Chapter Text
Shen Yuan wakes up to the sound of crying.
He lies there for a moment, feeling like cling film stretched too tightly over something pointy, in danger of tearing down the middle but holding on by his fingernails. It’s dark, it’s smelly and he is laying face down against a heated stone floor, or maybe it’s just some faux stone tiles for the nature aesthetic. It feels like his brain got replaced with moss or cotton or balled up, wet paper towels that’s coming apart. In the stretched out moment where he takes it all in, he decides this fucking place sucks, and he will never visit again.
The crying is to his left.
Crying might be an understatement.
As he lays there, wondering if he should try to become a sea slug or a sea cucumber- one is aesthetic, one can spit out its own innards which he thinks would fix him- it becomes increasingly clear it’s not someone just crying.
They are sobbing. Sobbing like it’s being carved out of them, a low, groaning kind of sound that’s wet around the edges. Stuttering and hitching and gasping, as if there is no air to spare and no air to get. Like they are choking, dying and suffocating, but still somehow alive. It’s awful. He listens to it, feeling sick dread until it feels like he will drown in it.
Shen Yuan sits up with a grimace.
“Hey,” he croaks out, mouth dry and tasting awful. Did he get drunk? Did he get fucking drunk? It’s like his own tongue died in his own mouth, eugh. Shen Yuan squints. The room is dark, but not pitch black. There are some LED-lights along the corners, scattered little dots of white that are doing nothing except looking cool. He pats around, then yanks his hand back when he touches something sticky-wet.
The sobbing is still going strong. He swallows back the foul taste, the rising unease, that pool of dread that wants to crawl up his throat. He’s heard worse! He’s seen and felt worse, too! This is fucking nothing! He heard da-ge cry harder over cat videos!
“Hey,” Shen Yuan reaches out again, “you okay?”
His hand lands on a knobbly spine, skin warm and body trembling and Shen Yuan–
Throws up.
He gags, hunched over, everything bad-wrong-horrible, knives between his joints and a fire inside of him, a volcano of ice at the back of his head and a burning inferno deep within his core and he can’t, can’t, can’t. A vortex of contradictions, he wants to drink bleach to clean it all out and he wants to die but he can’t, he can’t, his everything hurts so fucking much but he can’t let it win he has to live he has to–
Shen Yuan sobs, cheeks wet, hair clinging to his face. His nails ache. He catches himself clawing at the stone floor, feeling them catch and splinter, and he chokes, then throws up again, a wet splatter as he clutches at his stomach.
No chunks, he thinks, dazed and trembling, sitting there as he breathes through his mouth. An eternity before the knives in between his limbs grow dull, an eternity before the vortex becomes a dizzying jacuzzi. Still awful, but not the kind where he wants to (needs to) claw his skin off. The room seems a little brighter, once he can think again. Like a dark screenshot being sent through photoshop. Still dark, but he can make out shapes. Can see how the walls curve, can hear the sound of dripping water. This isn’t a shitty club, or a badly decorated bathroom. Not a place his sister drags him out to when he has stayed inside for too long. This is a cave.
Why is he in a cave?
Shen Yuan looks at the boy next to him. He almost blends into the dark stone floor, the boy’s skin a mess of mottled shades. Bruises? Some insane birthmarks? Does it even matter? He’s worryingly close to the pool of vomit, not that he has noticed. He is still sobbing like he is dying. Is he naked? No, he is wearing pants with a smudged cow pattern. What a fucking choice.
When he shifts closer, Shen Yuan’s hand bumps against something new. He yanks his hand away yet again, but then the marble he touched starts to glow. A perfect little sphere of white light, soft and only making his eyes tear up a little bit. Shen Yuan picks it up, cradling it in his palm. It’s cold. He turns it over, smearing pink across it, and- pink? No, not pink. Red.
Blood.
