Work Text:
1.
The first time Shang Qinghua meets Mobei Jun, he almost kills him.
Well, he thinks about it, at least. He picks up the rock! He almost brings it down on Mobei Jun’s head! Really, Mobei Jun owes Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky his entire life, because the only reason he doesn’t bring the rock down is that he made Mobei Jun too, too handsome.
That’s all it was, Shang Qinghua thinks, as he drags the cart carrying Mobei Jun’s unconscious body through the sweltering woods. He was just distracted by seeing Mobei Jun’s perfect nose and the rise of his cheekbones and the long sweep of his black hair and—well, his everything—in the flesh for the first time! He couldn’t just smash up that gorgeous face, even though he knows that it doesn’t matter, that Mobei Jun is just a character in a book he wrote. A good character, of course! Maybe the best character in the book, and so it’s only natural that he would admire his own handiwork!
Anyway, Shang Qinghua probably couldn’t have killed him, even if he’d tried. An Ding Peak disciples aren’t exactly the strongest. If he’d brought the rock down, at most it would have bruised Mobei Jun! In the circumstances, it would have been pointless to try.
The cart jolts over a rocky patch in the track, and Shang Qinghua stumbles before catching his footing. When he glances back, Mobei Jun is still sprawled out, robes pulled open to reveal his broad chest. The sharp vee of skin Shang Qinghua can see is touched with a frosty blue undertone that makes Mobei Jun look—well—kind of dead?
“My King?” Shang Qinghua says, nervously licking his lips. He lowers the cart and reaches a tentative hand out to touch one of the shapely ankles protruding from Mobei Jun’s robes. It’s icy-cold and steel-hard. Probably unbreakable. “My King, are you …”
When he shakes the ankle, Mobei Jun grunts and twists onto his side, managing to put a chilly sort of displeasure into the noise even while unconscious. Not dead, then! That’s …
Well. Good isn’t really the word, is it? Shang Qinghua pauses, and lingers for a moment in the heat of the path, sweat seeping through his robes while he thinks through his options. He could pick up the cart and pull Mobei Jun—who is heavy! really heavy!—all the way to the nearest town, and then try to patch up his injuries; but he could also just … walk away.
The thing is that Mobei Jun is going to kill him some day, if they keep going down this path. Shang Qinghua can remember, in excruciating detail, the horrible ending he wrote for this unfortunate little lump of a side character. (And of course Shang Qinghua regrets writing that plot now, but it’s not as if he’d known at the time that he would be forced to play the role of this treacherous lackey!)
But maybe, even if he can’t bring himself to kill Mobei Jun, he could let Mobei Jun die? If, say, an opportunity arose. Which it has! Right now! He can just put down Mobei Jun’s foot (why is he still gripping his ankle, Shang Qinghua wonders, hastily dropping it) and then—slowly—back away—
【OOC! OOC! In this situation, Shang Qinghua would lack the courage to depart! He would choose to be sticky. Be sticky! A failure to cling to Mobei Jun’s thighs will result in a points deduction.】
“What?” Shang Qinghua squeals, caught a few steps away from the cart. “Why? You said the mission was only to survive! And you didn’t say anything when I tried to kill him!”
【If this humble System had considered you capable of following through on the threat, you would have received a warning.】
“What do you mean, capable? I could have done it!” Shang Qinghua squeaks, and only realizes he’s said it out loud when Mobei Jun groans and twists on the cart, further pulling his robes open. Shang Qinghua blinks a few times and then looks away. It really is very hot out today! That’s the only reason he’s sweating so hard!
“I could have done it if I wanted to,” he repeats, petulant.
【OOC,】the System says, somehow sounding dismissive, despite the fact that it always talks in the exact same grating digital monotone.
Frankly, these OOC warnings are getting a little ridiculous. Who is the System to tell him what’s out of character? Didn’t he write these nonsensical plotlines in the first place? Doesn’t he know exactly what will break the suspension of disbelief? These are his paper-thin characters!
“It is not OOC!” he snaps. “Why would Shang Qinghua want to go off and die a horrible death at Mobei Jun’s hand? It’s—he—he would want to go off and live a happy, quiet life where he never has to think about logistics ever again!” Well, maybe the original goods didn’t want that—he isn’t sure, really, because Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky hadn’t really given a lot of thought to what his side characters wanted, unless it was papapa with Luo Binghe—but that’s what he wants, isn’t it?
【This is Proud Immortal Demon Way,】the System intones.【A happy quiet life is OOC. Do not pursue ambitions which are OOC.】
“Okay, okay, shut up, I get it. It’s OOC, it’s all OOC,” Shang Qinghua sighs, picking up the cart handles again. He knows from long experience that there’s no point in arguing with the System: what he wants, what’s in character for him, doesn’t matter. He gives the cart a little jerk, so that Mobei Jun slips a bit. The demon grumbles when his head bumps against the back of the cart, so he must still be alive. Not that Shang Qinghua cares! “I’m going, I’m going.”
The System is wrong, though, he thinks as he trudges mutinously onwards. (His shoulders are already screaming under the weight of the cart. Why had he written Mobei Jun to be so big?) He could absolutely leave Mobei Jun to die, if the right circumstances arose. And it definitely wouldn’t be OOC, no matter what the System says.
2.
