Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Everything started with a qi deviation, even if he didn’t know that at the time.

Yue Qingyuan had decided to visit Shen Qingqiu that day, but his Shidi came up with a qi–deviation–induced fever not long into their usual argument. Yue Qi led him to his bed and called Mu Shidi, who calmed his meridians and left them in the bamboo house, saying that the unconscious man should wake up soon.

Xiao Jiu’s eyes started moving behind his eyelids about a sichen later. Yue Qingyuan, who was sitting next to the bed, asked, “Shidi? Shidi, can you hear me?”

The younger Peak Lord shuddered and opened his eyes all of a sudden. He looked everywhere around, as if he was trying to examine his surroundings, but as soon as he saw Yue Qingyuan, his body seemed to relax a little. “Yue–?”

He froze for a second. Then, he reached for his fan and started waving it lightly.

The familiar gesture sent joy all throughout Yue Qi. “Shidi finally woke up,” he said warmly. “Do you have any discomfort?”

“Nothing too bad,” Xiao Jiu answered. “This is the bamboo house, isn’t it?”

He cocked his head, confused by the question. “Did you sleep yourself into a trance? Of course this is your bamboo house.”

The younger man closed his eyes tightly and heaved a sigh. After that, his expression grew a little more alert. “Why… why was I asleep for so long?”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you. You were in perfect health, so how did you suddenly come down with a high fever? I know that with the Immortal Alliance Conference approaching, you’ve been training your disciples and are anxious to see results. But with Cang Qiong Mountain being such a well-established and renowned sect, even if one of our own didn’t attend this time, no one would dare question us. Why concern yourself with empty words?”

“I–” Xiao Jiu bit his lip, a gesture he used to make whenever he got lost in a conversation and was trying to come up with something to say.

How curious. Yue Qi hadn’t seen him do that since they were kids.

The younger man seemed clearly confused. Perhaps that qi deviation had been worse than they had suspected. The sect leader purposely softened his voice. “Qingqiu–shidi, are you sure you’re fine?”

Xiao Jiu cradled his head between his hands. “I don’t know,” he confessed, with a sincerity that Yue Qi wasn’t expecting. “Where is Shang Qinghua?”

Yue Qingyuan paused, giving him a strange look. “He’s out of the mountain at the moment. Remember those supplies Wei Shidi told us about during the last Peak Lord meeting? Shang Shidi had to go buy them personally, given how rare they were.”

“Oh,” Xiao Jiu said. “Okay. Can you– can you tell him to come to Qing Jing Peak as soon as he’s back? There’s something I need to tell him.”

“Alright.” Yue Qi gave in to the urge to put his hand on his shidi’s shoulder. To his surprise, Xiao Jiu melted into it. “Shixiong will take care of it.”

“I know you will.”

The situation in Qing Jing Peak changed so drastically during the next few months that everybody and their mother was convinced that Shen Qingqiu had been possessed. Shang Qinghua had come back at some point, and was reportedly seen leaving the bamboo house while mumbling nonsense about a book, a harem, plants with magical properties, some kind of plan, a pickle jar, and… cucumbers?

Since then, both Peak Lords, whose personalities couldn’t have been more different not so long ago, became best friends.

The peak of scholars changed its teaching methods overnight. Some Hallmasters were fired, new ones came by, boys and girls suddenly shared some classes, and everybody’s schedules were changed so that mornings were dedicated to the Four Arts and afternoons to martial practice, with two consecutive free days per week, in which only mundane labor around the peak –like chopping wood, collecting water, or cooking– was expected. It was quite similar to the schedules that An Ding Peak had implemented ever since Shang Shidi became its Peak Lord, but it was so sudden that Wei Shidi felt the need to ask Shen Shidi to visit Wan Jian Peak and convinced the man to try and pull Hong Jing from its sheath without looking suspicious.

Shen Qingqiu seemed to be more relaxed around just about everyone. He was more pleasant to Yue Qingyan himself, but the sect leader knew him enough to see the hesitation behind every gesture his shidi made whenever he visited Qing Jing. It was– it was almost as if he was scared of Yue Qingyuan. Somehow, it hurt more than the anger. At least he was used to the anger.

His third visit ever since the qi deviation was stunted at best. Xiao Jiu seemed as pleasant as the two last ones, but his hands shook so much that he almost spilled his tea cup on more than one occasion. Yue Qingyuan eventually excused himself and walked out of the bamboo house, feeling dejected.

He was surprised to find Luo Binghe walking towards the door when he opened it.

The boy also looked surprised, but he recovered soon enough and bowed. “Zhangmen Shibo!” He greeted him brightly. “Were you visiting Shizun?”

Yue Qingyuan studied the boy for a moment. He looked better cared for than the man had ever seen him. His curly hair was glowing, no longer matted, and part of his wild ponytail had been braided. His face was finally filling out after about four years in the sect, and his movements lacked the usual body discomforts he had usually carried, as if he hadn’t been beaten in several weeks at the very least.

“I was,” Yue Qingyuan told the boy. “Your Shizun has… changed, lately. Hasn’t he?”

Luo Binghe sent him the smile of someone who knew something he didn’t. “Almost as if he were a completely different person, right?”

“...that’s what most of the sect has been saying,” Yue Qingyuan allowed.

“Mn. Shizun has certainly changed since his qi deviation. What is more, ever since the mission against that skinner demon, it is as if he’s been more… more himself , you know, Shibo?” The disciple started idly playing with a jade guanyin around his neck that Yue Qi hadn’t seen before. “Almost as if he’s been allowed to act more like himself. This disciple hopes that the change hasn’t disappointed Shibo?”

“It hasn’t,” Yue Qingyuan answered immediately. Sure, he was saddened that their relationship had seemed to become even more stilted, but Xiao Jiu had been more relaxed ever since that last qi deviation, and he would always put the other man’s comfort over his own feelings. It was the least he deserved after Yue Qi’s failure to keep his promise.

Luo Binghe’s smile turned more sincere. “This one is glad to hear that. Bidding Shibo goodbye!”

The sect leader saw the disciple get inside the bamboo house and close the door behind him with curiosity. When Luo Binghe’s bright ‘Shizun, I’m home!’ got to his ears, he couldn’t help but smile. The poor kid had suffered too much, it was nice that Xiao Jiu had finally warmed up to him.

Even if the way Luo Binghe had spoken right now had seemed full of riddles.

Chapter Text

Several months after Shen Qingqiu’s qi deviation, Yue Qingyuan landed on Qian Cao Peak with a sonic boom and opened the clinic’s door with his foot.

“Xiao Jiu!”

The man raised his head as soon as he heard the first name he’d ever had, but for once, he didn’t protest its use. He was sitting on the floor with his back against a wall, his hands interlocked as if in prayer, and tears were streaming down his face.

Yue Qingyuan sighed in relief when he saw him. This was a private wing of the hospital, one that only Peak Lords and their families could access –the fact that there were exactly 12 private rooms here was telling enough–, so when he heard that Shen Qingqiu had been brought there, he had feared the worst.

He knelt in front of his shidi. “Xiao–”

“Don’t call me that!” The younger man yelled before burying his face in the sect leader’s chest. “Yue–gege…”

“Shh, it’s okay,” Yue Qi said, something inside him fluttering at the new nickname. “What happened?”

“Demon invasion,” he started. “In Qiong Ding Peak. I thought I had it under control, b–but…”

“From what I heard, you had it under control,” he praised. “You protected my peak while I was away. There weren’t any mortal casualties. That’s impressive, considering the circumstances.”

Xiao Jiu shook his head. “But he’s poisoned.”

“What happened, exactly?”

“Sha Hualing agreed to retrieve her troops if we had a competition. Three matches between one member of the sect and one demon,” he explained. “Last match was between Binghe and a demon warrior whose hammer and armor had been coated with the Without–A–Cure poison.”

Yue Qingyuan didn’t like where this was going. “Did he lose?”

When Xiao Jiu raised his face from the older man’s chest, his expression was outraged. “Of course not! But Elder Sky Hammer was a sore loser, so he tried to attack him when his back was turned. I tried to protect him, but…”

Something in his tone sent chills down Yue Qi’s spine. “What did you try to do?”

“I– I wasn’t going to let those demons bully my disciples!”

“Xiao Jiu–”

“Not my name!”

“Qingqiu Shidi, did you try to take the brunt of the attack?!”

“I only wanted Binghe to be okay!” He yelled, more tears welling up in his eyes. “But he pushed me aside! So he’s the one who’s been poisoned! And I don’t know– The poison is mortal for humans, but demons are immune to it. I don’t know what will happen, Yue–gege. What if Mu Shidi finds…? I– I’m scared.”

He hugged Xiao Jiu, and was relieved when his shidi relaxed against him.

“It will be fine,” he said. “Whatever happens, Luo Binghe will be fine.”

“You keep making promises you have no way of fulfilling.”

It was said almost jokingly, but Yue Qi froze nonetheless. Xiao Jiu ended the hug, his face surprisingly worried, but a door opened behind him at that moment.

Mu Shidi came out of it. “Zhangmen–shixiong, it is nice to see you back,” he greeted. “Shen Shixiong. Luo Binghe is awake.”

Xiao Jiu stood up immediately. “How is he?”

“Not poisoned.”

“I beg your finest pardon?”

Mu Qingfang shook his head. “The demons were clearly lying. Either those spikes weren’t poisoned, or it was a kind of poison that was lethal to humans, but not cultivators. There wasn’t any poison in Luo Binghe’s system when this healer examined him.”

Xiao Jiu’s sigh of relief shook his entire body. “Can I see him?”

“Of course. He has been asking for you, in fact.”

That made him smile. He turned to Yue Qi and patted his shoulder. “Thank you for the support, Zhangmen–shixiong. I– I’ll go see my disciple.”

He closed the room’s door behind him, leaving Yue Qingyuan alone with Mu Shidi.

Yue Qingyuan was peer pressured into asking for a private meeting on Qiong Ding Peak not long after it had been repaired.

It was about Shen Qingqiu.

“Do you feel that Shen Shixiong...has been very odd these past few months?” Wei Qingwei  asked, completely focused on the topic.

Several peak lords agreed.

“More than just odd,” said Liu Qingge in a solemn tone.

“He’s practically a whole different person,” muttered Qi Qingqi, a dead ringer to what Luo Binghe had said several months ago.

Just then, Shang Qinghua stepped into the side hall, worn and weary from travel. “I’m back! Sorry for being late! Uh… Care to explain why we’re having a Peak Lord meeting without Shen Shixiong?”

“Because it is about Shen Shixiong,” Qi Qingqi hissed.

“Oh?”

Yue Qingyuan sighed. “Everyone seems to agree that he has been acting strange. I also agree, seeing as he’s had more than one calm and harmonious conversation with me for more than two hours.”

“That is odd,” Shang Qinghua admitted.

“In the Ling Xi Caves, he...helped me,” said Liu Qingge. “And then he asked me to train his Head Disciple as compensation!”

“Oh, so he managed to…?” Shang Shidi started, before coughing. “Sorry. Still weary from my travels. You have no idea how glad I am to see you today, Liu Shidi.”

“...thank you?”

Shang Qinghua knew something, Yue Qingyuan immediately noticed. This made it two people who might know what had happened to Xiao Jiu, if he counted Luo Binghe.

The other peak lords continued to list Shen Qingqiu’s every behavioral oddity over the last few months. “Sustaining injury while beating back an impetuous demoness” this, “stepping forward to protect his disciples and showing care and concern when his disciples were injured” that... Shang Qinghua’s face began to twitch.

He definitely knew something, Yue Qi was sure of it now. Still, he tried to diffuse the situation, “He couldn’t have been possessed. Wei Shidi, didn’t he visit your sword trials terrace right after his qi deviation?”

Wei Qingwei nodded. “He went three times and tried to draw Hong Jing every one, and there was absolutely no sign of movement.”

“There is no demonic energy in his body,” Yue Qingyuan agreed slowly. “I could detect no signs that he has been possessed.”

Qi Qingqi spread her hands. “I guess it doesn’t make any sense for him to be possessed. Possession at least involves some sort of goal. But he hasn’t been doing anything; he’s even more idle than before.”

“Qing Jing Peak has never been managed better,” Yue Qingyuan felt the urge to defend. For some reason, it made Shang Qinghua smile.

After the discussion session, they remained unable to reach a decision.

In the end, Mu Qingfang said, “It’s not necessarily a case of possession. In my opinion, perhaps it was the qi deviation.” Everyone exchanged a glance. “I have heard of quite a few such cases. When a person suffers a violent shock, sometimes they lose a few of their memories of the past. So, it’s not necessarily impossible for someone to fall into a qi deviation and forget their past, thus leading to their temperament to undergo major changes.”

“Then is it possible to recover?” Yue Qingyuan asked.

Qi Qingqi wrinkled her nose. “Zhangmen-shixiong, do you actually hope he’ll remember and recover his previous...character and conduct?”

Did he hope that Xiao Jiu would go back to feeling like everyone was out to get him? Of course not, he had seen first hand how kindly and calmly this new version of him acted and felt glad for it. But he had also seen the little moments. Xiao Jiu being scared whenever Yue Qi appeared, his fidgeting during the last few Peak Lord meetings (how he remained close to Shang Qinghua for the majority of them), or the way the younger man sometimes looked up at the sky and it was as if a mask slipped, revealing someone who was terrified underneath his idle exterior.

Could it be that, while he didn’t remember his trauma, his body did? That he felt constantly scared, but didn’t understand why?

He sighed. “Me? I cannot say.” When he continued, it was earnestly, “Even though the way he is now is overall very good as well... If he can remember, it will be for the better.”

Shang Qinghua sent him a nasty look for half a second, until he seemed to remember his manners and stared resolutely at the floor.

“Before, he never offered a proper greeting when he met Zhangmen-shixiong or his fellow sect members,” one of the other peak lords said in confusion. “He never visited us at our homes, and when he spoke, it was all needles concealed in silk floss, full of biting sarcasm—what was good about that? The way he is now is quite an improvement.”

Yue Qingyuan smiled faintly, but he did not speak. Was being scared better than being angry? For the other peak lords, maybe. But was it actually better for Xiao Jiu?

Having reached the verdict, “The Qing Jing Peak Lord has lost his memory; celebrate and spread the joyful news,” the meeting adjourned. Yue Qingyuan went back to his house to sulk.

Chapter Text

The oddities continued. Luo Binghe started training directly under Liu Shidi’s tutelage some days of the week, even though he continued being a Qing Jing disciple. Both of them eventually suffered the attack of a dream demon, which made them all the closer. Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua started to obsess with sharing as much information about the Endless Abyss with the rest of the sect as possible, especially with the disciples. Luo Binghe continued living in the bamboo house, and he sent Yue Qingyuan a smirk every time he visited that wasn’t precisely respectful, but he let it go every time because the disciple knew when to give him time alone with his master. Shen Qingqiu started opening up around him, finally confessing that he was terrified of the upcoming Immortal Alliance Conference, but that he felt the need to attend it.

The ride to the conference itself was peaceful. Xiao Jiu had started it by telling Shang Qinghua something about carriage riding and flying on swords, which made the An Ding Peak Lord groan and start an argument with his friend that seemed to be well rehearsed between them by now. After that, Xiao Jiu had taken a carriage by himself and snarked with Qi Qingqi and Liu Mingyan for a while, which ended with him sharing the carriage with the two girls.

He set Luo Binghe aside as soon as they arrived at the Jue Di Gorge and gave him what looked like a lot of pointers, which the boy took in stride and with several nods. Once the disciples were away, he convinced Yue Qingyuan to give him a thousand spirit stones so that he could bet them on his favorite disciple, which had several reactions: Shang Qinghua laughed, Liu Qingge rolled his eyes but didn’t complain, Qi Qingqi seemed unable to decide between being scandalized and amused, and the Old Palace Master looked like he had eaten something foul.

Then, demons attacked the Immortal Alliance Conference.

Xiao Jiu, like the master of strategy he was, said that they couldn’t open the barrier, or the monsters trapped inside it would escape and attack the nearby villages. So they had to get inside themselves.

After saying that, he mounted on Xiu Ya and did exactly that.

Yue Qingyuan followed, mounting on his secondary sword, and everyone else did the same. He helped several disciples from all sects and killed his fair share of monsters, but an earthquake made him fall down while he was fighting a Black Moon Rhinoceros Python. The beast took the opportunity to stomp on him, but he rolled out of the way. At the same time, a flash of silver descended on the monster, which flew back several miles.

Liu Qingge was next to him right away. “Zhangmen–shixiong!”

“Liu Shidi, it’s so nice to see you,” he said, taking the offered hand and standing up. “Did you notice that earthquake?”

He nodded. “There’s an especially big concentration of demonic power some distance away, but perhaps we should kill this beast before we investigate.”

“I agree.”

Just like that, they turned back towards their enemy.

Most of the repressive demonic energy disappeared with another earthquake, which found both peak lords in the air. Still, they approached the place where it had happened, and gasped when they saw what was there.

It was Shen Qingqiu, kneeling in the middle of a partially–frozen clearing. He was frantically collecting the broken shards of a spiritual sword, apparently not noticing how his hands were bleeding. Shang Qinghua was nearby, crawling towards his shixiong while coughing up blood.

“Shidi!” Yue Qingyuan screamed immediately. He landed behind Shen Qingqiu, got on his knees and hugged him, putting a hand on his chest and starting to give him qi. “You’re fine. You’re fine, aren’t you?”

“Yue–?” A sob broke through Shen Qingqiu’s throat. “Sorry. I–”

“What happened?” Liu Qingge asked. He was next to Shang Qinghua, transferring him qi with a hand on his back.

“He jumped.”

Yue Qingyuan exchanged a glance with Liu Shidi, confused. To their surprise, Shang Qinghua let out a laugh, although it sounded hysterical. “The absolute madman. He jumped !”

“Shut up, Airplane.”

“Xiao Jiu?” Yue Qi asked softly. “What is this about a jump? What…?”

“Luo Binghe,” was Xiao Jiu’s answer. “He… he jumped into the Endless Abyss.”

Liu Qingge dropped Shang Qinghua in surprise. “He what?!”

“I don’t know!” Xiao Jiu screamed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen! I– He asked me to tell you something, Shidi.”

“ Me ?”

A nod. “He said that he will be back,” the Qing Jing Peak Lord told a baffled Liu Qingge. “And that, once he’s back, he will court you, if you accept his suit.”

Yue Qingyuan’s qi got stunted in surprise, and he had to stop his qi transfer. It didn’t help that Shen Qingqiu had stood up, several fragments of Zheng Yang still cutting his hands.

Liu Qingge’s eyes widened, but he blushed. “W–What?”

“How dare you seduce my disciple?!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

Despite being clearly hurt, Shen Qingqiu took Xiu Ya from the floor and ran towards Liu Qingge. The Bai Zhan War God let out a frightened scream and ran away from him. In the meantime, Shang Qinghua continued laughing.

Yue Qingyuan put a hand on his face. What on earth was happening?

That year’s Immortal Alliance Conference was a greater disaster than nearly any since its inception.

Over a thousand new talents from every sect had participated in the conference. Of the four great sects, the members of Zhao Hua Monastery, who’d focused on supporting the barrier spell, had luckily been spared, while Huan Hua Palace had suffered the greatest losses, to the tune of nearly a hundred participants. Cang Qiong Mountain had taken the least damage, with only twenty or so injured, and fortunately no casualties other than Luo Binghe.

The newcomers with low skill and meager cultivation largely hailed from the other assorted sects and clans. This was the group that had been hit hardest and taken the most casualties.

Getting your name on the gold-inscribed tablet should have been a joyous occasion, but this year, many of the people listed on that tablet had perished in Jue Di Gorge. Most heartbreaking of all was the first-ranked name, high at the top of the list—a member of Cang Qiong Mountain’s Qing Jing Peak and Shen Qingqiu’s beloved disciple, Luo Binghe, deceased, his sword broken.

At least, that’s what they had told everyone. Liu Qingge had taken the news the hardest, once the other sect leaders and cultivators arrived and Shen Qingqiu was forced to stop chasing his shidi if he wanted to save face. He had said that Luo Binghe had died fighting the demons, not a single mention of the Endless Abyss in his speech. Once he finished his tale, there were those who sighed in pity, those who were stunned, those who were sorrowful, and those who rejoiced in the misfortune of others. Ning Yingying burst into wailing tears on the spot.

And the light on Liu Qingge’s face extinguished.

It must have been hard to hear the final words of someone you loved and learn in that moment that they loved you back. Because it was clear as day that Liu Shidi felt something for Luo Shizhi, if the way he acted after the conference was anything to go by.

He helped Shen Qingqiu retrieve Zheng Yang’s fragments. Once back at the sect, both of them asked Wei Qingwei to reforge the sword, and then buried it on Qing Jing ground and created a memorial over it.

But it wasn’t Shen Qingqiu who was wasting away. No, Luo Binghe’s master seemed convinced by Luo Binghe’s promise to come back. He was so adamantly optimistic despite all evidence pointing to the contrary that Yue Qingyuan didn’t have the heart to say anything. Was this how he had acted all those years ago, when Yue Qi had promised that he would rescue him from the Qius? How long would it take until he realized that Luo Binghe, like his Qi–ge all those years ago, was unable to come back? How long until the light in his eyes disappeared, just like the light in Liu Qingge’s did? Or even worse, until he finally remembered what a cruel place this world was?

Suddenly, Yue Qi was not so sure he wanted Xiao Jiu to have his memories back.

That was what he’d been thinking when he arrived at a Peak Lord meeting in Qiong Ding, two years later. Thanks in part to Shen Qingqiu’s help, Liu Qingge did no longer spend most of his days kneeling in front of Luo Binghe’s memorial, but instead was back at only stopping at the sect every couple of months, like he used to do before Shen Qingqiu saved him in the Lingxi Caves. Case in point, he was currently on a night hunt some villages away, so he wouldn’t be attending this particular meeting. 

The meeting room was almost deserted. Only Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua were there, so busy whispering among themselves that he hadn’t noticed Yue Qingyuan yet.

“–is back online,” Shen Qingqiu was saying.

“What do you mean it’s back online?!” Shang Qinghua’s voice sounded almost scandalized. “It’s three years too early! Did my son speedrun the fucking–”

“He’s not your son! But it’d make sense, considering everything he knew this time,” Shen Qingqiu interrupted the question. “You should find an excuse to stay with your boyfriend for a couple of days, just in case Binghe kills him instead of securing his alliance.”

“He’s not my– Why would Luo Binghe kill my King?!”

“Their first meeting wasn’t precisely friendly.”

“ Fuck .”

Yue Qingyuan walked into the room, confused. His shidis jumped out of their skin as soon as they noticed his movements, and they bowed with twin greetings to him. He inclined his head toward them.

“Shang Shidi, Qingqiu Shidi,” he returned the greeting. “Were you… speaking about Luo Binghe?”

They exchanged a glance.

“We– think that he might be back from the Abyss,” Shen Qingqiu shared.

“Shidi, he is– How can you be so sure of that?”

He almost took his question back when Xiao Jiu’s face morphed until it only showed pure fear. Yue Qingyuan had seen the mask he had been using ever since his qi deviation crack several times before, but this was the first time that it disappeared completely, leaving his shidi absolutely terrified.

But that wasn't what surprised him. Next to Shen Qingqiu, Shang Qinghua’s face reflected the same deep fear as his shixiong. Except that this expression wasn’t a novelty on this man’s face. Yue Qingyuan was actually used to seeing it, ever since his disciple days.

Whatever had been haunting Shang Qinghua since he came to the sect, Shen Qingqiu knew about it now. Perhaps that’s why he had asked after the An Ding Peak Lord as soon as he woke up from his qi deviation. Maybe that was the reason behind his qi deviation.

As expected, Xiao Jiu was the first one to recover. “I just had a feeling, is all. Forget it, please. And don’t tell Liu Shidi. If it turns out that Binghe’s not really back and he gets his hopes up–”

“I won’t tell Liu Shidi.” He put a hand on Xiao Jiu’s shoulder. “You know that you can trust me with anything, right?”

