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Luo Binghe was not at his best on the night he presented himself at the door of Shizun’s rented room. His carefully planned return to cultivation society was not going the way he’d envisioned it.
Thanks to that two-faced rat on An Ding, Binghe had been kept adequately abreast of Shizun’s movements ever since he’d found his way back to the human realm. He’d taken his time. He’d been careful. The plan was to establish his reputation among the sects -separately from Cang Qiong Mountain- as a powerful, righteous, and well-liked cultivator. If he knew one thing about people, it was that if enough people agreed on a thing then no amount of evidence to the contrary would convince them otherwise and he planned to make full use of that.
It wasn’t by coincidence that Qin Wanyue ‘found’ him injured and alone. Binghe’s capacity for damage was higher than even the average cultivator so he’d looked more hurt than he actually was after a nasty tussle with one of the demonic beasts who’d escaped into the human realm with him. He’d been tempted to let it go its own way, but he was too much a student of Qing Jing to let it rampage as it pleased through the delicate ecosystem of the forested hills he’d landed in.
The Bailu Foothills, as it turned out, butted up against Huan Hua Palace’s hunting grounds and Qin Wanyue was part of the team tasked with monitoring their borders that month. They passed nearby the place where he’d stopped to rest and let his wounds close. The opportunity was too good to pass up.
Huan Hua Palace seemed like the best place to start rehabilitating his image. He had a good reputation with their current generation already thanks to the way so many of them had glommed onto him during the Immortal Alliance Conference and the sect itself was wealthy enough that most everyone else had to at least pretend to give them face, which could only benefit Binghe in the long term as he moved on to impress the leadership of the other, less worldly (yet stronger and more legitimate) sects.
Once he has established himself as beyond reproach with the other three great sects, Cang Qiong Mountain would have no reason to close their doors to him.
Huan Hua Palace sect welcomed him with open arms, even the Old Palace Master and his hot-tempered daughter. Through them, Binghe realized that he had far less work to do than he’d originally supposed. Shang Qinghua had said that Shizun told no one about Binghe’s true nature, but Binghe had thought surely Shizun would have had something negative about him to say in all this intervening time –but no. Binghe’s reputation was exactly as he’d left it; that of an up and coming young disciple whose master thought very highly of him, cut down tragically early.
In retrospect, Shizun would have had very little reason to speak out against Binghe. Not even Cang Qiong Mountain sect could escape repercussions from the discovery that they’d been sheltering a half-demon and potentially the saboteur responsible for the carnage during the survival event at the Immortal Alliance Conference. Shizun wouldn’t have exposed his sect to that kind of censure. No, Binghe’s name had just been quietly added to the already long rolls of the dead.
Even so, Binghe couldn’t resist the little kernel of hope that revelation lit in his chest. Shizun had left a path open for him to come back, whether he’d meant to or not. That meant something, right?
Today, he’d decided to begin the first stages of his triumphant return. Shizun couldn’t possibly be willing to let him come back right away. Even if (by some miracle) he was, the Sect Master might not let him after Binghe had been away for so long without any explanation. No, this encounter was just meant to show Shizun that Binghe was still alive and well respected elsewhere so that he wouldn’t hear it from a rumor first.
If he was being honest with himself, he also wanted Shizun to have to look at him, to see what Luo Binghe had become without his guiding hand, and to see the face Shizun made when he did.
‘Did it hurt, Shizun?’ Binghe wanted to know. ‘Do you regret it? Have you been having to survive around my absence like I’ve had to survive in spite of yours? Did you miss me at all?’
In some ways Binghe got what he wanted from the fragile look in Shizun’s lovely eyes when they met again, face to face at last. Binghe had not ever seen that expression on his master’s face ever before and some part of him was satisfied to know that he could move his master to such painful vulnerability.
In other ways, he regretted not ordering the team he’d been assigned to hang back when he spotted Shizun pursuing a strange cloaked figure through the empty streets. It would have been better if he’d been alone when he cut off Shizun’s pursuit.
He had never spoken badly of his master at Huan Hua Palace, had in fact spoken very well of Qing Jing Peak to Qin Wanyue and the others who liked to hang around him. He’d told them it was his own shame over having become lost in the demon realm that kept him from returning. As cover stories went, his was a little weak but it was also the kind of drivel that young, idealistic cultivators ate up without questioning it too hard.
