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I.
The Peak Lord of Qing Jing Peak lives in a bamboo house. There is a bed there, with soft sheets and a gauzy canopy. The frame of the bed is beautiful, and finely crafted perfume bags hang from each corner. It is the kind of bed nobility would envy for its comfort and craft.
Not once has Shen Qingqiu, Peak Lord of Qing Jing Peak, ever slept in this bed.
II.
Yue Qingyuan steps off of Xuan Su’s sheath and reattaches it to his belt. Qing Jing is peaceful this time of the morning, even with the sound of the discordant notes of disciples first learning how to play the qin filling the air.
He walks through the paths, giving his greetings to those disciples who didn’t currently have class as he goes. He follows the one that will lead him to the place Xiao Jiu calls home. Hidden among the bamboo, the house is small but well made and elegant. It suits the serene surroundings it inhabits. It suits the person Xiao Jiu has become.
Having reached it, Yue Qingyuan knows not to look inside. Instead, he searches behind it.
A dragon lays in the clearing behind the house. He is large, perhaps twice the size of the horses they use to pull carriages. His dark scales gleam green when the light hits them just right. Rigged spines grow along his back, trailing down his long, sinuous tail. The membrane on his wings is dark and leathery in texture. His claws are wicked sharp. Yue Qingyuan knows from experience that they are as strong and sharp as any cultivator’s sword. He has seen them rip and tear and cut things that threatened his pact-partner to shreds.
Coming to a stop before the dragon, Yue Qingyuan smiles. “Hello, A-Yuan,” he greets.
“Yue-zhangmen,” the dragon says. His voice is low and has an undertone of a serpentine hiss. “Have you a need for something?”
“May I speak to Qingqiu-shidi?” Yue Qingyuan asks. The dragon laughs a low, rumbling laugh and lifts his wing. Tucked into his side is Xiao Jiu, sleeping against the patch of scales that is warmest on Shen Yuan’s body. When the wing is lifted, his face twitches in displeasure.
Yue Qinyuan kneels before him. “Qingqiu-shidi?” He does not reach out to touch. He does not want to get burned.
Xiao Jiu’s eyes flutter open. He stifles a yawn and sends a glare at Yue Qingyuan. Yue Qingyuan keeps smiling.
“It’s rather early for a nap, isn’t it shidi?”
Xiao Jiu keeps glaring. Then he lifts his hands and gestures, the movements sharp and clipped. [ It’s never early for a nap. What do you want? ]
“I need the paperwork for the Immortal Alliance Conference. After that, I believe you have a mission with Liu-shidi?”
Xiao Jiu’s lips draw into a sneer. He gestures again. [ That brute can wait a while longer. ]
“The paperwork cannot. Is it inside?”
Xiao Jiu stands and brushes his robes off needlessly. They are spotless, despite where he has been sleeping. Yue Qingyuan stands with him and follows him when Xiao Jiu leads the way into the bamboo house, to where Xiao Jiu has his desk and his paperwork. There is a window above it, large and open. Outside it is the clearing where Shen Yuan rests, looking amused.
Xiao Jiu picks the stack of papers sitting on top of the desk and hands it to Yue Qingyuan. He raises a brow.
Yue Qingyuan stiffles the urge to laugh. “Thank you, Qingqiu-shidi. Now I believe you have a mission?”
Xiao Jiu sniffs and goes around Yue Qingyuan with a sweep of his robes. Movement in the window tells him Shen Yuan has also risen from his resting place. Yue Qingyuan follows them and exits the bamboo house just in time to see Xiao Jiu swing a leg over Shen Yuan’s neck and settle there, just behind his head.
Yue Qingyuan calls out to them. “Have a safe trip, Qingqiu-shidi, A-Yuan.”
Xiao Jiu spares him a glance and a nod. Shen Yuan pulls his lips back into something approximating a smile and says, “Farewell, Yue-zhangmen.”
Then Shen Yuan flaps his powerful wings and the two of them are in the air, flying towards Bai Zhan Peak.
III.
Long ago--
Xiao Jiu stands before him, dressed in ragged clothing with his hair tied up in a simple style. He glares at Yue Qingyuan, eyes full of an indescribable hatred.
Standing behind him, tail curled protectively around Xiao Jiu, is a dragon.
Yue Qingyuan can’t breathe, the air is stuck in his chest. He stares for a moment, trying to regain his bearings. Then, “A pact? You made a pact?”
Yue Qingyuan hadn’t even known Xiao Jiu was alive. He’d thought that--He’d thought that Xiao Jiu was dead after he found the burned down remnants of the Qiu manor.
“We did,” the dragon--dragon! A wyvern type dragon!--says to him. Xiao Jiu rests a hand on the dark scales of its head. He says nothing.
