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Chapter Text

“Ridiculous,” Shen Qingqiu huffed. He was sent there for this minor issue? The water ghouls in this river were barely strong enough to withstand a single blow from his fan and when they were ejected from the water by his spiritual energy, Xiu Ya cut them down with ease. If this was all there was to the infestation, then some fool in charge of noting down the complaints of the locals had to be punished for not weighing the situation properly. A few disciples of just about any peak could have done the same, it really didn’t require Shen Qingqiu to leave his bamboo house. Although he had a sinking feeling that Yue Qingyuan might have gotten the absolutely stupid idea in his head again that the Qing Jing peak lord needed a change of environment to feel better…

How stupid. His mood was as it always had been, he didn’t need to be sent on such missions for any reason whatsoever. Shen Qingqiu was definitely going to give that man a piece of his mind once he returned to the peaks. For now however…

“Catch it!”

“But it barks?!”

“What are you afraid of, damn it, it’s half your size!”

There was a group of very loud children in the way. Dirty ones with thick dust covering their fingers that were trying to grab some animal making pitiful noises. Shen Jiu didn’t have a care for any of them but they were in the way and making a scene. More importantly, they were making a scene right in front of a man who looked suspicious enough to be the real cause the peak lord had been sent here. That man right there was probably the one that had summoned all the water ghouls from the surrounding rivers to wreak havoc in this particular port and Shen Jiu was not going to let him get away for reasons as mundane as a few living obstacles. He raised his fan and swept it lightly in the air, causing a strong wind to blow the small nuisances out of his way. Some rolled for a good while, others were stopped when their backs hit a nearby wall. He didn’t care.

The hooded cultivator threw a few smoke bombs in the peak lord’s way. Laughable. Shen Jiu waved those away and was hot on the other man’s heel in a moment. It was at the edge of the town where Xiu Ya pierced the suspicious cultivator to a tree trunk. The blade cut skin but not enough to cause a lethal injury. It was, however, enough to cut loose the bag that held plenty of summoning talismans tailored for gathering foul, resentful creatures.

From the corner of his eyes, Shen Jiu saw two young disciples of Bai Zhan peak approaching. Liu Qingge’s students were brainless idiots and not welcome here. Something from that sentiment must have shown in the way Shen Jiu glared at them because a moment later those two turned around and informed the few civilians around them to return to their homes because a peak lord was already handling the problem. Who would have thought that some of those brats willingly having the daylights beaten out of them by that brute could actually retain some common sense?

“These aren’t mine,” the troublemaker tied to the tree attempted to reason his way out of the situation. Poorly. Shen Jiu pushed the hood out of the way with the tip of his fan, revealing an average face whose only distinguishing feature was the pair of eyes widened in fear.

You can’t show fear, or you’ve lost already, Shen Jiu thought but didn’t say a single word. A peak lord he might have been, but a benevolent teacher he was not, least of all to those who caused him trouble and let water ghouls loose in a town under Cang Qiong’s protection.

“And I believe you,” Shen Jiu told him coolly, his eyes appearing as liquid poison for whoever cared to look. “Now tell me who you got them from.”

There was silence, only broken by breaths that were a little too shaky to come across as natural.

“I asked,” Shen Jiu repeated with growing impatience, “who you got them from. Who sold these to you?”

There was a brief but noticeable shift, a mere moment in which the cultivator (probably a rogue, he wasn’t too skilled) changed his approach and decided to put on a haughty air.

“You’re from Can Qiong, aren’t you? Can a righteous sect’s cultivator treat innocent people like this?!”

He only learned what a mistake that had been when Shen Jiu grabbed his hair so hard the roots were nearly torn from the man’s scalp. Not only that, but now that he was roughly yanked sideways, the sword that had been little more than a minor discomfort in his side now started to twist as well. Ignoring his protests and sounds of pain, Shen Jiu pulled even harder on that handful of hair until he could actually feel some of the skin giving way under the force. These movements came so natural to him as breathing even after all those years spent on a high and mighty peak. Unfortunately, most people tended to be unaware that the elegant robe held someone who had grown up the way he had.

“You’re dead wrong,” Shen Jiu said. It wasn’t the illustrious peak lord speaking now, not when no one else was around anymore to bear witness to the real him. It was the young man whose patience had been ground to dust waiting for better times to arrive, waiting for torment to end, waiting for a promise to be fulfilled-

Shen Jiu wasn’t what one would expect from a peak lord to be and at times like these, he refused to act like one.

“You’ll tell me or I’ll make you regret you were born.”

“…!”

The rogue cultivator did tell him where he got those talismans from and he most likely regretted being born as well, or at least having crossed paths with this particular peak lord. Unfortunately for him, there was no more value in keeping him alive so didn’t live to see the next day.

Shen Jiu wiped the blood from his fingers on a clean handkerchief, then burned it all to ashes along with the body of the troublemaker. Assuming someone got on the trail of that bastard who painted the talismans, the surprise ghoul appearances would come to an end quickly. He put one intact piece of paper away just in case someone needed to take a closer look at it at the peak but as for his role, Shen Jiu considered this job done. If Yue Qingyuan complained about his methods, then Shen Jiu was more than happy to argue with him about it. That fool could never hold his ground anyway.

Hand extended towards Xiu Ya, Shen Jiu was just about to mount that sword when he heard a bark. A high-pitched one that could only belong to a smaller dog, not a fully grown one. And true to his prediction, an ugly dark thing emerged from behind the trees.

What, Shen Jiu thought. He definitely wasn’t in the mood to deal with some annoying animal at the end of this day. All he longed for was the peaceful solitary of his bamboo house where he could pluck the strings of the guqin without having to deal with the outside world. Was that too much to ask for?!

“Arf!”

Apparently it was.

Memories of cold streets and bared teeth came to mind. Shen Jiu had learned early on that these four-legged creatures were competition and the best course of action was throwing something their way so they would feel scared and scatter. The him right now no longer lived on the streets or had to fight for things like food and a roof above his head anymore but that didn’t make him see dogs in a much better light.

Annoying, he thought with a grimace, then stepped on Xiu Ya and flew back home.

A few days later, Shen Jiu was asked to take a look at a few musical scores delivered to An Ding peak to see if they were genuinely valuable notes or mere fabrications sold to those who couldn’t tell the real and fake ones apart. What with the bridges connecting the peaks always being crowded and An Ding’s mindless disciples not being too interesting anyway, Shen Jiu took one of the longer routes on foot to reach the center of logistics. He really didn’t expect to hear barking all the way up there but one look behind him was enough to reveal a dark lump of unkempt hair that moved on four legs. The dog from that town by the Luo river apparently followed him all the way here and was now barking in earnest, even though with its weak voice, that wasn’t too threatening.

Shen Jiu pursed his lips, unhappy about his rare peaceful walk being interrupted by something loud and filthy.

“Scram,” he told the dog but instead of obeying him, the dark colored creature only approached. Shen Jiu didn’t have to think of a course of action. He sent a blast of spiritual energy towards the animal that caused it to roll backwards. If there was a whimper reaching that peak lord’s ears, he didn’t pay it any mind.

Weaklings are meant to die, he thought while walking away, steps less leisurely now that his mood went sour. Up on An Ding peak no one really dared to ask him anything. Actually they probably couldn’t even tell his good and bad moments from each other now that he thought about it.

In any case, the documents proved to be cleverly forged musical scores. They weren’t composed horribly but someone with plenty of experience in playing the guqin could tell they weren’t of much value either. The most one could accomplish by playing them even with all their spiritual force was bending grass blades a little, what was the point then?

“Impressive,” Shang Qinghua noted, to which Shen Jiu didn’t have a response. The two of them never had anything to talk about, this paper pusher only annoyed him. Out of all the peak lords, Shen Jiu felt like this one was the most likely to stab them in the back, although there was never any proof to support this theory of his. Oh well. It didn’t matter much in the end now, did it?

The rest of the day went somewhat better. Shen Jiu’s head disciple was a bright young girl interested in learning not only the typical swordsmanship taught in sects like Cang Qiong, but also in the more creative methods. And by ‘creative’, Shen Jiu meant those that originated from his days on the streets where deception was the key to survival, and his training under one of the most questionable cultivators to have ever walked on the continent. Sometimes he would see a sparkle in her eyes, one that spoke of excitement. It was the kind that someone would feel while breaking the rules right under the nose of a teacher, except this time the ‘teacher’ was not Shen Jiu himself, but the so-called righteous cultivators of this world who refused to accept anything apart from headfirst, brute attacks as a norm. In this case, he was just as much of a rule breaker as his head disciple.

“Many thanks for shizun’s instructions,” she said with a deep bow even though her frame was shaking a little with the beginning of serious fatigue. That girl needed proper rest now, it was easy to see. But before that…

“Take this,” Shen Jiu handed her a small vial which his head disciple took with unconcealed interest.

“What is this, shizun?”

“Ointment. Spread it across the cuts on your face. I can’t have a disciple of mine running around looking like one from Bai Zhan…”

There was a smirk tugging at the girl’s lips – she was well aware of his opinion on Liu Qingge and his mindless disciples.

“This disciple shall do as instructed.”

“Good. You can leave now.”

It really should have been the ideal ending to the day – to see one of those disciples who, much like him at the time, didn’t possess great physical strength or endless spiritual reserves, but had the flexibility to learn other skills and make up for it – but unfortunately that wasn’t meant to be. Now that his head disciple was gone, Shen Jiu could no longer ignore the suspicious noises coming from the bamboo forest.  

His suspicions were proven true when he spotted a fight between half a dozen of his youngest disciples, some of which were trying to move ahead, and some who were preventing them from doing so.

“-is not allowed-“

“-still so small-“

“-shizun will get mad-“

“-out the way-“

It was chaos. And the one in the center of the chaos was no other but that pathetic looking dog from the riverside that made Shen Jiu’s lips immediately twist into a snarl. What was this dumb thing doing, following him around? Didn’t it have a brain? Shen Jiu was clearly not someone benevolent enough to take in strays and even if he ever considered taking some creature in out of the nonexistent goodness of his heart, it would definitely not have been a dog of all things. He had seen more than enough of them in his earlier years.

“Enough,” Shen Jiu spoke at last, and all eyes were on him just as they were meant to. Some were fearful, others held hope. One of the boys shifted slightly towards the dog as if he could have kept it from Shen Jiu’s sight somehow. Foolish. Had he taught them to be this naïve and impulsive? Surely not.

The young ones could hold their silence for about five seconds before one of them stepped forward to plead with her peak lord.

“Shizun, I know animals are not allowed on the peak but this one is only a pup, can’t we at least feed it for a while-“

“Idiot,” another hissed, “it’s forbidden! And if you feed it once, it’ll never leave!”

Shen Jiu was just about to lecture them when he sensed an incoming presence, a familiar one that couldn’t belong to any of the inhabitants of his peak.

“All of you, go to the music hall and practice playing the guqin until I come by and tell you to stop. Now leave.”

The disciples seemed like they had a lot to say but they bowed regardless and hurried to the music hall where they would likely butcher the well-intended melodies as usual rather than use them to practice their skills of concentration. Regardless, they were out of the way now. Shen Jiu shot a dark glare at the dog that looked like it had half as much dirt on it as last time, but it was still a lot.

“Leave,” Shen Jiu told the creature that probably didn’t even understand him, but ceased to pay it any mind once Shang Qinghua descended from the sky on his plain sword.

“Shixiong,” he greeted Shen Jiu in his usual lackluster way, “I know you ordered new inksticks but there was an accident at the production site and all they had went up in flames. They’ll need another week, so I came to tell you. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

Like hell he was sorry. Shen Qingqiu knew that the peak lord of An Ding didn’t give a rat’s ass about who was inconvenienced by delivery problems, he had that same faraway, dissociating look in his eyes even when he brought the news of his shizun passing. What fool would have believed that he genuinely cared if Shen Jiu got his equipment or not? All Shang Qinghua cared for was that the other peak lord didn’t appear randomly at his peak, demanding answers in anger.

But that was fine. Calculating, uncaring ones like this – Shen Qingqiu had plenty of experience with. It was the bleeding hearts like Qi-ge that threw him off balance.

“You have nine days. You must get them by then, I don’t care where or for what price. My disciples can’t be expected to draw in the dirt.”

He very deliberately ignored the fact that at least half of them would have gladly done so.

Shang Qinghua nodded, then from the corner of his eyes, he saw something move.

Right, that stubborn animal that just won’t leave. Shen Jiu considered just throwing it off the peak, see if it would come back after that. But he didn’t really feel like killing – contrary to what some people believed, he didn’t exact find joy in ceaselessly taking lives. There were cases where he relished in shedding blood of course, in sending his enemies to the otherworld, but those were based on reasons. This annoyance on four legs was not enough to stir his killing instinct, only a reaction of deep annoyance. However people learned one way or another that annoying Shen Jiu for too long wasn’t a good idea.

“I thought Qing Jing peak didn’t have dogs.”

“We don’t,” Shen Jiu replied coldly. The last thing he wanted was being associated with keeping something loud, dirty and all-around worthless.

Shang Qinghua turned towards the dark colored animal then, head tilted a little to the side as he look a better look.

“How about you give it to me then? I think this breed might be a good ingredient for soup.”

It was at this precise moment that the so far stubborn and dumb dog decided to whimper pathetically and- hold on, now it was hiding behind Shen Jiu?! The man in question was more than just a little irritated but he kept most of those negative emotions behind his folding fan. He could still remember how Qi Qingqi one day shoved the first one in his hand and said ‘look, if you can’t keep from scowling at people, at least cover it up’. The fact that he had a whole collection now was a good indicator of just how many unpleasant expressions he had to hide when mingling with annoying people.

Anyway. Right now he was dealing with one annoying cultivator and one insufferable dog. The latter hid behind him as if Shen Jiu would be its protector – foolish, absolutely foolish. Never had Shen Jiu sheltered any animal in his life. Even the young boys and girls he helped back at the time, human as they might have been, they still made the mistake of betraying him after a while or they were just too careless to listen to his advice and brought misfortune upon themselves. There was no point in coddling the stubborn and weak ones. Only the strong survived.

But damn if I let Shang Qinghua have his way, the peak lord thought to himself. There was a difference between not caring what happened to this four-legged annoyance and letting Shang Qinghua take whatever he liked from Qing Jing peak and turn it into soup ingredients. If he wanted that, he was welcome to hunt on his on peak’s territory.

“This one is so scrawny, you’ll go hungry at the end of the day,” Shen Jiu spoke, voice practically dripping poison. It was as far as he was willing to go to be polite while still conveying the message of a hearty ‘fuck off’.

Shang Qinghua didn’t seem to notice much of the hostility though, only laughed the whole matter off.

“I was just kidding.”

Surely, Shen Jiu rolled his eyes mentally. It wouldn’t really have looked dignified outwards. I bet you were already thinking about the seasoning.

“Anyway,” the other peak lord spoke, “I’ll leave now. Reach out to An Ding peak if you need anything else, shixiong.”

Yeah, as if An Ding peak could actually deliver the things he wanted. Half of the time they were late, sometimes they switched orders up between peaks and Shen Qingqiu had been given damaged inkstone and torn talisman paper more times than he cared to count. It was as if a complete invalid had run the entire peak, or just a lazy bastard who didn’t do his job.

No one could really blame him for not saying a proper goodbye to his fellow peaklord.

“…”

And then there was the dog. One that made the faintest sounds, as it to prod at Shen Jiu and see how he would react. Unfortunately for this thing, Shen Jiu wasn’t one of the soft-hearted young disciples and had no intention of doing anything with this… thing.

“Leave,” he spoke plainly, his tone harsh enough that the message must have come across regardless of how much a young dog like this could understand of human speech. “This isn’t your home and I don’t want you here.”

Shen Jiu saw those ears drooping, along with the head that sunk lower as if admitting some sad news. For the first time since their initial meeting, it was the dog that left first.

Good. Shen Jiu didn’t want to deal with it ever again.

But fate was not that kind. Less than a day later, he was practicing sword forms in the bamboo forest when his concentration was broken by an ungodly amount of barking.

“I can’t fucking believe this…!”

Had any of his disciples been around to hear him, surely they would have dropped their jaws at how their refined and elegant Shizun was acting. It was only him though, at least until he moved westwards and spotted the dog from yesterday fighting what seemed like a huge snake. There was blood on the ground – whose, Shen Jiu couldn’t tell – and the two were both viciously trying to kill each other. It was on instinct that he sent Xiu Ya and had it pierce through the skull of the snake, effectively pinning it to the ground to make sure it wouldn’t make an unconscious last-minute bite. He had done this before plenty of times to save his youngest disciples who were not yet able to fend for themselves. Qing Jing peak was one of the safest in the whole sect but since these snakes were native to the place and not too dangerous once learned how to notice them in time, Shen Jiu chose to keep them instead of arranging for a peak-wide extermination because this way his students had something to practice on.

A dog of course, was no match for a fully grown snake of this kind.

It was only moments later that Shen Jiu realized how he could have made his own life easier by just letting that dog be strangled to death. What was it to him if it lived or died? That was the fate of the weak.

But routine had made him wave a hand and now he ended up watching the surreal sight of an injured dog trying to… eat that snake? Just how starved must have been to do that…?

Uninvited memories came to mind on hiding from slave traders and digging around in rotten vegetables behind the market in hopes of finding at least something edible in the pile. Memories of what it felt like to eat a mantou dirty from having been dragged through the ground, its taste mixing with that of blood after a much younger Shen Jiu got into a fight and received one too many blows.

Against all odds, this little four-legged creature started to seem a lot less different from him. Shen Jiu wasn’t sure that he liked it. Actually if he thought about it, he really didn’t like it. Feeling any sort of kinship with something as weak and pathetic was unfavorable. And yet…

“You should have cracked its skull the first chance you got,” he said before turning around, then left the dog behind. If it found a way to survive on its own… well. There was no point in thinking about that, now was there?

It was a little later than Shen Jiu saw this odd animal dragging a rabbit to whatever home it made for itself in the forest. Barks were rarely heard and the hopeful students who still held on to their wish of a dog being allowed on the peak were quickly silenced by their peers – their shizun wouldn’t allow that, after all.

When Qi-ge decided to pay an unannounced visit to the bamboo house, he even asked why Shen Jiu was looking at the forest as if he expected someone to appear there.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Shen Jiu scoffed as he placed his cup back on the table. “I’m not looking for anyone.”

Even the notion was laughable.

Then one night, the barking grew particularly loud. It was much closer to the bamboo house, unlikely to wake most of the disciples but needless to say that the peak lord who just woke from a deep dream wasn’t happy to hear it.

When Shen Jiu arrived at the scene, he saw feathers scattered all over the place, some bloody mess that may or may not have been a wing at some earlier point in time, and in the middle of it all was a dog clamping its maw around a bird half its size. Shen Jiu took a moment to just… stare without really thinking about what he was seeing.

Then of course his thoughts couldn’t be held at bay any longer and he immediately thought back to his silent approval of this dog catching its own prey even if he had never put that into words himself.

Dark eyes spotted him, the head holding fresh prey now turned towards him and the dog’s tail started wagging a little, with an uneven rhythm as if the animal it belonged to was unsure whether Shen Jiu’s arrival was good or bad news. Ultimately it seemed to settle on the latter though, because the wagging increased. The dog approached Shen Jiu and probably would have walked uncomfortably close with a still bleeding dead bird had he not extended a fan to put some distance between them.

“Stay back,” Shen Jiu ordered and the dog did, although not without whimpering a little. It was muffled by the obstacle in its mouth but could still be heard easily. Those eyes looked up into Shen Jiu’s own – the latter was cold and uncaring as ever. They spent a few moments like that, waiting for what the other would do. Then the dog let go of its prey and dropped it on the ground, much to Shen Jiu’s surprise. Even more unusual was that it would bump the bloody bird with its nose so that it would roll a little closer to Shen Jiu’s feet.

“…”

What was going on?

“Arf!”

It was a single bark, almost sounding like it was meant to be human speech but fell just short of it. Shen Jiu let his featured turn into an expression of disgust.

“If you don’t want it, don’t just drop it at other’s feet.”

The dog’s response was an odd sound of what was most likely frustration, almost as if it could understand Shen Jiu and feel irritated at not being understood in return.

Truth be told, Shen Jiu had an idea of what this was about. He just didn’t want to accept the reality of this creature gifting him the prey it had hunted. That would imply a connection between them, and that was something he didn’t want any part of.

“You could have found another place,” he spoke again, “any other. You could have found an owner to feed you. Why the hell are you trying to hard to remain on this peak?”

The answer was, unsurprisingly, a bark on the dog’s part. Really, what was Shen Jiu expecting? It seemed that he was still not awake enough to deal with this.

“If you want to stay here so badly, I don’t care, do as you wish. But,” he squinted at the bloodstains on the forest floor, “don’t you dare hurt any of my disciples, or I’ll cut you to pieces myself. You’ll wish Shang Qinghua had cooked you instead.”

Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him but the dog did seem to shiver a little at the mention of that.

“And I don’t want you to make such a ruckus. You’re a predator, not a street fair attraction. Whatever you’re hunting, do it without this hideous barking. Understood?”

“Arf!”

