. His right side is still working. His legs are still holding him.

Shen Qingqiu is watching him over a fan Shen Yuan painted as a joke and his shizun never threw away.

Luo Binghe is being restrained by Ming Fan on one side and Ning Yingying on the other, a desperate, terrified look on his face.

Shen Yuan can’t let the demons win. The story’s already so off track, there’s no telling who could die if the contest’s ending changes.

Elder Hammer is already charging again, and Shen Yuan swings his blade to meet the hammer, and he hears his sword scream on impact.

It hurts in more ways than one. The physical pain is real. Almost worse is the absolute knowledge: His soul is not strong enough for this. Not for this littlest abuse Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky wrote into existence.

If he blocks again, his soul is going to shatter in front of all of them, and he is going to die and it will be so embarrassing!

Dodging is his only chance. With any other opponent, he’d get in close to break past his guard and lessen the hammer’s force, but that’s not an option. He knows theoretically that he could use the buffeting winds of Elder Hammer’s strikes to his advantage if he could just think fast enough to make it happen, but it’s all he can do to stay ahead of them. Get too close and the poison will kill him—stay too far away and shatter his sword against a giant stupid slab of rock.

His qi roils through his meridians as he pushes himself faster—sharper. He blasts raw power at the demon’s eyes, struggles to stay on his feet, kicks off the broken pavestones of Qiong Ding and flips away from the bruising nightmare of the hammer.

Something inside his left side slips and shifts, and it burns. He can’t stop, but he can’t keep going, and he—

He’s going to die again, he realizes, unable to take the breath he needs, unable to kick off again, unable to get out of the way of—

The hammer is falling.

Maybe he saved Shen Qingqiu’s life, some part of him thinks, while another part of him, far louder, is screaming MOVE!

He can’t.

He closes his eyes.

Something hot sprays over his face, and a terrible crashing sound follows, but it doesn’t hurt. Shen Yuan snaps his eyes open again, alarmed by his ability to do so, afraid to find himself in a mangled heap, still living, only—

Only that’s not what he finds at all. Before him, green silks rippling, are two forms. Tall, perfect, powerful, Shen Qingqiu has his blade shoved straight through Elder Hammer’s neck.

Even closer, Luo Binghe stands just before him, soaked in blood, with his own soul sword still lifted, having just cleaved through Elder Hammer’s right arm, sending the hammer and arm both flying.

For a moment, there’s dead silence. Shen Yuan’s mouth is open. He tastes blood. Slowly, the demon’s eyes roll back, and with a final, gurgling wheeze he crumples. Luo Binghe turns, his face painted red with the spurting blood of the demon. Shen Yuan meets his eyes, hunched in on himself, barely able to breathe, and he can’t—he doesn’t know what to—they—

“You underhanded scum!” shrieks Sha Hualing with delight bordering on mania. “If you’re going to break the rules, don’t expect us to follow them!”

“Beast, take the left.” Shen Qingqiu orders, slinging the blood from Xiu Ya.

“Yes, shizun!” Luo Binghe barks, whirling back to the demons and lifting his blade.

“Wait,” wheezes Shen Yuan.

He tries to step forward. His leg buckles, and his sword makes an awful sound. It shrieks like a hospital alarm, crying out for help for a dying patient.

Far from helping, this drags both of their eyes away from the demons, back to him, and they’re—they’re in danger, and Shen Yuan—it’s his fault, he shouldn’t have—he just wanted to—!

The sky lights up, and the demon hoard halts in their advance, looking up just in time to dodge away from an impossible array of sword glares. A wordless battlecry sounds from above, and from the sky falls Liu Qingge like a shooting star of vengeance.

And then Shen Yuan can’t seem to see any more, listing hard to the side. The world is blurry, and nothing is working right, and all around him chaos has erupted, but all he can feel are hands.

Two hands on his back, warm and safe. Sharp, bony fingers pressing into his wrist, and a palm flat against his heartbeat.

His sword cries out in his hand, and Shen Yuan winces. Chokes on a breath. It comes out sounding almost like a sob. One of the hands on his back shifts.

“Don’t you dare, beast!” snaps a voice that he should hate, and that only makes him feel safe.

“But—” Binghe’s voice this time, scared and small. Shen Yuan wants to help, but he’s suffocating, and his soul is shattering.

A hand touches the hilt of his blade and Shen Yuan can’t find the breath to scream his terror, but his body arches anyway—

“It’s me,” that snapping voice says, but it sounds all wrong—shaking at the edges, and twisted up like a noose trying to work as a blanket. “Breathe, idiot!”

It shouldn’t relax him. It does. He fumbles, and his hand finds his shizun’s sleeve. He holds on tight, letting his tangled fingers ghost along in mirror of the motion as Shen Qingqiu presses the sword to Shen Yuan’s chest, and slowly sheathes it—safer, at least, even with the cage of his ribs halfway caved in.

“Get him to Mu Qingfang,” orders Shen Qingqiu. “Let nothing stop you.”

No one answers, but someone lifts him. Shen Yuan still can’t get the breath to scream, but it’s just as well. He knows who has him. He knows whose arms he’s draped in, like some wilting maiden.

“Hold on, shixiong,” whispers Luo Binghe, cradling him close and flash-stepping away from the tremendous, raging battle. “Hold on, hold on, hold on.”

Chapter Text

When Shen Yuan wakes up, Luo Binghe is there.

“Oh hey,” he rasps to his little protagonist.

He immediately owns the boy’s attention. Luo Binghe had been looking down at the hand he had clasped between his own—belatedly Shen Yuan feels a flicker of qi coiling warmly into his system—but at the words his starfield eyes snap up and lock onto Shen Yuan’s face.

“Shixiong,” he chokes, looking overwhelmed. Maybe even scared.

Shen Yuan tries to lift his other hand to pat Binghe’s, and encounters an alarming problem:

He can’t feel the entire left side of his body.

Right. The hammer.

…Whelp, he’s not going to think about that right now, thank you very much! Instead he summons a smile and comments: “I think I dreamed about you.”

He’s pretty sure he did, at least! HIs dreams were a little vague, but he’s fairly sure he met Binghe there. Held Binghe’s hand, maybe. He remembers Binghe saying ‘You just stay here and rest, okay? I’ll figure this out, shixiong.’

It felt so real.

But Binghe doesn’t perk up at the news, or start doing that cute relief-babble he does sometimes when things work out at the last minute for him. He stares down at Shen Yuan with a strange, wounded expression, then rises stiffly.

“Shizun will want to know you’re up,” he says, his voice low. He’s still holding Shen Yuan’s hand.

“Oh,” Shen Yuan frowns. “It can wait, can’t it? He’ll yell.”

Binghe’s lips change expression, but it’s not towards an indulgent smile. In fact, for just a second, it looks like he’s about to cry. Shen Yuan loses his breath.

“Try not to move too much, shixiong.” Binghe whispers, and then he’s gone, leaving the warmth of his grip in Shen Yuan’s right hand.

Blinking against the oil lamp light, Shen Yuan casts about the room, seeking information. That’s a lesson the scum villain drilled into him early. Always figure out where you are.

Not a tall order this time. It’s definitely the healing peak. Nowhere else on Cang Qiong wields feng shui like a military implement, and the exact structure of the room could have come straight out of a ‘organizing your space to maximize spiritual flow 101’ guide book.

Shen Yuan can’t see much more than from his position flat on his back, and a brief, aborted attempt to change his posture left him outright winded.

It’s entirely possible that it’s a very good thing he can’t feel his left side.

This, he thinks to himself, could be an opportunity. Maybe now that he’s had a near death experience he’ll be able to wiggle his way out of the Immortal Alliance Conference, and once he’s wiggled his way out, surely it won’t take much wiggling for him to sneak Binghe out as well! It’s a great plan!

The door slams open, and Shen Yuan immediately forgets all about plans.

Shen Qingqiu hasn’t even changed clothes. His hair is a mess. His face looks outright gaunt, and there’s something wrong with the light in his eyes—something half-crazed. Shen Yuan shifts, trying to sit up, an old reflexive fear rising to the surface. Is this finally when he snaps and turns scummy?

“Do not move!” Shen Qingqiu hisses, his teeth bared and no fan to guard against the vicious expression.

Oh wow he’s pissed.

“Shizun,” Shen Yuan greets, doing his best to sound a little pathetic.

Come on, scum villain, I’m just a little guy! You wouldn’t kill a little guy in his sick bed, would you?

“Oh, your shizun, am I?” sneers Shen Qingqiu, his hands twisting into frustrated claws, as if he were holding back from strangling Shen Yuan where he lies.

“I—Yes?” Shen Yuan answers after a moment of silence implies he’s actually supposed to say something to that.

“Surely no disciple of mine is lying wounded after needlessly flinging himself towards certain death,” holy shit, he’s actually doing the head-tilt-eyes-glowing-in-lamplight thing that villains do in donghua. “No damn fool under my tutelage would be so idiotic as to pick a fight with a demon for no purpose.”

“Um,” says Shen Yuan, but apparently he says it too loud for whatever’s happening with his body, because it devolves into a wheeze, and then a cough, and then the cough turns into something sort of like a scream, because ow, ow, ow, ow!

By the time he manages to wheeze in a breath that works, his vision’s gone mostly black again. It’s not until it’s clearing that he realizes there’s a hand on his chest, channeling qi. Familiar qi—too sharp and harsh, just like its wielder’s sword.

He blinks up at the face of the scum villain, twisted in something mired between fury and disgust, even as he gently funnels qi into his head disciple.

“Sorry, shizun,” Shen Yuan wheezes, summoning a half-smile.

“Don’t you dare smile at me,” Shen Qingqiu yanks his hand away sharply, as if the absence of touch could itself be violent. Mostly it makes Shen Yuan want to pout a little.

“I should demote you,” Shen Qingqiu continues, glaring down at him. “I should kick you out of Qing Jing Peak entirely. Or better yet, since you’re so willing to do it for me, I should crush your golden core and kick you off the mountain! Perhaps before all of that I’ll cut out your lying tongue!”

He’s screaming by the time he reaches that final threat, and Shen Yuan is doing his best to look contrite, really he is, but it’s hard to take the threats seriously when he’s remembering Shen Qingqiu breaking the rules to save his life.

He’s inhaling to tell him so when a tap comes at the door, and it slides open a crack.

“Shidi,” a low, patient, gentle voice says in clear reprimand. “This is a place of healing.”

Yue Qingyuan’s expression is endlessly kind, but there’s a disappointment in his expression that makes Shen Yuan grimace and shake his head desperately behind his shizun’s back at the sect leader.

“You mean to tell me this is Qian Cao Peak?” Shen Qingqiu asks, his tone only growing more vicious, his shoulders drawing back and his clawed hands falling to his sides. “I could have sworn it must be Qiong Ding as you seem to think it’s yours. ”

“I wished to check on your head disciple,” Yue Qingyuan admonishes quietly, his expression confused as he looks at Shen Qingqiu with a depth of emotion that Shen Yuan cannot handle right now.

“My head disciple,” spits Shen Qingqiu, “will be lucky to be my disciple at all after this. It’s none of your business how I handle his injury, and none of your business what happens in this room! Tell Mu Qingfang not to be a coward and address it himself if he takes issue with my behavior!”

“Mu-shidi is busy tending to Liu-shidi.” Yue Qingyuan says with an air of gentle reminder. “I only wanted to remind you that there are listening ears. And that your disciple did his best, surely.”

Please stop trying to help, Shen Yuan thinks desperately, closing his eyes in agony at this unraveling situation.

“His best to die perhaps!” snarls Shen Qingqiu. “To bring shame to Cang Qiong and chaos to my peak! Is that what you were trying, boy?!”

Oh, please leave me out of this, Shen Yuan thinks desperately.

“Shen Yuan!” Shen Qingqiu demands, clearly not about to grant him the mercy of not answering this in front of the sect leader.

There are a few things that Shen Yuan has learned through the years. Shen Qingqiu’s behavior is a huge number of those things. He’s a man who hates feeling weak, but likes being challenged—he responds well to battles he can win, especially arguments. In fact, half the time Shen Yuan thinks that he and Shen Qingqiu get along well because of their shared language of bitching endlessly about annoying things.

But Shen Qingqiu has a secret weakness, and Shen Yuan knows it damn well. He’s made himself use it sparingly through the years, lest his teacher find out he knows, but right now…

Well, even if Yue Qingyuan is looking, there are only so many things Shen Yuan can do in the face of Shen Qingqiu’s utter wrath! So he takes a deep breath, opens his mouth, and forces himself to be completely sincere.

“I was trying to help you.” He says, voice low and careful. “You were hurt, and I was scared they’d find out. They might have killed you.”

Both members of his audience suck in a breath. Shen Yuan chances a glance. Oh, he shouldn’t have pulled this out in front of Yue Qingyuan. Shen Qingqiu has that awful, vulnerable look on his face—like Shen Yuan just dragged Xiu Ya out of his chest by force and stabbed him with it.

Yue Qingyuan, however, is staring fixedly at Shen Qingqiu.

“Shidi, you were injured?” he asks, his voice low and careful.

“As if some simple demon could have killed me,” scoffs Shen Qingqiu, fumbling for a fan. He hesitates before he opens the one he’s holding—Shen Yuan’s poetry stares up at him, and Shen Yuan winces. Oof, double dose of emotional overload for his poor scumbag teacher…

“Has Qingfang checked you over?” Yue Qingyuan blazes forward, his concern clearly written in his eyes. “Were you injured in the caves? Did Liu-shidi—?”

Shen Qingqiu whirls on him, snarling.

“Out!” he barks. “Get out, you feckless excuse for a Sect Leader! The last thing I need is advice from you! CONCERN from YOU!”

He all but howls the words, and Yue Qingyuan flinches away. His eyes glance to Shen Yuan, and then he closes his eyes, bows his head, and closes the door without another word.

Shen Qingqiu stands there, ragged and panting. His hand clutches around the fan too tight, but at the first sound of splintering, he drops it completely, as if it burned him. His eyes, when they fly to Shen Yuan, are wild.

“How dare you,” he hisses.

“You already know I’m uselessly sentimental,” Shen Yuan objects in a wheeze that’s as close as he can get to amusement. “You tell me all the time.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I know.”

“All you did was make things worse.”

“I know. I’m sorry, shizun. I really thought…”

He trails off. He clears his throat. What had he been thinking?! Why was saving Shen Qingqiu so important, huh?! Throwing himself into danger like that—what a stupid move! As if even injured the scum villain wasn’t stronger than him! As if Shen Qingqiu would die just because he didn’t serve his original purpose in Proud Immortal Demon Way! Wasn’t he still way more important than some random side-character like Shen Yuan?

When Shen Yuan manages to open his eyes from his own mortification, it’s to find Shen Qingqiu sitting at his side, his head lowered and a look like exhaustion weighing him down. Anger always makes him look bigger than he is.

Shen Yuan’s pretty sure that’s at least part of the reason he’s so angry all the time. 

“You will stay in this bed until Mu Qingfang clears you to move.” Shen Qingqiu mutters at last, his voice sour and frustrated. “If you ever go against me or try to fool me again, I will strip you of your title, your cultivation, and your place on this mountain. Is that clear?”

“Yes, shizun,” Shen Yuan whispers.

“Good.” Shen Qingqiu mutters, standing sharply and dusting off his spotless robes. “Do not sleep yet. Your insufferable beast has been cooking you breakfast every two hours, as if he were some mourning concubine. Eat what he made and tell him to stop before he bankrupts the kitchens.”

Shen Yuan perks up despite himself, his lips lifting into a smile.

“Congee?” he guesses eagerly.

Shen Qingqiu just stares at him, shakes his head with a huff, and slams the door behind himself.

However, just outside the door, Shen Yuan hears a muffled conversation.

“You will make sure he eats every bite.”

“Yes, shizun.”

“He is not to leave the bed. You will ensure it.”

“Yes, shizun!”

“Whatever he insists he needs, fetch it for him. Don’t say ‘yes shizun’ again. You annoy me. Hurry up.”

When Luo Binghe opens the door, a steaming bowl of snow white congee and a cup of tea on his tray, Shen Yuan is holding back tears as hard as he can.

Who knew, all he had to do to get the Scum Villain and the protagonist on the same side was to almost die a little bit!

Chapter Text

In the end, it’s very simple to avoid the Immortal Alliance Conference. It goes something like this:

“Shizun, I don’t think Luo-shidi and I should participate in the upcoming Immortal Alliance Conference.”

“You’re actively choosing not to throw yourself headlong into danger?” sneers Shen Qingqiu. “To what do I owe this most recent breakthrough of my Probationary Head Disciple?”

“Shizun, can we drop the ‘probationary’ yet? I’ve fully healed!”

“It will be dropped when you are no longer on probation.”

Which actually meant ‘when I’m done being so furious at you that every time I see you I want to drop-kick you straight off Qing Jing’, probably. Which may or may not have been the case for the past two years of Shen Yuan’s life.

Gone are the days of water balloon fights on Qing Jing Peak. At least, the days of open water balloon fights. The young scholars took their shizun’s return very seriously, and dared not show him less that the elegant, polished perfection he’d ruthlessly instilled in them.

However, every fan has two faces.

The fact that the warfare is no longer open meant that now it was significantly more threatening. To be caught with a water balloon talisman is to lose face. To be caught by a water balloon talisman is to outright lose.

Calm as the day is long, Luo Binghe closes the dripping umbrella he’d lifted between Shen Yuan and Ning Yingying, shaking the excess water from its waxed surface.

“Unusual weather today,” comments Shen Yuan, gazing up at the cloudless sky.

