Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Shen Yuan has never had a pet, but he likes to think that if he did, he would have a dog.

This, at least, is the conclusion Shen Yuan has come to after an utterly fruitless half-hour of searching for his sister’s pet cat in the surrounding wilderness of the Shen family’s estate.

After all, you can teach a dog to come to you when you call for it. How Shen Yuan is supposed to find a cat that doesn’t even acknowledge his existence half the time and could be anywhere on the entire mountain by now, is beyond him, really.

The Shen estate is situated on an incredibly impressive mountain that the family has owned for generations, the peak apparently having some sort of great historical significance that Shen Yuan has never cared enough to look into himself. To him, the mountain is simply his childhood home, and a great many of his earliest memories were of playing among the bamboo groves with his elder brothers.

His brothers were both now well into adulthood with homes and families of their own. Shen Yuan himself was in his second year of college and had initially moved into an apartment in the city for a more convenient commute. His first year of living alone had gone without issue, Shen Yuan being the type to live comfortably in solitude. However, three months ago, Shen Yuan had something of an… accident.

If one would call being rushed to the hospital at four in the morning in critical condition as a result of food poisoning, an accident, that is.

Shen Yuan would be the first to admit that his constitution is and has always been an absolute crapshoot, but that doesn’t mean he’s not still completely embarrassed by the whole thing. His little sister had commended his foresight to even call an ambulance, which really said all you needed to know about her faith in Shen Yuan’s intelligence and sense of self-preservation.

Evidently, his parents had shared her opinion, as they had insisted on Shen Yuan moving back into the manor and taking his courses online for the time being. Both of Shen Yuan’s parents are almost perpetually away on business trips, but apparently they trusted a high school girl and the hired help with Shen Yuan’s care more than they trusted Shen Yuan himself.

You almost die from eating expired food once, and suddenly everyone acts like you’re some type of invalid.

But anyway, the damn cat. Shen Yuan’s sister had told him that the strictly indoors cat had managed to escape outside as she was getting ready to leave for school, and Shen Yuan had acquiesced to her request for him to look for it while she was away.

Of course the cat couldn’t have chosen to play in the bamboo groves where it might actually be easy to spot a furry little animal, Shen Yuan thinks bitterly as he trudges through the more dense woods further away from the house. He’s just about to give up and leave the cat to make its own way back home, when he hears a muffled thumping noise coming from the direction he recognizes the old well house to be in.

Shen Yuan had truthfully almost forgotten about the existence of the well house, as he had been forbidden from entering it as a child and had always found the old wooden building to be rather creepy. Seeing that its door is slightly ajar and the thumping sound is now accompanied by what sounds like frantic scratching, a burst of relief and accomplishment sends Shen Yuan hurrying inside, confident that he has found his sister’s wayward pet.

Clearly, the well house had been built before the invention of electricity, because it’s completely dark inside, and Shen Yuan nearly trips down the stairs leading to the wooden well. Once he’s standing in front of it, however, he notices the thumping and scratching noises are actually coming from within the boarded up well.

“Now how did you get in there?” Shen Yuan grumbles to himself, leaning forward to see if the cover is loose anywhere, when suddenly something brushes up against his leg, and the noise that leaves his mouth makes him very glad that he’s out here by himself.

As it turns out, that ‘something’ is the very thing he’s been looking all morning for.

The little asshole has the audacity to meow cutely up at him, and Shen Yuan quickly scoops the cat up into his arms with a few chiding words before it starts to feel overly adventurous again.

He’s just turned his back to the well when there is a great cracking noise, a gust of chill air, and the cat is leaping out of Shen Yuan’s arms as something is yanking him back.

Shen Yuan expects to hit the floor, and he falls for a few seconds longer before he realizes that he’s actually been pulled down the well. He descends at a breakneck speed for one harrowing moment before everything around him seems to slow, and the fall turns into something more of a float. There’s a dreamy, purplish glow illuminating the void around him, and it allows him to see multiple pairs of slender arms the color of alabaster wrapped tightly around his body.

“What power,” the slightly distorted voice of a woman croons in his ear, “my strength, my flesh, it returns to me.”

The arms around Shen Yuan flip him around, and he is met with the ghastly face of a woman with long black hair that flows out behind her. She’s completely nude, but getting an eyeful is positively the last thing on Shen Yuan’s mind right now, as the woman has three pairs of arms and her lower half is a long skeletal frame of what appears to be a giant centipede. Just as she had stated, Shen Yuan can see cartilage and skin begin to form around the bone.

“You have it, don’t you, boy? Give it to me,” she simpers, then leans in to lick a stripe along Shen Yuan’s jaw.

No, no, none of that! Shen Yuan really doesn’t have these sort of tastes!

With a shout, Shen Yuan thrusts an arm out between them, intending to push the centipede woman away. What he isn’t expecting, however, is for a blinding light to burst out of his palm at the action, blasting the creature off of him with such force that it severs one of her arms completely.

“I won’t lose it!” The centipede woman cries out as she falls away into the blackness. “The Jewel of Four Souls...”

Shen Yuan watches her figure disappear, his heart slamming against the confines of his chest. He remains floating there in that inscrutable place in-between for a few moments longer before he is safely deposited at the bottom of the dry well. He allows his body to slump over until he’s on his hands and knees, and shakily tries to regulate his erratic breathing.

Surely… Surely that had to have been some sort of dream or illusion. Nevermind that there’s a severed arm laying only a couple of feet away from him and sunlight is now pouring in from the top of well when he logically should still be within the well house.

It doesn’t make any sense, so he’s not going to strain himself thinking any further about it; throwing himself into a panic won’t improve anything. Remove himself from the situation, then have a meltdown. Shen Yuan is practically the grandmaster of compartmentalization.

Adjusting his glasses, Shen Yuan stands on legs that absolutely do not wobble, and peers up at the mouth of the well. It’s rather deep, but Shen Yuan sees no other method of escape other than climbing out, as he’s not willing to try calling out for help lest he draw that centipede woman back to him.

Rather conveniently, the inner walls of the well are lined with thick vines that Shen Yuan takes a moment to tug on to test their durability. Whether or not the ivy will actually be able to support Shen Yuan’s bodyweight for the time it takes for him to reach the top is a bit of a toss-up, though. He’s already miraculously fallen down the well once without braining himself, so he’ll just have to hope his luck continues to hold out.

The climb up is relatively uneventful, but by the time Shen Yuan has surfaced, he’s thoroughly cursed out his scrawny arms and mediocre physicality. He takes a moment to regain his breath, then steels himself to face his surroundings.

The sight that greets him is what he had already noticed from the bottom of the well, yet it does precious little to lessen his confusion.

The well house is gone.

The well house is gone, but he is still unmistakably on his family’s mountain, that is for certain. The foliage appears to be a bit denser, but otherwise the landscape is unchanged.

Shen Yuan slides his legs over the edge of the well, then lets his feet drop to the grass, standing up and feeling more lost than he ever has before.

He’s suddenly struck with the terrifying notion that the well house might not be the only thing to have vanished, and he hurriedly walks towards the direction he knows the house to be in. This is made easy by the presence of a particularly old and large tree Shen Yuan can see peeking out over the forest’s canopy, towering well above the other trees. As a child, Shen Yuan often used the tree as a landmark to find his way home, and he can’t help the relief he feels at seeing it now.

Moving through the bushes, Shen Yuan hurriedly rushes to the tree, only to nearly jump out of his skin at the sight of another person already at its base.

Or, well, bound to its base is more like it.

“Hello...?” Shen Yuan calls out carelessly, too bewildered by the scene before him to think any better of it.

The figure appears to be a young man, tall and imposing, with a mass of dark hair that cascades magnificently down his back. He’s wearing strange, ancient-looking clothing, all black in color, with a window of skin that exposes the expanse of his chest and good god, is that a sword impaled through his left breast?

Shen Yuan hesitantly climbs up onto the tree’s roots to get a closer look, the gnarled roots extending from the ground up to securely wrap the man’s lower half to the trunk of the tree.

The sword is rather ornate, and very much stabbed through the stranger’s chest. His left hand is held up to grip the sword’s edge, as if locked in an aborted gesture to stop it from delving deeper, and his nails are sharp and pointed like claws.