On his hands. On the floor, the dark smears glistening red when he shakily holds out the marble to see better. The pants he’s wearing are stained with it, and the boy next to him has it even worse. What Shen Yuan thought was bruises are exactly that, but more. They’re deep red and almost black, and there are open wounds as well. Blood running down his back, his arms. The boy’s long hair is sticky with it, tendrils hanging in bloodied clumps. When Shen Yuan manages to nudge him away from the pool of vomit, the boy’s sobs soften into the whimpers of a kicked dog. He lays on his back, showing a front that is no better. Bruised and bleeding, long scratches going down his chest, gouges into his stomach as if he had tried to claw it out.
He can’t be older than Shen Yuan’s meimei.
It’s hard to see, even with the glowing marble, but he looks young. A teenager, with hollowed out cheeks and lips bitten through. His face is streaked with dried blood and tear stains. When Shen Yuan touches his brow, there is a fever burning so hot that it makes his own hand feel like ice in comparison.
For a moment, the boy’s eyes open. They are brown, meeting Shen Yuan’s own. They stare at each other, until the boy reaches out for him. His nails are broken, the tip of his fingers bloodied. A glimpse of white among the red. It’s horrifying. It’s disgusting. The boy’s eyes close, and the hand falls.
Shen Yuan catches it.
He sits in a pool of blood, one hand filled with light.
Shen Yuan sits, and wonders where they are.
An unknown amount of time later, he still has no clue.
But at least there is a pond.
At first, Shen Yuan mistakes it for a mirror. The wall by it has several of the glowing marbles embedded into it, and their light is cast over the small pond in such a way that it nearly shines with it. The water is so still, that it’s only when he tries to literally pick it up like an idiot that he finds out it is, in fact, not a mirror reflecting the light but a goddamn pond. It’s a relief. Water is good; water means there is a chance of survival in the torture cave, even if he hasn’t found an exit yet. All there is, is a big fuck-off boulder blocking off what must be the way out and he fucking hoped it was a fake made of paper-machie, something one could break with a punch. But nope! Pure rock!
Ouch, by the way.
Most of all, water means he can wash the blood off of himself. Can grab the pieces of cloth he finds, torn rags scattered across the cave floor, and wet them enough to clean the boy’s face. The boy grumbles, scrunching up his face like a sleepy puppy, but does not wake. He trembles and he twitches, sometimes making horrible little sounds that Shen Yuan never wants to hear again. Sometimes he claws at himself, cracked and torn nails digging in until Shen Yuan pries them off, trying to not throw up from the nausea whenever their skin touches.
But the boy doesn’t wake up.
Shen Yuan will worry about that later.
Because the pond is as reflective as a mirror, and Shen Yuan is cleaning the boy’s scratched up face and they’re sitting right next to it, the boy’s head in his lap and maybe? He’s a bit fucked?
When he looks into the pond, he doesn’t see his own face. There is no sharp chin, no chin-length hair in need of a haircut, no black eyes behind a pair of glasses. Not even the little scar he had on his chin, from when he fell face first into his grandma’s antique glass table. The light may be bad, but even when he presses a finger to where the scar should be, he can’t find the shape of it.
With the boy’s head in his lap, Shen Yuan can see whose face it is.
They have the same long hair, the same brown eyes. Even their nose, a little bit bigger than what Shen Yuan is used to seeing, is the same. The light is bad, but he thinks that they both have freckles.
The only difference is that one of them is fucked up and Shen Yuan is not.
There is also a sword.
He hadn’t noticed it first, what with the murder cave and torture victim (who is his twin? Apparently?) but there is a really big sword. Its handle is big enough for two hands, and also bloodied, like everything else in this shitty place. Shen Yuan tries to unsheathe it, but there are red ropes tied around it, the knots impossible to undo no matter how hard he tries.
The weirdest part is that it has a pulse.
So he’s in a cave- whose walls are covered in blood, especially the fuck-off boulder- with an unconscious teenage boy, a sword that beats in tandem with his heart, and also he has a new face that look like the boy’s. And they’re both topless. And the cow pattern on their pants is actually blood. Because everything is blood. The air tastes of blood.
