Chapter Text
Shang Qinghua was tired.
It had been a long day on the road, his ass was sore from having sat on a horse since dawn, and he still had hours of riding left before he reached the next village. Earlier in the day, he’d been hoping he’d come across an inn at some point, but by now he was willing to settle for a barn. When he got down to it, all he really needed was a roof over his head and a place to be horizontal.
He was deep in the countryside, several hundred li from Cang Qiong, on his way to make contact with a potential supplier of black market herbs. Demon realm stuff. The kind of spiritual aids that every major sect needed, but couldn’t be caught dead buying.
Recently, the cultivation world had had a bad break. About three months ago, a couple of young Huan Hua Palace upstarts had gotten the bright idea to run a bust on the supplier who had been selling everybody this stuff.
Dumb kids, more brawn than brains — not that it took much brawn to beat up a couple of merchants. They probably didn’t know it yet, but instead of the glory and renown they’d been looking for, right now the leadership of every major sect was spitting at the mention of their names.
Usually, it was considered beneath the An Ding peak lord to personally handle negotiations at this level, but reestablishing a supply of these herbs was important enough that they really couldn’t afford to fuck it up. Everybody working in the shady world of cross-realm trade was understandably spooked, and it had taken calling in a lot of favors just to get these guys to agree to meet with him.
Because of the sensitivity of the mission, he’d had to go alone, so here he was: just himself and a horse, out in the middle of nowhere.
From what he understood, somewhere in this mountain range, there were naturally forming abyssal rifts that opened and closed regularly. Apparently, some of those rifts were portals straight through to the demon realm. Supposedly, that's how this group was getting access to their wares — which, to be frank, sounded like a ridiculously dangerous way of going about it.
The last merchant group had been pretty transparently working with a clan of demons (which was what those Huan Hua Palace disciples had found so offensive), but it had made for stable trade and relatively low prices. Shang Qinghua was bracing himself to hear the cost jump up to quadruple what they’d been paying last season.
To top it all off, the roads out here were bad, to put it mildly. He grit his teeth as he came up to yet another water crossing. In the middle of spring, snow melt was sloughing off the mountain, turning what in summer would be placid streams into unforgiving, icy rapids.
As an immortal cultivator, he would be fine even if his horse was knocked over and he fell in, but after the day he’d had, he would vastly prefer to not have to deal with being cold and wet on top of everything else.
Luckily, the mare he had picked out for this trip was sure-footed and strong. The water came three-quarters of the way up her legs and she stumbled a little against the current, but she wove through the rocky streambed and emerged on the other side without issue. Shang Qinghua nudged her to continue their trajectory west, and they kept going.
It was already late afternoon by the time he was closing in on where the mountain village was supposed to be. A couple of hours ago, the little trade road he was following had veered away from the quiet rice fields in the valley and started heading straight uphill. They’d gained a fair bit of altitude since then. All day, the sky had been heavy with low-hanging clouds, but now it seemed that they had climbed right into one.
Mist poured in from the valley, catching on the needle-thin leaves of the coniferous trees, and swirling against the rocky face of the mountain, condensing into dew. Little rivulets trickled down the side of the black rock, running to pool on the ground, leaving the trail muddy and soft.
It was getting harder and harder to see where they were going. Visibility had dropped down to a couple of meters, but Shang Qinghua pressed on. Pretty soon, they should come upon the—
He froze.
Pulling on the reins sharply, he stopped the mare in her tracks and cocked his head to the side, straining his ears. Something felt off. He thought he’d heard….
As fast as the shadow of an eclipse, a dark portal opened beside him and two cold, strong hands wrapped around his shoulder and arm, pulling him through.
Shang Qinghua landed roughly on his side. The wind was knocked out of him. He urgently looked up, but just as fast as it had appeared, the portal closed behind him.
He was now sitting in a wooden cage.
A bed of rough wooden planks was laid under him. Overhead, more planks made a ceiling, just barely tall enough for him to stand up straight, and all along the sides, wooden posts set like jail cell bars penned him in.
He quickly glanced around and found the door to the cage, just in time to see the thick bar of some sort of weird lock slide into place and close with a resounding click.
He was being kidnapped.
Shang Qinghua looked past the door, and if he hadn’t already been on the ground, he would have immediately fallen over, because staring down at him with a frosty glare was Mobei-Jun.
“Holy shit,” was the first thing he said when he caught his breath.
Mobei-Jun said nothing.
Stepping back from the door, he walked around to the side of the cage, where a horse? Not his horse — a different horse was latched to a cart that the wooden cage was sitting on top of. Mobei-Jun did something, and with a lurch, the horse started moving and the cart rolled forward.
“What?” Shang Qinghua cried, springing to his feet and moving to crouch at the front of the cage. “What are you doing? Where are you taking me?”
Mobei-Jun didn’t so much as glance back.
This didn’t deter Shang Qinghua.
“Why are you doing this? Do you know who I am?”
He winced a little at how that last bit came out, but it was an honest to god question. What the fuck was Mobei-Jun doing here? Was this some sort of random act of violence, or had he been targeted as the lord of An Ding Peak? If it was the latter, then how did Mobei-Jun track him down? How did he even know what he looked like?!
You see, twenty some years ago, when Shang Qinghua had been sixteen and a measly outer disciple of the most ridiculed peak in Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, he’d had his first run in with the plot of Proud Immortal Demon Way.
It had been a routine supply run, unimportant goods — he didn’t even remember what they’d been carrying — and all of a sudden his mostly-dormant System was pinging. Something about a new mission?
There’d been a rustle in the bushes, and then a tall, already-muscular teenage demon stumbled out of the forest, glancing behind himself like he was being chased, and—
Shang Qinghua realized just what was happening. It was the part of the story where Shang Qinghua saved Mobei-Jun’s life and became his servant. This was the moment when he was supposed to betray the cultivation world and embark on the course of destiny that would ultimately end in his death.
I’d really rather not, he’d thought, and with that, immediately turned tail and ran.
As he’d learned that day, sometimes when destiny calls, you don’t have to answer it, actually.
Mobei-Jun had slaughtered everyone that had been on the mission. Because of his quick reaction time, Shang Qinghua was the only survivor.
(They’d promoted him to inner disciple for that. No one was happy that the shipment had been lost, but the previous peak lord, an eminently practical man, had been impressed that he’d made it out at all.)
Only, even as he made his escape, Shang Qinghua had known that having dodged this bullet didn’t necessarily mean that the plot was done with him. He’d been waiting all these years for the other shoe to drop. It looked like that might be just what was happening now.
The thing was, because of his quick thinking, he was pretty sure that Mobei-Jun had never actually seen his face. At most, if he’d glanced in his direction, he would have gotten a good look at the back of his head, which, like the rest of him, was pretty unremarkable.
In this world, the two of them were perfect strangers. There was no reason for Mobei-Jun to have singled him out.
He shouted at Mobei-Jun again, “Hey! Where are you taking me?”
Again, he was ignored. Shang Qinghua slumped back against the bars. He took a look around.
It seemed as though he was still in the mountains, maybe even the same mountain range he’d just been snatched from. Tall pine trees and little thickets of bamboo pressed against the edges of the dirt road the cart was travelling along. It was a much wider road than the backcountry trail he’d been leading his horse down, and it wasn’t quite so misty here. The waning light of the sun shone from opposite the direction it had been.
Scooting over to the other side of the cage and pressing up against the bars, Shang Qinghua strained to see around the wooden ceiling, trying to make out the ridgeline, to see how it compared to the one he’d just been following. It was no use. The forest was too dense and the angle of the hill was too steep. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see to the top.
Of course, Mobei-Jun’s shadow portals could transport objects across realms; distance was no object. They could be absolutely anywhere right now. As far as Shang Qinghua knew, they could even be in the demon realm.
He peered skeptically at the trees. They didn’t look particularly demonic to him, but what did he know?
He looked back to Mobei-Jun, walking alongside the horse. Unsurprisingly, his back was broader than it had been the last time Shang Qinghua had seen him. He was larger in every way — as tall as a basketball player, his arms so big he looked like he could crush a watermelon with one hand.
That was, ah. Well, it was pretty much exactly how Shang Qinghua had imagined him when he was writing PIDW. It was extremely intimidating in real life, but also, unfortunately, kind of hot.
Stature aside, he was generally human-like in form — most high-level demons were. In spite of this, even from a glance, no one would ever mistake him for a human. Every inch, every single aspect of his being down to the way he moved, was demonic.
He’d left his long black hair down and it swayed with every step he took. Taken together with his form-fitting black clothes, he looked like a wild, shadowy spectre, the kind of thing that fueled little kids’ nightmares. In that same vein, there was something of an aura around him, probably undetectable to non-cultivators, that set Shang Qinghua’s nerves on edge. As the head of the logistics and sourcing peak, he had done a fair amount of business with demons (most of them wearing some sort of disguise) so it wasn’t like this was his first time around one, but clearly there was a big difference between background NPC’s and a full-on demon lord.
With a shudder, he turned his attention back to the cage. Wood was an interesting choice of material, especially for something that was supposed to imprison an immortal cultivator. The bars were thick and firmly set, but for someone with spiritual energy, it was ridiculously feeble. Mobei-Jun wasn’t stupid. Surely there must be—
Ah, there it was. Shang Qinghua tried to poke his finger out through one of the gaps and it was like tapping an invisible wall. An energy barrier. This would make escaping much harder.
The first thing he needed to do was figure out where it was coming from. He inched over to look at the lock.
Oh boy. His breath rushed out of him through his teeth. He sure hoped that wasn’t what he thought it was. He scooched even closer.
Spending most of his time cloistered away on a peak that Luo Binghe would never set foot on meant that Shang Qinghua had been reasonably insulated from wife plots. That didn’t mean he couldn’t recognize one when he saw it — he was still the author after all.
It had been a long time since he’d transmigrated into this world, but this lock was particularly unusual. A thick disk formed out of heavy black metal, the lock seemed to almost suck light into itself, leaving its immediate surroundings a little dimmer, like a reverse-candle.
A thick latch curved along the edge of the disk, threaded through a circuit of metal clasps. It had three distinct sections, each welded together: one that was a dull lead color, another that glimmered copper-red, and a third made out of a white metal that shone so bright it cut straight through the dimness and was a little hard to look at.
Notably, the lock had no hole for a key.
Shang Qinghua sighed. He knew how to open it, and he was not happy about it one bit.
Six thousand chapters or so into PIDW, Luo Binghe and wife #437 had been thrown into a prison cell with this lock affixed to the door. To break out, they had been forced to share three secrets close to their heart — secrets that the listener did not already know.
Writing those scenes had been easy, the sort of fluffy drivel that transitioned seamlessly into papapa and kept both the romantics and the erotica-focused readers happy.
But you know who was not happy? Shang Qinghua!
What was this bullshit?! Why was this happening to him? He wasn’t the protagonist, and he sure as hell wasn’t a wife! What was Mobei-Jun even doing, slinging this plot device around? He hadn’t been involved in the original scene at all!
Mobei-Jun had locked him in here alone, so who was he supposed to tell his secrets to, anyway? Would it even work if the person hearing the secrets was on the other side of the lock?
He might have had answers for all these questions back when he was writing the original scene, but if so, he had long since forgotten.
Ugh. Fuck his life.
They’d been rolling along the road for about ten minutes when Shang Qinghua started to wonder why Mobei-Jun was making this odd transportation decision with the cart. He could have portaled him anywhere. Why roll this cage out to the middle of the forest only to have to haul it somewhere else?
Just as he was having that thought, the woods started to open up. There was a clearing up ahead.
Mobei-Jun led the horse-drawn cart into a small military-style camp.
Shang Qinghua’s head swiveled left and right, desperately trying to take in as much of it as he could. The more information he had about his surroundings, the better his chances were to escape.
Overall, he had to say, he wasn’t too impressed.
It wasn’t a very large camp, maybe ten tents total. The tents were round in shape and looked to be made in the traditional Northern Desert fashion: off-white felt pulled taut over round wooden frames.
A large fire pit was set up towards the center of the clearing, and a couple of beefy ice demons were milling around it. It seemed like they might be cooking. They were all dressed in black, the same as Mobei-Jun. No one was wearing any obvious insignias.
They all looked over as Mobei-Jun led the horse-drawn cart into the clearing, but when they saw who it was, they quickly looked away. Shang Qinghua thought he saw one of them sneak another glance at him.
It didn’t seem like their camp had been here for too long — maybe a couple of days, tops. The ground between the tents was a bit muddy, the grass tamped down and pressed flat into the dirt by repeated footsteps, but it hadn’t been worn bare yet.
Before Shang Qinghua could see anything more, Mobei-Jun pulled the horse over to the side of the largest tent. He unlatched the cart, and then started dragging it himself, bringing the whole thing inside.
He pulled Shang Qinghua to the middle, then let go of the hitch and took a step back.
For the first time, Shang Qinghua felt the cold weight of his gaze.
Mobei-Jun crossed his arms. They stared at each other.
Eventually, Shang Qinghua spluttered his one, most pressing question: “Why?”
Mobei-Jun shifted his weight. His face was immaculately expressionless.
“You are the An Ding peak lord.”
His voice was deep and smooth. When he spoke, something resonated deep in Shang Qinghua’s chest. He sat up a little straighter.
“I know who you are.” Mobei-Jun continued, his gaze piercing and intense.
Wait, was he responding to the question Shang Qinghua had asked ten whole minutes ago? That… wow. So that meant that he’d been listening, right? Not just hearing that he was saying something, but actively listening?
Okay… well, good! He ran a hand back over his (loosening, increasingly messy) topknot. He wasn’t sure if Mobei-Jun thought that selectively answering some of his questions was going to shut him up, but if that was the case, then he was gravely mistaken. Now that he knew he was listening, Shang Qinghua was going to ask three times as many questions!
He started with, “How?!”
Mobei-Jun crossed his arms and did not answer.
“Why did you kidnap me?” Shang Qinghua demanded.
Mobei-Jun tilted his head towards the lock, “It will open when you tell me what I want to know.”
Shang Qinghua’s mouth twisted in disbelief. “What you want to— huh?”
He wanted to know his deepest secrets? What the fuck?
With a stoic expression, Mobei-Jun began his interrogation.
“Where are the corner points of Cang Qiong Mountain’s barrier array?”
“…”
Shang Qinghua’s ears were buzzing. He was at a complete loss for words. A new, horrifying realization was washing over him. It was so dreadful, he didn’t even want to think it, but really, what other explanation was there?
Had Mobei-Jun, perhaps, locked him in here based on a mistaken understanding of how the lock worked?!
After opening and closing his mouth a couple of times, gaping like a prize-winning fish, Shang Qinghua gathered up his wits, shook his head, and replied, “I’m not going to tell you that.”
Mobei-Jun’s frown turned into a scowl. “Sooner or later, you will.” He intoned, then immediately turned on his heel and swept out of the tent, leaving Shang Qinghua trapped in his cage, alone.
