The Author Can't Let the Side Characters Break Up!

-Congratulations, User! You have been bound to True Love System!-
So, who is it? Luo Binghe and Liu Mingyan? Sha Hualing? But from the timeline - oh, no, tell me it's not Su Xiyan and Tianlang-jun. System-bro, how could you do this to me -
-Mission: Seven Plus Nine Equals Love!-
...So, how about that Su Xiyan and Tianlang-jun?
-
Shang Qinghua finds himself in the body of a doomed side character with an even more doomed mission. It's time to untangle the knots of his own tragic backstory, with only the aid of his own cunning brain, the world's least helpful system... and a suspiciously helpful ice demon?
-
The Villainess Won't Let the Main Leads Break Up! Fusion.

Notes:

Hello!
No knowledge of The Villainess Won't Let the Main Leads Break Up required - I only took the premise and then plugged it into 7/9 (because I love them) and Shang Qinghua (because I love to watch him suffer).
The outline is for three chapters, but, well, I've never successfully predicted a chapter count in my life. Hope y'all enjoy anyway! No warnings for this chapter beyond some canon-typical violence.

Chapter Text

"I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. You think that relationship value's bad -"

"-our relationship value is buried beneath pigshit. I hate you. I hate you like Binghe hated Shen Qingqiu, I hate you like Peerless Cucumber hated Chapter 514, I hate you like –"

Distracted by screaming at the system, Shang Qinghua trips over another outcrop of rock.

At least he doesn't think he's being chased, yet, but that doesn't mean much when you compare his cultivation to that of even a below-average Qiongding disciple. If the Sect Leader's down here, he's absolutely screwed.

Not for the first time, he curses himself for describing the Lingxi Caverns as a "fathomless maze, confusing to even seasoned cultivators" and not "a straight line," or at least "see attached map." By the time he makes it to the barred entrance, his heart is pounding, his knees are scraped raw, and there's a lump growing on his forehead.

"Hello?" he calls, cautiously.

The only answer is a low moan.

Rising up to his tiptoes, Shang Qinghua peers in through the slit in the door. The walls inside are black with what he would prefer he didn't know was blood, and lying on the ground, one arm outstretched, is a boy.

Shang Qinghua regathers himself. If he'd never tortured his characters, he'd have been an even shittier author than he already was. No one told him he would ever actually come face to face with one of them lying in a pool of their own blood, looking distressingly young and vulnerable and innocent and doomed to suffer silently and stupidly for a few decades before dying in a hail of arrows -

"Right," he says. "Yue Qi?"

Yue Qi slams himself against the door.

"Great!" says Shang Qinghua, now from significantly further away. "Thank you for telling me that I need to head to a location you've given me and rescue the childhood acquaintance I'd never heard of until today. I'm honored you've entrusted me with this mission!"

There. That's plausible deniability out of the way - Yue Qi won't remember much of this, but probably will be aware there was a shadow at the door.

Now all he needs is an excuse to leave the mountain.

<Update! Relationship Value Increase: 1%! Host should continue his fine work! Update! Subject B's emotional level has entered the Danger Range. Host should remedy – >

"So, Subject B is Yue Qingyuan, then? Right? Right? You useless Google-voiced weasel, answer me –"

It hadn't been so bad, at first.

Okay, so he'd died and then woken up as an infant, greeted by a half-hearted lullaby and a horrible mechanical voice announcing that he'd been "bound to the role of Shang Qinghua," and then, as a large hand patted his back to soothe the wailing, "Please Stand By."

"Please Stand By" had kept him company during his forthcoming second childhood as "Shang Hua," whose birth name he'd never actually bothered to come up with and backstory he'd certainly never described. This world - his world - had followed up the brilliance of not even bothering to change the character for Hua by plopping him in Tongyong Village - and then peopling Generic Town with a cast of disconcertingly well-rounded characters who he'd had fifteen years to grow attached to before a wandering cultivator had the gall to inform his family that he'd spotted "genuine talent and potential" in the boy who'd returned his fallen satchel.

See if he ever does anything nice for anyone again.

He'd been dragged to Cang Qiong Mountain, resolved to make the best of things. Transmigrators didn't get to stay the third sons of farmers - or, if they did, they had to become fabulously successful farmers, models of fine rural values, which seemed like even more work than cultivation and honestly about as likely to get him eventually ripped to shreds by demons.

He'd even tried to ask the System for advice, but his old friend "Please Stand By" remained as helpful as ever. Shang Qinghua had resolved, instead, to soak up as much cultivational knowledge as he could, claim a functional-if-not-impressive sword, and leave the sect for the life of a rogue, slaying minor monsters to the adulation of Generic Villages everywhere.

He had no inclination to fix OG Shang Qinghua's life. The only benefit would be getting to meet Mobei-jun, and that paled next to the advantages of not getting skewered on an ice spike by Mobei-jun.

He'd had plans.

And then he'd been assigned to run a message to Qiongding Peak.

He'd dropped the bamboo scroll. His (successful!) diving lunge to prevent it falling off the rainbow bridge had been met only by the scornful gazes of passing disciples and a mass of digital confetti blocking out his own vision.

<Congratulations, User! You have been bound to a bonfide True Love System. You can, you up, no can, no BB! 'What do you mean I can't write a romance arc? I've written three hundred of them!'>

More confetti.

Okay, he'd thought. I can do this.

Luo Binghe - but that couldn't be right, even by his somewhat loose and flexible timescale, not if one of the subjects was in proximity - unless one of the immortal wives was visiting? Or a demon wife had been captured? Was he really going to be stuck "ensuring the happiness" of wife number hundred-something and a yet to be born infant?

No. It had to be Su Xiyan, visiting on behalf of Huanhua Palace. Fuck my life. Tianlang-jun was maybe less likely to murder him than Mobei-jun, but how exactly was he supposed to keep the cultivation realm from murdering him?

"Commencing Quest: Seven Plus Nine Equals Love!"

Seven plus –

Seven –

Shang Qinghua curled up on the rainbow bridge, and screamed.

It had taken him three weeks after the Lingxi Caverns - the system chattering in his head the whole time - to get an excuse to head down the mountain.

It had taken him three days after that to get here, mud and blood mixing on his knees, clinging to an ice demon's thigh.

"My - my king!"

Mobei-jun has accepted his vow of devotion and fealty with about the same expression he's turning to the mud on his be-chained boots. Shang Qinghua, who has never in two lifetimes been called too proud to grovel, rubs the chains between his fingers until he can see silver again.

It would probably be a little much to try cleaning them with his tongue.

"My king, I really think - again - that you ought to seek shelter! Your wounds –"

Mobei-jun gives an elegant snort, more an upturned twist of his nose. He's young, like they all are, but Shang Qinghua can still see the frigid king of the North in the cut of his cheekbones and the scorn that's slowly managing to supplant the terror in in his eyes.

Shang Qinghua would hug him, if he felt like sharing the OG's fate a few decades early. Instead, he half cajoles, half carries Mobei-jun into the shelter of one of PIDW's thousand convenient abandoned farmsteads.

They spend almost a day there, time Shang Qinghua isn't sure he can spare, but when he suggested he might need to return to Cang Qiong Mountain Mobei-jun threatened to put a leash around his neck. There's only so much face even Shang Qinghua can lose.

"My prince," he begins again. "My king." Mobei-jun narrows his eyes, but he doesn't go for the rope again, and Shang Qinghua forges on. "Are you well enough to travel?"

The wounds are stitching themselves closed - the contents of his emergency medical pouch haven't hurt, thought that's one Golden Toenail of the Sacred Sloth he's never seeing again - and it's not as though Shang Qinghua can get Mobei-jun back to the demon realm. They'll go their separate ways, and he'll figure out how this "eternal allegiance" thing is going to work in practice. He's hardly as useful a spy as even the OG had been.

"Hm." Mobei-jun tilts his head in a way that's going to look thoroughly impressive in about five years. "Where are we going?"

"I - what?"

Icy blue eyes zero in on him. "Where are we going?"

"Well – I mean – I, my king, was going to continue on to some other business in town – personal business - and I assumed you would be –"

"What personal business?" Mobei-jun sits up, shedding the remnants of Shang Qinghua's cloak in the process.

"A favor – for another member of the sect – it's a connection that will enable me to better –"

"Stop talking," says Mobei-jun. "When do we leave?"

"My king?" And it occurs to Shang Qinghua, very suddenly, that maybe Mobei-jun doesn't want to go home.

That maybe he's delaying seeing the man who sent him here – and everything that will change in his life as a result – as long as possible.

It's a heart-stabbing thought. It's almost certainly projection. It's definitely not a thought someone who values his life will say out loud.

"I was thinking early morning," says Shang Qinghua.

It takes them another day.

Mobei-jun makes them a single portal, which clearly takes so much out of him that Shang Qinghua “buys” (he left money in the field, okay! A lot of money! Probably the farmer will find it!) him a sheep to eat, and then, while he skitters off to avoid watching that process, seriously considers also stealing some horses.

In the end, he doesn’t; Mobei-jun seems fairly well recovered, and people don’t generally like getting their horses back covered in bits of melting sheep gore – or not getting them back at all.

“Is this it?”

Shang Qinghua nods, lowering himself back down from the wall. The Qiu mansion is clearly no Northern Ice Palace, but it’s a warren all the same. The only guard he sees right now is asleep, but the sun is going down, and soon there’ll be more of them.

“Never fear, my king,” he says, raising a finger. “I came here with a plan.

“And who are you?” asks the servant at the main gate. He’s got a guard on either side of him, as predicted, and the supercilious expression of a man who gets to order both of them around and has no other pleasures in life.

Shang Qinghua pulls himself up. He's got one shot at this. "Don't you know who this is?" he demands, gesturing towards Mobei-jun. "He's the heir to the Fengguan Marquis! Our carriage overturned outside of town! Ten men were killed! Now fetch your head steward, dog, and see what he has to say -"

It's surprisingly effective, particularly considering that the regional bigwig in question is the Guanfeng Marquis. Or possibly Guanfang.

...Or it might be the other way around.

Look, the point is that one of them is the Lord of Plentiful Irrigation, whose eventual frame-up for treason will leave a buxom great-granddaughter the only survivor, the other is a particularly fancy hat, and either of them, it turns out, is impressive enough for the Qius. One guard darts back into the house, one fixes his face into an expression of utter vigilance, and Mister Temporarily In Charge bows half a dozen times before trying and failing to coax Mobei-jun to a seat.

They stand in the rain, instead, Shang Qinghua shifting from foot to foot. He's trying for "well-born study companion," not with a family name anybody will have heard of but still fancy enough for a spot at the table. Mobei-jun isn't trying for anything, but he's refrained from skewering anyone with an ice spear and for now that's going to do.

"My lords." This is a servant in significantly nicer clothes and a hastily-thrown-on cloak; he rises from his bow with narrowed eyes.

Shang Qinghua steps forward, pulling every self-important jackass he's ever written into his spine. "You!" he demands.

It's tragic, is what it is. Their carriage went over a cliff, the surviving servants are at an inn, but Shang Qinghua - study companion Shang Qinghua, did he mention that yet - learned that the Qius were the only family in this miserable little town with any claim to class, and Fengguan-shizi is hardly going to sleep on the upper floor of a tavern...

It's not a bulletproof story - it's not even a wet-tissue-proof story - but somehow it works. It could be his innate skill as a liar and storyteller, it could be that the Qiu family has the collective braincells of an internet comment section... but in truth, he's pretty sure it's Mobei-jun.

"Young Master Mo" has so far not spoken two words at dinner, surveying the dining hall with a bored, unimpressed, and increasingly-murderous gaze. He's neither a good liar nor particularly committed to this enterprise, but it doesn't matter. Even in this reduced form, everything about the King of the Northern Desert screams "fancier than you." If he's not Fengguan Marquis' heir, he's manifestly someone's, and Master Qiu isn't inclined to ask questions.

The food isn't terrible. The wine's probably half-decent, too, if Shang Qinghua were willing to be drunk for this.

Shang Qinghua manages not to jab himself in the ear this time. He squints again at the servants lining the room, and finally, finally, spots Shen Jiu.

Narrow-faced. Far too thin, and very subtly favoring his left leg. He makes eye contact with Shang Qinghua, and then immediately breaks it.

Shang Qinghua twitches his fingers until he gets Mobei-jun's attention, and then jerks his gaze over to where Shen Jiu stands behind Qiu Haitang. Mobei-jun’s eyes narrow, his face eschewing subtlety and apparently opting to set Shen Jiu on fire with his mind... which, Shang Qinghua notes with a stifled squeak, Qiu Jianluo is now attempting to do to him.

Admittedly, the creepy sadist was never not going to end tonight as an icicle, but wait until dinner's over, please!

Master Qiu coughs. "Ah, Haitang," he says. "The pearl in our palm!"

Mobei-jun skewers a prawn with his chopsticks and gives it a cautious sniff before biting it in half. Somehow this still manages to give off a commanding air, as though table manners are for peasants.

"That one?" he says to Shang Qinghua, because apparently subtlety is also for peasants.

"Haha, yes! That was exactly the type of prawn they were talking about in town!" He nearly withers beneath Madam Qiu's disapproving glare, before rallying. "My compliments to your cooks, Madam... I'm sure we'll be talking about them more long after we've finished dinner and returned to our rooms."

"We could have killed them all in there."

In the original, Mobei-jun-less, admittedly half-baked plan, they wouldn't have needed to kill anyone at all.

Well. Maybe Qiu Jianluo, but hopefully no one else! There was nothing worse for a budding romance than a revenge-driven former fiancé!

"...I need him to trust us," says Shang Qinghua. "My king."

Mobei-jun grunts. Shang Qinghua half expects him to summon a portal and leave him here to solve his own problems, but instead he folds his arms behind his back and continues walking at an even pace.

<Proximity Alert> the System informs him; it gets louder when he's walking in the right direction, which is the closest to useful it’s been so far.

They manage to find Shen Jiu halfway down the corridor to the family wing, carrying a cup of wine on a tray. He startles at the sight of them, and then immediately looks down.

"Did you need something, my lords?"

"Yes! You're Shen Jiu, right?"

Shen Jiu snaps out of his respectfully lowered gaze, eyes narrowing. Shang Qinghua has at least six - well, four - several inches on him in height, a half-decent golden core, and ice demon backup, and he still takes a step back.

There's my best villain, all right!

After a slightly-too-long pause, he clears his throat. "I'm from Cang Qiong Mountain - Yue Qi sent me!"

There is a moment of absolute stillness, broken only by Mobei Jun tapping his foot.

"...What?"

I'm here to fix your life! Shang QInghua does not say, but for the first time, he feels it.

Shen Jiu manages a few more syllables. "Sent you?"

<Warning! Relationship Value decrease!> This time it's added a fucking siren, of all things, and Shang Qinghua takes back anything he said about its helpfulness.

"He – he had a qi deviation, I don't know what happened, tried to rush his cultivation –"

"He's hurt?"

"Yes!" says Shang Qinghua, and then realizes while this may have been the right thing to say for the sake of good old Seven-Nine, it may not have been the best thing for him not to be shanked by an angry teenager. "But not – he'll be fine! He just... isn't right now, but he told me to come get you out of here –"

"Prove it," says Shen Jiu.

"Right. Right." Shang Qinghua fumbles for bits of unwritten chapters. "He, um, he –"

"Do you have other options?" says Mobei-jun.

Shen Jiu looks him up and down, apparently and understandably coming away more impressed than he had with Shang Qinghua. He gives a small, endlessly bitter smile. "No," he says. "I don't."

Qiu Jianluo gets off one good, solid scream.

Shang Qinghua flails for a pillow in the interest of preventing another, but before he can move in, Shen Jiu is there, silver flashing between his fingers.

The next scream is more a groan, trailing off to a whine. Shen Jiu drops something small and bloody to the ground and - oh. That's Qiu Jianluo's tongue. Part of Qiu Jianluo's tongue. It turns out unpracticed teenagers aren't as skilled at torture as full-grown protagonists, are they...

There's a lot of blood. Some of it has frozen around the ice spear currently pinning Qiu Jianluo to the ground. Some of it hasn't. Mobei-jun leans against the doorframe dispassionately. If this were a wife-plot, he'd be examining his nails.

"We'll need a way out of here," Shang Qinghua tells him, in an attempt to drown out the squelching sounds from behind him. "And some way to cover our tracks... Well, our tracks, I don't think you're too worried about being turned into the magistrate, my king -"

"I could kill him," says Mobei-jun.

"Yes, well, obviously, you're fully capable of killing a human bureaucrat – any number of human bureaucrats! – but I'm much more useful to you at Cang Qiong Mountain! I'd make a terrible bandit!"

Qiu Jianluo gives a low, rattling groan.

"– A very terrible bandit –"

There's another squelching sound behind them, a knife stabbing into raw meat. There are no more sounds from Qiu Jianluo - only Shen Jiu's voice, slightly out of breath.

"We burn it to the ground and run." His eyes bore into Shang Qinghua's as he turns. "And then you take me to Cang Qiong Mountain."

A plan! Always good to have a plan!

Mobei-jun had signaled his agreement by leaning out the door and killing someone in the hallway; Shen Jiu had upped his previous record in the 'unsettling smile' category; Shang Qinghua had opted to head off and rescue Qiu Haitang.

Crabapple trees blossom around her courtyard, petals trailing elegantly to the ground. Shang Qinghua manages to stifle his sneeze, but not without consequences. A serving girl squeaks at his approach, nearly dropping the jug she’s carrying, and Shang Qinghua manages to get in some practice for the next part of his plan by incapacitating her with a surge of qi in a maneuver he is not calling the Vulcan Neck Pinch.

She slumps to the ground in a flutter of pink, and Shang Qinghua does his best to cushion her fall.

She looks about twelve.

"...but I don't want to marry Young Master Mo! I'm going to marry A-Jiu!"

Shang Qinghua sighs. In the interest of not taking plot points upon himself, he ties part of his sash around his face as a mask before shoving his way into the room.

He's met with a chorus of shrieks.

They all look about twelve, with the exception of the woman in the corner, who looks more like his dead grandmother. Shang Qinghua draws his sword, even knowing there's no way in hell he can bring himself to use it.

"We're bandits!" he announces, but not too loudly. "Everyone on the ground!"

More shrieks. Qiu Haitang pitches over, knocking two of her maids to the ground.

Dead Nai Nai hurls an incense burner at his head.

There's a single, safe room, a storage shed across the lotus pond from the bulk of the house and warded by the best of Shang Qinghua's temporary sigils. If Wu Yanzi's in the vicinity, he might be able to spot something odd about it, but all the townsfolk are going to see is Qiu Haitang, a single, ash-stained, miraculous survivor.

And maybe one of her handmaids.

And maybe another one of her handmaids.

And maybe an eighty-year-old woman with surprisingly good aim.

Look, most of these kids are even younger than Shen Jiu, okay? Half of them probably came from the same brokers. All they had in life to look forward to was the prospect of maybe becoming somebody's nursemaid or concubine, maybe Qiu Haitang and her brilliant sense of character judgement marrying them off to her other servants like dolls – and then they'd died choking on ash.

Charitably, Shen Jiu hadn't had a way to save them; uncharitably, they had silk dresses and full bellies and he wouldn't have bothered even if he'd been driving an ambulance.

Shang Qinghua adds a second kitchen boy to the far side of the pile.

"Ugh," says a thin, arcerbic voice. "A-Yang? He won't thank you, you know."

Shen Jiu wipes his boot on "A-Yang's" tunic, but makes no move to disturb the rest of the pile.

Shang Qinghua gives him a wide, nervous grin.

Mobei-jun walks through the doorway, gives the pile a long up-and-down look, and then walks back out.

"He's gone to check on the fire," says Shen Jiu, leaning in right next to Shang Qinghua's ear. "A helpful fellow."

Shang Qinghua nods noncommittally. The prickling at the back of his spine isn't letting him move.

"...He's a demon. Isn't he." And someone less terrified might not have caught the quaver in Shen Jiu's voice.

Shang Qinghua gives a squeak, almost as noncommittal as the nod.

"Do they know that, on Cang Qiong Mountain?"

"Not - not as such, no."

"Hmm." The quaver's gone, now.

"It's an – extracurricular, you might say? Helping him. Or him helping me. Or – look. They might eat people - but people eat other people! Kill people – same again! Dangerous powers – have you met my Shizun? Our Sect Leader? And as for trading partners – rare items, raw materials – I just think we have a lot to offer each other! A better future! Potential!"

He swallows, making sure Shen Jiu can see it.

Because Shen Jiu isn't going to trust him. The ship has long sailed on that. But he can get somewhere close to Shen Jiu trusting him, and that somewhere close is called "Shen Jiu has blackmail material."

If he thinks he can control Shang Qinghua - well, one, he's probably right.

And, two, he's a lot more likely to put up with him.

"Please," says Shang Qinghua, playing his trump card. "Don't tell anyone? Please, please don't tell Yue-shixiong –"

“Hmm,” says Shen Jiu again. He draws out the wait for a long moment. And then –

“…How well do you know Qi-ge?”

With a chorus of squeaks and groveling, Shang Qinghua manages to stabilize the relationship value (no, he doesn’t know Qi-ge! In fact as far as he knows – which isn’t far – Qi-ge has no prominent friends at all! He keeps himself at the elegant and reserved distance of someone focused entirely on returning for Xiao Jiu – and the fact that that’s probably true doesn’t hurt anything but the traitorous twist in his heart!) before he slaps a few more anti-fire talismans on the outer wall.

Shen Jiu rolls his eyes.

“I set it on fire.”

Shang Qinghua gives a genuine squeak as Mobei-jun stalks out of the shadows. “Good for you, my king!”

Shen Jiu, once again, rolls his eyes. He gives a considering glance to the lantern he’s holding before vanishing into the shadows. Shang Qinghua’s son, off to commit arson!

“You’re returning to your mountain.”

“Yes!” Off to be as helpful as possible, my king! And if that isn’t very helpful, well, he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it. He’s going to have a bonanza of system points soon, and “goods and services” surely include some kind of information-gathering software.

And by the time he has to do anything big, well, this will all be over with. You can’t betray Cang Qiong Mountain from a miserable little one-bedroom apartment.

“Good.” Mobei-jun gives him an almost awkward nod before reaching out a hand and slicing open a shadowy portal. He gives it a look, and then Shang Qinghua another one. “Potential,” he says, quietly.

“What?”

“…You have potential.”

And then he’s gone, the air collapsing in on itself in a freezing burst.

Shang Qinghua stands, gobsmacked, for a few seconds, before gathering his cloak around himself and heading off to find Shen Jiu.

Morning dawns over a makeshift campsite and two piles of uncomfortable bedding.

"I told you," says Shang Qinghua, as Shen Jiu pokes at the fire, ostentatiously refusing to look him in the eye. "You saved my life."

"From demons."

Shen Jiu gives a delicate sniff. At least he's recovered his self-confidence. "And that won't cause problems with your 'king?'"

"I was thinking we'd frame his uncle, actually." Shang Qinghua leans back, one arm behind his head, and pretends he doesn't notice as Shen Jiu's eyes flicker.

