The Fujo Shimei’s Shizun-Saving Strategy

by Dollar_store_Virgil

Summary:

Shen Bai gets isikai'd into her San Ge's favorite trashfire webnovel. Surrounded by peerless masculine beauties, it's bad for her rotten heart, ah! Shen Qingqiu stands at the pinnacle, an icy kuudere queen who must be protected at all costs. Screw you, hack author! She's going to save her precious shizun, even if it means tearing the plot to shreds.

Chapter 1

It was like rising slowly up through deep water toward the distant sun, the way she came back to herself. Her world was the soft arms of her mother, red curtains fluttering in the spring breeze, musical giggling and muffled weeping from distant rooms, the scent of jasmine and the taste of milk. 

Memories gradually knit together into a whole cloth, day by day pieces of herself broke the surface and came to light. One morning, she opened her eyes, shocked and dismayed to find herself in the body of a baby. 

Eh? Ehhhhhhh?! 

Shen Bai stared incredulously at her tiny hands, eyes darting frantically around a room that looked like a wuxia drama set. The last thing she remembered was walking back from her evening classes, face down in some spicy danmei. She steps into a crosswalk, never once looking up from her phone. A glare of headlights, a blaring horn, and a wave of agony dragging her under into dark, still water.

Her weakness for trashy softcore lit was the actual death of her. The embarrassment was too much! Her mortification redoubled as she found herself sniffling and then bawling, her reactions entirely beyond her control. 

“Ying-er,” her mother murmurs as she rises from the bed and glides to the crib, “Why is my sweet Ying-er crying?”

She was gently lifted and enfolded into sweet smelling silks. Her dumb baby body relaxed into her mother's arms, her crying almost instantly subsiding. 

“Good girl, there now. My apologies, A-Jiu.”

Shen Bai turned her head from her mother's shoulder to see a peerless jade beauty rise from the bed, grace oozing from each gesture of his lithe body, an inky flood of silken hair swaying with his every motion. Her mother was lovely, but this man made her look like a Taishan 4/10. She might be salivating, but decided to pass it off as another side-effect of being a baby. Her face was already too thin over the circumstances of her death, okay?! 

This celestial vision approached them, phoenix eyes the color of sun-warmed leaves met hers, a gentle smile curving his delicate lips. 

“I was already awake, A-Xia,” and even his voice was gorgeous, low and melodic. “She's beautiful, just like her mother.”

Master Fairy, who are you calling beautiful? Have you looked in the mirror lately, ah?

“Would A-Jiu like to hold her?” 

The man glances shyly away, covering the lower half of his face with his sleeve, introducing a hint of moe to his already intoxicating allure. 

Have mercy, Master Fairy! Are you trying to send this sister to her second death?!

“I… I don't know how. I've never held an infant before,” he demurred softly.

“Here,” she said, passing Shen Bai over to the man, guiding his hand to support her head. “There. Aiya, look at that! She's fascinated.”

She absolutely was. Who wouldn't be? She was inches away from a face that would make a top-shelf idol gnash his teeth! 

The man huffed softly when she reached out to tangle her stubby fingers in his hair, cooing happily. 

“Do you like Master Shen, Ling-er?” 

She'd only known Master Shen for two minutes, but if anything happened to him she would kill everyone in the room and then herself.

“Hello, Yingying,” he sighs with soft wonder, so careful and kind. 

She aims her gummy smile up at him, overjoyed at her luck. Sure, she might have died and was stuck as a baby, but on the other hand this new world contained SS-tier rare beauties like Master Shen. How bad could it possibly be?

 

***

 

Pretty bad, as it turned out. For one, Shen Bai quickly realized she was living in a brothel and that her mother was an, ahem, lady of the evening. 

Secondly, her mother was very ill. Too weak to, ahem, entertain; her frail health strained further by pregnancy and childbirth. The way she would grow short of breath doing simple tasks, the tinge of blue to her lips that came with exertion, the bright blossoms of blood staining the handkerchief after a coughing fit, it was all too familiar. Shen Bai knew a progressive congenital disease when she saw one.

Fortunately, Master Shen still paid generously for Ning Xia’s time, likely covering the costs of their upkeep and more. The atmosphere between them reminded Bai Shen of sleepovers with her best friend in her old life. Gossip and laughter, sharing art and books, enjoying a cup of tea in a haven of warmth and comfort. 

It seemed that Master Shen's interest as a patron was limited to good company and a restful night’s sleep. He was a constant presence as she grew, indulgent and patient with her rather sticky treatment of him. 

She was a rapt audience to his qin duets with her mother, hands fluttering and swooping like a flock of doves across the strings, a river of notes flowing and meandering, crisp and clear. 

One drowsy evening, she approached him where he sat in a low chair, gazing absently out the window and inadvertently looking like a classical painting of a moon fairy brought to life. She tugged at his sleeve, and he turned to her, tilting his head to an elegant angle. 

“Yes, Ying-er?”

“Master Shen, this Yingying has a request,” and if she shamelessly milked the puppy-eyes, well. Her face had thickened up considerably after four years of living in a brothel. 

He raised a flawless fox brow. 

“This Yingying has been learning erhu from her mother and begs Master Shen to allow her to perform for him.”

“You may,” he murmurs, huffing with a bemused smile at the way she lit up, “But quietly. Your mother needs to rest.”

She flashes back to chilly hospital corridors and the heavy feeling of helplessly waiting for the inevitable. Blinks it away before the tears could come or her smile falter. 

“Thanking Master Shen,” she bows. 

She sits, cradling the instrument, and begins to play Chopin's Nocturne, belatedly thanking her parents for bribing her through years of violin lessons. Master Shen's eyes flare wide and his lips part in shock. 

The music flowed easily from her, melancholy and familiar, drifting in slow whorls and eddies around the quiet room. But how strange it must sound to Master Shen. She chanced a glance at him, startled to see tears glimmering on his long lashes like dew on willow leaves. He cleared his throat and dabbed at his eyes as the music trailed into silence. 

“You have a true talent, Ying-er,” he said at last, looking away and covering his expression with his fan. 

“Thanking Master Shen for his praise. This Yingying-”

She was interrupted by the shouts of startled women, and what sounded like a rhinoceros charging at full speed down the corridor. The door slammed open and another SS-tier beauty stormed into the room. Tall, rippling with muscle, but with the face of a delicate female lead, down to the beauty mark below his eye. Plush lips twisted in fury, peach petal eyes blazing at Master Shen, who had frosted over into an attitude of glacial contempt.

“Shen Qingqiu!” the rude, incongrously pretty interloper growled.

And the final reason why this new world sucked more than she could possibly imagine hit her like Truck-kun. Because while her own name sometimes rang a faint bell, she could never forget the name of the scum villain from San-ge's favorite dogsblood stallion novel. 

“Brute,” Master Shen (Shen Qingqiu! Human stick! a distant voice wailed hysterically from where she hastily stuffed her panic into the back of her mind) sniffed dismissively.

The man's eyes hyperfocused on Master Shen's slender feet and pearly toes, and he went red as a beet, sputtering, “In- indecent!”

Her mother stirred on the bed, struggling to sit up. “A-Jiu?” She rasped, “Ying-er, is everything all right?” 

The question was enough to send her into a fit of coughing.

The man looked increasingly less angry and more self-conscious as Master Shen rushed to her side to adjust her pillows and help her settle back. 

“It's fine, A-Niang,” Yingying replied soothingly, "I was just escorting our unexpected guest out of the establishment.” 

“Thank you, Ying-er,” Master Shen's voice smooth as silk and eyes sharp as a blade as he leveled a murderous glare at their “guest”.