So, as far as he could tell, here’s where things stood: 1) Mobei-Jun had heard about Shang Qinghua as the An Ding peak lord and thought that, compared to the other Cang Qiong peak lords, he’d be way easier to catch. 2) Somehow, he’d gotten his hands on the truth-sharing lock, but whoever had researched how it worked had either done a really half-assed job, or flat out lied to him about it. 3) Mobei-Jun had thought: yeah, that’s a good plan. I’ll kidnap that guy and use the lock to force him to tell me what I want to know.
Which was where the weak points of Cang Qiong’s main defense array were, apparently.
So did that mean he wanted to break into Cang Qiong Mountain Sect? Right now? The protagonist was only five years old, he hadn’t even started as a disciple yet! What was Mobei-Jun thinking?
If he had infiltrated Cang Qiong at this point in the story, even unsuccessfully, it would have come up in PIDW, at least as a side note. That was to say, Shang Qinghua knew that this hadn’t originaly happened in the novel. He frowned as he tried to pinpoint the reason for the change.
The trouble was, he really didn’t know much about this Mobei-Jun.
If he’d followed the original plot, he’d have been the prince’s servant for a whole two decades by now — but he hadn’t. Sure, Shang Qinghua had invented him as a character once-upon-a-time, but most of his screen-time had come some fifteen-some years in the future, when he was already king. He’d written a backstory for him, of course, but knowing where someone came from and knowing who they would eventually become wasn’t really enough to extrapolate who they were right now. He was missing some crucial details.
It had only been a handful of years since Tianlang-Jun’s imprisonment. Mobei-Jun was supposed to be keeping on the down low, focusing on building his base of power within the Northern Desert. But then again, in PIDW, he’d been getting a steady stream of intel from within Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. If he’d needed to know anything about the cultivation world, he could have made Shang Qinghua find out for him….
Still, trying to break into Cang Qiong was such an odd choice. What could he need so badly that would drive him to take such a big risk? Mobei-Jun hadn’t come into his full power yet, and even if he had, he still wouldn’t be able to face off against someone like Yue Qingyuan. Even if the sect leader happened to be away, with the sheer number of high-ranking cultivators on the mountain, if he got caught doing whatever it was that he was trying to do, it wouldn’t be an easy fight.
Shang Qinghua scratched his chin. What could he be thinking? Was there some special artifact locked away in one of the sect’s vaults that he needed? Was he looking for some important secret that would help him raise his status in the Northern Court?
He knew that the political situation in the Northern Desert was fraught right now. With Mobei-Jun’s father alive, Linguang-Jun still held a lot of sway. In the future that would change, but right now, he was a daunting adversary.
Linguang-Jun hated all of the princes, but Mobei-Jun — the strongest-willed and least-manipulable of the batch — he hated most of all. In the original story, having a human spy/servant had given Mobei-Jun a leg up over his uncle and brothers and sisters. Lacking that advantage, what was this Mobei-Jun doing? Had he picked up another spy, or was he just running around blind?
(This whole deal with the lock certainly suggested the latter….)
And then, another question: what was Mobei-Jun doing in this random forest clearing with this random group of ice demons?
Something about this situation felt off.
He sighed and moved to get up. He rolled his shoulders back a couple of times, working out his stress-tense muscles.
Carefully, he tried to stand up all the way. He could, but just barely. The wood ceiling was only a couple of finger-widths above his head. It was a little claustrophobic, but he tried not to think about that. It seemed like he was going to be in here for a while.
With a grumble, he sat back down, in the lotus position this time. He took a deep breath and started to meditate.
With the barrier formed by the lock, things would be able to come into the cage, but nothing could be passed out. It meant that he would need to rely on his cultivation to survive. While Mobei-Jun could, in theory, pass in food, the natural, ah, byproduct of eating would be a bit harder to deal with. Shang Qinghua was going to have to practice inedia.
There was nowhere to sleep either, but he didn’t really want to fall asleep in a camp full of demons anyway. Meditation would have to stand in for that, too.
Good thing Shang Qinghua’s cultivation level was high enough to support this. He hadn’t really thought about it when he was writing PIDW, but a lot of these wife plots could turn deadly pretty quick for someone who wasn’t Luo Binghe.
He turned his mind to meditation and let himself fall into that half-awake, dream-like state where he was aware of his surroundings, but time seemed to pass more quickly. The seconds, normally dripping by like the ticks of a water clock, began to stream past him as fast as the current of a great river.
There were a couple of night pearls hung up inside the tent, so he had some ambient light, but he kept his eyes fixed on a sliver of sky that he could see through a small gap in the front flap. Absently, he watched the color change from blue to purple to black, then back to purple again. The night had passed and dawn was coming.
Just before the sun rose, Mobei-Jun returned. It took Shang Qinghua a second to notice him, but when he did, it startled him right out of meditation. He sprang to attention.
Instead of trying to restart the interrogation, Mobei-Jun simply leveled him with an intimidating stare.
Haha. Yeah, no, Shang Qinghua could see right through that trick. The slight tremble in his limbs was just a physical side effect of all of the demonic energy Mobei-Jun was putting out right now. He was totally unaffected by this super basic and obvious intimidation tactic.
All the same, he was the one who broke first.
“Listen,” he started. “Whether or not I answer your questions truthfully, this lock isn’t going to let me out. I don’t know how you got it or who told you how it works, but they were wrong. I recognize it. It’s only going to open when the prisoner speaks a truth that’s close to their heart, and I don’t know how else to say this, but my job really isn’t that important to me.”
Mobei-Jun raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You recognize it.”
“I do.” Shang Qinghua insisted.
“It was pulled out of a five-hundred year old sealed tomb.”
Creepy, Shang Qinghua thought. “I’m very well read,” was his reply.
Heh. It was even sort of true, in a manner of speaking.
Mobei-Jun looked him up and down, then raised his other eyebrow.
What was that supposed to mean?!
“I’m not lying!” Shang Qinghua complained. He racked his brain, trying to think of a way to prove himself. “I… okay, you can test me. I’ll give you one freebee. Ask me something you want to know.”
Mobei-Jun still looked doubtful, but ultimately, he went for it. In his deep (and unfairly sexy) voice, he asked, “How can I defeat Yue Qingyuan?”
Oh boy.
Shang Qinghua kind of wanted to put his head in his hands.
That did shed a bit of light on what Mobei-Jun was trying to do here. Kind of a lot of light, actually. He squinted up at him.
I thought I wrote you to be more subtle than this? Maybe it’s something you still have to grow into? He wondered.
Unfortunately, he’d pretty solidly backed himself into a corner just now.
Taking down Yue Qingyuan was an insane goal for anyone to have, but after capturing and imprisoning their emperor, he was at the top of a lot of demon clans’ most wanted list. Aside from having killed a couple of Shang Qinghua’s shixiong, Mobei-Jun hadn’t had much contact with Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. His beef with Yue Qingyuan was probably more political than personal.
Still, killing Yue Qingyuan right now — if that was even possible — would more or less destroy Cang Qiong. No one else on Qiong Ding peak was even remotely ready to take over after him, and there was so much infighting between the different peaks, removing the figurehead of the sect would be like pulling out the keystone of an arch. The whole thing would collapse.
Seeing as Shang Qinghua did not have anywhere else to live, he was not exactly enthusiastic about helping Mobei-Jun with this thought exercise. At the same time, he was going to have to tell him something true. Otherwise, Mobei-Jun was never going to trust him and he was going to die locked up in this cage!
His brain was cacophonous, a thousand anxious thoughts running in a thousand different directions. He blinked a couple of times, trying to snap himself into focus. He rubbed at his nose.
“Well… uh. Speaking frankly, you’re probably never going to be able to defeat him head-on. Northern ice demons, even with your father’s power, just don’t measure up to heavenly demons, and obviously, you know, Yue Qingyuan was able to take Tianlang-Jun down. With that being said….”
He paused, trying to gauge Mobei-Jun’s thoughts. It was like trying to get a read on a brick wall.
He gave up. He really had no good ideas here, only bad ones. There was no time to think. He was just going to have to pick something and hope for the best.
“Alright, how about this. Yue Qingyuan is in love with the second peak lord, Shen Qingqiu. If you had kidnapped him instead of me, you would be able to ask for anything you wanted, and he would be so desperate, he’d probably give it to you.”
Sorry Yue-xiong, but Shang Qinghua was trying to survive here! He was pretty sure that Shen Qingqiu was harder to kidnap than he’d been, at any rate. He could do damage control later.
As expected, the lock did not so much as twitch.
Mobei-Jun looked at it, then back to Shang Qinghua with frightening intensity. After a beat he growled, “You’re lying.”
Shang Qinghua clenched his teeth and ran a hand down his face. “I’m really not. Who told you how the lock works? If one of the two of us is lying, just how sure are you that it’s not them?”
Mobei-Jun went quiet, which pretty much answered that question.
The thing was, the Mobei-Jun he’d written was actually pretty good at reading people. He had to be, as Luo Binghe’s right hand man.
In Proud Immortal Demon Way, Mobei-Jun had only ever been betrayed a couple of times, most notably by his uncle when he was a little kid, and then later by the original Shang Qinghua. They were both people he’d been close to, people that had needed to spend years building up a false sense of safety before they were able to pull the rug out from under him. He was not a particularly trusting guy.
The fact that he’d been duped so bad about this lock suggested some amount of desperation. That was something that Shang Qinghua could play off of.
“You realize that you asked a question that ninety-nine percent of the cultivation world would answer with, ‘You can’t, that’s impossible,’ right? Obviously if there’s a way Yue Qingyuan can be beaten, it’s going to be obscure.”
Again, Mobei-Jun said nothing in reply. At this point, both of their hands were clenched into fists.
Please let this work, please just listen to me, please please please, Shang Qinghua silently begged.
“Like, I don’t even know if you’re going to be able to verify this for yourself, but the two of them grew up together. Thirty years ago, they were both slave boys in this town called ——. They were bought by a local noble family, last name Qiu. Their names at the time were Yue Qi and Shen Jiu. Yue Qi escaped first and went to join Cang Qiong. Later, Shen Jiu escaped by burning the whole place down. There might be records covering at least some of those events, but who knows? In a pinch, you can probably track down Qiu Haitang — she’s the only member of the family that escaped the fire. If you interrogate her, she should tell you pretty much the same thing.”
Mobei-Jun continued to stare at him. Breathing hard, Shang Qinghua gathered up his courage and met his gaze.
Maybe he was going to die no matter what. Maybe there was nothing he could say that would make Mobei-Jun happy, and he was going to just wheel his little cage out to a field somewhere and leave him alone until he went crazy, or his cultivation faltered, or—
His heart was hammering in his chest. He took a deep, ragged breath in.
At the sound, Mobei-Jun jolted into action. Quickly raising a hand, he cut a shadow portal right then and there. He stepped through it and promptly disappeared.
For several long seconds, Shang Qinghua sat still, frozen in shock. Then the weight of everything that had just happened came crashing down on him all at once. He rolled forward onto his knees and folded over, pressing his forehead to the cold, hard floor.
“Uuuuuuuaaaaaaagh,” he groaned.
Fuck his life, fuck the day he’d had the bright idea to start writing Proud Immortal Demon Way, fuck everything.
For lack of anything else to do, Shang Qinghua returned to meditating. This ultimately was a good decision on his part, because it took three whole days for Mobei-Jun to return.
Slinking back in like a stray cat, Mobei-Jun arrived the same way he’d left: by shadow portal.
Watching the dark, jagged tear in space appear out of nowhere was much more alarming than it had been when he’d left, when Shang Qinghua could at least see what was causing it. After he got over his heart attack, though, having had plenty of time to compose himself during his extended meditation session, he was ready for whatever Mobei-Jun was going to say.
Instead of stopping in front of the cage like he had the last few times, Mobei-Jun stalked across the tent towards a pile of wooden crates in the corner.
Shang Qinghua by now had taken the time to very closely inspect every object in his view, and he had come to the conclusion that aside from storing prisoners (him), the ice demons were using this tent as a general supply closet.
Crates of various sizes and shapes were piled along the back wall. There were a couple of spare hitches, the kind used to hook carts up to horses, piled haphazardly near the front. A collection of tarps was pooled over by the side.
None of the other ice demons had come in while Mobei-Jun had been away. Shang Qinghua was curious about them, who they were and what they were doing here, but he was also a bit wary. He had no idea what they thought of him or how they might treat him.
Mobei-Jun took off his cloak and draped it over a large, lone-standing wooden box. He turned and carefully sat down on it, facing Shang Qinghua.
There was something quiet in his manner now, almost thoughtful, but when their eyes met, his gaze was burning. Still, he didn’t immediately speak. This time, Shang Qinghua waited him out.
At last, “How do you know how the lock works?”
Oh? Okay, that sounded promising. Had he gone and fact-checked the stuff Shang Qinghua had told him about Yue Qingyuan?
“It’s my job to know these sorts of things.”
“ How do you know?”
Shang Qinghua teased at his lower lip with his teeth. Oh man. What a bother!
Back when he’d first made head disciple and felt confident enough to start venturing his opinion every now and then, he’d gotten this question a lot. It had been a whole song and dance, figuring out a fake source for all of the random information in his head that made his argument sound convincing while simultaneously being a believable thing for him to know.
“I read a lot.” He told Mobei-Jun. “When somebody comes up with a device like this, it normally winds up in the hands of a king or a warlord or something. Their courts generally make records of these things, and then centuries later, a scholar comes by and compiles all of the fancy items in those records into a tome. Being the head of the logistics peak, part of my job is to read tomes.”
Mobei-Jun’s eyes narrowed a little. “You recognized it right away.”
He wrinkled his nose. “The nasty-sounding ones leave an impression.”
Was that convincing enough for him? It was hard to tell. Mobei-Jun sat back a little with a small frown. The fire in his eyes had dimmed somewhat.
“I have a question for you, too.” Shang Qinghua piped up. Mobei-Jun didn’t look up or twitch or make any indication really that he’d heard him. He was pretty sure this was a facade, so he barrelled on. “What are you and your little group doing here, out in the middle of the woods?”
It wasn’t even snowing outside, was the thing. The longer Shang Qinghua had thought about it, the stranger of a place it was for them to be.
He held his breath for a long moment, waiting. There was… no response.
Then, abruptly, Mobei-Jun stood up. Without looking back at Shang Qinghua, he strode quickly to the front flap of the tent, brushed it aside, and left.
For several seconds, Shang Qinghua stared after him, unblinking. His mouth had fallen open a little in surprise. Then, he slumped over.
“… What an asshole.” He sighed.
He went back to meditating.
Only, this time, Mobei-Jun was back within a couple of hours.
“I will help you get out if you help me in return.”
“Help me get out?” Shang Qinghua laughed a little. “The only way out is if I tell you three of my most personal secrets. What, you’re willing to oh-so graciously sit there and let me humiliate myself in front of you? And in return I suppose you’ll be wanting — let me guess — more sect secrets? How magnanimous of you, your highness.”
The little furrow that formed between Mobei-Jun’s eyebrows when he scowled was starting to feel like an old friend.