He's a storyteller. Making up excuses is what he's good at, at least when he doesn't have to plug uncooperative ice demons into the leading role.

"And I used my..."

"Spiritual potential!" confirms Shang Qinghua. "Which you do have, incidentally - certainly more than I do, and they accepted me - so you might want to try actually sharpening some leaves with qi on the road tomorrow."

"Accepted you," Shen Jiu mutters. His eyes flash up again. "I don't care if they accept me. I want to see Qi-ge."

“You will!” says Shang Qinghua, with a lot more confidence than he feels. They’ll figure out how later. The important thing is that he’s safe, and that no one betrayed anybody, and Shang Qinghua is about to earn enough points for “both goods and services.”

And whatever – well.

Whatever comes next.

Shang Qinghua spins a genuinely dramatic story for the shijie who meets him at the foot of the mountain, and an even more dramatic one for his Shizun, who purses his lips and looks Shen Jiu up and down.

“Your wrist,” he says, and then “if you please,” when Shen Jiu simply scowls and holds himself tighter.

He barely has his fingers on the pulse point before his eyes widen. “I see.” The look he flashes Shang Qinghua is the closest he’s gotten to approval since this whole mess started.

Pity An Ding won’t be keeping him. And what a nightmare that would be – the scum villain pushing paper, faced at every competition with the scorn of even the most useless disciple of the second-worst-ranking peak. It would take three Qi-ges to keep him from blackening, and they’d have their work cut out for them.

“…the Sect Leader.” His Shizun clears his throat. “I said, Shang Hua, that we will be taking him to see the Sect Leader, unless you feel too weakened to come along?”

Shen Jiu’s eyes flash at him.

This is good, Shang Qinghua tries to communicate.

Shen Jiu holds his head high on the trip up the peak, eyes darting every which way but spine so straight it looks brittle. He visible keeps himself from goggling as they step onto the rainbow bridge.

“So, System. About those goods and services –“

Fifteen – what kind of ripoff is fifteen? He’d just pulled Subject A out of hell!

Right.

The first of those actually might be useful… but he’ll wait for the bonanza. No point wasting his discount on fifteen points when he’s about to have a hundred.

“Guo-shidi. Could this not have waited?”

The Sect Leader’s hair is roughly put up, and she wears only a single belt over her outer robe… which is at least five times as expensive as the rough whites underneath. One hand is hidden in her sleeves, but there’s blood beneath one fingernail of the other, and a few loops of near-invisible thread around her far finger.

They’ve interrupted her in the middle of something, and Shang Qinghua barely manages not to punch the air in glee at the realization of what.

“When I last waited on a matter of this kind, you said, and I quote…”

Shizun, Shang Qinghua knows from experience, might easily spend the next hour laying out every word the sect leader has ever said to him; he’s a creature of deep and well-memorized resentment. He takes the opportunity to sidle over to one of the Qiongding disciples.

“…Maybe we could wait in the infirmary?” He rubs at his shoulder. “I… may have broken this in the demon attack, and my qi has been drained ever since, and…” He trails off hopefully as the disciple glares down their nose at him.

Shen Jiu gives a small, pained sigh. Looking over, Shang Qinghua sees that he possesses a pair of dark, liquid Bambi eyes that were demonstrably absent in any chapter starring Luo Binghe. He’s biting his lip, as though he’s trying – and just failing – to cover up his pain.

“Of course,” says the Qiongding disciple, with only the smallest glance at where Peak Lord Guo is still droning on. “Right this way.”

The Qiongding infirmary is a mess.

Shelves of bottles and bundles have clearly been rifled through, put away, and then rifled through again. There’s an acupuncture needled freshly lodged in Shang Qinghua’s boot. Two girls in dark robes, one of them holding a rag and the other a scroll, barely look up from their argument at his squeak of pain, before resuming in hushed tones.

Curtains block off an area to the back, with seal paper peeking through the gaps. Shang Qinghua notes his goal, and looks around again at his obstacles.

Three Qiongding disciples. One of them visibly armed, all of them capable of yelling for the Sect Leader and getting Shang Qinghua – possibly literally – tossed off the mountain. One curtain, likely to zap him if he touches it. One Shen Jiu, with a wild spark growing in his eyes that’s turning him from “pain in the ass” to “time bomb.”

Not to mention the chance that he’s read everything wrong and Yue Qi isn’t behind the curtain at all. If Shen Jiu rips everything open to discover an unknown disciple or an Explosive Star-Eyed Three-Horned Sheep, Shang Qinghua can kiss his fifteen points goodbye.

“Oh, my head.” Shang Qinghua wobbles from foot to foot. “Can I sit down? Is there somewhere I can sit down?”

Disciple One gives him an unimpressed look before pressing two fingers to his pulse point. Disciples Two and Three don’t even look in his direction.

“Spots in my eyes… Could I be dying? I think I might be dying.”

“Stop whining,” says Shen Jiu, ignoring the potential of Operation Distraction entirely. He takes a sharp step forward.

Disciples Two and Three, moving in unison, shift further in front of the curtain. It could almost be coincidental until Three, with a subtle, graceful motion worthy of an early-chapter love interest, positions her hand on her swordhilt.

None of this stops Shen Jiu, who takes another step, every atom of his body drawn forward like a magnet. It would be heartwarming were it not about to get him killed.

Disciple Three shifts again. There’s a glimmer of silver. As time seems to slow to a crawl, Shang Qinghua grits his teeth.

Time to make a deal with the devil.

“Hey. Miserable robotic extortion artist.”

<Yes, Host?>

“Give me the small scenario pusher.”

The shelf explodes into a cloud of pink smoke, sending vials and artifacts cascading across the floor.

Much of it hits Disciple One, who shrieks something about the “Ancient Timekeeper” and darts out the door in pursuit of a tumbling golden ball. Disciples Two and Three stare at each other as multicoloured dust rises around them, and then Two grabs Three around the waist and bolts for the door as well.

Shang Qinghua uses the edge of his outer robe – somehow cleanly sliced through by a shelf sliver – and covers his nose just in case.

Shen Jiu stands, stunned, for a long moment, and then he dashes for the curtain like a mouse towards a hole, feet skidding on the floor. He’s through the curtain in an instant.

From outside comes the sound of a splash and a “Sorry, Shijie!” as Two evidently dumps Three in the well. Shang Qinghua gives the pile of dust a wide berth as he edges forward.

Nine tenths of what he wrote about Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan went up in smoke with his old harddrive – and there’d never been much of it to begin with. They were Tragic Backstory, to be revealed and hinted at during their death scenes, parallel to Luo Binghe in the endless, unbreakable cycle of revenge.

And it turned out that no one wanted to pay for complicated literary foils. The hero of Proud Immortal Demon Way didn’t need to be set against anything that wasn’t an anatomically impossible set of breasts.

And then it turned out – well, then it had turned out that they were people. Kids.

Scared.

Staring at each other for a long, glass-fragile moment, ignoring the author tripping over the curtain as though he’d never been there at all.

Shen Jiu flings himself at Yue Qi, grabbing at his shoulders with shaking hands. It must hurt – the stitches look fresh – but Yue Qi only blinks, wide-eyed.

“Xiao Jiu.”

Shen Jiu buries his face in his shoulder. “…Qi-ge.”

Shang Qinghua steps back.

Leaning against the outer wall of the infirmary, Shang Qinghua grins. 150 points. He could grab half-a-dozen scenario boosters, a lesser halo, or even a “Medium Rainbow Decorative Fish.”

“So, what’s the next quest? …Su Xiyan and Tianlang-jun, right? I don’t suppose I could convince you to let me off easy?”

At the very least, it’ll have to give him a vacation before he heads to Huan Hua Palace. He’s got work to catch up on – and an ice demon, for that matter. Maybe he can convince Mobei-jun to kill the Old Palace Master, take over Huan Hua before Luo Binghe…

“What?”

<Warning! Relationship Value Decrease - >

“-fine! I’ll do it myself, you – you – “ Shen Jiu slams the door open, stalking past Shang Qinghua in a whirl of robes. “I’ll do it myself.”

He doesn’t spare Shang Qinghua a glance.

Which is probably for the best. He has enough of an audience as, once again, he sinks down to the ground of Qiongding Peak and starts to scream.

Chapter 2 Notes:

And, five months, novel editing, new plot bunnies, the holiday season, a bout with covid, bad weather, good weather, and a surprising amount of research later... I'm back with Chapter Two of the fic I meant to finish in September.
Hope y'all enjoy - and hope to see you for Chapter Three before July.
Warning for canon-typical "demons think violence is flirting" and canon-atypical actual communication about same.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

SHang Qinghua dodges another rain of projectiles. Two impact all the same, one against the bruise on his shoulder, and he grits his teeth, managing to meet his opponents with a smile.

"Nice shot, A-Rui! Keep your head up!"

See, he's decided to handle things like a transmigrator.

To get points, he needs to monitor Shen Jiu and Yue Qi. To monitor Shen Jiu and Yue Qi, he needs to be head disciple. And to be head disciple... well, he needs to stand out.

Shen Jiu, who without Wu Yanzi fucking up his meridians is of course a terrifyingly gifted cultivator, has shot up the ranks on Qingjing Peak like a missile. Yue Qi has been the Sect Leader's heir apparent since about Week Two. Shang Qinghua had been hoping to stay as far away from the OG's career trajectory as possible, leaving him without even a fallback plan.

Time to cheat.

Every transmigrator has won a poetry contest by plagiarizing Li Bai, or charmed a querulous grandmother-in-law with fruit smoothies. Of course, most transmigrators don't find themselves in PIDW (which has a cultivation equivalent for about every modern concept or device Shang Qinghua had found convenient) or An Ding Peak (which needs no modern concepts other than maybe a spreadsheet). He's had to get creative.

A Head Disciple needs to be a leader. In that vein, he's dedicated himself to training and supervising the younger disciples, and, in the interest of not boring them out of their skulls, has become An Ding Peak's first PE teacher.

Oh, not a good PE teacher. These kids already spend enough time standing in rows and improving their martial skills. No, Shang Qinghua is drawing entirely upon Wang-laoshi, an absent-minded old man who no school even slightly better funded than his would have given the time of day - and who, incidentally, had been one of maybe three teachers Shang Qinghua had ever really liked.

This activity is designed to hone their reflexes: ricocheting tiny, qi-infused spheres around the forest with the aid of paddles. It draws inspiration from Shang Qinghua's own miserable days in school: namely, that if he's going to be bad at a sport, it's a lot less physically and emotionally draining to be bad at ping pong.

No sprinting around a soccer field! No crew of infuriated teammates! Larger, more intimidating boys actually fighting over who got to play against him next!

Okay, once. That had happened once.

But he needs this, alright? He needs this! He hasn't even managed to figure out what Shen Jiu and Yue QI are fighting over this time!

He'd managed one trip to Qiongding Peak, laden down with packages and wearing his best 'I'm holding a clipboard' expression. Disciples had edged away from him.

Yue Qi, no longer curtained off but still bedridden, had given him a polite smile and an attempted salute. "I thank you for what you have done," he'd said, eyes for a moment blazingly intense.

And then Shang Qinghua had asked, shakily, if everything was all right between him and Shen Jiu, just asking as a concerned acquaintance, it had looked - and Yue Qi had cut him off like a guillotine.

Everything is well between myself and Xiao - Shen-shidi. There's no need for Shang-shidi's concern. The last syllables had fallen heavy as boulders, the Lord of Cang Qiong against some pushy little minor sect. Shang Qinghua had squeaked something he no longer remembers before retreating.

Qingjing had been even worse. Shen Jiu had been "too busy to see him," but had gifted him with a painted scroll. He'd accepted it gingerly, half expecting to hear "Relationship Value Decrease!" blaring as his fingertips made contact, but upon returning to An Ding found himself only with a decently-well-painted image of orchids bending in a light breeze.

This is to say nothing of the ice demon who keeps materializing in his room.

"Your fellow disciples speak well of you," says Shizun.

Shang Qinghua nods. Liang-shixiong, the incumbent head disciple, gives them both a strained grin. Shang Qinghua had barely needed to blackmail him; he'll be the third Head Disciple of their generation to quit, not counting the one who'd used the position to ascend to Xian Shu Peak. Opening the position had never been the problem - it was fighting off all the other crabs in the bucket, first.

Shizun grows bored of the speech quickly, and Liang-shixiong leads Shang Qinghua over to his new office.

"Here," he says. "Since you wanted it so badly." He shoves a ledger into Shang Qinghua's arms, and jerks his head towards the desk.

"You could have cleaned up a bit -"

Liang-shixiong's face morphs from irritation into pity. "I tried to warn you," he says.

Shang Qinghua nods until he goes away.

There are many disadvantages to being a Head Disciple. On An Ding Peak, he's a gofer, the arms on which Shizun shelves his dirty work. His fellow disciples regard him with a mixture of resentment and pity. Off An Ding, pity wins the day.

But the worst part, Shang Qinghua maintains, is the sparring.

The Head Disciples, the heirs to the Twelve Peaks, the pride of their generation... well, they have to meet up occasionally. And that's great! That's Shang Qinghua's best shot at manipulating his subjects closer together - a dropped fan here, an idle comment there, a distraction in the form of an embarrassing prat fall more often than he cares to admit...

For meetings, it works. He's on pace to earn one-point-five <Relationship Value Increase>s each time he listens to Ran Wu drone on about ascetic principles. For sparring, well...

You can only talk when you're waiting in line, and no one wants to talk, not when Liu soon-to-be Qingge or Qi never-caught-her-name-so-he'll-go-with Qingqi are out there putting on a gorgeous xianxia show.

Speak of Cao Cao, and he appears...

Shang Qinghua had picked an opportunistic spot, a quarter around the ring from where Shen Jiu and Yue Qi stood, silently. At least they were next to each other this time - Operation Dropped Fan had borne fruit! - but instead of words they were exchanging haunted, awkward looks.

There's a groan from across the arena; Shang Qinghua looks up to see that Qi-shijie has yielded, returning her sword to its scabbard with an elegant flourish. Liu Qingge doesn't even look winded. He gives her a perfunctory bow before scanning the onlookers for his next opponent.

Shang Qinghua reflexively cringes, but Liu Qingge's eyes don't even skate over him. He takes a few steps forwards, and then, with a much less perfunctory salute, he looks up at Yue Qi.

"Yue Shixiong! Real swords this time?" He's shifting from foot to foot, already half in a fighting stance. "Chengluan against Xuan Su."

Shang Qinghua cringes again, though this time mostly mentally. Yue Qi looks down with cold, collected eyes, but as he opens his mouth to speak it's clear he's hesitating.

"Liu-shidi." Shen Jiu to the rescue, his voice slicing in like a poisoned blade. "Live blades, you say?" And then, in the manner of someone who has perhaps seen a dramatic opera, but only from a distance, "Xiu Ya hungers for a challenge."

Every day he gets closer, more and more of the frigid lord of Qingjing Peak peeking out. Shang Qinghua isn't so sure it's a good thing -

Shang Qinghua grits his teeth, managing to block out some of the noise. Shen Jiu was helping! How does that -

And then he takes another look at the three young men in front of him.

Shen Jiu, brows pinched so tightly his face has gone red, giving a stiff, backhanded compliment to Chengluan. Liu Qingge, confused, gaze bouncing back to Yue Qi - and Yue Qi, tense, his hand white-knuckled on Xuan Su's grip as he stares out at the two of them.

Fuck.

Shang Qinghua gives a mental apology to his few remaining bits of unbruised flesh. "Liu-shidi! Liu-shidi! Actually, I was hoping you could show me a few pointers!"

"Okay," he informs his latest collection of contusions. "Great news!"

Shen Jiu thinks that Liu Qingge has a crush on Yue Qi. Yue Qi thinks that Shen Jiu has a crush on Liu Qingge. Liu Qingge thinks that swords are really neat.

And that Shang Qinghua is impossibly incompetent, but that's par for the course. At least he's gotten better at qi healing since swearing allegiance to Mobei-jun.

Speaking of which...

He balances what he doesn't need of his latest stack of paperwork - still freezing and damp from the Northern Palace - on his poor left arm. There are better icepacks - well, better seedpods of the ethereal ice lotus - in the infirmary, but that would require walking, and today is no longer a walking sort of day.

Nestled amidst the paperwork is a thin white moonstone, aglow with spiritual power. He's been getting a few little perks like this recently - apparently it's easy to be Employee of the Month when there aren't many employees to choose from. He fully expects - well, he deeply hopes - to be safely forgotten once his king rises to power. No betrayal necessary, no grisly death, just a cordial parting of the ways.

(That he'll miss Mobei-jun is... it's not relevant. It's the not getting killed that's important.)

(And he's not going to miss him, anyway. Who'd miss a spoiled brat who thinks a shove to the floor is the polite way to say hello? Not Shang Qinghua, thank you very much!)

He spots a few more inconsistencies in the numbers - or, rather, gaping holes. Demon embezzlers aren't exactly subtle.

The moonstone, he hangs over his bed. It's brighter than a night pearl, the pure white of moonlight on snow.

And, well, there are many disadvantages to being Head Disciple. But the private room...

That he wouldn't trade for the world.

He has a plan! It is a plan fraught with bodily harm and possible death, but it is a plan all the same!

He corners Liu Qingge at the end of the latest head-disciple get together. It's not hard; he'd fallen asleep halfway through the budget discussion, and all Shang Qinghua has to do, as their comrades exit the room, is gingerly wake him up.

Very gingerly.

Liu Qingge jerks awake, eyes narrowing, but Shang Qinghua, hands wide, is determined to be the least threatening thing in this room. He breathes a sigh of relief as the War God resettles.

"Shang-shixiong."

You know who I am! A great start!

"Liu-shidi." He squares his shoulders. "I was wondering if you could expand upon that move you taught me last time? The -" he makes a series of demonstrative gestures. Teach was perhaps a little strong; this is the only sword move from their duel he remembers in full, and only because his adrenaline had slowed time to a crawl as he saw it headed for his face.

To his shock, Liu Qingge's face brightens. "Why not?"

As they ascend the path, however, his scowl makes a triumphant return. "Do they not teach you anything on An Ding?"

You'll teach your disciples by alternately ignorning them, flinging them at each other, and beating them up yourself! Baizhan War God, you have no room to talk here!

"Filing," says Shang Qinghua. "Oh, and calligraphy. Basic cultivation..." He rallies, putting on a bit of a mask. "It's a problem. It's one I'd like to solve someday."

Liu Qingge, reaching the sword ring at least ten steps ahead of him, gives no sign that he's heard.

"Well, that wasn't... a total disaster." Shang Qinghua sinks down not on his chair, but on his bed, wincing even as he does.

"Someone else has injured you," says Mobei-jun, who of course had shown up, and of course had responded to Shang Qinghua's "lateness" by giving his injured left shoulder a twin.

"We were sparring." He supposes he ought to be kneeling, but Mobei-jun stopped insisting on that months back - or rather had hissed at Shang Qinghua one day to "stop that." Shang Qinghua had stopped.

"Sparring?" There's that gleam in Mobei-jun's eye that means he thinks he's being sneaky about something, though what that something is Shang Qinghua is far too exhausted to guess.

"Yes. Sparring. Practicing. Humans don't exactly beat each other up as a friendly greeting, you know!" Well, most humans. Liu-shixiong is a special breed. Shang Qinghua buries his head in a pillow, but peers back out almost immediately.

Mobei-jun's eyes narrow. "Why not?"

Because I don't like it! No, worldbuilding, worldbuilding, he has to go with the worldbuilding -

"Demons... like pain." Though you less than most, I've noticed. "RIght? You're alive, you've endured -" Plus there's the papapa aspect - "We don't really see it that way. Well. I don't. If I have to say, heal a broken arm, it takes spiritual energy, it - for general humans, I mean. Cultivators. I'm not talking about - not just talking about - myself -"

"Stop talking." Mobei-jun's brow is wrinkled in thought.

He's been showing up more and more often lately, with work in tow or a tome to translate or just to take advantage of Shang Qinghua's knowledge of obscure demon tribes. Once he did nothing, for an entire night, but fall asleep in Shang Qinghua's bed - and from how he'd looked when he'd arrived, it was the first good sleep he'd had in a very long time.

He's also grown, pretty solidly, into Mobei-jun. Shang Qinghua was a little mousy thing as a baby and is a little mousy thing now, but he will admit he spent more of that night than he should have staring at his king's shoulders, the line of his back.

It's not his fault! Luo Binghe is his son, his hero, the part of the book even Peerless Cucumber had liked and the character who'd kept him writing even as PIDW turned into everything he'd never set out to create - but Mobei-jun was his favorite.

Always had been.

Things come to a head during the next Joint Mission.

Joint Missions are Shang Qinghua's least favorite of the head disciple team-building exercises. They're nigh unpredictable, they take days, and they expose him to a genuine threat of death, be that from attacking monsters or a teammate qi deviating over having to sleep on the ground.

Currently he, Shen Jiu and Yue Qi (helpful!), Liu Qingge (less so!), and Qi Qingqi (chronic best-campsite hogger!) are in pursuit of the Ravenous Beast of Yang Gulch, which has three heads, can teleport, and likely took Luo Binghe upwards of ten seconds to defeat in a chapter Shang Qinghua no longer remembers writing.

Staring into the campfire fails to jog his memory. He's interrupted by a welcome "Relationship Value Increase!" as Yue Qi drops an extra dumpling into Shen Jiu's bowl; the resulting scowl dampens neither him nor the system.

"What was that?" Qi Qingqi's hand flies to her swordhilt as she gives a narrowed stare to the trees around them.

The faint sound is followed by a second, as whatever's stalking them gives up on stealth. Shang Qinghua fumbles for a talisman; Shen Jiu moves to stand; Yue Qi's eyes are actively glowing.

"Fellow cultivators!" It's followed by an ingratiating laugh. A man in a yellow robe smiles as he emerges from the trees, half-a-dozen disciples following gingerly behind him. "We had no idea Cang Qiong had sent a delegation as well!"

The good news: impersonating cultivators is not an ability of the Ravenous Beast, at least not one Shang Qinghua remembers writing. The bad news, well...

Yue Qi's voice is very dry. "Nor we Huan Hua Palace."

And the worse news...

A tall young woman steps forward, pale yellow skirts swirling around her. Her nose is perfectly straight, her eyebrows dramatically arched, and her black eyes sparkle with a dynamic contrast he's described half-a-million times.

"Shishu," says Su Xiyan. "Let me handle this."

Emergency! Emergency! Emergency!

The mother of his protagonist! The center of yet another mass of lost backstory! The woman capable of simultaneously charming and intimidating the most powerful demon lord in existence!

Right here, right now, staring at him like he's something on the bottom of her shoe!

The moment is broken by the sound of Liu Qingge shoving Chengluan back into its scabbard. He moves to stand between Shang Qinghua and Su Xiyan (!) with all the subtlety of a mother bear who also thinks her cub is an idiot.

"Have you patrolled the perimeter?" he demands in the general direction of the Huan Hua disciples. "Or just scared it off?"

This prompts a round of discussion and debate. Shang Qinghua tunes most of it out, determining mostly that Huan Hua hasn't found the Ravenous Beast either and that Qi Qingqi and Su XIyan's "Han-shimei" should really just get a room.

