Work Text:
Shen Qingqiu is very glad that the story is over.
Being in a shitty novel like Proud Immortal Demon Way had inevitably meant that Shen Qingqiu’s life was full of idiotic problems happening constantly for nearly a decade. Nowadays, there’s very little that Shen Qingqiu has to do with his days besides surviving Luo Binghe’s heavenly pillar, and as far as things go, Shen Qingqiu will take that over being kidnapped, overdosing on heavenly demon blood, being locked up in prison, dying for character development reasons, and other such bullshit that comes with being on the front lines of an ongoing story plot.
Seriously, all Shen Qingqiu does these days is drink tea and gossip with Shang Qinghua. As far as retirements go, Shen Qingqiu really can’t complain!
“All you’ve done is complain for the last twenty minutes,” says Shang Qinghua. “And about your sex life, of all things.”
Yes, well, Shang Qinghua is the only person who Shen Qingqiu can let loose on. And Shen Qingqiu’s ass hurts. Whose fault is it that Luo Binghe’s heavenly pillar is so huge? Shang Qinghua could stand to let Shen Qingqiu being grouchy in his vicinity for a bit!
“Are you doing anything better with your days?” Shen Qingqiu asks primly.
Shang Qinghua spends most of his time covered in four layers of nice furs and a dozen pieces of jewelry. These days, all of Shang Qinghua’s jewelry is made from ivory or fabrics due to how cold Mobei-Jun’s domain can be; Shang Qinghua used to complain endlessly about getting frostbite from the variety of metal trinkets Mobei-Jun kept making him wear, and then Shang Qinghua would take them off, and then Mobei-Jun’s face would do a very accurate impression of an oncoming hurricane, and then Shang Qinghua would yelp and apologize and put the jewelry back on and get more frostbite and then complain some more—long story short, Shang Qinghua doesn’t have anything better to do with his days.
“I could be writing,” says Shang Qinghua.
“Please don’t,” says Shen Qingqiu.
“Come on, Cucumber-bro, I’m not even writing about you anymore. See, look, I have this great idea—there’s a young, aspiring artist who’s super talented, but he falls on hard times and starts having to sacrifice his ideals in order to pay his rent and his debts for his family… Soon he’s a mere shell of the artist he used to be, but then he meets a super rich guy who liked his work from before he became a sell-out, and this rich guy is really tall and has giant muscles and always looks really grouchy and is usually associated with ice imagery—“
“This is a story about you and Mobei-Jun!” Shen Qingqiu snaps. Minus the part about the artist being talented!
“What?!” says Shang Qinghua, looking so genuinely shocked that Shen Qingqiu, for a whole second, considers that he might not be lying about his surprise. “No, no, this is a fantasy about an auth—an artist having a really scary sugar daddy who’s secretly a huge softy on the inside. It’s about overcoming the class divide and how money can’t buy happiness for the hot rich guy but the money sets the artist free to pursue his dreams!”
Shen Qingqiu’s eyes are going to pop out of his skull looking at Shang Qinghua sitting in Mobei-Jun’s palace, wearing Mobei-Jun’s court colors, eating Mobei-Jun’s food and drinking Mobei-Jun’s tea, acting as if this isn’t basically an autobiography. “It’s clearly about you! Who wants to read about your sex life with Mobei-Jun?! Why are you publishing your own sex tapes?! You already live in Mobei-Jun’s palace in the lap of luxury!”
“How is it about me?! I’m terrified for my life here!” says Shang Qinghua, who is perennially rosy-cheeked and surrounded with snacks and has definitely gained a little bit of post-wedding weight since he moved in with Mobei-Jun. “You still live on Qing Jing, but I live in Mobei-Jun’s palace in permanently sub-zero temperatures, okay?! Every servant in this place was a demon I wrote to be terrifying. And they are terrifying! Mobei-Jun is too! I feel like a rat being hunted for my life at all—oh, thank you, my king,” he says, when Mobei-Jun enters the room with another bowl of candied nuts to replace the bowl Shang Qinghua already ate. “Oh, are these the walnuts?”
“Yes,” says Mobei-Jun in a tone that somehow implies that “walnuts” was the wrong question to ask.
“These are pretty good, Cucumber-bro, you should try them. He gets them from the human realm for me.”
“I’m sure,” says Shen Qingqiu. Mobei-Jun eyes Shen Qingqiu with the same wariness he gives Luo Binghe, as if the presence of Luo Binghe were permanently hovering over Shen Qingqiu at all times now that Mobei-Jun knows they’re married. (Or—“married,” or whatever the legality of getting married in your bedroom in the middle of the night is.) Mobei-Jun nods respectfully before taking Shang Qinghua’s empty snack bowl and disappearing.
What a sticky husband, pretending to deliver food just so he can check in on Shang Qinghua. Shen Qingqiu wonders if Luo Binghe gets the stickiness from his demonic side.
“Anyway, not all of us live a blissful married life. Some of us are really roughing it out here,” says Shang Qinghua, proceeding to munch through the walnuts that he had previously been offering to Shen Qingqiu. “Besides, even if it was inspired by my king, you’re the one who complains about your sex life all the time. You could stand to hear me complain about mine.”
“Who was it who wrote Luo Binghe with a lethal weapon between his legs?! I’m the direct victim of your actions. It’s practically your responsibility to hear about it.”
“You know, Cucumber-bro,” says Shang Qinghua, “you’re always so critical about everything. Even when someone is trying their best.”
Shen Qingqiu doesn’t quite register what he said until after he’d taken a sip of tea—good thing, too, since otherwise he might have paused for a damning second and then Shang Qinghua would have the satisfaction of knowing he’d caused Shen Qingqiu to experience an emotion other than rage at his shitty writing. “You know, that reminds me—I think sometimes about the original Shen Jiu that I wanted to write all those years ago—how vitriolic he was in his scorn, his hatred for vulnerability, his fury at even potentially showing weakness… Shen Jiu hated being vulnerable so badly that he never had sex in his entire life, if you can believe it. And really, listening to you complain now…”
Shen Qingqiu puts down his teacup sharply. “And what are you trying to imply, Great Master Airplane?”
“Nothing!” Shang Qinghua yelps. “No, just thinking to myself, just…”
“Just what?” Shen Qingqiu says.
“Ahahahaha bro why do you look like you’re going to tear my latest chapter apart in the comments section,” says Shang Qinghua.
Shen Qingqiu doesn’t dignify that with the response that it’s been at least a decade since he’d been in their past lives, and frankly he is so used to calligraphy that he isn’t sure these days if he could still work a computer and keyboard. Just as well—he’d spent most of his time in his past life reading, not writing, and there was still plenty to read in the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way—even if it was harder to obtain reading material than just going online and paying for updated chapters. These days, when he read something he didn’t like, he just told Binghe about the author’s idiocy, who was happy to listen to Shen Qingqiu lambast anyone, even Binghe himself.
“If you’d stop saying things that deserve to be torn apart, I’d stop looking like that,” says Shen Qingqiu.
“Wow, that sounds just like something you’d write about my latest update,” says Shang Qinghua. “I actually think you might have said that once—‘If you’d stop writing things that deserve to be critiqued, I’d stop critiquing it.’ You know, you were always so mean, and I wondered sometimes if you actually wrote your own stuff in secret. I thought, no way there’s a guy who only reads and has never actually tried to write anything who can get up on his high horse and judge others so harshly! But I guess it was just your personality…”
“What does this have to do with my shitty se—the topic at hand,” Shen Qingqiu says, irritable.
“I don’t have any thoughts on your sex life other than I know my son and he’s definitely trying his best,” says Shang Qinghua. “Just like me. Writing is hard, okay? Paying the bills is hard! Everyone can be a hater because it’s safe. Why don’t you try writing something if you’ve got so many opinions on it? Try saying something beautiful and true sometimes—“
At this point, Shang Qinghua’s head makes a noise similar to a tennis ball being bounced off a wall from the force of Shen Qingqiu’s fan hitting him. “Was Binghe fucking a hundred virgins to pay your rent beautiful and true?!” Shen Qingqiu roared over Shang Qinghua’s screaming. “Who’s truthful?! You don’t know the definition of the fucking word! What’s beautiful about trembling bosoms and delicate dripping flower lips?!”
“Most of the straight male readers thought it was plenty beautiful,” says Shang Qinghua. “Say, Cucumber-bro, are you sure that you never, ever had an interest in men before Luo Bing—“
*
“Shizun, are you hurt?” Luo Binghe says, standing as soon as Shen Qingqiu walks through the door of the bamboo house.
Shen Qingqiu wipes the blood off his cheek with a graceful sleeve. “This one is unharmed. The blood is not mine,” he says coolly, and snaps his fan shut against the palm of his hand.
Luo Binghe’s pupils dilate.
*
As usual, Shen Qingqiu permits Luo Binghe to prepare him for bed.
These days, Shen Qingqiu wakes up to the smell of Luo Binghe’s handmade breakfast and crawls back into bed for sleep when Luo Binghe begins to comb his hair. This, inevitably, devolves into Luo Binghe making a total mess out of his hair late into the night, which means that Shen Qingqiu is especially tired when he wakes up in the morning, which means that Luo Binghe is especially pleased to wake up early to deliver breakfast in bed—rinse and repeat; the vicious cycle continues. Shen Qingqiu would complain about it, but Luo Binghe always looks so excited about all of it every time it happens, so he permits it to happen again, and again, and again, and again.
“What is Shizun thinking of tonight?” Luo Binghe asks as he pulls Shen Qingqiu’s hair from the comb.
“Nothing,” says Shen Qingqiu. It’s truthful—largely nothing happens in his life these days.
Luo Binghe comes in close for a kiss, which Shen Qingqiu permits; one kiss becomes two, then five, then a long moment where Shen Qingqiu forgets what numbers are, and then Shen Qingqiu makes Luo Binghe’s hands behave themselves and Luo Binghe takes one last kiss with a boyish smile, looking as ecstatic as any student whose gotten away with something he shouldn’t, and smiles all through brushing through Shen Qingqiu’s hair another twenty times.
“Shizun doesn’t have to share his thoughts if he doesn’t want to,” says Luo Binghe.
What thoughts?! He wasn’t thinking about anything! Why is Luo Binghe asking as if Shen Qingqiu was a difficult wife who always says that she’s fine when she’s not?!
Luo Binghe’s thighs are starting to bracket Shen Qingqiu’s waist from behind in an indecent way. Shen Qingqiu pinches his thigh as they start to tighten. “Shizun,” says Luo Binghe, “I wasn’t trying to do anything, I promise…”
Promise, my ass! If Shen Qingqiu wasn’t on guard at all times, they’d do nothing but have sex twenty-four hours a day.
“And what is Binghe thinking of?” says Shen Qingqiu. “What did Binghe do while this master was out today?”
Luo Binghe makes a dismissive noise and sweeps Shen Qingqiu’s hair over his shoulder. “The demon realm is having a dispute,” he says in a voice that highly implies that he wants nothing to do with it when he could instead be putting his hands on Shen Qingqiu’s waist.
“What about?”
“Minor land claims. It’ll be handled.”
By Mobei-Jun, presumably. Luo Binghe technically does have an empire to run, but in practice, the person who lays down the law is almost always Mobei-Jun. “I told them that I’m on my honeymoon,” says Luo Binghe in a tone a bit like a pout that almost startles a laugh out of Shen Qingqiu, and from Luo Binghe’s face, he knows it.
“You’ve been on your honeymoon for two years,” says Shen Qingqiu with another pinch to his thigh.
“They say that the honeymoon phase is the best part of marriage,” says Luo Binghe seriously. “This disciple promises to always be in the honeymoon phase until Shizun asks him not to.”
That’s not how honeymoon phases work! They don’t just keep going until you say they should end! “Binghe is an extremely lenient ruler of the Southern Kingdom. Your supporters will start to think you absent with such leniency.”
“Will Shizun ask this disciple to end the honeymoon?” asks Luo Binghe.
“Mmmm,” says Shen Qingqiu.
