Chapter Text
<Relationship Value remains at – >
"I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. You think that relationship value's bad -"
<Relationship Value is in fact – >
"-our relationship value is buried beneath pigshit. I hate you. I hate you like Binghe hated Shen Qingqiu, I hate you like Peerless Cucumber hated Chapter 514, I hate you like –"
Distracted by screaming at the system, Shang Qinghua trips over another outcrop of rock.
At least he doesn't think he's being chased, yet, but that doesn't mean much when you compare his cultivation to that of even a below-average Qiongding disciple. If the Sect Leader's down here, he's absolutely screwed.
Not for the first time, he curses himself for describing the Lingxi Caverns as a "fathomless maze, confusing to even seasoned cultivators" and not "a straight line," or at least "see attached map." By the time he makes it to the barred entrance, his heart is pounding, his knees are scraped raw, and there's a lump growing on his forehead.
"Hello?" he calls, cautiously.
The only answer is a low moan.
Rising up to his tiptoes, Shang Qinghua peers in through the slit in the door. The walls inside are black with what he would prefer he didn't know was blood, and lying on the ground, one arm outstretched, is a boy.
Shang Qinghua regathers himself. If he'd never tortured his characters, he'd have been an even shittier author than he already was. No one told him he would ever actually come face to face with one of them lying in a pool of their own blood, looking distressingly young and vulnerable and innocent and doomed to suffer silently and stupidly for a few decades before dying in a hail of arrows -
"Right," he says. "Yue Qi?"
Yue Qi slams himself against the door.
"Great!" says Shang Qinghua, now from significantly further away. "Thank you for telling me that I need to head to a location you've given me and rescue the childhood acquaintance I'd never heard of until today. I'm honored you've entrusted me with this mission!"
There. That's plausible deniability out of the way - Yue Qi won't remember much of this, but probably will be aware there was a shadow at the door.
Now all he needs is an excuse to leave the mountain.
<Update! Relationship Value Increase: 1%! Host should continue his fine work! Update! Subject B's emotional level has entered the Danger Range. Host should remedy – >
"So, Subject B is Yue Qingyuan, then? Right? Right? You useless Google-voiced weasel, answer me –"
-
It hadn't been so bad, at first.
Okay, so he'd died and then woken up as an infant, greeted by a half-hearted lullaby and a horrible mechanical voice announcing that he'd been "bound to the role of Shang Qinghua," and then, as a large hand patted his back to soothe the wailing, "Please Stand By."
"Please Stand By" had kept him company during his forthcoming second childhood as "Shang Hua," whose birth name he'd never actually bothered to come up with and backstory he'd certainly never described. This world - his world - had followed up the brilliance of not even bothering to change the character for Hua by plopping him in Tongyong Village - and then peopling Generic Town with a cast of disconcertingly well-rounded characters who he'd had fifteen years to grow attached to before a wandering cultivator had the gall to inform his family that he'd spotted "genuine talent and potential" in the boy who'd returned his fallen satchel.
See if he ever does anything nice for anyone again.
He'd been dragged to Cang Qiong Mountain, resolved to make the best of things. Transmigrators didn't get to stay the third sons of farmers - or, if they did, they had to become fabulously successful farmers, models of fine rural values, which seemed like even more work than cultivation and honestly about as likely to get him eventually ripped to shreds by demons.
He'd even tried to ask the System for advice, but his old friend "Please Stand By" remained as helpful as ever. Shang Qinghua had resolved, instead, to soak up as much cultivational knowledge as he could, claim a functional-if-not-impressive sword, and leave the sect for the life of a rogue, slaying minor monsters to the adulation of Generic Villages everywhere.
He had no inclination to fix OG Shang Qinghua's life. The only benefit would be getting to meet Mobei-jun, and that paled next to the advantages of not getting skewered on an ice spike by Mobei-jun.
He'd had plans.
And then he'd been assigned to run a message to Qiongding Peak.