Oh, and "Shishu," or rather Master Tang, isn't the Old Palace Master! That's good news, that's really good news. He's still a little guilty he forgot to kill the old pervert off.

Unfortunately, "not the Old Palace Master" is about Master Tang's only good point. He's tried to interrupt Su Xiyan three times, been respectfully if icily discouraged three times, and is now flitting a narrowed gaze over the Cang Qiong contingent as if determining which of them is most likely to stick in the monster's gullet.

"...here," finishes Su Xiyan, a spark blossoming between her fingers to burn a delicate hole in Shang Qinghua's map.

Yue Qi nods solemnly. "In that case, why not attack it jointly?"

Shen Jiu makes a low sound in the back of his throat that sends Shang Qinghua reflexively cringing. There go all this evening's points -

Except. Huh. There don't go all this evening's points. Either that was one excellent dumpling, or the System has finally decided to show mercy.

Or it has a mute setting. Much more likely it has a mute setting.

"An excellent idea," says Master Tang, swooping forward like an overconfident songbird about to really give its reflection what-for. "It's heartwarming to see the younger generation working so well together! Why, young man, when I was last speaking to your Shifu..."

Su Xiyan elegantly sidesteps whatever discussion is going on here, moving to stand next to Liu Qingge. "You're the muscle, I assume. Is he the bait?"

"He drew the map."

Shang Qinghua says nothing. He probably is the bait.

"...closer bonds, between our sects! And a handsome young man like yourself..."

That grabs Su Xiyan's attention. Her shoulders go stiff for a moment before she turns, one hand still white-knuckled in her sleeve. "Shishu, are you angling to adopt Young Master Yue?"

Master Tang gives an oily little laugh. "Yan'er, Yan'er... As I've been telling the Palace Master, isn't it past time we saw you in wedding red?"

There is a moment of absolute stillness, broken only by the sound of Shen Jiu's fan snapping in half.

Unmute, Shang Qinghua thinks desperately at the System. Unmute!

Su Xiyan is walking next to Yue Qi, who's been wearing the same frozen smile for the past ten minutes. He's managed two words - they were "go left," and Qi Qingqi had taken his advice with alacrity, dragging half the Huan Hua disciples behind her. Shen Jiu is stalking behind them, shooting the occasional icy glare at Master Tang, or Shang Qinghua, or an offensive bit of shrubbery.

Unmute, unmute, unmute -

"So, Young Master Yue -" Su Xiyan's smile is so sharp he half expects fangs. "Or should I call you Yue-gege? I'm sure Shishu wants me to call you -"

"Yue-shixiong." Shen Jiu takes two steps forward, laying a hand on Yue Qi's shoulder and visibly squeezing. "Might I have a moment of your time?" If Su Xiyan's smile had fangs, his has icicles. "Qi-ge."

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck -

< - Increase!>

What?!

Shang Qinghua only realizes he's slammed to a halt when Liu Qingge snaps two fingers in front of his face.

"Are you paralyzed?"

Shang Qinghua shakes his head. "Just... remembered something. About the map."

Increase? He's spent half the last year letting Liu Qingge beat the shit out of him because each of these idiots has a jealous streak a mile wide, and now he gets an increase? He knows the System has problems, but has it finally broken for good?

Liu Qingge follows his gaze with narrowed eyes. "Right," he says. "Tell me about it over here."

"What do you see in him, anyway?"

Shang Qinghua makes a strangled noise. See in him? Just how big has this imaginary love polygon gotten?

"You brought him back to the sect," continues Liu Qingge. "Yue-shixiong keeps defending him. I caught a pile of Qingjing girls giggling over him, but at least with them it makes sense."

Actually, it makes no sense at all - Qingjing girls are presumably actually exposed enough to Shen Jiu to see beyond the pretty face - but Shang Qinghua doesn't have time for that right now. Whatever he says next, under the immutable laws of PIDW, will be overheard by its subject.

"...He's a lot better at everything than I am."

Liu Qingge gives a confused shrug that Shang Qinghua opts not to interpret as So? So's everyone.

He forges onwards. "And, to be fair, you've only seen the side of him that doesn't like you. Well, I mean, I don't really think he likes me much either, but he really doesn't... I'm not helping, am I?"

Liu Qingge's scowl deepens. "I don't trust him," he says mulishly. "You shouldn't either."

Well, obviously! Shang Qinghua may, despite his better judgement, have become rather fond of Shen Jiu, but that doesn't mean he has any illusions the feeling is mutual.

"We'll have to all trust each other someday," he says, not sure if he's going for naivety or wisdom but quite sure it doesn't much matter. Liu Qingge would have fought and died for Cang Qiong regardless of his opinion of Shen Qingqiu - it was meant as a bit of irony to flavor his sister's storyline. She'd let everything her brother loved burn to the ground in her pursuit of justice for his memory - a plotline he'd let burn to the ground in favor of lovingly described catfights with Sha Hualing and, you know, the money to pay this month's rent.

They find the Ravenous Beast's lair empty - or, rather, Liu Qingge does, looking rather pleased with himself. Shang Qinghua joins the gathering crowd debating just what to do about it, while Master Tang stands off at a safe distance, ostensibly to "let the students learn."

Trapping it in an array seems like the best option - their fighters will wear it down, then Shang Qinghua and the cleanup crew can bind it in magical chains to be beheaded and-slash-or stripped for parts.

Qi Qingqi draws an elegant diagram on the back of Shang Qinghua's much-abused map, and then steps back, evidently to wait for his opinion. He makes a few hesitant corrections - power will flow much better with a cultivator at every corner, but someone still needs to stand in the center - and then steps back himself. Even the heavy hitters have gathered around to gawk, and he wouldn't mind Shen Jiu's input.

Or, rather, he will, because it will be scathing, but he'll appreciate the improved array that will arise like a hastily-written chapter from the flames!

"...It's kind of ugly."

This is not Shen Jiu. This is one of the Huan Hua girls fluttering around Qi Qingqi.

"On Cang Qiong, we find elegance in the effectiveness of an array... not in how closely it resembles a flower." This is Shen Jiu. "I suppose your Huan Hua Palace takes a different approach." He's broken out his spare fan - Shang Qinghua suspects his qiankun pouch is mostly spare fans - and wafts it elegantly back and forth, pointedly avoiding Yue Qi's gaze.

Su Xiyan giggles musically, which is not a character trait Shang Qinghua remembers assigning her. She leans in against Yue Qi's suddenly-frozen shoulder. "Tell me, what flowers do you allow on your Qiong Ding Peak?"

"Oh," mutters Shen Jiu acidly, "what flowers don't they have on Qiong Ding Peak?" He raises his voice slightly, turning to Shang Qinghua. "One is reminded of a poem. The Shaoyao peony in the garden is beautiful... but lacks substance."

"The lotus on the pond are elegant," continues Su Xiyan. "But unromantic." She leans even closer to Yue Qi, flashing a challenging grin at Shen Jiu. "Only the..."

"Pine," interrupts Yue Qi, which is not the next line of the poem. "I find I prefer the elegance of pine."

He smiles soppily at Shen Jiu, who turns sharply to hide a blush. The "Relationship Value Increase!" is only a shrill superfluity.

This is shaping up to be the best day in the history of this whole miserable quest.

If only Shang Qinghua could figure out why.

They assemble the array with only mild complaining. Shang Qinghua sketches out the lines with a stick, and stations a Huan Hua disciple at each corner. Master Tang put on his best mentor face and announced he was "leaving you young people to it," so he's probably barricaded himself in a cave by this point - not that Shang Qinghua can blame him.

The array is ten meters in diameter, and Su Xiyan is already making noises about it being "too small." It's possible this is one of the ones Luo BInghe cut apart from the inside - very dramatic, very fountains-of-blood, very much not on Shang Qinghua's agenda.

He paces the array, again and again, and then gives Liu Qingge a grim nod.

The array lights up.

Time to be bait.

Power flows, golden, around him, which is one of those things a lot prettier from the outside.

In here, it's all tinittus and spots in front of his eyes. He can barely hear the thuds of the Beast approaching, lured in by... well, by the copious Yang energy. At least this isn't one of the ones that requires pa-pa-pa.

Shang Qinghua's vision clears - or maybe that's just the adrenaline - as the Beast smashes through the treeline with a defeaning roar.

It's... brown. Big, and brown. Also there are fangs. The body is amorphous - one minute two legs, the next six - and Shang Qinghua definitely never had Luo Binghe remark on that smell. No stallion protagonist coaxes a rescued maiden into bed while smelling of three-day-rotten fish thrown in a sewer.

Su Xiyan leaps in a elegant swirl of gold, sword glare flashing ahead of her as she crests the monster's back and slices a long cut down its flank. One moment Liu Qingge is on its left, and the next he's on its right, a blur of light and motion. Yue Qi hasn't even drawn his spare sword - he kicks the Beast in the head so hard it flies backwards, into a storm of Shen Jiu's sharpened bamboo slivers.

And so, of course, with all this going on, the Ravenous Beast of Yang Gulch... charges right for Shang Qinghua.

One of the Huan Hua disciples tries to run for it, and the array flickers. Shang Qinghua, gritting his teeth, holds his ground.

A hand shoves into his back, and for a heartstopping moment he thinks this is it! before Qi Qingqi's aura slams into him like the exact opposite of a truck.

"Stand firm!" she bellows, just as the Beast hits them.

The array stalls it for a moment, and it lets loose a frustrated roar. Toxic spittle sprays from between three rows of teeth, each as long as Shang Qinghua's forearms - but you know what? This isn't even the most powerful demonic entity that's ever spat at him. He has a more powerful demonic entity than this frequently asleep in his bed.

WIth a flip of his wrists, he summons the chains. They shoot forward, gleaming and golden, collaring and manacling the Beast as it bellows in defiance.

"Hold your ground!" he yells, as one of the chains starts to flicker. The Huan Hua disciple yelps, but does as ordered.

Qi QIngqi, of course, delivers the coup-de-grace, a sparkling silver chain thin and long as a whip, snapping through the air and sending the Beast to the ground. With a final punch from Yue Qi, it stays there.

"Brutal," says Shen Jiu. "But... well done." His fan is flipping madly - the Ravenous Beast of Yang Gulch, it turns out, smells no better dead than alive. "Here. Wipe off your hand."

Yue Qi takes the handkerchief delicately. Shang Qinghua watches in contentment. He's not sure what the System's win condition looks like, but today hasn't hurt.

"They're cute, aren't they?"

Shang Qinghua whirls at the sound of Su Xiyan's voice, inches from his ear.

"I don't think you'll be marrying over," he hazards.

She snorts, and every trace of flirtatious levity vanishes. "Oh, please. Do you know why I'm the first female Head Disciple of Huan Hua in five generations? It's because I'm the best, and Shizun knows it." She says it like she's reading out a dictionary, a bare statement of facts. "Tang-Shishu may have his plots, but the Palace Master would cut off his own arm before he'd let an asset like me leave the Sect."

She leans back, straightening her shoulders, and turns to leave.

"Wait!" Shang Qinghua calls out. "Then... why all this?"

"Because, Young Master Shang... It amused me." She flashes a tilted smirk over her shoulder as she walks away.

Shang Qinghua stares down at his latest challenge. He determinedly does not stare at the ice demon currently lounging across his bed, who has apparently decided to forego a shirt today.

The good news is, it's a Sacred Poetry Lock, the kind of thing Luo Binghe would tuck lovenotes inside so Airplane could at least imply he was paying attention to otherwise long-forgotten wives. The solution is based upon finding common characters in the work of three poets, with the characters themselves often spelling out a message of their own. Very sweet! Very romantic! Qingjing Peak was the literary peak, after all.

Unfortunately, Shang Qinghua's initial strict rules for poetry in PIDW - only pre-Tang real poets, I'll write the rest of it myself! - had been on shaky ground to start with when it turned out that readers could spot the difference between a nerd who'd enjoyed a few poetry courses and Song-freaking-Yu. His later readers were less discerning, his later deadlines were increasingly pressing, and the whole mess had reached its nadir in a tangle in the comments section about why a xianxia setting featured a poem written in 1989.

Because it was a really good poem! Pearls before swine, pearls before swine.

He matches 'Tian' to 'Tian,' and another side lights up.

Su Xiyan's smirk keeps floating back into his mind.

It's been easy to step back. To tunnel vision on Shen Jiu and Yue Qi and forget that the rest of them are real people, too. Not chess pieces, not points. People. His eyes flicker past Mobei-jun, to the antidotes he's been sorting for Qiancao Peak. Su-guniang, I just thought - no reason! - you might benefit from...

From -

What happens to this world if Luo Binghe isn't Luo Binghe? He's already going to have an easier road as a disciple - probably - well, maybe - look, the point is sooner or later there's going to be a half-demon bending the world to his will, and him doing that as a Huan Hua Palace disciple or, god forbid, the son of the reigning demon emperor is probably a very bad idea.

The smart thing is not to touch it. Leave it alone. Stay in your lane, stick to good old seven-nine and their apparently unpredictable reactions to -

His head thumps down against the table. "Why am I so bad at this?"

"Shang Qinghua." There is a soft noise from his bed, like a pillow popping back into shape. "If you were incompetent, you would be dead."

He leaves out “because this king would have murdered you,” which is nice of him. The worst bit, though - the worst bit of all - is that it makes him feel a little bit better.

It returns, as it always does, to the sparring ring.

Wei Qingwei has enthusiastically forged something that resembles a flaming bit of lava on a chain. He has managed, for the first time in the history of Cang Qiong Mountain, to beat Liu Qingge with it, and is visibly glowing with adrenaline.

Shang Qinghua takes another dozen steps away.

"The idea is that when it comes in contact with a spiritual weapon, it absorbs the energy, see?"

"Cheating," mutters Qi Qingqi, just loud enough to be audible.

Wei-shixiong good-naturedly ignores her. "That's why the flames are growing! I still don't know how long the effect will last -” And then, as the world seems to go into slow motion, he turns back towards the head of the line. "Yue-shixiong -"

Shen Jiu is in front of him, faster than light. "Interesting," he says coldly. "Only from weapons?" A few sparks alight in his hand, and Wei Qingwei's face lights up with them.

"We can't tell unless we experiment -"

He was protecting him! protests Shang Qinghua. What, is Shen Jiu embarrassed to -

Protecting him.

Five fingers, white-knuckled around Xuan Su's hilt. It hits Shang Qinghua like a thunderbolt.

The problem isn't Shen Jiu.

It's Yue Qi.

Notes:

The poem referenced is Liu Yuxi's "Appreciation of Peony," as quoted in Legend of Zhen Huan/Empresses in the Palace.

Chapter 3 Notes:

So, it's not July yet! And I finally have a pretty solid chapter count, so expect this to actually be chapter 3 of 5.
Hope y'all enjoy!

Chapter Text

"Get back, get back!"

His pair of shidi take his advice with alacrity; Fang Lin presses behind him and Ma Jinyu is a vanishing trail of footprints.

"Who comes?" demands the ghostly form in front of them. Her clawed hands curl in front of her ample chest as she speaks.

"A mere wandering priest, my lady." Shang Qinghua bows in salute without taking his eyes off of her.

Shrill laughter fills the cavern. "Come to set me to rest?" She darts forwards at the words, spectral robes trailing behind her. "You think much of yourself, little priest. My tragic fate is beyond your comprehension!"

"You'd be surprised," Shang Qinghua mutters. "You'd be surprised."

Shang Qinghua is in this for the long haul.

He doesn't just have to be head disciple - he's going to have to be Peak Lord. He cannot fathom fixing this mess before Tianlang-jun's invasion.

He's not sure he can fathom fixing this mess at all.

He'll need every advantage he can get. That means planning, that means allies, and above all, that means money. He needs a power base independent of either Shizun or Mobei-jun, resources that he can call his, a bolt-hole for when he inevitable screws something up.

Luckily, he has a golden finger. An advantage greater than any other.

Or at least he would, if he could remember more than twenty percent of what he wrote.

"Right," says Shang Qinghua. In front of him, Fang-shidi and Ma-shidi shift shamefacedly from foot to foot. "What have we learned?"

"Look where you're running?" Ma Jinyu is nursing a broken ankle.

Fang Lin glares at him before turning back to Shang Qinghua and puffing up his chest. "Never solve with the sword what may be solved with words."

"A bit poetic, but more or less accurate. We're not Bai Zhan - we don't have the skill to go in sword first. Know your enemy -"

"And know yourself," continues Fang Lin, the little teacher's pet, "and you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

Okay, so the Art of War exists here. Good to know. "Precisely," says Shang Qinghua, determined to retain his authority as teacher. "I knew -" well, on my second guess, but she was more-or-less polite about it! "-that we were dealing with no ordinary spirit, but the lost soul of Princess An'Wei, who wished only to be set to rest in the tomb of the father she'd betrayed." Which, luckily, was over the next hill, because the meat of the arc was set in the dream world and I wanted to wrap it up.

"Knowledge is power," Shang Qinghua informs the disciples, and then, because pirated video games had been a cheap and stress-relieving hobby, adds, "Guard it well."

He thumbs the massive black pearl the Princess had been buried with. Guard it well, indeed.

"What are we doing here, exactly?"

Shang Qinghua glares at Shen Jiu. "You are shopping for scrolls." Why that requires sticking to Shang Qinghua like a glob of rice - well. He knows exactly why it does. He's not nearly as subtle a spy as the original goods was, and Shen Jiu has spotted an opportunity to toy with his prey and has taken it.

He should have waited until Mu Qingfang was up for leaving the mountain. Drop him next to an herbal shop and Shang Qinghua never would have seen him again.

Or come alone - but Shizun has a nasty little paranoid streak, and Shang Qinghua intends to keep his real estate dealings secret. Heading down off the mountain alone invites unpleasant questions, Mobei-jun, or both. No, this is Sect Business, and he'd assumed Shen Jiu, who already knew his interesting, dangerous secret, would see neither interest or blackmail potential in pursuing his boring ones.

He had neglected to factor in a scum villain's interest in making things squirm.

"Really, Shang-shidi? I'd think it was my duty to Cang Qiong to keep an eye on you." He narrows his eyes, and suddenly Shang Qinghua isn't sure if this is Shen Jiu's usual or a genuine threat.

"I'm buying a house!" Half the truth. Half the truth and please let him buy it -

Shen Jiu smirks. He has no demon blood whatsoever, but at the moment, even Great Author Airplane expects to see a fang peeking out. "Ah." He leans in, clearly savoring the inch or so of height he now has on Shang Qinghua. "Does your demon know you've taken a concubine?"

"My -! What concubine?"

"Not one of Lady Xiao's girls, of course - but I suppose in a town like this women would have lower standards."

"A shop! I'm buying a shop!"

With the edge of his fan, Shen Jiu gingerly lowers Shang Qinghua's flailing arm. "The stench of copper," he says, as though he's a noble young master and not the former slave who Shang Qinghua watched rip out Qiu Jianluo's tongue. "As expected of An Ding." The affected accent now suggests he's mocking Liu Qingge and Shang Qinghua both. He seizes Shange Qinghua's qiankun pouch with his free hand, tipping out a few gold coins.

"Come with me," says Shen Jiu. "And don't talk. I have no interest in what you think haggling looks like, and you won't be wasting the sect's money on my watch."

He steers Shang Qinghua back towards the merchant district. Shang Qinghua, true to orders, doesn't talk.

He doesn't say, for instance, "Hey, Shen-shixiong. Shen-bro. Have you ever considered being meaner to Yue Qi? Because funnily enough, I think that might be better for your relationship than this thing where you jump in front of him like an attack dog at the merest sign of trouble. Just a thought!"

Filling his new shop is much easier. It's a standard antique emporium, purchased off an old man who's more than happy to still sit in a corner and pronounce on the provenance of vases. His steward is now Shang Qinghua's steward, won over by a generous modern-style starting bonus and a promise to be more or less left alone. Even the ragged children and scrap collectors who show up at the start of every week with their offerings remain the same, though Shang Qinghua does offer bonuses for magical or cursed items and even bigger bonuses for the untouched location of same, because the last thing he needs is starving eight-year-olds struck down by curses. Not on his watch!

The cursed items and magical artifacts sit in the back. Entrance is by invitation only. Back on An Ding, Shang Qinghua finishes the calligraphy for the sign, blows on it out of bad habit, and cranes his neck around at the now-entirely-expected ice demon sprawled out on his bed.

"My king?" he calls quietly.

One icy blue eye slits open.

Shang Qinghua immediately falls to his knees. "My king! I have a proposition for you!"

Mobei-jun rolls over. It's a long, dramatic motion, as though rolling over and sitting up somehow requires him to separately flex every muscle in his body. And his king, it turns out, has a lot of muscles! Very nice ones!

Your servant is properly overawed! Threatened! Whichever you would like him to be!

Threatened rules the day, as Mobei-jun striders forward, robes still hanging off one shoulder and displaying a truly unfair amount of pale and muscled chest, and seizes Shang Qinghua's chin between two fingers. "This king is listening."

"Human and demon trade routes!"

Mobei-jun is silent for a moment. His fingers tighten around Shang Qinghua’s chin. Then he nods, as though this is a proposal Shang Qinghua has raised before, and gently drops him.

"Human goods for the demon realm - not just loot and flesh, real, custom-made weapons and jewelry and - and spices! Rice! Food you don't have to chase down and eat raw! Demonic goods - not just cursed artifacts. Things cultivators can use! Or spider silk clothing - that's bound to be a good seller, just maybe don't tell the madams what it actually is..."

"Potential," says Mobei-jun. He does something with his lips that for anyone else would be an uproarious fit of laughter, and pats Shang Qinghua - almost gently! - on the head. "This king will not disappoint your hopes."

“I mean – anything, really, that you can spare, I’m not expecting your personal – wait, what?”

You know whose hopes are being disappointed, though, reflects Shang Qinghua?

His Shizun.

Guo Mingpen seems to consider it a personal affront that he and his colleagues are on the verge of ascension, and an even greater one that he will be leaving his peak in the hands of his first disciple.

It's not as though Shizun has ever expressed any great fondness for An Ding Peak. No one has ever expressed great fondness for An Ding Peak.

It's just that, as he bows in front of Shizun, waiting to be named Shang Qinghua in truth, he feels less like a baby bird, parents watching and cheering as it struggles to take wing, and more like a baby cat whose mother has just shoved it down a flight of stairs.

"Shen Qingqiu," announces Mo-shibo, and Shang Qinghua can see that flinch from here. Two flinches, in fact, and Yue-shixiong's the larger of the two. It occurs to him belatedly that maybe he could have tried to prevent that bit of irony.

<Subject A Emotional Level entering the Danger Zone!> the System chimes in, just in time to drown out his own ceremonial naming. He blinks away the red from his vision, touching his head to the ground before rising and accepting Shizun's ceremonial seal. The best that can really be said is that at least he doesn't drop it.

He's the next Lord of An Ding Peak. He can feel the ice spike skewering him now. The OG - he'd betrayed Cang Qiong and Mobei-jun alike, playing both sides against the middle until there was nothing left to protect him, no way left to be of use. It had been a satisfying death... at least, to those few readers who still remembered his name.

