Chapter Text
Shen Yuan scooped out handful after handful of soil, and felt a brief stab of regret for agreeing to Shen Jiu's demand to 'help.' Yes, it would be useful for someone to keep watch, just in case they were caught digging up what seemed to be a corpse, but it wasn't like there was anyone else out here, and Shen Yuan was capable of keeping watch for himself. The clearing in which they had buried the Sun and Moon Dew Flower was ringed by trees that seemed somehow ominous under the sharp silver moonlight. Or maybe Shen Yuan had just gotten too used to the soft silhouette of bamboo.
“Hurry up, or we’re going to get caught!” Jiu-ge hissed.
“Oh, I’m sorry, is this ‘our’ body?” Shen Yuan sniped back.
“Yes, actually, and you’re currently mangling it, so if you would please—”
A loud rustling came from the bushes and both of them froze. Then a small rodent hopped out onto a rock, flicking its tail.
“...Just a crystal squirrel.” Shen Yuan sighed in relief. “And I’m not mangling it. If you want to come down here and dig out your precious mushroom body, be my guest. Oh wait!” He gave his brother an insincere smile. “You can’t. So kindly shut up until I can get you out of the ground.”
Jiu-ge grumbled, but didn’t say anything else. The shadowy clearing had the kind of surreal vibe that you got in low-budget horror movies. It kinda felt like a low budget horror movie, to be honest.
If they got caught, then Shen Yuan would have to find some way to explain exactly what he was doing here, and ‘sorry, I was trying to dig up a false body so I could shove my not-brother’s dead soul back into it, and oh by the way, I’m not actually Shen Jiu’ would absolutely NOT cut it. Also the System would probably strangle him before he could even try.
Jiu-ge grumbled again.
“Listen, I’m going as fast as I can.” Shen Yuan had dirt under his nails and he was not happy about it, but he also hadn't thought to bring a shovel. Thankfully Jiu-ge was the easiest target imaginable, second only to Shang Qinghua. “I could always just leave you intangible, and force you to listen to the outer disciples practicing their pipa playing.”
“Please,” Shen Jiu drawled, “Anything but that.”
They fell silent again.
It was nearing midnight, and while the body wouldn’t rot, Shen Yuan had been hoping to get Jiu-ge into a body in time for morning classes. It wasn't that his students were awful—not anymore at least—but Shen Yuan had been putting up with their racket for the past four years and it was way past time for Jiu-ge to pull his own weight. Also, Shen Yuan wanted to take a multiple day long nap undisturbed.
…Having company would be nice, though. The bamboo house was feeling rather empty.
But! It was fine. When Luo Binghe came back, Shen Yuan could fake his death, reinstate Jui-ge as peak lord, run away, and live in a village somewhere! It would be great!
His hand hit something solid. “Aha!”
“Finally!” Jiu-ge manifested over his shoulder. “And you remember the soul transferring array?”
“Yes, Jiu-ge. You’ve only made me practice it a thousand times.” Shen Yuan rolled his eyes. “And the cornerstones. And the waypoints. Seriously, we’ve rehearsed this.” He let out a breath. “I could draw this thing in my sleep by now. It’s going to be fine.”
Shen Jiu huffed. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you. Remember the bandits?” He arched a brow and Shen Yuan squawked indignantly.
“That wasn’t my fault! That was—”
“Regardless of whose fault it was,” Shen Jiu said smoothly, “it happened, and it was not the only time your… unique luck has come into play. Now grab the body and let’s go.”
“Bossy.” Shen Yuan grunted as he picked the body (his brother’s body) up.
Four years of transmigration and he was still in awe at the lack of pain. Even with Without-a-Cure, he could go entire hours without his joints starting to ache, his stomach twisting and turning, or his head starting to pound. It was his second favorite thing about transmigrating into PIDW, right after meeting Luo Binghe.
They made it back to the bamboo house without incident. Shen Yuan laid the body down on his bed and stared at it for a second. “Hold on, I’ll get you some clothes.”
“Get the green ones with the cranes.”
“Fuck you, those are my favorite.”
“I know, that’s why I asked for them. Now hurry up. We don’t have all night.”
Shen Yuan returned holding the robes that Shen Jiu had asked for. Jiu-ge gave him a smug look upon seeing the pattern, but kept silent when Shen Yuan made a face at him. He placed the folded clothes next to the body.
