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The market avenue was crowded; there were many sharp-eyed hunters winding through the crush of bodies, but none of them were quite like him.
The demons were easy enough to spot– if one knew what to look for. Their nails were sharp, and the energy at their fingertips was a sharp, tangy contrast to the strictly controlled qi of cultivators, or the gentle hum of the average human. All so different. Sword callouses, bitten cuticles, scarred palms. All the same.
On a day like this, with the sun hanging bright overhead and tempers high between the vendors and the hagglers, a spirit like Qian Yuan was free to do his best hunting.
He had been born from a moment of good luck, been hidden and nursed for years with covetous hope, been carried through hell - and then at the end of it, been traded for a better future. He had met tailors, fishermen, and bakers. He had visited the halls of nobles and warlords. He had even been rescued from the caves of a Long-Haired Howling Night Stalker. He could smell corruption from three li upwind, and tell a scoundrel from an honest man - a good meal from a poor one - by the lines on their palm.
He was a small, slightly tarnished, gold coin.
Right now, Qian Yuan was waiting in a dusty old coin purse, listening to the familiar sounds of haggling. His most recent mark - a stingy old accountant - was on his deathbed, and had sent out his poor, overworked apprentice to fetch an array of soothing balms to rub on his gnarled feet. The old miser’s greed had fed Qian Yuan well, but it was time for them both to move on.
“Can’t you come down on the price any more?” the apprentice was asking desperately, “It’s just a simple concoction!”
“If it’s so simple, then why don’t you make it yourself?” snapped the vendor. “All prices are final. If you can’t afford it, go visit the snake oil man on the far street corner.”
Qian Yuan shifted, intrigued. The humble apprentice had been allowed one gold coin to purchase the balms and instructed to keep the change– despite the master knowing that one coin would not be enough for the lavish spread he demanded. Inevitably, the apprentice would have to pull from his own sparse pockets to fill the deficit.
Yes, the accountant had been a fine meal for Qian Yuan, who couldn’t influence the minds of mortals yet and had to rely on them to be jealous and greedy all on their own. Now that the old man’s days were numbered, Qian Yuan had resigned himself to passing hands for the first time in years; but a snake oil salesman… he predicted that he would be well fed in the pocket of someone like that.
The apprentice wandered away from the medicine vendor, distraught. Qian Yuan felt bad for him. Newly widowed with seven children starving at home– all while an evil old man demanded that he rub Thousand Leaf Cleansing Snow Lotus on his feet. The only good to come of it would be when the master finally died and the apprentice inherited the business.
The apprentice suddenly came to a halt. Qian Yuan thought nothing of it until he caught a thread of uncharacteristic avarice spinning out from the young man. If he listened closely, Qian Yuan could hear sweet music and honeyed voices. The sweet, stinging scent of alcohol filtered through the fibers of the coin purse.
Had he a human body, he might have shaken his head in exasperation, or maybe made some attempt to dissuade the man from entering the building with the softly glowing red lanterns strung over the front door. There would be plenty of time for companionship once the master is dead, brother! Bide your time or just smother the old man with a blanket, if you must!
But alas, Qian Yuan was just a simple cursed coin. He heaved a sigh in his heart as the apprentice traded him away for a chance at forgetfulness in a warm embrace.
The madam of this establishment kept him well enough fed, in the months that followed– despite the fact that she squirreled him away in a sack beneath a loose floorboard almost immediately. For what purpose, he couldn’t fathom, so he sat in the darkness with a bunch of normal, uncursed coins, disgruntled and absolutely certain that he had somehow been forgotten.
Then one day there was a flurry of excited footsteps overhead, and Qian Yuan’s sack was pressed into the hands of a human cultivator.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to walk out of here richer than I was when I walked in,” the cultivator said with an amused huff of laughter, pushing the sack away.
“Consider it payment for services rendered,” insisted the madam. “If not for you, the deaths of those poor girls would still be a mystery. This is nothing compared to the peace of mind you’ve given us.”
She shoved the money at him again and they went back and forth until the cultivator finally relented and Qian Yuan was hidden away in a long, elegant sleeve. They exchanged goodbyes and the cultivator made his way back to the street. Qian Yuan searched his mind and his qi, and was not impressed with his greed. It was vast, yes, certainly more so than the average person and notably higher than most of the other cultivators he’d met, but he had had better.
After a few minutes of walking the cultivator pulled out the sack of coins, and Qian Yuan waited expectantly as the drawstring was untied. He wondered when his next windfall would be, and hoped that at the very least, the path to get there would be interesting, when–
He pulled open the sack, and Qian Yuan’s spirit leapt.
He knew that face, maybe even better than he knew the one stamped on his own side! This was the face he had first seen in this entire world, staring down at him like he was the first ray of sunshine after a week of storms. Gone was the dirt-streaked orphan boy, replaced by an elegant, cultured immortal, but there was no mistaking the keen glint in those gray eyes.
Shen Jiu!
“I’ll have a selection of the finest food and wine you offer. Make sure it is delivered half a sichen after I leave, at the earliest,” Shen Jiu said, upending the coins onto a table in front of a wide-eyed restaurant owner.
“O-of course, Immortal Master Shen,” the owner hurried to say, “Where would Immortal Master like the food to be delivered to?”
“The brothel down the street,” he answered shortly, and the other man paused.
There was a moment where the two humans stared each other down in silence. Neither one noticed Qian Yuan desperately trying to wedge himself into a groove in the table top.
He wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Shen Jiu again! He had only just seen him after years, decades, maybe even a whole century, and he was curious how his very first meal had fared when they had parted ways. It had been over a set of pristine white disciple robes to replace his bloody, singed servant’s rags, if he recalled correctly. Qian Yuan couldn’t help but note with approval the fine embroidery on the hems of this immortal master’s flowing robes. Shen Jiu certainly had moved up in the world!
“Fine, deal,” the restaurant owner said at last, with notably less grace than he had started with, and swept all the coins into his pocket.
All except one.
Shen Jiu watched the man hurry away with a stony expression. He turned to leave as well– but stopped when his eyes fell on the coin laying inconspicuously in a divot in the wood. After a moment’s hesitation - and a sneer aimed at the owner’s back - he picked Qian Yuan back up and stowed him in his sleeve.
Some things never changed, Qian Yuan thought, amused.
Apparently, not only was Shen Jiu an immortal master now, but he was also one of the most respected cultivation sect leaders in the world! Qian Yuan had heard whispers about the famous Xiu Ya sword during his travels, but never would he have guessed that Shen Qingqiu was his very own Shen Jiu.
Then again, maybe he should have known. If anyone was going to claw their way to the top of the cultivation world, it would have been the boy whose raw greed had spawned a sentient curse on a simple coin.
