Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s taken a month to get here. 

A day of indecision, at first - a day spent holed up in his rooms, licking his wounds and pacing restlessly as he tried to make sense of what he’d seen. A day spent gathering information, after, hearing from his wives about what the imposter who had swapped places with him had been like. 

Then a week of working with Xin Mo, trying to get it to replicate the cross-dimensional swap, and a week of scouring his treasure room and hunting down rumors of multiverse theories when that failed, and then finally a miserable, frustrating, useless week where Luo Binghe could only wait as the specialists he’d found worked on an array that was supposed to fix things. A full week where all Luo Binghe could do was babysit them, letting them inspect Xin Mo and prod at it with cautious qi, slowly building an array meant to help guide Xin Mo’s spatial magic towards a given key. 

That week was the worst. Without having an action of his own to take, Luo Binghe seemed incapable of keeping his focus in the present. Over and over, he thought of that mirror world: the soft whisper of the kind Shen Qingqiu’s fingers through his hair, the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest under Luo Binghe’s cheek after they’d tucked into bed together, the warm glow of his memories in their dreams. 

Over and over, Luo Binghe found himself returning to that moment, and over and over, he remembered the look on the mirrored version of himself - 

Luo Binghe breathes out through gritted teeth, slow and controlled. He’s had a week to do nothing but consider these memories. He’s had longer than that to get used to them, and to let them drive his frustration and confusion and outright fury that a world like that existed out there -

Another breath, this time stretched out longer, as if he could use the pace of it to pull at his own memories like a long piece of taffy that was slowly thinning into nothing. 

It was good that he discovered the mirror world. Without having done so, he’d never have known about a Shen Qingqiu that knew how to smile gently and scold without heat and touch without violence. He’d never have known, and then he would have lived the rest of his life missing out on it, so obviously it was a good thing that he fell into the mirror world. Now he just needs to -

He just, with this array that the spatial cultivation specialists had created, he needs to -

Another breath. His heart beats slow and steady in his chest, controlled with the precision of someone who has long since mastered his own blood and its flow. 

He just needs to find that mirror Shen Qingqiu again. So long as he can do that, the restlessness that pinches at his nerves will settle, and the fury that burns his palms will recede, and he’ll be able to -

With that mirror Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe could -

“Lord Luo,” calls one of the spatial array masters. His voice shakes, and his head is bowed so low that it’s a wonder he’s maintaining his balance at all. “Forgive this humble servant, but if we could beg of Lord Luo to keep his energy contained within himself while we finalize the connection of the spirit stones to the array…”

Luo Binghe bares his teeth, a growl half-formed in his throat. He swallows it back with effort, turning to instead face the array and the other masters gathered around it. Now that he’s looking, he can tell that his own energy is wavering like an immense heat in the room around them, and the force of it is preventing the array from being hooked up to the stones that are meant to power it. 

A treasure trove of spirit stones worth the fortune of a city, and yet Luo Binghe’s own energy can still suppress it like this. He’s this powerful, and yet in that mirror world -!

Luo Binghe forcefully draws his energy back inside himself, slamming his meridians shut with a strength that makes his teeth ache.

“Finish it, then,” he snaps, and the array masters startle before quickly resuming their work. 

It’s taken a month, but today, Luo Binghe will finally be able to return.

The braid that the mirror Shen Qingqiu had worked into his hair had fallen out sometime in the second week after Luo Binghe returned to his own dimension; the ribbon that had tied that braid in place, along with a Diamond Dream Stone imbued with the strongest of Luo Binghe’s memories of the mirror Shen Qingqiu, will be the keys to focusing the array. That focus will in turn guide Xin Mo, focusing in on a soul instead of a specific location. 

Luo Binghe’s own Shen Qingqiu is long dead by now, so there should be no confusion of which soul Luo Binghe is looking for. He will be able to return. It will work.

“It’s ready, Lord Luo.”

Luo Binghe breathes out once more. The air feels electric, the result of so much energy stuffed into a single room, like a fuse waiting to be lit.

It will work. He’ll make it back. The churning in his gut and the lack of appetite and the pressure behind his eyes and the anxious need to dig his own claws into his skin - 

It will all work out. 

He steps into the center of the array with purpose, careful not to allow his robes to sweep over the lines of it in any way that could shift the shapes of them. He will not be delayed further for something as foolish as needing to redraw a smudged line.

“Begin,” he demands, and the array masters do.

The spirit stones light up in sequence, one against the next until the whole room is filled with the brilliant glow of pure qi and the air is humming with potential. The array comes to life next, and then, like a desperate call to action, Xin Mo’s own power surges in response.

Finally, Luo Binghe thinks, drawing Xin Mo from its sheathe and preparing to cut through the space in front of him with it. Finally, finally -

It had only been a month since he’d started searching for this soul - a month, too long, a month, hardly any time at all - and yet the rush of delighted confidence that Luo Binghe feels now rivals the heady thrill of success he’s only felt on some of his longest and hardest fought battles. Finally, he thinks, high on both the victory and the excess energy around him and running through him, finally, I’ll have him -

“Ah, I knew it,” hisses one of the array masters, quiet enough he surely only meant it for the ears of his peer, “I told you that this soul felt like it was in this world.”

Luo Binghe whips around to face the array master who had spoken, but even as he moves he knows it’s too late. Xin Mo had already begun transporting him, warping the world around him in a more violent and dramatic shift than its usual method of producing dimensional tears for Luo Binghe to step through. By the time Luo Binghe has finished turning, what greets him is only the rough stone and wet moss of… wherever it is that Luo Binghe has ended up. A cave of some sort, perhaps.

Luo Binghe’s face contorts with the force of his fury. A failure, then; one that at least one of his array masters had anticipated.  

How dare they? Did they think he would not know? Did they think he would forgive a failure, if it was presented as unexpected and unavoidable? Luo Binghe would have killed them for it even if it had been unanticipated, but knowing that it wasn’t, knowing that they’d harbored doubts even as they’d drawn the arrays… Luo Binghe will still kill them, but he will do it much, much slower than an ordinary failure would have merited. He’ll skin them alive first, perhaps, to make them feel the anguish of how illfitting Luo Binghe’s own body has felt in this world since he returned, and then he’ll set them in the sun to roast, and then -

Luo Binghe forces himself to calm down just enough to steady his breathing, allowing the overabundance of energy still inside him to safely circulate through his spiritual pathways and out into the damp underground air around him. 

He breathes slowly, like he’s been doing all day, keeping his heart steady and slow and controlled. He’ll kill the array masters, and he’ll try again, and he’ll succeed then. It’s fine.

The rock beneath Luo Binghe’s feet shakes slightly, the sign of a great beast moving somewhere nearby. With any luck, it’s something powerful enough to at least put up a fight if Luo Binghe were to take out some of its frustrations on it.

Fine, Luo Binghe fumes, stalking through the cave in the direction of the vibrations. A trophy to take back with me, so that I at least don’t return empty handed.

Xin Mo thrums in his hand, delighted at the chance to wet itself with blood so soon after such a powerful spatial manipulation, and Luo Binghe bares his teeth at it. It isn’t especially threatening; Xin Mo can feel the approximate state of Luo Binghe’s mind without needing any sort of communication, and so it knows that Luo Binghe doesn’t mean any sort of real threat to it. 

After all, Luo Binghe still has use for it. Already, he’s pushing aside his anger at the failure to focus on what needs to be done to remedy it, straightening the irritated flow of his qi as if running a soothing hand down prickled scales beneath his skin. 

Luo Binghe has failed before. All his best successes had started as failures.

He’ll slay whatever beat lies in this cave, return to his palace, and try again with the assistance of array masters that are actually worth something - or perhaps Luo Binghe will simply steal whatever knowledge of arrays he needs and do it himself. And then, at the end of the day, Luo Binghe will be able to win. He’ll steal away that odd version of Shen Qingqiu, taking him back to his palace to -

Luo Binghe hesitates, and then reminds himself that he isn’t the sort of person to hesitate. Hesitating gets a lesser man killed, and can still cause a great one like Luo Binghe to temporarily lose a limb or two.

No matter; he’ll figure out what to do with the mirror Shen Qingqiu once he has him. That had always been the plan, and it has always been what Luo Binghe has believed in. For right now, all he has to do is focus on sating Xin Mo’s bloodlust and taking out his anger on whichever monster made its home in this miserable cave.

Fuck, Luo Binghe hopes it’s something worth killing.

The beast comes into view from around a bend in the rock. It’s an ugly, hulking creature, with leathery skin made dirty with moss and blood and such a short neck that its head looks almost as if it had been stuck straight on its shoulders with no consideration for any sort of range of movement. Its eyes are milky with blindness, but it still swings its head to face Luo Binghe as he approaches, sensing the angry qi rolling off him. 

It’s… fine for a beast only meant to sate Luo Binghe’s bloodlust, he decides. It will bleed when Luo Binghe cuts it, and that will have to be enough.