Once Shang Qinghua claws his way up to the lofty height of An Ding Peak head disciple, things improve a bit. His life doesn’t qualify as happy or quiet, and it contains far too much in the way of logistics, but at least the System no longer pops in to bark【OOC! OOC!】every day. Now it’s only every few weeks! What a relief!
Even Mobei Jun, other than sending his demonic lackeys to rescue Shang Qinghua whenever he gets in trouble on missions—which also happens too often for his tastes!—seems content to leave him alone most of the time.
Sometimes, in the spare moments between managing the Qing Jing Peak book budget and barely escaping with his life after the explosion of yet another cursed sword (it was a popular trope, okay?), Shang Qinghua dreams of getting away for a while. Or longer. Just running off from An Ding Peak to start a whole new life, somewhere that they’ve never heard of the Demon Realm or the Immortal Alliance Conference or Luo Binghe. Not that anybody around here has really heard of Luo Binghe yet! He’s barely a teenager! But the point stands. Somewhere Shang Qinghua can just be himself, instead of someone else; somewhere he can relax, maybe write a little bit. (Or maybe not. That’s how he got into this trouble in the first place.)
Somehow, those daydreams materialize in a moment where he’s frantically stuffing the last of the things he might need in a qiankun bag, including a pile of rare medicinal ingredients he’s borrowed from Qian Cao Peak into a qiankun bag. They won’t miss them! Well, they might, but he really needs them, so that he has something to sell when the meagre store of silver he’s collected runs out—
【OOC! OOC! Points will be deducted!】
“System-dage!” Shang Qinghua squawks, almost dropping the bag. He’d been so certain the System was stuck running diagnostics or doing required maintenance or whatever it is that Systems do in their free time. He’d even run a little test, casually mentioning a desire to microwave some instant noodles in front of one of his shidi, and the System hadn’t said a thing! “I wasn’t—I wasn’t trying to run away, if that’s what you thought? I was just, uh. Going on … vacation?”
【Vacation is an OOC concept. Points will still be deducted.】
“Vacation is OOC? Well, that’s a problem,” Shang Qinghua mutters. He starts unpacking the qiankun bag; there’s no point in delaying the inevitable, since the System has caught him in the act. Out comes the silver, his sword, a pile of books from Qing Jing Peak library about agriculture, some seeds, a bedroll … “Why didn’t I write vacations? Vacations for everyone on An Ding Peak! Long weekends for An Ding Peak! I should have put in an entire plot recognizing the sacrifices of those who work in logistics and rewarding them for it. If only I’d known! But this is all just a misunderstanding, right? You won’t really deduct points, will you?”
【OOC is OOC. One hundred B-points deducted.】
“One hundred?” It’s not the biggest deduction he’s ever faced, but Shang Qinghua doesn’t earn B-points so often that he can afford to squander them! “Can’t you have mercy, System-dage? Can’t you go easy on me?”
【You do not have sufficient B-points at this time to activate Easy Mode.】
“Wait. There’s an easy mode? Why didn’t you tell me?!?” Twenty years of slow, grinding progress, just to become head disciple at An Ding Peak, years of getting hit with OOC warnings every time he forgot himself and said “WTF” or “U CAN U UP” or talked about Produce 101 or his favourite donghua—and there’s an Easy Mode?
【There was no need to do so. You have never had the number of B-points required to activate Easy Mode.】
“Okay, okay, but—System-dage! How many points would I need?” Shang Qinghua pauses with the qiankun bag half-unpacked, hand still in its depths.
【The System will notify you automatically if you reach the threshold. This humble System is required to note, however, that you are unlikely to do so if you continue to speak of e-shipping and TaoBao when you are assigned logistics tasks, or if you persist in avoiding missions designed to advance System objectives. Please work hard! Avoid OOC!】
“Aiya!” Shang Qinghua starts to object. “I made head disciple, didn’t I? And I serve my king very well, he has no complaints—”
A dark portal slashes open in the air, cutting Shang Qinghua off with a squeal. Mobei Jun steps through in a swirl of frosty air, black hair billowing in the breeze. His deep blue eyes glance over the supplies piled haphazardly on the bed, then land with chilly weight on Shang Qinghua.
WTF?!? Why are you here? Why did I give you this ability? It’s too easy for you to just appear on An Ding Peak whenever you want!
“What are you doing, Shang Qinghua?” Mobei Jun asks, cold. (Everything Mobei Jun says sounds cold. His voice sounds like the roar of an underground stream through an ice cavern, or—no, how had he described it, in Proud Immortal Demon Way?—like the chill winds of deep winter, thundering over the snow. It makes Shang Qinghua shiver every time he hears it. Because it’s cold! Not for any other reason!)
“My King, I—” he squeaks, and drops the qiankun bag as Mobei Jun advances on him. A bunch of ten-petalled star lotus flowers—useful in controlling the Black Moon Rhinoceros Python—spill out from inside it, drifting out the window on the breeze emanating from the open portal. Shang Qinghua flails uselessly after them, then hops awkwardly across the bed to avoid Mobei Jun’s long reach. The head disciple’s rooms are larger than his old ones, but they’re still too small for someone the size of Mobei Jun. He can just lean across the bed and grab Shang Qinghua! “My King, wait, wait, let me explain!”
Mobei Jun stops his advance and waits, arms crossed, brows furrowed. Shang Qinghua sucks in a relieved breath, before realizing that he now has to come up with an explanation for what is very obviously the packing of someone who intends to leave on a long journey. “Ah, you see, I was …” He flaps at the pile, at a loss. “Going on vacation?”