If there was one thing that Qian Yuan knew from passing hands for as long as he had, it was that to covet wasn’t the worst thing a being could do. Humans who wanted things were humans who fought, bled, cried, lived and died– in other words, all of them. Success was part luck, part skill, and part wanting it really, really badly. Shen Jiu was testament to that.
And how successful he was! If he could have, Qian Yuan would have wept tears of joy when they reached Cang Qiong’s spirit repelling barrier and just walked through. That he was low level enough not to register as a threat meant that he got to see firsthand the peak Shen Jiu governed.
Serene blue skies, a forest of bamboo that swayed in the breeze and cast cool shade on perfect gardens, the faint notes of a guqin drifting through the air–! This was paradise! Even Yue Qi, their faithful Qi-ge, was there to greet Shen Jiu. Time had been kind to him, too; he had grown from a sweet, stumbling boy into a handsome, smiling man. Qian Yuan clinked happily as Yue Qi and Shen Jiu conversed.
And then there were the disciples! Sweet, obedient sheep, every one of them! Granted, Shen Jiu didn’t seem half as enamored as Qian Yuan felt, but that was probably just because he saw them so often. Or maybe his cold-eyed dismissal was all just part of being an untouchable, peerless immortal. Either way, Qian Yuan was just thrilled to be along for the ride.
Ah, Shen Jiu really did have the calm, serene life he had always deserved. That night, Qian Yuan settled into his spot in Shen Jiu’s sleeve with a feeling of deep contentment.
That might have been the end of it, had Shen Jiu not decided to visit the woodshed the next morning.
Strictly speaking, Qian Yuan didn’t need to sleep. However, he liked to rest his spirit whenever he could; it made him feel more human. So, when Shen Jiu pulled his robe from the closet, Qian Yuan roused himself excitedly. Maybe today Shen Jiu would take him to visit the other eleven mountain peaks, he speculated.
Instead, Shen Jiu came to a stop across Qing Jing peak and reached into his sleeve, not for Qian Yuan but for the small, rusty key stashed beside him. It was strange, though– Qian Yuan had never known iron to rust specifically in the shape of fingerprints.
Then Shen Jiu opened the door to the woodshed. Qian Yuan caught only a glimpse through the fabric of the sleeve, and it was all he could do not to scream.
Screaming was one of the few human affectations Qian Yuan could manage. He had only done it once before, and when he saw the small, bloodied figure hanging from the rafters he was immediately taken back in time to that moment.
“Has Xiao Jiu realized what he did wrong?” asked Qiu Jianluo.
“Has the little beast realized what he did wrong?” asked Shen Jiu.
Qian Yuan trembled like a leaf, certain he was cracking in half. The child hanging from the rafters wasn’t faring much better.
“No, Shizun,” the boy whispered through cracked lips, while the hatch marks carved into his back and sides bled sluggishly. The air stank of blood, fear, and leaky spiritual energy. “This disciple is stupid and still does not understand.”
With a wordless sneer, Shen Jiu reached for the whip resting on the hook by the door. Qian Yuan felt the finely embroidered peak lord robes shift with the motion. The world spun and spun, and something too heavy was crushing down on him. He didn’t understand what was happening, he didn’t understand where Shen Jiu had gone, he didn’t understand how Qiu Jianluo was back, was here, he didn’t understand, he didn’t understand, he didn’t understand !
The first crack of the whip split the air and fresh blood splattered across the walls and Qian Yuan screamed.
There was something wrong with him, and it was the first thing he noticed when he woke up. He didn’t even remember blacking out; all he remembered was the darkness of Shen Jiu’s sleeve and– and…
Qian Yuan’s eyes snapped open. His stomach heaved, and he tucked his head between his folded legs as he tried to take deep, even breaths. Noise rushed in his ears, the cheerful calls of birds and the sounds of rustling leaves drilling through his skull until he thought he would pass out from it, and he tangled his hands in his hair and yanked in an attempt to offset the pain. Grass and moss scratched at his skin as he writhed on the ground like a wild animal, drowning in the overwhelming attack of too much too much too much too much on every one of his senses.
This was how Qian Yuan spent his first hour in a corporeal body: contorted in agony in the forest at the base of Qing Jing peak.
When he had exhausted himself to the point of being insensate, he dropped into the first real, human sleep of his life, and woke up feeling so markedly improved that he could have cried.
So he did.
He took stock of himself and his surroundings, standing on wobbly legs and blinking hard at the reflection he spied in a nearby pond. He cried again when the face he saw was Shen Jiu’s, bringing all the memories of the previous day rushing back in with a vengeance.
Everything felt so much more… tangible when he was shaped like a human instead of a piece of metal. Every emotion was more intense, every motion was more exaggerated, every feeling was more overwhelming. He wasn’t sure how humans and demons and the like managed to live like this every day.
Still, Qian Yuan quickly discovered that this new form wasn’t a perfect imitation. The pads of his fingers had no swirling prints. His hair was an indistinct black blur down his naked back. Even his irises were flat gray, with none of the hazel and green marbling that Shen Jiu had. He was very visibly other.
When he came to this realization, a dream he hadn’t even known he’d been nursing quickly began to whither.
His intention hadn’t been to create this form - that had been the work of instinct and raw, overwhelming emotion - but now that he had it, he knew exactly what he needed to do with it. He just wasn’t exactly sure how to make it happen.
Qian Yuan sat down in the grass at the base of a tree and wracked his brain. Every option he considered was discarded immediately. For hours he sat like that, lost in thought as bugs crawled over his legs and woodland animals sniffed him curiously, until the sun was setting in the west and he had finally concocted a crazy, hopeless plan.
“Okay,” he muttered to himself, standing and shaking off the wildcat purring in his lap and the python that had draped itself over his shoulders. “Here goes nothing.”
Finding Ghost City proved to be the most difficult part of his plan. Once he was there, it was just a matter of drifting with the flow of the crowds until he was deposited on the steps of the infamous Gambler’s Den.
Qian Yuan fussed with his robes - borrowed during the journey from a well-to-do merchant he’d found passed out drunk on the side of the road - and when he couldn’t justify dithering any longer, pushed his way inside.
The Gambler’s Den was a riot of sights, sounds, and smells, not all of them pleasant and in fact most of them distinctly not so. At one point as he was making his way to the back of the room Qian Yuan had to shoulder past a pig-headed - literally, with the head of a pig - ghost who was attempting to raise the stakes of his dice game by betting an arm and a leg– again, literally.
Qian Yuan scrunched up his face and tried not to breathe through his nose. Why not just use a normal form of currency, like say, coins? He didn’t get it.
Finally, he managed to fight his way to the curtained dais in the very back of the den. With the feeling of inserting his head directly between the jaws of a lion, Qian Yuan dropped into a full kowtow and raised his voice over the din.
“I wish to make a bet with Hua Chengzhu!”
