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Mu Qingfang, shoulders stooping with the many callings-upon the day had foisted on him, greeted Shen Qingqiu with a look of approval.
‘It seems Shen-shixiong’s condition is finally…’ he cut off when Shen Qingqiu stepped closer, into the dimmed circle of light the lamp overhead cast on Mu Qingfang’s working area.
With the lack of preamble that was typical for something become routine, Shen Qingqiu took off his outer layer before his back came in contact with the examination bed. Mu Qingfang’s fingers on his pulse were colder than Shen Qingqiu had expected.
‘When did it happen?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Was the change gradual or sudden?’
Shen Qingqiu closed his eyes for a moment, and the pulsation of his qi as it was being probed felt stronger. He let himself lean into the feeling before his eyes—one pure green, one half-green, half-brown—looked up into Mu Qingfang’s again.
‘I woke up in the morning to a half-brown eye. So, sudden, I suppose.’
The examination took the same as usual. Not without wincing, Shen Qingqiu downed the qi-stimulating tincture he was given, then considered the ever-growing spiderweb in the ceiling corner. He’d never been fond of flies himself either, but Qian Cao took their dislike for the “disease-spreading” insects to a whole different level, in his opinion.
When Mu Qingfang spoke again, he’d become a proud owner of one extra crease between his eyebrows.
‘In terms of spiritual energy, there have been no changes. Shen-shixiong’s qi is still weaker than normal, but there is no underlying illness, signs of a curse, or demonic energy.’
‘But my body keeps changing,’ Shen Qingqiu said.
Mu Qingfang went over to his table of little bottles and phials and ampoules and other unlabelled vessels only he knew the contents of, and poured another cup of tincture.
‘Which is why I can no longer impute this to the qi deviation you had. Long-term aches and skin spots are a rare but known body change that may follow a particularly bad qi deviation. A mole that previously wasn’t there and an eye colour change—that’s unheard of.’
Absentmindedly, Shen Qingqiu’s index finger tapped at the dark dot just under his left earlobe.
‘I understand you’d rather not make this public, however the sect leader will need to be informed of this.’
‘I do not wish Yue Qingyuan to get involved,’ Shen Qingqiu’s voice came out clipped. ‘I’m perfectly capable of doing my own research on my current condition.’
The circles under Mu Qingfang’s eyes seemed darker in the dim lighting. ‘I’m afraid it’s no longer up to Shen-shixiong.’
‘Mu-shidi is bound by the medical oath.’
‘I am also bound by an oath to Cang Qiong Sect. Which requires that, should any Peak Lord be experiencing a condition that may be a danger to their health, I must inform the sect leader immediately.’
Shen Qingqiu, from his seat on the bed, held Mu Qingfang’s gaze, then got up to his feet. His head went just a little dizzy, only for a split second, at the motion. He’d never got dizzy before, not even back when he hardly ever had enough to eat.
‘So be it, then.’
Mu Qingfang’s brows climbed up just a little at the lack of protest.
‘I will accompany Shen-shixiong back to Qing Jing.’
‘No need. I am not an invalid. At least, not yet.’
‘These changes have been unpredictable—’
‘—and they so far have not affected my sword flying. Good night, shidi.’ Shen Qingqiu’s stride was wide when he wanted it to be: by the time Mu Qingfang retrieved his coat from the wall on the other side of the room, Shen Qingqiu was out the door. The autumn air was a welcome coolness, dampening the irritation that had started bubbling up underneath his skin. Mu Qingfang didn’t follow him.
…It had started with his hands. Dull aches somewhere deep inside his knuckles, the joints slightly warmer to the touch than usual; his hand sometimes jerking, without him meaning it to. If it happened when Shen Qingqiu was writing, the result was an ugly smudge on the paper or an accidental extra radical—a blemish on the otherwise impeccable calligraphy. Shen Qingqiu had hated it, hated that something like this happened outside his control, and yet entirely due to his own body. Mu Qingfang applied herbal compresses and performed acupuncture, then prescribed bitter medicine that tasted of soap and tree bark. During another visit for a compress a week later, Mu Qingfang’s eyes lingered on Shen Qingqiu’s fingers for longer than usual.
‘They’ve gotten shorter,’ Shen Qingqiu told him, holding his palms out for Mu Qingfang to see.
‘This shidi doesn’t quite understand.’
‘This scar here. The one you accidentally pressed on too hard last time, remember?’ Shen Qingqiu’s nail tip grazed the faint line on his ring finger in demonstration. ‘It was right in the middle here, right? And now it’s much closer to the knuckle. Because my fingers have gotten shorter. My nails have changed shape, too.’
