Chapter Text
Shen Qingqiu woke to the unwelcome sight of Yue Qingyuan at the edge of his bed.
It was really annoying.
"Why are you here?" he snapped. Yue Qingyuan had the same worried look that he always had after Shen Qingqiu had qi deviated, and every time Shen Qingqiu saw it, he got angrier about it. At this point, it wasn't like Shen Qingqiu's qi deviations were a surprise, and it just made the emotion seem more fake every time he woke up to see Yue Qingyuan looming over him in worry.
"Shen-shidi was in a great deal of danger," Yue Qingyuan said carefully. Shen Qingqiu would have called it a lie...but normally the line Yue Qingyuan said at that point was an infuriatingly gentle lecture on how qi deviations were dangerous even when they were minor blah blah blah.
Yue Qingyuan had told him a lot of lies, but he had never exaggerated a qi deviation—yet. Shen Qingqiu supposed there was always room for Yue Qingyuan to fail his expectations more thoroughly than he already had.
"I'm fine now," he snapped, pushing himself up and waving Yue Qingyuan towards the door. He would just...consider that potentially bad set of information later.
Yue Qingyuan didn't seem to want to leave, but Shen Qingqiu's insistent pointing and glares seemed to get through after a few moments.
Which was lucky for him, because it didn't take Shen Qingqiu long to realize that someone had rearranged his room.
Everything was still mostly the same, but his desk was at a different angle. Instead of being nicely next to the window where he could pretend to not see anyone who came into the door, it was in a completely different corner, angled oddly. Not only would it be impossible not to see someone coming into the doorway, but the easy view out the window was likely to be distracting.
He moved the desk back, cursing under his breath. He found three knives, two bladed fans, and six very long needles in the process, hidden under cushions or strapped to furniture.
Was Yue Qingyuan trying to tell him something?
Was this supposed to imply that Shen Qingqiu couldn't protect himself? Or accuse him of not doing enough to fight back the few times someone had tried to kidnap him? It was hardly his fault that he always was the target for captures and he'd always rescued himself perfectly fine with no one's interference!
Shen Qingqiu was so furious that his hands were shaking. How dare they?
The rest of his house wasn't any better. More weapons, a vial of something that he didn't recognize, but which put his senses on edge tucked randomly under a cushion, and the furniture all arranged bizarrely.
It was like someone had decided to arrange all of his furniture so that all doorways were visible from the logical seats, and any visitors were as inconvenienced as possible. There were less weapons here, but many odd talismans that he didn't recognize.
He would have been alarmed, because someone was putting talismans in his house, but they all responded to his qi.
Shen Qingqiu was fairly sure he'd never seen them before.
Maybe they were some sort of protective artifact. It would be like Yue Qingyuan, to find that sort of thing and then waste them by attuning them to Shen Qingqiu and hiding them in his house. He stacked them neatly on his desk and resolved to figure them out later. Preferably without talking to Yue Qingyuan about them.
There were only three weapons visibly displayed. His normal fan had gone promptly on his belt. Xiu Ya's stand had been moved into his bedroom and its qi seemed strangely active for a sword hanging on the wall, but otherwise unharmed.
In the main room, in a central stand surrounded by more of those strange talismans, was a fan he didn't recognize. It was larger than his normal fan and delicately painted with the barest hints of bamboo in pale green on white. The white background had some sort of scene in even paler gray, but whenever he looked exactly at it, there was nothing there.
It was perfectly attuned to his qi.
He should probably throw it into the pond. If Yue Qingyuan had placed the talismans and moved Shen Qingqiu's furniture around, then the fan was probably from him, too.
… But spiritual weapons like this were rare. It was possible that, if he'd been unconscious for awhile, one of his students or their parents or someone from his same generation had sent it as a gift.
Which meant he could use it.
If it was from Yue Qingyuan, he could always pretend like he had only brought the fan with him to toss it off a cliff in front of Yue Qingyuan….
That settled it. Shen Qingqiu carefully picked the fan up from its stand, tilting it in his hands to admire the painting more closely. It almost seemed to vibrate with qi, the power in it intensifying as he admired it.