Shen Yuan still has no clue where they are.
But with the sword–
He thinks he is starting to get a clue.
At the very least he thinks he knows the genre.
At some point, Shen Yuan falls asleep.
Screaming wakes him.
A raw shriek of a thing that rips straight through him, makes him scramble away before he’s fully awake. The sound bounces against the blood covered walls, a staccato that builds and builds until it goes from a series of shrieks into a never ending loop of pure sound. Shen Yuan can’t hear himself think, can’t even find his own breath as it rocks through him. He presses against the wall, prey caught unaware, wondering where the predator went.
The boy is hurting himself.
Shen Yuan stares unseeing for a moment, watching as the boy writhes on the floor. Lines of blood are drawn against it as the boy claws and screams and screams, and Shen Yuan can’t.
He can’t stand up, so he crawls on all four instead. Shen Yuan avoids an elbow to the face, then grabs the boy. Whatever he can, anyway, with how the other thrashes at the first touch. He can’t blame him. It hurts.
Touching hurts.
It’s like the first time. Fire and ice and a dizzying vortex, a wildfire let loose in his veins, and Shen Yuan wants to throw up. He bites his lip bloodied as he drags the boy into a hug. Traps the clawing hands by the boy’s side, winces as a pointy elbow lands a hit right in the kidney. Shen Yuan holds on.
He doesn’t know when the screaming turns into crying. Soft little whimpers, wet and gutting. His ears are still ringing. His heart aches. Shen Yuan still wants to throw up. The boy trembles.
“It’s alright,” he says, and turns the hold into a hug, cradling the boy in his arms, “it’s alright, I’m here. It’s fine, you’re fine. We’re fine.”
The boy keens like a dying animal.
Shen Yuan holds on.
“Can you sit up?”
The boy stares, and continues to do so until Shen Yuan repeats the question.
“Yes?” the boy says, voice paper thin and breaking at the edges. He tries to sit up, but instead he kind of flops and slides off of Shen Yuan’s lap, like a fish or maybe a slinky going down the stairs. Shen Yuan hikes him back up, carefully helping him until he is leaning against the cave wall as support. It takes a few attempts; he kind of keeps sliding down.
“Thirsty?”
“... yes?” the boy hesitatingly repeats.
Shen Yuan hums and cups his hands in the water, wishing he had a bottle. Did bottles even exist in this world? Timeline? It was clearly a xianxia story, or something close to it. Living swords didn’t happen in historical dramas! Which meant there was a chance that they had practical bottles somewhere, even if it was a small one.
“Sorry,” he apologizes, more water spilling than going into the boy’s mouth, “I’ll keep going until you’re good.”
The boy blinks.
“Who are you?”
I would like to know that too, he thinks, but he can’t fucking say that. And isn’t it weird that the boy can’t remember him? They are literally identical, so clearly they are twins! But Shen Yuan is an opportunist, alright! And this is an opportunity indeed.
“Didi can’t even remember his own brother?” Shen Yuan scolds, because he has had enough big brothers for a lifetime, it’s his turn to be the oldest! Gaslight, gatekeep! “For shame. What next, didi can’t remember his own name?”
The boy frowns at him. It’s not very intimidating. He mostly looks like a bedraggled and confused puppy, trying to make sense of a new sound. He even tilts his head the same.
“I’m… I am…” he begins, then falters, “I think I can?”
“Think?” Shen Yuan huffs, checking the back of the boy’s head, just to be sure, but nope, what little he can see shows no head trauma, “then why doesn’t Didi tell me his name? Seeing as I definitely know it, I can decide if you know or don’t.”
The boy hesitates. Shen Yuan gets more water.
“Yue Qi?” the boy finally says, more a suggestion than a statement.
“Is that your final answer?” Shen Yuan asks, and pours water into the boy’s mouth when he tries to answer. It makes him sputter, but like, he ends up drinking half of it? Maybe?
“No?”
Cute.
“Didi,” Shen Yuan says, trying and failing not to smile, “can you say something without making it a question?”
