Chapter Text
... Whoa.
Shen Yuan took a step closer to the edge of the terrace, mouth hanging oh-so-slightly open. All around, far below, spilled hundreds of natural pools cascading into each other, shimmering like the rainbow scales of a titanesque carp. The dampness of the nearby waterfall stuck to his skin, snowmelt-fresh, and when he looked over the edge he saw wisps of silver and gold clouds rising from the place where the mountain river hit the boiling waters of the emerging hot spring.
The geology made no goddamn sense, but it was so grandiose.
"Can you take photos?" he asked, blindly poking at the jade pendant hanging from his belt. All around the carp scales pools rose immense pillar-shaped mountains; toward the cooler, lower end of the spread they leaned into each other until they joined like the arches of a skyscraper-sized church...
Or maybe the ribcage of motherfucking Godzilla.
Airplane's description had used certain lizardly metaphors...
[^o^ Answering host! ^o^]
[^o^ Nope! ^o^]
[u_u Host does not have the level necessary to unlock that feature. u_u]
[>.> If only Host were doing interesting things, maybe he *could* level up... >.>]
Shen Yuan frowned, incredulous. "I'm hanging around the actual Rising-Toward-Heaven-Gilded-In-Riches hot springs in the actual world of an actual xianxia novel, and you call that not interesting?"
[u_u Has Host ever been told he has old man tastes? u_u]
"Shut up." He waved his hand through the translucent screens stacking under his nose, blocking his view of the paysage. They didn't even pretend to dissipate. "I'm not on an adventure, I'm on a vacation."
What adventure was there to be had, anyway? He was in this world, open wide for him to explore. The adventures were Bing-ge's. He'd be more than happy enough to drink a pint at an actual xianxia tea shop and eavesdrop on the awed whispers of the people who lived in it.
Ahh... What a magnificent day. He fiddled with his clothes until he found the opening to his qiankun sleeve, and pulled out a Subway sandwich.
"Should have brought tea and baozi," he sighed as he sat on the damp rock to admire the view. "Oh well. Next time, maybe."
Next time, he would trust in his weird spiritual tamagotchi, and get ready in style. Blanket, little dishes, kettle -- a way to make it hot.
"Do I have any water-heating talismans?" he mused between two bites. "Kind of essential for proper tea..."
[u_u Next time Host visits, he is strongly advised to don the White Wig of Wisdom. u_u]
"Ohh. Cultivation boost?"
[u__u In-characterness of Host's old man roleplay. u__u]
----------------
#1 N°1 Eternal War God
Feast your eyes on the most badass cosplay you have ever seen! The font of manliness, the peerless master, the only rival Bing-ge will ever have...!!!
liuqingge_1.png ; liuqingge_2.png ; liuqingge_3.png#2 N°1 Eternal War God
Perfect replica of Cheng Luan blade, I pumped iron for six months for the all-natural chest muscles (hahaha), and there's even a little sword charm matching little sister Mingyan's for the gege appeal! This cosplay will be debuted in full during the next Shanghai convention, come and get your photos after the contest!#3 Littlest Cutest YingYingYing
Awww the little charm is so adorable!!!! Secret brocon Liu-gege~#4 Cang Qiong Mountain Stair-Cleaning Manager
The all natural chest is also cute >:3c#5 Peerless Cucumber (Expert)
... Is that a repurposed Japanese kimono? Are you honestly saying that covering the sober, dignified, strong-and-silent Liu Qingge's body with fancy belts and embroidery to break up the outline of *the wrong garment entirely* and distracting the viewer from it via slutting it up is good cosplay?My apologies, I have unfairly maligned you -- it's a YUKATA. For those who don't know the difference, it is exactly that of silk versus cheap cotton.
Just like the difference between an actual effort-grown chest and one shaped with badly blended makeup. There are still fingerprints in the hollow by your bottom left rib. Tssk.
#6 grass your mother and fuck your horse
Everyone pack it up, the quality check expert has shown up to close the thread#7 Peerless Cucumber (Expert)
#6, I have no issue with the cosplay itself but don't present it as the best and manliest when you can't even be bothered to source a local hanfu. The contest judges will laugh him out of the lineup.By the way, regarding the charm... Tyrian does not mean *green*. You might assume this is Airplane's lackadaisical approach to continuity but out of seven color references to Liu Mingyan's sword charm, six were direct comparisons to orchids and amethysts and other lazy bullshit, and the seventh was a reference to her veil, which is, let's consult the database... lavender!
#8 N°1 Eternal War God
Someone looked at my abs reeeeeal close there... Jealous??You keep going about quality control like we could actually source authentic materials, you remember we're in real life? Who cares if it's not real so long as it gives the right feel? Spoken as someone who's never gotten off his gamer chair and can only piss on the efforts of others, do better if you can
#9 The People's Daily Salute To The Heavens
/eating popcorn by the bucket(things are heating up in the war god fandom!!!!!)
#10 Peerless Cucumber (Expert)
You know what, I think I will. See you at the contest.#11 The People's Daily Salute To The Heavens
:O GASP#12 Littlest Cutest YingYingYing
#11 ditto, :O GASP#12 Little Sister Connoisseur
#11 #12 ditto ditto, :O GASPGASP#13 grass your mother and fuck your horse
Yeah ok i'll also give it a gasp.
--
Shen Yuan's life was perfectly satisfactory.
Boring as shit, but satisfactory.
Moved out for university, check. Rich parents paying for his apartment, check. Working on a supposedly versatile degree he didn't know what to do with, check. Vaguely toying with the idea of switching majors from economics to education -- maybe to become an art teacher? --, but that would require discussing it with his parents who'd been planning to get him a job at the family firm, but they were okay with his gap year, and...
He had to admit, he might have to be thankful to Mister n°1 Eternal Cheap Copy.
Reading PIDW's new chapters filled maybe a half-hour of his days. Commenting, another half-hour. Updating his reference files in cases of new lore also...
But that asshole had thrown the gauntlet, and Shen Yuan was about to throw it back into his face.
Say what you will about Airplane Shooting Toward The Sky, he was meticulous about making the outfits look cool. Absolutely unrealistic, but this was high fantasy, not pure martial arts. Weird ribbons and young human ladies showing positively indecent bare calves were par for the course.
Therefore, Shen Yuan spent a couple of weeks speed-rereading to update his excel files with every single reference to the style of everybody's clothes when and why (alas, torn-during-a-fit-of-passion alterations included), downloaded the commissioned official art, downloaded the fanart Airplane had thumbed up (even if some of it seemed thumbed up for cleavage or ridiculousness instead of correctness)--
And then he learned new things. Like drawing detailed character reference sheets, making a pattern, sourcing cloth (so many wasted bolts of inferior taffeta in his cupboards); he had learned to use his mother's sewing machine (bonding time! Unexpected and pleasant!) and then he had learned how to make fake armor and how to make belt charms and how to style a wig, and then, at the end, he had gone to his sister, hat in hand, to ask to be taught how to apply makeup.
Never mind that (he'd checked) cosplay was judged on the costume, not the body of the person inhabiting it. He was not going to do Great Master Liu the dishonor of a pimply face.
"You ready?" Shen Jiaying asked, uselessly, before he went out on stage.
"No but it's too late for that, holy fucking shit why did you let me do this."
She laughed in his face, and thwapped his chest with the back of her hand. "You look fine. You're not gonna win though."
"Yeah, no." Considering that even just amongst the PIDW crowd there was an Abyss Binghe complete with red-light-lined Xin Mo and ultra-fine gauze floating all around as demon qi thanks to a very clever little fan sewn into the back of his belt, he was not expecting to. The Yue Qingyuan was good too, and the triplet nuns, and-- ahh, he really was in the infancy stage of this hobby, wasn't he.
The other Liu Qingge was here, though. Fuck that guy and his half-assed sleeves.
"You got a skit planned?"
"Of fucking course I have a skit planned, I plan to be a stone cold badass who doesn't need to have a skit."
"Ahh, the old staring down the crowd with your resting bitch face on."
"Yep." He took a deep breath, lowered his shoulders. Think Liu Qingge thoughts, he told himself. "Didn't register for that part. I just want to place above that guy in craftsmanship and accuracy. No time to come up with, you know. Theater."
"Aw. Next time, though?"
"Yeah, su-- wait, I never said there would be a next time," Shen Yuan protested, side-eyeing his sister. She grinned up at him, and tugged his collar straight, and there was no time to protest some more because then he was called onstage.
"Next up, number 47, Peerless Cucumber, cosplaying Liu Qingge of Proud Immortal Demon Way!"
He squared his shoulders, rested a hand on the pommel of his sword, and marched out.
It felt a little like floating. The noises of the crowd, the sweltering heat of the lights, the jury tumbled around his brain like waves rolling him to and fro. He came to a stop at the edge of the stage, head tilted just enough to let a lock of hair fall across his eyes.
The lesser Liu Qingge had slipped out of the backstage area to meet -- friends, he assumed, gathered close to the edge and laughing together, only he wasn't laughing now, mouth hanging dumbly and the makeup inventing muscles on his chest oh so slightly dripping. Shen Yuan scoffed under his breath, tossed his head proudly, and, grabbing scabbard in one hand and sword in the other hand, slashed it free.
Somebody toward the jury whistled admiringly.
Liu Qingge wouldn't care about that. Narrowing his eyes -- faintly, Liu Mingyan never had big expressions -- he started pacing slowly around the stage, so they could see the back of the costume too. Gliding, hunting steps, slow twirls of his blade -- the War God of Cang Qiong -- and then a last about-turn, a lofty half-bow, and he was done. He was walking out.
His heart was beating so hard he barely heard his sister congratulating him. Was there applause? There was applause. Some. More than he'd thought. More than that guy. Nice.
"Look at that!"
Shen Jiaying shoved her phone under his nose.