This time, Luo Binghe wraps his arms around Shen Qingqiu’s waist and draws him close, so that Shen Qingqiu’s back is pressed against his chest, his bottom firmly against Luo Binghe’s crotch. Shen Qingqiu squirms to readjust, if only so that he doesn’t have to think about how much he’s been in this exact position wearing less clothes under different circumstances. “Shizun?” asks Luo Binghe. “Anything that Shizun asks, this disciple will provide. Will Shizun ask this disciple to end the honeymoon?”
“Mmmmmmmn,” says Shen Qingqiu, and as if Shen Qingqiu had actually given an answer, Luo Binghe pushes him down against the mattress.
Married life is awful, Shen Qingqiu thinks. He can’t say, You’re ruining all your hard work to comb through my hair when Luo Binghe is ruining Shen Qingqiu’s hair for the three-hundredth time over the course of their marriage. He can’t say, Don’t be so bold as to presume we’re still on our honeymoon when they’ve done nothing but live in honeymoon bliss for two years. He can’t say, Don’t you have better things to do than dote on this old master? when Shen Qingqiu has done nothing but enable Luo Binghe to neglect the demon realm and instead spend all his time worming his way into Shen Qingqiu’s pants. Even for Shen Qingqiu, certain levels of hypocrisy are too much! How is he supposed to defend his dignity against Luo Binghe’s advances now?!
He’s backed himself into a corner, Shen Qingqiu thinks, as Luo Binghe whines against Shen Qingqiu’s neck and paws at his nipple like a dog with a bone. I don’t have any feeling in my nipples! I’m not a woman, Luo Binghe!—but it would probably hurt maiden Binghe’s feelings if he said that, so Shen Qingqiu will just have to endure.
“Go slower,” Shen Qingqiu tells him in a murmur. “What’s the rush? We do this every night.” What’s going to be different from the last time? These days, even sex has the comforting feeling of Luo Binghe’s congee in the morning out of familiarity alone.
Luo Binghe pouts like a puppy until Shen Qingqiu tucks a bit of hair behind Luo Binghe’s ears. “Is it not special because we do it so often? Shizun never becomes any less important to me no matter how many times I see him.”
Sweet-talker! Flatterer! Shen Qingqiu would accuse him of being as manipulative as his Bingge counterpart, but with Luo Binghe’s eyes downturned at the corners, melting into Shen Qingqiu’s palm, it’s so hard to doubt Luo Binghe’s sincerity. “I just mean that there’s no need to hurry. We have all the time in the world.”
*
Good stories end.
Frankly, it’s embarrassing how many stories Shen Qingqiu has read that jumped the shark just because the author kept going with it past the plotline’s expiration date. He read a lot of shitty webnovels in his past life, after all; and his very own favorite shitty webnovel (Proud Immortal Demon Way) was arguably a victim of the very flaw: Rather than conclude the story with Luo Binghe getting revenge on the scum villain, Airplane just had to keep going, adding more wives, more subplots, more contrived sacred flowers to track down and collect, more sex pollen, more more more more more. If you ask Shen Yuan for his opinion—which Airplane never did and nevertheless heard from him anyway—a good story knew what its point was, and when it made it, it stopped.
Even more specifically, in Shen Yuan’s opinion, good stories did not have epilogues.
Oh, sure, a small snapshot of the characters’ lives after the plot concluded was all well and good. An extended epilogue? In Shen Yuan’s opinion, a long and drawn-out epilogue was indicative of one of three things:
One, the author wanted to crank out more content, and so decided to invent more problems for the main characters’ lives just so that the characters would have a problem to solve, thus making the climactic ending to the main storyline worthless. Wasn’t the point of the main storyline to resolve all the plotlines? Wasn’t the point of the climax to ensure that all the conflicts in the main characters’ lives resolved so that they could live out the rest of their lives in peace? Looking for an epilogue was akin to going into a main character’s retirement and upending their entire house for your own entertainment. They deserved to live out their lives in uneventful bliss, if you asked him!
Two, the author forgot to resolve a subplot or satisfactorily wrap up a character’s arc, and so had go to back and finish the things that they didn’t do. Whoops! Sorry, I forgot to do my due diligence as an author, please pay more money to see the real and actual end to the story—bullshit! Total bullshit! Do your job as the author properly the first time and resolve everything in the storyline before saying you’re done! What’s the fucking point of an ending in the first place if there’s more that’s going to happen?!
Three, the author decided to pay the bills by writing completely uneventful, nonsense fluff material, in which the reader was bored to the point of tears reading about their previously-beloved characters reduced to a pathetic shell of themselves by having no forward plot to do, no conflicts to resolve, no achievements to aspire to—in other words, no point to the epilogue in the first place! Who wants to read about a happy ending?! Happy endings are boring! There’s only one character Shen Yuan would have ever read a happy ending for (Luo Binghe), but even then, Shen Yuan can tell when Airplane is just trying to pad out his word count to make his monthly rent!
Between the three options—to arbitrarily invent new problems for the main characters, to admit that the author hadn’t resolved the plot in the first place, or to read meaningless garbage about an uneventful happy ending—every single one of them is an insult. Funny enough, there was only one character Shen Yuan would have ever read such a meaningless, uneventful happy ending for, but if Airplane had ever written an epilogue for Luo Binghe, Shen Yuan had died of rage before he could ever read it.
These days, Shen Qingqiu spends their days solidly in the third category of epilogue. There’s no more plot elements to resolve and nobody has developed any bizarre problems recently that might encourage the story to keep going. Life is an uneventful cycle of sleeping well, eating good food, taking the occasional summer vacation to Luo Binghe’s demonic palace when the temperature was too hot, trying to survive having sex with Luo Binghe, trying to not make Luo Binghe cry, and sometimes actually doing his job as Peak Lord.
It’s a whole lot of nothing! If Shang Qinghua is wasting his immortal lifespan away as Mobei-Jun’s spoiled pet hamster, then Shen Qingqiu isn’t doing much better! Happy endings, in the end, require a whole lot of unexcitement!
Definitely boring. Not at all anything that anyone would ever read. Honestly, good riddance! Being wrapped up in the protagonist’s exciting lifestyle was a lethal experience—literally, and twice over. He'd really rather not have his happy life spoiled just so that more things could occur.
So now Shen Qingqiu’s days pass like this: Luo Binghe kisses him to sleep, wipes them both down so they don’t wake up sticky from sweat, buries his face jealously into Shen Qingqiu’s neck long into the night. Nothing happens. Nothing changes. Like all good stories that have finished telling themselves, Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe can exist together in this suspended moment for as long as they want.
*
Some years after Maigu Ridge, Shen Qingqiu had to admit that he had lived his life as a terminally-online NEET who read shitty webnovels all day and ate a lot of instant noodles, then died and transmigrated as an objectively cool super-powerful cultivator, got tossed around by Proud Immortal Demon Way’s plotline like a pair of sneakers in the washing machine, and then now lives his days as a semi-retired Peak Lord who reads shitty pulp fiction all day and eats a lot of congee.
After Regret of Chunshan, a really weird boom of RPF hit the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way, and now Liu Qingge has this permanently-aggrieved expression whenever he sees anyone reading anything in his presence after he once accidentally picked up a book his own disciple was reading and found that it was a raunchy sex romp between himself, Mu Qingfang, and Yue Qingyuan. The only upside to this is that there’s now a lot of bad novels circulating the world, which means that, rather than actually doing his job as a teacher, Shen Qingqiu has picked back up his bad habit of reading totally and absolutely disgusting garbage.
“Huan Hua Palace doesn’t have a legitimate claim to the village,” Qi Qingqi is pointing out while Shen Qingqiu turns the page. “And it’s none of their business who the village asks for help. If they reached out to us for help, then it’s our responsibility to respond.”
In Shen Qingqiu’s most recent novel, the main love interest is having a passionate argument to defend the protagonist’s reputation, except “passionate argument” is a rather subjective phrase, since this love interest is a rather taciturn man who barely speaks. What a horrible love interest. He never shows his true feelings out of a strict sense of propriety and duty; how is the protagonist supposed to know what he’s thinking or feeling? Of course it takes them five volumes to get together! If Shen Qingqiu weren’t the reader who was well aware of where this romance novel was going to go, even Shen Qingqiu might be confused as to why this man kept undertaking heroic sacrifices for the protagonist with such an aloof, distant expression.
“It still surely would be unwise to respond without sending a message to Huan Hua Palace,” says Wei Qingwei.
“Huan Hua Palace will take offense to whatever they want to take offense to. If we send them a message now, surely they’ll find a reason to be insulted for the perceived slight that we’ve shoved our dirty work off onto them.”
“Perhaps the Bai Zhan Peak Lord might take these matters into his own hands,” Mu Qingfang suggests. Not a bad suggestion, Shen Qingqiu thinks, turning the page discreetly. Liu Qingge did have a reputation for doing whatever it is that he wanted to do and meaning no harm in it.
Liu Qingge doesn’t respond to this because he is too busy looking at the book Shen Qingqiu is reading as if Shen Qingqiu has brought a live viper into the Peak Lord meeting. Shen Qingqiu adjusts his books carefully—he’s hidden his trash pulp fiction inside another book about cultivation history—and studiously doesn’t look at him. “We shouldn’t shove our dirty work off on to Liu-shidi,” Shen Qingqiu says.
Qi Qingqi crosses her arms. “If you’re going to criticize the current ideas, surely you can suggest something as an alternative.”
“This lord believes it’s Zhangmen-shixiong’s decision in the end,” says Shen Qingqiu. Don’t put Shen Qingqiu in the position of having to make a judgment call, please! “If we want to establish a good relationship with Huan Hua Palace, then we should give them a courtesy message. If we don’t—and we don’t have to, considering that Huan Hua Palace is not the sect that it used to be—then we might as well carry on.”
Ah, where was he in his novel? Shen Qingqiu swears he’s read the last sentence three times, trying to focus on the story while the Peak Lords kept squabbling. Oh, right—the love interest defending the protagonist’s reputation. Shen Qingqiu wishes that the story would go back to the demon-hunting and mystery-solving.
Yue Qingyuan looks down at the book-within-a-book that Shen Qingqiu is reading. “No further thoughts, shidi?”
Shen Qingqiu quickly hides his face behind his fan, knowing that Yue Qingyuan has caught him in the act and that the Sect Leader is just too kind to say anything to his face. “Both courses of action are acceptable. There’s no need to deliberate over something that has almost no consequence.”
Yue Qingyuan thinks about this. “It is true that, in times of peace, even the smallest difficulties seem insurmountable. Without comparison to larger affairs, objectively minor issues overstay their welcome.”
Right! All the Peak Lords should all have the wisdom and serenity to read trash fiction during required meetings that really could have been a missive!
When the meeting finally concludes, Shen Qingqiu blitzes through another hundred pages of reading. He sits completely blind to the beauty of Qing Jing Peak as he turns page after page, until the sun has long since past its peak and begun to set, until Shen Qingqiu has a horrific crick in his neck that makes him wonder if this is what it means to become a middle-aged individual despite being technically immortal.
Just as the sun is about to meet the horizon, Shen Qingqiu snaps the book shut and decides he can’t take it anymore.
In this case, it’s not that the plot is cliché or that the story went on for too long; the protagonist isn’t annoying nor is the prose unbearable.
It’s the love interest again! That stubborn, taciturn, silent brooding stock archetype who can’t explain himself clearly even after four fucking volumes!
Who cares about your fucking pride?! Shen Qingqiu wants to shout at him. Just say what you mean! Ask directly! Doesn’t this love interest know that he’s the love interest?! He should act the part and make his feelings known to get the damn romance subplot happening instead of wasting away and pining over his feelings! Pride and dignity is for characters who aren’t the love interest; the point of the love interest is to submit themselves to the humiliation of being roped into the inevitability of desiring the protagonist. The point of the love interest is to be an embarrassing display of passion and to make the protagonist feel desired!
Why are you struggling so much when the end is already a foregone conclusion? You’re just making everything worse! Accept your fate and bend over for the protagonist already!
