Chapter Text
“Care to try again, Shishu?”
Liu Qingge glares up at the demon from his position flat on the ground, Zheng Yang pressed lightly to his throat. His own sword lies somewhere in the grass a few feet away. He makes no move to call it to him, instead huffing irritably, “If that offer was at all sincere, you would have gotten off of me by now.”
Luo Binghe smiles toothily and props himself up on his elbows. Face dangerously close to Liu Qingge’s—enough to count every eyelash if he wanted. He doesn’t. It would only be a frivolous waste of time. “Aw, but you look so pretty beneath me like this, Shishu! So disheveled and sweaty,” He lowers his voice into a purr, “Almost as if we were doing something other than sparring…”
“Shameless!” Liu Qingge sputters, turning away to hide his face as he feels it flush against his will.
“Boys! The bath water is going to go cold if you two mess around for much longer!”
“Coming, Shizun!” Luo Binghe calls, scrambling to climb off of his martial uncle and smacking Liu Qingge in the face with his untamed curls in the process.
The half-demon flashes him another flirtatious grin and skips in the direction of the Bamboo House as Liu Qingge peels himself off of the grass and resheathes Cheng Luan. Then he makes a token effort to beat Luo Binghe into the cottage.
He loses of course, the bastard had a head start, but the half-exasperated and half-fond look Shen Qingqiu gives them from his seat by the window as Luo Binghe trips him over the threshold with an underhanded ankle-hook is almost worth it.
“Settle down,” he says, shaking his head as Liu Qingge drags Luo Binghe to the floor with him and puts the snickering demon in a headlock. “It’s far too late in the evening for these kinds of antics.”
“But Shizuuuun,” the demon whines, going limp in Liu Qingge’s grasp in an attempt to appear utterly guileless. “He’s the one with his arm around my throat.”
“Go take your baths,” Shen Qingqiu chides, doing a poor job of disguising the laughter in his voice as he turns back to his book.
Luo Binghe finally twists himself out of the headlock with a frankly insulting ease, snatching his shishu’s hand and interlocking their fingers. Having learned from experience just how hard it is to wrest oneself free from the demon’s iron grip, Liu Qingge begrudgingly allows this to happen.
A devilish smirk creeps across Luo Binghe’s face at his compliancy, and Liu Qingge immediately gets a bad feeling about whatever is going to come out of the man’s mouth next. “Taking two baths is so wasteful though…Shizun, don’t you think we should just share one?”
Shen Qingqiu’s face is replaced with his fan as he coughs inelegantly behind it, clearly caught very off guard. Liu Qingge doesn’t feel any better. There’s a directionless buzzing in his ears and his cheeks burn so hotly it feels as though they might melt right off his face entirely.
“I’m not hearing a no,” Luo Binghe outright croons.
“Th—that’s a question for Liu Qingge, not me,” Shen Qingqiu hastily deflects from behind his flimsy paper shield.
“Of course,” his disciple says easily, turning to Liu Qingge. “What do you say, Shishu? Would you like some help with your hair?”
Liu Qingge looks at him. At the demon’s dark eyes glittering with unconcealed amusement. The softness of his lips. His cocky grin and the contrastingly gentle set of his brows. Then he stares down at the floor and nods, unable to force any words out in the face of it all.
“Excellent,” Luo Binghe purrs, the low tone of the man’s voice sending a prickle of something unidentifiable up Liu Qingge’s spine. “We’ll be back soon, Shizun. I’ll comb out your hair too.”
Shen Qingqiu makes a quiet sound of acquiescence, lowering his fan just enough for Liu Qingge to lock wide-eyed gazes with his shixiong before Luo Binghe pulls him down the hall.
It’s been three weeks since Shen Qingqiu came back to life. Surprisingly, the destruction of Xin Mo has not been the biggest thing to occur since then.
He’d been right—the little Luo Binghe from the dreamscape was an extracted segment of his grown disciple’s soul. A part of him seized and held hostage, likely from the very moment he picked the weapon from the Abyss. Unaware of their true origin, the little shadow had been left to subsist on the outflow of Binghe’s negative emotions.