The noise level of the room dropped instantly, conversations ending abruptly as everyone and their cousin turned to look at the latest fool to challenge the Ghost King to gamble. Qian Yuan waited with bated breath.
Then, the red gauze curtains fluttered.
“State your name and the terms of your bet,” came the smooth, if somewhat bored drawl from atop the hidden dias.
Qian Yuan trembled and tried to hide it. He bowed his head until it was touching the floor and his blurry mass of hair was pooled around him like smoke, hopefully concealing the naked fear on his face.
“This one’s name is Qian Yuan,” he said, relieved to hear that his voice remained steady, despite it all. “This one wishes for the power to pass as a human cultivator.”
A bony hand with long, black-tipped nails emerged from behind the curtains. A servant rushed to place a cup of dice in the waiting palm.
“Evens or odds,” asked the Ghost King, still sounding distracted.
Qian Yuan ignored the cup that was placed beside his head.
“Begging Hua Chengzhu’s eternal forgiveness, this one wishes to wager on something other than dice,” he said.
The crowd rumbled, offended on their lord’s behalf, but Qian Yuan must have been a saint in his past life because there was only silence from the dais for a moment before the curtains parted fully.
“Speak,” commanded the Ghost King, and Qian Yuan dared to raise his head from the floor.
The two men who sat on the sofa at the top of the dais were figures from myth and legend. The heavens may have closed their shutters to the human realm centuries ago, but should one be so lucky, they may encounter the ancient god of a forgotten city and his most devoted believer strolling the streets of Ghost City on a pleasant afternoon. Qian Yuan satisfied his curiosity with only a peek before averting his eyes respectfully.
“This one presumed to wonder if Hua Chengzhu and his Highness the Crown Prince of Xianle might wish for a more entertaining gamble than a few dice in a cup,” he hedged.
“You have our attention,” Hua Chengzhu said.
“This one hopes that his proposal satisfies the illustrious rulers.”
So Qian Yuan was stalling. Could you really blame him? Two weeks ago he hadn’t been inhabiting a body that attempted to perspire when he got nervous enough!
“Do you think empty words will help you?” the Ghost King prodded none too gently. With one hand propped under his cheek and the other idly spinning a pair of crimson dice, he was the picture of bored disdain.
Qian Yuan bowed his head, apparently chastised.
But one didn’t live as long and see as much as he had without learning a thing or two. And one of the things he had learned was that there was exactly one way to get into the good graces of the feared Hua Chengzhu: by charming the white-robed man who sat by his side. And in an especially roundabout way, the only way to flatter the Crown Prince of Xianle was by praising his husband.
“These aren’t just empty words, My Lord,” demurred Qian Yuan. “There isn’t a soul in this city who can claim not to know My Lord’s benevolence. Even mortal myths extoll My Lord’s intelligence and mastery of the arts.”
“Enough,” the Ghost King said sharply, “If you don’t want to make a bet, then stop wasting my time and leave.”
“San Lang.”
The entire room held its breath as the Crown Prince leaned over to whisper in his husband’s ear.
“We should let him speak,” he suggested gently. “He seems like a righteous sort of person.”
Hua Chengzhu relented with a glare for Qian Yuan and a besotted smile for his husband. Sensing the very limited window of opportunity that had been offered to him, Qian Yuan steeled his nerve and continued,
“There is a cultivation sect in the east that is housed on twelve mountain peaks. During an encounter with these cultivators, I discovered that the immortal master of the second peak has been encouraging and even actively contributing to the abuse of a very young child under his care.”
As he had hoped, this prompted a wave of speculation and jeering; human cultivators were understandably not very well liked in these circles. The Crown Prince’s exceedingly beautiful face was pinched into a grimace, and even the Ghost King was sporting a faint moue of distaste. Still, he was reticent.
“The ghost realm does not meddle in the affairs of the cultivation sects,” he said dismissively, “It’s much easier to pretend they don’t exist; in return, they have almost forgotten that we exist. If you are attempting to petition for action then my answer is that the life of one human child is not worth the price of peace.”
(Unseen by all, the Crown Prince gave his husband’s hand a reproachful squeeze.)
Qian Yuan hesitated. This was a strong argument, the strongest one the Ghost King could have made - because he was right. Objectively, the happiness of a human child could never be enough to endanger the countless souls that inhabited Ghost City.
He had one more card that he could play: his trump card, and his reason for pursuing a bet with Hua Chengzhu in the first place.
Qian Yuan lifted his chin.
“This is no mere human child. Although he doesn’t know it yet, the boy is the heir to the demon realm.”
There was silence, then the entire assembly of ghosts, demons, humans and everything in between erupted into shouts of disbelief. Accusations of lies and cries of outrage filled the room like a stinking miasma, and Qian Yuan had to shout just to be heard over the din.
“It’s true! I smelled his hidden demonic blood. He is the half-human son of Tianlang-jun. Even at the age of fourteen, this child has the potential to conquer both the human and demon realms, and possibly even beyond!”
Hua Chengzhu lifted a hand, cutting through the pandemonium with a single elegant gesture.
“Are you certain of this?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Qian Yuan.
The Ghost King narrowed his eye. “Would you bet your life on it?”
“Yes,” Qian Yuan said again without hesitation, even though he was trembling inside. If this was what it took to convince the Ghost King - if this was what it took to finally save that boy from Qiu– no, Shen Jiu - then this was what he would do.
Hua Chengzhu shared a glance with his husband. They seemed to come to a silent agreement, and then the Crown Prince turned back to Qian Yuan with a smile. He valiantly ignored the offerings of clipped flowers and various still-twitching viscera the swooning onlookers showered upon the dais.
“This is quite an unorthodox wager,” the Crown Prince said kindly. “What will you use as collateral?”
Qian Yuan rose from his kowtow but remained kneeling. Wordlessly, he lifted a thin leather cord from around his neck; on it, a lone golden coin glinted sadly.
The crowd groaned and booed and stomped their feet, but Qian Yuan happened to catch the Ghost King’s stare. A silent understanding passed between them. A courier collected the coin from Qian Yuan’s unresisting fingers.
It was done.
“You’ll have the power you requested to impersonate the human peak lord,” the prince said, “And ten years to meet the terms of your bet. If The boy has not conquered and united the demon realm before the time is up, your soul will belong to the Gambling Den.”
Qian Yuan bowed low again, attempting to ground himself with the feeling of his skin pressing into the finely tiled, if somewhat sticky floor. He felt the loss of the coin - for all intents and purposes, his spiritual anchor to this world - with a keenness that bordered on desperation. But this was just one of many sacrifices he was willing to make.
“This lowly one thanks the Crown Prince and Hua Chengzhu for their generosity,” he said. “When will my time begin?”
The Ghost King’s thin mouth curved upwards.
“Right now,” he smirked, and snapped his fingers.