“You’d rather die in there?” He asked skeptically.
“I’d rather you not have kidnapped me in the first place!” Shang Qinghua snipped back, tetchy.
He was getting real sick of Mobei-Jun’s whole ‘I call all the shots’ attitude. It was becoming more obvious with each conversation that he was in over his head.
Mobei-Jun crossed his arms, visibly frustrated. He paced over to the wall, whirled around, paced back.
Finally, after a moment of thought, he turned to face Shang Qinghua, bared his teeth, and asked, “Then what do you want?”
“In exchange for helping you?”
Tensely, Mobei-Jun nodded.
“That depends. What are you trying to do?”
There was a pause. Mobei-Jun had one of the blankest faces Shang Qinghua had ever seen. It was almost impossible to tell what he was thinking.
“If you’re trying to demolish Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, then there’s nothing you can offer that will get me to help. That’s, like, where I live. Obviously, I’m not going to help you destroy my own house.”
He paused, letting that point settle. Mobei-Jun’s head was ducked now. He was looking fiercely at the floor. Beneath all of that hulking muscle and demonic energy, the curve of his mouth almost seemed… insecure.
Shang Qinghua squinted up at him. Could he really be reading that right?
“… But if, you know — just speculating here — if your actual goal wasn’t the demise of all cultivator-kind, but instead to do something big and flashy and dramatic to establish your position as your father’s heir…. If potentially it was that sort of situation, then maybe I could bring myself to offer a few suggestions.“
Ah, and there was that glare again. Between the scowling and the glaring, he couldn’t quite decide which was his favorite. It was just such a dynamic range of expressions to choose from.
“You overestimate yourself.” Mobei-Jun said coolly.
“Oh, ha ha, yeah, totally.” Shang Qinghua agreed. “Coming from the guy who didn’t even know how the spiritual device he trapped me with works. Definitely I’m the one doing the overestimating.”
Mobei-Jun sprang forward, lunging towards the cage. His sharp black claws were fully extended, like he was about to rip off all of Shang Qinghua’s limbs.
He had known he was playing with fire by riling Mobei-Jun up, he’d known it. He’d also known that Mobei-Jun wasn’t actually going to reach inside. He would get stuck behind the lock if he did, that would be insane of him. Shang Qinghua still flinched.
But of course, Mobei-Jun stopped right at the edge of the bars, his nose almost to the barrier.
“Killing you would be the easiest thing in the world.” He hissed.
“T-then why haven’t you?” Shang Qinghua shot back, pushing his chin forward defiantly, and mostly managing to keep the tremble out of his voice. “It was a lot of trouble to kidnap me, wasn’t it? You don’t want all that effort to be a complete waste. What would you do then? Do you even have a backup plan?”
Mobei-Jun’s chest was heaving. His fingers twitched, like he was barely able to restrain himself from lunging.
“This strong-guy act isn’t fooling anyone!” Shang Qinghua was half-shouting now. “If you just stop it, I can help you!”
“Stop lying!”
He was about ready to rip out his hair. “We don’t have to be enemies! This shitty situation doesn’t have to keep being shit! If you’d just fucking sit down and actually listen to me for once, then maybe we could get ourselves out of this mess!”
“That’s what I said when I came in here!” Mobei-Jun roared.
Shang Qinghua reeled back. He—!
Oh shit. His train of thought stuttered to a stop.
He was right.
He blinked a couple of times, replaying the beginning of their conversation over in his head. Mobei-Jun had stormed in here, and what was it that he’d said? I will help you get out if you help me. Oh. And then Shang Qinghua had replied….
Right. Okay. Yeah… this one was on him.
His eyes refocused and he found himself staring at Mobei-Jun’s face. The prince’s mouth was curled into a snarl and his eyes looked like he was ready to set Shang Qinghua on fire. Just underneath all of that, however, if he looked very very carefully, it almost seemed like… like he was afraid.
Actually, if Shang Qinghua took a step back and thought about the situation as a whole, pretty much everything Mobei-Jun had done so far made sense if he was acting out of fear. This under-planned, poorly thought out kidnapping. The insane goal of trying to kill Yue Qingyuan. The kind of panicky start-and-stop interrogation that had been going on for four days at this point.
“I…” For a moment, the right words evaded him. “I’m sorry, your highness. You’re right.”
Now it was Mobei-Jun’s turn to blink. For a long couple of seconds, they just stared at each other, mutually dumbfounded.
“If you help me get out of here, then I promise, I will help you accomplish your goal — within reason. I’m not going to sell out Cang Qiong.”
Mobei-Jun’s mouth had flattened out now. The dark, furious aura surrounding him had subsided somewhat, and all of a sudden, it felt a little easier to breathe.
“If I was right about what I said earlier,” Shang Qinghua continued, “then, while I know it might seem unlikely, I do have information that could help you overcome your uncle’s and your siblings’ plots and claim your place as crown prince.”
“How could you know such things?”
Shang Qinghua smiled thinly. “There’s a lot that goes into logistics, you know. Martial sects, kingdoms — these things really aren’t that easy to manage.”
“You are a human. You’ve never been to the Northern Desert.”
He shrugged. “It takes a lot of servants to keep the Ice Palace running. Word gets out, people hear things. If I ask the right questions, eventually I hear things.”
At this, Mobei-Jun fell quiet. Shang Qinghua wondered again why he’d decided to kidnap him of all people.
It was true that out of all the peaks in Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, An Ding did usually end up with the weakest cultivators and the weakest peak lord. Aside from Liu Qingge, Shang Qinghua was also the peak lord who spent the most time off-mountain. The funny thing was, ignoring all of that, out of all of the cultivators Mobei-Jun could have possibly grabbed, Shang Qinghua might just be the one most capable of actually helping him.
“You’ll be going back home soon, right?” He asked. “The vernal equinox festival is a few days away. You’re expected to participate in the hunt, aren’t you?”
Mobei-Jun’s eyes widened ever so slightly. Slowly, after a moment’s pause, he inclined his head.
“I don’t know too much about the situation in the Northern Court right now, but during the festival, if your uncle targets you, I have a suggestion for how to deal with him.”
He paused to wait for his reaction. Mobei-Jun’s face had gone back to that carefully blank quality it had when he first kidnapped him. Shang Qinghua still couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking, but he was starting to get the sense that this expression meant he could continue talking.
“... There is a plant that grows in the western foothills of the Thousand Blades Peak, a little north of the River Demon Clan’s lands. Do you know where I’m talking about?”
Mobei-Jun inclined his head again.
Okay, okay, good sign. I’ll keep going, Shang Qinghua thought.
“It will be found on the forest floor, most often near the trunk of a fairy-willow tree. Long, smooth leaves, about this high coming out from a single stalk,” he gestured with his hands. “Pull one up and you’ll find a white root that secretes a milky substance. Be careful not to touch it, it’s a potent aphrodisiac.”
He coughed and rubbed at his nose. A world based on ten thousand chapters of mostly porn sure had a lot of potent aphrodisiacs in it. This plot he was spinning up right now should have felt a little hare-brained, except here, drugging your enemies with sex pollen was, like, the oldest trick in the book.
“From what I understand, your uncle really doesn’t like infidelity. Your er-ge’s betrothal was just announced, wasn’t it? Drug him with a few drops of the aphrodisiac in his wine at the opening banquet, and then make sure your uncle is in a position to see who he brings back to his tent. That should keep both of them too distracted to pay much attention to you during the hunt.”
He glanced up at Mobei-Jun’s face. He was staring back at him like he was insane.
Shang Qinghua opened his mouth to start to qualify what he’d just said, but Mobei-Jun beat him to it.
“All of this knowledge… from servants.”
Ah. Right. That was kind of a lot of information for him to randomly know about the core members of the Northern Kingdom’s royal family.
Okay, listen. Twenty years ago, Shang Qinghua had said no to the fate he was supposed to have at Mobei-Jun’s side, but he’d still kept tabs, alright? Just because he didn’t want to be murdered didn’t change the fact that this guy had been his favorite character. From time to time, he’d gotten curious, so he’d made a few inquiries. Seriously, it wasn’t that deep!
Responding to Mobei-Jun, Shang Qinghua shrugged.
“If I am caught doing this during a holy festival, the elders’ punishment will be severe.”
“You’re not going to get caught,” Shang Qinghua waved a hand dismissively.
Mobei-Jun continued to stare at him. Shang Qinghua didn’t know what else to say, so he stared back.
After an uncomfortably long silence, Mobei-Jun turned and left the tent.
Wow. Shang Qinghua scratched his head, gazing at the front flap even after it had fallen back into place. That almost felt like progress.
Normally when cultivators seclude themselves away to focus on their cultivation, they choose to do so in places with naturally abundant spiritual energy. The Lingxi Caves, for example — great place to spend a couple of months meditating.
Inside this stuffy tent, in this random forest clearing that Mobei-Jun had portaled him out to, the spiritual energy was decidedly average. Shang Qinghua probably would have gotten the same benefit if he’d spent this time meditating in his office.
Although, maybe not. The rest of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect would know where he was if he was still in his office. Sect members would probably be interrupting him too often for him to make any real progress. It would be difficult to keep them out; his disciples could be surprisingly resourceful when they put their mind to it.
Anyway, the point was, while it wasn’t a particularly good place to cultivate, all of this time spent meditating was having a noticeable impact on Shang Qinghua’s golden core. Low key, a week into this unplanned, unwanted vacation, he was feeling better than he had in years.
Being the An Ding peak lord was a pretty stressful job. Immortal cultivators were generally above experiencing mundane maladies like the common cold or lower back pain, but the challenges and anxieties of his daily work still made themselves known in his body.
Ideally, a cultivator was supposed to spend at least a couple of hours a day meditating. It was important to regularly clear one’s meridians and address any physical impurities. It could be put off for a while — it wasn’t always practical to while away half the day on what was essentially me-time. Lately though, Shang Qinghua had been putting it off a lot.
Over the last couple of years — ever since Yue Qingyuan took down Tianlang-Jun, really — Cang Qiong’s star had been on the rise. With the rest of the cultivation world increasingly looking to them for guidance, their responsibilities had grown significantly. This had affected no peak more than An Ding, which was now in charge of running logistics for a vastly scaled-up operation.
Shang Qinghua had known that all of this extra work was having an impact on him. He’d been feeling sluggish, and he’d noticed that his joints were a little stiffer than they used to be. It was only now, however, that he was realizing just how bad it had gotten.
I haven’t felt this good in years, he thought five days after Mobei-Jun had left to go attend the equinox festival. I wonder if my sword seals have gotten any stronger. It was a shame that the cage wasn’t big enough for him to test it out.
When Mobei-Jun had first left, he’d been feeling a little better about his situation. Their last conversation had ended more or less on a good note, which had left him with an ‘okay, maybe I’m not going to die after all!’ buzz.
Having had more time to sit and think on it, however, the buzz had faded and doubt had slowly crept back in.
The good news was, it seemed like Mobei-Jun could be reasoned with. Shang Qinghua was making progress in figuring out the why’s of the situation — why he was here, why Mobei-Jun was doing this — and that was the first step in any successful negotiation.
The bad news was… well, there was a lot of bad news. First, even if he did come to fully understand how he’d wound up here, that was no guarantee he’d be able to convince Mobei-Jun to let him go. He still had a lot of questions, he was flying by the seat of his pants, and realistically, from everything he knew about Mobei-Jun’s character, it would be a miracle if he was allowed to just walk away after this was all said and done.
Shang Qinghua was relying on bartering his knowledge for his life and eventual freedom, but the flipside of that was, he was also revealing to Mobei-Jun just how much he knew. A smart man was not going to let a liability like him go. Would he be allowed to pick up and head back to Cang Qiong if he made it out of here — to return to business as usual? Almost certainly not.
Second, the criteria for leaving the cage had not changed. Shang Qinghua was still going to have to tell Mobei-Jun three of his deepest secrets.
Just what was a ‘deep secret’ anyway? What was good enough to count?
Wife #437 had gone straight for the juiciest stuff. Honestly, the lock had really just been an excuse for her. The way he’d written it, she’d been dying to tell Luo Binghe all of her deepest, darkest thoughts. It was a classic ‘lonely girl meets somebody who understands her for the first time’ sort of situation.
As for Shang Qinghua’s deepest secrets, he would much rather take them to the grave, thank you very much.
And maybe he would be taking them to the grave, because what would even happen if he whipped out all of the, ‘I was born in a different universe, actually this world is one that I came up with while I was writing a novel, I’m kind of your creator god.’ stuff? Would the System let that fly? Back when he had first transmigrated here, it had threatened him a whole bunch with comments like: “do as I say, or you’re going back to your original world!” — you know, the original world where he was a corpse.
These days, his System kept pretty quiet. Probably because Luo Binghe was still a little kid and the plot hadn’t really started yet. Still, in most web novels, revealing yourself as a transmigrator was a big no-no. Shang Qinghua didn’t want to take the risk if he didn’t have to.
But he would have to tell Mobei-Jun something.
He kept meditating.
By the seventh day, morale was getting kind of low. It was honestly a bit of a relief when, without warning, the front flap of the tent whipped open and Mobei-Jun stormed in.
He was wearing what looked like a brand new mammoth-leopard seal skin around his shoulders.
“How did it go?” Shang Qinghua asked, a little jittery. Was the seal skin a trophy? That seemed like a good sign. Mammoth-leopard seals were hard to catch. If that’s what Mobei-Jun had presented to the Ice Demon Clan elders, he had probably ranked pretty high in the hunt.
“What are your intentions?” Mobei-Jun thundered.
“My intentions?”
“To know so much about my clan, to be able to orchestrate this kind of plot from thousands of li away, what are you planning?”
“Wait, so it worked?”
“How did you know that about my uncle?”
“I already told you, your highness. Servants’ gossip.”
“They told me you had never even been to the demon realm!”
“Who told you?” Shang Qinghua demanded, but surprise surprise, Mobei-Jun clammed right up. He started rubbing his temples. “I run logistics for one of the largest cultivation sects in the human realm. Even if I’ve never been to the demon realm personally, I trade with demons. A lot. When you kidnapped me last week, I was literally on my way to trade for more demon realm goods. That sort of fuck-you-rich-person gossip like your uncle going apeshit whenever he sees someone cheating spreads like wildfire along the merchant trade routes. I could tell you things like that about the nobility of every major clan in the realm.”
“What are you planning?”
“Planning? I’m not planning anything!”
“What do you want?”
“To leave! What do you mean what am I planning! You’re the one who kidnapped me!”
Mobei-Jun crossed his arms and glared.
“How did you rank in the hunt?” Shang Qinghua demanded.
“First place.” Mobei-Jun said resentfully.
“And your uncle didn’t bother you?”
“No.”
“Good!” Shang Qinghua huffed. “Now it’s your turn.”
“What?”
“I proved that I can be helpful to you, now you help me. I want to try sharing some secrets. The book I read said it takes personal secrets to open the lock, but not how personal the secrets have to be. The only way to find out is to try, but to share a secret, I need someone to listen. So listen.”
