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Chapter Text

Shen Jiu slowly awoke to fire and pain.

That in itself was not something he was unfamiliar with, but it had been many years since he had experienced the true touch of skin searing heat, the taste of ash heavy on his tongue, and the smell of iron all around him. He was surprised to realize he had a tongue in the first place, and slowly became aware of his limbs as well, covered in something wet. The ability to feel such things was new and overwhelming after years in a cell surrounded by rot and cold, yet he feared opening his eyes and losing them.

For the first time in a long time, Shen Jiu feared losing something and that irritated him immensely. Luo Binghe didn’t deserve any emotion from him, not when he was a menace of a child and not now that he had become Shen Jiu’s jailer.

Spite drove Shen Jiu to open his eyes and the scenery that greeted him was vaguely familiar.

He knew this place. He remembered the blood on the walls and the fire and the death, even if the shock of the qi deviation rendered the memory blurry.

The Qiu mansion and its walls had haunted him his whole life after all.

The knife in his hand was familiar too, as was the rush of qi battering his insides.

Well, Shen Jiu thought wearily, the wretched beast has certainly outdone himself with this one.

He had experienced many illusions and dreams under Luo Binghe’s cruel hands, but this was the first one to be quite so immersive. Shock dulled the overwhelming nature of the whole situation and the creak of the mansion’s support beams slowly failing around him drove him to action. He followed his memory of the building and left, not eager to revisit what being burnt alive felt like.

Something was off to him though.

The way he snuck out of the building this time was different, and by the time he was free of danger and the commotion of people trying to extinguish the flames the sensation of wrong was starting to overwhelm his senses.

He turned and stared at the flames, expecting his deceitful scum of a teacher to pop up at any time with a grin and a shackle disguised as freedom at hand.

But the trash never showed, and Shen Jiu looked around more as the shock began to fade from his system and the pain of a qi deviation started to set in again in full force. Looking from the engulfing flames to the crowd of onlookers, he saw his teacher observing the fire with disinterest before the man turned and disappeared.

Why is he leaving?

Shen Jiu didn’t understand why this illusion wasn’t following his memory, why he was able to leave the mansion unnoticed, but the pain roaring through his body was too accurate for it to be anything but his memories.

His abilities as a peak lord had been heavily debated, but Shen Jiu had fought for his position with everything he had. Certainly, he had been physically lacking, but mentally he had been second to only a few others to Qi-ge.

He knew that the sensations a person experienced when suffering a qi deviation varied between individuals had felt that difference as Liu Qingge died in his arms and the sensations traveling his body were unmistakable to the point of being unrecreatable. Never before had Luo Binghe been so accurate or visceral in his torture and yet the thought of what if was slowly seeping into his mind.

It wasn’t like Luo Binghe to recreate an event that in truth did not bother him and it was even less like Luo Binghe to grant him the freedom to choose.

Shen Jiu stood there he could stand and walk and watched the raging fire devour the mansion and the horrible secrets within it as people desperately attempted to control the fire so that it wouldn’t spread. He stood there and waited for his teacher to reappear, waited for the world to follow what he remembered, waited for this pointless illusion to end.

Shen Jiu waited.

He waited till the sun began to rise over the city as the fire razed everything to the ground.

He waited till he felt the first drops of rain hit his shoulder and, just as he remembered, the sky opened into a downpour. He hadn’t been there to see it last time. His teacher had dragged his aching body to a nearby brothel to suffer through the rest of his qi deviation in the brothel’s stables while his teacher drank and fucked away the last of his money, but the loud sound of rain had caused his head to ache so vividly he could still remember the sensation to this day.

This time he watched as the rain doused the fire, leaving behind only the ashes of his past and the sounds of people panicking around him. The water drenching his body cooled the deviation burning through him and soothing his headache. He stared at the sun peaking over the horizon, feeling empty and free for the first time ever in his life.

Shen Jiu waited no more.

Chapter Text

Freedom was strange, Shen Jiu had unfortunately found out.

He had spent his whole life being criticized for doing as he pleased, yet in the four years that had followed his awakening in this strange mirror world he had realized that that opinion had never been true.

Shen Jiu had never done as he pleased.

No. He had spent his whole life fighting for survival.

Fighting to live as an orphan, fighting to earn a place by his Qi-ge’s side, fighting to uphold an ideal that the world had placed upon his shoulders.

He had survived as a ghost of himself, chained and shackled by his past, his promises, and his pride. His downfall at the hands of his former disciple and subsequent life in a jar had torn all of those things from him, yet even then he still hadn’t been free, but waking up in this world and watching that fire burn to completion had unhinged something in him.

All the rage that had fueled him in the past had drowned that morning in the rain. He didn’t care anymore. He had long ago fulfilled his promises and repaid his debts. The life of a peak lord was only a gilded cage and Shen Jiu wanted no part in it.

Not the idolizing eyes of the disciples, not the respect of the commoners, not the deceit of his peers.

None of it.

So, Shen Jiu left.

He traveled around doing whatever odd jobs a then fourteen-year-old could do and retraining his cultivation.

Now at seventeen, he was happier and healthier than he had ever been. As it turned out, not giving a fuck about what other people thought about him lifted a huge weight off his shoulders. Certainly, he still thought of himself as a scum villain, but not having to parade around as a righteous cultivator was freeing. He could truly do as he pleased.

Shen Jiu first headed as far west as possible in search of jobs and learned things he had never been granted knowledge of from books. New cultures, new languages, new monsters, and new techniques had followed his travels, so he never settled. He learned of the chill in the icy north, had witnessed the vast plains in the east, had sailed the capricious seas in the south and in doing so he discovered himself.

Not the ghost who sneered behind a fan, chasing his teacher’s shadow because that was all he knew to do, but the vicious stray who existed beneath.

He discovered he liked simple foods with vivid flavors, he discovered he enjoyed aiming for squishy areas during bar fights, he discovered he despised sand, and he enjoyed every moment of doing so.

Shen Jiu was finally free and it was equal parts exhilarating and terrifying.

The thought that he could lose this freedom at any moment haunted him just as much as his past did. He still had to visit brothels to sleep, though his dreams had changed to include how he had abandoned his qi-ge he hadn’t he just couldn’t wait anymore, couldn’t live in that cage anymore, couldn’t be the kind of person Qi-ge wanted, and he still feared that the world around him was just an illusion, but Shen Jiu was used to fear and doubt. Had stewed in it his whole life along with the rage that had accompanied him, and he no longer had the energy to care about it.

He let it go, let it flow away, and just lived one day at a time.

It was new for a scheming person like himself, and he enjoyed it immensely. He threw punches when people pissed him off, ate the foods he wanted to try, and wore whatever he damn well pleased. The long coat he had resting over his shoulders, originally intended for a woman with its patterns, suited him, Thank You Very Much!

The unconscious man being carted out by his friends could attest to that.

Shen Jiu sat back down on the stool at the table and resumed his meal at the brothel. The ladies all fussed around him, pleased to see the drunk gone and even more pleased to see the young musician had decided to stay.

Shen Jiu had promised a small performance for them, and they were eager to accompany someone different to the usual riffraff that drunkenly graced their doors. He didn’t touch them, didn’t look at them with salacious eyes. He simply wanted to exist in a space near them and enjoy their music and singing and laughter.

For him, they had plenty of kindness to spare, especially since he had protected the brothel from misbehaving customers for the past few days and taught them new songs and dances. Tonight was particularly busy with the town hosting a festival and Shen Jiu’s music was certain to draw in even more customers to the matron’s delight.

               Shen Jiu finished his meal and gracefully moved from the table to the nearby area where ladies played instruments. He decided to play the zither tonight and the ladies were looking forward to the strange music from the western desert. The regular guests who had been there on previous nights quieted a bit, aware of the talented young man preparing to play, and the music quickly quieted the rest of the patrons. 

Shen Jiu had been a renowned peak lord specializing in the arts after all, and his travels had only garnered more skill.

Eventually, he tired of playing and most of the guests had slowly left, done with drinking and off to enjoy other vices, so Shen Jiu said his goodnights and wandered off to enjoy some time to himself under the moonlight. He looked over the balcony of the third floor and watched people below wander from place to place, quietly enjoying his evening.

“That was quite an impressive performance back there. Where did you learn it?” a voice commented and Shen Jiu contemplated murder. It would be so easy he thought to himself before sighing and turning around to scare the intruder off with a few foul words. What greeted him though, was a tall and strong youth, with profound black eyes and a smile that promised mischief.

Holy Fuck.

It was Tianlang-Jun.

Shen Jiu blamed the gods for his misfortune.

For four years he had avoided anything to do with his past life and now fate drops another heavenly demon on his lap. Thankfully, Shen Jiu had an unbeatable poker face, so he acted like the world wasn’t fucking with him and answered the demon. His goal was to be absolutely boring and unimpressionable so he could leave immediately, but Tianlang-Jun had different ideas.

He invited Shen Jiu to drink. Shen Jiu lied and said he doesn’t.

He offered to pay Shen Jiu for a performance. Shen Jiu lied and said he doesn’t know any other songs.

He asked instead for stories of Shen Jiu’s travels. Shen Jiu lied and said he hadn’t really been anywhere and had learned the songs from a traveling group.

Tianlang-Jun was met with an unmovable wall and their conversation, if it could even be called that, puttered out to nothing. Shen Jiu maintained a bland smile on his face, as if he wasn’t internally screaming, and enjoyed the silent strain on Tianlang-Jun’s face.

They had reached an impasse and Tianlang Jun was silently speechless at the audacity of the kid before him.

The heavenly demon had been in town for three days enjoying the festivities and been drawn to the brothel on the first night by a private performance the teen had been giving the prostitutes.

It had been vastly different to the performance tonight and the stories the youth had told captivated him just as it had the ladies. So Tianlang-Jun stuck around for the second day, observing the festival and the kid, and he decided to ask for a performance tonight after hearing whispers from the ladies that the youth would be leaving tomorrow.

So, Tianlang-Jun knew that the kid was downright lying to his face and surprisingly well at that.

It was hilarious. And mindboggling. The demon looked at the youth before him and stifled a bloodthirsty grin.

The last person who tried to lie to him like this had had their heads removed from their shoulders. He wondered if the youth would faint if he told him that.

The kid certainly looked like he would, elegance and pride all wrapped in a delicate build, but Tianlang-Jun had seen the kid get in enough fist fights to know that that was an illusion to cover up all of the kid’s viciousness.

Hell, his generals fought less dirty than the youth and they were all demons!

The unique way this brat acted made the man want to know him, but it seemed for now that the kid would rather jump off the balcony than talk to him. As funny as that would be, it would make it hard for Tianlang-Jun to continue to interact with the kid if he broke his limbs. So, Tianlang-Jun bid the kid good night and wandered off.

He’d bother the youth tomorrow and if that didn’t work there was always the next day after that.

Shen Jiu watched the demon leave with relief and turned around to finally relax for the night, but felt a shiver crawl up his spine. Somehow, he just knew something troublesome was heading his way.

Chapter Text

Unfortunately, Shen Jiu’s instincts had been right, and trouble had followed him in the form of a sticky heavenly demon.

Even more unfortunately, along the way Shen Jiu had grown to like Tianlang-Jun.

They were both petty and vicious individuals, though Tianlang-Jun was infinitely more easy-going. They both enjoyed traveling and music, stories, and food. Not to mention, Shen Jiu learned so much more about demons and their culture than he had even been given the chance to learn about as a peak lord. Many things he had been taught had been disproven or been wrong because of incorrect assumptions about why demons did things.

It was downright infuriating to be laughed at by Tianlang-Jun when he was wrong but smirking at Tianlang-Jun when the demon was wrong made up for it. And though Tianlang-Jun had made it his personal mission to stalk and harass Shen Jiu at random intervals since they first met, somehow the demon was like a mold that grew on you, persistent and vibrant and a breath of fresh air.

And also, like the bringer of misfortune, as once again Shen Jiu found himself cleaning up Tianlang-Jun’s mess and fighting another group of pissed off demons.

At least this time it wasn’t cultivators.

The last time Tianlang-Jun had pissed off some cultivators, it had ended up being Cang Qiong disciples and Shen Jiu had silently had a heart attack. Thirty years of wandering and cultivating while successfully avoiding anything to do with his past all for naught in less than thirty seconds. The demon was determined to drive Shen Jiu to a fatal qi-deviation it seemed.

Oh sure, Tianlang Jun brought Shen Jiu plenty of gifts that helped with his cultivation to make up for it and the nights they spend side-by-side drinking and watching the moon were enjoyable, but somehow, Shen Jiu wasn’t quite sure if it was worth the trouble.

Shen Jiu ducked the strike of a raging demon and pulled the arm forward while throwing the idiot over his shoulder. He then sent a volley of qi-sharpened leaves into the crowd of demons fighting Tianlang-Jun to his left before ramming his elbow into the throat of a she-demon sneaking up behind him. She gagged and backed off, choking on air only to be replaced by another demon.

It seemed never ending and Shen Jiu fumed internally. If the demons didn’t kill Tianlang-Jun then he would, and if Shen Jiu himself died today, he would make it his mission in his afterlife to rise from his grave and haunt Tianlang-Jun.

Shen Jiu ducked a poison needle, yanked it from the air, and sent it back to person who had thrown it only to nearly get bowled over by some demon Tianlang-Jun sent flying Shen Jiu’s way.

 Clearly, Shen Jiu had been too fucking nice to Tianlang-Jun lately.

Shen Jiu kicked a demon charging him in the nuts with an audible crunch and yanked talismans from his sleeves as the demons surrounding him hesitated to get closer, sending pitiful glances to the one lying on the ground in agony. He imbued them with qi and sent them to surround Tianlang-Jun and his group.

Shen Jiu was going to blow all of these demons sky-high, Tian-fucking-lang-Jun included.

Meanwhile, Tianlang-Jun cackled at the demons around him as they all traded blows.

He had been bored lately and the jade that the group had miraculously landed their grubby paws on would be useful for Shen Jiu’s cultivation as it helped calm Qi-deviations.

The ensuing fight and chase was well worth that, and the enraged twitch that Shen Jiu’s eyebrow did when he was trying to act like he wasn’t bothered by something was a nice bonus. Plus, Tianlang-Jun enjoyed any opportunity to watch Shen Jiu fight.

The cultivator may have practiced a largely orthodox style of cultivation, but there was a wild elegance to his scrappy way of fighting. It spoke of his roots in a vivid way that Shen Jiu himself refused to state out loud.

Not to mention the ingenious way Shen Jiu could put his qi into nearly anything and manipulate it.

It was a skill Tianlang-Jun had witnessed in very few humans and even less were capable of doing it instantly on the fly like Shen Jiu could. It made fights even more interesting, though Shen Jiu’s recent habit of creating talismans and blowing everything up was somewhat alarming.

And seeing those talismans getting into formation for said explosions around him as he fought sent alarms blaring through the heavenly demon’s head, so Tianlang-Jun booked it in another direction. No way in hell was he suffering through that again. It was bad enough the first time Shen Jiu pulled it out in a spar and Tianlang-Jun had to regrow his ponytail out. Zhuzhi-lang’s questioning glances had been so impossible to deal with that Tianlang-Jun had been reluctantly forced to introduce the two.

He had kind of wanted to keep Shen Jiu for himself.

He quickly made his way to the demons surrounding Shen Jiu as an explosion rocked the area behind him and with that, the two friends made quick work of the remaining demons.

Hopefully, the remaining fight would make Shen Jiu too tired to follow through with the threats leaking from his mouth like a sieve. Tianlang-Jun really wasn’t interested in finding out whether or not Shen Jiu had truly figured out how to use qi to strangle someone to death he’d rather the pretty man used his hands instead.

--------

Zhuzhi-lang was not sure what to make of his uncle’s hard-earned relationship with the wandering cultivator.

He liked Shen Jiu enough when his uncle was feeling generous enough to let Zhuzhi-lang approach his uncle was unfortunately possessive of the two’s time together so Zhuzhi-lang was rarely allowed to stick around the pretty cultivator.

The man was witty and fun to make snide comments with. He also was kind in a way many were not. The kind of kindness that offered no pity or niceties and merely acknowledged what was and was not. Shen Jiu valued capability and knowledge over anything else, never really bothering with looks, and regarded Zhuzhi-lang highly in that regard.

So, they got along very well actually, but still Zhuzhi-lang didn’t understand why Tianlang-Jun bothered.

The young man was gifted spiritually and mentally yes, but he wasn’t so strong that he was irreplaceable. And Shen Jiu wasn’t so far along in his cultivation to be a huge help to any battles Tianlang-Jun was engaged in in the demon realm and he was ill-tempered and prone to qi-deviation to boot. The young cultivator’s body was like a clay pot trying to hold a raging river inside it. It could only crack and shatter under the forced of the qi within it, resulting in deviation after deviation. Shen Jiu’s painful past didn’t help either, though the man had made no mention of it. One didn’t learn to flinch at being touched and sleep comfortably only in the presence of prostitutes for no reason.

All of the bickering the two did and the storytelling just didn’t seem worth the tradeoff of precious treasures and the unending care it took to keep the young cultivator healthy honestly, but for years Zhuzhi-lang watched his uncle happily and persistently do it anyways.

It was truly a mystery to the snake demon.

Demons didn’t normally fixate on more than one person and Zhuzhi-lang knew his uncle to already be head over heels for a female cultivator, but his uncle kept circling the ill-tempered cultivator. Even being with his beloved didn’t stop his uncle from being eager to see Shen Jiu. The snake constantly had to field questions of “Do you think Xiao-Yan would like this? No? What about Ah-Jiu?”

It was quietly amusing that his uncle was scared to call Shen Jiu “Ah-Jiu” to his face though.

Zhuzhi-lang couldn’t see what would keep his uncle coming back, because his beloved had a beautiful face as well and a kinder temper to boot, but the sight in front of him gifted him some insight.

A few days ago, Tianlang-Jun had lost a dear friend in battle and his uncle was prone to disappearing for a few weeks when upsetting things happened.

It was usually fine, but they needed Tianlang-Jun’s presence on the battlefield as quickly as possible to stop their enemies from gaining momentum, so Zhuzhi-lang had set off searching for his wayward uncle.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, he had found his uncle pestering the cultivator.

Zhuzhi-lang waited quietly in snake form, watching the two drink and chat in a rare bit of peace as they enjoyed the night view. Something kept him from just barging in and dragging his uncle away.

It was strange seeing the cultivator so calm, eyes quiet and filled with unfathomable emotions. The moonlight gave the cultivator an unearthly quality, like a celestial being descended upon the earth, and the sake gave the handsome youth an even prettier flush.

It was strange to see someone look so youthful yet like they had seen it all.

Even Tianlang-Jun seemed less profound in that moment, like he was silently drowning in emotion and desperately hanging onto whatever the cultivator was saying to him at that moment to keep himself afloat. Maybe his uncle truly had been that desperate. Whatever the cultivator was saying caused Tianlang-Jun shoulders to droop and the esteemed demon lord proceeded to dump himself into the youth’s lap.

Zhuzhi-lang couldn’t believe his eyes back then.

That his indomitable uncle could act so vulnerable in front of anyone.

It was like watching the sun rise in the west, and even more surprising was that the cultivator wasn’t dumping his uncle off his lap. The man had tensed up, no doubt not enjoying the unexpected contact at all, but he stayed still and let the demon mope. Shen Jiu just sipped his wine and stared up at the night sky, slowly moving his other hand to awkwardly pat the heavenly demon’s head.

It just encouraged Tianlang-Jun to turn his face into Shen Jiu’s stomach and curl around him, but Shen Jiu continued patting his hair long after the wine had run out and his frown became more apparent.

Zhuzhi-lang watched this strange scene, feeling like an intruder, and decided to leave and bother his uncle in the afternoon. The war could wait for one night.

Come morning, Tianlang-Jun had found him instead, back to normal and ready to take on the world.

Chapter Text

If you want money so much, why don’t you sell a few books? Tianlang-Jun had said.

Where’s the harm in that? He had questioned.

Where was the harm indeed.

Shen Jiu was fleeing. He was fleeing with his metaphorical tail between his legs and there was no denying that fact. He had even left all of his wares behind, the books he had written in moments of boredom and the journals of the knowledge he had gathered and written to make a little more income. All of that was just dead weight to him now and if he wanted to escape his pursuer he had to leave as quickly as possible. It left him feeling a little pathetic, but he valued his freedom more than his pride and he still had enough money to get by on his person.

A little starvation was good for character after all, and it was his own damn fault for not paying attention to his surroundings.

He had been traveling and selling books for a few months now, had even sold a few to some rich young masters aspiring to be cultivators, and the lure of extra cash had led him to set up another small stall in another random town with enough traffic. Who knew that the gods would shit in his dinner once again and he would meet the Qing Jing peak lord of all things at his ragtag book stand?

Shen Jiu certainly hadn’t expected Yi Xianliang to show up at all and, staring up at his former master as the man looked at his wares and then proceeded to pull one of his books on demonic plants some spoiled young master had bought a month ago from his sleeve, Shen Jiu could feel his past creeping up behind him and digging its terrible claws into his shoulders.

He had honestly thought himself past all this with his new ability to actually process his emotions had found in his travels, but the panic he felt at the sight of his former shizun shifu and the idea that others Qi-ge might be around was almost all consuming. Shen Jiu honestly felt like he might go into a qi-deviation right there, but thankfully that damn jade Tianlang-Jun stole for him was good for something.

He spent the entire time his former shifu looked at his wares and questioned him about who had made them and where they got the knowledge from anxiously rubbing the jade between his fingers hidden inside his sleeves.

As soon as the older cultivator directed his attention elsewhere, looking for a non-existent master further in the shopping district, Shen Jiu booked it in the opposite direction with zero shame. He hadn’t run like this since his time with his scummy teacher in his previous life.

It was honestly a little sad.

Even getting thrown in the water prison by Luo Binghe was preferable to what getting caught by the Qing Jing peak lord would mean. Shen Jiu would never let someone put shackles on him again, not for anything in this world, and Cang Qiong was just a gilded shackle, a place filled with pain and restraint in the guise of righteousness where rich boys could become powerful men to lord among the weak and unfortunate. He wanted nothing to do with it, not even with the chance to see Qi-ge again.

He especially wanted to not see Qi-ge again.

He didn’t think he could stomach it, not with the pain that destroys him inside every time he thinks of the stupid man who tried to save him.

Shen Jiu had lived his whole life loving and hating that fool in equal measure, feeling the whole time that he was a burdenous dark spot in the brilliant man’s life, a single stain on a golden robe. Knowing that a man destined for greatness died a pathetic death for a person like himself, it was a horrible feeling.

He had been lucky that the night he woke up in that fire that Shen Jiu was so disoriented and couldn’t remember everything. If not for that, he would have likely stayed in that building and burned to death. He still felt like he should have done so, particularly when thinking of those times in his past, but the feeling had lessened as the years passed in this mirror world. That feeling was creeping up upon him now and he couldn’t help wondering if killing himself would be an easier way to deal with things. Still, Shen Jiu was many things, but a quitter wasn’t one of them, so here he was running through the forest, hoping to escape someone on the verge of becoming a deity.

It didn’t feel likely.

And it wasn’t. Shen Jiu got a decent distance away before his former Shifu found him and dragged him back to the inn the cultivator was staying at for the night, kicking and screaming of course. Shen Jiu wouldn’t go down without a fight.

The damn old man knew Shen Jiu had lied and tried to force the truth out of him. Shen Jiu refused to answer till the man threatened to drag him to CangQiong.

That was a good enough threat to have the boy immediately spit out that he had written the books and learned the information during his travels, but Xianliang-shifu still ended up dragging him to the sect.

It was honestly a no-win situation and Shen Jiu made it abundantly clear what he thought about it all, but the damn old man parading around like a youthful scholar didn’t give a damn what the young man thought. He only cared that Shen Jiu was knowledgeable and had strong inner qi.

Anything else didn’t matter.

Yi Xianliang was a perfectionist who only wanted someone who could actually meet his expectations. It was the reason Shen Jiu could usurp the position of head disciple in his old life and it was the damning factor to his return now. That positive appraisal of his abilities didn’t mean Shen Jiu would make it easy on him though, and Shen Jiu managed to delay their return by three months with his escape attempts. It was honestly good training, if Shen Jiu as being honest, and he couldn’t wait to use it on Tianlang-Jun next time he tried to drag Shen Jiu into trouble.

Unfortunately, it only made his new Shifu more aware of his capabilities and determined not to let the prodigy slip away.

Liu Qingge did not like the new head disciple of Qing Jing peak.

He was a snake who hid his poisonous tongue behind a scholarly façade, he regularly skipped lessons without so-much-as a by your leave to the teachers, and he was a piss poor fighter on top of him being too old to learn to cultivate properly.

He couldn’t understand why the Qing Jing peak lord looked upon the spoiled young man so favorably and, even worse in his eyes, Yue-shixiong was the same way.

Liu Qingge had looked up to his unbeatable Shixiong from the day he met him. The young man was kind and brotherly, a skilled cultivator, and an even better fighter. It made Liu Qingge regularly search him out for spars and advice and he learned a lot about Yue Qingyuan in doing so.

He learned that his shixiong was kind, but preferred to keep people at a distance. He learned that his shixiong worked hard to make sure he could protect himself and others. And he learned that his shixiong was a very calm and unshakably righteous person.

It was no surprise that the young cultivator, practically viewed a dragon in human form, was to be the next head of Cang Qiong. But something about this new disciple shook Yue-shixiong to the core.

Liu Qingge watched as someone he viewed as insurmountable practically groveled for the attention of this snake. He watched as someone he had worked so hard to get close to, who allowed no one to get too close, offered his time and friendship so eagerly to the ill-temper man.

It angered him deeply, and the way the other man ignored his shixiong angered him even more. Sure, the ill-tempered young master was undeniably beautiful, almost ethereal in nature, but that was all he had going for him.

Spar after spar had assured Liu Qingge of that.

That there were also rumors of the prissy scholar frequently visiting brothels didn’t help the bastard’s image.

He hated that the man was allowed to exist in the same space as himself, as Yue-shixiong. He hated that Yue-shixiong valued the weakling so much. He hated the way the bastard would just sigh and roll his eyes at Liu Qingge for challenging him to a spar, as if Liu Qingge wasn’t his shixiong.

He hated that even though he had won every spar between the two of them, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that the bastard was holding back.

Liu Qingge hated Shen Qingqiu.

Yue Qingyuan was a weak man.

He always had been, no matter what anyone thought of him. He was weak to the pleas from his fellow orphans. He was weak to the pleas of his fellow disciples. He was weak to the pleas of the people who would beg the sect for help. Every time he heard a cry for help, he felt the urge to answer it.

It had gotten him into trouble time and time again as an orphan and every time he was in trouble only one person helped him out of it.

Even when everyone else looked up to him and expected him to be able to handle it, Xiao-Jiu did not. Xiao-Jiu actually looked at him like he was an idiot. He would roll his eyes to the sky like he was begging the gods to give him strength and then Xiao-Jiu would solve the problem for him.

It was the most reassuring thing in the world to an orphan with no one to rely on, to know that this one person would always have his back through the good and the bad. It was what let Yue Qi shoulder all the pleas from the other orphans without complaint.

He knew that he wouldn’t be alone in doing so.

Even so, Yue Qi had always wished that Xiao-Jiu would rely on him just a bit.

He wanted that stubborn, ill-tempered child to ask him for help from time to time instead of rushing into one fight then another and another, coming back bruised but victorious. He wanted to stop Shen Jiu from being hurt by the cruel world around them, wanted to be helpful to the one person always helping him.

But Shen Jiu never asked, not until it was too late, and then the only thing he could do was train desperately so that he could meet Shen Jiu again, so that he could finally save his friend.

He dreamed of freeing him and bringing him somewhere he could be safe and they could be together, and that was what drove Yue Qi on.

But he had failed, like he had failed to free Shen Jiu as a child, and all he was left with were the ashes of a mansion and the memory of their promise. All he could do then was stand in the pouring rain, shaky from the remnant of his terrible qi deviation, and stare. The sound of the rain had drowned out the world around him and that feeling never left even after he returned to the sect and resumed cultivation.

Everything around him remained muted.

He could be kind and helpful, but only so much.

Yue Qingyuan just couldn’t close that gap between himself and others, didn’t really want to try even. He was content to exist in a muted world.

The idea of a world without Shen Jiu didn’t seem real to him.

He lived in it, but still couldn’t accept it, so Yue Qingyuan just existed there, doing what was expected of him and being who he was expected to be. Without really caring, it was easier to let others decide things for him than it was for him to accept that Shen Jiu was dead. Even when he was sent on tough missions, when he was severely wounded by rough cultivators’ blades and demons’ claws, the bubble of rain muted the world around him.