<Proximity Established! Exiting Standby Mode!>
He'd dropped the bamboo scroll. His (successful!) diving lunge to prevent it falling off the rainbow bridge had been met only by the scornful gazes of passing disciples and a mass of digital confetti blocking out his own vision.
<Congratulations, User! You have been bound to a bonfide True Love System. You can, you up, no can, no BB! 'What do you mean I can't write a romance arc? I've written three hundred of them!'>
More confetti.
<Ensure Subject A's happiness with Subject B! Earn valuable points, exchangeable for both goods and services! Fight hard - >
Okay, he'd thought. I can do this.
Luo Binghe - but that couldn't be right, even by his somewhat loose and flexible timescale, not if one of the subjects was in proximity - unless one of the immortal wives was visiting? Or a demon wife had been captured? Was he really going to be stuck "ensuring the happiness" of wife number hundred-something and a yet to be born infant?
No. It had to be Su Xiyan, visiting on behalf of Huanhua Palace. Fuck my life. Tianlang-jun was maybe less likely to murder him than Mobei-jun, but how exactly was he supposed to keep the cultivation realm from murdering him?
"Commencing Quest: Seven Plus Nine Equals Love!"
Seven plus –
Seven –
Shang Qinghua curled up on the rainbow bridge, and screamed.
-
It had taken him three weeks after the Lingxi Caverns - the system chattering in his head the whole time - to get an excuse to head down the mountain.
It had taken him three days after that to get here, mud and blood mixing on his knees, clinging to an ice demon's thigh.
"My - my king!"
Mobei-jun has accepted his vow of devotion and fealty with about the same expression he's turning to the mud on his be-chained boots. Shang Qinghua, who has never in two lifetimes been called too proud to grovel, rubs the chains between his fingers until he can see silver again.
It would probably be a little much to try cleaning them with his tongue.
"My king, I really think - again - that you ought to seek shelter! Your wounds –"
Mobei-jun gives an elegant snort, more an upturned twist of his nose. He's young, like they all are, but Shang Qinghua can still see the frigid king of the North in the cut of his cheekbones and the scorn that's slowly managing to supplant the terror in in his eyes.
Shang Qinghua would hug him, if he felt like sharing the OG's fate a few decades early. Instead, he half cajoles, half carries Mobei-jun into the shelter of one of PIDW's thousand convenient abandoned farmsteads.
They spend almost a day there, time Shang Qinghua isn't sure he can spare, but when he suggested he might need to return to Cang Qiong Mountain Mobei-jun threatened to put a leash around his neck. There's only so much face even Shang Qinghua can lose.
"My prince," he begins again. "My king." Mobei-jun narrows his eyes, but he doesn't go for the rope again, and Shang Qinghua forges on. "Are you well enough to travel?"
The wounds are stitching themselves closed - the contents of his emergency medical pouch haven't hurt, thought that's one Golden Toenail of the Sacred Sloth he's never seeing again - and it's not as though Shang Qinghua can get Mobei-jun back to the demon realm. They'll go their separate ways, and he'll figure out how this "eternal allegiance" thing is going to work in practice. He's hardly as useful a spy as even the OG had been.
"Hm." Mobei-jun tilts his head in a way that's going to look thoroughly impressive in about five years. "Where are we going?"
"I - what?"
Icy blue eyes zero in on him. "Where are we going?"
"Well – I mean – I, my king, was going to continue on to some other business in town – personal business - and I assumed you would be –"
"What personal business?" Mobei-jun sits up, shedding the remnants of Shang Qinghua's cloak in the process.
"A favor – for another member of the sect – it's a connection that will enable me to better –"
"Stop talking," says Mobei-jun. "When do we leave?"
"My king?" And it occurs to Shang Qinghua, very suddenly, that maybe Mobei-jun doesn't want to go home.
That maybe he's delaying seeing the man who sent him here – and everything that will change in his life as a result – as long as possible.
It's a heart-stabbing thought. It's almost certainly projection. It's definitely not a thought someone who values his life will say out loud.