It had been a small disturbance. It was barely worth the attention of Cang Qiong, let alone the second ranked peak lord, but Yue Qingyuan had been making concerned noises about the state of Shen Qingqiu’s disciples, and agreeing to a training expedition at the base of the mountain had been the only way to make him relent.
Shen Qingqiu fumed as the carriage bounced along the rocky mountain trail. He could hear his head disciple leading a group in berating the beast for walking too slow, and it was grating on his nerves. He wished he could just get on his sword and fly away, and never have to face these brats and their grubby, grasping hands ever again.
Indeed, his intention was to solve this middling case before his disciples even got wind of the mystery so they could all go home as quickly as possible. That plan went out the window the moment the beast tremblingly informed him that Ning Yingying had gone missing in the market.
That stupid girl! Fury made Shen Qingqiu’s fingers itch and sent his disciples scattering out of his path. Good, if there was one thing he managed to teach to this sniveling collection of spoiled young masters and mistresses, let it be survival skills.
The trail of demonic qi was laughably easy to follow. It led him to an abandoned shack on the overgrown banks of a sluggishly running river.
Looking through a gap in the boards of the wall, Shen Qingqiu was relieved to see his airheaded disciple inside, passed out and tied up but still alive, illuminated by a beam of light that filtered in through a hole in the roof. He knew better to hope this experience would teach her anything about situational awareness. He also knew better than to assume that whatever had taken her wasn’t waiting nearby.
He stole inside on silent feet, sword and fan both at the ready, poised to strike at any signs of movement. Whatever this creature was, it had hidden itself well. He couldn’t detect a trace of it anymore; all he could sense was his own ambient qi and Ning Yingying’s.
Still hidden in the shadows, Shen Qingqiu picked up a sharp rock and sent it flying with a pulse of spiritual energy. It sliced cleanly through the cables binding Ning Yingying before clattering loudly to the ground, and Shen Qingqiu held his breath.
But nothing came running. Nothing about the stillness of the air changed; nothing attempted to stop him from freeing his disciple.
Cautiously, he stepped into the puddle of moonlight– only to freeze when another foot suddenly appeared in the light across the room.
Hissing, Shen Qingqiu retreated, raising his fan. The other foot also disappeared.
There was something wrong with these shadows, he realized. His eyesight should be perfect - certainly good enough to see to the other side of the room - but try as he might, Shen Qingqiu couldn’t make out anything beyond the moonbeam. The light was too stark, and the shadows too deep, for this to be anything other than a purposeful manipulation.
He waited again, determined to make whatever it was come to him, but– it didn’t. All he could feel was his own agitated qi, and all he could hear was his own breathing, although there was a strange, almost layered quality to it.
He slid one foot back into the center of the room. The other foot appeared again as well. When he stopped, it stopped. When he moved, it followed, like some sort of strange dance.
“Show yourself,” Shen Qingqiu ordered.
He thought he saw a flash of eyes in the darkness watching him.
“Show yourself,” echoed the figure in the shadows.
Gritting his teeth, Shen Qingqiu stepped into the light. Across the room, the creature followed suit.
It was… himself.
The clothes were far too simple and there was an odd sort of hesitation when it moved after Shen Qingqiu, but otherwise it was like watching his reflection lag a half a step behind him in the mirror. He flicked his sleeves in an unthinking nervous gesture and watched the duplicate do the same with his own short-cropped sleeves.
He raised his finely painted fan to hide his face; the duplicate raised his cheap wooden fan to hide his face. He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head; the duplicate narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. He took a step forward; the duplicate took a step forward to meet him.
“You’re not the skinner demon,” Shen Qingqiu said to himself, “What are you?”
“You’re not the skinner demon,” it repeated, “What are you?”
Shen Qingqiu’s lip curled. “You’re no demon at all, are you? You’re just an unthinking monster.”
The duplicate’s lip curled.
“You’re just a monster,” it said, and there was less of a lag this time when he copied Shen Qingqiu’s flinch.
Deciding he’d had more than enough of this, he formed a sword seal and Xiu Ya flew from its scabbard, cutting through the air–
Only to stop a hair’s breadth from the imposter’s throat.
It looked back at him with a perfect imitation of his own shocked expression, all while raising its own sword seal and slowly… slowly… slowly… turning Xiu Ya’s blade back to point at Shen Qingqiu.
The sword hung in the air, spinning like the needle of a broken compass as the air flexed and shimmered with their battling qi. That might have gone on indefinitely, had it not happened that Ning Yingying began to stir.
Shen Qingqiu spared a fraction of a second to glance at her. His distraction cost him.
With a wail of tortured steel, Xiu Ya was sent soaring out through the hole in the roof, spinning end over end as it flew out into the night— far enough away that Shen Qingqiu couldn’t recall it.
“Who are you?” barked Shen Qingqiu, shifting his fan into an offensive position. He needed to grab Ning Yinyying and leave before this monster grew tired of toying with them.
“I’m Shen Qingqiu,” said the duplicate, shifting his fan into a defensive position.
“When I’m finished with you I’ll peel your skin off and see what you really look like under there,” he bluffed. He tried to edge closer to Ning Yingying, but was deftly cut off.
The duplicate smiled at him. It was an expression Shen Qingqiu barely recognized on his own face. When Shen Qingqiu lunged to attack it, there was no more hesitation in its movements. Every feint, every blast of spiritual energy was met and matched with perfect precision.
Belatedly, Shen Qingqiu realized that it hadn’t been taunting him. It had been learning his mannerisms. And now it was finished.
This thought occurred to him on the downswing of his fan, and by the time he noticed the duplicate’s hand disappear inside the pocket of its robes, it was already too late. Pearlescent white powder exploded in a cloud in front of his face and he sucked in a shocked breath purely on instinct.
He could feel it start to take effect immediately when his knees began to wobble and his vision doubled - more than it already had, ha.
“What have you done to me,” he slurred, dropping to one knee.
His eyes slid back over to Ning Yingying, who was still unconscious. He thought of what this monster might do to her and found the will to struggle back to his feet. The burst of strength only lasted for a couple of seconds before he found himself toppling back down like a felled tree.
Frighteningly, Shen Qingqiu felt a hand settle lightly on the top of his head. He shuddered, eyes slipping shut, and the hand mercifully moved to begin undoing the guan from his hair.
“It’s just a little something to ease your mind,” the duplicate said. Once the guan was free it moved on to methodically divesting Shen Qingqiu of his robes. Had he the control of his facilities, he might have thrown up at the feeling of his layers being slowly stripped away. It was all he could do just to turn his head and fix the duplicate with the most hateful glare he could muster.
The smile it gave him in return was sickeningly fond.
“I hope you like the new life I’ve picked out for you,” it said gently, undressing and letting its threadbare clothes pool on the ground by its feet. “I hope it brings you the happiness you deserve, but something tells me that that’s something you have to bring on your own.”
