Chapter Text
There was the click of an opening door.
“Xiao Yuan.”
Yue Qingyuan’s eyes flew open.
The room was dark. Tianlang-jun was just a shadow.
He stepped over the two bodies on the floor, stepped on Liu-shidi’s robes, on Xiao Jiu’s hair, in the pool of their blood. His hand was reaching for Yue Qingyuan, claws coming for his face.
“Xiao Yuan,” he repeated, eyes burning red, “did you think I wouldn’t find you here—”
Yue Qingyuan sat up abruptly in bed, feeling a sharp pain in his wrists when his silk restraints stopped him.
The room was exactly the same, dark and quiet, but the door was closed. Liu-shidi really was stretched out on the floor, which froze Yue Qingyuan’s heart for a moment, but—no, he was asleep, he was only asleep. Xiao Jiu was back in the chair by his bedside. He was awake. He was looking at him.
“A nightmare,” he said quietly.
“…Yes.” Yue Qingyuan tried not to gasp for breath. “Yes. My apologies.”
Xiao Jiu watched him for a long moment.
“I don’t want your apologies. Go back to sleep.”
“Of course,” Yue Qingyuan said automatically. “I did not mean to disturb you.” He stayed sitting up, looking at the closed door, keeping Xiao Jiu in his peripheral vision, without doing anything so offensive as to look directly at him.
“Go back to sleep,” Xiao Jiu repeated.
“…I can’t,” Yue Qingyuan confessed. If he did, that door would open on Tianlang-jun again. “I do not expect Qingqiu-shidi to stay up on my behalf. This shixiong will meditate.”
Xiao Jiu narrowed his eyes.
Then he climbed into bed with him.
Yue Qingyuan entirely forgot about the door. “Xiao—Qingqiu-shidi…?”
“Move over.” Xiao Jiu angrily stuffed himself under the covers, drawing them back up over them both, effectively bundling Yue Qingyuan into lying down again.
Yue Qingyuan found himself on his side, facing him, completely unable to process the situation. Xiao Jiu glared at him in the moon-kissed darkness. He looked so much like his younger self in this moment that it was all Yue Qingyuan could do not to—
“Do you forgive me?” Xiao Jiu asked.
For all that he was speaking quietly, it was a blunt and defiant question. Such a familiar one. Xiao Jiu never apologized when they were little, only demanded imperiously to know whether he was already forgiven.
Mystified, Yue Qingyuan whispered: “…Forgive you for what?”
Xiao Jiu’s chin trembled.
“Qi-ge is so stupid,” he said, voice breaking.
Yue Qingyuan felt like his body was rising off the mattress.
“…Yes,” he managed. “Qi-ge is stupid.”
He reached for Xiao Jiu like a man in a dream. But lying on his side was pushing it already, and when he tried to reach further the silk restraint stopped him. He stayed helplessly suspended in his attempt for a moment—and then Xiao Jiu met him halfway, tucking himself against his chest, grabbing his robes at the back.
Yue Qingyuan didn’t dare close his arms around him, didn’t dare move at all.
Xiao Jiu still hissed: “Never do that again.”
“I won’t,” Yue Qingyuan promised shakily. “…Do what?”
“Even if I’m dying,” and his voice was rough too, shuddering, “even if I die, Qi-ge must stay alive.”
Yue Qingyuan’s tears rolled down sideways on his face, staining the pillow. “O-of course,” he stammered, “I… Qi-ge will never do it again… I apologize…”
“I don’t want your apologies,” Xiao Jiu repeated, and Yue Qi finally understood what he meant by that, and buried his face into his shoulder, and held him so tight, so tight, so tight.
*
“You are completely shameless.”
Yue Qingyuan’s eyes blinked open at the sound of Liu-shidi’s flat voice.
The room was flooded with light again. Xiao Jiu was still there. Still there. He still didn’t appear to think sharing a bed with Yue Qingyuan was anything special. Maybe even more shockingly, he didn’t appear to think being found in bed with Yue Qingyuan was anything special, either.