【OOC,】the System comments. Shang Qinghua can almost imagine it sitting off to one side, eating melon seeds and watching with smug interest.
“What is a vacation?” Mobei Jun asks, in a way that suggests the word tastes like rotten meat. No, that’s not right, demons like rotten meat! He says it as if it tastes like the bland congee they serve over on Qing Jing Peak.
“Well … it’s when you take a break from the things you’re supposed to be doing? And do things that you enjoy, instead? Like …” what would Mobei Jun enjoy? A beach vacation wouldn’t exactly suit the ice demon, he would just melt! “Well, you just go somewhere nice, like maybe an ice palace? Somewhere cold and beautiful and peaceful! And then you rest a little bit!”
“Why would you want to do that, Shang Qinghua?” Mobei Jun asks, beginning to advance on Shang Qinghua again. He looms over the bed, eyes darkening. “Do you think you work too hard? Do you not enjoy the tasks I set for you?”
“No, no, of course not, my King, that’s not what I mean at all!” He frantically scrambles back across the bed, grinding another of the rare medicines into dust with his butt. “The idea is that you come back refreshed, and ready to work even harder! Perhaps you might enjoy a vacation yourself, my King? A break from the heavy duties of the Northern Realm?”
Mobei Jun doesn’t respond, just reaches out, grabs Shang Qinghua by the collar, and tosses him through the portal. He lands with a thump on a slick, cold floor, beneath an arching vault of ice. There are a number of demons lazing off to one side, staring at him with hungry interest. WTF! This—this is Mobei Jun’s ice fortress! The place in the Northern Realm where he manages his affairs!
The portal snaps closed behind him, Mobei Jun having followed him through.
“Come with me,” Mobei Jun says, and Shang Qinghua shivers, but this time it’s because the fortress is so cold. Shang Qinghua’s teeth are chattering and his fingers are already turning blue. The fortress isn’t fit for human habitation—maybe if his cultivation was more advanced, but temperature regulation has never been one of his specialties.
“My King,” he babbles, as Mobei Jun drags him down a long hallway, decorated by icy stalactites. Mobei Jun’s fingers on his neck feel like frostbite. “My King, don’t listen to anything I say, of course I like the tasks you set for me! I have no complaints about your service, everything is very good, I was just talking without thinking as usual, so if you could just to take me back to An Ding Peak, I’ll never try to go anywhere again, I …”
Mobei Jun yanks open the door to a dark chamber, drags Shang Qinghua in, and tosses him onto—something. Something soft? A chill blue light rises from a lantern on the wall, and Shang Qinghua looks down to realize that he’s on a bed.
“My King?” he says, questioning, but Mobei Jun just grunts, nods, and sweeps back out of the room, the door closing behind him. Shang Qinghua waits for Mobei Jun to come right back in, probably with some instrument of icy torture, but nothing happens. He just lies on the bed, shivering.
After a while he burrows beneath the blankets, because if he’s going to die that’s one thing, but if he’s not he doesn’t want to succumb to hypothermia before his time.
A shichen passes. Nothing happens. Mobei Jun doesn’t come back.
“What … what is happening?” Shang Qinghua finally says, confused. “What just happened?”
【You appear to be on vacation,】the System says.【Achievement unlocked: increased depth of worldbuilding. B-points +100!】
Shang Qinghua settles down beneath the blankets, disturbed for reasons he can’t quite put his finger on. Vacation? That can’t be right, can it? He had mentioned an ice palace and resting, when he was describing a vacation, but … No, no! Mobei Jun probably has some task to give him, later! Mobei Jun wouldn’t bring him here to give him a vacation, that’s not something the ice demon is capable of, it would be … well, out of character! Shang Qinghua should know, he wrote him!
He ends up spending three miserable days huddled in the bed at the ice fortress, afraid to come out of the room. The inedia is fine—he has managed to increase his ability to go without food since his first meeting with Mobei Jun—but the cold makes it hard to sleep, and the days are long and boring, with nothing to do but wait for Mobei Jun to come back and order him around. Who would have thought he would miss logistics? Not him! But organizing things for everyone at Cang Qiong Mountain is better than shivering in Mobei Jun’s ice fortress!
At the end of the third day, Mobei Jun flings the door open, pulls Shang Qinghua out of the bed, and cuts open another portal in midair.
“Uh, my King, where are you—”
“Shang Qinghua. Did you enjoy your vacation?” Mobei Jun asks, pausing.
It was a vacation? Shang Qinghua’s mouth drops open, and if it wasn’t for Mobei Jun’s grip on the back of his neck he thinks he might just tumble to the ground. Mobei Jun … gave him something? And behaved in a way that was totally unexpected? He doesn’t understand! Why, my King?
Then he realizes that Mobei Jun is staring at him, annoyed, and Shang Qinghua does understand what that means—he understands it very well!—so he gives up on his confused thoughts and starts answering.
“Perfect, perfect,” he manages. “Very good, if this was an Airbnb”—which is OOC? Probably? Unless he’d written a plotline that he’s not remembering—“I would give it five stars, it has a very nice, uh, bed? And, uh, not breakfast, but … air conditioning? Maybe a bit colder than I like but”—Mobei Jun lifts him up higher, frowning—“perfect, my King! Very restful!”
“Good,” Mobei Jun grunts, and pushes him through the open portal.
