Chapter Text
“…Xing Jiao?” Shang Qinghua repeated, incredulous.
The teacher in dark red robes just nodded gravely in answer to this ten-year-old with dirty hands and bleeding fingernails.
Airplane’s eyes darted towards the An Ding peak lord, clearly identifiable by his yellow robes. He was watching the hole-digging children with mild boredom while his peak’s teachers went around selecting candidates for him.
The System had been very clear: User 001 had transmigrated into Shang Qinghua’s character. For the past ten years, as he struggled against the limitations of his child body, Airplane had tried to reconcile himself with the fate that awaited him—the sect burning because of him, his neck snapped by a demon’s hand—and hoped desperately that he could change it somehow.
Except now… his fate seemed to have changed by itself?
“You have indeed been selected to join Xing Jiao Peak,” the teacher repeated. “Do you accept?”
“I—yes! Yes!” Shang Qinghua stammered. “I mean—this-this-this disciple would be honored! Deeply honored! Teacher, thank you so much!” He bowed, then let himself be waved towards a group of exhausted-looking children.
Shang Qinghua kept turning back around in disbelief, looking at the An Ding teachers snagging just about every kid that didn’t interest the more prestigious peaks. There had to have been a mistake, right? The System was going to pull the rug out from under him? The An Ding peak lord was going to catch sight of him and suddenly realize he absolutely needed that one particular kid for his peak that didn’t cater to any particular type of kid?
Shang Qinghua even made actual eye contact with the immortal master out of some morbid desire to hurry up the inevitable. The An Ding peak lord looked blankly at him, then turned away.
Airplane kept walking, dazed. He felt like he had been offered a stay of execution on his way to the torture rack. Clouds were parting over his head. Over there was the dark climb to An Ding—hard labor, betrayal, death. And over here was the shining, angelic path to… to…
What was Xing Jiao Peak about, by the way?
That name didn’t ring any bells. It was—Airplane looked quickly around: yes, this group of children was the very last one—it was the twelfth peak. One of the ones he hadn’t described, or even named.
But hey, it couldn’t be worse than An Ding!
Shang Qinghua sat in the grass with the other kids, still hardly believing his luck. Was the sun actually shining brighter? Did the mountain look prettier? Were the birds singing louder? Felt like it, anyway! He blinked around at the teachers, wondering how to ask ‘And what do we do here, exactly?’ without getting weird looks. As a candidate to Cang Qiong, he should have been up to date on all twelve peaks, desperate to get into any of them. But he had been so convinced nothing could save him from entering An Ding that learning about the rest of them had been the furthest thing from his mind.
The System chimed. [MISSION: Join Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. MISSION COMPLETE! Congratulations! Congratulations! Congratulations!] It played a cheery little tune, then added: [Welcome to XING JIAO PEAK – the sexual arts peak!]
Shang Qinghua blinked rapidly.
Uh, sorry, what was that?
The cheery tune was played again. [Welcome to XING JIAO PEAK – the sexual arts peak!]
The what?
[Welcome to XING JIAO PEAK – the sexual arts peak!]
Okay.
So.
It was definitely worse than An Ding.
*
Some people, when told that they were being sent to the Sex School for Having Sex, might rejoice. Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky, despite his unfortunate handle, did not feature among these people.
First of all: that stuff was only hot on paper. In practice… well, just imagine having sex all day. Really imagine it. Getting up, having breakfast, and then… having sex… and then taking a shower and having sex again… And then having a quick snack and then having sex some more… and finally going to bed, but probably not sleeping since night time was for having sex, too. And now imagine doing that every day.
Even a terminal virgin like Airplane would balk at the thought. The chafing alone!
System, what the hell? What kind of demented autocomplete is this? If there had been a peak just for fucking, then surely it would have been mentioned in the novel itself? Surely the protagonist would have had plenty of escapades there! Is this from a horny fanfiction, or what?
But…
…as Airplane already had way too many unfortunate occasions to realize by now… the billion sex pollen flowers and other assorted wifeplot devices he had wantonly written into Proud Immortal Demon Way hadn’t gone anywhere. Worse, they all existed at the same time. This was a world in which people routinely found themselves caught in a mind-boggling variety of fuck-or-die situations. For cultivators, it often meant enduring perilous qi imbalances that could only be fixed through, yes, carefully calibrated sex. It actually made total sense Cang Qiong would have an entire peak devoted to that.
But why had Shang Qinghua ended up on it?
And, second of all: he was ten fucking years old right now. They were all ten fucking years old right now! How the fuck was this okay? How could these immortal masters just stand there and watch kids get dragged to the sexual arts peak without batting an eyelid? This was comical levels of child abuse even by Proud Immortal Demon Way’s standards—and that was saying a lot!
Shang Qinghua was headed directly into hell!
*
Hell began with a lot of outdoor classes.
After the first few weeks, Shang Qinghua got less twitchy. Nobody seemed in a hurry to organize a child orgy. In fact, absolutely none of their teachers were even mentioning sex. So far they were leading placid field trips on the verdant slopes of Cang Qiong to collect flowers and herbs which their students lovingly pressed, dissected and labelled. They were also visiting farms to pet baby rabbits and chase ducklings around, an activity so aggressively innocent it almost felt like the System was shooting Shang Qinghua pointed looks. Weirdly, they were also taking a lot of fun chemistry classes, learning to mix common ingredients into amusing goops. And there were of course lots of classes about cultivation proper—meditating, circulating your energy, gathering qi and the like.
It was all pretty interesting, honestly, and so unexpectedly uneventful that Shang Qinghua kind of forgot where he was most of the time. Even more strangely, bullying culture was strongly discouraged, students encouraged to talk things out at the slightest hint of disagreement, as if they were all training to become therapists or something. It was a more peaceful and convivial place than Airplane had known in both of his lives so far. It was just… nice.