Yue Qi blushes.
“I’m Yue Qi-qingyuan,” he says, stumbling upon his own name, an almost-question mark hovering around the edges, “Yue Qingyuan. I’m- that’s me. Yue Qi was… before.” A pause. “I think.”
The water splashes as it escapes Shen Yuan’s hands, right back to the pond it came from. It’s loud in the cave, the sound bouncing, and Shen Yuan didn’t realize until just then that they had been keeping their voices low. As if they were hiding. That’s not important, though.
Yue Qingyuan.
“Ge?” Yue Qingyuan says, and Shen Yuan stares at the boy who will one day become a sect leader, at the boy that will die to a thousand arrows, at the boy who even Luo Binghe was wary of fighting. Because apparently this is The Proud Immortal Demon Way, prequel-edition.
“That’s right,” Shen Yuan says, feeling very far away, “you’re Yue Qingyuan.”
“Oh,” Yue Qingyuan says, sounding relieved at having gotten the question right, “then is ge…?”
Not even an NPC, Shen Yuan thinks, unless I died off-screen!!! Fuck!!!! And you’re going to die as well!!!
Which- no. No, right? He looks at Yue Qingyuan, all coltish limbs and bruised skin, eyes big and dark, lined red from crying, A boy that can’t be older than Shen Yuan’s meimei, might even be younger. A boy he has spent hours, maybe days, trying to keep alive. Yue Qingyuan can’t die. He’s a kid. Just a baby, locked up in a horrible torture-cave. That’s not allowed. That’s illegal.
“Yuan,” he blurts out, like a fucking idiot, “I’m your Yuan-ge, Didi.”
Yue Qingyuan considers this carefully. Eyeing Shen Yuan, clearly wondering how much of it is true. But how can it not be true? They look like twins. They look the same. What kind of lie could he possibly make? The evidence is right there.
Shen Yuan’s hands are cold. They keep dripping, drops landing in the pond below. He should move.
“We match,” Yue Qingyuan says at last, and smiles, “Qingyuan and Yuan.”
It looks shy. It looks soft. It looks desperately relieved.
I’m not alone, it says.
“We do,” Shen Yuan agrees, “and I’m not leaving, alright?”
“Alright,” Yue Qingyuan replies, and only twitches a little when Shen Yuan hugs him, ignoring the strange, prickly feeling when their skin makes contact.
Such a good boy.
Shen Yuan won’t let him die. Not here, in this cave, nor outside it.
He won’t.
Holding Xuan Su feels like holding a beating heart.
It pulses, a thudding kind of sensation that reaches into Shen Yuan’s very core, until he can’t tell where his heart begins and Xuan Su’s ends. Cleaning it is an experience because of it. It’s already a chore to clean it, because the blood smeared all over it has dried. He is pretty sure it should be easier to get the blood off, it’s not like it’s clothes that got stained with it, but-
But, well. It isn’t easy. Somehow the blood just won’t get off, smeared handprints stubbornly refusing to be wiped away.
“Does Didi know how to untie this?” he asks as he uses a rag (ex-shirt, torn) to scrub at it. The engravings are the worst. Tiny details where everything sticks. He wishes he could at least see them properly; a fancy sword like this must be crazily detailed, with the most epic of artistry. Damn this bad lighting for robbing him. “Maybe we could use it to get out of here.”
Xuan Su was meant to be a super powerful sword, after all. Surely a measly boulder would stand no chance. But the red ropes refuse to budge, no matter what he does. The knots didn’t even look that intricate!
Shen Yuan considers gnawing at them.
“I think it’s been sealed?” Yue Qingyuan replies. He’s sprawled out on the cave floor. Like a marionette with its strings cut. When he speaks, his voice is muffled from where his cheek is squished against the ground. Shen Yuan considers poking it, but he’s tired and hungry and trying to clean a sword that refuses to get clean. He only got so much energy, alright! His stomach growls.
“Obviously, but it’s your sword. Shouldn’t Qi-di be able to unseal it?”
