Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shen Yuan woke up one day in a foreign body. The last thing he remembered was eating an instant ramen cup that tasted a little off and now he was in a body that felt way too inhuman to be his own. 

It took what seemed like days before he could open his eyes and hear but even then it was so shitty that he could barely make out what he was seeing nor hearing. Through all of this, he was holding on to someone’s scent which he assumed was his mom. 

It took him only a few more days to find out that his mother wasn’t human, neither was he. In fact, Shen Yuan was horrified when he first saw a somewhat clear view of his mother, his cat mother. 

That’s right, Shen Yuan has been reincarnated as a god damn cat. And you know what? He was the cutest cat around town if you were to ask his opinion. You wouldn’t be able to meet a kitty more prone to getting scrap of food from people than him so that must mean something right? 

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for even the cutest and most obedient kitty to be abandoned by their mother and Shen Yuan was alone for the first time in his new life. 

He wandered the town for days, getting to know the townsfolk and surviving off of their scraps. It was during one of these days that he heard a familiar name, “Hey! Old Chen! I heard your second son passed the Cang Qiong Sect selection, has he written any letter to you yet?!”

“Tch, that useless son of mine only made it to Bai Zhan! Unlike his older brother who got into Qing Jing, I don’t expect him to even know how to write his name!” The old man was clearly bragging but the other didn’t seem to mind as they continued on with their gossiping.

Shen Yuan was frozen when he heard the familiar names. ‘CAng Qiong?!?!? Bai Zhan?! AND QING JING?!?!”, he couldn’t just leave it to coincidence that all three places from the protagonist's backstory were just casually dropped.

“Ah, I guess you can never trust these youngsters to not forget their roots? How about you send a letter to him instead? It’s not far and wouldn’t cost much”

“I already did yesterday so it should probably arrive tomorrow at the latest” The old man grumbled and Shen Yuan took it as his cue to stop eavesdropping. 

It shouldn’t be hard to find such an illustrious place if he were in the pidw’s world. The white cat was confident in his knowledge of his territory so it wouldn’t be hard to find his way to the sect especially if it was so close. As the cat drew further away, the two men continued on drinking and talking. 

“Oh, your eldest should be back home for the new year right? After all, Cang Qiong is holding their ascension ceremony soon and your son isn’t the head disciple so wouldn't be able to stay there long right?” The now drunk man tried to slyly humbled his friend.

“PFttt, I heard from my son that the next peak lord is a man who treats brothels like his own bedroom! My son would rather work as an official than for a scum like him!”

-

Shen Yuan has never felt so proud of himself. He’s currently sneaking onto Qing Jing peak at the dead of night after only a day worth of travel. He felt like such a genius when he figured out which carriage would be heading towards Cang Qiong and managed to blend in with the other packages. 

From then it was a game of waiting for the sun to go down and following the disciple that has ‘Qing Jing’ vibe and voila. He’s now on the scholar peak surrounded by bamboo and following a barely visible path to the shed. The late autumn wind caused him to shiver once in a while. 

When a rackety old shed came into view, his heart couldn’t help but melt in pity for the protagonist. A feeling that only intensified when seeing the multiple talisman around the barely stable shed, ‘How cruel could an immortal master be to lock an innocent child in such a place?’ his mind couldn’t help but curse the scum in his head. 

With a heart now filled with righteous justice, Shen Yuan crawled through a small crack on the shed’s door that no doubt caused whoever was trapped in to feel the full force of the autumn night’s air. But the moment he was through, he was met with a fearful shout. 

He immediately looked up wanting to comfort the probably scared protagonist but was instead stunted by what he saw.  

Slick wet straight locks of hair draped over spite filled green eyes, the young man’s body was pitifully covered in a wet and torn fabric that was a mockery to what a Qing Jing standard uniform should look like. 

‘This isn’t the protagonist!’ Shen Yuan belatedly thought. His panic thought was confirmed by the next few words uttered by the battered youth in front of him. 

“How did such a weak creature like you make it on this peak?”  the disciple hissed. The question seemed more for himself than the dirty white cat staring at him, yet Shen Yuan couldn’t help but wonder why.

“Meorw?” Shen Yuan sounded out, wanting to appear the least threatening as possible. 

