Chapter Text
Binghe's long since resigned himself to the whims of his martial brothers' bullying, his cold and cruel shizun, and his own weakness at cultivation. So of course when the dream demon comes into his life and tells him all about his secret, powerful heritage and abilities, Binghe is not nearly so self-loathing as he is delighted.
"And I can look into anyone's dreams?" Binghe asked for the umpteenth time.
"You can, eventually . You are still a novice . Need I remind you, my disciple , you only began your training a week ago ."
Binghe tuned out Meng Mo. He was too busy packing up his thin sleeping mat, the one he'd stolen away for sleeping on the woodshed's hard floor because it was better than nothing. But tonight he wasn't going to sleep in here, tonight he would sleep in the closest proximity possible to Shizun himself.
"Are you even listening to me?" Meng Mo kept talking inside his head. "Proximity to the sleeping target doesn't make up for your dreamscape manipulation inexperience. Just because you're sleeping right outside that master's bamboo house doesn't mean you'll actually get to see his dreams. It might be years before you can do even that much!"
"I'd rather confirm that for myself first, thank you Meng Mo shifu," Binghe said sarcastically.
"And even if you can manage it, is this really worth it? Sleeping in the bushes in the freezing cold outside, with your master only on the other side of that wall? When he could wake in the night, look out his window and spot you too?"
An odd thrill ran up Binghe's spine at the thought.
"...if you want to test out your powers so badly, wouldn't it be better to test them on the Ning girl? If you pleaded with her like the sneak you are, I bet she'd even let you sleep in the same bed with her and not think twice about it. And well, it'd help with proximity for one thing."
"Shut up. Shizun's dreams… Shizun's dreams will be the first I see." Binghe sneered. He wouldn't intrude on his Ning-shijie's dreamscape like that, that was private. Shizun, on the other hand, lost his right to any privacy or mercy from Binghe. Binghe was going to sneak into the man's dreams, dig deep into his thoughts for blackmail, and when he was advanced enough, he'd concoct elaborate nightmares, as special gifts to repay Shizun's (non-existent) kindness.
Meng Mo seemed to realize there was no getting through to this brat, because he piped down after that. And so Binghe laid down on his pitiful sleeping mat, squeezed close to the side of the bamboo house that held Shizun's bedroom, shivered in the cold, and closed his eyes to sleep.
But no matter how he pushed at the walls of Shizun's dreamscape, it refused him entry. He pushed and pushed until the edges of Shizun's dreams burned him like a physical lashing, and Binghe had no choice but to retreat.
He stomped off into the bamboo grove at dawn, angry and frustrated and cheated.
"I told you so," Meng Mo sing-songed.
"You will tell me exactly what went wrong," Binghe demanded, "you will train me on exactly this until I get it right, and I will get it right soon , I know I was close."
He could practically feel Meng Mo rolling his eyes at him like he was a mere child throwing a tantrum.
(He was a mere child throwing a tantrum.)
___
The next attempt hardly went better.
Nor the next.
By the 4th try, Binghe did manage… something. He felt as though he'd surpassed the barrier keeping him locked out of Shen Qingqiu's dreams. But despite this, Shen Qingqiu's dreams that night were disappointingly dead.
"That usually happens whenever someone just isn't having a dream that night," Meng Mo answers him. "If you knew the right techniques, you could kickstart him into making his own dreams, or manufacture one for him, but obviously you're not there yet. At your level, it's just going to be like this sometimes. Sometimes he will dream and you will get lucky, other times he will have dreamless sleep and you won't see a thing. Sometimes he may have nightmares that kick you out of the dreamscape entirely, you need to be careful if that situation arises–"
Binghe seethed. "He already sleeps in brothels down the mountain half the time. There's only so many nights he sleeps in his own home. This is– this is–!"
"Frustrating? That's why you need to learn patience."
Binghe punched the nearest tree, imagining it was Meng Mo. His knuckles bled, and when Ning Yingying saw him later, she patched up his hand. Meng Mo made more comments about her, asking when he was going to dual cultivate with the girl already, which only spiked his anger all over again.