This fucking author! Shen Qingqiu doesn’t recognize this penname at all, otherwise he would be writing letters at this current moment informing them of how unbearably agonizing this plotline was. Who wants to read six hundred pages of emotional repression?! Whose idea was this?! What sort of romance story involves no romance confession, no reconciliation, no communication at all because the love interest is too far up his own asshole to get his shit together?!
Shen Qingqiu snatches the book up and storms off in search of Luo Binghe. If the author can’t hear from him directly, then his husband will instead!
Today, Luo Binghe is at the borderlands between the demonic realm and the human realm. Usually Shen Qingqiu would wait for Luo Binghe to return to the bamboo house, but imminently pressing needs required drastic measures, or else Shen Qingqiu will be forced to start penning his online hatred in the form of calligraphy and verse.
At the borderlands, Luo Binghe is examining a pile of books that seem to have been acquired by Sha Hualing herself. He’s sorting them into piles, although Shen Qingqiu doesn’t know what criteria constitutes each pile.
“—skirmishes to the east,” says Sha Hualing. “The border saw three outbreaks in as many weeks.”
Luo Binghe looks coldly bored. The very lines of his face set differently, losing its laughter lines and charming smile, becoming almost statuesque and just as unyielding. There’s an unnerving unreality to the lack of wrinkles or blemishes on his skin. “I’m tired of hearing about these border disputes.”
Sha Hualing ducks her head, looking like her stomach has just dropped to somewhere around her feet. “Apologies, Junshang, this one will take care of it—“
“Annex it,” Luo Binghe interrupts.
“The… border?”
“The east territory.” Luo Binghe flips through another book and puts it in the left pile.
So—what? He’s just going to get rid of the border problems by getting rid of the border itself?! As if it was so easy to solve!
Sha Hualing bows. She, at least, looks viciously pleased to have territory to conquer, and Shen Qingqiu wonders if Luo Binghe’s seemingly-careless decision to expand his territory was partly to keep her busy and satisfied. Was it careless? Luo Binghe does quite a bit of paperwork to maintain his land, just usually where Shen Qingqiu is not present. “Will Junshang be joining us for the conquest?”
“I’ll see if I have the time,” Luo Binghe dispassionately.
What, does he need to pencil it into his busy schedule? Somewhere between “doing Shizun’s laundry” and “massaging Shizun’s feet”?
Sha Hualing opens her mouth to say something, sees Shen Qingqiu approaching, and whispers something to Luo Binghe. Luo Binghe turns and his expression melts into wide-eyed delight. “Shizun came to find me,” he says with the joy of someone receiving a wedding proposal. To Sha Hualing, Luo Binghe says without expression: “The books are serviceable.”
“Yes, Junshang,” says Sha Hualing, and flounces away to wreak havoc on someone’s territory, presumably.
Luo Binghe returns immediately to doing his best impression of a puppy awaiting headpats. “What are you doing, just letting her run off to destroy someone else’s territory?” Shen Qingqiu asks, allowing himself to indulge in giving Luo Binghe two headpats.
“War takes too long,” says Luo Binghe. “It requires so much energy, and I’ll be away from Shizun.”
Shen Qingqiu can’t believe this boy! All these years, despite so many years as a ruler of the Southern Kingdom of the demon realm, and he’s still a little brat who doesn’t care at all for his possessions if it doesn’t suit his singular ambition of becoming Shen Qingqiu’s househusband. “Don’t let this old master distract you from taking care of your affairs. What if you wind up with an uprising on your hands? What if someone decides to take advantage of your laid-back policies and usurps you from within?”
“Is Shizun worried?” Luo Binghe says, drawing much too close for public propriety and leaning in over Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder. “Will Shizun take in this poor, abandoned demon if he’s overthrown by his treacherous servants?”
Ah? What a specific fantasy! Shen Qingqiu can’t help but narrow his eyes suspiciously. “You know that he would. Binghe will never be abandoned ever again so long as this master is here.”
Luo Binghe, abruptly, flushes deeply, looking startled for some reason despite having said many much more shameless things. “Really?” Luo Binghe asks in a soft voice.
What do you mean, really?! Why are you fishing for reassurance like this?! Did I marry you or didn’t I?!
“This disciple would never burden his master that way,” Luo Binghe says.
“Some things should be endured.” Shen Qingqiu raps him lightly on the head with his terrible book. “This one keeps telling Binghe to allow him to endure it.”
Luo Binghe has that ridiculous look on his face that he gets when he’s hoping that Shen Qingqiu will keep scolding him and maybe hit him a few extra times for good measure, so Shen Qingqiu quickly relents. Shen Qingqiu corrals Luo Binghe into finally going home for the day (“Did Shizun come to the borderlands because he missed my presence?!” Luo Binghe asks eagerly) and honestly forgets all about why he even came to find Luo Binghe in the first place until they arrive at Luo Binghe’s demon realm palace and, upon sitting down in their bedroom, the damn book falls out of Shen Qingqiu’s sleeve.
Shen Qingqiu snatches the thing up and contemplates if he’ll transmigrate again if he dies of rage now. “This book,” says Shen Qingqiu, and then stops, overcome with the urge to rip the thing in half.
“A good book?” Luo Binghe guesses.
Shen Qingqiu’s fingers tighten around the book’s spine.
“…A bad book,” says Luo Binghe, who is by now familiar with this aspect of Shen Qingqiu’s hobby.
Shen Qingqiu explodes.
“—never seen anyone who is so incapable of just saying exactly what he wants!” Shen Qingqiu says, flipping through another dozen pages to find the scene he’s talking about. “It’s not that the love interest doesn’t know what he wants! The protagonist at least doesn’t know that he has feelings! He has plausible deniability because he’s an idiot, but—Binghe, why are you looking like that?”
Luo Binghe is increasingly looking like Shen Qingqiu has taken his homemade cooking and dumped dogwater on it in front of him. “Nothing!” says Luo Binghe hastily, and also somehow more sadly, now resembling a paper bag soaking up water and collapsing slowly under its own soggy weight. “Shizun has strong opinions on stories… Shizun has many thoughts on things like ‘genre’ and ‘cliches’ and ‘character roles’… Shizun’s hobbies are peculiar, and this disciple doesn’t fully understand them…”
“It’s clearly not nothing, then!” Shen Qingqiu says, a little panicked. “What is it?”
Luo Binghe shuffles awkwardly.
“What is it,” says Shen Qingqiu.
Luo Binghe looks down.
“What do you have in your sleeves,” says Shen Qingqiu.
Luo Binghe’s face begins to color red.
“Luo Binghe,” says Shen Qingqiu, and leans forward and tilts Luo Binghe’s face upwards with the point of his fan. “Who is the master here?”
“Shizun is,” says Luo Binghe.
“Who is the disciple here?”
“I am,” says Luo Binghe, looking considerably cheered by this turn of events for some reason.
Shen Qingqiu holds out his hand. Luo Binghe puts a new book into his palm, looking appropriately contrite. “Good,” Shen Qingqiu says, and Luo Binghe’s whole body does an interesting little quiver as Shen Qingqiu’s fan scrapes softly along the underside of Luo Binghe’s jaw.
And what do you know—the book Luo Binghe had gotten from Sha Hualing had been the last book in the five-part series that Shen Qingqiu had just been reading!
“This disciple is sorry,” says Luo Binghe, now returning to looking completely miserable the more that Shen Qingqiu stares in silence at the fifth volume. “This disciple thought that Shizun was enjoying the series, and this disciple knows that it’s difficult to track down the next book in a series, so he thought that he would acquire it ahead of time…” Luo Binghe seems to visibly shrink. “But it turns out that Shizun has hated the series the whole time, and…”
No! No no no no no!
“When did this master say such a thing?!” says Shen Qingqiu, shrilly even to his ears.
“This disciple understands. Shizun should stop reading it if he detests it so much,” says Luo Binghe.
“Absolutely not! This master intends to read the entire series!”
“Now Shizun will only keep reading it because he does not want to hurt this disciple’s feelings,” says Luo Binghe soggily.
Too soggy! Too soggy! He’s going to burst into tears at any minute—put this protagonist in rice!
“That’s not it!” says Shen Qingqiu, a touch desperately. “This master likes—“
For some reason, he stops there.
He had meant to say that he likes to read these sorts of terrible novels, but somehow, even saying this is too much. Maybe it’s because he spends so much time lambasting Shang Qinghua—no, that’s not it. Maybe it’s because he’s spent too long pretending to be the aloof and immortal Shen Qingqiu—no, that’s not it either.
It’s simply that the phrases such as, “I want,” “I like,” “I enjoy,” “I desire”—these phrases had almost never left his lips for as long as he’d lived, in both lifetimes. Instead, he’d only maintained his scorn for even the hobby he did most frequently throughout his first life as Shen Yuan: “Incoherent garbage,” or “cliché-ridden nonsense” or “OOC behavior” or “sell-out hack author” had been the only words Shen Yuan had had for even the novel he’d read most faithfully.
Shen Qingqiu takes a deep breath. “The protagonist is still acceptable,” he says. “This master will keep reading the series for him.”
Luo Binghe looks doubtful. “Shizun doesn’t have to spare this disciple’s feelings.”
All I do these days is try to spare your maiden feelings! “I’m doing no such thing. That protagonist should have a happy ending after everything he’s gone through, and I intend to read it.” Or Shen Qingqiu really will find who wrote this story and inform them of every misstep they made!
“So… Shizun does like the book series,” says Luo Binghe.
He didn’t say that! “I said that the protagonist has undergone too many difficulties in his life.”
“Isn’t the point of a protagonist to struggle and overcome difficulties?”
Yes, but at some point, it just becomes excessive! The author practically uses their poor protagonist as a punching bag! Go to the gym if you have so much aggression!
“The author didn’t have to drop him into a giant pit full of corpses and evil resentment,” says Shen Qingqiu with a sniff. “Authors are always doing this nonsense to their protagonists. They push their protagonists into some horrific hell on earth, just so that they have a narrative reason to make their protagonists stronger, or because they think that suffering will make their protagonist more popular.”
He hadn’t minded it so much when he’d read it in Proud Immortal Demon Way—besides his usual gripe that the protagonist had become OP to the point of no threat ever mattering to Luo Binghe, no problem ever having any stakes, and no narrative suspense of whether or not Luo Binghe would find a way to triumph over the villain of the week. Which had been a huge gripe! Now it irritates him beyond belief.
“It just seems so unnecessarily painful,” Shen Qingqiu says, and then wishes that he had a cup of tea to drink, because he’s really rarely ever said this many sentences put together aloud as Shen Qingqiu. “These sorts of stories always position it as if such huge setbacks of being dropped into a horrible pit of dead bodies was inevitably a good thing for the protagonist. Like there’s something good about suffering, or that he never could have grown without it! As if we should be thankful for it! I don’t care if he came out stronger for it—wouldn’t it have been better if he’d never been dropped into the pit in the first place?”
Luo Binghe takes the book from his hand and holds Shen Qingqiu’s hand, smoothing out the fine tremors in Shen Qingqiu’s fingers. Shen Qingqiu stares resolutely at Luo Binghe’s embroidered collar. “It’s a ridiculous and unrealistic plot device,” Shen Qingqiu says. The words come out hoarse, as if from someone else’s mouth. “I really hated the book when I got to the part with the pit.”
Luo Binghe smiles comfortingly. “Shizun,” says Luo Binghe, “he’s just a character in a book.”
*
Luo Binghe is reading the first volume with the faint expression of someone who vaguely cannot believe that Shen Qingqiu actually reads this stuff. Shen Qingqiu quickly hides his face behind his fan and wonders what the fuck marital life is supposed to be for if he can’t read his shitty novels without being judged. “Which one of these is the love interest?” Luo Binghe asks like a student trying to comprehend a difficult cultivation manual.
“Oh.” Honestly, Shen Qingqiu read the series so fast that he sort of forgot the love interest’s name. “Lan… something.”