#1 Littlest Cutest YingYingYing
ALERT! ALERT! Your cosplay correspondent reporting for duty!! The first upset of the day is...
Old Master Peerless Cucumber is hot???
huh.png ; haaaah.png ; sword-twirl.gif ; closeup_eyes.png ; gasp.png
Shen Yuan blinked. "The wonders of good makeup."
He refreshed the page as his sister elbowed him. Five more comments already. Um.
Three of them seemed to be other brothers in stallion novels, who were appropriately aghast and revolted. One of them was calling him a traitor to all basement nerds. He cracked a smile.
#18 grass your mother and fuck your horse
That's a really good costume actually... Damn, are we gonna have to start taking him seriously now?#19 Peerless Cucumbert (Expert)
You should be taking me seriously every day of your life. You think that expert title is a joke?
He watched the thread fill up with compliments and heckling, requests that he make his own thread with close-up pics and all that. It filled his chest with warmth and amusement. Cosplaying was kind of cool actually. More than just the cold satisfaction of putting half-assers in their places.
"Happy?"
He slid a thumb down the cool silk of his sword tassel. "Yeah... I suppose. Yeah."
"Then you're about to be even happier," she replied with a smirk that immediately had him wary. "The author of your trash book is asking you guys if you wanna meet him for autographs after the results, he has like ten minutes before his next panel."
Asjlsdkfg. "YES. I'm going to murder him with my teeth. Where's my notebook? No wait, I've got lists bookmarked in my comment history--"
"San-ge -- San-ge! They're calling out the results now!"
"Yeah, yeah, who cares, I'm not placing anyway--"
"But are you placing above that guy? Jeeze, I help you set up your great revenge and you drop it just before you get to cackle. Come on."
Shen Yuan bit back a laugh. "Okay, okay, fine. Let's check it out."
He was right in that he didn't place in the top three.
He placed in the top ten. The guy was nineteenth.
He got screeched at by his sister, then asked for pictures by happy randos, got his back enthusiastically patted by one of the three nuns, and then he was finally allowed to follow the rest of his brethren in PIDW into the side room where laired the architect of his suffering.
Airplane Shooting Toward The Sky was kind of short, with a round face and messy hair (not deliberately.) He was also beaming with all his teeth, gums showing a little. "Ayooo! Hey guys! Group selfie?"
Several people had a phone stick, so they did a group selfie. Then the table was mobbed by the three nuns and a Sha Hualing who probably hadn't spent too much money on her costume materials, and had already switched her stage slippers for combat boots. Shen Yuan Just So Happened to stand near the other Liu Qingge for one of the sisters to take a stealth comparison pic of.
"Hey. Fun times, yeah?"
The inferior version smiled tightly, chest muscles bulging up and down, and loomed. "Ahaha, yeah." Then he flexed his biceps for some weird reason and went to squeeze supposedly-playfully at Shen Yuan's. "Are you sure you shouldn't have cosplayed the sister?"
Shen Yuan was only saved from prison by a laughing man's voice.
"Actually, he's the one who's more canon-accurate."
Both Liu Qingges turned to stare at Great Master Airplane, who had leaned over his table to grin at them both.
"What are you spewing," Shen Yuan couldn't help shooting back, incredulous. "The War God is a twink now?" Ah, not that Shen Yuan was a -- fuck, no, don't blush, glare instead. "You're trying to tell us the strongest warrior--"
"Is using qi to be that strong, so who cares about the beef, bro. No, you want canon beefy, you want Mobei-jun. Now that man is stacked." Airplane nodded wisely. His eyes were twinkling. How insufferable. "Liu-gege? I'm not saying he's not, you know, sculpted, but with his clothes on, he's basically his sister with slightly flatter tits."
Hhhh.
"I mean, not smaller, necessarily, just not--" He made a bowl shape over his chest.
"... I hate you so much."
"Aww, thanks, sugarplum. No but seriously your cosplay is great, you just need a beauty spot and fancy wrist braces, like -- yeah, just like that, Luo-gege, wow, those are cool." He turned from the cool Bing-ge with the gauze flames back to Shen Yuan. "Anyway, have you ever given a thought to cosplaying Shen Qingqiu? He's like, your soul animal."
... Motherfucker. "I would ask if your soul animal is Ming Fan but that boy is sometimes useful and can mostly follow basic logic."
"Yeah, great! Just like that. Or you could do Qi Qingqi, you've got enough bitey for either one--"
"I am not crossplaying either what the fuck!"
--
So after that he fell into cosplay. A little bit. Just a little bit. He refined his Liu-gege costume (fuck Airplane for ruining his mental picture of the man but also fuck Airplane for making him feel stupid twice in a row -- "he's Liu Mingyan's brother lolol of course such a face can't come from a pretty mom and a wild bear, Liu-mama chose a guy on her level ofc" and then "why he doesn't need a veil too? Uhh, bro, bothering him was the same as volunteering for a spar, people learned to thirst from afar.") and then made a Gongyi Xiao (not super fancy, the guy was just a first disciple and would not have money for the bling, but a great costume to walk around the con in) and his great revenge on Airplane: a Mobei-jun.
He wanted to see his face as the guy had to congratulate him while totally lacking in beefy.
There was a Most Accurate award and Airplane Shooting Toward The Sky was an official guest judge this time around and Shen Yuan was going to rub his face in it.
--
#7 Littlest Cutest YingYingYing
Did... did Great Master Airplane just yell OH FUCK YOU at the contestants??#8 grass your mother and fuck your horse
AHAHAHA IT'S YOUNG MASTER CUCUMBER
HOLY SHIT HE CAME AS MOBEI JUN#9 Littlest Cutest YingYingYing
All is explained. Pfaaah.
--
Mobei-jun didn't smile, so Shen Yuan didn't smile either until he was told to approach the judges' podium to get his prize straight from Airplane's own hands.
Then he gave him the unhinged grin and middle finger of a triple-mawed hyena.
"Nooooo, you're ruining it! Lemme feel that fur, bro, did you actually murder a snow leopard with your bare hands for it -- c'mon, just a little fondle--"
"Give me my prize and put your fingers away or I'll take them as well, human."
Airplane put a hand over his heart and stared dreamily. "If your voice was even half an octave lower I'd bend right over this table."
Spluttering, Shen Yuan snatched the little cloth satchel out of Airplane's hand. Like hell he was gonna let that asshole unsettle him, he'd played gay chicken with way more intense people, okay? "You're quite daring to think this lord would soil himself with your pathetic self."
"Ahh, this humble servant apologizes, he forgot himself. My king is too magnificent." A wide grin. "If a little... Leaner-looking than usual?"
"Do not presume to comment on this king," Shen Yuan retorted haughtily, and spritzed him in the face with the chilled water spray cunningly pumped through a tube up his sleeve, half for cosplay accuracy and half because, chest out or not, the fur got really fucking hot.
Airplane spluttered satisfyingly, and then started laughing his ass off, which was also good since it enabled Shen Yuan to nod politely to the boggling members of the jury and flounce out.
He spritzed himself on the way, while he was at it. The blue LEDs hidden amongst the fur made the water sparkle nicely.
--
"So how many pictures have you been asked for today?"
Shen Yuan closed his hotel room door with his heel and dropped his bags on the bed. "I didn't count."
"Okay!" his sister chirped. "But how many?"
"... Twenty-three separate occasions, several poses for some of them."
She laughed at him. Shen Yuan took a selfie of his unimpressed scowl accented by slashes of kohl and a blue huadian to send her, then put the phone down so he could shrug off the massive coat. There were secret straps to undo; fake fur was just as slippery as real fur and the thing would never have stayed in place on its own.
"I knew it. Uuugh, wish I could have come with you! What do you have planned now?"
"I'm going to eat my sandwich, take a nap, and then change into Gongyi Xiao. There's a panel on -- ah, writing crafts at eight thirty that sounds pretty okay."
"You can say it's about writing porn, you know."
"Meimei! Don't be gross."
It was a panel on the worst sex scenes you'd ever read about and what they were doing wrong about it. He was looking forward to the fuel for his chapter reviews.
"Hmm? Hmmmmmmm?"
"It's about criticizing porn," he muttered.
He went about putting his Mobei-jun cosplay away as his sister laughed at him.
"Hey, show me the other guy? I'm going to the movies tonight, I can't wait around for pictures."
"Ah? Who are you going with?" he asked suspiciously.
"I'll tell you if you show me."
"Hrmgh. Fine. But no makeup."
He washed off the huadian and ghost-pale foundation over the shitty sink, then threw on the three layers of gold-and-cream robes over his Mobei pants and somewhat-mongolian-inspired fur boots. It looked... very mismatched in style, but at least the colors went alright together.
"There, now spill."
"You forgot the wig!"
"Fuck. Okay. Wig." Mobei-jun's wig was a dark midnight blue, artfully tousled and entirely unrestrained. Gongyi Xiao's was a smooth seal brown, falling like a sheet of wet silk. He situated it properly over his hair net, then started combing it back for the high bun. "But after that you'd better talk."
It was a bit fun to have mid-back hair. He didn't mind as much as he thought. Could do some showy flicks and the like. Still more convenient to be able to take it off when he got too stuffy, though, but when it streamed in the breeze? Hell yeah he felt cool.
He cinched the bun with a golden guan his mom had found in an antique shop, made sure his hair fell flawlessly smooth, thought dependable big-brother thoughts, and then smiled into the camera.
"Cute! Way more low-key than Mobei for sure. Is that all the accessories you have?"
"I've got the sword and a Huan Hua token and some embroidered bracers that take ages to put on. Spill." He scowled, ruining the Gongyi Xiao affability, partly because he'd just noticed he still had the demon claws on. He went to get a bowl of hot water to soak them off. (Damn but fake nails took a lot of effort. The claw rings he'd found online didn't look right, though. Maybe next con he would do all-demons so he didn't have to put them on for a bare handful of hours, what a waste.)