Every night that Shizun slept in brothels, Binghe decided, he would train with Meng Mo in hopes of a breakthrough. And every night Shizun returned, he'd dive into Shizun's mind hoping for a glimpse of something.
By the 6th attempt, Binghe was finally getting somewhere. This time when he breached the dreamscape, Shizun was already in the middle of a dream. Binghe was… almost overcome with glee. He was about to see a side of Shizun no one else could possibly see.
And he expected a certain type of dream, one typical for a peak lord of a righteous cultivation sect. Self-important, prideful dreams where Shen Qingqiu looked down on everyone else like ants at his heels.
Binghe was not prepared for dirty, broken down town streets, nor the group of young, underfed boys gathered around each other in rags. One boy in particular's face resembled Shizun's far too much, even if it was younger and too gaunt.
Binghe tried to step closer, but found that he couldn't. Whatever huge progress he'd made just by getting into a real dream, it didn't mean much in terms of interacting with the dream. Meng Mo had explained to him time and time again that watching a dream and changing a dream were two very different things, and Binghe didn't know how to walk into the dream itself and do anything. So he was forced to stay watching from afar, from a 3rd person perspective.
He watched as a slightly older boy approached the young Shizun, a stick of candy in his hands. He saw this "Qi-ge" insist "Xiao Jiu" eat it because he "didn't like sweets." Binghe knew what living on the streets was like, and he knew that was a lie if he ever heard one, no starving street urchin was picky about sweets of all things.
As soon as the candy landed in "Xiao Jiu's" hands, the dream shifted, abruptly and harshly. Suddenly it was just Qi-ge and Xiao Jiu, inside of a lavish estate. The Qi-ge who was so kind only a moment ago was now shoving Xiao Jiu to the ground, turning away, leaving him behind, while shadowed hands crept up from the floor to grasp at Xiao Jiu's prone form. Xiao Jiu spat curses at Qi-ge, tried to stand up, but the shadows wouldn't loosen their hold. Xiao Jiu's curses turned into pleas, and he began to cry in earnest, but Qi-ge was already gone. The shadows pulled Xiao Jiu down as though dragging him down through black tar to suffocate him.
And then Binghe woke up.
He startled, clutching at his chest and catching his breath. He scooted away from the edge of the bamboo house and quickly ran into the bamboo grove. He didn't want Shizun to spot him, if Shizun had just woken up too. He suspected that had to be the case. Otherwise the dream shouldn't have ended so abruptly.
"... Interesting," Meng Mo said. "He lived on the streets?"
Binghe shook his head as if to clear it. "That– can't be. I– he's…"
"If he started off a street rat, I wonder how did he end up a peak lord?"
Binghe didn't respond.
"Unless, of course, if that nightmare was a fluke. If he was dreaming of living through someone else's childhood, for whatever reason."
"How do I find out for sure?"
"Keep digging around. Look at his dreams over time and catch onto the patterns. Maybe this is a recurring nightmare, or maybe it was a one time thing and he'll only dream about sunshine and rainbows for the next 2 months." Meng Mo scoffed. "Dreams are complex and difficult to decipher at the best of times."
"When will I be able to step into the dream and interact with it?"
"When you get more practice. And patience." A sigh. "It helps to focus on one target for a long period of time, so that is something you're already doing right, I admit. Once you've managed it with your first target, interacting with other people's dreams from then on will become easier."
Binghe nodded. Determination burned in him anew.
Shizun spent the next 2 nights in the brothels, but Binghe was ready when Shizun slept in his bamboo house once more. He'd even gotten a little better with circulating his qi, so that sleeping on the grass in the cold night air did not bother him so. Falling asleep in the dirt beside the bamboo house was becoming a routine at this point.
Shizun's next dream was not the same as the last one. It was not particularly better, however. Shizun dreamed about a young man, a Qiu Janluo, berating him and beating him. Shizun was not much older than he had looked the last time.
Binghe was burning with more questions.
The next time, Shizun dreamed about running from a burning building.