Hands tugged on Shen Qingqiu’s inner robes and he had to close his eyes and breathe through a surge of dizziness. When he finally pried them open again, Shen Qingqiu was staring down at him with all the regal poise of an immortal.
“You won’t last a day,” snarled Shen Jiu, clinging to lucidity by his fingernails. “You don’t even know the first thing about me!”
Shen Qingqiu’s eyes roamed his face for a moment. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, or if he found it.
Just as blackness began to bleed into the corners of Shen Jiu’s vision, the duplicate smiled, as gentle and inevitable as the first bloom of spring.
“Maybe I didn’t know you as well as I thought,” murmured Shen Qingqiu, “But I don’t have to be you. I just have to be better.”
Nothing much changed in the Qian Yuan’s first month on Qing Jing peak. He was Shen Qingqiu now, which meant that he had to swan around with a frigid scowl, fan himself imperiously, and maybe deign to play the guqin every once in a while. He spent a long time every night sequestered in the bamboo house, surrounded by noise dampening talismans to conceal his cursing and amateurish twanging. Eventually he deemed his skills passable and moved on to calligraphy and sword forms with Xiu Ya. If anyone noticed a sudden drop in the skill level of the Qing Jing Peak Lord, they didn’t mention it.
He kept himself strictly business as usual until even Ning Yingying had forgotten the incident with the skinner demon. The only allowance he made for himself was spiriting away the accursed discipline whip and burning it in a small clearing on the other side of the mountain. He conveniently forgot to requisition a new one every time he sent for supplies from An Ding peak.
Finally he deemed the window of suspicion closed and, without further ado, triggered a brutal and extremely public qi deviation.
The risk of using an actual qi deviation instead of just faking one paid off when he woke up to find Yue Qingyuan hovering by his bedside. The sect leader’s customary smile was strained at the edges.
“Hello, Zhangmen-sixiong,” Shen Qingqiu said, and watched the polite, impersonal address shatter something in the man’s eyes, “Has something happened?”
“Xiao Jiu?” Yue Qingyuan asked hopefully.
Shen Qingiu stared at him blankly.
“Who is that?” he asked. He tried not to feel too bad about the utter devastation in Qi-ge’s expression. Instead, he locked that part of himself away in a box and labeled it, do not open for ten years .
“Shen Qingiu?” Yue Qingyuan tried again, and Shen Qingqiu let his shoulders relax minutely as he nodded. He grabbed the folding fan that had been left on the pillow beside him and snapped it open. This, somehow, seemed to make Yue Qingyuan feel better.
“Shen-shidi,” he said, stumbling over the address, “You had a qi deviation in the middle of teaching one of your lessons. This one was– worse than some of your other ones. Mu Qingfang told me to warn you that there may be some… lingering side effects…”
Shen Qingqiu hummed, fanning himself lightly.
“I feel fine,” he offered. Then he moved on to the next important step in integrating himself into Cang Qiong.
He smiled at Yue Qingyuan.
Immediately, the sect leader went stumbling out of his seat and towards the door. The terror in his eyes was a little bit funny, but Shen Qingqiu just gave him a concerned look and kept on fanning himself. The breeze really did feel nice on his overheated skin.
“I’ll go tell Mu-shidi that you’re awake,” Yue Qingyuan stuttered, and fled before Shen Qingqiu could get another word in edgewise.
As expected, the next few months were spent evading possession-detecting artifacts left and right. Some of the attempts he caught and was able to avoid on his own, and the rest of them were circumvented quite nicely by his golden finger– the power of the Ghost King, even on loan, was nothing to scoff at! There were certainly other tests that he wasn’t aware of, but he must have passed them because after a while everyone seemed to accept that the Qing Jing Peak Lord had suffered a qi deviation strong enough to erase a significant portion of his memories and severely alter his personality.
Gone were the cold stares and the aloof attitude! Shen Qingqiu still didn’t seek out his martial siblings or fellow peak lords, but he didn’t snub attempts at small talk anymore. Gone were the ruthless standards of discipline! Having never bothered to acquire a new whip, Shen Qingqiu decided that should his disciples act out, they would run laps around the peak to strengthen their bones and let them sweat out their misbehaving ways.
And most importantly, gone was the cruel torturer of one Luo Binghe, the youngest disciple of the peak.
The boy had shivered in abject terror when Shen Qingqiu had gone to personally retrieve him from the woodshed he’d been locked in. He had kept on shivering while Shen Qingqiu offered him medicine, and those shivers had turned into heavy, wracking sobs when a bowl of plain, warm congee was placed in front of him.
Shen Qingqiu was also trying not to cry as he watched the sweet, fluffy-haired child mumble self effacing pleas for forgiveness in between hiccups and desperately shoveling the food into his mouth. He clearly thought that this was going to be his last meal, and Shen Qingqiu’s heart bled as he did his best to reassure him otherwise.
He set Luo Binghe up with a bath in the side room of the bamboo house and used that as his opportunity to descend on Ming Fan and the other older disciples like a vengeful thundercloud.
By the time he was finished, it was well understood that any further bullying would be rewarded with a boot in the ass and a one-way ticket down the side of the mountain. When Luo Binghe timidly emerged from the side room, darling face scrubbed clean and smelling like medicine, Shen Qingqiu was there to personally escort him to his new bed in the dorms and offer him a new cultivation manual. Tragically, it seemed the old one had been lost in the confusion.
That night, for the first time ever, Shen Qingqiu fell asleep and was treated to a pleasant night’s rest.
Shen Qingqiu watched the years tick past with satisfaction and a dull sort of dread.
Luo Binghe turned fifteen not long after Shen Qingqiu’s arrival on the peak, and immediately began to advance in all areas at a truly admirable rate. Cultivation, confidence, the arts, you name it, Luo Binghe was suddenly excelling at it. He even played a large part in repelling a demonic invasion while Shen Qingqiu was occupied saving his martial brother’s life in the Lingxi Caves. Shen Qingqiu began sending him out on night hunts, hoping that the practice would help him achieve his heavenly demon birthright someday.
And yet, the most surprising thing of all was the sticky white lotus Luo Binghe turned out to be. In no time at all, the boy seemed to have completely forgiven his horrible shizun, and even began to cook and clean for him. Shen Qingqiu’s attempts to discourage this behavior were met with tears every time, and as uncomfortable as it was to have this child waiting on him hand and foot, watching him cry was the worst pain Shen Qingqiu had ever endured. He decided to just let him do as he pleased, and life on Qing Jing peak settled into a comfortable new normal.
“Shizun.”
Shen Qingqiu looked up, the frown from hours of tedious paperwork already falling away at the sound of that voice.
“Binghe,” he smiled, and the boy in the doorway stood up straighter.
