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SVSSS Big Bang 2024 - 2025
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Published:
2025-02-17
Completed:
2025-02-17
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Antiquated Practices

Summary:

“Would the honorable Mobei-Jun agree?”

“WHAT!?”

There’s a loud crash, and everyone’s attention instantly flicks over to Shang Qinghua standing off the side. He seems to have dropped some large platter of something - he should not be doing something so lowly as serving things, he’s not a servant any longer. But it is very typical of him to mindlessly reach out and start doing whatever unfinished tasks he sees before him, grumbling all the while as if someone is forcing him into it. Right now, he looks gobsmacked. Pale and wide eyed and gaping in shock, looking shaken to his core.

“Marriage!?” Shang Qinghua demands, his voice high and strangled.

-

Several misunderstandings happen in a row.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter 1: Banquets and Messengers

Notes:

This chapter is 6k words long

Chapter Text

Mobei-Jun is silently suffering through a banquet when some fool with delusions of self importance decides to make it worse. The banquet is supposedly meant to help unify the Southern and Northern demon clans, giving them a chance to interact and get to know each other in a place that isn’t an active battlefield. Personally, Mobei-Jun doesn’t see how forcing two groups of people who already hate each other to spend time together will lead to anything but more friction, but this was Luo Binghe’s idea. Or his human spouse’s idea - it’s impossible to tell, as both are treated with equal importance by the demon emperor. 

Seeing as this very unpleasant banquet very much isn’t Mobei-Jun’s idea, it should follow that it wouldn’t be him that would have to oversee or host the event. But that is not so. Luo Binghe and his human lover have both vanished off the face of the earth with little to no warning, as they are wont to do, leaving all of his plans and duties to be longsufferingly carried through by Mobei-Jun yet again. Including this banquet. 

It is an exercise in misery. The atmosphere is brightly tense and artificial, all forced smiles and fake laughter. It had been made very clear to them all that the first person to shed blood at this event would face the full might of the demon emperor’s retribution, leaving people with nursed grudges and long held rivalries gritting their teeth through conversation and entertainment with their most hated enemies. There seems to be some sort of unspoken game afoot, in which everyone is trying to subtly provoke their most loathed enemies into striking first, leaving them to suffer the brunt of Luo Binghe’s punishment. And, for that matter, to make violence permitted for everyone else. 

Insufferable. Mobei-Jun despises games like this, all slippery words and indirect hostility. He does his best to warn anyone off from even trying it on him with the expression on his face alone. It seems to work, people for the most part leaving him alone, only the boldest ones stubborn enough to spend more than a few moments with him. 

This would be so much more bearable if these people didn’t mistakenly think they could get something from him by trying to ineffectively worm their way into his good graces. Or, for that matter, if he could have Shang Qinghua at his side. His company might make this marginally less grueling to suffer through, a running muttered commentary at his side about how rude and ridiculous everyone is being, something amusingly spiteful to focus on. 

But instead, Shang Qinghua is scurrying around the banquet hall, darting in and out of the room to presumably bark at the cooks in the kitchens, the waiters in the halls, and the servants taking care of everything else. Mobei-Jun was made to host, which means that Shang Qinghua was made to manage the actual logistics of hosting dozens of demon royalty, along with their expansive retinues that suddenly balloons the actual list of people in need of being accounted and provided for into the hundreds. A single demon lord is, apparently, at least ten mouths to feed. 

So Shang Qinghua says, at any rate. 

Mobei-Jun picks up some sort of vegetable that seems to have been wrapped in a thin slice of meat, before being deep fried and sprinkled with a garnish. It smells mouthwatering, a world away from the putrid dishes most of the Southern demons seem to be favoring - rotten meat, so old fashioned. Mobei-Jun prefers his meat rare, close enough to raw to be oozing bright red blood. But he simply inspects it for a moment before putting it back down again. 

He doesn’t eat food served at parties. It’s bad enough, when only a handful of people have access to his meals before they reach him, but in a public setting like this there are too many opportunities for too many people. Who would he even kill, if he were poisoned? It is better to save his hunger for after. 

Someone is talking at him. Again. 

“--long admired your direct, simple strength,” this newest person is saying to him. A Northern demon, not one that he immediately recognizes. A vaguely familiar face, like he’s seen them at other similar events before. 

They have gills on the sides of their neck, and they drip with pearl decorations. Their demon mark - Mobei-Jun recognizes this much, at least. The Blood Coral Clan, neither particular allies nor enemies of the Mobei Clan, mostly because they don’t fight for the same sort of territory. A non-entity, his father had dismissively called them. Unworthy of attention or consideration. 

His father had, of course, been an incredibly arrogant man. 

The Blood Coral demon seems to be expectantly waiting for some sort of response. Mobei-Jun, entirely unaffected by such expectant silences, simply stares at him. He will respond when there is something worth responding to. 

“It is an honor to be invited to this event,” he says after a stretched out moment of fruitless waiting, his tone seeming to imply that Mobei-Jun crafted the invite list. It was not. Shang Qinghua was responsible. “Not only does it give me the pleasure of your, ah - undemanding company, but in suitably significant circumstances as well. This should be done properly.” 

He wonders if he’s about to be challenged to a death match despite Luo Binghe’s veiled threats. It would be a welcome break from the monotony of bloodless socializing. 

“Most honored Mobei-Jun, you are a hunter and a warrior,” the Blood Coral demon says. “You’re a fierce threat on the battlefield, deadly and unstoppable--” 

Quietly, almost idly, Mobei-Jun has been carefully keeping track of Shang Qinghua’s movements the entire evening. As his royal advisor, he no longer needs to clutch at Mobei-Jun’s cape at every moment for safety, huddling by his side to avoid being left alone and undefended with other demons. People know that if he is harmed, that Mobei-Jun will be personally and gravely offended. Attacking Linguan-Jun was good for that much, at least - it made a strong statement that he won’t stay his hand no matter who it is that infringes upon his human. It had been the last thing on his mind at the time, but it’s served him well ever since. 

“--sheer physical might is your strength. Mine, however, lies in diplomacy, strategy. I am in awe of your martial prowess, but only wish to assist you in the areas that you may be… lacking--” 

Right now, Shang Qinghua has entered the banquet hall once again, fussing over some minor thing, hissing at waiters and nervously chirping insincere niceties at the guests he passes. Without even looking, Mobei-Jun knows how close he’s incidentally drifted, behind and to the right of him. It soothes him, to know exactly where he is. 

“Hope you’re enjoying the food! That’s - oh, wow, that’s a straight up eyeball you’ve got there, huh? That’s-- well, I’m glad someone’s eating them! The less leftovers the better, am I right?” Shang Qinghua rambles inanely as he goes, making it even easier to keep track of his whereabouts. 

“--this is a compliment, you understand. I think the two of us would cover each other's weaknesses, and would each help complete the other. With your raw strength and my intellect--” 

Mobei-Jun is paying attention to what the Blood Coral demon is saying. Enough attention, anyway. Sufficient attention. It all has the noise of useless, empty praise and self important ego stroking. Very common. It is slowly dawning on him that he should perhaps be listening harder, though, because more and more people seem to be staring in their direction as the demon keeps talking. 

The Blood Coral demon takes a single audacious step closer to him. Too close, too dangerous. Within easy killing range, within reach of both fang and claw. He smiles up at Mobei-Jun with an arrogant confidence to his smile, perfectly aware of what he’s done. The audience around them stirs, whispering. Finally given a show. 

“I think that a marriage between the two of us would be very beneficial,” he says, lifting his chin slightly as if offering up his throat to be cut - offering himself up on a silver platter for Mobei-Jun like a prime cut of meat, comfortably certain that he will be accepted with gratitude and pleasure. There is not nearly enough fear or tension in his shoulders. “Would the honorable Mobei-Jun agree?” 

“WHAT!?” 

There’s a loud crash, and everyone’s attention instantly flicks over to Shang Qinghua standing off the side. He seems to have dropped some large platter of something - he should not be doing something so lowly as serving things, he’s not a servant any longer. But it is very typical of him to mindlessly reach out and start doing whatever unfinished tasks he sees before him, grumbling all the while as if someone is forcing him into it. Right now, he looks gobsmacked. Pale and wide eyed and gaping in shock, looking shaken to his core. 

“Marriage!?” Shang Qinghua demands, his voice high and strangled. Then he seems to realize that he’s made himself the center of attention of an entire hall’s worth of demons, and he shrinks in on himself with a squeak. 

“Yes, marriage,” the Blood Coral demon says, looking irritated to have been interrupted. He levels a dark glare at Shang Qinghua, baring his shark teeth at him in a snarl. He turns his attention back on Mobei-Jun, sliding back into his arrogantly self assured manner. “You’ve risen so far with what advantages you have on your own. Just imagine how glorious you could be with the assistance of someone as knowledgeable and educated as--” 

Shang Qinghua makes an alarming choking noise off to the side, as if he’s got a fishbone stuck in his throat. 

“Are you actually negging him?” he asks, his voice rising higher and thinner with incredulity. “Mid-proposal? In public? Bro, does he even know who you are? I don’t think--” 

“Would you stop interrupting?” the Blood Coral demon snaps viciously enough that Shang Qinghua jumps back with a yelp, despite being several feet away. “You know, you’re very uppity for a pet human. That’s another way I could help complete you, fearsome Mobei-Jun. You’re a solitary creature; you don’t know how to wield proper discipline on--” 

Before he can finish his sentence, he’s sent crashing into the buffet table across the room with a thunderous sound, the table cracking and a four hundred pound ice sculpture shattering around him. Blood is splattered in arc from where he’d been standing and his landing site. Mobei-Jun idly picks a shark tooth out of his knuckles and tosses it disdainfully onto the floor. 

The crowd appreciatively murmurs, pleased by the bloody rejection. Mobei-Jun tries to seem casual and uninterested as he glances towards Shang Qinghua for his reaction. Surely seeing him reject another suitor so easily and ruthlessly will show that he isn’t interested in entertaining any offers from strangers? 

Shang Qinghua is staring at the bloody wreckage of the Blood Coral demon, gaping with horror. 

“Is he,” he chokes out, “is he alive? Did you just kill that guy?” 

Mobei-Jun ponders this question. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he decrees. He truly does not care one way or another. Northern Desert royalty have the right to kill suitors if they find their proposals to be particularly offensive, which this one most certainly was. Tradition justifies him. 

“Isn’t this supposed to be about peace or something, though?” Shang Qinghua asks, his voice climbing up into something shrill and distressed. “Building bridges? Like - I’m pretty sure Junshang said that violence was forbidden at this thing!?” 

Hm. Inconvenient. 

“He was a Northern demon too,” Mobei-Jun decides. “So it’s fine.” 

“Is that how it works?” Shang Qinghua wonders faintly. 

“Is that how it works?” a demon on the sidelines asks another eagerly. 

The banquet quickly becomes more exciting from there. Mobei-Jun focuses on that, sweeping up and carrying Shang Qinghua away once the festivities become too energetic for him to be around, very quickly forgetting all about the rejected, irrelevant Blood Coral demon. 

 

That wasn’t the first time Mobei-Jun has been proposed to, of course. 

The first time it happened he hadn’t even been born yet, but rather was just a bump in his mother’s stomach. According to the story he was told, this enterprising person’s head was promptly ripped off their shoulders by his mother, which brought a pause to the marriage proposals for some time. 

The next one, as far as he is aware, came when he was nineteen, after he’d been forced to kill his third oldest brother in formal combat - it was either that or let his brother kill him, after all. Until then, he’d shown no particular indication that he would survive the fight for succession amongst his siblings. Roughly half of his siblings had gotten married during this period, making practical matches with people willing to share their resources to give them an edge in the ongoing jockeying for survival and inheritance, in exchange for potentially being one day married to the new Mobei-Jun. He had never bothered with this strategy, as badly needed as allies may have been. It felt far too rife with potential pitfalls and traps, the possibility of being sent a poisoned chalice of a spouse via the hidden hand of his uncle, or one of his siblings. He’d rather wait until he’d already won before choosing a mate, with a tight, secure grip on his power to help protect him if he chose poorly. 

Then he’d killed his own brother, blood on his face and dripping from his claws, and someone had looked at him and apparently for the first time thought he’s going to win. They had proposed. He had refused. He hadn’t killed them for it, but for some reason he had wanted to. There must still have been something to the way he did it, though, because no one dared do so again for several more years. 

There have been scattered proposals since then, ambitious suitors looking to latch onto him, but he’d dismissed them all without a moment’s consideration. Then he’d actually become the king of the Northern Desert, and abruptly seemingly every single family in the Demon Realm have been hopefully hinting and poking and prodding at the possibility of a marriage ever since. 

He has ignored them all. He’s already decided who he wants, and it isn’t any of them. 

“--could have an iron fisted control over shipping along the entire Northern coast!” Shang Qinghua wails, pulling at his hair in despair. His eyes are wide and bloodshot, bags underneath them, and there’s a smear of ink across his cheek. “We’ve been ignoring each other until now, but what the hell are we going to do if they start sinking our boats? How are we going to keep trading with the South!? The fucking mountain range is impassable on a large scale like that!” 

“Who are you talking about?” Mobei-Jun asks. He’s been listening; Shang Qinghua simply started talking the moment he walked into his office with no preamble, as if he’d already been internally ranting and decided to just continue out loud even though he was already halfway through. 

“The guy you brained at that Southern-Northern friendship party!” Shang Qinghua cries. “The Blood Coral Clan is spread across most of the Northern seabed! Did you know this? Why are they so huge? Why aren’t we officially allied with them!? They could cripple the shipping of any of our enemies!” 

“Junshang wouldn’t allow it,” Mobei-Jun points out. He wants, bizarrely, for the entire demon realm to be unified and functional. Family grudges and individual duels are still allowed, but open warfare between clans has been banned by imperial decree. Sinking entire ships would, presumably, count as unacceptable hostility. 

“Yes, yes,” Shang Qinghua says, waving this off distractedly. “But just the implied threat that we could would be huge for negotiations!” 

Mobei-Jun is briefly possessed by the urge to bite him, but manages to ignore it. Shang Qinghua wouldn’t like it. Implied threats are something that he hadn’t known to appreciate before they met. Shang Qinghua has opened his eyes to many things. 

“But now that’s shot,” Shang Qinghua groans, putting his face in his hands. “What are we supposed to do, go ‘hey, sorry about fucking up and humiliating your guy there, by the way would you be interested in buddying up?’” 

“They are,” Mobei-Jun points out. 

“It’d basically be a slap in the-- what? Huh?” 

“Interested,” Mobei-Jun elaborates. Shang Qinghua stares at him for a moment, so he makes himself go further. “They asked for a marriage.”

“Ah, oh, yeah, yeah, that’s a good point. That douchebag wouldn’t have tried to pull that shit if his clan weren’t at least open to the idea of an alliance with the Northern Desert. It makes sense - you’re a hot commodity in general, with your position. But, like, I sort of doubt that he went and pulled that shit with the full blessing of the family? That was not a polished and edited proposal, that’s for fucking sure. That was like a frat boy trying to convince a girl that she’s too ugly for him but he’s nice enough to let her suck his dick anyway-- ah, no offense intended to my king, of course!” 

Ridiculous. As if Mobei-Jun would be offended by Shang Qinghua pointing out how rude other people have been to him. 

“Was he important?” Mobei-Jun asks. 

“Eeeeehhh,” Shang Qinghua says, drawing out the noise and pulling his mouth into a crooked line, shaking his hand side to side in the air. “Sort of? He’s in the main branch of the family, but a lot of people would have to conveniently croak for him to ever have a serious shot at being in charge. Also, he seemed like a total jackass. Mostly I think the whole thing is just an insult and embarrassment to the whole family by proxy. He’s the one who made them look like a bunch of jackasses via association. I'm willing to bet a lot of people are pissed at him, but they kind of have to be mad at you to save face, you know? It’s either that or completely disown the fucker, and apparently he didn’t go far enough for that.” 

Mobei-Jun is painfully familiar with this dynamic, yes. It is unfortunate the way a single idiot has led him to gaining some very not idiotic enemies who would prefer to not be his enemies at all, but see no other way out that would preserve their pride. 

“Should I… apologize?” Mobei-Jun asks reluctantly. 

“Ugh, no,” Shang Qinghua says, much to his relief. “You can’t! It’d look so bad, he was the one who was rude as fuck. We want to be allies with them but we can’t apologize, and they want to be allies with us but they can’t apologize either! I fucking hate politics, my king.” 

Shang Qinghua has a tendency towards being very good at the things he complains about the most. Mobei-Jun is unworried; if this problem has the full focus of Shang Qinghua’s attention, then it will be resolved. 

True to form, Shang Qinghua has already begun muttering to himself in that particular way when he’s trying to figure something out, cutting himself off before he ever manages to finish an idea, his thoughts moving quicker than his mouth. 

“... could maybe engineer a little problem they would need our help to-- no, won’t work, what would that even look like, dumb. Bunch of fucking mermaids. Maybe refuge in plausible deniability? How? Or, or--” 

He can go on for hours like this on his own, so Mobei-Jun reluctantly turns most of his attention back to the letters and reports strewn across his desk. There isn’t only all the mess of ruling the Northern Desert to be concerned about, but all of the Demon Realm as well, due to his temporary role as Acting Regent until Luo Binghe returns once more. 

The Demon Realm has grown to be wild and independent without an emperor to rule it with an ironfist for the last few decades, but that can create its own set of problems. The Guge Clan is accusing the neighboring Rou Clan of hunting and eating them; the Rou Clan, rather than denying the accusation, is outraged that the Guge Clan is questioning their ancestral traditional right to cannibalism. They are both petitioning the throne for aid, or to vindicate them. Normally, this would be simply resolved by the most ancient demonic law of all: ‘Might makes right.’ The Rou Clan would have the right to kill and eat Guge Clan members simply due to being able to do so. However, ever since Luo Binghe-- 

“Excuse me, my king,” Shang Qinghua says distractedly, and plucks the inkbrush right out of Mobei-Jun’s hand, as well as a blank scroll. He immediately starts scribbling, tongue sticking a little out of his mouth as he scrunches up his brow in heavy thought and writes. 

Mobei-Jun watches peaceably, content with this outrageous little gesture of presumption. It is good; every time Shang Qinghua is presumptuous with him, it shows that his faith in Mobei-Jun and his place by his side has grown. Or that he’s simply not thinking. That happens often too. 

“This is not an apology letter,” Shang Qinghua says, as he writes, the brush movements quick and impatient. “But it’s not not an apology letter, if that makes sense? It’s more of an excuse letter. If they really wanna be allies with us, like you said my king, then they’ll jump at the flimsiest of opportunities to make good with us. They’ll reach back with their own not-apology letter, and then we can both not-forgive each other and it’ll all be fine! Where’s your royal seal? Oh, this letter is from you, by the way.” 

Mobei-Jun silently hands over his royal seal, a sacred family heirloom passed through generations, carved out of the bones of his ancestor and consecrated with secret rituals that make it impossible to duplicate or imitate, of which it is illegal for anyone but those of Mobei blood to so much as touch. He once witnessed a maid have her hand chopped off for simply accidentally brushing against it whilst cleaning. Shang Qinghua accepts it without looking away from what he’s writing, and then bites it between his teeth to keep his hands free as he rolls up the scroll. 

He accidentally stepped on Mobei-Jun’s cape once, and nearly apologized himself into some sort of breathing fit. Surely, this is progress of some kind. Either that, or he’s the silliest, most contradictory man in all the realms. 

“There,” Shang Qinghua says cheerfully, after having sealed the scroll. His messy scrawl is significantly different from Mobei-Jun’s deliberate, carefully taught script, but that’s fine. Shang Qinghua writes enough of Mobei-Jun’s letters that he half suspects that people think that is his actual handwriting, and his rarer, neater letters are simply when he dictates to some educated scribe. “That should take care of it! If those guys don’t go for it, then fuck them. I’ll find a way to fuck with an underwater sea clan, see if I don’t!” 

As if there is any doubt in the matter. To this day, there have been no limits to the people his Shang Qinghua has been unable to ‘fuck with.’ Mobei-Jun nods, and then hands over the entreaties he’d been glaring at earlier. Shang Qinghua skims them both in a matter of moments, and scoffs. 

“Oh, as if Cu-- Shen-shixiong would be cool with this shit, that’s nasty. And I’m pretty sure Junshang thinks it’s gross too! Tell the Rou Clan that if they want to eat people then they can eat their own people. And, wait, shit, maybe we should offer to underground railroad those people out of there first? I bet this is some weird nobility shit, hunting the peasants for sport. Hang on, I’m gonna--” 

Shang Qinghua, who had ended up sitting on the edge of Mobei-Jun’s desk at some point, hops off and jogs out of his office, both of the requests for support clutched in his hand. And just like that, the problem vanishes out of Mobei-Jun’s life, to be quietly taken care of where he won’t have to bother with it any longer. Alone, he lets himself smile. It is good to have someone he can rely on. He can only hope that Shang Qinghua will one day fully understand that he can rely on Mobei-Jun in return. 

Maybe then he’ll finally get around to proposing. 

 

Some time passes, but not too much. Various hassles and inconveniences arise - an attempted assassination, a small opportunistic insurrection against the demon emperor during his absence, as well as a minor plague in one of the villages within his domain. They’re all handled appropriately (execution, great violence, and quarantine, in that order), and all seems to be running smoothly. 

Shang Qinghua seems generally content and healthy, as far as Mobei-Jun can tell, running around and viciously tearing his way through any problems that cross his path, as well as creating entirely new problems by deciding that some current established system or procedure that has worked acceptably until now is actually unforgivably inefficient and must be drastically improved at once. He complains the entire time, but this is to be expected. He eats, he sleeps, and he hasn’t been pulling his hair out, and so Mobei-Jun can only assume that this is the ‘everything is fine’ sort of complaining. 

It is when Mobei-Jun is inspecting the Abyssal Tears that are scattered across the most inhospitable terrain of the Northern Desert, searching for the reported ‘concerning’ abnormalities in their fluctuations, that he is called back to the Northern Palace. It is by Shang Qinghua’s request, although his call doesn’t feel urgent or frightened across the crystal. Nonetheless, Mobei-Jun drops his current task and opens a portal back to the palace; this is a task that can be finished later, when Shang Qinghua doesn’t need him. 

“My king!” Shang Qinghua says brightly once he appears, standing by the side door that leads into the throne room. He looks as unharmed and unworried as he had sounded, merely eager and excited. “The Blood Coral Clan finally sent over a response! You need to receive it personally, we’re trying to be polite here. Sorry for dragging you away from your work--!” 

“It is fine,” Mobei-Jun dismisses. 

“They’re waiting inside for you,” Shang Qinghua says, and he starts to usher Mobei-Jun towards the door, as if he could ever possibly move Mobei-Jun if he didn’t want to be moved. But he lets himself be ushered. “Come on, come on, let’s get this over with! I’ve got ideas for when we’re allies, my king. I was thinking, if only we could find a way to waterproof our cargo--” 

Shang Qinghua must force himself silent midsentence, as that’s when they both enter the throne room. Mobei-Jun strides towards his throne, and Shang Qinghua follows behind him to kneel to the side where the scribes tend to be. He will, Mobei-Jun knows, take profuse notes. Whether or not the notes will be related to whatever actually happens in the throne room is more up for debate. 

He doesn’t bother taking the kneeling messenger in before he is seated. When he does, he can just barely make out that they’re gray skinned - just barely, due to the fact that almost every single exposed inch of their skin is covered in craggy barnacles. The clearest portion seems to be their face, presumably to allow them to freely speak and make facial expressions. They wear no clothes, having no need for them when they are already so covered. Their hands and feet are webbed. 

“Speak,” Mobei-Jun orders. 

The messenger bows low where they kneel on the floor; there is the sound of barnacles scraping against barnacles as they move. 

“This one is a messenger of the Blood Coral Clan,” they say, meaning that they are not an important enough person to merit a name. “Shayu-Jun wishes to thank you for your sentiments, and to express his regrets that such an unfortunate incident had to occur.” 

They speak as if the Blood Coral princeling’s teeth knocked themselves out of his jaw on their own, some mysterious third party forcing the issue between two hapless participants, like it is the weather that is to blame. Mobei-Jun plays along, despite the vague irritation he feels at having to participate in such a transparent farce. Much of court life is having to participate in transparent farces. 

“It was unfortunate,” he agrees. It would have been better if the foolish prince had never attempted his odious proposal at all. 

“Shayu-Jun understands that your hand was forced by decorum in the matter,” the messenger goes on, “but nonetheless, his own hand is forced by decorum in turn. He must ask for some small form of recompense for the loss of face.” 

An unsurprising turn of events, that they’d attempt to leverage this situation into a little more gain to their own side, to try and squeeze some use out of the inconvenience. If they are foolish, then they will ask for too much and Mobei-Jun will be forced to deny them, and further cement both of their clans in a grudge. But they won’t wish for this to happen, and so will instead try and place their demands at the exact calculated spot of being just humble enough to be tolerated. 

“What recompense,” Mobei-Jun says, clipped. It is time to see if the Blood Coral Clan have managed to be reasonable, or if in their blind greed have asked for too much. 

The messenger pushes their hand underneath one of the barnacles stuck on their body, placed on the lower part of their torso and to the side, close to where their lungs might be. It seems like a tight fit, enough so to scrape skin off, but their fingers are protected by more barnacles which scrape loudly against each other. They retrieve from that place a scroll, letting Mobei-Jun see the Blood Coral Clan’s seal on it clearly. 

Mobei-Jun motions for one of the guards to fetch it for him. He will not be foolish enough to let the messenger approach him into a comfortable range to slip a poisoned dagger into his gut. One of the dozens of silently watching guards peels off the wall and scurries over, accepting the scroll and ferrying it over to Mobei-Jun before respectfully backing away once more. 

He uses the claw of his thumb to undo the seal, opening the scroll with a dull sort of curiosity. He can practically feel Shang Qinghua’s impatience from behind and to the right of him, radiating with his desire to go over the proposed terms at once, to pick over each and every little word and twist of phrasing to search it for some sort of trap or hidden meaning that would easily escape Mobei-Jun’s notice. He will have to surrender the scroll to Shang Qinghua the moment that this meeting is over. Perhaps before, casually handing it to him as soon as he’s--

And then Mobei-Jun reads the Blood Coral Clan’s demands. 

The temperature in the throne room plummets like a drop into ice water. Mobei-Jun’s hand is already going out as he pushes himself up into a standing position, a gesture that wrenches moisture and coldness out of the atmosphere and crystalizes it into a long, jagged spear of ice, already shooting with great momentum towards the barnacle demon at its very moment of creation. 

The barnacle demon tries to dodge; fails. But the ice spear, six feet long and a foot thick, shatters against their chest instead of piercing them through. Their barnacles, Mobei-Jun realizes, acts as natural armor. Is this a warrior, not a messenger at all? The ice spear was launched with sufficient force that the barnacle demon is thrown back by the sheer momentum, even if they aren’t stabbed through as intended. They bounce three times, leaving behind gouges and scratches into the floor as they go, chips of stone flying off. With a grunt, they come to a stop. 

Belatedly, Shang Qinghua shrieks as he processes what’s happening. Mobei-Jun steps off the dais, striding towards the barnacle demon, dragging more ice out of the air as he goes so that spears circle him like a halo. 

“What the fuck?” Shang Qinghua shouts. “WHY!?” 

The barnacle demon pushes themselves up from the floor roughly, stumbling as they go but not even bleeding. Mobei-Jun shoots his ice spears at them as he approaches, and they shatter uselessly against the demon’s armor, who keeps their footing this time. They swing on Mobei-Jun with the force of a boulder; he drags up a sheet of ice in front of him to act as a shield. It shatters like cheap ceramic, but it gives him time to sidestep, lunge close - grab them, claws trying to sink into flesh but meeting something frustratingly less yielding. 

Mobei-Jun looks into their eyes, and sees only the barely restrained panic of a soldier relying on training to keep moving, a cornered animal. Nothing scheming or calculating, no sneering or smugness. 

Because of this, he only removes their arm - not their head, as he’d originally intended. The barnacle demon roars and struggles the entire time, managing to break his ribs and bruise him, but it’s a quick process. He simply freezes the arm through at the shoulder joint, and then smashes it off with one solid blow. No blood spills, already frozen solid. 

Shoving them down to their knees, he holds the scroll in front of them. Freezing it the same way he did their arm, he crushes it into pieces by simply tightening his grip. They fall to the ground, lightly tinkling on impact. He further crushes them with his boot, grinding it disdainfully into the floor. 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says. 

The barnacle demon stares up at him, clutching at their stump, gasping for air, looking ready for Mobei-Jun to kill them, to finish the job. 

Mobei-Jun turns, going back to his throne - ready and braced for an attack to his back, but it doesn’t come. None of the guards posted at the walls have intervened, only standing tense and with their weapons drawn, waiting for any gesture from Mobei-Jun. Sprawling back onto his throne, he looks down on the demon before him. 

“... This lowly demon will deliver Mobei-Jun’s response,” the barnacle demon chokes out. 

A clever demon, then. 

“Leave,” Mobei-Jun grants. The barnacle demon doesn’t wait for Mobei-Jun to change his mind, stumbling back onto their feet and staggering away, their severed arm left behind on the floor like detritus. No one stops them from leaving, because Mobei-Jun gives no signal to do so. 

There would be a certain effectiveness to returning the Blood Coral Clan’s messenger to them on their doorstep violently killed - a very clear response, impossible to misunderstand. But then Mobei-Jun would be sacrificing whichever of his subjects were making the delivery, and he doesn’t particularly feel like delivering a corpse himself. The messenger will simply have to deliver themselves; the missing limb will have to do. 

Shang Qinghua doesn’t wait for them to be alone, only biting his tongue until the messenger has stumbled their way out of the throne room. They will be observed by guards, of course, until they fully leave the palace. 

“My king,” Shang Qinghua says plaintively, walking up to him with wide eyes and messy hair. He’s tugging on his hair again, looking utterly despairing. “Why did you do that!?” 

“Their terms were unacceptable,” Mobei-Jun says. 

“That unacceptable!?” Shang Qinghua demands shrilly. “My king, that’s what negotiation is for! We could have haggled them down a little! They were probably just making a stupidly high bullshit starting offer, that’s classic 101 negotiation shit!” 

“I do not wish to negotiate with them,” Mobei-Jun says, and gets up off his throne, sweeping his mantle aside as he does so. 

Shang Qinghua follows him, hurrying to keep up with his longer strides. 

“I would have done the negotiation for you!” Shang Qinghua protests. “You could have been barely involved in the process, my king! I know you think meetings are boring as shit, you could’ve just tacked a signature onto the bottom of a contract if you liked. Fuck, this is going to be so much trouble - there’s no way whatever they asked for is worth the storm of bullshit coming our way! Ahhh, it’s okay, it’s okay, I can still salvage this! What did they ask for? Whatever it is they want, give it to them!” 

It is our understanding that our prince insulted your human, and that this is what led to the unfortunate incident. As a sign of your regret and recompense, we only ask for his head. 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says, and it comes out as a growl. “We will never deal with them.” 

Refusing to listen to Shang Qinghua argue for his own death even a second longer, Mobei-Jun tears open a gash into the fabric of the world and slips through it into somewhere far away, a harsh and barren place that he can pace like a caged, furious animal on his own. 

“My king--!” Shang Qinghua cries with dismay, but Mobei-Jun closes the portal before he can follow him through. 

He needs to be alone. 

Chapter 2: The Abyssal Beast

Notes:

This chapter is 7.6k words long

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

Chapter Text

The most offensive part is that the Blood Coral Clan probably wasn’t even trying to be offensive. They have no reason to make an enemy of the Northern Desert Kingdom, or to pointlessly insult Mobei-Jun by asking for something that he will never ever give them. They asked for Shang Qinghua’s head because they think that his life is cheap, expendable, a reasonable request to make. 

People do not see his brilliance, his preciousness, his value. Mobei-Jun hadn’t either, for longer than he should. Shang Qinghua is… deceptively important. He always has many words to offer, rambling and nervous or thoughtless, and in all of that empty noise he is hidden. It is only by looking closely, and looking at what he does instead of what he says, that his true importance is revealed. 

The Blood Coral Clan have never looked closely at Shang Qinghua. As far as Mobei-Jun can see, no one but him has ever bothered to. Good. He does not want people looking, noticing, paying attention. He does not want Shang Qinghua stolen, lured away - or killed, for that matter. The more insignificant he is, the safer he is. 

Except that isn’t how it works. Significant people are targeted, and insignificant people are stepped on thoughtlessly. Both lead to the same result. It is frustrating, trying to discourage people from harming his Shang Qinghua and running into idiotic problems like this. 

Perhaps people would be discouraged if they were married. The Blood Coral Clan would never dare to ask for the head of his spouse, now would they? That would be an obvious insult, whether or not they themselves see value in Shang Qinghua. If only Shang Qinghua would finally ask him, instead of not even acknowledging the possibility. What more can Mobei-Jun do to convince him that he would be treated well as a spouse, honored and provided for? What should he do? He doesn’t know. 

The person he would ask for advice would be Shang Qinghua, of course, which is not an option in this case. It would be an insult, to make the man outline his own seduction - as tempting as the idea might be. Mobei-Jun needs to show that he is willing to put in the work to win his favor, to be an impressive and attractive enough mate that Shang Qinghua will choose him despite his mistakes, his faults. 

This is a process that has been taking a very long time, but that only means that he is all that much closer to the end. How much longer could it possibly take? Mobei-Jun will be victorious, despite how slim the odds may seem. He’s already done it once before, after all. 

Only thanks to Shang Qinghua’s assistance, he reminds himself. 

Well, he still has that. If not with this in particular, then in general. Despite how upset and bewildered Shang Qinghua has been over the affair with the messenger he has still worked to play along with Mobei-Jun’s firm and uncompromising refusal. He has sent letters to the Shayu-Jun of the Blood Coral Clan, obliquely reminding them of the imperial decree against open warfare between clans, and strongly hinting that a return to their old stance of noninterference with each other would be preferable for them. He continues to help every day, running his household, scheming and plotting against anyone who might oppose them, and making sure that Mobei-Jun’s meals are made to his preferences. 

Even now he is overlooking the Northern Palace for him, as Mobei-Jun sees to the duties that take him away from it. The wind whips cold and harsh across the plains, only just broken up by the trees of the forest ahead of him and the hunting troupe. Thirty mounted demons wait behind him, awaiting his instruction. Deeper into the forest, out of sight, is the thunderous sound of centuries old trees toppling and crashing onto the ground, and the bone chilling sound of an utterly unnatural roar. Plumes of dust are visible above the trees, a trail of unimaginable destruction. 

Mobei-Jun should have looked more closely into the reported fluctuations in the Abyssal Tears. If he had, then he could have greeted this beast at the entrance, instead of having to pursue it like this. They have spent the day at a hard gallop, following a miles long trail of churned up frozen earth and cracked stone, regularly intermingled with the torn and gutted bodies of animals and beasts, their intestines still steaming in the cold open air. 

He has noted in particular a Polar Vortex Bear savaged into a two ton bloody lump of reddened fur, a Grand Icicle Hedgehog bitten neatly in half and then spat back out, as well as a Snow Drake that seems to have had its neck snapped like a small rodent that’s been viciously and enthusiastically shaken inside the maw of a wolf. All dangerous, formidable beasts that most would shrink from, that have given Mobei-Jun long and bloody fights. None of them bore any signs of having served as a meal; they had been killed for amusement, even sadistically batted around during the process, as if by a playfully cruel cat. 

He can feel the tension of the soldiers behind him, the way their highly trained mounts keep nervously snorting and stamping or clawing at the ground. They are calculating the low odds of their survival, grimly fearful and reluctant. 

“Don’t get in my way,” Mobei-Jun decides, and he tears open and neatly steps through a portal, leaving them all behind. 

It will be easier to do this without having to keep an eye on supposed allies as well. One definite threat is easier to handle without dozens more potential ones to account for. 

He steps out into the woods, a blind jump towards the crash and the chaos of the Abyssal Beast. He immediately breathes in stirred up snow and dirt, has to squint like he’s in a blizzard. Stubbornly, he steps further forwards, casting out a hand to try and drag the snow away from him. It is much, much easier for him to control the ice that he makes, instead of what is already there - but he can do it. 

He does it. It still takes him a moment to spot the Abyssal Beast, simply because it is too large. It takes him too long to realize that the large, craggy thing in front of him isn’t a boulder, or perhaps the foot of some stray mountain. But then it moves, leaving deep gouges in the earth as it does so, screeching in a way that causes pain to the ears, and Mobei-Jun moves sharply to get the first hit in before the thing notices his presence and tears him apart like the beasts. 