“Alright. Alright, here we go.”
“Getting cold feet?” Shen Jiu seemed like he was sneering, but Shen Yuan could hear the thin undercurrent of uncertainty.
“Not on your life, idiot. Witness the power of spite wielded by the most notorious citizen of the net.”
“Who called himself Peerless Cucumber,” Shen Jiu drawled, leaning against the doorway with practiced (albeit false) ease. Still, he was less tense than he had been before, so Shen Yuan took it as a win.
“Listen, the author called himself Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky. I was in good company.”
“Because we should all aspire to name ourselves in the style of amateur porn writers.” Shen Jiu moved closer. “You have the materials for the ink?”
“Yes, Jiu-ge.”
“And the—”
“If you ask me any more questions, I’m going to tell Ming Fan that we like spun sugar treats.”
“Do not.” Shen Jiu made an utterly disgusted noise. “It would be all over the sect within a day. Our reputation would never recover.”
“Your reputation. Now stop asking,” Shen Yuan said smugly as he removed the box containing the things he’d need from its hiding spot under the floor. Liu Qingge had been one of the biggest contributors to this project, not that he knew it. Or would have approved.
“Do you have the—”
Shen Yuan slammed the box down on the floor, turning to face his brother. “Do you want me to list off every single ingredient? Again? We have everything, and if we don’t I will improvise.”
He could do it, too. The array was delicate, but Shen Yuan knew what he was doing, and he had more than enough materials lying around for some last-minute substitutions. After all, complicated arrays had two components: the technical, or what was drawn, and the spiritual, or the intent and willpower of the array's creator.
“Just… get started, please.” Shen Jiu pinched the bridge of his nose as if annoyed, but the thread of uncertainty in his voice from earlier had returned.
Shen Yuan’s victory wasn’t as sweet as he might have hoped.
“It’s just like painting. I’m good at painting!” Shen Yuan muttered to himself. He was just going to ignore the fact that it was technically Jiu-ge who was good at traditional painting, but he’d worked hard to make those skills his own! Besides, he had developed the array right alongside Jiu-ge, and between the former and present Qing Jing Peak lords, there was no way this would go wrong!
Maybe if he repeated it enough, it would become true.
Shen Yuan closed his eyes.
The array had three layers. First, a triangular soul-attracting array drawn with fire and metal elements to draw Jiu-ge’s soul in. Then on top of that, a circular soul-binding array drawn with wood elements to hold Jiu-ge’s soul in place. Then, finally, a square defensive array with wind, water, and earth elements to protect, stabilize, and seal the connection.
Standard spiritual ink, designed to mimic human meridians and channel all types of spiritual energy, would be too inefficient. Too nonspecific. Shen Yuan would have to make the inks by hand.
…Seriously, thank the heavens for Liu Qingge. Shen Yuan hadn’t had the time to hunt half of these monsters down himself, and by the time he had thought of getting Jiu-ge his own body, Binghe had been—
Anyway.
The first ink was made from ground fire drake scales for fire (duh) and carried a swift, furious hunger that would pour itself into the array. The resulting ink was a deep, fathomless black with hints of red swirls on the surface like the sheen of oil on puddles beside the street. The second ink was a pale silver, made from ground lightning shrike talons. That, Shen Yuan had hunted himself. They had been vicious, precise hunters, and somewhere in his house was a draft painting of the shrike mid-dive, talons extended to grab and rend.
The ink resulting from their talons had the same sensation of precision and avarice, and carried a faint smell of ozone. Bringing the two inks near each other resulted in small sparks of energy beginning to appear where they clashed. Both inks, both creatures had been hungry, hunters by nature, and trying to draw a cohesive array from the two would be like trying to get a tiger to work in tandem with a dragon.
Shen Yuan couldn’t wait to try it out.
Was it weird for him to be excited about this? Maybe, but it was just so cool! Infinite customizable abilities if you just thought about it a little bit! And, you know, were willing to take the chances of melting your face off. But he was getting distracted again.
He laid out the core of the summoning array. Fire to provide the power, metal to provide the hook to draw Shen Jiu’s soul inward.
Channeling qi through the brush was easier than he had expected, but the snappish nature of the ink meant that he had no room for error. Mingling his spiritual energy with the ink as he drew would give him more control over both the movements of the brush and the nature of the array, and maintaining the flow of energy would ensure that the resulting array would channel spiritual energy as smoothly as he needed it to.