Although perhaps it wasn’t fair to call him a boy anymore. At the age of nineteen, Luo Binghe was already well on his way to becoming a fine adult, and Shen Qingqiu couldn’t be prouder.
“Was the night hunt a success, then?” asked Shen Qingqiu, setting down his brush and stretching his cramped fingers. Luo Binghe’s eyes tracked the motion.
“Yes, shizun,” he answered dutifully, “Although there was one complication.”
Shen Qingqiu frowned. “What is it?”
Luo Binghe glided into the room, stopping behind Shen Qingqiu’s seat and daringly dropping a hand on his teacher’s shoulder before leaning in close.
“This disciple shamefully admits to wishing Shizun was there with me,” he murmured, breath fanning hot against the shell of Shen Qingqiu’s ear.
Shen Qingqiu batted him away with a scoff. Shameful, who? Have some respect, Luo Binghe, and kindly don’t practice your pickup lines on this old fossil!
Luo Binghe laughed, bright and loud, and Shen Qingqiu hid his fond expression behind his fan. Every day he got to spend with this darling boy would live fondly in his heart.
Even though he knew what he had to do to him.
Five years had passed in the blink of an eye, and every breath he took seemed to bring the invisible sword hanging over his head down that much closer. The terms of his wager had specified that Luo Binghe had ten years to conquer the demon realm or Qian Yuan’s soul would be forfeit. And as pleased as he was that Luo Binghe had lived all these years free from the cruel hand of Shen Jiu, the current Shen Qingqiu would rather not be a servant in the Gambling Den for the rest of eternity. Not if he could help it.
“Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu called, and his faithful white lotus disciple popped his head out of the side room immediately.
“Yes, shizun?”
“Come here and let this master take a look at you.” He beckoned with his fan and Luo Binghe came trotting over. He stood trustingly while Shen Qingqiu brushed the fluffy curls from his forehead and tapped at the unblemished skin there.
“Had Binghe been practicing using his demonic qi like we discussed?”
Luo Binghe nodded, leaning ever so slightly into the touch.
“Good. Show me.”
The privacy talismans hidden in the walls flared to life as the heavenly demon mark appeared between Luo Binghe’s eyebrows. His nails sharpened into claws and the tips of his ears lengthened to tapered points as his demonic qi unfurled to fill the small room. Shen Qingqiu surveyed his face, and the way the boy’s spiritual qi twined with the demonic, satisfied.
“Is this disciple pleasing to Shizun?” Luo Binghe rumbled, watching him with a half-lidded gaze. The unfamiliar demonic qi in the air sent a thrill running down Shen Qingqiu’s spine, and he hurriedly stepped away from his disciple.
“Binghe has done very well,” he praised.
Luo Binghe’s fathomless black eyes curved into crescents as he smiled.
“In fact, I believe that Binghe has learned all he can from this master.”
The smile vanished.
“Shizun—“
“For some time now, this master has been making preparations which he believes will help Binghe become even more powerful and reach his full potential.”
Shen Qingqiu reached into his sleeve for the talisman Shang Qinghua had given him, which should teleport its target directly to the demon realm. That friendship had been one of the few good things to come out of the disastrous Immortal Alliance Conference— that and Luo Binghe’s seal breaking during a confrontation with the demon Mobei-jun.
“Shizun—!” Luo Binghe’s hand closed around his wrist, startling him.
Shen Qingqiu’s eyes slid away from the wild look in Luo Binghe’s face and fixed on some distant point over his shoulder. He hummed questioningly.
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe repeated, voice cracking, “Is Shizun… are you sending me away?”
“Yes.”
Shen Qingqiu resolutely did not look at the silent tears - much different than the dramatic rivers that appeared at the drop of a hat to make Shen Qingqiu fold - gathering in the corners of Luo Binghe’s eyes.
“I knew it,” Luo Binghe gasped around a sob, “Shizun doesn’t want me anymore. Shizun never wanted me! Shizun hates me—“
With an indignant tap of his fan, Shen Qingqiu silenced him. He finished pulling the teleportation talisman from his sleeve.
“Silly boy,” he scolded, “Why would it matter what this master thinks? Binghe has a birthright to claim and a life of his own to live. I only hope I’ve prepared you enough for it.”
Luo Binghe’s grip on his wrist tightened like he was trying to make Shen Qingqiu drop the talisman.
“This disciple doesn’t want any birthright,” he said desperately, pushing further into Shen Qingqiu’s personal space despite his protests. “This disciple only wishes to stay on Qing Jing peak, with Shizun!”
Shen Qingqiu lifted a hand to the side of Luo Binghe’s beautiful, lovely face. His thumb brushed lightly across the demonic huadian.
“Oh, Binghe,” he said with aching fondness, and felt Luo Binghe’s breath stutter against the thin skin of his wrist. “You just don’t belong here anymore.”
The cry Luo Binghe let out when Shen Qingqiu slapped the talisman on his chest was soul piercing. The paper glowed as Shen Qingqiu fed qi into it, pushing away the hands that scratched at it in a desperate attempt to dislodge it.
“Goodbye, Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu whispered, and then with one final howl of anguish, his white lotus disciple was gone.
Four years dragged past Shen Qingqiu in a colorless blur. He heard whispers of a newly risen power in the demon realm, a half-demon warlord who was as tyrannical as he was powerful, and tried to feel glad.
This mission was to be Shen Qingqiu’s last. He had made his preparations, said his goodbyes, and set the stage for another qi deviation which he would use as cover to swap Shen Jiu back into the role of Shen Qingqiu.
The necessity of this frustrated Shen Qingqiu, who had spent the past ten years becoming more and more certain that Shen Jiu just didn’t need to be allowed anywhere near children, but— he didn’t have a choice. Qing Jing needed a peak lord and his own days were numbered. Besides, Yue Qingyuan was sure to be pleased about the switch.
So it was that Shen Qingqiu departed for this final mission with a heavy heart.
“Why are you being all mopey?” asked Qi Qingqi, with whom he was sharing a carriage. “Do the accommodations not meet your standards? Do you think you need some more pillows?”
Reclined in his admittedly extravagant nest of cushions and traveling blankets, Shen Qingqiu shot her a half-hearted glare. Give him a break, okay? He was savoring this luxury while he still had access to it.
“I’m just sad that the ride’s going to be so short. I was looking forward to spending some quality time with my favorite shimei,” he sniffed, and she rolled her eyes at him. They spent the rest of the ride exchanging barbs and arrived at the closed gates of the city too soon.
It had all started with an infestation of snakes. At first the snakes hadn’t been particularly aggressive, more startling than anything, and with a tendency to pop up in the weirdest places. Some talk had been made of doing a city-wide extermination, but that got shackled almost as soon as the first reports of casualties started coming in.