As for the larger shadow, Shen Qingqiu couldn’t say. Nor did he particularly care to. Whether it was a slice of consciousness left behind from a previous owner, or some extension of the sword itself, he was just glad it was gone.
After Binghe’s confession, Shen Qingqiu had gotten back in touch with Airplane and with the help of the man’s unexpectedly useful contact list—though he would only admit to his fellow transmigrator that it was helpful under extreme duress—recruited an exorcist to cleanse the blade and return the fragment of Luo Binghe’s soul to him.
Watching as his disciple accepted the iteration of his past self with a hug was actually quite therapeutic for the both of them, and presumably for Liu Qingge as well, though the emotionally constipated tsundere didn’t say bother to say as much.
When all was said and done, they vigorously salted the sword’s remains and chucked them into the nearest volcano. Returning periodically to ensure that no demonic energy was roiling in the depths of the lava. So far everything has been above board.
Then came the hard part—the discussion of everyone’s feelings.
Saying the Bai Zhan War God is inexperienced in the realm of emotions is really an understatement—but even Shen Qingqiu never expected his shidi to run off immediately after Luo Binghe confessed to them both!
By the time they finally managed to track him down, poor Binghe was on the verge of a breakdown, and it took a truly substantial amount of effort on his own part to get them to just communicate and realize that they both felt the same way.
When asked why he had—quite literally—jumped out of the third story window of the palace and sprinted off into the forest beyond, Liu Qingge’s only answer was that he had gotten overwhelmed.
While that is, in fact, an extremely valid reaction to the Emperor of the Demon Realm confessing his love to you and your martial brother, running away from the situation isn’t exactly the best way to deal with it.
And yes, Shen Qingqiu is well aware of how hypocritical such a statement makes him sound! He’s working on his own reactions to things of a similar nature as well!
Luckily all of that is over and done with, and the three of them are…happy?
It’s strange to think of with all their history. All the broken promises and lies Shen Qingqiu has been responsible for. The years of turmoil that occurred while he was…absent.
Speaking of which, it’s weird to have a physical body again. He keeps forgetting about the fact that he takes up space. Constantly bashing his shoulders, knees, and elbows against things. Corporeality, once greatly desired, has now become somewhat confining.
Shen Qingqiu contemplates all of these things as he sits in the main bedroom of the cottage, meticulously aligning haircare supplies in front of the vanity.
Luo Binghe barges in just as he finishes, dragging a grumbling Liu-shidi behind him. Both of the men have suspicious red marks along the sides of their necks, and Liu Qingge seems to be trying to sink into the collar of his fresh robes like a particularly embarrassed turtle.
Shen Qingqiu throws away whatever might remain of his dignity and makes grabby hands at his disciple; who understands immediately—bless him—and obligingly shepherds Liu Qingge onto the cushion in front of the mirror.
“Will a braid do for tonight, Shidi?” Shen Qingqiu selects a lovely ivory comb and a few bottles of hair oil as Binghe settles on the seat behind him. Liu Qingge eyes the tools mistrustfully but murmurs his assent.
Shen Qingqiu begins running the comb through the other man’s hair, humming as he works out the knots obtained from their tussle in the yard.
“Pass the bottle of camellia oil?” Binghe thanks him as Shen Qingqiu complies and then begins sifting his own fingers through his shizun’s partially dried hair. He’d taken his own bath while they were sparring by sunset. “What song is that, Shizun?”
“Hm? Oh, it’s just something from my hometown,” Shen Qingqiu lies through his teeth, pinning up sections of Liu Qingge’s hair so as to better confront the tangles beneath. He is in fact, humming a passable rendition of “I Want It That Way”, but there is simply no easy way to explain that to either of them.
“It’s pretty,” Binghe says, “Could you play it for us later?”
It takes some serious restraint for Shen Qingqiu not to laugh out loud at the idea of playing Backstreet Boys on the guqin—that and many years of a carefully cultivated blank-slate resting face.
“I could…try?” he offers, separating Liu Qingge’s hair into three parts and swiftly beginning to braid them.