Hopefully it wasn't a gift from Yue Qingyuan; it would be a shame to destroy such a lovely artifact.
Within five minutes of leaving his house to do his normal 'I am alive and fine, you can see me now, and if you fuss I will make you run laps' walkaround, he was convinced that something was very wrong.
Everything looked...normal. It was as it should be.
The peak looked the same, the disciples had the same robes on.
But the energy was off. He was used to things being softly cheerful, with every turn being the sort of place that one would like to sit down and read. The leaves would fall in aesthetically pleasing ways and whatever the sunlight glinted off of, it was always calming and warming. The disciples might look miserable when he sent them off on laps or started asking after their studies, but….
He might have to rewrite what miserable looked like.
Or maybe it was him. Maybe he was still so on edge from his furniture being rearranged that the glinting sunlight looked ominous and every turn seemed likely to house an uneasy surprise.
The disciples were stiff and uncomfortable. One of them even gave him a fearful look. At one point, he rounded a corner just in time to see a disciple fleeing into a building. None of them greeted him besides a respectful bow before they quickly removed themselves from his presence.
He didn't want anyone to come fuss over him but shouldn't they...want to see him? He usually had to literally hit someone with his fan to get them to stop trying to hug him. It didn't make any sense.
"Shizun!" Right on time, as his anxiety peaked, his favorite proved that she deserved the title. Shen Qingqiu braced for her usual flying hug to hit his back. It was annoying, but he'd never managed to train her out of it.
It didn't come.
After a moment he turned to look at her.
Ning Yingying was standing several yards away, a cheerful smile on her face that froze for a moment and then returned with vigor. "Is Shizun feeling better?"
"Yes…." he answered cautiously.
Something was off. Ning Yingying was still the same young girl he'd seen only yesterday, but she was standing differently; more carefully and disciplined than he'd ever seen her before.
Her resting stance was a defensive battle stance. She had a bladed fan hanging from her belt, and the metal sticks adorning her hair looked oddly sharp.
Shen Qingqiu realized belatedly that all the other disciples he'd briefly seen had been armed as well.
Why were they armed on Qing Jing? Why were they armed on Qing Jing and running from him?
"Shizun?" Ning Yingying asked, her smile wavering.
"Did anything happen while I was secluded?"
"Nothing, Shizun!" she said, bouncing on her heels. It was the first normal thing he'd seen her do so far.
And then she said nothing more even if her stance relaxed a little.
"You can go back to your studies," he finally said after several moments of silence.
"Have a good day, Shizun!" Ning Yingying answered, giving him a smile and a polite bow. Then she hesitated before moving towards him, carefully going around him outside of arm’s reach.
Every part of that decision chilled him. Those weren't considerations that Shen Qingqiu had ever expected to apply to Ning Yingying, but as he heard her take the first turn off of the path behind him, he couldn't help but wonder…
What exactly had happened during his qi deviation?
The longer he walked, the more convinced he was that he must have done something to cause this. The disciples’ behavior, the odd furniture placement in his house, all the weapons.
His qi deviation had been more serious than normal. Had he...had he gone into a rage during his qi deviation? Had he hurt a disciple? Maybe it had been one of those with a slow leadup and the disciples had been dealing with days of Shen Qingqiu's increasing paranoia and demands that everyone be armed until the deviation finally got bad enough to take him out.
It sounded like something he would do.
He kept walking into the bamboo forest, trying to still his nerves. The forest used to calm him, but it seemed oppressive somehow and did nothing to ease the sinking feeling in his gut that he'd managed to destroy every ounce of respect he'd earned with one event that he had no control over and couldn't remember.
Was that why Mu Qingfang hadn't been there when he awoke? Had Shen Qingqiu hurt Qian Cao disciples and was being shunned for it?
Had he hurt Ning Yingying or just yelled at her enough to scare her into arming herself and keeping her distance?
In retrospect, he was fairly sure the fan on her hip had the same tassel as one of his own fans, which he didn't remember seeing among all the hidden weapons in his house that morning. Normally, giving a weapon to a disciple was meant to honor them...but if anyone could manage to turn that into a terrorizing event, it was Shen Qingqiu.