He lingers, after Shizun leaves, after all his martial siblings trail off to their respective peaks, full of pride and fire and vim and not existential dread. He slides down behind one of the ceremonial pillars and dangles his feet off the celestial flower bed beneath, staring down at the shifting clouds on the mountains.

He can do this. He has plans. He has an escape route. He just needs... <System?>

<Yes, Valued Host?>

Shang Qinghua closes the connection with as much force as possible. Slowly, he slides himself backwards into the lee of the pillar. He can hear the muffled sound of voices, and he edges closer, scooting himself around the edge of the platform and leaving a mangled trail of sacred cloud lilies in his wake.

"Qingqiu." A moment of silence. "They might have named me dog. Rat. Slave. No, instead, in his kindness, Shizun -"

Shang Qinghua’s grown very familiar with the sound of a fan snapping in half.

"For the rest of my life. For the rest of our immortal lives." Shen Jiu gives a bitter laugh.

"...We could run away." Yue Qi's voice is quiet. "Rogue cultivators. Just you and me against the world."

"The worst of it is that you mean it." Shen Jiu's words are acerbic, but the System is silent. "I'm heir to the Second Peak of the most powerful sect in existence. I have the future sect leader -"

Yue Qi makes a small noise. Fabric rustles.

"-In the palm of my hand. I'm not leaving this over a name."

After a few moments of silence, Shang Qinghua risks a quick look. They're kissing, Shen Jiu's hands tight in Yue Qi's robes.

The System is silent. This confirms his suspicions that, first, this isn't their first kiss, and second, "True Love's Kiss" isn't Shang Qinghua's win condition. Score one for good writing and negative-three-hundred for his chances of ever getting free.

"...I'm sorry." Yue Qi's voice is almost inaudible. "I know what this means to you. I shouldn't have -"

No, no, Yue Qi! He doesn't like apologies! I could have told you that -

"What was that sound?"

The next sound is Xiu Ya, sliding out of its scabbard. Shang Qinghua makes a break for safety.

A long, falling, rolling, break for safety.

Ouch.

The week, somehow, manages to get worse.

Shizun, to celebrate the imminent lifting of his years-long An Ding-sized burden, drops sufficient paperwork on Shang Qinghua to smash his desk. Some of it seems to predate the sect. He also announces that Shang Qinghua's first task as the official peak heir will be to stop the servants from embezzling, a task that makes the Endless Abyss look like a pleasant stroll by the lakeside. He'd do better filling the holes in the budget himself.

With that in mind, he sends a few more artifacts down to his antique shop. His manager has reported more and more cultivators stopping by, and only one significant robbery attempt; both his goods and his wards are developing a reputation.

Of course, he hasn't had time to go graverobbing – that is to say, nighthunting – in months, and it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon. All he can package up are the latest demonic wares from the Northern Desert, including an enchanted hairpin Mobei-jun had brought by himself.

"This king will not disappoint your hopes." Maybe he is changing things. Mobei-jun would've been about as likely to say that to the Original Goods as he would have been to invite him on a tropical vacation.

Speak of Cao Cao...

"My king."

Mobei-jun, recumbent on his bed, barely spares him a nod. There's a faint scent of blood to the air around him. Not, so far as Shang Qinghua can make out, his blood. But worrying, all the same.

"...My king?"

Mobei-jun levers himself up to a seated position. He's scowling, but not glaring. Something in Shang Qinghua's chest relaxes at the confirmation that he's not hurt.

"You were gone," says Mobei-jun, after a silence long enough Shang Qinghua had doubted he would speak at all.

"The shop, my king - our investment!"

There's the scornful huff of breath that's as close as Mobei-jun comes to a laugh. Shang Qinghua forges on.

"Those diamonds the imps brought by - very impressive! There's nothing like them in the mortal realm. They sell out as soon as I bring them by."

Mobei-jun shrugs. He has a lot of shoulder muscle to do it with. Shang Qinghua resolutely jerks his eyes back to a respectful distance before continuing on – this is the longest their business partnership has ever held Mobei-jun's interest.

"And that hairpin -"

"You're not wearing it."

The temperature drops abruptly.

And it keeps dropping. Shang Qinghua has to bury his hands in his sleeves before he can speak again, teeth chattering. "Wear it –something that valuable, this servant wouldn't dare – but it sold for – "

"I do not care."

A portal rips open on the far wall, sending another blast of icy air into the frigid room. Mobei-jun stalks past Shang Qinghua, silent as the grave.

He steps through it.

There's nothing left behind him but frost melting into the floor, a purplish stain on the blanket, and Shang Qinghua, left shaking in his wake.

Well, you know what? Fine!

He's losing track of what matters, that's the problem. Shen Jiu and Yue Qi and the miserable electronic matchmaker holding him hostage. Mobei-jun can move to the back of the line where he belongs!

He's going to clear the way for Seven-Nine even if it means selling his own furniture - and that's the only reason he's going to do it. No spying, no mentoring, no more unopened parcels of poison antidotes at Huan Hua Palace! He's going to find his win conditions, and then he's going to...

Well, he's going to find his win conditions!

It is in this spirit that Shang Qinghua volunteers for a night hunt with Yue Qi.

The bad decisions, it turns out, keep on coming.

Luo Binghe could have taken out a One-Eyed False River Dragon with the flick of a finger. It doesn't actually take Shang Qinghua or Yue Qingyuan much longer, and Shang Qinghua manages to dodge the worst of the swamp water it spits in his direction.

"The lair, next," says Yue Qi. "It might have eggs."

Which might have resale value. Even the new, hyper-focused Shang Qinghua still needs money. He's not nearly cool enough (as a character or a person) to have a baby false river dragon following him around, but probably some of his customers are.

Yue Qi pushes aside a stand of reeds to reveal a dank, water-filled tunnel, which he dives into with all the grace of a polished immortal. Shang Qinghua grits his teeth, holds his nose, and follows.

He emerges into a darkened cavern, stumbles up onto the bank, and starts trying to wring the swamp water out of his robes. Yue Qi - barely damp - spares him a brief, concerned look before lighting a night pearl and peering around at the cavern.

The smell is excruciating.

Some of it is from the pile of bones in the corner, many of them human and some still bedecked with rotting flesh. Some of it is just the stagnant water, and - he assumes One-Eyed False River Dragons have to empty their bowels at some point? He doesn't recall ever mentioning it, but this one seems to have been dealing with some intestinal issues.

The only thing that looks to have any kind of resale value is the jade bracelet Yue Qi is gently removing from an arm bone.

"Lin-guniang," he says, sadly. "We've found her."

"We'll have to tell her..." Brother? No... Shang Qinghua had been preoccupied back in town. "...fiancé?"

Yue Qi nods solemnly.

"A tragedy," says Shang Qinghua, and he does still mean it. Just because he's refocusing doesn't mean he's able to forget that these are people - maybe not people he can help, but people all the same. "To lose someone, just before your lives together began..."

Yue Qi nods again, looking pensive.

Shang Qinghua decides to go for broke.

"Have you ever considered it? Getting married, I mean?"

"What?"

"Just asking! Just asking!" Shang Qinghua waves his hands. "I just... Well, it's not anything I see myself doing, and that's... a regret. If you have someone, you ought to live for the now, you know? You never know when it's going to be too late."

And you never know what's going to be my win condition!

Yue Qi is silent for a long time, twisting the bracelet in his hand. "Let's bury these people," he says, finally, and turns his back.

Okay, so that could have gone better. But he's still learned a thing or two about manipulation over his years with the System.

First, telling someone to do something is useless. Liu Qingge doesn't care how many Qian Cao disciples have warned him about qi deviation, because healing meditation is for boring weaklings who do boring weakling things.

If, on the other hand, he watches Shang Qinghua "fake" a qi deviation (fun fact! It turns out it is much harder to convincingly fake a qi deviation than to accidentally bring a real one on!) as a result of learning Bai Zhan techniques, and has to carry him to the infirmary on his back before getting read the riot act by Mu Qingfang... Well, he'll show up at four in the morning carrying the meditation guides himself, and he will not be leaving before they've both gone through them! Healthy habits, Shang-shidi!

Tragedy prevented. You're welcome, Shen Jiu.

(The second thing he's learned is that successful manipulations also tend to involve serious injury to himself, or at least twenty-four hours of sitting around in the infirmary vomiting up medicinal tea.)

You can't just tell people to do things. That's why he's, for example, forging a Guide to Educating Children Without Trauma in the handwriting of exactly the kind of ancient but iconoclastic sage Shen Jiu might be willing to listen to and leaving it in an ancient library... and that's why he's here, pressing money into the hand of the village headman.

"All you have to do is say it exactly like I told you."

Master Zhang nods hesitantly.

"All I regret -"

"When I tell you," Shang Qinghua clarifies.

There follow twenty minutes or so of awkward silence.

Finally, he spots Yue Qi headed in their direction, and jerks his fingers in signal. Master Zhang's chest swells.

"All I regret," he says, having clearly spent the awkward silence mulling over the right inflections, "is that I couldn't do more."

Shang Qinghua shakes his head. "You did everything you should have done and more."

"But I feel so... useless." This comes out as more of a mutter, and Master Zhang flashes him a resentful look at being forced to say it.

Shang Qinghua forges on anyway.

"You were injured against the monster. All you could do was call for help! You saved your town at least as much as I did! More! And if the town wants to help you afterwards - there's no need to feel guilty about that. They know you're strong. They just want to be strong, too! Because they love you!"

"They do, don't they." Master Zhang brings his uninjured hand up to stroke his beard.

"Of course - oh, hello, Yue-shixiong! Didn’t see you there!" Shang Qinghua plasters his face with a smile.

"...Shang-shidi." Yue Qi's face is blank, betraying no potential revelations within. "May I speak to Master Zhang? I have further questions about what we found in the lair."

"Oh - um, of course." Shang Qinghua shifts from foot to foot, watching sect heir and headman walk away.

He's on the verge of following them – eavesdropping is among the sharpest tools left in his arsenal – when he's stopped by a gray-haired woman armed with a broom.

Her face is care-lined, and her brows drawn together in a scowl, but her voice is as gentle as the hand she rests on his arm.

"Monsters? What has that Zhang bastard been telling you?"

"Um –"

"'Injured against the monster' – what 'injured against the monster'? He broke his arm tripping over his own door lintel in broad daylight. Never saw hide nor hair of that beast – he was packing up to leave when you immortal masters showed up, and now he's telling you he tried to fight it?"

"I – no, ma'am. He didn't – I saw his arm, and I just, um, assumed –"

"That man would lose a fight to his own lapdog –"

"Ma'am." Shang Qinghua gives an awkward bow. "What would it take for you to forget you ever heard this?"

She gives him a skeptical eye. "...Which bits?"

Shang Qinghua risks a glance over at Yue Qi, the headman, and the noticeable lack of any great revelations or system confetti. "...Everything," he says, pressing a money pouch into her hand. "Just... everything."

He returns to Cang Qiong Mountain to find an ice imp waiting in his room.

It kowtows three times on his approach, and then springs upwards, gesturing like a gameshow host towards a massive package leaking meltwater all over his bed.

“Lord Shang! Delivery! Delivery not for selling!” It emphasizes these last three words with slaps to its own head.

So Mobei-jun’s still sulking. Not that it matters! He hasn’t even sent work for Shang Qinghua to do since The Incident, and that’s – that’s a load off of his plate. Mobei-jun can sulk as long as he wants, it’s no skin off his back!

Girding himself with the strength of those convictions, Shang Qinghua reaches towards the box.

The ice imp slices open the silk coverings with one long fingernail, and the rest of it – mostly animal skins – flops open. Inside is a censer, with a rounded bottom curling up into stylized flames, the whole thing so pale and chatoyant it might have been carved from moonstone.

“The Censer of Summoning!” announces the imp, drawing itself up to full height. It’s only slightly taller than the censer. “You light, we your servants come! Anything you need!” He bows again, this time less like a proper royal servant and more like a Western showman.

“Oh,” says Shang Qinghua. He stares at the glistening stone, feeling as though his heart has plummeted into his intestines. Mobei-jun…

He really never wants to see me again.

That’s fine! That’s fine!

He doesn’t even have to worry about betraying Cang Qiong Mountain now, not for someone who clearly thinks he’s less useful than toenail grime and not even worth a proper killing.

It even buoys him up for dealing with the servants, who clearly don’t think much of him either but are at least willing to lay out their grievances like adults, primarily the grievance in which their wages have not been raised since the Shang Dynasty.

Shang Qinghua hadn’t been completely certain there’d even been a Shang Dynasty in this universe – he’d just sort of gone for “the ancient depths of time,” with Wei and Jin-inspired (okay, maybe “a couple of fantasy photoshoots I saw online”-inspired) inspired hanfu, pre-Tang poetry, and… he hadn’t really bothered to research architecture, actually. The point is, mishmash! Fantasy! No historical figures were harmed in the making of this stallion novel!

“So… I guess Daji really was a fox demon, then, huh?”

The head housekeeper stares at him blankly. It’s apparent that he’s the only one here who’s read Investiture of the Gods.

But he doesn’t need history, here. He needs modernity.

“Here’s my proposal for your raises.” He hands this to her as well. “As well as time off, medical insur – um, the sect will pay your medical bills,” (Well, his shop will, unless he can get Qian Cao Peak on board), “and… um…”

One of the maids in the back is holding a baby on each hip. She looks almost as frazzled as he does.

“Childcare!” Shang Qinghua finishes triumphantly. “We’ll do a two-month trial period, see what works and what doesn’t. After that two month period, anyone caught embezzling will be turned over to the finer mercies of the higher peaks.” He claps his hands. “Do we have a bargain, then?”

It is, more or less, a success. He shares none of the details with Shizun, who doesn’t need to know about his little money-making bolthole, but he does receive a grudging nod over the results.

This means Shizun is proud of him.

This is, in fact, a very, very, very bad thing.

“But why am I here?” He drags out the last syllable, collapsing onto his still-rolled bedroll as he does.

“Because,” says Shen Jiu, who doesn’t even sleep in this tent but has clearly been lured in by Shang Qinghua’s discomfort like a cat to the cries of a wounded rabbit, “Guo-Shishu recommended you, did he not? As one of the ‘bright lights of our peaks.”

“Bright lights…” Shang Qinghua mutters into the fabric. “More like I solved a problem he couldn’t, and he wants me dead.”

Wants him to die here, in this miserable cold tent in these miserable cold mountains. Herders have been leaving the little village nestled into the only pass for months now. Two weeks ago, an entire outer steading disappeared, swallowed by the snows as though it had never been. Then a plague struck the village proper, blue spots appearing on their skin and spreading until the victim died, frozen solid.

Yue Qi is here as Yue Qingyuan, heir to the Sect. Shen Jiu is here as the Sect Heir’s chief strategist, and also likely to prevent his Qi-ge bunking with someone else. Mu Qingfang, who managed to whip up a cure and save a third of the victims before lunch, is present for obvious reasons, and Shang Qinghua… Shang Qinghua is not having a good time.

Shen Jiu eventually decides there’s no point needling an unresponsive victim, and leaves the tent, letting in a blast of icy air as he does.

Shivering, Shang Qinghua ignites a flame talisman, and uses that to ignite the incense in the Censer of Servitude.

It takes the ice imp only a moment to appear, and when it does, it bows only perfunctorily to Shang Qinghua before stretching out its arms and luxuriating in the cold.

“You have moved up in the world, Immortal Shang, sir!”

“…Sure. And keep your voice down.”

The ice imp kneels, getting its mouth as close to the floor as possible, but at least it also whispers as it does so. “What does Immortal Shang require of this one?”

“There’s a demonic force at work in these mountains. They’ve been sending a curse with the snows. Do you – that is, could you possibly ask the other servants to ask someone who – “

“Your servant will speak to Immortal Shang’s lord at once, sir!”

Shang Qinghua swallows. “You really don’t need to – actually. Come with me. I’ll show you some of the curse markers. See if there’s anything about them you recognize.”

The ice imp bows. “At once, Immortal Shang!”

“And, um, here. Ride in my cloak.”

The ice imp hadn’t liked that last suggestion at all, but Shang Qinghua manages to smuggle it out, all the same. His martial brothers are sitting around the fire, Shen Jiu snuggled up against Yue Qi in spite of – or perhaps because of – Mu Qingfang’s presence, but no one stops him leaving or asks why there’s muffled swearing coming from his armpit.

The ice imp doesn’t recognize the first curse mark. Shang Qinghua shows it the second he’s found.

“It’s a curse mark! Like the other one!”

“…Yes. Anything else?”

It shifts from foot to foot. “The snow is good. Cold.”

“There was one more…”

It wasn’t quite a curse mark, but it had been a similar shape, and glowed with a similar cold fire.

“Oh!” The ice imp smacks itself on the head, and then a few more times for good measure. “Immortal Shang doesn’t need to worry! Of course there are curse marks! We’ve entered the Northern Lands.” He begins to climb back up Shang Qinghua’s cape.

Oh, fuck.

“Immortal Shang should head back to his allies, now, please!”

“So what – I’m banished, now? He’s not just refusing to see me, he’s flat out fired – ” It must be the frosty air that has Shang Qinghua fighting for breath.

“Immortal Shang!” The ice imp abandons decorum and grabs him by the collar. “Immortal Shang! These are not your Lord’s lands! You are not safe, you are not – ”

A blast of wintry air hits them both. Shang Qinghua stumbles backwards, hands fumbling for his sword hilt, when suddenly two strong, familiar hands seize his shoulders.

"What are you doing here?" hisses Mobei-jun, cape flaring around him like a defensive lizard. He’s terrifying, eyes blue fire, and Shang Qinghua is stupidly, stupidly so very glad to see him all the same. "On my father's hunting grounds, the day - are you an utter fool, or just the unluckiest thing alive?"

He shakes Shang Qinghua by the shoulders, lifting him half a foot off the ground in the process.

"My king -” He tries to keep his voice down. Now that he knows they’re in demon territory, he wouldn't put it past Shen Jiu to be following him. Even Yue Qi would be a better option, despite neither knowing about his divided loyalties nor being likely to accept "blackmail potential" as a reason to keep them secret.

He's going to die.

"On the other side of that mountain, my uncle is hunting with his entourage. Currying favor with Junshang."

He's actually going to die.

Mobei-jun apparently accepts his squeaking as surrender.

"They will eat you, Shang Qinghua," he says, with a smile that's half a snarl and entirely fangs. It's so close that Shang Qinghua can feel Mobei-jun's frigid breath on his cheek.

He shivers.

"Right! Thank you, my king - I'll get out of here at once!" Somehow. And since Mobei-jun appears unplacated, he continues, stream-of-consciousness his best defense. "No one will eat me! Unless my king wants to, of course, this servant deserves punishment -"

Mobei-jun drops him.

"Stop babbling. Run."

"...bulk of the Northern Court." Shang Qinghua swallows. "And that's why we need to get out of here. Now."

Shen Jiu narrows his eyes, but says nothing. It's Yue Qi who speaks, fingers drumming on the hilt of his sword.

"Tianlang-jun." He stares off into the middle distance. "If that's true..."

"Yes, Shang-shidi." And now Shen Jiu is smiling, apparently unable to resist watching Shang Qinghua squirm. "How certain are you of what you... 'saw'?"

"Very!" Shang Qinghua snaps. "And we are going to be very! Dead!"

Yue Qi shakes his head. "We're here on behalf of the Sect. We can't retreat after one sighting - not if this really is the demon lord. An alliance with the Northern kingdoms would strengthen him immeasurably. Sect Leader needs to know."

"Which is why we need to leave now!" He looks over to Mu Qingfang in hopes of support. You're the reasonable one! That was your entire two lines of characterization! Reasonable and helpful!

Mu Qingfang taps a finger against his chin. "It's dangerous... but is your Shizun likely to take his – I mean, our word for it?"

Never mind. Mu Qingfang, you're officially demoted from favorite teammate to back behind Wei Qingwei's beard trimmings.

Shen Jiu's eyes flicker over to Shang Qinghua, assessing him up and down. "We may have a middle route," he purrs. It's the least reassuring thing Shang Qinghua’s heard since "Junshang." "Unless that brute from Bai Zhan has snuck up behind us unnoticed, no one says we need to fight them. All we need..." And does he think no one can see the way he's smiling at Shang Qinghua? "Is proof."

"Right," says Shen Jiu. "Is this your pet demon, or not?"

His voice is as rough as it was at Qiu Manor, not a trace of the sophisticated heir to Qing Jing Peak. He's dragged Shang Qinghua halfway up the valley after managing to convince Yue Qi - at only a small loss in Relationship Value - to partner with Mu Qingfang "rather than let the both of these two get themselves killed," and only now does Shang Qinghua realize Shen Jiu is terrified.

"He's the one who warned me!" Shang Qinghua gulps in air. "...It's his uncle. Really his uncle, this time." He doesn't add that they're both going to die if they keep standing still, because, good news! Shen Jiu knows this, and, bad news! He's not going to let that stop him.

"Then I suggest you provide me with physical 'proof.' Now." At Shang Qinghua’s continued sputtering, he adds, "Anything. A love token, a trinket, stolen goods. You have a sapphire in your guan half the time as it is - surely you've been traded something useful for risking your idiot life all these years."

The Censer of Servitude feels heavier than ever as Shang Qinghua gingerly removes it from his qiankun pouch. "...You understand that I'm going to have to steal this back, right? From the sect treasury?"

"How tragic for you. What is it?"

"It –" And then the air shifts around them. The howl of the wind gains in volume, separating into half-a-dozen mournful cries. Shang Qinghua whirls just in time to see something massive cresting the hilltop.

A black wolf, with rime coating its fur and eyes like shards of gleaming sapphire. It pulls back its head to howl, revealing a silver collar studded with diamond spikes. Shadows coalesce behind it as the rest of the pack closes in.

Shen Jiu grabs him by the collar. "You treacherous little –"

Shang Qinghua shoves at him. For once, the scum villain is not the scariest thing on the mountain. "This isn't my fucking fault! Run!"

They make it halfway down the valley before a sled crests the ridge, its runners shimmering with black ice and its demonic occupants letting loose an eerie wail at the sight of two-legged prey.

Shang Qinghua, glancing back between steps, doesn't think he recognizes any of them. They look to be full-size ice demons, more or less humanoid - probably some of Mobei-jun's collection of distant, scheming relatives. Members of his uncle's faction, or their own. In between labored breaths, he explains some of this to Shen Jiu before realizing that his shixiong isn't listening.

"How can we kill them?" He's drawn Xiu Ya, either to attack or to risk the blizzard in flight after all.

It's not like they've got any better options.

"They're more vulnerable to fire – well, than other demons. Probably still less so than humans, it’s not going to melt them or anything –"

"I know that." Shen Jiu yanks at the back of his robes, shoving him behind - and against - a boulder. "You like plans. Surely you've made one in case your demon turns on you –"

"We need –" Shang Qinghua fights for breath. The wails are getting closer. "We can't kill them too close to the rest of the party, or we'll have – we'll be dead. We need to lure them out –"

"Towards Yue Qi." Shen Jiu nods, mouth a grim line. "He's the strongest of us, after all."

