Chapter Text
Xiao Xingchen awoke to the sound of unfamiliar voices.
"...I thought the System was supposed to bring people from one universe to another, not give them a second chance in the same universe," said a low, unrecognizable voice. A pause followed. "I still don't think this is a good idea. And I'm not taking responsibility if things go wrong."
"You're questioning the logic of the System now, Shen Qingqiu?" said another voice. "And don't pretend like you're not all for this, I saw all the tears rolling down your cheek from behind your fan after you finished their arc."
"Shang Qinghua, you -!"
Xiao Xingchen opened his eyes in a flash.
Not a second later, he felt blindly at his side for Shuanghua, and curled his fingers around the handle.
Flanking the sides of his bed were two men he'd never seen before in his life - one tall, angular and rather beautiful in an icy, forbidding way, the other short and round-cheeked. The tall one had his face half-hidden behind a fan, while the short one was looking at Xiao Xingchen as though Xiao Xingchen was some new, possibly poisonous kind of plant he had accidentally stumbled upon while herb-picking.
"Good evening," Xiao Xingchen said, chillingly polite. "And who might I have the honor of addressing?"
Neither of them answered immediately.
"Put that thing down," the tall one said. The one named Shen Qingqiu, by the sound of his voice. "We're here to give you," he paused for effect, "a second chance."
Xiao Xingchen had no idea what he meant, but he wasn’t focused on that right now. Instead he was wondering how these two strangers managed to break through the protective charm he had drawn around his and Song Lan’s shared room, without Xiao Xingchen noticing. Perhaps they were evil spirits of some kind, cleverly disguised, in which case he sure as hell wasn’t going to put down his sword at their behest.
When it was clear that Xiao Xingchen wasn’t going to waver, the two men glanced at each other. "Question for you," Shen Qingqiu said, "what's the last thing that you remember, from before you fell asleep?"
“Zichen and I were discussing plans for our next night hunt," Xiao Xingchen found himself saying, before he could stop himself.
"Nothing else?"
If Song Lan was awake right now, he'd no doubt step in at this point in the conversation to freeze the two strangers with his icy glare and say something like, we don't have to tell you anything . Song Lan should be awake, because none of the conscious men in the room were attempting to keep their voices down, and Song Lan was normally an extremely light sleeper. Even during sleep, he was usually tense and alert. Xiao Xingchen looked over at the blanket-covered lump in the bed a few meters away from him, and was suddenly struck with a fresh and terrifying thought.
"What did you do to Song Lan," he said, voice dropping to sub-zero temperatures, as he raised Shuanghua again, and in a lightning-swift movement unsheathed his ivory sword from its scabbard.
"Don't worry, it'll fade in a couple of hours," the short man - Shang Qinghua - said, eyeing the sharp point of Shuanghua apprehensively and taking a few steps back. "The Nap-Inducing-Plant - “ ("still one of your worst-named artefacts, by the way," Shen Qingqiu interrupted, scowling) " - has no ill effects, unlike sleeping pills in the modern world."
Xiao Xingchen felt increasingly like he was out of his element. "Modern world?" he repeated, trying to keep the overwhelming feeling of lost confusion out of his voice. It wouldn't do him any good to show any sign of vulnerability to these strangers.
"You're freaking him out," Shen Qingqiu said to Shang Qinghua. Then he turned back to Xiao Xingchen. "Listen, Xiao Daozhang," he said, "we're here to help you, not hurt you."
"How do you know my name?"
"I'll explain in a moment, if you'd just give us a chance to do so."
Xiao Xingchen didn't say anything, although he finally lowered his sword, eyes still narrowed suspiciously. He still maintained a tight grip on the handle.
"We are…" Shen Qingqiu trailed off, looking at his partner in crime, before continuing, "here from the future."
At the same time, Shang Qinghua said, "we're travelling fortunetellers."
"Come on, we rehearsed this!"
"...and we are here to tell you that unless certain events come to pass, in the near future, you and your friend Song Zichen will meet a terrible end.”
Xiao Xingchen narrowed his eyes even further. “I’m afraid you’re going to need to be a little more specific.” Internally he bristled, because sure he’d been sheltered for a good chunk of his formative years, but he wasn’t born yesterday and didn’t like being treated as such. He wasn’t going to just grin and accept anything anyone told him without question, and definitely not these men he’d never seen before, who managed to break through the charmed barrier he’d constructed without him noticing and who couldn't seem to get their own story straight.
“I would if it wasn’t clear you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Shang Qinghua said. “So I’ll show you instead."