“…”

Shen Jiu was this close to starting to chant ‘I’m not having this conversation with a dog, I’m not having this conversation with a dog, I’m not having this conversation with a dog-‘ but ultimately chose to just let it go. With any luck, it would turn out to be a weird dream.

Except he wasn’t quite that lucky. Two days later there were dead rabbits by his door, which were barely mangled compared to the bird from before but they were still carcasses left out there all night and he doubted that they were salvageable in any shape or form.

“What the hell is wrong with this dog,” he grunted while putting his hair crown on. It was almost as stubborn as Qi-ge.

Another day passed, seemingly without anything weird, however when he walked out the door the following morning with the intention of going to meditate, Shen Jiu spotted a dark patch of something near the wall. It had a head and plenty of fur. Dirty fur. On Shen Jiu’s pristine clear porch.

No way in hell, he thought before grabbing the animal by its scruff. This was it, this was where Shen Jiu was fucking drawing the line. He stepped on Xiu Ya, soared through the morning sky of Qing Jing peak and only stopped when he reached a certain stream. That was where he let go of his peak’s uninvited guest, which promptly fell into the water. Moments after it disappeared underwater, Shen Jiu realized that he had never actually seen the animal swimming. But it was really that weak, was there a point in even worrying about its survival?

Proving his point, the dog did find its way back up and also back to the shore where it violently shook itself, spraying dubiously grey water all over the place. Only when it stopped did Shen Jiu descend from Xiu Ya and step on the pebblestones surrounding the stream.

The animal looked even more pathetic now, although this time it looked more dog-shaped and less like a ball of hair held together by dirt. It also looked ridiculously scrawny for something that had actually been hunting fairly well in the past few days. It let out a whimper when Shen Jiu approached, something the man in question stubbornly ignored.

“You were dirty. Even if you’re just a dog, you have to bathe or else you’ll die very soon.”

He had seen some of them succumb to all sorts of disgusting diseases a long time ago. He had seen even more human children suffer that fate. If anyone asked why Qing Jing peak was second only to Mu Qingfang’s peak in terms of strict sanitary measures, Shen Jiu would say that it was his natural preference for cleanliness that prompted this. If one were to ask Yue Qingyuan, the man would say that Shen Qingqiu was a kind soul deep inside who didn’t want to see children suffering through what was easily avoidable. (However should one really ask either of them these question, said person would certainly be kicked off Qing Jing peak, shortly followed by the sect leader himself who would no doubt brood about the harsh treatment from his shidi.)

“You’ll have a harder time catching prey if you smell anyway, so get back in the water if you know what’s good for you.”

Of course the dog wouldn’t know what was good for it. They were stupid creatures, they were-

-walking into the water right in this moment. Granted, not without hesitation or whimpering but the dog was indeed walking back into the water and that particular fact left Shen Jiu a little baffled. What... sort of unnatural dog was this even?!

Chapter Text

For the record, Shen Jiu didn’t have a dog. That statement stood true even when his disciples watched with wide-eyed astonishment as their shizun was followed by a ball of black fur.

“Ignore it,” he instructed the young ones. After all, ignoring the dog had worked out just fine for him. Sort of. It took time to get used to the constant sound of footsteps behind him, even more to not reach for some sort of weapon upon hearing them – those were reactions he was practically trained to for most of his life, unlearning it for the sake of a four-legged creature was neither easy, nor a pleasant affair.

But if he wanted to be fair (no, he didn’t), Shen Jiu had to admit that as far as dogs went, this one was… tolerable. It really toned down the barking after a while, bathed often enough to not smell horribly and mostly managed to hunt its own food, although given how the wildlife was starting to decrease in population recently, Shen Jiu made the reluctant choice to have some of the disciples bring the dog's meals as well. It wasn’t like the little beast (yes, it was a beast, Shen Jiu had seen it tear prey apart in a truly morbid fashion) earned its keep by any means, but Shen Jiu couldn’t let it hunt everything to extinction either. In any case, it turned out that kids surrounding the pup even with the best intensions did not lead to good results. Shen Jiu was very close to truly banishing the dog from the peak when he realized it was about to bite one of his disciples but he refrained from doing that in the last moment. Hadn’t he seen this same dog ganged upon by the street kids? Hadn’t he himself known better than anyone what a cornered animal would do when threatened?

The dog could stay, Shen Jiu decided, but it was to keep a distance from the disciples and the disciples were to keep a distance from him as well. This caused plenty of sighs among those who would have loved to have a four-legged friend to play with and relief in those who were wise enough to understand the sharpness of the dog’s teeth. Even at this age, they weren’t things to be underestimated.

In about a week or so, the disciples of Qing Jing peak grew used to the dog’s presence and they could almost go through a whole guqin lesson without their eyes shifting from the strings to the dog sniffing around near the bushes. Shen Jiu was naturally annoyed even by this amount of disruption – musical cultivation was an art requiring the full attention of the practitioner but at this rate they weren’t even going to be able to play the simplest of tunes for something as mundane as an annual festival.

“You!” Shen Jiu raised his voice, scaring some of the disciples who were caught off guard. “Come over here!”

The dog did just that, trotting over to Shen Jiu dutifully. The peak lord pointed next to himself, to a spot where the podium he sat on would block the view from most of the disciples.

“Sit. Don’t move.”

A part of him fully expected to be disappointed – the dog was not the lazy type after all and moved around a lot even while following Shen Jiu on his walks throughout the peak. But apparently he was proven wrong.

After a few moments of hesitation, the dog did in fact sit down and Shen Jiu stared blankly for a moment in disbelief before regaining his composure and resuming the lesson. It was… odd behavior to say the least. To make things even more surreal, the dog would actually find a resting place on its own every single time it followed Shen Jiu somewhere on the peak and lie there, head resting on its front paws and only the ears indicating that their owner was still awake. It also picked up the annoying habit of lying by Shen Jiu’s door at nights, which was both ridiculous and inconvenient. After a certain morning when both had a reason to complain (Shen Jiu for having his way blocked and the dog for being unintentionally kicked awake by a hurrying master), the unspoken agreement of ‘fine, lie down wherever the hell you feel like, just not in front of the door’ came to existence and it saved them both a lot of trouble. (Unfortuantely it also made it look like Shen Jiu raised a dog, which was ridiculous, all he did was let the dog stay on the peak, what was it to him whether the annoying furball followed him around or not?)

The only time the dog would really cause trouble was when Shen Jiu took off on his sword, leaving his four-legged accidentally acquired companion on the ground. That was when the unbearable whining began every single time. On the annual Dirt Digging Day (Shang Qinghua had coined that phrase about five years earlier and it unfortunately stuck way better in one’s memory than ‘disciple admittance trials’) it was shaping up to the be the same situation – Shen Jiu stepping on Xiu Ya and the dog whimpering already at the thought of being left behind.

“Shut up already,” Shen Jiu complained. The sad whimpering only grew stronger though, as did the urge to get the hell away from his very own peak. This was ironic, considering he was the goddamn peak lord over there.

“You can’t come with me. There will be children and you’re not good with those.”

Neither was Shen Jiu, and Liu Qingge may or may not have been mentioned not letting the Qing Jing peak lord anywhere near them for everyone’s sake, but that was before Shen Jiu hooked an immortal binding cable around the other’s neck as a friendly reminder to not talk shit. Qi-ge interrupted at the most unfortunate moment if Shen Jiu said so himself.

Anyway! He was absolutely not taking a dog into an area full of both adult cultivators and children, both of which seemed to set off the dog’s survival instincts whenever they came too close.

“You’ll stay here,” he decided before taking off. The whimpers were easier to ignore the further he flew anyway, and the fact that he got to the selection area in record time had nothing to do with him potentially running away from a dog he did not have. Shen Jiu was merely testing his own abilities, that was all.

“Did something happen?”

That was Qi-ge asking completely useless questions. Shen Jiu replied something monosyllabic and only vaguely intelligible before moving to see the potential new disciples. He swore that whoever came up with the digging task was a moron with a thin enough face that he didn’t dare to admit it was a joke afterwards and just kept making the kids do this. Why? Because it told precisely nothing about their potential as cultivators. Had Shen Jiu been a better men, he would have demanded to change it into a more sensible selection process. He really wasn’t though, and just went with the flow as everyone else did.

This year, there were more girls than usual – it probably had something to do with lucky years, although that was just another thing Shen Jiu never really understood. On the streets, as a slave, or fighting his way through bloody battles, it never mattered whether he was born in the year of the ox, the tiger or the horse. This was something the comfortably and peacefully living folks could waste their time on but as for him, Shen Jiu said no thanks.

In any case, most of the promising girls were quickly chosen by Qi Qingqi to become her trained assassins. If they wanted to be deadly beauties, they were indeed headed for the right peak. One young girl was chosen by Qi-ge as well – it was the one who had helped a tired participant move to the shades before returning to digging her own hole. Of fucking course Qi-ge would pick someone like her. Typical.

But just as Shen Jiu was about to leave, seeing no one interesting enough for him to actually take along to Qing Jing peak, he spotted a young girl with a bow in her hair. She was round-faced one, nothing like those picked by Qi Qingqi, and her physique seemed to be average. No one had trained her before, she probably hadn’t even seen much of the cultivator world judging by the shine in her eyes as she happily dug dirt without a care in the world, most likely unaware that she would one day hold a blade and shed the blood of others if she chose this path.

Innocence, Shen Jiu realized. There was an air of innocence to her that he had thought to be lost when one of his sisters died, beaten and thrown into the depths of a mountain gorge by the slave traders because she was deemed too weak and better off dead. Shen Jiu should have despised to see such wide-eyed, clueless innocence as that girl once had – it was a dangerous way to be after all, their world was a cruel one even if these years were mostly peaceful. That could change anytime.

And yet he found himself moving forwards, all the way to where the girl with the bow in her hair did a particularly bad but enthusiastic job of digging a hole as a measure of her abilities. She went on for a good few seconds before realizing there was someone else standing in front of her and by that time she had even gotten some of the dirt on Shen Qingqiu’s boots. He didn’t mind it as much as he would have expected to.

“What’s your name?”

Those eyes shone brightly as the girl they belonged to replied that she was Ning Yinying. Shen Jiu took her back to Cang Qiong without bothering to look for others. The girl held onto his green robe’s sleeve on the way and only let go once they were both on solid ground again, this time in front of the disciple sleeping quarters. Shen Jiu’s head disciple emerged from the gate and took a good look at her master and the young girl covered in specks of dirt.

“Greetings, shizun. Shall I show my new shimei around?”

“Yes,” Shen Jiu nodded, satisfied that he didn’t have to give instructions. This disciple of hers was smart experienced enough to know the entire process of taking a new one in. Shen Jiu’s work was done here.

It might not have been done somewhere else though. The spot in front of his door was suspiciously occupied by a heap of dark fur that was starting to outgrow the width of the doorframe.

“… what are you even doing there?”

The answer was a raise of the head, some hesitant tapping of feet, a bunch of movements that Shen Jiu couldn’t make sense of and then finally the dog made the choice to run to its master. Who, by the way, for the record did not have a dog, contrary to what everyone on this peak thought.

“Oh no, you won’t – stand back.”

He really, really didn’t want to have those paws on him. The dog dodged last-minute, nearly avoiding crashing into the peak lord’s leg. Shen Jiu decided that it was the perfect time for him to enjoy the solitude of his bamboo house. It was a suitable pastime for a peak lord and not something he did to avoid a horrifyingly attached dog that he really didn’t want to bother with.

The next morning, he woke to the ungodly noise of Liu Qingge cursing in front of his house. Thinking that it was way too early to deal with this shit, Shen Jiu had half the mind to just go back to sleep or at least meditate and pretend that the outside world didn’t exist. But the outside world was a loud one, with barking and shouting and what sounded a lot like water splashing and a sword pulled out of its sheathe so he grabbed the closest proper robe to tie over his sleeping ones and walked out the door in all his messy-haired glory. On one hand, he probably didn’t look a lot like a true peak lord in that moment. On the other hand, Qi-ge had sworn that he looked downright terrifying when someone woke him up in the morning so he hoped that the effect would extent to his brutish shidi.

“What the hell are you doing, causing such a ruckus on my peak,” were his greeting words to Liu Qingge who had a growling dog attached firmly to his robe’s sleeve and the handle of a sword in the other. He seemed just about to pull it out completely and stab his attacker, which didn’t really sit well with Shen Qingqiu who preferred his porch and the general area of his bamboo house free of bloodstains. It was unfair that by the time he finally convinced the dog not to bring any dead animals here, a random peak lord would come and dirty it instead.

“Your dog attacked me,” Liu Qingge stated as if it had actually been an army waiting to ambush him on Qing Jing peak and not a single pup. Shen Jiu conveniently ignored that the pup happened to be either too dumb for its size or way too large and strong for its age. Whatever the case, it was Liu-shidi who was in the wrong here, clearly. Besides…

“I don’t have a dog,” he declared in the most deadpan voice he could manage. Shen Jiu did great with that one if he said so himself.

“Oh really? Then what’s this thing trying to bite my arm off?!”

For emphasis, he waved his arm a little, which caused the dog to sway back and forth in the air. The solid grip of teeth on the fabric remained though.

“I don’t know, Liu-shidi,” Shen Jiu lied through his teeth, “you pick up the strangest things all the time. I wouldn’t be surprised by anything since you brought a venomous sapphire-spiked night moth back from your trip and nearly killed the Huan Hua palace master who came to visit us.”

“That was one time and- anyway! This is obviously your dog, how else would it be this vicious?!”

Shen Jiu glanced briefly at the dog that technically wasn’t his, but was doing an impressive job of not letting Liu Qingge go. It would have made a good guard dog to someone, most probably. Shen Jiu didn’t need one, but the thought was there.

“I don’t see a problem here. The dog probably sensed that someone unwanted was approaching. Liu-shidi, had you actually tried to enter the bamboo house without announcing your arrival, even I would have been hostile. I can assure you that this dog’s… welcome is nothing compared to what I’d show you.”

Liu Qingge seemed suitably aggravated, which was good, considering that now Shen Jiu was not the only one who had a shitty morning. He considered that a win.

“I was going to knock before your dog came and attacked me.”

Maybe. Maybe not. For someone who came from a cultivating family, Liu Qingge had shit for manners and Shen Jiu wouldn’t have been surprised by… just about anything from him, really. Unless it meant using the man’s brain, because that was obviously out of the question.

“Will you finally get this beast off of me, or do I have to use my sword?”

Beast, huh? Shen Jiu had occasionally thought of the dog that way too – especially when it was covered in freshly spilled blood, looking like a great predator in the making. He didn’t give naming the dog much thought (the disciples who asked were silenced quickly by being assigned to copy scrolls for the library) but now that Liu Qingge said it, somehow things seemed to click.

Beast. Wasn’t that just fitting?

“Beast,” Shen Jiu tested the name and found it somewhat comical, if only on the inside. His face was in careful check and didn’t reveal any emotion other than annoyance. “Let go.”

It took a moment or two but the dog did obey and let go of Liu Qingge whose pristine white sleeve was now riddled with holes. Shen Jiu felt a little smug upon seeing that.

Good dog, he thought before he came to the uncomfortable realization that it almost sounded like he had a dog. Which he did not.

There was still plenty of growling on the dog’s side and he could have sworn Liu Qingge’s sound of dissatisfaction almost sounded like one too, but ultimately bloodshed was avoided.

“So,” Shen Jiu picked up the thread of the less than ideal conversation. “What did you come here for?”

Liu Qingge shot him a dark glare before responding.

“Mu Qingfang said you have scrolls about the Northern border’s region. The demons there in particular that we might run into on a mission.”

“And you came to get that scroll yourself? Why didn't you send one of the kids from Bai Zhan?”

Shen Jiu had fully expected that such a task would be delegated to a disciple. Liu Qingge literally ground his teeth upon hearing that, which was oddly entertaining at such an early hour in the morning.

“I did, except all five of them were refused entry by your disciples. Apparently they set traps with smoke bombs and collapsing tree trunks.”

Shen Jiu had never once felt more proud of his disciples than he did in that moment. He regretted not having a fan in hand because this way he actually had to make sure no grin split his face in two. There was vicious satisfaction to take from annoying Liu Qingge and anyone from his Bai Zhan peak. The fact that the disciples could accomplish this without receiving any orders or guidance from Shen Jiu was truly a sign of how quickly they were improving.

“Ah, is that so. Then since you came all the way here, I might as well accompany you to the library and give you the scrolls you came for.”

Shen Jiu returned to his bamboo house to put on proper robes, boots and something to hold his hair up – he had to look the part of a peak lord after all, his disciples couldn’t see him in a state that Liu Qingge had.

It was a mild surprise that those two outside didn’t get into another fight but there was a very interesting staredown going on and Shen Jiu was honestly unsure of which one would have won, had he not appeared to put an end to it.

“Stay,” he told the dog, not wanting the trip to the library to lead to any more shenanigans. He already go to see his shidi inconvenienced, that was enough. Speaking of shidi, the man in question glanced back above his shoulder to where an unhappy black pup was watching them silently.

“Are you still trying to tell me that’s not your dog?”

“Obviously,” Shen Jiu huffed. He had no dog after all. “It’s just a beast, you said so himself.”

Liu Qingge didn’t say anything to that but he rolled his eyes twice on the short way to the library.

Chapter Text

Ning Yinging was a special child. This wasn’t just Shen Jiu’s personal fondness for the little girl who resembled a childhood friend so much that made him say that. No, it was also the fact that she was capable of a seemingly impossible feat among the disciples – she alone could get close to Beast without being met with vicious snarls and barks of warning. True, the dog had initially seemed wary of her as much as of the others, but where most of the other children of the peak would have been bit already, Ning Yingng was still allowed to stand. Perhaps it was her inherent gentleness that even an animal could sense, Shen Jiu thought as he watched her fill a bowl with food while whistling a carefree tune. Then again… if this dog truly had a good sense of who to trust and who not to, it should have avoided Shen Jiu like the plague, so maybe it wasn’t that good at choosing its company after all.

A month passed since Ning Yinging came to Can Qiong peak when Shen Jiu saw a boy running up to him with great haste. If he remembered well, his name was Ming Fan. Definitely not the most common visitor of the libraries but at least he put in a little more effort than most of his peers when it came to paying attention in classes. He rarely seemed this shaken though.

“Shizun! Shizun!”

The peak lord suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at this pointless shouting. Couldn’t these children please grow up faster, he had very little patience for their loudness and lack of problem solving skills.

“Speak,” Shen Jiu said once the boy finally stopped running and seemed to have caught his breath somewhat.

“Shizun, we were in the mountains on a mission with Zhang-shijie and then- shizun, it was so scary, I-“

This wasn’t really going anywhere. Had he been able to, Shen Jiu would have just reached inside the boy’s mind and then plucked the exact memory of whatever made him so pale-skinned and jittery. Children that age were easy to spook, even more so when they came from families like Ming Fan’s where nothing bad had ever happened to them before. With any luck, this was just some misunderstanding. However…

“Calm down,” Shen Jiu instructed, “where did you run here from?”

“The- the Lanhua gorge,” Mingfan replied somewhat more coherently this time. “We were there on a mission to put up warding talismans against common ghosts with shijie.”

That, Shen Jiu remembered. It was an easy enough mission for the youngest to undertake and thus he had told his head disciple last week to take a dozen or so inexperienced ones with her – it would be a good first step for them all. Interacting with the non-cultivating folk, doing easy but important work. It should have gone without any problems. Why hadn’t it?

“We already left Lanhua village when a group of people came. Cult- no, maybe not- I don’t know,” Mig Fan seemed ready to burst into tears although Shen Jiu wished the boy wouldn’t because he had never been good at consoling others. Qi-ge could tell quite a few stories about past attempts going terribly. “They attacked us, shizun! They tried taking our shimei and shijie away!”

Shen Jiu’s grip immediately tightened on his fan. Slave traders? He couldn’t help how that was the very first thought popping into mind. Memories from many years ago broke to the surface, trying to drown him in the smell of blood and illness, the sound of whimpers and pained screams, the images of distant, hazy eyes and dark, barely lit rooms crammed with too many children.

I won’t allow that.

“How many?”

“Three,” Ming Fan replied but Shen Jiu could only guess since it was more of a sniff than an actual word. “Zhang-shijie fought back and told us to run, she- she pushed me out of the way and told me run back to the peak.”

Zhang Ye was up against three? That girl was a good head disciple but she was only fourteen! If these men happened to be simple criminals one could encounter everywhere, she probably could have protected all the young ones and herself with no problem. But if Ming Fan ran all the way to the peak to ask for help…

“Arf!”

Whether it was because Shen Jiu had been too focused on this issue or because he had already grown much too used to the dog following him around, no one could say, but he didn’t even notice when the Beast approached. Ming Fan jumped in fright when that bark was directed at him.

“Stay here on the peak,” Shen Jiu ordered the boy before mounting Xiu Ya. Then he glanced down and saw a pair of eyes meeting his own – not human by far, and yet they had the illusion of there being some intelligence behind them. Or perhaps Liu Qingge was right and Shen Jiu was already going mad. It could be either of the two.

“Arf.”

For a brief moment, Shen Jiu wondered what sort of an idiot he would have to be to believe that this dog was smart enough to be of use. Then in the next moment he grabbed the Beast by the scruff and took off towards the gorge where his disciples had last been. Twelve of his disciples, out of which he intended to bring every single one back to Qing Jing peak. He willfully ignored the sound at the back of his mind that said it was impossible.