Whenever he crossed the Rainbow Bridge and saw harassed An Ding disciples scrambling to keep the sect’s wheels properly greased, fearfully dodging Bai Zhan bullies on the prowl, Airplane couldn’t help thinking maybe he was better off on Xing Jiao.
But then he remembered what would inevitably come next. In a way, it was almost worse than waiting for the plot to start, because the plot was still decades in the future. Sometimes it was hard to believe it existed at all. Whereas his Xing Jiao-scripted doom would happen much sooner—and in a much more personal, intimate way.
Airplane was desperately trying to tell himself he could deal with it. He would be fine! He was an adult, after all, though he didn’t look the part. But then he started wondering which of his teachers would deflower him, and he freaked out all over again. He would have almost preferred being an actual child! Then he could have been groomed into thinking this was all okay, and delayed his trauma by a few years at least.
*
Six months in, he finally realized the classes were all about sex.
The plants they were dissecting? All about stamens and pistils and pollen, aka the reproductive apparatus of the vegetal world! The baby rabbits and fluffy ducklings? A gateway to discussing how farm animals produced more farm animals!
…Well, it still wasn’t horrifying. Xing Jiao seemed to want its students to get a deep understanding of what sex was—why it existed in nature, how and when it happened for plants and beasts, before even thinking of moving on to the more complex process of human activities. Maybe Shang Qinghua was freaking out over nothing? Maybe Xing Jiao was just the sex education peak?
Then one day in chemistry class, he looked at the fun slippery goop he was getting pretty great at mixing together, and realized out loud: “…Holy shit, it’s lube.”
They were learning to make lubricant from scratch. Anywhere and everywhere. Field lube for sex emergencies. He was so dazed by his realization that he only became aware he had spoken out loud when a teacher pulled him aside, away from the outdoor table where the junior disciples were conducting their chemistry experiment.
At first, Shang Qinghua panicked—he had messed up! This was it! The other shoe was dropping!—but then he realized the teacher didn’t look mad her student had said the L-word around other students: she looked worried that her student knew the L-word at all. Apparently, even on the sex peak, ten-year-olds weren’t expected to understand the concept of sexual lubricant.
With great care, the teacher basically asked Shang Qinghua whether he had ever been touched in a bad place by an adult.
“N-n-no, teacher, um…” Shang Qinghua suddenly realized that if his teachers suspected he had sex-related trauma, he might very well be banned from Xing Jiao Peak.
…Did he want that?
He swallowed. Even if things were about to take a dark turn, Shang Qinghua didn’t want to go to An Ding Peak and fulfill his actual character arc. He would actually rather stay on the child molesting peak, that was how much he didn’t want the plot to happen to him.
“Th-there was… um… a book…” he stammered.
“A book?”
“In… my parents’ room! This disciple… got curious, and… read all of it,” he invented. “Um, I think it was for grown-ups, I didn’t understand everything. But this disciple learned a lot!”
The teacher’s neutral expression lost some of its tightness. “I see.”
“So, um,” Shang Qinghua dared to ask, “there won’t be any… any hands-on training… so to speak… anytime soon? I was wondering, because, you know, I do feel like we’re all a little y-young…”
Now the teacher seemed to refrain from laughter. Yeah, a ten-year-old saying something like that was pretty hilarious. Unless he was right to worry, in which case it wasn’t funny at all.
“Disciple Shang is young indeed. But since he’s not too young to ask such a question, he’s not too young to hear the answer.” The teacher patted him on the head. “Once their theoretical training is complete, Xing Jiao students will be offered the opportunity to pursue the practical path, starting on their sixteenth birthday.”
That was still pretty fucking young! But okay!
“And… if you don’t want to pursue the practical path…?” Shang Qinghua asked timidly.
“Then you may join another peak. Many of them accept transfers from Xing Jiao.”
“Not all of them?” Shang Qinghua immediately guessed. “Probably not Qing Jing, huh?”
He seemed to have amused the teacher again. “Indeed, no. Students often choose Qian Cao or An Ding.”
Ah! Not An Ding! Anything but An Ding!
Qian Cao would do fine, just fine! Mu Qingfang was a great guy. Or he was going to be, anyway. Shang Qinghua nodded vigorously. Okay, okay, great! He would spend the next six years learning everything about sex, then he would skedaddle to Qian Cao to become a doctor, thus complying to his past life parents’ wishes after all. That was a plan! That was a good plan!
And he would know how to make his own lube! A little party trick! A fun bonus! Maybe that would come in handy? Who knew, maybe Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky would actually get to have sex in this life? Even for Proud Immortal Demon Way, that didn’t sound very realistic, but a guy could dream…
*
Five years later, Shang Qinghua was fifteen again, and not very happy to be. The zits! How he hadn’t missed the zits. As for the rest of his body… forget it.
Except he couldn’t forget it, since Xing Jiao’s ‘your body is changing’ classes were of course exceptionally thorough. Never before had he been encouraged to masturbate in such a wholesome way. (Never before had he been encouraged to masturbate at all, really.) Getting off was good and healthy even for mortals, but also naturally beneficial to cultivation, and especially to students of the sexual arts. Which made sense. Obviously.
At least he had a lot of lube on hand.
The time for herbal studies and farm outings was long gone: now their classes were all connected to human sexuality, one way or another. Shang Qinghua was now an expert in sexual anatomy across the entire spectrum of human dimorphism. He could identify several hundred sex pollen plants. And he knew how to defuse panic, terror, anger, horror and many other negative emotions one might feel in an enforced sexual situation.
Theoretically.
Even the most distantly related subjects revolved around sex. Their diplomacy classes were all about how to navigate patients with a high social standing or in complex political position. Their first aid classes all related to the injuries one might sustain during physical intimacy. Their literature classes centered on the study of sex scenes, from respected classics to trashy erotica. (Students were asked to ponder their erotic potential, its underlying social and psychological dynamics, and what might actually happen should those contrived or dramatic situations take place in real life. Honestly, those classes were Airplane’s favorite. He penned his essays with great gusto, to the point that his teachers occasionally read them out loud in front of the class, to the great enjoyment of the other students. He had never been a popular kid before. It was weird.)