"I was thinking early morning," says Shang Qinghua.
-
It takes them another day.
Mobei-jun makes them a single portal, which clearly takes so much out of him that Shang Qinghua “buys” (he left money in the field, okay! A lot of money! Probably the farmer will find it!) him a sheep to eat, and then, while he skitters off to avoid watching that process, seriously considers also stealing some horses.
In the end, he doesn’t; Mobei-jun seems fairly well recovered, and people don’t generally like getting their horses back covered in bits of melting sheep gore – or not getting them back at all.
“Is this it?”
Shang Qinghua nods, lowering himself back down from the wall. The Qiu mansion is clearly no Northern Ice Palace, but it’s a warren all the same. The only guard he sees right now is asleep, but the sun is going down, and soon there’ll be more of them.
“Never fear, my king,” he says, raising a finger. “I came here with a plan.
-
“And who are you?” asks the servant at the main gate. He’s got a guard on either side of him, as predicted, and the supercilious expression of a man who gets to order both of them around and has no other pleasures in life.
Shang Qinghua pulls himself up. He's got one shot at this. "Don't you know who this is?" he demands, gesturing towards Mobei-jun. "He's the heir to the Fengguan Marquis! Our carriage overturned outside of town! Ten men were killed! Now fetch your head steward, dog, and see what he has to say -"
It's surprisingly effective, particularly considering that the regional bigwig in question is the Guanfeng Marquis. Or possibly Guanfang.
...Or it might be the other way around.
Look, the point is that one of them is the Lord of Plentiful Irrigation, whose eventual frame-up for treason will leave a buxom great-granddaughter the only survivor, the other is a particularly fancy hat, and either of them, it turns out, is impressive enough for the Qius. One guard darts back into the house, one fixes his face into an expression of utter vigilance, and Mister Temporarily In Charge bows half a dozen times before trying and failing to coax Mobei-jun to a seat.
They stand in the rain, instead, Shang Qinghua shifting from foot to foot. He's trying for "well-born study companion," not with a family name anybody will have heard of but still fancy enough for a spot at the table. Mobei-jun isn't trying for anything, but he's refrained from skewering anyone with an ice spear and for now that's going to do.
"My lords." This is a servant in significantly nicer clothes and a hastily-thrown-on cloak; he rises from his bow with narrowed eyes.
Shang Qinghua steps forward, pulling every self-important jackass he's ever written into his spine. "You!" he demands.
It's tragic, is what it is. Their carriage went over a cliff, the surviving servants are at an inn, but Shang Qinghua - study companion Shang Qinghua, did he mention that yet - learned that the Qius were the only family in this miserable little town with any claim to class, and Fengguan-shizi is hardly going to sleep on the upper floor of a tavern...
-
It's not a bulletproof story - it's not even a wet-tissue-proof story - but somehow it works. It could be his innate skill as a liar and storyteller, it could be that the Qiu family has the collective braincells of an internet comment section... but in truth, he's pretty sure it's Mobei-jun.
"Young Master Mo" has so far not spoken two words at dinner, surveying the dining hall with a bored, unimpressed, and increasingly-murderous gaze. He's neither a good liar nor particularly committed to this enterprise, but it doesn't matter. Even in this reduced form, everything about the King of the Northern Desert screams "fancier than you." If he's not Fengguan Marquis' heir, he's manifestly someone's, and Master Qiu isn't inclined to ask questions.
The food isn't terrible. The wine's probably half-decent, too, if Shang Qinghua were willing to be drunk for this.
<Proximity Established!>
Shang Qinghua manages not to jab himself in the ear this time. He squints again at the servants lining the room, and finally, finally, spots Shen Jiu.
Narrow-faced. Far too thin, and very subtly favoring his left leg. He makes eye contact with Shang Qinghua, and then immediately breaks it.
Shang Qinghua twitches his fingers until he gets Mobei-jun's attention, and then jerks his gaze over to where Shen Jiu stands behind Qiu Haitang. Mobei-jun’s eyes narrow, his face eschewing subtlety and apparently opting to set Shen Jiu on fire with his mind... which, Shang Qinghua notes with a stifled squeak, Qiu Jianluo is now attempting to do to him.