*
“This disciple has never asked,” says Luo Binghe, after they’ve washed up and gotten ready for bed. “Whether or not the question was permitted…”
He’s hedging again. This doesn’t bother Shen Qingqiu very much in itself—there are some people who should hedge their words a little bit more, frankly!—but with Luo Binghe, it annoys him because Luo Binghe will get around to asking what he means whether Shen Qingqiu likes it or not. Even if Luo Binghe drops the issue completely, Shen Qingqiu won’t be able to sleep at night knowing that there’s some lingering worry wiggling in the back of Luo Binghe’s head. It’s for his own self-preservation, honestly. Shen Qingqiu isn’t keen on having a repeat of whatever was going on with Xin Mo.
“What are you looking so afraid for?” Shen Qingqiu asks. “Speak up if something bothers you. This master has long ago resolved to listen to everything that worries you.”
For whatever reason, Luo Binghe looks as if Shen Qingqiu has said something deeply romantic and heartfelt, instead of an incredibly practical tactic that Shen Qingqiu has adopted in his married life. Then Luo Binghe looks a little weepy-eyed—what, over a handful of words?! Binghe, don’t believe whatever people say so easily! People’s actions speak louder, and it’s not like Shen Qingqiu has always been the best at listening to what Luo Binghe told him! His track record is abysmal! Luo Binghe, when did you become the kind of girl who would go back to her ex-boyfriend twelve separate times just because he promised he would change?!
“Alright, alright,” says Shen Qingqiu hastily, and holds out his arms for Luo Binghe. Luo Binghe happily curls up in them—or rather, curls up around Shen Qingqiu, considering how big he is now. In the end, it’s Shen Qingqiu who’s enveloped in him rather than the other way around. “What are you getting so sentimental for?” says Shen Qingqiu from somewhere in the depths of Luo Binghe’s gigantic shoulders and endless waves of hair. “This master thinks he’s capable of the bare minimum of his marital duties.”
“I will never take Shizun for granted,” Luo Binghe says into the crook of Shen Qingqiu’s neck. “I hope that I never grow used to happiness. I hope—no, I swear it. I swear that every time Shizun holds me, I’ll always be as happy as the very first day that Shizun accepted me. I will never forget that this happiness was something given to me. I swear.”
Speechless, Shen Qingqiu can only rest the flat of his palms against Luo Binghe’s shoulder blades and allow Luo Binghe to draw him closer. Sweet and tender people like Luo Binghe should be spoiled rotten on love and affection, indulging on it until they take being loved as a simple fact of being alive rather than something to savor in scraps. Luo Binghe being surrounded by people who doted on him and adored him had been the only thing that Shen Qingqiu had liked about Proud Immortal Demon Way’s harem nonsense. Shen Qingqiu has the sudden urge to stroke his hair, to pepper kisses along Luo Binghe’s cheekbones, to slide his hands under Luo Binghe’s robes just so Luo Binghe will know that Shen Qingqiu is real and here with him.
But that is the sort of thing that one of Luo Binghe’s original three hundred wives would have done: Doling out love in hedonistic excess until Luo Binghe became bored, listless, and moved on to the next conquest. Then the next to-be-wife would play hard-to-get until she didn’t, then dole out love in hedonistic excess, until Luo Binghe became bored, listless, and moved on to the next conquest. Because it was about the conquest, wasn’t it? Wasn’t the chase half the fun for Luo Binghe, being a creation of a stallion novel? If Shen Qingqiu let Luo Binghe think that Shen Qingqiu was easily within his grasp now and forever—if Shen Qingqiu truly let down every one of his barriers that he kept up for modesty and dignity—wasn’t it not infeasible for Luo Binghe to simply grow tired of him and move on?
Involuntarily, Shen Qingqiu’s nails dug into Luo Binghe’s back.
Just as quickly, he makes himself relax.
—What a ridiculous thing to think. They were already married. If he wanted to have cold feet, he should have done it before the altar, not after! If only for his own pride, Shen Qingqiu would never stand to be so indecisive. Besides—the Luo Binghe in his arms now hardly resembled the protagonist from the original Proud Immortal Demon Way even a little bit!
These sorts of inane insecurities were better left to one of Airplane’s contrived wife plots from the original work: Oh, Junshang, won’t you promise to be with me always? said some big-breasted woman with skin like jade and lips like something-or-other delicate flower, curling up coquettishly against Luo Binghe’s thighs—no, thank you! Shen Qingqiu may be married to Luo Binghe, but there were certain lows that even he would never reach, alright?!
At this point, Shen Qingqiu realized that Luo Binghe’s hands were sneakily transitioning from “waist” to “thigh” and now to “ass,” so that just goes to show what Shen Qingqiu gets for contemplating stupid things like this. “Binghe! Didn’t we just…?” Luo Binghe hadn’t been able to keep his hands to himself while they were in the bath, and now he wants to go again?!
“Apologies,” says Luo Binghe, pressing a clumsy kiss against Shen Qingqiu’s neck. “Shizun mentioned marital duties, and I couldn’t help myself…”
Shen Qingqiu pinches his ear. “This isn’t the marital duties I meant,” Shen Qingqiu tells him.
Luo Binghe’s expression twists with pain and—something else—ah, Shen Qingqiu forgot, there’s no disciplining this unruly child! How do you punish someone who likes it!? Shen Qingqiu withdraws his fingers quickly. “—Alright,” he says, not meeting Luo Binghe’s eyes. “Quickly, then. And… mm… gently. Ah! Ah… Gently—!”
Two hours later, Luo Binghe props his head up on his elbow in a way that put his naked chest quite prominently in Shen Qingqiu’s line of sight. “Can I ask now?” Luo Binghe asks.
Shen Qingqiu is nearly half asleep from having been impaled, slobbered over, crushed into the mattress, and then wrung out like a wet towel, but he opens his eyes and sighs. “What do you mean, Can you ask now? Wasn’t it you who distracted us in the first place?”
If Luo Binghe notices that Shen Qingqiu's performance as a cultured Peak Lord tends to slip when he's tired, Luo Binghe doesn't comment on it. “This disciple still craves being given permission. It is a gift from Shizun every time.”
Why does being given permission sound like something that could very easily be R18?!
Instead of contemplating yet another one of Luo Binghe’s kinks slowly emerging from the earth to make itself known in their sex life, Shen Qingqiu huffs and looks away, but unfortunately just buries his face further into Luo Binghe’s bicep. “Surely whatever question it is can’t be worth so much hesitation.”
Luo Binghe smiles oddly then—not the sweet and eager smiles that Shen Qingqiu is used to seeing, but a little more wry. Shen Qingqiu hasn’t seen him interact with his demonic empire in so long that he’s forgotten what Luo Binghe looks like outside of this bamboo house. “The books that Shizun likes to read…”
Never mind! Shen Qingqiu doesn’t want to hear any questions about his trash fiction hobby!
“…it’s just not what I would have expected!” Luo Binghe says quickly, seeing something on Shen Qingqiu’s face. “There’s nothing wrong with it! It’s very endearing!”
What’s endearing!? I’m not an otome game character with a quirky gap moe trait!
Shen Qingqiu turns over sharply. “Shizun,” Luo Binghe pleads. “No, Shizun, it’s a very esteemed hobby, it’s very elegant and refined of you… This disciple only wanted to know more about his wife… Ah!”
Shen Qingqiu had hit him hard on the thigh before he could think. Shen Qingqiu has to stop smacking Luo Binghe—he knows that Luo Binghe takes slaps like that in a different way than Shen Qingqiu means…!
Luo Binghe, don’t get hard, don’t get hard, we’ve already done it twice today…
In a desperate bid to distract Luo Binghe, Shen Qingqiu concedes: “Don’t flatter this master like that. This master is well aware of the shameful nature of his vices.” He clears his throat and sighs. “It was a hobby I picked up a very long time ago when I was younger.”
“When Shizun was a disciple?—Although Shizun does not have to say,” Luo Binghe adds quickly.
Well, hold on a minute! “This master wants to be honest with Binghe,” says Shen Qingqiu. “Binghe deserves to know.” Just give him a second to get his story straight! It’s a difficult sort of hobby to explain when Luo Binghe doesn’t know words like 4K computer monitor and instant noodles.
“Shizun wanting to tell this disciple is more than he could have ever dreamed,” says Luo Binghe with an almost painful sort of happiness.
No, please have higher standards! This is really the bare minimum for a married couple, you know!
“Who taught you to expect so little of me?” says Shen Qingqiu, and then: “—Don’t answer that.”
“Yes, Shizun,” says Luo Binghe, looking quite happy to follow clear and direct instructions.
How to explain Shen Qingqiu’s modern-day reading habits to a xianxia protagonist?
Shen Yuan had lived a fairly pampered life of modern amenities, running water, and high-speed internet. Every kind of junk food could be either microwaved in two minutes or ordered online and delivered directly to his door. Luo Binghe’s upbringing in destitution and tragedy was nothing like his own. Since Shen Yuan never had to worry about anything when he grew up, the end result was that he read—a lot.
Shen Qingqiu hesitates.
First he hesitates because, if he were to lie and say that he came from some middle-class merchant family who allowed him to read silly adventure stories as a young boy, this lie will surely come and bite him in the ass later. Now that he knows Yue Qingyuan grew up with Shen Jiu, there exists at least one person in the world who can testify that “Shen Qingqiu” grew up without family, and in destitute poverty, too.
But then he hesitates because he doesn’t want to lie to Luo Binghe. It’s simply not true that Shen Yuan grew up a hungry orphan reading whatever he could scrounge up out of the trash. It’s ridiculous to say that Shen Yuan had had a terrible childhood by any stretch of the imagination. His parents both worked and earned plenty of money; they spent a lot of time on business trips and left Shen Yuan and his sister with run of the house. What was so bad about that as an upbringing? There’s plenty of children who would kill to have a giant house all to themselves for weeks on end, attending a nice school that assigned homework Shen Yuan could blitz through in a few hours, never pushed to do any sports he didn’t like or any clubs he didn’t choose to join.
Left alone to his own devices that way, of course he read a lot. Why wouldn’t he? He had nothing better than he had to do and nothing else he wanted to do.
In some ways, he is keenly aware that from the time he was twelve, he spent most of his days online—after school when he could have been playing sports, at home when he could have been doing homework, even during class when he should have been paying attention to the teacher. When his parents were home, they were mostly well-dressed strangers who were visiting before they left for business again, and so Shen Yuan tolerated these interactions and thought about being online and reading webnovels, which were full of characters that he cared about and plots that he actually enjoyed. Eventually, he started taking mealtimes in his room while he was online and reading webnovels.
Maybe kids are supposed to have a series of life events that occurs in person: Acceptance into new schools, good or bad test scores, friendships dissolving when students move to new classes, friendships exploding over petty things, new friends made in clubs and sports teams and classrooms and cram school and maybe just hanging out at the mall; a first kiss, a first girlfriend, a first encounter with sex. Parents, too, are supposed to scold their kids and argue with them and praise them and celebrate their wins, go to their piano recitals even if their kid is shit at it, hold birthday parties, give money on the right holidays and take them out to dinner on birthdays. Tough conversations when their child has done something wrong, forcing their child to apologize when their child has been a little shit, awkward conversations about what sex is and isn’t, teasing conversations when their child gets their first girlfriend. Eventually, there is a rebellious phase, the child moves out to go to university, then the child comes back as an adult.