The younger man hid his mouth behind his open fan. “This is not a matter of trust, Zhangmen–shixiong. It is a matter of patience. But… thank you. For your support.”

He smiled softly. “Any time.”

Chapter Text

The disaster in Jin Lan City happened a year after that.

Everything had started because the sowers who had attacked the city had referred to Shen Qingqiu as their master. This had incensed the Old Palace Master, who soon turned everyone against the Cang Qiong delegation. To add insult to injury, Luo Binghe was indeed alive, but he had been spending some time in Huan Hua Palace for some reason. What was more, several Huan Hua disciples seemed sure that Shen Qingqiu had been mistreating his disciple for the entire time he had spent in Cang Qiong, which everyone in the sect knew wasn’t true, but it was difficult to convince people outside of it.

“It’s really you? Shen Qingqiu, didn’t you say he died?” Qi Qingqi said in disbelief. She looked at Luo Binghe again. “Since you’re alive, why didn’t you return to Qing Jing Peak? Don’t you know that because of you, your Shizun and Liu Shishu were out of—”

Liu Qingge elbowed her so hard that she almost fell down, while Shen Qingqiu coughed violently. They probably didn’t want the entire cultivation world to hear that they had been ‘out of their minds with grief.’

“This is exactly what’s so inexplicable,” the Old Palace Master persisted. “He plainly did not die, so why did you insist that he did? And why was he not willing to return when he apparently had the option to do so?”

“I thought he was dead!” Shen Qingqiu all but yelled, incensed. He started fanning himself when everyone stared. “If he wasn’t willing to return, there’s nothing I could do. He may come and go freely as he pleases; it’s all up to him. If the Palace Master wishes to say something, please say it outright.”

The Old Palace Master smiled. “Peak Lord Shen knows what I wish to say, and anyone here with a clear mind must also understand by now. It’s true that these demonic sowers should be annihilated by fire, but if there was someone directing them from behind the scenes, exacerbating the situation, we certainly cannot let them get away with it. They absolutely must explain themselves to the whole of Jin Lan City.”

With these words, he successfully stoked the flames of hatred within the Jin Lan City survivors. Having just suffered a great calamity, they were already terrified and bitter, itching for a target at whom to direct their rage. Quite a few people began to raise their voices in a clamor.

“Shizun loathes evil,” said Luo Binghe. “He wouldn’t collude with demons for the sake of killing everyone in a city. No, he is far too kind and intelligent for something like this. If Shizun really wanted to collude with demons, he would do it for completely different purposes, and the cultivation world wouldn't know he was colluding with them until it was too late.”

Those ominous words hung around the plaza for several moments.

Shen Qingqiu cut the silence with a groan. “Luo Binghe, right now, are you a disciple of Qing Jing Peak or a member of Huan Hua Palace? Because, honestly–”

“Apologies, Shiz–”

The Old Palace Master’s sneer cut off Luo Binghe’s answer. “After all this, Peak Lord Shen is once again willing to recognize this disciple?”

The glare Luo Binghe sent the old man was scathing, but he didn’t see it because his back was to the youth.

“Once again? I never expelled him from my tutelage,” said Shen Qingqiu. “He is still willing to call me ‘Shizun,’ and I’m still willing to call him my disciple.”

Luo Binghe’s gaze flickered at that, and perhaps it was an illusion, but it seemed as if his eyes had somewhat cleared.

Within moments, the crowd had split into two defined camps. Sparks flew through the air, charged with the hostility of an imminent battle. As for the sowers who had instigated this conflict, they were now forgotten on the side. No longer did anyone care about how they were dealt with.

Then there came a woman’s sweetly charming voice. “Shen Jiu... Are you Shen Jiu?”

Yue Qingyuan’s eyes widened when he heard that name. He turned around, finding a familiar figure walking through the crowd. Where had he seen this woman before?

Xiao Jiu, who had been standing next to him, gripped his arm so hard that it hurt.

Yue Qingyuan said in a low voice, “Qingqiu, this young lady...is a former acquaintance of yours?”

“Former acquaintance?” The woman asked sorrowfully. And then, she knowtowed in front of Shen Qingqiu. “Shen Jiu, please, forgive me!”

Everyone gasped in surprise. Shang Qinghua let out a disbelieving laugh, and Xiao Jiu’s free hand shook when he opened his fan in front of his shocked face. On the other side of the crowd, the Old Palace Master looked angry, and Luo Binghe had his mouth curled into a shit–eating grin.

“I swore revenge so long ago!” The woman despaired. “And yet! I have been having dreams lately. Memories. About my brother. About you.”

Xiao Jiu was shaking. “Qiu Haitang, please don’t make a scene–”

Yue Qingyuan's head spun at that. Qiu Haitang? As in one of the Qius?

“Apologizing is the least I could do!” She continued. “My brother treated you so horribly, and– and I treated you like a plaything! I didn’t know, I was so blind to what was happening in my own house. Had I know that he was–”

“Oh, my gods.” Xiao Jiu walked towards her and helped her get up. “Qiu Haitang, you were a child! Of course you couldn’t know what was happening!”

She started crying. “But you were younger than me! You didn’t deserve–”

“I know! And I would like to forget it ever happened,” he said. “Which you’re not making particularly easy.”

“Oh. I just–”

“I know.” Xiao Jiu sighed. “Thank you. For taking my side. Even though it is too little, too late. But please, don’t look for me again. The kindest thing you could do for me after everything that happened is forget we ever knew each other.” He squeezed her shoulders. “And I’m sorry, too. For what I did to you.”

She shook her head. “It was self–defense.”

“Yet you almost got caught in the crossfire.”

“I–” She bit her lip. “Forgive and forget?”

“Yes.”

This strange conversation wasn’t enough to dissuade the Old Palace Master from the need to imprison Xiao Jiu.

“Sect Leader Yue, favoritism has no place when one deals with this kind of matter,” he said after a crying Qiu Haitang excused herself. “Otherwise, word may get out that a magnificent sect like Cang Qiong Mountain harbors such unsavory characters. How would you explain yourselves to the masses?”

Yue Qingyuan showed no reaction, even though he was internally seething. “So what is the Palace Master saying?”

“As I see it, let us make temporary arrangements for Immortal Master Shen in Huan Hua Palace. A decision can be made after the matter is thoroughly investigated. How about it?”

By arrangements, he clearly meant the Water Prison.

Liu Qingge moved to attack, but before he could do anything, Yue Qingyuan unsheathed his sword.

He was out of breath as soon as he did it, the pull on his very soul as agonizing as the day he chose Xuan Su. However, he persevered, and it had the intended effect of stopping everyone in their tracks until Xiao Jiu yelled.

“Wait! Qingqiu is willing to accept arrest.”

“But Xiao–”

Shen Qingqiu persisted, “Saying more will help no one. The truth will prove itself. Please, sheathe your sword.”

After he spoke, he avoided Yue Qingyuan’s face, but swept a glance at Luo Binghe. The sect leader found himself doing the same. 

He saw neither joy nor anger on that face; Luo Binghe stood steadily in place, cutting a clear contrast with the cultivators swaying and covering their ears all around him. It was the face of someone who was thinking, formulating a plan. It looked so much like Xiao Jiu’s own expression whenever he was met with a problem that he didn't know what to think.

After some time, he finally sheathed his sword. It felt as if he could breathe properly after being underwater.

Shen Qingqiu turned toward Yue Qingyuan and gave him a deep bow. A group of Huan Hua Palace disciples led by Gongyi Xiao walked up to them. The lengths in their hands were all too familiar.

Immortal Binding Cables.

“Senior Shen, my apologies,” said Gongyi Xiao, sounding honestly sorry. “This junior will treat you with due respect. Before the truth comes to light, I will not let you suffer any slight.”

Shen Qingqiu nodded, though he spoke only a couple of words in reply while the disciples tied him. “Thank you for your trouble.”

Luo Binghe spoke up. “Since this is clearly a political matter, wouldn’t it be better if another Peak Lord oversaw this whole arrangement?”

The Old Palace Master turned to him as fast as lighting. “What are you saying?!”

Luo Binghe shrugged, appearing nonchalant. Whatever plan he’d been formulating before, he clearly had a grip of it now. “There is absolutely no proof that those sowers were truly sent here by Shizun. They accused him, yes, but immortal cultivators do not tend to listen to a demon's testimony and believe it immediately. Why start now? Not to mention that the accusations about Shizun's character are only based on hearsay. This, mixed with the fact that Cang Qiong Mountain and Huan Hua Palace have an ages–old rivalry about who gets to be the head of the cultivation world, and the fact that this one is standing in Huan Hua's side despite being a Cang Qiong disciple, could make it so that Yue Zhangmen presented a case against Huan Hua Palace for defamation. Therefore, in order to ensure that this trial is as fair as possible, this disciple would like to propose the possibility of Yue Shibo overseeing Shizun’s temporary arrangements in Huan Hua Palace.”

The Old Palace Master was scowling, and everyone from Cang Qiong was smiling by now. Except Shang Qinghua, who started eating his nails. Shen Qingqiu exchanged a glance with the nervous man, and the worry that was left in the air after that gesture was so clear that Yue Qi could almost taste it.

It seemed like a sensible plan, why were they worried?

“The disciple is right,” Master Wu Cheng from Zhao Hua Monastery said. “We should listen to him.”

“But–”

“Luo Shizhi proves to have a sharp mind,” Yue Qingyuan spoke over the Old Palace Master. “This master agrees with his proposal.”

“...very well. We shall set the date of the trial to one month from now, what does everyone think?” said the Old Palace Master.

“Five days,” said Liu Qingge.

Well done, Shidi. The longer Shen Qingqiu was imprisoned in the Water Prison, the more various tortures he would have to bear. The five days Liu Qingge demanded was the least amount of time into which the preparation procedures for the trial could be compressed.

The Old Palace Master was, of course, unwilling to compromise. “If it is so hurried, I am afraid there will be many oversights.”

Zhao Hua Monastery were professional mediators. One of their masters suggested, “What about ten days?”

“Seven days,” said Yue Qingyuan with finality. “No longer.”

The threat of defamation still hung over everyone's heads, so they quickly agreed on seven days.

Chapter Text

Yue Qingyuan was given a carriage by himself, so he used the opportunity to ask Luo Binghe to ride with him. The disciple answered to the request with a nod and, after making sure that Shen Qingqiu and Gongxi Xiao were riding in the same carriage, sat down in front of Cang Qiong’s leader.

Yue Qi put a silencing talisman on the wall. “Luo Binghe, I am glad to see you again. Looks like I was, once again, the fool for not believing Qingqiu Shidi when he said you would be back.”

The disciple smiled softly. “He was sure I would come back. His certainty… kept me going, some days.”

“That is interesting, considering the rumors that no human can survive the Endless Abyss.” Luo Binghe’s eyes widened. “Relax, he only told Liu Shidi and me. And Shang Shidi, too, if he didn’t know about it before Qingqiu Shidi said it out loud. He said that you had jumped into the Abyss. Why…?”

“Shizun would have died otherwise.”

Yue Qingyuan’s mouth dried. He cleared his throat, and smiled almost reflexively. “Why was his life in danger in the first place?”

“He– Shibo, Shizun has wanted to tell you this for so long, but he can’t!” His eyes shone with unshed tears, and suddenly, Yue Qi found himself in front of Xiao Jiu’s favorite disciple. Not in front of the man he had grown into, but in front of the teenager who worshipped his Shizun’s every step. “There has been something controlling Shizun’s actions ever since his qi deviation when I was fourteen.”

“What?”

“I–” Luo Binghe shook his head. “I don’t know what it is. Shizun can’t speak about it directly, or it will kill him. But he can make allusions to it. He has been trying to tell me about it for years. It controls some of his actions under pain of death: cultivate in the Lingxi Caves at the same time as Liu Shishu, participate in Sha Hualing’s competition when those demons attacked Cang Qiong Mountain, throw me into the Endless Abyss. It probably made him allow himself to be arrested by the Old Palace Master, too. The sowers…” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t know where the sowers came from. I had to improvise.”

Despite his sudden desire to run out of the carriage and kidnap Xiao Jiu before he could be thrown in the Water Prison, all the muscles in Yue Qingyuan’s body froze. This explanation sounded like something only a crazy man would say, but at the same time, it resembled a curse. And Xiao Jiu had been terrified ever since that last qi deviation. He had thought that it had been due to his amnesia at first, but the conversation he’d had with Qiu Haitang today told him otherwise. He certainly remembered his past, so this could not be the reason behind his sudden change in personality.

This strange obedience curse, however…

“How do we free him?”

Luo Binghe sighed. “Whatever that thing is, it is not demonic in origin, and neither is it a heavenly being, but an interdimensional one instead. Getting rid of it might be as easy as stabbing it with the legendary sword Xin Mo, or as difficult as destroying its power source.”

“Luo Shizhi, how can you say that using Xin Mo would be easy? It hasn’t been seen for thousands of years.”

The young man laughed darkly, refusing to look him in the eye. “For some reason, I am its power source. Believe it or not, wielding Xin Mo is easier than stabbing myself through the chest. Besides, that thing probably has a way of ensuring I don’t die, so…”

“What do you mean you’re its power source?!”

“I don’t know!” He answered, putting his fists on his hips. “Shizun hasn't explained any of this directly! Most of what I’m saying are my own guesses! He never truly spoke about that thing’s power source, but from what I have gathered…”

“It is you.”

“Yes,” he said with a kind of venom that was clearly directed inwards. Then, he sighed. “I am on Shizun’s side, Shibo. I promise.”

“And I believe you,” Yue Qi said. “But why did you stay with Huan Hua Palace? You know that you still have a place in Cang Qiong, right?”

He nodded, a faint smile making way in his face. “I know. It was part of Shizun’s plan.”

“What plan?”

“He has a plan. Shang Shishu, too,” Luo Binghe explained. “He’s also a victim of whatever is controlling Shizun, but Shang Shishu has been in its clutches ever since he was a child. It is the main reason he went to Cang Qiong as a disciple in the first place, as far as I have gathered. They know things. Things that they shouldn’t know. And I think it’s because of this thing, but… they are trying to avoid dying, so they asked me for help because I am its power source. I have been trying to follow the plan ever since.”

Yue Qingyuan put a hand on the disciple’s shoulder. “Thank you for telling me this, Luo Shizhi. You were a kid; you shouldn’t have been burdened by all these expectations. But... thank you for helping Xiao– Qingqiu Shidi.”

Luo Binghe closed his eyes. Suddenly, he looked unbelievably tired. “Always.”

“Rest. I will be there,” the sect leader said. “I will help as much as I can, from now on.”

“Thank you, Yue Shibo.”

He deactivated the silencing talisman after the youth fell asleep. The rest of the ride was peaceful, and Yue Qi spent it meditating, with Luo Binghe’s soft breaths guiding his desperate thoughts about all the crazy revelations away from his mind.

After all, only one thing was important: two of his martial siblings were in danger. Xiao Jiu was in danger. And he wouldn’t fail him this time.

Chapter Text

He was given the best unoccupied room that Huan Hua Palace had to offer. It was the most luxurious space Yue Qingyuan had ever been in, his usual house on Qiong Ding Peak looking like a farmer’s hut by contrast. The furniture was decorated with gold and gemstones, the bed was so soft that he was sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep on it, and there were two kinds of pillows: the usual ceramic ones that could be found just about anywhere (even though these ones were of a higher quality than the ones on Cang Qiong), and the softer ones that Xiao Jiu had asked for right after his qi deviation.

He sat on the opulent chair in front of his opulent desk and started writing a letter to Shang Qinghua asking him to send someone with supplies for the next several days, mainly some changes of clothes and his best Peak Lord crowns. He wrote down a list of items, as well as where to find them, and then he made a separate letter to his unofficial Head Disciples to let them know what was going on and announce that they were in charge of the peak. He didn’t dare write anything about the current situation or his opinion of it, just in case anyone from Huan Hua read it in secret.

After the letters were sent, he had dinner with the Old Palace Master and his daughter. It was a tense affair, full of small talk and fake smiles. Fortunately for everyone involved, Yue Qi had mastered the art of fake smiling in his disciple days, since knowing how to disguise one’s true emotions was essential to be a good politician, and it is impossible to become Peak Lord of Qiong Ding if you are bad in debate class anyway. Perhaps that’s why one of his unofficial Head Disciples hated debate class with a passion.

After dinner, he drank the miracle cure that Shang Qinghua hid in his sleeve before he entered Huan Hua’s carriage, just in case anything he ate was poisoned. He had no idea how or why his shidi had a bottle full of a concoction made from Shining Flower of Divine Health just hanging around in the middle of Jin Lan City, but the fretful man had promised to send him more tomorrow morning.

He apparently had more than one potion of Shining Flower of Divine Health, which is said to flourish only once every hundred years. Perhaps Mu Shidi’s theory that Shang Shidi was some kind of seer held some truth to it, after all.

Or maybe it had to do with whatever being was controlling his acts.

He was deep in his musings about the mystery that the An Ding Peak Lord was on a good day –not to mention now, when he had just learned that the man was in some kind of complot with Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe– when someone knocked on his door.

He quickly hid the empty bottle back in his sleeve. “Come in.”

The door opened, and Luo Binghe stood on the threshold, alone. “Shibo! I need your help.”

He stood alert immediately. “What is it?”

“It’s Shizun. Do you have your Huan Hua hall pass with you?”

He nodded and showed the disciple the card that the Old Palace Master had given him at dinner. Luo Binghe sighed in relief. “Perfect. Begging Shibo to follow this one.”

He did. Luo Binghe rushed through countless identical halls that resembled a labyrinth. Yue Qingyuan attempted to memorize them at first, but this place had been clearly made to disorient just about anyone. In fact, he could feel a powerful array at work in the back of his mind, probably one designed to add to his confusion. He also felt that he would’ve been able to destroy it if needs must, but he had to play nice with his host for the time being.

He noticed it when they went inside the water prison. They suddenly stood on a narrow platform between two strange waterfalls, and Luo Binghe’s movements became more calculated.

“Be careful, Shibo,” he whispered. “The water here is really corrosive. It could dissolve our bodies without too much trouble.”

Yue Qingyuan swallowed a lump in his throat. “So this is Huan Hua Palace’s famous Water Prison…”

“Yes.”

They continued walking. Soon, the sounds of a fight picked up, and they rushed towards it.

It was an open ‘cell,’ if they could be called that. Inside of it, the Little Palace Mistress was raising a hand that held a whip, and right in front of it, cowering against a wall and with his eyes closed, was Shen Qingqiu.

Luo Binghe reacted before Yue Qi could do anything more than gasp. He gripped the whip's lash in his bare hand. Two masses of ghostly, pitch-black fire seemed to burn within his eyes, both cold and terrifying. “What are you doing?” he asked, enunciating each word, his voice frozen down to its core.

Shen Qingqiu opened his eyes and relaxed minutely as soon as he saw the scene. The Little Palace Mistress, on her part, clearly hadn’t noticed Luo Binghe appear and started in fright. She backed up several steps as she stammered, “I...I...I asked Daddy for the authorization pass so I could interrogate him for a bit...”

“The joint trial is in a week,” Luo Binghe said frostily.

She frowned. “He’s hurt so many of my shixiong and shijie—so many!” she shouted. “And he was terrible to you! What’s wrong with me teaching him a lesson?!”

Luo Binghe yanked her whip clean out of her hands, treating the sharp barbs like they were nothing. He didn’t seem to use much strength, but when he relaxed his fingers, he revealed that the refined iron whip’s segments had been reduced to a pile of metal scrap.

Once again, Yue Qingyuan remembered that this boy had always looked familiar.

“Go back,” Luo Binghe said impassively.

Sobbing, she pointed at Shen Qingqiu, then at Luo Binghe. “You, you’re going to treat me this way? I’m angry for your sake, yet you won’t let me touch him?”

Luo Binghe gave her no answer and threw the shards of the destroyed whip into the lake. The hissing sounds as they corroded filled their ears, unending.

After the whip stopped corroding, and before the girl could say anything else, Yue Qingyuan stepped up. “I see that a defamation accusation might be necessary, after all.”

“What– Yue Zhangmen!” The girl’s eyes widened. “What– How–?”

“I have a hall pass, in case you didn’t know.” Yue Qi crossed his arms. “What were you trying to do?”

“I–”

“She said she was interrogating him,” Luo Binghe answered in her stead. “But it looked like it wasn’t going well. Shizun?”

Shen Qingqiu, who looked as beautiful and elegant as always despite the fact that he was doing a valiant effort at gripping his tattered clothes against his chest despite the Immortal Binding Cables difficulting his movements, looked at the three of them alternatively before answering. “She said that she was going to ‘teach me a lesson.’ And then she tried to whip me.”

Yue Qingyuan’s usual fake smile wobbled for a moment. It had the effect of scaring the girl a little. “Was the Little Palace Mistress given permission to punish my shidi before the trial?”

“No!” She answered immediately. “I wanted to interrogate him. But he insulted me!”

Shen Qingqiu sighed. “Child, I just smiled while you were speaking. And you took it as me laughing at you.”

“Not to mention that you brought a whip to an interrogation,” Yue Qingyuan added.

“Sounds like a member of Huan Hua Palace was trying to force a confession,” Luo Binghe finished their reasoning.

The Little Palace Mistress looked at him with wide eyes. Then, her lip trembled. “I’m angry for your sake! I was doing it for you!” She finally turned and fled in tears.

Everyone sighed in relief when she went away.

Yue Qingyuan was the first one to move, falling on his knees in front of the tied man. “Xiao Jiu!”

“Still not my name,” Shen Qingqiu said with a smile. “I’m so glad to see you, Zhangmen–shixiong.”

“Are you hurt?”

He shook his head. “Binghe prevented it.”

“He’s lying.”

Yue Qi looked back at the disciple, who was suddenly maintaining intense eye contact with Shen Qingqiu. When he faced forwards again, his shidi was scowling. “Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere,” he admitted.

Luo Binghe in front of Xiao Jiu. “Could this disciple heal Shizun without touching him?”

“...yes.”

Yue Qingyuan didn’t know what was happening, but suddenly, Shen Qingqiu tensed for a moment. He untensed little by little, letting his head fall on Yue Qi’s shoulder as it went. A look at Luo Binghe showed that his eyes were shining with a red light that didn’t seem to come from outside. A red light that was familiar, and that he had never seen on an ally.

If Shizun really wanted to collude with demons, he would do it for completely different purposes, and the cultivation world wouldn't know he was colluding with them until it was too late.

He shook his head, trying to dispel his thoughts about the battle at Bailu Mountain, all those years ago.

After all, hadn’t Luo Binghe always looked familiar? 

He hugged Xiao Jiu. “I trust you. Whatever this is, I trust you.”

His shidi’s breath came out shaky. Luo Binghe stood up after a moment, nodded at both of them, and said that he would wait outside of the cell. Xiao Jiu relaxed as soon as his disciple was away, and let himself rest against Yue Qi. It wasn’t quite a hug, because one of its participants was still tied up, but it was as close to one as they would get.

“Are you sure you’re fine?”

Xiao Jiu nodded. “Peachy. I– I truly don’t know what happened with the sowers. I have my suspicions, but at this point, I guess that Shang Qinghua is the only one who can really look into it, seeing as I’m stuck here for the time being.”

“I know it wasn’t your fault.” Yue Qingyuan ended the hug and put his hands on the younger man’s shoulders. Xiao Jiu shivered as soon as they separated, and that’s when he remembered that his shidi’s clothes had been reduced to shreds. Without thinking, he took off his own outer robe and draped it around Xiao Jiu’s shoulders.

“Zhangmen–shixiong…”

“It wouldn’t do for you to catch a cold,” he said. “I will talk to the Old Palace Master about his daughter’s actions. Don’t worry, she won’t bother you again.”