He slides his glare down from the beast’s head, looking for any obvious vulnerabilities. The underbelly doesn’t seem to be covered in the same hard growths as its back, and -

Luo Binghe pauses, his eyes catching on a spot of color a short distance away.

There, crouched so as to keep a large rock fully between himself and the monster, is another person, dressed in earthy green robes and wearing his hair tied back with a simple ribbon. He’s watching the beast warily, his neck craning to see around the rock he’s hiding behind, and his presence is so tightly controlled that Luo Binghe hadn’t known he was there until he’d laid eyes on him directly. A cultivator, then, and one with decent control of his qi.

In front of them both, the monster determines that Luo Binghe’s own energy is indeed representative of a threat, and starts to turn fully to face him - and, due to the positioning of the rock that the unknown cultivator is hiding behind, turning to face him, too.

“Damn it,” hisses the other cultivator, swinging his head to also look in Luo Binghe’s direction, his brows drawn together in frustration. “Idiot, why weren’t you concealing your -”

The cultivator’s eyes go wide, recognition flashing across his face. In the same moment, the beast throws itself up onto its hind legs, massive limbs and claws flailing as it bellows out a warning cry loud enough that it shakes debris from the ceiling of the cave.

In that moment, no other sound can be heard underneath the roar of the beast, but Luo Binghe still catches the way the cultivator’s lips form one startled, questioning word: ‘Binghe?’

From there, everything erupts into chaos. The cultivator is forced to dive out of the way to avoid the beast’s claws as they come down, and the careful stealth he’d been holding before Luo Binghe arrived falls apart. The monster, caught off guard by a sudden second qi signature so close, snaps its head to look in the cultivator’s direction, and the man swears as he desperately tries to reel his energy back inside himself. 

Luo Binghe sneers. Not that good at controlling his qi, then.

Still, he’ll take an opening when one is presented to him. Luo Binghe dashes forward, positioning himself beneath the monster. Xin Mo sings in his hand, a desperate wailing cry that tries to convince him to both slay the beast and allow himself to be slain in the same breath. Luo Binghe allows it: he launches the sword upwards, throwing it in the same instance he takes control of it with his qi, and embeds it in the belly of the beast. Seamlessly, he flicks his hand forwards, and Xin Mo slides down the center of the beast, slitting its gut easily before allowing itself to be recalled to Luo Binghe’s hand. 

Luo Binghe grasps the hilt of the sword - now warm and slick with blood - and quickly extracts himself from his place beneath the beast as it bellows once more, furious in its pain. He cuts a gash into one of the beast’s hind legs, and with the pain and weakness from having its belly split open, the monster is helpless to the sudden weakness, its legs buckling as it goes down heavily enough it shakes the cave once more.

Luo Binghe looks at the ugly thing with disdain, walking slowly up the length of it to stand by its head. It hardly feels worth the kill; it certainly wouldn’t make for the trophy he’d hoped it would. 

The beast is irritatingly loud and trying to snap its teeth at Luo Binghe from where it’s struggling uselessly on the ground, though, so Luo Binghe kills it anyway just to be rid of it. Xin Mo’s energy surges as Luo Binghe deals the final blow to end the monster’s life, and Luo Binghe’s fingers flex around the sword’s hilt in reflexive response as he slowly breathes out into the sudden silence of the cave. 

Then he breathes back in, turns on his heel, and points Xin Mo at the cultivator who had been passively watching Luo Binghe’s attack. 

The man who, if Luo Binghe understands what had happened correctly, had been the unintentional target of the erroneous spatial array that had led Xin Mo to take Luo Binghe to this cave to begin with.

“Name and intentions,” Luo Binghe demands. 

The cultivator blinks at Luo Binghe, uncomprehending. His expression is still caught somewhere close to shock, watching Luo Binghe with wide eyes and a slack jaw, a pair of wide-rimmed glasses slipping down the slope of his nose. There’s a smear of dirt on his cheek that makes him look especially stupid.

“Name,” Luo Binghe repeats slowly, “and intentions, or this Lord will assume your intentions are simply to die by my hand.”

The cultivator blinks again, hurriedly pushing his glasses back up on his face as he recollects himself. His brows furrow and lips thin in a sort of unease, taking a half step away from Luo Binghe and watching him carefully.

“You don’t know?” He asks, and Luo Binghe matches the half step back the cultivator had taken with a full one of his own, drawing up closer to him. The man glances at Xin Mo, then back at Luo Binghe, his expression increasingly irritated. “You really - you really don’t know?”

Luo Binghe narrows his eyes, but studies the cultivator’s face a bit more carefully anyway. Perhaps this is supposed to be the brother of one of Luo Binghe’s wives? Or - Luo Binghe frowns, looking over the cultivator’s round face once more and finding it to be more feminine than he initially thought - the sister of one of them? Luo Binghe found that if one of his wives had a sister, he’d often marry that one too, but perhaps he’d passed on this one due to the androgynous nature of their face? After all, introducing men into a harem of all women would be messy, and Luo Binghe had been nearly certain that this cultivator had been a man when he’d first laid eyes on them.

“This Lord does not,” Luo Binghe confirms, giving up trying to figure out who the person is. “So enlighten me.”

The cultivator draws themselves up, their eyes narrowing. “I’d thought Lord Luo would be above such cruel carelessness as forgetting his wives,” they snap, and Luo Binghe frowns.

A wife? Here? And one that looked like - like - Luo Binghe blinks again. Hadn’t this face been quite androgynous just a moment ago, and the robes of a more masculine cut then they seem to be right now?

“If the young miss could excuse me,” Luo Binghe says tightly, “but just the same, this Lord is quite certain that no wife of his would dare to burrow into the ground and live with a beast.”

“I wasn’t living with it,” the woman says, rolling her eyes with enough gall that Luo Binghe feels the need to press closer with Xin Mo. “I was - no, wait, hold on, look, take another look at me and put your sword away!”

Her voice tilts up at the end, and Luo Binghe realizes with a start that the register of her voice had slowly shifted through the conversation until there was hardly any memory of the more masculine tone she’d surely had earlier. 

Once more, Luo Binghe takes another look. While she does still somewhat resemble the first impression Luo Binghe had gotten of her, she really… Well, right now, she really does look like the sort of sweet thing that Luo Binghe would’ve taken to both his bed and the altar. 

Luo Binghe’s suspicions skyrocket. A cultivator - or some sort of spirit, perhaps, considering the clear shapeshifting abilities - hiding out underground with a beast, disrupting the spatial arrays that were supposed to send Luo Binghe to the mirror world, making herself appear in the image of someone Luo Binghe would find attractive, and declaring herself one of Luo Binghe’s wives?

Luo Binghe has seen beasts with less obvious ill intentions.

“And what, exactly, did this Lord promise you as one of my wives?” Luo Binghe asks, holding his sword steady. “Some rare treasure? A use of my power?”

“I - what? No, wait - do you think I’m trying to use you right now?!”

“This Lord would never take a wife who only planned to use him,” Luo Binghe replies easily, thinking, so naturally, you’d be out of the question.

The cultivator’s eye twitches, as if in strong disagreement, but doesn’t comment. Instead, she takes a deep breath and recites carefully, “Lord Luo met me years ago when he was chasing after a Blue-Tongued Bat Viper, in the forest to the far west of his palace. I was able to use my abilities as the spirit of the flowering fruits that the creatures feed on to lure one in for Lord Luo to capture.”

A flower spirit, then, Luo Binghe concludes, though he doesn’t blindly believe the rest of the story. “This Lord has never needed a bat for anything,” he says, looking down at the spirit.

“A Bat Viper,” the spirit corrects, as if that matters much. “Lord Luo needed its venom to cure Sister Mei Hanxue.”

There’s a beat of silence. The spirit’s expression turns uglier. 

“For clarity,” she grits out, “this one calls Mei Hanxue as ‘sister’ because we are sisters within Lord Luo’s harem.” Another pause, and then she adds, “Sister Mei Hanxue would have wed Lord Luo around 12 years ago, now. The event that left her poisoned was two years past that.”

Luo Binghe nearly bares his teeth, irritated with the mere idea that some unknown spirit would need to pass him cues to remember the women he’d married. A poisoning that happened a decade ago - as if Luo Binghe would remember such a thing, when his harem had enough drama that poisonings happened every other month! 

…Luo Binghe pauses, running his tongue across his teeth irritably. The women that he’d married a decade ago… there was a set of twins, he thinks, and a… snake demon, perhaps? 

Their faces come up blank when he tries to recall them, though, and Luo Binghe feels his gut churn in something close to unease. Every wife he took had been a moment of happiness for him - a success story, the careful extension of a family that had once upon a time contained only himself and no others. Luo Binghe would never dare to forget the people who love him.

…Luo Binghe’s fingers twitch around Xin Mo’s hilt. The blood of the beast has started to cool, leaving the sword feeling tacky and unclean with it. 