Mu Qingfang had brushed it off, merely muttering something under his nose before moving on to the acupuncture. But from his expression, Shen Qingqiu knew. Knew Mu Qingfang had seen it too.
The joint pain had subsided after that, only to make a reappearance in his ankles and knees. It wasn’t strong—a gentle press from inside his bones. Shen Qingqiu learnt to ignore it.
Then there was the mole, and—the eye. The eye had gone fully brown by the time Yue Qingyuan arrived on Qing Jing, which was the morning after Shen Qingqiu’s last visit to Qian Cao. Much to his dismay, Shen Qingqiu had to dismiss his students mid-lesson and walk with Yue Qingyuan to the bamboo house.
‘Shidi, messages have been sent to Huan Hua Palace and Zhao Hua Monastery, asking for their most prominent medics, and Qian Cao’s disciples are going to spend the next week in the library researching your condition.’
‘There is no need to throw such a fuss.’
Yue Qingyuan’s expression morphed into something Shen Qingqiu had always failed to find a word to describe. Piteous mixed with determined, perhaps?
‘Mu-shidi told me everything. Qingqiu…’ Yue Qingyuan seemed unable to look away from the wrong-coloured iris. ‘This is unheard of, it could be a curse or a demon trick we have never heard of before. The Sect will spare no effort to get to the bottom of your affliction, Please believe me when I say I want—’
Shen Qingqiu—not that he mourned the missed-out-on experience—never got to hear the rest of that sentence. Staggering, he grabbed onto the wall next to him for support as needle-like pain pierced his head.
‘Qingqiu!’
Black spots danced and pulsated across his vision. He was semi-aware of being helped to his bed.
‘I will have someone call Mu-shidi this instant.’
‘There’s no need. I did not sleep well last night which made my pain worse today. I just need some rest, is all.’
Yue Qingyuan began to protest; Shen Qingqiu, however, did feel the sect leader’s shoulders relax a little at the same time as his meridians were checked.
‘Then shidi must get some sleep. I will ask a disciple to be ready should shidi require anything.’
Shen Qingqiu waved him off.
When he opened his eyes some unknown time later, the room was—thankfully—empty, and the pain was gone, replaced by the slightest trace of light-headedness. A few rays of the early afternoon sun found their way in, a golden yellow stippling the snow white sheets. All was quiet in the bamboo house. As he liked it.
‘Explain what happened,’ Shen Qingqiu demanded. Not aloud.
‘Listen—I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to give you a migraine or whatever that was! He just said something that sounded like words from a song that’s really well-known in my world, so it reminded me… and then the next thing I knew, you were in pain.’
‘So you got…excited. And that emotion was strong enough that it had this effect on me?’
‘It used to be my go-to karaoke song, okay?’
Shen Qingqiu let out a breath. He sat up in bed, propping his forehead up with his hand. ‘I suppose the stronger your presence becomes, the more likely I am to experience these… interferences when you strongly feel about something.’
The thumb of that hand suddenly rubbed a few circles in his temple—without any intention to do so from Shen Qingqiu’s side. ‘Shen Yuan!’
‘Ah! I didn’t think that would actually work.’
Shen Yuan’s voice—inside Shen Qingqiu’s head—now carried a note of excitement.
The thumb changed its movement and instead of drawing circles, began rubbing to and fro across Shen Qingqiu’s temple, from the eyebrow end to the hairline and back. Shen Qingqiu let himself hold his breath for a few moments as the last traces of his post-sleep grogginess faded away.
‘Hey, this is pretty cool, right?’
‘How much can you control?’ Shen Qingqiu asked. The thumb paused for a moment, then resumed its shifting around.
‘Just the thumb, for now. I’ll probably be able to control more of this hand soon, though. If you think this,’ the thumb pressed lightly, ‘is nice, imagine how much more I’ll be able to do with the thumb and the index finger.’
‘Shen Yuan!’
‘I meant, like, random fun stuff like this! Where did you mind go just now?’ Shen Yuan sounded amused. Shen Qingqiu rolled his eyes: his mind was perfectly on track, thank you, it was because of all the previous times Shen Yuan had made childish innuendoes that the phrase came across as less than innocuous this time.
‘Not inside another cultivator’s body, at least.’
‘Hey! I didn’t choose to be here.’
Shen Qingqiu reached for the mirror by his bedside. Two eyes, one fir-green, one warm-brown—side effect of the qi deviation, he’d told everyone who was curious enough to comment on the change—looked back at him from the smooth surface. Shen Qingqiu imagined this was Shen Yuan in the reflection. It made it easier to speak to him like this, took away some of the inherent weirdness of conversing with a voice inside his head that only existed in his head, right now.