Xiao Jiu smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

He moved towards Yue Qi so quickly that the older man couldn’t see it coming. However, he felt the featherly touch of lips against his cheek and, a moment later, Shen Qingqiu moved back to his previous position with a soft blush on his face.

“Yue–gege,” he said. “If I never see you again, please take care of Binghe and Shang Qinghua. Binghe needs as much help as he can get, and Shang Qinghua wouldn’t survive a day if left to his own devices.”

“Don’t say that.” Yue Qingyuan cupped Xiao Jiu’s face, and the man nuzzled against his hands. It was such an intimate sight that the older man was overcome with the conflicting urges to kiss him and to start crying. “Why would you never see me again? At the very least, we’ll see each other at the joint trial.”

Xiao Jiu kissed his palms in answer. “Yue–gege, I… I love you. It has just occurred to me that I haven’t told you… in a while.”

More like never . The confession felt like a punch to the guts, because he knew that he didn’t deserve it. “Xiao–”

“Don’t say that name.” His shidi’s eyes watered. “You… you should go back to your room. Binghe knows the way.”

He refused to say anything else after that, even if he furrowed more on Yue Qi’s outer robe when the sect leader stood up on wobbly legs. He abandoned the platform with a heavy heart, and found Luo Binghe waiting just around the corner. The disciple activated the water curtain that separated Shen Qingqiu from the outer world, and then he gave Yue Qingyuan a very disrespectful once–over.

He smiled smugly. “Someone is missing his outer robe.”

“He was cold,” Yue Qi replied, circulating his qi to avoid blushing like a maiden.

“Yue Shibo is so dependable,” Luo Binghe praised. “I guess that Shizun’s taste in men is not that bad.”

“What did you just say?”

“Nothing!” He turned around and started walking. “Let’s go back, shall we?”

With a roll of his eyes, Yue Qingyuan followed him out of the Water Prison. Xiao Jiu had definitely spoiled this kid rotten.

Chapter Text

Two days later, Yue Qingyuan woke up to a commotion.

He quickly dressed himself in the new robes he had been sent from Cang Qiong Mountain, and hid inside his sleeves the formidable amount of miracle cures and exploding concoctions that he had been given, courtesy of the An Ding Peak Lord, before he opened his door.

To his surprise, he came face–to–face with none other than Shang Qinghua.

His shidi took a step back in surprise, but as soon as he recovered, he sent Yue Qi a manic grin. “Zhangmen–shixiong! Long time no see!”

It had only been three days.

His poorly–tied hair was standing on end, his robes covered in some kind of ooze, and there were countless unconscious Huan Hua disciples around the entire corridor.

“Shang Shidi, what on earth did you do?”

“Hmn? Oh!” He looked around at the disciples. “Don’t worry, they’re not dead. I think. As for what I did… Plan F, step 17, I think: what to do in case those Huan Hua idiots capture The Beast™!”

“Shidi…?” Yue Qingyuan shook his head. “Whatever. What happened?”

“So Shen Shixiong escaped the Water Prison…”

“He did what ?!”

“Or, rather, someone helped him escape. The Little Palace Mistress went back there last night, because that girl can’t be contained, and she found both Luo Binghe and Gongxi Xiao inside his cell, with no Cucumber–bro in sight. What is more, they were both injured and unconscious, as if they had been in a fight, but Luo Shizhi was completely wrapped in Immortal Binding Cables, while Gongxi Xiao was just unconscious. And… Zhangmen–shixiong, I need you to get really cool about a lot of stuff really quickly.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“LuoBingheisaHeavenlyDemon.”

“…what?”

Shang Qinghua looked around before whispering, “Luo Binghe is a Heavenly Demon. Half heavenly demon, to be more specific.”

Yue Qingyuan sighed. “I already knew.”

“But he’s on our side, I promise– What do you mean you already knew?!”

He had met both Tianlang–jun and Su Xiyan years ago. Sure, it had only been once each, but the boy looked similar to his parents, and considering what he had learned during the last three days, making the connection had almost felt like arriving at a conclusion he had been avoiding to make for years.

He wanted to know how this was possible. And, at the same time, he felt like unveiling that particular truth would be devastating.

“I suspected it. I think he used his blood mites to heal Qingqiu Shidi the other day,” he said instead. “Did the Old Palace Master discover his true nature?”

Shang Qinghua nodded slowly. “His zuiyin was on display when the Little Palace Mistress saw him last night. She carried Gongxi Xiao out of the cell and left Luo Binghe there. When he woke up, Gongxi Xiao said that he had been attacked by someone bearing the mark of the Heavenly Demons. He was convinced that it hadn’t been Luo Binghe, but obviously, no one believed him.”

“What did they do to him?”

Here, his Shidi smiled again. “Nothing. I arrived before the Old Palace Master could do anything. He should still be unconscious.”

“How did you know when to arrive?”

“I’m a good spy, Zhangmen–shixiong. Of course I’d know when to act!” He turned around. “Luo Binghe should still be in the Water Prison.”

Yue Qingyuan stood inside his room, frozen.

Shen Qingqiu had been indeed colluding with demons. There was no doubt in his mind now that he knew about his disciple’s true nature, and yet he’d been teaching him for years under everyone’s noses. Even Luo Binghe had said that there was a plan in motion, and Shang Qinghua had just alluded to it, too.

And he had called himself a spy. A spy for whom, exactly? Back in the days before his qi deviation, Xiao Jiu was sure that Shang Qinghua had been working for demons. Ever since that day when he was a disciple, in which he had been the only one to survive a demon attack, he had been acting rather suspiciously, hadn’t he? He had been promoted to an inner disciple right after it, too. It must’ve been a breeze to become Head Disciple from there, especially if he had outside help.

All that, for what? Xiao Jiu had said that he didn’t know where the sowers had come from, Luo Binghe had also confessed that they were a surprise. And his words back in Jin Lan City, saying that Shen Qingqiu despised evil… Could it be that Xiao Jiu did no longer consider all demons evil?

“It must have been Luo Binghe,” he said aloud. Shang Qinghua turned around, frowning. “The one who attacked Gongxi Xiao and helped Qingqiu Shidi escape. The only other Heavenly Demon in existence is trapped under a mountain.”

“You seem to forget that Tianlang–jun had a right–hand man. A nephew, to be precise,” his shidi said simply, with conviction.

It was true. Yue Qingyuan let out a soft curse that seemed to surprise Shang Qinghua and walked out of his room, followed by the smaller man. He dispersed the maze array with a thought and let his shidi, who seemed to know Huan Hua Palace like the back of his hand for some reason, lead the way.

The Water Prison was eerily silent, other than the everpresent sound of water falling around it. Shang Qinghua extended an arm as soon as they were at its door, preventing Yue Qingyuan from going inside.

“Normally, once the Water Prison has been activated, there must always be someone on the stone platform. If this person leaves or there isn’t enough weight on the platform, the water curtain automatically reactivates, even if the mechanism has been shut off. In other words, one person has to be left on the stone platform before the others can leave.”

”How do you know that?” Yue Qingyuan asked.

“That is a really long story, Shixiong.” After saying this, he retrieved a talisman from his sleeve. “Fortunately, there’s a way to shut this thing off completely.”

He infused some qi into it, and it transformed into some kind of small lightning. Shang Qinghua quickly pushed it against the nearest waterfall, which was soon covered in electricity.

The little lightning bolt expanded, and it was suddenly covering all the water around the prison. Once that happened, everything exploded inwards.

The water disappeared. Far inside the prison, Luo Binghe looked up, his completely red eyes wide in surprise and a zuayin pulsing faintly on his forehead.

“How did you do that?” Yue Qi asked, astonished.

Shang Qinghua shrugged. “Water conducts electricity. Therefore, water is weak to electricity. I only needed one small push before…”

“What do you mean water is weak ?” He interrupted his shidi. “Water is an element, how can it be weak to something if it is not a living being?”

The younger man blinked in confusion. Then, he started scowling. “Look, I was drunk when I designed the Water Prison, what if I unconsciously used Pokémon logic on it? Sue me!”

“You… designed the Water Prison?” While drunk, he didn’t ask.

Shang Qinghua sobered immediately. “Nope, I’m not going there. I’m going to rescue– oh, gods, I’m going to rescue Luo Binghe .”

Luo Binghe didn’t look thrilled to be rescued by his martial uncle. “Shang Shishu,” he said with venom. “Where’s Shizun?”

“Your cousin seems to have him, Lord Luo.” Yue Qi’s eyes widened at the address. “Where’s your cursed sword?”

“In my room, under a spell,” was the disciple’s answer. “I was using a random demonic sword last night, as you advised. Maybe that’s why I lost the battle.”

Oh, so he was angry because he thought that his loss had been Shang Qinghua’s fault. That made sense, even if everything else didn’t.

The Lord of An Ding visibly swallowed, even though he unsheathed his sword and started to cut the cables binding Luo Binghe. “Perhaps, my lord. But, as the saying goes, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Still, I hope the original goods managed to help Cucumber–bro level up his speech skill tree back in the day. He’s going to need a silver tongue if he wants to survive this part.”

He said those last two sentences under his breath, but it wasn’t difficult to hear them. They didn’t make much sense, however, and Yue Qingyuan found himself exchanging a confused glance with Luo Binghe before the half–demon quickly averted his gaze.

“Luo Binghe,” he called. The youth looked up again, now out of his binding, and quickly disguised his demonic features. “What happened last night?”

“I– I was with Shizun,” the disciple said. “We were talking about a possible plan– something about pulling a Wu Ming?”

“Oh, yeah, that plan.” Shang Qinghua grimaced. “I’ve never liked that one.”

“Neither did Shizun. Gongxi Xiao appeared in the middle of the conversation; he said that he had a letter from you, Shishu.” The Lord of An Ding nodded. “Shizun read it and then threw it into the water. Gongxi Xiao and I wanted to go away after that, but a demon appeared at that moment.”

“A Heavenly Demon,” Shang Qinghua guessed. Luo Binghe nodded. “Snake features?”

Another nod. “He wasn’t alone. He was commanding dozens of snakes, as well as other small demonic creatures. I don’t know how he managed to get here undetected or to knock us out, but…”

“I… see,” Shang Qinghua said. “Maybe… so he was right, there’s never been much we could do to change fate. At least up to this point.” He looked up at Yue Qingyuan with a conflicted expression, then back to Luo Binghe. “We need to go back to your room before Zhuzhi–lang discovers that the sword he stole from you isn’t Xin Mo. If what I suspect is true, then we shouldn’t find any people in our way.”

“What if we do?” Luo Binghe asked.

“Then we fight them.”

That was apparently enough for the half–demon, who stood up and started walking without looking back. Shang Qinghua gave a step in his direction, but Yue Qingyuan took him by the sleeve before he could start walking.

“What do you suspect, Shidi?” He asked, concerned.

Shang Qinghua sighed. “Shen Shixiong and I have spent the past couple of years trying to avoid two different fates, one set by myself and another set by you , Zhangmen–shixiong. However, as much as we have managed to bypass the worst parts of the first fate, the second one has happened exactly as it should have. So I think I know what’s about to happen right now, and I have no idea how to avoid it.” He looked him in the eye. “If it happens, I will do my best to reverse it. You have my word.”

“Shidi?”

Luo Binghe chose that moment to call for them, so Shang Qinghua gave him a sad smile before rushing behind the demonic disciple. Yue Qingyuan had no option but to walk behind them.

They finally arrived in front of a room, which Luo Binghe opened with ease before getting inside. Yue Qingyuan made to go in behind him, but Shang Qinghua stopped him with a worried look on his face.

Still inside the room, Luo Binghe opened a chest and removed several pieces of clothing from it, before taking a nondescript sword in his hands. It was sheathed, and there were so many talismans on top of it that Yue Qingyuan only guessed that it was a sword because of its shape.

“Where do you think they have taken Shizun?” The disciple asked, starting to remove the talismans from his sword.

“My best bet is the Holy Mausoleum, but honestly, I have no idea,” Shang Qinghua said. “We’ll be going in mostly blind from now on.”

“Why?”

“You will know soon enough, Lord Luo.”

He frowned, but continued removing talismans from the sword. As soon as all of them were out of its sheath, demonic qi came out of it with so much force that it almost knocked both Peak Lords out of their feet even though they weren’t inside the room. Yue Qingyuan fought the urge to unsheathe Xuan Su, while Shang Qinghua grabbed the door’s frame with white knuckles.

When the waves of demonic qi receded the slightest bit, Luo Binghe unsheathed the sword, revealing black metal and an overpowering energy that could only be cursed.

“What is that?” Yue Qingyuan asked.

“That’s Xin Mo,” Shang Qinghua was the one to answer. “Don’t come close to…”

“You.”

His Shidi continued speaking, as if he hadn’t heard the voice, but Luo Binghe’s eyes widened in surprise. Yue Qingyuan felt most of the demonic energy enveloping him like a thick blanket in the middle of the summer heat, tendrils of it circling Xuan Su’s pommel as if looking for a weakness there.

“Shibo?” Luo Binghe asked.

“ You ,” the voice –the sword– continued. “ The man with two soulmates. Oh, this will be interesting. Only one of them can be here at the same time, which one will you choose? ”

“Xin Mo,” Luo Binghe said, almost like someone might talk to a misbehaving child. However, the fear in the half–demon’s eyes was clear as day, and the sword must have noticed it, for it laughed.

Yue Qingyuan didn’t notice that he had moved into the room until he felt a hand striking his back. He fell to his knees, more surprised by Shang Qinghua’s betrayal than weakened by the strike, but when he made to get up, he noticed that he couldn’t move anymore.

A petrification talisman.

“Lord Luo, sheathe your sword!” Shang Qinghua screamed, his voice contorted in a plea.

Luo Binghe was also petrified, although that probably had to do with the sword. Its demonic energy was so thick that Yue Qingyuan could see black tendrils of it running up the boy’s arm with his unblinking eyes. After a moment, the sword was dropped on the floor.

Many things happened at the same time. Luo Binghe attempted to hold it again, but Xin Mo flew in a straight line, directly to Yue Qingyuan. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and felt Shang Qinghua attempting to push him aside, but he was too late.

An agony like the one he felt when bonding with Xuan Su extended throughout his chest, where Xin Mo had stabbed him. Luo Binghe cried out in distress, and Shang Qinghua cursed.

“Fuck!” His Shidi attempted to grab Xin Mo’s pommel, but he immediately let go of it as if burned. “Fuck! Cucumber–bro is going to kill me!” He then looked at Yue Qingyuan and put a hand on his cheek, moving his head so they could make better eye contact. “Zhangmen–shixiong, I’m so sorry! But I need you to listen to me, alright? You’re about to be sent to the past.”

What?!

Shang Qinghua nodded, probably noticing his confusion. “It probably won’t look like it at first, but you will be in the past. Look for Shen Jiu, tell him that this is a time loop... of sorts. Of the 'circular chain of casualty' variety. He’s a master strategist, he will know what to do.”

Yue Qingyuan knew that something was wrong when he felt darkness around the corners of his eyes despite the fact that he couldn’t blink. Shang Qinghua seemed to notice it, too, because he grabbed his shoulder with his other hand and squeezed it.

“Don’t worry about us, I’ll take care of this. This is what all this planning has led us to, after all.” Darkness completely covered his vision after that. “Find Shen Jiu! And tell him that this is a time loop!”

Those instructions were the last thing he heard.

Chapter Text

The first thing Yue Qingyuan registered when he woke up were screams. He tried to open his eyes and groaned immediately, because his head hurt so much it felt like it was trying to split open. But at least he could move now. He put a hand on it and blinked against the blinding lights of whatever place he was in. He must’ve been moved, because Luo Binghe’s quarters in Huan Hua Palace weren’t so brightly illuminated.

Looking down, he realized that he was sitting on top of a broken table. At his right, he found a strange black box that he didn’t recognize, and at his left, the origin of the screams.

He frowned when he saw the man.

“Xiao Jiu?”

It… was Shen Qingqiu, it had to be him. Except that he was wearing such revealing clothes that Yue Qingyuan immediately blushed, as well as spectacles on his face. And someone had cut his hair extremely short. Was it whoever had kidnapped him?

His shidi gaped at him for a moment. “What the fuck?”

Such an uncouth word coming out of Shen Qingqiu’s mouth made him gasp. “Shidi?” He stood up, moving away from the broken table. “Are you– where are we?”

“Uh…” Shen Qingqiu blinked, and then he shook his head. “I knew that sleep deprivation was hard on the mind, but hallucinations? Really?”

He turned around and walked towards another room, closing the door behind himself. Yue Qingyuan was left standing there, confused. He looked at the broken table, then at the suspiciously–black box, and at the sofa right in front of it.

When his shidi didn’t come out of the room he had walked into, he looked around the strange house. One of the doors was locked, probably the front door, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. The kitchen –he supposed it was a kitchen, because there was a fruit basket with some peaches in there– was full of strange appliances that he didn’t dare touch, and there was another room with the strangest furniture he had ever seen. All of it was white, except for the transparent walls encasing the space near the end wall, which had a towel hanging nearby. There was a mirror in that room, as well as a small window that let him know that it was nighttime, even if he wasn’t able to see any stars in the sky from this angle. Perhaps it was a cloudy night?

Finally, he knocked on the door that his shidi had closed earlier. “Xiao Jiu?”

When a groan was his only answer, he opened the door.

He was greeted by a dark room, but it didn’t remain like this for long: he felt movement near the window, and suddenly, a strange light coming from the ceiling was illuminating the entire thing.

His mouth hung open as soon as he saw the bedroom. Every single wall was decorated by a giant drawing of Luo Binghe, each of them more lewd than the last one. Even the desk that was in front of the bed and the shelves that were packed to the brim with books had little Luo Binghe figurines.

Still sitting on the bed, Xiao Jiu was looking at him with wide eyes. He was hugging a pillow as tall as him in which someone had knitted a full Luo Binghe picture as if it could be used as some kind of shield.

“Wait, you weren’t a dream?!”

“Shidi?” He asked, confused. “I know that Luo Binghe is your favorite disciple, but isn’t this a bit too…”

“Who are you?”

“I– I’m Yue Qingyuan,” he said. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Shen Qingqiu blinked, his face betraying his confusion. Suddenly, he started laughing.

His laughs sounded so hysterical that Yue Qi moved towards the bed before he could truly process that reaction. “Shidi?”

“Shut up!” The younger man’s laughs turned to coughs. “I can’t– I can’t believe this is happening to me.” He pointed at the sect leader with one hand, his other arm still wrapped around the Luo Binghe pillow and hiding his mouth while he coughed. “You’re lucky I saw you appear out of thin air and break my coffee table when you landed, or I would’ve called the cops by now. Honestly, though, are you sure you’re not a cosplayer? It’d be more believable than… whatever this is.”

Yue Qingyuan stayed there, his confusion growing tenfold. Shen Qingqiu threw the Luo Binghe pillow out of the bed –which made him feel better, for some reason– and stood up on wobbly legs, still coughing. The sect leader tried to help him when his knees threatened to give up, but the glare that was sent his way kept him rooted to the spot.

He was helpless to do anything but watch while Xiao Jiu took something from his desk, uncapped it, and put part of the thing in his mouth. He touched a strange button on top of the object while taking in a gulp of air, and by the time he took it out of his mouth, his coughs had decreased.

He closed his eyes and put a hand on his desk. “I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming. This is a dream, right?” He turned to Yue Qingyuan after that. “Because, either this is a dream, or you have transmigrated into my room. Which is not cool, man. I know that being pierced by a thousand arrows off–screen is a bad way to go, but–”

“Transmigrated?” The older man interrupted him.

“Yeah, you know, it’s like some kind of reincarnation,” Xiao Jiu said, waving his free hand in a noncommittal gesture that Yue Qi remembered seeing on his post–qi–deviation self quite often during Peak Lord meetings. “Except that you remember your previous life, which means that Meng Po probably doesn’t get to offer you soup. And you usually take over an existing body.”

“What does that mean?”

“There’s a body, its soul dies, and another soul occupies the suddenly–empty body.”

“Like a possession?”

“Huh, I guess it is similar to a possession,” Xiao Jiu conceded. “Except that possession is usually done on purpose.”

“Oh.”

“In any case, you clearly didn’t take over another person’s body.” Here, he looked him up and down, which made Yue Qingyuan feel his cheeks heat up even more than they had been until now. That examining look coming from this scandalously–dressed Shen Qingqiu was almost too much for him. “But you are in another reality with your memories intact, so I would say you’ve just transmigrated, yes.”

“In another reality?” Yue Qingyuan asked. “But if I’m in another reality, how are you also here?”

“How– Dude, I don’t know you,” Shen Qingqiu said. “Sure, I read about you in a book, but…”

“In a book?”

Shen Qingqiu sighed and massaged his temples. “I’m not explaining PIDW to a hallucination. My fault for staying up so late reading it, I guess. I’m going back to bed.” With that, he sat back on the mattress and made a shooing motion towards Yue Qingyuan. “Go away. Sleep on the sofa or something.”

“I– Okay. Good night.”

He got out of the room and rested his back on the door once he closed it. He was starting to suspect that he was the one who was dreaming.

Shang Qinghua had told him that he would be going to the past, though. And that it wouldn’t look like it at first. Well, it certainly didn’t look like the past, considering that he couldn’t remember Shen Qingqiu ever living alone in a place like this. The man seemed to be in his 20s, and at that age he was already living on Qing Jing Peak. So what was this place?

He remembered Shang Shidi’s instructions, to find Xiao Jiu and tell him that this was a time loop. The first part was done, even though it had been Xiao Jiu who had found him. As for the second part… Well, his Shidi was clearly distressed right now, so he guessed that waiting until the morning to tell him that would be for the best. Hadn’t he said that he hadn’t been sleeping? Maybe he’d be better after a full night’s sleep, then.

His mind made up, Yue Qingyuan made his way to the sofa. He should try to meditate a little.

He woke up to the sound of a door opening. He didn’t know when he had fallen asleep, just that he had done it while sitting down on the sofa. His legs were currently on some vague imitation of the lotus position, and his neck hurt like hell. He put a hand to the back of his head and grimaced. He’d need to do some stretches soon.

A little part of him thought that this was similar to his year–long stay in the Lingxi Caves, but he put the idea out of his mind before he could start spiralling. The Lingxi Caves weren’t so… white. And he didn’t have company there, he thought while Xiao Jiu made his way towards him with his brow furrowed.

His clothes had changed from last night, and now they were even worse. Yue Qingyuan was sure that the younger man didn’t have any pants on, but the simple robe that hung around his frame was only long enough to hide his pelvis. It was black, did nothing to hide the majority of his arms, and had a shirtless Luo Binghe in the center of it, just in front of some letters that Yue Qingyuan had never seen before.

Except… He had. In some of Shang Qinghua’s notes during Peak Lord meetings, actually. The ones that he wrote for himself.

It must be some kind of writing system.

Regardless, Xiao Jiu’s sudden shamelessness was more than enough to make him blush like crazy. He could feel his face heating up more than it’d ever done, but his shidi didn’t seem ashamed at all. In fact, he was just grimacing.

“So you weren’t a hallucination,” he said. “Just my luck… Who the fuck are you? You introduced yourself as Yue Qingyuan from PIDW, right?”

The sect leader didn’t understand the last part of Shen Qingqiu’s question, but he nodded regardless. “Shidi, where–?”

“And you keep calling me shidi!” He interrupted. “Do I look like one of your Peak Lords or something?”

That finally gave Yue Qingyuan pause. “Are you– Are you not Shen Qingqiu?”

He didn’t receive an answer. Instead, the other man’s eyes widened, and he started coughing even harder than last night. He sprinted towards his room, probably in order to find whatever he had used yesterday to stop his coughing fit, and shut the door behind himself.

Was he perhaps not Shen Qingqiu? That would make sense, Yue Qingyuan thought, considering his strange obsession with seeing Luo Binghe shirtless (he was sure that Xiao Jiu saw his favorite disciple more like a son than anything else, after all), not to mention everything else. The way he spoke was incredibly informal, and the robes he wore… Not to mention how short his hair was, or those weird spectacles on his face.