She swatted and pushed the man out the door, who was too shocked at being manhandled by a small child to put up more than a token resistance. 

He rounded on her in the hall, furious eyes raking over her features. “Are you Qingqiu's child? Shameless!”

“Of course I'm not! And pretty gege, aren't you the shameless one? Don't think I didn't see the way you drooled over Master Shen's tofu like a starving dog,” she hissed.

He seemed to choke on his own tongue, going an alarming shade of scarlet. She rolled her eyes.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but Master Shen does not come here for those services. He's friends with my A-Niang.”

The man looked as though he'd be struck by lightning. “What?”

“Again, none of your business, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't like women, at least not in that way. He might be a cutsleeve, but he outright loathes men, so maybe he's ace? Anyway, if you want to court him, being loud and violent is a terrible approach.”

He looked on the edge of qi deviation. “C-court?” He croaked.

She ushered him down the stairs. “Master Shen likes beautiful, useful gifts. Rare books, especially bestiaries. Fine tea, a set of good brushes, that kind of thing.”

“T-tea?”

Shen Bai hustled him through the dim rosy interior of the main floor, her aunties giving the man stinkeye as he stumbled to the entrance.

“A tsundere himbo type, huh? Poor Master Shen,” she said ruefully, shaking her head. “Good luck, pretty gege. You've got a long, hard road ahead.”

With that, she shut the door in his unfairly good-looking face and dusted off her hands. 

 

Chapter 2

Summary:

Eat this humble author's dog food, fellow rotten girls.

Liu Qingge stumbled away in a daze from the Warm Red Pavilion, overwhelmed by revelations. Shen Qingqiu was not a dishonorable lecher. Shen Qingqiu had a friend. Shen Qingqiu had lovely ankles.

He tripped over his own feet, listlessly waving off the vendors setting up for the day. The memory of their first meeting came over him suddenly.

His first raid on Qing Jing peak, drawn by a sweet trilling strain of qin notes to a clearing in the bamboo. There, dappled in shadow, was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen. If you told him a heavenly emissary was visiting the Sect, he could only nod. 

His heart raced in his chest, and he felt light headed. This could only mean one thing: he had found a worthy rival and he wanted to spar. 

He charged into the glade, squaring up to the boy, who wrinkled his nose, regarding him like an insect he found in his morning congee. 

“Fight me!”

“I beg your pardon?” the boy sneered.

“Fight me, unless you're a coward!”

The boy narrowed his phoenix eyes, set aside his qin. With a flick of his hand and a flare of qi, a flurry of fallen bamboo leaves rose and flew at deadly velocity, slicing into Liu Mingfan's robes and pinning him to the ground.

“Y-you-! Dirty tricks!” he shouted, struggling and sputtering.

The boy rolled his eyes.

“ Whatever. Brute.” 

He strolled away with ephemeral grace, qin tucked under his arm, light green and white robes fluttering in the breeze, hair flowing down his slender back.

Liu Mingfan felt his heart stutter. He must really hate that filthy cheat.

Back in the present, Liu Qingge groans like only a man recontextualizing his dark past can, unsettling passing townsfolk.

Shen Qingqiu might be a… c-cutsleeve. 

He choked on his own spit, doubled over coughing and making a disgrace of himself in the thoroughfare.

 

***

 

He was haunted by embarrassing thoughts of Shen Qingqiu, and avoided him for months. Was Liu Qingge a cutsleeve? Apparently he was, if only for his prickly, beautiful shizhong.

He zoned out when he should be training, he slacked off when he should be beating Bai Zhan techniques into his disciples, he tossed and turned at night, sweaty sheets twisted in a tense grip as the image of Shen Qingqiu's lotus pale calves deprived him of sleep.

One fine morning, he'd had enough. He jumped on Cheng Luan, flying toward the city at the foot of the mountains. He acted on impulse, as ever, and burst through the double doors of the Warm Red Pavillion.

The child sweeping the floor swept unimpressed eyes down him, setting aside the broom with a passive-aggressive dignity he recognized all too well. 

“Master Liu,” the child bowed in a perfect pose of frosty, insincere courtesy. “How may this one help you.”

It absolutely wasn't a question, more of a command. He loitered uncertaintly in the doorway, at a loss. She sighed, rolling her eyes, and again! Too familiar! He knows she wasn't Shen Qingqiu's child, but the resemblance was downright uncanny.

“This one will prepare tea for Master Liu,” she said, bullying him over to a window table.

She hovered at his side after standing on a low stool to pour his cup, radiating polite disapproval. 

He fidgeted with the cup.

“Just sit down already-” he started, then coughed, turning away from the child’s raised brow and disdainful scowl, too familiar! He tried again.

“Please join this master,” he grunted.

The child sat primly on the opposite stool with an air of cold exasperation. 

He takes a solemn sip to hide his jittery nerves. 

“I think I'm in love with Shen Qingqiu,” he gritted out, cheeks flaming.

“Obviously,” Ning Yingying sniffed, pouring a cup for herself. “What of it?”

“W-well! I tried to buy a c-courting gi- a present. But I don't know what he would like.”

Her little face softened, she patted his hand in a bafflingly condescending way.

“Would you like to go shopping, Master Liu?”

“Yes. Please,” he growled, almost fumbling the cup.

 

***

 

“That,” Ning Yingying pointed to a box of precious pu-erh on the shelf. “He'd like that, Master Shen enjoys smoky flavors.”

“Fine,” he grunts, slapping the taels down on the counter.

 

***

 

“That,” Ning Yingying points to a tanghulu vendor. “Master Shen is weak to sweets."

“Fine,” he grunts, more or less flinging the money at the hapless vendor.

 

***

 

“That,” Ning Yingying says, fingering a bolt of Seranading Spider silk. “Master Shen is always wearing nice robes.”

“Fine,” he grunts, masterfully balancing his collective purchases on his bulging bicep. 

They part at the doors of the brothel, the child fixing him with a critical gaze. Entirely too familiar!

“Remember, Master Liu, he doesn't like men in general, and he hates loud and violent men in particular. If you hurt him, I will cut you.”

He bows as much as his burden of gifts will allow. 

“This Qingge thanks A-Ying.”

“Don't thank me,” she snorts, "just try your best to make Master Shen happy.”

The child closes the doors in his face, and he flies directly to Qing Jing peak, sprinting breathlessly to Shen Qingqiu's humble bamboo cottage. He halts himself before he barrels through the door, a raucous cry of Shen Qingqiu rising in his throat.

Master Shen doesn't like noise and violence. Master Shen loathes men.

He takes a deep breath, knocks as softly as he can. Which isn't very. 

“Shen Shizhong, it is I, Liu Qingge.”

It sounded awkward, even to him. The screen slid aside, and he shivered, pinned by Shen Qingqiu’s wintery scowl.

“Liu Qingge. If you're here for a fight, I'm far too busy with my extensive workload to accommodate you. If you're looking for a challenge, may I suggest trying your hand at a children's reading primer.”

He honestly didn't understand how he was being insulted, but knew that he was. He stifled the bristling response. 

“Here,” he grunted, shoving a stack of silk wrapped gifts into Shen Qingqiu’s unwilling hands. 

Shen Qingqiu’s fox brows lifted into his hairline.

“What is the meaning of this? Are you moonlighting as an An Ding courier, brute?”

“No!-” He started out loud, dialed it down. “No, shizhong. Those are court- it’s just some stuff I picked up in the market.”

Shen Qingqiu was unbearably gorgeous when caught off guard. It's time to retreat. 

