Chapter Text
A soft knock on the door rouses Luo Binghe from sleep. Next to him, breathing calm and even, Liu Qingge is sleeping his worries away. That’s good. It had taken Luo Binghe a little too much time to realize his close proximity may have negatively influenced his bed partner's dreams. Ever since that Qi deviation that had come out of practically nowhere, every next time Liu Qingge woke up, he'd been blurting some nonsense, about some sort of debt and repayment, cycles and circles, nothing comprehensible whatsoever. Luo Binghe had grown tired, trying to piece together the whole picture based on scraps, so he just knocked the cultivator out and let him sort himself out without additional complications.
Now, though, the soft knocking on the door repeats, and Luo Binghe finds himself highly annoyed to get himself out of bed and look remotely presentable in the process. He gives up halfway, the thin inner robes merely tied around his waist so he wouldn’t need to flash any unsuspecting visitor too much. His head, too, feels unreasonably heavy — except he’s done nothing to warrant such an occasion.
“Ah,” he says, opening the door to find a young girl of the Mobei clan standing before him with a bowl of water in hand. The kid glares at him stubbornly, trying to sneak her face past him and snatch a look at the cultivator still sleeping beyond, but Luo Binghe pinches her ear. “Did you bring what I asked?”
The young girl pouts, then holds out the bowl. She doesn’t simply hand it over, though.
“Junshang says you have no right,” she says. “You’re not married.”
Luo Binghe rolls his eyes. “Mobei clan’s customs don’t apply to him. Nor do they apply to me.”
“Immortal Master Liu is under Junshang’s protection,” the girl retorts, stubbornly. “Therefore Junshang’s rules apply, absolutely.”
“Then let me solve that real fast,” Luo Binghe drawls. He takes the bowl of water from her by force, and then, making sure she gets to witness the whole thing, he bears down to place a gentle kiss on top of Liu Qingge’s head.
It’s hardly a meaningful gesture of any kind ─ but demonic kids are easily fooled, most of the time. The moment a soft, red marking spurts up on Liu Qingge’s forehead, identical to Luo Binghe’s own Heavenly Demon mark, that child gasps and runs off, face beet red. Hah. All that, just for bits of water.
As Luo Binghe fixes himself up a little and shuts the door behind her, he’s forced to acknowledge that, as far as such things go, this is a small price to pay for a little precious treasure that flows under the Mobei palace.
The Blue Water Springs, the Fountain of Eternal Life, the River of Penance ─ the set of hidden pools underneath the Mobei palace has many names. Luo Binghe would’ve hardly remembered it exists, had Liu Qingge not been so annoying, talking about propriety and responsibility and penance in his sleep. That said, the idea holds some merit. According to the young girl from before, the Southern Demon Lord used precisely this blessed water to preserve Liu Qingge’s life when his spiritual power failed him. Luo Binghe sees how it might’ve been beneficial. The water in the Blue Springs flows directly from the heavens and its spiritual potency is unmatched ─ the sole connection remaining between the heavenly realm and the demonic realm. Nothing can possibly taint it.
That also means that it’s not exactly helpful to demons, on most occasions.
Mobei Jun has found some ways to put it in use, handling Formless Demons, as Luo Binghe recalls it ─ but otherwise, he personally hadn’t experimented much with it. That water, more often than not, was too potent in cleaning the darkness built up inside him, to the point the discomfort felt to be too much and his cultivation crippled, most of the time.
Liu Qingge should find it beneficial, though.
As a child of a god and a human of succubi origin, his constitution is unique enough to be able to draw the best out of this water, without necessarily causing him harm in the process. But making him drink it, the way the Southern Demon Lord evidently has done, feels much too unnecessarily cruel of a treatment.
With no towel or any clean rag in sight, Luo Binghe rips a part of his own inner robes to dip into the water. Once it’s soaked and dripping, he brings it over Liu Qingge’s forehead, tapping gently across the skin. Immediately, it earns him a grunt, but that’s to be expected. Luo Binghe is pressing the huadian into his skin with what is blessed water ─ getting rid of it won’t be easy.
“Relax,” he instructs, before taking the cloth away from the face and along the sides of Liu Qingge’s neck. “You accumulate all the incompatible energy in just one point of your body. Let me find it.”
Liu Qingge, briefly roused from his sleep, grumbles something incomprehensible before rolling to his side. Well. That’s helpful enough.
“Thanking Shishu,” Luo Binghe says lightly, then proceeds to strip him of the clothes entirely.
Liu Qingge’s exposed back, it turns out, reveals even more scars than his front does. It can’t be helped, Luo Binghe suspects ─ that idiot clearly doesn’t bother removing them, for whatever reason. Does he find some ridiculous pride in keeping his scars? Why not let his cultivation do as it will? Some of the scars are quite obvious too, as they are a mere continuation of the same wound that pierced through his front. Others, though, are less so.
Some of them are lashing scars, so old that they can’t have possibly been experienced after forming the original core. Stretched and faded, they look like something that’s been there with Liu Qingge long before his shoulders have grown wide enough to handle all his backbone. Luo Binghe gives them special attention. Such places tend to store the negative energy the most easily ─ if anything bad clings to those old wounds, the water from the Blue Springs should be able to disperse it away… but that doesn’t seem to be the case. If those scars cling to anything at all, it was healed a long time ago.