Luo Binghe would never dare to forget the people who love him, but his mind hasn’t been right since he’d visited the mirror world - since he’d slept in the mirror Shen Qingqiu’s bed and had his hair combed and braided and cared for. That version of Shen Qingqiu had been odd beyond measure, but in the end, he must have still been a villain for how thoroughly a mess he’d left Luo Binghe’s mind. There can be no other explanation for Luo Binghe’s inability to remember the names and faces of all his wives.

Regardless of the blame, though, Luo Binghe can perhaps admit that his memories of his wives are a bit muddled at the moment, disturbed by images of the mirror Shen Qingqiu instead. If he can’t recall the faces of the twins or snake demon that he’d married a decade ago, then perhaps there had also been a lady Mei Hanxue before that, too. 

With the smallest bit of credence lended to the flower spirit’s story, Luo Binghe turns to a surefire method of testing: he begrudgingly tugs on his connection to the blood parasites outside of his own body, feeling for them in the bodies of all the women he’s drunk bloodied wedding wine with.

At the other end of Xin Mo’s blade, clearly and loudly enough that Luo Binghe can’t claim to have imagined it, the blood responds with a resonant tug back on his demonic senses.

The spirit twitches, feeling the pull of Luo Binghe’s blood as it moves, and scowls.

“Forgive this one’s boldness, but perhaps Lord Luo would benefit from a stroll through his inner palace, if he requires this sort of method to remember who he drank wedding wine with.”

Luo Binghe huffs, lowering Xin Mo before flicking it down to his side to shake off some of the blood. “If a wife wishes to be recognized, perhaps she shouldn’t think so lightly of changing her voice and face on a whim; surely, this Lord could not have been expected to recognize you in the shape you’d been in just some minutes ago.”

The distinctly male shape, that is. If this spirit has truly been married to Luo Binghe for a decade, she would surely know that there are no men in the harem.

The spirit straightens up, her shoulders lifting with tension. “Lord Luo has, in the past, recognized several of my harem sisters in a form unlike the ones Lord Luo first met them in,” she says, voice tight. “As a test Lord Luo had to pass before marrying them, or the evil scheme of one of Lord Luo’s dissenters, or similar situations. How is it any different to expect Lord Luo to recognize me in a slightly different shape than the one he’s most familiar with?”

“Hm,” Luo Binghe says, dredging up old, vague memories of the trials he’d faced in the past for his wives.

Perhaps, he supposes, if he was caught in the whirlwind of finding someone new to love him, in those precious moments where his attraction and obsession burned brightest, he’d be able to do something like that. If he knew the women’s qi signatures well enough, or if he had memorized their mannerisms… 

It isn’t relevant now, though, so Luo Binghe remains silent, still waiting for this wife of his to finally re-introduce herself.

“...Concubine Shen Yuan greets Lord Luo,” the spirit says eventually, her voice especially bitter. She dips into a stiff bow, too, and Lord Luo gets the sense that it’s only to hide the ugly expression on her face, displeased with having to give her name to a man she had bound herself to so long ago.

“This Lord greets Concubine Shen,” Luo Binghe replies, echoing every bit of cynical mocking that had been in Shen Yuan’s tone. 

Wife or not, Luo Binghe has no desire to speak respectfully to those who have no desire to speak respectfully to him in turn. He’s always lived his life by these sorts of rules, and he isn’t about to stop now.

Shen Yuan, sensing the wall she’s met, sighs and straightens up again. “‘Shen Yuan’ is fine, Lord Luo,” she says.

Luo Binghe nods, but says nothing in return. If Shen Yuan had been expecting to be granted leave to call him as familiarly as she had when she’d first seen him in this cave - the unguarded way she’d called for ‘Binghe’ upon seeing him - she would be sorely disappointed.

Sheathing Xin Mo with a huff, Luo Binghe considers the situation. Of course, what he wants to do most is to return to his palace, punish the traitorous array masters that had sent Luo Binghe off to this wretched cave to begin with, and return to his efforts of finding a way back to the mirror dimension. Xin Mo is still tugging restlessly at Luo Binghe’s mind, too, unhappy with only killing such a disappointing creature as the beast that had been in this cave.

There is a wife in front of Luo Binghe now, though, and so he must consider his options with a bit more prudence. Even if he doesn’t remember this little flower spirit right now, the Heavenly Demon blood parasites in her blood are proof that she belongs to him - that Luo Binghe had, at one point, chosen to take her in as part of his family. 

Shen Yuan is someone who is part of the happy ending that Luo Binghe has torn from the clutches of fate to live out himself; he has a duty to her to uphold his own end of the marriage.

Luo Binghe casts his eyes back to the corpse of the beast he’d slain some minutes ago. “Did Shen Yuan require some parts from this monster?”

“Ah, no,” Shen Yuan says, following Luo Binghe’s gaze to stare at the creature. “Although I’m glad for the chance to look at it a bit more carefully. It’s a shame it couldn’t be left alive; the moss that grows on it is host to a truly novel sort of insect colony, and the way that its joints move - well, you saw its neck, right? Its muscles are -”

“If you weren’t here for the beast,” Luo Binghe cuts in, “then what?”

Shen Yuan clears her throat, glancing to the other side of the cave. “That is… there was a certain artifact I wanted to fetch.”

Luo Binghe nods curtly, spotting a darkened passageway in the direction that Shen Yuan had looked towards. At least he knew his wife really did have a purpose in this cave, then, and hadn’t really been aimlessly hanging about in it.

“This Lord will retrieve it for you,” he says, and turns towards the passageway.

“I’m perfectly capable of getting it myself, thank you,” Shen Yuan says, bristling. “Lord Luo need not trouble himself.”

I’m already plenty troubled, Luo Binghe thinks mulishly. Aloud, he simply says, “To make up for pointing my blade at my wife, then.”

From behind Luo Binghe, Shen Yuan makes a sound similar to inhaling a mouthful of rocks. When he glances behind him, she’s watching him with a peculiarly distasteful expression.

“...Lord Luo doesn’t know what I’m looking for,” she tries, moving to catch up to him.

“This Lord is quite certain that there can not be so much of note in this cave that it would be difficult to pinpoint an artifact good enough to fetch in the first place.” Luo Binghe pauses, shooting Shen Yuan a sullen glare from the corner of his eyes. “After all, it’s something good enough that the resources of this Lord’s palace could not replace it.”

Shen Yuan grimaces, and Luo Binghe resists the urge to snort. Indeed, that was not the expression of someone who had left the palace just to retrieve this artifact. Luo Binghe had somewhat expected it from her attitude thus far, but it seems as if Shen Yuan really might have left the palace a long time ago.

Idly, Luo Binghe wonders if perhaps her abandonment is good enough reason to forgo the expectations of their marriage at all, and if it would be fine after all to just leave Shen Yuan alone in this cave while he returns to his search for the mirror Shen Qingqiu.

Forget it, Luo Binghe sighs inwardly. I will help her here, and with this, whatever debts or expectations that lay between us can simply be dissolved. I have no need for a wife who will not stay in the palace to live by my side.

Through the passageway at the far end of the beast’s cavern, the rock of the cave is suddenly smoother, the ground becoming flatter and more uniform with each step they take until it transitions to a walkway leading to a set of stone-hewn stairs. The stairs, in turn, lead to a simple platform that boasts a single pedestal, upon which lays the artifact in question.

It looks to be… a spool of thread?

Beside Luo Binghe, Shen Yuan sighs, exasperated. 

“Lord Luo,” she says, “isn’t it tiring to always find precious artifacts like this?”

Luo Binghe raises an eyebrow. “Is it tiring to receive good things?”

“No, it’s just -” Shen Yuan pinches her brow, sighing again. “I mean, who could believe that this has sat here untouched for centuries? For it to have been set up in such a special way, shouldn’t it be more well known? Shouldn’t this thread at least not be sitting so perfectly on such a thin pedestal, when the Four-Toed Stump Lizard out there was shaking the cave every time it took a step?”

Luo Binghe turns to look back at the thread. In general, the trials of Luo Binghe’s life can be broken into two categories: those before he merged the realms, and those after. Before the merge, Luo Binghe struggled more than any child deserved to. After the merge - signifying the final solidification of Luo Binghe’s authority over the land - he made the world pay all that suffering back tenfold, tearing happiness from it handful by handful.

Finding a precious artifact posed as if it were being presented as a gift to him, or stumbling across maidens with clothes torn in just the right places and a desperate desire to love him, or discovering that his enemy had chosen to drink themselves under the table the night before Luo Binghe was set to attack them - all of these things, Luo Binghe considered to not only be normal but deserved.

After all, they were fate’s way of making reparations to Luo Binghe. To be asked if such a thing was tiring…

“No,” Luo Binghe says simply. 

The ugly Whatever-Stump Lizard in the previous cave was too easy of prey because Luo Binghe had just suffered a loss in the form of the failed spatial technique, and so the world had to be set right by giving him a win in exchange. This thread is easy to find and approach because Luo Binghe doesn’t want to be here, and so the process of getting it and getting out must be quick to achieve. These things are as they should be.