It was the same, fairly straightforward technique he had used for spiritual paintings.
That did not, however, mean it was easy.
First, the fire-aligned ink tried to devour the body. Then it tried to self-combust, writhing back and forth like a mad serpent. When Shen Yuan finally subdued the ink, it lay dormant, giving the impression of a giant lizard watching him with one eye, just waiting to set him on fire.
Then the metal-aligned ink tried to start a fight with the fire-aligned ink, and Shen Yuan felt very much like he was trying to get in between two toddlers, except the toddlers were covered in dynamite, and liable to blow each other and him up at the slightest inattention. Which would also destroy Jiu-ge’s new body, which had taken months to prepare.
It’s fine. Everything’s fine!
Shen Yuan let out another breath as he finished the last radical. There didn’t seem to be any hitches or kinks in the flow of qi. Slowly, he drew his spiritual energy out of the core of the array, as if peeling the film off of a temporary tattoo.
“Good job,” Shen Jiu praised him. “Now the cornerstones.”
“I know,” Shen Yuan snapped back. His meridians were starting to feel like over-stretched taffy, but he couldn’t stop now.
The radicals drawn in the cardinal directions would orient the array towards the metaphysical. Finding the dictionary for those had been a bitch, and netted Shen Yuan some very awkward and suspicious looks, but he had prevailed. The radicals drawn in the ordinal directions would further focus the draw on Shen Jiu specifically, and between the array, Shen Yuan’s will, and Shen Jiu’s will, they would hopefully be able to pull him into the body with minimal fuss. But the process of mingling, smoothing, and removing his spiritual energy eight times over was exhausting.
After drawing the last radical Shen Yuan let out a sigh of relief. “Well? Does it pass your standards, my lord?”
“Adequate,” Shen Jiu sniffed. “Your penmanship needs work.”
“I can and will bury this body right now.” They both knew he wouldn’t. Shen Yuan’s back ached from bending over the bed for so long, and his eyes were dry from squinting at the tiny, intricate symbols. Not to mention the migraine beginning to stab into his skull from the constant focus required to not cause a massive explosion.
Alright. Moving on.
The triangular array was placed to funnel the soul into the body through the middle dantian, over which Shen Yuan would have to draw the binding array. Both the fire drake and the lightning shrike were quick, vicious predators, and the ink would transfer that nature into the array, perfect for ‘grabbing’ a soul.
The binding array was different, designed to hold something in place once it had been grabbed. It was circular, reminiscent of a single whole, which was what Shen Jiu would be once Shen Yuan got him back into his body. The ink would be made from Mourning Wood, which while terribly named, was a plant that mimicked the cries of forlorn women, then grabbed whatever hapless fool had gone to investigate the clearly suspicious noise, bound them in place, and slowly digested them over the course of days.
It made for a much more cooperative ink. Shen Yuan didn’t have to coax or tug, he simply had to direct the ink across the skin, and it flowed without complaint, rooting itself perfectly into the surface and giving off a feeling of contentment. There was a brief spike of searing energy when the wood-aligned ink met the summoning array, but Shen Yuan had been prepared for that.
He strangled the spiritual energy left in the summoning array with a wisp of his own qi. It writhed in his grip, but settled down when Shen Yuan gave it a firm shake. Then he slowly released his grip.
“Play nice,” he muttered, holding his breath.
The two arrays melded together perfectly. He sent a tiny pulse of energy through, feeling it move smoothly from the summoning array to the binding array, and back again. A closed loop with minimal entropy, which would decrease even further when he finished the third array.
“Hm. That feels odd.” Jiu-ge spoke, making Shen Yuan jump.
“You can feel that?”
“Yes.” He leaned even closer, peering over Shen Yuan’s shoulder. “It feels like someone is pulling me.” Shen Jiu looked down at Shen Yuan. His eyes narrowed, and suddenly Shen Yuan could see exactly why he was described as a cruel, petty man. You know, aside from the cruel pettiness. “You need a break.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, reaching for the brush. Shen Jiu blocked him, not that it really did any good, since Shen Yuan could just reach through him.
He stopped anyway.
“You are not. Don’t try to lie to me with my own face, I know all of my tricks.” Shen Jiu glared at him, and Shen Yuan rolled his eyes in response.
“Do you want to have a body or not?”