Mobei-Jun raised an eyebrow, then pointedly looked to the front flap of the tent.
“Honestly!” Shang Qinghua huffed. “You have shadow powers. I don’t even know where we are! If somehow this works and the lock opens, I promise I am not going to try and run away. What would be the point?”
“Hm.” Mobei-Jun said, which Shang Qinghua took as begrudging agreement.
“Okay!” Shang Qinghua had decided that he was going to start small and slowly work his way up to bigger, more personal stuff if necessary. “I grew up in a village called —— ——.”
The lock didn’t move.
“Did you know that already? It’s only going to work if you don’t know the secret.”
“I didn’t know that.” Mobei-Jun said, sounding a little annoyed.
Yeah, okay, he hadn’t really thought that one was going to work anyway. It was a personal fact, and nobody in Cang Qiong knew it, but it wasn’t exactly a secret. He had brothers and sisters, for example, who obviously knew where he was from. Also, although he’d transmigrated in as a kid, whether he truly “grew up” in that village was kind of a complicated question. Still, he’d thought it was worth a try.
“Uh, yeah. I guess it’s not secret enough. Let me try another one. When I first joined An Ding peak, I accidentally poured ink into one of the laundry vats and destroyed thirty sets of robes. I hid the evidence and they ended up blaming it on one of my shijie.”
Again, the lock didn’t move.
Evidently that wasn’t personal enough, because that had been a real secret this time. Shang Qinghua hadn’t told a soul until just now. They’d ended up demoting the shijie in question, and she’d kicked up such a fuss about the whole thing that eventually their shizun dismissed her from the sect altogether. Shang Qinghua would have felt bad about it, but she had been a huge bully. In the end, nobody had counted it as a great loss.
“I write novels in my spare time.”
No movement.
Mobei-Jun raised an eyebrow. “What kind of novels?”
“I’m not answering that. I’ve always wanted a dog.”
“The lords in your sect aren’t allowed to keep pets?”
“I don’t have time for one. I cheated on the Cang Qiong entrance exam.”
Mobei-Jun frowned. “Powerful artifacts are not usually satisfied by trifles.”
Shang Qinghua put his head in his hands. “Ugh, I know. Fuck.”
They were both quiet for a while. It was almost a companionable silence. Something about the conversation just now seemed to have calmed Mobei-Jun down from his earlier fury. While Shang Qinghua was upset that his moonshot idea wasn’t working, the brief detente was making this whole situation feel a little less wretched.
In fact, he was feeling good enough that he ventured—
“We’ve met before. When I was sixteen, you were in the human realm and you stumbled into my shixiong and I on a trade road. I don’t know if you remember, but you killed the whole group—“
“I remember.” Mobei-Jun cut him off.
“Ah, sure. That makes sense.” He ducked his head, looking down at his crossed legs. “Anyway, I ran before you could kill me. I started running as soon as I saw you, actually. That’s probably how I got away.”
This secret had been weighing heavily on Shang Qinghua’s chest the past week, which was why it felt almost like an insult when, stubbornly, the lock didn’t move.
Before he could complain, Mobei-Jun spoke up: “I already knew that.”
“What?!” Shang Qinghua spluttered, jerking upright. “How?”
“You knew who I was immediately. I never had to introduce myself.”
“But I could have done research, or—“
“And I saw you running.”
“What? Wait, seriously?”
Mobei-Jun nodded.
“And you connected the dots just because I recognized you? What if I had recognized you from your demon mark?”
“I have cousins with the mark. You knew I was a prince.”
Shang Qinghua bit his lip. “I could have recognized you from your shadow powers. It’s well known that only the third prince can manipulate shadows.”
“You are wearing the same color you were that day, and your hairstyle has not dramatically changed.”
Shang Qinghua’s eyes snapped down to his robes, which, while much fancier, were just about the same pale shade of yellow that the An Ding peak disciples wore.
“Did you know I was that disciple when you decided to kidnap me?”
“No.”
“Okay.” He raised a hand to his temple, massaging his sudden tension headache.
Mobei-Jun remembered him? Literally, what the fuck.
“Do you have more secrets to try?” Mobei-Jun asked after a pause. Something about this little truth sharing session must have settled his nerves, because the earlier anger was now totally absent from his voice.
“No, not right now. I need to think about it more.”
“Hm.”
This was normally the point at which Mobei-Jun would leave, but he didn’t.
Shang Qinghua blinked at him. “Do you….” He trailed off.
Did he need something? What was he doing?
The seconds stretched out.
At last, Mobei-Jun ventured, “A deal.”
“What?”
“You will continue to help me. I will… also help you.”
“Are you trying to negotiate with me right now?”
Mobei-Jun nodded solemnly.
“Um. Okay. Yeah. That’s pretty much what I suggested last time. Let’s help each other.”
Mobei-Jun nodded again. He still did not leave.
Shang Qinghua tilted his head to the side. What did he want?
“What do you want?” Mobei-Jun asked.
“Me?” Shang Qinghua’s brow furrowed.
Mobei-Jun nodded for the third time and raised his eyebrows, mildly exasperated. Shang Qinghua felt like he was getting whiplash here.
“I’ve already told you?” How many more times did he have to say it? “I want your help getting out of here.”
“After that.” Mobei-Jun frowned at him like he was the one who was being obtuse.
“… Let me go home?”
The frown turned into a scowl.
“Come on, you’re not planning on keeping me prisoner forever, right?”
Mobei-Jun’s eyes slid to the side.
“Right?!” Shang Qinghua pressed.
“You know too much.” His voice had gone a little quiet.
Ut oh, Shang Qinghua thought. Okay, sure, he’d kind of anticipated this, but that was still not what he wanted to hear.
He was getting better and better at translating this man’s particularly infuriating style of communication, and according to his dictionary, that shifty, uncertain look meant that he was closing off because he hadn’t thought this through.
“You understand that in a negotiation, both parties work together to come to a solution that meets both of their needs, don’t you? I’m just going to put this out there: my needs very much include not being a prisoner for the rest of my life.”
Mobei-Jun affixed him with a hostile glare, but Shang Qinghua put up a hand.
“Enough, enough, I get it, you could kill me right now. We both know that won’t help you. Listen, believe it or not, I am not totally opposed to helping you take the throne. But if I do, I’m going to need some assurances for myself, alright? Like, it’s not… there’s got to be some middle ground. You can’t always use force to get what you want.”
Mobei-Jun’s face had turned dangerously blank now, a decidedly bad sign. Ah, this conversation had really caught him by surprise, huh.
Shang Qinghua made a hurried suggestion, “Why don’t you think on it a little bit, your highness. We, um. We can restart the negotiation a little later.” Like after you’ve had a moment to calm down!
God, imagine if he’d had to navigate the minefield of this guy’s emotions when he was 16. What an absolute disaster that would have been! Shang Qinghua felt like he was pulling on every last bit of his emotional intelligence and hard-earned people-managing skills he’d picked up over both his lives. He had no clue how he would have done this back when he was still an outer disciple, completely overwhelmed by the day-to-day struggle to survive, still figuring out how to live in this insane new world. Probably with a lot more crying, wheedling, and capitulating to ridiculous demands….
“Fine.” Mobei-Jun huffed before whirling around and stalking out of the tent.
Shang Qinghua ran a hand over his face.
The next morning, Mobei-Jun came back. The time out to let his emotions cool seemed to have worked, because he looked markedly calmer.
“Here.” He said, holding out an orange.
Shang Qinghua stared up at him, open mouthed, brow furrowed.
Huh? He was offering him a snack? Was this some sort of peace offering?
“Um.” Shang Qinghua replied eloquently. “Thank you, your highness, but…” —but I can’t reach through the bars, but after I eat it I’m going to be stuck with leftover peel, but how can I trust this isn’t a trick— “but I don’t like oranges.” He finished.
Mobei-Jun opened his mouth to reply but was stopped by the sound of grinding metal. Their eyes both snapped to the lock on the cage, which astoundingly, had just turned one third of the way open.
“...”
“...”
Mobei-Jun leveled him with a curious look. “That secret is near to your heart?”
“Ah… that is…” Shang Qinghua stumbled. The Kill Bill siren was going off in his head. He let his eyes fall shut, embarrassed and defeated. “… Yes.”
He didn’t know why he just said that. He hadn’t meant to, it just slipped out. He could hardly believe it had turned the lock.
“Why?” Mobei-Jun asked.
Shang Qinghua did not want to answer that question. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He chewed on his lower lip.
Mobei-Jun frowned.
So that’s what it was going to take to get the lock to open, huh? More secrets like that? If there had been anything else in the cage with him, Shang Qinghua might have ripped it up in frustration.
He never would have thought to try offering up a secret like that. Unfortunately, the moment that metal bar started turning, he’d known instantly why it had worked.
This was a wife plot straight out of Proud Immortal Demon Way. Naturally, the way out was going to involve debasing himself. He should have realized it earlier.
While on the surface, not liking oranges was possibly the smallest, least important truth Shang Qinghua had told Mobei-Jun so far, in the context of his life it was… not small.
Twenty years ago
“So you’re the disciple that survived.”
“Answering Shizun, yes.”
Shang Qinghua had been born into a poor farming village in this world, and no one had ever properly taught him all of the subtle intricacies surrounding precisely how to bow in these sorts of formal situations. He did his best, feeling terribly awkward the whole time.
“Hm.” The An Ding peak lord said. “How did you do it?”
Shang Qinghua threw himself lower, deepening the bow. “Answering Shizun, this disciple was a coward. This one was the first one to see the demon and… and this lowly one didn’t even think to warn the others. This one immediately ran away.”
“Where did you go?”
“To the last town we had passed through. This one thought that in the village there would be places to hide, or maybe the demon would lose interest if he had to chase me that far.”
“Did you not think that you should have protected the goods you were transporting?” His tone was severe.
Shang Qinghua ducked his head even lower. “Answering Shizun, the cart was mostly empty since we were on the way to pick up the order. All we had were the semi-precious stones and metals to use for payment, which are of little value to a demon, especially an ice demon.”
“Oh?” A note of surprise colored his voice. “Now why do you say that?”
Shang Qinghua frowned a little. Surely this was obvious?
“The demon realm has an abundance of precious gems and metals, the Northern Desert especially.”
“How did you know the demon was from the Northern Desert?” His shizun pressed.
“B-because he was an ice demon… the temperature lowered when he came out onto the road, and there was a demon mark on his forehead.”
There was a pause. “A demon mark?” He couldn’t see the peak lord’s face, but he sounded startled. It was pretty startling, Shang Qinghua supposed. Only demon nobility bore a demon mark. What were the odds of encountering such a person on a random trading road in the human realm?
“This one didn’t get a good look at it, but it was blue.”
Of course, he hadn’t needed to get a good look at it, but nobody else needed to know that.
“Did you notice anything else about the demon?”
Shang Qinghua bit his lip. “Answering Shizun… he looked mostly human… and young. Like he was just a kid.”
For a moment, the An Ding peak lord said nothing. Shang Qinghua stayed bent over, trying not to tremble as he waited to hear his verdict.
“Stand up please.”
Shang Qinghua scrambled to his feet. He got his first good look at his shizun’s face since this conversation had started. To his surprise, he didn’t seem angry, but rather thoughtful.
“How do you know that the demon realm has an abundance of precious gems?”
Shang Qinghu squeaked. Ut oh. Was that not common knowledge? Had he overplayed his hand? He couldn’t remember if they’d covered that in class or not. Normally, the material was so high-level and boring, it was difficult for him to focus. He spent most lectures zoned out.
“Er, answering Shizun, this disciple… read it once. In a book from the library. Was this disciple incorrect?”
The An Ding peak lord stroked his beard. “No, you are correct. It is highly unlikely that a demon would be in the human realm to steal those things. Did the demon say anything, or did you see anything that suggested what he might have been doing?”
“No, Shizun.”
“Hm.”
Shang Qinghua tried not to fidget as the An Ding peak lord stared off into the distance, thinking.
“What is your name?”
Shang Qinghua jumped a little. “This one is called Shang Muyang.”
“Shang Muyang, come here and sit down.”
He rushed to obey.
“What do you think your punishment should be?”
He squeaked again. Honestly, this week had been bad enough as is, between the long and unpleasant road trip with a group of loathsome shixiong, almost dying at Mobei-Jun’s hands, and then the stressful, exhausting journey back to Cang Qiong. Did he really have to make it harder?
He dove into another bow, “This disciple is willing to accept whatever punishment Shizun sees fit!”
“Alright, alright, good. I’m promoting you to inner disciple then.”
“What?” Shang Qinghua’s head shot up. The An Ding peak lord’s expression was tranquil, but from his eyes, he could tell that he was laughing at him.
“Have an orange, disciple Shang.” He took one off the top of a small pile sitting on his desk.
It was late autumn, peak citrus season, and Cang Qiong Mountain Sect was veritably overflowing with oranges these days.
The An Ding peak lord held it out to him.
Shang Qinghua had never liked oranges. Something about the taste combined with the pithy texture — to him, they were just kind of gross. Of course, he could force one down if he really needed to. Having to eat something he didn’t like wasn’t the end of the world. Besides, right now, what the An Ding peak lord was offering him wasn’t actually the orange.
“T-thank you, Shizun.” Shang Qinghua stuttered, accepting the fruit with his best effort at a smile.
This was the same as when he’d first been selected for An Ding peak, and when he’d woken up in Shang Qinghua’s body. He hadn’t asked for it and he certainly didn’t want it, but compared to his other options….
“Go ahead,” the An Ding peak lord encouraged, noticing his hesitation. “The crop this year is excellent.”
“Yes, Shizun.”
Shang Qinghua carefully peeled off the skin of the fruit, trying to pull off as much of the stringy white pith as possible without looking like an insane person. He pried out a segment, subtly took a deep breath in, and popped it in his mouth.
This had better get me somewhere, he’d thought to himself as he swallowed it down.
“What do you think?”
Looking up and catching his Shizun’s eye, he smiled again. “It’s good. Thank you.”
Present day
When you were a low-born, middling-strength cultivator of average looks, with no particular talents to recommend yourself to others, you got used to telling a lot of lies. That’s just how it was.
It wasn’t like Shang Qinghua wanted to lie. In most cases, telling the truth would have been so, so much easier, but for someone like him, there were many situations in which that was just not an option. Between sucking up to his superiors, soothing over the ruffled feathers of all of the big egos he was surrounded by, and doing what honestly felt like an impossible job most days, he was more or less constantly eating oranges.
Shang Qinghua didn’t get to be honest. If little everyday truths were what made up the essence of a person, then he wasn’t even sure he existed anymore.
Mobei-Jun was looking at him expectantly, waiting for an explanation.
“Does it really matter?” He asked. He felt exhausted.
“Yes!” Mobei-Jun insisted. “Why was that a secret? How could that possibly be important?” He was leaning towards the cage now.
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Why not?!”