“Very strange to have showers out of nowhere,” Ning Yingying agrees. “Shixiong is lucky to have such a devoted shidi, at the ready with an umbrella despite the sunny skies.”

Binghe shoots her a distinctly smug look.

“Indeed,” Shen Yuan agrees. “This shixiong is very fortunate in having Binghe at his side.”

Ah, his little shidi turns towards him like a sunflower to the daylight, beaming, just as Shen Yuan hoped he would.

He almost feels bad for it when Ming Fan capitalizes on his distraction to drench Binghe’s fluffy hair with a water talisman of his own.

“Hah!” Ming Fan cries, thrusting his fist into the air so hard that his feet leave the ground.

“A-Fan, how strange of you to celebrate a sudden deluge,” Shen Yuan comments, desperately fighting not to let his expression or voice waver, even as internally he’s howling with laughter.

Luo Binghe, dripping, tilts his chin down as if in shame.

“Shixiong,” he says, his voice every inch the wounded protagonist holding together his pride by threads, “this disciple will go make himself presentable before training.” 

Shen Yuan flaps his fan at him quickly before pulling free a handkerchief.

“There there,” he says, patting Luo Binghe’s head with the spelled fabric, the water soaking up into it more effectively even than a Zorbee’s ad would have promised. “Binghe need not trouble himself, it’s only rain water.”

“This is ridiculous,” Ming Fan is muttering to Ning Yingying, almost low enough not to be heard. “Even when he loses he wins!”

A little flicker of a smirk darkens Luo Binghe’s face, and Shen Yuan tamps down on a grin of his own, patting his sheep’s fluffy curls a few more times than necessary. There’s his little protagonist! Even without your corruption arc you can still be a little wicked!

“Well,” Shen Yuan says after, tucking away the kerchief again and forcing himself to stop patting, even though Luo Binghe is still ducked expectantly. “A-Fan, you’ll be representing us tomorrow at the Immortal Alliance Conference. Do you remember this shixiong’s instructions?”

At once the young man snaps to attention, puts his hands together, and bows sharply. “Be alert and aware! Take note of the level of any demons encountered! Do not hesitate to disengage and retreat if there is any doubt of my victory!”

Then he tilts his head up, glancing out of glinting eyes at Shen Yuan. “Perhaps shixiong would like to take this advice as well next time?”

“Ayeesh!” snapping his fan shut, Shen Yuan bonks it against his impetuous shidi’s head, even as Ning Yingying cackles and Luo Binghe stifles a rude snort. “Such disrespect to your head disciple!”

“Probationary head disciple,” Ning Yingying chipperly corrects him without a hint of her malicious intent shown on her smiling face.

“Unfilial! Both of you!” Shen Yuan declares before drawing himself up, snapping his fan open, and glaring at them both over the edge of it, sneering in his best Shen Qingqiu impression: “How disappointing that this master’s generation will be the last worthwhile cultivators to rise in Cang Qiong.”

Luo Binghe clears his throat loudly just at the end of Shen Yuan’s impression in a somewhat belated but very much appreciated warning.

Shen Yuan closes his fan, and turns from his shidis and shimei to bow at the approach of the one and only Real-Deal Shen Qingqiu.

The past two years have been kinder to his shizun than those preceding them. His robes fall silk-smooth around him, and his half-bound hair flickers in the wind. He looks at home among the bamboo and tranquility of his strictly controlled peak—as intentionally put together as the landscaping itself. His disapproval still radiates off him, sure, but Shen Yuan would be more worried if it didn’t.

The memory of fearing that disapproval feels as distant as that day in the rain, his soul screaming in a stranger’s hand: Still real, still painful, but far, far away.

“Ming Fan,” Shen Qingqiu speaks clear and sharp—not quite snapping, but close. “Are you so prepared you’ve found time to waste rather than mediating and centering yourself before the conference?”

“This disciple was saying farewell, and will remove himself to do as shizun instructs!” Ming Fan replies quickly from behind Shen Yuan, where he’s no doubt still bowing, even as Shen Yuan has straightened up.

“See that you do.” Shen Qingqiu huffs, snapping his fan open. “Yingying, tend to your duties.”

“Yes, shizun!” she chirps.

Luo Binghe shifts behind Shen Yuan as well, preparing to remove himself from the situation no doubt. Despite the new understanding between Shen Qingqiu and his least-favored disciple, it’s still a rare day when Binghe finds himself directly addressed.

“You stay.” Shen Qingqiu says, though his eyes don’t waver from Shen Yuan.

There’s a complete freeze behind Shen Yuan as Ning Yingying and Ming Fan both halt in their tracks. Behind his back, Shen Yuan shoos them with his fan, letting his expression fall into an easy smile.

“Does shizun have instructions for these disciples?” he asks, plowing forward and refusing to acknowledge the sudden awkwardness and tension.

Cold eyes stay fixed on him as if Shen Qingqiu thinks he can pin his disciple to a tray, wings extended, like one of the beast peak’s butterfly displays. Shen Yuan arches a brow, and attempts to become un-pin-able.

“Identify this talisman,” Shen Qingqiu demands of him, thrusting forward a delicate leaf of paper as though it were a blade.

Delicately, Shen Yuan plucks it away from his master’s fingertips, and holds it up where Luo Binghe can see it as well, tilting it back and forth. Simple enough, really. He looks expectantly to his own pet-project-protagonist.

“An alert talisman,” Luo Binghe says, bright and eager at Shen Yuan’s attention. “Keyed to an item of some kind, to give a signal if the talisman is destroyed.”

“Good,” Shen Yuan agrees with a nod.

Shen Qingqiu looks distinctly ill.

“I did not ask the—” he cuts off. Breathes. “Fine. Name the item it’s connected to.”

“Normally it would be a talisman, but the character’s been replaced by, uh…”

A snap of Shen Qingqiu’s fan and a sharp rap on his head answers his stutter, but he can’t apologize for it, or cover for it. Instead of a talisman—usually imbued with meaning by the hand of the writer describing the piece, such as ‘pale jade token’—has been replaced by ‘Favored Fan.’

Shen Yuan flicks his gaze up to see that the fan that just tapped his head has familiar carvings along the wooden guards. It’s his most recent work—far better balanced than the previous attempt. His poetry has also improved, though the impassive misty mountains and bamboo he painted viciously, purposefully,  just as bland.

/Forced to wait, the new bamboo
feels surely it will rot
in earth which should nurture./

He’d felt that was appropriately snarky for his sentiments towards his master’s use of the word ‘probationary.’ Why Shen Qingqiu would consider it his favored fan is beyond him. It’s a complaint, shizun!

“Have you gone mute?” barks Shen Qingqiu.

“No, shizun! The talisman will alert you specifically!”

“Hm.” At last that fan is tucked into Shen Qingqiu’s sleeve, and no longer held in striking range of Shen Yuan’s head. “Slow, but accurate. While this master is away, if anything happens on this peak, you will tear that talisman. Do you understand, Shen Yuan?”

“Yes, shizun,” he sighs, unable to help but be disappointed.

Of course the probationary head disciple would be expected to call the parents home if anything exciting actually happened…

“And you!” Shen Qingqiu snaps to Luo Binge, fierce at first, then physically rocking back, as if trying to reel himself in. “You will take this.”

A second talisman appears from his sleeves, offered at the very ends of his fingertips. He can never seem to be far enough away from Luo Binghe.

Luo Binghe accepts the talisman quickly, before Shen Qingqiu can take it back.

“A stronger alert talisman,” Luo Binghe notes, though Shen Qingqiu did not ask and is still glaring directly at Shen Yuan rather in his direction. “Keyed to a necklace.”

At this, at last, Shen Qingqiu’s gaze turns viper-like onto the protagonist. It takes every ounce of Shen Yuan’s willpower to keep him from stepping in front of his little white sheep. Under a glare like that—surely his poor fluffy sheep would be in danger of catching fire!

“Correct,” Shen Qingqiu spits as if it’s an insult. “If something goes wrong with the sect, probationary head disciple Shen Yuan will tear his alert talisman.”

A sharp step forward propels Shen Qingqiu threateningly into Luo Binghe’s space, but the fluffy sheep doesn’t move an inch, eyes alight and posture straight. Good boy, Shen Yuan thinks, watching him refuse to flinch in the face of their dangerous master.

But then, he realizes, watching their standoff, this Shen Qingqiu has never been more than unpleasant to Luo Binghe.

“If something happens to Shen Yuan,” hisses Shen Qingqiu. “You will tear that talisman in half, and you will ensure he lives until I arrive. Is that clear?”

“Hey!” Shen Yuan objects before he can think better of it, offense hitting him like getting slapped in the face by a push door he’d been about to pull on.

“Understood, shizun,” Luo Binghe agrees, spine straight and eyes burning. “It will never leave this disciple’s person.”

“See that it doesn’t,” Shen Qingqiu pulls back, straightening his clothes as if they’d been rumpled by proximity to Luo Binghe.

“You’ll only be gone a week!” Shen Yuan objects.

“And yet how quickly Shen Yuan can dig any hole he finds himself in unspeakably deeper.” sneers the scumbag. “Leave us, Disciple.”

“Yes, shizun!” Luo Binghe snaps a bow, the talisman still held in one hand. “Shixiong,” he adds, offering Shen Yuan a bow of his own.

Over his clasped hands, he grins and mouths ‘Good luck!’ because he might be a cute white sheep, but he’s a sassy one.

Shen Yuan has the intense urge to flip him off, but instead tries to imbue that feeling into the motion of waving Binghe off with his fan.

Unlike before, as Binghe trots off, Shen Qingqiu keeps his eyes averted. He waits, and Shen Yuan waits with him. Recently, they’re nearly of a height with each other. If Shen Qingqiu ever got close enough for him to tell for sure, he suspects that he might be a touch taller than his master. Not that anyone looking at them would notice. Shen Qingqiu looms large in any company.

“I do not like leaving the mountain unguarded.” Shen Qingqiu says at last. “But my council has been deemed unnecessary and divisive, as usual.”

“You think there will be another attack,” Shen Yuan surmises, crossing his arms.

“That demon,” Shen Qignqiu spits the word with a sneer, and Shen Yuan tries to hide a flinch, “knew when the majority of our peak lords would be indisposed. Now the majority of us travel to a meaningless conference to play nice with the gold-plated rot of Huan Hua at one of the cultivation world’s most visible and reliable events.”

“...Shizun, who called that unnecessary?” Shen Yuan asks in a low voice. “This disciple would like to have words with them.”

“Never have words with Yue Qingyuan if you can avoid it.” Shen Qingqiu says stiffly. “You are the head disciple of Qing Jing, and you will be prepared for an attack. That means no playing around, and no water talismans, Shen Yuan.”

Oof.

“You, ah, found out about those, then.”

He expects a reprimand, but it doesn’t come. There’s only silence from his shizun. Over the peak, the soft sound of insects singing among the wind and water—the sound Shen Qingqiu once referred to with disgust on his face as that of wealth—fills the space between them.

“You will not face a demon again.” Shen Qingqiu says, his voice soft and low.

Shen Yuan winces. Not again…

“This disciple will try not to, shizun.”

“You will not.”

“If the younger disciples are in danger—”

“I forbid it.”

“If someone’s life is at risk—”

“Shen Yuan!”

“Shizun!”

He yells it back, stepping forward towards his teacher.

“I will not bring shame to our peak by fleeing when I should fight,” he swears in a quiet voice. “I am your devoted disciple, but I am still a cultivator.”

“You are a stubborn fool.” Shen Qingqiu snaps. “And a waste of the effort I’ve put into rearing you! Let your pride comfort you on your deathbed, then!”

Shen Yuan should have remembered who, exactly, his master is. He should have always held it in his mind, that this man is not kind. That this man may have treated him well enough, and bent slightly to accommodate his whims, but he has always been a character who would hurt anyone close enough.

It still comes as a surprise, how much it hurts to hear himself called a waste.

Shen Qingqiu is storming away before Shen Yuan can think of a single thing to say in return. Clenching his teeth, glaring at his master’s back, Shen Yuan shoves the talisman into his sleeves, turns away, and stalks after Binghe.

A few days without Shen fucking Qingqiu around is starting to sound better and better.

When the Cang Qiong contingent leaves for the Immortal Alliance Conference, Shen Yuan observes from the steps. He smiles and nods encouragingly to Ming Fan and his other martial siblings attending. Shen Qingqiu does not stop to say farewell to him. Shen Yuan does not try to catch his eye.

No Shang Qinghua means no sabotage at the Immortal Alliance Conference. They’ll all come home fine, and find the peak fine, and Shen Qingqiu will…

Well. He won’t apologize. He never does. But he’ll seek out Shen Yuan’s eyes again, and open that ‘favored fan’ of his, and say something like ‘I suppose you expect me to reinstate your rank as head disciple now’ which will really mean ‘glad you’re okay, things can be normal again now.’

And below that, it will really mean: ‘please let things be normal again’, because Shen Qingqiu isn’t fooling anyone with his cold, aloof, untouchable routine.

Or, well, he’s not fooling Shen Yuan, at least.

(As he watches the carriages and horses grow smaller and smaller, he lets out a breath as the mental impression of Xiu Ya screaming in the back of his mind settles and fades with distance.)

He turns and smiles at Liu Mingyan—a surprise friend to have come out of the demonic invasion disaster. With Liu Qingge haunting Qing Jing like a vengeful but very confused spirit in the wake of the Lingxi caves, Shen Yuan’s found some common ground with his fellow head disciple, even if it’s only sighing together about her pigheaded brother, Shen Qingqiu’s violent refusal of said pigheaded brother’s attention and apologies, and Qi Qingqi’s increasingly vocal frustration with both of them.

“Liu-shimei,” he tilts in a bow to her, “though you find yourself in charge of Xian Shu Peak, I hope you will still find time for our weiqi game this week.”

Weiqi, like a hand fan, is always a perfect way to complain and gossip under the cover of being cultured—Another of Shen Qingqiu’s more valuable lessons.

“I would be remiss if I did not continue to contribute to Shen-shixiong’s education.” Liu Mingyan agrees without a trace of a smile in her peach blossom eyes, but with a distinct sparkle of wicked amusement.

Meaning: ‘Yeah, I’ll school you at weiqi again.’

Shen Yuan hums his agreement, nods distantly to the other head disciples who have turned to observe their interaction, then begins to ascend the endless stairs once more.

Halfway up Qing Jing Peak, he comes upon the precious tableau of Luo Binghe chatting cheerfully with a stair sweeper while aiding in his task. The Stair Sweeper is laughing at something, but Shen Yuan is too far away to have heard it. He isn’t too far, however, to see how the tumbling leaves sigh through the air around Luo Binghe’s figure. So tall, and growing taller like a bamboo shoot—handsomeness only growing clearer, his few remaining childish features like the last ripples in a pool of water subsiding—his posture straight and easy, like the unparallelled peaks of Cang Qiong themselves.

Despite the stress, and the frustration, Shen Yuan smiles brightly. No matter the cost, no matter how angry Shen Qingqiu is, no matter what happens from here, Luo Binghe is safe at home on Qing Jing Peak, right at Shen Yuan’s side, right where he should be. Any day now his dark eyes will wander, but without the stress of the Immortal Alliance Conference, surely it will be to the frequently-visiting Liu Mingyan or to his precious Ning Yingying first, rather than the desperate Qin Wanrong.

Luo Binghe’s eyes find him, and somehow he brightens even more. His eyes shine, his cheeks pink with exertion, and his fluffy hair tumbling in the light wind. He lifts a hand, waving enthusiastically, though there’s no need at all. Shen Yuan is already looking at only him.

“Shixiong!” he cries, as if it were a surprise that Shen Yuan were climbing the steps to his own peak.

With a huff and a shake of his head, Shen Yuan lifts a hand to wave back, even as he continues the climb.

One day soon, he’ll be first in line to offer his blessings for his little protagonist’s happy wedding.

Chapter Text

“No, I know what I said,” Shen Yuan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. “But this isn’t like last time. For one thing, shizun will be back in probably fewer than seven days.”

The shidi surrounding him in a semicircle, weighed down with water balloon talismans and already sopping wet, range from bewildered to frustrated to pouting.

“But shixiong,” Ning Yingying wheedles, sliding up closer to him. “It’s such good practice for us! And unlike those Bai Zhan brutes—”

“Hey!” barks one of the Bai Zhan disciples who’d been rounded up from where half of both peaks had apparently been playing.

“—we on Qing Jing use the opportunity to practice limiting collateral damage and assessing our opportunities for survival and success. Not to mention, by inviting our shidi from Bai Zhan we can appease their endless need for thoughtless violence—”

“HEY!”

“—while still controlling the circumstances and limiting actual injury.”

…Shen Yuan has to admit, that is downright politically put. He glances over at Luo Binghe, standing to the side and pretending very hard that he had in no way been involved in the setup of this little scenario. At least, he’d started pretending the moment Shen Yuan had called a halt to it. Prior to that, he’d been gleefully offering his services as a referee of sorts. Of the whole host of mussed teenagers, only he and Ning Yingying remain spotless, with the others dripping wet and many sporting incriminating mud stains on their uniforms.

“Ugh, he’s going to kill me,” mutters Shen Yuan, shoving his forehead directly into his palm.

Ning Yingying outright snorts at that, and Shen Yuan pouts behind his arm. Just because the scum villain never gets angry at you doesn’t mean all of us are so lucky, Yingying! Spare some sympathy for your poor Probational Head Disciple!

…Not that he’s feeling particularly charitable about his position or his shizun at the moment.