When Shang Qinghua opens his eyes on the other side, he’s back in the modest confines of his room on An Ding Peak, all his hasty unpacking still spread across the bed. He crawls in anyway and sleeps an entire day without pause, and doesn’t feel entirely warm again until he’s spent a week crouched over a roaring brazier in a beam of boiling midsummer sun.
3.
After he’s recovered from his “vacation,” Shang Qinghua finds that he has an odd sensation that An Ding Peak looks subtly different, and so do the disciples, as if something about what happened with Mobei Jun leaves him open to the thought that any one of them might suddenly surprise him, too. Somehow, this makes it a little easier to focus on his work, and also makes him feel a little less like he’s wearing Shang Qinghua as an itchy, ill-fitting skin.
Whatever it is, within three years he’s been elevated to An Ding Peak Lord, and managed to avoid any return trips to the ice fortress along the way. (In fact, now that Shang Qinghua doesn’t need to be rescued on missions so often, he only sees Mobei Jun a few times a year. Which is wonderful news, of course! It would be better if Mobei Jun never again appeared in his quarters, glowing like a fresh fall of snow under the waxing moon, demon mark blazing out with the soft blue of the sky on a winter day … Very much better! He doesn’t miss that low voice or searching gaze, not one bit!)
And so things are all going Shang Qinghua’s way, until the System notification chimes out in the middle of a leisurely afternoon perusing the accounting records for Bai Zhan Peak.【Advanced quest issued. Location: various. Quest: Immortal Alliance Conference, release the demonic beasts! Please click to accept.】
“What happens if I don’t accept?” Shang Qinghua asks, swallowing. He puts down the accounts—he’s going to need to have a serious talk with Liu Qingge about how often he’s been breaking things on the training grounds—and tries to breathe calmly. Of course he knew this mission was coming! That was the entire point of this character, after all! But that doesn’t mean he has to be excited about it!
【Failing the mission may bring points below the required threshold for continued progress. In that case, the System may prompt a restart.】
A restart!?!? It was bad enough to wake up as a squalling baby once! Shang Qinghua absolutely cannot do it again! He sighs and glances at the blinking green “accept” button that hangs in front of his face.
【Quest accepted! Attached files provide information on demonic beasts. Work hard! Find success!】
The list in the file is long, but Shang Qinghua knows all the details and weak points for the beasts he invented, so gathering most of them turns out to be an easy task. The Bone Eagles test the limits of Shang Qinghua’s flying skills, but he captures them eventually. Ghost-head spiders are creepy (most of his readers didn’t even like that sort of thing! What had he been thinking? Of all the commenters, only that Peerless Cucumber had been into the demonic beasts!) but he gets them rounded up and hidden in the proper location. Even catching the Nu Yuan Chan is fine; his robes get soaked, but Shang Qinghua is used to enduring a few small indignities on his missions!
The whole mission is even a bit fun—he gets to hop on his sword and ride out to faraway places, and riding a sword is the best part of this whole Proud Immortal Demon Way experience. So fast! Very cool! The only improvement would be if he was wearing sunglasses and blaring Wang Leehom’s 你和我 on a sword-mounted radio!
Soon, Shang Qinghua has almost all the demonic beasts gathered, with plenty of time before the Immortal Alliance conference. There’s only one thing left on the list, the—he scrolls through the System file to check—the Black Moon Rhinoceros Python.
Wait. The Black Moon Rhinoceros Python? Shang Qinghua lost all the incapacitating ten-petalled star lotus flowers during the unfortunate vacation incident! Any attempts to capture one will end up with Shang Qinghua skewered on a rhinoceros horn or squeezed right out of air by the python. “System-dage,” he whines. “Do I have to get everything on the list? What if I just … leave one of them off? Nothing too important! I’ve already got a very nice collection of demonic beasts!”
【No particular demonic beasts are required,】the System replies, which is such a relief, Shang Qinghua is going to stop cursing out the System and calling it pedantic, obviously that was all just a misunderstanding, he might even call them friends now—【If Luo Binghe does not enter the Endless Abyss, however, it will mean a deduction of 10,000 points.】
10,000 points?!? The Black Moon Rhinoceros Python was the reason Luo Binghe revealed his demonic heritage! And his demonic heritage was the reason why Shen Qingqiu kicked him down into the Endless Abyss! Shang Qinghua is screwed! Totally fucking screwed!
He paces his quarters for a bit, trying to come up with a solution that doesn’t end with him as dinner for the OP beast he foolishly invented. Maybe if—no—or … No. There are really no good options, because it’s not as if there’s anybody here that really wants to help Shang Qinghua—
Except Mobei Jun, some part of him points out.
That part of him is wrong, of course, it’s not that Mobei Jun wants to help Shang Qinghua, he just doesn’t want Shang Qinghua to die before he’s been useful!
But … if he begs Mobei Jun, maybe his king will—not capture the Black Moon Rhinoceros Python for him, that’s asking for too much!—but maybe send along some demonic bodyguards … or maybe he has a few of the star lotus flowers hanging around? His king will need to know about the Immortal Alliance Conference anyhow, since it’s meant to be part of the plot for the Demon Realm to overtake the human realm. Shang Qinghua has so far avoided sharing the plan with his king because he isn’t looking forward to coming up with a lie for why he knows the Endless Abyss is going to open at a certain time and location, but maybe the time has finally come.
