Chapter Text
When he indulged his little weakness because his day, his week, his month, his life, was at that particular moment unbearable — he created soulmates in his world, but revealed them to be rare.
That is to say, very rare.
You'd have a better chance of meeting five different Heavenly Demons in your human lifetime and staying alive than a couple soulmates.
He created them for humans who needed someone; so much so that fate showed leniency; because his world had never been kind to him, and his own mother said he would have been better off not being born, and—
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky just wanted someone in his world, even the loneliest and most unhappy soul, who no one wanted and no one really knew her, to have someone to whom she could trust everything.
Someone who would understand.
(Was he really that cruel? Was he really creating such an unmerciful world, as the people around him now would throw in his face? Even Shen Jiu, his scumbag villain, had his Qi-ge, even Luo Binghe, whose history he paved in grief and suffering before power, got warm years with his foster mother, even his king, Mobei-jun, that trusted no one, had a mother that loved him in the beginning — was he really creating such an unjust world if there were no children in it, however brief, that knew no love?)
He created one of Luo Binghe's wives so lonely it wasn't even funny, one of the slaves, even though slavery was forbidden; of course, Luo Binghe came, rescued her, kept her safe from all evil, married her, and they had one of the rare not perverted but tender love papapa (although, Incomparable Cucumber still called them mediocre; why, fifty years later, does he still remember that nickname?) But, one day, this wife disappeared, and so far away and unexpectedly that no one could find her. Of course, she came back again, with a girl a couple years younger than her, whom she called sister in everything but blood; who was her soulmate; the only soul who could understand. Instead of ten thousand words, Airplane wrote seventeen thousand, though he ended up again with the second girl also becoming Luo Binghe's wife a year later when she was a little older (eighteen, not seventeen; he didn't want the law enforcement of the People's Republic of China coming after his soul, thank you very much), and he was in for another barrage of criticism from one particular fan.
The rules are complex and simple at the same time: it happens on the birthday of the youngest of the Soulmates, who turns seventeen; fate steals them away and moves them to a place neither of them has been, isolated and distant enough that it takes them a while to get out of it and spend time together getting to know each other.
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, already Shang Qinghua, tried not to fool himself, but that didn't stop him from sitting sleepless night after night in the silence of his real birthday (January second, he'd given that date to Luo Binghe) and the even greater gloom of this body's birthday (April fourth, a cursed date; what a perfect date for him, wasn't it?), of course nothing happened.
(His heart doesn't break; it's hard for something that's already broken to do so.)
And it shouldn't.
After all, soulmates — are rare; so much so that many people don't even believe they exist, relegating them to beautiful myths about love.
Much, much has happened since then: he met his king, survived, became chief apprentice, became Lord of the Peak, didn't die, went on debilitating expeditions with his shidi and shimei at various intervals and in varying numbers, again managed by some miracle to stay alive, continued to serve his king even if at times it hurt more than anything else, didn't complain about anything, didn't even swear out loud at the System, and... met his son.
The thing that puts a stop and starts something new.
Luo Binghe is exactly as he had envisioned him; from and through, with more details than any artist could paint to his specifications, but much closer to what Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky had always seen in his head.
Thinner than a child should be, but fit for a street boy, dirty and disheveled, but even beneath it all there are rounded facial features, pure and childlike in their innocence, in their soft splendor; a small child, ignorant of his heritage, of his future, and Shang Qinghua wants to apologize to him, he should avert his eyes, but he can't. Something ugly and vile tells him to watch as Shen Qingqiu approaches, cold and with a hidden anger, with envy born of pain, of misfortune, of the hard life he has given him, only to tell the boy with eyes glowing with hope that he is coming with him.
And Luo Binghe, unaware of his fate rises to go to meet his misfortune behind a man who would do anything to ruin him, only to have the child return him a hundredfold, forever rid of that childish kindness — and Shang Qinghua turns away for years, unable to look at it; at what he has wrought with his own hands.
The rule for soulmates is simple: you need a lonely soul who can understand someone's loneliness.
The same, and at the same time, maybe terribly different.
No more, no less.
Sometimes Luo Binghe thinks that there is something wrong with him; that there is a reason why everyone is giving up on him, everyone is abandoning him: his parents for sending him down the river to meet certain death, his foster mom for failing to cope with her illness, his shizun who hated him at first sight — Luo Binghe isn't stupid, he knows hate when he sees it, it's just that he... if he's obedient, if he's good, if he's perfect, maybe the shizun, the man who chose him and only him out of a hundred other kids that dug holes, will look at him with something different?