And the System and I would be thrilled if you told him so!

Shen Jiu's hands clench and unclench around Xiu Ya's scabbard. "If he dies because of you," he says, abruptly far too close to Shang Qinghua for comfort, "I will slice you slowly into pieces and drown what's left in a pigsty. Now. We fly."

Shang Qinghua makes it into the air just ahead of a pair of snapping jaws. A blast of wind nearly knocks him right back down into them, and he wobbles, finally crouching down and grabbing the hilt of his sword for extra support. He probably looks like he's about to pull a skateboard trick – or maybe he just looks like an idiot – but he'll take any bit of better balance he can find.

System, Shang Qinghua ventures. Can you turn the Proximity Alert back on?

For Subject B! Can you turn it back on for Subject B?!

Ahead of him, even Shen Jiu is having trouble. His hair streams out behind him in the frigid wind, a ribbon coming loose and nearly nailing Shang Qinghua in the face. He dodges an ice arrow without slowing down, or, for that matter, looking back to see if any of them hit Shang Qinghua.

Which they didn’t – not yet. The hunting party is clearly still toying with them. Hopefully it’ll be the last mistake they ever make.

The sirens quiet. Shang Qinghua crouches lower on his sword as he follows Shen Jiu back down towards the forest. Any hope of assisting vanishes as his new goal in life becomes not to collide face-first with a tree.

He can barely keep up as it is. They tear past last night’s campsite, and up into the pines, howls still dogging at their heels. Ahead of them, the narrow trail meets another in a twisted crossroads; Shen Jiu doesn’t even slow down, barreling ahead like he actually knows where he’s going.

Shang Qinghua dodges a tree branch, spins, and winds up skimming the ground of the leftmost fork. He has no doubt which of them the bulk of the wolves will follow.

And then –

“Proximity!” bellows Shang Qinghua.

Apparently he’s a parrot now. But at least he’s a helpful parrot, because Xiu Ya slices past him before he can even think of a better warning.

“Qi-ge!” The sword snaps up into Shen Jiu’s hand as he makes an almost-elegant landing, his free hand seizing Yue Qi by the front of his robes. As Shang Qinghua skids to a stop behind him, he takes a visible half-second to collect himself before forging on. “A problem has arisen.”

“What did you do?” This is Mu Qingfang. Shen Jiu shoots him an icy glare, as though his presence is an unexpected and unwelcome complication.

“Wolves!” yelps Shang Qinghua, stepping between them as he does to block the line of fire. “Wolves, because you had the bright idea Sect Leader wouldn’t believe me without evidence –”

“That isn’t what I –”

“Well, guess what! We have evidence now! I stole it! And none of this, none of this, is my fault!”

Mu Qingfang takes a step backwards, looking appropriately gobsmacked.

“Shut up,” says Shen Jiu. He steps back from Yue Qi, sword still raised.

The howling has stopped. Light gleams off of Xiu Ya’s blade in the eerie stillness, the only sound Shang Qinghua’s own breath.

Mu Qingfang’s eyes flicker around the clearing; Yue Qi’s, unsurprisingly, remain locked on Shen Jiu. He raises one hand, the first sparkles of a seal glowing up around it.

And then, all hell breaks loose.

The first arrow twangs off of Xiu Ya; the second and third Shang Qinghua manages to dodge, and after that there are too many to count, alight with cold blue flame, bouncing off of palm seals and embedding themselves in trees.

The wolves are circling them, blocking off any escape by ground, but they haven’t leaped in to attack. The arrows, likewise, are more distraction than threat. They’re being toyed with.

“Remember what Shizun told us?” he offers up to Shen Jiu, who balks a little at the us and probably a little more at the thought of them ever sharing a master. “These must be Linguang-jun’s retainers – too weak to attack us directly.”

Pine needles spear though an arrow inches from Shen Jiu’s face. It takes him only a moment to catch on. “Inferior soldiers do tend to serve inferior masters,” he drawls, spearing down two more arrows, these aimed for Yue Qi’s back. “The bow is a coward’s weapon, after all – or a peasant’s.” He flicks his head at Yue Qi, who nods in response, blocking an arrow with Xuan Su’s scabbard before moving to reposition himself.

<Relationship Value Increase!> announces the System, clearly not wanting to be left out, but in the process clearly keeping Shang Qinghua from hearing something important, because all three of his martial brothers have now zeroed in on a single spot in the woods.

A high, chilling laugh catches him up on what he missed.

There’s a tall, pale figure emerging from the shadows, draped in white furs not nearly as high-end-looking as Mobei-jun’s. Not old enough to be Linguang-jun, either, so they might still have a chance of making it out of this alive.

Retainers in shimmering blue armor flank him on either side.

“I, the Lord of this Mountain – a coward? Little cultivators, I’m afraid you think too highly of yourselves – and too little of whom you have just displeased.”

In accordance with the laws of Proud Immortal Demon Way, he’s allowed to finish giving his little speech. In accordance with the fact that Mu Qingfang owns a set of throwing needles, his leftmost bodyguard collapses mere seconds after.

“You little – get them! Kill them! Kill!” The “Lord of this Mountain” lunges forward just as Yue Qingyuan brings Xuan Su’s scabbard down hard against a tree. Bodyguards and Shang Qinghua alike leap for cover as the ancient pine collapses, pinning half a dozen wolves and demons to the ground.

This is all very well and good for the System. Shang Qinghua is more focused on the fact that Mobei-jun’s probable cousin has now drawn a sword much nicer than a offscreen mini-boss like that has any right to be carrying.

It’s black, but as thin and translucent as ice, hilt gleaming with clearly-cursed diamonds. Maybe Mountain Lord here has a sister? Or a daughter? Some scantily clad wintry beauty who intends to add that sword – and herself – to the protagonist’s collection?

He brushes off Shang Qinghua’s own wimpy little sword glare like it’s nothing, sending out a blast of wintry air from his free hand that knocks Mu Qingfang off his feet.

Healer down, healer down! Shang Qinghua skids over to him, managing to reach him just ahead of the wolves. They growl at him, the sound reverberating down to his bones, but his sword is in his hand and, pig teammate or no, he’s not backing down.

It’s a standoff, pointy metal versus pointy teeth. And pointy claws. And terrible, terrible breath.

Behind him, he hears Mountain Lord’s godsforsaken laugh again.

“What do you think, little cultivator? Still so confident, now?”

“More so, in fact.” Shen Jiu’s tone is as biting as – well, as the enormous wolf now six inches from Shang Qinghua’s face. “Were those truly the best of your – ” His voice cuts off into a gasp.

“Xiao Jiu!”

Shang Qinghua risks breaking eye contact with the wolfpack to take a fleeting squint behind him. Shen Jiu is bent double, gasping for breath – and then there’s a flash of light so bright his vision goes red.

“Yue Qi, you utter – you bastard, if you draw that sword I will ram it down your fucking throat – ”

Shang Qinghua, eyes still shut, can barely even feel the wolf breath on his face.

So, he thinks, taking in a breath of his own and immediately regretting the decision. This is how I die.

Oh, shut up.

Chapter 4 Notes:

Hey, y'all! Long time no see, (fanfic's had to take a backseat as I query agents over my original stuff), but no worries, I do intend to see this fic to the end... however many chapters that ends up being.
Do note that the "Canon-Typical Violence" comes into play in this chapter, and not just in the opening fight.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Shang Qinghua stares.

The wolf stares back.

Rime drips from its blue-black fur, and each breath is a puff of steam between jagged, translucent teeth.

He remembers cold fire, spitting from icy blue eyes. "They will eat you, Shang Qinghua!" For a moment, he desperately wishes for Mobei-jun, and damn the consequences.

But Shang Qinghua isn't some late-chapter love interest. Shang Qinghua doesn't get to have a beautiful man swing in and annihilate his enemies.

Shang Qinghua is on his own.

"—xiong. Shixiong!" Mu Qingfang's voice is a hiss, and, looking down, Shang Qinghua sees a scowl that suggests this isn't the first time he'd tried to get his attention. "My medical pack."

"Mu-shidi," whispers Shang Qinghua, trying not to break eye contact with the wolf for too long. "What –"

"I can't move my arms!" This is less a hiss, and more a good, old-fashioned, Shen Qingqiu-style snarl. "Get my medical pack!"

Shang Qinghua risks another look down to see thin, icy tendrils snaking across Mu-shidi's limbs. His fingers and lips are visibly going blue.

"Right," says Shang Qinghua. "Nice doggy. Calm. I still have a sword, doggy."

The wolf gives a low, unimpressed rumble.

Slowly, stiffly, Shang Qinghua bends his knees until he can snatch up Mu Qingfang's pack, and then, at grunt of pain beneath him, a little further so he can slice through the straps. He opens it gingerly - there's no telling what sorts of poisons and sex pollens are inside - before straightening back up.

The wolf's gaze follows him. Behind it, more dark shadows are emerging from the trees, each set of glowing eyes fixed - of course - on Shang Qinghua.

"Pathetic little mortals!" announces the Mountain Lord, following it up with a few painfully cliched chuckles. Yue Qi - at least, it sounds like Yue Qi - grunts in pain.

"What am I looking for?" Shang Qinghua hisses at Mu Qingfang. "What even -" His fingers collide with something unpleasantly sticky. He lifts it out.

There's a low, multi-layered growl.

"That's a beast lure!" Mu QIngfang's voice is tight with pain. "Put it back!"

Shang Qinghua tries to shake it off his finger. The wolves echo his movement in eerie unison. The lead one licks its lips, and Shang Qinghua barely avoids the snap of its jaws.

"Why do you even have -"

Okay, fine, so most magical beasts have healing ingredients or flat-out panaceas hidden somewhere within their bodies. That was for Binghe's benefit! It wasn't a deus ex machina, it had genuine, pre-existing, entirely genre appropriate basis and support, and it is entirely unfair that it's about to get Shang Qinghua killed.

He skitters backwards. The good news is that he's luring them away from Mu Qingfang. The bad news...

He twists the beast lure between his fingers, trying to coat the horrible sticky thing in a layer of infused qi. It may not be a Vine of Eternal Freedom or whatever Mu-shixiong wanted him to dig out, but it is the centerpiece of his new, hasty, and extremely desperate plan.

The Mountain Lord's blade flashes out towards Yue Qi, who meets it with Xuan Su's scabbard only to be flung backwards from the force of the blow. He collides with a tree trunk, slumping to the ground.

Shen Jiu lets out a wordless shriek of rage. Xiu Ya's swordglare flashes towards the Mountain Lord with much more passion than finesse, each flash of light turned back with a twist of the demon's wrist.

Shang Qinghua grits his teeth, and vaults for a low branch, making it just ahead of a pair of snapping jaws. He twirls the now-glowing beast lure, and prepares to cheat at ping-pong.

This is called the "Snotty Junior Disciple Special."

It's a ball, wrapped in qi, designed to fly and twist in the air, avoid a paddle, and splatter onto a body part of Shang-laoshi's choice, because he has to strike a blow for his authority as teacher somewhere.

Shang Qinghua readies his shot as the battle beneath him reaches a climax.

"You little worm!" The Mountain Lord rounds on Shen Jiu, who flings a barrage of pine needles and qi at him and then makes a dart for Yue Qi.

Xuan Su is half out of its scabbard, illuminating the clearing with golden light. Beside it, Yue Qi lies, unmoving. He might not even be breathing.

An arrow thuds into Shen Jiu's shoulder, then another. He barely reaches Yue Qi's side, Xiu Ya shaking in his hands.

"Poor sport, after all," says the Mountain Lord, though Shang Qinghua notes he refrains from taking another step forward. "Guards, finish them... and bring me that sword." He strokes his own. "It will be a fine addition to –"

He cuts off. Something small, bright, and sticky has just hit him in the back - or, rather, has carefully shot beneath his fur coat and then, with one last flick of Shang Qinghua’s fingers, adhered itself to the back of his armor.

"Guards –"

The surviving guards, not being focused on monologuing, began retreating to the edge of the clearing when they saw the wolves - first watching something, heads tilting in unison, and then crouching down, preparing to leap.

There's a howl. There's a scream.

And then there's only flashes of blue armor amidst a mass of black and frosty fur, growls and screams, and, finally, only the sound of ripping flesh.

The guards, as one, take a step back, and then flee helter-skelter.

Shang Qinghua takes a long, deep breath, and then another. The adrenaline's fading, leaving him lightheaded.

Not too lightheaded not to reach out a thread of qi and summon Mountain Lord's sword. He won't be needing it anymore, after all.

"Evidence!" Shang Qinghua announces into an awkward stillness.

Shen Jiu has shoved Xuan Su back into its scabbard and is full-on spooning Yue Qi, muttering insults into his ear the entire time. The System is silent, thought likely only because Yue Qi is unconscious.

Small mercies.

"Shang-shixiong!" Mu Qingfang's voice cuts across the clearing. "I still can't move."

By mutual, silent agreement, they keep their mouths shut in the village. Yue Qi, kept upright by occasional vicious snaps of qi from Shen Jiu, explains to the headman only that the borderlands have shifted. Shang Qinghua hops in the second he's finished to introduce himself as head of the logistics peak, ready and able to help them plan their evacuation provided they have some hot tea and maybe a meat bun.

They say nothing of the demon lord, nothing of the fight, and nothing at all to each other.

By the time they make it to their new campsite, Yue Qi is dead on his feet, and Shang Qinghua isn't feeling much better. It's always an ominous sign when the system's this quiet for this long.

"Shixiong." Mu Qingfang touches two fingers to Yue Qi's shoulder. "What precisely happened back there?"

Yue Qi opens his eyes, clearly with some effort. "Nothing unexpected, Mu-shidi. I overstretched myself."

Shen Jiu lets out a scornful huff, but adds nothing else to the conversation.

"Which is what I mean to discuss! I'm to be your Lord of Can Qiao, am I not? Your doctor. I'm tired of being kept in the –"

The melting snow has smeared the ink on Shen Jiu's fan into a modern art piece, and it makes a wet snap! as he slams it shut, fixing Mu Qingfang with a glare that promises evisceration.

Shang Qinghua grabs Mu Qingfang by the shoulder. "Mu-shidi," he says. "I didn't want to complain in town, but I'm still bleeding from... a spot I'd rather not reveal in company." He shifts his hips. "Could we go - over there? Behind the tents? Away?"

He half-drags his shidi until they're a decent distance away, pinned between pine trees - though he still lowers his voice. "Mu-shidi. I am begging you. Don't ask about that –"

"Don't ask about the future Sect Leader's disabling medical condition?"

Shang Qinghua takes a deep breath, and soldiers on. "Don't ask about it... in front of Shen-shixiong."

"...He knows what it is?"

Yue Qi, if you draw that sword, I will ram it down your fucking throat!

Shang Qinghua shrugs. "That relationship is, um. Complicated. Just take it as a favor to me and Yue-shixiong both. Whatever's wrong with him – and I don't need to know, I don't want to know – figure it out in private. Please."

Mu Qingfang regards him with a strange, hard-to-read expression, face solemn but eyes flickering. "Shen Qingqiu shouldn't be taking his anger out on you," he says, finally, with all the solemn air of an archetypal Heavenly Doctor.

What? Where is this coming from? Am I a bullied little maiden now?

Besides, yes, Shen Jiu, even this new, happier Shen Jiu, has the temper of a wasp and a very present sadistic side, but the last time he yelled at him was over potentially betraying the group for his "pet ice demon," and... That wasn't entirely out of nowhere? OG Shang Qinghua would actually have done it, and this Shang Qinghua... well, he was hoping other options would present themselves.

And fast.

The point is, fine, Shen Jiu is a massive jerk. But he's not a scum villain, not this time, not if Shang Qinghua has anything to say about it. He has a Yue Qi who never betrayed him. That, Shang Qinghua thinks firmly, nudging the System as he does, ought to be enough.

Stupid fucking hidden win conditions.

"I'm here for you, Qinghua-shixiong." Mu Qingfang pats him awkwardly on the shoulder.

Shang Qinghua finds the first excuse to flee and takes it.

He leans back against a tree.

Snow is still falling, even this far out of the mountains. The borderlands are shifting.

Someday – or, maybe, not – Luo Binghe will merge the realms, leaving an already-shaky world as a patchwork of ruins. He can't remember if he meant it as a metaphor or not, but it certainly worked as one.

What's his System trying to pull, anyway? True love? It's a mechanical scam artist with the voice of a malfunctioning text-to-speech - there's no way it's doing any of this out of the goodness of a nonexistent heart, and it's not like removing half the protagonist's backstory is going to do much for Proud Immortal Demon Way.

If there even is a Proud Immortal Demon Way. His parents here, his... friends, even Tongyang Village for all its stupid name - all of it seems a lot more real these days than his hazy memories of a cheap apartment and flame wars in the comments. The people around him have souls if anything does. Probably better ones than he does.

If not for the voice in his head, he'd... He'd...

"Shang-shidi?"

Yue Qi's voice is still hoarse.

Shang Qinghua stands to greet him, brushing snow off of his robes. "Yue-shixiong? Are you –"

He grinds to a halt. Anyone would, faced with that expression. Yue Qi's eyes are steel.

"I'd like to talk with you about something."

Shang Qinghua nods frantically. "Of course!" He bites back a 'my king,' and summons up a smile. "Well, then. What's on your mind?"

"You know things you shouldn't."

Fuck.

Shang Qinghua dusts a bit of snow off of his outer robe. "Would Yue-shixiong care to be more specific?"

This is about Xuan Su. Of course it is. This is about him luring Mu Qingfang away, because gods forbid he ever tries to do anyone any kind of favor.

"I tried to ignore my suspicions. The inconsistencies. You're loyal to Cang Qiong, you're a talented organizer..." Yue Qi's voice trails off. He clearly does not care to be more specific. "But it keeps creeping back. You vanish from the sect for days on end and return with the location of an ancient sword-tomb for Wei-shidi. You ask me strange questions. And now... Mu-shidi. You knew. And that, Shang Qinghua, draws me back to one thing.

"I never asked you to go to Qiu Manor."

Shang Qinghua.exe briefly stops working. His mouth rallies before his brain does. "You – you don't remember, but I was lost in the –"

"Shizun says I could barely speak. When I did..." He shakes his head, eyes distant. "It was nothing that would have been of help to you. No. You knew, Shang Qinghua. If you are to be a Peak Lord in my sect, I need to know how."

His fingers are twitching against Xuan Su's hilt. Shang Qinghua peels his eyes away with effort.

Luckily, this is a situation he actually has planned for. He holds his hands up, as far from his own sword hilt as possible. "Has – has Yue-shixiong ever heard of dream magic?"

Yue Qi's glare somehow sharpens further. "I've heard of dream de—"

"I'm not a demon! I'm not – they did tests, I did tests, they'd never have let me into the sect – you can do tests, even! I'm not a demon, Yue-shixiong, I swear, I swear – but –"

"But?"

Shang Qinghua shifts from foot to foot. "One of my distant ancestors... Well... May have been. But that's - that's actually shockingly common - not full half-bloods, obviously, you don't get those anymore, but back in ancient times, the distinctions between –"

Yue Qi holds up a hand to still him. "This still isn't an explanation, Shang-shidi."

"I get other people's nightmares! Badly! Only nightmares! I can't manipulate them, I can't escape them, I can't even usually tell where they're from! But all my life, it's been chased by spiders with the faces of other people's grandmothers, or showing up on the Bai Zhan training grounds without my sword or various important items of clothing, or – well. Or dreaming, again and again and again, of sword spirits and a whispered promise. A voice on the other side of an unbreakable wall."

He's extrapolating here, but from the look on Yue Qi's face he's probably hit paydirt.

"I had to do something! I could barely sleep. So I took a chance on it being real, and... may have looked through some of my Shizun's secret files in the process." He looks down.

Then, suddenly reinspired, he kneels at Yue Qi's feet.

"Yue-shixiong. I have lied to my future Sect Leader. I have concealed demonic heritage. I ask Yue Qingyuan for whatever punishment he wishes to bestow."

There is a long moment of stillness.

"...Rise," says Yue Qi, finally. He does not look at Shang Qinghua as he turns his back and walks away.

After all that, the Sect Leader is barely a problem at all.

Shang Qinghua stands quietly behind Mu Qingfang as Yue Qi presents the Mountain Lord's sword to his shizun, who purses her lips as she touches it with one long finger.

"The Northern Court?"

"In force," says Shen Jiu, stepping forward with a clearly-practiced wave of his fan. "We believe them to be making an alliance with the last of the Heavenly Demons."

"Tianlang-jun." The Lord of Ku Xing Peak is a small, bald man whose wrinkles even immortality couldn't cure. Shang Qinghua has never seen him not looking like he's chewing on a lemon, but he looks particularly offended at the moment.

The Lady of Xian Shu Peak scoffs behind her own fan. "If there is such a creature."

"Are you deaf as well as a fool, Lin-shijie?" This is Shang Qinghua’s own Shizun. "As I informed everyone at the last -"

"Enough!" Sect Leader brings her hand down against the table. "Disciples. You have risked your lives for this intelligence, and I commend you. You may return to your peaks to rest."

Children, go to bed while the grown-ups discuss things.

Shen Jiu appears to consider this a personal insult, but what else is new? Shang Qinghua, on the other hand, makes a quick bow to his Shizun and is across the rainbow bridge in record time.

Elder Fan greets him with a pile of paperwork and a demand to know first, what kind of artifact has frozen Junior Shang's leisure house door shut, and second, what business Junior Shang has looking so happy about it.

Mobei-jun greets him with "You're late."

Really, why had he expected anything else. "Apologies, my king –"

"But you are alive." Mobei-jun's lip quirks up into the hint of a satisfied smirk. "And Xueshan-zun is dead."

What, that was actually his name? "He is," says Shang Qinghua. "Are you... going to want his sword back?"

Mobei-jun tilts his head slightly. "No," he says. "It is yours, to do with as you wish."

Well, if his generation ascends and he calls in a favor from Wei Qingwei, it might be his to do with as he wishes – but Shang Qinghua appreciates the thought, all the same. All he'd gotten from Cang Qiong Mountain for winning the fight had been a bit of misplaced sympathy from Mu Qingfang.

Look, maybe he has... a little bit more in common with the Original Goods than he'd like to think. He's not (he's not, he refuses to be) a weaselly little voluntary traitor, loyal to nothing greater than himself - but he can understand why someone might have turned into that, when nothing greater than himself ever gave him the time of day. And whether he's Shang Qinghua or Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, or, for that matter, a little kid whose parents only notice him to complain about how badly the other is doing as a parent – approval's nice. Approval's good. There's a lot of stupid things he'd do to keep that approval coming in.

A lot of stupid things he'd write, too.

"...My king," he says. "Cang Qiong knows about Tianlang-jun. There's a war coming."

"Junshang thinks otherwise."

Shang Qinghua swallows. "Junshang... Maybe doesn't understand humans as much as he thinks he does."

The low noise in Mobei-jun's throat is as close as he generally comes to laughter. He stills after a moment, brows knitting back together. "This will bode poorly for your trade dealings."

