Chapter Text
“You are easily the worst spy I’ve ever seen.” Mobei-Jun told Shang Qinghua snidely as he stepped through the portal that had just opened up in the cell.
“Oh, like you’re one to talk,” Shang Qinghua rolled his eyes. A year ago he wouldn’t have dared speak to Mobei-Jun like this, but that was a year ago. The plot was over now. With the System set to sandbox mode, things were different.
Mobei-Jun strode over to Shang Qinghua, black cloak billowing out behind him majestically. With a clench of his fist, an icy burst of spiritual energy shattered the chains holding him to the wall.
“T-t-this h-humble servant thanks his king for the rescue,” Shang Qinghua shuddered as he rubbed his wrists, standing up straight in the now-freezing cell.
The guards had stripped him of his outer layers when they had caught him. Luckily, Shang Qinghua was more paranoid than they were intelligent. Everything actually incriminating on him was stashed in a qikun pouch tucked away in a place most guards — particularly cultivation sect guards — don’t care to search.
Looking distinctly unimpressed, Mobei-Jun grunted, turned to the still-open portal, and gestured impatiently.
Shang Qinghua jumped to his feet and hurried through, stepping seamlessly out of his cell and into his king’s sitting room. Mobei-Jun followed closely, the rift in space closing neatly behind him.
On the other side, Shang Qinhua was already halfway out the door. He popped out into the hallway, going not even thirty paces before reaching his own rooms. He didn’t bother glancing back.
While he rummaged through his closet for fresh robes, Mobei-Jun ducked in and closed the door behind him. Without any self-consciousness, Shang Qinghua shucked off his inner robe and pulled off his pants.
It had taken him several years to get used to the lax demon standards for modesty, but now that he had, it was almost hard to remember cultivator etiquette whenever he was back on An Ding peak.
Standing in his underclothes, Shang Qinghua untied the pouch strapped to his upper thigh. He turned around and tossed it back to Mobei-Jun.
“I dumped every useful scroll I could find in here.”
Mobei-Jun untied the pouch and poked around while Shang Qinghua pulled on a fresh set of robes — ones that happily didn’t smell like the secret dungeons of Huanhua Palace Sect.
“Did anyone see you?” Mobei-Jun asked after he finished rifling through the contents of the pouch.
“Other than the guards who captured me, you mean?”
Mobei-Jun nodded.
“No.” Shang Qinghua assured him, walking forward and taking the qikun pouch of stolen intel back. “You pulled me out of the cell while they were off looking for one of their superiors.”
Mobei-Jun let out a low hum, not sounding entirely convinced.
“Decipher whatever code they’ve used to hide their secrets and have a report ready for me by tomorrow evening.” He said cooly, not uttering so much as a thanks for risking your life again, Shang Qinghua, or a good job successfully stealing from one of the world’s most secure vaults, Shang Qinghua.
Managing the Northern Ice Palace’s spy network was a bullshit job, Shang Qinghua thought bitterly. Backbreaking work and completely thankless.
Mobei-Jun headed for the door. When he reached the threshold, however, he paused and glanced back. Shang Qinghua, already sitting behind his desk unrolling one of the stolen scrolls, stopped what he was doing and looked up.
For a long moment, Mobei-Jun just stared at his face. Then, before Shang Qinghua could ask if he needed anything else, he snapped, “Get rid of that ridiculous disguise.” With a whirl of his cloak, he was out of the room.
Shang Qinghua grimaced when he reached up and felt the thick layer of makeup and prosthetic mold still plastered on his skin. Grabbing the end of his fake mustache, he ripped it off in one smooth motion.
– – One year ago – –
Four days after Mobei-Jun had made him that first lumpy, under-salted bowl of noodles, Shang Qinghua woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Heart racing, he drew a hand to his stomach, feeling out the unbroken flesh that just moments ago had been sliced open with an angry slash of his king’s claws.
It was a dream. Only a dream.