He has said nothing this entire encounter.
Yue Qingyuan shakes. He draws in a heavy breath. Xiao Jiu is alive. He’s pact-partners with a dragon. But he’s alive.
Only. “--What was the price?”
Xiao Jiu looks at him. He opens his mouth. He sticks out his tongue. On it, there is a seal. Complicated, with jagged edges like the dragon’s spines; it reminds Yue Qingyuan of an eye.
“His voice. The pact took his voice from him,” the dragon says, as if it is not obvious what this pact has done to Xiao Jiu.
To bind yourself to a monster always requires a price. Power in exchange for something else. Something of your own. Something you treasure.
And Xiao Jiu’s voice was…?
“...I see.”
IV.
Before coming to Cang Qiong, Liu Qingge thought that pacts and pact-partners were a myth.
It is the sort of thing his sister likes to see in her books--a monster and a human, souls bound together as one through an ancient contract. Liu Mingyan says it’s romantic. Liu Qingge just thinks it’s weird. Why would anyone want to give up something they treasure in exchange for power?
Then he goes to Cang Qiong and participates in their entrance exam and there was, of all things, a dragon laying on the sidelines watching the proceedings with intelligent yellow-gold eyes. The pact-partner of one of the other participants.
He’d thought it was a myth--
But pacts and pact-partners are anything but.
Wind swirls around them as Shen Qingqiu and Shen Yuan land on an open patch of the training field. All around them, disciples pause with their training to take a look at the Peak Lord of Qing Jing Peak and his dragon. Some of the younger ones, new brats who had never seen Shen Qingqiu before, even put down their weapons to go closer and get a better look.
“Back to training!” Liu Qingge barks at them. The harsh tone sends them scrambling back to their drills and their sparring. Liu Qingge looks at Shen Qingqiu, the man in question utterly unrepentant from where he sits on his pact-partner’s neck. “You’re late.”
“We are never late, nor are we early, we arrive precisely when we mean to,” Shen Yuan says, the sound of it startling Liu Qingge’s youngest disciple into dropping his practice sword. Shen Yuan says it like it’s a joke only he is privy to. Certainly no one but him, his pact-partner, and--of all people-- Shang Qinghua seem to understand them.
Liu Qingge scoffs, used to this state of affairs. “Right.” He draws Cheng Luan and mounts it, rising into the air. “Let’s get this over with then.”
He takes to the sky and Shen Yuan follows him. The three of them fly northeast.
It’s a challenge to keep up with Shen Yuan. Wyvern like him are built for speed, and it shows. When Shen Yuan flies at his fastest, not even Liu Qingge can keep up with him for more than a moment or two. Still, this means they’ll reach their destination quickly. And that means he’ll have to spend less time around Shen Qingqiu.
A win-win in Liu Qingge’s eyes.
V.
Long ago--
“Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky.”
Shang Qinghua looks at the dragon. He looks at Shen Qingqiu. He looks at the dragon again.
“...And here I thought I had it bad as a transmigrator.”
He receives two identical deadpan looks. It is a very surreal thing to see when only one of those people deadpanning at him is even remotely human.
VI.
“Oh, thank you, honored cultivators! I’m so very glad you’ve come!” The noble who’d requested Cang Qiong’s assistance nearly sobs as he bows. “T-There’s been so much trouble!”
“Fields have been burning during the night, right?” Liue Qingge asks briskly. He’s already been briefed by Yue Qingyuan, but it’s generally a good idea to clarify on scene, just in case something has changed since the message for help was sent.
“Yes. Cattle has been going missing as well. It’s quite worrying. So very worrying. People are bound to go next!” The man wipes tears away from his eyes. He glances with slight fear at Shen Yuan lounging in the man’s courtyard.
It’s not an unusual reaction. Dragons of all kinds are feared, bar celestial dragons. But no one has seen or heard a celestial dragon in hundreds of years. Add in the fact that their fields have been burning and wyvern being known for their fire?
Neither Shen Qingqiu or Shen Yuan say anything to mitigate those fears. Liu Qingge thinks Shen Qingqiu likes the fear, even.
“Show us the fields,” Liu Qingge commands.
The fields, when they get there, have been burned to the ground. The soil is black with soot and grey with ash. There are bits of what looks almost like glass. If the fire was hot enough to make glass, no matter how little…
Shen Yuan crawls along the still warm ground. “Hmmm,” he rumbles low in his chest, sounding interested. "You make a good point, Qingqiu."
“What?”
The dragon ignores him. “Then you think so too, Qingqiu?”
Shen Qingqiu walks out onto the field as well, utterly unconcerned about the heat. He covers his face with his fan and nods.