It was his one true companion, by his side just as Shen Jiu had been.

That bubble that had been his safety net since that horrific day popped in the most brutal way.

It started with arguing.

It was already weird enough for there to be a ruckus on Qiong Ding peak, but to hear that one of the voices was the venerable Qing Jing peak lord, who had been MIA for three months now, and an unknown voice was even weirder.

Weird enough that Yue Qingyuan actually decided to check it out, and the sight that greeted him was a violent one.

It punched through his bubble mercilessly leaving only surprise and pain and overwhelming relief behind. The sight of Shen Jiu, now a young man, left him breathless. Yue Qingyuan actually wondered if he hadn’t just suddenly gone into a deviation without his noticing or if he was trapped in an illusion.

If so, he never wanted to leave it.

He didn’t greet Shen Jiu yet though. He desperately wanted to, but he needed time to settle down, to remember how to breathe again, to remember how to exist as Yue Qi again.

Yue Qingyuan wasn’t quite sure he remembered what it was like to exist past the overwhelming guilt that was setting in. Yue Qingyuan could live with guilt though, would wallow in it till the end of the world if it meant Shen Jiu would stay safe and sound near him. For now, Yue Qingyuan would gather his composure and then do whatever it took to keep Shen Jiu here.

From the sound of the bickering he heard, it would take a lot to convince Shen Jiu to stay.

Chapter Text

As it turns out, Tianlang-Jun had held back a lot of his personality in his pursuit of getting closer to Shen Jiu.

Now that Shen Jiu reluctantly admitted that they were friends, the flood gates had opened, and Shen Jiu came into the unfortunate knowledge that Tianlang-Jun was in love.

Shen Jiu thanked the gods that the man had someone else to bother some of the time, though he sent a small prayer for the poor woman who had to deal with the persistent demon.

Now though, the young man had to sit through shichen long rants about the demon’s love for the woman and how beautiful she was and how elegant she was and how vicious she could be. She Jiu had repeatedly insisted that he didn’t care, yet he probably knew more about Su Xiyan than he did the demon’s nephew who also accompanied him from time to time on his escapes.

It was pathetic really and made Shen Jiu’s little bouts of freedom before his Shifu inevitably found him more stressful.

Shen Jiu was not the person Tianlang-Jun should come to for love advice.

Shen Jiu despised love had never experienced what it was like to be loved and how stupid it made people act how desperate it made him act, yet still somehow Tianlang-Jun would search him out and the two would end up somewhere nice with wine and stories to tell. Somehow, Shen Jiu would lose hours to their talks going from topic to topic over glass after glass of Tianlang-Jun’s bribe.

It was a relief pain to know that the heavenly demon would never leave him alone in spite of having an obsession already and he hated the vague warmth he felt when the damn man popped up in front of him once again.

Still, hearing about the woman from a drunken rant was one thing.

Meeting the woman at the Immortal Conference was a whole other thing.

Su Xiyan was beautiful in a bright yet humble looking way. Her appearance was deceptive though and she proved to be quick-witted and vicious in the way she dealt with demons.

 Shen Jiu was surprised Tianlang-Jun was still around to bother him after bothering her all day.

She certainly wasn’t weak and had left a strong impression on him, though for all her intelligence she was surprisingly very naïve in regard to the intentions of the cultivators around her. Shen Jiu could see where Luo Binghe had gotten his own naivety from.  She had walked right into a trap set up by her fellow cultivator, upset at being rejected by her just earlier, and now she was having trouble with the surrounding demons.

Shen Jiu was honestly debating on helping her. He hadn’t been in this conference in his last life, too weak to compete and cultivation too shaky after years of faulty cultivation, but the woman had still clearly survived. Her demon spawn that later ruined his life was proof enough of that.

Plus, her being removed from the conference helped guarantee that Qi-ge Yue-shixiong would win first place.

 Still, if Shen Jiu didn’t help her somehow, he knew Tianlang-Jun would find out and nag him to his grave, and, as he watched her struggle and fight beyond her means, Shen Jiu found her skills to be unfortunately impressive in spite of his mixed feelings towards the woman.

He sighed to himself and stepped forward to help the young woman out, damning his soft spot for women.

-----

Su Xiyan wasn’t quite sure of what to make of Cang Qiong’s disciple.

He had helped her, but he had also subtly called her stupid while doing so.

The man was clearly reluctant to help out in the first place, so if he didn’t want to get involved then he didn’t need to. She had the whole situation vaguely under control or at least that’s what she liked to think. In truth, she knew she might have been severely injured if it wasn’t for the man, but his sharp tongue killed any of her gratitude swiftly.

Still, she couldn’t just let her savior wander off like that and thus their two-person group was formed. As they progressed, it turned out that the handsome young man was a never-ending fountain of spite and information.

She had never before had such good knowledge shoved so rudely into her head. It was honestly a new experience, being insulted that way.

Usually, men attempt to flirt with her and then get upset when she said no, words of admiration quickly turning into insults about her looks and personality. Similarly, women in Huan Hua palace were jealous of her position as head disciple and always looked for mistakes on her part and spread rumors about her sleeping her way to the top. It was always the same drivel all the time and after so many years it got boring.

This guy though, he was new.

He didn’t fawn after her or insult her looks. There were no insults about her abilities as a cultivator. If anything, he actually praised her skills in a roundabout way, but he had many insults for her observational skills. He thought she was stupid for falling into such an obvious trap.

Maybe she was if she was being honest with herself.

She had fallen into such traps before, but she couldn’t help looking for the best in everybody. She was even doing it with the young man accompanying her despite his insults, but he was honestly pissing her off, so she started laying into him as well.

It was all bets off after that.

The two bickered for hours, trading barbed words behind polite smiles, and they worked together to rack up points. Su Xiyan actually had a fun time during the competition, and she had an easy time fighting alongside him. He was good at adapting to fighting with her, but it was kind of strange.

It felt like he was holding back.

He would go to move a certain way and then stop himself as if remembering something, and some of his movements were vaguely familiar. She had seen them before somewhere, but the where escaped her that the moment.

She’d figure it out eventually and even if she didn’t, she liked the proud cultivator enough to want to keep in touch.

---

Shen Jiu woke up with his eye and tongue aching and the feeling of chains on his skin.

He woke up with those horrible sensations and memories fresh in his mind only to see Tianlang-jun’s head grinning down at him, so naturally Shen Jiu immediately punched the heavenly demon in the face.

And thusly, Shen Jiu’s morning began with a raging headache and a sulking heavenly demon moping on his floor.

Shen Jiu sat there with his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose and genuinely wondered if maybe he should have just laid down and died in the fire back then.

His life would be so much easier if he was dead.

But he wasn’t, so he sighed to himself and looked up from his lap to Tianlang-jun. Tianlang-jun who was sulking like a child. Tianlang-jun who was supposed to be an imposing, unbeatable demon lord. Tianlang-jun who was currently smack in the middle of Qing Jing Peak, like Shen Jiu didn’t have other disciples sleeping in the rooms next door to him and a Peak Lord in the nearby vicinity.

What was his life even coming to?

“Are you actually insane?” Shen Jiu asked angrily.

Tianlang-jun sat up from his lounging with a smirk and said “Let’s go out and have some fun” like Shen Jiu wasn’t the Head Disciple of Qing Jing Peak. Like it was easy to sneak off the second most central peak of a highly esteemed cultivation sect with a demon in tow.

Shen Jiu had plans!

He hadn’t had his life forcefully uprooted for fucking Tianlang-jun to blow his plans sky high! He couldn’t just run off now that he had decided to use the sect for everything it was worth!

Tianlang-jun could see the incredulous look on Shen Jiu’s pretty face, the “No” already forming on the man’s tongue, so he quickly lunged forward into Shen Jiu’s space and stared up at the man from his knees. The icy man was already shifting back, uncomfortable with anyone in his space, but Tianlang-jun gently placed his hands on his knees and leaned forward to make direct eye contact with Shen Jiu.

“Aren’t you bored?”

The thing is, Shen Jiu was incredibly bored.

He had reluctantly settled into his life at Qing Jing Peak, knowing his Shifu would never let him get away for long, and had rearranged his life plans to fit that life. His chances of escape had been dwindling down farther and farther as he focused more on building his relationships with his fellow disciples and laying the groundwork for his plan to somehow make an orthodox sect make peace with a certain demon lord.

It would require more effort than Shen Jiu had ever spent. And he was beyond willing to do it for his friend’s sake.

So that the stupid man could happily openly marry Su Xiyan and Shen Jiu would no longer have to listen to the two mope about how stupid the world could be.

It would save Shen Jiu endless headaches and hours of his life. Not that mere hours were a lot to an immortal.

Shen Jiu just didn’t have the time to go off running around but being busy didn’t mean he wasn’t bored. He was stuck learning the same old topics, sparring with the same old people, and dealing with the same old schemes. He could deal with these people in his sleep.

So, yes. Shen Jiu was bored.

And by the growing smirk on Tianlang-jun’s face, the heavenly demon knew he had won the argument with that little question and so did Shen Jiu. A heavenly demon, someone meant to be indomitable, was on his knees and asking for his company. It was enough to make anyone change their mind. The young cultivator sighed at the heavens before getting out of bed and getting dressed and following Tianlang-jun off to some unknown location to do who knows what.

---

Tianlang-jun had originally planned on just going out and drinking with his dear friend but judging by the annoyance rolling off of the icy man’s shoulders, he decided that fighting would do the cultivator some good.

So, they travelled to the den of a group of enemies Tianlang-jun truthfully didn’t give a shit about.

They were a pathetic lot, and Tianlang-Jun could wipe them off the face of the earth any time he pleased, so he had left them alone to grovel and scheme. Now their time was up it seemed, and he got to use it in a way that was cathartic to his friend.

A win-win situation.

The heavenly demon busted down the door with a kick and calmly strode through the entrance, a sneering Shen Jiu behind him. The cultivator was already offended by the smell of the den, his hand and sleeve brought up to cover his nose and mouth. This is where Tianlang-jun wanted to go? Shen Jiu thought.

The demon truly had no conscience.

Shen Jiu could be eating good food and drinking right now, but no. Tianlang-jun had to bring them here. The other demons stared at the two in horror before the screaming and the fighting broke out.

It was fun at least, the fighting.

Shen Jiu could finally fight to his full capacity. He was a decent fighter; One didn’t fight Liu Qingge often without picking up some skills, even if Shen Jiu always lost, but fighting in the sect meant following the rules of the sect. No dirty moves were allowed, though Shen Jiu still used to sneak some in to infuriate Liu Qingge.

In this mirror world, Shen Jiu had had sixty years to himself to improve his skills outside of the sect, to get into the habit of fighting as he pleased only to have to scrap it all when he was forced into the sect. He didn’t really bother trying to win spars anymore. Instead, Shen Jiu used them to test out new moves and improve maneuvers that didn’t seem so dirty, but it was boring holding back all the time.

He honestly wanted to make Liu Qingge eat dirt, but that would go against his act of incompetence.

In this den Shen Jiu was free to punch throats, elbow livers, and shatters spines on the corners of tables. It was genuinely fun, and Shen Jiu was reluctantly going to have to thank Tianlang-jun for this good time as soon as he saw him again. They had split up in the brawl and Shen Jiu had no doubt the demon had gone to find some loot to bring to Su Xiyan.

The demon was like a magpie, always looking for shiny and expensive things to steal.

---

Tianlang-jun wandered back into the main room of the den only to see the last bit of fighting. Shen Jiu turned sideways, catching the sword between his arms and back. The cold-hearted man shattered the demon’s blade, much to their horror and Tianlang-jun’s amusement.

That’s a nasty move he thought, silently wondering how many cultivator’s careers he had ended by shattering their blades, and Shen Jiu ended the demon’s misery with a quick jab to the stomach and a bone-shattering knee to the face. Shen Jiu righted himself quickly and turned to face Tianlang-jun, looking like he hadn’t just murdered someone brutally.

It was a good look on the man.

“Did you get whatever it is you wanted?” Shen Jiu asked.

He noted that Tianlang-jun did indeed have a bag of trinkets slung over his shoulder. Tianlang-jun nodded and motioned for them to head outside. They headed out and Shen Jiu waved the demon off to visit Su Xiyan with his victory prizes, turning to wander to the nearest town to check for any books he may not have read yet, but Tianlang-jun grabbed the man by the back of his robes.

“What the hell-,” Shen Jiu began already turning to chew the demon out for touching him, but Tianlang-jun just grabbed his head and forced him to face forward.

“Calm down and hold still” the heavenly demon ordered.

The random actions were so strange that Shen Jiu did just that.

He was tense, unable to believe he was trusting his back to someone like this, but Tianlang-jun just ran his fingers through the icy cultivator’s hair. The demon pulled it into a partial updo, pining the bun with a jade buyao. Tiny silver bells hung from it, emitting ethereal chimes when Tianlang-jun ran his fingers through them before pulling his hand away.

Shen Jiu had never heard bells sound like this before, eerie yet beautiful, and he ran his hand along the buyao silently stunned by the gift.

Tianlang-jun quietly chuckled at the shocked look on Shen Jiu’s face before grabbing the man around the shoulder and forcing the man to walk with him. “I would have thought you would give something like this to your beloved?” Shen Jiu questioned, but Tianlang-jun only shook his head. “I think it suits you better. I thought of you when I saw it,” the man said. He then tacked on that “The bells are a specialty of the Ghost City anyways. She would never consider wearing them,” and shrugged his shoulders.

The two continued walking together to the nearest city and spent the rest of the week together, before finally parting ways.

---

Shen Jiu found himself once again at the Immortal Alliance Conference.

This time around as a true head disciple and not an unofficial one. He couldn’t avoid it no matter how much he hated it.

Yue Qingyuan remained as close to the beautiful young man as he could, but he had duties as the future sect lord. That meant greeting other sect leaders with his Shizun and leaving Shen Qingqiu alone to his own devices. Usually, Shen Jiu was content to just observe the proceedings from a corner in the room after he had done his required schmoozing with Xianliang-shifu, but after meeting Su Xiyan that one time, she had made it a habit to seek him out.

Shen Jiu hated it.

He had decided that he really didn’t like her.

Certainly, she was smart and kind and skillful, he could appreciate those traits, but she was too naïve. Naïve to the point of being ignorant. Once the woman decide that something was a fact, that was the way the world was, and Su Xiyan thought the world was a kind and righteous place.

She was so wrong about that Shen Jiu thought, watching the woman wander around looking for him.

Shen Jiu had not cared to pay attention to anyone in his last life, but this time around he paid close attention to the woman in a relationship with his friend.

He didn’t like what he was seeing.

The Huan Hua Palace Master had always rubbed the former peak lord the wrong way and the two had often butted heads over sect boundaries and rights, but they hadn’t been outright enemies. Watching the man interact with his beloved disciple though, Shen Jiu knew those eyes. He had seen those eyes in the Qiu mansion directed towards Haitang, towards himself. He hated those lecherous eyes and now that he had noticed, he understood why had always disliked the esteemed cultivator. The man was the worst sort of hypocrite.

The kind that made Shen Jiu’s skin crawl.

Shen Jiu watched the Palace Master systematically isolate Su Xiyan from her peers, and he watched as she blindly accepted it.

She truly believed in the fake-righteousness of her teacher and followed the man’s teachings to a T. Even her love for Tianlang-jun didn’t stop her blind faith.

She was so blind he quietly worried, moving out of the shadows in the room to greet the poor woman and save her from herself. Su Xiyan flashed him a relived smile and he replied in kind with a sneer that had the woman blatantly rolling her eyes.

“How very unladylike,” Shen Jiu commented, but Su Xiyan just brushed it off and shoved the man towards the direction of the banquet table. She didn’t know why immortals who excelled in inedia insisted upon having food at every function, but she was happy to use the sweets to pacify her testy friend.

Shen Jiu allowed the belligerent shoving from the brat.

Interacting with her put a huge target on Shen Jiu’s back, but he didn’t care. He would use those eyes glaring holes in his back to rip that disgusting pervert off his pedestal. It was just because he hated those eyes, no other reason.

---

Shen Jiu ran franticly.

This kind of desperation was new and yet not.

He had felt it in his last life when Liu Qingge died, when the slavers had caught Qi-ge to sell him, and he felt it now as he rushed to reach Tianlang-Jun before the approaching party of cultivators.

That damn woman Su Xiyan, how many times had Shen Jiu warned her about the Huan Hua Headmaster and his lecherous eyes? How many young men had mysteriously disappeared after she naively approached them?

 Now Tianlang-Jun’s head was on the chopping block, even after all of Shen Jiu’s efforts to undermine the false rumors, and Shen Jiu cursed the day the woman was born. He rushed into the clearing where the meeting was scheduled and Tianlang-Jun faced him with bemusement.

“I didn’t expect to receive a love letter from you of all people?” he said questioningly.

“Shut up.” Shen Jiu spit out, already frustrated with the situation.

“You need to leave.”

“I’d love to go on another jaunt with you Ah-Jiu but-,” Tianlang-Jun started, but Shen Jiu interrupted him.

“No, you need to leave now. Su Xiyan is not coming to meet you. It’s a trap.”

Tianlang-Jun stopped short, surprised by the words and Shen Jiu’s frantic anger. His perpetual smile he had in front of Shen Jiu dropped. The demon really truly looked at the expression on his face, taking in the blatant concern and anger making the elegant man’s brows furrow.

It had been many years since Tianlang-Jun had last seen his friend quite so disheveled.

For the first time, Tianlang-Jun could see just how deeply his friend cared for him and as he sensed the approaching qi of the attack party, he finally realized just how far Shen Jiu would go for him, just how much the man would give up for the people he cared for.

He stared quietly at Shen Jiu, the reality of Su Xiyan’s betrayal and Shen Jiu’s loyalty sinking in, and quietly sighed.

Shen Jiu was becoming more frantic.

As the group got closer, it would be harder and harder for Tianlang-Jun to get away, but the man just kept standing there solemnly and watching him.

There was something in the demon’s eyes, some unfamiliar mix of emotion on the heavenly demon’s face as he watched Shen Jiu and Shen Jiu had no time to deal with the man’s dramatics. He stepped forward to push the man into moving but was surprised to find himself being grabbed and drawn into a hug. Tianlang-Jun had always been a surprisingly tactile person for such an imposing heavenly demon and Shen Jiu had always made it abundantly clear how much he hated being touched.

The demon had never even tried to hug him before as a result, but he did so now.

Shen Jiu’s mind blanked in surprise at having a giant demon hugging him so securely, but he was quick to try to pull away.

Tianlang-Jun needed to be gone, needed to be somewhere safe and this was getting them nowhere but closer to death.

Shen Jiu had known he would be viciously condemned for tipping off the demon, but there was no sense in them both dying here. It defeated the whole purpose of him coming here actually and he was quick to begin to lay into Tianlang-Jun about his stupidity.

Tianlang-Jun cut him off though by squeezing Shen Jiu tighter and closer, stopping his complaining and struggling.

“I wish I had met you first,” Tianlang-Jun whispered into Shen Jiu’s ear.

He pulled away in surprise to look the idiot in the face but was met with a blade through his stomach and out of his back. It was ripped sideways and Shen Jiu stumbled back in pain, blood flowing rapidly down his side. He dropped to his knees and was unconscious before the cultivator could curse the fool out, just as the attack party arrived on the scene.

“Well now, what have we here? And here I thought that cultivationists only knew how to send weaklings.” Tianlang-Jun smirked, stepping forward over Shen Jiu’s body like he was dirt.

The demon spread his arms, making himself a huge tempting target for those deceitful cultivators in front of himself, and then Tianlang-Jun lunged forward with vengeance filling his mind.

It was time for his final showdown and he would go down gloriously, dragging that scum master of Su Xiyan with him or die trying.

Chapter Text

Yue Qingyuan silently sat beside Xiao-Jiu’s body.

His friend was so still, unbearably so, but he wouldn’t be waking now.

He wouldn’t be waking for a long, long time.

The damage Tianlang-jun had done was just that bad. It was lucky enough that his friend was even alive, but Yue Qingyuan still felt trembles running down his arms to where both of his hands grasped Xiao-Jiu’s.

At the time, Yue Qingyuan hadn’t had time to tremble at the sight of Shen Jiu on the ground.

He had had only a second to stare, to realize that the blood pooling on the grass so quickly belonged to Xiao-Jiu, before the fight began. Tianlang-jun had been fierce, an unyielding raging beast determined to send them all to the grave, and Yue Qingyuan had spent the whole time fighting to focus, to tear his gaze away from Shen Jiu’s unmoving body.

It was the hardest fight of his life, the hardest he had ever fought in his life, and until Xiao-Jiu opened his eyes, the world would remain a blur and Yue Qingyuan would be unable to rest. He would remain by the man’s side, fighting the bubble back, fighting to listen to every shallow breath Xiao-Jiu took.

In truth, no one had expected Shen Qingqiu to be there.

It wasn’t until they all returned, a panicking Yue Qingyuan rushing Shen Qingqiu to the medical ward first, that they had all had time to think about it.

Why had the Qing Jing Head Disciple been there?

Yue Qingyuan had watched the insidious thought appear in all of their heads, had questioned it himself, and prepared for another fight. He had already readied his sword at the sight of Lao Gongzhu beginning to open his mouth and say those damning words.

Yue Qingyuan had been ready to slit the man’s throat right there in front of everyone, ready to keep fighting despite the injuries already lining his own body.

He would protect Xiao-Jiu no matter what he had done, but he hadn’t needed to.

Yi Xianliang had swept into their camp with a righteous fury, cursing the Huan Hua Palace for their thoughtless actions and placing his head disciple in danger. It had stopped them all in their tracks and the group had collectively deflated. All of the frantic energy of the fight was lost to the shock of an angry Peak Lord.

 According to Yi Xianliang, Xiao-Jiu had been on a totally separate mission when their poor choice of a rendezvous spot forced the boy into a confrontation with Tianlang-jun. A case of bad luck and poor communication caused by Huan Hua pushing ahead recklessly. Yue Qingyuan was happy to let that be the case, didn’t want to know what the truth was.

All he wanted was for Xiao-Jiu to open his eyes and glare at him.

Just that would be make him happy.

---

It took two weeks for Shen Qingqiu to wake up.

Liu Qingge had watched Yue Qingyuan wait by the man’s side as every single day passed. Nothing could draw him away from his vigil at the ill-tempered man’s side. Nothing could get Yue Qingyuan to let go.

Liu Qingge couldn’t blame him.

Shen Qingqiu had been so horrifyingly pale when they brought his limp body back. The Bai Zhan Head Disciple had honestly thought he was a corpse, nothing but a body to be buried, but the sneaky bastard had still been alive.

Somehow.

Liu Qingge knew how. He knew how tenacious his rival disciple could be, how unwilling the beautiful man was to let anyone have their way.

Shen Qingqiu would bow to no one’s will but his own.

Liu Qingge usually hated the man for it, but just this once he was grateful for it. He was glad that the man wouldn’t give in. Death was clearly gunning for him this time, but Shen Qingqiu was the type to look death in the face and sneer. Even more than that, Yue Qingyuan had proven that he was willing to fight even the gods for Shen Qingqiu.

It was a bitter feeling for Liu Qingge to see how much his Shixiong cared about the irritating man. It made Liu Qingge hate Shen Qingqiu a little more, just a little, but he didn’t want the man to die. He feared what would happen if the man did, what it would do to Yue Qingyuan.

What Yue Qingyuan might do if Shen Qingqiu died.

Luckily, the bastard had finally opened his eyes.

Thankfully, the bastard would be fine.

The whole sect breathed a sigh of relief that day.

Liu Qingge himself did as well, silently pleased to see those stupid green eyes, and happily left his spot in a tree near the window to Shen Qingqiu’s room. He too had sat in an unmoving vigil, watching over his Shixiong and Shidi.

Now, he could finally relax and go nap.

---

Shen Jiu woke up in agony.

It wasn’t his side, though he knew that that too would begin to hurt soon as well.

No, it was from grief. He had only mourned like this once before, for a stupid man that had tried to fulfil a long dead promise, and he had hated it with every fiber of his being then hated himself for causing it.

He hated it now as well.

He had tried so hard to stop this event from happening. Shen Jiu took his limited knowledge and had schemed, planned, and fought innumerable silent battles to prevent it, but it had all been for nothing.

Fate was a bitch and an obsession was an unbeatable force.

Nothing could get between a demon and their Obsession, not even reason.

In truth, Shen Jiu had already experienced a demon’s Obsession before, had watched it burn everything he cared about to ashes in his past life. This mirror life was just as cruel, if not more so.

He hated it for being inevitable.

He hated feeling Fate sink her chains into his bones.

He hated Tianlang-jun for being so kind.

Shen Jiu hated himself for hoping and trying so hard only to fail and be left behind again. Just this one last time, as he lay their staring at the ceiling of the medical ward, he let himself wish he had died from his wounds.

Tianlang-Jun had told him time and time again how much he hated Shen Jiu’s casual wish to die.

He wouldn’t be hearing those words ever again.

At least, if he had died as well, Shen Jiu wouldn’t feel so alone.

But Shen Jiu knew what would happen. He had planned for those events to occur even as he fought to prevent them. And that made a difference. That changed things.

He knew where Tianlang-jun was now, his soul sealed and body secretly entombed by cultivators under a mountain, even if no one had seen fit to tell him. He knew that the demon needed him, that so many people needed him to get his act together. Still, Shen Jiu could do that in the morning.

For now, he just wanted to cry and mourn his dear friend.

His plans could wait.

---

Shen Jiu was up and moving as soon as he could be, against everyone’s wishes and medical advice.

They all hoped he would rest and heal, but that wasn’t his nature.

The man didn’t care how badly the wound would scar because of it. He had more important things to do, like contacting Zhuzhi-lang and plotting the Huan Hua Palace master’s downfall.

The man would suffer for his actions.

Shen Jiu would ensure it, but first he had to get everyone to fucking leave him the hell alone.

Mu Qingfang wouldn’t stop checking in on him. Shang Qinghua wouldn’t stop leaving him little gifts on his bed. Liu Qingge wouldn’t stop lurking around every corner with scowl and an order to get back to bed.

Yi Xianliang was least overbearing.

He didn’t have to be. He wouldn’t stop him from walking around as he pleased, but his Shifu’s eyes never left him and instead his fellow disciples were relentless in their nagging and overprotectiveness.

Dai Weiyun had taken to outright shoving people who got too close like a bodyguard and He Zimu had gotten into multiple fights with Liu Qingge about the man’s stalking issue. Dai Jiayi was quick to do everything for him, bringing insult to his injuries, but he couldn’t get mad at them. They all just cared too much. Shen Jiu couldn’t stand their affections though, not when he was so raw.

The worst was Yue Qingyuan though.

The sight of Yue Qingyuan filled Shen Jiu with incandescent rage that threatened to burn their strained bond to ash.

Tianlang-jun’s blood was so fresh on Yue Qingyuan’s doting hands, a large, permanent stain on someone he had once considered almost perfect.

Shen Jiu still cared for Qi-ge.

He would never not have affection for Yue Qingyuan, no matter how much he hated him as well. The man had blindly run to his death for him after all, but his blind willingness was the problem. Yue Qingyuan was always so willing to ignore Shen Jiu’s actions, so happy to say they were friends without ever really understanding Shen Jiu. Shen Jiu had despised that shallow yet deep trust then, and he despised it even more now.

Whatever small truce they had fallen into recently was broken.

Shen Jiu couldn’t ignore those unanswered questions haunting him to enjoy spending time with his Shixiong. He didn’t want to, not with how Yue Qingyuan’s actions had once again left him raw and hurting. Logically, Shen Jiu knew Yue Qingyuan was not truly at fault, but his heart still said that the man had once again forced him to lose something he cared about.

In his first life, Shen Jiu had lost his heart freedom to the man. In this mirror world, he had lost his hope for a better future.

Tianlang-jun’s death meant more than just the loss of a friend. It meant the shattering of Shen Jiu’s plans. The immortal now understood that no matter how much he struggled and fought, fate would attempt to force the man’s hand. That lesson had been carved into his bones. Whatever plans he had to eventually leave the Sect behind after negating peace between Tianlang-Jun and the orthodox cultivation sects to travel were gone.

He knew what his future would be. He knew how he would die.

But Shen Jiu was not a quitter or an idiot.

He knew that even if he couldn’t stop big events, he could change them. In this mirror world Shen Jiu was not alone, was not Liu Qingge’s shixiong, was not such an outright scumbag to the world. So Shen Jiu would struggle.

He would throw his all into fucking up Fate and when he met his death at Luo Binghe’s hands once again, he would greet Death with a smug grin this time.

Chapter Text

Dai Weiyun was a disciple of few words.