Shen Yuan shakes her head, sighing again, and follows Luo Binghe up the stone steps to stand before the pedestal. She doesn’t hesitate to pick up the spool of thread once she reaches it, though she grumbles as she does. 

“It could at least have been boobytrapped,” she mutters, inspecting the thread with narrowed eyes. 

“Was Shen Yuan looking to lose a limb out of curiosity?” Luo Binghe asks dryly, his hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword, and Shen Yuan snaps her head up to look at him warily.

“I’m your wife,” she reminds him pointedly. “Lord Luo would never dare to harm one of his own wives - you wouldn’t dare cut off my arm even if I begged for it.”

Luo Binghe’s eyes narrow dangerously - who are you, to decide what I would and would not dare to do? - but he isn’t in a good enough mood to indulge in any sort of banter or play right now, so he answers straightforwardly.

“If this Lord were threatening you, you’d know it,” he says simply. “I only asked because Shen Yuan seemed disappointed that this artifact was so defenseless that you could easily pick it up without harm.”

“Oh,” Shen Yuan says, coughing once. “Right. Well, that’s - it’s about the narrative weight, I suppose. It just feels silly to have that one beast to have been the only defense for an artifact that’s meant to be so great.”

“Is it?” Luo Binghe asks, not quite believing it. “It doesn’t appear to be all that great. If Shen Yuan wanted an embroidery thread in this sort of vivid red, this Lord is certain that the palace could have -”

Luo Binghe doesn’t have a real interest in the artifact, but he does try to make it a habit to make sure none of his wives are bringing anything especially dangerous into his palace, and so as he’d been speaking he’d also reached out a hand to try and grasp the thread from where its end fell loosely from its spool. His only intention had been to catch it between two fingers and send a small bit of probing qi through it.

He hadn’t anticipated for the way Shen Yuan would try to jerk the thread out of his reach once she realized he was moving to touch it, and he certainly hadn’t anticipated for the thread itself to suddenly move as if it had come to life, unwinding around its spool with a speed that has Luo Binghe taking a wary step back.

“Shit!” Shen Yuan swears, also stumbling backwards and nearly tripping down the stairs behind her. “Don’t - fuck, don’t let it touch you, or - no, I’ll just drop it, and then it can touch you, or -”

Shen Yuan, Luo Binghe muses, is the sort of person who is quick to say a lot but actually do very little. 

After all, the thread had already managed to loop itself around Luo Binghe’s wrist before Shen Yuan had finished giving her messy instructions. 

The thread burns where it touches him, searing itself into his skin like a wire that had been made red hot by sitting in the coals of a fire. Luo Binghe spares the briefest of moments to try and feel for the thread’s intention, probing the wound with his qi and catching a rush of inevitability, of spatial manipulation, of life viewed through a timeless lens -

- and by the time Luo Binghe has realized the magic is the sort of nasty thing that disguises itself as a blessing while hanging on to someone with the stubborn relentlessness of a curse, it’s too late. Even as he attempts to forcefully isolate the magic, unsheathing Xin Mo with his off hand and spinning it to lop off the arm that had been burned by the thread in one fluid motion, the thread’s magic is already burrowing deep into him. 

‘Arm - that’s - Binghe’s arm -!’ Shen Yuan cries, alarmed as she watches Luo Binghe’s arm fall to the ground with a dull thump. 

Luo Binghe, still burdened with all the irritations he’d had when he’d first mistakenly shown up in this cave but now down an arm and saddled with some unknown curse, is in no mood to comfort his currently least-favorite wife.

“Don’t call me that,” he snaps, turning to glare at her. The stump where his arm used to be is pouring blood down the side of his robes, and Luo Binghe grits his teeth in irritation as he resheathes Xin Mo. “Shen Yuan will continue to address me as her lord.”

“I didn’t call you anything??” Shen Yuan splutters, her voice thin and reedy and her eyes locked onto where Luo Binghe’s dismembered arm lies awkwardly on the ground between them. At the same time that she speaks, though, Luo Binghe hears her voice saying something else, layered on top of her spoken words in a way that feels grating and out of tune:

‘Fuck, shit - his arm! He just - cut it off! I mean, obviously Binghe can regrow or attach it easily, and it was a smart thing to do considering he didn’t know what Life’s Binding Thread can actually do, but -’

“Be quiet,” Luo Binghe hisses, bringing his remaining hand up to rub at his temple. Mid motion, he pauses, looking at Shen Yuan again cautiously.

…She hadn’t seemed to actually be speaking, just then? 

Shen Yuan blinks back at Luo Binghe, her already panicked expression morphing into genuine horror.

‘Shit, did he not cut it off in time? Did I not drop my end of the thread in time??’

Shen Yuan’s mouth doesn’t move once. 

Luo Binghe scowls. That damn thread had really burned into him well enough that cutting off the wound didn’t work, then, and now he was stuck with - whatever the fuck this is. A curse of some sort, obviously, but -

“Life’s Binding Thread doesn’t really count as a curse, per say, it’s more like a strong but temporary mental array,” Shen Yuan says, talking over the discordant and ever-flowing stream of swearing and panic that seems to be coming directly from her own mind. 

“Hm,” Luo Binghe says, and - at the realization that Shen Yuan can hear his thoughts just as clearly as he can hear hers - reflexively tries to slam the mental connection shut.

It doesn’t shut.

‘Oh, neat, is that how Binghe keeps Xin Mo out of his mind? Actually, that’s an interesting paradox - if Xin Mo is so strong, how come mental effects of lesser skill or strength can’t be blocked in the same way? Or is Life’s Binding Thread actually stronger than Xin Mo, and Binghe just let himself fall under the effects of that wine from the wife plot back in - ah, shit, he’s looking at me like he wants to kill me again, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut -’

“Be quiet,” Luo Binghe repeats, even as he tries to adjust his expression to not so obviously give away his current desire to make Shen Yuan shut up by more violent methods. 

“I’m still your wife!” Shen Yuan yelps, backing away. ‘Violent methods?? What violent methods?! Aren’t I still - I still look like - I’m still his wife! Your wife! I’m still your wife, I know you’re listening! Fuck!’

Luo Binghe once more attempts, without much success, to forcefully block off the mental connection between them. Once more, there is no effect. 

Luo Binghe’s lips pull back into a wordless snarl, frustration making his skin itch with the desire to quickly and violently fix things so he can just return to his palace and continue searching for -

Luo Binghe cuts a sharp glance over to Shen Yuan. ‘No,’ he thinks viciously. ‘That goal is not something an outsider gets to know about.’

‘Searching for…?’ Shen Yuan’s mind echoes back. ‘Searching for… oh, was he looking for a particular wife or something? That would explain the way Life’s Binding Thread reacted, but I mean, I’ve already had my turn, so why…?’

Under Luo Binghe’s steadily intensifying glare, Shen Yuan waves her hands in front of herself nervously. “I’m not trying to listen! Or reply! If I could turn it off, I would!”

“Shen Yuan seems to know what the cursed thread did to us,” Luo Binghe says, instantly cutting down to the only important thing to come out of the incessant panicked thoughts coming from her.

Honestly - Luo Binghe is really quite used to odd things happening when he’s already in a bad mood, and he’s even more used to those things happening when he’s around women, but having such a constant and agitated stream of thoughts being blasted directly into his head is making it significantly more difficult to concentrate. 

‘You seem to be concentrating just fine, getting right to interrogating me!’ Shen Yuan thinks, clearly flustered. Still, she clears her throat and nods a bit stiffly. “I’m not so hopeless that I would have been searching for an artifact I didn’t know the effects of -”

Luo Binghe’s fingers - those still attached to his body - twitch in the direction of Xin Mo.

“- not that I wanted these particular effects to activate! There’s a different set of effects for if it’s one person or multiple that activate the artifact! I only wanted it for myself, I swear!”

‘Why is he so damn violent today, ah?!’ Luo Binghe hears under Shen Yuan’s spoken words. ‘Binghe never punishes his wives with anything but more papapa and a slap on the wrist, but he’s been ready to kill me several times in the last hour alone!’

“If it’s too hard for Shen Yuan to be completely quiet,” Luo Binghe grits out, “Perhaps she could at least refrain from thinking of an entirely different set of dialogue than what she says aloud?”

Outwardly, Shen Yuan finally obediently goes quiet. 

Inwardly, the space in Luo Binghe’s mind where Shen Yuan’s consciousness sits against his seems to do a full-bodied shudder of disgust the moment Luo Binghe refers to Shen Yuan as ‘she.’ 

‘FUCKing hate that ugh gross ew ew,’ Shen Yuan thinks, and then in rapid succession: ‘Wife, you’re a wife, think Binghe’s-Wife-thoughts.’

Ah. So Luo Binghe hadn’t been mistaken; Shen Yuan really had been a man when Luo Binghe had first seen him today. 