With the speed he traveled, it only took Shen Jiu a few minutes to reach the location. It was ridiculously close to the peak itself, how dare anyone hurt his disciples over there? If he found those responsible…

There were definitely signs of a fight. Shen Jiu saw scorch marks on the ground, the kind that indicated a special powder used to create fire when mixed with spiritual energy, a clever substitute for those who didn’t have explosive enough qi flowing through their veins to make fire burst from their palms or blade. Something he had used in abandon back in his younger days, a trick viewed as inferior and cheating by all the righteous ones but that kept him neither from using it, nor from teaching it to his head disciple.

His head disciple who was now gone, along with ten more children from Qing Jing peak.

He had methods to trace lost people but none were easy or particularly fast. Therefore Shen Jiu allowed himself the rare luxury of entrusting an important task to someone else this time and hoped that his gamble would pay off. It wasn’t an easy choice, nor was it an obvious one but he made it anway.

“Beast, show me the way.”

And the dog indeed did. Mere minutes later Shen Jiu was in the middle of a thick forest where trees had been hastily cut to make space for cages. From behind bars of wood, both frightened and apathetic pairs of eyes turned towards him as he arrived. None of them were familiar in a sense that they weren’t children he knew, and yet all those faces, he had seen already back in his own youth.

He saw a girl with her clothes torn in places that could only indicate one thing under the circumstances. Shen Jiu felt bile rising in his throat, a mix of barely contained fury and deep helplessness that hadn’t seemed to change even now when he was a famous peak lord and not just a street rat.

“You,” he addressed one of those with at least a hint of life if their eyes. “Tell me where the others are.”

The boy pointed slowly to the right and Shen Jiu moved ahead. The path to the other side of the camp was short. Shen Jiu’s fuse was even shorter.

“Wha- hey, who’s there?”

He sent a few surrounding leaves flying towards the man with a flick of his fan. They turned sharp enough in the air to cut not only skin but also bone.

“Return the Qing Jing disciples this instant,” he commended in a deadly tone. Anyone who knew a thing about Shen Jiu would have been wise enough to run or surrender at this point. This man did neither.

“What, you want them for yourself or something?” He snorted, joking at his own joke. “The kids we collect actually cost-“

“Are you fucking blind?!”

That was the second among them, the one who obviously noted the peak lord’s uniform and managed to put two and two together. “He’s from their peak!”

“So what,” the first one shrugged. “That peak is nothing but bookworms, only that girl put up a fight, look at my arm-“

He lifted his left arm for his friend to see, where the skin was discolored and blistering. It was indeed Zhang Ye’s handiwork, Shen Jiu had taught her himself. Shen Jiu had caused injuries like that himself.

And now Shen Jiu was tempted to kill them before they could tell the whereabouts of his head disciple.

Dead, a voice whispered in his head, she’s already dead. He tried to ignore it with all his might.

 “Shizun…?”

It was a weak, scared little whimper at first that a non-cultivator wouldn’t have heard but Shen Jiu picked up on it easily. A few more followed, the sound of his disciples growing hopeful that he had come to rescue them. These rogue cultivators standing in front of him no longer needed to live then. Xiu Ya flew out of its sheathe faster than these lowlifes could have known what hit them and they were slain in the blink of an eye. It occurred to Shen Jiu that he might have granted them a death too easy and painless but at the same time, he had a group of children to free and take home so he couldn’t take his time. Yue Qingyuan would most likely smile if he head him saying this, that naïve oaf who always wanted to see the best in people.

You’re becoming more and more like a teacher Xiao-Jiu.

He wasn’t. He just hated to see people kidnapping kids for very personal reasons. His disciples weren’t… that important, really. They were just brats. But these brats were calling out to him and Shen Jiu found himself walking to where the sounds came from regardless of what he thought. The wooden bars these young disciples were locked behind were damaged already, allowing a few of them to climb out. None of them seemed seriously injured at first glance but Mu Qingfang and his students will take a look just to make sure.

The dog had arrived earlier, probably taking the time to find the kids while Shen Jiu talked to those men a bit further away. It was also standing stiff, more on edge than Shen Jiu had seen it in a long while. No wonder – this wasn’t a domesticated dog in spite of what some people liked to believe just because it liven on Qing Jing peak. Ning Yinging hugging its neck like her life depended on it and crying into its fur was probably the closest this animal got to being touched in a very long time.

It was a miracle Ning Yinging still had both her hands. Shen Jiu understood what it meant to trust no one, to be averse to being touched, to react on instinct and attack anything moving towards him. He had lived that kind of life before.

Just as he was about to separate those two before something really bad happened, the dog seemed to calm somewhat, looking less like it was going to snap at any moment and more like the truly domesticated ones deciding to put up with the kids in the family for a while until it got too much. Interesting. Maybe it really liked Yingying.

“Shizun!”

“Shizun, you’re here!”

“Shizun!”

It was a cacophony. Shen Jiu demolished the rest of the cage, making it easier for them to leave. The kids all stood on their own two legs but some were wobbly. One of them seemed to reach out for his sleeve to hold on but ultimately decided against it, much to Shen Jiu’s relief. He pulled a rarely used item out of his qiankun pouch, a flare which would alert Mu Qingfang and his disciples to come and collect the kids here. They had a whole system for transporting injures or weak groups, Shen Jiu would leave that to them. His focus now was on finding the missing one.

“Beast.”

“Arf!”

Shen Jiu glanced once at the dark colored creature at his feet, then turned his gaze back towards the forest.

“Can you find Zhang Ye?”

“Arf!”

The chances of her being alive were slim at best, which was why Shen Jiu walked at a sedate pace while the unruly dog of Qin Jing peak rushed ahead, seeming anxious to lead the human to Zhang Ye’s location.

It was indeed pointless. On that day, Shen Jiu had eleven disciples sent by Mu Qingfang’s healers. On that day, he stood with an emotionless face over the body of his head disciple. On that day, he buried her in an undisturbed little clearing, away from the place she was killed. On that day, he met his fellow peak lords and informed them curtly that because of the unfortunate passing of his head disciple, he would soon pick a new one. On that day, he grabbed one of the jars gaining dust in the bamboo house and sat on the floor, drinking until he couldn’t swallow any more of that strong liquor.

There was a sound of nails scraping on wood and soft whimpers coming from the other side of his door.

“Go away,” Shen Jiu yelled as he threw the jar at the door. It shattered to pieces from the force of impact, raining both alcohol and fragments of porcelain on the floor. The noises outside the door went quiet. The ones in his mind wouldn’t stay silent though.  

Chapter Text

If someone asked Qi Qinqi a year ago if Shen Qingqiu was capable of mourning, she would have given it some thought and come up with a ‘maybe’ – the thorny, sharp-tongued man she considered a friend wasn’t the type to show compassion and probably didn’t have much of it to begin with. Whatever life he lived before joining the sect, it must have been the kind to make him stronger, less easily swayed by loss. That, Qi Qingqi could understand.

However had someone asked her if she could imagine Shen Qingqiu keeping an animal by his side, she would have raised her finely shaped eyebrows in a show of disbelief. Surely her aloof martial brother would never bother to have another living creature by his side unless when it came to a head disciple carrying some of his scrolls and accompanying him to learn the workings of Cang Qiong. That was why when Liu Qingge offhandedly mentioned an annoying dog on the aloof lord’s peak, she shrugged it off as some sort of a misunderstanding. Surely Shen Qingqiu wouldn’t keep a pet, he always expressed distaste for them, even the most well behaved domesticated animals only ever managed to get ignorance out of him, never approval.

But then there he was, walking into a meeting with a four-legged creature wearing dark fur and looking for all the world like it was a loyal guard dog to its master.

“Is that…”

“Shixiong, is that-“

“Someone punch m- ow, not that hard!”

“Sorry? But, uh, it’s… what’s going on?”

Shen Qingqiu looked at them as if they were the ones acting oddly, then took his usual seat without a single word. The dog followed and laid down on the light colored marble floor in a similar manner to its master.

Nothing got done on the meeting that day.

This wasn’t even a unique case, as she later learned. Shen Qingqiu would be seen flying on his own half of the time, but the other half when he chose to walk, there would more often than not be a shadow following him around. A dark, ever-growing shadow that seemed to gain mass and weight faster than average dogs would but when someone mentioned that, Shen Qingqiu merely questioned that person’s mental abilities.

“It’s not like you to raise something,” Qi Qingqi pointed out as they were sitting in the bamboo house drinking tea. “How did you end up having a dog?”

“I’m not raising it,” the man insisted stubbornly with a faint frown distorting his otherwise elegant face, “it just hasn’t left yet and I don’t see the point in removing it from the peak. It can leave anytime it feels like.”

“…”

Right. The dog following him diligently, the dog who was capable of making sound yet stayed silent under its masters cold eyes, clearly having been trained, the dog that had been to peak lord meetings and missions outside of Cang Qiong territory according to the information reaching Qi Qingqi – that dog was just a stray that Shen Qingqiu didn’t own or raise. Really now, did he take her for an idiot?

The woman took one more sip of the finely brewed tea (the boy who had been appointed in Zhang Ye’s place had a talent for picking the finest leaves, she approved of this one) then let her eyes wander to the door which was left open to let fresh air through. There was a black paw resting by the doorstep, just visible enough to make her lips twitch in an aborted smile. Shen Qingqiu didn’t take well to being laughed at but this was a little comical.

Another matter came to mind then, one which quickly erased her good mood.

“You haven’t talked much about what happened to your head disciple. I heard you buried her but… has her family been notified at least?”

It seemed to be the wrong question to ask.

“They didn’t deserve to know,” came the frosty answer. Qi Qingqi would have normally argued with her friend just for the fun of it, but it wasn’t the time. She immediately changed the topic and it was only a few minutes later that she chose to leave, knowing when her company was no longer wanted.

As for the other peak lord, he remained sitting and contemplated the already lukewarm tea in his cup. He put it back down on the table and left the bamboo house, walking out to his porch instead where a by now familiar addition to the building was resting. Shen Jiu leaned against the railing, appearing less elegant perhaps than usual, but his only witness was a dog anyway, nothing to worry about. He could allow his thoughts to wander, back to when he first met a particularly hardworking young girl shoveling dirt on her entrance exam to the cultivating sect.

“She ran away from home,” Shen Jiu thought out loud, “her parents were planning to sell her to a brothel to pay off their debt. I’d say they don’t deserve to even know if their daughter lives or dies. Then again…”

Shen Jiu snorted, a dark little sound that held many unspoken stories.

“Shit like this happens all the time. Maybe you’re the lucky one here,” he added while shifting his gaze from the bamboo forest to the dog listening to him. “Not a care in the world, all you know is to eat and follow someone around.”

And speaking of eating, neither the animal population of the peak, nor the kitchen normally expecting to only feed students were well-equipped for feeding a growing dog with such a strong appetite. It was only for making life easier of Qing Jing’s cooks that Shen Jiu ordered An Ding peak to deliver more meat to storage rooms, nothing else.

Spring turned to summer and summer to autumn without Shen Jiu sensing much of it happening. Another year, the same problems. Qi-ge still treated him like he was a defenseless young kid on the streets, Liu-shidi was just as exhausting to listen to when he went on about something ‘rigtheous’ and Shen Jiu’s disciples didn’t seem to get any better at playing the guqin either, in spite of the fact that their master had actually been holding classis lately rather than leaving the task to the hallmasters.

“Arf!”

He looked at the only four-legged inhabitant of the peak and saw that it was pointing in a very specific direction with that dark nose. The tone of that bark was a familiar one too, and thus Shen Jiu knew well before feeling the other man’s spiritual energy that Liu Qingge was coming.

As predicted, Bai Zhan’s brute landed near the bamboo house soon enough, much to its owner’s displeasure.

“To what do I owe the honor of your visit, Liu-shidi,” Shen Jiu asked with as much bitter sarcasm as he could squeeze into those few words. With Luo Qingge, the reaction would usually be anger or some irritated confusion about not understanding the underlying meaning. How an influential family with all the means to get private tutors managed to raise such a dumb man, Shen Jiu would never understand. He leisurely waved his fan, wondering how much longer he would have to suffer the unwanted company of the other cultivator. It seemed like he wasn’t alone with those sentiments, by the way. The Beast was growling at Bai Zhan’s brute with many of its sharp teeth showing.

Turns out, I have two dumb animals in my bamboo forest.

“Qi Qingqi is- damn it, Shen Qingqiu, do something about your dog!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shen Jiu replied to that outburst, secretly taking pleasure in seeing his shidi suffer. If Liu Qingge was going to find fault in his every move, be it a trick or not, then Shen Jiu was going to enjoy every moment of the man’s discomfort. Who would have known a dog was all it took to elevate that man’s blood pressure in a mere few seconds? The amount of Bai Zhan robes he had lost in the past year to those set of sharp teeth were a cause for endless irritation to Liu Qingge but a source of secret joy at his misery for Shen Jiu.

“This isn’t a joke, something might have happened to Qi Qingqi.”

No, it didn’t. Qi Qingqi was one of the toughest of them all and had fought her way out of battles no one would have expected her to. If anyone could take Shen Jiu on in a battle of deception and underhanded tricks, it was his fellow peak lord whose every single item of clothing and decoration was designed to be a weapon of some sorts. She simply couldn’t be in big enough trouble that would require their help. And yet, Shen Jiu couldn’t help the darker thoughts from seeping in. The memory of digging a grave with Xiu Ya was fresher than he would have liked to admit.

“Beast,” he spoke to the dog, which immediately retreated, deciding to instead take a seat by the green clad peak lord’s leg. No more growling or barking was heard, yet the animosity still remained in the air, thick enough that one could have cut it with a blade. “Qi Qingqi is capable. What could have happened to her?”

“We didn’t think much of it at first either but…”

But Qi Qingqi had taken on a mission on her own, as Shen Jiu learned. Some demonic cultivator became too troublesome lately in his mountain lair and rather than sending a student of hers, she went herself. Logical in a way – too many beautiful women travelling together would have been suspicious and if it was going to be only one, then it should be the strongest and most capable. She had infiltrated palaces, secret lairs and ancient tombs before, this should have gone without a hiccup and yet no one heard from her in two weeks. That was long enough of a time that she would have returned twice even if she stopped to drink on the way back home like she often did.

If even Liu Qingge was worried about her…

She’s fine, Shen Jiu told himself, his expression not once faltering in the face of these news.

“Zhangmen-shixiong wants us to find her. We’ll take Mu-shixiong and go.”

So Qi-ge wanted to put brute force, cunning and medical skills on one team, hm? What did he expect them to find on the trail of following their martial sister?

Shen Jiu had no desire to follow the orders of this particular cultivator but where he would have shown his metaphorical claws at another time, he realized the importance of cooperating for now. Xiu Ya flew out of its sheathe at an unspoken command and She Jiu stepped on it, but not before pulling a talisman out of his sleeve and activating it.

“What are you-“

He didn’t feel like explaining himself right now. The talisman grew in size and in a matter of moments, four paws landed on its surface.

“-doing?! This is a serious matter, you can’t bring your damn dog along!”

“This damn dog,” Shen Jiu repeated coolly, “has a good smell. Now do I have to do all the work here, or will you finally stop gawking and get going, Liu-shidi?”

That day, Mu Qingfang got to see some of the strangest interactions between his shixiong and shidi as well as a dog that seemed abnormally strong for such an animal. It was… a unique experience to say the least. Even more so was the sight of Qi Qingqi going through a violent qi deviation and Shen Qingqiu trying and failing to stop her without killing the woman in the process. He ended up with two cuts from her sword for his troubles as well as Mu Qingfang patiently explaining him after getting the woman under control how to treat someone who lost her mind.

“With people who qi deviate, it’s better to use diversion tactics than force so that-“

“I don’t care,” Shen Qingqiu huffed, not unlike a child at the moment who refused to listen to a parent. “It’s not like it matters to me if people die from something as stupid as qi deviation or not.”

Mu Qingfang suppressed the sigh that wanted to break free from his lips, then continued the explanation as if nothing had happened, knowing that the other peak lord was in fact listening in spite of looking like he didn’t care at all. Shen Qingqiu was complicated like that sometimes.

Speaking of complicated, what was with his dog? It launched itself to attack Qi Qingqi without a moment’s of hesitation when she hurt its master, but at Shen Qingqiu’s single command, it drew back, albeit not without letting out some of the most pathetic whimpers Mu Qingfang had ever heard. Even now as he was treating Qi Qingqi’s unstable meridians, the dog was poking at Shen Qingqiu’s thighs with his nose as if to ask for attention.

“Go away,” the bleeding peak lord said curtly, at which point the dog laid down on the ground with ears flat against its head, but didn’t back down a single inch.

By the time Qi Qingqi woke up to retell the story of how the demonic cultivator had one too many poisonous plants in his valley, Liu Qingge had already fought a bloody battle with the man in question and Shen Qinqiu let his wounds be treated by his other, medically skilled shidi only because it seemed like the dog would lick him otherwise.

To put it simply, Mu Qingfang had a long and eventful day.

So did Shang Qinghua about a year later. It was around the time the Northern Kingdom would become a complicated mess again with demons realizing another year had passed since their coronational new moon and suddenly their leaders just didn’t seem good enough when they had other people waiting in line. As for the An Ding peak lord, these were uninteresting as long as they stayed within the limits of petty infighting. A few heirs more or less in smaller clans made little difference to him. However this time even the leaders themselves were actively stirring shit to the point that it put a stop to the military campaign Shang Qinghua had put so much effort into. At least half the information he gathered was time-sensitive and thus about to become useless right in front of his eyes as these idiots killed each other.

“Go find out about the human sects in that area,” Mobei Jun said regardless last night when he appeared out of nowhere and blatantly ignored that this information would go to waste as well. Shang Qinghua kept from shouting at the ice demon to use his damn head already but only because it would have cost him his own. The ice wielded by the king was sharp and deadly, the peak lord would know, having seen one too many beheadings during his time as a spy.

“Yes, my king,” Shang Qinghua had replied obediently because there really wasn’t much of a choice for him at that point. His fate was decided for better or worse when he gave his feeble loyalty up for a chance at survival during that first encounter with the ice prince.

Sometimes he would have liked to walked out of this whole thing. Like now, as he watched one of the northernmost cultivating sects place weaker demons in circles so that they could drain their energy and condense them into bizarre little stones. It was going to kill them. Shang Qinghua didn’t technically care what happened to them – he didn’t know any of those, and besides, would any of the demons have cared if he had been in their place?! - but something disgustingly human was weakly stirring deep within him that proved to be a little too difficult to completely extinguish. Enough to make him leave his immobile position and stop from revealing his presence? Nah. But enough to feel entirely neutral with those living, breathing creatures being tortured by a group? Well. Ridiculous as it was, perhaps Shang Qinghua was still not the perfectly neutral and self-serving spy he aspired to be.

Defensive formation shifted since last time. The front walls have been repaired, the ones where servants enter have not. Their leader’s presence isn’t felt right now so she must be away. Approximate number of core formation level cultivators – four hundred, disciples not yet having formed a stable core amount to half of that, the reason for their drop in numbers unclear, might be due to an unfortunate accident.

The observation would have gone on much longer, had Shang Qinghua not seen a demonic presence approaching him. A small one, probably not a threat but he still rested his hand on a dagger that (probably) even Mobei-Jun didn’t know existed, let alone hid in the spy’s sleeves. Bette safe than sorry, right?

The demonic presence turned out to belong to a child and it was running through the forest in a mad frenzy. Shang Qinghua guessed that some nearby demon village of the weaker kind must have been attacked by these cultivators and now the humans who weren’t within the walls were hunting down the runaways. An ugly business, but not his business. He decided to ignore the little boy with eyes the color of-

Hold up. Eyes the color of ice? Shang Qingua had seen those eyes before, had seen them just last night and it made him stare in confusion in the child’s direction. For the briefest moment, he felt like someone was playing a trick on him. Ice demons, the high-tier ones like Mobei-jun anyway, were so rare they could be counted on one hand effortlessly. None of them were this age, even the youngest was barely a few years short of Shang Qinghua’s demanding boss. How come a child was running around with- yes, he hadn’t seen it wrong, that much was obvious after seeing the faint traces of the demonic mark on that forehead. It hadn’t manifested completely yet but anyone could tell that one day it was going to be the same pattern as the ones worn by Mobei Jun and the rest of his family.

A young ice demon. Why didn’t Shang Qingua know about this? And did Mobei-jun? For all his odd quirks and harsh personality, the demon in question wasn’t a particularly shrewd one who liked to play games. He was the direct type whenever possible, it was unlikely he would have sent Shang Qinghua here if the goal had been to capture and bring the child back or something along those lines.

So then… a child even the royal family didn’t know of? Certainly a theory that would have looked great in books written by daydreaming human, but for a demon’s reality it was a bit… unlikely. Unwanted children were rarely raised in distant place and much more often killed in a swift manner. Perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him after all?

“Arf!”

It was telling of how crazy a place Can Qiong became that Shang Qinghua could identify a certain dog by a single bark, no matter the time or location . He couldn’t help the sweat gathering on his forehead in spite of the cold weather and lack of movement.