His sister, Jiayi, had always been the talkative one of the two, dragging him along behind her and pointing him this way and the next like a cloud pulled along by the wind. Most of the time, Weiyun was content to go with the flow, never bothering enough to protest.

If he did have an opinion on something, then he preferred letting his actions do the talking for him.

On Qing Jing Peak someone with such a lax way of living wouldn’t live an easy life. If you wanted to be unbothered then you had to be stronger than the other fish in the pond. Weiyun wanted to live freely. This led to him striving to prove his worth through showing others his skill. He trained and showed off and then trained some more. Somehow, along the way his peers began to look up to him and he took on the role of head disciple.

Weiyun’s shizun had never confirmed or denied it and he simply went along with it. The rumors benefited him for the most part anyways.

Plus, he was already weighed down by most of the work for it.

When Bai Zhan brutes came to make trouble, he gladly fought them off. When arrogant young masters needed to be scolded, he gladly fought them too. The only thing that changed was that now he had to see to more paperwork and helping his shidi had become almost mandatory while his Shizun left to go handle requests for the sect.

When Yi Xianliang flourished back onto the peak after an unusually long time away, dragging a reluctant young man behind him, Weiyun hadn’t really cared. His Shizun was willful and prone to doing whatever he pleased whenever he pleased. This was no doubt another flight of fancy and he would probably gain another shidi he would have to bolster.

Only the ill-tempered man didn’t really become his shidi.

He became the head disciple.

Weiyun hadn’t been attached to the role or its burdens, but it had still been a slap in the face to see it go to someone who clearly didn’t want it. After a week of holding his tongue while Jiayi bitched and quietly watching the man, he decided to confront him.

Weiyun cornered Shen Qingqiu alone outside the dorms and led him to a clearing.

The young cultivator faced him with an eyebrow raised and an unimpressed look on his face. It was clear that Shen Qingqiu had cultivated before coming to Qing Jing Peak. Dai Weiyun had watched the man abort his movements enough to note that the young man had habits that indicated skill, but he couldn’t tell what extent it reached.

Dai Weiyun refused to bow his head to someone weaker than him, so he would test him.

“What do you want?”

Dai Weiyun hesitated. Shen Qingqiu didn’t normally start anything first. It was always someone else who engaged the man in conversation. Weiyun had already prepared a speech in his head, a way to provoke Shen Qingqiu to answer his challenge, but the ill-tempered man had already thrown a wrench in his plans.

“If you just called me here to stare at me all night, then I’m going to leave,” Shen Qingqiu stated when the stare down continued, turning to head back to the dorms.

“Fight me!” Weiyun panicked and yelled.

Shen Qingqiu paused and turned his head to Weiyun with an incredulous look on his face.

“What?”

“Fight me,” Weiyun said more confidently.

“You… Are you imitating Liu Qingge?”

Weiyun ignored the comment and dashed forward. He didn’t know what Bai Zhan Peak’s head disciple had to do with anything, but he wouldn’t let Shen Qingqiu throw him off balance anymore.

He threw a punch to the incredulous man’s face and the fight was on.

---

Yi Xianliang was amused.

Even if his new favorite disciple had quite a knack for anticipating and dealing with Yi Xianliang’s whims, Shen Qingqiu certainly had no clue what to do with Dai Weiyun. After a week of enjoying the discord on the Peak as Shen Qingqiu played at incompetence and irritated his peers, Dai Weiyun’s pride had finally reared its head and the two had apparently fought.

The result was a bruised Weiyun following Shen Qingqiu around like a duckling and dragging his confused, unhappy sister with him.

She, like the rest of the peak, clearly hadn’t picked up on the clues staring them in the face yet, but they’d all get it eventually. If not, well, Yi Xianliang didn’t really care about keeping anyone so stupid on his peak. They had all been picked because it had been interesting at the time, but most didn’t keep him entertained for long.

Funnily enough, Shen Qingqiu had no trouble dealing with negative attention, but this positive attention from Dai Weiyun was throwing the young man off balance. It made him even more prone to biting language than usual and one poor shidi had already been sent off in tears. This was the most entertainment the cultivator had had in years, and he was thriving.

Yi Xianliang wondered how fun it would be to see the look on Shen Qingqiu’s face when he passed his title as Peak Lord to him. Yi Xianliang was less amused the next day when he realized that Shen Qingqiu had actually managed to escape the sect and disappear.

Yeah, he hoped Shen Qingqiu hated the title.

---

Shen Jiu was attempting to change things.

Certainly, he had once again been forced into the position of Qing Jing Peak Lord and he still had rocky relationships with the other leaders, but still he had made sure things were different from his previous life.

He knew better now.

It was still somewhat ironic however that now that he no longer wanted the prestigious position, he couldn’t get away from it. Time after time, he was caught and dragged back by his Shifu. It caused friction at first from his fellow Qing Jing disciples, but with time and his Shifu’s persistent insistence on him showing off his skills on the peak, they began to view him as a reluctant, but reliable head disciple.

It helped that he no longer viewed them as competition for his position.

He even helped them in hopes that they would gain the skills to take the unwanted position from him. Somehow, he should have expected that it would backfire on him. To the rest of the sect Shen Jiu was a rude bastard not worth the favor of Cang Qiong’s head-disciple and Qing Jing’s Peak Lord, but to those on the peak, well they wouldn’t want anyone else as head even if his words could flay a man to shreds better than any sword.

In his last life, Shen Qingqiu had viewed his fellow disciples as threats to his position so he kicked them all out of the mountain once he could. Initially, it had left him feeling satisfied to get back at the privileged young masters who tried so hard to displace him.

After a while of doing every job that would normally be assigned to the Heads of the Halls, all he felt was exasperation and regret for his short-sightedness.

He did it all perfectly.

His own pride demanded no less, but that same pride had left him unable to ask for help. In that life Shen Qingqiu was a spiteful and overly harried peak lord. Shen Jiu on the other hand had the common sense to not do that. He no longer wished to kick himself with his own stupidity. He even still hoped that one of his now Heads of the Halls in Qing Jing would get fed up with his sharp tongue and oust him at the risk of Yue Qingyuan’s ire, but no matter what he did the usurpation never happened.

Dai Weiyun and He Zimu would smile at his insults and share looks with Jiayi as if to say his words were “cute” or “charming”.

Shen Jiu didn’t get what he had done in this life to gain the presence of these people, but if they wouldn’t leave him alone then he would use them for all they were worth. Shen Jiu no longer had to oversee classes with spoiled young masters and mistresses who knew no days of toil.

That was now his Heads’ problem and he relished in their suffering.

It left him more time to himself, his dodgy cultivation, and his plans. Though Shen Jiu had had the benefit of foreknowledge and freedom to practice correctly, at the end of the day his body was still a cracked pot as Tianlang-Jun liked to joke. It just couldn’t keep up with his spirit, leaving him still prone to qi-deviations. Thankfully less so than the last life, but Shen Jiu still had his internal demons on top of his poor body and so he was much more careful and methodical in his cultivation this time around.

For the most part, his Heads were competent enough to never bother him.

At the end of the day Shen Jiu was still the Peak Head and that meant attending meetings and greeting new disciples.

This time around Shen Jiu had chosen Luo Binghe in a twisted way of repaying Tianlang-Jun for his friendship. He still silently enjoyed Liu Qingge’s anger at having his desired disciple taken from him, even granting Yue Qingyuan a slightly friendlier look for once in spite of their estranged relationship.

It was always pleasing to get one over the presumptuous fool and it spared Shen Jiu the trouble of having to deal with the man once Luo Binghe’s seal broke. Shen Jiu knew what he would be dealing with and what the boy would need growing up, even if he truthfully wanted nothing to do with the child. This way he could protect Yue Qing the sect and honor his friend by protecting the child born to him from his love and nothing more.

He owed Luo Binghe nothing more.

All debts from his last life had been fully paid by the time of his death and he wanted nothing to do with his ghosts.

Still, the tea dripping down the child’s face was perhaps not the best way to find out he had created a new ghost in this life.

Luo Binghe sat with his face towards the floor once more, eyes closed and teeth gritted. Shen Jiu quickly summoned Ming Fan and sent them out with strict instructions to wash up and join their fellow disciples for the night and watched quietly as Ming Fan led the child away. He saw how Luo Binghe’s hands clenched tight enough to almost break skin, how the boy’s shoulders never untensed as they walked away.

The first time around the boy had been bewildered and hurt.

This time around the child was angry. It wasn’t really that surprising considering the boy hadn’t even had time to go into his whole spiel about his dead mother and hopes for the future this time. This time the child only had to look up from his bow to be greeted with a cup of tea, thankfully cool this time from greeting other newly accepted disciples first.

Shen Jiu hadn’t planned for this to happen.

He knew the consequences of actions taken towards Luo Binghe, knew the boy returned cruelty one thousand-fold.

Nervousness had dogged the man for weeks before the sect even hosted the event and even still Shen Jiu had even put off meeting the boy until he couldn’t any longer, greeting the disciples his Heads had found to have potential first.

It was one thing to see the child from a distance, knowing what he could become, and a whole other thing to have the child in front of him and staring at him with hopeful eyes. He had taken the time with the other new disciples to gather himself and prepare, but nothing could have prepared him for this.

He hadn’t even known it would be a problem, but when Luo Binghe looked up and Shen Jiu saw his friend’s eyes staring at him from the face of the woman who led him to his doom, there was no force in the land that could have stayed his hand. The visceral rage he felt at that moment burned him to the core and left him with painful embers just as quickly.

His fate in regard to that child was sealed it seemed.

---

Luo Binghe was probably a little messed up in the head.

He walked away from his Shizun’s house seething in a rage he had never personally felt before, but having tea thrown at him wasn’t really unexpected.

It had happened to him before in a dream.

He had always had them, the strange not-dreams that overshadowed his waking moments. Most just left him with a sense of deja-vu, but not all of them. Some of them haunted his sleeping moments. They would send Luo Binghe screaming to his mother’s arms when he was a child, vague visions of severed limbs and green eyes, but the dreams were never vivid.

He could always forget them and move on with his day, sharing smiles and laughter with his mom.

It still warped him though, left-over feelings creating anger when there was only irritation and sadness where there should have only been happiness. The eerie sense that he had seen or done something before he actually did it clung to him like a shadow and on the days when those shadows darkened, he would stop bowing his head to bullies and would start punching back.

The shame he later felt watching his mother bow her head in apology to the other children’s parents quickly taught him that he needed to reign himself in.

To the then younger Binghe, that became his life.

He would wake up and shove the lingering remnants of dreams into a forgotten part of his mind, after which his day would begin, and he would avoid staring at his shadows too long.

It was simple. It was routine. It was comfortable.

It wasn’t till his mother placed a jade in his little hands as he sat at her sickbed that Luo Binghe knew the dreams were not just dreams.

Those vague stories were suddenly undeniably his reality, and his reality was that his mother would die. Binghe had smiled and thanked her for the gift then, already mourning her in his heart. He paid attention to his dreams after that. No detail was too insignificant if it meant that he could avoid these kinds of things, but his dreams never got less vague and he never learned about anything that would happen more than a few days in advance.

It let him avoid a few confrontations with bullies, but nothing as significant as his mother’s death came up again.

Not until he dreamt of joining the Cang Qiong sect.

The dream had come to him after two months of trying to eke out a living as an orphan.

Some of his neighbors who knew Luo Binghe and his mother tried to help him, but no one had much to spare. Life had been rough, but the continuous cycle of rinse and repeat was already a familiar thing to the child.

That dream shook him to the core though.

He woke up with the sting of tea on his skin and an all-encompassing rage in his heart that drove him out of the small village and into the forest to scream and punch his emotions out. He had raged in that forest for hours till his knuckles bled and his throat ached but was left unsatisfied.

The immortal in his dreams didn’t fade from his waking mind, even when other details of the dream did, and Luo Binghe felt like there were three people in his body. The elegant immortal had provoked a symphony of emotions in the child, all vying for dominance.

There was himself, a distant stranger intrigued by the story unfolding before him.

Then there was another part of him, the actual child in the dreams that had been awestruck and yet terrified of the beautiful man.

The last part though, the shadowed part that had only cruelty and rage, had been so loud that it nearly drowned out the rest of his emotions.

Normally he could reign the Shadow in.

Normally the Shadow didn’t show up at all.

If it did, it was usually only to enjoy the violence he couldn’t remember in his waking moments, to rage at cold eyes that glared back. That day was the first day he had felt so overshadowed by his dream-self and when the emotions of the dream had finally drained out of him, he was left only with the desire to know why.

Why did that stranger matter to him so much?

His decision to go to the sect was sealed even before he could think about how much he could benefit from it. Even the sting of hot tea would be worth meeting that man if he could get answers.

The dreams Luo Binghe had while journeying to the sect had honestly given him plenty of answers though, along with plenty of firsts.

For the first time, he had dreamt of something that would happen a month after the dream. For the first time, Luo Binghe had left his shitty little village and done something purely because he had wanted too. For the first time, Luo Binghe had decided to try to change his dreams in big ways.

Generally, all the changes Luo Binghe intended to make involved the immortal who he had learned was named Shen Qingqiu.

His dreams that involved the man remained vivid to the boy and he resolved on the long walk to the mountains that he would not let the man hate him so much. Luo Binghe would get that man to approve of him, would make that man look at him with something other than distain. The child had bet everything he owned at the time that the ill-tempered man looked even more beautiful without the scowl on his face.

That thought process had only lasted long enough to see the child doused with tea before he could even open his mouth and spout out a better speech than dream-him had.

 Oh, how his shadow had raged at that, at being so close to the man yet being unable to get closer, and Luo Binghe hadn’t found himself in a better mindset.

His introduction had been so much better than dream-him and this time he had known how much his Shizun preferred a clean house, so he had taken care not to dirty himself while digging. Even his bow had been perfect, all the punishments dream-him had experienced for bad posture had him fixing his own before he would meet the spiteful man from his dreams.

Even so, when he lifted his head and saw the man’s face for the first time in his waking hours, Luo Binghe had only had time to be stunned at how strikingly beautiful Shen Qingqiu’s piercing eyes were before tea had forced Luo Binghe’s eyes back to the floor and left the boy a new kind of stunned.

The kind of stunned that turned to rage and he had walked away from that house with clenched fists as he fought back humiliation and the urge to lunge toward the immortal and close his little hands around his throat. Something told him it wouldn’t be that satisfying with such small hands anyways.

As he calmed himself and walked away with his new shixiong, he pondered something important to himself though.

The tea had been cold.

Chapter Text

Shen Jiu sat gazing out of the restaurant window at the street vendors below.

Before him lay a bowl of congee, something simple and in line with his role as a disciple of Cang Qiong. In truth, he was actually in the mood to eat some of the stinky tofu the vendor a few doors down was selling, but unfortunately Shen Jiu was not in that town a free man tonight.

No, tonight Shen Jiu was in the town to solve a case.

After being so kindly dragged out of bed by his smirking master and sent off with a yawning Dai Weiyun and a whining He Zimu, they had ended up in the bustling town currently bubbling around them. The overall atmosphere was not unlike a festival, filled with noisy people and vendors everywhere, but apparently there had been a few disappearances.

A young man here, a beautiful courtesan there, a young lady who snuck out of her manor.

The young lady’s disappearance had been the driving force behind the sect’s intervention.

Her very rich father had promised a sizable donation to the righteous sect and who were they to turn down a family in need, or so his teacher had snidely commented to Shen Jiu from behind his fan. The head disciple had quietly agreed with his Shifu’s derision.

The end result had been the three disciples setting off to the town at a ludicrous time of night to meet up with another disciple coming from a different mission. Yi-shifu had not mentioned who it would be, merely smirking and saying they would know them when they saw them.

So, Shen Jiu sat at the restaurant and watched the crowd below him, praying it was not Liu fucking Qingge who would show up.

Weiyun had wandered off with He Zimu to guide him, in order to secure the group somewhere to rest in the meantime. If it did turn out to be Liu Qingge who shows up, Shen Jiu would just leave. Fuck the mission and the missing people. People went missing all the time. Why should they care just because one spoiled young miss went missing?

Shen Jiu couldn’t deal with his regrets when he saw Liu Qingge.

Shen Jiu hated dealing with Liu Qingge, the annoyance.

He sighed to himself at the thought. He sighed again at his own impatience. The young man wanted to be asleep, wanted to eat stinky tofu, wanted to be somewhere he didn’t have to act like a head disciple. People shuffled by below him, unaware and uncaring of his own troubles.

It was calming in a way to observe the flowing river of faces below him, to hone in on the feeling of many different kinds of qi passing below him and assign a face to a feeling.

In his last life, Shen Jiu had been so focused on his own cultivation that all of his attention had been turned inward. He felt angry so his qi turned turbulent and that in turn made himself angrier in a never-ending loop of self-destruction.

When he had first appeared in this strange mirror world, Shen Jiu had been scared to see himself, so he had turned his eyes outward. Along the way, with his foreknowledge of proper training techniques, he had developed a surprising sensitivity to other’s qi. If Shen Jiu focused, the world before him could dissolve into a blur of qi and colors, one he was slowly training himself to see as clearly as he could see people’s faces.

It was largely touch and go.

Shen Jiu had never really heard of this kind of ability before, and he was hesitant to bring it up with anyone and give them ammunition against him. He was already going to make enough enemies when he put his plan to redeem Tianlang-Jun in the eyes of cultivators into action. He didn’t need rumors of being an unorthodox cultivator himself on top of all of the others hanging over his head.

So, Shen Jiu resorted to quietly and cautiously training this new ability in his spare time.

Shen Jiu closed his eyes and focused in on the river of qi below him, almost overwhelmed at the sheer number of tiny blips. An approaching qi caught his attention, larger than most of the others and moving swiftly through the crowd in his direction.

It was no doubt their fellow cultivator.

He opened his eyes to name the familiar feeling and paled at the sight of Yue Qingyuan approaching him.

Perhaps Liu Qingge would have been easier to deal with actually. Shen Jiu would like a refund on his prayers.

-

The hustle and bustle of the crowd around him made navigating to the shop a troubling task. Yue Qingyuan spent much of the time politely waving off overly friendly vendors and keeping an eye on his belongings. He knew personally just how easy it was to make coin purses and amulets disappear in tight crowds like this one.

His personal distrust of crowds aside, normally Yue Qingyuan would take his time meandering through the market, looking for wares to buy for his Xiao-Jiu and enjoying some nostalgic food, like the stinky tofu he used to share with Shen Jiu when they were both beggars.

Not tonight.

Tonight, Yue Qingyuan was eager to rush to Xiao-Jiu’s side instead.

It was a quiet gift from his Shizun, time to spend with his avoidant shidi, even if it meant more work for the Head Disciple. Yue Qingyuan was happy to do it. As he closed in on the shop, Yue Qingyuan caught a glimpse of Shen Qingqiu quietly relaxing in the second-floor window, eyes closed and face smooth like a porcelain doll. Qingqiu was a striking figure like this, one Yue Qingyuan could not pull his gaze off of, even to guard his coin satchel, but it seems that his shidi could feel his gaze.

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes opened, and Yue Qingyuan watched them morph from neutrality to anger in no time.

It made his steps slow as guilt seeped into his being. Yue Qingyuan was still not forgiven for his past transgressions it seemed. But by the time Yue Qingyuan managed to work through the crowd and into the room, Shen Qingqiu had already composed himself.

Yue Qingyuan hesitantly settled himself in front of the blank-faced young man before him. They had yet to speak, but Yue Qingyuan could see the ghost of irritation sitting in the set of Shen Qingqiu’s shoulders.

“Xiao-Jiu…” the young man began hesitantly, but he was stopped by Shen Qingqiu’s glare.

“Qingqiu-shidi,” Yue Qingyuan quietly corrected, “I hope I was not too late in arriving.”

Shen Qingqiu sighed at the statement; no doubt irritated by his beating around the bush.

Yue Qingyuan wished he didn’t have to beat around the bush as well, wished they could go back to the easy conversations of their childhood days, but the glaring elephant in the room forced both of their hands and Yue Qingyuan couldn’t offer anything but apologies. Strained silences and awkward statements would have to suffice until he could receive Shen Qingqiu’s forgiveness.

Yue Qingyuan glanced down at the table, nervously playing with his hands in his lap; Shen Qingqiu stiffly glared out the window, and the food on the table turned cold.

This was the situation He Zimu burst in on.

He immediately wished he could turn back time and avoid the glare now facing him instead.

He Zimu had insisted on being the one to fetch Shen-shixiong and the person who would be joining them. If not, it would be noon the next day by the time Weiyun-shixiong would manage to bring the group back, but somehow that might have been better than walking in on the Sect’s most prestigious disciple kneeling like a scolded child in front of his own Shixiong.

“We’ve secured some rooms in an inn…” He Zimu hesitantly stated.

Shen Qingqiu immediately stood up and left, Yue Qingyuan and He Zimu scrambling behind him.

---

The group of three arrived at the inn in record time, He Zimu rushing ahead through the crowd to appease Shen Jiu’s temper and Yue Qingyuan meekly following him like he usually did on the missions they were paired together.

Being followed by an apologetic Yue Qingyuan seemed to be Shen Jiu’s lot in life no matter how much he would have rather received answers to questions he had always been too proud too scared to ask.

At least watching his panicking Shidi gracelessly push through the crowd was somewhat amusing. It kept people from brushing up against him and it allowed Shen Jiu time to calm his temper, to work down the blazing fires that had steadily been growing the longer he and Yue Qingyuan sat in that stifling situation.

“Your room- on the third floor- Shen-shixiong, Yue-shixiong-,” He Zimu stated, pointing up and panting lightly.

“You managed to find four rooms?” Yue Qingyuan asked.

Given the crowds he was surprised the group had managed such luxury. He Zimu froze, mouth opened to answer, and any levity Shen Jiu had managed to grasp drifted away. His shidi’s eyes darted from Shen Jiu to Yue Qingyuan and back again.

“W-w-well, a-about that…” He Zimu hesitated.

“How many,” Shen Jiu asked, voice ice cold and full of warning. He Zimu’s shoulders tensed.

“Two!” He practically shouted in his rush to answer Shen Jiu, standing ramrod straight.

Shen Jiu could feel his temper leaking out, his face darkening at the idea of spending a whole night in Yue Qingyuan’s company. He could feel the quietly hopeful gazes Yue Qingyuan was sending him.

No.

No fucking way. Shen Jiu refused. He was not ready to deal with this.

He glared at his cowering Shidi and asked which room Dai Weiyun was in.

“That, He’s in 205, but Shixiong! It’s much smaller! And less nice!” He Zimu protested, Yue Qingyuan nodding along at his side.

“Then He-shidi should be grateful that his kind Shixiong is granting him a luxurious room to rest in,” Shen Qingqiu deadpanned before calmly gliding up the stairs and leaving behind his gaping Shidi and a quietly sulking Yue Qingyuan.

He Zimu stared after him, surprised at having his room stolen from him before scrambling up after Shen Qingqiu, protesting and wheedling in hopes of not being stuck between the arguing couple. The youngest disciple refused to be left in the doghouse with Yue Qingyuan who embodied a scorned husband left to sleep on the floor as he followed behind the two.

Shen Jiu reached the door and opened it quickly, startling Dai Weiyun from his nap against the wall over his bed. Shen Jiu had a second to glimpse the confusion crossing the young man’s face before he whirled around to face the rapidly approaching He Zimu.

Shen Jiu smiled sweetly at the noisy brat before slamming the door closed in his face, victorious.

Dai Weiyun quietly chuckled at the pleased look on Shen Jiu’s face as they both listened to the whining slowly drifting away from their door. Shen Jiu didn’t give a damn that He Zimu’s things were still in this room. The brat could live a night without changing his clothes. It had certainly never harmed Shen Jiu as a child, he thought to himself moving behind the divider to change into his night clothes.

---

Dai Weiyun shifted quietly in his spot on his bed and staring at the way his Shixiong was blatantly trying to set a scroll on fire with his eyes alone.

He had expected to pass the night quietly ignoring his noisy Shidi tinkering with here and there with his seals. Instead, he found himself settled with a fuming Shen Qingqiu. It was a boon if Weiyun was being brutally honest. Dai Weiyun greatly enjoyed the time they could spend in each other’s company, even if he doubted he could wheedle a spar from his Shixiong.

Not tonight with the kind of anger simmering under the man’s tense shoulders.

That still left the question of why Shen Qingqiu was even in the room at all.

Normal sect seniority dictated that higher disciples got the better rooms and in this group that was Shen Qingqiu and whoever else they sent. If Shen Qingqiu was in his room, it meant they had sent someone who genuinely bothered his irritable Shixiong and judging by the lack of yelling in the hallway and the lack of fists pounding on the door, it was not that dullard Liu Qingge.

That really only left Yue Qingyuan.

It was kind of a shame.

Had it been Liu Qingge, then at least Dai Weiyun could have secured himself a decent fight. From either cultivator.

But Yue Qingyuan left his Shixiong angry in a way that reeked of hidden pain. Shen Qingqiu was always left off balance whenever the sect’s Head Disciple was involved, like a cornered animal unwilling to show it’s wounds.

Dai Weiyun had always tried not to poke those wounds, in spite of his incessant curiosity. He hadn’t always succeeded as subtlety wasn’t his forte, but he tried. Somewhat. A little.

There was a past between the two, something unstated that stretched into a time likely from before Dai Weiyun had even been born. It left the overly curious burned to ashes.

Tonight though, his curiosity proved willing to take a bit of a sting. Maybe it was the unusual sight of weariness in his Shixiong.

It showed in the set of the man’s shoulders, the way Shen Qingqiu had been more quiet than usual, more eager to avoid everyone. The Shen Qingqiu of tonight was different from the usual cornered animal. Tonight, he seemed a little more approachable, easier to ask. His Shixiong seemed like he could let his anger flow away tonight.

So, with maybe no chance of Shen Qingqiu actually beating him up for his audacity and maybe no chance of Shen Qingqiu running away, Dai Weiyun decided to risk poking a sleeping tiger.

“Shen-shixiong and Yue-shixiong…” he began, but he quickly paused at the way Shen Qingqiu’s pretty face turned absolutely glacial. His green eyes promised that if Dai Weiyun finished his sentence then the older man would drown him in the well behind the inn.

…Perhaps not tonight. He’d ask another time.

---

After bullying his way into sharing a room with Dai Weiyun, instead of Yue Qingyuan or He Zimu, and quietly cultivating till morning, Shen Jiu had finally settled into an approachable mood. It was not his first time doing a task with Yue Qingyuan and judging by his teacher’s sadistic streak it would not be his last, so Shen Jiu might as well stop moping.

A gloomy Yue Qingyuan and He Zimu greeted Shen Qingqiu and Dai Weiyun at the inn’s table for breakfast.

He Zimu glared at the pleased look on Dai Weiyun’s stupid face, having been left to room with the moping Yue Qingyuan. His night had been awkward and quiet after Shen Qingqiu had forced him out of his room, but he didn’t have the guts to glare at Shen Qingqiu so Weiyun-shixiong it was.

The stoic bastard looked entirely too pleased with himself anyway.

The four of them quietly ate breakfast and listened to the chatter of the townspeople around them. No one had disappeared last night it seemed, but rumors about the missing people were abundant. It meant that there would be a lot of information to collect and sort through, so they decided to split up. Yue Qingyuan had quietly glanced hopefully at Shen Qingqiu at that statement. He was left disappointed as the cold man reached down and pulled Dai Weiyun out of his seat to join him, leaving behind a gaping He Zimu as well.

Shen Qingqiu was quick to head off to the red-light district.

Yue Qingyuan was more suited to the pandering of inane rich nobles, being less likely to say something scathing, and nothing made men’s lips looser than alcohol and pretty women. The faster he could finish this task the better.

Dai Weiyun seemed content enough to follow along as always.

The Madam greeted them at the door, not eager to talk to the two handsome young men and even less eager at the chance that a rumor might spread around the town that she couldn’t handle her girls. The old woman, covered in fine wrinkles and hair greying yet still very beautiful, led the two cultivators through the perfumed interior.

They passed room after room, each separated by beautifully decorated doors, until the halls quieted from coquettish whispers and emboldened giggling of the ladies who had no one to entertain so early in the morning, to the establishment’s inner rooms.

The old madam’s room was highly ornamented, gilded ceiling decorations and jade abundant. It was a solid sign of how successful the old woman had been in the past, no doubt the most decorated courtesan of the previous generation.

This meant two things to Shen Jiu.

The first was that the woman would be extremely knowledgeable about the goings on in the establishment. The second meant that the woman would guard the house’s secrets closely.

Shen Jiu would find himself hard-pressed to get the truth out of the woman, whether it be to protect the girls or to protect the establishment. He could see the steel in the old woman’s eyes. Normally, that garnered his respect. Today, it made the old-at-heart cultivator sigh to himself. He almost wished he had bought a room. At least then, he would have been able to manipulate one of the less skilled girls, even if it meant less information.