Shuddering, Shen Yuan slowly draws his gaze away and up towards the man’s face, then immediately stills.

Beautiful. Really beautiful. Too beautiful! Hello? What is this!? Shen Yuan is far from the type to go around calling other men things like ‘beautiful’, that’s how utterly exceptional this person’s appearance is! Why is the world’s most gorgeous man pinned to a tree with a freaking sword like some kind of warped sleeping beauty!? What a waste! And what the hell is on top of his—

Oh.

Oh. Huh. That’s… not normal.

Ears. Dog ears. Pointed, but too thick and fluffy to belong to a cat. They’re black, perfectly blending in with his hair, but the inner section is a pure white with a bit of brown at the edges, like a shiba’s.

Between the strange man’s clothes, the sword embedded into his chest, and his, well, everything, it’s no wonder Shen Yuan overlooked such a (relatively) small feature, but now that he has, he can’t seem to take his eyes off of them.

He kind of wants to…

His hands reach up and sink into a sun-warmed softness, his fingers curling around the pointed ear flaps and stroking up and down a few times with his thumbs.

...touch them.

Shen Yuan is very seriously beginning to reconsider the whole ‘meltdown later’ thing.

“What are you doing there!?” A voice shouts from behind him, and Shen Yuan braces himself against the man’s chest as several arrows are sent flying into trunk of the tree, perfectly surrounding the both of them, intending to intimidate rather than seize.

“This land is forbidden! Who are you!?” Another voice calls out.

Shen Yuan looks over his shoulder meekly, not unlike a child caught doing something he shouldn’t, and is confronted with a small group of adolescents, armed with bows and swords and donning clothes similarly ancient in fashion.

❖

“Tying me up is a bit much, don’t you think?” Shen Yuan says with more calmness than he feels from his spot on the floor, hands tied with some strange cable at the wrists and legs tied at his ankles.

He’s been brought inside a rather impressive building, truly something straight out of a film, but he doesn’t really have it in him to admire the backdrop when he can’t help but notice that this grand building is standing exactly where the Shen manor is supposed to be.

“I wager he’s some sort of spy. What else would he be doing in that beast Luo Binghe’s forest?” One of his young captors suggests, like Shen Yuan isn’t sitting right in front of them.

“You mean he’s a demon? One of those shape-shifting fox spirits? He’s got that kind of face…” Another teenager chimes in.

“What’s on his face? Do you think we should have taken those?”

“No, I’ve seen something similar before. They’re slates of glass worn over the eyes to improve poor eyesight. I think they’re rather rare?”

“What kind of demon has poor eyesight?”

“Oh, he’s definitely a demon, they have no sense of modesty. Just look at his strange clothes! They’re so… form-fitting.”

Hey now, there’s nothing strange about Shen Yuan’s clothes! This is one of his favorite sweaters! Sure, he’s wearing slim-fit jeans, but just because he’s not in traditional robes that flow about and go down to his ankles doesn’t mean that what he’s got on is particularly scandalous! And if anyone tries to touch his glasses, he swears he’s going to start biting people.

“That’s quite enough, let me have a look at him,” a pacifying, masculine voice calls out.

The man who approaches looks to be in his late-twenties to mid-thirties, and has a faultless, refreshing appearance and noble eyes. Perhaps if Shen Yuan hadn’t encountered that absurdly handsome man back in the forest not even thirty minutes ago, he would be a little more impressed with the guy, but as things are, he’s really more irritated than anything else. Please, enough already; no more weirdos, he just wants to go home!

The children bow out at the man’s appearance with quiet, respectful murmurs of “Peak Lord,” and “Master Yue.”

‘Master Yue’ takes a few steps closer and crouches down to peer at Shen Yuan, but something he sees makes his expression flicker before steeling subtly.

“Could you… perhaps, make a more… intelligent expression?” He prompts, deftly grabbing Shen Yuan’s chin and tilting his face this way and that like Shen Yuan’s a goddamn vegetable in the produce aisle that he’s checking for blemishes or something.

Shen Yuan glares.

“Ah, that hateful expression does just as well,” the master says with a touch of wryness, releasing Shen Yuan’s chin.

“You are certainly his image though, the late Shen Qingqiu,” the man concludes. He raises his head, then speaks louder, addressing the disciples. “Fear not, this man is no demon. Please do untie him, I believe I would like to speak with our guest in private.”

❖

“This Yue Qingyuan apologizes for your rough treatment. Dear guest, what may I call you?” Yue Qingyuan says cordially once they’ve settled into his rooms.

Shen Yuan warily eyes the cup of tea set out before him, rubbing at his sore wrists. He has half a mind to lie, but he can’t deny that Yue Qingyuan has been the most benign encounter he’s had so far in this strange world, and is currently his best bet to shedding some light on the situation. “...Shen Yuan. Where am I?”

“Shen, hm?” Yue Qingyuan hums, then, “Well, Shen Yuan, this is the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. I am the Peak Lord here, and the children who happened upon you are my disciples. Were you perhaps unaware that our cultivation sect was stationed here when you made your way up the mountain?”

“...Yes, I was unaware,” Shen Yuan replies, raising the cup of tea to his lips and taking a careful sip.

“I see,” is Yue Qingyuan’s measured response, scepticism clear in his tone. Shen Yuan averts his eyes and continues to drink his tea, if only so he can use the cup to cover his mouth.

Improbable as it may sound, Shen Yuan really had been totally unaware. A cultivation sect? Had he been transported into a work of fiction? If so, then why does the setting take place on an exact replica of his family’s mountain? Perhaps this was an alternate universe? Yue Qingyuan had said earlier that Shen Yuan resembled someone; is the person Yue Qingyuan had been referring to Shen Yuan’s alter ego of sorts?

“Who…” Shen Yuan ventures, “is Shen Qingqiu?”

Yue Qingyuan blinks, then levels Shen Yuan an unreadable look. “Shen Qingqiu was the Peak Lord here before me. He died nearly fifty years ago.”

Well, so much for his ‘alter ego’ idea. Furthermore, if Yue Qingyuan is able to identify the supposed likeness Shen Yuan shares with Shen Qingqiu, does that mean the man before him is actually well over fifty years old? A genuine immortal?

Yue Qingyuan seems as though he is about to continue, when muffled screaming and the sound of wood breaking can be heard from outside. When the noises only increase in their intensity, both men rise in confusion and make their way outside, Shen Yuan careful to stay behind Yue Qingyuan.

Which turns out to be a good decision, because an entire horse is nearly thrown on top of them the moment they step out into the courtyard.

“Peak Lord! It’s Mistress Centipede!” A harried-looking disciple rushes up to them.

Just as the young cultivator said, the very same demon that had pulled Shen Yuan down the well is now rampaging through the sect, tearing through buildings and tossing disciples and horses alike into the air as if frantically searching for something. Shen Yuan has an inkling as to what that ‘something’ may be, but he definitely doesn’t like it.

As if reading his mind, Mistress Centipede’s head snaps around and immediately locks eyes with Shen Yuan. She seizes up, then bodily flings herself in his direction, hurtling through the air. “Give it to me! The Jewel of Four Souls!”

“The jewel?” Yue Qingyuan startles, turning to Shen Yuan with wide eyes. “You have it?”

For the love of—! Him too!? “I have no idea what that even is!” Shen Yuan shouts, no longer caring to hide his hopeless frustration with the situation.

Yue Qingyuan forcefully grabs him by the arm and pulls him away just in time to dodge Mistress Centipede, and she goes flying into the building behind them, the structure partially collapsing on top of her.

“Our attacks aren’t working,” the disciple says with evident panic, “she’s invulnerable to our swords and arrows alike.”

“We’ll have to lead her to the Bone Eater’s Well in Luo Binghe’s forest and trap her there,” is Yue Qingyuan’s verdict, pushing Shen Yuan further behind him.

“The dry well back in the forest?” Shen Yuan asks hurriedly, already stepping away. It’s clear that it’s him that the demon wants, even if he still doesn’t exactly know why, so unless Shen Yuan is the one leading it away, he can’t see how they’re ever supposed to trap it.