On the practical side, still no actual orgies! But their workshops were starting to divert into more overtly sexual stuff, too. Airplane already knew how to custom-make lube the better to match any partner’s genitals and circumstances, but he was now also getting pretty skilled at mixing antidotes for a whole bunch of aphrodisiacs. He also knew how to brew birth control and morning-after pill equivalents for men and women. And there were the whittling workshops where they were being taught to make and maintain their own dildos and buttplugs. Airplane had heard two teachers debate the merit of jade versus glass and realized each and every one of them must have a staggering collection of priceless heirloom sex toys.
He didn’t really want to think too long about the concept of a heirloom sex toy.
Anyway! His cultivation was getting there, too! Though of course he wasn’t past the qi-refining stage yet. Nobody was, in his age group. Soon they’d all enter Core Formation stage, aka active cultivation. Every peak had a specific way to cultivate—the four arts for Qing Jing, logic puzzles and hard labor for An Ding, martial arts for Bai Zhan… and obviously, Xing Jiao disciples would cultivate with sex.
With sex!
Had Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky written such a thing, he would have been flamed into oblivion! Or he would have had to commit and make Proud Immortal Demon Way into full-on porn. Some of his detractors would argue it was already there, but Airplane disagreed! There was a plot! He had been meaning to get back around to it… eventually…
The real issue that would have stopped him from committing to the Sex Peak scenario was that he would’ve had to address same-sex activities, something his fans wouldn’t have approved of. (Except when it came to stuff like, two wives fighting over the heavenly pillar.) It was almost funny how much of a non-issue that actually was here. None better than the Xing Jiao teachers understood that sex was something that could happen between any configuration of people.
The lack of drama surrounding all aspects of sex continued to baffle him a little. For instance, it was kind of strange to have Xian Shu Peak, the lady peak for young ladies, in the same sect as Xing Jiao Peak, the prostitute peak for prostitutes. But there were also lots of girls on Xing Jiao. As far as Airplane could tell, they were having just as much fun as the boys, if not more.
Another weird thing: none of the Xing Jiao teachers were particularly hot. They were beautiful immortals, of course, but in terms of sex appeal they all looked halfway between doctors and accountants. Airplane supposed it made sense. They were training to treat people afflicted with an uncontrollable libido. Getting their partner hot under the collar was never going to be an issue for them. In fact, looking too alluring might lead them to have recreational sex! Which would be a waste of their precious sex time!
The Xing Jiao peak lord, who was a woman, was of course gorgeous—all peak lords were. She didn’t dress in a particularly provocative way, though, unless wearing dark red counted. She didn’t even have big boobs, which left this Author God pretty nonplussed. (Who ever heard of a woman in a sexual role without big boobs? The audience would have rioted!) But she had… a certain gleam in her eye. Like it would take a lot to shock her.
Everyone treated her with the greatest deference and respect.
*
As part of the orientation program, Shang Qinghua visited Qian Cao Peak for a hands-on experience at being a healer. It was an eventful day which saw him going back to the dormitories covered in both puke and blood.
Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had never wanted to be a doctor, which was one of the many ways in which he had disappointed his parents.
He kind of still didn’t want to be one now.
*
“Well now.” Fei Anfei smiled at him. “Disciple Shang.”
“Shizun,” Shang Qinghua squeaked. His voice still hadn’t broken completely yet (which was so humiliating) but mostly he was terrified of being alone with the Xing Jiao peak lord. This was by far the most important person to have ever looked at him that long. It was nice of her to take a personal interest in the orientation of her students. Much too nice, actually! He really could have done with a little more neglect! “This, um, this disciple greets Shizun.”
“Your teachers report excellent progress across the board and a remarkable level of maturity for your age.”
She was probably talking about Shang Qinghua’s sex essays, in which he made it clear he was unimpressed even by the wildest kinks on offer. “Um… This disciple has meditated on every aspect of his education.”
“Including the possibility of joining Qian Cao?” Ah, they were getting straight into it. Okay.
“This disciple has thought about it…”
“What about An Ding peak?”
“This disciple is thinking about it too,” he lied.
“And has my disciple thought about committing to Xing Jiao?”
Shang Qinghua squirmed in his chair. “…Sorry, I mean no offense, it’s just…” Well, he had to say it sometime. “I don’t want to become a prostitute, Shizun.”
“Ah,” she said. “But prostitutes get paid for their services. Therefore, my disciple will never become a prostitute.”
He blinked, then smiled uncertainly.
“Qian Cao trains healers. Bai Zhan trains martial artists. Qiong Ding trains diplomats. But my peak,” she said proudly, “my peak trains all three at once.” She raised her eyebrows. “Brothel workers do much of the same work with much fewer advantages. My disciple would be wise not to disparage them.”
“N-no, I didn’t mean…” Shang Qinghua reddened. He had always felt some sort of kinship with sex workers, really. There was a reason he had added the Warm Red Pavilion thing to Shen Jiu’s backstory. “I know they work hard. I’m just… not sure I could do that work.”
“Mm. Why not?”
Shang Qinghua hesitated.
Why not, indeed? It was strange that he didn’t have a ready answer, after all this time planning to get out. Some people would say they wanted to have their first time with someone special, but Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had always kind of just wanted to have a first time, period. No lofty hopes of romance for him! He just didn’t want to die a virgin—again!
“I don’t know, I guess I think I wouldn’t be good at it?” he tried awkwardly.
“Not yet, certainly,” Fei Anfei said primly. “What would we have left to teach you?”
“I mean… I don’t think a lot of people would even want to have sex with me.” And he realized that, while groping around for an excuse, he had stumbled onto something true. How embarrassing.