“... I don’t…”
“It’s alright,” he hurries to say as Yue Qingyuan’s voice wavers and wobbles precariously, “we can’t know everything! It’s alright, didi.”
It’s not alright.
There is no way to keep track of time in this cave. The night pearls never waver, a steady light that started out as a comfort but which Shen Yuan now wants to claw out of the walls. He wants to know if it’s been hours or days or more, because he doesn’t know how much longer they can go without food. He doesn’t know how to practice inedia, and he doubts Yue Qingyuan is much better. Water only goes so far! Fuck, what happens when they need to piss?
Has Yue Qingyuan pissed in the cave? The scent of blood is overpowering, maybe enough to hide it? Shen Yuan is not going to think about that. Not until it’s time for him to actually worry about it.
He puts down Xuan Su and presses one hand against Yue Qingyuan’s brow. A fever, though it’s faint. The touch makes his hand tingle, it makes something within him twinge. But it’s not like before. The fire and ice, the all-consuming pain. Whatever it is that did that seems to be over. That’s good. Obviously because he doesn’t want to be in pain, duh, but also because it hopefully means Yue Qingyuan’s wounds won’t get worse.
Even now, the boy melts against Shen Yuan’s hand. Yue Qingyuan tilts into it, releasing a soft little sigh.
Touch starved, Shen Yuan thinks. Was that what it had been? A qi deviation that made touch-deprivation ten times worse? But if so, why did Shen Yuan feel it as well? Why did he still feel weird whenever they touched?
“When was the last time we ate?” Shen Yuan asks, right as twin grumbles erupt from their bellies. It’s hard not to laugh at the timing, and fuck it, he needs to laugh at something. So he does. It’s worth it when Yue Qingyuan smiles as well.
“Can’t remember,” his brand new little brother says, sitting up with great effort, “Yuan-ge doesn’t remember either?”
“Mmno, the passage of time is difficult to keep track of here. But there is no food to be found, so… we should be allowed out soon.”
Yue Qingyuan’s face does- something.
“... perhaps,” the boy says, and Shen Yuan frowns.
“We will get out!” he insists, taking one of Yue Qingyuan’s hands, “you need healing. A lot of it. For whatever reason that we have been put in here, they did not want us dead. Or we would be. If your wounds, if…” Shen Yuan can’t risk looking at the hand he is holding. He still remembers the hint of white peeking past mangled flesh. If he looks, he might throw up.
“Yuan-ge can’t remember why I’m here?”
“Why we are here,” Shen Yuan corrects him, “clearly we suffered a qi deviation, but what kind of treatment is this? Surely there is a better way.” It was the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way. If there was no magical all-curing papapa, there were still other options. Just throwing them into a sealed cave was bullshit.
Yue Qingyuan was the future sect leader.
Actually, was that why? Had they been kidnapped by some rivals? Were they held hostages? Shit, is that how Shen Yuan died off-screen, before the story even begun? The sect leader was captured in his youth, and his twin brother died during it… fuuuck. It would fit. It would be a classic. The tragic backstory potential was insane. But of course Airplane was too much of a hack author to actually use it.
“You should remember,” Yue Qingyuan says.
“Oh? Why me, and not you?”
“If you are my…” Yue Qingyuan’s fingers twitch against Shen Yuan’s palm. A pause, a stutter before he continues, “you should know. You should- should not be so…”
“So what?”
“Calm,” Yue Qingyuan says. “I can’t- I can’t remember why, but- I need to get out.”
“Of course we need to get out!” Shen Yuan says, incredulous, “why would we want to stay here? Didi doesn’t need to remember why we are here to know we need to get out.”
Especially if they were being held hostage!
“Yes, but- I think- I mean, it feels like-”
A horrible sound cuts him off. A grinding kind of sound that echoes within their chamber, making an already bad experience even worse. They both cover their ears and wince as it goes on and on and on and wait the fucking rock is fucking moving. The big fuck-off boulder blocking the way out is moving!