He does get the first hit in, wrenching an ice spear the size of a glacier to burst from the ground and pierce its underbelly - it takes nearly all of his strength, leaving him faint and breathless with the effort. The Abyssal Beast screeches and writhes in a way that topples dozens more trees and makes the earth itself shake - and then a gigantic, barbed tail sweeps towards him to swat him away like a fly. The only reason he manages to dodge is because he simply tears a portal through the air and ducks through, avoiding it at the last moment. 

From there, the battle unwinds. Mobei-Jun makes attacks from any blind angle he can find, quickly darting through portals to avoid any counterattacks. It makes it difficult to focus on attacking at all, but the creature is so large that a single solid strike from it might take him out at once. 

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It roars and thunders, wildly swinging its long, reptilian head around to snap at him, furiously searching for the thing causing it pain. Mobei-Jun flits through portals, freezing a claw to the ground so it has to focus on tearing it free, slicing at its joints, jumping from the back of its neck to underneath its stomach and to crouching amongst the branches of a still standing tree to snipe ice shards at it. 

Eventually, the creature gives up on finding him and instead tries to flee, charging blindly ahead, wreaking devastating destruction upon the ancient forest around it as it goes, thoughtlessly felling trees that have stood for lifetimes with a single step. Mobei-Jun pursues it, only able to do so thanks to his ability to slip through the shadows, taking every opportunity to swipe at it. It leaves a river of black ichor behind it as it goes, a trail of its lifeblood leaking out of dozens of wounds and gouges that run as deep as some lakes, and yet he can’t shake the idea that he is only inflicting a death by thousand cuts. 

Then a death of a thousand cuts it must be. Mobei-Jun pants for air, sweat rolling down his back, exhaustion licking at the edges of his single minded focus. He will have to rest once this is over - and not a single moment before then. This fight would have depleted him far before its conclusion, before his Ascension. Now, his reserves run as deep as the depths of the ocean, dark and ice cold. This creature will run out of blood before he runs dry of power. 

He falls into the wordless rhythm of it, no room for a single stray thought as he dodges bone breaking blows with inches to spare, squeezing attacks in between throwing himself through portals, relentless and vicious. He chases the creature like this for miles, chipping away at it as it grows slower and more sluggish, its bleeding heavier and its roars more pained. Soon enough it has to drag its eighth forelimb behind it, growing unsteady and sloppy. Mobei-Jun attacks even more brutally, feeling the end approaching closer, eager for this to be over so he can-- 

Between one stride and the next, all of his focus on lancing one of the creature's eyes (hundreds of them, spread across its head like countless freckles) through with an ice spear - something goes wrong. Mobei-Jun’s step staggers, faltering, and he doesn’t understand why. He breathes in and pain rushes through him, sharp and horrible. 

He realizes that he’s been shot with an arrow just as a sharp whistle rings through the forest. All at once, a dozen - no thirty, no at least fifty - armed and mounted warriors spring their ambush, coming galloping from the trees. They have bows, arrows - all aimed at him. 

I am being hunted, Mobei-Jun thinks, a single coherent thought flickering through the chaos and exhaustion. Then he has to throw himself through a portal because the Abyssal Beast is swiping at him with a claw the size of a mountain, scooping deep furrows into the earth as it goes. He doesn’t even have time to brace for his landing, tumbling down onto the ground on the other end of the portal instead of landing on his feet. The arrow, planted deep into the back of his shoulder, is jostled agonizingly crooked into his flesh and he grunts. 

The hunters find his new position quickly. They move with trained coordination, a seamless whole circling him like carrion, carefully keeping just far away from the rampaging beast. Arrows cut through the air, thunking into the frozen earth around him. He pushes himself roughly up off the ground, making himself a moving target as quickly as possible, and then makes a split second decision - targeting the Abyssal Beast again, driving a wedge of ice into an already open and weeping wound, deepening it further. 

He doesn’t have time to take out dozens of opportunistic assassins one by one. He must kill this creature before it reaches its first point of civilization - and then he’ll slaughter them all. 

What follows is very difficult. He has less opportunities for attack, having to put even more of his focus towards defending himself, tearing open portals twice as often. He must protect his back, must shield himself, must dodge quickly and desperately. He is successfully hit with one more arrow to his calf, and grazed by two more, at his midsection and his face. Blood is in his eye, half blinding him. 

There is the growing feeling of being hunted and chipped away at, just like the creature he himself is hunting. Of being slowly bled and cornered, outnumbered and fatigued. 

I will not die like this, he thinks. He won’t. It isn’t an option. He has been hurt worse than this, has been put in worse situations than this, and he survived it all. He just has to kill this damned thing and then keep killing until he’s alone, bloody and exhausted and alone and safe, surrounded only by corpses that cannot harm him-- 

There is a battlecry, and thirty more warriors arrive, galloping. Mobei-Jun’s heart sinks, breathless with sinking dismay. More enemies, more threats to account for, to track, to defend himself against. He doesn’t-- 

One of the new warriors gains on one of the hunters, her mount pouncing onto their horse with a slavering snarl, and she jumps from it to tackle the rider onto the ground, knife in her hand to slit their throat. The new warriors all cheer, the hunters turn their bows and arrows on them, and Mobei-Jun belatedly recognizes his own people. These are the soldiers he left behind, in front of the forest. They followed him. 

He has no time to take this in. Instead, he takes advantage of the opportunity. As his soldiers rush the hunters, Mobei-Jun tears a portal open and jumps through it - landing right at the base of the creature’s neck. It doesn’t feel like standing on a living beast; it feels like trying to stand on the ground in the midst of an earthquake, an avalanche, the entire world shaking and roaring. 

Freezing his feet in place, he secures his position. No more running, no more fleeting swipes. His breath steams in the air as he reaches deep inside of himself and drags up as much power as he can hold at once, not just taking what floats at the surface. He focuses on the creature - on the dozens of open, gaping, weeping wounds - on the blood, wet and warm--

Winter rolls over and into the Abyssal Beast, bleeding wounds freezing into red ice, cold tendrils reaching into veins to spread that ice even inside of itself, underneath its skin. The creature screeches, thrashes with panicked pain, trying to get away from what’s hurting it, but it’s too late. As it moves, the ice in its joints and muscles and blood cracks and splinters, jagged sharp shards inside of it. It tumbles and crashes into the ground like a comet, and Mobei-Jun tears himself free--

Tries to tear himself free, but is left faint and breathless with weakness, faltering--

--I will not die like this, it isn’t an option, I won’t--

--manages to scrape up the faintest traces of power left, and rips himself free of his own ice, shards of it still clinging to his boots. Dark spots dance in his eyes from the effort. He stumbles across the back of the creature, still in the process of falling like a great mountain. With an unsteady hand he drags a dark gash open into the world, and he falls through it. 

There is a large part of him that is tempted to retreat far away, to fall at the feet of safety, to lick his wounds in peace. To be taken care of. 

But he won’t abandon his people; he won’t be the one to betray them. He falls to the forest floor, taking only the time for three breaths before he pushes himself up and staggers, swinging his head around to search for his quarry. The ground shakes with the creature’s impact, the sound of it a deafening thunder which he ignores. 

There aren’t many of them left. His soldiers were outnumbered by the assassins, but it seems they managed to dominate the fight despite this, armed and prepared for a fight far more deadly than the one they ended up in. He tears through the woods in an exhausted fury, slaughtering assassins trying to corner and kill his soldiers so that they can better kill him at their leisure. 

He gets his first good look at his enemy as he tears one of their heads off. Skeleton armor, made out of the bones of felled foes, skulls curling over their heads like helmets. When he pries it off he sees only an obscured demon mark, painted over in a deceitful, cowardly fashion. With a snarl, he wipes it off and sees-- 

Staring, Mobei-Jun is met with a mark that he… doesn’t particularly recognize. It looks half familiar, but that’s it. 

“Keep this with you,” Mobei-Jun tells the soldier he just saved from three assassins, tossing the severed head at them so they catch it at their chest. 

“Yes, your majesty!” 

Shang Qinghua will be able to recognize it, if nothing else. He has that book he’s been making, listing all the different marks and their clans and such things. My cheatsheet, he calls it. He’d made Mobei-Jun promise not to tell Shen Qingqiu about it, an absurdly unnecessary thing to do. 

He kills more of them. He’s too tired and wounded to do it cleanly, to freeze their blood before it stains his furs and his hands. His clothes and hair feel heavy with blood and sweat, and red is buried underneath his claws. There’s a disgusting stench in his nose, a foul taste permeating the back of his throat. He feels so tired, ungainly and slow, his attacks sloppy and jagged. A few of the assassins even manage to get hits on him, grazes and bruises, blades getting just a little too close. 

Just a little more. He kills, and his soldiers cheer and grow more encouraged as the fight turns further in their favor, fighting harder and more viciously. Mobei-Jun blinks sweat out of his eyes, feeling-- feeling hot, overheated. That’s wrong. That’s--

He blinks up at one of the assassins, thinks they’re so tall. But no, they’re not. He’s fallen to his knees in the snow. Why--? 

They grin down at him, all sharp, predatory fangs like a wolf. 

“That’s our infamous poison you feel coursing through your veins,” they tell him, delightedly brandishing a sharp, sharp dagger at him. “We dip all of our blades and arrow heads in it, before a hunt. Helps tenderize the meat - about time it started taking effect. I’ve never had royalty before--” 

They reach forward to slit his throat, and Mobei-Jun bites down on their hand hard enough that he feels bones crunch between his teeth. They scream and hit him, and Mobei-Jun grabs their wrist and wrenches his head away without letting go with his teeth - the results are as expected. 

The screaming is good; it draws his allies to them. Soldiers pounce on the assassin and tear them apart, eager and riled from the violence, and Mobei-Jun falls before he can even spit the fingers out. The snow is a sweet, cold balm to his burning skin. 

“Qinghua,” he says - whispers, he thinks. It is difficult to speak, to stay awake. He can feel himself slipping. “Make him fix…” 

What, he doesn’t say. Everything, perhaps. 

He has faith that Shang Qinghua will find a way. 

 

And he does. 

Mobei-Jun wakes up in his own bed, in fresh sheets and clean clothes, his wounds having clearly been tended to, his bandages snug and snowy white. Before he even remembers what happened, what went wrong, he determines where he is and who else is in the room. There is him, and Shang Qinghua. This is as safe as being alone - even safer, in fact. 

Shang Qinghua is sprawled out on a small pile of cushions that have been dragged to the side of his bed, limbs thrown out and mouth open as he softly snores. He looks tired even in sleep, his hair messy and work strewn around him, paper and ink, a dried and bristly brush clutched in his hand as if he’d nodded off in the middle of writing. 

Mobei-Jun does not wake him, instead simply watching him sleep. He lets memories seep back into him on their own, not bothering to chase them. He aches terribly, not just his wounds but every vein and tendon of his body, that unpleasantly familiar feeling of having just barely survived a serious poisoning. 

It is a feeling that he hates, even if it is a sign of having survived at all. At least it wasn’t slipped into his food or drink, this time. He despises it when that happens, can barely bring himself to eat for days afterwards. Next time, he will simply have to do a better job of not being hit at all. 

Shang Qinghua seems to startle himself awake with his own snoring, the noise snagging louder somewhere on the way out of his nose. He blinks with groggy, bewildered disorientation, as if he’s been abducted to some strange place during his sleep. Then he spots Mobei-Jun looking at him, yelps, and scrambles so quickly to get up to his feet that he simply falls down again. 

“My king!” Shang Qinghua cries, fumbling his way over to him. He looks a mess, his hair flattened on one side of his face, standing up haphazardly on the other. He grabs onto Mobei-Jun with tears in his eyes. “You’re finally awake! Thank god, I’ve been lying to people and saying that you’ve been waking up normally for the last two days--” 

“How long?” Mobei-Jun asks. 

“Five days,” Shang Qinghua answers at once, understanding him. “You’ve been down for longer, but you were in such a bad state when you arrived that the vultures immediately started circling. Especially your damned uncle, he’s been spreading rumors that you’re on your deathbed, of all things! I’ve tried to cover for you, but people have been getting suspicious that I’m the only one ever around when you’re up.” 

Mobei-Jun grunts his understanding, and sits up - or tries to sit up. Something seems to go wrong halfway through, all of his strength leaving him in a rush, and Shang Qinghua dives for him with a squawk, carefully lowering him back down onto the bed. 

“Careful, careful!” Shang Qinghua says, his hands patting over Mobei-Jun’s chest and shoulders so lightly and nervously that he can’t possibly be doing anything useful. “That Rou Clan’s poison is some serious business, apparently - cultivated over generations to be extremely deadly to anyone but them, so they can still eat their poisoned prey afterwards.” 

“Rou Clan?” Mobei-Jun asks, his attention sharpening. That name sounds familiar. 

Shang Qinghua’s expression immediately crumples into something that’s a mix between aggrieved bitterness and uncomfortable guilt. 

“The Rou Clan - you remember, my king, that cannibal clan we dealt with? Or that I dealt with… They held a grudge pretty hard over us siding with the Guge Clan in their dispute, and I don’t know how but somehow they found out that we were the ones responsible for evacuating a bunch of their citizens to neighboring regions…” 

Ah. It is always nice to know why someone is trying to kill him, Mobei-Jun supposes. He doesn’t always get that. 

It makes no real difference, of course. An assassination attempt is an assassination attempt, and he doesn’t have to tolerate such things any longer. 

“They will be punished,” Mobei-Jun says. 

“Absolutely,” Shang Qinghua agrees fervently. “I’ve already tossed the smoking gun at them - the dead assassins, good job on not smashing their heads in like pumpkins so we could use them as evidence - and they’ve handed over their scapegoat for execution. Some unpopular cousin, but he does seem to have been in on it. But I don’t care, that’s not enough! We are going to tax the shit out of them, my king! I will bankrupt them with tariffs.” 

He says this as threateningly as if he plans to burn their lands to the ground and then salt the earth so nothing more will grow there. Mobei-Jun is warmed by the promise of vengeance on his behalf; he knows that Shang Qinghua will make it as grueling as possible for his attackers. 

“Good,” he says, and Shang Qinghua puffs up satisfyingly at the praise. Then he deflates, frowning again, his mouth twisting up in that particular way that happens when he has a trying problem to deal with. 

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he mutters, as if to himself. He seems to notice Mobei-Jun’s questioning gaze, because he elaborates. “Their timing was way too good, wasn’t it? The Abyssal Tears are unpredictable as fuck, so how could they know that there’d be a fuck off huge beast to distract you right then and there? Their territory is so far away that they wouldn’t be able to hear about it and then reach you in time before it was all over, so they must have started traveling before it showed up. What was their plan if that overgrown iguana hadn’t shown up to save their asses? That’s like gambling on a hurricane to show up as a key step of your bank heist. It was pure luck.” 

“There were fluctuations, days before,” Mobei-Jun says slowly, thinking. His mind feels like dark waters, his thoughts unseen beasts lurking beneath the surface. “Disturbances.” 

“When aren’t there?” Shang Qinghua asks. “Those things start acting up if so much as a breeze goes through them.” 

True. But-- 

“My uncle,” Mobei-Jun says. “How quick was he to spread word that I was dying?” 

Shang Qinghua goes still as if frozen by a thought, his eyes going wide. 

“What,” Shang Qinghua says, “you think he put the Rou Clan up to it? Well-- actually, that would be right up his shitty alley wouldn’t it, whispering into the ear of anyone who so much as gets a little pissed at you, opportunistic bastard. But how could he arrange for what’s basically a natural disaster? He isn’t--” 

“He was taught how to tend to the Abyssal Tears,” Mobei-Jun says, hearing his own voice run flatter. He dislikes talking about Linguan-Jun; dislikes even thinking about him. “Just like everyone else in the family.” 

“Oh - oh, that fucker. So, what, he used that knowledge to sneak around and do the opposite of what you’re supposed to? Stir the Abyssal Tears up and cross his fingers, hope that something especially nasty comes popping out? That’s so--” 

Shang Qinghua is beginning to grow red with anger. Mobei-Jun closes his eyes, overcome with a sudden wave of fatigue. 

“--my king,” Shang Qinghua is saying, his voice quiet and yet urgent, a pleading note to it as he gently jostles Mobei-Jun’s shoulder. “My king, please, are you awake? Please wake up--” 

Mobei-Jun opens his eyes, confused. Shang Qinghua is hovering closely with a concerned, fretful air to him. 

“Oh, thank fuck,” Shang Qinghua breathes, deflating with relief. “I-- I get that you’re really hurt, you absolutely need to rest. But… do you think that you have it in you to go outside? Just for a bit, just for a-- a few minutes.”  

Shang Qinghua’s wincing as he asks, as if he’s asking for something that tastes bitter in his mouth, but Mobei-Jun understands the necessity of it. Yes, he must go outside. He must be seen. It will be more trouble for him if he isn’t. Luo Binghe is gone, and he is acting regent; people must see that he is strong, that he is well.  

“I can,” Mobei-Jun says, because he must be able to. Bracing himself this time, he moves to sit up again. 

It is painful, and exhausting. Shang Qinghua swoops in to help support and pull him up, quick and deferential, and a faint trace of humiliation at being so weak in front of him burns in his stomach. He bites back the urge to make himself sharp and cold to cover it, to show that he is still dangerous even like this, not something pitiful or to be taken advantage of. Shang Qinghua has seen him weaker and lower than this, and has not hurt or judged him for it. He is safe to be helpless and pathetic in front of him. It is not a danger. 

Still, it is not impressive. Mobei-Jun will have to make some display of power once he’s recovered enough to make up for it, so that Shang Qinghua might consider him as a mate. 

For now, Shang Qinghua busily scurries around, fetching a prepared change of clothes and helpfully dressing him with a thoughtless air of competence, chattering all the while about all the things that have happened during Mobei-Jun’s effective absence, filling him in. 

“--kept you hydrated, so that’s why you aren’t dying of thirst, haha,” he says, carefully fastening a fur mantle over Mobei-Jun’s shoulders. The outfit, he notes, is carefully selected so as to subtly cover up his wounds as much as possible, all draping layers and high neckline. Not his usual, but not bad. “Still, I’ll get a meal prepared for you after your, uh, your walk. Broth, maybe? Broth is good for an empty stomach, right, keeping it light?” 

Mobei-Jun makes a vague grunt of agreement that morphs into a viciously bitten back noise of pain as Shang Qinghua hoists him up onto his feet. He grits his teeth and holds himself as tensely as possible, while Shang Qinghua looks at him with wide eyes and holds his breath, as if a stray exhale might knock him over. 

He does not look as if he feels safe and secure, underneath the protection of a powerful demon lord. He looks as if his position is tenuous, fragile; like he’s surrounded by threats and will have to work hard on his own to keep himself safe. 

Mobei-Jun stands firmly. Weakness and pain drag at him, but he ignores both with a freezing contempt. 

“Okay!” Shang Qinghua says, once he seems reassured that Mobei-Jun will not be toppling over like a felled tree. “Let’s go, then - just a quick loop around the palace, maybe a little chat with the steward, then we’ll come back like it’s totally no big deal.” 

Mobei-Jun frowns, thinking. 

“Didn’t I kill the steward?” Mobei-Jun asks. He’s fairly certain that he did, and on Shang Qinghua’s suggestion at that. The man had been letting assassins in through the backdoor for bribes, apparently. 

“I got a new one! I’ve had so much to deal with, with you-- uh, during the last few days. They haven’t done anything shady yet, but I’m totally keeping a close eye on them, don’t you worry, my king. If they put one foot out of line, then they’re so fired.” 

He grunts, and they leave his bedroom together. Shang Qinghua supports him, underneath the guise of anxiously clinging to him. He does his best to look steady, imposing, solid - not at all biting back a grimace of pain. He thinks that whatever expression he makes instead must look darkly furious, because guards and servants go pale at the sight of him and duck into bows even more quickly than usual. 

“You look so pissed,” Shang Qinghua whispers to him, confirming his suspicions. “That works, though! Who wouldn’t be pissed off after a murder attempt…?” 

They walk through the palace, people noting Mobei-Jun’s presence and paying their respects. There aren’t any visiting nobles or merchants currently in his court. His father had encouraged such things, always bored and seeking entertainment, enjoying any friction or conflict that arose as nobles vyed for his favor, his attention. Mobei-Jun has not encouraged this. He rarely has more than a couple guests at a time, outside of special occasions when he is forced either by tradition or the emperor to host events. People have learned that if they wish to curry his favor, then bothering him with their insistent presence is the opposite of what they should do. 

And it would make sense that Shang Qinghua wouldn’t want any outsiders inside of his home when Mobei-Jun is - indisposed. Absent. 

He meets the new steward, a demon who looks as if one of her ancestors once mated with a wolf, her fur a snowy white and her canines large and sharp, her knees inverted. She shows him deference and respect, giving an efficient report of the household’s welfare. Mobei-Jun can barely bring himself to focus on a single word, instead putting all of his effort into standing straight without faltering. Shang Qinghua listens for him, nodding and prompting her for more information. 

“--there has arrived another scroll from the Blood Coral--” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, nevermind that,” Shang Qinghua says quickly, flapping his hand as if to wave away her words like an inconvenient fly. “We’ll go over that later! Thanks a lot for the catch up, keep up the good work! Ah, my king, I just remembered something I wanted to talk to you about, can we speak somewhere more private?” 

Mobei-Jun gives a shallow nod, and Shang Qinghua tows him back in the direction of his bedroom. He seems to be trying to hurry without being obvious about it, like he wants to drag Mobei-Jun back into bed as quickly as possible. Or to get him away from the steward before she says anything more, before Mobei-Jun asks her anything. 

But it’s too late; he heard what she said, the name snagging his attention. The Blood Coral Clan, the people who dared to demand Shang Qinghua’s life over a petty slight. They have been sending scrolls. About what? More demands? Apologies? Threats? Whatever it is, Shang Qinghua doesn’t seem to want him to know about it. 

For most of his life, the suspicion that someone might be deliberately keeping a secret from him would send Mobei-Jun into a paranoid frenzy, driving him to pry answers out of them by any means necessary - orders, intimidation, and even force. 

Even Shang Qinghua; especially Shang Qinghua. The idea of being betrayed by him would hurt most of all, would fill him with a frantic, furious need to prove himself… right or wrong, he doesn’t know even now. He dreaded Shang Qinghua’s betrayal as much as he expected it, and not finding the waiting trapdoor only ever filled him with a mix of relief and dissatisfaction, the conviction that just because he didn’t find the trap didn’t mean that it wasn’t there. Only that he wouldn’t see it coming when it did. 

Now, however… He simply doesn’t. Shang Qinghua may be hiding something from him but whatever it might be he is certain that it isn’t conspiracy or mutiny. 

It is a strange feeling, trust. He had forgotten what it felt like until it came back to him. 

“What does the Blood Coral Clan want?” Mobei-Jun asks as Shang Qinghua helps him sit back down on his bed, without any violence to cloak fear or insecurity. He is not afraid, and so there is no need for it. 

“Huh?” Shang Qinghua asks, his voice immediately jumping half an octave. “Sorry, hm, what? Oh, those guys? Ah, nothing important, my king, don’t worry about it! This humble servant is handling the matter, so don’t sweat it. Just you focus on healing up, alright? The poison’s been slowing down your recovery a lot, you even had an infection for a little while there, haha, it looked so nasty I felt sick, I was scared we were going to have to amputate! But demon constitution is nothing so sneeze at, huh--” 

“How have you been handling it?” Mobei-Jun asks, placidly ignoring any attempts to move on from the subject. He dislikes the idea of Shang Qinghua so much as speaking to those people, let alone politely. They do not deserve politeness. 

“Oh, I haven’t been making any big moves, my king, don’t worry, don’t worry. I’ve basically just been leaving them on read actually, serves them right for-- for trying to bother you when you’re busy. I’ll use their scrolls as kindling and act like they just got lost in transit, just you watch. Letters? What letters? We haven’t received any letters!” 

Mobei-Jun frowns. “They have offended you?” 

“Not, like, on purpose I think? Just-- I think I get why you hate them so much now. You’re right, we don’t need to be allies with people like that. At the very least their ruler is an asshole. Which, okay, I get that most rulers are assholes, it kind of comes with the territory… no offense intended to my king!” 

He doesn’t see what the offense might be. To rule requires being powerful, requires being seen as powerful. The simplest way to display power is to crush people beneath your heel and show everyone how they can’t get out no matter how they struggle, or how they don’t even dare to try and struggle. ‘Assholery’, as Shang Qinghua would put it, is only to be expected. 

Shang Qinghua flutters busily around him, fussing and chattering about nothing. Mobei-Jun sits in place and mulls over the information he has, deciding what to do about it. Finally, he looks up as Shang Qinghua is putting away what little jewelry he’d put on Mobei-Jun earlier, catching his gaze. 

“Handle it,” he says. “But if you need my help, tell me.” 

It would be no great burden, to have to kill anyone who would dare to threaten or disrespect him. 

“O--oh,” Shang Qinghua says, and then brightens. “I mean-- yeah, of course, my king! As if I’ll nobly suffer in silence, haha. I’ll come running to you for help the second things get too hot for me, don’t you worry.” 

Mobei-Jun grunts with satisfaction, and lets Shang Qinghua fuss over him, getting him settled into bed and arranging things for his convenience. 

“I need to go to my office really quickly, just while you’re up,” Shang Qinghua says once he’s done. “There’s some things there that I left behind and haven’t had a good chance to go and get - I’ll be right back!” 

Mobei-Jun has observed the small nest of pillows and the chaotic smattering of ink and paper around it. If he looks even further, he can see traces of Shang Qinghua all over his room, stray pieces of clothing and used dishes, the detritus of living in a single room. He’s been staying here to take care of Mobei-Jun, and he hasn’t been letting any servants in to clean either. There’s a strong possibility that he’s barely left the room at all in the past five days, unwilling to leave Mobei-Jun alone for too long. 

It is a… a secure feeling, to know that he’s been looked over by someone trusted and devoted during his weakness. 

“Mn,” he hums, and watches Shang Qinghua dart quickly out of the room. Then once he’s alone, very laboriously, he gets out of bed. His body aches with disappointment over his movement, but he ignores it with a clenched jaw. Walking with a limp that he doesn’t bother to disguise now that he’s alone, he heads to the fireplace. 

It is almost an entirely ornamental thing, something that he’d had installed in his room after he officially became the new Mobei-Jun and then never used once. The cold of the North is a comfortable thing to him, natural. But it is a functional fireplace, ready and prepared to help keep a person warm, if someone with such needs were to ever spend a night here in his room. 

And someone has. There are fresh ashes in place, burned logs. Mobei-Jun carefully sifts through them, searching. 

He finds it. Fragments of letters, almost entirely destroyed but for a few remains. 

I’ll use their scrolls as kindling and act like they just got lost in transit, just you watch. 

What fireplace could Shang Qinghua have used over the past few days while keeping such a close watch over Mobei-Jun, but for his own? Frowning with concentration, he unearths as many fragments as he can and wrings what little information he can from them. 

He only gets a few words. But they’re enough. 

… your refusal, shameful cowardice… disgrace the title of Mobei-Jun… rejecting a challenge… Honor duel… 

… tradition demands satisfaction, the last and largest of the fragments reads. If an honor duel is denied, then the challenger may demand whatever recompense they desire from the coward… 

The letter fragments, crumbling and fragile from the fire, are crushed into dust in his fist. Ice fogs out in the air as he breathes out, a growl on the exhale. He gets up and opens the door, and addresses one of the guards standing outside. They startle at his disheveled appearance, tensing up as they realize that he’s talking to them. 

“The steward,” Mobei-Jun says, not remembering her name. “Inform her that I’m accepting the challenge. Make her prepare the arrangements.” 

“Y-- yes, your--!” 

Mobei-Jun closes the door, staggers back inside, and tries to make his way back to the bed. He doesn’t make it, his strength abruptly abandoning him, knees hitting the floor. The impact of it travels to his wounds and makes him choke, his vision whiting out for a moment. He kneels there for a long time, trying to catch his breath, to find it within himself to get up and make the rest of his way to the bed. To resist the urge to simply gracelessly collapse the rest of the way to the floor and stay there. 

Shang Qinghua returns before he does either of these things, squawking with alarm at the sight of him and hurriedly dropping his things to come and assist him. 

“My king, my king, what are you doing out of bed? You’re hurt, you need to rest! If you need anything then just tell me and I’ll go get it for you, okay? We can’t let people know how bad you’re doing right now, but you are not operating at a hundred percent, okay? Maybe ten, so take it easy! You’ve got to rest up to get better, so please don’t fuck around like this. Please, for my peace of mind!” 

Mobei-Jun is put back into bed, Shang Qinghua supporting more of his weight than he is. Shang Qinghua fusses over him, and Mobei-Jun looks up at him. There’s a furrow of worry between his brows, dark circles underneath his bloodshot eyes. There’s a general ragged, harried air to him, a man who has stayed up too late for too many nights, worrying and fretting and stressing. 

The Blood Coral Clan are insulted that Mobei-Jun would reject an alliance with them. They are gravely offended that he’d reject it for something as pathetic as a human, a creature so far beneath them. They feel that Mobei-Jun is mocking them, has humiliated them. They want to save face; they want revenge. 

They will ask for the life of this pathetic creature, with his ink stained fingers and frizzing hair and concerned eyes, to show that they are more important than it. 

Mobei-Jun feels fatigued, pained. But even more than that… underneath the surface, like a vast iceberg in the water, he feels a rage as cold as ice. He will not let them. He refuses. 

“Ahh, this is bad, this is bad,” Shang Qinghua says. “When are Shen-bro and Junshang coming back? You’re in such bad shape, what are we gonna do if some crisis pops up? No - don’t worry, my king, I’ll handle it! We’ve got soldiers for a reason after all, no reason why they can’t earn their keep! Nevermind me, please just rest.” 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun says, and Shang Qinghua freezes for a moment before his full attention lands on him. Saying his name has that effect. Mobei-Jun uses it sparingly, as if to avoid wearing it out, treating it like fine china, something for special occasions. He meets Shang Qinghua’s eyes. “It will be fine.” 

He puts the full weight of his certainty behind the words. It is true, because he will make it true. Challengers can only demand recompense if the challenged refuses to fight at all; whether he loses or wins the honor duel is immaterial. 

Besides that honor duels are to the death. Besides that he is weak, poisoned and wounded. 

Shang Qinghua holds his gaze for a breathless moment, before he seems to waver and then give a little laugh. He smiles a little unsteadily and rubs at the back of his head, looking for a moment less tense and nervous, but more tired and worn out. 

“Haha, yeah, I guess you’re right, huh? We’ve been through worse shit than this! Sorry, my king, this humble servant is getting worked up over nothing again. It’ll be fine, yeah! We just have to close ranks and get through this as usual, and it’ll all be okay.” 

Mobei-Jun imagines walking into a slaughter, knowing with every step that inevitable defeat awaits him. 

It does not matter. The only other option is unacceptable, and so he will not consider it. Shen Qingqiu will look after his martial sibling; Shang Qinghua has a cultivation sect to run back to. It will be fine, so long as he changes his standards for what qualifies as ‘fine.’ 

After having struggled an entire lifetime to survive against all odds, it is an oddly tender feeling to have finally found something that he prizes more highly than his own life. This, he supposes, is what love is. 

He is only lucky to have found it. 

Notes:

The lovely illustration this chapter was done by one of my big bang partners Панасоник! Trigo42!

Chapter 3: Honor Duel

Notes:

This chapter is 5.1k words long

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

Chapter Text

Shang Qinghua discovers Mobei-Jun’s machinations almost at once, and is deeply unhappy. 

“You accepted the challenge!?” he demands shrilly, his voice like a strangled duck. He gestures wildly at Mobei-Jun’s bedbound form with a scroll that has a broken Blood Coral Clan seal on it, his face bright red with what looks like rage. “Fucking WHY!? You-- you couldn’t defeat an imp right now! You’re not fit to skip jumprope, but you think you’re ready for a fight to the fucking death!? Why are you like this? What’s wrong with you? Who told you about this? I’ll fire them!” 

“I found out myself,” Mobei-Jun says, shameless and unapologetic. Shang Qinghua is so infuriated by this answer that he throws the scroll furiously in the direction of a wall. It unfurls and flutters to the floor short of his target. 

“Take it back!” Shang Qinghua cries, clutching at his own hair. “Tell them you changed your mind, now!” 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says. 

Shang Qinghua’s face spasms, as if whatever he’s feeling is too overwhelming for him to properly convey. After a moment, he falls to his knees, grabs a pillow, and muffles a scream into it. When he comes up from the pillow he seems slightly calmer, although with a lingering wild eyed look to the edges of him. 

“My king,” Shang Qinghua says with forced steadiness, edging closer towards him without coming up from his knees. “My king, please see reason, listen to your royal advisor, who you picked out yourself. Don’t fucking do this.” 

“When are they coming?” Mobei-Jun asks. Shang Qinghua has read the Blood Coral Clan’s response, not him. 

“In three days, so I’m sure you see why this is completely crazy and you can’t go through with it! You’re nowhere near ready for combat, you’re still firmly in ‘recovering invalid’ mode. Please, my king,” Shang Qinghua says, and his voice takes a turn for the pleading, desperately beseeching. He grabs at Mobei-Jun’s bedsheets and stares at him with wet, imploring eyes. “I know that you’re supposed to be stoic and honorable, the coolest warrior who never backs down from a fight - but you don’t have to be. Not always! You can give it a skip just this once, it’s fine! People will eventually forget about it!” 

As if Mobei-Jun is doing this for his reputation. A strong reputation is an important thing to have, especially for a king - it can potentially ward off assassinations, fights, betrayals. A good reputation is a shield in and of itself. He understands the importance of such things, and has never underestimated it. But he would not be foolish enough to die for it. It would be like slitting your own throat for the antidote to a poison; counterproductive, pointless. 

“I don’t care,” Mobei-Jun says. 

Shang Qinghua spends several minutes hissing swears to himself over this, looking ready to cry from sheer frustration. He seems to gather his strength for another attempt, and Mobei-Jun readies himself to let it wash over him like an ocean wave against an immovable iceberg. 

“Honor’s not real, you know,” Shang Qinghua says, a strain of desperation to his voice now. “It’s just made up, you know that? We made it up, humans and demons! That’s why what counts as honorable or dishonorable is different everywhere, because people can’t fucking agree, because it’s not an objective thing. We decide whether or not something counts as honorable! You can just decide that this doesn’t count, my king! I mean, what kind of fucking challenge even is this? To challenge someone they know is hurt? What sort of timing is that, anyway? I bet they were in on it, somehow! I bet your uncle maneuvered this entire thing just to screw you over, with all of his machiavellian bullshit. If you go into this fight then you’re letting him win. Refuse the fight, ruin his day!” 

Mobei-Jun doesn’t respond. Shang Qinghua only seems to grow more desperate, shuffling closer as if proximity will help give his arguments more of an advantage. 

“You’re not going to win this fight,” Shang Qinghua says. “I’m sorry, you’re so strong, the coolest and most brutal warrior ever, but this isn’t a fair fight. They’re rigging the game against you because they know they can’t beat you when you’re in peak condition. Honor-- honor’s such a thin thing to die for, isn’t it? I mean, it’s literally fake! You don’t need to die over something like this, something so stupid and avoidable, just because society says you should. Society? Fuck society! This would be a wasted death, and you’re too good for that shit!” 

He stops, panting for breath, and looks at Mobei-Jun expectantly, tense and waiting. Arguing so fiercely for him to see sense, to not risk himself in his weakness, desperate to keep him safe. Mobei-Jun looks at him and thinks that protecting him could never be wasted. 

“I must fight,” Mobei-Jun says, as implacable as the mountains. He knows Shang Qinghua will continue to try and convince him, is willing to spend hours to argue and reason-- 

But instead, his face crumples up before Mobei-Jun’s eyes. Tears start to leak out of his eyes, and he rubs at them furiously as his face twists with bitterness and despair. This is not the way he normally cries, all loud, dramatic wailing and pleading. It is a shock to see. 

“Why do you always have to be so-- so fucking stubborn?” Shang Qinghua says, his voice tight and rough with unhappiness. He won’t even look at Mobei-Jun, his gaze sunk downwards. “You won’t even listen to me. Why? Is it because I fucked up? I’m sorry, alright? I got cocky and fucked up, shit. I’ll make up for it, I’ll fix it. Just let me instead of trying to throw yourself at this all alone and getting yourself killed over some no name canon fodder piece of shit--!” 

“No,” Mobei-Jun manages to interrupt, knows he needs to say. “You haven’t done wrong.” 

“Then who did!?” Shang Qinghua demands, shooting up to his feet, his voice rising sharply until it cracks. He looks livid, even as tears continue to stream down his face. “What went wrong for shit to end up here, backed up into a corner out of fucking nowhere for no good reason!? If not me, then who fucked up?”  