Luo Binghe casts his eyes skyward. Sometimes he truly believes demonic culture is superior; why do so many other species insist on refusing to be straightforward about simple things like this?

“Fine, so Shen Yuan hadn’t intended to activate the artifact in this particular manner,” Luo Binghe says, trying to force the conversation along. “But he did still intend to use it.”

“...Maybe,” Shen Yuan says, his eyes casting downwards in an unexpectedly bitter expression. ‘ If I could use it to find a way home…’

“Then explain the artifact’s effects,” Luo Binghe insists. Is he talking to a child? How hard is it to understand that the most important part of crisis management is giving the most competent person in the room all the relevant information?

Shen Yuan shoots Luo Binghe a resentful glare, but like earlier, it seems he can’t constrain his own thoughts about the artifact and its potential uses.

“It’s as it says on the tin -” ‘because this book has the shittiest author I’ve ever fucking had the displeasure of encountering’ “- Life’s Binding Thread really is just a way to bind someone to some important part of their life. If it’s used on a single person, it can be used to reconnect them to, uh, something they lost, for example.”

Hm. Luo Binghe supposes that Shen Yuan and himself are important parts of each other’s lives - they are married, after all. 

‘This bastard is daring to think something that stupid when he didn’t even recognize me earlier??’ Shen Yuan thinks especially loudly in Luo Binghe’s direction. ‘Really, did his EQ go down ten points with every marriage or -’

Shen Yuan coughs loudly, his thoughts wrenching away from the dangerously treasonous path they’d been on. 

“If Life’s Binding Thread is used on two people,” he says, continuing his explanation, “the effects are a bit different. Rather than connecting them to something that’s already important to them, it connects the two individuals until they become important to one another.”

Luo Binghe looks at Shen Yuan with renewed suspicion. An artifact that is supposed to make Shen Yuan more important to him… If Luo Binghe has been pulled away from his search for a path to the mirror world by what amounts to just another exhausting plot to climb the ranks of his harem, he’ll be very irritated.

“I’ll remind Lord Luo that I did not ask for him to show up here,” Shen Yuan seethes. ‘Nor do I want to waste time trying to fulfill this bullshit wife plot, either.’

Luo Binghe drops his suspicion, but not the tension in his shoulders. The more time he spends just standing around uselessly in this cave, the stronger the itch under his skin gets - the stronger his desire to return to his palace and the failed spatial manipulation arrays. He doesn’t want to be here, and Shen Yuan doesn’t want him here; they’re in agreement. They’ll deal with this cursed affliction quickly, then.

“Shen Yuan,” Luo Binghe says, and then, after a moment, corrects himself: “Concubine Shen. You are important to this Lord. Let’s renew our wedding vows.”

Shen Yuan gapes at him. ‘I’ve heard kids more enthusiastic to go to the dentist’s than that bullshit confession, what the fuck!!’

Luo Binghe sighs - the curse clearly hadn’t broken with a simple declaration of love, then. He’ll just -

‘That was not a declaration of love,’ Shen Yuan’s thoughts interrupt, startlingly firm.

“Shen Yuan is welcome to demonstrate to this Lord the proper technique, then,” Luo Binghe snaps. “This Lord would be honored to learn from the sort of man that thinks a wife’s duty is to run away under his lord’s nose and make trouble in monster-infested caves.”

Once more, Luo Binghe receives a wave of emotion from Shen Yuan, too tangled in itself to be conveyed in words. It’s - startlingly warm, and nostalgic, and a bit wistful, tied up around the idea of loving Luo Binghe - 

And then, of course, Luo Binghe finally picks apart a coherent thought in the mess, and it’s an especially bitter ‘tough fucking talk from an asshole who thinks a husband’s duty is to speedrun the infatuation-to-boredom pipeline for each of his million gazillion stupid wives.’

Luo Binghe scowls, gearing up to complain about being subjected to such a sentiment from his runaway wife, but Shen Yuan gets there first.

“Stop listening to my thoughts if they bother you so much,” Shen Yuan snaps. ‘Or don’t, and die under the weight of the deserved guilt, if you’re even capable of feeling it. Bastard.’

“I’m trying to,” Luo Binghe grits out. “It’s only Shen Yuan’s talent for thinking all sorts of uncharitable things about his husband that are preventing us from breaking this curse.”

“If you’d let me finish my explanation,” Shen Yuan says, “I’d have already explained to you by now that you can’t just trick the Life’s Binding Thread into thinking we’re important to each other. It’s got its own measure of how to judge such a thing - the artifact’s effect will naturally dissipate once we both learn the thing that fate has determined to be the most important thing for us to know about the other.” 

Luo Binghe watches Shen Yuan silently. He may not know this wife of his particularly well, but it’s become very clear to him very quickly that he’ll learn more if he just stays quiet and lets Shen Yuan’s constant stream of thoughts play out uninterrupted. 

And, as if on cue -

‘Generally I’d think that Binghe is supposed to realise, ‘oh wow, oh gee! this wife is great and loves me and my stupid heavenly pillar and -’ ah, fuck, he’s still listening, Lord Luo I didn’t mean to think anything treasonous about your papapa stick -’

“The artifact, Shen Yuan,” Luo Binghe grits out. “What are we supposed to be realizing right now?”

“If I knew that, do you think we’d still be stuck like this?!” Shen Yuan snaps, then quickly tacks on: “Lord Luo. Respectfully. Sir.”

Luo Binghe holds back the urge to sigh, turning away from Shen Yuan to pick up his dismembered arm. He shakes it off once, twice - then holds it up to the stump where it had once attached to him and focuses on letting his healing abilities get to work on mending muscle and bone and skin to put it back into place. 

As he does so, he keeps his mind carefully focused on the task and free of any other potentially distracting thoughts, and as he expected, it only takes a few long beats of quiet before Shen Yuan’s internal monologue about the artifact picks back up again.

‘If this particular wifeplot is meant to make the couple of the week realize how much they both care about each other… then, is it because I ran away? Ah, shit, of course that’s what this is about. Well, fine - I just have to realize that it was a mistake to run away from the sweet embrace of Binghe’s cool protagonist-level muscled arms, and everything will be all better! I just - I just have to think about how much I like Binghe…’

Luo Binghe looks up from his still-healing arm to meet Shen Yuan’s awkward, deer-in-the-headlights expression. 

Shen Yuan is not currently thinking many charitable things about Luo Binghe.

“Are you my wife?” Luo Binghe asks waspishly.

“I am!” Shen Yuan cries. ‘ Am I??’ he thinks, clearly enough that Luo Binghe can hear the thought, and Luo Binghe’s expression darkens.

“Then think about how much you like me,” Luo Binghe demands. “Since that’s how this curse must be broken, then you must do it at some point or another - don’t be shy.”

“It isn’t a matter of being thin faced!” Shen Yuan says, the emotions of the underlying thoughts beneath his words feeling borderline hysterical. ‘I used to be perfectly capable of praising you without hesitation, you know! I was the best at it, even! I know, because sometimes pieces of my comments would get lifted and used in the next new wife’s dialogue, which was weird and stupid and definitely didn’t fit what I was trying to say but it does prove I was really good at praising you, so -’

“Then praise me,” Luo Binghe snaps, and Shen Yuan’s shoulders hike up to his ears, his expression squishing up as if he’s bit into something sour. 

“Then give me something to praise, asshole!” Shen Yuan returns. There’s a beat of silence, then: “Ah - ahem. That was supposed to be a thought I didn’t speak aloud. If Lord Luo would kindly forget I said anything.”

“I don’t think I will,” Luo Binghe replies. “In fact, I think Shen Yuan has perhaps been taking a bit too much enjoyment from using this curse as an opportunity to make sure I hear so many unpleasant thoughts from you, all under the guise that you can’t control it.”

‘Ha-ha, I’m in trouble,’ Shen Yuan thinks. Aloud, he says, “I couldn’t possibly know what Lord Luo is talking about. After all, isn’t Lord Luo famous for being so desired by all the merged realms? How could it be that any wife of yours is left unsatisfied to the point that they have so many complaints, and that their resentment has piled up to the point of even being delighted at the chance of getting to voice them? Wouldn’t that be unreasonable, if Lord Luo is such a magnificent husband?”

“If Shen Yuan wants to complain, then you should do so freely,” Luo Binghe says, baring his teeth in a sharp smile. “After all, didn’t you claim so confidently earlier that I would never hurt one of my wives, even if they were getting into all sorts of trouble?”

“I wouldn’t dare to test my Lord’s patience,” Shen Yuan says, his face contorting with the tight edge of his own strained smile. “However, if Lord Luo feels especially impatient to hear praise from me, perhaps he could start by offering some of his own?”

‘After all, it’s your own fault that you’ve been such a shitty husband that I can’t even muster a single compliment for your efforts!’

Luo Binghe scoffs - as if a wife like Shen Yuan had any authority to judge what sort of husband Luo Binghe has been. 