"Show me the sword?"
"Not now, nails are soaking. Stop trying to dodge the question, who are you going to the movies with?"
"Oh hey, I think somebody rang the doorbell--"
"Shen Jiaying, don't you dare--"
"It's Yunyun!" she burst out laughing, and disconnected.
Shen Yuan spent a minute or ten staring at nothing, hands in his bowl of hot water. That brat had just worked him into a tizzy over her best girl friend. He was going to take his revenge for sure.
Okay, ugh, ugh. Claws off his fingers, cleaned, put away safely in their little case. He looked down at his fur boots with the leather strings knotted all around. Why hadn't he planned a zipper. What if he went out as Gongyi Bluepants. Nobody would know, he was sure.
..Hell, he could put Mobei-jun's dusky blue bracers over his sleeves to pretend it was deliberate, and do Gongyi Xiao properly tomorrow. Tonight he could be Background Huan Ha Palace Half-asser number seventeen, only still with the sect so he could access their map room or their libraries and whatnot.
He sat on the bed with a sigh and a sandwich -- and the little cloth bag he'd tucked into his belt dug into his hipbone. Ow.
Oh, right. Airplane's little prize bag. He undid the knot and upended it onto his lap, curious. Out tumbled a pendant -- a belt charm, probably, it was too big to be put on a sword pommel; a braided length of white silk strings that cradled an egg-shaped, mirror-smooth green stone on one end, with a tassel underneath...
He turned it around and found a little screen and three buttons.
... Did the fucker gift him a Tamagotchi?
"I'm amazed," he said to the egg. "That bastard got me good." It didn't even feel like plastic, cool and silky like water under his thumb. He bet the pet was dead, or it was something stupid like a devil or a -- he didn't even remember what variants there were.
=> CREATE NEW &*$$#
=> SAVED &*$$#
=> STATS
... Could you save several tamagotchis per egg now? Being able to switch it out and put it in stasis seemed to defeat the spirit of 'this is your child, you've raised it into the little shit it is and now it's starving, good fucking job' stress game. Anyway the "saved" option was grayed out. The stats had one-digit numbers, but the names of the categories were glitched. He was gonna create a new egg just to watch it die in its own piles of shit at this rate. What the fuck, Airplane. As revenge went, this one was just... really weird.
"Fine, let's create a new keysmash," he muttered to himself, selecting the option.
Despite himself he was a little intrigued. Sometimes that stupid author was kind of clever, so maybe--
NAME : ????
Background Huan Ha Palace Half-asser #17RACE : Human, Cultivator
STATS : Strength: 4 ; Endurance: 3 ; Golden Core stage : Early Foundation Establishment
EQUIPMENT : Cheap Gilded Sword, Gongyi Xiao's Long Lost Sect Entry Token, Stolen Demon Bracers, Stolen Demon Boots,
Pilfered Cultivation Manual(not procured),Pilfered Map(not procured),Pilfered Talismans(not procured)SPECIAL : None
STATUS : Healthy
= SAVE CHANGES =
... It wasn't a tamagotchi. It was a little pixelated person, barely half a thumb's nail high, with RPG stats on the side. What the hell? Had Airplane gutted it for the casing and uploaded some kind of indie game instead? And the name--
--What the fuck. What the fuck.
SAVE CHANGES pulsed at him. Shen Yuan stared at it, transfixed. The cheap greenish monochrome screen shouldn't have been able to glisten blue. 'Artistic choice' went through his mind, floating far above a sudden, buzzing quiet, a frozen fascination.
SHEN, he started to type, and then backtracked. No. This was a character. Naming it after him didn't feel right.
It felt like a deal with the devil, actually.
JIN ZHENGSHENG, he entered. Bam, gold like the uniform, righteous-sound (the sound of it but not the substance), the end. Hm, that character sounded like a bit of a dick actually. A bit of a lowlife.
No other field could be modified. Heart beating in his throat and temples for a stupid reason he would not think about, he clicked to save.
Nothing happened. The screen flickered to show it was saved, and that was it. Shen Yuan let out a long, groaning huff, feeling a bit ridiculous--
Under the profile was now a section called LOCATIONS.
- Huan Hua Palace (outer disciples male dorms)
- Black Ice Fields (shallow cave)
- Rising-Toward-Heaven-Gilded-In-Riches hot springs (western peak)
- Hua Yue city (leatherworks area)
...Holy shit. Was -- was this a roleplay game? It was -- no, he'd always told himself he wasn't going to spend time playing the idiot in denial if anything like weird urban fantasy or transmigration ever happened to him, there was a character based on some thoughts he'd had in his head.
He selected the hot springs.
He couldn't select the hot springs.
Okay. Okay okay okay. Dorms then. Come on, weirdass tamagotchi. Oh fuck, what if he ran into Luo Binghe, haha, wouldn't that be fucked up or what--
The bed disappeared from under him. Shen Yuan landed on his ass with a startled little yelp, barely smothered in time.
He... he was...
... he really was...
"Are you alright?"
Shen Yuan twitched. Someone in the room with him -- a long room, a row of beds, middling calligraphy on cheap paper... Was this really the gilded, richest sect Huan Hua? Or did they just not care to spend money on the outer disciples--
"Need help?"
Some nondescript guy in a simple (relatively) gold-and-cream uniform held out his hand. Shen Yuan grabbed it and dragged himself back to his feet, nodding his thanks. Maintaining his poker face was so damn hard while he was trying to read the guy to figure out if he was suspicious, if Jin-xiong was somebody he knew--
"This disciple is Ouyang Peizhi. And shidi...?"
Oh thank fuck, he wasn't. Shen Yuan was free to invent away.
"Jin Zhengsheng, shixiong. This disciple is only recently returned from a long excursion." He batted some dust off his -- his blue Mobei pants, fuuuuuck. Fuck this shit and fuck his tamagotchi's mom while he was at it, why couldn't he have been in full, proper cosplay? Now Ouyang-shixiong was making the judging face.
"This is not proper attire for a disciple, inner or outer. Where's your entry token? It should be displayed on your belt. Is Jin-shidi trying to get reprimanded?"
Ugh, Shen Yuan knew. His token was still tangled around his sword, because he didn't have the right belt on and it was where he had tied it to keep all his cosplay elements together in the bag. He looked like a drunken bum who had procured half his wardrobe from people who didn't wake up fast enough after a long night of alcohol and dice and imprudent bets. "Ah, this shidi's uniform suffered an... accident. I had to procure a replacement."
Ouyang-shixiong tssked, crossing his arms in a way that unfortunately reminded Shen Yuan of Bad Cosplay Liu Qingge and annoyed him reflexively. "Still, such a barbaric style!"
"Apologies to Shixiong, please educate this disciple... Did you want me to shame our sect by coming back with my ass on display?"
The guy spluttered, staring at him angrily. Well, better hope Shen Yuan didn't need to come back to this world through Huan Hua's not-so-gilded barracks every time -- aaand, he was storming out, shooting something about knowing when his help was not wanted. Thank fuck. Shen Yuan sank onto the closest bed and started laughing breathlessly, vaguely hysterical. Fuck. Fuck, he was in another world, in -- someone else's skin? Some random fake identity? Just because this guy didn't know him didn't mean a thing, the sect was big enough that new disciple hopefuls probably appeared and disappeared every other week. Had there been a Jin-bro he had taken over, had he created a Jin-bro, or did -- did that shixiong just trust that surely nobody could have stolen an entry token?
Up, up, up, he needed to be out of here as fast as possible to gibber in peace and not allow anybody to ask him questions. He needed -- did he have a bunk here? Were beds permanent assignments or first come first served? Did he have effects?
... Could he get a map?
Pilfered Cultivation Manual (not procured), said the items list. Pilfered map and talismans too.
There was no name on any of the trunks under the beds, not anything showing anybody's identity. Shen Yuan briefly wrestled with his conscience, and then made like a RPG protagonist and started opening chests, pulling out drawers and lifting mattresses at random.
Books and leaflets -- ooh, a novel, no, bad self, he didn't need it. Letters -- he didn't open them, putting them back immediately. No time to dive into background exposition and besides there was no date on the one he glanced at. Talismans -- one sheaf, two, more, some more shakily drawn than others and he had no idea what any of them did, so he put all of them into one of his hanging sleeves. Outside he could hear people walking by, talking. His heart was in his throat.
-- Cultivation manual! Oh shit, did that mean he could get to learn to cultivate?
His character was at the Foundation Establishment stage. He could totally use qi.
Shen Yuan might or might not have bounced on his toes a couple times and swallowed a little yell. Just a little one. Not anything like a squeal.
"--hear that noise? What was it?"
Footsteps were coming his way. He hurriedly settled his sleeves to hide his ill-begotten gains and -- couldn't traipse around the gardens in his half-uniform, people would notice and remember him -- but there was no other exit, and he hadn't yet found a map--
He was going to get found out in the middle of searched trunks and ruffled blankets. No choice.
Jin Zhengsheng sighed through his nose, shoulders slumping, and tucked a hand lazily inside his belt. He had only come back for the resources he needed to go right back to his exploration. Demon stuff... Northern demon stuff, he was obviously a -- maybe not a spy. A rogue cultivator who had only joined Huan Hua for the material support; his usual thing was to keep an eye on the interaction between northern demons and the humans living near the boundary, putting down a small monster and snatching up a shiny treasure or a rare plant as he went; paying his dues to Huan Hua in thorough reports and right of first refusal on his sellable finds.
That kind of man probably didn't hold his hothouse flower sect siblings in very high esteem, so when more men came in just as he was coming out, Jin Zhengsheng only bowed halfheartedly and kept ambling away.
(Was Luo Binghe in residence? If Shen Yuan ran into him he would be made in five seconds and then die. Stressful. Could he go home? He couldn't pull out the tamagotchi here. Couldn't risk it being seen and taken away.)