Unfortunately, he’d miscalculated because every last one of them drew steel at Shizun on sight, putting Shen Qingqiu on guard and Binghe into the role of the aggressor –exactly where he did not want to be. No matter how Binghe tried to gentle himself and round off the edges of everything he was feeling in the face of his master’s painful beauty, it didn’t mean anything with five cultivators bristling at his back and obviously spoiling for the flimsiest excuse.
Binghe shed them at the first available opportunity, but it took several hours. Whenever he tried to slip away, one of them would cling onto him and drag him back to the group. It didn’t take long for Binghe to realize that this was a deliberate and concerted effort aimed at keeping him away from the Cang Qiong Mountain sect representatives.
In retrospect, he’d been counting far too much on Huan Hua Palace to give face to a rival sect. If he’d learned nothing during his time there, it was that they knew just how much the other sects looked down on them for having so much contact with the mortal world even while those other sects happily accepted the benefits of Huan Hua sect’s money. Cang Qiong Mountain sect was everything Huan Hua Palace sect thought they should be; well respected, powerful, and the unofficial leadership of cultivation society. Instead Huan Hua Palace sat solidly in Cang Qiong Mountain’s long shadow.
Huan Hua Palace was frequently the very first first stop for novitiates who’d been rejected from Cang Qiong Mountain’s disciple selections, after all, so the resentment there ran deep and -in a now rare moment of naivete- Binghe had failed to account for it.
Shizun’s hackles were still up when Binghe found him, well after sunset, and they both reacted –poorly.
Binghe’s head was buzzing with an explosive mix of jealousy, grief, and outrage as he chased his master through the dark and empty streets of Jinlin city. He had never, not once, seen Shen Qingqiu run away from anything. Why was Binghe suddenly the exception to his master’s courage? What had he done that was so frightening! He’d deliberately humbled himself before his master to make himself more palatable! This is how he is repaid?
In another time and another place, Binghe kept his temper barely under control for long enough to catch his master and pin him up against a convenient wall where all his good intentions dissolved in the face of the temptation to never have to hunt for Shen Qingqiu ever again.
In this time and this place, however, Binghe’s vision dissolved into a red haze and he abandoned his veneer of humanity to charge after Shen Qingqiu’s fleeing back. They played a quick, brutal game of cat and mouse that ended with Shizun cornered in a blind alley. He still hadn’t summoned Xiu Ya, which was a small mercy, and continued not to do so even as Binghe closed in on him. That too meant something, although Binghe wasn’t yet sure exactly what.
Binghe was so focused on his master’s pale countenance that he missed the slick patch of oily mud that cut across the length of the alley. Shizun had stepped over it, but Binghe was too intent on putting hands on Shen Qingqiu in order to –do something to mind what his feet were doing and he stepped right into the worst of it.
There were plenty of times in his disciple hood that Binghe had faked clumsiness in order to steal a little bit of skinship with his master. Shen Qingqiu liked to be touched, although he didn’t permit that many people to get close to him so there was always a thread of guilty delight in his amused chuckle whenever Binghe sacrificed his own dignity in order to give them what they both wanted.
This time, though, it really was an accident when Binghe pitched forward to land face-first in his master’s chest.
Binghe caught himself on Shizun’s clothes before he actually managed to fall and frustrated tears sprang up in his eyes even as a pair of slender hands caught him by the shoulders. For a moment, Binghe’s feelings drowned out everything else he could see or hear. He was frustrated, upset, confused, and humiliated –but, worst of all, he was alone with Shen Qingqiu. He had the familiar scent of his master’s soap under his nose and Shizun’s silky shirt tangled in his fingers, both of which had once been the signal of complete safety to his deepest instincts. Binghe’s tears welled up hard and fast before spilling down his cheeks.
“Shizun!” he gasped (because sometimes it seemed like that was the only word he knew when his emotions overwhelmed him) and, to his surprise, the hands on his shoulders moved to cup his elbows and his master helped him find his feet.
“How are you still clumsy, ah?!” Shizun murmured, seemingly out of habit. Then he did a double-take at the sight of Binghe’s tear-streaked face and, again, started to root in his sleeve for a kerchief like he used to when Binghe was a teenager. He wiped Binghe’s cheeks with trembling hands and Binghe (frozen in both mortification and a sudden realization) let him.