He doubted they would come back from that. He wouldn't if he were the disciple in question. He would forever be watching that teacher warily, waiting for them to strike again.
He...he could deal with that. He would have to. It wasn't as though Shen Qingqiu had ever liked the random hugs or the constant seeking of approval. It was better this way. They'd distract him less.
No matter how much he tried to convince himself of that, it didn't feel right.
He'd get used to it.
By the time he'd come to that incredibly unsatisfying conclusion, it was growing dark and he'd managed to walk all the way around to the woodshed. He would have turned around and left, but he could hear the light sounds of someone sobbing.
…
He would probably just make it worse if he checked. It was probably some disciple still distraught over whatever Shen Qingqiu had done during his qi deviation.
Shen Qingqiu turned to leave, and it was like the forest itself was judging him. He glared at it until the forest looked like a normal forest again.
That didn't stop the sobbing.
He sighed, turned around, and went to investigate.
Shen Qingqiu's least favorite brat was crouched on the ground in front of the woodshed, holding a stick in front of him like a weapon and shivering as he sobbed.
Shen Qingqiu happily tossed all of his former worries away. Clearly something was in the woodshed. He tapped a finger against his fan to get the brat's attention. Luo Binghe looked up at him, eyes going wide and scared for a moment. It was far away from the brat's usual hopeful look, and Shen Qingqiu had a sinking feeling that he was the reason the child was in robes more fit for rags than clothing. It...seemed like something he would do, in the midst of an angry qi deviation. He did not like this child.
The brat, luckily for this single situation and absolutely no others, seemed to like him. Enough that the child dropped his stick and came scampering quietly over when Shen Qingqiu waved at him.
Shen Qingqiu shifted the qi around them to muffle the conversation, then frowned down at the boy. "What's in the woodshed?"
The brat looked confused. "Shizun?"
"What's in the woodshed?" Shen Qingqiu repeated, struggling to keep the annoyance out of his voice. Normally he wouldn't bother, not with this child, but he'd clearly done enough damage during his qi deviation that he didn't want to add to it before he'd confirmed what he'd done to his disciples. "Spit it out, you're clearly scared of something."
The brat shrank down a little, shoulders coming up defensively and his foot scraping against the ground. His boots were oddly frayed, like no one had been tending to them. Shen Qingqiu bit down the urge to punish the boy for it. He'd make him run laps and clean things tomorrow.
"Well?" he demanded, reaching out with his fan to tap the brat on the head and then freezing when the boy suddenly ducked in fear, looking terrified.
"I'm sorry, Shizun! This disciple was scared of the woodshed."
"The woodshed."
The brat nodded, still looking fearfully at Shen Qingqiu's fan.
"It's a woodshed. What is there to be scared of?"
The brat looked nervously at the cracked door, then back at Shen Qingqiu, clearly trying to think of how to explain this foolish fear in a way that wouldn't get him into trouble.
"You are my least favorite disciple," Shen Qingqiu said with a sigh, pressing the fan's guard to his lips in annoyance. The fan almost seemed to vibrate, and for a moment everything tasted of bamboo. Odd.
Looking back at the child was no less strange. He would have expected that comment to make the brat wilt, but bizarrely the brat's whole face lit up and he nodded rapidly.
Shen Qingqiu resolved to figure out what he'd done to offend Mu Qingfang and then send the boy to get checked over. Maybe Shen Qingqiu had hit him too hard during his qi deviation and now the brat was perceiving things wrong. It would fit both the odd behavior and how reflexively he had cringed away.
He really did not want to think about that cringe. Instead he focused on the woodshed. It was...admittedly a weirdly ominous woodshed. Just like everything had seemed weirdly ominous today.
Shen Qingqiu refused to allow it to get to him. He rolled his eyes and strode over to the door, flinging it open. For a moment it did look dangerous, like the shadows were creeping out from under the wood, but he refused to fall for it and glared into the building until his eyes adjusted and it was indeed a normal woodshed. "It's a woodshed." He flicked a bit of qi out into a hovering light. "Get what you were supposed to fetch."