Shen Yuan discovered what good manners were supposed to be when he read forums he wasn’t supposed to be on at the age of nine. He also learned quite a few bad manners, and a lot of swear words, and several sex acts that he didn’t fully understand until he hit age thirteen. He, of course, had friends at school, but they were largely people he hung out with and tolerated because he was required to be in school; the friends that he can think of as his first friends he wanted to speak to were in online chatrooms that were occasionally overridden with sexbots. Friendships dissolved when they moved on to a different video game forum or a different webnovel to read; friendships exploded over petty disputes over characterization or who was whose favorite character. Shen Yuan got used to hiding what his birthday was in case his online activity could somehow be tracked down to who he was in real life. At age fourteen, he’d accidentally catfished a guy who thought he was a girl, and he’d wound up cyber-sexing the guy’s feeder kink before he realized what was happening; an older friend online had had to tell him what had happened because he didn’t have anyone in real life to talk to about it. Once, he’d gone back to an old forum he’d hung around on and realized that all his posts had been about how such-and-such author had done a character dirty by having the character reconcile with his shitty parents, while Shen Yuan had been staunchly of the opinion that the character should have cut off those parents and never spoken to them again; he’d felt uncomfortable realizing that he’d spent the entirety of his teenaged rebellious phase online taking out his aggression on fictional parents who weren’t even like his own parents, and then deleted all the posts so he didn’t have to read them anymore.
Wasn’t it ridiculous? He’d grown up with two perfectly serviceable, functioning parents, but when Shen Yuan had transmigrated into Proud Immortal Demon Way, he’d missed his mechanical keyboard more than he’d missed his parents. (It was a good keyboard!) He almost could have said he missed Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky more than he’d missed his parents—at least he’d talked to Airplane regularly, even if only through Proud Immortal Demon Way’s comment section, and Airplane’s updates had been so regular that he could count on a new chapter more regularly than he could count on his parents remembering his birthday. Instead of his childhood home, he missed the internet forums where he’d grown up.
How was he supposed to say all that to Luo Binghe?! How was Shen Qingqiu supposed to reconcile his beginnings as Shen Yuan with the pre-existing Shen Jiu backstory? Shen Yuan didn’t like to think of himself as spoiled, but in comparison to a kid who’d grown up with a single ragged shirt eating leftover congee out of the trash, Shen Yuan was incomprehensibly spoiled! He’d had custom-made figurines, for god’s sake.
Now that Shen Qingqiu was a bit older these days, looking back in hindsight, Shen Yuan’s reading hobbies were undeniably the leisure habits of the pampered, idle rich!
But there’s nothing for it. Between the slim chance that Luo Binghe might talk to Yue Qingyuan and discover that “Shen Jiu’s” backstory had been sad and miserable, and Shen Qingqiu’s own determination to tell Luo Binghe some version of the truth—Shen Qingqiu will just have to take the risk.
He tells Luo Binghe a somewhat edited version of the truth, retaining as many details as he can without having to use phrases like microwave oven and online forums. “This master had a happy childhood,” he concludes. “I wanted for nothing, never went hungry, and had plenty to read.”
Luo Binghe is looking at him with an unusual intensity. “What?” says Shen Qingqiu, suddenly self-conscious.
“That… sounds very lone—”
Shen Qingqiu looks at him.
“…like a very happy childhood,” says Luo Binghe with the speed of someone who knows when to agree.
Shen Qingqiu pats Luo Binghe’s head as a reward, and Luo Binghe happily puts his head on Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder until Shen Qingqiu relents and rolls back over so that Luo Binghe can drape himself against Shen Qingqiu’s chest. Honestly, the whole thing was highly embarrassing. Half the allure of Cang Qiong’s Peak Lord’s was their unknowability—how else were they supposed to come across as wise and mystical immortal beings if they weren’t appropriately shrouded in mystery? Being mysterious was how Yue Qingyuan maintained ninety percent of his reputation! Knowing that the Peak Lords had all started off as regular mortals with normal, mundane family lives was…
Well, Luo Binghe didn’t seem to be put off by knowing this information about Shen Qingqiu. So he would just have to endure this, too.
“When Shizun was young,” Luo Binghe says suddenly, “had Shizun ever wanted a family?”
What an odd question. “Shizun had a family.” Had Luo Binghe missed the entire part where Shen Qingqiu specifically said that Shen Yuan had had a living family?
“Yes, of course,” says Luo Binghe quickly again.
“And this master has Binghe now.”
Luo Binghe abruptly looks like he’s barely suppressing the urge to pin Shen Qingqiu to the mattress again, so Shen Qingqiu hastily moves along: “And this master also has his martial family on Cang Qiong.”
At that, Luo Binghe has the expression of someone who really wouldn’t mind Cang Qiong being obliterated from the face of the earth, so Shen Qingqiu quickly squishes his cheeks until he calms back down.
“Binghe,” says Shen Qingqiu.
“Yes, Shizun?”
“Now that we’re mar… we’re mmm…” Shen Qingqiu coughs and mumbles the rest of the word married. Luo Binghe looks at him like he hung the moon in the sky, which makes Shen Qingqiu cough even more. “…As the situation is. Binghe, are you lonely?”
Luo Binghe’s face makes an aborted move as if schooling his expression at the last second. “Shizun,” he says, “what could possibly have brought this on? What has this disciple done to make his shizun believe he could ever be dissatisfied?”
Luo Binghe wouldn’t understand—Shen Yuan had known Luo Binghe as the man with three hundred wives, a main character whose every whim, desire, wish, or need was catered to by one or another wife, or perhaps even wives. Luo Binghe was constantly surrounded by others, the center of adoration, never allowed a single moment to stew in his own thoughts for even a second longer than he desired. Listen—Shen Yuan knows that Proud Immortal Demon Way was a trash novel, and its protagonist had only ever acquired three hundred wives because its hack author had given up on having original or coherent thoughts—but even if it’d been a shitty novel, by comparison, having only Shen Qingqiu was really a downgrade when you thought about it, wasn’t it?!
“No reason in particular,” says Shen Qingqiu with his best poser skills.
Luo Binghe looks at him for a second too long. For a single second, Shen Qingqiu’s instincts, honed from years of posing as someone he’s not, know with bone-deep certainty that Luo Binghe is seeing something that Shen Qingqiu hadn’t meant for him to see, and instantly Shen Qingqiu turns his face away since he doesn’t have his fan in hand. “Shizun is worth everyone in the world to me,” says Luo Binghe’s voice, and Luo Binghe’s arms wrap around Shen Qingqiu’s chest until he can hear Luo Binghe’s pleading voice in his chest from where they’re pressed together. “Shizun, please don’t turn your back on me; this disciple could never be satisfied with anyone else…”
“Alright, alright,” says Shen Qingqiu.
“I’m never lonely knowing that Shizun loves me,” Luo Binghe wheedles.
Shen Qingqiu’s face colors red instantly. “Who loves you?!”
“Shizun does,” Luo Binghe says shamelessly. “Shizun said so himself, on our wedding ni—“
Shen Qingqiu elbows him in the ribs, but Luo Binghe just makes a satisfied noise at the pain—not this again! His grip on Shen Qingqiu tightens the more that Shen Qingqiu squirms and Luo Binghe’s mouth presses against the exposed skin of Shen Qingqiu’s neck, less arousing than it was wet and loud and a little ticklish. “I have never known loneliness since Shizun became mine,” Luo Binghe says like an overgrown, smug child, a little leech gnawing away at Shen Qingqiu’s hairline. “Because Shizun loves me.” Another over-enthusiastic kiss to Shen Qingqiu’s jaw. Every part of Shen Qingqiu’s body feels stamped with Luo Binghe. “Right? Shizun loves me?”
Such a sincere and sweet question—Luo Binghe is going to kill Shen Qingqiu if he keeps this up. Shen Qingqiu steals a glance Luo Binghe from the corner of his eye, who waits so sincerely and tenderly it feels like a hook behind Shen Qingqiu’s sternum, pulling at him from the inside. Shen Qingqiu’s hand comes up to rest on Luo Binghe’s jaw. If Shen Qingqiu tilted Luo Binghe’s face closer for a kiss, there were no witnesses and Shen Qingqiu will deny it ever happened to his last breath; Luo Binghe’s face beams with happiness nonetheless, and Shen Qingqiu’s mouth opens easily under Luo Binghe’s when he leans in.
*
“As you can see, nothing is happening in my life currently,” Shen Qingqiu tells Shang Qinghua.
“Uhhhhh that sounds like a lot of things actually,” Shang Qinghua replies.
No, Shen Qingqiu thinks this is exactly what Yue Qingyuan described: When nothing happens, suddenly the most mundane, miniscule nonsense seems to be vitally important. One loses scope of what’s actually a “big deal” when everything is an extremely minor affair. Shen Qingqiu is quite satisfied that they are firmly in the third type of epilogue, in which, by virtue of almost nothing happening, everything seems to be hugely and disproportionately important.
“Third type of what?” Shang Qinghua asks.
Today, it’s Shang Qinghua who’s coming to bother him, rather than the other way around, so they’re sitting under the shade just out behind the bamboo house. Shen Qingqiu has a feeling that Luo Binghe is listening in through the open window, which should probably bother Shen Qingqiu for the sake of privacy, but Shen Qingqiu has long ago resigned himself to the reality that Luo Binghe will vibrate like a kicked dog if asked to draw a boundary, so he’s sort of stopped minding these things. He quickly checks through the window, then does a look around the perimeter, to ensure that Luo Binghe really had gone off to manage his demon empire affairs for the day before he sits down and tells Shang Qinghua about the three types of epilogues.
“And we’re most certainly in the third kind, in which nothing happens,” Shen Qingqiu concludes. “This, of course, makes it very boring and therefore entirely uninteresting to anyone who would try to read it, but thankfully nobody is reading about my life currently, and I’m perfectly happy to live out the rest of my days in a world where nothing happens.”
“You know that you’re not a character in a story, right, bro?” asks Shang Qinghua. “Or did you start thinking about yourself as a character, too?”
“I don’t think of Luo Binghe as a character in a story anymore,” Shen Qingqiu replies acidly. “For that matter, I don’t think of myself as one, either. I’m just keenly aware of the mechanics upon which your universe runs.” He checks off his points on his fingers: “If there’s nothing happening, the universe will invent something. If the plot is still ongoing, another arc will happen. If the end is too predictable, then a plot twist will show up! If the protagonist is in danger, he will surely survive, and if anything bad happens to him, he will inevitably grow stronger and prevail. So: if the story is over, then everything must have been resolved, and nothing else will occur.”
Shang Qinghua is wearing perhaps the most serious expression that Shen Qingqiu has ever seen on him. “I suppose it’s true,” says Shang Qinghua, “that something has to happen in order for there to be a story. Even if it’s stupid things, or cliché things—something’s got to happen. But it sounds like there are things happening. It’s just not adventure and demon-slaying and mystery-solving.”
Shen Qingqiu eyes him from over his teacup. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m just saying, you think that this is an epilogue in which nothing happens only because you don’t get that there are things happening, just by a different genre’s metric of ‘things happening’,” says Shang Qinghua. “Because, bro, it sounds like you’re in a slice of life romance. You’ve got stuff like character development going on.”
Oh, please. First Proud Immortal Demon Way becomes women’s literature, then it’s become a slice of life romance? “What character development? What slice of life? How difficult is it to accept that our lives are boring because the story is over?”
“Fine. Let’s say that we’re still in a universe run primarily by the mechanics of storytelling,” says Shang Qinghua, “and we’re in some weird limbo space because we’re in the epilogue where nothing should happen and the story should be over, except that obviously we’re still here, having this conversation, so therefore something must be happening. So we’ve got to be in the first kind of epilogue, where shit gets made up just so that we have something to do.”
“Nothing is happening,” says Shen Qingqiu. “I keep telling you that. We’re in the third kind of epilogue.”
“No, no, I don’t think that the third kind of epilogue really exists,” says Shang Qinghua. “I seriously disagree with you just on that principle alone. Listen to me—I was the author, not you, so I know what I’m talking about. Readers would read even something as mundane as Luo Binghe cooking dinner. You would have! I know you would have! Because even the mundane has something worth loving because there would be someone, somewhere, out there determined to love it.”
“I would not have paid for that chapter,” says Shen Qingqiu, knowing full well that he would have.
“And you are having character development,” says Shang Qinghua.
“Absolutely not,” Shen Qingqiu announces. “If I were having character development, that would mean that we’re in a story, which we’re not. We’re in an epilogue, which is a useless and redundant add-on to the actual story.”