---

Shen Jiu wanted to lay on the ground and throw a temper tantrum like the child a few blocks back embarrassing his mother. He didn’t. His pride wouldn’t allow it, but he wanted to.

The mental spar Shen Jiu had experienced with the silver-tongued old lady had left him exhausted and looking after his directionally challenged shidi while scouring the streets for more rumors had left him short of patience.

Babysitting was truly not his forte.

When the group had finally regrouped to discuss the details they had gained over lunch, Shen Jiu had only been left more angry by their lack of progress.

The details they had gathered were this:

All the disappearances had occurred within the span of seven days. Five prostitutes, eight young villagers, and the city lord’s only daughter. Some were men and some women. Their residences were scattered. Some were happily married, some not. Some were soon to be married and some were barely reaching the age of it. The only real similarities among them are that all had appeared nervous and dazed before their disappearances.

And that was all the group knew.

There were no witnesses, no clues or hard evidence. It was all just rumors and statements.

It left them all basically where they started with even more missing people than they expected. The noble lord had spent so much time sucking up to Yue Qingyuan and trying to pawn off his two sons to the sect that He Zimu had wondered if the man hadn’t caused the disappearances himself to give his pathetic children a chance. Yue Qingyuan had quietly disagreed, but Shen Jiu kept the passing statement in mind.

Girls suffered for lesser chances after all.

The group broke up again to patrol the town in hopes of seeing the act or a glimpse of anything really and somehow Shen Jiu had been left with Yue Qingyuan instead of Dai Weiyun.

A temper tantrum would be justified surely.

The two quietly drifted through the streets, slowly working their way to the farthest residence that someone had disappeared from. It was also the most recent one, a young man spirited away from his loving parents. The locals they talked to mention how the couple spent hours asking after their eighteen-year-old and how inauspicious it was that he would disappear before his marriage to another neighbor’s daughter.

“It doesn’t sound like he ran away,” Yue Qingyuan quietly pondered aloud. Shen Jiu side-eyed him, quietly surprised that the dense brick that was his former friend thought that way.

“You think the young lady ran away then?” he asked.

Yue Qingyuan glanced at him before looking back at the ground, a habit the man did when thinking.

“I did,” he spoke hesitantly seeing the question in Shen Qingqiu’s eyes, “I considered that perhaps she had just run away from an unwanted marriage at an inconvenient time.”

“A spoiled young miss then.”

“Yes,” Yue Qingyuan agreed quietly chuckling, “Similar to her father if rumors are to be believed.”

Shen Qingqiu’s brow quirked at the statement, a quiet sign of reluctant amusement.

“If so, then why not the young man as well?”

“Why would a happy man run away?”

“What makes you think he was happy?”

“Loving parents, an auspicious wedding, what’s there to be unhappy about?” Yue Qingyuan questioned staring at Shen Qingqiu. The cold man stared forward at the road, a considering look on his face.

What indeed.

The two got close to the house, quietly sharing their theories and conversing, but as they turned to enter Shen Jiu saw movement out of the corner of his eye. His head darted around trying to place it, but he saw nothing.

“What is it?” Yue Qingyuan questioned, but Shen Jiu ignored him, focusing on the area. He sensed it then. The faintest sense of demonic qi, near the house and where he just saw movement. He swiftly changed directions to search the area around the corner, Yue Qingyuan following at his heels and hounding Shen Jiu.

“What are you doing? The house is back there.”

“Qingqiu-shidi?”

“Where are you going?”

Shen Jiu continued ignoring the man, focusing on following that faint trace of qi. His sense of it was tenuous at best. He needed to concentrate deeply to follow it. Yue Qingyuan would just have to settle on following him.

“Xiao-Jiu-”

Shen Jiu’s head snapped up like a whip towards the man reaching for him.

“Don’t call me that!”

Yue Qingyuan paused, looking hurt at the rebuff and Shen Jiu huffed, quietly sorry for that one.

That had been uncalled for, a reactionary anger to a triggering nickname.

They had been having a relatively nice night till now.

He turned to look for the qi again, but Yue Qingyuan’s hand quietly touched his wrist and he stopped. No one was grabbing him, no one was forcing him, but Yue Qingyuan had always had a gravitational pull to Shen Jiu. And looking at the hurt look on his Qi-ge’s face, he couldn’t turn away again. It would haunt him like the broken Xuan Su did, like the last time Shen Jiu had seen that look on the man’s face in his real life as the cultivator’s carted him away to the water prison to await trial.

 Shen Jiu wasn’t ready to deal with this.

They both quietly stared at each other, hurt brewing in the air.

“I’m sorry,” Yue Qingyuan said. It was like it was a reflex for the man to apologize to Shen Jiu. Any sign of Shen Jiu being upset, and apologies began pouring from Yue Qingyuan’s mouth.

Shen Jiu stared at the man before, at his pleading eyes.

“Why.” It wasn’t really a question, more a statement from Shen Jiu that the man hadn’t been able to hold back.

There were better things they could be doing than having this talk in an alley way as people made their ways home and the sun set, but Yue Qingyuan’s hand reaching towards him meant they were doing this.

The same dance as his last life, one he had never wanted to do again.

“I- I ca-, Xiao-Jiu I’m sorry” Yue Qingyuan again apologized.

“Why.” Yue Qingyuan’s eyes moved down to the ground, shoulder’s tensing and reaching hand shaking.

Shen Jiu could feel the tiny tremors on his arm. Shen Jiu was starting to shake as well.

“I’m sorry,” the man pleaded.

“Why.”

“I’m sorry-”

“Why-”

“I-”

“Why! For What Yue Qingyuan?! What ARE You Apologizing For?!” Shen Jiu shouted.

Yue Qingyuan jerked back, surprised by the noise.

They both stared at each other.

The sun set over the roof tops sinking them into shade before either could move again.

---

The groups meet up again for a late dinner at the inn.

They should have discussed the faint qi Shen Jiu had sensed, but nothing was said during dinner. The atmosphere was stifling, but that suited Shen Jiu just fine. Unfortunately, He Zimu managed to slink away to his room on floor two, leaving Shen Jiu to room with Yue Qingyuan, but Shen Jiu was too drained by the long day to do anything about it.

The two quietly drifted to the third floor and Shen Jiu was quick to take his bath and prepare for bed.

He wouldn’t be sleeping not with the nightmares, but anything was better than being around Yue Qingyuan right now.

He lay down on his bed facing the wall, desperate for some divider between himself and his childhood friend, and pretended to sleep.

Yue Qingyuan watched all of this silently, wanting desperately to cling onto Xiao-Jiu and apologize till he was blue in the face, knowing that he was not allowed such a selfish wish. He sat on his bed staring at Shen Qingqiu’s back till a shichen had passed, simmering in guilt and wishing. Eventually, his wishes got the best of him, and he quietly got up and moved to sit on the very edge of Shen Qingqiu’s bed.

Yue Qingyuan didn’t dare lean against Shen Qingqiu like he would have as a child with Xiao-Jiu, but he couldn’t stop himself from gently, desperately grasping the back of the man’s sleeping robes.

“I’m sorry,” Yue Qingyuan whispers to the room. “I’m So Sorry.”

There was no reply, but Shen Qingqiu untensed.

Just a little.

---

Day two had seen the group’s once again patrolling, but instead of Shen Jiu deciding the groups, Dai Weiyun bullied his way into keeping the group together.

And then the young man acted as a stalwart barrier between Shen Jiu and Yue Qingyuan, always forcing his way into whatever left the two in close proximity. He Zimu was not far behind him, whining and joking and constantly changing the atmosphere to distract the group. Shen Jiu was quietly thankful to his two shidi.

They had not been close in his real life.

Shen Qingqiu had clawed his way to the top, tearing through anyone he perceived as competition and Dai Weiyun had dismissed him for his weaknesses. This mirror world had shown Shen Jiu an unexpected glimpse at his fellow disciples. He had known Dai Weiyun to be prideful and unwilling to bow to those he viewed as weak, but his impulsivity and clumsiness when it came to subtle conversation was new.

As was the man’s unfortunate trait of poking sensitive spots and things people wanted to avoid without trying.

He Zimu, whom he had never noticed as a younger, weaker disciple, had proven to be intelligent and always a good show. The fluffy haired man was easy to bully and very mischievous, always poking and prodding then cowering away only to do it again a few moments later.

Even Dai Jiayi, whom Shen Qingqiu had firmly hated as a snake-tongued bitch, had turned out to be quite the mother hen.

In moments like these, where Shen Jiu was awash with new experiences, he felt less like someone drowning in the weight of his past.

When he had been traveling alone as a rogue cultivator, he had been free from the weight of his past, but that had been largely because he hadn’t had to see it. Being dragged back to the sect had been lack being dragged to the bottom of a lake, ghosts and regrets walking around him constantly.

In the years that followed Shen Jiu had had to relearn how to swim. He struggled and tried over and over to escape, but somehow along the way differences built up. Yue Qingyuan was the same. Liu Qingge was too. So was his teacher But Shen Jiu had people in his corner. He had his three disciples.

He had Tianlang-jun.

Those differences gave him the strength to keep swimming, so Shen Jiu held his head high and stalked through the town, three disciples following at his heels.

For the most part, there was still no evidence. There were rumors here and there, some of the missing people supposedly had lovers, but nothing concrete or supported by any fact. That left patrolling. So, Shen Jiu led with Dai Weiyun and He Zimu at his back and Yue Qingyuan ghosting behind them, searching for some trace of the previous qi.

Eventually Shen Jiu picked it up again, fainter than it was the night before, and the chase was on. It led the group to the busy market, once again bustling with a lively crowd. The feeling of qi surrounding Shen Jiu made him nauseous, especially as he fought to focus on the faint trail he was following, but just as he considered giving up for the evening a stronger trace blazed up beside him.

It was coming from a small stall selling fortunes.

They weren’t real fortunes, but people were gullible and superstitious, so it was easy for the any cunning person to use these kinds of stalls to draw in easy money. This was the first solid clue the group needed to start finding out the truth.

Hopefully.

Shen Jiu approached the young woman manning the stall, intending to buy a fortune. The stack of charms he was eying was coated in the faint qi traces. He could take it back to the victims’ families in hopes of jogging their memories and if the charms themselves caused anything to happen that would be even better.

But when the woman saw the group approaching, she bolted.

So, a new chase was on.

Normally it would be no contest, four cultivators versus a market vender, but the woman before them was outpacing them, gliding through the crowded market like a ghost. When they reach the end of the street and turn the corner after her, she was gone leaving behind only familiar traces of demonic qi.

---

Day three saw the group once again splitting up.

And Shen Jiu was once again bumping heads with the cunning old Madam.

In the background, girls were peeking into the room and giggling. They were happy to see pretty faces for once, Shen Jiu looking cold and regal and Dai Weiyun striking a handsome figure. Shen Jiu had no doubt that some of those girls hoped to be able to drag one of the two men off for a little fun, but there was little chance of that happening.

The laughter stopped short when Shen Jiu slid the charm across the table to the old Madam. The woman’s neutral look turned tenser, eyes flashing in surprise before she could hide her reaction.

She recognized it.

Dai Weiyun shifted forward a bit, letting Shen Jiu know that the younger man had seen the reaction as well, and he reached out to sip the tea served in front of the two men.

“What’s this?” the woman questioned, refusing to get closer to look at the charm.

“It’s just a fake love charm from a stall in the town. I just wanted to ask if your missing girl had this charm as well,” Shen Jiu smiled politely. “We found it in the young lady Cui Cuifen’s room as well as a few others’,” Shen Jiu lied. The group hadn’t had time to check the rooms during the interviews, but this old lady likely didn’t know that.

And the old Madam fell for it: hook, line, and sinker.

When the group met for dinner as the sun set on the city, Shen Jiu was pleased to hear that the others had in fact found the charms at every missing person’s residence, including the most recent young man and the rich young lady Cui Cuifen.

Even better was that on those charms, names had been written on the inside linings.

It wasn’t always full names. More often than not it was the first characters of a person’s family name and personal name, but they finally began unraveling the whole mess they were assigned to deal with.

He Zimu had met with a lot of families, but only returned with the charms and not much else. Dai Weiyun had been stuck with Shen Jiu, unable to be left to his own devices.

It was Yue Qingyuan who brought out a true breakthrough.

He had been in charge of revisiting Cui Cuifen’s Lord Father and seeing to the house of the last missing person. Beyond the charms he hadn’t found much else either, but while wandering back to meet them he had heard murmurs that a young farmer named Gu Zhan had been rather distracted lately.

The man had cut himself badly while reaping his field apparently.

The group all stared at each other for a moment before looking at Cuifen’s charm on the table.

The characters on it spelled out Gu Zhan.

---

The four immediately bolted from the inn, after terrorizing out the location of Gu Zhan’s residence from a terrified waiter.

Shen Jiu couldn’t blame the man. It was every day that four cultivators accosted you while you were working and then stared you down with serious faces. Few normal humans ever had the chance to see cultivators let alone talk to them. And among the group, only He Zimu was relatively unintimidating.

By the time they flown out of the city and to the farthest outskirts of the local fields, night had already fallen.

They rushed towards the residence, but Shen Jiu forced the group to head to the field behind it. He felt demonic qi there growing rapidly. The others caught onto it quickly as well, but as they crested the hill on the swords all they saw was a flash of light with a man at the center and the young lady from the stall to the side.

He disappeared after the light peaked, forcing the cultivators to shield their eyes or risk blindness.

All that they could do was stare at the woman. She had fully dropped her human disguise, ears pointed and skin startlingly pale. She grinned at them, wider than any human ever could manage and with sharper teeth, and the look in her solid black eyes was mocking.

Qi crackled in the air around them.

It was still for just long of them to take in all this information and then Dai Weiyun was dashing forward. He sped towards the demoness, leaping off his sword and using hand seals to guide it forward in an attempt to impale her. But the demoness disappeared with a small crackle of qi and a high pitched giggle, reappearing behind the charging man and aiming strike at him back.

Shen Jiu lurched into action, using qi to send leaves spiraling like knives towards the demoness. She dodged backwards, away from Dai Weiyun and right into the path of Yue Qingyuan’s fist, but that two missed as she disappeared out of thin air.

Shen Jiu moved closer to the two fighters, feeling the faint trace of her qi popping up nearby.

Judging by He Zimu’s yelp as he threw himself to the ground, she had popped up right between him and Shen Jiu. Shen Jiu could feel the electric fizzle of her qi sweeping in an arc behind him, a swing of her sharp nails nearly taking a chunk out of his robes. He didn’t have to look back at the giggling demon. He could tell by the enraged looks on Yue Qingyuan and Dai Weiyun’s faces that it had been a close call.

He Zimu rolled across the ground, pulling a talisman from his special pouch and firing it off in the demoness’ direction. It blocked another strike at Shen Jiu’s back and he spun, twirling his sword in a slice that would take off her head.

If she would just stay still.

Shen Jiu’s friends rushed past him, attacking over and over and boxing the woman in between themselves and He Zimu. More barriers were erected to control her movement by the youngest. Shen Jiu took the time to observe her movement, watching her twist and dance around the cultivators’ strikes.

She kept up that damn smile the whole time, still giggling.

She was fucking toying with them.

Shen Jiu’s eyebrows twitched in annoyance and he supported Yue Qingyuan and Dai Weiyun’s attacks with volleys of leaves and.

The demoness taunted them all, choosing unnecessary maneuvers that flaunted how much faster she was than the two men trading blows with her. She forced them to choose between getting a hit in on her or avoiding potentially hitting each other and Shen Jiu could tell that the annoyance was getting to Dai Weiyun.

She could too and choose to flip over Weiyun’s head after he launched a wide swing to bisect her. It forced Yue Qingyuan to dodge back and put her in the perfect position to attack He Zimu who was setting up a formation to trap her movement. The two men shouted out a warning, but their youngest knew he couldn’t dodge, or he would risk undoing all their hard work cornering her, so He Zimu gritted his teeth and prepared for some pain. The demoness sneered down at the boy, smile nearly bisecting her face with a menacing giggle.

It was the arrogant opening Shen Jiu had been waiting for.

Shen Jiu moved the fastest among the four cultivators; A fact he showcased by closing the gap between himself and her in a split second. Xiu Ya darted forward to pincer her and Shen Jiu aimed a vicious strike for her eyes with his hand. Qi reinforced his swing and the demoness only had time to widen her eyes in surprise before she was forced to disappear and reappear far away from him Shidi.

Blood leaked down her cheek from the small cut Shen Jiu’s sword had caused as it flashed over her shoulder, just missing both her own head and Shen Jiu’s.

He had sent his sword off early on, during her first attack on his back, and everyone else hadn’t noticed its absence until it reappeared in a maneuver that nearly got her. Shen Jiu snatched his moving sword out of the air, spinning to face her again under the shocked gazes of his fellow disciples.

But the demoness turned away and ran off towards the town, abandoning the fight.

They raced across the fields and into the city, sending out attacks when they could afford to as she popped up from time to time with a giggle.

She still infuriatingly got away.

They spent the day recouping and planning out what to do with her if she appeared. They still had yet to figure out where the demoness had spirited away everyone.

Like a game, she appeared again at sunset and the chase began anew.

Shen Jiu was ready to snap.

The demoness was one hundred percent toying with them, appearing and disappearing over and over again. Shen Jiu swears she winked at him a few times between all of her damned giggling. The taunting was getting to all of them, and they were rapidly growing tired of running around like headless chickens.

He Zimu had already snapped once.

Yue Qingyuan had barely been able to stop the man from using a poisonous gas to drop the demoness in the middle of a crowded street, bystanders be damned, and Dai Weiyun had somehow gotten separated and lost. Shen Jiu had silently agreed with He Zimu’s choice at the time, but in hindsight he understood why his Shifu preferred to just let his Shidi rest on the sidelines. The young man saw boundaries and gleefully crossed right over them.

Still, if they had poisoned everyone then the chase would have been over with already.

Maybe if Shen Jiu waited a little longer to catch her, Yue Qingyuan would drop his righteous morals. It would happen if the bitch put one more scratch on Xiao-Jiu.

Night fell and the four were still in a mad dash to catch the demoness.

Dai Weiyun and Yue Qingyuan were at the front, attempting to keep her in their sight and He Zimu was closing in on the side in an attempt to cut her off. Shen Jiu was falling behind to pull out some talismans to slow the bitch down, royally done with all of the playing around. The group of three turned the corner only to find the demoness gone and He Zimu cursing up a storm.

They paused to regroup and catch their breath.

“Mother-fucking whore!” He Zimu shouted out, his final rage-filled cry before Yue Qingyuan moved to his side to remind the man of sect propriety or some other bullshit. Shen Jiu had been the one to teach the young man that curse. Where else would the young noble have heard it?

Shen Jiu was too fed up to care about stupid shit like propriety.

It seemed like Yue Qingyuan was almost fed up with it too. One more chase might even do in the prestigious Sect Head Disciple, the young dragon Yue Qingyuan. That was a funny thought. Qi-ge had had quite the mouth on him when he was a street rat.

Who do you think Shen Jiu learned it from?

The group heard a giggle near the end of the road and with a collective sigh, they all slowly began to move forward to looking for the next sighting of the she-demon. None of them was really that eager to begin the chase again so soon.

Shen Jiu stuffed the talismans back into his sleeve, hiding the fact that he had ready to blow the bitch sky-high even though it would take out the local inns as well.

It would be well worth the collateral damage.

 Shen Jiu moved quietly behind the group.

He was in no rush to be in the front today, senses running haywire with all the overuse of his new skill. His sense of qi was fluttering in and out, overwhelming than nonexistent in quick succession. It helped when he focused on one qi, but he was at the point where even focusing gave him a headache. He was eager for this hellish mission to be over.

His musings over his impending migraine were quickly ended when a hand reached out and jerked the young man into an alleyway.

Another large hand covered his mouth preventing him from alerting his group. Shen Jiu reflexively bit down, attempting to draw blood, but the hiss that greeted the man was vaguely familiar and when he glanced back, he saw Tianlang-jun fucking smirking down at him. The heavenly demon dragged him further into the alleyway.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Shen Jiu whisper-yelled at the demon stooping over him in an alley.

“That is what you’ve been calling me for years now,” he replies, enjoying the look of outrage on Shen Jiu’s face.

Shen Jiu’s fellow disciples were just outside the alleyway. They would notice his absence any moment and begin looking for him. Yue Qingyuan was right there! It was a miracle no one had even noticed the heavenly demon’s presence.

“What exactly do you think will happen when they see a demon looming over me?” Shen Jiu asks irately, crossing his arms in front of himself to keep some space between the two. Tianlang-Jun’s eyes lazily rove down his ruffled-up figure, messy from the chase and being grabbed.

The mischievous look grew.

“No doubt a fight to protect your purity,” he says, smirk widening into a smug smile and black eyes forming crescents.

“You!” Shen Jiu shouts before covering his mouth as both their heads snap up to look at the entrance of the alleyway.

Dai Weiyun paused from walking away and began to turn, so Shen Jiu reached out and yanked Tianlang-Jun further into the shadows of the alleyway, accidentally sending them both tumbling through a side door and onto the floor.

Shen Jiu groaned silently at his luck.

Tianlang-Jun picked himself up from his sprawled position and settled into a kneeling position to check whether the righteous cultivator had noticed the commotions, but no one approached the two hiding in the shadows. He leaned further back to make sure and saw that no one was even around anymore.

Shen Jiu’s fellow disciples had left.

Tianlang-Jun glanced back down at the pretty man sprawled gracelessly between his legs glaring up at him and burst into laughter.

Shen Jiu glared even harder at that, the laughing demon crowding him into the floor as he bowed over from the force of his laughter.

This whole situation was the demon’s fault.

Shen Jiu shoved the demon off him, sending the man sprawling on the floor as well in payback. He stood up and brushed himself off, preparing to leave and rejoin the group, but Tianlang-Jun grabbed his robes.

“I missed you,” the demon stated, staring up at the young cultivator while wiping the tears from his eyes. Shen Jiu sighed at the foolishness of his friend and lowered himself to the floor next to the demon, gracefully this time.

“It has been a while since I last snuck away,” Shen Jiu quietly admitted, feeling himself beginning to truly relax for the first time in a while. The last few days had genuinely worn him down.

“Zhuzhi-Lang even asked after you as well. You know how quiet that child is; to even consider asking speaks of how long it has been.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“So busy you can’t even spare some time for your dearest friend?” Tianlang-Jun teased, leaning closer to the man next to him. Shen Jiu pushed him back, rolling his eyes in exasperation.

Shen Jiu had in truth been busy dealing with rumors coming from Huan Hua Palace, no doubt created by a certain disgusting old man. Shen Jiu had firmly placed himself on the old man’s radar since taking Su Xiyan under his reluctant wing. Between the rumors about himself, the rumors about Tianlang-Jun, and his life as a disciple Shen Jiu had found no time to plan his next escape.

“You’re not wearing the buyao,” Tianlang-Jun noted, reaching for a strand of the young man’s hair.

“You think a Cang Qiong disciple can wear items from the Ghost City?” Shen Jiu asked, leaning away from the demon’s wandering hands. The man had grown alarmingly touchy as time had gone by.

“Even if it’s a gift?”

“Who would gift a man a woman’s hairpiece?” Shen Jiu retorted, but he realized his mistake quickly as Tianlang-Jun’s smile turned salacious once again. He glared at the demon, daring him to finish his thoughts. Shen Jiu would happily leave the demon to lounge on his dirt throne if he spouted anymore nonsense about lovers.

Tianlang-Jun wisely held his tongue.

The two talked for a while longer.

Shen Jiu really wasn’t in a rush to leave and finish the task assigned to him anymore, despite the panic his fellow disciple would no doubt be feeling at his absence and his overall grudge over being forced from his bed to chase a demoness around a shithole town. He was happy to take the time and catch up with his friend, though he did wish they had some choujiu to drink as well.

The conversation was cut short when the demoness Shen Jiu had been chasing quietly floated into the room they were in and bowed. Shen Jiu’s quiet laughter ground to a halt at the sight of the giggling bitch.

“My Lord, I have led the cultivators away as you have ordered.”

Shen Jiu stared at the demoness and then stiffly turned his head to face Tianlang-Jun, an alarmingly blank look on his face. Tianlang-Jun hesitantly smiled at the cultivator next to him, sheepishly sending the demoness away with a wave of his hand.

She left with another wink at Shen Jiu

“You caused this?”

“Now I know that sounds bad-”

“You. Ordered. Her.”

“The missing people are all happily with their lov-”

“YOU!”

“I MISSED YOU!”

-----------

He Zimu was going to have a qi deviation.

The Head of the Hall of Scrolls was sure it would happen sometime in the near future, and he was sure that if things continued as they were, his fellow Heads would be joining him.

It was all Shen-shixiong’s fault, or more like it was all the fault of the damned child his shixiong had insisted on taking in out of spite.

Luo Binghe was a menace. An absolute, unrepentant menace.

The young disciple knew it too and gleefully spent his days bothering all the Heads with his shenanigans and flirting and fighting until one of them exploded and sent the boy off to Shen Qingqiu who seemed to be the only one who could reign the boy in.

Only then could there be peace on Qing Jing peak once again.

He Zimu knew the boy did it on purpose, knew the boy was skilled at appearing innocent when innocence better suited the child’s agenda. The brat could drive his shixiongs who bothered him to kneeling in forgiveness within a week, and the way Luo Binghe could manipulate his shijie’s into defending him spoke of the child’s brilliance, but that brilliance was nowhere to be found in other aspects.

Luo Binghe’s incessant schemes to get someone to give the boy a reason to bother Shen Qingqiu aside, the boy drove the Hall Head’s up the wall with how unsuited he was to Qing Jing peak.

The boy had no talent whatsoever for the arts, though the child certainly tried and had mastered the theory behind it, and if it weren’t for the fact that the boy took to cultivation like a duck to water then He Zimu would swear that Shen-shixiong had finally gone too far in his never-ending quest to spite Liu Qingge.

Shen Qingqiu had certainly outdone himself with this particular act, as the Heads had to suffer the consequence of it currently baiting Ming Fan into a qi deviation by once again indulging in Ning Yingying’s affections.

The Bai Zhan Peak Lord had thrown such a fit after the selection had ended that Yue Qingyuan had actually almost lost his smile. Truly a terrifying action. The brute had had it coming though, what with his unprovoked comments against Shen-shixiong.

To this day, He Zimu and his fellow disciples didn’t understand why Shen Qingqiu didn’t put Liu Qingge in his place and instead persisted in bickering with the brute.

Shen Qingqiu was certainly more than capable of it.

He Zimu knows the peak lord had been more than capable of fucking the brute up since their days as disciples. He himself had almost learned that fact the hard way and he had never been more grateful for the mischievous side of his Shizun than in that moment back then.

Back when Yi-shizun had dragged his ill-tempered Shixiong back to the sect the first time and promptly removed the title of head disciple from Dai Weiyun-shixiong’s shoulders, the whole sect had been flipped on its head.

When Shen Qingqiu had somehow snuck out and ran away a week later, that only cemented the young man’s unfavorable position among his fellow disciples even more. They really should have noticed Shen Qingqiu’s skills then. Few could sneak past their Yi Xianliang’s senses, but they were younger and stupider back then.

Only Weiyun-shixiong had quietly realized and fallen into step behind Shen Qingqiu back then, dragging his sister Dai Jiayi with him. He had not. It took a fist fight to set the proud boy in line, but He Zimu didn’t have to know that fact.

Schemes had run rampant to usurp the new head disciple’s position and his Shizun had enjoyed the chaos that would pop up when Shen Qingqiu would let them occur in an effort to get booted. It never worked in the end and one way or another, Shen Qingqiu would be end up forced by their Shizun into proving the other Qing Jing disciples wrong.

He Zimu hadn’t been willing to give it up though, thoroughly a fan of his Dai Weiyun-shixiong, and had really pushed Shen Qingqiu towards the limits of his patience back then.

It all came to a head when He Zimu had wandered upon a midnight training session between Shen Qingqiu and their Shizun.

It was an all-out, no-holds-barred slugfest filled with brutal trickery and cultivation techniques He Zimu had never even thought to dream of.  Shen Qingqiu would send huge flurries of razor-sharp leaves to rend the flesh from Yi-Shizun who would repay the young man in kind with a blast of qi-fueled winds from his fan. Elbows and fists flew, robes were grabbed and tugged, dirt was kicked up.

They sparred like schoolyard children with the efficiency of killers.

A missed kick shattered the ground and a quick hand seal sent clusters of bamboo to the ground with a quick pass of a sword He Zimu hadn’t even known was in play.