Still, the itch under Luo Binghe’s skin has only gotten worse - he wants to be done here as quickly as possible, so that he can return to more important business. If a few sweet words are what are needed to finish this fast, then so be it.

“Shen Yuan is an unparalleled beauty,” he intones. “Your eyes are like -”

‘This asshole isn’t even looking at my eyes!’

“Does Shen Yuan want to be complimented or not?” Luo Binghe scowls. “Don’t interrupt me.”

‘Why, so you don’t lose concentration as you recite the same seven lines you’ve memorized to impress every woman you meet?’

“And if you insist on interrupting me anyway,” Luo Binghe says darkly, “then at least have the courtesy to do it aloud; the cowardice that has you hiding behind the ‘unintentional’ thoughts this curse transmits to me is certainly not an attractive thing I could compliment.”

“On the other hand, I think Lord Luo could stand to make use of this bond between us a bit more,” Shen Yuan scowls. “Rather than reciting compliments aloud, wouldn’t I be more inspired if I could feel the heartfelt goodwill of your thoughts directly?”

Through their mental connection, Luo Binghe hears Shen Yuan’s motivation more clearly: ‘If the reason I can’t think proper wife-y thoughts at you is because you’ve neglected me, then you better start un- neglecting me! After all, if it weren’t for this stupid resentment I have about how I’ve been treated from the second I was dumped into the inner palace and forgotten about, we’d be done with this in a flash!’

Luo Binghe narrows his eyes at Shen Yuan. That… he can feel that Shen Yuan genuinely believes those thoughts, but he really hasn’t heard a single good sentiment from Shen Yuan about him this entire time - it’s difficult to imagine Shen Yuan conveying his love for Luo Binghe so well they could be done with this quickly.

“I’m not sure Shen Yuan could find the words to praise me even if they were written down and all you needed to do was recite them,” Luo Binghe spits.

“Better than reciting them, I could write them myself!” Shen Yuan scoffs. “If I only needed to say them as - as an advisor, maybe, or something like that - I could praise you better than the nobles that lick your boots! It’s just - it’s when I have to say them as a wife -!”

Once more, Luo Binghe is met with the overwhelming tide of emotions that seems to spill from Shen Yuan every time he thinks something too complex to be conveyed in simple words. 

There’s - admiration, of a sort. A genuine, awe-struck amazement of what Luo Binghe is, what he survived to get to his current state, and a fierce protectiveness and outrage that Luo Binghe had to survive it at all. The ‘Binghe’ that Shen Yuan sees in his mind glows with a bright intensity that startles even Luo Binghe himself, but there’s - a film, of some sort - a barrier that separates the messy care for ‘Binghe’ from the cold resentment Shen Yuan has for ‘Lord Luo.’ 

‘I really did love your story, ah,’ Shen Yuan is thinking, his thoughts finally filtering down into something more comprehensible again, as if he hadn’t just nearly drowned Luo Binghe in a set of emotions more strong and sure than those expressed by the last… many, many women that Luo Binghe had married into his family. ‘It’s only, now that I’m here…’

“Lord Luo will have to excuse me,” Shen Yuan says tightly, shuffling about to put a bit more distance between them. “As you’ve probably gathered, my experience as your wife has been… rather lackluster. I cannot currently express the feelings needed to break the bond linking us. So, as I said before, if Lord Luo could only prepare some encouragement…”

Luo Binghe stares at Shen Yuan without saying a word. His grip on his own arm has gone slack; it’s only due to the luck of how quickly it’s healing that it doesn’t fall back to the ground and instead manages to hang from the ropes of sinew that have begun to reconnect the dismembered arm to his body. 

Not - not currently able to express the feelings needed to break the bond?? After the wave of - of that sort of emotion that Luo Binghe had felt over the bond, all directed at Luo Binghe??

“Not at you,” Shen Yuan snaps, before once more falling silent and taking another half step away. For the first time since the bond snapped into place between them, he looks genuinely uncomfortable, the babbly panic that had occupied him before now replaced with a quiet sort of unease. 

In other words: for the first time since this curse connected them, Luo Binghe managed to hear something in Shen Yuan’s thoughts that Shen Yuan was not actually willing to share.

Good, snarls a part of Luo Binghe’s mind. Finally, Shen Yuan is experiencing some degree of the discomfort Luo Binghe has been feeling this entire time, even if Shen Yuan isn’t burdened with the same urgency to get out of the situation and return to his other goals as quickly as possible. 

The other part of Luo Binghe’s mind snags on the idea that something in what Shen Yuan had just communicated over their bond must have been important, and he doesn’t think it was the rush of admiration itself. If it was only that, even if Shen Yuan wasn’t comfortable with expressing it, it could still be swept away with the excuse that it was for the sake of fulfilling the requirements of the curse. And if it wasn’t the admiration itself…

Then, naturally, it must have been about who it was for.

Luo Binghe narrows his eyes, advancing on Shen Yuan, who has only managed to take a handful of meagre steps back in the time that Luo Binghe had been mulling things over. As he moves, Shen Yuan’s retreat grows more panicked, and his thoughts pick up again until Luo Binghe is once more listening to a steady stream of ‘fuck oh no oh shit he knows he heard he’s going to figure it out, Binghe’s always been too clever by half and he’s going to figure it out, fuck -’

Luo Binghe catches Shen Yuan by the collar of his robes, yanking him closer. Shen Yuan stumbles over his own feet as Luo Binghe moves him, and one of his hands comes up to steady himself on Luo Binghe’s shoulder for a brief moment before yanking itself away - ‘DON’T TOUCH HIM oh shit that was the arm Binghe hurt, too, he was still healing that!’ - leaving Luo Binghe to steady Shen Yuan by the grip on his lapels alone. 

“What,” Luo Binghe says slowly, “is the difference between ‘Binghe’ and ‘Lord Luo?’”

Is there some sort of imposter running around, stealing Luo Binghe’s wives out from under him? A thieving son of his that he doesn’t know about? 

‘As if Binghe would ever sire a kid by accident,’ Shen Yuan’s thoughts answer with a surprising amount of disdain. 

Not a child, then. Who else could ‘Binghe’ be, though, if it is not Luo Binghe himself? And in the first place, hasn’t Shen Yuan referred to Luo Binghe as ‘Binghe’ several times now? Indeed, what is the difference between ‘Binghe’ and ‘Lord Luo’ that Shen Yuan can’t assign the affection he has for one to the other?

Luo Binghe’s grip on Shen Yuan’s robes tightens, and Shen Yuan’s balance wavers just slightly, still just a bit too dependent on Luo Binghe’s hold on him to stand correctly. 

“That -” Shen Yuan starts, breaks off, and wets his lips nervously before trying again. “There is a difference, certainly, but - Lord Luo, aren’t there some things that are better not shared? Sometimes a secret is a secret for a reason, ignorance is bliss and all that -”

“The difference, Shen Yuan,” Luo Binghe hisses, and then for good measure uses the hand from his injured arm - still clumsy from not having all its nerves reconnected yet, and still wet with blood - to cover Shen Yuan’s mouth so that he cannot attempt to answer aloud. 

As expected, when Shen Yuan isn’t capable of running his mouth, his thoughts only spiral faster and louder.

‘Shit, what will happen if he figures it out? Will he even be able to? Wouldn’t the Ṡ̵̨̜y̶̧͍̳̞͊͘s̷͉̙̐̉̆̈́t̶̨̹̜͍͂é̴̮̲͋́m̴͈̘̹̜̿ prevent him from learning about something like that?’

The - what? Luo Binghe frowns, his brows coming together as he tries to parse out the word he’d missed there. It had sounded like - maybe he knew it? Maybe he… 

Luo Binghe drops Shen Yuan unceremoniously, bringing both hands up to clutch at his head as a wave of nausea passes over him. He… can’t remember the sounds of that missing word at all, now. Clearly it was important, though - clearly it was powerful, to be able to circumvent the rules currently baring Shen Yuan’s mind to Luo Binghe when even Luo Binghe’s own mental and dream abilities had not been able to do anything similar to stop his own thoughts from reaching Shen Yuan.

From where he’d fallen to the ground in an uncoordinated heap, Shen Yuan looks up at Luo Binghe warily, wiping at the smeared blood on his mouth with the back of his hand. 

‘He… couldn’t hear it? Wait, isn’t this actually perfect?!’

“Speak - think properly,” Luo Binghe demands. “What is preventing your thoughts from being clearly communicated?”

“I don’t think I can answer that,” Shen Yuan says, his eyes darting around nervously, as if expecting something to suddenly come out and attack him. ‘Fuck, what shitty half-assed censorship is this? It can prevent snippets from being conveyed, but not the whole thought? Obviously that would only make someone more curious!!’

“Try,” Luo Binghe says dangerously. “As Shen Yuan has so astutely put together, I’ve become quite curious. Is this… disconnect similar to the difference between ‘Binghe’ and myself?”