He sends a short note to the Northern Realm by message butterfly, outlining the plan as best he can, then pops his head out of his quarters to inform his head disciple that he will be spending the next few days in secluded meditation. Time to practice his begging! He’ll need to get the tone just right if he wants to convince Mobei Jun, he thinks as he gets down on his knees on the cool floor of his rooms.
He starts off with a little light grovelling, really setting the tone. “My King, this humble one offers his most abject apologies for intruding upon your precious time—”
The portal snaps open with a sound like a car door slamming, and Mobei Jun steps through, glowering. His black, fur-lined robes are crusted in ice, and there’s a smear across his chest of what looks like blood? But blue? And thicker? Plus the same thing is crusted all over his sword, which is smoking like the blue stuff is corrosive.
“Ah! My King!” Shang Qinghua says, backing away on his knees. “I didn’t mean for you to come right away! Apologies! Please, return to … whatever it was you were doing?”
“It is no matter,” Mobei Jun says, digging around in his sleeve and pulling forth something electric blue and slimy that’s almost as long as Mobei Jun himself. “The Great Ice Worm hunt is complete.”
He tosses the Ice Worm carelessly over to the side of the room, where it wiggles—wiggles! it’s still fucking alive!—behind the small desk where Shang Qinghua likes to work. “My King! You appear to have, uh, lost one?” Shang Qinghua says, pointing at it.
Mobei Jun glowers at him, and Shang Qinghua subsides. If Mobei Jun wants to leave a Great Ice Worm on An Ding Peak, who is Shang Qinghua to stop him? Maybe he can use it in disciple training! Maybe it’s edible. (He has a vague memory of writing a scene where the Ice Worm was a demonic courting gift, but he can’t remember if it got eaten. There really were a lot of beasts in Proud Immortal Demon Way!) Maybe he can send it over to Bai Zhan Peak and let Liu Qingge tire himself out chasing it around?
“Why did you call me here, Shang Qinghua,” Mobei Jun snaps. Shang Qinghua pulls his attention away from the worm and turns back to Mobei Jun. He really is very impressive, standing there with his sword out, utterly calm. Shang Qinghua thinks that his descriptions of Mobei Jun might have been the aesthetic pinnacle of his writing career.
“Uh, well, my King, did you get my message? About the Immortal Alliance Conference?”
Mobei Jun nods, short.
“Alright, well, there’s just a little problem with the plan, and that problem is called the Black Moon Rhinoceros Python, because I need one, and I don’t have any of the incapacitating flowers, and so very likely your humble servant would end up gored or squished, and this human body is weak, my King, especially in comparison to your exalted form, and—”
Mobei Jun makes a silence, puny human type of gesture, then wipes the smoking sword on the silver-lined edge of his robes. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you need a Black Moon Rhinoceros Python?”
“Oh. For the plan?”
“I understand that it is for the plan, Shang Qinghua,” Mobei Jun says, and Shang Qinghua immediately mumbles out a series of apologies and drops his head to the floor, because of course his king understands! Of course! He would never dare suggest otherwise! (Funny, though, that he’d never thought of Mobei Jun as being particularly observant while he was writing; in person, Mobei Jun has always impressed him as being quite sharp.) “Why do you need it for the plan?”
Why must his king ask these unanswerable questions? Shang Qinghua can’t exactly say because when I wrote this terrible fanservice novel, I needed a creature powerful enough to force the protagonist to reveal his demonic heritage, and so I smashed together the first scary animals that came to mind! The problem is that Mobei Jun can’t find out about Luo Binghe until the Endless Abyss opens, or the entire plot will collapse. If Mobei Jun knows about Luo Binghe, he’ll go and find him right away, and probably try to kill him. And Luo Binghe has that pesky protagonist halo, so that would probably end with Mobei Jun dead. Which can’t happen because, again, the plot requires that he stay alive. The plot! Not Shang Qinghua!
“The plan requires something particularly powerful, my King,” he says, despairing. “Something that would require demonic levels of power to battle! My King, if you could just trust me on this one—” Shang Qinghua swallows, catching himself. “I’m sorry, my King, I didn’t mean that, do not listen to this foolish servant! This humble one will solve these problems himself!”
Mobei Jun waves again, a dismissal, and turns back towards the portal. Shang Qinghua sighs; not in relief, exactly, but glad he hasn’t ruined the plot or irritated Mobei Jun too much.
“Shang Qinghua,” Mobei Jun says, as he starts to step through. “Do not concern yourself with the Black Moon Rhinoceros Python any further. The matter will be taken care of.”
“What?” Shang Qinghua says, startled. “Taken … taken care of? What will you—”
But Mobei Jun is already gone, back through the portal, leaving Shang Qinghua alone with the wounded Ice Worm, which appears to have gotten itself stuck behind the desk. As he stares at the after-image of the neon black portal shimmering in mid-air, a strange feeling wells up in his chest. It’s warm? And tingly? Kind of like—affection?
Towards Mobei Jun? Can’t be! That would be OOC! So OOC! He doesn’t need the System to issue a warning to know that! Mobei Jun is—is … Well. A too-handsome, System-assigned mission that’s probably still going to kill him some day! What he feels about Mobei Jun is fear, and a healthy dose of respect for the fact that Mobei Jun could pick him up and crush him faster than Shang Qinghua could say please don’t, my King! There’s no room in there for any pleasant feelings!