Fei Anfei huffed. “It is not this master’s place to comment on her disciple’s handsomeness, nor would it be relevant in this conversation. Very few of our patients want to have sex; they have to have sex, to avoid discomfort, pain, or death. They have no need of the most attractive man in the world; what they can always use, however, is discretion, reassurance, and someone with the ability to be matter-of-fact about an invasive, intimate experience.”
“…Right.”
“This master happens to think Disciple Shang has a natural talent in this regard.”
Nobody had ever told him he had a natural talent for anything. Nobody had ever tried to convince him to stay anywhere.
“…Shizun really means that?”
*
So he was staying on the child molesting peak.
…Wow! That grooming shit really worked!
Well, he wasn’t a child anymore. He was sixteen.
…Oh, fuck, he was still a child.
Well, but he wasn’t really!
…So that even when complimented for his maturity, he felt like a fraud. Was he doomed never to achieve integrity?
Now that he had been promoted to the inner sect, he got a tiny room of his own in the dormitories. That was a Xing Jiao Peak particularity: on every other peak, only the head disciple enjoyed this kind of privacy. But, obviously, students of the sexual arts would need their own space.
Standing over his narrow bed, he held out the dark red robes he would be wearing now—the uniform that would mark him as a sex worker to all of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect.
Well… he could always back out later…
Right?
*
Shang Qinghua’s classmates all looked extremely nervous too as they filed into their first practical class. They were all wondering what was going to happen. Airplane was back to desperately praying he wasn’t about to walk into a child orgy. But wasn’t that what they’d all signed up for, this time?
Of course, nobody on Xing Jiao Peak cared about preserving the purity of their students. Talk about counter-productive! And the students themselves knew they had basically forfeited their honor by accepting to wear the dark red. In a way, it was as though they’d already slept around! Except Shang Qinghua was pretty sure all his comrades were still a bunch of virgins.
“All right,” the teacher said. “Who among you has already had sex?”
Over half the hands went into the air.
…Well. Shang Qinghua had been projecting, apparently.
“Only half?” The teacher shook her head. “Those who haven’t, pair up and get to it within the week.”
Ah! Child orgy! Child orgy!
Or rather—teenagers having sex together. As was… normal and healthy, Shang Qinghua supposed.
Not for him, though. He couldn’t do it! He definitely couldn’t do it!
He sat there fretting and only half-listening while their teacher detailed the practical cursus and how it would dovetail with their cultivation progress. When the hour was over, he approached her as all the other students filed out, chattering excitedly together.
“Um, teacher… About, um… our first assignment…” He swallowed. “Well, this disciple would rather… trust in an experienced professional?”
That was his shameful sideways approach to requesting money for going to the Warm Red Pavilion. He wouldn’t be the first Cang Qiong disciple to be made a man there!
Instead, the teacher looked right at him and said: “Of course. I am available after chen time.”
Shang Qinghua choked on nothing. “No, um, no—th-this d-disciple…”
“Oh, right, you like men,” she said in the tones of someone who was always forgetting her head—and how did she even know that? “Teacher Wei will probably find a moment for you, if you ask him.”
Shang Qinghua opened his mouth to shrilly protest again that this wasn’t what he meant, then closed it. Teacher Wei had a warm smile, nice hands, and shoots of silver in his hair.
“Um. He wouldn’t mind?”
“He does it all the time,” the teacher said, with a little roll of her eyes.
*
“Ah, Disciple Shang!” Teacher Wei greeted him with a big smile. “Teacher Mei told me you were feeling nervous. How strange, when you’re one of our most level-headed students!”
“Uh,” Shang Qinghua said.
“Come in! Nothing to be afraid of,” Teacher Wei insisted cheerfully. He was sitting in his parlor, a nice airy room with a chest full of things Shang Qinghua didn’t want to know about. But was probably about to get very intimate with. “You know, personally I don’t even remember my first time—we were fooling around so often with my classmates, I couldn’t tell you when it happened! But you’re a bit old-fashioned that way, aren’t you?”
Shang Qinghua didn’t think it was fair to call his attitude old-fashioned when they were living in a xianxia setting where young maidens routinely died to protect their virginity, actually!
He supposed that by ‘old-fashioned’, Teacher Wei was referring to ‘life before you joined Xing Jiao Peak’.
And it was true that Shang Qinghua’s classmates didn’t seem to have such hang-ups after all. All of them had agreed to commit to Xing Jiao and, at that point, they knew exactly what they were signing up for. Those who hadn’t had sex yet had only been waiting for that kind of excuse to finally get to it! He was the only one to feel weird about this.
He took his head in his hands. “Teacher, I think… I think maybe I should join Qian Cao after all.”
“Well, if that’s what you want,” Teacher Wei said, just as insouciant as before.
Shang Qinghua blinked at him. “Really?”
“Of course. You can’t stay on the peak if you don’t want to be there; heavens know you’ll be dealing with enough unwillingness out there,” he said placidly, because oh right, they were living in nightmare sex world and it was Airplane’s fault. Then he smiled again, and wow, he had a really nice smile. “Would Disciple Shang like to relax with this teacher before he leaves? We can just have tea and talk about your classes.”
He does it all the time.
“…Yes,” Shang Qinghua decided, desperately. This was a clear trap so Teacher Wei could avail himself of his teenage body, but he didn’t care about the ethics of it all anymore. He was about to leave Xing Jiao Peak! This was his only chance to have sex! Even if it was with a child predator!
Better Shang Qinghua than an actual child, right?
He sat next to Teacher Wei. Then a little closer. Teacher Wei kept talking pleasantly and joking around with him. They had tea, in a very relaxed way. Teacher Wei’s robes were yawning a little bit on his chest. It was a very nice chest. They chatted about classes, then about Shang Qinghua’s essays, which always made Teacher Wei laugh. He was so kind and so interested and he had such nice crinkled eyes…
Then he said, “May I?” and Shang Qinghua said, “Um, um, yes?” and Teacher Wei put his hand under his robes and touched him in a bad place.