Shizun held the kerchief up to Binghe’s nose and said, “Blow” right before he froze in a sort of agonized rictus, as though he had perhaps just remembered that Binghe was a fearsome Heavenly Demon now, fated to bring calamity to the world.
Binghe didn’t want to be a fearsome Heavenly Demon, fated to bring calamity to the world, so he blew.
Shizun was startled, but didn’t drop the kerchief. Instead he crumpled it and stuffed it back into his storage sleeve as his face turned red. “I…” his voice broke and he cleared his throat before he tried again. “...I have not told anyone about you.” Shizun dropped his gaze down to the filthy stone floor, but there was a certain ease in his posture that hadn’t been there before. What had changed in the past few minutes? Were –were a few frustrated tears really all it took?
If Binghe stopped blocking the exit, he was reasonably sure that Shizun wouldn’t try to run this time. As embarrassing as his lapse was, it had set Binghe’s master at ease in a way that all his scheming and acting had failed to. In that moment, Binghe had been his most genuine, inelegant self –and that was when Shizun had finally reached back to him almost like he couldn’t help himself.
“I know,” Binghe echoed as his heart started to pound and a new plan started to come together in the back of his mind. He refused to release his hold on Shizun’s sleeve and clung like a child. Shizun, tellingly, didn’t shake him off. “It’s bad to be out at this hour. Please let me escort you back to your room.”
That seemed to surprise Shizun. He searched Binghe’s face, but didn’t seem to find what he was looking for.
“Binghe surely has other things to say,” he said at last. “The matter of…”
“...can wait until you are back inside where it’s dry,” Binghe said repressively. He was unwilling to test this fragile truce just yet, not until he fully understood how to replicate it later. “Mu-shishu gave you strict instructions to avoid damp night air.”
“Your Mu-shishu is a nagging old woman,” Shizun muttered and immediately snapped his fan open to shield his face when he realized he’d been grumbling out loud. In doing so, he revealed something that made Binghe’s blood run cold.
Across the back of his master’s delicately-boned hand was a stark and ugly patch of Sower Rash.
Binghe didn’t have to fake the distress in his voice when he grabbed for his master’s wrist and demanded, “When were you infected?”
Shizun flinched, but (importantly) did not try to retrieve his hand. “It was when the demon I was pursuing earlier brushed against me,” he admitted. “Don’t be afraid, Mu Qingfang is here. Now that he knows the nature of the disease, he should have a cure for it very soon.”
Intellectually, Binghe knew that had to be true. Shizun likely understood as well as he did that the Sower Demons would have used the rash as an infection vector for a curse. The curse was what stripped the flesh of their victims and spread the rash further. The rash, following a successful infection, would be little more than a distraction to anyone trying to treat the overall affliction. Curse breaking and medicine were two very different fields of study, but curses were easier to break than diseases were to cure. Mu-shishu was a far more accomplished healer, diagnostician, and cursebreaker than either of them so clearly that hint would be all he needed in order to come up with an effective treatment.
Emotionally, though, Binghe was still in a strange place. He could still see Gongyi Xiao standing at Shizun’s side -in Binghe’s place- and hear Shizun’s voice greeting the absent Liu Qingge like he came to Shizun’s rooms after dark all the time.
“I can heal it,” Binghe’s voice came out gruffer than he meant it to. “Shizun knows something of what I can do now, but not everything. I can get rid of it.”
“Ah,” Shizun took his hand back. “Better not.”
“Why?” Binghe was flabbergasted. Had-had Shizun not seen what the Sower’s Rash could do? “Can you guarantee that Mu-shishu can heal you before you lose your hand?” he demanded.
“I was seen by the disciple of another sect when it happened. Possibly more than one,” Shizun replied, although he did hold his afflicted hand close to his body in a way that Binghe had to tell himself was not to protect it from him. “You killed the demon who infected me. It’s unlikely that my flesh will be harvested.”
“What will you do if you’re wrong?” Binghe’s nails thickened into claws, hidden by his curled fists. It would be so easy to rip his palm open, push Shizun down, and remove this threat and the possibility of all future infections at the root. Maybe he could even detoxify Without A Cure while he was at it. That was a long shot, but Binghe desperately wanted to try. He’d been thinking about it ever since he learned that his blood could be used as a panacea in addition to a weapon. Elder Mo told him not to get his hopes up, but Binghe couldn’t help it.