The Ice Worm interrupts this internal monologue by taking a slobbery bite out of the back wall of the room. Shang Qinghua is forced to rush after it while it slithers about An Ding Peak, leaving trails of cold slime all across the paths and through the stands of bamboo. In the chaos of catching it—My King! Why did you leave it here? It chomped holes in three disciples’ butts!—Shang Qinghua forgets to worry about his feelings or the question of what, exactly, Mobei Jun might mean by taken care of.
It’s not until he’s standing in the middle of the Immortal Alliance Conference and Shen Qingqiu says, “Did you see a large demonic beast nearby?” that Shang Qinghua realizes that, no, he hasn’t seen any sign of the Black Moon Rhinoceros Python. Has Mobei Jun … not come through? Impossible, right? His king doesn’t fail!
“There wasn’t one,” he manages, suddenly worried that this is all going to end with a total System restart, but just then the Endless Abyss opens and out walks Mobei Jun himself. WTF? Shang Qinghua doesn’t know what to think of that! And so when Mobei Jun tosses him off to the safety of a spot beneath a sheltering tree, he plays dead, closes his eyes, and doesn’t think at all.
4.
It’s not long after the Immortal Alliance Conference that Shang Qinghua discovers that Shen Qingqiu is a transmigrator, too. Strange, to think there’s someone else here who comes from the same world as he does. Also, it’s just weird that Shen Qingqiu transmigrated into the scum villain character, right? Shang Qinghua puzzles for a while over the question of why Cucumber-bro ended up in Shen Qingqiu when he, the author of the work, was relegated to a minor side character that he’d never found particularly interesting. Cucumber-bro had ranted about all the characters in his forum comments—except Luo Binghe, oddly—but the vitriol he directed at Shen Qingqiu hadn’t seemed any worse than what he spewed at anyone else.
On the way back from collecting the Sun-Moon Dew Mushroom, Shang Qinghua makes the mistake of asking Shen Qingqiu how he feels about Luo Binghe. He doesn’t mean to antagonize Cucumber-bro, it’s just that he’s curious! Really curious! But for some reason Shen Qingqiu gets huffy and makes Shang Qinghua drive the carriage (which is a mistake, bro! Shang Qinghua was a bad driver back in the real world and he’s not much better here!) and then sits back in a sulk.
Shouldn’t Shen Qingqiu be happy with Shang Qinghua? Didn’t he help him get the Sun-Moon Dew Mushroom? Isn’t he helping save Shen Qingqiu from a life as a human stick?!?
Relax, Cucumber-bro! It was just a question!
They drive along in strained silence for a while, Shang Qinghua trying his best to navigate around the bumps in the track. The leaves above them rustle gently in the soft breath of a summer breeze, the only relief from the heavy heat under trees. It’s the sort of day where Shang Qinghua toys, idly, with memories of the ice fortress, of how nice it might be to just pop in and cool off every now and then. Or how, if Mobei Jun was here, he would feel like an ice pack that Shang Qinghua could press up against …
“Ah,” Shang Qinghua says, coughing. “How’s your System treating you these days, Cucumber-bro?”
Shen Qingqiu has his ubiquitous fan out and Shang Qinghua regrets not bringing one of his own, if only to avoid these ridiculous thoughts. “It’s in hibernation,” Shen Qingqiu shrugs, still not looking at him. “A welcome break from its inane pronouncements.”
Shang Qinghua’s System isn’t in hibernation, although it hasn’t been as active lately. It didn’t even bother to blare out【OOC! OOC!】when he suggested training exercises for the An Ding Peak disciples based on League of Legends gameplay. “Oh, that’s nice,” he tries. “No more OOC deductions, right?”
“I broke that restriction years ago,” Shen Qingqiu says, lazily. When Shang Qinghua looks over at him, Shen Qingqiu has one eyebrow raised over the edge of his fan. “What’s taking you so long?”
“Well,” Shang Qinghua says, defensively, “I did start out as a baby, you know. Babies can’t complete System missions! And then, with my king—”
“Who?”
Shen Qingiu definitely knows who Mobei Jun is—it would be hard not to, after his king’s surprise appearance at the Immortal Alliance Conference. “Mobei Jun?” Shang Qinghua tries. “The demon heir to the Northern Realm?”
“Yes,” Shen Qingqiu says. “I know who Mobei Jun is. I just—you call him my king? Like, all the time?” He sits up and peers over at Shang Qinghua, as if this is interesting news. Which it isn’t! It’s just the best way to cling on to Mobei Jun and show some respect!
“Just habit,” Shang Qinghua mutters, snapping the reins so that the horse picks up speed. They bump uncomfortably along the path through Bai Lu Forest.
“Mobei Jun,” Shen Qingqiu says, contemplatively. “Now there’s a dud character. Cool idea, Airplane-bro, but then he turned out to be kind of a Luo Binghe knock-off. He’s not as handsome, his personality is that he’s just kind of stoic and cold … if you needed someone to act as Luo Binghe’s second-in-command, couldn’t you have done something more interesting?”
“Less handsome?” Shang Qinghua screeches, dropping the reins. “He’s clearly hotter than Luo Binghe!”