“I hope you like them,” he growled, turning and speeding off to Bai Zhan peak.

Shen Qingqiu froze like a stunned fawn on the threshold, clutching an armful of impossible gifts.

“What the heavens blessed fuck?” he hissed into the afternoon haze.

 

Chapter 3

Summary:

Upwards to the Moon:

https://youtu.be/wpan9yLmsgI?feature=shared

The lyrics seem calculated to poke Yue Qi in his Xiao Jiu shaped sore spot lol

 

Incense spiraled up from the altar, obscuring the masterwork portrait of Ning Xia. She pulled a wilting white chrysanthemum from her hair, laid it with the other offerings.

A strange, familiar blanket of numbness dropped over her thoughts. Just like before, it felt like she'd done all of her grieving during her mother's long decline. Now she walked a glimmering thread of relief strung across a vast gulf of loss.

Was it unfilial not to cry? She'd spent all her tears in secret corners and closets, years of private agony, muffing her racking helpless sobs with her robes. She had run dry.

A gentle hand fell on her shoulder. “It's time, Ying-er.”

“Yes, Master Shen,” she replied, rising on autopilot and retrieving the small parcel that contained her meager belongings. 

This early in the morning, the teahouse was deserted. She bowed deeply at the entrance, thanking her mother, thanking her aunties. She wished them well in silence, saying goodbye in the echoing emptiness of her heart.

She took Master Shen’s hand to step into the carriage. He sat at her side, guiding her head to rest on his shoulder. She leaned into him, inhaling the comforting scent of fresh bamboo and wet ink.

“I can't cry, Master Shen,” she muttered, unwittingly dropping out of formal speech. “I can’t feel anything. What's wrong with me?”

He sighed, gazing out the window at the forest washed in pre-dawn blue with an unreadable expression. 

“Some injuries are so terrible that they drive us beyond tears. We cannot feel the hurt because if we did, the pain would break us. There is nothing wrong with you, Ying-er.”

She sighed, closing her eyes, his words a balm on an open wound. Although it had never been discussed, she knew that he paid the costs for her mother to have a proper burial, saving A-Niang the indignity of being dumped in a pauper’s field. She knew, too, that he had bought her way out of a future of indentured prostitution.

“This one thanks Master Shen,” and while that didn't begin to repay him for his selfless generosity, she had the rest of her life to try.

“Disciple Ning shall address this master as ‘Shizun’.”

“Yes, Shizun,” she murmured, allowing herself to relax and doze off. 

***

When she woke, she was being carried through a grand cedar hall, dawnlight piercing bright shafts through the crisp mountain air. 

They came to a massive door, which Shen Qingqiu opened without knocking, entering a vast room with a lofty high-beamed ceiling, one wall open to a majestic, sweeping view of the twelve peaks. The furnishings were minimal, understated, and very, very expensive.

At the far end of the room, another paragon of masculine beauty was seated on a low dias, bent over a priceless desk piled high with paperwork. Broad shoulders, melancholy almond eyes, strong, manly features carved from marble. He glanced up, a benevolent smile beginning to form, freezing halfway across his lips in poorly concealed shock, his eyes frantically darting between Shen Qingqiu and the child in his arms.

“Xiao Jiu-” he croaked, flinching at Shen Qingqiu's withering glare. “Qingqiu-shidi, is this your-”

“Yes, Zhangmen-shizhong,” Shen Qingqiu cut him short like a cold blade. “This is my new disciple,” you idiot left unsaid but hanging in the air between them nonetheless.

He set her down with great care, resting his hand briefly on her head. Yue Qingyuan's eye twitched, diplomatic smile turning a little manic.

“Disciple Ning, introduce yourself to Zhangmen-shibo.”

She stepped forward, cupping her fist and bowing at the waist. “This one is Ning Yingying, greeting Zhangmen-shibo.”

“Qingqiu-shidi, is this wise? Taking in a young female disciple, with your reputation…”

Her nostrils flared with outrage as she whipped her head up to glare at this sanctimonious horse's ass. “How dare you! You-”

“Disciple Ning,” Shen Qingqiu interrupted quietly, but firmly, with a subtle shake of his head.

She took a deep breath to clear the anger, bowed again, but not to the man on the dias. “This lowly one apologizes to Shizun.”

He sighed, briefly pinching the bridge of his nose. He regarded the Sect leader with a narrow gaze. 

“The child has strong spiritual veins and an excellent base for cultivation. In addition, she has an aptitude for the Four Arts. She is a musical prodigy. She is more than qualified.”

Take that, Er-ge! Who says a Fine Arts degree is just a waste of money now, ah?!

Zhangmen-shibo rose to walk over to them, a towering mountain that moved with weightless grace. 

“That may be so,” allowing skepticism to leak into his measured tone, “but she's well under the age at which disciples are brought into the Sect. Moreover, she hasn't completed the selection trial.”

Shen Qingqiu openly sneered at the Sect leader, rolling his eyes in plain exasperation. 

“Disciple Ning will perform for her Zhangmen-shibo.”

“Yes, Shizun,” she replied, retrieving her erhu and seating herself before she began. She decided on Upwards to the Moon.

Her erhu wept sweetly under her hands, her high, piping voice filling the great space and drifting down the mountainside. 

My left hand holds the earth

Right hand holding the sky

Lightning bolts erupt from my palm, 

Flashing in the ten directions 

Quickly turn time into years

Into three thousand lifetimes

As if we've never met…

She submerges herself in the song, aimless longing flooding the empty chambers of her heart.

My left hand picks you up,

My right hand lets you go

When I clasp my palms together,

You are completely drawn 

Back into my heart

A single stick of incense

You and I

We become inseparable 

When the last note fades, she opens her eyes, taken aback by the tears racing shining tracks down Yue Qingyuan's high cheekbones, raw anguish cracking his meticulous mask. Shen Qingqiu had turned away to gaze out the picture window, a complicated expression painted across his fine boned features as his eyes traced the fall of autumn leaves.

She set aside the erhu, bowed her head. Almost squirming from the secondhand embarrassment she felt at the sight of a grown man crying over a song from a dogfood drama OST.

“Was that an original composition, Disciple Ning?”

“Yes Shizun,” she replied with a thick face, because it was an original composition, okay?! Just not hers…

“Well, Zhangmen-Shizhong, does that lay your doubts to rest? Or do you intend to further curtail my authority?” 

“Xiao Jiu-” Yue Qi breathed brokenly, making an aborted motion to reach out for Shen Qingqiu, who resolutely avoided looking back at him.

“Good. We'll be taking our leave now. Come, Ying-er.”

She spared a glance at the stricken Sect Leader standing with his trembling hand still outstretched, then followed her Shizun into the hall, quietly closing the door behind her. 

Xiao Jiu…

Her mind rapidly assembled the pieces and came to a conclusion. Yandere Childhood Friend type, huh? Poor Shizun.

 

***

Unbeknownst to Ning Yingying, Yue Qingyuan was not the only person to cry that morning on Qiong Ding peak. Many paused in their duties, caught in the spell of the child's mournful song, oblivious to their own tears.

 

***

Time flowed like water, and she applied herself to her studies with far more diligence than she'd ever shown in her past life. She had to prepare for the advent of the blackened protagonist, after all.

One spring afternoon in her thirteenth year, Head Disciple Ning Yingying was drilling her forms in the courtyard of the Bamboo Cottage. Sweat soaked through her inner robes and her arms shook with exertion. 

She was broken out of her trance by a polite cough. Returning her sword to its sheath, she turned to greet the visitor, and instantly wrinkled her nose like someone had just waved a plate of shit under it.