"Our trade dealings, my king!" Shang Qinghua hastily reassures him. "And they'll recover! Eventually! If enough people survive, I mean –” He trails off. He can't place the look on Mobei-jun's face right now at all.

"Our," says Mobei-jun, the side of his lip quirking back up. His eyes are glowing like night pearls.

He's always been ridiculously perfect-looking. At this point, it's more or less faded into background noise – ho-hum, here's the enormous mountain range, here's the sword flying, here's divine perfection in the form of one extremely grumpy man.

Right now? Shang Qinghua can't tear his eyes away. A lock of loose hair, blue-black and shimmering, has fallen from Mobei-jun's guan, falling over the furs at his shoulders to nestle in next to his collarbone.

It's unfair.

"Be careful, my king," he says, eyes still locked on that snow-pale patch of skin.

He's not sure which of them he's really trying to warn.

The bulk of Shang Qinghua’s dreams that night are... expected. Icy skin and pulsating muscles and a stern voice ordering him to his knees play unsurprisingly prominent roles.

Two cold fingers are in the process of lifting his chin when the fire alarm sounds.

Or, rather, the System alarm, a rancid mixture of his old school's fire warning system and a shrill, cheap alarm clock.

Shang Qinghua fights to at least wake up, and realizes that he can't. The System has seized his dreamscape like it's Luo Binghe. He lunges forward maybe an inch as Mobei-jun sparkles out of existence and the icy walls give way to blank whiteness and a single metal folding chair.

"What is this, the waiting room of the damned?"

"Yeah, yeah." Shang Qinghua sinks back on to the chair. "So, they're fighting again. I assume about Xuan Su?"

"No! Host would like to wake up and start solving this problem himself!"

<Ah.> There is a brief pause. <Relationship Value was reduced by 25% in less than half a shichen.>

"You can't go and spring losing conditions on me when you won't even tell me winning ones!" The metal chair, sturdier than it appears, refuses to fall when he kicks it. Shang Qinghua gingerly shakes his foot.

Digital confetti rains down, but immediately vanishes. <Host has not lost!>

Shang Qinghua doesn't sit back down. "That's good. Now –"

<Host has, however...> The System's voice speeds up, growing even higher-pitched as it does. <Entered-the-punishment-protocol.>

"What the fuck is the -"

And then the world goes black.

He blinks – well, not awake. If he were awake, he'd be in his bed, with a night pearl gleaming over him and a pile of paperwork waiting on his desk.

Shand Qinghua squints around him. He's kneeling on cold stone, chilly even through the layers of his robes. The walls around him are shadowed, but it's at least no longer the waiting room of the damned.

"System?"

The only answer is a footstep somewhere behind him.

He tries to turn. He doesn't make it.

The odd thing is that, at first, there's no pain. There's just a feeling of pressure, then of cold, and then his heart is somewhere up towards his tonsils because there's a jagged piece of ice and it's just speared him through the hand.

"Traitor." The voice is a whisper, cold as the Northern winds.

Chains clink together as a pair of black, furred boots step into his line of sight.

"My king –"

"Do not speak." Clawed fingers grip the sides of his chin, wrenching his head upwards.

Shang Qinghua scrabbles for balance, and the strange numbness in his hand gives way to agony. All he can do is heave in a breath and stare upwards at a face both familiar and terribly, terribly not.

He knows what Mobei-jun looks like irritated, or scornful – even borderline-murderous. This Mobei-jun stares down at him as though Shang Qinghua is dirt on his shoe, as though he's scarcely even worth the effort of anger.

"I will take that lying tongue."

He almost sounds bored.

Bored – as one hand wrenches Shang Qinghua's mouth open and the other gleams with sharpened claws. One of his incisors gives a sick crack as the claws force their way in, and then pressure – and –

This time, the pain is instant.

The Punishment Protocol gives him a little time to stew in a puddle of his own blood before finally, finally, letting him wrench himself awake.

Shang Qinghua runs his tongue over the insides of his teeth. Brings his hand up to stare at where the ice spike isn't and will the phantom pain away.

That wasn't all bad – it was terrible, certainly, and he never, never, never wants to do it again – but! Take that, you miserable electronic torture artist! Shang Qinghua's gotten something out of this after all, because Mobei-jun hasn't looked at him like that in years. Not since their first meeting – not since before Qiu Manor.

Shang Qinghua may have fucked up – no. He's taking no credit for that. Shen Jiu and Yue Qi may be fucking up their "bonafide true love," and Shang Qinghua may be getting blamed for it, but he's strengthened one relationship, and he's done it all on his own.

He clambers out of bed, shoulders set with resolve, and heads out to do some damage control.

A chain of whispers lead him, perhaps unsurprisingly, to the Warm Red Pavilion, OG! Shen Jiu's home away from home. Or, rather, they lead him to the street outside of the brothel's back entrance, where street carts are overturned, there are scorch marks up one wall, and a collection of early-morning food vendors are staring around, shellshocked.

If he were dealing with Luo Binghe, this would be a clear-cut case of Jealous Rage, preceded by a misunderstanding and resolved with a threesome. Unfortunately, he is dealing with forces nowhere near as predictable as his poor, late-chapter son, and while Yue Qi certainly has a jealous side, tearing a street apart over a misunderstanding doesn't seem quite his style.

Shang Qinghua sets his sights on the nearest vendor, who seems relieved to have someone to vent to.

"Oh, yes, Xianjun. There were two of them - came tearing out the back door like the place had caught fire. 'Don't follow me,' says the skinny one, and he just gets madder after that. Hissing something about a sword –"

"'You don't care about yourself!'" volunteers another. "Then he was all 'So I'm not even worth getting angry over...'" He shakes his balding head. "My wife's like that. Stay calm, she's mad, get mad, she's mad – sometimes I think you monks have the right idea about celibacy."

"...I'm not that kind of monk," begins Shang Qinghua, only to be cut off by a third vendor, hands on her hips.

"I'd be mad, too, if I were married to a man who sells soggy youtiao and complains when nobody's buying it. Young Master, listen to me – whatever your friends have going on, stay out of it. The one in white, with the pointy face – when he throws a tantrum, he doesn't half throw it. Flash of light, and next thing I know my signboard's on the ground - and I'm one of the lucky ones. Old Yang had to clear out entirely, that was his grandmother's pot that got shattered, and you can't cook –"

Shang Qinghua holds up a hand. "I can compensate you for your losses."

The first vendor leans back over. "Oh, he already did. The one in black, I mean, the big fellow." He pulls a jade pendant out of his shirt. "Look at this thing. I guess I'm 'sposed to sell it?"

Shang Qinghua reaches into his sleeve for his money pouch. "I can buy it off of you, in fact, Laoban."

The vendor's eyes lock on to the taels of silver. Shang Qinghua decides to push his luck at little.

"I'd prefer, of course," he says, laying the silver onto the scorched counter, "if you were quiet about what you heard."

His next stop is the Pavilion itself, where with a generous allotment of silver he impresses upon the Madam that perhaps it would be better, in future, for Shen Jiu to be picked up by a friend rather than a jealous lover.

She regards him with half-lidded eyes, but takes his money all the same. "Well, now. And does the young master know you're his friend?"

"I think my actions will prove it out, madam." He gives her a shallow but picture-perfect salute.

She rolls her eyes. "Oh, very well. But I do hope your friend returns to us – it's so difficult for the girls to find a decent qin instructor, let alone one who pays us for the privilege."

Over the next month, as the Relationship Value continues to trickle slowly downwards, Shang Qinghua goes on seven separate missions, runs errands usually reserved for junior disciples, spends more time on Qiong Ding and Qing Jing Peaks than his own, and essentially doesn't sleep.

Which is good, because despite his bravado after the Punishment Protocol, his rare catnaps are still filled with nightmares of Mobei-jun ripping out his tongue.

They need to talk. Shen Jiu and Yue Qi. He isn't sure – he would kill for his lost outlines, surely there's some characterization note he forgot with all the answers – what exactly they need to talk about, but Shang Qinghua knows one thing about healthy relationships, and that thing is communication.

Yue Qi failed to protect Shen Jiu? Yue Qi is failing to protect himself? He wishes desperately he knew when Shen Jiu found out about Xuan Su. He's working on incomplete information, and all he's doing is slowly fraying their already-fragile nerves.

It's time to resort to drastic measures.

"I didn't say it didn't make sense, Shang-shixiong. I just said you looked terrible." Liu Qingge leans back against a tree. "And this forest serves no strategic purpose. An Ding should cut it down... or put in a maze array or something. Maybe monsters."

Unfortunately, lack of sleep and drastic measures... Don't combine well. In this case, they've combined into tripping and spilling an entire gourd of Silver Truth Bone Powder all over Liu Qingge.

"Hey." Fingers snap in front of his nose. "You're making that weird noise again. Stop it."

Shang Qinghua hisses in a breath through his teeth. "...Do you want to sit down?"

"No. Why would I?"

He isn't sure if the Silver Truth Bone Powder impedes the subject's ability to tell they're under the influence, or if this is just Liu-shidi being Liu-shidi.

"You sit down too much, that's your problem. Everywhere's problem - too much contemplating the Dao, not enough actually getting out and helping people. I can't wait until I'm Peak Lord - we need to take out that Tianlang-jun now, not wait around while he gets stronger." Liu Qingge punctuates this statement by punching a tree.

"Philosophy has its practicalities, too." Shang Qinghua swallows. "Liu-shidi, if I could ask you a rhetorical question..."

"I'd have to hit you to stop you... and I don't want to hit you. Ask away. You sometimes say interesting things."

A warm glow rises in Shang Qinghua's heart. Liu-bro! You do care!

Battening himself back down, he clears his throat, regretting the words even as they emerge. "What would you say constitutes... a happy ending? In love?"

Liu Qingge shrugs. "I don't know. My parents? They seem happy. Or dying at each other's side in battle, like my grandparents – no, actually, that's not happy at all, is it? A-die's still torn up about it. I don't know..."

"...I suppose you might have been the wrong person to ask. No offense intended –"

Liu Qingge gives an even bigger shrug. "Mostly I just don't see why it's such a big deal. I had a crush on Hall Master Xue for a few years, before he struck out on his own, but that was just part of being a stupid kid."

"I think I remember him," in the sense that I had to fill out his 'leaving the sect' paperwork. "He was pretty."

"Everyone's pretty." Liu Qingge scowls. "Even you're kind of pretty, in a frazzled sort of way. No, I'd want someone who can keep up in a fight. Who I can trust at my back. Someone with really nice eyes..."

Like shards of ice. Bright blue, beneath a heavy scowl...

Liu Qingge snaps his fingers. "Did that powder do something to you? You keep zoning out."

"...Sorry." Shang Qinghua shakes his head and lets out a sigh. "I don't suppose there are any things you'd like to get off your chest? Heart knots to unravel?"

There's silence.

"Yeah. Don't know why I –"

"I think my baby sister might be cursed."

Liu Qingge spends the next hour slumped against a tree, occasionally banging a fist in emphasis, and giving Shang Qinghua the long, rambling explanation that in this universe, the fish-sinking, goose-felling, moon-outshining, and flower-shaming have all been done by daughters of the house of Liu. His great-aunt, a sort of "Liu Yuhuan," though he never gets her name, had been the kidnapped consort of an Emperor and the catalyst for an earlier General Liu to join the latest rebellion against him, but Liu Qingge seems, understandably, far less concerned about the political ramifications and far more concerned about his baby sister meeting a dismal end.

"But I can't teach her to fight, yet! She's a baby! I can hold her in two hands!"

Shang Qinghua swallows. "Well... when she's a little older, you can bring her here. I bet Qi-shijie could teach her to fight, too –"

"What we need to do is take down Tianlang-jun!" More bark goes flying. "You've heard what Huan Hua Palace keeps droning on about - his interest in mortal women, the kidnappings, the..." He trails off. "The demon lord needs to be dead, on my sword, before my meimei grows up."

Liu Qingge closes his eyes, his head thudding back against the tree. "...I’m really tired all of a sudden, Shang-shixiong. Let me sleep it off?"

The last of the sparkling dust is fading. Shang Qinghua beats a hasty retreat.

Okay. So that wasn't his best plan. That's fine! He has other options! This is an entire world of cheap plot devices - there has to be something he can use.

The Fortunate Paw of the Six-Legged Tiger Rabbit!

Shen Jiu makes it to the Warm Red Pavilion without Yue Qi even stirring out of bed. He makes it there so efficiently, in fact, that Shang Qinghua spends half a shichen dashing around town and wishing desperately he’d kept the hideous thing for himself.

“I gave your little… talisman to Wu-jiejie.” Shen Jiu leverages every inch of height he has on Shang Qinghua, glaring archly down at him like a particularly snitty god. “She might actually have a use for it.”

The Eight-Petaled Lotus of Utter Serenity!

“This is… nice.” Yue Qi leans his head back in the hot spring. Shang Qinghua watches from the bushes, in horror, as he lifts a hand towards Shen Jiu and then draws it back – but not before Shen Jiu sees.

He stiffens, but says nothing.

Shang Qinghua sends another pulse of qi towards the lotus.

“I’m going to sleep,” says Shen Jiu. “Don’t bother me.”

The Scarlet-Weaving Spider of Fate!

Shen Jiu corners him in the training yards. “Find whatever underling of yours is in charge of delivering Qing Jing’s bedclothes. Fifty strikes, at least. There was a spider in Shizun’s bed.”

The Ground Carapace of the Thousand-Mouth Millipede!

“I’m trying.”

Yue Qi, to Shang Qinghua’s great alarm, slings an arm across his shoulders. It occurs to him that the powder may have been too fresh.

“I know you are,” Shang Qinghua says. Or lies. One or the other. He risks a brief pat to Yue Qi’s forearm.

“Every time – every time I talk to him, I just…” Yue Qi stares down at his hands.

They’re shaking. Very fresh powder, then.

“He’s a better cultivator than me. Smarter. He doesn’t need me, he doesn’t need me to fail him again…” Yue Qi takes a long, drunken breath. “…He’s better off without me. And he knows it.”

He gives a high, warbling laugh… And then collapses onto Shang Qinghua’s shoulder in a stupor.

Well.

This is going to be fun to explain to Mu Qingfang.

Notes:

Research/Historical Notes: The Four Beauties of Ancient China, three historical and one fictional, are summed up in the saying: Xi Shi sinks fish, Wang Zhaojun fells birds, Diaochan outshines the moon, Yang Guifei (aka Yang Yuhuan) shames flowers. All but one of them died tragic deaths, and that one, Wang Zhaojun, still died far from home.

Chapter 5 Notes:

...You may note the chapter count's gone up again, sorry about that. I hope y'all enjoy!

Chapter Text

"Oh, come on!" says Shang Qinghua, as his feet begin to slip.

He's seventy feet up the magnificent alabaster Cliffs of Hong, supposedly home to a guru who has devoted her immortality not to contemplating the Dao, but to studying the red strings of fate themselves. He's fairly certain Proud Immortal Demon Way takes that metaphor entirely literally - didn't Luo Binghe have to comfort a few wives after they realized he was, in truth, bound to no one? - but so far he's found no holy grotto.

Just a fall.

Shang Qinghua has been considering the merits of quitting.

Sure, the System might kill him – or send him back to his original body, if it wants to split hairs, but as that's a pile of ashes by now that's a rather fine hair to split.

Shen Jiu might also kill him. At least the System will have the decency to make it quick.

Shang Qinghua has no intention of winding up a human stick, or a shish kebab, or whatever miserable fate his scum villain can dream up. No, the system is the way to go.

Unless it flings him into the punishment protocol again.

Unless it makes Mobei-jun do it.

He's being held hostage. He's being held hostage by a sadistic robotic extortion artist.

It's not fair.

He manages to save himself with his sword before hitting the ground, but the constant downdraft around the massive, sheer, and yes, magnificent alabaster cliffs doesn't bode well for his shaky flying skills. That was half the reason he'd been climbing in the first place, the other half behind a hazy memory that the beautiful immortal guru and her... slender, jade-pale fingers? Anyway, she accepted no guest who did not climb the cliffs as she had.

Shang Qinghua stares up again. He seems to have pulled something in his hip scrambling aboard, and it looks like this may be a problem for a another day.

He gets back to Cang Qiong to find it in chaos. Wei Qingwei and his fellow disciples are working overtime to arm the peaks as their soon -to-ascend Shizun forges one last great weapon. Bai Zhan has claimed every other peak as a practice ground - or rather they had, before Shen Jiu put three of Liu Qingge's shidis out of action and announced the next interlopers would not find him so kind.

Yang Minghuang and his disciples are papering the peaks with talismans, Mu Qingfang is drafting outer disciples, guest disciples, and talented-looking servants as herb grinders and bandage rollers, and Xian Shu Peak is on lockdown as Lin Mingbi trains her disciples day and night.

And then, on top of everything else, he finds himself cornered by the head of An Ding's maids, who informs him, arms crossed, that Nanny Meng is ill.

"I'm very sorry," says Shang Qinghua. "I'll... send a care package?"

She doesn't look impressed. "There are thirty children in your 'staff day-care' now." She sounds out each individual syllable as though Shang Qinghua’s employee benefits are now a personal insult. "People have been bringing in their children, their relatives' children, urchins off the street for all I know. Meng-mei may put up with it, but I'm not a child-minder."

Shang Qinghua is silent.

"...My lord."

"I'll take care of it," he tells her. "Of course, if I look into this problem, I may find... others."

Because I'm your boss! Not the other way around!

"My lord is welcome to find what he wishes." She salutes. "I would thank him for starting with a child-minder."

Thus begins Shang Qinghua's hours-long odyssey into babysitting.

"But why do you want us to dig holes? I'm a girl."

Said girl, all of seven, rolls her eyes with the skill of a practiced teenager.

"So is she! And her, too, and I think... Anyway, look how much fun they're all having!"

This, at least, is the truth. Lin-guniang here is the only child over six months old not knee deep in the mud.

"You're holding him wrong," Lin-guniang announces, sidestepping his argument and pointing to her little brother.

Shang Qinghua shifts "Yuan-Yuan" slightly higher in his arms. He's suspicious of babies. Babies like to vomit.

"Besides," Shang Qinghua continues, "this is one of the tests Cang Qiong Mountain offers to potential disciples! You might be a cultivator some day!"

This announcement prompts one of the other children to shriek in glee and fling mud at a second, previously cleaner child. As far as Shang Qinghua can remember, this is normal childhood behavior, and he opts to ignore it.

"By digging holes?" Lin-guniang's voice is acerbic. She’s Qing Jing material if he's ever seen it.

Shang Qinghua sighs. "By overturning your expectations. Who settles in to dig? Who gives up, who asks thoughtful questions, who throws a spoiled fit that their parents can't buy them a place?"

This has caught the attention of the three remaining children not involved in the mud fight.

"So it's like... if you ask questions, you go to Qingqing Peak?"

"Qing Jing," corrects Lin-guniang. The boy ignores her.

"Or," he says, growing more animated, "You dig a really, really big hole and you get to be one of the war gods?"

Lin-guniang won't be dissuaded from her argument. "But why holes? Lord Shang, when you go out night hunting, have you ever had to dig a hole?"

"It's not about the hole!" Yuan-Yuan makes a gurgling sound, and Shang Qinghua resettles him, giving up on the sweeping arm gestures entirely. "Sometimes, in life, even as cultivator - even as a Peak Lord! - you will have to follow the ridiculous orders and whims of a higher power. You won't have a choice. You won't be able to argue or bribe or stab your way out. All you can do... is adapt."

Ten pairs of eyes stare widely at him.

"Alright, alright. Enough with the holes. Let's..." He casts his mind back. "Have a sing-along?"

There's a brief silence, and then three children start singing at once, one boy leading the way with a folksong he is surely too young to know.

Shang Qinghua raises a hand, careful this time with Yuan-Yuan. "A sing-along. If the holes teach perseverance, this teaches... discipline. I am your Shifu today, so listen and learn." And then, as memories of too-small apartments and children's television fill his mind, Shang Qinghua launches into song.

"With a smile in your heart, just keep on trying! When we fall, we get up, and keep on flying! No matter what the weather, we can... we can laugh our cares away! I'm just a little goat!"

Yuan-Yuan rolls his eyes. Shang Qinghua hadn't even known babies could do that.

He next lays eyes on Subjects A and B at Cang Qiong's council of war.

Yue Qingyuan sits, bolt upright, next to the Sect Leader. With their matching black robes and carefully expressionless faces, they could pass for mother and son. He gave a nod to every entering Head Disciple except for Shang Qinghua, who opted to ignore him in return and save what little was left of his dignity.

Shen Qingqiu has a pinched face and barely-visible shadows beneath his eyes, but so, in turn, does his Shizun, whose usually immaculate hair is askew beneath his tilted guan.

Shangguan Mingbu, Lord of Bai Zhan, launches into an impassioned speech before the Sect Leader even gives him leave, the gist of which is that demonic armies are on the move in the borderlands.

This is interrupted, in turn, by the monumental news that Duan Minghe of Ku Xing isn't just late to the meeting.

He’s ascending.

Chaos fills the room. Shang Qinghua barely hears it.

No. His hopes, dreams, and chances of survival are pinned not on a magnificent xianxia battle in the offing, not on his imminent succession as Peak Lord. They are pinned on the fact that Shen Jiu's hand is moving ever closer to Yue Qi's and - yes! Yes! There it is!

Shut up!

It's good no one's bothering to look at him. Shang Qinghua is certain no one in Cang Qiong has ever looked less like a Peak Lord in waiting, and he's including Lin-guniang and Yuan Yuan in that statement.

Ascension, it turns out, is not a particularly dramatic process.

Shang Qinghua is almost proud of himself for that one. So little in his novel had remained low-key. Watching his master bid him farewell for seven years of solitary contemplation - to be followed by, at best, a solitary lightning strike - feels like getting a little bit of his old draft back, the one where the Heavenly Realm was more than just cookie-cutter celestial maidens and the occasional corrupt war god.

Guo Mingpen looks Shang Qinghua full in the face. His expression, on another man, might be confused with pride.

"Zhangmen-shijie's leaving you children a right mess to clean up," he says. "Not that she - or fate - has ever bothered listening to me."

"This student will do his best, Shizun."

He gets a harrumph in reply. "Your best. I didn't choose you as my successor because of your skill killing Heavenly Demons."

You didn't choose me as your successor at all, but no, no, continue!

"You are Lord of An Ding Peak, Shang Qinghua, because you know how to survive. Give the warriors their weapons, give the healers their herbs, and strengthen the barrier wards. Know when to attack, and know when to retreat - if one Peak Lord survives, then so too does Cang Qiong." Gu Mingpen folds his hands, looking very nearly like a noble immortal.

And a Shang Qinghua without a bunch of screeching corrupt data files in his head would have been all over that plan! Either him or the OG - to say nothing of Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, whose head is abruptly filled with "apocalyptic survival-xianxia fusion," the least and last of the peak lords as a rebel leader...

But back to the point! Shizun is starting to stare at him funny!

“This student will not disappoint your hopes, Shizun,” says Shang Qinghua, with a bow a court minister would be proud of.

Guo Mingpen shakes his head, turns his back, and leaves to face his destiny.

One flurried shichen later, Shang Qinghua curls up on what is now his bed.