“I just don’t! I just don’t want to! Is that really such a big deal? What is knowing going to do for you? The truth is that I just don’t like oranges! I haven’t ever told anyone that, and so every year people give them to me as gifts and expect me to eat them. And I do. It fucking sucks, they’re kind of disgusting actually, but I do, because at one point I didn’t have a choice, and now it would seem crazy if I suddenly stopped. That’s it! That’s all there is to it! It’s not that deep!”
“Then why did that move the lock?”
“Because it did!” Shang Qinghua half-shouted.
“That’s not an answer!” Mobei-Jun growled back.
“Oh my god, is it not enough that I have to tell you the secrets in the first place?” Shang Qinghua cried. “The lock moved because that secret fucking mattered to me!”
Mobei-Jun went quiet. They stared at each other.
Shang Qinghua’s chest was heaving. He hated Mobei-Jun right now. He honestly hated him.
Sure, he was tall and handsome, and had this sort of dark magnetic quality to him that made his very presence feel compelling, but he was also a little stupid, and spoiled, and far too used to pushing past boundaries to get what he wanted. Classic young master behavior! Princes could only ever be attractive in novels, Shang Qinghua thought bitterly. He’d met enough lords and lordlings, he should have known that by now.
Mobei-Jun looked down at the orange in his hand. He looked back up at Shang Qinghua. His deep, glacier-blue eyes were intent. It was, once again, impossible to figure out just what he was thinking. He tucked the orange away somewhere in his cloak.
Instead of leaving the tent to give him some privacy, Mobei-Jun stood there and continued to stare at him. It made Shang Qinghua feel like a fish in a tank, which did not help quell his more violent emotions.
“Honestly, what do you want?” He demanded.
There was a long pause before Mobei-Jun replied, “I dislike the taste of alcohol… at festivals and feasts, I also have to drink it.”
Oh, great. He was trying to empathize. The logical part of Shang Qinghua’s brain understood what he was doing, and even was a little impressed that he was trying. This whole situation was so wildly far from what either of them expected or wanted, the fact that he was making an effort at all was kind of a big deal.
The more dominant part of Shang Qinghua’s brain was completely done, and not at all in a mood where he could deal with this.
He held up a hand to stop him. In a somewhat strained voice, he said, “Listen, I… I get it. That’s… I get what you’re trying to do, but now is not a good time. Give me maybe a quarter shichen, your highness. Just leave me alone for a little bit. I’ll…. We can pick up the negotiation again after that.”
Mobei-Jun frowned a little, but he nodded, and more importantly, he left.
The moment he was alone, Shang Qinghua flopped back on his back, covered his eyes with his palms and pressed until he saw stars.
Precisely thirty minutes later, Mobei-Jun was back. Luckily, that had been enough time for Shang Qinghua to pull it together. For the most part, anyway.
“Okay, your highness. Um, thanks for that. I’m ready to try again. Let's come up with some terms.”
Mobei-Jun nodded very seriously.
Shang Qinghua paused to see if he had anything to say, but he just stared back at him expectantly.
“So I am willing to help get you on the throne… and I understand that you may need a little time until you can trust me, but once I get out of here, you need to let me go back to my sect. We can set up regular meetings, or we could figure out some sort of collateral, something that will help you feel comfortable that I won’t betray you until I prove myself. We can… we can work towards trusting each other from there.”
Mobei-Jun’s mouth tilted down, but he offered a single sharp nod. He seemed to understand that there weren’t really any better options.
“And you have to keep helping me in return!” Shang Qinghua added in a rush. “I won’t work for free.”
“What do you want?”
Shang Qinghua had already thought about this. He promptly replied, “Gold and silver. Gemstones. Demon realm herbs. Nothing very precious to you, but in the human realm, that stuff is worth a lot.”
Mobei-Jun nodded again, seeming satisfied with that answer. “And you will tell me all you know of this servants’ gossip.”
“Of course, your highness.” He waited for a beat, then added, “But if you’re interested, I can offer you something even better than that. I won’t help you destroy Cang Qiong, but there are other sects in the human realm that I have no loyalty to. For example, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about Huan Hua Palace’s defenses.”
This ignited a real spark of interest in Mobei-Jun’s eyes, but his brow also furrowed in suspicion.
“Why?”
Ah, well at least he’s using his brain, Shang Qinghua sighed.
“They’re competition, your highness. It’s not so different in the cultivation world than it is in the demon realm, really, only we have sects instead of clans. But beyond that, Huan Hua Palace is currently led by a dangerous, short-sighted idiot. We would all be safer, probably, if he was out of the picture.”
And, looking ahead, it would slow down Luo Binghe’s future conquest of the human realm, at least by a little. If there wasn’t such an easy, thoroughly corrupt entry point through which to gain power, he would have to work harder to invade Cang Qiong. Of course, even if Shang Qinghua did get Mobei-Jun to take out the Huan Hua Palace sect leader, it wouldn’t stop him forever. Still, any extra time Shang Qinghua could buy himself before the catastrophic merging of the three realms would be worth it.
If he was being honest, this new, mandatory partnership with Mobei-Jun wasn’t even all that bad of a deal for him. For starters, having someone he could trust on the throne of the largest kingdom in the demon realm was a pretty big win. Right off the bat, that meant better access to demon realm resources, a chance to establish a more stable inter-realm trade, a new income stream for himself, potential escape routes for when Luo Binghe blew everything up….
He was trying to frame it as an alliance rather than indentured servitude — presenting Mobei-Jun with terms, outlining a clear give and take. The last thing he wanted was for this to turn into a delayed realization of the original plot.
(A big part of him worried that these efforts were futile. With him and Mobei-Jun here now, conspiring together even after all this time and all of the changes he’d made, did that mean that some of the events from PIDW were simply destined to occur? Was his death a fixed event, too?)
Shang Qinghua’s explanation seemed to have gone over well, because Mobei-Jun nodded thoughtfully.
“Do you have any terms, your highness?”
Mobei-Jun thought about it for a while. Then, “You will not lie to me.”
“Of course.”
“You will not withhold information.”
Shang Qinghua nodded. “That’s fair. I promise to share everything I know of relevance to whatever situation you are facing.”
“You will share everything, even if it’s not relevant.” Mobei-Jun insisted.
“Haha, um, sure, your highness. I promise not to keep anything back.” That wasn’t exactly feasible — what the hell did everything mean, anyway — but Shang Qinghua had decided to choose his battles wisely today.
“You will not betray me to your sect or to my clan members.”
He nodded again. “I wasn’t planning on it. What else?”
Mobei-Jun went back to thinking. At last he said ponderously, “At my ascension, should you prove loyal, you will be rewarded.”
“Ah, that’s very generous of you, your highness.”
Mobei-Jun nodded solemnly.
Shang Qinghua, “Okay, last one for now. For as long as I serve you loyally, you have to promise not to hurt me.”
Mobei-Jun looked him up and down once, then nodded.
“Okay. Okay, good. Well…” Shang Qinghua rubbed his hands together. “We can negotiate more terms as we think of them, but for now, maybe we could start with you telling me a little more about what the state of things is in the Northern Court?”
The core of the crisis Mobei-Jun was facing, Shang Qinghua learned, stemmed from his second-oldest brother’s engagement.
Prior to this, the power struggle between the three oldest princes had been more or less balanced, with Mobei-Jun’s younger siblings having already bowed out of the fight. A marriage inevitably led to heirs, however, and a clear line of succession tipped the scales. Mobei-Jun, who had no interest in attempting to secure a betrothal of his own, was now solidly on the back foot.
What’s worse, his uncle, who had always held a particular grudge against him, was trying to leverage this opportunity to knock him out of the running for good. There was also the matter of his future saozi’s family, a powerful clan of alpine moth demons who were determined to see their daughter become queen. Almost as soon as the betrothal was announced, this crucible of courtly tension started to boil over.
Five weeks ago, one of these enemies sent an assassin after Mobei-Jun. While he’d been able to fight her off, the attempt on his life had gotten far too close to succeeding. In a panic, he’d rounded up the handful of servants and warriors he trusted, and left the palace.
According to Mobei-Jun, he was being strategic, seeking an opportunity to reassert his suitability for the throne and get back at his brother. To Shang Qinghua’s eyes, it looked like he’d been pretty solidly backed into a corner.
In the original plot, this guy must have been dealt with a lot earlier, Shang Qinghua thought, because he didn’t remember Mobei-Jun struggling this hard to claim the title of crown prince. Then again, PIDW hadn’t spent much time on its second male lead’s backstory. Ultimately, back when he was writing the novel, he hadn’t come up with any of this, so everything Shang Qinghua knew about Mobei-Jun’s er-ge came from things he’d overheard in this lifetime. In order to get rid of him, they were going to have to rely on his general knowledge of the world and Mobei-Jun’s intuition.
They started plotting right away.
The smashing success of Shang Qinghua’s earlier recommendation meant that Mobei-Jun was generally inclined to trust him, but they still ran into a few road bumps.
“That’s not going to work, he’s not going to eat some strange fruit.”
“It’s called the Irresistibly Enticing Berry for a reason, your highness. It’s irresistibly enticing! As long as you put it in his tent, he’s going to eat it.”
“No. It won’t work. Come up with something else.”
Mobei-Jun’s ability to teleport nearly anywhere at will offered them a great deal of flexibility in orchestrating these plots. They would have a few opportunities, at least, just thanks to how smoothly Mobei-Jun could slip in and out of otherwise heavily guarded areas. Nearly all supplies or ingredients, he could acquire with ease, even rare ones only found in remote corners of the world. It was like he’d been expressly designed to be the perfect assassin… which he sort of had, Shang Qinghua realized a little belatedly.
Their main constraint was they needed to be careful that none of the plots could be traced back to Mobei-Jun directly. It was expected, of course, that the princes would fight and maybe even kill each other. To be caught doing so, however, was a profound taboo.
They started small, initially just trying to replicate their earlier success by sneaking cursed objects and simple poisons into his living quarters — stuff that would mess the second prince up during important meetings or even endanger his life given the right circumstances. Unfortunately, it seemed that after the vernal equinox hunt disaster, he had put up more of a guard, because none of it worked.
Over the course of their discussions, Mobei-Jun started spending longer and longer in Shang Qinghua’s tent.
At first it was a little awkward, him just standing there for hours at a time, staring into the cage while Shang Qinghua sat in the lotus position on the rough wooden floor. Eventually, however, Mobei-Jun got tired of standing and had one of his ice demon servants lug a whole divan into the tent – which, kind of a crazy choice! Elegantly carved and lacquered, it looked like the sort of platform a feudal lord might set up in the reception room of his manor. Where had he even gotten it from?
Shang Qinghua looked on with his eyebrows practically in his hairline as the bulky demon carrying it sweated and stumbled behind his lord. Nearly as tall as Mobei-Jun, he looked young, like he was barely out of his teens. He cast several overtly curious glances at Shang Qinghua until he took a wrong step, nearly tripping forward and smashing the couch into Mobei-Jun’s back. After that, he kept his eyes carefully fixed on his task.
Along with the divan came a rug and a small table. Mobei-Jun had the night pearls switched out for proper lamps, and he brought in a tea set to put on the table. Not even Shang Qinghua’s humble cell was spared from this bout of interior decoration fervor, when one morning he arrived with an assortment of cushions. One by one, he presented them to Shang Qinghua, had him pick out his favorite, and then carefully pushed it through the bars.
Ultimately, though it felt a bit ridiculous, Shang Qinghua could hardly complain about the improved ambiance. As they passed the three week mark since his kidnapping, even with the tremendous amount of meditation he was doing, he found himself getting a bit restless.
A couple of times now, he’d tried sharing another personal secret, but none of them had worked. To be honest, it was difficult to think of secrets that were important enough to meet the lock’s criteria.
What’s worse, even though nothing he said was good enough for the lock, to make it worth an attempt, he had to draw from a well of pretty embarrassing stuff. And it wasn’t like he could play any of it off with a ‘haha just kidding’ either! When he was trying out a secret, it was obvious he was being earnest. Mobei-Jun knew he was telling the truth!
Maybe it would have been easier if Mobei-Jun tried to pretend he wasn’t listening, but instead, he accepted each little factoid like it was critically important information. Couldn’t he leave Shang Qinghua an iota of face?!
“After my parents, uh, stopped acting like they were married, it became obvious that they wished they hadn’t had me. I think that’s why I struggle to build close relationships — knowing that the people who were supposed to love me unconditionally didn’t even want me. It makes it kind of hard to believe that other people would….”
“Hmm.” Mobei-Jun said thoughtfully, while the lock didn’t move a millimeter.
At this point, Mobei-Jun knew Shang Qinghua better than anyone else ever had in either of his lifetimes.
Their ‘er-ge assassination plotting’ time started bleeding into ‘general discussion of inter-realm politics’ time, which took long enough that eventually Mobei-Jun started to eat his meals in the tent, and before Shang Qinghua knew it, he was watching the scary demon lord take naps on the fancy divan.
This isn’t creepy, he told himself, closely observing the contours of Mobei-Jun’s unconscious face. It’s not creepy because I know he watches me meditate, too.
Strangely, he was struggling to find his own argument convincing.
It’s not creepy because he’s a character I invented. My favorite character I invented.
Giving up, he forced his eyes away, only for them to be drawn helplessly back when Mobei-Jun let out a quiet little huff.
He’s an annoying, spoiled brat. He’s not cute. Shang Qinghua insisted. He’s probably going to end up murdering me, which is why I definitely don’t — not even a little bit — think he’s cute.
He flopped onto his back and flung an arm over his eyes.
When it became clear that their minimalist assassination attempts were not going to work, they were forced back to the drawing board. They needed a more drastic, more permanent solution.
While they’d hoped otherwise, it seemed that Mobei-Jun was going to have to get his hands dirty.
He didn’t have to kill his brother, per se. Anything that would permanently remove him from the line of inheritance would do. While there was clearly no love lost between the two of them, Shang Qinghua wanted to avoid the fratricide route if possible. He didn’t want to inflict any more family-related emotional trauma on Mobei-Jun.
“Okay, your highness.” He sighed. “This is a bit nasty, but it's the cleanest option I can think of. I’ve heard of a poison used by the Succubi Clan that, if ingested by a man, will cause his, ah… well, his pillar to shrivel up and fall off. It’s not graceful, but if you can make the second prince consume it, it would neutralize the effect of his upcoming marriage, since he wouldn’t be able to produce any heirs.”
Mobei-jun hummed thoughtfully.
“The only trouble is, for it to work, the poison has to be consumed while it's fresh. It spoils a couple of hours after it’s made. Since we haven't been able to get him to consume poison on his own, I think our best chance would be if you fed it to him while he’s sleeping.”
Mobei-Jun looked grim, but all be said was. “How do I get this poison?”
While the plan came together fairly quickly, it took a few days before a good opportunity to get at the second prince arrived. In the meantime, Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun carefully rehearsed the steps.
With Mobei-Jun’s noble status and Shang Qinghua telling him exactly what to say, they were able to purchase the poison from Madame Meiyin, arranging to pick up the volatile mixture just minutes after it had finished brewing.