‘How much can you feel of what I feel?’
‘Nothing, really? I felt that headache a little, but that was possibly because it was caused by my, well, reaction,’ Shen Yuan paused. ‘Are you experiencing those pains again?’
‘Not pain.’
That brown eye looked the same, size- and colour-wise, as hundreds of other brown eyes Shen Qingqiu had seen. And yet when he looked at it, he could immediately tell it was different from all others. It did not belong to someone from this world.
‘I can feel your presence now, Shen Yuan. In my whole body, but especially mentally.’
‘What’s it like?’ Shen Yuan asked after a beat. Was he startled by this revelation? It seemed a natural progression of their current affliction.
‘It feels like… there’s an occupant inside my mind.’ The brown eye looked on, unblinking, even as the green one blinked. ‘It’s like a constant low vibration in the background. Doesn’t interfere with anything, but I’m aware that it’s there. That you’re there.’
Suddenly, Shen Yuan sounded panicked. ‘You can’t hear my thoughts though, right?’
If Shen Qingqiu could, he would have flicked him on the forehead with his fan. ‘Of course not. I thought we established at the beginning that I can only hear you when you actively choose to speak to me, and vice versa.’
‘Right, right. I was just checking.’ Shen Yuan went silent again for a few moments. The sunspots on the bedsheet had shifted somewhat, towards the edge of the bed, compared to when Shen Qingqiu woke up. ‘By the way, I meant to tell you earlier today. I remembered what that fruit is, the one I told you about. It wouldn’t be easy getting it, though. It only grows in the northwest of the Demon Realm.’
Shen Qingqiu raised a brow at his own reflection. ‘Didn’t you say that Shang Qinghua works for someone there?’
He did not so much hear as feel the emotion his suggestion elicited in Shen Yuan, the slightest mental wave. Mild surprise, if Shen Qingqiu had to put a name on it. ‘You suggest we blackmail him?’
‘You think it wouldn’t work?’
‘I… it might, actually. He should be able to get his hands on it next time he runs after Mobei-jun around the Demon Realm.’ Shen Yuan humphed, suddenly, in amusement. ‘Damn. So in character for your go-to solution to be blackmail, actually.’
‘I don’t know what in your mind constitutes “in character”,’ Shen Qingqiu put the looking glass down, ‘but blackmail is often the simplest and most effective method.’
As per their decision, Shang Qinghua was paid a visit to the next day, and with success. He promised to find the fruit and bring it back as soon as he could. Unfortunately, their wait was not going to be peaceful: other sects’ medics as well as Yue Qingyuan himself began visiting daily now, and after the sect leader’s third visit for the third day in a row, Shen Qingqiu nearly asked him whether he should put an extra bed in the side room of the bamboo house. (He was only stopped from asking due to the fear that Yue Qingyuan, if prompted so, might actually, genuinely move in.)
On day four after Shang Qinghua was sent off to find the fruit, Shen Qingqiu was brushing his hair in the morning when his left hand suddenly tensed into a claw-like shape and then dragged its fingers from the top of his hair and down to the ends. Caught off guard, he felt a light trickle of goosebumps down his spine.
‘Shen Yuan!’
‘The whole hand! I can control the whole hand now, how cool is that?’ his hand moved up and down—entirely against his own will—fluffing up whatever Shen Qingqiu had just spent half the morning meticulously combing down. He swatted it away with his right hand.
‘Ouch! Qingqiu!’
‘So you can feel the pain too. Good,’ Shen Qingqiu nodded in satisfaction.
‘Who hits their own hand?!’
‘Me. You will now do my hair yourself, since you had to go and mess it all up,’ Shen Qingqiu handed his left hand the comb. Which, from an outsider perspective, had there been one, probably looked rather bizarre.
‘Wait. I don’t know how! Um.’ Shen Yuan must have felt the surprise from Shen Qingqiu, for the next thing he said was, ‘I have—well, had—short hair. So, like, I have no idea how this long hair thing works.’
Shen Qingqiu had long got used to the differences between this world and the one Shen Yuan came from. So, he only hummed. ‘I will hold it, like this,’ his right hand moved to grab onto the hair on his left side. ‘You can do it now. Move the comb from top to bottom, don’t rush. Feel for any tangles.’
Another perfunctory expression of protest later, his left hand, squeezing the comb, started to move. A weird sensation. Shen Qingqiu had combed his hair countless times in his life, and it was his own body part doing it—and at the same time it wasn’t, for it was, at that moment, Shen Yuan’s, and that felt different.