But then again, there was something strange here. His mannerisms were very similar to Shen Qingqiu’s, especially to the ones from after his qi deviation. The way he walked, for example, was similar, even if it looked almost like he was disguising a limp.

Something was going on here. Other than the whole… wherever he was, he meant. 

Could it be a dream realm of sorts? But he had fallen asleep last night, and he wasn’t sure if a dream realm could simulate the feeling of sleeping.

Shen Qingqiu (or whoever he was) came back later, with the strange black rectangle from last night back in his hand. Yue Qingyuan felt dismayed when he noticed that there was another picture of a shirtless Luo Binghe on its back, but the other man soon took his attention away from it.

“Qi–ge,” he said, which downright stole his breath away. “Were you ever going to tell me that your sword was the reason you didn’t come back for me?”

No.

No.

This was impossible. 

So it really was Xiao Jiu, after all. And he knew.

Yue Qingyuan put his hands on his ears. His legs were shaking so much that he wasn’t sure how he was still standing.

Xiao Jiu had been so nice to him lately. But now he knew. Now he knew that Yue Qi was a failure. And he’d go back to hating him again, the way he’d spoken just now prefaced it.

He blinked when his gaze became blurry. Maybe he should’ve died in the Lingxi Caves after all. Why did he live, if he was just going to fail the man who was most important to him again and again from then on?

He was a failure he was a failure he was a failure he was a failure he was a failure he was a failure–

Someone took him by the wrists, and he took in a gulp of air. It wasn’t enough.

Where was he? He felt dizzy. There wasn’t enough oxygen in this place.

“–ingyuan!” Someone was screaming. Xiao Jiu. He looked up, and found his short–haired self looking down at him with wide eyes. Wasn’t Xiao Jiu shorter than him? Why– why were they on the floor?

“Breathe,” Xiao Jiu said. “Fuck Airplane, what the fuck was that hack thinking?!” He shook his head and exhaled. “That’s it. Just breathe in and out. Follow my chest’s movements, okay? In and out. You’re doing so well.”

Yue Qingyuan rested his head on the younger man’s shoulder and followed his instructions. He didn’t know how long they spent there, just breathing, but Xiao Jiu didn’t tell him off for taking so long to recover even once.

Did he have a qi deviation? It didn’t feel like one, just like… like his mind had spiralled out of control. He eventually sat down on the floor, and his shidi looked at him with worry.

“Sorry,” he said. “I had to make sure you really were who you said you were. So I sent Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky a DM, and he said– wait, you probably don’t know who Airplane is.”

Yue Qingyuan frowned. Airplane, Feiji, ‘flying machine’? Shang Qinghua’s sword was called Feiji, because it could fly. Shen Qingqiu had always made fun of that name, both before and after his qi deviation.

“Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky is the author of a very popular stallion novel– I think you’d understand it best if I called it a harem novel,” Xiao Jiu said. “It follows the journey of a half demon called Luo Binghe as he–”

“Luo Binghe?” Yue Qingyuan interrupted him. “But he’s your disciple! How can he be the protagonist of a work of fiction?”

“Dude, Binghe’s not my disciple. I’m not Shen Qingqiu,” the younger man said. “I’m sorry I implied that I was before, but I’m… not. My name is Shen Yuan. And I think I would remember being an immortal cultivator.”

Yue Qingyuan frowned. “But…”

“In this world, Luo Binghe, Shen Qingqiu, and everyone else you know are fictional,” Shen Yuan continued, undeterred. “Which doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re fictional. Maybe Airplane dreamed of another reality or something equally weird.” He shrugged.

“But…” Yue Qingyuan frowned. “Then I’m in another reality? But this doesn’t make any sense. Shang Shidi said that I’d be going to the past.”

“Shang Qinghua? The traitor?”

“What do you mean a traitor?” Yue Qingyuan asked. “I know he’s been working for demons– at least for Luo Binghe, but probably for another faction too, maybe one that has an alliance with Luo Binghe–, but he seems to have the best interest of the sect at heart.”

Shen Yuan frowned. “What?”

“He came for me as soon as he realized that Qingqiu Shidi had been kidnapped,” Yue Qingyuan said. “He helped Luo Binghe escape the water prison, and tried to stop me from dying. He’s also the reason Luo Binghe’s cousin didn’t steal Xin Mo… What?”

Shen Yuan was looking at him like he had grown two heads. He stood up, did something on the black thing in his hands with his fingers, and then left it on the sofa.

“I– I’m going to make breakfast,” he said. “And you are going to tell me what happened before you were brought here. Because… Luo Binghe in the Water Prison? Shang Qinghua being helpful, and alive after he was exposed as a spy? Luo Binghe having a cousin?” He shook his head. “That is not the book I'm reading.”

Chapter Text

Yue Qingyuan stared down at the empty package that had contained the noodles Shen Yuan had offered him for breakfast. Their flavor had been a little off, and cooking them had involved a strange machine that made a lot of noise, but they were edible.

What wasn’t digestible was the information he’d just received.

“So Xiao Jiu…”

Shen Yuan rolled his eyes while counting the small and mostly round objects he had placed on the table, each of them a different color. “I still don’t know why you call him ‘Little Nine.’ But yes, Luo Binghe’s currently torturing him in the book I’m reading. And you died off–screen in yesterday’s chapter. Shen Qingqiu should learn about this in today’s chapter, I guess.”

That didn’t make any sense.

Don’t get him wrong, his death very much did make sense. He knew for a fact that he would’ve dived head–first into an obvious trap if there was a single chance of saving Xiao Jiu from a fate like the one Shen Yuan was describing. What didn’t make any sense whatsoever was the fact that Luo Binghe was the one torturing his Shizun.

He had told Shen Yuan as much, but the younger man had only rolled his eyes at him and told him that what didn’t make sense were his claims that Luo Binghe was Shen Qingqiu’s favorite disciple. Or that they’d been working together even after his fellow Peak Lord had discovered that the boy was a demon.

So Yue Qingyuan told him what he had lived through for the past few years while his host took his morning pills, as he called them when the sect leader asked.

He had a cup of tea in front of him by the time he finished his version of the story. Its flavor was a little off, just like his noodles, but the way Shen Yuan cooked was strange in itself, and it wasn’t the worst tea he’d had in his life. So it was fine.

He took a long sip of it while his host thought about the information they’d just exchanged. “That sounds like a transmigrator to me.”

Yue Qingyuan almost spit his tea in surprise. “What?!”

“It makes sense!” Shen Yuan continued, raising his hands in the air. “Shen Qingqiu hated Luo Binghe up until the kid was fourteen, just like he’s supposed to. But all of a sudden, he’s got a qi deviation and he completely changes his personality? Sounds like your typical transmigration novel: a book character dies in one universe, a reader dies in another, and suddenly, the reader is thrown into the character’s body. Hence why he suddenly started treating Luo Binghe better: he wants to avoid being tortured and probably dying, so he’s clinging to the protagonist’s thighs. Which is a solid plan, if you ask me.”

“Xiao Jiu isn’t dead!” Yue Qingyuan screamed.

His host flinched. Yue Qi deflated as soon as he saw the gesture, and put a hand on the back of his neck. “Apologies. It’s just–”

“He’s your friend,” Shen Yuan acknowledged, his voice softer this time. “I don’t know why on earth that is, but you care about him. So you don’t want to think that he might be dead. But… Didn’t Luo Binghe tell you that something was controlling Shen Qingqiu? An interdimensional being, whose power source is Luo Binghe himself, that he can’t talk about in resolute terms and is making him obey it?” He crossed his arms. “That has to be a Transmigration System.”

“What is that?”

“Not all transmigrators have them, but they can appear,” Shen Yuan said, moving his spectacles so that they were closer to his eyes. “They’re usually blessings of sorts that help the transmigrator adapt to the new world. They assign missions to the transmigrator, which may vary from ‘save the world from disaster’ to ‘follow this specific plot point because I say so.’ Some of them are incredibly useful, and others are very annoying. Looks like Shen Qingqiu’s is more of a curse than a blessing.”

Yue Qingyuan rested his eyebrows on the table and his head on his hands. It was an extremely rude gesture, but his host didn’t call him on it, and he needed time to process.

So his Shidi… was a transmigrator? Did it mean that Xiao Jiu had died years ago, and no one had noticed?

It made a horrible amount of sense, didn’t it? Everyone on the mountain had noticed that his personality had changed overnight, so much so that he had been tested for possession in countless ways, before Mu Shidi had proposed the possibility of him having memory loss, and they had left it at that.

Gods, most of his sect siblings had been happy by his sudden personality change. They had… they didn’t know about it, of course, but what they had celebrated that day had actually been Xiao Jiu’s death.

He felt like he might be sick. In fact, it must’ve shown, because Shen Yuan ran away from the kitchen and, before he could truly react, his host was back with a bucket and Yue Qinyuan was throwing up his breakfast.

A pair of hands carefully took his hair away from his face, since he hadn’t changed out of the low ponytail he’d slept in, and he grabbed the bucket with both hands and started crying as soon as his stomach calmed down. One of Shen Yuan’s hands started rubbing circles on his back, in the exact same awkward way he remembered Xiao Jiu doing when they were kids, which made him cry even harder.

He hadn’t noticed. How hadn’t he noticed?! He knew Xiao Jiu better than anybody, and yet he had failed him again!

The strangest thing was that his shidi’s mannerism hadn’t changed at all. Sure, they’d become more open, but the way he walked? How quickly he opened his fan when he was trying not to smile? The way he held said fan when he was anxious? That had been the same.

Or perhaps he just didn’t know Xiao Jiu as much as he once thought, considering that he could swear that the way Shen Yuan walked was almost identical to both Shen Qingqiu’s.

“Sorry,” he said in the end, after his host had brought the bucket back to wherever it came from and gave him a glass of water. “I’m being a horrible guest.”

Shen Yuan shrugged. “I’m honestly angrier because of my broken coffee table than at your breakdown just now. And you certainly didn’t transmigrate on purpose, so it’s fine. You were one of my favorite characters, you know. Except that you’re real now!”

Yue Qingyuan couldn’t help but laugh at that display. He took a sip of water and cleaned his face with a very strange handkerchief that was apparently made of paper. This world was really weird.

“There’s just something I don’t understand,” Shen Yuan said after a while. “And that’s Shang Qinghua.”

He frowned. “What’s wrong with Shang Shidi?”

“Didn’t you say that– that Shen Qingqiu, or whatever his name was, called for him right after he transmigrated?” Yue Qingyuan nodded. “Shang Qinghua is a traitor. He spent the entire book betraying Cang Qiong’s secrets to the future Mobei–jun, and then he died offscreen right after he was discovered as a spy. If someone who had read the book had suddenly woken up as Shen Qingqiu of all people, the first person he thought about would have been Luo Binghe. He should’ve asked for him, at least to know how old the protagonist was. Since his future survival might depend on that. Shang Qinghua should be the last person in his mind.”

Yue Qingyuan nodded. “It also struck me as odd, if only because Xiao Jiu never liked Shang Shidi, and in turn, Shang Shidi had always been afraid of him. But nowadays, they are best friends.” He frowned. “Wait. Luo Shizhi told me that the same thing that is controlling Shen Qingqiu is also controlling Shang Shidi.”

“So he’s also a transmigrator?!”

“Possibly. But I don’t remember his personality ever changing overnight. He has always been an extremely anxious person who tends to talk under his breath and looks like he cares about literally everyone in the sect.”

Now it was Shen Yuan’s turn to frown. “That doesn’t sound like the Shang Qinghua I’ve read about at all. So a transmigrator, huh… How did Shen Qingqiu immediately know about him, though? Did his System decide that team work does the dream work, or something?”

Yue Qingyuan shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that, in the end, he told me that this is a time loop.”

“What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “Xin Mo stabbed me.” That made Shen Yuan gasp. “Shang Shidi promised that he would reverse it, somehow. And he also said that I would be sent to the past, although it wouldn’t look like it at first. I don’t know what he meant by that, but… He told me to find Qingqiu Shidi, and to tell him that this was a time loop. Of a… something about circular casualty?”

“Circular chain of causality, or bootstrap paradox. They’re similar enough,” Shen Yuan said, his eyes wide. “Actions in the past lead to future events, which then trigger the original journey back in time, creating a self-contained loop without a clear starting point. Or, someone –in this case, you– goes back in time to before something happens, and that’s what leads to that thing happening in the first place. Like in Back to the future, when…” He shook his head. “You clearly don’t know what Back to the future is. But, if this is your past somehow, perhaps Shang Qinghua sent you to give someone information on the transmigration that will take place? Or… I don’t know.”

“He wanted me to find Xiao Jiu,” Yue Qingyuan said. “Because he’s a master strategist.”

“But the original Shen Qingqiu isn’t here,” Shen Yuan pointed out.

He sighed. “I know. I have no idea what I should do now.”

Shen Yuan stood up. “Don’t worry about it for now, Sect Leader Yue. If you are really stuck in a time loop, then your destiny will probably find you sooner or later. For the time being, do you want anything more to eat? Since you…”

He gestured to the door, since he had brought the bucket away after Yue Qingyuan had thrown up inside it. The older man found himself blushing. “No, I’m full. Thank you, Shen Yuan.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Chapter Text

A while after the disaster that was breakfast ended, Yue Qingyuan lay on the sofa with his eyes closed. Shen Yuan was out, throwing the remains from his ‘coffee table,’ as he had called it, somewhere outside of the house. The (former?) sect leader had helped him collect all the pieces of it, but his host had told him to wait for him in the house because 1) his clothes would be seen as weird in this world, and b) it was so loud outside that he’d probably be overwhelmed as soon as he took a step out of the place.

Yue Qingyuan sighed. Was this world truly so different from the one he had grown up in? If so, he was grateful for Shen Yua. He still didn’t know why he’d suddenly appeared in his house, though. It must have been Xin Mo’s doing, but why had the cursed sword done something like that?

He shook his head. Xiao Jiu was dead, had been dead for years without him even noticing. Did anything –anyone– matter at this point?

Luo Binghe had said that whoever had woken up in his shidi’s body had wanted to tell him about it, but couldn’t. Probably because of the thing that Shen Yuan had called a Transmigration System. Or maybe because he had been worried Yue Qingyuan would panic upon learning of the transmigration.

Try as he might, he couldn’t find it in himself to place the blame on the transmigrator. It was no wonder he’d been terrified after that qi deviation! Not only had he found himself in a completely different world, he also had to make a sect full of total strangers think that he was someone he was not, while something as powerful as a god –maybe more– was breathing down his neck. Not to mention that, had the transmigrator read the same book Shen Yuan had, he’d know that his destiny would be to be torn limb from limb and also tortured, probably until his death.

Honestly, Yue Qingyuan would also be terrified in a situation like that one. The fact that he’d known how to act, let alone make a plan with the only other transmigrator around and recruit Luo Binghe himself as an ally, only told him that the transmigrator was much more capable than he’d ever given him credit to as Shen Qingqiu.

No, he couldn’t blame this man for trying to survive and changing all of their destinies in the process. If anything, it was fate itself that was to blame.

The same fate that had allowed him to survive his bond with Xuan Su yet fail to do the single thing that was more important than his own life.

The same fate that had taken Xiao Jiu away from him due to a fever but hadn’t allowed him to mourn the younger man until it had already been years since it happened.

He would love to call that fate Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, but… that wasn’t quite right, was it?

After all, Shen Yuan didn’t seem to know anything about their past. And Xiao Jiu’s death in his lifetime certainly didn’t happen in the book he read.

Still, Yue Qingyuan would like to talk to the creator. His host said he had been in contact with the author somehow, right?

He opened his eyes as soon as he heard the front door opening. However, the voice he heard wasn’t Shen Yuan’s.

“San–ge, I’m here!” He heard a girl announce. “Muqin made food for you and asked me to bring it here! Because we all know that you would subsist on instant noodles otherwise.” He heard movement by the kitchen. Not knowing what to do, Yue Qingyuan hid behind the sofa, but the girl seemed to hear him. “San–ge? Are you in your room?”

Yue Qingyuan, expert martial artist and one of the strongest righteous cultivators in his world, stealthily moved towards Shen Yuan’s bathroom and was stopped in his tracks by a weird light that appeared on the ceiling. He heard someone gasp, and as soon as his eyes followed the noise, he found a young girl looking at him with wide eyes and a hand on the wall.

She also wore very revealing clothes, but at this point, that was a given.

She gaped at him for a moment. “What the fuck?”

Oh, she was definitely Shen Yuan’s little sister.

“Uh…”

And then, the screams began.

She opened a little closet that was right next to her and took something out of it –one of Shen Yuan’s walking canes. He had taken another one of those when he went outside with the trash– and ran towards him with a scream that sounded suspiciously similar to the word ‘burglar.’

Fortunately, that’s when Yue Qingyuan’s martial training finally kicked in. He rolled out of the cane’s direction and jumped back to his feet, unstrapping Xuan Su’s sheath from his back –since he had refused to let go of it ever since he woke up here– and kicking the still–sheathed sword under the sofa.

The girl tried to approach it, but Yue Qingyuan took the cane’s other end and used it to move her out of the way. She screamed once more, this time in panic.

“I’m a friend!” He said in a lower voice, lest he scare her even more. “I’m staying with Shen Yuan for a few days!”

“That’s what a burglar would say!” She yelled, still trying to hit him with her brother’s cane.

He dodged the hit easily. “...is it?”

“Uh…” She tried to hit him once again, but this time she used less desperation. “Why are you wearing traditional clothes if you’re just a normal guy? Are you a cosplayer?”

“I–”

He was saved by the front door’s opening again. This time, it was Shen Yuan, who dropped his cane and ran until he was next to them. “Meimei!”

“San–ge!” She greeted, still looking panicked. “What–?”

“Care to explain–” He was breathing with difficulty. Yue Qingyuan instinctively put a hand on his back and started passing him qi. He went boneless almost immediately. “Oh. That feels– Thank you. Meimei, why the fuck were you attacking my guest?”

Shen Yuan didn’t have spiritual veins. However, it seemed like his body was receptive to Yue Qingyuan’s qi, since it absorbed it like a sponge and brought it directly to his lungs.

He was sure that Mu Shidi would love to be here right now.

The girl was looking alternatively at each of them. Contrary to what would happen back in his world, here Yue Qingyuan’s qi wasn’t visible, so it probably looked like he had put a hand on Shen Yuan’s back for support and the younger man had decided to partially lean on him just because.

“He– Oh.” For some reason, Shen Yuan’s sister smiled smugly. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend, ge.”

Boy… Friend? What did she mean by that? And why was Shen Yuan blushing? “What?! Meimei, for the last time, I’m not gay!”

“Sure thing.” She inclined her head towards Yue Qingyuan next. “Pleased to meet you. My name’s Shen Tang. I’m sorry for attacking you.”

“Do not worry about it. You thought I was here uninvited, so it is normal you wanted to protect your brother,” he said with a practiced smile. “I am Yue Qingyuan. It is a pleasure to meet Shen Yuan’s sister.”

She looked pleased. “He’s a polite one, ge.”

Shen Yuan groaned. “Meimei…”

“I can’t believe you pulled a cosplayer,” she said with a chuckle, completely ignoring his brother. “I can’t wait until I tell the others.”

“Please don’t! Er–ge would kill me, and Da–ge would never let me live it down!” He shook his head. “Besides, you’ve got it all wrong! I’m not gay!”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Food’s in the kitchen. I’m out.” She turned towards Yue Qingyuan, now more seriously. “Treat him well, will you? He doesn’t have many good things.”

He nodded. “I will.”

“Meimei!”

It wasn’t until a while later when Shen Yuan sat him at the dinner table once again and showed him his little black box –phone, he had called it at some point. “We need to get you some modern clothes.”

“I’m not dressing as scandalously as you.”

“What?! But this is normal!” Shen Yuan protested. This time, his pants were long enough to cover his ankles, but his T–shirt (that didn’t have any traces of Luo Binghe on it) still showed his arms. He huffed. “Okay. I guess I could buy you some jackets. But we still need to buy you clothes, your traditional robes are too ancient– and expensive–looking for you to go out with them on.

“So I’m going out?” Yue Qingyuan asked.

“You will have to at some point. Besides, my family will probably want to meet you,” he said, showing him his black box.

It wasn’t black this time. In fact, he could read things on it.

Shen siblings

Da–ge: A cosplayer?

Er–ge: So A–Yuan has officially gone insane.

Meimei: I don’t know, I think it was sweet. The guy looked like a genuinely good person

Er–ge: That’s how they get you.

Da–ge: Stop being so dramatic, Didi. Meimei, did he tell you his name?

Meimei: He said it was Yue Qingyuan

Er–ge: WHAT?

Da–ge: Isn’t that a character from PIDW?

Er–ge: How do you know about PIDW?

Da–ge: A–Yuan won’t stop talking about it. And I wanted to see for myself if it was as bad as he said

Er–ge: YOU READ PIDW?

Da–ge: As if you’re one to talk! I saw you reading it the other day during the flight home!

Er–ge: That’s not true!

Meimei: Oh, so we’re all reading it?

Er–ge: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE ALSO READING IT?

Er–ge: Meimei, swear right here and now that you are not reading it for its main character. If you like that guy, I will kill everybody in this family and then myself.

Da–ge: Wow, dramatic

Da–ge: I personally like the monsters. And the prose is fine. But the pacing is atrocious

Meimei: Yeah! Not to mention every single character lacks complexity except for the protagonist

Meimei: I need my backstories!

Da–ge: Absolutely

Shen Yuan took the ‘phone’ away from him after a while. “This is some kind of… way to send letters that will be instantly received.” Without qi? That was fascinating. “They are still talking about PIDW. Da–ge and Meimei, I mean. Er–ge hasn’t replied anything else after threatening Meimei.”

“They know about the book.”

“Yeah. All three of them are apparently reading it. And they hadn’t told me anything.” Shen Yuan shook his head. “With siblings like them, who needs enemies?”

Yue Qingyuan chuckled. “What is a cosplayer?”

“It’s someone who dresses up as a fictional character for fun,” his host replied easily. “They think that you’re cosplaying Yue Qingyuan, not that you are really Yue Qingyuan.”

“I guess it makes sense,” he said, making sure Xuan Su’s sheath was still strapped to his back after he had retrieved it from under the sofa. Shen Yuan eyed the movement, but he didn’t say anything. “If I am supposed to be… fictional.”

“You’re not,” his host said, as if it was obvious. “If you were, you wouldn’t be here. Probably. So don’t–”

He was interrupted by someone knocking on the front door. He frowned, which probably meant that he wasn’t expecting anyone else today, but the knocking continued.

He shook his head. “I’m gonna go see who it is. Stay here, please.”

Yue Qingyuan nodded. “Alright.”

Shen Yuan exited the kitchen, and his footsteps were heard approaching the front door. Once he opened it, he made a confused noise.

“Er–ge?”

“You’re an idiot,” a voice that sounded suspiciously similar to Shen Yuan’s said.

In fact, it was familiar in more ways than one.

Yue Qingyuan continued listening to the conversation with bated breath.

“I’m not an idiot.”

“You’re dating a cosplayer!” Shen Yuan’s older brother said. “Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that you finally got your head out of your ass and admitted to yourself that you’re a cutsleeve, but…”

“I am not a cutsleeve!” The youngest man’s scream resonated across the house. It made Yue Qingyuan flinch, and his host’s brother stayed silent for a while, while Shen Yuan breathed very loudly.

Finally, the older brother asked, “If he’s not your boyfriend, then why did Meimei find a cosplayer in your apartment?”

“I– He needed help, so he’s staying with me for a while,” Shen Yuan said. “Er–ge, I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous, but– I don’t think he’s a cosplayer.”

“Don’t be stupid. Either he’s a cosplayer, or he’s taking advantage of you,” his brother told him. “It’s probably the latter. Where is he?”

“In the kitchen. But he–”

Yue Qingyuan stood up as soon as he heard a pair of steps approaching. After a moment, he heard another one, probably Shen Yuan trailing after his brother.