“This one greets Zhangmen-shibo,” she sketched a bow that skirted the edge of outright disrespect. “How may this Disciple help you.”

She didn't bother to conceal her irritation.

Yue Qingyuan looked for a moment as if he'd seen a ghost, and then that perfectly crafted fake smile covered his inner thoughts like a veil. 

“Head Disciple Ning, congratulations on your promotion,” he said with sincere warmth. “Is this Master mistaken, or was that a Bai Zhan technique?”

“Observant as ever, Zhangmen-shibo. Liu-shibo has been kind enough to instruct this one when he can spare the time.”

Which he often can't, because you have him running around on endless night hunts to keep him away from Shizun! You crazy yandere, are you trying to get my pretty gege killed, ah?!

“I see,” he replied in a constipated tone. “Is Qingqiu-shidi available?”

“Shizun is having tea with Liu-shibo and asked to not be disturbed.”

Yue Qi’s eyes bulged, presumably from suppressing some rash and violent impulse. 

“Ah,” he looked down at the green silk wrapped box in his hands. “Perhaps you can offer this on my behalf.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, breathed through the anger.

“Zhangmen-shibo, may this one speak frankly?”

“By all means,” he replied in a brittle tone.

“I don't know what happened between you two in the past, but I do know that your little visits upset my Shizun. Deeply.”

Well, now she knows how it feels to kick a puppy, taking in Yue Qingyuan's sudden slump, the devastation bleeding through the mask. She forces herself to continue. 

“His meridians are a snarled mess after every time you darken his doorstep, and it takes hours to coax his qi down from the point of deviation. So my advice, Zhangmen-shibo? Keep your gifts, but more importantly, keep your distance.”

“I.. I see. This foolish Qingyuan thanks Ying-er for her words. I-” he swallowed, staring with ravenous longing at the Bamboo Cottage. 

“Please take care of him,” he said after a long moment, voice breaking on the last word.

He turned and walked slowly away down the white pebble path. She clicked her tongue at his retreating back.

“You think you even have to say that? Idiot,” she muttered under her breath.

She would always take care of her precious Shizun.

 

Chapter 4

Summary:

Welcome to the blackened protagonist! Welcome to the blackened protagonist! Welcome to the blackened protagonist!

Important things must be said three times!

Luo Binghe, one-time Ruler of the Three Realms and current penniless orphan, pounded his fist into the ground until his knuckles split. 

Too late, too late, always TOO -thud- LATE -thud.

Ages traversing the multiverse in search of a kind Shizun, abandoning his wives and his world alike. Conquest is boring and sex is a chore; one squeaking cauldron blending into the next, the lamentations of his enemies insipid in his ears. 

He'd only had a taste of what was rightfully owed him, and so with single-minded insanity he shuffled through worlds like a deck of cards. Xin Mo claimed another piece of him with each dimensional rift and every failure. 

In all permutations of reality except the one where the crybaby Bingmei was happily hugging the thighs of that singular and perfect Shizun, his alternates had already disposed of their own Shen Qingqius in a monotonously hideous fashion.

His last recollection is a slightly stronger version of himself pressing Xin Mo's twin into his chest with an unhinged smile, and then his awareness collapsing into itself like a dying star, swallowed by abyssal darkness.

He had howled his impotent rage toward the indifferent heavens upon waking in his thirteen year old, very human, very scrawny body at the grave he'd dug for his mother with his bare hands. 

Too late to save her, he never had, and perhaps he never will. His unfocused gaze fixed on the blood splashed across the shale, panting and arms trembling. Soon enough, however, the central obsession defining his very existence overtook him and sucked away the grief and guilt into its all-consuming maw.

Shizun, Shizun, Shizun, this time, this world… will you be the one I've been looking for?

 

***

He peeked over the edge of the trench at a surreal tableau: Shen Qingqiu on the viewing platform flanked by Ning Yingying and Liu Qingge?! 

He heard the grunts and labored breathing surrounding him on the trial grounds, focused on the most glaring anomaly: his first wife.

No trace of bubbly vacuity, gone were the cute side-buns and easy smile. No, Ning Yingying stood tall with a cold, assessing gaze leveled at him, peach blossoms touched by frost.  Her chestnut hair was swept into a high crown and loosely flowing down her back, like... 

But surely she would bounce down the stairs any second, take his hand, chirp about how much she wanted a new shidi. Instead, she steps gracefully in front of Liu Qingge, bows and appears to consult with him for a moment. She points directly but somehow dismissively at Luo Binghe, and then has a brief side-conversation with Shen Qingqiu.

They simultaneously turn away with a light elegance that seems choreographed, and while he is still recovering from the succession of shocks, the bodyblow of seeing Shen Qingqiu brushing his knuckles against Liu Qingge’s as they depart almost convinces him that this is all some bizarre Bardo dream.

He stares after the departing figures in Qing Jing green, mouth agape in a way that does not suit Junshang. 

“Climb to Bai Zhan, if you can,” growls a voice above him, and Binghe turns his stunned carp stare to the figure suddenly towering over him.

“Uh,” says Luo Binghe, showcasing his famous wit.

“Come as you please, go as you please. Just prepare to get your ass kicked.”

Liu Qingge grunts, and then hops on his sword and speeds off to… Qing Jing?!

What the heavens cursed fuck?!

 

***

 

He makes it, trembling with exhaustion, looking forward to a cot and a hot meal. Getting shown around, having a tea ceremony. He has his expectations wrenched sharply once again from their accustomed rut. 

One: On Bai Zhan, you eat what you catch or gather. There’s no cafeteria. 

Two: On Bai Zhan, you sleep on ratty bedrolls and in trees, because dorms are for weaklings. 

Three: On Bai Zhan, weaklings are only fit to be training dummies. 

Four: Liu Qingge beats the living dogcrap out of his disciples once a week, and seems to think that doing so suffices to meet his obligations as a teacher.

After two weeks of the Bai Zhan life, nursing a broken wrist, innumerable bruises and contusions, and left to his own devices when it came to training, Luo Binghe begins to long for the Qing Jing woodshed. 

He fails to defend his half-cooked rabbit from a pack of teenagers for the fifth night in a row, and stares at his too-small hands in the moonlight.

Did… did Shizun actually take it easy on me?

He groans like only a boy recontextualizing his dark past can, shivering on the hard ground and starving.

 

***

The lantern light limns two figures in golden relief: one carefully and thoroughly polishing his blade seated by the side of one who traced a deft brush over fine parchment. Shen Qingqiu slants his eyes to appreciate Liu Qingge’s profile, the sure sweep of his strong hands over steel. 

How impossible. How ridiculous. How did this happen?! 

Well… not overnight. Liu Qingge grew on him over the years like some kind of stubborn mold, and Shen Qingqiu didn't hate it.

Qingge is honest. He is straightforward. He says what he means, and what you see is what you get. It's refreshing and… it’s comfortable. Shen Qingqiu once thought Liu Qingge’s IQ languished in the low double-digits. Now he knows better. Qingge might be simple, but he is not stupid.

He is also gorgeous, and Shen Qingqiu has always loved beautiful things.

Qingge glances over. “The liver is on the right.”

Shen Qingqiu steps on the urge to snap, looks down at his anatomical diagram of a snake-tailed copper lizard-goat. Gives an irritable tch, and snatches the parchment up, burning it in his palm with a flash of qi.

“Thank you for the specimen, by the way,” he reluctantly mutters. 

“I can bring it to you or burn it. I'd rather see it put to good use.”

Shen Qingqiu feels a strange warmth kindling in his chest. He still doesn’t know what to do with the blunt praise Liu Qingge casually tossed around like melon seed shells, deflects to a different topic.