Mobei-Jun doesn’t know what to say. He often doesn’t. Shang Qinghua breathes harshly, looking at him with clenched and trembling fists, waiting for an answer that doesn’t come. 

“That’s what I thought,” he says eventually, as if bitterly winning an argument. “You shouldn’t do this, it’s stupid, it’s doomed. But you’re going to do it anyway, no matter what I do or say. Isn’t that right?” 

“Yes,” Mobei-Jun says. There is no other alternative. 

Shang Qinghua inhales deeply, his tear stained, blotchy cheeks puffing up. When he exhales, he seems to breathe out something more than just air. The trembling rigidness to his body deflates, leaving behind only an odd air of finality, resolve. 

“Fine,” Shang Qinghua says tiredly, flatly. “Then that’s how it is. I’ll go figure out how to host an honor duel to the death, I guess.” 

He leaves, and Mobei-Jun swallows the irrational urge to apologize to his retreating form. He is doing this to protect Shang Qinghua, and he refuses to apologize for such a thing. 

Nonetheless, the urge lingers. 

 

Three days pass. Mobei-Jun’s condition improves only marginally, his healing frustratingly stunted by the poison stubbornly lingering in his veins. He barely sees Shang Qinghua, who seems to be absorbed in his preparations for the honor duel - or simply unwilling to face Mobei-Jun, after his complete and total refusal to give in to his most desperate pleas. 

He accepts this, even as he swallows back the childish urge to order Shang Qinghua to stay with him. The time he has left in this life is short, and the idea of barely seeing his human at all in these last days makes him… it makes him want to do something. But Shang Qinghua would not appreciate being forced to be in Mobei-Jun’s presence, and it would go against the vow he has made to himself, to treat him fairly and with honor. He will not break it. Not ever, and especially not now. He will not have one of his last actions be to besmirch his own name, to dishonor Shang Qinghua. 

Still. The days drag unhappily and torturously past him, feeling wasted and unbearable in equal measure. Then the final day comes. 

“The Blood Coral Clan is almost here,” Shang Qinghua tells him, the most that he’s spoken to him since their disagreement. He looks pale and tense, his lips pressed thin and bloodless, his fingers twitchy and restless where he’s clasped them. “They’ve been spotted - we’ve got less than an hour to get you ready.” 

The Northern Ice Palace is surrounded by a flat tundra for miles, its namesake northern desert. There are disadvantages to this, but it makes up for it by how utterly impossible it is for anyone to approach the palace without being in painfully plain sight from miles away. Mobei-Jun’s forces are free to shoot down any approachers at their leisure. For them to be less than an hour away means that they must be traveling at a considerable speed. 

Mobei-Jun gets out of bed, where he’s been convalescing for the last three days as if he might suddenly experience a miraculous recovery that would give him a reasonable hope of surviving. He hasn’t. Instead, a pained grunt slips out of him as he sits upright, pain radiating through his body. He feels almost just as weak as he had when he’d awoken days ago. 

“My king, there’s still time for you to turn back,” Shang Qinghua implores him, looking pale and tired and plaintive. Nonetheless, he supports and helps Mobei-Jun up even as tries to convince him to stop. “You just have to not let those bastards in through the gates - tell them to get off your lawn and go home! We can do damage control, it’s fine, this is salvageable. Pretty much the only situation that we can’t do damage control for is death.” 

Mobei-Jun doesn’t reply. He’s already told Shang Qinghua that he will do this, and his answer hasn’t changed. 

Shang Qinghua’s expression tightens in response, all bitter, unhappy resignation. “Fine,” he mutters, and he helps dress Mobei-Jun in unsettling silence. 

He lays out an outfit that Mobei-Jun hasn’t seen before. It has the white fur mantle of a northern predator, and the robes are snow white silk, soft and sleek, not at all the sturdier, darker materials that he tends to prefer. There is accompanying jewelry, something that looks like diamonds, but thick and cloudy enough to resemble jagged ice. Shards of it go in his hair, around his neck and dripping down his chest, on each wrist, and even as caps on his claws, sharp and gleaming. There are smaller shards of it sewn into the very fabric of the cloth, subtle and easy to overlook unless the light catches them. 

It isn’t unusual these days for Shang Qinghua to resupply his wardrobe, replacing torn and ruined garments from his more violent hunts. He tends to avoid liberties for the most part, only choosing the things that he already knows suit Mobei-Jun’s preferences. If there has been any trend to Shang Qinghua’s choices before, then it has only been to pick outfits that lean towards the revealing, tight and low-cut. 

This outfit isn’t that. He stares at the mirror, trying to understand it as Shang Qinghua frowns and connects clasps as if it requires the utmost concentration. The only spots of color on him now are his blue eyes and black hair, everything else white and white. Blood will show through bright and scarlet, staining the silk obviously. 

He remembers abruptly that for humans the color of death isn’t blood red, but rather bone white. Is that why? 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun says. 

Shang Qinghua goes still and looks up at him, not saying anything. He looks tense, waiting. 

“You do not need to…” He struggles for the words, searching. Trying to even understand what it is he wants to say. “Make someone else arrange my funeral.” 

That’s it. He doesn’t like the idea of it, making Shang Qinghua do such a thing. It is too much. He’s already chosen the clothes that Mobei-Jun will die in. He can’t ask for more. 

Shang Qinghua’s mouth opens, and nothing comes out. His jaw hangs for a moment, speechless. When he finally manages to find his voice, it comes out unsteady and rough. 

“Your funeral?” he asks, eyes wide and white. “So you get that you’re going to lose? Then… then why are you doing this!?” 

“It is necessary,” Mobei-Jun says. 

“Bullshit it is,” Shang Qinghua says, his simmering anger sparking. “Who’s the king here? Who’s the Emperor Regent? You! You make the fucking rules and no one gets to make you do anything. It’s not like you’re stuck in a corner any longer, constantly having to fend off attacks from half a dozen shitty siblings and an even shittier uncle, along with a fucking capricious mad king neglectful dad to avoid pissing off. You’re powerful now, you’ve got cache! People do what you tell them to, so tell these guys to fuck off!” 

That is not how it works. The more powerful you are, the more eyes there are on you. The more people fear you, pay attention to you. People don’t like a king who breaks the rules, who behaves as he likes without a thought for what the consequences might be. A king like that might do anything, break or take anything. Even his father, impatient and greedy and selfish as he’d been, begrudgingly observed tradition and decorum - outside of a single exception. And how well had that gone for him? 

Shang Qinghua already knows this, and Mobei-Jun knows that he knows. He doesn’t need to say anything. He watches as Shang Qinghua’s expression sours, the bitterness of reality weighing on him. 

“I thought,” Shang Qinghua says, “that when you got to ascend and become Mobei-Jun that-- that’d be like game complete , you know? You can’t go any higher than that, you’re solid, you’re set, you’ve won. You’ve basically got as much power and resources and safety as you’re ever gonna have, and you’ll be playing with a stacked deck to your advantage for the rest of your life. So why is it that you’re so much more willing to die now than you ever were as a persecuted prince with enemies at all sides? You’ve got everything to lose!” 

He says this as if Shang Qinghua isn’t the one thing that he’s always had, even back in the uncertain days of fighting for his succession. His loyal servant, his secret benefactor, his trusted ally. His and only his. 

No one else gets to lay a hand on him. He’ll kill anyone who tries, even if he must die as well. 

“Some things are more important than living,” Mobei-Jun says, something he had gone for most of his life not believing. 

Shang Qinghua’s face twists with resentment, dark and unhappy. 

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“Of course,” he says, and he fastens a last chain on Mobei-Jun’s jewelry, a delicate string that connects the claws to the bracelets. “How could a desperate rat like me, willing to do anything to survive, no matter how horrible, ever possibly understand an honorable warrior like you?” 

Despite everything, or perhaps because of it, Mobei-Jun’s temper flares against his will. 

“I have done horrible things to survive,” Mobei-Jun snaps, dozens of vile memories rising to his mind. The things he’d had to eat when he couldn’t trust any of the food in the palace, the wretched places he’d had to hide as a child without access to his abilities - he had done whatever he had to do in order to live. He does not appreciate being accused of being impractical. 

“And I have always admired that part of you, my king,” Shang Qinghua says quickly, entreating. “I like that you care so much about living, that you’re so determined and resourceful! You never just lie down to die, you fight for yourself. So why--?” 

They’re interrupted, a deferential knock at the door revealing itself to be the new steward, who Mobei-Jun has yet to familiarize himself with. She shows up with a stiff tail and cautiously lowered muzzle, and tells them that the Blood Coral Clan have arrived and are awaiting their welcome. 

Mobei-Jun goes to greet his enemy, and Shang Qinghua quietly follows. He has nothing more to say, no more last ditch attempts to dissuade him from his course of action. He has accepted what is going to happen, resigned and beaten. 

It feels wrong. He tries not to dwell on it. 

The Blood Coral Clan have arrived in pomp and circumstance. There are over two dozen of them, most of them heavily armored guards that stand stiffly flanking their leader, presumably the best of the best of warriors they had available. They all have shields that seem to either be made to look like large shells, or to have been taken from a very large sea creature.  There is an uncomfortable, harried air to them. These are not the climes they’re suited to, Mobei-Jun judges. 

And then there is their leader, placed at the very center of their entourage like the pearl in a clam. He looks old, but only in the same way that Mobei-Jun’s uncle looks old - aged and experienced rather than weak or feeble, in just the right position to condescendingly look down on those younger than him as immature and foolish. He thinks for a moment that shark teeth are what decorates his throat as jewelry, before the man bares his teeth at him in greeting and he sees the resemblance. Are those his own, or trophies from his enemies? 

No matter. 

“Venerable Mobei-Jun,” the Blood Coral Clan leader greets him, his eyes taking in Mobei-Jun. Searching him for flaws, weakness. 

He wonders how visible his injured state is. It will become painfully obvious once they fight, but until then - Mobei-Jun wishes to scare this demon, to fill him with uncertainty and regret. At least for some time. He stands tall and straight, implacable. 

“Shayu-Jun,” Mobei-Jun replies flatly, and nothing more. 

The air is thick with expectation, waiting. Merciless, Mobei-Jun does not rush to fill the taut silence. 

“... This king heard word that you were in a wounded state, Mobei-Jun,” the Blood Coral Clan leader says slowly, faux carelessly. “Positively bedridden. What a relief it is to see that I’d heard wrong.” 

And who had told him that? Mobei-Jun suspects he already knows. Linguan-Jun has always had a gift for dripping poison into peoples ears. 

“You shouldn’t believe everything you’re told,” he says, and turns and leaves. “Follow.” 

Grudge fights, violent brawls, and outright executions are acceptable within the throne room, as well as roughly any room in the palace large enough to hold a cheering audience. But honor duels are regimented, traditional, official, and thus there is a chamber in the palace entirely dedicated to hosting such an event. His father had used it often, until his health had begun to wane and he’d stopped challenging people as often, and had subtly discouraged any challenges aimed his way. This is the first time in Mobei-Jun’s reign that someone has been audacious enough to challenge him; he vaguely thinks that Shang Qinghua might have actually been using the room as excess storage until now. 

It’s prepared for its purpose now, at any rate. Large and empty, the ceiling arching, with stands high above to spectate the fight. Shayu-Jun’s people begin to take their places there, ready to observe this fight to the death. Mobei-Jun recognizes some of his own people already there, servants and guards. A few look as if they’re quietly brimming with excitement for the bloodshed to come, but surprisingly most of them look… tense. 

They must be wondering what will happen to them, once their king is dead, with no clear successor to the throne. There will be infighting amongst his remaining surviving family members for who will inherit, and - the thought is a sour, unpleasant pang - his uncle will most likely come out on top. He is the strongest contender, both in claim and combat prowess. He is no doubt waiting not far away, prepared to arrive with a grand entrance once blood has been spilled, here to claim both the throne and the ancestral power within Mobei-Jun’s corpse. 

What about Shang Qinghua? 

The idea hits him like an arrow to the chest, the image of Shang Qinghua here with his body and surrounded by enemies on all sides, the Blood Coral Clan that wants his head and the Northern Desert Kingdom forces that would be then pledged to the vengeful Linguan-Jun’s service. He shouldn’t be here. He should already have left, fled to the Human Realm before the inevitable events unfold. 

Mobei-Jun searches the stands for Shang Qinghua frantically, even as Shayu-Jun gets into position across from him. He must-- he will delay, he will refuse to fight until Shang Qinghua has left, but where is he--? 

He moves to dodge the blow coming at him before he registers it, his body moving without thought once he catches the movement out of the corner of his eye. He catches a sword by the blade with an ice encrusted hand, ice chips flying, the impact of the strike rocking through his entire body so a pained grunt is wrenched out of him. 

“Not even looking at me?” Shayu-Jun asks, too close too fast. He grins, all sharp shark teeth. “Cocky.” 

Mobei-Jun swings at him, chunks of ice coating his knuckles, and Shayu-Jun pushes away from him to avoid the blow. He laughs as he does, looking delighted by how slow the strike was, how sloppy. His weakness has been seen. Mobei-Jun’s skin prickles with a painful heat. 

He didn’t see Shang Qinghua in the stands, can’t hear him. Did he already leave? Slipped away as soon as the fight began, too cautious and clever to stick around for the aftermath. It is a sharp and profound relief, but also-- something about it, the idea of Shang Qinghua turning his back and leaving as Mobei-Jun fights to his death-- 

“Are you asleep, Mobei-Jun?” Shayu-Jun mocks, and he swipes towards Mobei-Jun’s throat with his sword, so that he’s forced to stagger backwards. He looks amused, bright and sharp, and Mobei-Jun realizes what’s happening. 

He’s being played with, like a cat with a mouse. This will not be a quick, dignified death in combat, but rather a dragged out mockery of one. 

With a snarl, Mobei-Jun takes what little strength he has and casts it out with a hand, a long and vicious spear of ice shooting out of the air towards his opponent. It takes all the air out of him, leaves him stumbling for balance, darkness flickering over him for a moment - and Shayu-Jun bats the ice spear out of the air, and it shatters uselessly into a thousand shards onto the floor. Brittle, weak. 

That painful heat again, prickling across his skin - at his throat, his wrists, his claws… 

Mobei-Jun looks down, and sees the jewelry on him, cloudy and white. It’s faintly glowing, as if heated in a forge. It hurts. 

“What’s this?” Shayu-Jun asks, and his voice is suddenly sharp again with wariness, no longer content to tear Mobei-Jun into pieces at his leisure. “Are you playing with tools?” 

Shayu-Jun strikes for Mobei-Jun again, this time more seriously, more deadly. He raises a hand to raise a shield of ice - but his ice is weak now, he would smash through it effortlessly - a portal to stumble through, to give him distance to work with - but that’s too slow, he won’t have the time-- 

And as Mobei-Jun wrenches what little power he has up from beneath the molasses weight of the poison lingering in his veins, the crystals decorating him glow brighter, burn hotter-- 

--they’re feeding on him--

“You’ve fallen into my trap, my king!” 

Shayu-Jun’s aim veers off course, distracted, enough so for Mobei-Jun to dodge it. They both turn to look, to see who would dare interrupt a sacred honor duel--

It is Shang Qinghua, of course. He stands at the edge of the arena, and seems to be doing some sort of victorious pose. He’s grinning, his teeth all bravado and his eyes terrified. 

He’s holding a cloudy, snow white crystal, glowing like a star within his hand. 

description of image

“What?” Shayu-Jun asks. 

“Behold!” Shang Qinghua says too loudly, as if projecting for the crowd, gesturing wildly with the crystal in his hand. There’s sweat on his brow, a waver to his voice. “A Power Absorbing Snow White Moon Crystal! With something like this, even someone as weak and pathetic as me can make the powerful, fearsome, strong Mobei-Jun helpless! By cunning and underhanded means, I’ve beaten you!” 

“What,” Shayu-Jun repeats, sounding as angry as he does bewildered. “You… do you realize that you’re interrupting an honor duel--?” 

“And what’s more!” Shang Qinghua cries, doing another pose. He seems to be doing some sort of impression, but Mobei-Jun has absolutely no idea of who or what. His hands are trembling. “Not only that, but I’m going to disrespectfully interfere in this honor duel, thus making the results of it totally null and void. Your precious ancient tradition is ruined!”  

Of course, Mobei-Jun thinks, a wave of breathless relief washing through him. Of course Shang Qinghua wouldn’t just leave him to die. He never has before, after all. He has a plan. 

“I was already winning,” Shayu-Jun says, his face twisted with a baffled, disgusted sort of irritation. “That’s clear for anyone to see.”

“Because I weakened my king for you, yes! You can still kill him, but your honor will totally be in question if you do. Gosh, I guess the only thing left for you to do is to challenge him again once I’m gone, huh? But not so fast! Ah, my king, my king, I bet you didn’t see this coming, huh? Your supposedly loyal, trusted royal advisor… and I was secretly scheming against you all along.” 

Mobei-Jun stares at Shang Qinghua, feeling a little dazed and dumb by his own pain and exhaustion, along with the dizzying feeling of a rescue where he hadn’t anticipated one. He doesn’t know how this is supposed to work, but that’s fine. Shang Qinghua knows. 

Above them, the audience is excitedly buzzing, confused but curious to see where this is going. Shayu-Jun looks between Shang Qinghua, Mobei-Jun, the audience, and then frowns. He does not look like he’s enjoying himself any longer. 

“For interfering with a sacred honor duel between royalty, you must die,” he says flatly. He raises his sword. “And after that I’ll finish what I started--” 

Mobei-Jun is getting ready to attack Shayu-Jun, to throw himself between him and Shang Qinghua if he must - when Shang Qinghua does a wild flailing motion with his arm that at first looks like blind panic, but then-- 

Ice shoots at Shayu-Jun, who is startled enough that it actually hits him. It sinks into his flesh like shrapnel so that he roars with shocked pain, brutal and sudden. The ice isn’t formed into neat, sharp spears or daggers, but instead lopsided and jagged, edges sticking out at random. They look raw and unrefined, power without finesse. 

Mobei-Jun had not made that ice. He stares at Shang Qinghua, who is clutching at his own nose - he accidentally punched himself in the face with the recoil of what he’d done. 

The white crystal in his hand is glowing just slightly dimmer now, he notices distantly. 

“Fuck,” Shang Qinghua gasps out, and then stands straight from the pained hunch he’d gone into. He gives a forced, boisterous laugh, even as his nose bleeds slightly. “Behold my power, asshole! I’ve got the power of Mobei-Jun at my disposal now, so you’re fucked. Thought you could just stroll in here and finish off something you didn’t start, huh!? Well surprise, it’s not gonna be that easy, is it! If you think--” 

“Qinghua!” Mobei-Jun shouts. 

Shang Qinghua, who has learned how to respond when Mobei-Jun calls out to him in such a way, throws his entire body to the floor without stopping to look or think. Shayu-Jun’s sword sinks into the wall behind him, all the way to the hilt. 

“Oh fuck,” Shang Qinghua wheezes, his arrogant hysteria dashed. “Okay, shit, fuck this. This sham is over, everyone! Mobei-Jun is mine, I’m calling dibs here, so I’m not letting someone like you--!” 

Shayu-Jun roars and lunges towards Shang Qinghua, who shrieks and scrambles up to his feet to dart away. Mobei-Jun does not tackle or restrain Shayu-Jun so much as he uses his own body as an obstacle, throwing himself at the man. He’s thrown onto the floor almost immediately, and every wound he has aches at the impact. He grits his teeth to avoid crying out, refusing to give his opponent the satisfaction. 

“Hey, fuck you!” Shang Qinghua says, his voice rising sharply with indignation. “You goddamned forgettable Mid Boss piece of shit, who the hell do you think you are!? You think you’re hot shit just because you’re just not cliche enough not to fight with a trident? I bet your only purpose is to have a bunch of hot mermaid princess daughters for--” 

Shang Qinghua bites himself off as Shayu-Jun charges for him again. Mobei-Jun tries to push himself up, to force his way through the pain and move, before-- 

The crystal in Shang Qinghua’s hand flares again, and a wave of weakness washes over Mobei-Jun, leaving him to collapse down onto the floor again. Darkness swims in his vision, pitch as oblivion and bottomless as the void, dancing and rippling. He blinks, and he realizes - that’s a portal. One of his portals, cold as winter and tinged with the Abyss of his bloodline. It’s tearing open in front of him - no, behind him, no - 

He realizes that Shang Qinghua has opened a portal right underneath him on the floor just as he slips into it like lake ice breaking underfoot. The crystals, latched onto him and sucking up his power like a greedy tick draining his blood, burn hot and painful against his skin. 

It’s the last sensation he feels as he passes out, taking him under before he even lands. 

Notes:

The lovely illustrations this chapter were done by juliria!

Chapter 4: Captivity

Notes:

This chapter is 8.5k words long

Chapter Text

Mobei-Jun is no stranger to waking up to pain, not knowing where he is or what happened. It’s less frightening than it might sound. He knows, after all, that if he’d passed out before dragging himself to relative safety then he never would have woken up at all. He’s good at forcing himself forward until he finds some secret, hidden place to bleed in peace. 

For many years of his life, that place was deep within a nest of human cultivators who would tear him to shreds should they discover him in their midst, right underneath Shang Qinghua’s watchful gaze. He would squawk and fret over Mobei-Jun showing up half mauled, or burned, or poisoned, and he’d bandage his wounds and give him his own food and water, frantically seeing to him to the best of his abilities. 

Panicking over his arrival one moment and then pettily muttering about having to wash out blood stains from his sheets the next, he’d act as if he didn’t hold Mobei-Jun’s life in his hands, as if he couldn’t simply open a door and bring a tide of killers to his doorstep at his weakest, most vulnerable moment. It had made Mobei-Jun more tense and bristling than any outright threat would, Shang Qinghua acting as if he didn’t have him utterly at his mercy. At least if he’d just gloat about it, rub it into his face, demand something of him in return, then Mobei-Jun would know what he was dealing with. Instead, there had been the awful tension of waiting, of uncertainty. 

In hindsight, Mobei-Jun had been trying to provoke Shang Qinghua into action. To push and push and push, snapping and snarling at the man who would feed and care for him when he was at his weakest, as if daring him to retaliate. And then, of course, Mobei-Jun could have stopped constantly worrying over his loyalties because he would have known they were false. He could have killed the traitor and felt that he’d done what was necessary, and then moved on, safe and isolated, no one close enough to him to ever sink a knife into his back again. 

Or Shang Qinghua would have killed him instead. That would also have put an end to the doubt. 

That is over now. The doubt is gone, and they’re both still alive for it. Mobei-Jun can now submit himself to Shang Qinghua’s mercy without bracing himself for the lack of it, teeth grit and shoulders tense, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He knows that the worst he’ll ever get are complaints and jokes at his expense, and perhaps some cheek pinching if he has been rendered utterly helpless. 

And so he wakes by degrees to pain, to weakness, to disorientation, but he does not tense or bare his teeth. He is lying on something soft, covers pulled over him, and he feels a gentle constriction - the snug wrap of bandages, he judges. He has been hurt, but he is safe, taken care of. After whatever fight he’d survived, he must have managed to drag himself to Shang Qinghua’s side first before collapsing. 

Then he opens his eyes, and doesn’t recognize where he is. 

It isn’t his bedroom at the palace, nor is it the hidden safety of Shang Qinghua’s Leisure House on An Ding Peak. It’s an entirely new place, a bedroom with no familiar furnishings or decorations, no windows and only a single door. This wouldn’t be too concerning; Mobei-Jun must often travel across the Realm for his duties, and he does not always simply slip through a portal to sleep in his own bedroom for the night. 

What is concerning is the array painted onto the floor, walls, and ceiling with him at the center, and the shackles he had taken for bandages that chain him to the bed. He wakes up much more rapidly from there, evaluating his situation. 

He feels weak and sluggish, aching and wounded - but, he realizes, this is nothing new. These are only the pains he’s been struggling against for the last few days now, ever since the assassination attempt while he was fighting the Abyssal Beast. The only new wounds that he notices are some bruises, along with a cut along his palm that he hadn’t noticed acquiring, but that has been carefully wrapped with a clean white bandage. He doesn’t feel parched or starving, so he can only have been unconscious for hours at most. 

His clothes are the same as earlier, that silky snow white outfit with the - the gemstones. Mobei-Jun raises his hand and looks. The claw caps are still there, the rings and the… 

The bracelets have been replaced with thick and sturdy shackles, of the exact same material. Cloudy and white, something not quite like diamonds. The chains rattle as he moves his hand, attached to the wall behind him. Experimentally, Mobei-Jun tries to tear the links of the chain apart with brute force, pulling hard enough that he growls underneath his breath with the effort. It doesn’t work. He doesn’t know if it’s because the material is indestructible, or if he is simply so weak now. 

He is in chains, in a strange location. It is obvious that he has been abducted, is being held captive, but why? Such a thing has never happened to him before. People have only ever tried to kill him, not take him. To try and ransom a Northern Desert prince would only result in a dead prince and a slaughter by the king as vengeance, and Mobei-Jun is the king now. Who would he be ransomed to? Luo Binghe? Who would do this? 

The shackles are the same as the jewelry. The jewelry given to him by-- 

The door opens, and before Mobei-Jun can even think of making a surprise attack, there is a cry of, “My king! You’re awake!” 

Shang Qinghua comes rushing in, looking harried and relieved all at once, his hair in disarray and his clothes not much better. He comes rushing to Mobei-Jun’s bedside as if to throw himself to the floor so he can tearfully clutch at Mobei-Jun’s sleeve - but then he staggers to a halt like he’s been clotheslined, a sudden expression of alarm flashing across his face. He hurriedly backs away until he’s standing at a respectful, wary distance. Outside of swiping range. 

Mobei-Jun doesn’t understand. 

“Ah,” Shang Qinghua says, his voice bubbling up to fill the empty silence, as expected as gravity. His eyes are bouncing around as if in fruitless search of some comfortable place to rest his gaze, flitting between the corners of the room and Mobei-Jun’s shackles. “I-- I bet you’re wondering what’s going on, huh? I mean - so would I, in your position! I’d have lots of-- a lot of questions! Right!?” 

He goes quiet, tense as if waiting for something. Mobei-Jun, as comfortable as he is with letting people flounder in silence, strains himself for Shang Qinghua’s sake. 

“The Blood Coral Clan,” he says, reaching for a concern. “What happened with them?” 

When Mobei-Jun had gone under, Shayu-Jun had been in a rage and charging for Shang Qinghua. His attention sharpens, searching him for signs of injury. If he is wounded-- 

“Oh, those guys?” Shang Qinghua asks, perking up with surprise. “That’s-- yeah, haha, I guess it wouldn’t be good if those guys had just been given free reign of the palace to rampage, huh? Don’t worry, my king! I kicked them all out after I got you out of the way, using your… your portals…” 

His voice feebly trails off, sputtering into a graceless, wincing silence. He looks as if he’s said something wrong, teeth clenched in an expression of acute regret. 

Mobei-Jun twists his hand, examining the shackle snapped around it, hearing the chain clink with the movement. What had Shang Qinghua called it? Power absorbing something. 

“You have my powers now,” Mobei-Jun says slowly. He remembers those ice shards that shot into Shayu-Jun’s chest, sharp and malformed. 

“J-- just on tap, my king. I mean, it’s not like I’ve stolen them or anything - except, that is, for how I’m kind of stealing them… but you still have them! I’m just renting them, really! With… without paying you, haha.” 

Mobei-Jun tries to form a crystal of ice in the palm of his hand. The first signs of drawing on his powers are an exhausting drag, like trying to scrape out the last dregs from an already emptied lake, but this is something he’s experienced before. He can power through it, definitely for something as small and second nature as this. The faintest of cold winds are stirring in his hand-- 

And then the jewelry and shackles all start to glow like moonshine, siphoning on the currents of his power - before it feels as if a dam slams into place. The stirring winds cease, leaving nothing behind but a single snowflake that had begun to materialize, leaving it to float to his hand and melt there. Mobei-Jun grits his teeth and tries again, pulls - and he can pull, he can draw on his powers… but none of it goes to him. The shackles glow brightly, well fed. 

“My-- my king, you should, ah, please stop? Please, before you pass out again already?” 

Mobei-Jun stops. He looks up at Shang Qinghua… who has a new necklace now. It’s the same crystal he’d seen him holding before, now wrapped in a cord and tied around his neck, rudimentary and practical. It glows with the same light as Mobei-Jun’s crystals. Shang Qinghua catches where his gaze has snagged, and nervously clutches at the crystal as if to hide it, laughing tensely. It’s glowing too brightly, the light bleeding through his hand. 

“That is,” Shang Qinghua says, his other hand clutching at his own elbow, “I guess you don’t really have your powers… but you’ll get them back eventually, my king! I-- I promise.” 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun says slowly. The shackles, the array, the power draining crystals… “What is this?” 

“Well,” Shang Qinghua says hoarsely, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “You said that you-- that you had to accept the honor duel. Even though it was unfair, even though you were gonna lose and die, so… so, I fixed it! You did accept the honor duel, you did fight, and then - it’s not like you left of your own free will. Everyone saw that! You were perfectly willing to let that guy play dirty and murder you, you showed everyone that much. It’s not your fault that I kid-- that I took you, is it? Who can call you dishonorable now?” 

His words flow quickly, desperately, intently. Mobei-Jun stares at him silently, remembering. Fuck this, Shang Qinghua had said, loud and shameless so everyone could hear him. Mobei-Jun is mine. 

Mine. Taken, stolen away, restrained so he can’t run or fight, hidden so no one else can find him. Shang Qinghua’s, his. 

“You-- you see why I did it, don’t you?” Shang Qinghua asks, his voice tilting entreating, begging. He stands above Mobei-Jun, and yet he still manages to turn a pleading gaze on him. “I thought about just having him assassinated, but it might not have worked, and even if it did people would’ve known it was us. This was the only way that I could protect your honor and still fix it--” 

Mobei-Jun throws himself against the chains with renewed strength, pulling with all of his might, and Shang Qinghua screams, throwing himself backwards. Both of Mobei-Jun’s shoulders painfully jar as he’s brought to an abrupt stop, the chains holding taut and firm. 

Of course they do; Shang Qinghua got these chains just for Mobei-Jun, so that the shackles fit his wrists as snugly as any of the tailored outfits he’s gotten for him. Everything Shang Qinghua has ever procured for him has been perfect, the quality of every material meticulously inspected, the method held to the highest of standards. It is only to be expected that these chains would be strong enough to hold him. 

It is viscerally gratifying to feel it for himself. 

“M-- my king!” Shang Qinghua stammers, stumbling up onto his feet from where he’d fallen in his haste to throw himself out of the way of nothing. He could have stood just where he’d been, and Mobei-Jun wouldn’t have been able to touch him. He’s pale, trembling like a frightened rabbit. And yet still, he dares do this. He didn’t let his fear stop him, and only made sure to perform his task thoroughly and meticulously. “P--please don’t dislocate your shoulders, okay!? I get-- I get this must be a big shock for you, but just - take some time to digest it maybe!” 

“You have taken me,” Mobei-Jun breathes the words, looking intently at Shang Qinghua. “You’ve jailed me. I understand.” 

Shang Qinghua skitters back three steps, rapid and anxious. Good. He shouldn’t underestimate Mobei-Jun, if he intends to succeed - and Mobei-Jun very much wants him to succeed. 

“It, uh,” Shang Qinghua says, swallowing thickly. His eyes are wide, white all around at the edges. “J-- jailed, that’s, ah, q-- quite a term--” 

“This king will fight with all of his might,” Mobei-Jun promises him. “He will do whatever he must to break these chains and escape.” 

“But you can barely fucking stand!” Shang Qinghua wails, half frustration and half despair, teary eyed. 

He’s right. Mobei-Jun feels that he’s found a new fount of energy, but he knows this is only a temporary euphoria. He is weak now. Fondly, he reflects that it is only just like Shang Qinghua to strike at the most strategic of moments. He does not begrudge him the tactic; it is the way that Shang Qinghua has always fought. 

“I will not allow you to hold me,” Mobei-Jun tells him. No, that would only be an insult, one that he would never show to Shang Qinghua. He will treat this with all the respect it deserves, all the honor and wonder. Finally, it’s finally happening-- 

“My king!” Shang Qinghua protests, looking ready to cry. Mobei-Jun is pleased; he knows that it is not uncommon for humans to cry from happiness. “Please, have some mercy on this well intentioned servant--!” 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says, and Shang Qinghua makes an undignified noise of outrage and despair, before he leaves with a slammed door behind him. 

Mobei-Jun is left in his prison, chained and weak and helpless, outsmarted and outmaneuvered, so cleverly and cunningly taken and captured - in what will eventually become his marriage bed. He knows it, knows that Shang Qinghua will defeat him. After all, his servant never commits himself to any risky endeavor without thoroughly planning out all the different possible steps he will have to first take to achieve victory. 

It should be no different for a bridenapping. 

 

There are countless different ways to propose marriage, with every demon clan and tribe possessing their own traditions, their own methods. 

The Sinning Mantis Clan propose marriage by having the male offer their death to the female, to be reaped on their wedding night so that their unborn child may grow strong. 

The Shashou Clan demand a list of rivals and enemies for the suitor to kill so they might prove themselves worthy of their lover, which can quickly become a careful balancing act of picking targets that are strong enough to avoid insult, but weak enough to avoid sending their spouse-to-be to their inevitable death - Mobei-Jun has heard of members of this clan sending their aspiring suitors to kill the demon emperor himself, if they do not particularly want them to succeed. 

The Sha Clan began the tradition of repeated vicious fights between the suitors, to make sure that the couple are not only evenly matched, but that they would always show each other that crucial inch of mercy at the last moment and not kill the other when the opportunity is gained; if a fight ends in a tie more than thrice then it is apparently as good as a wedding. Demons swoon over how romantic this last tradition in particular is. 

The Mobei Clan has its own traditions, of course. A challenge of strength, a gauntlet for a suitor to survive so they may prove their worthiness as a mate: Bridenapping. What better way to display skill and might than to be able to take and then hold their intended spouse for days and nights, without giving the bride a chance to strike back or escape? To be able to hold them captive without killing or maiming them? It’s a method that allows the demons to test their mettle against the other, an intricate dance of captive and captor, pursued and pursuer. An ancient and romantic tradition, as old as the halls of the Ice Palace. 

But that’s all it is, a tradition. Many old rituals are clung to and worshiped even now, but Mobei-Jun has found that some are quietly discarded along the way as charming but impractical pieces of history. The tradition of bridenapping isn’t quite there, but it is decidedly old fashioned. For royalty, the act of marriage is more often the work of careful negotiation, contracts, and trade deals. Romantic gestures of abduction and captivity are seen as quaint, admirable - but altogether too risky, and undesirable in a match that everyone involved wants to be a certainty. It is very easy for a bridenapping to go violently awry. 

Mobei-Jun had never even dared to consider that it would be like this. He thought that if Shang Qinghua would ever be tempted to propose, that he’d do it much differently. That he’d point to all of his past aid to Mobei-Jun, when he’d been at his most isolated and politically vulnerable, a prince trapped in a bloody battle for succession, and argue that it would only be fair for his efforts to be more richly rewarded. That he’d bring him some sort of extravagant and ostentatious present, a rare and precious flower with incredible cultivation properties to add to the strength of the Northern Desert King’s inheritance, or a precious tome of forbidden knowledge long thought lost - some legendary treasure or other, the kind that Shang Qinghua has such a gift for digging up. Perhaps even that he’d first corner Mobei-Jun into some desperate problem that only he and his grasp on underhanded tactics, vast resources, and dirty politics could save him from, before offering to fix it all for the price of one little thing - marriage. 

Mobei-Jun would have been satisfied with any of these manipulative strategies. So long as Shang Qinghua was asking for his hand, to rule beside him as queen, then he would have accepted any approach no matter how deceptive or underhanded. He would have seen it for Shang Qinghua using his equivalent of fangs and claws, and Mobei-Jun would only be gratified by his scheming and using dirty tricks to win him as if he were some desperately craved prize. 

But instead it is this. A proper, traditional bridenapping, fraught with violence and threat and physical danger. To think that Shang Qinghua would risk himself in such a way, that he’d go out of his way to do it like this. Mobei-Jun spends a time simply staring up at the ceiling, allowing the awed happiness to crash against him like waves on the shore until it turns into a gentler, calmer lapping of the tide. 

Of course, Shang Qinghua’s hand must have been forced by circumstance. He said so himself, that this was the only way for him to save Mobei-Jun from the doomed honor duel without besmirching his reputation. And so instead he came up with this, an excuse beyond reproach for Mobei-Jun to avoid the duel. No one can fault him for having been ambushed with a bridenapping, a sacred tradition that takes days to fulfill. It isn’t his fault; he’s in the clear. 