“Think what?” Liu Qingge snaps. He hates it when they do this. He knows it’s part of the pact--for Shen Qingqiu to communicate with Shen Yuan, he doesn’t need to use sign language. In truth, Shen Yuan doesn’t need to speak out loud to talk to Shen Qingqiu either. He’s been told it’s a kind of telepathy, sending images and feelings and concepts back and forth through their bond. His sister calls it amazing. Liu Qingge calls it annoying.
“White Fire Snake,” The dragon says. He sounds excited. “In other words, a wyrm.”
A wyrm, huh? Liu Qingge feels a smile spread over his own lips. Suddenly, he is a lot more interested.
Wyrms are a kind of dragon, after all. And dragons can be damn hard to fight.
VII.
Tracking the wyrm to its den is a simple thing when you have both the Bai Zhan and Qing Jing Peak Lords working, however begrudgingly, together. Shen Yuan takes to the air and watches things from above, while Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu search from the ground. Using the pact bond between them, Shen Qingqiu relays what Shen Yuan sees to Liu Qingge. It makes things simpler. Almost too simple.
It doesn’t even take an incense stick’s worth of time before they find tracks. After that, all it takes is following those tracks to the cave the White Fire Snake uses as its den.
Shen Qingqiu clicks his tongue to get Liu Qingge’s attention. As far as Liu Qingge knows, it’s the only sound he’s capable of making unless he claps or plays an instrument or something--the pact won’t even let him hum.
When Liu Qingge looks over at him, Shen Qingqiu makes a gesture with his hands. Liu Qingge recognizes it as sign for [ Plan? ]. Sign language was a pain to learn, but it is useful in situations like these--where sounds might notify their prey of their presence--and it is tons better than using Shen Yuan as a translator.
They argue back and forth for a while, bickering on this or that detail, before settling on a plan. While they are arguing, Shen Yuan finds the other entrances to the wyrm’s den. They use this knowledge to, quite literally, smoke the wyrm out of it’s cave. Even if the White Fire Snake can breathe fire, it still needs oxygen to breathe.
Cheng Luan in hand, Liu Qingge throws himself into battle with the monster, Shen Qingqiu by his side. Due to the lack of space, Shen Yuan mostly gets relegated to being Shen Qingqiu’s extra pair of eyes in the sky. A part of Liu Qingge is grateful for it. Shen Yuan is strong--between Shen Qinqiu and Liu Qingge the fight is already easy enough.
The White Fire Snake’s scales are as hard as armor and difficult to cut through, but it does not take long to start wearing the wyrm down. The fire it breathes at them is more difficult to deal with--for Liu Qingge that is.
Shen Qingqiu doesn’t bother to dodge when a stream of flame hot enough to melt sand into glass engulfs him. Liu Qingge has to stop himself from doing something drastic when he sees it--he knows that Shen Qingqiu is fine, he knows, but that doesn’t stop the gut wrenching sensation of terror that spikes through him.
But Shen Qingqiu gained immunity to fire when he made his pact, and there are so many anti-fire talismans sewn into his clothes and incorporated into his items that they might just be less flammable than he is. So when the fire clears to reveal Shen Qingqiu utterly unscathed, it’s something to be expected.
It takes nearly a shichen to wear the beast down and kill it. It’s Liu Qingge who deals the final blow--the scales on the monster’s neck having finally broken off enough that he’s able to sever the beast’s spinal cord. By the end of it all, both of them are exhausted. Just about the only of them who isn’t is Shen Yuan, who spent the fight acting as support.
Shen Qingqiu collects a number of scales from the wyrm, as many as he can stuff into a qiankun pouch. Then they both step back and let Shen Yuan devour what’s left of the corpse. The dragon eats until his stomach is bloated and full, leaving only a few bones behind.
VIII.
Long ago--
“Immune?” Mu Qingfang exclaims. “Completely?”
“Yes,” Shen Yuan confirms. As proof, Shen Jiu lays bare palms on the hot scales of Shen Yuan’s hide. If a normal person did so, their hands would have burned as if they touched a hot pan. Shen Jiu doesn’t show so much as a twitch of discomfort, and when he shows Mu Qingfang his hands after taking them off, there is no sign of a burn at all.
“Fascinating,” Mu Qingfang’s Shizun says. She scribbles note after note. If Mu Qingfang knows her, then this is probably going to be published as a paper as soon as she can finish writing one. "And what other powers did he gain?"
Shen Jiu frowns. He narrows his eyes at Mu Qingfang's Shizun. Shen Yuan blows a cloud of hot smoke in her face. "He's mute, not deaf," the dragon growls.
Shizun coughs and waves her hands in front of her face. "Yes." She coughs and coughs. "F-forgive me."
Mu Qingfang asks Shen Jiu directly, "Did you gain anything else?"