"Shijie, excuse me, I'm looking for a library?"
A young lady stared at his blue pants, her friend hiding her mouth and her hurried whispers behind a fan. Shen Yuan was briefly envious. He really could make Jin Zhengsheng's suspicious lowlife qualities shine with a fan to emote utter don't-give-a-shit with.
"Ah -- next left, and then straight on to the fox lantern. Your uniform--"
Jin Zhengsheng gave a closemouthed smile. "Thanking Shijie."
"--so slovenly! His top is so clean and unwrinkled though, did--"
"Shhh!"
Better hurry before the dorm guys came back out and they all joined forces.
He vaguely wondered if either of the girls were part of the harem. Hm. Pretty, but plain. He hoped not. Lying to a Wife tended not to go well for peons.
... The library was dark and cramped, obviously a sop for outer disciples' aspirations. Five short rows of books, two tables to study at. Shen Yuan's fingers itched with the need to explore all of it. Maybe he could steal a couple of books to read at home. Maybe he could bookmark the library instead of the dorms. No time to poke the tamagotchi.
"Map, map, map--"
Wow, they didn't even look as good as the maps Shen Yuan had absently scribbled from nothing but book descriptions on his PIDW notebook. The borderlands between human and demon realm were a nebulously crosshatched section.
He picked the second-best one. That theft might not be noticed as fast.
[\^O^ Congratulations! Congratulations! Congratulations! User has completed the 'sink or swim' tutorial section! ^O^/]
... Ah... Huh. Glowing blue panel, semi-see through. In his belt the tamagotchi gleamed brightly through the cloth. He had a brief moment of relief. He hadn't been abandoned in this world.
Then he reread the panel.
"Sink or swim, ah? I could have sunk?!"
[:D Answering host! Host can still sink! :D]
Sjlskgj. "Home button now."
[ :(( Host is not fun at all :(( ] the window replied, even as the tamagotchi's third button backlit enticingly. Shen Yuan mashed that motherfucker immediately.
He reappeared exactly where he had left from; the edge of the mattress tucked behind his knees made him lose his balance and sit all at once, or maybe it was the sudden burst of nerves and exhilaration.
His phone said he had been gone all of two minutes.
He took in a deep, shaky breath, and let himself fall back across the hotel bed, staring at the fluorescent lights. He could barely believe any of it had happened; but his sleeves hung heavy with the spoils of his home invasion.
[Excursion rewards!]
[EXP: 17 pts
ITEMS GAINED: Huan Hua External Disciple Cultivation Manual, Low-grade Map of the Western Lands, Low-grade Talismans x35]
Oh, experience points! Fuck yeah.
Shen Yuan spared a thought to the panel he was missing, vaguely considered going to hunt down Airplane for more explanations and-or gibbering, and settled down with his magical tamagotchi to explore every single window he could get at.
Chapter Text
Shen Yuan had very solid plans of not running into any named character ever.
They lasted until he took Jin-xiong and his sleazy profiteer disguise to Xiangping and ran straight into Wife Twenty-One, Wu Xiaodan.
At least that narrowed down the timeline, he told himself, staring at the blade pointed at his nose in dismay.
--
#1 Peerless Cucumber (Expert)
Anybody here who can rec me solidly written, well-thought-out isekai that avoids the common idiot protag pitfalls?#2 Cang Qiong Mountain Stair-Cleaning Manager
Ohh, I know a few titles. Do you have examples of pitfalls though?#3 Peerless Cucumber (Expert)
The basics. "Are you guys actors? Is this a TV set?", spending a gold piece on a sandwich, showing up with lore-broken powers and immediately disrespecting their elders because they're now too cool for school, buying a slave with big bazongas when they can't even reliably feed themselves...But errors specifically related to qi and cultivation as well, like early hiccups and wrong choices of direction in their cultivation that have bad consequences down the road, stuff like that.
#4 Cang Qiong Mountain Stair-Cleaning Manager
I'm looking at my bookmarks for you! Do you want random new world or fallen into an existing world that they heard about beforehand? Those aren't the same mistakes. Like just between Seven Words Saint's Seven Swords Dance and PIDW the differences in how cultivation works are pretty massive.So I guess the first and biggest mistake is a protagonist not figuring out how exactly it works and going with assumptions and vague memories of the genre instead!
#5 Peerless Cucumber (Expert)
Ah! Like whether the earliest stages are similar for all cultivation paths and you differentiate later on, or whether you need to lock on pretty early, whether you *can* learn several paths' secrets as long as they're not completely contradictory... Thank you, that's very useful.And a preexisting world, please.
#6 Falling head first into Yan-yan's rack<3
Buying the slave with big bazongas and no combat prowess.#7 Peerless Cucumber (Expert)
I'll... keep that in mind. Anything about cultivation mistakes?#8 Falling head first into Yan-yan's rack<3
Not stealing any cultivation manual that's not nailed down.#9 grass your mother and fuck your horse
attempting to predict the current story bcz they know the original story without thinking of the fact that since they have been *changing* things, it *isn't* going to go the same way except for where it's convenient!#10 Peerless Cucumber (Expert)
#9, oh well, naturally. That sounds pretty idiotic.
--
So. Shen Yuan wasn't going to change a damn thing.
[>_> Host... Existing at all in the settings will by nature change things... <_<]
Not anything that mattered, anyway.
Airplane's plot would have suffered if people couldn't agglomerate bits and pieces of various cultivational paths; how could Bing-ge be the coolest if some abilities were locked away from him forever because of that fake Qing Jing manual making him lay down his foundation all wrong when he was a kid? So...
Wu Xiaodan wished to conquer the Gu Gui sect's extremely Indiana Jones-looking defenses (Airplane, you plagiaristic hack), but she wasn't a cultivator herself; after Bing-ge saved her life she would have no reason to still want to make trophies out of their treasures. As for Luo Binghe, he would pocket the pills for his harem, then give the tools and manuals a cursory look, declare them quite advanced, pack them up carefully... and then never use a single one of them because he had access to a superior version of each specific skill from elsewhere.
So that scoundrel Jin Zhengsheng wouldn't be hurting anybody if he sneaked in before the two of them and relieved them of one particular pile of moldy paper.
[ :) Reminding Host that he already has access to the Huan Hua outer disciple manual and has only properly explored 12% of it! (: ]
... Yeah, well. It was still pretty dense. "That's for raw beginners and entirely toothless besides. They don't want their outer disciples getting ideas, after all. It doesn't even explain how to build your own seals, instead of just aping a handful of basic ones!"
[9.9 Available development path for Character: JIN ZHENGSHENG: Become an Inner Disciple of Huan Hua Palace. 9.9]
Hmm. Doubt. "It's one possible path, not a railroad, right?"
[User is correct.]
"Then I'll pass."
Shen Yuan would love to learn their famed divination arts, but those were reserved for the innermost circle of inner disciples, and he was not going to swear those oaths, not even for a chance at glancing from afar at the glory of Luo Binghe ascending to the position of Palace Master. Never mind the divination arts, he'd probably get sniffed out as a spy in five minutes and then get himself beheaded. Falling-head-first-into-Yan-yan's-rack-Bro was right; the path to success was to make like a raccoon and snatch up everything he could get at -- and then scurry back to his hole as fast as he could.
There were still ten to twelve years to go for Bing-ge's ascension, anyway.
But the town was relevant once in the whole frigging novel and of course that was when Shen Yuan arrived. Fucking asshole magic egg could have warned him!
Ugh, never mind. He supposed he could exchange a few inconsequential words with a canon character once, and then find somewhere else to be. There would be other treasures.
"Young miss, you're going to hurt yourself," he pointed out in a lazily dismissive tone, hoping she couldn't tell his heart was thumping in his chest. In canon Wu Xiaodan had paced around the streets of Xiangping for exactly six days before Luo Binghe came through, in disguise as a wandering human cultivator. For all he knew Bing-ge would be here that very evening.
"I might well hurt you if you don't stop staring," the young woman hissed back. And you know what, Shen Yuan thought, that's fair. Considering they were currently in a tavern of ill-repute, there were very few wholesome reasons--
And oooh, crap, she was gonna think he was one of her father's men for sure, come to talk the wandering wild child into going home to daddy.
But apologizing was out of character for Jin Zhengsheng, never mind that Shen Yuan had come up with his character himself and on the fly. Jin Zhengsheng was a nosy, opportunistic, light-fingered lowlife; and he was a Huan Hua cultivating disciple, no matter that he wasn't a great one.
"Just wondering what a young mistress is doing here amongst ruffians," he mused -- and all at once struck the back of his hand sideways into the flat of her blade, knocking it aside, and giving him space to shove it outwards and pin it down with his own sheathed sword.
Wu Xiaodan was not trained by a sect, so she did something that a sect brat would never think of, which was to let the sword go and attempt to punch him in the face.
She'd gotten the edge of Luo Binghe's jaw with that one in the book, so Shen Yuan, duly warned, managed to dodge it entirely. But damn, he hadn't expected somebody with only accidental control of her raw qi to get so close; even dodging before he even saw her move, her fist still whizzed by so close he felt the air rushing by. What talent!
He gave an admiring whistle. It -- it came out kind of assholish... Well, ah, whistling at people always did. That was in character. Yeah.
[^o^ In-character bonus! EXP: 1 pt!! ^o^]
'...Shut the frickfrack up.' One point. Backhanded cheap plastic turd.
"Does the young miss often try to punch strangers in the face for the crime of having eyes?"
That growl would have sounded at home in the mouth of any of the demon wives. Heh. Shen Yuan didn't have pockets, but he did have a belt, so he tucked one of his hands into it to emphasize his lack of concern and hostility. Around them, the smoky tavern's patrons watched them openly over their drinks and their cards. Nobody interrupted, though. Unsurprising.
"You stared too much."
