Chapter Text
The first time Liu Qingge had reason to protect Shen Qingqiu, it was barely worth recounting as having done such a thing deserving of the name ‘protection’.
As Shen Qingqiu browsed a bookstore (the bookish fairy did his best to make time to visit at least one bookstore a week), a hanging shelf made heavy with thick tomes and pieces of art gave way just as he passed beneath it.
Without a second thought, Liu Qingge’s arm snapped up to block the shelf from dumping its contents on the inattentive immortal. Liu Qingge blinked with surprise, unaware that he could do that — but glad to know now that he could.
Perhaps the original Shen Qingqiu would have elegantly sidestepped without a backwards look, but the fairy’s attention was consumed by a book that made his eyes gleam like jade as he read it, as always too impatient to wait to read at home when he could get a taste of a story immediately. In spite of being rather excellent when he was focused, his senses were still not quite attuned to his new body yet and with the added distraction, it was almost a wonder this was the first time Liu Qingge had any reason to step in and perform his self-appointed duty as his bodyguard.
Shen Qingqiu wouldn’t have been hurt badly, but it certainly wouldn’t be pleasant to have a stone sculpture and several books fall on you, no matter who you were. The embarrassment alone for not avoiding it would probably kill some of the disciples.
The fairy voiced an almost dreamy sound of question as he turned to look back at the items that spilled to the floor before the shelf phased through Liu Qingge’s forearm and swung like a pendulum through the shop. Liu Qingge watched as Shen Qingqiu slowly came out of his literary daze and seemed to process what happened. He almost smiled to himself as he saw Shen Qingqiu’s brows suddenly snap together as if he’d reviewed what he’d seen and realized there was something odd about it.
Before Shen Qingqiu could do more than close his book and glance around, the shopkeeper hurried over and buried him under apologies and gifts. Considering how often Shen Qingqiu shopped there (and his lingering bad reputation from the original peak lord’s attitude, no doubt), it was not surprising that it took more than a quarter of an hour for the fairy to settle the shopkeeper’s nerves and reassure him he was not offended.
That didn’t stop him from accepting the gifts. It did not appear that immortal fairies were adverse to being plied with books and sweets and he happily carted home his prizes shortly after receiving them, with only a single lingering glance at the broken shelf before he left.
***
The next day, Shen Qingqiu almost walked off one of the Rainbow Bridges because he was reading and walking again. If Liu Qingge hadn’t been there to step on the hem of his robes, he might have gone over. Would the fairy have had the reaction time to draw his spirit sword and fly?
Every time Shen Qingqiu pulled out a book after that without the intentions of sitting or standing as he read it, Liu Qingge made a point of causing it to be knocked out of his hands. It took several days of tugging at his sleeve, plucking the book to the side so it slipped, or just directly batting it out of his hand for Shen Qingqiu to stop the terrible habit.
In fact, the fairy seemed to think he’d become inexplicably clumsy based on the very deliberate care he took when handling delicate or dangerous objects after that.
Liu Qingge would feel bad about it if not for how his blood (did ghosts have blood? whatever passed for blood then) ran cold at the memory of Shen Qingqiu’s boot swinging out over empty air. And to think how short a time ago it was that if he’d seen the same thing, he’d have watched curiously to see if the celadon-draped figure would have actually fallen before acting.
***
A little more than a week after the bookshop incident, as Shen Qingqiu glided his way through a beautiful demonstration of a new sword sequence he was teaching his youngest disciples, Liu Qingge noticed an older disciple from another peak speaking with a Qing Jing disciple.
It would have been just one of dozens of such similar incidents every day and not worth taking any notice of if the young disciple hadn’t returned shortly with a flame-red weiqi board in her arms.
She carried the goban to a pavilion and dug around in a pouch at her hip to retrieve two covered bowls that were likely filled with playing stones. Then the girl fell to anxiously glancing back at her shizun, evidently waiting for the moment he was finished with his instruction to approach him.
After a few minutes of having his attention repeatedly pulled away from Shen Qingqiu’s martial instruction by the girl’s nervy behavior, Liu Qingge recognized her as a student that Shen Qingqiu paid special attention to. She was a quiet, well-behaved child who didn’t stand out from her peers, but she had blossomed once Shen Qingqiu had praised her weiqi skills. Even Liu Qingge, who rarely played the strategy game himself, could tell she had a natural talent for it. It might have continued to go unnoticed if not for Shen Qingqiu’s encouragement, as she did not seem to be the sort to seek to stand out in any way under her own initiative. When playing with her shizun, however, the girl allowed Shen Qingqiu to tease her into vibrancy, following her master’s lead for dramatic plays and laughter rather than the more serious and dignified way he normally played while teaching.