The conversation occurring between the two as they sparred had been even more eye opening and the young man had resolved to never blindly believe anything about or from Shen Qingqiu. The approving smile on Yi-Shizun’s face was proof enough.

It would only lead to disaster, had already done so for some of He Zimu’s more stupid shixiongs.

The young man had never noticed it before that moment, and he could only pay thanks to his Shizun’s mischievous whims that he had had the presence of mind to pay attention.

And pay attention, he most certainly did.

From that night on, He Zimu watched and deferred to the clever new head disciple, and he learned that nothing happened on Qing Jing peak that Shen Qingqiu didn’t allow. Like a mini version of their Yi-shizun, the plots that occurred against Shen Qingqiu only happened because it suited Shen Qingqiu’s whims. The icy cultivator used those plots to solidify his position on the peak and ruin the reputations of the idiots who opposed him, of which there were many in the beginning.

It was terrifying and awe-inspiring.

He Zimu’s new approach to Shen Qingqiu led to a better relationship between the two, and the skilled cultivator’s merciless wit was used less and less against He Zimu. He quickly learned that it was much more fun to be on the same side as Shen Qingqiu and his little group of friends.

Once he stopped fixating on the idea of Dai Weiyun being head disciple, He Zimu honestly enjoyed life on the peak more.

It gave him more time to himself and ignited a passion for studying plant life.

Shen-shixiong’s vast experience with the world outside of the sect’s reach and frequent bouts of running away only to be forced back led to many new things falling into the youngest’s hands for He Zimu to study. His clear brilliance made Shen-shixiong appreciate him more and that further solidified their relationship.

Before the rest of the Cang Qiong sect could even come to terms with the changes occurring in Qing Jing peak, the peak itself had settled into a new sort of peace. One that included the smart people joining Shen Qingqiu and the less smart experiencing a new kind of living hell.

Everyone either wised up or fucked off, which honestly suited He Zimu just fine.

It meant more resources were at his disposal.

 Plus, Shen Qingqiu was a much more competent and helpful head disciple. Sorry Weiyun-shixiong.

And he could outwit Jiayi in an argument which was always a plus. He Zimu loved to watch her face turn redder and redder the angrier she got.

Their little group of three slowly learned to glimpse at the truth underneath Shen Qingqiu’s actions and words and eventually became the heads of the three halls in Qing Jing.

Dai Jiayi became the Head of the Hall of Instruments, Dai Weiyun became the Head of the Hall of Art, and He Zimu the Head of the Hall of Scrolls.

Every head had become the best of the best thanks to Shen Qingqiu’s subtle guidance as disciples and they were all endlessly grateful that he didn’t kick them off the peak when it came time for Shen Qingqiu to take up the mantle of Peak Lord like he had everyone else.

These feelings created a certain amount of protectiveness about the Peak Lord among the heads and as the years passed, they gained a new kind of cynicism for their own sect that was reminiscent of their reluctant leader.

He Zimu and his fellow Hall Heads came to the unfortunate realization that most everyone in their sect and out of it were morons.

They could look at a man like their Shixiong and dare to call him scum and slander his name. Even the Sect Leader Yue Qingyuan respected Shen Qingqiu, and though there were certainly issues between the two that none of the Heads were suicidal enough to touch with a ten-foot pole, brutes like Liu Qingge still kept running their damn mouths.

There was a collective opinion among the Heads that that man in particular needed a good kick in the presumptuous ass.

Dai Weiyun would have happily been the first to volunteer if given the chance.

Bai Zhan mountain was not known for its outstanding mental prowess, but Liu Qingge was a brute to the highest degree. He drove the Heads up the wall and they all took immense pleasure in watching their Shixiong flay the brute alive with his sharp tongue, but Shen-shixiong always held back in their physical spars for some reason.

He Zimu could see why the man had done it when they were all disciples.

Acting incompetent had been an effective way for Shen Qingqiu to pressure their Shizun into giving the position of head disciple to someone else, but their Shizun had been well known for his whimsy and choosiness. Shen Qingqiu’s fate had been sealed the minute the old cultivator had laid eyes on him, but Shen Qingqiu had put up one hell of a fight till the day Yi Xianliang had ascended.

Now though, the low opinions generated from the sparring only served to highlight the stupidity in the Sect. Was no one capable of looking past the face value of anything?

Liu Qingge clearly couldn’t see past his own ego, but surely some other peak lords had brains.

But no one else could do so it seemed. Not even Yue Qingyuan could see through Shen Qingqiu’s actions. The hall heads all resolved to back up their Shixiong.

Even if the world turned against him, they would not.

Jiayi-shijie used her talent for gossip to gather information and shift rumors, while Weiyun battled demons and sold wares to maintain the reputation of their Shixiong. He Zimu himself was often found experimenting with new plants and seals and whatever he could get his hands on that interested him or that his Shixiong asked him to look into.

Whatever their Shixiong needed, they would do for the ill-tempered man.

They owed him that much for his belief in them and his friendship. That decision had yet to backfire on them, even if they themselves couldn’t understand the ill-tempered man’s actions most of the time.

They backed him up when he repeatedly got into fights with Liu Qingge, and they backed him up when he moved to ruin the Hua Huan Palace Sect Master. It didn’t matter to them why he did it. All that mattered was that their prideful Shixiong had someone he could rely on.

That didn’t mean they didn’t take their moments of revenge on the spiteful man.

So, if they were quite happy to send Luo Binghe off to Shen Qingqiu at any minor inconvenience, that was no one’s business but their own.

And judging by the screaming coming from the children in front of He Zimu, it would soon be babysitting time for Shen-shixiong no matter how much he preferred to avoid Luo Binghe. He Zimu couldn’t wait to get back to his studies.

He only needed to put a stop to the fight in front of him before Luo Binghe broke anyone else’s nose.

Ming Fan was curled over, fists clenched over his nose and blood seeping down. He Zimu could hear the boy arrogantly swearing that “No! He wasn’t crying!” and that he “would get [Luo Binghe] back for this, that fucking bastard!”

He missed his time as a disciple when no one had the audacity to fight in front of their martial uncles.

Chapter Text

He Luoyang considered himself a decent Cang Qiong Sect Master, but he wasn’t perfect.

He certainly wasn’t unbiased.

His blatant favoritism towards his willful friend Yi Xianliang’s antics was proof of that much, but all in all he did well to quell most issues before they began. That didn’t mean he was willing to step between Yi Xianliang and Chen Ruolan when they started squabbling though.

He wasn’t that dumb anymore…

Probably.

He watched as his friends and fellow Sect Heads sat in a circle around the pavilion as their disciples slowly gathered in the open grounds below to receive the announcement of who would be participating in this year’s Immortal Alliance Conference.

His friends and himself had truly grown into respectable cultivators as the years had passed Luoyang liked to think when they had the rare chance to all meet up, but none-the-less, some things never changed.

Yi Xianliang still sneered down his nose from behind his fan at Chen Ruolan and the Xuan Shu Peak Master could never resist the urge to sneer back with fists clenched. The only difference between their time as desciples and now was that they argued quietly like respectable adults now instead of devolving into screaming matches…

Most of the time.

He Luoyang nervously looked towards his other friend Lang Liuxian, who looked back in clear amusement. The Bai Zhan Peak lord had always enjoyed watching Xianliang drive the poor woman to a qi-deviation, content to quietly sip tea and then baijiu as the group had grown older.

The older man was slouched slightly, ever relaxed in a complete contrast to the strictness Lang Liuxian held towards his disciples.

The Cang Qiong Peak Lord didn’t know what he had expected from his friend.

The calm man had never interfered before, merely offering an amused quirk of an eyebrow, but somehow the habit of looking his way before He Luoyang did something he would probably regret had never changed.

He Luoyang sighed to himself quietly contemplating his stupid urge to sooth conflicts.

He opened his mouth to end this one, not even sure what had started it in the first place but shouting from below cut him off.

The Sect Heads all turned their heads in surprise.

Lang Liuxian sighed audibly at the sight of his head disciple once again picking a fight with Yi Xianliang’s.

Liu Qingge was already red in the face, two other Bai Zhan disciples at his back as the head disciple stared down three of Qing Jing’s top disciples as well as the infamous Shen Qingqiu. Qi Qingqi was also a part of the ruckus with a few other Xuan Shu disciples, judging by the blatant offense and embarrassment on her face as the lone female in Shen Qingqiu’s gaggle of friends smirked back.

The Heads were too far away to hear exactly what was being said by Shen Qingqiu from behind the head disciple’s fan, but one of the Bai Zhan disciples jerked forward as if to grab him only to be shoved backwards into his fellow peak disciples by Dai Weiyun.

This caused all the Peak Lords to pause, not used to such blatant actions from the usually calm disciple.

A closer look showed that the female Qing Jing disciple was in fact Dai Jiayi as well.

“Your disciples take after you after all in their boorish nature,” Chen Ruolan commented pointedly with a graceful smile.

But, Yi Xianliang smiled back at the woman from behind his fan, not at all ashamed of his disciples’ behavior.

“Indeed. I did teach them not to let bullies go after all.”

Chen Ruolan’s teeth clench behind her smile.

“In what way are they victims,” she questioned flatly.

Yi Xianliang’s expression changing into a smirk wasn’t visible behind the fan, but it was obvious that he was sneering. His eyes flashed coldly at the other peak lord.

“Seven disciples cornering three of my own like animals. What part of that isn’t bullying?” he shot back at the tense woman and her teacup shattered in her grasp, spilling tea across the table.

Wan Bolin, the An Ding Peak Lord, scrambled to pull the papers he had been working on away from the encroaching liquid, having been distracted by watching the two-way drama occurring in front of him. Yet again. For the umpteenth time.

“How dare you call my disciples animals! You-!” Chen Ruolan snipped back, launching her chair to the ground as she slammed her hands down on the table with a thud.

And thus, the two Peak Lords were back at it once again.

Just like old times.

 Lang Liuxian sighed to himself again in the background, running a hand across his face wearily and looking down at his spilled tea wishing it was something stronger.

The man would no doubt get up soon and beat his wayward disciples into the ground for their misconduct, particularly Liu Qingge who could never resist a chance to fight with Shen Qingqiu. He Luoyang didn’t really envy the man for that.

His calmest friend had somehow ended up with some of the unruliest students in spite of his stern approach to teaching.

The Cang Qiong Peak Lord looked down at the loudly arguing disciples and then back at their teachers. There really was a funny resemblance between the immortals currently bickering and the children down there, especially in the case of Yi Xianliang and his disciple.

As he observed them more, the resemblance became more shocking to Luoyang. He glanced between the two over and over again. Their smirks were so similar, their habit of hiding their face behind a fan, even their reserved way of standing.

It was like seeing a parent and a child.

There is no way he thought to himself but watching the young disciple standing down there winding up all those Bai Zhan Disciples with words that He Luoyang didn’t doubt would be just like the ones Yi Xianliang was currently sneering at Ruolan-er put doubt in his mind.

He Luoyang glanced over at Liuxian again, getting a confused look in reply.

He glanced between Yi Xianliang and Shen Qingqiu pointedly before meeting his confused friend’s gaze again and sighed. The Peak Lord leaned close to his friend and whispered his suspicions in his ear. Liuxian rocked back laughing at the ridiculous suggestion, before glancing at the two individuals in question in slight doubt.

No. Not possible.

But honestly maybe…

Seeing the thoughtful look on Liuxian’s face, He Luoyang made up his mind and opened his mouth before Liuxian could stop him.

“When you took Shen Qingqiu in as a head disciple suddenly, I didn’t think it was because he was your child,” he commented.

Yi Xianliang stopped mid-insult and his head whipped around to look at the Cang Qiong Lord with a scathing glare. Every Peak Lord froze as the temperature at the table dropped.

“What?” the Qing Jing Peak Lord asked glacially.

And then the comment sank in.

All the Peak Lords looked between the master and disciple, realization and understanding crossing their faces. He Luoyang cowered slightly, just a bit. Definitely not afraid of his friend’s glare.

Not at all. But honestly yes. He was completely terrified.

Chen Ruolan laughed in a gloating way.

“So that’s why you favor him so! I thought you had gone senile, but it turns out you’re just a doting father!” she smirked happily to herself.

Yi Xianliang’s glacial look matched the one passing his disciple’s face down below as He Zimu loudly retorted to something said by Liu Qingge and more nods of understanding were passed around the Head’s table, Wan Bolin even quietly commenting on the similarities of their eyes.

“Shen Qingqiu is not my child,” Yi Xianliang coolly stated.

He Luoyang nervously ran his hands along his robes as Ruolan-er took the chance to goad the glaring Peak Lord even more. Lang Liuxian rubbed at his mouth, once again taken aback at the way his long-time friend stepped right onto a landmine with naught but a passing glance.

The two friends suddenly remembered why the Peak Lords didn’t all meet up that often.

---

Luo Binghe had once again lost his fake jade.

His dream-self had been stupidly showing it off to Ning Yingying and he had lost it to childish jealousy.

This time around he lost it because the strap had broken while he was sparring with Ming Fan.

His fellow disciple was cursed when it came to accessories.

Luo Binghe had watched Ning Yingying lose a set of hairpins to the boy before and seen the boy himself lose countless hair ties and necklaces. It was no wonder the Head Disciple never bothered to wear decorations. Ming Fan kept it simple and easy, wearing no more than his uniform required.

Luo Binghe used to think that it was because the young man was trying to stand out among the many young masters that lived on the peak, but actually living in the disciple house with the other had taught him otherwise.

Dream-him might have lucked out by being stuck in the woodshed.

So, somehow Luo Binghe was still down his jade pendant in spite of his precautions, but now he had no one to blame but himself.

It was utterly frustrating, and the boy skipped his classes to look for the pendant.

He probably wouldn’t find it, but he was in no mood to attend his classes. His bad mood might cause him to do something stupid like shoving Ming Fan’s head through a table when he inevitably says something provoking. That would get him into more trouble than the Heads would tolerate.

After three months, Luo Binghe knew they had caught onto his schemes.

He hadn’t been particularly subtle in finding ways to meet Shen Qingqiu. The pretty immortal was always avoiding Luo Binghe and if he made the Heads too mad, they wouldn’t give in and send him where he wanted. At least this way, they would only make him kneel for a day or something.

Meeting his Shizun was still an attempt at making water flow uphill.

Luo Binghe kept searching the bamboo forest, grumbling to himself to no avail.

The pendant was nowhere to be found and he had already missed lunch. He would miss dinner at this rate too and he contemplated giving up. Dream-him hadn’t been able to find it either, so maybe the boy just wasn’t meant to have it, but the sound of air being cut with a sword had him pausing. Instead of leaving to head back to the food hall, he turned to follow the sound and was greeted with the sight of his illusive teacher going through the steps of a sword dance.

The immortal was the most graceful thing Luo Binghe had ever seen.

Even the Luo Binghe in his dreams had never seen this and Luo Binghe couldn’t bring himself to look away. He knew that his Shizun had noticed him. The immortal’s expression had shifted from cold neutrality to slight annoyance, but the man continued his dance and ignored Luo Binghe’s staring. The boy was content for once to sit silently and watch and want.

He didn’t know what he wanted exactly, but he wanted.

He wanted in a bone-deep undeniable way, the same want that had driven the boy to the sect in the first place and made his Shadow writhe.

Eventually, that want became the urge to copy the immortal and learn the dance himself.

So, the boy stood and attempted to mirror the man, but gracefulness was not an inherent trait of Luo Binghe’s. He failed quite clumsily, and Shen Qingqiu abruptly stopped moving, staring at the messy brat in front of him.

In his last life, Shen Qingqiu had punished Luo Binghe for attempting to copy him.

The proud immortal had thought the boy was mocking him, but their time together in the water prison had painfully taught the man differently. He knew now that the boy was just trying his best to do as he did.

 He knew back then too honestly.

Shen Jiu had done the same himself in his first life, quietly working through new steps in the privacy of this forest. His temper was such that he hadn’t been able to tolerate clumsy imitation then. He had always felt that it was a reflection of his mistakes.

This time Shen Jiu caught himself with a sigh before he could get angry. The boy could watch and fumble in this secluded field. There was no one here to judge.

But Shen Jiu also knew that such a smooth and graceful dance didn’t suit the boy.

The Luo Binghe of his past had grown into something entirely different from the scrawny child before him, tall and solid in ways Shen Jiu had never grown to be in the real world or this mirror.

So, he switched his dance.

It was a mere whim really. Shen Jiu just hadn’t wished to see anything so pathetic that night.

Instead, he changed to something he had learned from Tianlang-Jun, something powerful and wild, something meant for the unbeatable, and patiently repeated the steps.

Shen Jiu had to catch himself from smacking the clumsy child on the head a few times, but they danced over and over and fell into a quiet peace. No words were passed between the two and they just quietly existed, working through the steps long into the night.

Luo Binghe never found that pendant, but he did find his teacher in the same spot the next night and the night after that as well. It was well worth the trade he silently thought, thanking his mother for such a chance.

He wondered if he could get away with plying his Shizun with sweet rice porridge enough to tolerate the boy bothering him in the morning and the next day and the next.

---

Luo Binghe had been so careful when sneaking into the room where Jiayi-shigu would be holding their lecture for the day. She was notoriously strict. He hated getting caught by her the most because he would end up getting lectured for hours without being sent to his Shizun.

Today, he was willing to risk it, because Ming Fan had spilled his breakfast on his lap and made Luo Binghe drop his Shizun’s breakfast.

It had been an accident, but by now retribution was guaranteed when anything happened between the two. Yingying-shijie had grown so used to their dramatics that she had only sighed and moved to sit with her shijie and shimei instead.

Today’s retribution would be the lecture Ming Fan would get from Jiayi-shigu when his guzheng strings snap.

She despised it when disciples were careless with their instruments, and the beautiful guzheng were her favorite instruments. The lecture would surely be her longest one in a while.

So, Luo Binghe snuck in and was almost finished delicately sawing through the third string on the instrument when a shadow fell over his head. He paused in horror and turned his head, hoping it was not Jiayi-shigu.

It wasn’t.

It was Shen Jiu.

He looked down at the boy with one brow raised, entirely unimpressed.

This was a new low for the little beast.

Luo Binghe only smiled beatifically up at him with a bow of acknowledgement before returning to his sawing. Shen Jiu’s other brow rose as well at the audacity of the child, but in that moment Luo Binghe so resembled Tianlang-Jun that Shen Jiu could only chuckle with a shake of his head and continue walking past the room.

Luo Binghe’s head shot back up at the sound of his Shizun’s chuckle.

It was the young boy’s first time getting caught by Shen Qingqiu and his dreams had led him to believe that he would be getting a whipping for this act, so he had turned to finish as much as possible. If he was going to get into major trouble, he would make it worth it, but his teacher wasn’t punishing him.

His Shizun wasn’t even angry.

He had laughed.

Shen Qingqiu had a pretty laugh.

Luo Binghe lurched away from the guzheng and caught up to his teacher, but the man was already back to his cold look. It was disappointing to the boy. He had wanted to see if the immortal had a pretty smile too.

Not even his dreams had shown him a smile, but real-Shizun was different. Real-Shizun was patient with him, hesitated to even look at him let alone beat him. Luo Binghe wanted to know what he could get away with, if even getting caught damaging Qing Jing property wasn’t enough to make dreams into reality.

“Can I follow Shizun?” he asked, reaching a small hand to lightly grab the man’s robes like he had seen Ning Yingying do. He wanted to know if he could do this.

Shen Qingqiu was quick to yank the robes from his grasp though.

“Are you not doing so now? Go study.”

Luo Binghe paused, hurt by the cold dismissal, before biting his lip and squaring his shoulders. He marched forward and sank his fingers tightly into the man’s robes with a stubborn “No” mumbled from his lips. The immortal let Luo Binghe accompany him at night and in the morning.

He could do it now too.

Shen Jiu’s head shot to the little brat at his side. The boy wasn’t looking at him, but his grasp was iron-tight and the mulish expression on his face was the same one his father would make when Shen Jiu was ignoring him too.

Shen Jiu could rip his robes out of the boy’s grasp again.

It would be effortless for the Peak Lord, but it felt hard. He felt like he just couldn’t do it, even as his heart hurt at the familiar expression, so he just looked at the sky and sighed.

Damn Tianlang-Jun.

The two continued onward, Luo Binghe looking up at his teacher slightly bewildered at his benevolence, and eventually reached the Hall of Scrolls. They walked through the building to a part he had never seen before, surrounded by towering walls of scrolls, and Luo Binghe silently gawked. He had never seen so many scrolls in his life.

Shen Jiu internally smirked at the look on the brat’s face.

“You should consider yourself lucky. Not many disciples get the chance to see the innermost floor of this building, let alone guided by the esteemed Qing Jing Peak Lord,” a voice called from the side.

Luo Binghe’s head turned to lean around his Shizun, and he saw He Zimu-shibo.

The man was smirking from an opening into a room filled with strange instruments.

Luo Binghe wasn’t given much of a chance to look at the inside before the door was closed and the man glided forward, giving a bow of respect to Shen Qingqiu. The man quickly dismissed the boy’s presence and focused only on Shen Qingqiu, which made Luo Binghe scowl a bit and tighten his grasp. He remained holding onto his Shizun, wouldn’t let go till the man forced him to.

“I’ve been looking into that seal you showed me, but it’s quite nasty. What is it even holding?” He Zimu asked, but Shen Qingqiu didn’t answer.

Instead, he turned to Luo Binghe and frowned at the boy’s grasp on him.

“I will give you till this discussion is finished to pick a scroll from the red section in front of us. Read it and I will answer any questions you have later.”

He Zimu made a face at that and went to protest, but his Shizun shut the man up with a look. Luo Binghe frowned up at his Shizun and Shibo, but he knew a dismissal when he heard one and he had already pushed his luck today. He reluctantly let go and wandered off to pick up a scroll.

He’d pick one so challenging his Shizun would have to spend all night explaining it to him.

“Are you sure about letting him read those? You know what those contain,” He Zimu cautioned. He wasn’t sure what his Shixiong was thinking, letting a small child read something so dangerous.

Shen Jiu just scoffed, saying “Luo Binghe will be fine. Now show me what you have figured out.”

The two immortals moved into the room He Zimu had just left, leaving the door open to keep an eye on the little brat. He Zimu grabbed a scroll off of a messy table and laid it out in front of his Shixiong. It was filled edge to edge with the depiction of a seal and small scribbles.

“Seriously Shen-shixiong, this seal is downright devious. It would take multiple people to even use it! When would you have ever seen someone use this? What is it even holding?” he needled, but Shen Qingqiu just raised an eyebrow at him.

He Zimu sighed and whined.

 “Shiiiixiiiioooooooong! You showed it to me without hesitating! What could go wrong?”

“You will sleep better at night not knowing,” Shen Qingqiu said with a small nasty smirk on his face.

He Zimu looked at his Shixiong, already frustrated from figuring out the seal and now stuck dealing with Shen Qingqiu’s insufferable need to never explain anything. He gave up, throwing his hands in the air and huffing angrily, like a simple disciple rather than a Qing Jing Head.

He’d figure it out or he wouldn’t.

Needling for scraps of information was just in his nature. The two turned back to the seal at hand and began to break it down to its smallest components.

---

Luo Binghe never got that discussion from his Shizun.

Shen Qingqiu and He Zimu had talked for so long, Luo Binghe fell asleep leaning against a shelf and woke up in his bed. He fumed for days, silently pouting and causing more mischief than normal, but he never got sent to Shen Qingqiu.

When Dai Weiyun-shibo got tired of him and realized that beating the boy through sparring wouldn’t curb his whining, he told Luo Binghe that his teacher had left the mountain that night, but that was annoying too.

He wanted answers.

So now that his Shizun was back, he was going to get those answers.

That started with breaking into his Shizun’s house. He wasn’t dumb enough to do it empty handed. Luo Binghe would try to bribe the man with his cooking. They had spent enough mornings together for Luo Binghe to notice that the pretty man loved sweets, so he would make the man sweets and then maybe the immortal wouldn’t be angry that the boy was intruding on his personal space.

The boy snuck into the house, shielding his bribe from the pouring rain. It was unusually dark, no lights lit but the one coming from his Shizun’s room. He hesitated outside the door for a moment, before brazenly opening the door with a greeting bow.

“Shizun! This lowly disciple apologizes for intruding, but I made something for you to eat after being gone so long!”

Luo Binghe had his bribe offered forward, worried about the man’s angry reaction, but no reaction came.

Nothing was yelled. Nothing was thrown.

It was quiet.

He looked up and saw that his Shizun was in fact in the room. He was seated at the window, glancing out quietly into the rain. The man hadn’t even twitched at Luo Binghe’s loud entrance. He just remained still, like a painting illuminated by a candle.

Luo Binghe was thrown by that uncharacteristic stillness and quietly moved into the room and placed his offering on the table. He never took his eyes off Shen Qingqiu while doing so.

And Shen Qingqiu never acknowledged him.

Now closer, Luo Binghe could see that his teacher was holding a woman’s hairpiece in his hand, thumb gently smoothing over the carvings. It was beautiful, one long slim white jade piece that was carved into chrysanthemums. Silver was gilded into the carvings and that silver worked to the edges where it met with hanging bells, tiny and delicate.

Luo Binghe hated it on sight.

His teacher was so gentle with it. It was clearly important to the man. Whoever gave it was clearly important.

“Shizun?” he asked gently, worried over the man’s silence.

The man finally turned from the window and glanced at the child.

“You should be asleep,” Shen Qingqiu dismissed coldly.

He was in no mood to deal with living ghosts today. Shen Jiu was already haunted enough by his failure to help out his friend.

Luo Binghe hesitantly smiled at the immortal. He wasn’t sure what to do when his Shizun was being so still.

Like this, the cold immortal truly resembled the cruel one in his dreams.

Caution crept down his back, warring with the spike in interest from his Shadow.

Luo Binghe had never personally received the punishments his dream-self did, but he remembered them. He remembered how frustrating and humiliating it was to be punished for nothing, to have to lick his wounds in a woodshed knowing he had done no wrong.

“Shizun promised me an explanation, but left before giving it,” Luo Binghe explained while bowing his head.

The man before him scoffed slightly, grip tightening on the hairpiece.

“So, you take that as permission to barge into this immortal’s residence?”

“This disciple apologizes for his insolence. Merely was unsure as to when Shizun would fulfill his promise.” Luo Binghe chanced looking up at his Shizun, seeing his eyes narrow with anger.

Cocky.

Luo Binghe was becoming quite the cocky disciple since Shen Jiu had resolved not to abuse the boy.

What other disciple so blatantly pushed their own misdeeds onto their teacher?

Of course, the Luo Binghe in Shen Jiu’s past had been the same. Once the beast believed something was the truth, then it was the truth. No amount of counter-arguing could change the beast’s mind, in the same way that no arguing or proof had changed his foolish mother’s mind. Shen Jiu’s mood further soured at the reminder of the woman who cost him a precious person.

“Get out.”

Luo Binghe flinched at the arctic tone his teacher’s voice took.

In that moment of hesitation, Shen Qingqiu lifted his arm to throw the hairpiece at the boy, but Luo Binghe scurried away before the man could finish the motion.

He slowly wandered back to the dorms in the rain, fists clenched at his own failure.

---

Shen Jiu lowered his arm, hands still holding Tianlang-Jun’s gift.

He had not worn it since the demon’s death.

Instead, he kept it safe in a qiankun bag right next to the well-worn worrying jade hanging from his hip, only daring to take it out on the anniversary of that night. Shen Jiu knew that this time of year always put him in a bad mood; the memories of his own failure haunted him.

Luo Binghe truly had bad timing.

Any other night and Shen Jiu might have been able to brush off the boy’s audacious nature. Any other night, it might have even been deemed cute.

Not tonight.

Not when all Shen Jiu can see is the sum of the boy’s parts.

Su Xiyan’s face and her foolishness.

Tianlang-Jun’s eyes and his bravery.

It was a horribly bitter reminder of just how stuck in the past Shen Jiu could be when he allowed himself to pause. Shen Jiu had never been skilled at dealing with emotions properly. His emotions had always reflected his cultivation, an untamable force that burst out of him leaving only destruction.

Shen Jiu did not dare destroy the buyao in his hands though.

It had become his most precious object, replacing his endless collection of fans that had accompanied him in his last life. In his past, the only thing precious he could truly have had been those trinkets and scrolls, so he had filled his house with them. Endless priceless objects purchased and received to fill a void he had never been able to fill.

Luo Binghe had burned and destroyed them all in the past, but Shen Jiu hadn’t truly cared.

They were just material things, cold and unable to fulfill promises.

This jade buyao though, it was a promise.

It meant he had had someone who would stay beside him till the end. It meant the world to Shen Jiu, even if at the time he had been unable to show how precious it was to him.