Someone is moving the rock.
They stare. As they do, the sound of muffled voices fills the cave. Male, he thinks. A woman's voice can be vaguely heard as well, but the man’s is the most audible. There is a hand poking past the boulder, soon joined by an arm. The tip of a boot. Someone is trying to get inside without moving the rock too much, clearly to ensure they can’t get out as well. Assholes.
“This is our chance,” Shen Yuan hisses.
“Our chance?”
“Right, Qi-di can’t walk. Stay here,” Shen Yuan orders.
“That’s not- Yuan-ge, wait–!”
Shen Yuan darts forward, moving as quickly and quietly as he can, and feels a thrill at just how fast he now is. Fast enough to get to the boulder before the newcomer can even register him there. Fast enough that Shen Yuan catches a glimpse of the guy’s profile, dark hair tied back, a bad first-attempt at growing a moustache. Young, but older than Yue Qingyuan. Not a teen.
The young man sees him, but it’s too late by then.
Shen Yuan grabs his wrist and yanks him inside. There is the sound of fabric tearing, the almost comical POP! sound as Shen Yuan rips him away from the rock. Bits and pieces of fabric left behind, half of the guy’s sleeve now in tatters as Shen Yuan slams him against the wall. He presses one arm against the other’s throat in a clear threat.
Silence.
“Disciple Mu,” the woman calls out after a moment, “are you alive?”
“For now,” Shen Yuan snaps before the other can answer, “but that might change if you don’t let us out!”
“Yue Qingyuan sounds well,” the woman says, sounding as impersonal as the stupid fucking boulder in the way, as if Shen Yuan didn’t just grab her disciple and threatened to kill him, “fascinating. This one had predicted the qi deviation to last for several more months. Disciple Mu, do describe the symptoms of the patient.”
Shen Yuan presses down harder to ensure he stays quiet.
He feels maybe a little bad; the guy’s hands are trapped behind himself, and now he’s being choked out by Shen Yuan. But also, fuck both of them??? They are the ones keeping them captive. They are the reason why Yue Qingyuan’s fucking finger bones are peeking past his skin. They are the reason the walls are stained red, why the stench of blood is the only thing that Shen Yuan has breathed for however long they have been here.
Disciple Mu’s face is turning red. His face remains carefully blank despite that. The only movement is a clenching jaw, the eyes darting to take in Shen Yuan. Taking note of symptoms, perhaps. Shen Yuan is fine. He’s the only one who is fine in this fucking cave.
“Ge,” Yue Qingyuan says, “let him breathe, please.”
Shen Yuan blinks. There is a hand grasping at the arm against the guy’s throat. It’s not Yue Qingyuan’s, his Didi is still far behind. It’s–
Oh shit.
Shen Yuan pulls back, just enough to let disciple Mu catch his breath. The young man sharply inhales, then coughs as the air gets caught in his throat. His hand fell from where he had grasped Shen Yuan’s arm. He’s going to bruise, probably. Shen Yuan hadn’t realized he was pressing down so hard.
The guy’s throat is red now. A splash of color which blooms across his skin, the robe’s collar not high enough to hide it. Shen Yuan holds back a wince. He doesn’t exactly know what face he ends up making instead, but he hopes it’s an intimidating one. Even if he does feel bad. Fuck, he could have killed the guy!
Which! Maybe he deserves it! But still!
“There’s,” disciple Mu rasps out, “two of them.”
“What, expected one of us to die?” the words are out before he can think twice, “that is not happening.”
“If disciple Yue does not recognize this one, he must be suffering from amnesia,” disciple Mu says, sounding perfectly reasonable despite the hoarseness of his throat, “which is not an uncommon symptom of qi-deviation recovery. If he were to allow this one to examine-”
“No, what you will do is let us out,” Shen Yuan snaps, “we don’t need to be examined by some idiot who can’t even grow a moustache.” Who knows what they can do with that! Not the moustache, the so-called examination. Even if the guy before him actually happens to be a healer, that doesn’t mean shit if it’s the enemy.