What am I doing, he thought to himself, running a hand through his unbound hair. The plot’s over and I didn’t die. Mobei-Jun didn’t kill me. He doesn’t even want me to leave! I don’t have to worry anymore. There is literally nothing for me to worry about.
But telling himself that didn’t make him feel any better. It didn’t unclench his jaw or cool the uncomfortable heat in his chest. It didn’t quell the nauseous, twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach, and it didn’t disperse the vague sense of dread that had been hanging over him for… well. His whole life, really.
He flopped back down in bed, arms spread out to either side. Through the open window, he could see the moon — large tonight, and unusually yellow, half hidden behind Qiong Ding peak.
He was spending the night on An Ding peak. There was an issue in one of the warehouses that had dragged on for far too long. By the time it was resolved, it was late enough that he didn’t want to trouble his king for a ride back to the demon realm.
It was fine. Mobei-Jun probably hadn’t even noticed he was gone.
He should just forget about it, close his eyes, and go to sleep. He had a lot to do tomorrow. He needed the sleep.
Angrily, he squeezed his eyes shut.
– – – –
Shang Qinghua sighed as he trekked through the dense forest underbrush, sweating in the humid air. He hated the heat. He hated the heat so much.
It didn’t help that he was covered head to toe in thick, tear-resistant clothing. In this part of the demon realm, the forest itself became as dangerous and unruly as its inhabitants. For the past hour, Shang Qinghua had been wading through thicket after thicket of thorny, poisonous foliage. If he got so much as a scratch from one of the plants in this jungle, the result could range from limb-numbing paralysis to full-on delirium. If he was unlucky, it might just kill him outright.
He sighed again as he ducked under yet another spiney, low-hanging, possibly deadly tree branch. This really was a hike straight out of hell.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t even say he was looking forward to reaching his destination. His king, without a doubt, was going to be in a foul mood by the time he found him.
As he kept walking, the foliage only seemed to grow thicker and more sinister-looking. Dark wisps of miasma curled around spiky leaves. The snake-like vines were only looking more uncannily snake-like with every step he took. He hated that this meant he was going in the right direction.
Eventually, a little over twenty extremely inconvenient minutes later, he arrived at the edge of the clearing he was searching for. The shadowy canopy and prickly bushes abruptly cut off to reveal a natural staging ground of dark stone.
In the middle of the clearing, an elaborate array was carved into the black rock. It was currently activated — the symbols glowing bright and a barrier of golden light rising up from the edges of the circle towards the sky. Sitting in the middle of the array, imprisoned, was Mobei-Jun.
After glancing around to ensure they really were alone, Shang Qinghua stepped out from the tree line.
Like a predator, closely attuned to even the slightest movement, Mobei-Jun’s eyes were on him immediately. He was sitting on the ground in a lotus position, but when he spotted Shang Qinghua, he rose to his feet and crossed his arms. It was hard to make out his expression through the glittering barrier, but Shang Qinghua could have sworn he was pouting.
He tugged the fabric covering his face down. “Sorry about the delay,” he called over.
Mobei-Jun was only standing about twenty paces away, but something about the semi-transparent barrier between them made it seem much farther than that. He didn’t have to say anything for Shang Qinghua to feel the force of his displeasure.
“Just a moment, my king,” Shang Qinghua half-shouted. “I’ve brought everything I need to dismantle the spell. It should only take a few minutes.”
Mobei-Jun had gotten trapped in a wife plot.
Why is it always a wife plot? Shang Qinghua thought miserably.
The problem was that there were just so many of them to trigger. Without his dumb son running around the world persuing his harem, the hundreds upon hundreds of carefully constructed — contrived, Shen Qingqiu would say — stages upon which he was supposed to acquire new wives had now turned into booby-traps, just waiting to ensnare hapless passers-by.
For most people, the untriggered wife plots weren’t much of a problem. Very rarely in Proud Immortal Demon Way had Luo Binghe met a future wife while completing some sort of mundane, everyday task. No, no, the wife plots only reared their heads under the most convoluted of circumstances. Only those roaming far off the beaten path or those being forced to navigate some arcane segment of noble demon politics had to worry about stumbling into a wife plot.