She obviously was hoping that her shizun would agree to a casual game with her at the pavilion and was tying herself in knots in anticipation of delivering the invitation.
It made Liu Qingge think on how his own students behaved whenever he’d returned to the mountain and took the time to instruct them personally rather than leaving it up to the senior disciples and training manuals. Granted, the longer he stayed on the mountain, the less eagerly they sought his instruction as his boredom set in and his patience unraveled, but for the first week or so, especially with the younger disciples, there was this same earnestness.
For a moment, Liu Qingge reflected that he hadn’t even once attempted to visit his disciples and check in on how they were doing.
He suspected that the peak lords had kept his death hidden for fear it would eventually make its way back to Shen Qingqiu if the disciples knew, so he supposed they were not in mourning, at least. (Shen Qingqiu knew already thanks to Shang Qinghua — his death was apparently part of the prophecy as a casual marker of time before the greater tragedies began. Shang Qinghua hadn’t let on that Shen Qingqiu’s arrival had directly followed his death, however, which gave Liu Qingge the odd feeling of being rudely ignored.) The Bai Zhan disciples likely assumed he’d followed his usual behavior and, supposing he were not still meditating in Ling Xi Caves, had left the mountain again in pursuit of a mission or a hunt for some troublesome beast terrorizing the region.
Liu Qingge felt no pressing need to visit Bai Zhan, so he let the thought pass for now.
Though he didn’t know any of his disciples well enough to feel regret that he would not be able to guide them further, he permitted himself a sense of nostalgia as he watched the girl hurry over to Shen Qingqiu and invite him to sit under the cool pavilion and play weiqi with her on her new board. Shen Qingqiu smiled and accepted, sending Luo Binghe, the boy of prophecy, off to acquire tea and snacks. A few other students requested permission to sit and watch, which Shen Qingqiu granted after a glance for the girl’s receptiveness to the presence of the others.
Liu Qingge followed the group to the pavilion and admired the flame-red goban along with the rest (albeit silently) as the girl enthusiastically explained she’d written to her family about her new passion for the game and they’d promised to send along a new goban and set of stones to celebrate. She was thrilled by how quickly it had arrived.
Once Luo Binghe had returned with the tea and was invited to sit and watch with the others, the game began with an easy-going, casual atmosphere that suited playing as the breeze soothed the heat of the late afternoon.
Liu Qingge paid little attention to the game, instead focusing on those who sat at the pavilion. The girl’s anxiety was settling under the tranquil atmosphere, her shizun’s gentle attention, and the familiar structure of weiqi. The other students were acting similarly to the young hostess, sipping at their tea and watching the game as if they could leech the talent from her (and earn an extra share of their shizun’s regard, perhaps).
Shen Qingqiu likewise divided his attention. Like Liu Qingge, he watched the others, using their responses to guide them into the mood he seemed to want to create.
Perhaps not surprisingly considering his mission, Shen Qingqiu focused more of his attention on Luo Binghe, who sat to the side from the other students and watched the game with the intense concentration a hunting dog might pay to the entrance to an animal’s den — as if he were waiting for the moment to pounce. Shen Qingqiu cast subtle glances the boy’s way as he made certain moves, smiling to himself behind his fan as he saw the boy frown when he made plays that seemed less optimal and smirking when the boy’s eyes widened as he recognized traps and other strategies hidden behind the ‘poor’ moves.
It would probably shock everyone to understand their shizun was carefully trying to draw Luo Binghe in. As Luo Binghe had been the focus of the most intense dislike the previous Shen Qingqiu had displayed, the boy had few friends and, understandably, distrusted Shen Qingqiu’s attempts to grow closer to him now. Though Shen Qingqiu had put an end to the others’ bullying and even made an excuse to move the boy into the empty room in his own home, Luo Binghe was as wary as a street dog and suspicious of the better treatment, clearly always ready for it to end as suddenly as it began.
Shen Qingqiu was patient, however. Eventually he would win the boy over, the same way water eventually smoothed stone.
Crickets tentatively began their serenade by the time the two players started to feel comfortable enough to launch into their more performative plays, making a show out of laying their stones with sharp clacks and playfully taunting each other. Some of the students had quietly excused themselves while a few others had taken their places. Luo Binghe had gone to brew more tea and begin dinner.
