Chapter Text
Luo Binghe had been running for quite some time… He was tired, so tired he could see his shixiongs catching up to him. He was slower now as he carried a large load of firewood for the peak on his back. He didn’t want to drop it, because if he did Shen Qingqiu would beat the everliving shit out of him more than his shixiongs would.
He tripped over a rock. His head struck a statue, and his body fell against the soft snow as the logs of firewood on his back scattered.
Ming Fan, the head disciple, laughed, and Luo Binghe tried gathering the firewood in his arms before they could soak up the snow and not be usable anymore. Ming Fan put his heel onto the poor boy’s forehead, examining how Luo Binghe’s chest heaved and nose bled. Ming Fan enjoyed this. He enjoyed the feeling of power, of dominance, of a pathetic little boy under his piercing gaze.
Luo Binghe whimpered as he kicked him in the stomach with a force he didn’t know how to describe other than pain.
“You really think you’re good enough to be on this peak? You’re a dirty, worthless, wretched little mut… You’re the runt of the litter, and there’s only enough for the ones that shizun intended to keep. You’re just a play thing for him, someone to trample and look down upon when he has the time.”
Luo Binghe looked down, trying to fight the tears. He knew they were right.
Luo Binghe’s robes were tattered and burnt at the edges. His face was almost always black and blue. No matter how weak the shixiongs were, he was much weaker. What was he gonna do about it? He had trouble catching up to his shixiongs and shijie. He couldn’t hold up against a fight, and he couldn’t even light a fire or regulate his temperature. This peak wasn’t even about how powerful you could get, and he was still falling behind!
Ming Fan spat in his face and laughed, grabbing a piece of firewood and intentionally warming his hands to melt the space around it. “This is useless now, it’s sopping wet with snow!! You dare present this to our shizun?!”
Luo Binghe muttered something under his breath.
“What was that, runt?” Ming Fan snapped.
Luo Binghe, in a rare fit of rage, yelled, “I SAID IT WOULDN’T BE LIKE THAT IF YOU HADN’T RUINED EVERYTHING!!!”
He covered his mouth, then moved his arms to shield himself. “No no no no no no no! Shixiong, I-I-I-I did not mean to, please!” he stammered.
But Ming Fan smirked and looked around him. His friends had finally caught up.
Around two hours later, Ming Fan was walking off with his friends, laughing hysterically. Luo Binghe turned over so his face wasn’t buried into the snow. Gods, he was pathetic. He was truly the most useless boy on Cang Qiong Mountain. He didn’t deserve to even look at such a prominent sect.
He looked up at the statue he had first hit his head on, planning to talk to it, finally wanting to express his feelings. Whatever those feelings were, he still didn’t know. Were they a betrayal? Hate? Jealousy? Pettiness? Was it sadness?
Though as he looked up, he felt his anger start to dissipate.
The man had a face much like his shizun’s. It was scholarly. His hair was long, but this man had a playful smile, a look that would never grace his own shizun’s face. He held out a fan to shield anyone standing under him from the sun, or in Luo Binghe’s case, snow.
This man was one of the original founders of Cang Qiong Mountain: Shen Yuan.
The story goes that three men started their cultivation journey as friends. All three of them were immortal masters. One was a scholar. Though instead of staying aloof and indifferent, he was curious, and he filled the library with the endless expanse of knowledge that he had procured over his time as a peak lord. This one was Shen Yuan.
The other one was a master of diplomacy and literature. His name was Xiang Fei. His words wound spirals against his enemies, both disarming and influencing them to have his way. His goal was to create a book to be read by the masses and bring people together. The two were a dynamic duo of old friends.
The third was chosen to be forgotten out of pure shame. He was the reason that the heavenly demons had come to be. He enticed half of the heavenly population of Gods to do his bidding. They were young in their power, so it was easy. All they needed was the promise of dominance over all three realms, and they happily did his bidding. He brought them down, planning to take their place, but he was vanquished with utmost efficiency by the other two.
Shen Yuan and Xiang Fei, however, were too late. The heavenly beings had fallen, and the heavenly Gods who remained punished their fallen comrades and turned them into Heavenly Demons. Though there are many versions to the story, this one was the most memorable: a scholar, a diplomat, and a warrior…
Luo Binghe kept staring at the statue.