Shen Jiu nods and looks to Shen Yuan to answer. The dragon smiles. It looks like a bearing of teeth. "He heals faster than normal humans do. We can communicate without speech. If one of us dies, so too does the other. I suspect his cultivation potential got better as well."
Mu Qingfang furrows his brows. Shizun sighs wistfully. "Unfortunately we can't test most of that. It would be so nice to have some proof. Pacts are so rare, it's such an opportunity to be able to interrogate a pair of pact-partners on the nature of their contract. Speaking of which--your seal. It's on your tongue, yes?"
Shen Jiu nods and opens his mouth to show them.
Mu Qingfang can't help but think the seal is… somehow sinister.
IX.
Yue Qingyuan is pleased when Xiao Jiu and Liu Qingge walk into his office. "Qingqiu-shidi, Liu-shidi," he greets them each in turn. "I trust things went well?"
"Well as it could have gone," Liu Qingge answers. Xiao Jiu pulls out a qiankun pouch and tosses it at him. Yue Qingyuan catches it, pulls it open, and is surprised to see dragon scales inside.
Xiao Jiu clicks his tongue. Yue Qingyuan looks up and sees him sign, [ It was a White Fire Snake. Those are the intact scales I was able to collect. ]
“A wyrm? I see. Thank you for collecting them, Qingqiu-shidi.” Yue Qingyuan will give some of them to the Beast Taming Peak, and the rest to Wei Qingwei. Both will appreciate it greatly.
“If that’s all, I’m leaving.” Liu Qingge turns and leaves without another word.
Yue Qingyuan hesitates. “Ah, Qingqiu-shidi, he wasn’t injured, was he?”
Xiao Jiu shakes his head.
“Good.” Yue Qingyuan furrows his brows. “Then I won’t have to ask Mu-shidi to make a surprise visit to Bai Zhan.”
Xiao Jiu sniffs. Then he turns and leaves as well.
Yue Qingyuan smiles as he watches Xiao Jiu go.
X.
Long ago--
Shen Yuan crawls into the cave. He’s so tired. He hurts so much. What did he do? Why do they keep attacking him? He just wanted to take a closer look. He hasn’t seen anyone human since he transmigrated--
He used to think transmigrating as a dragon was a good thing. He thought that it was so cool that he could breathe fire and fly. He could see so many things from the air! Go places he had never dreamed!
But he was naive.
And now he is dying.
Calling cultivators on him, he hasn’t even done anything! He’s never touched them or their fields or their cattle. He just wanted to… take a closer look…
He collapses and lays there. The sound of his breathing is wet, so wet. There is an arrow in his lung, he can feel it with every drag of his breath.
He doesn’t want to die. Shen Yuan doesn’t want to die.
“A dragon?”
Shen Yuan looks up and sees a boy leaning against the entrance to the cave. He’s covered in blood, and there’s a gaping wound on his stomach. He doesn’t have much longer to live either.
“A human?” Shen Yuan says back to him, more to say something, anything, than to question the boy. The boy startles when he speaks. The cultivators did too, when they were attacking him. Is it really so strange for a wyvern to speak?
The boy looks over his wounds. There are dark circles under his eyes. “You’re dying too, beast?” the boy says.
Shen Yuan laughs. The action causes agony to strike through him. Still, he laughs. He laughs and laughs and laughs. “Yes,” he hisses the words out. “I’m dying. I only wanted to live, and now I’m dying. Humans are so very selfish. So very cruel.”
The boy looks at him with a bitter expression. Then he collapses against the cave wall and slides down to the floor. Blood is pooling at his feet. “You have that right. Humans are all so--so cruel. I hate them.”
Shen Yuan. Stares at him. The boy. There is something familiar about him. It takes him a moment to place it, before he realizes it. “You’re a cultivator, aren’t you, boy?”
The boy scowls, but nods.
If the boy is a cultivator…
Shen Yuan remembers the web novel called Proud Immortal Demon Way well. He knows this world is the same as that novel. And so too does he remember pacts and what they can do.
So he rasps out a question. “Boy, what is your name?”
“Shen Jiu,” the boy spits out. Then he coughs. He clutches the wound on his stomach and coughs. It looks about as painful as laughing.
Shen Yuan smiles. “Shen Jiu, huh?” It feels a little like fate. “My name is Shen Yuan.”
The boy, Shen Jiu, startles. “Shen?”
Shen Yuan laughs again. “Yes, Shen. Say, Shen Jiu. Do you want to live?”
Shen Jiu stares at him, wide-eyed.
Shen Yuan smiles wider. “There is a way we can live.”
Shen Jiu narrows his eyes.
Shen Yuan keeps smiling.
“Have you ever heard of a pact, Shen Jiu?”