One day, it really happened; the shizun looked at him without the hatred that Luo Binghe by now knows as well as the pain of bruises and the cold of the barn (and streets) in winter. Except... Luo Binghe didn't do anything to get it; was this some long-ago shizun plan that no one knew about, or was everyone forbidden to tell him? Luo Binghe doesn't know how his shizun's mind works, but by this point he feels like he's lost that faint thread that might have given him a clue to the understanding he thought he had earlier.
His shizun despised their sect leader with a force that could burn the desert; this is something that comes from something personal, from something deep and strong, Luo Binghe can understand it, he knows what resentment looks like — right now, the shizun is letting the sect leader into his bamboo house for a cup of tea, even though it makes no sense.
His shizun was graceful in the same sense that swords and blades can be, it was sharp from every facet and reflected light in such a way that any observer could be blinded, which was most likely the shizun's purpose; this was a man who turned words into weapons and struck with sadistic pleasure, with an anger that could never be fed up, Luo Binghe had met such men on the street, though he had never seen any of them able to turn it into an art, as his shizun was — right now, the shizun is light, his steps simple and uncluttered, and his words without the weight that could crush you, because before, Luo Binghe would have said that his shizun is an exceptionally heavy man (sometimes he thinks he's looking at someone with his shizun's face, nothing more).
His shizun is a man full of secrets who won't tell them even under torture, for some reason Luo Binghe has this feeling — right now, the shizun is opening doors for anyone who dares to knock.
And Luo Binghe likes this new shizun, much-much more than the previous one, but... he's not left with the feeling that the answer is on the surface, even though he no longer feels the urge to touch it, no matter how much he was previously unhappy about it.
Luo Binghe knows when to leave certain things untouched; he knows that illusion can be preferable to reality.
Luo Binghe was already losing what little he had.
He is not ready to give it up himself.
It is the first of January, it is winter in its caressing touches of not so harsh climate and snow in their melting snowflakes on the skin, swirling and gentle.
It's a sneaking birthday for one that has forgotten it, taking on someone else's life for itself, and for another that has never been sure of its date other than his foster mother's knowledge of midwinter.
It's a fate that puts them to sleep harder than before, despite their work, and steals them away to the farthest place this world can have; it's a father and son unbound by blood; it's a creator and his strongest creation, they will survive.
He wakes up from the cold, lying on something hard and inhospitable, though he was sure he'd fallen asleep at his desk; he hugs one of the pillows, for some reason harder but warm, snuggling closer because he's so damn cold; he smells a strange odor, something between dust that makes him want to sneeze and the faint smell of bamboo that permeates the clothes of Qing Jing's disciples; he thinks he hears breathing somewhere near him, and...
Shang Qinghua awakens abruptly.
He doesn't move, doesn't open his eyes, only freezes, trying to realize the situation; he fell asleep in his house, not in the icy palace of the north of the Demon Realm, and its floor is definitely softer than the ground he feels under his cheek; his hands aren't bound, except that he's hugging; he feels something tickling under his chin — hair, and feels under his arms the outline of a body, warm and relaxed, clearly asleep; he's hugging someone, like a dakimakura, dammit.
Shang Qinghua cautiously opens one eye, the one closer to the ground, not sensing anyone's presence — it's dark, terribly dark; he has to purposefully add qi to his eyes so that he can at least see something. Wherever he is, it's like a cave, he can see a little light behind his feet, but he doesn't go up so as not to disturb the one he's holding. He can only see the top of his head, with soft black hair and either monstrously disheveled or curly; he prays for the first option, even as he sees faint shades of green and white. Shang Qinghua carefully, as slowly as possible, steps back, listening to the steady breathing... the world is not on his side. Neither is it always.
This is Luo Binghe.
Shang Qinghua doesn't make a sound, even if he wants to either laugh or scream — for now, he can restrain himself, frozen in place, listening to other people's breathing and counting to ten to take a breath himself.
Carefully, so as not to lose his mind, not to wake the protagonist in his arms (he's grown more handsome and healthy than he expected; with fewer signs of malnutrition than the Airplane wrote him), he whispers:
"System..." and hopes it didn't sound as frightened as he feels; he hates this thing that turns on in front of him, blinding him the way a smartphone does in the middle of the night; something he hasn't felt in sixty years.
He is greeted by notices, among them he can only single out one with special interest.
[New mission received!
The mission "found soulmates surviving in the Endless Abyss"!
Reward: +1,000 B
Penalty for failure to complete: -100,000 B]
This thing is getting greedier and more brazen.