Admittedly, the creepy sadist was never not going to end tonight as an icicle, but wait until dinner's over, please!
Master Qiu coughs. "Ah, Haitang," he says. "The pearl in our palm!"
Mobei-jun skewers a prawn with his chopsticks and gives it a cautious sniff before biting it in half. Somehow this still manages to give off a commanding air, as though table manners are for peasants.
"That one?" he says to Shang Qinghua, because apparently subtlety is also for peasants.
"Haha, yes! That was exactly the type of prawn they were talking about in town!" He nearly withers beneath Madam Qiu's disapproving glare, before rallying. "My compliments to your cooks, Madam... I'm sure we'll be talking about them more long after we've finished dinner and returned to our rooms."
-
"We could have killed them all in there."
In the original, Mobei-jun-less, admittedly half-baked plan, they wouldn't have needed to kill anyone at all.
Well. Maybe Qiu Jianluo, but hopefully no one else! There was nothing worse for a budding romance than a revenge-driven former fiancé!
"...I need him to trust us," says Shang Qinghua. "My king."
Mobei-jun grunts. Shang Qinghua half expects him to summon a portal and leave him here to solve his own problems, but instead he folds his arms behind his back and continues walking at an even pace.
<Proximity Alert> the System informs him; it gets louder when he's walking in the right direction, which is the closest to useful it’s been so far.
They manage to find Shen Jiu halfway down the corridor to the family wing, carrying a cup of wine on a tray. He startles at the sight of them, and then immediately looks down.
"Did you need something, my lords?"
"Yes! You're Shen Jiu, right?"
Shen Jiu snaps out of his respectfully lowered gaze, eyes narrowing. Shang Qinghua has at least six - well, four - several inches on him in height, a half-decent golden core, and ice demon backup, and he still takes a step back.
There's my best villain, all right!
After a slightly-too-long pause, he clears his throat. "I'm from Cang Qiong Mountain - Yue Qi sent me!"
There is a moment of absolute stillness, broken only by Mobei Jun tapping his foot.
"...What?"
I'm here to fix your life! Shang QInghua does not say, but for the first time, he feels it.
Shen Jiu manages a few more syllables. "Sent you?"
<Warning! Relationship Value decrease!> This time it's added a fucking siren, of all things, and Shang Qinghua takes back anything he said about its helpfulness.
"He – he had a qi deviation, I don't know what happened, tried to rush his cultivation –"
"He's hurt?"
"Yes!" says Shang Qinghua, and then realizes while this may have been the right thing to say for the sake of good old Seven-Nine, it may not have been the best thing for him not to be shanked by an angry teenager. "But not – he'll be fine! He just... isn't right now, but he told me to come get you out of here –"
"Prove it," says Shen Jiu.
"Right. Right." Shang Qinghua fumbles for bits of unwritten chapters. "He, um, he –"
"Do you have other options?" says Mobei-jun.
Shen Jiu looks him up and down, apparently and understandably coming away more impressed than he had with Shang Qinghua. He gives a small, endlessly bitter smile. "No," he says. "I don't."
-
Qiu Jianluo gets off one good, solid scream.
Shang Qinghua flails for a pillow in the interest of preventing another, but before he can move in, Shen Jiu is there, silver flashing between his fingers.
The next scream is more a groan, trailing off to a whine. Shen Jiu drops something small and bloody to the ground and - oh. That's Qiu Jianluo's tongue. Part of Qiu Jianluo's tongue. It turns out unpracticed teenagers aren't as skilled at torture as full-grown protagonists, are they...
There's a lot of blood. Some of it has frozen around the ice spear currently pinning Qiu Jianluo to the ground. Some of it hasn't. Mobei-jun leans against the doorframe dispassionately. If this were a wife-plot, he'd be examining his nails.
