Chapter Text
“Yeah, no I’ll pass,” Shang Qinghua said backing away from the large dark and scary man with the unearthly levels of beauty. Does Shang Qinghua know and understand the severity of his words? Absolutely, he’s been writing a webnovel on this for the past three years and is deeply aware of what’s happening here. Which is exactly why he’s slowly backing away from Xi Mobei and praying the man doesn’t just snap his neck for daring to say he's just really not into the whole divine chosen king thing. He's already got unexplained prophetic visions going on with him and that’s way too much.
His legs bolt before Xi Mobei even gets the chance to mutter out his befuddled, “You what?”
An icicle burst from the ground narrowly avoiding stabbing him in the spleen and slicing through the air with a crack. Fuck- fuck- fuck! He’s not sure how he manages to narrowly avoid them with sheer instinct each time but he does. Right, left, duck, scream! It is way too easy for him to just run between giant pillars of body splitting death until he’s cornered and on the ground crying to the air, “Please don’t kill me!”
Xi Mobei is looking down at him utterly confused and brows knit, “Your body is soft and weak and yet your reflexes are sharp and your instincts on point.”
Shang Qinghua chose to keep blubbering nonsensically about not dying because he was panicking and Xi Mobei was so much scarier in person than on paper!
“You cry like a pathetic child,” he was yanked to his fit with a hand grasping his neck and held against the cold ice. So obviously he started flailing harder.
“Please no!”
Maybe it was all his flailing but the waterlogged and partially ruined journal he’d had on hand fell from his clothes to the ground and he was discarded with a harsh throw and landed with a hard smack on his side.
Ow.
The qilin’s gloves rifled through the pages and then turned to him eyes aglow with something bright, “You, where did you get this?”
Hands in front of his face for protection he opened his mouth rambling, “My grandpa. My grandfather got lost here and he wrote those journals- he kept them in storage and when he died I got them and then used them to write a shitty webnovel with then as the base which is why I’m stuck here in the first place- because my biggest hater is actually like Shen Qingqiu’s reincarnation or something but like I’m not really sure. I just know that if Liu Qingge doesn’t get to him soon something bad is going to happen and that I get weird visions and ideas and they almost always come true- not always its like and eighty percent of the time thing so I kinda knew this would happen but also I’m very small and very confused please don’t hurt me.”
It was all one big long breath that stank up the air and left him wondering what was going to happen. Xi Mobei hummed, “Fascinating. Outsiders are usually born lacking any gifts or abilities and yet your bloodline has produced two seers.”
He let himself uncurl a little and dare to make eye contact, “Seers?”
“The records written within these books were kept in the strictest of security so that not even we Taiho could read them and another tragedy would be avoided.”
Back straight and eyes wide he thought about those many journals and all the things they’d had written in them as the years went by until his great grandfather eventually passed. He'd been so confused about the timeline of events but if they both shared this strange ability… “Tragedy?”
A nod, “Do you not know? The last Taiho of Shun Tianlang-Jun went mad and tried end the world.”
Right… right Luo Binghe’s father who was currently trapped and imprisoned as the world waited for him to die after the thirty year mark as he had no king… “Oh no…” He shot up, “Look, I don’t want to be your king or whatever but we have to get to Liu Qingge and rescue Taiho Jiu or something very bad is going to happen. Like… the abyss opening times ten levels of bad.”
Xi Mobei hummed arms crossed like he was genuinely contemplating against him. Bitch, you just bowed and called Shang Qinghua king which means his orders are absolute! Why is he acting like this?
Well he knows why… the Taiho of Tai he’d written was a kokki who’d been treated cruelly by humans in the past and briefly imprisoned by Huan Hua Palace during a coup in which they allied with the rebelling forces trying to oust their recently crowned king. Xi Mobei had been especially young when he chose a king. Literally the first Nyosen sage he saw he grabbed and said she was it. Qilin don’t experience infancy… sort of. They go through a small time of being a hybrid resembling a deer-centaur-thing before becoming human or horse shaped and in that time they’re small and delicate and not expected to leave the safety of the mountain. A Hina is not supposed to exist out in the wild and especially not in a kingdom as tumultuous and harsh as Tai. They're not supposed to just instantly choose a king.
But nature out trumps tradition. The nyosen sage who was a complete outsider was crowned and the people resented. An outsider took the throne from the nation and now they were expected to follow them.
The sagely woman tried her best to lead the kingdom as the little Xi Mobei followed around his big eyes and small frame so weak and delicate looking around the palace. The men in court whispering that the kokki and woman were both weak and incapable of leading a kingdom as one was a mere infant and the other was a woman who’d never so much as considered policy.
It was fine at first to whisper and plot but then the first famine happened and relief aid never made it out in time for the starving people.
The woman who spoiled Xi Mobei treated him like a second mother along with his Nyokai caretaker tried. She really did.
But she was incompetent. A fool.
So when the usurpers kidnapped Xi Mobei and sealed him away in Huan Hua Palace’s basement cold and alone all the child could do was cry and weep his powers sealed and his captors saying empty pomises of safety.