The brat stared up at him for a moment, eyes shining, and the normalcy of it almost made Shen Qingqiu feel calm before he caught himself and was horrified.
"Move, brat."
The boy darted into the woodshed, stopping nervously before touching the wood and glancing back at Shen Qingqiu for reassurance. It was pathetic, and Shen Qingqiu just frowned at him impatiently until the brat turned around and carefully gathered up an armful of wood.
It was probably more wood than a child should be carrying all the way back around the peak, but if he wanted to make problems for himself then Shen Qingqiu surely wasn't going to intervene. He let the child dart back out of the woodshed and then firmly shut the door.
If he had any comfort from the normalcy of a disciple tagging along in his wake the whole way back, he most certainly didn't let it show.
Shen Qingqiu took his time leaving his house the next morning and told himself it wasn't because he wanted to avoid his disciples.
Unfortunately, reorganizing his house didn't improve his mood. Whatever had been going on, it had been happening for a while. None of the disciples had looked older, but if it had only been a few months….
He had an ill feeling that he should have been taking his qi deviations more seriously and now he was paying the price for that. Whatever had happened, it had been long term and probably a sneaky sort of problem. He should have cooperated with the healers more.
Halfway through the morning, there was a timid knock on the door, and he opened it to his least favorite disciple, who was twisting the frayed edge of his robes nervously.
"Stop that," Shen Qingqiu snapped.
The brat dropped the fabric like it had burned him. "Apologizes, Shizun!" He shuffled his feet a little, eyes wide, then stumbled his words out all in a rush. "Shizun didn't send for someone to cook his breakfast. would Shizun like this disciple to make something?"
Well, that explained why no one had shown up with a meal so far. Apparently in his deviation induced paranoia he'd started making someone cook in his house on demand. Probably not this disciple, but Shen Qingqiu was in no hurry for a repeat of yesterday's reactions. He hadn't even seen Ming Fan since waking, and that was a worrying sign. Usually his head disciple was so eager to be helpful that Shen Qingqiu was all but tripping over him.
Did he want to eat this child's cooking? No, it was certain to be terrible. Did he want to cook for himself or call another disciple? Absolutely not. So he'd settle. If the brat couldn't manage to cook properly, Shen Qingqiu would just upend it on his head as a lesson to not offer to do things he couldn't do.
Decided, he waved the child into the house. "Fine."
He regretted it when the brat's face lit up like he'd been given some great gift. Shen Qingqiu hid his distaste by pointing the boy towards the kitchen and then picked up his favorite new fan from its stand (which was now properly against the wall with other fans displayed around it and no strange talismans). "Bring it out to my garden," he ordered.
The garden thankfully looked more normal than it had seemed to the day before. Shen Qingqiu busied himself checking it to see what he had done in however long he'd spent deviating. His benches were gone from the carp pond, oddly, and many of his plants had been swapped out.
He had apparently chosen the new plants to look dangerous without them actually being dangerous. For a chilling moment he'd thought one plant had been a Starlight Lover, which was not a plant that was allowed to be in any garden actively frequented by people much less his own garden, but when he inspected it he found that the leaves were less purple than he had thought and the flowers more of a translucent white than milky. Probably a Twining Star. Similar looking, still somewhat poisonous if used incorrectly, but not going to kill everyone who made the mistake of touching a flower.
It was odd, though, because for a moment he had been certain. He had been so certain that he’d almost gone directly to start warding the plant to destroy it before the shadows had changed angle and he’d realized he was overreacting.
A Twining Star made sense. They were incredibly rare plants and almost impossible to transplant. Of course he gave it a central place in his garden.
One of the uses for a Twining Star when the flowers were powdered correctly was easing qi deviations.
Shen Qingqiu shook off the thought, designating it firmly as tomorrow's problem, and moved to check on his fish. The carp gathered near the surface as he drew close, twining past each other, with the water looking oddly unnerving even when he glared at it.
He put it out of his mind and crouched down, reaching out a hand to pet one.
Several of the carp launched out of the water the moment his hand drew near, one of them latching onto his hand and shredding into it with some sort of qi technique before he managed to throw it off, stumbling backwards.