The time after that, killing a cultivator for the sake of protecting "Qi-ge"
The time after that, Shizun was a beggar on the streets again, but there was no Qi-ge to give him sweets.
Binghe felt he was on the cusp of something. He was trying and failing to form the necessary connections between the dreamscape Shizun's and the real Shizun. He needed more information, more time, and more influence. And so he threw himself into Meng Mo's training even harder.
He had to interact with Shizun's dreams head on, he knew that'd have to bring him one step closer to the truth.
"Even when you can step into the dream yourself, you won't be able to change very much," Meng Mo said. "Do not get ahead of yourself. The most you can do is talk to his dreamscape projection, if even that. And that can indirectly change the dream of course, if you convince him to change things himself, but you do not yet have the power to shape his dreams for him."
"I know that," Binghe said. He thought back on his fantasies of a few short weeks ago, of shaping Shizun's every dream into nightmares for fun. The thought was less appealing now, almost...boring, when Shizun's every dream seemed to consist of nightmares regardless. Except boring wasn't the right word, but Binghe didn't know what was the right word.
He said something along those lines to Meng Mo, and the demon considered it. "You hate your Shizun because he is cruel to you. To wish nightmares on him is only justice. But now you're considering the opposite, because you haven't seen it yet. You haven't seen how he'd respond to a pleasant dream and you are curious."
Binghe… slowly nodded.
"You're conflicted because to give a kind dream to a cruel master is far from what's deserved." Meng Mo paces. "But perhaps now you are questioning if the nightmares are part of the reason he is cruel in the first place."
That… hadn't quite been on his mind, not as a concrete thought. But now that Meng Mo spoke the words, Binghe couldn't help but consider them.
He could not help but wonder if Shizun… could become kinder during the day, if dreams were kinder to him at night.
Meng Mo looked down at Binghe and shook his head. "Even now you seek approval from that scum. Your talents are wasted on that sorry peak lord."
"But it's no use for me to care what you do or don't do with the skills you learn from me. Do what you will."
___
Binghe didn't even realize he'd truly stepped into the dream at first.
He was inside a room of the rich estate Shizun dreamed of often, the one who's halls dripped with wealth and malice.
Shen Qingqiu's – Xiao Jiu's – eyes landed on Binghe, and he stiffened in surprise. Xiao Jiu did not speak right away, but he stopped in the midst of a chore– it seemed he'd been folding laundry.
Xiao Jiu, inside a lavish estate but assigned to a servant's task, in the garb of one with a truly pitiful station. It left Binghe wondering if Xiao Jiu worked here for meager pay, like his mother often took jobs she could from more well-off families, or...
"You're a new slave," Xiao Jiu interrupted Binghe's thoughts, staring daggers at him.
The words shocked Binghe just as much as they didn't. Shizun's dream self had up and confirmed Binghe's 2nd suspicion, that Shizun really was once a slave. Knowing this did not make it easier for Binghe to conceptualize.
Binghe coughed and shrugged his shoulders. Xiao Jiu kept peering at him through narrowed eyes. Binghe knew he should keep up a role, in a sense, but he was impatient, burning with questions, and all too excited that he'd finally made it this far. That he could so boldly question a young, dream projection of Shizun in a way he'd never hope to in real life, not without consequence.
So the first thing he blurted out was, "Why do you care about Qi-ge so much?"
Xiao Jiu's face flickered through shock, hope, confusion, anger, and then shut down into a cold neutrality. "...Did he tell you to pass a message to me?"
Binghe tried to think of a response to that. He still didn't know who Qi-ge was. What was he supposed to say here?
He was silent for too long, because Xiao Jiu's face slipped and showed disappointment. Hurt. Then that neutral, unreadable expression again. "Forget it. I'm tired of– of waiting for him. Just forget it."
Xiao Jiu returned to angrily folding laundry. Binghe wondered, how far could he really push here? Surely as much as he liked, right? What's the worst Shizun could do, accuse him of not being a real part of his dream?
"Who is Qi-ge? How did you meet him?" Binghe questioned. He picked up laundry to fold as well, out of habit.