Being touched in a bad place felt pretty great!
So great that Shang Qinghua came after just a few strokes of his hand.
“Well, there you go,” Teacher Wei said, kindly amused. “You were able to relax after all.”
Shang Qinghua blinked. “Huh?” He was still a little bit breathless, but these days a quick hand job barely put a dent in his libido. “Wait, what? That wasn’t sex!”
Teacher Wei lifted his eyebrows. “Then I suppose I’ve been a farmer this whole time…”
“No, I mean—I thought it would be more of a—production! I mean, I mean—” He had to be explicit, he was a sexual arts student, not to mention a secret adult and former porn lord—“penetration, and—”
Teacher Wei waved a dismissive hand. “That’s the advanced classes. You won’t get to dual cultivation before a couple more years. Didn’t Teacher Mei just explain that?”
Maybe Shang Qinghua should have listened a little more in class. “But—then what was this about?”
Teacher Wei laughed again. “Why, this was about you being nervous and needing to get it over with! You’d be surprised how many students get cold feet despite everything. I’m always happy to give them a hand, if they need to feel safe; they can trust a master to know what he’s doing.”
Shang Qinghua opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Teacher Wei looked at him, solicitous. “Well? How are you feeling now?”
“Uhh,” Shang Qinghua said, thoroughly underwhelmed. “I’m feeling… exactly the same.”
Teacher Wei smiled broadly. “Welcome to Xing Jiao Peak!”
*
Shang Qinghua felt a little used!
As in, not actually used, and weirdly pissed off about that!
Teacher Wei had been all nice and smiling and alluring, and then he’d just given him a quick hand job and sent him packing? Proud Immortal Demon Way readers would have rioted after a sex scene like that! Teacher Wei clearly hadn’t been leering over his teenage body at all! It had all just been a scheme so Shang Qinghua would feel fine about having casual sexual encounters for medical purposes, which he already did!
And… so…
Wait, he had lost track of the problem here.
“Oh, Shang-shidi,” said one of his shixiongs, coming out of the baths with a towel around his waist. “I heard you went for Teacher Wei? How was it?”
“…Nice,” Shang Qinghua said helplessly. “You know, he’s… a very nice man.” He closed his eyes for a second, then reopened them. “Hey, wanna have advanced class sex?”
“Dual cultivation?” his shixiong said, blinking. “Shang-shidi isn’t out of the qi refining stage yet. You shouldn’t rush it, that might have undesirable effects on your progress.”
“Not for cultivation, just for fun!”
His shixiong didn’t even bat an eyelid at being propositioned in such a blunt, shameless way. “Sorry, Shang-shidi, but this shixiong needs his stamina for his own cultivation. I’m on a very strict schedule. Maybe your agemates would be more agreeable?”
Shang Qinghua went through another four people before he finally found someone who would top him.
It was a girl.
With a homemade wooden strap-on.
Because she wanted to take it for a test run.
They used a lot of lube and stretched the appropriate rings of muscle the way they had been taught in class.
And it felt pretty good!
…And that was that.
“Fuck,” Shang Qinghua said, on his back, looking at the ceiling. Ji-shimei had already left with a cheerful wave, explaining she needed to wash and oil her dildo immediately after use.
This time, by anyone’s metrics, he was no longer a virgin.
He still felt exactly the same as before.
“…Okay, then.”
*
When they finally got to the child orgy bits a couple of years later, Shang Qinghua was so over it.
They weren’t even children anymore, and besides it wasn’t erotic at all. Lots of those classes centered on disconnecting the students’ physical reactions from their subconscious processes, and reconnecting them to their conscious brain. For the boys, it meant learning to get hard on command, stay hard no matter how unsexy the situation, and come even if they didn’t really feel like it. Which they very probably wouldn’t. Because, as they were often reminded, dealing with sex-crazed patients would never be sexy.
Shang Qinghua had a long experience with jerking off even when he wasn’t super horny, just because he was bored and it was cheap fun. So he was already pretty good at keeping it up in unfavorable circumstances, and his stamina was improving the more he trained. Coming at will was a little more difficult, but he was getting there! It really was necessary—for some of their patients, the timing of that fateful qi injection might mean life or death.
Airplane would have definitely still written those classes devolving into steamy orgy scenes all the time. But in real life it was mostly just awkward and a little gross, with all those squelching noises. And once they were past the awkwardness, watching his classmates achieve and maintain an erection was a surprisingly neutral experience, like figure drawing.
“Ugh,” one of them complained, “I keep flagging after ten minutes! On the dot! Every time!”
“It helps if you circulate your qi in the lower dantian…”
“It’s so much easier for the girls! They can just strap on a dick and go!”
“But we have to inject qi through jade and that takes much finer control, so in fact the boys have it easier!” one of the girls in the class snapped back—because yes, the classes were all mixed. Shang Qinghua barely took notice of that anymore.
Topping was not the only concern. A lot of cases would call for them to be on the receiving end. The bottoming classes were even more unsexy: they mostly focused on proper hygiene, lubrication, and sphincter and vaginal control, the better to avoid injury when dealing with brutal patients.
“Always put yourself first,” their instructor said very seriously. “Enduring a exceedingly violent experience means depriving all of your future patients of your life-saving services. Your bodily integrity and emotional well-being must prevail even over your patient’s health.”
…Shang Qinghua supposed Qian Cao healers weren’t expected to injure or traumatize themselves for their patients either, but it was still a weird thing to hear.
And then there were the applied bondage classes. Curse Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky for writing so many scenes where the future wives conveniently needed to be tied up! Now he had ended up with a world where rope pressure on various acupoints had an actual medical effect on the human body. They had to be careful not just with blood circulation and nerve damage, but also cultivation damage. Most of their cultivator patients would be deviating; being restrained in unfavorable ways might well wreck their meridians before they had a chance to fix it. Conversely, being tied up just the right way might stimulate their system in a way that might improve their odds, maybe even save their lives!