It was during one of these dramatic actions that Liu Qingge noticed something odd.
As the girl laid down a stone, he saw a small spark flick out from the contact. A sudden uneasy feeling seized him and he moved closer to the players. He was now close enough to see little metal pieces set at the points on the game board. He also noticed the stones were made of a pretty quartz often used in fire-strikers for wealthy households as they were more attractive than cheap flint.
Just those two things alone would be bad enough, but he had the unsettling thought that the goban was likely treated with some sort of lacquer to make the wood so red.
The combination of factors would be a recipe for a fire.
If he were alive, he could simply intercede directly and they could change the stones for ones less likely to cause an issue. Like this, his best option was to cause small mischief in hopes it would annoy them into stopping. He pushed qi into his hand and used it to knock over Shen Qingqiu’s bowl of stones, scattering them over the floor of the pavilion so they lay glittering in the light of the setting sun.
“Aiyah…” Shen Qingqiu sighed, looking with some confusion at his sleeve as if wondering how he’d managed to knock the bowl off the edge of the goban when he hadn’t made any careless gestures. Some of his students volunteered to pick up the stones for him, but he declined, lightly self-depreciating for what he’d concluded was his own mistake.
Frustrated, Liu Qingge knocked over the girl’s bowl of stones as well.
In retrospect, he should have taken into consideration that she was anxious and not especially confident in herself. Her mortification was instant and intense, not questioning her own guilt at all. Liu Qingge watched helplessly as Shen Qingqiu focused on soothing her rather than wondering about the bowls being knocked over, even though he’d been looking her direction at the time and probably should have noticed she hadn’t been responsible. Instead, Shen Qingqiu gently teased her that his mistake hadn’t been intended as her lesson and they should probably set their bowls on the floor of the pavilion instead.
They resumed their game.
Liu Qingge sighed in the breathless way only a ghost could. He was considering whether trying to knock over the goban would be too alarming and result in events that would lead to his being exorcised when it happened: the girl laid down a stone, the friction against the piece of metal on the point created a spark that caught the wooden surface of the goban on fire.
Everyone sat for a second in stunned silence as the flames spread like the surface of the board was made of oil rather than wood. An ominous hiss broke the silence.
Shen Qingqiu was the first to react, whipping his fan in a curve to create a shield between the students and the board. At the same time, Luo Binghe returned with a tea tray, his attention focused down as he did his best not to trip or dump the tray’s contents through a moment of carelessness.
Liu Qingge watched as realization that the boy was not protected crossed Shen Qingqiu’s expression. Everything happened almost all at once, and Liu Qingge had to reflect to separate every action, one from the other:
The goban exploded the next instant, flinging large shards of wooden fragments everywhere.
The shield held, protecting the students who cried out with fear and dropped to the floor, covering their heads.
Shen Qingqiu snapped his free hand out, using his draping celadon sleeve to protect the unprepared Luo Binghe from most of the debris. As a result, he’d done nothing to protect himself.
Liu Qingge moved himself between Shen Qingqiu and the board, becoming an invisible shield that prevented Shen Qingqiu from being pierced by the fragments that would have wounded or even killed him. No one seemed to notice this except Shen Qingqiu himself, who watched wide-eyed as the fragments were deflected inches from him.
A series of sharp stings peppered Liu Qingge’s incorporeal body before the wood sloughed off of him to drop to the floor. As if the splinters had actually punctured him, Liu Qingge felt his energy drain away. The memory of the brief pain quickly faded away with his energy, so he ignored it in favor of focusing on Shen Qingqiu.
He drifted aside, having no choice now but to watch what else happened.
There was a moment of silence as the exploded goban sizzled and hissed, crackling with flames. Several people took unsteady intakes of breath as if to speak or shout, but whatever they might have used their breaths for was immediately drowned out by the crash of a tea tray and a horrified shriek of, “Shizun!”
Luo Binghe was at Shen Qingqui’s side immediately, his dark eyes swimming in tears as he clutched at his shizun’s still extended arm, holding him by his wrist. Blood was dripping from a wound where a dagger-sized shard of wood had impaled Shen Qingqiu’s hand. A small pool of blood had already gathered on the floor beside him. Liu Qingge felt himself scowl at the evidence of his failure to completely protect his charge.
A small sound of pained surprise escaped Shen Qingqiu before chaos descended.