But he didn’t pay his host any attention once the older Shen appeared through the kitchen’s door.

The man in front of him was clearly wearing Hanfu clothes, but its style was unlike anything Yue Qingyuan had ever seen before: somehow, the traditional robes had been adapted to look similar enough to the weird clothes Shen Yuan and his sister preferred wearing, while still being recognizable for what they were. His hair was as long as it had always been, and although his wide eyes were brown now, Yue Qingyuan would recognize that gaze anywhere.

To think that he had thought that Shen Yuan was Shen Qingqiu just last night…

He brought a hand to his open mouth, at the same time Shen Yuan’s brother covered his own with an embroidered sleeve that was too short for what it represented, probably in lieu of a fan.

Then, he blinked. “You… Qi–ge?”

Yue Qingyuan could only nod, as tears started trailing down his cheeks. He opened his mouth, a thousand apologies ready to spill already, but he closed it again when a body tackled him.

He returned the hug with as much desperation as the other man was using on him. On the other side of the kitchen, Shen Yuan had already arrived and was looking at them with confusion, but he couldn’t even begin to explain what was happening. There was something wet on his shoulder, and the only thing he could do to that was hide his face in the crook of the other’s neck.

“Xiao–Jiu…” He mumbled, making the man that was wrapped around him shiver. “Tell me it’s you this time. Please, tell me I haven’t confused you with someone else again. That I haven’t failed you again. Please.”

“Qi–ge,” he heard. A confirmation, like nothing else would ever be. “You died. He said you died. I saw–”

He shook his head. “You were dead. For years. And I didn’t even notice. I’m–”

“I don’t care what you did this time. Don’t you dare apologise.”

He nodded. Honoring his wishes was the least he could do right now.

So he closed his eyes, inhaled his shidi’s scent for the first time since they were children, and started sobbing in earnest.

Chapter Text

If anyone had told him just a few days ago that he would find himself cuddled against Xiao Jiu’s chest while the other man idly played with his hair, Yue Qingyuan wouldn’t have believed it.

Then again, he was in another world, one in which his entire life was part of a work of fiction, so his own perception of reality was a little skewed right now.

“So you’re like– the original.” Right, Shen Yuan was still here. He had demanded to know what was happening as soon as Yue Qingyuan broke down in the kitchen, and then proceeded to have a shouting match with his brother while Xiao Jiu moved both of them to the sofa. It hadn’t stopped until one of their neighbors knocked on the front door and asked if they should call the ‘police,’ whatever that was, after which the apartment’s owner had needed to do damage control in order to save face, and ended up offering them something to drink.

“In the flesh,” Shen Jiu asked, still playing with Yue Qi’s hair.

“I–”

“While your ardent defense of that beast tells me nothing new about your personality–”

“He’s not a–!”

“–I already know that what I did to him wasn’t… fair,” he finished, ignoring Shen Yuan’s subsequent gasp. “I’m not talking about the Abyss. I don’t regret throwing him there; I truly thought that he was responsible for the attack on the Immortal Alliance Conference.”

“That…” Shen Yuan paused for a moment. “I guess that makes sense. But what about the abuse that Binghe suffered on Qing Jing Peak?! The beatings, the woodshed, the fake manual…”

“I truly didn’t know about the fake cultivation manual,” Shen Jiu said with a sigh. “Did you seriously think I would risk giving one of my disciples such a faulty manual? It could have killed him! I probably would have, if he hadn’t been a Heavenly Demon. That would have completely destroyed my reputation!”

“As if you cared about your reputation!” Shen Yuan was, once again, getting incensed. “You killed Liu Qingge in the Lingxi Caves!”

“I DIDN’T!”

Both of them froze after that outburst. Even Yue Qingyuan found himself holding his breath.

Finally, he noticed Shen Yuan moving out of the corner of his eye. “What?”

Xiao Jiu sighed, moving the hand that had been on Yue Qi’s hair until it covered his entire face, and said, rather self–deprecatingly, “Of course my therapist was right: my tendency not to defend myself was clearly my downfall.” He looked up at his brother. “He was qi deviating. I tried to save him, but…” He looked at his extended palm, and closed his hand into a fist. “I was prone to qi deviations myself. By the time I managed to estabilize my own meridians, there was nothing I could do.”

“...Didn’t you fight a demonic invasion right afterwards?” Shen Yuan asked, sounding dismayed.

“Hence why I proposed a competition and used ‘dirty tricks’ in my fight against that demon.”

Yue Qingyuan buried his face in the crook of Xiao Jiu’s neck. He remembered the competition, just like he had been told happened in his reality: the demons who tried to steal Qiong Ding’s nameplate, how Luo Binghe had been up against a demon warrior whose hammer and armor had been coated with the Without–A–Cure poison. Luo Binghe had won, and then the demon had tried to poison him. He had probably achieved the feat, come to think of it. Since Luo Binghe was a Heavenly Demon, he had probably expelled the poison from his own meridians before Mu–shidi had the opportunity to take a look at them.

He wondered how the invasion had happened in Xiao Jiu’s life. Much the same, probably. Except that he wouldn’t have tried to save Luo Binghe from the poison, like the transmigrator who had taken Shen Qingqiu’s body had.

“I–” Shen Yuan stammered. “What about the lechery?”

“Have you ever considered me a lecher in this life?”

“Of course not! But you used to visit brothels…”

“I went there to sleep,” he said. “I wasn’t particularly comfortable in the disciple dorms, just like how you were so uncomfortable during those two first nights of summer camp when you were 10 that you called our parents to get you home.”

Oh! So he had… Yue Qingyuan had misjudged him so much.

Of course Xiao Jiu would be uncomfortable in a dorm full of young boys! He had always been wary of men, Yue Qi himself being the only exception. And, while he didn’t know anything that had happened while he was in the Qiu household or even as a disciple of Wu Yanzi, he had heard enough about both Young Master Qiu and the demonic cultivator to infer that none of it must’ve been safe.

He found himself gripping Xiao Jiu’s clothes. “I keep misjudging you.”

The hand that had been trailing through his hair finally came back to rest at his nape. “You always tended to do that.”

“I’m so–”

“Don’t. Apologize.”

While Yue Qingyuan continued sulking, Shen Yuan found his voice once again, “Then you weren’t lecherous towards your female disciples?”

All around him, Shen Jiu tensed like a bowstring. And, just like it, once it untensed, it released an attack more than an argument, “I’m not a pedo!”

“Hey, that’s cheating! That’s a modern word!”

“Modern or not, I’ve never had that kind of disgusting interest toward children!” Leave it to Xiao Jiu to be able to yell and sneer at the same time. “Besides, shouldn’t you know this already, you oaf? Don’t you remember the time Da–ge forced me to come out as asexual in front of the entire family?!”

“Hey, it wasn’t so much forcing as it was–” Suddenly, Shen Yuan paused. “Holy shit. Shen Qingqiu is asexual.”

“Don’t call me that name ever again,” Shen Jiu sniffed. “You lost the right to it when you demanded my castration, Mr. Peerless Cucumber.”

“How the fuck do you know my username?!” 

“I was there when Meimei and you came up with it!”

“Oh, shit. Wait, you have read my rants…”

The hand on Yue Qingyuan’s head started petting his hair once again. Xiao Jiu’s voice came out extremely amused, “The one about Wife #243’s personality and curse being so similar to #109’s that they must be connected somehow was rather interesting. Especially when, two chapters later, Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky reintroduced #109 and said that both wives were actually long–lost twins. What did he say in the end notes? Something about his biggest anti-fan being extremely clever?”

“That hack! But… Oh, shit.” Shen Yuan’s voice came out muffled. Yue Qi could almost imagine him with both hands over his face. “I can’t believe you’ve read… all that. Have Da–ge and Meimei also…?”

“Most probably.”

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I’m never going to live this down.”

Xiao Jiu chuckled. It was such a novel sound that Yue Qingyuan couldn’t help but look up. The other man looked down, his little smile almost disappearing when they made eye contact. “What am I going to do with you, you dolt?”

“Whatever Xiao Jiu would prefer.”

That was met with a finger on the tip of his nose. He didn’t completely understand the gesture, but he probably deserved it, whatever it meant.

This Xiao Jiu was… more relaxed, he had noticed during his conversation with Shen Yuan. And more open. He wondered what happened.

An entire new life had happened. This Xiao Jiu was most likely the one from the novel that Shen Yuan was reading, which meant that his death must’ve been horrifying. And yet, the life he had made for himself in his world had apparently been enough to make him more open about his feelings, more willing to discuss them. Yue Qi didn’t know if he was happy for him or envious of that calmness, of the fact that he had found it without him.

Of the fact that he hadn’t found it for himself as well.

Chapter Text

The conversation took a turn after Shen Yuan was somewhat assured that his brother wasn’t a horrible person. Yue Qingyuan soon found himself sitting up on the sofa, next to Xiao Jiu, while drinking an extremely sugary cold drink. The food in this world was certainly something.

“A transmigrator,” Xiao Jiu said after his brother finished relating what Yue Qi had told him this morning.

Shen Yuan nodded. “Two transmigrators. One of them took over the body that the Shen Qingqiu from that world used to inhabit, and the other did the same with Shang Qinghua’s.”

“So there are two transmigrators in the world you came from, right?” Xiao Jiu asked Yue Qi.

“That’s what Shen Yuan guessed.”

“They’re being controlled by a Transmigration System,” the younger man in the room added. “At least, that’s what it sounds like. Er–ge, are you…?”

“I’m not being controlled with one, even though I made a deal with a System in order to come here in the first place,” Xiao Jiu answered. “This is more complex than I was expecting. A time loop, Shang Qinghua said?”

“What do you mean you made a deal…?”

“A–Yuan, focus.”

“But…”

“Shang–shidi said that I would be sent to the past,” Yue Qingyuan said, doing his best to ignore Shen Yuan’s rather cute pout, “although it wouldn’t look like it at first. And something about circular casualty.”

“A bootstrap paradox,” Shen Yuan translated.

“I see…” Xiao Jiu frowned. “The transmigrator that took over Shang Qinghua’s body did tell this version of Qi–ge that he would be sent to the past… But this is a completely different world. And we know that transmigrators usually come from a completely different world.”

Shen Yuan inhaled. “What are you trying to get at?”

“It is entirely possible that the transmigrator meant that Qi–ge would be traveling to his past,” Xiao Jiu explained. “Most transmigration stories have people from modern times as their protagonists, at least in this world. And, if both he and the one who ended up as that version of myself knew enough about Cang Qiong Mountain to both blend in and ask Luo Binghe’s help about their predicament…”

“...then they read PIDW before transmigrating,” Shen Yuan finished.

“Exactly. After all, who better to have on their side than the protagonist himself? As much as it grates me, it is a good strategy.” That made the younger brother chuckle. Shen Jiu turned to Yue Qingyuan. “Not to mention that the one who woke up as me immediately asked for Shang Qinghua. I think that your Shidi was trying to ask you to find the future transmigrators in this world.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Yue Qi asked. “I have no idea how this world works!”

“Hmn. That is a problem.”

“Especially considering that anyone could’ve read PIDW,” Shen Yuan muttered. “Mandarin Chinese is is the most spoken language in the world by native speakers. We’re talking about millions of people with the ability to read PIDW. And Google Translate is a thing.”

“There are 7 million users on Zhongdian Literature,” Xiao Jiu confirmed, reading something on his own black box. “Since PIDW is one of the most popular works there… that’s too many people.”

“Did Shang Qinghua tell you anything else?” Shen Yuan asked Yue Qingyuan. “His name before he transmigrated, his Zhongdian username?”

“He didn’t– wait.” Yue Qingyuan frowned. “Shang–shidi and the other transmigrators called each other by nicknames. I don’t remember… But the other Shen Qingqiu called Shang–shidi by the same name as the man’s sword.”

“His sword?” Xiao Jiu asked. “I don’t remember what it was called, but it wasn’t anything special.”

“The Shang Qinghua I know called his sword by a strange name,” Yue Qingyuan said. “I think it was Feiji? And the other Shen Qingqiu also called him that, but I don’t know if that’s…”

Shen Yuan immediately stood up from the sofa he was sitting on, mumbling ‘that hack’ while he walked back to his room.

When the door slammed shut, Yue Qi found himself looking at an amused Xiao Jiu.

“Feiji means flying machine,” his Shidi said. “It can also be translated as ‘Airplane,’ which is the name that the author of PIDW uses on Zhongdian Literature. Looks like your Shang Qinghua knows a lot about your world.”

While Shen Yuan did who knew what in his bedroom, Xiao Jiu explained to him a little more of the situation: someone, whose author’s pen name was none other than Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, had apparently created the world they lived in. Either that, or he was some kind of prophet who was able to see through the veil between worlds.

No matter what the truth was, this person had started publishing a novel called Proud Immortal Demon Way, a story with Luo Binghe as its main character, which related everything that had happened in Xiao Jiu’s first life.

“Shen Yuan said that I had failed to save you again in that life,” Yue Qingyuan said. “I– Why do I keep failing?”

The other man scoffed. “You say that as if you had actually tried to save me from the Qius.” He froze, which Xiao Jiu of course noticed. “You didn’t– right?”

Since they were sitting next to each other on the sofa, he hugged his knees. “What happened next? After I– After I died.”

“I– You–” He scoffed again. “Of course you’re not saying anything, even after all these years.” Yue Qingyuan couldn’t help but flinch, but Xiao Jiu seemed to take pity on him, because he dropped the topic. “I died. And then, I reincarnated.”

“As Shen Yuan’s brother,” he guessed.

“As if. That came later.” The other man shook his head. “When I opened my eyes, I was in the streets again. I was Xiao Jiu again. And all my memories from my previous life were gone.”

Yue Qi stiffened, but his companion didn’t pay him any attention as he continued, his gaze fixed on the wall in front of them. “You know, my father in this life is fond of Western philosophy. I remember the first time I found a book by Nietzsche in his personal library, when I was a teenager. As soon as I read about Eternal Recurrence, I tore it to shreds. I was in big trouble for a while afterwards, but…” He shook his head. “I lived that life again, making the same choices as if I was making them for the first time, because as far as I remembered, it was. And then I got visited by a Transmigration System.”

“What was it like?”

Xiao Jiu pressed a button in his black box and it flared to life, a weird light coming from within. He showed it to Yue Qi, who looked at the weird invention with a frown. “This is called a screen. The System’s was blue. I didn’t know what it was at first, so I attacked it. When nothing I did seemed to work, it offered me a deal: to give up my mortal body –probably for the transmigrator to use, know that I think about it–, in exchange for a better life. A life in which I could remember all my past mistakes in order not to commit them again. This life.”

“So you chose to come here.”

Xiao Jiu nodded. “I was not happy in Cang Qiong. I’ve never been happy in Cang Qiong. But here? I’m comfortable. I’m content. I might not be happy yet, but… I have hope. That I could be, one day.”

Yue Qingyuan closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

A sigh. “Why are you apologizing now?”

“It was my fault you were accepted in Cang Qiong.”

“Such a choice, to continue serving as a cauldron for a demonic cultivator until I died or to become a disciple at a sect that despised me.” Yue Qingyuan opened his eyes just in time to see the other man rolling his eyes. “It was that world that had it out for me, not you. If anything, you were the only good thing in it, at least for a while.” And then, he looked at him. Really looked, his green eyes so deep that Yue Qi felt like they were staring into his soul. “You tried to come back for me, didn’t you? You tried to save me from the Qiu mansion. But something happened. The System implied as much. And, considering your reaction when I accused you of not trying to come back for me... it wasn't lying.”

Yue Qingyuan’s breath got caught in his lungs. He didn’t do anything –not even breathe– for a while, but when Xiao Jiu didn’t lash out like he’d half predicted, he exhaled slowly. Then, even more slowly, he moved his head: an almost imperceptible nod.

Xiao Jiu’s fists closed on his lap. He looked away from him, closed his eyes with force, and took a shaky breath, which he released even more shakily.

“You know, this world is a lot more advanced in mental help than ours ever was,” he said in almost a whispering tone. “They say that bottling up whatever hurts you will only hurt you more. And I know firsthand how true it is.”

“Xiao Jiu…”

But they were interrupted. The door to the main bedroom in the house opened, and Shen Yuan rushed out of it with a smile that looked surprisingly scary.

“We have a coffee date with master Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky.”

Chapter Text

Said ‘coffee date’ would happen in about two sichens, which was more than enough time for Xiao Jiu to go back to his house and bring some clothes for Yue Qi –considering how differently the two brothers were dressed compared to him, he could only guess that his robes weren’t normal in this world.

His clothes were similar to the ones Xiao Jiu was still wearing, which meant that Yue Qingyuan felt slightly naked going out, but not so much as he would if he had tried something from Shen Yuan’s more revealing closet.

Xiao Jiu didn’t want to meet the author, claiming that the urge to throttle the guy for putting him through everything he had would become too tempting to let him concentrate during the conversation, so he tasked Shen Yuan with getting to the bottom of this situation in his stead. Then, the younger brother had given Yue Qingyuan a face mask –which he told him how to put on after saying that it would be necessary for the city– and took another one for himself. Even Xiao Jiu had taken one from his pocket to put over his face, so he guessed that they were common.

With Xuan Su securely put away inside a qiankun pouch that he stored in a man’s purse that Shen Yuan gave him, the three of them left the apartment.

He understood the need for the face masks immediately: the air was extremely polluted! It felt worse than the Immortal Alliance Conference after the Endless Abyss had closed, that was how bad it was. In fact, he had a coughing fit as soon as they stepped foot outside, so he was forced to lean against Xiao Jiu while he got doubled over.

When it ended, he noticed that Shen Yuan’s free arm –for he had brought his cane with him– was patting his back. He sent him a smile that he hoped was visible even with his face mask on, and told the brothers that they could continue.

There were two weird horseless carriages waiting for them. Xiao Jiu wished them luck before mounting in his, and Shen Yuan led him to the other one.

The windows, although shut, were made of glass, so Yue Qingyuan looked through it while they drove at dizzying speeds. Everything around them was gray. The houses were huge, gray, and completely geometrical, and there weren’t any trees anywhere in sight. The people were mostly dressed in blacks and whites, as well as the occasional pale color. Even the sky was clouded, probably polluted, so he couldn’t see the blue that should’ve been visible at this hour. It was extremely depressing.

It was also fascinating, but he was certain that he wouldn’t want to live here. Even if Xiao Jiu was here…

Ah, what a mess.

They arrived in front of a place that clearly served food, which Shen Yuan called a café. As soon as they got inside, they were led to a table, so they sat down while his companion looked at something in his black box.

“Airplane should be about to arrive.”

As soon as he spoke, the café’s door opened. In came a chubby individual with curly hair not unlike Luo Binghe’s, if the half–demon boy ever became unfilial enough to cut it down to shoulder–lenght. The guy put his hands on his knees and wheezed extremely loudly, which caught everyone’s attention inside the small establishment.

“Fuck, I came way too quickly,” he said in a tone low enough that only Yue Qingyuan’s cultivator hearing managed to catch it. Then, he turned around.

Before Yue Qi could process the situation, he was already halfway towards the stranger. The guy flinched, and he could already see the waitress walking towards them in order to diffuse the situation, but before anyone could truly react, he blurted out, “Shang–shidi?”

The Shang Qinghua lookalike’s eyes widened. “What?”

“What?!” That was Shen Yuan’s voice, coming from their table. “That’s him?”

“Oh, my gods.” The guy who could only be his Shang–shidi looked at him and then at Shen Yuan, before laughing in a familiarly awkward way. “At first I thought that the infamous Peerless Cucumber had officially gone insane, but now I fear I’m in a hidden camera show.”

“Don’t say that name out loud!” Shen Yuan hissed from the table.

Yue Qingyuan couldn’t help but smile at their antics. The situation was so familiar, despite how unfamiliar everything else was, that he felt his heart ache. Even so, he bowed slightly at Shang Qinghua and asked in a whisper, “Apologies for the brunt introduction. Are you Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky?”

The guy blinked. “I never thought that the Yue Qingyuan would ever refer to me with that name…” He shook his head. “I mean. Yes. Pleased to officially meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine.”

He led Airplane to the table. As soon as they sat down, he saw Shen Yuan scowling at the author. “So you’re Airplane.”

“And you’re Peerless Cucumber,” Shang Qinghua said, looking smug– for all of two seconds, until his face crumbled into a begging expression that Yue Qingyuan could recognize even with his eyes closed. “Please, don’t dox me.”

“Dox–? How am I supposed to dox you, you hack, if I only know that we live in the same city?!” Shen Yuan scoffed. “I don’t know your address, I don’t even know your name…”

“Oh. It’s Xiang Fei.”

“And even if I did– wait a minute, what?!” He pointed a finger at Airplane. “Your name is Xiang Fei?! That’s a normal name! How the fuck did you end up with–?”

“With that username in Zhongdian? Precisely because my name is extremely common! All variants of it were already taken!”

“So you decided to write a dick joke.”

“Like you’re one to talk, Peerless Cucumber.”

Shen Yuan’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse you?”

“N–Nothing!” Xiang Fei squeaked. “So… I’ve told you my name. What’s yours?”

“...Shen Yuan.”

“I'm sorry, what?!” Xiang Fei asked, snorting. “Is the infamous Peerless Cucumber a Shen? Oh, the forums would explode if they knew…”

“The forums would also explode if I doxxed you, you absolute hack!” Shen Yuan yelled.

Yue Qingyuan put a hand on his arm, trying to calm him down. However, it was the waitress who dispelled the situation, approaching their table with a small notebook in hand and a face that promised to kick them out if they continued disrupting the quiet inside her café.

“Do the gentlemen know what they are going to get?” She asked, her face a perfect mask of politeness that Yue Qingyuan recognized for the years he had worn an identical one, while leading the most powerful sect in the Jianghu. Even Xiang Fei seemed to recognize her veiled threat for what it was, considering how quickly he stopped laughing.

To think that Yue Qingyuan would ever see his own politician's mask on a retail worker's face…

Just how odd could this world be?

Chapter Text

Shen Yuan was kind enough to ask for a Pu Erh tea blend for Yue Qi, while the two natives of that world drank that famous coffee beverage. When he had inquired about it, Xiang Fei had grinned like a maniac and offered him a sip of his own.

It was disgusting. His reaction had made Shen Yuan snort and Xiang Fei smile more comfortably, though, so he decided to count it as a win.

“So, let me get this straight,” Xiang Fei started, munching on some nuts Shen Yuan had asked for in the exact same way Shang Qinghua munched on melon seeds during Peak Lord meetings. “Even though I'm not. Straight, I mean. Because I'm…”

“While I'm glad that you would feel comfortable enough to come out in the middle of an important conversation,” Shen Yuan interrupted him, “now's not the time, Airplane.”

“Homophobic,” Xiang Fei said with a pout. Shen Yuan let out a long-suffering sigh. “So. Sect Leader Yue over here reverse-transmigrated. That much I already knew. But are you telling me that your older brother is Shen Qingqiu?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Dude, you hate Shen Qingqiu!” Xiang Fei said. “You even wanted him castrated because you thought that he had been a lecher towards Ning Yingying… Which he hadn't, I’ll let you know.”

“I know. I've already talked to him. But maybe I would've known earlier if you had thought to write at least something about his tragic backstory.”

“Bro, that's not so easy.” Xiang Fei took a sip of his coffee. “Readers only want porn, and you know as well as I do that Bing-ge is an unreliable narrator. Giving the scum villain a tragic backstory would require a lot of patience and good use of the craft, or else everyone, you being the first one to do it, would accuse me of trying to give him a redemption arc for no fucking reason.”

“I…” Shen Yuan frowned. “You could still do it.”

“And write less porn as a consequence? No thanks, I'd like to pay my bills.”

“So I was right. You sold out.”