Unlike normal snakes, these ones seemed unusually focused on targeting and killing cultivators. First rouge cultivators, then young disciples sent out in night hunts, then senior disciples— the killings were quick and efficient, only malicious in how ruthlessly the targets were hunted and dispatched.
Cang Qiong was involved because their allies, Huan Hua Palace and Tian Yi Overlook, had both received word that their head disciples had failed to deal with the problem and now were trapped within the walls of the city.
Shen Qingqiu sidled up to Liu Qingge while they waited for the city gates to open. The man’s eyebrows were fully angled into what Shen Qingqiu had taken to calling Attack Mode, and if he tensed any further he was likely to snap right in half.
“Relax, shidi,” Shen Qingqiu teased, fanning him lightly and dancing out of range when Lui Qingge swiped at him irritably.
“They should save their own disciples,” the man muttered darkly. He crossed his arms and proceeded to make a face that on lesser man than the Bai Zhan War God might have been considered a pout.
I’m going to miss you , Shen Qingqiu thought, and only realized he’d said it out loud when Liu Qingge looked at him in alarm.
“What happened?” he demanded, “Are you dying?”
Thankfully, Shen Qingqiu was able to wave away his concerns just as the gates swung open, and he managed to lose Liu Qingge in the confusion of the resulting snake hunt.
They never managed to find the demon or demons that were responsible for the snake invasion, because through an incredible twist of bad luck, they found Shen Jiu instead.
Shen Qingqiu was kicking himself as he and Shen Jiu stared each other down inside a ring of baffled cultivators. He had been certain that he had stashed the original somewhere far out of the way, and the steady dosage of Pure Spirit Eternal Bliss Vine powder prescribed as “medicine” should have kept his memories wiped until Shen Qingqiu was ready to come get him.
“Should” being the operating word. Shen Qingqiu’s eyes slid to the Old Palace Master who was watching in the crowd, looking distinctly smug. Bastard.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself, imposter?” asked Shen Jiu.
“No,” said Shen Qingqiu. They were both doing a very good job of ignoring Yue Qingyuan’s increasingly louder and more desperate cries of, Xiao Jiu!
“So you admit to being an imposter,” Shen Jiu said, eyes flashing like he’d just outmaneuvered Shen Qingqiu somehow.
Shen Qingqiu just shrugged.
“Yes,” he said simply.
There were shouts of shock and outrage, the loudest ones originating from the Huan Hua and Tian Yi factions. The Cang Qiong group were all silently watching the exchange with matching stony expressions.
“Obviously this fake must be punished,” boomed the Old Palace Master. “You! Fake Shen Qingqiu! What are you?”
“It’s complicated,” was Shen Qingqiu’s noncommittal response, which only whipped the aggravated cultivators to a seething froth.
It was decided - with minimal input from the still-shocked Cang Qiong delegation - that Shen Qingqiu would be held prisoner in the Huan Hua water prison until they could all figure out what he was and how to kill him.
As they frogmarched him away, he turned and saw his martial brothers and sisters awkwardly crowding around Shen Jiu. He smiled. That, at least, was on track to returning to normal.
Shen Qingqiu wasn’t particularly worried about the schemes of the Old Palace Master, who seemed more intent on trying to replicate Shen Qingqiu’s impersonation abilities. He had gotten it in his head that Shen Qingqiu was some hitherto undiscovered type of demon that, if properly trained and brainwashed, could be used to spy on the other sects.
Shen Qingqiu didn’t bother correcting him. Every day he labored under that delusion was another day closer to Shen Qingqiu’s inevitable freedom.
He wasn’t sure when eternal slavery to the Ghost King had become his escape plan, but it was too late to think up anything else now.
On the evenjng of his final day in the human realm, the water prison was shaken by a sudden and vigorous attack.
From his spot on the sodden floor, bound tighter than a mummy in immortal and demon binding cables, Shen Qingqiu watched with wide eyes as the acid waterfalls around his cell suddenly parted.
A tall man in sweeping black and red robes stepped through the spluttering spray. His eyes glowed the same menacing shade of red as the huadian on his brow, and when they landed on Shen Qingqiu’s crumpled form they seemed to crackle with killing intent.
“Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu smiled. This was the one person he had regretted not being able to say goodbye to, but here was his chance after all! Even though Luo Binghe definitely looked like he wanted to kill him.
It was an understandable urge. After all, Shen Qingqiu had thrown him into the demon realm to fend for himself at the tender age of nineteen.
“This master— this one is pleased to see that Binghe has grown so well,” he said, and Luo Binghe stared at him for a moment before his rageful glare softened into something a bit more petulant.
“So Shizun is glad to see this unworthy disciple after all?” asked Luo Binghe. He moved closer, until he was towering over Shen Qingqiu, but made no move to cut him free from his restraints.
“Who is unworthy?” scoffed Shen Qingqiu, “Surely Binghe doesn’t refer to the one who has been fulfilling his destiny in the demon realm all these years?”
“My destiny is with Shizun!” Luo Binghe shouted, and Shen Qingqiu recoiled at the suddenness of it. Seeing this, Luo Binghe dropped to his knees in front of him, seemingly uncaring of the acid eating at his layers of fine silk robes.
“All I want is to be by Shizun’s side, forever,” Luo Binghe said softly. He reached out and finally began undoing the knots keeping Shen Qingqiu restrained.
“But… I’m not your Shizun,” Shen Qingqiu said helplessly. Luo Binghe’s fingers stilled. “I’m not Shen Qingqiu. That’s why I’m here in this cell, Binghe, because I’m the impostor who took his place!”
“You are my Shizun,” Luo Binghe insisted, “You’re the one who took me from the woodshed, gave me medicine, and made me food. You’re the one who gave me a place to stay and taught me how to use my cultivation. You’re the one who cared for me despite my demonic heritage, even when you would have been within your rights to throw me down into the Endless Abyss.”
The final knot came loose under Luo Binghe’s careful attention and his hands - each finger tipped with wicked nails and toughened with sword callouses - came up to rest on both sides of Shen Qingqiu’s slack face.
“You are the one who accepted me as a student, and for that, you are the only one I will call Shizun.”
Unbidden, tears sprang to Shen Qingqiu’s eyes, and he turned his head in a vain attempt to avoid the weight of Luo Binghe’s adoring gaze. A funny feeling was starting to grow in his chest.
“This master… towards Binghe… that is—“ he struggled to say, only to realize that the feeling in his chest was still spreading at an alarming rate.
Shen Qingqiu pulled away from Luo Binghe’s touch. Ignoring his disciple’s scandalized gasp, he ripped open the front of his robes.
Shen Qingqiu was transparent.
“Oh,” he said wonderingly, “That really hurts?”
“Shizun!” Luo Binghe exclaimed, grabbing his hands and uselessly passing him spiritual energy. The qi passed into his veins and began to leak out through the cavity that was growing where his rib cage used to be.