“Pop quiz,” their instructor said. “Forty year-old independent cultivator in the qi refining stage, exposed to Crimson Midnight Flower pollen. Restrained by his relatives, two hours since infection. Anyone? Disciple Li?”
“Uhh… Crimson Midnight Flower pollen interacts badly with oil-based lubricant, so I’d start by selecting a…”
“That is not the appropriate first step. Someone else? Disciple Ming?”
“I’d… attempt to communicate with the patient first?”
“Better, but still not the correct first step. Disciple Shang?”
“Ah,” Shang Qinghua said, freezing in the middle of hogtying his partner. “I… uh… I’d restrain him again first? Correctly?”
“Very good. When dealing with Crimson Midnight Flower pollen, it is crucial for the patient to be restrained with their hands above their head. There is very little chance a patient’s relatives would have spontaneously done so. And while communication always matters, two hours into Crimson Midnight poisoning, the patient would no longer be able to respond verbally…”
Shang Qinghua’s hogtied partner gave him a thumbs-up. No need, really! This was a bondage class, obviously the teacher would ask a bondage-related question! Plus of course Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky would remember one of his most shameless excuses ever for the wife du jour to be sexily tied up! Ahh, and now Shang Qinghua had to start all over again with his hogtie because he’d completely lost tension in the ropes…
This was all very weird, whenever he stopped to think about it. But it wasn’t the nightmare he had imagined at first. It was… well, it was kind of interesting. And challenging. And exhausting sometimes. But he found he didn’t mind any of it. He even kind of wanted to do the work. After all, it was his fault this world was like this, so for him to be part of the dual cultivation peak, to help control some of the chaos he had unwittingly created, that felt… fitting.
What else was he going to do, anyway? Go to An Ding? Hah!
*
And then he was abruptly reminded that the plot was still very much on its way.
Xing Jiao Peak was waiting for a crucial shipment of linseed oil, which had been improperly handled by An Ding twice already. A lot of their activities were getting delayed—rope maintenance, field chemistry, whittling workshops, all that. So Shang Qinghua had dragged two of his classmates down the mountain to surprise them on the third attempt.
It was a hot summer day. They crossed through the long grass in the foothills and arrived right by the road. When Shang Qinghua saw the An Ding disciples sitting on the goods in the cart, he shouted: “Are you serious?”
They all jumped violently, looking around with bewildered eyes.
“How can you make excuses for damaging fragile goods, then turn around and behave like this? Sitting on crates of glass bottles? Come on!”
The An Ding disciples reddened, all of them promptly getting down. But the driver snapped: “So now the red-clad whores will teach us how to do our jobs?”
“As long as you don’t teach me how to do mine,” Shang Qinghua shot back. His two classmates laughed. Did that An Ding disciple think he was the first one to call them whores? Come on! Have some imagination!
Weirdly, he wasn’t afraid of bullying in this life. Because it turned out that just like with Qian Cao disciples, hitting Xing Jiao disciples was extremely taboo. Not even the worst meatheads of Bai Zhan Peak would have raised a hand to them. As for mean comments, Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky could handle that, thank you!
“Shixiong, better stay away from strange flowers,” Shang Qinghua’s shijie said, frowning seriously at the An Ding driver. “With a face like yours, I don’t think even our most hardened teachers could stomach helping you…”
“A face like mine?” the An Ding disciple spluttered. “What about yours! Whoever took you on for whorework must have been blind!”
It could have gone on like this for a while, but something was off in this lovely scene of mutual bullying. Some of the An Ding disciples, who had looked around frantically upon being surprised by the Xing Jiao disciples, were still peering into the darkened woods behind the path, apparently without hearing the insults on either side.
It made Shang Qinghua look, too. Something was moving there…?
And then for the first time in years, the System chimed at him.
[MISSION: Survive.]
The next moment an ice spear flew through the air and pierced through the An Ding driver’s shoulder.
*
Blood dripped on the ground, along with clear linseed oil. Another shipment ruined. Shang Qinghua had thrown himself behind the cart. The others had run away. They were lucky the Xing Jiao disciples’ ambush had gotten them to get off the cart already, otherwise they would have all been skewered. They might have all died.
A dark presence was coming out of the woods. There was a deadly chill, a heavy smell of rotting fruit in the air.
Poison, Shang Qinghua’s trained mind told him. He took a deep breath, mouth half-open to smell and taste it at once. Yes, he knew that one. Ling Hua poison. They were very close to Huan Hua Palace territory. And he knew only too well what demon clan held a grudge against them…
The wheels of the cart were frozen. He could not deny who this was. What was happening.
He heard the scraping steps, the heavy breathing of the demon walking closer. The driver was still here, bleeding. Shang Qinghua heard him scramble back desperately in the dirt, his voice thick with terrified sobs. “No—please—I’ll do anything you want, I’ll serve you for the rest of my life—”
And then Mobei-jun tripped over Shang Qinghua’s body.
So embarrassing for the both of them! Wasn’t he looking where he was going? And Shang Qinghua could have sworn the demon was walking the other way around the cart.
Mobei-jun collapsed heavily on top of him, chasing the air out of his lungs. The An Ding disciple screamed; then, powering through the pain, he actually managed to get up and run away. Shang Qinghua shifted to his back so he wouldn’t get broken ribs, which just moved the demon fully over him.
Shang Qinghua only had a moment to see his face, his eyes, clouded over with an animal madness. And then, because he had been trained to act a certain way in that position, he automatically put his hands over the kidney acupoints for a qi injection that would stimulate the lower dantian.