Luo Binghe can’t help himself though, bending his head and pressing small, soft kisses all along the spine as he goes. The shudders it provokes from this man make him want to sink his teeth into the muscle and gnaw at it endlessly ─ but he refrains.
He didn’t work so hard, helping Liu Qingge fix himself, just to undo it all because of a little unreasonable lust.
Instead, little by little, he keeps dragging the water across the length of the cultivator’s back, gently rubbing it and massaging it into the skin and muscle, as sensually as he can make it. Under his ministrations, Liu Qingge is as pliant and relaxed as a sleeping cat, entirely uninterested in the worldly affairs ─ until pressing a particular spot makes him wince.
It’s not a big reaction, just an intake of breath and a twitch of the muscles, but knowing just how good at handling pain his Shishu is, that small reaction speaks volumes of the discomfort that must surely be there. Luo Binghe takes a moment to better examine the spot, but on a glance, there doesn’t seem to be anything obviously off about it. Not even an old scar. A point at the lower back muscles, no obvious injury. Luo Binghe dips the cloth into the water and then presses it back against the offending place ─ and Liu Qingge sucks in a breath to keep himself from making a noise. A pained, cut-off gasp.
Interesting.
The third time Luo Binghe does it, he feels the muscle itself twitch under his fingers. A reaction provoked, but otherwise an issue entirely undetectable if he merely uses his spiritual power to examine. How curious indeed.
He takes a look at what of the water he still has left in the bowl, which is not much. The Mobei clan’s generosity only extends to a handful. Luo Binghe sniffs at it, considers it for a moment ─ and then tips the bowl for all its contents to pour directly down on the offending spot. Liu Qingge bites into the pillow to muffle the screams, but what’s done is done. There’s just the single twitching point in his flesh, which Luo Binghe keeps prodding and poking with his spiritual power now that it’s been located ─ until eventually, something breaks through the skin and falls into the palm of his hand.
It looks like a shard piece: black, triangular, thinner than a sheet of paper, glistening in crimson. The feel of it is wickedly damning.
A Xin Mo shard?!
Luo Binghe stares at it, wide-eyed and uncomprehending. How the hell did this─
“The hell were you doing?” Liu Qingge is hissing, half turning to glare ─ just to find himself equally frozen at the sight of a shard piece resting on Luo Binghe’s palm. He gulps. Then, softly, he says, “Oh, shit.”
Luo Binghe hesitates, at a loss. “You know what this is?”
“Not exactly,” Liu Qingge answers, between heavy yawns. “A curse, was it? Shen Yuan had an identical piece lodged in his head. Made a whole damn mess…” but he looks away, a faint blush dusting his cheeks. Then it hits him that the thing has been dug out of his own flesh, and he goes pale. “How long─?”
“Years,” Luo Binghe whispers. Though by the feel of it, decades feels like a more appropriate answer. Possibly centuries. The silly thing is so attuned to Liu Qingge and his cultivation that it could’ve gone unnoticed forever. Luo Binghe suspects that it is only acting out now not even because of the blessed water, but because the setup of the entire cultivation system anew has thoroughly dislodged it from what’s been familiar to it all along. Which begs the question, just how long has Liu Qingge been cultivating with this inside him? How is it even possible?
Liu Qingge takes the shard from him before Luo Binghe can stop him, and glares at the piece intensely for a few moments. Then his eyes flash white and the shard shatters with a small explosion that blows dust in both their faces ─ but it doesn’t matter, because Xin Mo’s power, attuned to Liu Qingge as it was, no longer exists.
“There,” Liu Qingge says, as though he’s done no more than crush a cockroach under his boot. He shakes his head as if to clear it, looking very much like the tousled mess he is. He wipes a bit of sweat from his brow by the back of his hand, before sinking back into the pillows and relaxing back into absolute softness. “The backlash last time was worse,” he mumbles, sleepily. “It’s just a blood curse. If you find more, overpower it and it won’t bother you anymore.” And then he keeps snoring the rest of the day away.
As though blood curses can be as easily resolved as that.
As though Xin Mo can be simply overpowered like that.
Luo Binghe remains sitting there for a long time after, staring into Liu Qingge’s naked back, gently rising and falling with every breath he inhales. Eventually, Luo Binghe remembers to pick his jaw off the floor, fold his makeshift rag into the empty bowl, and walks directly towards where he knows the Blue Springs sit, uncaring of how many oaths it breaks to the Mobei clan. By far the most important one he has to uphold is to not destroy that place, either way. And that, he most certainly doesn't plan to do.
He is going to exploit it instead.
Mobei Jun finds him a while later, sitting at the edge of a small translucent pool of shiny water, the water itself the sole source of light in the deep darkness of the underground caves. Luo Binghe doesn’t particularly care that he’s been found ─ nor is he in any way concerned over whether or not Mobei Jun has sought him out to demand a fight. The disparity in their power at this point is not so great. Luo Binghe can and will force him into submission, should the Mobei clan leader test his patience.