“How fares the new addition to your peak?”

Qingge snorts, putting aside his sword and turns to face Shen Qingqiu. 

“Kid’s got an attitude that's getting his ass kicked up one side of Bai Zhan and down the other. If he survives, he'll be a strong warrior. The girl has a good eye.”

Shen Qingqiu pinched his jaw in a waspish clutch, giving it a snapping little jerk. His eyes slice into Qingge’s soul like a jade knife into a ripe peach. Liu Qingge was half-horrified and half-exhilarated to find himself getting half-hard. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to the effect Shen Qingqiu has on him. 

“Well, I'm sure you'll whip the little shit into shape,” Shen Qingqiu purrs with a devastatingly sinister smile.

Liu Qingge's pupils expanded like a peony blooming, cheeks dusted in a spring petal blush. He surged forward into a snarling kiss that looked more like a dogfight, wrestling and claws and biting. 

 

***

 

“Step away from the window, you creepy little fuck.”

Luo Binghe was abruptly pulled from his rapt, bitter vigil by the sword drawing a thin line of blood from his neck. He turned, carefully guiding the sword to the side with two fingers.

“Such language, jiejie!” He exclaimed softly, putting on his best gormless fluffy sheep smile.  It had already raised his rank in the Bai Zhan heirarchy.

“This one was merely conducting reconnaissance for the joint training exercise,” he murmured, shuffling in place and batting his thick lashes.

His wife was not moved, and what the fuck?! Even at this age, the white lotus shtick was a sure-fire attack on hapless sisters. But Ning Yingying just narrowed her eyes and lowered the sword toward his… oh… oh!

“Luo-shidi will address this one as Shijie,” she hissed, not-so-gently poking his proud immortal jewels for emphasis.

“It seems Luo-shidi overestimates his own ability to lie,” she continues in a harsh whisper, “or underestimates this one’s intelligence. Luo-shidi was peeping like a filthy pervert.”

“What, me? I would never, Shijie,” and just look at this fluffy boy, how could he ever?

She rolls her eyes, grabs him by the collar, lifts him with one hand, and carries him like a scruffed kitten away from the bamboo cottage.

“If I see you here again, I will deprive you of your pride, your heavenly pillar, and your life. Not necessarily in that order."

She releases him with a harsh shove that sends him stumbling forward.

“And then Liu-shibo will pound your innards into bean paste,” she adds, totally unnecessarily, he thinks, still gripped by that sense of weightlessness.

“Now,” she says, silhouetted like a goddess of vengeance against the gibbous moon, “get the fuck off my peak, and stay off.”

Luo Binghe holds up his hands, skipping backwards and grinning.

“Of course, Shijie. But I have to be here for the joint training exercise tomorrow?”

She has drawn before he can blink and released a sword glare that carved hoarfrost through the summer haze two inches from his ear.

And wasn't that odd, considering she now had a thick spiritual root of water instead of an unimpressive fire root.

“Fuck. Off." she growled, baring her pearly little herbivore teeth.

Binghe leapt away, racing toward the Rainbow Bridge, inflamed with the notion that he had finally found something novel in this dull cycle of eternal return. 

 

Notes:

Nobody: Can it still be called hate-sex if both parties are deeply in love?

SQQ & LQG: YES.

~●♡●~

LBH, like every fuckboi ever: you're not like the other girls.

NYY: *feral hissing*

Chapter 5

Ning Yingying clutches her head in the dead of night, hunched over endless essays, requisition orders, accounts, correspondence, headmaster evaluations (and who delegated roasting old uncles to her, ah?!), intelligence reports, lesson plans... 

Full time supervision of fifty-eight children and teenagers, as well as twelve grown-ass adults.

It was fine. This is fine. She held out just fine over the four months since Shizun left (totally unannounced, and really, Shizun? Really?!) into seclusion with Liu-shibo in the Ling Xi caves. There are already rumors of resentful spirits due to the fierce cries and moans echoing across Qiong Ding peak. 

They're fine. This is fine. She rubs her aching wrist. Turns back to her interminable admin. This is an… attempt at a poem? Something about chestnuts and frost. Fucking awful, and the calligraphy? Like the kid had no opposable digits. The signature snags her eye. Ming Fan? Why did that ring a bell? 

She felt a vein in her temple pulse. Shizun and Shibo would be fine. Just fine. 

A quiet knock at the door.

“What now?!” She snaps.

“Shijie, are you hungry?”

Her tolerable headache instantly bloomed into a migraine. 

“Motherfu-,” she snarled.

She slammed the screen aside, sword in hand, revealing a fluffy sheep bearing a tray loaded with delicacies.

Honestly, it smelled amazing. She snatched the tray away. 

“Head Disciple Luo. Get the fuck off my peak.”

“Yes, shijie!” 

The boy (and when did he get so tall, she needs to train more) flees away in bounds and leaps that defy gravity. 

***

 

Liu Mingyan is under the night sky, pursuing her sneaky midnight hobby when a cold voice jolts her from her hunched position above cheap parchment. 

“A-Yan, I couldn't help but notice your distinctive hand when reading this limited edition copy of ‘The Resentment of Chunshan.’”

“Ah,” the girl’s resigned sigh blew out her lavender veil. “How could this meimei allow her brother’s legendary romance to go undocumented?”

Ning Yingying sniffs, fanning herself with the well-read copy, “A-Yan…”

Liu Mingyan straightens her spine, pours a cup of jasmine tea. “This Shimei will accept punishment from Ning-Shijie.”

“N-no, no!” And oh, to see the Frost Lotus of Qing Jing stammer and blush. “You did well, shimei. This one was greatly moved. But if I could track down the author with no trouble or expense, what do you think our Sect's enemies will do?”

Liu Mingyan honestly doesn't care. She's filthy rich and her brother is one of the top five cultivators on the planet. But she does care about Ning-Shijie.

“This one bows to Shijie's wisdom, and begs forgiveness.”

Ning Yingying softens and collapses into the grass beside her, hitching a solemn sigh. “It's fine, A-Yan. Honestly, the slow burn was *muah*. Chef's kiss.”

Liu Mingyan resists the urge to trace her finger down Shijie's peach-curve cheekbone as she stares absently at the stars.

She's on the verge of doing something stupid when Ning Yingying closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Just. Please use proxies.”

Ning Yingying cracks her eyes open to see perplexed violet eyes wide and inquiring above the silk veil.

“People who claim credit for money, and also provide a buffer between you and the publisher,” Ning-Jiejie clarified.

And Ning-Jiejie is so close, concerned and mere inches below her. 

She swallows, “This Mingyan understands, Shijie.”

“Good,” warmth shining through her stern demeanor and stars reflected in her eyes. “Now, this Shijie happens to have the latest installment of ‘The Untamed’.”

Liu Mingyan stifles a squeal. “Shijie, this lowly Mingyan would eat ground glass to read it with you.”

Ning Yingying rolls her eyes, sits up, extracting a crisp, newly bound yellow book from her sleeve. Liu Mingyan narrowly stifles the impulse to snatch it from her hands.

“Well,” she grins. “Prepare yourself, because this gets spicy. And would you like to know a secret?”

Liu Minyan nods in what is certainly a dignified and not at all frantic way.

“I'm the author,” Ning-Shijie whispers with a soft, dimpled smile and twinkling lychee eyes.

Liu Mingyan gasps and Head Disciple Ning throws her head back in a totally OOC cackle.

 

***

 

Her not-inconsiderable reserves of qi were being rapidly depleted by navigating this stupid labyrinth array. She takes an irritable sip from her flask. Heavenly calamity should be called down upon the Huan Hua Sect.