Unfortunately, forcing his Blood Gu on Shizun would be moving back in a direction that Binghe absolutely didn’t want to go. Shizun’s trust in him was so tentative right now. How could he bear to test it? At the same time, how could he bear to leave Shizun afflicted with yet another condition that could further ruin his cultivation?
“A hook, perhaps?” Shizun wet his lips with an awkward chuckle. “I think I’d make a very dashing pirate.”
“Shizun!” Binghe cried out, too upset at his master’s flippancy to ask why a hook hand would make him a pirate. This wasn’t the time for jokes!!
“Fine, fine,” Shizun held up his good hand in a pacifying gesture. A little more of the tension had drained out of him. “If I start to show signs of the flesh eating plague then I will let you treat me.”
“Promise me.” Binghe reached out and grabbed ahold of his master’s sleeve again. If playacting at dignity only got him fear and rejection then he’d rather let out all the childish feelings he’d been repressing since the moment he’d laid eyes on Shen Qingqiu again. If it got him what he wanted, he’d cry and kick and cling as much as it took. “Shizun, you have to promise!”
“I promise!” Shizun sobered slightly after that first startled outburst and then looked down at his rash. “I promise,” he repeated himself more softly, more sincerely.
Shizun let Binghe walk him back to the inn and then escort him up to the room they’d vacated. The door was still standing open, but the contents hadn’t been tossed so likely Liu Qingge hadn’t come by and found his Shixiong missing. It wasn’t surprising. The search for more sower demons was still going on outside, but fortunately in other parts of the city.
They walked in silence until Shizun was back in his room -back in the light and warmth and comfort- and then the quiet became awkward again.
“With permission,” Binghe said. “I’d like to go collect my things from the Huan Hua camp.”
“You want to stay here?” Shizun looked up at him, finally. It was hard to say what that expression meant, but it wasn’t stark horror so Binghe would accept it as good.
“Where else should I be?” Binghe wanted to know. Wasn’t it obvious? “Unless Shizun chooses to denounce me, then my place is at your side.”
‘My place,’ Binghe thought fiercely. ‘Not that watered-down imitation.’
“Then I will wait here for you,” Shizun replied and swallowed before asking hesitantly, “Are you sure there is nothing else you want to say first?”
“There are many things I want to ask of you,” Binghe admitted, half out the door. “They can wait –for now. For the moment, I only want to return to the place where I truly belong.”
“Binghe,” Shizun said softly, stricken.
“I didn’t belong there, Shizun, no matter what you think,” Binghe bit out. “I belong here and -if you let me- I’ll prove it to you.”
He made himself go before he said anything else or let himself wonder if Shizun would still be in the room when he got back.
Getting back into the fine house that Huan Hua Palace had taken over as their own for the duration without being spotted took some doing. The property had formerly belonged to a noble family -now wiped out and given a hurried burial in what had used to be their own garden- and as such had a tall, stout security wall surrounding the grounds. The gates were all guarded by senior Huan Hua cultivators, which hadn’t been the case when he left that morning.
The reason for that was because Gongyi Xiao had apparently sent word to the sect that the issue was not a plague, but rather it was demons and the old Palace Master made haste to catch up with them. Whether this was because other major sects were being represented by their highest tiers of leadership and Huan Hua Palace hadn’t sent anyone older than their early twenties was a question Binghe would have liked to ask, but he had no intentions of letting himself be seen.
Binghe used Xin Mo to cut himself a little portal through a long stretch of wall away from the front of the manor and slipped into the room where the group had set up their bedding. Binghe had been given space in the main building along with Gongyi Xiao and the other most senior disciples with them on the mission. Unfortunately, that was where the old Palace Master had apparently set up his own base of operations as well so he had to be quick and quiet as he rolled up his quilt and placed anything he’d left out in his storage ring.
He would have left, except as he started to make his way back Binghe happened to overhear a snatch of conversation.