Once he had it, Mobei-Jun would cut a small shadow portal and look through it to make sure his brother was asleep. If he was, reaching carefully through the shadows, he would light a kind of incense that worked more or less like a general anesthetic, ensuring he wouldn’t wake up until the poison had run its course.
Mobei-Jun would then portal in, pour the succubus poison down his throat, collect the incense ash, and portal back out. From there, they would stand back and watch the fallout.
On the appointed day, Shang Qinghua saw him off. Or rather, he stood in his cage, while Mobei-Jun prepared to shadow portal to the Succubi Clan lands from within the tent.
“You remember all of your lines?”
“Yes.”
“Be careful not to say anything else, or even look at one of them for too long. If they think you might be interested and proposition you, they’ll take your rejection as a great insult.”
“I know. You have already said this three times.”
“Okay, okay, sorry. This one is only worried, your highness. But you won’t run into any problems, ignore me.”
Mobei-Jun looked at him impassively. He did that a lot these days. At first it had been pretty intimidating, but Shang Qinghua was getting used to it.
“Okay, good luck, your highness.” Shang Qinghua said earnestly when the appointed hour came.
Mobei-Jun nodded once, sharply. His gaze briefly turned piercing. Then, with a swift cut of his arm, he ripped open a portal through the shadows, stepped past its edge, and was gone.
Shang Qinghua took a deep breath in and let it out in a gush. He sat back on his cushion, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
He didn’t have a good way to tell time from within his cage, but after what felt like a shichen or so had passed, a subtle, inky shimmer appeared in the corner of the tent. It looked like the start of a shadow portal.
Only, as the seconds stretched out, instead of growing into a long crack that ripped open to reveal Mobei-Jun, the shimmer stayed a shimmer. It hovered in the air, pulsating weaky.
Was something blocking the portal? Shang Qinghua wondered, a little alarmed.
Then a muffled buzzing started up. Shang Qinghua strained his ears. It kind of sounded like radio static.
As he listened closely, the buzz began to sound almost like words. Like people were talking.
“Mmmphhhf fffftttsshhh bbbhhttt— your mother’s clan would hhhhkkkk about you bastardizing their sacred hhhiikkkksss—?”
“You were the one who taught me to manipulate shadows.”
And Shang Qinghua’s spine went ramrod straight. That second voice was Mobei-Jun’s.
“I certainly never kkkkssshhhchh—“
Fuck, who was he talking to? Someone who had taught him to use the shadows? But that had been Linguang-Jun!
“— mother would be ashamed kkktttpppffff—“
Was it Linguang-Jun? What was he doing there? Was Mobei-Jun in the second prince’s chambers? Had he been caught?
The sound coming through the half-made portal wavered in and out, like there was an unstable connection. Shang Qinghua had no idea that a half-made shadow portal could even be kept open this long. Why wasn’t Mobei-Jun coming through?!
Then there was a crashing noise, loud compared to the conversation. Shang Qinghua flinched.
“— YOU DARE?!”
He heard Mobei-Jun hiss something out, and then the shimmer rapidly solidified and grew. A large, clawed hand split the portal open, and in the blink of an eye, the rest of Mobei-Jun was tumbling through.
Mobei-Jun staggered, lurching over and pressing a hand to his stomach even as the shadow portal closed behind him.
He coughed, then spat up a clot of black blood.
“Your highness—!” Shang Qinghua shouted. He immediately slapped a hand over his mouth.
On his hands and knees now, Mobei-Jun took a gasping breath and dry heaved.
“What happened? Are you okay?” He demanded.
Mobei-Jun took another deep breath, then a third. He swallowed hard, grimaced, and spat on the ground before carefully repositioning himself so he was seated cross-legged on the floor.
“What happened?” Shang Qinghua asked again, fretful.
“My uncle was waiting.” His voice came out raspy, words wrenched out between painful-sounding breaths. “He knew I was going to—” he cut off into a chest-racking cough.
How was that possible? Had he been watching the second prince? Had he been waiting for Mobei-Jun to act?
“The succubi.” Mobei-Jun explained between coughs. “He knew about the poison.”
Shang Qinghua cursed. He hadn’t thought of that! The Succubi Clan had always been loyal to Luo Binghe, but that had been because he’d married their leader! This was the first time Mobei-Jun had ever approached them. Linguang-Jun had already had years to earn their loyalty. He should have known someone as slimy and cunning as Mobei-Jun’s uncle would go after that sort of ally.
But right now, there were bigger things to worry about. What had he done to Mobei-Jun?
“Your highness, where are you hurt?” Shang Qinghua pressed urgently.
“I’m fine,” Mobei-Jun gritted out. “When I arrived in Er-ge’s quarters, he attacked me.”
“How?” Shang Qinghua demanded. “Did he poison you? Did he use a weapon? Did you see anything coated on the blade?”
“It’s a—” Mobei-Jun coughed again, “normal stab wound. It’s healing, I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure? You don’t feel anything in your meridians?”
“No,” Mobei-Jun growled, glaring up at him. Shang Qinghua glared right back.
Don’t be stubborn, you’re bleeding all over the floor! Am I supposed to ignore that and be completely unconcerned?!
When Mobei-Jun had fallen through the portal, Shang Qinghua had rushed right up to the edge of the cage. He knelt there now, wringing his hands. He hadn’t felt this helpless in a long time.
“Okay," he sighed at last. "If you say so.”
Mobei-Jun had started cycling his spiritual energy, actively working to heal the wound. Along the edges of the cut, mostly concealed by red-black blood, Shang Qinghua could see a faint silver shimmer. Demons, when compared to human cultivators, were naturally able to channel just an insane amount of qi. As casual as he looked right now, for there to be a visible sign of the spiritual energy he was harnessing, Mobei-Jun must have been doing some serious cultivation.
Shang Qinghua slumped forward, resting his forehead against one of the wooden bars and covered his face with his hands. He waited a couple of minutes, until the subtle signs of pain left Mobei-Jun’s expression.
“I’m sorry, your highness. This one failed to anticipate the extent of your uncle’s influence. I should have been more careful.”
Mobei-Jun grunted at him, dismissive rather than angry.
“What… what was he saying to you?” Shang Qinghua ventured.
At that, Mobei-Jun’s head shot up, his lips turning down into a reflexive, furious snarl. In Shang Qinghua’s growing experience, that particular tilt of his eyebrows meant he’d been startled.
“I could hear some of it, but not all. You had the shadow portal partially open for at least a couple of minutes before you came through. Was he waiting there in the second prince’s room?”
Mobei-Jun was obviously upset to have been overheard. He took a deep breath in, exhaled, and Shang Qinghua prepared himself to handle another small temper tantrum. Only, shockingly, that wasn’t what happened. Expression evening out a little, Mobei-Jun opened his eyes and, in a very rational tone, started to explain.
“He hid himself in a closet. When I looked through the shadows to check whether Er-ge was sleeping, I didn’t see him. After I set the incense, he fled from the bedroom.
“Your brother didn’t wake up?”
“No. But it’s likely my uncle will tell him what happened.”
“He doesn’t support your brother’s bid, does he?”
Mobei-Jun shook his head. “He wants to see himself on the throne. He has always played the three of us against each other, supporting and hindering us in turn. Once my father dies and he can argue his case, he will stop pretending.”
“Of course. That makes sense.”
Really, it was pretty astute of him to lay it all out like that, Shang Qinghua thought, a little impressed.
“I portaled into the sitting room outside his bedroom. My uncle was waiting there for me. He confronted me about my plan and asked me to hand over the poison. When I did not, he attempted to take it by force.”
“Did he manage?”
At this, Mobei-Jun looked sharply pleased. He reached into the fold of his outer robe and pulled out a small vial. “No.”
Interesting. So while Linguang-Jun had enough sway with the Succubi Clan that they’d informed him of Mobei-Jun’s purchase, the poison they had sold Mobei-Jun was still the real deal. Either Linguang-Jun’s clout wasn’t enough to convince them to sell a fake, or he’d overestimated his physical prowess and thought that he’d be able to take the poison from his nephew by force. But it would stop being effective in another hour or two… he would have had to act very fast if he wanted to use it on anyone.
“But what did he say to you?” From the little snippets he’d gotten, it sounded like they’d been talking about Mobei-Jun’s mother, which… yikes.
Mobei-Jun’s expression clouded and his shoulders tensed. Shang Qinghua watched his face carefully. It looked like he was struggling to figure out what he wanted to say. When he finally came to a decision, Shang Qinghua could tell by the way his eyes closed for a beat slightly longer than a blink.
Still on the floor, Mobei-Jun looked up at him.
Caught in the intensity of his gaze, Shang Qinghua raised a hand, reaching out to him — to do what, he din't know. His hand knocked against one of the wooden bars of his cage and he startled. He had forgotten it was there.
“I have hidden the extent of my shadow powers from other people. Before tonight, Linguang-Jun did not know that I could step through the shadows myself.”
Oh shit. Shang Qinghua thought.
Mobei-Jun’s mother’s clan, the Abyssal Demon Clan, had nearly died out in a genocide several centuries ago. They had been the ones to invent shadow teleportation, and while they’d taught a few outsiders, the skill was exceedingly hard to master. Very few practitioners remained, and among those, their talent was limited mostly to simple things — passing trinkets a couple of rooms away, poking open little peep holes and the like.
That was all backstory Shang Qinghua had set up to explain why the demon and human realms weren’t overrun by terrifying teleporters. He didn’t think he ever explicitly outlined any of it in PIDW, especially not after it became obvious that his readers weren’t showing up for the worldbuilding.
Anyway, Linguang-Jun had learned from Mobei-Jun’s mother during their engagement, before Mobei-Jun’s father had stolen her for himself. Linguang-Jun had then passed the basics of the skill on to Mobei-Jun. It had only been the very basics, though. Almost all of what Mobei-Jun knew, he’d discovered himself through trial, error, and sheer ingenuity.
“But you’ve been teleporting in front of me.” Shang Qinghua pointed out. He had watched him step through his portals at least a dozen times by now.
“It was the only way to get you here.” Mobei-Jun explained. “You’d already seen me do it once. There was no point in hiding it after.”
“That’s why you always make the portals in here.” Shang Qinghua realized. “Your servants — even they don’t know.”
Mobei-Jun looked at him steadily.
Holy shit, he really had no one he trusted. Shang Qinghua had known he had little by way of support, but this was on a whole different level.
“But Linguang-Jun, he was saying something about—”
“Forget what you heard.” His eyes turned furious.
Shang Qinghua stared at him. He really did look fearsome when he was angry. But why was he angry? All those things Linguang-Jun had been spouting were bald-faced lies.
Bastardizing the Abyssal Demon Clan’s techniques? They wouldn’t think that. Of course not. Mobei-Jun wasn’t some outsider. He was one of them, a direct descendant through his mother’s line. The shadow techniques were a part of his heritage; it was completely absurd for Linguang-Jun to pretend otherwise. Mobei-Jun wasn’t bastardizing anything — he was reviving a part of his culture that had been lost for generations!
Shang Qinghua bit his tongue. He shouldn’t say anything, he really shouldn’t. He shouldn’t know any of this, not even the fact that Mobei-Jun’s mother had come from a different clan. She hadn’t been a high-ranking consort, and she’d died young. Almost no one spoke of her these days, and it wasn’t like the Northern Ice Palace was particularly forthcoming with those kinds of records.
He had no way to explain how he knew what he knew, no way to even prove that what he wanted to say was true. All the same, it felt impossible to look at Mobei-Jun now, betrayed yet again by his stupid, selfish family, and let him continue to believe any of the wretched things Linguang-Jun had said.
He swallowed hard.
“Linguang-Jun doesn’t know what he’s talking about, your highness.”
Mobei-Jun opened his mouth, probably to tell him to shut up, but Shang Qinghua barrelled on.
“You’re the best shadow-user anyone has seen in centuries, but it’s not because you stole anything from anyone. This is your birthright, it’s rightfully yours by every measure. If the Abyssal Demon Clan still existed, they would have celebrated you for it.”
Mobei-Jun looked more startled than he’d ever seen him. The expression was so clear on his face, anyone could have recognized it.
Shang Qinghua was breathing hard. He felt almost frenzied.
“Your mother would have been proud of what you have accomplished. You deserve to be proud of what you’ve accomplished! There’s no one else in the entire world who could have done it.”
At some point during Shang Qinghua’s rant, Mobei-Jun’s mouth had fallen open in shock. The two of them stared at each other. The air between them was electric, like they were both standing on the edge of a great precipice.
The shriek of metal sliding against metal broke the silence.
Both their eyes snapped to the lock. Slowly, as if with great deliberation, the bar slid back, until the copper section had passed through the final ring. Only the last third, the piece of shining white metal, was left.
Shang Qinghua’s limbs were all frozen in horror. His eyes flitted over to Mobei-Jun.
Mobei-Jun looked horrified too. He was staring at Shang Qinghua like he was some sort of dangerous, unknown creature.
“Y-your highness—” Shang Qinghua tried to say, but faster than he could get words out, Mobei-Jun scrambled to his feet and fled from the tent.
His whole body numb, his ears buzzing, Shang Qinghua could only stare after him.
So that had been secret number two, Shang Qinghua thought morosely, lying flat on his stomach across the floor of the cage with his face pressed into the fancy cushion Mobei-Jun had given him.
He had no idea how he was going to explain this to Mobei-Jun when he came back. If he came back.
Haha, maybe Shang Qinghua was going to die in here after all.
System? He thought pointedly. He rolled onto his side and opened his eyes. The system’s glowing blue screen was floating right above the floor, nearly at eye level.
【 Good afternoon! 】
Can I tell Mobei-Jun I’m a transmigrator?
【 Unfortunately, that is not allowed. Please continue to work hard every day to earn B-Points without revealing that you are from another world! 】
Ugh, okay. That was kind of what he’d thought it would say.
What happens if I tell Mobei-Jun anyway?
【 You will automatically be deported back to your original world. 】
Shang Qinghua rolled back onto his stomach, hiding his face again.
He wished he could go back and unsay those things. Even if it had gotten him one step closer to opening the lock, it really hadn’t been worth it.
What were his options here? He’d revealed so much. That he knew about Mobei-Jun’s mother, that he knew about the secretive Abyssal Demon Clan. That he knew Mobei-Jun was part of the secretive Abyssal Demon Clan. It was unlikely that anyone outside of the Northern Ice Palace knew that. He had no way to explain himself. This wasn’t the kind of thing written down in public records or gossiped about by servants — this was sensitive insider information!
What’s worse, Shang Qinghua had implied that he knew how Mobei-Jun had developed his shadow manipulation skills. If his servants didn’t even know, if a snake like Linguang-Jun hadn’t even known, then how on earth was Shang Qinghua supposed to explain that he knew?
Mobei-Jun probably thought he was some kind of insane stalker. Except, even the best stalker in the world still shouldn’t have this much information! No wonder he had sprinted from the room. If Shang Qinghua were in his place, he’d be on another continent by now!
To be honest, he was still confused about why his rant had turned the lock. Everything he’d said had been about Mobei-Jun’s past — none of it had been about him personally. That was like one of the most critical requirements of the lock, wasn’t it?