That doesn’t seem to be what the Ice demon clan leader is after, though. Mobei Jun leans against a wall a solid distance away, crossing his arms as he glares daggers at Luo Binghe.
Then, he says, “You’re free. Does that mean that the Formless Demons will be making a resurgence?”
He couldn’t have picked a more annoying thing to ask.
Luo Binghe clicks his tongue and scowls at his feet, but he considers it seriously. Those things have always been looking to annoy him. But as far as that goes, they're even more intent to pester this other version of himself.
He nods. “A safe assumption.”
“Not a natural phenomenon,” Mobei Jun says.
“Human-made,” Luo Binghe confirms. Specifically, Shen Qingqiu’s work.
“Weapon,” Mobei Jun surmises.
Luo Binghe nods. Anything can be a weapon, if you’re creative enough to use it as such.
“Against you?” Mobei Jun asks, idly.
Luo Binghe laughs
Yeah, right. Shen Qingqiu, that bastard, has surely done him in─
A slight feeling of discomfort churns in his stomach. The thought of Shen Qingqiu, looming over him, celebrating his victory after decades of suffering─
This body is barely twenty years old, Luo Binghe thinks, distractedly. What decades are they talking about? But from what little understanding he has, Shen Qingqiu and the way that bastard spoke ─ it makes no sense. At first, everything was so confusing. The only thing Luo Binghe remembers with some clarity is trying to break out of the corner of the mind his other self had locked him in ─ just to find the entire structure of his dream realm crumbling apart. Luo Binghe remembers diving through those cracks, expecting to find answers on the other side of the light ─ but all he got for his efforts was endless darkness and pain.
A new life and a new opportunity, that’s not what this is. Luo Binghe has a few guesses as to what it may be instead, none of which feel entirely correct.
But that is for later. Now, after what feels like a lifetime later, he is back here, in the northern demon realm where his conquest started ─ and the current leader of the North is speaking to him as though they are somehow civil and not straight up competitors for the throne, enemies.
I know how your mind works, Luo Binghe thinks, watching the Mobei clan leader attentively. It is not the Formless Demons that concern you.
Is it Luo Binghe that concerns him then? Mobei Jun hardly shows it, but it’s not an unreasonable thought. Luo Binghe has been through something like this before. And while Mobei Jun is many things ─ he is not one of those power hungry beasts seeking to terrorize everyone beneath him.
“I plan to get rid of them, one way or the other,” is ultimately what Luo Binghe says. A promise and a goal, simultaneously, to give himself some structure in this madness. A starting point to help him make his way through this chaos.
Mobei Jun snorts. “Went well the first time, did it?”
Luo Binghe scowls but he doesn’t rise to the bait. He has no intention whatsoever to take responsibility for his other self’s stupidity.
“Three years of Formless Demons chipping away at your sense of self teaches you a few things,” is what he says instead.
“Bull. Shit,” says Mobei Jun. And then tilts his chin up, as if to say, you sitting at the edge of my pool proves it.
Which perhaps isn’t entirely wrong. Luo Binghe is tempted to walk straight into one of those pools until the layers of his skin get burnt off, so long as it gives him clarity in places he finds lacking. He doesn’t, though. Not because he fears the pain or what he might find in the fog ─ it’s actually not due to fear at all. He sits there, staring at the water without ever daring to reach out for one reason and one reason alone.
A gut instinct, so deep and ingrained, the likes of which he has only ever felt when his life was in immeasurable danger.
If I touch this, I will regret it.
A feeling which simply refuses to go away. Something he knows with the certainty of knowing… well. Luo Binghe no longer feels certain about anything, not really. But he is confident about this. This water won’t help him. Not now surely and perhaps not ever. But it has made him think of something else.
“The seal on my demonic power has cracked,” he says, “but my control over both cultivation systems is immaculate.”
Mobei Jun raises an eyebrow. “You want my aid no more?”
Luo Binghe doesn’t react, but his stomach revolts at the mere notion any version of himself might’ve ever asked for aid. “It’s stable,” is what he says. Which may just be the oddest part of it all. His demonic power should’ve been overwhelming his spiritual power, had the seal disappeared. Since it hasn’t, he would’ve expected difficulties handling his demonic power. Instead, his spiritual and demonic cultivation seem to be on a similar level. The seal is making the majority of his demonic cultivation unavailable, but what he can use of it is seemingly carefully balanced out with his current spiritual cultivation. It is more than he would have expected under the circumstances. It is also making something else unavailable, his blood parasites, specifically which is a slight bit more concerning ─ but Luo Binghe puts that concern aside for the moment.
“I guess not,” he says, much to the Mobei Clan Leader’s frustration.
Mobei Jun makes a face. “The seal reeks. Now more than ever.”
Luo Binghe snorts. “Deal with it. I’m in no hurry to remove it.”
“Coward.”
“Says the one who doesn’t dare openly confront me.”
“It is only out of respect to the Southern Lord that I haven’t humiliated you.”
“No one asked for such consideration.”
“Liu Qingge did.”
…?! Luo Binghe lifts his eyes to look at the Northern Demon Lord and finds nothing but a blank look on the demon’s face. That infuriates him far more than anything else could have. “What,” he hisses, “do you possibly mean by that?”