“Ge is being rude,” Yue Qingyuan says.
He sounds closer.
“Didi better not be moving around,” Shen Yuan says, not daring to turn his head to look, in case this Mu guy gets any ideas, “considering his injuries, that would be unwise.”
“There was no reason to insult disciple Mu’s appearance,” Yue Qingyuan insists, getting closer. What a disobedient didi! “And I… do not remember any ill will from disciple Mu.”
“Qi-di doesn't remember anything,” Shen Yuan replies, pressing down harder once more, to keep disciple Mu in place as he turns his head to glare at Yue Qingyuan, “and you should not be moving! Look! You’re bleeding again!”
“I’m fine,” Yue Qingyuan insists as he takes another step. Wobbles, as if he is about to fall. Except he is falling, and Shen Yuan dives to catch him before he can hit the ground. His knees burn from where he scrapes them against the floor, but that does not matter. Yue Qingyuan may wince, but at least he didn’t crack his own head open. Shen Yuan steadies him and opens his mouth to scold him and–
Flops over.
He lays on the cold cave floor and doesn’t move. He wants to. There is an attempt at moving, if being completely imobile was any attempt at all. Shen Yuan realizes he can’t feel his limbs. Can’t feel anything, actually, except the cave floor against his cheek.
It’s cold and sticky. The blood hasn’t dried.
“Yuan-ge?” Yue Qingyuan says, sounding faraway and dazed.
“He is fine,” disciple Mu says reassuringly, “this one only used a needle to keep him still. He spoke of injuries- is it only you, or is it him as well?”
“I… don’t…”
Yue Qingyuan, Yue Qi, his didi. He doesn’t sound good. Uncertain and faint, the way he did when he first woke up without screaming. Like he will drop unconscious at any moment. Shen Yuan feels his insides burn. His skin prickles. He can feel a pinprick of ice coldness at the back of his neck, the web that sprawls out from there throughout his body. The needle. He just needs to get rid of the needle, and his didi will be fine. They will be fine.
“Your pupils are dilated,” disciple Mu says after a moment, “and Shixiong’s hands… they cannot be healed here, but let this one wrap them until we can leave from here.”
“Yuan-ge.”
“Ah, yes. Let me examine him as well.”
Shen Yuan does not feel his hand being picked up. He only sees it, the way disciple Mu gently lifts it to examine it. He bends his fingers this and that way, never straining them. He presses two fingers against Shen Yuan’s wrist. From this angle, Shen Yuan can’t see his face. He can only see the hands and the sleeves sliding down, revealing disciple Mu’s wrists. One of them is scarred, red splotches of scar tissue mingling with white lines.
“He seems well. There are signs of qi deviation, but it has passed. Just like Shixiong’s. What remains must be the reason for the memory loss that Shixiong is experiencing.” Shen Yuan’s hand is gently put back down.
He can feel the floor against his fingertips. The back of his neck tingles.
“Which one of us is Shixiong?”
“Both, I presume. Shixiong called him Yuan-ge, did he not? So he would be Shixiong as well.”
“So disciple Mu is… Shidi?”
“Yes. Stay here, this one must let Shizun inside. Your injuries are too severe for only this one to heal, and… your Yuan-ge is unpredictable.”
Fuck off, Shen Yuan doesn’t say. Ew, he then thinks, because he is drooling. He can feel it dribble down his cheek. His pinky twitches. He pushes, from somewhere deep inside of him. Warmth seeps into the cold web of the needle keeping him still as he focuses. When Shen Yuan blinks, the woman’s voice has joined them. When did she join them? How did he not hear the rock being moved again? It was so loud before.
Did he black out?
“Ah, so there truly are two!” the woman cheerfully exclaims, “this master thought perhaps disciple Mu was hallucinating. One tends to do that when choking. Now how did this happen, I wonder. Terribly fascinating.”