Which for all the odds works as the youth unceremoniously pick him up, the man even started to comb through his fur. However, his face remained scrunched and his movement appeared to be more fidgety, Shen Yuan noted. 

‘He must be so stressed’ the fingers were cold so Shen Yuan can only guess that he must have been trapped here for a long time and couldn’t help but feel bad for the now justifiably pent up teen.

‘He must be the disciple that scum targeted before Binghe’ Shen Yuan concluded. Only such a vindictive person could’ve possibly made a disciple sleep in a shed without even being given proper clothing nor a towel to dry. 

But unlike Binghe, he must not have had such a bright view of the world, Shen Yuan thought. It makes sense. If the protagonist were to find him, Shen Yuan has no doubt that the white lotus still would’ve smiled but any other disciple in his place wouldn’t be able to handle such hard treatment with intact tinted glasses. 

“Did that bastard Chen Li scare you into this shed?” The pitiful disciple hums to the cat, probably in an act to release his anger. Shen Yuan meowed back in response, wanting to help in any way he could.

“Don’t worry, once the new year comes he won’t be able to be so proud anymore” He continued on ominously but Shen Yuan was more than willing to attribute it to hopeful thinking of  a bullied boy. 

His cold fingers stop their movement for a second before maneuvering the cat’s body to bop their noses together, “I just need to get through this period without causing any problem with shizun and then I’ll never have to do this again”. The disciple sighs at the end of his sentence in resignation to their fate. 

Shen Yuan now got the general gist of what is currently happening. It seems like this pitiful disciple was being bullied to the point of wanting to leave but can’t until the new years arrived. Potentially by going out of the sect on the excuse of ‘celebrating with family’ and then just never going back. 

He felt that vile feeling of injustices building up in his chest and he wiggled to get out of the arms holding him. The miserable disciple let go of him without much of a fight leaving Shen Yuan feeling helpless at the lack of fire in the youth’s eyes. 

But he refuses to allow the other to spend such a cold night in a rickety shed. 

Shen Jiu watched as the tiny white cat crawled back out through the hole and a minute or so passed before the Qi holding him in was gone. He hesitantly pushed the door and was met with no resistance instead a cold breeze flew by him reminding him of his current freedom. 

Wide green eyes searched the nearby area but the white cat was nowhere to be seen. Another breeze hit him before he decided to head down the mountain to get proper rest, his mind still on the white fur that helped him to escape. 

-

It didn’t take that long for Shen Jiu to meet the cat again. 

He was on his way back to his peak, his disciple robe carefully sewn and stitched back together by his jiejies when a brute and a ‘fairy’ confronted him. 

“SHEN QINGQIU!!!” Liu Qingge yelled. 

“Good morning to you too, brute” Shen Jiu had responded naturally, not wanting to cause much of a conflict but couldn’t help himself to at least throw in a bit of sarcasm. 

“Tch, Shen Qinqiu while Xu-shibo might not mind you visiting that brothel, we, as the next peak lords would very much mind that you are dragging our name by association” A shorter voice perks up as Qi Qingqi walk from behind the Bai Zhan disciple.

“Didn’t see you there, Qi-shimei” Shen Jiu blandly greeted the fairy of Xian Shu. “What I do in my spare time is to the concerned of no one, especially not to your little reporters that just so happened to also be in the brothel” 

He knows he’s got the two of them caught when Liu Qingge’s hand went flying to his sword, stop only the ‘fairy’ herself. 

“Well, I’m sure whichever disciple it was, they were only there for the purest of reason. Perhaps to advance their cultivation technique?” Shen Jiu jest, taking immense satisfaction at the comfortable look at the two’s faces. 

“After all, dual cultivation can really enhance one’s cultivation, I would know” He sent the killing blow, enraging Liu Qingge enough for the brute to pull out Cheng Luan and slashes it in his direction. 

While he may not have Xiu ya on hand right now, it does not mean he was defenseless. He was ready to step out of range any moment. 

That is until the white cat decided to jump, claws out to cover the brute’s face unintentionally causing the tip of the blade to make a small cut on Shen Jiu’s arm. 