But Mobei Jun merely shrugs. “Skinner is your job.”
“What Skinner? What does a Skinner have─wait.” Luo Binghe scowls grimly. “The Skinner. The same one that, to Liu Qingge─”
Mobei Jun stares so pointedly at him without saying a word that his silence becomes an obvious answer. Luo Binghe thinks about it for a moment, then says, “That Skinner is obsessed, drunk on the succubi essence. Liu Qingge is probably the sole thing that it is able to think about─”
“All the Formless Demons that exist in the North exist because of the Skinner,” Mobei Jun says. “Obsessed or not, it must not exist.”
“And you’re dumping that responsibility on me?” Luo Binghe drawls. “What gives you the right?”
Mobei Jun doesn’t answer, just glares.
Then he turns around, just like that, and walks away.
Hey! Hey! You prick! How rude is that?! Luo Binghe is fuming and he almost loses it before recalling that he is, in this specific situation, not a demon lord of any kind, let alone the Emperor of the Combined Realms. Not only that, the North and the South already have their leaders appointed ─ both of which seem to have some sort of an unresolved debt with Luo Binghe’s bed partner. How curious.
Luo Binghe glares at the water for a while longer, before dumping a bowl straight in, filling it to the brim, then heading back to his bedchambers.
When he gets there, it is to find Liu Qingge’s face contorting in his sleep, eyebrows scrunched together and muscles tense as though he’s trying to cover up the pain.
Luo Binghe sighs at the sight and shuts the door behind him, careful not to spill a single drop of the water he’s brought. He puts it on a poor excuse of a nightstand first, then helps Liu Qingge turn until he’s lying on his back again, head lifted up over the cosy pillows. Pretty hair falls over them, perfect strands of black silk, which Luo Binghe takes a moment to untangle before brushing his fingers through the length of it. Over and over, he keeps doing it, if only for the pleasure alone.
But he has to get to work, eventually. He picks up the bowl and a cloth again, to continue with the same cleaning process he has already started ─ only this time from the front.
By the time he uses up the entirety of the second bowl, three more shard pieces sit on the palm of his hand, all of them extracted from the same place ─ the deep, nasty X scar over Liu Qingge’s chest.
This time, even the extraction process isn’t enough to snap the Bai Zhan Peak Lord awake ─ merely draw a gasp or two. Luo Binghe is tempted to just go and dump the man into the Blue Springs on the whole ─ but he refrains. For now. Best to save that show for later when they can both enjoy it. Until that happens, he keeps turning over the black shards over the palm of his hand, trying and testing and prodding them with his spiritual power first, demonic second, but it doesn’t do much. For all that they look like shards of Xin Mo, their power is similar, but not the same as Luo Binghe’s most trusted companion. It is also much, much weaker than anything Luo Binghe has ever felt from Xin Mo.
He is tempted to do the same thing Liu Qingge did and crush the shards in his hand just because he can ─ but then, the moment he tries, something shifts.
Before Luo Binghe understands what’s happening, those three black shards mold together with his skin ─ not piercing, not cutting, but blending in with his hand as though it is somehow a part of him. And then they’re gone. Their power, presence and feel ─ it’s like they were never there to begin with.
Luo Binghe stares at the untouched skin of his palm for a disproportionate amount of time, before he puts the bowl away, pretends he’s seen nothing at all and curls up against Liu Qingge’s side, burying his face into the man’s neck.
“Wake up, why don’t you?” he whispers between kisses, raining them over Shishu’s jawline, neck, collarbone and shoulder. “I have so many questions. Wake up already.”
Liu Qingge doesn’t.
Luo Binghe discovers his blood parasites in Liu Qingge somewhere in between his pathetic sniffling over the man’s neck and the moment he attempts to sneak his tongue where it doesn’t belong just to get unceremoniously shoved off.
Liu Qingge wakes up fully after that, which is a plus ─ but it does nothing for Luo Binghe’s spiraling thoughts immediately upon this discovery. Just what kind of a relationship has the other him had with this man that Liu Qingge would willingly dive headfirst into dual cultivation just to set him free? What kind of expectations has the other version of himself had, placing his dormant blood parasites into somebody like this?
Knowing this, is Liu Qingge even aware of what I am able to do to him?
Luo Binghe doesn’t know and such thoughts spinning through his head do very little to help him calm down. He attempts, out of curiosity alone, to get the little mites moving consciously ─ but they refuse. They stay dormant and nestling in Liu Qingge’s chest, entirely unresponsive.
Luo Binghe almost cries out in protest. Just how incompetent his other self is, exactly, that he can’t even do this?!
Liu Qingge, for his part, is still a little groggy and confused, looking around their bedroom, at Luo Binghe who is all but hovering over him. Finally, he seems to take in both their rather questionable state of dress, before throwing his head back and audibly groaning.
Luo Binghe chooses to put the issue of his blood parasites aside for now and props his chin on Liu Qingge's shoulder. “How is Shishu feeling?”
“Do not address me that way after we ─ after we─” Liu Qingge chokes up and slams his head back into the pillows, ears and cheeks brightening with color. Luo Binghe is so tempted to do something about it ─ and so he does.
