Chapter Text
Li Lun dies.
That’s it.
—
So why can he feel a heart beating in his chest?
Why can he feel lungs taking in air?
And most importantly, why the fuck can’t he feel any of his power?
What is this fucking body?
He flexes a hand first. He has control, at the very least. That’s… good.
The fingers are thin. The calluses are wrong. Definitely not his old body, even if all his power was sealed.
Scholar’s hands. With the memory of something else underneath, but he doesn’t care about that, not now.
He rolls a shoulder and the muscles resist. Not injury. The tension is too old for that, too settled. Load-bearing. He tries the other one. Same thing.
None of this is his problem. He needs to figure out what he can do.
He reaches for his qi and finds still water. Something dense and cultivated sitting in the meridians, completely indifferent to him. He pushes. Nothing. Pushes harder. It doesn’t even ripple.
His fire—
Isn’t there.
He reaches again, instinctive, stupid. Like checking if a wound is still bleeding. Eight years of burning and he can’t find a single ember.
This body flinches when he moves wrong. Some position, some angle he doesn’t have the context for. The fear is old and specific and has absolutely nothing to do with him.
Great.
Someone else’s body. Someone else’s cultivation. Someone else’s trauma.
And no way out.
—
He gets up.
What else is he going to fucking do, lay there like a goddamn log?
He can’t sense anyone in the immediate vicinity, but given how stupidly weak this body feels, he doesn’t trust that it can sense anything more than ten meters away.
Whatever. So he has to be fast about understanding his surroundings. Big deal.
He’s in a house. It’s all shades of green, serene and beautiful and disgusting. It’s quiet and orderly and Li Lun hates it.
There’s a mirror. He already knows he isn’t in his body, probably not even in his old world, but he checks his appearance anyway.
He looks… pretty.
Gross.
He doesn’t recognize the face. The inner robes he’s wearing are generic enough, but… he strides over to the closet next to mirror, throwing the doors open with more force than necessary.
Silk. Fine silk robes in more shades of green than he cares to count. Embroidered, layered, and formal.
Whoever owns this body was someone in this world.
That’s not a good thing.
Something prickles on the edges of his senses, and Li Lun almost audibly curses. He knew this stupid body could barely sense anything! He chooses a robe at random and begins to dress. At least the way clothing works doesn’t seem to have changed.
There’s a knock at the door just after Li Lun pulls the outermost robes over his shoulders.
“Shidi?” a gentle voice says.
Li Lun prickles. Who the fuck is addressing him as shidi? He’s not anyone’s fucking junior.
But maybe this stupid body is someone’s junior. And maybe they actually care about whoever the fuck was in here before Li Lun.
The knock comes again. “Shidi, are you awake? If not, I’m going to come in.”
“I’m up,” Li Lun snaps.
“Oh,” the voice outside says. It sounds… happy? What, does Li Lun snapping do it for this guy?
“This one heard that Qingqiu-shidi fell ill,” the voice continues. “If you are feeling better, Shixiong will take his leave.”
“Wait,” Li Lun says, almost automatically. “Come in.”
There’s a long pause. Then the door opens.
First read: the man in front of him is much more powerful than Li Lun’s new body. Most of it is concentrated in the sword hanging from the belt, but the man himself isn’t bad either.
Ah. Li Lun thinks sulkily. No wonder I’m shidi.
Second read: the man is looking at him like he’s something breakable.
Li Lun fucking hates that.
The man is tall, broad, carries himself like someone used to authority—but everything about his posture softens at the doorframe. Like he’s trying to take up less space. Like the room belongs to Li Lun and he’s the one intruding.
That irritates Li Lun immediately. He’s the one who said come in, so fucking come in. Fucking humans that can’t follow simple fucking orders.
He narrows his eyes. But before he can say anything, the man takes a few hesitant steps inside and closes the door behind him.
“Shidi looks well,” the man offers. There’s a careful smile on his face, the kind that’s been practiced into something nonthreatening. “This one is relieved.”
Fuck it. “I’m not well,” Li Lun says. “I don’t know who you are.”
—
The moon is high in the sky by the time the other Peak Lords let Li Lun return to his Peak. Or whatever the fuck all of it is called.
They checked him for possession using some lame sword that Li Lun could’ve snapped like a twig in his true form. It didn’t register anything, which told Li Lun immediately how useless it is.
His name is Shen Qingqiu. That’s going to take some getting used to. But if Zhu Yan can take someone else’s name, Li Lun can too. If Zhao Yuanzhou can make human friends, Shen Qingqiu can too.
His scalp prickles at the thought. Disgusting humans that should be cowering in Li Lun’s presence. If he was in his true form, he could snap all of their necks with a single flick of his wrist.
…But that would be counterintuitive to making friends.
Fine. Li Lun can do this, and he’ll do it better than Zhu Yan ever did. See if he lets anyone he cares about die in this world.