Long nails tilt his chin back. He stares at the ceiling, and only now does he realize his eyes are stinging from tears, because there is light. More than he has ever seen since entering this world. It’s a bright, golden light from a lantern placed on the ground beside him.
A woman’s face peers down at him. It is a round face. Her eyes are brown and they look like they should be warm, the way a doll’s eyes would be. Painted to be inviting, but still cold. Clinical. A poor imitation of comfort.
He tries to snarl. The most he manages is a glare.
Her lips curl into a sweet smile.
“This is the double, then,” she says, “with a name as well! Did disciple Yue name it, or did it name itself?”
“He’s… he’s Yuan-ge,” Yue Qingyuan replies. He still sounds off.
The woman drags her finger against his cheek, to his mouth. She then holds up one finger, examining it in the lantern light. It glistens, and Shen Yuan realizes she wiped the drool off of his cheek. From anyone else, it would be a thoughtful gesture.
The way she looks at it–
“It is capable of producing saliva,” she murmurs, “what else…” She picks up his hand, and does what disciple Mu did before. Two fingers against his pulse and a pause. “It has working meridians. Even a golden core! How impressive, disciple Yue. To think, this master expected to find a burnt out husk within this cave. To find two functional bodies is extraordinary. Your master will be delighted! Not many can boast of having created life without a womb. Ah, look, my dear disciple. See the needle?”
“It’s moving, Shizun.”
“Indeed. It seems this double of disciple Yue’s is trying to push it out of its neck. How talented. Quite troublesome, of course, but hardly a threat to worry about. Let it remain until it can remove the needle by itself.”
“That does not seem healthy, Shizun,” disciple Mu says.
“It will hardly matter. There is only record of one body being within these caves. If we also return with one, none will find it odd.”
Are they going to take Yue Qi away from him?
If he remains in this cave, with the needle in his neck. Then Yue Qingyuan will be alone. He will be alone, and Shen Yuan won’t be able to help him. Protect him.
“Don’t call Yuan-ge an it,” Yue Qingyuan says as he gets into view. He places himself in between Shen Yuan and the woman, but even from where he’s laying, Shen Yuan can see that he doesn’t look good. Pale and trembling, Yue Qingyuan looks like he will faint at any moment.
“It’s not an actual person, little Shizhi. Disciple Mu, take care of him. Zhangmen-shixiong will be terribly upset if his head disciple fails to recover from his qi deviation.”
The woman then nonchalantly shoves Yue Qingyuan out of view.
Shen Yuan lurches up, the needle clattering to the floor. He tries to throw a punch, but his limbs are still numb and it goes wide, missing the smiling face of the woman, and he falls to the floor again, one arm trapped under his body. Shen Yuan swears, and tries to kick out instead. Tries to turn to see where his Didi fell, to see if he has been hurt once more. All he catches is a glimpse of Yue Qingyuan struggling in disciple Mu’s arms before the woman pins him back down, face pressed against the cave floor.
“It managed to free itself sooner than I thought,” she cheerfully says, holding him down like he is nothing more than a weak kitten, “how fascinating! It's a bit troublesome, of course.”
She leans in closer, lips against his ear.
“Will the specimen behave if I let it up?”
Shen Yuan jerks away with a snarl.
The woman tsks.
“Thought so,” she says, nails digging into the back of his neck like claws, pain growing as she presses down, “then it will be easier to make it behave, won’t it?” Her fingers squeezes, and Shen Yuan gasps, which is a mistake because he can’t- the air isn’t-
“Shizun,” disciple Mu warily says, “there are quicker ways to make a male of his size unconscious. This has an increased risk of harm. Could we not-”
“Shush, disciple Mu. This is an experiment. Don’t you love experiments? How long can it last, do you think, without air? Let us see.”
Too long, Shen Yuan thinks, lungs burning and throat tightening, panic swelling as his vision swims and he can’t see Didi but he can hear him, Yue Qi’s voice calling out, forcing him to stay conscious, to fight, muscles straining but there is nothing to push against, nothing to use, nothing to do but–
Fall unconscious.