“Fine,” he barks at last, dropping his hand to his side. “But if we’re doing this, we’ll do it properly. Binghe, divide them into teams—equal parts Bai Zhan and Qing Jing. Teams should mark themselves subtly—keeping track of who your allies are is an important skill for cultivators, especially when collaborating with other sects or attempting to work around civilians. Teams will have the time of one incense stick to formulate a plan, then the floor will open. If Binghe or I announce you’ve been eliminated, you will retire to the lotus pavilion and observe. After the exercise, an essay—”

A groan arises from the crowd, which had previously started to vibrate with excitement.

Luo Binghe claps loudly and barks “You will respect head disciple Shen Yuan, or you will run laps around the peak rather than participating!”

Ah, so forceful, Binghe! Even the Bai Zhan hooligans look cowed by that tone! Shen Yuan nods his approval and continues:

“After the exercise, you will compose an essay on the benefits of such training. At least 800 characters. Understood?”

A chorus of “Yes, shixiong!”, interspersed with a few ‘Sure’s, ‘Okay’s and one quiet, “And then we fight?” answers him.

“Right!” Luo Binghe says, wading into the sea of disciples with an ease of command Shen Yuan doubts he himself will ever have.

Only one day without the masters of the mountain and already chaos reigns, he thinks to himself with a sigh.

Except…

He glances over the crowd again. One day without their masters, and Bai Zhan and Qing Jing have found a way to work together better than their predecessors ever have. Later, Liu Mingyan will stop by—a representative from Xian Su Peak, which prior to Shen Yuan’s time as head disciple had never been known to happen. She might even be bringing the Qiong Ding head disciple, who she vouched had ‘an absolutely bleak sense of humor’, as if that was an endorsement.

So maybe, he thinks as the teams split off and Luo Binghe returns to his side, he does have something he can offer as a leader.

After all, one day Binghe will want to leave. One day, when he’s learned all the dream demon can teach him, and the relationships available to him on the peaks have flourished, and his bloodline begins to call him towards further adventure and conquest…

Gentle fingertips touch Shen Yuan’s elbow, soft and supportive where he’s wrapped an arm around himself.

“Is something wrong?” Binghe asks, voice low and intimate—for Shen Yuan’s ears only as the teams of disciple’s hastily consult on tactics.

Shen Yuan breathes deep, shakes off the weird melancholy that had swallowed him up, and summons a bright smile for his secret favorite.

“What could be wrong?” he chuckles, shaking his head. “After all, Binghe will help make sure everything is in order again before shizun returns, right?”

“This disciple will do it all himself!” Luo Binghe hastily offers. “Shixiong needn’t lift a finger.”

“Binghe needn’t either,” Shen Yuan taps Luo Binghe’s shoulder with his fan. “After all, he’s not among those about to ruin this field even further. Unless you’d like to be? I should have asked before relegating you to referee with me.”

Before he’s finished talking, Luo Binghe is already emphatically shaking his head.

“Any team that shixiong is on, naturally this Binghe wishes to join it!”

Shen Yuan returns that cheeky comment with the lightest of baps with his fan, then follows it up with a couple pats to Binghe’s good fluffy head in apology for the teasing punishment.

The disciples’ war councils conclude, the teams face one another, and Shen Yuan draws a breath. On his mark, all hell breaks loose.

Every child from Bai Zhan immediately launches forward, and begins brawling with each other. The Qing Jing students, meanwhile, scatter, having apparently decided that the best way to get anything done is to make sure their neighboring peak’s disciples are thoroughly occupied.

It takes all he has not to laugh, even as he ducks through the flying talismans, tapping the disciples who take ‘kill shots’ and shooing them towards the pavilion. Binghe seems to take a certain amount of sadistic glee in announcing “You’re dead” to the disciples he ejects from the game.

Then one of the Bai Zhan kids breaks rank, twisting in a move that must have been discussed—a sacrifice play if ever Shen Yuan saw one—to send a talisman at Ning Yingying, who’s taken command of her collection of disciples like a war general.

Shen Yuan watches in interest. He watches, as the water bursts free, and as the water freezes, ice cold shards like spears, splitting the air, screaming towards Ning Yingying as she twists towards them, eyes wide, mouth open—

Luo Binghe crashes into her, dragging her to the ground with him. The ice darts pepper into the bamboo forest behind where Ning Yingying had stood to direct her troops. Bamboo topples in a wave at the assault.

The sound of falling bamboo draws the attention of the gathered disciples, pausing the frenetic game. Below Shen Yuan’s feet, the muddy field hardens, slowly freezing over. His breath puffs out in a cloud of white, and he meets Luo Binghe’s wild eyes where he’s still holding Ning Yingying on the now-frozen ground.

Shen Yuan inhales deeply, yanks the sword free from his chest, then barks “RETREAT!” pointing the shining blade in the direction of the pavilion—the hallmasters—the other advanced cultivators. 

Disciples scatter like buckshot at his call, and water lifts from the sodden ground, sharpening into spears. They tilt towards the children, and Shen Yuan sends his sword out in an arc, shattering all of them he can reach. The splinters still fly, and yelps of pain sound from behind him, but he doesn’t hear any death cries.

Out in the bamboo forest, someone is cackling. Actually laughing. While his little martial siblings run for their lives, someone is laughing!

To the side, Luo Binghe draws his own sword, Zhang Yang gleaming in his hand as he hauls Ning Yingying to her feet and exchanges fast words with her.

Shen Yuan lets them be, scanning the forest for any sign of their attacker. Then he lifts a hand to the sky, sending qi into all the surrounding bamboo leaves, stripping the trees bare to send them slicing and cutting through every inch of cover beyond where he and the disciples were playing.

“Ow, fuck!” a voice screams, cutting off the laughter.

Bamboo crumbles, and left in the open is an enormous figure, wrapped in royal blue, cloak waving in the windstorm of bamboo leaves. His hair like a banner, his face like a death mask, his eyes as cold and fierce as the tundra, stands a man who can only be Mobei Jun.

And then, from behind him, peeks a second face, eyes wide and round cheeks slack with shock as he gapes at Shen Yuan.

“What the hell?!” objects the small, squeaky, human man. A man who’d been laughing, while ice spears aimed towards children.

“Shang Qinghua, I assume,” Shen Yuan snarls, sinking into an elegant stance, fan opened before his face and sword hovering ready at his side.

Behind his back, he tears a talisman in two, and wonders how long it will take a sword to fly from Huan Hua palace.

“Who the fuck are you?” the presumed Shang Qinghua blurts, pointing an accusing hand at Shen Yuan. Deep blue robes swirl around the petty motion, and silver chimes around his wrist and on his sleeve. He’s decorated like one of Binghe’s wives, for crying out loud!

“I am the head disciple of Qing Jing Peak,” Shen Yuan declares, even though in the back of his mind he hears a chorus of his shizun sneering probationary in front of his title. “Take your demon and leave this mountain!”

“Fat chance! I’m here for revenge , baby! You think you can just twist Yue Qingyuan’s arm to get me thrown off the mountain? You think you can just cross a guy who works for the king of the northern desert? Oh no, that asshole has a tab to pay! This is supposed to be my story and he ruined it! Do you have any idea how many punishment protocols I went through?! Qing Jing Peak isn’t going to have to wait for the protagonist to come back!”

The wind abruptly blows out of Shen Yuan’s sails. He lowers his hands, gaping, and repeats dumbly: “The prot—”

Ice sweeps towards him in great spears before he’s recovered. A shining, youthful blade shatters the attacks as Luo Binghe leaps forward to Shen Yuan’s side.

“No,” Shen Yuan breathes, turning to his student. “Binghe, go. Make sure the others are safe, sound the alarms, get—”

“Shijie is doing that,” Luo Binghe says, a talisman fluttering torn from his hands to the ground. “Shixiong, I’m staying.”

“You don’t understand,” Shen Yuan gasps, reaching out to grab Luo Binghe’s arm, hard. “You don’t understand. You can’t be here.”

Mobei Jun is striding forward. Where he steps, grass withers and mud freezes before it can sink beneath him.

Shang Qinghua was not in the sect to sabotage the Immortal Alliance Conference. But Shen Qingqiu was right. Everyone knows when the Immortal Alliance Conference is. Cang Qiong has been left unprotected, and somehow the traitor of An Ding has still managed to reach a deal with a demon.

“With respect, shixiong, this disciple will not stand back and watch you fight again,” Luo Binghe declares, eyes fixed forward on Mobei Jun.

“Interesting,” the demon mutters, almost too low to be heard, with no expression on his ice-cold face. “The demon acts unlike a demon, while the immortal acts like…” he twists to glance behind himself at Shang Qinghua.

“Stay behind me,” Shen Yuan commands.

In answer, there’s a blur of white and green robes, flashing forward faster than Shen Yuan can hope to match. He only has a heartbeat to register he just ran in there before Mobei Jun is tossing aside a Binghe-shaped object with one hand. The shining light of Zhang Yang follows close behind, the sword seals still functioning even as Binghe tumbles over the ice-capped field.

Move, Shen Yuan commands himself, his legs feeling as frozen as the field. His side aches in a phantom of the pain a hammer caused. His soul moans in memory of a demon in the rain, blazing forward with killing intent. Fear coils up tight in his chest.

That’s Binghe, he reminds himself, eyes fixing on his little sunshine shidi scrambling up out of the dirt while Mobei Jun casually steps away from each of Zhang Yang’s attacks. That’s Binghe getting hurt.

If his legs don’t want to answer, his qi will compensate. He throws himself forward, low to the ground, his sword bright and ready in his hand. He sweeps in, attacking the demon’s knees while Luo Binghe’s sword harries him from face-height. Every attack is lazily dodged—every motion anticipated—every violent cut slices only through air. Mobei Jun is enormous, but he is light on his feet. Expressionless, he dances away from Shen Yuan and Binghe’s soul swords before lightly batting away Zhang Yang with the back of one hand, and grabbing the lapel of Shen Yuan’s robes.

“Pathetic,” he declares, catching Shen Yuan’s blade between two fingers before twisting his hand and sending it skittering across the ground. “This is what you have to offer?”

“Shixiong!” Luo Binghe howls.

Usually that sort of thing is distracting, right? Shen Yuan sharpens his fan with qi and lashes out. A line opens up across Mobei Jun’s face, blue liquid seeping down his cheek. It’s deep, and ugly, and his expression doesn’t shift in the slightest. He grabs Shen Yuan’s fan away, and throws him like so much rubbish to the side.

“Nice, my king!” yells their only spectator.

“Shen-shixiong!” cries a high, frightened voice. “Luo-shidi!”

…Okay, NOT their only spectator, that’s bad!

His body hurts—the hammer falls, and he thinks about it all the time. Shen Qingqiu grabs his soul so hard, and he thinks about it all the time, he aches so much, he aches, and he can’t forget—Binghe is fighting—launching himself wildly at Mobei Jun in a series of motions that are more shock and awe than attack. It’s defensive. Distraction.

“Yingying, run!” Shen Yuan orders as loud as he can, shoving himself up off the frozen-hard ground. His face is scraped by the sharp ice in the churned mud he’d scraped over.

“You first!” Ning Yingying cries to him. “Both of you! Shizun is coming, so just run!”

“Shit, really?” the stranger—Shang Qinghua—yelps.

Coward, Shen Yuan spits in his mind, even as he tries to shake off his trembling. Flings himself back towards the demon who’s easily dodging Luo Binghe’s offensive. Shen Yuan tries to support—sharp cuts, quick motions, throwing himself in and out of the way. Binghe dances around him like it’s natural, sensing Shen Yuan’s motions and intent with the ease of long practice. They make a good team—they always have. Shen Yuan’s qi is sharp and quick to answer, and Luo Binghe’s brawler nature allows him to fill in the closer combat.

It’s not enough. It’s obvious even while Mobei Jun is still almost patiently moving away from their attacks. He dodges neatly. Slides out of the way of sword slashes and bare-handed strikes. His expression never changes. The cut on his face is long gone, leaving only a few trails of deep blue blood. His eyes flicker back and forth between them, following their motions with no difficulty.

Never look away from their eyes, Shen Qingqiu had drilled into him through the many many years on Qing Jing Peak. No matter if you are winning or losing—no matter how scared you are of their weaponry. Never look away from their eyes, and never let them see your fear.

Shen Yuan keeps his senses open, but he keeps his eyes locked on Mobei Jun’s gaze. It’s the only reason he sees it: the moment Mobei Jun gets bored. He feels his own expression go slack with shock and horror—feels his fear become extremely visible, despite all of Shen Qingqiu’s instruction. The shizun who lives in the back of his mind is facepalming hardcore.

It’s nicer to think about that, than about the claws that slice open his chest and send him stumbling, his sword flying out of his hand and clattering across the ground.

Shen Yuan flails—scrambles onto his back—he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he—

“Bastard!” Luo Binghe snarls, throwing himself in a wild dance of blades against their attacker.

Shen Yuan wheezes an objection, lifting an arm. It’s too late. Binghe has to see it’s too late! This is beyond them—Mobei Jun is—he’s—!

He’s got a hand around Luo Binghe’s throat. He’s got a clawed thumb pressed against Luo Binghe’s forehead. Zhang Yang clatters to the ground as Luo Binghe scrambles at the demon’s wrists—animal panic rather than trained cultivation.

“Motherfucker!” Shen Yuan screams, throwing himself at his sword.

“Wait,” Shang Qinghua says, almost drowned out by the howling noise starting to rise up out of Binghe’s lungs, “motherfucker?”

“Shixiong, no!” Ning Yingying is screaming.

“Let him go!” It's useless. Of course it’s useless. Shen Yuan knows how this goes. He knows this story. He knows. There’s a pulse of red light from his sunshine disciple. There’s a rumble that shakes the ground. There’s a strange growling sound rising up from Mobei Jun’s almost-human mouth, bared fangs answering the power he’s unlocked by force.

It’s too late. It’s too late, it’s too late, it’s too late. Shen Yuan lunges anyway—slices the distracted demon’s wrists, and forces Mobei Jun back legitimately for the first time.

Luo Binghe crumples to the ground in a heap. He’s still screaming. Howling. He curls in on himself, thrashing like a wild animal. The smell of blood, and burning. Shen Yuan lifts his sword, eyes wild. Ning Yingying is screaming. Shang Qinghua is babbling something, tugging on Mobei Jun’s sleeve.

This is all your fault, Shen Yuan thinks in a haze, as the demonic qi pours out of Luo Binghe, blistering the frozen world, making them sink into the mud. You did this.

Before him, the beautiful, tranquil Qing Jing Peak splits open in a red, burning gash. Countless hands and arms lift up from it, clawing at the ground. It’s all out of control. It’s all over. It wasn’t like this. It isn’t supposed to be like this.

In the middle of Shen Yuan’s home, the abyss opens.

Luo Binghe’s howls morph into almost-words behind him, his writhing turning and shifting—his legs kicking out as if trying to fight off something dragging at him, his hands clawing in the earth—in his hair—in his skin.

“Stay back!” Shen Yuan warns as Mobei Jun shakes off Shang Qinghua’s arm and shoves the human back further from the abyss. Demons have started to crawl over the edge, but they quail away from the storming ice demon.

“Nonononono,” Luo Binghe is wailing as unbearable force tears off him in ripples of demonic qi so fierce they tear at Shen Yuan’s hair and clothes, dampening his qi and spirit.

Mobei Jun storms forward, undeterred.

“I said stay back!” Shen Yuan yells, eyes wild and sword shaking in his hand.

“Just run!” Shang Qinghua yells over the burning abyss, something strange in his eyes. “Bro, bro, don’t try to change it, just run!”

Bro? Part of Shen Yuan thinks.

The rest of him thinks: He is not going to touch Luo Binghe again.

It doesn’t matter that Binghe is a demon. It doesn’t matter that Ning Yingying saw. He can take Binghe and run. They can escape. Shen Qingqiu isn’t evil, he’ll let Shen Yuan escape him if Shen Yuan begs, probably. They can leave this mountain, and the cultivation world, and they’ll be fine. Binghe will be fine. It will hurt, and it will be hard, but they can do it.

Binghe can do it, Shen Yuan thinks as he strikes and Mobei Jun dodges.

He’s so smart, and so strong, and so good. So sweet. He swings his sword high, and Mobei Jun ducks beneath it. A palm meets his chest, driving the wind out of him. The demon is playing with him. He’s almost smiling.

Binghe will make breakfast in the mornings, no matter what little village they end up in. Blood on his lips, Shen Yuan stabs, and blocks, and dodges, and for the first time understands the desperation with which he first saw Shen Qingqiu fight.

It will be delicious, those breakfasts. Shen Yuan will find work somewhere as a traveling cultivator. He’ll guard Binghe until he can hide his nature. He’ll make sure he never lacks ingredients to cook with. Mobei Jun hits him hard. Shen Yuan’s ears ring. Someone is screaming.

It might take some time, but Binghe will start smiling again. The demon grabs his sword. It screams under his grip like Xiu Ya screams. Like it’s dying. Shen Yuan is screaming too. His throat is raw with it.

Shen Yuan will do anything to protect that—

A crack.

All at once the world is in perfect focus. Mobei Jun is holding him by the throat. Shen Yuan’s sword pierces through the demon’s free hand. Mobei Jun hasn’t pulled away. He’s just curling his fist.

A tinkling sound, like the hairline fracture of a hot glass giving up under a stream of cold water. He saw a youtube video like that once.

Pain lights up all the way through him.

He’s the glass.

“Stop, stop it, put him down!”

“My king, wait, we don’t have to—”

“Shixiong! Shixiong, NO!”

The sword shatters.

It hurts.