"Shizun!" There was a crash as a tray dropped to the ground shattering porcelain and spilling the food. Shen Qingqiu was too focused on his fish to care. That...they were carp! They looked pretty and ate plants! Who had—what had happened to his carp?!
"Shizun let me get—"
"Clean that up!" Shen Qingqiu snapped, pressing his free hand into his bleeding one and turning to stalk away.
He walked blindly, mind full of panic, until he was shaken out of it by running into the person he wanted to deal with second least in the world.
Liu Qingge was scowling down at a Qing Jing disciple, who was cringing slightly.
Shen Qingqiu pointed his closed fan at Liu Qingge. "What are you doing here and why are you causing trouble?"
Liu Qingge's eyes snapped to the fan, narrowing as if he recognized it. Then, without so much as a word, he pulled his sword and launched at Shen Qingqiu.
Shen Qingqiu dodged the first strike, fully in a panic, and went to snap his fan open for some sort of defense, since the Bai Zhan idiot had clearly gone insane. Liu Qingge's qi slammed against his fan, forcing it closed, and a sword strike that Shen Qingqiu barely managed to shield came immediately after.
Shen Qingqiu went flying back, completely losing his footing and going down hard onto the stone walkway. Liu Qingge went flying at him, sword out.
And then there was someone stepping between them, quiet rage filling the air.
It had been a very long time since Shen Qingqiu had been happy to see Yue Qingyuan, and it filled him with resentment that this was the situation. Of course Yue Qingyuan would bother to step in when it was another peak lord acting like an insane person. Better save Liu Qingge from himself before he did something he regretted, nevermind that Yue Qingyuan clearly hadn't bothered stepping in with whatever Shen Qingqiu had done the last few months until it became too obviously a deviation to deny.
"Liu Qingge, stand down," Yue Qingyuan said, voice low and dangerous.
"He issued the challenge," Liu Qingge said, sounding indignant.
"That may be true," Yue Qingyuan started, "but—"
"It most certainly is not!" Shen Qingqiu shoved to his feet, shaking the dirt off his robes and trying to contain his rage enough to keep his voice from shaking. "He showed up and attacked me!"
"Shidi…" Yue Qingyuan looked pained, like he was struggling with what to say.
"Get off of my peak." Shen Qingqiu snapped, biting off each word. "Or I'll challenge someone in actuality."
"Don't lie and pretend like you didn't start it," Liu Qingge said, glaring at him.
"Started it? Started what! You came here, causing trouble with my disciples, and when I asked what you were doing you attacked me!"
"You threatened me!"
"I don't even have a sword!"
"Don't be an idiot. We both know what you've got in your hands. Don't threaten someone with a deadly object if you aren't prepared to back it up!"
Shen Qingqiu stared at him in confusion, looked down at his fan, and then flicked it open in front of his face. The off white scene faded, even though he wasn't looking directly at it, as though the fan didn't want to be distracting.
Both Liu Qingge and Yue Qingyuan stilled.
"It. Is. A. Fan," Shen Qingqiu spit out, raging at the looks on their faces. "I realize that you're too stupid to understand anything that doesn't have sharp edges, but how spirital tools work is that you have to tell them to act like weapons. If they just randomly caused destruction, no one would use them!"
The fan almost seemed to vibrate in his hands. It had already started to become a comforting presence over the course of the day before, and Shen Qingqiu decided that it was most definitely his favorite thing in this conversation.
Not that it wouldn't have been before this—it always would have won that prize by default—but now it had earned it instead of winning due to the other participants being a brainless meathead and blame-filled sack.
Liu Qingge opened his mouth, probably to say something stupid, so Shen Qingqiu fanned at his own face to prove the point. The stylized bamboo leaves almost seemed like they were waving in the wind as he moved the fan, and he upgraded it to most likely his favorite in general, not just in this conversation.
Yue Qingyuan's eyes widened in panic. Idiot.
"If you were my disciples, I'd assign you some reading. You both clearly skipped it." Shen Qingqiu sneered, then turned around and stalked back towards his house.