Rising up on his elbow, he narrowed his eyes at Liu Qingge and said sharply: “I thought you said this had nothing to do with you. Are you going to complain?”
“About you getting comfortable while I slept on the damn floor? Yes.” Liu Qingge looked at Yue Qingyuan. “Want me to remove him?”
“…No,” was Yue Qingyuan’s answer to this surreal question. “No, thank you, Liu-shidi.” He looked between them both. “Xiao Jiu… and Liu-shidi… are getting along very well.”
Liu Qingge raised an eyebrow at Xiao Jiu. “‘Shen Jiu’, huh?”
Predictably, Xiao Jiu sat up in anger—anger directed only at Liu Qingge, and not Yue Qingyuan for inadvertently calling him such a thing in front of someone else. “Keep that name out of your mouth, Mingyi.”
“Committed that to memory, did you?” Liu-shidi seemed almost pleased. “How do you even know it? Did you go looking?”
“Shut up and get him breakfast,” Xiao Jiu demanded. “He still needs to eat. Where did you put the rice cakes? They’re not in my bag—”
For a brief moment Yue Qingyuan was afraid he had gone mad, losing himself in a delusion, replacing a dark cave with an airy bedroom, blood with rice cakes, chains with silk. Tianlang-jun with people who cared for him. But then he was presented with food, and he knew this was real. In his dreams he was never hungry.
“Do you want more?” Xiao Jiu demanded the instant he was done. “Do you still need to sleep? Are you hurting anywhere?”
“This shixiong is feeling fine,” Yue Qingyuan said, a little dizzy with the attention.
“He broke your fingers.”
Yue Qingyuan flexed his hand. He had forgotten about that.
“What else did he do to you?”
“…I was healed afterwards every time,” Yue Qingyuan answered. “Xiao Jiu doesn’t need to worry.”
Xiao Jiu looked like he wanted to rebreak his fingers, and maybe wring his neck for good measure. “You—”
“Look, he says he’s feeling fine,” Liu Qingge intervened impatiently. When Xiao Jiu opened his mouth, he cut off: “Later, Shen Qingqiu. Right now we need to talk.”
“Liu-shidi is correct, we should talk,” Yue Qingyuan said at once. “Why are we staying here? Why are we not in Huan Hua, or…”
Liu Qingge raised an eyebrow. “Do you not remember destroying Huan Hua? Was that not the plan?”
“Liu Qingge,” Xiao Jiu growled.
“What! I’m not making accusations, I’m just asking—”
“It’s alright,” Yue Qingyuan said faintly. They already knew the worst of him, there was no point hiding his shame. Still, he had to scrape the words out. “The plan… was for me to bring him the Old Palace Master, to be interrogated as to the whereabouts of Maiden Su.”
“So it was Su Xiyan,” Xiao Jiu said in an undertone. He glanced at Yue Qingyuan and added: “…Qi-ge saved her.”
Yue Qingyuan thought of Su Xiyan in his arms. He had not asked her whether she wanted to be delivered to the Demon Emperor. Had she protested against it, he would have probably brought her to him anyway.
“…I should not be commended for that.” He swallowed thickly. “And I did it of my own volition, for my own selfish reasons. I… did not want to be too late… again.”
Xiao Jiu did not say anything, did not even look at him, but squeezed his hand under the covers, so hard it hurt. It was rather difficult holding onto worry and tension when Yue Qingyuan’s heart kept wanting to burst in his chest.
“Is that really all?” Liu Qingge said, frowning. “If you weren’t out to destroy the Palace, then why did you take down the defense seals?”
Yue Qingyuan blinked. “…I have not done such a thing?”
“Hah!” Xiao Jiu said, triumphant. “I told you so. It would have been nonsensical for them to be rooted in the Water Prison—”
“What?” Liu Qingge said, now completely baffled. “But then who did that?”
Just then someone rang outside the suite.
They froze for an abject moment. No voice came from the hallway to announce themselves.
Liu Qingge filled his lungs, scenting the air like a hound. Then he scowled. “Him?”