“Wait!” Shouts Yue Qingyuan, seemingly catching on to what he wants to do, but Shen Yuan’s already tearing off towards the forest, putting his all into simply running as fast as he can.

Mistress Centipede lets out an ungodly screech and gives chase.

...Which had been the plan, but now that it’s been put into action, Shen Yuan is having second thoughts. What the hell is he doing!? He makes it to the well and then what!? He can’t fight that thing! Yue Qingyuan’s the actual cultivator here, so why has Shen Yuan volunteered himself as bait!?

After running at full speed for nearly the entire stretch, Shen Yuan’s legs finally threaten to buckle, and he falls to the ground when Mistress Centipede gains enough proximity to lunge at him again. He ducks, and the demon goes swooping over him. If nothing else, Shen Yuan is grateful that her body is apparently too long for her to easily redirect herself, especially when her target is so comparatively small in size.

Face in the dirt, Shen Yuan briefly considers playing dead.

“Is Shizun playing games?” Greets a deep, caustic voice from above him, clearly not belonging to the centipede woman. “I would think it beneath my esteemed master to trifle with such lowly demon scum.”

Shen Yuan lifts his head, and realizes that he’s back in front the old tree, and the one who spoke just now is none other than the strange, dog-eared man. It’s a shock to see him awake, his expression patently icy and callous, when he had appeared to be in an abiding, almost tranquil, slumber only an hour ago. The sword is still stuck fast into his chest, however, and he seems to only be able to move his head.

Curiously, there’s a faintly pulsing, blood red mark on his forehead now that Shen Yuan is fairly certain had not been there before.

“Who… are you?” Shen Yuan asks, a bit lamely.

“Surely Shizun has procured another sword by now?” The man continues, words dripping with false innocence before slipping back into a cruel sneer. “Send it flying into that wench’s heart like you did mine. Or have you come to retrieve the Xiu Ya? This disciple would be honored to lend you my assistance. However, I’m afraid I’m a bit incapacitated at the moment.”

My, he’s talkative. Sarcastic too.

Feeling rather put out, Shen Yuan gets back to his feet and begins to approach the tree. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not—“

“She’s back,” the man interrupts, and as soon as the words have left his mouth, Mistress Centipede descends upon them again. She reaches out to grab Shen Yuan, and he leaps back against the tree with a shout. Just as he’s wondering how he is to escape, the centipede woman is intercepted by Yue Qingyuan.

He’s saved! He doesn’t know what the hell took Yue Qingyuan so long, but he’s saved!

Shen Yuan deflates a bit with a relieved sigh as he watches Yue Qingyuan fire out multiple blasts of spiritual energy at the beast, then hears a derisive scoff from above him.

“How pathetic. Shen Qingqiu, have you grown so weak that you call for another man’s help to squash a bug?”

“Listen, you,” Shen Yuan hisses, climbing up onto the tree’s roots to stand face-to-face with the dog-eared man. “I’m not Shen Qingqiu, and I’m certainly not your Shizun!”

“You truly underestimate this Luo Binghe if you believe that a strange haircut and clothes would suffice in tricking me. Not when you smell—” he pauses, then dips his head, nose twitching.

Luo Binghe blinks. “...You’re not him.”

“As I’ve been saying, I am not Shen Qingqiu, I’m Shen Yuan, Yu-an.” Shen Yuan reiterates.

“Hn, my mistake,” Luo Binghe says dryly, looking away as if suddenly bored with the conversation. “That Shen Qingqiu looked far more intelligent, and he would never wear such unbecoming rags.”

This again! Before today, Shen Yuan had never been accused of looking unintelligent or being poorly dressed in his life! In fact, he was frequently told the opposite! If he’s been making stupid faces, it’s because the situation itself is stupid! And these are very expensive clothes!

There's a cry from Yue Qingyuan, and Shen Yuan turns his head just in time to see the man get picked up and flung several meters back. Mistress Centipede twists her body, then grabs hold of Shen Yuan’s waist with her five remaining arms; in turn, Shen Yuan grabs hold of Luo Binghe.

“I’ll devour you whole!” Mistress Centipede shrills, her face splitting open and revealing her terrible maw of sharp teeth and even sharper incisors. “The Sacred Jewel and all!”

“Give it a rest!” Shen Yuan shouts, letting go of Luo Binghe’s robes to push blindly in the centipede woman’s direction. Like the scene in the well, another flash of light bursts out of Shen Yuan’s palm, and this time even more of Mistress Centipede’s arms are torn from her torso.

Shen Yuan lands harshly on the ground, and is given just enough time to wonder how he had done such a thing a second time, before Mistress Centipede tosses him back up into the air and sinks her jaws into the side of his abdomen.

His mouth falls opens in a silent scream as he feels his flesh being ripped into, and he is flung to the forest floor once again.

“The jewel!” Shen Yuan hears Yue Qingyuan call out from somewhere nearby. “It was inside of him!?”

Yes, Shen Yuan is just fine, thank you for your overwhelming concern!

Shen Yuan grits his teeth through the pain and blearily opens his eyes, and in front of him lies a pink, marble-sized jewel, speckled with his own blood.

“I knew,” Mistress Centipede’s face contorts with sickly delight, “I knew you were hiding it.”

Shen Yuan tremulously attempts to drag himself into a sitting position, but the centipede woman’s lower half swiftly twines itself around his torso and up the length of the great tree. Her body constricts, pulling him inwards until he slams against the tree, and by extension, Luo Binghe.

Shen Yuan is pushed into Luo Binghe’s immobile form, and the side of his face is forcefully shoved into Luo Binghe’s, erm, ample pectoral muscles.

“My, if it isn’t Luo Binghe, the sealed half-demon.” Mistress Centipede pauses, and Shen Yuan is shocked to hear her actually acknowledge something other than that stupid rock for once. “How quaint, I had heard tales of some whelp disguising himself as a human to sneak into the mountain’s cultivation sect and steal the Sacred Jewel, only to be struck down the day the jewel disappeared from this world. It appears that they were more than mere rumors after all.”

Shen Yuan strenuously pulls himself back just enough to peek up at Luo Binghe, and the look he sees on the other man’s face is cold enough to freeze hell over. Mistress Centipede had called Luo Binghe a ‘half-demon,’ and Shen Yuan admittedly feels a bit slow for not coming to the conclusion himself.

“Nothing to say, hm? That’s quite the spell you’re under, so I’m afraid you’ll just have to lie there and watch,” the centipede woman laughs, then draws herself away, ducking her face down to the grass. Shen Yuan watches with an instinctive sense of dread as her tongue extends and wraps itself around the jewel.

Pushed up against him as he is, Shen Yuan can actually feel when Luo Binghe begins to growl.

Mistress Centipede throws her head back and swallows the jewel whole, its path down her gullet distinct due to its size. Almost immediately, her severed arms lying in the grass begin to twitch and pick themselves up, reconnecting to her torso seamlessly. The skin of her forehead begins to peel, then cracks right down the center.

With a piercing screech, the centipede woman sheds her human skin all at once, taking on a more raw, monstrous appearance. Her eyes seem to bulge out of their sockets, and her long tongue swishes about in the air, her expression as rapturous as it is grotesque.

“It’s mine, it’s all mine!” Mistress Centipede moans, her body crushing Shen Yuan against Luo Binghe and the tree with a newly fortified strength.

If this was how Shen Yuan was going to die, he sorely regrets not just letting the food poisoning take him!

“...The sword,” Luo Binghe says quietly, but cutting through Shen Yuan’s panicked thoughts all the same. “Can you pull it out?”

“What…?” Shen Yuan looks up at Luo Binghe, then over to the blade pierced through the half-demon’s breast.

Shen Yuan is already beginning to free a hand to reach towards the sword’s hilt when Yue Qingyuan interjects with a frantic, “You mustn’t! The Xiu Ya is what is keeping the spell on Luo Binghe! You must not set him free!”

Luo Binghe barks out a bitter laugh. “Yue Qingyuan, is this Luo Binghe so horrible that you would rather have everyone on Cang Qiong Mountain be devoured by Mistress Centipede than set me free?”

When this earns no response from Yue Qingyuan, Luo Binghe looks back down at Shen Yuan with a startling intensity. “Well? Do you wish to die here with me?”

Shen Yuan most certainly does not.