In other words, Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun ran into them about every other week.
This wife plot was a particularly stupid (and, okay, if he was being honest with himself, contrived) situation. Mobei-Jun had stumbled his way into an ancient civilization's long-dormant fertility ritual. The only way to get out of it, naturally, was vigorous papapa. Ideally with a beautiful (and fertile) demon princess.
Given that such a princess was not readily available, and even if she had been, that Mobei-Jun hadn’t ever shown the slightest indication that he would be willing to sleep with her, it had been left to Shang Qinghua to come up with a workaround.
These days, Shang Qinghua was getting a great deal of practice in figuring out wife-plot workarounds.
As it stood, Mobei-Jun had been stuck in his magical prison for a little over two days now. A good chunk of that time was due to the fact that it had taken over twelve hours for Shang Qinghua to even realize that something was wrong.
This is why you tell people where you’re going before just taking off, my king!
After that, he had to figure out where Mobei-Jun was, and from there, reverse engineer the array mechanism. Then he had to track down the (rare, rather difficult to acquire) ingredients he needed, and trek through several kilometers of unforgiving, wild jungle to get to him.
Could this whole thing have been avoided with a little more planning and forethought? Yes. Did he think that Mobei-Jun perhaps deserved to have been trapped in a tiny stone circle for two days?
Well.
Even if he did, Shang Qinghua certainly wouldn’t admit as much.
In short, this whole ridiculous situation was entirely Mobei-Jun’s fault. But who was bitter! Certainly not Shang Qinghua! His king was really very lucky to have such a dedicated servant, he thought as he busied himself with setting up the xianxia equivalent of a bomb.
That's right. Papapa was out, so they were just going to have to blow the ancient array off the face of the earth. Mobei-Jun was a demon king — he would survive the blast. Probably.
“You just had to go after the stupid rare flower, didn’t you,” Shang Qinghua muttered under his breath. Evidently not quietly enough, he noted: on the other side of the barrier, Mobei-Jun raised his head to glare at him.
Yeah, okay, that’s fair. After forty-eight hours of confinement in the same modestly-sized circle, Shang Qinghua would be pissy, too.
When the bomb was all set up, he took several steps back and called out to Mobei-Jun.
“Alright, my king. This is going to be very loud and very bright. If you could step back to the far side of the circle, that would be for the best.”
Gratifyingly, Mobei-Jun did as he was told without question.
“Alright! I’m going to set it off now,” Shang Qinghua continued, backing up to the edge of the trees, the fuse in hand. “Three… two… one—“
Shang Qinghua’s bomb plan had been good. Unfortunately, he had forgotten one crucial aspect of this particular wife plot. In Proud Immortal Demon Way, Luo Binghe hadn’t just had to figure out how to get out of the fertility ritual array.
He had also needed to fend off the angry locals.
Just as Shang Qinghua was sparking the flint, an arrow whizzed by his head, narrowly missing his nose and impaling itself solidly in the tree behind him. Shang Qinghua wheeled back in shock, falling on his butt.
Suddenly, they weren’t alone anymore. Fifteen demons, all of them armed to the teeth, poured into the clearing. Naturally immune to the poisons of the forest, they were dressed in typical demon fashion — which is to say, wearing hardly anything at all. Honestly, with their skimpy fanservice armor, they kind of looked like they’d walked out of some second-rate MMORPG.
Cucumber-Bro might have a point about some of these wife plots, Shang Qinghua thought morosely.
Squinting, he was able to pick out the silver-embossed crest of the Southern Forest Clan on one of their breastplates. Ancient civilization didn’t mean dead civilization. The fertile princess Luo Binghe was supposed to marry had to come from somewhere, after all.
God-fucking-damn it, Shang Qinghua thought as he was forced to sling his sword out of its qikun pouch. Whirling around, he used the blade to deflect three more arrows aimed expertly at his torso. He glanced back at Mobei-Jun, still trapped in the array.