The comb moved slowly, with light tugs; when it came up again, the tips of the teeth grazed his scalp briefly before continuing down. The back of Shen Qingqiu’s neck tingled at the contact, and he closed his eyes. Had anyone other than himself combed his hair before, ever? If someone had, he could not remember now. Had there ever been anyone whom he’d allow to do so, was perhaps a better question.
‘I could actually tickle you right now,’ Shen Yuan informed him, not stopping his movements. They worked in tandem to smoothen out the rest of the hair. ‘Even though it’s your own hand, because I’m in control right now, you’ll still feel ticklish. There’s like, science behind it, I read it on Wikipedia.’
Shen Qingqiu frowned. He tried to remember what the wiki-whatever in question referred to, but there was just too much Shen Yuan had told him, too many details; a lot of them blurred inside his mind, the concepts of the other world abstract and unfamiliar.
‘Tell me more about your world,’ he said to Shen Yuan, allowing his shoulders to relax into the repetitive combing.
And Shen Yuan told him. About horseless carriages that covered a lot of ground in a short time. About cities so big and crowded, you could be sharing one building, many stories tall, with hundreds of others, never even meeting some of them. About something called the internet where Shen Yuan had read a book about this world.
‘In that book, you mentioned I was the villain,’ Shen Qingqiu said, as he sat down to the breakfast a disciple had brought over to him. ‘Perhaps your thoughts are much different from your words, but so far you don’t seem to have been thinking of me as such.’
A foreign—not his—emotion brushed the edge of his mind. Shen Qingqiu could not place it. He scooped up some of the congee, fat grains of rice glossy with pearl-white, the smell irresistible.
‘That was later in the story! And anyway,’ Shen Yuan sounded off—caught off guard, almost. ‘I’ve been stuck inside your mind. Like, literally. If I didn’t talk to you out of principle or something…’
‘…you would have probably driven yourself insane.’ This part did not require any further explanation, Shen Qingqiu probably would have done the same.
He ate in silence for a while, save for the birds singing outside the window and some of his disciples’ voices in the distance, until he heard Shen Yuan again. Speaking a bit slower this time. ‘So, you’re not going to end up as a villain this time. Because I came into this world and changed the story.’
‘You just told me not to take on a particular disciple next year. And,’ Shen Qingqiu rolled his eyes, ‘to be “nicer” to the disciples.” Not like he was actually going to do what someone else told him to. He treated himself to another spoonful of the steaming hot congee. ‘What’s it going to be now, then?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If you changed the story and I’m not the villain now. What has my fate changed to?’ He did want to know that. It had taken him a while to begin accepting Shen Yuan’s claims about this world as the truth, but now that he knew Shen Yuan, back in his world, had had access to some kind of book of divination, Shen Qingqiu wanted to know what it said.
His question seemed to have flustered Shen Yuan. ‘I—it doesn’t work like that. I only know what happened in the original story, not what might happen if. I mean,’ he paused, a different emotion creeping into his voice, ‘what would you want it to be? Like, is there anything you want to do?’
Was there? Shen Qingqiu put down his spoon.
There hadn’t been anything. Until Shen Yuan’s groundbreaking appearance inside Shen Qingqiu’s mind, that was. Shen Qingqiu was already a peak lord, and one whose seniority was only second to that of the sect leader. If there was anywhere farther to aim after that, it could only have been the top, he supposed, but he had no interest in that.
Now—after he’d met Shen Yuan, after he’d spent several months with the other man inside his mind—Shen Qingqiu realised that might have changed.
Shen Yuan talked of this world with great interest—like it was a treasure chest to be unlocked and dug through, each item carefully inspected, cleaned, adored and safely put away. He had immense knowledge of this world’s sects, forests, caves, cities, deserted towns he’d never been to; he spoke of all the rare magical flowers he wanted to see, of hideous beasts that waited to be recorded somewhere and by someone, of roads that led to secret locations and unexpected portals in space. Shen Qingqiu had not known there was so much—or rather, had never bothered to think about it, until Shen Yuan’s babbling in his head had pretty much forced him to.
‘Perhaps,’ he told Shen Yuan, in response, before he headed out of the bamboo house to give the morning lessons.
Shang Qinghua was a pathetic man, but pathetic men often proved the most useful, Shen Qingqiu mused when the An Ding peak lord finally delivered the fruit. Was there really such a need to look this terrified of him?
‘I suspect he might be another transmigrator,’ Shen Yuan told him after Shang Qinghua nearly broke into a run on his way out. ‘He might be aware you’re the scum villain.’ That made sense, Shen Qingqiu supposed.