"What," Shen Qingqiu said, sounding intrigued despite himself, "I don't remember any Future-Depicting Mirror in Proud Immortal Demon Way?"
"There wasn't any. I brought my iPhone."
Shang Qinghua shook his sleeve, and from it he produced a small, thin, and perfectly rectangular object with a black square in the middle and a round circle underneath. Xiao Xingchen considered himself quite well-read on cultivation tools and gadgets, but this was nothing like anything he had seen before. When Shang Qinghua touched his finger to the round circle, the object made a sound like a bell ringing, and the square in the middle filled with colors and strange symbols.
This "iPhone" clearly possessed powers far beyond Xiao Xingchen's purview. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to stay calm. Whatever was going on, these two men clearly knew more about it than he did, so it wouldn't do him any good to act rashly. He was at a clear disadvantage.
Shang Qinghua angled the iPhone so that the square with the moving images was pointing towards himself and away from Xiao Xingchen. After a few moments, he held the iPhone in front of Xiao Xingchen's face. "Does this man look familiar to you?"
Xiao Xingchen looked. His heart constricted. “Zichen," he said, looking at the screen, the strange men in front of him, and Song Lan’s peacefully sleeping form in the bed next to him, in rapid succession. "But he, why is he...?"
The tiny image of Song Lan, trapped in this metal box, was more lifelike than any drawing Xiao Xingchen had ever seen. But at the same time it wasn’t. This Song Lan's eyes weren't the stern black eyes that Xiao Xingchen was so accustomed to seeing. They were eyes he'd occasionally caught sight of, in rivers and ponds, and in the curve of the metallic bowls that Baixue Temple reserved for special occasions.
Shang Qinghua touched his fingers to the iPhone again, and miniature Song Lan began to move. Xiao Xingchen watched because he had to, he couldn't look away. There was another man that Xiao Xingchen had never seen before. Then there was himself, and there was Shuanghua's blade, heading towards Song Lan's chest.
Xiao Xingchen stopped breathing.
“I think you get the picture," Shen Qingqiu said crisply, and Shang Qinghua did something complicated with his fingers so that the images stopped moving.
"If this is some kind of joke," Xiao Xingchen began. He burrowed his shaking hands beneath the covers, desperately seeking a hold. But he knew even as he said it that it wasn’t. Sure, these strange men with their otherworldly devices could still be demons in disguise, with the power to show Xingchen his worst fear. This could still be a trap. Xiao Xingchen was still positive that the half-baked cover stories they tried to feed him earlier were lies. But the images were too real and too specific, and Xiao Xingchen trusted his gut on this one. The earlier skepticism melted away, leaving only fear.
"I think you know it isn't," Shen Qingqiu said quietly, although not entirely without sympathy. “The question is, what are you willing to do to prevent this outcome from happening?"
Xiao Xingchen swallowed. “Anything."
Shen Qingqiu looked at him skeptically. "Anything?"
“Yes, anything,” Xiao Xingchen said, his voice even.
“Hmm," Shen Qingqiu said, after a moment of silence. "Maybe this won’t be so difficult after all."
“Of course,” Shang Qinghua interjected. “I mean, that's the reason we're running with - “
“Quit running your mouth,” Shen Qingqiu said to him, scowling. Turning back to Xiao Xingchen, who was growing more and more confused by the second, he said, “fortunately, if everything pans out the way that it should, you don't need to carve out your own intestines, or anything like that. Unfortunately, preventing the tragic outcome you saw just now is not entirely in your own hands.
You need to make Song Zichen fall in love with you."
Xiao Xingchen did not choke, but it was a close thing. "I need to what?" he said faintly, even as Shen Qingqiu's words rang crystal clear in his ears.
"You need to make Song Zichen fall in love with you," Shen Qingqiu repeated, with an air of long-suffering patience. He sighed and said to Shang Qinghua, "you know, this would've been so much easier if you had just created a simple, no-frills love potion in Proud Immortal Demon Way for us to bring along. It wouldn't have been cheating, you know. All of Enormous Eggplant's stallion novels have them."
"And cut my word-count down by a third? No way."
Xiao Xingchen would have wrung his hands if he weren't gripping the bedsheets so tightly his knuckles turned white. "I still don't understand. Why do you want to help us in particular, or do you go around trying to save people from their tragic fates?"
"My Shen-shixiong, here, ah, heard of your tragic fate and was beside himself for a week," Shang Qinghua said. "And I couldn't bear listening to him moaning about how you two deserved better for a minute longer."