“I sold out when keeping a roof over my head depended directly on the number of readers I had,” Xiang Fei said, unapologetically. “Would I like to do better by my characters? Of course I would. Sect Leader Yue, I can only apologize for everything I put Shen Qingqiu and you through, and I know that a simple apology will never be enough to make up for that bullshit, but I needed to eat. And I didn't know you were real. Had I known…”

“I know, Shidi– I mean, Xiang Fei,” Yue Qingyuan said. “Besides, we do not know if you are really the god that created our world. You could’ve just been able to see that Luo Binghe's life as it happened, for some reason. Your similarities towards Shang Qinghua may speak of a reincarnation.”

Xiang Fei shivered. “Gods, I hope I wasn't that rat in a previous life. He tried to betray Mobei-jun!”

“In any case, you will be Shang Qinghua in your next life,” Shen Yuan said. “I think Sect Leader Yue realized as much when he thought you were him.”

Yue Qingyuan nodded. “I may have already been fooled once with regards to Shen Qingqiu, but… You are my Shidi. Your mannerisms match perfectly. And that other transmigrator always called you Airplane.”

“Well, fuck,” Xiang Fei said. “I hope I don't get choked by my king like the other Shang Qinghua did.”

“You were alive when I left that world,” Yue Qingyuan assured him. “Alive and working for Luo Binghe.”

“I mean, Shang Qinghua worked for Mobei-jun and Mobei-jun was Bing-ge's right hand man,” the author mumbled. “So Luo Binghe would’ve been my boss’ boss or something like that. Anyways, you said that the Shen Qingqiu transmigrator had looped Luo Binghe in on the plan?”

He nodded. “He was the one who told me that both Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua were being controlled by a Transmigration System –even if he didn't call it that at the time.”

“They couldn't be completely controlled by it if they– we, I guess– were able to tell my son so much.” Next to Yue Qingyuan, Shen Yuan stiffened, but Xiang Fei didn't seem to notice. “It probably only made them prepare the attack on the Immortal Alliance Conference and ensure that Luo Binghe went through the Endless Abyss, respectively.”

“The attack on the Immortal Alliance Conference?”

“It was prepared by Mobei-jun in PIDW,” Shen Yuan explained. “Shang Qinghua helped. A lot.”

“Sorry?” Xiang Fei asked sheepishly. “If I'm really Shang Qinghua in your world, the System will probably force me to attack it. Either that, or go back to my dead body. That'll most certainly be the choice.”

“You're taking the news of your eventual death and transmigration surprisingly well,” Shen Yuan commented.

Xiang Fei waved his hand in front of his cup of coffee. “Oh, believe me, I'm freaking out. But we don't know how long into our future this will happen, and I have to die eventually. We all do. Except perhaps Sect Leader Yue, if Shang Qinghua– if I fulfill my promise and resurrect him. He's immortal, after all.”

“Will you be able to resurrect him?” Shen Yuan asked.

“With Luo Binghe helping? Yeah,” Xiang Fei said. “There are tons of ways to do that in PIDW. The quickest one would be through the Holy Mausoleum, although we'd have to break Tianglan-jun out for that. There's also the Sun and Moon Dew Mushrooms if we have patience, but considering that his soul is here, I don't think those will be useful.”

“Probably not,” Shen Yuan said. “Who is Tianlang-jun?”

“Luo Binghe's father, the last full-blooded Heavenly Demon.” For once, it was Yue Qingyuan who answered. “The cultivation sects imprisoned him under Bailu Mountain after he forced Huan Hua Palace’s head disciple Su Xiyan and tried to invade the human realm.”

“...yeah, no.” Xiang Fei massaged his temples. “That's what the sects think happened. Tianlang-jun was a lover of human culture, so he often went to the human realm in disguise in order to eat, see theatre plays, and the like. The Huan Hua Palace Master noticed, so he sent his head disciple to spy on him. Su Xiyan and him fell in love, and when the Palace Master realized that she was pregnant, he locked her up in the Water Prison and sent the entire Jianghu against him, making him think that she had betrayed him. In the meantime, she escaped, but she had been forced to drink a poison that would kill the baby. She used her cultivation to absorb that poison into herself.”

“...and she gave birth in the Luo river,” Shen Yuan finished, his face pale. Xiang Fei nodded. “She put a seal over her son's demonic blood, and… Airplane, that's genius!”

Both the author and Yue Qingyuan flinched. Shen Yuan scrambled to correct himself, “It's ridiculously sad! And I can't believe this happened to real people! But it would've been great to read about in a story!”

“Oh.” Xiang Fei blushed. “Are you admitting that you like my writing?”

“No!”

“But you like my first idea for PIDW… Ouch!”

Shen Yuan had hit the author's head with his hand. Yue Qingyuan wished for a moment that he'd had a fan to hit Xiang Fei with, instead. It was more similar to what he usually did.

…wait, what?

“You're still a hack author,” Shen Yuan said, before finishing his coffee and standing up. “I'm going to the restroom for a moment. Don't you dare traumatize Sect Leader Yue in the meantime. Sect Leader Yue, you have my permission to traumatize this hack.”

“Hey!”

The sect leader in question smiled. “Just Yue Qingyuan is fine.”

“Yue Qingyuan, then,” Shen Yuan said, also smiling.

He walked away with his cane hitting the floor in time with his steps. The two men who had been left at the table took a sip of their beverages, and Xiang Fei looked back as soon as he swallowed his coffee, just in time to see Shen Yuan closing the toilet's door behind himself.

He turned around once again, and looked at Yue Qingyuan with such an uneasy expression that the sect leader left his cup of tea back on the table with concern.

“What is it?”

“Are you alright?” Xiang Fei asked. “I know we don't really know each other, but… I'm your Shidi and you’re my character. And you were stabbed by Xin Mo. Are you sure that you will be able to go back to your world? Or that you're doing well in this one? I just…”

“Shidi.” Feeling bold, he put a hand over Xiang Fei's. The man's breath hitched, but he didn't try to pull back. “You promised you would bring me back. I trust you.”

“You must be the first one to.” Xiang Fei took a shaky breath. “I'll do my best to bring you back when the time comes for me, then. You have my word.”

“That's all I need.”

“Well, then.” Xiang Fei turned his hand up on the table until he was also holding Yue Qingyuan's. “The real Shen Jiu is in this world. Does he know about your bond to your sword?”

Now it was Yue Qingyuan's breath which hitched.

“I'll take that as a no.” The author smiled softly at him. “I didn't want to say anything while Cucumber-bro was here, just in case. I know that– I know that you think that you don’t deserve to be hurting, when he was left in hell because of what you consider your life's biggest failure. And that anything you could tell him would just be an excuse. But he needs to know. He spent two lifetimes thinking that you had decided that your life was better without him.”

“Never!” Yue Qingyuan protested.

“I know. But he doesn't,” Xiang Fei said, not without tact. “He thinks– he thought, at least– that he was a burden for you, a reminder of a past you didn’t want to see aired. If he knew that you had tried to save him, that you sacrificed so much for him… Well, I'm sure he'll be mad at first, but in the long run, it'll be so much better for both of you. Think about it, please. If you don't do it for yourself, at least do it for him.”

“I–” Unable to say more, Yue Qingyuan nodded.

“Thank you. That's all I ask.”

They returned to their beverages, Yue Qingyuan's mind reeling.

To tell Xiao Jiu… The man already knew that something was off, but every time he thought about telling him the truth, Yue Qi felt his throat constricting and his palms sweating. He didn't like thinking about the Lingxi Caves, it was bad enough to know that he had failed Xiao Jiu, but…

But maybe Xiao Jiu did need to know that he had tried, even if he had failed. Maybe the fact that he had never said so had more to do with his inability to think about that time in his life without panicking than with Xiao Jiu's best interest.

And then there was the matter of Xiang Fei calling Shen Yuan ‘Cucumber-bro.’

While he couldn't quite put his finger on it yet, Yue Qingyuan didn't like how familiar that nickname had felt.

Chapter Text

They spent a while talking with Xiang Fei inside that little café. They talked about Tianlang–jun’s original plan to unify the human and demon realms through the legendary sword Xin Mo and slay the cultivation sects in the process –which he had made the Luo Binghe from that story do in the end–, as well as propose ideas for why would he have kidnapped the transmigrator Shen Qingqiu from the Water Prison.

They also discussed some more things. Things that Xiang Fei called ‘lore.’ And, as soon as Yue Qingyuan got back to his world, he was going to force the Old Palace Master to drink the most potent truth serum he could get his hands on and make him confess his crimes in front of the entire cultivation world.

But that was a topic for later.

For now, he returned to Shen Yuan’s apartment with him. His host immediately called Xiao Jiu to discuss the new information, so Yue Qingyuan sat down on the living room’s floor and meditated in the meantime.

It took him a while. By the time the younger man returned, it was long past lunch time.

“Hey,” he said, leaving his black box –phone, he said it was called a phone– on the sofa, probably because he hadn’t had time to buy a new coffee table after Yue Qingyuan destroyed the old one yesterday night. “I ordered some take out. Er–ge is coming later this evening with dinner, so we don’t have to worry about that. I have a guest room that you can use while you’re here, do you want to help me prepare the bed?”

“If it’s not inconvenient…”

“Inconvenient?” Shen Yuan snorted. “I’m the one who’s being a bad host, asking you to help me accommodate your room. Not to mention sending you to sleep on the sofa last night and giving you my brother’s clothes. Your ancient standards must be completely scandalized by now.”

Yue Qingyuan sent him a small smile. It was true that the clothes he was wearing felt too revealing, but other than that… “Our cultures are completely different. Besides, this one would be a bad guest if he complained when he’s the one who forced Shen Yuan to house him.”

Shen Yuan sent him a devious look. “...eh, makes sense, I guess. Come help me, then.”

The bed was full of the extremely soft pillows that both Shang Qinghua and post–deviation Shen Qingqiu seemed to prefer, a fact that made sense once Shen Yuan told him that these were the most common pillows used in this world. When he saw Yue Qingyuan look at the soft things dubiously, he went on a passionate speech about their advantages, all the while dissing the ones that were used most of the time in Cang Qiong for being too uncomfortable. It reminded the sect leader of a similar speech that Shen Qingqiu had made when he had asked the man about the sudden change in sleeping habits, a few weeks after he came back from the mission with the skinner demon –he had ordered so many soft pillows from An Ding Peak that Shang–shidi’s head disciple had turned up in Qiong Ding and politely asked Yue Qingyuan to check the Qing Jing Peak Lord for possession, because when she asked her Shizun to do the same, Shang Qinghua had started laughing and didn’t stop in a while.

And then Shen Qingqiu had started telling Yue Qingyuan some arguments about how comforting these soft pillows were and how they made him sleep better. Before the sect leader knew it, he was sent back to Qiong Ding Peak with a feather pillow tucked in his arms like a baby.

Which was ironic, considering that he was currently having lunch with one of Shen Yuan’s pillows on his lap, since his host had put it in his arms and pushed him out of the bedroom as soon as the bell ringing let them know that their food was here.

They spent the entire lunch time talking. Yue Qingyuan was conflicted, however. At first, he had thought that Shen Yuan was Shen Qingqiu, until he found Xiao Jiu in this world and realized that he had been a fool for years.

But…

He grabbed the soft pillow with the hand he wasn’t using to eat. Shen Yuan did act like Shen Qingqiu. Like a more confident version of the Shen Qingqiu who had reformed the entire sect after his qi deviation. Like the one who called him Yue–gege. Like the man who had confessed his love to him down in the Water Prison, right after saying that he might not see Yue Qingyuan again.

It was…

No, it couldn’t be him. Whoever this other Shen Qingqiu was, it couldn’t be Shen Yuan, because then, that meant that Shen Yuan was going to die.

“Sect Leader Yue?”

He snapped his head up as soon as he heard the other man calling him. The object of his thoughts was looking at him with a frown, half of his face covered by the arm that was holding his chopsticks. “You were distracted for a moment there. Is everything alright?”

“This one… Yes.” He nodded for emphasis. “Just thinking about the situation.”

“Mn.” He took some of his rice with his chopsticks. “It’s good that we’ve found your Shang Qinghua so easily. Now, all that’s left to do is find that other Shen Qingqiu and make sure that all of you survive PIDW– or whatever your world will throw at you three at this point.”

Yue Qingyuan nodded. Shen Yuan was still talking about finding the other transmigrator, which meant that there was a third person they needed to find. He let out a shaky breath. His host seemed to notice, because he let go of his food and held Yue Qi’s hand over the table.

The cultivator felt his cheeks growing hotter. At the same time, Shen Yuan’s face turned a beautiful shade of red, which he tried to hide –without success– by looking at the kitchen counter by his side as if it were the most impressive sight in the world. “What’s wrong? I saw Airplane and you holding hands in the café when I went back from the restroom. I thought…”

“He was asking me how I was taking this whole situation,” Yue Qingyuan answered, squeezing Shen Yuan’s hand in reassurance. The tips of the man’s ears were red by now, what an incredibly thin face.

“And how are you?”

“I…” He sighed. “It’s hard. But I’m not alone.”

“Of course you aren’t!” Shen Yuan agreed, looking back at him even though he was still blushing. “You have me! And Er–ge. And also Airplane, even though he’s a hack.”

Yue Qingyuan smiled. “I know, Shen Yuan. Thank you for being here.”

His host huffed. “It’s nothing. Besides, it’s the least I could do after I almost threw you out last night. Even though you broke my coffee table. But it was an accident, so it is alright.” He smiled. “I was always fond of you, back when you were a character in the worst written novel of all time. And now that I know you in person… You’re a good friend.”

“I am extremely grateful to be able to call you my friend, Shen Yuan.”

They stopped holding hands after that. Yue Qingyuan felt his grow cold immediately, so he placed it close to himself, over the pillow he had been gifted –over the second pillow he had been gifted in his life.

Yeah, he hoped that Shen Yuan wasn’t the Shen Qingqiu he had grown to know over the last few years. Even though thinking of having anyone but him as the other transmigrator made a strange feeling grow in his throat.

That other transmigrator loved him. Yue Qingyuan had thought little of his own feelings when he thought that Shen Qingqiu was still Xiao Jiu, but now…

But now he didn’t think he’d ever be able to return that man’s feelings. Even though the gentle soul who had done his best to save everyone from a horrible fate deserved everything either world had to offer.

Chapter Text

Xiao Jiu came into the house with two bags full of porridge. As soon as he saw Yue Qi’s face, however, his eyes narrowed. “You’re thinking about something stupid.”

The sect leader, blinked, completely dumbfounded. “Pardon?”

“I know that face,” the man continued, ignoring Shen Yuan’s snort as he proceeded to reheat the food in the kitchen. “You’re being stupid again. Out with it. What is it?”

“I–I don’t know what…”

“Stop bullying the poor guy, Er–ge,” Shen Yuan interrupted him. “Any thoughts on the situation?”

“Other than the fact that the Old Palace Master deserves to be beheaded?” He asked, taking a box full of what seemed to be tea bags from one of Shen Yuan’s cabinets as if he owned the place. “This Xiang Fei guy is more intelligent than I gave him credit for, when I was only taking his horrible book into consideration.”

“Horrible book that coincidentally contains a large part of your first life,” Shen Yuan muttered.

“Hush.” Xiao Jiu softly hit the top of his brother’s head with his hand, in a gesture that was strangely reminiscent of how the transmigrator Shen Qingqiu hit his disciples with his fan whenever one of them misbehaved. The younger sibling giggled. “As I was saying, credit where credit is due: he was intelligent enough to ask Yue Qi to tell me about the situation, so I could start making plans.”

“So he’s intelligent because he wanted your help?”

“I’m a master of strategy.”

“I’d say that asking Luo Binghe for help once the other Shen Qingqiu transmigrated was his best idea,” Shen Yuan commented. “Or was it your idea?”

Xiao Jiu rolled his eyes. “As much as it pains me to admit it, taking Luo Binghe into their side was a good way to ensure that they’d win,” he conceded. “Heavenly Demons are ridiculously overpowered in my world, as all of us can attest to, even if you’ve only read about it. Not only that, but their Transmigration System is taking their lives as part of a book…”

“Because they are part of a book,” Shen Yuan piped out.

“That’s debatable. But they work like a book, which is what I was trying to get to,” the former Qing Jing Peak Lord continued. “The System probably recognizes Luo Binghe as the protagonist of the world, if only because he was the protagonist of Proud Immortal Demon Way. As such, he will have several advantages over any other person, both in Cang Qiong and beyond.”

“Like a protagonist halo?” Shen Yuan asked.

“I was thinking about plot armor, but he probably has a protagonist halo, too,” Xiao Jiu said. “Both the original Shang Qinghua and… well, me, were treated as villains in PIDW, which will affect the transmigrators as soon as they arrive there. So their first actions will have to go towards getting rid of their villain halos, so to say.”

“You know a lot about this,” Yue Qingyuan said.

He shrugged. “I’ve read my fair share of transmigration stories ever since I transmigrated here.”

“Makes sense.”

“Hence why they hugged the protagonist’s thighs,” Shen Yuan added.

Xiao Jiu shivered in clear disgust. “You didn’t have to phrase it like that.”

His younger brother chuckled. “Sorry.”

“A villain is a specific kind of antagonist, one that is seen as evil,” Xiao Jiu continued. “Shang Qinghua was seen as evil by the protagonist because he betrayed the sect in favor of Mobei–jun, and also because he was the one who allowed the Immortal Alliance Conference in which I threw him into the Endless Abyss to be attacked by all kind of demonic creatures. I was seen as evil because of the untrue rumors about my character–”

“And also because you abused Luo Binghe,” Shen Yuan added.

“–and also because I abused the protagonist according to a modern perspective.”

“You said yourself that you knew that it wasn’t only from a modern perspective,” his brother protested. “Besides, you threw him into hell!”

“As I said this morning, he was a demon and we were in the middle of a demonic invasion!”

“Hey!” Yue Qingyuan got in between the two of them when he saw them close their hands into fists. “I’m sorry, Xiao Jiu, but I have to give it to Shen Yuan this time. The way Luo Binghe was being treated on Qing Jing Peak before the transmigrator appeared was abusive, even if it was rather gentle compared to how we had been treated when we were kids.”

Shen Yuan sent his brother a shit–eating grin. Xiao Jiu, on his part, let out a frustrated growl before concentrating once more on making the tea– no matter how weird the process was in this world.

“...I’m worried about Airplane, though,” the house’s owner continued after a moment. “Because of Mobei–jun, and because he’ll be the only transmigrator around for who knows how many years. Binghe was a white lotus at the time this other guy transmigrated, so getting him to help shouldn’t be so difficult for him. Other than that, he’d only need to save Liu Qingge in the Lingxi Caves and stop going to the brothel at the foot of the mountain. Sect Leader Yue, you said that Liu Qingge was still alive in your world, right?”

Yue Qingyuan nodded, still shocked by the revelation. “The transmigrator saved his life in the Lingxi Caves. Liu–shidi asked to test him for possession immediately afterwards.”

Xiao Jiu snorted.

“Damn, he saved Liu Qingge from the Lingxi Caves and made Luo Binghe’s life better?” Shen Yuan asked, a sarcastic smile on his face that stole Yue Qingyuan’s breath away. “Sorry to say this, Er–ge, but I think this other Shen Qingqiu is a better Peak Lord than you.”

This time, the sect leader was unable to stop Xiao Jiu from throttling his younger brother.

By the time they stopped play–fighting, the porridge that Shen Yuan had been reheating was a little overcooked, and Xiao Jiu had to add sugar to the too–bitter tea.

Chapter Text

Long after Xiao Jiu had gone back to his house, Yue Qingyuan was woken up by a crash somewhere in the house. He was out of bed in seconds, Xuan Su strapped to his back and his secondary sword halfway out of his qiankun sleeve, when the door to his room was thrown open and a wide–eyed Shen Yuan stepped through it.

He seemed to relax as soon as he saw his guest. In fact, he went boneless, which meant that Yue Qingyuan had to rush to his side in order to stabilize him.

“Shen Yuan?” He asked the younger man, taking him by the shoulders once his secondary sword was back inside his sleeve. “What’s wrong?”

“I–” His host’s eyes were bloodshot when he made eye contact with him. He patted his chest, and shoulders, and face, before he took a wild turn and attempted to stumble out of the room. “Sorry. I just– Where’s my phone?!”

Worried, Yue Qingyuan closed his hand around Shen Yuan’s wrist. “What’s happening? Are we under attack?”

“Are we– Of course we’re not!” When he felt the tug from the other man’s arm, the sect leader let go of his wrist. “Airplane just posted. And… And Er–ge… Where the fuck is my phone?!”

He stumbled all the way back to his room. Yue Qingyuan followed him, extremely concerned by his very apparent distress. Xiang Fei had… posted, whatever that meant. What could he have done in order to get Shen Yuan so agitated? Something to do with Xiao Jiu?

The phone was on top of the room’s only desk. Shen Yuan quickly did something with it, before putting it right next to one of his ears.

After a few strange sounds, Xiao Jiu’s sleepy voice came through the device. “A–Yuan? It’s three am, what the fuck– did anything happen? I swear, if you’re calling me instead of the hospital again…”

“Er–ge.” The man went boneless once again, so Yue Qingyuan caught him by the shoulders. “Oh, thank you. I’m fine, Ge. Are you?”

“Of course I’m okay, A–Yuan,” Xiao Jiu answered. “At least, I was until you woke me up. Why are you calling me at such ungodly hours?”

“Airplane posted.”

“...were you reading PIDW at 3 am?”

“Maybe?”

“A–Yuan!” Xiao Jiu screamed. “Just because that hack doesn’t have a fixed sleep schedule, it doesn’t mean that you can’t go to sleep and read the newest chapter in the morning like a normal person!”

“But you died in today’s chapter!”

Yue Qingyuan flinched. He heard Xiao Jiu stifle his breath. Shen Yuan started to shake, in a way that made Yue Qi want to hug him from behind, as if that would make everything alright.

He did it before he could convince himself not to. The younger man flinched when he felt the arms around him, but after a moment, he started sobbing in earnest, as if Yue Qingyuan’s presence had allowed his mask to crack completely.

“Airplane said– in the notes, at the beginning of the… of the chapter. That he didn’t post yesterday because this chapter had been a bitch to write,” Shen Yuan explained. “That it was the hardest one yet. Luo Binghe brought to your cell… the shards of… of…”

“Of Xuan Su,” Xiao Jiu finished the sentence with a sigh. Yue Qingyuan tensed all around Shen Yuan at the reminder of his own death, even if it happened in another reality. “And I swallowed its shards as soon as he got out.”

Shen Yuan nodded, which made Yue Qi’s eyes widen. “Xiao Jiu!”

He bit his lower lip after his outburst. Everyone was silent for a moment, but then the older Shen brother sighed. “Of course you were there. A–Yuan, I’m on my way.”

“Wha– Er–ge, you don’t have to! It’s not a medical emergency!”

“You’ll drive yourself into a medical emergency if you keep spiraling like that,” he countered. And then, “Qi–ge, you better look after him while I’m not there.”

“I will.”

“I’ll trust you with this one. For once in your life, don’t mess it up.”

Looking after Shen Yuan apparently meant sitting down on his host’s chair with him curled up on his lap –he was valiantly ignoring his blush– because the younger man apparently valued physical touch more than he had given him credit for. Yue Qingyuan’s need to distract himself from his current predicament had led him to accidentally unlock the big device on his desk, which was apparently called a laptop, and to read the lines written in a strange but recognizable script in the middle of the ‘screen.’

With a wave of his hand, Luo Binghe cast Xuan Su’s fragments onto the ground.

Amidst disheveled hair and a face drenched in blood, a single eye shone brightly, a white fire glowing in the dark night. Shen Qingqiu shakily dragged himself toward those broken sword fragments, uncaring of the demon lord who turned around and left.

There was nothing left.

Only a single blade.

He had singlehandedly created the Luo Binghe of today, but who had singlehandedly wrought this ending of Shen Qingqiu’s?

Yue Qingyuan shouldn’t have met this kind of fate.

For the purpose of attending a decades-late appointment, in order to fulfill a futile, meritless promise.