Shen Qingqiu looks rather incensed at this, going red and snapping his fan back into place, but Shang Qinghua isn’t done. Cucumber-bro, you don’t know what you’re talking about, okay? “And a knock-off? Ha! If only Luo Binghe was half as interesting as my king! I only wrote about that blackened stallion protagonist because that’s what the fans wanted, but if it was up to me—”
“Wait,” Shen Qingqiu says, rapping Shang Qinghua on the knuckles with his fan. “Airplane-bro! Do you like Mobei Jun?” Shen Qingqiu grins and then, in a perfect imitation of the System’s voice, says “OOC! OOC! The great Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky does not pick favourites among his creations!”
Shang Qinghua lets out a hiss. “You’ve got it wrong, Cucumber-bro,” he mutters. “I’m just letting you in on the writer’s point of view, that’s all! There’s no favourites to pick. I just want to survive.”
“Right,” Shen Qingqiu says, dropping the grin in favour of lying back and closing his eyes. “Glad we’re on the same page, Airplane-bro. And it could be useful, if you’re on good terms with Mobei Jun. Luo Binghe hates me after the whole thing with kicking him into the Endless Abyss—thanks for that, by the way”—Shang Qinghua makes a wordless noise of protest, because it’s not his fault, the plot required it—“but maybe you’ve got a chance. What does Mobei Jun think of you?”
What does Mobei Jun think of him? Probably his king thinks of Shang Qinghua as a small, wriggling creature, not worth the effort of stepping on! Kind of like a less powerful Ice Worm, honestly.
What about the vacation? some annoying part of him whispers. And the Black Moon Rhinoceros Python?
As if it’s not bad enough that the System says these sorts of things to him, now he has to do it himself? Shut up, Shang Qinghua! He still doesn’t entirely understand what happened with the vacation, or with the Black Moon Rhinoceros Python, or, now that he comes to think of it, the ten other times that Mobei Jun has helped Shang Qinghua when he’s asked, or given him things—the thick fur blanket on his bed, for example …
“Well? Do you think he likes you?” Shen Qingqiu prompts, into the silence.
“He’s … he’s hard to read,” Shang Qinghua says, and that’s true, isn’t it? His king has that cool, stoic affect, who knows what’s going on behind those dangerous eyes of his! Shang Qinghua couldn’t possibly be expected to know what he’s thinking! And he definitely doesn’t want to talk about it with Cucumber-bro. “Tell me how you broke the OOC restriction,” he says, hastily, and thankfully Shen Qingqiu is only too happy to spend the rest of the drive back to Cang Qiong Mountain bragging about his adventures with a skinner demon.
5.
In the years that follow Luo Binghe’s return from the Endless Abyss, Shang Qinghua keeps his head down, and focuses on clinging to his king’s thighs where necessary, and other actions that increase his chances of getting out of this all alive. He knows what his goal is! He’s not going to get distracted by emotions or attachments!
And so it’s maybe a bit of a surprise to find himself flying off Maigu Ridge on a borrowed sword, cold air whistling in his face, trying desperately to catch up to Mobei Jun before he crashes against the icy stretch of the river below. But his king can’t fly! It’s his job to go after him, right? And Mobei Jun saved him from Zhuzhi Lang’s snakes, and beat up the snake demon for him, and so Shang Qinghua has to repay him! A debt is a debt! This is—this is what he’s required to do, nothing more—
【Note: there will be no point deduction if Mobei Jun falls to his death,】the System says, sounding bored.【None of the currently-assigned missions require that you intervene at this time. This humble System further notes that your action in this regard may be perceived as being OOC. Shen Qingqiu, for example—】
Who the fuck cares what Shen Qingqiu thinks? Cucumber-bro has never been in character once in the time that Shang Qinghua has known him! “I know!” Shang Qinghua howls, abandoning his attempts to rationalize his actions. So he wants to rescue Mobei Jun, so what? So he doesn’t quite understand why, so what? So he’d felt like his entire body was on fire as he saw Mobei Jun fall over the edge of the ridge, like Shang Qinghua would collapse screaming if he didn’t leap after him—so what? “I know it’s OOC! I don’t care!”
【If your goal is to activate the function to return to—】
“Shut up! I’ve almost got him!”
The System silences, suddenly, as if he’s flipped an off switch. Shang Qinghua adjusts his stance on the sword and urges it on just a touch faster, speeding towards the spot where Mobei Jun is. His eyes are on Shang Qinghua and he looks—surprised? Like he doesn’t quite believe that Shang Qinghua is coming after him? Which is probably fair, Mobei Jun probably still thinks of him as that snivelling little traitor to his own peak, but somehow it makes Shang Qinghua sad. Which he also doesn’t understand! None of this makes any sense!
“Shang Qinghua,” Mobei Jun says, soft, just as Shang Qinghua grabs him by the hand. A jolt of something like relief rocks through him, as hot in his guts as Mobei Jun’s fingers are cold against his. “You came after me.”
“Of course I did, my King!” he says, struggling to haul Mobei Jun up onto the sword. It quickly becomes clear that he’s not strong enough for that, so he abandons that plan in favour of slowing their descent, so that he can lower Mobei Jun safely to the ground. “Has this humble servant given you reason to doubt his devotion?”
Mobei Jun doesn’t say anything in response, but the look in his eyes shifts again, to something almost warm, and Shang Qinghua doesn’t understand that, either. It turns out that there’s so much he doesn’t understand! He thought he understood this book and the characters in it and then Mobei Jun had to go and surprise him so many times and now he doesn’t understand anything, even his own feelings.