... Was he going to have to pretend he'd stared because she was a pretty young thing in a den of grizzled bandits? When Luo Binghe might be in town? Setting himself up as The Sleaze To Humiliate? Ah hell. That was not inconsequential!
[u_u An in-character misunderstanding though. u_u]
Ugh! Fine! He opened his mouth--
"You stared like you knew me," she added in a harsh whisper, and, well, fuck.
Wu Xiaodan had been one of his top ten favorite wife concepts before Bing-ge's dick turned her brains to mush. Bratty or not, she was stubborn and smart and competent, and didn't wait for anybody to rescue her; not one of the tragic victim types with the willpower and self-determination of a bikini-wearing anime figurine. If he left now she would hunt him down to figure out what he knew, and he would ruin her meeting with Luo Binghe. Better hurry up.
Her backstory was pretty run of the mill, youngest daughter of the head of a trading clan, a rebellious little princess, etc etc. But her true passion was exploring; even treasure-hunting was incidental to it, used to fund her trips. Then she went poking her nose in Bing-ge's ruin of the week, and they had a bickery antagonistic time before she somehow forgot her supposed training in order to grab the idiot wife ball.
Then they were lavishly wed, she entered the harem never to exit it again, and didn't show up on screen until fifteen years in-universe, three hundred chapters, and an orgy later.
... Fuck.
But she was happy, right? She had to still be happy. She was one of the emperor's beloved wives.
Wu-guniang sat reluctantly at his silent invitation, her fine jaw set and her onyx eyes flashing. Thankfully, not literally, but the pressure he felt in his heart was real. Shen Yuan set a silencing talisman onto the table between the two of them -- a great way to show the whole tavern they had something important to talk about, but him using it under the table where she couldn't read it to know what it was doing to her would have gotten him stabbed.
Alright. Time for some fine bullshitting.
"I don't know you. I know of you."
Her eyes narrowed some more. "My father or his rivals?"
Pff. "A fair conclusion, but neither one. Ah... My name is Jin Zhengsheng."
"With Huan Hua or did you steal the tacky robes?"
"Hey, they're embroidered with so many protection charms, it's cheaper than armor, and more mobile too." He gave her a crooked smile. Jin Zhengsheng could totally be charming if he wanted, right? In a roguish way, maybe? Like, not for long, but he could pretend.
"Sure," Wu-guniang said, unimpressed. "Stealing is cheaper than buying for sure."
Shen Yuan opened his mouth without thinking, then gave her a tight smile and wished he had a fan to hide his idiocy. He couldn't get into his half-assed yet official allegiance to Huan Hua. Backstory-vomiting was boring anyway! Bad writing. Let her assume he was procuring his shit on the black market or worse if she wanted. "So it is! Sadly you can't dye them, so I'm stuck attracting every single magpie in a three-li radius, but you win some, you lose some. No, we're in the same business, Wu-guniang, and I make a point of knowing my colleagues."
The confirmation that he knew her name made her lower eyelids tighten slightly, but she didn't say anything.
Well! Fun as this surprisingly was... Time to concede.
"I was considering going for the ruins at the tip of the peninsula as well..."
"--How did you know that?"
--Ah. Fuck. From her expression she hadn't told her goal to anybody. They must still be early then. First or second day. He kept his gaze unbothered, but it took an effort. "What else is there around the place for somebody of your growing reputation?"
Upside, Bing-ge wouldn't be here for another four days. Largely enough time to disappear.
Wu Xiaodan's hesitation and the slow, careful relaxation of her shoulders took him by surprise. Clearing his throat, he signaled the server for a pitcher of peach wine, arching an eyebrow at the young lady in question. She stared at him for a few seconds and then -- surprising him again -- she nodded, so he signaled for a second for her.
"Anyway, if you're going there, I have no intention of stepping on your toes, so--"
"How good are you?"
What was it with these cheeky youngsters! Shen Yuan might be about her age, sure, but Jin-Xiong was at least thirty! "It doesn't matter much," he countered, lazily fanning himself with his hand. "I don't like too much of a bother. If there's something to your liking in these ruins, then this senior will not get in the young miss' way and will pick through what's left over afterwards. I'm not in a hurry."
"Say rather that you want to use me to defuse the traps for you."
Jin Zhengsheng smiled with a single corner of his mouth, hands raised palms out in amused surrender. "The young miss wounds me in my heart." A long sigh. "You don't have to fear that I'll attack you on the way back. That kind of thing is too much of a hassle. Wu-guniang has defended herself quite vigorously from lowlife backstabbers in the past, or so I heard."
Her burning eyes had cooled into sharp contemplation. What a fierce lady, an eagle in the shape of a young woman for sure.
Bing-ge would have her in jesses soon enough.
The smile had fallen off his face. Huh. He hid it behind his glass, taking a sip of a frankly deplorable beverage, and made himself a note to learn how to burn alcohol out of his drinks with qi as soon as he could. At least then he'd get to feel like a secret agent or whatever instead of a lowlife bum amongst other lowlife--
"No, we won't be doing that."
"--Pardon?"
Wu Xiaodan stared him down, intense, biting determination on every inch of her face.
"You want to come, so come with me."
Shen Yuan stared wordlessly for a good fifteen seconds, his drink lifted halfway to his mouth.
"...Haa?"
--
So he never did manage to catch Airplane again, back during that tamagotchi-granting convention, and after that the couple emails he sent must have landed in his spam folder because there was no response. Which, in retrospect, was maybe for the best -- why would the man give something like a dimension-jumping, magical-costume-made-reality item to Shen Yuan and then wander off if he had done it knowingly? If he had done it at all? It might have been a mixup. It might have been the magical tamagotchi rolling into the bag while the man's back was turned.
Or else Airplane was cursed and trying to pass it on, which. Disturbingly plausible, but also, Shen Yuan had :
a) seen a Seven-Hued False Phoenix at the hot springs and
b) gotten to pet a Silver-Hooved Chiming Goat in the little town nearby that he had gotten to by
c) bounce-floating down a cliff like a moon explorer (qinggong ftw), so basically YOLO.
Cultivation was so great. He never wanted to give it up.
"Hey, Egg-bro?"
[^o^ Yes, valued user? ^o^]
The manual he'd stolen at Huan Hua hadn't followed him home. Instead it showed up in the Stats section under the heading "Qiankun pouch". The map and talismans were put away there too, instead of spread out on his bed with the rest of his Jin-xiong outfit.
"Can I get the items in my qiankun bag out here, right now?"
Wouldn't that be a thing. A real method to grow a golden core, out here in the modern, mundane world. Even if it didn't work at all without any ambient qi to draw on, it would be such a cool reference for his props.
Heh. It'd be too cool to be allowed, he was sure--
[u_u Alas! Host doesn't have enough points. Because he doesn't do enough things! u_u]
"Holy shit tell me those things first."
He straightened the Mobei pants, fussing with the hemline as he tried to beat down his expectations. He would have to make another pair for his Mobei outfit; it felt wrong to reuse part of it, and also the quality just didn't seem lordly enough... "Ugh, so many questions. Can I reuse part of a cosplay?"
[u.u Answering host: depending on whether the item can logically be explained to have changed hands, an item registered as part of one cosplay can be reused for another cosplay! u.u]
"So all my cosplays have to know each other?"
[^_^~ Answering host: that or buy the same generic items at the same type of generic store! For example, stacks of bad talismans are a dime a dozen at village stalls, due to low-ranked cultivators attempting to make money by selling them, and will therefore stay available no matter the cosplay. ~^_^]
[Unique items will be indicated in their file name, and cannot be traded without a backstory-related reason.]
Huh. Shen Yuan scanned his items list... "Ahh, like how the entry token is specifically Gongyi Xiao's but the pants are just demon pants?"
[ :((( Indeed! Being from Huan Hua and of an acquisitive nature, it is possible for Original Character: JIN ZHENGSHENG to be in possession of this canon character's long-lost yet inconsequential personal item. Had he made off with Canon Character: MOBEI-JUN's clothing, he would have been slaughtered where he stood! :((((( ]
Shen Yuan couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. "Point made."
'Acquisitive nature'. Pff. The guy had the finders keepers morality of Link Zelda in someone else's bedroom.
[ :p Also, as Host himself noted, the item: "Stolen demon pants" really isn't of sufficient quality for a demon lord. d: ]
"Hey!"
Just because he'd tailored them himself and hadn't managed a perfectly straight line... or because the color of the thread wasn't quite the same as that of the cloth... or... Mngh.
Yeah, okay, his tamagotchi was right. The pants were just too meh.
"Anyway. You said that if I do enough 'things', I can get enough 'points' to bring over items from the book to my world?"
[^o^ Indeed, Host can! ^o^]
"And they'll be usable?"
[9.9 Depending on Host's definition of usable... 6.6]
Pedantry and wordplays. His tamagotchi was insufferable at times. "Can I, in this world where we are right now, use, say, a light talisman to create light -- not by setting it on fire? Can I use qi to do it, and make it work in the same way it works in its world of origin?"
He knew Jin-xiong's golden core was weak, as those went. Still, being him felt -- warm. Awake. To his fingertips he had felt awake and aware and ready, in the zone, with the exact right levels of caffeine and good sleep and bracing mountain air all at once. Having even half of that in his everyday life--
[Host can.]
... Holy shit.
The lack of emojis wasn't at all ominous. Did he care? He did not. Tingles ran up Shen Yuan's spine, his fingers, anticipation and nerves and exhilaration making his body buoyant with happiness.
"Tell me how," he rasped, fingers clenched on the plastic sword that had been so real thirty minutes ago.
The tamagotchi did.
--
"Down!"
Jin Zhengsheng threw himself face down onto dusty rock. A massive swinging axe whizzed through the place his head had been half a second ago.
"Up!"
"Figure out which one already!" he yelled, doing a ridiculous frog hop over the return slice of a much lower axe.