"Talking about yourself, Shang Qinghua?" Shen Qingqiu said, his voice filled with venom as he shot him a look that clearly said, I'll deal with you later. "It was his idea, by the way," he said to Xiao Xingchen. "But the short of it is, we think you're both good people who were done dirty by, er, fate. And if we're able to help change the course of your story, why not?" He shrugged. "It's not a big burden on us, anyway."
Xiao Xingchen nodded slowly, still trying to take everything in. "And I'm grateful, really," he said, "but does Zichen - Song-Daozhang need to fall in love with me to divert this outcome? Surely there are other methods."
"Do you trust us?"
"Do I have a choice?" Xiao Xingchen said, a touch bitterly.
“No, to both your questions,” Shang Qinghua said. He rummaged about in the pouch at his belt for a few moments, eventually pulling out a large cotton sack. "We'll explain in a moment, but first let me show you a couple of things that you might find useful. Here." Turning the sack upside down, he unceremoniously dumped its contents at the foot of Xiao Xingchen's bed. "This thing, here, is - "
But Xiao Xingchen never got to hear from Shang Qinghua what the thing was, because Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua both stopped suddenly mid-motion, winced, and then wore mirror looks of concentration, as though listening to a voice that Xiao Xingchen couldn't hear.
"Sorry, we need to go," Shen Qingqiu said, haphazardly re-stuffing the sack. "Sorry. But don't worry, we will be back. For now the System will be able to explain the rest of it to you. Probably. I hope."
And then they were gone, before Xiao Xingchen had a chance to reply.
-
Xiao Xingchen lay awake for what seemed like hours, until the sky outside the window gradually brightened. He was tempted to believe that the whole thing had been a nightmare, some kind of hallucination, and would've almost been able to convince himself if not for the misshapen, lumpy sack on the table by his bed.
When his eyes finally did slide closed, when his mind finally crossed over to unconsciousness, a sudden voice sounded in his brain.
[Welcome to the System,] it said, in a voice unlike anything Xiao Xingchen had ever heard before. It didn’t sound human or like any monster that Xiao Xingchen had met in his travels.
Xiao Xingchen nearly leapt out of his skin. Who are you? he thought frantically.
[System successfully activated,] the voice continued, in that droning monotone. [Mission: to prevent the Yi City arc in the original novel from occurring. Starting B-points: 100. Minimum B-points to achieve mission: 1000.]
Strangely, it was the talk of missions and points that made Xiao Xingchen relax slightly, even though the mission itself sounded like complete gibberish to Xiao Xingchen. It gave him something solid to work toward, and in the midst of all this uncertainty he appreciated being given a concrete goal.
Can you explain more? Xiao Xingchen thought into the dark void. How do I accumulate points?
[You and Song Zichen…] The voice of the System started fading, and then Xiao Xingchen heard a crackling noise, like the sound of chestnuts being roasted over a fire. [Error… error… system rebooting…]
Song Zichen and I what? Xiao Xingchen thought desperately. Hello? Anyone there?
But the System didn't answer.
He didn’t think he’d be able to fall asleep, but he must have passed out at some point. By the time Xiao Xingchen opened his eyes again, the sun was high in the sky, filling the room with blinding sunlight. It couldn't be any earlier than mid-day; he couldn’t remember the last time he allowed himself to sleep so late. He flicked his eyes again to the side table, the sack once again a reminder that last night's events weren't a dream.
The bed beside him was empty.
Normally this wouldn't have caused Xiao Xingchen any concern. They were both capable cultivators, and Song Lan was more than able to fend for himself. Other than an infestation of demons that, by all accounts, were more interested in stealing crops than anything more sinister, there was nothing about this sleepy village that would make Xiao Xingchen worry more for Song Lan's safety than usual. And yet, the Song Lan-shaped dent in the bed beside him made his heart pound, his throat go dry, and in Xiao Xingchen's mind the image of Shuanghua a hair's breadth away from piercing Song Lan's chest looped over and over, despite his efforts to keep it at bay.
Xiao Xingchen was ready to set out looking for Song Lan, with Shuanghua in hand, when Song Lan came in through the door.
“Zichen," Xiao Xingchen said, unable to keep the relief out of his voice. “There you are."
If Song Lan noticed anything strange about Xiao Xingchen's tone, he didn't show it. “I didn’t want to wake you," Song Lan said. He held a basket of vegetables and rice under one arm. His eyes scanned Xiao Xingchen curiously, taking in his unkempt hair, still loose, and the way his belt hung askew at his waist. “Did you not sleep well last night?”