Shen Jiu relaxed from his hunched forward position, accompanied by the quiet tinkling of small silver bells.

He turned to face the window in front of him and appreciated the rain pouring from the sky. It drowned out the world in front of him.

His scar hurt.

---

Shen Jiu sat on a tree, hiding from another of Jiayi’s lectures about wandering off, and watched his student relaxing around him.

They were none the wiser to his presence and he took his time observing them at their lowest guards. They didn’t have to act like good children if no one was watching, and there weren’t many good children on his peak.

Good children were nice and naïve.

Shen Jiu preferred children that could scheme.

His best three schemers were the three closest to him.

Ming Fan wasn’t an unexpected person in the group. In fact, when some scheme was occurring, eyes used to automatically shift to the Head Disciple, checking to see if he had a hand in it. Now though, they mostly went to the boy throwing Ming Fan over his shoulder in a move Shen Jiu had taught the brat the night before.

Ning Yingying just laughed at the sight, egging the two idiots on for her own amusement.

Shen Jiu hadn’t expected the small group to get along so well in this mirror world. He had watched Ming Fan’s death with both eyes opened in horror back then.

This time around though, Luo Binghe was different.

The boy was honest and crafty and true to his desires.

He no longer pretended to be obedient and righteous, and Shen Jiu was happy to encourage that in the boy. They had slowly grown to spending their time snarking and bickering while he taught the boy new fighting moves, moves he would have learned from his father had the heavenly demon been given the chance.

Luo Binghe still had the same surprisingly wicked sense of humor he had as an adult even though he was currently a child, when he bothered to drop his innocent act.

Their new dynamic reluctantly endeared the little beast to Shen Jiu, but he also came to an unfortunate realization.

Luo Binghe was an amalgamation of all of the worst traits of his parents.

In the first life, Shen Qingqiu had always silently griped to himself about what kind of people could make such a beast. Now that he had met both parents, Shen Jiu knew what it took.

Trust Tianlang-Jun to make a child twenty times more maladjusted than himself.

The boy had his mother’s face and quickfire temper and sureness that the world was the way he saw it. In the real world, he had had her naivety and willingness to see good in the world too, but Shen Jiu had fixed that back then in the only way he had known how.

In the wake of the changes Shen Jiu had made in this mirror world, he hadn’t needed to fix it this time around.

No, this time around Shen Jiu saw so much of Tianlang-Jun in him.

He had his cruelty and spitefulness, his taste for violence, and his persistence. He also had his smile and his stupid habit of leaning into Shen Jiu’s space to look the cold man in the eyes. His clever laughter and mischievousness were all Tianlang-Jun as well.

It was an unexpectedly bittersweet feeling, seeing so much of someone he loved in the boy. All of those traits had caused Shen Jiu to hate the boy in his last life and resulted in his horrific death, but he couldn’t ignore them in the boy, couldn’t despise him for it like Shen Jiu wanted to.

He could only encourage the boy and hope it would be what his friend would have wanted.

And so, time passed and slowly Shen Jiu was getting used to seeing those terribly familiar eyes on Luo Binghe’s face. With every smile shared over a meal in the morning and every lesson under the moonlight, Shen Jiu learned more and more to let go of his ghosts and focus on the future.

Getting caught up with the past had been the cause of all of Shen Jiu’s suffering in his past life and he would not let that happen again.

Things would change.

Maybe not Jiayi’s tendency to nag, but other more important things would. For now, Shen Jiu would be content with the surprise and joy on the brat’s face now that Jiayi had stormed over and blown his cover.

Chapter Text

Shen Jiu was fifty-eight-ish.

Probably.

He didn’t really know his birthday, but Qi-ge had told him when he had found Shen Jiu as a baby.

Just like in the real world, in this mirror world cultivation had slowed his aging majorly. Unlike in the real world, this time around Shen Jiu had a proper start much earlier. So, the young adult hadn’t stopped aging yet, but it was slow enough that forty-four years passing had only left him looking like a young teenager.

But he only looked like a teenager.

Mentally, Shen Jiu was so damn old that he felt like he should be the one passing out red packets and being called “grandfather” sometimes. Suffice to say, Shen Jiu knew what he liked and what he did not. He could not be bullied into anything.

And yet here he was.

Hot, hungry, and surrounded by sand.

He hated sand.

And the person to blame for Shen Jiu’s misery was naturally Tianlang-Jun. The demon’s fucking magpie tendencies had popped up with a vengeance, sending the two yet again chasing what all things shiny.

And noisy.

The festival blazed on around the irritated cultivator who had half a mind to just fucking leave, but Tianlang-Jun was one of the few people who could laser in on Shen Jiu’s real mood the only other had been Qi-ge and the demon had been swift to get the young man sweets. And food.

But mostly sweets judging by the enthusiastic pile of junk resting in the demon’s arms as he haggled for a better price on some food from a stall.

It was a strange sight, the mighty Heavenly Demon General haggling of all things, but one Shen Jiu had grown reluctantly fond of. How the man managed to look regal and imposing while holding said junk and gesturing wildly to the vendor was a mystery. Drums and instruments fought the noise of the crowd, distant rumbles and vibrations subtly shaking the sand beneath Shen Jiu’s hand.

He hated the gritty texture but couldn’t help burying his hand beneath the sand in search of more sensations.

Time as a human pickle had taught Shen Jiu to value sensations more than any lesson he had learned while trapped in Qiu mansion and handling expensive fabric for the first time.

In truth the two were just buying time, waiting for night to truly fall so they could divulge the local city lord of some muslin fabric he had received. It was rare, it was shimmery, and it was in Tianlang-Jun’s signature colors: purple and black.

So naturally the demon had to have the rolls and somehow that had translated to dragging Shen Jiu along with him. Why Tianlang-Jun couldn’t just drag his nephew along instead was a question Shen Jiu knew only the gods could answer.

That didn’t stop the irate young rogue cultivator from asking, but the lack of answers from the demon hadn’t made him feel any better, so Shen Jiu chose to just let the anger roll off his shoulders with the soothing rubbing motions his thumb was making on the jade tied to his hip.

The young man was fine.

He was relaxed.

He was centered.

He was going to kill the next man who asked him if he was betrothed.

Shen Jiu sent the amorous young man a scathing glare, half hoping it would melt through the man’s face like whatever had caused the scar on his lip, and Tianlang-Jun wandered back just in time to watch yet another hopeful suitor walk away with their metaphorical tail between their legs.

The demon enjoyed the wrathful expression on his friend’s face, munching on a skewer of veggies and holding out Shen Jiu’s propitiation as promised. The demon had gone slightly overboard during his food buying binge, but the look on Shen Jiu’s face said that it was a good thing.

The poor young man looked particularly apocalyptic.

It was unfortunate that Shen Jiu had such a pretty face and body when he had such an imposing temperament, Tianlang-Jun thought to himself, taking in the man’s feminine features.

The heavenly demon had long come to terms with his friends growing looks, often finding himself staring a little more as baby fat slowly fell from Shen Jiu’s face and truly, Tianlang-Jun understood his magpie tendencies more and more as he watched with whom and how he chose to spend his time with others.

Pretty faces were the best, particularly his beloved Xiao-Yan’s and Shen Jiu’s.

---

The air rushed from Shen Jiu’s lungs with an oomph as he hit the sand rolling. The hateful gritty feeling of sand filling his clothes was almost enough to distract the man from the creak of his ribs protesting their flight. His body throbbed, bruises already forming on his side.

Shen Jiu cleared the sand from his eyes and looked up, gazing at the absolute clusterfuck occurring in front of him.

Tianlang-Jun was busy, fighting multiple beasts and mercenaries hired to protect the lord’s treasures, and Shen Jiu was staring down the largest, scaliest worm he had ever seen in both of his lives. It was huge, head pointed and edged in sharp ridges. It’s armor moved around its body in spiraling waves that moved sand around it faster than most could fly.

Shen Jiu had heard of rumors during his last visit to the desert, horrified murmurs about death wyrms from tan-skinned travelers, but he had been fortunate enough to not encounter one personally.

That had just been first timers’ luck apparently.

It had been years since something had sent such horror rolling through his body.

Not since Luo Binghe brought out Qi-ge’s shattered sword.

The cultivator took a painful inhale to bring himself out of his spiraling thoughts and focused on the beast. It had paused, slithering slightly around with it’s head raised, but it was like it couldn’t see the man unmoving on the ground. Tianlang-Jun’s fighting had the beast twitching near, but for some reason it didn’t go for the men fighting in the house.

It could have easily torn the house to shreds, but it didn’t.

Shen Jiu shifted to get up, but the worm’s head whipped around, pausing right infront of the scared stiff man. It was mere inches away from his face, the force of it’s movement blowing his hair back and ruffling his clothes.

In the distance, Shen Jiu could hear Tianlang-Jun’s worried shout, but he didn’t dare move to look away from the lumbering tan beast.

Up close like this, Shen Jiu could see the slit of the worm’s mouth, the threat of being completely engulfed like in the stories he had heard.

It reeked like death.

A shriek had the worm flying past Shen Jiu and bowling him over in its wake of sand.

Tianlang-Jun had grabbed an unfortunate mercenary with a scarred lip and sent the young man flying out past the whole fight and into the sand. He barely had time to struggle to a stand before the beast was upon him, stirring up a storm of sand and disappearing down.

A distant crunching sound came from the ground, blood bubbling up from under the sand.

Shen Jiu took that time to bolt straight to the house, feeling sand give way to rock and then wood. And Tianlang-Jun spun around from his toss, twisting into a thrust that skewered his last opponent before bisecting the mercenary. Shen Jiu paused in his approach, not eager to get mistakenly maimed. The demon made an intimidating sight, eyes cold and in bloodied clothing.

But that moment was immediately ruined as Tianlang-Jun started fussing over Shen Jiu, patting sand off his clothes and reaching to straighten out the man’s tossed hair.

Shen Jiu was quick to jerk away, mumbling grumpily to himself at the new blood smears dotting his robes.

The damn fabric rolls had better be worth all this trouble.

---

The fabric wasn’t worth it.

Shen Jiu had no doubt Su Xiyan would love it, but there was barely enough for more than two outfits. The lord had already used most of it outfitting his favorite concubines.

But, the rest of the treasure in the hidden house had been worth the trek out of the town and into the desert. There was enough instruments and story scrolls to keep Tianlang-Jun satisfied and stop the demon from killing the lord to protest the lack of fabric, and Shen Jiu had stumbled on a lucky find in the form of a book on seal creation.

It was great.

The young man looked forward using it to make even better explosion talismans.

Tianlang-Jun had better watch his ass in the future for what he put Shen Jiu through.

But in order to do that, they had to leave and that meant bypassing the worm that had been shadowing them as they moved through the house, a distant hill moving under the sand.

Shen Jiu’s eyes flitted from the book in his hand to the death wyrm and back.

He had an idea.

---

Tianlang-Jun was floating over sand, at the insistence of his young friend.

He didn’t know why he had to be the one playing bait.

Out of the two of them, Tianlang-Jun was the stronger one who could rescue the other if the situation went to shit. But the younger man had insisted and Tianlang-Jun had grown bad at saying “No” to those green eyes.

So there he was, hovering a few feet above the ground in clear reach of the Death Wyrm, while Ah-Jiu watched from the safety of the house.

He had two bodies in his grip. One was already dead, killed with a careless clench of the demon’s fingers on the mercenary’s skull. The other was on his way to death, passed out and bleeding into his own clothes. Eventually, the blood loss would kill the man and start dripping down onto the sand.

Either result would ruin Ah-Jiu’s fun.

Tianlang-Jun quickly tossed the dead body a distance away from him and the two men watched as the worm dashed to wear the body had landed. It didn’t eat it though. It quietly moved in the area the body fell in, even moving directly under it, but it didn’t seem to notice the corpse. Eventually the worm stopped its searching, settling into a hidden ambush position under the sand.

The man in Tianlang-Jun’s grasp shifted with a groan.

He was regaining consciousness.

Tianlang-Jun waited a moment longer before he sent the man sailing in another direction. The merc woke up at the violent motion, rolling around with a daze. This one was quick to notice the giant hill moving towards himself, and he tried to struggle way, screaming and crying for help.

Shen Jiu watched the worm jump out of the sand and dive down to eat the man.

His suspicions were confirmed, so he called Tianlang-Jun back with a yell. The heavenly demon had flinched at the loud noise, but the worm didn’t react at all. Just like Shen Jiu had thought it wouldn’t.

The worm only reacted to the shifting of sand.

It could sense the two moving in the house, but only the specific cascade of sand caused the worm to attack.

The two friends could yell and scream all they wanted. He told Tianlang-Jun as much, and the demon gave him an impressed look.

Not many could use near-death experiences as learning opportunities.

And this past fight had been the closest Tianlang-Jun had ever allowed death to get to Ah-Jiu. He had damn near had a heart attack, watching the mercenary send his friend nearly flying right into the barbed maw of that worm. Only Tianlang-Jun forcing the fight onto the sand for a few desperate moments had saved the boy from dying when he crash-landed.

Thank the gods human’s had freeze reflexes as well as fight and flight.

Tianlang-Jun just about had another heart attack when Shen Jiu jumped off the house’s balcony onto the sand. The worm shuffled forward at the shifting of sand, already finished crushing down its meal, but Tianlang-Jun was quick to drag Shen Jiu off the sand.

“What the hell are you doing?” the demon asked.

Shen Jiu just sent the man an eyeroll, before he shrugged off Tianlang-Jun’s grasp.

“If you don’t want me doing it, then you walk forward,” Shen Jiu said with vexation.

“If not, then shut up and watch.”

Tianlang-Jun’s fist clenched at the audacity of this brat. He jumped of the porch when Shen Jiu went to move again. And then he walked forward.

Just like what Shen Jiu wanted.

The worm surged forwards towards the walking demon, rapidly closing the distance between the two. The huge wave of sand barreled towards the demon and Tianlang-Jun didn’t show it, but the demon was sweating on the inside. He really wished he had asked what the plan was.

The Death Wyrm was on him in less than a minute, wave disappearing as the worm dived deeper and then breeched. Tianlang-Jun dived to the side, sword in hand, but he wasn’t given a chance to use it.

While Tianlang-Jun had focused on the worm, Shen Jiu had shuffled back into the safety of house. And it was from there that he launched a few talisman that slid into the gaps of the Death Wyrm’s armor.

Its armor may have been tougher than most swords, but the underside was not and the solid walls redirected the force of the explosions inward.

Concussive blasts liquified portions of the worm before it could land where Tianlang-Jun had been, raining blood and guts and body parts all around.

Tianlang-Jun slowly pulled himself up from the puddle of gore he had been splashed wished, dripping with gore that stank to high hell. He glanced at the absolute brat behind him but saw no one.

Instead, laughter came from behind a gore-covered door.

The furious demon sighed to himself and flicked gore off his hands before running has hands through his hair in an attempt to control himself.

It failed.

He dashed into the room, attempting to hug the life out of Ah-Jiu much to the man’s enraged shrieks.

Chapter Text

Typically, Shen Jiu and Tianlang-Jun acted as a duo.

On occasion Zhuzhi-lang would join them, but Shen Jiu had grown to learn that Tianlang-Jun, for all his seemingly laidback nature, had a very strong instinct for possession. What was his was his and what was yours was his too if he wanted it. That instinctual possession mixed with his generally hidden domineering nature resulted in their many escapades and misadventures.

Shen Jiu couldn’t complain, having received many gifts as compensation.

When he had asked Tianlang-Jun back when their friendship had been relatively young about why the demon never wanted to invite Zhuzhi-lang or other minions along to make things easier, Tianlang-Jun had merely smirked and said this:

“Everyone has their own color mask and when you gather people together, they tend to mix. I’m simply enjoying the shades I like best.”

The cultivator had been more surprised at the time at Tianlang-Jun’s own insight rather than the meaning behind it.

Perhaps if he had been his actual age, the weird metaphor would have flown over his head, but Shen Jiu was truthfully far older than anyone could imagine. He understood more than most about the masks people wore and how they changed when interacting with others.

Time with Tianlang-Jun was time they usually spent alone together.

Typically, the time Tianlang-Jun spent with Su Xiyan was similar, if not even more strict.

Whereas Shen Jiu and Zhuzhi-lang occasionally ended up talking or working together, Tianlang-Jun made sure he was alone when with Su Xiyan. Neither Shen Jiu nor Zhuzhi-lang were invited and honestly, Shen Jiu didn’t begrudge the lovestruck demon for it.

The cultivator had zero desire to subject himself to even more dog food when he already spent enough time listening to it seperately from the two of them.

So, sitting tensely while staring down at the food sitting in front of himself, Shen Jiu was discomforted by the sight in front of him.

A few tables away, Su Xiyan and Tianlang-Jun were enjoying a meal and chatting.

The restaurant was noisy, packed with people looking forward to the show that would occur later tonight, but Shen Jiu still felt like he was intruding on something private. His face may have maintained its cold mask, but the man was fighting to keep his eyes on the food and not on his friends. Normally, Shen Jiu couldn’t get within one town’s distance of his friend unnoticed, but today Tianlang-Jun had clearly let his guard down. So, Shen Jiu was accidentally privy to this side of his friend he doubted anyone had had the privilege to see before.

Tianlang-Jun’s face was filled with gentle love and Su Xiyan answered in kind as the two happily talked, hands held on the table despite the inconvenience it caused when eating. The two were clearly happy to eat slowly, letting the food turn cold in favor of spending time together.

Shen Jiu tried not to show how the sight of his friend so truly happy made the cultivator himself happy as well. This was what Shen Jiu had been living for. Hours spent on a mountain he had no attachment to and subtly manipulating morons he would otherwise never talk to were all for this reason.

He wanted so badly for his friend to be able to be this happy all the time, to be able to openly spend time with the woman he loves rather than bothering Shen Jiu with his lovestruck rants.

He wished Tianlang-Jun wouldn’t ever have to sneak around to be with his love.

Shen Jiu had been enjoying his meal before the two had wandered in with eyes only for each other and the young cultivator had snuck out of the sect specifically to see the show tonight, but the man quietly resigned himself to missing out.

He didn’t want to ruin his friend’s happiness tonight.

The cultivator sighed to himself and raised his face to call his waiter only to be met with the sight of a young man blushing before him.

“Is it possible for me to sit here? The tables are all full…,” the young man hesitantly asked.

Shen Jiu glanced around before agreeing. The place really was packed tonight.

“It’s fine,” Shen Jiu began gathering his things, “I was just leaving.”

“Oh, no! Uh, I didn’t want to chase you away!” the man stated nervously while sitting. He could see that the food at the table was still largely untouched.

“You didn’t,” Shen Jiu stated, staring at the flustered man.

“Then please, um, finish your meal? I will feel bad otherwise…” the young man stated, eyes meeting Shen Jiu’s before darting away with a blush.

Shen Jiu was hesitant to finish his meal, his somehow oblivious friends a few seats away, but his movement to leave made the young man even more tense and nervous. Shen Jiu normally wouldn’t care, but the fumbling was beginning to draw stares and he didn’t want Tianlang-Jun or Su Xiyan to notice him and ruin their date.

Shen Jiu sighed and settled in for a long wait, resigning himself to accommodating the young man in front of him in order to not disturb his friends. The waiter came over and took the young man’s order and then left, leaving Shen Jiu to answer the curious man’s questions reluctantly and politely.

Shen Jiu was outwardly calm, but inwardly he was now dying to leave for another reason beyond his friends. He didn’t understand why the young man was so nervous yet wouldn’t stop talking at Shen Jiu. It didn’t matter how increasingly curt the cultivator’s answers were, the young man just kept chattering and involving Shen Jiu. Shen Jiu wished he could be rude, but that would draw attention and attention was the last thing he wanted right now.

Shen Jiu adopted his Shifu’s favored pose of eyes down, face empty and focused on finishing his meal as quickly as possible so he could leave.

The young man in front of him wouldn’t take the hint though.

Shen Jiu tried to ignore the constant noise, relegating it to the background noise of the shop, but the man in front of him suddenly grew quiet.

Shen Jiu glanced up at him in question only to see the young man shifting back in his seat with eye locked behind him, face paling rapidly.

Hands clamped down on Shen Jiu’s shoulders tightly, making the cultivator subtly flinch, and Shen Jiu glanced up and back to meet the smiling yet unhappy face of his friend Tianlang-Jun. The heavenly demon was staring down the young man, imposing presence casting a shadow over the table.

“You were here already Ah-Jiu? I didn’t see you earlier otherwise I would have joined you,” he stated while squeezing his shoulders, never looking away from the poor man in front of Shen Jiu.

Shen Jiu winced.

His shoulders would no doubt bruise, but Shen Jiu knew that the demon didn’t mean to grab so hard. Tianlang-Jun was just clearly displeased to see him, and Shen Jiu couldn’t blame him. The demon’s date was probably ruined now. Shen Jiu was sorry about that, so he didn’t shrug off the demon’s firm grip.

The young man in front of him paled even more at the demon’s clear displeasure.

Shen Jiu sighed aloud, earning a glance from Tianlang-Jun, before placing down his chopsticks and moving to get up. The young man looked like he wanted to protest the movement for a moment, but another glance from Tianlang-Jun had the young man cowering again.

Shen Jiu went to pull his spatial bag out of his sleeve, but before he could Tianlang-Jun tossed out a gold yuanbao.

“Keep the change,” the demon said with a wave as he started pulling Shen Jiu away before the pretty man could protest the gross waste of money.

Shen Jiu wanted to shrug off the demon’s hold and pay for his own meal, but he could tell by the look on Tianlang-Jun’s face that the demon wouldn’t tolerate that right now. He did, however, protest when he noticed that Tianlang-Jun was walking him towards the table where, surprisingly, a curious Su Xiyan still sat.

The young cultivator refused to move forward, pushing against the demon’s guiding hands.

Shen Jiu thought that the woman would have left the secret meeting once she realized she had been spotted by someone she thought was also an orthodox cultivator. This meeting certainly would have been damning in the eyes of a different cultivator after all.

Somehow though, she was still there.

So, Shen Jiu wanted to leave so that his friends could continue their date, but when he went to step away Tianlang-Jun just more blatantly shoved the young cultivator towards the table. Shen Jiu huffed at the forceful shove. It almost dislodged his loose buyao, bells quietly rustling.

His only option was to quietly move where Tianlang-Jun wanted him too.

---

Su Xiyan watched quietly in bemusement as her lover glanced at the cultivator sitting a bit behind her. She had seen Shen Qingqiu from the moment they entered. If it had been anyone else then she would have immediately turned around and left the restaurant, but somehow she trusted the grumpy young man. She had noticed when he saw her and her companion as well. The young man’s pretty face hadn’t changed but the man’s chopsticks had frozen.

And that was it. No disgust. No condemnation. Just acknowledgement of the two’s companionship and that was it.

The way the man quickly acted like he seen nothing confirmed her suspicions that she wouldn’t have to worry about him seeing her. It put her in a quietly happy mood, that someone could see her with her lover and not start judging them. She would likely have to corner the grumpy young man later and talk with him, but for now all was well.

Su Xiyan found the food in front of her even more tasty than usual.

She was content to enjoy the night with her lover, enjoying his every happy smile and laugh. The demon was always happy to ignore others when she was there, giving her his full attention. And she was secretly happy to bask in it, though she would never admit to her lover how much she loved his embarrassing behavior.

So, she noticed when Tianlang-Jun started to get distracted.

Their conversations started to slow as both her and the demon started to hear the quiet voice of Shen Qingqiu. It was way lower to the crowd around them, but by now she was so familiar with the young cultivator that he stood out to her in a crowd. Su Xiyan was a little surprised to see that the same could be said for her lover.

She turned to stare at her friend slightly behind her as her lover became more obvious about his staring and was shocked to see that another person was at her friend’s table.

Shen Qingqiu was no doubt uncomfortable with the young man’s presence, sentences growing more and more clipped as the tanned young man kept chattering. He didn’t leave though which made the young woman frown a bit. That wasn’t like Shen Qingqiu at all.

“Should she go help him?” she wondered to herself.

---

Tianlang-Jun was sorry to say he hadn’t noticed his friend at first. Su Xiyan was the love of his life after all. A demon couldn’t be blamed for being hyper-focused on their Obsessions.

The sound of Shen Jiu’s increasingly unhappy voice pulled his attention though.

The demon was surprised to see his friend had snuck away alone, but in hindsight, the two had both been together when hearing about the performance several months back. Tianlang-Jun should have expected to see his young friend here.

What he couldn’t have expected was that his friend would be tolerating the unpleasant buzzing of a pest.

It wasn’t rare for Tianlang-Jun to be greeted with the sight of someone bewitched by his friend’s looks. Shen Jiu really was just that pretty. Normally no one was brave enough to approach his cold friend and if they were then Shen Jiu needed only to open his mouth to send them scurrying away with their tails between their legs.

Normally Tianlang-Jun could laugh at the sight.

Tonight was not normal it seemed, and Tianlang-Jun could see the discomfort lining his friends shoulders. He could tell Ah-Jiu wanted to leave and badly at that, but strangely his friend was forcing himself to stay.

The demon frowned harder at the pair sitting a bit away from himself and crossed his arms, feeling his hands clench.

Su Xiyan chuckled in front of him, making him jump a bit and pull his eyes towards her again.

“You know Shen Qingqiu?” she asked.

“Ah-Jiu’s an old friend,” he answered somewhat tensely, eyes darting back to his friend’s back.

Su Xiyan raised her eyebrows in bemusement at the form of address and sent her lover a smile.

“Then maybe you should go help him out?” she suggested. Tianlang-Jun looked at her in surprise before smiling radiantly at her.

“You don’t mind?”

“No,” she admitted with amusement, “I was actually about to go rescue him myself.”

Tianlang-Jun gave a small laugh at that, leaning forward to give her a quick peck on the cheek, before leaving to help his friend.

His amusement lasted only long enough to see the presumptuous pest reaching out towards his friend’s hair before he darted forward in anger.

He managed to stop himself from breaking the pest’s wrist by placing his hands on Shen Jiu’s shoulders. He felt the small flinch it caused, knew that the man liked touch even less when stressed, but he couldn’t pull his ire away from the cretin in front of him.

The mortal man clearly knew he was in trouble, but still tried to keep his friend’s attention.

Laughable really.

Tianlang-Jun dragged Shen Jiu to the table, marking the stupid mortal’s face in his head and promising to be back later.

Shen Jiu sat down at the table reluctantly, much to Tianlang-Jun’s inner irritation. Why was Ah-Jiu willing to be with that boring wretch but not himself?

“Hello Shen Qingqiu,” Su Xiyan greeted with a happy smile.

“My apologies for interrupting,” Shen Jiu stated with a small wince. Tianlang-Jun’s jaw clenched harder, before being startled at Su Xiyan secretly placing her hand on his thigh.

“Thank you, but from what I’ve heard our dear Ah-Jiu should always consider himself welcome?” she said teasingly.

Shen Jiu frowned at the teasing woman. Brat.

“Then next time I won’t be so considerate,” he snarked.

Su Xiyan grinned back in reply. She grabbed Tianlang-Jun’s bowl of rice and placed it in front of Shen Jiu, piling meat and veggies into it. Tianlang-Jun laughed in surprise while Shen Jiu grimaced at the bowl.

“Go on. Eat up Ah-Jiu~,” she joked.

“I don’t have any chopsticks, so I will have to refuse you generous offer.”

“Ah!” Su Xiyan said with a fake voice. “Here! I will help then~”

Su Xiyan grabbed a bite with her own chopsticks and shoved them in Shen Jiu’s face with an “Ahn~” sound like he was unruly child. Shen Jiu grabbed the annoying woman’s wrist and tried to force her hand away.

Tianlang-Jun almost wanted to be jealous at the sight, but watching Shen Jiu frown and bicker with his lover was damned funny. She treated Shen Jiu like a grumpy younger brother and Shen Jiu had a strange tolerance for her antics as well.

How long had it been since he had last watched his friend act so childishly?

The young cultivator had been too weighed down lately with sect business and hadn’t acted so freely in a while. Tianlang-Jun had been worried that his friend was running himself ragged.

Shen Jiu started losing the two’s battle, unwilling to grip her wrists harder, and Su Xiyan’s chopsticks got closer to his face. He turned his head to dodge, opening his mouth to rebuke her behavior in front of her own lover, only for Tianlang-Jun to sneak his own chopsticks in with a different bite of food.

Shen Jiu choked a bit and turned away to cough while his supposed friends laughed at his struggles.

The night wasn’t what anyone had expected it to be, but it had been all the better for it.

All three enjoyed the performance.

---

Shen Jiu sat at the table in his house, staring down at the assortment of food in front of himself.