Effectively galvanized, Shen Yuan extends his right hand, then firmly wraps his fingers around the Xiu Ya’s hilt. It’s a oddly familiar sensation, though Shen Yuan knows he’s never held a sword before.

For a moment, Shen Yuan thinks he can feel Luo Binghe’s pulse travel through the blade and beat directly into his own chest. He pulls, and the blade slides free with absurd ease; no obstruction, no bloody spray, as if Luo Binghe’s thoracic cavity were merely the Xiu Ya’s custom sheath.

There’s a pause where everyone seems to be struck dumb by the display, but Luo Binghe is the first to recover when he throws his head back and laughs, the sound sinister and not at all reassuring. Luo Binghe curls his arms, then bodily thrusts out, not only snapping the tree roots holding him in place, but dislodging the centipede woman’s body and sending Shen Yuan and the Xiu Ya flying.

Luo Binghe lands in front of Mistress Centipede in a bestial crouch, cool and arrogant.

“Child!” The centipede woman shrieks, immediately rushing him.

Luo Binghe shifts, readying a clawed hand, and meets Mistress Centipede head-on, running through her with a single stroke. He lands back on the ground with a tremendous thud, and the rent chunks of flesh fall all around him.

“Unsightly,” Luo Binghe mutters, flicking blood off of his talons.

Shen Yuan gapes from his spot on the floor.

What the hell!? He’s that strong!? He made dealing with the centipede demon look like a complete joke just now! Surely this is protagonist-levels of OP! The story’s hero!

Shen Yuan catches movement in his peripheral vision, jerking him out of his thoughts, and he physically recoils when he sees that the cleaved flesh of Mistress Centipede is still moving. “You’re kidding, it’s still alive?”

Yue Qingyuan is suddenly beside him, urging, “Are you able to see a place where the flesh glows? Unless the Sacred Jewel is removed from her body, she will continue to resurrect herself.”

Shen Yuan frantically sweeps his gaze across the carnage, then spots a block of flesh that shines dimly. He scrambles towards it, then plucks out the jewel from where it had begun to burn within. The centipede woman’s flesh immediately begins to corrode, leaving only pale bone behind.

He looks down at the soft pink bead in his hand with an inexplicable emotion. “I… don’t understand. What would a jewel that gives powers to demons be doing in my body?”

“Precisely,” Luo Binghe interjects, walking over to loom menacingly over Shen Yuan. “Meaning there is no use for the jewel to be in the possession of a mortal. So either hand it over, or lose your hand.”

Did he just… threaten him? Isn’t this guy supposed to be the hero!?

A small group of disciples had shown up at some point during the altercation, but they all seem to grow uneasy at the prospect of confronting Luo Binghe. Yue Qingyuan stands before them, eyes narrowing. “Shen Yuan, you mustn’t let Luo Binghe have the jewel.”

“I’m afraid he has no choice in the matter,” Luo Binghe says easily, then pounces. Shen Yuan bites back a shriek and narrowly dodges; the space he had occupied only moments before is now a shallow crater within the earth. Luo Binghe quickly rallies himself, then advances on Shen Yuan once again.

“Do not think I will show any mercy towards one who reeks of the man who killed me!” Luo Binghe snarls.

Shen Yuan flits behind a tree, only for Luo Binghe to rip through it as if it were the paper of a sliding door. He startles, falling on his backside, and the jewel flies out of Shen Yuan’s hand and is sent rolling through the grass.

Luo Binghe takes a crouching leap into the air, honing in on the jewel, when a necklace of prayer beads is tossed neatly over his head, falling around his neck and squarely onto his shoulders.

“Shen Yuan! Recite a subduing spell!” Shouts Yue Qingyuan, evidently the one who threw the prayer beads. “Any words to quell him, it matters not which!”

A subduing spell? Give him a break! Why would Shen Yuan know anything like that!? Do it your damn self!

Luo Binghe for his part seems wholly unconcerned by the prayer beads around his neck, and he descends upon the Sacred Jewel with an unwavering single-mindedness. He bends down to pick it up, fluffy black ears tilted forward in interest, and the sight of them brings one command to the forefront of Shen Yuan’s mind:

“Luo Binghe, sit!”

Luo Binghe’s head perks up in alarm, only for him to be bodily slammed into the unforgiving earth by an oppressive, invisible force.

The utterly astounded look on Luo Binghe’s face as he lifts it out of the dirt is decidedly comical, and it takes a great deal of restraint to keep Shen Yuan from laughing aloud. Luo Binghe immediately sits up and tugs at the beads around his neck, but even though the necklace is rather loose, something seems to be physically restraining him from removing it.

“What is—“

Yue Qingyuan is quick to cut him off, “Save yourself the effort, Luo Binghe. No demonic power can lift those prayer beads from your neck.”

The look Luo Binghe levels Yue Qingyuan with is positively murderous, but he is only able to take a few steps forward before Yue Qingyuan gives Shen Yuan a ‘go on’ gesture.

"Sit, boy.” Shen Yuan instructs, quick to catch on.

Luo Binghe is once again sent hurtling into the ground, and this time Shen Yuan has to cover his mouth with his hand to hide the smile he feels pulling at his lips.

❖

Many of the Cang Qiong Sect disciples have already begun damage repairs by the time they arrive back, and Shen Yuan is rather impressed to see such displays of efficiency and work ethic from such young people.

He is stopped by one of the disciples that he recalls from the group in the forest, who offers up the forgotten Xiu Ya to him with puzzling politeness. Shen Yuan is then stuck awkwardly cradling the sword in his arms when Yue Qingyuan makes no move to take it from him.

Yue Qingyuan calmly leads them to his (miraculously unscathed) rooms, apparently uncaring of the brooding Luo Binghe at his back in such close quarters.

Once they arrive, Yue Qingyuan gestures for them to stay put, then walks across the room to an ornate, wooden dresser and retrieves something out of the topmost drawer. He returns, unfolding a piece of cloth and revealing a jade-white sheath that perfectly complements the Xiu Ya. Shen Yuan is grateful when the peak lord takes the blade out of his hands and sheaths it, but is left bewildered again when Yue Qingyuan wordlessly returns it to him.

“I have called for our sect’s chief physician, Mu Qingfang, to tend to your injury. He will arrive shortly.” Yue Qingyuan tells him.

Oh… Right. Shen Yuan had been bitten by a giant centipede demon. Up until now he had been riding an endorphin high, but the reminder of his rather grievous injury causes a belated onset of nausea to surge through him. He can only nod weakly as he settles himself into a sitting position on the floor, and spends the next several minutes assiduously keeping himself from vomiting.

It’s not long before Mu Qingfang appears, and Shen Yuan has to awkwardly hike up his pale green sweater and ruined white button-down to allow the man access to the wound at his side. What he really needs is a tetanus shot, Shen Yuan thinks wearily, but he obediently allows Mu Qingfang to clean the injury and rub a dubious-looking poultice into his skin.

Mu Qingfang makes quick work of bandaging him up, and just when Shen Yuan thinks that he’s finished, the physician gingerly applies his palm to the gauze and begins to transfer… something into Shen Yuan’s body and causes the pain and nausea to abate near instantaneously.

Ah, so this man isn’t just any ordinary doctor, but a high-level cultivator as well; perhaps modern medicine won’t be as necessary as Shen Yuan thought. Mu Qingfang is clearly a rather quiet man, as he only instructs Shen Yuan to avoid straining himself and to replace the bandages in a few days before bowing shortly to Yue Qingyuan and excusing himself.

The three remaining men sit in heavy silence for a long while after that. Yue Qingyuan is fastidiously at work attaching a short string to the Sacred Jewel, creating a basic pendant out of it, while Luo Binghe seems to be intent on pretending that he’s not even in the room. As for himself, Shen Yuan simply takes the moment to rest his eyes.

“To think that the Jewel of Four Souls would appear again in this world,” Yue Qingyuan sighs quietly. “Evil beings that covet its power will soon begin to congregate here in search of it.”

Well, that certainly doesn’t sound positive, Shen Yuan frowns. “Evil beings? You mean more demons?”

“The Sacred Jewel has the ability to make any ambition a reality. Demons are not the only ones who would want such a power in their possession,” Yue Qingyuan replies. “The task of guarding it was previously bestowed upon Shen Qingqiu.”