“That barely makes any sense,” Shang Qinghua complains. “By that virtue, if this universe is still essentially a story written for someone’s entertainment, how do you know that you’re not in love with Luo Binghe just because the narrative requires it?”
Shen Qingqiu freezes.
Sensing the upper hand in the argument, Shang Qinghua presses the advantage: “Right? Since this is a totally different kind of story than the genre we started with, and there’s different conventions for adventure and romance over on the green Jinjiang. It’s sort of inevitable that the male leads will end up together because it’s the genre. It’s the expectation. The readers won’t be satisfied otherwise; nobody likes to open a romance book and feel like they got scammed because the love interest developed too much of a personality and decided to not fall in love with the protagonist. It’s practically—Cucumber-bro, why do you look like that?”
Shen Qingqiu stares at him.
“You—you can hit me with your fan if it’ll help you feel better?” says Shang Qinghua. “Listen, I’m sure that’s not—I’m sure you don’t really… Cucumber-bro, bro, please, say something.”
“Binghe,” says Shen Qingqiu.
Somehow, Luo Binghe manifests from inside the bamboo house instantly at the sound of his name. “FUCK ME how did you do that,” says Shang Qinghua. “Seriously, Shen-shixiong, you really should put a bell on hi—I’m going! Sorry! Going back to An Ding now! I’M GOING,” says Shang Qinghua loudly, as the murderous aura coming from Luo Binghe only increases with every word he says.
“Shizun,” says Luo Binghe as soon as Shang Qinghua disappears. “Are you alright? Did he say something to you?”
“How much of that did you hear?” Shen Qingqiu asks.
“Only as much as Shizun wants me to have,” says Luo Binghe.
Shen Qingqiu shouldn’t give the protagonist any more things to think on; if Luo Binghe were to know too much about the universe he lives in, the System might come back online and rip him a new one like a vengeful ghost—or worse, Shen Qingqiu’s sure that Luo Binghe would find some way to exploit it. After all, that’s what he did with his demonic abilities, with Meng Mo’s dreamwalking, with Xin Mo, with his status as a Heavenly Demon… This protagonist is too clever by half. It gives Shen Qingqiu a headache just trying to think what a man like Luo Binghe would do with knowledge of the fictional universe he’s in…
A romance novel. An epilogue. A story where the love interest always falls in love with the protagonist, and the protagonist always gets the—the girl.
A story written for reader satisfaction.
Is that—is that what this is? Shen Qingqiu is having problems and character development because they’re in a story with a plot and things occurring? Is he in the first sort of epilogue, where the author just invented a bunch of issues just so that Shen Qingqiu would have to undergo last-second character development and give the readers something to pay for?!
Is that what’s been going on this entire time?! He’s been having—he’s been—he’s having character development?!
“Shizun!” says Luo Binghe, and Shen Qingqiu startles. “Shizun, are you alright? This disciple only wants to hear your—”
Shen Qingqiu absolutely can’t let Luo Binghe hear any of this, so instead he grabs Luo Binghe and buries his face in Luo Binghe’s shoulder.
Luo Binghe, who has received a hug from Shen Qingqiu of Shen Qingqiu’s volition perhaps five times in his entire life, goes stiff.
“Shizun,” says Luo Binghe softly. “If you won’t tell me why you’re distressed, then allow this disciple to at least comfort you.”
Who’s distressed?
Who’s distressed?!?!
Nobody here is distressed!!!!!!!!
Shen Qingqiu loves Luo Binghe because he chose to love Luo Binghe! Not because any story told him to. Not because of any narrative or genre or literary device. Definitely not because that’s what would generate reader satisfaction!
He’s not having problems right now for the satisfaction of a story—to give some story a plot! Shen Qingqiu has no problems! Nothing is happening and nothing is being resolved! His day-to-day married life doesn’t exist for someone else’s manufactured satisfaction!
Who would get satisfaction out of torturing Shen Qingqiu of all people, huh? He already finished the story and averted the climax! He got his dream-limbs ripped off and he got infected with Ties That Bind and he got fucked to death—he did his time as being the universe’s punching bag! Anyone who gets a kick out of seeing Shen Qingqiu suffer is a voyeur. A pervert! A lech! What Shen Qingqiu does with his husband in the blissful aftermath of the story concluding is nobody else’s business and Shen Qingqiu hopes that anyone who reads this story chokes and dies and transmigrates!
At some point, Shen Qingqiu started gripping Luo Binghe’s back with his nails in a way that surely must be uncomfortable, except that Luo Binghe looks very enthused about it from the way that he picks up Shen Qingqiu and carries him back into the house. After the first dozen times, Shen Qingqiu has learned that squawking like a chicken is far less dignified than simply allowing Luo Binghe to carry him around, and also that he should probably be grateful whenever Luo Binghe carries him around when they’re not having sex. And maybe it feels good, just a little, that Luo Binghe’s hugs are so tight (when did his sweet, precious disciple achieve this sort of arm strength?). Naturally, Luo Binghe takes them to the bedroom, where he asks if Shen Qingqiu wants anything to eat or drink (he doesn’t) or if he wants Luo Binghe to run him a bath (he doesn’t) or if he wants to explain what happened (he doesn’t!).
Luo Binghe’s expression increasingly darkens in a way that doesn’t bode well for Shang Qinghua in the future.
“Let this disciple get the book you were reading, then,” says Luo Binghe.
“What part of ‘I don’t want you to leave’ don’t you understand?” Shen Qingqiu snaps.
Luo Binghe looks pleased at this, despite how well he tries to pretend he’s dismayed: “Shizun, don’t be angry, I won’t go if you don’t want me to. I’ll stay if you want me to, of course I will.”
Who wants you to stay? Shen Qingqiu would snap under any other circumstances, but the relief of being held almost makes him lightheaded, and Luo Binghe is familiar in a way that nothing else in this world has ever been. Bamboo houses, calligraphy, sword forms, cultivation—these are all things that Shen Qingqiu had to get used to like a foreigner in a strange land, but “Luo Binghe” has always been someone Shen Qingqiu knew cover to cover, better than the back of his own hand, memorized by heart.
Familiarity alone makes Shen Qingqiu sigh when Luo Binghe kisses him, first sweetly and chastely, then—less so, and then Shen Qingqiu sighs for a different reason. Like he’s some kind of chewtoy for a teething puppy! Or a stress ball for a toddler! Is Luo Binghe supposed to be Shen Qingqiu’s stress toy for Shen Qingqiu’s distress, or is it the other way around?! If Luo Binghe wants to comfort Shen Qingqiu, he should act like it! Angrily, Shen Qingqiu winds his arms around Luo Binghe’s neck and draws him in closer, seeking whatever blank, mindless bliss can be found in this unusual marriage of his.
Luo Binghe continues to gnaw at his face, although even Shen Qingqiu has to admit that at some point Luo Binghe has progressed past “gnawing” to “real kissing.” Here’s all the same things about Luo Binghe that Shen Qingqiu has loved for years: His boyish eagerness, his hands roaming everywhere as if Shen Qingqiu’s body is a limited resource that he has to savor before it’s gone, his moments of studied and practiced technique mixed with inelegance that betrays how hard and how desperately Luo Binghe tries to make the experience good for them both.
A chill crawls up Shen Qingqiu’s spine when Luo Binghe puts his hand up his robes.
They’ve only done this exact this dozens of times, but after the conversation with Shang Qinghua, it’s as if the ghost of the romance genre has inhabited Luo Binghe’s body and has come to coerce him into an inescapable wife plot, manifesting one of those dreaded storylines in which some big-breasted lady inevitably loses all her clothes and is reduced to a mindless, fawning clichés. It couldn’t possibly be true, that he had only ever fallen in love with Luo Binghe because the narrative required it—could it? What was this, then? Why did Luo Binghe have to cajole and coerce and coax Shen Qingqiu into even laying with the husband that, ostensibly, Shen Qingqiu had chosen to marry of his own free will? Why did Luo Binghe have to push and shove at Shen Qingqiu like he was a helpless maiden who needed her robes ripped off for the viewer’s entertainment?
Shen Qingqiu can’t take it anymore: He shoves Luo Binghe’s hands off him and flips them over.
“Shizun…?” Luo Binghe asks cautiously. “What’s gotten into you…?”
Nothing has gotten into him! Nothing at all! Not genre convention, not narrative requirements, not contrived romance plotlines! Shen Qingqiu presses Luo Binghe down into the mattress hard and kisses him again, more forcefully, making sure that Luo Binghe knows who’s kissing who. It’s only Shen Qingqiu doing this! It’s only Shen Qingqiu who desires Luo Binghe in his bed in the bamboo house! Look—it’s Shen Qingqiu who tilts Luo Binghe’s head up and kisses him hard, and it’s Shen Qingqiu who licks into Luo Binghe’s mouth until Luo Binghe’s eyes close and bead with overwhelmed tears!
Nobody else. Nothing else! The person doing this to Luo Binghe is Shen Qingqiu, and only Shen Qingqiu!
Luo Binghe has the expression of someone who’s been recently hit over the head when Shen Qingqiu lets him go. Shen Qingqiu pulls Luo Binghe’s sash free in a single decisive move and shoves Luo Binghe’s robes away from his chest, then starts pulling off his own clothes with vengeance.
“If Shizun wants to be on top…” says Luo Binghe weakly.
Shen Qingqiu freezes again. Luo Binghe also freezes. “Ah—Shizun just seems so…” Seeing something on Shen Qingqiu’s expression, Luo Binghe changes tactics immediately: “This disciple is happy to receive whatever Shizun desires.”
Don’t make it sound as if Shen Qingqiu is forcing Luo Binghe into something immoral!
“It’s just that this disciple’s passions got away from him!” says Luo Binghe quickly, as if there is some sort of terrible blunder he’s made that he has to do damage control for. “This disciple only wanted to comfort Shizun, and this disciple’s own desires made him misconstrue Shizun’s intentions… It was this disciple’s lack of control that led him to be over-excited…”
“If you can’t control yourself, I should tie you up,” says Shen Qingqiu tartly.
“Really?” says Luo Binghe hopefully.
Shen Qingqiu stares at him. Luo Binghe, after a moment, puts on his best ‘innocent disciple to be ravished’ expression, as if this will entice Shen Qingqiu to do the aforementioned ravishing.
This is Shen Qingqiu’s husband. His wonderful, horrible, ridiculous, insane, terrifying, loveable husband.
Nobody’s else’s husband. Not a husband anyone else chose for Shen Qingqiu. Not a husband forced upon him by any story or narrative or genre.
His husband.
Slowly, unable to quite meet Luo Binghe’s eyes, Shen Qingqiu slides Luo Binghe’s robes entirely off his shoulders and crawls on top of him.
This position is probably the “right” position—what Shen Qingqiu should be doing with a nice woman underneath him. Luo Binghe has six abs and the biggest chest Shen Qingqiu has ever seen in a way completely unrelated to a woman’s; there’s just no way that Luo Binghe lying underneath him could be in any way mistaken for anything other than a man.
—Well, it’s fine. Shen Qingqiu honestly can’t say he enjoys the idea of being naked in the vicinity of anyone who’s not Luo Binghe, so it’s actually reassuring in an odd way.
And in an extremely odd way, even the feeling of Luo Binghe’s hard cock beneath him is reassuring, too.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Shen Qingqiu says hastily.
“This disciple can’t help it; Shizun makes him too excited…”
Shen Qingqiu knows he does! Luo Binghe has that gleam in his eye that he gets right before he grabs Shen Qingqiu and flips them over and starts pushing Shen Qingqiu’s legs wherever he likes, and in an effort to circumvent their inevitable return to the status quo, Shen Qingqiu presses down harder and levels Luo Binghe with a look. “Behave,” Shen Qingqiu warns him.
As if there were a leash attached to him, Luo Binghe settles down immediately in the picture of obedience. “Shizun really does want to be on top? Shizun really will this time?” he says, doing a poor job of disguising his interest.