Mobei-jun buckled over him, gasping. The Ling Hua poison was an aphrodisiac—a particularly cruel sort, which plagued the victim not just with unwanted arousal but torturous pain, so as to kill them in the most humiliating way possible. The demon was clearly in the last stages of that torment, driven mad by the need for relief. That qi injection shredded the last of his mind to pieces.
He ripped up Shang Qinghua’s robes.
Shang Qinghua… was not scared. It was an odd thing to realize. But the fact was that he knew how to handle this situation. He had been training for something like this for a full decade. He could do this.
He was the only one who could do this, actually. What if Mobei-jun had tried taking that An Ding disciple? Hell, even the other two Xing Jiao disciples? He was a demon. They would have fought back and panicked!
For all of Shang Qinghua’s confidence, relaxing the relevant muscles turned out to be much harder in a real life-threatening emergency. He couldn’t help crying out when Mobei-jun tore his way into his body. Linseed oil was pooling on the ground next to them; shaking, Shang Qinghua scooped up some of it, messily smeared it where their bodies joined. Mobei-jun’s erratic thrusts became easier, gliding through oil and blood. It hurt like a motherfucker. Shang Qinghua, gasping through the pain, clung to Mobei-jun’s shoulders while the demon kept desperately chasing relief.
“It’s okay,” he panted, “you’re fine, you’re going to be fine, keep going, you’re almost there—”
Mobei-jun went rigid, expending himself, emptying his system of poisoned qi.
“…Holy shit,” Shang Qinghua gasped out.
Mobei-jun fell heavily over him, equally breathless, bathed in ice-cold sweat. He had to be absolutely drunk on relief after hours of agony. Thank fuck he had been so riled up, really. The whole thing had been over in five minutes.
“Okay, I think… I think that did it?”
Mobei-jun raised himself up on his elbows to stare down at him, dazed and uncomprehending. Shang Qinghua had also been trained to manage the awkward aftermath. But right now all he could think was Shitfuck it fucking hurts like a fucking bitch and Is he going to kill me now?
The demon’s expression was changing, clouded blankness giving way to… horrified fury.
He was definitely going to kill him!
“…Could you pull out first?” Shang Qinghua said pathetically.
“What?” Mobei-jun barked out.
“If you’re going to kill me, could you pull out first? Please?”
Mobei-jun pulled out—scrambled back, really, his robes falling back over his body. Beneath the murderous shock and rage, he looked deeply upset. This was… a really undignified and violating moment for him too, huh? Grievously wounded by Huan Hua cultivators, poisoned out of his mind, driven to act like an animal. For a character so proud, so aloof, so dignified… it had to be intolerable.
If that was how he had met the original goods, if that was how the real Shang Qinghua had technically saved his life, it was no wonder they had kept hating each other until their fatal parting. Nothing could have solved the trauma of their original meeting.
“It’s okay,” Shang Qinghua panted. “I’m fine! You’re fine! I mean, th-this is my job!”
Mobei-jun kept staring at him in incredulous outrage. That was a little rude! Shang Qinghua had also been outraged here, okay? And it had hurt a lot more for him!
“I’m—I’m a Xing Jiao disciple,” Shang Qinghua insisted desperately. “I’m from the sexual arts peak in Cang Qiong! Curing poisons like this is what we do! Ah, usually we get to explain ourselves a little more first… But there was no time…”
Mobei-jun wasn’t looking at him anymore, staring at something on his side. Shang Qinghua looked down and remembered that oh right, he had a sword. He could have grabbed it and stabbed Mobei-jun between the ribs at any point during the proceedings.
“Again!” Shang Qinghua squeaked. “No hard feelings! This… this disciple was willing!”
“Willing—” Mobei-jun managed, like he was choking on the word. He looked briefly down at the mess between Shang Qinghua’s legs. Then, suddenly, he tore through the shadows and disappeared.
Shang Qinghua let himself fall back in the dirt, immensely relieved, and curled up around himself.
Fucking ow.
*
“Shang-shidi,” the Qian Cao disciple said. “A visitor for you.”
Shang Qinghua didn’t expect anybody in particular—all of his peers had already covered him in get-well-soon gifts. To his surprise, it was the An Ding disciple who had been driving the cart.
The boy had a heavy bandage around his shoulder and tears in his eyes. Before Shang Qinghua could say anything, he dropped down and kowtowed. Which couldn’t be healthy. Bro, this is the healing house, don’t put your face against the floorboards…
“Shang-shidi, this one—this lowly one cannot apologize enough for… You… you saved my life, and I… and I abandoned you to…” He swallowed convulsively. “This one will never say a bad word against Xing Jiao disciples ever again!”
“Ah, it’s fine,” Shang Qinghua said. “Nothing we haven’t heard before. And you couldn’t have done anything to help. Um, would you maybe get up?”
The boy only pressed his forehead harder against the floor. “This one will personally go back for the next shipment of linseed oil and make sure it arrives to the twelfth peak unscathed!”
“…I would actually really like that,” Shang Qinghua admitted. “Seriously, though, stand up! It’s fine. All that wasn’t your fault.”
He wasn’t inclined to hold grudges, first of all because he was bad at it, second of all because he was pretty sure that kid would become the next An Ding Peak Lord, eventually. He had tried to pledge his allegiance to Mobei-jun. And if not for Shang Qinghua’s presence, he was the one Mobei-jun would have assaulted in his desperation.
And yet those things hadn’t happened. Shang Qinghua had been there to take all the aggro. Did that mean he was still on track for his fated death?
But he hadn’t pledged allegiance to Mobei-jun, and he had explained he was basically a doctor! People didn’t owe life debts to doctors! Right? What a mess that would make!
The boy straightened up. “But… but they said… they said that the d-demon… That he… That Shang-shidi was…” He seemed to choke on his own horror.
“Oh, yeah, that.” Shang Qinghua laughed awkwardly. “Don’t worry about it! I’m fine.”
“Shang-shidi is so brave,” the boy said in a crushed voice. “Braver than I could ever be.”