He had heard stories about the man and even read some too. Some in particular that caught his eye were the stories of Shen Yuan’s care for his students. Luo Binghe discovered these when he was reading alongside his classmates. The texts read that just because two of Shen Yuan’s disciples complained about the sun being too bright, he used his spiritual energy to create bamboo so it would shelter them.
Another one stated that every meal he fed his students, he imbued it with his own spiritual energy, hoping that it would help them learn compassion and the importance of equality. That this man would often force his students to stop studying or practising, often taking them down the peak for shopping, which sounded an awful lot like he wanted to go shopping but needed an excuse.
Luo Binghe studied the man. He often wished his shizun was more like him—kinder, softer, all about making sure his students grew up to be functioning members of society.
Luo Binghe shuddered, finally snapping back into reality and remembering the harsh winter cold. His thin robes were barely holding together now. It was not meant to survive an entire winter.
He leaned against the statue. “I apologise, Sect Founder. I hope you do not mind.”
He planned to rest his eyes just for a short while, and later he would cut up some more firewood. Though there was a small rhythmic chime in his mind, an unusual calm that made him fall deep into sleep.
Soon, cracks started to appear on the man’s serene face as he twitched. His eyes fluttered, shaking away the dust, and his robes fluttered down from their paused state in the air, like a butterfly coming out of its cocoon.
Shen Yuan bent his back in relief. “Oh! God, that feels good!”
Shen Yuan looked around him… okay, he was still alive. He was still on Qing Jing Peak… probably.
Suddenly, the very annoying chime of the system rebooting and waking up rang in his ear. “Hello, user! Welcome to present time Qing Jing Peak! You have been hibernating for—”
The system paused as it started calculating.
“30,000 years!”
Shen Yuan rolled his eyes and muttered, “Inform me of the current events,” as he fanned himself.
“Shen Qingqiu is the current Qing Jing Peak Immortal Master. Protagonist Luo Binghe arrived four years ago. User Xiang Fei is still asleep. Would the user like to wake him up?”
Shen Yuan paused. “Say that again, system?”
“User Xiang Fei is still asleep,” the system replied.
“No, not that. I couldn’t care less about that bumfuck author. I’m talking about Luo Binghe already arriving.”
“Yes, Luo Binghe. Protagonist. Disciple of Cang Qiong Mountain, more specifically Qing Jing Peak. Current age: fourteen years old.”
Shen Yuan glared at the system, grabbed it by its imaginary shoulders, and started to shake it violently. “YOU FUCKING PROMISED ME THAT ONCE LUO BINGHE ARRIVED I WOULD WAKE UP!!!”
“User is incorrect. The system promised that you would wake up once the protagonist makes contact. The protagonist had yet to touch you until today.”
Shen Yuan’s chest heaved in annoyance. Oh my fucking god, he was gonna kill this stupid system.
“Oh yeah? Then why didn’t I wake up earlier when they were beating the shit out of the poor little lotus?!”
“The system didn’t think the user wanted to be revealed in front of so many people.”
Shen Yuan took a minute to think before nodding, though he was still fuming, about to let out another barrage of curses at the system. The system, now knowing the extent of Shen Yuan’s bottomless rage pool, decided to disappear.
A few seconds later, Shen Yuan had calmed down partially and started scratching his head with the edge of his fan, trying to find where exactly this boy could be. Then he looked down.
The boy was sleeping at the base of Shen Yuan’s statue.
He sighed and looked over at him. He was battered—awfully. Nose bleeding, bruises blooming. Shen Yuan overloaded his body with spiritual energy, hoping that the boy’s split heritage of being half Heavenly Demon would still accept it and heal itself.
Shen Yuan held his breath, then relaxed as he saw the boy’s unblemished skin finally start to appear.
Shen Yuan used his powers to heat the space around Luo Binghe and dry up the firewood. He sighed and finally started manipulating the bamboo. Thankfully, the bamboo was still stock-full of the energy he fed them with when he first started building the sect, and they turned into a wall of protection thick enough that no other disciple would be able to peek through.
As he looked over his work, feeling satisfied, Shen Yuan decided it was about time he turned back into a statue before Luo Binghe woke up.
When Luo Binghe awoke the next morning, he felt a familiar warmth overcome him. It felt like his mother’s arms as he nuzzled into the grass…?
Where did the snow go?