And also wasn't this supposed to be a simple fetch quest? She hoped the Qian Cao kids were doing all right. 

She used her qi like a ping, swatting through the bracken, a right, a right, a left, a *hissss*

“Uh,” says Ning Yingying eloquently.

The pitiful snake-human hybrid writhes in place, imploring her with limpid golden eyes.

“Are you okay?”

The thing was deathly pale, covered in irregular scales and unhealed gashes. It must hurt just to move. She immediately extracts bandages and an eye-watering ointment from her qiankun sleeve.

“Hold still. I'll patch you up,” she said, spreading horrid-smelling goo on Zhuzhi-lang's wounds.

Soft hands wrap fresh cotton over old wounds. He quivers under her touch.

“Oh! Oh! Why are you crying? Does it hurt?”

He shakes his head, as much as he can without a proper neck, tears splashing down on the cold dirt. It feels so good. He wants to tell this human how grateful he is, but all that comes out is *hiss*.

She swallows heavily, and he is astonished to see glimmering moisture dewing her long lashes as she clenches her jaw and winds a bandage over a particularly nasty wound in his midsection.

She takes his stunted hands, and he feels like he's seen the sky for the first time again. He is enraptured, watching stubborn tears refuse to fall from mortal eyes that seem to hold all the stars in the heavens.

“You can't stay here, buddy. Those gold plated goons will kill you.”

*Hiss* he replies despondently.

He inclines his upper body toward an obscured cave entrance.

She cocks her head, raising a perfect moth brow. “What, you need something from there?”

Zhuzhi-Lang nods, tugging gently on her small, calloused hands. 

“Okay, all right,” she sighs. 

 

***

 

“Why, little nephew, have you brought this Junshang a gift?” 

Just a rattling gasp from under the weight of a mountain. 

*Hiss*

Zhuzhi-Lang tucked the Sun-Dew mushroom into a patch of well-tilled soil.

“Wait. Why do you smell like a human?”

*Hiss*

Zhuzhi-lang writhed in embarrassment, a blotchy flush blooming across his mottled flesh.

“Ah,” Tianlang Jun croaked, “Has spring found my dear nephew at last?”

Notes:

LBH: No sister can resist my cooking.

NYY: This looks tasty but I suspect it contains xianxia roofies. Meh. Hungry.

~♡~

LMY: Oh no, I am exposed as a rotten girl.

NYY: I am your rotten girl GOD

~♡~

NYY: OMG, WTF is this ointment, Mu-shibo, it's like cutting onions.

XXL: This human sheds pain water for me. I give my unconditional loyalty.

Chapter 6

Sha Hualing is stuck panting and wounded, trying to. save face amongst her remaining troops. A heavenly emissary towers above her, terrible in its beauty. She hears herself babble about something like a challenge, proposing three rounds, mostly to give herself some time to escape. 

“No,” the girl purrs, a hypnotic gleam to her lychee eyes, centering that arctic blade toward Sha Hualing’s heart. “You and me, all in.”

This girl flicks her pale lotus-stem fingertips up in an unmistakable come here gesture, and Sha Hualing feels a strange, eldritch pull behind her sternum. She wants to. This Great Demon Saint wants to just come over. 

“Ling-er this, Ling-er that,” the girl brandished the frosty blade from its sheath, a shiver slipping up Hualing's spine as the mere breath off it soothed some deep, primordial ache. 

“You sound like a kid,” the girl sneered coldly, “Talk properly if you want to be taken seriously.“

Sha Hualing breaks out in an embarrassingly full body blush. 

“How dare?!” She raises her head and meets her opponent’s unsettlingly gorgeous and frosty glare. “This Saintess will ‘talk properly’, and kick you in your righteous ass as well!”

Her opponent is actually really, really pretty, and that icy qi feels amazing. It's like Hualing just woke up from the most restful sleep and is ready to battle. So ready. Her opponent smirks.

This girl squares off in the flaming courtyard undeterred by the still bodies, the errant fires, the property destruction, or the plaintive groans of the wounded. She smiles.

“Come at me. Just don't expect me to take responsibility for your bruises.”

And aiya! This lovely girl gives Sha Hualing a beating she hadn't experienced even at the hands of her close relatives. This girl didn't need the legendary sword hung at her supple hip.

Sha Hualing is transported as she is slammed down onto smooth tiles. She coughs out a mouthful of blood, frozen by the vision of the girl hovering above, gnawing her plump lip and backlighted by the full moon, her delicate features smudged with smoke caused by Sha Hualing’s incursion.

“Shizun and Liu Shibo are coming,” the girl hissed, releasing a tight grip on her throat Hualing honestly hadn't even registered. “So you better get the fuck out while you still can.”

And oh, oh, this beautiful and so so so soothing human wanted her to live through this ill-advised attack on her own sect. Sha Hualing, having an acute survival instinct, and lit up by the idea that such a powerful person spared her, for no conceivable reason, tumbled herself off jagged peaks, overwhelmed and awash in a sea of unfamiliar feelings.

Down the slope of Qiong Ding, she turns back, just out of the corner of her eye, sees the girl take a spike from one of her ‘uncles’ meant for her newly arrived Shizun.

There's no cure, no cure, and Sha Hualing swipes away her tears as she abandons the fight and her comrades alike, chest tight and this weird water coming out of her eyes.

 

***

 

Luo Binghe watched one of his wives fall in love for the first time with his other wife. He didn't recognize the stunned deer stare Sha Hualing aimed at this Ying-er, even if he saw the signs of his trusted lieutenant succumbing to the most potent aphrodisiac Ning Yingying emanates in a veritable cooling fog, which is to say, power.

And can this impossibly powerful version of Ning Yingying put him on his back?

Yes. No question.

He killed, like, ten demons. A pathetic showing, and… he tried, but he just wasn't as strong. 

And then she'd dove in front of poisoned spikes to save Shen Qingqiu of all fucking people.

Surrounded by the wreckage, watching his favorite wife get petted over by her peerless Peak Lord dads, Luo Binghe had his first, true taste of vinegar. He wasn't even sure where the unbearable burn in his chest was directed.

He watched her writhe weakly as she coughed blood onto Shizun’s robes, and Shen Qingqiu cradled her so gently, amply demonstrating that he could and did care.

Just not for Binghe. Never for Binghe.

“A-die,” she pats his cheek. “A-die, it's fine. I'll be fine.”

Binghe wanted to burn down the world when he saw the moisture beading up on Shen Qingqiu's feathery lashes as he cradled Luo Binghe's wife with a blank despair he'd never seen, even after dismantling Shen Qingqiu part by part.

It felt awful, in every possible way.

 

***

 

“A-Ying, do I smell Without a Cure?”

Junshang is uncharacteristically solemn.

“Yes, though this one can easily manage,” she replies smoothly.

He pours out a cup of milk tea prepared in the style of her home world.

“For a cultivator of your caliber, I'm sure it's no trouble,” he hums.

Zhuzhi-Lang fidgets at her side, and why exactly is he so close, ah?! She can still drink tea without assistance. 

“There is a cure,” Junshang intoned, taking great sustenance from the hope blooming in this impossible human's eyes.

“What, like a weird plant? Some relic? What?”

Zhuzhi-Lang coughs into his hand, a rosy flush washing over mottled skin.

Tianlang-jun exposes his canines, causing her to lower her cup.

“Dual cultivation with a heavenly demon,” he murmurs in his most devastating baritone.

Shen Bai chokes on the tea, “What?! No, fuck you, Binghe's dad? I'd rather die.”