At the mention of Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe lifts his gaze, interrupting the conversation with a soft growl. “Where is he?”

Yue Qingqiu levels Luo Binghe with a withering look, Luo Binghe’s deliberate lack of propriety finally seeming to wear his patience thin. “...Shen Qingqiu is dead. He died fifty years ago on the same day that he sealed you to the tree.”

The news causes a complicated expression to pass over Luo Binghe’s features, but it eventually settles on something decidedly cruel, if not a bit smug. “Is that so? Perhaps this former disciple’s luck is not so woeful after all.”

“I would not rejoice so soon, Luo Binghe, as I have on good authority to believe that Shen Yuan here is, in fact, the late Shen Qingqiu reborn.”

Luo Binghe stills, then throws a scrutinizing look in Shen Yuan’s direction.

…

What?

…

What!?

What are you looking at him for!? Shen Yuan’s the one who’s shocked here! Yue Qingyuan, explain!

“Ah, and what, may I ask,” Shen Yuan wets his lips, deliberately keeping his voice level, “is this ‘good authority’…?”

“Aside from your outward likeness,” Yue Qingyuan begins, “you were able to release the seal on Luo Binghe, the Xiu Ya yielded to you when the spell should have held for all of eternity. This would not be possible if you did not possess a significant degree of spiritual energy, unpolished though it may be. But the most irrefutable piece of evidence…”

Yue Qingyuan holds up the jewel with a profound solemnness. “...was the existence of the jewel within your body. Shen Qingqiu’s dying wish was for the Jewel of Four Souls to be cremated along with his remains. What other answer is there?”

Shen Yuan… is pretty sure that’s not how these things work.

But. But. It is indeed undeniable that the jewel emerged from Shen Yuan’s body. He had been there, he had seen the jewel coated in his own blood, hell, Shen Yuan even has the flesh wound to prove it. The science eludes him, but considering that he’s currently sitting next to half-demon and an immortal cultivator, clearly the circumstance demands for some suspension of disbelief.

For Shen Yuan, the most difficult aspect of this situation is not that he is Shen Qingqiu’s reincarnation, or even that he had been carrying an ancient, mystical jem in his body all his life, but rather what these two things imply.

Shen Yuan hasn’t been magically transported into a fictional story, nor has he been sent to a strange, alternate universe.

He is in the past.

The well house and Shen estate hadn’t vanished, they just haven’t even been built yet. This is still the very same mountain Shen Yuan had grown up on, he just won’t be born for another several hundred or so years.

Did this mean that cultivation and demons still existed in the present time? Or have they both long since died out? Shen Yuan supposes that would explain why nearly every single human culture across the globe held overlapping conceptions of demonology, and even the abundant popularity of the wuxia and xianxia genres. Every story tends to have an element of truth to it, but this a bit much, even for Shen Yuan, who is admittedly a bit of a nerd, and practically lives and breathes supernatural fiction.

He is brought out of his contemplation when Yue Qingyuan holds out the Sacred Jewel pendant to him, lowering it into Shen Yuan’s hands. The jewel emits a soft pink glow, and glimmers enticingly.

“Shen Yuan, you were born to protect that jewel.”

❖

That night, Shen Yuan sleeps like the dead.

When he awakes in the morning, he feels sluggish and slightly sticky from sleeping in his dirty clothes. Shen Yuan sighs, rubbing his eyes with one hand and blindly reaching for his glasses with the other. His fingertips brush the sheathed Xiu Ya instead, which brings him to a pause, and he spends a long moment looking over at it.

Shen Yuan dons his glasses and steps out of the guest room, the Xiu Ya left in its place beside his borrowed bedroll.

His stroll through the sect’s halls is predominantly aimless, but the Cang Qiong rumor mill is apparently something fierce, as he leaves multiple turned heads and whispered utterances of “Peak Master Shen reborn” in his wake.

Shen Yuan had already begun to suspect as much, but after seeing the sect disciples’ reactions to his presence, he believes it’s safe to say that Shen Qingqiu had been quite the controversial individual. Even fifty years after the man’s death, the reception Shen Yuan receives as Shen Qingqiu’s reincarnation is notably divided, the disciples’ expressions varying from reverence to unease.

A few of the more bold disciples greet him with enthusiastic courtesy, one even presenting him with a warm tray of food. It’s a rather generous portion, and Shen Yuan can’t tell if the meal had been prepared specifically for him, or if the young man had actually given up his own breakfast. He’s not sure which is worse.

Overwhelmed, Shen Yuan takes the tray of food outside in hopes of finding somewhere more private to dine, and finds himself wandering into one of the nearby bamboo groves.

So he isn’t expecting to find Luo Binghe along the shaded pathway, his black-clad figure an errant ink blot among the vivid greenery. He turns to cast Shen Yuan a cool look, and the dappled sunlight dances over his head and shoulders at the motion.

Ugh, pretty people.

“...Good morning,” Shen Yuan greets calmly, when it becomes apparent that Luo Binghe won’t be the first one to speak. He lifts up the tray in his hands, cocking an eyebrow. “Would you like a bite? There’s a lot here, we can share.”

Luo Binghe’s ears lower, his face shrouded in obvious suspicion. When he doesn’t answer, Shen Yuan shrugs, then sits down in the middle of the path. The forest floor isn’t the cleanest or most dignified place to eat, but Shen Yuan supposes it’ll have to do.

Luo Binghe peers down at him for only a moment longer before lowering himself into a crouch, clawed hands and feet flat on the ground. Shen Yuan is quick to evenly split the food among them, but, after giving Luo Binghe’s ears a quick glance, he gives the other man’s plate the greater share of meat. He deftly sets the food in front of Luo Binghe, then tucks into his own meal without preamble.

Shen Yuan endures a full two minutes of Luo Binghe trying to stare a hole into the side of his head before sighing. “Come now, is there really any need to be so suspicious of me? I thought we had already established that I am not Shen Qingqiu.”

Luo Binghe finally redirects his gaze down to his food, but his expression only becomes more tempestuous upon noticing the discrepancy between their portions.

What, was this dog demon a vegetarian or something? Luo Binghe, lighten up a little!

“This Luo Binghe cares not who you are. When the time comes to take the Sacred Jewel, I shall show no mercy.”

This again.

“From what I understand, trying to take the jewel is what got you sealed to that tree for the last fifty years,” Shen Yuan huffs, uncaring of the vitriolic glare he gets for it in return.

“That scum Shen Qingqiu had designs on my life before I attempted to seize the jewel. My actions were committed only in retaliation,” Luo Binghe says darkly, finally starting on his food.

So Luo Binghe claims to have taken the Sacred Jewel in self-defense? He’s not sure how believable he finds that to be — given the fact that Luo Binghe had been moments away from carving Shen Yuan into a human stick over the damn thing only yesterday — but he can’t deny his curiosity to hear Luo Binghe’s side of the story.

“Hn, is that so? But was Shen Qingqiu not your Shizun?” wheedles Shen Yuan.

Luo Binghe takes the bait rather easily.

“That is correct. I had studied under that master’s tutelage for many years,” Luo Binghe begins. “Shen Qingqiu was a strict, unforgiving teacher, but there was no one I found more deserving of my admiration. Everything I did, I did in hopes of Shizun’s scarce approval. However...”

Luo Binghe’s eyes cloud over with poorly-concealed hurt. “There was nothing in the world that Shen Qingqiu hated more than demonkind. Concealing my true nature from him, and from everyone else within the sect, was absolutely paramount.”

So evidently what Mistress Centipede had said about Luo Binghe disguising himself as a human to enter the sect had been true. However, according to Luo Binghe, he had hidden his true nature not so that he could gain possession of the jewel, but to actually study cultivation?

Growing more intrigued, Shen Yuan pushes the tray of food further away from himself so that he can shift his body to face Luo Binghe fully, giving the other man his undivided attention.

In turn, Luo Binghe becomes encouraged by having someone actually willing to listen to his plight, and readily continues. “But one day, well after I had already become a senior sect disciple, Shen Qingqiu attacked me without warning. It was clear that he had somehow learned of my true heritage, but I still do not know how he happened upon my most heavily guarded secret. Badly wounded and betrayed, I escaped down the mountain and spent the next few months consumed by thoughts of revenge.”