Xiao Xingchen opened his mouth, paused, and closed it again. He had never kept anything from Song Lan in their years of knowing each other, and it wasn't like those strange men had said anything about keeping the events of last night, or the mission plan, a secret. But some instinct inside of him said, not now.
"I was tired," Xiao Xingchen said, which wasn't a lie, even if the cause of the exhaustion was not the friendly spar Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan had before bed last night, like Song Lan no doubt presumed.
Song Lan nodded his acknowledgment and turned to place the basket of food on the small dining table. “Let’s eat,” he said. Xiao Xingchen always appreciated Song Lan's silence and his tendency not to pry, but never more so than now.
They ate their meal sitting at the small dining table. Song Lan had spent some time chatting with various shopkeepers at the marketplace, and had brought back various tidbits of news and rumours with him, about the political battles raging between the major cultivation sects and the sightings of some mysterious, glowing creature in a forest not too far from the town they were staying. Normally Xingchen would be taking an avid interest in all this, but today his mind was elsewhere. He paid attention just enough to “ah” and “mm” and “I see” at the appropriate moments in the conversation, while his thoughts continued to linger on the revelations of the previous night.
He had no idea what kind of person Song Lan would be attracted to. It wasn't a topic that Xiao Xingchen was deliberately avoiding with him. Between night-hunting and studying and everything else that filled their day-to-day lives, the question just hadn't come up. Neither of them were the type to gossip about other people's love affairs, and Xiao Xingchen had none of his own to divulge. Song Lan was an attractive man, that was obvious to anyone who had eyes. He had seen the way men and women's gazes lingered, and he knew that Song Lan had been propositioned at least as many times as the number of night-hunts that they had been on together. As far as Xiao Xingchen was aware, Song Lan had never said yes to any of these overtures, but it wasn't like they spent every waking moment together. So. It was possible that Song Lan already had a romantic partner, or at least a romantic interest, that he was keeping concealed from Xiao Xingchen.
It made Xiao Xingchen uncomfortable to think about his most intimate friend harboring such significant secrets from him, and then immediately guilty. He was harboring such a big secret of his own, after all.
But he dismissed the idea of Song Lan having a secret lover pretty quickly. His friend was not the kind of person who did things by halves, and if he really did have a lover he would be devoted to them, he wouldn’t spend this much time alone with Xiao Xingchen. Maybe a love interest at least, though Xiao Xingchen couldn’t really imagine what Song Lan would be like in love. The only reference Xiao Xingchen had for "lovestruck" was one of his fellow disciples, who'd been besotted with an immortal who had come to visit Baoshan Sanren for a few weeks. Xiao Xingchen remembered thinking his shixiong’s behavior bordered on absurd: he spent every waking moment following her around like a faithful dog, but he did not speak with her, or even attempt to. Instead he would just gape at her, his eyes drawn to her as though by some magnetic force. It was impossible for Xiao Xingchen to imagine Song Lan wearing a similar expression.
"Xingchen?"
Xiao Xingchen startled, only slightly, before he caught himself. "Yes," he said.
"Are you all right?" Song Lan asked. He brought one palm down to hover just a centimeter or two away from Xiao Xingchen's forehead, and frowned. "You're a little warm."
"I'm fine,” Xiao Xingchen insisted.
This didn’t seem to satisfy Song Lan, whose frown only grew deeper. "And you seem so distracted."
“I didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m having trouble focusing still." He offered Song Lan a smile.
Song Lan sighed, because of course he could call Xiao Xingchen's bluff. “Is that really all? Xingchen."
Xiao Xingchen took a deep breath, fiddling with the tassel hanging from his belt. “It isn't something that I can talk about right now,” he said at last, truthfully. "I'll tell you when the time is right. Promise."
For a moment longer Song Lan continued to stare, his eyes dark and sharp and narrowed as they searched his face carefully, and Xiao Xingchen braced himself for more questioning. Whatever Song Lan found in Xiao Xingchen's expression must have put him at ease, though, because soon enough his eyes softened. "All right," he said, with an air of finality. “If you say so.”
“Thank you,” Xiao Xingchen said quietly. “Now, what were you saying about the Lanling Jin sect?"
The questions continued to proliferate in the back of Xiao Xingchen's mind as he went through the motions of daily life. As he ate, drank, chatted, sparred, exorcised, memorized, studied, and fought, the thoughts needled at him, playing over and over on an endless loop, how do I make Zichen fall in love with me? What does he like? How should I become what he likes, or at least, let him believe I've become what he likes?
He didn’t have the answers to any of these questions, despite being Song Lan’s most intimate friend, and Song Lan his.
But he was determined to find them.