"We'll need a way out of here," Shang Qinghua tells him, in an attempt to drown out the squelching sounds from behind him. "And some way to cover our tracks... Well, our tracks, I don't think you're too worried about being turned into the magistrate, my king -"
"I could kill him," says Mobei-jun.
"Yes, well, obviously, you're fully capable of killing a human bureaucrat – any number of human bureaucrats! – but I'm much more useful to you at Cang Qiong Mountain! I'd make a terrible bandit!"
Qiu Jianluo gives a low, rattling groan.
"– A very terrible bandit –"
There's another squelching sound behind them, a knife stabbing into raw meat. There are no more sounds from Qiu Jianluo - only Shen Jiu's voice, slightly out of breath.
"We burn it to the ground and run." His eyes bore into Shang Qinghua's as he turns. "And then you take me to Cang Qiong Mountain."
-
A plan! Always good to have a plan!
Mobei-jun had signaled his agreement by leaning out the door and killing someone in the hallway; Shen Jiu had upped his previous record in the 'unsettling smile' category; Shang Qinghua had opted to head off and rescue Qiu Haitang.
Crabapple trees blossom around her courtyard, petals trailing elegantly to the ground. Shang Qinghua manages to stifle his sneeze, but not without consequences. A serving girl squeaks at his approach, nearly dropping the jug she’s carrying, and Shang Qinghua manages to get in some practice for the next part of his plan by incapacitating her with a surge of qi in a maneuver he is not calling the Vulcan Neck Pinch.
She slumps to the ground in a flutter of pink, and Shang Qinghua does his best to cushion her fall.
She looks about twelve.
"...but I don't want to marry Young Master Mo! I'm going to marry A-Jiu!"
Shang Qinghua sighs. In the interest of not taking plot points upon himself, he ties part of his sash around his face as a mask before shoving his way into the room.
He's met with a chorus of shrieks.
They all look about twelve, with the exception of the woman in the corner, who looks more like his dead grandmother. Shang Qinghua draws his sword, even knowing there's no way in hell he can bring himself to use it.
"We're bandits!" he announces, but not too loudly. "Everyone on the ground!"
More shrieks. Qiu Haitang pitches over, knocking two of her maids to the ground.
Dead Nai Nai hurls an incense burner at his head.
-
There's a single, safe room, a storage shed across the lotus pond from the bulk of the house and warded by the best of Shang Qinghua's temporary sigils. If Wu Yanzi's in the vicinity, he might be able to spot something odd about it, but all the townsfolk are going to see is Qiu Haitang, a single, ash-stained, miraculous survivor.
And maybe one of her handmaids.
And maybe another one of her handmaids.
And maybe an eighty-year-old woman with surprisingly good aim.
Look, most of these kids are even younger than Shen Jiu, okay? Half of them probably came from the same brokers. All they had in life to look forward to was the prospect of maybe becoming somebody's nursemaid or concubine, maybe Qiu Haitang and her brilliant sense of character judgement marrying them off to her other servants like dolls – and then they'd died choking on ash.
Charitably, Shen Jiu hadn't had a way to save them; uncharitably, they had silk dresses and full bellies and he wouldn't have bothered even if he'd been driving an ambulance.
Shang Qinghua adds a second kitchen boy to the far side of the pile.
"Ugh," says a thin, arcerbic voice. "A-Yang? He won't thank you, you know."
Shen Jiu wipes his boot on "A-Yang's" tunic, but makes no move to disturb the rest of the pile.
Shang Qinghua gives him a wide, nervous grin.
Mobei-jun walks through the doorway, gives the pile a long up-and-down look, and then walks back out.
"He's gone to check on the fire," says Shen Jiu, leaning in right next to Shang Qinghua's ear. "A helpful fellow."
Shang Qinghua nods noncommittally. The prickling at the back of his spine isn't letting him move.
"...He's a demon. Isn't he." And someone less terrified might not have caught the quaver in Shen Jiu's voice.
Shang Qinghua gives a squeak, almost as noncommittal as the nod.