Shen Qingqiu, what the fuck are you doing here with that fleabag of yours?!

There was something unfair about the fact that Shen Qingqiu could parade around with a dog that clearly had at least some demon blood running through its veins while Shang Qinghua had to keep all his connections to the Northern Kingdom a secret. Because where the former peak lord was given a simple sigh from the sect leader and some silent approval of whatever he did, the latter was no one’s favorite shidi and should him being a spy come to a light… well. His relationship to demons would have looked a lot different in everyone’s eyes for sure and no one would have bothered to understand how he ended up like this in the first place.

But Shen Qingqiu…

“Zhangmen-shixiong, that dog… I’m sure you sense it too. Something’s wrong with it. I think it’s demonic.”

“That could indeed be the case,” the sect leader nodded with only a slight frown on his face, almost imperceptible, rather than the deep unsettlement that should have been there.

“So then why aren’t you doing something about it?”

“Well, it hasn’t hurt anyone yet, has it? And Shen Qingqiu… he’s not so good with people, I’m happy he has some company at least.”

Fantastic. The most questionable member of the sect got to keep what was essentially a giant dog demon in the making, just because he was the favorite of the sect leader. Really now, Shang Qinghua needed to step up his networking game. Perhaps he would be able to keep something ridiculous too – although with his luck, the thing would either turn against him or simply drop dead from fear whenever Mobei-Jun decided to appear out of nowhere like the impossible demon lord he was.

Speaking of demons, Shang Qinghua just lost track of the small one. For a few moments, he debated the pros and cons of both investigating and pretending that he had seen nothing.

Well, curiosity won out in the end, which was how he ended up tracing the young demon down along with its attackers who were… using poisoned needles? And ice based techniques? How crazy were the innovators in this sect? Last time Shang Qinghua spied on them, they were barely above average, and now they were displaying such skills? It was impressive in that really annoying way that you knew you had to report to your boss about it. Mobei-jun wasn’t going to be happy.

Shen Qingqiu wasn’t either. From what the An Ding peak lord could hear over the clashes of iron and ice, he was sent here on a diplomatic mission (really, Yue Qingyuan, him and diplomacy?!) but wasn’t going to graciously let go of being attacked on his leisurely stroll through the snow-covered mountains. Which was why he was now fighting a dozen cultivators with both noble and very underhanded techniques. Ah, and with a dog he “didn’t own” and which was “normal, thank you very much” in case someone asked him about the viciously snarling thing with eyes glinting the color of rust and teeth painted red with fresh blood. Anyone seeing the agility with which it dodged could have told it was a fucking dog demon yet Shen Qingqiu still managed to give his “you’re stupid for even suggesting” look to anyone who brought it up, to the point where the entire sect just gave up altogether and decided to accept that their oddball of a martial brother was walking around with a fiercely royal bag of fur now reaching up to his waist and well capable of tearing grown cultivators in two. No, really, there was evidence on the ground that wasn’t so white anymore. “Beast” was the most fitting name anyone could give this creature, however crude it was.

But never mind the fighting, Shang Qinghua was sure that his fellow peak lord could hold his own, especially with that canine from hell on his side. What the An Ding peak lord was looking for happened to be the frightened little boy and he indeed found him shivering in the cover of a larger tree trunk. Ice demons of any age didn’t shiver, their bodies had no concept of cold, Shang Qinghua learned as much by having spent so many years around them. If the kid was shaking, it could only be out of fear. Not one aware of its innate strength then, or perhaps unsure of how to use it.

What would Mobei-jun want me to do here, Shang Qinghua thought deeply, trying to figure out the best strategic decision, weighing all his options here. As if summoned by the thought, he felt the air ripple around him for a split moment before a portal opened and the ice demon in question materialized right next to him in the prime observing spot of the area. Shang Qinghua long got used to this and didn’t even need to glance over his shoulders to see the man behind him.

“My king,” he spoke at a barely audible volume, just in case someone among those caught up in the fight paid too much attention to surrounding noises and picked up on his speech. “Did you need this servant?”

He sure hoped not. Mobei-jun’s anger was a formidable thing and he didn’t take well to tasks done poorly. Many had paid for their mistakes in blood, others with their lives. Shang Qinghua had paid for his in bruises blooming on his skin that marked his king’s anger.

There was silence between them for a while, only broken by the noise of the battle they observed. Shen Qingqiu was holding his own well and so was his four-legged companion that had both speed and stamina matching accomplished cultivators.

“The Xiu Ya sword… is fighting alongside a demon.”

Ah, there his king was again, remembering cultivators by their sword names rather than their own. But indeed, that was happening, even if Mobei-jun probably saw it for the first time with his own eyes.

“Yes,” Shang Qinghua confirmed. “No one in the sect feels like acknowledging it.”

He chanced a brief glanced at the ice demon who seemed unusually deep in thought. Was he… interested in this particular peak lord perhaps? At his level, eating a human’s golden core wasn’t going to help him advance much, it would be much like adding a drop of water to a whole lake. Did he want to kill the man then? Shang Qinghua couldn’t find it in himself to miss the rudest peak lord of them all, but the sect leader would probably run around investigating until he found out how exactly his beloved shidi died. Should Shen Qingqiu be found with ice shards piercing his heart… but then again, if Mobei-Jun suddenly changed his plans and decided to launch an attack on the human realm on a whim, this would be the perfect reason to do so. Except a war like that was going to be very inconvenient for someone who bore two loyalties and the title of An Ding peak lord.

“Normally he doesn’t meddle with demon affairs,” Shang Qinghua added in hopes that his king wouldn’t complicate all their lives by killing the green-clad cultivator.

“The Xiu Ya sword doesn’t despise demons…?”

“That… I wouldn’t say.” Shang Qinghua really wasn’t sure how to put this, because Shen Qingqiu surely wasn’t on enough of a moral higher ground to claim he allowed all living beings to coexist or something like that. But at the same time… “Perhaps the best way to put this would be that he hates everyone equally.”

“…”

Chapter Text

Shen Jiu grit his teeth to keep them from making such a hideous noise. It was a shame really, that after all the cultivation he did, the cold could still get to him – albeit it also had to be mentioned that it wasn’t just the general cold, but rather that one of the ice needles had scraped him during the fight. How irritating that such a small, barely-there injury no more than an angry red line on one of his calves could force him to stay in place and wait out until its effects went away.

The only bright side to this situation was that no one attacked him anymore… whether it was because of that ice demon’s presence or not, it was hard to tell. Not many cultivators were alive by the time he arrived and judging by their reactions before their bodies were pierced with sharp, black spears of ice, they were on opposing sides in spite of the similar-looking techniques. Perhaps once upon a time, they modeled their own on this demon’s. Who knew. Not Shen Qingqiu who normally didn’t bother with the demons of the North unless they came knocking on his sect’s door – which they haven’t in several decades, so one less problem.

It was just that he didn’t expected to be completely ignored. Whether he was considered friend or foe remained a mystery as the demon left without a single word. And as for Shen Jiu…

… he had a much less silent companion right now that made absolutely pitiful noises in spite of not being injured. The insolence!

“Shut up,” he managed through grit teeth but even if such words made the dog across him give up on a constant stream of noises in a while, they took nothing away from the near-human look of those eyes. Something that made little sense, by the way, considering this dog was anything but human – yes, Shen Jiu was well aware of people claiming his current companion to be a demon by the way. And no, he didn’t give a damn what it was as long as it didn’t hurt his disciples and could prove helpful in missions. That nose was not to be underestimated and lately it even became a semi-decent fighter rather than an aggravating ball of barking fur that needed to be protected by the unwilling peaklord.

“…”

Was there way to hear silence? Shen Jiu swore he should have come alone, but now it was a thing of the past that couldn’t be changed. At least the flower with the medical roots was tucked away safely in his qiankun pouch – mission accomplished, he just needed to… rest for a bit before he returned.

Unsightly as it was, the peak lord had to admit that this injury was slowing him down in both motion and thinking. Nothing that wouldn’t go away with time if his library’s scrolls were correct but it just didn’t feel right to be so weak after putting so many years into improving himself. So many years since he was weak and defenseless, so many…

“Hn!”

He had to scoff at that line of thought. When had he become so pathetic? Being sentimental was for the weak and Shen Jiu had clawed his way out of a place where he would have died in a few more years, and honed his skills until he became someone to fear. He had once been the disciple of Wu Yanzi after all, even some people conveniently forgot how the first time he stepped foot in this sect happened while he was covered other people’s blood.

He wasn’t a weakling. And yet his body was slowly but surely refusing to be controlled, leaning slightly to the side and dangerously approaching a tipping point. It took an embarrassing amount of effort to pull himself back into a normal sitting position again.

The dog raised its head, making one of those concerned noises that Shen Jiu didn’t want to near. Since glaring didn’t bring about results (maybe his looks full of anger were ineffective when he was so close to falling asleep?), Shen Jiu decided on putting effort into words.

“What? It’s not like I’m gonna die.”

Not that the dog had any reason whatsoever to care, it was just being overdramatic. That was what Shen Jiu thought as his eyelids were growing heavier by the minute. Sleep seemed like such a welcoming state compared to the cold outside, the arms of a blissful, dreamless sleep the only embrace he could imagine himself falling into.

He felt cold. So, so cold.

Therefore, it made no sense to feel any sort of warmth when he next came to his senses. How much time had passed was a mystery but underneath his fingers was thick, dark hair belonging to a living being. It took a moment for the confusion to give way to understanding, that it was the fur of this dumb dog that just wouldn’t leave him alone. It really was as warm as it looked and Shen Jiu’s fingertips twitched the tiniest bit, the part of him demanding to move away and the one wanting to stay at a vicious battle.

Exhaustion won out in the end, and he fell back asleep like that, still feeling the constant rise and fall that was a sign of a dog’s even breathing.

The next morning saw him recovered almost completely and walking the mountain paths looking as if he had been born into this cold climate and not a much warmer village down south surrounded by rice fields. It was on this path that he saw what looked like a torn-apart village with a familiar silhouette digging through it.

“Certainly an odd way of gathering supplies for An Ding peak,” Shen Jiu remarked in a voice as frosty as the weather. Shang Qinghua turned around immediately and while his face remained unassuming, one could get an impression that he was caught red-handed.

“… what brings shixiong to this distant place?”

Shen Jiu resisted the urge to scoff but it was still there deep within – after all, if Shang Qinghua could only come up with deflecting in this moment, then he really was doing something shady. Would Shen Jiu even have to entertain him by answering the other peak lord’s question at this point?

“If you need to know… a year after becoming a peak lord, a famous monk spending most of his life in seclusion told me I wasn’t going to live even five more years with this personality, let along be a peak lord. As you can see, I’m quite alive,” much to the dissatisfaction of some people, “so I decided to pay him a visit since he lives around here.”

Because what was the best spice of life if not spite? There was something viciously satisfying in watching people choke on their words when they saw you succeed in spite of them having given up on you, having belittled you, having looked down on you.

“Arf!”

Shen Jiu glanced at the dog, then at Shang Qinghua for a moment. By now he learned that this was the “warning bark”, something to get his attention. And the way Beast was moving around restlessly and trying to communicate something with paws plowing into fresh snow… Shen Jiu had a vague idea what the insinuation was here. The dog did have a good nose so even if he himself couldn’t sense a trace of demonic energy on Shang Qinghua, there could easily have been some traces that would make a feline creature with such a sensitive nose anxious.

“Ah that… That’s indeed a worthy way of spending shixiong’s time,” Shang Qinghua managed to pull himself together, nearly back to his collected enough peak lord self. Nearly. But Shen Jiu lived a life where sensing the slightest bit of hesitance or guilt could make a world of difference. He wasn’t as single-minded as Liu Qingge or trusting as some other peak lords. He knew Shang Qinghua was up to something that needed to be kept a secret.

Shen Jiu allowed his gaze to sweep through the area. The walls were torn down, the debris of what might have been ceilings were now covered in an inch of snow and only those parts were well-visible where Shang Qinghua had swept some of the white layers off. Nothing seemed horribly wrong here.

“As for reporting back to sect leader-“

“-I won’t care to mention you,” Shen Jiu finished that plea for him, seeing the visible surprise flitting through the other man’s eyes for a moment. “How ironic it would be if the peak lord with the worst reputation would throw dirt on the peak lord of An Ding. As a matter of fact, I don’t care what you’re doing up here in the North,” he continued, definitely commanding the attention of Shang Qinghua with every word, “but I will give you a warning. Don’t let it bring harm to our sect. Anything beyond that, I don’t care.”

With that said, he left his fellow peak lord behind. The was a constant tap-tap-tap of feet following him – feet growing larger and larger these days along with the dog itself – and he could have sworn there was a nose poking against his hand at some point. It was wet. Ew.

He did make it to the small monastery of the haughty monk and very nearly sent the man into cardiac arrest just by appearing. It was a visit well worth the extra time it took and one that put a smirk on his face for the rest of the day and really only faded by the time he flew back to Cang Qiong and handed the herbs over to Mu Qingfang.

“Thank you, it’s going to be of great help with developing a new cure for-“

Shen Jiu didn’t care. This was no longer his business.

What was his business was the bamboo house from where a certain dog was clearly banned from day one. Therefore it made zero sense for that four-legged menace to attempt to get in when they arrived and by gods, the whimpering was horrible to listen to.

… enough so that after a while, Shen Jiu just gave up on trying the idea of forcefully removing the dog from his house, a decision he would later deeply regret when the rhythmic breathing of another creature kept him awake for hours at night before sleep claimed him.

He was not supposed to wake up with a snout against his hand and Shen Jiu noted that with an appropriate level of grumpy yelling in the morning. One would think that experiencing the temper tantrum of the Qing Jing peak lord would teach any creature to thing better of its actions but no, the dog returned the following night too, stubbornly taking its spot by Shen Jiu’s bedside.

“You’re breathing too loud,” he announced to the otherwise empty room. The answer was the faintest of whines that most likely translated to something like ‘I’m sorry but I’m staying anyway’ which was exactly what happened. The audacity!

It became a new normal for about a month – Shen Jiu insisting that he didn’t fucking want a mongrel staining his floor with fur and that it was his house, the go could find itself a different place to sleep rather than disturbing his peace.

And then one day Huan Hua palace called for a meeting between the two sects in the name of some centuries-old friendship (more like centuries old polite bullshitting if one asked him) and Shen Jiu found himself spending three nights in a golden, perfectly clean and very much silent room. He didn’t bring his so-called demonic dog along, much to the relief of the other peak lords, so it was really blissfully calm in there as long as one could overlook the gaudy sense of style these Huan Hua cultivators possessed.

On the second morning, he found himself taking a stroll in the gardens right before sunrise, enjoying the calm of the morning when no one apart from him was awake and about. It was the closest thing he could get here to the sense of calm that the bamboo forest brought about, although this right here was missing something. It took Shen Jiu a moment to realize that from the first moment on, a part of his mind had been expecting to be trailed by something black and four-legged as if it was his own shadow.

Ridiculous. He didn’t even like dogs. That one just happened to be difficult to drive away.

This particular garden was high above many other areas of the palace, its very edge serving as an observing point from where one could see the disciple training grounds. It was empty for now, but Shen Jiu imagined that in a few hours there would be many rich kids in gold practicing down there, training to be similarly silver-tongued and gaudy cultivators as their sect leader.

Turning his eyes away from that field, Shen Jiu glanced up at the sprawling palace instead.

Well wouldn’t you guess, Beast – even you’re better company than they are.

If before leaving, Shen Jiu broke the heart of a maiden looking to marry into another powerful sect, it really wasn’t something worth talking about. Just like how negligible it was to see Shang Qinghua verbally decimated by Huan Hua’s treasury master who thought that An Ding was ran in a horribly inefficient way. If Shen Jiu dropped some fine powder in the man’s drink in passing that made the aforementioned Huan Hua cultivator run for the nearest latrine like his life depended on it, that wasn’t really worth mentioning either.

“She expected me to go easy on her,” Liu Qingge recounted his ill-fated meeting with one of the prized female disciples of the sect. “What’s the point of a sword fight if one party holds back? She shouldn’t have asked in the first place.”

There was a part of Shen Jiu that wanted to roll his eyes at the naïve thinking of this muscle-brained man who couldn’t sense a flirt attempt from miles away but… another part was simply happy to hear someone else openly trash-talk Huan Hua without him having to do all the work, even if this happened to be Liu Qingge of all people.

At some point, Qi-ge approached him and the two of them moved a little to the side of the flying formation so that their conversation could remain somewhat private.

“Are you all right, Xiao Jiu? It seemed like you were… it almost looked like you were missing someone these few days.”

“Stop calling me that,” Shen Jiu responded out of habit with a scowl between his brows, and then remembered how he nearly expected a four-legged shadow to follow him around all the time even here in Huan Hua, and so he scowled harder. “And stop speaking nonsense. What’s there to miss? I just don’t like those pompous fools.”

Which wasn’t a lie. He really couldn’t stand them.

When he landed back on his peak, it was first near the Hall of Wisdom where the hallmasters held classes in his absence. Everything seemed fine at first glance even though Ning Yingying very nearly ran to greet him and only stopped when a shixiong of hers pointed out that her shizun would be much happier if she remained seated and studied well. It was great that some of these kids had the innate talent to manage others because Shen Jiu sure didn’t possess any and would have rather swallowed that spiky monstrosity raw and whole that Liu Qingge hunted last week than to deal with kids rushing to him to hug him, or god forbid cry in his presence. They were too much to handle.

Perhaps it was that relief over finding his disciples sitting still and doing what they were supposed to do that made the peak lord completely unprepared for the incoming aerial attack.

It was so sudden that he lost balance, tackled to the ground by a very enthusiastic four-legged creature with a very wet tongue.

What the ever-loving fuck was followed by this is absolutely disgusting in his mind in quick succession. Instincts won out and he shoved the dog off himself, only remembering to hold back in the last split second before contact because probably some weak, still-too-soft and awfully human part of him didn’t want to kill this creature.

But dear god was it a way too intense welcome! Shen Jiu felt affronted for more reasons than just one, starting from the sneak attack but also including the fact that he now had dog saliva on his face.

He didn’t have long to ponder on that fact because merely a few moments after being shoved off, the Beast returned with renewed vigor and unleashed its ridiculous self on Shen Jjiu, much to the horror of the latter who hadn’t felt this insulted in a long time.

“Stay-“ “ARF!” “-away damnit!”

Seven attempts and a handful of creative insults later, both the peak lord and the dog calmed down somewhat. The former was sitting on the ground trying to catch his breath and ignore how he probably looked right now, rather focused on wiping his face as clean as he could with a large sleeve. As for the canine here, it was still incapable of being completely still but at least didn’t lunge any more for another tongue-first attack. Shen Jiu wasn’t impressed in the slightest.

“Don’t you ever do this again,” he seethed while shaking his sleeve out, already doubting it could be saved, “or I’ll send you over to Bai Zhan and let those brats practice archery on you.”

They were horrible enough at it that the Beast would probably be able to get away unharmed but it didn’t need to know the emptiness of this threat. Just as expected, it drew back a little and let out a pathetic whimper. Shen Jiu let out a long breath, then stood up and dusted his clothes off, then began walking towards his bamboo house. The well-known steps of four feet weren’t matching his own though.

“What,” he grunted while glancing back at the dog over his shoulder, “not coming?”

“… arf? Arf, ARF!”

And then just as it used to be, an easily excited four-legged ball of fur followed him back to the bamboo house. It was loud. It was annoying. It felt like it belonged to the picture of home though and Shen Jiu, while he would have never said it out loud even at swordpoint, began to realize that he simply got used to this particular company. So much so that when he entered a bamboo house and the Beast followed in his steps, Shen Jiu forewent the usual loud complaining and only mumbled something rude about dog hair before shedding his ruined outer robe and washing his face.

He already felt better. Not just because he was cleaner now, but rather because this place filled him with a sense of ease that very few could. This little house in the middle of the bamboo forest was… nice in its own way, he had to admit, like very few things were in his life.

That night Shen Jiu went to his own bed to sleep, not the lavish sheets decorated with gold threads, and fell asleep listening to the rhythmic breathing of one stubborn dog that refused to leave his bedside. Or peak for that matter.

It really shouldn’t have been a surprise that he woke at an ungodly early morning hour to something tickling his nose. The violent sneeze he let out was about as far from the image of a composed and elegant peak lord as could be, but on the bright side it scared the dog enough to jump off he bed.

“Serves you right,” he huffed afterwards, “why the hell were you up here anyway?”

“… arrf…”

“Right, why am I even wasting my time asking you?"

Chapter Text

Shang Qinghua watched the sleeping child with growing unease. His king… was indeed strong and capable in his own way, but from what pieces of information the An Ding peak lord could gather, this was going to be more trouble than it was worth. After plenty of uncomfortable digging around both physically and through word-of-the-mouth information, Qinghua found out that Mobei-jun’s uncle had a child with a lower ranked ice demoness, someone who feared for both her life and that of a child in this court of hell and ran to the edges of the Northern Kingdom in hopes of not attracting anyone’s attention. It might even have worked, had Shang Qinghua not been there at the exact moment her child was chased to his possible death by human cultivators. The mother was dead already, nothing to do there, but the child was alive.

