Chapter Text
Shen Jiu kept silent even as blow upon blow rained down upon him. He kept his hands over his face and his head to at least attempt some form of protection from the flurry of strikes, and he kept his mouth clenched tightly shut. He couldn’t give his assailants the satisfaction of hearing him cry out. Couldn’t let them revel in his suffering. He refused to.
His eyes were squeezed shut, trying to hold back the tears threatening to spill out onto his face. Shen Jiu grit his teeth. He was determined that these bullies not see a single hint of weakness from him even as he lay curled up in a ball, caked with mud, completely at their mercy.
All of this for a single stolen bun.
Shen Jiu had just barely stuffed it into his mouth and swallowed it, practically choking, when one of the group he’d snuck it from saw him and called the others into a chase. Between how long he’d gone without food, and how much smaller he was, it was only a matter of time before they caught up to give him a thrashing.
All around him they jeered and taunted.
“Little brat!”
“How dare you touch our food with your dirty hands!”
“You have some nerve, stealing from those that are superior to you!”
Superior to me? In what way? In the eyes of the common folks of this town, we are all cut from the same filthy cloth. How can you go around talking about being superior to others?
This is what Shen Jiu would have had no qualms about saying if he could talk right now, but as it was, he dared not open his mouth in fear that a whimper or a sob might escape. No, he’d not give them the gratification. He’d endure his pain in silence as he always did.
The beating came to an abrupt stop.
Those around him did not leave but a strange silence fell over them all. After a few apprehensive seconds, Shen Jiu dared to pull his hands away from his face and narrowly open one eye.
The ringleader of the group was looking away from Shen Jiu, his wrist held in an iron grip.
A calm voice cut clearly through the air, “Third brother, are we not like family? Can you not spare a single morsel for your younger sibling?”
Qi-ge!
“He… he stole from us!” One of the others chimed in.
“I apologize on Xiao Jiu’s behalf, then.” The words were endlessly polite and the smile remained on his face, but Yue Qi’s grip on the ringleader did not relent.
Shen Jiu uncurled himself from his position on the ground. He still turned away to wipe his grubby face on his sleeve, but stopped when he realized he was only making it grubbier.
Third Brother sneered, “Who do you think you are, that you can get away with defending this little brat--”
Yue Qi made an effortless motion and twisted Third Brother’s wrist so that the other was forced to kneel on the ground, his face twisting in pain. Shen Jiu couldn’t help but let his lips curl upward at least a little at the sight. The other two that had joined in for the beating seemed like they wanted to do or say something, but their ringleader shook his head at them.
That hand that Yue Qi gripped twisted another margin further.
“Fine, fine!” came Third Brother’s strained voice. “We’ll… we’ll ignore it this time!”
Wordlessly, Yue Qi released him. The whole group ran off like dogs scattered by the swing of a broom.
Shen Jiu was lifted up from the ground and set back upright on his feet like he weighed nothing at all… where on earth had Yue Qi gotten this strength from?
“Is Xiao Jiu alright?”
Indignant, “I’m fine.” He swatted away the hand that moved with concern toward his swollen, surely darkening eye.
Yue Qi let out one of those soft, unjudging laughs of his. He brushed some of the dirt off of Shen Jiu’s clothing to little effect. “Xiao Jiu is so strong.”
Shen Jiu shook his head and tried to give a sound scolding. “What were you saying, ‘like family’? They’d let us starve to death without a second thought. And now that you defended me, you’ll--”
He let out a sharp cry of surprise as he was hoisted into Yue Qi’s arms.
Shen Jiu’s limbs were too sore from the beating session to protest or even wriggle around very much as he was carried off…
-----
Yue Qingyuan had sighed when he saw that Shen Qingqiu was passed out at his writing-desk… again.
He was trying so, so hard to prove himself.
But it always worried the Sect Master when he did this. He worried that Shen Qingqiu would put himself in harm’s way without sufficient preparation, worried that he would falter in his exhaustion and end up hurt, or worse.
Yue Qingyuan gathered the unconscious Shen Qingqiu into his arms to put him to bed. Just as he was pulling up the covers, Shen Qingqiu shifted and the corners of his lips tugged upwards into an uncharacteristically soft smile.
“Qi… ge...”
At first frozen in place, Yue Qingyuan could not resist his own urge to smile, and then he finished tucking his shidi into bed.
It was much, much too hard to leave.
“Let him sleep,” Yue Qingyuan told the disciples outside of the bamboo house.
Let us both dream just a while longer.