He doesn’t feel himself hit the ground. The hilt of his soul is still in his hand, clenched tight. He glitters across the ground in pieces. He can still see them, eyes wide. Someone is screaming. It isn’t him this time. He’s not even sure he’s breathing. He is on the ground in pieces.

There are feet. They stumble over the ground. They grind the pieces of him into the mud. A soft sound leaves his throat. It shouldn’t be able to hurt anymore, should it?

There’s shouting. A splash of blue on the ground before him. It hisses and steams in the heat from the abyss. Screaming, and more screaming, and then—

“Nononononono,” someone on their knees before him, fumbling for the pieces of him in the mud.

“Bing—” his lips barely move. “—he?”

“I’m here,” the boy chokes, scrambling for the shards of a blade. On his forehead is burning red. “I’m here, shixiong, stay with me!”

“Beast!” a familiar voice screams—shrieks— howls. It sounds like agony. Like a sword screaming.

Luo Binghe scrambles. Launches towards Shen Yuan and grabs him.

“You can’t die,” he’s crying as he speaks, and Shen Yuan can’t remember, but he knows it’s…that’s not supposed to…

Something presses hard against his chest. Something familiar and not. Sharp, and not.

“You can’t die!” Luo Binghe begs.

“Get your filthy hands off him!” that familiar voice is growing closer like a storm.

“Hold this,” Luo Binghe commands, clutching Shen Yuan’s wrist and forcing it to his chest. “Sheathe it! I’ll fix your sword, I will, so please—”

A naked blade presses to Luo Binghe’s chest. It’s screaming.

“AWAY!” cries someone, another arm wrapping around Shen Yuan’s waist, trying to drag him back.

Fumbling, broken, confused, Shen Yuan clings. He grabs Luo Binghe’s wrist, and he holds on. The hilt of his own sword clatters to the ground. The thing Binghe is pressing against him is sharp. It cuts. It doesn’t hurt. Shen Yuan is in pieces in Luo Binghe’s hands.

“Wait,” begs Luo Binghe. “Shizun, please, wait, please, please, please—”

The sword drives forward, shrieking in agony. Shen Yuan blinks against the hot blood. He watches Luo Binghe stagger.

The abyss yawns. Shen Yuan clings. Nothing makes sense. Nothing is real. He’s in pieces on—

Luo Binghe’s eyes are dull. He shoves, hard, and at his push Shen Yuan staggers back against a bony chest and an arm grabbing him too tight. In his arms, the thing Binghe pressed on him cuts.

On the edge of the abyss, Luo Binghe slurs “I’ll fix—”

Then Binghe—sunshine smile, best disciple, sweet boy—tips backwards. Binghe falls.

“Shizun, what did you do?!” gasps a terrified voice—familiar, but so far away.

“Shen Yuan,” the fierce voice behind him demands. “Shen Yuan, where is your sword!”

“It broke,” Shen Yuan replies through numb lips. He’s still staring at the edge of the abyss. Binghe went there, didn’t he? He should—

He tries to step forward. His legs buckle.

“No,” the sharp voice snaps. “No, it didn’t, where’s your sword? Shen Yuan!”

“He gave me his,” Shen Yuan says, numbly processing what’s cutting his hands apart. The sword he’s clutching to his chest. Bright and shining and familiar.

“Your sword, Shen Yuan!”

The person behind him is in front of him now. Shaking him by the shoulders. They look sick. Wild-eyed. Their hair is a mess. Shen Yuan stares up at him, uncomprehending.

“My fan broke,” he says. And then, because it’s worse, “Binghe fell.” Even worse: “You pushed him.”

He can’t remember why it’s bad. He can’t feel it. He can’t… He isn’t…

“I’m dead,” Shen Yuan says, and the person gripping his shoulders screams in rage, or terror, or both. Shakes him roughly by the shoulders. Tries to take the sword slicing his hands.

Not that.

He tears himself away. Scrambles back as far as he can. Not far. Inches. His feet get caught up in his robes, his body twitching and betraying him. This man has taken his sword before, but not this one. Not this one. No one can touch this one. 

“Have to,” Shen Yuan mutters, lost, broken, on the ground in pieces. “Safer.”

He lifts the blade in a practiced motion. It’s longer than his own. He arches his back. Throws his chin up.

“NO!”

The sword is not his own. It echoes inside him, softly. Hello, the soul whispers, warm. Live, the sword begs.

I will, Shen Yuan promises as the world goes dark.

I have to carry you, after all.

Chapter Text

“Again.”

“Shizun, I’ve told it three times.”

“Again, Disciple Ning.”

“The demon came with Shang Qinghua. They were hidden in the forest. The alarms didn’t sound. No guards noticed. We were having a water fight in the Southern field, near the Lotus Pavilion. Shen-shixiong and B…”

A shallow breath. A heavy swallow.

“Disciple Ning!”

“Luo-shidi. Were acting as referees. I don’t know when the first attack was. Qi-shixiong was hurt in the first volley. Most of the ice was broken before it could cause more than minor abrasions or small splinter wounds thanks to shixiong. He instructed us to run, and most of the disciples obeyed. Shixiong—”

“Which disciples disobeyed?”

“...Myself and Luo-shidi, shizun. Binghe—That is—Luo-shidi told me to make sure the others took shelter, that the alarms were sounding, and the protective talismans were activated. Before I left, I watched both shixiong and shidi tear alert talismans. By this point shixiong had cut down the forest to show the enemy. He guessed that it was Shang Qinghua. I don’t know who the demon was.”

“And then the idiot fought.”

“Binghe tried to stop him. He kept trying to stop him. I did too, but you know how he was—”

“Is.”

“Shizun…”

“Continue, Ning Yingying.”

A deeper breath this time.

“I ensured that the other disciples were within the bounds of the peak’s protective talismans and sounded the alarm. Then I returned to observe and assist if possible. By the time I returned, things were going badly. I encouraged Shen-shixiong and Luo-shidi to run again, but they either could not or refused. The demon was…”

“Yingying.”

“Shizun, please. I’m so tired.”

“Fine. Dismissed.”

No one in the room moves, despite the words.

“Will Shen-shixiong…?”

“Dismissed.”

A hand on his hand. A brief, soft touch. A small squeeze of fingers over the bones of his knuckles. Footsteps away.

Beside his bed, the other person heaves a deep, heavy breath, sinking forward. Face in hands, back hunched sharply.

“Probationary head disciple, report.”

The figure mumbles it into his hands. The water clock in the corner drips steadily.

“Shen Yuan, report.” the figure demands.

On the wall are some words, written in stark black on white. There is a robe hanging up on display, stitched in cranes and reeds among water. The sunlight stripes the far wall.

“Please,” chokes the voice. A hand on his, grabbing. “Speak.”

Shen Yuan turns his head slowly to face the figure beside him.

“Binghe fell,” he says, the truth echoing inside him, around the soul he carries.

The hand on his clenches. Shakes him.

“Wake up.” he demands.

“You pushed him,” Shen Yuan says through numb lips.

The keening sound that escapes the man means nothing. There is an empty place inside Shen Yuan. There is a sword that is not his. There is an ache that runs through him. There is the handle of a dead blade on the bedside. There is a man sitting by him, blood on his hand, shaking Shen Yuan by his hand.

“Stop this,” chokes the man. “Shen Yuan, stop this. Just—Just wake up, and—No more probation, only—why didn’t you—why couldn’t you just—”

Shen Yuan can’t follow his words. The man talks too fast. He talks too fast even for himself, the words crashing and building like waves. The hand on his is hot, next to burning.

“That beast. That beast, what did he do to you—”

A hand reaches towards Shen Yuan’s chest.

Shen Yuan slaps the hand away, hard, and shoves back in the bed, pressing against the wall.

No one may touch the sword in his chest. Binghe fell, and his sword—

“You,” the man rasps, his slapped hand still extended. “You—you—!”

He rises in a swirl of fabrics. Moves in frantic fits of violent sound. Lurching, and screaming.

The water clock shatters on the floor. The robe is ripped in half. The writing displayed on the wall smolders and chars. The man is screaming like a sword, buried deep in a chest and covered in barbs.

The door bursts open. Another man, this one looking afraid. He grabs the screaming man by both wrists. It’s bad. The screaming man screams louder. Claws and struggles and screams. Maybe he’s crying. Maybe he’s on fire.

Maybe, Shen Yuan thinks, I’m dead.

“Shidi, stop. Stop. Qingqiu! You’re nearly qi deviating. You’re going to hurt him if you don’t stop.”

It doesn’t matter. So much noise in a room already full of screaming. Shen Yuan wraps his arms around his chest.

Binghe’s sword is safe inside him.

“Binghe fell,” he whispers, eyes fixed on the two men without really seeing them.

“Xiao Jiu!” the new man cries, and drags the screaming, thrashing, desperate man in closer. Cages him in a tight hug. “Stop. Stop. Please.”

“He’s mine!” Wails the screaming man, his hands clawing against the hug trapping him. “He’s mine and they killed him! They killed him! I’ll end them all! I’ll burn it all!”

It’s hot in the room. There was a demon, once, and it died in heat like this. Shen Yuan remembers the way the blood spattered. He remembers the screaming.

“Shen Yuan isn’t dead,” chokes the frightened man, as his robes are ripped to shreds—as the screaming man bites his squeezing arms. “He’s not dead , Qingqiu. I know—”

“What do you know?! What could you possibly know?! My—My—Shen Yuan is—!”

He’s burning all wrong, though, somehow. Like it started burning inside of him. Shen Yuan knows the feeling. He can feel Luo Binghe burning inside him too. It hurts, but it’s good. It has to be good.

“Binghe fell,” he breathes, and chokes on it. His face feels strange.

The screaming man jolts as if he’s been struck, and turns wide, haunted eyes towards Shen Yuan. He looks like a ghost, wrapped in the shredded robes of the other man, clinging and tearing in equal measure, gazing at Shen Yuan as if terrified of him.

“Shen Yuan didn’t die,” whispers the other man, soothing and low. “A soul can heal, Qingqiu. If you survive, a soul can be repaired.”

The screaming—wailing—moaning—stutters into silence. Clawing hands grip tighter.

“It can’t be.”

“I swear to you.”

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare.”

“Qingqiu—”

“Your promises—you—don’t—”

“Shh. I know. Just…Look.”

There’s movement. The man lets go, and the screaming doesn’t start again. Nothing else breaks. The man touches his own chest, and winces. Gasps. Shudders. Draws.

The waves of power that erupt from his chest make Shen Yuan feel queasy. His face feels cold. He lifts a hand. His cheeks are wet.

The screaming man drops to his knees.

“No. No, no, no, don’t. Don’t show me this. I don’t want—I can’t—”

A dull thud as the other man kneels heavily. In his hands is a sword. It’s broken. The pieces are fit back together in a jagged jigsaw, gaps between them, ugly fused metal holding the pieces in place. It was beautiful once, probably.

Inch by inch, the screaming man crumples forward to the ground, his hair splayed around him as he keens softly—like something dying.

“It takes time,” offers the other man, his voice strained.

“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” chokes the first.

“Years, sometimes,” The second man is crying now. His pathetic patchwork sword held out between them. “You have some of the pieces, don’t you Qingqiu? You can give them to him. It will help. With enough pieces, he can…”

“Damn you,” sobs the broken creature on the floor, blood on his hand, his thin body wracked with sobs. “Damn you, damn you, why didn’t you tell me. Damn you for telling me now. Damn you, Qi-ge.”

“Give him the pieces, Qingqiu.”

For a long moment, there’s only the sound of ragged breathing.

Shen Yuan watches the man collapsed on the floor rise slowly. He knelt in the pieces of the water clock. There’s blood on his robes. There’s a sword in his chest that is always screaming.

“Don’t,” Shen Yuan hisses as he reaches for his chest—for the sword he guards by his heart.

As if his soul had been cut out of him, the man gazes at him out of empty eyes.

“I won’t take it.” he says, and keeps reaching.

In his hand are shards of someone gone. They hurt, sliding into Shen Yuan’s chest.

He blinks. His face is wet. Shen Qingqiu stands before him, bloody and ruined. Yue Qingyuan kneels on the floor, a patchwork sword laying over his lap.

“Shizun,” Shen Yuan whispers. “You pushed him.”

The expression on Shen Qingqiu’s face is wretched. Grief and fury—relief and sickness. He wavers, and slumps. Sags at Shen Yuan’s bedside until only his head and hands remain, smearing red against the sheets.

“I know.” Shen Qingqiu rasps. “I know.”

Slowly, Shen Yuan places a hand on his head. He’s a mess. A disaster. No one should see him like this.

Shen Yuan is so, so tired.

He looks to Yue Qingyuan, wavering where he sits. In his chest, Luo Binghe’s sword aches. The shards cutting into his heart let him feel how much it aches. He means to say it. To explain it. There must be something to say. An explanation he has to give. Something. Anything.

“It hurts,” is all he says.

“I know,” Yue Qingyuan replies. “Rest, shizhi. It will hurt less in time.”

A nod. Shen Yuan leans back, his fingers tangled in Shen Qingqiu’s hair. It’s too much trouble to untangle his fingers. It tugs as he settles back in bed.

“The rest of the shards,” Shen Qingqiu chokes. “That… Luo Binghe had them. I pushed him. He was a demon, he was right there, and Shen Yuan was—”

“One step at a time,” breathes Yue Qingyuan, looking somehow like he’s been given a gift, his patchwork sword abandoned on the floor as he shifts closer, laying a tender hand on Shen Qingqiu’s heaving back. “Shen-shizhi is still alive. There’s time.”

Five years, Shen Yuan thinks. But despite the clarity of the thought, he can’t relate it to them.

He doesn’t even understand it.

He curls in on himself, a hand to his chest, and feels the blade by his heart, keeping him alive. Luo Binghe. Sunshine smile. Starry eyes. Sunshine smile. Warm hands.

“Hold this,” Binghe had said, so desperate.

I’m holding it, Shen Yuan thinks, eyes falling closed. I’ll keep it safe for you. I’ll keep you safe.

Chapter Text

Days pass slowly. In the daytime, he does little and says less. There are always people talking around him, and always someone’s fingers on his wrist. Their names come and go, as do the meanings of their conversations. Often they are asking Shen Yuan something. Rarely does he answer.

Even more rarely does he say something more than “Binghe fell.” He can’t seem to make anyone understand what he means when he says it. Even he can only feel the edge of it, cutting down deep inside him.

“There’s nothing we can do for him here that we can’t do on Qing Jing, Shen-shixiong,” Mu Qingfang is saying at the moment—at the moment, Shen Yuan knows who Mu Qingfang is. “He may do better in a more familiar place.”

As has become usual for Shen Qingqiu, he doesn’t bother addressing the doctor. He only tells Shen Yuan: “Come. We’re going home again.”

Without complaint he stands, and wanders behind his master through hallways of people dodging out of their way. Three times before they have even left the building, Shen Qingqiu has to stop and wait. Shen Yuan doesn’t remember how to walk quickly. He doesn’t know why he’d want to.

There is nothing waiting for him at ‘home’.

A fine-boned hand wraps around his wrist and tugs, drawing him forward more quickly. He doesn’t fight it. Might as well follow.

Somewhere, there is a boy in the abyss.

The walk goes on forever. Shen Qingqiu keeps his hand closed around Shen Yuan’s wrist, drawing him along close at his heels. Only, Shen Yuan is tired. He doesn’t know much, but he knows he’s tired. He doesn’t want to walk anymore. He doesn’t want to do anything.

Binghe fell. Nothing is right.

He stops walking, and Shen Qingqiu yanks him too hard. It makes him stagger, but he can’t compensate. He falls.

His knees never hit the ground.

His master holds him against his chest, and carefully rights his posture.

Thin, Shen Yuan thinks, and remembers thinking it before. Small. Fragile.

“Are you tired?” Shen Qingqiu asks, glancing around as if nervous someone saw. “We can pause. Just… Tell me. Say it. Say anything.”

“Shizun,” Shen Yuan tries, because at least for the moment he knows that’s right.

“Yes,” Shen Qingqiu agrees.

“Binghe fell,” Shen Yuan says, then winces. Shen Qingqiu doesn’t like it when he says that.

His jaw clenches. His hands tighten on Shen Yuan’s shoulders, holding him upright. Then they relax, and he turns his eyes away.

“Come a little further,” he says. “There’s a garden ahead with a seat for you.”

Qing Jing Peak is home, but it’s broken. Shen Yuan wanders through it like a ghost. No one stops him. Many approach, and speak quietly, but he never remembers their names. It feels wrong, that he doesn’t know them, but he doesn’t. He can only recognize Ming Fan and Ning Yingying, and even then it's only sometimes.

“Does shizun know you’re wandering?” Ming Fan asks, brusque and anxious.

Shen Yuan shrugs.

“Shen-shixiong, you know he worries,” Ning Yingying scolds gently.

“He pushed him,” Shen Yuan says, his brow furrowed.

That thought is only clear sometimes, but whenever it is it hurts. It means ‘He’s dead,’ but whenever he says that, people think he means Binghe, and he can’t explain.

Somewhere, there is a boy killing.

Ning Yingying only swallows hard, breathes deep, and says: “I know.”

Ming Fan looks sick.

“Let’s go back to the bamboo house,” Ning Yingying adds, and Shen Yuan can’t think of any reason not to.

Shen Yuan can’t think at all.

It has been some time since Binghe fell. He does not know how long. He knows that things are bad. He knows that home is broken. He knows that he is broken. Sometimes the sect leader is there. Sometimes the doctor is. Sometimes he knows their names.

Today, he hasn’t known much.