A child that could possibly contend with Mobei-jun for the throne. Shang Qinghua had never seen this particular uncle in person, back when the man visited, the cultivator was sent on an errand far from the palace. But based on what demons of the court said, it was for the better that this encounter never happened.

In any case, this particular uncle didn’t seem like a man who would rush to save his offspring from the clutches of a rival that Mobei-jun most likely was to him, not someone easily controlled by having a child of his under someone else’s lock and key. So why…?

Shang Qinghua glanced at his king, that visage that so rarely showed emotion other than anger. He seemed… almost pensive now, his eyes less glacial than usual but still frightening enough to give anyone cold shivers.

“Qinghua.”

“Yes, my king?”

“Take him to the human realm with you.”

“…?!”

To the human realm?! What for? This child had just been nearly killed by cultivators, what was he supposed to do in the human realm? Fight someone? Not without any skills, even the weakest disciples of An Ding could have beaten him as he was right now. Blend in? Yeah, not with that glaring blue mark on his forehead that very obviously spelled ‘ice demon’ to anyone who had ever seen one. Or was he supposed to be hidden as a prisoner there, a bargaining chip? But the palace here in the North was so much better equipped for keeping people hostage! An Ding at most had storage rooms, was Shang Qinghua supposed to put the kid in a wooden box and call it a day, or what?

“My king… would you explain this servant what you mean by taking the child to the human realm?”

It was a gamble to pry for more information – sometimes it paid out, resulting in a semi-clear explanation and sometimes Shang Qinghua found himself flung back by a blast of furious cold energy. His king was unpredictable.

“… I don’t want him in this kingdom.”

So then why not kill-

“- but I don’t want him dead either. I’ll seal his powers and memories. You’ll take him to the human realm and raise him until he’s old enough to join the cultivating sect.”

“… my king?”

“His constitution is human enough, the mother might have been a half-demon. He should be able to learn your method of cultivation if the demonic lineage doesn’t interfere. That’s good enough.”

For a random plan maybe, but not for an explanation, Shang Qinghua wanted to scream.

“I shall of course do as you wish,” he rushed to reassure, “but this servant is still somewhat confused… why would you insist in going through this and risk him recovering his powers and memories, going for your throat, when you could simply end his life right now?”

For a moment Mobei-jun was as silent as if he had never heard the question in the first place. Then he said without looking at Shang Qinghua “I think living a life without the burden of one’s lineage would be nice. Do you think this king is wrong?”

Shang Qinghua thought back to his own childhood that he spent mostly working at a rich master’s gardens and storages to earn his keep since his parents died so early he had to go and work for a living when he was little more than five. Many times he had wished some uncle would one day walk in there and pick him out of the dusty storage that made him cough until his lungs were burning, telling him that he belonged to a rich, influential family that would now take care of him. That day failed to come in the next few years and Shang Qinhua ultimately took his future in his own hands and went to Can Qiong to haul dirt on the entrance exam. The rest is history.

“No,” he lied through his teeth, “my king isn’t wrong.”

A few hours later, he laid a child down on a spare bed, trying not to think of how this was going to shape his future. Sometimes it was better to ignore things. Like how his king almost looked human there for a moment. Ridiculous.

“So are we going to talk about-“

“No. Absolutely not.”

“I mean… we should, but we won’t. Just… no.”

There was an air of unease in the room that in the recent years became stronger and stronger. By now, the dog Shen Qingqiu had acquired grew to the size where its head was at the same level when standing on four feet as a grown human’s. Needless to say, it was not the sign of a normal dog and while they really couldn’t complain much about the dog’s behavior in general (except for Liu Qingge who had quite a lot to say), it was also an awkward situation whenever someone came over to the peek to visit. An inordinate effort went into making sure that Shen Qingqiu and his four-legged companion didn’t cross paths with the visiting committees (it was also generally better for Shen Qingqiu to not take part in any ego stroking pleasantry visits if they were completely honest) and it was starting to feel a bit ridiculous that they were trying to cover up the tracks of a gigantic, most likely demonic dog and its stubborn owner who up to this day refused to claim it as his whenever it came up in conversation.

To be fair though, the dog Shen Qingqiu called ‘Beast’ (a name which no one else dared to use openly apart from Liu Qingge) proved to be useful on many occasions when lost people had to be tracked down. It was just that missions like that had to involve Shen Qingqiu’s presence as well, which really didn’t fit him in the slightest – the green-clad peak lord stood up for his own people when needed, but he wasn’t the benevolent kind to reach out a helping hand to many others. However any attempt at separating the dog from him for the sake of taking it on a mission under the command of someone else resulted in vicious barking and the messenger having to take flight in order to avoid being bitten by one very angry dog. Shen Qingqiu ultimately resigned himself to taking part in the occasional rescue missions, usually just by floating around majestically while his dog did the grunt work. No one really dared to call him out on a lack of active participation, considering that his demon dog didn’t listen to anyone else in the whole wild word, the best trainers and strongest cultivators included. It was Shen Qingqiu or nothing and they much preferred to have their lost people found so ultimately made peace with the situation.

The dog did more than just sniffing though. There were occasions when a search party ran into enemies and at those times, the true strength of this beast came to light. Because you couldn’t quite call it anything but a beast when you saw it make jumps no dog would ever have, snapping weapons in half with its teeth that seemed to be indestructible, and defeat dozens of foes all on its own under the cool gaze of its master.

“Clean up,” Shen Qingqiu would command after one on those occasions and the dog that had just been tearing foes apart left and right now rushed into the woods, only to return with wet, but much cleaner fur a minute later.

The survivors would look at the dog, then at each other and wonder just what sort of power this Shen Qingqiu had that he could control such a beat with mere words.

“I heard he dabbled in demonic cultivation,” someone whispered conspirationally. That was when Shen Qingqiu decided to appear right by his side and ask him to repeat it again. That also happened to be the last time a rescue party involved anyone else but Shen Qingqiu, his dog, and just enough medics to tend to and move the injured to the desired location.

As for now, it was time to arrange the yearly Immortal Alliance Conference – a combination of praising each other and showing off their own disciples through a challenge of some sort. This year it was Can Qiong’s responsibility to host it and things were going fine but…

“Shidi… could you please have a conversation between just us, peak lords?”

Shen Qingqiu have the sect leader a questioning look from behind his fan as if to doubt the man’s mental capability.

“Go on, I’m listening.”

“He means without the dog,” Liu Qingge pointed out with a lot less tact. His reward was a growl from the four-legged creature with whom their dislike for each other was mutual. In these past years, Liu Qingge had lost plenty of his uniforms to those sharp teeth while compared to that, he could very rarely put a scratch on the damn thing.

“Beast,” Shen Qingqiu called without raising his voice even just a little. The dog immediately turned all its attention on him, awaiting an order. “You know what to do.”

And indeed, the one called ‘Beast’ left the hall where the twelve masters had been sitting, obedient to the core.

“Well? What did you want to talk about?”

The day of the Immortal Alliance Conference saw Shen Qingqiu aggressively wiping slobber off his face to the amusement of Qi Qingqi and the lack of a towering black dog, much to the collective relief of the six peak lords who didn’t happen to be Shen Qingqiu.

“Was that your dog’s goodbye,” the woman couldn’t help but tease her long-time friend whose responses lately mellowed out from may-or-may-not-murder-you-in-cold-blood glares to very annoyed frowns whenever someone brought up the four-legged menace he raised.

“Not mine. And it’s ridiculous how much it slobbers.”

“How old is it again? Maybe it’s an age thing.”

Not that she would know, her peak was too elegant and mysterious in the eyes of the public to allow dogs to run around.

“Like I’d know,” Shen Qingqiu rolled his eyes – a rare display from him on occasions like this where other people could see him break his lofty character.

“Well then how long has it been on your peak?”

“What do I care?”

The truth was that he didn’t even remember. One day the pathetic little thing followed him back to Qing Jing peak and then everyone knew the rest. Five years, eight, ten, what did he know? Some days it almost felt like this massive chunk of fur he woke up to had always been there. During some of the battles Shen Jiu fought, it felt like the times when he had no one at his back were from a different life.

“I’m glad you’re not alone though,” Qi Qingqi added after a moment of silence, which in turn made her friend huff. He had been perfectly fine alone, thank you very much. It was just that he had an annoying but vaguely useful dog occupying half of his bamboo house now. Nothing interesting to see.

Speaking of nothing interesting, the least accomplished peak lord approached them with circles under his eyes that immortals of their level rarely got, meaning it must have taken weeks of sleepless nights to develop them. A mortal would have dropped dead already. For Shang Qinghua, it was just the byproduct of having to arrange nearly everything during this festival.

“Shidi,” Shen Qingqiu greeted him briefly, not feeling an ounce of sympathy for the man but not really finding it enjoyable to look at his tired face either. “You look like a vicious ghost had kept you up all night.”

Little did he know that a vicious ghost has indeed kept the man up all night, thanks to the fact that Mobei-jun sent him on a last-minute errand to grab some ancient tomes from one of the rarely used, older treasuries of the clan which laid even further up North than the palace itself. It turned out that Mobei-jun’s ancestors were not big on moving on and reincarnating and instead chose to spends hundreds of years at the ready, waiting for some poor soul to wander into their ancestral home to take some tomes away and torture him. The screams were still ringing in his ears and it really wasn’t fun how in exchange of losing their ability of wielding ice after losing their physical bodies, they instead gained the ability to create illusions. Shang Qinghua spendt a grand total of six hours there battling his wildest fears and some he didn’t even know he had in the first place before Mobei-jun came to the rescue and took him back to the palace. The fact that the fucking ice demon palace felt like a sanctuary after that was telling a lot about Shang Qinghua’s mental state, so excuse him for not having his shit perfectly together on the Immortal Alliance Conference opening day.

“I’ve been busy organizing things,” he replied with a very fake smile. Mobei-jun’s second cousin who died young had a very vivid imagery about fire-related deaths and Shang Qinghua could still practically feel his own flesh frying on his bones. Had he known that becoming a spy to this man would mean bearing the grudges of (probably) unjustly murdered family members of the Mobei clan, then Shang Qinghua would have…

Would have what? It wasn’t like he had any other choice but to plead for his life back then. Just like he had no other choice of escaping the life of illiterate, endless manual labor in the hands of a cruel master other than running away in the dead of the night to join the hole digging and Cang Qiong. Choices were nice to have but sometimes they just didn’t exist unless one counted dying a horrible dead on the spot a valid alternative.

“Would you like some tea, uncle?”

Ah, there he was. Shang Qinghua nearly forgot how the boy requested to be present at the conference. He was probably around the age where kids began training at one peak or another but in all honesty, who knew with demons? Some aged like humans, some must faster or slower, it was a right mess to keep track of, not to mention this one lived with a seal suppressing his demonic energy, who knew what else it messed up?

Anyway.

“Thank you, A-Feng.”

The boy carried the tray to the other peak lords as well, his manners as impeccable as his appearance. Qinghua had no idea how he was before his village was seized by the cultivators in the North (who had been decimated years ago by Mobei-jun and so were the records of their techniques along with them), but the boy he knew now was an obedient enough child one would never expect any demon blood to flow through his veins. Only the occasional slight tint of blue in his eyes gave something away when the light hit them at a certain angle. Strangely enough, Mobei-jun really didn’t seem to have any plans with the kid apart from maybe giving Shang Qinghua even more work, he assumed. Because as okay as this child was compared to the rowdy ones, it still took effort to raise and teach him – it wasn’t like Shang Qinghua could leave a boy with little to no memories to be raised by strangers who didn’t know about his circumstances. That’s why the ridiculous notion came about that they were actually related and that the boy was his nephew. Sometimes he just wanted to laugh at the irony, because really, Shang Qinghua was just about the furthest thing from that.

“Who is this,” Qi Qingqi asked once she took a sip of her tea.

“My nephew,” Shang Qinghua replied, “everyone, this is Shang Weifeng.”

He was never going to be able to say that name with a completely straight face, considering how Mobei-jun chose the most ridiculously poetic name to go with a decidedly human and plain family name that Shang Qinghua sort of had to give the child unless he wanted to have people questioning the boy’s heritage. “Gentle breeze”? Really, Mobei-jun?!

Liu Qingge just returned from some conversation he had with another cultivator and looked the boy over upon hearing that.

“Is he joining the sect this year?”

A-Feng, now free of the tray, clasped his hands together and bowed respectfully.

“It would be my honor to do so.”

And my fucking nightmare, Shang Qinghua mentally added. The seal Mobei-jun used was way too rare to have a good amount of data about its effects and side effects. If the kid joined a sect and began cultivating, there was no way of knowing when or if it would break, and what would happen to him. He seemed to take well to human life, throwing him back into the demon court was just-

Speaking of demon court, Shan Qinghua had met the infamous uncle twice since then, both times without having any sort of conversation with Linguang-jun which was probably for the better. It was difficult enough to pretend that everything was normal when he had “I’m raising your kid you may or not may not know about in the human realm” running in his head on a loop the entire time.

“That’s great news,” Yue Qingyuan piped in. “Have you made up your mind about which peak you’d like to live on?”

A-Feng glanced at Shang Qinghua as if… what, did he need permission to speak at this stage? The sect leader himself asked, of course had it. Or was it that he thought he’d have to reply saying ‘An Ding peak’? Anyone with half a brain knew that it was the least desirable among them all, of course he was bound to say another if he spoke his mind, Shang Qinghua couldn’t even blame him, he himself would have gladly switched peaks at the time, had the opportunity presented itself. He just hoped the kid wouldn’t say Bai Zhan because the last thing he needed on his hand was a demon offspring trained under the hands of Liu attack-first-ask-questions-later Qingge.

“I heard…” A-Feng gulped, seeming a little nervous compared to his usual self. He even kept his eyes on the floor, which was really not a habit of his. “I heard good things about master Shen.”

And where the fuck did you hear them?! Certainly not from me, because I cursed him out just this week for ordering the most difficult-to-procure tea cup set and a ridiculously wide bed he shouldn’t even need anyway!

Okay so maybe he was a little biased here, Shen Qingqiu did have some good things to his name, not just the usual slander of being a shady guy. For instance he was known for being well-read, wise and a talented practitioner of the guqin. That was enough for many disciples to hope that they would get entry to that lofty peak lord’s graces.

Still, Shang Qinghua was not impressed. However a memory from years ago came to mind, of a child shivering in the cold and watching a battle unfold and of a peak lord who went up against the cultivators chasing said child. Could it be that A-Feng remembered that encounter?

No, that really wasn’t the case. Shang Qinghua would occasionally mention his concerns about the child’s memories returning to Mobei-jun and the demon king would sooner or later come to An Ding peak and check the seal for possible damage. It was intact every single time. Still, Shang Qinghua would have bet half of An Ding’s depository on the kid having some unconscious bias towards the lofty peak lord because of that encounter even he himself didn’t remember any of it.

Shen Qingqiu didn’t seem to either, thankfully. Those weren’t eyes of recognition, the seal really dulled the demon features to the point he boy looked almost as bland as Shang Qinghua – great job Mobei-jun, great job. At least this way no one would even suspect him to be anything but an average human. That was the goal, right? For some reason Mobei-jun chose to give this child a chance to live as one. Shang Qinghua wasn’t sure if it would change to a more calculated plan once the child actually made a name for himself as a cultivator but… for now, it really seemed to be all about saving him the grief that came with being related to Linguang-jun. Had he not known better, Shang Qinghua would have assumed his king had done this out of kindness.

Shen Qingqiu looked the kid over, his gaze lingering just enough to signal that he was moderately interested in taking one more disciple to his peak. Shang Qinghua would know, he had the chance to observe him through many selection processes and thus learned how long a “not worthy of my time”, a “maybe” and a “not until hell freezes over” look was. A-Feng scored himself a solid “maybe” right now.

“This year’s admissions are already over,” Shen Qingqiu spoke. “You can try next year.”

Yes please. Save me the trouble of not being able to directly oversee him for another year, thank you. For once you’re making my life easier Shen-shixiong-

“Don’t you think we can make an exception? A-Feng seems like a good child and I think he might have potential. It’s only been a few weeks since the admissions, he’ll be able to catch up with the others if he’s chosen.”

Shang Qinghua put his best poker face on but internally he was dearly wishing their sect leader had found himself something to do elsewhere. Anywhere else.

A few days after the wrap-up of the conference, Shang Qinghua found himself squatting under a concealment talisman, watching the kid he practically raised digging a hole near the bamboo forest on Shen Qingqiu’s peak. Then burying the hole until the surface was flat. Then dig it again. Bury. Repeat. It was exhausting just watching this and he had half the mind to deliberately send Shen Qingqiu cracked inkstones and tea that causes massive diarrhea as a payback for putting a kid through this for seemingly nothing but his own enjoyment. But then…

“Asking master Shen… what is the point of this exercise?”

Part of Shang Qinghua was glad that it was over, another was sad because he knew that the kid really wanted to go to that peak and would soon be heartbroken when Shen Qingqiu finally informed him that he failed the entry exam.

“Hm? Why are you asking? A disciple is meant to follow instructions.”

“With all due respect towards master Shen,” A-Feng responded with his already blistering palms clasped together in a proper form, “there must be a goal to be reached this one is not aware of.”

No, there isn’t, Shang Qinghua thought to himself, unsure if he should find this hilarious or plain sad. The sect leader three generations ago came drunk to the entry day and decided on this in random and no one since had the gall to change it to something sensible so the poor kids are still digging holes believing it gave anything away about their potential apart from maybe the arm strength needed to raise an object repeatedly.

“If I knew the goal, I might be able to deliver results faster.”

… the kid was completely wrong here. Any moment now, Shen Qingqiu was going to scoff and say something about being an obedient disciples and whatnot. Shang Qinghua was sure. Which was why he nearly fell of the tree branch he chose for his observation point when Shen Qingqiu sighed in audible relief.

“Finally! One of them has a brain.”

… what.

“I was wondering if you’re going to dig pointlessly forever or ask questions. You have a long way to go, brat, but at least you’re not completely hopeless.”

“… master Shen?”

“Don’t look at me like that. This is the peak of scholars. If all you know is to use your body, go and join Bai Zhan peak. But if you want to polish your mind, you must stop sometimes and ask questions. You passed.”

Shang Qinghua felt himself swaying a little from more than just the accumulated sleep-deprivation of the past months. He couldn’t allow himself to dwell in shock for too long though – he needed to get back to his own peak to welcome the enthusiastic young boy back who honestly seemed like he had just gotten the greatest present of them all.

That night, Shang Qinghua visited the Northern Kingdom’s palace and sought out his king.

“I have a report to make,” he announced. It was a testament to how tired he must have looked that even the ice-cold Mobei-jun decided to push him down into the nearest chair before responding.

“Speak.”

“A-Feng has passed the test to join the sect as a disciple now.”

If his king had a plan, now was the time to do something to make sure it didn’t come crashing down.

“Which peak?”

“Shen Qingqiu’s.”

There was a moment of silence between them that was only broken by the faint sound of the northern wind from beyond the castle walls.

“That’s good,” Mobei-jun concluded. “He’ll be in good hands.”

Well… that was one way to put it. But as far as demonic heritage went, Shang Qinghua supposed that should things go south and A-Feng be revealed to be an ice demon, Shen Qingqiu was still the most likely to handle it well out of all the peak lords. And considering he kept a dog around that was slowly but surely growing to be the size of a smaller mountain, perhaps A-Feng’s future was really in the best hands there, all options considered.

“Hm. I hope so.”

“Shang Shinghua.”

“Yes, my king?”

“How much does a human need to sleep?”

At this point, Shang Qinghua didn’t even question where that came from.

“A common human would need about eight but will function with six as well. A cultivator… one with a high level doesn’t necessarily need sleep if he meditated daily and replenishes his energy regularly. Anything in-between these two in the core formation stage highly depends on-“

“Don’t come tomorrow.”

“Huh?”

He didn’t really understand. Wasn’t Mobei-jun insisting lately on having him take notes and draft treaties during important meetings in court?

“Your presence won’t be needed here. Stay in the human realm.”

Ah, right. A-Feng was about to join Shen Qingqiu’s peak. His king probably wanted Shang Qinghua to observe that development instead and report back at some later point in time.

“Understood, my king.”

Chapter Text

There was an audible crack coming from where a foot stomped on his shin vigorously. It took all it had in him to not cry, the pain was nearly impossible to bear and worst of all, didn’t seem to let up in the slightest. It was as it would never go away, intent on torturing him for however long he lived.

Shen Jiu’s breath was heavy with the silent scream no one got to hear.

Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop-

But it didn’t stop. The pain only flared up when the same foot came down on his abused leg one more time to make sure the bones truly shattered, not just cracked and if Shen Jiu had thought before that he had been through the worst, this right here proved him wrong.

He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore as they dug into the carpet but vaguely saw at the edge of his blurring vision that they drew a trail of red. Blood red. Odd that he wouldn’t even notice.

“I’ll teach you a lesson,” Shen Jiu heard that annoying voice he wished to silence with his bare hands, strangling that throat so its owner could no longer speak, break that windpipe so he could no longer draw breath. Bloodlust flared just as his as the pain in his leg that may or may not have been ruined beyond saving forever, rendering him completely weak and useless.