Like, okay. Maybe if you looked at it through the lens of ‘Mobei-Jun was a character that he’d written once’…. And maybe if you considered that all of the arguments Shang Qinghua had been making originated from the backstory he’d written for him, a backstory that had never made it into PIDW, that nobody aside from himself ever got to see….
Look, by the time Proud Immortal Demon Way had reached the height of its popularity, the demands of his audience had warped his story to an unbelievable degree. He’d been chugging through word count to pay rent, but almost nothing about the novel was his anymore. The things he’d cared about, the ideas he’d wanted to convey, all of it had been trashed in favor of getting more views, more subscriptions.
He was loath to admit it, but getting to see Mobei-Jun here, ostensibly the same OP, ice-cold killer from his trash stallion novel, but discovering that actually, underneath it all, he was still everything Shang Qinghua had originally imagined him to be? It was affecting, alright!
Still, the lock thought that was personal? What about his childhood trauma from his parents’ divorce! This was big enough, but that didn’t count? Seriously?
But getting back to the real core of the issue: he had no idea what he was going to say when Mobei-Jun returned. He wished he knew what he was thinking. He was probably so confused.
Shang Qinghua tried to meditate but, skittery with anxiety, he couldn’t focus. He was lying flat on his back, staring blankly at the ceiling when Mobei-Jun swept back into the tent twelve hours later.
A thick, dark blue cloak Shang Qinghua hadn’t seen before was draped across his broad shoulders. His hair looked windswept, and with his entrance came a draft of unseasonably cold wind. There were still snowflakes caught in his dark hair. He must have just portaled here from somewhere much colder.
Shang Qinghua scrambled upright.
“Y-your highness!” He cried, stupidly.
Mobei-Jun didn’t say anything. He strode over to the divan, flipped his cloak back, and sat down. He looked like he had calmed down a little, Shang Qinghua noticed, but also like he was distinctly wary of him. His heart sank.
“Explain.” Mobei-Jun said curtly. From within his cloak, he pulled out a thick bamboo-slat scroll and tossed it on the ground between them. It landed with a painful clack, falling partially open to reveal dense, scholarly handwriting.
“... What?”
“I thought you had lied about the lock, but according to this, it works just as you said. No one should know what you knew. Explain.”
“But what is it?” Shang Qinghua repeated, peering down at the scroll.
“I went to the informant who told me about the lock in the first place. Everything he said was useless, but he still had his original source. This is the same way you learned about the lock, is it not?”
Oh, shit. Shang Qinghua swallowed hard. The tome he’d cited back when Mobei-Jun had first asked how he knew about the lock. Would you look at that, it really did exist.
Mobei-Jun’s eyes were knowing. He had already realized Shang Qinghua’s lie. Fuck. This was the first time anyone had ever caught him out on something like this.
“How do you know what you know?” Mobei-Jun asked again. His tone was grim. The expression in his eyes looked betrayed.
Totally unrelated, Shang Qinghua’s heart suddenly felt like it had been stabbed and then set on fire.
He took a steadying breath. “I can’t tell you, your highness.”
“You’re a prophet.”
Shang Qinghua let out a spluttery, high-pitched laugh. Mobei-Jun had really jumped right on that, huh. What a conclusion to come to!
Really though, it was a good out. He should say yes. Mobei-Jun was basically doing his job for him, but for some reason, he couldn’t quite get the words out of his mouth.
“If not a prophet, then some sort of god.” Mobei-Jun tried when Shang Qinghua’s silence did the talking for him.
“Um!”
Well, that was certainly closer to the truth, but probably not in the way Mobei-Jun was conceiving of it. Shang Qinghua was mostly joking when he thought of himself as a creator god. Really, the complex fabric of this world, the substance and fullness of everyone’s individual lives — it all went wildly deeper than he ever could have imagined. Mobei-Jun was probably thinking he was someone powerful and all-knowing, when really he was just some… some guy. Just a writer.
“Speak.” Mobei-Jun demanded.
Shang Qinghua looked down at his lap. He felt so trapped, not just by the cage, by everything.
He glanced back up and met Mobei-Jun’s gaze. “I can’t tell you. It’s not that I’m unwilling. You have to understand, this is something I can’t tell you.”
Mobei-Jun looked him over critically. His sharp eyes felt like they were piercing his soul. He was completely inescapable.
Having watched him flounder and act uncertain for so many weeks, seeing him like this felt like being struck by lightning. This was his favorite character, fully realized.
“You’ve been cursed.”
“Er, no. Or, well. I suppose I’ve not… not been cursed.”
Mobei-Jun nodded sagely. “I understand.”
Did he? Did he really? What exactly did he understand, because Shang Qinghua didn’t understand at all!
“Do you know so much about everyone, or just me?”
Shang Qinghua’s face felt warm. Oh god, he wasn’t blushing, was he? He wished he could hide his cheeks in his hands. It felt like they were entering into dangerous territory, but the System stayed quiet.
“There are a couple of people who have significant… um, well, fates, I guess. Fate isn’t quite the right word.”
“Yue Qingyuan.” Mobei-Jun nodded.
Wow, he sure didn’t forget much. “Haha… um, yeah. He’s one of them.”
“This is why you’re willing to help me.” Mobei-Jun pressed. “Because of my significant fate.”
“Ah. That is—”
“I’m going to become the next Mobei-Jun.”
Whoa! Had he always been so good at inductive reasoning? Shang Qinghua had written him smart, but this was a little—!
“Well, again, I don’t know how set in stone any of it is, but… I mean… yes.”
Mobei-Jun nodded solemnly. “That’s why you’re helping me.”
Oh my god, could he slow down for just like, two minutes here? This many revelations in a row, Shang Qinghua’s weak heart really couldn’t take it! He tilted his head back, blinking up at the ceiling of the cage, and swallowed a couple of times.
Of course, Shang Qinghua should have said. That’s exactly why I’m helping you.
But once again, the words caught in this throat. He just… he was so tired of lying, even to himself. Maybe especially to himself. He wasn’t helping Mobei-Jun because of who he would become in the future. That wasn’t why at all.
He looked back down, eyes returning to Mobei-Jun’s handsome face.
“Ah.” He said, a rumble that turned Shang Qinghua’s spine half to jelly. “I understand.”
And this time it seemed that he really did.
Oh, fuck him. Shang Qinghua raised a hand to cover his eyes. This was utterly humiliating. That was enough coming to conclusions for today. No more conclusions!
“When you get out—” Mobei-Jun started to say.
Shang Qinghua did not want to hear it. He was ready for a sinkhole to magically open underneath the cart and swallow him whole.
Mobei-Jun did not get to finish his sentence, however, because at that moment one of the other ice demons barged into the tent, dropped to a one-knee salute, and reported, “My lord, two cultivators have been spotted in the nearby town. They’re asking the locals questions about us. It seems like they might be looking for…” his eyes slid over to Shang Qinghua.
Time seemed to stop in the tent. Mobei-Jun’s eyes flicked from the ice demon to Shang Qinghua and then back. The ice demon grew visibly nervous.
Shang Qinghua spoke up. “What do the cultivators look like? Did you see them?”
The demon glanced at Mobei-Jun, who gave him a sharp nod.
“Both are tall, with long hair.” The ice demon started. “One is wearing green, the other gray. They carry swords at their waists. The gray one had a… a mole, here?” he pointed to the corner of his eye, “And the green one looked very angry.”
“Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge then.” Wow, those two fucking hated each other. How on earth had they ended up on this rescue mission together? Cang Qiong must be in dire straits if this was how desperate they were to get him back.
“Pack up camp.” Mobei-Jun ordered. “We need to leave. Now.”
The ice demon scrambled to his feet and ran out the front flap. The moment he was outside, Shang Qinghua heard him start calling out instructions to the rest of the group.
Mobei-Jun also stood up and whirled into action. He started by pushing all of the furniture towards the tent’s felt walls. Then, with a jerk of his hand, he cut open a small shadow portal, reached through it, and pulled out an axe.
Shang Qinghua’s eyebrows flew up when he turned to the divan and, without a moment’s hesitation, brought the axe down, cleaving the whole thing in two.
He started to say something, paused, then decided against it. He sat back on his cushion and pressed a hand to his mouth. It was probably better if he just let him do his thing.
The purpose of all this wanton destruction became apparent when Mobei-Jun opened another, larger portal flat against the ground and started dropping the pieces of cut-up furniture through it like a trash chute. Shang Qinghua had no idea where it was going, but since they obviously couldn’t travel with this stuff, he must be trying to hide evidence of their camp.
Not that it would do much good, he realized as he watched him work. Was he going to regrow the grass that had been worn away from the ice demons' footsteps? Was he going to somehow sweep up all of the cooking ash around their firepit? Bury their trash pile and disguise the freshly turned dirt? If Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge were questioning locals in the nearest town, it was probably only a matter of hours before they made it up here. There wasn’t enough time to erase the evidence of their camp; they ought to get going now.
It had been a number of weeks since his kidnapping, but all told, it was pretty impressive that his martial siblings had found him this quickly. Given the way Mobei-Jun’s shadow portals worked, there would have been no trail to follow from the site where he’d been taken. He wondered if they’d found his horse, wandering around the mountains on her own.
Logically, he probably should be glad about the impending rescue. Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge would take him back to Cang Qiong, to his private leisure house with all of his comfortable furniture, his personal effects, and the novel manuscripts he’d been working on in his spare time.
It’s not like his relationship with Mobei-Jun would end just because he went back to the human realm. The man could teleport! Shang Qinghua would help him figure out a way through Cang Qiong’s pesky outer defense array, and then he could drop by whenever he wanted. He would still help him plot against his brothers and uncle.
This wasn’t even so different from what they had planned on doing. Once he was out of the cage, Shang Qinghua had always been going to return to his sect. That had been the most important condition in their negotiation!
Sure, the timing and the speed at which this situation was progressing was not ideal. Being forcibly split up definitely had a different feeling to it than making a mutual and deliberate decision to let him return… but they would make it work. Their relationship had progressed a lot over the past couple of weeks. It would be fine.
Of course, the biggest headache was that if Shang Qinghua was still in the cage when his martial siblings found him, then he was going to have to tell his last secret to one of them. … Yikes. But you know what? He didn’t have time to worry about that right now! He was going to burn that bridge when he got to it.
“Your highness,” he spoke up. “Maybe you should just leave me behind. Once I’m out of the cage—”
Mobei-Jun whirled around with a glare. “What secret are you going to tell your sect brothers to get out?” He demanded.
“I have no idea.” Shang qinghua replied honestly. “But I’ll keep all of my promises from before. I’ll still help you become king. You just need to leave, like, right now. Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu can’t be allowed to find you. They are… not cultivators that you want to cross. We can arrange to meet up afterwards. There are places near An Ding peak that are outside of Cang Qiong’s protective arrays. You can safely portal there, and we can continue our work.”
As he spoke, his fingers clenched and twisted the fabric of his outer robe. Honestly, the idea of getting caught and something happening to Mobei-Jun was making his stomach churn.
When he was done talking, Mobei-Jun looked a lot less angry. Shang Qinghua didn’t know why, especially because he immediately replied, “No,” and continued tossing stuff into the shadow portal, putting a definitive end to that argument.
One by one, Mobei-Jun systematically dismantled and disposed of everything in the tent. When that was done, he picked up the hitch of the Shang Qinghua’s cart and pulled him outside.
Ah, daylight. Wow. Shang Qinghua squinted up at the sky through the bars of his cell. It had been a while since he’d properly seen the sun.
With the tent emptied out, Mobei-Jun set about deconstructing it. Watching him work, Shang Qinghua was pretty impressed. If someone had asked him before, he would have said that Mobei-Jun had probably never done this sort of menial labor in his life, yet here he was, tearing down camp like a pro.
He glanced behind and saw the rest of the ice demons doing more or less the same thing. The camp was a flurry of activity — demons jogging around, their arms full of supplies, others folding up felt panels and packing crates onto carts. The forest clearing looked a little more lived in than it had when he first arrived, but other than that, nothing seemed to have changed much. He wondered what the other ice demons had been doing all this while.
Surprisingly quickly, Mobei-Jun had the skeleton of the big tent disassembled and all of its component parts organized neatly in a pile on the ground. Shang Qinghua expected him to go grab another cart or something and start loading it up, but he just left it there. Shang Qinghua’s eyes followed him as he tracked over to the makeshift stable set up at the edge of the clearing, where a handful of horses were tied to a post stuck in the ground.
Mobei-Jun grabbed the reins of one of them, led it back to Shang Qinghua’s cart, and started setting up the hitch. When that was ready, he jogged over to one of the other piles near where a tent had once stood. He grabbed a rucksack and slung it over his shoulder before jogging back.
Picking the reins of the horse back up, he started leading Shang Qinghua’s cart away, down the road in the opposite direction that they had first come in by.
At the edge of camp, they passed by the ice demon who had delivered the initial report.
Mobei-Jun stopped. “You know what to do from here?”
“Yes, my lord.” The ice demon bowed.
Mobei-Jun nodded, and with that, they were off.
Shang Qinghua chewed on his lower lip, glancing back at the flurry of activity, before turning his attention to Mobei-Jun. There was a feeling of déjà vu, seeing him lead the cart forward. He had not grown any less tall or broad than he had been on that first day, but the dark frame of his profile was markedly less intimidating. Watching his dark hair sway with every step, Shang Qinghua wondered what it would feel like to touch.
He managed to hold his tongue for five whole minutes, until they were fully out of sight of the others.
“This isn’t going to work, your highness. We can’t travel fast enough like this. They are definitely going to catch up.”
If Mobei-Jun had been able to make a shadow portal large enough to transport the entire cart, he would have already done so by now.
“What are you planning?” Shang Qinghua demanded.
“We will get far enough away that we can hide, and we will finish opening the lock.” Mobei-Jun replied with a tone of finality.
Oh god. It had taken them the better part of a month to come up with two applicable secrets. He had no idea what he could possibly say to get it to turn it the rest of the way. This was a horrible plan. Still, he couldn’t exactly argue with it. He didn’t have any better ideas himself.
They spent the rest of the day on the road. For the most part, they both kept quiet.
About half an hour in, Shang Qinghua started coming down from the adrenaline spike. He settled back, propping his cushion up against the bars and leaning on it, his limbs heavy and tired.
Watching the forest scenery go by was a nice change of pace. All of the time he’d spent meditating had spared him the claustrophobia and restlessness that a regular person might have felt spending so long within the confines of a tent, but he was still distinctly happy to be outside.
They kept going even as the sun crested and started towards the horizon. As their journey stretched on, Shang Qinghua’s anxiety returned. Horse-drawn carts traveled at a maddeningly sedate pace, and because of the width of the cart, they were pretty much stuck on the trade road. His martial brothers were liable to catch up with them any minute now.
Out of desperation, he tried throwing out a few more personal secrets. None of them worked. If he could just get out of here, then the two of them could portal away….