They brought him home still in chains and made him sit beside the throne. The Sage’s head was on a stick impaled in a horrible visage of blood and gore. Xi Mobei was for all purposes a child. He was a child and didn’t understand why or how this could happen in the first place.
“Won’t you please choose again O’ mighty Taiho?”
It felt silly to such a creature for humans to gather and beg. He’d chosen already and yet they disregarded his choice so flippantly.
His first king was dead and so without much thought he pointed to another one. “You’ll do.”
After all, one human was worth the same as the next.
He watched in disgust as the room errupted into cheers and congratulations for the man he’d chosen on a mere whim all the while thinking about how disgusting humans were. The first thing the man asked of him was so repulsive he'd made his youma kill them on the spot without thinking.
Xi Mobei had stared at the blood and the puddle thinking that while it disgusted him and made his body feel unease it wasn't so bad. It wasn't. Not compared to the head on the stick.
They never lasted long.
Kokki were supposed to be an auspicious blessing but in time the Taiho became known as the king slayer as rarely did a king ever last more than a decade on the throne.
Qilin did not hate and were loath to kill but Xi Mobei unlike his other kin- even his northern twin- found it was easier to simply kill any king who proved dangerous to his own safety. If a king could not survive without protection, could not manage a kingdom, and most importantly remembered to hold their kokki’s leash they died. It was easier this way.
Survival required doing whatever it takes and if he’s not up for being skewered by an icicle in the next few minutes he might as well do something he absolutely isn’t up for. He’s terrible with names but he supposes if he wants it can be changed later. Besides, who has time to work out a good name when they’re clearly getting ready to stab him in the neck. “Hey, Mobei-Jun, before you go any further I accept and as your king I order you not to kill me.”
The ice forming on the ground and the man’s entire being froze as the words rang in the air like a bell. They looked dumbstruck before nodding, “For today I will not kill you.”
God, this some fey legal court nonsense right here. Rolling his eyes he shook his head crossed his arms, “By my divine order as king you Mobei-Jun are not to kill me at any time in the future or facilitate circumstances that would cause my death, and at any point you are to prevent my death from happening in the first place. Got it?” For now that should cover most bases.
The newly named Mobei-Jun nodded with a growl. “For the record I wasn’t even planning to kill you in the first place.”
“Sure, that’s why your were going to put an icicle in my chest and then stab me with the knife in your life pocket that you think I don’t know about.”
They hummed, “So you are intelligent.”
“Look, I know that you literally kill any king not smart enough to restrict your movements. I’ve done my homework.”
“The wisdom of clairvoyance doesn’t mean you know me but I will give credit where due. You have now lasted longer than my last king. Come, I wish to discuss your concerns in a more suitable environment.” The large ice wolf from before stood before them and bowed down as Mobei-Jun gestured to the back, “Well?”
“Right, yes,” nervously he hopped atop the youma as Mobei-Jun sat behind him face mostly frosty and indifferent.
It’s strange. Shang Qinghua came knowing he was supposed to meet someone. Knowing this was important and had to happen and yet seeing Xi Mobei in person was very… unsettling.
As the youma’s gate sprinted across the earth and he was forced to grip very tightly to Mobei-Jun’s frame, “Um about the name- if you don’t like it-“
“Its fine. I like it.”
You have shit taste in names.
He almost says it. Almost.
But he decides its best to hold his tongue. Xi Mobei is the kind of guy who’s had so many titles thrown at him that in the end each is the same as the last. It almost makes Shang Qinghua feel bad for the guy. Almost.
Because no matter what the lingering thought remains that the man absolutely was going to kill him if he hadn’t have had the nerve to just say shit.
But seriously though, universe, why him?
I’m just a shitty writer with vague policy understanding. How the hell am I supposed to do jack for this murder horse-man?
Or least when he dies it will be at the hands of someone really really hot and not food poisoning or some other equally lame death.
He's going to start by aiming to last a whole month before Mobei-Jun kills him. That should be a decent time frame.
There’s a low growl from the wolf youma they are riding on and he decides a month is a little ambitious.
How about we start at a week and see where we go.
Haha….
Him, a king? It’s absurd. Ridiculous. He can’t do anything.
He remembers the finale he constructed and how it ended and the rivers of blood that would spill. It was different when it was just a story. It was different when Cucumber Bro is just an angry man yelling in his comments.
Tianlang-jun… if he becomes free he’ll use his power to destroy everything without thinking.
He shakes his head, no, no, there’s time. He has plenty. Shen Yuan doesn’t remember anything and doesn’t seem to have access to any of his powers.
Living in Hourai has to have had a negative effect on him. The prison was made to keep out everything but Qilin as it rejects all impurities. With how human Cucumber Bro is and how long he's been living in China man has gotta left him filthy. It should buy time. It should.
“So um, where exactly are we heading anyway?”
“To see my current Regent Luo Binghe. He was already looking for you so this is all very convient on my part.”
He blanches. Of fucking course it is!