The sword broken, the man dead.

It shouldn’t have been like this.

Threads of blood unfurled, extending outward. He did his best to crawl towards the broken blade despite his lack of hands or legs, and caught the shards of it with his mouth, driving them into his throat in order to be swallowed. Right before they should have converged into one, both men passed each other by.

Maybe things would be different in their next life.

He put the hand that wasn’t combing Shen Yuan’s hair on his mouth. Before he could process what he’d had just read, however, a ping sound came from the computer and its screen was overcome by another message.

Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky

Bro, I know it’s late. But we both know that you’ve already read the new chapter

Are you okay?

Yue Qingyuan frowned. Shen Yuan, who had also heard the ping, moved on his lap until he was fully facing his computer.

“Let me answer this.”

He did something, and suddenly, his screen was empty except for the text written by Xiang Fei.

Peerless Cucumber

You hack.

Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky

Glad you’re fine, bro

Peerless Cucumber

WHY DID YOU SUDDENLY WRITE A CHAPTER FROM SQQ’S POV WITHOUT EXPLAINING ANYTHING???

DIDN’T YOU SAY YOURSELF THAT YOU DIDN’T WANT TO REDEEM HIM BECAUSE IT’D BE TOO MUCH WORK TO DO AROUND THE PORN?

Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky

Oh no, not the uppercase

Should I be expecting one of your rants soon?

Peerless Cucumber

You’re lucky I’m too tired for one.

My Er–ge is coming to my place. You’ll get your rant tomorrow.

Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky

Fair

Good night, bro!

Peerless Cucumber

Fuck you

Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky

Aww, I luv u too!

After that exchange, Shen Yuan’s computer went back to displaying the text that described Xiao Jiu’s first death. Yue Qingyuan read it once again, his breath thickening when he got to the last sentence. No, things weren’t different in their next life. Yue Qi failed his Xiao Jiu again. And then, Xiao Jiu reincarnated into Shen Yuan’s brother, and back in Cang Qiong, he didn’t realize that–

He was a fool. He deserved Xiao Jiu’s hatred, but the man had only put up with him ever since they found each other in this strange world. Even though it was through saving him from getting trampled by that horse that he found himself getting sold to the Qiu family, even though he saved him yet again when they met in the Immortal Alliance Conference that Yue Qingyuan had been participating in, even though Yue Qingyuan had failed to save him from the Qius twice, failed to save him from Luo Binghe in his first life, and failed to notice that he had died and been replaced by a transmigrator in his second life.

If Xiang Fei was to be believed –and Yue Qingyuan believed him. Shang Qinghua had always been an odd one, but he had never doubted his loyalty. Not even when he was revealed to be working for demons–, then he had spent two whole lifetimes, maybe even three, believing that Yue Qi thought that his life was better without his Xiao Jiu. That he was part of his shameful past, the one he wanted to forget about.

It was unforgivable on his part. How had he been so stupid?! How could he make it up to Xiao Jiu, when every time he tried, he only made it worse?!

“Sect Leader Yue?”

He flinched at the voice. Shen Yuan was looking at him from above his own shoulder, frowning a little. “Are you okay?”

“I–”

He was interrupted by a sob breaking through his throat. Shen Yuan’s eyes widened, and before Yue Qingyuan knew it, the younger man was moving on his lap until they were facing each other.

A hand rested on his cheek while his host let his legs hang on either side of him. They were so close that Yue Qingyuan felt his cheeks heating like crazy, but his embarrassment was interrupted by another sob.

“Why are you– oh, shit, did you read the chapter?” Shen Yuan asked, concerned. “It’s fine! You told me that your Luo Binghe wasn’t like this! You’re not going to die like that, you–”

Yue Qingyuan shook his head. “But I keep failing him!”

The other man’s frown deepened for a moment. Then, he closed his eyes and heaved a big sigh, as if steeling himself for something.

It was when he opened his arms that Yue Qi understood. “C’mere.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. He fell on Shen Yuan’s arms, who tensed for a brief moment before hugging him tightly, as if trying to keep all of the pieces that he was breaking in, all of the shards that Xuan Shu had broken in once, with the strength of his rather frail arms.

With nowhere to go except out, all of the hurt that he had carried in these long years, the hurt that he had swallowed and swallowed just like Xiao Jiu had once swallowed his soul his sword in a life only remembered through the written world of a bad novel, went out at once. Even though he still didn’t deserve to show it, even though he hadn’t done anything to deserve to feel hurt in the first place, something in his current situation made it impossible for him to continue hiding it anymore.

That was how Xiao Jiu found them later, entwined like a single being, with Yue Qingyuan in the verge of what might be the second worst qi deviation of his entire life, and Shen Yuan also sobbing his lungs out, which would surely make him sick come tomorrow.

Chapter Text

They must have painted a terrible picture. Someone tried to move Shen Yuan out of Yue Qi’s lap, but when both men started screaming at the sudden lack of contact, they were left alone. There was some movement around them, which the cultivator ignored in favor of burying his face in Shen Yuan’s short hair. His own shirt was damp, but he didn’t particularly care at the moment, as long as the weight that was anchoring him away from an ocean of guilt didn’t disappear again.

He suddenly felt a familiar arm behind his back and under his knees, and before he could process it, he was flying. There was a gasp against his shirt, and he found his own head resting against a comforting warmth.

Looking up, he saw a god.

“Xiao Jiu!”

His savior tsk’ed, while walking out of the bedroom. It wasn’t until Shen Yuan finally looked up from Yue Qingyuan’s chest that he noticed that Xiao Jiu was carrying both of them in his arms.

“Er–ge!” Shen Yuan called, his face wet with tears and snot. “I’m sorry I asked Airplane to castrate you! Please, don’t die!”

Xiao Jiu rolled his eyes. “No one is dying anytime soon, A–Yuan. Will you stop crying now? It’s unbecoming.”

“But–!”

They were left on a mattress on the floor. Looking around, it was obvious that Xiao Jiu had put two mattresses and a whole lot of blankets in the middle of the living room, which they were now in the middle of. He offered them a water bottle, and Shen Yuan took it and drank a little, despite his ear still being glued to Yue Qingyuan’s face.

“Better?”

The younger man nodded. Xiao Jiu gave him a box of those weird paper handkerchiefs next, so Yue Qingyuan soon found himself with the water bottle in hand. He took a sip.

Xiao Jiu sat down in front of them. His hair was down, only braided enough to be kept out of his face while he slept. It was clear that he had only put on some shoes and haphazardly thrown a jacket on top of his pajama. Yue Qi didn’t remember seeing him so badly put together ever since they were street rats.

He had come running. The thought warmed him and made him feel worse all at once.

Shen Yuan sniffed. His face was cleaned now, albeit still extremely red. “Er–ge…”

Xiao Jiu huffed, but opened his arms. “Come here, you absolutely brat.”

For the first time in a while, the younger man climbed out of Yue Qi’s lap. He suddenly felt cold, but couldn’t help but put a hand on his chest when he saw the two brothers embracing. Shen Yuan immediately buried his face in the crook of Xiao Jiu’s neck. His breath was still irregular, but he didn’t seem to be crying anymore. Xiao Jiu started rubbing circles on his back, and only after a while did his body relax.

They found each other’s eyes above Shen Yuan’s shoulders.

“I skimmed over the chapter in the elevator,” he confessed. “You shouldn’t have read that.”

“Xiao Jiu–” The other man looked away. Yue Qingyuan, perhaps emboldened by the fact that he was still here, or perhaps remembering his earlier conversation with Xiang Fei, crawled on the mattress until he found his gaze again. “I understand now. Your life would’ve been better if you had never met me.” Xiao Jiu’s eyes widened. Now, it was Yue Qi who looked down. “It was my fault you were bought by the Qius. It was me who failed to save you from them, and who stopped looking for you because I thought, stupidly, that you had died in that house fire. It was me who was content to make you live in a sect you hated and who looked the other way while you were scorned by our martial siblings. It was me who– it was me who failed to notice that you had been replaced by a transmigrator, it was my fault I got ambushed by Luo Binghe in that other life and…”

A hand rested on his cheek and cleaned a tear he hadn’t noticed. When he looked up, Xiao Jiu was frowning, but his eyes were wide open and had a shine in them that Yue Qi hadn’t seen in years.

It was hope.

“You came.” It came out as a whisper.

He frowned. “What?”

“A house fire.” The hand on his cheek started trembling. When Yue Qi wrapped his own hand around that wrist, there wasn’t even a flinch. “You thought I had died in a house fire.”

He understood now. His breath hitched, but he forced his head to nod. Forced his mouth to speak, “They said that all male inhabitants of the mansion had died.”

“I killed them all,” Xiao Jiu said in a whisper. “I thought you weren’t coming– what took you so long?”

He took a deep breath. Of course his Xiao Jiu had killed everyone in that household, he had always been a survivor. 

Still, he wished he could have helped him in any way. He was with a demonic cultivator when they met again, how had that happened?

“I didn’t mean not to return,” he finally confessed. “I cultivated too quickly. Had a qi deviation. By the time I was able to move, the Qiu household was in ruins.”

“And you thought that I had died.”

He nodded. “The two of us passed each other by…”

“You’re extremely stupid.”

Tears started pooling in his eyes. Shen Yuan, who had been listening to the conversation with a bated breath, gasped, and Yue Qi crawled all the way to Xiao Jiu’s arms.

“Stupid!” He was harshly pulled into the embrace. “Why didn’t you tell me that, idiot?! It clearly wasn’t because I didn’t ask!”

“I didn’t think I deserved to explain!” Damn it, he was crying again. “I failed, and that was all that mattered! I didn’t– YOU HAD IT WORSE!” A sob that seemed to come from the middle of his soul shook his entire body. “How could I complain, what right did I have to be in pain, when you had it worse? And it was my fault! It is my fault!”

A sigh. “Stupid Qi–ge.”

Yue Qingyuan, Yue Qi, had been broken once before. During his qi deviation when he obtained Xuan Su, his Shizun had broken his bones and ligaments before throwing him in the Lingxi Caves like someone would throw their trash. He had spent an entire year repairing himself in the deepest of solitudes before he was able to look like a human again.

Now, as the guilt he had been carrying ever since that moment broke him again, he felt four arms holding him tightly. His bones were fine, his ligaments weren’t torn, but his heart, which had been firmly resisting one assault after another ever since he became Head Disciple, broke into a million pieces like it was always meant to do. Like Xuan Su his soul had already done, in another life.

This time, he saw himself break down in the arms of the two people he loved the most. And, this time, he knew that he wouldn’t have to repair himself alone.

What he had done to deserve this mercy, he didn’t know. But he was selfish, and so he buried his face in his Xiao Jiu’s pajamas and basked in the two brothers’ fierce hug.

Chapter Text

Yue Qi, despite his dry throat and eyes, woke up feeling better than he’d done in decades.

A little shift in his position immediately let him know why: his face was half–buried in someone’s hair, there were at least three different arms around him and a warm face hiding on his chest, his back was leaning on someone else, and there was a mess of legs around his that he didn’t want to analyze too much.

He nuzzled against the head closest to him, making a happy sound. He received a snore directly against his chest that made him giggle, while the hand that was resting around his waist started rubbing his stomach.

A pair of lips on top of his head made him look backwards. He was immediately met with Xiao Jiu’s green eyes, which were curved into crescents. They showed more happiness than what Yue Qi could ever remember seeing, that much was for sure.

“Finally awake?”

Yue Qi wouldn’t have been able to hide his easy smile even if he tried. “Did you wake up too long ago?”

“Not at all.” Xiao Jiu’s elegant limbs wrapped more tightly around him, as if trying to fuse them together. Shen Yuan made an unhappy sound at the movement and shifted closer. The leg that was between both of his moved higher as he did so, which had the sect leader holding his breath until the younger man let out a content sigh against his chest and continued snoring, his leg dangerously close to Yue Qi’s crotch but not moving anymore.

“Does he think you’re his personal pillow?” Xiao Jiu’s voice dripped with amusement next to his ear. The air he felt against it made him shiver.

“Like you’re one to talk.”

“Mn. But Qi–ge likes it, doesn’t he?” He rebutted. “To have his Xiao Jiu wrapped all around him and little Shen Yuan using him as his personal cuddlebuddy.”

He couldn’t hide the full–body shiver that those words gave him. When he finally controlled himself, he turned his head around. Xiao Jiu was regarding him with pensive eyes now, but he sent him his best fake smile when they established eye contact.

“I saw how you clung to him last night,” he said. 

“He was having a hard time,” Yue Qi rebutted. “He was the one clinging. I don’t deserve– I mean–”

Xiao Jiu sighed and put his forehead on his shoulder. “My therapist said that it is rather common for trauma victims to believe that they shouldn’t struggle because others had it worse.”

His breath hitched.

“It doesn’t help anyone,” he got on. “It’ll only ever get you to feel shame and guilt for struggling, anger at yourself, disgust, hopelessness about ever getting better. It will lead you– it has led you– to pretend that everything is fine, to avoid asking for support, and to keep yourself in a rut of destructive behaviours.”

“But…” He shook his head. “But I failed you.”

“And I only wanted to know why. But your guilt prevented both of us from closing that wound.” Xiao Jiu sighed. “I’m not mad– scratch that, yes I am, but I understand. Trauma is complex, and whoever says the opposite has never experienced it. You didn’t tell me everything last night, did you? About that qi deviation.”

Yue Qi kept his mouth shut, like a coward. Xiao Jiu didn’t stop rubbing his stomach while he opened his mouth and tried to speak, but when nothing came out, he made a frustrated sound and fully buried his face in Shen Yuan’s short hair.

“Just as I thought.” A sigh. “What do you need, Qi–ge? Time? I’ve given you years. My forgiveness? I guess I could–”

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness!” The scream tore out of his throat. “I failed you! Again and again! I left you with the Qius, I failed to rescue you! I left you for dead while you were being used as a cauldron by Wu Yanzi! And I didn’t explain afterward!” He turned around, desperate to see Xiao Jiu’s eyes. “I kept my mouth shut while you despaired, failed to notice that you’d been replaced, I’ve never been able to help you!” He could feel the tears running down his cheeks. Xiao Jiu’s thumb tried to clean them, but he moved his head aside. “And now you’re trying to console me, when I’ve only ever been the sole cause of your misfortune!”

“That’s not true!” Two hands grabbed his face rather harshly, while the presence at his back shifted and hugged him so tightly he felt a little suffocated. Xiao Jiu moved his face until they were looking at each other, even if Yue Qi’s tears didn’t allow him to see the other man too clearly. “You were the only good thing in that godsforsaken world for me! Yes, you were and continue to be an idiot, but it would’ve been so much worse if you hadn’t been there!” When Xiao Jiu’s thumbs went to wipe his tears this time, he was helpless but to let it happen. “Qi–ge, I’ve spent the last few decades trying to move on. I’m in a better place now. I think it’s high time you tried to do the same.”

Yue Qi shook his head. “I don’t–”

“I know it’s my forgiveness you want, but it isn’t what you need,” Xiao Jiu continued. “Yes, you failed. Repeatedly. You failed because you were human and the entire world was conspiring against us. Just how I failed to see your perspective, I failed to notice that you were also struggling, I failed to perceive that I was treating Luo Binghe almost as badly as Qiu Jianluo had treated me once…”

“It’s not the same!”

“Yes it is!” The scream to his face was enough to take him out of his spiral. Xiao Jiu’s fingers were digging almost painfully in the skin on his cheeks, and his expression was almost crazed. The arms around Yue Qi –Shen Yuan’s arms– were trembling and hugging him tightly, as if trying to prevent him from running away. Shen Yuan’s face –which was rather hot, come to think of it– was hiding against his nape, and his breaths were so ragged that he knew that his host was awake.

How long had he been awake? He had no idea.

Xiao Jiu’s voice softened. “Qi–ge, you need to forgive yourself.”

He shook his head. “But–”

“No buts. If you were sent to our past, if you had to live through our entire lives again, this time knowing what was to come, would you make the same mistakes again?”

“Of course not!”

“Then I rest my case.” After cleaning his tears one more time, Xiao Jiu got up from the mattress. He looked at some point behind Yue Qi and pursed his lips. “Did you get sick, mister?”

Shen Yuan’s arms tightened. The sect leader looked back, only to find a red ear peeking out from the boy’s short hair. He put a hand over one of his host’s, and noticed that it was extremely cold– a great contrast with his hot face.

So he nodded. Xiao Jiu pinched the bridge of his nose and started walking towards the kitchen. “Just what we needed. I’ll make some congee and prepare your morning pills. Qi–ge, this conversation isn’t over.”

As soon as he went away, Yue Qingyuan turned around despite the pair of arms constricting his movements and the leg that was still in between his. To his credit, Shen Yuan moved the offending limb as soon as he noticed the movement, but he refused to let go of his waist. In fact, as soon as they faced each other, the younger man buried his face in the cultivator’s chest.

Yue Qi chuckled. He ruffled Shen Yuan’s hair, which was completely damp with sweat. “Are you running a fever?”

“I think so.” His host looked up at him for the first time that morning. His brown eyes were puffy and his nose was leaking snot, but there was something in his red face that endeared Yue Qingyuan despite how unbecoming it would’ve looked on literally anyone else. “Too much crying last night.”

“I’m sorry for–”

“Tch. I’m going to pull a leaf out of Er–ge’s book and tell you to stop apologizing.” He rolled his eyes after saying this. “Besides, it’s kinda my fault for reading PIDW at 3am. Are you… okay?”

He sighed. “I don’t think I am.”

“Mn. Figured.” Shen Yuan started rubbing circles on his back. “Don’t blame yourself that much. I… like you. And Er–ge does, too, even if he has a hard time showing it.”

Yue Qi couldn’t help but blush at that. “You like me?”

“Yeah, you’re cool! I liked you as a character, and now that you’re a person…” He buried his face in his chest once again. “You’re nice. And you shouldn’t treat yourself so harshly, man. We’ve all done things we regret.”

“Hmn?” He smiled and put a hand on Shen Yuan’s overheated neck– the younger man shivered, which obviously didn’t do anything to him. “Like what?”

“Many things.” He started whispering. “One day, after a hospital visit, I screamed at Meimei because…”

A while later, Xiao Jiu would find them entwined for the second time in as many days. However, contrary to their state of panic last night, this time they would be sleeping in each other’s arms.

Chapter Text

Yue Qingyuan couldn’t move. He couldn’t move, and yet he felt a foreign hand around his wrist and extremely powerful but foreign spiritual energy coursing through his meridians, along with a strange flavor and texture on his tongue. There was something in his mouth, he realized. Some sort of plant.

“Come on…” Muttered a familiar voice. “Come on, it has to work. Zhangmen–shibo! Can you hear me?”

He could, he thought. In fact, he recognized Luo Binghe’s voice. The problem was that he couldn’t move.

As if hearing his thoughts, the foreign hand– probably his Shizhi’s– wrapped around his own. “Squeeze this one’s hand if you can hear him, Shibo.”

He wasn’t able to.

A sigh, and another voice coming from further away. “Lord Luo? Did it work?”

It was Shang Qinghua, sounding so similar yet so different to Xiang Fei.

The hand disappeared, which left Yue Qingyuan disoriented. 

“Does it look like it worked, Shang–shishu?!”

“Fuck,” Shang Qinghua said, emphatically. “There went our last chance to do this peacefully.”

“There’s still the Sun–Moon Dew Mushrooms,” Luo Binghe pointed out.

“Yeah, I guess, Cucumber–bro left some seeds in the bamboo house just in case.” Yue Qingyuan’s breath would have hitched if only his lungs had been working. “But those take about five years to grow and we’re on the verge of war! Not to mention that your Shizun is still kidnapped. Probably just having tea with your father while the guy tries to set him up with your cousin, but still.”

“Shishu is right,” Luo Binghe conceded. “Go fetch Mobei–jun. I’ll prepare Shibo’s body for transport.”

“Thank you again for your help, Lord Luo.” Shang Qinghua’s voice came from further away now. “My k–!”

Yue Qingyuan woke up with a start.

The first thing he saw was Xiao Jiu’s face. He had a hand on his shoulder and was frowning. “Qi–ge?”

“Fine,” he wheezed. “What..?”

“You fell asleep,” came the tentative answer. “I made congee. Here.”

He was given a bowl full of food and a ladder, so he absentmindedly took it as he thanked the cook. It was very tasty. He sat down in the lotus position on top of the mattress as he ate, his mind elsewhere. It was clear that Luo Binghe and Shang Qinghua were trying to resurrect him, back in his world. It was the only reason Luo Binghe would’ve referred to Yue Qingyuan’s ‘body.’

And it seemed like it wasn’t going well. Yet Shang Qinghua had an idea that he didn’t think was peaceful.

They were on the verge of war, he had said. It all pointed to Tianlang–jun: the fact that Luo Binghe’s father had kidnapped Shen Qingqiu, the story Xiang Fei had told Shen Yuan and him the other day, everything that he had come to learn even before coming here… Tianlang–jun thought that he had been betrayed, so he wanted to destroy the cultivation sects in revenge. He didn’t know the truth. Would he believe the truth, even if someone told him? Would knowing it stop him from trying to destroy the cultivation world? Xiang Fei seemed to think so, but there was a difference between writing words on a page and living through something yourself. Shang Qinghua had probably learned this lesson long ago.

Not to mention…

His gaze found Shen Yuan. His host had a lot of paper tissues around him, probably the result of his running nose, and his face was almost inside his bowl of congee as he ate it like a starved man.

Cucumber–bro.

‘Cucumber–bro’ left some Sun–Moon Dew Mushroom seeds in the bamboo house.

There weren’t many people who had access to the bamboo house, just as there weren’t many people who would be called Cucumber–bro by his Shang–shidi.

In fact, he had only heard Xiang Fei use this nickname on a single person. Granted, he had only seen Xiang Fei once, but it was too much of a coincidence, wasn’t it?

Then again, he would prefer it if it were a coincidence.

“What is a Sun–Moon Dew Mushroom?” He asked the room at large, just to avoid making the realization his mind was screaming at him to make.

Xiao Jiu looked at him with confusion.

“Hmn?” Shen Yuan raised his head from his bowl. “It’s a prop used by a random opponent in PIDW. I think they are native to Bai Lu Forest? It requires a place with excellent feng shui and abundant spiritual power to grow, and when it matures, it can grow a living human body if it is molded during cultivation. The body is just a husk without a soul, but if the person who grows it uses qi during the process and then dies, their soul will go to that body instead of reentering the reincarnation cycle.”

He looked at the former and current cultivators after saying this, and frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?”

As a matter of fact, he did. Yue Qingyuan reached out without thinking and took the grain of rice that had been stuck to Shen Yuan’s cheek in between his thumb and his index fingers. He then put it in his mouth. Shen Yuan looked at him with his mouth open, and a bright red returned to his cheeks. Was his fever going up again?

“Shameless,” said Xiao Jiu. “A–Yuan, how on earth do you remember all that?”

He frowned. “You don’t?”

“I– of course not!” Xiao Jiu shook his head. “Sure, the plant’s name rang a bell, but how could you remember that from just a few lines in a book?”

“I… wrote most of the PIDW Wiki?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

Yue Qingyuan laughed.

“Why did you want to know?” Shen Yuan asked him.

“Oh. I–” He frowned. “I heard Luo Binghe and Shang Qinghua speaking while I was asleep. I think they’re trying to resurrect me.”

Their eyes turned downcast.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just a dream?” Xiao Jiu asked.

He shrugged. “It felt real. I couldn’t move, and they were discussing possible ways to resurrect me. Luo Binghe proposed using some Sun–Moon Dew Mushrooms, but Shang–shidi said they didn’t have time for them.”

“They do take a while to grow,” Shen Yuan agreed, before blowing his nose. “Sorry. If they were trying out some methods to resurrect you and you overheard them, then it means that at least one of them worked a little. We might have less time than we thought to find the second transmigrator.”

The second transmigrator…

Yue Qingyuan nodded. “But you are sick. How about we get a rest day before we try searching for him? He could… be anywhere.”