Neither of them tried to restart the conversation they’d been having in the tent. This, at least, was a blessing. Shang Qinghua was hoping Mobei-Jun would let them both forget about it so he could keep the tattered remains of his dignity.
Around dusk, Mobei-Jun finally turned the cart off on a side road, just wide enough for them to fit.
Shang Qinghua took in their surroundings with wide eyes. Mobei-Jun seemed to know where he was going.
About fifteen minutes later, they came upon a small cave. Mobei-Jun stopped the horse.
“Here?” Shang Qinghua asked, surprised.
Mobei-Jun looked back at him and nodded.
Was this hidden enough? He wondered as Mobei-Jun went about unhitching the cart and dragging it up a small incline through to the mouth of the cave. Shang Qinghua had to brace himself against the bars so he didn’t get knocked around in the process.
It didn’t feel particularly hidden. The forest was very large, and this wasn’t the first side trail they’d passed, so there would be at least a little ambiguity about which way they’d travelled. Still, the cave was right there, open to the road. If Shen Qingqiu or Liu Qingge did come down this way, it wouldn’t be hard to spot them.
With how unwieldy the cage was, there just weren’t many options for them to choose from, Shang Qinghua supposed.
Neither of them needed to eat, and they were both somewhat impervious to the cold, so Mobei-Jun didn’t bother with a fire. When he was done situating the cart in the cave, he paced three steps over to the other wall and sat down with his back against the stone, his feet flat on the ground, and his knees tucked up to his chest.
With the sun past the horizon, the light was fading fast. Night was closing in.
Mobei-Jun gazed up at Shang Qinghua. After a moment, he spoke.
“What you said… mattered to you.”
Ah, Shang Qinghua thought. It was very strange to see Mobei-Jun sitting like that. For such a large man, he looked shockingly small this way. Maybe right now he felt small too, because his voice sounded as uncertain as Shang Qinghua had ever heard it.
“Yes,” he ventured. “I guess it did.”
“Why?”
It was always straight to the heart of things with this guy. Shang Qinghua liked that about him, though. He really did.
“I don’t know if I could explain it with words.”
“Try.”
Shang Qinghua blew a long breath out through his teeth.
“Meeting you surprised me, I guess. As you know, um. I knew certain things, but there was a lot I didn’t know. The– the knowledge that I have isn’t perfect. Some people have certain fates, but those fates could change, or at least, some parts of the fate could. When I met you, at first, I kind of thought that was what had happened, that you were different from my original idea.”
Mobei-Jun hummed to indicate he’d heard him but was quiet for several long minutes after that.
“Meeting you also surprised me.” He said at last.
“Ha, I bet.” Shang Qinghua laughed.
It was properly dark now, and they could barely see each other. Mobei-Jun looked more shadow than man. The only remaining light was a faint glow coming from the chunk of white metal welded onto the lock — the last part of the bar.
In the companionable silence that settled between them, Shang Qinghua turned his mind once again to potential secrets he could tell.
Then, out of nowhere, Mobei-Jun spoke up. His voice was abnornally quiet. “Back when we first met….”
“Yeah?”
“Did you save me?”
Shang Qinghua jerked back. “H-how do you remember that?”
Twenty years ago
Shang Qinghua’s entire body was shaking. Fuck, this was so bad. He could hardly believe it was happening.
Crouched under a bush about a hundred meters away from where Mobei-Jun was killing off all the shixiong he’d been traveling with, Shang Qinghua took a deep breath and held it. He counted to three, then let it out. Another deep breath.
Calming exercises, he told himself. He thought back to what his junior-level An Ding peak meditation instructor always said. Focus on calming the breath. Breath is the base of all cultivation. He could do this. If he could breathe, he could figure out his next steps.
He should have run further before choosing a place to hide. A hundred meters really wasn’t that far. He could still hear exactly what Mobei-Jun was doing over there.
Demon senses were supposed to be even better than human ones. Once he was done, would Mobei-Jun be able to hear the panicked beating of Shang Qinghua’s heart? Would he be able to smell him?
If only he hadn’t freaked out, he could have been even further away by now.
After what felt like an eternity of running, but had probably only been about ten seconds, he’d had the horrible thought that as soon as Mobei-Jun finished killing everybody else, if he could still see Shang Qinghua, then there was a good chance he’d come after him too. His adrenaline-filled rabbit brain had thought that hiding was the right move, and so he’d stopped running and ducked into a dense thicket of bushes instead.
Only, now he was realizing, he’d stopped running way too soon. He didn’t feel safe here at all, but if he got back up, wouldn’t it be even more likely that Mobei-Jun would spot him?
Then the sounds of violence abruptly stopped. Shang Qinghua’s breath caught.
He strained his ears, waiting one second, two seconds, three seconds. He couldn’t tell what was going on. Was Mobei-Jun coming closer? Was he moving further away? Maybe he was just standing still and looking around?
Then, a faint sound, like a soft thud. It was so quiet, Shang Qinghua wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it or not. He stayed in the bushes, doing his best to stay as still as possible.
Minutes passed like this. The noise did not pick back up.
What was Mobei-Jun doing over there? He couldn’t be that silent when he moved right? All of the slaughtering that had just gone on had been the opposite of quiet. Oh my god, the suspense was killing him.
Shang Qinghua spent perhaps ten whole minutes in the bushes before the agony of not knowing became too much. He poked his head out and looked down the road.
Mobei-Jun was nowhere to be seen.
What? Had he already left? He could teleport, so that was a distinct possibility.
That, or he could be hiding somewhere, lying in wait for Shang Qinghua to return so he could finish him off. Fretfully, Shang Qinghua ducked back into the bushes and hid for a while longer.
Okay no, it was starting to seem more and more likely that Mobei-Jun was really gone. Shang Qinghua couldn’t live in this bush for the rest of his life. He probably should go back to the cart and see if he could salvage anything. He hadn’t seen any of his martial siblings running. It seemed like he might have been the only one who got away.
Trudging back on wobbly knees, Shang Qinghua kept his eyes and ears peeled for any sign of danger. There were none. It had been a sunny, pleasant day before they’d been ambushed, and if it weren’t for the slumped over bodies of his shixiong lying across the trail, then the scene would have looked just as sunny and pleasant as before.
He wrinkled his nose as he drew closer. The smell of blood in the air was strong.
Just as he was climbing up onto the driver’s platform to see what had happened to their cargo, he saw him. About a dozen paces off the road, lying face down in the grass, was Mobei-Jun.
Shang Qinghua froze. He stared at him. Mobei-Jun was not moving.
Was he… was he hurt? What? From tussling with a group of An Ding peak disciples? Shang Qinghua had a pretty good grasp on the capabilities of his martial siblings and injuring a demon lord was just not something they could do.
He stared for a while longer. It really did not look like he was faking it. Seriously, this was odd.
Was this how the original Shang Qinghua / Mobei-Jun first meeting had gone down? Shang Qinghua had never specified in PIDW. He hadn’t really spent a lot of time thinking about that thread of the story, to be completely honest. But wait… hadn’t he added some throwaway line about Shang Qinghua saving Mobei-Jun’s life?
He turned to a higher authority for answers.
“System, if I leave, is Mobei-Jun going to survive?”
【 Mobei-Jun’s survival is not necessary for the story. 】
Not necessary for the story? Mobei-Jun?? What the fuck was the System talking about?! Mobei-Jun was the second male lead — not necessary for the story? If he didn’t survive, what was Luo Binghe going to do later? There were like, dozens of plot lines that would be impacted!
“That’s not what I’m asking. If I leave right now, is he going to survive or not?”
【 Outcome uncertain. 】
That manipulative son of a bitch!
Okay, he had no choice here. He was going to have to get a closer look at what was wrong.
Even in light of the conversation he’d just had, he still approached Mobei-Jun’s body with caution. Half of him was convinced that Mobei-Jun was going to spring up any minute, whirl around, and kill him. That didn’t happen.
When Shang Qinghua got within spitting distance of his body, he saw what the issue was. There, sticking out of Mobei-Jun’s lower back, was a small golden dart, obviously from Huan Hua Palace. Huh.
Shang Qinghua looked up and surveyed the clearing. He didn’t see any sign of Huan Hua Palace disciples in the vicinity. They weren’t particularly near Huan Hua Palace either. Could Mobei-Jun have used a shadow portal to teleport himself here? That would be like, insanely bad luck on the part of Shang Qinghua’s dead shixiong if that was true.
He examined Mobei-Jun’s body. Other than the dart, he didn’t seem to have been injured. It looked like the Huan Hua guys had caught him with their classic Demon Subduing Poison. For lower grade demons, the poison was quite deadly, but someone like Mobei-Jun should have been able to fight it off… if he were awake.
Shang Qinghua leaned forward, looking closer. The dart must have also been laced with an anesthetic — a strong anesthetic, if it was keeping Mobei-Jun down this long. Perhaps it was still working because the dart was still lodged in him. Shang Qinghua bet that if he took it out, Mobei-Jun would wake up and start healing.
His survival was uncertain, the System had said. Hmm.
Shang Qinghua should really go. He should just leave. Uncertain didn’t mean that Mobei-Jun was going to die. It meant that there was a chance he would die. Equally, there was a chance he would live. Shang Qinghua had already decided to run away. If he just stuck to his instincts, he could wipe his hands of this mess and everything would probably turn out for the better.
Time to get going, he thought. His feet did not budge.
Hmm. Mobei-Jun sure did look awfully young like this, lying unconscious on the ground. Shang Qinghua couldn’t see his face, but he was obviously just a teenager. Barely a teenager by the looks of things. It was kind of crazy that he was already getting into deathly peril at this age. Like, he’d designed the demon realm to be brutal, and the cultivation world was no joke either, that was for sure, but it seemed pretty unfair that this was happening to him when he still was just a kid.
Shang Qinghua kicked at the dirt a little.
Okay fuck it. He couldn’t just leave. Shang Qinghua ran a hand over his face. He was such an idiot.
The first thing he did was jog back over to the cart and grab all of the gold, silver, and precious gems they’d been carrying. He took them by the armful to the base of a tree right at the edge of the crossroads, and buried them in a spot he would remember. Insurance for later, in case this dumb fucking decision he was making came back to bite him in the ass.
Then he jogged back to Mobei-Jun’s side. He was still lying completely motionless on the ground.
Shang Qinghua didn’t have any medicine on him, and even if he had, he’d never been much good at first aid. He leaned down and plucked the dart out of Mobei-Jun’s side, tossing it further into the bushes, where it would hopefully be lost for good. That was about as much as he could do for him.
… It would probably be fine, he thought, looking him up and down one last time. Demons were sturdy. He should get going anyway. With his luck, Mobei-Jun was going to show him exactly how sturdy he was by waking up while he was still here.
With one last glance behind him, Shang Qinghua started jogging back down the road, towards the last town they’d passed through. He needed to get back to Cang Qiong, fast.
Present day
“I thought you were unconscious.” Shang Qinghua insisted, absolutely astonished.
“I was. I don’t remember it, but when I woke up, the poison dart was too far away from my body for it to have fallen out on its own. I assumed that I must have pulled it out myself before I fell over. But then I met you.”
“That’s still too big of a jump in logic. How could you come up with that?”
“Shang Qinghua.” Mobei-Jun admonished.
“It’s just not realistic!” He cried.
“You—” and then Mobei-Jun abruptly stopped talking.
“What?”
He heard him scramble upright.
“Your highness, is it—?”
“Yes. They’re coming.”
Fuck. They were all out of time.
“You have to leave. Get out of here, I’ll make something up, I won’t let them know it was you.”
“No.” Mobei-Jun said, shooting down his plan for the second time.
“This isn’t a good idea, your highness!”
As stubborn as an ox, Mobei-Jun said nothing.
Jesus fucking christ! He couldn’t hear them yet, but if Mobei-Jun could, they were down to a couple of minutes tops. If he was ever going to try a secret, now was the time.
He hadn’t thought this one would work until two minutes ago. He hadn’t even known this about himself until this morning! But fuck it. It was worth a shot.
“Your highness.” Shang Qinghua said.
“Hm?”
Mobei-Jun sounded calm. Way too calm for what was about to happen considering he wouldn’t leave!
“Your highness,” he said again, stalling. His hands were shaking.
Then he heard them, two sets of footsteps running down the trail. They’d probably just spotted the horse.
“What?” Mobei-Jun asked, a trace of frustration bleeding into his voice.
In that moment, Shang Qinghua knew for certain that it was going to work. He took a deep breath.
“Listen, your highness. If it were up to me, if I had the chance to choose… I would rather follow you for the rest of my life.”
For a moment nothing happened.
“Shang Qinghua!” Liu Qingge called out.
Holy shit, had he been wrong? Was that not good enough?!
And then came the tooth ache-inducing sound of metal sliding against metal. Shang Qinghua had never been so relieved in his life. With a decisive click, the last third of the metal bar slid through the rings and the lock popped open.
Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu rounded the corner and caught sight of the two of them. Faster than Shang Qinghua could blink, Liu Qingge had his sword out and pointed right at Mobei-Jun.
But it was already too late.
The instant the lock clicked, a yawning shadow materialized in front of Shang Qinghua. Mobei-Jun’s arms reached through and wrapped firmly around his shoulders.
Before anyone else could make a move, he tugged Shang Qinghua forward, right into the cushion of his chest. In the same motion, he opened another shadow portal, this one behind himself, and took a swift step back.
The shadow portal closed up behind them. One second they had been standing in the dark little cave, the next they were somewhere else entirely, far, far away.
.
.
.
Postscript
When Luo Binghe kicked open the heavy silver doors of the Northern Ice Palace throne room, he had been expecting to find the crown prince, Mobei-Jun in all but name, waiting for him. He was not expecting to see a human cultivator wearing a large mammoth-leopard seal cloak and an intricate silver consort’s diadem sitting on the throne.
Aside from the cultivator, the grand hall appeared to be completely empty.
“Luo Binghe,” the man called out. He had a nice enough voice, his tone overtly friendly, but there was something about his eyes, the way they flitted up and down his frame, that Luo Binghe immediately found distrustful. I have to be careful here, all of his instincts told him.
From the time he first stepped foot in this kingdom, but especially here in this room, the shadows seemed darker than normal. Maybe that was why he was so on edge. No place in the demon realm could hope to compare to the light and airy tranquility of Qing Jing peak, but this place more than most reminded him of the Endless Abyss.
“Who are you?” He asked the cultivator. It was an impolite way of putting it, but he’d also just kicked open the front door, so.
“My name is Shang Qinghua,” the cultivator introduced himself, and the hair on the back of Luo Binghe’s neck stood on end.
Qinghua? No, he was just being paranoid. It couldn’t be that qing.
“I hear you’ve come to take control of the Northern Ice Kingdom!” Shang Qinghua said, standing up.
Where had he heard that? Luo Binghe didn’t make a habit of publicizing his plans.
“A heavenly demon like yourself is obviously capable of it, but you see, this is my home. I know it might seem like a good idea to take the kingdom by force, but I was wondering if you would perhaps be willing to try negotiating first?”