And yet none of it seems rushed. Mobei-Jun doesn’t recognize this place, doesn’t know it, but he’s certain that it can’t be any part of the Ice Palace or the Leisure House. This must be some secret property of Shang Qinghua’s, kept hidden and out of the way. The shackles and glowing stones on Mobei-Jun hold strong and sturdy against anything he does to them, and continue to placidly sap away at any shred of power he attempts to summon, no matter how much he manages to call up. They must be unbelievably rare and precious to disarm him so utterly, and for none of his enemies to have used them on him before - and yet Shang Qinghua just had them, and so many of them. The array around him doing who-knows-what is intricate and detailed, sprawling large and ornate around him. 

Absolutely none of it seems sloppy or impulsive, something hastily pulled together at the last minute. If it weren’t for the thwarted honor duel, then Mobei-Jun would have thought this had been carefully planned for years. Had he been planning it? Or is Shang Qinghua simply that deceptively competent? 

He doesn’t know. He has grown to understand Shang Qinghua better than he once did, but the human is still often incomprehensible and unpredictable to him. Mobei-Jun has learned to accept this confusion instead of treating it like an unknown threat, but it can still be - frustrating, at times. 

Using that frustration as fuel, Mobei-Jun gets to work. After all, he cannot simply just limply lay here for days, not showing the slightest sign of resistance until it’s all over. He refuses to let there be any question of whether this bridenapping is legitimate or not, whether Shang Qinghua truly earned him or not, and for that he must participate. And besides, as wounded as he may be he is not useless. He has enough strength to supply a respectable struggle. 

His first feat is getting up out of the bed. 

It’s difficult, but more surprising is that it’s possible at all. He has been given enough slack in the chains to actually leave the bed, more freedom that he’d expected to be given to him. He discovers why quickly, finding a chamberpot tucked away but available to him. Practical. 

He can go roughly two feet away from the bed before the chains go taut - well away from the boundaries of the array, which really span the entirety of the room. He’d have to leave it entirely just to get out of the array. He wonders what it does. The chains restrain and weaken him, so what is the array for? He doesn’t know, but he’s certain that getting out of it will be an essential step in his escape. Shang Qinghua wouldn’t have constructed it if it didn’t have a purpose, and Mobei-Jun has enough sense to know that staying in an array of mysterious purposes isn’t a good idea. 

Thinking his options carefully over, he gets down on the floor and claws a gouge into the floor, right over a line of the array. The floor is wood, high quality and polished nicely, but his claw scrapes through it with minimal effort. He watches the painted line split beneath the fracture, and he waits for - something. A noise, a flash, a rumble; some sort of reaction, to show that something has been disrupted, stopped. 

Instead, he watches as the line… heals. Like flesh, the wood knits itself back together again. The process is slow but clear to the naked eye, and in less than ten seconds the line is whole and unbroken again. Mobei-Jun watches the transition closely, unblinkingly, but doesn’t understand how it happens, what Shang Qinghua has done to make it so. He claws a deeper, longer gouge into the floor and watches it happen again, and still doesn’t understand. 

Well, fine. He doesn’t need to understand the how to know that this approach isn’t working. Getting up off the floor (a laborious process) he goes through his options - or the lack of them. No access to his portals, no ability to summon ice or snow, limited movement, and he’s still weakened from the poison. He doesn’t even know where he is. He doesn’t know how to find out where he is. 

He struggles to come up with more options from there. He’s never relied on strategies more complicated than fighting or fleeing, even if the process might have been easier said than done at times. 

Shang Qinghua would sometimes recommend more elaborate plots to him, but the actual steps he had to take were simple in the end. Fight this person at that time; accuse this person of being a traitor to that person; steal this thing and then put it there. Each move he had to make was clearly outlined for him, uncomplicated and basic on its own, but making up a whole of bizarre, unlikely success. 

It had used to drive him to frustration, the way Shang Qinghua would pull plans that would lead to implausible victories out of his sleeves like a street performer’s flashy tricks. Plans that inherently required that Shang Qinghua must have known things, had sources of information about the demon realm that were entirely unrelated to Mobei-Jun himself. He would never explain how he managed to come up with them, no matter how much Mobei-Jun pressed him - he’d give explanations, but they always felt more like the babbling excuses of a liar with something to hide. 

His paranoia had run wild, imagining that Shang Qinghua had other demonic connections to which he held a superior loyalty; that he was lulling Mobei-Jun into a sense of complacency with successful plans that would eventually be followed by one that would lead to his death; that it was all some grand, elaborate trick, a betrayal too clever and conniving for foolish, simpleminded Mobei-Jun to see through before it was too late. 

The plans had gone wrong sometimes, too. But never in a way that felt deliberate or dramatic, like a trap clamping shut. Things would just fizzle out into nothing, some piece simply not connecting with another. He could even sometimes see how or why, what was supposed to have happened to tilt things in his favor, but hadn’t. 

It had almost been slightly soothing, those failures - as inconvenient and sometimes even dangerous as they were. Being able to see the cracks and flaws in Shang Qinghua’s plans… it had made him feel more tangible, somehow. Like Mobei-Jun would be able to see his betrayal coming; would be able to put a stop to it, so he wouldn’t be betrayed at all, so he wouldn’t have to take care of Shang Qinghua in the aftermath; so that he might be able to touch him. 

There are flaws in Shang Qinghua’s plans. He makes mistakes. Mobei-Jun may not see the path forward now, but he must simply be patient - like settling down to a watchful ambush for a beast, placidly letting falling snow settle on him, camouflaging him. His mind made up he settles down to wait for his opportunity, like a silent predator listening for the crack of a twig, the creaking of snow underfoot. 

And he falls asleep. 

 

“... okay, my king?” 

A moment of nothing. Then a tentative nudge at his ribs, light and quickly darting back. Mobei-Jun exhales irritatedly, putting a growl and a puff of frost on the edge of it to show that he’s not ready to wake up and leave the Leisure House yet--

--but then his lungs falter, air refusing to come for a moment. No frost comes; there’s a heat against his wrists, his hands. 

Mobei-Jun opens his eyes to see Shang Qinghua crouched on the floor in front of him, holding his sheathed sword by the wrong end as if to poke him with the hilt. He yelps and rapidly crab walks back two steps before almost immediately losing his balance and falling onto the floor. He flails his way up to his knees before pointing at him indignantly. 

“You!” he cries, and then points at him more vigorously as his mouth flaps, like he’s scrambling to find his words. “You have a bed. I got it just for you! I, I even made it up for you all nice, so why are you sleeping on the floor like a corpse!?” 

Mobei-Jun pushes himself up more properly from where he’d been… sitting on the floor, his back propped up against the side of the bed - then grunts at the pain of it, his wounds throbbing. His wounds. 

He remembers. 

“That!” Shang Qinghua says as soon as Mobei-Jun makes a noise, gesturing wildly at him. “That kind of shit is why you should be sleeping properly in a goddamned bed. Do you even want to get better, my king!? Because you’re certainly not acting like it!” 

Mobei-Jun subtly pulls on his chains, feeling the tautness of them. Shang Qinghua is clever; he’s well outside of pouncing range. 

“You brought food,” Mobei-Jun says, noticing the tray on the floor. The reason for Shang Qinghua’s arrival. He can smell it now, and his body reacts to it, his stomach aching with hunger. 

“I did, yeah,” Shang Qinghua says. “So let’s just forget about everything I was saying, I guess!” 

Despite this, he still pushes the tray of food towards Mobei-Jun. He uses his sword to do it, so he’s never within grabbing range. The food is familiar - rice and meat and sauce, made in a way unpopular in the Demon Realm but turned into an acquired taste for Mobei-Jun after how many times he’s eaten it. It’s Shang Qinghua’s own cooking, after all. 

There’s no cook here, then. Likely no servants either, which makes sense. The less people involved with this, the more control Shang Qinghua has over the situation. There have been cases of bridenappings interrupted or ruined by outside interference. 

“... It’s not poisoned,” Shang Qinghua says, and Mobei-Jun looks up from where he’s been staring at the food. “Or drugged. Just-- just so you know, if you were-- it’s not. I promise.” 

Poison - it hadn’t even occurred to him, and he doesn’t understand why Shang Qinghua thinks it would. To poison his own bride would be pointless, ridiculous - especially so when he already so firmly has the advantage. Drugs, however… maybe. Mobei-Jun can see it. His human has tendencies towards redundancy, cautious and anxious and over enthusiastic; he once slipped one of Mobei-Jun’s enemies over a dozen different rare, lethal poisons all in the same drink, to fascinatingly horrifying results. I didn’t know that was gonna happen, I just wanted to be sure! he’d defended himself. I couldn’t remember what sort of poison she was immune to… 

But Shang Qinghua looks tense and unhappy now, as if bracing for a blow that Mobei-Jun isn’t even in a state to deal him, and so he reaches down and picks up the bowl of meat and eats a piece of it without hesitation. 

It’s a nostalgic taste, not bloody or rotten or burnt, but instead carefully cooked until it’s a light, golden brown on the outside and pale white on the inside, not a trace of blood to be seen. Humans have such delicate, easily upset stomachs that they have to carefully prepare their food to a very specific, narrow state, or else they make themselves sick - Mobei-Jun had learned this the hard way, when he’d tried to learn how to make noodles for Shang Qinghua. The flavor is boring, but fine. 

He makes direct eye contact with Shang Qinghua as he swallows his first mouthful, who stares at him in return. 

“... it could have been poisoned, though,” Shang Qinghua says, but a little feebly. “Like - I’m grateful that you’re not going on a hunger strike, my king, but it’s okay if you want to make me eat it first or something!” 

The suggestion tugs at distant memories; Mobei-Jun had always used to do that, during the early days of their relationship. He’d refused to eat anything Shang Qinghua served him until he took a bite first for almost a full year. 

Mobei-Jun gives him a look to let him know how ridiculous the idea is, and he takes another bite, tearing the meat with his fangs. Shang Qinghua swallows and looks away, his face pinker than it had been. 

He steadily makes his way through his meal, while Shang Qinghua watches him in uncharacteristic silence, fidgeting at his sleeves and nibbling on his lower lip. Shang Qinghua is never fully at rest, always shaking his leg or absentmindedly fiddling with some little thing until it breaks, and even when he sleeps he tosses and turns throughout the night. If Mobei-Jun were to ever see him entirely quiet and unmoving, his first thought would be that the human had died. 

Mobei-Jun’s mind turns steadily as he eats, and it’s as he licks the last trace of sauce from his thumb that he figures out how to find out where he is. 

“Where are we?” he asks Shang Qinghua, the way he’s always solved any difficult problem that has frustrated him. 

“Huh?” Shang Qinghua asks, blinking dazedly as if he weren’t paying attention, even though he’s looking right at Mobei-Jun. “Oh, we’re-- hold up, I’m not gonna answer that! I don’t have to, and you can’t make me.” 

Mobei-Jun stares at Shang Qinghua. The moment stretches out, with Shang Qinghua hunching his shoulders and gripping his knees as if the silence is some sort of physical strain for him, like holding his breath - and then he breaks, his shoulders slumping as he groans in frustration. 

“Alright, alright, fine! We’re… I’m not gonna tell you exactly where we are, but we’re somewhere in the Human Realm. We’re in one of my, uh, safehouses. You know, for just in case shit broke bad and I had to go on the run and into hiding or something. The situation looked pretty bleak for a while there, so I’ve got a bunch of them! Look at me, multiple home owner, huh? Too bad none of them’s got a pool, haha!” 

“You could have hid with me,” Mobei-Jun says, furrowing his brow. If Shang Qinghua were ever discovered as a spy by his sect then Mobei-Jun would of course have taken him in… It would not have been ideal, he’d have to constantly keep him close to make sure that no other demons would harm him, but-- 

“Oh, uh,” Shang Qinghua says awkwardly, and gives an extremely forced laugh. “Well, of course my king is very generous and I-- this servant is endlessly grateful, naturally--” 

“You would hide from me as well,” Mobei-Jun realizes. Shang Qinghua cringes, confirming it. Just like after the Ascension when Shang Qinghua left him behind, swearing that Mobei-Jun would never see him again, never-- 

“That would’ve depended on the circumstances,” Shang Qinghua says quickly. “I was just-- I was keeping my options open, my king, that’s all! Of course I know now that you’d protect me, just… I just kept the safehouses since I already had them, and you never know when something’s gonna come in handy. At worst, they can always serve as extra storage space, right!?” 

Mobei-Jun breathes in, closing his eyes. Breathes out. Something cracks underneath his hands, and he looks down to see that he’s broken the empty bowl. 

Very deliberately, he does not throw the shards at the wall or crush them into a fine powder in his hands. That would be threatening, he knows that Shang Qinghua would find it to be threatening, and so he instead carefully places them on the tray as if it isn’t broken trash at all. His jaw feels tight, tense. 

This is fine. It’s fine. Things are different now, Mobei-Jun is different now. He has become a king that Shang Qinghua would not abandon. He listens to his counsel, protects him from harm, doesn’t insult or threaten or hit him - so it’s fine. Just because Shang Qinghua had been (clearly, thoroughly, in great depth) considering fleeing him before doesn’t mean that he will do so now. There is nothing to be scared of, nothing to be furious over. 

Even though he has kept the safehouses. 

He looks up, and Shang Qinghua is staring at him with wide, terrified eyes, looking ready to bolt at the slightest movement, like a prey animal in front of a blizzard wolf. How dare you still look at me like that, something inside of him howls. He swallows it. Unclenches his jaw. 

“Right,” he says, not even remembering what he’s agreeing with. 

He tries to look… not threatening or violent, unsure of how. Shang Qinghua visibly eases back from his readiness to flee, looking bewildered as he does so, as if certain disaster has failed to occur and he’s too confused to be relieved. 

“What is this?” Mobei-Jun asks abruptly, trying to wrench them both away from that breathless moment of bitten back rage and fear. He gestures brusquely. 

“What?” Shang Qinghua asks, blinking rapidly before turning his head, trying to understand what Mobei-Jun means. “What, the-- oh, do you mean the array? That’s-- don’t worry about that, my king! It, it’s not doing anything bad to you, really.” 

“What is it doing?” Mobei-Jun persists. 

“My king!” Shang Qinghua cries, exasperated. “I’m keeping you captive, I can’t just tell you everything about my setup. What kind of idiot do you think I am!?” 

“How is it doing this?” he tries, and then curls his fingers into claws and rakes them over the floor, gouging the wood. Shang Qinghua yelps with dismay, and then shrieks and jumps up as the floorboards start to heal themselves. 

“Holy shit!” he shouts, staring at the disappearing gouges with widened eyes. 

“... You didn’t know that would happen?” Mobei-Jun asks, confused. 

“No!” Shang Qinghua says. “What the fuck is that shit, that’s so gross? And cool. Holy fuck. So useful. Damn.” 

“But you did this,” he says, but with less certainty than he’d had moments ago. Thoughtfully, he furrows his brow and rakes another scratch into the floor just to watch it heal again. 

“Please stop doing that!?” Shang Qinghua says, inching away from him. “That’s vandalism! Just because it fixes itself doesn’t mean that you should keep doing it - what if the floor decides to eat your arm or something? Shit, can it do that? I should ask her--” 

“Who?” Mobei-Jun asks, his attention sharpening. 

“Who?” Shang Qinghua repeats quickly. “Uh… Okay, alright, so - there’s this princess, right? Famous beauty, even more famous seals and array expert apparently - which is way more impressive than having a great skincare regimen, honestly - you might have heard of her? Maybe? Dying kingdom, she’s publicly declared that she’ll only marry a man able to, ahem, penetrate her seals. Which, hey, I guess that’s one way of turning the suitors away, but I hit her up and asked her if she was willing to take some money for her and her kingdom on the downlow for a bit of contract work, which it turns out she was! So. Here we are. And apparently they’re self-healing, or whatever that is.” 

That is… exactly like something Shang Qinghua would do, actually. As underhanded as he is resourceful, employing a genius in their field when his own expertise doesn’t suffice. 

“And how did you pay for this?” Mobei-Jun asks after a moment, feeling as if he already knows. 

“With-- uh,” Shang Qinghua says, clearing his throat uncomfortably as his gaze skitters aside. “Some-- some money, obviously. Nothing outrageous, of course - I mean, relatively speaking, considering the quality of the work. You get what you pay for, right? By certain standards, I got a great deal! It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?” 

“You used the royal treasury.” 

This is not an accusation of thievery. Mobei-Jun granted Shang Qinghua full and complete access to the treasury very shortly after his Ascension, once he’d located his human and put him back where he was supposed to be, by his side. Full rights to make any withdrawals he might like at his leisure, with no limits and no oversight, no need to ask for permission or give explanations. 

Many people had been upset by this, including Shang Qinghua, who had squawked about how of course he wasn’t going to use the glittering treasures suddenly at his disposal for anything inappropriate, and he wouldn’t dare go over budget for anything, and was Mobei-Jun sure? Other less relevant people who liked to think themselves important had voiced their own concerns, dressed up in words that they apparently thought made their insulting assumptions sound respectful. That surely Mobei-Jun hadn’t meant to give the keys of his kingdom to a human, a tolerated enemy, an outsider.  

As if any of them had ever been his ally, had ever aided him. He might have no fondness for humans, outside of one exception, but that doesn’t mean that demons must be honorable. His first betrayal came from family. If Shang Qinghua chose to use up half of the royal treasury on useless trinkets for his own amusement then he would have earned it, unlike anyone else in his kingdom. Mobei-Jun would not be upset; he would encourage it. However, Shang Qinghua has used the treasury for nothing but assets to benefit the Northern Desert Kingdom as a whole. 

Until now. 

“May-- maybe,” Shang Qinghua croaks. “Just a bit.” 

Just a bit, to hire a famous seals expert to do discreet, thorough, high quality work for him. 

“No one told me that you took out a large sum,” Mobei-Jun observes. He’s told people that Shang Qinghua can take whatever money he likes without being reported on, but they’ve all struggled to accept this. Whenever he withdraws any sum larger than a pittance, someone comes running to him in a panic as if he’ll react with fury and violence over Shang Qinghua using a privilege specifically granted to him by Mobei-Jun. 

“Weeeell,” Shang Qinghua says, drawing the word out awkwardly, his expression half wincing. “I guess you could sort of say that I’ve been… skimming off the top, for a while?” 

“Skimming off the top,” Mobei-Jun repeats. 

“That sounds bad,” Shang Qinghua says. “That-- hah, that sounds so bad, actually. But it’s not! It’s-- you know, it was a practical decision, my king! What if I ever needed to buy something expensive without everyone immediately knowing about it!? It’s not like I was embezzling funds for gambling trips and pricey hookers! I was saving it for a rainy day--” 

There are stories about clever brides using their silvered tongues to trick their suitors into giving them an opportunity to escape, armed with cunning and wiles rather than blade and claw. 

Mobei-Jun is not thinking about any of this when he moves. He is thinking about Shang Qinghua’s devious ruthlessness; how many times in so many ways that he has held Mobei-Jun’s life in his hands and not squeezed; he is thinking about Mobei-Jun is mine. 

He is also thinking about Shang Qinghua keeping these safehouses in secrecy, an escape hatch out of his life with Mobei-Jun kept for no reason at all but that he wants the option, wants to know that he could leave if he had to. That, too, fills Mobei-Jun with a reckless urgency, a grasping desire to hold him close and never let go--

It is for these reasons that Mobei-Jun lunges like a panther, and snatches the ankle that Shang Qinghua had so unwisely let slip just within his range after he was startled by the array. He yanks him closer across the floor and Shang Qinghua screams, trying to kick himself loose. But it is too late; Mobei-Jun has him. 

“--oh god no mercy mercy mercy MY KING--!” 

Mobei-Jun laves his tongue up Shang Qinghua’s throat to the underside of his jaw the exact way he’s wanted countless times before, tasting skin and sweat. He sets his teeth to flesh, but applies no pressure even as something instinctual in the back of his mind wants to clamp down and not let go, instead delicately and carefully scraping with his canines as he growls possessively. 

Shang Qinghua wails like he’s being ruthlessly bitten, held in place underneath Mobei-Jun’s clutching hands and solid form, and it’s a concerning enough noise that his composure briefly returns to him. He removes himself from Shang Qinghua’s throat so he can look into his face, which is pale and teary eyed, looking up at him with a desperate pleading. 

“Please don’t eat me, my king!” Shang Qinghua cries. “This servant begs you, if he’s served you well at all over the years then--!” 

Mobei-Jun didn’t hurt him, then; Shang Qinghua is simply bizarrely mistaken. Satisfied, he bends back down and instead kisses him on the mouth with no teeth or blood, the way humans do it. He tastes warm, but pleasantly so, like a sunny spring day with melting, wet snow. A hunger and a longing that’s been inside of him for so long that it has faded into the background comes roaring to life, fed for the very first time and hungrier than ever for it. 

He rumbles his approval and sinks into the kiss as deeply as he can, pressing down with his weight onto Shang Qinghua, savoring it, tasting, devouring. Shang Qinghua, beneath him, is slowly stopping his ineffective struggling, going still as Mobei-Jun kisses him and kisses him. 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun says, once he surfaces. He doesn’t know why. For once, he’s saying things for no good reason at all. 

Shang Qinghua stares up at him in a wide eyed daze, his lips kiss-swollen. His eyes are dark and dilated, his mouth hanging open; he looks concussed. 

“Whuh?” he says. 

Mobei-Jun sets a hand to the base of his throat, and watches the way that it bobs as Shang Qinghua audibly swallows, how the gently glowing shackle wrapped around his wrist and the caps on his claws contrast against his skin. So fragile and breakable, and yet so precious and irreplaceable. 

“... My king?” Shang Qinghua asks, his voice hoarse and stunned, his eyes unblinking. 

He drags his hand down his chest, heavy and claiming. He’s touched Shang Qinghua many times before; to beat him, to threaten him, to carry him, to allow him to hide behind his bulk. Never like this, though. He wants to touch Shang Qinghua in all the many ways he never has before. 

“You will tell me if it hurts,” Mobei-Jun orders him, low and intent. “This king demands it.” 

He has seen animals rutting against each other before; has glimpsed his shameless father with one of his many concubines. That is it. He doesn’t want it to be like either of those things, but he wants. His teeth and claws itch for some indefinable thing, and he leans down until his dark hair brushes against Shang Qinghua’s cheekbone, until he can feel the warmth of him radiating from his body, like he’s sunbaked stones. Shang Qinghua barely seems to dare to breathe; Mobei-Jun leans in-- 

“--hooookay I think that’s enough!” Shang Qinghua says, his voice rising sharply like a bird swooping up into the air, and before Mobei-Jun quite knows what’s happening the world is whirling around him and he slams onto his back, his breath knocking out of him as wounds flare to life. 

He blinks up at the ceiling, dazed and disoriented. He turns his head and sees Shang Qinghua scrambling up onto his feet and well outside of grabbing range, with the frantic speed of a hunted animal. He clutches onto the doorway and points at Mobei-Jun with one hand. 

“You think I’m falling for that, my king!?” he demands wildly, a hysterical edge to his voice. “Please! You think this is the first time someone’s tried to scam me through Grindr!? As if! I’ve got desperate bozo painted all over my face, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna let it work. You’re obviously just trying to get at the keys to your shackles, ha ha! Well, I’m not so easy to fool, am I!?” 

Mobei-Jun pushes himself up slowly, carefully, staring at Shang Qinghua as he does so. Did he just-- he threw Mobei-Jun off of him. He’d been that strong, that fast. 

Or Mobei-Jun had just been that weak. 

“The keys,” he says, and remembers - he’s chained. 

He’d actually, entirely, and completely forgotten. Everything but Shang Qinghua and his fluttering pulse, his paper thin warm skin, the taste of his mouth - everything but that had melted away, steamed away into vapor and slipped out of his grasp. He hadn’t been thinking about anything else at all. 

“Really,” Shang Qinghua says, looking as if he’s vibrating with manic tension, “these tactics aren’t like you at all!? You’re not some femme fatale type, my king! You’re supposed to be an iceberg, a deadly and unattainable warrior. ‘ Touch me, and I’ll rip your hand off, ’ that kind!” 

Mobei-Jun stiffens where he sits, a hot wash of something unpleasant going through him. In the old days, he would’ve responded by breaking something with a snarl. More recently, by ripping a portal open into the air and slipping away, not wanting to give himself an opportunity to snap at or otherwise frighten Shang Qinghua. 

But he’s chained and powerless, neither of those options available to him any longer. He can’t even walk away. Instead he clenches his jaw and focuses his glare on a corner of the room, trying not to feel… rejected. Shang Qinghua is just being cautious, patient. That’s all. 

He wouldn’t have taken Mobei-Jun if he didn’t want him. 

“N-- not that…” Shang Qinghua says, the wind suddenly taken out of his sails for some reason. “Agh, that’s-- obviously there’s, there’s no shame in having to use different strategies in extreme circumstances, it doesn’t really say anything about--!” 

“This king won’t let a second opportunity pass him by,” Mobei-Jun promises, and pins him down with an ice cold gaze. “Don’t let it happen.”  

Shang Qinghua, standing in the doorway, visibly shivers as if the room has gotten colder - it hasn’t, of course. Mobei-Jun doesn’t have access to his abilities. 

“I, uh,” he stammers, taking a step back and bumping into the closed door behind his back. He fumbles for the door without looking away from Mobei-Jun. “I’ve gotta go - things to do, you know!? See you soon, rest up-- and please use your bed!” 

He opens the door and darts through it, almost half falling as he does so. The door slams shut, leaving Mobei-Jun alone once more, the only change being a tray of empty bowls and the vague burn of having humiliated himself. 

And of wanting very badly to have an excuse to do so again.

Chapter 5: Escape Attempts

Notes:

This chapter is 13.4k words long

Chapter Text

Shang Qinghua is skittish of him after this. He already had been, but his cautiousness increases much more, regressing almost to the point it had been when they’d first met each other. Shang Qinghua would nervously sneak around him like a single noise might set him off, always staying out of reach as if he were trying to placate a dozing, capricious tiger ready to swipe at him at any moment, tumbling off into frantic apologies and fawning every other sentence unprompted. 

It had irritated him. It had baffled him. And it had been, in many ways, deserved. Mobei-Jun had not treated Shang Qinghua in a way that encouraged trust or comfort. It is a frustration to go back to that older dynamic now, as if he’s losing hard fought for ground. 

A bridenapping must last for a tenday in order to be legitimate. Mobei-Jun is uncertain of how long he’s already been here, with no windows in his room and the poison making him sluggish and dragging him into a deep sleep at unpredictable intervals. For the next two days, he thinks, Shang Qinghua is very careful of him. He delivers Mobei-Jun’s food with little talk, not staying to watch him eat. Once, he even delivers his meal while Mobei-Jun is asleep, who woke up to cold congee and changed bandages. He had been furious. 

On the third day, however, Shang Qinghua is in a different mood when he delivers Mobei-Jun’s meal. He has a frazzled, obviously distracted air to him, his brow anxiously furrowed and his eyes far away as he seems to chew away at some problem, only barely remembering to stop before he enters Mobei-Jun’s reach, stumbling slightly. He looks tired and stressed, in a way he usually would only get at the end of his human cultivation sect’s ‘fiscal year.’ From the way Shang Qinghua described it, it seems to be a sort of ritual torment on An Ding Peak enacted by the rest of the sect. 

“What’s wrong?” Mobei-Jun asks before he can leave, ignoring his food entirely. 

“Huh?” Shang Qinghua asks, stopping short, blinking as he seems to come back to the present. “What’s-- nothing! Why would anything be wrong? I mean, besides the obvious. Nothing’s wrong, everything’s under control, there’s nothing to worry about! I’ve got it handled.” 

“What is it,” Mobei-Jun repeats, more flatly. Normally, he is content to let Shang Qinghua solve problems as he sees fit, but the high, anxious tilt to his voice indicates that everything is not fine. 

Also, he is beginning to grow bored. There is a small pile of books left by the side of his bed that have been left untouched; literature has never made him feel less restless. 

“Nothing!” Shang Qinghua cries, in the tones of a feeble lie. 

Mobei-Jun stares at him. Shang Qinghua seems to read something in his gaze, because he throws his hands up and groans. 

“It’s just a little thing, my king,” he says, eyes squeezing shut as he grabs at his own hair, pulling it out of sorts. A hairpin sticks out jaggedly. “Just your uncle stirring up shit, like always. What else is new? It’s fine, I’m used to it! I can handle that bastard, it’s not like--” 

“He’s interfering?” Mobei-Jun asks sharply. And then, a beat later, “You’re running my kingdom?” 

It had not truly occurred to him to wonder what was happening beyond these walls, that the world outside is still turning. But it is, and now he does wonder. The courts must be aflame with Shang Qinghua’s bold declaration, rumor spreading like wildfire. People no doubt disapprove. How strongly? Enough to--? 

“Not really,” Shang Qinghua quickly dismisses, looking like Mobei-Jun has accused him of treason. “I mean, haha, how could I!? Under the circumstances? That’d be crazy! No, of course not. I’ve just been, uh, sending a few letters here and there, just to make sure things are running smoothly until you can-- it’s fine! Your Steward’s taken over running the Ice Palace, sink or swim and all that, learning on the job. She’s doing fine. I’ve just got to be a little more hands-on until my dear shixiong and his demon emperor boytoy return to do their jobs.”  

That, Mobei-Jun decides, makes sense. He has seen Shang Qinghua whine and complain before defiantly declaring that he’ll take a ‘mental health day’ and stay home all day, not doing any work at all. This seems to always merely result in Shang Qinghua writing many letters and filling out paperwork from the privacy of his home, instead of his office. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to stop his scheming and arranging even for something like this. He likes to keep things in order, and is endlessly bothered whenever someone else tries to do it for him, visibly agitated by any mistakes that they make. 

He is keeping the empire in order; he is keeping Mobei-Jun’s kingdom in order, when he is unable to do so. This is more than acceptable to him. 

“How is my uncle interfering?” Mobei-Jun asks. Shang Qinghua rarely needs more than a light push to begin ranting at length over the latest problem to inconvenience his day. 

“Oh my god, it’s so annoying,” Shang Qinghua says. “He’s trying to claim regent status just because you’ve been gone for a few days! The way he’s talking, you’d think I’d chopped you up and scattered you across the realms. Which is so ridiculous, because he’s trying to angle it so he can also snatch the temporary emperor regent spot in the same fucking breath! As if Junshang would be at all fine with that!? It’s not like you’re regent because you’re the Northern Desert King, it’s because you’re his right hand man. Those two things are not interchangeable? And now Sha Hualing is trying to claim that she’d be the natural second fit for emperor regent and if Linguan-Jun tries it she’ll declare war on him! Ignoring that Junshang outlawed open warfare between clans!” 

That does sound like the exact kind of headache that would flourish when given the slightest opportunity. Mobei-Jun is poor at predicting politics, and yet never surprised by it. It is always consistently and breathtakingly stupid. 

“Honestly, is that uncle of yours even trying?” Shang Qinghua demands, having properly gained his steam now. This is a familiar direction that he’s taking. “It used to be that he’d spring these elaborate plots at us, but lately it feels like he’s just been taking opportunistic potshots!? It’s lazy! It’s inconsiderate! If he’s going to be a piece of shit then he should at the very least put some effort into it, but no! Instead he’s just taking lazy jabs whenever he gets an opening. It’s like he doesn’t even expect to hit anything, he just feels obligated to make the attempt! What the fuck? Does your uncle need a hobby, my king? Some beautiful concubine to distract him and give him a fucking life? Because I’ll find someone, seriously! I’ll find the finest cocksucker in the land to get this asshole out of our business!” 

He’s shouting now, stomping on the floor with his foot for emphasis. Mobei-Jun looks on in appreciation, taking it in. Shang Qinghua has a wonderful talent for putting long tolerated frustrations into words. However, he seems to catch himself in the middle of calling Linguan-Jun several extremely crass and unflattering things, forcibly pulling himself back. 

“That is,” Shang Qinghua says, and has to stop to catch his breath for a moment before continuing, “that is, my king has nothing to worry about. It isn’t as if your uncle will be able to steal the mantle of the Northern Desert King’s powers when you’ve got it. You’re not actually dead, as much as he might want to pretend you are. And your steward and guard captain are both staying loyal so far, refusing to let him enter the Ice Palace without your invitation, so - it’s fine! It’s just a little irritating, that’s all. As soon as this is over with, you’ll be able to sweep back onto the throne like nothing-- like nothing ever happened at all.” 

His voice stumbles slightly towards the end, as if snagging on something, but he doesn’t see what. Mobei-Jun imagines it - returning to his throne and his palace smugly victorious with Shang Qinghua at his side, ready to rule alongside him more openly than ever. He can taste the anticipation, the longing to already be in that moment. Perhaps that is what caught Shang Qinghua, the thought of after. 

“This king will speak to Junshang about declaring a line of succession,” Mobei-Jun offers, even though he knows that’s a solution that creates its own set of problems. There is a reason Luo Binghe has left it vague so far, only announcing Mobei-Jun as his successor until he sires an heir. 

“Yeah, that’d probably be for the best,” Shang Qinghua says - and he shifts away, not looking directly at Mobei-Jun. “Sorry for getting carried away like that, aha. I’ll leave you to rest.” 

Mobei-Jun doesn’t understand why, couldn’t put it into words, but there’s a feeling of having something yanked away from him as Shang Qinghua distances himself once more. He’d been acting so familiar and normal for a moment and now he’s suddenly not, and he doesn’t know what made it stop. 

“Don’t leave,” he snaps out, a thoughtless order. 

Shang Qinghua does actually stop for a moment, as if on instinct. But then he catches himself, and he gives a wobbly little laugh. 

“My king shouldn’t forget that I’m not his servant right now,” Shang Qinghua says with a wry grin that quickly dies. “I’m your captor, aren’t I? Sorry, but I don’t have to listen to anything you tell me to do.” 

This is true, but something about the way he says it is wrong. Shang Qinghua turns to leave, and Mobei-Jun reaches out to stop him-- 

--and the shackles stop him, pulling taut with a clink. He can’t follow him. For the first time, Mobei-Jun feels a flare of frustration towards these shackles, he wants them off.  

The door closes, and Shang Qinghua has left. With a snarl, Mobei-Jun pulls harder, and achieves nothing, nothing. He wishes to break-- 

Catching his breath, Mobei-Jun wrenches his rising temper down, dragging it back into place like a misbehaving hound. He breathes hard for a minute, clutching at his chains. His breath does not fog up cold and freezing. The shackles prevent it. 

Think. Think. 

It has been three days now, and Mobei-Jun has made no serious escape attempts since his attempted - distraction. He’s laid in wait for an opportunity, but none have arised. Shang Qinghua is too careful and skittish for that. If Mobei-Jun wishes to properly struggle and give a respectful challenge, then he must make the opportunity. 

Trying to tear his chains apart hadn’t worked earlier. He’d strained with all of his might, and hadn’t so much as scratched them in the end, left only out of breath and trembling, exhausted from his paltry efforts. Too wounded to perform at his peak. 

But he hasn’t done nothing these last few days. He’s rested. Even now, he can feel the marked difference, how sitting up in bed doesn’t leave him feeling faint and weak. He’s not himself yet, but better. Could he…? 

No. Shang Qinghua wouldn’t put him in chains that he could ever have a hope of breaking with brute strength. There must be something else, another option. An idea that’s been slowly percolating in the back of his mind solidifies, floating to the surface. He thinks about overloaded dams bursting, ice breaking underneath too much weight. 

He might as well do it now. There’s no reason to wait, after all. Closing his eyes, Mobei-Jun furrows his brow and reaches deep down inside of himself. If his original power had been like an ice lake, then the power he’s had since inheriting the mantle of the Northern Desert King is like an ocean, dark and fathomless with unknown giants swimming through the depths. Ever since these shackles were put on him it has felt as if there were a thick layer of ice between him and that ocean. 

But any ice can break, with sufficient applied force. Inhaling deeply, as if to plunge into that bottomless water, he violently yanks on as much of that power as he can possibly grab at once. 

The shackles flare into white hot pain so suddenly and intensely that Mobei-Jun’s breath leaves him with a pained grunt. They’ve been warm, they’ve even stung him, but now they burn with heat against his skin. Greedily drinking down all the power he draws on, diverting it, storing it away where he can’t touch it. Gritting his teeth, Mobei-Jun pushes through it and pulls for more. 