“One second, my king!” He shouted. His voice broke a bit at the end, slanting up into a squeak as he dove out of the way of a spear. Shang Qinghua channeled spiritual energy into his feet and jumped up, bounding over the demon, landing close to the border of the array. As he found his footing, another arrow whizzed by his leg, slicing through his pants and grazing his ankle.
Fuck this forest, fuck these demons, and fuck this stupid wife plot!
He started sprinting along the perimeter of the array, weaving between the demons’ attacks. Close-ranged battles were not his strong suit. Any sort of battle, frankly, was not his strong suit. Luckily, in this case, the barrier array was as much an impediment to the attacking demon clan as it was to him. As he ran, he madly threw smoke talismans down in his wake. Quickly, the clearing began to fill with gray mist.
Somewhat miraculously, Shang Qinghua made it back to his unactivated bomb without further injury. The fuse had been slightly damaged in the fighting, but everything else was intact.
“Stand back, my king!” He yelled at the top of his lungs through the chaos. Whipping a detonation talisman out of his sleeve, he dove towards the edge of the brush, slinging the talisman behind him, down towards the bomb. A wicked-looking knife embedded itself in the ground right where he had been standing.
Yellow light and blistering heat overwhelmed the clearing. Shang Qinghua found himself lying flat on his stomach, wind knocked out of him, having been propelled forward by the force of the blast. He couldn’t hear anything outside of the ringing in his ears.
Groaning, he turned around, trying to make out whether it had worked.
Well, the array was down, alright.
Through the dissipating mist, he could see that the incandescent light of the barrier wall was gone. The jungle clearing was now subdued in shadow. White smoke wafted up from where the bomb had exploded. A large chunk was now missing from the stone platform. Like Shang Qinghua, most of the Southern Forest Clan demons seemed to have been knocked to the ground by the blast.
Out of the smoke, a dark, hulking form prowled forwards.
Shang Qinghua closed his eyes in relief.
The world seemed to spin around him. He opened his eyes again, but it didn’t help. If anything, it made it worse. Why was everything swirling together?
Somewhere in the background, he could make out the sounds of efficient and brutal violence, but he didn’t have the bandwidth to focus on that. He tried to sit up, but his arms wouldn’t cooperate. Something on his cheek felt strangely wet.
Shang Qinghua collapsed back in the dirt. Looking up, dazed, he noticed directly above him a long thorn dripping with blood.
Huh. Could that be his blood? Well. That might explain why he was feeling so woozy, then.
Stupid poisonous jungle, he thought with a sigh as his eyes slipped shut.
Had this chapter even gone over well? He couldn’t remember. He’d written it such a long time ago.
Faintly, through the buzzing static in his ears, he could hear footsteps approaching. Then Shang Qinghua lost consciousness.
He woke up with a start.
He was alone in the medical wing of the Northern Ice Palace, lying on a firm bed. Before he could wonder too long about why that was, or why his entire body, down to the nails of his pinky toes, felt like shit, Mobei-Jun walked in. He was followed closely by Mu Qingfang.
“Mu-shidi?” Shang Qinghua asked, confused. What was he doing in the demon realm?
“Oh, you’re awake. Good.” Mu Qingfang replied, his characteristic mild smile fixed in place. He took Shang Qinghua’s wrist in one hand, reading his pulse.
Turning to Mobei-Jun, he reported, “The poison has cleared his system and the worst of the danger has passed. There should be no long-term side effects. If he’s still experiencing discomfort after a week has passed, inform me.”
Mobei-Jun nodded solemnly, but didn’t so much as glance at the Qian Cao peak lord. He was too busy staring at Shang Qinghua’s prone form. His expression was set in a small, angry frown.
“What?” Shang Qinghua asked, perplexed by the attention.
Coughing awkwardly, Mu Qingfang asked, “If that is all, may I be permitted to return to my peak?”
Wordlessly, without glancing away from Shang Qinghua, Mobei-Jun opened a portal to the human realm.
