Work Text:
Liu Qingge did not like to spend time on Qian Cao Peak. He got along with Mu Qingfang well enough, but the doctor made a bigger fuss about injuries than Liu Qingge thought was necessary, and the War God never appreciated being told to rest and recover. Liu Qingge didn't think he really needed to be on Qian Cao now, but in his disorientation after his qi deviation, Shen Qingqiu had dragged him to Mu Qingfang before disappearing again, most likely back to the caves to finish his seclusion. And Liu Qingge could very reluctantly agree that Shen Qingqiu might have had a reason to force him to be examined. Mu Qingfang had certainly given him an earful, in very graphic detail, about what could have happened to him if Shen Qingqiu hadn't interfered when he had.
“And did shixiong experience any other symptoms this doctor should know about?” Mu Qingfang was saying when Liu Qingge started paying attention again.
He frowned. “...I think I was hallucinating,” he admitted reluctantly.
“Hallucinating how?” Mu Qingfang asked, an exasperated tone in his voice that Liu Qingge was long familiar with.
“There was another person there, besides Shen Qingqiu,” Liu Qingge said. “In the caves, while I was deviating. But I don't think he was actually there.”
Mu Qingfang hummed in agreement. “He most likely was not. Shen-shixiong did not report another person present, and as far as I am aware, no one else was given permission to enter the caves. But why would shidi assume the person was a hallucination? Did Shen-shixiong not interact with them?”
“Because he looked like me,” Liu Qingge said.
When Liu Qingge returned to Bai Zhan Peak later, he was fully intending to ignore Mu Qingfang's instructions and go fight something. Between Shen Qingqiu having helped him—having saved his life—and the strange experience of seeing a disembodied version of himself, his mind was reeling, and he was sure that going out and fighting a good monster would sort him out. Instead, he walked into his quarters to find himself faced by the other person from the caves, the one he'd been almost entirely convinced he must have hallucinated.
Liu Qingge blinked slowly as he stared at his own ghost. "Either I'm still hallucinating while I'm no longer actively deviating, or you're real somehow."
"The second one," the ghost said in a slightly echoey voice.
"Huh," Liu Qingge said. "What do you want?"
Shen Qingqiu was furious. How dare demons invade Qiong Ding Peak in the Sect Leader's absence?? Who had told them that Zhangmen-shixiong would be away from the sect? What weaknesses had the demons exploited, and how had they learned of them? The whole thing stunk of a spy, and Shen Qingqiu had his suspicions.
At least—and Shen Qingqiu must be losing his mind to feel gratitude for this—at least that brute Liu Qingge had arrived shortly after Shen Qingqiu had. The War God had lived up to his grandiose reputation and ran the invaders off of the mountain. Even better, he'd managed, somehow, to act as though he was supporting Shen Qingqiu's authority in doing so rather than as though he was acting independently. Miracles did happen, it seemed!
But when Shen Qingqiu finally returned to his Bamboo House hours later, wanting nothing more than to take a hot bath and scrub off the filth of battle, he was sorely tempted to take back anything positive he'd thought about Liu Goddamn Qingge. Either one of them!
"You knew about this invasion and didn't warn me about it?" Shen Qingqiu hissed at the ghost.
"I didn't know much," Liu Qingge's ghost protested. "I don't remember nearly anything from right after my death. I knew there was an invasion of some kind, but I wasn't sure exactly when. I did try to make sure to keep Liu Qingge around so he could help. And how was I supposed to tell you? You went back to cultivating in the caves right afterwards; it would have been dangerous to interrupt you unnecessarily." Again, he didn't say.
"Besides," the living Liu Qingge cut in. "What would it have changed? We couldn't warn anyone about an invasion we didn't know the time or details of, especially not without explaining how we knew it was coming."
Shen Qingqiu fumed. It was smart, perhaps, to avoid having more people learn of the ghostly Liu Qingge—Lao Liu, Shen Qingqiu decided to think of him as—but Shen Qingqiu already knew the truth! "Last time I checked," he said, "this master is the strategist of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. I have plenty of ways that I could have prepared for this attack without betraying my sources or having specifics."
The two Liu Qingges looked a combination of stubborn and chastised, but they didn't argue the matter further. Shen Qingqiu almost wished they had; he would have enjoyed flaying them apart with his sharp tongue.
Secrets had a way of either drawing people together or forcing them apart out of paranoia. In the past, Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge would have fallen firmly into the latter pattern of behavior, but with the looming threat of future disaster and the presence of the ghost that only they knew about, the two (or three) of them were forced by circumstances to be reluctant confidants. They had established, more or less, that neither of them actually wanted the other dead, but it was frankly a feat of restraint that neither one of them ended up back on Qian Cao.
Unfortunately, Lao Liu's knowledge of the future was limited. Not only was his awareness of the passage of time sporadic before he'd found himself in this past, they'd come to the conclusion that this wasn't even his past. Most things matched the life he remembered, but he insisted that it was like Shang Qinghua was a different person entirely. That, along with the now strangely prescient warning that Shang Qinghua had once given Shen Qingqiu about treating qi deviations, was high on their list of things to investigate further. But despite these differences, it was clear that at least some of his knowledge of the future was accurate, and that gave them things to plan for.