It comes to him, and it comes to him eagerly, like a pent up beast kept under leash for too long. Mobei-Jun needs only hold up the slightest opening and it comes coursing into and through him like a flood, hungry and impatient to be let loose, to be used. It vanishes as soon as it arrives like a stream slipping past him, and for the first time he feels more like a conduit than the master of this power. The more he pulls the more it hurts, and none of it stays. 

It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. He just has to keep going. Either the crystals break first or he does, and he’s willing to take that challenge. He’ll give them as much power as they’re happy to drink up, and then he’ll shove more into them once they’ve had their fill. He’ll shatter them from the inside out, pour so much of himself into them that he’ll come bleeding and oozing out of the cracks of those cloudy white rocks. 

The crystals are glowing so brightly that he can see their light through his closed eyelids, and there’s an unpleasantly alluring scent in the air of sizzling meat-- 

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!?” 

The door crashes open and Shang Qinghua throws himself through it, looking white-faced and wild-eyed, panting like he sprinted his way here. The crystal hung around his neck shines, the light pulsing like a racing heartbeat. 

“Stop that!” Shang Qinghua snaps, his voice cracking, coming recklessly close. “Do you want to die, you stubborn asshole!? Fucking quit it!” 

Mobei-Jun, purely reacting to the terror in Shang Qinghua’s voice and nothing else, tries to obey him. 

Tries. 

“Can’t,” he gasps out. “There’s-- it’s too much.” 

His power, given a foothold, is streaming through him like a waterfall, powerful and overwhelming. It doesn’t want to stop. He isn’t--

Shang Qinghua makes a strangled, wordless noise, and then flails his arm to the side - ice lashes out where he gestures, swallowing up almost half the room and crashing against the wall, freezing into place like an ocean wave frozen in motion. He yelps and staggers away from it, and Mobei-Jun exhales as suddenly there’s room, some give to move. Before it can disappear again, washed away by the turbulent flow of power, he wrenches that opening shut. 

The dam slams into place, the flow cutting off so sharply that he sways from the abrupt relief of it, reeling. There had been a noise that wasn’t a noise, something building and building like a cresting wave, loud enough to drown everything else out. It cuts out, leaving behind only his own panting breath and hammering heartbeat. His body aches like a fresh bruise, his nerves rubbed raw and frayed, and there is a distinct feeling of having only just survived something. 

That hadn’t gone the way he’d meant it to. 

“You… a-are you okay, my king?” Shang Qinghua asks shakily. “It’s over?” 

“Yes,” Mobei-Jun says, mostly to the second question, and just a little to the first. He does not feel okay, but-- he thinks he will be well. 

“Oh, thank fuck,” Shang Qinghua gasps, then takes two steps forward and yanks on Mobei-Jun’s hair. Mobei-Jun is so shocked, and so weakened, that he almost manages to fully unbalance him. Leaning forward, Shang Qinghua shouts into his ear, “What were you thinking!?” 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun admonishes sharply, pulling against Shang Qinghua’s hold with alarmingly little success. “Unhand me!” 

“Fuck you!” Shang Qinghua snaps out, and Mobei-Jun twists his face just enough to see his expression - it’s screwed up into a furious scowl, his cheeks going red with anger. “What the hell was that!? Was that some kind of messed up attempt at suicide? Was it!?” 

“It was not,” Mobei-Jun denies, attempting to draw himself up pridefully. It is difficult, when Shang Qinghua is keeping his head half bowed by his grip on his hair. “This king was breaking his shackles--” 

“Wrong answer!” Shang Qinghua cuts him off, and gives him an actual shake, like he’s a misbehaving dog. “If that was anything but a suicide attempt, then it was a terrible failure! A stupid mistake! A completely doomed plan from the jump! What kind of dinky shit do you think you’re dealing with? Bargain bin crystals of restriction from the local Xianxia Walmart!?” 

A mix of anger, embarrassment, and heat rushes through him at the scolding, at being manhandled in such a demeaning manner. Mobei-Jun, falling back on bad habits, clings to the most comfortable, familiar part of it all - the anger. 

“I won’t sit here and do nothing,” Mobei-Jun snarls, glaring defiantly up at Shang Qinghua. 

Shang Qinghua almost seems to falter in the face of that, but then his fury rallies. 

“Trying to escape, I can understand,” he grits out, “but only if there’s an actual chance of it happening. Don’t hopelessly throw yourself at a brick wall just because you don’t know what else to do! All you’re accomplishing is hurting yourself - as if you aren't hurt enough already.” 

“I almost broke them,” Mobei-Jun says, making it a statement of fact, a threat and a promise. He could feel it; the strain of something cracking, slowly fracturing by degrees until it would finally shatter all at once. He’d been so close. 

This seems to only make Shang Qinghua’s anger flare again, this time with a cold edge of steel to it. 

“More like you almost broke yourself,” he spits out. Grabbing the crystal dangling from a cord around his neck, he holds it up as if in demonstration. It’s glowing with a white, cold light, fat with power fed to it - and, Mobei-Jun can’t help but notice, without a single sign of a crack or a fracture along its polished facets. “This is a Power Absorbing Snow White Moon Crystal, my king. I told you that before, didn’t I? Do you know what that means? Have you ever actually heard of these things before?” 

“No,” he grudgingly admits after a moment of glaring at the rock. He is no expert on such things, more predisposed towards being a warrior and a hunter than a scholar. He’s only ever bothered learning of the things that are practical to know of, and no more. A rare and magical beast can be killed as simply as a common wolf, if only you have the strength for it. “I have not.” 

“Yeah, no surprise there! These things are so useful that wars have been waged over them, my king. I could use these to drain you into a husk, you know that? It’s not like they’ve got surge protection! It’s not going to stop just because you have nothing left to give, it’ll just keep going until you crumble into ash. Did you even stop to consider that!?” 

He hadn’t. And Shang Qinghua knows he hadn’t, knows even as he’s asking. 

“Old Heavenly Demon emperors would take their enemies alive just to hook them up to these, throw them into a dungeon, and then use them up like batteries,” Shang Qinghua goes on. “People fought over the crystals so viciously that almost all of them got destroyed. Just a few made it, hidden away, and I got my hands on them. Do you have any idea how unbelievably precious that makes them? I could buy a kingdom with these!” 

“Why?” Mobei-Jun asks. He opens and closes his hands, feeling the way the shackles pull against his burned flesh. He stares intently up at Shang Qinghua. “Why did you take these crystals, Shang Qinghua?” 

Shang Qinghua’s mouth twists into a grimace, and his eyes slink away even as they’re still screwed up into a glare. It makes him look uncomfortable and resentful, like a guilty child. Like a silhouette slowly taking shape in shadows, Mobei-Jun understands without understanding where this is going. His suspicions form best when he isn’t looking directly at them. 

“Why shouldn’t I?” Shang Qinghua asks. “What if someone else got their hands on them? An enemy? Then-- you could be in danger.” 

“Qinghua couldn’t have found a way to destroy them?” Mobei-Jun asks. “No one would be able to steal them from you, then.” 

There’s a taut moment of tension, Shang Qinghua clenching his jaw… then he looks back towards Mobei-Jun, his lips thin. 

“Did you know that there’s a mushroom so perfect for taking you out of commission that it’s like it was made for it?” he asks, an abrupt change in topic. “Its spores travel into the lungs of ice demons and use their natural resistance to cold as a refuge from the snow, growing inside of their bodies until they’re hardy enough to bloom from their corpse. They’re rare, but if you got within a few meters of one then you’d be fucked, it happens so fast. You’d be completely helpless, and someone else would have to go and get you an antidote. You’d be at their mercy and they could drag any promises and favors they wanted out of you in return.” 

Mobei-Jun waits, because Shang Qinghua must be bringing this up for a reason - he wouldn’t mindlessly ramble now, not about this. Shang Qinghua looks at him as if to make sure that he’s listening, or to wait for a response, before he continues. 

“I drove that mushroom into extinction, my king,” Shang Qinghua says. “I made sure that each and every one of them died, then burned and salted the fields they grew from too. Shen-shixiong was pissed when he found out, ha. But I still did the same thing to the Frost Melting Bloom flower, and I had the legendary Shadow Piercer Spear melted down for scrap! All a bunch of bullshit cheat items that could’ve taken you out in a heartbeat no matter how powerful you are, and I got rid of them all!”

“You never told me,” Mobei-Jun says. His heart is beating faster. 

“Ah, what’s the point in telling you about a problem if it’s already been taken care of?” Shang Qinghua says, looking uncomfortable for a moment. “I got rid of everything that could have been a threat to you, except-- except for these crystals. I could have smashed them up and thrown them into a volcano maybe, but-- they could have been useful against an enemy some day, right?” 

He sounds almost entreating as he says this last bit, pleading. Isn’t that a good enough reason? You believe it, don’t you? 

“But you kept them secret from this king,” Mobei-Jun says, unwilling and unable to let this slip away unspoken. “And now - you’ve used them.” 

He pulls against the shackles, to make the chains clink against each other. Shang Qinghua winces at the sound. 

“Yeah,” Shang Qinghua says, a little feebly, weakly. “I did. I guess… I guess it’s a good thing that I didn’t get around to getting rid of them after all, huh?” 

“You kept them for me.”  

Shang Qinghua looks away. 

“Just as a backup plan,” he says. “Just in case. I wanted-- I wanted a way to stop you without killing you, that’s all.” 

Shang Qinghua has never outright said that he used to fear death from Mobei-Jun, that he thought he might need to defend himself. It remained unspoken, a painfully obvious fact after Shang Qinghua felt the need to flee from him after saving him at his Ascension. Mobei-Jun already knew this, that he has failed to express how valuable Shang Qinghua is to him to the point that the man thinks Mobei-Jun might ever willingly throw him away. 

He didn’t know that if he ever had turned on Shang Qinghua, tried to take his life with his own hands, that Shang Qinghua still wouldn’t be willing to kill him in return. That he’d want to find a way to spare Mobei-Jun, even in such circumstances. 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun says, feeling tender and aching like a raw wound. It must somehow show in his voice, because Shang Qinghua snaps his head around to look at him with wide eyes. “You will never know death at my hands.” 

Shang Qinghua, for some reason, chokes. 

“Is that,” he says, wide-eyed, “a promise or a threat…?” 

“A fact,” Mobei-Jun says. 

“That doesn’t--” Shang Qinghua says, before he seems to cut himself off with a strangled noise. His face is pinker than before. He takes a deep breath. “My king, you are not allowed to try and overload the crystals like that again! You’d just get yourself killed, trust me, and even if you did somehow manage to break them then it’s not like--” 

He stops talking, as if catching himself, but Mobei-Jun’s attention is already piqued. 

“You have other measures in place,” he says, and his gaze goes towards the array painted onto the floor, the walls, the ceiling. All surrounding, all encapsulating, and completely resistant towards destruction. Does it trap him here as well? Is that its function? 

“Well, yeah, obviously,” Shang Qinghua says, and he sounds almost offended. “You’re Mobei-Jun, what sort of idiot would only seal you one way? How little do you think of me, my king?” 

Mobei-Jun basks in the feeling of not being underestimated or dismissed in the slightest, the awe and admiration hidden within those simple words. Some people have thought him simple, easily led, used, and then disposed of. Most of those people are dead now. It is… heartening, to know that Shang Qinghua sees him as formidable, as someone to be taken seriously - even after how thoroughly he’s bested Mobei-Jun now, leaving him chained up and helpless within his captivity. 

“How many ways have you sealed me?” he demands, curious and wanting to know. 

“I’m not going to explain how I’m keeping you captive! We’ve been over this!” 

“Not how,” Mobei-Jun says. “How many chains have you seen fit to put on me, Qinghua?” 

Shang Qinghua looks at him, looks away, back - and blurts out, “Five.” 

Then he turns and storms out with a red face, leaving Mobei-Jun with his exhaustion, his wounds, and his fierce, glowing tenderness. 

 

After that, Shang Qinghua takes the shackles off Mobei-Jun. 

Not to free him, but to tend to and bandage his wounds. When he saw the fresh burns underneath the shackles he hissed and cursed under his breath, before glaring with furious exasperation at Mobei-Jun. His glare had quickly faltered however, his gaze slinking away as his face reddened. 

Mobei-Jun doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks it may have something to do with the collar currently wrapped around his neck. Chained to the wall and covered in the moon crystals, it seals his powers off from him as effectively as the shackles but allows Shang Qinghua to access his wrists. 

It is an odd feeling, this gentle constriction around his throat and neck. He keeps catching himself on it, the chain significantly shorter than those to his shackles - he thinks Shang Qinghua deliberately shortened it, as something between a punishment and a precaution for his earlier recklessness. He has lost the ability to leave his bed at all. 

Shang Qinghua had muttered something about payback when he’d attached the collar, something about see how you like being treated like a dog.  

Mobei-Jun doesn’t see how this counts as payback, when he’s never done anything similar. He thinks he’d remember putting a collar on Shang Qinghua. 

By his count, it has been five days since he was first captured. They’re halfway through. He tastes anticipation on his every breath, impatience fizzling between his molars. If he could claw the days further onwards, he would. As it is, he’s left with his restlessness and simmering frustration, helpless to bring this all to the final climax sooner. He simply has to wait.  

And continue his escape attempts, of course. He won’t insult Shang Qinghua with apathy. 

His attempt to overload and shatter the moon crystals was a failure. Even if Shang Qinghua is incorrect or lying and there is a chance of him succeeding if he only pushes himself a little further, it’s too late now that Shang Qinghua is aware that it’s something Mobei-Jun may try. The second he notices power surging into the crystal he keeps around his neck at all times, he’ll come rushing to Mobei-Jun’s room in order to put a stop to it. 

However, there is another way to get this collar off, infinitely simpler. The same way that Shang Qinghua took his shackles off to treat his wounds; with a key. He had seen it used, and then slipped into a discreet pocket in Shang Qinghua’s robes, all right in front of him. 

Shang Qinghua had warily kept his eyes on him the entire time, nervously reminding him over and over again that if he made any move to attack that he would simply use his own powers to freeze him in place and then leave. He’d flinched back every time Mobei-Jun had so much as blinked, something he doesn’t do often as is. Not particularly desiring to leave his wounds untreated, and enjoying the touch of his once again skittish human, he had submitted. 

Admittedly, stealing the key hadn’t occurred to him yet at the time. But it has now, and he spends the hours he has until Shang Qinghua’s next visit mulling it over, turning his possible approaches over and over in his mind. What angle of attack to use, how to best ambush his opponent, how to achieve his goal - he has nothing better to do but to consider it, and it’s a line of thought long familiar to him. 

By the time his stomach begins to faintly twinge with hunger - his body has quickly adjusted and grown to expect the regular meals Shang Qinghua has been supplying him - he has a plan in mind. The very moment that he hears approaching footsteps, he moves like a viper-tailed panther to enact it. 

Mobei-Jun lies down and pretends to be asleep. 

The door slides open, and Mobei-Jun doesn’t stir in the slightest as there’s a beat of silence, of being observed without being able to observe in turn. He has done this before, more times than he can put a number to. To lie still and quiet as Shang Qinghua hesitantly puttered around him until he became bold and careless enough to mutter to himself, to soak in his presence without having to be frustrated with how his attention would stifle him into something tense and fawningly servile, to not have to think of what to say or do. It had become a habit, a self indulgence. Shang Qinghua thinks that Mobei-Jun is a much heavier sleeper than he actually is. 

After that moment’s hesitation, Shang Qinghua approaches. The floorboards don’t creak, expertly crafted and laid, but Mobei-Jun has learned by necessity how to track a noiseless enemy in a pitch black cavern, feeling the displaced air of their breathing and movements against the prickling hairs on his skin. He knows how to feel someone’s presence without being able to describe how he does so. 

And Shang Qinghua, of all the presences in the world, is the most known to him of all. Mobei-Jun can smell him, all ink and those little snacks he likes to eat. Roasted melon seeds. And underneath that, human. Flesh and blood and bone, warm and fragile, delicate like a prey animal built to hide instead of fight. 

The meal is pork today. A shame that Mobei-Jun won’t be eating it. 

There’s the faintest of sounds as Shang Qinghua sets the tray down. He has to come close so that it’ll be within reach for Mobei-Jun and his shortened chain, and there’s a pause, a moment when he doesn’t immediately move away. Mobei-Jun can feel his shadow through his closed eyelids, the way the darkness behind his lids is just a little darker than before. Breath puffs faintly against his jaw, the slightest of breezes against his skin. His warmth, radiating beyond him like the sun, making him so easy to sense. The warmest thing in the room, always. 

He imagines Shang Qinghua leaning in closer, his hot breath washing over him, loose hairs hanging down to tickle against his face, his mouth and his hands finally reaching out to touch-- 

Shang Qinghua’s presence begins to retreat, just as noiselessly as it came. Mobei-jun snaps his eyes open before that can happen, and catches Shang Qinghua leaning just a little over him, only as if he were checking on his condition. Shang Qinghua jolts backwards as he’s caught, half an exclamation falling out of his mouth as he goes. “Fu--!” 

Mobei-Jun grabs him, of course. Grabs his arm and his robes, yanks him close, topples him onto the bed and rolls around onto his stomach like an alligator to pin him, quick and brutally efficient. And just like that he has his prey trapped in his maw, the rabbit between his jaws. 

“You will not keep denying this king,” Mobei-Jun orders and then - like taking a deep breath before plunging off a cliff, down into dark waters - he surges forth and presses a bold, hungry, claiming kiss onto Shang Qinghua. 

“Mmph!” Shang Qinghua protests, clutching at Mobei-Jun shoulders, his arms, tugging and pulling - but not nearly strongly enough, not as much as Mobei-Jun knows he’s capable of. Mobei-Jun holds his face in place with a hand to his jaw, which allows him to slip a thumb down his throat and feel his pulse hammering through his paper-thin skin. “My ki--” 

Mobei-Jun sticks his tongue into Shang Qinghua’s mouth, silencing him as much as is ever possible; at the same time he strokes a hand inside the folds of his robes, tracing his chest, his ribs, his flank. Shang Qinghua whimpers, squirms. Mobei-Jun is spurred on by every little noise he makes, every movement, every gasp. Bold and reckless with desire, he pushes his meaty thigh between Shang Qinghua’ legs and a keen gets muffled by the kiss, Shang Qinghua’s hips jolting upwards into the pressure with a punched out noise of raw want and agony. 

“Fuck,” Shang Qinghua gasps out, managing to wrench his face to the side, frantic and breathless. “Mm-- my king, this is, you--” 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun rumbles, before Shang Qinghua can throw him off again, scurry out of arm's reach and laugh all of this off like it’s nothing. “Do you wish to touch?” 

He takes Shang Qinghua’s hand and moves it - pressing it against his chest, his hand dwarfing Shang Qinghua’s. Shang Qinghua stares up at him, all dark, stunned wide eyes. His face is so red, his clothes disarrayed. 

“You mean--?” Shang Qinghua chokes out, his voice seeming to give out on him halfway through. Mobei-Jun, helpful, squeezes his hand around Shang Qinghua’s, so that it’s as if Shang Qinghua is squeezing at his chest. 

“Like this?” he asks. 

He knows that Shang Qinghua likes to look, after all. That has always been obvious. The frustrating part has always been his refusal to actually touch. 

“Hhhholy shit,” Shang Qinghua breathes, staring at Mobei-Jun’s chest as if spellbound. It is satisfying. 

“Qinghua may touch as much as he likes,” Mobei-Jun informs him more than a little smugly. It is gratifying, to be stared at like this after so much avoidance and tension. Shang Qinghua does still desire him; of course he does. He wouldn’t be doing any of this if he didn’t. 

“Thi-- this is,” Shang Qinghua sputters incoherently, his face rapidly going redder and redder. He seems to be trying to drag his gaze up to Mobei-Jun’s face, but can’t seem to manage it for longer than a single moment before it sinks back down. “My king, do you, are you-- uh, um. Y--you know you don’t have to--?” 

Mobei-Jun presses harder against Shang Qinghua’s groin, watching with an animal fascination the way that Shang Qinghua’s legs are spread further apart by the girth of his thigh. 

“Mm,” Mobei-Jun hums. “This king knows.” 

Couplings aren’t required in a bridenapping; they are not unexpected in particularly passionate ones, however. It’s about time this happened. 

“Fuck,” Shang Qinghua groans, his eyes squeezing shut, back arching, and Mobei-Jun wants to eat him.  

Not really, of course. But it feels very, very like it. He leans down and nuzzles into the crook of Shang Qinghua’s neck, noses at his throat. Inhales, mouth open, to get as much of his scent as possible. 

“Oh god,” Shang Qinghua says, despair in his voice. “My king, please, don’t-- don’t, don’t make me say no to this, fuck, I’ll hate myself for the rest of my life--!” 

“Then don’t say no,” Mobei-Jun tells him. Shang Qinghua’s mind is tangled and intricate enough that sometimes he overlooks the most direct path forwards, the simple and obvious solution. 

He licks at Shang Qinghua’s throat and tastes salt and skin, fresh sweat. Shang Qinghua makes an agonized noise and grinds himself on Mobei-Jun’s thigh, so that Mobei-Jun can feel the hard length of his cock. It’s thrilling, exciting. Finally, finally. 

“Fuck fuck fuck,” Shang Qinghua chants, and then he’s got a hand in Mobei-Jun’s hair, fingers curling against scalp and pulling, tugging. Not hard enough. If he’s not pulling roots out, then it’s just play. “I, I-- mm, I’m - god, I’d think about this, just getting to hump your fucking leg like a, like a filthy dog while you looked down on me, shit--” 

Shang Qinghua has always been a strange man with strange thoughts and stranger desires. 

“If Qinghua wishes,” Mobei-Jun says, and he nudges his thigh against Shang Qinghua’s cock for him so that he makes a cracked moan, his head tilting back to expose his throat in sweet and breathtaking surrender, completely at the mercy of Mobei-Jun’s teeth. 

“Nnnoooo, fuck, come on,” Shang Qinghua whines, even as he rolls his hips against the muscles of Mobei-Jun’s thigh. “You’re supposed to call me a gross, vulgar human and throw me out of the bed, please, my, my--” 

My bride, Mobei-Jun wildly imagines Shang Qinghua breathing. Or perhaps my Mobei, or just mine. He would accept that, he decides. He would accept it magnanimously. 

“Qinghua is well placed just where he is,” Mobei-Jun says, pinning him down to the bed with his hands at the hip and the shoulder, and then he half growls into his ear, “Stay.” 

“Fuck,” Shang Qinghua wheezes, and then he’s dragging his hands along the planes of Mobei-Jun’s back, down his chest and along his stomach. “How-- how are you so fucking chiseled, god, you’re like a sexy statue--!” 

His voice is rising as he talks, babbles, wild nonsense spilling out in between panting breaths. Mobei-Jun imagines that Shang Qinghua would keep talking like this even while fucking Mobei-Jun, rambling about how tight he is around his cock and breathlessly praising and thanking him in between each thrust. Hunger claws through him like a tiger at the image, and something aches in the pit of his stomach. 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun snarls and he rolls his own hips against Shang Qinghua, and it is satisfying and at the same time not, like taking only the very first bite of a feast when you’re starving. He needs more. 

In this pursuit, he begins to undress Shang Qinghua. He has not had practice with this, and human clothes seem to have far more irritating layers and ties than demon ones do. He doesn’t mean to claw the front of Shang Qinghua’s robes to shreds, but one overly forceful tug rips the fabric loose with a loud tearing noise, and then there his skin is on display. 

“Stop!” Shang Qinghua cries - and Mobei-Jun comes to a strained stop, brimming with the need to move but holding it back like a tidal wave. Shang Qinghua stares up at him for a stretched out moment, all wide dark eyes and a slightly stupefied look to his flushed face. After a moment, he finally says, “O-oh, you actually stopped? I mean - good! This servant… this servant will, will undress himself, so - please just wait, my king!” 

There’s another still moment of breathless waiting, and then Mobei-jun involuntarily makes a noise of impatience in the back of his throat and Shang Qinghua snaps into motion, hurrying to follow through on his promise with clumsy, fumbling hands. It is slower than what simply tearing his clothes off would accomplish, but if having his clothes torn is upsetting then Mobei-Jun will restrain himself. He must. 

He barely undresses, only opening up his robes and pushing his pants down until they’re just out of the way and not even bothering to take his boots off. Mobei-Jun doesn’t care. In all the years they’ve known each other, this is immediately more than he’s ever seen of Shang Qinghua’s bare skin before, so skittishly covered up the instant Mobei-Jun ever showed up in his dwellings. His flushed and heaving chest, the trail of hair that leads from his navel down to his crotch, and his cock - these are all firsts. 

Shang Qinghua’s cock is flushed dark and stands tall with strain, and it looks small and soft like every other part of his human in a way that makes him want to savage anyone who ever even looks in his direction and then cover him up with his own body. As Mobei-Jun stares, studying it, one of Shang Qinghua’s knees draws up slightly, as if shyly trying to hide it. He reaches down and matter of factly pushes it down and out of the way. 

“U-um,” Shang Qinghua chokes. “So, so that’s me! Does-- does my king want to do anything with it, or…?” 

Mobei-Jun wants it inside of him. He wants to taste it, to pierce himself on it, to take it. He is unsure of how to do any of these things, and feels suddenly especially uncertain of how to do any of it without hurting Shang Qinghua, as easily bruised as a peach and sensitive to pain as he is. He does not wish to hurt him. He has hurt him before, easily and foolishly. 

“Qinghua decides,” Mobei-Jun declares. 

“What?” Shang Qinghua asks. 

Slowly, deliberately, Mobei-Jun leans in closer and then tilts his head to the side, arching his throat slightly. Showing off the collar strapped around his neck, crystalline and unyielding. He watches as Shang Qinghua’s eyes catch on and then get stuck on it, widening and darkening. 

“Qinghua will decide what will be done,” Mobei-Jun repeats, not looking away from Shang Qinghua. “As he says, he isn’t this king’s servant any longer, but instead this king’s captor. Act like it.” 

“Eh?” Shang Qinghua’s eyes go round, round, round, his already flushed face flooding with red. “Eh? M-me, my king? I-- I decide--” 

“Yes,” Mobei-Jun says, with a dawning excitement as he turns the idea over in his mind. What he is proposing - an unfought for surrender, effortless victory, willing submission - is depraved, shameful, even disgusting. Mobei-Jun would never consider it, not for anyone… but for Shang Qinghua-- “You wish to chain this king, to subject him to your will? Fine. Then you will do so properly. Claim me.” 

Shang Qinghua stares up at him, and then croaks out, “Really?” 

Mobei-Jun does not say anything, because he has already made himself clear. Shang Qinghua seems to take his silence for what it is, because he swallows and then slowly reaches up one hand towards him, faintly trembling in the air. Mobei-Jun is ready for Shang Qinghua to caress his face, or his chest, or perhaps even his tongue - but then he carefully grabs the chain connected to the collar instead. With unbreaking eye contact and held breath, he wraps the chain around his hand and gives it a tug. 

Mobei-Jun lets himself be tugged, pulled inches closer towards Shang Qinghua like a dog on a leash. His human is not strong, but he submits to his strength completely and utterly. 

“Holy shit,” Shang Qinghua breathes, awed. 

Then he yanks Mobei-Jun the rest of the way down to his face abruptly enough that their teeth click together as Shang Qinghua gives him a passionate kiss, sloppy and desperate. Shang Qinghua makes a faint, muffled noise of pain but doesn’t stop, doesn’t let go of Mobei-Jun’s chain, and Mobei-Jun closes his eyes and melts into it with bliss and smoldering contentment. 

Yes, this will do nicely. This is what has been missing so far. 

“Mmmy king, my king,” Shang Qinghua gasps between kisses, unable to shut up for long enough to kiss him properly, having to mumble incoherently as if his babbling is gasping at the surface for air. “My king is, is perfect, the perfect man, my ideal man, gorgeous, gorgeous body, ice sculpture body, ah, fuck, my king--!” 

Mobei-Jun growls into the kiss, hungry and possessive, and Shang Qinghua makes an overwhelmed whimpering sort of noise and then he’s rutting against the planes of Mobei-Jun’s stomach, his bare cockhead smearing precum along the muscles there. He imagines Shang Qinghua splattering his abdominal muscles with cum and is filled with a mix of satisfaction and irritation at the idea. It is a good image, but he desires more. 

“Take me,” Mobei-Jun tells him, and it seems to take Shang Qinghua’s fuzzed over mind a long moment to process what has been said. He looks up at Mobei-Jun with blown out eyes and parted lips, all stunned incomprehension - and then understanding snaps into place on his face. 

“Oh,” he breathes, as if Mobei-Jun has said something incredible. “My king means that he-- that you, that you want to be the one who--?” 

“Qinghua may have me whichever way he wants,” Mobei-Jun says, shifting. His cock aches in his pants; his clothes have become stifling, suffocating. He wants them off. “Including on my back, or on my hands and--” 

“Nngh,” Shang Qinghua whines, and Mobei-Jun can feel his cock twitching against his belly. “My king, you’ve got to, you’ve gotta stop talking-- no, what am I saying, always talk more, that’s good, this is good. But-- shit. I don’t have any oil!” 

He says this last part despairingly, like a man who has realized he’s lost in the desert without any food or water. 

“So?” Mobei-Jun asks, not seeing the issue. 

“So?” Shang Qinghua asks, gaping. “I’m not going to, to fuck you raw, my king! I’m not that cruel! Holy shit, I know demons like it rough, but I don’t. Blood is a turn off for me! A total turn off! Just so you know!” 

Mobei-Jun had been right to be cautious. No blood at all, not even a little? Shang Qinghua must be exceedingly soft and gentle even by human standards. Helplessly, he can’t stop himself from feeling tender and protective over the thought. That is fine; Mobei-Jun will be as soft and gentle as if he’s been muzzled and drugged, if that’s what Shang Qinghua likes. 

“Qinghua can’t think of something?” Mobei-Jun asks expectantly, and he lets himself drag his clothed cock along Shang Qinghua’s hip, slow and heavy with simmering impatience. 

Shang Qinghua always thinks of something. 

And just as Mobei-Jun knew he would, Shang Qinghua does just that. After taking a moment to whimper and shiver underneath Mobei-Jun, he takes a deep breath and nods to himself, looking determined and a little wild around the eyes. 

“Okay,” he says. “Okay okay okay, yes, this is doable, this is so doable, okay, let’s-- let’s do it! My king, will you please--” And he stops, inhales. Speaks deliberately. “Ge-get on your back, my king.” 

Mobei-Jun gets on his back. The bed is spacious, but Shang Qinghua scrambles to get out of his way regardless, silently looking at him with big, enraptured eyes. Mobei-Jun looks up at him with his hands up by his head, the fingers loosely curled and his palms facing the ceiling. He waits. 

“Goddamn,” he rasps, and then he lays a hand against Mobei-Jun’s forehead, of all things. His palm is feverishly warm against his skin, but that’s only normal. “Are you-- is my king feeling like himself? Did I accidentally slip you some Extract of Submissive Obedience Blossom without noticing it?” 

“This king is clear headed,” Mobei-Jun says, puzzled by the circuitous paths Shang Qinghua’s mind takes. He shifts again where he lies, restless. Besides the obvious. 

Shang Qinghua’s gaze sinks down to Mobei-Jun’s crotch as if drawn there by gravity, and he visibly swallows as he looks at the bulge straining against Mobei-Jun’s clothes there. 

“A-ah,” Shang Qinghua says, and then he clumsily pushes Mobei-Jun’s legs apart to shuffle in between them, never taking his eyes off his crotch as he does so. “That-- that’s probably why, huh? If this servant had known it would be so simple to get you to listen then-- then fuck, I’dve gone down on my knees years ago, ha! My king--”

He palms Mobei-Jun’s cock through his clothes, and Mobei-Jun’s eyes fall shut without him meaning them to, his breath catching in his throat. With a quiet groan he tilts his hips into Shang Qinghua’s touch, savoring the pressure of it, the warmth. 

“Fuuuck,” Shang Qinghua breathes, and he squeezes. Mobei-Jun grunts, grits his teeth. “That is, that is exactly as much of a handful as I’d imagined it to be, ha! I, I mean, I knew it was huge, I’ve already seen it, but--!” 

He cuts himself off, and starts to undress Mobei-Jun with quick, urgent hands that only fumble slightly, far more used to the task of handling Mobei-Jun’s clothes for him. Drawing his baths and making his sheets, bandaging his wounds and brushing his hair - there is nothing that Mobei-Jun needs that Shang Qinghua hasn’t taken care of for him at some point during their lives. Tending to him has become a familiar duty to Shang Qinghua, one that he excels at. In only a moment he’s pulling Mobei-Jun’s boots and pants off, pushing his robes out of the way, and just like that he’s completely and utterly bare and exposed - besides the collar, of course, settled snugly around his throat like a brazen hand. 

Shang Qinghua takes in Mobei-Jun’s form in a single silent moment of awe, during which Mobei-Jun lies there and feels worshipped, treasured, smug.  

And then he faceplants down into Mobei-Jun’s chest and grabs onto each pec, squeezing desperately. 

“My king,” Shang Qinghua says feverishly, muffled against his chest. “My king, how are you real? How are you this hot? Like a bara bondage fetish spread! My king, my king, do I really get to touch you, is it okay? You’re not going to break my hands if I--?” 

“I will not,” Mobei-Jun says firmly, and then makes a surprised, breathy noise when Shang Qinghua immediately responds by biting onto his chest. It’s a gentle little love bite, not even piercing skin, but it was unexpected. 

“Sorry,” Shang Qinghua blurts out, letting go almost instantly. “Sorry, sorry, don’t know what got over me, just--” 

And he bites again, this time on a slightly different spot, overlapping. He starts rubbing at Mobei-Jun’s nipples as he does so, stirring a feeling that is almost ticklish but not quite. Mobei-Jun’s next exhalation is a noisy gust, surprised by the sensation. He squirms slightly where he lies, feeling as if he has to move as a restless feeling starts trickling into him. 

“Qinghua,” he says, with no reason to do so. 

“My king,” Shang Qinghua groans from his chest, almost drunkenly. Mobei-Jun looks down at him, just in time to catch Shang Qinghua’s gaze as he licks a stripe up Mobei-Jun’s pec, his tongue dragging across the edge of a nipple. “Good?” 

Mobei-Jun forgets to answer. He forgets the question. Instead he bucks underneath Shang Qinghua, instinctively seeking to rut into the warm weight pressing down on him. Shang Qinghua squeaks with surprise and clutches onto Mobei-Jun like he might honestly get thrown off. 

“He-- hey,” he yelps, and then he indignantly slaps Mobei-Jun’s flank. “Watch it!” 

It is only yet another shallow strike that won’t even leave a mark, but it’s close enough to make something light up inside of Mobei-Jun’s mind, to make a low moan slip out of him. Shang Qinghua freezes for a moment, all wide, startled eyes, and then a cracked little “uh,” slips out. 

“Again?” Mobei-Jun finds the will to ask in a rumbling voice, just barely. He can feel heat rising to his own face, and he spreads his legs a little wider around Shang Qinghua, sliding across the sheets. 

Shang Qinghua stares at him, as if Mobei-Jun has asked for something outrageous, unbelievable. “You want to get spanked?” 

He wants to be touched. It doesn’t matter how, so long as Shang Qinghua is the one doing it. Unsure of how to convey this distinction, he simply nods. 

“Am I dreaming?” Shang Qinghua mumbles - and then he draws his hand back and smacks the palm of his hand onto Mobei-Jun’s outer thigh. It makes a noise. Mobei-Jun gives a satisfied hiss, and has to stop himself from trying to thrust up against Shang Qinghua again. His efforts must be noticed, however, because Shang Qinghua’s (dark, blown out) eyes dart down and he licks his lips. “Nevermind nevermind, this can wait, let’s get this show on the road before I wake up in sticky sheets and realize this was all just some pathetic wet dream--!” 

He wriggles and squirms, and then he’s down between Mobei-Jun’s legs, his hot breath ghosting across Mobei-Jun’s cock, and Mobei-Jun can’t breathe as he waits for what happens next-- but then Shang Qinghua ignores his cock entirely, instead nuzzling into Mobei-Jun’s inner thigh. He licks a broad, wet stripe up the sensitive skin there, gently gnawing at it with his teeth without even nipping it. A faint noise scrapes its way out of Mobei-Jun’s throat, and he grips tightly at the sheets underneath him to stop his hands from doing anything else. If he clutches at Shang Qinghua right now then he will hold him too hard, too desperately. 

“Perfect thighs,” Shang Qinghua murmurs rapturously, then turns his head and starts doing the same to the other side, mouthing at it like he wants to leave a hickey on every spare inch of skin he can reach. “Forgive, forgive this servant for, mm, slobbering--” 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun grits out, feeling at once overwhelmed and teased, taunted. He needs more than this, much more. 