“... arrived and is in position with the group from Tianyi Overlook.” The man speaking was a grizzled veteran cultivator who Binghe didn’t like very much and so refused to learn his name. When people accused Huan Hua Palace of building their own private military, this was the kind of cultivator they were thinking of. He had no idea of immortality and only tended to his cultivation inasmuch as it served his martial abilities. “She confirmed earlier this evening that Shen Qingqiu is Shen Jiu and has agreed to help us.”
Binghe froze and then backtracked to a good spot behind a solid screen where he could continue to listen in, but still had good options for escape if he somehow got caught.
“How amusing,” the old Palace Master chuckled to himself. “Such a beautiful and refined man has such an ugly history. Well, that’s often the case in my experience. How reliable is her testimony?”
The other man made an unconvinced noise. “I believe that she believes it and she’s certainly passionate enough that she should be able to sway a crowd if we don’t give anyone the opportunity to question her too much. If she gives her testimony right before the demon acts out its role, then that should be enough to damage his credibility in front of the other two great sects to the point where even the proud Cang Qiong Mountain sect will have no choice except to allow him to be detained. None of the other sects have the facilities to hold a cultivator of his caliber so I do not anticipate that Zhao Hua Temple or Tianyi Overlook will object when we take him into custody, but I have prepared agents in the crowd who will raise objections if they do.”
“Good, good. He’ll show his real face soon enough while he’s in prison. My daughter is good at getting people to cast off their disguises, but if he doesn’t then I’m sure we can find the evidence that Mistress Qiu is currently lacking,” the old Palace Master replied and Binghe heard a sound like the lid of a porcelain tea cup brushing gently across the lip of the cup. “You’re certain the demon will abide by the agreement?”
“I can be very convincing, sir,” the man replied dryly. “Demons are all the same, they’ll do whatever it takes to survive another day and it is currently buying its life in increments of hours. I’ll be sure to put it down afterwards.”
“Is there any word on who it’s actually working for?” the Palace Master sighed. “This is an awfully coordinated effort for a group of Sowers. As demons go, they aren’t the smartest.”
No, that was true. Sower Demons had received their potent abilities at the expense of their intellect. They tended to what they were told by whoever they were frightened of the most. The Sower Clans weren’t a part of Binghe’s domains. They were warm weather demons who lived in the southeast and their loyalty didn’t extend much past their immediate safety.
“No, sir,” the other cultivator replied. “However, they are intelligent enough to follow instructions so long as the incentive is good enough and they aren’t required to improvise too much. I don’t imagine their master will be nearby. Most of the city has been harvested already. They will likely sacrifice the Sowers and move on to their next idea.”
The conversation on the other side of the screen moved on to other, more mundane topics and so Binghe snuck away. Once again, his head was churning. Shen Jiu? Who was Shen Jiu? Shizun? Binghe had never heard Shen Qingqiu’s original name. The Peak Lords of Cang Qiong Mountain all took courtesy names as part of their generational appointment.
Whether he was Shen Jiu or not wasn’t the relevant question at the moment. Huan Hua Palace planned on framing him for something and it was going to involve a demon somehow. Earlier that evening, Binghe might have been tempted to let his master fall into that trap. If Huan Hua Palace had Shen Qingqiu in custody then Binghe had Shen Qingqiu in custody. His influence there was great and it would take hardly any effort at all to control access to his trapped master.
If Shen Qingqiu wasn’t waiting in the room when he got back then he still might let the Old Palace Master’s plan proceed, but Binghe didn’t want to have to resort to that. He was still nursing hope that he could bridge the divide between them again. Shizun didn’t have to catch him or wipe his face, but that instinct was still there and Binghe was willing to nurture any embers of affection still flickering in his master’s heart, no matter how dim. That wasn’t likely to happen in a jail cell (no matter how tempting it was to have his master all to himself with no more interlopers) so Binghe put that idea to the side, for now.
In the meantime, he had a demon to interrogate.
Binghe returned to the inn so late that even he was starting to feel the burn of exhaustion. When was the last time he’d slept? Yesterday? The day before? Binghe couldn’t remember, except that he’d been burning with anticipation and anxiety since the moment he realized that Shen Qingqiu was within his grasp once more. When was the last time he’d been able to do more than lay down for an hour and let his thoughts churn?