One of the other students recovered before anyone else, declaring she’d return with Mu Qingfang before she dashed away, as fleet-footed as a deer. A few of the more sensitive disciples — including the girl who had been playing opposite Shen Qingqiu — dissolved into hysterical tears. Luo Binghe was hardly in any better state, trembling and aghast as he clumsily tried to treat the wound; becoming visibly upset as he tried to decide whether to remove the shard from the wound or leave it for Mu Qingfang. Meanwhile the wreckage of the weiqi table was still sizzling menacingly.
To be fair to the children, it was certainly understandable to be distressed, but —
“Enough!” Shen Qingqiu said sharply to get their attention. An imperfect silence went into immediate effect. “The danger is not passed. Move away from the pavilion — all of you.”
He gently pushed Binghe to a safer distance and sent a firm look to the others. Those who were too overwrought to follow their shizun’s order were hurriedly pulled away by those who were calmer. Shen Qingqiu ignored his injury and once again used his fan as a spirit tool to focus his qi and smother the flames until the wood no longer hissed.
Once satisfied there was no longer a threat, Shen Qingqiu found himself buried under a pile of worried and upset disciples who stained his silks with their tears and wrinkled them with their grasping hands. With the resigned patience of a well-loved guardian, Shen Qingqiu quickly soothed them all, save for Luo Binghe and the girl who had invited him to play weiqi, who were both too deeply traumatized to be calmed by a few headpats and soft words.
Shen Qingqiu was still consoling the girl when Mu Qingfang arrived and set several of them off again when he exclaimed over the damage their shizun’s hand had taken. The children who still hovered around him returned to clinging and the girl who had at least been soothed enough not to cry curled up to unleash a new flood of tears. Luo Binghe stood grim sentinel behind his shizun, his eyes staring at the injured hand like it was a piece of evidence that proved his guilt in a heinous crime.
Liu Qingge was almost relieved to be a ghost as he watched it all, vaguely aghast at the outpouring of sentiment.
Only Shen Qingqiu showed any degree of stoicism, and he was the one who’d been injured. This did not go unnoticed by Mu Qingfang or the equally sharp-eyed Luo Binghe. They both cast wary glances at him, as if expecting his calm to suddenly melt into frothing anger at any moment. That nothing of the sort happened seemed to make them thoughtful.
It was only after the wound was treated that most of the students calmed down enough to be sent on their way. The girl whose new weiqi set was the focus of the last hour took a bit longer to coax into a more relaxed mood so that one of her shijies could escort her off to dinner. Luo Binghe was even harder to satisfy, hovering like a lingering spirit until Shen Qingqiu and Mu Qingfang moved inside and were plied with tea and their dinner.
As they ate, the two peak lords came to the conclusion that the accident happened because the craftsman of the goban hadn’t realized they were carving the weiqi board out of Phoenix Wood and the unfortunate addition of the decorative metal points and quartz playing stones had just been the perfect storm.
Mu Qingfang earned a very lovely smile from Shen Qingqiu for recalling he had a goban he never used and offering to send it over as a gift for the girl so she didn’t have only bad memories associated with the incident.
Liu Qingge missed the rest of their conversation, closing his eyes and drifting for several minutes as his exhaustion caught up to him. He was only roused when the doctor accidentally passed through him on his way out of the room.
***
After Mu Qingfang returned to his peak and a few of his worried disciples had checked in on him again, Shen Qingqiu sat alone in his room, kneeling beside the low table opposite his bed. From the small expressions that crossed his face, he seemed to be thinking about something that consumed all of his attention and provoked quite a lot of emotions within him.
Finally Shen Qingqiu’s face smoothed and he cast an all-too-knowing glance Liu Qingge’s direction. It wasn’t perfect — Shen Qingqiu’s eyes were directed about an inch too far to the left for that — but it was close enough that Liu Qingge felt a shiver run up whatever passed for his spine.
“I know you’re here, Ghost. Can you reveal yourself? Or speak?”
Liu Qingge didn’t even bother to try.
He still felt exhausted from earlier and knew that even if he knew how to oblige, he wouldn’t be able to manage it. He hadn’t even been certain that he would be able to protect Shen Qingqiu from the explosion, and perhaps paired with his earlier, pettier, attempts to end the game by pushing the bowls of stones off of the goban, he had stretched himself thin.
He’d have to put more effort into building up his ghostly foundation if this little effort was too much.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’ — very well. I don’t need you to confirm you’re here, but I do hope I have your attention for now.” Shen Qingqiu waited, head tilted as he stared blindly towards where he thought he was. When Liu Qingge didn’t answer, he shrugged and said, “I wanted to thank you for your efforts today. I know I would have been badly injured without your intervention. I realize now that you had tried to warn me before the explosion too. Right? Knocking the stones off the goban?”