“Impatient king,” Shang Qinghua mumbles in between bites and licks, marking him up. “Needy king, demanding and demanding, ah, always such a tyrant. Well I’m in charge now, so--” 

He kneels up, wiping roughly at his chin with his sleeve, and he grins at Mobei-Jun. Wide and toothy, wild and confident. Mobei-Jun wants to melt. 

“--so my king just has to lie there nice and pretty for me while I fuck your magnificent thighs, alright?” 

Mobei-Jun immediately feels himself go limp and obedient with surrender, like prey with jaws at their throat. There is nowhere in the world he would rather be. Shang Qinghua smooths a hand up his side, his gaze drunk with lust and appreciation, admiring. Then he grabs at Mobei-Jun’s hips and tugs, twisting him - Mobei-Jun understands what he wants and moves to cooperate, rolling over onto his stomach, propping himself up on his elbows. His head hangs, hair splaying out in a curtain around him, and Shang Qinghua makes a hungry noise as he gets settled on his knees. 

“Fuck yes,” he says reverently, and then, “Don’t spread your legs, though. Love where your head’s at, but I want your thighs pressed tight together, yes, just like that, good, good--” 

He feels Shang Qinghua’s blunt cockhead pressing against the seam of his thighs, and he huffs and then parts his thighs just slightly, trying to let him in. His cock slides in, and above and behind him Shang Qinghua groans, loud and shameless. 

“Ah, that-- that’s perfect, fuck yes,” Shang Qinghua says, and he draws his hips back and thrusts back into Mobei-Jun’s thighs, burying himself there. The tip of his cock doesn’t even come out the other side. “God. I haven’t-- haven’t even imagined this, what we’re, we’re doing right now, but--” 

Another thrust, in and out, and Shang Qinghua gives a long and filthy moan, his back arching until his forehead is planted against Mobei-Jun’s back. He can feel his skin there, hot and sweaty. His warm, panting breaths. 

“My king,” he says, practically whines, as if tormented. “How are you so fuckable?” 

“Fuck me, then,” Mobei-Jun bites out, so tense he’s almost trembling from it, holding himself still and stiff as stone. 

Shang Qinghua makes another shameless, loud noise and then does as he’s told, thrusting into Mobei-Jun’s thighs at a sloppy, frantic pace. He can feel it, feel the friction of it, the heat, the closeness - but he isn’t getting fucked. He imagines having this heat and friction inside of him, pressing needy and demanding, pushing, thrusting, fucking, slamming into him, and he nearly growls from frustration. The need in his gut is building and building, only further stoked by this thing that is almost what he craves, so close to what he needs, but not. 

But this is what Shang Qinghua wants, what he is demanding, and Mobei-Jun will always be grateful to be clearly told how to please him. More often than not, it is blind guesswork on his part. Instead he squirms and moves until he can bite the side of his hand, his teeth digging into the meat of his palm, the pain sharp and satisfying, the perfect counterpoint to burning, impatient pleasure. His other hand, he slips down between his legs, his fingers wrapping firmly around his hard, aching cock. His next exhale comes out rasping at the edges, traces of a groan in it. 

“That’s-- nuh uh,” Shang Qinghua says, and then one of his hands is clumsily reaching around his body to grab at his wrist. “You-- you will wait your turn. Did I tell you you could touch yourself, huh?” 

Mobei-Jun snarls with thwarted frustration on sheer instinct, the kind of noise that would send Shang Qinghua flinching into frantic apologies and begging for mercy. The regret comes half a beat later, sharp and ashamed - but instead of moving away Shang Qinghua is pulling at his wrist, drawing his hand away from himself. 

“Whiny,” Shang Qinghua teases him, practically taunting. Mobei-Jun can hear a grin curling in his voice. “You’ll have to be good if you want to come, okay? Have some patience!” 

As if Mobei-Jun hasn’t been waiting decades for this. Still, he allows Shang Qinghua to drag his hand away, putting it back into place on the bed. He trembles with the effort of staying still, of not grabbing Shang Qinghua and spearing himself on his cock now, of not giving into every instinct in him that’s telling him he should be moving, fighting, making his mate work for his submission. 

But no. He wants to be obedient for Shang Qinghua. If he got his blood on his teeth and underneath his claws then he would not be given the same in return, a push and pull of struggle and domination. He would whimper in pain and shy away, and that is the last thing that Mobei-Jun wants to happen in the world. He’ll be good; he’ll stay still. 

“Fine,” he grits out instead, and clenches his free hand in the sheets hard enough that he can feel fabric tear underneath his claws. He bites his palm until he can taste blood welling up, clinging to the spark of pain like a liferaft. 

“Ah, my king is being so brave,” Shang Qinghua says, a mocking smile still in his voice. Mobei-Jun feels a sweet kiss stamp itself on his shoulder blade and all of his frustration evaporates, forgiven and forgotten in an instant as all of his focus narrows down to that one point. Oblivious, Shang Qinghua seems to brace himself properly on his knees behind him and then start fucking Mobei-Jun’s thighs with vigor, setting a rough, eager pace for himself. 

He starts babbling again almost immediately. Filthy curses and fawning praise, his words growing increasingly breathless and incoherent with each pass of his cock. Mobei-Jun finds his focus sticking onto smaller details. The desperate clutch of Shang Qinghua’s hands on his hips, sweaty and slipping in his clumsy eagerness, constantly readjusting, short trimmed nails scraping harmlessly over skin. The slap of skin against skin when Shang Qinghua sinks himself as deep as he can into Mobei-Jun’s thighs, that dirty noise mixing with heavy breathing in the air, panting. The way that Shang Qinghua’s voice peaks and cracks on a moan, like he’s young again. 

“--so lovely, so-- so perfect, god, how could you be so amazing, I didn’t think you up this amazing, did I, didn’t even imagine you this good, better than I ever dreamed--”

Dazedly, Mobei-Jun notices how chafed his inner thighs are beginning to feel. But the more Shang Qinghua fucks him, the wetter they feel too, like there’s something dribbling and smearing there, slicking the way for him. Precum. 

“Qinghua,” he says, hua coming out as a rough exhale, the two syllables disconnected. 

“My king,” Shang Qinghua says reverently. His voice jolts a little with each thrust, my ki-hing, thin and unsteady with need. One of his hands slip up from Mobei-Jun’s hip to his back as if by accident, sweat making it lose its grip. Instead of readjusting again he seems to take the chance to trace the muscles of his back, running along his spine as if fascinated, entranced. “Ahh, I finally get to-- I get to touch, as much as I want, wherever I want. Right, my king, right, this servant gets to touch you--?” 

Why does he feel the need to ask, when he already has Mobei-Jun like this? On his knees for him, his cock between his thighs, every inch of his body free for the taking. Of course he gets to touch. Mobei-Jun would have long since attacked if any of this were unwelcome. 

Talking feels too difficult. Instead, he squeezes his thighs together, hoping it will be answer enough. 

Shang Qinghua gives a strangled cry, his hips jolting forward as if shocked into it, and then he pumps into Mobei-Jun in a sloppy, desperate rhythm, once, twice, thrice-- 

He collapses as if all of his strings have been cut, suddenly all of his weight bearing down on Mobei-Jun, plastering his torso over his back so they’re pressed as close together as they can be. Mobei-Jun bears his weight effortlessly. The groan that slips out of him is because of the wet warmth he can feel spurting between his thighs, thick and messy. 

Qinghua came on me, he thinks, the inside of his mind fogged up with desire. He rubs his thighs together to feel the sticky wetness of it, and Shang Qinghua squeaks, his limp body shivering. 

“Ah-- ah, my king, please have mercy, have-- fuck, I’m sensitive!” Before Mobei-Jun can stop him, Shang Qinghua has slid his cock out of the vice of his thighs. He can feel warm cum trickling down the back of his thighs, having breached the seam. He feels Shang Qinghua move, and then he flops onto his back besides Mobei-Jun. “Holy shit.” 

Mobei-Jun turns his head. He can see Shang Qinghua’s flushed face, eyes blown out dark and dazed, fresh sweat on his forehead and his hair disarrayed. His mouth is a little open, making him look particularly fucked stupid. The need curling inside of him like restless currents surges at the sight, at Shang Qinghua’s flushed, heaving chest striving for air, at how warm he looks. As if steam should be rising from his skin to curl in the air, but it’s not cold enough here for that. 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun says, impatience unfurling in his voice despite himself, demanding and needy. He leans forward to hungrily press their lips together - and is stopped short by a pressure around his throat, pulling him to an abrupt halt. He actually blinks in shock and confusion for a moment, not understanding. Then he remembers. The collar; the chain. 

“Oh,” Shang Qinghua says, a rasp in his voice, a stunned look on his face as he takes in Mobei-Jun - which quickly shifts into something delighted, his lips curling into an excited grin as his eyes trace Mobei-Jun’s form. He turns onto his side, closer, and runs a hand down Mobei-Jun’s shoulder. “My poor king, ah, you’re being neglected! Allow this servant to fix that immediately.” 

Mobei-Jun makes a soft, wordless noise of assent, and he allows Shang Qinghua to tip him over onto his side and then his back as if he’s as weak as a kitten, pliant and obedient. Shang Qinghua blatantly looks him up and down, drinking in the sight of him bared and splayed out before him. 

“I’m a genius,” he mumbles, for reasons beyond Mobei-Jun in this moment. But then his gaze trails down Mobei-Jun’s body like a physical touch, until it settles between his legs. “God, that coke bottle dick is a work of art. Huge and meaty, just like every inch of you, my king! Fits you so perfectly, it’s just right. Everything about you is right--” 

Mobei-Jun has, with great contentment (or confusion, or idle curiosity, or thwarted irritation), listened to Shang Qinghua talk himself in endless circles before. This isn’t something he dislikes. In a way, Shang Qinghua is the easiest person in the world to speak with; he merely has to lie back, and Shang Qinghua will take care of both of their responses for him, leaving him only to interject if he truly feels moved to do so. He can, and has, silently listened to his human ramble for hours without interruption. 

He cannot stand the idea of silently listening for hours now. So instead he lunges upwards only to curl his hands into the dangling sides of Shang Qinghua’s robes and yank him down on top of him. Shang Qinghua yelps, bracing his hands against Mobei-Jun’s chest. 

“Do something,” Mobei-Jun grits out - before, with great hardship, tacking on a small, “please.” 

It is something he has been trying, since the Ascension. To express gratitude for loyalty, or to ask for it instead of presumptuously demanding it. He is not good at it. 

“Right!” Shang Qinghua says, voice slightly strangled. “Hopping to it, my king. Just let me-- ah, my king, my robes--” 

Shang Qinghua squirms, and Mobei-Jun reluctantly makes his grip on his robes loosen. He keeps his hands as tightly curled fists instead, unable to reach out or touch. As soon as Shang Qinghua can move with freedom, he’s wriggling his way down Mobei-Jun’s body. Soon he’s between Mobei-Jun’s legs, hands on his thighs, face close to-- 

“Wow,” Shang Qinghua says, cross eyed, before a compulsive, nervous little laugh slips out of him. “It’s, ha, it’s even bigger up close, my king. It’s-- have I ever mentioned that I have a gag reflex? Sorry, but I do! Turns out it’s way harder to get rid of that than porn would make you think--” 

“I don’t care,” Mobei-Jun says. Why would he? Even the slightest touch from Shang Qinghua is more than anything from anyone else. That Shang Qinghua wants to touch-- “Qinghua is enough.” 

“Oh,” Shang Qinghua says, and then he’s propping himself up on his elbow so he can curl his hand around the base of Mobei-Jun’s cock, his other hand steadying itself against the crease of Mobei-Jun’s thigh. His hot breath ghosts against the head of his cock, and he shivers. “Well, then - don’t mind if I do.” 

He licks his lips, as if in anticipation of a tasty treat - and then, taking a breath as if to plunge underwater, he takes Mobei-Jun’s cock into his mouth. 

Warm, is Mobei-Jun’s first thought, followed up by no more thoughts at all. No coherent ones, at least. Shang Qinghua’s mouth closes over the tip of his cock, soft lips sealing around him, and he feels his firm, slick tongue swirl around his cockhead almost tentatively, curiously, as if trying out a new hard candy to suck on. He makes a muffled mm noise, and then pops off Mobei-Jun’s cock to breathily say, “Ah, that-- that’s not bad at all actually, ha! I can suck on this, I can suck on this like a popsicle, haha--” 

“More,” Mobei-Jun growls, holding his fists clenched against the bed so desperately that he thinks he might hurt himself. “Qing - hua, you--” 

Shang Qinghua hurries to do as requested, quickly taking Mobei-Jun’s cock into his mouth again. He slides several inches further down this time, wet heat swallowing him down almost to the halfway point of his cock, filling out his mouth. Shang Qinghua makes a muffled noise as if he wants to say something, but he mercifully doesn’t slide up off Mobei-Jun’s cock again to let the words drip out of his mouth. Instead he lifts up just a little - then back down again, his tongue sandwiched between Mobei-Jun’s cock and his teeth, careful and soft and gentle as if even the slightest scrape of teeth is to be avoided at all cost. 

Mobei-Jun loves him. 

He tries to say - something, anything - and realizes that he isn’t breathing. He exhales, and a quiet moan laces it as Shang Qinghua bobs his head again, the hand on the base of his cock tightening and stroking upwards - trying to cover the ground his mouth can’t, to envelop all of him in warmth and touch.  

“Good,” Mobei-Jun gets out, because this is when Shang Qinghua would say something, nervous and babbling or enthusiastic or gloating or fawning or something, loud and shameless and filling up all the empty spaces - the silence, Mobei-Jun. But he can’t, because he’s trying to swallow one of the most vulnerable parts of him, to hold it in his mouth without even a spark of threat or challenge in his eyes. “This is - it is good, Qinghua. You are doing - good--” 

Shang Qinghua makes another muffled noise again, like he wants so badly to be able to talk and suck Mobei-Jun’s cock at the same time and keeps forgetting that he can’t. He sinks another inch deeper on Mobei-Jun’s cock the next time he bobs his head, his hand stroking in time with his mouth, and there are tears of strain at the corner of his eyes, air puffing out of his nose. Mobei-Jun has seen Shang Qinghua cry many, many times before, over the pettiest of matters to credible threats to his life, willing to sob and beg without a hint of shame. He’s learned not to be alarmed by it, but it’s the first time Shang Qinghua’s ever cried because of his cock. Mobei-Jun finds himself feeling tender over it, like melting spring ice. Protective. 

“Very good,” he says, more softly. He lays a hand on Shang Qinghua’s head, threading black claws through his fine, dark brown hair, gently trailing across his scalp. With another demon he imagines he might pull, sharp and vicious. But he doesn’t want to. “Like always.” 

He keeps his other hand still curled up into a closed fist. 

Shang Qinghua’s eyes blink and look up at him across the span of his body, wide and surprised. Then he screws his eyes shut with determination and thrusts himself down on Mobei-Jun’s cock until he can feel the tight, hot clutch of his throat around his cockhead. Mobei-Jun grunts, and has to tense every muscle in his body to stop himself from pushing further into it, chasing that feeling of being enveloped, tight, wet warmth pressing in from all sides. Shang Qinghua for his part gags on his cock, and has to retreat until only the head of his cock remains in his mouth, breathing frantically through his nose. The beading tears are now slipping down his flushed face, making him look like a mess. He’s drooling a little. 

“Calm,” Mobei-jun urges, a growl tinting the edges of his voice. “Don’t. Overreach.” 

Shang Qinghua hums around Mobei-Jun’s cock, something that might be apology or whining, and then once his breathing calms down he starts swallowing down Mobei-Jun’s cock again. Mobei-Jun’s grip in his hair curls and tightens, prepared to keep Shang Qinghua in place if he tries to go too deep, but he doesn’t. He stops halfway down his cock, then starts bobbing his head, using his hand to stroke the remainder of his cock. 

His thumb and index finger don’t quite meet, where they wrap around Mobei-Jun’s cock. His hand is too small to hold all of it at once. His jaw must be aching, straining around his girth. 

Mobei-Jun realizes he won’t be able to take much more of this. He closes his eyes and pants for air, trying to hold on for as long as he can, to stay in this moment of Shang Qinghua nestled between his legs and trying to fit as much of Mobei-Jun as he possibly can into his body, closer than they’ve ever been. They’ll be closer still than this soon, once the tenday is up and they are forever joined, a union that no one will ever be able to take away from him, no one. He just has to--

Shang Qinghua makes a wet, muffled noise, and Mobei-Jun slits his eyes open to see him, make sure he isn’t distressed. He sees his human, his advisor, his Shang Qinghua, sucking his cock with unfocused eyes and a furrowed brow of concentration, utterly focused on his task and on doing it well to the exclusion of all else. 

Shang Qinghua could bite down, hurt him; he won’t. Mobei-Jun could thrust forward and hold his head down, choke him; he won’t. 

With a low cry that unlodges from his throat, Mobei-Jun’s orgasm washes through him and out of him, a full body shiver that tingles across his skin and through his mind, emptying it. For a moment, he just is.  

Then Shang Qinghua comes up for air, coughing with involuntary tears slipping down his cheeks, cum dripping from his chin, graceless and messy. He looks perfect. 

“Fuck,” Shang Qinghua says with a hoarse voice, thoughtlessly wiping at his face with his sleeve, smearing the fluids there. He seems to catch himself a beat too late, scrunching up his nose and holding his sleeve away from himself, before his shoulders seem to slump with resignation. Then he looks at Mobei-Jun, and his eyes widen at whatever he sees. 

Mobei-Jun, lax and sprawled beneath him, can’t even bring himself to drag his eyelids up from a lazy half mast, his chest rising and falling as he catches his breath. That had been. Good. Much better than his father had made it seem, or any of the people he’s ever caught in indiscreet moments. Not like some foolish, empty game or the indulgence of a feast, or even a rough and satisfying spar. It had felt like getting to hold Shang Qinghua close and to be held closely in return, so that neither could escape from the other. 

He likes it. He likes it very much.  

Again, he wants to demand, except he’s been trying not to act like quite as much of a ‘spoiled young master,’ as Shang Qinghua had so pointedly put it during his Ascension. To behave as a mate that can provide, rather than as a tyrannical burden to be catered to. 

He still wants it. 

“God,” Shang Qinghua says, laying a disbelieving hand on the muscles of Mobei-Jun’s stomach, as if needing to feel that they aren’t merely a mirage. “That-- that just happened.” 

“Yes,” Mobei-Jun agrees. His voice sounds a little different from what he’s used to; lower, gruffer, self satisfied. 

“You just… let me fuck your thighs.” 

“Yes.” 

“And then I sucked your dick.” 

“Yes, Qinghua.” 

“And… I slapped you!?” he says, the stunned disbelief in his voice turning over into something more incredulous and almost horrified. “And bossed you around, and bit and sucked on your tits, and called you, uh, fuck, called you a bunch of shit actually and-- you let me? My king, you let me!?” 

Mobei-Jun nods. 

“My king,” Shang Qinghua says. “Why?” 

He waits a moment for Shang Qinghua to elaborate, to make the question make sense. It doesn’t come, Shang Qinghua just staring at him in complete and utter bewilderment. 

“Why?” Mobei-Jun is forced to ask. 

“Yeah, why! Don’t say that to me like that, why, like it’s a ridiculous question! Are you, is this-- does this mean that you’re not-- that, that after all of this is over, I can still--?” 

He trails off without actually finishing his question, staring at Mobei-jun with some sort of half desperate, half hopeful expression. Shang Qinghua is always shameless and unrestrained in his emotions, but this feels - different, somehow. Rawer. Mobei-Jun has no idea what to do with it, or what it even means. What is he asking? 

Mobei-Jun wishes he could simply ask what Shang Qinghua is thinking, to be given a carefully written list of all of his innermost desires and assumptions and opinions. To be allowed to understand.  

“... Qinghua--” he starts, and then stops when Shang Qinghua’s head abruptly turns to the side, as if startled by some loud noise. But Mobei-Jun heard nothing. 

“What the fuck-- now? No, that’s-- goddamnit,” Shang Qinghua says, frustration twisting at his features. He makes some sort of seal with his hands, and Mobei-Jun belatedly understands. Some manner of array or talisman must have been triggered in Shang Qinghua’s awareness, a cultivator’s spell. “Of all fucking times!” 

And then Shang Qinghua is pushing himself up off the bed, badly tying his robes shut. Mobei-Jun realizes too late that he’s leaving, and doesn’t manage to grab him in time. 

“What is it?” Mobei-Jun demands, sitting up. 

“A problem at the Northern Ice Palace - not that my king needs to bother himself! God, if it’s just a kitchen fire then I’m going to kill someone. They can handle that without me! I know I said to only call me if there’s a fire, but that’s just something people say.” Shang Qinghua stops, the door open, half a foot already out into the hall. He looks back at Mobei-Jun, hesitating, before he adds, “I’ll be back soon, my king. This servant promises!” 

And he goes, the door shutting behind him. Mobei-Jun stares at it, trying to absorb - everything, all of it. Shang Qinghua touching him, kissing him, bringing him pleasure and taking his own from Mobei-Jun; Shang Qinghua looking at him with such plaintive, desperate eyes and asking something that Mobei-Jun still doesn’t understand; Shang Qinghua leaving. 

He hesitated, Mobei-Jun notes, and can’t explain why that is important except that it is. It is far superior to Shang Qinghua’s behavior of the last few days, all skittish avoidance and refusing to even properly look at him. This is much better. He has many things to be pleased with. 

Finally uncurling his fist, he looks at one of those things. 

The key to his chains glints in the heart of his palm, only a little blood at the teeth from when he’d clenched it too hard. 

Perhaps he’ll be able to provide a respectable struggle after all.

Chapter 6: The Leisure House

Notes:

This chapter is 13.9k words long

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

Chapter Text

Mobei-Jun can be patient when he needs to be. Slowly and dutifully, he counts down from one hundred after Shang Qinghua leaves before he uses the key. It is awkward, finding the keyhole at such an angle, and he wonders for a split moment if it won’t work - if it is the wrong key, somehow, or a magical object that will only work when used by its rightful owner, or in certain circumstances. But it slips inside and turns smoothly, mechanisms clicking into place and there. 

For the first time in over a day and a night, Mobei-Jun’s throat is bared as the collar opens and is pulled away easily. It falls onto the bed, the chain tinkling into a puddle, and just like that he is freed. 

Or rather, freed from the first of five prisons. There are many measures and challenges left to prevent his escape, he reassures himself. This is merely… proving himself to be a worthy challenge. He can hardly expect Shang Qinghua to take him seriously as a bride if he doesn’t make him have to put in even the slightest effort. With this in mind, he gets up out of the bed with no hesitation and little regret, idly pulling his clothes back together on his naked form. 

His powers as the Northern Desert King do not come rushing back to him; the collar was not the only trace of the crystals suppressing his powers. There are more of them sewn into his clothes, crystalline ornaments still stuck in his hair, more chains and bars disguising themselves as harmless jewelry. 

He could take them off. He could make it so that he has full access to his might as the rightful ruler of the throne, his ice and his darkness returning to him. It would make him much more powerful, more formidable.  

But if he did that, would Shang Qinghua notice? Would he be able to sense it, the way he did Mobei-Jun pouring a tidal wave of power into the crystals? He would lose this window of opportunity to explore and test the measures keeping him contained. He doubts he’d be able to lift the key off Shang Qinghua again, once his theft is discovered. This is his chance; he mustn’t squander it. 

Mobei-Jun keeps the crystals on. They do not harm or weaken him, so long as he doesn’t attempt to use his powers. He approaches the door, wondering if he has recovered enough to simply break it down with brute strength, or if alternative solutions will have to be found. More often than not, he simply bypasses locks with his portals. Sometimes, he’s frozen them into ice chunks and shattered them with brute force. Neither are doable, now. Maybe-- 

He stops. Tries to think back. Slowly, he reaches out and moves to gently open the door. 

It works. 

Shang Qinghua had forgotten to actually lock the door. 

Mobei-Jun takes a moment to process this. Shang Qinghua had once advised Mobei-Jun to search out an extremely rare herb that would give him an immunity to fire, giving him eerily accurate advice in order to accomplish the task, and even then it took Mobei-Jun multiple years to finally locate it. He’d had to fight multiple deadly beasts just to get through the cave system it grew in, the rivers of lava a constant danger, but he had stubbornly thrown himself at the challenge with a bloodyminded determination. Finally, he had retrieved the herbs and brought them to Shang Qinghua, who had carefully spent weeks mixing ingredients in highly specialized equipment in order to create the mixture for him. 

Then he had gotten briefly distracted while boiling it and thus completely ruined the whole thing. It tasted like singed tea leaves, and imparted zero benefits of any kind besides an unpleasant aftertaste. Shang Qinghua had simply laid down on the floor without a word. He’d been so dispirited that Mobei-Jun hadn’t even been able to beat him for the failure; it would have felt like kicking a corpse. 

So, really, of course. Of course he would spend a fortune on acquiring impossibly rare power draining crystals and on hiring a princess to create some sort of incredibly powerful array, and then forget to just lock the door in his haste. Mobei-Jun accepts this fact near instantly. 

Really, it’s convenient. It would be embarrassing to be stymied by such a petty obstacle. So he opens the door, and he tentatively steps through. 

No trap snaps shut. The floor is solid beneath his feet, the ceiling does not swing open, and the array behind him does… nothing, seemingly. He looks at it behind him, furrowing his brow, still wondering what it’s for. It must be one of the five methods used to seal him, surely. It must be doing something.  

He will deal with the problem when it manifests itself, he decides. With only a slight feeling of disappointment, he begins to walk down the hall he is in. It is… mundane, quite normal. Not at all like the stately halls of the Northern Ice Palace, or even like the quietly luxurious Leisure House. It looks much like what he imagines an average human’s home must resemble, even down to how he must duck through doorways to avoid hitting his head. A hiding hole, disguised behind a mask of harmless mundanity. 

The cracks in the facade show themselves quickly. After passing through three doors and taking five corners without getting anywhere new, it begins to bother him how large the place is. It doesn’t match with the humble decoration; like a home for peasants that’s been built into the size of a palace. 

Six doors later, he begins to suspect that something is wrong. 

Twelve doors later, he knows there is. He stops walking. 

The hallway he is standing in looks exactly like all the others he’s walked through. Nothing to make it stand out from the others, no markers or unique details. Experimentally, he turns around and starts walking in the other direction. 

After only passing through a single door, he returns to the hall he started from. The gaping open door leading to the rumpled bed with a chained collar waits for him, ready and welcoming for him to give up and step back into his prison. 

This is the third seal, then. Some sort of spell or array laid on the very building itself? Or is it on Mobei-Jun, some enchantment to confuse him and his sense of direction? He feels no magic on him except for the muffling layer of the crystals. He has grown skilled at sensing foreign qi and influences on his body and mind out of necessity. He senses nothing now. 

He paces the hall he’s in, inspecting the walls, the floors, and the ceiling with a hawk eyed stare, searching. The trick is external to him, he’s certain of it. How physical is it? Is the building itself moving, shuffling parts of itself so that he never makes any progress, always herding him back towards his prison? Or-- 

Mobei-Jun pauses, letting the faint niggling recognition in the back of his mind grow. Something familiar about this. Carefully not thinking too deeply, to avoid smothering the recognition, he passes through a doorway again. Pays attention. 

His vision blurs for just a fraction of a second, shorter than a blink, so easy to overlook. He enters a hallway just like all the others, but a soft noise of triumphant satisfaction rasps out of him. He understands what he’s dealing with now. 

Shang Qinghua, a spy and a thief, has somehow managed to steal Huan Hua Palace’s most prized border illusion array. He recognizes the faint feeling of dizziness, the illusion reaching into his mind and briefly muddling his senses. He normally would simply use his portals to bypass that border array when sneaking into the Palace’s territory, but he still manages to recognize it. The safe house isn’t endless or moving on its own; he’s being made to walk in circles. 

Clever; very clever. Exactly the sort of trap Shang Qinghua would set. With pleasure, he trails his claws across the doorway itself until he finds a crevice he can hook them under - and he pulls. A large chunk of the doorway tears free with a satisfying noise, and he tosses it carelessly onto the floor. Some of his strength has returned to him. And yes, there it is; the carved talismans lay underneath. These don’t heal themselves when he casually rakes his claws through them, destroying them utterly. 

The next time Mobei-Jun passes through the doorway, there are minor variations to his surroundings, signs of change. Cheerfully, he begins to make his way through the safe house, this time leaving a trail of destruction behind him as he goes. It is good to make progress. There is no need to fear being too successful; there are still two seals left holding him back, whatever they are. And the array, whatever it was doing-- 

“My king?” 

Mobei-Jun has barely had time to inspect what appears to be a humble, modest living room when Shang Qinghua comes stumbling inside. His hair is disarrayed and his blue fur cloak is half slipping off his shoulder, improperly tied in place. He nearly stumbles and falls onto his face when he sees Mobei-Jun, his eyes bugging out into absolute horror at the sight of him out of his prison. 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun replies, and begins to consider how to get past Shang Qinghua to the next doorway without harming him. Shang Qinghua could easily freeze him in place with his own stolen powers, but only if he--

“My king, get back into your room!” Shang Qinghua screeches, his voice climbing swiftly like a wind-hawk swooping into the air. “Right now! Holy shit, how long have you been out!? Go--” 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says. Shang Qinghua will have to do better than simply telling him to go back.  

“No, you don’t get it!” Shang Qinghua cries, and he starts pulling at his hair, tears in his eyes. A few strands come loose; Mobei-Jun recognizes it as the bad kind of hairpulling. “That array was for--” 

Then there’s an explosion. 

Mobei-Jun has experienced enough of them to be certain of this. The way that the air itself shakes, a wall of noise that deafens and rattles the senses. He’s pushing himself up before he realizes that he’s been knocked over. He looks around blindly, thinking find the threat.  

A wall has caved in. Outside is nondescript forest scenery, a gently trickling river nearby. The spring sunshine feels out of place, after going so long without seeing the sky. And striding through those trees are familiar figures, familiar soldiers. They wear Northern Desert crests, but not the royal one reserved for those that directly serve the throne. They serve-- 

“Linguan-Jun!” one of them calls out. “We found him!” 

“Oh, so fast?” an unpleasantly familiar voice asks, his voice curling with a happiness that has a dark, angry edge to it. Then there’s a rush of wind-- 

A huge block of ice hurtles towards the group of soldiers, dispersing the black wind before it can reform into Linguan-Jun. It is graceless, non-aerodynamic; most of the soldiers manage to throw themselves out of the way before it hits them, and it shatters messily as it hits the ground. Mobei-Jun turns and finds Shang Qinghua, still crouched on the floor with a thrown out arm in the direction of the soldiers, the other fumbling clumsily for his sword. He looks wildeyed, frantic. 

“Shit shit shit,” he’s chanting, before he looks over at Mobei-Jun. “My king! Take off the--” 

An arrow nearly plants itself in Shang Qinghua’s eye during his distraction, just barely batted away with a panicked flail of his sword. 

“Enjoying the stolen fruits of your labor?” Linguan-Jun asks lightly, his body taking solid shape again. He smiles, as if he’s only making friendly conversation. “What an interesting little trick you’ve dug up. I’d love to make use of those crystals myself, you know.” 

There is a familiar sensation of being in front of Linguan-Jun and not being able to defend himself, of having been cornered, made vulnerable. The bottom of his stomach dropping out, a prickling feeling across his skin, the certainty that he is in danger. Mobei-Jun realizes what Shang Qinghua had tried to tell him. Take off the crystals.  

He moves to do just that; he gets the first one off, yanking off a hair decoration abruptly enough that it snags and pulls strands of hair along with it as it goes. Then he reaches for the next, and Linguan-Jun’s focus lands on him. That’s better than it being on Shang Qinghua. 

“Nephew!” he greets warmly; Mobei-Jun loathes him. “Terribly sorry to interrupt, but you know that I can’t let you make a mistake like this, don’t you?” 

As he says this, he gestures towards Shang Qinghua crouched on the floor without looking at him - and his arm dissolves into dark, curling wisps of wind, lashing like a harsh gale. Shang Qinghua is sent slamming into a wall, yelping with pain like a beaten dog. 

Mobei-Jun throws himself at Linguan-Jun. His uncle at least does him the service of staying solid for it. He braces himself and accepts Mobei-Jun’s impact, and then they’re grappling and clawing at each other, snarling and growling like animals, each trying to reach the other’s throat. Mobei-Jun has only been able to fight Linguan-Jun so honestly three times before in his life, usually forced to instead stand and clench his jaw as he’s served poison or been warmly greeted into a death trap. The violence is a relief, in comparison. Mobei-Jun is strong, he can fight--

Linguan-Jun can also fight; and he is not wounded or poisoned. He digs his claws into the bandages at his side, relentlessly driving for weak points, yanking Mobei-Jun around, why-- 

“Shoot him!” he shouts over Mobei-Jun’s shoulder, and oh, he’s facing the blown open wall. He has to move, he has to-- 

Fire blooms against his back, white hot and painful from how close it is; it washes the shadows away from Linguan-Jun’s face, his uncle flinching away and squinting his eyes shut, blinded. Mobei-Jun takes the opportunity to smash his nose in with his brow. There are hands on him, more hands, ganging up on him, outnumbering him-- 

“My king!” A shout, directly into his ear. “Let go, let’s go!” 

Mobei-Jun obeys, letting go. Shang Qinghua pulls on him, and he manages to tear free of Linguan-Jun’s grip, cloth tearing and flesh splitting open on his claw tips as he goes, leaving behind only blood and threads. He stumbles, falls - and Shang Qinghua pulls him deep into a familiar blackness, through it. He hears his uncle curse and lunge for them, his voice cut off as Shang Qinghua closes the portal the moment they’re through. 

They fall onto the floor, Shang Qinghua grunting as the air wooshes out of his lungs, Mobei-Jun’s full weight landing on him. There is no crackling of fire, no shouting soldiers, no ringing explosions or menacing Linguan-Jun. The place they have come to is shockingly silent in comparison. Mobei-Jun recognizes it on the first inhale, through the taste of the air alone. 

Shang Qinghua has taken them to the Leisure House; they’re safe. Linguan-Jun would never dare come here. 

“Fuuuck,” Shang Qinghua wheezes, and then, “My king, are you-- oh, that is blood, shit, you’re bleeding. I’m bleeding?” 

Mobei-Jun pushes himself up enough to look down at Shang Qinghua, who blinks up at him dazedly with a gruesomely bloody face. He must have smacked his nose at some point, because it’s pouring blood down his mouth and chin, soaking into the front of his robes. He sees no other serious signs of harm on him. 

“Your nose,” Mobei-Jun says. 

“Oh, great,” Shang Qinghua says, pinching his nose so that his voice comes out nasally. Then his eyes dart over Mobei-Jun’s form and he grimaces. “Ahh, my king, you got roughed up. Did he manage to stab you anywhere? Did I hit you with my fire attack or--?” 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says, and almost falls flat on his face when Shang Qinghua freezes his hands in place. 

“Great!” he chirps, wriggling out from underneath Mobei-Jun. “Now then - I’m going to bandage and clean your wounds, old and new, and then you’re going to fucking bed and staying there! My king!! Okay!?” 

His voice is high and strained, the way it sometimes gets when he’s had too much work to do at once for too long. Usually he starts sobbing sometime after he starts talking like that. 

Mobei-Jun looks Shang Qinghua in the eye and pointedly tugs at where his hands have been frozen in place on the floor. 

“Fuck,” Shang Qinghua says. “Fine. I’ll-- do I have to chisel you-- no, nevermind, nevermind! Fuck.” 

Shang Qinghua starts scurrying around, leaving Mobei-Jun on the floor as he fetches fresh sheets and the medical supplies he keeps in his home. This gives Mobei-Jun time to think. 

When Shang Qinghua comes back for him, Mobei-Jun says, “The array was to protect me against divination. It was keeping me hidden from anyone who might find me.” 

Anyone who might want to interfere with this bridenapping; anyone who might disapprove; anyone who would relish the opportunity of finding Mobei-Jun while he’s been rendered weak and vulnerable. 

Shang Qinghua grimaces, before saying, “I mean, yeah. I couldn’t-- I mean, I want you to live, my king. It wouldn’t be very smart of me if I did all of this to you and then let other people take advantage, right? Although I guess I was still pretty stupid in the end though, huh?” 

His voice twists bitterly at the end, his gaze sinking for a moment. 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says, rejecting that. “It is not Qinghua’s fault that--” 

“That you stole the key from me?” Shang Qinghua interrupts. “Yeah, I already knew about that. Why do you think I rushed back to the safehouse so quickly, huh? As soon as I noticed it was gone I-- I knew what had happened. Why you did-- all of that. Please forgive this servant, he has completely underestimated his king. I didn’t realize that you’d be willing to go so far just to get out of there! Stupid of me, very stupid. That’ll teach me to--!” 