Why! Could he not!! Have come up with a cool and badass immortal master cosplay!!!
A grinding clunk resounded in the tunnel and the axes froze partway through their swings. Jin Zhengsheng tiptoed his way around the rusted blades before they could restart.
"There -- don't go past the white stones." At least four body lengths over the ground, Wu Xiaodan climbed sideways along a fault in the rock, looking for a foothold down. The wall was really smooth there, though, the next crack a bit too far for her to stretch, and Jin Zhengsheng's qinggong really wasn't good enough to bounce up a sheer wall and float down carrying somebody else. What else -- aha!
"There, use my sword as a foothold," he said, floating it up as high as he could. Damn but it was hard to keep it steady so far from him--
"If you drop me," Wu Xiaodan threatened, resting a foot on the flat of the blade. Jin Zhengsheng's sword wobbled a little but held; he lowered it as smoothly as he could to guide her to the next handhold, relieved when a small foot lodged in stone and supported the girl's weight. "Can you even fly yourself?"
Jin Zhengsheng snorted. "I can fall slowly. Haven't really had the occasion to practice much."
Which was so lame of Jin-xiong, Shen Yuan was a little annoyed. Why couldn't he be a secret badass?! He spied on demons! Didn't he need a good getaway sword?
[\^o^/ Level up your cosplay, level up your character! \^o^/]
[u_u Host's JIN-XIONG concept was too half-assed... u_u]
Ugh.
"You haven't?" Wu Xiaodan puffed as she stretched for another handhold, barely touching down on his sword before bouncing to the next grip. "How come?"
Uhh. A story, a story -- no, wait, she thought he'd stolen the Huan Hua uniform, he didn't need to justify why a major sect hadn't even taught him that much. "Well, I was picked up by a wandering cultivator as a kid... Didn't have a sword, he was more about seals and the like. Swords are expensive."
"Oh. Makes sense." She looked surprised when he moved closer to the wall to offer a hand to step into, giving him a wary look even as she committed her weight to his hold. And damn but she was right! It was a lot harder than it seemed to hold somebody's weight on your outstretched arm without trembling, even with a baby, still-misty golden core! That was what Shen Yuan got for showing off.
He followed her past the white stones, shaking his hand as though that would make the qi circulate faster. On his left hovered a helpful tips box; he flicked it in passing in revenge for the cheerful message of [^-^ Advising host: Circulating qi makes your qi circulate faster! ^-^]
[u_u Or at all. u_u]
"Ugh. Next stop I need to meditate for a bit." When he concentrated he could feel odd hiccups in his arm, like a pebble rattling around in a garden hose. He did not want to experience a blockage in this cursed ruin, thanks ever so much.
"Sure, sure." She sneaked him a look that pretended to be uninterested. "Master Cultivator can say he's tired too..."
"So cheeky. See if I don't run off with your part of the loot."
Ha ha. He was going to run off with all of it. No guilt.
Some guilt. But she wouldn't have gotten to have it anyway.
He was gonna tragically fall into a nice endless chasm, too, so that she couldn't sic Bing-ge on him and he would be adequately punished for his hubris. Maybe after a good impressive chase scene Luo Binghe would be impressed enough to bring Wu Xiaodan along on the next step to his quest to find a cultivation pill for Wife Nineteen and her unspecified wasting sickness. A much more equal start to their relationship this time around! What a great plan.
If he timed it properly, he could hit the return home button in mid-fall! It would be sick.
They found a little niche to take a break in and dropped their bags; then Jin Zhengsheng pulled out his manual without waiting. The weird sensation in his meridians was annoying enough without the tips box following him around.
"Is that a Huan Hua cultivation manual, too?"
"Came with the robes." Shen Yuan sat cross-legged, opening it to the first page. The basics were couched in that pretentious language that implied so much and didn't describe anything in concrete terms. What he wouldn't give for an IKEA-style pamphlet... It made sense, though, but in a foggy, I-don't-know-why-it-makes-sense way that was hard to internalize. Kind of like poetry.
And Wu Xiaodan was sneaking looks at his manual.
"Interested?" he asked casually. "Is the young miss looking for a lost manual of her own in these ruins?"
Pfft, of course not. Wu Xiaodan had plenty of skills without cultivation; if she had wanted to learn at any point in her life she'd have just asked Daddy Dearest for a teacher--
"Mngh."
The offended-grumpy look on her face was both funny and utterly unexpected.
Mostly because for a fleeting instant she had looked hurt too.
... Huh.
Well, maybe it was a passing curiosity. Anyway, it couldn't hurt to let her learn how to breathe properly. Even something so basic still had him giddy with every shiver of qi inching along through his meridians; he didn't mind sharing.
He rustled the pages of his manual teasingly. "I'm hardly concerned with secrecy at this point. It's just an external disciple's manual, the young miss won't find anything really good in there. Come and look if you want to."
"Is it that second-rate? Hmph."
But she did creep closer to peer at the open pages. Jin Zhengsheng smirked, opening them more widely, and started reading.
"One begins by sitting straight, legs crossed with the bone of each heel tucked under the opposite knee, hands in loose fists connected at the knuckles; the top of the skull as if pulled toward the heavens by a string. One draws breath."
He ran the two of them through the extremely basic first exercise, feeling his body slow down, his awareness open up. At his side Wu Xiaodan shuffled her weight a little at first, and then unclenched into it, her breathing pattern falling in sync with his own.
"With each breath, one visualizes..."
The second exercise was still one he didn't understand fully, as a master would, but apparently he did well enough to lead somebody else through it. He didn't try to move them further along, though -- the first two had taken them three hours, though it hadn't felt like it, and she was going to be stiff.
"I could feel it somewhat," she murmured, a hand resting on her belly.
"The young miss is fairly gifted." Jin Zhengsheng tilted his head as he contemplated her. "One wonders why she did not seek any tutors; surely that would be useful in her line of work?"
And there! She was going to spout out one of Airplane's most annoying justifications! She was proud of who she was and what she could accomplish on her own! (Because she was a naturally gifted genius who One Of The Boys'd herself into being badass because her overindulgent daddy saw nothing wrong with his little princess hanging out unchaperoned with her male cousins.)
But that always sounded so slightly off with the driven-to-challenge-herself part of her character that actually showed up on the page...
She looked away. She seemed bitter.
Huh.
"I'm too old."
... Oh. Uh. What.
"To become a true immortal, probably," Jin Zhengsheng agreed with unconcern Shen Yuan suddenly didn't feel. "But--"
"But when you join a sect, they expect your loyalty. Isn't that how it works? It's not a finishing school, you don't go home after a few years of learning as though nothing happened. The goal of a sect is to detach from the mortal world. Why would you want that if you have a good family?"
... Oh boy, that hadn't been in the book.
"A solid argument..." Shen Yuan admitted, voice soft; he didn't want to put her back up. "Why don't you sound entirely convinced, then?"
Wu Xiaodan threw him a glare, and then started plucking aimlessly at the laces of her boots. "I just... Won't be able to stay a daughter of my house forever, will I? Not if I'm just a 'young miss'."
"Ah?"
"When I was still young enough, I -- turned it down." A deep breath, held in her lungs and left to escape in a gust. "And now it's too late."
"Huh."
Shen Yuan seemed to have accidentally hit the right button for the secret cutscene. Hm.
"Father wasn't the family head yet. It didn't matter if his fourth daughter was a bit wild, and if I brought back a husband I met on the road that would be fine. But then Uncle died, and his sons died, and our elder brother--"
Oh fuck oh fuck that really hadn't been in the books--
"--Outbreak of the Yang-Reviling Pillar-Toppling hemorrhagic fever, you know how that goes--"
What! That was Wife 87 through 96's backstory! The village of lonely widows! How come it was already relevant?! It had existed before? It was common enough to be recognized? What? What.
He must have made a strange face because she stopped talking. No, no, he was still listening, please keep the lore going --
Fuck, he was being so unsympathetic right now. "Ah... That is some rotten luck. So you went from being almost irrelevant to being fourth in line... That must be heavy."
It made her father allowing her to gallivant so far afield even more incomprehensible. He would need alliances so much more now.
Maybe that was why he seemed to swing so wildly between too permissive and trying to commission her kidnapping in the books, even though those had been treated like interrupting irritants instead of threats or real rebukes.
Wu Xiaodan gave a dry shrug, trying to appear unbothered. "He'd get me a tutor right now if I asked. Then I could become a mediocre cultivator accomplishing little while my neighbors attribute every problem my family has to my refusing to contribute by getting them closer bonds with their friends and associates. Everybody has to marry at some point anyway, right?"
"Right," Shen Yuan -- who with two older brothers and a younger sister to handle that particular burden, had no intention of ever doing such -- replied.
"So that's why I can't take up cultivation. Sometime soon Father won't be able to brush off the fact that I haven't shown my face in society in months by telling them he sent me off to supervise some trade deal with his employees, and then somebody will have a good boring son to shove at me--"
Oh, uh. Panting breaths. Not good. If she cried he would -- he didn't know what he would do. Panic? How come she had never confided in Bing-ge? It seemed to weigh on her so heavily.
"And then I'll be leaving the family anyway --"
"But you just said your father was pretending you're off working for him -- why not make it real?"
"Because I'm the fourth daughter! Da-jie gets to have her husband marry into the family to take over as next head, but it would be pointless if mine did, he's not going to inherit anything!"
Oh god. The meditation seemed to have unsettled a lot of emotional blockages; why else would she just unload on him like this -- she didn't even trust him, Jin-xiong was a smarmy jerk--
He patted her back, then remembered she was an unchaperoned well-to-do lady, then remembered she was on the edge of tears right now and nobody would know.
Ugh. Ancient family values. He thought, and tried to unthink, of what he would feel if Shen Jiaying getting married meant she would move miles away to some inner courtyard and visit once a year, if her husband permitted. "But if you married a colleague or a family friend, you would still get to see your family... They'd be doing business together... No, yeah, that's still no good."