Putting on a face, sad, heartbroken, an obvious act, he then drags his finger between the clear outline of Liu Qingge’s chest. At first, the touch is light enough to mistake as innocent, barely there. But the further down he goes, towards the abs and the absolute rocks packed there, the more intentional it gets, until eventually he begins teasing the lower abdomen and Liu Qingge opens his eyes and mouth with the intention to shout ─ but Luo Binghe is faster.
“Shishu has had his way with me and gotten exactly what he wanted. Does he now intend to discard me?”
Liu Qingge, who had been half-way to revolting for whatever reason, freezes with his mouth open like a gaping fish, his already pinkish ears and cheeks fast gaining color. Ah, indeed, Luo Binghe has judged him well. Much too honorable. Just like his sister. Blushing madly, too, completely unlike her.
“N-no. What. No,” Liu Qingge garbles out, at a complete loss. “The hell do you take me for─”
“Does Shishu intend to take responsibility, then?”
That floors him even worse. All the color drains out of Liu Qingge’s face faster than it’s built up and Luo Binghe almost ruins the act by laughing.
“W-wait,” the Bai Zhan Peak Lord mumbles. “What do you mean by…? Did I…? Are you able to…? I mean, demons, parasites, I know that bastard said─” but whatever direction his thoughts have gone seems wildly different from what Luo Binghe intended, because he slowly starts becoming visibly nauseous. Luo Binghe is curious to see where it all goes, so he ups the act of an innocent child even more, stops even teasing the man’s abs to play up his confusion, much to Liu Qingge’s obvious fright.
But apparently, rather than address his immediate concerns, Liu Qingge takes a deep breath. He looks at Luo Binghe straight in the eye then, and seemingly coming to a decision, his face hardens. “How long was I asleep?”
Trying not to show his evident disappointment that his teasing has failed, Luo Binghe says, “Eleven days, fifteen hours, twenty seven minutes.”
Liu Qingge stares at him for a long moment, before nodding slowly. “Feels longer,” he mumbles. Then he averts his eyes away from Luo Binghe and where he’s all glued to Liu Qingge’s side. Notably, he doesn’t attempt to extract himself. “Where is this?”
“The Mobei clan’s palace,” Luo Binghe answers.
The way all of Liu Qingge’s muscles instantly relax is telling. Enough so that Luo Binghe subconsciously leans into him, and Liu Qingge doesn’t push him away.
“Oh,” he says. Then, Shishu makes a face, like a displeased child. “Where’s all the ice?”
Luo Binghe can’t stop himself ─ he snorts. He has, after all, heard enough about his Shishu's stay to know what his previous experience with the Mobei palace must’ve looked like. Ice everywhere. Blocks and blocks of ice, eternal and endless, to bring some relief to the damage the demonic Qi had been causing to his spiritual meridians. Circumstances are wildly different now, of course, but the icy remedy that Liu Qingge once needed for mere survival is a thing of the past.
“Did you think I’d let the Mobei clan treat you as inhospitably as they have before?” Luo Binghe asks, his innocent act gone as though swept away by the wave of the hand. “They should be happy I allowed them to repay their debt. After what you’ve done for me, I should have locked you away somewhere where no one gets to see what your body can do once you put your mind to it. It should be something saved for me ─ solely me.”
Liu Qingge makes a face, but then he finally seems to remember that Luo Binghe has all but glued himself to his hips. Somehow, he finds the cruelty inside him to push Luo Binghe off of himself, blushing furiously as he does. “Shut up,” is what he is saying, probably trying to make it sound aggressive, but coming across like an embarrassed maiden instead. Luo Binghe indulges him anyway. He most certainly doesn’t rush to cover himself up, and Liu Qingge’s eyes absolutely end up wandering exactly where he wants them to go.
The Bai Zhan Peak Lord stares at that part of him a moment longer than strictly necessary, before turning his face away and once again blushing an even wilder red.
Oh, Luo Binghe was wrong about him. He’s not like a shy maiden at all. He is worse.
Throwing his legs over to the other side of the bed, Liu Qingge makes a show of trying to figure out how to tie up his own clothes, only to eventually realize he can’t. It was Luo Binghe who picked out those precious robes and so naturally, he chose the most alluring, inviting option he could find. The one that serves no purpose other than framing men in the most attractive way possible. Even the back of it hides nothing of the perfection that is Liu Qingge’s back.
“Shishu will find that there is a plain black set on the left shelf,” Luo Binghe informs him, and Liu Qingge immediately scrambles towards the wardrobe ─ freezing in place when he finds his sheathed weapon leaning against it. Luo Binghe smiles. “Shishu will also find that his sword has been repaired.”
“Wha─”
Liu Qingge’s head whips around so fast that Luo Binghe doesn’t have the time to wipe the smug smile off his face, so he just owns it instead.
“Go ahead, try it,” he says.
Liu Qingge, entirely distracted now, reaches out for his spiritual sword, entirely unaware of the sight he makes like that. His hair, once again a bit tangled and tousled, his singular robe, thin enough to be meaningless, but still outlining the shape of his body in the dull light around them. There are still marks on his skin where Luo Binghe bit into it a bit too harshly, but they have mostly faded now. Something in Luo Binghe screams for him to create them all over again, for everyone to know that this man is his.