Luo Binghe had this sort of interest when it came to sex, but Shen Qingqiu had never really entertained the idea for fear of hurting Luo Binghe. And why should he have had to? Luo Binghe was more than happy to make up for whatever it was that Shen Qingqiu didn’t want to do. “Where’s the oil?” he asks, and Luo Binghe summons it from underneath the bed with terrifying speed, offered up with a painful sort of hope that betrays how long Luo Binghe has thought about this.
Shen Qingqiu really has to keep going before he loses his nerve. But right now, what a nerve it is: Luo Binghe’s high cheekbones dusted with pink, his lips perfectly arched as if begging for Shen Qingqiu’s touch, an entire story’s worth of protagonist halo stretched out and open below him with a wide-eyed desperation for his touch.
If Shen Qingqiu has to explain himself, him and his thin face will simply never survive the ordeal, so he covers his fingers in oil and pushes Luo Binghe’s clothes out of his way with the brusqueness of someone trying hard not to think too deeply about what he’s doing. Luo Binghe hooks his hands behind his own knees and watches when Shen Qingqiu can’t bear to watch anymore; it’s Shen Qingqiu who has to close his eyes in embarrassment when he slips the first finger into Luo Binghe’s hole while Luo Binghe watches with something bordering on disbelief. “Shizun,” Luo Binghe breathes, sounding uncertain, like a skittish deer has come within touching distance and he’s too afraid to make a move in case he scares it away. “Shizun—nnnn—”
There’s a filthy noise coming from where Shen Qingqiu’s fingers are. Shen Qingqiu can feel his face flushed so red that it’s a wonder there’s any blood left in his body at all. “Shizun doesn’t have to worry about hurting this disciple,” Luo Binghe whispers. “This disciple is already adept at… at receiving.”
So Luo Binghe does touch himself like this. So he has been wanting something like this in bed, and it was Shen Qingqiu who was too—too reserved to totally satisfy Luo Binghe.
Reserved about what? Wasn’t it him who encouraged Luo Binghe on when Luo Binghe proposed? Wasn’t it him who accepted?! It really is as if Shang Qinghua was right, and this entire time, Shen Qingqiu was just being forced by narrative convenience into loving Luo Binghe—?!
Shen Qingqiu puts in a second finger and digs into the spot that makes Luo Binghe yelp. “Shi—zun—?” says Luo Binghe in an odd-sounding whine.
“Has Binghe been able to finish like this?”
Luo Binghe doesn’t answer. He breathes hard from his open mouth.
This is not a rhetorical question, Binghe! He needs to know so he can figure out how to have sex with you in a way that isn’t an awful experience for everyone! Please do this master the honor of answering his questions when he has fingers up where the sun doesn’t shine! “Binghe,” says Shen Qingqiu sternly, and perhaps digs his fingers in a little deeper in his annoyance, and Luo Binghe’s dick—jumps and Luo Binghe’s eyeteeth dig into his bottom lip.
“Y—yes,” Luo Binghe says in a high, strained voice.
Shen Qingqiu doesn’t know if he should be scandalized by his disciple’s masturbating habits (despite the fact that he asked for the information and also they’ve done far more explicit things together) or exasperated that Luo Binghe still has the sex drive to masturbate despite how often they have sex. Where is all that cum coming from?! How does Luo Binghe produce all of it?! Even when they sleep together, it’s not an insignificant amount—and there’s more somewhere?!
This is Airplane’s fault somehow.
Luo Binghe makes to move his hand from his eyes, and Shen Qingqiu promptly pinches his thigh hard. Luo Binghe’s mouth opens but he makes no sound. “Yes, what?” Shen Qingqiu says.
“Yes, Shizun,” Luo Binghe says in a small but clear voice, “this disciple h-has been able to finish…”
Well, alright. Luo Binghe had been so obedient when he said it, so Shen Qingqiu doesn’t have the heart to do anything but praise him for it. “Good,” says Shen Qingqiu, to which Luo Binghe bites his lip even harder. “If I ask you a question, you should answer it immediately.” Moaning and whimpering is not a real answer!
“Yes, Shizun!” Luo Binghe says.
“What does Binghe do when he touches himself?”
Luo Binghe again hesitates.
Well, Shen Qingqiu has to know, doesn’t he? It’s not like Luo Binghe comes with any other instruction manuals on how to have sex with him!
For Shen Qingqiu’s peace of mind, he’d rather be the one to receive; if Shen Qingqiu got hurt, he’d already endured worse. If Luo Binghe was hurt—the thought alone was enough to put Shen Qingqiu in a foul mood. Better to bear the responsibility. What happens to Shen Qingiu is his right to forgive and forget, and Shen Qingqiu is already in the habit of forgiving Luo Binghe.
But if they’re going to do this the other way around, then Shen Qingqiu isn’t going to stand for Luo Binghe to bleed and suffer through it for Shen Qingqiu’s benefit. Shen Qingqiu looks him in the eye the way that he does when he wants an answer and he isn’t going to let Luo Binghe hem and haw his way out of it. “Tell me,” Shen Qingqiu orders.
For some reason, this makes Luo Binghe’s eyes go very dark and glassy. Over a practical question! This boy is too excitable to get so bothered about a straightforward request like that.
“I use four fingers,” Luo Binghe says in the tiniest voice Shen Qingqiu has ever heard out of him.
Shen Qingqiu almost keels over. Four? He might as well shove his entire hand up there! How is Shen Qingqiu supposed to compare? His dick isn’t as large as four of Luo Binghe’s fingers—what if Luo Binghe thinks his dick is too small or something?!
“Binghe is too greedy,” Shen Qingqiu murmurs.
Luo Binghe nods quickly. “This disciple is too wanton. This disciple is unruly and badly behaved.”
Well, Shen Qingqiu never said that! That’s a little harsh, isn’t it? Instead of responding, Shen Qingqiu puts in a third finger. The noises are unbearable, but if Shen Qingqiu doesn’t look too hard at what’s happening between Luo Binghe’s legs, he won’t explode from embarrassment. At least the saving grace is that Luo Binghe’s “spot” is fairly obvious from feel alone, and Luo Binghe almost looks cross-eyed when Shen Qingqiu presses into it. “Why are you masturbating like this? Is holding your master not good enough?”
“No! No, never…”
There was probably more to that sentence, but Luo Binghe’s hips are starting to move as if involuntarily. This is frankly one level of hand-eye coordination more than Shen Qingqiu thinks he can handle, and he’s really holding it together with only his own experience in receiving and the skin of his teeth, so he holds Luo Binghe’s hips down to force Luo Binghe to hold his position. Coincidentally, Luo Binghe starts leaking onto his own stomach just then.
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe pants, “may this disciple… have permission to touch himself?”
Shit! Shen Qingqiu knew that he’s supposed to do something with Luo Binghe’s dick, but he’s working up to it, okay? He’s already trying to learn a new skill with his right hand; he thinks he should be exempt from having to figure out how to use his left hand at the same time right now. Let alone his mouth; Shen Qingqiu has tried to use his mouth before and he honestly wasn’t very good at it, and that was when he didn’t have to think about doing something with his hands.
But if he lets Luo Binghe touch himself instead, doesn’t that mean that Shen Qingqiu was too uncoordinated to get his husband off?!
“Has this disciple finished without touching himself?” Shen Qingqiu asks hopefully. Luo Binghe looks like he’s experiencing some sort of religious revelation when he nods. Wow, really? That would be great, and especially great if it could happen soon, because this is a lot of finger movements and Shen Qingqiu’s immortal hand is going to get carpal tunnel at this rate. “Show this master, then.” Luo Binghe’s hips start moving again and Shen Qingqiu presses down harder. “No. Just like this.”
Seriously, Luo Binghe is going to throw off Shen Qingqiu’s entire rhythm if he keeps moving.
“Yes, Shizun,” Luo Binghe croaks.
“Good,” Shen Qingqiu tells him, since good behavior deserves a reward, after all, and Luo Binghe makes a hitched noise like he’s choking.
Luo Binghe keeps staring at Shen Qingqiu like he’s going to disappear if Luo Binghe blinks, which leads to the uncanny sensation of having been stared at for maybe the last five minutes without blinking. Aren’t his eyes getting dry? After a few minutes of this, Shen Qingqiu’s embarrassment quota is at its absolute limit. Please don’t take two hours to finish, Shen Qingqiu begs whatever god of this universe exists that isn’t Shang Qinghua. I know he has the stamina of an ox when he’s on top, but now is not the time to have the stamina to pleasure a hundred virgins! There’s only one of me and I only have one dominant hand!
“I thought Binghe said that he could finish with fingers alone,” Shen Qingqiu murmurs. “Doesn’t Binghe want to be good for this master?”
Luo Binghe flushes all the way down to his collarbones. “This disciple does—this disciple still can…”
“At this rate, this master is just going to leave you here unsatisfied,” says Shen Qingqiu. And what an utterly miserable first attempt at switching positions that would be! Shen Qingqiu gets morose just thinking about the trauma that would probably leave on Luo Binghe’s psyche, all because Shen Qingqiu was so bad at sex that Luo Binghe couldn’t come.
“You can,” Luo Binghe says hoarsely. “Shizun can—do whatever he likes to me.”
Luo Binghe! You don’t have to pretend that this master isn’t failing at his first time trying to be on top just to spare your master’s feelings! “And what about this master’s pleasure?”
“Shizun can still—still take his pleasure.” Luo Binghe’s hand finally goes up to cover his eyes, and he turns his face away like a bashful girl too embarrassed to admit her fantasies. “Shizun can use… this one as he likes. It’s okay if this one doesn’t finish.”
What?! Shen Qingqiu isn’t that sort of awful lover! He still barely wraps his head around the fact that he’s sleeping with a man most days, but surely he’s not so inconsiderate as to leave his partner unsatisfied!
“Luo Binghe,” says Shen Qingqiu, trying not to betray his disbelief in his voice. “You really would let this master use you with no consideration for your pleasure, leave you wanting and unsatisfied, treat you like his plaything for his entertainment, and put you back in your clothes wet and loose and still hard?”
Anyway, Luo Binghe comes at that, for some reason.
Shen Qingqiu is still frozen in place by the time Luo Binghe gets himself together, at which point Luo Binghe’s eyes darken and he enthusiastically licks something off Shen Qingqiu’s face—ah, the thing he’s licking off Shen Qingqiu’s face is Luo Binghe’s cum, which Shen Qingqiu was too surprised to register at the time. There really was quite a spray. Well. Shen Qingqiu also still has three fingers in Luo Binghe’s hole, and most of his higher functioning brain seems to have shut down, so he has no idea if he’s supposed to keep going or pull his fingers out while Luo Binghe drags his sandpaper-tongue along Shen Qingqiu’s cheekbone.
“Sorry,” Luo Binghe says breathlessly. “Shizun. Please don’t be angry that this disciple didn’t ask for permission to finish. It just felt too good. This disciple is really really sorry.”
“It’s alright,” says Shen Qingqiu, somehow, through the great distance of his soul leaving his body. “You just couldn’t help yourself.”
“I really couldn’t,” Luo Binghe agrees with enthusiasm. “This disciple couldn’t restrain himself and disappointed Shizun again. Next time, Shizun shouldn’t allow this disciple to be so undisciplined.”
Luo Binghe looks at Shen Qingqiu hopefully. For some reason, Shen Qingqiu gets the impression that Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe are having two different conversations.
“In fact, it would be okay if Shizun didn’t permit this disciple to finish at all,” Luo Binghe admits shyly. “This disciple always has difficulty controlling himself, and…” Luo Binghe can’t even look at Shen Qingqiu, which is fine, because Shen Qingqiu can barely look at him either. “…it would be a relief… to know that this disciple could not disappoint Shizun again…”
Shen Qingqiu sheds a silent, internal tear for the red-blooded, masculine protagonist who’d satisfied his sexual appetite with hundreds of different women. At his peak, “Bingge” could finish ten times in a night and satisfy a hundred women and still go for more, and now “Bingmei” in front of him is asking Shen Qingqiu to…!