No, he thought desperately through the haze of that pain that still refused to let up, largely because someone made sure to stomp again and again, continuing with a sadistic enthusiasm.

“Still not enough? I’ll show you your place, you son of a bitch!”

Shen Jiu bared his teeth in a snarl. He didn’t know what kind of a face he made, nor did he care in the larger scope of things, but it must have been something spectacular because the kicks let up for the moment, as if the one committing them got hesitant for a moment, almost scared even. It was short-lived though and soon Shen Jiu found himself being stomped on again, the pain rising to near intolerable levels. How much could a human body take before it finally gave up the fight?

Shen Jiu was a fighter and it felt like a betrayal all on its own that his muscles felt weaker, his head less clear, his resolve fading with each strained breath against his will. Hatred and spite alone had kept him alive this long but-

“You dare snarl at me like a dog?! Then I’ll show you how we treat dogs here!”

A hand grabbed a handful of his hair that had come undone earlier, yanked at some it and pulled to the point Shen Jiu bent almost completely backwards, his spine protesting just as much as his shattered leg had. At some point he vaguely felt something trickling down his neck and noted that it might have been the result of his scalp being literally torn off by that cursed hand. He wished nothing more than to cut it off in exchange.

Perhaps he was starting to get boring as a toy to play with, perhaps his tormentor had another idea. Shen Jiu only knew that he was released, falling face first to the floor now that there was no force to hold him up. He never felt weaker, not even on the days when there was nothing to eat.

Then he heard it. Over his own unsteady breaths and heavily beating heart, he heard the sound of a whip. Before the meaning could have registered, there was already a line of fresh pain flaring up at his left side, making him instinctively curl up. A second and a third hit in quick succession, tearing not just clothes but also the skin beneath. A fourth, a fight-

Shen Jiu lunged with a force one rarely saw from him on an average day. His eyes were wildly looking for the threat he needed to defeat and Xiu Ya manifested in his hand at its master’s franctic calling.

There was no enemy to slay. No matter how much he looked around, the walls surrounding him were bamboo and not the cold stone of the qiu estate. There was also no young master across him with a whip in hand, Qiu Jianluo was nowhere in sight.

Had Shen Jiu bothered to look, he would have found his skin unblemished and free of any wounds, would have perhaps seen a pair of eyes looking at him with deep concern.

He didn’t bother to look. He merely shook in place, looking less like an established peak lord and more like a child who had grabbed something nearby to threaten monsters with. It was pathetic. It make him sneer at himself and actually toss Xiu Ya aside, not wanting to fight anymore. The soft whine from somewhere nearby went ignored as Shen Jiu made his way through the room to a cabinet where he kept some a small, unnamed jade bottle that seemed simple enough one would have doubted it belonged to him in the first place. With fingers that shook – from anger, what else? – he dug two pills out and swallowed them with some stale leftover tea from yesterday. Its taste felt bitter.

Everything felt bitter.

He wanted to shed his skin right about now, wanted to leave this body behind for a while just as much as he wanted to walk out of his own mind where memories like that would no longer haunt him. Meditation however was not on the table when his spirit was in such a frenzy and his heart still beat loud enough he would have entirely missed a full-scale battle happening right under his window.

“Fuck,” he breathed out weakly as he buried his face in one palm. There was not much else he could say without breaking. There was also nothing he could say to make anything change.

After a minute or two of just standing there like that, his mind began to a clear a little, even if it was far from the razor-sharp web of thoughts that otherwise described this peak lord so well. Shen Jiu called to mind the events of the day, how he had wished to improve his cultivation and ended up facing a qi deviating Liu Qingge instead. It was a meeting bound to end in a disaster and indeed, on top of the deviation itself, Mu Qingge had to reforge some meridians for them both because it was all Shen Jiu could do to keep the youngest peak lord from killing them both – perfectly guessing the amount of power necessary for that was equal to asking him the impossible.

It shouldn’t have affected him much.  Sure, it was an unwelcome surprise, something that set him days back in the cultivating process right there, most likely month back in the long run and depleted his spiritual reserves but… He hadn’t expected this. For that memory to return, Shen Jiu must have had the rotten lock. It hadn’t surfaced in literal years and now he had to live through the whole event again in the prison of his own mind, through a memory that felt as vivid as if it had happened just yesterday.

I’m no longer as weak as I used to be, the man told himself, trying to find the stubborn spite that had kept him going all his life even when flimsy things like ‘hope’, ‘trust’ and ‘loyalty’ all left him to his fate.

There was a small movement around his hand, then he felt something slightly wet against the tip of his fingers. It made him glance down, less in surprise (his body had long learned to treat this as something with a very low chance of being a threat) but in curiosity as to what might have prompted Beast to approach now.

It was a bit ridiculous to see a dog of this size that by now walked at head level with humans lower itself to the point it could bump its nose against Shen Jiu’s hand. That gesture was a familiar one, although had not always been welcome. There were times when Shen Jiu used to bat at the dog to go away in disgust or irritation. He hadn’t looked for affection when allowing the eccentric dog to stay on Jing Qing peak and wouldn’t be asking for it now.

It was given whether he wanted it or not. All he could do was chase the four-legged creature away or allow that show of affection. A part of him still wanted to shout that he didn’t need such a thing. The other was tired to the bone, so much more tired than that encounter with Liu Qingge would have given reason to. Just for tonight, at least until the pills took him to a dreamless sleep, Shen Qingqiu didn’t want to fight anymore, didn’t want to keep pushing until nothing could come near him. For once, he thought it might be nice to let things catch up with him, for better or worse. He really must have been tired if this was what his thoughts had crumbled into, but what was there to do?

He was tired. So tired.

Shen Jiu wasn’t quite sure when or how he drifted to sleep, only that it was dull in a blissful way, his thoughts too slow to proceed anymore. A part of him thought it was almost nice.

As a warrior, Liu Qingge had come across quite a few things in his life. Some he greeted with words of respect, others with the gleam of his blade. Some, he never understood but didn’t bother with – and then there were the few that left him completely uncertain as to what was going on. Shen Qingqiu out of all people saving him from a possibly deadly qi deviation belonged to that latter category, because in what world did it make sense for the man with whom they hated each other from day one to risk his own life to accomplish this?

Had someone asked Liu Qingge what his fellow peak lord would so in such a situation, he would have bet all his possessions on Shen Qingqiu either running so save his own hide or using this as an opportunity to get rid of one he caused a rival, just so that he could later make it look like an accident. It was perfectly in line with his character.

But Luo Qingge was saved. The younger peak lord hadn’t seen that man since Mu Qingfang allowed him to leave. Of course it would have been the height of stupidity to expect Shen Qingqiu to stay and wait for him but… so many things made less sense now that Liu Qingge walked around with the uncomfortable thrumming in his veins that hinted at just how wrong this all could have gone, had someone not saved him.

But Shen Qingqiu? That man didn’t have a single strike of honesty in him, he was a sneak to the core and was most likely only prized for his strange ties to the sect leader, how else could he have taken the second most important position here? A student of a mass murderer, a killer himself, a peak lord who claimed his cultivation was pure and yet he cheated in every fight, used underhanded tricks that made Liu Qingge’s blood boil – how could he say they belonged to the same sect without feeling shame?! This man also regularly visited places where unspeakable lechery took place, tarnishing the reputation of Cang Qiong and yet no one seemed eager to talk him out of that. Liu Qingge had tried of course, but that only led to a fight and some speech about camaraderie from Yue Qingyuan. Back then he could see that Shen Qingqiu didn’t take a single word to heart so what was the point in Liu Qingge obediently following that same advice himself if the other party was not going to?

Granted, lately Shen Qingqiu was much less frequently seen in shady places like that, probably because the sect leader sent him on missions that needed both a cultivator’s skill and a large fleabag’s nose. No, Liu Qingge was not going to refer to the massive creature as anything short of that insult because really, what was the man thinking?! The more years passed, the more obvious it became that this thing was about as far from a normal dog as a river from a water drop. It was towering so tall, its ugly head was at the same level as that of a grown man and Liu Qingge would have life if he said that this didn’t make him uneasy.

The beast was strong. He had not only fought it himself on the (blissfully) rare occasions when he had to personally seek Shen Qingqiu out for sect matters, but also seen it tearing enemies apart of both the human and demonic kind without a hint of hesitation. Many whispered that it was most likely a dog demon of some sorts that Shen Qingqiu had taken a gamble on turning into his weapon, a volatile thing that could bite the hand that fed it soon enough. As much as Liu Qingge had his differences with the other peak lord, being betrayed by a badly chosen creature sounded like something even Shen Qingqiu didn’t necessarily deserve – if for anything, then to preserve the sect’s pride as a whole.

But where Liu Qingge saw a danger to the disciples on that peak and to Shen Qingqiu himself, Yue Qingyuan saw something like affection, something Shen Qingqiu was obviously incapable of according to nearly everyone who spent so much as a minute in the same room as him. The sect leader had this misconception that his shidi was simply ‘loney’ and this sort of company would ‘do him good’ in the absence of human connection. It was ridiculous. Maybe if Shen Qingqiu followed a righteous path and didn’t use underhanded tactics to win everything from card games to battlefield battles, then he wouldn’t have been so ‘alone’.

No one listened to him, of course. As for Liu Qingge, he didn’t like mysteries, nor did he like unpaid depts. Mu Qingfang had explained to him in no unclear terms that this qi deviation had been avoided solely because of Shen Qingqiu’s timely, albeit slightly forceful interruption. He owed his continued survival to the man, loathe as he was to admit it, and the Liu family raised neither cowards nor good-for-nothings. Even if his dislike for that man’s actions in general didn’t fade any, Liu Qingge would show gratitude for this particular case and strive to pay it back as the code of honor he lived by dictated. It was only fair to reciprocate a gesture of this kind, regardless of who it came from.

It was with those thoughts that he walked to the bamboo forest housing the elusive and haughty peak lord. This time there wasn’t growling that would have warned him to stay away if he wished to keep his limbs and clothing in one piece – unfortunately in the later years, the beast had graduated from tearing holes in his shoes and sleeves to nearly chomping at his liver once and that taught Luo Qingge a lesson to never underestimate something that grew under Shen Qingqiu’s hands, be it a human disciple or a very likely demonic dog.

The bamboo house itself was oddly silent as Liu Qingge approached, which was not necessarily that much of a difference from how it usually would be, but unless the two of them were away on some mission, either Shen Qingqiu or that insufferable hellhound of his would have noticed him by now and given him grief in some form. One was skilled at delivering words like a knife, the other had a jaw in between which one could only find death. Truly a troublesome duo to deal with.

And yet to trace of either in spite of Mu Qingfang insisting that the other peak lord had returned to the bamboo house to rest after suffering his own share of discomfort and energy depletion from the qi deviation.

Liu Qingge knocked on the door once but there was no reaction. The same thing happened twice more, at which point he lost his already limited patience and simply walked in with a “Shen Qingqiu, I’m coming in!”

The sight that greeted him was an unusual one to say the least. The divider was on the floor as if someone had accidentally knocked it down, the bed a right mess certainly not containing Shen Qingqiu and the floor…

There was a large, dark blob or fur on the floor that glared at Liu Qingge as if it wanted to set him on fire through the power of intense eye contact alone. He glared right back, because he wasn’t a coward. During the time he spent silently battling failed to notice why the dog was lying there in an odd shape to begin with. Mixed into the dark fur, there was a very human face, a pair of arm tucked close and a pair of legs pulled closer as if its owner wanted to unconsciously preserve body heat or something along those lines. Freezing was unlikely though, since the dog was practically wrapped around that body like a living furnace, its eyes a deadly warning but not a sound leaving its throat – if he hadn’t known better, Liu Qingge would have thought it was making sure its master didn’t wake up at a sudden noise.

Shen Qingqiu, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Dogs weren’t often held, not even in families like Liu Qingge’s because there were simply too few things they could do that other animals didn’t already excel in. But even so, he had seen a good handful of them growing up and even as an adult during diplomatic trips, and he could safely say that most people didn’t treat their four-legged companions like this.

Liue Qingge had initially come to extend a courtesy towards Shen Qingqiu and assure the other man that the debt from the Lingxi caves would be repaid in the future for certain. However as he saw the man shift a little in sleep and bury his face into one of the creature’s dark paws, almost affectionately for someone surely incapable of even understanding such a notion, Liu Qingge found himself directionless. He wasn’t equipped for dealing with this in the slightest.

In the end, after a few moments of numb staring, the peak lord decided on a course of action. He stepped closer to the messy bed, intent on lifting one of the blankets but was rewarded by the faintest of growls. It wasn’t so loud as to wake someone from a deep sleep but definitely audible enough for a cultivator with razor sharp senses. Liu Qingge scowled, remembering that this animals was unfortunately very smart on occasions it had no right to be, and then directed his spiritual energy to the largest looking blanket and made sure it dropped on top of the sleeping cultivator’s body.

“You want to be the one to watch over him? Fine. But you better make sure he doesn’t catch a cold. Part of him is still on the floor.”

It felt incredibly stupid to give such an explanation to a dog of all things and Liu Qingge half wished he could have taken those words back but… hadn’t he seen this dog understand very complex instruction before? Its intelligence was often outshined by its senses like smell or hearing, its strength and its blatant loyalty to only one master, but occasionally it showed signs of being smarter than it should have been. Demonic or not, as Liu Qingge left the bamboo house behind, he found himself wishing for this man’s sake that the beast was indeed truly as loyal as it seemed and not just waiting for the right time to tear him apart.

Chapter Text

“Shizun… this one has failed in obtaining a sword once again.”

Shen Jiu glanced at the boy from behind his fan. It was almost a regular occurrence by now, Shen Weifeng reporting some sort of shortcoming to him. Back when Shen Jiu had agreed to take him in, that was with the understanding that the boy had some natural talent and enough of a head on his shoulders to count as not stupid. While the latter hadn’t changed, there was a lot to be sad about his lack of solid cultivation. To put it simply, Shang Weifeng was an absolute failure of a disciple in that front, left behind by essentially everyone else, even the bottom feeders. It was a bit ridiculous.

But also… What with being recommended by Shang Qinghua and having been raised by a cultivator, Shen Jiu had expected he boy to be annoyingly quick on the uptake and develop in leaps and bounds. The fact that this wasn’t a case certainly made it a little easier to take up the role of a proper master than it would have been to some top talent. Such a disciple would have most likely grated at one too many insecurities Shen Jiu still carried around, pushed poisonous thorns further in with each grand development. It wasn’t the case with Shang Weifeng.

The boy’s cultivation talent might as well have been gnawed on by the dogs, he was so horrible Shen Jiu wondered if he would ever even be able to fly a sword, if not his own, then just a rented one. The last time he instructed the boy to try it, this disciple of question ended up falling into a lake and subsequently rescued by Beast after at inglorious landing.

He was a failure in that front. However Shang Qinghua might have done something right it his mediocre life because this boy was not only much better-mannered than his peers but also very quick on the uptake and a diligent learner. The task of copying older scrolls only fresh paper to preserve it for the coming years usually counted as punishment on most peaks and even Shen Qingqou’s supposedly scholarly disciples weren’t too fond of spending their time that way. Shang Weifang on the other hand spent more of his time than not in the library, either mending torn pages of cultivation books or transferring obscure knowledge from one sheet of paper to the other. There was an air of calm about him that befit the place but also the kind of excitement shining in his eyes that revealed to anyone who cared to look how much this boy enjoyed this new life and Qing Jing peak. No one had treated tomes of knowledge with as much reverence as Shang Qinghua’s nephew and speaking of the An Ding peak lord, something must have rubbed off on the kid or perhaps it was genetical, because any time Ming Fan was away on a mission and left his head disciple duties behind, Shang Weifeng could easily take over and manage orders, documents and whatever else was needed. It was just his cultivation that was absolutely horrible, too bad to even look at.

Shen Qingqiu hummed in acknowledgement, not really having expected the mountain’s spirits to gift this boy a sword this time either.  

“Walk with me.”

“Yes, shi-“

Before he could have finished that, the boy was tripped up by a simple but effective move that caused him to land face-first in the dirt.

“Have you seen that coming?”

“Answering shizun, no” his disciple said while sitting up, his robes now covered in dust.

“That’s what you want your techniques to be like.”

There was confusion in those eyes that seemed too innocent for the world they lived in. Shen Jiu wasn’t the type to coddle the weak but… He had once invested in a disciple with an eagerness to learn and capacity of being a good leader figure one day in spite of her relatively low level of cultivation. He ended up carrying her mangled body and burying it with his own two hands. There was no feasible reason why he would risk putting himself through the same again, what with Shang Weifeng looking even less capable of holding his own outside of this peak but…

“You’re weak,” Shen Jiu said without mincing words. There was no point in refusing to acknowledge the truth and Shang Weifeng himself was also self-aware enough to know his own shortcomings.

“Shizun is correct,” the boy responded cordially with one of his usual bows.

“Then do you know how the weak survive?”

There was a moment of silence in which he could practically see the boy mentally going through all the books he had transcribed in the years since he was admitted to the peak.

“This disciple recalls numbers being the answer.”

Shen Jiu scoffed, clearly unimpressed.

“Clearly that was written by someone who had the luxury of never facing anything alone in his whole life. But what if you’re on your own? What do you do then?”

“… this disciple is unsure, would shizun reveal the answer?”

Shen Jiu took a step closer, towering over the boy in a way that most likely looked threatening, but if Shang Weifeng got scared of this much, then he really had no hopes to survive in the outside world once he ultimately left the peak.

“The weak ones must find ways that seem unsightly to others. They must lie, cheat, deceive and scheme when the time calls for it.”

He would know better than anyone that morals flew out the window the moment one’s choices were suddenly limited to a gruesome death or some sort of continued survival. He had bathed in the blood of others, had worn fake smiles, had fed others poisoned meals, had used deceptive words to set traps, had used techniques considered unethical by all sects to win fights he would have otherwise certainly lost.

“It’s not a glorious path,” he warned, knowing full well how most of the cultivation world up to this day considered him a monster in human skin, a viper coiled but ready to attack at any time. His master had once been one of the most frightening cultivators after all and all of Qi-ge’s attempts of clearing his name couldn’t possibly erase all ties to that man. Shen Jiu wasn’t a righteous cultivator like Liu Qingge who had grown up surrounded by family and masters alike all capable and willing to teach him well before he even stepped foot in a cultivation sect. Shen Jiu who had grown up on the streets and then had to make a choice between being tortured for all his life or stepping on a blood-soaked path simply never had the luxury of being righteous.

Of course, there was always the chance that a boy raised by Shang Qinghua would be too much of a coward to follow Shen Jiu’s ways of deception and underhanded fighting. If that happened to be the case, then this disciple would forever remain a paper pusher – not a horrible fate if one had no ambition climb higher and bet on never having to leave the comfort of his home.

“This disciple would be honored to learn.”

“There’s not much honor in what I can teach you.”

For a moment as the boy looked up, Shen Jiu could have sworn he saw the black irises tinted with just a bit of blue. It was likely the trick of the light.

“In that case, this disciple would be eager to learn whatever skills shizun is willing to impart on him.”

Behind the cool façade, Shen Jiu dearly hoped he wouldn’t end up with one more dead disciple by the end of this.

There was a moment of stunned silence where Linguang-jun looked as if he had figured something out way too late, then a row of talismans lit up and filled the place with bright flames. Shang Qinghua grabbed his king and took them both further away, lest the other man was affected as well by the heat so destructive to ice demons. It was a close call, he had nearly seen Mobei-jun skewered on a spear of ice and now wasn’t that ironic in a way…

The tower he teleported both of them into was a safe one, at least theoretically. Shang Qinghua had at some point looked into blood-infused talismans, something on the edge of proper and demonic cultivation that could possibly grant him a chance to build back-up plans in a place as volatile as the demon realm. His foresight proved to be quite valuable since Linguang-jun suddenly decided that he wanted to challenge his nephew for the throne.

Now, Shang Qinghua would have lied if he said he did this out of the goodness of his own heart. Deep down, he was still the calculating spy from An Ding peak whose every step was a gamble on where his best chances of survival lay. During the years he spent in the Northern Kingdom, he learned that compared to other demons, his demon lord with a personality of rough sandpaper actually happened to be one of the most levelheaded one, without any crazy plans of unnecessary bloodshed just for the sake of bloodshed or downright storming the human realm and taking most of its population as slaves. It was a baffling realization to think of Mobei-jun as the sane, reasonable one among them all, but it was indeed the case and so he permanently placed his bets on this particular ice prince.

Mobei-jun’s breaths were unsteady, a stark difference from how he usually would be. Shang Qinghua dearly hoped that they would even out and return to normal soon because his own strength wasn’t going to be enough to protect the demon for too long. There was only so much a measly An Ding peak lord could trigger as a defense mechanism and Linguang-jun was a powerful enemy one shouldn’t underestimate.

Impossibly blue eyes opened just a little and focused on Shang Qinghua for a moment. They would never fail to remind him of a predator who was classes above him, a danger beyond measure. It was the most unfortunate development that he had seen those same eyes soften when listening to reports about A-Feng in a way that seemed to human for Shang Qinghua’s liking. Demons should have never been mistaken for something they weren’t. It was a lesson those few humans living in their realms took to heart, the An Ding peak lord was no exception.