“I’m out of time, Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu said matter-of-factly, placing his hand on his disciple’s to stop his useless fluttering. “I made a wager that I didn’t win. But I didn’t lose, either.”
How could he have lost, when Luo Binghe received at least a part of the childhood he deserved? When he was finally able to save Luo Binghe, the way he’d always wanted to save Shen Jiu?
How could it be considered a loss, when he got to see what a wonderful young man his precious Binghe had grown into?
“Shizun,” whispered Luo Binghe, heart on his sleeve and cracking visibly.
Shen Qingqiu lifted a mostly transparent hand to pat his fluffy hair. Then he was gone.
Qian Yuan woke up on his back in the middle of a very busy kitchen. Someone stepped square on his stomach and he folded in half with a startled, oof!
“You a new arrival?”
Qian Yuan looked up and found a man staring down at him. The man had a noose around his neck, and when he blinked impatiently at Qian Yuan his eyes bulged like a fish’s.
“Listen this is the middle of rush hour, I don’t have time to stand around here,” the man said, “Are you a new arrival or not?”
Weakly, Qian Yuan nodded.
He accepted the hand offered to help him up, and was immediately swept up in the hustle and bustle of the Gambler’s Den.
“Chengzhu wants to see you,” was the only explanation Qian Yuan was given as he was coaxed out of the servants’ dormitories with sharp spikes one morning about a year into his stay. He was led up to a side room that was specifically reserved for use by Hua Chengzhu, His Highness the Crown Prince, and no one else– and then abandoned to the mercies of their king.
“This humble servant greets Dianxia, Hua Chengzhu,” Qian Yuan, pretending he wasn’t vibrating out of his boots with a mixture of fear and confusion.
The Crown Prince pulled him up from his hasty bow and fussed at him until he was sitting stiffly on a finely cushioned divan. The Ghost King just watched him calculatingly.
“It’s a shame about your bet,” Hua Chengzhu said suddenly, nearly making Qian Yuan jump.
“Chengzhu?”
“Your bet,” he repeated. “The terms specified that you won if the child you found conquered the demon realm in ten years. It’s too bad he only managed to do it in ten years and two months.”
Ah, that… was a bit unlucky, wasn’t it? Qian Yuan sighed. Perhaps he should have been a bit more specific when he had sent Luo Binghe to the demon realm. But wait.
“My apologies, Chengzhu, I don’t understand why I’ve been brought here?”
“Luo Binghe is camped outside the borders of my city, demanding that I hand you over or else he'll launch a full scale attack,” Hua Chengzhu said flatly, and this time Qian Yuan really did jump to his feet.
“Binghe’s here?” he exclaimed, then remembered himself and sank back into his seat, expression blank and face bright red.
“En, he came here for you,” the Crown Prince said, stifling a laugh with his sleeve. “We would be happy to turn you over to him– if not for the existing terms of your debt.”
Qian Yuan deflated. Then, he straightened back up.
“How about another bet?”
“Open your barriers or I’ll rip them apart!” Luo Binghe shouted, pacing like a caged tiger along the ephemeral borders of Ghost City. Behind him, Sha Hualing and Mobei-jun stood at the head of his forces like a very bloodthirsty fairy and a very bored iceberg, respectively.
“You have until the count of three! One! Two! Th–”
The air split open and the Ghost King stepped through the fissure wearing the appearance of a handsome youth with a lopsided ponytail. He and the Demonic Emperor sized each other up in silence for a few moments, and then the Ghost King smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile. Luo Binghe smiled back. His, too, was not a friendly smile.
“You’ve come a long way just to lose this fight,” Hua Chengzhu remarked.
“You’re being very stubborn about denying me my one request,” Luo Binghe countered fearlessly.
The Ghost King inspected his nails. “I’m of the opinion that bending to the whims of spoiled children only makes them more spoiled.”
“You–!”
It took both Mobei-Jun and Sha Hualing to hold Luo Binghe from lunging at the unimpressed Hua Chengzhu. Several minutes later, once he had cooled down, he shook them off and pulled his smile back on again.
“Then it seems like there’s only one way to solve this disagreement,” he said pleasantly.
“Not so fast.” Hua Chengzhu interjected, cutting off Luo Binghe’s signal to his generals. “Don’t you want to hear your shizun’s solution to this problem?”
Luo Binghe’s breath caught. “What is it? What did he say?”
With another thin smile and a snap of his fingers, the barrier opened again, this time admitting six men who looked exactly like Shen Qingqiu.
“One out of six, standard betting odds,” said the Ghost King. “Correctly guess where your partner is and take him home with you. Guess wrong, and–” his eyes narrowed in malicious glee, “–swear fealty to me on behalf of the entire demon realm - and human realm, should you choose to conquer it, too. Maybe I’ll even let you see your precious shizun again.”
Luo Binghe seethed, but his eyes swept over the six Shen Qingqius consideringly. All of them were dressed the same, and all of them wore the same placid expression, like a row of dolls. He glanced back at the Ghost King, who was idly walking a coin over his knuckles like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Even after nearly eight near-stop months of preparation, Luo Binghe knew better than to assume that he could fight the Ghost King head-on. It would take him years, maybe even decades before he was anywhere close to confident in his odds– and those were years or decades that he could spend by his shizun’s side. In the end, he didn’t have to think very long before making his choice.
“Very well, then,” he said, sheathing his sword, “I accept the terms of your wager.”
“Good.”
The six Shen Qingqius lined up obediently in front of them. Luo Binghe took his time examining each one, sniffing the air around them, testing their qi, listening to the cadence of their breathing. When he was finished he stepped back, nodding decisively.
“Have you made your choice?” the Ghost King drawled.
“Yes,” said Luo Binghe, and pointed–
–at the Ghost King.
Some of the demonic troops gasped in shock, only to be quickly shushed by their squadmates. Sha Hualing had pulled out a notepad and was furiously taking notes, for some reason, and even Mobei-jun looked reluctantly intrigued.
“What is the meaning of this?” asked Hua Chengzhu, still imperiously spinning the golden coin over his fingers. Luo Binghe marched right up to him and snatched it out of his hand.
“Stop handling my shizun like that,” he hissed.
There was a poof of displaced air and a cry of, “Binghe!” and then Luo Binghe suddenly had his arms full.
“Shizun,” he said breathlessly. He completely ignored Hua Chengzhu’s sardonic scowl and the disappearance of the six copies in favor of the man awkwardly looping his arms around his neck.
“Binghe did well,” Qian Yuan said softly, then cleared his throat. “Ah, Binghe can– Binghe should put me down now.”
Luo Binghe tipped their foreheads together to stare even more deeply into his eyes.
“Shizun,” he said, “I’m never letting you go again.”