Somehow, he didn’t know when it started, but somehow his morning had grown to include the child happily eating in front of himself. Luo Binghe acted without reservation, eating and chattering and placing food in front of Shen Jiu. Most disciples lacked the guts to act so brazenly in front of the Qing Jing peak lord.

Most disciples weren’t Luo Binghe though.

Shen Jiu spent many nights helping the boy learn different fighting techniques and somehow along the way the boy had taken that given inch and turned it into morning breakfasts and evening study sessions. Shen wanted to protest the growing invasion of his privacy, but when he saw a familiar smile on the boy’s face, the tired man didn’t have it in himself.

So, the boy became a frequent companion.

One that was yet again refilling the man’s bowl in spite of his protests.

“Shizun may not need to eat, but he likes to, right?” Luo Binghe quipped back as he filled Shen Qingqiu’s bowl and set it back on the table.

“Wasteful,” Shen Jiu replied, picking up a lotus root. It was fried to perfection.

Luo Binghe laughed in reply and enjoyed his food.

---

It was something of an irony that the trio before Shen Jiu had existed so at odds in his last life, yet somehow they had taken on the mantle of The Troublesome Trio this time around.

He glanced down at the disciples before him, noting the subtly thrown elbows from Ming Fan and Luo Binghe as Ning Yingying smiled innocently from in front. She may have thought she was hiding their misbehavior, but Shen Jiu wasn’t that oblivious.

Still, he let it go in favor of announcing the mission details.

The troublesome brats and a few other favorable disciples were to accompany the Qing Jing peak lord down the mountain to figure out the reason for the mysterious disappearances of young ladies. He watched all the children in front of himself murmur excitedly at the news, happy to visit the town and for the chance to prove themselves to the picky peak lord.

Luo Binghe was the only one with the sense to put on a serious face at the briefing, ignoring an elbow to his side in favor of glancing at Qing Yingying. She was smiling happily at the idea of visiting the town, which only grew when Shen Qingqiu mentioned that after the mission was over, they all could enjoy the evening festival before they returned in the morning.

This mission sounded familiar to Shen Jiu.

He couldn’t remember why it stuck out in his memory and he remembered no details about the mission itself, but he did feel a vague sense that he had done it before. Over time, less important details had faded a bit from the man’s memory, even before coming to this mirror world, and now that he turned two hundred and twenty-six for a second time, he could remember certain things even less.

Clearly whatever had happened had been surprising, but not important in the long run of things.

The group of ten disciples plus Shen Qingqiu departed for Shuan Hu city on horseback.

Most of the disciples were aware of maintaining the correct demeanor of a Qing Jing peak disciple as they chatted amongst themselves, but it took Luo Binghe less than an hour to decide to chuck the rules into a ditch.

The boy broke formation to ride up next to his Shizun’s carriage window and call out a greeting.

Shen Jiu wanted to groan at the sticky boy’s willfulness, but peak lords didn’t groan. He instead flicked the curtain open with his fan, a frown on his face and rebuked the boy.

“Shameless.”

Luo Binghe grinned in delight and began pestering his teacher yet again.

The disciples all traded awed looks at the back. Had it been anyone else, they would have been sent back to the formation in tears.

---

Old Master Chen held onto his younger sobbing concubine all while going on and on about his woes. Shen Jiu maintained a blank face behind his fan, but inwardly he was disgusted by the lecherous man and his annoying concubine. He knew know what the issue was, could see the skinner demon’s energy shimmering behind the concubine’s fake tears, but this mission was honestly for his disciple’s sake. They would learn nothing if Shen Jiu solved the problem for them.

Shen Jiu sent them all off to investigate and find clues.

He watched Ning Yingying grab her two friends and cart them off in the direction of the nearest stalls, no doubt to shop as well as search, and wandered to the inn to close his eyes and ignore the migraine that had been growing since the morning. It was interfering with his senses, causing lights to shimmer behind others without him trying to notice them. It had helped him to notice the skinner demon, but the crowd around him and outside on the streets left him aching and eyes straining.

The demon could live a little longer in favor of a nap.

Of course, Shen Jiu would end up regretting that when Ming Fan burst into his room in a panic.

“The demon took Ying-er!” he shouted. “And Luo Binghe!” he added as an afterthought.

“Where?” Shen Jiu questioned while getting up from his meditative pose. His senses were already expanding, lights popping up and covering the streets around the inn in a dizzying mass of colors. It sent his head reeling, migraine growing threefold, but he had to make out his disciples’ locations. Everyone was accounted for except the missing two, so he searched farther.

“We were by a rouge shop! I turned around for one second to look at something and they both were gone!” Ming Fan said.

“I’m sorry Shizun! If I had paid more attention-,” he started to say guiltily, but Shen Jiu cut him off with a look.

“Sorries and ifs don’t solve anything. Fix the problem first and then waste your breath apologizing,” he advised.

“Yes Shizun!” Ming Fan replied, sniffling a bit before gathering himself and leading Shen Jiu to the shop.

As Shen Jiu neared the shop, senses expanded way beyond the scope of the surrounding streets and flooding him with information, he picked up on the lights of his two missing disciples. He almost missed Ning Yingying’s gentle orange, but Luo Binghe’s fiery dark red stood out among the crowd of colors in the town.

Shen Jiu sent Ming Fan to round up his fellow disciples and moved towards their location.

---

Luo Binghe woke up to the sound of Ning Yingying quietly struggling and crying.

“Yingying-jie?” he questioned.

“Ah-Luo! You’re awake! Are you hurt?” she asked, still trying to wiggle out of her bindings.

“No,” he stated, taking note of the room around himself and the movements of the ropes as Ning Yingying struggled. “Are you?”

“No,” she sniffled in reply. She had managed to loosen the ropes on their shoulders, but still couldn’t release the tension around their hands and lower chests. The slack in the rope had probably been what had jolted the boy into waking.

Luo Binghe couldn’t see the demon nearby and he doubted that Ning Yingying could either judging from her blatant struggling, but he couldn’t get himself to relax. His Shadow writhed, taking in the situation as well. Luo Binghe didn’t really appreciate its amusement.

He had dreamt about Ning Yingying’s kidnapping last night, but the only thing that had changed as a result of his precautions was that he was kidnapped too. It was embarrassing. And infuriating.

“Ah-Luo do you see the demon?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good,” she nodded. “Sorry about this.”

“What?” Luo Binghe questioned, but suddenly the ropes tightened painfully around his shoulder and neck, choking him. The ropes slackened as quickly as they choked him and he caught his breath, listening in surprise as Ning Yingying struggled even more.

“What did you just do?” he asked, a little irked at the sudden strangulation.

“Sorry. Our hands are linked to the ropes around our necks, but I needed to reach my knife.”

“You have a knife?” Luo Binghe questioned in surprise. The Ning Yingying in his dreams had always been more of a damsel-in-distress kind of girl. He never pictured her as the type to carry a knife.

“Shizun gave me a bracelet that can be a knife,” she replied. It sounded like she was smiling, even as her voice shook from fear. “He said I should always have a secret weapon just in case.”

Huh, Luo Binghe thought. He had always seen the girl wearing the same bracelet, in spite of the terror that was Ming Fan and accessories, but he hadn’t thought anything of it. He frowned at the thought that his Shizun was the one to give it to her, even though it was coming in handy now.

The sawing motions grew a bit more and the ropes grew even more loose.

They were closer to being free, but Luo Binghe heard footsteps approaching and whispered at her to wait. He glanced at the dilapidated door in front of him. Something was moving closer through the darkness.

A white shape.

That shape became the impassive figure of his teacher and the boy sighed aloud, tension draining. “What? What is it?” Ning Yingying quietly questioned.

“Shizun,” Luo Binghe greeted.

He took in the unhappy furrow of the man’s brow as his teacher looked over the two of them and moved forward to release them. In the background, Luo Binghe could hear Ning Yingying happily questioning if their Shizun was here, but she was suddenly less important to the boy.

The man gave the boy a gentle, welcome whack on the forehead with his fan before going to release the children.

Shen Jiu was happy to note that they were unharmed and even happier to note that Ning Yingying was very close to getting out on her own.

“Perhaps I should have come in a bit later,” he quietly stated, taking in the fraying ropes.

Outraged cries of “Shizun” greeted him and the man almost smiled.

Almost.

Shen Jiu didn’t have time to enjoy anymore teasing though, as the demon flashed in behind him with an attack. In a normal situation, the cultivator could have easily dodged the weak demon, but if he did so here then Luo Binghe would be hit instead.

Luo Binghe wanted to shout a warning, but his teacher moved faster than the boy could see. Shen Qingqiu twisted to face the demon, grabbing the clawed wrist and throwing it sidewise. The force almost took the demon off their feet, so they retreated back with strips of cloth in their hands.

Shen Qingqiu frowned and glanced down at his clothes.

Luo Binghe stared at the pale skin in front of him. The demon had ripped his teacher’s sleeve and a part of his robes. He wanted to keep his eyes on the threat in front of himself, but not even his Shadow could focus past the glimpses of delicate wrists and a pale torso. Something pink was on the pretty man’s side. Luo Binghe’s Shadow perked up in curiosity, but his teacher’s robes fell to cover the skin again.

The boy wondered what that flash of pink was, if he could somehow see it again.

The demon in front of them laughed a bit, clearly wanting to gloat, but Shen Qingqiu raised his eyebrow in an unimpressed manner. A hand seal sent Xiu Ya flashing through the air and decapitated the demon before they even had time to blink.

Luo Binghe stared up at his elegant Shizun in awe.

The cold man spun again to face the children, jade pendant sway with the movement and waited. Luo Binghe paused from his admiration and tilted his head in confusion. From behind him, he could hear Ning Yingying questioning the sudden silence as well.

“Shizun?” he questioned.

“You’re still not out?” the man deadpanned. “I will leave first then.”

“Shizun! Wait! Ugg, wait! I’m coming,” the two children cried, struggling and tugging at the ropes frantically.

They never did see Shen Jiu’s small smile to himself as he left, enjoying the sound of children’s tears.

Chapter Text

Back when Shen Jiu was younger and roaming freely, it had been easier for the man to ignore the echoes of his past. Nightmares melted into different scenery and fears washed away with every meal with his friends.

Being at Cang Qiong had been an all-new beast. He would open his eyes and see a familiar room, would look out his doors and see familiar faces.

The man had secretly struggled at first, back on the mountain.

It was Dai Weiyun’s change that marked Shen Jiu’s own.

In his last life, Dai Weiyun had written him off as a weakling, unworthy of his own attention. It wasn’t until Shen Jiu had socially destroyed his sister Jiayi, as they fought social battle after battle for the rights of the top disciple, that Dai Weiyun even considered him. But by then, the man had been content to leave the peak with his sister rather than actually fight with Shen Jiu. They drifted away quietly with the wind back then and He Zimu had also done so, not even a blip to Shen Jiu then.

This time over, those three alone were huge waves. They left Shen Jiu awash with laughter and smiles and concern. It made it easier for him, let him ignore his returning fears.

Still, they overwhelmed him with their care sometimes.

When that happened, Shen Jiu had only his teacher to turn to.

Yi Xianliang was Shen Jiu’s shore.

Yi Xianliang was to Shen Jiu the one true representation of an immortal. He was a prodigy. No one could control his Shifu and no one dared to. Yi Xianliang was everything Shen Jiu had always wished he could become.

The young man had aimed to reach his teacher in every life and this one was no different in that regard.

In his last life, where everyone scoffed and put him down, only Yi Xianliang looked at him and saw his potential. When the whole sect told the man to chose someone better, Yi Xianliang answered that Shen Jiu was best. So the young man had grit his teeth and struggled up to meet his teacher’s expectations and when he did Yi Xianliang granted him the title of head disciple.

Perhaps, that moment had been one of Shen Jiu’s happiest in the past, that one genuine accomplishment.

In this life, Shen Jiu didn’t need to be the best anymore. He didn’t care about other people’s scorn, but Shen Jiu still internally winced as he sat kneeling before He Luoyang, the sect leader, with the other masters gathered around. This would be no doubt another dark stain on his master’s reputation.

Somehow, Shen Jiu felt sorry for this one.

Shen Jiu was covered in bruises and still bleeding here and there, but having two disciples actually fight while on a mission was no joking matter. There would be no healing for the boy right now.

Yi Xianliang stood at his disciple’s side, fan covering the lower half of his face.

It was rude towards He Luoyang, but none of the other peak lords had the guts to speak out in the tense situation. Had Lang Liuxian been there, maybe he would have intervened but the Bai Zhan peak lord was with his unconscious disciple at Qian Cao peak.

Shen Jiu quietly wondered to himself how he could have forgotten about this mission.

Perhaps he was so used to being blamed for things by Liu Qingge, but none-the-less this particular blame should have stuck out in his memory.

They had been sent off to solve some case about people raising ghosts at a temple. All had been going well and Shen Jiu had been content to ignore Liu Qingge’s annoying prescence in favor of Shang Qinghua. At least the two could trade barbs back and forth about the stupidity of others, but along the way there had been more ghosts than expected.

Somehow was appeared at Liu Qingge’s back, aiming for the man’s heart, and Shen Jiu had been forced to save the brute. He hadn’t been able to fully avoid hitting the idiot, but it was better than ending up with a dead teammate.

At least it was supposed to be.

But Liu Qingge was Liu Qingge after all and couldn’t leave well enough alone. The ensuing fight had been fairly brutal, and Shen Jiu had taken many hits trying not to kill his annoying shidi. The man wasn’t at his level yet, but Shen Jiu wasn’t strong enough to avoid fighting him in the first place.

It had taken Yi Xianliang and Lang Liuxian’s intervention to break up the fight.

Naturally that meant that Shen Jiu was in trouble and should be punished for it.

But Yi Xianliang wasn’t letting it happen.

His Shifu stared down He Luoyang and the Sect Leader stared back in a quiet battle of wills.

Shen Jiu stared down at his clenched fists making wrinkles in dirty pants, angry and sorry for the mess. His teacher had always been on his side, somehow, no matter what Shen Jiu did in this life or the last. The man remained unchanging and Shen Jiu couldn’t fight the swell of gratefulness he felt for that, that among all the ripples around him Yi Xianliang remained unaffected.

“Alright,” He Luoyang backed down, “out of respect for your contributions to the sect Yi Xianliang, Shen Qingqiu will spend eight years in self-cultivation as punishment. This hearing is dismissed.”

The other peak lords murmured unhappily at the sentence. It was a major reduction to the proposed flogging, basically a slap on the wrists. Had it been any other peak lord than He Luoyang would have punished the disciple to the fullest extent of the rules, but Yi Xianliang was always the exception they grumbled.

They didn’t know of the silent transmissions that had occurred between the two peak lords, countless arguments and threats from cultivators capable of leveling mountains in a fight until they could reach an agreement.

Yi Xianliang had forced his friend’s hand, now all he simply needed was to provide proof as to why that was the right choice.

The master and disciple walked side by side back to the peak, a comforting hand patting tangled hair awkwardly.

---

It had been two weeks since Shen Qingqiu was sent for self-cultivation. Dai Jiayi had always argued that she would be happy to see the annoying man gone, but she had missed him every day since. Her brother and his little friend shared her sentiments as well.

Even worse was the way rumors spread among the peaks.

She had rallied the other Qing Jing peak disciples and even gotten Shang Qinghua to help rally the An Ding peak as well, but those damn Bai Zhan pests and Xian Shu bitches persisted.

It left a foul taste in everyone’s mouths and led them all to be more wrathful towards other peaks. A sentiment echoed by Yue Qingyuan’s own displeasure about all this, but the boy was busy trying to talk his master down from enforcing the punishment. If not for that, then the girl would have reluctantly borrowed Yue Qingyuan’s power over the peaks as well.

Jiayi fought to maintain her composure, but her hands shook in anger at the woman sitting in front of her teacher.

Yi Xianliang didn’t comment on the harsh clack that followed the teacup placed in front of his fellow peak lord. He actually was impressed at the fact that Dai Jiayi hadn’t thrown the tea in Chen Ruolan’s face instead. Yi Xianliang knows that back in his disciple days, he certain would have thrown it.

Along with the pot.

Chen Ruolan frowned at the rude behavior, sneering out “Mannerless.”

Yi Xianliang sent the shaking Jiayi out with a wave of his fan, calmly bring his tea up to sip at. The tea leaves in the bottom of his cup trembled.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors by now?” She happily gloated.

“You’re not embarrassed having such a lecherous disciple? One that would even seek to harm his own shixiong?”

Yi Xianliang sent her a bored look, setting his glass down.

“Perhaps it because you two are similar,” she sneered. “If it wasn’t for your noble father, I’m sure you would’ve long been kicked out of the sect. It’s only natural that your disciple should be the same.”

“Oh? Who wants to kick him out then?” Yi Xianliang asked lightly.

“Ha!” Chen Ruolan scoffed. “Who doesn’t want that gutter rat gone? The sect head was merely giving you face earlier, but he will be gone soon enough.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“What?” Chen Ruolan questioned.

“It would mean one less person to outshine your pathetic student after all. Incapable teacher, Incapable student.”

“Yi Xianliang!” Chen Ruolan shouted.

“Chen Ruolan,” he replied, cutting her off. “You barge into my home uninvited. You comment on the mannerlessness of others while being mannerless yourself.”

“You! How dare yo-” Chen Ruolan began to stand.

“Even worse, you dare put my disciple’s name in your wretched trash filled mouth.”

She went to slap the Qing Jing peak lord in anger, but she froze when Yi Xianliang raised his eyes from the glass in front of himself. Hi qi broke free from his hold, suffocating stifling the air in the house.

Chen Ruolan could only shudder in place, while both the tea glasses in the room shattered to dust under the weight of his immense qi.

This was the Qing Jing Peak Lord, the prodigal Yi Xianliang.

It had been a long time since the man had last had to show his prowess, long past the petty struggles of the mortal world. Many had forgotten just what it meant, that no one would dare challenge him; not even their own sect leader.

Chen Ruolan could tell from his qi, that the man sitting calmly in front of her could ascend at any moment if he so wished. Yi Xianliang was here because he chose to be, not because he had to be.

Unlike her.

“If this was a normal day, I would ignore your blatant ignorance. Like the buzzing of a fly, It’s beneath me to even bother with it,” Yi Xianliang commented lightly.

“But you are making things harder on my disciple and I will not allow that,” she gulped as the man’s tone dropped, finally showing hints of the displeasured crushing her where she stood.

 “So, I invite you to contemplate how insignificant I find you.”

It was a threat, one Chen Ruolan couldn’t ignore with the pressure looming over her.

She swallowed and rushed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind herself. The overpowering qi disappeared as the door closed, leaving her gasping against it.

To her side a sigh sounded out and Chen Ruolan jumped, meeting the pitying stare of Lang Liuxian. At his side, a sweaty and shaking Liu Qingge sat, covered in bruises.

“You just had to wind him up again, didn’t you?” the man comment, like she was a moron.

---

This was it. This was going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

All the collective peak lords at the meeting held their breaths.

Yue Qingyuan may have had a reputation outside of the sect for being an untouchable prodigy that had gone toe-to-toe with Tianlang-Jun, but in the sect, he was considered somewhat of a pushover. He was a very good sect leader, but he was content to let everyone just do their own thing. Rarely did he ever intervene, particularly when Shen Qingqiu was involved, but when he did the perpetrators learned to regret their actions very quickly.

In this particular case, Liu Qingge sat mulishly on his knees, but with the way his shoulders were rising to his ears, it was obvious that Yue Qingyuan’s staring was getting to him. The man wasn’t lightly smiling for once and Shang Qinghua had the feeling that Yue Qingyuan might actually beat Liu Qingge into a pulp.

It would make sense.

Shen Qingqiu had ended up injured from this particular fight after all, and nothing mattered to Yue Qingyuan like Shen Qingqiu did, even if the two were estranged for some unknown reason.

It had all started with a mission.

In truth, the mission was originally for Shang Qinghua.

Mu Qingfang had heard rumors about a flower that could revive the dead, and since Shen Qingqiu’s penchant for wandering as a disciple had put him in the mountains where the flower was rumored to be before, Shang Qinghua had opted to go on a small trip with his shixiong.

A nice little day trip with a man that truthfully scared him to death.

The schemes Shang Qinghua had watched Shen Qingqiu pull off like it was nothing would haunt the man. Pinning the blame of a water demon that had been drowning many local boats on Huan Hua palace had been truly impressive, particularly since the Huan Hua Palace had had absolutely nothing to do with the little town it had occurred in. They probably didn’t even know it had existed in the first place.

The golden sect was still trying to recover from the resulting smear campaign.

It was no problem though.

They didn’t have any issues, though Shang Qinghua had the sinking suspicion that Shen Qingqiu actually knew what he was up to with Mobei-jun, and the two had slowly gained the habit of quietly sneering about the incompetence of the other peak lords when no one was looking. It didn’t change the fact that Shen Qingqiu was a scary man, but in comparison to the other peak lords that treated him like dirt, Shen Qingqiu’s general dislike for everyone was a step up.

Everything had been going fine. Huan Hua’s Gongyi Xiao was a polite and well-mannered kid and Shen Qingqiu was actually in a good mood, so the whole trip there was actually pleasant. Shang Qinghua had enjoyed the sunlight filtering through the trees and the sound of Shen Qingqiu’s bells chiming in the wind and allowed himself to relax for once, knowing that though Shen Qingqiu played at being an inept fighter, the man was anything but.

His shixiong would handle trouble better than he himself could.

At least, that’s what Shang Qinghua had believed till trouble came in the form of a tiny snake and a missing flower. When they had arrived at the rumored destination, the supposed flower was already gone. They could see signs that something had been dug up, but whoever had done it was long gone. It was disappointing, but in truth the trip itself had been a relaxing time off for Shang Qinghua, who was usually busy dealing with the never-ending list of needs given to him by the peak and Mobei-jun. He was already dreading the walk back to the sect as the group finished inspecting the area when a small snake caught his sight.

He almost couldn’t believe his fucking eyes.

The infamous general Zhuzhi-lang was brazenly slithering towards his shixiong. There was no way Shen Qingqiu had not noticed the demonic qi, but the man had stoically continued his conversation with Gongyi Xiao. The snake even quietly touched Shen Qingqiu’s ankle, but the man just kept trying to convince the boy to…

Was Shen Qingqiu trying to poach Huan Hua Palace’s head disciple? With a demon brushing against his ankle?

Shang Qinghua needed a drink. He couldn’t handle this right now.

---

Shen Jiu liked Gongyi Xiao.

He didn’t snark back like a certain brat and the young cultivator had a lot of potential and was well-mannered on top of being humble. The boy was wasted on the rot that was Huan Hua Palace. Shen Qingqiu couldn’t wait until that sect could be burned to the ground. In his past, Shen Qingqiu had been too busy raging at the world around him to pay much attention to the Huan Hua Sect. He had stopped a few schemes and stepped on the palace master’s proverbial toes from time to time, but it had been no more than any other competing Sects, so Shen Jiu had been content to let sleeping scumbags lie.

 But burning everyone around him had not made him feel better about himself, nor had it resulted in a happy ending. He had become self-aware enough to realize that as he traveled, but Shen Jiu had always been a raging flame under an icy exterior. In this mirror world, Shen Jiu would take a page from Luo Binghe’s book and concentrate his rage at his enemies alone like a tempered blade.

He was mature enough now in his old age to not popoff at everyone.

Which is why, when Liu Qingge came bursting through the foliage into the clearing ready to fight a demon that may or may not have been using Shen Jiu’s presence to hide the fact that he was slinking away when he should have already been long gone by now as they had planned, Shen Jiu bit his tongue and held off any biting remarks about the brute’s lack of decorum.

It wouldn’t do to pull the brute’s attention to the little snake slinking past him.

But the man himself apparently had his own plans, instantly zeroing in on their group, eyes flicking over the three cultivators before focusing on Shen Qingqiu. Shen Jiu could already see the disparaging remarks forming in Liu Qingge’s head. It was all the man was good for after all beyond fighting, but Shen Jiu would not react.

Not this time.

Not when he was trying to maintain the image of a lofty Peak Lord from the prestigious Cang Qiong Sect.

“What is going on here? You consort with demons now as well Shen Qingqiu? Was sleeping around and attempting to kill me when my back was turned not enough?” Liu Qingge remarked as he stalked forward.

Shen Jiu had in fact not matured as much as he thought.

Gongyi Xiao would no doubt never agree to join Cang Qiong now.

---

One anger fueled brawl in front of an astonished Huan Hua palace disciple later, Shen Qingqiu was visiting Mu Qingfang for a broken wrist and Yue Qingyuan was in front of a bruised but unrepentant Liu Qingge.

That the man was kneeling like a child in the first place had to be embarrassing for the Bai Zhan peak lord, but Yue Qingyuan didn’t give a damn.

He knew he had a reputation as a pushover.

He had always gone out of his way to give Xiao-Jiu anything he could want in spite of the man’s cold-shoulder, would always continue to do so if it meant he could talk to the man, but that didn’t mean Yue Qingyuan had as much patience for everyone else. Liu Qingge in particular tested his patience time and time again with the way he constantly harassed Xiao-Jiu. No amount of gentle scolding would deter the man.

This time would not end so nicely.

Yue Qingyuan was not naïve. He knew Xiao-Jiu was not a nice person. He knew the man schemed and plotted at all times, but so far none of his schemes had negatively affected the sect. Yue Qingyuan knew Xiao-Jiu was up to something, the man always was, but his friend could burn the world to the ground and Yue Qingyuan would still defend him.

He owed the icy man that much.

 In truth, despite the denials of Xiao-Jiu and Shang Qinghua, there had probably been a demon there like Liu Qingge said. Xiao-Jiu had still not kicked his habit of rubbing his thumb against something when lying after all and Yue Qingyuan liked to think that he still somewhat knew the man despite their strained relationship.

For all that he couldn’t understand the way Xiao-Jiu thought, couldn’t peer into his head and get a glimpse of the way the unpredictable man viewed the world, their time together as street rats had allowed him to read Xiao-Jiu’s body movements. He knew the way the man’s brow would twitch and crease when angry and how he would turn his head away from any food he truly wanted and feign disinterest. He even knew when Xiao-Jiu was about to throw a punch. Every little thing was engrained into Yue Qingyuan’s memory, every memory revisited over and over again when he had thought he would never see Xiao-Jiu again.

So, he knew Xiao-Jiu was lying, had watched the man rub his thumb on a well-worn spot of the old jade the Peak Lord always wore.

He just didn’t care.

No matter what Xiao-Jiu had done, Yue Qingyuan would not punish the man.  Xiao-Jiu had been punished enough in his life and as long as Shen Qingqiu fulfilled his duties as Peak Lord, Yue Qingyuan would bear all of his unkindness and misdeeds willingly. Xiao-Jiu didn’t need to feign being righteous or nice. Nicety was for people like Yue Qingyuan who truly didn’t care about anything beyond a surface level interest and Xiao-Jiu cared too much to be a nice person.

It was one of the reasons Yue Qingyuan had been content to let the man do as he pleased, plus Xiao-Jiu was discreet about the way he did things. Yue Qingyuan trusted the man would keep himself out of too much trouble. His Shizun had treated Shen Qingqiu’s teacher in much the same way.

Unfortunately, trouble seemed to fall at the man’s feet all the time.

Rarely was there a time when someone wasn’t bothering Xiao-Jiu. It was downright impossible to get Xiao-Jiu alone these days, so Yue Qingyuan schemed up little ways to visit. A gift here, a mission there, whatever it took to get a moment of Xiao-Jiu’s attention.

The man always discouraged it.

In front of others, Xiao-Jiu treated Yue Qingyuan like a stranger and demanded the same of him in return. Yue Qingyuan didn’t like it, didn’t understand the reason behind the cold behavior that had only gotten colder since he had taken in the newest set of disciples. When Xiao-Jiu had just joined the sect, Yue Qingyuan had expected rage. Xiao-Jiu had never been the type to hold back his scathing statements and he deserved every sting of the beautiful man’s ire, but it had never come. Instead, Yue Qingyuan had been treated with a coldness that scared him.

It was like they had never been friends in the first place.

That rattled Yue Qingyuan down to his bones. He had just gotten his friend back, just felt the world settle around him, only to potentially lose him again.

So, Yue Qingyuan pandered and pestered and made a general nuisance out of himself in Xiao-Jiu’s eyes.

His reputation as head disciple had taken a hit, but Yue Qingyuan had never cared about his fellow disciple’s opinions in the first place. None of them had seen him for the failure that he was. Only Xiao-Jiu could see past the mask of Yue Qingyuan to the street rat who lived beneath. It had all come to a head when Xiao-Jiu finally thankfully lost his temper and Yue Qingyuan was faced with a question he couldn’t bear to answer.