He knows the reality of things, at least. He can see the room. He can see the painting on the wall. The calligraphy brushes neatly lined up from finest to boldest. The ink stones. The weiqi board and pieces. The qin, and pipa, and erhu.

He can see Shen Qingqiu, pacing back and forth across the main room. He is always pacing, or moving, or yelling, or frowning. Tonight he finally freezes in his pacing, throwing his head back and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Put your cloak on,” he commands. “We’re going out.”

Shen Yuan can’t remember where his cloak is. Or why he’d need it. Why he should listen to Shen Qingqiu. He just sits in place until Shen Qingqiu wraps the cloak around his shoulders himself, and fastens it there before helping him to rise.

Somewhere, there is a boy crying.

“Careful,” warns Shen Qingqiu, the generic training sword hovering low to the ground.

Shen Yuan steps up before him at his urging, and blinks dully down at the ground as it falls away below them.

They fly slowly, and Shen Yuan lets his robe flow open in the wind. It’s cold, and he’s aware of it, but it doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t move when Shen Qingqiu releases one of the bony hands gripping his shoulders to clasp the cloak closed before his chest for him.

They land behind a building Shen Yuan has never seen before. When Shen Qingqiu knocks, a woman opens the door. She sucks in a breath, her eyes darting between them.

“Li-guniang,” Shen Qingqiu greets in a voice that’s all wrong.

“Qingqiu-xiansheng,” the woman greets in return, holding out a hand to him.

Shen Qingqiu doesn’t take it.

“Come in,” the woman urges. “What do you both need?”

“Sleep,” Shen Qingqiu rasps. “I cannot leave him alone.”

“Come in,” she repeats, and this time Shen Qingqiu obeys the command.

Shen Yuan wonders if he’s ever seen the man obey before. He stands dumbly in place until Shen Qingqiu reaches back, clasping his wrist and tugging him along.

The interior is warmly lit. It’s very colorful. Shen Yuan doesn’t mind how nice it looks. He thinks Binghe would look good here. Red is such a good color on him. For him. Red like the mark on his forehead, when he—

Upstairs, there is an empty room. Shen Qingqiu tugs him inside, then releases him. The woman is gone somewhere. Shen Yuan stands where he was left, looking down at the low table and the simple flooring.

Binghe had red on him when he fell, like it was a wedding instead of a parting.

Shen Qingqiu sags down onto the bed like his strings have been cut. They haven’t been yet.

Usually at this point Shen Qingqiu tells him to sit. Tells him to relax. Says ‘Say something. Anything.’ again.

Tonight he just sits on the bed, and puts his head in his hands.

When the doors open again, there are more women. Three of them slide in through the door. One makes a low, wounded sound. One clucks gently. One looks at Shen Yuan silently, and he returns the observation.

She seems nice, he decides, and tries to smile.

The other two women are wrapped around Shen Qingqiu, one on each side, their hands in his hair and on his bowed back.

“His soul sword,” Shen Qingqiu is muttering into his hands, almost inaudible.

He hears: “the boy,” and “my fault.”

More clearly he hears: “Please be kind to him.”

The third woman places a hand on his shoulder.

“Why not sit a while, young master,” she suggests, gesturing to the table. “There’s plenty to eat.”

“He rarely eats unaided,” Shen Qingqiu says. “I can help him.”

His hands are in his lap now. He stares at Shen Yuan as if he can’t bear to look away. It’s an awful expression. Shen Yuan… He doesn’t like it.

“You can rest,” the woman on his left scolds.

“We can help your son eat,” the woman on the right soothes.

Shen Qingqiu doesn’t correct them.

“Here,” the woman beside Shen Yuan says. She’s holding a little cake between her fingers. “Open, sweetheart.”

Shen Yuan eyes the cake with resignation. It won’t taste right. Nothing tastes right. None of it tastes good. He only eats it at all because Shen Qingqiu looks so…

He doesn’t want to disappoint the kind woman either, though, so he opens his mouth.

The cake tastes like ashes.

When he wakes up in the morning, Shen Yuan finds himself curled up under plush blankets that smell like flowers. He sits up slowly, and sees across the room Shen Qingqiu curled in a tiny ball under the covers, his fierce hands clutching the blankets close.

He’s trying, Shen Yuan thinks, the thought coming to him with a clarity they rarely do. It rings true in his head, and it sticks there.

When the women cautiously bring breakfast, Shen Yuan moves to the table himself. He waits until Shen Qingqiu is awake—hair mussed and eyes bleary—before he carefully takes a dumpling. He waits for his shizun to be watching before taking a careful bite.

For a moment, he thinks he’s made a terrible mistake. The look on Shen Qingqiu’s face is more like heartbreak than anything. But then—strange—the agony splits into a miniscule smile.

Shen Yuan is so confused, he immediately forgets to chew his mouthful, and chokes. One of the women pours him tea, while a chorus of worried voices call his name and fret over him—loudest and angriest among them Shen Qingqiu.

It… It feels kind of nice.

Outside, when they leave with the sun high in the sky, Zhangmen-shixiong sits under a tree on the edge of town. Leaning against it is Liu Qingge, his eyes hard and his jaw set.

Shen Qingqiu snaps his fan shut, points it at both of them, and snarls: “Not a word.”

“Just making sure you come home safe, shidi.” Yue Qingyuan says, gentle confusion coloring the words.

Liu Qingge inhales to say something as well, but Yue Qingyuan thwacks him on the ankle with the scabbard of his forged sword.

In silence, they return to the peak. Shen Qingqiu leads the way haughtily, until the first time Shen Yuan lags behind, struggling once more to remember why he should bother with all the stairs. Then he silently doubles back. Shen Yuan holds out his wrist expectantly, but Shen Qingqiu doesn’t grab him. He wraps an arm around his shoulders, and draws him forward at his side, ushering him past the other two peak lords.

Something inside Shen Yuan has been twisting around since last night. It’s slowly finding a place inside him. He takes a breath, leaning into Shen Qingqiu’s wiry frame just a little.

“Did…You sleep?”

It takes him a moment to recognize his own voice. It’s been a long time since he said something really new.

The thin body beside him stiffens and stills. His shoulder tingles with the sudden tension of Shen Qingqiu’s grip. Behind them, the following footsteps halt as well, watching.

“Yes. I—” a glance over his shoulder, towards Yue Qingyuan. Shen Yuan can’t see the expression he gets in return. He can only see how determined Shen Qingqiu looks when he turns back. “How are you feeling, Shen Yuan?”

Shen Yuan blinks. Breathes. Binghe fell, he almost says. You pushed him.

“Strange,” he replies instead. “Lost.”

Somewhere, there is a boy who is lost.

A tightening of his lips. A nod. A gentle pulling motion around his shoulders, urging him forward. Shen Yuan follows, turning his gaze upwards towards Cang Qiong mountain.

Days pass slowly. Temporary Head Disciple Ning Yingying spends much of her time with Shen Yuan. Assistant Head Disciple Ming Fan is never far, always running errands.

She coaxes him to paint, and to talk.

He goads him into training his qi.

He dreams of a boy in the dark. There is fire, but it’s not the kind that illuminates the darkness. It’s choking smoke and singed fingers. It’s light and form without meaning. The boy fights with his hands.

The boy’s chest hurts, always. There is a void inside him. He tries to fill it with the shards of another’s sword, piercing the flesh over his heart, digging them into his skin to keep them safe from the flames.

The boy cannot trust anything to stay with him unless he ties it to his suffering.

 

Days pass slowly. Liu Qingge starts visiting the peak often, usually toting some carcass or another.

“It’s good for his cultivation,” he says by way of explanation, pointing rudely at Shen Yuan.

“Shoo,” says Shen Qingqiu, but there’s a distinct lack of venom these days.

Everything Shen Yuan eats still tastes like nothing, but he eats by himself recently. The few days he can’t work up the energy, Shen Qingqiu blows on spoonfuls of fresh-cooked stew made from whatever creature Liu Qingge killed last, and holds it to Shen Yuan’s lips without meeting his eyes.

He always looks sour, but he never lashes out. Not where Shen Yuan can see him.

He dreams of a boy who never sleeps, who hardly dares to eat, who can never rest and relax. The boy is all muscle, and violence. The boy’s chest hurts all the time, but it blends into a thousand other aches. There is nothing for it but to hurt, the boy thinks.

Sometimes, the boy will pause somewhere. He will tilt his head, as if turning into a kind touch. He will lean as if there is another body beside him—supporting. He will whisper words that go unheard by any living creature. He will lift his hands in tender supplication.

Sometimes, the boy holds one hand outright, and presses one hand gently downwards—an empty-handed mimicry of the most intimate moment of his life.

“‘It might do you both good’ he says,” mocks Shen Qingqiu in a nastily dim-witted imitation of Yue Qingyuan’s voice. “‘Change things up a little.’ Pah.”

“It must be nerve wracking,” Li-guniang agrees, stroking her comb slowly through Shen Qingqiu’s hair, scalp to tip, “the thought of leaving your sect’s safety with your son so vulnerable.”

“My Wang Jian-forged sword functions well,” Shen Yuan informs her, blinking heavily down at his lap.

It always makes him sleepy, to be pampered like this. One of the other women is working on his hair, and he knows by the time she’s done he and Shen Qingqiu will match again.

“What safety?” scoffs Shen Qingqiu. “Hasn’t everything that’s happened to him been while he’s at that sect? Worthless. He’s safest with me, and the sect be damned.”

“Hey!” objects their current shadow, lurking uneasily by the doorway without usually outright interrupting.

Shen Qingqiu ignores him with the ease of long practice. That draws Shen Yuan’s attention. When did Shen Qingqiu get that practice? When did Liu Qingge start coming with them? He has a vague memory of a sneered ‘oh, this will be fun’, and then the faint surprise on Shen Qingqiu’s face when Liu Qingge simply sat by the door and kept watch.

“Of course Shen Yuan will be coming with me, and stay safe by my side,” Shen Qingqiu continues. “It’s that the idiot feels the need to frame it as coddling me instead of utilizing my skills to their fullest.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with coddling you,” agrees Jian-mei, Shen Yuan’s secret favorite of the girls. She has a bestiary in her room, and brought it one night when Shen Yuan was trying to recall one of this world's more interesting creatures.

“There’s something wrong with him,” mutters Shen Qingqiu poisonously.

“I think it’s good,” Shen Yuan says, blinking heavy eyes again. “You’re good. The best of them.”

Shen Qingqiu falls silent, but there’s a round of high-pitched noises from the ladies. Shen Yuan flinches, and glances back in betrayal at the woman behind him. He can’t remember her name, and that throws him off pace. Names still give him so much trouble. He can almost make it through a day on the peak without forgetting why he should bother to walk. It’s been… Some time, since the last day he couldn’t pry anything but ‘Binghe fell’ from his lips.

Sometimes, it feels like a betrayal that he can talk more. He shouldn’t say anything else. He shouldn’t think anything else. Binghe fell, and it lives in his chest, where his heart was ripped out and shattered. Binghe fell, and how can anything be okay after that?

“Why do you look so surprised?” demands the gruff voice from the door. “Didn’t he say the same thing outside the caves?”

“He did.” Shen Qingqiu says, with a low, almost-reverent tone in his voice. It sounds like it hurts.

Shen Yuan keeps his eyes on his hands, and tries to remember how long ago Liu Qingge came with them. How long ago he started to be able to talk. How long ago Luo Binghe fell. It all slips away from him—minnows in water darting shyly away from his clumsy hands.

He dreams of a boy who never cries. A boy who after each kill presses a hand over his heart, as if feeling for something there. A boy who cries out aloud, sometimes, to no one—”I hate, I hate, I hate!”

He dreams of a blistered, agonizing sword taking root in a hollow chest, and a boy who gives up on screaming. He’s never heard. He’s never answered.

 

“Shimei,” Shen Yuan calls, lifting a hand in greeting.

“Shixiong!” Ning Yingying trots up to him, her arms brimming with scrolls, with an extra bundle of silk tumbling over one elbow, almost dragging on the floor.

Shen Yuan hesitates only a moment before reaching out and carefully removing a few scrolls. He’s slow to make decisions, but this one seems right. Make things easier for her, he rationalizes, nodding to himself as he takes one after another.

“Thank you,” Ning Yingying says sweetly, gifting him a bright smile.

Once, there was a boy whose smile was like sunshine, but Shimei has a good smile too. Shen Yuan isn’t right anymore—his sword broke, and it hurt everyone else that it happened, and Binghe fell, he fell, he fell— but he made Shen Qingqiu smile, once, and he's made Shimei smile now, and he thinks, maybe, he’d like to do that more. That if he isn’t too broken to make things better for them, then it’s good that he’s still alive.

They’re working hard for him, after all.

He dreams of a boy all alone in the endless abyss.

“I’m here,” he cries out. “I’m here, I’m here!”

But the boy never hears him, and never replies, and day by day the awful sword in his heart grows stronger.

“Have a safe trip,” Yue Qingyuan offers, pressing something into Shen Qingqiu’s hands, even as the snappish peak lord twitches away from the touch.

“Is this an alert talisman?” Shen Qingqiu snaps. “Do you think me some damsel in need of your protection?!”

“No,” Yue Qingyuan says. “I know I can’t be trusted with that, shidi. But if anything goes wrong with Shen Yuan, the sect will not fail you. Don’t hesitate to call us.”

“You—” Shen Qingqiu spits, stiff and bristling. 

He looks frazzled—too long since a night's sleep with the ladies, and too much stress for so long. Time still escapes Shen Yuan, but he knows it’s been so long. Now a mission, which will be good. There will be new things to see, and maybe monsters, and Shen Yuan’s qi is good enough now that he can fly on his Wang Jian sword. Rarely does he falter to a stop these days. Usually he has enough reason to keep walking, or flying, or training.

It’s almost never because he actually cares for what he’s doing—’care’ is beyond him most days—but it makes the brows of those watching over him pinch. It makes them slow their strides, and reach for him, and hide their expressions.

He reaches out to Shen Qingqiu, and tugs on his sleeve lightly. Be nice, he wants to say, or something like it, but phrased in a way that would make Shen Qingqiu snicker or bristle. They used to play, he remembers. Strange games that were more argument than anything, but he knows they were good.

Piercing eyes flip to him, glaring, but when Shen Qingqiu turns back to Yue Qingyuan, he heaves a heavy breath.

“You tried,” he spits, the alert talisman crumpling in his fist before he shoves it into his sleeve and storms away.

Left behind, Shen Yuan offers Yue Qingyuan a small, pleased smile. Seeing the sect leader utterly gobsmacked is…kind of pleasant.

He pulls out the little notebook he keeps, and notates ‘pleasant’ in the right column—”Possible Emotions.”

The left column is full of names. Sometimes he writes the same name multiple times, trying to commit it to memory.

Always, that column is full of the name he can never forget—the one who lives in his chest, and keeps his heart beating.

Always, the emotions that name awakens are recorded in the right column. “Grief, fear, sorrow, regret, regret, regret, falling.”

He closes the notebook and tucks it away again, bows to Zhangmen-shixiong, and turns to follow Shen Qingqiu’s storming pace at a leisurely stroll.

He still doesn’t recognize everyone on the peak. He’s greeted warmly as he goes, and he smiles in return. It doesn’t mean anything, but it’s nice. He feels nice when Yingying and A-Fan smile at him, so there’s no harm in doing it too.

Shen Qingqiu has still only smiled the one time, but Shen Yuan isn’t done trying yet.

Liu Qingge is a lost cause, and does not appear to understand the exercise.

“Fly close to me,” Shen Qingqiu commands, unsheathing Xiu Ya rather than using a forged sword himself. There are distant memories, covered in cotton, a familiar voice saying something like ‘not showing weakness’, but they slip away as soon as they appear.

Xiu Ya still mourns when she’s drawn, and Shen Yuan still feels the distant echo of her suffering, but it’s all quieter now. He gazes at that sword that hurt him, and saved him. Then he lifts his gaze to Shen Qingqiu’s expectant, impatient eyes.

“I don’t blame you,” he says. “You should know that. You were doing your best. You always are.”

Shen Qingqiu balks so hard he stumbles back into the grass off Xiu Ya’s blade. Shen Yuan turns his eyes back to the sword in his hands and tosses it forward easily to hover over the grass. He sort of misses flying on Xian Ya. It wasn’t a beautiful sword, but it was his. It really felt like he was flying.

He tilts his head, pulling out his notebook before hesitating.

“What’s the feeling that means ‘missing?’” he asks, lifting his gaze again to Shen Qingqiu’s startled gaze.

His shizun is poised on the balls of his feet, as if he’s about to flee. He wavers a moment, confusion and alarm warring on his brow before he finally rasps: “Longing. Yearning. Pining.”

“Mm,” Shen Yuan agrees with a nod, and writes all three in his journal.

Binghe fell, his heart whispers, and his hand trembles on the character strokes.

“Which direction?” he asks once he’s done, tucking his notebook away again. Four additions in one day is a lot. The doctor—shit, he just put his notebook away, what is his name?—anyway. He’ll be excited to see it. And Yue Qingyuan will look too, when Shen Qingqiu lets him, and he’ll say “you’ve come so far, Shen-shizhi” in his warm big-brother voice, and Shen Qingqiu will look like he’s eaten glass.

“North.” Rasps his shizun, sounding like he’d already eaten the glass even without Yue Qingyuan’s soft voice.

They rise together, and fly.

There is a boy who can no longer be stopped—no longer be hurt—and yet—

The mission is boring, and beautiful. The world is wide. Shen Yuan never traveled before. He likes it, he finds, and smiles at the knowledge.

“Like,” he adds to his journal. And then, when he comes back to Qing Jing Peak, and sees his little home again, with A-Fan and Yingying waving up at them with cheerful smiles, he adds beneath it: “Love.”