Mu Qingfang didn’t waste a moment. With a notably curt goodbye, he fled through the portal. It closed neatly behind him, leaving Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun alone.
For an extended moment, they just stared at each other. By the way his brow was creased, Mobei-Jun seemed to be formulating what he wanted to say. Shang Qinghua, for his part, was still a little too woozy to properly make sense of what was going on.
At last, Mobei-Jun spoke. “You will not recklessly endanger yourself like this again.” He commanded in a low, imperious voice.
Shang Qinghua gaped at him. Mobei-Jun in turn, glared back. Opening and closing his mouth a few times, Shang Qinghua finally found his words.
“It wasn’t like I was trying to get poisoned!” He squawked, outranged. “The only reason I was out there in the first place, was to save you! Would you prefer I leave you there next time?”
Mobei-Jun continued to glare at him.
“But believe you me, this is the last time I’ll be going into that jungle voluntarily! If you get stuck there again, that’s your own problem!”
Glaring up at Mobei-Jun, a little out of breath from his outburst, Shang Qinghua distantly realized that this conversation would rank near the top in the list of most insolent things he’d ever said to his king. Or at least of most insolent things he'd said while his king was up, moving around, and theoretically able to beat him up! Sure, their relationship had been warmer of late, but studied casualness was one thing. To start directly complaining….
Poison, Mu-shidi had said? Perhaps Shang Qinghua’s brain was still a bit addled.
Swallowing hard, he tried to mitigate the damage. “O-of course I don’t mean that, my king! This servant just meant…” he trailed off when he finally registered the expression on Mobei-Jun’s face.
In the wake of his tirade, Mobei-Jun had the audacity to look ever so slightly pleased.
“What even possessed you to go after the golden-sapped vine flower in the first place, my king?” Shang Qinghua asked slowly.
Mobei-Jun looked back towards the door for a moment. He looked down at his feet, before glancing Shang Qinghua’s way once more. That look on his face, could he really be… embarrassed?
“You said we needed it.” Mobei-Jun replied in a low voice.
“What?”
“Two weeks ago, after the diplomatic conference. You were complaining about the Ling and Huang families. You said that the—”
“The only way to make them get along would be to feed the heirs golden-sapped vine flowers and try to force a marriage alliance.” Shang Qinghua finished for him.
He remembered thinking that, but he hadn’t realized he had been talking aloud, let alone that Mobei-Jun had been listening to him!
“It— it’s true that arranging a marriage alliance would be the easiest solution to that problem. And the golden-sapped vine flower would be a fast way of achieving that. But my king, all of that effort, you didn’t need to—”
“You said we needed the flower.” Mobei-Jun interrupted. “I got the flower.” He pulled a pouch out of his sleeve and held it out. Stuck dumb, Shang Qinghua took it. Inside were several perfect blossoms. He closed the pouch and looked back up.
Mobei-Jun was back to looking pleased.
“The potions master is already preparing the tonic. The idea of a marriage alliance is good. Next week, the families have been invited back. We will give the heirs the tonic, trick them into a union, and end the border dispute.”
Shang Qinghua gaped up at him. That was… that had been Shang Qinghua’s plan, down to the letter.
But wasn’t this plan a little too underhanded for Mobei-Jun? Demons almost universally prefered to settle their grievances through old-fashioned, honest combat. Of course, in this particular case, the fallout of direct combat between the two powerful families would be disastrous. Nobody wanted an outright feud to start, not even the two violent-tempered matriarchs. It’s why they’d brought the issue before Mobei-Jun in the first place.
When had his king learned to be so tricky?
In the same determined tone, Mobei-Jun continued, “Before that, you will return to full health. You will not endanger yourself again.”
Eyes wide, starting to wonder if maybe this was all a particularly vivid hallucination, Shang Qinghua could only nod.
Satisfied, Mobei-Jun turned on his heel and marched out of the room. When he got to the door, he paused for a moment, glancing back.
“I will return in a few hours.”
With that, he made his exit, leaving Shang Qinghua lying in bed, rubbing his forehead in confusion.