Shivering slightly, Liu Qingge picks up his sword and draws it out just enough for the blade to light up with spiritual power, before slamming it back into the sheath.
“You really,” he mumbles, faintly, only barely able to keep his voice level. “You…”
“I hear it was my demonic power that caused it to shatter,” Luo Binghe reasons, calmly. “It felt appropriate.”
Liu Qingge shudders. He shakes his head, though. “Not your fault,” he says.
“Never claimed it was.”
Liu Qingge looks at him then, sharp and intent and full of some conviction that Luo Binghe doesn’t understand. “Not. Your. Fault.”
Luo Binghe nods, slowly. It feels like it’s not the sword that they’re talking about, at all.
“How is Shishu feeling now that he’s awake?” he asks instead.
“Disoriented,” Liu Qingge mumbles.
“Anything I can assist with?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
Luo Binghe nods. He also finds that saying words feels like sandpaper against his throat, so he says nothing. It doesn’t help that, now that his thoughts are elsewhere, Liu Qingge is no longer acting self-conscious at all, removing the meaningless inner robe and reaching for the more appropriate clothing and that is just further fanning the flames in his lower regions─
“Stop staring,” Liu Qingge hisses, pointedly turning away so only his back is now exposed. Clearly he lacks self-awareness, because that sight is no less enciting than the other side─ “I said, fucking stop.”
Luo Binghe swallows, thickly. “I’ve already seen it all. What do you have to be shy about now?”
Liu Qingge shoots him a glare. It would’ve looked a little more intimidating if his ears weren’t such a deep shade of red they’re almost purple. “What are you, a beast?”
“I can be, if that’s how you like─”
A hastily crumpled inner robe hits his face and Luo Binghe stands there in pure shock, as the bedroom door clicks open, then slams shut. For the longest moment he doesn’t know how to react. A part of him wants to be offended. Liu Qingge, how dare you treat the Emperor of the Combined Realms this way?! But those robes smell like him so much, by the time Luo Binghe remembers to move them, most of the anger has melted away into confusion instead ─ and then laughter.
It’s just a chuckle at first, but soon it morphs into an all-out cackle, after which Luo Binghe throws the robes back on the bed and just shakes his head in wonder.
He may really be going crazy, but he’s been challenged now. He ain’t going anywhere until he’s got his Shishu begging on his knees for him, that much he promises.
Liu Qingge can’t get out of that room fast enough.
It’s not that he’s looking to strictly run away from… well, whatever his life is right now. No, really. He isn’t. He’s pretty clear on what he’s done, where he stands and what it has taken to get there. He isn’t gonna regret shit and he isn’t going to lose his head about it. He’s had plenty of time to get used to the idea and going from planning to execution to aftermath is a bit more chaotic than expected, but it is done. Not even Luo Binghe putting on airs to make him squirm is gonna work ─ not really.
The real disorienting part, though, Liu Qingge has no idea how to bring up. Not to anyone, especially Luo Binghe ─ nor even to himself.
Questionable dreams are one thing. Liu Qingge has had his fair share of those. It’s not fine that he’s gotta deal with more of them now, but he doesn’t want to make an issue out of stuff no one really has any control over.
But questionable dreams that aren’t his? The vivid impression of reality that those dreams have left on him? A distinct feeling that, in a different place, at a different time, things could have turned out that way. Perhaps they actually did.
Shen Yuan dead.
Luo Binghe crossing all the lines to get him back.
And Liu Qingge stuck in the middle, watching everything unfold and unable to prevent any of it.
Then he wakes up to that same person perfectly fine next to him, messing around and making him squirm just as he’s always done─
It’s not the same.
That’s right. It’s not how things used to be. It’s been years, things aren’t meant to be the same. How could they possibly be? But then, what is the problem?
If Liu Qingge is to sit down and think about it, the answer is obvious.
Luo Binghe’s obsession and fixation has always been Shen Yuan. The kid was never subtle about it. Whether that got anywhere beyond what Liu Qingge has the shame to think about, he doesn’t care to know. More pressingly, Shen Yuan is in the Endless Abyss and what that means for any of them…
He shouldn’t be there, an overwhelming part of him is screaming. If anyone should have fallen into that hellhole, it’s Luo Binghe, not─
Liu Qingge has seen what sort of a fate unfolds if Shen Yuan doesn’t end up there and… screw it all, he’d rather take this. The Endless Abyss is worse than the purgatory and what goes there has the unnerving tendency to stay there… but that means Shen Yuan can always be brought back. Dead or undead or unharmed ─ it’s a gamble either way. But it is possible. The problem with the Endless Abyss is the very fact that the realm follows no rule set by the heavenly realm and so anything goes.
Dying in the human realm is the end of it though. No redos, no fixing it. Not without crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed.
Liu Qingge has dreamt through nightmares that should’ve been Luo Binghe’s but are now his instead… and to this moment, he cannot say with certainty where one begins and the other ends. Either way, they feel real. Just as real as the nightmare of Shen Qingqiu stabbing him through the chest. Just as the way that man has actually done it.
Three different times, Liu Qingge thinks furiously.