The Peak Lord's bed.

Shen Qingqiu's infamous bamboo house, this is not. No An Ding Peak Lord has ever had time to spare for things like "aesthetic taste," and Shang Qinghua is now counted firmly in that number.

He's strengthened and re-strengthened the wards, arranged a few of his prettier demonic treasures atop the stacks of scrolls and paperwork, and placed Mobei-jun's latest gift - the Crystalline Black-Tailed Jay of True Voice -on a shelf behind the house's single wall screen.

It's less a telephone and more an answering machine with an attitude, but it's still a more-or-less direct line to his king, and Shang Qinghua isn't going to look a gift bird in its pointy, pointy beak.

"Any word?" he asks. It hisses at him.

"Right." Shang Qinghua leans back against his ahistorically comfortable pile of pillows, hands behind his head.

He has two problems right now.

Well, no, he has several hundred problems right now, from training the junior disciples to arranging babysitting to figuring out which members of the senior generation will be willing to stick around as hall masters.

He has two major problems right now.

The first, of course, is that he is being held hostage by a torture-happy robotic matchmaker and two star-crossed lovers unable to get out of their own way.

The second is Mobei-jun.

An ice-imp delivered copy of the Northern Desert's royal genealogy confirmed that Xueshan-zun, the late and unlamented "Lord of this Mountain," had been the great-grandson of Mobei-jun's grandfather's long-murdered eldest brother. There are at least seven male-line descendants of that grandfather and his brothers alive, and twenty if you count children of married-out daughters, frosty beauties being one of the primary exports of the North.

How many of them are at court?

How many are in Linguang-jun's faction, how many are in his king's, how many are plotting to seize the powers and title for their own? The Mobei-jun - his Mobei-jun's father – is increasingly a ruler in name only, but he's still a force to be reckoned with, particularly when it comes to choosing his successor.

Not that he'll have the final say. Whichever demon is left standing at the end of it – they'll get the final say. It's how the North has always been, it's how Luo Binghe got to play a few chapters of kingmaker.

It's too much.

Shang Qinghua flings himself out of bed, tripping over blankets in his haste. He pushes past the privacy screen, dodges a peck from the Crystalline Jay, and, with a smoldering bit of Mu QIngfang's apparently-useless calming incense, lights the Censer of Servitude.

He manages to straighten his robes and mostly calm his breathing before the familiar ice imp rises from its bow. It straightens itself into a soldier's posture – albeit a soldier occasionally picking rancid things out from between its teeth – as Shang Qinghua begins to lay out his commands.

"Immortal Shang wants... information on Junshang?" The ice imp's teeth chitter together as it twists its spindly-fingered hands, clearly terrified at the prospect but equally clearly unwilling to back down.

"No," says Shang Qinghua. "Not... precisely." I'm a very bad spy. I need to come to terms with that. "I want to know what the Northern Realms think of him."

"Immortal Shang's lord is a loyal –"

"Yes. I know. Who isn't? Or who is, only for the prospect of being the next Mobei-jun?" Shang Qinghua swallows. "I'm trapped on Cang Qiong for the foreseeable future. I need eyes and ears in the Palace."

"Never fear, Immortal Shang!" The imp gives him a sharp-toothed grin. "This one is very skilled at ear slicing, very skilled indeed!"

"Yes. Well. Slice off ears on your own time. Listen on mine, and report back to me what you hear. And don't tell anyone else – except my king, and only if he asks."

Which he won't. Mobei-jun retains his position as heir and de facto regent through skilled application of violence. He has Shang Qinghua to gather intelligence, and the fact that up to now he's been less useful than the original goods would have been is... Well, frankly, it's awful. It's sharp-cold-claws-ripping-out-his-tongue levels of awful, and the only saving grace is that he's still alive to redeem himself.

War is coming. He knows which side is going to win.

But too much has changed, and he doesn't know who's going to survive.

“You need any help, Yue-shixiong?”

There’s been no word from the Northern Palace as of yet. There has been word from the miserable mechanical voice in his head, and as such Shang Qinghua has dressed in his best robes, grabbed a pile of relevant scrolls, and moseyed on up to Qiong Ding Peak.

Yue Qi ignores him as long as he politely can before speaking one word. “No.” He then half-turns his back in a clear invitation for his shidi to leave.

His supposedly demon blooded shidi, but Shang Qinghua knows that’s not the problem. The problem is that he’s hit Yue Qi’s Shen Jiu shaped reverse scale one too many times, to say nothing of getting him high on millipede powder and dragging him up a mountain.

It’s clear their relationship as Peak Lords will not be a close one.

But Shang Qinghua – with difficulty – puts aside his thoughts of how difficult a passive-aggressive sect leader could make life on the logistics peak. Those are rational, ordinary problems, and right now Shang Qinghua would kill to be a man with rational, ordinary problems.

“You’ve been – ” he starts up.

“Actually, I’ve been sleeping quite poorly,” says Yue Qi. “Mu-shidi has been obligated to provide me with a powder for dreamless sleep.”

Okay! Shang Qinghua screams internally. Does that mean you’ve called my bluff on the dream demon thing? Does that mean you haven’t called my bluff on the dream demon thing?

The thing is, character-wise... He knows Shen Qingqiu a lot better.

He'd been more important, for one thing. The starter villain to set the tone for the whole adventure, vicious and cold, the evil that Luo Binghe would one day risk becoming.

And he'd stuck around for a lot longer, too, even if he'd spent most of that time sans limbs and reduced to hissing moans of hatred. Even in the late chapters, he'd starred in the occasional flashback when Shang Qinghua felt like justifying why Luo Binghe had heard of the Artifact of the Week.

Yue Qingyuan, on the other hand, had fallen victim to the loss of Airplane's notes, and up until his death scene had consisted mostly of a benign smile and an unexplained willingness to let Shen Qingqiu get away with murder.

He'd intended to take another stab at him in the extras, but even before the electrocution incident, it had been clear that was never going to happen. The only paying customers would have been Airplane's tiny crew of lost yaoi fangirls and maybe Peerless Cucumber.

Without his golden finger, therefore, he's having to rely entirely on his interpersonal skills, which was a pain enough back when Yue Qi was still willing to speak with him.

Shang Qinghua takes a deep breath.

“…Could you sign these, Acting Sect Leader?”

Yue Qi nods, and a black-robed disciple takes the pile from Shang Qinghua with barely concealed hostility.

“Don’t we have greater things to concern ourselves with?” she asks, hoisting the stack higher apparently only to prove that she can.

“Now, now, Yu-shimei. Shang-shidi is only doing what he thinks is best.” It’s the return of the kind, distant smile. Shang Qinghua feels his fingers twitching out a familiar sequence of keys.

That’s fine. He’s left a “copy” of an “ancient essay” in the pile, one titled “On Guilt.” Maybe Yue Qi will take it as another insult, maybe not, but hopefully he’s at least conscientious enough to read it.

And not guess Shang Qinghua wrote it, but his forging partner was the Ancient Spirit Wen Ku (Ku-er, to Binghe), and anachronistically bespectacled or not, she tended to know her stuff. Sometimes running his own antique shop paid dividends.

Shang Qinghua, with a sigh, gives a farewell salute and turns back towards the rainbow bridges.

<Warning!> blares the System, before his feet can even touch down. <Warning! Plot is reaching the Point of No Return!>

Shang Qinghua falls, scrambles, and makes a decent attempt at implying he’d meant to fly back to his peak by sword all along. The System offers no further details, just Point of No Return! and incongruous confetti.

What does it mean, though? Shen Jiu and Yue Qi have resumed a slow climb upwards in their Relationship Value, though you wouldn’t know it from the awkward glances at Peak Lord meetings. He’d never been given hint nor warning of a time limit before now, though he supposes that’s par for the course.

Zero-star review, System! Zero-star review!

If he is going to, begrudgingly, assign logic to the hitchhiker in his head, perhaps it considers this a prequel novel, of sorts. Tianlang-jun is about to be fought, Luo Binghe is about to be born. Whatever comes next, Yue Qi and Shen Jiu will either be facing it as *~True Love~* or status quo, but they’ll be facing it as background characters in Luo Binghe’s saga.

Shang Qinghua finds that his hands are shaking a bit. Thinking of these people as characters after all these years gives him the willies. Whatever they were when he wrote them, these are people. Free-willed people. Annoyingly free-willed people, in fact.

He slouches back to his Leisure House, disciples shying away from him as he goes.

“Shang Qing Hua Is Here.” The Crystalline Jay is the System’s first real rival in the Annoying Voices competition. “Mess-Age For Shang Qing Hua. Do Not Touch The Flow-Ers, Shang Qing Hua.”

Shang Qinghua risks a glance behind him. Sure enough, there on his desk is a pot of icy blue flowers, tinkling at every slight breeze.

“Right,” he says. “Take a reply message, please. Tell my king thank –”

“Mess-Age Was Not From Lord Mo Bei Jun.”

Shang Qinghua tilts his head, keeping the flowers in view out of the corner of his eye. “Who sent it, then?”

“Mess-Age Was From… Imp Shi Er.”

Twelth Imp. Presumably his little buddy, then. “Well, good on him to warn me – ”

A burst of icy air fills the room.

Mobei-jun, in all his glory, huadian glowing bright on his forehead and ice-blue eyes alight, stands behind Shang Qinghua’s messy, undersized desk like a dragon in a rain puddle. He clenches a fist, and the flowers disintegrate.

“Fourth cousin,” he says, by way of explanation.

Shang Qinghua reels. “Your fourth cousin? Wanted to – ” Court, assassinate, let’s go with… “— Assassinate me?”

Mobei-jun nods. An unfamiliar imp emerges from a smaller shadow portal and begins to cautiously sweep up the dusty remnants of the bouquet.

“Why?” He’d been a little afraid someone would kill his helpful little Twelfth Imp, but as far as the Northern Court is concerned, said imp outranks him.

Mobei-jun places a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Shang Qinghua is… valuable to me.”

Shang Qinghua stares up at him. Those bright eyes, and perfect cheekbones, and his lips –

Lips which quirk in a very slight smile. “Shang Qinghua is busy,” Mobei-jun announces. “This prince will take his leave.”

And Shang Qinghua is busy, that’s the worst of it. Every newly minted Peak Lord is scrambling not only to establish their authority, but to take down a demon emperor at the same time. Each peak selects their best and brightest, the elders and the most gifted, and slowly, inexorably, Cang Qiong Mountain goes to war.

Shang Qinghua has brought along a grand total of five companions – three promising disciples, and two elders, one of whom carries the none-too-impressive title of An Ding’s best swordsman. The rest of his peak is organizing the baggage trains and supply lines, with a dozen elders posted between the mountains and here, their final destination, a tiny town on the borderlands, to see that the gathering army has talisman paper, ink, spare swords, and fresh robes; that the messengers always have fresh horses; that there is clean water and nutritious food for the disciples and servants who cannot practice inedia.

Logistics is power.

Not flashy power, no, and certainly not respected power. But if Shang Qinghua really wanted to weaken Cang Qiong Mountain, he could do it. The Original Goods certainly had – favoring some peaks over others, casting blame when things went wrong, all of it more for his own frustrated amusement than actually helping Mobei-jun... who, after all, he'd hated as well.

But that's why OG!Shang Qinghua met his end in a pool of frozen blood. This Shang Qinghua has smaller goals. He's going to keep the system happy, he's going to keep his tongue safe in his mouth, and he's... Well. Maybe he'll even help some troubled idiots find happiness along the way.

POINT OF NO RETURN blinks ominously in his peripheral vision. Shang Qinghua ignores it. The System clearly hadn't read much past his lost outlines, because there was no such thing as a point of no return in Proud Immortal Demon Way. Grab a few forgotten plot points, invent new powers for Xin Mo, and have Luo Binghe whip up a few dishes in lieu of apologizing for murdering the latest wife's family with Xin Mo... Wham, bam, time for Papapa.

He's going to fix these assholes if he has to go digging for Xin Mo himself. Tonight, he has opted to book an already crowded inn, and assign Shen Jiu and Yue Qi to a room with one bed. If this doesn't get them talking – or fucking their problems out, he's really not picky at this point – then he's going to spike the wine at the victory party tomorrow.

Assuming he survives to see the victory party tomorrow.

Assuming –

His own room also has one bed, a cot shoved into the corner of what's clearly normally a storeroom. He's sat his portable desk on top of an anachronistic chair, and sat the Crystalline Jay on top of that, along with one of the various Orbs of Eternal Cold that he uses to keep snacks fresh. It glows even through the spare robe he threw over it in a half-hearted attempt at secrecy.

Shang Qinghua very deliberately closes his eyes, and eventually manages to turn his head away.

He ought to get some sleep.

Sleep is interrupted by someone grabbing him around the throat.

"My king – " he begins automatically, only to wrench his eyes open and discover an entirely different icy gaze boring into him.

"Shang-shidi," says Shen Jiu, lips twisting up in a mirthless smile. "I think we both know we need to talk."

Shang Qinghua nods his head with such force that the grip on his throat loosens. "Talk," he manages to gasp out. "Talk about – what?"

"You know things." Shen Jiu lets go of him entirely in favor of dramatically waving his sleeve. "Demons, for one." He looms back in. "Qi-ge, for another."

The use of the nickname is clearly intentional. Shang Qinghua's matchmaking efforts have, at least, been noticed, but he doubts he can count that as a win.

"I can only assume you're trying to ingratiate yourself with the Sect Leader and... myself." Shen Jiu taps his fingers along his shut fan as he speaks, his stare still pinning Shang Qinghua down like a dead butterfly.

"...I arranged a single chamber for you because –" Despite your best efforts. "—You're a couple. That – that doesn't mean –"

Shen Jiu lets him squirm for a few moments, and Shang Qinghua lets him gloat, curling down to look as harmless and guilty as possible as he times the best moments to stutter.

"Will he die if he draws his sword?" Shen Jiu's voice is flat, level. There's a grey hopelessness lurking behind it.

"Not unless he exhausts himself."

"And what is that supposed to mean? You're worse than he is!" With a quick, sharp, and none-too-graceful movement, Shen Jiu flings his fan across the room. "...I should have taken up his offer, when he said we could go on the run. Away from all this, away..." He swallows, turning away.

Shang Qinghua's voice is very quiet, when he speaks again. "Have you asked him?"

He doesn't hold out much hope for the direct option.

"No," snaps Shen Jiu. "Don't you think I've hurt him enough, you useless rat of a Shang?" His laugh is high, tinged with madness, the way a man might laugh in chains, lightheaded with pain.

Two streams of blood, never crossing. The extras he'd never written.

But it's the Point of No Return. It's the final battle. Somewhere, Su Xiyan is about to set Luo Binghe adrift, and destiny along with him. And after truth powder, intoxicating herbs, and fucking magical spiders - maybe all Shang Qinghua has left is the least likely option of all.

"I think you need to ask him."

Shen Jiu scoffs.

But Shang Qinghua forges onwards. "I think you need to go back to your room, and ask him - how he can manage Xuan Su. How you really feel about it - and don’t' scream at him either! If you trust him – ”

"Of course I –"

"Then tell him that! If you love him, tell him that! And whatever you're insecure about – whatever you'd rather die than tell me – tell him. Ask. And listen. And – and by the time of the attack tomorrow, not only will you not die with words unsaid, you'll have a battle plan." Shang Qinghua swallows, and deals his death blow. "He thinks he's not good enough for you, you know. Are you going to risk him dying believing that?"

For a moment, Shang Qinghua is absolutely convinced Shen Jiu is going to kill him.

His eyes are wild, pupils shrunk to pinpricks, and Xiu Ya is rattling in its sheath. IT takes a long, long breath before Shen Jiu blinks and looks away. "You truly are a rat, you know," he says, voice deceptively calm. "Always nosing about what others have hidden or thrown away."

He raises a hand towards Shang Qinghua, clearly just to watch him flinch, before producing a fan from his sleeve and opening it with a snap.

Shen Jiu waves it, elegantly, half in front of his face, and Shang Qinghua lets him hide.

"I knew a noblewoman once," Shen Jiu muses, and the way he says 'noblewoman' means not Qiu Haitang but 'brothel girl.' "She kept mice as pets, with little ribbons around their necks like lapdogs. I suppose much the same could be done with rats."

Is this a threat? Is this a compliment?

Shen Jiu reaches out to flick Shang Qinghua on the shoulder. "I have places to be. And you..." He positions himself – clearly deliberately – so that he's half in the door's shadow and half in the corridor's light. "If I receive word, tomorrow, that one of Cang Qiong's own was seen aiding a demon... I will say that they must have seen falsely, as I watched him open the battle by knocking himself out falling off his own sword."

And, with a last, stiff flourish of his sleeves, he leaves Shang Qinghua staring off into space.

He stares off into space, in fact, for some time.

The system alternately cheers and scolds him, <Relationship Value Increase!> <Relationship Value Decrease!> <Relationship Value - >

He tunes it out. There's nothing he can do, and at least those two bastards seem to be talking.

Or fucking. But, as previously expressed, Shang Qinghua is a desperate, desperate man, and at this point he'll accept anything provided he doesn't have to watch.

He shakes his head.

He can see the Crystalline Jay shifting around, backlit like a shadow puppet behind the robe that's meant to be hiding it. Occasionally it clacks its beak, but no words emerge.

Then tell him! If you love him, tell him that!

...Not only will you not die with words unsaid –

Shang Qinghua shakes his head again, harder this time. Mobei-jun already knows his cousins are gunning for him. Shang Qinghua spent half his time in the carriage whispering intel to the Crystalline Jay. There's nothing else worth telling him before the battle – no more tactical advice, no more warnings.

I've done all I can, thinks Shang Qinghua, and then he says it aloud for good measure.

But if – if – No. Mobei-jun will be fine. He has to be fine. He’s the strongest of his clan, he can fucking teleport, Shang Qinghua has gifted him half the artifacts in his antique store, and there's nothing... There's nothing...

"Shang Qinghua is... valuable to me."

Shang Qinghua closes his eyes, mutters a curse, and walks over towards his terrible, sharp-beaked answering machine one more time.

Morning dawns, sunlight slowly burning away the mountain mists.

On the damp ground, a hundred cultivators, from ancient masters to nervous Huan Hua disciples, lie in wait.

Yue Qingyuan and Can Qiong are in the van, the lights of the concealment array tickling Shang Qinghua's nose as he squints up at his fearless leader and his fearless leader's boyfriend.

They're silent - but so is everyone else. The concealment array ought to hide their voices as well as their qi signatures, but no one is taking chances.

On one side of Shang Qinghua is Ran Qingmo, newly Lord of Ku Xing peak, eyes closed in meditation, lips barely moving. Liu Qingge is on his other, polishing Chenluan as slowly and cautiously as he can while quivering in anticipation.

The demons will know this is a trap. But Tianlang-jun is brokenhearted and furious. A trap, for him, just means an opportunity to slaughter half the cultivation world at once.

Poor bastard.

Shang Qinghua adjusts his grip on his own sword. He has talismans. He has a War God to hide behind. He has - he has given Mobei-jun information about his cousin's plans, and - and now isn't the time to think about what all else he said. He can make an utter fool of himself in front of his king tomorrow.

Today, they both just have to survive.

<Point Of No Return!> the System helpfully reminds him.

But for once, Shang Qinghua isn't frightened.

It might be the simple fact that he won – or he lost – last night. Today is the denouement.

Or it might be the heavenly demon about to charge in at the head of an army.

Yeah. It might be that.

His sword is heavy in his shaking hands.

Screw you, System. This daddy has bigger things to worry about.

Chapter 6 Notes:

And here we are! I meant to finish this thing... two 7/9 weeks ago, but it's been a fun ride, and I hope it was fun for y'all as well.
Smiles!
Lou

Chapter Text

Tianlang-jun is a force of nature.

Frantically forming hand seals, Shang Qinghua dodges a lashing whip of demonic qi. Two of his shidimei fall around him, bleeding from their eyes - Yao-shimei keens in agony, while Murong-shidi, poor bastard, convulses a few times before falling still.

"Medic!"

But of course they won't get one – the only Can Qiao disciple he spots is trying desperately to reattach a Daoist nun's severed leg, and, from the blood around them, it may be too little too late.

And Tianlang-jun, said force of nature, has also come in force. He clearly knows this is a trap – perhaps some of Shang QInghua's letters to Su Xiyan got through after all, and that's one more good deed for him to regret – and he's brough a significantly larger force with him than anyone expected.

The best that can be said is that he's not fighting smart – it's brute power and raw fury. They still have a decent shot at winning this thing. But as for the cannon fodder, otherwise known as Shang Qinghua’s juniors and Peak Lord Shang's responsibilities...

There will be a lot of sword mounds across the Great Sects, when this is done. He'll be building more than a few of them himself.

But for now... For now, Shang Qinghua needs to survive.

Which is proving doubly difficult considering just how much of Tianlang-jun's terrible surprise pop-up army hails from the North.

No Lianfang-jun – Shang Qinghua's sources have suggested he's decided to claim injury rather than face this obvious trap – but he's spotted ice demon after ice demon, including some he could have sworn were Mobei-jun's retainers, and – worst of all – has yet to catch a single glimpse of his king.

Mobei-jun is not a subtle fighter. If he's not here, he's either taken a leaf out of his uncle's book – not likely – or the assassination attempts have already started.

None of the three – three! – so far ice demons who've attempted to slay Shang Qinghua personally have been very forthcoming on the subject, and he doubts the fourth, “stealthily” approaching him now, intends to be a change on that front.

He dodges yet another glistening, icy blade, hoping the demon's own momentum will send it into easy range of his own. He's been hanging out – sorry, standing his ground – near the edge of this mountain pass's only decent precipice, because about the only thing high-ranking ice demons can't do is fly.

Sure enough, the hulking warrior, white-streaked hair trailing behind him, sends a neck-height slash towards Shang Qinghua – or, rather, where Shang Qinghua now isn't. He skids forward, and a flame talisman launched at his back does the rest of the job, sending Cousin Number Whatever flailing over the edge.

Job well done, me. Job well done.

That, of course, is when the cliff begins to crumble away beneath him – and that, of course, is when he spots Mobei-jun.

Shang Qinghua makes it onto his sword just in time, grabbing a lost Huan Hua disciple by the back of his robes and heaving him back onto solid ground. A few more have fallen – most rising back up on their swords – but with Tianlang-jun's next blow, the very mountains around them split, sending massive slabs of rock and earth cascading downwards.

He makes a defensive seal with his hands, catching one boulder and hurling it after Cousin Whatever into the abyss – and then, even knowing he shouldn't, he makes a cautious beeline towards his king.

Well. Beeline may be stretching it. The bee is lost, and trying to be stealthy, and keeps having to dodge cultivator-demon duels along the way.

Mobei-jun looks – there are no two ways about it – magnificent. His midnight blue cape flows behind him, there's a terrifying icy blade in each hand, and his eyes glimmer like frozen stars. A diamond pendant, however, is resplendent between his equally resplendent pecs, and, unfortunately, Shang Qinghua recognizes it.