“Who—” Xiao Jiu began.
Liu Qingge had already walked out of the bedroom; they heard him open the door to the staircase, then he came back pushing a nervous little figure in front of him. Xiao Jiu stiffened, clearly much less comfortable with someone else than Liu Qingge seeing him in his current position, but the newcomer had been introduced too quickly for him to leave the bed. Xiao Jiu glared daggers at Liu-shidi who answered with a frown of incomprehension.
“Aha, hello, I hope I’m not interrupting anything…?” Shang Qinghua brightened up as he came fully into the room. “Yue-shixiong! You’re alright! Even awake and everything!” Seeing Xiao Jiu with him, he seemed to tear up. “Sh-shen-shixiong…! Oh, I’m so happy to see you two getting along… And with Liu-shidi there, too! You’re all doing so well!”
“All three of us nearly died,” Xiao Jiu said icily. “Are you here with Cang Qiong?”
“With Cang Qiong?” Shang Qinghua startled. “No, no, no! Wow, holy shit, no.”
“No?” Yue Qingyuan echoed, perplexed.
“Then why are you here?” Xiao Jiu asked at the same time.
“And how did you find us?” Liu Qingge demanded.
Shang Qinghua looked deeply aggrieved. “Again with all the questions! You know, I really helped you guys, and this is the thanks I get!”
But suddenly Xiao Jiu was getting out of bed, standing up.
“You,” he breathed, “it was you.”
Everyone turned to him.
“Huan Hua did not expect Cang Qiong’s arrival. They never meant for Tianlang-jun’s escape to be made public. But you knew about it, since you talked to him. So you warned Cang Qiong. So they’d go to Huan Hua. So they’d bring you along, since An Ding Peak must always know everything. So you could disarm the seals from within.”
“Aha, what? Shixiong, really, would I know how to do such a thing?” Shang Qinghua stammered, laughing nervously. “Those defense seals are the pride of Huan Hua, no one but the Old Palace Master knew how to disarm them, this is ridiculous…”
“And your demonic contacts keeping such a close watch on Tianlang-jun and his designs on Huan Hua. Why would they be so interested? Because they’re the Mobei Clan. The Mobei Clan, who Gongyi Xiao immediately recognized. The Mobei Clan, who’s been feuding with Huan Hua for two centuries. They could never attack a Great Sect so frontally, they could never hope to take down its leader—unless he was running around trying to cover up his crime! Unless they had the unwitting support of the Demon Emperor, who couldn’t resist coming for Su Xiyan himself when he got the chance!” Xiao Jiu’s voice was rising more and more. “And you knew Su Xiyan was held in the Water Prison! You told Yue-shixiong where to find her! You took down the seals! You let the demons in! You arranged all of this!”
Shang Qinghua looked between the three of them.
Then he gave an awkward little grin. “Okay, yeah, you got me.”
Liu Qingge grabbed Cheng Luan’s hilt and Shang Qinghua jumped back, reaching for a pendant around his neck. “Nuh-uh!” he yelled, raising a threatening finger. “You can’t kill me! I’m under the official protection of the new King of the Northern Desert, who’ll be receiving the throne early thanks to his unprecedented triumph over the Huan Hua Palace Master—”
“You dirty little traitor,” Xiao Jiu snarled.
“—and also under the official protection of the Demon Emperor who is feeling pretty fucking friendly towards the Mobei Clan right now for facilitating all this so I got them to form an alliance just this morning, actually!” Shang Qinghua said without catching his breath. “If you try to kill me I’ll just teleport away so don’t do that! Do not do that!”
“What about the people you got killed!” Liu Qingge yelled. “Have you no shame at all?”
“It wasn’t that many people! Huan Hua was attacked on their own turf, it mostly went badly for the demons, at least at first! What’s a few burned buildings? And I poisoned everyone in Cang Qiong so they’d have to retreat, but you don’t hear me asking for a medal—”
“What about the Old Palace Master,” Xiao Jiu snapped.