Juedi Gorge was one of those. That one has definitely happened and he now remembers clearly. The haze of confusion and agony as that obsidian blade sank through his chest, taking away parts of him that Liu Qingge has always guarded with everything he has.
That’s not a fucking nightmare, damn it, and he’s got scars to prove it, a hole in his body that hasn’t been entirely filled even with a new spiritual core shining strong inside him. He knows his original spiritual core is still out there, in use, he sometimes thinks he can feel it. But he cannot say for certain where it is or what it may be doing.
The second time Shen Qingqiu stabbed him, he doesn’t remember as clearly. He is certain, however, that it is the same dream he’s dreamt before, one wrapped around in a mist of confusion and madness. He thinks that one might have happened near a river, maybe. Or else on some weird mountain. He’d dismissed it as a mere nightmare more than once. Obviously, that was a mistake. Nothing about that monster is ever a dream ─ merely a premonition.
The third time Shen Qingqiu stabbed him, that was the Lingxi caves.
Liu Qingge had never once been granted permission to enter the Lingxi caves. Given that he knows how those caves work, it is only the Sect Leader who could have approved his presence there ─ and Liu Qingge has no recollection of Yue Qingyuan ever doing that. It is in the Sect Leader's interest not to permit that and so Liu Qingge gets it. He doesn't like it, but he understands, so he hasn't made an issue of it in the past.
Yet in these dreams, he had found himself there twice already. Once with Shen Qingqiu, who had evidently attempted to end his life there. And once with Shen Yuan, who had done his best to save him. Both of those dreams, as a precondition, had Liu Qingge deviating for the same damn reason.
Given just how spiritually charged the Lingxi caves are, even dreaming about them in such great detail shouldn’t be possible. Not unless one had the opportunity to visit, to step inside and feel their power. The first time, Liu Qingge dismissed it as the details of Shen Yuan’s dream carrying over to himself, since the brief connection between them at the time could have easily caused such mishaps. Has Shen Qingqiu entered that place before? Probably. Yue Qingyuan would allow that, surely, so it makes snese.
That said, one such detailed dream is an accident.
Twice, though?
Liu Qingge has a feeling that if he pursues this matter, there will be more than just coincidences to find.
Another thing that bothers him is that, in a similar fashion as he'd attacked Liu Qingge, Shen Qingqiu had torn Mingyan’s dantian apart.
If that had been done just to himself, Liu Qingge wouldn’t be thinking about it. His relationship with Shen Qingqiu has always been that kind of terrible. An attempted murder would hardly be a surprise. But why target Mingyan? Just cause she’s figured out how to stop the Formless Demons? Getting in her way shouldn’t have required tearing a whole dantian apart.
Could it be the fact that she’s Liu Qingge’s sister, then? Does Shen Qingqiu’s hatred run so deep to extend his vindictive streak on even those who never deserved it? It might be a part of it, but it still feels… too intentional. Too personal. And sending her back to Tianyao, on top of everything else? Just all around mean-spirited. Shen Qingqiu is very much a self-serving bastard, but doing favors to nobles out of convenience doesn’t ring true for that freak. There’s gotta be more to it.
In the end, there is one more puzzling thing, the one Liu Qingge cannot stop wondering about. Why take my spiritual core, but not kill me?
Although that one really might’ve been an accident. Tianlang Jun had brought it up enough times and Liu Qingge knows it too. He shouldn’t have survived that. The lengths that demon and Zhuzhi Lang went to, just to keep Liu Qingge breathing, speak for themselves. He never should’ve made it. Along with the shards of the blood curse Luo Binghe had extracted from his body, that’s just another thing that should have never happened. Cause how the hell had those shards made it there?
Liu Qingge knows his body well. If there had been anything amiss, he would have noticed immediately. The only instance of time when it could have possibly happened was when he’d been helping Shen Yuan get rid of it ─ but he would have noticed if the curse had moved over to him, no?
At the very least, Mingyan should have.
But they both missed it. And Luo Binghe’s estimate that it’s been there for such a long time that his cultivation simply adapted to it sounded like straight up bullshit… until it’s become the only explanation possible.
It doesn’t make any sense.
Granted, blood curses aren’t meant to make sense, but this one specifically? Absolute rubbish.
Abruptly, Liu Qingge stops in the middle of the frozen hallway, staring at the frosted wall ahead of him.
There’d been a curse in the dream, too.
A blood curse in the form of a sword, wielded by Luo Binghe. It had felt similar, but not the same. The origin might’ve been identical, but the purpose differed.
Same origin, but a different curse? Or the same curse, but a different manifestation of it? Which of them is right? Fuck. The more Liu Qingge thinks about it, the more he feels like he’s missing something.
Xin Mo, Luo Binghe had called it. Heart demon. It wouldn’t be wrong to call it that, given the way it summoned darkness to itself… but names bear power and naming a curse something insidious as that is far too ridiculous even as a thought. Going back to Luo Binghe to ask if that’s true feels ridiculous, too, but Liu Qingge has to know─
And with his sharpened senses, he catches a whiff of a presence that may hold some answers to his endless questions, after all.