Mobei-jun touched the gaping red wound near his hip where his uncle’s attack had landed just earlier. There was a frown on his face as he acknowledged that his fingers came away coated in blood. It almost look like he couldn’t believe that even someone as powerful as him could bleed.

“I activated a few traps that should keep Linguang-jun occupied for a while, but it’s only a matter of time. My king should prepare to launch a counterattack,” Shang Qinghua advised while supporting the much bigger body with his arms. There was only so long he could keep that other demon at bay with pesky little traps and arrays, this defense system was never meant to hold up an unstoppable force completely, only to distract long enough for the real power player to pull himself together.

Shang Qinghua watched the demon lord sit up with what seemed like quite a bit of pain, and felt that it was unfortunate how humans couldn’t support a demon with lending some qi – it would have dissolved in there immediately, there was simply no point.

“Go to the human realm,” Mobei-jun said after a while.

“Then you’ll be fighting all alone.”

Mobei-jun looked at him as if Shang Qinghua had said something incredibly out of line.

“Wasn’t I always meant to?”

“…”

There was no good answer for that. If Shang Qinghua had any prepared, it was never said out loud because one of the familiar portals opened behind him and Mobei-jun pushed the cultivator inside, effectively forcing him to travel to the human realm.

Back on An Ding peak, Shang Qinghua stood numbly in the middle of his office. It seemed so normal, so calm that it inexplicably brought with it a sense of wrongness after the sounds of cracking ice and howling winds. The stacks of paper on his desk seemed oddly organized and clear, none were covered in rubble from a fight that no doubt went on in the Northern Kingdom right now.

Shang Qinghua took a seat at the table, at the place where he was meant to be, had always wanted to return to whenever life at the demon court became too harsh. This was where he was in his element, wasn’t it? Running the logistics of all twelve peaks, scribbling away most of his days in a comfortable place where poverty was nothing more than a fleeting thought, where violent demons throwing him around like a ragdoll were bad dreams at most. This was his place.

But then why was a mixture of ink and blood flowing down his wrist from where the broken brush pierced his palm?

Ning Yingying’s face was nearly split in two with the bright smile she was wearing right now. The decorations looked absolutely perfect – just modest enough that their peak lord wouldn’t have a reason to complain but still festive enough to do justice for the festival. In two days, they would be celebrating the Moon festival and those few disciple sisters she had (and some of the more creative disciple brothers) were eagerly transforming the elegant peak into a place of cheer and celebration. The cooks had promised her to make cakes with all sorts of fillings and she even made sure to ask Qi Qingqi during an errand run to Shuan Su peak what pastry shizun enjoyed the most so that it could be requested from the cooks. Preparations were going well.

Even the less talented students prepared to play a nice melody together on their quqin and while the peak’s one and only dog absolutely refused to go anywhere near a dragon costume (a shame, Ning Yinging thought it would have been the most majestic dragon to have ever appeared on such a festive day), all in all things were proceeding according to plan.

All she needed to do now was to ask A-Feng about the fireworks. Her shidi had ordered them from a special trading house that was said to be highest quality of them all – she wholly agreed that their peak needed the best.

“Zhao-xiong, have you seen A-Feng?”

“I’m sorry shijie, I haven’t.”

“Xiao-Li, have you seen A-Feng today?”

“I’m sorry shijie, I haven’t seen him.”

Oh well. The boy could often be found in the library mending old books or collecting scattered volumes into one collection, accurately transcribing each stroke so that it wouldn’t lose a single piece of meaning, perhaps he was there?

It turned out that he wasn’t. Nor in the hall of music, the kitchens or the bamboo house of shizun. Worst of all though-

“He was supposed to come for training an hour ago. Remind him if you find him.”

-even their shizun was unaware of his whereabouts.

A pair of awfully human eyes looked back at him in a clear show of distrust. Was this the brat? Stealing him away from that town was easier than dipping one’s hand it water, had he really not been taught anything?

It was a little disappointing, sure, but the fact that A-Bai had managed to seal the child’s demonic energy away to this extent was intriguing. Linguang-jun was itching to undo that particular work and see what results it brought. To think that he had a heir running around without him knowing… that demoness should have been a long time ago, not living at the edge of the kingdom. An oversight on his part for sure, but at least now ironically enough he had something to hold over his nephew. Who would have thought that someone that distant would grow to care for a kid? One that Linguang-jun himself sired? He still remembered the frightened little boy brought back from the human world – a weakling even back then, unable to fight and running around like a headless bird, hah! Linguang-jun should have succeeded back then in ending that line of succession but never mind – he had new plans now. The battle he fought against his nephew might not have worked out in his favor, but this boy right here? Oh yes, this would be the golden chance.

“I bet you’re wondering about a lot of things now, boy. Let me tell you a story…”

Chapter Text

“Shizun…?”

Mingfan wasn’t sure what gotten into their calm and collected master. He glanced at Ning Yingying to see if she had a better idea but she seemed nearly as clueless as he was.

It was the day before the Moon festival, the whole peak was preparing for the celebration and for once no one had actually set anything on fire either, he made sure to never put Xiao Ying and Wu Qiao in charge of flammable things having learned from last year. Things should have been fine. In fact he had been doing a good job keeping order among the disciples while Shizun stayed in his bamboo house, perhaps a word or two of praise from the mighty immortal would have been in order?

It seemed like those hopes were in vain as Shen Qinqiu didn’t seem to care much about them at all. If anything, he had been anxiously moving from one place to another as if he had lost something. It was when he nearly passed them by that Ming Fan bowed and asked if he may assist shizun in his quest for searching whatever was so important to him that the man finally stopped and looked at him.

“Shang Weifeng is missing.”

Shang Weifeng?! Of all people him going missing? That boy was the definition of a bookworm even on a scholarly peak like this, and he wasn’t the type to go sneak out on its own like some others did – if he wasn’t found trailing after shizun like a model disciple, then he sat at the library copying books page by page, just how did he go missing?

“Perhaps he went back to visit Shang-shishu?”

That was the man who raised him, after all. It was also the reason why many poked fun at Shang Weifeng and said that his uncle’s horrible cultivating skills rubbed off on him, which was why his own happened to be so bad. That was in the beginning at least, but the more they saw him failing, the less anyone felt like there was merit in teasing him. While initially even Ming Fan himself joined in on the fun, after being helped through a particularly difficult essay by the other boy, he decided to kick anyone in the face who dared to go too far with the teasing. He was… Okay, Shen Weifeng probably never should have become a cultivator (just look at him, shizun having to give him extra lessons to catch up with the others) but he was a nice guy all around who didn’t mind helping others and never really stood out apart from his abysmal cultivation. He really didn’t bother anyone all things considered, so now that he was missing, Ming Fang couldn’t even think of anyone who would have locked him up in a shed or something out of petty revenge.

Perhaps he really went to visit his uncle last-minute?

His shizun’s face darkened at the mention of that person though.

“Shang Qinghua is not on his peak either.”

Oh. That… Ming Fan didn’t quite understand what that implied but judging from the reaction of his master, probably nothing good. Shen Qingqiu even summoned Xiu Ya. The blade was always a delight to see for an aspiring cultivator like Ming Fan who one day wanted to be just as powerful, but right now he couldn’t help but take a step back in caution. His shizun wasn’t in a good mood at all.

“Ming Fan, if anyone’s looking for me, tell them I went to find my disciple. I’ll leave you in charge of the peak in the meantime.”

Ming Fan drew a sharp breath, not expecting to be left in charge of the whole peak right before a large celebration he never quite conducted on his own before. Was shizun trusting him with bigger tasks now? Did that mean that he was recognized for his efforts?

“This disciple will not disappoint shizun!”

“Good,” Shen Qingiu nodded, then stepped on his sword. His next words were no longer aimed at his disciple.

“Beast!”

Not for the first time, Ming Fang saw a massive dog rushing towards his master as if it truly was a beast that emerged straight from hell, only turn completely obedient upon reaching Shen Qingqiu.

“Use your sense of smell.”

“Arf!”

There was a smell of blood in the air, something Shang Qinghua had grown more than used to during his time as a spy for the Northern Kingdom. It was just that even with that demon lord’s volatile temper, he rarely smelt his own blood. Right now he spat a mouthful of the floor where it began to slowly crystallize at the edges. It would freeze in a matter of second, he didn’t have to look to know that.

“How foolish of him to think that his little pet is safe in the human realm… A-Bai really is horrible at protecting what’s precious to him, isn’t he?”

Shang Qinghua had already been leaning forward like a lifeless puppet held up only by the strings but that line of Linguang-jun broke his silence, forcing some odd sound out of him. Perhaps it was that of that of a raspy laughter, or maybe just the first sign of insanity with many to follow. Who knew? One thing was for certain though…

“… you don’t know anything about your nephew,” Shang Qinghua spoke while tasting copper on his lips. Not once had he looked up from the floor of Linguang-jun’s prison cell, finding it a little pointless to exert that energy if he was going to die soon anyway. There were footsteps approaching him, deliberately loud in what might have been an attempt to scare him. Bold of this man to think that Shang Qinghua would shake in fear from something like that. True, uncle and nephew different in many ways but as far as approaching powerful demons went against whom a cultivator of Shang Qinghua stood no chance in a fight… well, he had plenty of practice getting used to that. Linguag-jun had to come up with something more creative to scare him. Shang Qinghua was a coward, sure, but a coward who had lived years of his life surrounded by danger. It raised the bar somewhat of what got him truly anxious.

“Oh? Tell me then, little peak lord, what don’t I know about my nephew?”

This time, Shang Qinghua actually raised his head slowly, then finally locked eyes with the demon lord who could have easily torn him to sherds a long time ago but decided to play with him like cats did with a mouse. What a twisted end to his life – someone who had once saved the life of an ice demon now dying at the hands of one.

There was no anxiety in his voice as he spoke next, only a bone-deep certainty and the faintest undertone of entertainment.

“For Mobei-jun, the only thing that’s precious is power. Anything beyond that? Oh don’t make me laugh Linguang-jun, joking really doesn’t suit you.”

Shang Qinghua let out the kind of laughter than would have made anyone shiver – it truly sounded like he was making the first steps on leaving his sanity behind. He had exactly three seconds to do that before a fist collided with his solar plexus and knocked the air out of him.

Linguang-jun pulled back, all the while wearing the most impeccably friendly expression a demon could possibly have. It was disturbing on all imaginable levels.

“Have you forgotten where you are?”

Like hell did he forget. Linguang-jun’s prison was memorable enough that it would haunt anyone for the rest of his life. The one good thing Shang Qinghua could actually count on though was him dying between these frosty walls, so at least he wouldn’t have to live with the memories afterwards.

“The only one who can laugh in this castle is me, am I understood, Shang Qinghua?”

“…”

Fuck no, he wasn’t. The An Ding peak lord, contrary to what some people might have believed, wasn’t in the habit to bend over backwards for the whims of any ice demon who thought himself worthy of giving orders. He was Mobei-jun’s servant only and while his loyalty was never rock solid, he would still take the headache that Mobei-jun could be over the man’s uncle who was insane even by demon royalty standards. This wasn’t the type of man to listen to pleas and make bargains. This was a sadist who would never settle for less than what he wanted – information, humiliation and total destruction. Shang Qinghua never stood a chance from the moment Linguang-jun captured him in the human realm.

“Why so silent? Afraid my nephew won’t come and save you in time?”

What on earth gave this man the misconception that Mobei-jun would actually throw away whatever new battle plan he had and rush in there to a trap only to save a lowly human servant? Shang Qinghua knew he had value in the Northern Kingdom but by far not enough to be used as bait. Linguang-jun was barking up the wrong tree. Or gnawing in this case perhaps, considering how the chains were slowly but surely starting to sink deeper in the flesh of Shang Qinghua’s arms. They were probably cursed beyond simply blocking the normal flow of qi. This was the demon equivalent of the immortal-binding cables and Shang Qinghua was living proof that it worked perfectly on human beings. What a joyful discovery…

Linguang-jun scoffed, sounding a little like he found something both entertaining and annoying.

“Fine, you can think whatever you want of that foolish nephew of mine. But say, how long can you bite that tongue of yours if you see something you raised?”

What is he-

The prison’s gate opened to reveal a young demon – not quite a child, yet not quite grown either – dressed in the typical dark robes of the Northern Kingdom’s royalty. Where Shang Qinghua got used to seeing the run-of-the-mill dark brown hair were now indigo colored locks swaying lightly with every step. The eyes that used to look at him with open curiosity and respect were now the same intense blue that could freeze one’s very soul right before arrows of ice came raining down, it just ran in the family, it seemed. But most importantly, where the face of that boy used to be so soft and gentle, there was now an unreadable expression as he moved closer and closer to where Shang Qinghua kneeled with his arms chained to the walls.

“… A-Feng…!”

The boy stopped a few steps away from him, the neutral expression giving way to a smile, but not one of his usual ones. Instead of the lighthearted curl of lips that fit the ridiculous name chosen by Mobei-jun so well, there was now the coldest of smile on the young man’s face.

How did he end up there?! What had Linguang-jun done to him? And if Mobei-jun learned the boy was with his uncle-

“Uncle. It’s been a while.”

Linguang-jun stepped right up to boy and place one elegant hand on his shoulder in a fatherly manner, which was ridiculous for someone who had never once raised this boy.

“Remember my dear son, this is the man who colluded with Mo Bai to hide your heritage from you, to banish you to the human realm and slowly destroy your chance at growing into your power, your rightful heritage as a demon of our clan.”

“Yes, father,” A-Feng nodded serenely.

“It would be early to kill him just yet, but you can find use of him anyway. Remember the technique I taught you?”

“Yes, father.”

A-Feng raised his right hand to the air where demonic energy and the sheer coldness of the air combined into crystals which quickly grew into long and sharp ice shards. Shang Qinghua realized with a sinking feeling that he knew them. They were nowhere near Mobei-jun’s deadly projectiles but demonic ice was demonic ice, no one wanted to be on the receiving end of that.

“Then practice your aim.”

There was no point in shouting about injustice and lies. The boy was clearly brainwashed by his father and anything Shang Qinghua could have told him would have been dismissed as lies, he knew that much. Still, nothing could keep him from glaring at Linguang-jun for a moment in fury for turning a child gentler than most humans into one more killing machine. In that brief moment, Shang Qinghua saw the older demon smile, a wicked, truly sickening smile of one who knew he already won the fight.

Shang Qinghua looked back at A-Feng just as the first ice shard pierced his shoulder.

“Ah. It seems like I need more practice with these,” A-Feng noted with the same ease in his tone that he used to adjust a few mistakes in the financial records of An Ding peak for his overworked “uncle”. “Well then, uncle, I’ll trouble you to stay still for me a little longer.”

Whoever said that thinking hopefully of the future was the key to overcoming life’s hurdles was a fucking liar. That was what Shen Jiu thought as he jammed the sheathe of his sword into the eyeball of some giant spider-like demon while Xiu Ya was attempting to cut its legs off with limited success. A little further, Beast was fighting Two-Headed Flaming Horses even taller than that dog itself and there was the telltale signs of an entire pack of something approaching them rapidly. Shen Jiu would have flown away a long time ago but that pesky arachnid demon had the ability to spit its disgusting sticky goo far enough to bring even Xiu Ya back to the ground, which was how Shen Jiu and his dog ended up in this hopeless fight.

Seconds turned into blood-spattered minutes, minutes into hours and soon the sun was setting as Shen Jiu fell on his knees that could no longer would support him. He had used up all his techniques, all his resources, all the techniques he had ever learned, even the dirty tricks he had picked up on the streets and while learning from the most vicious criminal the cultivator world had ever seen. And to what end? There he was, barely breathing and with more wounds than he could count. Spite had carried him far enough in life to have escaped slavery, have survived longer than his scoundrel of a master and even to having become a peak lord in a prestigious cultivator sect in spite of having an awfully late start and absolute shit for foundation. But hope… hope had always fucked him over, no matter if it meant trusting others to stand up for him or trusting himself to believe he could safe anyone but himself. Perhaps he should have learned this lesson a long, long time ago, that way he wouldn’t be here now, staring down dozens of demons all ready to bite a chunk out of him.

The only thing keeping him from self-destructing right now as a final “fuck you” to them was seeing how Beast was still fighting something viciously, trying in earnest to take a slippery snake-like foe down.

How the fuck did we end up like this?

That was the right question, wasn’t it? Truth be told, Beast had found traces leading to the demonic lands, making Shen Jiu think A-Feng might have been kept there. Ransom was likely, what with him being practically the son of one peak lord and a personally-taught disciple of another. Shen Jiu dearly hoped it was a situation that could be solved by some unofficial trade or even by a few heads rolling if the foes turned out to be too weak. A-Feng wasn’t exactly a strong fighter after all, even a Z-tier demon could have kidnapped him with how little awareness that boy had…

In any case, the direct route towards the traced smell would have been a death sentence so Shen Jiu relied on whatever knowledge he had amassed in his peak’s library and tried approaching through less populated areas, hoping that this particular forest-covered land would be less of a battleground than some others were certain to be.

How wrong he had been.

Whatever princess or queen stood above him with a smug expression on her face was clearly satisfied with her catch. At the flick of her wrist, something shot out of the ground. Shen Jiu sliced it in two on instinct with some unknown last bit of energy reserve he didn’t even realize he had in the first place. That was really all he could do though, because the next one went right through his right calf, shortly followed by half a dozen more literally pinning him to place and a few additional ones wrapped around him. They were offshoots of some demonic plant which was clearly poisonous, because what wasn’t in this goddamn demonic realm?!

“Rejoice everyone, tonight we eat human meat!”

The loud cheer coming from the surrounding demons (the vaguely sentient looking ones anyway) was soon interrupted by an ungodly sound coming from… was that Beast?

Shen Jiu struggled to turn his body that way but even from that awkward, blood-soaked position he could see the bright light flooding the battlefield. When he next managed to open his eyes, it was to the sight of something very fast and very wild zig-zagging through the horde of demons, leaving behind itself a bloody trail with each move. It took a while to realize it was a humanoid demon, a furious one at that.

Then said furious demon sent a burst of energy towards the other demons standing close to Shen Jiu who would have likely been blown away by that force had he not been pinned to the ground by those poisonous roots so firmly.

“Stay… away… from… him.”

The figure was standing in front of Shen Jiu right now as some sort of living shield, looking ready to fight in spite of bleeding from at least a dozen wounds. Some were awfully familiar. The eyes looking back at him a moment later were familiar too, awfully so. Shen Jiu wanted to laugh at this turn of events but that bitter laughter got caught halfway through his throat and made it sound like he was choking instead.

This was absolutely fucking ridiculous.

It wasn’t even the fact that he had been living with a demon all this time. Shen Jiu was neither blind, nor stupid. He could tell quite early on that the dog trailing behind him so stubbornly couldn’t be a normal, neither in size, nor in strength. There was also its incredible stamina and that size that made it stand as tall as a grown human effortlessly. No one would have been surprised to find out it was a demon. It was just that…

“Can you smell that?”

“Heavenly demon blood?! H-how? Didn’t that bloodline die out?”

“Where did it even come from, it’s so strong-“

“I don’t care, if we eat him, we’ll become stronger-“

“Let’s capture him!”

… it was just that Shen Jiu had somehow managed to raise a very problematic one even among demon kind. It was just like his luck to finally let his guard down near something, only to learn much too late what it was and what trouble it could get in.

“Beast.”

As expected, the now man shaped demon turned around, his face stained with blood but his eyes looking just the same as they did when they looked up at Shen Jiu waiting for a new order.

“Scram.”

“…?!”

Speech didn’t seem to come easy to him but there was a clear look of betrayal on his face that only served to annoy Shen Jiu further.

“Have you gone deaf without those large ears? I told you to leave.”

“But… enemies,” his former dog tried to reason, unaware of just how stubborn Shen Jiu could be. He hadn’t learned under Wu Yanzi for nothing. There were some dangerous techniques he had swore never to touch again, but if he was going to die anyway, then he wouldn’t hold back any longer. With fingers coating in dirt an blood, he grabbed onto the roots holding him in place. There was a flow of demonic energy in them and Shen Jiu’s body now had enough holes that he could take it in. Sure, it was demonic energy but this time around…

“Stop getting in your master’s way,” he seethed right before extracting all the energy from that plant in one swift swirl of energy. It crumbled to the ground in the form of a handful of dust now that there was nothing to keep it alive.

Shen Jiu stood up and grabbed this foolish young man who had no business dying with him for something as stupid as loyalty, had no fucking right being one more name on the long list of those people Shen Jiu had watched die.

“Don’t come back” were his last words before he threw his former demon dog as far as he could with such borrowed strength. Then, he turned towards the other demons, the ones he had been fighting not too long ago. Their leader shot something distinctly green and thorny his way from her palm. Shen Jiu grabbed the damn thing instead of dodging and stole its energy through the puncture wounds it created in his flesh. It fucking burned. God, he absolutely hated demonic cultivation. For a moment he could have sworn he heard his long-dead master laughing next to him.

‘So you’re going to die from qi deviation in the end, brat? How pathetic.'

Shut the fuck up.

Chapter Text

Shen Jiu had burned his hands before, and in spite of his skin not being on fire right now, it still felt like something scorching it from the inside, unstoppable and so painful it took all not to scream. He knew that the moment he began to do that, he wouldn’t stop until his throat grew hoarse and he simply collapsed on the spot.