And with that thought comes a tidal wave--too little and too late, it feels, but real. ‘Binghe,’ he writes in his notebook, again and again, that night that he remembers how to feel it. ‘Binghe, Binghe, Binghe, love, love, love.'

“Gameplan,” Ming Fan demands, hands on his hips.

“Tag along, use fan Zhangmen-shixiong gave me to annoy shizun, observe closely, take notes,” Shen Yuan rattles off, distractedly opening and closing said fan.

It’s hideous, and has far too many dangly bits. The blues are blinding, and wash out any other colors until it looks like blue with vague beige splotches and a jade-hoarding problem.

Shen Qingqiu hates it, so of course Shen Yuan has to use it. It wasn’t that long ago he remembered how to play their games, and he doesn’t dare stop now, lest he forget again.

“The important game plan, shixiong,” Ning Yingying demands, tugging the trailing front edges of his hair in rebuke.

“Run away if there’s danger and drag shizun with me.”

“But?” Ming Fan prompts.

“But don’t let him find out that I’m dragging him away on purpose because he’s diametrically opposed to anyone giving a shit. I might be soul-dead but I’m not stupid.”

“You’re not soul dead,” Ning Yingying insists primly, as she always does, despite all evidence to the contrary.

“Straighten up, they’re coming,” hisses Ming Fan.

Shen Yuan summons a smile and lifts the awful, gaudy fan to cover it as the sound of an argument draws closer.

“It isn’t a comment on your talents, shidi, I’m only worried about you and A-Yuan—”

“Who?” snaps Shen Yuan’s affore-mentioned shizun, clearly already in a state even before his eyes land on Shen Yuan’s gaudy fan and narrow into furious slits.

“Excuse me, Head Disciple Shen Yuan.” Yue Qingyuan corrects himself, trailing after Shen Qingqiu like an ardent but ruffled duckling. “I’m well aware you’ve handled many missions together—”

“Significantly more challenging missions than this—”

“But the fact remains that I’d prefer if you took one of your more battle-focused martial siblings with you.”

“To fight what?” Shen Qingqiu demands. “The plague? Put that ridiculous thing down, Shen Yuan!”

“What thing?” Shen Yuan asks in his dullest, most-vacant tone.

“It isn’t safe,” Yue Qingyuan insists. “With Mu Qingfang and yourself focusing on the plague itself I have no doubt it will be addressed quickly—”

There’s the slightest softening in Shen Qingqiu’s edge, barely perceptible even to renowned Shen Qingqiu expert Shen Yuan.

“—But if you would perhaps consider leaving Yuan-shizhi here in safety—”

Aaaaaand there goes that brief glimmer of softness. All gone again. See you next brothel visit, soft shizun~

“He stays with me. Now get off my peak! Shen Yuan, stop waving that thing at me!”

“You looked a little flustered, shizun,” Shen Yuan says, “I thought a breeze might help.”

Shen Qingqiu’s lips twist. His nostrils flare. His expression reads, clearly, ‘you little shit,’ save for that glimmer in his eye that looks more like relief.

Ming Fan—weakest of the three head disciples in shizun divination—breaks on Shen Yuan’s behalf under the intensity of that sneer.

“Shizun, Shen-shixiong is packed and had Ning-shimei check his work! All prepared for travel.”

“And his qi is flowing smooth and clear this morning!” Ning Yingying reports cheerfully.

And Binghe fell down, and down, and when he comes back he’ll be different, Shen Yuan thinks, but does not say. Those thoughts have become clearer recently. The certainty. The doom. He doesn’t know what to do with them.

“And I also ate my breakfast and slept through the night,” Shen Yuan huffs, unable to actually feel indignant today, but capable of faking it for the sake of normalcy. “Are we done with the babysitting report? Can we go fight a plague?”

“I’d really feel better if Liu-shidi went along,” Yue Qingyuan says, prompting a glare from three out of four sets of eyes currently present. He does a miraculous job of not flinching away from the combined disapproval of his failure to vanish from Qing Jing Peak.

“You’ll feel better?” Shen Qingqiu repeats in disgust.

But Yue Qingyuan has learned, over the past years, when to stand his ground and when to bend. He stands firm now, his smile soft and sorry. “Yes. I’ll worry for you both otherwise, Shen-shidi.”

Ooo, earnest concern, Shen Qignqiu’s one true allergy and addiction; that which he hates and craves.

“Catering to the whims of a doting mother of a sect leader,” he spits sourly, snapping his own fan open to cover his face. “Fine! Send your brute. Make him Jinlan city’s problem. But heed you me, I will NOT be filing paperwork for the destruction he will doubtless cause.”

“Of course. This Qi—ahem—Qingyuan will handle all the paperwork.”

Shen Qingqiu narrows his eyes. “All of it?”

“Of course, shidi, any you like.”

Ming Fan is attempting to pretend that he’s focused distantly on nothing at all. Ning Yingying is gazing up at the clouds. Shen Yuan, with the shield of being broken, doesn’t bother pretending he’s not watching the sect leader awkwardly attempt to spoil Shen Qingqiu in a way that will mean something to him.

“Idiot,” spits Shen Qignqiu.

For a moment, Shen Yuan feels a swell of irrational jealousy. Shen Qingqiu hasn’t called him ‘idiot’ since his soul sword broke, after all.

(Though perhaps it’s that more than anything which proves it was always meant as an endearment rather than an indictment.)

His dreams for a month now have been of freedom, clean air, and a bone-deep burning that never abates. He does not understand them. Three years have passed like flowing water, but it will be two more before it all changes again.

If it were wishful thinking, he’d like to think it would be a little more wishful, and a little less nightmarish.

“You have to take him home,” declares Shen Yuan, gazing down the dark waterway where the feisty kid is spluttering after them.

“Absolutely not.” Shen Qingqiu replies.

“Not you,” Shen Yuan huffs, and points to the brute.

He can't say that out loud, though, because names aren’t working for him today, and it’s only Shen Qingqiu’s nickname for the grumpy war god that’s stuck in his head.

“Ah.” laser-focused eyes zero in on Liu Qingge, scanning him up and down, and a nasty little smile twists his lips. “Yes, Liu-shidi, that boy would suit Bai Zhan well, don’t you think?”

“I don’t take disciples.” Liu Qingge huffs, refusing to so much as glance at any of them.

“Ah, that’s right, ‘If they want to join they’ll come’, isn't it? What do you think, disciple Shen? If one were to simply toss the young man onto Bai Zhan would our War God accept that compromise?”

“That does appear to be his manner of giving gifts, shizun.” agrees Shen Yuan, thinking of the endless piles of monster corpses that continually appeared, one after another, each bolstering Shen Yuan’s cultivation.

Occasionally, he had discovered, they had been given by Liu Mingyan instead, but the two gift giving systems were so identical it was hard to tell. Once Shen Yuan had mentioned ‘It must run in the family’, but Liu Mingyan had only looked wistful and wounded, answering “I hope so”, and he hadn’t been able to understand that reaction well enough to figure out what to do in response.

Like so many things that confuse him, he sometimes pulls the thought out and turns it over like a puzzle box in his hands. There’s something inside, and he knows there is, but it’s impossible to tell what. The frustrating part is never knowing whether he would have known Before, or whether that him would have been lost too.

After all, he knows now there’s a lot he didn’t understand.

(The page where he wrote “love” in his notebook burns in the back of his mind, alongside Luo Binghe’s name in his heart. His chest aches, always, but the pain has gotten dull, or he’s gotten used to it. Sometimes, though, the echoes of Xiu Ya still howl through him, and he remembers the shaking hands that once more held his soul without really meaning to, carefully pressing shards back into his chest with fingers sliced bloody from their sharpness.)

Things seem bad in the city. That’s probably an understatement, but it’s true enough. Things seem bad, and the people aren’t doing great, though it’s interesting to see how the plague has leveled the playing field in some ways. How those who were already desperate and huddled before the threat of rotting away to their very bones now seem so cheerful and relaxed in comparison to those who once lived in luxury.

The Bai Zhan boy—though he isn’t a Bai Zhan boy yet—hounds their steps until Shen Qingqiu demands he make himself useful and lead them to anyone who knows what’s going on.

Shen Yuan has never met the legless monk before. He might have read about him once, but if so it was so long ago that he no longer remembers. (Or it’s another thing that shattered with his soul. Another memory he’ll never get back--another feeling he can no longer experience. He remembers ‘this is a novel’ as a thought, but he can no longer make it make sense in his mind. Like a magic eye puzzle that you’ve seen once, but can’t make work again.)

The monk speaks, and Shen Yuan takes notes. His name, the guessed death toll--including the Bai Zhan boy’s father, it seems. That’s a pity--the known symptoms, the progression of the disease, the state of the city.

“Shen Yuan will remain here and assist you as needed.” Shen Qingqiu commands Mu Qingfang. “Liu Qingge and I shall investigate in person. This master has a theory, but it needs confirmation before moving forward.”

“Then I’ll entrust Shen-shizhi with assisting in wrangling the infected to explore treatment options,” Mu Qingfang agrees with a nod.

There isn’t more of a goodbye than that. There’s no real reason to have one. Even if the worst were to occur, so long as they stay within the city they should have time for Mu Qingfang to devise a cure. Shen Yuan is busy notating the different groups of patients he needs to gather and restrain for the doctor--Which seems wildly unethical, but what does he know?--and doesn’t see Shen Qingqiu leave.

He sees him return, though--bursting through the door with his silk clothes in disarray and a wild-eyed look.

“Your things,” he barks, “fetch them. Now .”

Having just settled down a small group of infected children Mu Qingfang is trying to cure, Shen Yuan does not appreciate this interruption. He hasn’t gathered the words to make that clear before Shen Qingqiu is grabbing his wrist and dragging him upstairs to the room they claimed for the evening.

“That brute should be back any minute, and he will take you out of the city,” he continues. “Finally a use for that damn life debt.”

He’s shoving things into a qiankun pouch. Not just Shen Yuan’s things. His gold purse, a jade token, the spare fan he brought with him.

“What is it?” Shen Yuan asks--the closest he can get to the actual questions this scene inspires.

“You will go home and you will stay there and wait for me. Is that understood?”

“Your hand is red,”Shen Yuan answers, caught up in the sight of a red rash spreading up from Shen Qingqiu’s knuckles.

“Take out your notebook.”

Simple enough. He can do that.

“Start a new page.”

Well, he’d just started one after all the plague notes, but fine—it’s not like he’s paying for the paper.

“Step one, get on Liu Qingge’s sword and go home. Step two, activate the protection talismans on Qing Jing. Step three, alert Qiong Ding to the danger. Step four, wait for me. You’re not writing.”

“Will you come?” Shen Yuan asks.

Shen Qingqiu swallows hard. His red hand is shaking, quivering like a bamboo leaf in a storm.

“Your sword is crying,” Shen Yuan adds. “I can hear her. I always can.”

“You will go home and wait,” Shen Qingqiu rasps.

There’s a knock on the door, and his master turns away from him, striding towards it.

“Finally, Qingge, what—” his voice slams shut into silence.

“Shizun,”—

Something inside Shen Yuan shifts.

—“are you going to run again?”

There is a coiling thing in the center of him. There is a sword he holds close, though sometimes it feels like it’s strangling him--like it’s migrated up out of his chest, and taken residence in his throat.

“We have so much to talk about.”

Shen Qingqiu keeps the door halfway open, and glances back only once, his expression fierce and cold.

“Mind your notes, disciple.” he orders, and then he throws himself out of the room, tackling the person in the hallway with a tremendous crash.

Shen Yuan stands in place for a long moment, then slowly turns towards the window, gazing out over the city. There’s a lot of noise in the building now, probably disturbing all the people he tried so hard to settle on Mu Qingfang’s behalf. Somewhere in the building, Xiu Ya releases a howl.

It is completely drowned out by a sound Shen Yuan has never heard before. A warping, animal scream , like the death cry of a dragon, drawn out in suffering that will only be relieved by death.

Numbly, Shen Yuan fumbles with his notebook, just to etch in charcoal the word ‘fear’ in response to that sound. Then his paralysis breaks at last, and he flings himself towards the window, scrambling to find Liu Qingge as he was told.

Behind him come the sounds of a terrible battle only just beginning.

Chapter Text

Somewhere, a familiar boy is burning.

Somewhere, a familiar sword is crying.

These truths jostle inside Shen Yuan as he runs, body low against the rooftops. Something about it is making his pulse thrum, though so little tends to scare or excite him now.

Behind him a building crumbles in a lurching rumble that almost knocks him off his feet. There are people shouting—some afraid, some angry, some excited. The noises of them blend into a blur, drowning among the ringing clashes of blade meeting blade.

The familiar sword is suffering. It cannot last forever. He knew it first like this—hopelessly clinging to existence.

The familiar boy is suffering, but aloud he only laughs. Shen Yuan does not recognize him like this. The laughter doesn’t match with the thought of tea in curly hair.

He falters, staggering to a stop. He fumbles, struggling for the notebook hastily crammed in its pouch. He knows something about this. He’s written it down, once. There are names he’s forgotten, or names he remembers too well, or names that don’t quite seem to fit anymore.

On the most recent page, all that’s written are three words. The first two are in the ‘notes’ column: “Qingge.” and “Run.”

The third is listed under ‘feelings’: “Wrong.”

Fingers trembling, he scrambles for his charcoal and writes it over and over. “Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

“Hey!”

“Atrocious. You’re rushing,” Shen Qingqiu would say if he saw how Shen Yuan was writing. He tries to steady his vibrating body—to soften his strokes from their chaotic scrawl.

“Shen Yuan!”

Someone grabs his shoulders, and Shen Yuan blinks down at the page— Wrong wrong wrong WRONG WRONG wrong— before dragging his eyes up to Liu Qingge’s scowling face.

“Where’s your father?” demands Liu Qingge.

It’s a funny question for some reason. Shen Yuan’s hands shake, and his throat doesn’t work. He lifts his journal, trying to show Liu Qingge his name. The instruction. Trying to explain this is wrong, this is all wrong.

There is a soul screaming, on the edge of shattering. He tastes it in the back of his throat like mud and rainwater.

There is a boy who is all wrong and just right at once. Shen Yuan knows him. He’s certain of that.

“Is he fighting?” Liu Qingge demands, undeterred by the notebook.

Slowly, Shen Yuan nods. Yes. He’s fighting. He’s losing. He’s dying. It was bound to happen. He wants to stop it.

“Get back to the sewers!” Liu Qingge commands, pushing past Shen Yuan and his outstretched notebook.

The soul sword he draws is strong and straight—perfect and deadly. It will not be enough.

I’m too broken to run, Shen Yuan explains to himself as he stands in place, watching Liu Qingge charge into the dust and ash of battle.

It’s the brute that Shen Qingqiu will be upset with, not me, he adds as he takes a slow step closer to the disaster.

It’s just that I don’t have any way out.

A thin strand of qi translates into a gentle wind, clearing the air around him as he cautiously moves back towards the rubble.

It’s not like anyone expects me to have any self-preservation.

The sounds of battle are clear. Liu Qingge shouting. Shen Qingqiu snarling back. Swords clashing—souls bared against one another. Smoke peels around Shen Yuan as he walks, the world fading into nothing around him as he walks slowly. Step by step he draws closer. He cannot understand why he needs to move, but he cannot stop himself from going. 

If Shen Qingqiu didn’t want me to wander into danger, he should run with me.

That’s the plan anyway, he realizes, and straightens, his vision clearing enough to take in more of the details. Ruined buildings and dust curling. That’s the whole point. He and Yingying and A-Fan worked hard on the plan—to weaponize Shen Yuan’s weakness against Shen Qingqiu—to ensure Xiu Ya’s screaming stayed quiet, and their master never again wore the thin, haunted look he had after the skinner demon.

He’ll see me in danger, grab me, and run. Liu Qingge can handle the fight.

But even as he thinks it, some part of him rebels. Something inside him echoes Xiu Ya’s scream. Something inside him burns with rage and hatred. They are him, and not him. Part of him, but separate.

Each step rings through him, as if he were glass and the earth were striking tones through his hollow body. He moves slowly, the chaos of the world lost on him. People are sprinting away, or fumbling at the wreckage, or gaping up at the sky, eyes tracking a battle that Shen Yuan cannot muster the energy to witness.

A step, and the toll of the years rings through him. A step, and Shen Qingqiu pushed Luo Binghe. A step, and Luo Binghe fell. A step. Ning Yingying helps him eat when Shen Qingqiu cannot. A step. Ming Fan asks his opinion even when Shen Yuan has none. A step. Liu Mingyan sits in silence with him on Qing Jing Peak. Step. Liu Qingge and his sister both bring monsters that may help. Step. Yue Qingyuan visits often.

Yue Qingyuan, with his patchwork sword, who Shen Qingqiu can hardly stand to look at, who always said things like “You’re improving, Shen-shizhi,” and “If you feel it, it’s important. Keep track of them however you like.” and “You love him.”

That day, Shen Yuan had blinked down at his little notebook, Luo Binghe’s name over and over, because he wrote the word love.

“Shizun pushed him,” he’d answered then, his throat tight with pain.

Slowly, Yue Qingyuan’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, squeezing him gently.

“I know,” he’d whispered. “He thought he was protecting you.”

A step, and Shen Yuan is abruptly halted by a wave of malevolent qi so strong it makes him physically queasy. He blinks twice against the feeling churning in his gut, and finally lifts his eyes.