"Do they know that, on Cang Qiong Mountain?"
"Not - not as such, no."
"Hmm." The quaver's gone, now.
"It's an – extracurricular, you might say? Helping him. Or him helping me. Or – look. They might eat people - but people eat other people! Kill people – same again! Dangerous powers – have you met my Shizun? Our Sect Leader? And as for trading partners – rare items, raw materials – I just think we have a lot to offer each other! A better future! Potential!"
He swallows, making sure Shen Jiu can see it.
Because Shen Jiu isn't going to trust him. The ship has long sailed on that. But he can get somewhere close to Shen Jiu trusting him, and that somewhere close is called "Shen Jiu has blackmail material."
If he thinks he can control Shang Qinghua - well, one, he's probably right.
And, two, he's a lot more likely to put up with him.
"Please," says Shang Qinghua, playing his trump card. "Don't tell anyone? Please, please don't tell Yue-shixiong –"
“Hmm,” says Shen Jiu again. He draws out the wait for a long moment. And then –
<Relationship Value Decrease!>
“…How well do you know Qi-ge?”
-
With a chorus of squeaks and groveling, Shang Qinghua manages to stabilize the relationship value (no, he doesn’t know Qi-ge! In fact as far as he knows – which isn’t far – Qi-ge has no prominent friends at all! He keeps himself at the elegant and reserved distance of someone focused entirely on returning for Xiao Jiu – and the fact that that’s probably true doesn’t hurt anything but the traitorous twist in his heart!) before he slaps a few more anti-fire talismans on the outer wall.
Shen Jiu rolls his eyes.
“I set it on fire.”
Shang Qinghua gives a genuine squeak as Mobei-jun stalks out of the shadows. “Good for you, my king!”
Shen Jiu, once again, rolls his eyes. He gives a considering glance to the lantern he’s holding before vanishing into the shadows. Shang Qinghua’s son, off to commit arson!
“You’re returning to your mountain.”
“Yes!” Off to be as helpful as possible, my king! And if that isn’t very helpful, well, he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it. He’s going to have a bonanza of system points soon, and “goods and services” surely include some kind of information-gathering software.
And by the time he has to do anything big, well, this will all be over with. You can’t betray Cang Qiong Mountain from a miserable little one-bedroom apartment.
“Good.” Mobei-jun gives him an almost awkward nod before reaching out a hand and slicing open a shadowy portal. He gives it a look, and then Shang Qinghua another one. “Potential,” he says, quietly.
“What?”
“…You have potential.”
And then he’s gone, the air collapsing in on itself in a freezing burst.
Shang Qinghua stands, gobsmacked, for a few seconds, before gathering his cloak around himself and heading off to find Shen Jiu.
-
Morning dawns over a makeshift campsite and two piles of uncomfortable bedding.
"I told you," says Shang Qinghua, as Shen Jiu pokes at the fire, ostentatiously refusing to look him in the eye. "You saved my life."
"From demons."
Shen Jiu gives a delicate sniff. At least he's recovered his self-confidence. "And that won't cause problems with your 'king?'"
"I was thinking we'd frame his uncle, actually." Shang Qinghua leans back, one arm behind his head, and pretends he doesn't notice as Shen Jiu's eyes flicker.
He's a storyteller. Making up excuses is what he's good at, at least when he doesn't have to plug uncooperative ice demons into the leading role.
"And I used my..."
"Spiritual potential!" confirms Shang Qinghua. "Which you do have, incidentally - certainly more than I do, and they accepted me - so you might want to try actually sharpening some leaves with qi on the road tomorrow."
"Accepted you," Shen Jiu mutters. His eyes flash up again. "I don't care if they accept me. I want to see Qi-ge."
“You will!” says Shang Qinghua, with a lot more confidence than he feels. They’ll figure out how later. The important thing is that he’s safe, and that no one betrayed anybody, and Shang Qinghua is about to earn enough points for “both goods and services.”
And whatever – well.
Whatever comes next.