“It won’t be much good if you pass out right in the middle of making it,” Shen Jiu sniffed. “What am I supposed to do then, haunt Mu Qingfang’s dreams to convince him to come fix you?”
“That would be funny,” Shen Yuan admitted, “but I see your point. Ten minutes.”
“Thirty, and you actually make an effort.” Shen Jiu laid a hand over his back and Shen Yuan felt cool, refreshing spiritual energy circulate through him. “Your meridians look terrible.”
“They’re not that bad!”
“Terrible,” Shen Jiu insisted. “Frankly, I’m tempted to have you wait until tomorrow.” He took one look at Shen Yuan’s stubborn face and sighed. “I said I was tempted, not that I would. It would be an exercise in futility.” He sent another pulse of spiritual energy through Shen Yuan, who sighed in relief. “Now hurry up and meditate.”
It wasn’t worth arguing with Jiu-ge when he got like this. Shen Yuan sat down, folding his legs under him and letting himself settle into a more comfortable position. Jiu-ge kept his hand on Shen Yuan’s back, too light and intangible to be felt except for the circulation of foreign qi through his body.
Shen Yuan added traces of his own qi, and between the two of them they managed to soothe over some of the more painful, raw sections of his meridians. It felt similar to putting balm over a burn wound, and Shen Yuan groaned at the reprieve.
“See?” Shen Jiu said smugly. “I told you so.”
“Yeah, yeah, shut up. Has it been half an hour yet?”
“No. Now sit still.”
Shen Yuan whined, but obeyed. Shen Jiu couldn’t help him regain all of his qi, but he could help him circulate what qi he had and make sure that Without a Cure wouldn’t interfere.
When his reserves were almost full, Shen Yuan decided he’d had enough. “Shen Jiu.”
“...You’re sure?”
Shen Yuan shot him a look over his shoulder and his brother sighed. “Fine. Just… be careful.”
“You worry too much. I’m not going to destroy your plant body, I promise.” Shen Yuan got to his feet, pulling his hair back from where it had fallen into his face. He looked nothing like the distinguished peak lord he was supposed to be. Instead of five layers of robes he was in a single layer of pants and a short-sleeved robe that came down to his forearms. Practically indecent, apparently, but the fabric was thick and sturdy.
Jiu-ge made a face, but allowed Shen Yuan to resume his work.
The last array had taken Shen Yuan nearly a month to put together. Shen Jiu had been content after two weeks of tinkering, but it needed to be perfect. There weren’t going to be any second chances for either of them after this.
Shen Yuan took a deep breath.
The inks this time consisted of three elements from three different materials. Earth from a blind lion-shrew claw. Water from a howling eel fin. Wind from cosmic jade found high up on floating cliffs. Three complementary elements all working on the same array, which then meant that Shen Yuan had to keep the energies from running together into a huge, muddy mess.
The core would be painted in earth and wind to continue binding the soul to the body. The repulsions and attractions between the two alignments were minor, and it didn’t take much effort to coax them to lay side by side.
The waypoints would be painted in water to maintain the flow of qi, sustain the binding indefinitely, and guard the soul from interference. Finally, the cornerstones in a mix of all three inks, to seal the soul into the body for good.
Finally, finally, he was finished. And just in time, because his head was starting to spin.
“Shen Yuan.” When he didn’t respond, Shen Jiu sent a cold pulse of qi through him. “A’Yuan, you need to rest.”
“Just a little bit more.” Oh, was that him? He sounded terrible. “I can—I can finish.”
He felt another cold shock run through him, like wind cutting through the bamboo forest in the middle of the winter, but he was already placing his hand over the center of the first array.
“Shen Yuan!”
He hummed absently in response. Jiu-ge got so worried over everything, he really needed to relax. Maybe they’d go on vacation once they got him his own body.
His qi flooded through his meridians and concentrated over his palm. Shen Yuan released a single burst of energy into the array and watched as it flooded the carefully drawn lines. Shen Jiu’s ridiculous mother-henning was cut short as the three arrays started to glow one by one.
His qi was being bled from him in steady, ebbing waves, leaving his meridians aching and almost dry. He wasn’t quite running empty, but he was getting close.
A gust of wind picked up inside the room, sending sheaves of paper fluttering through the air. The painted scrolls rattled against the walls, and a bright flash illuminated the whole room.
Shen Yuan passed out before he found out whether or not they had succeeded.