Shang Qinghua actually was fine, though. Well, sure, there had been some tearing, but that was nothing his cultivation and a few days on Qian Cao couldn’t fix. As for the rest, he wasn’t upset. Really, he wasn’t! He had been terrified in the moment, unsure whether Mobei-jun would just kill him after he was done, but he had hightailed it right out of there! And naturally, while someone else might have lost their sanity after being raped by a demon, Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky knew only too well Mobei-jun hadn’t wanted any of it to happen either.
If Shang Qinghua was feeling anything, beyond his relief at having survived, it was mostly something like… professional pride. That had been a difficult patient, maybe the most difficult patient! And he had handled things pretty well overall! Minimal injuries on both sides! Nobody had died or pledged their life to anybody! If that wasn’t the optimal outcome!
It was just a shame that none of it had been enjoyable. Shang Qinghua was still kind of reeling from the fact that he had met Mobei-jun, to say nothing of technically having sex with him! But ah, that hadn’t been sex. Just… an unpleasant emergency medical procedure.
Still. Mobei-jun was his favorite character, and the System had come up with a really shitty backstory for his first meeting with the future An Ding Peak Lord. Shang Qinghua was just… really glad it had been him instead. No An Ding disciples had been harmed, or not too permanently, and Mobei-jun wouldn’t be bound to a human who hated and feared him, who reminded him of his traumatic shame every day.
Everyone could just go on with their lives.
*
In Proud Immortal Demon Way, Shang Qinghua from An Ding had been the only survivor of Mobei-jun’s attack, for which he had always remained under suspicion. Here and now, Shang Qinghua from Xing Jiao had fucked a demon and wasn’t even trying to hide it. Worse, he wasn’t acting appropriately shellshocked. He probably should have, but he’d missed his window of opportunity and now it was too late.
He could have been put on trial. In fact, the Sect Leader made noises about it, until Shizun pulled him aside and spoke very quietly to him with her usual half-smile on her face. After which he left and didn’t bring up the matter again.
Shizun really was too scary!
Everyone on Xing Jiao Peak, meanwhile, was treating him like a rock star. Now that he was out of the infirmary, even his most seasoned shixiongs and shijies came to slap him on the back and ask him shamelessly for details. Upon hearing that he had used acupoints to direct the demon’s energies in the right direction—who knew that even worked on demons!—and that he had used the linseed oil as lube—what presence of mind!—everyone exclaimed all the more that he was essentially a genius of the sexual arts. Shang Qinghua kept telling them the demon had been under the influence of a very strong aphrodisiac already and that the linseed oil had just been kind of there. But it just made them admire him more! He was the junior who had grappled with a maddened demon and lived to tell the tale! Shrugging off the whole encounter afterwards!
Well, he didn’t mind that much. It wouldn’t be the first time he had a reputation for being proficient at pornographic stuff, after all. Aha.
Shizun had seen him immediately after the incident, of course, and visited him several times in Qian Cao for some polite chats. But shortly after he was back in class, she summoned him officially to her office and asked him to tell the whole story again.
When he was done, she looked at him for a long, pensive while. Then she said: “I hear no anger in my disciple’s voice.”
“Why would I be angry? Shizun, that demon was poisoned. He wasn’t in control! Didn’t I just do what I’ve been trained to do? I don’t understand why everyone’s making such a fuss,” Shang Qinghua said, a little desperately.
“And yet this master cannot think of another student on this peak who would feel this way.” She nodded, as if making a decision. “You were always under consideration, but now the choice is clear.”
Shang Qinghua swallowed. Was he getting expelled after all? “What… what choice, Shizun?”
*
And that was how Shang Qinghua became head disciple of the sexual arts peak.
In Proud Immortal Demon Way, his character had gotten advancement thanks to the encounter with Mobei-jun, sure! But not like that! Seriously, shouldn’t one of his shixiongs or shijies get the position? He still didn’t think he was particularly good at sex, which was pretty damning for a guy who had been studying it for ten years. But he just wasn’t having any outside of class. (Which was a weird thing to say!)
Except then Shizun began sending him on field trips with his seniors, and Shang Qinghua, it turned out, continued being uncommonly good at handling mortifying, urgent and sometimes dangerous sexual situations.
He had a pretty high pain tolerance (it helped that he wasn’t really afraid of injury, since he had personally written the bullshit magical healing in this world) and apparently no ceiling for how much emotional upset he could endure (it helped that he knew this was all fundamentally a silly porn novel treated way too seriously). And clearly, having someone around who wasn’t panicking was just… incredibly reassuring. Which just made the rest of his job super easy! Maidens giggled through their tears, young masters laughed at his pointedly crude jokes. Older folks smiled when he commented on how lucky he was to get into bed with them. And then, after breaking the ice, he repeated what Teacher Wei had told him during what had technically been his first time:
“May I?”
Teacher Wei really was a master. Those two little words could soothe so much, even in the direst situations.
After that it was either a matter of staying hard or staying relaxed, depending on what was needed from him. A lot of times, it was kind of gross and overly intimate, sure. But it wasn’t any grosser or more intimate than sewing up an open wound, which would have been infinitely more alarming to him. After the clean-up, he acted as though they’d just had a pleasant chat, and his patients were only too happy to follow his lead.
“Shang-shixiong, how come you never panic?” one of his shidis asked him once, starry-eyed.
“Why would I panic?” was Shang Qinghua’s sincere, perplexed reply. It was crazy how everyone thought he was an unshakeable fortress of calm now. They couldn’t have been further from the truth. “There’s just nothing to panic about! They’re the ones in fuck-or-die situations! Threaten me with death, then I’ll panic with the best of them! I’ll fall to my knees and beg for my life! I’ll cry for mercy and cling to your thighs!”
They just laughed like he was joking again.
Shizun always had that little smile when she listened to their field reports, like she had no reason to regret her choice at all.