-
Shang Qinghua spins a genuinely dramatic story for the shijie who meets him at the foot of the mountain, and an even more dramatic one for his Shizun, who purses his lips and looks Shen Jiu up and down.
“Your wrist,” he says, and then “if you please,” when Shen Jiu simply scowls and holds himself tighter.
He barely has his fingers on the pulse point before his eyes widen. “I see.” The look he flashes Shang Qinghua is the closest he’s gotten to approval since this whole mess started.
Pity An Ding won’t be keeping him. And what a nightmare that would be – the scum villain pushing paper, faced at every competition with the scorn of even the most useless disciple of the second-worst-ranking peak. It would take three Qi-ges to keep him from blackening, and they’d have their work cut out for them.
“…the Sect Leader.” His Shizun clears his throat. “I said, Shang Hua, that we will be taking him to see the Sect Leader, unless you feel too weakened to come along?”
Shen Jiu’s eyes flash at him.
This is good, Shang Qinghua tries to communicate.
Shen Jiu holds his head high on the trip up the peak, eyes darting every which way but spine so straight it looks brittle. He visible keeps himself from goggling as they step onto the rainbow bridge.
“So, System. About those goods and services –“
<User has earned a total of 15 points! Go go go User!>
Fifteen – what kind of ripoff is fifteen? He’d just pulled Subject A out of hell!
<With our First-Buy-Discount, User can afford <<Small Scenario Pusher>> or even <<Tiny Decorative Goldfish!>>>
Right.
The first of those actually might be useful… but he’ll wait for the bonanza. No point wasting his discount on fifteen points when he’s about to have a hundred.
-
“Guo-shidi. Could this not have waited?”
The Sect Leader’s hair is roughly put up, and she wears only a single belt over her outer robe… which is at least five times as expensive as the rough whites underneath. One hand is hidden in her sleeves, but there’s blood beneath one fingernail of the other, and a few loops of near-invisible thread around her far finger.
They’ve interrupted her in the middle of something, and Shang Qinghua barely manages not to punch the air in glee at the realization of what.
“When I last waited on a matter of this kind, you said, and I quote…”
Shizun, Shang Qinghua knows from experience, might easily spend the next hour laying out every word the sect leader has ever said to him; he’s a creature of deep and well-memorized resentment. He takes the opportunity to sidle over to one of the Qiongding disciples.
“…Maybe we could wait in the infirmary?” He rubs at his shoulder. “I… may have broken this in the demon attack, and my qi has been drained ever since, and…” He trails off hopefully as the disciple glares down their nose at him.
Shen Jiu gives a small, pained sigh. Looking over, Shang Qinghua sees that he possesses a pair of dark, liquid Bambi eyes that were demonstrably absent in any chapter starring Luo Binghe. He’s biting his lip, as though he’s trying – and just failing – to cover up his pain.
“Of course,” says the Qiongding disciple, with only the smallest glance at where Peak Lord Guo is still droning on. “Right this way.”
-
The Qiongding infirmary is a mess.
Shelves of bottles and bundles have clearly been rifled through, put away, and then rifled through again. There’s an acupuncture needled freshly lodged in Shang Qinghua’s boot. Two girls in dark robes, one of them holding a rag and the other a scroll, barely look up from their argument at his squeak of pain, before resuming in hushed tones.
Curtains block off an area to the back, with seal paper peeking through the gaps. Shang Qinghua notes his goal, and looks around again at his obstacles.
Three Qiongding disciples. One of them visibly armed, all of them capable of yelling for the Sect Leader and getting Shang Qinghua – possibly literally – tossed off the mountain. One curtain, likely to zap him if he touches it. One Shen Jiu, with a wild spark growing in his eyes that’s turning him from “pain in the ass” to “time bomb.”
Not to mention the chance that he’s read everything wrong and Yue Qi isn’t behind the curtain at all. If Shen Jiu rips everything open to discover an unknown disciple or an Explosive Star-Eyed Three-Horned Sheep, Shang Qinghua can kiss his fifteen points goodbye.