‘Of course, it’s this shitty Ṡ̵̨̜y̶̧͍̳̞͊͘s̷͉̙̐̉̆̈́t̶̨̹̜͍͂é̴̮̲͋́m̴͈̘̹̜̿’s fault that I t̸̪̓̕̚͝r̸̯̝̆͑ä̶̢̭́͋̋͐ń̷͈̪̣ş̵̝̗̠̽̅͂m̷͚͌̂͆͠ì̸͓̰̂g̵̖̲͇̈͝r̵͍̘̳̅a̷̭͗̌t̷̛̙͙͂e̸̺͇͙͂d̷̼͐̇ into this world, of course it’s the reason I see you s̷͉̎ȩ̸̫̓̽̋p̸͉̬̰̾͘a̵͚̬̩̔̈̂̇r̷̛̫̭̊̀̊a̷͇̦̹͊t̷͇̂̆ê̸̥̲̈́ͅ ̷̱͇̞̌̀̊̑f̴͔̱͈̓ͅṙ̷̳̲̈́ͅo̸̬̺͒m̴̺͈͓͛͂ ̶͇̓̋̕͠t̴̩̱͌͗̽h̴̹͙̋ê̸̮̻̮͌̈́̓ ̸̰̔́͆ć̷̝͖̺́̇ŭ̸̗̩͙̲͝t̸̨̂͘ḙ̷̊͐̄͝ ̸̨͕̥̅̽̄ͅb̷̡͕͔͍̔̂̆̇l̶̳̬͕̗͆̿͊̾a̴̞̤̼̍̕c̸̖̞̫͇͊k̵̡͚͇͖̂̊-̸͋͌̿͜ḅ̵͎͍͆̋͝ė̶͍́ļ̸̨͉̈́͒̇͜l̴̯̳̃͘i̴̎̓͆̇͜ͅė̵̛̘͓͜d̶̳̼̪̽̚ ̷̞̱̈́̾ć̵̰͎̥̚̚h̷͇͈̆̕̕a̷͙̍̊͑̓ŗ̵͇̙̐̐̈̅ą̵̠̰͎̀̚c̷̻̐t̷̹̲̝̂̈́̀e̶̜̓̈́̿̃r̵͙̺͌̀͋͜ ̵̯̜̯͝Ǐ̶̢̻̀ ̶͖̘̹̳̉̅͝ọ̵̐̍̓n̶͓̮̯̉̋͝ļ̴̥̝̪͛̌̕̚y̴͉̏͋ͅ ̵̜̬̼̱̈͊e̸̢̪͗̀͝v̷̢̖̎̆ȅ̶̮̰͈̱͒̒r̵͔̝̂͗ ̵̰̮̆͂r̶̛̻̓̀͘ë̸̪̟́a̵̡̦̖͋̒̊͝d̵̡̈́̽̽̋ ̴̬͐â̷̜̄b̷̛̖o̶͍̭̜͗͑̿u̴̖̐͑̆̓t̵͚̉͂̂͋ ̶͙͋͊̅b̵̫̙̈́̿̊͝e̷̹̯͐͐f̴̢̞̄̽o̶͕͊̇́ř̴̪́̃͘ě̷̢̡̼̓͆̕!̴͚̀̾͝’

Shen Yuan’s thoughts seem to blend into an incomprehensible static, as mundane as the white noise of rain, and it takes conscious effort for Luo Binghe’s attention to not slip off them. Under scrutiny, it seems…

Luo Binghe lowers himself closer to Shen Yuan’s level, searching his face with sudden, aching intensity. 

This whole time - through the battle with the monster, and the reveal of Shen Yuan’s status as his wife, and the curse of the stupid red thread, and lopping off his arm and still having to be subjected to another person’s thoughts - through all of it, Luo Binghe has had to force his mind from wandering, has had to constantly refocus from the way his skin seemed too tight and his breath felt too sharp and the way he just wanted to go back to searching for a way back into the mirror world.

Luo Binghe has been piloting himself through this encounter with half his brain elsewhere. Now, for the first time, he feels fully present in these caves, all of his attention narrowed down to the exact shape of Shen Yuan’s face. His cheeks and nose are too round, and the large lenses of his glasses hide eyes that are too soft, but - 

But the feeling of the foreign mental barrier within Shen Yuan’s mind is exact. 

Luo Binghe had only felt it briefly, when he was digging through the memories of the mirror Shen Qingqiu; past a certain date, back before the mirror Shen Qingqiu started acting differently from the vile Shen Qingqiu that Luo Binghe himself had grown up under, all the memories had a hazy feel to them. They felt almost too normal, too mundane - like it would be all too easy for Luo Binghe’s mind to slip away from them and not pay them any attention, just the same way that it had felt to try and focus on the garbled thoughts coming from Shen Yuan now.

And - what exactly was it that Shen Yuan had said, between pieces that couldn’t be understood? That he ‘came to this world… to see Luo Binghe?’ And that mirror Shen Qingqiu had called him as just ‘Binghe’ too…

Luo Binghe shudders, a full-bodied feeling that leaves the nerves along his back feeling like they’ve been lit up by foreign energy. 

‘The spatial array worked after all,’ Luo Binghe thinks. ‘This little spirit is who I was looking for.’

In the same moment, Shen Yuan’s own thoughts come across just as clearly.

‘What the fuck was that feelin - oh, shit, he already figured out his part of the bond?? That - that jumbled mess about me being who he was looking for - that is what the Life’s Binding Thread wanted him to realize about me?!’

Yes, that… Indeed, Luo Binghe could think of nothing more important he could realize about anyone than this. It’s important, and Luo Binghe should be nothing but pleased that once more the world has twisted in his favor to drop what he was looking for directly in his lap, but -

Luo Binghe’s hands flex at his sides, staring at Shen Yuan.

“How long,” he says, voice carefully measured, “Have you been in this world?”

Shen Yuan’s brow furrows. ‘So he really was searching specifically for someone not of this world, then? That’s…’ Shen Yuan swallows, his eyes darting away. “Over a decade,” he says aloud.

“And we’ve been married for -”

Shen Yuan’s eyes flick back to him, wary. “Also over a decade. I - uh, arrived shortly before meeting you for the first time.”

Luo Binghe leans back slightly, breathing in slowly through his nose. Shen Yuan didn’t arrive recently, then. He’s always been here - has always been the one Luo Binghe married. 

For the last decade, Luo Binghe has simply… overlooked him.

‘Try being a bit meaner about it,’ Shen Yuan’s mind snaps at him, sarcastic and bitter even as Shen Yuan himself turns his face away. ‘Ugh, fuck, this is - this is fine. It’s still just a wifeplot, I only have to get through it for now. Even if - even if he was looking for me - looking for me -me, the me that came from t̶̟̓̾̒̐ḩ̷̦̳̳̋̏e̸̘͔̼̹̎̐ ̶̮̺͇̭̩́͘m̴̙̖̎̍̐͜͝͝ő̵̹̬̫̀̒̎̕d̵̢͎̘͌̆͜ē̵̢͕̳̩̈́̾̏͜r̵̮̆̈́̈́̈n̶͈̭̺̅͂ ̷͍̺̼̊͒w̵̡̝̘̗̔ö̷̜̻̎͜r̴̡̜̖̬̠̾͛̾̕͝l̴̺̀d̵͔̿̅ - it’s still only… fuck, I’m going to throw up.’

Luo Binghe frowns, reaching out a hand to send a calming pulse of qi through Shen Yuan. “If Shen Yuan feels sick, we should return to the palace quickly,” he says, somewhat subdued. 

He found who he was looking for before getting the chance to realize what it was exactly he wanted from this person, but he knows enough to not want Shen Yuan to feel ill. That much is natural; Shen Yuan is his wife, after all. He’d been - a bit confused earlier, perhaps - a bit too distracted to pay proper attention - but Shen Yuan is his wife, and so naturally Luo Binghe will care for him.

Across from him, Shen Yuan grimaces. “You… how did you even find out about me? It - from your thoughts - you seemed to have… visited another world, before?”

And though Luo Binghe doesn’t really wish to speak about that mirror world - not even to this soul that he had been searching for, not when that mirror world was wrapped so strongly in feelings of failure and loss - he’d still rather answer those questions than what Shen Yuan really wants to ask.

After all, even as Shen Yuan is speaking, his thoughts give way to a different question: ‘What do you want from me?’

Luo Binghe’s lips thin, remaining silent. He lets his hand fall from Shen Yuan’s shoulder - he’d used his dominant hand without thinking, the hand that had only recently been reattached, and now there’s a smear of dark blood on Shen Yuan’s robes, just as ugly as the blood still lingering by Shen Yuan’s mouth. 

Then, Luo Binghe’s eyes fall to his own hand, and by extension, his wrist. The place where the Life’s Binding Thread had burned him has healed, but it left a faint mark - not quite a scar, but a lingering curse mark, showing that their ordeal had not yet fully been overcome even if Luo Binghe had already had his own side of the needed realizations. 