He stops on his own, sucking in a deep lungful of air. He looks upset. Mobei-Jun doesn’t know why, but he knows he’s upset. After inhaling and exhaling several times, Shang Qinghua looks steadily at Mobei-Jun. 

“My king,” he says. “I know you’re very-- you’re a very proud demon, a proud and powerful king. I get that! Very independent, very self reliant!” 

That’s not true. I depend on you. 

“But you’re not in top form right now. You can’t act the way you usually do, alright? You’ll get yourself killed, seriously! Just-- lay low and take this opportunity to lick your wounds. No one has to know! It’s not like I’m gonna, what, keep you in some locked room in my Leisure House for the rest of your life. This is a short term situation. Short term! Just grit your teeth and swallow your pride for a little longer, alright?” 

… Is he asking Mobei-Jun to not struggle? To not even make an attempt? 

Mobei-Jun was already more than aware of how shameless Shang Qinghua is. He still gets a firm reminder sometimes, however. 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says simply. No one will be allowed to call the legitimacy of their marriage into question. 

Shang Qinghua stares at him silently for a moment. He doesn’t seem to breathe, his face rapidly going redder and redder-- 

“You brat!” he bursts out, and then he lunges forward. Mobei-Jun instinctively flinches back, but Shang Qinghua only pinches his cheek with one hand, grabbing a handful of his hair with the other and pulling on it firmly. “Stubborn, contrarian, disobedient bastard! You, you-- can you see yourself right now!? Hello! A mere lowly human has you on your hands and knees, you know! I could do anything I wanted to do to you, and you wouldn’t be able to stop me! And it would serve you right.”  

A shiver goes down Mobei-jun’s spine, a tingling feeling prickling through him. Shang Qinghua doesn’t seem to notice, continuing to rant. 

“I shouldn’t even be able to do this!” he says, shifting from pinching Mobei-Jun’s cheek to pulling at his ear. “Why is the Northern Desert King letting me bully him like this, huh!? Oh, it’s because you’re not letting me! You’re just so weak that I’ve been able to lock you up like some swooning damsel awaiting rescue, except there aren’t any knights, just more assholes with swords! The fact you’re helpless enough that I’m actually succeeding kind of says a lot, my king! It speaks for itself!! I should be dead right now!” 

“I would not,” Mobei-Jun snaps, drawing himself up as much as he can. Only a completely unwelcome suitor would be killed by their bride, a brutal rejection for a presumptuous proposal. 

“Wouldn’t what? Wouldn’t be stupid and get yourself killed? You’re just smart and capable enough to go and throw yourself into certain death, apparently! Where did your caution go, ah? Did it evaporate? Fuck you! I’m completely fucking done with your bullshit!” He lets go of Mobei-Jun’s hair, his ear, apparently done pulling and tugging at him. 

This sounds alarmingly similar to the way Shang Qinghua had spoken at Mobei-Jun’s ascension, when he had been too weakened by digesting the Northern Desert King’s power to so much as stand. When he had told him he would leave forever. 

He had reacted at the time with threats and demands, the only way he had ever reached for what he wanted before. Stay, don’t you dare leave, if you go I’ll never let you come back. It hadn’t worked. 

“Don’t,” Mobei-Jun says, which is not what he needs to say. Forcing himself, he gets it out. “This king is… this king is sorry.” 

Shang Qinghua, who had been opening his mouth to say something else, instead leaves it silently hanging. He blinks dazedly, openly shocked. 

“What?” he asks. 

He is being made to repeat himself. 

“I’m… sorry,” Mobei-Jun grits out, and he can’t help but glare. He directs his glare at his frozen over hands instead, trapped by ice. A technique he has used on many others before, something he should be able to tear his way out of effortlessly. But Shang Qinghua’s stolen ice is stronger than him now. “Don’t. Be mad.” 

He’s not even certain of what he’s apologizing for, what he did wrong. Discomfort bubbles inside of him at groveling like this - literally on his hands and knees - but he will not risk Shang Qinghua… leaving. Cannot. 

He had promised himself that he would do whatever it took to avoid such a horrible experience repeating itself. To spoil Shang Qinghua with gifts and privileges as befitted his years of servitude and loyalty, and to never raise a hand to him again, even lightly. To make sure that he knows how much Mobei-Jun values him. 

“... Nevermind,” Shang Qinghua finally says, somewhat feebly. When Mobei-Jun raises his gaze to his face, Shang Qinghua is turning it away, as if trying to hide his expression. His cheeks are pink, his mouth a line of - embarrassment, maybe? Mobei-Jun is poor at reading such things. “Really, is this only the second time in your life you’ve received a scolding? Nevermind! I need to see to your wounds, my king.” 

Shang Qinghua sets himself to the task of tending to Mobei-Jun’s wounds with an expertise that comes from years of doing just that on a regular basis. Pulling and tugging, and sometimes resorting to tearing and cutting, clothes out of the way. Dabbing gashes and tears clean with an almost apologetic tentativeness, cringing a little away from touching them too directly, as if the idea of causing Mobei-Jun pain makes him want to wince. Winding bandages in place, snug and firm without being restrictive, tying them off with practiced competence and experience. 

It is almost lulling, how familiar this process is between the two of them. How many times they’ve gone through these exact motions, over and over again. Mobei-Jun hasn’t trusted the royal doctor since the one who smeared poisoned salve on his wounds when he was eleven, contenting himself to instead lick his wounds in private, relying on his own strength and resilience to see him through. When he was sixteen, he had begun to rely on a strange and unpredictable human servant instead, snarling threats at him in exchange for medical care, warily glaring at his shaking hands all the while, ready and waiting for the moment that his weakness would be exploited. It had never come. Now, Mobei-Jun closes his eyes and lets the care wash over him. 

Shang Qinghua is no healer. He doesn’t understand anything but the most common diseases or poisons, and is helpless before a complicated injury. But he is trustworthy, and that is worth more than any skill or mastery in the world. 

By the time Shang Qinghua pulls back bloodstained hands, muttering a, “Okay, all done,” Mobei-Jun feels ready to lie down and sleep on the floor where he’s trapped, dignity be damned. 

He doesn’t understand how he can be so drained, from so little. One little escape attempt, one brief tussle with his uncle, a spike of frantic survival. He’s dealt with so much more before, swallowing it like it was nothing. He feels weak. 

Ice crackles, splitting open the muffling silence, and Mobei-Jun finds the strength to open his eyes. Shang Qinghua has placed some sort of talismans on his hands, weakening and cracking the ice, melting and breaking it. His hands feel hot. 

He could have accomplished as much with Mobei-Jun’s stolen powers. But perhaps he doesn’t know how. Perhaps he is unwilling to steal more from Mobei-Jun, at this moment. 

“Come on, my king,” Shang Qinghua says briskly, although his voice is a little softened at the edges, like he doesn’t want to wake someone up. He grabs Mobei-Jun by the armpit and his shoulder, hauling him up. “Please, just-- behave for two seconds, yeah? Mini-truce?” 

Mobei-Jun should perhaps be struggling, making Shang Qinghua manhandle and force him back under lock and key. But Shang Qinghua’s voice is so plaintive, and Mobei-Jun is so tired, and the Leisure House feels so safe and familiar-- 

He doesn’t struggle. He cooperates, standing up, and he leans a significant amount of his weight onto Shang Qinghua’s shoulders as the man braces himself with a little grunt, and then starts guiding him towards the main bedroom. 

Shang Qinghua’s bed is his bed. It has always been this way. 

Mobei-Jun doesn’t lie down so much as he goes into a controlled collapse; Shang Qinghua helps tilt him in the right direction. 

“Great, alright,” Shang Qinghua says, half to himself the way almost all of his words are. “Injuries check, in bed check. My king will let me know if, uh, if he starts bleeding through his bandages, right? Nevermind, I’ll just check myself… Do you need anything to eat or drink? A snack? Or--” 

“Sleep,” Mobei-Jun says. 

“Right,” Shang Qinghua says. “Right right right. This humble servant will leave you to--” 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says, slitting his eyes open, unable to entirely bite back the prickling annoyance he feels. Isn’t it obvious? “Come sleep.” 

“Oh,” Shang Qinghua says, looking nothing but surprised at the notion of himself resting as well. There are dark circles underneath his eyes, his clothes and hair a mess. He’ll start in the morning looking neat and proper, and slowly throughout the day he’ll thoughtlessly fidget and fiddle and tug himself into a complete disarray. Mobei-Jun can track how distracted and overwhelmed he’s been by whether or not he’s gnawed his lower lip bloody, or if he’s picked another seam loose in his sleeve. “I, uh, I was actually gonna go do a little damage control--” 

Mobei-Jun grabs his wrist and tugs him into the bed. He remembers to do it gently, carefully; he doesn’t want to hurt his shoulder. Shang Qinghua stumbles a little, making a faint noise of surprise, but after only a moment of resistance he submits. 

“Fine, fine,” he says as if he’s put-upon, but he doesn’t sound very like it. “If you insist. So demanding! Guess I don’t have any choice! Let me just-- get my shoes off--” 

In less than a moment, Shang Qinghua is crawling into bed with him, and Mobei-Jun feels as if he can finally breathe out and rest. The sound of his breathing, his scent, his weight on the bed - he has found nothing that more effectively tells him that he is safe and sound, hidden and protected. 

“--can wash the blood stains out later. Not like I haven’t had the practice, really, I’ve got it down to an artform. And that safehouse is blown anyway, I might as well just write it off completely. Did I tell you why I had to leave so suddenly, my king? It was nothing, really…” 

Against the familiar sound of Shang Qinghua mindlessly rambling about every thought that drifts through his head, the way he does when he’s too restless to simply fall asleep, Mobei-Jun closes his eyes. He can listen to that reassuring buzz, all the well known ways his voice twists and turns, and how it’ll slowly wind itself down and down until he’ll finally trail off into silence mid sentence, like a spinning top finally losing its momentum. He’ll just be mumbling by the end of it, stray coherent words bobbing up out of the soft mush of his voice. 

It is peaceful. 

Mobei-Jun sleeps. 

 

He wakes up to Immortal Binding Cables keeping his arms firmly bound at his front, which very efficiently pronounces that the truce has ended. 

Shang Qinghua must be improvising, if he’s resorting to these means. While it is exceedingly rare, there are cases of very powerful cultivators or demons being able to overpower such devices with sheer, overwhelming strength. Mobei-Jun has never had the misfortune of having needed to test his ability to do such a thing - has never let himself be caught in such a way - but he imagines that it would be possible for him, with great exertion. 

Usually. As Shang Qinghua has said, he is not in ‘top form’ at the moment. That, and there are still more of the power draining crystals clinging onto him, although he has lost the collar and the shackles. He gives it a token effort, and is utterly unsurprised when the cables hold firm. 

Well, then. That is good; the imprisonment continues. He surveys his new jail, adjusting himself. 

It is still the Leisure House. A part of him can’t help but be pleased with this, as much of a disadvantage as it may be for Shang Qinghua to allow him a familiar terrain. He enjoys the idea of their bridenapping concluding in a place that feels completely theirs. There were many years that this place felt like far more of a home to him than any of his family’s palaces ever did. 

Shang Qinghua’s pathetic dorm room had come first, of course, although their relationship had been much more wary then. It had been cramped and uncomfortable, and Shang Qinghua had often frantically hissed at him to please be quiet my king, the walls here are thin! Then there had come a marginal improvement in his quarters once his position was elevated as the eventual successor of his peak, with slightly more space and privacy than before, enough so that Mobei-Jun had even been able to stand up unhindered. Their relationship had been given a few years to tentatively settle into a status quo by then, expectations set and suspicions merely simmering instead of boiling over. 

But the Leisure House is the place that feels most like home. Shang Qinghua was given full control to design it to his own tastes, and had very blatantly taken Mobei-Jun’s preferences into heavy consideration. Large doorways, tall ceilings, a broad bed, sturdy furniture. Shang Qinghua’s own influence shows itself in the places where it seems that he didn’t think that Mobei-Jun would mind or notice him inserting himself. Many soft pillows and rugs; warm, dark colors; little trinkets and decorations on nearly every available surface. They almost seem to be there more to give Shang Qinghua something to reach out and fiddle with at any given moment, rather than as aesthetic. 

There are silencing talismans as well, spells of obfuscation on the windows, no nearby neighbours, and no cultivator would dare to enter Shang Qinghua’s home without his permission. This is where Mobei-Jun found his first true opportunity to rest, and where his ill-advised attachment to his suspicious human servant was given all the time it needed to fully sink its claws into him. 

Perhaps his past self would be horrified, to see him now. But his past self was a fool. 

Sunshine spills golden across the open bedroom through large windows, lighting everything up. He has no idea how long he has slept, and has fully lost track of the days. He knows he’s over the halfway point, at least, and that it is day now. Shang Qinghua is not in the room, but he can hear movement elsewhere in the Leisure House. It must be Shang Qinghua; he has never permitted servants inside his home. 

Mobei-Jun sits up. His bloodstained, tattered clothes have been removed and replaced with a fresh and familiar robe that he often uses to sleep, dark and simple. The power draining crystals… there they are, sown into the fabric of his new outfit. It looks much less elegant and natural than it had on the white robes, but of course there is no need for deception now. Shang Qinghua had no need to make it look like innocent decoration this time. The Immortal Binding Cables are connected to the headboard of the bed by a length of chain, wrapped around it several times. His legs are free. 

Much more slapdash than his last setup. Mobei-Jun forgives Shang Qinghua for this; he is facing unforeseen complications. He spares a moment for a dark swell of resentment towards his uncle. The man is very fortunate that he hadn’t succeeded in spoiling Mobei-Jun’s bridenapping. 

Shang Qinghua must hear him stirring, because he quickly appears back in the bedroom. He’s changed as well, wearing fresh clothes and with his crown in his hair. 

“Good morning!” Shang Qinghua says, and then immediately winces. “I mean, uh-- how, how is my king doing? Do you want-- do you feel okay? Fine?” 

He feels tired and wounded, but in a dull, bearable way that tells him that all he needs is time and rest to recover. Of all the many favors Shang Qinghua has done him, the greatest boon has always been having somewhere safe and secret to sleep. 

“This king is well,” he answers. 

“Great!” Shang Qinghua says, a little too brightly and too loudly in the way that he sometimes gets. He twitches and fidgets slightly, looking at Mobei-Jun then away, back, away. He laughs nervously. “S--sorry that I keep chaining you up to beds like a-- I mean, it’s just the most practical way to do it! My king shouldn’t have to sleep on the floor, right? Right?” 

Puzzled, Mobei-Jun wonders if this is a question that he’s meant to answer. Of course he prefers not to be on the floor. It would be demeaning, and uncomfortable. He would forgive it if Shang Qinghua had placed him there, considering the circumstances, but it would not be ideal. 

“Right,” Shang Qinghua says to himself. And then, as if he’s just remembered, “I’ve made breakfast.” 

He disappears out of the bedroom. Mobei-Jun gets himself settled more comfortably, deciding to bide his time for now. He made a respectable showing at the safehouse; he can afford to wait a little before his next attempt. He waits in bed for Shang Qinghua to deliver him breakfast, and can’t help but notice that if it weren’t for the chains, this would feel very much like one of the thousands of mornings he’s spent here. 

Idly, he wonders if this could be counted as its own trap, another seal. Comfort and familiarity, everything feeling right in the world - can he resist its siren allure? 

He must. 

 

Shang Qinghua keeps a very close eye on him, over the next several days. The Leisure House is not made to be a prison in the same way that the safehouse was, but rather a private sanctuary. It is much easier to escape from. There are windows in nearly every room, large and airy to let in the light, and Mobei-Jun could jump out of any of them and instantly know where he is. He has never shown himself openly here before, but the fact remains that relations have shifted to the point that Mobei-Jun very well might not even be immediately attacked for showing himself at a human cultivation sect - at least, not this one. 

Some disciples notice Shang Qinghua’s presence - the smoke from his kitchen fire, most likely - and come knocking at his door before the first day is over, pleading for his help and attention on various issues while Shang Qinghua tries to rebuff them with the frayed desperation of a man dodging flying arrows. 

Mobei-Jun takes the opportunity to snap the headboard off the bed and make his escape; it nearly works. He’s foiled by how noisy the endeavor is, and how Shang Qinghua seems to have at least thought to put some sort of protective measures on the bedroom windows. He smacks shoulder first into an invisible barrier, and only has the time to stagger back up onto his feet before Shang Qinghua comes charging back inside. 

“How did-- HEY! What the fuck? That was a nice bed!” Shang Qinghua freezes his feet in place immediately (as well as a dresser and most of the wall behind him; his accuracy is still lacking.) “Just-- stay there, oh my god!? … No, my dear disciples, don’t you dare come in. It’s nothing! Don’t worry about it! My-- my cat broke something, so don’t--!” 

Mobei-Jun supposes that he feels slightly guilty about breaking Shang Qinghua’s bed like this. Breaking Shang Qinghua’s objects was something he would sometimes do when he was too furious to keep his rage inside of himself, but couldn’t trust himself not to seriously harm his human. It seemed… acceptable, at the time, but is oddly sickening to remember now. That is something he also promised himself to stop doing. But he hadn’t done it out of rage, or in front of him. Does it count? 

After that incident, Shang Qinghua leaves Mobei-Jun’s side as fleetingly as possible. The chains are reattached to the feet of the bed, and he’s watched like a hawk; or, perhaps, with the nervous attentiveness of a mouse that has somehow managed to corner a hawk and is desperate not to lose the advantage. 

He thinks Shang Qinghua must still take his opportunities to leave the Leisure House while Mobei-Jun sleeps, however, because there are no more incidents of Shang Qinghua laying down to share his bed with him. He often looks frayed and distracted whenever he first returns, muttering unintelligibly to himself underneath his breath, clearly preoccupied with something that weighs and nips at him. Once, he even returns with bruises along his jaw, and a limp to his gait. 

“Is someone attacking you?” Mobei-Jun demands when he sees this, furious at the idea of someone taking advantage of his absence. Who dares? An enemy, a supposed ally? Worse, a subordinate? Which one of his disloyal, traitorous-- 

“Ah, no, no,” Shang Qinghua rushes to say, waving his hands in hurried dismissal. “I mean-- well, sort of? Not really! That is, this one started it, my king! Not that I’m picking fights, obviously not haha, why would I ever, I’m not suicidal! Just poking around places that I shouldn’t be and-- my king, have I ever told you just how useful your portals are? They’re so useful! You should be proud! Truly, the coolest and most efficient warrior in the realms! Even Luo Binghe needs Xin Mo to pull that shit off.” 

Shang Qinghua does not disclose what places he has been ‘poking around’ uninvited, nor for what purpose. He does not risk himself for no good reason, and so must surely have a goal in mind, but Mobei-Jun still dislikes it. Can’t it wait until he is free and well again, and able to offer his assistance if necessary? He does not need to put his life on the line for one of his projects while Mobei-Jun is indisposed.  

On the second day of his captivity in the Leisure House (he has lost count of the days of captivity in total again; surely he must be close now) he wakes up abruptly to a loud gasp and the thump of something dropping to the floor. Mobei-Jun snaps to attention immediately, instantly recognizing that as not one of Shang Qinghua’s noises. 

A young female human stands in the bedroom doorway, a dropped basket of laundry spread out on the floor. She’s mostly hidden behind the doorway, as if she’d only been shyly peeking inside before she spotted him. She wears the colors of An Ding, and her hands don’t quite manage to cover up her bright red face, her eyes wide and staring. 

“E--e--excuse me!” she shouts, backing up so rapidly that she trips and falls onto her backside. “Pardon me! Forgive this one for, for-- I didn’t mean to interrupt! I didn’t see anything!”  

Before Mobei-Jun can even think to demand an explanation or snarl at an intruder in his bedroom, she has already made her frantic escape, the front door slamming loudly shut behind her as she flees. 

“What? That-- that brat!” Shang Qinghua says when Mobei-Jun tells him of the incident upon his return. “I knew the disciples were daring each other to trespass into my Leisure House, but I can’t believe one of them was actually stupid enough to do it! And smart enough to avoid the traps! That kind of competence to incompetence ratio is dangerous. Ahh, no wonder everyone was giving me such odd looks! They all think I’m some kind of wicked BDSM villain chaining up scantily clad beefy demon men to my bed. Is this good or bad for my reputation!? I can’t tell! I really can’t tell!” 

“Nosy underlings,” Mobei-Jun says with understanding. At least the human had had enough sense to flee once she realized what she had intruded upon; if she’d interfered then Mobei-Jun would have… well, he wouldn’t have killed her for Shang Qinghua’s sake, but it would have been unpleasant.  

“Damned disobedient little shits… I’ll find out who it was and put her on sewage maintenance for a year. I’ll do it to all of them! Nothing but shit chores for everyone! I’ll put the fear of Shizun in them!!” Shang Qinghua then moves as if to charge out and do exactly that, then visibly remembers Mobei-Jun and his need for supervision. “Uh. Later. Does… is my king hungry? I can make noodles!” 

On the third day of his second captivity, Mobei-Jun attempts to break out of the Immortal Binding Cables. He was correct that he doesn’t have enough demonic qi at his disposal, not with the power draining crystals and not with his health in its current state, but there is a second way to overpower such cables: brute strength. 

Most people do not attempt this, as Immortal Binding Cables are made out of strong, resilient material. Any who try it must do so without the strength enhancement of their cultivation that they may take for granted, and often with very poor leverage. But Mobei-Jun is strong, even without his cultivation, and he is obligated to make the attempt. 

It goes… fine. It is a painful exercise in frustration that leaves him sweaty and panting for breath, the skin of his arms chafed and stinging, and the cables stubbornly unyielding. He stops when his wrists begin to bleed, the shifting cables sawing through the thinner skin there. 

Shang Qinghua is not pleased when he spots this. 

“What the hell have you been doing?” he demands, his voice high and sharp. “My king, don’t you remember that these are the wrists you burned by trying to overload those damned shackles only days ago!? You’re injured enough as it is! Your shithead uncle took a golf ball sized chunk out of your back, you know! I know you’ve got that insane demonic constitution of yours, but bedrest is not the time for picking up more injuries!”

“It is a very mild injury,” Mobei-Jun protests, determinedly not feeling embarrassed or guilty or anything else as Shang Qinghua shouts at him. 

“Mild,” Shang Qinghua breathes, looking - unhappy, is as close as Mobei-Jun can get. The specifics elude him. After a moment he rubs his face, and a tension seems to drain out of him as he does so. When he looks up from his hands at Mobei-Jun he still doesn’t look happy. “My king… is it really so--” 

He stops. Bites at his lower lip, shifts from foot to foot. Mobei-Jun sits and waits, both patient and impatient to hear the rest of his words. 

“Just a little bit longer,” Shang Qinghua says again. “My king just has to bear this for a little bit longer, alright?” 

Mobei-Jun is aware; even if he’s lost track, he is certain that the tenday must almost be up by now. How many days are left? A couple? One? The wait feels almost agonizing, when there is so little of it left to go. But he can manage. There is no other option, after all. 

He nods his understanding, and Shang Qinghua lets the topic go. But the line of his mouth and the tension to his shoulders remain unhappy for the rest of the day. 

On the fourth day in the Leisure House, Mobei-Jun wakes up from a dream. 

In the dream, he escapes. The how is a vague smear, no inspiration at all; the chains and cables might as well have melted off him like ice, like mist. He walks out of the Leisure House easily, no barriers and no locks getting in his way. No one is able to stop him or get in his way. He walks slower and slower, lingering, waiting for someone to come and try and stop him. Waiting for-- 

“My king,” Shang Qinghua says, and Mobei-Jun stops in his tracks, relief lancing through him. He smiles at Mobei-Jun, looking so sincerely glad, and he says, “I was very happy to meet you.” 

And he stands there, and he doesn’t move a finger to stop Mobei-Jun at all. To recapture him, to take him back.  

“You must stop me,” Mobei-Jun orders, as if Shang Qinghua has perhaps forgotten, can be ordered into it. 

But he refuses to obey. He stands there and doesn’t make a move towards Mobei-Jun, no matter what Mobei-Jun says. He doesn’t listen to threats or demands, just smiling at Mobei-Jun like--

--this is goodbye, my king--

--like back then. Mobei-Jun stops shouting and threatening, and instead begins to tell him that he’ll overlook this oversight, he’ll forgive it, pretend like it never happened. He’ll go back into the Leisure House and let himself be tied up again, and it will be like Mobei-Jun never escaped in the first place. 

Shang Qinghua doesn’t agree. 

Mobei-Jun asks to be taken back. He says please. 

Shang Qinghua doesn’t accept this. 

Mobei-Jun goes to his knees, the way Shang Qinghua has done for him so many times before. He pleads, his voice rasping unfamiliarly over the begging. 

Shang Qinghua refuses. 

Mobei-Jun tries to go back to Leisure House on his own, without being forced. The doors that had swung open for him without resistance before remain shut, even as he claws and bangs at them, even as-- 

“This is where we part ways, my king.” 

Mobei-Jun wakes up from his dream. He lies in bed for some time, listening to his racing heartbeat slow down - it takes a long time, stubbornly determined that something is wrong. He’s clawed the sheets into shreds; Shang Qinghua will be cross. 

He closes his eyes, and tells himself that if he escapes he will let Shang Qinghua try again. As many times as it takes. 

It feels like cold reassurance. 

 

It’s the middle of the night when Shang Qinghua comes home. He does so with a loud crash that shatters Mobei-Jun’s uneasy sleep instantly, choking out swears as he tumbles onto the floor out of a portal. It’s a small, jagged thing hanging in the air, rushed and sloppy - Mobei-Jun hasn’t made portals like that since his adolescence. The crystals give Shang Qinghua Mobei-Jun’s raw power, but none of the polish earned through years of hard work and familiarizing himself with his own abilities. 

“What--” Mobei-Jun starts, but Shang Qinghua is already scrambling up to his knees, chanting “shit shit shit,” as he dives to close the portal. 

An arrow shoots through before he can quite manage it. It lances past the space between Shang Qinghua’s outstretched arm and chest and plants itself into the floor with a solid thunk, the fletching bloodred in the moonlight. Shang Qinghua makes a choked noise of terror, a sort of gnnk, and efficiently drags the portal shut, closed, and gone. They’re left in a ringing silence, Shang Qinghua gasping for air as if he’d been sprinting, slumping onto his hands and knees on the floor with ragged relief. 

“... Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun says, because he cannot get out of the bed to grab Shang Qinghua and look him over personally. “Are you wounded?” 

“N-- nope! Ahaha, can you believe it? I mean, I fell down some stairs, but-- all fine, really!” Shang Qinghua says, his voice a little wobbly and overly bright in a way that makes him sound manic. He smiles a bit too wide and looks at Mobei-Jun with the whites visible all the way around his eyes. “I’m completely fine.” 

“Check,” Mobei-Jun orders, knowing from intimate experience how adrenaline can mask even deep wounds. 

Shang Qinghua, reassuringly, does as he’s told, patting himself over and twisting his head to search for injuries. Nothing but scratches and bruises are found, and Mobei-Jun untenses where he’d been coiled up on the bed, pulled as far as he can be towards Shang Qinghua against his restraints. 

“Holy shit, I actually survived that,” Shang Qinghua says out loud once he’s done, beginning to sound like a more familiar version of himself. Or at least a less worrying one. “I should get points for that. I should get a trophy! I should--” 

“Qinghua,” Mobei-Jun says, his voice terser than he means it to be. “What has happened?” 

If it’s Linguan-Jun stirring up trouble again… 

Shang Qinghua looks at Mobei-Jun, then down at the floor - no, at his hand. At something he’s holding in his hand. Mobei-Jun can’t get a clear view of it; most of it is hidden by Shang Qinghua’s fist. 

“I took care of something,” Shang Qinghua says, a frustrating response that barely even qualifies as an answer. Then he gives Mobei-Jun a crooked, faltering grin, and says, “My king, I’ve got something for you.” 

It’s not the same smile as in the dream, the goodbye smile. Mobei-Jun doesn’t know why he’s reminded of it. Uneasy, he opens and closes his hands to feel the prick of his own claws. 

“What,” is all he can say, and Shang Qinghua climbs up off the floor and comes over to him. 

On closer inspection, he looks even more harried than Mobei-Jun had first thought, with his clothes torn and scuffed, his skin raw and scraped, and his guan barely staying in place. He looks as if he’s been either tossed around or has willingly thrown himself out of a window just to escape a worse fate. But he isn’t seriously wounded, and he holds out a small vial to Mobei-Jun expectantly. 

“Will my king please drink this?” he asks, looking suddenly quite nervous - likely over the idea that Mobei-Jun may refuse. “It’ll make you feel better.” 

He could. Mobei-Jun could refuse, and then… Shang Qinghua would have to sneak whatever this vial is into his food, Mobei-Jun supposes. Would he do such a thing? Never once has he tampered with the food or drink that he has given to Mobei-Jun, despite having had every opportunity possible. For that matter, he’s given Mobei-Jun plenty of medicine as well, and he’s willingly swallowed it all. This is just… more of that. 

Slowly, Mobei-Jun takes the vial from Shang Qinghua. In a crystal clear container, the liquid is a dark emerald green, thick and viscous as the vial is moved. He stares at it for a long moment, then up towards Shang Qinghua who gives him a nervous, encouraging grimace of a smile when he notices the attention on him. 

He had been much subtler than this, when he’d first dressed Mobei-Jun with the power draining crystals. And, he reminds himself, if he ever wanted to poison Mobei-Jun then he could have done so the thousands of other times that he’s had the chance. There is no reason for him to be so reluctant. None. 

Mobei-Jun uncaps the vial and drinks the contents in one swallow. It tastes foul and slides down his throat in a disgusting way. Shang Qinghua releases a ragged exhale of relief the moment he does so, shoulders slumping as some sort of weight seems to lift from them. 

“Thank you, my king!” Shang Qinghua says, and then repeats himself more softly. “Thank you.” 

“What have you given me?” Mobei-Jun asks. Now that he’s swallowed it, Shang Qinghua will have no reason to continue to hide whatever the answer may be. 

“Medicine,” he answers, before almost immediately correcting himself. “Or, well, an antidote, actually. My king, I figured out why you were healing so slowly. It turns out that the Rou Clan’s infamous poison can invert the demonic constitution! So, like, how you can usually recover so quickly from serious injuries, because you’re a big strong demon? That gets flipped around. Your body’s been basically resisting getting better because of that piece of shit fucking poison, fighting back against the healing every step of the way. You would’ve flushed it out of your system on your own eventually, but this-- this is going to fix that so much quicker. You’re cured, my king. You’re going to be okay.” 

This is good news. Mobei-Jun despises being poisoned more than he hates any kind of injury, the weakness and sluggishness that comes with it, and he is thoroughly sick of not having his full strength at his disposal. Of course he welcomes a recovery. Of course he wants to be cured. 

But why do Shang Qinghua’s words sound so bittersweet and final? He’s still smiling, but it looks stiff and forced at the edges, like putting on a brave front. It’s making Mobei-Jun tense up, not knowing what’s wrong but only that something is.  

And then he says, “You can go home now, my king.” 

What? 

Before Mobei-Jun can figure out how to respond, Shang Qinghua has reached forward and-- begun to untie the Immortal Binding Cables wrapped snugly around his arms, unbinding him. He’s so stunned that he doesn’t even recoil or so much as twitch. 

“You should maybe-- maybe change into some fresh clothes first - ones without any crystals sewn into them, actually! And, um, maybe a quick lunch and some meditation to give the antidote some time to do its job, if you want to? I could change your bandages for the last time. O--of course, it’s understandable if my king is too eager to leave to wait around like that! It’s just a suggestion, or-- just an offer, my king! Really, it should be fine if you want to go right away. Shayu-Jun has already given up and began his journey back to the ocean, and the Rou Clan are probably busy putting out the fire in their ancestral home, ahaha… I don’t know about your shithead uncle, but--” 

The Immortal Binding Cables come completely loose, puddling onto the bedspread, lax and useless. Mobei-Jun draws his arms back, feeling how they move unrestrained, unhindered. He turns his hands over and looks at them, free and empty. 

He has been set free. 

“How,” he says, and his voice fails him. He tries again. “How long have you held me?” 

“What? O--oh, not too long, my king, don’t worry! Just barely over a week, so you don’t have to--” 

Mobei-Jun’s desperation is too raw, the trembling, aching thing inside of his chest too sharp. He reaches forward and grabs the collar of Shang Qinghua’s robes so brutally and quickly that the man cries out and flinches; Mobei-Jun has to inhale and exhale twice before he can make himself soften his grip. 

“How long since the honor duel?” he demands, his voice low and clipped, taut. “How many days?” 

“A--ah…” Shang Qinghua says shakily, reaching up as if to touch Mobei-Jun’s wrist; his hand never quite makes contact. “Maybe… It’s been nine days, my king. Or-- well, it’d be ten by this morning, I guess?” 

The sky is pitch black outside, lit only by stars and lantern light. Morning is far away. 

Nine days. 

Nine. 

“You’re letting me go,” Mobei-Jun says numbly. 

“Please, don’t-- you know I’m sorry, right?” Shang Qinghua says. “I’m not-- I had to do it, the situation was completely fucked and you were not cooperating, but it’s not like I-- of course I’m letting you go! Now that you’re okay enough not to get murdered by the fucking hyena pack, it’s not like I’ll force you to stick around for no good reason! I’m not some sort of, of-- it’s not like I want to torture you. This wasn’t revenge or anything, even if I was a little bit mad at you!” 

Mobei-Jun wants to say don’t let me go. He wants to say just a few more hours, just hold me for a little longer. To say we’re so close, please. 

But he knows that there’s no point. He knows, with every unwilling fiber of himself, that Shang Qinghua doesn’t even understand why holding Mobei-Jun for ten days would be relevant. It is an arbitrary number to him, meaningless. There is no significance to him in the slightest. 

He never meant this as a bridenapping in the first place. 

“I, I can… I can stay behind here at Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, if my king wishes,” Shang Qinghua says feebly after a long stretched moment of silence, during which Mobei-Jun’s tongue is numb and useless in his mouth. “It’s not like I’ll be bored. There’s always work to do on An Ding, after all! More than enough for one man. Honestly, having two super demanding jobs is just begging for burnout!” 

“Stay behind at Cang Qiong,” Mobei-Jun repeats blankly. 

It was never real, he thinks again, the thought echoing dully inside of his head like a rock thrown into an empty cavern. All along, he had misunderstood. He thought he knew what was happening, what Shang Qinghua wanted. He was wrong. 

Again. 

“If that’s what my king wants,” Shang Qinghua croaks, looking nearly ill as he forces another smile. “This serv-- I, I mean this one… I get it if me-- me sabotaging and kidnapping and holding you captive is all… and betraying you is… I know that’s a thing for you! Really, I get it! It’s okay! Very understandable! Just--” 

He takes a deep breath, like he ran out of air as he was talking, his mouth babbling on ahead of him without stopping for his lungs to catch up. 

How could Mobei-Jun have been so foolish? So hopeful, so desperate, so eager not to see it? To avoid putting the pieces together. 

He’d felt that something was wrong. He ignored it. 

“--just don’t kill me, yeah?” Shang Qinghua rasps out, his voice thin and strangled. “You wouldn’t-- you’re not gonna do that, even though I-- even after all of that shit! You wouldn’t. So I can just stay here, right?” 

There is an awful wrenching pain in his chest, as if his heart is seizing beneath his ribcage; a painful drag on his veins. Is this the antidote at work? 

“Why would you do this,” Mobei-Jun gets out, and his voice somehow sounds just as it always does, “if you thought I would kill you for it?” 

He wouldn’t have brought it up, if he didn’t fear it. He thought--

“I mean,” Shang Qinghua says, wringing his hands. “It’s not like I could just let you die, right? After all the work I’ve put into keeping you alive?” 

He twists his voice as if trying to sound humorous but falls desperately short of his mark, like a grasping hand scrabbling for a ledge and slipping. 

“... But you’re not gonna kill me,” Shang Qinghua says, and he even almost manages to sound certain. “You had-- you had some opportunities there, definitely. But you didn’t even try, even when we…” 

He trails off, and Mobei-Jun doesn’t know how that sentence is meant to end. Shang Qinghua is looking at him very carefully, like he’s a tiger and he’s searching for signs of whether he’ll pounce or not. He barely seems to be breathing. Mobei-Jun realizes that he’s still holding onto Shang Qinghua’s robes; he should let go. 