“But imagine this Luo Binghe’s surprise when I returned to Cang Qiong only to find that it was already under attack by an unknown party. Taking this coincidence as good fortune, I used the confusion to appropriate the jewel. But as it goes, I did not get very far before Shen Qingqiu struck me down.”

Doesn’t this story… have far too many holes? Luo Binghe does not seem to be purposely withholding information, at least not regarding how Shen Qingqiu had happened upon his secret, or who had decided to attack the mountain the very same day Luo Binghe returned. Is there anyone still alive who would actually have the full recount of events?

Misinterpreting Shen Yuan’s bemused expression as derision, Luo Binghe sneers. “Do you believe me to be in the wrong for trying to gain possession of the jewel? Before my master’s complete rejection of my existence, committing such an act would have been unthinkable to my younger self as well. As a boy, I often fantasized of using the jewel’s power to turn myself fully human, to eradicate the side of me that I feared my beloved Shizun would never accept, but could never bring myself to take something belonging to my master.”

Shen Yuan interjects, “wait, wait, the Sacred Jewel has the ability to turn demons… human? I thought the jewel only enhanced the user’s ability, not weakened it.”

Luo Binghe frowns, looking away. “... Such a thing has never been attempted before, no, but if the Sacred Jewel is capable of making any ambition a reality, I had thought that surely…” he trails off, then shakes his head, “it matters not. It had never been anything more than the foolish dreaming of a boy.”

“After being attacked and called names such as ‘animal’ and ‘abomination’ by the master who I had spent the majority of my life wholly devoted to, my only desire was to use the jewel’s power to become fully demon. I wanted to become strong enough that no one under the heavens would dare challenge me. If I was going to be regarded as a beast, then I would show everyone just how beastly this Luo Binghe could be.”

What a villainous monologue!

But… Shen Yuan can’t help but feel like that isn’t quite right. If anything, Shen Yuan would classify Luo Binghe as more of a ‘blackened protagonist’ than an outright villain — as it really does not seem like Shen Qingqiu had been a very kind person whatsoever. And Shen Yuan shares a soul with such a severe character?

“No, if what you say is true, then I think you had every right to feel hurt by that person, even if your method of revenge was… ill-advised,” Shen Yuan states measuredly, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.

Luo Binghe’s facial expression does not change, but his ears perk up at Shen Yuan’s inference, betraying his surprise.

Shen Yuan clears his throat. “Though being angry over having been kept from the truth is reasonable, it doesn’t sound like Shen Qingqiu was upset over your dishonesty so much as what the secret had been itself. Furthermore, it’s not like you had any ill-intent by hiding your nature, you just hadn’t wanted to be kicked out. Even if Shen Qingqiu had been shocked and angry, he should have known that you were still his devoted disciple who had served under him ever since you were a child.”

“I am a half-demon,” Luo Binghe reminds him solemnly. “He felt that my presence within the sect, and so close to the Jewel of Four Souls at that, had been an infiltration.”

“Well, I understand the concern there, but if you had entered the sect with those kind of intentions, surely you wouldn’t have waited so long to take action? As your teacher, he should have at least heard you out instead of immediately forsaking you. It’s just irresponsible.”

Luo Binghe blinks, bewildered by Shen Yuan actually taking his side in the matter, but Shen Yuan persists.

“Besides, with the jewel here, wasn’t the sect constantly being invaded by demons? Cultivation or no, everyone here is still human, and fighting off so many demons day in and day out couldn’t have been easy. If Shen Qingqiu had been able to see past your differences and use your demonic strength to help protect the jewel, then it could have been a win-win situation. Just like how there are bad humans, surely there must be good demons, and if demons use their superior ability to actually help people, how can that be anything but good? It’s not like you had any say in who your parents were, and for god’s sake, education is supposed to be non-discriminatory! Your strength as a half-demon is already plenty formidable, what do you need the damn rock for?”

Luo Binghe’s expression throughout Shen Yuan’s spiel had only become more and more pronounced until it could no longer be considered ‘bewildered,’ but downright astonished, stock-still and mouth agape.

Shen Yuan immediately presses his lips together in mortification.

What! Was! That!

Shen Yuan, this isn’t some online discussion forum for a web novel! Sure, Luo Binghe’s backstory sounds like something straight out of one of the many dramas that he’s consumed that held similar allegories regarding good and evil and how such things couldn’t be divided by race or status, but he had definitely gotten too carried away! Albeit unbelievable and overly fantastical, this was the real world, and Luo Binghe was a real half-demon! Of course Shen Yuan shouldn’t be applying fictitious morality to real life!

Unknown to Shen Yuan, however, Luo Binghe’s gaze was as equal parts shocked as it was awed. All of Luo Binghe’s life had he wished to hear words such as ‘not all demons are inherently evil’ and ‘you are not at fault for who your parents are’ from another. The fact that these words had come from someone who looked and smelled so much like his former master, the Shizun who Luo Binghe had so desperately desired the approval of, made their impact even more significant.

Luo Binghe felt as though he had been shattered and put back together all at once — all at the hands of the strange young man before him.

“You…” Luo Binghe tries.

“Well then,” Shen Yuan says, cool and composed and completely and utterly fake. He gathers their finished dishes and places them back on the tray, quickly standing up with it. “It was nice speaking with you, Luo Binghe, but I believe I shall be taking my leave now. Good day.”

Shen Yuan turns, then flies out of the bamboo grove like a bat out of hell.

Luo Binghe watches him go.

❖

After handing off his tray to a willing disciple, Shen Yuan returns to the small guest room that he had spent the previous night in.

Shen Yuan really doesn’t know anything about weilding a sword, but it’s long and it’s sharp and how hard can slashing at and stabbing something really be, so he takes the sheathed Xiu Ya, and exits the room as quickly as he had entered.

If everyone insists on him taking the damn sword, then he’ll take it. After all, it’s probably less than smart to wander around the mountain alone in this dangerous era without some method of self-defense, no matter how impractical that method may be.

Shen Yuan leaves the sect, and makes his way back to the well.

The trek through the wilderness thankfully goes without incident and Shen Yuan arrives at the well within a matter of minutes. As of right now, the dry well is Shen Yuan’s only clue as to how he ended up in the past, but when he leans over the edge to look into the well’s depths, he falters.

The well is filled with… bones.

It’s hard to make out the details, but the bones look vaguely familiar, and if Shen Yuan were to hazard a guess, he’d say that they probably belonged to that centipede woman from yesterday. What had Yue Qingyuan called the well again? The Bone Eater’s?

Was the sect using Shen Yuan’s (unproven) time machine as a dumping ground for demon corpses!? Like hell he’s going to go down there now!

Shen Yuan sighs explosively, then wilts until he’s kneeling on the ground, hands still clutching the well’s wooden frame. Really, they’re just bones, which is infinitely preferable to rotten flesh, but he had already been hesitant about throwing himself down the well to begin with, and the discovery had done nothing but further discourage him.

Perhaps he could simply lower himself down the well’s shaft by holding onto the ivy? Is jumping or falling down it the only way to trigger the warp? Some sort of Back to the Future bullshit that required him to pass through the well at a certain velocity? Maybe no one knew of the well’s ability to travel through time because no one before Shen Yuan had been unlucky enough to fall or be pulled down it.

Shen Yuan’s conspiracy theories are cut short by the shrill caw of a crow. Shen Yuan is startled by the proximity of the sound, and upon turning his head, he immediately earns himself a face-full of feathery wrath.

The next several seconds involve a lot of shrieking and inelegant flailing on Shen Yuan’s part, so he decides to trim them from the narrative.

The crow finally relents, and oh, of course, of course the ‘crow’ has what appears to be a rat’s tail and a third eye, how silly of Shen Yuan to ever presume otherwise. The crow demon lets out another piercing cry, then dives for Shen Yuan’s neck. He flinches, but instead of having his jugular torn out, Shen Yuan feels a harsh tug at the base of his throat, and the sound of something snapping. When the demon pulls back, it has the Sacred Jewel pendant which Shen Yuan had been wearing tucked underneath his shirt caught within its beak.