Tianlang-jun just smiles like he gets the plot.

“Not me, child. My nephew would be overjoyed to give you your cure.”

Shen Bai feels a lot of things. “You're pimping your innocent nephew out. Well, get stuffed. I would never.”

Zhuzhi-Lang chokes back a joyful sob, noting the most precious human's distress on his lowly behalf.

“It would be this one's greatest honor to cure his benefactor. I know this humble one is so repulsive,” he barely hisses, making sad serpentine motions with his human form.  

And his most wonderful person, this singular being second only to Junshang, crumpled.

 “Aiya, you SS-tier facecard, there's a limit to self-deprecating humor, you know?"

Zhuzhi-Lang blinked slowly, waiting like a loving python for a stray toddler to wander too far into the swamp.

"… I want to live,” she eventually whispers, breaking increasingly discomfitting eye contact. Zhuzhi-Lang is pinned on her tearful gaze. 

“Is this really okay?” Looking at him like Zhuzhi-Lang is worthy of such consideration. For the first time in his mostly brutal and awful life, he wants to be careful.

“This Zhuzhi-Lang wants it. Please let me help you,” he pleads with his entire being. 

And, she thinks, he's gorgeous in human form. Holy shit.

“Um. Okay. Thank you. I've never uh…”

“That's all right! Me either,” This sweet little snek boy declares without shame.

“Cool,” Shen Bai mutters, dazed, “Do you have like, a place we can go? For privacy?”

Zhuzhi-Lang transformed into a giant serpent, Tianlang Jun chuckling as she clambered up, burying her hot cheeks in Zhizhi's cool scales.

 

***

 

Luo Binghe crouched in an uncomfortable bend of rock, watching as his cousin took his wife gently apart. It was like no sex he recognized, slow, and careful. 

It took hours instead of minutes, and layer by layer, he watched his wife strip off all veils, giggling and writhing under his malformed cousin's unnecessarily elaborate preparations. 

There was not a glaze in her eyes, but a shine that he had never been able to produce. She is rapt and open to his cousin as he gently, so carefully nestles his twin cocks in her, Binghe helplessly soaking in a vulnerability and pleasure he's never known was possible.

Not just from her, from any of his wives. He wants to think it's because Zhuzhi-Lang takes all the time an immortal has to spend. But every line they paint together in their breathless clutch exceeds his vast, but perfunctory experience.

Suddenly, he realizes he's the opposite of hard, watching his childhood sweetheart being ground with great care into the makeshift bedding, swapping tears, gazing into each other's eyes and coming tenderly, and he wants to be sick.

Well. At least she'll live.

Chapter 7

She comes to, immaculately clean in soft silks (and who gives someone a sponge bath and changed their clothes when they were unconscious, ah?!), draped in fresh bedding. 

After 38 years, between this life and the last, she finally got it all out of the way, all at once, her first kiss, her first time seeing someone else naked, and the super humiliating revelation that she could, with time and effort, apparently accommodate much more than she should be able to, anatomically speaking. 

Feeling the ache, she was glad she didn't know about A-Zhi's, ahem, dual endowment when that shameless shut-in first proposed the idea because honestly?

If she wasn't totally gone from the endorphins coursing through her blood after hours of foreplay, she might have had second thoughts. 

Now, cradled in A-Zhi's arms, meeting his heavy lidded, lambent gaze (and maybe he'd been staring at her for hours while she slept, and maybe that should bother her, but…).

She feels the rush of her unleashed qi flowing like a sparkling river through her parched meridians, her smile blooming with relief and gratitude. She stroked the smooth scales at his temple, tucked a strand of silken hair behind his ear.

“Thank you for saving my life, A-Zhi. Thank you for making it so good.”

His long lashes flutter, and his eyes shine with tears. He presses a kiss to her brow, breathing, “Baobei…”

 

***

 

Shen Qingqiu folded his teal silk sleeve up his fine boned wrist, and poured himself a cup of tea, a flat gaze fixed on Yue Qingyuan. He placed the pot delicately and noiselessly on the table, just out of the reach of the Sect Leader.

“You know I don't care for pleasantries. Wipe that vapid smile off your face and state your business.”

And oh, Shen Qingqiu could see the traces of calculation in Qingyuan's wounded moue,  his imploring eyes. Qingyuan didn't rise to his position without striking many such calculated poses. When they were children, his golden boy act kept them fed. 

He knew that Shen Qingqiu could see through his attempts at manipulation, and yet he pulled this shit again and again, Shen Jiu trying to scorch the earth between them because the frustration was driving him into more qi deviations than he could afford.

At some point, it dawned on him that the almost contemptuously transparent attempts to elicit guilt, the estrangement from his martial siblings, the constant tactful admonishments and the martyred indulgence Qingyuan displayed as he believed the worst of him, it was intended to be a punishment. 

The golden boy wanted him to share in his own misery, and while Shen Qingqiu was very content with his life and at peace with his choices, he was still… curious. And a little appalled that Qingyuan somehow labored under the mistaken impression that he was the wronged party.

Qingyuan sighed mournfully and rose to his knees to take the teapot, his weaponized puppy eyes deployed against Shen Qingqiu's impenetrable ice queen fortress to no effect. Once again, he made the mistake of thinking his little Xiao Jiu was as susceptible to guilt as he was.

Shen Qingqiu sipped his tea, raised a brow.

“We must discuss Xiao Ying’s recovery-”

“Don't call her that,” he calmly interrupted.

“Xiao Jiu-”

“Don't call me that,” he cut quietly across him again. 

Qingyuan looks thrown off by the lack of volume in his voice. Maybe he sounds tired. He feels exhausted. 

“If you feel obligated to me, you can consider the debt paid in full if you listen to me now, for once.”

It is rare to see the wily Sect Leader caught off guard, and Qingqiu almost gives in to the hysterical urge to giggle.

He gives a level, brief account of his own abuse, the incestuous designs of the male members of her family against Qiu Haitang, his subsequent qi deviation and mass slaughter, his years of serving as a cauldron and assassin under Wu Wanzi. He relates it all in the same matter-of-fact tone he would when issuing a mission report.

“When I first saw you in the gorge, healthy and strong in your expensive robes, it was the worst moment of my life. It meant you had discarded me and prospered, free of my dead weight. But I still couldn't bear to let him kill you.”

He waits, ignoring Qingyuan's open weeping in favor of nibbling on an osmanthus cake.

“I wanted to save you, as soon as I could,” Qingyuan eventually croaks. “I clawed my way up to a position that would allow me to do so. I chose a sword too strong for me, lost my mind. Shizun broke my legs and threw me in the Ling Xi caves. In order to survive, I bonded my life to Xuan Su. I was there for a year. By the time I got out, the Qiu estate was gone and you had left. And…”

“Hm? And?”

“And I hated you for it,” he whispers.

“Mn,” Qingqiu sips his tea. He thought it was something along those lines.

“Well,” Qingqiu says after a heavy silence. “We are Peak Lords now. There's no need to dwell on promises made between desperate street rats.”

He pushes the plate of cakes across the table to Qingyuan.

And there, that is a real smile, the first he's seen in decades.

“Thank you, Qingqiu.”

A supernaturally rapid gathering of storm clouds and Shen Qingqiu's rapt posture and glowing aura signaled the sudden onset of a heavenly tribulation.

Qingyuan held him through the lightning strikes, and he viciously, joyfully laughed up through the ruins of the bamboo ceiling, offering his scorn and his triumph to the tempestuous heavens. He'd finally done it. He broke through. 