That’s right, Luo Binghe thinks, something within him settling, this world is still working to provide me with reparations; fate is still repaying its dues to me. There’s no need for me to trouble myself with figuring it out on my own.

“Isn’t that for Shen Yuan to figure out?” Luo Binghe asks lightly, his lips curling up in a smug grin. “The ‘most important thing you can realize about me’ - naturally, it should be a realization about the role you should play in my life.”

“Didn’t you want this to be over with quickly?” Shen Yuan asks. “Just tell me - or think it, if you’re set on being stubborn - and then I can ‘realize’ and we can break this bond.”

“No need,” Luo Binghe says sharply, standing up and turning away in one quick motion. “This Lord figured out my side on my own, and so Shen Yuan must figure out his side on his own, too.”

Shen Yuan’s incredulous stare burns into the back of Luo Binghe’s head. ‘This asshole… he really doesn’t know what he wants from me?? What the fuck was he looking for me for, then?! Amusement? Fascination with the unknown? Did he learn about the possibility someone like me could ṯ̷̬̞͕̈́͗̉̏r̷͈̎̄̎́a̵̺͍̮͔͊̏̄ͅņ̴̙̂͌̒̿š̴̨́̿͝m̵͔̫͕̎̅͜͝i̵̟͖̅̓̇͘g̴̞̦̳̀r̸͕̞̞̒a̵̛͍ṭ̴͔͐̏́̏̕è̸̲̻̇̈͝ and decide he wanted to try and merge a few more realms together??’

“Shouldn’t you call me more affectionately?” Luo Binghe says, glancing back over his shoulder at Shen Yuan. “Hasn’t Shen Yuan been my wife for long enough to come up with something sweet to call me?”

Shen Yuan stares back at him with his jaw slack. ‘What the fuck,’ he thinks, nearly frantic. ‘What the fuck is this new personality I’m meeting?? Well, not new, fuck, he was all honeyed words like this when we first met all those years ago too, wasn’t he? It - fuck, shit, it really is a wifeplot, I hate this I hate this I hate -’

“Lord Luo was the one to insist that I refer to him respectfully, not even a shichen ago,” Shen Yuan says, finally pulling himself up off the ground. “How could I dare to disobey?”

“My mistake,” Luo Binghe says dryly, “I was unaware that referring to me as ‘this asshole’ could be understood as a respectful address.”

Shen Yuan winces, then busies himself in searching through his sleeves until he pulls out a handkerchief he can properly clean his face off with. He pointedly does not look at or reply to Luo Binghe throughout this, but Luo Binghe would be able to understand his intentions even without the bond connecting their thoughts. Luo Binghe himself had thought it earlier: they’d been married a decade, and all that time, Shen Yuan had been overlooked by him.

Now, steeped in the bitterness that came from being ignored, Shen Yuan can’t think of a single good thing to say about the man that was ostensibly his entire reason to exist in this world.

Luo Binghe turns his gaze away once more, his expression contorting in an uncomfortable way. Fine. It isn’t especially hard to earn the affection of someone he sets his sights on; by the time Shen Yuan has figured out his side of the bond, Luo Binghe will have him clinging to his role as Luo Binghe’s wife once more. By then, everything will be fixed.

What Luo Binghe wants from Shen Yuan - what Shen Yuan is meant to fix, the ugly thing that the mirror world turned Luo Binghe into - all of it will be fixed if Luo Binghe can just convince Shen Yuan to like him again.

Shen Yuan sighs, tucking away the newly bloodied handkerchief he’d been using to wipe his face off with. “Yes, alright - let’s get on with the plot, I suppose. We have to, uh, rekindle our flame and stuff, so, uh -”

“Try sounding a bit more stiff, this Lord will try to find it romantic this time,” Luo Binghe says, voice sounding unexpectedly bitter even to himself.

‘Try helping then!’ Shen Yuan thinks, glaring at him, and - 

Well. Luo Binghe had been intending to woo Shen Yuan back into his arms, hadn’t he?

“Though time may have stretched thin our memories of each other,” Luo Binghe says, “we were close before, and time again can remind us of why we found ourselves to be close in body and heart. Shen Yuan, you -”

‘Not like that!!’ interrupts Shen Yuan’s mental dialogue, accompanied by a background symphony of retching noises. Luo Binghe’s eye twitches. 

“- you must have suffered without me by your side,” Luo Binghe continues, determined to see it through even as the mental soundtrack of protests grows louder, “but I am here now, and together we can -”

“Enough, enough!” Shen Yuan cries. “Lord Luo, let me ask you something: how many times have you had a marital spat with one of your wives?”

Luo Binghe thinks for a moment, then waves away the question. “Occasionally,” he says.

“Occasionally,” Shen Yuan repeats, voice dry. “And how many times does ‘occasionally’ mean, when stretched over the period of several decades and over a hundred women?”

Does this little spirit think it’s romantic to pick over details of the other women I’ve lain with? Luo Binghe thinks, a bit baffled, and the space where Shen Yuan’s mind sits next to his lights up with indignation.

“I find it about as romantic as you reusing the same lines you always do when you’re faced with a wife giving you the cold shoulder!” He exclaims, throwing his arms up helplessly. “‘Occasionally’, you say, as if even once or twice wouldn’t be enough to spread the news throughout your palace - do you really think we don’t all know these lines by now?”

Truthfully, Luo Binghe doesn’t remember the exact words he’s said in similar situations, even if he knows there’s a certain formula that usually works to lure a woman back into bed with him. But if he doesn’t remember the specifics, and Shen Yuan does…

“And I’m not jealous!” Shen Yuan yells. “I’m - I’m fed up!”

‘And extremely let down, even though I already knew that all the hopes I’d had for you to be some sort of fairytale dream were indeed only dreams, and that you only know romance when it has big tits and is presently sitting in your bed - aren’t you supposed to be good at this, ah?! If I was going to get a second turn at the wifeplots, couldn’t it at least be enjoyable?!’

The odd emotion Luo Binghe had felt earlier - the uncomfortable pull inside of him, dissatisfied with the knowledge that the person he’d been looking for had been under his nose this whole time and so deeply unhappy with Luo Binghe that he’d run away from him - comes back full force. 

“Then instruct me,” Luo Binghe says, carefully measured, “on how you’d prefer to be comforted.”

“I don’t want to be comforted,” Shen Yuan snaps. “I just - listen, forget it, let’s just - a date? We could go on a date?”

‘A date would narratively put us into an enclosed arc, too, so the bond should naturally find a way to dissolve by the end of the night, and then - well. One thing at a time,’ Shen Yuan thinks.

“A date,” Luo Binghe repeats, and Shen Yuan nods along.

“We could, uh, watch the White River Spirit Berries bloom from a spot on the riverbank -”

Ah, Luo Binghe thinks, remembering a time when he’d done just that with the sweet martial sister he’d rescued from the cult that had been planning to use her as a cauldron, the sex there was especially nice - humidity always makes the skin-on-skin experience feel so much more -

“Or!” Shen Yuan says loudly, “we could learn a new dance together -”

Maybe a dance like the one I learned with Hualing’s cousin some years back, moving in such a way that -

“Nevermind dancing,” Shen Yuan says, “let’s try - right, okay, let’s try going to a bookstore and, uh, competing to find a book the other person would enjoy -”

Trying to keep quiet between the shelves was very fun, Luo Binghe thinks, remembering such an event with a pair of rabbit demon twins.

“Forget it!” Shen Yuan snaps. “You - Lord Luo, I humbly request that you remember I can hear your thoughts right now. If listening to you reminisce about your other women is supposed to warm me up to you, it isn’t working!”

Luo Binghe blinks. How was he supposed to make this date good, if he doesn’t reference his past ones?

“Well - that - figure it out!” Shen Yuan huffs. Inwardly, he bemoans, ‘what sort of date could I possibly think of that a guy with a hundred wives won’t have already done in the past?! Should I choose a subpar date he had with someone else and try to improve on it instead? No way, fuck that, I’m not a loser, I could make Binghe happy if I tried - shit, forget it, who wants to make that asshole happy!’

“If Shen Yuan is struggling, he can always rely on this Lord -”

“I’ll pick the date,” Shen Yuan snaps. “Just - give me a second.”

‘A date he’s never done… Well, what could he do with me that he couldn’t with others? He has other spirit wives, so it can’t be something related to that, and - uh, I think there was even a demonic flower-power wife, right? So no flower spirit specific stuff, either. Then -’

Shen Yuan glances up from his concentration, meeting Luo Binghe’s eyes and blinking placidly. 

‘Ah. Right. Naturally, for the mind reading wife plot, it should be a mind reading date!’

“Shen Yuan chose something, then?”

“Of course. I told you I would, didn’t I?” Shen Yuan replies, clearly a bit smug. “I think we're actually going to have quite a bit of fun together, Lord Luo.”