But mid-air above a raging river isn’t the time to think about it, is it? He’ll deal with—this—later … “Hold on, my King,” he mutters, gripping on as tight as he can to Mobei Jun’s hand. “Hold on tight.”
After they land, Shang Qinghua knows he should talk about what happened with Mobei Jun, or at least try to figure out for himself what’s going on, but before he can work up the nerve to try (and what is he supposed to say? My King, I felt, uh, something, when I saw you falling, but I don’t quite know what it was, do you have any ideas?), Maigu Ridge explodes. (Shang Qinghua doesn’t remember writing that! Whatever Cucumber-bro has been getting up to with Luo Binghe has rewritten Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky’s stallion novel into something quite, quite different.)
Anyway, at that point he and Mobei Jun are busy going around rescuing people and dragging them out of the icy river, and at some point they get separated, probably after he tells Mobei Jun that he needs someone to get the An Ding Peak junior disciples out of the way and Mobei Jun just … does it? Which is also strange! And so the whole Maigu Ridge adventure ends with Shang Qinghua no clearer on what, exactly, happened in those moments after Xuan Su Sword knocked Mobei Jun off the ridge.
All he knows is that it feels like something’s changed—and also, somehow, like he just turned around and noticed something that had been there, all along.
+1
After the incident with Linguang Jun—which was not Shang Qinghua’s fault! Who could have foreseen that he would come after Shang Qinghua, of all people?—Mobei Jun brings him back to the ice fortress to make the noodles he promised.
They sit down to eat them together in Mobei Jun’s quarters, Shang Qinghua a little reluctant (he’s very familiar with the usual demon diet), but his king is a surprisingly good cook! The pulled noodles are the perfect texture, and the sauce is spicy but not too spicy! A man with hidden depths, truly.
When he looks up from the bowl, Mobei Jun is staring at him, quietly, waiting. “Well?” Mobei Jun asks. “Were they acceptable, Shang Qinghua?”
He seems to be asking something else, some question that Shang Qinghua doesn’t quite understand. He hasn’t ever talked to Mobei Jun about what happened on Maigu Ridge, or even let himself work it through. He thought—he thought maybe Mobei Jun hadn’t thought about it at all. “Very much, my King, very good, excellent flavour,” he says, too many words coming out as usual. “I liked them? Thank you? I, well, this humble one very much enjoyed.”
Shang Qinghua can feel a shiver crawling up his spine, from the cool weight of Mobei Jun’s gaze. He can’t quite read the message in Mobei Jun’s eyes, though. Maybe the noodles were just his way of repaying a debt—Shang Qinghua did save his life (twice!), after all—and so maybe he’s sitting and staring at Shang Qinghua now because he can’t figure out why Shang Qinghua is still there, since he’s finished eating.
“Well,” Shang Qinghua says, clearing his throat and standing up. He backs away from the table, legs uncertain. He can’t help but notice the way that the blue light that permeates Mobei Jun’s quarters brings out the soft shine on Mobei Jun’s hair, the flecks of gold buried in the deep blue of his eyes. He looks even more coldly handsome than usual, which is not something Shang Qinghua should be thinking about if Mobei Jun just wants him to get out of there. “I’ll just be going, my King? I think you have things in hand here, and of course you know where to find me—”
He squeaks, startled, as Mobei Jun reaches out and tugs Shang Qinghua down into his lap, so that he’s straddling Mobei Jun’s hips. The heavy weight of Mobei Jun’s vambraces presses against his knees, hard and cool, almost as hard and cool as Mobei Jun’s thighs beneath his own. “Shang Qinghua,” Mobei Jun says, sounding almost as if he’s hurt. Hurt? His king? “Why are you going? Do you not want to be here?”
Shang Qinghua allows himself to run one finger over the dark fur collar of Mobei Jun’s robes, then hesitates before bringing his fingers down to the cold expanse of his exposed chest. He’s always wanted to touch—and yet—there’s something stopping him … it’s almost like he’s waiting for the System to intervene, to remind him that this is out of character. That someone like Shang Qinghua doesn’t end up in the lap of Mobei Jun, great demon lord of the North! And if he does, he jumps right back up and scurries out with an apology!
The System doesn’t say anything, though, and he thinks of the Return Home Sequence, the【Yes】and【Next time】hovering in front of him. He doesn’t think the System is going to intercede in very much, going forward. Maybe Shang Qinghua doesn’t ever have to ask is this out of character again. Maybe he just has to ask: is this what he wants? Because he gets to decide whether it’s in character, whether Shang Qinghua would do this; there’s no line between who he is, and who Shang Qinghua is. There never was, really. He’s been Shang Qinghua longer than he was ever Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, longer than he lived his old life.
He reaches up, carefully, and tucks a strand of Mobei Jun’s hair behind his ear, then finally lets his hands trail down Mobei Jun’s chest. It feels just as good as he’d imagined. “I do want to be here, my King,” he says, very softly. “Here, in this place, in this world”—Mobei Jun’s fingers tighten on his wrists, and Shang Qinghua squeaks, a little sound of high-pitched happiness—“and here in your lap, too! I was getting there, my King!”
Mobei Jun smiles—smiles! His king, smiling at him!—reaches out, and pulls Shang Qinghua in for a kiss.
Well, Shang Qinghua thinks as he squirms closer to Mobei Jun, kissing back. He doesn’t know quite how they got here, or what’s coming next, but he’s willing to see where this story takes him.