Shen Yuan couldn’t believe how immensely pitiful the disciple he met was. He was just exploring Cang Qiong mountain after concluding that Luo Binghe must not have arrived yet when he saw the same disciple he helped get cornered by two disciples from different peaks. 

Just as he was about to leave, Shen Yuan saw the Bai Zhan disciple pull out their sword and aim at his poor disciple. Righteous fury boils in his heart at the thought of the miserable youth getting hurt, so the white cat jumps to defend the Qing Jing disciple. 

The Bai Zhan brat tried as he might to get Shen Yuan to stop clawing him, but the cat has long learned how to avoid being picked up by strangers. His conviction to claw the other only strengthened when he saw the blood on his disciple’s hand. 

‘THE AUDACITY’ he had meowed before amping up his scratches, unfortunately for him his powerful scratches weren’t meant to be felt as the Qing Jing disciple - his own disciple - decided then and there to pick him up from the brute’s face causing him to hiss. 

“Calm down there, Xiao Bai. That brute isn’t worth your time” Shen Jiu coaxed the cat in his arms before he walked briskly to his peak, not wanting to draw more attention to himself. 

He could distantly hear the brute yelling out his name but he spared no attention to the muscle head instead focusing his attention on the dirty cat in his hold. “You’re taking a bath once we get to Qing Jing”

-

Shen Yuan was confused when they got into a small room a bit off to the side of the Qing Jing peak lord’s house. "Shouldn't such a place go to the head disciple?” he had pondered but decided to give it less thought. 

‘Ming Fan isn’t here either so I must be really early in the story’ he concluded. 

The disciple, Shen Jiu, he soon learned, really did give him a bath. He even wrap a green ribbon around his neck with a calligraphy of ‘小白’ which was the nicknamed he was called earlier. 

Shen Yuan looked at himself in the mirrors a lot after that. His fur was beautiful after the bath and the Qing Jing ribbon accentuated his feline eyes perfectly. He felt like a cat owned by a young master of a well renowned family. 

Especially when as the time they spent together increased, Shen Jiu had dedicated himself to spending what seems to be his entire allowance on pampering the now round cat. The two often just spent time together in the head disciple’s room, both not liking the attention they gather when outside. 

Shen Jiu was busy anyway, always studying and perfecting the four arts. ‘A shame that he’ll be replaced when Ming Fan comes along’ Shen Yuan had thought but he consoled himself that at least that means he can get the two of them to safety before the whole sect burns down. 

It was one of these days where Shen Jiu was practicing the guqin when Shen Yuan’s world changed. 

-

Pain filled groans and panic meowing could be heard from the head disciple’s room. The Qing Jing peak lord burst through the front door when the talisman in the disciple’s hand disintegrated. 

“SHEN QINGQIU!” Xu Anwei, ignored how his head disciple’s cat froze at his yelling as focuses on his prize disciple’s condition. Said disciple let out another pained groan and that evoked a new sense of urgency in the peak lord. 

“A-jiu! I told you not to rush! The qi technique for that piece is incredibly difficult even this master could barely perform it when the ascension ceremony was held!” Xu Anwei fussed, as he grabbed a hold of Shen Jiu’s wrist and slowly guided the qi through the meridians.

“GAHHH!” A sudden influx of qi burst through Shen Jiu, the condensed qi shooting uncontrollably through the room and a shock meow was heard. Shen Jiu was filled with immense guilt at the thought of hurting his cat but couldn’t stay conscious for long. 

Only Xu Anwei was left to dashed to Qian Cao with not one but two bodies in hand. 

The two of them could count on a scolding the moment they wake up.

-

Shen Jiu woke up to the feeling of fur on his face, his eyes greeted with lighter green ones staring back at him. Shen Jiu could feel his eyes widen when he finally registered the white ears on the other’s head. 

“Xiao Bai…?” He dumbfoundedly asked. 

“A-JIU!!!!!” his cat yelled at him before tackling him back down in a hug, crying uncontrollably. All Shen Jiu could do was stroke the same white fluffy ears just on a bigger head now to calm the other down. 

Meanwhile, Shen Yuan couldn’t stop crying at his pitiful A-Jiu’s fate. But one thing is for sure, he is not letting his precious Jiujiu suffer such a fate, at least not alone. 

The two spend a long time in each other’s embrace before Xu Anwei walks in.