Shang Qinghua blinked. “What about him? The old fuck had it coming. That was a pretty crazy fight, by the way, my king was so fucking cool, it’s a real shame you missed it—I said don’t kill me!”
“Please,” Yue Qingyuan said.
His voice got them all to settle. They were too used to him breaking up fights at the sect. He felt a strange little pang at that.
“Please,” he repeated, “Shang-shidi. There are two questions you have not yet answered. How did you find us? And why have you come?”
Shang Qinghua gave him a little apologetic wince. “…You still carry Zhuzhi-lang’s blood. He directed me here. As for wh—don’t you dare!” he squealed, running around the bed to put it between them when Xiao Jiu and Liu Qingge moved forward to attack him again. “How many times must I say it! Do you want to cause a diplomatic incident!”
Yue Qingyuan’s stomach had turned, but his heart was fluttering strangely. You still carry Zhuzhi-lang’s blood. Meaning that Tianlang-jun’s blood—
He pushed that delusion away once more.
“As for why!” Shang Qinghua repeated. “I’ve come with a message! Two messages, actually. Well, three, including mine.” He turned to Yue Qingyuan and, unexpectedly, smiled. He looked battered, exhausted, and deeply, deeply relieved. “Thank you for listening to me back there, Yue-shixiong. If you hadn’t saved her…” He winced. “Better not think about that. Anyway, here.” He took out two letters from his qiankun sleeve and presented them two-handed. “For you.”
Yue Qingyuan took them with a slightly shaky hand.
“Delivering their mail? Arranging alliances?” Xiao Jiu’s voice was still dark with anger. “Shang-shidi, how long exactly have you been selling yourself to demons?”
“Aha, well, we all do what it takes to survive. Don’t we, Shen-shixiong?” Seeing Xiao Jiu pale abruptly, Shang Qinghua hastened to add: “Just—just saying! Anyway, if you guys want to join us in the Demon Realm I can totally arrange that, but I guess that’s for later when you don’t want to kill me so bad, okay bye!”
He squeezed his pendant and disappeared in a blue-black spiral of demonic energy which set off all the wards around the room.
While Liu Qingge and Xiao Jiu swore and ran around fixing them, Yue Qingyuan sat in bed, turning over the letters in his hand. As he opened the one sealed with blood-red wax, a single loose sheet fell from it, in the laborious hand of a being fundamentally not designed for writing.
Yue Qingyuan
I do not forgive you for your actions against Junshang
I will not remove my blood from your body
I will not use it unless you are threatening Junshang or Maiden Su or myself
Goodbye.
Yue Qingyuan looked at it for a few moments, then set it aside and unrolled the scroll it had slipped from. Immediately, Tianlang-jun’s warm voice wrapped around him, as if summoned by the words on the page.
Xiao Yuan,
What to say?
I shall not bore you with tales of my happiness. All of it I owe to you, and yet as it was obtained by force it would be an insult, I feel, to expound upon it. So let me take up only a few moments of your time to assuage the worries you might still harbor; and let those moments be the last thing I ever take from you.
First of all, since I believe you would want this to feature on top of the list: I hereby pledge never to harm Immortal Master Shen Qingqiu. In the shameful hope, I’ll admit, that we will be introduced properly someday. What kind of person could have enraptured you so, I wonder? Surely the sweetest, most delightful flower of all.
Second of all, as this must be the second most pressing of your concerns: I give you my word I have removed the entirety of my blood from your body. And not a moment too soon either—perhaps you’ll take solace in the fact that this foolish, heartbroken old man was in no small amount of pain the whole time. The draining must have weakened you greatly, but with some rest and sustenance you will recover soon.
Third of all, Xuan Su is wholly yours. I had to undo what was done to you before it could be done properly again; I had to persuade your body to accept a second attempt though you resisted me every step of the way. But afterwards all I did was point you in the right direction, so to speak. It was with your own will that you broke through.
Already I have reached the end of my letter, and must now leave you be, as promised. Immortal Master Yue Qingyuan, perhaps we shall meet again. In the meantime, let us both drink deeply from the well of joy. While it’s full, hm?