He’s in time to see Liu Qingge knocked out of the sky like a meteor—crashing down to earth and taking another building with him. He’s in time to see the other figure—back to him, long dark hair, black clothes—drift down towards a rooftop with unhurried grace.

He gathers himself, breathes deep, and leaps. Just a look, and he’ll go. Just to see. Just to catch Shen Qingqiu’s eyes, and force him to run. Just to learn. To find out. To—

He alights on a single foot atop the spiked tip of a temple, just high enough to see.

Shen Qingqiu is on his knees. He’s bloody. He’s hurt. His teeth are bared. Xiu Ya digs into the roof as he tries to use it as a crutch to pry himself upright. She is howling in pain.

“Give me back his shards, you demon!” his shizun spits, fresh blood flowing down his chin with the words.

“Shizun,” purrs the man, his black sword glinting in the dust-filtered sunlight, “do you think you can make demands of me?”

The hollowness dissolves in a dizzying swoop. All of Shen Yuan is devoured by that voice—wreathed in fire and blood and sweat. Something inside him breathes.

Luo Binghe, his back to Shen Yuan and his dark hair fluttering behind him like a war banner, steps towards the fallen Shen Qingqiu. In a way—a sick, awful way—all is right with the world. Luo Binghe will tear Shen Qingqiu to pieces. The audience cheers. Shen Yuan cheered, once, in a life that he lived before—that gave him a soul sword before he was grown—that fell empty at the feet of this life. These people. This world.

He sees it, when Shen Qingqiu notices him. He sees the way his brows twist in despair the moment before he sets his jaw and throws himself forward. It’s a futile attempt. Luo Binghe slaps him aside like an insect, and grabs the screaming sword from his hand as he falls.

“One more chance,” Luo Binghe says, raising his voice to be heard over the screaming of Xiu Ya and Shen Qingqiu both as he squeezes the wailing soul sword.

The black blade in his other hand is all wrong. Shen Yuan can feel it bleeding into the air—all violence, all pain, all sorrow, all rage, all hatred. It’s not a soul at all—it’s an infection.

Because Luo Binghe’s real soul—

“Shen Yuan is safe,” snarls Shen Qingqiu, clawing at the roof beneath him in agony as his soul sword is threatened in another’s grip. “And if he has any sense, he will spend the rest of his life running from you! ”

Shen Yuan is a broken shell, but even he hears the command in that defiant proclamation.

Unfortunately for Shen Qingqiu, even when he was whole Shen Yuan never obeyed him all the time. He takes a deep breath, and feels something inside him slot into place. Some weight and presence he hasn’t felt in a long, long time.

“Binghe,” he calls.

Nothing could have prepared him for the red of his eyes. For the wildness in his gaze. For the way his grip on Shen Qingqiu’s sword spasms, making his master shriek and writhe. He has changed in the abyss. He has grown, and his features have sharpened. He looks as though he were carved into sheer perfection—a young god interrupted in the midst of his wrath.

His gaze lands on Shen Yuan like a physical touch, blazing against him. Shen Yuan hadn’t realized how cold the world was until that moment. It scorches. It burns.

Once, a lifetime ago, he learned that after hypothermia, warm touches burn.

Binghe isn’t even touching him yet.

“No,” wheezes Shen Qingqiu, eyes wild on Shen Yuan.

Without looking away, Luo Binghe brings Xiu Ya down in a sharp piercing motion behind himself. Shen Yuan flinches forward, too far and too late to actually do anything.

Xiu Ya pierces Shen Qingqiu’s right arm and digs deep into the roof beneath him, pinning him like an insect. His cry of fury tangles with the sword’s agonized howl.

“Stay right there, shizun,” Luo Binghe instructs, eyes never leaving Shen Yuan.

“Idiot boy,” Shen Qingqiu isn’t looking at Binghe either. He’s fumbling, left hand scraping over the ground to dig in his robes. “Stupid boy, RUN!”

Shen Yuan has the time to see the talisman Shen Qingqiu’s been fumbling for. He can’t tell what it is. Explosion? Double suicide? Would he do that? What wouldn’t he do? Spending years diligently caring for a boy he didn’t have to take in in the first place. Fighting Luo Binghe on his behalf, still struggling on the ground.

He cannot let Shen Qingqiu make that call.

He runs.

With a shout that could be anger, or sorrow, or surprise, Luo Binghe leaps after him. The sound echoes in his sword, elongates and twists and grows.

Terror,  Shen Yuan identifies, shaking off the urge to pull out his book and add it.

“Shixiong!” Luo Binghe cries behind him, so so close.

Shen Yuan scrambles through the wreckage. Past the crater in which Liu Qingge lies. He can’t tell if he’s still breathing. He can’t understand any of this. Binghe is here, and it’s so good. Binghe is here and it hurts so much. Binghe is here, and Shen Yuan—

A wave of malevolence almost takes him off his feet. He stumbles to all fours, scrambles against his own robes, and darts forward just fast enough to feel fingertips drag through his silks at the last moment.

Think, he begs himself as he scrambles around a corner so fast he bounces off the wall of the opposite street. Something crashes behind him as Binghe follows. Think! You used to be so good at this! What do I do? How do I fix it?!

“Stop running from me!” Screams Binghe behind him, as if he’s in agony. The dark presence in the air redoubles, pressing down on Shen Yuan like the air itself has gained the terrible weight of water.

There are people on the streets.

He remembers a heart-sore Binghe demanding answers. Aren’t they supposed to protect the common people? Can’t they do anything against their everyday suffering and sorrow?

The fact is certain inside him. Binghe wants to protect people. Shen Yuan launches himself upwards, his Wang Jian forged sword trembling with the strain. A wordless cry of anguish is right on his heels.

He won’t be able to go far like this. It doesn’t matter. He just has to get away from people. Binghe won’t be happy if he hurts anyone else.

He remembers. “You can’t die,” a precious boy begs him on the edge of hell.

Binghe won’t be happy if he hurts Shen Yuan either. But he’s chasing him like this—with the malevolent force of his demonic blade thrashing through the air, trying to force Shen Yuan slower.

Sluggishly, two thoughts appear, at war with each other inside his mind.

Luo Binghe has changed.

or

Luo Binghe needs help.

It’s possible they’re both true. It’s possible they’re both wrong. His mind has never worked as well as it did before his sword broke. It’s possible he’ll always be confused now. It’s possible he’ll be like this the rest of his life. It would be easier to let someone else make the choice. To hope that someone shows up. To let Binghe catch him, and tear him apart, or hold him captive, or whatever he plans to do. It would be so much easier not to make a choice.

But—a sunshine smile, a too-much so-good hand on his soul sword, drawing it so gently—if Binghe needs help—a head of soft curls bowed to accept his patting, eyes full of stars and snow-white congee and care given in every way—if he needs him…

Shen Yuan would never turn him away.

That thought, at last, anchors inside him. He feels it slide home. Feels his too-full chest, and understands at last.

Reality is screaming around him, but now, at last, he feels calm. He banks his sword, flying towards one of the few high-topped buildings still standing. He didn’t make it far, winding as his escape had been. In the distance he can see the smear of red and green that’s the fallen Shen Qingqiu. He can see a black speck in the distance, racing closer.

Reinforcements from the sect. He’ll have to work fast. He cannot let them hurt Binghe.

He hops off his sword onto the roof, already turning to face his precious disciple.

Binghe is much closer than he thought. He snatches the Wang Jian blade that Shen Yuan never gave a name to and flings it as far as he can. His clothes and hair billow in his qi, boiling black around his sickly pale face and clawed hands. The demon mark on his forehead burns with his bright red eyes. In the book, he’d never shown such a thing.

Just like Shen Qingqiu, Shen Yuan has somehow made things harder for him by being here. In the book, Shen Qingqiu cared for nothing, held no hopes, hated everything with fervor, and comforted himself by torturing his least-favorite student. This Shen Qingqiu never had that comfort, and in its place is a nobody NPC who can give him no comfort he understands.

In the book, this post-abyss Luo Binghe was perfectly in control. Because he’d lost everything, and given up every hope. This Luo Binghe is torn apart and tormented, because he cares. He cares so much. His little white lotus heart never had every dream beaten out of it. He wants safety for the common people, he wants safety for his martial siblings, and he wants—

“Don’t run,” growls Luo Binghe, prowling a step closer. His chin is tucked, his wild eyes fixated on Shen Yuan.

“I won’t,” Shen Yuan promises.

“Shixiong,” the protagonist reaches out. His claws tangle in Shen Yuan’s robes. In his hair. His demon mark is burning, spreading over his forehead. The demon sword in his hand leeches its hatred into this moment, when at last they are together again.

Hate, Shen Yuan adds to the notebook in his mind. He hates this thing for poisoning this moment. But then, without it, could Binghe have returned to him?

Isn’t it the new heart he forged for himself in the desperate hope of survival, deep in the abyss?

All because he entrusted his soul to someone else.

“It’s okay,” Shen Yuan tells him, stepping closer. He gently guides Luo Binghe’s claws. They catch and tear on the fabric of his robes as Shen Yuan slides closer. As he leans back into the demon’s hold. Luo Binghe shudders at the weight of him, his snarl melting into confusion, his burning eyes fixated.

“It hurts,” Luo Binghe rasps, seeming bewildered more than anything.

“I know,” Shen Yuan agrees.

He leans back. Tilts back his chin, exposing the long column of his throat. He rests his weight against the solid muscle of Luo Binghe’s arm, and lifts one hand to his too-full chest. The light that blossoms beneath his palm is bright red. He should think it looks like blood, probably, but all that comes to mind in the glow of the light is ‘like a wedding’. Luo Binghe sucks in a breath.

Zhang Yang has changed. Shen Yuan wanted only to keep it safe, but it has rusted in his chest. Pieces of it have corroded away, leaving poor Binghe’s soul warped and altered by its stay next to Shen Yuan’s heart.

Luo Binghe sucks in a breath.

It’s a sorry gift, to give in return to the one who saved his life. Shen Yuan gives it nonetheless. He lifts a hand to cup the back of Luo Binghe’s neck, still draped in his arm, and slowly presses the sword into his precious shidi’s chest.

The connection has strained so long—almost broken a thousand times through the long years of the abyss. It’s become so much a part of Shen Yuan that he’s never fully registered it.

The moment Zheng Yang begins to sink into its home, it finally becomes clear. The first inhalation after having the breath knocked from you. The feeling of too much and so good —a mirror to how it felt for Binghe to touch his soul. Zheng Yang lets out a soft, relieved moan of a sound, and Shen Yuan presses the palm of his hand to its hilt, guiding it to sink the rest of the way in.

Luo Binghe chokes. Shudders.

Falls.

Draped in his arm, Shen Yuan yelps as they drop. Luo Binghe controls the tumble, falling only to his knees, still clinging one-handed to Shen Yuan. It’s awkward, but it’s close. That’s all Shen Yuan wants.

Xin Mo clatters against the ground. It is not gone, and it can’t be. A soul can never just disappear.

But it can change.

“Sheathe it,” Shen Yuan instructs, his voice gentle as he can make it.

Luo Binghe blinks twice, dazed. His eyes are flickering red. The mark on his forehead recedes and spreads in turns.

“Sheathe it, Binghe,” he repeats, slowly shifting his position.

Luo Binghe clings tighter, as if afraid he’s pulling away. It’s alright, though. Shen Yuan isn’t scared of a few little claw marks, and he’s not going anywhere.

He shifts their positions, sliding out of Binghe’s lap only so that he can wrap his arm more fully around his not-so-little disciple’s back, still cradling the nape of his neck in his palm. With one hand on Binghe’s clavicle, he presses, urging him to bend back.

Bit by bit, Luo Binghe leans his weight into him. His dazed eyes are still fixed on Shen Yuan’s face. He looks lost. Confused. Afraid.

“It’s okay,” Shen Yuan breathes, guiding Binghe’s other arm up.

Safe in his arms, Luo Binghe shudders and jolts as he sheathes Xin Mo. His back arches harshly up, spasming, and Shen Yuan wraps him tighter in a hug to support him. Presses his forehead to Binghe’s sweat-slicked temple, and holds on tight.

“Shixiong,” chokes the man in his arms, shuddering.

“Mm,” agrees Shen Yuan, hugging him tight.

“Shixiong!” Binghe cries again, jolted into motion. He straightens out of his agonized bend, scrambling to catch Shen Yuan’s shoulders. He winces, gasps, curls inwards around his own chest. It must feel so uncomfortably full—so conflicted. Bearing two fragmented souls can do that to you.

“It’s okay,” Shen Yuan says again.

“No!” Binghe cries, clinging tighter. “Your soul—take it back!”

He fumbles, clawing open his robes. Over his heart are a tragic collection of scars. One deep sword wound, just too close to his shoulder to be fatal. This Shen Yuan recognizes—Xiu Ya had struck him deep before he’d fallen into the abyss. The others—

Just over Luo Binghe’s heart are a dozen smaller scars, pearlescent and white. He scrambles at them, clawing himself open as Shen Yuan reels. He pries free a sliver of silver from the first before Shen Yuan can catch up to stop him. He’s quick, this little disciple of his. Always quickest to hurt himself.

“Wait,” Binghe chokes, staring at the silver shard. “Wait, this isn’t—I didn’t—”

“Shhhh,” Shen Yuan breathes, drawing Luo Binghe’s blood-soaked claws to his own chest. The shard of Xian Ya melts into him without resistance—barely a flicker.

“No,” Binghe moans, straining to claw at his chest once more. Shen Yuan grips his wrist tighter to halt him, and catches the other too. “No, no, I only wanted to keep them safe, I didn’t—”

“Binghe,” Shen Yuan calls to him, squeezing the wrists in his palms. “Look at me.”

Binghe gives a little moan of sound, but his eyes focus, lifting from the blood on his own chest to gaze at the shixiong he so selflessly tried to save. Who he kept alive in the long years by sacrificing pieces of his own soul.

“Look at me,” Shen Yuan repeats, slowly bending back and pressing Luo Binghe’s hands to his thin chest.

Because he feels it now. He felt it as he chose to approach danger. He felt it when he chose to stand with Luo Binghe. He knows it’s there now. Knows why his chest felt too-full, when it should still have been hollow and empty.

The light that glows out from beneath Binghe’s palms isn’t red this time, and it isn’t gold like it used to be. It’s only bright.

The touch is too much, and perfect. It’s breathing again. It’s Shen Yuan’s fragile new soul, breathing out there you are .

Luo Binghe draws from him a delicate blade. Not the brutal patchwork of Yue Qingyuan, but instead a lace-like construction. The silver sword is held together by threads of color. Red twines through it, binding dissonant fragments into place. Here and there are stripes of green, with hints of other colors strengthening and supporting the fragile blade.

It looks like stained glass, and Shen Yuan smiles at the sight of it. Just right, he thinks with some pleasure as Luo Binghe gazes open-mouthed at the sword in his lap, braced and echoed by the corroded pieces of Zheng Yang that Shen Yuan had absorbed through the years. Supported and solidified by the care of Shen Qingqiu and Qing Jing Peak.

Yue Qingyuan was right, Shen Yuan thinks with a weary smile, lifting his hands to rest them over his sword and Luo Binghe’s palms both. A soul can heal.

With enough help, it can even build itself back from next to nothing.

“Shixiong,” Luo Binghe chokes.

“It’s a little silly, isn’t it.” Shen Yuan says, kneeling before Luo Binghe, with his stained glass sword between them, held in both their hands.

“It’s beautiful,” Binghe sobs, shaking his head hard before leaning forward to press his forehead to Shen Yuan’s.

He’s burning hot. The demon mark pulses with heat. Shen Yuan nuzzles against the touch in the hopes that he feels cool and refreshing in comparison.

“Get away from him!” a vicious voice demands.

Luo Binghe jolts, but Shen Yuan doesn’t let him pull away. He lifts a hand, anchoring it behind his neck, and turns his head slowly.

“Shizun,” he greets softly. “It’s okay.”

It might be, but Shen Qingqiu definitely isn’t. He’s supported almost entirely by a terrified-looking Yue Qingyuan. Shen Yuan remembers a long-ago given alert talisman, and allows himself a small smile. He shifts, but only slightly. Opens up the side of his huddle with Luo Binghe so that Shen Qingqiu can see the blade cradled in those clawed hands.

“I’m okay,” he soothes. “You and Binghe took care of me.”

Yue Qingyuan draws in a breath, staring at the blade in silence. Shen Qingqiu shows no such decorum, throwing himself forward as if he still intends to rip Luo Binghe away from Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan only opens an arm to him, welcoming the man who’s tried so hard to change for his sake.

With a grimace like agony on his face, Shen Qingqiu hesitates for a moment, blood soaked and beaten, looking between the sword, Luo Binghe’s bowed form, and Shen Yuan’s open smile. Then, finally, he makes his choice.

His hug is far, far too tight, his bony hands far harsher than Binghe’s claws as they dig into Shen Yuan’s back. He doesn’t mind, only humming and wrapping his free arm around his master in return. With his other hand, he stays connected to Binghe and the new soul he built for himself.

“It’s okay,” Shen Yuan murmurs, eyes closed as his body is held tight by the scumbag villain and his soul is cradled in the vicious, clawed hands of the protagonist. “Xian Ya should have broken a long, long time ago. This sword… This is really me.”

He turns his head to meet Luo Binghe’s eyes. Crystal tears fill his dark star-bright gaze. His expression trembles on the edge of despair and blinding glee, unable to rest between them.

“I’ll call it Xin Fei,” Shen Yuan decides with a grin that feels real for the first time in a long time.

When Luo Binghe throws his arms around Shen Yuan and Shen Qingqiu both, it grants a noise of extreme objection from the scum villain, but Shen Yuan only laughs, loud and bright, and clings to them both in return.