Liu Qingge uttered one of his soundless, breathless sighs and rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest and continued to watch the fairy who wore a face that less and less resembled his old foe’s. Especially when his lips curved in an impish expression like the one he wore now. He wasn’t sure there was ever a time the previous Shen Qingqiu had worn anything close to that expression — at least not while on the mountain. The man would probably have been a lot more popular if he had.
When there was still no answer, Shen Qingqiu chuckled a little.
“Or were those incidents just another of your little tricks? I had noticed things getting knocked over or moved or getting stuck for a few seconds, these last few weeks… I just didn’t leap to ‘ghost’ as an answer. I hope you forgive me for the oversight.”
Liu Qingge smiled wryly to himself. It hadn’t occurred to him that knocking over the bowls of stones could end up in a boy-who-cried-wolf situation. If Shen Qingqiu was already growing used to strange little accidents happening, it’s no wonder he wasn’t startled enough to investigate.
He’d have to find a better way to practice manipulating the material world to avoid similar circumstances. From Shen Qingqiu’s period of long thought and the expression on his face now, as if he’d just sorted through all of the stories he’d ever read and heard told about ghosts, the fairy probably had many ideas he’d like to try out with a presumably friendly ghost.
“If you’ve been here with me this long, I imagine there’s something you want me to do for you.”
Not true, Liu Qingge thought to himself — and then he corrected himself just as quickly. No, that wasn’t quite true. He didn’t have personal unresolved business in the world he needed help with, but he did want something from him. Since he was very much in favor of the fairy’s mission to thwart the dark prophecy, that probably counted towards ‘wanting the fairy to do something for him’.
“I’ll have a think on it and get back to you,” Shen Qingqiu continued, his voice thoughtful. He must have been going through what he knew of Shen Qingqiu and trying to figure out if there was a person who might have unfinished business with him. The fairy shook his head slightly and got to his feet. “For now, I should sleep. If I stay up for much longer, I worry that Binghe might come in and fuss about me staying up too late, and I don’t want him to think I’m ignoring him when I’ve been working so hard to have us get along. Besides — I’m tired. Perhaps you are too?” He waited politely before reaching up to remove the pin from his crown and letting down his hair. “Good night, Ghost. Sleep well…”
Shen Qingqiu moved around his bedroom, extinguishing the lights before musing out loud, “…Do ghosts sleep?”
Liu Qingge politely left the room as Shen Qingqiu began to undress for bed, though he returned a bit later to linger by the open window, as he always did.
Ghosts, as it happened — at least whatever type he was — did not sleep. The closest it came was when he entered a fuzzy sort of state where he drifted for a few minutes at a time. It was rather like getting lost in thought. He paid no attention to the passing of time in that state, but he was still more than alert enough that he was pulled out of it whenever something caught his attention — as with earlier when Mu Qingfang accidentally disturbed him. Most often it wasn’t that dramatic — it was usually something as simple as Shen Qingqiu turning in his sleep or Luo Binghe waking up early to sneak in an extra round of practice before beginning breakfast prep.
Liu Qingge didn’t mind these silent vigils while Shen Qingqiu slept. One never really knew what might happen in the night where his presence might be useful. What if someone needed the Qing Jing Peak Lord?
If it was left up to the bookish fairy, he’d probably stay up all night and sleep all day without the assistance of his personal disciples, who kept his sleep schedule to something more reasonable. Even then, the three of them were so indulgent with their sweeter shizun that it sometimes took concerted efforts to get the fairy out of bed in time for breakfast.
The least Liu Qingge could do was make sure that if no disciples were awake to do that, he could start the process of waking him, which the disciples could finish once they heard the commotion.
He glanced over to the bed where a silver sliver of moonlight crept in from between the poorly closed shutters to drape over his lips, currently parted as the fairy sighed at whatever he was dreaming.
Liu Qingge found himself wondering if he could touch them.
Touch him. (He quickly shoved the strangely worded version of his thought to the back of his mind. Of course that’s not what he’d meant.) If he needed to wake Shen Qingqiu, it would probably be more effective if he touched him. But he wasn’t sure if he could or not — so far he’d shied away from doing such a thing.
Certainly it must be a warning from whatever instincts he had in his ghostly body that touching a living person could be dangerous.
Why else would his heart race as he thought about it?