The silence that night had lasted long into the coming days, but Yue Qingyuan couldn’t stay away so they worked to a new normal. One where they acted like no more than distant sect members in public, but when they were alone, they could quietly talk and exist.

They both ignored the silent weight of unanswered questions in exchange for the chance of being just Xiao-Jiu and Gi-ge. Yue Qingyuan treasured those moments, but as they both grew in cultivation and reputation those moments became rarer and rarer. Yue Qingyuan could no longer go on random missions with Xiao-Jiu where they could waste time eating tanghulu and walking the night markets. And after the fight with Tianlang-Jun, Yue Qingyuan’s relationship with Xiao-Jiu only got more strained for some unknown reason.

By the time they had worked back to a relationship as fellow sect disciples, they both had become Peak Lords and their new positions required that one of them was in the sect at all times, baring exceptions like the conference or meetings between sects. They were just too busy to meet as often as Yue Qingyuan would have liked.

Even harder was finding a time when someone wasn’t near the man.

Between the Qing Jing Peak Heads always butting in and offering tea, Liu Qingge’s incessant need to fight, and Luo Binghe’s vexing stickiness, Yue Qingyuan could get no time with Xiao-Jiu. It was taking a surprisingly large toll on Yue Qingyuan’s patience, and this newest fight was just what he needed to explode for once.

Liu Qingge was completely unrepentant despite having broken Xiao-Jiu’s wrist.

Bruises were normal in a fight, but breaking bones was not, especially not of someone like Xiao-Jiu’s caliber. It meant a lot of force had been used, excessively so, and Xiao-Jiu did not deserve that from anyone, let alone his disrespectful Shidi. So, Yue Qingyuan would make sure that Liu Qingge understood this time.

He dismissed Shang Qinghua and the others attending the meeting but forced Liu Qingge to remain. The scolding he had already received in front of the others had done nothing to reduce the Bai Zhan Peak Lord’s ire.

“You understand what you did was unacceptable,” Yue Qingyuan stated while staring down at his Shidi.

Liu Qingge just bristled more. Why was he in trouble? He had done nothing wrong?! Shen Qingqiu was the scumbag here, consorting with demons of all things. If word got out, it could ruin the sect could ruin Yue Qingyuan who was known to dote on him.

“I don’t. I don’t understand aLL!” Liu Qingge retorted. “Why do you let him get away with this? Aren’t You supposed to-“

“Enough!” Yue Qingyuan yelled as he slammed his fist on the table in front of him.

Liu Qingge stopped short.

He had never seen his Shixiong raise his voice, never seen him so genuinely angry. Yue Qingyuan stared at the young man before him, the man who had always looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky, and he sighed.

“I don’t care what Shen Qingqiu did. I don’t care what schemes he is up to. I just care that in the resulting fight, even though you only have bruises, he walked away with broken bones.”

Liu Qingge’s face shifted a bit. He hadn’t meant to go so far.

He had just been so angry at that scumbag, so incensed by the man’s words and the situation. Their spar had gotten brutal so quickly and Shen Qingqiu had, in spite of provoking him, clearly held back and pulled his punches. Liu Qingge had simply wanted the man to face him seriously, to stop lying for once in his life, that he had accidentally shattered the man’s wrist. The resulting elbow to Liu Qingge’s face had been dirty, brutal, and quicker than any movement from Shen Qingqiu before. It was the fastest a fight between them had stopped.

It was proof Shen Qingqiu had always been holding back.

Liu Qingge spent the rest of the group’s trip back to the town to drop off Gongyi Xiao, stewing in rage and watching Shang Qinghua and that Huan Hua disciple flutter around Shen Qingqiu like he was dying. Shen Qingqiu himself had carried on like his lower arm wasn’t hanging limp, hiding the injury behind his back. When the three Peak Lords had returned, Mu Qingfang and Yue Qingyuan were already aware of Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu’s fight Shang Qinghua that fucking tattletale and Shen Qingqiu’s arm had needed to be rebroken to make sure the bones healed correctly.

For that at least, Liu Qingge felt sorry. Shen Qingqiu was a lying bastard, but Yue Qingyuan was not wrong in saying he had gone too far.

Liu Qingge silently sat and looked at the tired look on Yue Qingyuan’s face. It seemed today would be a day of firsts for him. The first time he had gone too far in a spar, the first time he had seen his Shixiong lose his temper, the first time he had seen his Shixiong look so tired.

Liu Qingge didn’t feel guilty for calling out Shen Qingqiu, but he did feel guilty for upsetting Yue Qingyuan. So, he would lay the topic to rest and never bring it up again, Liu Qingge decided. If Yue Qingyuan refused to acknowledge the terrible things Shen Qingqiu did, then Liu Qingge would at least make sure that none of Shen Qingqiu’s actions could stain the man before him.

His Shixiong was too important for that.

---

Luo Binghe was lying in the shade of a tree, waiting once again for the chaos that followed a good prank on Ming Fan-shixiong. The head disciple was always followed by an amused Yingying-shijie to hopefully deescalate the situation, but Luo Binghe never really wanted that.

He wanted the Heads involved after all. It was one of the few ways he could actually see his Shizun, who avoided others like they were diseased. The man was elusive, not that Luo Binghe could blame him what with the way everyone around them seems to have soup for brains, but he avoided the boy even more than others. Shen Qingqiu was subtle about it, but everything about the man stood out to Luo Binghe. Of course his Shizun would though.

The icy immortal was the only other person who didn’t follow Luo Binghe’s dreams.

Luo Binghe had lived his whole waking life vaguely spoiled by his dreams. It made it hard for him to be anything other than bored. When he knew bad things were coming, he could change his actions and avoid it. He could also choose to act the same as dream he and receive the kindness that dream-him so cherished, but knowing the kindness was coming dulled the act.

Experiencing a surprise act of kindness would always be more fulfilling than expecting it, he found.

In that respect, Luo Binghe had grown to despise his dream-self more and more after a few years on Qing Jing Peak, had grown to harmonize with his shadow more.

The boy in his dreams was a dull, naïve fool. Dream-him looked at the world and expected to be given happiness. Dream-him looked at a teacher that had only ever sneered and punished and expected to be given kindness. Perhaps Luo Binghe was a cynic. A person couldn’t live with the knowledge he had without becoming one, but the stupidity of the child in his dreams made him agree increasingly with his Shadow. He had feared it’s cruelty as a child, had seen the way it’s anger scared his mother, and so he had tried to be that naïve child from his dreams.

He could never stop watching though, his three-string cacophony becoming almost two versus one. His dreams had taught him to watch the world around him rather than superimpose his own idea of it and be disappointed when it didn’t follow his ideas.

That habit had served him well.

On his journey to the mountain, observing his vague dreams had led to him noticing his dream-self’s many faults and he had thusly worked to do better. Dream-him may have been a blind failure whose only worth was a whipping boy, but not Luo Binge. Luo Binghe wouldn’t allow that, would make the untouchable immortal look his way. And in spite of his rough start, Luo Binghe did find that things were different.

Watching Shen Qingqiu so closely, both the dream version of the man and the real one, Luo Binghe had learned many things.

The man may have fulfilled the role of lofty immortal, but he was truthfully a cruel and spiteful man. His ill-temper burned anyone he aimed it at, but Dream-Shizun was a different creature from Real-Shizun. Dream-Shizun was like a beast with its foot caught in a trap, snarling at any who approached. Dream-Shizun had nothing but anger and pain to accompany him.

Real-Shizun was focused.

He allowed himself to fall into the role of Qing Jing Peak Lord, but he didn’t care about it. He didn’t really care about anything actually. He just used whatever was offered to him to fulfill a goal Luo Binghe couldn’t see. The man was working towards something, something that had him creating and using his bad reputation to make others see only what he wanted.

And his Shizun wanted something; Luo Binghe just couldn’t figure out what it was.

No amount of pestering let the boy see through the Peak Lord’s actions, nor did it explain why his Shizun moved differently from what his Dream-self did. It frustrated Luo Binghe, so the boy watched the man harder and learned.

The immortal didn’t value blind faith and righteousness. No, the immortal valued cunning and power. It showed in his allowance of bullying on the peak. Those who were stupid were caught and punished. Those who weren’t were rewarded.

Ming Fang was the best example of this.

The boy wasn’t really much more talented in cultivation than his fellow disciples. Instead, he defended his position with a viciousness that resembled his Shizun. If Shizun was to choose a disciple just on cultivation aptitude, he would have chosen Yingying-shijie after all. Shizun clearly liked her more and spent more time improving her abilities as a cultivator one on one.

Luo Binghe often thought that it was ironic that Ming Fan was so head over heels over the one person who was truly a threat to his position. If only she would get over her naivety, Luo Binghe thought as he shifted his position at the distant sound of screaming.

Ming Fan truly had quite the set of lungs on him.

Perhaps next time, instead of itching powder, Luo Binghe should bribe a Qian Cao disciple for an herb that made it impossible to speak. Luo Binghe had seen it used once in some vague dream, had felt his Shadow’s amusement at its use even if Luo Binghe could no longer remember the specifics in the waking world.

It would be interesting to watch the head disciple’s face turn bright red in anger and the resulting spar would guarantee a trip to his Shizun. He had made sure to bother the Hall Heads so much that they simply didn’t bother with him anymore after all.

Since his Shizun preferred vicious people, Luo Binghe had resolved to be vicious, but he didn’t need to. Viciousness was second nature to the boy, his Shadow increasingly more familiar to himself as he got older and realized the merit that came from being less like Dream-him. Dream-him was an outcast who only had Yingying-shijie’s pity as a safe harbor. Dream-him had never received an ounce of kindness from his Shizun.

Luo Binghe was not an outcast.

Luo Binghe knew how to get on others’ good sides, knew how Qing Jing disciples valued schemes and cleverness. Now he had many Shijie who doted on him and many Shixiongs who would pat him on the back for a well-crafted prank as long as it wasn’t aimed at them. Now he could be his true-self, could express his more unsavory emotions and ideas and receive advice, rather than the gentle admonishment dream-Ning Yingying gave him. Luo Binghe may not have gotten a lot of kindness from his Shizun yet, but the man clearly didn’t hate him like he had Dream-him.

In fact, from all of the time Luo Binghe spent over the last few years bothering the man, Luo Binghe had even received his approval.

It was hard to notice and often given like it pained the man to say so, but the icy man’s eyes told the boy just how much he approved of his mischievous activities. Provided that the only person to bother him about them was Luo Binghe himself.

That suited Luo Binghe just fine.

He really didn’t want to share his Shizun with anyone else.

It was why he had switched his strategy from clinging onto Yingying-shijie, whom Shen Qingqiu spent more time with than the other disciples, to making trouble in the first place. It made the man look at him and him alone, even if it was just to criticize his fighting form or how poorly planned his prank was.

And this prank was certainly poorly planned.

Luo Binghe usually did so purposefully. He could only get sent to Shizun if he got caught after all, but in this case, Luo Binghe had just been kind of bored. His Shizun had gone off on a small trip to get some flower and had just gotten back. Gossip said that it hadn’t gone so well, what with the way the Bai Zhan Peak Lord had been scolded by the Sect Leader, and Luo Binghe wanted a reason to see his angry Shizun and give him some sweets he had made.

The ill-tempered man really loved sweets.

---

Shen Jiu had returned to his peak later than he wanted, tired and aching, only to be pestered by his Hall Heads. They had noticed his injuries and fussed and fumed and made general nuisances of themselves as they decided to take over his job for the day, but Shen Jiu had been grateful to be able to just go to sleep instead of dealing with whatever else was occurring for day.

So, he had gone to sleep and it had for once been one without dreams, but Shen Jiu was never the lucky type and someone was lurking in his room. He opened his eyes to see Luo Binghe leaning over him, staring at him, and had naturally gone to punch the mischievous brat in the face.

The pain rocketing up his shoulder and the realization that it was in fact Luo Binghe leaning over him managed to stop him inches from actually hitting the brat. Damn the boy for returning actions one thousand-fold and damn Liu Qingge for his brutelike strength. Shen Jiu just wanted to sleep. Was that too much to ask?

Shen Jiu sighed to himself, holding his healing arm to his chest and moved to sit up, but the boy was still leaning over the man. In fact, the boy hadn’t reacted at all to nearly being punched. He had merely shifted his eyes from Shen Jiu’s face to the man’s arm and stared at the bandages. The look in the boy’s eyes was one Shen Jiu had seen before in his last life. It promised pain and retribution and for the life of him, Shen Jiu couldn’t think of what he could have done to put such a look on the brat’s face. He just couldn’t catch a break.

---

Luo Binghe snuck into his Shizun’s room.

By now they had formed enough of a relationship that Luo Binghe could expect to automatically be sent to his Shizun when trouble occurred. That hadn’t happened tonight, and Luo Binghe had been willing to bet that it was because his Shizun couldn’t be bothered.

So, Luo Binghe felt that he had to grace the beautiful man with his presence anyways. The candy may not be as fresh, but he knew his Shizun would like it anyways and his Shizun had always advised that doing what you wanted was best.

Luo Binghe was annoyed at not being able to see his teacher and so he did as he wanted. He was simply following his teacher’s teachings.

He was surprised to find the man sleeping though.

It wasn’t uncommon for his teacher to greet him with sharp words and a thrown brush, tired and irritated from paperwork and people bothering him the few times Luo Binghe had been audacious enough to sneak in. Luo Binghe had never seen the man sleep before. His face was calm, a serene and cold beauty. Luo Binghe felt that if he didn’t move closer to the immortal, he would never be able to do so ever again, so he moved closer and took his time to observe the sleeping man.

 Normally pinched brows were relaxed, no sneers or frowns to greet his wandering eyes.

The sight left Luo Binghe quiet and hesitant to even bother the immortal.

The immortal looked like he would shatter to pieces if someone tried to wake him. Pale silk for skin and the thinnest threads of soft black hair looked so soft to the touch, a doll created and thrown away by the gods. Luo Binghe wanted to touch him, was scared to shatter him, wanted to crush his bones in his hands.

Unconsciously, Luo Binghe had drifted close enough to feel the man’s gentle breaths on his face, leaning over the sleeping beauty.

When his Shizun’s mise celadon eyes opened, Luo Binghe felt burned by their intensity. The rapid flash of shock to anger at being awoken to recognition hypnotized Luo Binghe to stillness even as his Shizun lunged to hit him. Luo Binghe wouldn’t be angry at the man for hitting him. The boy had already gained an unparalleled treasure tonight. But the man’s fist stopped centimeters from his face, the immortal’s face twisting slightly in pain.

 Luo Binghe didn’t like that. Pain didn’t suit those phoenix eyes. The boy moved his head slightly to see what caused the pain only to pause at the sight of bandages on his Shizun’s arm.

His untouchable Shizun was injured.

Luo Binghe’s shadow writhed, always paying attention to the man before him, and he join it internally. Rage froze him where he stood, leaning over his teacher.

The immortal had already gathered himself, hiding the pain and looking like there was nothing unusual going on, but Luo Binghe could see the traces of pain and confusion in the tired man’s eyes. Those eyes told the boy more than the man’s mouth ever would. And those eyes said that his dubiously beloved Shizun was in pain.

And Luo Binghe knew that he would make whoever caused it to suffer exponentially.

Shen Qingqiu’s pain belonged to Luo Binghe.

While he was imagining that vengeance, Shen Qingqiu pushed the boy into standing properly and sat up himself. The man kept his arm cradled in his lap though, more telling signs of just how much the man was hurting. That made Luo Binghe aware of himself and he left the room before Shen Qingqiu could really begin to ask the boy what he was doing in Shen Qingqiu’s room.

Luo Binghe would brew his stubborn teacher a painkilling tea and bring it to the immortal.

He had no doubt that the icy man had ignored any advice to take something for the pain after all. It was just like his teacher to suffer in silence. It would give Luo Binghe time to calm down and time to think about who could have caused it. He could drag Yingying-shijie and Ming Fang into it later as well as the Heads. They would be happy to help him hurt the one who hurt Shizun.

Chapter Text

Luo Binghe glared down at the peak lord walking past below.

“Ah-Luo? What is it?” Ning Yingying questioned from across him.

“Ah, it’s Liu-shishu,” Ming Fan answered, following his not-friend’s line of sight.

Ning Yingying leaned close to Ming Fan and looked out the window, a glare forming on her face as well. Ming Fan quietly enjoyed the cute look but ended up sighing aloud. Ning Yingying pulled her eyes away, falling back into her seat, but Luo Binghe remained locked onto the figure in the distance,

“There’s no point in being so caught up,” the senior disciple said, messing around with his food. He half didn’t believe his own words, but as head disciple he had to act accordingly. “You won’t be allowed to do anything anyways.”

Luo Binghe tsked at that, leaning back to cross his arms unhappily. The young boy wasn’t unaware of that, but he didn’t have to like it.

“Seriously, Luo Binghe,” Ming Fan sent the boy across from him a strict look, receiving an annoyed look in return. “You are only a disciple. Retaliating against a Peak Lord. Don’t even dream of it.”

“…He deserves it though,” a pouty voice echoed from the side. “A solid punch to the face.”

Both boys stopped their stare-down to look at Ning Yingying in surprise.

“I would have thought you would be against retaliation,” Luo Binghe commented.

Ning Yingying made a face at that. “I would normally tell you to be the better person and follow sect rules, but he’s always bothering Shizun and picking fights. He deserves it.”

“Well said!” a voice cut in.

The group of three turned to meet another group. Two of the three Heads of Qing Jing peak wandered towards their table, He Zimu flamboyantly clapping his hands. Dai Jiayi frowned at the childish behavior from her colleague but ignored the man in favor of standing over Luo Binghe.

The boy frowned up at the woman looking down on him.

“You have a proclivity for vengeance,” Dai Jiayi sneered from behind her sleeve. “But it’s absurd to think you could bother someone on Liu Qingge’s level with your meager skills.”

Luo Binghe scowled harder at her tone, hating her arrogance and the truth behind it. His fists subtly clenched in his lap, shadow writhing and encouraging him. How dare she. At her side He Zimu nodded along, looking around the surrounding restaurant boredly.

“So instead, let’s make it so someone else can,” Jiayi said arrogantly, eyes smiling cruelly behind her sleeve.

The disciples gazed at her curiously and He Zimu Moved forward. The Head of Scrolls leaned down with a smirk, placing a talisman on the table in front of Luo Binghe.

“How bout it?” He Zimu winked.

A wicked gleam entered the three disciples’ eyes as they glanced up at their teacher and they nodded.

---

Liu Qingge walked quickly towards Bai Zhan Mountain.

He had been to the town, searching for some expensive apology gift to give the Shen Qingqiu. He hadn’t wanted to waste his time doing something like that, but Yue Qingyuan’s constant disappointed eyes made Liu Qingge feel more and more guilty since their talk.

So, he had spent from morning all the way to evening walking around the local towns and ended up buying some expensive jade scrolls. Something or another about some classic. Surely the ill-tempered scholar couldn’t make some spiteful comment about this apology gift.

Liu Qingge remembered the last apology gift he had made towards Shen Qingqiu and the terror the then young Bai Zhan head disciple had felt while being stared down by the former Peak Lord. Yi Xianliang had watched Liu Qingge like he was an ant. Even his own master Lang Liuxian hadn’t been willing to defend him from the angry man.

No, his master had beaten him black and blue and then dragged him like a dog to meet the man who taught Shen Qingqiu. He had always questioned why no one challenged the Qing Jing Peak Lord in the past, but sitting there bruised and bleeding, Liu Qingge had felt dread seep into his bones at Yi Xianliang’s power.

The man had been a dragon, ready to ascend at any time.

To this day, Liu Qingge shuddered at the thought of the immortal-turned-god.

Liu Qingge had humbled himself and hunted down a prized monster to gift to Shen Qingge and the rat had sneered at his sincerity. Any other time and another fight would have broken out, but not with Yi Xianliang watching from a distance. The eyes behind the man’s fan promised a punishment worse than death if he touched Shen Qingqiu.

And now Liu Qingge had gone and done it again.

A shudder ran down the Bai Zhan peak lord’s back as he glanced down at the scroll clutched in his hand. He felt like Yi Xianliang might rain down divine punishment on his head if this apology wasn’t enough.

The crack of a stick had the immortal turning his head, jerking from his musings only to see a familiar form. It was Qing Jing peak’s known martial prodigy Luo Binghe. The sight of the boy in Qing Jing robes still brought irritation to Liu Qingge. Luo Binghe was a prodigy suited best to Bai Zhan peak, someone who could have become a worthy successor to the War God of Bai Zhan, and he had been snatched away by that damn rat in less time than it took Liu Qingge to draw in a breath to protest.

He had fumed for weeks.

He still fumed a bit inside whenever he hears Dai Weiyun open his damn mouth to complain about how unsuited the boy was for the scholarly arts. If that was the case, then why persist in keeping him?!

“Bai Zhan Peak Lord, this one greets you,” the boy said with a perfect bow.

Liu Qingge waved away his greeting with a grunt, eager to finish his unfortunate trip. It had been a long morning of searching and haggling, time wasted on a stupidly expensive scroll.

Luo Binghe looked like he had been sparring, clothes covered with dirt and torn here and there. Liu Qingge silently wondered to himself who had been strong enough to give the boy a challenge. The scholars on Qing Jing peak, with the notable exception of Dai Weiyun, typically preferred barbed words and dirty moves as opposed to an honorable fight.

Whoever had fought the boy had been strong enough to land a solid punch to his face.

Luo Binghe’s eye was red and swollen. It would no doubt become a mean black-eye.

The peak lord went to walk past the child, but as he did Luo Binghe stumbled and tripped. Liu Qingge was forced to grab the boy by his collar, holding him up from the ground. His vague observations turned to concern when Luo Binghe went limp in his grasp, hands weakly grabbing his wrist holding the disciple up.

“Ya!” A voice sounded out from the side.

Liu Qingge’s head snapped to the side, as did a suddenly gasping Luo Binghe.

“What do you think you are doing to my Peak’s disciple?” Dai Weiyun questioned, stalking forward angrily.

“What?” Liu Qingge questioned back, confused until a whiny voice came from the boy in his grasp.

“Weiyun-shishu,” Luo Binghe called out pitifully. “Bai Zhan Peak Lord was merely educating this lowly one.”

Liu Qingge’s head snapped down to the boy in shock.

“You!” he shouted, quickly growing angry at the implicative words.

He had to drop the boy though, Dai Weiyun’s fist flying for his face, but Liu Qingge didn’t miss the sneer that crossed Luo Binghe’s face as more Qing Jing peak disciples miraculously showed up along with the other two Heads. It was a trap!

Like teacher like student! That fucking rat bastard had raised Luo Binghe well!

---

Shen Jiu sipped his baiju, glancing at the sun setting over the town.

The icy man was not avoiding a certain snake’s eyes that were locked onto the bandages on the cultivator’s arm. Definitely not.

“Are you certain I cannot just-,” Zhuzhi-lang cut himself off, miming a strangling motion with a sash.

Shen Jiu snorted at the thought, placing his cup down with a shake of his head.

“As much as I would love to see that happen, I’m not eager to see which of you is stronger,” the cultivator said. “Nor am I eager to deal with the fallout of a demon attacking a peak lord in broad daylight.”

“I was planning to do it at night,” Zhuzhi-lang started, but he stopped at the amused, but warning look Shen Jiu sent him.

The snake took a sip of his own baiju, muttering about how he couldn’t understand why Shen Jiu tolerated the rude man.

“You are simply angry over the last time Liu Qingge barged into one of our meetings and forced you to hang from a window for thirty minutes,” Shen Jiu retorted lightly.

“No, I simply don’t see the point in keeping such a troublesome man around. He causes too much trouble,” the snake demon commented with another pointed look at Shen Jiu’s injured arm. “Uncle wouldn’t be happy to see that.”

“You’re Uncle isn’t the best person to look to when it comes to judging others,” Shen Jiu stated with amusement. The last fight Shen Jiu had had with Liu Qingge, Tianlang-jun had broken into Shen Jiu’s confinement space and nearly kidnapped the young cultivator. It had taken hours to convince the demon not to kidnap himself and not to seek out Liu Qingge, settling for a compromise instead.

Zhuzhi-lang sent the cultivator an annoyed look.

“I need the brute around unfortunately.” Shen Jiu shrugged.

“Then at the very least, allow me to send demons after him,” the snake bargained, a perfect copy to his uncle. “They won’t kill him. Only make his life harder.”

Shen Jiu nodded at that, with a chuckle. Really like his Uncle.

“Did you look into the flower?” Shen Jiu said, finally getting to the point of their meetup.

“I did. It looks possible, but more analysis will be necessary to see if it will work,” Zhuzhi-lang answered, face falling serious. He reached across the table to take the buyao resting on it.

In the past it had been all shiny jade and silver, but now one of the three bells was turning rusty.

“The Sun-Moon Dew flower is rumored to be able to make a body for anyone,” Zhuzhi-lang commented. He looked at Shen Jiu’s face before continuing. “But you look doubtful.”

“I am,” the cultivator said.

“Why?”

“There’s no such thing as an easy solution in this world,” Shen Jiu stated bitterly. “It’s better to be prepared just in case.”

Zhuzhi-lang sighed at that. It was true that being more prepared was better, but still. The rumors about the flower looked to be true.

“Are you certain I can take this?” the snake asked instead, listening to the chiming of the bells from the hairpiece.

“Ahh,” Shen Jiu nodded. “It’s worth a shot.”

---

Shen Jiu returned from his dinner with Zhuzhi-lang at the brothel, only to be greeted with the sight of this generation’s troublesome trio sneaking into the kitchens.

The Peak Lord frowned at the sight, moving to ignore the whole issue, but he stopped when he caught a glimpse of the shiner growing on Luo Binghe’s face. Normally Shen Jiu would rather make dealing with the disciple’s someone else’s problem, particularly when Luo Binghe was involved.

Normally, Luo Binghe didn’t have a massive black-eye.

“Now where do they keep the ice talismans?” Ning Yingying muttered quietly to herself.

Luo Binghe was standing to the side, holding a wet rag to his bruising eye, and Ming Fan was gloating. The two boys were likely close to blows again, but that wasn’t really that unusual. Ning Yingying had long learned to just leave them to it and avoid any punishments herself.

“It’s here,” a voice dryly commented.

The three disciples turned slowly, horror creeping down their backs, to see the unamused look on the Qing Jing Peak Lord’s face.

“Shizun!” three voices greeted.

“What nonsense caused this?” Shen Jiu gestured towards Luo Binghe’s scuffed up appearance.

The three glanced at each other quickly. Shen Jiu could literally se the lies forming on their faces. It was almost cute that they thought they could get away with it.

Luo Binghe limped forward pitifully, crooning out “Shizun” and lightly grasping Shen Jiu’s sleeve. The boy muttered some lie about falling down while wandering back to the peak and how they didn’t want to bother the Qian Cao peak disciple’s for something so small.

If he was less of a scum himself, Shen Jiu might have bought the whole act.

But he had watched the boy walk without a limp earlier and heard Ming Fan’s unapologetic apologies about the eye, so really Shen Jiu had an idea of what had happened. It just seemed like the brats didn’t want the man to know why. That was fine. Shen Jiu would find out eventually.

Shen Jiu nodded along to their story and sent them to bed with a wave and uttered “Scram”.

Ning Yingying and Ming Fan swiftly took off, but Luo Binghe stayed. The young half-demon persisted in his pitiful look.

“Shizun my ankle hurts,” the demon whimpered. He tugged on Shen Jiu’s sleeve gently.

“Then I should call Mu Qingfang or one of his disciples,” Shen Jiu turned, acting like he was going to send off a messenger talisman.

“No!” Luo Binghe shouted in surprised horror and tugged on Shen Jiu’s sleeve harder. The cold man glanced down at the boy and his tightening grasp on the cultivator’s clothes.

“I mean-, I will be ok after I sleep tonight! So Shizun need not worry!”

Luo Binghe smiled up at Shen Jiu pleadingly. It would have been an amusing sight, similar to seeing Tianlang-jun begging Shen Jiu to come out of the sect, but it was marred by the bruising on the boy’s eye. Even his jaw was starting to swell.

Shen Jiu frowned at the sight, turning with a huff to head towards his house. He stopped when he felt a tug on his sleeve. Luo Binghe kept looking at him pleadingly, fingers locked into Shen Jiu’s sleeve.

“Come,” the icy man commanded.

Luo Binghe’s smile grew even brighter at the order. The boy rushed forward to keep pace with Shen Qingqiu, forgetting to limp.

---

The next morning, Shen Jiu was pleased to note that the salve he had used on the brat had lessened the bruising and redness significantly.

But the man couldn’t deny that he was confused by the smugly bruised Dai Weiyun peacocking through the peak to the glowers of any Bai Zhan peak disciples. Dai Jiayi simply shook her head at Shen Jiu’s questioning eyes.