“Oh, my head.” Shang Qinghua wobbles from foot to foot. “Can I sit down? Is there somewhere I can sit down?”
Disciple One gives him an unimpressed look before pressing two fingers to his pulse point. Disciples Two and Three don’t even look in his direction.
“Spots in my eyes… Could I be dying? I think I might be dying.”
“Stop whining,” says Shen Jiu, ignoring the potential of Operation Distraction entirely. He takes a sharp step forward.
Disciples Two and Three, moving in unison, shift further in front of the curtain. It could almost be coincidental until Three, with a subtle, graceful motion worthy of an early-chapter love interest, positions her hand on her swordhilt.
None of this stops Shen Jiu, who takes another step, every atom of his body drawn forward like a magnet. It would be heartwarming were it not about to get him killed.
Disciple Three shifts again. There’s a glimmer of silver. As time seems to slow to a crawl, Shang Qinghua grits his teeth.
Time to make a deal with the devil.
“Hey. Miserable robotic extortion artist.”
<Yes, Host?>
“Give me the small scenario pusher.”
-
The shelf explodes into a cloud of pink smoke, sending vials and artifacts cascading across the floor.
Much of it hits Disciple One, who shrieks something about the “Ancient Timekeeper” and darts out the door in pursuit of a tumbling golden ball. Disciples Two and Three stare at each other as multicoloured dust rises around them, and then Two grabs Three around the waist and bolts for the door as well.
Shang Qinghua uses the edge of his outer robe – somehow cleanly sliced through by a shelf sliver – and covers his nose just in case.
Shen Jiu stands, stunned, for a long moment, and then he dashes for the curtain like a mouse towards a hole, feet skidding on the floor. He’s through the curtain in an instant.
From outside comes the sound of a splash and a “Sorry, Shijie!” as Two evidently dumps Three in the well. Shang Qinghua gives the pile of dust a wide berth as he edges forward.
Nine tenths of what he wrote about Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan went up in smoke with his old harddrive – and there’d never been much of it to begin with. They were Tragic Backstory, to be revealed and hinted at during their death scenes, parallel to Luo Binghe in the endless, unbreakable cycle of revenge.
And it turned out that no one wanted to pay for complicated literary foils. The hero of Proud Immortal Demon Way didn’t need to be set against anything that wasn’t an anatomically impossible set of breasts.
And then it turned out – well, then it had turned out that they were people. Kids.
Scared.
Staring at each other for a long, glass-fragile moment, ignoring the author tripping over the curtain as though he’d never been there at all.
Shen Jiu flings himself at Yue Qi, grabbing at his shoulders with shaking hands. It must hurt – the stitches look fresh – but Yue Qi only blinks, wide-eyed.
“Xiao Jiu.”
Shen Jiu buries his face in his shoulder. “…Qi-ge.”
Shang Qinghua steps back.
-
<Relationship Value Increase! Relationship Value Increase!>
Leaning against the outer wall of the infirmary, Shang Qinghua grins. 150 points. He could grab half-a-dozen scenario boosters, a lesser halo, or even a “Medium Rainbow Decorative Fish.”
“So, what’s the next quest? …Su Xiyan and Tianlang-jun, right? I don’t suppose I could convince you to let me off easy?”
At the very least, it’ll have to give him a vacation before he heads to Huan Hua Palace. He’s got work to catch up on – and an ice demon, for that matter. Maybe he can convince Mobei-jun to kill the Old Palace Master, take over Huan Hua before Luo Binghe…
<Relationship Value Decrease!>
“What?”
<Warning! Relationship Value Decrease - >
“-fine! I’ll do it myself, you – you – “ Shen Jiu slams the door open, stalking past Shang Qinghua in a whirl of robes. “I’ll do it myself.”
He doesn’t spare Shang Qinghua a glance.
Which is probably for the best. He has enough of an audience as, once again, he sinks down to the ground of Qiongding Peak and starts to scream.