Shen Qingqiu got almost used to meeting with his least favorite shidi semi-regularly when the Bai Zhan Peak Lord was present in the sect. He saw even more of Lao Liu; sometimes the ghost would follow his living counterpart out on field missions, but just as often he stuck around Cang Qiong. He'd split his time between haunting Liu Qingge's house on Bai Zhan and haunting Shen Qingqiu's Bamboo House. Shen Qingqiu didn't mind as much as he would have expected to. The ghost didn't know as much useful information as Shen Qingqiu would have wanted, but he'd submitted to multiple interrogations with more patience than he'd ever had with Shen Qingqiu in life. It also helped, although Shen Qingqiu wouldn't admit it, that according to any experiments they tried, Lao Liu wasn't capable of interacting with the physical world. He could only speak to Shen Qingqiu; he couldn't touch him.
So they'd settled into a kind of routine before things started changing once again one morning when Shen Qingqiu was presented with an unwanted addition to his front step.
Shen Qingqiu rounded on the ghost watching from over his shoulder. "What is that!" he demanded, pointing emphatically with his fan in the direction of the animal carcass that had been left outside of his door.
Lao Liu squinted. "Looks like a Poisonous Yellow-Tailed Lizard-Hound to me."
"I know what creature it is," Shen Qingqiu snapped. "What is it doing in a bloody heap outside my door?! What was that brute thinking? Is this a threat?"
"Not a threat," the ghost said after a moment. "It's probably an apology."
"How would this be a— Nevermind, you said probably. What would the other possibility be?"
"A courting gift."
"A courting gift," Shen Qingqiu repeated incredulously. "Are we animals, or perhaps demons, to court one another through bloody offerings left without even a note?"
Lao Liu shrugged. "I've never pursued anyone before. It just seems like something I'd do if I was."
"How supremely unhelpful," Shen Qingqiu drawled.
"The meat is good to eat, if it's prepared correctly," Lao Liu offered.
Shen Qingqiu knew that already, but he didn't bother saying as much. "I'm certainly not going to butcher the thing myself, and I wouldn't entrust such a task to a disciple. You can't do it either, so you might as well make yourself useful and tell the brute to come deal with it himself. What kind of gift is left half finished? If he truly means it as an apology or— Well, he can explain himself to me personally. Otherwise why should I accept it?" There were cooks on Qing Jing Peak, of course, but Shen Qingqiu had no wish to entrust this... gift... to them either.
The ghost nodded decisively and then vanished, presumably gone to Bai Zhan Peak. Shen Qingqiu was left alone, massaging his temples in an attempt to ward off an impending headache. He refused to acknowledge anything else he might be feeling.
Liu Qingge hadn't exactly expected to see Lao Liu when he suddenly appeared, but he wasn't surprised, either. Shen Qingqiu would be up by now and would have seen the gift he'd left him. Shen Qingqiu had also developed a habit of using Lao Liu to convey messages between himself and Liu Qingge whenever he pleased. "What did he think of it?" Liu Qingge asked the ghost. There wasn't any need for polite dancing around the subject, not with someone who thought the same way as him. When they were alone together, they often spent multiple shichen in companionable silence.
"He wasn't impressed with it being left to bleed on his step without an explanation," Lao Liu said, crossing his arms in a mirror of the way Liu Qingge himself was sitting. "But he says he might accept it if you butcher it for him yourself and tell him what you meant by it in person."
Liu Qingge grunted in acknowledgement. Explaining himself would be difficult, but he didn't want to risk losing the new understanding he'd reached with his shixiong. And he didn't mind butchering the beast.
Lao Liu wasn't done talking apparently, but this time he was speaking for himself rather than for Shen Qingqiu. "I told him it was either an apology or a courtship gift," he said, and Liu Qingge felt his heart skip a beat. The idea of courting Shen Qingqiu— He hadn't— But—
"And he still said he might accept it??" Liu Qingge asked incredulously.
Lao Liu smiled in a way that made Liu Qingge wonder if his face ever did that. "He did," the ghost said softly.
"I have to go," Liu Qingge decided suddenly, reaching for Cheng Luan. Flying across the Peaks as fast as he intended to might draw attention, but he needed to speak to Shen Qingqiu as soon as possible.
As he rushed out the door, he heard Lao Liu calling after him.
"I'll meet you there."
And that felt correct, Liu Qingge thought. Because it had always been the three of them, since the day Liu Qingge had been meant to die. It felt right for all three of them to enter into a new chapter of life together.
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BONUS: Before, in the Ling Xi Caves:
Shen Qingqiu was drawn out of his meditation by the sound of a voice calling his name. A familiar voice, one that never failed to annoy him, in a place where he'd thought he was alone. He opened his eyes, ready to vent his frustration at being interrupted onto Liu Qingge, but he froze once he set eyes on his shidi. Even in the dim light of the cave, it was obvious that the Liu Qingge in front of him was a spirit. Shen Qingqiu could see the far wall of the cave through his body, and the sight was horrifying.
"Liu Qingge!" he yelled. "Have you gone and gotten yourself killed, you fool?" As much as he despised the brute, he didn't truly wish to see him dead. And if nothing else, it would be disastrous for the sect to lose its War God.
"I'm dead," the ghost agreed. "But your shidi isn't. Not yet. There's still time to save him, if we act quickly enough. And after we stop him from deviating, we can talk about other things that haven't happened yet."