Motherfucker! Shen Yuan curses inwardly.

He makes a swipe for the wretched thing, but the crow demon quickly takes off, flying over the trees.

“Motherfucker!” Shen Yuan curses aloud.

Shen Yuan gives chase, hollering and waving the Xiu Ya at the crow’s distant figure like a lunatic. This little display does nothing to help Shen Yuan in capturing the winged beast, but it does make him feel a bit better.

However, it seems that all the agony and misery does well to attract other demons, for Luo Binghe is soon bounding out of ungrowth and intercepting Shen Yuan with a confused, wild look in his eye. The crow demon must have brought Shen Yuan closer back to the sect than he realized.

“What? What’s wrong?” Luo Binghe demands.

“Luo Binghe,” Shen Yuan sighs raggedly with relief. “You’re just who I wanted to see.”

Luo Binghe’s ears twitch.

“That crow demon has the Sacred Jewel, I need you to help me catch it!” Shen Yuan points to the sky.

Luo Binghe’s face immediately falls, and he peers up at the crow demon’s silhouette overhead. It must have swallowed the jewel at some point during its flight, Shen Yuan realizes, anxiously biting his lip, as it now looks less like a crow and something more akin to a baby dragon.

“Come with me,” Luo Binghe says, grabbing hold of Shen Yuan’s arm and fluidly slinging him onto his back like Shen Yuan weighs no more than a stuffed toy.

“Now hold on a secon—” Shen Yuan has to clamp his mouth shut on his own protest so that he doesn’t scream when Luo Binghe immediately takes off, inhumanly fast and making ridiculous, soaring leaps after the crow demon.

What’s with this piggyback position!? Shen Yuan is a grown man! Luo Binghe, what do you hope to accomplish by bringing him with you!?

“Shoot it down,” instructs Luo Binghe, like he’s being at all reasonable.

“And how do you propose I do that? ” Shen Yuan grouses.

“The Xiu Ya is a flying sword,” Luo Binghe tells him. “Shen Qingqiu could send it after his enemies like an arrow. All that you need to do is take aim and throw.”

What part of Shen Yuan is not Shen Qingqiu, peak lord and proficient cultivator, do these people not get!? Fine, he’ll throw it! Sure! And when it goes plummeting, maybe Luo Binghe will finally get it through his thick skull!

Shen Yuan reaches back and unsheathes the sword. “Hold steady,” he mutters to Luo Binghe as he does his best to take aim. Luo Binghe takes another prolonged, flying jump, and Shen Yuan hurls the blade out with all his might.

Miraculously, the Xiu Ya does not plummet.

More amazing still, the sword seems to take off after the demon of its own volition, not unlike a homing projectile. The Xiu Ya’s dazzling white blade reflects the light of the sun, momentarily bliding Shen Yuan, and he moves to shield his eyes with his forearm.

“Did it hit?” Shen Yuan asks Luo Binghe as he slows to a stop.

Luo Binghe’s doing that quiet, growling thing again, which prompts Shen Yuan to look for himself. A bright, pink light is now taking up a great deal of the sky, and Shen Yuan can see several, smaller beams shooting out in random directions off the mountain.

It would all be very pretty if Shen Yuan didn’t have a horrible, sinking feeling in his gut telling him that he just fucked up astronomically.

After a moment, the light dies down, and the Xiu Ya comes flying back to Shen Yuan, sliding directly into its sheath like a well-trained pet — convenient, but strange.

Solemn as a death march, Luo Binghe advances towards the direction where the crow would have fallen. When they arrive near the site of impact, something shoots out of the canopy, hurtling itself straight towards the two men. With a single, adroit swipe of his claws, Luo Binghe dispatches the threat, which reveals itself to be the severed head of the crow demon.

Shen Yuan catches something bright flinging out of the gore, and hops down from his place on Luo Binghe’s back. He walks over to where he had seen the shine, and searches the leaves on the forest floor until he uncovers what appears to be a chunk, perhaps about one ninth or tenth, of the Sacred Jewel.

Shen Yuan nearly swallows his tongue.

“Ah… Luo Binghe, is there…?” Shen Yuan begins.

“This Luo Binghe is afraid not, as I suspect that the Xiu Ya shattered not only the crow demon, but the Jewel of Four Souls within it,” Luo Binghe informs him, somewhat guiltily, as if he had been the one to javelin the Xiu Ya rather than Shen Yuan. “That great light we saw was most likely the remaining fragments scattering off the mountain, though… I was not quick enough to count how many.”

Hm.

Shen Yuan, he decides, is an absolute clown.

❖

Laying on his borrowed bedroll, sleeping in his clothes for the second night in the row, Shen Yuan stares up at the dark ceiling with dread in his heart.

Yue Qingyuan had looked as though he were praying to every god he knew as Shen Yuan had recounted the incident to the peak lord.

After a long, deafening moment of silence, Yue Qingyuan had then gone on to tell the two that they should work together to retrieve and restore the Sacred Jewel, as it was Shen Yuan’s inborn duty to prevent the jewel falling into the wrong hands — like this was all a poorly-written, outdated RPG or something, and not somehow Shen Yuan’s life .

Luo Binghe had been eerily silent throughout the exchange.

Rolling over onto his side, Shen Yuan shuts his eyes tightly.

This was beyond Shen Yuan. He couldn’t possibly — what? Go on some grand adventure down the mountain with Luo Binghe to collect pieces of a magical artifact that they would no doubt have to fight other demons over? Yue Qingyuan had most likely only suggested that they work together because he didn’t trust the jewel with Luo Binghe, but knew that Shen Yuan would need sufficient protection to complete such a task.

But surely there were other people more qualified to protect the jewel than Shen Yuan. Even if he has a significant amount of spiritual ability, it’s not like Shen Yuan has any idea how to wield such a thing. He may be Shen Qingqiu’s reincarnation, and while he’s technically kept the jewel safe all his life by harboring it within his body, that doesn’t mean that Shen Yuan is capable of protecting it now that it’s not literally a part of him.

It’s simply too much responsibility. Shen Yuan is a sickly, shut-in college student taking online classes in his parents’ home because he nearly killed himself eating expired food when he tried living on his own. He is not someone who inspires much confidence.

Let Yue Qingyuan protect the jewel. Hell, Luo Binghe can have it for all Shen Yuan cares. Quite frankly, it’s not his problem!

Tomorrow, Shen Yuan is going to find a way to get back home, back to his own time period, and forget that any of this ever happened. It’s not like anyone will know to look for Shen Yuan years into the future; it’s practically the perfect escape plan. This is the decision he comes to before finally allowing his eyelids to slip shut.

The next morning, Shen Yuan wakes up well before the sun, and heads back to the dry well.

He does not bring the Xiu Ya.

Curiously, when Shen Yuan leans over to peer into the well’s depths, the bones of Mistress Centipede appear to have vanished. Does the well function as a self-cleaning burial ground as well as a time warp? At least now Shen Yuan knows that if he jumps down it and nothing happens, he won’t have a pile of bones to break his fall as well as a fractured leg.

Not allowing himself any time to hesitate, Shen Yuan sits on the well’s edge, slipping his legs inside, then drops down.

Similar to when Shen Yuan had been pulled down the well, at first he simply falls. At the precise moment Shen Yuan feels like he’s been falling for too long, he begins to float. Knowing that it had worked, Shen Yuan lets out a soft, disbelieving huff of laughter when he is carefully dropped onto the well’s floor.

The inside of the well is darker now than it had been when he had entered, and Shen Yuan is unmistakably no longer outside. The well house is rather old, however, so Shen Yuan sternly does not allow himself to celebrate just yet, grappling onto the vines lining the wall to pull himself out.

After all, even if the well had brought Shen Yuan to the future, that does not necessarily mean that the future is his own.

Fueled by hope alone, Shen Yuan is able to surface at the mouth of the well without feeling too worn out. He is quick to exit the well house, not noting any significant changes to its interior or exterior, and is even quicker to run in the direction of the manor.

When the house comes into view, exactly as he had left it, the chauffeur even pulled out front to take his little sister to school, Shen Yuan doesn’t know whether he wants to laugh or cry. Shen Yuan races inside, ignoring the chauffeur’s bewildered look from behind the car’s windshield.