If she married a mundane man, her job would be bride. Mother, next. Maybe advisor to her husband, eventually. Some mundane women of her social class went out and had careers, but then they would marry later, when they were established, and Wu Xiaodan didn't seem like she would be interested in succeeding her father directly anyway. Trade houses didn't send their heads to look for new goods.
She took a shuddering breath, then another, and forced her exhale to steady.
"Becoming a real cultivator or becoming a nun, those are the only ways out of being a wife. And if I were put in a convent I would probably burn it down before the year was out. So."
Shen Yuan sighed. "Well, that sucks."
In five days at most Wu Xiaodan was going to get herself cursed and her whole family with her, unless she entered another family's rear courtyard first and then never left it again. So long as she appeared in their lineage book, they would share in her fate. 'That sucks' barely covered it.
But if he changed things... If he changed things, wouldn't that be bad for Bing-ge? Wouldn't it--
Wu Xiaodan jumped to her feet and gestured imperiously at him to stand up. "Alright, let's get moving."
"--Ah? Sure."
Chin set, eyes reddened, she checked her gear -- hook-tipped ropes and climbing claws and her backpack, strapped tight. Then she squared her shoulders and he thought, weirdly, that the hair loops and buns of maidenhood didn't suit her at all, that she should have sported a pixie cut dyed red at the tips and band-aids on her cheekbone and a climbing harness, that her eyes should be closer to gold.
Airplane really had hit the right note, comparing her to an eagle.
It would destroy her to be grounded.
Binghe would save her. He had to.
... He hadn't, though. In the books, he hadn't.
He'd only managed to save her from destroying her family.
--
... Wu Xiaodan, tender chest heaving with a wild anger that makes her phoenix eyes spark fierily, tosses her heavy braid over her delicate shoulder and shouts, "Stop it! I know how to do this! I don't need your help to do my job!"
And in anger, she reaches straight for the pedestal Luo Binghe just warned her about.
Shen Yuan had reread that scene five times. The dramatic irony! Accusing Bing-ge of not knowing anything, when unknowingly, she was the one who didn't know! Of course the Gu Gui sect, more a blood-related clan than a sect, only accepting outer disciples born from cultivator parents and disdaining and suspecting the mundane people living near their stronghold, would have warded its treasure scrolls to only accept the touch of people with a golden core! The touch of people like them!
Fuck your mother, Airplane! Fuck your father too while he was at it!
The ward, full of the distrustfulness and supremacist feelings of that bunch of long-dead snobs, had turned resentful!
The ward hadn't been quelled by Luo Binghe's golden core alone, it had stopped because he also cultivated resentful energy.
Ask Shen Yuan how he knew that! Just ask him! He was going to fuck the whole assembly of Airplane's every living relative, from eldest down to most recently nubile. That dog-fucking, useless liar of an author.
[ :(( Advising Host that if he dies in PIDW, he dies in real life! And his corpse will be retrieved by his dear old parents still in cosplay... )): ]
"What?!"
[u_u;;;; Including the underwear. ;;;;u_u]
The malevolent energy rushed through his meridians, along with an incredible feeling of somebody yelling 'get out or I'll kill you' while in the process of killing you. It felt like an arrow stabbing through his palm and all the way up the inside of his arm, thudding into his chest cavity. He fell to one knee and then both, heart stuttering.
"Jin-qianbei!"
Oh, she remembered his name, he thought vaguely through the aftershock of the first attack, a sudden cotton-muffling lack of sensation -- like being glare-blind after seeing lightning. He thought he might be falling, but whether forward or to the side he couldn't even tell.
[Host is on his right side!]
'... Thanks...?'
"--ove!" someone yelled outside his head. His body prickled weird, like static tugging up his body hair, but he was so numb--
Something slammed into his lower ribs, two points digging hard, and then he was hurled backwards so fast it felt like his stomach had stayed behind. The stone floor zipped by under him, raking and bumping; he rolled with the momentum, uncontrollably, and came to a jarring stop against --
"Jin-qianbei, get up!"
Ow. The little spark of unfocused qi that came with the slap jarred his nervous system awake. Shen Yuan shoved himself upright, almost clocking Wu Xiaodan in the jaw with his skull as she crouched over him protectively.
She'd -- oh, she had thrown her grappling hook at him and fished him out of the center of the room, away from the dais, and in another three seconds it would be for nothing because the malevolent spirit was not tied to the pedestal--
Shen Yuan shoved her to one side and fell more than dodged to the other side; the discharge of qi hit the wall with a resounding crash, splintering stone. He wobbled back on his feet, staring at the ward-ghost. It looked like a bunch of flickering, writhing neon tubes writing out random parts of the seal, constantly reshaping itself. The general shape was a man's silhouette, but drawn in scribbles.
It wasn't that way in the books!, he couldn't help but complain to himself. He prepared to get attacked again --
It went for Wu Xiaodan instead.
"Dodge!" Jin Zhengsheng barked, throwing his sword at the thing's back.
"I am!" Wu Xiaodan yelled back, crouching under a punch that sent long lines of talismanic writing flying like a water hose, making the walls tremble on impact. The sword had no effect, apart from a nasty backlash up Jin Zhengsheng's abused meridians.
She was dodging, and Jin Zhengsheng was attacking, and yet apart from the first assault, the curse kept going at her, ponderous and bursting in turns. Why? The wards were set to the basic principle of 'like calls to like', implying 'if it's different, kill it', and they no longer recognized righteous cultivation. Shouldn't he have been exactly as valid a target? Haa. Hierarchy of racism, probably.
"Why's it after me?" Wu Xiaodan called out, bending sharply to the side to let another attack punch past her. He could see her glancing back to check how close she was to getting trapped against the wall -- and then she ran at the thing, at the last second throwing herself down heels and ass first to slide past its legs. Jin Zhengsheng called his sword back and flung it ahead to block a strike rushing from the curse's pseudo-hip, nothing like an attack a normal human could have made.
... Aaand now his sword was at the other end of the room, clanging against the other wall, and he was pretty sure it was dented.
[Item: Cheap Gilded Sword: 3/4 durability remaining!]
Holy shit it was cheap.
And out of his reach.
He pulled out a fistful of talismans. "No core!"
"Wha-- golden core?!"
"These people were prejudiced as fuck!"
[OOC violation: Original Character: JIN ZHENGSHENG is sleazy, not vulgar!]
Shen Yuan almost compounded the violation by swearing a blue streak at his tamagotchi. 'I created him! He can be anything I want!'
[u_u Once he is registered, he cannot. u_u]
[While there is a possibility of flexibility and evolution, Host may only work within the bounds of the established personality.]
'He's evolving! He's never been through such a shitshow before!'
[>_> Host should not resort to the lazy way out. <_<]
'... If you were bound to a toaster, I would dunk you in the Marianas trench. No bathtub would suffice.'
[^o^ Much better! ^o^]
[9_9 Too fancy now though. 6_6]
And while he was stumbling blindly after the curse and yelling at his peanut gallery, Wu Xiaodan had, apparently, had an idea.
'Oho?'
That idea was throwing her grappling hook at the pedestal and raking everything piled enticingly on it right onto the floor.
The priceless artefacts and pills went flying, scattering far and wide on the marble.
The manuals!, his heart screeched, watching yellowed pages fly.
"It can't protect everything!" she yelled, throwing herself at an invaluable pill-making furnace with the clear intent of smashing the hell out of it. The ward-ghost threw itself after her with a crack of splintering marble.
Ahh fuck, what was he to do now -- get his sword (too far)? Get a weapon (was there anything usable in the treasures? This sleeve knife looked more bejeweled and cursed than useful) -- get--
[OOC warning: Original Character: JIN ZHENGSHENG is a light-fingered lowlife who would never hesitate to steal any cultivation manual that's not nailed down!]
--Well, he was going this way already. And surely she would be fine. She was cool, she was strong, she was a Wife. Sorry, Wu-guniang, for using you as a distraction. He dove for the spilled treasures, snatching one booklet off the floor -- two -- oh, this one was about the Eight Trigram Tortoise Shields! It went up his sleeve with the rest aaand the ward-ghost was after him now. Fuckfuckfuck.
Oh. Now she was using him as a distraction to grab something off the floor. Okay, fair enough.
A pulse of power flew right by his head, sending hair flying. He rolled behind the pedestal. A second later something wet trailed down his face.
Having his brain physically rattled didn't feel any better than having his qi fucked up, he discovered very soon after that, watching a puddle of blood spread against the cold marble his cheekbone pressed into.
... Goddamn, but Jin-xiong was lame as cultivators went. Where was his -- his battle prowess, his...
"Jin-qianbei!"
Sounds of pain, muffled. Maybe it was just his ears. Faraway yelling, angry. Something whistling as it flew at him. If only he could equip the Gu Gui manual into a handy slot and immediately cast their Eight Trigram Tortoise Shields like a Final Fantasy character...
Furious qi raged like a current around him, a wave crashing on the breaker of an even more unstable current -- so bright and sharp it scored against his damaged meridians too, a hundred needles of new-sparking-chaos.
Wu Xiaodan had eaten a cultivation pill.
She didn't know what to do with it.
"Run," he said, she said, her with the wobbling, unusable swell of her power and him with his mediocre core and his scraped-raw meridians.
He had the fleeting thought that they were still two days too early for Bing-ge to burst in and save the day. She was a Wife; she'd probably live. He was nothing, nobody. The drab cuckoo bird in this bright and lively nest.
Wu Xiaodan had never had a core in the book.
... Worse came to worse, he would log out.
Surely if he did that before he died, they had better trauma surgeons at home anyway.
"Throw me to the pedestal," he rasped. "I have a plan."