The atmosphere felt weird. It was warm, like summer, and felt refreshing.
He looked up at the statue, which was now smiling gently instead of playfully, this time looking Luo Binghe in the eye. He looked around, the bamboo surrounding him like a tight wall protecting his peace. Instantly, his eyes lit up in joy as he shot up and stood.
“Did you do this for me, Sect Founder? Were you the one protecting me?”
Shen Yuan had to hold himself back from revealing himself to Luo Binghe. This poor white lotus had finally found kindness and mercy through a statue, and he was so happy, so hopeful.
Though Shen Yuan didn’t have to hold himself back for long before Luo Binghe held himself back.
“Stupid Luo Binghe, it’s just a statue. You look like an idiot,” he reprimanded himself.
He stood, picked up the firewood, and reached the edge of the protective bamboo barrier. He looked back at the statue.
“May I pass?” he asked.
Suddenly, the bamboo shrank and led him through a straight path back to the main part of the peak. He laughed lightly and thanked the statue once more, running off and promising to come back with a stick of incense later on.
Shen Yuan relaxed himself. He certainly didn’t want to get killed later on by this protagonist when he was clearing the peak of all the people who had wronged him. So he had to come up with some kind of way to reveal himself and Xiang Fei without angering, scaring, or driving the boy away from his rightful role as the emperor of all three realms.
Suddenly, the system woke up once more.
“Congratulations! The user has raised the protagonist Luo Binghe’s satisfaction points by ten! Overall points standing at (100,010)!”
Shen Yuan waved the system off once more. He started looking through the achievements, wondering where all these points came from.
Start your own sect plus (1,000) B-points!
Gathering allies and meeting other the transmigrator plus (10,000) B-points!
Enrolled disciples plus (5,000) B-points!
Miscellaneous quests and beast slaying plus (30,000) B-points!
(50) per foe!
Uncover martial brother’s plans plus (40,000) B-points!
Defeat martial brother plus (50,000) B-points!
Minus (36,000) points to go into hibernation.
The protagonist’s mood was raised plus (10) protagonist satisfaction points!
Shen Yuan sighed. So everything did pay off…
As for the boy, he no doubt still harbored no hate or malice in his heart, but he certainly needed some care. Originally, he planned to take over Shen Qingqiu before he could try and hurt Binghe. Though now that he was too late, he decided to just try his best any way he could.
After a few hours, he could sense that Luo Binghe had finished his studies and was coming to the clearing to visit Shen Yuan.
When Luo Binghe arrived, Shen Yuan was back to being a stone statue, and Luo Binghe rested his manual against Shen Yuan’s base, lit an incense stick for him, and started practicing.
“I hope you don’t mind, Sect Founder.”
As Shen Yuan watched the boy, he saw that obviously he was doing everything wrong. He turned his gaze toward the manual. Wrong colour, shape, texture, and type of paper… Seriously, if you’re gonna rip me off, at least make it believable!
He also knew that the protagonist wouldn’t be someone so hard to teach, so he asked the system, “System, am I able to move? You know, kinda just like an entity! You know, a statue filled with so much of the founder’s spiritual energy it can move!”
The system was silent for a while before showing a thumbs up on a screen.
Luo Binghe heard the scraping of stone as Shen Yuan stiffly and slowly tried to seem as lifeless as possible, starting to pose in the first sword position. Luo Binghe followed as Shen Yuan posed and struck at the air, all one hundred of the correct poses and sword stances.
Luo Binghe was delighted! He finally started to build some structure.
Suddenly, he watched as the statue stood still and reached into its sleeve.
It was a cultivation manual!
Shen Yuan had quickly written this while Luo Binghe was away. It contained all the original stances and some of the new ones.
Luo Binghe shuddered as he took the cultivation manual from the statue. He turned around and started jumping in place excitedly before calming down, bowing from the waist to the statue, and saying, “Th-thank you, statue of Immortal Master Shen. This one greatly appreciates all that you do for him!”
Before he left the small clearing where Shen Yuan resided, he said, “This one will come back later with a stick of incense and a food offering!”
Then he ran off.
The system let out a happy chime.
“Congratulations! The user has collected another disciple! Plus one hundred B-points. Protagonist satisfaction points up by (200) points! Overall points now stand at (100,310)! Keep up the good work!”