 

***

 

“Congratulating Shizun on his breakthrough,” his favorite disciple offers with a bow and warm smile. He was glad she learned to be cold, but it was good to see the resemblance to her mother when she thawed.

“Congratulating Ning Yingying on her miraculous cure,” he replied tartly. She'd been missing for a week. “This master lives in hope of hearing a reasonable explanation.”

“This disciple was offered a remedy for her affliction while visiting friends in Bailu mountain.”

His eyes narrow, quick mind doing the math with the speed her Er-ge polished off a suduko puzzle. 

“And what remedy could your friends possibly offer where Mu Qingfang fails?”

She looks at him head on with a solemn expression. 

“Dual cultivation with a heavenly demon.”

The teacup cracked in his hand.

 

Notes:

NYY: I don't know anything about xianxia contraception. Is there like, a plant? Some kind of a plan b artifact?

ZZL, trying his best: This lowly one lays eggs. There is no danger of pregnancy for Cultivator Ning.

NYY: Uh...

ZZL: However, this loathsome one does know of an artifact that would... change baobei so that she could give life to my children.

NYY: That's okay, I'm good.

Chapter 8

Time runs in loops. This place smells like home, like heavy incense and stale food. Somehow a brothel smells like home smells like a funeral, and she is disorientated by the cross associations between this world and her last.

Shen Qingqiu didn't unconditionally commit to the cover story of a once in a millennia Immortal Cure Forever For Reals Lily just showing up in the Bailu region.

Though he begrudgingly commended the idea.

No, he wanted to have tea with the Heavenly Demon who, ahem, provided the cure.

Zhuzhi-Lang sat still as a doll under the scrutiny of her aunties. Shizun, however, appeared to be locked into a disconcertingly sexually charged staring contest with Tianlang-jun. 

“Well. I see you managed to weasel your way out of that disgrace of an array,” Shen Qingqiu murmured, folding his sleeve back to pour the bemused Emperor a cup of tea.

“A-Jiu,” he grinned, “Shabby as the old cabbage farmer was, he still managed to tie me down for a great many years.”

“Jungshang should take care of his eyebrows. They might fall off if he keeps waggling them about like epileptic caterpillars," Shen Qingqiu murmured with a courtesan's patronizing smile.

She knew her Shizun, for better and worse, overpowered and delicate. A glass cannon kuudere. And this? Whatever was going on here? Shizun was flirting, in his spiny way.

OMG OMG OMG! Is this… Shizun's DILF awakening?!

“Apparently Shizun and Junshang are previously acquainted,” she piped up over the weird pause in conversation. 

Shen Qingqiu severed eye contact with a sharp glare to the left.

“I don't know this man,” he cooly declared.

“A-Jiu! How could you?!” Junshang wailed, his great black eyes welling up with fat tears.

“Shut up, you weird pervert,” Shen Qingqiu hissed.

She shared a brief glance of commiseration with A-Zhi, a look that said, let's just chill in the background, shall we?

“I'll make this brief. And simple,” Shen Qingqiu sniffed, “What are your intentions toward the mortal realm?”

“I thought I'd travel. Maybe meet my son.” 

Tianlang smiles a little too warmly for anyone's comfort. 

“Maybe fall in love again,” he purred, tilting his head with a winsome grin.

She cringes, and feels A-Zhi's reciprocal shudder through their joined hands under the table.

Shen Qingqiu flares a fan painted in an abstract bamboo pattern, one of her earliest efforts, and it felt like a doting father showing off photos of his kid's first recital?! 

It does not entirely hide his flush. Aiya! This is so gross. Really, Shizun? Really?! Binghe's dad? 

“And your nephew's intentions toward my dau- Disciple?”

“Ah, you refer to the remedy for the erroneously named Without a Cure? It was simply a matter of settling a debt. Isn't that right, nephew?”

A pit opens in her stomach, because what else could uh, that, have meant? And it's not like she didn't benefit.

A squeeze of her hand, and she realized she was staring absently down at her lap. 

“You are wrong, Jungshang. This one loves Cultivator Ning.” 

The warmth of her palm infused into his. 

“This lowly one would go to any conceivable lengths to ensure Cultivator Ning remains safe, happy, and healthy,” he stated with a cultist’s quiet fervor.

“Uh…oof,” she uttered in a textbook example of Qing Jing eloquence.

Like, Snake-Bro? We banged once. One time. Why are you shoveling more dogfood into this conversation, ah?! 

Tianlang-jun rumbled a smoky tea chuckle. 

“Fine,” Shen Qingqiu throws the word like creek water over embers. “We are in your debt.”

And wow, Binghe 100% inherited that smug air of indulgent affection bestowed while peering down upon his lessors from on high. Irritating at best, and certainly wouldn't play well with Shizun.

“However,” Shizun gritted out, and yeah, he was definitely pissed beyond diplomacy, eyes flaring with foxfire.

“Don't even think of proposing,” he growled, viridian glare pivoting suddenly to A-Xhi. “And if you truly love Head Disciple Ning...” 

Plunking down a full cup, splashing the contents across the worn silk in fine speckles. 

“Forget her. Follow your idiot uncle while he plays at being a tourist, for however long it entertains him. You know better than any the consequences of consorting with a Heavenly Demon, General.”

Zhuzhi-Lang jerks his hand from hers, wilts into a crushed little bow. 

“As you say, Peak Lord Shen,” he whispered. 

“A-Jiu,” Tianlang-jun tutted, “Give the children a chance, ah!”

Shen Qingqiu’s mask finally shattered, and the feral opossum lurking behind the facade was unleashed, hissing: 

“Imbecile! Fucking moron! She's my successor! Alive for centuries and head like a sieve! Ridiculous shithead! Use whatever pitiful scraps of a brain you have left and think!”

She reached tentatively toward A-Zhi’s hand, cold and trembling, slow to grasp.

“All right, A-Jiu,” Tianlang-jun chuckled, fluttering his boneless hands placatingly. 

“Here's a little talisman of my own devising. Call upon me when you need help. Or if you want a drinking partner. Or if you want to fu-”

“Ning Yingying, let us take our leave.”

She slips her hand carefully from A-Zhi's, traces a quick heart on his palm.

“Yes, Shizun.”

They depart, tea still hot.

***

 

“Son? You can come out now. You must be uncomfortable in that closet.”

Binghe slipped out of heavily perfumed robes, casually propped himself on a bedpost. 

“You said ‘fall in love again’. You loved my mother?”

“More than I ever have, or ever will,” and oh, it's Xiyan in every line of their boy's face. Tianlang can't breathe, just tries to smile as reassuringly as he can.

“Did you know she was pregnant?”

“No.”

Zhuzhi-Lang makes a discreet exit, silently closing the door behind him.

“Would you have…” an immense hunger presses against the boy’s fluffy skin.

Tianlang waits.

“Would you have wanted me?”

“Oh, yes. We would have spoiled you terribly. Of course, you are far past the age for the Abyssal Trial, but I am so proud of you.”

“Abyssal Trial?”

“Yes, by tradition you ought to have been cast into the Abyss three years ago. Rite of passage, and all that,” Tianlang flopped a hand around dismissively.

“Doesn't matter. Here's a talisman. Stay in touch, boy.”

He patted Binghe's head and offered him a crescent-eyed benediction before sauntering off in a swirl of moldy robes.

Binghe blinked vacantly as his father ducked through the low door, gingerly grasping the qilin parchment blood inscribed talisman and gaping like a hooked trout.

Notes:

TLJ: My beloved son, I only wish I had been there to yeet you into the Abyss at age 13.

LBH: Welp, here comes yet another excruciating reevaluation of my past.