The conversation with that demon had borne rotten fruit. The Old Palace Master’s agent wasn’t wrong. The Sower Demon was willing to do just about anything to preserve its own hide and it had agreed to serve him far too quickly to be trusted, so Binghe had been forced to dose it with his blood and then demonstrate why he was the last person in the world it wanted to betray. It had been an ugly scene and so he was in an uncomfortable, prickly headspace when he slipped back up the stairs to where his master was staying.
The other peak lords were still occupied. Their cultivation was advanced enough that they could keep going like this for days and Binghe envied them that stamina. He wasn’t quite there yet. He was powerful in bursts, but had learned the hard way that a canny opponent could outlast him if they knew to try.
‘Please be there,’ Binghe thought as he reached the upper landing and turned down the hall to Shizun’s room.
The room was dark and empty when he reached it. Binghe felt a strange tremor start at his fingertips and start to move up his arms as he looked around, hoping that somehow he was mistaken, that Shizun hadn’t left him again.
One of the other rooms down the hall was softly illuminated from within and Binghe approached it, treading with care so that the floorboards didn’t creak under his weight as he walked. The door was slid open about a foot or so, letting light spill out into the hall. Inside he could see a figure still sitting up, silhouetted against the wall by the lamp light, probably at a low table.
Binghe watched his hand slip around the edge of the standing screen that separated the hallway door from the rest of the room and found his master sitting up -more or less- at the low table in a larger room than the one he’d started the evening out in. He had his cheek propped up with one hand braced on the table. He was in the process of dozing off as his body dipped forward and then then jerked back upright as he woke himself back up.
There were two beds in the room beyond, separated by a second standing screen. The one to the left was already made up with a quilt and a round buckwheat bolster in the style Binghe liked. The other beds in this inn all had porcelain headrests. Shizun would have had to go looking for something different.
The shards of Binghe’s heart were nearly audible as they hit the floor and he bit his hand to stop himself from making a sound. He must not have managed very well because Shizun blinked awake and spotted Binghe standing half in the room.
“Good, good,” he said. His voice was breathy with exhaustion and Binghe was reminded that they’d had several confrontations in addition to their chase today, on top of Shizun’s poison and now cursed rash. Shizun hadn’t been able to skip sleep even when Binghe was a youth and was there to cushion all his master’s daily hardships. “You found the new room. I meant to listen for you in the hall.”
“The light brought me to you,” Binghe said, ignoring the roughness of his voice. There was a curious sense of lightness in him as he stepped fully into the room, like he’d just stepped back from a ledge. A softness that Binghe had thought was lost to him forever bloomed once more in his heart and he went over to cup his master’s elbows in order to help him to his feet. It turned out that softness wasn’t lost. It was just that only Shen Qingqiu could draw it out of him. “Shizun, it’s late. Please rest.”
“We agreed to talk,” Shizun said, despite the fact that his eyelids were already drooping.
“We will talk,” Binghe promised and the prospect didn’t seem so frightening any more. Before, he’d been desperately searching for the path that would lead him back to home. Now, he felt it underneath his feet at last and the door to the bamboo house was practically in sight. “In the morning, we will talk.”
Shizun squinted at him. “Binghe, could it be that you don’t want to?” he asked, searching Binghe’s face once more.
“I do,” Binghe confessed. “...but not here. Not like this. I want to go home. Shizun, let me come home first? Then we can say everything that needs to be said.”
He couldn’t make himself that vulnerable just yet. Shizun didn’t know there were wolves waiting just outside their door, ready to tear him down, and Binghe needed to be ready. For the first time, he saw value in his suffering. He’d become stronger than Shizun could possibly imagine and learned to scheme against the worst schemers in hell. Shizun wasn’t like that, but he’d somehow drawn the attention of those who were. Fortunately for him and unfortunately for the old Palace Master, Binghe and his master had found a route back to one another. When Shen Qingqiu was weak, Binghe would be strong.
Tomorrow promised to be ugly, but hadn’t he always known that finding his way home wouldn’t be easy? Nothing worthwhile ever had been for him.
This was fine. It wasn’t what he’d planned for, but had the potential to become something even better.
Binghe had once made congee out of dust and broken grains and then, later, he made a home out of the peak where Shen Qingqiu had spurned him for years. He could work with this. Even if Shizun had only left the door to reconciliation cracked barely open, Binghe would begin there.
This was more than enough to start with.
-fin