Be well, and think of me only sometimes.
The message was signed with an imperial seal Yue Qingyuan had only seen in history books, and with the careless flits of ink young ladies added at the bottom of their letters to signify a kiss.
Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge were done warding the room anew. They came to sit by him on the bed. Yue Qingyuan gave them Tianlang-jun’s letter to read, and while they bent over it together he opened the last one. It was much more concise, written without flourish.
To the cultivator named Yue Qingyuan,
I cannot express sorrow over the destruction you have wrought upon Huan Hua. I only wish you had razed it completely. Know that your actions have not even begun to avenge the harm done to me. This will not impact your karma, for you were karma’s instrument.
Master Shang was tasked with communicating my offer, but I shall reiterate it in this letter, in the likely case he had to flee for his life: I am in your debt and you will find an ally in me, and shelter in my house, as needed.
But if you would rather keep away from my husband I will understand—he’s an acquired taste.
Su Xiyan’s seal was full of deadly elegance.
Xiao Jiu, who was already done with Tianlang-jun’s letter, was reading Su Xiyan’s over Yue Qingyuan’s shoulder. “Unpleasant woman,” he muttered. “Karma’s instrument, indeed! A generous offer of shelter!”
“The last thing we need is a demonic alliance,” Liu Qingge approved with a scowl, still looking at Tianlang-jun’s letter. “Shameless! And no mention of my unanswered challenge—”
“Why are they all offering us an alliance at all?” Yue Qingyuan could no longer avoid the question they had all been avoiding. “Why have you not brought me back to Cang Qiong?”
The other two exchanged a glance.
Then Liu-shidi said simply: “They’d kill you.”
Some part of Yue Qingyuan had surmised it already—there had been too many hints—and yet his stomach turned. “You cannot defect,” he stammered. “You cannot. If we run together, all three of us will be declared criminals, all three of us slated for death. But they will take you back if—”
“No,” Xiao Jiu said.
“—if you only deliver me to—”
“No,” Liu-shidi said.
“You cannot throw everything away for me.” Yue Qingyuan’s voice was rising in despair. “Everything you were building towards, your position, your accomplishments! You owe me nothing. All that happened—it was my failure. All of my failures, leading me here. I could not even get him to kill me.” His voice trembled. “I could not even manage that.”
Silence.
Then Xiao Jiu snapped open his fan. “Liu-shidi,” he said, eyes narrowed. “What would you call cultivators who leave one of their juniors behind, in a useless fight engineered to further their own glory?”
“Trash,” Liu Qingge said immediately.
“And… what would you call students of theirs who would overlook such shameful behavior and sacrifice a friend to further their own advancement?”
Liu Qingge crossed his arms, and repeated: “Trash.”
“Well, Yue-shixiong,” Xiao Jiu said, fanning himself. “Are you calling us trash? I was under the impression you had a better opinion of us both.”
Yue Qingyuan stared at them.
“We have survived out there in much worse circumstances, you and I,” Xiao Jiu said, like he didn’t care Liu Qingge could hear. “We could do it again.” He took a deep breath, wrinkled his nose as if about to say something unpleasant. “But… there is another option.”
“I got a letter too,” Liu Qingge said bluntly. “The regular way. I sent one when we arrived here, and received my answer.” He pulled it out of his sleeve, tossed it on the bed.
It bore a white wax seal anyone in the Immortal World would have recognized. The seal of one of the most ancient and venerable cultivator families in history.
“Come with me to the Liu compound. My family will oppose Cang Qiong and Huan Hua for what they have done—abandoning you, attacking Tianlang-jun, triggering all this. We will not be fugitives dodging execution, but injured parties in a public trial.”