Luo Binghe continues: “So if Shizun wanted to forbid this disciple from… or to prevent this disciple from finishing… maybe Shizun could prevent it with, ah, um, erm, toys, or…”
Shen Qingqiu is going to blow up from shame. He’s really going to die for the third time from having to think about Luo Binghe’s gigantic protagonist pillar in a cock ring—or was Luo Binghe thinking about cock cages? Do they even make cock cages that big?! Like a proper degenerate, Luo Binghe looks too excited to be put off completely by Shen Qingqiu’s total silence.
“Don’t ask for such things so shamelessly,” says Shen Qingqiu at last, and pulls his fingers out. “Binghe will receive what this master decides he’ll receive.”
“Yes, Shizun,” says Luo Binghe, looking somehow even happier at this response than if Shen Qingqiu had agreed. “This disciple only wants to be used exactly the way that Shizun desires.”
All the stress of this experience has made it difficult for Shen Qingqiu to feel very much aroused about anything, and mostly he just feels exhausted. He wants to lie down and sleep for a week. He kisses Luo Binghe a few times, lazy and slow and just for the comfort, although he feels vaguely untethered kissing Luo Binghe from on top of him when it’s usually Luo Binghe holding him down. It’d be nice right around now if Shen Qingqiu didn’t have to make any more life-threatening decisions, such as how many fingers to use and whether or not to touch his husband’s dick.
Although Shen Qingqiu would never admit that Shang Qinghua was right about anything, maybe—just this once—Shang Qinghua had not been wrong about something. Sex was fucking hard when you were on top! Maybe he really should have given Luo Binghe more credit for doing his best, Shen Qingqiu thinks miserably.
And then a little voice in the back of his head, that sounds suspiciously like the System but is really only Shen Qingqiu’s own paranoia, says: +100 Character Development!
AHHHHH!!!
It’s the epilogue! The first kind, where stupid problems happen just so the characters have something to do! Character development is happening! Changes are occurring!
Next thing they know, their epilogue full of useless nonsense fluff will grow problems and plotlines and probably sex pollen, too, and then they’ll have to do things again so the story will keep progressing for reader satisfaction!
All of Shen Qingqiu's happy marital bliss up-ended just so that the story could have problems to solve—
No! Shen Qingqiu refuses! Actually being on top during sex is super easy and Shen Qingqiu will continue to take Luo Binghe’s heartfelt efforts in bed for granted!
When Shen Qingqiu pulls away, Luo Binghe has tears in his eyes. Stricken, Shen Qingqiu hurries to wipe them away, but Luo Binghe shakes his head. “This disciple is just so happy,” he says wetly. Shen Qingqiu wipes the tears away anyway as Luo Binghe says, “Although we’ve been together for some time now, this disciple promised never to take Shizun’s affection for granted. The fact that Shizun really does desire me is more than I could have ever hoped for.”
“This master has always—!”
Shen Qingqiu can’t quite bring himself to finish his sentence, so instead he flicks Luo Binghe on the forehead, right over the demon mark. “Don’t talk about yourself so disparagingly,” he mutters. “Has this master not shown you exactly how he feels about you?”
“Will Shizun show this disciple a little more?” says Luo Binghe. He looks like he’s one second away from batting his eyes like a schoolgirl, which is a very strange juxtaposition from the straightforward way Luo Binghe’s hand is now stroking Shen Qingqiu’s cock. “This disciple didn’t get to feel Shizun inside him.”
“It’ll be too sensitive,” Shen Qingqiu warns him. This aspect of sex is one that Shen Qingqiu is personally very familiar with, at least.
Instantly Luo Binghe’s tear-filled eyes look like he’s about to turn on the waterworks. “I want to feel Shizun,” says Luo Binghe in a wavering voice.
“Alright, alright,” Shen Qingqiu says hastily. No more crying, please, or Shen Qingqiu is going to think he’s doing a terrible job again. Crying after sex is a whole level of cliché trope that Shen Qingqiu can’t handle! Shen Qingqiu kisses at the parts of Luo Binghe’s stomach that aren’t covered in cum until Luo Binghe switches over to pleased satisfaction. “But it might hurt, Binghe.”
“Do you think so?” says Luo Binghe hopefully.
This masochist! Shen Qingqiu pinches Luo Binghe’s thigh again before he can think better of it, and Luo Binghe’s horrible monster of a cock twitches with interest. No! Down, boy! If Luo Binghe gets it up again, they’ll really be here for another four hours, and then Shen Qingqiu really will just give up and put Luo Binghe away still hard!
Despite how much sex they have on the regular, Shen Qingqiu has—ah—not exactly had the opportunity to put his dick in things. Or people. He can’t even say he was a person who masturbated very much in either one of his lives. Although Luo Binghe isn’t too tight after how thoroughly he was stretched, it turns out that being the person on top is a lot more of an awkward position than Shen Qingqiu thought it would be. There’s so many legs. Where are all four of these legs supposed to go? And Shen Qingqiu’s presumably supposed to move his hips, although he isn’t entirely sure… how. Is he supposed to move with his stomach or his legs? Both? And there’s this mortifying squelching noise that happens whenever he moves, and Luo Binghe is looking at him with these big eyes full of hopeful anticipation, and the threat of Luo Binghe having a terrible first time receiving practically breathes down Shen Qingqiu’s neck, and…
No! Shen Qingqiu isn’t having character development! Being on top is easy and fun. Being on top is easy and fun!
Luo Binghe’s dick isn’t quite hard, but it still leaks fluid whenever Shen Qingqiu brushes against that spot. He goes slowly, mindful of any pain that Luo Binghe might be and feeling like he’s trying to do calculus in his head with the effort of trying to figure out a rhythm, but by the time he works up to an actual steady pace, Luo Binghe hasn’t closed his mouth in at least three minutes, letting delicate little moans into the air. Like this, Shen Qingqiu can see his eyeteeth start to lengthen, and out of curiosity, Shen Qingqiu puts his fingers in Luo Binghe’s mouth and holds it open. Luo Binghe shudders.
There’s a lot of saliva. Luo Binghe’s jaw goes slack for Shen Qingqiu’s examination, holding himself in position for Shen Qingqiu’s viewing. Forgetting to be self-conscious, Shen Qingqiu leans over in an attempt to look at his mouth. Luo Binghe can lean over Shen Qingqiu easily because he’s taller, but for Shen Qingqiu, he practically has to bend Luo Binghe in half in order to get him in the right position.
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe whines, and he clenches down, and Shen Qingqiu’s hips stutter as he feels Luo Binghe’s walls around him.
Unfortunately, he nearly falls over and has to steady himself with his hand, meaning that he shoves two fingers into Luo Binghe’s mouth. Luo Binghe chokes and tears up and, before Shen Qingqiu can frantically apologize, sucks his fingers in deeper until he chokes again. What the fuck! Shen Qingqiu feels drunk as Luo Binghe’s thighs tighten around his waist. When he pushes in again, Luo Binghe’s cock gives a little spurt of clear fluid. Shen Qingqiu can feel Luo Binghe’s teeth sharpening around his fingers and for a terrifying second he’s certain that Luo Binghe will bite down clear through his fingerbones, and reflexively, Shen Qingqiu’s fingers press down on Luo Binghe’s tongue along the back of his throat and his thumb digs in hard to Luo Binghe’s jaw.
Luo Binghe looks at him with the huge eyes that he gives Shen Qingqiu whenever he’s pleasuring Shen Qingqiu with his mouth: the picture of obedience, utterly sincere, weirdly innocent even as he works up a filthy amount of saliva along Shen Qingqiu’s cock. The little flatterer does it because he knows it works! In an attempt to appeal to Shen Qingqiu’s easily embarrassed nature, Luo Binghe became a minx when he sucks cock! And the worst thing is that just looking at his face now, Shen Qingqiu’s gut lurches in a trained response. “Binghe,” he gasps, and Luo Binghe works his tongue along the underside of Shen Qingqiu’s fingers with such enthusiasm that Shen Qingqiu swears he can feel it on the underside of his cock instead.
A familiar pleasure starts to build in Shen Qingqiu’s gut just as a hundred alarm bells start going off in Shen Qingqiu’s head that he’s making a fool of himself and his face must be an unflattering red from exertion and he’s losing control of the pace he set, and he winds up stopping entirely. What a stupid thing to do! Isn’t the point of having sex to get to the part where you orgasm?! And just when he feels himself reaching a climax, he stops?!
Even Shen Qingqiu doesn’t know how to explain this to himself. Luo Binghe moans something against Shen Qingqiu’s fingers. “Just—let me—have a moment,” Shen Qingqiu says through gritted teeth.
Luo Binghe doesn’t let him have a moment. Luo Binghe flips them over and sinks back down on Shen Qingqiu’s cock so fast that Shen Qingqiu cries out too loud. “Shizun, does it feel good?” Luo Binghe asks breathily. “It feels good for me. Does it? Does it?”
Shen Qingqiu’s mouth is wide open as he grips Luo Binghe’s thighs for dear life. “Ah, ah,” he says, intelligently, and jerks like a caught fish underneath Luo Binghe as he begins to ride him. Half of Shen Qingqiu wants to ask Luo Binghe where he learned to ride someone like that, but the other half of him has no coherent thoughts at all and is mostly a garbled mess of sounds that make their way out of his mouth in huge, heaving gasps. “Binghe!” he shouts, and thrashes once before he comes hard, deep inside Luo Binghe.
Luo Binghe smiles with all his teeth. His incisors are still long and sharp against his wet, red mouth.
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe croons, peppering Shen Qingqiu’s face with kisses as Shen Qingqiu fights to catch his breath. “I can feel Shizun’s cum inside me. It feels even better than I imagined.”
Luo Binghe has turned into a succubus, Shen Qingqiu thinks weakly. He’s unlocked some extremely dangerous part of Luo Binghe by indulging Luo Binghe’s weird kinks, and from the manic gleam in Luo Binghe’s eyes, Shen Qingqiu will never be able to put back when he’s unearthed. “Wh—what are you doing?” Shen Qingqiu asks raspily as Luo Binghe starts to stroke his own cock while still sitting on Shen Qingqiu’s.
“This disciple got excited again,” Luo Binghe says, looking supremely unapologetic about it. “Shizun, just stay here so that I can feel you still inside me. I’ll do all the work this time.”
A sex demon! Shen Qingqiu wants to wail, whimpering as Luo Binghe’s hole tightens around Shen Qingiqu’s soft cock.
*
Although Luo Binghe asks again what Shang Qinghua said to him, Shen Qingqiu never tells Luo Binghe.
How was Shen Qingqiu supposed to explain? The argument that Shang Qinghua and Shen Qingqiu had had about the nature of the story they’re in wasn’t something that Shen Qingqiu could modify into a xianxia-equivalent story, the way that Shen Qingqiu could find an xianxia-equivalent of explaining his reading habits.
In the end, this is still fine, Shen Qingqiu thinks as he lays in bed that night with Luo Binghe. He’s just about to drift off to sleep, feeling exhausted and significantly less stressed after the amount of orgasms Luo Binghe wrung out of him. Luo Binghe doesn’t need to know about these things. After all, Shen Qingqiu is certain that he doesn’t love Luo Binghe because the narrative requires it.
Looking up at Luo Binghe’s half-asleep face, Shen Qingqiu hopes—no, he swears, the way that Luo Binghe swore to always be as happy as the very first day that Shen Qingqiu returned his feelings, the way that Shen Qingqiu swore to remain in faithful marriage to him two years ago. Shen Qingqiu swears that Shen Qingqiu loves his husband because he loves Luo Binghe, not some story.
Because he had always loved Luo Binghe, in his own way, even back when he had just read about Luo Binghe as a character on Zhongdian Literature! This is his own love and nobody else’s! Not a narrative’s—not a genre’s—his!
Shen Qingqiu will never accept coercion into someone else’s narrative. If there was any narrative, it was his own, one that he’d made, one that he’d chosen. He loves Luo Binghe on purpose. He does. He does.
Yes, he does. He really does.
—And he isn’t having any character development!