In the original, she'd been cursed and all the members of her clan with her. Her only way out had been to marry into the clan of a man who was more powerful than the curse. But it had been centered on the clan's register.
The ward they were fighting against right now... it probably worked on the same principle.
If it didn't, they were fucked, and it was his fault for getting involved.
There was no time to discuss anything; Wu Xiaodan grabbed him by the top of his tunic and swept him past the curse, hurling him sliding on the marble like a bowling ball down a lane. He skidded across several cracks and impact holes, wrestling with his sleeve to pull one (x1) Weak Anti-Demon Ward talisman from his inventory--
The resentful energy wasn't demonic energy, but it was close enough. He'd have fried himself touching the pedestal again otherwise. As it was, having a hand up for the talisman meant he only had his injured arm free to brake with, and his cheekbone impacted with the marble a mere tenth of a second after the disrupted qi briefly moved away from the pedestal.
[ :O Resourceful use of cheap talismans! O: ]
[^o^ Action bonus! EXP: 3 pt!! ^o^]
Jin Zhengsheng gritted his teeth and grabbed blindly at the flat altar on top to haul himself to his feet. There were still a few things up there -- mostly anchored, sealed-in-place things -- and there was, right there against his knee where he'd managed to hook it in passing, a writing set in its lacquered box, with its dry inkstone and its fancy brushes--
[ 0.0 Host displays extremely acquisitive reflexes! @.@ ]
[^O^ In-character bonus! EXP: 10 pt!!! ^O^]
--and the water from his flask and the curse rushing at him but he could not turn back, not now and the blood, the blood on his shoulder from where Wu Xiaodan had grabbed him and sent him flying, still slick against the silk.
He ran his brush through her blood, then into the over-watered ink, mashing the fine implement fit to ruin the bristles because fuck if he had the time to grind, yanked the Gu Gui's clan register open, and put every single calligraphy lesson in his life to the service of legibility and speed to write, under the last clan head, Wu Xiaodan's name.
--
Jin Zhengsheng sat at the terrace of a fancy xianxia cafe, watching people milling by. He'd had the vague thought of taking notes for his next cosplay; but the cut of their clothes, their shoes, their hairdos and tools and their weapons, it was so much it barely stayed seconds in his brain before washing out.
Lucky Wu Xiaodan had paid for an establishment with strong and solicitous servers, or he would have gotten pickpocketed for all he had, which would have lost him all of the twenty experience points he'd accumulated. One of the young men bowed next to him, shoulder muscles rolling under the straps of the French Maid apron. (Airplane, what the fuck.)
"Does the honorable cultivator wish for some more refreshments? Please don't hesitate."
Considering how much a pot of their tea had cost Wu Xiaodan, he would pass. He was...
He wasn't poor right now.
He also wasn't in any state to appreciate more tea.
It was the morning of the sixth day. The way out had been so much faster with the ruins accepting Wu Xiaodan as the last mistress of the Gu Gui sect, they'd been able to spend a whole day picking up treasures and looting every bedroom not caved in. They had made out like bandits.
They had also meditated every two hours like clockwork. Wu Xiaodan's tightly swirling qi was too powerful to let it wobble unattended for any longer than that.
Even so. It was the sixth day. They'd conquered the ruins. Luo Binghe wasn't here.
And Wu Xiaodan had her feet firmly set on the road toward immortality. Another day of rest, and then she would go home to share the news. And then she would be cut free of society's expectations.
No obligatory marriage, no children but those she chose to bear, in the far future when her body was stable and glowing deep with immortal power. She hadn't gotten the kind of boost the characters taking the Wife Express on Bing-ge's totem pole did, all the way to an established stable core, smooth as a marble; the power circling around her dantian wasn't firm yet. But she had a very long time to figure it out, now. The miracle pill had shot her past Jin Zhengsheng's twenty years of training without a ripple; she would probably still be energetic and youthful in another century.
And Luo Binghe wasn't here.
Shen Yuan had diverted his wife, and stolen his treasure -- sure, not the pill, the big prize, but Wife Nineteen would be in even more trouble now, though likely he would still save the day somehow -- but--
"Jin-qianbei!" Wu Xiaodan's voice called from the other end of the street.
He saw her cutting through the crowd, sharp and graceful and grinning so brightly; she waved over people's heads, even though they'd parted ways not thirty minutes ago. She was nothing like the suspicious, dour young woman he'd met in that tavern; nothing like the conquered prize he had read about. Knowing her smile now, he could only suspect that the Wu Xiaodan who had participated in that harem orgy had only done so because she barely lived in her body any longer, barely lived still.
So depressing. He would have to skip some chapters for his next reread.
Ahh, no use brooding. He smiled back, waving back with slightly more discretion--
--A tall young man stopped Wu Xiaodan as she passed by, a hand touching her sleeve, then retreating politely.
Long, lustrous hair in a high tail. Tall, with solid shoulders, long legs, a trim waist under the leather of his common-looking belt. The flash of his smile when he turned his head--
Shen Yuan's heart thudded in his chest.
Luo Binghe, Bing-gege, Emperor Luo, all of that. Just there, at the end of the street, too far to eavesdrop.
Not far enough for Shen Yuan not to pull his scarf up and burrow half his face into it. Fuuuuuck fuck fuckfuck oh he wanted to be closer, he wanted to be in the next country over, he didn't have any reason to think the man would look at him and know--
Their romance could start so much more smoothly now.
The noise of the crowd had lulled enough for him to hear snatches of Luo Binghe's voice -- smooth and deep, like velvet in the dark; Shen Yuan didn't even listen to the words right away.
"--the ruins--"
"Oh, they're trap-free now," Wu Xiaodan said blithely, barely watching him. "You can go if you want. You and half the adventurers in town, mind, so have fun with that."
And then she resumed walking, passing Luo Binghe with barely a polite, disinterested nod, and jogged her way back to the café, grinning impishly at Jin Zhengsheng as she hopped up the steps.
"I see Jin-shixiong hasn't even finished his biscuits. You'll grow weak if you don't eat, you know."
"It's my third refill! The servers are much too attentive here." Jin-xiong leaned forward, smirking lopsidedly, Shen Yuan's stuttering heart hidden away behind his amusement. "So the young miss is already accumulating cultivating suitors, I see."
Wu Xiaodan shrugged uncaringly as she refilled his tea cup. "Vapid to hide the sleaze isn't my type."
--Oh, wow, an assassination. A cold-blooded murder in daylight. Sleaze? Sleaze?! Bing-ge, sleazy?!
"How else would you call approaching a maiden with flirting words to try to talk her into giving away her hard-earned treasure? A pretty face means nothing if the man behind it is dishonest."
Alright, guniang, stop beating it, that poor horse is already glue. Shen Yuan sighed heavily; granted, he really liked Binghe's darker qualities, his intelligence and his ability to read people and manipulate them, but to act as though Wu Xiaodan was naive was, hrm, maybe a little insulting.
Probably too much time spent at Huan Hua.
... And woooooow was Shen Yuan really glad his golden tunic had been so muddy with blood and dust that the laundress was still beating the filth out of it. Holy shit, he should have thought of that. Holy shit. Let's not think any deeper into the possible repercussions, he would have a heart attack.
"Anyway," Wu Xiaodan brushed away from her mind the man who would have been her husband like a speck of dirt from a tablecloth, "I sent my father his letter, and look what they had at the post office--"
"Ooh! A mirrored water scroll!" So cool! You could write on the silk in water, and as it evaporated it would ink up the paper left rolled inside its sister scroll, no matter the distance! Only good for shorter missives, and you could only send between the pair, but so useful--
"Mnh! Let's attune it to the both of us. I..." She lowered her eyelashes, suddenly shy. "Jin-shixiong has been -- very helpful with my core, and all those travel suggestions -- if you would happen to need any items from -- from faraway places, and --"
"Oh."
They both looked down at their cups, faces pinkening in tandem. She wanted to be penpals! (And to mine him for intel on cool places to loot, but since he would receive some of that loot and possibly firsthand accounts of the places in question, he was inclined to be generous with his knowledge.) A canon character thought he was cool enough to stay in touch with. It didn't even matter that she was barely a tertiary character, it made him giddy.
He had probably started looking a bit too honestly happy, because immediately her eyes twinkled in the way of all little sisters when they wanted to bring their older brother down a peg.
"Actually, I should probably start calling you shifu now--"
"Hey, hey, no, I'm not that old! Call me Shixiong, shixiong! I didn't even teach you anything anyway, I just read a couple manuals with you!"
Wu Xiaodan considered it, then nodded thoughtfully. "Hmm... Shishu then...?"
Shen Yuan stared at her, speechless. All shyness gone, she watched him with gleaming eyes, a smirk at her lips.
Oooh, he would give her uncle.
Eyes narrowed, he grabbed the plate of biscuits and disappeared it up his sleeve.
Wu Xiaodan started laughing at him, and only laughed harder when another young and comely server immediately brought him another plate.
--
NAME : JIN ZHENGSHENG
Background Huan Ha Palace Half-asser #17RACE : Human, Cultivator
STATS : Strength: 7 ; Endurance: 4 ; Golden Core stage : Middle Foundation Establishment
EQUIPMENT : Cheap Gilded Sword (2/4 durability), Gongyi Xiao's Long Lost Sect Entry Token, Stolen Demon Bracers, Stolen Demon Boots
ITEMS : Pilfered Huan Hua Cultivation Manual (Outer disciple version), Pilfered Map (low quality), Pilfered Talismans (18 Light, 7 Campfire-starter, 4 Weak Anti-Demon Wards), Looted Expensive Writing Set (status: slightly damaged), Looted Gu Gui Cultivation Manual, Looted Gu Gui Eight Trigram Tortoise Shields Treatise (Volumes 1 to 3, Volume 5; status: waterlogged)
SPECIAL : Wu Xiaodan's Mirrored Water Scroll
STATUS : Concussion (3 days remaining)
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