Xiao Jiu shot him a glare, but he didn't tell him to fuck off. He didn't answer either, though. This was… frustrating.
"What will you do if he comes back?"
"Get out of here, obviously," Xiao Jiu said under a hushed whisper, as though afraid his master would come in and overhear. What Binghe didn't notice right then was how the walls closed in just a bit more around them, the shadows grew just that much farther as Xiao Jiu hunched in on himself.
"What will you do if he doesn't come back?"
Xiao Jiu's hands stilled. Then they began to shake. The boy took in a heavy breath, and then slapped down the robe he'd been folding into a crumpled mess. After only a moment longer of hesitance, Xiao Jiu began storming off out of the room.
"Xiao Jiu, wait!" Binghe called after him.
"Don't call me that!"
"What…. else… do I call you?" He asked, almost shouted, trying to keep pace again with dream Shizun, but he was surprisingly agile through maze-like hallways.
"Just go away!" Xiao Jiu said. And although his voice was angry, Binghe couldn't help but think of Shizun a bit like a cat in that moment. This young vision of Shizun wasn't nearly so intimidating as the Shizun he knew by day.
"Shizun?" Binghe tried.
"Who's your Shizun!" Xiao Jiu spat back, turning his head back to look at Binghe, and that was his mistake. In that moment of distraction, Xiao Jiu didn't see the man he was about to run into who appeared from nowhere. He collided with Qiu Janluo, who roughly grabbed Xiao Jiu's shoulders. Except that Qiu Janluo's features flickered into Wu Yanzi's, back and forth and back again. Binghe felt the dream turn unsure and afraid and tumultuous, and the man hadn't even done anything yet, but Xiao Jiu looked at Binghe with wide and terrified eyes as he struggled from the man's grip.
Binghe knew he couldn't control this dreamscape yet, but something about the dream had veered so sharply, it robbed what little control Binghe did have. His feet felt rooted in place, and he couldn't even try to move, let alone pry Xiao Jiu free. But he wanted to do something. He hated feeling powerless at the whims of stronger forces. The first dream he got to interact with couldn't go like this. That was as good as failure.
"Let go of him!"
The man's grip loosened only just. It was enough for a wide-eyed Xiao Jiu to violently struggle free. Xiao Jiu was gone in a flash so fast Binghe didn't know where he'd gone, and the room had turned so black there was no seeing anything save for the man who's face kept flickering between Qiu and Wu and Qiu and Wu. Then Xiao Jiu appeared again out of nowhere, slicing a sword he'd somehow acquired through the man. The man crumpled and ducked his head from the pain. Xiao Jiu backed away, until his back collided with Binghe's front and Xiao Jiu jerked violently, having forgotten Binghe was there at all. He turned and pointed the bloodied sword at Binghe.
Binghe knew that any harm he sustained in a dreamscape would not be permanent, Xiao– Shen Qingqiu was no dream demon, he didn't have that kind of ability. But Binghe knew if Xiao Jiu stabbed him with that blade it would hurt like the real thing, and may leave Binghe with some spiritual damage.
Before Binghe could say a word though, the man who'd just been stabbed moaned out, "Xiao Jiu…"
Xiao Jiu let out a gasp, and the sword he held clattered to the ground. He whipped his head around. He ran to the figure. He forced the man to lift his head off the ground– Binghe realized the man hadn't just fell, he'd been postured in a kowtow.
"QI-GE!" Xiao Jiu screamed. Because the man's face wasn't flickering anymore, his facial features settled onto that of the other street urchin. And Binghe just stood there, watching as Xiao Jiu cried and tried to stem the heavy bleeding from the sword wound. There was blood everywhere. If this were real, the man would've already died by now.
The darkness of the room, which had already been suffocating, washed over the two completely. Binghe could not even see his own hands in front of his face if he tried. Everything was eerily silent.
In the moments between one heartbeat and the next, everything around him suddenly was alight with flames.
Binghe saw a few flashes of other scenes, but so far away and so abstract that they slipped away before he could grasp them.
And Binghe awoke.
And he laid still on the cold dirt for long moments, looking dazedly at the sky above.