Yue Qingyuan looked at the scroll. It was open, and he could read the first line: My dear and honorable son…
“Liu-shidi,” he heard himself say. He swallowed. “Liu-shidi, I… I have no doubt your family will protect you. As is only deserved. But unfortunately… the two of us…”
“The two of you have no family, I’ve gathered that,” said Liu Qingge, who spoke quickly as if hoping to be less offensive that way, “which is why I’m offering to share mine. Qingyuan, you are my sworn brother. Our imprint goes back years, no one will be able to claim we hurried into it as an excuse. For all intents and purposes, you are already part of the Liu clan.” He met his eyes. “I told you, I won’t let you down again.”
Yue Qingyuan’s heart jumped in his chest.
But—“No, wait,” he stammered, “what about Xiao Jiu—I will not abandon—”
“The same goes for Shen Qingqiu,” Liu Qingge said, color rising in his cheeks, “whom I am officially courting.”
*
“Qi-ge can’t be mad,” Xiao Jiu said, muffled.
Liu Qingge was downstairs paying the innkeeper. Xiao Jiu had chased him out of the room yelling at him for being too blunt, for announcing such a thing too directly. Now he was clinging to Yue Qingyuan and wouldn’t let go.
Yue Qingyuan held him close. “Qi-ge could never be mad at you.”
Xiao Jiu dug his nails into his arm, vengefully. “So you want me to marry Liu Qingge?”
“I want Xiao Jiu to do anything he wants.” Yue Qingyuan hesitated. “I always said the two of you could be such good friends if you only tried.”
“I hate him,” Xiao Jiu grinded out, “I can’t stand him.”
“But you agreed to the courtship?” No answer. “Qi-ge isn’t mad. I’m trying to understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand. We can use him. It’s just an excuse. He thinks—it doesn’t matter what he thinks. He’s an idiot.” Xiao Jiu was clutching him so tightly. “You’re not mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
“This means nothing. For Qi-ge and me, I mean. You cannot leave me again. You can never leave. Whatever happens now, we stay together.”
“Yes,” Yue Qingyuan murmured, folding around him.
“He wants to defeat Tianlang-jun. That fool is going to train until he can actually do it. Protect you. Qi-ge will be safe, if we go with him. The Liu clan actually can stand up to Cang Qiong. We will be safe there.”
Yue Qingyuan swallowed thickly. Part of him wanted to insist that they could never be safe anywhere, that the only solution for him now was execution. But it was clear that Xiao Jiu and Liu-shidi would both refuse. He could not sway them into turning from him.
He was not sure what to do with that thought. With this situation. He was studying it like a strange new thing.
“We can try it out,” he said tentatively.
Footsteps in the hallway warned them, and this time Xiao Jiu didn’t seem like he wanted to be seen clinging to his Qi-ge, not even by Liu-shidi. He slipped out of the bed, stood up, arranged his robes and his hair. Yue Qingyuan really didn’t understand what relationship these two had now.
But perhaps there would be time to figure it out.
The door opened on an annoyed-looking Liu Qingge. “Are you done? My mother expects us by noon. We really should go.”
“Help me untie him, then,” Xiao Jiu answered sharply.
Absurdly, Yue Qingyuan had not expected this moment. Absurdly, he wanted to protest against it, insist it was dangerous, still. But, almost despite himself, he could not doubt Tianlang-jun’s word. The Emperor had let go of the weapon that was Yue Qingyuan.
It wouldn’t be the first time the Emperor let go of power.
Still, Yue Qingyuan was afraid to recover his freedom. Those past two days, tied to his sickbed, he could not go anywhere or do anything. He could only submit—but to the will of people who cared for him, this time. And who had restrained him themselves, so that there could not be any doubt he was behaving according to their desires. Doing everything right.
Already Liu-shidi had sliced through the cables around his ankles and was recovering Xuan Su from the ceiling. Already Xiao Jiu was loosening the ties around his wrists, tugging on the knots. The future was at hand, coming fast, and Yue Qingyuan no longer knew what it would be made of…
“Come on,” Liu-shidi said. “Can you even get up?”
“Can you?” Xiao Jiu asked. “Qi-ge, are you ready?”
…but he knew who would be there with him.
The bonds slipped from his wrists. It was done. He was free.
“I’m ready,” Yue Qingyuan answered, and stood up.