Shen Yuan strides down the main hall, and nearly runs head on into his little sister when he rounds the corner.

“San Ge?” She jumps. Her hair is still damp from the shower, but she’s already dressed in her uniform and has the damn cat in her arms. Her shock, however, quickly gives way to a more condemning expression. “Finally decided to come out of your room? I don’t think I’ve seen you in two whole days! And thanks a lot for helping me find the cat, by the way, even though you promised you’d look for him. How—”

Her nagging is cut short when Shen Yuan steps forward to pull her into an embrace. Shen Yuan is not at all the tactile sort, but he lets out a shuddering exhale as his cheek slides against her fragrant, wet hair.

Ah.

He had been scared.

“San Ge!?” His sister startles all over again, no doubt concerned by her older brother’s uncharacteristic behavior. When the cat yowls and squirms out between them, jumping to the floor, she pulls back to look up at Shen Yuan, mouth worried. “Is something wrong? Are you feeling unwell again? You smell awful, have you showered?”

“Showering!” Shen Yuan exclaims, pulling himself away and heading towards the stairs. “Yes! I’m going to go do that. Right now. Oh god.”

“...Okay? Weirdo,” his sister mutters, feeling lost, but composes herself in time to call up to him. “Breakfast is almost served, do you want me to tell them that you’re eating...?”

“Yeah, I’ll be down in a minute, thanks!” Shen Yuan yells back before slamming the bathroom door shut.

As Shen Yuan removes his ruined clothes, he realizes that he still has the fragmented Sacred Jewel pendant around his neck, having forgotten to take it off and leave it in the past along with the Xiu Ya atop the bedroll.

Huh. Whoops.

Perhaps Shen Yuan could throw the trinket down the well and it would be sent back? It was worth a try, at the very least. Shen Yuan shrugs to himself, not really having it in him to worry at the moment, then steps into the shower.

Indoor plumbing is so blissful.

After a (regrettably) quick shower, Shen Yuan joins his sister at the dining table so that they can eat breakfast together — something that he rarely does, usually preferring to take his meals up to his room.

Shen Yuan’s sister eyes him like he’s going to drop dead at any moment, but is thankfully silent. She truly takes after him in many ways.

They are halfway through the meal when a stately, horrifyingly familiar, man strolls into the room, and comes up to stand beside Shen Yuan’s chair.

“Ah, there you are,” Luo Binghe says easily, like he hadn’t just followed Shen Yuan hundreds of years into the future.

Shen Yuan nearly chokes. “Luo Binghe—”

“What a surprise, when this Luo Binghe went looking for you this morning, to find that your scent lead me to that old, dried up well, which in turn took me to the strangest of places. I take it that this is your home? While I suppose that it is very grand, and that the meal looks satisfactory, when, pray tell, had you planned on returning?”

Shen Yuan casually considers the window across the room; he’s not sure if it opens, although he’s fairly certain that he could fit through it.

“Wow, these are lifelike,” Shen Yuan’s sister says in that droll tone of hers, and Shen Yuan’s head whips around to see his 160cm, roughly 52kg soaking wet, baby sister reaching up on her tiptoes to fondle the half-demon Luo Binghe’s fluffy, adorable little ears.

Luo Binghe blinks.

Shen Yuan tries not to scream.

“San Ge, who’s your handsome cosplayer friend? I didn’t know you had someone over,” his sister asks, turning to him, but when Shen Yuan only stares up at her wide-eyed, she turns back to Luo Binghe, looking him up and down. “I don’t think I recognize this character, though. Was your costume commissioned? It’s sick.”

“My costume is… sick …? ” Luo Binghe repeats slowly, brow furrowing.

“Ah, Mei Mei, you’re going to be late again! The driver’s been waiting for you for a while now, you know!” Shen Yuan interjects, a touch too loudly, standing up and grabbing hold of Luo Binghe’s arm. “Have a nice day at school!”

“Ehh? San Ge—”

Shen Yuan ignores her protest, hurriedly dragging Luo Binghe out of the room and up the stairs. When they reach Shen Yuan’s room, he pushes Luo Binghe inside, then quickly turns to shut the door. Shen Yuan slumps against it and puts a hand to his chest, his heart pounding uncomfortably.

“Your room? How… peculiar,” Luo Binghe says, walking around and sniffing at the air. After making a small circle, he seems to take special interest in the various PVC figures Shen Yuan has displayed on his desk and shelves. Luo Binghe had just begun to reach a clawed hand towards a figure of a girl with cat ears when Shen Yuan embarrassedly clears his throat.

“You followed me,” Shen Yuan intones.

Luo Binghe withdraws his hand, then turns to face Shen Yuan. “Yes, I’ve come to take you back.”

"Why?” Shen Yuan says slowly, crossing his arms.

“Why?” Luo Binghe repeats, innocently tilting his head. “To retrieve and restore the Sacred Jewel fragments, as Yue Qingyuan suggested.”

Shen Yuan huffs, then pushes himself off the door. He walks up to Luo Binghe, removing the Sacred Jewel pendant from around his neck, then holds it out to the other man. “If it’s my piece of the jewel you want, then take it. I have no use for it, so you can go back through the well and collect the other fragments yourself. No need to take me with you.”

Luo Binghe’s face darkens, “I refuse.”

What the hell! Why was this guy so difficult!? Not obedient whatsoever!

“And why is that?”

“The Jewel of Four Souls belongs to you alone.”

"What!?” Shen Yuan questions explosively. “You tried to kill me over it just the other day! What happened to using its power so that ‘no one under the heavens’ could challenge you!?”

Luo Binghe takes another step closer, getting up in Shen Yuan’s space, and deftly catches Shen Yuan’s hand in his, the pendant dangling between them.

Shen Yuan bluescreens.

“This Luo Binghe only wishes to restore the jewel to its former glory and make sure that it does not fall into the wrong hands,” Luo Binghe says, quite earnestly. “I no longer covet its power — after all, didn’t Shizun himself say that my strength as a half-demon was already ‘plenty formidable’?”

“Who’s your ‘Shizun’!?” Shen Yuan snaps, wrenching his hand out of Luo Binghe’s grasp. What kind of joke was this!? Shen Yuan feeds him and doles out a few validating words one time and Luo Binghe follows him home like some kind of stray — ah, right, dog demon.

Evidently seeing that Shen Yuan was not feeling cooperative, Luo Binghe straightens to his full height, and redirects his gaze over Shen Yuan’s head and onto the door. “... I see. But how curious it is that I, a demon, could so freely travel to this world through the well’s passage? Surely if I could, other demons would be capable of doing the same?”

Shen Yuan really does not like where he thinks Luo Binghe is going with this.

“Even a fraction of the Sacred Jewel is enough to entice all those who desire power. And what a shame it would be if something happened to the Mei Mei downstairs because of such a thing?” Luo Binghe concludes, all but batting his eyelashes.

Manipulative!

But… seeing that Luo Binghe apparently refuses to let anyone but Shen Yuan have the jewel, and how it is technically Shen Yuan’s fault the jewel is in such a sorry state to begin with…

Shen Yuan feels his sense of responsibility finally start to catch up with him.

Dammit.

“Fine, I’ll go back with you,” Shen Yuan relents, long-suffering, and walks over to open his closet doors. He’s pretty sure he threw his backpack somewhere in here. “Just… give me a minute to pack some supplies first, though.”

“Of course, Shizun,” Luo Binghe replies, too brightly.

Shen Yuan rounds on him, “for the last time, I am not—”

Shen Yuan’s rebuke dies on his tongue when he sees Luo Binghe’s dark eyes gleaming back at him, lips curled upwards in amusement.

This man—!

The expression, along with the realization that Luo Binghe is teasing him, has a blush rising to Shen Yuan’s face, and he quickly whirls around to look back into his closet.

“Call me whatever you like,” Shen Yuan tells him, though the words don’t come out as combative as he intended. Quite the opposite, really.

A surprisingly boyish laugh is heard from behind him, and Shen Yuan can somehow tell from the sound that Luo Binghe has not laughed like that in a very, very long while.

“Not Shen Qingqiu indeed,” Luo Binghe murmurs quietly, like a secret.