Xiao Jiu sent him a calculating look, so he avoided his gaze. Shen Yuan didn’t seem convinced, either, but a sneeze made him rethink.

Movies were strange. Yue Qi had found himself on the sofa, once again in between both brothers, and was immersed in one story about saving the world when he felt a head on his shoulder. Looking to his left, he saw Shen Yuan, who hadn’t changed from his pajamas. He put a hand on the younger man’s forehead, earning him a hum. It was hot.

“I think you’re running a fever,” he mumbled, moving Shen Yuan’s head until it was resting on the back of the sofa.

As soon as he retired his hand from his host’s forehead, he complained. “‘m fine. Yue–gege must be wrong.”

He froze.

Fortunately, Shen Yuan let out a snore immediately after saying that, so he didn’t notice the way Yue Qi looked at his sleeping face as if he had seen a ghost, his hand still raised in midair and his body so still he wasn’t sure he was breathing.

Something landed on his shoulder.

He turned back with inhuman speed, his hand already preparing a qi blast before remembering that this world was safe.

He met Xiao Jiu’s wide eyes. The other man was halfway out of the sofa, his former cultivator reflexes having kicked in after Yue Qi’s sudden move. They remained there, once again frozen in time, staring at each other.

Yue Qingyuan forcefully calmed his qi and looked at Shen Yuan again, who was still asleep. Then at Xiao Jiu.

“We need to talk. In private. Immediately.”

Xiao Jiu frowned. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”

It was strange that he hadn’t argued. He must’ve seen something in his face.

Chapter Text

“WHAT?!”

Yue Qingyuan flinched. Xiao Jiu saw his reaction, huffed, and started pacing around the kitchen. The door was closed, which hopefully meant that Shen Yuan hadn’t heard his brother’s scream.

Xiao Jiu put his hands at the side of his head and fisted his long hair. He looked at his companion with bloodshot eyes. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“Xiao Jiu…” He was sent a glare. “Only the second transmigrator has ever called this one Yue–gege. Shang–shidi calls him Cucumber–bro. Because…”

“Because his username is Peerless Cucumber,” the other man finished his sentence. “Fuck. Did Xiang Fei call A–Yuan Cucumber–bro when you three met?”

He nodded. “The nickname sounded familiar, but I didn’t put two and two together until this morning.”

“Just what we needed.” Xiao Jiu all but fell down on the nearest chair. “It’s no wonder your Shang Qinghua told you to find me but didn’t say anything about the other Shen Qingqiu: he knew you would find him immediately.”

Yue Qi hummed and sat down in front of the other man, leaving the kitchen table in the middle of them. “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know.”He buried his face in his hands. “My… My Didi is going to die.”

“Xiao Jiu…”

“No.” The aforementioned man shook his head. “No, you don’t get it. They said that he wouldn’t live past fourteen, did you know that?”

Yue Qi’s breath hitched.

“Exactly.” When Xiao Jiu looked up, his smile was self–deprecatingly. It was strange seeing this kind of smile in another person instead of just in the mirror. “Asthma, an allergy to just about everything, heart problems when he was just a kid –which thankfully stopped after that awful surgery–, and just a shitty immune system overall. It’s a miracle he’s alive to this day. I’ve given my all to ensure that he’s alive to this day. And now, you come into my life and tell me that what all I’ve done has been for nothing?” His tone turned bitter at the end of the question. He looked like he was about to bite someone, an expression that Yue Qingyuan hadn’t seen on Shen Qingqiu’s face in years. “That you’re going to bring him to your stupid world regardless of all my efforts?!”

“This is– I haven’t done anything this time!”

“And that’s your fucking problem! You never do anything!” Xiao Jiu screamed. “You only take, and take, and take, and always fail to give back a single drop of kindness! Why did I think this time would be different?! Why did I think that seeing your face once again wouldn’t end up in disaster, like it always does?! You’re just bad karma!”

Yue Qi was frozen. He was faintly aware of how wide his own eyes were and of the fact that he hadn’t taken a breath in a while. He was extremely aware of the way Xiao Jiu’s chest raised and fell after he stopped yelling and the silence that stretched inside the kitchen.

He was also aware of the hole in his chest and the pressure behind his eyes.

Xiao Jiu was right, as always. He was a failure of a human being and the bringer of bad news.

He didn’t know what he did to deserve to continue living.

The situation unfroze when the kitchen’s door opened. Both men turned to it with almost inhuman speed, only to find a sleepy Shen Yuan rubbing at his eyes behind it. “Ge? I think I heard yelling.”

Xiao Jiu’s mouth opened slightly. He looked around the kitchen as if seeing it for the first time, and dodged Shen Yuan at the door as he bolted from there. “Your pantry is empty. I’m going to buy some food.”

He took his wallet and a set of keys from somewhere next to the front door, before it opened and closed with a bang.

Shen Yuan seemed confused. He took a dirty paper handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose, before looking at Yue Qingyuan in search of answers. The sect leader had no idea what his host had seen on his face, but it had Shen Yuan moving halfway through the kitchen and sitting down next to him.

“What happened?” He asked.

He looked aside. Shen Yuan made a sound of distaste and moved, until they were face to face once again. “Sect Leader Yue. What happened?”

He closed his eyes. “Remember how I heard Shang–shidi and Luo Binghe talking earlier?”

“Yes…?”

“Shang–shidi mentioned the other transmigrator.” He licked his lips. “He called him ‘Cucumber–bro.’”

The room was deadly silent for a few interminable seconds.

When it seemed as if time itself had frozen, Yue Qingyuan opened his eyes. At the same time, Shen Yuan jumped off his chair and started pacing across the kitchen, his hands resting at the side of his head in a way so similar to Xiao Jiu’s that it was no wonder nobody in Cang Qiong had realized there was a transmigrator in their midst.

“Holy shit,” Shen Yuan muttered what Yue Qi was thinking. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

He shook his head. “Shen Yuan, I– I’m sorry.”

“What the fuck are you sorry for?!” The future transmigrator demanded. “None of this is your fault!”

Yue Qi stood up and took his host by the wrists, worried about Shen Yuan ripping off his already–short hair in frustration. “You are going to die,” he said, despite the sudden dryness in his throat. “You have– you have already died.”

“Yes, no shit, I–” He coughed. “I hate being sick.” He lowered his voice while saying this, and took a glass of water from the counter, which he drank without making eye contact with him. “I’m mortal, Sect Leader Yue. And Airplane was right, we have no idea how far into my future this will happen.” He turned towards him again, the half–empty glass of water still in his hand and a self–deprecating smile on his face that made him look exactly like Xiao Jiu. “Besides, it isn’t the first time someone has told me that I’m going to die. My entire family has been waiting for me to die for years, I’m sure it’ll be a relief when I finally…”

“Don’t.” Yue Qi carefully left the glass of water back on the counter and held his wrists again. “Xiao Yuan, don’t.”

His host’s eyes widened. “Why do I get a nickname too…?”

“Watching someone you care about die will never be a relief.” He knew this firsthand, he guessed. Despite the fact that he knew that Xiao Jiu was better off in this world, it still hurt to know that he was dead in his. He hadn’t had the opportunity to grieve him yet, but he knew that the experience would be hard as soon as he went back to the sect. “Do you know why Xiao Jiu was yelling earlier? Because I told him that you were the other transmigrator. And he doesn’t want to see you dead. He doesn’t want to lose you. He has given his all to ensure you’re as healthy as can be, do you think he’ll feel relief when you–” The younger man shook his head and tried to back away, but was held back by Yue Qi’s grip on his wrists. “Xiao Yuan.”

“Stop.”

“Xiao Yuan, please–”

“No.” He started trembling. “Yue–gege, please. Not now.”

He squeezed his wrists before letting him go. “...okay.”

Shen Yuan immediately pinched the bridge of his nose and swallowed hard. It was a common technique to ensure you wouldn’t start crying like a baby, Yue Qingyuan had used it countless times. It didn’t always work.

It did, this time. His host took the glass of water back in his hand and moved to the table, sitting down on the chair his brother had previously occupied. He drank more water and blew his nose again.

“It’ll be years from now,” he said to the silence, as if reciting an oath. “And hey, I’ll get to know Luo Binghe!”

“That is true,” Yue Qingyuan admitted.

Shen Yuan’s laugh sounded a little wet. “Cool.”

He chuckled despite himself, before taking a seat on his previous chair. “The situation is dire right now, though. Shang–shidi thinks that you have been kidnapped by Tianlang–jun and his nephew, Zhuzhi–lang.”

“Mn. We’ll need to ask Er–ge how I can manage that situation,” he mused. “And also how to avoid it, in case that’s possible. But I guess I’ll mainly need to bide my time before Airplane resurrects you and you can rescue me, or something.”

Yue Qingyuan felt a lump forming in his throat while he nodded. He wasn’t good at rescuing people from places.

He had been lucky up until now, he knew that. Xiao Jiu hadn’t died in the Qiu household despite his failure. But, in another life, the second time he had failed to rescue Shen Qingqiu, they had both died for it.

Shen Yuan was going to die. Shen Yuan had already died. And he was counting on Yue Qi to rescue him from Tianlang–jun.

If he failed again, both of them would die.

He couldn’t do that to Shen Yuan, who still trusted him so innocently.

He couldn’t do that to Xiao Jiu, who rightfully didn’t trust him and believed that he had come here with the sole purpose of taking his little brother away from him.

And he couldn’t do that to himself, who had come to love the two brothers with the desperation of someone who had never known love before.

For once in his stupid life, he had to win.

Chapter Text

Xiao Jiu came back carrying two shopping bags with one hand and Xiang Fei with the other.

Xiang Fei was walking by himself. But it was true that Xiao Jiu had a vice–grip on his arm. Where he had found the author, Yue Qingyuan had no idea.

They had been sitting at the kitchen table for a while now. Shen Yuan’s laptop was in front of him, with PIDW and its Wiki open for reference, and they were writing everything Yue Qi could remember about his own life in a notebook. It had taken him a while to get used to ballpoint pens, but he had to recognize that they were useful. What he had refused to use was the so–called simplified characters, since Shen Yuan could read traditional characters just fine –would have to get used to them, if he wanted to make everybody believe he was a scholar– and it would take Yue Qingyuan too long to learn how to write in simplified form.

His host was lazily skimming over one of his own comments in a ‘PIDW forum’ –whatever that meant– while resting his head on Yue Qi’s shoulder. The sect leader was valiantly ignoring the warmth coming from his side, lest he self–combust, while copying down the information Shen Yuan was reading aloud. He was perfectly aware that his face must be extremely red, but he didn’t dare circle his qi around his body because he’d been on the verge of a qi deviation just last night, and it was still a little unstable. In a world without Mu–shidi, he would rather blush than risk a disadjustment of his spiritual energy.

As soon as Xiao Jiu and Xiang Fei appeared in the kitchen, Shen Yuan jumped away from Yue Qi as if scalded. The two newcomers watched the movement, Xiao Jiu with a scowl and Xiang Fei with a smug smile that must mean he was thinking something that would’ve gotten him a fan to the face had they been in Cang Qiong.

As it was, he simply giggled while a faint blush painted Shen Yuan’s cheeks, and sat down on a free chair. “So, a little birdie has told me that you’ll eventually become Shen Qingqiu?”

“Shut up,” Shen Yuan immediately said. Then, frowning, “What are you doing here?”

He looked at Xiao Jiu, who was taking a seat next to him at the moment. “So, uh… Mr. Shen over here found me while…”

“You are destined to transmigrate as Shang Qinghua,” Xiao Jiu interrupted him. “It’s Shen–shixiong for you.”

Xiang Fei’s mouth opened in a perfect ‘o’ shape. When the man who had brought him to this house glared at him, he cleared his throat. “Of course, Shen– Shen–shixiong. Wow, that’s weird. Anyways,” he turned towards Shen Yuan. “I was out buying instant noodles and he kidnapped me. Not before telling me who he was and… I still don’t know how I’m alive.”

Xiao Jiu crossed his arms. “Because I refuse to believe that everything that has happened to me has been the fault of an idiot such as you. And because A–Yuan needs you.”

Shen Yuan frowned. “I do?”

“I’m not letting you transmigrate as me without backup!” Xiao Jiu complained, before pointing at Yue Qi. “Qi–ge won’t remember any of this once you arrive at the sect due to the laws of time travel, and I’m not going to leave you alone with that beast.”

“Hey! Luo Binghe is not a beast–”

“He will be fourteen when you arrive there!” He interrupted his brother. “This world is mostly safe, but that other one is not! You know that already! You will find yourself inside a body filled with spiritual energy you don’t know how to use, in a position of power, yes, but also of great scrutiny.”

Shen Yuan cocked his head, thinking. “You were never well–liked among the sect.”

Xiao Jiu snorted. “Understatement of the century. Everybody thought that I was a pervert and a child abuser, none of my martial siblings liked me one bit except for Mr. Himbo over here, who was more of an enabler than a true ally…” Yue Qingyuan had no idea what the word ‘himbo’ meant or why it could be used to describe him, but it sent Xiang Fei into a fit of giggles. “I guess you will have an advantage in the form of Shang Qinghua. The one I had the first time only made the rumors worse. Come to think of it, my time at Cang Qiong was the slightest bit easier with the second one.” He sent a barely appreciative look at Xiang Fei, who panicked in silence when he noticed it. “But you will need more allies than a single person.”

“Like Luo Binghe,” Shen Yuan pressed.

He waved his hand in a dismissive manner. “I’m talking about the Peak Lords. Saving Liu Qingge’s life is imperative.”

“Even if it’ll make him ask for possession tests?”

This time, it was Yue Qingyuan’s turn to shrug. “All the tests were negative. No one suspects a thing.”

This calmed Shen Yuan down a notch. “How do I save Liu Qingge?”

Xiao Jiu and Xiang Fei shared a look.

It was time to plan.

It happened several hours later, after lunch. Shen Yuan had started to feel worse due to his cold, so his brother and Xiang Fei moved him back to his bed. Yue Qingyuan was left washing the dishes.

He gasped when everything suddenly turned black, as if his eyes had stopped working. He frantically moved his hands to grab the counter, and in doing so, he felt the glass he had been holding slide off his grip and hit the floor. The sound was drowned by a yell.

“Fuck!”

It was Shang–shidi’s voice. He tried to move his head, sure that Xiang Fei had come running from Shen Yuan’s room when he heard the commotion in the kitchen, but he was unable to see him at the door.

Just how he was unable to see anything. He wasn’t even sure he had managed to turn around.

“Come on, wake up already!” Shang Qinghua complained, which didn’t make any sense in the current context. “There aren’t that many ways to resurrect someone, you know?!”

…resurrect?

He wasn’t standing up. No, no, his body was lying down on a cold surface, and he wasn’t able to move it. His eyes weren’t working, he didn’t see anything, he was trapped inside an unresponsive body!

“Don’t tell me we’ve razed Wife #143’s entire demonic clan for nothing,” Shang Qinghua continued saying. “They don’t give their secret resurrection plants to outsiders, and we weren’t about to stage a wedding. Please, Cucumber–bro will kill me if this doesn’t work.”

He felt two hands pressing against his chest even through all the fabrics in front of it –far more fabrics than the ones he was currently wearing in Shen Yuan’s world, he noticed with a start– and a tendril of foreign qi started moving through his otherwise empty meridians.

He gasped.

“Zhangmen–shixiong!” Shang Qinghua’s voice broke. “He’s… He’s reacting!”

“I can see that.” It was Luo Binghe.

A hand wrapped around his wrist, infusing more qi into his system. Yue Qingyuan gasped again, opened his eyes–

And found himself sprawled on the floor of Shen Yuan’s kitchen.

Someone kneeled next to him and took him by the armpits. “Qi–ge?”

He turned his head towards the voice, still a little confused. “Xiao Yuan?”

Someone chuckled from a few steps away. He looked in that direction and found Xiang Fei with a hand on his mouth, looking amused and not at all as desperate as Shang–shidi’s voice had been only a moment earlier. He then looked to the person who was helping him stand up, and grimaced when he noticed his mistake. “Xiao Jiu. Apologies.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not quite sure.” He was led to a chair and put a hand on his forehead while Xiao Jiu collected a broom from somewhere and Xiang Fei filled two glasses of water. One of them was soon on the table in front of him. “Thank you, Shidi.”

“Don’t… mention it.” He looked alternatively between Xiao Jiu and him, before nodding as if to himself. “I’ll go bring Cucumber–bro some water and tell him that everything's fine. He must be getting worried.”

He went out after that. The kitchen remained mostly silent while Yue Qi drank some water despite his trembling hands and Xiao Jiu cleaned the glass he had dropped to the floor. 

He flexed his qi. It felt better than this morning. In fact, it felt as if he had recently received a qi transfusion, as if whatever Luo Binghe and Shang Qinghua had done to him back in his world had been passed to this version of his body. 

“I don’t want to go back,” he found himself saying. From the corner of his eye, he saw Xiao Jiu raising his head, but he continued looking at the water still inside his glass, afraid that his resolve would crumble otherwise. “I don’t want to take Shen Yuan away from his home. And I don’t want to go back to a place you’re no longer in.”

Xiao Jiu heaved a sigh. “Qi–ge…” He left the broom against the wall and approached him. “You don’t have much choice.”

Yue Qi lowered his head. A hand rested on his shoulder, making him flinch. 

“I was too harsh earlier.” He sharply looked up. Xiao Jiu was avoiding his gaze. “I’m sorry. If someone else has to look after A–Yuan, then I’m glad it’s you.”

“But he’s your brother,” he protested. 

The other man sighed. “I know. But so are you. You were the first brother I've ever had.”

Yue Qi’s breath hitched. Before he knew it, his face was buried in Xiao Jiu’s stomach, with the other man’s hands around his shoulder in some kind of hug. He sniffled pathetically against the fabric. “Will we ever be happy?”

“Yes,” Xiao Jiu told him, furiously, like a promise. “It's just being happy together that seems quite difficult. But otherwise? We will find our happy endings.”

He nodded against Xiao Jiu. For better or for worse, his fellow street rat, this particular Shidi of his, his Xiao Jiu, had never broken a promise.

Chapter Text

After hugging it out, Xiao Jiu told Yue Qingyuan to take a look at Shen Yuan, just in case Xiang Fei or he needed anything. So the sect leader walked towards his host’s room, only to be stopped by Xiang Fei’s words right before he could be seen from the door.

“Right,” the author was saying, his tone sarcastic. “So that was why you were all cozy in the kitchen this morning. You were just cuddling your bro.”

“Don’t say it like that!” Shen Yuan whined. “I just get a little affectionate when I’m sick.”

“Were you sick when you bought all of your Luo Binghe merch?”

“What does that have to do with anything? Binghe is a good character, I admire him.”

“You admire him so much that you planned on going to sleep with a body pillow of him.”

Shen Yuan groaned. “That’s just because–”

“Bro, I hate having to be the one to break it to you, but you like men. I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at Yue Qingyuan lately, I’ve seen your Luo Binghe shrine, and I’m pretty sure that even your brother suspects that there’s a budding romance in the works here!”

Yue Qingyuan put a hand over his mouth. Perhaps he shouldn’t be listening to this conversation.

Shen Yuan likes men, though?

“I’m not gay!”

“I’m not saying you are! Maybe you’re bisexual! Maybe you’re homoromantic asexual! The combinations are infinite! But you like Yue Qingyuan.”

He felt his cheeks heating at Xiang Fei’s words, and his mouth curved upwards without his permission. If Shen Yuan was the second transmigrator, then he had confessed his love to him in the Water Prison, hadn’t he?

He didn’t know what to do with this information.

“I don’t…”

“Is he a good cuddler?” Xiang Fei interrupted his friend.

“He is. He’s got all that muscle, and… Hey! Are you trying to distract me from the fact that I’m not gay?”

The author groaned. “Bro.”

“Don’t ‘bro’ me, bro.”

“It’s okay, I’m gay myself. I explicitly created Mobei–jun as my ideal man.”

“Gross.” For once, Yue Qingyuan agreed. He didn’t expect to learn today that his Shang–shidi was attracted to the demon he had been working for all this time. “Especially considering that you’re due to transmigrate as Shang Qinghua.”

Exactly!

“Believe me, I know. But I support you, no matter who you choose to romance in the future. Unless you try to court my king. That would be a violation of the bro code, therefore…”

Shen Yuan interrupted him with a giggle. “Go away!”

“Okay, okay, I’m going,” Xiang Fei acquiesced, also laughing a little.

Yue Qingyuan quickly took a step back and moved so that, when the author went away from Shen Yuan’s room, he looked like he had just arrived. Xiang Fei greeted him with a nod and with a smile that seemed a little smug, but he didn’t say anything.

Inside the room, Shen Yuan was already in bed, hugging his Luo Binghe body pillow while looking at his covers. He raised his head as soon as he saw movement, with his mouth already open, but he closed it when he saw that it was Yue Qingyuan.

“Is everything alright?” He asked.

Shen Yuan nodded. “Yeah. Airplane was just telling me something stupid.” Curious how he was blushing, then. “Are you… okay? I heard you collapsed in the kitchen.”

He nodded. “I’m fine. Shang–shidi is trying to bring me back, and I think he almost succeeded this time.”

“Oh.” His host lowered his gaze again. “I’m going to miss you.”

Yue Qingyuan felt his heartstrings tighten when he heard that. “Me too,” he said with a soft voice. “How about you, though? Are you feeling better?”

Shen Yuan scowled. “Sleepy. Which is ridiculous because it’s the middle of the day.”

“Such is the trouble when being sick.”

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you try to sleep?” Yue Qingyuan proposed, approaching the bed. “None of us will be going anywhere.”

As soon as he was close enough, Shen Yuan took his sleeve. It was rather long, probably because he was still wearing Xiao Jiu’s clothes and the man liked the comfort that long sleeves gave him. Still, it wasn’t as long as the ones he was used to, back in his world. “But what if you go back to your world while I’m not around?”

“I won’t.”

Shen Yuan tugged from his sleeve, even as his cheeks reddened some more. “Stay.”

Yue Qingyuan couldn’t help but look at the Luo Binghe body pillow right next to the younger man on the bed. Shen Yuan followed his gaze, blushed even more, and threw it away.  “Don’t go.”

Yue Qingyuan couldn’t help but smile. “Should I get into that bed, so that you can make sure that I’m not leaving?”

He regretted his words as soon as he said them. This man had confessed his love to him not so long ago, in the Water Prison. However, none of the years they had actually spent together had existed for Shen Yuan. For him, they had met less than a week ago, and here Yue Qingyuan was, offering to get in his bed.

Besides, Yue Qi wasn’t completely sure he loved Shen Yuan. Sure, he was kind, and had cared about all of his disciples and martial siblings as Shen Qingqiu, and he hadn’t known how to act around Yue Qingyuan at the beginning, until he eventually stopped looking a little less afraid –afraid of being caught as a fraud, he understood now– each time they interacted. And he was beautiful, both as Shen Yuan and as Shen Qingqiu, with a rare smile that Yue Qi loved. A smile that he always wanted to see on his face…

Oh. 

So maybe he was in love.

“Good idea.” Shen Yuan interrupted his realization, making some space in the bed. “You can’t catch my cold, right? Because you’re a cultivator and all that.”

“Don’t worry, I will be fine.” Still a little wary, Yue Qingyuan took off his shoes and went under the covers. “Better?”

“Mn.” Shen Yuan turned around and tugged on his arm until his host’s back was pressed to his chest, effectively spooning. “If you go back to PIDW while I’m sleeping, I’ll find my way there just to tell you off.”

“Don’t worry, that won’t be necessary,” he promised, kissing Shen Yuan’s head. The other man’s ears turned so red that he almost wanted to nom on them, but he controlled the impulse.

They fell asleep soon after that. 

That’s why none of them noticed Shen Jiu approaching the room some time later, or saw him smile softly when he saw them cuddling. Yes, he was sure that Qi–ge would make it right by his brother.