‘Are you certain this is the Dividing Fruit that you remember reading about?’ On the table before Shen Qingqiu lay the purple, pear-shaped, mildly scented fruit. For something that only grew where no humans walked, it looked rather unremarkable.
‘The Mind-Severing Fruit,’ Shen Yuan corrected. ‘It is, it’s the only fruit in the whole of the Demon Realm that’s this shape.’
‘And it’s supposed to return your mind to your body.’ Shen Qingqiu traced the smooth purple skin with his fingers.
‘When eaten by itself, it doesn’t do anything. But if someone takes it with some of their own blood, the fruit grabs a hold of their mind, eventually making the person go insane.’
Shen Yuan didn’t seem to have noticed how hurried his voice had become in the past few minutes. Words stumbling into each other sometimes. On edge. Shen Qingqiu was certain Shen Yuan had made no mistake with the fruit, so why?
‘However, when there happen to be two souls inside one body… which in the novel was this pair of conjoined twins. Their souls will be properly sorted into two separate bodies, no harm done.’
Shen Qingqiu hummed in acknowledgement. Without further ado, he unsheathed Xiu Ya, halved the Mind-Severing Fruit and then pressed the tip of the blade into his palm. Blood immediately began leaking out of the fresh cut, and he let it drip onto the fruit’s seedy, soft flesh, dotting it black.
He had not been mistaken. Shen Yuan had gone quiet for the whole of this process, which was unusual for him.
‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ Shen Qingqiu wiped Xiu Ya before re-sheathing it.
Shen Yuan reacted after a moment. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Is there a caveat? Are there going to be some side effects you forgot about?’
‘No. No, I’m pretty sure the fruit should work. No side effects.’ Shen Yuan did not seem to be lying about that, at least.
Shen Qingqiu took the first bite. It was slightly sour, although the metallic tang of the blood was the overpowering taste. He could feel something shift, the slightest movement, somewhere around his chest; it moved then stilled then started moving again. He continued eating the fruit. The room did not seem so certain anymore. There were lines across his vision, edges blurred—was his head spinning? He sat down just as his qi surged like a tidal wave inside him, then something pressed against his temples, then…
Then everything was over.
Shen Qingqiu opened his eyes.
On the floor of his study room, right in the middle, sat a young man, bespectacled and short-haired, dressed in a rather interesting pair of blue trousers and something that looked like the top part of inner clothing. The man stared at Shen Qingqiu like he’d just seen a Nine-Headed dragon in flesh.
Only after he took a good look at his fingers and in the mirror on the side, was Shen Qingqiu satisfied. His body had reverted to pre-Shen Yuan intrusion, fingers and mole numbers and all. Speaking of Shen Yuan…
Shen Qingqiu turned around. Since Shen Yuan had just got up from the floor, they were now standing face to face. Those brown eyes were there, two of them now—Shen Qingqiu wouldn’t mistake them for any other pair. Even the mix of disorientation and anxiety in them were something he’d expected. Shen Qingqiu’s own eyes wandered around Shen Yuan’s face a little. Not bad at all. The hair was shockingly short, sure, but that only added to the charm.
‘Stop staring,’ Shen Yuan suddenly said—tips of his ears tinged pink, Shen Qingqiu noticed—and yet even as he said it, he himself did not look away.
Shen Qingqiu fanned himself. How nice to be able to do this at last knowing he wasn’t at the risk of a certain someone suddenly taking control of the fanning hand. ‘You have been looking at me every day for the past few months, I think it is only fair that now is my turn.’
More red crept up into Shen Yuan’s ears. He cleared his throat. ‘So! The fruit worked. Shall we, um, talk about what happens now,’ he glanced off to the side, not meeting Shen Qingqiu’s gaze this time. ‘Since I, you know, just transmigrated here with nothing to my name… do you think I could stay here? Just for a few days! Until I, like, figure out what I’m doing next.’
He looked back at Shen Qingqiu, swallowing, then hurried to add, ‘Or I could go to An Ding Peak instead! I’m pretty much convinced at this point Shang Qinghua is another transmigrator and—’
Shen Qingqiu cut him off. ‘Shen Yuan, you’re an idiot.’
In one wide stride, he took the three steps that separated them, then flicked Shen Yuan’s forehead with his fan and greedily covered his lips with his own.
He’d never before known an act so primitive could be so pleasurable.
When they separated from the kiss minutes later, both slightly out of breath, Shen Yuan’s cheeks and lips were both a shade darker. And the anxiety in his gaze, much to Shen Qingqiu’s satisfaction, had transmuted into something else.
‘Or,’ Shen Qingqiu picked up the thread of the interrupted conversation, taking Shen Yuan’s hand in his, ‘I have a much better idea.’