The Gem of Baiying, pried from the lost tomb of Wei Zhuang'er while Liu Qingge wasn't looking. It allows for the creation of a perfect facsimile, and Shang Qinghua gave it to his king less in the expectation that he'd use it and more in the conviction that there was no such thing as too careful.

This isn't his king. Where the fuck is Mobei-jun?

Unfortunately, he's now too close to stand still. Three demons lock onto him at once - one clearly a northern courtier, the others in the skimpy red silks of the south.

"Well, look at that," says the nearest, opening her mouth to reveal several rows of jagged, shark-like teeth. "A little meal, come right to me. Stay still, little morsel... Let auntie get a good look at you."

Shang Qinghua raises his blade. "I'm fine over here, if it's all the same to you." The ice demon is trying to flank him, and he adjusts his stance, power flickering up and over his sword.

"Auntie" is the first one to leap, claws extended; Shang Qinghua sidesteps, keeping his sword between himself and the Northerner, and launches a talisman towards her.

"You think your pathetic fires can harm a daughter of –"

Her traditional evil gloating is cut off as the ice talisman snaps into action, freezing her mid lunge. He isn't sure if it's killed her or just frozen her, but either way she's out of the fight for now. Her red-clad, bull-horned companion lets out a bellow and charges, and Shang Qinghua manages not only to dodge but to take a slice out of the demon's shoulder with his sword as he does so.

I might almost look cool.

But that's put the ice demon and the bull on the same side of the ledge, and Shang Qinghua uncomfortably close to the edge of it. He tightens his grip on his sword, trying to mentally run through his talisman inventory, and flickers his eyes over to see if help is coming.

The nearest cultivator, in the yellow robes of Huan Hua, catches his eye for a moment and then shrieks as a blast of red liquid hits her in the face. Her posture goes slack for a second, and then, sword in hand, she rounds on the nun in Daoist whites next to her.

Blood parasites. He's going to take that as a "no" on the help.

But he doesn't have long to be distracted. With less a signal than an attempt to shove each other out of the way, his opponents charge for him.

Shang Qinghua meets the bull's first blow with his sword, skidding backwards and barely managing not to fall. Scrambling, sword flailing wildly, he makes solid ground again only for a blast of icy air to shove him, hard, into a boulder.

The ice demon grins at him with jagged, translucent teeth. "The prince's little pet. We meet at last –!"

Something huge, and black, and terrifying seizes the demon in its icy jaws and tosses him over the cliff.

A wolf, twice the size of any of Xueshan-zun's hunting pack, with a blue-black pelt, hoary breath, and eyes gleaming like shards of diamond. With a hoarse, vanishing cry, the bull-horned demon follows its erstwhile compatriot down - and then the beast rounds on Shang Qinghua.

"Nice... nice doggy?" His hands are sweating against his swordhilt.

And then he gets a closer look at its eyes.

Its very, very familiar eyes.

And the faint huadian between them. And the distinctly smug, proud, and altogether un-canine tilt of its head. And, maybe, also, the fact that among the talismans and trinkets he's flung at Mobei-jun over the last month was the fabled Langhai Moonstone of controversial late-chapter wife Yue Guangshi.

(Is she a werewolf or a catgirl, good ol' Peerless Cucumber had asked at the start of his multi-post rant. Good times.)

The wolf draws itself up to its full height, and accepts Shang Qinghua's hasty salute with a nod of its – his – own. Then he throws back his head and howls, as demons scatter in all directions.

They lock eyes one last time, and then leap off in separate directions, back into the fray.

Tianlang-jun has his back against the wall.

The fiercest fighters of the Great Sects have cornered him on a round, appropriately-stage-like ledge - Shang Qinghua can almost see the camera equipment - but with every blow of his sword, another swathe of qi, another legendary war god falls.

Liu Qingge takes a blast to the chest, and his rolling form nearly collides with Shang Qinghua as he's clambering cautiously onto the ledge. Liu-bro gives him a sharp nod before scrambling back to his feet and following his own slicing sword glares back towards Tianlang-jun.

He leaps over two bodies to do it – one of them, Shang Qinghua recognizes as An Anning, a senior Can Qiao disciple. With a brief, murmured prayer to her departing spirit, he army-crawls over towards her body and its medical pouch.

Because there are certain things Shang Qinghua cannot do, and fighting a demon emperor is one of them – but there are also things he can do. No one goes tomb robbing as often as he does without learning the basics of emergency first aid, xianxia edition.

He takes her pouch, and then carefully but hastily arranges her body into a more dignified posture before gently closing her staring eyes.

The next body is whimpering softly, a boy in the saffron robes of a monk, clutching the stump of an arm to his chest. Shang Qinghua, moving as stealthily as he can, applies a few Celestial Luanxing leaves to the wound. Mu Qingfang, perhaps, could have reattached the arm at the elbow, but all Shang Qinghua can do is numb the pain. The boy gives him a grateful, wretched nod.

The next body is dead, an old woman in Taoist robes. The next, a Huan Hua disciple Shang Qinghua recognizes from Yang Gulch, is so close as to make no difference. Shang Qinghua lays a Luanxing leaf over Han-guniang's eyes.

He takes a long breath, exhaustion filling his bones. It's a mistake.

He must have been seen, because a bolt of qi scorches into the ground and sends Han-guniang's body flying. Shang Qinghua skitters to the left, redrawing his sword but not leaving the medical pack behind.

"Push him back!"

That's Yue Qi's voice, or, rather, Yue Qingyuan's, the most powerful man in the cultivational world. Monks and priests and minor sect leaders jump forward as though reinvigorated merely by his words, only to be shoved back once more.

Tianlang-jun laughs, the sound tinged with madness.

"Cang Qiong! To me!"

And now Yue Qi's spotted him. With a burst of qinggong that might even look impressive, Shang Qinghua leaps over to join the Peak Lords – or which of them are left. Ran Qingmo is nursing his bleeding eyes, and Qi Qingqi is a flash of purple in the distance, but four of the twelve are here at least - him, Liu Qingge, Yue Qi, and Shen Jiu.

Five, he realizes, as he spots Bao Qingpai of the Talismans Peak, hands moving frantically to set up a shield and give the strategists a chance to strategize. Sweat drips down their face, and, moving cautiously, Shang Qinghua offers them a pill from one of the more clearly-labeled jars in the pouch. They swallow it in a gulp, without even water to wash it down, and the shield brightens, cloud and lotus patterns appearing and fading across its surface amidst the twisting columns of seal script.

"Liu Qingge." Yue Qi gives a sharp twist of his head, and Qingge-shidi nods, moving on light feet towards Tianlang-jun's left.

"He'll run distraction," hisses Shen Jiu to Shang Qinghua. "Join him, if you think you can." Sharp eyes land on Shang Qinghua's face for a moment before darting back to Yue Qi, and where Yue Qi's hand rests on the hilt of Xuan Su.

"Are you..." and Yue Qi swallows, eyes on Shen Jiu.

"Ready? Of course I am." And Shen Jiu steps forward, to cover the hand on Xuan Su's hilt with his own. His gaze barely flickers over to Bao Qingpai. "An exit, on my say."

Shang Qinghua adjusts his footing and draws a few of his most distracting talismans, edging over to where Liu Qingge stands, sword drawn, a ball of restless energy.

The barrier shudders beneath a wave of demonic qi. Only Shang Qinghua flinches back; Liu Qingge even edges forward, dancing from foot to foot like a hound about to be loosed.

"Now," says Shen Qingqiu.

The center of the barrier opens, seal script dancing along the edges, an overworked CGI department's dream. Shang Qinghua barely notices. His eyes are glued to Shen Jiu and Yue Qi as, with a beam of blinding white light, they both draw Xuan Su from its scabbard.

Qi illuminates the ledge, pushing the demonic energy back even as Tianlang-jun charges with a rough, wordless bellow of rage. But the raw energy of it is tempered, bamboo leaves dancing amidst the white light.

Liu Qingge is the only one who doesn't seem blinded by it. He leaps towards Tianlang-jun, and then off to one side, Chengluan gleaming in his hands. His smile is smug, but his eyes betray the truth of it - they shine with fury.

"This is for meimei," he hisses, and dodges another blow.

Shang Qinghua, scuttling along to keep Liu-bro between him and the infuriated demon lord, is the one who spots the signal. He yanks Liu Qingge back, and dodges his reflexive swing of Chengluan by flinging his shidi, sword still in hand, towards a threatening looking ox demon that's still on its feet.

Job done, bodyguard in place, he risks a look back, and he risks it just in time.

Shen Jiu keeps a hand on Yue Qi's back, their energies mingling, as Xuan Su shatters Tianlang-jun's sword in a single blow.

Shang Qinghua's vision fractures. He's not sure if it's the System, the adrenaline, or just the waves of righteous and demonic qi that are buffeting the ledge and flinging cultivators hither and yon.

He sees Wei Qingwei dart forward, the massive, talisman-carved chains in his hands agleam with power. Bao Qingpai is behind him, scanning the mountain, until with the slam of a single talisman a faultline cracks open, a thin cavern dropping down into the darkness.

He sees Xuan Su, hilt first this time, smash into Tianlang-jun's face, the move owing far more to dirty tricks on the streets than to anything taught at Cang Qiong.

And then he pushes his way through fleeing demons and pursuing cultivators, back towards the ledge where he'd last seen Mobei-jun.

Blue eyes meet his, for a moment, from the depths of a shadowy portal, and then the portal fades.

Shang Qinghua swallows. Then, adrenaline fading and aches taking its place, he picks his way back up the mountain.

Tianlang-jun, lies, broken and chained, in the midst of a glowing and growing array. Bao Qingpai is supervising efforts to lower him into the mountain, but most of the crowd gathered around them seems to have come merely to gawk.

"Triumph!" declares a white-bearded man in gold, who Shang Qinghua recognizes with a surge of nausea as the Old Palace Master.

A silver-haired woman in purple steps forward, her every step seeming to float just above the ground. "Sect Leader Yue," she says, and salutes, her trailing line of disciples following suit. "You are a hero, this day."

Yue Qi bows his head. "We are all heroes."

"Some more than others," says Shen Jiu from his left side. They haven't let go of each other since the battle began. "You've eliminated the demon emperor – the last true demon emperor, if the heavenly bloodline ends with him. You're the face of the cultivation world, now, Zhangmen-shixiong, and I defy anyone to deny it."

No one responds to his glare – or, well, almost no one.

Yue Qi spins him around in his arms until they're face to face. "Marry me."

Shen Jiu shoves at him. Shang Qinghua braces himself, but – "I said I'd marry you last night. Don't ply me for compliments – and don't make me change my mind."

Yue Qi hefts Shen Jiu off the ground. "But I want them to know. I want everyone to know. You're not my secret, not my concubine –"

Shen Jiu snaps open a fan, managing to cover both their faces in the small space allotted to them.

"You're my strength. The other half of my soul."

"Qi-ge, please let me introduce you to some better poetry." But the fan snaps shut.

Yue Qi, gently, lowers Shen Jiu back to the ground – only for Shen Jiu to grab his face and yank him down into a kiss.

Shang Qinghua scans the crowd. They seem... moderately on board. Some more than others. "Finally," hisses QI Qingqi, and beside her a few Xian Shu disciples are grinning so widely their faces are in danger of splitting in half.

The kiss ends. Shen Jiu, firmly, puts a hand on Xuan Su's hilt, and Yue Qi rests his own gently atop it. "Together," whispers Shen Jiu, and its the softest Shang Qinghua has ever heard his voice, so soft even his practiced eavesdropping ears have to strain to hear. "Together."

<Congratulations! Congratulations! Congratulations! Important things must be said three times! Host has attained VICTORY! Status: A Rank, 80% efficiency. Rewards..."

He doesn't hear the rest of it. Shang Qinghua, exhausted, relieved, and alive, collapses to the ground into well-deserved unconsciousness.

Mobei-jun finds him on the banks of the Luo River.

Shang Qinghua is picking his way around the fragile ice, following his author's instincts and the fading remnants of Su Xiyan's qi.

"Gotcha," he says, not a moment too soon, and hefts the fabric-and-talisman wrapped bundle from the water. A sleeping face is barely visible inside it, to all appearances a completely normal human child bearing no Marks of Destiny whatsoever. "Alright, kid, let's -"

"Shang Qinghua."

He doesn't drop his protagonist, but it's a near-run thing.

Mobei-jun towers over him, his furs even more luxurious and jewelry even more shiny than usual. He's decked himself in more silver than he'll probably wear to his coronation, all of it agleam with lapis, diamonds, and black jade.

"This king wishes to..." and then he abruptly trails off at the sight of the bundle in Shang Qinghua's arms. "Whose is that?"

Shang Qinghua takes in a long, deep breath, and then steps out on a leap of faith. "Junshang's."

Mobei-jun's eyes widen fractionally. More carefully than Shang Qinghua would have thought, he taps Luo Binghe on the forehead. "...It's human."

"Half-human. His mother sealed his powers before..." He waves a hand. There's no body in evidence, no Huan Hua robes floating amidst the ice, but if Su Xiyan survived to watch them from the trees, she's exceptionally well hidden.

And... well. Look at this little guy. His little nose. The complete absence of a newborn's normal squishy-alien appearance. No one's abandoning a baby this supernaturally lovable unless they've got no other choice.

I'll kill the Palace Master for you, Su-guniang, he solemnly vows, or may the mechanical monster in my head return.

Mobei-jun interrupts his thoughts. "Are you taking it to your sect?" Sect is said with all the icy scorn the Lord of the Northern Desert can muster.

Shang Qinghua shakes his head. "I have... an employee in town. She helps clean the antiques." Binghe's adoptive mother had lost her own infant shortly before finding the baby in the river. He'd hoped that his not-by-that-name employee healthcare policy would help avert that outcome, but the last letter from his shopclerk had put paid to those hopes. At least the poor little girl would get a proper funeral this time.

"And you trust her?"

Shang Qinghua nods. "I do." More than you know.

"You have a mission, then."

Shang Qinghua tilts up his head at Mobei-jun, who's almost... fidgety. It's...

Oh.

And then it hits him like a hammer. HIs last message. His stupid, stupid, stupid last message.

"My king! May this servant ask a favor of you?" He can't kneel while holding a baby and standing on a none-too-stable piece of ice, but he bows as low as he can without waking said baby up. "...Please?"

Mobei-jun regally inclines his head.

"Do you still have the Langhai Moonstone?"

Two disguised demons and one also disguised righteous cultivator knock on the door of a little house.

Shang Qinghua has only seen this particular employee of his a couple of times, but there's no sense taking risks – even if that risk is just that she'll think her boss is a deadbeat dad. Not that "Shi Qian" is a deadbeat! Shi Qian has backstory, thank you very much.

"Niangzi," says Shang Qinghua, face veiled even under his elaborate weimao, and face thoroughly distracted from by the enormous blue-black wolf at his side, "I beg your assistance. My – this child, begs your assistance."

Very sensibly, she's about to close the door on him even so, right up until she catches a proper glimpse of Baby Binghe.

She reaches out for him as Shang Qinghua spins a story of a forbidden love affair, of a political framejob, of seven degrees of kinship sentenced to death. "This is all I have left of her," he begs, voice breaking, before reiterating that if anyone knows of the child, his whole family could pay the price. "I have... I have no option but to throw myself on your mercy. The man at the shop said you..."

He trails off, thinking of that tiny girl in her tiny grave.

"I can nurse him," Luo Binghe's foster mother says, adjusting the tiny, adorable bundle in her arms. He nestles his face against her shoulder.

Charismatic even in infancy. There's my son!

Shang Qinghua hands her a heavy string of coins. "I'll send more, soon. Something of his mother's, if I can..." He lets his voice trail off into a miserable sigh.

She shakes her head, giving him a tiny, sad smile. "Life springs from sorrow, young master. All we can do is live on."

Mobei-jun follows him as he walks away, though he stays a wolf only for the first few steps. As though he were waiting until Shang Qinghua glanced back at him, the amulet glows, and he stands, shedding the wolf pelt like a cloak.

Yue Guangshi, upon leaving wolf form, had generally been naked; Mobei-jun, at least, is wearing pants. He's barefoot, revealing trim ankles and muscled calves, and as for above the waistline – look, it's not like Shang Qinghua has never seen these bits of his king before. He's just never seen them all at once.

And after saying a variety of stupid things. Stupid things that Mobei-jun, apparently, heard, and yet apparently isn't stabbing him over. He's not even firing him.

He just played my pet wolf, no questions asked!

Confusion spirals inside of Shang Qinghua, confusion mixed with the even more dangerous, impossible emotion of hope.

Because if he's not angry –!

"Shang Qinghua,” says Mobei-jun. He summons a few shadows, some of his previous jewelry appearing – gems in his hair, silver armbands, even a silver nailguard on one clawed finger as though he's the lead in a Qing dynasty harem drama. The effect is, nevertheless, devastating, and Shang Qinghua nearly misses his next few words. "I request... clarity."

Some of the bubbles inside of Shang Qinghua's chest burst. A creeping nausea starts to set in. "...Of course, my king."

"You said, in your last message to this king, that I was 'unfairly handsome' and 'smarter than anyone knows,' that ‘I don't know what I'd do with myself if I lost you, don't die, you can't die.' That..." Mobei-jun swallows. He seems to need every muscle in his torso to do it. Shang Qinghua can't tell if he's nervous or just drawing the moment out for effect, but in fairness the pec movements are robbing him of most of his ability to think.

"That," Mobei-jun continues, "you 'think you might be in love' with me. Shang Qinghua. Have you finally accepted this king's suit?"

There are three hundred love interests who would probably have something charming to say in this moment. Even Shen Jiu or Yue Qi might manage something charming to say in this moment. Shang Qinghua, mind reeling and chest already tight with something between anticipation and dread, says, “This king’s what?”

It’s a bad moment. Mobei-jun’s face is darkening. There’s something close to embarrassment, of all things, in his eyes, and Shang Qinghua isn’t sure how to exist in the same dimension as that.

It doesn’t matter what Luo Binghe would do in this instant. It matters what Shang Qinghua does, and what Shang Qinghua does is turn his malfunctioning brain off entirely.

He grabs Mobei-jun around the shoulders, hoists himself up, and kisses him full on the lips.

A nose bruise, some awkward gnashing of teeth, and a pleasantly stinging bite mark on his lower lips later, Shang Qinghua nestles into Mobei-jun’s shoulder.

The furry cape has made its return, thankfully. It’s cold. His fingers are wet and numb. A little voice in his head, the one that does all his paperwork, is pointing out that if he’s going to be anything resembling the consort of the Northern Desert, he’s got a lot of work on human-demon relations to do.

<Entering Standby Mode!> chirps the other voice in his head, and Shang Qinghua is very proud of his failure to flinch. <Mission Status: Unavailable. Estimated Time: Sixteen…>

Yeah, screw you too, thinks Shang Qinghua, as his old friend <Please Stand By!> reenters his life. You thought I couldn’t write a love story?

I’ve written two.

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Micah_Nightmare on Chapter 1 Wed 14 Sep 2022 04:44PM UTC

SGAGAGQGAGQH plsss i need to know more!!! What happend?? Aah poor sqh, looks like his days of matchmaker isnt over

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melonpan (Guest) on Chapter 1 Wed 14 Sep 2022 04:51PM UTC

This is hilarious 😂
Poor SQH, he can't turn his back on Qijiu for even a second

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Elf_Kid on Chapter 1 Wed 14 Sep 2022 06:43PM UTC

This is excellent and amazing and clever, and I like it a lot! Thank You for this!

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DestinyDenied on Chapter 1 Wed 14 Sep 2022 07:44PM UTC

This is fantastic. I was literally laughing out loud at several points at poor Qinghua’s inner dialogue. Poor baby. What he has to deal with! But I love that Mobei Jun just came along for the ride because he didn’t want to go home. And he gets to commit some arson as a treat. And the way he looked at Qinghua and said he sees potential? Heart attack initiated.
Love this and I am eager for more! Wishing you all the creative vibes!

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Eicas on Chapter 1 Wed 14 Sep 2022 10:38PM UTC

Oh nooo, poor sqh... 😂
This was excellent! Amazing concept, beautifully executed, an incredibly good time all the way through to the last sentence. I loved it! ♥

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Asupara (Guest) on Chapter 1 Thu 15 Sep 2022 12:46AM UTC

I love that Mobei-Jun committing arson was included. I am enjoying this.

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DesdemonaKaylose on Chapter 1 Thu 15 Sep 2022 01:03AM UTC

Hdjfnf very good very good
I love rescue team SQQ + teenage MBJ

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FPM (Guest) on Chapter 1 Thu 15 Sep 2022 01:10AM UTC

awww XD

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alatyr13 on Chapter 1 Sun 18 Sep 2022 02:48AM UTC

Poor Shang Qinghua 😭 he tries so hard! At this relate he'll have a better relationship with Shen Jiu than Yue Qingyuan 😂😂 I love his schemes with Mobei-Jun, the couple the plots together stays together!

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uchifer on Chapter 1 Sun 18 Sep 2022 01:29PM UTC

Airplane can not stop until he reaches QiJiu's marriage 😂

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PanPow on Chapter 1 Wed 05 Oct 2022 07:41PM UTC

i loved reading this :D

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hereticjellyzzzz on Chapter 1 Tue 24 Jan 2023 03:18AM UTC

I love this story, shang qinghua is going to fuck things up so badly but it's going to work up somehow!

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Kolleh on Chapter 1 Mon 19 Feb 2024 09:49PM UTC

This is such a fun premise! I'm enjoying the sheer hilarity of Shang Qinghua trying to fix the least fixable relationship in the story—hopefully he will get to run a little interference for Tianlang-jun and Su Xiyan as well.

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AwesomeOnly on Chapter 1 Wed 12 Jun 2024 02:30AM UTC

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

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Justghostingby on Chapter 2 Wed 01 Feb 2023 06:57PM UTC

Poor ahang qinghua, keeping this relationship going is going to lead him to an early grave, and su xiyan isn’t helping. At least he seems to have gained a sort-of friend in liu qingge.

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kyme on Chapter 2 Wed 01 Feb 2023 07:18PM UTC

I'm screaming, the industrial amounts of vinegar Yue Qi is chugging 😭😭😭😭😭😭

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Paramichi on Chapter 2 Thu 02 Feb 2023 03:29AM UTC

Good to see you back, thank you for the new chapter ❤🥰😆

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ominous_snapple_fact on Chapter 2 Thu 02 Feb 2023 03:50AM UTC

I like the way you’ve written Liu Qingge in this even if he’s only a background character. Sometimes he seems so thoroughly unpleasant and blunt that I wonder if his looks are the only reason his reputation is not as bad as Shen Jiu’s. In this though he seems somewhat sweet in his friendship with Shang Qinghua

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Mysterymew on Chapter 2 Thu 02 Feb 2023 06:01AM UTC

*kudos**kudos**kudos**kudos**kudos*

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DestinyDenied on Chapter 2 Fri 03 Feb 2023 12:50AM UTC

“Shen Jiu thinks that Liu Qingge has a crush on Yue Qi. Yue Qi thinks that Shen Jiu has a crush on Liu Qingge. Liu Qingge thinks that swords are really neat.”
I snorted out my drink 😂 oh Liu Qingge, never change.

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