It was just a simple puncture wound, yet what it left behind was as bad as Qiu Jianluo’s torture had been. Shen Jiu glared at his master with all his might, his hatred very near tangible in the air.

“What’s that look for,” Wu Yanzi asked as if he hadn’t seen anything wrong at all. Perhaps in his deranged, pitch black mind it all seemed just fine. “I’m just helping you. You’re not learning fast enough and this is a quicker way to get there. You wanted to be strong, brat, well there your method is.”

There was bright red blood on the tip of that damn thing. It must have been one out of many sharp teeth in some demonic creature’s mouth at some point in time – Shen Jiu had no idea which, the Qiu estate was only great at making him miserable, not in educating him.

With how the demonic energy was burning through his left hand now, Shen Jiu half-expected his bones to just melt one by one, too weak to contain it. He wanted it to stop.

When Wu Yanzi brought that thing closer, this time Shen Jiu lashed out and slapped it away with his functional hand. The demonic fang sank into the ground a few steps away from them.

“Don’t,” Shen Jiu warned. “I’m not doing this even if you kill me.”

There was an expression on his master’s face that clearly spelled doubt, but more than anything a sense of superiority that Shen Jiu would have gladly wiped off, had he possessed the strength to do so.

“What, you’re telling me you’ll cultivate the righteous path now? At this age? You’re way to late, it will take decades for you to catch up with the others.”

This time it was not just the demonic energy burning him from the inside, but also an intense hatred towards both his master and the people he was unfortunately right about.

“And even if you bend over backwards to do that, do you expect the cultivating sects to accept you? A rogue who slaughtered everyone in the Qiu estate?”

Not everyone, he thought with Qiu Haitang’s face appearing in his mind, but neither Wu Yanzi, nor the rest of the cultivating world cared. Shen Jiu was 15, and he ran from that estate with the blood of dozens on his hands, all of whom he had killed in a fury. The cost of his freedom was becoming a criminal.

“I don’t care what they think of me,” Shen Jiu lied fiercely enough that he almost believed those words himself. “I’m only doing this for myself. Teach me normal cultivation. All your tricks, I will learn them from you, but not this one. I won’t touch demonic cultivation ever again.”

“…!”

There were embers in his spiritual veins, white-hot and burning through him from the inside – or if there weren’t, then they sure felt that way. The first breath he drew felt like a handful of ashes got stuck in his throat and Shen Jiu turned to the side to cough it out. Nothing much fell on the ground though, least of all grey dust. For all unknowing eyes, he most probably looked fine.

He felt like a man about to die though. For once in his life, Shen Jiu actually understood why some people gave up on fighting and hung themselves – apparently there was a level of pain that became so unbearable that one just wanted it to stop, no matter at what cost. It was one thing while he was fighting dozens of demons at the same time, but now that he wasn’t-

Why wasn’t he?

Looking around, Shen Jiu saw a simple, stone-walled room with nothing more than a bed for him to lie on. A pair of torches were burning in the furthest corners, right by the door that was left wide open. Was he captured? If so, that was clearly a trap.

It never once crossed his mind that this could be anything but a demon dwelling – the stone itself was too robust to belong to any human’s palace and the door was disproportionately large, as if someone had designed it with giants carrying weapons in mind.

He needed to leave. However before he could have made a single step towards the door, someone walked in – a familiar someone at that.

“Shen-shixiong, please lie back, you’re not ready to move around just yet,” Mu Qingfang instructed in that usual calm tone of his. The following minutes saw the man tending to Shen Jiu, Liu Qingge yelling, Shen Jiu demanding answerers, a young demoness laughing and swords being drawn, not necessarily in that order. Once Shen Jiu was wrestled back into a lying position on the bed (courtesy of Liu Qingge) and had cleansing spells painted on him (courtesy of Mu Qingfang), he could finally glare at the people gathering around him.

“So to sum it up,” he spoke to them with thinly veiled irritation, “you,” he glared at Luo Qingge, “followed me here and like an absolute moron, barged into the middle of a horde of demons-“

“-I was saving your life, you ungrateful little- and weren’t you fighting them as well?!”

“-and you,” Shen Jiu turned to the demoness called Sha Hualing, “kidnapped my dog-“

“-he was very, very cute and wouldn’t it be nice to be on the good side of someone with heavenly demon blood? Also, this guy over here said I owe him for ruining some pesky little rainbow bridge so I guess I had to save you too, where’s my thanks, hm?”

“-and you,” he then turned to look at Mu Qingfang who honestly seemed to have expected to get none of the tongue-lashing, “are telling me I can’t even see proof of that idiot being alive?”

The peak lord proficient in all things medical but not quite in all things Shen Jiu, cleared his throat awkwardly.

“At this point you might have to specify which idiot you mean.”

“My dumb dog, that’s the idiot I mean!”

There was only so much Shen Jiu could take without snapping and he had never been a patient man.

“Ah, your shidi knocked him unconscious a few hours ago,” Sha Hualing chimed in as if she had brought the most delicious new gossip to a fishmarket. Liu Qingge crossed his arms in front of him, his face twisted into an ugly frown.

“He wanted to bite me, what else was I supposed to do?”

“I wouldn’t mind being bitten by-“

“Say one more word about that,” Liu Qingge threatened her, “and I’ll stab you.”

“Rude,” the girl summarized but she did dance out of stabbing range just in case Bai Zhan’s brute decided to fulfill that promise.

“The two of you,” Shen Jiu raised his voice to be heard over the chaos, “out. You stay,” he gestured for Mu Qingfang. His request was met with some hesitance but when he reached for Xiu Ya by his bedside with every intention of using the legenary weapon as a throwing knife, preferably aiming at either the annoying demoness or the muscle-for-brain battle maniac, they seemed to decide that it was better to leave.

“Don’t be so hard on them, Shen-shixiong,” Mu Qingfang advised, “they might be a… handful, but they did save your life one way or another from the demonic tribe that attack you. The demoness even led us to this old abandon fort so you can recover.”

He knew that much. Not that he had ever asked for their help at all. However since he apparently didn’t die in that absolute shitstorm of a battle, now he had to deal with the fallout of the choices he made at the brink of what he had thought to be certain death.

“Will it ever stop?”

The pain had still didn’t show any signs of fading and if Shen Jiu had to live the rest of his life this way, then it would most likely be a very short life ending with him committing suicide in the most spectacular fashion. There was only so far spite alone could carry someone and as soon as those brats were okay-

“Most of your meridians should be cleaned in a few days, your golden core is intact and is working on it from the inside. I tried helping it along a little with these talismans some medicine.”

“Shidi… do you have any news about my disciple?”

There was a moment of silence before the other peak lord replied.

“I’m sorry but nothing yet. I know how fond you were of the boy.”

“Who was fond of him?!”

Certainly not Shen Jiu. Nonsense. But he did feel annoyed at the thought of that kid being in danger somewhere. Too weak, too trusting, too straightforward even after all the effort Shen Jiu poured into shaping him into someone capable of surviving beyond the coddling of his uncle.

“Right,” Mu Qingfang covered up what might have been a smile with his fist. “About that demon dog of yours… have you known all along?”

Had he? Not when he first met the stubborn little thing, no. Whatever had sealed the demonic powers inside was strong enough to let any of it seep out, not even a hint of demonic qi when the dog bled after sustaining an injury. But Shen Jiu was no fool, he saw the way this dog fought, saw how it understood so much of human speech in spite of never once being trained by him beyond the most basic commands, saw how it grew in size at a rate impossible for a simple mutt. Anyone could figure out that much. It was just that… Shen Jiu grew to tolerate this persistent little annoyance that refused to leave his peak, got used to seeing black fur at the edge of his vision wherever he went, became reliant on a pair of ears and a nose predicting the approach of others well before he picked up on their presence himself. It was just that he got used to some living creature staying in the vicinity without finding a reason to leave, keep approaching even after being told to leave a hundred times. It was just that it was easy getting used to having some sort of companion, much easier than it would have been with a human. Those tended to ask too many question, take on too many responsibilities, break too many promises.

It was just living with Beast was simple. With how loyal that dog was, what would have been the point of chasing it away? So what if it was demonic? It was still better behaved than many humans. So what if Shen Jiu felt like turning a blind eye to that?

“I did. Are you going to put me on trial now?”

It was clearly a taunt, a test to see if his shidi dared. However Mu Qingfang only shook his head.

“I wouldn’t. That dog of yours… we thought it might be a danger to you, but it seems like… it was loyal to a fault.”

Shen Jiu scoffed. That “loyal to a fault” dog was no longer restrained, the peak lord had seen enough of that fight to know what heavenly demon blood, untried as if might have been, could mean for its owner. With this kind of heritage, his loyal dog would never once think of going back with him to the human world as the dog from a long time ago used to.

“He has heavenly demon blood, clearly he’s going to stay here in the demon realm. He would be a fool if he returned to the humans.”

After all, a demon would only feel resentment living among them, and with how enthusiastic everyone seemed to be about the heavenly demon heritage, Shen Jiu’s former dog was bound to have a lot to do here. He knew that already when he threw that fool far, far away from the battlefield in hopes that the demon horde wouldn’t follow. If he had the chance to run…

Well, Sha Hualing did find him and drag him to a safer place, so Shen Jiu had been right in his actions after all.

“I want to see him,” he said with determination. Shen Jiu had made peace with the fact that he would be living his life in the bamboo forest in solitude again, but first he wanted to take a look at whatever he raised for so many years.

Ignoring Mu Qingfang’s protests, he left the bed and slowly but surely walked out into the corridor, at the end of which was the only closed door. It had to hold what was once his.

“… be careful, shixiong.”

Shen Jiu ignored those words and walked inside. Where the torchlight lit the figure on the floor, he could see a loosely clothed figure with an absolute mess of long hair covering all his facial features. It was usightly.

“I admit he’s not the most elegant of sleepers,” Sha Hualing chimed in from behind him, much uninvited. “But he has a nice face. Too bad he only seems to care about his master,” she sighed dramatically.

“Is there any point in you being here?”

“No wonder he turned out like this if he spent his time around you… None of you appreciate a good chatter.”

Shen Jiu was once again coming close to losing his patience. At any other time, he probably would have been able to remain seemingly unaffected for much longer, but with demonic qi still burning through him, it was difficult enough to withstand the urge to claw inside his own flesh just to get all of it out forcefully.

“So what would master Shen appreciate hearing, hm? That Liu Qingge stopped him from qi deviating after the fight? Or-“

-when had Liu Qingge even learned that?!-

“-that the one sleeping inside is called Luo Binghe? Or perhaps that legend says heavenly demons in times of great distress can take on a different shape without meaning to? There was a very interesting rumor about a demon-turned-snake a few decades ago-“

Shen Jiu finally turned to fully look at her.

“What else do you know?”

Sha Hualing leaned against the wall casually, unbothered by the anger in the cultivator’s eyes.

“About…? This Sha Hualing has heard this or that, I wonder what piece of knowledge exactly master Shen is seeking.”

It would have been a blatant lie to say that he trusted her, but at the same time, how many options did he have?

“I want to know where my disciple is.”

“Oh? What are you willing to give in exchange?”

The courtesy of leaving your head on your neck, Shen Jiu wanted to say but decided not to.

“Do you even have information?”

“Hn. Not easily tricked, I see.”

Having said that, the demoness finally left. When the ringing of bells could no longer be heard, Shen Jiu turned to look at… whoever that was on the floor again. He couldn’t quite call this man Beast any longer now, could he? Not that it mattered. Their paths separated here.

Stepping out of the room, Shen Jiu stomped down on the ridiculous urge pull those wild curls to their rightful place on the man’s back. What nonsense that would have been…! He’d never once groomed Beast’s when he was a dog, Shen Jiu certainly wasn’t going to now that he was a human. If he had any lingering sense of nostalgia or something equally stupid in his heart for a creature that was never meant to stay by his side willingly, then it was best to crush it right now. At least this time he had the luxury making the choice to let someone go rather than waiting to be abandoned.

“Uncle?”

“Hm?”

“Can you tell me about my parents?”

Shang Qinghua knew this question would come sooner or later, he just wasn’t expecting it to strike while he was rearranging a dusty section of his study that unfortunately contained sensitive enough information that disciples couldn’t be allowed to clean it for him. A shame that the same talismans capable of keeping such documents safe didn’t extend to keeping them clean as well. He surely couldn’t be blamed then that when hearing that question, his grip loosened a little on a particular scroll and had to scramble to catch it mid-air, right?

My king, with all due respect, you’re an ass for leaving me to raise this kid without a single word of advice on what to lie to him. What ‘trusting it to my judgement’?! What am I, a master storyteller?

Although to be fair, the years spent in Mobei-jun’s service trained him to come up with some very creative lies for when the sect leader ask where he had been lately or why on some occasions he looked a little bruised and how come his shoes were wet when the peaks hadn’t seen rain in weeks…? One could say he got good at that type of storytelling. Sadly enough though, Shang Qinghua had never been good at dealing with curious kids.

“They’re dead,” he decided. Anything else only invited more lies and the best way to keep one’s solid footing in a web of lies was to weave them both simply and as close to the truth as possible. One of A-Feng’s parents was truly dead and the other… well, if even Mobei-jun showed concern about the little demon boy being safe in his father’s court, then how was Shang Qinghua supposed to let the kid find a trail to that man?

The little face soured just a tiny bit, a sign he learned to mean that A-Feng was too well-mannered to push for more but wanted to hear a longer answer anyway. For a demon he was… oddly well-tempered and Shang Qinghua already decided to preserve that trait for as long as possible, saving himself the trouble that could possibly come from a rebellious demon child probing for more information than he should know.

“Your mother…” he tried to recall the demon village he had once gone through, the body that may or may not have belonged to the woman who gave birth to A-Feng. “She was a beautiful and kind woman.”

Probably. What did he know? This was such a stupid situation, but it would only be more suspicious if he said he didn’t know a thing.

“Or at least that’s how I saw her. We never really knew her well.”

Once again, technically true.

“Your father was a strong man,” technically not a complete lie, “but unfortunately both of them died in an accident.”

Yeah, that was a lie he couldn’t afford to give up on.

A-Feng nodded, drinking in all the information like he did with all the things Shang Qinghua had awkwardly tried to teach him. (Sue him, raising a young child was more difficult than arranging for the education of disciples who didn’t have years’ worth of memories erased. If anyone, including his icy boss himself decided he wasn’t doing a good enough job, they were welcome to take over.)

“Uncle… could I one day visit their grave?”

“…”

Yeah, no. Absolutely not. Shang Qinghua wasn’t going to make a fake grave for this.

“… there isn’t one, I’m sorry. How about you burn incense for them in the small shrine at the bottom of the mountain?”

Flimsy, but A-Feng was still just a kid. He proved to be smart enough to learn how to read and write quickly, to remember messages that would have to be carried to Shang Qinghua, even to recall longer texts someone his age would have barely been able to sit through. However he wasn’t smart in a sense of reading between the lines and figuring out the intentions of people around him. One could say he was simple. Good enough for Shang Qinghua who really hadn’t planned or raising anything more than that potted plant from a distant land which grew delicious bright red berries.

“All right,” A-Feng nodded at the makeshift solution. “A-Feng will do that.”

Okay. Crisis averted for now. Shang Qinghua would come up with something later to keep the kid away from digging too deep into his heritage, just in case it became very obvious that the An Ding peak lord didn’t even know his own parents’ names, let alone had any contact withy any of the dirt poor kids he grew up with. Or, you know, the fact that the boy’s father was one of the most powerful demons in the Northern Kingdom.

Not for the first time, Shang Qinghua unconsciously glanced at the thin blue bracelet on his right wrist. It was unassuming enough that it barely peeked out from under most of his sleeves and so simple that really anyone would have just dismissed it upon sight. It wasn’t memorable at all, which was good because he needed to wear his token of free pass for Mobei-jun’s palace all the time, never being sure when the unpredictable king would decide to appear out of nowhere and drag him through a portal. One would think that it wouldn’t be necessary to wear such a thing given Mobei-jun’s ability, but that would actually mean ignoring the likelihood of a mission sending Shang Qinghua further into the Northern Kingdom or the surrounding areas. The first time he had to make his way back to the palace on his own, it was by sheer luck that a pack of northern wolf demons hadn’t eaten him for dinner, thinking a human to be a snack. After the second occasion when he entered the palace with a bleeding ear and a wounded knee resulting from a very unfair fight to get in, Mobei-jun just grunted and disappeared in one of his many dark portals. When he returned, it was with a bracelet string that he tossed to his spy.

Wear this , he had said and while it seemed like an unassuming little thing, it really did grant him passage to the whole castle as far as Shang Qinghua knew. Perhaps to even more places than a spy was supposed to go, but who was he to bring that security flaw up to Mobei-jun? A weak little peak lord couldn’t just throw an ace away like that…

But even so, his first thought when looking at that little accessory these days was not the potential harm he could cause in the demon’s kingdom but rather Mobei-jun’s face as he leaned over a map of his kingdom, eyes focused on some figures representing his enemies that he needed more information on. It was a fitting look for him, Shang Qinghua would think from the sidelines before adding a few comments on his own.

“Is that uncle’s favorite bracelet?”

Eh? What?

“Why are you even asking this?”

A-Feng tilted his head to the side a little in a show of confusion.

“You wear it a lot. It’s nice. Did someone important give it to you?”

That question really shouldn’t have moved him even the slightest bit, which was why it came as a surprise that something in his chest began to stir very uncomfortably for a moment before Shang Qinghua regained his usual clarity and pragmatism.

Important, that much is true. Mobei-jun is such a temperamental, egoistical damn demon king that I can’t really call this thing unimportant now, can I? It’s my send-Shang-Qinghua-on-shitty-errands token after all.

“You could say that,” Shang Qinghua responded after a few moments. “But enough idle talk. You promised to help with the inkstone inventory today.”

“I did!”

“Then go, check if the disciples hauled it up the stairs yet.”

 The little A-Feng from that memory seemed like such a distant one right now as Shang Qinghua looked at the boy in front of him. Robes befitting of a noble, indigo hair as his father’s falling down his back and those cold, cold eyes… he really looked the part of an ice demon right now. Even his cold attitude was the same – it seemed like it flowed in their veins after all and the kind boy stumbling through the hurdles of human cultivation was never meant to exists.

Shang Qinghua realized how much of a fool he had been for believing just for a single moment that Mobei-jun’s impulsive plan would work and allow the kid to live a life away from the court of ice and blood. What raising him like a human, what peaceful childhood, what simple life? Right in front of Shang Qinghua stood someone he couldn’t even recognize anymore.

“Well, what will it be, uncle? You know it’s only a matter of time before my father comes back to ask you about you king. Why not tell me where he is?”

There was dried blood on Shang Qinghua’s lips and some fresh as well flowing from where a carelessly thrown projectile of ice had cut his cheek. The same A-Feng who would dutifully bring him medical tea every day during that winter last year when he caught a terrible caught was nowhere to be seen, completely replaced by this boy with the cold smile.

What the fuck were you thinking, my king? All that effort, for what? So you have one more usurper going for your throne? To have a demon that could grow into Linguang-jun’s replacement as your enemy even if you defeat the father?

Speaking of Mobei-jun, the ironic twist was that Shang Qinghua truly didn’t know the man’s whereabouts. From that day on when he was unceremoniously sent back to the human world, he really hadn’t heard anything from the icy lord.

“I don’t know where he is,” Shang Qinghua replied for what felt like the hundredth time in that dungeon. A-Feng ultimately gave up and left, leaving him in eerie silence and the ever-present feeling of the cold seeping into his bones.

If only he had been allowed to be on his own, he could have somewhat accepted his fate. However Linguang-jun decided to pay a visit not much after and seemed to bask in Shang Qinghua’s misery.

“How does it feel, little spy?”

There was a vicious smile on his face that Shang Qinghua dearly wished he had the strength to wipe off.

“Even if you don’t tell me where A-Bai is, he’ll come to me eventually. After all… I have both of what’s precious to him.”

Both? What both?

“Can you imagine his face when he sees that I found his hidden ace and turned the boy into my ally instead? A legitimate heir that can challenge that nephew of mine, young enough to learn, young enough to mold into what I need him to be-“

Shang Qinghua found that he was actually quite glad he hadn’t eaten in a while, because he might have puked at that point otherwise.

“-and when he sees that I even brought his favorite little spy here.”

With Linguang-jun it was easier to let him speak and bask in the glory of his own brilliance, but Shang Qinghua was only human and couldn’t help but respond every once in a while.

“You don’t know him well enough then. He wouldn’t walk into a trap for either of us, he’s better than that.”

Or at least Shang Qinghua hoped that Mobei-jun had enough foresight to have someone gather him intel rather than barge into a trap. A-Feng was… something for him, fine, but probably not enough of a reason to let Linguang-jun have the upper hand in the next battle. And as far as Shang Qinghua was concerned, he had enough fate in Mobei-jun to know that he would know the best course of action for himself and not come to save some unimportant little spy.

Do what you do best, Mobe-jun, he thought with an odd mixture of bitterness and some fond undertones that should never have been there in the first place. Don’t trust anyone and only fight for yourself.