Liu Qingge pauses to make sure it really is the presence he thinks it is, then he lifts his hair up and puts the crown back in place. He takes a deep breath.
Then, before it can wander away out of his reach, he gives chase.
Once he’s got his eyes set on the target, a sharp, toothy grin spreads along his lips. Liu Qingge slows his steps down to an even pace, as he watches the little freak busily discuss something with a few younglings of the Mobei clan. Seemingly urging them to bring their king here. Hah. Tough luck. From the feel of it, Mobei Jun isn’t around the palace.
That means this is probably the first and the last chance Liu Qingge is gonna get to wrangle some answers out of this coward without an audience around.
He takes it without question.
“Busy there, Shixiong?” he asks, just as the Mobei clan girl seems to be losing patience with him.
Shang Qinghua, the rat, freezes in place. A smile, entirely ungenuine, makes it across his face. All it does is make him look like he's ready to jump out of his own skin. “Ah, Liu-shidi. What in the world brings you… here…” the traitor trails off, at the sight of Liu Qingge’s hand calmly resting on Cheng Luan’s hilt. The weapon is oozing spiritual power. Shang Qinghua chuckles. “Oh. That’s fixed. Good to see, good to see─”
Liu Qingge stops a short distance away and watches, unimpressed, as a Peak Lord of Cang Qiong Mountain attempts to hide himself behind a demon child. The child who is, notably, just as unimpressed. She waits patiently for a nod from Liu Qingge, then blushes faintly and bows her head, then scurries away in a flash, leaving Shang Qinghua entirely exposed.
The peak lord in question flinches once there’s nothing but air left between him and Liu Qingge, scratching the back of his neck in the process. “Ah, Liu-shidi keeps charming the demons with his presence, I see—”
“Save the nonsense,” Liu Qingge cuts him off. “You owe me answers. Time to pay up.”
“Wait a second! Just a moment, Shidi! If I don’t deliver information to my king—”
But before that sentence is out, Liu Qingge has him by the back of his neck, dragging him off to one of those halls Tianlang Jun used to stay in because no one ever bothered sneaking around there. Shang Qinghua flails and complains the whole time, like the fucking coward he is ─ until Liu Qingge shoves him into an empty room and seals the door.
“Um, Liu-shidi, is this not a bit much—”
“You have this one chance,” Liu Qingge enunciates, loud and clear. “I don’t give a crap about when you allied yourself with the demons nor why. There’s one thing I want to know, and you’re going to explain it. Have I made myself clear?”
Shang Qinghua, who had just lifted a finger in the air with the intention to interrupt, quickly puts it back down. Still, he says, “Liu-shidi, given our circumstance is very much alike, as a sect brother to sect brother, you should know that it was never an intention of mine to─”
“Cut the crap,” Liu Qingge hisses. “Make excuses for your betrayal to Yue Qingyuan if you want, that’s none of my business. There’s something else I’m here for. And for every word you lie to my face, I’m going to break a bone.”
“Liu-shidi! There’s no need for such drastic measures! I’ve proven myself a willing ally—”
“Have you?”
Shang Qinghua tenses. As Liu Qingge takes a mildly threatening step towards him, the An Ding Peak Lord tenses up even more.
“Um, Liu-shidi, I ─ lemme just remind you, I─”
“It’s thanks to you and Mobei Jun that Zhuzhi Lang and Tianlang Jun found a way to help me, I heard that much,” Liu Qingge reassures him. “Thanks for that. I don’t care, though.”
“Oh. Um.” Shang Qinghua gulps. “Then…?”
“You knew Shen Qingqiu was alive,” Liu Qingge accuses. When the Peak Lord in question opens his mouth, Liu Qingge cuts him off. “Don’t bullshit me. You knew about the swap before it had taken place. I’ll give you this one chance to explain. Otherwise I’ll treat you as one of Shen Qingqiu’s spies. Start from the beginning.”
Shang Qinghua gasps, all too dramatic. “Shidi! That’s not at all what─”
“Start. From the beginning.”
“Why even ask if you’re not gonna believe a word that I say?!” Shang Qinghua cries back, pathetically. “Believe me, I was just as clueless as everyone!”
Liu Qingge raises a skeptical eyebrow.
Shang Qinghua instantly deflates. “Alright, alright. But Liu-shidi has got to believe me. I really had no idea what was going on, until after it happened. It’s not a joke, I swear it. Liu-shidi must believe me on this. I wasn’t involved!”
Yeah, right. But Liu Qingge lets it be, for the time being. “Explain,” is all he says, perfectly calmly. By his side, though, Cheng Luan sits dangerously.
Shang Qinghua sighs, all too hesitantly. “Well, Shidi, it’s a bit of a longer story—”
“We’ve got time,” Liu Qingge promises. He doesn’t even attempt to flex his fists. That, more than anything, terrifies Shixiong out of his wits.
“IswearIhadnothingtodowithititwasallShenQingqiuIswearit,” he cries in a single breath. Finally, once all of that is out, he sniffs. “Actually, it’s Cucumber-bro’s fault, too.”
Liu Qingge nods, acceptingly, though he has no clue what that means. Keep going, keep going.
Shang Qinghua sniffs, pathetically. “Well, more or less, it goes like this…”