He doesn’t. If he lets go, Shang Qinghua might flee, might run from him. He could run far, far away where Mobei-Jun won’t be able to find him this time--

His breath does not come out fogged and cold, when he exhales slowly. He forces himself to loosen his grip further, until he’s only gently holding onto Shang Qinghua’s robes. It is difficult. 

“You will not stay here,” Mobei-Jun grits out harshly. “You will come back to the Northern Ice Palace with me. ” 

Shang Qinghua does not cringe with fear or dismay. Instead, he lights up with hope, a tentative smile unfurling on his face. “Really?” he asks incredulously. “I, I mean-- of course this servant won’t question his king’s judgment on this matter at all, whatever you think is best! But does that mean-- so you still want me as your servant?” 

He is happy. He is relieved, the emotion shining clearly in his eyes. He does not wish to be banished from the Northern Desert; he merely expected it. It is almost a balm. Almost. 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says, and Shang Qinghua makes a face like he’s walked straight into a wall, shock and pain and bewilderment all flashing across his face in the span of a second. 

“No?” Shang Qinghua repeats. He pales. “What does that-- my king, am I going to be a prisoner--!?” 

“No,” Mobei-Jun snaps, sharp and loud when he doesn’t mean to be. It is so difficult to be quiet and calm with this snarling ball of failure snagging at all the soft internal pieces of him, to not let the pain and the realization make his lips peel, his teeth baring, a growl rumbling up out of his chest. He is not supposed to be frightening in front of Shang Qinghua; he can’t leave. 

“What, then!?” Shang Qinghua asks, his voice climbing sharply with distressed confusion. He looks ready to burst into terrified tears, like a cornered prey animal desperately grasping for pity from its predator. “My king, what exactly are you going to do to me!?” 

“Nothing!” 

“I don’t believe you! My king, have mercy on this pathetic human servant! All the things I’ve done have been for your own wellbeing, as much as that sounds like a shitty, villainous excuse. Even-- okay, not the, the thighfucking, but--!” 

Mobei-Jun reminds himself that Shang Qinghua did all of this to save his life; that he thought he was sacrificing his own life, or at the very least his status and position by Mobei-Jun’s side in the Northern Desert Kingdom, all for his sake. It is not a rejection. It is Mobei-Jun’s fault for misunderstanding, for assuming. For not making things clear. 

“--let bygones be bygones! It all balances out in the end, right!? Let’s just call it even! No revenge necessary! I--I’ll just go my own way, and you-- you can go back home--” 

But you’re my home, Mobei-Jun thinks. 

He should. He should tell-- 

“But you’re my home,” Mobei-Jun says. 

“--and keep ruling as the Northern… Desert…” Shang Qinghua slowly trails off, like a running wheel losing its momentum. He blinks at Mobei-Jun, looking completely and utterly confused. “Sorry, what did you say?” 

It is not an effortless thing to say. In fact, it feels like reaching down his throat, clawing out a soft and twitching organ and throwing it out into the cold where it can be stomped and ground down into the dirt. Like flaying himself open, all of his nerves exposed to the air and any hands that might want to touch. 

“You’re my home,” Mobei-Jun repeats himself. Shang Qinghua continues to look incomprehending. “I can’t. Go home without you. You need to be there too.” 

“Why?” Shang Qinghua asks dumbly, as if he actually doesn’t understand how deeply necessary he is. 

The words do not come willingly; he must wrench them out, forcing. 

“You can’t leave,” he says, and the words sound so small and stupid. Taking this huge, raw thing inside of him and trying to describe it leaves him feeling like a barely literate child struggling to write his first characters, humiliatingly helpless and frustrated. “I can’t-- I don’t know what to do without you. I don’t want to.” 

“A--ah,” Shang Qinghua says, still looking stunned. “I can-- I can help you find a replacement…?” 

“No,” Mobei-Jun grits out, his frustration flaring. Why must this be so hard? “You must stay. You must stay. With me. You’re my…” Husband, but no, he isn’t. “Mine.” 

“Even after-- even though I did--” Shang Qinghua gestures at the chains, the Immortal Binding Cables, the power draining crystals, “--all of that to you?” 

“Yes,” Mobei-Jun says. 

“But you fucking hated it, my king!” 

“No.” 

“Yeah, you did. You’ve been constantly trying to escape this whole time - really, I was scared you were gonna try and dislocate your shoulders or some shit just to get away from me. You’re really gonna forgive all of it, just like that?” He sounds incredulous, disbelieving - but at the same time, tentatively and slowly, more and more hopeful. He wants to believe it’s true. He wants to hear Mobei-Jun say yes, I forgive you. 

The words taste like ash on his tongue. He can’t get them out; doesn’t want to lie or manipulate. 

“No,” he says, and Shang Qinghua’s face falls. Mobei-Jun makes himself continue, to try and explain, even as it makes him feel blunt and simple, a stupid child attempting to describe things that he doesn’t have the words for. “I misunderstood. I thought that you were-- proposing, to me. I thought you wanted me.” 

It is almost a relief to have said the words, if only because it’s over now. Like dragging a knife out of your flesh. 

“... What?” Shang Qinghua asks. “Sorry-- sorry what? My king, what-- I’m sorry, this servant apologizes, I’m so stupid. What exactly do you mean by that?” 

Mobei-Jun closes his eyes, pained. Then, slowly and haltingly, he explains. What a bridenapping is. What he thought Shang Qinghua was doing. How deeply mistaken he’d been. Shang Qinghua listens to all of it, his face slack with shock, eyes wide and mouth a little open as he takes it all in. 

“You thought,” he finally croaks once Mobei-Jun trails off into a final silence, “that I was trying to force you to marry me? And you didn’t kill me!?” 

Mobei-Jun frowns. “It’s not forcing.” 

“What do you mean? What do you mean!? It’s kidnapping! I kidnapped you! I’ve kept you chained up to a bed for over a week! And then I molested you a little too, as if I weren’t acting enough like a gravedigging scum villain. If you were a maiden, someone would’ve come to kill me in order to protect your virtue, you know! Add a marriage plot on top of it, and I might as well be a scheming older male relative out for your fortune!” 

“It’s a challenge,” Mobei-Jun corrects, baffled over the misunderstanding. Is this Shang Qinghua strangeness, or human strangeness? It can be difficult to tell the difference, sometimes. “You show me that you’re a worthy mate by besting me. If you hold me, you have won the right to my hand. If not, then you aren’t.” 

“What’s the option for ‘fuck no I don’t want to marry this guy even if he kept me trapped in his basement for a week or two?’ Is there an opt out? Please tell me there’s an opt out! You’ve got a way to say no, right!?” 

“I could have killed you,” Mobei-Jun says, puzzled. Isn’t it obvious? 

Shang Qinghua puts his face in his hands and stays there for a bit. He mostly just breathes shallowly and whimpers, muttering unintelligibly to himself. He catches fucking crazy demons goddamnit fuck and I’m such a fucking hack, but that’s about it. Finally, he comes back up looking wild around the eyes but with a forcibly steady voice. 

“Okay, so, this is how things went down in your mind. You get challenged to a doomed honor duel and your fucking pride won’t let you say no, fuck that and fuck you and the fish horse you rode in on. Then I decide to--” 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says. 

“No? No, what? What did I get wrong? You admitted you were gonna lose the duel--!” 

“Not for my pride,” Mobei-Jun says, because he is explaining himself to Shang Qinghua, he is making him understand. It feels like his jaw resists being opened as he talks, but he forces his way through it, through that too-exposed, too-vulnerable feeling of explaining why. “I fought the duel for you.” 

“For me?” Shang Qinghua asks. “But-- my king, I literally begged you not to. On my hands and knees! I remember this!” 

“I had to,” Mobei-Jun says, and then, as angry as it makes him to even speak it, “They wanted your head.” 

“What? Who? What?” Shang Qinghua’s hands curl into his hair, tugging and pulling. Mobei-Jun wishes to reach forward and take his hand and gently but firmly pull them away before he does himself damage. He could clutch onto Mobei-Jun instead; it isn’t as if he’d be able to do any damage, with his blunt, harmless nails and human strength. It wouldn’t matter even if he did. “My king, can you please elaborate a little bit more?” 

“The Blood Coral Clan,” Mobei-Jun says, unable to help the curl of irritated exasperation that all of his words aren’t being instantly understood, instantly accepted. It would be so much easier if he could simply invite Shang Qinghua into his skull and let him see everything. 

He never used to have thoughts or desires like that, before he met Shang Qinghua. That thought would have been a nightmare, before. 

“The Blood-- oh my god,” Shang Qinghua says, incomprehension dawning like a desperate sunrise on his face. “Oh my god. Is that what they fucking asked for, that pissed you off so much? They wanted me dead?” 

Mobei-Jun nods, relieved at finally being understood. 

“My king,” Shang Qinghua says, his voice rising sharply enough that it almost qualifies as a shriek. “You should have said! Me dying is a dealbreaker for me too, you know! It’s not like I’m going to selflessly sacrifice myself for an alliance with some fucking random demon clan! What kind of stupid martyr do you think I am!?”

He says as if he hadn’t thrown himself at Linguan-Jun just to buy Mobei-Jun some breathing room during his Ascension, offering himself up to have his limbs plucked off like an insect’s. 

“I wasn’t sure,” Mobei-Jun says. He has never been able to safely predict Shang Qinghua’s actions. It has greatly troubled him over the years, that fear and uncertainty. “Perhaps you would have chosen to fake your death and go into hiding, or assumed I would kill you and escaped, or…” 

“So you’d rather die than risk me quitting?” Shang Qinghua demands incredulously. “Let me take a little sabbatical?” 

“I do not wish to be separated from you,” Mobei-Jun says. 

Shang Qinghua opens his mouth to say something, then closes it. His face is gaining color as he stares at Mobei-Jun, turning a flushed pink. 

“Okay,” Shang Qinghua chokes out, looking away for a moment. “So-- so you decided to fight the shitty honor duel with the Atlantis knockoff, and then… and then, from your point of view, I decided that was the moment to kidnap-propose to you?” 

“In order to prevent the duel.” 

“And then you thought, oh, sure, okay! Might as well go along with this! This might as well happen! My weasely human servant is trying to fucking marry my poisoned ass, why not!” 

“Yes,” Mobei-Jun says, and Shang Qinghua throws his hands up with a noise of despair. 

“My king, oh my fucking god. Please be a little more discerning? You’re not some-- some indiscriminate stallion protagonist who cares about quantity over quality, or-- or a wilting damsel in distress who has to swoon into the arms of the first person to pick them up! If some bozo tries to marry you and you’re just fine with it, then don’t! It’s okay! Where’s the rush? I know you need an heir eventually, but--” 

Mobei-Jun frowns. 

“I was-- relieved,” he says, hesitating over the sheer vulnerability of happy. “I had been waiting for you to ask. I was worried you wouldn’t.” 

“... huh?” Shang Qingua asks, looking at Mobei-Jun as if he expects him to say more, to start making sense. “Huh? My king? Say that again?” 

“I was worried you wouldn’t,” Mobei-Jun obediently repeats himself. It is easier than having to scrounge up new words. 

“You wanted me to propose to you,” Shang Qinghua says. 

Satisfied, Mobei-Jun nods. Then he remembers that Shang Qinghua hadn’t proposed, that it is a thought so far from his mind that it apparently hadn’t even occurred to him, and the satisfaction thins. 

“For,” Shang Qinghua says, eyes wide, wide, wide. “For how long?” 

That is a difficult question to answer. It is a desire that has slowly permeated him throughout the years, growing unseen and unnoticed until it was far too late. It has gotten much more fervent and desperate lately. 

“A long time,” Mobei-Jun answers, which is the one true answer he could give. 

“What the fuck,” Shang Qinghua says, except it comes out more as an exhale, a ghost of a breath. He looks unnaturally still for a moment, unnaturally quiet - and then he lunges forward, grabbing at Mobei-Jun’s shoulders and shouting into his face, “You should have said something earlier! If you’re so desperate to get married, then propose yourself!” 

Confused, Mobei-Jun says, “That is not allowed.” 

“What? By who? Who’s not allowing it!?” Shang Qinghua is close enough to him that Mobei-Jun has to lean back in order not to be cross eyed as he looks at him. There is a manic urgency to Shang Qinghua’s frame now, wild and restless. 

“The kingdom,” he says, before correcting to, “tradition. Northern Desert royalty do not propose. They are proposed to.” 

“Who made that stupid fucking rule up!? Who was it? Was it me?” 

“It has always been this way,” Mobei-Jun says, ignoring the nonsense. “A Northern Desert King should be able to be impressive enough that their desired suitors will ask for the honor of marrying them on their own.” 

“And absolutely not risk getting humiliatingly rejected by a plebe, is that it? Is that the fucking thought process!?” 

Well, yes. Mobei-Jun has always suspected this. And, perhaps, to spare any lowly demons who may not dare to say no. He had, secretly and quietly, thought of this as one of the few traditions that was wise and necessary. Especially so after he discovered just how many indignities Shang Qinghua had suffered underneath him, resentment slowly brewing for years, all because Mobei-Jun was foolish and Shang Qinghua too frightened to ever say no. As agonizing it was to wait, it was better than doing anything-- unwelcome. 

“You… didn’t know,” Mobei-Jun says slowly, the realization sinking in. All that time he’d been impatiently waiting, and Shang Qinghua hadn’t even known.  

He feels very, very stupid. Again. 

“No! Was I supposed to know? How was I supposed to know? No one told me! Hang on, hang on, hang on, this doesn’t-- didn’t your dad steal your uncle’s fiance? Wasn’t that-- wait. Steal. How… metaphorical, was that? Like did he seduce her, or--” 

“It was a bridenapping,” Mobei-Jun says. 

“Literal,” Shang Qinghua says. “He literally stole his brother’s-- god, okay. Fuck. Your family drama is horrible, my king. But that’s a proposal, right? Your dad proposed!” 

“He broke the rules,” Mobei-Jun agrees. “It was very scandalous.” 

And it went poorly for him, as well. Mobei-Jun has not been given any impressions that his father’s marriage to his mother was good, and Linguan-Jun… he held a grudge. 

“I thought it was scandalous because of-- nevermind. Nevermind.” Shang Qinghua stops, taking a deep breath. Very deep. He looks into Mobei-Jun’s eyes and says, “My king, you… really want to marry me?” 

Mobei-Jun cannot speak. It takes all the strength he has just to give the smallest nod possible. He doesn’t know why, really; he’d thought that his feelings for Shang Qinghua had been obvious for a long time. 

Shang Qinghua makes a raw sort of noise, and then he goes slack and loose like a puppet with all of its strings cut, his forehead thumping against Mobei-Jun’s clavicle. Mobei-Jun grabs his waist before he can think better of it. 

“My king, ah,” Shang Qinghua says, his breath ghosting across Mobei-Jun’s skin. “I was losing my fucking mind this whole time, thinking that I’d torched our entire relationship. Am I an idiot? Are we both idiots?” 

Mobei-Jun has been too thoroughly humbled by now to bristle with offense at that as he might once have. Instead he holds Shang Qinghua closer, making a soft, ambivalent noise from his chest. 

“Will you come back to the Northern Ice Palace with me?” Mobei-Jun asks, even as he knows that any answer besides yes will be unbearable for him. He can feel himself tensing up, hopeless to hide what he wants to hear, how much this matters to him. 

“Do you know how humans propose marriage, my king?” Shang Qinghua asks, ignoring his question. His own arms are curling around Mobei-Jun now, a few fingers catching in his hair. 

“No,” Mobei-Jun says. He isn’t confident that he knows anything, at the moment. 

“We fucking ask,” Shang Qinghua says. “Just so you know.” 

“... Demons do that as well,” Mobei-Jun says. 

“Well, then, don’t overcomplicate things!” Shang Qinghua says, and he seems to find his spark of energy again, because he straightens up so he’s no longer pressed face first against Mobei-Jun’s chest - an entirely unnecessary thing to do, in his opinion. He bites his lip, and then says, “is there anything my king wants to ask me?” 

Mobei-Jun thinks. And he says, “What were the five seals?” 

“What?” Shang Qinghua asks, blinking, as if that wasn’t what he’d been expecting. What had he been? 

“The five seals you placed on me, to keep me captive. There was the power draining crystals, and the illusions to disorient me. What else?” 

“Oh,” Shang Qinghua says. “Uh, okay, so-- the crystals and the illusions, yeah. And there was the array - that was keeping you safe and hidden, my king, but also keeping any allies who might want to save you from finding you. Who knows, there might have been someone! And then… promise you won’t get mad?” 

“This king promises.” 

“I took some of your blood? While you were unconscious? So that, uh, if you somehow managed to get out then I could track you down and-- sorry! I promise that the blood’s gonna stop being useful to me soon, so please don’t worry about it!”

Mobei-Jun nods, satisfied. That was a good precaution. But there’s one more left. “What else?” 

“Okay, so… this one you really have to promise not to be mad about. You know when you set loose three pigs, and you paint the numbers one, two, and four on them?” He turns a wide, sheepish grin on Mobei-jun. “There wasn’t really a fifth seal.” 

Mobei-Jun takes one moment to think it over - and then has to hide his amusement into the crown of Shang Qinghua’s head, unexpected fondness flooding through him. Yes, of course. Of course.  

“What are you-- wait, are you laughing? Is this you laughing, my king!?” Shang Qinghua pushes and pulls at him, trying to get a good look at his face; by the time he manages it, only the faintest traces of a smile remain on his face. Shang Qinghua makes a pathetic little noise, holding his face in his hands. His hands are warm, as always. “I’ve been wanting to see that for, what, thirty years? Don’t hide it from me! I didn’t know you could do that. I thought you just did the amused nose exhale thing! Very stoic, very dignified! Do you have any idea what I’d do for a single laugh from you?” 

Mobei-Jun looks at Shang Qinghua very blankly, and says, “This king has never once smiled in his life.” 

“Liar!” Shang Qinghua cries, but smiles himself, big and wide and blinding. He never hides, never flinches. Mobei-Jun loves this about him. “My king, ah, my king… you’ll really take me back to the Northern Ice Palace with you, yeah?” 

Happiness thuds in his chest, a breathtaking relief. He’s coming back, even after Mobei-Jun’s folly. 

“Yes,” he says, none of that happiness showing itself in his voice. Maybe-- “I am… happy to do so.” 

Shang Qinghua flushes redder, smiles wider. It is an immediate reward. “But not as a servant?” 

“You are my advisor,” Mobei-Jun reminds him. He is important, valued. 

“Nothing else?” 

“... Does Qinghua want any other position?” It will be given to him. 

“Ah, well,” Shang Qinghua says, hesitating, then blurts out all at once: “So there’s this human thing called boyfriends, I don’t know if you--” 

Mobei-Jun, in his eagerness and his want, crushes his mouth against Shang Qinghua’s while he’s still talking. It is clumsy and off center, inept. But he kisses him and Shang Qinghua makes a muffled noise of surprise against him - then grabs onto him, pulls him in closer, deeper. 

“Yes,” Mobei-Jun gasps against his mouth. And then again, unnecessarily, unable to stop, “yes, yes, Qinghua, yes, good, I want--” 

Shang Qinghua laughs and pulls him into another kiss, shutting him up. 

Mobei-Jun has spoken enough for today.

Notes:

The lovely illustration this chapter was done by plkwnczka!

Chapter 7: Epilogue

Notes:

This chapter is 3.4k words long

Chapter Text

“Dumbfuck author!” Shen Qingqiu snaps the moment he’s slapped a silencing talisman on the door. 

“Hello to you too,” Shang Qinghua says, pushing himself up from where Shen Qingqiu had roughly tossed him onto the floor. He trips on his cape along the way, all fluffy inner fur lining and dyed blue silk. Very gorgeous! Very warm! Undoubtedly very expensive! A little bit much for him, though, but Mobei-Jun had looked so pleased and proud of himself as he’d presented it to him. For all Shang Qinghua knows, Mobei-Jun had personally slaughtered whichever horrifying, legendary beast happened to have supplied this silky soft fur for him. How could he possibly say no? “So nice to see you, how are you doing, I hope things weren’t too hard for you while I was off on my fuckation--” 

“Fuck you, it was a sightseeing tour, and don’t try to distract me,” Shen Qingqiu says, as if that doesn’t just mean that he probably spent the last several weeks being extravagantly topped next to once-in-a-lifetime wonders of the world that Shang Qinghua came up with! If he’s going to have his lower back blasted out next to some scenic waterfall made of liquid gold and diamonds or whatever the fuck, then the least he could do is leave a five star comment! Typical spoiled second gen kid; he only leaves reviews when he’s got a complaint. “I got your letter. How could you have possibly forgotten the bridenapping arc?” 

“How? How!? Do you have any idea how many wifeplots I jammed into my miserable story? It’s--”

“Four hundred and eighty three!” Shen Qingqiu fires off, like the insufferable nerd that he is. “Which is more wife plots than actual wives, by the way. Ning Yingying got kidnapped so many times that after a certain point it honestly felt like she was doing it on purpose! And you accidentally made Bingge marry Peng Jia twice.” 

“Hey, maybe I did that on purpose,” Shang Qinghua bullshits. “Any man with a harem that big would start to get a little disoriented.” 

Shen Qingqiu brandishes his fan like a weapon, completely ignoring the sword at his waist. Shang Qinghua cowers with his arms over his head, taking several steps back. 

“Thirty two miserable chapters, you put me through,” Shen Qingqiu growls, stalking closer. “That’s over three hundred thousand words of having to trudge through the world's shittiest plot line, which you clearly only wrote to pander to the kinds of creeps who get off on fantasies of cavemen clubbing women over the head and dragging them back to their caves!” 

“You don’t know that! I don’t know that!” Shang Qinghua says. “I could have had very good plot reasons for coming up with that shit! Something like-- like exploring cultural differences, and how demonic traditions can be off putting to human sensibilities but--” 

“All that, and you don’t even remember it!” Shen Qingqiu cries. “It was that pointless to the story! To Bingge’s growth!”

“You do get that the whole point of Bingge was that after a certain point he was completely stagnant, right?” 

Shen Qingqiu lunges for him. With a yelp Shang Qinghua tries to dodge, and completely fails. 

“Apologize to me! Apologize to your readers! Apologize to Princess Xueha!” Shen Qingqiu shouts, dropping his fan to get him into a chokehold. Shang Qinghua, the weasielest weasel to ever weasel, immediately starts squirming out of it. 

“Who?” Shang Qinghua chokes out, strongly considering whether or not to grope Shen Qingqiu somewhere inappropriate to secure his escape. 

“The fucking wife. The female character who you invented just so she could play hard-to-get for a few hundred thousand words and then just inexplicably give in once your readers got tired of waiting for it! Mobei-Jun’s niece.” 

“Oh,” Shang Qinghua says, a long repressed memory finally bobbing up to the surface. “Oh, her!” 

“About time!” Shen Qingqiu says, and rewards him by actually letting him go - just in time for Shang Qinghua to avoid making a very bad decision, honestly. “God, she was one of the worst ones. You dragged it out for so long, and then when she finally accepted Bingge it felt more like she was just resigning herself to the inevitable. He’s the protagonist! He’s supposed to be sweeping women off their feet, not wearing them down.” 

Shang Qinghua knows! He knows that, that was the whole fucking problem. The whole thing is coming back to him now, every soul crushing moment of it. He’d reached the point in the story when it came time to come up with yet another waifu to throw at the readers like a bone to rabid wolves to gnaw on, the shine already apparently having been worn off on the others. Sweet little meimeis, cool and mysterious jiejies, hot and fiery bad girls, bratty princesses and tsunderes - he’d done them all a dozen times over! If there was a love interest archetype, he’d already done it. There were a finite amount of types to recycle, okay! He’d been scraping the bottom of the barrel, as if that weren’t obvious enough after he accidentally gave two different wives the exact same name and angsty backstory! And heterochromia, fuck. 

Left cornered by a fickle audience and a twenty four hour renewing deadline breathing down his neck, a seemingly brilliant idea had occurred to him: Don’t come up with a new character. Just reskin an old one. Hell, not just any other old character, but how about his favorite one? 

He had made Mobei-Jun a wife. Or, that is, he’d pulled out some convenient never-before-mentioned niece out of nowhere and basically just given her his entire personality. Taciturn, stoic, prideful, and untrusting to the bone, she had been the perfect ice queen love interest! Readers had gone wild for her, the comment section full of people alternately begging for her to step on them or drooling over the highly anticipated moment when the unstoppable protagonist would finally melt her icy exterior and turn her into a mewling maiden of bountiful summer. 

He’d thought it’d be fun. A sneaky way for him to write about his real favorite, play with the character, and figure out exactly how to satisfyingly ship (write porn) about him underneath a paperthin guise of straightness. 

It had not been fun. It had been hell. The arc hadn’t lasted so long because he’d enjoyed it, or even because he’d been milking the cow for all it was worth before it gave up the ghost. He just hadn’t been able to fucking finish it. No matter how desperately he fucking tried, he couldn’t figure out how to make her accept Luo Binghe’s advances in a way that felt satisfying. 

Why!? That had never been a problem before! He’d done it literally hundreds of times, why was it suddenly such a fucking problem? He’d spent hours staring at a glowing white empty writing document, bashing his head against writer’s block for the first time in his miserable, hack life. He was so good at turning off the part of his brain that said this has to be good, you need to pick the right words, it needs to be perfect. No one was better at churning out trash than him! 

He’d finally had to put himself, the audience, and his ice queen out of their collective misery. He forced himself to end it without managing to find a satisfying conclusion to the storyline. Princess Xueha fell into Luo Binghe’s arms, even though she had staunchly refused to do so every other time and had no particular reason for suddenly changing her tune then. He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to make her seem happy about it, because that wouldn’t fit her. The readers hated it! Everyone fucking hated it! He’d moved on from the arc as quickly as he possibly could, tossing her into the harem and never, ever revisiting her, doing his best to forget the whole thing ever happened. 

As it turns out, soulless, rote wife plots are a lot easier to churn out when you don’t actually care about the characters involved. That had been his fatal mistake. Every single time he tried to wrench Xueha into Luo Binghe’s waiting embrace, a part of him had always protested. She deserves better than this. Mobei-Jun deserves better. My favorite shouldn’t have to settle for someone like him… 

As it turns out, the person his favorite had settled for ended up being Shang Qinghua instead. Ahaha, is he being full of himself for even going along with this? If he tells Shen Qingqiu that he thinks he could do a better job of being Mobei-Jun’s husband than his beloved protagonist, is he going to get skewered by Xiu Ya? 

“In my defense, probably not every woman is into Bingge’s whole Pokemon ‘gotta catch ‘em all’ seduction approach?” he says instead. “Some people don’t like sharing! Hey, kinda like you--” 

“Shut up! Don’t compare me to that miserable character!” Shen Qingqiu says, and actually whacks him over the head with his fan. “Don’t act like you had any kind of integrity or actual creative reasons for your choices - you were just being a hack! Again.” 

“Quit it!” Shang Qinghua says, trying to cover his head as the whacks keep coming. “With my luck, Junshang sees you hitting another man with your fan as cheating! Do you want me to be castrated, Cucumber-bro?” 

“Do you want an answer to that question,” Shen Qingqiu asks dangerously. Still, though, he lowers his fan with a slight blush to his cheeks. Ah, score! He’ll make sure to use that argument again the next time this happens. “I’m-- Binghe and I won’t be going on any more trips like that for a while. Just so you know.” 

He covers his lower face with his fan and looks aside as he says this, something stiff and awkward creeping into his voice. Shang Qinghua squints at him. 

“Ah,” he says, realizing. “Bro, are you actually apologizing for ditching me?” 

Shang Qinghua had written that letter to Shen Qingqiu in a stupified daze, his body finally sore for reasons besides stress and exhaustion, deeply and profoundly startling revelations sloshing around in his exhausted brain. He kind of hadn’t been paying attention to what he’d been writing at all, more just inanely rambling while clutching for any kind of sanity or familiarity like a lifeline. He’s pretty certain that there had been a fair amount of bitching about being ‘abandoned’ by his transmigrator bro during his time of need, though. By the time he’d been done, the letter had been about a dozen pages long. He’d stuffed it into an envelope and shoved it into someone’s hands before passing out, not bothering to read a single page. Since when has he ever proofread his shit? 

“As if!” Shen Qingqiu snaps defensively. “I didn’t ditch you! Everything was fine when we left. It’s not my fault if shit hits the fan while I’m not around, literally none of this was my fault! How dare you even try to blame me?” 

“You feel baaaaad,” Shang Qinghua taunts, pointing at him. “You feel guiltyyyy because my king almost died while you were off on a papapa cruise with my son and I had to save him all by myself!” 

“Your king can go get melted by a hairdryer for all I care! Ooh, a stoic overpowered warrior, how unique. He’s nothing but a bargain bin Liu-shidi!” 

“HEY! YOU TAKE THAT BACK--” 

“WELL I’M RIGHT--” 

“Like hell! Liu-shidi is nothing but some kpop idol lookalike twunk. Where are his tits!? I can’t see them because oh right, he isn’t even showing them off! Absolute bullshit!” 

“Tits? That’s not-- he’s a man, he’s got pecs, perfectly manly pecs--” Shen Qingqiu sputters, unreasonably defensive of his shidi’s masculinity even as his face goes redder and redder as his mouth keeps going. 

Shang Qinghua, his outrage derailing as he scents blood in the water, immediately switches tracks. “Oh, really? Do you pay a lot of attention to Liu-shidi’s manly pecs? Ahh, I wonder how Junshang would feel about--”

“Shut up,” Shen Qingqiu hisses before Shang Qinghua can really get started on his piss poor pretty-boys-so-pretty-they-could-pass-as-girls taste in men. “Why the fuck are we talking about this? Stop dragging the conversation in depraved directions! You waxed poetic enough about Mobei-Jun’s icy pillar in your awful letter, I don’t want to hear anymore!” 

“I did?” Shang Qinghua asks, blinking. Damn, he had been out of it. 

“You did,” Shen Qingqiu confirms unhappily, then covers his mouth with his fan again. “I was able to track down a pair of Crimson Crystals of Clear Communication, from that shitty prison break arc where you realized halfway through that you needed Bingge to be able to communicate with Sha Hualing without going to her so you just came up with fucking phone rocks. If anything like that… if there’s an emergency situation, then you’ll be able to contact me and Binghe.” 

As he talks, his fan slowly creeps higher and higher up his face, until only his averted eyes are peeking out over the edge. 

“Aw,” Shang Qinghua says. “You’ll leave your phone on even while you’re honeymooning with your hubby?” 

“It’s not honeymooning,” Shen Qingqiu says, beginning to wave his fan. “It’s sightseeing, sightseeing.”

“Of coooourse,” Shang Qinghua drawls out, giving an exaggerated wink. Shen Qingqiu’s fan flaps more forcefully. “I’d ask you to take pictures, but I’ve got a feeling it’d just be a bunch of nu--”

“ANYWAY,” Shen Qingqiu says. “You do realize you’re married now, right?” 

“No I’m not,” Shang Qinghua says. 

“The servants were literally calling you the Northern Desert Queen out there.” 

“We’re just letting them think that,” Shang Qinghua says quickly. “It’s-- you know, it’d be kind of awkward explaining that it wasn’t a bridenapping but actually a really elaborate misunderstanding. It’s easier to just let people assume! We’re taking things slow!” 

“Are you sleeping in the same bed?” 

“That’s literally just convenient, man, don’t read into it. We can wake up in the middle of the night and bang! Or wake up in the morning and bang! Or--” 

“And you’re basically running his household for him?” 

“I was already doing that! I’ve been doing it for years!” 

Shen Qingqiu snaps his fan shut in order to shoot Shang Qinghua a frosty glare. 

“You gave me,” he enunciates slowly, “so much shit for sleeping with Binghe after I said I wasn’t interested! And now you’re literally married to King Iceblock, and you won’t even fucking admit it?”  

“I don’t remember performing any bows!” Shang Qinghua says, a scrap of a desperate last defense. “Where were the red robes, huh? The vows? It only counts if I say it counts!” 

He doesn’t know why he’s insisting on this so much. People can be married without it being a big deal, right? Like, for tax benefits, or as a beard, or for a green card. Hell, Mobei-Jun has been getting a lot less pressure from his family elders to get married and pop out some kids recently! In fact, the family elders are so sour faced at the idea of the future Mobei Clan heir being half human that they’ve stopped mentioning babies entirely, as if they’re hoping Mobei-Jun will forget about it entirely until Shang Qinghua goes and conveniently dies of some human disease somewhere. That’s nice, isn’t it? He’s sparing his king from a bunch of nagging! That’s what the marriage could be about for him. 

If this were an actual, real marriage, which it isn’t. They’re just dating. Dating’s nice. If people start to feel resentful or trapped while they’re dating then they just stop and it’s no big deal, so everything’s fine. No one’s caught in a bear trap here! Just two guys having great sex on a regular basis, nothing more. 

“You’re a complete fucking idiot,” Shen Qingqiu says, pinching the brow of his nose. “Fine. Fine! If you want to be married while telling yourself that you’re not, then be my fucking guest! It’s stupid as hell, but do whatever you want.” 

“Big words coming from the guy who keeps doing gay shit while insisting he’s not gay,” Shang Qinghua blurts out. 

“You--!” 

The door opens, presumably saving Shang Qinghua from another beating. Mobei-Jun walks in, all broad shoulders and midnight dark hair and ethereal blue eyes which immediately zero in on Shang Qinghua. 

“Qinghua,” he greets with one of his little micro-centimeter nods that might as well be an enthusiastic wave of the arm coming from him. 

“My king!” Shang Qinghua says brightly, a broad, stupid grin spreading across his face. “I didn’t think you’d be back so soon? How did it go?” 

‘It’ being his meeting with the new Shayu-Jun of the Blood Coral Clan. The old Shayu-Jun had been, ahem, much less prepared for an honor duel with a fully recovered and non poisoned Mobei-Jun, who had been completely unwilling to let the shark fucker retract his challenge. The new Shayu-Jun seems to be some sort of gorgeous mermaid princess who was obviously originally destined to be sucked into the gravitational well of Luo Binghe’s harem, but is now instead sitting pretty on a clamshell throne underneath the sea and ready to rule her clan with a dainty ironfist. 

“Fine,” Mobei-Jun says, a single grain of sand of information for Shang Qinghua to wildly speculate over. He should have been allowed to come with! But Mobei-Jun had put his foot down and completely refused to bring him anywhere near them, as stubborn and unyielding as a boulder. God, a group of people demand your head on a platter one time…

“Ah, so she was smart enough to grovel a little? Blamed the whole thing on her dead dad, who she totally and completely disagreed with?” 

Another micro-centimeter nod. As expected! It would be stupid of her to do anything else, really, after seeing Mobei-Jun rip her daddy’s head off his shoulders with his bare hands. Sounds like she’s one of the less brainless wives, then. 

“Nice. Then my trade proposal--”

“They are open to negotiations.” 

“Yes!” Possibilities and opportunities dance through his mind, and he starts rubbing his hands together gleefully. “My king, thank you for remembering to bring it up! You won’t regret this, I promise you.” 

“I know,” Mobei-Jun says, and then turns. “Greetings to the empress.” 

Oh right, he’s still here. Shen Qingqiu, who had been watching Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun talking with one of his my-inner-thoughts-are-beyond-your-reach blank masks, abruptly starts looking a little more like himself as he startles. 

“No need to call this master that,” Shen Qingqiu flusters. “Lord Shen is fine.” 

Mobei-Jun gives Shen Qingqiu a I’m not falling into your trap look, even as he assents and turns his focus back on Shang Qinghua. “Junshang is waiting in the dining hall. He wishes to speak.” 

“Fine, fine, fine,” Shang Qinghua says, grabbing onto Mobei-Jun’s arm as he holds it out for him slightly without thinking. It helps them keep pace with each other! And it’s nice to be able to grope at his bicep a little whenever he wants to. “Let’s debrief, I guess, as if the situation isn’t already totally handled! Well I guess a few people still need to get slapped on the wrist, so that might be good to take care of. My king, are you hungry? We got a shipment of that fish you like, a meal can be prepared very quickly…” 

They walk and talk - or, well, Shang Qinghua talks while Mobei-Jun gives occasional responses, but that counts as talking for them! Downright chatty - and people bow to their king and queen as they go, the empress trailing after them. For a moment, just in these peoples eyes, Shang Qinghua lets himself talk and act as if he really is married to Mobei-Jun. Like a pretend game, or a bluff he’s throwing his entire self into, faking it to make it. It feels like sticking his toe into a pool to test the water, tentatively trying on a new jacket. Not real, not real at all. 

But just right now, it feels… not as dangerous as he thought it would be. Just like a normal, regular day with his king, except they happen to be married too. See, it’s not so bad, is it? 

Shang Qinghua pretends not to hear that voice, and focuses on walking with his husband. 

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