Liu Qingge says something so quietly, Shen Qingqiu can’t even make it out with his advanced hearing. “What was that, Shidi?”
“It sounds nice when you sing,” he snaps without any true heat behind the words.
Shen Qingqiu blinks. What an unexpected compliment! In his old world, his Meimei used to actively deride his singing voice; her most favored comparisons for it being screaming goats, broken blenders, and considerably clogged garbage disposals. He supposes it must be due to the original good’s vocal chords, though he doubts the scum villain ever deigned to sing.
“It’s true,” Luo Binghe says into his ear, making him shiver. “You sound lovely, Shizun.”
He turns his head to glance at the demon currently resting his head on his shoulder, arms sneaking around his waist now that he’s finished styling Shen Qingqiu’s hair into a braid as well.
“Time for bed!” Luo Binghe chirps. Without waiting for an answer, he swings Shen Qingqiu up in his arms and bridal-carries his squawking shizun to the bed.
“Unruly,” Shen Qingqiu accuses as soon as he’s deposited upon it, lightly rapping the younger man on the head with his fan.
Luo Binghe makes no attempt to refute his claims, instead gently plucking the object out of his hand and setting it on the bedside table as he crawls over to join him on the sheets. He presses a fleeting kiss to the pulse point of his wrist and gives him a bright, beaming smile. Without breaking eye contact he calls, “Shishu, come join us.”
Shen Qingqiu hears his shidi get up from the floor, but is too preoccupied with Binghe’s sudden descent on his mouth to pay further attention to his approach. He feels the slight bowing of the mattress as it accommodates a third person’s weight and lets the impromptu make-out session carry on for a few more seconds before hurriedly pushing Binghe away in favor of a fresh lungful of oxygen.
He opens his eyes and has to suck in another breath at the sight of a kiss-rumpled Luo Binghe. Swollen lips and starry eyes. Looking at Shen Qingqiu as though he’s one of the world’s greatest wonders. And behind him, Liu Qingge. A soft expression on his face, despite the hard set of his eyebrows.
“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” Shen Qingqiu asks breathlessly, gesturing at his shidi with the hand that isn’t currently tangled up in Binghe’s curls.
“Shizun is right as always,” Luo Binghe dips his head and turns teasingly towards his martial uncle at the end of the bed. “Would Shishu like a ki—mmph!”
They’re both caught off guard when Liu Qingge moves first. Tackling Luo Binghe and pressing him backwards into the mattress with a competitive gleam in his eye. Legs squeezing around the half-demon’s waist and hands pressed tightly against the back of his head.
A lot more biting is involved in this kissing spell. Presumably because Liu Qingge has yet to instruct Binghe against—oh no, never mind. He’s also participating in the biting.
Oh dear, Shen Qingqiu thinks with mild alarm, have I managed to fall in love with two terrible kissers?
“This round’s mine,” Liu Qingge declares authoritatively, licking the blood of his lips as he leans back in triumph.
Luo Binghe doesn’t answer, too busy staring up at his shishu with an adorably awestruck expression. Breathing hard with a hand pressed to his chest—in a move not unlike a delicate maiden’s after her first kiss.
My how the table have turned, Shen Qingqiu thinks amusedly, remembering the many trite and hackneyed plots of innocent soon-to-be wives he’d been forced to read through. Who knew the protagonist could look so bullyable?
Liu Qingge notices his shixiong’s line of sight and frowns, placing both hands on the sides of the other man’s face and leaning in. He hovers there for a moment, ostensibly waiting for permission.
Shen Qingqiu leans in and gives it to him.
Oh wow, he takes it back—Liu-shidi is an excellent kisser.
Tragically, he doesn’t get a lot of time to explore this revelation, because twenty seconds in, Binghe is already prying them apart and claiming his shizun’s lips for his own.
Well, they have a lot of time set aside for them now that they’re finally back where they belong. He leans into Luo Binghe as Liu Qingge latches onto the exposed skin of his neck, smiling against his disciple’s mouth. This, right here, is more than enough.
There’s a lot of decisions Shen Qingqiu regrets since transmigrating into Proud Immortal Demon Way, but he wouldn’t change any of this for the world.