In one lifetime, he crafted a simple sword. It was okay. It was enough to protect the people he cared about, at least sometimes. He named it as a joke to annoy his master, and tried to ignore that it always ached, never quite right. It was enough to start him out in this life.

“Hey!” someone rasps nearby. “Why aren’t we fighting?!”

“Liu-shidi, shhh,” whispers someone else.

In this lifetime, ever since the day he came to Qing Jing Peak, he has never been alone. That old soul, built in comfort but isolation, had felt more and more confining until, at last, it could take no more and shattered.

This new one isn’t perfect. It isn’t the strongest among the stars to cut down enemies. It’s fragile. He will never use it to fight again.

But to know a character’s soul sword is to know that character. And finally meeting himself like this, Shen Yuan can’t help but smile.

Chapter Text

“Luo Binghe,” Yue Qingyuan says as their rag-tag assortment of Cang Qiong members returns to the mountain. “Come speak with me.”

Luo Binghe wavers. He’s been wavering quite a bit, since they left the city and started heading home. Shen Yuan had coaxed him onto his rented sword, holding on tight in case he fell, despite Shen Qingqiu’s furious scowl of disapproval.

He had a suspicion that part of the reason for that scowl was so that he wouldn’t have to notice that he himself was being tenderly escorted home on the sect-leader’s Wang Jian sword.

Liu Qingge, riding Mu Qingfang’s sword with him at the doctor’s insistence, looked significantly more put out about sharing than Binghe or Shen Qingqiu did.

“Just me?” Luo Binghe asks, his voice raw and small.

Shen Yuan knows he’s been crying, but it aches to hear the proof of it. He squeezes the hand he’s holding, and lets out a breath when he’s squeezed back.

“Just you,” Yue Qingyuan agrees. “There has never been a half-demon disciple on Cang Qiong before. I would like to discuss the details of that with you.”

Luo Binghe swallows so hard Shen Yuan hears it. Some weird part of him wriggles with disappointment that he didn’t have his hand on Binghe’s throat for it, to feel his Adam’s apple bob, and his tendons flex, and—

Wow , okay, a functioning soul appears to have made significant other parts of him mal function. Cool. Great.

But Binghe’s looking at him for help, and Shen Yuan can’t deny him.

“Qingyuan’s trustworthy,” he promises softly. “He helped.”

“Okay,” Luo Binghe says, his dark eyes fixed on Shen Yuan and his loose hair tumbling about his still-pale cheeks.

Shen Yuan lifts his hands, cupping his face, and draws him down. Binghe’s lips tremble against his, vulnerable and soft.

“Eurgk?!” Liu Qingge adds to the moment, eloquently.

“Enough!” Shen Qingqiu barks, shoving off Yue Qingyuan and thrusting his fan between Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe’s faces.

Even as Shen Qingqiu drags him home, Shen Yuan watches Luo Binghe over his shoulder, and is watched in return. The sword inside him is singing, softly. He doesn’t like letting Binghe out of his sight.

It feels so good to know he doesn’t like it.

“Your sword,” Shen Qingqiu says, voice low.

It startles Shen Yuan so much he jumps, then lets out a breath of laughter.

“Yes?”

“It doesn’t…” His favorite scum villain works for the words, his mouth twisting as if he were holding an unpleasant taste. He reassesses. Begins again. “Xian Ya pained you.”

“Mm,” Shen Yuan nods, and presses a hand to his chest. “This one doesn’t hurt, Shizun.” And then, because he’s gotten used to pressing his luck while Shen QIngqiu didn’t dare scold him too harshly, he adds: “Yours shouldn’t either.”

It gains him a look that’s trying to be hateful, but just winds up looking wounded.

“Ridiculous,” Shen Qingqiu sighs, turning back forward in his walk towards the bamboo house.

He’s still bloody and bruised. His robes and hair are in disarray. Shen Yuan suspects that the only reason he isn’t using his fan is that the arm Binghe stabbed is still aching.

So when he sees Ming Fan and Ning Yingying sprinting towards them with worried expressions, he steps forward and claps his master on the back.

“I’ve got this,” he says lightly. “Go clean up, Shizun.”

For all the rest of his days, he will never tell a soul what he sees in that moment. Because he has only seen his scum teacher cry once before, when he thought Shen Yuan had died, and not even Yue Qingyuan will ever get to know that a tear slipped down his cheek here too, knowing that the boy he’d saved was saved once more.

Shen Yuan’s whole body feels light as he steps into a role he’d lost with himself, and embraces both his martial siblings tightly before telling them everything. They both hold onto his arms as he speaks, and the contact grounds him—reminds him of the bright lines of yellow and orange binding his new soul sword together.

By the time he sends them off to tackle their Luo-shidi, he’s expecting to feel tired. Instead, as he changes into fresh clothes and peeks into his Shizun’s room to find him in a lump on his bed, he finds that he feels more awake with every passing moment.

“Mingyan!” Shen Yuan greets as he heads towards Qiong Ding peak himself, lifting his hand in greeting.

“Shixiong,” Liu Mingyan greets in turn, inclining her head towards him. “Heading back to Luo-shixiong for the night?”

What’s that tone, Shimei?! Demands Shen Yuan’s internal voice. Also, how are you so well informed?! Has news spread that quickly?!

“I am,” he agrees despite himself, eyes flicking over her travel coat and the qiankun pouch at her side. “And you?”

“I’ve decided to return a favor,” Liu Mingyan says mildly. “Once an upstart young demon issued a challenge I failed to meet. I’ve decided a rematch may be in order.”

“Oof,” says Shen Yuan. “Poor Sha Hualing.”

Liu Mingyan laughs, and reaches out, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s good to have you back,” she says, and turns away.

“It doesn’t hurt?”

Ning Yingying’s voice filters through the paper walls of the guest house where Luo Binghe is currently staying while he and Yue Qingyuan decide how to proceed.

“No,” Luo Binghe agrees. “It’s… Not as comfortable if I’m hiding it. But like this it’s okay. You… Don’t mind shijie? Shixiong?”

“What mind?” scoffs Ming Fan in what must be his best imitation of Shen Qingqiu, but always comes out too whiny. “Don’t you already have an annoying face? Nothing’s changed.”

“A few things have,” Luo Binghe chuckles, sounding small and uncertain.

“Are you sure you want to come back?” Ning Yingying asks, and something in her tone darkens the atmosphere. “Luo-shidi, I saw what happened. He stabbed you. He pushed you.”

“He thought I’d hurt Shen Yuan,” Luo Binghe whispers. “I’d have done the same to anyone who touched him. And anyhow, I’ve stabbed him now too. Even is even.”

“That’s hardly even,” Ning Yingying sighs, sounding at a loss.

Shen Yuan clears his throat, feeling a little guilty for listening in this long, and reminds his feet that he can move. A few steps closer, and he taps lightly against the wood of the door.

“Shixiong?” Luo Binghe guesses, his tone so achingly bright.

I thought you were gone, Shen Yuan doesn’t say as he slides the door open to reveal that sunshine smile.

I thought I lost this, he doesn’t say as he smiles fondly at his three little martial siblings, huddled together happily around a plate of sweets and a pot of tea.

I thought I’d never be happy again.

“Good evening, you three,” he says, walking in.

Propriety says he should take the empty side of the table, filling all four sides.

He rounds it instead, and folds himself neatly to sit at Luo Binghe’s side, so close that their sides burn against each other.

“Any luck with Zhangmen-shixiong?” Shen Yuan asks, leaning further against his favorite little shidi.

The pieces of Xian Ya that Luo Binghe absorbed while inside the abyss sing softly in greeting. He feels the pieces of Zheng Yang inside his own soul echo the welcome.

Even without them, it would feel like coming home.

“Mm,” Luo Binghe agrees, tilting their heads together. “He says I may stay, and to hell with what any other sect has to say about any of us. We could take ‘em.”

Shen Yuan snorts.

“He did not say that.”

“Well,” Luo Binghe nuzzles closer into his hair. “Not in those words.”

“This is unbelievable,” mutters Ming Fan. “They were already bad enough!”

“Shush,” Ning Yingying hisses, stars in her eyes.

The return to Qing Jing Peak seems shockingly uneventful. Shen Qingqiu stands at the end of the rainbow bridge, swathed in fresh green robes that are perfectly tailored to make him look bigger than he is. His cold eyes study Luo Binghe over his fan, then shift to Shen Yuan at his side and soften visibly. He heaves a sigh even before they’ve approached, and snaps his fan closed.

“Stand against me again, and I will throw you off this mountain,” Shen Qingqiu warns Luo Binghe, pointing his fan at the half-demon’s chest.

“Yes, shizun,” Luo Binghe says easily, without any real reverence, but without any real hatred either.

“Go,” huffs Shen Qingqiu, turning away.

But before Shen Yuan has led Luo Binghe out of earshot, they both hear Shen Qingqiu say: “Wait.”

Shit , Shen Yuan thinks.

From the way Luo Binghe has gone stiff beside him, he’s not the only one anticipating the worst.

Shen Qingqiu stays with his back to them for a long moment, then whirls back around, storming the few steps between them. He looks furious in the way he only gets when he’s wounded. Shen Yuan’s fear redoubles. What is this? What happened? Wasn’t everything decided? Wasn’t everything okay and over now? Wasn’t—

“You saved my son’s life,” Shen Qingqiu spits, like it makes him sick. “As such, you will be safe on Qing Jing Peak, beast. Always.”

Luo Binghe’s mouth drops open. Shen Yuan can’t even appreciate his gobsmacked expression. He’s too busy staring at his scumbag villain.

“Now get out of my sight,” Shen Qingqiu sneers, whirling and stalking off.

Only once their shizun is well out of sight does Luo Binghe croak: “What?”

“No idea,” wheezes Shen Yuan, fumbling for his little notebook to try making sense of the dizzy array of conflicting feelings.

“Should…does…” Luo Binghe starts twice before shaking his head. “I guess… that’s a blessing?”

“Mm,” Shen Yuan agrees, writing down weird and flattered and ew , one after another. “From him? I’d say definitely.”

Gently, an arm wraps around Shen Yuan’s back, stilling his hurried calligraphy.

“Shixiong,” Luo Binghe says quietly. “Can we go now?”

Shen Yuan draws a slow breath, and closes his notebook with a decisive nod.

First is the kitchen. Luo Binghe’s shoulders sink with relief as he rinses rice and chops vegetables. Shen Yuan leans against a counter and watches him, feeling the world settle around and inside him.

The congee isn’t just perfect. It’s the first thing he’s tasted in years.

After they eat, they wander. Their feet lead them past the scarred training ground, where grass is already growing over the scar of the abyss. Past the Lotus Pod Pavilion where they first meditated together, and so often met. Into their special clearing in the bamboo forest—still warded and made safe just for them.

There, in the same place as the first time, Shen Yuan arcs back into Luo Binghe’s arm and lets his soul be drawn safely into the hands that love him most.

Then, carefully, hesitantly, he dips Luo Binghe back in return, presses a kiss to his demon mark, and sets a hand against his chest.

The sword he draws from Luo Binghe’s heart is neither the brutal Xin Mo nor the shining Zheng Yang. It’s dull gray, lost in the middle between them, but it’s real.

It has time to figure out who to be.

In the clearing, they sit together, holding one another’s souls in reverent palms. They lean against one another, and breathe—slow and deep.

We are safe, sings between them. We are together .

Out behind the bamboo house, wind rustles through leaves. Close at hand, a fresh stream trickles through the steep rock faces—the same system that fills the cold pool and flows so sweetly throughout the peak. From out over the peak, the faintest strains of guqin music flow.

“Ah,” Shen Yuan sighs, leaning back on one arm with his eyes closed. “Wealthy silence.”

A snap of a fan over the back of his head answers, nevermind that it’s Shen Qingqiu’s own words he’s using.

“You’re supposed to be mediating,” Shen Yuan scolds, refusing to even acknowledge the hit.

“You may be surprised to learn, probationary head disciple, that if an idiot is rambling it cannot be considered silence.”

“Oh? I thought masters could meditate through heavenly tribulations,” Shen Yuan snarks back, easy and relaxed.

One of his legs dangles off the back porch, and he kicks it idly back and forth. A trail leads from the back of the house, through the small back garden, and out into the bamboo forest. Glimpses of the white stone path peek through the tall stalks here and there—alluring in their uncertain promise.

“You’re far worse than a heavenly tribulation,” mutters Shen Qingqiu.

Xiu Ya, bare over his lap, moans softly at the lie. Its master shudders.

“It’s okay,” Shen Yuan soothes at once, his voice low and calm.

Xin Fei rests in his own lap, colors gleaming in the light—as casual and relaxed as he is. It’s not a sharp blade, but then it wasn’t built for combat.

“This is pointless,” Shen Qingqiu huffs, but it’s a blatant attempt to mask despair with annoyance.

“It’s not,” Shen Yuan says. “It’s already changed, shizun.”

He turns, meeting his master’s narrow eyes and offering a soft smile. “ You’ve changed.”

“Fat lot of good it’s done me,” Shen Qingqiu grumbles, tearing his eyes off Shen Yuan’s expression. “Willful disciples, half demons—”

“Extremely solicitous sect leaders?” Shen Yuan offers, quirking a brow and smirking.

“Respect your elders,” sneers Shen Qingqiu.

“I always do. Didn’t I write you that lovely treatise about the importance of filial piety? You never published it.”

“Shen Yuan, that drivel was filled with barely-disguised crass jokes, and you are well aware of it. Not to mention your proposed pseudonym— what is that expression?”

“Hm?” Shen Yuan asks, not bothering to stifle the ridiculous grin stretching his cheeks.

“You look possessed, stop it.” Shen Qingqiu sniffs, closing his eyes and pretending to start meditating again.

“I’m happy, shizun,” Shen Yuan informs him, light and easy. Then, because he’s a terrible, disrespectful, unfilial disciple, he adds: “I’m happy you’re okay.”

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes snap open, staring fixedly at his so-called ‘probationary head disciple’, who hadn’t been replaced in the three years he was completely unable to fulfill his duties, and who’d been treated better than even a son could have hoped to be treated.

“You’re the best,” Shen Yuan adds, gaze soft and warm on his scumbag master.

In Shen Qingqiu’s lap, the wailing of Xiu Ya finally quiets. She’s still barbed—still vicious, and painful. It may be that she will always hurt to hold. But if Shen Yuan could build a new soul from scratch, surely Shen Qingqiu can coax some of his hard-earned gentleness into the blade that represents him.

“Save your sap for that demon brat of yours,” rasps Shen Qingqiu, his voice nearly cracking under him. He clears his throat with a furious expression and a petulant sneer.

“Yes, shizun,” Shen Yuan agrees easily. “Now since you got so distracted, let’s start from the beginning. Breathe deep, and find one feeling. Just one. Something that makes you feel safe.”

“I hate this.” Shen Qingqiu mutters under his breath.

But despite his distaste, he breathes deep.

Time passes smoothly on Qing Jing Peak. The quiet is carefully manicured, but frequently broken by the sounds of tactical water balloon endeavors—now sanctioned by an exasperated peak lord. It is not unheard of for the Bai Zhan war god himself to enter the fray, and whenever he does so the Xiu Ya Sword deigns to face him.

Rare is the day they do not both emerge soaking wet, though neither ever laugh about it, and woe on any outsiders who might.

In the evenings, the sect leader himself often visits. Some days he sits in the bamboo house for hours, his presence shrouded by silencing talismans. Other times, he and Shen Qingqiu descend the mountain together. Occasionally, Liu Qingge and Shen Yuan accompany them.

Out in the mortal realm, the Red Lotus Pavilion gains a bewildering mix of wealthy clientele who refuse all of their customary services, until they decide they may as well shift their business model and become the first mortal Cultivation Retreat.

Rumor has it that their rose baths rival even Madam Meiyin’s.

On Qing Jing Peak, there are many mysteries. It is said that it was here the custom of speaking to one’s soul sword was born, when the head disciple was overheard coaxing: “Come on, be a good sword, just a little sharper?”

It is also said that the same head disciple only fights with a forged sword, and only uses his soul blade for his spiritual cultivation. It is said, in fact, that his soul sword is so beautiful that maidens weep at the sight of it.

It is certainly true that many on Qing Jing Peak have seen a certain maiden-hearted individual weep at the sight of the stained-glass-like sword.

(“It’s just so beautiful,” Luo Binghe has sniffled more than once to an increasingly disbelieving audience. Isn’t he the one who sees Xin Fei the most in the world? Isn’t he used to it by now?)

Some say that the demon lord Luo Binghe was bewitched by the head disciple of Qing Jing Peak. Just as many insist the reverse is true. None doubt that however it occurred, the two are inseparable now. Whether on Cang Qiong or in the demon realm, they are never without one another.

Some say that they are ruthless. Some say that they are kind. At least one extremely vocal witness is most likely to proclaim them shameless idiots!

Time passes smoothly on Qing Jing Peak, and with his hand clinging tightly to Luo Binghe’s, Shen Yuan finds he no longer fears the tide of days. His notebooks fill, his sword settles, and Luo Binghe’s soul shifts slowly into something new.

“Yang Xin, I think.” Luo Binghe whispers a long time later, wrapped around Shen Yuan in the house they now share, befitting the son of a peak lord, if not a demon emperor. 

“I’ll always be both of them,” he adds, something forlorn in his voice.

“Mm,” Shen Yuan hums, his head pillowed on the protagonist’s swoon-worthy chest. “Good.”

Once, long long ago, a man died alone.

Now, held tight and chosen over and over, that man lives on, changed forever.